Politics and your portfolio Optimistic Callie
Macroeconomics cannot be based on microeconomics Funding the Future
Climate
Carbon dioxide growing rapidly Arctic News
3 decades of satellite images show how cities keep getting higher Space.cp,
How extreme heat is contributing to a nationwide blood shortage PBS
The World’s Stockyard Phenomenal World
PG&E Is Racing to Stem Increasing Fires Ignited by Its Power Lines WSJ
Syndemics
Does CDC HICPAC want to make a mockery of infection control in healthcare? Teams Human
What the end of a COVID vaccine access program means for uninsured Americans PBS
Water
Time is running out to solve the Colorado River water crisis The Hill
China?
Love and marriage: China’s Dali Bai region pledges to help its 33,000 bachelors find wives South China Morning Post
The Koreas
South Korean drivers scramble to get rid of electric vehicles, citing safety concerns following fires Channel News Asia
Myanmar
Commentary: Eroding wages in Myanmar add to debate about whether garment brands should ‘stay or go’ Channel New Asia
Nearly 300,000 Bangladeshis in emergency shelters after monsoon rains cause heavy flooding France24
India
Can Modi 3.0 beat the 3C trap of caste, coalition and Constitution? Business Standard
Syraqisatan
How all-out war between Israel and its adversaries might play out FT
Gaza: 100,000 Palestinians displaced from Deir al-Balah in two days The New Arab
Hezbollah launches ‘first phase’ of retaliatory attacks against Israel after commander’s assassination Anadolu Agency
Hamas urges condemnation over Quran burning by Israeli soldiers Al Jazeera
Israel-Hamas ceasefire talks set to resume in Cairo as fighting rages in Gaza France24
Survey: 75% of Israelis believe Netanyahu is managing war with Hezbollah ‘very poorly’ Anadolu Agency
Western media can be held legally accountable for its role in the Gaza genocide Mondoweiss
“The Houthis have defeated the US Navy” Moon of Alabama
Dear Old Blighty
UK government can’t kick consultancy habit despite promises The Register
New Not-So-Cold War
Pressure from Russians on Vladimir Putin to escalate? Gilbert Doctorow
Ability to strike at targets in Russia’s rear is crucial for Ukraine – ISW Ukrianska Pravda
Ukraine Has Found a Path to Victory RAND
Whatever enemy was bringing to our land has now returned to their home – Zelenskyy on Ukraine’s Independence Day Ukrainska Pravda. “And the one who wanted to turn our land into a buffer zone should think about preventing his country from becoming a buffer federation.”
Indian PM tells Zelenskyy that he will have to negotiate with Putin – video Ukrainska Pravda
New Details on the Role of Western Contractors in Kursk Assault: Polish and French Spoken Widely Military Watch
Russian banks’ profit surged by more than a third to $3.3bn m/m in July, on track for another strong year BNE Intellinrews
Biden Administration
McConnell says Congress has the power to vote by proxy Politico
Legal Theory Lexicon: Deference Legal Theory Blog
2024
As RFK Jr. Backs Trump, Here’s the Secretive Billionaire Plutocrat Funding Them Both Common Dreams
Trump and Harris Hear From the Megadonors. What the Big Money Wants in Return. Barrons
At the DNC, Kamala Harris has a billionaire problem on her hands Fortune
CNN anchor calls RFK Jr. endorsing Trump ‘huge’ based on swing state polls: ‘It is everything’ FOX
GOP strategist cautions Trump on joining forces with RFK Jr: ‘He’s kind of a looney tune’ The Hill
Spook Country
Digital Watch
Start-up incubator Y Combinator backs its first weapons firm FT
VCs are so eager for AI startups, they’re buying into each others’ SPVs at high prices TechCrunch
Apple’s Hidden AI Prompts Michael Tsai
Buy, Pose, Post: a semi-triumphant return of physical media Posting Nexus
Zeitgeist Watch
Televangelists Keith Moore And Creflo Dollar Acquire Multi-Million-Dollar Jets The Roys Report
The Myth Of Simple Truths 3 Quarks Daily. From 2016, still germane.
MSU study finds placebos reduce stress, anxiety, depression — even when people know they are placebos (press release) Michigan State University
Why do we find it so hard to accept coincidences for what they are? FT
Imperial Collapse Watch
The Problem Isn’t The US Having The Wrong President, The Problem Is The US Empire’s Existence Caitlin Johnstone
Exiting Pax Americana could save our bacon Pearls & Irritations
Guillotine Watch
Class Warfare
The Social Recession Is Accelerating Charles Hugh Smith
Defeating the “food-industrial” and “medical-industrial” complexes that are destroying well-being Funding the Future
On the Dark History and Ongoing Ableist Legacy of the IQ Test Literary Hub
Antidote du jour (Gilbert Bochenek):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
234 comments
Comments are closed.
Russian banks and anecdata: they are possibly building up a financial bubble like pre-2008. Low-income acquaintances in Russia have been able to take out double-mortgage on a house. I have no idea how wide-spread it is though but I find it hard to believe that they would be the only ones.
I don’t see any financial bubble forming. The article even points out that the central bank recently boosted interest rates, and that mortgage lending is growing at a slower pace. Based on my visits to Moscow, I can envision a real estate bubble possibly forming; there certainly are a lot of modern apartment high-rises being built. But maybe not; my RU wife recently expressed a similar viewpoint to an acquaintance in the building trade, and was told in response that most of the apartments in these new buildings are sold long before the contruction is even finished.
Keep in mind that post-sanctions and counter-sanctions, the money that used to leave RU and park itself offshore now (mostly) stays at home. This is a huge change from how things were during 1992-2022, and I think we’re just starting to see how RU will benefit from all this cash flow circulating locally. Even the stolen money (via corruption) stays in-country now. Patriotic thieves!
I heard that the black economy is enormous in Russia (I think maybe 30% or so but I could be in error) and if taken into account, would show it be be a much bigger country economically as compared to others. Certainly all that money would be circulating locally as it would be crazy to send it out of the country lest it be stolen. Add to that all the money called home at the start of the SMO and it looks like financing is not a big problem anymore. Manpower maybe but not financing.
The signing bonuses for contract soldiers, the extra fees from front-line service and even the compensations to families of dead soldiers have been one of the biggest money transfers from government to population in the Russian history.
Especially considering that majority of the volunteers have been from low to no income socieconomic strata, this has already lessened the quite pronounced income inequality in Russia.Hundreds of thousands of families all over Russia can now afford stuff they earler coulnd’t even dream off. And due to the sanctions, that stuff is all made in Russia.
Some observes are already seemng to think that Russia can’t afford peace if it means all this goes away with it.
Of course overheating and bubbles are possible, to some extent even likely, but many Russians also have a lot of caching up to do to even participate in the bubbles.
The guys at The Duran were saying recently that the wealth of the average Russian citizen is now overtaking the wealth of the average EU citizen. I can believe that as so far as I know, the Russian government is not actively seeking to lower wages and conditions of its people.
Net wealth for sure because of much lower income tax.
I don’t know the precise percentage (and how would anyone know that, anyway, when the whole point of it is being off the books) but can certainly vouch for the black and gray economy being a huge deal here, if maybe less so than it used to be.
I’ve found a government claim that it made up 20% of our GDP back in 2018 and has been drastically reduced since then. In both cases, though: how would they know for sure? Besides, it’s something the government wants to reduce, and there is every incentive for the officials responsible to claim that they succeeded. So yeah, there’s sure to be a lot that is not properly accounted for either by us or by the enemies.
Non-ironic….2022-present Russia is how one does MMT (modern monetary theory).
Do something similar in the US, the cash leaks out of the US for imported goods and remittances, and gets spent on rentier services that sends the cash straight back to the top 0.5%
> 2022-present Russia is how one does MMT (modern monetary theory).
I’ve been wondering about that. The little I have read (mostly at Dances with Bears; this is an area that gets very little attention in Western press) suggests that the head of the Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina, is pretty conventional in her thinking about and policies re: State finances. There is (again, if I correctly understand what I have read at DwB) an MMT-oriented economist, Sergei Glazyev, in the upper reaches of RF banking, but I have the impression that his ideas are not influential.
I think what the RF ’22-present performance might more strongly indicate is the value of dirigisme and outright State ownership of enterprises in State relations with the MIC. Also, the value of autarky. MMT-informed analyses of the fiscal policy space of RF would be interesting. I’m not aware of such analyses, and it might be a bit of a “hot potato” inasmuch as anyone who writes or says anything that could be interpreted to be sympathetic to RF or VVP (even if it is simply a baldly factual analysis) risks ostracism, censorship or de-platforming. I wonder whether it will be possible for the West to triumph solely through its will.
if a topic is not talked about, that vacuum is by itself is a meaningful statement.
in my opinion
> but I have the impression that his ideas are not influential.
From April 2022:
>> Before we move on to the Central Bank, let me clarify. You said that you are working on introducing a new currency. And in what format and with what team?
Glazyev’s answer is still germane.
Not exactly, Russia still keeps things pretty orthodox from a fiscal and monetary standpoint. They don’t run huge budget deficits.
They’re definitely not neo-liberal morons, but they also aren’t pushing the has pedals as hard as they could be. I think they have a very cautious approach that focuses on minimizing external risks more than growth.
They’ve mostly just shown an aptitude to prepare and manage a kind of self-reliant economy. It’s impressive, nonetheless, and causes immense frustration in the west.
It is impressive.
Equally impressive, but not in a positive way, is how much the West appears to discount everything Russian. The old world book estimates that Russia was a just a bully nation with nukes and oil, not even as productive as Italy, is still floating around. The events of the last several years should have shredded that notion but the psychological barriers our leaders have erected against reality are strong. At the very least, we should have developed a different metric for evaluating countries with such significant material stores and connections to other countries. GDP alone really doesn’t cut it anymore.
How well MMT works depends alot on how the money flowing is taxed as well as spent.
Helps, apparently, to have an industrial base, a social conscience to some degree, and lots of resources, to undergird with real wealth the “MMT Money.” IMO. And various restraints by what I would characterize as “decent people” holding power, to pull the choke-chain on the erstwhile looters. And probably a generation war and common enemy, to keep almost everyone pulling on the same end of the rope.
– Introduce same sex marriage, and make them marry each other.
– Declare half of them as women, and make them marry the other half.
– Get them Ukrainian mail-order brides.
– Send them all to USA/EU.
– Make them all Buddhist monks.
– Make them all Buddhist monks, and send them to USA/EU.
You might be on to something with the Ukrainians. I have no doubt Zelensky would offer to use his people that way if it meant peeling China away from Russia.
Everywhere, all over the world, everybody is wondering “what is wrong with single people” instead of asking what is wrong with the institution of marriage that is not appealing to a number of singles.
Perhaps divorce courts should order harshly punitive gag-orders on ex-husbands. The way states handle child support payments and the so-called ‘deadbeat dads’ should be enough to scare any reasonable man away from marriage and unprotected sex.
Even in the U.S. until the last 100 years or so, most ways of life were family oriented and to fully participate in them you had to be part of a family. Since then in the West (and now in much of the rest of the world) there has been a shift (economically at least) to individualist ways of life. For many, spouses (and especially children) have stopped being benefits and become burdens.
“Indian PM tells Zelenskyy that he will have to negotiate with Putin – video”
I doubt that anything will come out of Modi’s trip.He probably only went because the west went nuts when he hugged Putin so now has to hug Zelensky. Maybe too he wanted to establish India’s credentials as a nation capable of doing peace negotiations after all the success that China has had recently. But Zelensky will go back to his war talk before he even leaves the country. Modi probably had enough of Zelensky telling him to cut financial ties with Russia as that would mean losing tens of billions of dollars annually for India.
He went to show the world that he alone is immune to the so called Zelensky’s curse.
“The storms come and go,
the waves crash overhead,
Russia swallows Ukraine,
and Modi keeps on paddling”
Lord Varys is an eminently quotable character.
He immunized himself by hugging Putin first. Orban did the reverse treatment, so we have proper science going on here in order to determine what is safe & effective.
The resurrection of an old “science,” Socio-hug-onomics? (Think the old Mafioso bosses giving the “kiss of death.”)
Also relevant to the adage; “Hold your friends close; hold your enemies in a big old hug.”
Matt Kennard interviews Jill Stein (YouTube, The Racket Podcast)
In the third episode of The Racket, Journalist and Author Matt Kennard speaks to American physician, activist, and Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein @JillStein2024. They discuss US foreign policy, corruption and empire, renewed fears of Nuclear war and Julian Assange & Edward Snowden’s place in The White House.
The Racket is a series of interviews based on the book The Racket: A Rogue Reporter vs The American Empire by Matt Kennard
Thank you, I like both Matt Kennard and Jill Stein, I am watching now.
Me too.
I haven’t decided how high or in which direction my middle finger will be oriented this election. But whether I vote for Stein or RFK Jr. the goal is the same. We need to break the current system. It is my dearest wish that the Democrats suffer a horrible electoral defeat as a reward for their thoroughly anti-democratic thuggery. But I doubt that will happen.
So, one link leads to another (from 2 months ago but still germane):
The Racket | Matt Kennard & Jeremy Corbyn on Palestine, Keir Starmer and US Empire
There was a link provided here at NC awhile back: Unequal exchange of labour in the world economy Nature Communications. From the abstract:
(Emphasis added.)
Assuming labor in the global north benefits, albeit disproportionately less than capital, from this current state of affairs, might this not to some significant degree account for a lack of enthusiastic popular support for anti-imperialist policies?
“McConnell says Congress has the power to vote by proxy”
If some member of the House and Senate cannot be bothered turning up to vote in spite of all the money & goodies that they get, then perhaps they should stand aside and let others take their place who don’t find it so onerous to actually turn up to do the job that they are paid for. So what’s in it for McConnell? Maybe he can see a retirement home for elderly war criminals in his near future but even when there, still wants to draw his Congressional salary. And being able to vote by proxy is the way to do it.
Maybe it’s McConnell’s idea to introduce his AI stand-in so that McConnell doesn’t need to bother with the expense of a fully convincing automaton to physically turn-up – all that robotics and extra expense is to much hassle- got to run Government like business – so profit
As long as his AI doesn’t freeze up too…
Can’t have 2 Mitch Glitch McConnells out there.
Maybe he could employ a Max Headroom AI which already has an inbuilt glitch-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1ZG_Wr–BY (33 secs)
~If some member of the House and Senate cannot be bothered turning up to vote in spite of all the money & goodies that they get…
I guess maybe their just too busy dialing for dollars?
Janis seems appropriate since you mention dialin’ for dollars
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qev-i9-VKlY
√
They may as well be able to vote by proxy considering that congress itself is nothing but a group of proxies for the corporate oligarchy.
Members of Congress could sell their proxies for various issues on a free and open Market to achieve a more efficient and Pareto-optimal outcome for deciding issues using the unrivaled abilities of the all-knowing Market to discover Truth. Besides it would be very beneficial to their remuneration for their efforts on behalf of their constituents, as discovered by the Market.
I recall, as a kid from Illinois on the “democracy Hajj, , being taken, all hushed and awed, into the House and Senate chambers. This after Civics and History classes on how the US Government of Men not of Laws was purported to operate. And being told to shut up when I noted out loud that votes were happening, legislation was being enacted, as we watched, when there was nothing close to a quorum in either Hall. First cracks in the monolithic edifice of credulity erected by my teachers and Betters and institutions like the Cub and Boy Scouts.
Surely the congress critters must attend, as through them donors get to vote by proxy?
Why is anyone paying attention to McConnell when he stroked out on live TV some months ago? The dogs bark and the caravan moves on …
New Not-So-Cold War
Pressure from Russians on Vladimir Putin to escalate? Gilbert Doctorow *************************** Now that USA has a President nobody voted for, it’s time for excepional indispensable America to double down and lecture Russia China and the rest of the world on the virtuous of it’s Democracy.
Working link for “Apple’s hidden AI prompts” (Michael Tsai):
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/08/23/apples-hidden-ai-prompts/
Thank you, Fixed!!!
>Why do we find it so hard to accept coincidences for what they are?
Strange article. Instead of presenting evidence that the deaths of Mike Lynch and Stephen Chamberlain were mere coincidences, the author writes about the general human tendency not to accept mere coincidences as such. Why is that?
The more effort that goes into convincing people that something is a coincidence, the more questions I would ask.
Surely someone can figger out how to patent placebos. Whatever happened to good old American ingenuity?
It’s called homeopathy.
The conclusion of the article “UK government can’t kick consultancy habit despite promises”:
Time will tell whether the new government has the determination to invest in internal skills and provide sufficiently attractive remuneration and career development to attract and retain the right people, thereby reducing the public sector’s dependency on outside tech help.
Size of the UK civil service (most figures from here and there):
1945: 1’100’000
1951: 740’000
1961: 643’000
1975: 747’000
1979: 732’000
1988: 579’000
1994: 533’000
2006: 542’900 (508’570 FTE)
2007: 531’820 (498’430 FTE)
2008: 525’160 (491’740 FTE)
2009: 524’420 (489’930 FTE)
2010: 527’480 (492’020 FTE)
2011: 498’430 (462’800 FTE)
2012: 463’810 (428’510 FTE)
2013: 448’840 (413’920 FTE)
2014: 439’940 (405’780 FTE)
2015: 433’810 (400’290 FTE)
2016: 418’340 (386’620 FTE)
2017: 419’480 (388’610 FTE)
2018: 430’080 (399’150 FTE)
2019: 445’480 (413’910 FTE)
2020: 456’410 (432’770 FTE)
2021: 484’880 (452’830 FTE)
2022: 510’080 (478’090 FTE)
2023: 519’780 (487’665 FTE)
2024: 542’840 (510’125 FTE)
Where FTE = Full Time Equivalent.
Forcibly reducing the size of the civil service does have consequences in terms of loss of institutional knowledge, unavailability of necessary skills, lack of long-term experience, and even if the former three are still present, insufficient capacity to undertake projects at scale.
While the number of civil servants started creeping up from 2017 onwards, it still appears far short of the minimum 750’000 or so that historically would be necessary to govern the UK.
That last bit may not be such a bad thing. All I see is the UK government – Tory or Labour – being heavy handed with how they govern the country so perhaps it is best that they don’t have more civil servants to do so. The cowboy comedian Will Rogers was supposed to have once quipped that ‘It’s a good thing we don’t get all the government we pay for.’ The guy had a point.
More Will Rogers: “If it weren’t for lies there wouldn’t be any politics”
…and more than a comedian. See Ropin’ Fool. Pretty mind blowing..
Adam, that was terrific. I had no idea.
A city block in Rogers’ hometown Claremore is devoted to the Will Rogers Museum. It was funded by an outpouring of contributions after his death. A statue of him represents Oklahoma in Congress. Oklahoma City’s airport is named after him, as is a large park, among other places memorializing him. Any representative photo of him is instantly recognized by Oklahomans. Children hear homilies about him. I could go on, but I’ll restrain myself.
“QI thinks that an anonymous jokesmith should receive credit for this saying based on current knowledge. Will Rogers died in 1935, and he received posthumous credit in 1966, but the long delay meant that this was very weak evidence.” Source: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2021/10/29/pay-for/
When the legend surpasses the facts, print the legend.
Actually, less bureaucracy+consutlacies and more “entitlements” and services to the population wouldn’t be a bad thing.
Working for an operational arm of a government and having worked for government, I can say that at high level, the mandarins prefer to talk and write about doing things rather than actually doing things.
The pandemic preparedness documentation though, at almost all levels (except orgs that had no manpower and legal actionable and implementable responsibilities) were all criminal ofenses in their negligence. But everyone behaves as if there is no problem and all will work just fine and the next vacation is around the corner…
The necessary number would partly depend on what the government actually does. My understanding was that the British government has been trying to do less and less, so it would make sense for them to need fewer people to do it with. (Not that either the expansion or the contraction of bureaucracy is a purely rational adjustment to the workload, of course, but I’d think that is a factor.)
My guess is that the reversal, i.e. increasing number of civil servants, from 2017 onwards is caused by two major challenges:
1) Brexit. Within the EU, there were plenty of tasks for which the UK did not need civil servants, since French, German, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, etc, bureaucrats were taking them over in Brussels. No longer; outside the EU, the UK has to deal with everything by itself.
2) Covid-19. The pandemic suddenly meant that the State had to deal with enlarged tasks regarding public health, subsidies to businesses, coping with disruptions in the supply chain of important products, etc.
One would have to delve into the official statistics to determine whether this is really what explains the recent trends in civil service staffing.
Finally, my understanding is that the British government has not been trying to do less, but to delegate more — and doing more by delegating even more (i.e. externalizing, PPP, and so on). The problem is that one cannot delegate effectively without having the know-how about the task to delegate, and after decades of slashing the civil service, that know-how is gone for whole swathes of what falls within the perimeter of governmental responsibilities.
“…attractive remuneration…”
That’s the problem right there.
Does this modern generation not grasp the interlocking concepts of “Public service” and “honest graft?”
If a Politico cannot manage to engage in “backhanders” without inviting ‘unwanted scrutiny,’ then they are either a “true boffin,” and thus really only qualified for the back benches of the Public Service, (the worker bees,) or they are incompetent and thus only qualified to act as “edifying spectacles” for the entertainment of the masses and the reigning in of the more ‘boisterous’ Politicos through their necessarily spectacular downfalls (think the Profumo Affair.)
As an American Elder Statesman once declared: “Ask not what your country can do to you — ask what you can do to your country.”
Stay safe, or as close to as you can.
That “elder statesman” was John F. Kennedy, who never had the opportunity become elderly because he was attempting to do too much for his country.
These figures need treating with caution. A lot of government employments in the UK were civil service employments until Thatcher’s privatisation campaigns. The NHS used to be run operationally by the Department of Health, not merely overseen at policy level. British Telecom was a subsidiary of the General Post Office. British Rail and British Aerospace and British Airways etc. And so on….
So 1m out of 40m in 1945 represents a different structure of the economy (pre-NHS so I would guess the big number is the GPO). It is possible that that the figures are only for higher grades or policy or Whitehall officials rather than arm’s length bodies. The drop between 1945 and 1950’s suggests that there was a change in the definition, given the establishment of the NHS and British Rail and the minimal retreat from Empire in that time (I don’t think the Indian Civil Service would be counted).
Also the Lansley Reforms stripped the remaining Department of Health oversight (regional level) out of the NHS and pushed monitoring etc functions out too, so the drop from 2012 may reflect these changes. There were also changes to pension arrangements that may have seen older staff quit early to optimise their position.
Still, very interesting.
Apple’s hidden AI prompts link appears to be dead. Or in hiding.
Working link:
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/08/23/apples-hidden-ai-prompts/
Thank you!
Re Ukraine has found a path to victory. The author asserts,
“Russia, lest we forget, has devoted its entire force into Ukraine, and especially the Donbas. I believe it will be forced to choose between securing the Kursk Oblast and continuing offensives in the Donbas.”
The above is, as I understand it completely wrong -in fact. Russian conscripts are not legally permitted to fight outside Russian borders (except in a constitutionally declared “war”) Thus the 250,000 plus persons per year who have been conscripted remain basically untouched by the conflict in the Donbass.
However Kursk is inside Russian borders, so Russia is now able to draw upon these fresh troops without affecting the battles in the Donbass.
How can RAND not know this?
If you look at the top, you will see that this article was originally in the UK newspaper “The Telegraph” which is rabidly pro-Ukraine and anti-Putin. As an example, just yesterday they came out with an article titled “The fall of Vladimir Putin is now only a matter of time.” So he is really making all this stuff up to please the editors of “The telegraph” so that they will print his work.
Well, it’s always been a matter of time, him not being immortal and all…
That aside, I sometimes try to read mainstream Western media about Ukraine so as not to dismiss what they might have to say out of hand, and I don’t think it has ever turned out to be worth my while. It’s always the same insubstantial nonsense to the effect that according to Ukrainian/British/American officials/experts, maybe this time Putin is in trouble. Maybe he is, but they’re not making a convincing case for it.
I’m in the West, and it’s a constant stream of deeply stupid propaganda that assumes as a primary tenet, for instance, that despite Russia’s 7-1 artillery advantage and aerial dominance (if not supremacy) those brutish Russians are at the dictate of the Stalin-like Putin sending “meatwaves” of tens of thousands of Russian troops to be mown down by plucky Ukrainians.
It’s moronic. And yet people believe it, because of the repetition and lack of sources saying anything different.
Well, they also believe it because they’re sheep. Very occasionally, as an experiment, I may say to an individual as an experiment: “You really believe this stuff, given these reasons it doesn’t make sense?” Then I lay out a few of those reasons. At that point, quite often that individual looks at me like I’m the one that must be stupid.
I find it amusing.
It’s not just a matter of being unintelligent. People need to make sense of their lives including political and economic realities–the mainstream media provides them with the carefully engineered groupthink most people crave and they will believe that stuff no matter how illogical it is. Myth always trumps reason for the vast majority of people. “Truth” is very rarely a thing for most people. However, I think at this time the propagandists have gone too far and people seem to be disoriented because the Narrative is wearing a bit thin–at least in the US.
Chris Cosmos: People need to make sense of their lives … the mainstream media provides them with the carefully engineered groupthink most people crave and they will believe that stuff no matter how illogical it is.
As I say, they’re sheep.
I’m not saying, to be clear, that these individuals I mention are necessarily morons. To be clear, some of these people are professionally venture capitalists, bankers, etc. So if they’re intellectually proficient enough to function in those realms, they’re not outright dolts.
Anyway, as I recall, you and I may have had an exchange or two on this theme before, and we’re in general agreement.
Maybe a deep subconscious action of survival instinct, people feel safer when they belong or are a part of a group? Safety in numbers, part of a tribe and all that.
As long as it is “those inferior ruskies” compared to “our Olymian superiority” it is all good…
Works every time every where:
“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
― Lyndon B. Johnson
I general I find mainstream Western media not worth my while when they report about Ukraine, about politics, economy, my country, the city where i live, not even the weather. Even when they provide recipes for dishes i find those generally useless.
Yes, Ignacio, even the recipes! It’s so infuriating that I’ll read an article about some dish and look at the recipe and I’m absolutely certain that it will turn out awful. You actually have to have a pretty sophisticated knowledge of general food preparation to see through it. This is especially true for Italian or Indian dishes. I go straight to cooking blogs from people in the country. And Google is pretty difficult too, you have to dig through the results and parse what is really the right base for the dish. It could all be so simple if the whole point of it all wasn’t to sell stuff.
@Ignacio at 11:01 am
I generally agree. The mainstream on any topic of foreign affairs is almost always a waste of time. I watched a couple of videos on The Times website with a UK military man during the Ukrainian counteroffensive last year. It was coherent but nonsensical. The way he covered his nonsense was to say “the Ukrainians could do” such and such. It was disconnected from the available resources of the two sides on the ground so he was able to invent anything he wanted and say they could do whatever he made up. None of his optimism re Ukrainian forces came about.
Regarding other topics, the closer they are to actual on the ground realities I do find them useful most of the time. I live in Gatineau Quebec and we had city elections last June. I went door to door for the mayoralty candidate who was not a stooge of the big developers and the local press covered the issues pretty well.
Bigger national issues (economics, politics) are mostly a waste of time as they are much too personalized and devoid of useful content.
The weather is useful but you need to discount its breathless exaggerations: Big storm warning! Big snow storm! Yeah, well, it rains in the summer and snows in the winter where I live. None of the current weather has been out of the ordinary over my many decades of observation.
Sports scores and movie schedules are accurately reported although reviews and accounts of games are slanted to favour the owners and promote attendance.
The article also states that Russia is suffering very heavy losses without providing any supporting evidence. More wishful thinking.
Yes. He claims 1000 casualties a day! He is identified as an engineer at RAND.
https://www.rand.org/about/people/b/bohnert_michael.html
One would assume that the real analysts at RAND have a better grasp of reality. But depicting reality is not the purpose of such articles. Propaganda for the neocons and the arms industry seems to be his main theme:
https://muckrack.com/michael-bohnert/articles
I was impressed that RAND have obviously ‘engineered’ the ability to move into alternative universes.
RAND gained that functionality after their surreptitious alliance with CERN.
You all miss what RAND is, it doesn’t have agency of its own. It is simply a machine that produces papers/reports. If a Senator calls up RAND and asks for a paper about the organization and function of the Chinese government, but with no ideological bs, just a professional objective report. RAND will crank out a high quality report as requested. If another Senator asks for paper that explains how the Chinese are demons from hell and if we don’t go war with them by next year the human race will suffer eternal damnation, they will crack out a (cough) high quality report that says just that. They’re actually pretty impressive. Also, that first example is an actual report that I once read, and now I can’t find the dam thing anywhere.
RAND authors have written many papers over the years on relatively simple or seemingly straightforward topics. Such papers still may end up being overly complicated or long.
According to a RAND employee, internally they say that the authors took a trip to Mars.
Although conscripts can be used, are they actually using them? All I can find is that “Sever” units are operating the defence, but no details of the make up.
I doubt Russia will use conscripts in dangerous areas .
Supposedly the border guards that were overwhelmed in the first place were conscripts?
What’s more damning for this notion is that other Ukrainian accounts insist forces aren’t being shifted out of the Donbas. Even if they were, though, it’s not terribly far, so they could be redeployed without too much difficulty. It extends the frontline, yeah, but I don’t see how that’s to Ukraine’s advantage. Maybe if they outnumbered us or if this was a war of maneuver, but they don’t and it isn’t.
If I’ve understood correctly, there were conscripts guarding the border with the border guards and rosgvardija. Many of them were captured by Ukrainians, many fought back and helped to stabilize the situation during the first 48 hours.
At the moment it seems they have been pulled back and replaced by professionals and special forces (operating in Ukrainian “controlled” areas).
It may be worthvile to point out that the Kursk operation also brings the CSTO forces available for Russia to ask for help. Though so far I’ve nly seen talk of some CSTO members perhaps allowing Russia to access their storages of old Soviet weapons. Belarus joining in would be bad news for Ukraine.
Regarding the original issue, the Russian commitment in Ukraine… The current size of active Russian milutary is 1.3 million, and depending on the source the esmated number engaged in SMO is between 400 and 600 thousand. That already includes troops on the border areas. So the true percentage is somewhere between 30% and 45%.
On the ither hand, the quick rotation of Russian forces in and out of SMO means that technically almost all Russian forces have been engaged in fighting within a reasonable time frame. So it’s not a complete untruth, even if used to mislead and misinform.
Re rotating troops. The US Army used to do the same in Vietnam but with officers. They wanted them blooded and combat experienced but not dead. So they sent officers in for 6 month tours and then pulled them out after their tour of duty was over. Meanwhile the grunts themselves still had to do their 12 month tours.
I had to look this up. Yet another side benefit of reading the comments here. It makes me do my own ‘due diligence.’
In the Indochina War, Marine units served 12 month tours while Regular Army units served 13 month tours. Go figure!
The officers had to do 12 month tours, but, as you noted, only six of those months was at the front.
The public generally forgets that the majority of ‘modern’ soldiery is engaged in rear line tasks and seldom sees combat. (Unless some enterprising enemy brings the war to them.)
You have the Marine/Army tour lengths for enlisted backwards. :)
Marine enlisted did 13 months and the Army enlisted did 12 month tours.
Wierd. I got my figures from this source. Another case of AI doing disinformation?
See: https://www.lihpao.com/how-long-was-a-vietnam-tour/#:~:text=The%20average%20tour%20length%20for%20Marines%20was%2012,had%20an%20average%20tour%20length%20of%2018%20months.
From what I heard from NamVets I have known, any time spent in Indochina should have been classed as Extreme Danger service.
Zelensky recently claimed that the Kursk incursion was aimed at replenishing the exchange pool, and indeed an exchange of prisoners reportedly brought the captured Russian conscripts back home yesterday.
One thousand dead for one hundred exchanged. Zelensky math.
Also note that I read somewhere that there are fairly substantial numbers of NATO (mainly Polish and French) troops in the Kursk incursion. I think we are entering a new phase of this war. Remember that the US/EU has almost endless amounts of money to pay mercenaries.
But not an endless supply of volunteers.
When word gets out that the chances of coming back are less then 50%, then we’ll see. The wages of horror.
Just out of a call with my older sibling in Romania and was told that the Getica Legion (not a good name since the “Legionnaire has a very bad connotation in Romania) is recruting. There were no good wishes of healthy return for the enlisted ones in that phone conversation…
This post wasn’t up when I wrote mine below. Glad to see others understand how ridiculous Bohnert’s assertions are.
Rand certainly knows the reality but Rand, like other Hollywood, er sorry, Washington based think-tanks are propaganda organs for the Blob exclusively–at least their public stances. The quality of scholars anywhere in the Beltway-world are extraordinarily bad as are most faculty (these days) in universities in general (in the US at least), STEM possibly is the exception. We have to remember that the “line” the media takes is that, they seem to include this in every story on the Ukraine war, that Russia launched and “unprovoked” “full-scale” invasion which to those of us who have been following events ther since the Maidan know full well. So the profession clase, NYT, WaPo, NPR influenced “educated” American can only talk complete bullshit on the subject.
RAND is based in Hollywood, btw. (Well, Santa Monica, but it’s close.)
Because RAND recruits from a pool of one celled brains which are entrely powered by corn syrup and only offer simple concepts which can be absorbed without pain or thought by Biden, Blinken, Sullivan and Lindsey Graham.
Re “secretive billionaire”
“In his primetime speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Tuesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) condemned the outsized influence of billionaire ‘oligarchs’ on the U.S. political process, particularly in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling.
‘Billionaires in both parties should not be able to buy elections,’ said Sanders. ‘For the sake of our democracy, we must overturn the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision and move toward public funding of elections.'”
As Taibbi and Kirn point out Sanders was immediately followed by J.B. Pritzker who boasted about being a billionaire (to crowd applause) and made fun of Trump for not being billionaire enough.
The Commondreams link doesn’t get into what Mellon may be wanting from Trump and RFK jr but we certainly know what the Dem billionaires want from that party and the current administration because they are getting it. Start with genocide. Next move on to the sad state of Bernie Sanders the “independent.” What was he even doing at a Democratic convention and particularly one that repudiates everything he once claimed to stand for?
“What was he [Sanders] even doing at a Democratic convention and particularly one that repudiates everything he once claimed to stand for?”
He’s on board. That’s his role. I’m sure he thinks he can accomplish more inside the machine than outside. But when he showed signs of going against the flow, the Dem attack dogs went after his wife, Jane. This is how they maintain discipline and even Bernie isn’t immune – the stress and strain in his household must have been terrible when the legal guns were trained on his wife. Life’s too short, especially at his age.
There comes a time when someone decides to retire and frees themself to start telling the truth. But only if they you don’t have a high profile spouse or kids in good jobs – No-one who can be sacked or jailed or offed. Or you be like Nader, no ties.
I cannot fathom why Sanders still bothers, he has no power to change anything. He is just another pleb p*ssing in the wind.
I see Sanders as a very curious and sad figure. He didn’t only betray the movement that should have resulted in his DP nomination for POTUS but he did in such a shameless and cowardly manner. Yes, he wanted to work within the DP but surely he understood that he would have been better off and more productive by breaking the DP’s spell on the credulous professional class and we can see now that through his “efforts” the DP is even less democratic and less interested in the fate of most of us.
As Jimmy Dore said years ago, the modern Democrat Party is the place where progressive movements go to die.
Not so modern. The Democrats neutered left-worker sentiment by backing the Progressives and WJ Bryan thus tamping down the burgeoning socialist movement in the late 19th century.
Maybe, but there was, nonetheless, a vigorous socialist movement until WWI and during the Depression. There were socialists in the Roosevelt administration (one of my best friends father was a socialist working in the WH). The civil-rights and anti-war movement had a vigorous socialist movement (I was there) that gradually died out through FBI repression and the growth of identity politics which destroyed the real social-democratic left.
Democratic President Woodrow Wilson created a US fascist state in 1917 (see “American Midnight” by Hochschild) with which to crush any socialist elements, then triggered a massive red/immigrant scare post-war to destroy the socialist union the IWW – the vanguard of the labour movement. Only when he was gone did that fascist state get fully rolled back, after it had made the US safe for capitalism.
The 1930s was such a devastating economic period that it allowed a revival of the socialist elements. Which were then utterly crushed by the second red scare and McCarthyism. To be replaced by the non-communist “critical” scholars and milquetoast progressives made safe for the oligarchy.
Caitlin summed it up well: “The Democratic Party Exists To Make Sure Good People Do Nothing.”
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2024/08/23/the-democratic-party-exists-to-make-sure-good-people-do-nothing/
I think his treatment must have strongly influenced RFKJr’s recent decision.
Calling sanders “curious and sad” is far too kind IMNSHO. He is a life-long, seasoned politician, who knew exactly what he was doing when he exploited the very real concerns of his “base” and then delivered them to the meat grinder of the democrat machine. Twice.
That the dems think they can run this scam a third time just screams contempt for their “voters.”
To my mind, bernie’s cowardly bowing and scraping to the dem machine underscores the courage of his convictions that RFKJ is showing in his repudiation of the party with which his family is synonymous. His actress wife will likely never work again and his entire family is very publicly excommunicating him.
The alliance of Trump and RFKJ, setting aside their differences for what they see as the good of the country, and each the victim of vicious, sustained lawfare attacks from the status quo uniparty, should be inspirational to those who really want change. It is certainly more substantive than policy-free “joy” or “weirdness.”
I guess we’ll see if those who claim to desperately want this country to be better can recognize change when they see it.
That little Audi sports car of Bernie’s always seemed incongruous. Something less, or more, than meets the eye.
I think what we are seeing right before our eyes, and being missed entirely by the main stream media, is the creation of the first entirely new party in this country in decades, maybe since the Civil War. The Unity Party or the Health Party or the Trades Party….This party with Trump and now Kennedy is not the Republican party, at all, and it is now not really MAGA either. Leave it to Kennedy to articulate what MAGA means in a way that makes some sense. If Sanders was honest about all this he’d join Kennedy and Trump. My sense right now is that there is another sea change happening under all our feet, even bigger than what happened in 2016. People were saying the first party to lose the old leader would win, but maybe the truth is the first party to embrace the bottom 80% of citizens will win, and for sure that ain’t the Democrats based on the convention….
Some of that sounds very nice. I agree dems are a lost cause at least until they lose several elections, but hope for change in either party seems a long shot. Granted trump would likely even give workers a break if that got him the win, which our democracy would not do.
Interesting.
From Twitter chatter they promise more defections. If nothing else, this is all entertaining. Maybe not good, but entertaining.
The way Walter Kirn put it on Friday in his and Taibbi’s commentary on the endorsement is that RFKJ has given “permission” to others, who see how far off the rails the country has gone but have been afraid to speak out, to finally do so.
I guess we’ll see.
I am one of those who predicted that whichever party dumped the geriatric leader would win. I agree that Trump could trump that dynamic if he could put together a new coalition in the next 60 days, but I don’t think that will happen.
Harris is about as capable of losing as anybody could be, but I think the election is hers to lose right now.
It seems more likely to me that a new coalition will emerge in the next 4 years as a reaction to the content-free governing strategy of a Harris administration.
Chiming in late here I know. I’m on board with the theory that Trump and RFK represent change. But really, did Trump bring any kind of lasting change that was helpful to the 99% in his presidency? And I’m sorry but Kennedy’s Zionism makes him completely unsupportable in my eyes. I guess I’m just too much of a cynic to believe that any politician will put their promises into action after they get elected. I was fooled by Obama and thoroughly disappointed by Saunders. I’ve lost any faith that any politician will enact the kind of change required to right the ship.
That Fortune article in Links actually does a pretty good job in depicting the contradictions of the Democrats given their total dependency on their own billionaires, using the Sanders to Pritzker example. It does imply that the Dems actually take their “populist” rhetoric seriously, though, which is pretty funny. But it is Fortune, after all.
I thank Bernie for his suggestion though. We’ll get Citizens United repealed and then start working on Medicare for All. Can’t wait!
And after that, we’ll unleash the forces of the market to handle the climate catastrophe. Probably take two, three years tops. It’ll be something to see!
“Just get Joe elected; we can push him left when he’s in the White House.”
That the born-on-third-base-and-thinks-he-hit-a-triple tub o’ lard, j.b. pritzker, got wild applause for declaring he is a “real” billionaire truly shows how far down the very deep rabbit hole some in this country have gone.
From his BMI to his generational wealth, this guy is a walking, talking symbol of everything that’s dragging this country into the toilet.
Pritzkers made their money from Hyatt Hotels and other businesses within the Mamon Group, and are Chicago Democrat power brokers. The Crown family, who own 10% of General Dynamics are another Chicago Dem power broker family.
Obama was well looked after and groomed by the rich Chicago power brokers, the latter are part of the rich group that own the DNC. Kamala was letting one of her bosses have the stage. Such bosses tend not to be able to get elected president (Rockefeller tried and failed badly) so they have to use surrogates – such as the Clintons (from deeply corrupt Arkansas), Obama, Biden (who was the long-term Senator for the Du Pont territory known as Delaware), and now Harris (who learnt politics and ethics from California’s Slick Willy).
In for a Penny*, in for a pound.
*Oprah’s pal and Obama’s doyenne Penny P.
Matt Stoeller in his “Goliath:….” book paints a damning figure of Andrew Mellon, as likely the most corrupt Secretary of the Treasury in the history of the US. I remember he was even sent to prison…
Pavel Durov is arrested for Telegram’s “lack of moderation” and Kim Dotcom’s extradition suddenly heating up after 10+ years, what is going on here? Seems like a take-down of encrypted apps.
It’s just a coincidence. No war is being prepared. No censorship is being imposed. Nothing to see here. How ’bout that Kamala?
Durov has pointed out encryption *ahem* flaws in other messaging platforms.
“Durov appears to have used the City Journal article as a jumping off point for his criticisms. “The US government spent $3 million to build Signal’s encryption, and today the exact same encryption is implemented in WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Google Messages and even Skype,” the Telegram leader said. “It looks almost as if big tech in the US is not allowed to build its own encryption protocols that would be independent of government interference.””
https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/14/telegram_ceo_calls_out_rival/
Western values in action.
It has begun.
Where will Elon hole up/be imprisoned?
In the Big Hyperloop House, very spacious cells, but you got to hold your breath, when the air is pumped out to generate a vacuum in order to allow the prison director a very quick¹ walkthrough (rather a glide-through).
[Inspired by an old joke about galley slaves having to row extremely fast, because the captain wants to water-ski]
¹It’s his duty but he doesn’t want to really see (hear or smell) anything
When push comes to shove Elon provides good service to those behind the curtain. His public proactive poses are semi-licensed.
Re: Bohnert article for Rand: “Ukraine has regained a path forward to victory.”
Perhaps Bohnert is correct in his analysis. However, considering it was published in the UK Telegraph Aug 23 it is probably the propaganda of hopium, shining up a losing battle for the UK Sheeple. And here is the real message: “But Western aid is crucial to this, and if given in sufficient quantities could significantly improve Ukrainian capabilities to begin restoring its territory in 2025.” It’s a sales job for more UK involvement in a losing cause. I guess it’s a living, producing this stuff, and perhaps Bohnert is a true believer. But I suspect he doesn’t believe a word of it.
Not a “sales job” but a propaganda piece. The British government is now in the position (after the “election”) to do whatever the F it wants and it will do so and turn its treasure to war. Brits in particular are even more like sheep than people in the EU in following the diktats and interests of Washington.
There was a financial piece in that rag by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard who I paid some attention to years ago and I almost did not read his piece because I saw it was on the Telegraph. Interestingly I get a YT feed from the Telegraph and I never click on it–I think YT wants me to pay attention to something that is obviously disgusting to me.
“Not a “sales job” but a propaganda piece”
Same thing. And YT is also doing some very interesting stuff with my feed – distractions, mostly, and seeing what sticks. They tried UFO’s/aliens for a while, and now they’re on to climate catastrophe stuff…..I wonder what they are suppressing? How would I find out?
It’s definitely hard to find useful non-mainstream content on the internet/YouTube. The search algorithms are so co-opted that no matter how you phrase your search you get steered to what they want you to see vs what you are looking for. In the good ‘ole days, I recall seeing a mention of some unknown CT in a comment somewhere, and a simple Google search would bring me pages of information and discussion. Now, it’s frustrating pages of nothing. If you have direct links, most of the same information is there, but you’re not going to find it via search…and I’m sure the pivot to ai will shore up any of the leaks that still might get through.
Seeing how well the D +MSM gaslighting seems to be working (not based on polls, but the Facebook posts from people I know and had always assumed were somewhat intelligent – definitely not “low information voters”), I’m pretty depressed right now.
Thank you NC and commenters. You are my island of sanity right now.
Very old Germans probably will positively identify all these PR pieces with the news from the Eastern Front that Mr. Goebbels was providing them… especially after Kursk…
Goebbels was not a complete fool. I remember that he criticized how the war was being reported upon, stating that the propaganda successively moving from “We won” to “We are winning” to “We shall win” to “We cannot lose” had actually a detrimental impact on the fighting spirit of the German nation. I do not remember what narrative he was suggesting instead though.
1200 ppm by 2035? We’d only be so lucky. Sam Carana posts nonsense that makes even this doomer chuckle.
“South Korean drivers scramble to get rid of electric vehicles, citing safety concerns following fires”
It was a pretty bad fire alright. But back in 2018 we were talking about a bad fire in a multi-story parking garage in the northern English city of Liverpool. I think that about 1200-1400 cars were turned to ash. Can you imagine if something similar happened again today but that multi-story parking garage was full of electric vehicles with some clustered around charging stations? You’d have to stand around and just let it burn to the ground. Fire hoses may not even get near shooting water into where those EVs are cooking off.
Any reports from China about bad EV car fires?
“Any reports from China about bad EV car fires?”
I have found none.
Chinese batteries come with special covers that protect against fire.
https://english.news.cn/20230706/06bfb602cfc247d5a61af8b05f2a1aab/c.html
July 6, 2023
Chinese scientist wins European Inventor Award 2023
The European Patent Office said that Wu Kai’s invention helps ensure the safety of vehicles equipped with lithium-ion batteries containing a flammable electrolyte.
MADRID — A Chinese scientist and his team won the European Inventor Award 2023 for the “Non-EPO countries” category for reducing the risk of battery explosion and fire in electric vehicles at an award ceremony held in Valencia, eastern Spain, the European Patent Office (EPO) announced on Tuesday.
Wu Kai, chief scientist of Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited, and his team developed a lithium-ion battery with a top cover that acts as a barrier to mitigate battery safety risks. The EPO said the invention helps ensure the safety of vehicles equipped with lithium-ion batteries containing a flammable electrolyte.
“Electric vehicles powered by our advanced and safe batteries are enabling more people to embrace a sustainable lifestyle, contributing to the global energy transition,” said Wu…
It was Luton, only just north of London and the very definition of southern Ingerlund.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-68627759
It was only last year.
And it started in a diesel car (a Range Rover). Well, that’s the bit the BBC reports. When you look at the CCTV footage, it actually started in the batter compartment of a hybrid diesel Range Rover….
No, no. It was a fire back in 2018 in Liverpool. I meant to include a link-
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/u-k-parking-garage-fire-destroys-1400-cars/
I don’t know how many of you have seen an EV fire in person. I was on the way to Laguardia last year. Traffic was starting to back up on my side of the expressways. Ahead, I could see enormous amounts of very black smoke, billowing up at an incredibly rapid pace. The fire had clearly just started (you could tell by contrast between smoke and background; not enough had gone up yet to get a lot of dissipation). I thought it had to be a fuel truck explosion.
The fire was in an outer lane on my route, so we drove right by the burning vehicle. It was only a small van. The fire was absolutely ferocious. It seemed incredible that such a small object could generate such a terrifying conflagration (a testament to how much energy is stored in those batteries).
I was struck by Charles Hugh Smith’s article on the social recession. This should be a required read for any citizen. I have, like CHS, seen this situation we are in turn out and, more or less, predicted it in the 90s when the Democratic Party went all out for corruption in general and pleasing billionaires exclusively (while talking on the other side of their mouth in condemning them). I was in the vicinity of that “movement” to, basically, disenfranchise the vast majority of the population. After the disastrous Clinton years, government used “national security” to begin instituting a program of repression that went from purges in the government, media, Hollywood, and other major institutions.
I can say as someone who has looked closely at the state of the US power-structure, that it is “systemically” corrupt, to put it another way, it cannot be reformed unless all the incentives are changed radically and, culturally, the obscene worship of money and wealth begins to dissolve. We need to move on from the dominator culture we’ve built to something broader and more inclusive in terms of social class, not identity politics which is precisely what liberals use to ignore the social recession (from what I see it is a depression because it is now baked in the cake of modern life).
Social values must change for there to be a change in billionaires uber alles policies in Congress. Without strong families (there can be many sorts of families), communities, there is no brake for the oncoming totalitarian train heading for us. Trump’s embrace of Kennedy who tell the truth as best he can, offers hope for those of us who are what is left of the left–as Jimmy Dore said Trump is now miles to the left of the current Kamala “led” DP and, sadly he’s right.
Don’t worry – the coming recession will utterly destroy the authority of the current regime. I hope they don’t go Samson on us and destroy the system entirely rather than give up control.
The decline in labor share has also been shown in other graphs as Labor Share Flat, Capital Share Increasing since the early 1970s. That gap includes elements of the social recession and immiseration on view today. Don’t look to Congress or the Fed to acknowledge that or address it beyond lip service until people demand answers.
Why would Congress or the Fed “address” a situation they intentionally created?
The social values our present Society is built upon must change. There is no place for Capitalism in the future. It is too destructive to continue, and too destructive to survive the crucible.
It is a great read, and although not news to frequent NC readers, it does put a name to the hollowing out of society, and very succinctly explains the deep rot in neoliberal America. I don’t know how you fix a systemic misalignment of incentives like this, but ultimately Climate change is going to force our hand. A system that cannot persist eventually will discontinue.
Thank you.
“3 decades of satellite images show how cities keep getting higher”
I find the LIDAR indicating the weight of cities are causing the area to deform and sink a bit fascinating.
Another strange topic occurred to me. There are reports about how cattle ranching and cows themselves emit greenhouse gases (methane) and this is a problem for the environment – I do wonder if measurements of methane emissions produced by humans shows the concentration effects of population density in these cities – like from sewer vents and such
An initiative here in Oz has shown that including seaweed in a cow’s diet can reduce that cow’s methane output. Perhaps those Japanese nori eaters are on to something…
Once farting cows are culled, farting humans will be too, unless they buy methane-credits.
The humans will be culled first. That’s what the Covid policy was about – old people fart way more than young people.
“Televangelists Keith Moore And Creflo Dollar Acquire Multi-Million-Dollar Jets”
This sort of stuff has been going on for decades. Anybody remember Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker? They were big time telly evangelists back in the 80s until it all fell apart. I really only remember them because it came out that one of the things that they spent church money on was an air-conditioner for a dog kennel-
https://abcnews.go.com/US/scandals-brought-bakkers-uss-famous-televangelists/story?id=60389342
She passed away back in 2007 but he is still out there hustling for money-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Bakker
Jesus He Knows Me (1991)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-rfCnW5VlE
Personal Jesus (1989)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1xrNaTO1bI
There is a long history of con artist preachers. And lots of non fiction and fiction about it.
Elmer Gantry novel and movie about a traditional tent preacher con
Marjoe a documentary about Marjoe Gortner
Others to look into are Jerry Falwell, and yes current televangelist darling Joel Osteen. Nor can we forget Billy Graham. There is a lot of money fleecing people in search of meaning and comfort… and now prosperity.
I remember the late Oral Roberts and his plea for millions so that God would not “call him home”.
I was rooting for him to fall short of his fundraising and watch the “being called home” event.
Alas, Roberts moved the funding timeline goal posts and someone stepped forward to exceed his stated minimum of 8 million dollars.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_Roberts
“Roberts’ fundraising was controversial. In January 1987, during a fundraising drive, Roberts announced to a television audience that unless he raised $8 million by that March, God would “call him home.” However, the year before on Easter he had told a gathering at the Dallas Convention Center that God had instructed him to raise the money “by the end of the year” or he would die. Regardless of this new March deadline and the fact that he was still $4.5 million short of his goal, some were fearful that he was referring to suicide, given the impassioned pleas and tears that accompanied his statement. Late in March 1987, while Roberts was fasting and praying in the Prayer Tower, Florida dog track owner Jerry Collins donated $1.3 million. Highly worried by what he perceived as Roberts threatening to starve himself, Collins said, “I did it in order to save the guy from going to heaven in a hurry. It’s got nothing to do with religion. I’ve been a Baptist and a Methodist. I believe in religion and not just the church. You have to help one another.” Altogether, Roberts raised a total of $9.1 million.”
The late great Frank Zappa did a quite catchy tune about it, “Heavenly Bank Account.”
Hear, (not appropriate for Sunday listening???): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gydA6tPF5xI
speaking of Zappa – left us too soon – “The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing” – a cappella –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2c9EfRZXglg
Country comedy singer Ray Stevens did a song called ” Would Jesus wear a rolex on his television show?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouZaxRNJIj4
“Telegram CEO Pavel Durov arrested at French airport”
Anybody else reminded of the time that the US had Canada arrest Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou back in 2018 while she was in transit at Vancouver airport and held in Canada for nearly three years?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradition_case_of_Meng_Wanzhou
She was subjected to house arrest at her Vancouver residence and eventually released. I doubt Durov will be treated as gently.
Oculus Rift inventor Palmer Luckey is now doing armaments. There was an article in Tablet which is largely a personality puff piece but there are some amazing tidbits in it. It was very popular a few days ago and most people have probably already seen it but those who have not might want to check it out.
American Vulcan
“Hezbollah launches ‘first phase’ of retaliatory attacks against Israel after commander’s assassination”
So on the news tonight they had this IDF spokesman who had the gall to call Hezbollah a terrorist organization who targeted only civilians while the IDF only targeted military objects. Come to thin of it, ever notice how Israel keeps on hitting schools full of refugees and claiming it was a Hamas command post? Wouldn’t Hamas have all their command post underground in their tunnel system?
https://www.nytimes.com/1982/08/13/world/reagan-demands-end-to-attacks-in-a-blunt-telephone-call-to-begin.html
August 13, 1982
REAGAN DEMANDS END TO ATTACKS IN A BLUNT TELEPHONE CALL TO BEGIN
By Bernard Weinraub
Chronology of Crisis
About 6 A.M. (midnight Wednesday, New York time) – Israelis begin bombing west Beirut. As raids continue, Lebanon’s Prime Minister, Shafik al-Wazzan, tells Philip C. Habib, the special American envoy, that the talks cannot continue.
2 P.M. (8 A.M., New York time) – The Israeli Cabinet meets. A message from President Reagan arrives, expressing ”outrage” and, reportedly threatening to halt the Habib mission. The Cabinet decides to end the raids and order new ones only if they are ”essential.”
4 P.M. (10 A.M., New York time) – President Reagan tries for hour to call Mr. Begin but cannot get through.
4:50 P.M. (10:50 A.M., New York time) – King Fahd of Saudi Arabia calls Mr. Reagan.
5 P.M. (11 A.M., New York time) – A new cease-fire goes into effect in west Beirut.
5:10 P.M. (11:10 A.M., New York time) – Mr. Reagan reaches Mr. Begin for 10-minute telephone call.
5:40 P.M. (11:40 A.M., New York time) – Mr. Begin calls President Reagan to say that a ”complete cease-fire” had been ordered.
Israel’s goals in Gaza and the WB are to eliminate all Arabs from those areas one way or the other. This is, in my view, a non-negotiable policy that Israel will always pursue. Nothing the US, EU, Iran, Russia or China do will make any difference in this. Israeli Jews believe in a God that exist for their benefit as was the case in (what to us) is the Old Testament. Genocide was the policy of the ancient Israelis in conquering the land of Canaan. This is clear and unambiguous. Many Christians, particularly actually prefer the Old Testament to the teachings of Jesus. Sorry to say this but teachings on love and compassion are not big in the West except rhetorically (of course).
In short the Palestinians are doomed unless Israel somehow disappears which is unlikely.
I will just leave this here as this keeps coming up a lot. To the people outside United States, it’s powerlessness in the face of a ‘lobby’ or Netanyahu’s obstinacy just strikes as pure hogwash. From Chomsky:
As for what United States can do, to quote Nasrallah “One phone call from Biden to stop, and it will stop”.
I don’t think that phone call can do anything. Let me be a little clearer. I know from personal experience that the intel community contains a fair amount of Jewish Zionists. They believe the Arabs are “barbarians” which is the general line for moderate Zionists and for many more extreme Zionists they are “animals” and, believe me, I’ve had some conversations with some of those types. I’m not saying Zionists dominate the Deep State but they are in a position to undermine any change in policy form neo-conservatism-liberalism.
So there are solid Deep Staters for Israel (no matter what) who would be in a position to sabotage genuine America First policies. Then there is the entertainment complex, i.e., Hollywood and the mainstream media totally dominated (at the top) by Zionists and their sympathizers. Then, of course, the final word is always with the finance oligarchs who are, in the main, pro-Israel but not exclusively so that, from that part of the oligarchy, change is possible since Israel threatens business.
So it may well be that, among those with actual, practical clout, it’s Stuart Seldowitzes all the way down?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/28/stuart-seldowitz-islamophobia-us-diplomat
Would a speech from a major player (Biden, Harris, Pelosi) about the Zionist influence be more effective?
Eisenhower gave his “beware the Military-Industrial Complex” speech, albeit when he was powerlessly exiting.
Not that I expect any significant politician to rise to the occasion.
“Profiles in Courage” was a book, not a policy manual.
That may well be so. However, there isn’t even the slightest indication of an intent to change the official policy, steadfastly pursued by the State Deparment (with backing from the duopoly), to test your intel meddling thesis.
Wilkerson in his latest on Dima straightforwardly describes the objectives. The intention is to establish a ‘deterrance’ by use of extraordinary violence, and to show that United States will not allow Israel to sink, no matter what it does.* Wilkerson makes this analysis in the particulars, which you are liable to miss, if you are only attentive to his more general description, where he falls back upon Netanyahu’s survival. All the same, in this interview he directly challenges Dima’s misapprehension that US isn’t calling the shots.
*Wilkerson seems to begin by arguing that its the US policy to establish a deterance but closes by saying that Israel wants to send the message. This can be confusing, but he is quite clear that he believes US and Israel are tied to the hip and are acting out of shared interests.
Yes. Imo either the Arabs or zionists will not remain between the river and sea.
I’m not sure if this is still the case, but at one point (maybe twenty years back) the most extreme evangelical Christian sects were pushing young members to seek advanced officer positions in the military, especially the Air Force. So Christian Zionists inside the military-intelligence apparatus might be another source of total support for Israeli atrocities.
A friend here who has tons of diplomatic contacts (Global South) says the Mossad was the muscle for tons of CIA covert and not so covert nasty operations (he can name quite a few names). So if nothing else, Mossad has the 5×7 glossies on the CIA.
The Israelis are striving mightily to emulate the kindly Nazis, not to mention the American war machine. As to the latter specifically, the current Administration has mandated that the IDF sing the following before each mission:
We shoot the sick, the young, the lame
We do our best to kill and maim
Because the kills all count the same,
Napalm sticks to kids.
Ox cart rolling down the road,
Peasants with a heavy load,
They’re all Hamas when the bombs explode,
Napalm sticks to kids.
From “Napalm Sticks to Kids” [with “Hamas” substituted for “VC”]
*https://vietnamwar-thethingstheycarried.weebly.com/war-song-lyrics.html
Sweet dreams, President Emeritus Biden and Vice President Harris.
About 50 years ago the Berkeley Barb published a photo of a terrified little Vietnamese girl running along naked fleeing the napalming. That was shocking then, and should be shocking now. Times have sure changed when there are so many photos of Gaza terrors.
The more Palestinians Israel kills in Gaza, the more overseas support and sympathy Israel loses, and then legitimacy after that. Since losing support and legitimacy is part of what Hamas wants to achieve for Israel,
it would make sense for Hamas to keep baiting Israel to bomb school after school after school. I wonder how much of the Intelligence that Israel thinks it is recieving on where Hamas personnel are at is fake deceptiontelligence fed to Israel to keep shifting Israeli focus to school after school after school, which Israel is happy to do and which Hamas is happy to keep Israel doing.
I remember hearing on some radio news show or other that when the over-and-over displaced civilians were first being packed into Rafah, that a woman wondered out loud why it was that Hamas did not create a single bit of underground shelter space for Palestinian civilians anywhere in all their tunnel space. No other statement like that has been heard since.
I wonder whether Hamas itself is losing the “Mandate of Heaven” to rule Gaza in the long term. But since Palestine has 13 other political movement organizations for Palestinians to express themselves through, the loss of some relative power by one out of the 14 organizations which Chinese diplomats brought together at that ” unification meeting” will not impair the forward progress of the Palestine National Movement overall.
Israel meanwhile is losing the ” Mandate of Darwin”, and the more people Israel kills ( for obviously emotional and recreational purposes) in Gaza, the closer it comes to losing the “Mandate of Darwin” altogether.
I think that Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and maybe other allied and partner thinkers and strategists understand that the Likudiform and Kahanian rulership currently in control of the country are the ideal persons and communities to initiate and then accelerate the delamination of Israeli society into mutual non-cooperation with eachother and then perhaps into genuine Civil Violence. So they will do everything they can from their end to keep the current Netanyahu coalition in power as long as they can help to keep it there.
The Axis of Resistance leader-thinker-analysts are just as literate as the readership here, and often in English. They have surely read the couple of articles that were posted here a day or two ago about how at this rate of war-of-attrition, Israel itself may collapse in a year and also how Kahanian settler terrorism all over the West Bank may also turn all Israel itself into a governance-free-zone, as the Israel government fissions like an unstable heavy nucleus within a year or so. If they believe those articles to be expressing a well-thought-out analysis of where the trend is going, then they will want to keep the current Netanyahu Coalition in power for at least the next year, and longer if they can help to keep it there.
If the Master his own self is tearing down his own house with his own tools, why not keep that exact particular Master in place to maintain the pace of self-tearing-down till the self-tearing-down has been completed?
What is fascinating is America repeatedly sending national security advisers to China, supposedly to ease tensions between the countries, but just when meetings are to begin America assaults China in some manner. Generally America chooses to sanction a group of Chinese companies as a sort of preventive or threatening punishment just before meetings so that Chinese diplomats will be properly intimidated.
Curious sort of self-defeating American diplomacy, over and over.
I think the sobriquet “Empire of Lies” sums it up succinctly.
“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.”
Ron Paul
[ “Empire of Lies” sums it up succinctly. ]
Suppose we consider the passage, beyond the heading? What we might ask is the extent to which the sanction tools we are now using so broadly are self-defeating. Huawei is an example we might use. BeiDou, the Chinese global positioning system, is another example. Why not the Chinese space exploration program? I am arguing to myself that American sanctions have already been self defeating.
Well . . . American/EUropean sanctions against Russia had the actual effect of creating a Big Beautiful Wall of Protectionism around Russia. And Russia has grown and diversified its economy behind that wall.
A creative Protectionist Party-Movement in America could cite the results of sanctions on Russia as evidence that functional Protectionism works in practice.
“A creative Protectionist Party-Movement…”
Interesting and helpful, but China is arguing that it is looking to where trade is welcome. Looking to trade as technology exchange and not just buying commodities that are needed. China wants exchange of ideas. Deng explained this in the 1980s, and Xi has been explaining this even as a local administrator and repeating this firmly as President.
Vietnam is portrayed in the New York Times as a competitor of China, but China wants a technical partnership with Vietnam.
I am thinking of a creative Protectionist Party-Movement within America itself for raising the chances of American economic survival for America itself. I hadn’t really been thinking of what the ChinaGov might think about Protectionism or not for China from a Chinese perspective.
Free Trade is the new Slavery.
Protectionism is the new Abolition.
https://x.com/BenjaminNorton/status/1827702534871331104
Ben Norton @BenjaminNorton
Another week, more unilateral US sanctions on China and Russia.
Washington just sanctioned more companies: 42 from China, 63 from Russia, 18 from other countries.
The US is addicted to economic war. It has hit 1/3rd of countries on Earth with sanctions.
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-slams-us-adding-firms-export-control-list-vows-action-2024-08-25/
China slams US for adding firms to export control list, vows action
9:40 AM · Aug 25, 2024
They don’t see it that way. They see it as showing that they are tough and giving China a warning of what they are capable of. They think that it is a negotiating technique so that they can achieve some sort of dominance over Chinese negotiators. But we saw how well it worked out in that meeting between Chinese and US negotiators in Alaska not that long ago. It didn’t and it blew up in the faces of the US delegation.
First, we don’t do diplomacy. We tell inferiors what to do. When that doesn’t work we send in the gunboats, or used to. We’re kinda stuck now that gunboats don’t work. Granted, sanctions have worked on some, but options are opening up.
I’m afraid we’re out of options. How long can we afford to keep the armada at sea, and what can they do? The resistance takes hits but the frog is slowly boiling. Interesting times.
Here is an article I saw on MoA on NATO troops in the Ukraine war: https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/contractors-kursk-polish-french-details.
Not NATO troops, but mercenaries “from NATO countries.” Although NATO countries are reported to be providing support behind the front.
Sounds like a hodgepodge, with English, Polish, and “maybe French” heard.
Do consider reading the post. This article is linked under “New Not-So-Cold War,” along with the rest of our Ukraine stuff.
Very interesting interview of Bret Weinstein by Patrick Bet David on his PBD podcast, including Weinstein’s opinions on the harris candidacy, current state of the democrat party and even “Mpox.”
Well worth the hour and twenty minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju4ff_Ud99A
I saw some of that and what I saw was good and on point. What I like most is the ongoing redrawing of politics in the US. Since the left disappeared with the identity politics infection and war-mongering in the DP the vacuum is beginning to fill up with curious right/left coalitions based on populism which has always had a hold on right and left. To me, it is now the left–meaning there is an opposition to the uniparty.
I spoke to a friend yesterday that I had not been in touch with for some time, he and his wife are big fans of Harris, because of her policies.
These are highly credentialled professionals on the verge of retirement and critical thinking has been a necessity in their fields.
And they support Harris because of her policies…
You didn’t happen to ask which of her policies they liked the best? /s
She’s a Modern American Politica after all. The old saying applies here: “The absence of affect is not evidence of a lack of effect.”
People will follow anyone and anything if “motivated” sufficiently, such as if they are induced to view the political choices confronting them as existential to their status and lifestyles.
This would actually be a very interesting experiment to perform with a straight face and no /snarkasm at all. What do these professional people actually think her policies actually are?
As a former resident of an area (DC area) that is chock full of post-graduate professionals I can assure you that they are more closed-minded and willfully ignorant than the working-class people I talk to here in the South. To put it another way, they may use critical thinking in their jobs because they have to but in life they cling to ideology, prejudice (against working-class people), and belief in American Exceptionalism. Certainly, after a fashion, they mean well but, in my experience they usually show and extraordinarily childish understanding of in moral, metaphysical, and political philosophy which they may have studied in school but have forgotten in their careerist trips through government, the university, where they have had to learn (so they can go along to get along) that departures from official ideologies risks their family prosperity. I’ve heard many stories about people who strayed “off the reservation” as Washingtonians used to say (it may be different now–I’ve been off that reservation for a decade and a half).
Six to eight years of obedience school right after high school does wonders for the PMC.
I have a friend working at one of the biggest Unis in Canada and at one point he was responsible with recruiting undergraduates from North and South Americas.
A visit to DC exposed him to the very high levels of entitlement that even the teenagers broods of the PMC have… Only famine, rapid sea level rise, technological backsliding, total civil distrust, and maybe some major wars abroad and at home might, might change things… a bit. Like it happened with the New Deal.
Winston Churchill once famously observed that Americans will always do the right thing, only after they have tried everything else.
I would have to accept they must have also been supporters of Biden. It’s the same policies. Status Quo Double Plus Good twirling towards victory. Huzzah.
The Simple Truths article is quite good. For a deeper explanation of the dynamic I highly recommend this excellent video on Twitter: What Causes Delusion? The blog post underlying this video is here.
Taibbi’s latest, no paywall.
Note to Philip Bump
The Washington Post columnist speaks on CNN; a brief reply
https://www.racket.news/p/note-to-philip-bump
That’s funny, thanks for that.
Most of the democrats I know now hate Taibbi (and Greenwald) and would never read them. Same with anything else that isn’t in their media bubble. They still think Russia/Putin are running the GOP and anything else they can pin on them. A truly clueless and hateful bunch, and Bump is exactly the kind of people they listen to and love.
Today is Arthur Jensen’s birthday. He would have been 101.
Pseudo-religious fanatics wrecked his reputation, but his research and ideas continue to debunk blank-slate lunacy.
Sounds similar, at least superficially, to the now-negative reputation of DNA co-discoverer and Nobel Prize laureate James Watson.
Ummm . . . . I hadn’t heard about this. What was his research and what were his ideas? And what specifically is the blank-slate lunacy which Mr. Jensen’s research and ideas continue to debunk?
RE: How extreme heat is contributing to a nationwide blood shortage PBS:
I suppose the extreme heat and other weather extremes impact blood drives. Of course people are reluctant to come in during a hurricane or tornado or flooding rains, and they go in to a place of work less often. I believe there are other far more troubling reasons to explain why fewer people are donating their blood. I used to give my blood to the Red Cross or other NGOs but stopped when I discovered the price patients were charged for the blood I gave freely. I stopped long before the Corona flues began making their rounds, although that would definitely make me even more reluctant to give blood.
My freely given Gift of blood appeared to me to have become just another profit center for the entities that took it. I realize there are costs in handling blood. I could not visualize how the prices charged for blood related to those costs and somehow through the years the Red Cross had lost its shiny image. As the Red Cross appeared more and more avaricious through other revelations, like their CEO pay, my view of other smaller, less well known entities tarnished as well.
The representative from the Red Cross said it had become difficult to maintain comfortable temperatures in the rooms where they collected blood. To me, it sounded like the Red Cross was just too cheap to pay for the necessary air conditioning and ventilation. I hope someone who knows better will provide a better and more optimistic view of the Red Cross and its kin.
I tried to donate blood last August at the local Silicon Valley blood bank and they told me that I had to remove my N95 so that they could take my temp, and that a forehead or ear thermometer was not an option. I followed up by email and they confirmed this. At that time there was a big covid wave going on, and the donor center was packed full of unmasked people and the nurse I was dealing with looked sick. Of course I left without donating since I didn’t feel like catching covid. I recently emailed to ask if that were still their policy, and have not heard back. I am totally healthy and have type 0- blood, but I guess they aren’t willing to accommodate so that I can both donate and continue to be healthy.
But they’ll keep whinging to the press about how people just don’t want to donate anymore.
I tried to donate blood some time ago, but I gave up. They ask too many questions. Whose blood is it? Why is it in a bucket?
Joe Bob Briggs is alive and well at Naked Capitalism!
From Apple’s Hidden AI Prompts
Yeah, that’ll fix it. And by 2024 every developer at Apple ought to know that “asking” a LLM to not lie is like asking the sun to not rise. It isn’t even going to acknowledge the request, the rising sun transcends any human requests, just like LLMs output whatever the next most likely token is. There’s no understanding of truth. It’s a meaningless concept to a LLM. There’s just the probability for the next token.
What a sad, sad epoch this is.
Heh, a later comment states:
And this is the state of technology in 2024. We’ve gone from the amazing ability to actually reproduce digital text on a display on physical paper, the printer, to asking computers nicely to not lie and actually believing it works in some deterministic way.
god help us all
“Please be nice”
“Do not hallucinate”
“Do not travel back in time to try and kill John Connor”
Reminds me of the old joke:
What’s the difference between a used car salesman and a computer salesman?
The used car salesman knows when he’s lying.
I’m curious why there has been no discussion on NC about the speech by UAW President Shawn Fain at the DNC convention.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeAm3qFKpmQ
Given all the talk here about the PMC, it would seem like there would be a lot of support for union leaders like Shawn Fain.
Both my father and grandfather were auto workers in Detroit, I grew up with a high regard for Walter Reuther. In my opinion, Shawn Fain is a worthy heir of Walter Reuther.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Reuther
Someone on the Twitter pointed out today that they still don’t have AC in UPS trucks; The signed contract only obligated UPS to include them in new vehicles. Roast away, working class!
I wholeheartedly concurred with the top half of his tee shirt.
RE: Russia, China compete with US for Arctic Circle dominion that could shape international trade for decades – Fox
I think the title is wrong since it is the US that is in panic and struggling not to catch up, cannot, but to show life signals in this area of the world.
Firstly, most of the Northern Route goes by Russian territory and by international law is under Russian jurisdiction. According to UNCLOS, the area between the coast of a country and the ice shelf in its proximity is under control of that country, so that somebody wants passage, it must ask. The US really, really, really hates that section of UNCLOS and an old article on “War on the Rocks” clearly pointed to the issue.
With the iceshelf receeding, Russians can argue that their justidiction extends to the iceshelf, no?!
Secondly, the US has no vessels, other than submarines, that can get in the area, and no icebreakers. Now is trying to convince Canada, Denmark, and Norway to act as its proxies in the Arctic and also to start building icebreakers (probably a better deal than what Australia has with AUKUS).
Thus, the law and the know how and the actual means are all in Russian hands. US is just posturing. Rubs it and rubs it but there is no erection.
Yeah, somehow I think that ever since the Soviets officially opened the Northeast Passage for
commercial exploitationuse some 90 years ago (under it’s own administration), they haven’t been aware of any competition for dominion by the US.It’s actually was the immense distances and isolation along the Northeast Passage that gave birth to the Mig-25 and Mig-31. A superfast long-distance fighter with an extremely powerful radar and capability to network with other similar fighters. A patrol could cover a huge area in no time outside of any ground control while still retaining good situational awareness.
France. Telegram founder Dudov has been arrested in France.
Telegram founder Durov arrested in France, source says
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/telegram-founder-durov-arrested-in-france-source-says/ar-AA1poQ5P
PARIS/MOSCOW (Reuters) -Pavel Durov, the Russian-born billionaire founder and owner of the Telegram messaging app, was arrested at Le Bourget airport outside Paris shortly after landing on a private jet late on Saturday and placed in custody, a police source said.
I sense the screws are being tightened. I also have a theory that we will know when Project Ukraine is really collapsing when YouTube de-platforms all the neutral mappers such as Dima, Weeb Union, and DPA.
They’ve been allowed their little carve outs from censorship for as long as the lie that Ukraine can win can be kept going, but time is running out and the truth is getting out.
Those plucky Lithuanians!
Lithuania’s prime minister publicly wished for a future “without Rusnya” while flanked by Zelensky
One of my regrets is after my mom restored her Lithuanian citizenship, having been a teenager during the interwar republic, I followed suit for myself and 3 kids. This was early in Bush 2 and Iraq, and I foolishly thought EU citizenship was a great idea and might avoid conscription for my son. But blacksites were in full swing and NATO expansion came soon after. Who knew in 2004? I hadn’t realized the Lithuanian elites are unrepentant Quislings of the Nazis. Second cousins too!
Needless to say documents will lapse. It is a personal embarrassment.
Getting EU citizenship was a great idea back then and opened up a lot of doors for you and your family. Not your fault that in recent years the EU is going full fascist so don’t be surprised if, in a few years more, that you get your call-up papers from the Lithuanian army because of that citizenship. :)
Possibly the problem is “me,” but I have no idea what this article is about and I have all the NOAA and NASA data, the CO2 and global temperature data, and the academic papers associated by the team led by James Hansen:
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2024/08/carbon-dioxide-growing-rapidly.html
August 22, 2024
Carbon dioxide growing rapidly
This is the paper to pay attention to:
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/ha00410c.html
December, 2008
Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?
By James Hansen, Makiko Sato, Pushker Kharecha, David Beerling, Robert Berner, Valerie Masson-Delmotte, Mark Pagani, Maureen Raymo, Dana L. Royer and James C. Zachos
Alexander Vindman hawking “Veterans for Harris” tee-shirts on Twitter just about sums it all up.
‘Social Recession’ – perhaps the most useful addition to the social/economic lexicon I’ve seen in a long time.
Entirely agree.
Last week I took part in a neighborhood emergency preparedness meeting. I had established beforehand that it would be held outside, but when I arrived they were setting up inside. I am naturally ill humored enough to have been the person to press the point, and so they did hold it outside. I was the only person masked (plus xlear, claritin, AirTamer and neosporin), of course. Despite our being currently in an actual state of emergency. There were supposed to be two people running the thing, but one wasn’t there because she was sick. I remember the old days when people didn’t get sick in the summer. The most frustrating part was how zombified everyone seemed. There was an odd lack of energy. People seemed so tired. Truthfully I would be tired too, if I weren’t taking low dose methylene blue (not medical advice, can interact with other things badly) and nattokinase. It all made me feel like the future were going to be pretty bad.
I was shopping at the Bigg Boxx store this morning. The lines were extra-long, especially on a Sunday. Also, as I left, the “greeter” and ticked checker, a seventy something I have spoken to a bit over the previous year was wearing an N-95 mask and was coughing a blue streak. When I asked about it, he replied that he was “recovering from a bout of Covid.” He was clearly suffering from “brain fog” and should have been at home in bed. That the management allowed him to work, and in a customer fronting position at that, seemed to be a dereliction of their duty to the public, much less the poor employee.
I must agree with you about the immediate future. It is shaping up to be very bad, in more ways than one.
I was in New England about ten days ago to visit my mom, and we watched the local news. Half the news presenters had really hoarse voices.
Your poor greeter. The store is desperate for the labor with so many people sick, and people are desperate for income, so they drag themselves in when they should be in bed, and infect other people.
A colleague of my husband’s just died; she was 74; we don’t know what she died of; there had been no mention of a sickness; she seemed okay the last time my husband saw her. I know 74 is not a “young” age, but in his profession people typically live to be truly old. There are so many youngish people obits in my home town area. My mom has inexplicably started to care about using Xlear and claritin and nasal neosporin and her AirTamer; that is good of course but it is also a signal.
Good for your Mom! She is taking control of what she can that effects her health. Here’s hoping that the generality of the population is finally starting to see through the deadly lies being foisted upon them.
Stay very safe.
Interesting interview of Chas Freeman in the South China Morning Post:
Chas Freeman on Mao, the next Kissinger and why now is not like the Cold War
ZOMG, thanks!
I am not sure how to unpack that paragraph especially the second half. Say that everything he says in the first half came to pass i.e. there’s a huge constitutional crisis later this year/early next year :
– Without the civilian government, who will be paying for salaries of all the personnel in the US Armed Forces?
– Absent the civilian government, there will be chaos throughout the country, and Americans will still care about Taiwan?
– The US Armed Forces is so awesome, it does not need any logistical support from some kind of civilian government to conduct a war with the biggest industrial might in the world? Is he implying that the country is already under some sort of military rule right now?
What was considered to be the civilian government does not disappear. See Ukraine. Zelensky declared martial law but that did not change routine government functioning (outside the government running out of funds even with our support, which would happen regardless of civilian or the military in charge).
This is coming down the tracks. For the media, but moreover, for the tech companies censoring Palestinian voices while they promote western ones. The line between reasonable editorial slant and outright complicity was crossed long ago. Tech censorship is a more vital component in sustaining support for the genocide than any other influences.