Police Nab Fugitive Tortoise on Slow Run to Freedom New York Times (furzy)
Banksy rhino artwork in London defaced with graffiti tag Guardian
Sea lions are suddenly dying in huge numbers along beloved coastline Daily Mail
The first post-quantum cryptography standards are here TechCrunch (Kevin W)
Pradeep Natarajan: Preventing Heart Disease Eric Topol (Robin K). “. We didn’t get into lifestyle factors here since there was so much ground to cover on new tests. drugs, and strategies.”
Why overcoming your cynicism could be key to a healthier, happier life New Scientist (Dr. Kevin). Ahem. Lady Tyrell was cynical as hell but still seemed to have a marvelous time putting that on full display: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_lFzL6TXaA
Real world analogues include Gore Vidal and The Fruitcake Lady (Truman Capote’s aunt, who had a run on late night TV in her 90s).
Why Does Ozempic Cure All Diseases? Scott Alexander (Paul R). Great piece for many reasons.
#COVID-19
The Paris Olympics is the first Games that let COVID run free, and it impacted how the event played out ABC Australia
Climate/Environment
Singapore adds 16 insects to list of approved foods for consumption YouTube (furzy). Calling them superfoods, whether true or not, would greatly increase uptake.
WHO To Scrap Weak PFAS Drinking Water Guidelines After Alleged Corruption Guardian
HISTORIC ALPINE HEAT WAVE
33 consecutive hours above freezing on Mt Blanc !
(Col Major 4750m,just below European roof)
MORE RECORDS *=all time
🇦🇹
15.2 Sonnblick 3106m
15.7 Brunnenkogel 3437m *
17.9 Pitztaler Glacier 2864m *
🇮🇹
31.9 Dobbiaco
🇨🇭
Tmin 12.3 Segl-Maria *
🇫🇷
36.6 Douai https://t.co/qHcyd6Erix— Extreme Temperatures Around The World (@extremetemps) August 12, 2024
Heat aggravated by carbon pollution killed 50,000 in Europe last year – study Guardian
The climate impact of feeding ourselves is getting worse and worse New Scientist
We’re Burning More Climate-Warming Coal Than Ever. Why? Bloomberg
China?
US ill-prepared for a nuclear showdown with China Asia Times
China’s Rising Diplomatic Power Libertarian Institute (Kevin W)
Japan PM Fumio Kishida quits LDP leadership race as low ratings, scandals take toll South China Morning Post (Tom H)
Venezuela
‘The CIA Writes Her Paycheck’: Venezuela’s US-Backed Opposition Flounders Sputnik
Gaza
As a former IDF soldier and historian of genocide, I was deeply disturbed by my recent visit to Israel Omer Bartov, Guardian
Weekend carnage in Gaza shows Nagasaki mayor was right South China Morning Post (furzy)
Israel has a problem with targeting population centers you guys. pic.twitter.com/L5yM5Wz62Q
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) August 12, 2024
‘Operation al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 311: International condemnations of Israel’s massacre at Gaza school as pressure grows on Netanyahu to reach ceasefire deal Mondoweiss (guurst)
The Fajr massacre: Every 70 kg bag of human remains is considered a martyr Mondoweiss
Israeli forces disguised as UNRWA workers to carry out military attack in Gaza, report states Quds News (guurst)
@PeruginiNic and I have studied the history of human shields and this is UNIQUE. The fact that the Israeli military dresses the Palestinians in IDF garb, means that the Palestinians, some of whom are youth, are used not as human shields, but simply as shields. 1/2 https://t.co/8phpUhniYg
— Neve Gordon (@nevegordon) August 13, 2024
BREAKING: Protesters with IfNotNow have blocked off the 405 freeway in West LA.
They are calling for all elected democracts ahead of the DNC to call got a lasting ceasefire in Gaze, reject AIPAC money, and call for an arms embargo to Israel: pic.twitter.com/fiFFzkkv3o
— Jon peltz (@JonnyPeltz) August 13, 2024
Germany says Israel’s massacre at Gaza school justified in ‘self defense’ The Cradle (Kevin W)
The U.S. Is Accelerating Towards Disaster Daniel Larison
Iran finesses its deterrence strategy Indian Punchline
Could Iran and Israel Drift Into a Full-Scale War? International Affairs (Micael T)
War With Iran Imminent? Ken Klipperstein
New Not-So-Cold War
More Of The Visuals… Andrei Martyanov
Versus Another Russian region declares emergency as Ukraine offensive enters second week BBC.
First arrest warrant for Nord Stream attacks Tagesschau via machine translation. PJH:
A German court has issued an arrest warrant for an Ukrainian diving instructor, who is suspected of participating in the Nord Stream sabotage.
The problem: he was last seen in Poland, Poland doesn’t want to extradite him to Germany (and allegedly tried to block investigations). Now the guy has vanished, but his spokesperson says he’s innocent.
Nice solution, right? An arrest warrant for a person who has vanished and who unlikely will appear in German court. Maybe he’s been selected as a credible scapegoat.
Russian Iskander Missile Strike Destroys Rare Ukrainian Su-27 Fighter at Mirgorod Airbase Military Watch
Debt-Riddled Ukraine Blames ‘Slow’ US Aid, Scrambles to Pay Its Army Sputnik
Caucasus
The South Caucasus in Washington’s playbook International Affairs (Micael T)
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Texas Sues General Motors, Alleging Illegal Selling of Driver Data CNN
US Senate takes up bill banning government purchase of Americans’ data Biometric Update
Advice from DEFCON: Turn off Bluetooth and WiFi NDTV (furzy)
Imperial Collapse Watch
Better Believe Israel When it Says it is a Reflection of Western “Civilization” BettBeat (Dr. Kevin)
Craig Murray: We Are the Bad Guys Consortium News (Chuck L)
Trump
Combined views of the conversation with @realDonaldTrump and subsequent discussion by other accounts now ~1 billion https://t.co/s8x8QmdmnY
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 13, 2024
Donald Trump showcases new lisp during Elon Musk interview Independent. Paul R suggest this could be an effect of Covid. How about a new, improved Churchill imitation?
But no, see below, something much simpler. Lambert had this in Water Cooler yesterday:
Trump isn't slurring his words, I've also had that weird thing happen on Spaces where it sounds like I have a comically outrageous lisp
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) August 13, 2024
Kamala
Kamala Harris running ads with fake news headlines – Axios RT. Fake news for me, but not for thee.
🐝 ‘I Will Fix Things If You Vote Me Into Office,’ Says Woman Currently In Office Babylon Bee
Crash the DNC’s Party Covert Action (Chuck L)
2024
Republicans split on tackling deficit, including Medicare, Social Security reforms The Hill
The Nation’s Best Hackers Found Vulnerabilities in Voting Machines – But No Time To Fix Them Politico
Omar gives progressives a needed boost: 5 takeaways from Tuesday’s primaries The Hill
Our No Longer Free Press
To be honest, I really wanted to respond with this Tropic Thunder meme, but I would NEVER do something so rude & irresponsible! https://t.co/jL0GDW5QUx pic.twitter.com/XhUxCSGFNP
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 12, 2024
From Politico’s EU morning newsletter:
TRUMP ALLIES ACCUSE EU OF FREE SPEECH CRACKDOWN: Allies of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump seized on EU Commissioner Thierry Breton’s stern open letter on X to its owner Elon Musk, accusing Brussels of a China-style attempt to restrict freedom of speech online. The comments will certainly poke the hornet’s nest of transatlantic relations between the EU establishment and the possible next president of the U.S.
Brussels slaps down Thierry Breton over ‘harmful content’ letter to Elon Musk Financial Times. Oopsie! Politico wrong-footed this one.
Memes Pose a Threat to the US Financial System: RAND Report Hacker Noon (Paul R)
A Harris-Walz Administration Would Be A Nightmare for Free Speech Jonathan Turley (Li)
Woke Watch
The Case That Abraham Lincoln Was a ‘Lover of Men’ Vanity Fair (Dr. Kevin)
Antitrust
US Considers a Rare Antitrust Move: Breaking Up Google Bloomberg. Since the Trump Administration DoJ filed this suit, expect it to continue to be prosecuted seriously regardless of who wins in November.
Monopoly Money Ed Zitron
The Bezzle
Why VCs love obnoxious founders Business Insider
Study Finds 94% of Business Spreadsheets Have Critical Errors PhysOrg
Class Warfare
Part 1: Neither Horseshoes nor Fishhooks (book review: Three-Way Fight) Daphne Lawless (Micael T)
Antidote du jour. Stephen T: “This sheep at the Tillamook county fair looks like it’s wearing on of those clingy outfits the sprinters at the Olympics were wearing—though this one showed no signs of dashing off.”
And a bonus. Man, can these guys vocalize:
Best of Cheez bawlz meows 😭 pic.twitter.com/4ogZj08gmL
— Why you should have a cat (@ShouldHaveCat) August 13, 2024
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
Bonus, tomorrow’s links today!
The Guardian piece by Bartov is really worth a read.
yes, highly recommend!
It is difficult to get people to understand something when their ideology depends on their not understanding it.
ALL KINDS OF WARNINGS
(melody borrowed from One Too Many Mornings by Bob Dylan)
Well this really is alarming
It stays hot when it gets dark
There are no more birds a swarming
And the cars they all stay parked
It’s too late for words to matter
Or to say what’s on my mind
For we had all kinds of warnings
To leave fossil fuels behind
Do not follow in our footsteps
Do not join our parade
‘Twas simple greed led to our doom
And the price must now be paid
We cannot stop the rising heat
Can’t live down in a mine
We had every kind of warning
‘Bout the end of our own kind
Tipping points gone through the ceiling
As the science said they would
But the scientists’ soothsaying
Hasn’t changed one neighborhood
Now we stand here tongue-tied
As our planet goes offline
We had every kind of warning
But we all stuck to our grind
Maybe it was posted before but this is a nice thread on how the Canadian government is waging class war on its own people by abusing migrant workers to the point that the UN says it is a breeding ground for slavery
unfortunately it seems deeply unlikely that the liberals, conservatives, NDP or green party here will be willing to change anything
https://x.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1821883398861791484
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/13/canada-foreign-workers-un-report
And don’t forget, Canada under Trudeau is offering the poor the opportunity of medically assisted death. In February this year it was reported that 4.1% of Canadian deaths in 2022 were caused by Canada’s assisted death program. That’s a hella lot of people the Canadian govt is “assisting”. /
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/02/11/in-canada-the-right-to-die-with-dignity-has-become-part-of-life_6513300_4.html
And in the UK the govt has cut winter fuel assistance for pensioners.
Did they also cut winter fuel assistance to all those Ukrainian refugees that they have been showering with money and resources?
“Craig Murray: We Are the Bad Guys’
It would be a whole lot easier to know if we had skulls on our caps-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h242eDB84zY (2:50 mins)
I grew up as part of the Free West and I swallowed it hook, line and sinker. But now as part of this free world, I am expected to support Jihadists in the Middle east hyped up on Captagon, Nazis in eastern Europe that even replicate the torch parades of Nazi Germany in the 30s, homicidal religious zealots carrying out a genocide in the eastern Mediterranean, the silencing & imprisonment of people that do not agree with the current views of the government and those are just the things off the top of my head. The worse thing is that most of the people that I know either do not really know about these things or support our own government which back such things. Stop the world, I wanna get off.
I’ve been feeling like that for a while now. A year ago, or so, I stated something like: I feel betrayed by the entire system of thought I grew up with.
Me too. My public school education clearly stated we were the champions of good, and all the citizens of all other nations looked up to us.
My headmaster even SAID this OUT LOUD to us at my public school in a general studies class, after I’d presented on the history of Palestine.
He only taught a couple of general studies classes to 6th form (being Headmaster) but that was the one time I really got to understand what he thought us Brits should be doing. At the time we were 9th best school in UK.
He died a few years ago…..in a manner which to me suggested he thought he and we had failed as a country, given the “lack of oomph” that other former teachers have shown.
Thank you.
Not unrelated.
The wave of far right violence, including three attacks on immigrants in mid-Buckinghamshire last week, has spooked my parents, both 80 in November and here since May 1964, and made them wonder if they should return to Mauritius, only a week or so after we thought of selling up. I will go, too, if that happens, even though I was born in London and have lived most of life in Buckinghamshire.
Sorry to read that Colonel. I hope Mauritius holds what they need.
I’ve often ruminated over how alien and unfriendly this world must seem to the older generation. My uncle, 79, has retreated to his own world, my 84yo mom in law to depression, her 85yo husband pretty much refuses to acknowledge the greater world altogether.
Blue MAGA is a cult. Everyone I know is in it (all over 55, mostly white, PMC, “liberal” Dems). Deer in the headlights look if I even raise the mildest contrary idea, or point out the tiniest glaring contradiction. I don’t think anything will ever pierce that bubble–they will go down with the ship, not even knowing they are on the ship…..
… not evening knowing they aren’t liberal, they are neo-liberal.
Really depends on where you are. Your description of Blue MAGA just described half my Trump supporting neighbors. If I scaled up from their experiences, I’d have to think that large healthcare orgs are run by PMCs while being opposed by organized healthcare workers who are increasingly fed up.
Sadly, I don’t think my experience is an accurate summary either.
Forget the generational stuff: Democraphically Blue Maga is a perfect reflection of our society because its members were chosen on that basis. Their leadership may skew older but rank and file were selected and indoctrinated based on their willingness to buy in.
I agree it’s a cult but I disagree that it’s being driven by anything other than greed (and Zionism which attaches itself to all US poltiical movements). At some point they lose their self-awareness and go along simply to go along. The cult is less smug these days and are desperately clinging to Kamala who, unlike Emperor Selassie on his visit to Jamaica, does not object to having her feet kissed by adoring throngs.
You’re right, it is, but Murray’s post and RK’s comment aren’t really about that. We’re talking about Western Civilization, the Collective West, the Free World, the Golden Billion, or whatever you call it. It’s unnerving to learn that freedom, democracy, human rights, international law and the rest were our comforting bedtime stories to keep us on the side of a vicious, corrupt and ancient system of power. Murray correctly mentioned that the horrors Israel is committing are not as bad as stuff the USA has done in the last 25 years. What’s happening is not an aberration. That is us.
Whilst I love that scene (along with the Princess Di, “pseudo X Factor” and “I’m a people person” ones), I’m sticking with the Linden Tree one you now know about as my fave from those two ;)
Though their “pseudo between scenes” stuff is also priceless – “can humans fly” and “how do you unmake cheese” are tough acts to follow.
yeah…ive known we were the evil empire for a long time…thanks to natgeo and the deluxe britannica set i pored over as a child…as well as the later headshop bookshelves…and just observing the world, from up close, to far away.
the most remarkable thing is how the majority have been so willfully blind to it…and more usually, actively hostile to even considering the idea that we are not that shiny city on the hill.
for all the performative rancor between the two right wings, this is th most bipartisan thing there is.
and thanks again to our hosts fro introducing me to Craig Murray.
Thanks, AtH. You’re quite right. There’s nothing so unifying for America as Empire.
file under UK, Starmer.
In case you were under any illusions, Keir Starmer—the UK’s new PM—is a World Economic Forum puppet, just like the rest of them.
https://x.com/wideawake_media/status/1809913082472206515
Thanks for that, flora. Imagine my surprise. Just waiting for Starmer to tell the British people ‘Now you must all eat zee bugs!’
Good to see Herr Stamer is gown with the plan!
The only difference between High Chancellor Adam Sutler of “V for Vendetta” and Keir Starmer is that Keir Starmer is much more boring and forgettable.
Is it a message from Germany that the name of the man against whom an arrest warrant has been issued for the destruction of Nord Stream is Volodymyr Z?
If Galicia of all regions is boiling, then the Iberian peninsula is in real trouble.
I still remember fondly the high summer road trip from Bilbao to Galicia in late 1990s with a friend. It was so strange to listen on the hire-car radio music that sounded like Irish jigs and countryside that was so green it could’ve been numerous places in the British Isles.
Then, true to form, the heavens opened when we visited Santiago de Compostela and it was the final bit of the puzzle to make everything feel like home ;)
“Germany’s federal prosecutor general is seeking a man identified as Volodymyr Z. for privacy reasons. He is a 44-year-old Ukrainian diving professional who was last seen in Poland and has since disappeared”
That suspect’s name rings a bell…
My first guess at name was Mitch Buchannon. Those German scriptwriters have zero creativity.
couldnt ven get past the first question in the cynicism thing:
“Cynicism is a theory that, in general, humanity is selfish, greedy and dishonest. Theories power our behaviour, what we do and what we don’t do. So cynics use their theory about people to guide their behaviour in the social world. It changes what they see, it changes how they interpret other people and it changes what they do, such as not trusting others.”
feels like a sorta talking his book definition, no? or am i being overly cynical?
i am a monstrous cynic, in the tradition of Diogenes.
and i arrived at that place with open eyes, and after….and continually…attempting to falsify that stance.
these attempts at falsification are wholly sincere…because i’d really rather not be a monstrous cynic…its uncomfortable,lol…but honesty keeps leading me back.
i’ll finish the interviw, now…lol…perhaps he does better further in….
Not word about healthy skepticism and the difference between a skeptic and a cynic. That is a tell, imo. Is the gaslight flickering? / ;)
I find that cynicism is just as bad as optimism. Cynicism subscribes to the Littlefinger school of thought (‘Sometimes when I try to understand a person’s motives, I play a little game. I assume the worst. What’s the worst reason they could possibly have for saying what they say and doing what they do?’) while optimism leads to the modern demand that everybody on the job must be enthusiastic and showing their smiles all the time, no matter how much that dental work costs. It would be best to try to be in between the two and try to be a realist. Will it make you happy? No. But being a realist means that you are not so often caught up in the highs and the lows of others.
Being a skeptic isn’t the same as being a cynic.
I’ve gone beyond being a cynic and have explicitly classed myself as a nihilist.
It’s like reaching the acceptance stage of the grieving process – don’t GAF. Of course it’s fine by me as I have no dependents but I still have occasional thoughts about the kids of my siblings *sigh*
and have explicitly classed myself as a nihilist. Thanks for a much needed chuckle despite the sobriety. Is nihilism beyond cynicism? I’m going to have to chew on that one for a bit.
I regard it as a step further but I can understand how others might regard it as “not” or “not even on the same dimension”.
But I overthink stuff ;)
Your overthinking is much appreciated. Cheers.
Was talking with my buddy from Tucson who is 6 years older than me, about our mutual IBGYBG thankfulness that will remedy our similar dead-end position-not having any progeny of our own to obsess over whatever becomes of us.
I have 2 nieces & 3 nephews and a grand niece that will inherit our mistakes-the future of the family lineage, and best of luck to them, sorry we screwed the pooch.
By the way, they say chicken tastes like rattlesnake, and I can’t wait for the 19th insect to be named to the pantheon of edibles.
I understand this sentiment but also think that anyone like you on this site who expresses it is “taking a bullet for a wider bunch of idiots”. Generally speaking, I don’t think people like you or me on here with no dependents or whatever contributed to the problem. It’s a bunch of our peers who did. Of course you’re entitled to think I’m being a dick to escape blame. It’s certainly a LOT of our generation(s) that caused the problems. But increasingly I find myself unafraid to say “NO. I NEVER voted for that party/manifesto etc. I won’t accept the blame. Which is not to say I’m a saint – far from it – for instance I got taken in by Blair in 1997 and I can’t dodge that monumental mistake. I just won’t accept criticism that I didn’t see generally what was coming.”
Being a cynic is never having to say you’re sorry. Sort of. (Gawd, the headlines are so dismal I can’t even muster up a good line)
How exactly does one not develop an acute case of cynicism in our current timeline? The reality of our surroundings is perpetually stroking my priors.
And I’m angry. Seriously Friggin Angry. And SFA as it is, is contagious as fa and I’m more than a bit worried about what happens when it takes hold for real.
And consider that people could be cynical about the systems people serve and still hold out hope for some of humanity.
my unexpected dose of still-extant humanity came with Tam’s cancer…and all that time i spent in and around the hospitals…and all those people i talked to on my wanderings for a smoke or for lunch.
helped a somali woman with her flat tire…and she’s gonna pray for my wife…and then eat at an iraqi cafe, and the whole family is gonna pray for my wife…and i rport all this back to Tam, laid up and full of tubes and wires, and say..”hey, thats five times a day!…”
and she’s like, “i’ll take it”.
the issue, now, is i am not out and about enough…nor in such places that are perhaps more conducive to such sentiments…as i was, then….feed store, beer and cig store….and here on the farm with my insane and hateful mother…with the only view into the wider world being the news…mainstream and various alts.
i remember a study, long ago…regarding people who watched too much Law and Order having a skewed vision of the world outside.
this feels like a similar situation….but i cant afford to go anywhere….so all i have is avoiding the intertubes at times, as well as avoiding mom.
I wish my Long COVID allowed me to socialise more because I sense what you have put into words regarding preserving one’s humanity. I spent 20 years in a career desperately trying to improve population quality of life. I was damn good at doing stuff in an abstract sense. Plus I “kept in touch” via physical contact and the free-text comments in surveys like my end-of-life preferences one (which made me cry).
Now I feel I also have to avoid the web if I’m not to “get even more nihilist”. But what do you do when the web is what tells you what to do to avoid the “worst nasties” but simultaneously exposes you to the worst accounts of humanity which make you think “sod you all”?
My new Labour MP thinks its about sexuality etc (he has a husband). No, I’ve never had homosexual abuse here. I HAVE had 4 guys threaten to beat the shit out of me for daring to wear a mask in the local high street. Whatcha doing about that, or your leader Starmer? *crickets chirping*
Agreed. As a little schoolchildren I learned of cynicism as a response to history- a type of person or a specific person, repeated failures of models for a better mousetrap, etc. Not just being smug about being smarter than everyone and knowing they’re all bad guys.
Perhaps it’s a cynical attitude that’s make me wonder exactly what “drugs they were legally allowed” and treatments were being served up at the Olympics. Available to the average person? Suitable for the duration of the illness?
My own cynicism doesn’t assume purely selfish motivations of people, rather that institutional and cultural guiderails tend to keep our more humane impulses constrained. It’s functionally similar, but I think the distinction is important, because I am not a misanthrope: I love people, I just don’t often like or trust them.
Nobody takes performance enhancing drugs while backpacking other than M & M’s (not the candy kind) because it isn’t about sticking the finish, nobody is keeping track of how long it takes you on your sojourn, nor are there competitors, only others out enjoying themselves too.
I noticed some years ago that most everything I like to do, nobody keeps score.
So I vote for the guy who has no problems curtailing the reproductive freedoms of lower class women, or the gal who will probably sack Khan and curtail my freedom of speech against what the blob says I can safely talk about. And neither will support the working class. I hate this timeline.
Stoller says the Republicans are on board with significant portions of the antitrust agenda. As for Khan, Stoller says she would not serve as a commissioner of the minority party at the FTC. So there are plenty of reasons to be unhappy with the prospects of a Trump presidency, but antitrust isn’t a good one. Again, it was the FTC under Trump that filed the antitrust suit v. Google.
This link not working (takes you to an RT piece):
The Fajr massacre: Every 70 kg bag of human remains is considered a martyr Mondoweiss
Fixing…thanks!
Vanity Fair. The case that Abraham Lincoln had men as lovers and the case that one shouldn’t go poking in other people’s letters.
The article is worth a read, but it suffers from clear problems of presentism, including the presentist acceptation of the word “queerness.” So far as I am concerned, the term is about as warm and fuzzy and well-defined as “uppity Negro.”
There is the ritual genuflection to “fluidity,” whatever fluidity means. (Brown fingernail polish? Green ties on Thursdays? Wristwatches?)
At a certain basic civilizational level, that is, at a level to keep society functioning, one doesn’t have to know the tittle-tattle of everyone else’s lives. Here in the Undisclosed Region, one of the “ten commandments” is Fate ij tò afé = Mind your own business. (That includes you, Tartuffe.)
The remarkable thing about Abraham Lincoln is that he arose from nothing, from grinding poverty, to the presidency. I am reminded of Epaminondas, the general from Thebes who defeated the Spartans and freed their slaves, which destroyed the Spartan state. Epaminondas had men as lovers, and he never married. He was rather coy about not marrying, claiming that he had given Thebes great victories instead.
Those of us from Chicago also may find the news ho-hum. Lincoln is very much a physical presence, even still. The famous statue on Ridge Avenue near Clark, the Young Lincoln, is also known as Abe the Babe. And yes, as noted in the article, he has great thighs.
All in all, though, it appears that Lincoln’s erotic life now mainly serves academic promotions and ambitions. According to “Dr.” Balceski: ‘I also might’ve been among the first group of people who finally had a rich body of literature they could pick up on their library shelf or in a database that actually makes this argument about Lincoln’s sexuality in a way legitimized by our fields,” he says.’
Instead, “Doctor,” I will align with the timeless and peerless Sappho:
The Anactoria poem, its opening
Some say thronging cavalry, some say foot soldiers,
others call a fleet the most beautiful of
sights the dark earth offers, but I say it’s what-
ever you love best.
Lincoln can have as many love affairs as he likes. It’s grand. He was a looker in his younger days. Yet I will always be most grateful for his Second Inaugural Address and its grim insight into U.S. history.
This kind of speculation on Lincoln’s sexuality is not new. Just boring. Who cares? I don’t.
Indeed!
As a former academic who happens to be a gay man (though maybe queer is a better term? I dunno) I am inclined to say “Don’t you have better things to do?”
You could be investigating how concepts like MMT and land value taxation could be made into 60 second YouTube shorts so we don’t have to wait for several thousand AWFUL economists/decisionmakers in positions of power to die off.
It may be that this is 21st century ways of mores and customs which is trying to use them to look at 19th century people who people will be surprised to learn had their own mores and customs. So for example having inter-generational friendships was much more common back then. But nowadays, having a solid friendship between somebody in their 20s and their 60s for example is frowned upon and people are expected to have friendships with people in their own age cohort. And in reading of those times, you often had men having deep friendships with each other and expressing their emotions with each other. Can you imagine how that would play these days? Half would shout ‘That’s gay!’ while the other would think that they make a great couple. And neither half would realize how men have been educated to restrict their emotional bonds with other men as a matter of course. So I would be very wary about making conclusions about making assumptions about people from the 19th century or earlier. After all, when people back then described a guy as being a gay fellow, it does not mean what we think that it means.
They are shovelling human remains into 70kg bundles in Gaza. This is fine in Germany. I feel sick.
Yeah. There’s an image in a tweet embedded in the Craig Murray piece. Be forewarned. You can’t un-see it.
Even my black heart wants to have a good cry.
It would appear that while the amounts of food, water and medical supplies have been grotesquely restricted in Gaza by the israelis, the supply of plastic “waste” disposal bags has remained beyond generous and adequate.
Thank god for small favors.
I’m so angry I’m tearing ffs.
Just don’t get so angry that you block the 405 freeway in West LA.
There are some things that are just a bridge too far.
US ill-prepared for a nuclear showdown with China – Asia Times
Insanity. Stupidity.
No one could ever be prepared for a nuclear showdown.
People not even trying to think.
The story shows signs of being written by someone who didn’t really understand the issues discussed in the report, and just picked up bits at random and confused them with each other. And the headline was written by an intern who hadn’t read the story. Apart from that …
The real issue here is that it’s helpful to think of countries as behaving to each other much as criminal gangs do, seeking “respect” and the advantages that go with it, as well as strategic alliances and dominance over smaller groups. Just like the size of your gang, how well you are armed and how many politicians you control, nuclear weapons are a component part of international “respect,” although it’s more polite to say “status” and “influence.” In this, there’s a fairly clear hierarchy, starting with the US and Russia, who have traditionally been the two largest gangs (Russia took a hit for a while but it’s back now.) There’s China with its medium sized arsenal, then Britain and France, and then the declared and undeclared non-NPT states. For the US and Russia, the situation is clear, and their arsenals, including technical details and modernisation, are part of their international status and influence. For the British and French, it’s about the ability to hit back, and national survival, and the other nuclear powers have their own complex political dynamics. But China is an anomaly, because its arsenal is closer in size to that of France/UK, whereas it’s an economic giant and increasingly influential in international affairs. So the Chinese have a programme in hand to increase their nuclear forces in size, and, by the rules of the game, enhance their international status as peers of Russia and the US.
The US problem, then, is that like so much of their military structure, the ICBM force is aging and is going to be difficult and expensive to replace. Because a gang where the members can’t actually fight well loses “respect” from others, the US is concerned, logically I think, that the political force that the Chinese can bring to bear in crises will soon equal or exceed theirs.
Agree with what you say here. I would only add that going by that link in today’s Links – “China’s Rising Diplomatic Power” – that China is coming to the table with a full tool kit while the US has reduced itself to only using a hammer and wondering why it does not work anymore.
They can do all of that and so what? It’s a nuclear showdown. They won’t be prepared.
Prepared, in my mind, also includes being prepared for the aftermath of such an event.
Good point.
Minuteman is well over 50 years old. They are solid fuel! I do not know what the aging of the propellant does to the “impulse” of the burn.
Suppose it is like gun powder ofr 155 mm shells. Some of that still remains from WW II, and soldiers firing them have no ide how “long” the round/shell goes!
Given reliability decline in current US systems, the idea of MAD may be gone!
I just reread a fictional account of a very limited nuclear exchange between North Korea and US. By Jeffrey Lewis.
Horrifying!
In the aftermath of the Communist bloc party, one of the few things that was salable in the west to the public was oodles and oodles of decades old small arms ammo at almost give-away prices in the early 1990’s…
You wonder if the same fate will befall us, and old stocks of ammo will be one of the few things of value that comes out of the wreckage?
Might be an idea to stash away a few Canadian dollars as well-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBCIJ3QluHY (51 secs)
Was a funny time…
The Pomona gun show* held at the LA County Fairgrounds was where I used to go in search of aged round metal discs, and a glimpse at the loonie gun culture (not to be confused with C$’s) that hardly existed circa 1995.
The other item was uniforms, and you didn’t need to fit the credentials to be a general in the USSR, you merely needed to have the uniform fit. Might set you back $150 to look like Boris, darlink.
* banished from the LA County Fairgrounds in the aftermath of the Columbine shootings, one of the few actual measures meted out in regards to guns in the past quarter century, ha ha.
Nord Stream arrest warrant, details of the probe by Die Zeit (free access as of now, in German, amenable to browser translation):
https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2024-07/nordstream-anschlag-ermittlungen-festnahme/komplettansicht
“Advice from DEFCON: Turn off Bluetooth and WiFi”
Personally I thought this his best advice was his last one – using a Faraday bag. Sure, turning on Airplane Mode, disabling Location Services controls GPS & other location tracking methods, turning off WiFi and turning off Bluetooth sound great but there is a flaw. You have to depend on that fact that when you do so, that this actually happens. And as Silicon Valley corporations have proven multiple times, when they give you a Privacy Option it too often turns out to be a Placebo Option which does absolutely nothing. So yeah, go with a mechanical means and drop that device into a Faraday bag which actually works. Can’t do so because you absolutely must take images and videos? Then take a damn compact camera and upload them to your devices when you get home.
Using a second device with no internet access whatsoever to take a picture/video of something recorded on your primary device (then suitably stripped of remaining identifiers in Linux) is a way of making something ready to be uploaded in an internet cafe if no Faraday cage. You can also add “noise” so an AI is less likely to identify it.
Allegedly.
I wonder if a lot more of my fellow Brits will be doing stuff like this from now on? Hmmmm…..
The UK police have already announced that they have a team of their people scouring the net for images and videos that people have uploaded to see if they cannot identify the misdeeds of others. It may be a Darwinian process where people will learn to take counter measures like you suggested in your comment while those slow to learn go to court and prison.
Re counter-measures: deleted the Sainsburys app from phone which had allowed me+mum to do weekly shop using self-scan. I got very suspicious at how often we got “randomly” picked for manual total rescan or partial rescan at the “self-scan checkouts”.
I know our credit scores. I know our shopping patterns since I’m the primary carer. I know the variance in our shopping patterns. This did not stack up. So, I used my 20 year career in survey design to try something out – putting my health at risk – I tried not using the mask. No rescans. So I concluded that wearing a mask to try to keep you alive gets you an extra 20 mins shopping.
Sod that. When I help mum shop we do it the old fashioned way every time. Stick your self-scan where the sun don’t shine. Plus I remember when I first encountered self-service checkout – this gives an example but is NOT the original article which in typical google fashion I can no longer find, but which was based in Cremorne Sydney. It turned out to have the highest rate of fraud in all of Australia (people putting through posh fruit as cheap apples etc) in whole country despite being richest postcode.
Since Cremorne in Sydney is a very wealthy suburb (median house price of over 4 million bucks), I would not be surprised to see so much fraud going on. Here is another anecdote about the wealthy. They knocked down these office buildings on Sydney Harbour back in the late 90s but immediately cluttered that site up again with an apartment complex that because of its looks has been nicknamed “The Toaster.” You have to be a millionaire to afford an apartment here. So this night time security guard relates how late at night these wealthy people were going down to the ground floor to plug their mobiles into the electrical outlets meant for the cleaner’s appliances so that they could charge them up for free. Petty but that is how they think.
I’m sad that that doesn’t surprise me in the least. I saw blatant fraud across the lower North Shore routinely for 6 years. Plus, of course, the local MP (the “mad monk” and former PM) tried the sexuality etc card long before UK did and tried to get the two “nude OK” beaches banned by dogwhistling that “gay antics went on”.
It went wrong when it came out that the worst offences occurred on the “more straight beach” – it is DIRECTLY observable from a teenage sports court above and a male-female couple routinely invited people to join them at 4pm ish on many days. The “gayish beach” at least had the guys go do stuff somewhere discreet and unobservable and most actually went to a home to do it.
Mosman was a hotbed of debauchery and I was not the slightest bit surprised when the mad monk lost his seat. FFS I could see MF sex across the road from my friggin balcony when I lived there. Sheesh. Hypocrisy all round.
“Then take a damn compact camera and upload them to your devices when you get home.”
Why is it so hard for people to do?
I have the same questions about why people don’t go change their search engine settings or seem to think it’s impossible to go to a company’s site and download an app instead of using an “app store.”
I used to ask that question. Now I just realise that 99% of people are stupid or lazy or too overburdened by “stuff in life” that they just can’t think of doing that :(
Whilst I am always tempted to conclude they’re too stupid, I try to think back to when times were hard for me when I had to whistle-blow and when a person can be overburdened and make mistakes.
re: Social Security and Medicare “reform”, the thought occurs that current projections of future expeditures by these programs are likely to be seriously inaccurate due to the unknown severity of accumulating Long COVID effects on morbidity, and uncertainties about what the ongoing pandemic might do to, to put it euphemistically, the structure of the age distribution of the retiree population.
Why overcoming your cynicism could be key to a healthier, happier life and Lady Tyrell. My take on it is that people who say money can’t buy happiness clearly don’t have money. Lady Tyrell before meeting her unfortunate end, was as close to the top of the social hierarchy as she was going to get, so presumably she had led a very comfortable life, and it’s hard to be a true cynic when you are having the very best of the realm with every meal (the Reach was the most fertile region in Westeros and the wine from the Arbor well known throughout the realm).
I’d like to think of myself as a cynic, but then again I get to travel at least one month out of every year, and whenever I visit places like Japan, it’s usually enough to make me forget about all the brutalities in the outside world …. almost.
Money doesn’t buy happiness but it sure can make it so that you’re far less vulnerable to the inevitable downturns in life, if you have a bit of knowledge as to how to use it.
That wise philosopher Chris Rock once said-
‘Wealth isn’t about having lots of money; it’s about having lots of options.’
And he is right. The more money that you have, the more options that you can choose from.
I’ve always get a chuckle on the view of money by the David Lee Roth, the lead singer of the band Van Halen.
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/david_lee_roth_137387
And I recognize that with large money many times you are swapping one set of problems for another…
Hehe yeah!
Plus it is ironic that my professional career actually demonstrated the effect of money upon quality of life (NOT happiness which IMNSHO cannot be quantified via those stupid surveys). Quite believably, you get a big boost to quality of life if your income/wealth gets up to a reasonable level to allow you to do other things. Then the effect is subject to rapid diminishing returns.
I’m pretty sure that interaction terms between “yet more money” and “non monetary stuff in the real social domain” could add to the “money effect” but I never got the resources to go that far in my research. If I’m lucky, someone will take my research further.
For yours truly, time spent in mother nature’s realm allows me to overcome my inbred cynicism (those of Czech ancestry tend to paint it black-its our natural fallback position) tendencies if only for a brief respite, in that I don’t have to interpret everything and parse what is false or true because everything is as it appears, or in the case of clever camouflage-as it disappears.
Money means nothing as there isn’t anything to spend it on in the back of beyond and the wilderness doesn’t take American Express.
And then I come back to this jig saw puzzle of a world, perfectly encapsulated in this Richard Feynman quote:
Lady Tyrell was an autocrat and someone I would not applaud for one instant. (full disclosure, I have never watched that series, or any series for many years, and I’m pretty cynical)
Money might buy happiness, but only when one senses having enough (and no need for more) to enjoy that happiness. (I have very little money but am quite happy walking in nature, the cynicism takes over when observing humanities mischief).
I veer back and forth from scepticism to cynicism. Retiring from work helped ease my cynicism. Not being exposed to the PMC and moronic managers bent on making everything worse on a daily basis keeps me more in the sceptic lane these days. I see little to be optimistic about and truly don’t understand how anyone can be optimistic about life and the world these days. I am certainly grateful for the ease and comfort I have in my life, I just wish more of the world have what I have.
The U.S. Is Accelerating Towards Disaster – Daniel Larison
“By rushing more ships and planes to the region to bail out Netanyahu, the U.S. is accelerating towards disaster. Biden’s inflexible, ideological support for Israel may get a lot of American soldiers and sailors killed and injured in the coming months.”
It’s not going to be a disaster for the people making the decisions. They won’t be held accountable and will throw up more fake elections. They won’t be the ones dying.
And that’s what happens to soldiers. They get killed and injured and it’s more likely to happen when there are abject and unaccountable people in charge.
They just keep doing the same disaster over and over again.
from Sheerpost.
Patrick Lawrence: Israel Runs the U.S. No, the U.S. Runs Israel. No, Wait …
https://scheerpost.com/2024/08/10/patrick-lawrence-israel-runs-the-u-s-no-the-u-s-runs-israel-no-wait/
Just think: The person with the title of “Commander In Chief” has been a brain damaged puppet for the last four years and people are moving on to the next faux election like no one needs to answer for that.
There is a “constitutional” remedy for that. It’s just that the lady boss who accepted the responsibility for that remedy doesn’t want it anymore.
She’s too busy doin’ other shit.
It has been a couple of interesting days watching the aerial assault on a nothing burger of a wildfire in a wildly inaccessible place on high in the forest for the trees.
It’s the closet thing to an attack on a fixed position in WW2 one is likely to see, with a broad range of aircraft including 4 engine Hercules jobs and Chinook double-bladed helos and everything in-between.
The object of their desire to squelch is but 28 acres worth presently, with the thinking being nobody wants it to be the next Castle or KNP Fire, burning 100k acres instead.
The water for the Chinook helos comes from one of the finest fishing lakes around these parts-Evelyn Lake, in Mineral King.
High Sierra lake trout in the summer typically have a big head and a body that looks as if it has been systematically starved, as an ice rink forms in the winter-locking them out of nourishment largely during the long months of frigidity @ 9k to 10k. You almost feel sorry for them-the look being not dissimilar to a starved human child with bulging eyes and a withered body.
Evelyn Lake is different from most high altitude Sierra lakes which typically have an inlet stream and an outlet stream, as it only has an outlet stream, the lake being spring-fed, and as a result it doesn’t freeze over in the winter thanks to continual circulation.
Last time I was there with my longtime backpacking partner who is a catch and release fly fisherman, he went off to do his thing, while I settled for reading a good book back in camp, and when he returned a few hours later, I inquired as to the results?
’50 casts, 43 rainbows & 6 browns, all 10-12 inches long’
I had to chide him of course on the solo missed opportunity, and he laughed, claiming it was tantamount to a carnival game on the midway where you win the kewpie doll every time you play, not that fun-but it makes you appreciate lesser lakes more, he added.
I’d imagine a number of said trout were roasted on the fire in the past few days, which will make it more difficult post-rapture, in future fishing forays.
The cost to fight the conflagration must surely be in the millions now, and only after a fire has started do the purse strings come undone, not before.
If Sequoia NP wanted $2 or $3 million to clear out the forest of much duff on the ground in preventing future wildfires from doing their worst, Congress would laugh at them (the new budget for NPS is 6% less than last year, coming on the previous year’s 6% cut, on top of the 6% cut a few years prior) but for some reason once a wildfire starts, the money always becomes available, a bit queer that.
https://inciweb.wildfire.gov/incident-information/caknp-coffeepot-fire
But where are your million dollar mcmansions? Priorities. Real estate must be defended.
And sorry about the trout. Here in SC we are in monsoon after a previous month long period with almost no rain.
There is exactly 1 million dollar mcmansion around these parts that i’m aware of, a 6,500 sq foot beauty built in 1938-39 on the east fork of the Kaweah River and it comes with a Sequoia grove across a bridge over said river from the residence.
An amazing place, I was there last week hanging out with a friend who is one of the caretakers. Very little has been changed or altered in the past 85 years. It still has the same hydroelectric system utilizing a Pelton wheel, and the shingles on the roof, each cut from a fallen Sequoia, are still on the job.
The look of the place was certainly was inspired by the Ahwahnee hotel in Yosemite.
Memes Pose a Threat to the US Financial System: RAND Report – Hacker Noon
“Memetic engineering involves the strategic creation or manipulation of ideas, concepts, or beliefs to influence a targeted audience, often relying on psychological triggers or cognitive biases.”
“It is a more targeted attack than a deepfake attack and can be tailored to specific individuals or groups based on their position within social and economic networks.”
These so-called “memetic engineered attacks” can either hit financial institutions quickly to cause a rapid frenzy over a specific set of stocks, or slowly to degrade confidence in the market or financial institutions over time…”
RAND wants people to believe the only thing wrong with “markets” is people pointing out what’s wrong with them and not the exploitation, short-term thinking, enshittification, hyper-financialization, and exaltation of con men.
RAND is worried about “The Confidence Fairy.”
I guess Russian financial system is built different, because the whole NAFO army fighting it with memes didn’t do much. Or maybe, they are not properly implementing RAND report on fighting Russia with memetic engineered attacks.
Re: PFAS. Poisoned by our own air force. I know it’s far from the first time, and certainly won’t be the last:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/12/air-force-epa-water-pfas-tucson
Re: PFAS and other “forever” chemicals. They are STILL used to coat dental floss. To keep it simple, I regard only unwaxed floss as safe to use:
https://www.consumerreports.org/toxic-chemicals-substances/dental-floss-without-pfas-and-other-harmful-chemicals-a9722832754/
RE: 🐝 ‘I Will Fix Things If You Vote Me Into Office,’ Says Woman Currently In Office Babylon Bee
Way too close to reality to even be considered sarcasm.
Forget border czar or whatever, kamala harris was “elected” by the american people with ONE and only ONE job–to replace the president in the event of his incapacity. “Ready on Day 1.”
And she is refusing to do it. Simple as that.
There are about a billion reasons why, if she actually was possessed of presidential mettle, she would have done the duty she was sworn to do and replaced biden. Considering the circumstances–zelensky attacking Russia as an american proxy and american war ships steaming to the Middle East to “support” israel–leaving the country leaderless to “campaign” for the job that she won’t do right now should be considered beyond dereliction of duty, and should immediately disqualify her for the position she claims to want.
I guarantee that, had Donald Trump been in the same position as she, biden would have been gone months if not years ago.
So the next time you are subjected to her mindless giggling or her cosplay of lady-bossing or her “ready on day 1” walz schtick, consider what she COULD and SHOULD be doing RIGHT NOW, and ask yourself why she’s not doing it.
What a complete fucking joke this whole thing is.
re: The nation’s best hackers found vulnerabilities in voting machines — but no time to fix them
Well then, hand marked paper ballots hand-counted in public. Fixed. / ;)
https://www.electiondefense.org/paper-ballots
Depends on whether one thinks the vulnerabilities are a feature or a bug.
According to my PMC friends, those people who shut down the freeway “should all be clubbed like Rodney King was.” Yes, one guy actually said that.
I’m not sure if these people read anything outside their self made bubble, or they are just stupid. It’s like they have no clue what is going on over there. Or maybe they do and don’t care. They think Israel is just defending themselves and are squeaky clean in all this. They vehemently reject genocide, or the current administrations hand in all this.
Amazing
>I’m not sure if these people read anything outside their self made bubble, or they are just stupid. It’s like they have no clue what is going on over there
I would suggest it’s both…
Re: The Big Heat
During our time in hell recently over a fortnight, when it was 112 here @ 1,000 feet, it was 98 degrees @ 7,800 feet in Mineral King Valley, a niggardly decrease of 2 degrees per 1,000 feet of altitude gained, compared to the usually reliable near 3.5 degrees difference.
We don’t have glaciers to speak of here, so it only affects flora & fauna up top making a living in that everything on this good orb is used to tolerances. It allows us to grow food in a certain time of the year reliably when temperatures and weather conditions are just right, and its similar for denizens in the higher heights-which in no way or how know what 98 degrees must feel like, as it was a by-product of our heat dome, and the one in Europe causing such prolonged high temps in mountains with glaciers.
Its pretty obvious that we’re gonna bake, and going higher doesn’t seem to be the solution, while going lower in unchanged and easier.
Who knew that a circa 1961 fallout shelter in case the reds pushed the button down, would make for a most excellent heat fallout shelter?
Look at the bright side. If Biden has his way you may get to use that fallout shelter for its intended purpose after all. Be the only person in your town with a fallout shelter. And after WW3 breaks out, end up being the only person in your town.
Re store tracking–since I hang out at Walmart from time to time i can report that their once wide open store wifi was recently switched to a system where you have to establish an account that is confirmed via phone text–identity harvesting 101. And even without this it’s likely that the other store wifi systems with a terms of service check page are tracking the sites you visit while online. Therefore it’s a good thing that no national governments are threatening to monitor online activity and make pre-crime arrests. Oh wait.
Of course all that free wifi is useful and a great convenience so we have to decide how much of our privacy is worth defending. But bluetooth at least should certainly be kept off unless you are using a bluetooth accessory.
Ozempic: I have a friend (Portland, Oregon area) who is dying of stomach cancer/final stage. He’s 72 and was always quite heavy and unsurprisingly developed type 2 diabetes and was put on Ozempic. Anyway, one of his Oncologists suggested that Ozempic may have contributed to the cancer.
I guess/perhaps they’re seeing an increase in stomach cancer with the increase usage of Ozempic type drugs. Sure hope not.
Drives me nuts that we haven’t been screaming from the rooftops for the past 30+ years that you DON’T WANT DIABETES!!!!!! So So So depressing how many obese people there are today. Stay Healthy! Peace!
I enthusiastically second the endorsement of Scott Alexander’s ozempic post. It is a challenging read though and definitely not for everybody.
Over a year ago he did a related one which also was really great.
Semaglutidonomics
Scott’s average post is way too tedious to mess with but his all time top ten is as good as anybody’s.
Sheep in sweaters: they’ve been groomed to perfection and are being kept clean and tidy for the competition.
Re: Protesters with IfNotNow have blocked off the 405 freeway in West LA….
For those not familiar with the area, it’s near the UCLA campus and would disrupt the travel of some of the wealthier citizens.
“The Paris Olympics is the first Games that let COVID run free, and it impacted how the event played out”
On health grounds alone, I think that the Paris Olympics will be seen as a fiasco. If professional athletes develop Long Covid from these games wrecking their careers, will they seek to sue the OIC and the Parisian officials? The attitude seems to have been to treat Covid just like the flu. So we see now how that worked out. There was also an element of gaslighting going on. When some athletes were vomiting their guts out after swimming in the Seine, people were saying that this happened all the time with triathlon athletes – until triathlon athletes themselves said that they had never seen this happen before. I wonder if they will try the same strategy in LA in 2028.
i stumbled across these guys last night. very interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/@neutralitystudies
if they have already been covered here, my apologies.
I found him in the last month too but haven’t yet linked to any of his talks in Links (because way too many YouTubers and videos slower to digest than text, so I am pretty stringent) but yes, I liked the IIRC two I heard so far.
Modern warfare is incredibly deadly. Do not start a war. Because proportionality is at the core of military necessity, if you start a war, the value assigned to non-combatants plummets. During the Iraq War, the Pentagon dialed-in the non-combatant value at “29”. More than 29 civilians killed during an operation to kill or capture one HVT is not acceptable. [Israel’s wartime NCV is lower, meaning fewer civilian casualties are acceptable, with a couple of carve-outs for several leaders.] Let’s say you did not start a war. In peace time, counter-terror operations have NCVs set at “1”. Safer for everybody, no?
Look at Yemen, suffered the largest outbreak of cholera ever recorded because investment earmarked for water and sewer infrastructure is being launched at merchant sailors. Children suffer malnutrition because of disease flowing in the streets, no matter how much aid is sent. In the Houthi’s war against the West, the Houthi set the effective NCV at “50,000”, or so. Responsibility for mass death is conveniently placed squarely on the will of the deity.
There is no fundamental difference between a successful “military operation” and an “atrocity”, only whether a participant considers himself the victor, or not, post facto. “Special Military Operation” might be the biggest whopper of them all. Not even Hamas could be that callous and boring — someone can be a luckier person than somebody else, not having to look down a barrel everyday, but don’t kid yourself, there are no “better” people out there.
As expected at the Paris Ozempics, Americans did well at weight lifting, with a lass from Oshkosh dropping a stone in the fortnight and a farmer from the Midwest famished, but not hungry after garnering the gold in the Poundthion event.
Quite an interesting juxtaposition between Craig Murray’s piece on facing the reality of the true evil nature of our governments, and the RAND report fearing that if people learn the reality then the financial system will be impacted.
Of course these are connected. The dollar platform is the bedrock upon which the western governments are built. The true functions of these institutions is preserving the privileges of the wealthy. Through history the best strategy for doing this was to ensure hoi polloi have a tolerable life. Evidently they’ve decided this is too expensive, or insufficiently profitable. But regardless of reason the writing is on the wall. The financial system must be disrupted for change to occur. Unfortunate that it has come to this, but it is a chosen fate. Ironically enough, the governments are doing it to themselves.