Father and daughter dance on their walk
pic.twitter.com/3VGiv1m79q— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) August 20, 2024
An Intoxicating 500-Year-Old Mystery Atlantic (Anthony L)
Teen Builds His Own Nuclear Fusion Reactor At College Interesting Engineering
M&Ms on checkerboard trick your brain ZMEScience (Kevin W)
Some old books have a toxic secret: they’re bad for your health ZMEScience (Dr. Kevin)
Humans age dramatically at two key points in their life, study finds CNN (Kevin W)
Mpox is ‘not the new COVID’ – WHO DW
What We Know About Mpox … airborne transmission OKDoomer (Dr. Kevin)
covid actually broke the concept of public health i fear like this is literally the covid response applied to lice https://t.co/3ib2hP9SiT pic.twitter.com/M6ErVbFjGf
— maui @ mfa ✍🏾 (they/them) (@lesbianoir) August 19, 2024
Climate/Environment
The Era of Runaway Heat Records Is Here Bloomberg
Climate Change Is Making the Middle East Uninhabitable Foreign Policy
Vienna partly under water after record rainfall TravelNews
The Atlantic is cooling at record speed and nobody knows why New Scientist
New Zealand sheep and cattle numbers down as carbon forestry, drought and low prices affect sector New Zealand Herald
China?
Biden Approved Secret Nuclear Strategy Refocusing on Chinese Threat New York Times
China’s $70bn property rescue plan limps off starting line Financial Times
China Unleashes Rapid Drop in New-Home Prices With Relaxed Curbs Bloomberg
China warns of countermeasures as EU updates EV probe Nikkei
Apple’s Thai gaffe shows brands must tread with more care in Asia South China Morning Poat
India
India’s schoolgirls are leading a silent cycling revolution BBC (Dr. Kevin)
Global trade needs a China alternative; India needs better ports Economic Times
European Disunion
German Crackdown On Terrorism Is Pretext To Persecute Political Enemies, Says Opposition Leader Michael Shellenberger (Robin K)
Anti-Constitutional: Manufacturing Political Consent Wolfgang Streeck, London Review of Books. Anthony L: “Germany fighting fascism.”
Old Blighty
25% of Brits Consider Turning Off the Heat in Winter OilPrice
Gaza
Hezbollah hammers Israeli targets after eight wounded in regime’s attacks on Bekaa PressTV
Israel Simulates F-35 and F-15 Long Range Air Assault as Show of Force to Iran Military Watch
Hamas accuses US of ‘buying time for Israel’ in Gaza ceasefire talks Aljazeera (Kevin W)
Israel Wants to Build Wall Between Egypt, Gaza to Hinder Hamas Tunnels-Digging – Reports Sputnik (Robin K)
Iran says retaliation against Israel for Haniyeh’s killing could take ‘long’ time Al-Arabya
New Not-So-Cold War
Moscow repels ‘one of largest’ drone attacks by Ukraine RTE. Props to RTE for having an early and detailed account.
Relentless Russian Assaults Bite Deeper Into Ukraine’s Battered Donbas Defenses Kyiv Post
Surrounded… Andrei Martyanov. On Toretsk and New York.
Back to the Bloodlands: Operation Krepost Big Serge. On the Kursk offensive. Have to disagree with his take on the Kursk nuclear power plant as an objective. The Kiev regime is all about PR and stunts, to a significant degree to keep the support of its coalition partners. Did Big Serge forget Snake Island? The huge waste of good soldiers in trying to secure and hold a position in Krinky on the east side of the Dnieper in Kherson? The obsession with the militarily unimportant Kerch Bridge? Admittedly, he does allow for spectacle as an aim later. But he seems to forget that the Collective West convinced itself that the underpowered and lacking in air-support Great Summer Counteroffensive would actually cut the Crimea land bridge. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the US (which clearly was backing this exercise) has not gotten over its deeply internalized view that the Russian military is weak and incompetent and its soldiers will run away when faced with enough force. But be sure to read, late in the piece, his discussion of ORBAT. And lots of great detail throughout.
In Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, underground fighters are burning warehouses and columns with weapons for Kyiv Aftershock. Story refers to an underlying source which presents visuals. Seems plausible because it’s the sort of thing the KGB ought to be doing, with cutouts/cover for the Russian state being behind it. And Russia might have decided to get more aggressive about this sort of thing after Kursk.
Letter: West must test Putin’s claims about the Russian economy Financial Times. Micael T: “Of course, we must focus on Putin‘s economy, not ours.”
Imperial Collapse Watch
Accusations of US Regime-Change Operations in Pakistan and Bangladesh Warrant UN Attention Jeffrey Sachs, Common Dreams
Azerbaijan applies for joining BRICS – Foreign Ministry Interfax
De-Dollarization? Not so fast Stabroek News. Robin K: “A continuation of reflections on the place of the dollar in Guyana.”
Trump
Republicans worry Trump blowing their chances for Senate majority The Hill
Nicole Shanahan, VP on the Robert Kennedy ticket, says the RFK campaign is currently debating whether to stay in the race or drop out to endorse President Trump. She does not want Kamala to win.pic.twitter.com/iLsSuLEyQ5
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) August 20, 2024
Secret Service Flaws Enabled Trump Assassination Attempt ProPublica (Robin K)
Kamala
Exclusive-Harris’ Election Effort Raises Around $500 Million in a Month, Sources Say Reuters
Trump says Kamala Harris will not participate in Fox News debate on Sept. 4 Fox. But she had so far agreed only to a Sept. 10 debate on ABC.
Kamala Harris Suffers Triple Polling Blow Before DNC Starts Newsweek
Presidential Debate: Donald Trump vs Kamala Harris | Shawn Farash & Estee Palti, Alec Lace, YouTube. Farash is very good. Too bad his face is all wrong.
Democrat Convention
A protest carnival produces little heat in Chicago Semafor
Democratic National Convention Draws 20 Million On First Night, Surpassing RNC Viewership Deadline
Joe Biden, Trump Casualty American Conservative. A reader who watched the convention pointed out the Biden convention speech was at midnight, and there was a remarkable amount of dead time and third tier presenters to make sure he didn’t speak in prime time.
Democrats Unveil a Bizarre Foreign Policy Platform Daniel Larison
Abortion
Voters in Arizona and Montana can decide on constitutional right to abortion Associated Press
Women Are ‘Scared to Tell Their Doctors They’re Miscarrying,’ Louisiana Woman Says at DNC Jezebel (furzy)
Our No Longer Free Press
The EU Just Declared War on Free Speech in America. It is Time to Fight Back Jonathan Turley
University of California bans encampments and face masks Guardian (Carla R)
Woke Watch
Harley-Davidson hits brakes on DEI The Hill (Kevin W)
Supply Chain
Potential rail stoppage in Canada has US businesses worried The Hill (Kevin W)
Mr. Market v. the Fed
Fed confronts up to a million US jobs vanishing in revision Bloomberg. Lambert reported yesterday in Water Cooler but important not to miss.
Canada, Hungary, US Make Top 3 in Highest Increase in Public Debt Servicing Per Capita Sputnik (Robin K)
How the Pentagon built Silicon Valley Responsible Statescraft (Kevin W). This was documented years ago in Marianna Mazzucato’s book, The Entrepreneurial State.
Class Warfare
Have CEOs Changed? NBER
US judge strikes down Biden administration ban on worker ‘noncompete’ agreements Reuters (Kevin W)
Iowa man fired after passing out at a work-assigned ‘happy hour’ event Iowa Capital Dispatch (Robin K)
Antidote du jour (Julia M via Bob H):
And a bonus:
If you stop to watch one thing today, let this be it. pic.twitter.com/LTb6bhlJMT
— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) August 20, 2024
And a second bonus (guurst):
Так, что тут у нас? 👀 pic.twitter.com/nkzShL0IOU
— Etna (@Etnaetoya) August 20, 2024
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
SEVEN FOR THE ROAD
Ukraine wants to play with a dirty bomb
Israelis run wild with their Gaza pogrom
Persians weary of Jewish abuse
Have lots of missiles about to bust loose
Before a big storm there are days of calm
So China won’t ship Antimony to us
Which throws our key industries under the bus
Without this base ore
We can’t really make war
And without war we’re superfluous
The Dem’s Convention is all for show
Sure wish we’d been offered a primary, though
But the donor class said
‘Let’s put this thing to bed’
‘She’s your candidate! Stand up! Let’s go!’
Israel wants America to bomb Iran
Some tail-wags-the-dog is sure going on
There may be a brief fight
Before we grasp our plight:
All those Middle East oil wells are gone!
We’ll not conquer Iran from the air
We’ll need three million grunts Over There
We’ll need pants for our Navy
To sail ‘cross the wavy
And twenty-five years to prepare
The ultra-right Zionist squatters
Grow violent as Israel totters
This world speaks with one voice
And says they have one choice:
Depart with your sons and your daughters!
Oh, the Strait of Hormuz where oil tankers cruise
Is a smoldering fuse that is not in the news
Iran can close it
The whole world knows it
Iran is a war that we have to refuse
‘maui @ mfa ✍🏾 (they/them)
@lesbianoir
covid actually broke the concept of public health i fear like this is literally the covid response applied to lice’
I’ll be goddamned. I thought that this was an excellent piece of satire and wished that I had thought of it myself. But then I found that she was actually serious-
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/cdc-guidelines-students-with-lice-no-longer-need-to-be-sent-home-early/ar-AA1oQu7d
Good thing that there was no CDC in the 1340s.
When looking at the social, economic, and political trends in the past 30 years, I had become convinced that TPTB wanted to bring society back to the 19th century. The way public health is being handled has convinced me that TPTB actually want to go back to pre-French-Revolution 18th century.
Yes, and they’re so innumerate they won’t realize all the dependencies of their wealth and privilege on human feedstocks until it’s too late.
Wasn’t it CDC that mandated killing all cats?
Let’s wait for the ridicule in schools to send those kids home packing, or have special classes only for kids with lice. And then punishments for stigmatizing kids with lice. Will we end up with competitions on who has the biggest bug or the most lice or the most eggs or whatever. A new fashion will emerge, of long hair, riddled with lice, that will make the hear appear to change color due to ever moving little critters…
Actually this is not at all controversial from a public health standpoint. Lice are a nuisance yes. A nuisance is not a PHE
Trench Fever or typhus are not serious public health issues? I get that it’s not mosquitoes and malaria, but when one looks at outbreaks of typhus among the homeless in Los Angeles and other American cities, it’s serious enough. Public health in America seems to be of allowing the increasing spread of diseases that would not have been allowed in the 20th century.
I turn off the heat in winter. Power in my small 600xf one bedroom in Brooklun would be $400/m+ if I left it on. I use a small space heater where I am and electric blankets instead.
“25% of Brits Consider Turning Off the Heat in Winter”
I’m sure this is probably a good solution for some. Still I think it may matter if you have a detached or semi detached house versus an apartment. There will usually be a certain amount of heat in an apartment building that will protect plumbing. But if you turn off the heat in a house or semi-detached house you could be exposing your pipes to freezing. Of course I am assuming that they wouldn’t be turning the water off and it would all be dependent on how cold it got and for how long of course. But turning heat off completely might not be the best option for everyone.
Either way it is an indictment of our system (here and in Britain) if this is the only solution.
Yoga might help. In my highschool, subletting a room in an appartment building, just on the corner upper floor, with 3 sides to the elements and no heating, (no electric blankets, etc) took me hours to warm up in bed, with cold clamy feet. Started doing yoga prior to bed and that really helped.
In the mid-70s I rented a small sitting room in London for a few weeks. The building had no central heat but I was provided a small electric space heater. The room also had a non-functioning gas space heater that I understand was an artifact from Edwardian times or earlier. It was designed to run for a limited time after one or two pennies were inserted. Maybe some UK readers of NC could tell us if this could be a viable solution. I was told that a great deal of lore was going around on how to cheat these devices when they were in general use.
Putting money in the gas or electricity meter is still a thing. My grandparents ran holiday let’s and the electricity took 50p coins. We would empty the collection box after the guests to pay for the bill. Guests would change a £5 note into 50p’s for their stay.
These days, it is prepaid smartcards that the utility companies require people to use. These are often people too poor to have a bank account. Naturally the hiurlybtare for these users is far higher than for people whomcan pay on direct debit. :-(
Aging process discontinuities at fixed ages. Hmm. I think it’s a bit more nuanced than the article presents. I am willing to entertain the possibility that there are “two relatively small periods when humans’ underlying robustness goes downhill” but I think that in real life it is a trigger that can cause the observed decline after one of these periods that is the key thing – if the triggers are only manipulable by public policy to affect society (rather than by individual action) then what use is knowing the two discontinuities?
I brought up the big issue in rheumatology of catastrophic decline a few weeks ago on here regarding the fact a proportion of people underdoing joint replacement are dead within 6 months when nothing whatsoever in their clinical data was suggestive that they were inappropriate candidates for it. As Yves pointed out, the “complication rate” for hips was far lower and it’s well-known that hips are “easy” compared to knees, but the phenomenon was spotted by my rather famous boss in both joints over 20 years ago, albeit at different rates.
I think that concentrating on the two ages quoted is counterproductive. These are at worst plain wrong, and at best, “points at which you become more vulnerable to external triggers”. The article does not really discuss the latter in anything approaching sufficient detail. Plus these ages read like population means and I tend not to pay attention to such cutoffs…..we see all too many of these which are subsequently shown to be artefacts and that even bimodal or multimodal distributions can disguise all sorts of heterogeneity, making “polices based on them” useless for everyone who isn’t an average of an apple and an orange.
Taleb has been writing recently about the lack of predictive power in applying population mean risks to individuals, specifically measures of cardio capacity.
Thurstone in 1927 showed how intra-individual variation was required to get one’s head around the risk of a given individual doing/experiencing something.
If Taleb is writing about lack of predictive power in population means to gauge individual risk then that’s 97+ years out of date – sheesh.
How long are these guys gonna take to kick the bucket to enable the “one funeral at a time” paradigm shift that is required?
To clarify, I was thinking of a tweet from July critical of a JAMA paper on statin use. Part of his ongoing effort to battle innumeracy IMO.
Ah gotcha, sorry for not understanding the attempt to address innumeracy.
Though the attempts to combat med stats misuse can be more harmful than helpful when one doesn’t understand the philosophical and mathematical basis of limited dependent variable models. Gives those who seek to misuse stats easy targets and easy ways to confuse people.
The nature of the axiomatisation of limited dependent variable models (ubiquitous across health) is understood across multiple distinct fields (n-of-1 trials, discrete choice modelling, etc) and (though I’m not criticising MMT) could be argued to be “more widely accepted/understood” so be “further along the line to implementation”. Combating innumeracy when using a paradigm that is demonstrably false and was accepted to be in the theoretical statistical community back in the mid 1980s will likely backfire.
It’s fairly well agreed that children have “growth spurts”. So, why wouldn’t it make sense that elders have “age spurts”?
growth spurts in children are a series of timed changes that build on each other to ensure proper growth and development. Aging is not structured like that, more of a free fall without purposed sequences, I think.
Thanks for this.
The scientific article whose press release CNN duly transcribed is pretty much nonsense.
They’re fitting a curve through a cloud of noise. They measured 10s-100s of thousands of biomolecules (expression, metabolism, microbiome) for just 108 individuals which were on average followed for less than 2 years. There’s no way you can identify peaks of aging like that, it’s noise.
Other objections here: https://x.com/lpachter/status/1824338306391482767
They spent a lot of money, and got it published in top tier journal, which incidentally charges almost 10k per article for the privilege of
lining shareholders pocketspublishing important research. I’m sure everybody will get a nice career boost. It would give genomics a bad name if anyone cared. And I’m saying that as an active researcher.Hahaha did I say almost 10k? It’s actually $12,290 for each article. Those scientists and peer reviewers and editors must be rich! Oh wait…
Working link for “Israel Wants to Build Wall Between Egypt, Gaza to Hinder Hamas Tunnels-Digging – Reports” article at-
https://sputnikglobe.com/20240820/israel-wants-to-build-wall-between-egypt-gaza-to-hinder-hamas-tunnels-digging—reports-1119836011.html
They may want to build it but they will expect other countries to pay for it.
Fixed, thanks!
I thought there already was a wall, built by Egypt to keep Gazans in? And sensors and ground microphones to detect tunnelling. Are the Israelis wanting a second inner was of their own?
“M&Ms on checkerboard trick your brain”
My favorite checkerboard illusion (if that’s a genre of optical illusions) remains MIT vision scientist Edward Adelson’s elegant checker shadow illusion here. (Square A and Square B are the identical shade.)
Well the only way to verify that is to employ the dropper tool and see what the color code is. I can’t do that with my mobile device.
Common way to verify optical illusions is to cover parts of it with hands, and focus on detals. With some basic finger gymnastics you can try to cover everyting but the letters.
JFYI, I’ve taken a screenshot and used the eye dropper in photoshop. The colors are identical
I know. I have done the same thing when I encountered that optical illusion for the first time, many years ago. ;-)
The Wikipedia article (which is where the specific image linked to is from) shows a uniformly shaded region going from one of the squares to the other. (The Perceptual Science Group at MIT has a similar proof.)
Politico: Gaza deal fails.
A bit of truthiness slips out … color me surprised that this honest take got past the DNC censors looking to fluff up its prospects during the convention. Note that Politico’s piece is at odds from the usual optimistic clap-trap trotted out by various other media outlets.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/20/gaza-deal-fail-us-00175132
Hamas and most Palestinians know that there is no possibility for a deal unless the US twists the arms if the Israelis which would force American Zionists to twist the administration’s arms and, therefore, no deal. Israel will agree to a ceasefire only when it can ethnically cleanse the WB and Gaza or be militarily defeated. The whole charade of “negotiations” is nonsense. Since the death of Oslo Israel’s plan has been ethnic cleansing at the very least.
OK, sorry for my hair pulling screed here against Politico and most of the newsmakers, but it’s not a deal [family blog]it!!!
A deal is between two opposing sides. This is a PROPOSAL that Netanyahu has agreed to, yet Tony Blinkered wants to call a deal.
If I’m buying a house, and the other party says, “OK, here’s the deal” and hands me a piece of paper, am I the bad guy for saying, “Uh, no”?
It’s really a “deal” between Tony Blinkered and Netanyahu made at a crucial time (just before DNC starts), so we had minimum leverage to actually get a good “deal” from Netanyahu.
Going back to Yves’ characterization of “dealmaking” in the West: they spend most of the time negotiating amongst themselves (I think I captured the spirit, but I don’t think I got the wording quite right. Apologies!). My take on this is that they got too used to being able to unilaterally imposing their will on the other side that the only problem that they can imagine is opposition from other Western factions. If the other side doesn’t agree, they can only react with indignation, “how dare they object to our consensus!” (Including, I guess, their “how dare do the people object to “Our democracy ™”)
I’ve pulled enough of my own hair out over the medias lack of proper skepticism in covering this shameless bad-faith dealing by Blinken to qualify as partly bald. I agree with you, this isn’t a “deal” this is a farce. A proposal made by Biden back in May, that was never agreed to by either side. Even now, it isn’t clear that Netanyahu agreed to it.
It is more like a dead mammal starting to decay that both sides hope to pin on the other.
From Haaretz: “Duped Again: The U.S. Somehow Heard Netanyahu Say ‘Yes’ to a Gaza Deal. He Didn’t”
https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/2024-08-20/ty-article/.premium/duped-again-the-u-s-somehow-heard-netanyahu-say-yes-to-a-gaza-deal-he-didnt/00000191-7008-d7fc-ab93-f23f3f6e0000
Working link to: India’s schoolgirls are leading a silent cycling revolution
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3g98lgyj38o
Fixing, thanks!
“Apple’s Thai gaffe shows brands must tread with more care in Asia’
Why is it that multi-billion dollar corporations just can’t seem to do their pr right? It’s not exactly because they are short of money or anything. They could have tested it on local people first before releasing it nation wide but I guess that they did not. And it is not a new problem either. One American car company decades ago named their new car the Nova. But it did not do so well in Latin American countries as that word could be interpreted as No Go.
This is something that was already apparent 30 years ago. It is due in no small part to
1) the ascent of large advertising firms that cater for multinationals (Saatchi & Saatchi being one of the most famous examples);
2) the idea that the world is flat / globalized (especially when dealing with international brands).
The result: PR and advertising campaigns are decided at the headquarters of a large corporation (instead of letting regional or national subsidiaries deal with them), and designed centrally by an agency in London or Paris (instead of entrusting a local agency knowledgeable with the specific socio-cultural aspects of the market).
I have myself seen a few blunders in advertisements, generally small things, but that betrayed the “globalized” source of the concept and somehow turned what should have been a clever advertisement into a small joke.
Thanks for that. I think that your explanation of why makes sense. I suppose too that Global corporations feel compelled to adopt what they think of as Global values which they try to apply locally. Like with Bud Light.
One Japanese car company decades ago named their new car Pajero, but renamed it to Montero in Latin American countries. Whether it made it do better or worse, remains a matter of debate.
Pendejo was reserved for the new model?
I really enjoyed driving the Datsun Chinga Tu Madre back in the day myself.
Yeah Pajero is awful specially in Spain may be not so much in Latin America where i think it retained that name. It could mean someone too keen on jerking up.
Your overall point is well taken but the Nova story is an urban myth. In fact Nova sales in Central America exceeded expectations.
Can you guess what the Spanish word for Nova is? Nova!
As far as Spanish goes, saying no va for “no go” sounds awfully clumsy.
There used to be a type of gasoline in Mexico which was called Nova, and nobody had problems buying it.
Thanks for the correction. It seems that this story is an urban myth that took on a life of its own-
https://www.thoughtco.com/chevy-nova-that-wouldnt-go-3078090
Are there some fun “rural myths”?
Vampires.
One I grew up with – https://www.woodstockhistorycenter.org/articles/2022/10/4/woodstocks-vampire
Why, yes! Here, in what were the deeps of the (seemingly) endless great Greenwood that in part became the rural towns of Northwest Connecticut, we have the Winsted Wildman, among others.
I’ve heard… mailbox baseball is an actual thing. Knuckle headed teenagers….
For those unfamiliar. Mailbox is free standing on a post of some sort, positioned near to a rural two lane road. Knuckle head leans out window with baseball bat positioned to damage the mailbox. Homeowners might’ve sorted out thru time that this occurs.
Like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxYq0FvBo5M (1:00 min)
Speaking of urban myths, this might also be one, but I heard that one reason Microsoft skipped over Windows 9 and went directly to Windows 10 was because they were worried about a bunch of Germans starting a campaign along the lines of: “Windows? Nein!”
Allegedly, the reason there has never been a Renault 8 model, is because that would come out as Rat in Swedish. Not sure if that is an urban myth but there has never been a Renault of that number. Though Renault has switched to naming rather than numbering their cars these days.
Peugeot numbers their cars, but the numbers have to do with the power of the car. Renault still names their cars but there’s a number to denote the generation. EG Clio 5, Megane 4, Zoe, Arkana, etc
Renault numbers predate those names.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_4 Production 1961–1992
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_5 Production 1972–1996
Peugeot numbers denote class of the vehicle, and also generation (e.g. 206 is replacement for 205).
If you go back long enough (say half a century or so…) you might be in for a surprise…
R8 Gordini
Well, there were other versions but this was where all the fun was… small car, rear small engine & fast!
Not to mention, as a Latin word, it shouldn’t have caused issues practically anywhere in European language universe (least of all in a Romance language like Spanish…).
Well Nova if you write it as “no va” literally means it doesn’t work/it does not move. “Nova” is a star that gains much bright but this word is barely used except as a latin adjective for new and almost never colloquially. Supernova is used more frequently.´That name, Nova, would indeed serve as a joke. Just write it as “nová” and it works great as a joke.
It would not be a problem in Brazil, since “nova” in Portuguese means “new” (for feminine nouns).
In Slavic languages also (i.e. Nova Kakhovka).
*it should say e.g. instead of i.e.
Why do you Spaniards need to sub “ue” for “o”? :P
The Rolls Royce Silver Mist had to be renamed in Germany (Mist => dung)
“One American car company decades ago named their new car the Nova. But it did not do so well in Latin American countries as that word could be interpreted as No Go.”
Maybe that’s why Chevy decided to offer muscle car versions of the Nova. Yenko, Chevy’s version of Ford’s Shelby, created this version of the Nova:
That little Nova with 450 HP under the hood would definitely “go.”
Okdoomer says in the mpox article “Scientists endorse proactive strategies to reduce airborne transmission.” And I thought, is was the scientists that we got that from was it? I remember engineers and technicians, and Lambert figuring it out. Scientists were as loyal to prevailing orthodoxies as … any.
>Secret Service Flaws Enabled Trump Assassination Attempt ProPublica (Robin K)
…the weaknesses that led to the assassination attempt were not unique to the July rally, but the inevitable breakdown of an already vulnerable system…It’s pretty clear that it wasn’t just one screw-up here,” said Andrew Vitek, a professor who teaches about terrorism at Penn State University. “This is indicative of multiple systemic failures all coming down around their ears at once.”
No, not buying it. FBI is not releasing details of phone conversations/contacts of Maxwell Yearick and Crooks, or an alleged “white van,” that supposedly was used, offshore accounts that transferred money to Crooks, and many other unusual/unexplained circumstances that independent journalist/investigators have identified.
There is speculation that Iran was behind it as payback for assassination of Soleimani, or that it was the Deep State that fears a Trump presidency, that it staged and planned to boost Trump’s standing, etc…pick your own flavor. The one that I reject is the one ProPublica puts out, that it was “multiple systemic failures,” no not buying it.
My favorite is that the FBI gave the corpse to the family to cremate, before an autopsy was done. The FBI allowed the cremation of the alleged shooter’s body, a US Congress member has said
FBi on the case, so evidence will get a good
scrubbingexamination, eventually. In the meantime, dust accumulates on more recent items like that Hunter laptop or the bag of cocaine from the White House, or how many others that may never see the light of day!I have to wonder if there were two operations going on meant to change the candidates in November. Trump and Biden both faced coup attempts, one successful in a relatively short period of time.
Wild I know but hey it isn’t as if this hasn’t been the craziest decade ever.
same. poor hillary, this was her last best chance.
adding somewhat off topic, media cheerleading for the dnc and kamala is seriously off putting.
They’re really really fighting for a reboot of hopey changey….
So krugman somehow knows what kamalamanomics is without any statements by said prospective leader? No I didn’t read kruggles, just saw the headline and wondered briefly.
Shameless advocacy is not journalism. The entire production reminds me of that kool aid guy jones.
My private position is that k will not poll higher than she did yesterday for the remainder of the issue. My public position is OMG I’ve not felt this joyous in I can’t remember how long, go cancel someone else…
We still have years left to go. I hope there are any humans left by the end of it… Or, maybe not.
It’s possible there was “incompetence” but if it was the case it was engineered. The FBI should be the last organization to investigate this incident whether they are, now, acting in good faith (which I doubt) or not. The FBI, like the CIA needs to be totally dissolved–they’ve always been, in the main, a political police force and, in this era, deeply corrupt like many other law enforcement agencies. But what you and I think is irrelevant–they are untouchable.
As for the Secret Service, clearly they may even worse than the FBI under the Biden Administration if their bosses are any indication.
I’m not buying it either.
This from the article –
“Because the Secret Service is stretched thin, with 3,200 agents and another 1,300 uniformed officers to divide among more than 30 protectees…”
– is pretty contradictory and lacking in detail. If I bust out my abacus and do the math here, that comes out to 150 SS agents per protectee on average. If anything, that would seem to be a ‘too many cooks’ situation rather than the SS being stretched thin. ProPublica is generally very detailed, but they provide no context for these numbers, such as how many are in person, how many are behind the scenes, etc.
When I have witnessed the SS around one of these high ranking protectees recently, there are generally only a handful of them in person at non-public events, with presumably more for public occasions. Seems like there would still be quite a few left who could be spared to guard more high profile people like Trump.
On Kursk and the Big Serge article.
So there are two parts here. First, and this speaks to the criticism of Big Serge expressed above, why did the Ukrainians do it? It seems to me, that *someone* amongst the Western generals and politicians playing with their toy Ukrainian soldiers thought they could replicate exactly Kharkov 2022. Take a bunch of fast mounted units, have them drive as quickly as possible up the roads without bothering to solidify control over any particular place, and the “stupid Russian orcs”(TM) will pull back in disarray, eventually rushing enough troops to stop the Ukrainian advance, but only eventually. If you look at the map, it’s about 50 kilometers as the crow flies from Balakleia to Kupiansk (and another 5-10 kilometers to the Russian lines beyond), and 55 kilometers from Izium to the new frontline.
Projecting the same distance onto a map of the Kursk region, and “rounding up” a little, yields a frontline, west-to-east, of Ryl’sk-L’gov-Kurchatov outskirts-Medvenka-Oboyan, basically along the E38 and M2 highways. And maybe you get a little lucky, and the Russians decide to pull back to the river line north of the E38 highway (as opposed to holding on to the Sejm River a little to the south of it), which gets you to Kurchatov itself and puts Kursk in field artillery range. I am convinced, and the criticism of Big Serge above duly notes, that many in the West still believe the Russian army to be utterly incompetent and incapable, so why couldn’t it work?
Of course, in reality, one, Kharkov 2022 involved a lot more Ukrainians, reportedly up to 20 thousand; and Russia did not, at the time, have any meaningful reserves to employ, as it was still trying to fight the war with 100-150 thousand troops (whereas the post-Kharkov mobilization and volunteering yielded plus 600-700 thousand in 2023 alone). Not to mention the changes in the nature of the battlefield (recon drones everywhere) and offensive-defensive tactics since, among other things. Clearly, the planners did not bother with these sordid little details, which is why Russian media channels over the past week or so have become stuffed to the gills with videos of smashed Ukrainian “flying columns” (because groups of a few unsupported APCs or Humvee-equivalents can certainly drive fast, but they cannot handle any serious opposition by themselves).
On a related note, this strikes me like a very British sort of op. Launching a strike well away from the main axis of operations, relying on a lot of dash and the enemy not putting up much of a resistance, seizing an objective that will “turn the war” without actually engaging the enemy’s main force – that’s basically British strategic thinking for much of the 20th century. The “indirect approach”, if you will, though Lord Churchill was doing it long before Liddell-Hart wrote a book about it. Of course, most of the time it didn’t actually work, at least not as advertised, but “lessons learned” is just not something British generals *do*. American generalship is almost the opposite – big, heavy blows up the center to smash up the enemy directly (or fail so to do). The June-August 2023 offensive is clearly an American baby, but this? This smells like London-type thinking to me, which would also explain why even the most ardently pro-Ukrainian US press outlets (e.g. David Axe in Forbes) from the very start adopted Gollum’s “too risky, too risky” stance on the whole enterprise.
Now. To Big Serge. I must admit, I am hung up on a paragraph fairly early on, number three in the “Diversionary Front” subsection, where Serge talks about the Russians forming “an entirely new Northern Army Group covering Belgorod, Kursk and Bryansk”. That’s just…not correct? I mean, the Russians *had* formed Group North some time ago – to fight on the Kharkov direction. And this Group North has now extended its area of operations to cover the Kursk region – you can see from its official Telegram channel, “warriorofnorth”, that about 80%-85% of its fighting is now done on the Kursk direction, while the rest relates to the ongoing grind in Volchansk and around Lipcy in the Kharkov region. *Separately* Belousov has just announced that a new coordinating command is being set up for the Belgorod-Kursk-Bryansk regions, presumably with a view to taking over from Group North in due course. But that isn’t what Big Serge’s language indicates.
But, ok, I am arguing over semantics, let us say. Check the URLs on the linked citations in that paragraph: Kiev Post; Reuters; Rezident_UA Telegram channel; Google Maps. Wouldn’t it have been, I don’t know, an obvious thing if you’re talking about the “formation of an entirely new Northern Army Group” to link to or even just cite verbally a Russian source of some kind? Or even the English-language RT website? I mean, the Ministry of Defence does exist, and it does do stuff in English sometimes. As does Rybar, though he has his flaws. It just bothers me that in a paragraph talking about the Russians forming army groups and raising armies and not shifting units from the Donbass direction – something the Russian media has been making a big, big hay of, as in “see, the Ukrainian plan has already failed” – there isn’t a single Russian source cited, whether by name or in hyperlink form. Maybe it’s the former post-graduate student in me, having to literally obsess about sources and citations…
I read Big Serge’s piece and also Simplicius. It is difficult to understand what the puppet masters of Ukraine are trying to accomplish. If I had to guess, Big Serge’s “Pure Spectacle” option is #1, as it effectively chases the collapse of the UAF in the Donbass off the front pages, just in time for the critical US election homestretch.
But I wouldn’t discount the “diversionary” option, either. I spend way too much time reading various war bloggers and one thing that has popped up are rumors of large groups of men and material in Zaporozhe or Odessa. If this is a UK operation, as you are speculating, we know they are obsessed with Crimea.
Of course, time is not on the side of Zelensky. We’re already two weeks into the “Krepost” operation, as Big Serge calls it. The element of surprise has been lost, and surely Russia is watching those troop movements in the South. If we don’t see some new front erupt by, say Labor Day, it probably means that this is indeed the last gasp of project Ukraine as far as the military dimension goes. Or it was just a bargaining maneuver to seize territory that can be traded for something else, if real peace talks ever begin. A prospect that looks dimmer than ever.
Speculating freely, looking at all the units cannibalized to put together the mobility for what Serge calls “Krepost”, I continue to wonder if the zealous Banderites, spread across the expanded army, who got the “best equipment” and had been using it to prevent retreats and desertions amongst the unwashed newbies (who perchance mapped over those threatening and who were best equipped to kill Zelensky) we’re called on to gloriously “invade Russia” by Zelensky in full knowledge of their most likely fate, it was after all a plan cooked up by the Brits whom said Banderites would trust.
Most likely explanation is that everything Ukraine does is meant to cause political instability in Russia – that’s the only way they think they can win, by starting a chain of events that leads to regime change in Russia.
As for the cunning plans of Mr. Zelensky, a few of his old friends (and some members of Rada) are saying that he’s still merely repeating his role as a president in the series that made him famous – he needs a script for everything.
That certainly makes more sense than my speculation.
Allow me to iterate once more my quip :-
Ukraine does Storyboards,
Russia does Spreadsheets.
I was surprised by Yve’s commentary because per my reading Big Serge is not buying the “atomic hostage” explanation. He just lists it as one of the explanations provided by the commentators and then explains why he does’t buy it. He seems to favor the “Pure spectacle” as the main reason behind it.
I am saying he should buy the atomic hostage idea. Look at how obsessed Ukraine was with trying to recapture and then repeatedly shell the Zaporzhizhia power plant. His logical explanation of why the Kursk plant won’t become another Chernobyl ignores massive public ignorance. The press talks up any conflict around a nuclear plant as if it can easily go “kaboom” when they are very well hardened. Admittedly, there can be risks from less well protected waste.
Ah, ok, Sorry for my misunderstanding.
Risk is not blowing up NPPs with external explosives. If Ukrainians (UK) got operators into a functioning NPP plant they could set it up for a meltdown (just like Chernobyl). Which is why Ukrainians (UK) needed to capture the plant as opposed to just drone bomb it like Zaporzhizhia.
Please do not misinform readers.. Big Serge explained in gory detail why the Kursk plant is not subject to a Chernobyl-type event. Different design. You are engaging in exactly the sort of uninformed alarmism I called out above.
“The Kursk plant is currently in a state of transition, with its four older RBMK reactors (similar to those used at Chernobyl) being phased out and replaced with new VVER reactors.” Only Kursk 1 & 2 phased out, Kursk 3 & 4 not until 2033 & 2035.
“Chernobyl, for example, experienced a steam explosion due to particular design flaws which do not exist in currently operable plants.” Chernobyl accident was 1986. Kursk RBMK reactors 3 & 4 were completed in 1978/81. It was Chernobyl 4 reactor which blow up and is the same generation 2 type RBMK as the Kursk reactors 3 & 4. Kursk is also a similar vintage to the Fukushima Daiichi reactor which would have had added improvements/safeguards post-Chernobyl.
Big Serge doesn’t really provide enough detail to substantiate his arguments.
OK. British strategic thinking a hundred years ago was based on having the world’s largest Navy, a small professional Army, and no public support for conscription. This was reinforced after the trauma of World War 1. These constraints were rationalised into a strategy of “indirect approach” by Liddell Hart, who wasn’t half the strategic thinker or military historian he thought he was. In World War 1, as it happened, it was actually the right strategy (Gallipoli was fine in concept, but disastrous in the way the military executed it.) The German surrender was principally because Franchet d’Espèry’s troops, advancing through Bulgaria, knocked Austria-Hungary out of the war.
But that was a long time ago. The British Cold War doctrine for high-intensity warfare followed NATO’s (largely American) model, and more recently it has again followed the US into a doctrine of Manoeuvre Warfare, of which the Ukrainian Kursk attack is a typical example.
More generally, for all the frenzied speculation about western influence and even participation in these operations, reality suggests that, in fact, western militaries are not that good. It seems clear that Ukrainian officers and NCOs from before 2022 and those conscripts who survived, are at least as good as their western equivalents and probably better.
> Kursk nuclear power plant as an objective & a very British sort of op
Definitely a British style op. Overreaching by trying to capture Kursk NPP & blackmailing Russia with a threat of blowing it up. The threat being only way to keep the captured ground. (I don’t think this type of blackmail would’ve worked on Russians..) With failure, as we’re seeing, leading to a complete slaughter of the attacking forces.
You just get a feeling that someone is trying to show that Operation Market Garden really did make sense don’t you ?
Yes, the new movie will be called ‘A Nuclear Power Plant too far’ ;-)
Petty point, but Churchill was never a Lord. He was offered a Peerage after WW2 but refused it.
Major aerial refuelling exercise is indeed a show of force, at these gas prices.
Crowd-funded, like the Act Blue donations?
“Moscow repels ‘one of largest’ drone attacks by Ukraine”
Because the Ukrainians have not provoked the Russians enough by invading Kursk, they now decide to attack Moscow itself. Modi is suppose to be going to the Ukraine next week to try to talk up peace negotiations But even he probably realizes that the Ukrainians are not interested in any such negotiations but will continue to push and prod Russia no matter the cost to them. Putin himself has come out and said that he is no longer interested in negotiations and certainly watching the events of the past two weeks, the nations of the Global majority are now agreeing with him. Unless it is Zelensky’s 10-point peace program, the Ukrainians are just not interested-
https://www.reuters.com/world/indias-modi-discuss-resolution-ukraine-conflict-during-kyiv-trip-2024-08-21/
Modi will offer Zelensky 1-point peace program.
Will he enumerate it to Zelensky with a raised finger?
Are you thinking in the middle one?
Here’s a working link:
https://sputnikglobe.com/20240820/israel-wants-to-build-wall-between-egypt-gaza-to-hinder-hamas-tunnels-digging—reports-1119836011.html
I had to check other news outlets to see if this is a joke of some sorts.
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/israel-plans-to-build-anti-tunnel-wall-on-egypt-gaza-border-report/3085089
Israel is planning to build an underground anti-tunnel wall near the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, according to local media on Sunday.
It turns out, it is a joke.
edit:
I wrote this before seeing The Rev Kev’s post. Sorry for double post.
Iowa man fired…don’t do it on the very grounds of an industry adjacent company or supplier? Can one’s brains function well after 3 drinks…my suggestion will be it varies..unless you’re an impervious power alcoholic like wrestler legend, Nature Boy Ric Flair.
Add in some tiredness from the day and the driving…your coworkers are not perhaps nice people at all…for the record.
I dunno who’s right or wrong here, but having more than 2 at a work function is just asking for trouble
Part of the training of any serious mid-level manager in a serious organization is to learn to drink at work-connected social functions even if they are just casual. The other part is always cover your ass. I would say that the guy’c coworkers must have had it in for him which means the company does not believe in teamwork. In my favorite workplace, we looked out for each other.
The most important law in corporate America is cover your ass. It doesn’t always work, but you still must.
Re Turley, the EDSA, Musk, and free speech:
The sentiment is correct, but Turley weakens his argument by citing Hillary Clinton’s 2022 tweet as a “response” to the EU’s 2024 attack on Musk. It was worse than a response; it was a plan.
Re Letter: West must test Putin’s claims about the Russian economy Financial Times.
“In July, the Swedish government tasked the Swedish National Institute of Economic Research with conducting a detailed analysis of the Russian economy.
The purpose of the report is to add objective facts and nuance to the discussion about the Russian economy.”
I rather expect the analysts selected to produce this report will be nodding dogs especially chosen to say exactly what the letter writer Swedish Minister for Finance, Svantesson wants them to say. What the hell do the IMF, the OECD and the World Bank know anyway? Obviously tools of Putin.
RE: The EU Just Declared War on Free Speech in America. It is Time to Fight Back Jonathan Turley
Another way to describe the phenomenon than the ludicrous thesis this author tries to peddle–Special interests in America want to take away American’s (ever diminishing) rights to free speech, and want someone to blame for it. Can’t blame Israel (although they have had tremendous success in censoring Americans) since that would be antisemetic. Can’t blame Russians or Chinese, since their trick is propaganda, not censorship. So it must be the big bad European bureaucracy.
The truth is of course that United States has utterly brought Europeans into submission, including having their rights to speech taken away, as demonstrated by their utter unwillingness to protest EU ruining sanctions against Russia, the bombing of Nord Stream etc.
I have to say amen to that. BTW, one of the reasons the EU love the US so much is that the ruling-elites make common cause against their own populations. This is easier today than it has ever been since most of those populations are lost in “Pleasure Island” (from Pinocchio).
Re: Democratic National Convention Draws 20 Million On First Night
Sounds like Netflix must really s*ck this week.
Would you believe that the Democratic National Convention is going to be televised live on one of the TV stations here in Oz? Who wants to watch that? Who asked for it?
No. The Bear has yet to drop season 4.
Note – lame Acacia reply…
Yesterday DN had a clip of AOC’s speech, I had to barf.
AOC could very well be a Democrat Vice-Presidential candidate one day. If Kamala could do it, anybody can. And I suspect AOC to be spook-adjacent just like Obama was.
She certainly has been assimilated by the Borg.
After watching some of her Squad mates get run over by AIPAC, she has definitely chosen her side. Everyone can be co-opted or purged.
The convention definitely has felt more union supportive this time around. I doubt anyone will show that clip of Sinema thumbs downing a minimum wage increase.
I know the director of facilities at the Met in New York. After she wore her “Tax the Rich” gown to the Gala several years ago, the reaction she got from New York Society was more like it had proposed “Eat the Rich”.
It was a very narrow and high altitude donor/society firestorm.
Shortly thereafter she and Nancy had ice cream. Just sayin.
Her mentor was Ted Kemnedy, he knew how not to ruffle the feathers of his donors and still seem.like he was supporting workers.
AOC will do what she has to do, She doesn’t want to go back to bartending.
“Would you believe that the Democratic National Convention is going to be televised live on one of the TV stations here in Oz?”
Given it’s glaring fakeness and that everything seems to be directed by some guy (Obama) hidden behind the machinery, I’d say it’s being broadcast straight from Oz.
RE: Kamala Harris Suffers Triple Polling Blow Before DNC Starts Newsweek
It has never made any sense that the one of the least popular sitting vice presidents ever, in one of the least popular administrations ever, immediately became wildly popular when she was installed to replace the actual winner of the 2024 dem primary without a single vote being cast for her.
I’m with Walter Kirn–I don’t believe any of these polls.
This happy, happy, joy, joy hysteria is completely manufactured–a massive gaslighting. As far as I’m concerned, it’s all just a setup to steal the election for a candidate and a party that nobody wants.
Massive gaslighting and not being Donald Trump is all they have, and all their base cares about. They actually believe every bit of the BS they are swallowing and their already falling down drunk on blue BS.
I don’t think anything is off the table to keep team blue in power, and their base doesn’t care what laws they break or what they do to win. Many have been scared out of their wits over a Trump win – so go for it team D – even if that means censorship, throwing Trump in jail, or even cheating.
Nothing would surprise me at this point. Anything to keep Trump out is on the table IMO.
I know people who are seriously excited about Kamala. Because they can support her without being worried she’ll drop dead? All very blue no matter who and the type to grumble when people suggest policy matters.
Weirdly, they are more Kamala than Tim. He doesn’t really exist.
Bake sales! Wearing merch! All ready to go back to brunch after the election.
My wife is watching it and by the end of the second night she, who does not follow politics, became alarmed. I watched snatches of it last night and found the speeches to be nasty, deeply “ideological” (without any real ideas). I saw some lightweight say we want to ban “hate” but was totally hateful towards the other party, or I would guess anyone in their way. Democrats, increasingly worry me, they seem to have a psychology of totalitarianism about them in their demeanor and fanaticism. Did not find it as bad watching the RP convention which was less upsetting to me though full of sh*t much of the time.
Most of the D leaning people I have talked to experienced a huge surge of relief from dumping Biden. I experienced it myself to some extent, even though I have minimal to negative expectations for Harris.
I think people disliked Biden and Bidenism a lot more than most of them were willing to admit, to the point where Harris actually represents a reduction in discomfort from cognitive dissonance.
It’s the kind of relief one is said to get from a lobotomy.
I suppose that the whole point of this gaslighting exercise by the Democrats is to make people forget the dramatic assassination attempt on Trump’s life and that photo. Can they keep it up between now and November though is a question that has yet to be answered. That’s an awful long time in politics.
And they want people to forget their 4 year “Weekend at Bernie’s” series.
Skipped much of the convention coverage as explosive diarrhea was more appealing than listening to Biden,
JillDr. Jill, Hillary and the Obamas.What will be the big finale?
I noticed that Kamela appeared in a very blue outfit. I wondered briefly if that was a good idea as some people might remember an episode with a blue dress during the Clinton years.
Be great to find Kamalala in a picture with Willie Brown in a blue dress/outfit from back in the day…
Oh, yes, but how many people do still remember the incident with the White House intern and her blue dress?
I believe the polls, there was a lack of excitement for a lot of Dems with Biden at the top of the ticket, so I think some of them switched from an undecided to Harris. On top of that, the praise that she has received from the media and negative press for Trump likely contributed to an increase in her polling.
I think as voters get to know her more, they will like her less and less, especially if she has significant unscripted events where her word salad can be on full display. This is why early voting is so important, if people vote before they know about Harris, they can’t vote for someone else. Democracy in action
As Walter Kirn asked last night in his Day 2 convention review with Matt Taibbi, “What is harris going to do in the “future” that she and biden can’t do right now? They’ve had the presidency and control of the senate for 3 and a half years, and the house for 2. What’s the holdup?”
I watched some of Cenk and the TYT live stream.the Biden speech. I was taken aback on how nice they were.
The only really witty quotable from W, after Gore tried to adopt the slogan “You ain’t seen nothing yet,” was “You’re right. We haven’t.” There are a lot of elements from 2000, mixed with tone-deafness of 2004, mixed in with the 2024. For good reasons, I think. 1) They are trying to sell a major holdover from the administration, take advantage of the incumbency, but without mentioning that she is basically an incumbent. I’ve always been skeptical that they can actually sell this–one’d think that there are enough Americans who are not that stupid. 2) They are too hung up on their self-righteousness that they can’t see their own weaknesses. Kirn wondered why the Dems kept trying to bring up their own weaknesses (jobs, inflation, public safety, and so on). One could remember that, in 2004, Dems kept bringing up Kerry’s military record, which, to the people who are not invested in military matters (most Dem insiders), look impressive (highly decorated war hero and all that), except it is deeply tarnished, to the people who actually care about mlitary matters, by his too overt and vocal involvement in anti-war movement (whether that is fair or not, I am not qualified to comment.) So the stuff that Dems might bring up might sound good to the Dem insiders (who don’t really care, as long as the overall stats look good), but not the people that face the stuff in real life and are aware that whatever the stats are, they don’t quite fit the reality.
In 1972 Kerry was the leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War. He was on tv a fair amount. Personally I saw his holding that post as far more honorable than his military service, and was quite disgusted when he ran for President in 2004 touting himself as a combat leader. IIRC he also couldn’t bring himself to utter much criticism of the Iraq invasion.
well for one, she wont need to give half to the “Big Guy”
Pro-Russian twitter is suddenly full of video clips of Kamala supposedly showing her, as I believe you Usians says, buzzed or even blitzed. Wine mom has been at the wine box.
Is this calumny? In the clips, if she isn’t half-cut then she is apparently only half there.
Is this Trump’s next line of attack? He’s teetotal isn’t he, so this might work well, wino as a mirror of the weird jibe.
What does the commentariat here think?
I too wondered why there would be any joy about Kamela given her track record in previous electoral races. One theory I have is that it’s just relief that Biden is no longer the Democratic standard bearer. The guy has lately shown himself to be so horrific that almost anyone would be more credible as a presidential candidate. Maybe there’s also some DEI effect layered in there, plus it’s been a few years since Kamela had much public exposure and reality has yet to set in.
“Relentless Russian Assaults Bite Deeper Into Ukraine’s Battered Donbas Defenses”
Because the best troops and the best equipment along with the supplies needed have been diverted to the Kursk region, those Ukrainians in the Donbass have been left to twist in the wind. Taking advantage of all this, the Russians are rapidly taking regions and fortified towns at a much quicker pace to the point that through the Russians cutting off supply lines, the entire Ukrainian position in the Donbass is starting to collapse. And it will make no difference if those troops are pulled out of Kursk to be sent to the Donbass as they are being badly mauled and military equipment is being burned up at twice the rate as normal. They will be in no condition to stop the Russian assaults in the Donbass. It has been reckoned that because of military losses in Kursk, that the war has now been shortened by a coupla months.
Ha! The X link by “Maui” regarding CDCs lice guidance is a crack up. I taught in public school for 20+ years. Guess what the “go to” medication was for lice on children and in their hair? Seriously, guess :-)
Kerosene and a match?
That was Nuland’s suggestion.
RK the way i remember that one is you shave one half and light the other half on fire and ice pick the critters when they flee the flames – and it was usually about crabs not nits
Sorry for 2 comments so close, but to be filed in the “Are you serious?” category…… the article regarding the Atlantic cooling and scientists not knowing why. (From my armchair) the collapse of the Gulf Stream perhaps?
Sort of my thoughts–but I didn’t real the article. Years ago, I did read that the melting of Greenland ice might mess up the Gulf Stream. My guess here (since Europe is so hot this year) is that the melting ice is deep under the Gulf Stream thus gradually causing a cooling of the AO in general but then I don’t really know what I’m talking about other than knowing oceans are full of individual streams that sometimes change course.
I could not access the article but I have read earlier the Atlantic is supposed to cool this year with the advent of the La Nina in the Pacific. I guess that that it said “Surprise, surprise!” From NOAA:
La Niña Watch Synopsis: ENSO-neutral is expected to continue for the next several months, with La Niña favored to emerge during September-November (66% chance) and persist through the Northern Hemisphere winter 2024-25 (74% chance during November-January).
ENSO-neutral continued during July 2024, with near-average sea surface temperatures (SSTs) observed across most of the equatorial Pacific Ocean. In the past week, except for the Niño-4 index (+0.3°C), the other Niño region indices were slightly negative Below-average subsurface temperatures strengthened during the past month (area-averaged index in associated with the expansion of negative anomalies along the thermocline. Low-level wind anomalies were easterly over the east-central and eastern Pacific, and upper-level winds were westerly over the eastern Pacific. Convection was near average around Indonesia and the Date Line. Collectively, the coupled ocean-atmosphere system reflected ENSO-neutral.
Why did the Biden Administration give the most secret of American military policy plans to the New York Times during the Democratic Party convention. Making sure China is to be considered a dire “threat” from here on seems why to me:
What President Biden and administration Democrats have decided to make completely clear is that America has begun a new cold war, with China the focus. No matter that China was an American ally in World War II and suffered 20 million deaths in the wake of the impossibly brutal Japanese invasion. No matter the Chinese commitment to peace and economic development of poorer nations.
Administration Democrats have decided America must contain and try to economically undermine China. Democrats have decided America must prepare for war against the 1.4 billion Chinese.
We’ve always been at war with East Asia.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/20/us/politics/biden-nuclear-china-russia.html
August 20, 2024
Biden Approved Secret Nuclear Strategy Refocusing on Chinese Threat
In a classified document approved in March, the president ordered U.S. forces to prepare for possible coordinated nuclear confrontations with Russia, China and North Korea.
By David E. Sanger
President Biden approved in March a highly classified nuclear strategic plan for the United States that, for the first time, reorients America’s deterrent strategy to focus on China’s rapid expansion in its nuclear arsenal.
The shift comes as the Pentagon believes China’s stockpiles will rival the size and diversity of the United States’ and Russia’s over the next decade.
The White House never announced that Mr. Biden had approved the revised strategy, called the “Nuclear Employment Guidance,” which also seeks, for the first time, to prepare the United States for possible coordinated nuclear challenges from China, Russia and North Korea. The document, updated every four years or so, is so highly classified that there are no electronic copies, only a small number of hard copies distributed to a few national security officials and Pentagon commanders…
‘the Pentagon believes China’s stockpiles will rival the size and diversity of the United States’ and Russia’s over the next decade.’
The US could have resolved this problem years ago by sticking to the nuclear agreements that they had as well as expanding them by trying to include China. Instead they have torn those agreement up in the belief that they had nuclear superiority over Russia and China so could dictate terms. When the Russians announced their hypersonic missiles coming into service, that meant that the US was now under the gun with no treaties to protect them. And China believes – correctly – that the US will only respect them if the have enough nukes to glass the North American continent.
“The US could have resolved this problem years ago…”
Excellent comment, as usual.
https://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/13/international/bush-pulls-out-of-abm-treaty-putin-calls-move-a-mistake.html
December 13, 2001
Bush Pulls Out of ABM Treaty; Putin Calls Move a Mistake
By TERENCE NEILAN
Of course it could have been “resolved” but we no longer life in the post-WWII era when peace was maintained through diplomacy. That world is very long gone. There is only one idea in US FP circles–that is, complete world domination by Washington. In the meantime, the oligarchs need to manufacture and sustain enemies in order to keep their populations afraid and anxious about “enemies” so the less arms control, the more the US isolates Russia, China, Iran the more the Imperial subjects remain attached to their ruling elites. Should, for some accident, peace begin to break out, the corrupt and something close to evil ruling class in the Empire would lose their charm.
Nothing very odd about this: all serious plans have to be kept up to date, and China has made it very clear that it intends to move into Division One of nuclear powers, with the US and Russia. This has obvious consequences for those two countries, and I imagine that there’s a similar document in preparation in Moscow even if it doesn’t exist already. Three major nuclear powers is a completely new situation, since any one of them could theoretically find themselves at odds with the other two. It’s naturally going to be a “Secret” document: I doubt if the Russians and Chinese publish theirs on Twitter either.
“China has made it very clear that it intends to move into Division One of nuclear powers…”
Thank you for this fine explanation, but please set down a reference for what China “intends.” After all, China policy is repeatedly declared to be “community with a shared future.” Please set down a contrary China policy reference.
As for the military policy of the Biden administration, the New York Times immediately makes clear just how secret such a policy is supposed to be. I am only wondering why so secret a policy was given to the NYT for publishing during the Democratic convention.
China, by the way, became a nuclear power openly on October 16, 1964. Also, China adopted and has a “no first strike” policy. Somehow, President Nixon and Secretary Kissinger found no difficulty in opening peaceful relations with China, while the Biden administration has evidently been intent on declaring and treating China as a “threat.”
In nuclear issues, you look at what governments do, not what they say, and China is doing what I describe. And no harm in that, the behaviour is entirely reasonable. By contrast, the leaking of the news (I don’t think the document itself was leaked) is normal politics.
“In nuclear issues, you look at what governments do, not what they say, and China is doing what I describe…”
Thank you so much for a fine explanation.
Still, I do wonder how I am to know what China is doing that contradicts Chinese policy statements. Sort of like the stories about China in Xinjiang that are contradicted by countless visitors to the province. Look at what China is actually doing in Xinjiang, but what evidently counts are the stories American government officials tell.
As for the leaking of especially secret documents to the New York Times, at a critically important political moment, I am distressed at the apparent determination to be sure China is considered a dire threat from now on.
“China has made it very clear that it intends to move into Division One of nuclear powers…”
Looking carefully to China’s intention, there is no hint of China doing more than maintaining a nuclear arsenal suitable for domestic defense while China’s “no-first-strike” policy remains in place and is repeatedly affirmed. America lacks a “no-first-strike” policy. For an American administration to have “top secret” papers delivered to the New York Times, to present China as a nuclear threat to America is indeed distressing to me.
It looks to me that China is enlarging its nuclear arsenal not because it loves showing the nukes like a billionaire collecting expensive cars, but to remove from the American counterparts heads the idea that there won’t be a secondary strike coming from China, if Americans hit first…
re: India’s schoolgirls are leading a silent cycling revolution. – BBC
Thanks for this link. It reminded me bicycles were sometimes referred to by US women in the late 1890s-early 1900’s as wheels of freedom. Women could travel farther from home alone without the need for an expensive horse and buggy.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/6b/10/98/6b10980f2787aaebc214fa5668208f13.jpg
What is the bet that young men also adopted bicycles in order to keep up with those adventurous girls and not be left in the dust.
As a lifelong cyclist I feel the need to point out that riding bicycles is fun, and many people have no need for more reasons to ride than that. Fun.
I’m about to enter my 9th Tour de Burn and have trained extensively for the effort, going well over 100 feet in making sure the brakes still work, and then resting the e-Stingray on it’s laurels, er kickstand.
Yep. Cycling poster from the Flapper era, aka the 1920’s. It’s fun. Visit school friends at their home some heretofore far away place. Wave to passers-by. (And just look at the number on that old UK mile marker post. oh man. ) /;)
https://a.1stdibscdn.com/original-vintage-bicycle-advertising-poster-for-triumph-cycles-coventry-69-for-sale/1121189/f_112566811530601960628/11256681_master.jpg?disable=upscale&auto=webp&quality=60&width=800
The article/link to “How the Pentagon built Silicon Valley” was a good overview of what the title says. In debates with my friends regarding deep state (FBI/CIA) control of media such as the NYT, CNN et al, does anyone know of a good overview article about that? We follow the Twitter files and such, but the specific story of government collusion in surveillance and control is a bit spread out. Many people’s ears and eyes gloss over if an article is more than 300 words, sadly.
Google and FB were both Pentagon creations. Now former Google CEO Eric Schmidt is in the arms-for-war business. A short step to take, I guess. / ;)
Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt says the Ukraine War turned him into an arms dealer
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/ex-google-ceo-eric-schmidt-says-the-ukraine-war-turned-him-into-an-arms-dealer/ar-AA1oYiqR
To your question: a good place to start is to look at the original Total Information Awareness proposal, shot down by Congress at the time, but in essence recreated in whole by so-called private tech entities that just happen to do (with govt funding) ,when combined, exactly what the original TIA program was designed to do, imo. What a coincidence. / ;)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Information_Awareness
Yes I recall TIA was a darth cheney thing, and I also recall one of it’s earliest proclamations was to deny it’s own existence. That patriot act papered over some real (from the security (/s) state perspective) problems with that tired auld constitution thing. The project for the new american century apparently started in earnest on 9/11/01. We had to destroy the constitution to save it, the same reason we have to move fast and break things in every other aspect of the .gov that might not help to carry the exceptional civilizational burden under which wall st et al. struggle. It’s for our own good. Sheep don’t shear themselves you know.
“Yes I recall TIA was a darth cheney thing, and I also recall one of it’s earliest proclamations was to deny it’s own existence.”
Indeed. And now it’s not denied anymore. Again, it’s “forget about the lies that were told.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/17/style/alex-karp-palantir.html/
From the interview/profile:
“After 9/11, he worked at the Pentagon on a surveillance program called Total Information Awareness.”
>>>Sheep don’t shear themselves you know.
Yes, I have always wondered about their refusal to use NSA’s ThinThread, which, at least in theory, preserved the Constitutionally protected privacy of Americans, unlike the wholesale elimination of it done currently.
As I see it, some people got into power and decided to destroy our privacy both to ease their eventual control over us and to harvest it for monetary gain.
Here’s one good article from Medium published in 2015.
How the CIA Made Google
Inside the secret network behind mass surveillance, endless war, and Skynet—
by Nafeez Ahmed
originally published in
INSURGE intelligence
https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-google-e836451a959e
Also this from 2013, WIRED magazine.
Our Government Has Weaponized the Internet. Here’s How They Did It
The internet backbone — the infrastructure of networks upon which internet traffic travels — went from being a passive infrastructure for communication to an active weapon for attacks. Absent Snowdens of their own, other countries may do the same and then say, ‘It wasn’t us. And even if it was, you started it.’
https://www.wired.com/2013/11/this-is-how-the-internet-backbone-has-been-turned-into-a-weapon/
I’ll stop now. / ;)
Wasn’t the original internet an outgrowth from a Pentagon project?
Yes. DARPA: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Paving the Way to the Modern Internet
https://www.darpa.mil/about-us/timeline/modern-internet
40 years ago most large, research oriented US unis had access to Arpanet in it’s various geographic region network subnets.
Yasha Levine’s 2018 book Surveillance Valley is a good, and somewhat neglected, source for this history as well.
Malcom Harris’ “Palo Alto” goes back to the founding of Stanford to document the serial grift that is Silicon Valley, a great and fun (if you’re an adequately cynical lefty to be amused by the perfidy) read!
New Zealand sheep and cattle numbers down as carbon forestry, drought and low prices affect sector New Zealand Herald
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When I first visited NZ in 1981 it turned out to be about peak sheep, with 75 million of them compared to 4 million Kiwis…
I was in a few ‘sheep-pedes’ that lasted about 45 minutes as I waited for what seemed like an endless stream of them, before I could drive on.
Back then 75% of the value was the wool and 25% was the meat, but now because of polar fleece et al, it’s reversed and 75% of the value is in the meat.
“Letter: West must test Putin’s claims about the Russian economy’
Unintentionally hilarious letter from Sweden’s Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson. International financial organizations are reporting Russia’s economy to be booming right now but Svantesson is almost tearing her hair out about these reports. So the Swedish government has tasked the Swedish National Institute of Economic Research to try to disprove the research conducted by the IMF, the OECD and the World Bank – none of whom could be described as friendly to Russia – and try to come up with some figures that the sanctions are actually working and just need a little more time to work. I guess that two and a half years is not quite long enough.
“Teenager’s school project achieves plasma”
‘Mencarini hails from Italy but is studying math, chemistry, and physics at Cardiff Sixth Form College in Cambridge.’
You wonder if that teenager’s school project is now supplying the power for Cardiff Sixth Form College’s buildings in Cambridge.
And I have to note that that black cat in the second bonus of today’s Antidote du jour showed some high-level problem solving skills.
Cardiff Sixth Form College is in Cambridge? That’s one hell of a school bus ride twice a day.
That article had serious issues. Cardiff Sixth Form College is in … wait for it … Cardiff. Not Cambridge which is getting on for 200 miles away.
“The system is running thanks to a Leybold Trivac E2 roughing pump, which allows me to achieve a minimum pressure of 8E-3 Torr,” Mencarini said.”
He’s talking about a vacuum pump, not the fusion apparatus itself – this is not the lead item!
“At that time, he mentioned that Pfeiffer TPH062 would be used later to achieve fusion. “This turbomolecular pump is currently isolated by a VAT throttling valve.”
Another pump. Possibly for pumping ion states but the while throttling valve reference suggest no, another air pump. It will not be used to.achieve fusions, it will create the conditions for other things to achieve fusion.
“The grid is then attached to a 30 kV rated high-voltage feedthrough connected to a 5 kV Unilab power supply,”
= I plugged it in with special plugs
“which allows me to use the fusor in my school (it is limited to a 2mA output). While running the fusor I experimented with 2 grids, which you can see in the images,” Mencarini added.”
Finally. The fusor did the fusion.
Certainly the worst science article I have read this year for being wrong, telling us nothing and over hyping it into the bargain!
Iran says retaliation against Israel for Haniyeh’s killing could take ‘long’ time Al-Arabya
It looks like Israel and the United States are going to be successful in their Gaza genocide. I wonder how the absence of 2 million people will be rationalized when Israelis start building there? What will happen when they start on the West Bank in earnest? Is there any point where Turkey would cut off the oil? I think only a massive financial crisis and unrest in the West could stop arms shipments. Maybe Iran is hoping Israel will tear itself apart internally? It is all so sickening.
It has been suggested what is taking so long is that Iran is not only getting ready for an Israeli counter-strike after they launch their own but, more worryingly, getting ready for a regional war if the Israelis manage to drag in America – as well as the UK and France – to fight the Iranians for them. This is exactly what Netanyahu wants and is working towards and we saw how he had the US Congress jumping up and down like a pack of trained seals.
Should be an interesting BRICS conference in Oct.
The Iranians can afford to wait. They know that Israel/US and its vassals will support Israel no matter what, for now since the US media is completely pro-Zionist though that might change. Therefore they need to wait for the US elections and see where things stand, also, they need to cement more alliances. Iran doesn’t want to be incinerated by the US who will bomb civilian infrastructure from strategic bombers and Israel may use nuclear weapons. There is also some reason to think that the Israeli pogrom against Palestinians may begin to seep into Western media when it does, Europe may peel away in their support of Israel. If I was Iran I would be going slowly. My guess is that the Israelis are flummoxed–their economy cannot go on another year even with support from the US.
It is only “sickening” if you have a moral bone in your body. For leaders in the West there is no such thing as morality, as far as I can see. It’s all Machiavellian manuvering. From what I can see from a distance, and having had Iranian friends in my student days, I’m going to go out on a limb and say they have a few moral bones in their ruling class. They don’t want war and the Empire will continue to take “advantage” of that. I doubt any Islamic countries will try to oppose the US/Israel directly. The “death” of the US Empire is BS as far as I’m concerned–it is much more robust than most people realize.
Here is the answer, already validated n-th times:
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/07/the-war-nerd-amateurs-talk-cancel-pros-talk-silence.html
Revenge is a dish best served cold.
The Grayzone’s latest livestream was pulled off Youtube before I had the chance to watch it. Rumble is banned here. Is there anywhere else I can watch it?
Not sure what video you’re looking for, but maybe here? https://www.bitchute.com/channel/x8iFM33Z4rUl
When you click “videos” at the Gray Zone’s own website, it links back to their youtube channel – probably something they’ll want to change at some point.
B-21 Raider: The Cheap Stealth Bomber That China or Russia Can’t Match
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/b-21-raider-cheap-stealth-bomber-china-or-russia-cant-match-211233
The U.S. Air Force’s next-generation B-21 Raider stealth bomber is estimated to cost around $750 million per unit, potentially making it less expensive than the B-2 Spirit it will replace.
>The U.S. Air Force’s next-generation B-21 Raider stealth bomber is estimated to cost around $750 million per unit, potentially making it less expensive than the B-2 Spirit it will replace.
Sure, sure it will…
my guess is if the project tracks anything like the F-35, well, you know the rest of the story.
It’s a quite smoky day in Tiny Town and the Coffeepot Fire is now 1,526 acres, and it seems odd to escape to Burning Man where there is really not much in the way of smoke, but there you have it.
The haze here is reminiscent of any old smoggy day in LA circa 1971, solid mountain backdrops become wispy silhouettes, that is if you can see them.
Burning Man has a lot of dust. So that’s the trade off.
I never liked dust storms and that’s always been a major flag about the event. For me personally….
Lot of Alkaliholics on the playa…
Azerbaijan applies for joining BRICS – Foreign Ministry Interfax
Well, the plot thickens. And that’s including whatever the current status is with Azerbaijan and Israel relations.
According to the guys at The Duran, Azerbaijan is moving away from Israel and towards the BRICS-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AZx5xxf8ew Z (12:06 mins)
Now that’s dancin’ in the rain!!!
Ain’t it the truth, ain’t it the truth?!
Aurelien’s latest post. From my parochial perch, I couldn’t help but see the analogies to the antics going on at the DNC.
https://aurelien2022.substack.com/p/what-can-you-do-when-you-dont-have
RE: m&ms on a checker board
I saw a PBS NOVA on the brain. It basically showed that are eyes only see a small part of what we
perceive. Our brain pieces the images together. To me, this explains why we see optical illusions.
https://www.pbs.org/video/your-brain-perception-deception-0mqxyc/
Climate change in the Middle East – So Zionists are fighting to get front row seats at God’s ovens after they have escaped H’s ones? I say Karma will be a bitch and cannot wait to see the sea level rising and flooding Jared Kushner’s developments in front beach Gaza.
The news about the sabotages in Romania seem to be fake. Searching on Romanian websites I couldn’t find anything related with any fires.
The nice story from BBC about Indian biking girls reminded me a documentary from Netherlands where a lady was describing how the mass introduction of bycicles in the Low countries was very liberating for women.
Re: The Era of Runaway Heat Records Is Here Bloomberg
“Tony Heller” (a pseudonym for a scientist whose name escapes me) on X argues that the main factor here is data “adjustments” being made to raw temperature data, which are biased in tending to dramatically increase recent temperatures and decrease historical ones.
https://x.com/TonyClimate/status/1774592394031489164
https://x.com/TonyClimate/status/1826044676815859899