Autumnal equinox 2024 brings fall to the Northern Hemisphere today Space.com
Climate
High temperatures despite La Niña? Arctic News
Planted mangroves fall short in carbon storage compared with natural mangrove forests: Study Straits Times
Seabed still being damaged in protection zones, campaigners warn BBC
What a Tunisian exodus says about the future of global migration Christian Science Monitor
Swiss voters reject biodiversity proposal in blow to conservation campaigners Guardian
Small populations of Palaeolithic humans in Cyprus hunted endemic megafauna to extinction Proceedings of the Royal Society B
Syndemics
Changes in memory and cognition during the SARS-CoV-2 human challenge study The Lancet. Challenge study. From the Abstract: “Memory and executive function tasks showed the largest between-group differences…. These results support larger cross sectional findings indicating that mild Wildtype SARS-CoV-2 infection can be followed by small changes in cognition and memory that persist for at least a year. The mechanistic basis and clinical implications of these small changes remain unclear.”
New COVID variant XEC now in half of states. Here’s what to know CBS. Commentary:
I’ve mostly pooh-poohed the rise of XEC for 2 reasons:
#1. Its spike is almost identical to the dominant KP.3.1.1
#2. I don’t think its advantage over KP.3.1.1 is large enough to make a significant real-world impact.But one aspect of XEC is noteworthy: The demise of N*.
1/20— Ryan Hisner (@LongDesertTrain) September 21, 2024
China?
It’s no longer glorious to get rich in China — it’s dangerous FT
China tightens military-civilian export controls ‘just in time’, experts say South China Morning Post
China’s gigantic hydroelectric dam has been changing spin of Earth. Here’s how WIOIN
The Warnings of Famines Past Nippon.com
India
India rules out joining world’s largest trade deal, accuses China of ‘very opaque’ trade practices CNBC
Who is Sri Lanka’s new president Anura Kumara Dissanayake? Channel News Asia
Syraqistan
Israel steps up bombardment of Lebanon FT. Commentary:
The Israeli Minister for Diaspora Affairs released a plan for Lebanon. He says because it’s not a sovereign nation, Israel has the right to redraw the map and occupy areas to allow it to prevent shooting into the country. This will be a permanent occupation. What happens to the… https://t.co/Fqwhkv2zTL
— Shaiel Ben-Ephraim (@academic_la) September 22, 2024
Israel Putters into Crisis, + Zelensky Arrives at Final Curtain Call Simplicius, Simplicius the Thinker
Ukrainian Special Forces Attack Russian Outpost in Syria: War Continues on Idlib-Aleppo Front Military Watch
The New Great Game
European Disunion
Talks on S-400 seen nearing a compromise Ekathimerini
Dear Old Blighty
London’s Ultra-Rich Flee the Threat of Rising Taxes Bloomberg
Leads with “pantygate,” despite headline.
British PM Keir Starmer’s wife attended two Taylor Swift concerts without paying a penny WION
Clacton man slams Colchester Hospital care saying it is the ‘worst’ Gazette. The deck: “AN NHS trust has apologised after a patient said he would ‘rather die at home’ than return to Colchester Hospital.”
New Not-So-Cold War
Military briefing: Russia ‘overwhelms’ Ukrainian forces on eastern front FT
Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians fleeing the country ahead of winter blackouts BNE Intellinews
Russian Strikes on Power Grid Push Ukraine’s Businesses to Breaking Point WSJ
* * * Zelenskyy on possibility of Biden rejecting his Victory Plan: that’s a horrible thought Ukrainska Pravda
Poland assures of its support for Ukraine, but “has its own requirements” Ukrainska Pravda
Danish Premier Asks Allies to Give Ukraine More Weapons Leeway Bloomberg
* * * With nuclear option unlikely, Putin struggles to defend his red lines WaPo
Why Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling on Ukraine sounds different this time Christian Science Monitor
Russia Should Worry: Ukraine’s Kursk Offensive May Not Be the Last Bold Move Kyiv Makes The National Interest
The Madness of Antony Blinken Joe Lauria, Consortium News
The losing strategy of underestimating Russia WaPo
* * * How to Make a ‘War Reserve’ Nuclear Bomb Progressive
South of the Border
Green Brazil? New Left Review
Spook Country
Domestic Military Deployments and the Limitations of Appropriations Law Lawfare
The Supremes
Supreme Court Lawyers Will Say Anything to Keep the Justices Happy Balls and Strikes
Antitrust
FTC sues insulin middlemen, saying they pocket billions while patients face high costs NPR
Healthcare
‘I Don’t Want to Die.’ He needed mental health care. He found a ghost network NPR
The Final Frontier
SpaceX plans to send uncrewed Starships to Mars in 2 years Anadolu Agency
Groves of Academe
USC: The university of lockdown Al Jazeera
Digital Watch
The Disappearing Videos of YouTube BattlePenguin
Imperial Collapse Watch
Extreme makeover, US Navy edition: See the new apartment-like digs on US aircraft carriers Business Insider. Commentary:
Here’s the size difference between USS John C Stennis & HMS Illustrious pic.twitter.com/DgOlYbSJbS
— 🇬🇧 The_Sub_Hunter 🇨🇦 (@TheSubHunter1) September 15, 2024
2024, A Year of No Significance Charles Hugh Smith, Of Two Minds
Class Warfare
Negotiators have one week to save US east coast from chaos Splash 247
Ancient settlements show that commoning is ‘natural’ for humans, not selfishness and competition Low Impact
Cloves: The Spice that Enriched Empires JSTOR Daily
Editorial: Did SC mean to ban Bible from schools? Of course not, but it apparently did. Post and Courier
To Understand Mississippi, I Went to Spain The Atlantic
Antidote du jour (DickDaniels):
Bonus antidote:
— trailcam (@Trail_Cams) September 14, 2024
Double bonus antidote:
For the next hour this is strictly a Moo Deng fan account.
Since we can’t think about anything else, join us as we do a deep dive on the wonder that are Pygmy Hippos. pic.twitter.com/4X7zjWXNuY
— Encyclopedia Britannica (@Britannica) September 13, 2024
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
THE NEOCON ANTHEM
(melody borrowed from Travelin’ Man by Ricky Nelson)
We’ve got battlin’ plans ’cause we’re the world’s cops
And we run the world
Our plan is real short since we’re so smart
We’ll give our plan a whirl
Our plan is pure excreta, and hyperbole
Nonetheless it’s a go
We prolly shoulda asked ROTC
Or someone who would know
Europe’s gas pipeline that got ‘taken down’
Our part’s not your concern
‘Twas a timely call but it may go wrong
Once the krauts discern
You can call it treason, maybe we would agree
But we’re into this fight
You’d be shocked at our plans for the Yangtze
And our creed that ‘might makes right’
(musical interlude)
We live on Cloud Nine, from here we look down
And we watch the world burn
‘We will have it all’ is our marching song
And we never learn
We don’t need a reason, baby—we make history
Fukuyama was right
We decide what we want and what will be
While you try to see the light
(Whoaa) we’ve got battlin’ plans
(Yes) we’ve got battlin’ plans
(Yes) we’ve got battlin’ plans
(Whoaa) we’ve got battlin’ plans
(Mmm mm mm mm mm)
(Mm mm mm)
“British PM Keir Starmer’s wife attended two Taylor Swift concerts without paying a penny”
Since Starmer was elected 11 weeks ago, his ratings has dropped off a cliff which you never really see much in politics. Of course finding out that in a very short time span he has accepted about £100,000 worth of gifts is not helping him any. So it looks like his wife is also on the freebies gravy train-
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/sep/18/keir-starmer-100000-in-tickets-and-gifts-more-than-any-other-recent-party-leader
Caesar is a grifter and so is Caesar’s wife.
But it is all within the rules!
The rules of course need changing.
And of course small beer by comparison with the Tories.
I wish I was well off enough to regard 100K sterling as small beer.
This has actually been a line of ‘defence’ by Starmerbots in the Guardian BTL comments, ignoring the fact that Starmer ran on the Mister Clean ticket, claiming to be “new management”.
Orwells pigs would be more accurate, but why anyone is surprised by these mendacious schemers is a mystery to me.
Murdoch paid Johnson millions.
This has always been an asymmetric question. Social democrats are forbidden by part of their potential electoral bases to accept gifts/bribes while, on the contrary, this is naturally accepted for the conservatives as fair business by their bases.
Most of the freebies grabbed by the Starmers defy commonsense. He has accepted suits and spectacles, plus an executive box at a football ground. She has accepted clothing consisting of both outerwear and intimate lingerie, plus the seemingly obligatory Taylor Swift concert tickets. All things that a couple of their earning power should have no difficulty funding themselves. It simply makes them look incredibly vain, shallow, and deeply insecure.
Jockey’s wear the horse owner’s colors. / ;)
Don’t forget the fact that jockeys are notorious for “fixing” races at their horse owner’s commands. As to why the owners do so, that’s another discussion.
Is that why Starmer wants to kill 4000 pensioners this winter? Because they have not given him any clothes or free tickets?
Here is a thought. The size of the hole in the UK budget is about £22 billion, right? And just today I heard that the UK has spent and shoveled about £11 billion to the Ukraine. We all know what liars governments are so I always double such figures given which in this case gives an answer of £22 billion. Hmmm.
And old people are a big suck on health care costs. Boris was happy to shed them by the tens of thousands “let the bodies pile up”. At least the psychos Starmer and Reeves have found a way to do it without a pandemic.
And absolutely unfit to be Prime Minister of His Majesty’s government.
I disagree. Given the state of governance around the world, he’s perfect for the job.
“His Majesty” does a lot of work. Like the so-called democracy of the US, there’s little to distinguish it from a dis-functional dictatorship. But I suppose I’m venting to the choir.
The grift definitely contributed but the kid-starving and Nan-freezing austerity policies may have done more damage.
Starmer’s Labour got in (with a smaller vote than Corbyn’s) by carefully offering no policies apart from not being the Tories. This let voters believe/hope they would be helpful. Instead they have shown themselves to be venal flag-humpers who want austerity and censorship. What hope there was for a new, happier life in Britain was rapidly torn up.
Careful watchers of Starmer pre-PMship will not have been surprised. What’s really surprising to me is how bad they are at optics, which is supposed to be there thing.
He’s possibly as inept a PM as Liz Truss. He’s made unforced error after unforced error, and had more than one blow up in his stupid face. The Diane Abbott thing during the GE was a good example.
It’s only a matter of time before he does it on a grand scale. Probably not as gloriously as Lady Lettuce, but his Nemesis is en route for sure. The only downer is that once gone, he’ll be replaced by Reeves or Streeting, every bit as vile as he is.
Old spitting image joke had puppet Kinnock saying that the Rose was a perfect symbol for Labour, as it’s pretty and nice smelling on top, but below that, it’s full of pricks.
Thank you, Rev.
What about his mistress*, a junior minister at the Foreign Office and former Labour Party official.
Last year, I heard about the domestic arrangements, such as no (more) working from home, so that the mistress would have no excuse to visit Starmer’s house, but, just before the general election, a former adviser to the leadership said there’s more than one mistress.
Hi Colonel, I am dying to know what the (*) footnote is. Or was it just *allegedly? :-)
Thank you.
Her first name is Jenny.
Who would have guessed!! Sir Starmer the stud! Next thing he’ll be making men’s fragrance comerciales!
Starmer Number Five? Is it as good as Zelensky Number Five?
Jenny Chapman sues Sunday Times journalist over alleged Starmer relationship; journalist issues apology and pays “substantial” amount plus costs to settle the case.
https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/19947018.baroness-chapman-paid-false-claim-affair-keir-starmer/
Thank you.
The rumours have not gone away.
Doughty Street Chambers carry ons, too.
You can call concert tickets grift but I just see them as the perks of office. Crowds light up when they see their leaders present and in a democracy you really can’t expect these folks to buy tickets to all these events with what we pay them. I know Jesse Ventura paid for his NBA tickets when he was Governor of Minnesota but I wouldn’t have cared if the owner had given him box seats.
All our politicians used to attend sports events for free. That was the norm but it was also part of what held us all together as a society.
Not impressed by outrage over the little things and even less impressed by voters who pivot based on little issues when the world is being blown up right before their eyes. I think this reflects outrage fatigue, easier to carp about little crap as opposed to reacting to the real news which deserves rent garments, weeping and wailing as appropriate responses.
I can’t tell if you are serious or being snarky.
If the former, well, hard to know where to start on how wrong this is…
Are we calling out the propriety of perquisites?
I think it’s perfectly reasonable to have public figures like mayors and such make appearances at public events like the community symphony or local sportsball teams. On the flip side, with power comes obligation, and so I would expect that public figure to be doing at least a token amount of glad-handing amongst the citizenry there, if for no other reason than to get a sense for the sentiment of their constituency.
Can perquisites be abused? Certainly. And I have no doubt that knowing when that line is crossed can be confusing. But if they are out in the community (and not hiding in their gilded sinecure), then the community will be letting them know.
I’m the kind of boss where if goodies come in, my team gets first dibs. When I do exercise my droit de seigneur, I’m explicit as to why. But that’s rare. True power resides in not actually having to exercise that power.
Perhaps this is UK / USA cultural difference but attending an event for free is what liggers do. It looks bad. Pay your way and support the culture, whatever it is. Noblesse oblige….
And I do not feel excited to see my “leaders”. I feel bilious and rage-filled at the sight of venal mediocrities.
I find this perplexing. In my line of work (fintech) there are strict rules about what gifts are acceptable, what not. We have conflict of interest and code of conduct policies, the whole organization from top to bottom is trained yearly on them and must pass mandatory tests to remain employed. There’s a corporate mailbox if you’re unsure of anything, have questions or are seeking permission, and a whistleblower mailbox if anyone wants to report improprieties. I’m pretty sure this is the norm across most large corporations and I know the Government of Canada also has similar rules. It would appear the British government is woefully outdated but last time I checked the Brits had cars and trains, even planes, what explains this discrepency?
>>>It would appear the British government is woefully outdated but last time I checked the Brits had cars and trains, even planes, what explains this discrepency?
MuchMost of today’s politicalbribesdonations and gifts would have been either illegal or suspicious fifty years ago, but the United States Supreme Court has shrunk the definition of bribery to where it must be cash payment for specific favors. Literal bags of cash and/or gold bars is almost essential. There has been a decades long effort to legalize corruption, which has been very successful.Wowsers, that National Interest article makes the Ukrainian Pravda look like Woodward and Bernstein.
I have been watching Dima’s videos and since the Kursk offensive petered out, Russian forces have taken Ukrainsk, parts of the Kupyansk front have collapsed, Ugledar is now about to fall, plus Niu York, Toretsk, and now the southern Zaporizhe direction is being threatened.
Then there is the big whopper at the end: a false claim that the Russians have not counter-attacked in Kursk. Dima has been talking about this for weeks, and all the mappers (DeepState, Suriyak) show Russian progress in retaking territory in that area.
Is this guy auditioning for the role of Bagdad Bob?
Truthiness (The quality of seeming to be true, even if this contradicts evidence or rational thought) was Stephen Colbert’s “word of the day” for the debut episode of his Comedy Central show (prior to his consumption by TDS).
we live in an era of Truthiness….if everything you read in your media, Linkedin, Facebook, in-person symposiums say X, X is reality unless made blindingly wrong (eg, Kabul evacuation)
Others call it “managed reality”
I came across a nice distinction the other day: a factual truth versus an emotional truth (this latter is something which is factually untrue but which is accepted as the truth by people because it feels true to them).
I saw one theory proposed that the Russian advances have slowed down in recent weeks because they are rotating fresh troops into most of the fronts, so battles like Toretsk and Chasiv Yar (where the AFU is suffering incredible numbers of daily casualties) have been dragging on. But Kurakhove and Ugledar are both being encircled, so things are not looking good there for the AFU, which may just be spread too thinly between too many geographic areas (especially with the Kursk adventure and responding to Russia’s feint around Volchansk). But the Great Z may still be holding some forces back for a surprise attack somewhere away from the current major battle fronts, since his biggest concern seems to be PR wins that will enthuse his financial backers about continuing their contributions.
Russian are rotating troops on regular basis. Pause in advancements may be caused by many things, but the rotation itself does not take too much time.
Gains need to be consolidated. All the mines left by the enemy need to be cleared, and defensive positions created in order to repel any counterattacks, and the whole logistical chain has to be moved forwards occasionally. Ammo/fuel storage, workshops, field hospitals/kitchens/bakeries/banyas/churches have to be relocated closer to the new front line once it moves too far. In a war of attrition you don’t want to be going too fast. Ideally, you would want to sit in place and let the enemy come towards your prepared positions.
All good points. And even in mobile warfare, when you know there will be a counter-attack, you may pull your attacking troops slightly back and prepare to meet the enemy with the firepower of your heavy weapons.
“Ukrainian Special Forces Attack Russian Outpost in Syria: War Continues on Idlib-Aleppo Front”
Nobody’s fooled. Everybody knows that this is really a US attack on that Russian outpost. The only reason why Ukrainian troops – who should be fighting in the Ukraine – were used is for reasons of ‘plausible deniability’. But that cuts both ways. There could be an attack on an American outpost in Syria and if the Pentagon asks the Russian about it, they would reply that it had nothing to do with them but must be ‘local resistance’ fighters. And Turkiye has their own vulnerabilities which Erdogan is prone to forget. What’s that saying about glass houses?
Re Russia news,
I miss seeing John Helmer´s pieces. He is always interesting, but has been quiet for at least a month. He is no spring chicken, like many of the folks at NC, so I hope his absence is not due to health issues. In his last couple of posts he was reporting on possible internal differences of opinion there in Moscow. Such things, written by a foreigner and for a foreign audience, may be a little sensitive to a country at war. I would surely like to hear news of his doings, and hope his absence is due to something other than his health. Anyone have news?
He posted that the bear was going on vacation. I assume he still has his dancing paws up in a deckchair….
Only this, from September 9: https://johnhelmer.net/the-bears-break-from-dancing-2/
Thanks, the fact that he had just come back from an announced vacation is what makes me wonder.
al Nusra (THS) is ISIS light a fully owned subsidiary of the US’ proxy war establishment. The budgets are classified to prevent the US taxpayer from knowing we have for decades funded the ‘establishment’ that did 9/11. The enemy of Iran no matter how brutal and horrid is US’ ally!
The president has the nerve to go “do 9/11” in NYC on 9/11!
While I agree this was almost certainly not achieved without U.S. assistance, the notion may not have originated with the U.S. One can imagine that the likes of Budanov (who seems ever the clever schemer) presented the idea as a quid pro quo — we’ll strike at Russia in Syria, you let us take some jihadis for some northern hijinx (or something like that).
I am curious exactly how these Ukrainian soldiers transited to Syria.
What this operation seems to point to is increasing entanglement of the two conflicts. There was already a report last October (perhaps even linked here at NC) that ~2000 Israeli soldiers were returning from the Ukraine. Then we had more recently the training of Islamists for use in the Russian theater (not the Bolshoi). Such entanglement, provided it is persistent, would seem to make resolution of either conflict all the more difficult, to the extent there is any such possibility in the first place.
Israeli soldiers were fighting in Ukraine during maidan in 2014+. The Israeli government officially supported the uprising, unofficially sent commnandos to train Azov.
Israel Backs Far-Right Coup in Ukraine
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/03/18/isra-m18.html
Interview with Delta, leader of the (Israeli led) Blue Helmets
https://thecjn.ca/news/kiev-israeli-army-vet-led-street-fighting-unit/
Notable quote:
I think there are additional articles out there showing how his particular group trained Azov then returned to Israel. Obviously, the operation was over, they’d done what they were sent to do.
Also, the Ukrainian drone force division was created and led by Israeli-Ukrainians, if I recall.
I think it comes down to fascists will support each other.
USC: The university of lockdown Al Jazeera
From the current issue of Monthly Review.
UARCs: The American Universities that Produce Warfighters
by Sylvia J. Martin
“The University of Southern California (USC) has been one of the most prominent campuses for student protests against Israel’s campaign in Gaza, with students demanding that their university “fully disclose and divest its finances and endowment from companies and institutions that profit from Israeli apartheid, genocide, and occupation in Palestine, including the US Military and weapons manufacturing.”3 USC also happens to be home to one of the nation’s fifteen UARCs, the Institute of Creative Technology (ICT), which describes itself as a “trusted advisor to the DoD.”4 ICT is not mentioned in the students’ statement, yet the institute—and UARCs at other universities—are one of the many moving parts of the U.S. war machine that are nestled within higher education institutions, and a manifestation of the Pentagon’s “mission creep” that encompasses the arts as well as the sciences.5”
Thanks for that information.
Here’s a student’s voice from Barnard College.
Due Dissidence guys, utube, ~12+ minutes.
Barnard Student Describes MAJOR CRACKDOWN on POLITICAL SPEECH
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCy7RJXeny0
adding:
AlJazeera’s West Bank bureau was shut down by the IDF yesterday.
Democracy Now. utube, ~12+ minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7cZoS1oLUU
Because it is illegal in “Israel”…
file under EU disunion:
Scramble to Tighten Europe’s Borders Shows Politicians are Playing ‘Catch Up’ With Public Concern
After Germany instituted new checks at its borders to try and clamp down on the influx of refugees, the Dutch government and Hungary followed suit with announcements that they would seek an opt-out from the European Union’s migration policies.
https://sputnikglobe.com/20240922/scramble-to-tighten-europes-borders-shows-politicians-are-playing-catch-up-with-public-concern-1120244427.html
Bye bye, Schengen Zone. Back to ‘Passport, bitte.’
Or, Halt! Ausweis!
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/view-of-the-checkpoint-charlie-border-crossing-between-west-news-photo/3159415
The Dutch and Hungarian demands are much more serious for Schengen. Germany’s revival of border controls = resuming random spot checks on a sample of border traffic. The spice must flow! Whereas the Dutch and Hungarians want to force refugees back into the transit countries (Africans and Levantines entering via Italy and Greece etc for Hungary, I don’t think they object to Slavs from the East but Belorussia et al. are using Syrian refugee waves as leverage with Poland et al.; Africans entering through Italy, France and Spain for the Netherlands; Muslims in particular for both countries) and/or erect a fortress wall.
Which is strong indicator that they are on the right path.
I like the bit where it says-
‘they have adopted a Russian-style law against NGOs’
Which in turn was probably modeled on the decades old American law against foreign interference. And here the US/EU is trying to interfere with the upcoming Georgian elections. Must be written in the International Rules Based Order somewhere that they are allowed to do this.
And the law is not actually against NGOs, it just requires them to register if they receive funding from abroad. Which, in a democracy, should not be an issue: if you are pushing for certain policy changes, people should know who’s paying for you to do it.
Instead of making such a hassle out of it, NED should just start creating international cover organisations for the purpose of hiding the money source.
FARA – Foreign Agents Registration Act, IIRC
The primrose path is the way with the US. Easy and dangerous.
“Extreme makeover, US Navy edition: See the new apartment-like digs on US aircraft carriers’
Life for those sailors is tough enough with all the deployments demanded of them to all points of the compass. So it is good to see that it has been finally realized that a few creature comforts go a long way. However – and you knew that there was going to be a however – if that carrier went to war all those comforts could work against them. Take a look at the image at the top of that article. I am seeing a lot of plastic there and if there was ever a fire caused by an enemy hit, you would expect to see a lot of toxic chemical smoke being spread through the decks. Back in ’41 when Admiral “Bull” Halsey took his carrier force to sea – and this was before the attack on Pearl Harbour – he insisted on stripping burnables from his carrier in case a war with Japan broke out and this extended to the wooden piano in the officer’s lounge. It made that carrier battle ready but also got the crew thinking of what could happen if they had to go into action.
USN carriers are surely getting bigger and better. I am waiting for them to build one with a crosswind runwaay.
I think that those sorts of carriers are called islands.
At the mouth of Manilla Bay was an American Navy fortress rock, Fort Drum. If an island there could be called the “Battleship Island,” it is no stretch of the imagination to call an airbase island a “Stationary Carrier.”
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Drum_(Philippines)
Correct me if I am wrong, I thought the many coats of paint inside a Navy ship burn both very hot and exude toxic fumes. I suspect Halsey’s orders were intended to serve notice to the crew that war was coming and war will not be comfortable. Unlike Halsey, I am not sure the u.s. Navy wants its sailors to understand or contemplate the danger they face in this time of great ships as great targets for missiles.
<"I thought the many coats of paint inside a Navy ship burn both very hot and exude toxic fumes."
The main problem was the transition from armored cable to PVC-jacketed cable. After the Falkland Islands war the USN made a major effort to improve shipboard damage control (which was mainly the result of WWII experience) drawing from UK lessons learned. NAVSEA developed a new cable standard for low-toxicity cable.
Most changes in paint specs have been due to environmental concerns. Storage of paint has always been an issue. It's required to be in a protected "paint locker".
As far as "great targets for missiles", it's just a continuation of kamikaze attacks from WWII.
As an old Destroyer-man we laugh at the fly-boys and how hard they have it on "the boat" (as they refer to it).
Thank you, I appreciate learning more about the efforts to replace the plastic cable jackets after the Falklands. However, I am not sure that I would to agree that current anti-ship missiles are just a continuation of the kamikaze attacks from WWII. I had the impression that missile attacks left a larger impression on the British Navy in the Falkland Islands war than kamikaze attacks left on the U.S. Navy fleets in WWII. I believe the impacts of missile attacks on naval vessels as demonstrated in the famous Millennium Challenge 2002 war game exercise and the impacts of missile and drone attacks on shipping in the Middle East argue for a ship lethality greater than that of kamikaze attacks on U.S. Navy ships in WWII.
It sounds as if you are knowledgeable about current military doctrine — is it wrong to think of large ships as large targets? After the Chinese submarine surfaced near the u.s. aircraft carrier in a war gaming exercise a few years ago I would have thought Doctrine might have changed at least a little. I realize there were many after the fact explanations, but as an inhabitant of the continental u.s. I found it disconcerting.
From a certain point of view (a.k.a. The Old School) the space on a navy vessel not used for engines, navigation or weapons is wasted space. It makes the vessel a bigger target, needlessly. It consumes more fuel. It makes maneuvers bigger and slower (see: target). And as you say, it’s probably a liability during a battle.
In the olden ships of the line the crew shared their living space with cannons and ammunition, then it was hot-bedding (three shifts, you know) while crews became smaller, and now it’s most comforts of the land life while crews can’t even maintain their ships at sea (or at port, come to think of it).
And, as readers of Patrick O’Brien will know, it wasn’t unusual for those olden ships of the line to set sail with a few ladies of negotiable virtue aboard to whom the officers turned a blind eye as it kept the crew ‘content’, and adds somewhat to the ‘hot-bedding’ concept.
Sucks to be a rating in today’s navy, I guess!
JImmy Dore, utube, ~14+ minutes.
Charges DROPPED Against Stop Cop City Protesters!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_FNI07Gqvg
That is some strong economy they have there.
Putins comment the other day that the US had turned Ukraine into a private military contractor is on point.
The only “economy” left is R&R and victuals for the fighters.
London’s ultra rich flee threat of rising taxes:
There is a story here but not the one Bloomberg thinks. The ultra rich non-doms don’t pay tax. That’s the whole point of being a non-dom. Their money lives “offshore” (like Apple’s cash, quite possibly in a UK bank but attributable to a non-resident company) and they pay taxes only on income remitted to the UK. So if the global super rich leave, there is a drop in luxury consumption and advisory services in the most expensive London postcodes, a drop in domestic servants, a glut of £10m+ mansions, maybe eveb a drop in benefactors for the right sort of charity; but any UK business they conducted will carry on after they leave and its profits still won’t benefit the UK. There’s no loss to society financially. Forcing these non-doms out changes nothing – except a reduction in the donor pool for Labour politicians in need of free threads and specs!
(George Galloway is on good form about Starmer being bought and bought cheap!)
The story is the domestic haute bourgeoisie. We’re lucky enough to be members (land, houses, Oxbridge, learned professions etc). As a class, we’ve been trapped in the UK. Shedding your domicile is hard and uncertain in UK law. Your family and cultural milieu are all here (schools, clubs, universities, social capital). All the local tax havens have a high threshold to immigrate. This is why HK and Singapore and these days Dubai and the Gulf are such popular exoat destinations. You could sock away a tax-free salary and retire back to the UK.
But now nothing works. When you come back, it’s more third world than your expat destination! Collapsing hospitals and GP services, terrible schools, VAT on private school fees, eyewatering University fees for courses that are barely taught in person and everywhere public squalor and decay of infrastructure. Potholes the size of cars and people who drive like they’re in Grand Theft Auto. And yet the government proposes to increase capital gains tax (hard to object but many have made huge gains on housing and won’t give them up…) and inheritance tax (agricultural land and private businesses are exempt but these exemptions are under threat).
I don’t have any capital gains (farmland hasn’t gone up) but there’s no way I am giving 40% of our family wealth to the government rather than my children. Not when the super rich will still avoid inheritance tax. There’s a real truculence among the 1% rather than the 0.01%.
But the tax reforms announced have now created a cast iron route for leaving. In future, tax will be by residence and non-residence for ten years is expected to sever all UK tax obligations. In the era of working from home, a lot of fifty year old gentry are going to sell up and move abroad (Ireland or Guernsey doesn’t even need a passport and has a non Dom system). Yes, their kids won’t grow up in the social milieu they intended but the tax savings will pay the increased costs and the children’s boarding fees until they finish school and then they can go to Uni in the US or Europe note cheaply than the UK.
I think Starmer is going to get a shock, how many of the upper middle class are preparing to quit the UK in early retirement because there’s no vision for the country beyond fellating the donor class and soaking the middle classes.
Much as I’m in favour of soaking the 0.1%ers, the 1%ers and the everyone who makes more than me-ers, unfortunately in a world of mobile capital, getting more tax money out of them is very difficult to do without doing more harm than good. This particularly seems to apply to those with deep capital reserves behind them, as opposed to those who merely earn very high salaries.
Its more complicated, as you suggest, by the reality is that the ‘rich’ aren’t really one group – there is a wide range of types and degrees of wealth, and almost all will do everything they can to hold on to it. So there isn’t any one single approach that can create a more equitable tax system and then direct that money into something more equitable and/or productive.
It seems particularly difficult in the UK, which is probably the most internationalised of all major economies, and that’s not even taking account of its vast range of semi-domestic tax havens.
The reality is that even if Labour were not led by Starmer, but by a genuine reformer, there are huge obstacles in the way to getting everything on the right track. By almost every metric, the UK seems to be in deep trouble – the only bright spot seems to be start up sector – London is still a magnet for some of the brightest and best around the world from what I’ve read and heard. The only question I think is whether the UK settles into a relatively slow and gentle Japanese style decline, or whether its just one bad decision away from a pretty spectacular reversal.
As a VC, I am sceptical about the startup sector. A lot of the recent London dynamism was Big Tech / Big Grift employment (We work, anyone?). In that period, the real technical entrepreneur dealflow in London-Oxford-Cambridge has stagnated. The big “the great and the good” funds like Northern Gritstone (Liverpool-Manchester-Leeds) and OSEM (Oxford) have raised a mountain of capital they cannot deploy (a billion odd between those two). The fees taste good though….
I increasingly feel that the UK and Europe are just one bad policy choice away from the brink, to the extent that I am considering selling up before it all crashes. Removing inheritance tax relief on farmland will produce a rush for the exit by all family farms. Removing inheritance tax relief on private business will do likewise. There are profound forces of disinvestment welling up in the economy. The baby boomers want to cash out and leave their children to clear up….
That’s interesting what you say about the startup sector – certainly not my area of expertise, but I’ve been surprised lately at what seems to have been a surge in investment (and a family member who moved from the US to London has said he had no problem getting very substantive investment). But its always tough on the outside to know what is a ‘real’ business and what is vapourware these days.
I would suspect that there would be a lot of buyers for UK farmland. It would seem a good hedge against other things going wrong, not least climate change. It often surprises me just how positive outsiders, especially in Asia, are about the UK, but perhaps that’s just nostalgia. I know a wealthy HK family who uprooted all their businesses and moved to the UK after the crackdowns in 2019, but are now reconsidering and are ‘scattering’ to various points, hedging their bets to a degree. I suspect they aren’t the only ones.
In an odd way, Brexit could accidentally save the UK simply by making it a lot harder for boomers to uproot to Europe. It would certainly slow down any exodus. Outside of Europe, the big problem is healthcare costs. I was in Malaysia recently, in Penang, a major expat hub, but many of the UKers (retirees and footloose digital types) who moved there seem to be moving on as getting health insurance is proving to be a very big obstacle for boomers who aren’t in the very wealthy bracket. Plus increasingly hot and wet summers are making much of SE Asia unattractive.
The world is running out of safe havens, for all but the very rich, or those with highly desirable skills. I’ve mentioned it before, but someone should do an index of the cost of an arranged marriage visa is for every country – it would be a good indicator of global perceptions of what country is most attractive (for Millennials anyway, most Boomers are probably beyond this).
From the few years I wasted in start-up scene, my conclusion is that if the “product” is the business itself, or the business idea, it’s certainly vapourware.
Of course, I also noticed that the ‘real’ business was actually selling your vapourware to investors, who knew it’s vapourware but were hoping to hype it up and make a killing when they managed to sell it on.
Its not my area of expertise, but one thing I’ve noticed from talking to people who are involved in tech start-ups is that the distinction between vaporware and ‘real’ businesses has become fudged as even people with very good, productive ideas are more interested in quickly boosting its profile and selling out quickly rather than engage in a slow and steady growth. And of course the buyers are often major corporations who are more interested in suppressing competition than developing new ideas.
To make it worse, I think we’ve produced a generation of bright young people who genuinely don’t see the difference between a productive business and a pump and dump operation. I’ve had some jaw dropping conversations over recent years with friends of two relatives who are fairly recent grads at a high level in physics/computer science. Very few of them seem to have any real interest in producing anything of real societal value.
Unfortunately for you PK, I can live in Ireland with my British passport. :-) And you still have a non-dom tax arrangement :-).
Or there’s Guernsey or the Isle of Man within the Common travel area. Or, God forbid, Gibraltar (Portland Bill with sunshine and monkeys). I could probably go to South Georgia or the Falklands too. :-)
Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of money sloshing around London VC but it seems to be mainly bidding up the price of too-big-too-fail “startups” with £50m first rounds. Actual businesses with positive unit economics are still having to bootstrap themselves. I am genuinely hopeful the Mansion House compact between government and pension funds to put 5% per annum into VC may change this though ….
As for UK farmland, it’s the most productive per hectare in the world and brilliantly hedged for climate change. Unfortunately farming pays eff all. The yield on a £7,000 acre is about £70 per annum rent, I.e. 1% (before costs like occupier’s liability). Farm it in hand with third party graziers and you might make £140 per acre if you max out the subsidies but you probably have a £70 per acre per annum cost / depreciation charge for fencing, hedge trimming, drainage etc.
You would need to be in intensive dairy / eggs / pigs to see big money from pasture land. Maybe £80k-£100k profit if you ran 400 head of dairy cattle on 600 acres.but that would cost you £4m for the land and another £1m for the dairy parlour and sheds and silos etc. So a yield of 2%!
Arable is a different game but again only at scale and industrially. And arable land is £12-15k per acre.
Our farm is a time capsule, unmodernised, near zero yield. I cannot justify holding onto it at no yield when I have a fiduciary duty to the rest of the family (care fees, school fees etc) but some foreign investor with plenty of liqiid capital will make a killing buying it, either destroying it with intensive farming and developing all the barns or rewilding it for biodiversity and carbon credits and destroying a thousand years of sustainable farming capital :-(
Anyway, I really hoped Labour might be better than the Tories (I had few illusions, I voted Reform) but so far they are worse. Petty, vindictive, callous, captured by Austerian macro and bought hook line and sinker by the spivviest of donors. Lord Alli FFS! He makes Lebedev look like Clement Attlee.
Galloway thinks Wes Streeting is waiting in the wings as the incubus of Tony Blair. I fear he may be right.
The only problem with being a non-Dom in Ireland is the price of actually living here…
As for farming, the economics are very strange – its surprising how many farmers still can afford to fork out what seems to be very inflated values for land. There is an annual report here from Teagasc (government research agency) on farm incomes, and its quite eye-opening. The average sheep farm makes around 12K a year. Dairying works out about 1k per hectare per annum profit (but its only viable over around 60 hectares because of the cost of equipment and sheds, etc). But you can get 2k per hectare rent from a solar farm, and around 10-20K per turbine for a windfarm. And of course there is the mythical ‘frontage’.
At the moment, only big dairy farms make serious money. But I think there could be a reckoning in dairying soon as there has been a recent near collapse in demand from China which could potentially reverberate around global markets for milk products.
Yes, export milk production looks shaky. And those big dairy profits are built on negative externalities. Fermanagh and Lough Erne is being ruined by indoor-housed factory farms for dairy. You barely see a cow in a field, they are all indoors and the fields are cut for silage or soaked in slurry.
What’s frontage? Irish term I haven’t heard….
BTW, my Kneecap obsession has not abated. The more I see those guys interviewed, the more impressed I am with them. They may be as “hood” as my opera glasses – Naoise is the son of a playwright and a librarian! – but they’re an honest and sincere and charismatic radical voice advocating for minorities and galige and proletarian unity. I’m going to post them some MMT books, that should further their career. :-) I can’t wait for a bilingual and scabrous rap about national accounting identities or the Cambridge capital dispute!
Start up of what?
the bezzle
Autumnal Equinox 2024 is bringing +/- 90°F temperatures to West Georgia.
In the Caucuses or the Appalachians?
Piedmont of the Appalachians.
To be fair, it got up to almost 90 in Batumi last week too. And humid, like the Cherokee County I remember as a kid.
‘Shaiel Ben-Ephraim
@academic_la
The Israeli Minister for Diaspora Affairs released a plan for Lebanon. He says because it’s not a sovereign nation, Israel has the right to redraw the map and occupy areas to allow it to prevent shooting into the country. This will be a permanent occupation.’
Sounds like the Ultra-Right have decided that as things are going so great for Israel, that now is the time to push out the borders for the long dreamed of Greater Israel. Unfortunately all those people in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq are just going to have to move as that is no longer their land. Israel’s Deity/Real Estate agent promised to them and put it in a contract. So may take is that Israel will do to those countries what they are doing to Gaza – bombing them and terrorizing the people day in and day out with the US supplying all those bombs. So, no confrontations for the US with China as Israel has a claim on all the bombs that the US produces. Tough luck for the Ukraine as well.
And then one day comes a big fleet of extremely evil aliens from NOIZ, destroying earth and killing all inhabitants, those with human intelligence, those eatable and all the rest. But one of the last humans¹ manages to enter the aliens’ flagship, trying to destroy it with his humble weapons – without any tangible success, excluding roaring laughter from the ship’s captain, who decides to answer one question from the last² human before killing him (or rather ‘it’, if you translate correctly):
“Why are you doing this to us? We haven’t done you any harm!?”
“Because we must. It’s required by our Holy Book, the NOIZ scripture, older than 3 million³ years according to your calendar. Some of our scientists pleaded for a kind of Zoo, saving a couple of thousand humans and a dozen apes, but our theologians were very clear: that would be a sacrilege against our central tenet: There shall be no living species besides you, especially no sentient ones. Exterminate all the Non-Noizists!
Would you rather die by beheading or vivisection?”
¹Of course, it’s only the Batman, who could achieve such a feat (without CGI)
²At this point really the last
³Not a measly almost three thousand years, like the Bible or Torah
Did Jill Biden actually preside at a cabinet meeting? Hillary never did that so far as I know and she is even more pretentious that Jill. Jill Biden or Edith Wilson, makes no difference. Now we have four more months of no president … government by minions … And the election to choose between no choice on this hand and no choice on the other hand. George Galloway had some choice words for KDH. A bit strong but not outrageous.
Who makes the obvious decision to tell Bibi that if he wants his war in Lebanon, the US will not be supporting his pretensions? Who laughs Zelensky’s “peace plan” out the door? Is there someone to say stop to the crazy that is the DC Bubble and Echo Chamber? My god, a banana republic at least has bananas.
‘Did Jill Biden actually preside at a cabinet meeting?’
Here is a thought. Suppose Kamala wins in November, will her husband be present at Cabinet meetings to give her emotional support?
Not sure about Hubby, but it’s certain her brother-in-law and chief advisor – Uber’s chief counsel – will be.
That’s carrying the concept of emotional support animals a little too far.
Does Jill Biden also have an astrologer to help her with difficult decisions?
Jill Biden? Isn’t that VP Harris’s job?
I think there was a recent statement that Harris has not been appearing on interviews and press conferences because she is very, very busy VicePresidenting.
Also, possibly, Joe might remember to be angry at Harris if she were to speak up at cabinet meetings.
Harris is not Joe Biden or, for that matter, a part of his admin, doncha know?
“President Biden and first lady Jill Biden delivered remarks at the start of a Cabinet meeting. The president implored Congress to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government funded and avoid a shutdown. The first lady spoke about women’s health.”
https://www.c-span.org/video/?538586-1/president-biden-holds-cabinet-meeting
https://x.com/POTUS/status/1837914761402442089
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG1Hlvgyo3w
Zelensky received The Golden Plate Award from the American Academy of Achievement for his contribution to humanity, for the ingenuity that can only be realized in freedom.
The American Academy of Achievement looked at Obama’s Peace Prize (“turns out (he’s) pretty good at killing people”) and said, “Hold my beer.”
“The Madness of Antony Blinken”
One of America’s worse SecStates on record. He may look mild and a bit of a Casper Milquetoast but reports are that he is full Neocon and arrogant to boot. In one way he is the ideal SecState as the present State Department is more warlike than the Department of Defence and it is the Pentagon that has to occasionally yank their chains t get them to pull their heads in. This being the case, Blinken is a perfect representative of the State Department.
God help us.
Per Scott Ritter: a few sane people n the pentagon passed on Russia’s back door tele-call about targets to be hit if Biden let US tech’s load targets in Russia!
Ritter is a little alarmist, but 72 minutes is about the expected duration of the “events” after which the “living would envy the dead”.
Harris would enforce those same “rules and norms”
How long do we live with joy( !) under nutcases who spend all our money on war and don’t care about nuclear war?
“How long do we live with joy( !) under nutcases who spend all our money on war and don’t care about nuclear war?”
A brilliant question.
Russia has no red lines in that it will NEVER use nuclear weapons in a first strike, no mater what Ukraine/NATO do with conventional arms. Russia won’t even strike the heart of the Ukraine government in Kyiv. Perhaps it is all for the best. On this same note, China has no red lines either. Paper mache bears and tigers both.
Fellow Ohioans —
I just signed the following petition. Please consider signing and even asking your neighbors and friends if they want to sign.
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/canada-pension-plan-stop-using-ohio-as-a-fracking-sacrifice-zone/
The Canada Pension Plan — which serves all of Canada outside of Quebec — is 98% owner of Encino Acquisition Partners — the subsidiary of Encino Energy that got the bids to frack Ohio’s Valley Run and Zepernick wildlife areas, plus several Ohio Dept. of Transportation lands.
We have enough problems in Ohio without funding the Canada Pension Plan by allowing them to further destroy our wildlife lands!
P.S. This petition is sponsored by Save Ohio Parks, an all-volunteer group that fights fracking in state parks and other public lands in Ohio. Consider checking them out and supporting them (I do).
SInce the question is way above my pay grade I’ll toss it to the commentariat.
Would an order to deploy US Troops to Israel/Gaza be legal?
The arms shipments have clearly been in violation of US Law ( Leahy Amendment) since the ICJ ruled that Israel is committing Genocide and they are also, as I understand, it a violation of several treaties the USA is a party to.
Since joining in the slaughter would be incredibly stupid it will have the backing of several powerful factions, however the Military is to some extent reality based and I wonder if the illegality of such an order would give them an excuse to say no.
U.S. Presidents have always been able to send troops into other countries to protect U.S. citizens and/or our interests. The people who do these things insist it’s legal and above board but historians always seem to differ.
Is it legal? Well, they’ve gotten away with it until now but now is suddenly a different place in the wake of the generals telling Biden that they can’t accept orders from him that would result in a massive military humiliation for the U.S.
What the generals are doing isn’t legal but there’s nothing anyone can do to stop them from not carrying out orders.
Thank god for the generals. The rule of law is nice but when it’s not working, it needs to not work for everyone and not just for some. Another mutiny or two right about now would be helpful in this regard, gets people to think a little harder about what’s going on or in this case, what aren’t they being told?
There is the War Powers Act:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Resolution
Sending ground troops to Israel or Lebanon is probably prima facie illegal, absent some authorization from Congress.
Deployments to Iraq and Jordan, or some aircraft carrier off the coast are probably covered by the AUMF back in the 2003 Iraq War/war on terror period. However, I think at least one of those finally expired. Someone with more knowledge or time to check can confirm or reject that. There is also the problem of legal hair-splitting by the executive branch – what is the definition of “hostilities?” Room for mischief.
From the Wikipedia link:
I think the bigger problem is that we have a Congress that is totally derelict in its duty to act as a check on the executive branch. I don’t think the Founders envisioned such a scenario. We ought to at least be having this debate in Congress, as the situation is more serious now than either the Libyan adventure, or the failed backing of anti-Assad rebels (Assad must stay!)
Yet all we hear is silence (chirp, chirp, chirp) from Congress. Not even Rand Paul is piping up.
But Lebanon is not a sovereign contry any longer, so any no man’s land by rights belongs to first to claim it… Finders keepers…
It also breaks one of Sun Tzu’s rules of war, that of not cornering your enemy…
That makes me uncomfortable, as much as the Democrat Party insiders engaging in an illegal/unconstitutional maneuver to functionally remove the sitting president from power and pull a big con on the American people.
Illegal/unconstitutional is illegal/unconstitutional, no matter who does it, for what purpose. Military olpenly defying the legal authority, even if we might like it for now, is still another blow against the constitutional order. It wasn’t long ago that the same military defied president’s orders to vacate Syria and dragged feet in Afghanistan. I did read somewhere that, had Kennedy not pulled off the deal with Khrushchev, the generals would have invaded Cuba on their own accord with or without presdient’s order. (Whether that is factually true is not relevant in this case: the counterfactual, what might have happened if they did do what they want to do, is the important part in this context). I will confess that I wish the admiral commanding the 6th Fleet pretended that he didn’t hear orders from McNamara (and implicitly, LBJ sitting next to him) and bombed the family blog out of the ITF after USS Liberty was attacked.
Wowsers, that USS John C Stennis would make quite a home for the marine wildlife at the bottom of some sea, like say, the South China Sea? Excepting for the reactors, of course. We are led by lunatics.
Nuclear reactors might be an issue were that the case.
Isn’t that kinda the origin of SpongeBob SquarePants? Their location was at the bottom of Bikini Atoll.
“It’s no longer glorious to get rich in China — it’s dangerous”
A rationale for why China in 2023, was 32% larger in GDP than the entire European Union:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1pOZu
August 4, 2014
Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for China and United Kingdom, 1977-2023
(Percent change)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1pOZz
August 4, 2014
Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for China and United Kingdom, 1977-2023
(Indexed to 1977)
Re Commoning, Low Impact – I appreciate the reminder that there were thousands of years between the rise of agriculture and, effectively, the takeover of human societies by the worst of us. I happen to believe it’s explained best by us accidentally domesticating ourselves. We bred the will to fight and be masters of our own destinies out of our animals, but the same pressures can work in reverse.
Precisely.
Haven’t read the comments yet, busy in the garden. However, loved the link on how to download videos on Utoob. Been having some trouble on Ytoob lately when I want a Michael Hudson to study for example. I’ll d’load the video for in-depth analysis later.
Skimming the list from the The Disappearing Videos of YouTube article, I found the usual suspects. Vaxx debates, protestors, anti(anything) documentaries, etc. One was IS KAMALA HARRIS’ HUSBAND CONNECTED TO SMARTMATIC/DOMINION VOTING SYSTEMS?!
So, as you can see, I found it on Rumble. It’s a doozy. Clear documentation that K. Harris’ husband has been on the board of USA’s largest voting machine companies since 2014. Now aint that sumpin’? Maybe I’ll find the story in the NYT /s
The cute pygmy hippo born in Thailand’s name, Moo Deng, literally translates as Moo = pig, & Deng = red…
>Negotiators have one week to save US east coast from chaos<
That is a strong statement. Nonetheless, this time might be different. If the ILA strike next week, Biden/Harris can’t be seen interfering as Biden did against the RR workers in 2022, only a month before the election, especially given Harris’ comments on the need for strong unions.
But chaos prior to the election is too risky. I expect the strike will not happen, but if it does, team Biden/Harris will act behind the scenes and get a court injunction, under a national emergency, ordering a cooling off period. They will distance themselves from the injunction, support the workers, and the ILA. And wait until the election is over, and likely trash the workers.