KKR Founders Sued for Allegedly Getting Giant Payday for No Work WSJ
Private equity’s interest in audit raises red flags FT
Climate
No Buzz, Just an Anxious Hum: Insect Decline and 2024’s Wet and Silent Spring The Quietus. Commentary:
Wandering around the old family farm in rural Satakunta, Finland and I feel in awe of the sheer numbers of insects. The air is full of them, there are tonnes of butterflies and lizards, this one small spot is simply packed with life. pic.twitter.com/pH4hoqi2Dq
— Thomas Gibson (@GibsonTomgibo) August 5, 2024
* * * Circular battery self-sufficiency Cory Doctorow, Pluralistic
Huge Fire Sparked by a Mercedes-Benz EV Adds to Safety Concerns Dogging Industry WSJ
Lack of Worker Input Creates Bumps in the Road for EV Buses Labor Notes
* * * Florida’s Biggest Insurer Says It Needs to Increase Rates by 93 Percent Newsweek
Offsets on fire Politico
Syndemics
The dreaded COVID summer surge has arrived. Here’s the latest on symptoms and treatment Fortune
COVID data quietly disappears while cases rise Prism
* * * Kyoto Univ. professor-led team develops immune cells that attack COVID-infected cells The Mainichi (SocalJimObjects).
* * * Colorado: First Bulk-Milk Testing Results adds 9 More Infected Dairy Herds to Their List Avian Flu Diary
Overdose Deaths Are Finally Starting to Decline. Here’s Why. Scientific American
Water
How French Drains Work Practical Engineering
China?
Guangzhou Shows Why China Is So Attractive to the Global South The Diplomat
China’s youth seek work in sectors traditionally considered as blue-collar as mindsets shift Channel News Asia
China’s Housing Market May Gain Support as Rental Yields Pull Ahead of Deposit Rates, Economist Says Yicai Global. Commentary:
5/5
government bonds rather than property, and use the interest earned to pay rent, but at least it is no longer the case that the only justification for buying rather than renting is an expected infinite surge in property prices.— Michael Pettis (@michaelxpettis) August 7, 2024
China confirms the discovery of a major natural gas field in the South China Sea South China Morning Post
Is a high-profile critic of the Chinese Communist Party a con man? NPR
India
To Which Asia Does India Belong – and to Which Is it Headed? The Wire
Can India truly be a global manufacturing powerhouse? Channel News Asia
Big challenges ahead for Muhammad Yunus, Bangladesh’s new interim leader Al Jazeera. Yunus.
Protesters force four Bangladeshi central bank’s deputies to resign Business Standard
Bangladesh garment factories reopen with hopes after PM Hasina’s flight Business Standard
The Great Game
“Talk of stopping projects” — Lugar lab in Georgia might lose U.S. support JAM News
Syraqistan
Muslim bloc meeting holds Israel responsible for assassination of Hamas’ Haniyeh Anadolu Agency
Iran will respond at ‘right time’ to killing of Hamas leader BBC
Fearing ‘Catastrophic War,’ Biden Warns Iran Against Attack and Pushes Netanyahu to Make Deal Haaretz
Israel would trigger regional war with preemptive strike, require help from US: Israeli general Anadolu Agency
* * * Israel vows to kill new Hamas chief Sinwar as US warns against escalation France24
* * * UK’s biggest private pension fund dumps £80mn of Israeli assets FT
Western ambassadors to skip Nagasaki memorial after Israel snub Channel News Asia
‘We’ve lost everything, for what?’: Gazan anger at Hamas grows as war drags on 972 Magazine
European Disunion
US Decision to Tear Up INF Treaty Has Left Nuclear ‘Sword of Damocles’ Hanging Over Europeans’ Heads Defend Democracy Press
New Not-So-Cold War
Why has Ukraine launched a cross-border attack on Russia? BBC. Commentary:
Afternoon Ukraine update!
The Ukrainian Hail-Mary offensive into Kursk is still dominating the headlines – I've attached a Sofa General Staff* map showing the current situation. Last night the Ukrainians reportedly advanced somewhat to the west of their initial stab through… pic.twitter.com/GVUJvxHYQJ— Armchair Warlord (@ArmchairW) August 8, 2024
What is Ukraine’s goal in the Battle for Kursk? BNE Intellinews
Trump’s vice-presidential nominee refused to take calls from Ukraine’s intelligence chief and Air Force chief – WP Ukrainska Pravda
Something Is Rotten in the State of Russian Arms Industry RAND
Transit of Russian gas through Ukraine continues Ukrainska Pravda
South of the Border
An Attempted Coup By Any Other Name… Orinoco Tribune
Venezuela army rejects opposition appeals, vows ‘absolute loyalty’ to Maduro France24
2024
DOJ contends Hunter Biden was hired by Romanian oligarch to ‘influence US policy:’ docs FOX
Spook Country
FBI raids New York home of former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter: ‘Ongoing federal investigation’ FOX. Commentary:
Scott Ritter, a vocal critic of the US proxy war in Ukraine and of the Israeli government, says that the FBI raided his home over a suspected Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) violation.
On top of the free speech implications here, it’s noteworthy that this happens just as… https://t.co/XDavnjyoO0
— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) August 7, 2024
American Stasi: Tulsi Gabbard Confirms “Quiet Skies” Nightmare (no paywall) Matt Taibbi, Racket News
Big Brother Is Watching You Watch
A booming industry of AI age scanners, aimed at children’s faces WaPo
Digital Watch
Burst Damage Ed Zitron, Where’s Your Ed At?
This is the beginning of the end of the generative AI boom Blood in the Machine
* * * New Research: So Far, AI is Not Disrupting Search or Making a Dent in Google SparkToro
The Olympics
Tom Cruise to perform death-defying stunt at ‘dystopian’ Olympics closing ceremony France24
Healthcare
After private equity takes over hospitals, they are less able to care for patients, top medical researchers say Gretchen Morgenson, NBC
The Clamp Incident: On Therapy In Modern Medicine 3 Quarks Daily
Class Warfare
What’s Happening in Louisville Could Solve a Housing Crisis Tressie McMillan Cottom, NYT
The Absurdity of Human Sentience George Tsakraklides
The Wisdom of Fish Schools Nautilus
The medieval world’s Baltic connection Engelsberg Ideas
Antidote du jour (Alan Manson):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
166 comments
Comments are closed.
AL-AQSA MOSQUE
(melody borrowed from The Old Rugged Cross by George Bennard, 1912, as sung by the Redeemed Quartet)
On a sacred high hill stands the Al-Aqsa mosque
But our God left that hill in our name
There our temple was lost so this mosque we detest
We must redeem Judea again
It’s the cause of our fight with Hamas
And the reason we’ve knocked Gaza down
Once we bulldoze the Al-Aqsa mosque
We will all have a Jewish playground
Once there is no more mosque and our flag is unfurled
There’s not one inch of Zion we’ll share
We’ll build our temple with love when that mosque’s disposed of
They can rebuild wherever they please
The Dome of the Rock had it’s time
It’s splendor for all eyes to see
We’ve got plans for a push and a shove
Then the land underneath it is free
When the Al-Aqsa mosque falls to our wrecking crew
We’ll level the whole hilltop square
We are here for to stay so this mosque goes away
They can always rebuild it somewhere
“Western ambassadors to skip Nagasaki memorial after Israel snub”
I note that it was only Collective West countries having a hissy fit about the Israelis not being invited but this is exactly what should happen with Israel around the world – that it be boycotted from any public event the same way that Apartheid South Africa was. What happened here was that western countries showed their full public support for a country engaged in an active genocide and there is no getting around that. The Japanese PM never made mention of which country nuked Hiroshima in his speech a few days ago so perhaps the Mayor of Nagasaki should twist Rahm Emanuel’s tail and say exactly who nuked Nagasaki and call on him as US Ambassador to apologize.
so perhaps the Mayor of Nagasaki should twist Rahm Emanuel’s tail and say exactly who nuked Nagasaki and call on him as US Ambassador to apologize. I imagine you are not the only one who feels this way.
Valero, a Texas oil company, is supplying the jet fuel for genocide Time to boycott?
https://scheerpost.com/2024/08/08/international-campaign-targets-tanker-supplying-israeli-war-planes-with-texas-oil/
Honestly what’s happening could have been written by the Babylon Bee with the following headline: Genocide 7 countries are having a disagreement on whose genocide is more Tik Tok worthy.
We’re living in a Monty Python skit.
Japanese PM Kishida knows better than to make his American bosses uncomfortable at a ceremony commemorating an American war crime. So of course Kishida focuses on a theoretical Russian threat instead.
I couldn’t agree more, but what moved the mayor is most probably alone the desire to prevent disruption of the ceremony. A “snub” would be entirely against Japanese etiquette.
I don’t think this was intended as a “snub.” More likely that the mayor has agonized over the decision. I believe the genuine intention was to protect the ceremony. Everything else would be drastically in violation of Japanese etiquette.
It’s almost as if the Collective West is saying Zionist lives are more far worthy than Japanese lives.
I mean, how else should we read their refusal to attend the memorial?
And then there’s the whole issue of the U.S. decision to use nuclear weapons against civilians, women and children, and then to try and lie about it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/08/opinion/nagasaki-the-forgotten-city.html
August 7, 2015
Nagasaki, the Forgotten City
By SUSAN SOUTHARD
ON Aug. 9, 1945, the United States dropped a nuclear bomb on Nagasaki, situated on a long, narrow bay on Japan’s southernmost main island, Kyushu.
From the beginning, this attack was different than the atomic bombing of Hiroshima three days earlier, yet the experiences of the two cities have been fused in memory, to the point that we use the term “the bomb” to refer to both events. The result has been to consign Nagasaki to the edge of oblivion.
Many Americans believe their government’s official narrative: that the two bombs, dropped in close succession, led to Japan’s surrender. But it is now well known that the surrender was prompted at least as much by the Soviet Union’s decision to join the Allies in the war against Japan. Just 11 hours before the Nagasaki bombing, 1.5 million Soviet troops crossed into the Japanese puppet state in Manchuria, in northern China, and attacked the depleted Japanese Army there on three fronts…
https://www.primematters.com/foundations/enrichment/immaculate-conception-cathedral-nagasaki
Another forgotten factoid about Nagasaki: near the hypocenter was the cathedral of the Catholic Diocese of Nagasaki, built on the site where the Shogunate government executed Japanese Christians who wouldn’t recant (as shown in the movie (and the novel) Silence).
Perhaps some day the Japanese will uninvite the United States
I second that motion. Why invite an unrepentent killer to the funeral to gloat and set a bad example?
Especially as the killer has continued since Hirohima and Nagasaki. To the tune of 70k non-combatants in Afghanistan/Pakistan, 500k in Iraq, 65k in Vietnam, 30k-600k in Cambodia and now Palestine, and soon there will also be mass civilian death counts for Iran and Lebanon, the way things are going.
It has been estimated that up to 1 million civilians died during the “secret” bombing campaigns in Laos as part of the Vietnam War.
Also over 1M from NK alone during the “hot” part of the Korean war, attributable to US bc US is the reason it went 3y rather than the time to reacquire the initial border. The USAF policy to flatten literally every building in NK was a curious war policy.
Notable is that SK remains the only “West-friendly regime change to CIA-funded military dictatorship to democracy” story since ww2 for a lot of pre-existing local governance korean culture reasons that never had a chance of being repeated elsewhere.
There is absolutely zero possibility he would ever do that. The Japanese, overall, literally worship the same people who first blockaded their country to force it choose between starving and freezing to death in silence or an “unprovoked” attack (“a day which shall live in infamy”), then fire bombed and nuked their cities, and ever since has militarily occupied the country and made it a slave colony. In doing so the US has trampled upon their culture and sovereignty, including their soldiers raping and running over their citizens with legal impunity* and using the country as a chemical dumping ground for their military.
Japan compensates for this by teaming up with the rest of the G7 to make aggressive moves and rhetoric against China and North Korea (sometimes even South Korea), countries in which it slaughtered tens of millions, as well as Russia.
As such Japan, for the time being, deserves zero sympathy from the wider world. In some sense I’m happy about the humiliation Japan received from this incident. It’s way overdue that the Japanese faced how they are looked upon by the country that nuked them.
I say all this with a heavy heart because like a great many people I have a massive admiration and respect for Japan as a culture and historical civilization (one which I long lost for my own continent, Europe, but seem incapable of losing for Japan, despite everything). Interestingly, this cognitive dissonance (if that’s the right thing to call it) seems to be widely shared in China and Korea as well, even among people who still remember the horrific crimes Japan committed there and to this day refuses to apologize for.
I should add that over the long term, I think there is a LOT more reason to believe that Japan will eventually snap out of its current pathetic state than that Europe will.
*I wish I could find the screenshots I took of Sen. Mike Lee’s tirades of threats and insults toward Japan when it did dare to prosecute a Lt. Ridge Alkonis who killed two Japanese citizens with his car, but it would take ages. The articles on the subject, predictably, only include the least inflammatory and racist of the dozens of tweets he made.
Needless to say, despite the Japanese government lodging “official protests” against Sen. Lee for publically treating their country as an aberrant slave, Japan released Atkins after a year in prison to the United States, where he was released unconditionally. Sen. Lee was not alone in his view that regarldess of the circumstances, in killing two “Japs”, Lt. Atkins had committed no crime and his imprisonment lacked any justification.
Closing ceremony hype…Cruise doing a mission impossible like act of heroism by swimming up from the depths of the Seine? Now on the other hand, if he’s doing “Top Gun” Maverick level stunts, that’s decidedly different. Could not help it…\sarc
Behold the river is clean, says Tom. Ah I see the connection to the 2028 games. What a gigantic waste of tangible funds. Los Angeles doesn’t have other concerns to address by 2028, I’m sure of it.
What if during the Closing Ceremony, the French put the Olympic five circle symbol into a dumpster bin, set it on fire, and then boot it in the direction of the Los Angeles delegation. That could work. Not sure why Los Angeles is getting the Games again as this will be the third time that they have had it.
Not sure if this really answers the question, but in the process of awarding the 2024 games, only Paris and Los Angeles were interested (there may have initially been others, but they dropped out). So, the Olympic committee decided to award the 2024/2028 games at the same time (in 2017!).
Basically, it seems that most of the world’s cities have learned that hosting the Olympics is not a blessing, but a curse.
Maybe then they should permanently home the Olympics in Greece and have it there every four years. All competing nations could kick in some money too based on the size of their contingent and you could still have the carrying of the Olympic flame as it can make its way around the world.
LOL!!! How dare you suggest something so painfully logical!
How are all those elite wealthy, local supporters, suppose to live without Olympic city status recognition. How are they supposed to grift off their local tax payers with out their turn at building new Olympic venues.
You might as well be recommending that we start stealing lollypops from children in strollers off the streets!
1976 Montreal Olympics saddled the citizens with debt that was not paid off until 2006. 300 million early estimate ended up being 1.5 billion.
Politicians like stadiums and sports and even an area like Oakland,ca will try to justify sports as a good investment.
Holding the summer Olympics in a fixed location , perhaps even Greece , appeals to me.
Je me souviens Montreal Mayor Drapeau’s dismissive, “the Olympics can no more run a deficit than a man can have a baby!”
https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/50-years-of-aislin-pregnant-pause-for-mayor-jean-drapeau
I also believe that well into the 1990s “the Big Owe” (Montreal Olympic Stadium) had cost more to build than ALL other domed stadia in North America combined! And yet its retractable roof still never worked …
In the coin biz, 1973 to 1976 dated silver Canadian Olympic commemorative coins in $5 & $10 denominations were a drug on the market for decades, albeit a pill that nobody wanted.
I’d imagine that the majority of them have been melted down for the silver content, with the $10’s being worth US $40 and the $5’s worth US $20 now.
It’s a similar story for most other commemorative Olympic coins issued from 1952 to present, almost all of it is just worth the silver or gold value.
$$$$$$$$.. pretty simple. https://www.campaignasia.com/article/behind-the-tokyo-olympics-bribery-scandal-involving-dentsu-hakuhodo-and-adk/482577
If only the Olympics had all participants like “Eddie the Eagle” and the Jamaican bobsled team.
What a hoot.
He’s going to sky dive into the stadium so it’s a Mission Impossible stunt.
It’s been done already-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AS-dCdYZbo (6:15 mins)
They’ll give it an all out effort I’m certain, and pull out all stops to wow or thrill those who watch the closing ceremonies.
My response to watching will fall into the “meh” camp…Its all been done before.
https://youtu.be/Zs3xXlXSOKk?si=rlk8WgT_BMLbtpgO
Because of Barbieheimer, Mission Impossible : Dead Reckoning Part 1 actually underperformed at the box office last year. Tom Cruise probably feels like he has to perform this stunt in order to prevent a recurrence when Part 2 is released next year.
Then again, I have never bought into the whole thing about Tom Cruise doing his own stunts. Am I also supposed to believe that the President of a country of 260 million people actually pulled an incredible Mission Impossible like stunt for the opening of the Asian Games 2018? https://www.reuters.com/article/world/asia-pacific/vroom-indonesia-president-a-hit-on-social-media-after-motorbike-stunt-idUSKCN1L40BE/
Maybe they could convince Biden to do a motorcycle stunt for the closing ceremony. It’s the grand exit he deserves.
Nah, that’s probably not the reason. It seems unlikely people could watch 2 movies, but 3 was a bridge too far.
It was an objectively bad film. There is even a rumor the next one won’t be “part 2” as to not bring this flop film up again.
I loved MI: Dead Reckoning.
It was my birthday movie last year.
Tom Cruise fn Rules.
And so does Christopher Macquarrie, the writer.
People who watched it enjoyed it, https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mission_impossible_dead_reckoning_part_one. There have been plenty of high scoring (from the critics) movies that were subsequently panned by the audience, but this was not one of those.
Tom Cruise is one of the producers of the two movies, so it’s not a reach to say that he would like to make some moolah out of his endeavor.
Re Trump’s vice-presidential nominee refused to take calls from Ukraine’s intelligence chief and Air Force chief – WP Ukrainska Pravda
Considering the number of high level western politicians that have been conned into talking indiscreetly about western intentions by Russian prankster duo Vladimir Kuznetsov and Alexei Stolyarov, whose modus operandi involves masquerading as Ukrainian leaders or senior officials, Vance is probably extremely wise, rather than weird, in refusing to take calls from Ukraine.
Since Trump and Vance are no friends of Zelensky, it may have been wise not to take those calls. I would suspect a set up by the Ukrainians to make them look bad and try to cost them votes by how those phone calls went. It would be all downside and no upside taking those calls. Wouldn’t be the first US Presidential election too that the Ukrainians tried to help rig either.
U.S. nominees and candidates have zero legitimate role re: contacts from foreign leafers/officials than to direct them to the sitting appointed or elected Americans in the relevant official positions. Period. Mildly refreshing to see someone following the correct course. To do otherwise is nearly treasonous, as Nixon campaign delaying negotiations in ’68 and Reagan campaign delaying hostage release in ’80.
Wasn’t what they threw at Flynn partly based on his contacts with foreign officials (the Russian ambassador, iirc) before Trump took office? Not sure if I have all the particulars right…
Flynn chatted with the Russian ambassador at an embassy function a week before he was seated in office. To the brig, Republican!
> Something Is Rotten in the State of Russian Arms Industry RAND
Lambert dropping breadcrumbs, from RAND to kyivindependent. Just a click away.
Here’s another: Muhammad Yunus.
To Rand: “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”
It should be noted that the Russian Arms Industry is ***non profit*** furthermore profit driven costumer sides of these Mfgrs regularly use profits to subsidize the Arms R/D Mfg side. It is far more efficient in all aspects in developing, modifying on the run with battlefield feed back, and then supplying Arms to the Military. I mean the Government is the one paying for it up front, it is a national security interest, so rooting out self interest corruption is a priority. How many times on NC has it been noted when the State is the majority shareholder should have power and control when citizans money is being used but … NO … because that would be anti Market [Ideological/Ego].
Personally I find the moves by Putin et al to examine and then remove corruption a high water mark, in the West it rewarded by investors in the for profit model. Which then creates feed back loops for everyone in the game and generations of the next players in the model.
This will not end well for the West just as all the sanctions have had the opposite effect and global views will hasten multipolarity – all whilst he wheels are falling off back home.
Re: ‘The Problem Is, There’s No Place To Go’
This FAIR interview is an important one. It details how not only are the homeless being criminalized across the country, so are the people who are trying to help them. It also explains where most of the money to help the homeless actually goes. Clue: it doesn’t go to providing housing.
“I ain’t got no place in this world anymore.” The crying out in Woody’s songs remains with us. That is the power of a prophet.
Woody’s song says “I ain’t got no *home* in this world anymore.” I felt the need to correct that since I know it was a mistake. “Place” and “home” are very different things. My patchy internet connection didn’t allow me to fix it immediately.
Stay safe out there, especially those of you who are experiencing homelessness.
Most of us are only one or two steps from living in the park. I reckon Woody Guthrie would be fine with it. The words of Woody Guthrie ringing in my head… (Jay Farrar)
That article was worth reading, and grasping at the extent to which certain states, or cities are so adhering to the beatitudes and biblical principles like the parable of the Good Samaritan…oh wait on second thought these places want to jail those behaving as a Good Samaritan!
If we had serious national politicians pay attention they just might comprehend the levels of precarity that many US citizens are facing and continue to face. Instead we get political figureheads only interested in their polling successes and raising campaign funds. Or, they always find the funds for the high priorities when it’s politically expedient.
He’s wrong.
https://www.hud.gov/press/press_releases_media_advisories/hud_no_23_134
HUD has been pushing the housing first model for years, and putting money into it. It’s one of the very few things the Biden administration has put any effort into that is actually worthwhile.
The homeless may be increasingly criminalized, but the people out here doing the actual work are also increasingly vilified. The claim is that we’re all running scams. The editorial line of NC is ‘euthanize the NGOs’; there is zero entertainment of the possibility that a decline in government civic capacity has caused people to organize and do it themselves.
I’ve essentially given up on even trying to debate this with anyone. There’s such a huge disconnect between the world I see actually doing the work, and the ‘progressives’ who constantly write pieces denying our work even exists (or misrepresenting us to shit on the work).
> The editorial line of NC is ‘euthanize the NGOs’
What “editorial line”? What are you talking about? It sounds as if you’re portraying Yves and Lambert as somehow victimizing you and/or a pet cause of yours.
It’s literally a Lambert quote I saw here years ago. The default view of this site is that NGOs are guilty until proven innocent.
I believe Lambert has said that, in more or less those words. I think he means the big flexnet NGOs, especially those that infest DC and the UN, rather than community based efforts. But if there is a perception that the site is against local civic action, it might be a good idea to clarify.
What you are saying is false. I have said NOTHING of the kind.
Water Cooler, as it says below, is a stand-alone entity. Lambert’s views in WC are NOT views of the site.
Red Heifer mania
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-practise-red-heifer-ritual-al-aqsa
And perhaps if Harris ever gives a news conference she should be asked whether, if elected, she intends to dial back the Biden administration’s sneaky as always fascism. Of course given that Tulsi once humiliated the Dem instacandidate one might suspect that Harris had something to do with Tulsi’s SSSS designation. Once again a news conference could clear all this up.
Red Heifer madness indeed. I’m convinced there’s a mistranslation or misunderstanding in this somewhere.
Well, I wpuldn’t expwct one any time soon as the Great-Leader-to-be is too busy promising to turn sand into rice. (One well known piece of North Korean propaganda was that Kim Il Sung turned samd into rice to feed his people. Thay, at lesst was in past tense so you cpuld objectively say of ot was a lie or not. The Dems are more mendacious than the North Koreans at their worst…)
Well at the moment the stenographer class is busily keeping us all apprised of this new ticket fresh off the presses from whomever is behind the curtain. Behold our wonderful Oz! The economy will soar, the poor shall become whole, the blind shall see…throw in all manner of platitudes.
We’re off to see the wizards, those wonderful wizards of Oz…also a news conference might actually require answers to any tough questions, or say a potential list of future policy thoughts and positions.
Seems she’s done one better. Twitter is lit up:
Of course we here recognize the “fighting for” feint in this, but normie voters and hoodwinkable Gen Z may not…
Well maybe she really would change the policy. At least some Israel supporters seem to be worried about this. On this issue at least Trump and the Republicans seem clear in their Netanyahu support.
When just heckled over the Gaza situation in Detroit she resorted to the usual it’s me or Trump line. But Biden is the one in power at the moment. She either runs against or supports. Being vague isn’t going to work for long.
Agree. My guess, though, is she’ll do what she’s done for her whole career, which is just tell each group what she thinks they want to hear, in order to get votes and get into the WH, whatever it takes.
After that… que sera sera… *cackle*
It’s just getting really tiresome to see the hoodwinking continue.
Smells very like a fire-fighting/pacification attempt after the blow-back for yesterday’s girl-bossing
If Biden resigned and Harris is actually the president, maybe there’d be an iota of credibiliity here. As it is, no one is responsible for anything so nothing to see there. Like I said before, the whole thing stinks of a con where Dems can say anything to anyone without taking any responsibility because no one is (officially) in charge.
Well, that lasted long…
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/kamala-harris-denies-intention-to-consider-israeli-arms-emba
I don’t doubt she said something that sounded like that some time. That seems to fit the current Dem MO of saying anything to all sides.
Technically one can “meet to discuss an arms embargo” with the intent to detain, prosecute and imprison all those that are for an arms embargo.
Perhaps Iran will make a burnt offering of the Red Heifers for the Israelis? Now that would be a high value symbolic target without any human casualties. Imagine Israel fires up the Iron Dome and the US fleet shots its load all to ward off drone and missile strikes on some cows… and one still gets through! The billion dollar burger awaits! It really would make a mockery of US sponsorship of Israel’s Occupation and it’s Middle East policy. Making Israel safe for cows.
I hope Operation Big Mac is an option in Tehran rather than anything that would cause more human suffering.
Lol Priceless!
One almosr hopes if they could top their warheads with some cheese, but that’s probably too much to ask…
(NB: cheeseburger isn’t kosher.)
It isn’t even vegetarian. I had an Indian colleague who told me of an Indian friend, a strict vegetarian (which means he had no idea what meat looks like) who came to the US and started eating cheeseburgers, thinking that they were hamburgers with the ham replace by cheese.
If you want to see what it leads to, Sarid’s masterpiece The Third is finally appearing in English, after 10 years. It has been published in translations into Italian, French and Arabic but English publishers seemed to be too afraid to publish it.
>>>but English publishers seemed to be too afraid to publish it.
Despite the United States generally having great freedom of expression, I find that books that are controversial, inconvenient, uncomfortable, or even just disliked by powerful individuals, families, businesses, and three letter agencies tend to have unpredictable, limited print runs by American publishers; legally, even now, it is almost impossible to stop the publishing of any book, but in practice, the powerful find ways to make books disappear.
This is not anything new as I have seen the pattern strengthen from the period of early twentieth century to now, and as the publishing industry becomes more consolidated and run, not by the lovers of the printed word, but by soulless investors and private equity, the difficulties increase.
I wonder whether the fact that the publisher is an obscure one is related to this. (And lets see how the NYT reviews it….) The translation seems to be the same one that has been circulating in Samizdat for years.
BTW, the Arabic version is from a Palestinian group that has been publishing lots of Hebrew books in translation. They have all of Sand’s books, Cohen on 1929 and several Israeli books on the Nakba. They don’t have the biography of George Habash, but that reads like a university dissertation that needs revision for general readers.
The Absurdity of Human Sentience As viewed from any angle.
Link of the day. What we learn from NC….
NECROECONOMY. Word of the decade.
How sad for him, to see no value in humanity. A symptom of rejecting the spiritual and finding nothing to replace it, which is all too common these days. Open your eyes, man, and enjoy life while you still can! All too soon you will be gone, and what a lost opportunity!
With all due respect, you seem to straw man mrsyk completely. The point is that humans are very bad for the planet, as in the biosphere. Our intellectual masturbation called spirituality, as in trying to think our short and destructive lives matter a lot, does not change that.
Yves, and I greatly respect your views, I see it differently. Humans are part of the biosphere. Mrsyk identifies human supremacy as a restricted view, and I agree–consciousness does not seem limited to humans. However it is also a fallacy to view humans as some sort of infection of the otherwise perfection of the planet. Insects can cause wanton destruction in swarms as well; it does not zero out their value. It’s all part of the ecosystem. In my view, what distinguishes humans is that we can know better, and thus we should take steps to make a better ecosystem. I reject the implication that it would be a better world if humans were somehow removed from existence.
As for spirituality, I base my views entirely on direct personal experience. As the quantum physicists say, the world is stranger than we can know. Mysterious and wonderful.
E.O. Wilson said it was unfortunate that humans were meat-eating primates with opposable thumbs. He foresaw in the 1990s that from that would follow planetary destruction. So I don’t agree we can know better. We have social structures and a predisposition to eat meat, which is extremely costly from a planetary perspective, that doom the biosphere once we have developed enough tools and achieved dominance of nature.
As someone who took several evolutionary psychology grad courses, I agree with you Yves 100%. I would add though that our predisposition to eat meat is only one of the primary causes that doom the biosphere. I think there is a strong case that our seemingly innate drive to peacock our social status is an even bigger driver of the upcoming apocalypse. I recently watched a YT short showing numerous celebrities and politicians who are well known for their stance on climate change and their advocacy for a “green future”. Each of them were shown either boarding or departing from private jets. The desire to acquire objects (whether it be gold, cars, houses or private jets) to distinguish one’s self from others seems to be as important to people as reproduction. I suspect that if one were to compare eating meat to peacocking; the drive to peacock is even more destructive to the planet.
We need to ask the question: Why is it that some (or a few) people see this disaster coming, are willing to take action, but there are others who wilfully or ignorantly ignore the disaster, or are unwilling or unable to take action? We need to understand their motivations, their perceptions of self-worth, and the concrete issue of livelihood in order to propose to them either the challenge adapting to the problem or the of the solution by which this disaster can be averted.
There is a group whose ego is tied to power, privilege and decadent display of luxuries and pleasures. For this group, only the display and perhaps use of power (in its many potential forms, and ideally should not be lethal) can stop them. And this power invariably comes from mass organization, solidarity, and mass consciousness.
Because we cannot take effective action as individuals. That is an erroneous assumption in what you wrote. In societies where nearly all live by selling their labor, we use and depend on the continuation of existing infrastructures like transport and housing and nearly all employers to survive.
Thank you for challenging my incomplete thought. I agree with you, I individuals have n power, and even a huge number of people, even if decently rich, still have no power if they act independently. The mass number of people must condense into groups that are willing to act for their collective good and the good of society. The billion dollar question is, or perhaps more accurately, the life sustaining question is, how do we convince/inspire people from a state of individual isolation, to coalesce into large communities that are able to take actions? There needs to be mass solidarity. There was a time when unions were strong in America. And we should note, that the French propensity to protest and organize mass strikes could lead to political change in France.
Do we need to wait for another FDR or Martin Luther King?
You totally ignore how power has control throughout history, via religion or some other out of whole cloth ex ante ideology. Put the onus on individuals to unite as was Marx fallacy of composition which is only superseded by Neoliberalism.
Again the idea that everyone has perfect information is akin the the rational agent model and how acceptance of that sets the path for all of us.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/msmX2j6aZ4o
“there is nothing you can buy in a shopping mall that you will give a F*!$ in 10 years”
Jimmy Carr …
When Bernays supplyside consumerism replace human relationships and nature for a quick dopamine hit and identity …
what distinguishes humans is that we can know better, yet we cannot act upon that knowledge. If we judge the human species by its actions then Mr Tsakraklides’s snippet which you quoted is indeed accurate. You wrote However it is also a fallacy to view humans as some sort of infection of the otherwise perfection of the planet. In my view the fallacy is the concept of perfection. Mr Tsakraklides writes Humans suffer from perfectionism, which leads to greed, selfishness, jealousy and conflict. Nature is imperfect, yet completely self-sufficient. I agree with the author. There’s no arguing that (vastly overpopulated) we are an (almost certainly terminal) infection.
mentioned previously, our species is a pathogen and a cul-de-sac on the evolutionary highway – try to do as little harm as possible and follow the golden rule without being a fool, my motto – it’s a difficult realization we will become extinct by our own hand, perhaps quicker than we wish, and in spite of knowing that fact – as long as any type of history has been written greed, jealousy and conflict has been part of our species – and regarding the overpopulated….our species has gone from 2 billion to over 8 billion since 1950, too much too quick, it took 12,000 years to get to the first billion – think the math is correct –
https://ourworldindata.org/population-growth-over-time
and appreciate the description, ‘intellectual masturbation called spirituality’ – my chuckle of the day, thanks –
I would never have thought that you would consider your life to be “short and destructive”.
In my opinion, you and others here bring light and enlightenment into dark times – for which I am very grateful!
Whether our life is important: can you accept that it is as important as any life under the sun?
The Essay from Mr. Tsakraklidies is, at its essence, anti-human. Yes, it is a fact that humanity, on its present course could destroy all life on the earth. I also read despair and anger in his essay concerning the biological state of affairs of the world, and the human industrial systems is causing it great injury. But we are also the one creature who can learn wisdom, to change our ways abruptly, something no other living creature can do. Although we are the only creature who can exploit well beyond our needs, we are also the only creature that systemically has an instincts and sentiments to protect life, even those not human. We are also the only creature that can study potential future threats to the planet and attempt preventative action (ie.. another earth changing meteor or volcanic explosion). Indeed, we could turn our magnificent brain power and industry toward enhancing the cycle of life on the earth, and perhaps make it more beautiful. Without a doubt, this involves us largely cutting back and cleaning up the garbage we have put into the environment. Nonetheless I state, with human heart and human sentiment, that humanity and all of life should be saved, for the world can be more beautiful for it.
Yes, humans are destroying the biosphere. Our civilization will go and human population levels will greatly shrink at best.
Given the enormous species loss, anti-human is the proper position. We are a plague, locusts with language.
I agree. I have been reading The World Without Us this last week. Although it was published in 2007, I find it strangely comforting that the world should heal itself once we are gone. I live in Florida and the old joke down here for hurricane preparedness is find some liquor you can drink warm. The way things are going I think I should stock up on something for a little End of the World party. Not sure what I would need for that.
Yikes.
So we just do nothing except read Naked Capitalism until we die?
No offense, but you have a ton of readers that could actually do something if you asked them.
I’m less offended than the last time I saw you write something like this.
If we are a plague of language locusts, then why do you insist on informing us of the destruction?
– Optimist in Louisiana
“So we just do nothing except read Naked Capitalism until we die?”
That one really cracked me up. Mainly because it is exactly what I intend to do. I have a wife and two dearly loved animals that depend on me being subservient to the system for their survival. To be honest, I don’t give two flips about the rest of humanity. I chose not to have children because long before I understood anything about climate change, I knew that human society was a living hell. It’s been a living hell for the 99% of us for thousands of years, regardless of whatever form it takes. There’s no getting out of it, and there’s no real way of changing it. You can make all the changes you want on the surface; communism, capitalism, socialism. It doesn’t matter. They all end up looking like feudalism in the end; sometimes with an official monarchy, sometimes with an unacknowledged monarchy. It’s just how humans roll. So, yes, I intend to do not a G** da** thing except read Naked Capitalism until I die. I do my darndest not to even recycle, but my wife forces me to from time to time…
As for the rest of the living beings on this planet, I sincerely wish them the best of luck. I hope they get to outlive us. The one thing I know for a fact is that me separating my plastics from paper is worth less to those lovely little critters than my wishes.
This is, paraphrasing a bit, what Nietzsche called “morality turned against life itself”. It is utterly perverse and will go absolutely nowhere.
I didn’t recall ever having had a use for the word sentience.
Let me see if I’ve got this story straight. The leader of a very poor foreign country who was at one time praised for her policies toward the poor but is now “corrupt” and “authoritarian” tries to stay neutral in our current Cold War 2.0. She reportedly resists the attempts by the US to interest her in a US air force base. Violent protests against her “corrupt regime” ensue, and eventually she is deposed by the military and forced to flee the country. Her successor is a “Nobel Prize” winning economist trained in the West who loves “markets.”
I certainly don’t want to suggest anything “conspiratorial” or question the “agency” of the protestors. But doesn’t this sound just a *little* familiar?
I raise you Imran Khan in Pakistan.
Park in South Korea? Granted, not exactly a poor or a neutralist coubtry…
I thought the commenter was referring to Bangladesh
“Talk of stopping projects” — Lugar lab in Georgia might lose U.S. support”
Having a bit of a problem with this article. It seems that the US is threatening Georgia by pulling back support of – a biolab? Really? Is that like one of the US biolabs in the Ukraine that were testing viruses and diseases on their own soldiers, prisoners and unwitting civilians and sometimes there would be outbreaks of abnormal diseases in the local area? Georgia should take the win and shut down any other biolabs that there is in Georgia. God knows what is being cooked up in them.
One wonders why House Republicans have not already voted to shut the labs down. Perhaps they think they are under HHS control. (Conspiracy theorists often overlook simple things like bureaucracy, be it a NIAID official overseeing a massive DoD program, in addition to his officiall duties or the Bishop of Durham simultaneously translating the Bible, writing occult literature, and being Lord Coroner of London. (A reference to a conspiracy theorists whose focus is on attacking any versions that are not King James.))
I personally think that, as the Cold War ended over 30 years ago, the program should be phased out. But I think the same of NATO…
From the article, The laboratory is funded by the U.S. Department of Defense.
RE: Aaron Mate/Scott Ritter
It can’t be much longer before “they” start going after Aaron Mate, Max Blumenthal and even Judge Napolitano for showcasing them.
Just watching John Mearsheimer being interviewed by Glenn Greenwald on his show last night. “They’re” going to have to shut him up soon too I would think.
just a matter of time Kat, just a matter of time – unfortunately – Tulsi’s experience confirms that assumption –
“I ain’t got no home in this world any more” (re: Lena)
Mearsheimer built up quite a bit of bipartisan collateral earlier in his career, which provides a measure of safety. He is also, last I knew, quite a hawk on China–which is proving useful to the regime. When he outlives his value he will first be termed eccentric, and then perhaps labeled an old crank. If necessary, the word “sad” can be added, or even “past his prime”. Safely ignored without any overt action.
Napolitano was a Federal judge and then a Fox host.
I guarantee he could get a shit ton of excellent pro bono representation. And it would boost his ratings too.
New Jersey Superior Court
According to the Wikipedia Napolitano was a New Jersey state judge:
There’s no mention of a federal bench except re Trump considering him for SCOTUS before appointing Kavanaugh. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Napolitano
Oh, I stand corrected! But I fell for him perhaps unconsciously encouraging that mistake. He regularly cites Federal law and procedure in specific detail rather than saying, “Here is New Jersey law/procedure, which is [idiosyncratic or pretty representative}. But that makes sense, Federal judges generally leave their post feet first. I should have checked since it seemed pretty odd for a Federal judge to wind up at Fox. It would have been quite a coup for the network.
Civil procedure is usually taught and often explained based on the Federal Rules as a common denominator that all lawyers are familiar with, even though some state courts differ significantly.
Gilbert Doctorow has an interesting take on the Ritter situation.
https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2024/08/08/the-fbi-search-of-scott-ritters-home-yesterday-a-contrarian-view/
I think he is basically right: a common sin of Americans, I think, is that we are always credible, that we have a right to be “listened to and believed.” Not only we don’t, our credibility is fatally compromised if we take money from questionable sources. (Could this be why we are also blind to why foreigners hate Western funded NGOs and activists?) Whether Ritter ought to be punished for it, I don’t know, but I can say that I habe found Ritter increasingly less ctedible because he’s way too gung ho about stuff…
Respectfully, I must strongly disagree with this position. Doctorow’s piece read more like an admission that the fascist state is alive and well, and you better smarten up or pay the price.
“It is the failure by Ritter others to understand what constitutes correct behavior with respect to the publicly identified adversary of the United States”
This idea is destructive to the foundations of free speech. It has nothing to do with credibility. It has little to do with why foreigners hate Western NGOs. Plain and simple, it’s a threat. Buckle under or face the consequences.
While one can argue Doctorow is correct in his observation, it is the death knell of the US as it is known. It has nothing to do with “we are always credible, that we have a right to be “listened to and believed.”
I suppose, despite my insistence otherwise, I never really did completely shed my pre-American notion that free speech, while wonderful, is not something that one’d expect the powerful to respect and one ought to take precautions against that eventuality….
Still, I agree with urdsama. The argument that Ritter brought it on himself by being paid for, what sounds to me like just journalism, whatever one thinks of its quality, because Doctorow doesn’t respect the journalism at Sputnik or RT, seems specious.
If one doesn’t like RT or Sputnik, don’t read them. If one doesn’t like Ritter’s analysis, don’t read him.
But raid his home? Ongoing Investigation? After what Ritter has already experienced (State Department taking him off a plane, honeypot setup, now raids and investigations), the pattern looks to me like just harassment.
To say that it’s just to be expected is to normalize it.
I don’t think anyone is saying that Ritter “deserves it,” although what we (certainly me and I think I know where Doctorow is coming from) are saying is admittedly very cynical. We don’t think Free Speech is “real” as a “right” in practice, whatever it might be in principle. Certainly, I can point to a whole mess of people that I know who spent decades claiming to be free speech absolutists who found tons of things that they want to make exception for in the past decade or so. In a society that does not respect free speech (i.e. any human society, as far as we believe), the only defense dissidents have against repression is credibility to wider segments of society. If you do not have sufficiently broad credibility, the powerful will come for you inevitably. Of course, if the chain starts in earnest, perhaps no amount of credibility will be enough to protect you, but, at best, you need to keep up your credibility as self defense. Ritter and others shooting up their own credibility made it easier for the arms of state to go for him sooner than later. (I guess this doesn’t sound too different from “Ritter brought it on himself,” but, what I am saying is potentially worse: we all have “it” coming, but we should at least try to delay it as much as we can so that, when “it” does, there will be more people who will question the ptb when it does.)
I think Doctorow is also covering his arse here. He travels regularly to Russia (second home), entertains and is entertained in homes, restaurants and arts performances, appears on Russian and other BRICS media programmes, maintains links with Russian and BRICS intelligentsia etc.
I think painting Ritter as unwise to have accepted remuneration and hospitality because it compromises him is partly about his own professional honour and his freedom to travel back to the US where he also has ties or even Brussels if the US got nasty.
Also, I agree with Doctorow. Belief in free speech is naive where war and espionage are concerned. What sort of Holy Fools are Americans en masse that they acquiesce in a global Empire and enjoy its benefits but imagine that their Imperial rulers will politely allow Constitutional opposition to their power and wealth. Are they so short sighted they do not remember Jim Crow laws and the non-protection of that Constitution for the black fifth of Americans?
Power is taken, not given – and so are lives. I hope Scott Ritter is not made a public example like Assange or even Manafort and Bannon.
First they came for Scott Ritter, and I did not speak out because I was not paid to…
Leaving aside what he writes about Ritter, I strongly agree with what Doctorow says about RT and Russian media strategy in general. (For some reason Sputnik has always suffered from these problems to a much lesser extent.) RT, in particular, has always been keen to mirror Western media such as the BBC and even more so American cable news channels such as CNN and FOX News.
Aside from using American and British personalities as anchors, as if their voices automatically carry more weight, they even interrupt many programs half-way with “we’ll be right back after these messages” – only with plugs of other RT shows rather than actual commercials. The idea seems to be that imitating the style of American cable news shows adds credibility, but it’s hardly what the people seeking out RT are looking for or swayed by.
The actual material, especially on the website, is even worse. Right now for example there is an article on the front page headlined “EU state warns about consequences of Ukrainian attack on Russia“. Why does RT highlight Slovakian concerns about interruptions in gas flows resulting from a Ukrainian invasion of a Russian province, in which Russian citizens have been killed and forced to flee? Why isn’t the official message from Russia (like it or not, that’s what foreign-language state media is for) that if you want to be a part of the EU and NATO and support the killing of Russian citizens on Russian territory, then you can go to hell?
There is also, right now, at the same time an article headlined “EU endorses the Ukrainian attack into Kursk”, and another featured article touting that “Russian gas supplies to the EU have increased by 40%”. Leaving aside why Russia not only has kept supplying the EU with natural gas, but actually is increasing the rate of its supplies, why is it proudly broadcasting this contrast to the world?
I can’t think of a better way to make Russia both look weak, unserious in its insistence that it’s “finished with the West”, indifferent to its own security and territorial integrity, and that it’s possible to attack, insult and damage Russian interests while still getting whatever you need from Russia (cheap energy in this case). One often gets the impression that one is reading anti-Russian propaganda (of the more insidious and sophisticated kind, even) from something like RFE/RL, while actually it’s a news site financed by the Russian state.
This, and worse, behavior extends to other state media like TASS. Here is a TASS article, from July 7th, about an Israeli attack on a school in Gaza. Its lead paragraph reads:
Why does TASS, an even more official and serious state media agency than RT, perpetuate Israeli lies about “terrorist weapons manufacturing facilities” under the schools it bombs? And since when does Russia officially Hamas consider a “terrorist organization” in the first place? Who is writing and approving these articles for Russian state media, and why?
Lady Kamala, syntax your defeat
Wonder how you manage to make words meet
Who spends the money that came & went?
Did you think that money was heaven sent?
Friday night arrives without a press conference
Sunday morning tv shows creeping along without you
Monday’s main stream media has learned to forget things
See how she runs
Lady Kamala, please keep us abreast
Wonder how you manage to ignore the rest?
See how she runs
Lady Kamala, lying on the bed
Listen to the word salad playing in your head (head)
Tuesday afternoon is never ending, can’t do a presser
Wednesday morning pant suit wardrobe didn’t come
Thursday night, your message needed mending
See how she runs
Lady Kamala, syntax your defeat
Wonder how you manage to make words meet
Lady Madonna,by the Beatles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czhd27cN2dg
perfcet!!
One of your absolute best. Too bad ELP’s Brain Salad Surgery doesn’t have any parody worthy songs on it but Word Salad Surgery would make for a great album cover!
Thanks for that, I feel it filled the womb.
It took Kamala two weeks to go from insurance policy to John Wayne. I for one am impressed
To Which Asia Does India Belong – and to Which Is it Headed? – The Wire
Can India truly be a global manufacturing powerhouse? – Channel News Asia
Couldn’t help but notice that neither article mentioned BRICS – not even in passing.
The article doesn’t mention at all the fact that the biggest part of Russia is in Asia and that Russia and India have historically good relations….
Under all scenarios for the future India will always be energy poor. The Himalayas are their greatest national security asset.
“Analysis | Fearing ‘Catastrophic War,’ Biden Warns Iran Against Attack and Pushes Netanyahu to Make Deal”
Noticing a minor trend where the media is saying that perhaps Iran won’t attack after all because Biden is so persuasive and Netanyahu is willing to do some compromises. Politico is reporting the same. Washington warned Tehran through intermediaries that ‘a massive strike would only inflame tensions and risk a direct confrontation between the two countries.’ Of course without a strike, Israel would see that as weakness and would feel free to do so again on a weekly basis like they have been doing in Syria for years. In any case, this sounds like a lot of wishful thinking. There will be a strike and at the moment the IDF must be wearing themselves out being on constant full alert to Iran’s advantage.
Pure speculation: I have been wondering whether the Iranian decision-makers might be concerned to not have it perceived that their response is disproportionately large. Temporizing while preparing might serve this purpose, and if Iran wants to deal a seriously hurtful blow that is disproportionate to the Haniyeh assassination, it might be more geopolitically prudent to prepare in such a way that the IDF is ordered to make a pre-emptive strike, after which Iran strikes a blow that is proportionate to the IDF strike.
I imagine that there is significant work under way to further improve air defenses.
My take is that a narrative is being spun about “look, we’re trying diplomacy, they aren’t!”
Rev: “it sounds like a lot of wishful thinking”
It definitely doesn’t concur with what Seyed Mohammad Marandi is saying on the Duran today.
https://youtu.be/iRHRoN9ATvU
Israel will strike Iran again, at some point in time and in some manner, whether Iran retaliates or not.
I have read that Iran has been given hypersonic missiles. This should be taken with a grain of salt but it makes sense because they have refused (so far) to join the nuclear club. The caveat is they are only allowed to use them if attacked again. Perhaps they are waiting for the attack that will surely come? Israel is addicted to war like a crackhead is addicted to the pipe. I think one of these missiles down the hatch of the underground command center in Tel Aviv would be the perfect revenge. Only war criminals and monsters would die.
NYT claims Russia has started delivering S-400 systems to Iran. One of the missiles offered with the export version is indeed hypersonic (mach 6 or so). It’s the same one that was delivered to Iran with the S-300 system by 2016. So, they indeed have defensive hypersonic missiles.
And as justified it would be to go for an eye for an eye, I believe the retaliation will hit Israeli military and infrastructure, but not civilians or administration. For now, it’s still designed to avoid war by making it clear to Israel that Israel can’t win – negotiations are the only way.
Should Israel choose otherwise, it seems to me that the societies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Yemen have now accepted an all out war as a likely endgame, but by the mercy of God it can still be avoided.
This waiting game is not just pressure cooking Israel, it’s also giving time for Washington to figure out if they really, really want an uncontrollable war on an election year. For all we know, the 4000 marines are stationed close to Israel to take control of Israel’s nuclear weapons when Israel inevitably begins to suffer huge losses when it’s blown up by a thousand missiles.
Could you link to the NY Times article where this is claimed? I both searched the NYT site directly and through Google (using site:nytimes.com) and found no such article, only secondary news sources claiming to cite the NYT.
I don’t have access to NYT, so I had to trust Times of Israel on this.
Regardless of the accuracy of the news on new deliveries, the missiles for S-300 have been in Iran for 7 years, and they are pretty good at reverse engineering stuff.
Thanks. I also found the same Times of Israel article after writing my reply, and it seems the report in the NYT was in some kind of live blog of theirs, which explains why I couldn’t find the original article (not even by clicking the Times of Israel’s link to it, amusingly).
But in any case the NYT seems to indeed have reported it (for whatever that is worth). Hopefully the transfer actually goes through this time. There have been many false starts before regarding arms transfers from Russia to Iran.
And yes, Iran’s own Bavar-373, which it began developing when Russia refused to actually deliver S-300 missiles (Russia later reversed that decision), seems quite capable (and hopefully also is).
“Could you link to the NY Times article where this is claimed?”
I have complete access but could find no such claim in the New York Times, even using AI to search. Possibly I have been searching incorrectly, but this seemingly missing reference is puzzling since the NYT is simple to search.
Who’s Biden?
Look on his collar; where it says “If found return to….”
Obviously they have not read the readout from the emergency meeting of OIC in Jeddah… which condemns in very strong words the latest Israeli attack on Teheran and all the rest…genocide, etc… and asking UN and UNSC to move on the issue.
Mercouris claimed in his latest podcasts that likely Iran is waiting for that meeting before doing anything…
Hello NC community,
It’s been a long while, but here’s something that came across the transom on X (formerly Twitter):
Nancy Pelosi’s The Art of Power
One of the parts of the article:
“China confirms discovery of major natural gas field in South China Sea”
If I were the Chinese, I would establish an exclusionary zone around any facilities built from any NATO ships and certainly from yachts crewed by Ukrainians. The blowing up of the NS2 pipelines was warning enough as to the extent to what they are capable of.
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2024-08-08/China-discovers-unprecedented-massive-gas-field-in-South-China-Sea-1vTtSQ98Vaw/p.html
August 8, 2024
China discovers unprecedented massive gas field in South China Sea
China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) on Wednesday confirmed the discovery and approval of the world’s first large, ultra-shallow gas field in ultra-deep waters. This monumental find represents a significant stride forward for China’s energy sector, bridging the existing technological divide on a global scale.
The Lingshui 36-1 gas field is located in waters southeast of Hainan, China’s southernmost island province. It boasts proven original gas in place (OGIP) exceeding 100 billion cubic meters. The field’s unique characteristics include an average water depth of approximately 1,500 meters and an average gas layer burial depth of 210 meters.
This extraordinary discovery presents a formidable challenge due to its classification as an ultra-deep water ultra-shallow formation within the Qiongdongnan Basin.
While shallow gas is abundant in the seabed, its precarious position, just 210 meters below the 1,500-meter water surface, makes it highly susceptible to dispersion caused by ocean currents. The formation of a commercially viable oil and gas field under such conditions was previously deemed impossible by experts.
CNOOC estimates that the combined OGIP of the Yinggehai, Qiongdongnan and Zhujiangkou basins in the South China Sea is more than 1 trillion cubic meters.
LNG storage projects have been underway for several years, also LNG transport ships have been built. This is a big deal in terms of China becoming energy independent:
https://english.news.cn/20240701/e3ee940e64a4420abc4cbcaba0959f3f/c.html
July 1, 2024
China completes its largest LNG storage base
NANJING — A subsidiary of China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) has completed the construction of China’s largest LNG storage base, a move that aims to ensure energy security and support green growth in the Yangtze River economic belt…
Its claimed to have 100 billion cu.m of gas reserves, which sounds impressive, but isn’t all that big. Its not that much bigger than Irelands previous gas reserves, which didn’t even supply the domestic demand and is now largely tapped out. Or put another way, its about half the annual LNG gas imports every year. So roughly speaking they would need to discover 2 fields of that scale every year to displace existing contracted imports.
To be commercially viable, you need more than lots of gas in a field, you need a local infrastructure to connect it with – the nearest major gas pipeline to the Hainan area is in Hong Kong 500km away, so it would cost billions in capital investment to make it commercially viable, although in China strategic considerations may overrule economics. They were almost certainly looking for oil, not gas when exploring this part of the South China Sea (they haven’t announced where its located, as much of that area is disputed with Vietnam).
This is a bug bear of mine – not a week goes by without someone declaring a huge gas or oil deposit somewhere. But this is meaningless – there are vast amounts of oil and gas locked up in geology worldwide. What matters is whether it can be meaningfully and commercially produced, and only a tiny percentage can be. And in reality all the really big deposits have already been discovered and are being exploited.
‘The Problem Is, There’s No Place for Anyone to Go’
” And, in fact, the management of the homeless shelter was all excited that they got the money, and that they could get rid of the homeless that were camped around them and in the neighborhood where the shelter is.”
Even the people that manage the homeless shelter understand letting huge meth camps pop up with no management of any kind are not helping homeless people. Those camps just create a situation where the housed are forced to fight against the meth camps, and then the activists claim the housed people are the problem, when it’s actually the activists that insist on letting the meth camps fester that are doing the most damage. This leaves the opening for the Cicero Institute to come in and be successful because people have no other choice but to support what feels like the only source of common sense policies. Most people will take a libertarian think tank with heartless policies after they have lived through the horrors of having their community turned into a meth camp. It’s human nature.
Homeless Camp != Meth Camp
Meth Camp != Homeless Camp
Some but not all.
Private equity’s interest in audit raises red flags – FT
Seems like this article could also be filed under “The Bezzle.”
Thanks for the Taibbi link.
Taibbi’s latest, public excerpt, a follow-on to the Tulsi article.
The First Deep State Fix? Dismantle Homeland Security
Built to fight foreign terrorists, our Domestic Department of Everything sees the budget-conscious American with a vote as the greatest threat.
https://www.racket.news/p/the-first-deep-state-fix-dismantle
One para:
Buried in the story of former presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard being stalked as a terrorist threat by a DHS sub-agency, the Transportation Security Administration, was a grotesque detail. As Gabbard noted, documents were released earlier this year detailing the work of the (thankfully short-lived) Homeland Intelligence Experts Group, another DHS “advisory panel.” This fledgling Politburo was dominated by party and intelligence figures in much the same way as its Russian counterpart:
from Jonathon Turley:
Jurisdiction Stripping or Court Killing? The “No Kings Act” is a Decapitation of the Constitution
https://jonathanturley.org/2024/08/07/jurisdiction-stripping-or-court-killing-the-no-kings-act-is-a-decapitation-of-the-constitution/
(Didn’t Bibi do something like this to the Is. SC ?)
Dems seem eager to make bad laws that are certain to create far more problems in the future, even for themselves if the other side takes power. Do they expect to stay in power forever by hook or crook? I suppose they are certainly acting like that more often than not lately.
To paraphrase Huey Long, when tyranny comes to America, they’d call it (Our) Democracy.
Would a new administration possibly restore Ritter´s reputation or at least correct this crime and reverse what might be happening in coming months?
I’m guessing that the Administration is not of any real influence here. Ritter’s crime is having promoted a counter narrative to the one put out by the Establishment. This goes much deeper than retail politics.
I do not consider it out of possibility that the DoJ prosecutes Ritter and jails him.
I am beginning to wonder if Ritter will be the new Julian Assange, pursued by both wings for the crime of inconvenient speculation.
Re: FAIR article
The homeless are the new Palestinians. US is turning into Israel. Shameless.
An Attempted Coup By Any Other Name… — Orinoco Tribune
Quoting from the article: “Nicolás Maduro was re-elected with 51.2% of votes (5,150,092 votes), and the far-right candidate Edmundo González lost with 44.2% of votes (4,445,978 votes). The other 8 opposition leaders received 4.6% of the total votes cast.”
For anyone who might be curious about these results, I strongly recommend the following, which I’m hoisting from the comments on NC on 1 August:
https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/07/31/suspicious-data-pattern-in-recent-venezuelan-election/?ref=upstract.com
To summarize: some very sharp math guys from Columbia University analyzed these numbers and detected massive voting fraud. I agree with them.
The very sharp math guys don’t deal with numbers. These here would be applied math guys, a.k.a. statisticians.
Would they be doing physics modelling, they would look at the difference between the model and real world and wonder what’s wrong with the model. Would they be sociologists, they would look at the difference between the model and the real world and wonder what’s wrong with their assumption and approach. But they are political scientists, and seeing a difference between their model and the real world, they wonder what’s wrong in the real world.
Venezuela uses paper ballots, hand counted in public. It’s really, really hard to fraud the system, yet I’m sure both sides try as much as they can. But, and this is very important, at the end it’s their business. What goes on in Venezuela is only up to Venezuelans to decide on. It’s called sovereignty, and if we don’t respect that, we work for the neo-colonialist, for those gardeners who think it’s their moral right to do upon the jungle what they wish.
I agree with you re sovereignty and the Venezuelans’ right to choose their destiny. And I certainly don’t think the USA (the land of hanging chads) has any business lecturing other nations on transparent vote counting. Actually, it would be fun to see Venezuela join the BRICS and tell El Norte to take a hike. But the telltale signs of fraud are pretty strong, so I have to disagree with you (and PK below) on this particular Venezuelan vote. It looks like they fudged this one.
No fancy statistical modeling is needed, just basic arithmetic and a calculator. There are roughly 10,000 possible vote totals (given a denominator of 10058774) that will give Maduro a rounded 51.2% of the vote. So there is 1/10000 chance that Maduro would receive the number of votes 5150092) that would come as close as mathematically possible to 51.2% (5150092/10058774 = .511999971 is as close as one can get, using these integers). The same math works for Gonzales, another 1/10000 chance (4445978/10058774 = .441999989 is as close as one can get). So the likelihood that both candidates just happened to get the exact number of votes to arrive as close as possible to the published percentages is 10000*10000, or 1 in 100 million. Quite a coincidence!
Play with the numbers a little bit, and you will see what I mean. Take away 2000 votes from Maduro, and give 1000 to Gonzales and 1000 to The Others. You still get the announced percentages (51.2%, 44.2%, 4.6%), but the underlying decimals are totally innocuous. All they had to do was tweak the vote totals a little bit, and there would have been zero statistical signs of fraud.
By all means let the Venezuelans sort this out on their own, it’s no one else’s business. But I see no harm in noticing that this vote result was….. unusual.
I’m not a particular fan of Maduro (although he is clearly better than the high profile alternatives), but I don’t see any particular evidence of fraud here. Its not uncommon for electoral authorities to call an election once it seems statistically certain someone has won, because delaying until every last disputed vote is counted can cause more political trouble than its worth. No paper system ends up with precise numbers without some fudging as there will always be some votes where there is a dispute (‘is that a tick or an accidental smudge?’)
There are many ways of using applied statistics to identify fraud in elections (I’m sure Terry Flynn here could provide us the details). One reason I like multiple choice voting systems is that its almost impossible to generate false votes without it becoming obvious to skilled analysts – Irish tallymen have been doing this successfully for more than a century (voting fraud was always much more common in Northern Ireland, with its FPTP voting system). But to do so you have to do a detailed analysis of both pre-election polls, exit polls (which if done correctly can be very accurate), plus using available data according to however the voting is counted – for example, by looking at anomalies between voting districts. A lot depends on how granular the reported voting pattern is – I don’t know enough about how its reported in Venezuela to comment on that.
The Venezuelan system has always been acknowledged as one of the best in the world when it comes to eliminating fraud – certainly better than the US system. Its quite possible that Maduro has managed to put enough of his own people into the system to generate large scale fraud. But to accept that requires a lot more evidence than is in that article, statistical or otherwise.
I wonder what comes next, after Ritter and Gabbard?
The spooks are becoming more overt all the time, how far will they go this time?
I am very glad Yves got out while she could.
EV-Fire
The car was aptly named!
> Why has Ukraine launched a cross-border attack on Russia?
Always strange how Russia has ‘bad luck’ at just the right time..
From a UK substack writer:
Letter to Kirklees Council re: their promotion of a non-existent “riot”
https://miri.substack.com/p/letter-to-kirklees-council-re-their
There’s some to agree with in that but I strongly disagree with: “far-right extremist” is a thinly veiled euphemism for “white working class “”
There has been an effort (partly seeming inauthentic) to conflate two groups:
1. White working class people with legitimate grievances
2. Actual racists and neo-nazis who believe Muslims and brown people are lesser- or sub- humans.
I’d suggest that the group who tried to murder asylum seekers in Rotherham via arson would firmly be in group 2. So too the infamous swastiki tattoo guy, and the instigators of the riots.
The point of this conflation seems obvious: to further convince aggrieved white people that they are a persecuted group; and to nudge them towards the far right.
See also the very weird “I’m a far right thug tweets” accompanied by photos of loveable looking harmless whites. I can’t find the link rn, but there seems to be evidence that this is an inauthentic or managed social media thing.
[It looks very much like the conflation of “criticism of Israel’s actions” = “hatred of Jews”. Probably just a coincidence /sarc]
This conflation is made much easier by this and previous governments refusal to hear the grievances of those left behind, especially in the former industrial north.
And clearly, the government will use this crisis to push through many illiberal policies that will be weaponised against the citizenry.
None of that negates the fact that the recent riots were stirred up, organised, led and mostly participated in by people who can correctly be called “far right”.
Love the antidote! There’s also the Cape Sparrow, which is endemic only to Namibia, Botswana, South Africa and far southwestern Angola. The diversity of birdlife in southern Africa is very hard to beat.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_sparrow
Looks like earthquake likelihood serious: NHK ‘Prime Minister Kishida cancels visit to Central Asia and other regions in response to “major earthquake warning”‘
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20240809/k10014543661000.html
Are Iran & Russia deliberately giving US time to draw in more resources to the Middle East? Is the intention that if the sh1t is going to hit the fan they want Biden/Harris to take enough political damage that they withdraw their support from Israel?