The banana apocalypse is coming. Can we stop it this time? ZME Science
Can Art Save the “Post-Apocalyptic” Salton Sea? Sapiens
Pandemics
Structure and inhibition of SARS-CoV-2 spike refolding in membranes Science. Seems important.
As new school year opens, COVID-19 surge forces abrupt classroom closures in the US WSWS
***
Key drug doesn’t work against deadly new mpox virus, study finds Politico
Mpox risks spreading in Congo’s crowded mines, refugee camps Bloomberg
***
Plant pandemics: They are the next big contagion and pose threats to global food security Down to Earth
Climate/Environment
“Dark Oxygen” Findings Could Sink Deep Sea Mining IEEE Spectrum
Hurricane Ernesto arrived way early. It’s an ominous sign. Grist
Africa
The geopolitics of the war in Sudan An Africanist Perspective
China?
Bond market struggle; PRC views of US election; Stock market; WeRide in the US; Sabina Shoal; Foreign carmakers crash Sinocism (Micael)
China to restrict exports of strategic metal antimony Asia Times
China’s new maritime goliath poised to patrol disputed seas Asia Times (Kevin W)
Syraqistan
Israel reduced ‘humanitarian zone’ to 11% of Gaza, says UN agency Anadolu Agency
At least 10 killed in Israeli attack on southern Lebanon Al Jazeera
Israeli airstrike kills at least two Palestinians in West Bank, health ministry says Reuters
She was documenting and publishing evidence of Israel methodically sniping children in the head https://t.co/FO0qEVawek
— Jennine (@lilearthquakess) August 16, 2024
Gaza sees first polio case in 25 years as UN calls for mass vaccinations The Guardian
Israel massacres Gaza family following two days of ‘constructive’ ceasefire talks The Cradle
Biden ‘optimistic’ about Gaza cease-fire deal Anadolu Agency
“‘All due respect.'” The Floutist
***
Leaked Israeli Docs Reveal Effort to Evade Foreign Agent Lobbying Law Lee Fang
***
Iraq postpones announcing end date of US troop presence The Cradle
European Disunion
The strange death of the German authoritarian liberal political class Defend Democracy Press. (Micael): “This is premature.”
Polish leader urges Nord Stream patrons to ‘keep quiet’ as pipeline mystery returns to spotlight AP
New Not-So-Cold War
America’s JASSM air to ground stealth missiles and Russian plans to use tactical nukes Gilbert Doctorow
Russia informs IAEA about Ukraine’s alleged plans to target Zaporizhzhia, Kursk nuclear power plants Anadolu Agency
Ukrainian troops trained in UK before attacking Kursk WSWS. Commentary:
Sentiment here in Russia has in my view changed dramatically, friends that were relatively liberal about the Conflict are now far less so,
Since the Kursk attack, its increasingly being related to me that this will have to be ended on the battlefield. the idea of the “fraternal… https://t.co/rzTpuBqfuV
— Chay Bowes (@BowesChay) August 17, 2024
Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk Oblast disrupts secret talks with Russia on stopping attacks on power facilities – WP Ukrainska Pravda. Commentary:
“Sir, we’re losing the war! The frontline can’t hold up for much longer!”
“Have you considered undertaking an obviously suicidal action that will shut down any hope of negotiating our way out of this and doom us entirely?”
— Philip Pilkington (@philippilk) August 17, 2024
Nato’s folly Prospect Magazine
Fitch downgrades Ukraine to ‘RD’ – Default The International Affairs (Micael)
***
FBI searches US home of Soviet-born Biden critic RT
Russian Messianism: A Roundtable Discussion Landmarks: A Journal of International Dialogue
***
Kadyrov said he received a Tesla Cybertrack from Elon Musk. He promised to send it to the “special military operation” zone and attached a machine gun to it.
“Elon, thank you! Come to Grozny, I will receive you as the most dear guest! I do not think that our Russian MFA will be… pic.twitter.com/m72fg2G2PU
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) August 17, 2024
South of the Border
Elon Musk’s X to shut operations in Brazil amid bitter legal fight Al Jazeera
Spook Country
Google: Iranian hackers targeting affiliates of both US presidential campaigns The Record
OpenAI Says It Caught a ChatGPT-Powered ‘Iranian Influence Operation’ Gizmodo
Kamala
Kamala Harris outlines pro-corporate economic agenda at North Carolina campaign stop WSWS.
Harris’ plan to stop price gouging could create more problems than it solves CNN (Kevin). So Harris comes out with a non-plan to tackle price gouging. Her campaign can’t even explain what would constitute excessive profit, what a ban on price gouging would target, or how it would be enforced. Maybe the obfuscation is the point. Harris also mentioned her supposed opposition to concentration and price fixing, yet failed to voice support for Jonathan Kanter and the DOJ antitrust division and Lina Khan and the Federal Trade Commission who for the first time in decades are aggressively going after these practices? It seems that’s something Harris would note in her big economic policy rollout if she were serious.
Another perspective:
1. Ok why is Kamala Harris talking about price-fixing, gouging, mergers, and general pricing bullshit? Obviously it polls well. But why? Let’s go over the *evidence* for why Americans are mad at big business over pricing. Let’s start with rent. https://t.co/bvMr7JaqbJ pic.twitter.com/z9Wed8C9bb
— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) August 16, 2024
So why can’t Harris just say she supports Khan and results like this:
where can i get a Lina Khan yard sign? https://t.co/bnW9eeCdzB
— Molly White (@molly0xFFF) August 17, 2024
Antitrust
Judge temporarily blocks sports streaming service Venu, siding with Fubo on antitrust concerns CNBC
Kroger now claims it will cut prices by $1 billion post-merger, 2x the previous claim. Either (1) they magically discovered half a billion dollars’ worth of extra efficiencies, or (2) they *already* wield pricing power… which the merger would increase.https://t.co/bmLRzLjBQW
— John Mark Newman (@johnmarknewman) August 16, 2024
Democrats en déshabillé
Look who’s funding the local Democratic Party 48 Hills. San Francisco.
Budget Cuts Threaten SF Food Programs for Seniors and Adults With Disabilities San Francisco Public Press
The toxic conversation about people out of work needs to stop. It’s harming disabled people The Big Issue
Police State Watch
Oakland’s Summer of Discontent Bleeding Edge
Imperial Collapse Watch
America’s Out-of-Control Client States Nonzero Newsletter
The US needs more pop-up air bases worldwide to keep enemies guessing Foundation for Defense of Democracies
The Navy Runs Out of Pants for Its Working Uniform – Won’t Get More Until October Military.com
Groves of Academe
‘A police state’: US universities impose rules to avoid repeat of Gaza protests The Guardian
Our Famously Free Press
A year after Marion County Record raid, authorities keep ignoring press rights Freedom of the Press Foundation
Healthcare?
California moves to cut medicine prices with novel deal on opioid overdose drugs FT. (Phil)
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
U.S. Transportation Department announces ambitious, high-tech roadway safety plan The Detroit News (Kevin W)
AI
Popular AI “nudify” sites sued amid shocking rise in victims globally Ars Technica
What comes after the AI crash? Disconnect
The Bezzle
Dubai court recognizes crypto as a valid salary payment Coin Telegraph
Google threatened tech influencers unless they ‘preferred’ the Pixel The Verge
Class Warfare
A Kaleckian approach to financialization and functional income distribution: Austria and Finland in comparative perspective Institute for International Political Economy Berlin. From the abstract: “…we expect financialization to influence the aggregate wage share through three channels: (1) sectoral recomposition, (2) financial overhead costs and rentiers’ profits claims, and (3) bargaining power of trade unions and workers. We empirically analyze the long-term trends for each of the channels before and after the Great Financial Crisis and the Great Recession for Austria and Finland. Overall, we find evidence for all three re-distributional channels contributing to the changes in functional income distribution. The explanatory power of the individual channels, however, differs strongly due to the heterogeneity of the countries.”
“Disenshittify or Die” Cory Doctorow, Pluralistic
Public Ownership of Public Goods How Things Work
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
229 comments
Comments are closed.
‘Anton Gerashchenko
@Gerashchenko_en
Kadyrov said he received a Tesla Cybertrack from Elon Musk. He promised to send it to the “special military operation” zone and attached a machine gun to it.’
Kadyrov was wise to get this thing out of his country. You would never know if there was an inbuilt tracker in that hunk of junk so that a “Ukrainian” missile might home in on it to kill him.
You don’t need a tracker for “Ukrainian” missile to home in on the Grozny parking lot where that hunk of junk will be exclusively driven on as a circus attraction.
P.S. One should notice that, as a matter of precausion, the Kord heavy machine gun on top is kept emty at all times, because an accidental firing could cause an empty shell casing to scratch the roof painjob.
He’s sending it to the Ukraine. Does it ever rain there? Because the Tesla Cybertrack has a bad habit of rusting in the rain.
He promised to send it to the “special military operation” zone, for trolling/propaganda reasons. He’s isn’t sending this shopping-mall-parking-lot-queen anywhere outside of the range of the charging station.
Caught a sighting of on yesterday, nearby in Greenville, SC. I said Robocop and brother said Mad Max…either works I think. To my eyes it is a most ridiculous appearing vehicle.
And I’m still of an age when AMC was producing a few hideous looking vehicles!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Motors_Corporation
Notice any similarities?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_F-117_Nighthawk#/media/File:F-117_Nighthawk_Front.jpg
At least AMC’s vehicles performed as transportation and didn’t look like they were designed by a six year old.
I saw one the other day and, not knowing about the vehicle beforehand, I was convinced that it was a movie prop being driven to where the film was being shot….
I remember those. The AMC Gremlin. A real work of art.
I saw a Musk truck the other day that was “wrapped” in solid black. I guess it had the dual purpose of protecting the metal and making the owner feel special.
With strong metta, I share this: Googly eyes improve Tesla’s Cybertruck
I call out “Cyberderp!!” every time I pass one, perhaps juvenile but ah well.
When I was a kid, I liked the AMC’s because of their distinctive styling. The Pacer hatchback still catches the eye.
I think the Cybertruck looks ugly and unfunctional, but it’s certainly recognizable. For some, that will be good enough.
I just don’t like people getting subsidized to buy them.
Nope. In practical terms, JASSM can be shot down mid-flight just like any other missile of that type. It is not a wunderwaffe any more than Storm Shadow or SCALP are (or the almost mythical Taurus). What this means is that Russia does not need to end humanity because of another batch of cruise missiles.
P.S. I expect US to have sent a shipment of short range ones, as a “refill” for Storm Shadows and SCALPs that must have been running low by now, and also as an encouragement for ze Germans to send those Tauruses already.
And to add to your line of thought, I don’t see why a tactical nuke is necessary even if Russia did decide to strike bases. Hypersonic missiles are mighty destructive. And F-16s are so fussy they need golf green runways. Just keep taking the runways out. The West won’t be able to rebuild them to the needed level of perfection quickly. It’s not as if you can slap down tarmac and reboot.
Don’t even take the runways out. Just load a small drone with tiny shreds of metal (manganese, say) and scatter them over the runway like confetti. Splat.
Nonmagnetic chaff
Oh, that’s a nasty, nasty idea. Well done!
I was going to comment as above but you’ve said it. The real vulnerability of the JASSM is the aircraft. I’m beginning to get worried, though, about the facility with which otherwise sensible people seem to be obsessed with the idea of nuclear weapons being used, even in such obviously ridiculous cases as this one. It’s almost as if they are willing the weapons to be used … It makes my skin crawl.
This is how it all started. With Zelensky going around the Munich Conference just before the war saying aloud that the Ukraine was going to be getting nuclear weapons with no western leader telling him to shut up. To Russia, Nazis with nukes was the ultimate red line so here we are two and a half years later. The recent bombing of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and the threat to do the same to the Kursk nuclear power plant only confirms to the Russians that they were right to invade.
I have been seeing a lot of buzz on the internet for a couple of months on how clean of radioactive fallout the modern nuclear explosives are. Some think tank groups almost seem to have ditched the taboo on nuking people.
Even if that’s true, how many warheads in the inventory are modern?
“The real vulnerability of the JASSM is the aircraft. ”
Yes. As soon as the aircraft reveals itself to launch the missile, it becomes vulnerable to counter-fire. This is exactly what happened (my own conclusion based on evidence) in Ukraine along the Kursk front – the Ukrainians were trying to take out a bridge without success with ground-launched missiles; in frustration they used a SU-25 to launch a JDAM smart bomb, which destroyed the bridge. But the Russians spotted the aircraft and destroyed it. And then built a pontoon bridge to replace the destroyed bridge in ONE DAY!
As a chess move, advantage Russia. A replaceable bridge lost by Russia; a very expensive aircraft lost by Ukraine.
Lots of rivers in Russia and East Europe.
The Russians are adept at pontoon, and other types of transportable bridging.
Plus most of their equipment are amphibious (And they never gave up on deep water fording for their tanks.) Russians can cross decent sized rivers in force practically without any delay. Not many rivers in Europe that can actually hold them up for long, I suspect.
Heavy damage to airfields is regularly repaired quickly–often measured in hours, not days. Suppressing an airfield would take routine conventional strikes, so it’s not very practical.
But of course it makes no sense to wildly escalate with nukes over a few F-16s for Ukraine. I can’t imagine anyone resorting to tactical nukes unless we were in the runup for a full-on NATO invasion of Russia, and that isn’t happening.
You are talking over my point. F-16s require exceptionally clean and smooth runaways. Your example is irrelevant.
From Reuters:
https://www.reuters.com/graphics/UKRAINE-CRISIS/FIGHTER-JETS/jnvwwqyylvw/
Bloomberg reported that many of Ukraine’s runways are not good enough for F-16s and the ones that are are vulnerable to Russian attack:
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/kiev-f-16-hopes-stifled-by-language-barriers–runways–parts
And the idea that Ukraine can upgrade or repair airbases without Russia seeing and stopping that is a pipe dream:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0kr240gd18o
As to how much work it would take for Ukrainian bases, I don’t know. I think the problem is overstated as Ukraine has proved very resourceful so far, but that’s just a guess and I wasn’t attempting to argue that point. Apologies if that’s how it came across.
Doctorow’s quote was about nuking NATO airfields (e.g. in Romania). And AFAICT US/NATO engineering units routinely train for airbase repairs lasting no more than a few hours. That covers dealing with big craters on bases that handle F-16’s and other finicky western planes.
(To repeat, I don’t agree with Doctorow’s point that Russia will be remotely tempted to use nukes over JASSM’s or even NATO-basing).
Are you kidding me? The US and NATO have not trained under conditions where an enemy can and will repeatedly strike an airbase, AND THE REPAIR CREWS WHILE THEY ARE REPAIRING. That is before getting to the fact that Russia would also attack repair equipment and supplies.
In other words, what about war and Russia having air supremacy in Ukraine don’t you understand?
To reinforce, maintenance crews for high tech, high performance aircraft are highly specialized people with specialized equipment that can’t be replaced with just anyone.
Further, many of these crews are civilian contractors who are not paid to work under fire and can’t be ordered to do so by the various commanders.
>>>Further, many of these crews are civilian contractors who are not paid to work under fire and can’t be ordered to do so by the various commanders.
Interesting. Until about four hundred years ago most artillery especially siege guns were handled by civilian contractors. As they were civilians and their guns was their livelihoods, even the smallest threat, such as an attack directly on them during a battle, and the contractors would just leave. Preferably with their guns in tow.
Kings and generals got tired of losing battles (and wars) as artillery became increasingly decisive. They cut out the contractors and began building their own artillery.
Nice to see the military’s public-private partnerships possibly bite.
The main problem that F16s pose, I suspect, is that, regardless of what official propaganda is, they will be operating from NATO territories and that will be obvious to anyone following the war. They’ll be used as a pretext (if they invite Russian attack) for the next propaganda line, “unprovoked American aggression without a declaration of war on peaceful Japanese planes at Pearl Harbor,” or the equivalent thereof. Whether anyone bites this, who knows…
Two things.
One – the Americans would be foolish to do this, but a way to try and keep JASSM-launching F-16s safe is to base them just outside Ukraine, e.g. in Moldova, Bulgaria or Romania. The hope would be that the Russians would not hit the airfields there (even though the Russians have said several times that they very well might). Moldova is of particular interest, since it is very close to the launching points vs. targets in Crimea, and is not a member of NATO, so Article 5 doesn’t come into play if worst comes to worst.
I say this is foolish, but at least some of the people in Washington might think it clever. Just like all the previous times they’ve escalated. So let’s hope that idea is never tested. But by the way, whether the F-16s are based in Ukraine, outside Ukraine, or wherever else, for now we are talking about a handful of aircraft and six certified pilots. Any JASSM strike, therefore, is going to be pretty small, a few missiles at a time, which might just be a small enough escalation not to cross too many Russian red lines. They will still be sweeping any in-Ukraine airfields for evidence of F-16s, of course, that’s a given.
Two – the Russian TV propagandist, Solov’ev, has been making very bellicose noises on his show for the better part of a year now. Calling specifically for the use of tactical nukes in response to, well, anything the West or the Ukrainians do; or, as an alternative, calling for the outright destruction of a few Ukrainian cities, after giving the population 72 hours to evacuate. He is obviously working an angle, he always is, but it seems that either he and Medvedev (and some others) are trying to coopt the more hard-minded segment of the population – remember, a few election cycles ago, the nationalists could consistently get 10%-15% of the vote – or there is a hardline segment in the Russian government that is trying to push for escalation. My point is, rationally it makes no sense for the Russians to use tactical nukes at present, even from a purely theoretical-military standpoint (there aren’t concentrated enough targets, and the radioactive effects go down to “acceptable” levels within two hours or two days, depending on which effects you’re talking about – so you won’t shut down military transit through the explosion area). However, if one of the biggest talk shows on the biggest TV channel spends a year talking about using tactical nukes…something has to be driving it.
I think basing F16’s outside Ukraine is the point: that is the only way any of these would possibly work. So F16’s that may or may not have Ukrainian colors but are piloted by NATO pilots (pretending to be Ukrainians) will be operating from NATO bases launching missiles at Russia from NATO airspace. In the old days, it would be called an act of war with (a lot of) perfidy (worse, in a way, than the attack at Pearl Harbor.) It will be a day that will live in damned infamy for the Russians and will be rightfully treated as such…but it is such a too-clever-by-half trickery that so-called leaders in the West love nowadays so I honestly think that is exactly the plan that they have in mind. If that is so, I hope they get turned to glass very slowly when their day comes.
The JASSM can be fired from any type of aircraft eg B-52, Cargo Plane. It is a ‘standoff’ weapon, capable of hitting Russia. If it is launched from an F-16 flying over Ukraine, that is roughly equivalent to stuff they are currently doing.
But if they are fired from outside Ukraine, that is roughly equivalent to US missiles fired from NATO airspace. If they don’t work, it is a bad idea. If they do prove effective, it is an extremely bad idea.
All the things they said they would never do. It’s like they were the exact things they are now anxious to do.
I always thought Karaganov’s argument, which seems to be gaining momentum, was to make an example: a radioactive Warsaw today could be Berlin, Paris, London, or New York tomorrow if they keep meddlong. The aim would be politocal, not military. Kinzhals won’t have tbe same impact. But the catch is that the point of this would be to inflict mass civilian casualty, which Russians are clearly averse to–altbougj, there might be something to showing what a “real full scale attack,” not what Western propaganda outlets label as such…but this, too, is a politocal decision… Doctorrow is not helping by carelessly mixing politics and military, I think.
I’ve seen a number of comments over the years regarding what it takes to remove a runway from service. It takes a lot, because holes in a runway may quickly be patched up in a matter of hours. That may be why Doctorow thinks a small nuke is needed. But as we’ve also seen mentioned repeatedly of late, the F-16 requires a very clean runway surface, which may cause difficulties in repairing their runways. Too, Aurelien has written how a large scale war is not so easily started as some seem to think. I hope he’s right.
Since I started reading Gilbert Doctorow around the start of the SMO I notice how very often he writes and talks about scary scenarios involving Russia’s use of nuclear weapons. It’s like a thing he does and I don’t really understand. Maybe it helps him to get invited as the expert on TV news.
Both Doctorow and Baudi are for a reason concerned that simultaneous NATO expansion and US withdrawal from practically all nuclear weapons agreements has resulted in less than 5 minutes of reaction time from suspected launch of a nuclear attack to launch of a nuclear retaliation.
With no trust between the West and the rest of the world, Russia will have to treat every F-16 taking off as a potential nuclear threat, and basically the faith of the globe depends on the cool nerves of an unknown major in the Russian missile defense forces looking at the situation screen in some bunker.
You’ll understand when the power goes out— forever.
Agree there is too much loose nuclear talk across the board. Most of it is overblown–particularly over the issue of Ukrainian F-16’s, JASSMs, and theoretical not-ever-going-to-happen B61s. Some of it is clickbait for sure: Western nonsense but also Russian “Voenkori”, Solovyov’s show, and the like.
Things like the German missile plan and the lack of negotiations/agreements are genuinely concerning though.
Dr Doctorow is in his late 70’s or early 80’s so he grew up at the height of the nuclear threat of the Cold War and must remember the Cuban Missile Crisis clearly. Plus the duck and hide under your school desk drills and people building bomb shelters in their back yards.
Ray McGovern is of the same generation ad often expresses similar worries.
Younger generations grew up with MADD and really did not think anyone would use nuclear weapons. Doctorow and McGovern were having daily or weekly drills on how to survive such an attack.
To use a poor reverse example, no schoolchild in the USA in the 1950s would have credited the chance of a school shooting. Today every child in the USA probably goes through shooter drills on a regular basis.
I think both are a bit alarmist but given the level of competence we see in Washington I am not discounting a mini-nuke, I just do not think it’s something the Russians would do.
Weird, no comments?
In Praise of the Weird ;-)
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/08/in-praise-of-the-weird.html
When are they going to start using other grade school expressions like “smelly”, “loser”, and “dork”?
Something my granddaughter said yesterday reminded me of the ultimate ‘weird boy’ put-down and reputation-destroyer among us eleven and twelve year old girls in grade school in the early 1950’s: He sniffs the girls’ bicycle seats! (We all rode our bikes to school.)
Nobody recovered from that one!
It took we eleven and twelve year old boys quite a time to recover from those malodorous bicycle seats. Then some of us ‘graduated’ to fraternity “panty raids” on the sorority houses. Later, many of that same cohort ‘graduated’ yet again to Public Service jobs.
I’ll bet money on the female employees at Langley having to do periodic anti-surveillance sweeps of their bathrooms in the building.
Hmmm. Maybe it wasn’t creepy, just “weird”, President Biden sniffing little girls hair and getting all touchy with females.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hh0PBr6ZUN0
Fixed that for ya! :)
It scared me so bad I ran off the check live news feeds to make sure that a bad bomb hadn’t arrived on planet USA. After all, living down here how exactly would I know?
“The Navy Runs Out of Pants for Its Working Uniform – Won’t Get More Until October”
Why don’t they give out contracts to private companies to fill out demand? Working pants are hardly high tech and it is not like Russian and Chinese spies are trying to steal their blueprints. Last I heard, a lot of US military uniforms are made in prisons so perhaps they need to send more people to jail to boost the workforce.
It a ruse, by a tactical genius admiral-in-skirt. If you wear no pants, you can not be caught with your pants down. Also, bonus diversity points.
We will need Kamala back in office to keep more free people in prison.
I’d suggest the jokes can just write themselves….make puns not war! Reminding me of the early scene from the first Hangover movie. They awake in a very drunk stupor…and find a tiger in the bathroom of their suite at Caesars Palace. The exceptional country, our modern America.
“Bro can you just put on some pants? I find it weird to need to ask you twice.”
“Onward Christian Soldier…we’ll make the uniforms.”
Can’t they just go commando?
Very droll. :-)
So, not only does the emperor have no clothes, the navy doesn’t either?
you have to check where the fabric is made. most likely, china.
according to bill clinton, under free trade no one wants to upset the apple cart, gene the towering mental midget sperling even parroted it also.
so the chinese do not want to upset the apple cart. they decided to stop the neo-liberals from upsetting the apple cart and either slow down exports, or just quit certain exports.
so our police state forced labor wall street patriots, most likely use foreign fiber, yarn, and fabrics.
simply hilarious!
Doesn’t “sartorial” imply “fashion”?
Being able to provide a basic necessity for 6 weeks — that’s a pretty huge failing.
I wonder if they all used to come from China…
Bond market struggle; PRC views of US election; Stock market; WeRide in the US; Sabina Shoal; Foreign carmakers crash – Sinocism
“…The Silicon Valley Bank risk event in the U.S. also provides insights for us.”
The problem for the central bank is that confidence in other investment assets appears to be collapsing, so where else do policymakers expect the money to go until they do more to address the issues that have caused the damage to confidence? …”
So, China doesn’t think mimicking “AI” hype will have the same bubblicious result for assets there?
And in same article:
“PRC autonomous driving company WeRide filed for a US IPO last week. Today the Global Times reports that the company “has received approval from the US state of California to test its driverless vehicles with passengers”. I am surprised WeRide would want this California testing publicized right before its IPO…”
All that saber rattling at China and they are going to let a foreign country put surveillance vehicles on the street.
But then again, why wouldn’t “national security” be a joke or only a fund-raising term in this country.
The USA is the country always hollering “national security” and pissing money away to insiders in the name of faux “national security.”
My point is just stop throwing money down the national security rat hole (because they can’t be serious…look at this and the border) and spend it on other development in this country (and in the present too).
Like single payer payer healthcare.
Are you serious? You can’t “just stop throwing money down the national security rat hole” unless you plan to storm Washington with what? Congresspeople? The national security system is a scam and a good one for millions who profit from it. People are always thanking military veterans for their “service” which is to the one cause: complete domination of the country by the National Security State in service of complete domination of the world (full-spectrum dominance doesn’t need further definition). Any ideas on how this could change?
I covered the scam briefly in the sentence:
“…But then again, why wouldn’t “national security” be a joke or only a fund-raising term in this country.
The USA is the country always hollering “national security” and pissing money away to insiders in the name of faux “national security.”
Nothing changes until those in charge of mistakes are held accountable for mistakes. Catastrophe upon catastrophe can pile up as long as those most comfortable from assorted disasters remain comfortable.
Who’s gonna do that?
EX:Everybody has moved on from 4 years of Weekend at Bernie’s (or rather Biden’s) like it never happened.
Why would we need Chinese surveillance vehicles when we already have google?
Exactly. Why add more?
Hullo, NC editors and commentariat.
I have not noticed it mentioned in comments so apologies if this is old news or something peculiar to my set up (UK, android mobile) but for the past week or two, the archive.ph site has stopped working. It ceases to load with a message that it timed out.
Other archive instances still work (e.g. archive.is).
Has anybody else experienced this?
I tried it just now, came up quickly. I did have one time when there was some issue with archive.ph and I used archive.is
It’s some sites more than others that seem to not work like before.
Like Bloomberg.
Is anyone able to download from lib gen these days?
Thanks
Thank you for the replies. I will switch to archive.is but I will keep trying .ph in case it starts working. My worry is that Sir Keir is adding bricks to the Great British Firewall….
The Doctorow article mentions that Andrew Napolitano isn’t able to post on his YouTube channel Judging Freedom. I was wondering why there are no recent videos.
Crazy times
He’s also on Rumble and Bitchute.
Rumble has old videos last I checked. He’s posted some new livestreams on X.
New ones are there also.
https://rumble.com/v5b7z55-judgingfreedom.html
It’s weird – this link has recent videos – it’s called “Judging Freedom”. But there is also a RUmble page called “Judge Napolitano-Judging Freedom” Which only has older videos.
I wonder if this is just a second account set up by Napolitano, or if it’s a spoof account designed to keep people away from the actual account? Be careful out there…..there are a lot of malicious actors trying to control your information…..
Spoofing an “unapproved” site would be standard operating practice for any “Narrative Control Team.”
I’m surprised he lasted on YouTube as long as he did.
Judge Napolitano give Scott Ritter a platform and since Ritter has been designated an enemy of the State along this give the State (through one of its departments, i.e., Google) the right to harass the judge. They’ll do more of that as time goes on. We are on a cruise to an Orwellian political structure, so enjoy the cruise–I hear there’s a great show in the main ballroom called “The Election.”
I’ve made comments about Scott Ritter here and in emails as well as restaurants (while cell phones record the conversation). Am I on a blacklist too? I hear my Social Security number has been passed around. Can someone loan me my bank records for a second? Modern life, new and improved.
And Richard Nixon gave Dimitri Simes a platform…Orwellian indeed.
Simes was a regular on public radio before he had anything to do with the Nixon Center. In the comic book that is American history for most people, Nixon is a baddy–it was waaay more complicated than that.
I have wondered about the wisdom of “liking” or subscribing to same. Paranoid or sensible?
If you are one of the “small fry” like 99.99% of the nation, it is basic self-preservation to leave as small a ‘footprint’ on any media as you can. That’s one big reason why I do not carry a phone out of the house and never download apps onto it.
Sample example:
Cashier:” Just scan the code on your phone and get the price discount.”
Me: “Well, the problem is, I don’t carry my phone.”
Cashier: “What? You don’t like saving money?”
Me: “I like to stay off of as many data bases as possible.”
Cashier: “How did the world back then get by without iPhones? Amazing!”
>Cashier: “How did the world back then get by without iPhones? Amazing!”
Frankly, it seems to me the world got along pretty well before a lot of this new fangled tech came along and we were CONVINCED we HAD to have it…
And then forced to “upgrade” it every few years, for outrageous sums of money.
We were perfectly happy with our 3G flip phone, ‘dumb’ as it was. Now such is not available at affordable prices. It underlines a stealth facet of neo-liberalism. The old and reliable systems, hardware, software, etc. are first “obsoleted” by fiat, and then reintroduced at higher prices, limiting its availability to those with higher incomes, who are thus the “better classes” by definition.
Luddism is not a panacea, but it comes pretty bloody close.
You can try Tello.com for a flip phone and cheap service but I don’t know if it is available outside the US.
He had said that it was his interview with Pablo Escobar that earned him YT strike one plus week suspension.
An article on his web site dated yesterday explains that an interview with Pepe Escobar got a YouTube First Strike, which includes a temporary suspension. To return next week Aug 21.
https://judgenap.com/my-first-strike-on-free-speech/
“Disenshittify or Die” Cory Doctorow – Pluralistic
“Stop The Steal” also works these days as an additional slogan for internet reform.
And they are going after Soviet-born Biden critic Dimitri Simes, Scott Ritter as well as Gabi Tullsard. Nothing to do with national security but only with personal payback by officials as well as trying to silence dissent leading into the November elections. Republicans may be weird but the Democrats are creepy.
Oops. Should have been in reply to Mo above.
I thought you may have meant it as a reply to my national security rant. Works as an addendum.
I’m a big admirer of Simes, met him and his wife years ago–both charming and made me change my opinion of Nixon.
Long quote from Grist on hurricanes,
High ocean temperatures also feed the “rapid intensification” of hurricanes, defined as a jump in sustained wind speeds of at least 35 mph in 24 hours. Hurricane Beryl did that on its way to Texas, shattering records for how quickly it developed into a monster storm. Rapid intensification makes hurricanes extra dangerous because a coastal city might be preparing for a Category 2 to make landfall, only for a Category 5 to suddenly appear. And the problem is only getting worse, as research has found a dramatic increase in the number of rapid intensification events close to shore.
The neoliberal idea of trimming the sails to the very edge of usefulness is going to be a problem here.
and have you noticed how busy it has been in the Pacific too – more so than the Atlantic – each morning i check https://www.ventusky.com/ to see what’s developing
…in the Pacific too…, No, but I’m not surprised. Thanks for the useful link.
Ventusky is very useful.
Thanks, I lost this link in the last computer melt down.
The rapid intensification is brutal on these hurricanes. Two recent examples are Hurricane Michael and the hurricane from I believe last year that hit Acapulco in Mexico. In both cases they were just small tropical storms that right before landfall became “oh by the way, these are going to be Category 5 storms now.” The Acapulco one was particularly egregious as I remember. They had like 12 hours notice they were going to be hit by a Category 5 instead of a tropical storm, and to make whatever preparations they could. Incredibly dangerous.
Thank you for that link Jabura. I will have to check it out. I live in Florida and check the NHC website everyday to see what is developing. And I have seen what seems to me to be a very active Pacific. Think it was one or two weeks ago where there were 3 hurricanes in the eastern Pacific, all in about the same area. Don’t think I’ve ever seen that in my 25 years of looking out for storms. Was it last year or the year before that a hurricane made landfall at California/Mexico border and traveled through Southern Cal, Nevada, and Utah(!) before petering out? I’m not qualified to make any declarations about it, but sure seems unusual to me.
It was 4 storms in the eastern Pacific actually a couple of weeks ago…you missed one.
Thank you for the correction. 4 storms in the eastern Pacific at once is pretty crazy from what I have observed.
America’s Out-of-Control Client States – Nonzero Newsletter
Well,it has to be admitted, there are some well-connected people in those client states getting paid a lot to be out-of-control and it’s keeping some others out of jail.
‘A police state’: US universities impose rules to avoid repeat of Gaza protests – The Guardian
Now, not only can students leave college with outrageous debt, they can be silenced while the debt adds up.
What does any such institution really have to teach anybody but dystopian obedience?
I generally discourage young people to go to college if they care about pursuing knowledge. They are, for the most part, totally ruined and a waste of money. For people who want to join the credentialing game as both my daughters have done (but not my sons) fine.
That’s because the humanities are very much out of favor. There’s no reason that someone who works in general management type jobs in finance or health care or any number of bureaucracies needs to be able to code, although they do need to be adequately numerate. Many of the disciplines in the humanities required or at least rewarded strong critical thinking skills. However in our post modern era, that may be seen as hopelessly retrograde.
it has been regarded as hopelessly retrograde for at least 35 years…maybe closer to 40(id hafta do the math, which i wont,lol)
my parents actively discouraged me from majoring in philosophy…as did every school councilor, secondary and post.
i got accepted to oberlin, brown and cornell on a frelling ged…but ended up at sam houston in huntsville, texas…because reasons, from those who held the jack.
tiny philosophy department…like 3 guys.
wasnt even worth the effort.
none of them were like the lay,peripatetic, philosopher i am , today…they were ivory tower, embodied, and all.
i was very disappointed with my college experience,lol.
i learned philosophy by reading source material, and have ended up where i wanted to be when i was 8, and first read Zarathustra: wearing robes, on a mountain…except im next to a huge hill that everbody hereabouts calls “the Mountain”.
but i only really wear robes when its cold, or i hafta go over to moms for some reason.
rest of time, im like those Siddhus that wander around naked and dirty and smoke Chillums.
California moves to cut medicine prices with novel deal on opioid overdose drugs – FT
Pros – it saves lives
Cons – it sells more drugs and keeps the addictive drug makers’ profit margins high.
>Public Ownership of Public Goods – How Things Work
A promising piece, I’ll read it in earnest again. The language is the key (the concept is easy).
*****
I saw my first MALA sign (in my working class neighborhood)
Make America Laugh Again with a revamp of the Obama type image.
Never underestimate the Bernays sauce.
“Make America Laugh Again”
That’s so facile it hurts. Will laughter pay the rent? Can smiling bring down the cost of groceries? Could a chuckle ease the burden of working two jobs and still going bankrupt because you get sick?
Kraft durch Freude
To paraphrase Yves from yesterday: they’re selling the stoopid…
or
It’s the image, stoopid…
statusquObama sold Hope & Change and got a prestigious advertising award for it, with big bucks in the thereafter. The folks lapped it up, until they didn’t. Boy were they duped.
Big Money™ could sell overturn capitalism with their very advanced marketing tools but they wouldn’t dare, ’cause us proles might figure out that is what we actually need to do.
USians have the memory span of goldfish.
Too much circus, not enough bread.
Gladiators need bread, too…although I guess lions can have Christians, gladiators, or whoever… (Is that why lions were preferred over gladiators in late Roman Empire? /sarc)
you insult goldfish –
I know, I’m sorry (sob)
Especially if the goldfish has the pronouns: glug/glugg.
Laugh at what? At the ludicrous antics that the Dems are trotting out? If so, that’s working for at least some people I know…although that’s a pretty bitter laughter that they are reaping.
“Russia informs IAEA about Ukraine’s alleged plans to target Zaporizhzhia, Kursk nuclear power plants”
‘Head of Rosatom invites UN watchdog chief to visit Kursk nuclear power plant’
I see that the Head of Rosatom – Alexey Likhachev – has a sense of humour as he knows that IAEA chief Rafael Grossi does not want to be within 1,000 miles of that plant because he knows the Ukrainians are targeting it. I guess that he does not want to be the first IAEA chief to be able to glow in the dark. Certainly if Grossi was at the Kursk nuclear plant, it would be hard for him to say he does not know who is attacking it if he sees the blue & yellow marks on those attacking drones.
re: the prospect thing:
is this part of the style guide?
“The huge western conventional military superiority over Russia would ensure that any attack on a Nato state would produce certain and swift defeat”
to what are they referring?
Tom Cruise & Rambo.
The effective weapons they have in the same secret warehouse with the spare pants?
Just a thought…
Without my glasses, I read “square pants”, figured that’d be useful for the crew of the Teddy Roosevelt when the meet Sponge Bob on the floor of the Gulf of Oman.
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/world/europe/ukraine/67583/natos-folly
August 14, 2024
Nato’s folly
There is only one acceptable end to the war in Ukraine. And it doesn’t involve giving Kyiv the weapons it would need to entirely drive Russia out
By Robert Skidelsky
The question of why Britain should be uniquely bellicose is of great interest in its own right. The answer would surely comprise a unique British sense of guilt for appeasing Hitler at Munich in 1938, an imperial reflex of Britain as “world policeman”, and Britain’s view of itself as a moral beacon. The endlessly repeated refrain is that “appeasement never works.” Yet the idea that if Putin is not stopped in Ukraine, his battered army will go on to the Baltics, the Caucasus, Moldova or Poland is plainly nonsense. The huge western conventional military superiority over Russia would ensure that any attack on a Nato state would produce certain and swift defeat. My concern, though, is less with the causes of Britain’s stand, than with the poverty of thinking it shows, and the horrific consequences of pursuing it to the bitter end.
Here are some stats. I have no idea how reliable they are:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1293174/nato-russia-military-comparison/
The “superiority” doesn’t look that huge, especially since (according to the link) it’s scattered across 32 countries. But I’m already over my head so I’ll stop.
Add to this the fact that each country has some sort of “domestic” military equipment in its arsenal, usually for domestic political considerations, and that these systems seldom are interoperable. The result is, like in the Ukraine itself lately, units equipped with differently sourced equipment do not “play well together.” Supply, which is the base of any army, is convoluted and inefficient.
“For the want of a NATO Standard Horseshoe nail, the NATO Standard horse was lost…”
I’am a bit over my head too but I am reminded of the GREAT GDP difference back in 2022 when many “sophisticated” commentators said Russia with a GDP less than that of Italy was doomed.
Also, some of those figures may not mean much any more. In particular, the air force figures overall probably do not mean much. As we saw in Ukraine, until Russia managed to neutralize most of Ukraine’s air defence their air superiority in numbers was not as important as people thought it would be.
I looked at a few numbers back then too. IIRC Russia had 3x the population and 10x the GDP of Ukraine. Off the top of my head that’s roughly the same advantage that the Union had over the Confederacy in the U.S. Civil War. I figured right then that Ukraine was toast. Of course NATO might go all in for Ukraine (as Britain and France might have for the Confederacy) but I suspect that NATO will eventually decide otherwise.
During this Ukraine War, Russia has held most of its air force uncommitted, en potence, presumably in case of a larger war against NATO.
Therefore, one should be careful not to jump to conclusions about the significance of air power in contemporary warfare, based on the apparent recent experience in Ukraine.
I think that trash talk about NATO today is no less foolish than the trash talk about Russia two years ago. I think that NATO can kill a lot of Russians, if they want to, and if their leaders become frightened enough to take big risks (risk-taking in war is prompted more often by desperation, than by confidence.)
As I keep saying, the most important military question in our time is whether anti-missile systems offer worthwhile protection, at the strategic scale.
Don’t scoff! On this very page, you will see that missile defense is already being taken seriously by several of the regular NC commentators–at least at the tactical scale. So I ask: “Does it scale higher? Will it scale higher?” I can’t answer the question, but I keep it constantly in mind. As far as warfare is concerned, nothing is more important.
If and when the reply becomes affirmative, then we live in a post-MAD world. Destructive capability will remain enormous but, crucially, the destructive result will no longer be assured, and still less mutually assured.
In a post-MAD world, direct armed conflict between major powers must be expected to return to the forefront of human affairs. Nuclear attack and defense will become much like other operations of war: major or minor, successful or unsuccessful, or anything in between. Key phase: “New Normal.”
I also found that sentence extremely odd. Skidelsky is not somebody to sneeze at, and much of the column is sensible.
Testimony to the swirl of propaganda out there.
One has to curate ones information feed constantly or rot leaks in.
G7 imposes its will on the world with a 2000 plane air fleet, the demonstration was given in Libya. They use it the same as the Germans used the Luftwaffe before WW2 got messy. This is their main superiority and probably what this person meant.
It is not pre-positioned for an attack on Russia but is too many planes for Russia to currently cope with. If it starts to concentrate would the Russians respond ? Like Jellicoe’s fleet it has to remain in being.
i love the NC commentariat.
had to look up Jellicoe.
lol.
…and thus expanded my mind a lil bit more.
im still awanderinin the weeds around the parking lot that our hosts introduced me to this mornin:
https://landmarksmag.substack.com/p/fukuyamas-technocratic-misanthropy
and wishin like hell that the one(married) chick i know who reads something besides the rural as hell walmart bookshelf would just come on out and talk.
ive no one to argue with.
I’ve considered ‘nominating’ you for inclusion in a new AI “clothify” site. You know it, the one being used on Kamala by the DNC.
Once you have finished on Jellico, do take a look at Fisher. The “father” of modern navies. (Some claim that Mahan holds that title, but I disagree.)
But i only wear clothes when i leave my side of the place…or when its cold.
so…like…8 months out of a given year, i’m naked or in a towel or sarong.
gotta back up my mom-excluding signs with reality, after all(naked day, keep out).
she’s a puritan in all but name, and belief in god…and has spied upon me for all my life…leapt out of bushes to berate me, etc.
…im thinkin right now about this,lol…it seems that by being naked, i am donning the Armor of God, as it were…against incursions by my mother…by being frelling Naked,lol.
what a frelled world.
and what a frelled life ive led within it.
The fantasy fairy is their chief informant on this matter, and it was thoroughly fact checked by Boris Johnson and Liz Truss
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/recession-obsession-why-some-people-root-for-an-economic-downturn-283a9360?mod=home-page/
Recession obsession: Why some people root for an economic downturn
The article didn’t mention that there are market participants who want the downturn as fuel for interest rate cuts. That leverage for piling up more derivatives and fuel for easy money loans for people that don’t want to or can’t sell their inflated assets. Their ideal would be inflated collateral and low interest rate loans.
“Popular AI “nudify” sites sued amid shocking rise in victims globally”
I think that you would find that courts would initially have been reluctant to interfere with corporate profits in a legal decision. That is, until AI-generated explicit images of court judges started to surface on the internet. Some things seen can never be unseen.
“Look who’s funding the local Democratic Party”
‘The right-wing tech barons and plutocrats are now the party’s biggest donor base.’
I’ve always maintained that they don’t need donations at all come election time and that the only reason to ask for them is to dry up donations that might be going to a third party. Look at how much money was being raised by Bernie before he folded his campaign into the Democrats. People were digging in deep for him which meant that they weren’t going to independents.
on “Look who’s funding…….” – RK, you’ll get a kick out of this – i know it’s 2011 but still a hoot –
https://www.mlive.com/galleries/Q4QSR4NSLZGINEV4NNUBSZTTDE/
Thanks. That was very chuckle-worthy that.
Oakland’s Summer of Discontent Bleeding Edge
This paragraph stood out as “why this matters to you”, or, “Have you read Snow Crash?”,
I’m a criminal justice reporter by trade, and generally steer far clear of politics. However, the current state of affairs in Oakland stands out for a larger reason: it is the third prong of a regional effort by a group of highly ideological, tech-aligned Silicon Valley types to solidify power bases in Northern California. Journalist Gil Duran has written extensively about the network state ideology and what he terms the ‘Nerd Reich’ – a future vision of society where the private sector has supplanted all government functions barring police, who have been ideologically yoked to the ruling tech oligopoly of ‘grays’ (I shit you not, this is real). SF has already partially undergone this process, while the failed ‘California’ Forever’ libertarian paradise in the Sacramento River Delta showed the limits of this movement in the face of organized community opposition. Unsurprisingly, Peter Thiel & the Trump campaign are very involved in this push as well: just think about that the next time you hear the phrase “Freedom Cities.”
Been mulling this one over wondering what promises Newsom received for his non-immediate endorsement of Harris. I figured it was Sec of State, but now I’m wondering if it’s “You get California, the feds will leave you alone to do as you can”.
Whenever you hear the word “freedom,” check your wallet (or purse). The same with “liberty.” Yes, “economic freedom”, FDR’s Four Freedoms, American “Economic Liberties” project, eyc., but I fear the terms are irredeemably contaminated with toddler-level griftertarian “I will not comply” ideology…
For sure. Seems to me that the American concept of “freedom” is the cause of much of our troubles.
One for Class Warfare, even if this morning the replay on CBS news weekly Sunday is running something from late 2023. Coal miners and black lung disease, adding a new twist unfortunately for the miners working underground.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-increasing-hazard-of-black-lung-disease-facing-coal-miners/
“Ukrainian troops trained in UK before attacking Kursk” WSWS
“The US media, citing unnamed American officials, have claimed that the US and NATO were not informed of the attack beforehand…”
Neither Russia or US/NATO drones or satellite surveillance saw any troop build-up. Amazing!
The Russians may have seen something but probably figured that the Ukrainians were not suicidal enough to create their own fire sac and bring in some of their most valuable equipment like HIMARS, Patriots, Challenger tanks, etc. to be destroyed piecemeal. I guess that the joke was on them.
So the Russians just thought it might have been a big wedding party or something?
The Russians were removing land mines in that sector so they may have been planning their own incursion. Seeing Ukrainian forces being massed there would be seen as hardening that line in case there was an incursion by them.
I think this was debunked (Armchair Warlord perhaps?) as the mine removal was not accompanied by massive troop movements on the Russian side. If you’re going to have that type of operation, you would have your ducks in a row.
That’s the part that always made me wonder ever since I heard that story. Why would Russians want to remove mines unless they were up to something? Whatever it is that they were planning, it seems like they weren’t planning their own incursion (at least not on a large enough scale). They don’t seem to have been planning a trap (as nothing has really sprung yet).
The best trap is one that is not detected until it is sprung. Armchair Warlord has speculated they are developing another cauldron and letting the Ukraine pour resources into it. There has been a noted increase of forces further out from Kursk which may be in support of such an operation.
Time will tell.
My thought/guess was that Russian intelligence may have had some inklings that an attack was brewing but the General Staff discounted it on the grounds that not even the Ukrainians could be that stupid.
If the Ukrainians were planning such an assault there were almost certainly more likely places for them to attack.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXdlCHbroTE&ab_channel=DialogueWorks/
S. Ritter sums it up as “NATO invaded Russia.”
In the Russian sources the story so far goes like this: Ukrainians prepared for this a long time, using the US intelligence sources to select a point where the Russian forces were relatively light on the ground and the Russian minefields well known.
As we can see, the most Ukrainian forces used wheeled transport, and where likely stationed 40-60 km from the border, mostly out of the range of the Russian everyday observations. So, when the groups dedicated to breach the Russian border defenses went to action, the main forces were about an hours drive away. By the time the they arrived to the border, there was already a path trough the minefields and the Russian first lines were in chaos, killed, surrendered or retreating.
While these wheeled invaders drove as far and as fast as they could, the tracked echelon followed them to secure the main arteries for logistics. Well, planned and well executed.
That said, the Russians response appears to be well planned, too. The first priority was to block the Ukrainians from pouring in, and Russia indeed brought a lot of firepower to do just that in Sumy and on the border. The second priority was to try to limit Ukrainian advance while also evacuating people, so they started to hunt the Ukrainian columns from the air, while still not offering much fight on the ground.
Only after a week into the invasion did the Russians really did deploy troops to stop Ukrainians, while at the same time striking their mobility. The recent addition is introducing both Spetnaz and Special Operation brigades to infiltrate into Ukrainian controlled territory to hunt down and destroy stranded, isolated Ukrainian units.
The Russian efforts at isolating the Kursk battlefield from Ukraine while also denying/destroying mobility from more and more Ukrainian units has led to the many videos we now see of Ukrainians surrendering by the dozen.
Kursk is the symbolic event of the war against the Nazis for all Russians with at least a half ouunce of patriotic feeling. And that, coupled with an unfathomable well of profound stupidity is why trying for Kursk was so tempting to the Zelensky regime and it’s braindead Galacian Nazi supporters.
The Russians knew fine well that if they left it seemingly devoid of defences, the knuckleheads wil go into pure deranged, drooling stupidity mode and try and launch a symbolic attack against the site of the greatest and most important battle of the Great Patriotic War/World War 2.
And the Russians waited as the yuckies came and did what a yuckie has to do, and then the Russians did what a Russian has to do and reconsecrated Holy Ground with Nazi blood.
And it was all so predictable. This is a war between Light and Darkness, Imagination against Ignorance, the Thinkers versus the F**kers, the Chestmaster and the pub’s champion domino player after 8 pints of Fuller’s London Pride. And that’s the level British military training and planning has sunk to. God help us all.
Ukraine does Storyboards,
Russia does Spreadsheets.
“Ukraine does storyboards.”
Ever since “Servant of the People.”
Google censoring my political Gmails to myself?:
I often send myself emails from my iPad to my computer with links to stories on Naked Cap, using the iPad’s default mailbox of Google’s Gmail. Multiple times this week including this morning, all of them (up to half a dozen some mornings) have simply vanished — they aren’t sent, they aren’t junked, they aren’t stacking up in an outbox. They’re just vanishing as if I never wrote or sent them, wasting my work.
As a test, I sent myself an otherwise identical email, except linked to a sports site instead of Naked Cap. It went through immediately. Hmmm.
It could indeed be that Google has decided that URL pointing to unapproved sites are categorized as phishing or as directions to virus-laden pages.
You could try the following experiment:
1) Send to yourself a nakedcapitalism link and assert that it never arrived at destination.
2) Go to https://tiny.cc, type the URL in question to obtain a shortened link; re-type the link into an e-mail that you send to yourself as in (1). Note: you will have to re-type the shortened URL, as tiny.cc does not let you copy-paste the result of the shortening (but it is short and it is just for an experiment, so….)
3.a) If (2) arrives while (1) does not, then you have it: Google views links to nakedcapitalism as dangerous.
3.b) If (2) still does not arrive, then perhaps Google views shortened URL as intrinsically suspect, or it goes all the trouble of figuring out what is behind the shortened link to prohibit access to the underlying site.
In both cases, this would be conclusive of a Google filtering/censorship of e-mails containing domain-specific URL.
I just wholesale copy and paste articles I want to save for future reference.
Then put them on an external drive. And not on some platform’s external drive that they call “the cloud.”
Instead of sending those emails, perhaps just save them as drafts.
Ditch google mail. I have no idea why people continue to use their service. I know it’s a PIA to change your email address, but…
Suggestions on where to change it to? Seems like many of the alternates would be subject to the same issues
‘Chay Bowes
@BowesChay
Sentiment here in Russia has in my view changed dramatically, friends that were relatively liberal about the Conflict are now far less so,
Since the Kursk attack, its increasingly being related to me that this will have to be ended on the battlefield. the idea of the “fraternal Ukrainians” misled by the west is getting harder to justify, and the scenes of looting and wanton destruction and brutality towards civilians coming from Kursk are spreading like wildfire on Russian social media here. This does not bode well for Kiev.’
Got this one right. Think how Americans would react to an invasion force that shot at and kidnapped civilians and tried to blow up a nuclear power plant. They would be out for blood so no reason why the Russians would be any different. But god, did the Ukrainians really have to have German armour racing around Kursk? That’s like raising a Confederate flag on the MLK statue site. At this point, I would guess that the average Russians would now want to see this war out to the end with the Russian flag being raised in Kiev. As Armchair Warlord says-
‘Invade Russia, have Russian troops march through your capital.
That’s the rules.’
https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1824432933429510368
Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand
There’s now an incredible number of extremely senior Australian figures rallying against AUKUS.
The latest is former Foreign Minister Gareth Evans calling it “one of the worst defence and foreign policy decisions our country has made”
https://theconversation.com/gareth-evans-aukus-is-terrible-for-australian-national-interests-but-were-probably-stuck-with-it-236938
Evans says this is because AUKUS is “not only putting at profound risk our sovereign independence, but generating more risk than reward for the very national security it promises to protect”.
Specifically on Australia’s loss of sovereignty, here’s what he says:
1) Australia would lose operational independence and sovereign decision-making: “The notion that we will retain any kind of sovereign agency in determining how all these assets are used, should serious tensions erupt, is a joke in bad taste.”
2) Australia would be expected to automatically be involved in US conflicts: “But also now the ever-clearer expectation on the US side that ‘integrated deterrence’ means Australia will have no choice but to join the US in fighting any future war in which it chooses to engage anywhere in the Indo-Pacific, including in defence of Taiwan.” Especially given that he apparently has bad memories of being a junior ally of the US: “I have had personal ministerial experience of being a junior allied partner of the US in a hot conflict situation – the first Gulf War in 1991 — and my recollections are not pretty.”
3) It would increase US military presence in Australia: “Not only the now open-ended expansion of Tindal as a US B52 base; not only the conversion of Stirling into a major base for a US Indian Ocean fleet, making Perth now join Pine Gap and the North West Cape – and increasingly likely, Tindal – as a nuclear target…”
He also quotes former French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, who said: “The Australians place themselves entirely at the mercy of developments in American policy. I wish our Australian partner, who made the choice of security – justified by the escalation of tensions with China – to the detriment of sovereignty, will not discover later that it has sacrificed both.”
Le Drian was right, Australia is sacrificing both, as Evans now recognizes…
9:08 AM · Aug 16, 2024
Evans says this is because AUKUS is “not only putting at profound risk our sovereign independence, but generating more risk than reward for the very national security it promises to protect”.
I understand the changing viewpoint.
However, Australia needs to reject more than AUKUS to become unquestionably sovereign.
Yes, until then, they are “probably stuck with AUKUS.”
“Australia needs to reject more than AUKUS * to become unquestionably sovereign.”
Please explain this passage when possible.
* Australia, United Kingdom, United States
Rejecting more than AUKUS as a specific military project.
Gonzalo Lira had it right-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYMhIe14uF0 (9:58 mins)
“The United States’ push to cement itself as the dominant military power in the Indo-Pacific region, and the globe, saw it sabotage the French submarines deal with Australia, and establish the AUKUS military pact. It also sank the prospects for a Paris–Canberra–Delhi alliance that wanted a new Indo-Pacific geostrategic order developing harmonious relations with China.
These machinations are explained in this edited extract below from the new book, ‘Nuked: The Submarine Fiasco that Sank Australia’s Sovereignty’, by Andrew Fowler”
Found via
https://x.com/DeclassifiedAus/status/1822766195843674382
Yes, AUKUS is being used to backdoor Australian sovereignty. China is the least of our problems. AUKUS pits Australia up against Indonesia where the incoming President is currently sanctioned by the US. We are so faq’d.
The rule does not quite work — after all, Russians did not march through Stockholm at the end of the Great Northern War.
Technically Peter the Great was the one to start the invading, but you are right. It did end the Swedish superpower era, though. And saw a lot of the coast of the gulf of Bothnia being pillaged by the Russians just to hurry the Swedes in the peace negotiations.
One may remark on the peculiar invisibility of much of the course of the Great War. Never did so many forget, so often, about so much.
The Central Powers invaded and occupied large parts of the Russian Empire. The Russians did win some big battles (Lutsk in 1916 was the Entente’s biggest victory on the field in the whole war), but they were the ones who had to sue for an armistice by the end of 1917.
Luckily for the future of Russia, the Central Powers still had their hands full with the French, British, Italians, and, at the end, the Americans. Haig’s offensive at Third Ypres, in the last half of 1917, did Britain little good, but it did help prevent the Germans from taking full advantage of Russia’s collapse.
I have further quibbles, too. In 1919, the British, French, Americans, and Japanese had all arguably invaded Russia, and obviously the Russians never marched back over them in triumph.
Also, I guess the Crimean War doesn’t count as an exception to the rule, as everybody knows that Crimea is part of Ukraine, not Russia.
Kiev won’t be the end. I fully expect, eventually, the next leader of Russia to at least repeat the work of Alexander.
Very subtle. Perhaps Alexander the Great of Macedon? Why, Vlad Vladimirovitch is already at the gates of Delhi and Peking, but at their invitation this time.
The link which followed from Philip Pilkington caught my eye. The WP headline talks about “stopping the strikes on energy and power infrastructure”. It seems that killing thousands of people is fine, but things have to stop when energy and power come into the equation? I’m no reader of WP, so have no idea what they are putting out. But this struck me.
I saw a quote from Maria Zakharova denying that any negotiations between Ukraine and Russia were happening, in Qatar or elsewhere. She said there are regular prisoner exchange talks between the officials responsible for that on both sides, but no other contact.
If the Kursk invasion was done as a PR move, it may be having unwanted outcomes. Several people I know who were more supportive of Ukraine in the past have gotten very negative about them due to this.
Extreme misogyny to be treated as terrorism
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/17/extreme-misogyny-treated-as-terrorism-government/
Extreme misogyny will be treated as terrorism for the first time under Government plans to combat the radicalisation of young men online.
Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, has ordered a review of Britain’s counter-extremism strategy to urgently address gaps in the Government’s stance, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.
It will look at tackling violence against women and girls in the same way as Islamist and far-Right extremism, amid fears that current Home Office guidance is too narrow.
This could mean teachers will be legally required to refer pupils they suspect of extreme misogyny to Prevent, the Government’s counter-terror programme.
It comes after warnings that misogynistic influencers are radicalising teenage boys online.
…
“Extreme misogyny to be treated as terrorism.”
Well, that’s interesting! Can we in the US send them a passel of our more radical state legislators who are enacting laws to ban birth control and any form of pregnancy termination for any reason?
The US maternal mortality rates are abysmal: we’re 55th! Worse than …. OMG! ….. Russia! For a number of reasons, but banning abortions and making birth control difficult to obtain is not going to improve maternal health! And does not killing off moms make you, by definition, a extreme misogynist?
The ‘desired’ outcome for our Genocidal Elites is the “elimination” of Pre-Moms. Sooner rather than later, the world’s problems will become more tractable as the population shrinks.
Welcome to the Jackpot.
August is traditionally called Silly Season in UK media and politics. The senior people are all on the beach or the grouse moor. The juniors are the only ones manning the office and, frankly, watching the news and reading the papers. So inane stories take wing that a cooler head would spike on first hearing.
It seems that this is one of them – except it isn’t.
I suspect Starmer realises, like Biden, that his opponent’s voters are disproportionately young, white and male, and therefore Prevent is being retooled from oppressing brown people.
I hope extreme misandry and misanthropy will also become terror offences
Meantime, I cannot wait for the Deobandi mosques sponsored by Saudi or the Ultra-Orthodox synagogues of Stamford Hill to run into this culture-denying concept of extreme misogyny. Will the plight of women drivers or divorcees in Saudi engage the UK Responsibility to Protect?
But their worldview is consistent across the board: The bigotry/discrimination/hate/terror is okay when we do it! Like catch-22, that rule is always applicable.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/aug/18/extreme-misogyny-to-be-treated-as-form-of-terrorism-under-government-plans
“The Home Office has commissioned a rapid review to inform a new government counter-extremism strategy on how best to tackle the threat posed by extremist ideologies online and offline.
The review will assess the ideological spectrum and is intended to address “gaps in the current system” that leave the country exposed to hateful or harmful activity that promotes violence or undermines democracy.”
Hone Secretary”I have directed the Home Office to conduct a rapid analytical sprint on extremism, to map and monitor extremist trends, to understand the evidence about what works to disrupt and divert people away from extremist views, and to identify any gaps in existing policy which need to be addressed to crack down on those pushing harmful and hateful beliefs and violence.”
—
BP: Looks like Prevent on steroids.
There’s a lot wrong with Prevent and hopefully someone else can chime in on that.
Presumably as well incels, they will be adding Zionists to the list /s
Bonus: a fun story about Prevent and the crackdown on pro-palestinians
Incels are not getting laid. Sexual frustration leads to anger. Pray tell what does the Home Secretary propose to do about that? Subsidize visits to prostitutes?
My guess would be encouraging teachers and caregivers to snitch, heavy-handed policing without any legal protections, and some form of “re-education”.
That and much more censorship of the Andrew Tates of this world.
I like your idea more tbh.
But no guarantee that “getting laid” will get rid of the frustration.
Idealization or fantasies about sex, sexual partners, or transformative sex can also be the cause of frustration.
Wouldn’t be the first time…testosterone is a helluva drug. Stephen Fry in “The Hippopotamus” has a very interesting passage where the main character describes the sexual thoughts of the average male. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hippopotamus
Jeremy: “She’s got one…” https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Aw4zyXmkHnw
Messopotamian cities even had a sort of “voluntariat” for such services, and some Middle Age European towns set up “city hall” brothels in order to stop the roaming gangs of their young men raping the girls…
My sharp witted teenage girl is asking for death sentence for rape. I suggested that maybe “eye for an eye” (anal rape in this case) would be the most appropriate punishment…
In some of the early Cities of the Plain, young women had to first lay with a stranger in a central temple to the appropriate Goddess before being allowed to marry. This was a practical way of widening the local gene pool. The monies raised also supported the temple itself. (This according to Heroditus.)
See: https://www.historyonthenet.com/sacred-marriage-and-sacred-prostitution-in-ancient-mesopotamia#:~:text=Sacred%20prostitution%20involved%20temple%20priestesses%20of%20Inanna%2FIshtar%20having,practices%20existed%20for%20thousands%20of%20years%20in%20Mesopotamia.
Didn’t many western temples have house prostitutes?
Speakin’ of Stephen Fry,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FO6ZJL26eM&t=2643s
Forced “chemical castration” for the unmarried.
They will name it the Alan Turing Award.
Serial rapists will be more likely to kill the victim. I doubt that the dna evidence lasts long in or on a corpse in water
Conscription in overseas wars is one way.
Democratic candidate Harris has a plan to stop price gouging by corporations and grocery stores. A few paragraphs in, and someone who’s frequently on CNBC is in disagreement. Jason Furman served in the Obama administration…well this proposal appears dead on arrival. In conversation yesterday I discussed the inflation question…my two cents we’re gonna live with a 2.5% to 3.5% inflation annually for the near future. Absent a full on collapse or severe recession. Heck Wal Mart had a great earnings report this week, and I believe the CFO advised they were planning some level of restraint on pricing. Granted that is a retailer behemoth.
But let’s hold off judgment until Joe and Mika on MSNBC…get a hold of this discussion…yeah let’s do price controls! Once we can elect a new President Harris and Vice President Walz we’ll get some competency back in DC at the controls..\sarc
I’m a bit surprised of the push back from various outlets on this inflation plan/price controls. It didn’t take long to see the Komrade Kamala memes. I wonder if they will keep running these adds?
I’m in Ohio and have seen a couple of Harris campaign commercials. Both times I was able to watch from a distance (in an eatery) but could not hear the sound or read the fine print. Best I could tell Harris was touting the success at the border, and immigration control. Maybe that plays in Ohio, but I’m not sure it would in the southwest or big cites who have had migrant issues.
Either way, how can you tout what looks to me like an epic failure? I guess they can do that just like everything else – lie to us with impunity – and expect us to believe it. Many do, as shown by the polls.
Is gaslighting us into submission enough to win an election? I’m starting to think so.
Maybe. But the same people are talking about Ukrainian victory and Middle Eastern peace just aroubd the corner (latter brought via a miraculous Israeli proposal, no less.) If the big lie doesn’t work, insist that anyone who doesn’t believe it are liars and ridicule them as weird, or worse.
That famous marxist Richard Nixon instituted wage and price controls.
Yes and it didn’t end well at all…the later 70s and early 80s were a fairly brutal period of high inflation and very high interest rates. My late father lived it running a business ….prime rates of 15% to 20% really did do a disservice…
https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/great-inflation#high
Yeah, but . . . he was just going through some awkward phases.
RE: Groves of Academe: ‘Police State’
This article makes a claim that private universities are not encumbered by Constitutional ‘free speech’ rules. Au contrare! Any institution that accesses federal funds (of any amount) is constrained by the 1964-65 federal Civil Rights Act, and the Family Education Reporting Privacy Act (FERPA). Most, if not all, schools use federal funding of some sort.
FERPA is the program that Shafik Minouche violated by bringing in outside ‘peace officers’ to arrest non-violent students. FERPA creates its own rules for notification for ‘rules violation’, time frame for implementation of discipline, and whom gets to decide the severity of discipline. (As well as, a specific appeal process.) Arresting students without this ‘due process’ violates federal law; and likely encouraged Minouche to resign—Columbia could face hundreds of expensive federal court lawsuits over this action.
In California, community colleges and the CSU/UC system are located on state property. Few campus security officers have ‘peace officer’ status and able to arrest students. Bringing municipal police onto campus violates state law—unless called to do so as part of an emergency by the state (not the University president).
Soon enough university administrators (DEI) will realize competence is not easily acquired through color, gender, or certification. Reading the law would be a good start for newbies.
That Cory article is so long, and so good. Thank you. Only on NC do I find stuff like that daily.
I tried posting it to Facebook and to no surprise, it was immediately censored.
From Kamala Harris outlines pro-corporate economic agenda at North Carolina campaign stop
Always comical stupid.
When liberal Democrats had the opportunity to make the Pandemic aid permanent, they folded. Here was an opportunity to simply stamp existing legislation that half’d childhood poverty. Liberal Democrats: No.
Why would anyone take anything that Kamala says seriously, except of course liberals!
Why would anyone take anything that Kamala says seriously, except of course liberals!
Because people are incredibly forgetful — having been trained to be so not just by the constantly adjusted political narrative and “sound bites”, but also by the MSM and its all-gobbling memory hole, and the frantically dynamic smartphone/tablet/computer/video apps stimulating the pursuit of dopamine rushes instead of deep reflection and the consideration of long-term perspectives?
If there are that many vegetables among us, we are all doomed. I keep hoping against what I can see that that ain’t so…
https://x.com/RyanRozbiani/status/1823876253541093542
Ryan Rozbiani @RyanRozbiani
I’m convinced they targeted this family.
The mother was a Doctor and they target medical officials to further destabilize GAZA
This was NOT Random
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GU-1yS9XcAEGf0H?format=jpg&name=900×900
8:15 PM · Aug 14, 2024
[ Genocide is a crime that should be beyond all toleration, but nonetheless the Palestinian people are being subject to genocide and the United States is supporting this intolerable crime. I could never ever support a Democratic presidential candidate who does not denounce the intolerable crime of genocide. ]
As long as the genocide is done joyously, who’s she to argue? (And she plagiarized even that.) /Sarc
the landmarksmag thing is exceptional.
here is the precursor essay to this discussion( sorry if linked at the time):
https://landmarksmag.substack.com/p/american-messianism
i am reminded of the Templars in Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven…as opposed to Saladin, who was almost playing the part of some archangel in teaching a lesson…still unlearned…to the Good Christian Crusaders.
for all our lamentations regarding the various pathologies in the psyches of the neolib/neocon cults, this more closely approaches the truth of the matter.
imagine those Templars…with nukes…”Deus Volt!”…
shudder.
and thanks, as always, to our hosts, for turning me on to all these places on the web that make me think:
https://landmarksmag.substack.com/p/why-conservatism-in-todays-world
in some far future, it may be recognised that y’all have done a great service to mankind by staving off covid-induced dementia and other varieties of cognitive decline, thereby.
(ie: use or lose those muscles in yer brain,lol)
Interesting reads, thank you for sharing!
Taking an electric vehicle into combat is a horrible and ridiculous idea.
1. Charging, and keeping it charged, is a problem. Not just getting the electricity, but sitting there while it charges.
2. Weight. These things are heavy for their size, which is fine on paved roads but a hefty problem off of them.
3. Lithium. It burns readily, so one damaged battery cell and the thing is a torch.
You need rugged and reliable equipment in combat. EVs are not that. A county emergency management client of mine told me how the county tried to make the emergency response vehicle fleet (snow plows, cop cars, fire trucks, etc.) all electric and the staff had to explain how that was a horrible idea- where do they charge when the power is out after an ice storm, flood, tornado, etc.? Same basic problem applies to combat.
aye.
would not work at all for the tank-like “Brush Trucks” the volunteer fire department(a true socialist organisation as it turns out,lol) uses out here…nor would it do for hauling those big tankers full of water(8# per gallon) allover this relatively wilderness area(rough country, out here, in many places).
and thats to say nothing of the air support that will likely be required soon, out here…usually from Texas Parks and wildlife, etc.(i think texas also maintains a fleet of choppers and c-130’s and whatnot to dump retardant…in some dedicated department, but i am unlearned about that subject..i assume its under TPW.)
SOP on big fires is not to carry fuel…but to have fuel carried to you when you need it.
staging areas for fuel are well away from th fire.
one needs special equipment and stuff to put out lithium battry fires…we have that out here, thanks to federal and state grants, due to the existence of several battery storage installations(grift, etc…like the rest of Texas’ Grid)..training, also.
but its still not something they’ve dealt with out here…outside of that training.
our hard fires are in the hills and ravines…usually lightning derived….
no tesla is gonna get into those places, let alone carrying tons of water.
May be of interest?
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08-19/long-covid-billions-economic-loss-australia/104234434
I have had the misfortune of both having to upgrade to Windows 11, and checking out WhatsApp in the store. Cannot get my head around why a simple messaging app needs to take up 86 megabytes of my drive.
JoyWatch: Guardian edition
“Resurrected’ Democrats look toward 2024 convention with renewed hope
Kamala Harris’s ascent in the race for the White House has imbued the party with joy and galvanized ranks”
“Tens of thousands of Democrats are expected to descend on Chicago this week for their party’s convention, bubbling with a feeling few had anticipated: pure, unconfined joy.”
“That period of harmony will be tested inside and outside of the convention hall, where a significant presence of pro-Palestinian protestors and “uncommitted” anti-war delegates plan to make their voices heard…..Still, Democrats hope to project a message of unity, as Harris and Walz, self-described “joyful warriors”
“We [Gen-X] always incorporate kind of pop culture and fun, because that’s who we are,” Kleeb continued” [BP: speak for yourself]
[Paging Lambert]: “The story here is simple and it’s one that will resonate with Americans across the country: Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are fighting for the American people and America’s future — Donald Trump is only fighting for himself,” said Minyon Moore, chair of the convention.”
“Walz thanked Harris for “bringing back the joy “”
BP: this is getting creepy. Especially the juxtaposition with the anti-genocide protestors kept outside. Reminds me of the German movie “Zone of Interest”
Is Kamala really Gen-x, or a boomer?
Gen-X is defined as people who were born between 1965 and 1980.
Harris was born on Oct. 20, 1964.
Yeah, I know, I am splitting hares, we’re talking about 72 days or so.
But still, rules are rules. A boomer in disguise!
From the same article:
“Harris is technically a boomer, missing the gen X cut off by a couple of months, but supporters say she embodies the cultural ethos of the generation.”
The association between “joy” and gen X seems as ludicrous as, well, anything coming out of the Dems’ mouths. I mean, we are supposed to be angsty and cynical slackers, not the Germans from 1930s with slogans about joy setting you free at concentration camps and the like…
I know, right! Given how willfully ignored Gen X has been in society, for decades, folks should realize that any attempt to highlight us is going to be met with instant suspicion, if not outright derision. We’ve been Stockholm Syndromed into accepting our powerlessness from our thin numbers (half the number of either the Boomers or Gen Y/Millennials. X is the generation that took the brunt of the Pill and legal abortion), and we just want to be left alone to try to muddle through as best we can the $#!+show that our society has become.
Gen X can help get us back on the path to a brighter future for our society, but we’re not going to volunteer for it. Why should we? Y’all are going to have to ask real, real nice-like to get our attention.
As for Mz Harris, I’m aware of her record in CA; the Boomers can have her.
Kamala is more properly Generation Jones, a late Boomer.
I am firmly in the Gen X crowd…yeah all those Seattle bands in the early 1990s were spreading the grunge sound all over the country with their happy, joyful lyrics! Alice in Chains, Nirvana, Pearl Jam…
Very much…smh. FFS.
The tale of the Hasbara cancellation of Reginald D. Hunter (a UK based American comedian)
Worth reading his thread in full.
Short version: Starts with media outrage as “Israelis hounded out” of one RDH’s shows. Outrage continues as the ‘Israeli’ couple are interviewed widely. RDH investigates some and finds that the same couple had been interviewed many times by the same media outlets (going back to 2018) about various horrors of antisemitic England. Oh, and they are leaders of a pro-Zionist political action group. Oh again, they weren’t actually Israeli.
I’ll leave it to you guys to guess which bits of this story didn’t make it to the media.
Non twitter version of same thread for those that don’t use it
Having had the pleasure of seeing Reginald D Hunter perform live, he came across as thoughtful and perceptive, and a decent guy. He’s also very funny. Needless to say, none of his jokes can be repeated on this site!
I’m reminded of the case of Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, a Black French comedian who has been penalized for hate speech and anti-Semitism under French law. Since I only understand formal written French, not rapid-fire spoken vernacular, I haven’t watched any of his shows; other than what is said about him in the media, I have no clue. Judging by his website, he still has loyal fans:
https://dieudosphere.com/
The US needs more pop-up air bases worldwide to keep enemies guessing
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Would they form flash-bang mobs?