New Zealand to nearly triple tax on international tourists Aljazeera
#COVID-19
Covid levels right now: pic.twitter.com/8jYtjUyTAJ
— Pat Just Pat 🍉 (@PatTheSocialist) September 2, 2024
Beyond Paxlovid: The Urgent Need for Better Meds Jessica Wildfire (fk)
If you get challenges about mask wearing, this offers an alternate response to “It’s an asshole detector”:
You can always start masking again, especially on planes, in trains and in classrooms. Back to school is a great time to! https://t.co/0VWM2nshPz pic.twitter.com/wUgEDYikat
— 🍉 Dr. Thrasher still cares about Covid & Gaza🔻 (@thrasherxy) September 2, 2024
Climate/Environment
Carbon projects are projects of death World Rainforest Management (Micael T)
Pilot plant demonstrates iron-based hydrogen storage feasibility TechXplore (Chuck lL)
China?
Taiwan to purchase over 1,000 additional Stinger missiles amid increased Chinese threat Economic Times
China’s bulging commodity stockpiles show depth of economic woes Mining News
Record Rainfall Spoils Crops in China, Rattling Its Leaders New York Times
Myanmar
China Faces Fierce Online Backlash in Myanmar After Threat Against Ethnic Army Irriwaddy
South of the Border
Major power outage hits Venezuela; Maduro government blames ‘sabotage’ Associated Press
Exclusive: US seizes Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro’s airplane in the Dominican Republic CNN
Africa
Africa’s forever war: how Sudan descended into hell — again The Times
Floods in Nigeria kill hundreds and wash away farmland, as millions face famine South China Morning Post
European Disunion
Battered and unloved, Germany’s coalition likely to hang on after regional losses to far right Reuters
State elections in Thüringen and Saxony deliver another humiliating defeat for the sclerotic and incapable German political establishment Eugyppius. Micael T: “Symbolic humiliation yes, but will this be felt around the kitchen table? See France and U.K. for examples how the real powers make sure nothing gets better.”
Nothing new in the East Nachdenkseiten via machine translation (Micael T)
Volkswagen warns of plant closures in Germany, citing ‘extremely tense’ situation CNBC (Kevin W)
The German problem? It’s an analogue country in a digital world Guardian (Kevin W)
Macron sweats under growing pressure to appoint prime minister Politico
Poland’s Call for Reparations: A Continuing Debate with Germany Poland Daily 24
Gaza
Striking unions join protest as thousands take to streets for hostage deal Times of Israel. But: “…court rules strike is political in nature and must end at 2:30 p.m.”
Israel’s Blood-soaked Cabinet Won’t Stop Unless Sunday’s Powerful Protests Continue Haaretz
Israeli Air Force Official: Without US Aid, We Couldn’t Fight Gaza Beyond Few Months Haaretz (Robin K)
UK suspends 30 arms exports to Israel over Gaza war crimes concerns Middle East Eye. Symbolic but better than nothing
Houthi drones, missiles strike 2 ships in Red Sea, maritime agencies report Arab News
Look how Israeli settlers send their children to take over the Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron, the same mosque that the deranged settler Baruch Goldstein went into twenty years ago and opened fire at worshippers as they prayed dawn prayers.
They’re literally sending their kids to… pic.twitter.com/siiZqZIAT3
— Mariam Barghouti مريم البرغوثي (@MariamBarghouti) September 2, 2024
New Not-So-Cold War
Beluga whale alleged to be Russian ‘spy’ found dead in Norway Guardian
The Ukrainian Armed Forces began to retreat from the Nevelsky cauldron! Marat Khairullin
Ukraine – U.S. ‘Experts’ Throw The Towel Moon of Alabama
Ukrainians Flee – Russia Storms Pokrovsk Daniel Davis, YouTube. Good battlefield wrap with a lot of attention to strategic implications.
WHY THE LACK OF TRAINING IS UKRAINE’S ACHILLES HEEL Larry Johnson
Russia to revise nuclear doctrine amid Western actions in Ukraine conflict TurkiyeToday
Footage Shows Russian Army Capturing Leopard 2A6 and M1A1 Abrams Tanks Near Avdiivka Military Watch
No arrest for Putin as he arrives in Mongolia Euronews (Kevin W)
Syraqistan
Pakistan’s Malnutrition Crisis: Costing GDP And Impacting Health Amid Economic Struggles NewsX
New allegations against MbS go unchallenged by the west The Cradle
Turkiye
Turkey Bids to Join BRICS in Push to Build Alliances Beyond West Bloomberg
But: Geopolitical Developments: Middle East, Russia Mark Wauck. Micael T: “It is a bit convenient that Turkey applies when Russia has proposed a halt to new members. Another Erdogan-stunt to squeeze F-35s out of the US?”
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Dutch prime minister bans wireless devices from meetings to ward off espionage Intelews
Imperial Collapse Watch
Trickle Down BRICS Rachel Donald (Micael T). *Sigh*. BRICS cheerleaders continue to show a lack of understanding. The use of a blockchain system is a gimmick. This scheme is bilateral trade, which all of these countries can and are engaging in now. The issue is that the result just about never winds up being balanced trade. The country running a trade surplus winds up holding currency of the deficit country, which winds up being an economic deadweight if the surplus cannot find or does not want to hold much in the way financial investments in the deficit country. Would you want to hold a huge stash or Turkiye lira or Bangladesh taka? This is why Michael Hudson keeps stressing that it’s critical for these countries need a mechanism for addressing trade and currency imbalances, and advocates for a Keynes bancor type system.
On top of that, discussions like this greatly overstate the importance of trade in the US reserve currency status. The overwhelming majority of foreign exchange transactions, over 95%, are investment, not trade related. Yes, steering clear of dollar transactions for trade is critical for escaping the abusive US sanctions regime. But that is not tantamount to dethroning the dollar.
EU Commission chief pledges to accelerate EU enlargement Anadolu Agency
Trump
RFK Jr.’s name on ballot poses danger for Trump in key states The Hill
Kamala
Harris doesn’t get convention bounce, but widens gap with women: POLL ABC
Kamala Harris woos Savannah, but can she win Georgia and Harris rally stories: Personal missions, reflections and inspiration and Slideshow: Harris rally at Savannah’s Enmarket Arena The Current. KLG:
The cities of Atlanta, Savannah, Macon, Athens, and Augusta will vote Harris-Walz. Also Brunswick, which is on the coast, and Albany in the rural deep southwest Georgia. Yard signs are popping up. Biden-Harris would never have gotten this level of apparent enthusiasm. Previously I had seen only one Biden-Harris sign in my bluest-of-blue island precinct surrounded by a sea of red. Now there are a dozen Harris signs in the neighborhood. The question is whether this will be enough to counteract votes from the northern arc of Greater Atlanta, most of the outlying southern Atlanta suburbs, all of North Georgia, and the bulk of South Georgia where the largely Black/African American majority and near-majority counties are small in population but large in land area.
Kamala Harris is called out for sneaky tactic to avoid answering questions as she boards plane Daily Mail (Li)
Kamala STUMBLES Again After HUMILIATING Misstep at Rally Devory Darkins, YouTube. Biden looks like he got some fresh Botox or filler…..
Biden
Hunter Biden’s addiction to return to limelight in second criminal trial The Hill
Our No Longer Free Press
U.S. universities spent the summer strategizing to suppress student activism. Here is their plan. Mondoweiss (guurst). Important.
Why Musk’s Lawsuit Against Media Matters . . . Matters Jonathan Turley
This is an utterly shocking account from journalist Sarah Wilkinson of her recent violent arrest by 16 counter-terrorism police, several masked, at 7.30am.
They smashed up, or stole, many of her belongings; emptied an urn of her mother's remains over the floor; have denied her…
— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) September 2, 2024
AI
AI lending could make finance deals even more unfair for women—here’s how this can be avoided TechXplore
California lawmakers approve legislation to ban deepfakes, protect workers and regulate AI Associated Press
The Bezzle
Governments often struggle with massive new IT projects Iowa Capital Dispatch (Robin K). Private sector too. The rule of thumb I heard from two regarded as top Wall Street CIOs back in the day was 80% of large IT projects fail. But they are killed before officially failing so generally not registered outside the tech community.
Class Warfare
Concern over housing costs hits record high across rich nations Financial Times
Meat and Poultry Is Wildly Expensive Now — and It Could Be Due to Price Fixing Angry Bear
Dollar General warns poorer US consumers are running out of money Financial Times. From over the weekend, still germane
How a leading chain of psychiatric hospitals traps patients New York Times (Dr. Kevin). Paul R flagged:
Acadia Healthcare is holding people against their will to maximize insurance payouts, a Times investigation found…. Acadia has lured patients into its facilities and held them against their will, even when detaining them was not medically necessary
The Economist just published a deeply-researched story about car bloat, and it's very, very damning:
"For every life that the heaviest 1% of SUVs and trucks save, there are more than a dozen lives lost in other vehicles."
Well worth your time: https://t.co/eHalcNkiBX pic.twitter.com/1RBfAooX6V
— David Zipper (@DavidZipper) September 1, 2024
Antidote du jour (Ann M). That goose is a natural. Knows to pose in the hot spot.
And a bonus:
Such a cute smile!pic.twitter.com/ai0Z1kuMzL
— aww (@omgaww) September 2, 2024
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
165 comments
Comments are closed.
STRANGERS IN MONTANA!
(melody borrowed from The Rose Of Alabama by Jack Dorsey, as performed by Tom Roush)
There’s now a modern Bozeman Trail
And our whole state is up For Sale
A ranch here is their Holy Grail
There’s strangers in Montana!
Californians have ruined our Montana
They’re pushy and they’re nosy in new boots and a bandanna
What makes them all suppose we needed commies in Montana?
They land with millions in the bank
And sip on Sovietgnon Blanc
They wear short shorts and think they’re swank
There’s strangers in Montana!
Californians have ruined our Montana
They’re pushy and they’re nosy in new boots and a bandanna
What makes them all suppose we needed commies in Montana?
Our quiet towns transmogrify
The local folk are mystified
Our shepherds can’t afford their pie
There’s strangers in Montana!
Californians have ruined our Montana
They’re pushy and they’re nosy in new boots and a bandanna
What makes them all suppose we needed commies in Montana?
They bring that Democratic sleaze
And sixteen kinds of sex disease
They move in anywhere they please
There’s strangers in Montana!
Californians have ruined our Montana
They’re pushy and they’re nosy in new boots and a bandanna
What makes them all suppose we needed commies in Montana?
They marvel at a mountain spring
They marvel at most everything
Their politics is too left wing
There’s strangers in Montana!
Californians have ruined our Montana
They’re pushy and they’re nosy in new boots and a bandanna
What makes them all suppose we needed commies in Montana?
I’m born and raised in Kalispell
The Flathead country I know well
My hometown’s now financial Hell
There’s strangers in Montana!
Californians have ruined our Montana
They’re pushy and they’re nosy in new boots and a bandanna
What makes them all suppose we needed commies in Montana?
They can’t square dance and do not pray
They ask us why we stack up hay
We tell them about Paraguay
There’s strangers in Montana!
Californians have ruined our Montana
They’re pushy and they’re nosy in new boots and a bandanna
What makes them all suppose we needed commies in Montana?
As a Montanan, I’ve got pretty mixed feelings about this one. Are you from here? The Kalispell/Flathead reference makes me think maybe so. But then, an actual Montanan would be aware that we’ve always had one Dem and one Repub Senator, and that we’ve passed the Governorship back and forth between the two parties – meaning your line about bringing the “Democratic sleaze” is fairly nonsensical. We banned cyanide heap-leach mining and legalized recreational marijuana via Citizen Initiative, both of which are pretty “left-wing,” so tarring us as a bunch of conservative reactionaries is pretty off-the-mark. We do, however, have no use for Californians. That part is entirely accurate, but it’s not because of their politics, it’s because they drive up everyone’s property prices, and therefore taxes, and because they drive like a-holes and fill up all of the rivers and trails that used to be places where you could be relatively alone with Nature. They are gentrifiers, in a word.
Am I going way to deep on the lyrics to a silly parody song? Probably, but I get pretty defensive when people from other places look at the electoral college map and think they understand the politics of my state.
Silly? Silly, you say? I’ll have you know this is the anthem of the Butte-Silver Bow Continental Divide Division. Sacramento is doomed . . .
This pilloring of frankly hapless equity refugees who have recently been driven out of their homes in Cali after the mortgage closes, just has to stop.
Most were frog-marched in a trail of tiers back east in search of a better life and a lot more abode for the buck, can we really pin the tale on these unfortunates?
Okay, guys, time to settle this like real men do in Montana. That’s right, a winner-take-all cherry pit spitting contest. (Flathead cherries, of course, since nothing but the best will do.)
Maybe they want to be dental floss tycoons.
It’s a lonely life, dental floss. . . .
(Ah, but if only Margot Kidder were still with us so she could do a properly bi-wing-partisan in-depth report!)
Raisin’ it up;
Waxin’ it down…
Of course we always knew the Medicare negotiations for prescription drugs was a sham. And this is limited to 10 of the 200 most often prescribed drugs and won’t take effect until 2026.
US will still pay at least twice as much after negotiating drug prices
“The U.S. sees value” why doesn’t Stacie Dusetzina say “Pharma and their paid off politicians see value? I wonder who is funding her “research”? And Kamala is campaigning on this rubbish.
Nice goose!
‘Mariam Barghouti مريم البرغوثي
@MariamBarghouti
Look how Israeli settlers send their children to take over the Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron, the same mosque that the deranged settler Baruch Goldstein went into twenty years ago and opened fire at worshippers as they prayed dawn prayers.
They’re literally sending their kids to annex and takeover Palestinian spaces, even the most sacred- places of worship.
Here are soldiers also participating in the forcible takeover of the mosque which has been closed off from Palestinians at gun point for the last days.
What a deranged society.’
There are several reasons to send kids. Kids are stupid. By that I mean that they do not question what they are doing and only want to look good in front of their friends. For the settlers that sent them, this is teaching them what to do when it comes time to take all of the West bank. I have no doubt that they are ready to commit violence against others, especially unarmed Palestinians. But will these kids be serving in the IDF when they get old enough? Or will they say that they are too busy studying. That is, when they are not raiding mosques under the protection of the IDF.
Sparta and Helots. We’ll see if that model still works.
It’s kinda like watching an episode of Peaky Blinders, here’s how intergenerational family crime becomes legitimized.
The German problem? It’s an analogue country in a digital world Guardian (Kevin W)
You can always trust The Guardian for bringing the wrong analysis in timely fashion. Don’t you?
The first problem Elliot identifies in Germany (hence the most important) is, apparently some propensity to vote for “extremist parties”.
The second line of the argument has some more truth to it, yet with what in my opinion is a wholly erroneous analysis on the causes, hence mistaken on the solutions. Elliot says with good reason that the German economy relies heavily on heavy energy-intensive industries and is it so loosing competitive advantage because the Ukraine war-induced energy shock and because China (not to mention the US where many companies might supposedly migrate). Thus Elliot’s solution would be to stop being sclerotic and move all business to AI, as the UK is doing.
It is interesting how the author forgets all about the US, the main culprit of the Ukraine war (almost certainly of the NS2 sabotage too as per Sikorsky) and the beneficiary from both energy exports and possible relocation of some German industries. An alternative solution for Germany might be for those extremist parties (this explains the mention of these in the first place) to normalize back relationships with Germany and return to business as usual instead of a very lousy AI shift which brings very little on added value and cannot replace stuff (the real things). But this is of course the unthinkable and Elliot is not going to suggest such a thing.
It’s also incredibly stupid. I mean, isn’t running the policy of shifting “unprofitable” manufacturing to China and other countries how West ended up in the place where it is now? But I guess we will double down, as always.
i always say when a free trader brings up efficiency, i say “efficient for whom”?
I almost did a spit-take with my coffee when the author recommended that Germany follow the example of those two shining models of 21st century economic development – the UK and the US!
There are a number of laugh-out-loud “analyses” of what’s wrong with the West in today’s Links. Very entertaining.
These guys and gals want us all in their road to Perdition and if someone disagrees is labelled extremist if not sent straight away to prison.
My laugh for the day was that Germany was not using enough AI in their industries. This figure –
“The US and the UK have 5.22 AI startups for each 100,000 inhabitants; Germany has 1.9.”
-sounds more than a little dubious. That equates to about 18,000 AI startups in a population of 350 million. That seems to be more than a little overkill given that it doesn’t work all that well. Germany deserves credit for not buying into all the hype if those numbers are accurate.
I love the metric Elliot cites for success:
Why not cut to the chase and list the dollars invested in AI ventures with the expected returns to be extracted before the bubble collapses? “Germany is behind on bezzle extraction.”
There was a sad image published earlier this year showing the assembled workers of a high-precision industrial pipe factory, carrying torches while accompanying the last product they created before the factory was shut down. Energy too expensive, thanks to the US natural gas scheme. Factories like that rely on knowledge and experience that is encoded into the combination of the facilities and the people. They can never reopen. And no AI will ever encode such knowledge in the foreseeable future. Had they been able to stay open, there would probably come a time when few others in the world knew how to create their products. High profit would be the reward. Instead, we are told, it’s all about being one more entrant in the latest fads.
An Analog Guy in a Digital World
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9gUAFXmu10
(made in Germany)
> Pilot plant demonstrates iron-based hydrogen storage feasibility TechXplore (Chuck lL)
>> However, there’s also a downside to using hydrogen: its production and conversion are inefficient compared to other sources of energy, as up to 60% of its energy is lost in the process
As Don Lancaster said, Water is an ash. Un-ashing ash to refine resources seems pretty particular, especially for energetic needs.
That being said, I like the storage technique. Rust is a surplus resource in Indiana, and I know of no better way to store surplus elemental hydrogen, if you’ve got it.
* I just learned that Don Lancaster died last summer. Here’s his piece I shared the most: https://www.tinaja.com/glib/energfun.pdf
His later work on hanging canals was both practical and fascinating, and the website is worth a wander:
https://www.tinaja.com
Thank you for the links. I immediately grabbed the ebook on PostScript and there is so much more information available on so many topics.
If unpotable, contaminated water can be de-ashed, then re-burned to produce a marginal energy win and potable water, the hydrogen cycle becomes more appealing.
So, I have worked on the hydrogen section of gas reforming plants and can tell you that hydrogen can eat through nearly anything eventually, hydrogen embrittlement is a thing. Also you can’t see a hydrogen fire during the day, not that unusual for a flange fire to burn all day until night shift found it.
The need for exotic materials for containment and high maintenance levels continually will keep it as a niche corner of that market.
Agreed, hydrogen is fully weird. I had a couple of bad ideas and had a tank in my back yard, until I didn’t.
The technique here doesn’t store hydrogen, tho, it stores elemental iron. Still special storage, but not the invisible ghost in metal lattices weird.
Greased AI:
Thanks for the link on the California bill to regulate AI. The ban on government agencies using AI to replace call center workers will definitely make the hair on the back of PMC necks stand up. As California goes …
Will Gruesome Newsom sign it?
And the infuriating part: Governments will adopt this enshittifying service in the name of “efficiency” and all the blame for how “govt doesn’t work” still falls on any administrators and legislators.
If people thought getting the run around was bad before…
The Politico story on France misunderstands and misrepresents the situation. Macron is under no particular pressure to appoint a Prime Minister: indeed, he could theoretically carry on with the outgoing government until next year, or even 2027. There is no legal or constitutional requirement for him to respect any particular timetable, nor to turn first to any particular party or grouping. (The “Left” did not “win” the election, it was just the least unsuccessful of the main groups, and since 7 July has thrown away whatever moral advantage it may have had.)
Under the Constitution, Macron can appoint anyone he likes as PM, including Asterix and the Count of Monte Cristo. That’s not the problem: the problem is that that individual will then have to put together a government, and that government will have to survive an initial vote of confidence and get a budget passed. So far, no possible PM has been mentioned who would be able to do that.
If anyone is interested, I have an essay in progress for publication tomorrow which goes into this in more depth.
Good points. The Belgian scenario looks like it may be the most likely until the next presidential elections.
Alexander Mercouris has some good analysis on the situation and his scenario of appointing Lucie Castets as PM after the NFP falls apart and ditches Mélenchon is plausible. The only thing that I don’t fully agree with him on is that the latter is the big loser. It’s still not clear to me that that’s true and the fact that Macron is double crossing JLM may actually turn out to be in his favour. It would seem more damaging to me if Castets were approved now, continued with the Neoliberal status quo and forever discredited JLM and Les Insoumises as the new Syriza.
Thank you, Aurelien. Waiting for it!
As it was the case with Belgium and others it is possible to manage a country without a Congress-validated Government as we know. I believe this might be the option that Macron will choose.
Looking forward to reading your essay. Macron sounds like a bit of a Netanyahu. What I mean by that is that he is willing to cause all sorts of chaos and damage to his country just so long as he and his friends can remain in power. They guys at The Duran reckon that he will get his way as a large part of the so-called left in the coalition opposing Macron will in the end let Macron will have his way. The only thing that held the coalition together was opposing Marine le Pen during the elections but now that they are well and truly over, they will revert to form and sell out the people that voted for them.
the big difference that I see between Macron and Netanyahu is that the latter seems to be calling the shots whereas the former is just a manager executing his employer’s objectives. Nothing coming from Paris seems like it originated in Paris. It’s all coordinated with the other WEF/western entities.
You got a point there. And Macron does not have a jail cell awaiting him either but more likely good jobs with the EU or the WEF or some such.
I am no lover of Macron, but I suspect the majority of French citizens are quite happy that no-one is actually ‘running’ France. It gives everyone time to absorb the conveyor belt of changing rules and regulations that seem to cascade from Paris in never-ending rivers. If nothing else happens before 2027 it might just be time for the backlog to dry up.
The UK will have to get used to the same thing now that Fawlty ( h/t David McGrogan) has assumed power.
This will surely scare China.
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sitrep-9224-zermak-on-escalation
The last bit shows the failure rates of TOW missiles and Javelines, with clips…
Ukrainians Flee – Russia Storms Pokrovsk Daniel Davis, YouTube. Good battlefield wrap with a lot of attention to strategic implications ****** “the Dnipier is the largest natural defense barrier..” Bingo. I’m sold on the idea Russia should take the coast and everything to the Dnipier, and not confuse what is best by thinking about winning the peace because there is no peace for Russia to win. Therefore she must focus what is militarily most befendable and proceed on re-establishing deterence and that must include if need be direct nuclear responses upon The West. That must be made extremely clear by Russia.
I suppose that the NATO plan for after the war is to use the rump remains of the Ukraine as a base for sending in sabotage and assassination teams into Russia as well as a place to launch drones from to blow up anything from refineries to schools. But I agree with your idea of Russia needing to take the coast. If they do not, it will just be a place to launch seagoing drones against the Russian Black Sea Fleet and to terrorize the inhabitants of Crimea. The west knows that militarily they have lost this one so will fall back on what they normally do – send in terrorists proxy groups like they did and are still doing in places like Syria.
“use the rump remains of the Ukraine as a base for sending in sabotage and assassination teams into Russia as well as a place to launch drones from to blow up anything from refineries to schools.”
That is perfect receipe to turn the rump Ukraine into Gaza…
Dividing Ukraine by the Dnieper is impractical for both Ukraine and Russia for reasons argued here by PK and YS. For instance the most important cities are located in both banks of the river.
That may be true but Russia could, essentially, raze those cities to the ground on the wrong side of the river. We have to remember that we are in a true world war now. Russia will need a DMZ of sorts whether it starts west of the Dneiper or somewhere else.
I don’t think Russia has any alternative other than to carry on westwards until it can hand over some land to Poland/Hungary/ Slovakia. They must now be fully aware that they cannot leave anything called ‘Ukraine’ for NATO to use. As this will take well over 1m men in a state of total war, its not going to be over in the next couple of years. I really hate typing this because of the death and suffering still to come. And I don’t think anyone in Russia would believe Trump if he becomes POTUS, any more than anyone else.
I’ve wondered if the US and NATO continues to cross Russia’s “red lines”, maybe the Russians should take a psycho approach to it.
Inside Russia where Ukraine has invaded, clear every citizen and soldier out and let the Ukrainians march a little further in and then nuke them. Literally with a small tactical warhead. Say, we’re not afraid to use them on our own territory, next time it will be on yours. Keep effing around and find out.
Probably not/absolutely not a good idea but how else to get their attention?
Imo Russia will find a reasonably popular ukr general that sees the world as it is and install him as rump leader. It will be his job to hunt western Nazis, who might not be that popular after the war, and otherwise pacify the region.
As far as giving land to Poland, that extends nato closer to Russia. That seems pretty unlikely to me.
I doubt there is any such thing as a “reasonably popular” Ukraine general given that they are losing the war badly, that Zelensky insists that soldiers hold impossibly weak positions rather than fall back and generals follow those orders, and that there are hardly any trained left (drone operators are being turned into infantrymen) and raw conscripts sent into slaughter will hate the entire military leadership.
I noted Arestovich as auditioning for that role a while ago, and he is still alive, I think.
I don’t have the expertise to name any names, but surely there is an officer somewhere down the chain of command whose name has not been entirely sullied and who is good at blame-shifting. I suppose they can go all the way down to the rank of corporal if necessary – there is precedent.
I think Russia has a window for making strong progress based on the timing on US elections, as the Dems will want to keep the war news quiet, and that any US interregnum would be an extremely dangerous period for provocation and escalation.
To Timbers and Rev Kev and Kouros
‘There is no peace for Russia to win…’
That is an extremely insightful observation. Nato’s (the US) reputation is getting buried with each tank and missile system that burns, and (sadly) with the thousands of Ukrainians and Russians that are buried. The Arsenal of Democracy has been revealed as mostly the Pandora’s Box of malicious spirits. Its pride, badly injurred, will spur it to seek endless revenge against Russia. The only saving grace for Russia, is that the Lords of the Arsenal do not want to get themselves hurt, so direct war is unlikely. However, any trust on Russia’s part, via treaty or spoken word, will be violated via infilttration / sabotage/ terror operations, or by smuggling in of the ‘Big Items’ into the Ukraine.
Russia has completely isolate the Ukraine. Post WW2 in the 1950’s, the Banderites were still active, but the Russian army and KGB were able to crush them, partly because there was no viable means to keep them supplied, and send in specially trained ‘advisors’. Russian will have to complete this maneuver again; to fully Gazify the Ukraine, they will have to capture a substantial bufferzone along the present Ukraine/Nato border and enforce a no-fly zone over the remainder.
BTW, I put forward a parallel operational example. The Westbank had been broken up into seperate cantons, its buffer area/borders with any external state (like Jordan) were policed by Israel, hence the PLA were never able to garner any significant weapons, hence no effective attacks have been launched via the West bank. Conversely, Gaza has access to the sea, and shares a border with Egypt; hence prior to the Oct 7 war, Hamas were able to gather supplies…
‘Jonathan Cook
@Jonathan_K_Cook
This is an utterly shocking account from journalist Sarah Wilkinson of her recent violent arrest by 16 counter-terrorism police, several masked, at 7.30am.’
The UK is really being pushed into a “V for Vendetta” future it seems. High Chancellor Starmer anyone? All it needs is some sort of terrorist incident like the IRA repeatedly did many years ago and then Starmer could bring in all sorts of Enabling laws. It used to be thought decades ago that the British Army might be used to take control of the UK but that is not likely as you only have about a 75,000 strong army versus a population of 67 million. The British police on the other hand have a storied history of being biased and heavy-handed – if not brutal – as seen for example in this raid on Wilkinson. It was brutal and it was designed to terrorize and silence her and her family. And it may very well be a sign of the future.
According to Craig Murray, the thugs that raided Sarah Wilkinson’s home demanded to know the exact geolocation of fresh water wells her organisation had developed in Gaza. Clearly such information would only be of benefit to the IDF to then bomb these wells and deprive the Palestinians of fresh water along with the famine and disease tactics to destroy the Gazans. More evidence of deliberate intent to create even more war crimes.
In the meantime, in response to Labour suspending less than 10% of war material to Israel, the chief rabbi of Britain has stormed into Downing Street demanding to know how could Labour do this to its staunch ally in the face of unending terrorism against the poor innocent Israeli army and population.
Is that the same chief rabbi that was part of the plot to remove Corbyn from his leadership of the Labour Party with bs accusations of antisemitism? In America they might call that electoral interference that.
Thank you, both.
He’s friends with and neighbour of Theresa May in Berkshire and, just before the 2019 election, stood with the Archbishop of Canterbury to warn about the mortal danger from Corbyn.
One of his sons, born and raised here, serves in the IOF, so not fighting for God, King and Country.
During lockdown, he ensured that co-religionists could worship collectively without fear of the police and even media. No other religious community was afforded such tolerance or exemption.
Rashida Tlalib might. I don’t know too many others who would–among those possessing the trumpet, anyway. It’s not election interference if The Lobby does it. Y’see.
it’s easier to believe that we live in a simulation and those stormtroopers were actually NPCs than human beings being that evil as to help a foreign government destroy water wells to exterminate other human beings faster. I can’t fathom how these people would live with themselves if they weren’t NPCs.
They’re following orders.
The Banality of Evil.
This NPC thing really seems to be catching on as a way of understanding the world. A lot more people grok the reference than ever grokked Ayn Rand. Pretty disturbing if you think of it that way – an elitist point of view with mass appeal.
I think we need to understand that we are in WWIII or at least the introduction to it. The current trend is to arrange the battle lines between “them” and “us” and the start the fireworks. For the West to get into the proper spiritual state for supporting brutality in all its forms, democracy must be eliminated to fight “for” democracy. Britain, the home of Orwell, is showing us the way.
As Chris Hedges wrote:
” We don’t fight fashism because we can win, we fight fashism because it is fashism.”
From today’s edition of JVL:
Sarah Wilkinson in her own words
Tue 3 Sep 2024
https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/sarah-wilkinson-in-her-own-words/
Nearly everything you do is of no importance, but it is important that you do it.
-Mahatma Gandhi
(Imagine Sisyphus happy)
Thanks Flora, I watched the linked video and tears welled up in my eyes. I’ll see yours when I think I can handle it. These bits and bobs in England are just trial balloons to see if they can pull this off and not be called out or induce serious strikes and protests among the populace. If they can pull it off in the UK, it’s going to be used even more against the sheeple of America.
It’s the same video with a little more text info added about the assault on journalism in the West.
Re; China
Ignore the saffron skulduggery at your peril:
China-linked ‘Spamouflage’ network mimics Americans online to sway US political debate
As voters prepare to cast their ballots this fall, China has been making its own plans, cultivating networks of fake social media users designed to mimic Americans…
“One of the world’s largest covert online influence operations — an operation run by Chinese state actors — has become more aggressive in its efforts to infiltrate and to sway U.S. political conversations ahead of the election,” Jack Stubbs, Graphika’s chief intelligence officer, told The Associated Press.
Several of the accounts linked to Spamouflage remain active on TikTok and X.
https://apnews.com/article/china-disinformation-network-foreign-influence-us-election-a2b396518bafd8e36635a3796c8271d7
The sick men have set their eyes to swaying susceptible citizens in the upcoming presidential selection– check your facebook feed for more details!
Oh god, if Russiagate was not bad enough, now they are going to go with Chinagate? Really? Wait! They should foil the Russian and Chinese plots for disrupting the election. They should go back to paper votes hand-counted in public so they those damn commies can’t hack the US elections. Sounds like a plan to me.
“They” first need to “go back,” or more accurately just “go,” to an electoral system that produces real popularly selected choices for paper-ballot voting. After, of course, destroying the spoils system and corporate personhood and parties as private corporations and knackering the oligarchy and “getting money out of politics” and instilling commensalism in place of “rigged (/ s) individualism” and defenestrating the PMC in favor of a dedicated civil service immunized against regulatory capture and feudal impulses and instituting national health care and killing off the Fed and financialization and pulling in the imperial forever-global-war and MICMAC.
Maybe then paper ballots, hand-marked and counted in public, might make some utility.
If only there were just those two!
But Iran is also mobilizing its battalions of cyber-hackers to influence the elections in the USA by spamming social networks, disseminating fake news, and sowing discord amongst the naive North American populace!
What can be done in face of that relentless aggression?
Increase the MIC budget by 1000%…only thing that might possibly help here.
Meanwhile, these kinds of operations really do exist but they’re Israeli and don’t get publicized much
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/15/revealed-disinformation-team-jorge-claim-meddling-elections-tal-hanan
I can’t imagine who China might even prefer in the US elections. They’re all equally horrible on the issues that matter to Beijing. Maybe Trump because he’s more transactional? Who even cares!
I suppose Harris. The US is lost in the short term, so as far as foreign policy, she belongs to that divine right crowd. She simply won’t be able to build alliances of any kind. The US will simply shed members or wind up with severely weakened vassals. Trump is transactional and understands deals sometimes need to have winners on both sides. Though he has doofuses who think they can separate Russia from China in favor of the US. That won’t happen for decades.
But I think she will simply appear more out to lunch as the walls close in on vassals.
She might just do a Biden and hang out at the beach for much of her term. I heard a report today – unverified – that Biden has spent over 500 days away from the White House during his term in office. You’d think that he would have more of a suntan from all that time at the beach.
He’s got that thin, pasty Irish skin, don’tcha know? Tanning not a good look, when showing skin cancers.
If Kamala gets a suntan, does that count as a blackface?
I don’t think that China is under any illusions that the US is a democracy and that whoever is the president changes much of consequence.
Maybe what matters more are any US/Western influenced and educated elites in China, Russia, & Iran who are close to power in those countries and what their investments in the USA/West may be.
I’ll believe that the threats of Chinese and Russian disinformation bots and voting machine hacks are legitimate; only if, Stein wins the electoral college.
I remember reading some time ago that Putin said something like, I have been involved in foreign policy of Russia for over 20 years. The parties and Presidents of the US have changed but the foreign policy of the US never does. I’m sure China has noticed the same thing. Why would they bother?
It seems to me almost certain that China and Russia would be trying to figure out who is less likely to launch nukes in response to the upcoming climax of catastrophic military debacles abroad.
If that is the main criterion, there is a plausible case for Trump.
He said that he have met multiple US presidents, and that people behind them stayed the same (probably both in literal and metaphorical sense).
Customer:
Well, could I have her spam instead of the baked beans then?
Waitress:
You mean spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam
Spam and spam?
Choir (intervening):
Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam!
Lovely spam! Wonderful spam!
Spam spa-a-a-a-a-am spam spa-a-a-a-a-am spam
Lovely spam! Lovely spam! Lovely spam! Lovely spam!
Spam spam spam spam!
They keep framing this as “election interference” as if nobody is allowed to comment on US politics on the intwerwebs unless they are a US citizen, which is patently absurd.
I don’t trust this article’s attribution of this network to China, but in general I do think these types of phony accounts should be banned, not because they “influence elections”, but because they are spambots designed to generate clickbait on any number of issues. Human beings only, please, and stop gumming up the interwebs with BS.
The thing is that the social media companies love these fake accounts, whether they’re sockpuppets, bots, or something else, because it allows them to inflate the number of active accounts to their advertisers and generate more revenue under false pretenses, so their is no incentive to do a damn thing about it.
Meanwhile, it’s apparently AOK for actual prominent USian human beings to put their thumb on the scale for other countries’ elections – https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/04/politics/french-election-obama-endorse-macron/index.html
As I predicted, the advent of plausible machine-generated text is going to lead to the death of the user-generated Web. Comment boxes are not long for this world; Dead Internet Theory was a prescient observation.
Every accusation is a confession.
– ‘Battered and unloved, Germany’s coalition likely to hang on after regional losses to far right’ – Reuters
I had to laugh at this Reuters article warning of the dangerous “far right” uprising brewing in Germany’s East. It’s “far right, far right” etc. all the way down, in barely concealed “Nazis are coming” rhetoric. Then, in paragraph 17:
“A populist leftist newcomer, the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), founded by a former member of the old East German Communist Party, did better than all of three Berlin coalition partners in its first state elections, coming in third place.”
The remaining few paragraphs described the foreign policy position of this “former Communist,” ending with this gem:
“Half the people in Germany are scared of being drawn into a big war,” she said of her demand that Ukraine stop receiving German weapons to defend itself against Russia’s invasion.
“Two thirds of easterners oppose U.S. missiles,” she added – remarks that seemed to reflect Kremlin talking points.”
“Kremlin talking points”! Commies and Nazis comin’! Teaming up against the forces of Enlightenment and Civilization! Like the governments of France, Britain, and the US, German leaders are going to have to stifle “democracy” in order to save it. It’s unfortunate, but when the Kremlin controls the minds of two thirds of your electorate, it’s for their own good.
The Washington Post went overboard with these election results. Their headline was “Far right set to win in a German state for the first time since WWII” if you can believe it. It was like a headline saying “The Nazis are back again in Germany”
They are, but most of them speak “Ukrainian” as their mother tongue. The rest are, of course, the end state of “Western liberalism.” Or the living residue of the Third Reich, paper-clipped onto the levers of power, and their offspring.
The Nazis are back again in Germany, and they are sending panzers to the Ostfront after destroying Yugoslavia, as per plan. They have rebranded themselves as non-Nazis according to recommendations from ADL.
This nonsense is structural. All “news” media is now as ideological as the old commies and fascists of old. This reflects the centralization of power in the new Rome (Washington). The problem though, is can these propaganda organs fool a little more than 50% of the people or not? As more people begin to peel off in believing the State (imperial) media there is a chance for the Empire to begin to dissolve.
It seems the students this year are about to get an education more valuable than what they would otherwise receive from studying their chosen majors.
Here’s to a new generation of Sophie Scholl’s and White Roses.
A university was once a community of scholars, at least that was the ideal. It has devolved. Bloated administration of what amount to hedge funds dominated by donors who run the tuition and fees cash cow while dispensing as little as possible and only approved content … none of that humanities crap. Neo or is it techno-feudalism here we come. And of course bring on the whips and knouts to keep the rabble in line.
I think Jordan Peterson is wrong about a lot of things but his taking his show out of a university setting is probably what academics will need to do. Basically recreate Aristotle’s lyceum but on the internet.
John Gray was way, way ahead of him.
Re: New Zealand to nearly triple tax on international tourists :
Meanwhile, Greece, Spain, and Italy (among others) are overrun with tourists, and local governments and residents are pushing back: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/02/travel/europe-tourism-backlash.html?unlocked_article_code=1.H04.scrJ.LevT_H6hhMct&smid=url-share (unlocked article)
Thank you FMA. Tourism is indeed such a problem in many senses. Some, as here the NYT, label the economic activity as “critical” for some economies, i don’t think so. True, many jobs depend on tourism in many places and, for instance, some believe this brings some life to rural spaces that otherwise are depopulated. Indeed some tourism in such places, if not massive, can bring a few benefits but mass tourism is a plague with many wrong environmental and economic externalities as those mentioned in the NYT article which are only the tip of the iceberg including problems with water supply, infrastructure, excess supplies needed, the hidden costs of treating wastes, seasonality of employment, low productivity etc, etc, etc. Tourism also kills the charm those places might still have and is accompanied by scam, crap and crime. I miss an integral economic analysis of tourism which takes account of all these problems instead of the typical focus on the bright side. Probably tourism wouldn’t be so critical as the article states but we never go beyond that.
Tourism should be allowed for lower income brackets only: they spend what they can without introducing local inflation. They are also usually decent people and friendly and respectful to the locals . They are not a burden on the environment like the upper income people in terms of water and sewage usage and privatization of beaches and space in general.
What a great idea! One thing I hate about well heeled Western tourists is they find a place they like to visit, and then think they need to buy it.
It’s very common for rich people from Boston and NYC to go to the “quaint” New England states for some R&R and then decide they need to have a 2nd home there. A very large percentage of the real estate in Maine and Vermont is 2nd homes that sit unoccupied for most of the year, but drive up the price of housing for the locals. My taxes just went up 25% year over year due to a state mandated revaluation. Ask me how I feel about my new NYC neighbors who stupidly and grossly overpaid for property in my neighborhood – a drop in the bucket for them but it throws the whole local economy out of whack.
Bangor, ME is another town that’s had enough. After encouraging cruise ships to stop for many years, they have now changed course and want to limit them. Too much hassle from all the tourons, with most of the benefits going to the few while they make life more difficult for everybody else. It’s becoming a vert testy situation – https://www.bangordailynews.com/2024/08/28/hancock/hancock-business/bar-harbor-voters-cruise-ship-limit-changes/
I understand the adverse impact of second home folks on house prices. Housing prices are nuts were I live in MA. However, here in my little slice of Western ME there are a category of second home folks that my full-time resident neighbors love. We are the out of state owners of 2-3 season summer camps that pay taxes and yet didn’t send our kids to local schools or use much of the local infrastructure (dump, police, fire Dept., library, etc.). I’ve owned my camp for over 30 years and I’ve not involved myself in the town budget process. Taxes going up isn’t necessarily a result of higher assessed values, the tax rate goes up because the cost of schools and infrastructure does and the residents approve the budget increases. My property taxes were $750 when I bought my camp. I just paid my bill now some $3600. I realize this is relatively low due to our very small town budget being less vs. some nearby larger towns and was frankly one of the reasons I ended up here.
The 100+ year old girls camp across the pond is the biggest taxpayer in town and frankly it would be devastating to the town budget if it closed and was developed into full year round homes full of school aged kids. It would be much less so if they were 2nd homes. I understand changes are inevitable and someday I may be staring across the pond from my 500 sq. Ft. Cabin at a 3000 sq. ft trophy home with a cigarette boat parked dockside.
As for assessed value increases I’d be curious how long it had been since your property was assessed. A 25% increase is a big jump and not easy to manage. There was a time when mine went almost 10 years without a reevaluation, it’s been done yearly for at least the last 15 and goes up every year.
It was assessed probably 5-10 years before this latest revaluation – not all that long ago. The problem is housing prices have been spiraling out of control for 20 years now, with a brief respite during the financial crash in 2007-8. As I mentioned in an earlier comment, what happened was commercial real estate values went way down as a result of the revaluation and residential went the other way, and the law doesn’t allow for separate tax rates based on the type of property.
There’s nothing wrong with people having a 2nd home or a camp. Your story reminds me of my neighbor when I was a kid. Our best neighbor where I grew up in rural VT was a New Yorker from just outside the city. He owned the house across the road from us, and came up a few times per year. He dated the local town clerk. He always brought a case of beer or some fresh baked bread when he came to give to my dad who kept an eye on his house for him and mowed his lawn for free. He was a good neighbor. He was also a retired cabbie.
And that is the problem – most first homes are out of range for the working class these days, much less a modest 2nd property. It’s not the occasional cabbie paying the going rate for a modest property that is the problem – it’s far too many squillionaires on the move all at once, overpaying because they can.
It is true that tourism generates a lot of money – well a lot of money is spent by the tourists. It is always useful to look at the details of these economic analyses. Who gets the money the tourists spend? I do not think the waiters and waitresses and cooks and housecleaners get a very large share of it. The external costs are paid by precisely those people, plus their neighbors who are priced out of their homes and see their town turned into a sideshow. People talk about ¨high end¨ tourism which is just a euphemism for pricing out the hoi paloi, but that is no answer. As always, it is a matter of who pays and who gains. In Andalucia, where I live, people claim (probably true) that most of the hotels and other tourist traps are owned by people in Cataluñia (there is a regional prejudice!). Whether that is true or not, it is certain that the big chains are owned by out-of-towners – can we say multi-nationals? As one who has visited lots of towns and cities in Spain that have developed their tourist industry, what I notice is that most of them look like they were put together by shoping mall developers. A little of this and a little of that with some nice street furniture. The same stores and the same bars, and often with the same names have been rammed down the throats of the local government. This is why there is a reaction to tourism. The people paying the costs are not the ones receiving the benefits.
Re: signs
Signs don’t vote. I did notice at the UVA football game that the register to vote tablers were greybeards. To me that indicates no enthusiasm and limited coordination.
The structural problem Harris has is none of the early gotv work was done from May through August because of the genocide. Abrams was behind a drive which won the senate seats, but she went all in on Clinton style politics and stumbled instead of adding to what she built. My gut is nothing has been done in Georgia to move the needle.
I saw about a million Harris ads this weekend on various streaming channels. They are spending crazy money apparently.
Two observations; she continues to have that strident, one note tone of voice that I don’t think works well. Also, she says all these things she stands for and what she’ll accomplish, but where has she been for the last 3.5 years? I know the VP has very little power, but she seems to have made no impression as VP. Other than being someone who sort of fell into power.
I can’t believe these are our candidates.
I thought it funny her talking about fixing the border when she has been the Border Czar the past three years – and which is now being denied by Democrat supporters. At least she hasn’t been as bad as Veep as Pete Buttigieg has been as SecTrans.
That’s because sec trans has and generates a need for actual responses. They would have been equally bad if they traded jobs.
The problem is basic, they’re incompetent. Granted, competence is not a requirement in the dem party; the donors likely consider it a serious negative, it probably encourages independent thinking.
The VP, as demonstrated by Dick less Cheney, has such power as s/he fronts or can grasp. Even Al Gore did some stuff. The Kam is just knee pads and chair sitting and lashing about.
Abso – fuckin’ – lutely, particularly since she was “gifted” a “president” whose dementia was rapidly increasing. If she’d had a morsel of cheney’s skill, commitment and resolve, she could have run the place.
I refer specifically to her “signature” (and only) issue–Roe v. Wade repeal–that she blames on Trump’s supreme court appointments which were made prior to her “administration’s” installation.
cheney would have had that done “on Day 1” with one hand tied behind his back.
Give us all a break.
There is a clip floating around on social media, and one at the NY Post I think it was, of Harris talking to a crowd in Detroit and one in Pittsburgh (I think it was). She is saying the same line but with different accents. The cringe and pandering to the Detroit crowd was off the charts bad. I could only bring myself to watch about 30 seconds and couldn’t take anymore.
She is an empty suit of empty suits.
Verbal blackface.
African-Americans are likely to react at least as badly to that as you and I — whoever we are — do.
If I recall correctly Kamala has one Jamaican grandparent who was Carib Indian
+ black. Her mother is South Asian Indian. The rest were Irish who settled in Jamaica.
This puts Kamala at 1/8 African, 4/8 Indian (from India), 1/8 Carib indigenous, 2/8 Irish.
Quite a melting pot to pitch to African Americans.
From the DeVory Darkins video of ‘la in Detroit linked above, starting at 10:30:
Finished off with a flourish of “upspeak.”
Just recently learned of him through then NC crew. I appreciate his viewpoints and takedowns. Go DD.
girl talk
I’ve been getting them on YT. Her and also Obama. Drives me nuts. She doesn’t even seem to be able to read an easy script for a 15-30s ad. She doesn’t seem familiar with it in the least. If she knew what she is supposed to stand for it would be an easier task. “I’m just reading what they tell me to.”
It’s scary.
It looks like Biden’s humiliation at the hands of Netanyahu is now complete:
https://ruralradio.com/rrn/abc_news/israelgaza-live-updates-hostage-families-plan-action-as-netanyahu-seeks-forgiveness-abcida5006fac/
So, let me get this straight – these zombie, Groundhog-day talks are somehow undead, despite Bibi surviving the weekend and general strike and emerging more defiant than ever.
And, just for grins and giggles, neither of the two parties at odds (Hamas, Netanyahu) are at the negotiating table. Only a bunch of functionaries from third party countries who have no authority to do anything, except dot some “I’s and T’s” on a non-agreement that has no force and does not represent either of the adversaries actual positions.
Those guys in “Weekend at Bernies” were a bunch of pikers when it came to stiff-keeping!
Besides Biden’s disdain for people who aren’t white enough, Biden also thinks he’s a brain genius of Trumpian levels and likely believes he can have his cake and eat it to.
I wonder how many of these projects had heavy involvement of external contractors from software vendors or consulting firms. My guess is, if you looked at the ones that did, the failure rate would be over 90%.
That 80% IT project failure rate is something I heard for decades, and was cited to dissuade me from managing projects that we subsequently landed successfully. It may be largely true, but the key thing is that it’s not a question of rolling dice. Most large, expensive projects fail in their earliest stages for predictable reasons like: lack of a sponsorship from a senior executive, “planning” before defining objectives, and not balancing objectives, timeframes and resources, among others. Presence of contractors on the project, or use of unseasoned remote personnel located in places like the Philippines, India, or China, were not factors in predicting success, just things to manage.
I remember working for a while on a project that failed. The engineering section of the company had proposed an effort over several years and costing ‘X’ dollars. The Corporate management slashed the schedule and budget in half to craft the bid that won the contract. The project soon fell behind schedule and began overrunning the budget funded for the program. Most of the engineering staff was treated like galley slaves. I was a one of a number of contract engineers brought in to help ‘save’ the project, mostly by increasing the Corporate squeeze on the government to fund bloated budget overruns. The presence of contract engineers was also beneficial in demoralizing the direct-hire engineers that remained on staff. The two year project was cancelled after four years and little progress toward completion. I worked on many DoD projects like this in my years as a job-shopper.
I do wonder how they define failure. Is it success when you implement 2 years late at more than double the cost with half the important functions not working as advertised? Or does that count as a success, because, hey, you implemented?
I also think that one of the most dreaded promises you can hear the vendor sales exec say to your upper management is, “No problem, you can customize it to do that!” (Usually followed by, “But, of course, doing it that way isn’t best practices. The default behavior is best practices.”)
This suggests that the Ukraine F-16 lost last week was friendly fire. The U.S. DoD rarely kills a failed SW project, and is especially bad at commonality, and cross system integration.
Likewise, the aircraft could have malfunctioned, engine stall, for similar reasons of poor quality system management
I started as a shopper but went captive in sunny San Diego, retiring 27 years later. Worked for me, I wanted more stability.
Check out Standish Group CHAOS 2010-2020 reports for a very thorough review which tends to support these figures. Success defined by on time, on budget, on objectives = ~30% (large projects ~9%) further 40-50% were implemented but not on time on budget on objectives around 20-30% failed
“On top of that, discussions like this greatly overstate the importance of trade in the US reserve currency status. The overwhelming majority of foreign exchange transactions, over 95%, are investment, not trade related. Yes, steering clear of dollar transactions for trade is critical for escaping the abusive US sanctions regime. But that is not tantamount to dethroning the dollar. ”
Indeed. It’s worth reminding:
It’s not only people in the USA driving the alleged Magnificent 7 to nosebleed heights.
And these investments and others by institutions and high net worth individuals are one reason so many countries handle USA relations with kid gloves.
Surprise, surprise that the corporations behind the AI bubble want to force all the living human beings using the internet to get a “unique identifier” to prove that they are in fact, human beings. Instead of, you know, doing something about the centralized under their power LLM models that are flooding the ‘net with garbage… Certainly a foolproof plan with no glaring problems. /sarc
https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/03/ai_personhood_credentials/
It should be AI /bots having to clearly identify as NOT human. Also solves issues.
People need to stop falling for this hyper-surveillance BS.
Here’s an interesting article regarding AI – the title has a few expletives.
If you mention Ai...
I’ve read that one, highly recommended as an entertaining and on point article!
He gave a good interview on Ed Zitron’s podcast “Better Offline”, from about 2 months ago.
“Poland’s Call for Reparations: A Continuing Debate with Germany”
Maybe the Germans should tell the Poles that fine, they will pay Poland reparations. But in return Poland has to give back to Germany all the land that was taken off it back in 1945 as that was pretty huge reparations itslef. And you can’t get reparations twice-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Former_eastern_territories_of_Germany
Interesting and important that German territory was given to Poland after the World War, but Poland now wants additional reparations.
Churchill called Poland the hyena of Europe.
Are Poland and Germany equally demilitarized?
The German army had to practice with broomsticks because there were not enough rifles already in 2015 https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/natosource/german-soldiers-used-broomsticks-instead-of-guns-during-nato-exercise/
Maybe the guns were already in Ukraine.
If both are equally militarized Germany could just as well invade Poland and take back German territory. The Poles know that their territory is to be divided between foreigners so they would grudgingly accept it and wait for the next invader/divider.
It would be a sight for the Gods watching them broomstick each other.
Just another demonstration of European unity, CA. It’s all a matter of give and take, take, take. Add a pinch of masochism and genocide and it keeps the Germans happy…. well, at least it keeps the current German élite happy until it all unravels and fonda Lying’s subject peoples get restless and the whole project falls apart as each nation recovers some aspect or other of a semi-forgotten historical identity and creates a new narrative without the assistance of NGO scriptwriters.
Turley’s piece about Musk’s suit against Media Matters was very interesting. I was amused to read:
That is unintentionally humorous and ironic. “Identities, experiences, and cultural contexts” they gained by growing up in a privileged environment. Whose truth are they pursuing? According to Batya Ungar-Sargon in her excellent book on the media Bad News, nearly all of the current media are the children of millionaires and billionaires. They do not worry about the pay because they have a trust fund to fall back on and have absolutely no sympathy for the vast majority of Americans. I highly recommend this book as it is better than her recent book Second Class. The discovery process wil be revealing but don’t expect the MSM to cover it. The article concludes “The Media Matters lawsuit directly challenges the ability of media outlets to create false narratives to advance a political agenda. As with the CNN and New York Times cases, it can expose how the media first decides on a conclusion and then frames or even invents the facts to support it.”
Who controls the context is a huge fight in journalism. You can shape the reception of a fact if you omit or change the context it exists in. Just see how much our understanding here on NC changes when we learn about conflicts of interest in our information sources. This is where the anti-misinformation campaign operates. Pure objectivity requires (potentially a lot of) additional knowledge and understanding in order to process facts into meaning, and allows people to come to different conclusions.
A great link.
Problem is the media is so not objective it pervades all they write, resulting in the public seeing that the described world doesn’t agree with what they see over time. Iraq wmd was one example, the end of the ukr debacle will be another, granted the media will have little interest in post war reports.
I expect the decline in msm will continue into irrelevance.
Media Matters ? An Open Society Foundation supported project.
Per wiki ( also an Open Society Foundation supported project. / ;)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_projects_supported_by_George_Soros
I read the strange op-editorial in one of the German newspapers linked here last week, the conclusion of which is that Germans would be happier with a dictator than under a SW’s democratically elected leadership.
Said op-editorial was also funded by the Open Society Foundation.
(When they tell you who they are…. / ;)
https://www.stripes.com/branches/navy/2024-09-02/turkey-assault-service-members-wasp-15051155.html
2 US Marines are safe after assault by protesters in Turkey
Two U.S. Marines from an amphibious assault ship visiting a city in western Turkey are safe after they were assaulted Monday by a group of protesters who have attacked American military personnel in previous years.
Musk is suing Media Matters for making stuff up? Good. ( Media Matters is an Open Society Foundation supported project, per wiki .)
See also: Media Matters for America.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Matters_for_America
“Battered and unloved, Germany’s coalition likely to hang on after regional losses to far right”
Losses? They got annihilated. A coupla years ago German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said that they don’t bother listening to what their voters want. So how is that working out? Of course Reuters had to take a dig at Sahra Wagenknecht in this article when they said-
‘ “Two thirds of easterners oppose U.S. missiles,” (Sahra Wagenknecht) added – remarks that seemed to reflect Kremlin talking points.’
Scott Ritter speaking at the Peace Festival in Munich. twtr-x, 3 minutes.
https://x.com/ivan_8848/status/1830702703678472650
(Why are realpolitik thinkers branded as dupes or worse? / ;)
Because realpolitik is a threat to the governing stupidpolitik?
Taibbi and Kirn on Monday’s America This Week. no paywall.
ATW Livestream Tonight, 8 pm ET/7 pm CT: The Clampdown is Here
Walter Kirn and I discuss the shutdown in Brazil and the flood of authoritarian cheerleading this past weekend
https://www.racket.news/p/atw-livestream-tonight-8-pm-et7-pm-593
videos are still up on utube.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us-close-agreeing-long-range-missiles-ukraine-delivery-take-months-2024-09-03/
US close to agreeing on long-range missiles for Ukraine; delivery to take months
WASHINGTON, Sept 3 (Reuters) – The U.S. is close to an agreement to give Ukraine long-range cruise missiles that could reach deep into Russia, but Kyiv would need to wait several months as the U.S. works through technical issues ahead of any shipment, U.S. officials said.
The inclusion of Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles (JASSM) in a weapons package is expected to be announced this autumn, three sources said, though a final decision has not been made. The sources declined to be named because they are not authorized to discuss the topic.
The US started with a clear policy that we were not going to allow Ukraine to fire advanced US weapons into Russia. That changed slightly when Biden agreed that Ukraine could fire short distances during border battles. The US is financing the Ukrainians, training them, providing advanced satellite targeting information, and likely providing mercenaries. Essentially, the US is doing everything but push the button. And maybe even that. So the US is essentially bombing Russia, a nuclear power.
The JASSM is a standoff cruise missile that is fired from an F-16. If the Ukrainians can get a pilot to get one airborne, this would be a US bomb fired from a US plane, on a Russian target selected by the US.
The unspoken rationale for this change is that everyone cheered when Ukraine invaded a small, lightly defended, rural area of Russia…presumably on their own…to improve their negotiating position. It’s Ukraine’s idea, we were not informed, it’s their ‘right’, and it isn’t our fault.
The US managed to avoid nuclear war for 75 years. Now we appear to have an irresistible impulse to provoke one.
It appears that the Kursk incursion was a US project, using new NATO weapons, with troops trained in the UK, as well as European mercenaries. As part of the Kursk project, Ukraine has been shelling Belgrade, resulting in civilian deaths. In my opinion, the Kursk incursion was a US planned and led project, designed to take advantage of the small crack in the US prohibition of directly attacking Russia. Or the policy change may have been made in anticipation of something like Kursk.
The Kursk project appears doomed, but the fighting is very intense, and the leaders aren’t giving up on it.
Ukraine has been shelling Belgrade
They probably would if they could, but still can only reach Belgorod. :)
When WWI started, it was reported that some Russian peasants were stirred into volunteering by the misapprehension that Austria-Hungary was shelling Belgorod.
Speaking of peasants, here’s a Spanish one (a gardener, to be more exact):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDr_dFBG1Is&t=14s
I live in Athens, Ga. So far I have not seen one Harris yard sign. I have seen a few Trump signs.
https://t.me/DDGeopolitics/121858
🇲🇳 Well, someone did get arrested in Mongolia, but unfortunately, it was the six people the U.S. embassy managed to rally for the protest. 🤷♂️
Nice. It’s the little stuff that gives things away. Look at the poster/banner they are holding. It’s not cheap to make something like that (apx $100 USD) so from whom did they get that money? I’d like to see the invoice from the print shop.
Well done!!
Our great economy
Melody: Antonys song by Billy Joel (live version)
Antony works for a hopeless cease-fire
Waiting for Joe to thud, someday
K-k-k-Kamala’s cronies left a note on the door, they said
Son, please get out by Election Day!
Ah but, workin’ for fools can give you a heart-attack-ack-ack-ack-ack-ack!
You oughtta know by now (you oughtta know by now)
Who needs a house paid by AIPAC flacks? Is that all you get for free money?
And it seems such a waste of time, if that’s what its all about,
Mama if that’s diplomacy, then I’m movin’ out
Ooh, I’m moving out
Pirate Jay Powell walks the monetary beat
At night he prints more legal tender
He works for predatory bankers down on Eccles street
While seniors eat cat food from blenders
Yeah, he’s trading office mortgages for T-bill stack-stack-stack-stack-stack-stacks!
You oughtta know by now (you oughtta know by now)
Grandma can’t eat empty cubicles, at least she can squat in the building!
And it seems such a waste of time, if that’s what its all about,
Mama if that’s policy, then I’m movin’ out
I’m moving out! Oh-oh, uh-huh
You should never argue with a crazy Kama-la-la-la-la!
You oughtta know by now (you oughtta know by now)
You can pay for cat food with your COLA raise, is that what you get for free money?
And if that’s what you have in mind, yeah if that’s what you’re all about,
Good luck with that country,cause I’m movin’ out!
Oh, I’m movin’ out
Oh, so we’ll done…
Take a bow-
I enjoyed writing that one. Glad you liked it. Hope you enjoyed Burning Man!
Edit: I see below that you did. No white-outs here in Georgia, unless the local football team decides to do one of those pep-rally things where they all wear white.
A few Cybertrucks got stranded on the playa when they ran outta electrons, whoops!
Did they have machine guns on top?
The best ever summary of political economy, with lots of references to Prof Michael Hudson and ending with Aristotle, from the searing prose of indi.ca.
Can be put under class struggle or econ 101.
I had this vision for some time now, being inspired by the soil composition triangular diagram, but indi.ca really does an exceptional summary here:
https://indi.ca/the-triangle-of-power/
Thanks for that – great essay.
William Hogeland’s latest book The Hamilton Scheme hammers home the same points – the American Revolution overthrew the king for the benefit of American oligarchs, the vast majority of whom were not at all in favor of giving political power to the people.
A fabulous time was had at Burning Man, all on the basis of a gift economy-not a grift economy.
Mild temps and only 45 minutes of dust storms until Sunday when the Temple of remembrance was burned. We had virtually no visibility riding back to camp-a whtieout’s whiteout!
The Temple was my favorite of the 9 burns I’ve been to, looked like a Gothic cathedral of sorts, utterly spectacular when lit at night.
We had a no drama camp and the art out on display was spectacular!
And in the land of the original Burning Man (Zozobra) a great time was had by all on the 100th anniversary. Viva la Fiesta!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUBASa3utIs
Railroad unions… the Engineers and Trainmen are rejecting the pattern agreement that locks in other unions until 2030 with 3.5%/year raises, but apparently includes significant concessions:
BLET leaders criticize tentative contract deals other unions reached with Norfolk Southern Trains magazine
One has to wonder why the non-operating crafts and SMART-TD have negotiated on an individual company basis (not industry wide) months early, with a 5 year contract (historically 3 years). It is hard to construe this as anything but a sell out of workers. This is the same union misleadership crap I saw in the late 70s and early 80s when I worked at Conrail. The handwriting was on the wall that concessions lead to more give-backs and more job cuts. The “SMART-TD” is the same union that has agreed to “mobile conductors” on the Union Pacific, a prelude to one man crews. It should be called STUPID-TD.
The Economist article on the rate of kills by SUVs vs regular cars and the associated graph are good. But not enough by a wide margin so to redeem the Economist.
RE: It’s an analog country…
Wrong! Germany is a manufacturing country that shot itself in the foot by foolishly foregoing cheap Russian energy. Then bloodied its’ own nose by sanctioning China.
Germany is the only substantial producer of real goods in the EU. Soon enough the union will crumble. The City of London with it.
It reminded me of the Golgafrinchans making the leaf into legal tender.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-military-treating-west-bank-second-combat-zone-after-gaza
Not much MSM coverage of the West Bank ethnic cleansing extension program. From various twitter videos it looks like another full on destruction project.
Meanwhile the Guardian has endless headlines about Israeli domestic stuff and the Telegraph is saying that “Israel has always been forced to be too kind to its enemies”.