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Global stocks rally after jumbo Fed cut FT
At the Money: Can You Have Too Much Money? Barry Ritholtz, The Big Picture
Climate
Satellite images reveal Sahara desert turning green The Watchers
Peru is burning while authorities look away BNE Intellinews
Study finds thousands of food-contact chemicals in humans, raising safety concerns News Medical LIfe-Sciences
Tupperware, company known for its plastic containers, files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy USA Today
Hazards unleashed by East Palestine derailment are ‘the worst I’ve ever seen,’ toxicologist says Union-Progress
Water
Battered by typhoons: Why aren’t Philippine flood control projects working? Al Jazeera
China?
The moon’s dimming light: China sees lacklustre mooncake sales as consumers refuse to bite Channel News Asia
China warns struggling regions to be more strict and accountable in curbing hidden debt South China Morning Post
* * * China’s growing military activity makes a shift to war harder to spot, warns Taiwan FT
Pakistan Promised China a New Militarized Naval Base, Leaked Documents Reveal Drop Site
* * *
Vietnam death row tycoon faces money laundering trial Channel News Asia
Syraqistan
Lebanon is rocked again by exploding devices as Israel declares a new phase of war AP
Hezbollah Faces a Choice – Back Down or Go to War With Israel Haaretz
* * * Israel’s reckless pager attack on Hizbollah Editorial Board, FT. The deck: “Benjamin Netanyahu is raising the risks of an all-out Middle East war.”
Israel’s Diabolical Caper in Lebanon Spy Talk. The deck: “Turning Hezbollah’s pagers and walkie-talkies into booby traps was a significant blow to its leaders but sacrificed an intelligence opportunity and left thousands of others injured.”
Do Lebanon explosions violate the laws of war? Al Jazeera
Blinken says US did not know about exploding pagers in Lebanon, calls for restraint The Hill
* * * From Taipei to Budapest: the mysterious trail of exploding pagers FT. “Gold Apollo’s current bestsellers include the vibrating pucks that coffee shops hand out to customers to signal that their drink is ready.” Oh.
The biggest unanswered questions about the Hezbollah pager attack Vox
How could pagers in Lebanon have been rigged to explode? LA Times
Africa
Sudan Is Burning: Here’s Why Madras Courier
European Disunion
Europe must prepare to meet Russia militarily in 6-8 years, says its new defence chief Reuters. Commentary:
Truly amazing answer by former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin to a student who asks him if the EU will ever be independent from the US.
In his response he calls the current situation one of "tutelage of the U.S. over Europe", mostly via NATO whose "European pillar"… pic.twitter.com/XEXSHnDHZH
— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) September 19, 2024
European countries demand US$20 billion for undelivered gas from Russia Ukrainska Pravda
The Double Irish Dutch Sandwich: End of a Tax Evasion Strategy Conversable Economist
Dear Old Blighty
A New Left Wing Party in the UK? Craig Murray
Sturgeon predicts Scottish independence and united Ireland in UK ‘shake-up’ BBC
New Not-So-Cold War
Ukraine Strikes Russia’s 107th Arsenal: Crippling Blow or PR Nothingburger? Simplicius the Thinker
Satellite Images Show Aftermath Of Devastating Drone Strike In Russia Radio Free Europe
Russia gets ready to rebuild its military stockpile BNE Intellinews
* * * Zelenskyy states Ukraine’s victory plan is ready Ukrainska Pravda
‘If they don’t die, our infantry will’: Ukraine’s pivotal battle for Donetsk Guardian
Zelenskyy was urged not to invade Kursk. He did it anyway. Politico
* * * Putin Has Allowed the West to Cross So Many Lines That He Is Now Under Pressure to Respond The Nation
NATO Secretary General does not believe in Putin’s red lines regarding Ukraine’s long-range strikes on Russia Ukrainska Pravda
* * * The Shadow Fleet Transporting Sanctioned Gas for Russia Bloomberg
IMF scraps mission to Moscow after objections from Kyiv’s allies FT
2024
Trump says that ‘only consequential presidents get shot at’ during Michigan event FOX
Antitrust
Google scores rare legal win as 1.49bn euro fine scrapped BBC
Supply Chain
US Department of Justice files $100m suit against Dali shipowner, manager Seatrade Maritime
Digital Watch
Musk’s X bypasses court-ordered Brazil ban via software update France24
What if the panic over teens and tech is totally wrong? Vox
LinkedIn started harvesting people’s posts for training AI without asking for opt-in The Register
Groves of Academe
The PhD Paradox: A Journey into Academia’s Upside-Down World Daniel Lemire
We or They? Crooked Timber
The Final Frontier
The largest volcano on Mars may sit above a 1,000-mile magma pool. Could Olympus Mons erupt again? Space.com
Imperial Collapse Watch
Jill Stein & Michael Hudson: The UGLY TRUTH About what’s Destroying America (video) Dialogue Works, YouTube
Too Much of a Good Thing The Economist
How Natural Are We? The New Yorker
Antidote du jour (via):
Bonus antidote:
I had a house made for him, I went on to care for his kids & his grandkids. He was shot twice more, I nursed him again. Eventually he passed. I didn’t know it then but he was the start of this incredible journey. I still think of Gav. He found the right person at the right time❤️ pic.twitter.com/5PcE9uD4Nw
— Saffron Ⓥ (@SafferTheGaffer) September 17, 2024
National Fox Day in the UK was September 17.
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
NO ONE’S MATRIARCH
(melody borrowed from Dancing In The Dark by Bruce Springsteen)
Kamala is pleasing to the donor class who pay
Her empty slogans a warning of the things they will take away
She’s a DEI hire—Can ‘O Bluff they pulled down from some shelf
Shifty, shady, she’s a proxy for big wealth
A well polished liar—we can see the Deep State’s watermark
Pantsuit on fire—even she knows she’s no one’s matriarch
When she looks in the mirror, woebegone and she can’t keep up the pace
Without her handlers to steer her she can’t reply—words spew out of her face
Stands for nothing and nowhere. She’s just readin’ from her script
She needs much better software—maybe Biden don’t need his
A well polished liar—we can see the Deep State’s watermark
Pantsuit on fire—even she knows she’s no one’s matriarch
The DNC hasn’t sold her—watch her polls go no place they should be
There’s a lotta stakeholders—some say get Hillary
Major donors won’t back down; Kamala has to win this fight
They plan on looting our country—but lately nothin’ they do has gone right
It’s not this or that faction—anything not nailed down Wall Street took
We’ve lost all our traction and that’s maybe while we all feel shook
A well polished liar—we can see the Deep State’s watermark
Pantsuit on fire—even she knows she’s no one’s matriarch
A well polished liar—we can see the Deep State’s watermark
Pantsuit on fire—even she knows she’s no one’s matriarch
Even she knows she’s no one’s matriarch
Even she knows she’s no one’s matriarch
Even she knows she’s no one’s matriarch
(Hey, lady!)
These bombings in Lebanon remind me of the Guilford and Manchester pub bombings in being reckless, indiscriminate, dramatic, petty, and pseudo-political, pseudo because they can’t help resolve or break the political impasse. Terrorism for the sake of hatred.
To be fair, it seems that Netanyahu wants to keep provoking Hezbollah, the Syrians, and the Iranians, until someone “snaps” and he gets a bigger war – which the US, in his mind, would be obliged to enter on Israel’s behalf. So there is a rational component here, just as with the Ukrainians increasingly trying to provoke the Russians to an overreaction.
I am not suggesting that it’s moral in any way. But it isn’t just for the sake of hatred that the Israeli state is doing this.
So Israel provoking a war against Lebanon, Syria and Iran is rational? You are joking, right?
As for America, the Pentagon is reluctant to put its precious aircraft carriers within range of the Houthis much less the above three. They are not going to sacrifice American lives for Israel.
The Pentagon nixed the no flyzone in Ukraine for obvious reasons, but I feel Harris level figures will have a harder time comprehending why we shouldn’t bomb stuff. Her Clinton staffers must be chomping at the bit to get a photo of her in the situation room.
Obama backed off, but he’s way smarter than most of DC, a low bar. Even then it sounds like he needed Dempsey to dumb it down for him. Can you imagine the voices Biden has? And by extension Harris?
Team Blue types are still afraid of their own shadow. They won’t let the GOP out Israel them.
Team blue is owned lock, stock, and barrel by the zionists. They won’t shoot, er, bite the hand that feeds them.
I think the “rationality” here is what C. Wright Mills labeled “Crackpot Realism.”
Correct — the distinction is between instrumental and substantive rationality. When you use the term “rationality” it is often good to specify which type.
Captain Ahab understood: “All my means are sane, my motive and my object mad.”
Are you saying a general war that could result in Israel’s ability to expel Palestinians from the WB and Gaza is irrational? I think that’s why the Israeli want war with everyone in the region so nothing can stop them from true ethnic cleansing. I think, through divine help, they believe they can achieve Greater Israel or die trying. Israel is a country of religious fanatics, except for a relatively small minority of people who are liberals and want to pursue the Western Civilization agenda rather than the Torah.
Do you think the Pentagon will refuse to fight if ordered to fight by the WH?
I think the Biden admin. may -if this larger war is achieved by Israel- at first say “we’re not rescuing you, Bibi.” But if Israel begins losing big time Biden will instinctually order military action. Very dangerous, indeed. So it’s not a yes or no situation.
The Pentagon will resist the order and Lloyd Austin will have to convey the message to the President and if Biden wishes to press ahead, Austin will have to convey the message and Biden’s response to Harris and the key members of the cabinet in case a majority believes, after due consideration, that Biden is so off his trolley that it is appropriate to take action as per the 25th Amendment.
<"As for America, the Pentagon is reluctant to put its precious aircraft carriers within range of the Houthis much less the above three."
The Lincoln CSG is in the North Arabian Sea. Close enough for anything it might need to do.
And they will become fish reef if Iran so chooses.
For Netanyahu personally, it is perfectly rational. The moment the war stops, he is gone, quite possibly ultimately ending up in prison.
What’s more, if there is to be a war, better to draw the US in as early and as deeply as possible. This is also perfectly rational from his standpoint. As is his racist dismissal of the capabilities of Iran and Hezbollah, which is the sort of looking-down-at-you attitude you would expect to find among contemporary Israeli elite. [Similarly, the German elites did not think much of the Soviet capacity to resist, back in 1941.] Objectively, looking from the outside in, you might very well argue that he is both wrong and deluded. But from his standpoint, given his biases and circumstances? This is exactly what one should expect him to continue to do, at least until and unless the US gets a President who isn’t too afraid of the Israeli lobby to bring Tel Aviv in line with US policy goals. [This is precisely what Mearsheimer has been pushing for since the 2000s.]
If you need additional examples of a country’s leadership either a) operating on flawed and deluded assumptions, and b) choosing personal preferences over the interests of their country, look no further than Germany, Federal Republic of. Or Poland, which had dumped cheap Russian gas for expensive US LNG BEFORE February of 2022, at the Americans’ behest. Or Finland, being stampeded into NATO (Sweden, arguably, had already unofficially been in there since roughly the 1970s). Or just about most of the EU by now. In each case, these idiots are acting rationally without their own frame of reference, which actually makes them kind of predictable.
Which takes us back to Netanyahu. He will continue to escalate, even over the objections of his own military, until he can no longer do so, because it is important to his political survival, and because he thinks there will be no adverse consequences to Israel since the US will always bail it out. Get your popcorn ready, and don’t buy any real estate in West Asia for a while.
Us armada can’t stay in ME that long. Hopefully resistance will wait them out, just continue the very slow escelation. Meanwhile Israel looks to be weakening by the day, us might even be running low on bombs/missiles. It’s not just israel, imo us can’t fight a long war these days, either.
Here’s a thought. How many terrorist groups around the world are taking notes of how introducing booby-traps into a country’s supply chain can cause chaos and mass casualties. Ordinary people go to boot up their computer and when they enter their password – Boom! And these would be people scattered all around the country. People would be afraid to use their desktops and laptops and tablets not knowing if they were safe or not. Can you imagine what that would do to a country and it’s economy? For terrorists, it would be perfect. Thanks Israel.
How many terrorist groups around the world are taking notes of how introducing booby-traps into a country’s supply chain can cause chaos and mass casualties.
I do not think that terrorist groups have been waiting for inspiration from Israeli intelligence services to design new ways of causing mayhem. I presume that the reverse occurred: Israelis got the idea from earlier concepts from extremist groups and armed forces. Hell, there have long been field-manuals from the military of various countries containing detailed explanations about booby-traps.
What is exceptional, and something smaller organizations will be hard-pressed to reproduce, is the sheer subversion of the supply chain that was required to substitute batteries rigged with a tiny amount of explosive and a triggered by an electronic mechanism activated remotely into large commercial deliveries of standard devices. This is something that only the usual “nation-state actors” can pull off — or at most the largest, best organized, deeply entrenched criminal organizations such as the narcos in Mexico and some of the European mafias.
The best extremist organizations can achieve, in my opinion, would be small-scale, handicraft-kind operations on a limited number of devices.
Correct. The reality, in my view, is most “terrorists” (not all) are tools of intel services of nation states.
Don’t the many large corporations that are also criminal organizations.
The US and Israel ARE the terrorists. Worrying about some fictitious, third party terrorists seems pretty moot.
It goes beyond that. The US and Israel are using troops from other nations to train local terrorists. So for example, a coupla hundred Ukrainians are now in Idlib Province aka Jihadist Central, where they are teaching the terrorists how to use drones in their future attacks and they have already smuggled in drone parts-
https://thecradle.co/articles-id/26896
And Ukrainians have helped take part in attacks in places like Mali on local forces, probably using US satellite intel, causing both Mali and Niger to shut down diplomatic relations with the Ukraine as them aiding local terrorists. My prediction is that you will see Ukrainian trainers appearing all around the world helping train local terrorist forces with Washington claiming that they have no involvement whatsoever.
Let’s just hope none of the leftover rugged gadgets end up in the counterfeit markets of Amazon and Etsy.
When I saw that Ukronazis were being sent to Idlib, a red light starting flashing. Sure enough, the article mentions that the Ukrainian “experts” are training militants affiliated with the Turkistan Islamic Party, i.e., a Uyghur jihadi group. The TIP includes members who are not ethnic Uyghurs, but the connection is there. As the Ryan Routh “Taiwan Foreign Legion” suggests, it won’t be long before Taiwan/ese get involved in these new global networks, supplying more than “pagers”.
I doubt most so-called Taiwanese would go fof it. They are mostly Chinese, at least in socio-cultural-economic sense. Many (even a large majority) don’t care to be part of political China, though (a nuance that shows up more clearly in the Chinese version of the oft-cited surveys.) In practical terms, there are enormous gains (not just economic) that Taiwanese corporations and people stand to lose via open hostility to China. They’ll never go for it willingly, without a lot of outside interference/arm twisting.
My thought was more along the lines of “There goes any China–Ukraine trade”. There have been reports of Chinese drone parts showing up in Ukraine.
Chinese are dominating the drone market. Of course their parts are in Ukraine, and in Russia, and everywhere else where there are drones. One would need to try hard in order to make a drone with no China related stuff in it, and Chinese have no ability to control what others do with the stuff they sell in large quantities.
USA and Israel being terrorists doesn’t make other terrorists fictitious or less dangerous. Just because we’re bad doesn’t mean they aren’t bad. (Just a point of logic. I’m trying to imply any identifiable group by “other/they”.)
If you leave out all the terrorists that are somehow connected to USA/Israel, there would not be many of them left. I count Brits as part of the team, since they are the ones that started the business in the first place.
Makes one wonder, however, just how many terrorist [freedom fighter 😁] groups would exist in the world at this point, were so many not armed/trained/created by various states’ intelligence agencies? Not that I think there would be zero, but I think it would be much less.
Again I’ll ask if anyone remembers the 1989 movie Batman, where the Joker laces personal hygiene products with Smylex resulting in Gotham’s good people to discontinue using said products. It was superb dark comedy. Now we get the 2024 version, but what happens when a population reflexively stops using the tools that access the digital world? What happens if iPhones start exploding? I guess cash will be in vogue again.
I have to replace one of my mobiles and my solution is simply to buy Huawei rather than replace it with another iPhone.
How many terrorist groups around the world have their own powerful states capable of achieving similar feat? In addition to that, how many terrorist groups around the world are not already in some way connected to USA/Israel?
Hamas should have known not buy their pagers from Acme. The tragedy is that I expect it to come out that the Israelis made no effort to limit the purchase of these device to members of Hamas. How could they?
Weren’t pagers the bees knees circa 1985?
Know anybody that uses one today?
I don’t think people have processed just what a shift in psychology happened with these rigged pager remote explosions, as well as ipones, and solar panels. We have entered a new phase of technological fascism that will take years to ripple through society.
Snowden’s warnings were theoretical, these bombings are real and people are dead. The phone I’m holding can be a time bomb, and yet, I’m still using my phone? We have all become naked to the face of evil.
Suddenly we see with horrific clarity that the rules of war have changed. Israel used to kill an opponent here and a critic there, events distant to the lives of us common people. But now Israelis are turning common devices into lethal weapons.
The US uses Israel to test new weapons, so we can expect that the US has already been designing changes to common devices to give them that extra functionality. All the while increasing the sophistication, range and undetectability. Oh the innovation!
The country that is the factory for the world has been chosen as the new enemy by the US. In the new arms race, what is to say that they wouldn’t put something into consumer goods that they could activate to neutralise the military and civilians in five eyes countries in the event of a US attack.
Imagine if we can’t trust our chip embedded toasters, fridges, stoves, televisions, laptops, phones, cars, scooters etc not to maim or kill us if the US attacks them. Cars have big Li batteries. Home storage uses big Li batteries. Electric buses ditto to the max.
This is the beginning of the end of US outsourcing to China. It is also the beginning of the end of people across the non-western world buying US designed or manufactured devices. The questions now will be, who can you trust and what can you do without. The costs of testing every batch of consumer electronics would start to make the costs of these goods prohibitive too.
Right now there has to be panic in countries US hates, if they have been using western tech. And not just amongst the authorities.
The winners from all of this carnage? Has to be Huawei and other Chinese and Iranian and Russian tech companies.
Muslim Americans moving to Jill Stein in potential blow to Kamala Harris
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/muslim-americans-moving-jill-stein-potential-blow-kamala-harris-2024-09-19/
Fear not. I’m sure their votes will be “adjusted” (“Americanized”?), thereby saving “our democracy”.
I never thought of my PhD as some massive novel addition to human knowledge. I’d estimate that fewer than 0.01% of PhDs are that. The rest are a signal that the author has followed a bunch of stages/criteria that show (s)he can exercise critical thought. (Though certain fields *cough*liberal arts*cough* might not even be showing that.)
As the article suggests, the problem is the PhD has been elevated to something it is not, and in 99% of cases does not provide – knowledge that is useful in the real world. Hence demand is becoming lower compared to supply.
My PhD has literally been a door-stop (given the hardcopy size and weight). I only use my title in circumstances where it might overcome retail/online incompetence. Otherwise it means NOTHING in the real world. People in countries like mine need to stop going into academia to get PhDs and start doing apprenticeships in things that actually matter. Or do STEM Bachelors degrees at a level that matches China. Otherwise we’re family blogged.
PS my MA (cantab) is seen by many/most as a fraud perpetrated by Oxbridge. I can objectively state that for Economics this is not so. I got my “automatic MA” 3 years after my BA. FYI before more universities were founded, THE DEGREE was MA. Oxford and Cambridge found themselves in an awkward position when the “new” universities awarded BAs.
They decided that anyone who got a BA from Oxbridge would “obviously” do something to build on this in their next 3 years so the “automatic upgrade” was justified. Of course we have seen enough PPE graduates who family blogged the UK economy (Balls, Davies…..who happen to have been alumni of my school alas) to know this is rubbish. However I did also do a “proper MSc” at York University. I got a reputation because I stayed in bed for practically a whole year. Because ONLY the health economics bit that was specific to epidemiology was new to me. The rest was literally first year Cambridge stuff.
TL;DR PhDs mean little but my MA Cantab does mean something, And I have an MSc to prove it.
Good sir, could you spare me an acronym?, heh heh. Seriously, the neoliberalization of the American university model means that my latte has been prepared by some credentialed writer. Neoliberal society has a funny appreciation of the arts.
Once upon a time, one could take a taxi driven by a PhD. Now, said PhD could have relatives working as baristas that moonlight as Uber drivers. Imagine the convo behind the bar about fluid dynamics in proper latte prep. Coffee colloquia, room for cream.
You’d like an acronym? How about Piled higher and Deeper?
I’m not having a go at you, Terry. My own PhD was a vanity project started a few years before I retired. Its total contribution to human knowledge was the confirmation of a fairly obvious phenomenon in a tiny subset of a narrow field.
I suspect that my supervisor was right when he said (early on) that the last people to read it would be my assessors.
That said, I did prove what I set out to approve, even if only to myself.
I have done very little original research but I have used a lot as input to policy papers. One never knows when a seemingly trivial piece of fluff suddenly is the exact link one needs.
Suddenly there are cries of “Eureka!” as some idiot races around waving an old dissertation over their head.
Sounds like my MA paper — “Poems appearing in British newspapers upon the occasion of Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow.” The process of burrowing through so much microfiche to produce something maybe three people in the world cared about cured me of any desire to pursue a PhD.
Ironically my MSc thesis was probably the best thing in my career. I was doing a placement in a health authority in Peterborough, UK, in 1997 and was trying to research the gobsmackingly stupid application of Williamson/Coase transactions approach that the tories were about to get almost annihilated for implementing.
I should have quit whilst I was ahead!
If I remember correctly, we had to remain alive for ten terms after graduation. I believe the Cambridge MA is cheaper than both the Oxford and Trinity College Dublin ones *and* it comes with the Euro-chicest drip. Black silk calf-length gown with white silk edging.
More academical drip here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_dress_of_the_University_of_Cambridge
D.Mus is pretty Kanye.
I barely got to the second sentence of that wiki before reading utter nonsense. I trust that the link was included as just as much a joke as the first part of your response?
Having attended one of the few colleges that DOES have a unique gown I can attest to the huge uniformity across much of the university for anything that even vaguely matters.
Part joke, part autism. Now I have to look up the Caius gown. :-)
Lol I apologise if I seemed overly aggressive. I just remember very clearly my graduation…..99% black plus white pseudo fur.
The “different” robes or hoods were all due to a TINY number of people doing obscure higher degrees.
Just double checked pics and mum. My graduation gown was indeed black for my BA like all colleges. We had to hire a black one and not use our blue Caius one. My dad even misremembered it – he’s a very good amateur painter and used pics of other events too much and thus my official graduation painting has wrong colour!
Now I’m thinking my whole family might be suffering the Mandela effect.
https://www.cai.cam.ac.uk/graduation/what-to-wear
The 3 of us agree I wore black gown (and we are looking at official pics) . The black hood is not argued. Consider me questioning our sanity….perhaps we need to really do the worst and ask Jimmy Carr. He was there with me. And said NOTHING for three years. Now he won’t shut the eff up.
The fickleness of memory! All I remember of graduation was a ferocious lecture by Professor Diggle, the Queens’ DoS in Classics, about the penalty for him and us if we were inappropriately dressed. He would owe the vice-chancellor a butt of sack, I think. His main worry was our socks because they were about the only thing on display when you kneel to kiss the VC’s finger….
Mr Carr had his speaking part in the Queens’ canteen. He was obviously saving his voice when around Caius. :-)
At a guess, the Caius gown is blue for undergraduates, so those in statu pupillari can be picked out a mile away. You would have had to hire a black BA gown for the conferral. Which no doubt was different from the undergrad gown in some abstruse way involving strings and square sleeves and and additional armholes for eating soup.
The irony is the BA gown has ermine trim – very swanky – and the MA gown is “upgraded” (a proper British Airways “service enhancement”, this) to white silk trim. I’d prefer to rock the fur.
It’s all more colouful these days because most of Natsci and Engineering have a fourth year (M.Phys, M.Chem etc) with some gaudy hood. Colours, I ask you! Looks like the UN in national dress day.
Actually, we already had that discussion in this forum.
Regarding this:
I never thought of my PhD as some massive novel addition to human knowledge. I’d estimate that fewer than 0.01% of PhDs are that.
I have come to think it at best as a kind of cartography of knowledge. Most of the mapping will be the equivalent of vast expanses of water and barren land without much remarkable in them (a few reefs here, an outcrop there), often enough a little bit more (an inaccessible island full of a new subspecies of birds here, an oasis with a small herd of a new gazelle subspecies there), but doing it following good practices, with all the elevation and pressure measurements, is useful in the sense of achieving completion.
You want a map even with the boring stuff indicated — so that others will not waste their time with it. Only few will be privileged to find the sources of an important river, or a valley teeming with completely unknown animals, or a new continent.
At least this is valid for the PhD done consciously. Some are just complete, useless trash. I remember one such amongst the PhD theses I came across (my colleagues were at the same time consternated and heaping scorn on it) — as well as another one that fit in your 0.01% (it was seminal in leading an industry in a different technological direction).
Thanks….. and my utter lack of memory of that discussion has made me even more afraid of the cognitive deficits that have been proposed as sequalae of Long COVID, given my diagnosis. *gulp*
Agree about the theses and articles generally. When I was younger, my advisor wluld talk abour how his best papers are the ones that never did get piblished (and never would be). The published articles need to meet the “demand,” and there’s hardly ever any demand outside the conventional wisdom.
I wonder if anyone ever read the Nemesis Affair by David Raup? He was one of the earlt converts to the extraterresteial origins of the KT iridium layer and he had interesting things to say about how outside experts bucking conv wisdom get supplressed.
It’s the Ph.Ed. that is killing academia. These are the folks doing the administration, i.e; Deans, Vp’s of Education and campus Presidents (See: Harvard). They refer to themselves as Doctors, but are not.
You would think that they would be learned enough to know how to implement state/federal statutes. But couldn’t discover relevant text in highly organized statutes important to providing reliable advice to students and teaching staff, if their funding depended on it. (It does.)
These people are why 70% of the instructors at my local community college are adjuncts.
As a social sciences PhD I could not agree more, I did mine after I had retired and therefore understood it as an act of personal fulfilment. My bachelors had been STEM (Information Systems combined with a later MBA) that provided me with a good 30 years of career progression and good earnings. I took another MA whilst working (the online Athabasca University is highly underrated), and another after retirement (both in social sciences), both for personal pleasure and enlightenment.
I see the people in their twenties coming in to take at least 4 years (and lets be honest many take 5 to 6 years or even more) out of their career progression, with little real possibility of a good-paying academic position.
Many would have done much better to stop at their bachelors and take the 6+ years (MA 2 years, PhD 4 years) to develop their working careers and burnish their resume with real work experience. In many ways the PhD offers an escapist world at the cost of a long term remunerative career.
Liberal arts and even social science degrees should be treated as a personal consumption good, especially with the extremely wasteful 4 year setup in North America (as against 3 focused years in Europe). A young person’s priority should be working out how to make a living, not taking on huge amounts of debt while not furthering that cause. Adult education and part-time degrees should be much more accessible (Athabasca does a great job of this). The university sector is a bubble that needs to be burst back to levels that are functional for society, most especially when it comes to liberal arts and the social sciences.
My late father got his college degree, in business, in the 1930’s.
He would talk about how he would try to sleep, not knowing if he could find employment the next day.
He claimed that “you needed a college degree to pump gas for Standard Oil” in the Great Depression.
He did find work by working as a butcher for Safeway.
Prior experience in my grandfather’s small grocery store helped him get the Safeway job.
Mostly agree, but I don’t think I’d go so far as to say liberal arts degrees should be treated as merely personal consumption goods. That may be treated that way, but that doesn’t mean they should be.
Liberal arts teach you how to communicate with people different than yourself (languages), give knowledge of the past so you don’t repeat the mistakes of others (history), help improve critical thinking skills (philosophy), and show the ability to take on and complete projects (music, art). In general they broaden one’s horizons and give them a greater understanding of the world. Having these skills might even give one an advantage in making money, something you’d think business would value.
In the world I’d like to live in, secondary education would be free for the person being educated (as it has been in the past – see CA state system) and require everyone to complete a liberal arts degree and learn a practical trade (seamstress, carpenter, plumber, etc.). Business schools would be abolished and any “skills” like marketing could be taught on the job.
Or maybe we could even have a society that isn’t centered around business and money at all. A guy can dream…
Yes, the Arts are not a Hobby. Music and literature are essential to life.
“European countries demand US$20 billion for undelivered gas from Russia”
This sounds so asinine. So the EU is going to try for lawfare against Russia over oil sales now? So which court can they take it to that Russia recognizes? Germany let the US blow up NS2 and now one claim wants €13 billion for undelivered gas? I believe that there is one line that could be used so how about that one? And some countries want money from the Russians on the grounds that they will not pay for that gas in Rubles. So how do they intend paying Russia then? This article goes on to say-
‘According to Moscow-based brokerage BCS estimates, the total amount of claims against Gazprom exceeded its net income from petrol sales to all international markets combined’
Yeah, so what is Russian for force majeure. Or is this the EU trying to put a case together to use those frozen Russian assets to pay these dodgy claims?
And the Stockholm Court of Arbitration is anything but disinterested, as previous rulings demonstrate.
A bit over a year ago, in Finnish Gasum vs. Gazprom case, the Stockholm Court of Arbitration found Gasum to be in violation of the agreement when it refused to use rubles. The long term contract had a minimum annual payment, whether or not Gasum used the gas or not, and they were reluctant to pay because they did not use any – due to the sanctions. Then Gasum wanted to pay in euros, but Gazprom had none of that, either.
IIRC, of course.
even if they somehow agreed to pay, don’t the sanctions prevent them from making any payments?
Its just a way to access the stolen Russian cash with a fig leaf of legal legitimacy.
Are those the same European countries that brag about stealing 400 billion dollars worth of Russian assets (ironically mostly accumulated from past oil and gas deliveries to Europe)? Oh ok. Just checking.
Shouldn’t they sue their own governments for cutting access to pipelines? Gazprom goes by pipes. It was the western countries that voted to ban access to gas via pipes. It is the German gov that would not allow NS2 to operate and would not use. So who is the culprit here?
“…Or is this the EU trying to put a case together to use those frozen Russian assets to pay these dodgy claims?”
BINGO!! award that individual the prize – it was the only thing that made sense to me when reading it –
some lame-a$$ pitiful justification to grab the money and run –
Unit of Microsoft behaving badly….to quote Fight Club, “I am Jack’s complete lack of surprise.”. Linked In is an increasingly annoyance, but necessary for checking out recruiter posts on job opportunities and even receiving varied messages on those openings. Honestly that’s all I need it for and anything else is either a welcome bonus or a useless feature. Others mileage may vary.
Microsoft…doing what Bill and Paul set in motion lo these many years ago!
Now, they’d be talking about
FightWar Club, as in What is the first rule of War Club?This is a bit old news but might be of interest here. In March earlier this year an attempt to inject a backdoor in critical Linux component has been discovered by accident mostly. It would give the capability to remotely execute arbitrary code. The story gives a picture of how the sausage is being made (it took over two years to prepare nad execute the attack). Many interesting details in the comments below the article:
https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/01/xz_backdoor_open_source/
In the background there’s the case of “systemd”, a Linux component introduced in 2014 (by big corp contributors) that many greybeards argue makes attack of this kind much more likely. Debian (THE major Linux distro) adopting “systemd” in 2014 in a coup-like circumstances is not unlike a neoliberal counterrevolution in economics imho.
BTW I discovered there’s a Linux distro maintained by actual real lefties (no systemd of course), called Antix. I started tinkering with it some time ago, that’s how I found about the issue.
DISCLAIMER: I am not a Linux specialist, only general computer tech enthusiast that likes to keep an eye on things.
Antix: not pretty but highly functional.
Thanks to you both. I’m one of the people who migrated to Linux and stopped worrying about security when we really shouldn’t have stopped….we should have kept up with sources like this that illustrate that whilst we’re probably not the “first in line” to be hacked, that does not mean we’re “not in line”.
I am even aware of server side Linux hacks that hit the news so I should know better…..
Antix is great to revive old machines. I have two laptops that are 20+ years old running the very frugal, but endowed with a nice UI, antix. The tools and applications are not necessarily user-friendly for the non-IT-minded user, but antix makes these obsolete computers usable again. One must generally give up the “modern” browsers and e-mail clients though; with 512MB or even 1024MB RAM, they just cannot run acceptably.
Right. The browser makers and other online services want to force you into the latest versions which often won’t install on older computers. Of course those older machines are still functional with the older versions of Linux which are still available or at least may be lying around in the form of live cds–if you can still play cds.
Here’s betting though that the overwhelming source for malware problems has always been MS Windows.
Researching symptomsd on my Mac I kept running into mentions of overlap with Linux. Register story sounded different than my problems but like a cat looking into a mirror I’m fascinated by the similarities between “systemd” and “symptomsd.”
Yes, I do not understand computers very well.
An anti-systemd blog site by one of the greybeards: https://sysdfree.wordpress.com/
Interestingly, the architect of systemd was hired away by Microsoft two years ago.
I didn’t realize it was a coup, but.
https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2014/09/msg01834.html
Sounds like it go vicious.
Systemd itself introduces all kinds of magic, and to this day the documentation in regards to it is kind of lacking. Kind of a shame.
Or there’s: The real motivation behind systemd
The final update:
I wasn’t familiar with any of the history, just disappointed everyone adopted systemd because it is needlessly complex for most use cases as near as I can tell. But then I decamped to MacOS almost a decade ago to get away from all this.
Apple has its own silly design decisions, but I haven’t had any issues upgrading or using it in 8 years, other than my Airpods not working with my Mac Mini and Tim Cook’s office telling me a year ago to pound sand, employees are empowered to help customers… I’m still waiting for Apple support to get back to me.
And above!
I haven’t seen the article from your second link before, thanks. It ties everything neatly in one place. Scary stuff.
Wow the above is an interesting thread to this Linux amateur. I recal older versions of the os had a program–think it was called sysvconf or some such–that ran in the console and offered a simple check mark system for startup programs. I was miffed wihen this and similar programs went away with Systemd which seems time consuming to deal with and has vastly more, seemingly, of those startup modules.
Now off to read the included links…..
I was always a big fan of djb’s daemontools and some of its successors, such as runit and s6.
Re ‘If they don’t die, our infantry will’: Ukraine’s pivotal battle for Donetsk Guardian
The byline states Luke Harding, so this can be safely filed under dubious propaganda. Harding was kicked out of Russia many years ago and has since published numerous books claiming how evil and awful both that country and Russia are. He was torn to shreds by Aaron Mate in an interview about one of his books, when he admitted he was a storyteller rather than a reporter.
He regurgitates Ukrainian statements unchallenged, such as the wounded Russian soldier being left to die in a field as Russia does not care about its wounded soldiers. That is actually projection because it is Ukraine that does that, Russia has a very good record of evacuating their wounded.
Even the digital Guardian is not worth the paper it is printed on, to paraphrase Sam Goldwyn.
Luke Harding? Know the name well. And I’ll have you know that that is the future Chief Editor for the Guardian that you are talking about. I look forward to the Guardian devolving into a sort of British Daily Kos under his leadership.
Harding’s wife, Phoebe Taplin, often appears on Guardian book pages either recommending or slagging off books concerning Russia, depending on which slant the book takes.
BTW, I see that the Observer may be sold to Tortoise media (Boris’s awful sister is a ‘journalist’ there). If that pans out, we’ll find out that standards can go even lower.
Though it is tempting to say standards couldn’t drop further, I do still think there are a couple of commentators at the Observer who are keeping to proper standards.
Unfortunately, independently of what you just said, I’ve thought their days are numbered. This is the final nail in the coffin.
Arnaud Bertrand is a good tweeter, the student asked a very good question, and Dominique de Villepin gave an excellent answer that I have nothing to add to or disagree with.
What impresses me most about the clip is how extraordinary it is for such obvious truths to be stated like this. Exceptions like this help to reveal the shape of the norm. The political and administrative class faces a crisis of legitimacy and responds by strengthening their narrative control. Fico and Orban can be denounced as quasi-Putinhitlers when they say stuff like this but Villepin? Hence I’d guess his remarks didn’t get much play in MSM. The point is the Western PMC is its nomenclatura in our increasingly Stalinist system. Alphabet and Meta are deputized by the political police.
The Western propaganda complex is much more effective than the Stalinist one, Soviet citizens understood that they were being lied to while still a significant majority of Western citizens do not. Also, the Soviet nomeklatura were the ruling class, the Western nomenklatura are simply the courtiers of the capitalist ruling class (and in some cases the rich themselves or their progeny). The Western media (including social media) is owned by a very small group of people, with many of them having significant linkages to the security state. We are not becoming more Stalinist, we are becoming concentrated capitalist/fascist, a very different structure; as “liberal democracy” is increasingly unable to contain and subjugate the will of the majority.
For example Thomson-Reuters, one of the big three major news agencies to all media outlets is owned by the Thomson family – possibly the richest family in Canada. Agence France Press (AFP) is controlled by an oversight board staffed full of French state representatives (5) and representative of private media (5). Associated Press (AFP) makes up the troika, and is owned and controlled by private media companies. Then we have the handful of people and groups who own all of the main media outlets (including social media), plus the odd state (e.g. the BBC). Given this setup it is easy to very strictly control messaging while appearing to have a diversity of sources. Same now also goes for book publishing, with even online book reviews being censored (I have personal experience of this on Amazon).
That’s not wrong. A few days ago a man named Matt Nelson self-immolated across from the Israeli consulate in Boston. He was rushed to the hospital in critical condition. Below is a link to the story in Haaretz.
Was there a whisper of this in the Boston Globe, my old hometown paper? Not that I could find.
If my search skills have not let me down, this is about as extreme an example of censorship by omission that you can find.
Of course, the Globe just piously pleaded for the Biden administration to ask that the IDF investigate well the killing of Ayesenur Eygi.
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-09-17/ty-article/man-suffers-severe-burns-after-self-immolation-protest-outside-israeli-consulate-in-boston/00000191-ff7b-d26c-ad95-ffff043d0000
Stalin industrialized a feudal country, redistributed concentrated wealth, and defeated Nazis. I don’t see your system doing any of that, quite the contrary.
Turley’s latest.
“A Better Deterrence”: Hillary Clinton Calls for the Arrest of Americans Spreading Disinformation
https://jonathanturley.org/2024/09/18/a-better-deterrence-hillary-clinton-calls-for-the-arrest-of-americans-spreading-disinformation/
Disinformation (contrary to official disinformation), misinformation (contrary to official misinformation), etc are mini truth words to demand official lies be believed and not checked!
Nice republic you had there, “our democracy”; a new state religion no better than the old, takes out all threats to itself!
I have my own B— S— meter.I do not need Hillary.I have never needed Hillary.
Old narcissists never die, they just pontificate away…
If spreading misinformation were a crime we would have had top of ticket Dems along with masters like Cheney, both Bushes, McCain and Graham sharing cells at a not so country club Feb prison. And that was even before Obama hit the gas on propaganda.
I despise HRC in general but she and Obama and the most of our intelligence services deserve to be dropped in a pit somewhere hideous for their work promoting actual misinformation and getting honest information declared false and misinformation.
It’s not new. Much of the controversy during Vietnam days concerned the “credibility gap.” And there have also been spells of speech suppression across our history, despite the first amendment.
So it could be the problem is a failure to teach history and protect history. In Orwell controlling history was a big thing.
In those days, people often knew someone from family or the neighborhood that went to SE Asia. They also learned some terminology.
REMF – so many of those went on to positions of, uh, authority.
Fragging
Body counts
Re Orwell, I think the quote was “He who controls the present controls the past; he who controls the past controls the future”.
https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/hillary-clinton-wants-to-lock-herself
Useful Idiots: “Hillary Clinton Wants to Lock Herself Up”
RE: Tupperware, I’m (kinda)sure PE shenanigans had a play in the bankruptcy filing but nothing in the article states as much. Anyway, when I think of Tupperware I’m reminded by this Airplaine! Scene.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=85T2vIV1N-k&t=55s
Their origins are a helluva story-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhrRRjgVfxU (58:33 mins)
The late queen of England was allegedly a big fan of tupperware, storing her breakfast cereals etc., in their containers. Clearly she was a much bigger buyer than realised, now they’ve gone bust without her orders.
Totally random but there are loads of things we plebs have not been told about the late Queen. Gyles Brandreth (who lots of Brits loathe for his toadying) was a mate of Prince Philip and thus knew something we didn’t and which he revealed after 8th Sept 2022 to promote his book: QE had cancer and did not die of natural causes.
I, being half Aussie, had already spotted something was amiss when using VPNs and seeing what various Aussie Doctors were speculating, in the light of these “recurring but not constant back problems” that caused the Queen to stop doing certain engagements. Aussie docs joined the dots. But the UK press still refuses to acknowledge her cancer – which that toad Brandreth blatantly stated in his book and which Prince Philip had told him before his death.
The issue is WHY is this covered up? It’s hardly up there with the Edward VIII Nazi stuff? This is probably more of a nothing burger than what was revealed in that stupid “at home with the royal family” documentary done about 60 years ago and which is now firmly stuck in a memory-hole thanks to the Royal Family. If anything, I’d be MORE inclined to support the Royals if I’d known that the Queen was battling Multiple Myeloma for several years before her death! BTW my mum just told me Gyles Brandreth’s daughter recognises his reputation as she was on daytime TV taking the P1ss out of him! Apparently she is also an MP. Hmmmm.
The queen had such a pampered life, to die in her mid 90s instead of well past 100 like her own mother, suggested to me she had some terminal disease. Even the alleged cancers of Charles and Kate have not been disclosed, just enough info to lighten their ‘work’ load considerably.
Whilst I am very wary of using the “family history” argument to argue that QE should have passed 100, I am with you regarding WTF is going on with the younger royals.
If I had the time and patience I once had, I’d be using VPNs etc to try to find out what cancers the King and his daughter-in-law have…..but to be honest I simply don’t care. We have far more pressing issues. Like getting out the total MORON Labour MP the people around here elected and all of his ilk, without letting in Reform.
I’d like my elected representatives to understand mathematics and not trade on alphabet stuff. If you do the latter I’m likely to get beaten up in our main high street by association.
“We have far more pressing issues. Like getting out the total MORON Labour MP the people around here elected and all of his ilk, without letting in Reform.“
Would this help, do you think?
I thought she deteriorated quicky after getting Covid about six (?) months before she died (she caught it, I believe, from Prince Charlie, one of the few who could get close to her. A masterful play by Charles, IMO).
I spotted that too but I thought I might be getting too “tin foliy” to remark on it in my original comment.
There are a lot of comments in the ether about the deaths of so many iconic individuals. To some extent these deaths should be expected, given the increasing presence of the media and the lifespan of “modern TV/film/etc”. However, I’ve been a tad suspicious that the sheer number of “people who were apparently in their prime” that have died in the last year may be proof of some of the COVID sequelae that NC has tried to draw attention to. I have hesitated to say anything (for previous tin foily reasons) but as a former actuary I confess to being surprised at the rapid downfall of SO many older people who I didn’t expect to pop their clogs quickly.
The public lack of “causes of death” in obituaries are especially noteworthy.
She did. She had cancer. This was disclosed but the type was not disclosed.
She also had a lot of joint pain, apparently. If related, it may have been a leukaemia or a bone cancer or metastasis from, say, bowel cancer.
Her mother made very old bones (pickled ones at that – her idea of a mixer with gin was Dubonnet!) but her father was a sickly man and died of lung cancer, arteriorsclerosis and Buerger’s disease (a peripheral thrombotic disorder). He died at 56. A <10% discount on her mother's innings with only 50% of her genes is testament to those genes (and pampering).
Isn’t dying of cancer in one’s 90s (late 90s at that) a natural cause? It’s not like she was a Downwinder or lived in Nagasaki or on Bikini.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/18/business/tupperware-bankruptcy.html
September 18, 2024
Tupperware, Food Container Pioneer, Files for Bankruptcy
The once-mighty kitchenware company has struggled financially for years. It says the direct sales model that fueled its success has become a weakness.
By John Yoon
Tupperware Brands, whose name became synonymous with plastic food containers in kitchens across America, filed for bankruptcy protection on Tuesday after struggling for years with declining sales and increasing competition.
The Tupperware brand was introduced in the 1940s by the chemist Earl Tupper, who developed a clean and durable plastic to create airtight containers. They came to be sold globally, propelled by a direct sales campaign called “Tupperware parties.”
But the strengths of that model became “weaknesses,” the company said in its Chapter 11 filing, saying it failed to develop a diverse sales strategy, including for online shoppers. It also blamed a “challenging macroeconomic environment” over the last several years.
“In stark contrast to the early days of the company, nearly everyone now knows what Tupperware is, but fewer people know where to find it,” Brian J. Fox, Tupperware’s chief restructuring officer, wrote in the filing. Only in 2022 did the company set up a storefront on Amazon and start selling at Target, he added…
Some of their problem may be that durable thing. While I cannot speak for anything sold recently, I can say that the tupperware I have purchased in my time worked as stated and lasted. Not something I can say for other storage products, plastic and silicone based, I have purchased and used. Some that were pricey.
It fits with my theory that refrigerators, stoves and washers that lasted decades may have doomed this current generation to appliances designed to have weaknesses that cause their destruction in five years or less. Don’t get me started on furnaces, water heaters, air conditioners, cars, tractors etc. Our corporate masters of the universe require that people need to replace their formerly durable goods at an accelerated rate.
That’s not new either. Cars were once expected to last three years and then you bought the latest model if you could afford it.
Most appliances on the other hand are quite simple and hard to make obsolete. That doesn’t mean the manufacturers don’t have “planned obsolescence” envy. The coming of digital does help with that.
There are some sayings about brand X or Y in South Korea (surprisingly, mostly clothing brands): these brands made clothes that were and are completely indestructible such that they lasted for decades (including 100% cotton…I have no idea what sorcery they used): mother still has items from 1960s that still look fine. It goes without saying that all these brands went bankrupt several decades ago.
I have Tupperware canisters handed down from my Mom and my Mother-in-law that I still use. Vintage 1970’s in orange, yellow, and lime green.
My sister had a friend who sold Tupperware. She had just rec’d a big order from a party and left it in car over night for delivery the next day. Her car was broken into and the Tupperware was stolen, along with some cash and music tapes – yes this was in the 80’s. She called the police and the officer who came to take the report stopped her when she was telling him what was stolen to ask “What is Tupperware?”
Google and the EU fines. The level of the fine was not only a “you cute, little rascal”-stroke on the chin but they can’t even secure the legal case so that the fine stands.
The incompetence, the malice, the corruption of these EU-muppets is abysmal.
“Satellite images reveal Sahara desert turning green”
Good news for the tribes people that live in this region. of course the Sahara used o be a lush savannah and woodland several thousand years ago and was filled with animals as well as people. Apparently this is part of a cyclic occurrence that happens every 21,000 years or so though I doubt that the present greening has anything to do with this cycle-
https://www.iflscience.com/the-sahara-transforms-into-a-lush-and-green-land-every-21000-years-70785
Money and happiness article does not discuss the link between the mind and the body. You are what you eat. I have found that my diet has a very significant effect on my mood and general mental state.
“What if the panic over teens and tech is totally wrong?” Anything will do as a distraction from the real cause of the mental health crisis (across all age groups, not just teens) I suppose; anything to avoid acknowledging that it’s a disembedded capitalism …
Craig Murray’s post is very interesting, and confirms several suspicions that I’ve had. First, that it’s for no fault of Galloway’s that the left didn’t unite for the GE. Corbyn and Galloway may get on fine on a personal basis, but in public, Corbyn does everything he can to distance himself.
Second, that there are several soft-Zionists in Corbyn’s circle who wield a lot of influence over him. The Schlossbergs come to mind. I too had a lot of respect for them in 2019, but the genocide did expose them.
Murray would like Corbyn to lead the new left party at first before handing it over to Andrew Feinstein. I think Feinstein is a noble man with a strong sense of justice, but so is Corbyn. Like Corbyn, I think Feinstein is a bit of an appeaser and seeks respectability. They both prefer the company of the likes of Owen Jones, Naomi Klein and Mehdi Hassan over less compromising figures. These are the people who are against the genocide, but will tell you that Hamas committed unspeakable sexual violence on October 7.
Springfield, Ohio. Former WSJ reporter goes to Springfield to find out what’s going on. twtr-X
I came to Springfield, Ohio, on Saturday, and in 72 hours, I figured it out: The story in Springfield is not about cats or dogs. It’s about mules and an alleged human trafficking operation, by a man called “King George,” shuttling Haitian workers to Ohio in unmarked white Chevy and Ford vans since 2019.
https://x.com/AsraNomani/status/1836395032472948769
Twitter link good but story link in tweet gets a bad gateway page. Tried Jewishjournal.com for the front page, also got a bad gateway page.
This is exactly the kind of story you’d expect to get the “bad gateway” treatment. Human trafficking? Americans don’t need to read about that stuff!
That’s strange. That link opened up for me here in Oz straight away.
Whilst I cannot offer an explanation as to why Twitter/X opens or does not open in different countries, I recently provided an explanation as to how the BBC provides “UK version” and “non-UK version” (basically it’s due to an embedded video that goes through BBC iPlayer which links to your postcode) and a VPN will not necessarily enable you to bypass their censorship.
I’ve reached the point that I automatically discount every link. Which is what the powers that be wanted.
I got the same front “bad gateway” Cloud Flare error. Just a coincidence I’m sure. / ;)
And from Charleroi, PA. twtr-X
Incredible footage revealing an operation in Charleroi, PA where Haitians are being bussed to and from food factories operated by Fourth Street Foods.
It’s estimated that 90% of workers are now made up of Haitians.
https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1836074626524533055
Try this archive[dot]md link:
https://archive.md/pXGWL
It works for me, but then the original did as well (same zone as The Rev Kev).
Thanks for the link.
Super important (IMO) Brian Berletic piece just dropped:
US War on China is a War on the Entire World
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHYSkm9Jl-g&ab_channel=TheNewAtlas
I don’t think this one needs parodying, necessarily.
My philosophy is, when goings get tough, confusing, or… weird, return to the 90’s.
Best enjoyed loud. If your ears are bleeding, you’re on the right track. If your boss’s ears are bleeding, take a bow, you’ve made it.
“IMF scraps mission to Moscow after objections from Kyiv’s allies”
Oh, no! The Russians must be bitterly disappointed. Which country does not look forward to a visit from the IMF with their helpful advice. What will the Russian Federal Treasury do now that their calendars have been suddenly cleared. I’m sure that the local knocking shops were looking forward to the extra business.
I can just imagine how those meetings would have gone. IMF staff would have proposed that Russia take on a huge debt load, and in return impose crushing austerity on their citizens.
Then someone would have pointed out that Russia has very little debt. This isn’t Argentina you’re in.
Russia then would have demurred and given them some of those cute doll souvenirs, then taken them politely back to the airport.
They’ve been there, done that in the 1990s with B. Clinton and the IMF “helping” Boris Yeltsin. / ;)
I’d have figured that IMF would have gone to Moscow to ask FOR money, since they seem to be the only ones with money to spare these days. /s
> Which country does not look forward to a visit from the IMF with their helpful advice?! What will the Russian Federal Treasury do now that their calendars have been suddenly cleared?!
LOL … #tooRight
Elvira Nabiullina must be laughing her a** off.
The Biden-Harris administration has been frighteningly brutal from the beginning:
https://www.reuters.com/world/us-keeps-missile-system-philippines-china-tensions-rise-tests-wartime-deployment-2024-09-19/
September 19, 2024
Exclusive: US keeps missile system in Philippines as China tensions rise
By Karen Lema and Poppy Mcpherson – Reuters
Summary
No immediate plan to withdraw U.S. missile system, sources say
Satellite image shows system in northern Philippines
Typhon can fire missiles capable of striking China
China, Russia accuse Washington of fuelling arms race
MANILA – The United States has no immediate plans to withdraw a mid-range missile system deployed in the Philippines, despite Chinese demands, and is testing the feasibility of its use in a regional conflict, sources with knowledge of the matter said.
The Typhon system, which can be equipped with cruise missiles capable of striking Chinese targets, was brought in for joint exercises earlier this year, both countries said at the time, but has remained there.
Typhoon is a U.S. Army intermediate range offensive system. It is deployed globally, fits in C-17 or C-5.
In addition to (Ground Launched) Cruise Missiles it can launch an offensive version of SM 6,
Typhoon launch fit and functions are same as Aegis Ashore, and U.S. Navy vertical launch system.
Rapid response to running away from INF treaty.
“Typhoon is a U.S. Army intermediate range offensive system…”
What I finally understand is that Biden-Harris have been determined to bring land missiles to the shores of China. China is to be militarily threatened as never since the Japanese invasion and marauding of 1931 that began the World War.
Importantly, there has been a stream of “ordinary” Japanese citizens who have come to China in recent weeks to apologize for the invasion. These Japanese apologies, even as the Biden-Harris administration is pushing Japan to threaten China again.
What madness.
So it’s sort of like having a destroyer from Yoko, just not as capable. But it does give a MDTF something to do I guess.
“Europe must prepare to meet Russia militarily in 6-8 years, says its new defence chief”
Yeah, this would be coming from a former Prime Minister of Lithuania. So what will Lithuania do if the Russians came for them?
‘As part of a broader civil defense initiative, Lithuania is preparing a national evacuation plan while also implementing conscription for school graduates.’
https://euromaidanpress.com/2024/09/09/lithuania-to-prepare-plan-for-mass-evacuation-in-case-of-war-interior-ministry/
So they intend abandoning their country and throwing in high school graduates as a sort of meat shield. That former Prime Minister of Lithuania must have been part of that planning. That’s good thinking, Butch.
Yeah. If it turns that way, though, watch how many of us follow the “elites” as they scurry to their nests in Florida and Spain.
There’s a small (though noisy, natch… and amplified by tptb) contigent of returned nazi descendants, come back the last decades from their storage incubators in north america and it’s formerly-european affiliate. Lots — all? we can dream… — of them would leave, but Lithuanians in the main aren’t afraid of another change in management if it comes.
The linked article from The Economist is mistitled. It should be “Too Much of a Bad Thing.”
More media “notice” of Andrew Cuomo returning to NY politics lots of chatter and running up the flagpole of a run to be NYC mayor. It is the perfect opportunity for a “Vote for the more competent corrupt Democrat: Cuomo for Mayor” campaign.
I shouldn’t be amazed or appalled anymore that human equivalents of slime mold like the Clintons, Cuomo, Cheney don’t really fail. They don’t even have to recognize their crimes and acts of destruction. They just keep coming back. Unfortunately haven’t been killed with fire yet (hat tip to Lambert)
There is a great Simpsons line when Sideshow Bob runs for Mayor as a Republican. Lisa says vote Quimby “this time he is the lesser of two evils!”
Hazards unleashed by East Palestine derailment are ‘the worst I’ve ever seen,’ toxicologist says Union-Progress
Not in any way intended as a rebuttal I am not a chemist nor are any of the people interviewed to my knowledge.
I watch this guy occasionally when it’s bed time, i think he’s doing important work even if it doesn’t exactly move the needle. He seems pretty fair to me, and he finds the most interesting people to talk to.
Take a gander, or don’t!
Order now, for just 99.9 billions!
Only if they throw in the amazing Ginsu knife and Boxcar Willie’s greatest hits.
Vox, Keating, How did Israel pull off the terrorist attack via devices…
Too much glee. Keating is all “gee-whiz, kind of a cool way of offing thousands…” Vile.
An important point that the morals-free Keating missed. There is plenty of information coming out about Bac Consulting in Hungary.
Fatto Quotidiano:
https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2024/09/18/cercapersone-esplosi-in-libano-parla-lazienda-prodotti-da-una-societa-ungherese-sito-in-down-e-incongruenze-sulla-ceo-tutti-i-dubbi/7697971/
https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2024/09/19/libano-il-nyt-la-bac-che-ha-prodotto-i-cercapersone-esplosi-martedi-e-unazienda-fittizia-in-mano-ai-servizi-segreti-israeliani/7699333/
The CEO has a double-barreled name Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono. Arcidiacono is an Italian surname, so Italian journalists are jumping on this story.
BAC (and note her initials of CBA) supposedly is a shell company run by Israeli intelligence. That doesn’t explain where the devices were tampered with.
Did someone in Hezbollah tip off the Israelis as to the big order of devices?
Did the Israelis intercept the data when the order was placed?
Given that many of the devices were for civilians, did Hezbollah make the mistake of using a credit card or some other normal business document?
Yet: How was the shipment intercepted? Who implanted the explosive charges, and where?
Yet: I’m inclined to think that the Israeli spies did not have the tampering done in Israel. That would be traceable.
Yet: The Hungarian company has no facilities for manufacturing, or so the CEO Arcidiacono claims.
I am still inclined to think that the shipments were diverted to some entrepôt like Cyprus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akrotiri_and_Dhekelia
Hiding in plain sight.
I checked out CBA’s link to Eden Global Impact, the San Francisco NGO — they have taken down their Who We Are page. Eden Global’s one traceable person is somebody called Lea Iman M. After that, I stopped going down the wormhole.
CBA , according to the Financial Times, has a degree in particle physics, went to the School Of African And Oriental Studies, as an LSE degree in something, has an Italian name but ran her pager transfer business in Hungary, and is said to have NGO expertise in humanitarian and social action programs. The FT didn’t spell out what a CV like that suggests, but any educated reader has to consider the possibility she is a spook. An honest person would have some ‘splainin to do.
Does she really exist, or is she just an AI artifact?
A search of the name pulls up images, but:
a) They may be taken or
b) This could be the re-use of the name of a real person.
In light of what’s happening in Lebanon, I feel like the flying public is at the mercy of TSA’s ability to detect rigged electronic equipment.
The guy sitting next to you on your US bound flight might be a Mossad designated Hizbullah/Hamas operative. Then, you will be minimized casualty.
But, rest assured (in peace), Biden/Kamala administration will initiate an investigation to collect all the facts and also confirm its support of Israel’s right to defend itself.
Italy splits. Italy’s Europarliamentary delegation splits over the war in Ukraine.
The wars in Ukraine and in Palestine are immensely unpopular in Italy. The parties are in crisis, as ever, with the Partito Democratico, under the leadership of Elly Schlein, the Italian AOC, getting all fissiony. Note in the article that, natch, two of the biggest warmongers in the PD are … women. Note Picierno.
https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2024/09/19/uso-armi-occidentali-in-russia-parlamento-ue-al-voto-picierno-pd-si-a-togliere-restrizioni/7699481/
This bears watching. Italy hasn’t given permission to use Italian weapons against Russian territory. Many Italians, particularly the center-left, have considerable affection for Russians. The Italian Constitution includes Article 11, which refutes war. Italians do take these things seriously, when they aren’t fretting about the EU-sponsored decline in living standards.
Of course, the EU doesn’t care much if it brings down the Italian government. I truly wish Italians would figure that out and act accordingly.
Not being such a great fan of woo-y folk music myself, i nevertheless felt this well-described our illustrious hosts when it came on the radio… Terrestrial!
Do uncle jokes count as dad jokes? As my uncle liked to say, AM is almost magic, and FM is f***ing magic!
Ah, moon cakes for the Mid-Autumn Festival. They’re were always a pricey item (just a few years ago, they were, like, $35 for four at Eastern Bakery—you do the math—the place to get them in San Francisco and incidentally 100 years old this year) and never the most healthful. (I always assumed they were about 10 million calories each, so the roughly 800 calories apiece stated in the article doesn’t seem too bad.)
And no one I knew ever ate a whole mooncake at one time, anyway—we’d cut them into quarters and eat them sparingly, like little culinary treasures, both because they weren’t cheap and because they packed a lot of fat and sugar. I guess red lotus paste, white lotus paste or red bean paste are the most traditional fillings but I always preferred the winter melon filling, which has a sort of shredded pineapple-like texture. They were (and are) a luxurious once-a-year treat.
RE: What if the panic over teens and tech is totally wrong?
Clearly there are other societal issues, but it’s not totally wrong, which I can attest to as the parent of a teenager who can’t put the devices down and who has been negatively affected by what crap is thrown at her by various apps. But it doesn’t just affect teens – it affects adults too as the article does briefly allude to.
In the 90s and early 00s, there used to be talk of ‘internet addiction’ when people couldn’t pull themselves away from their screens. That all stopped at about the same time as smartphone use came to be widespread and pretty much everybody started staring at a screen everywhere they went all day long.
Here’s a quick test you can take to see if you’re good Amerikan or a dirty commie;-)
https://natyliesbaldwin.com/2024/09/john-varoli-are-you-a-russian-agent-take-the-test/
I think what’s significant about the pager explosions is we’re witnessing Israel return to its roots, to a previous form. These are the sorts of terrorist tactics that Irgun, Lehi and Stern were known for. This is how they drove the British out of Mandate Palestine, this is how they terrorized populations well before the state of Israel.
And in all cases it was quite without regard to civilians and non-combatants, that was the point, to terrorize.
Recall that Likud, Netanyahu’s party, formed from Irgun. And Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party is openly Kahanist and in coalition with Likud.
Recall how throughout the 70’s through 90’s Kach and the Jewish Defense League targeted hundreds of Jews worldwide with all sorts of bombs including package and mail bombs. Recall how Yitzak Rabin was assassinated by a Kahanist. There’s a reason Kach was banned by the liberal Israeli society at the time, Otzma is just the same Kach snuck into the Knesset through the backdoor.
I think we’ll see these tactics being used against Jews and others who oppose Zionism. Probably Jewish Voice for Peace, Jews for Justice, Beit Zetoun, B’Tselem, as well as any politician anywhere who opposes Zionism. I suspect that’s the message behind these pager attacks.
As Zionist commenter yesterday said: “Don’t cross the Israelis” before going on to make disparaging remarks about other ethnic groups. That hate for others was palpable and important to note, as was the threat and approval for the method. That person is likely considers NC to have crossed Israel, wants to do something about it. Is probably reading this comment and nodding in agreement.
And as of the start of this semester JDL groups, which you can recognize by their black and yellow patches, have started patrolling university campuses across North America in an effort to intimidate anti-Zionist protesters. These groups are primed to put their training into action, clearly have funding, resources, and an escape route to Israel.
Once Israel resorts to this, how is it stopped?
“I think what’s significant about the pager explosions is we’re witnessing Israel return to its roots”
“The Hebraic clans came as nomadic herdsmen; their settling down took place in constant battle with the native inhabitants of Palestine, the Canaanites, from whom they took one city after another, forcing them into submission. But what they had won in constant war they had to keep by constant warfare…”
from Foundations of Christianity by Karl Kautsky (1908/1953)
Note: Even 3,000(?) years ago, the Jews had to drive out the native inhabitants, according to this account
They were never successful. Until 1948 and then only partially successful.
(By the way, a lot has been discovered since 1953. That text may need to be updated to reflect that we now consider the Hebrews to have become one with the Canaanites, that no exile from Egypt took place, and the 12 tribes of Israel are questionable since that was Bronze age and no evidence exists other than what it says in the OT and even what the OT says is conflicting. But yes, if we’re going by the OT as history it’s nothing but endless rape and murder and genocide and violent conquests and all sorts of convenient and questionable stuff that an apparently petty and immature god said which nobody else saw or heard…)
Kautsky was writing in 1908 – I was quoting from a 1953 edition.
Back then, he was trying to disentangle plausible history from myths, legends and outright falsifications. But of course you’re right about the more recent discoveries and insights etc.
> Global stocks rally after jumbo Fed cut FT
Interesting to see the 13 week treasury dropped 14 basis points to 4.6% just before the Fed Reserve made their announcement. And it’s stayed there. Another one of those and the Fed Reserve will be doing another 25 basis point cut.
Exploding pagers as war crimes is an interesting bit of sound and fury in an otherwise meaningless universe.
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/09/exploding-pagers-and-radios-terrifying-violation-international-law-say-un
Then again, one must consider the whole “god’s chosen people” schtick, a global collective gentile shoah guilt trip beyond Kollektivschuld, and more importantly the accumulated historical trajectory and its instructions; whereby, “Jehovah your God shall deliver them before you, you shall crush them, completely destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them nor show mercy to them.”
Due Dissidence guys, utube, ~ 17+ minutes.
Amazon Drivers PUSH To UNIONIZE With TEAMSTERS Support
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECnEKJNlAG8
At the Money: Can You Have Too Much Money? Barry Ritholtz, The Big Picture
If money is the root of all evil, it sure seems like you can have too much of it.
I tried this one out on a friend of mine a while ago: why exactly do we conceive of a “healthy” economy as one in which inflationary tendencies is the appropriate direction to orient? I’m no mathematician, or economist, but i do remember my mind getting fully blown out when it sunk in what Dr. Professor Math was saying about the infinity of numbers between 0 and 1 equal to the infinity of numbers between 0 and 2.
As to their discussion of “would you rather make $60k a year in a town where everyone else makes $50k or $200k in a town where everyone else makes $300k,” i’d probably take the former, not because i feel any great need or desire to be richest guy around like they infer but because a town like that is probably cheaper to live in from the jump.
Then again, i been self-employed for 2 years and ain’t turnt a profit yet so, in fact fully convinced i wouldn’t know what it looks like if it hit me, backed over me, and did donuts on my crushed lifeless body, so whaddo i know anyway. Wouldn’t matter anyway cuz i’d be dead i guess…
Hay mate …
Look being self employed or owing a business without lots of knowledge and experience is a fools errand, hence why most go broke in less than 5 yrs. On the other hand I have decades of knowledge. Grew up as a kid at the dinner table with business being the topic, 80s MBA, 6 businesses as sole owner or partner, now having the time of my life at 63. Retired in 08 and came back post kids grown up in 2017 and after a informative return to the work force found a great guy to saddle up with. Helped him grow his business from low quote affair to one of word of mouth only and charging for quality/value too clients that pay on time and happy for it.
Now I am spinning off on my own here and there for fun and meeting the people I provide a service too. The work and money are good but, the …. sharing of life with them is the … whoboy …
I’d say give yourself a pat on the back but your hand is probably too sore at this point.
Damn skippy. I was weakened earlier this year and nearly took a job offer to swing a hammer 50-60 hours a week (not as bad as it sounds, hammer swinging is quite the art form). Then my S.O. got laid off, and after a long annoying week of “shitshitshitshit” we both kind of went, meh, lets tear the house apart.
Seems to have been the right decision, all of a sudden i’m booked. So, busy, yes, profitable, see above.
Wouldn’t trade it for anything… Except maybe world peace.
Ah. Definitely world peace.
Oh hey also by the by.
That’s about the size of it.