‘World’s oldest calendar’ discovered carved into ancient monument Space.com
Global stocks claw back bulk of losses from Monday’s rout FT
Climate
Federal infrastructure funding is fueling a push to remove dams and restore river habitat AP
Carbon Market Faces Upheaval as 32% of All Credits Fail Test Bloomberg
Poison in the Air ProPublica
Syndemics
Updated COVID Vaccines Are Coming: Effectiveness, Who’s Eligible And More Forbes
China?
China’s leaders sweat over ‘difficult to heat’ economy at summer retreat FT
Shenzhen joins Chinese local governments taking unsold homes off developers’ hands South China Morning Post
China issues two new methodologies for domestic voluntary carbon market S&P Global
Vietnam backs Cambodia’s Mekong canal, urges cooperation on impacts Channel News Asia
Myanmar
Strategically important Myanmar military HQ appears to fall to the resistance, in a blow to regime AP
China envoy, Myanmar junta chief meet on border clashes Channel News Asia
European Disunion
Dear Old Blighty
Night of Far-Right Violence Averted in U.K. as Counterprotesters Take to Streets WSJ (!!). Commentary:
This is better than any speech from a politician we’ve heard recently 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
pic.twitter.com/GhWKlGueOv— Jay Motty (@JayMotty) August 8, 2024
Banksy howling wolf artwork removed BBC
Caucher Birkar – from asylum seeker to Fields Medal winner at Cambridge The Times
New Not-So-Cold War
Battles rage in Russia as Kyiv advances in war’s largest counter-incursion FT. The deck: “Ukraine’s forces have captured roughly 350 sq km in Kursk region.”
Battles rage in Kursk region after Ukraine’s largest incursion yet into Russia France24. Commentary:
Map of the 🇺🇦 Armed Forces advancement in the Kursk region of Russia.
To the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant is now only 22 km.
Source: US Government-financed Radio Liberty. pic.twitter.com/CAJ9UaMNA7— hamzullahdarman (@hamzullahdarman) August 9, 2024
Russia strengthens security at Kursk nuclear power plant amid Ukraine’s assault in region Anadolu Agency
Ukraine gains control of Sudzha gas station – The Washington Post Ukrainska Pravda. “A transit point for Russian gas flowing through Ukraine to the EU.”
Russia’s Lipetsk region under ‘massive’ drone attack, governor says Al Jazeera
* * * Pentagon says Ukraine’s attack into Russia is not escalatory The HIll
* * * Why Ukraine’s generals may have rolled the dice on an incursion into Russia CNN
What is Ukraine’s goal in the Battle for Kursk? BNE Intellinews
Can Ukraine Get Back on the Offensive? Foreign Affairs
Kursk raid will not shift war in Ukraine’s favour Unherd
* * *
Syraqistan
Gaza As A New(?) Western Method To Wage War Moon of Alabama
Overwriting Palestine New Left Review
* * * Biden joins leaders from Egypt, Qatar in urging Gaza cease-fire, hostage release deal The HIll
Israel’s Enemies Seek Revenge, but Not So Harsh as to Start All-out War Haaretz
Israeli army reports ‘military offensive’ in southern Gaza Strip Anadolu Agency
* * * Houthis Attack Greek-Owned Tanker With Small Craft and RPG Maritime Executive
Israelis practise red heifer ritual in front of Al-Aqsa Mosque Middle East Eye (Carolinian).
Why Ilan Pappe’s new book on the Israel lobby is a must-read Middle East Eye. From June, still germane.
2024
Black Left Critique of Kamala Harris Black Agenda Report
Trump fights for spotlight as Democrats dominate coverage BBC
Only Trump Can Go to Tehran The American Conservative
The Supremes
Dog, cat owners go on offense in US Supreme Court brief Reuters
Police State Watch
Cello-playing climate activist arrested at New York Citibank protest as crackdown escalates Guardian
Our Famously Free Press
Why the Decline of Local Media Could Be a Security Risk RAND
Teenager Accused of Derailing Train and Posting Crash Video Online NYT
Digital Watch
A GitHub token leak could have put the entire Python language at risk TechRadar
Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Bob Casey question Kroger’s use of electronic pricing in stores Cincinnati.com
Auditing of AI: Legal, Ethical and Technical Approaches (PDF) Jakob Mökander, Digital Sociey. From the Abstract: “The next step in the evolution of auditing as an AI governance mechanism, this article concludes, should be the interlinking of these available-and complementary-approaches into structured and holistic procedures to audit not only how AI systems are designed and used but also how they impact users, societies and the natural environment in applied settings over time.”
The Bezzle
US court orders FTX to pay $12.7bn to customers Al Jazeera
‘Airbnb Hopping’: How Hunted Hackers Stay on the Run From Kidnappers 404 Media
Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa Fashion
Monthly export of readymade clothes may rise by $250 mn amid B’desh crisis Business Standard
Sports Desk
Exclusive: WADA to put U.S. anti-doping agency under compliance review and Athletes undercover? Global and U.S. anti-doping agencies clash over tactics Reuters
The 420
Through the Psychedelic Looking Glass New Lines Magazine
Housing
Breed’s sweeps of S.F. homeless encampments hit snag as federal judge orders more training San Francisco Chronicle
Report shows where San Francisco’s homeless people have been sent ABC7
You Call That Compassion? Freddie DeBoer
Class Warfare
What burger flipping tells you about the US economy FT
Dispatch From a Meat Packing Factory: “If We Unite as Workers, We Have the Power” Workday Magazine
Antidote du jour (Patrick_K59):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
THE TUNE FROM TEHERAN
(melody borrowed from I Am Waiting by The Rolling Stones, 1966)
You are waiting, you are waiting (La Guerre, La Guerre)
All your hating—we are baiting (La Guerre, La Guerre)
Here’s a bit of psychological warfare
And the Persians have help from the Russian bear
There is no doubt you’ll be closed out (La Guerre, La Guerre)
Zion’s played out, you’ll be shut out (La Guerre, La Guerre)
You’ve been living in a castle in the air
We will shut down all your satellite software
You’ll be woebegone just sitting on your thumbs
Your bases all burned out!
It’s the reward for your crimes you aren’t the masterminds
You’re Boy Scouts!
You’ve been rash, now you’ll crash (La Guerre, La Guerre)
You’ll be smashed, die is cast (La Guerre, La Guerre)
And your Iron Dome won’t get you anywhere
Your whole country’s going to be in disrepair
No more Arab tears! We are now your peers!
Which you will soon find out!
Well, fly the skull and bones—kill with flying drones
You’ll strike out!
Oh you’re waiting, oh you’re waiting (La Guerre, La Guerre)
All your hating—we are baiting (La Guerre, La Guerre)
Simply look where you can’t look and we’ll be there
You will never share the land so c’est la guerre
Oh you’re waiting
Oh you’re waiting
Oh you’re waiting
Oh you’re waiting . . .
“Only Trump Can Go to Tehran”
Never going to happen. Trump was giving the Israelis everything that they wanted on a silver plate and if he gets in again, I am sure that he will recognize both Gaza and the West bank as actual Israeli territory. That is also why he broke the nuclear deal which was actually starting to work. Because Netanyahu did not want any normalization of relations between Iran and the US/West but was working to get the US into a shooting war with Iran on Israel’s behalf. This is pie in the sky stuff this. Logic and deep thought would say that normalizing relations with Iran would be a great strategic move but nobody ever accused Trump of being a deep thinker.
Exactly!!
Additionally, we also know that Jared and his Saudi financed PE fund are eyeing Gaza as a home for resorts on the coast. Can’t have those pesky Palestinians there if that is the goal.
My mother, and family, has been intimately involved in Zionist causes for over fifty years. Things have become perversely twisted under Bibi, who has wanted a war with Iran for decades fought by the US for them, and just may get it. I say this based on first-hand private meetings. The rise of the extreme religious right in Israel, to whom I am not a Jew, is no accident.
“to whom I am not a Jew”
It’s the early stages of a real time schism. Tel Aviv is wrapped in a new Imperial Religion. You are either loyal to the new priest class or in need of being denounced.
The most common charge is that they are a “self-hating Jew” and has been used for years.
“not a real Jew” is the refrain I hear!
There are deep thinkers on our American political scene? Harris, Biden, Obama, Dubya are just as superficial as Trump only with slightly different goals. Trump undubtedly broke with Iran to please Adelson and his millions rather than Jared and his daughter. Meanwhile the Dems kowtow to their own funders and their claim to believe in a Palestinian state is mere verbiage even as Kamala’s only response to the Gaza protestors is to assert “I’m talking here” (and saying nothing). After all the Palestinian supporters get their say on blogs or social media where the FBI can go after them as terrorists if they get too rowdy.
And Obama’s supposed deal with Iran came with so many strings that it was too weak to last as we see now. What the Dems offer is better PR and a comforting facade for an imperial state that is fully supported by our Congress and the PMC who are more worried about the rights of trans than the dead in Gaza. Trump’s crude transactional style merely makes the whole thing more obvious. But it also means he may be less committed to lunatic goals like destroying Russia and Europe’s many other quarrels.
“our Congress and the PMC who are more worried about the rights of trans than the dead in Gaza.”
K. Harris’s position: “I truly care about those in Gaza. I really really do, especially the kids! But, given current circumstances, our country’s interests require that our friends in Israel get the munitions necessary to blow every single one of those Gazans to bits.”
At least with DJT, there might be a chance, however admittedly minuscule, that he could halt the massacre before the Palestinian holocaust is complete.
Who knows what, if anything, Trump would – or could – actually do once in office. But I do know that the rhetoric by Trump and the Republicans has been extreme in its defense of the Zio-Nazis. They have been screeching about the “antisemitism” of the “radical left” Democrats like Harris and Walz [!], and pushing front and center their argument that Shapiro, though a much stronger candidate, was dropped because of pressure from the “radical left antisemites” that control the Dems. They have really been emphasizing this line the last few days so they must see it as providing real political benefits, despite what the majority of powerless citizens might think about the ongoing genocide.
I see no evidence whatsoever that Trump would do anything constructive in this area. Quite the opposite, based not just on his current rhetoric but on what he actually did do in his first administration.
Trump, at best, is a pragmatist. He embraced Israel in order to pave a way through the Washington swamp–didn’t work that well. The Jewish lobby may have kept him afloat in that swamp but he was unable to go very far since the swamp was able to bring him down. If he comes back into office things will be different as we was, I believe, betrayed by the Jewish lobby even as he catered to them. We’ll have to see–Trump for all his silliness has that rare quality he can bring to government, i.e., creativity.
I distinctly remember where I was fifty years ago today when Nixon announced he would resign. What I find striking is that the then Supreme Court effectively facilitated the process in its (quite prompt) ruling on him turning over the tapes.
Roll forward to today and the Roberts court has said to me that Nixon would have had immunity.
‘Nuff said.
Nixon must have been a prophet then when he said-
‘Well, when the President does it, that means that it is not illegal’
It took about 47 years but finally the US Supreme Court agrees with him now. :)
Agnew going then Nixon, allowed in some obscure Trillionaire … into a position of power.
All arranged.
Compromised people get appointed and then exposed, if necessary.
It’s not a coup if those in charge remove underlings. Just don’t frighten the horses.
Nelson R, that erstwhile cowboy of the Hudson and South America, died in the saddle doing what he loved. Not all were Happy about that.
Gerald F, his
runningjust standing-there mate also got his reward for that selfless Warren Commission duty. /sThink you are mixing up impeachment with criminal prosecution. Nixon needed Ford’s pardon derailing the latter to get him to resign. The Dems are wildly overstating what the Roberts court ruled.
Today’s Turley is on this very question and he once again explains the Roberts ruling. The Dems are wildly spinning and distorting (Maddow: the president can now commit murder) in order to discredit the SC while at the same time they seem oddly unmoved by prosecutors abusing their power. Of course their new candidate was a prosecutor and almost picked another former prosecutor for her veep. Nuff said.
https://jonathanturley.org/2024/08/09/smith-is-no-longer-in-a-hurry-special-counsel-moves-to-slow-down-district-court-judge/
First August 8th since 1973 when I didn’t celebrate (in 1974 I ditched work and tried to drink a pony keg with a handful of friends). In truth, it just doesn’t seem that important anymore as Nixon’s resignation only strengthened the chokehold the Blob has on our government.
Being a newly minted immigrant off the boat from the old country, my dad saw in Nixon the potential of more Fascism and/or Communism in the USA and just despised Tricky Dick.
I’m thinking that we were the only family that had an impromptu party in honor of him passing the Presidency to Gerald Ford on August 9th. Daddy-o was in his element… but then found out later there wasn’t much to say about him, similar to the foibles of My Kevin (since ’07), who also resigned.
Let them eat cake…
Later we had Tricky Jimmy, Tricky Ronald, Tricky But Feeling Your Pain Bill etc
Nixon was a bad guy but maybe power corrupts??
The Chinese are SO unfair!
How China Built Tech Prowess: Chemistry Classes and Research Labs NYT
Slap these guys with more tariffs and ship them thousands of Law and B-school professors and deans so they can emulate the US & EU.
* wonder what percentage of grad students are foreign born? 60% of Harvard students go into finance of McKinsey type roles
Who ever thought that putting resources into research and development would ever pay off on a long term basis? Or not punishing students financially for studying the hard sciences rather than financial engineering either. It’s like the Chinese studied the earlier development of the US up to the 70s for pointers on what to do. And everything after the 70s in what not to do.
“60% of Harvard students go into finance of McKinsey type roles”
Some of the Chinese Harvard students that do this could then go back to China and commence crappifying all the inventions, policies, and products created by the undergraduates in China who major in math, science, engineering or agriculture, etc.
Doesn’t help that being smart is frowned upon socially in the US.
“Exclusive: WADA to put U.S. anti-doping agency under compliance review”
I think that WADA realized that they had better put USADA on a leash before they wreck the 2028 Olympic Games before they even start. Look at the present games. Normally there is a very strong contingent of world-class athletes from Russia and I think that in the past they numbered about 300 athletes. And now? Maybe 15? So many of the medals awarded were only done so because the Russians were not there. And the US was very happy about this and I am 100% convinced that the same is being planned for the Chinese team for 2028 and already there were those dodgy claims about Chinese drug use.
I suppose that you could call this “Sportsfare” and the US has already given themselves the right to have legal domain in over any sport in the world that has Americans in it or are partly funded by the US, i.e. nearly all of them, through the Rodchenkov Act. And having athletes busted for cheating become informants but allowing them to keep their medals and awards is wrong on so many levels. It’s sports, not an FBI investigation. If Lance Armstrong had “cooperated” when busted with drugs, would all his records and achievements still stand? Point is that the US is now wanting to use sportsfare to push out countries from the Olympics that they do not like but in the end, you would only be left with a Collective West Olympics that would not be viable rather than a world Olympics so it is little wonder that WADA is fighting this.
WADA itself is highly suspect when it comes to playing politics. And interesting that you bring up Lance who I have always defended in discussions with my brother. Armstrong’s attitude was that he had to dope in a sport where everybody dopes in some fashion (or they did). The Tour, like many Olympic events, is as much about physical condition and endurance rather than skill or talent and so medical intervention becomes all too tempting. Perhaps the problem is that we take these matters way too seriously and the Tour in particular started out as a kind newspaper promoted endurance contest as was popular back in the era depicted by the film They Shoot Horses Don’t They?.
Lance was disgraced because he got caught while those who ratted him out (while also doping along with him) were treated as heroes. The good guy/bad guy narrative is all.
Remember when the Olympics were only for amateur athletes? It’s difficult to see through all the hypocrisy.
I’ll defended Armstrong as well. As you allude to, anti-doping rules seems to be deployed primarily for political prosecution, often in “soft” form, see accusations against the Chinese swim team.
For the first time this week there was not a single Olympics story of interest (to me) yesterday.
I am following the men’s 400m hurdles today and that is it. ESPN has a story on their Olympics front page lobbying for pickleball. Good grief.
Bring on the marathon and let’s wrap this up.
The Tour like the Olympics is now a big money event, at least in the sense that NBC–the USA USA network–pays a lot of money to show it. They definitely don’t want it to turn into Russia Russia. Lance caused Americans to take interest in the Tour and arguably did the event a lot more good than harm. The fact that it took so long for him to be caught only fuels suspicions that others are still doing it.
Only USA athlets are allowed to do drugs. Those are the rules.
Apropos of nothingg, it just struck me that Russia probably has no way of differentiating between a Ukrainian and NATO F-16. The next logical thing to happen is for Russia to accidentally shoot down some NATO F-16’s, right?
Since the war is Russia v. NATOstan, a NATO as opposed to a Ukrainian F-16 is a distinction without a difference. All F-16s have the same point of origin. If you are firing at me are you less my enemy because you advance some legalistic claim?
I was tempted to say, “Shoot them all down and let god sort them out.” but it seemed a bit crude.
Something that is making the rounds in Japanese media today is the possibility of a massive megaquake hitting the country sometime in the next 7 days, leading the country’s weather agency to issue its first ever preliminary warning about a possible 9.0 or above on the Richter scale quake in an area of Japan that faces the Pacific Ocean. Given that the area includes densely populated prefectures like the capital of Japan, Tokyo, a study done in 2012 has estimated that the number of casualties could reach as high as 320000 people.
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20240809/p2g/00m/0na/050000c
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20240809/p2a/00m/0na/048000c
The Prime Minister of Japan has also cancelled his trip to Central Asia in light of the warning, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/8/9/japan-pm-scraps-central-asia-trip-after-megaquake-warning
We were in NZ in 2011 and spent a few days in Christchurch before heading out on an overnight berth in the boat which winds through the Doubtful Sound.
Christchurch was my favorite of the Kiwi big cities, the gateway to the Southern Alps and more. There had been a 7.1 in September and the one that laid ChCh low was only a 6.3, but centered close to the city and quite shallow.
A week before the 2011 quake we walked around ChCh and every now and then you’d see a red-tagged building, but much less activity in that regard than you think you’d get from a 7.1, location-location-location.
The thinking now, is that the 6.3 was an aftershock to the 7.1 temblor~
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Christchurch_earthquake
Here’s a short video of a giant crane dismantling the Grand Chancellor hotel, which had acquired a tilt similar to that of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
https://www.nikaugroup.com/case-studies/commercial-demolition/holiday-inn-christchurch/
>>>Israel’s Enemies Seek Revenge, but Not So Harsh as to Start All-out War Haaretz
let’s take the WIkipedia numbers (not saying that Wiki is authoritative or correct, but it is a starting point)…
762 Israeli security forces (military, etc.) dead in the Hamas War, as of *May* 2024. So to be conservative, let’s assume 1,000 security forces dead as of today.
7.2 million Jewish-Israeli (of all denominations), 2.1 million Arab-Israelis per Wiki.
1,000 / 7,200,000 per-capita death rate among Jewish-Israel, or 0.139% death rate.
US population in 1910, 92 million. US dead in WW1, 117,000. or 0.127% death rate.
Jewish Israel has a higher per capita death rate right now, than the US did in its (brief) participation in World War 1!
If this isn’t an all-out war, pundits/politicans should go to the front and have a picnic.
Now do the numbers for Zion’s “opponents.”
Seems like the Zios have killed about 12% of Gazans, 2% of WestBankians. Speaking of (don’t say it out loud) genocide, now to be facilitated by the Kamal nose in the tent.
Who would ever think that having a political vacuum in Washington DC from July of this year straight through to January of next year would ever have been acceptable. Then again, perhaps they have had plenty of practice over the past year or two.
Gosh, considering that for most reports all those aggressive actions are taking out not plain Palestinians but full blown military active terrorists I somehow think that 1000 or so security force deaths are a drop in the bucket. If, and it is a very big if, Israel had been attacked within the borders of its country when it had been established I might buy they were the victims and this was a war of defense. But they weren’t, they were illegal occupiers and particularly cruel occupiers at that. If this is a war it is of their own making. And finally most of the world is acknowledging those 1000 security were the aggressors and are not the victims they consistently falsely portray themselves as being. If they are at war, they made it one.
FFS. of course the Gazans are getting genocided.
the point is that despite US/global media narratives, Israel is facing its biggest geopolitical junction sinve 1948
That’s most likely another big lie. Biden is sitting in deep freeze, or maybe in a memory-care facility.
Replace “Biden” with “Sullivan” or maybe Blinken.
And the odds of Hamas negotiating now that the IDF killed the last guy who was their negotiator are about zero. This is more of the lie, lie, lie strategy of sowing confusion so that low-information voters think there is some sort of good intentions from a crew that assist genocide.
After the US election, no matter which part of the duopoly wins, it will be interesting to see how much cease-fire lip service continues.
They’re talking up a cease fire before the iran retaliation so they can say they were for a ceasefire, but those iranians stopped it from happening.
One thing that is obvious is the zionists, no matter their religious views, do not want cease fire, but they also don’t want to not so spontaneously burst into flames pre rapture…
One for fans of Orwellian UK government messaging
https://x.com/CPSUK/status/1821227881575403810
And a surprisingly sensible article from the Guardian’s Marina Hyde.
“Social media is a problem, Keir, but so is life for too many in Britain. I’d deal with that first”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/aug/09/social-media-problem-keir-starmer-elon-musk-inequality-poverty
“A GitHub token leak could have put the entire Python language at risk’
When I read articles like this, why am I reminded of this well-known cartoon?
https://xkcd.com/2347/
Black Left Critique of Kamala Harris – Black Agenda Report
That smorgasbord of articles lays out the blueprint of the media playbook currently running.
Space junk:
https://gizmodo.com/chinese-rocket-breaks-apart-in-orbit-leaves-dangerous-trail-of-debris-in-space-2000484626/
Chinese Rocket Breaks Apart in Orbit, Leaves Dangerous Trail of Debris in Space
Hey, they may get lucky and a chunk of that Chinese rocket might knock off that stuck Boeing Starliner on the side of the ISS.
https://english.news.cn/20221120/58d4a8932e904a45be3c19964d9dd4e6/c.html
November 20, 2022
China develops de-orbiting sail to manage space debris
BEIJING — As the number of rocket launches, planetary missions and satellite activities continues to grow, so does the junkyard in space. Many have been pondering the question of how to reduce the amount of debris orbiting Earth. Now, China may have found a solution with its newly deployed “sail” technology.
Hundreds of millions of items of human-made debris are continually circling Earth, including broken rocket bodies, defunct satellites and fragments from orbital collisions. Keen to tackle the space-junk problem, Chinese aerospace scientists have managed to use a large “sail” to de-orbit spacecraft at the end of their life.
The de-orbiter is a sail-like device made of a thin film, the thickness of which is less than one tenth of the diameter of a hair. Folded, it is approximately the size of an adult’s palm, but it can cover an area of 25 square meters when unfolded. When a spacecraft is decommissioned, the sail onboard can be automatically opened. Once deployed, it will increase the effects of air friction, slowing the spacecraft in orbit and speeding up its descent into the Earth’s atmosphere, where it will burn up.
Scientists have already tested the technology on space missions. The latest example is the launch of a Long March-2D carrier rocket in southwest China on June 23, which sent three satellites into orbit. A deorbiting sail attached to the rocket unfolded three days later…
Re Banksy. It is still insisted that Banksy’s real identity is unknown. Maybe I’m misremembering but I feel pretty sure he was unmasked over 15 years ago but the media decided it was more newsworthy (£) to memoryhole this.
Being someone who lived in Bristol at the time of his first most iconic artworks I will share an anecdote. A good friend who if anything understated his achievements, and who had yet to learn of the first few murals, had a conversation at a party with a random guy. Art etc was not discussed and the guy gave his real name with verifiable facts courtesy of the budding Internet. After they drifted apart, someone a few of us from the club scene knew by name asked my friend curiously “you do know that was Banksy don’t you?”. This elicited a “who?” at the time but within months became a great pub anecdote when Banksy gained fame. (No I don’t remember the real name.)
Our other great pub story was something Mitchell & Webb made a sketch out of for their TV show YEARS after we spotted (smelt) the phenomenon. We had got drunk and wondered about a smell Mitchell & Webb memorably identified as the Linden Tree. Apparently the Bradford Pear might be the actual offending tree but if you know the sketch, you know it ;)
Just finished watching that clip on YouTube and it is hilarious. Thanks for the tip. But those Victoria mores never left our heads, even without the top hats, starch and the beards. :)
Glad you liked it. In common with so many blokes who had only ever brought up the subject in the pub when drunk enough, I instantly recognised how the core of that skit must have (ahem) come about.
First time I watched it I virtually shouted at the TV “we discussed that years ago!”
Top tip: everyone raves about Clifton in Bristol. Learn which months in which NOT to visit ;)
>Why Ilan Pappe’s new book on the Israel lobby is a must-read Middle East Eye
Maybe a month ago I posted this (UK) Novara Media interview with Ilan Pappé after his book, it is well worth the time:
The Israel Lobby Is Real. This Is How It Works | Aaron Bastani meets Ilan Pappé
Aaron Bastani and co-caster Ash Sarkar are always worth looking in on.
I worry for Scott Ritter. Though I never met him but I like him and am grateful for his contributions, even if some are a bit wide of the mark. And I thank him for his work as weapons inspector. Anyway, it did make me uncomfortable that he accepted all that hospitality for the propaganda tours (on top of the state media payments) and then came back sounding like he’s sold on Russia’s main talking points. As far as I’m concerned that’s fine and we each can take or leave what he says as we choose. But what I’m ok with doesn’t matter much. First, he’s the only media person I like about whom someone can say, “He was paid to do Putin’s propaganda,” and be not entirely disingenuous. That limits with whom I can use his claims because that push back will come. Second, given the hostilities between USA and Russia, he may well be in real legal trouble as Gilbert Doctorow wrote yesterday. Iiuc foreign agents in DC are mostly not registered so its enforcement is selective and capricious but I doubt that’ll help his defense. And the first sentence of his Wikipedia page won’t help in public opinion (likely why the conviction exists). It being there seeds the search engines and especially the AIs very effectively.
“Pentagon says Ukraine’s attack into Russia is not escalatory”
All I can say is that the Pentagon must have a good supply left over from the occupation of Afghanistan. I mean, them saying Ukraine is ‘taking action to protect themselves’ in the Kursk region. When German troops invaded Poland in ’39, I do not recall them saying when shooting that they were only protecting themselves. The Ukrainians are 6 miles into Kursk and other sources say that they continue to pour in more troops, including the Georgian Legion. But the Russians have just said that they have taken down 945 Ukrainian soldiers and about 102 vehicles, including several tanks. When this attack peters out, they won’t have much left to hold the line. The Russians are evacuating several thousand people because of the Ukrainian propensity to attack civilians too and it almost sounds like the Russians have set up a kill sack and are letting the Ukrainians pour more men and vehicles into it the same way that last year they kept on pouring their Marines on the southern front into a swampy kill zone. But Zelensky and the west keep on playing this as a war all about optics and the TV news tonight kept on saying that Putin was embarrassed about this and embarrassed about that. So I expect the attacks to continue for a few more days yet.
Clearly nobody believes it so why was the Pentagon told to say this? Why does the WH think it’s important to get the Western news media to parrot that it is not an escalation? Scratching my head here.
Speaking of AI, a couple of days ago I asked ChatGPT: “Describe the etiology, clinical presentation, treatments and prognosis of resting bitch face.” It mentioned that the condition is not recognized as medical but it complied nevertheless and used the form of my question and gave a thoroughly medical-sounding response. Language style can be powerful (manipulative) so I guess I’m not the first to notice that you can ask GPTs to add different kinds of gravitas to your texts, no matter how inappropriate.
I searched a bit and it seems the GPT relied a lot on two web pages: the Wikipedia page and a NTY article.