Horses can plan and strategise, new study shows BBC
Taylor Swift Cancellations Deal Blow to Insurers: Sources Insurance Journal
Climate
The uninsurable world: rethinking how to cover for climate damage FT
How the most powerful environmental groups help greenwash Big Meat’s climate impact Vox
Amazon soil may store billions more tonnes of carbon than once thought New Scientist
China builds with manufactured sand, easing worry about overmining and environmental cost South China Morning Post
A Lot Was Riding on This Wind Farm. Then Giant Shards Washed Up in Nantucket. WSJ
Syndemics
Results of Influenza Risk Assessment Tool Pandemic Flu, CDC:
The current overall individual and population health risk to the general public posed by the avian influenza A(H5N1) virus presently spreading in cows, poultry, and other mammals remains low. Systematic comparisons of data related to this avian influenza A(H5N1) virus using the Influenza Risk Assessment Tool (IRAT) to data from other influenza A viruses has scored this virus’s future pandemic potential as “moderate risk” based on information through June 26, 2024. This is similar to previous assessments of earlier avian influenza A(H5N1) viruses.
The IRAT uses expert opinion to evaluate the potential of a representative novel influenza virus to gain the ability for person-to-person spread and the resulting potential public health impact if that were to happen, compared to other viruses evaluated in past IRAT reports.
Long COVID science, research and policy Nature. From the Abstract: “The cumulative global incidence of long COVID is around 400 million individuals, which is estimated to have an annual economic impact of approximately $1 trillion—equivalent to about 1% of the global economy… Addressing the challenge of long COVID requires an ambitious and coordinated—but so far absent—global research and policy response strategy.”
Colorado: CVMA Statement On Influenza A (HPAI H5N1) in Domestic cats Avian Flu Diary
India
Sebi chief’s response raises new questions, admits key points: Hindenburg Business Standard. Avani
Iconic Irani cafes serving creamy chai and fresh samosas face extinction in Indian city BBC
St. Martin’s in Bangladesh — the tiny island that Hasina has accused US of wanting & its importance The Print
China?
As Philippines, Vietnam close ranks, China adopts ‘divide and conquer’ approach South China Morning Post
Syraqistan
U.S. prepares for crucial week as Gaza deal faces “now-or-never” moment Axios
Iran’s senior military commander in Russia: Crushing response to Israel ‘on its way’ Press TV
U.S. rushes firepower to the Middle East as Israel braces for retaliation from Iran NBC
* * * Rights group refutes Israel’s list of alleged targets in Gaza school attack Anadolu Agency
Israel shrugs off school-strike critics to issue new Gaza evacuation order Al Jazeera
* * * “The domestic debate here about the rape of a Palestinian inmate at one of our torture centers may be a bit misleading” Ori Goldberg, ThreadReader
Video and Airplane Sketch Raise New Questions About Saudi Ties to 9/11 NYT
European Disunion
Can France Be Governed? The Globalist. The deck: “A report from La France Profonde.”
Dear Old Blighty
Far-right disorder had ‘clear’ Russian involvement, says ex-MI6 spy Guardian
More than a quarter of Brits would travel abroad knowing they had Covid Independent
New Not-So-Cold War
Ukrainian troops now up to 30km inside Russia, Moscow says BBC
‘Thousands’ of troops part of incursion aiming to ‘destabilise’ Russia, says top Ukrainian official France24
Russia evacuates Kursk, moving troops from the front line to retake the region occupied by AFU BNE Intellinews
Ukraine must decide what to do with territory it holds in Russia – The Hill Ukrainska Pravda. Original headline.
Why Ukraine’s Surprise Incursion on Russia Should Give Us Hope Time
* * * Russia sets Ukrainian nuclear power plant on fire, says Zelenskyy Politico
IAEA reports hearing explosions near Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant before fire Ukrainska Pravda
SITREP 8/11/24: Desperate for Escalation, Zelensky Bombs Zaporozhye Nuke Plant in Frustration Simplicius, Simplicius the Thinker
Ukraine’s State Emergency Service reports no changes in radiation level in country Ukrainska Pravda
Biden Administration
Judge orders CDC to stop deleting emails of departing staff, calling it ‘likely unlawful’ Politico
Antitrust
Monopoly Round-Up: The 2024 CNBC Shadow Campaign to Fire Lina Khan Matt Stoller, BIG
2024
“F*** These Trump-Loving Techies”: Hollywood Takes on Silicon Valley in an Epic Presidential Brawl Hollywood Reporter
Spook Country
The CIA Sent Him Deep Undercover to Spy on Islamic Radicals. It Cost Him Everything Rolling Stone. Commentary:
My prof from Lebanon said spotting a spy in the Arab world is so easy to them and they really don’t gaf. He said when giving directions it’s like “okay so you see that spy over there? What you’re gonna do is turn left where he’s at…”
— Maya! (@mazhakusu) August 11, 2024
Digital Watch
ChatGPT unexpectedly began speaking in a user’s cloned voice during testing Ars Technica. Commentary:
Honestly, what is ChatGPT good for? This morning, I thought that I'd *finally found* a use: I asked it to organize my citations in alphabetical order. And it did. A perfect job! Except that it literally just made up 50 new citations! Non-existent papers like this one. 👇 WTF. pic.twitter.com/hQPIG8v4Uu
— Dr. Émile P. Torres (@xriskology) August 9, 2024
The Bezzle
Celsius targets Tether, Badger DAO, Compound, and Netanyahu’s niece and nephew in lawsuits The Block
“Carbon neutral” Bitcoin operation founded by coal plant operator wasn’t actually carbon neutral Cory Doctorow, Pluralistic
Zeitgeist Watch
Supply Chain
The new maritime statecraft FT
Dangerous cargoes and container ship fires back in the spotlight Seatrade Maritime News
Boeing
NTSB chief rips Boeing over lack of 737 Max answers The Hill
The Olympics
Noah Lyles’ collapse with Covid: How not to manage health at the Olympics STAT
Imperial Collapse Watch
F-35 Numbers Surpass 1000 Fighters: How America’s Stealth Fleet Gained a Coveted Numerical Edge Miltary Watch
Class Warfare
How an Instagram-Perfect Life in the Hamptons Ended in Tragedy NYT
Taylor Swift and Bach Can Thank Ancient Temples for Modern Music Scientific American
12,000-year-old Aboriginal sticks may be evidence of the oldest known culturally transmitted ritual in the world Live Science
Antidote du jour (Dave Grickson):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
214 comments
Comments are closed.
WE CAN’T STOP THAT
(melody borrowed from Year Of The Cat by Al Stewart and Peter John Wood, 1976)
Those sandal-wearing thugs the Houthis
Have upset our old paradigm
They’re controlling as they vowed their territory
Due to Israel’s crimes
Missiles drones and boats launched with skill and cunning
And they cause the world lots of pain
Their soldiers man their missile stations
To their eternal fame
And We Can’t Stop That
Now Israel is in Depression
Our Navy looks like amateurs
As our hollowed out defense brings no protection
Still wet behind the ears
These Neanderthals have good protocols
And they’re covering the Med now, too
They’ll sink our ships and not think twice
There’s not a damn thing we can do
And We Can’t Stop That
Israelis bomb Gaza cruelly
Spread polio and Hepatitis C
Those Hamas guys are unruly
Jewish rapers—leave the world horrified
And We Can’t Stop That
(musical interlude)
The White House never will consider
What it costs when the Jews ‘mow the lawn’
All the people that destroys does not inhibit
Harsh revenge later on
We can send warplanes for their bomb campaigns
But we don’t win hearts and minds that way
Israelis lost in bloodlust fever
Will see their nation blown away
And We Can’t Stop That
mmmm We Can’t Stop That
Nice….In tune and on point again.
“IAEA reports hearing explosions near Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant before fire”
‘The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has a mission at Zaporozhye NPP, said that its experts heard “multiple explosions” at the facility, without attributing responsibility to either Russia or Ukraine. The watchdog stated that “no impact has been reported for nuclear safety.” IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi also condemned what he called “reckless attacks” that “endanger nuclear safety at the plant and increase the risk of a nuclear accident.”
https://www.rt.com/russia/602477-zaporozhye-nuclear-plant-damaged-ukraine/
The AIEA’s Rafael Grossi was also heard to mutter that he has no idea who did that attack. Such a mystery. Who can say who did it?
The Ukrainians have a history of shelling the plant. The AIEA cannot assign blame because it is dependent on the West. Why would Russia destroy the NPP it has control over? The argument in the propaganda organs is that the reason they would do so is that they are bad and do bad things. My guess is that it’s a NATO sabotage group who have been wandering around Ukraine for awhile or it could be Mossad in retaliation for Russia’s chumminess with Iran.
Many of us here don’t understand how serious this struggle is for the Empire.
That’s an improvement over earlier claims that the Russians decided to pile tires inside the cooling tower and light them on fire.
If this is the level of journalism we can expect then the US electorate is completely screwed. No one will no what to believe, no one will have any time to search out different sources, they’ll just turn off the news and ignore it. Which means the same crazy fools who lashed us to Ukraine and Israel will keep on doing what they’re doing regardless of who is in office.
That’s the point, chris. “No one will no (sic) what to believe ….”
John Mearsheimer sent out this quote from Hannah Arendt, German historian and philosopher, last week, to the subscribers of his Substack:
“This constant lying is not aimed at making the people believe a lie, but at ensuring that no one believes anything anymore.
People that can no longer distinguish between truth and lies cannot distinguish between right and wrong.
And such a people, deprived of the power to think and judge, is, without knowing and willing it, completely subjected to the rule of lies. With such a people you can do whatever you want.”
People know how they would like to be treated.
Thanks, I may have read that long ago–Arendt was one of the bright lights of her time because she understood the stage of history she was in and what would follow. It is hard to believe anything coming out of any authority. However, I do believe most people will earnestly believe comforting lies as part of a necessary framework that makes sense of their lives.
>>>With such a people you can do whatever you want
True, but what worries me is when the people lying start to believe their own lies.
JBird, that’s what was said to have happened in pre-1968 Vietnam. Indeed, it’s not clear to me that McNamara stopped believing the propaganda until 1971. Certainly it seems to be true of many of the neocons now. The thing that surprises me is that the citizens of the Soviet Union seem to have been fully aware Pravda and Izvestia were not believable. I don’t understand why anybody believes anything in the New York Times.
The illegitimate boss of the US run Kiev cabal would have you believe Russia is burning the Z NPP!
The blither flowing around Kiev is awesome!
They were so excited to see an undefended structure they aimed down the chimney of the cooling tower. “YESS!!!! Slava Ukraine!!!” *goosestep dancing observed via satellite, very loud sieg heils and prayers of thanks to St Bandera overheard from across the Dnipro* 10 mins later: “Wait, why isn’t it blowing up?” 1 hr later: “Where’d they get the water to put it out so quickly…?” 2 hrs later: “You’re telling me we hit a water tank?”
Russia MFA stated the grounds were hit by two kamikaze drones.
US running Mad Max in Kiev.
Or Mad Max running the US in Kiev, as they say in downtown Runcorn.
More evidence that many of the West’s “Leadership” class is insane.
Literally insane, not figuratively insane.
Bibi may be the poster child, but there’s plenty of competition for second billing.
Glow in the dark hookers may have advantages but radioactive blow does not.
Next time I play proper name Scrabble, the plan is to get both triple word score and triple letter score using Zaporizhzhia
Your gonna need both blanks.
UK police commissioner threatens to extradite, jail US citizens over online posts: ‘We’ll come after you’ NY Posts
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It’s a long way to Tipperary
It’s a long way to go
It’s a long way to Tipperary
On account of online quips, I know
Goodbye, Piccadilly
Farewell, Leicester Square
It’s a long, long way to Tipperary
But my QWERTY is right there
It’s a long, long way to Tipperary
But my QWERTY is right there
Apparently, London’s Metropolitan Police chief believes that they have jurisdiction throughout the world, including the US. I thought that that issue was settled back in 1783 but I may be mistaken. Thinking about it, I could very easily see a Biden-Harris government complying with any extradition orders from the UK while Trump would tell them to go take a running jump. But Musk would want to be very careful about flying into or through British airspace as he may find himself served with an arrest warrant.
…you’ll never take me online, copper!
‘Come out with your keyboard and mouse up!’
CSI:Modem
‘You have the right to remain offline. Anything that you type and click may be copied and held as evidence against you in a Court of jesters.’
{passes note to investigator #3854-457-11 @ Big Eavesdrop, Utah}
“You have the right to access to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, tough luck,”
“Law & Rules-Based Order” . . .
Well, the US seems to think that they have jurisdiction over every square inch of the world, in terms of the legal system. So, it is only fair that the Brits step up and join the chaos.
This is very American as well, “You can be guilty of offenses of incitement, of stirring up racial hatred, there are numerous terrorist offenses regarding the publishing of material,” he said., “he” being Police Commissioner Rowley. ‘Scuse me, what kind of offenses again?
Is the UK auditioning to become our new Israel?
Or is the US still the UK’s Israel?
No doubt from the 50s on, the Pentagon regarded the UK as their permanent carrier off the coast of Europe. They have said the same about Israel in the Middle east and now they want to turn Taiwan into one.
“Airstrip One”.
I have been wondering over the past year or so about just when the Zionist Entity would begin extraditing US citizens for pro-Palestine activity.
I think his quote is being misunderstood. It echoes the language Starmer used last week. My strong belief is that it’s a pointed comment towards Tommy Robinson who was stirring up the “protestors” from his Cypriot sun lounger and Andrew Tate who was doing the same from his Romanian “misogyny and pr0n” HQ. Their part in this was much more active and consequential incitement.
Obviously it could be read to include Musk and various other keyboard- based flapping mouths. However, I would be absolutely stunned if that is the case.
The quote:
““We will throw the full force of the law at people. And whether you’re in this country committing crimes on the streets or committing crimes from further afield online, we will come after you,” Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley told Sky News.”
I don’t know why the UK police would ever go after Tommy Robinson. The guys is financed and backed by think tanks and is a committed Zionist. Having said that, the same is also true of Keir Starmer. It may even be that both Robinson and Starmer work for the same people.
My guess is that Robinson crosses Starmer’s only red line – thou shall not cause disorder within the Kingdom or challenge the institutions of state. I believe this is his prime motivation as a human.
Genocide abroad is fine obviously.
Robinson and Starmer represent the contradiction of neocon and neolib:
– Robinson does the work of Mossad, wrapping himself in the Union Flag and Doc Martens to demonise on the brown people and refugees from US Middle Eastern policy, inflame islamophobia and thus make the world safe for Zionists.
– Starmer does the work of the City, to beatify the refugees and brown people and thus, by cunning syllogism, put make all questions of migration a blasphemy, thereby making the world safe for rentiers and sweatshop owners who want swelling populations of precarious workers to fill their tenements and crush their labour costs.
As ever, follow the money. I think Starmer will win the battle.
I trust however that neither will win the war because some genuine patriot will stand up to both wings of the rules based globalist order and say yes to the boat people (50k per annum) and no to legal migration (now running at c. 1m per annum in the UK, up from tens of thousands in the 80’s and 90’s) without any compensating investment in schools, hospitals, public services, housing – indeed, during a decade of stinging austerity.
The Tories and Reform keep fumbling the ball on this and letting Starmer and Tommy Robinson, Jekyll and Hyde, define immigration as sacred refugees rather than vulnerable foreign labour.
Thanks to goodness, I had me belongings packed for the voyage to Botany Bay, over a pilfered pronoun,
Jim Jones reckons Botany Bay is a shit place at the best of times so you’d better hope to be captured by internet pirates on the way and sign up with them.
Maybe. But what does a deliberate pointed comment from Sir Mark to Tommy Robinson via a remark to Sky News accomplish?
Pour decourager les autres?
An attempt at projecting dominance and being in control?
A warning to him not to repeat it?
Or just to make it seem like you will do something?
Can’t think of a better first step toward breaking up the sick Atlanticist, prep/Ivy embrace of the last forty years than this foolish pipsqueak threat from an oafish municipal government. There was a “special relationship” in A Rose For Emily too.
Say, after Trump’s elected, the British population that’s been threated with the gulag for free speech can apply for refugee status in the U.S.
After all, they have a well founded fear of persecution for political reasons.
2024 at 7:12 am
UK police commissioner threatens to extradite, jail US citizens over online posts
Julian Assange has entered the chat.
I wonder what he’s going to do about all the British Zionists who’ve gone over to Israel to support it in it’s time of choice and who have maintained social media accounts which anybody in the world, and not only Brits, can read. What about the images? Is the image of a little girl being deliberately murdered by members of the IDF seen as a means of inciting hatred. It certainly incites me. Can I make a complaint and have them arrested by a few British bobbies and hauled before the courts?
I think Starmer and his useful idiot in the police are leaving an awful lot to chance when it was their responsibility to make it clear that the suspect was a British citizen and not an illegal immigrant, asylum seeker or a Muslim. Not a difficult call when the country is in an understandably febrile mood after the murder of three children. Again, is this kind of negligence a form of hate silence? Sometimes the silent are more guilty than those who have the courage to speak out because silence often carries greater meaning.
When I was a kid in the sixties my schoolteacher told the class about the Hyde Park speakers corner in London where, as he said it, “anybody can go climb on a soapbox and shout ‘to h-ll with the government!'”. I have always loved this tale.
However, ‘the times they are a-changin’ it seems. And not for the better.
According to Wikipedia,
Oh well
Thanks for this. Another juvenile illusion smashed. I’m beginning to understand why The Who sang “I hope I die before I get old”…
The world’s policeman is beyond the jurisdiction of Her Majesty’s Copper Service.
Anyway, US citizens are easy targets, I would like to see them try pulling that trick on Chinese citizens. I bet you any UK copper going to China to arrest people will just disappear, and some Chinese guy will get a brand new organ in return.
I had hoped for better insight from the Globalist article about France, but it is very shallow and perpetuates the antisemitism scam. Melonchon said that Moscovici thinks like a global financier. Antisemitic trope or is it true? If you can provide some evidence that he does not think like a global financier, maybe you can make the accusation, but then, would anyone outside the Guardian Liberal sphere still care?
Agreed. About half way though I checked to see who the author of this vapid piece might be: McShane is a refugee from the Brussels Bubble, and not someone who has ever had anything particularly interesting to say about France.
On the antisemitism point, traditionally “international finance,” like “cosmopolitanism” were codewords for “Jews” in the genteel version of the anti-semitism of the first part of the last century. You still find people today who say such things privately, but there’s no reason to suppose Mélenchon is one of them.
His actual problems with anti-semitism are a lot more serious, in the Islamic radicals who make up a significant part of the organisational support structure of the LFI. There are any number of violently anti-semitic internet channels and satellite TV chains, broadcasting mostly in Arabic, and some of Mélenchon’s base listens to them. In the last elections, the Front Populaire, of which LFI is the leading party, managed the difficult feat of being unequivocally pro-Israel and also unequivocally pro-Palestine, depending on who you spoke to. That’s not a situation that can last much longer.
Yeah, reading between the lines there, it’s pretty obvious that he’s on vacation in a village in the Dordogne, Le Bugue (lovely part of France), and used it to draft a lightweight article that he could shoot off in a day’s easy work. Nice and hot down there today.
Used to date a journalist who did the same thing to keep editors happy during the silly season so par for the course.
“Far-right disorder had ‘clear’ Russian involvement, says ex-MI6 spy”
Christopher Steele has been popping up a lot recently. The Guardian remain big fans, unsurprisingly given their lack of integrity and PDS. He seems almost quaint given how much more insane the world has become since his infamous dossier.
Yes, he’s been popping up on Times Radio’s youtube channel, plying the audience with ‘Putin’s Doomed’ vodka.
Steele was declared persona non grata in Russia many years ago. His imfamous dossier suggests that his Russian sources, whether based in Russia or the west, tell him whatever he pays them to tell him. His claim that the disorder had clear Russian involvement is actually about as clear as mud. But grifters gotta grift.
In a just world, Steele would face charges for interfering with US elections, along with fellow Brit Simon Bracey-Lane, to say nothing of Alexandra Chalupa and the Ukrainians who assisted her. (And the Israelis and Emiratis who helped Trump to boot.)
By the way, per Craig Murray, Steele was the handler of Sergei Skripal…
As for his claims, given how Russia has been welcoming to minorities, and how it’s Ukraine that has provided training and inspiration to far right groups, it’s far less likely than Russia backing groups like BLM. (After all, that FBI interference report stated that Russia gave heavy coverage to US police brutality.) Of course, I personally would not consider that a bad thing…
According to the The Guardian, Steele is the author of the notorious dossier and not the notorious author of the Steele dossier.
I’m just glad it’s sorted out now and we can unite in blaming Putin for Britain’s riots.
Beware Canadians, apparently it’s a dangerous world out there
“Has a stranger ever tried to inflate your ego? It could be elicitation.
Elicitation is a set of techniques used by foreign agents to extract information from you.
To learn the warning signs of elicitation, read the #CSIS Travel Security Guide:
https://www.canada.ca/en/security-intelligence-service/corporate/publications/far-from-home.html “
Shouldn’t it be:
‘Ehlicitation’?
‘Comrade (prefix)-chuk, you have extracting method torturing syrup from maple leaf, and are to be congratulated, eh.’
‘Elicitation is a set of techniques used by foreign agents to extract information from you.’
Now if they used fornication to try extract information from me, they might be in it with a chance. :)
’Elicitation is a set of techniques used by foreign agents to extract information from you.’
Now if they used fornication to try extract information from me, they might be in it with a chance. :)
Sorry for the double post as the first had an incomplete email address and I thought that it went down the memory hole. Moderators please remove.
Hmmm…. ‘Memory hole’ = risque futures
You had me at “DP,” comrade!
That would be Illicitation.
Don’t forget pharmacology based information extraction: pillicitation.
My felicitations then.
I feel like this conversation has become circular. It’s suffering from Eucliditation.
Our cats are going to be easy marks.
Don King, the notorious boxing promoter of the ‘70’s and ‘80’s used to talk about “Trickeration.” He would have known.
That terminology comes from these corporatists with the newly created job titles around “disinformation,” censorship and surveillance working overtime.
Speaking of “disinformation” ….
These people will decide what’s true for you and then shape your feed to reflect it (long video of a Zoom call between misinformation fighters via Matt Orfalea).
The above from featured on Taibbi/Kirn this week. (Paywalled maybe?)
Twix thread with some nuggets is here
I don’t do social media, so “they” won’t be shaping my feed.
>Why Ukraine’s Surprise Incursion on Russia Should Give Us Hope Time
The authors of that article, are you surprised by this bit of cheerleading?
BY JEFFREY SONNENFELD, WILLIAM TAYLOR, BARRY MCCAFFREY, JAMES CLAPPER AND STEPHEN HENRIQUES
Sonnenfeld is Lester Crown Professor in the Practice of Leadership at the Yale School of Management as well as founder and president of the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute. He helped catalyze the retreat of 1,200 global corporations from Russia and has served as a personal, informal advisor to four U.S. presidents, two Democrats and two Republicans. He is the author of The Hero’s Farewell: What Happens When CEOs Retire.
William Taylor, a U.S. Army commander in Vietnam and Bronze star winner was the 6th United States ambassador to Ukraine under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and as chargé d’affaires to Ukraine under President Donald Trump.
Barry McCaffrey, Four Star General, U.S. Army, former chief U.S. Southern Command, 24th Infantry Division, Operation Desert Storm, two Silver Stars and two Distinguished Service Crosses. NBC News military analyst.
James Clapper is a retired lieutenant general in the United States Air Force and served as Director of National Intelligence, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and first director of defense intelligence.
Stephen Henriques is senior research fellow at the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute and a former consultant to McKinsey & Co.
They like to give historical examples to bolster their case but the one that has been making the rounds the past few days is the Battle of the Bulge where the mustache-man gathered some of his best remaining units to throw into a forlorn hope to get to Antwerp and defeat the Allied armies. It seems that the idea was for the Ukrainians to get to and capture the Kursk nuclear power plant, hold it hostage and indicate that they will swap it for the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power. The attack on the later is probably frustration that it did not work and now the Ukrainians are really screwed. I can fully believe that MI6 helped this little effort and the sight of German armour racing to Kursk was noted in Russia though the Germans said that they saw no problem with this.
The armoured assault upon the Kursk position by the Wehrmacht back in 1943 is known for several important items. First, up until a battle in one of those Arab-Israeli wars, it was the biggest armoured battle in history. Second, it used up most of the remaining first rate armoured formations in the Wehrmacht. Third, it was the definitive turning point in the East Front struggle. Stalingrad may have the pride of place, but Kursk destroyed any illusions that the Wehrmacht could win the war. Fourth, Kursk entered the headspace of the Wehrmacht troops as “Die Totenritt,” the ‘Death Ride.’ Even the German troops knew it was all over after Kursk.
The analogies are almost exact here. Ukraine has thrown the “decisive battle” dice for the last time and come up “Snake Eyes.”
The problem for the Ukrainian troops is that Russia is unlikely to disintegrate due to this invasion. They’ll do the usual, start pounding positions once they become stable as they must and make attrition war for weeks. However, remember that NATO’s goal is to make Russia use up resources and bleed them as much as possible. They know victory is not possible because there is no way to “win” unless Russian society completely collapses. The comparison of the German thrust into Kursk is apt. Failing that NATO seems to want to want to make messes by attacking NPPs.
I almost immediately thought of the Battle of the Bulge (a.k.a. the Ardennes offensive), and for this reason. If you read the post-facto analyses and interrogations of the German generals involved (“Hitler’s Ardennes Offensive”, edited by Danny S. Parker), you kind of get the feeling that the German plan was to push the mobile groups up the (few) roads as far as they could go, bypassing any significant points of resistance, which would instead be engaged by the infantry following the mobile groups. If the infantry succeeded in clearing these resistance points, then you can establish a supply corridor to the mobile groups, close the gap between them and the infantry, and move the overall front line. But the Germans failed to do any of this, partly because, per the interrogations, they couldn’t move any artillery or assault guns up to support the infantry (which in any case was of lower quality than earlier in the war), and so couldn’t clear the American resistance points in time before the counter-stroke. It also helped that the Americans, for the most part, didn’t break and run, and had enough reserves to respond adequately. And so, the German mobile groups were out on a limb with no supply corridor while the infantry was worn down to the point where they couldn’t do much more than dig in where they were.
In a way, this is what the Ukrainians tried to do here, albeit on a different scale. Push the (much smaller) mobile groups along every major road as far as they could go, bypassing any strongpoints or even undefended villages, while the main force moved up behind in a more methodical fashion. Well, the main force started getting hammered by the Russians from almost the beginning, and that advance came to a stop fairly quickly. But the Russians then had to spend several days tracking down all the detached mobile groups running around all over the place – some of them having to abandon their vehicles for lack of fuel, shades of the Ardennes operations – while also stabilizing the line of contact with the main Ukrainian force.
In essence, if the Russians broke and ran, or if they hadn’t any troops in or around the area like what happened in the Kharkov region in September of 2022, then the Ukrainian approach would have worked – mobile groups penetrate far inward, possibly to the Kursk nuclear plant, and the brigades behind them mop up and consolidate, eventually closing the gap between the “infantry” and “tanks”. But, well, no. Except now the task does not get any easier for the Russians, since they have to simultaneously hunt down the remaining mobile groups (Rybar, at least, reports that some of that is still going on), repel the periodic company-strength attacks by the main body of the Ukrainian brigades (the Ministry of Defence says these are still happening), and then start pushing back in some fashion, since this is what the public opinion expects. I am not saying they cannot do all these things, but remember, after the Germans were stopped at Ardennes it took a month to push them back out, and I wouldn’t be surprised if something like this takes place here as well.
It should be noted that the Battle of the Bulge officially ended on January 25th, 1945. And 102 days later Germany surrendered after it collapsed.
And since we are digging up historical parallels, let us also remember than on the 6th of March 1945, the German army launched its truly last strategic offensive — operation Frühlingserwachen — on the Eastern front (a multipronged attack from Austria, Hungary, and Yugoslavia).
At that late time, Germany was still able to muster an entire army group with a sizeable number of tanks and airplanes. It ended in a similar way to the Ardennes offensive: after an initial progression, the Germans (and the very last Hungarian army fighting with them) got stuck, then pushed back, and eventually destroyed.
If history is any guide, then it means that even on the verge of collapse, the Ukrainian regime will still have the wherewithal to gather everything left to punch the Russians.
I do not see how, aside from npp blackmail, the NATO proxies would get any more than be the target stuck in a kessel. The likes of which Rommel would set.
Who is drinking the kool aid and believing the agitprop?
all this is, is operation spring awakening. that operation sped up the demise of the idiot free traders running what was left of fascist europe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Spring_Awakening
Sonnefeld is a fraud. He kept flogging a paper that had metrics of the Russian economy from special sources which showed it really was collapsing. Except as an ex McKinsey consultant, I can tell you that some of the alleged data was impossible to have been obtained. There is a proud history of this sort of thing. I can name some authors of similarly obviously faked data papers. I would have debunked it except no one who mattered would have believed me v. him.
+1 to Alexander Mercouris for getting the weakness of this Kursk offensive right sooner than most. He was quicker than Simplicius on this one.
From Larch at “Reminiscence” (Martyanov)
“Recall what the SMO standard tactic is for over 2 years.
Allow the attack to form, allow the attack to proceed.
Catch the front spear and stop it. Missile and air strike the rear and shred the attacking columns.
The Russians allowed the attack so it could attenuate, they stopped it and hit the rear, cutting off the first echelon from any second or third. Destroyed the command Hq with Iskanders, killing 15 commanding officers, and set their elite killer special forces, Akhmat, ex-Wagner and the Donetsk group on the attackers now cut off and diced into small DRG-marauder groups hiding in houses and tree-lines and narrow forest bands.
They have killed most all the first echelon and destroyed most all the whole damn grouping’s vehicles and armor. In some places, it is a turkey shoot for drones and bombers and helos.
By announcing the CTO districts, they have labelled all the Ukies as terrorists and they will have no sanctuary or respite. This also changes the relationship with any one in Kiev. Ukraine is legally going to be marked as a terror organization, no longer a nation-state.
Putin has been waiting for this. They delivered it on a silver platter.”
Armchair Warlord too. His take on the SMO rarely looks bad the next day or year.
> James Clapper is a retired lieutenant general in the United States Air Force
And a perjurer.
What a book title that is! I can see this is someone who questions authority. /s
The P-C insurance industry (property casualty) has been, and continues to be, the climate change canary in the coal mine. The article in the FT is in most ways nonsense and doesn’t address the core issues. At current pricing, most CAT expose property is uninsurable at current rates. The loss expectation is just too great. And, at a minimum that includes every Tier 1 county in the US (Tier 1 being the coastline).
One option, which will never happen, is the libertarian approach. Let the market speak. Deregulate personal lines property rates. Let them rise quickly to the level required to support underwriting. If one takes this approach it is critical that the regulators stay on top of solvency issues. But, as homeowners is a political issue, this will never happen.
What will increasingly occur is an acceleration of the current trend. Limited, if any coverage, rising retentions, unavailability of excess of loss, etc. In the right event, a major CAT hitting highly populated FL, this will flow into the banking sector. So there is correlated, unaccounted for risk.
“Flow?” I like it.
Is it all connected to climate change forecasts or is it also connected to the steep rise in cost of materials and greatly inflated (and inflating) property costs?
An aside from i Allegedly Dan. utube, ~25+ minutes.
Crisis Alert – They Can’t Fix This
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ym3TidavthU
Both frequency and severity of CATs has risen dramatically over the last 25 years. Factoring in post CAT increases in materials prices is well modeled and understood.
it’s a huge problem all over the world. Here in France, the problems are slightly different as half the country is built on clay soils. The foremost natural catastrophe as recognised by the specialty semi-public reinsurer is therefore the swelling and shrinking of these soils and the damage it causes to buildings that are built upon it. Flooding is probably the next biggest concern. Both have increased dramatically since 2016 and this year Nat Cat rates went up 40%. By 2050 it’s expected to be uninsurable.
Storms have also increased dramatically in the last few years but these are generally not considered Nat Cat events.
Wondering when “new safe nuclear” will get P-C insurance on the open market?
Like the Soviet Union? The last vestige of it still exists in the Price Anderson Act.
After paying off a tiny deductable, we taxpayers are on the hook for unlimited damages. i.e. Newsom’s pet utility, PG&E’s, nuclear plant, Diablo Canyon melts down, and prevalent winds distribute contamination all over the Santa Maria Valley and on to the Central Valley, eliminating well over half of America’s vegetable supplies.
https://blog.aghires.com/california-largest-food-producer-u-s/
There’s a place up ahead and she’s going
Just as fast as her feet can fly
Come away, come away, if you’re going
Leave the sinking ship behind
Come on the rising wind
We’re going up around the bend
Ooh!
Wear a pantsuit and a smile for the main stream media
Better get while the getting’s good
Hitch a ride to the end of the election
Where it’s the neo-cons turn
To be the belittled party that could
Come on the rising wind
We’re going up around the bend
Ooh!
You can ponder perpetual motion
Fix your mind on a word salad day
Always time for a good conversation
There’s an ear for what you say
Come on the rising wind
We’re going up around the bend
Yeah
Ooh
Catch a ride to the end of the election
And you’ll make woke history
There’s a place up ahead and you’re going
Come along, come along and nab the silver medal for ye
Come on the rising wind
We’re going up around the bend
Yeah!
Doo, doo, doo-doo
Doo, doo, doo-doo, mm
Doo, doo, doo
Doo, doo, doo-doo, yeah
Doo, doo, doo-doo
Doo, doo, doo, doo, all right
Up Around the Bend, by CCR
I wonder if Kamala will get a big, solid gold “Participation Award” after the election?
I see a $25 million advance on the book she will undoubtedly write, but speaking fees require syntax, and conversations regarding any kind of tax is verboten in politics.
I also expect to see a Horror Comedy film about it by Summer 2025; “Ghost Writer,” starring Nicholas Cage as the writer and Kamala as the “ghostest with the mostest.” Expect it to be produced by that Hollywood Power Couple, Barak and Michelle.
From the reviews:
“‘Ghost Writer’ is a light-hearted romp where a young political widow (Kamala) rents a Hamptons sea-side mansion and there encounters the ectoplasmic Biden, a taciturn, embittered shade of the Global Trade Regime. She calls in a down on his luck writer for hire (Cage, who roars in on his motorcycle) to ‘flesh out’ Biden’s tales of woe. Hi-jinks ensue.”
See you at the Multiplex! (Don’t forget your full face P100 mask!)
Or just a remake of “Ghost” with spooky Joe sniffing Kamala’s hair while hubby Walz takes his shirt off to work on the basement boiler where he’s kept company by a ghostly St. Bernard named Nell.
So, Elvira’s less talented sister? / ;)
An apt comparison. Both Elvira and Kamala trade on their ‘kitsch’ qualities to advance in their respective astral spheres of endeavour. (At least Peterson is “up front” about her campiness. Kamala seems to be taking herself seriously. I know which one I respect more for honesty.)
I was very fond of Elvira. I could never figure out if her dress was glued on or not. I think that it had to have been.
Oh, come on. When Hillary was getting $250,000 per speech nobody was listening to her. The speech was an excuse to give her the money. She could have been reciting nursery rhymes (maybe she was, I don’t remember anybody ever telling us what she said). Kamala is going to be in that position.
I had a feeling CCR would be making an appearance or three, heh heh, thanks.
Insurance companies should employ more horses in order to improve their planning and strategising.
W.C. Fields
zing!…
You don’t need a study to show that. Or maybe you need a study only to show that horses in general can plan and strategize.
Secretariat ran all his own races. Trainer Lucien Lauren told jockey Ron Turcotte to let Secretariat decide what to do.
See a clear example in the Preakness, the call at 1:05 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfWwIyQYkgc
I don’t know why I feel emotional watching such races, maybe it is a sense that it is what horses like to do: run fast. I have to counter that with my inclination towards humble beginnings and not wealthy playgrounds. In that realm, I did enjoy Toni Collette and the film Dream Horse.
I just had a similar reaction Alice. I’m crying at the magnificence I think.
What stood out to me is the lack whip use by Turcotte.
The Axios article on the purported Gaza ceasefire talks being back on track seems to have been superseded by this later article, from the same source:
https://www.axios.com/2024/08/11/gaza-hostage-ceasefire-deal-hamas-talks
Note the later date.
Why would Hamas go into negotiations with Israel over the hostages and a ceasefire with a new negotiator? The Israelis would only kill them as well.
It is insane that the press keep on harping on these “ceasefire talks” as if they had any life in them. Per comments from other posters, it seems to be part of a deliberate strategy to sow confusion and lies.
To the effect of, we’ll know that our campaign of lies is working when the American people no longer believe anything.
Seems also that it is in Israel’s interest to pretend to be interested in talks half-heartedly, then pull the football away Lucy-style at the last minute. Hamas may finally have gotten tired of that dirty game.
They don’t have that pier anymore to focus on, so besides the cease fire negotiations there’s only genocide and war crimes to report on. And one can’t expect the press to tell the actual news, huh?
Schroedinger’s negotiator
Too true that. The last Hamas negotiator ended up back inside a box, courtesy the Israelis.
When they show you who they are, believe them.
My thoughts often harmonize with Jesse Ventura’s.
Here’s his take on Tim Walz.
Interesting…
There are many caveats and contexts with my own thinking…
I get my weekly dollop of cable news channel goop while playing cards over at my mom’s place and this week, instead of the usual wall-to-wall Trump coverage, it was wall-to-wall Walz coverage and over the course of the afternoon, they rounded up several prominent Minnesota politicians to talk about Walz. The segment I saw with Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison was pretty good, and while Jonathan Capehart was regrettably superficial, his interview with Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan put her in the “keep an eye on her, she’s going places” category for the national audience.
But the one segment that really surprised me (given what MSNBC did to him) was Reverend Al Sharpton had former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura on. Jesse was absolutely on fire. As an independent politician who was relentlessly attacked by both the democrats and republicans along with the local newspapers and TV stations during his tenure, he’s definitely got no love for the democrats but he had nothing but great things to say about his personal experiences with Tim Walz. As a bonus, his evisceration of Vance’s attempts at swiftboating Walz’s military record and his Hulk Hogan smackdown were classic blistering, straight-shooting Jesse.
The cynicism I’m witnessing, even around these parts, as regards Walz and his candidacy is truly disheartening.
It’s as if the campaign to eliminate the public’s ability to discern the truth has been more successful than I would have believed possible.
OTOH, I just got back from a drive to the store, saw a campaign sign, WALZ/Harris 2024.
WALZ in really big letters above a smaller Harris.
I agree. Given the current state of Team Blue and the current position of the Overton Window, a blue dog like Tim is about as good as we can get — anyone to the left of him would get Bernied off the stage.
I’m reserving my cynicism until he’s at the top of the ticket, but by then, considering how the two previous Minnesota vice presidents (Humphrey and Mondale) who served under unpopular presidents (LBJ and Carter) never made it to the top job, the odds are stacked against him getting that far. Just like the Minnesota Vikings and their perfect 0-4 record in Super Bowl appearances…
I’ll keep my eyes out for any Walz/Harris signs on my outings — reminds me of a lone large font Harris, small font Biden sign I saw in 2020 in my very PMC south Minneapolis neighborhood.
One of my bike routes takes me through the wealthy part of south Minneapolis and then through a couple of the wealthier western suburbs. Tons of Don Samuels signs (Ilhan Omar’s primary competitor), only a couple of Harris signs (without Walz’s name so they’ve been up for a while), a couple of Klobuchar signs, a lone RFK, Jr. sign and no Trump signs.
Not a single 2024 bumper sticker anywhere.
Is Walz really a Blue Dog? I’m not necessarily unwilling to accept Ventura’s assertion (and apparent elation) that he’s an honest man, it is the system that is the problem.
As far as I can tell, he was never officially a member of the Blue Dog Coalition, but his congressional voting record was more conservative than many of them and in 2018, he was ranked 12th most politically right compared to House Democrats.
Count me as one of the cynics. I might even like Walz overall in time, but I don’t trust the media and it will take time to know who he really is. But even if my initial reticence is unfounded he is still joining a campaign that was cooked up in a backroom with a candidate at the head of the ticket whose entire history is appalling. Yes it might be a stepping stone for an ambitious politician, but one that probably comes with strings and no power.
Politics was always dirty but the behind scenes powers have grown, maybe even exponentially in the last twenty or so years. I have no evidence that change comes from within, at least not the change I seek.
>I have no evidence that change comes from within, at least not the change I seek.
Likewise and as with my reply to johnnyme above. Anyone that the oligarchs sensed would be a threat to them wouldn’t get anywhere near the throne.
The uninsurable world: rethinking how to cover for climate damage. Make no mistake, this is a sell side pitch. The unspoken message is “The buy side will be buying more kinds of specific/targeted insurance, insurance companies will have greater freedom to snoop around you and your patch, and financial institutions will have new opportunities to grift”.
There’s a new model for the miserable consumer (is there a better word to describe someone shopping for insurance?) called “parametric”, a form of insurance known as parametric: cover at a set amount based on a pre-agreed trigger. This is a disaster specific policy and would be an add-on to general insurance.
“Adaptation” (trust me, only consumers will be adapting) is a word we’ve been seeing a lot. Another strategy getting more attention is adaptation. After bottling company Coca-Cola Consolidated suffered a damaging flood at its Nashville plant in 2010, it worked with its insurer FM to reconfigure the factory… Now Coca Cola has deep pockets. I do not. Nor do I want to hire some insurance broker as my builder/landscaper.
More on “adaption”. This quote is a laugher. For some executives, the way forward is simply to recognise the scale of the problem and adapt — working with clients or households to either protect themselves from water or fire reaching the door, or to make sure it does not do significant damage when it does. Such actions can keep insurance costs to an affordable level, they say. They say indeed.
This part got me laughing. The insurance market has also been supported by a proliferation of structures such as catastrophe bonds — an increasingly mainstream form of cover against extreme weather provided by investors through securities. Issuance has boomed in recent years. Bankers need money.
There’s fawning over start-ups that provide granular information. These services will have to get paid for by someone.
I’m done.
Is parametric insurance currently offered to individuals? I thought it’s a solution mostly for agriculturers and businesses. I think it may be appealing as a reinsurance option for some insurers as a way of protecting their combined ratio.
Interesting point. The example is taken from a restaurant in New Orleans. Quote, The Brennan restaurants turned instead to FloodFlash, a UK start-up that is one of an expanding cohort of insurers, big and small, offering a form of insurance known as parametric: cover at a set amount based on a pre-agreed trigger.
Catastrophe bonds were invented decades ago, I sat in some meetings where Wall Street was pitching the idea. The problem they addressed is concentration risk – too many eggs in one basket. Historically the solution was reinsurance, that is insurers companies buying insurance from other insurers. CAT bonds improve the reach of reinsurance by spreading the risk to non-insurers. For investors, they offered a source of non-correlated risk.
The real worry is that the actual cost of risk makes insurance impossible, ultimately I think that means a permanent destruction in house prices in high risk areas, with losses to homeowners and holders of mortgages.
The real worry, yes, the elephant in the room. It occurs to me that the article is intended to boost investor confidence in the insurance sector. As for catastrophe bonds, I guess they are a good investment as long as insurance companies are allowed to wiggle out of paying claims. A good source of fee based revenue for the banking crowd too! Too bad they put the interests of disaster victims up against the interests of retirees (assuming pension pools are allowed to invest in them here).
Here in So Cal, if you are in a higher risk fire zone (as defined by the state a couple a years ago), you get an annual inspection by the fire dept. You must be in compliance to sell your house. In addition, my Dad and I both confirmed that both the state insurance plan AND the private insurance companies have access to those inspections. This is similar to how car insurance companies access DMV records.
For a neighbor’s rural property (10 acres + a house), his long time insurer pulled out of the state, he tried to get private insurance with no luck, and now has gotten a quote from FAIR plan. His annual bill will go from $4000 to $14000. They paid off their mortgage many years ago and are contemplating “going naked”. However, the problem isn’t no fire insurance but that it is nearly impossible to get “free-standing” liability insurance. You are leaving yourself and all your assets wide open to any lawsuit that isn’t covered by your car insurance.
Our house in WUIville is circa Saturday Night Fever and we are paying $7k a year for insurance on a paid off domicile, and should it double to $14k, we might consider being attired in only our birthday suits, but you get the idea that once you get off the insurance coverage ride-you ain’t never getting back on~
But it sounds like then you would have no liability insurance. That is not a great situation to be in. A person can self insure for fire insurance (maybe, sort of), but not for liability insurance.
Wow, you read my mind. My condo association (here in CA) will be meeting on Wednesday to try to figure out what to do about insurance. I was wondering if we could just get liability insurance. From what you say, that seems unlikely.
It looks like the FAIR plan does not cover liability insurance. Unless things have changed, or this article is wrong:
“”The California Department of Insurance was seemingly unaware of the obstacles consumers have to overcome to get insurance,” says Gesell. “Now it’s working to expand the scope of the California FAIR Plan, the carrier of last resort.They’re forced to fund the FAIR plan and back the limits in it,” he explains. “It’s a basic plan; all it offers is basically fire coverage—no water, no liability coverage. Today, the most a community can get is $5.6 million, so it helps only the small communities.
By the end of the year, it will be offered up to $20 million,” he says. “It’s a terrible plan. All polices include a co-insurance provision, which is prohibited by most lenders in California. It’s a stopgap. It’s great as that, but it’s not going to solve this issue.””(https://www.hoaleader.com/public/Whats-Happening-with-CondoHOA-Insurance-in-California-Will-It-Spread.cfm)
“Coverage for personal belongings and additional structures on the property are usually only offered as optional policy add-ons. Generally, loss of use and personal liability coverages aren’t offered via FAIR plans.Mar 20, 2024” (https://content.naic.org/cipr-topics/fair-access-insurance-requirements-fair-plans#:~:text=Coverage%20for%20personal%20belongings%20and,t%20offered%20via%20FAIR%20plans.)
Yes. People can get “wrap” coverage for liability from private insurance companies once they have FAIR plan…for even more $$, of course.
Thank you so much for that info. I have been reading about this problem generally, but am now trying to get up to speed for the actuality that has now transpired.
Zelensky says a lot of things, depending on what he smokes, says Lavrov.
“Horses can plan and strategise, new study shows.” BBC.
And now for a BBC Breaking news Flash!
His Majesties Forces being led by Donkeys says anonymous German military expert!
See: https://discerninghistory.com/2015/08/were-the-british-lions-led-by-donkeys/
“Horses can plan and strategise, new study shows”
Got that right. We have this small pony that worked out that the electrical tapes separating two paddocks was no longer working so the past few days he has been pushing his way through them to go from one to another all day long. He will even do this in front of you as if to mock you. Soon as the rains go away, all that electrical tape is being replaced with new stuff so will have the last laugh when he tries that again. Bzzzztttt!
I barely dipped a toe in the Olympic closing ceremony and feel miffed that I missed such bits as
No actual Kardashians?
Nope. It might have livened up things up. Snoop’s set was probably the most fun of the LA section although Cruise pretending to put the Olympic Rings on the Hollywood sign was amusing in a manner that just highlighted how fake his whole section was. The commentary was hideously bad. The Middle French production symbolic of the revival of the Olympics was at least ten minutes too long. And much of the transfer business and ending rituals were awkward and stilted.
It was, to be blunt, a boring pretentious mess. Props to the orchestra though, they were great.
I was expecting a lot more from Cruise, but what I saw isn’t even close to something you would expect to see in a typical Mission Impossible movie. I had thought he would perform something like a HALO jump but without his stunt man, he’ll probably miss the stadium and smack into a lamp post or perhaps the Eiffel Tower.
“F*** These Trump-Loving Techies”: Hollywood Takes on Silicon Valley in an Epic Presidential Brawl -Hollywood Reporter
“Hollywood” should be more worried about the fact that the techies aren’t really looking for partners in Hollywood. They want Hollywood to work for them like workers-for-hire without a lot of the ownership and benefits.
That article was like reading about a bunch of rattlesnakes fighting a bunch of vipers in a very small pit. A pox on both of them.
Godzilla vs Mothra – as Yves’ would say.
While invoking Hollywood liberals like Kirk Douglas the article seems to forget about Lous B. Mayer, William Randolph Hearst, Cecil B. DeMille and the long history of patronizing attitudes toward race that did, it’s true, reflect the country itself. Even among the cited modern liberals someone like Larry David is an enthusiastic Dem while once doing an episode mocking Palestinians. In short Hollywood these days is about as liberal as the Democrats are.
The guilty rich people versus the Randian tech bros? Truth to tell the former don’t really feel that guilty.
Pepe Escobar is always interesting.
The following is shocking!
https://www.unz.com/pescobar/the-forever-wars-go-full-war-ofterror/
Limit of 3 hours of weekly screen time for kids has ‘positive effect’ on behavior, mental health: study Pretty sure my mom time traveled, because she clearly read this article. We had pretty strict rules (considered draconian at the time) regarding the tv.
Come to think of it…
Even back in the day, with families that could afford it, I don’t recall the majority allowing a monitor in the children’s bedrooms.
It’s all monitors at the end of the day with the location of servers of some kind changing location.
Yes. We also severely restricted our children’s ‘access’ to electronic media. They turned out fairly well. None of them are drugs addicts or jailbirds, which cannot be said about a large cohort of their peers.
(Would extreme ‘engagement’ with electronic screens be considered a form of addiction?)
When I was starting high school we moved to a small town in Northern Ontario where cable tv was not available (1975). At first my brother and I were devastated, even though we had tv rules and didn’t really watch that much tv before the move. We quickly got used to it though and when cable was available a couple of years later, it was no big deal to us. Once I lived on my own, I never bucked up for a tv and cable, it just never seemed that important to me. My husband had cable when we moved in together at 29 – that was my first in-house tv since childhood. We watch a bit together, never during the day. Dropped cable many years ago. I’ve always been grateful for that pause in tv availability, it seems to have ensured that tv and screen time were never very important to me. I didn’t jump on the FB bandwagon and to this day, I annoy people by not having any social media accounts for contact or info. If you want me, it is call, email or text. I guess it has been mostly good for my mental health although I do think being too much of an outlier is difficult sometimes. Even in my 60s, I feel peer pressure.
My story is similar. I’m proud to say that I’ve never lived with a tv since childhood with the exception of getting one for the kids which was exclusively used for watching video cassettes. They got red with it pretty quick, and it was gone in a couple years. Sadly, the digital age eroded my Chinese wall to the point of watching streamed video. Never the less, screw tv.
Once again, Frank Zappa has something to say about it. I’m the Slime
Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy “Television, The Drug Of The Nation”
if you’re looking for emotional satisfaction – seek professional help –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD9pJzZ1XGI
Outstanding!!! Thanks.
At a certain point I decided there was too much bad behavior, early sexualization, and disrespect of fathers on children’s programming and limited my kids to educational tv and one day a week of cartoons. Since we had only one tv and I worked at home this was easy to enforce. My result: two engineers, but one of them loves trashy shows like the Bachelor, Toddlers in Tiaras, Dance Moms, and such like, and the other can’t find a date.
We had an interesting experiment with a 5 yo and tv watching back in the day. When we moved countries, our small tv got stuck on the docks in Singapore. So no tv at chez Martensen for about 3 months. No more Ninja Turtles etc.
I could not believe the change in our 5 yo boy. He went from being a surly, argumentative, bad tempered brother to his little sister, to playing with her and enjoying her company. His sense of humour resurfaced. He calmed down.
When the tv finally arrived I tried to ration it. I should have sold it but occasionally there was a good program so we kept it. And as with all things addictive, it crept back to its premier place over time, and said son once again became a handful.
NOT A DELTA recombinant as linked at NC: correction from original publisher
https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/corrigendum-xdv-1-recombinant-variant-causing-new-surge-in-china-is-not-a-delta-recombinant-but-a-xde-and-jn-1-recombinant
Well that’s good news then! No criticism of NC intended, it happens
By the way, a few sentences from this article, which is actually quite fun to read:
Ori Goldberg’s thread is a very nicely written summary. The argument in Israel about torture of detainees is not about torture or human rights. The question is should Israel maintain or discard the Rule of Law while torturing. It’s just a question of style or aesthetics.
In that sense it has a lot in common with British and American politics. The policy goals are homogeneous across the parties and they differentiate on aesthetics.
As this crisis in occupied Palestine has developed I notice myself shifting from a horror at what the Israelis are doing to understanding that we are they and visa versa. I remember the bloodlust after 9/11 and how the liberals endlessly argued the constitutionality and justification for massive retaliation as though they were lawyers but when the firework show started they were mostly on the same page.
It reminds me of Malcolm X’s critique of foxy liberals.
yes, this could be all of us with the right messaging
And he seemed to be talking about that rape as though it were a singular instance, rather than rape as a systemic feature of detention centres in Israel where Palestinians are held.
And they still try to censor rapes in Ramle during the Nakba (the “technical glitch” the article refers to is using a black overlay in a PDF file, just like the US did with the Calipari report)
Re: the story about horses being intelligent. Do any of these researchers or scientist or what ever they want to call themselves have a freakin pet? These morons were surprised that these horses figured out “the game” that they played? What? Really? It’s the intelligence of this bunch of bozos that needs an evaluation! Any dog or cat or horse I’ve ever had as a pet, outsmarted me and others on a daily basis! My cat knows how to get precisely what she wants out of me. Apparently with very little effort. Read some books on thoroughbred horses, written by their handlers. John Henry regularly ran races himself, figuring out whether he should run from front or back, who he would take on and literally got ticked if the rider intervened in any way. He was to sit on him and do nothing! A horse named zippy chippy, knew that every Friday pizza was brought in for the back side workers, he would let himself out of his stall, go to whichever barn had the best Pizza, help himself and return to his stall. He also gave a blacksmith what for, by tearing up his new truck by kicking the hell out of it, busting windows, headlights etc. after a particularly aggravating session putting on a set of new shoes! He let himself out of the stall and was found back inside, quietly munching his hay. My dog got tired and bored, walking the same neighborhood. She would come out of the house touch her nose to the car and if I didn’t put her in the car and drive her to a new neighborhood, she would refuse a walk for days! As I said these people are complete idiots!
My pet peeve too (pun intended).
Captain Obvious studies.
Having a pet may not solve whatever the problem is. Alexandra Horowitz book about dogs was dismal despite that she has a pet dog.
These researchers show that they can plan and strategise, because they are getting paid to do nonsensical studies. They are the ones eating pizza on someone else’s expense, which makes them at least as smart as zippy chippy.
U.S. rushes firepower to the Middle East as Israel braces for retaliation from Iran – NBC
“The orders, and the rare step to publicly announce the deployment of a submarine, came as Austin reaffirmed Washington’s “commitment to take every possible step to defend” its ally in a call with his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant, according to a readout from the Pentagon.”
So Iran can potentially bunker bust or whatever all they want in Israel. It’s the response from USA and associates they also have to weigh.
Apologies for the misplaced post about Iran. Don’t want to cause confusion
Not sure it is the wrong place, Mikel. Someone knows how to plan and strategise to get Austin to do what they want…
Don’t forget sheep. In Husum, I saw a sheep that had figured out how to hold the gate to the section where the sheep could graze, and let the rest of the flock out. They didn’t really take advantage of their freedom, instead merely grazing on the grass on the other side, which was presumably greener.
As we said about my old dog: He’s as smart as he wants to be.
I’ve had at least a couple of friends who, as very young men, “had” dogs (they didn’t take great care of them.) Anyway, similar stories, but by guys I knew who, I’m pretty sure, had never met. Said friends roamed all over wide parts of Los Angeles leaving the dogs with various other friends and relatives. Dogs after awhile would split where they were left and travel themselves, apparently looking for their “owner”. Both my buddies told similar stories of THEIR friends, stopped at intersections somewhere random in the city, and their (my buddies’) dogs, suddenly appearing and jumping up on the side of their car. “Woof! Hey, let me in. Woof!” The dogs seemed to roam and visit people just as their “owners” did, but were apparently known to more or less hitch rides in this way with people THEY (the dogs) recognized in their cars.
Re Noah Lyles, he claims to have asthma, ADHD and several other conditions most of, if not all, require medication with banned performance enhancing substances that the USADA can give exemptions for if prescribed.
WADA has a list of exemptions that the US exploits more than anybody else. American athletes have both made the most requests and have had the highest proportion of exemptions granted, and yet, they love to accuse China of doping. As always, every American accusation is a confession. It comes from the fact that if they had won the particular event, they would have certainly doped and so they assume the Other did.
Here’s a good thread on twitter about this phenomenon: https://x.com/PandemicTruther/status/1819267014810349996?t=vzEoQUtVICj2Q05D2KYExA&s=19
or maybe even more likely, we doped, you beat us; therefore, you must also have doped.
Did a quick bit of research today about the Olympics. The Russians use to send teams of about 300 athletes but in Paris were allowed to send only 15 so that is about 95% of them were barred. The OIC even enlisted the help of the Ukrainians to find justifications to bar Russians and the Mayoress of Paris – the host city – said that Russian athletes were not welcome which is probably why none of the 15 bothered hanging around for the Closing ceremonies but flew home instead after winning two medals.
Now this time around the US sent about 592 people and managed to win about 40 Gold medals. The Chinese meanwhile sent 388 people in 33 sports and also managed to win 40 Gold medals. So what is the bet that the US and others will do to the Chinese what was done to the Russians and cut down their numbers radically for the 2028 Olympics? Already there was those dodgy claims about drugs being used which went nowhere but you know that it will ramp up with justifications being found.
If they can do that, then the US and athletes from other countries will be able to have a much bigger share of the Gold medal count in 2028 and who cares how you win when the history books will simply say that you “won”? Will certain agencies also seek to slip minuscule amounts of drugs into Chinese athlete’s food and drinks so that they can be caught with a positive reading? I would not put it past them as part of a sportsfare campaign after seeing what happend in the last Winter Olympics. You read it here first.
50/50 odds the 2028 games don’t happen or need to be radically re-located.
Heat domes have a nasty habit of showing up with little notice.
No worries, the Chinese will just compete as Hong Kongers, I mean if you add the 2 Gold medals that Hong Kong won on top of the 40 medals from the Chinese contingent, it’s pretty clear who won the 2024 Olympics.
I’d say having a biological male beating up women and winning a gold medal takes the cake. For years the Olympics were run by a former Franco crony but this Thomas Bach guy has dragged them down to a new level. If the whole thing is pop culture then call it that. But in theory it’s based on an ancient event before–gasp–TV even. How did they live??
There was a second boxer of dubious sexing – Lin Yu-ting of the Chinese Taipei team – who also won a gold medal. The OIC said that they can’t tell a man from a woman and so depended on what those athlete’s passports said. I have an idea. Get them to drop their daks and if you can count 21 digits on them, then that is a good indication that they are actually a male.
Rev Kev, I think each athlete should be tested for the presence of a Y chrom.
Some still want to belive:
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/08/links-8-2-2024.html#comment-4081418
No worries. Next year they will be holding the Enhanced Olympics where ALL the athletes will be drugged to the gills-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_Games
Peter Thiel is involved in this so you know already that it is going to be pretty scummy.
he claims to have asthma, ADHD and several other conditions
Aren’t there any rules about preventing sick people from participating in highly competitive sports? In the spirit of avoiding abuse and exploitation of people physiologically unfit for extreme physical effort and the like? That would be a nice way to exclude those cheaters without having to resort to rules about doping and the attendant tests and interpretation thereof.
I used to have asthma, and I used participate in highly competitive sport. I had to get a written testimony from my doctor to get a waiver from the anti-doping agency to compete. Every single time I asked it from my doctor, she rolled her eyes and laughed aloud, since my medication could not improve healthy persons performance at all. It allowed me to perform as somebody with lungs that did not act up every once in a while.
most performance enhancing drugs don’t actually improve performance per se but drastically speed up recovery times between exertions such that the repeated exertions improve performance.
I would expect nothing less in Olympic competition. Politics combined with opaque Swiss governing bodies and the technical and game theoretical arms race of dropping seems intractable to me.
Hedge Funds Smell Blood as Lenders Turn on Each Other
So-called ‘creditor on creditor violence’ has reached such a pitch that funds are wagering tens of billions of dollars on taking advantage of the mayhem.
https://archive.ph/lRCZe/
When the big boys are affected it’s seen as “creditor violence.”
Usory interest rates for the pleebs…not seen as “creditor violence.”
I love to the see the cockroaches scrambling now that the kitchen light is on, but they always seem to find a way to stick their losses on the rest of us.
Except for that guy in the Hamptons, I guess. He wasn’t even the one doing the social media shite, but he sure was a useless eater who ate a ton before leaping out the window.
RE: How an Instagram-Perfect Life in the Hamptons Ended in Tragedy NYT
Pretty hard not to draw parallels between this “tragic” tale of an ostentatiously “lavish” lifestyle, financed by piling unpayable debt on top of more unpayable debt, and the hole mighty america is digging for itself.
And that comparison goes right down to the increasingly desperate husband hiring a “lawyer” to assure his glamorous influencer wife that all is copasetic, right up until the time that he offs himself leaving her holding the empty bag.
The flashy baubles of empire–from the endless wars, complete with accoutrements like the bottomless pit of the “jobs-producing” F35, to the “humanitarian” generosity of welcoming 15 million new “residents” whose lives must be supported top to bottom for at least a generation and everything in between–are “afforded” by piling unpayable debt on top of more unpayable debt.
When the “robust, resilient consumer” expresses concern, the financial squawkers remind them of the robustness and resiliency that they can’t seem to recognize on their own, and anywayzzz AI and Nvidia will deliver them from all evil. Until, of course, the hapless borrowers exit stage left, the Deus ex machina of AI fails to materialize, and the empty bag enters stage right.
Too bad the nyt doesn’t finish the story. Maybe the specter of a once great instagram influencer and her two daughters crammed into a one bedroom in South Bumfuck, existing on an IHOP waitress’s “income,” was just too painful. At least “we” can take comfort in the fact that both presidential candidates agree there should be “no tax on tips.”
With all the ink given to the troubles in commercial real estate, these people acted all surprised about what happened.
They were too busy looking at social status indicators instead of economic indicators.
That perfect life. The Way We Live Now. Anthony Trollope understood. / ;)
working link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Way_We_Live_Now
or Doctor Thorne?
No problems “working” at IHOP for the widowed Ms. Miller:
Look for influencer Mama Widow tik-tok and Instagram soon.
Um, doesn’t suicide usually negate an insurance policy payout?
He could not be bothered with reading the fine print.
I think there’s usually a waiting period. Two years I recall.
I’m questioning the “suicide”. That’s just me being me, but the dude owed people some serious cash. Plus, it fits your mighty america analogy.
Another speculation while the speculating is going on:
Somebody could have wanted him to something for them in lieu of payment and he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
His life insurance may have been valid even in the case of suicide.
From https://www.progressive.com/answers/does-life-insurance-cover-suicide/
“Life insurance policies typically include a suicide clause that’s active for a certain period after the policy goes into effect. This period can last from one to three years depending on the insurer, but it’s typically two years. The clause says the insurer won’t pay out to beneficiaries for a suicidal death within that time. It’s meant to prevent someone from purchasing a policy immediately prior to taking their lives so their loved ones can receive financial benefits.”
He may have made a calculated decision that he was worth more to his family dead than alive.
It’s not a new thing. In “Citizen Kane” (1941) one of the characters is described as “…from one of those old families where the dad is worth $10 million…then he shoots himself and you find out there’s nothing but debt…”. Fiction, but probably an accurate description of a reality then and now.
“The CIA Sent Him Deep Undercover to Spy on Islamic Radicals. It Cost Him Everything”
Well, that was a waste of 10 minutes. Lots of melodrama and background exposition to find out (spoiler) that the guy probably OD’d in a hotel in Kuala Lumpur, after leaving the Company. Oh and after getting back from sleeping on monastery (“madrassa” lol) floors in Egypt, he was assigned to spy on Show Biz in LA. Nobody from Rolling Stone editorial brought up the fact that CIA spying in LA is, sort of erm, illegal? But maybe he was spying on dual Israeli-US citizens, lol.
Do they even have editors at RS anymore? Taibbi was right to walk away from that rag. Though he seems to be getting high on his own supply lately.
You’re lucky, it took me 30. Granted spouse was often interrupting me.
I think we should ask why so many CIA sources wanted Rolling Stone to write at such LENGTH and FOGGINESS about no official cover operations and a US “jihadi”.
Some ideas:
– NOC operations in China have been a disaster. it compromise of the website used to communicate with assets led to the entire CIA pool of NOC assets bring rolled up in China. The article is to show the nuanced value of NOC ops?
– NOC operations in Middle East are about to get a public roasting? Something is going to get published? Or this was lined up when the Gitmo plea deal looked like closing? And this guy is either the rogue fallguy or the tragic hero that will help CIA control the narrative? Did he go native in fact – imagine not being impressed by George Bush Junior!
– CIA wants more money for NOC operations?
– somebody wanted to highlight the existence of CIA domestic operations, and in Holllywood to boot? I wonder if his mission was to advise on films about the Global War on Terror, Seal Team Six etc?
– what was he doing in Malaysia? 1DB scandal turning out to be Iran Contra? (I have no evidence but when people get away with fraud (Maxwell, Epstein, Alan Stanford, BCCI etc) for a long time, the CIA are usually involved.
NB: News from the UK: Banque Havilland is being shut down, EU banking licence withdrawn for money laundering laxity. Prince Andrew’s shadowy financier David Rowland, had a niche private bank (Luxembourg, Switzerland, Channel Islands, Gulf States, Singapore, Monaco) with “ex”-MI6 types introducing him to UAE (and offering to manipulate the Qatari currency market for UAE!). Has the front outlived its usefulness or is it just being reconstituted for the future? It would interesting to know what ties Prince Andrew formed between Rowland and Maxwell and Epstein….
Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn doing another special edition ATW tonight.
ATW Live Tonight, 8 pm ET/7 pm CT: Campaign Joy, Trump-Elon, More
Walter Kirn and I recap a furious weekend, emerging Monday lunacies, and return to Mystery Science look-ins on news reports
https://www.racket.news/p/atw-live-tonight-8-pm-et7-pm-ct-campaign
So I learned something new today. The NOC list in Mission Impossible with Cruise was probably the (The CIA Sent Him Deep Undercover to Spy on Islamic Radicals. It Cost Him Everything)
Never know what you might learn here.
RE: Taylor Swift and Bach
Interesting ideas on the development of western music. However, suggesting Taylor Swift and J.S. Bach are similar pillars of music development is a stretch. Bach is considered the father of modern western classical music, Taylor is the bastard child of Joni Mitchell–without the talent.
The idea that early temples (architecture) was essential to the development of western music is another stretch. These temples embellished certain sound frequencies (pitch) which the users (priests, musicians) recognized and adapted to and embellished
The relationships of various pitch was discovered by the use of a ‘monochord’ (see;Wiki) by Greek mathematicians, before Rome. They discovered that if you halve the length of a vibrating string you get a string that vibrates at a frequency (pitch) twice that of the original (an octave higher) and readily discernible. You can do this yourself on a piano by striking any white key and another 7 keys away (octave). If you start at the lower end of the piano keyboard, C2 say, and count from that key (note) higher up by 5 (a fifth; G note), and then from ‘G” five more keys to ‘D’ (another fifth) and so on you will create the notes of the diatonic scale in the tonal key of ‘C’. This is where western music originated, not in cathedrals.
Now, this Pythagorian octave scale is mathematically derived and slightly harmonically dissonant. It was J.S. Bach that “tempered” this harmonic scale to better fit your ears and the tonal breadth of the early piano (clavier). His legacy is the music score/book “Well Tempered Clavier”, which exposed all musicians to the versatility of the chromatic (12-tone) scale.
No doubt that concert halls embellished the sound of instruments of all type, but the ancient halls (temples) likely played a tangential role.
{ Be aware, we are talking about European Westem music. Indian music uses a 22-tone scale, Japan used a 5-tone scale (Pentatonic), and distant islanders play a set of gongs many find discordant; but what you hear in your culture as you grow up seems harmonious at the time.}
Classical music only arose with the move of art music away from religious music in cathedrals to smaller wooden / upholstered chambers, hence chamber music. Resonance times in stone buildings are too long for fast passages of notes or words. What you hear in plainsong or English choral music are the vowels. You need a much shorter resonance time for opera, all that gilt wood and velvet are earning their money making the recitative and concerti intelligible.
Since JS Bach was mentioned only in the title but never in the article:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBeXF_lnj_M&ab_channel=MehdiCapsII
No matter where this is performed, if your little hairs don’t stand up you may want to check yourself for a pulse…
This is why I no longer watch any athletics, swimming, or cycling results. I got sick of Americans and British sportspeople cheating during the 80’s and 90’s
‘Do large language models have a legal duty to tell the truth?’
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.240197
This academic article is wrong on so many levels. LLMs are approximation models which are effectively hyper-dimensional OLS estimations. More powerful the LLM, better the approximation. LLMs aren’t deductive models which can make statements about truth. Hence LLMs can’t state truths per se. LLMs are closer to associative models with a high level of associative contrast. Which is why they’re good for language interpretation. And this is before we start talking about the metaphysics of truth and the role of individual perspectives in interpreting statements of truth.
Paper comes across more as a ‘Dorothy Dixer’ to support UK’s draconian crackdown on free speech? Which is in itself, magnificent in irony.