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Links 9/8/2024

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Cats like to play fetch like dogs. The game is rooted in both species’ hunting instincts PBS

The pet-brain effect: How cats and dogs can save you from cognitive decline BBC

Turkey’s stray dogs, once ‘masters of the road,’ face new peril WaPo

Dogs can remember names of toys years after not seeing them, study shows Guardian

Letter: Future will be shaped by the heresies of heterodox economics FT:

But if elite capture and the resulting torpor in economics have not been total and complete, it is because there are economics departments in a handful of US universities which have put up an active and spirited resistance for years, with The New School in New York, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and the University of Missouri Kansas City perhaps being pre-eminent in this long battle of economic ideas. These and other economics departments are at the centre of a lively intellectual community (often referred to as “heterodox economics” by many of its own), many of whose members are also associated with the Union of Radical Political Economics (URPE).

Climate

‘Oh my God, what is that?’: how the maelstrom under Greenland’s glaciers could slow future sea level rise Guardian

Arrhenius 1896: First Calculation of Global Warming Protons for Breakfast. Commentary:

EV Battery Makers Have Been Doing It Wrong Clean Technica

Syndemics

University of Alberta researchers retract COVID study, citing multiple errors CBC

Mild at First: A Brief History of The 1918 Bird Flu Pandemic Jessica Wildfire, OK Doomer

Poliovirus that infected a Chinese child in 2014 may have leaked from a lab Science. “The exact source of that virus is unclear, as is the route by which it infected the child, and the authors are careful not to point fingers. But the paper underscores the fact that accidental releases of poliovirus are remarkably common.”

CDC Confirms Human H5 Bird Flu Case in Missouri (press release) CDC. “There is no immediate known animal exposure. No ongoing transmission among close contacts or otherwise has been identified.”

Mask bans disenfranchise millions of Americans with disabilities STAT. The deck: “Medical exemptions to these bans are nothing more than Band-aids.”

Fast-spreading mpox variant detected in Congo’s densely populated capital Business Standard

Colorado farmworkers are coming down with bird flu after tending to sick animals without PPE KGNU

China?

Sorry Mr. Sullivan, But You Just Got China So Wrong The China Academy

China urges US to ‘maintain’ stable climate policies Anadolu Agency

Chinese start-up aims for nuclear fusion at half the cost of US rivals FT

For China, Africa’s allure grows amid feuds with West. But do risks outweigh its promise? South China Morning Post

‘Special forces-styled travel’? Changing face of mainland Chinese travellers triggers Hong Kong tourism rethink Channel News Asia

The Koreas

Tens of thousands in South Korea protest lack of climate progress Channel News Asia

Koreans in Uzbekistan: K-pop and a brewing cultural clash Al Jazeera

Syraqistan

Israeli forces accused of killing their own citizens under the ‘Hannibal Directive’ during October 7 chaos ABC Australia

Autopsy of Turkish-American activist shows she was killed by sniper’s bullet to the head: Nablus governor Anadolu Agency. Commentary:

Sarah Wilkinson in her own words Jewish Voice for Labor. Commentary:

European Disunion

Europe’s economy survived ‘terrible prophecies’ but must now tackle trade with China: EU’s Gentiloni CNBC. Commentary:

* * *

Macron’s coup is a shameless affront to democracy The Telegraph

Mass protests erupt in France after Macron picks Barnier as PM Al Jazeera

Dear Old Blighty

Starmer defends cutting winter fuel payments BBC. Oblique commentary:

Tory health reforms left UK open to Covid calamity, says top doctor’s report Guardian

UK health minister says NHS needs to make ‘three big shifts’ to survive FT

Boris Johnson faces ‘serious questions’ over new business with uranium entrepreneur Guardians

New Not-So-Cold War

Ukraine’s Kursk offensive has triggered doubts among Russian elite, spy chiefs say FT

US and UK spy chiefs praise Ukraine’s ‘audacious’ Russia incursion and call for a Gaza cease-fire AP

The War in Ukraine Is Already Over—Russia Just Doesn’t Know it Yet Reason

Outgunned and outnumbered, Ukraine’s military is struggling with low morale and desertion CNN

* * *

Zelenskyy on long-range strikes on Russia: We need to find key to one country, others will follow suit Ukrainska Pravda

Deep Strikes Into Russia Have Limited Value, Pentagon Says Bloomberg

U.S. Air Force F-35s Demonstrate Ability to Use Makeshift Runways Close to Russian Borders Military Watch

There was genuine risk of Russia using nuclear weapons at start of Ukraine war, CIA boss reveals The Telegraph

* * *

US arms advantage over Russia and China threatens stability, experts warn Guardian

Far Eastern Economic Forum: perhaps the least covered international event by Western major media this week Gilbert Doctorow

South of the Border

Former Brazilian President Bolsonaro leads ‘free speech’ rally in Sao Paulo Al Jazeera. Commentary:

2024

Harris and Trump offer very different visions for the economy ahead of Tuesday’s debate PBS

What Awaits a Harris Presidency The Atlantic

Antitrust

A Post-Google World Matt Stoller, BIG. The deck: “Another Google antitrust trial starts on Monday. If Google loses, it’ll be three strikes. At some point, they will give up and realize that the writing is on the wall for their current business model.”

Digital Watch

Nearly half of Nvidia’s revenue comes from just four mystery whales each buying $3 billion–plus Fortune

Why AI Can Push You to Make the Wrong Decision at Work Brain Facts

The Worsening Raspberry PI Rp2350 E9 Erratum Situation Hackaday

The Final Frontier

Problem statement:

Groves of Academe

Jewish Faculty letter to CU presidents re Task Force report (PDF) Google Drive. Columbia. Meanwhile in Texas:

Stanford’s writing program is firing their lecturers and gutting the department Literary Hub

Imperial Collapse Watch

Amphibious Ship Suffers Breakdown, Marking at Least Third Navy Mechanical Issue This Year Military.com

Class Warfare

Upending a longstanding paradigm, cardiologists embrace ZIP codes, not race, to predict heart risk STAT

Watch: Cruise ships chopped in half are a license to print money The New Atlas

Early science and colossal stone engineering in Menga, a Neolithic dolmen (Antequera, Spain) Science

Antidote du jour (Keith Weller):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered. To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.

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195 comments

  1. The Rev Kev

    “The War in Ukraine Is Already Over—Russia Just Doesn’t Know it Yet”

    If you are wondering how someone can write such rubbish, just check out his bio page from that magazine-

    https://reason.com/people/paul-schwennesen/

    Spook adjacent at least. Where are the yankee traders from yesteryear to give their analysis?

    1. Randall Flagg

      I had to check the calendar and the date of that article, thought it was April Fool’s Day for a second when I read that article. Wow. Reason magazine? That one read like unreason.
      What do they do, have rotating list of propagandists across various media? Hey, it’s your turn this week to churn one out for Ukraine?

    2. Ignacio

      Ukraine has won because it has won Schwennesen’s heart. and as this individual writes “wars are won in the heart of a people, not through the rational calculations of military planners”. We little ignorants should know. No matter what goes on the ground, in Schwennesen’s heart Ukraine will have won after the last Ukrainian is buried.

      Great P.O.S.

      1. JohnnyGL

        Wow, I had to check the quote myself, it was so laughable. The irony of ‘reason’ magazine doing a vibe check of ‘hearts’ of the people around Kursk.

        It takes a special kind of journalism to go to a place and get zero quotes from anyone there. Even better, he quotes Tolstoy, a novelist, not a general, mind you, from 1815 to give a description of the Russian military. Because we all know nothing has happened in 200+ years.

        Quoting Napoleon would have improved the piece! At least he knew military matters!

      1. JMH

        Indeed. Badly written fantasy but contrast it with the CNN piece that followed. When you have lost CNN, the war is truly almost over. The only thing lacking is the US saying, ever do obliquely, “Sorry guys, we have more important business elsewhere.”

        1. The Rev Kev

          Ex-US army colonel, Douglas Macgregor has said that the US is a naval and aerospace power. What that means is that if things fall apart, they can fly away like they did in Afghanistan or sail away like in ‘Nam.

    4. Bugs

      Reason used to be a libertarian rag with a fairly consistent editorial line and writers with decent credentials. Seems it’s gone total neocon neolib now. Sad.

    5. VTDigger

      Not known for being deep thinkers over at reason…libertarianism is pretty high-school level stuff to begin with. Mine! It’s my stuff!!

      2. chris

        I can relate. Every dime of federal taxes I send to this administration makes me regret my commitment to being a law abiding citizen. My government doesn’t follow their own laws, enforce our laws, protect the integrity of our elections, has to be dragged kicking and screaming to do anti-trust, and keeps spending all this money on foreign “wars”. Why should I keep paying taxes again?

    6. DJG, Reality Czar

      Thanks, Rev Kev.

      I was going to point out that one doesn’t have to read past this sentence, which arrives early on: “The moral scales have now firmly settled on the side of the Ukrainian defenders, and it is far likelier that Russia itself splinters into its constituent republics than that Ukraine falls to its erstwhile invaders.”

      I will also remind peeps that Reason Magazine is High Libertarian Thinking. They aren’t just the usual libertarians — white boys who don’t want to pay taxes — they are Serious Libertarians.

      Nevertheless, a few months back, I noted two letters to the editor in Harper’s Magazine by white-lady academic types who also advocate “empire splintering into constituent republics.” So the meme is out there among our Intellectual Superiors.

      It is one thing to be stupid. It is another thing to be so stupid as to advocate courses of action that are lethal. How many people would die during a breakup of the Russian Federation?

      1. The Rev Kev

        Probably millions I would say. But more importantly, what happens to the 5,580 nukes that Russia has? The Pentagon developed plans to send in special forces to seize them if Russia fell apart but could they get to all 5,580 nukes? And if you are talking about a group like ISIS, they have no need to try and get ahold of a coupla dozen nukes. They would only need to get one.

      2. upstater

        >“empire splintering into constituent republics.”

        Sounds like a great idea for Anglo-America, doesn’t it? Probably somewhere in the bowels of Reason’s archives there is a wealth of constitutional convention ideas and advocacy. Hopefully that happens someday and leads to a peaceful breakup of both the US and its Canadian pet.

      3. Polar Socialist

        Russia would use nukes long before any separatist movement could gain enough traction to be a serious concern. Not on the separatists, but on those who’d be funding them and on those who Russia would feel as a external threat.

        It’s right there in their nuclear doctrine. That’s why this kind of thinking is advocating lethal actions.

        1. The Rev Kev

          Russia came out the other day and told Washington that if they think that they can set Europe on fire and walk away, that they will not get away with it and the oceans to either side of the US won’t protect them at all. Never heard Russia make such a direct threat before.

          1. timbers

            “Never heard Russia make such a direct threat before.” And long overdue. But words are cheap, actions speak louder than words. Show us actions, Russia. Please.

          2. Trees&Trunks

            Every European citizen should set up a shrine of the Russian goverment at home and thank Russia every morning for waking up alive and every morning for going to bed alive for Russia clearing this up with the US.

            I can’t find the video but John Kirby slipped not too long ago that the conflict will be painful for Europe. He just confirmed what Hudson has said all along. This is a US war against Europe.

        2. pjay

          We don’t really have to worry about this. With our superior weapons we could take out their launch sites before they knew what hit them, according to that Guardian article in today’s Links. It is true, though, that they are so scared of our superiority that their nukes are on a hair trigger, so there’s that.

          A lot of completely crazy BS in Links today.

          1. redleg

            I think they are scared, but not of US’ weapons superiority. I think they are correct to be scared of the US because the US believes that US weapons are technologically superior and therefore the US is immune to any consequences of using those weapons at will. That’s something all of humanity should be afraid of, because IMHO it’s true.

      4. lyman alpha blob

        Many years ago in Harper’s there was a cover article about breaking the US up into constituent pieces because it was getting to complicated and unwieldly – I believe they’d settled on five as a good number. This was to be a voluntary breakup, similar to the peaceful dissolution of the USSR, not one imposed by an eternal enemy.

        I have tried many times to find a link to this article but came up empty, both in searches of the interwebs and on Harper’s own website. I may have to physically search the archives stored in my attic to track it down. It would be a nice counterpoint to all this palaver about cutting Russia up.

        2. Steven A

          Off the top of my head, I can point to two books that present North America as several distinct entities distinguished by culture and economy:

          The Nine Nations of North America by Joel Garreau

          American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America by Colin Woodard

          Both are presented as frameworks for analysis of the historical aspects of North American regions. They neither advocate nor predict any type of disintegration or devolution.

      5. The Rev Kev

        ‘I noted two letters to the editor in Harper’s Magazine by white-lady academic types who also advocate “empire splintering into constituent republics.” So the meme is out there among our Intellectual Superiors.’

        It is. And it is called by the euphemism of ‘decolonising Russia’ to give it a patina of respectability. You can Google that term to find articles and conferences on that subject but here is one by Foreign Policy-

        https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/04/17/the-west-is-preparing-for-russias-disintegration/

        You have to remember that this was after all the end game for Project Ukraine.

      8. Es s Ce Tera

        Insofar as so-called libertarians in the US have always been pro-police, pro-military, pro-authoritarianism, nationalistic and anti-feminist (which is mostly anarchism, which you’d think libertarians would feel an affinity for), I honestly don’t think there has ever been proper libertarianism in the US. If it’s American and claiming libertarianism then I would say not very likely and we should insert the “so-called”.

        European libertarianism on the other hand has always correctly identified with anarchism.

      9. hk

        I’m sure such words were spoken in salons of Paris and London in 1864:

        Lincoln has already lost. He doesn’t know it yet.

        Gettysburg will lead to political upheaval among freedom loving Yankees and cause them to rise up against the evil Lincoln.

        United States must be broken up into constituent states.

        Mexico has the right to defend itself…and its rightful French appointed Habsburg emperor.

      10. Safety First

        Back in 2020-2021, one of the high-end liberal-minded think tanks – possibly Brookings, I’d have to dig through my electronic clippings for the exact authorship – had one of their “what to do with Russia” articles. One of the very first things they proposed was to split the Russian Federation into 10 “federal regions”, while also abolishing all of the security services such as the FSB.

        The idea that this time around, Russia needs to be split apart is quite old. To some extent, one might even argue that Chechnya was a “test run”, except, of course, that story is a lot more complex. The point is, back in the 1990s enough of American policy-makers were afraid of what would happen to the nukes if Russia fractured, that they did not press the issue. However, in response the Russian stakeholders retained enough “critical mass” to eventually, beginning in 1999, reassert their sovereignty. The logical policy conclusion is that the next time around, Russia must not only be made a puppet state, but broken up into sufficiently small chunks to prevent the formation of strong enough blocks of elites – economic, security, bureaucratic, etc. – to break away from US control.

        Proponents of this view typically engage in elaborate hand-waving on the nuclear weapons question – somehow (!) it will work itself out – and, of course, no-one cares about the impact on the Russian people. To be clear, during the civil wars of the 1990s, hundreds of thousands were killed, millions ended up as displaced refugees, and no-one in the West so much as raised an eyebrow. This time would surely be no different. So the only real question is – how?

        …why, by pulling Russia into a war that will “destroy its economy” and “degrade its military force”!

        But my broader point, that in the Russia-oriented think tank circles, at least, the idea of splitting the place into a bunch of proto-states isn’t so completely new. It may not have had much steam during the Obama years, who, for all his military adventures, at least occasionally thought about maybe, possibly, in the fullness of time, after due consideration, convening a bipartisan blue-ribbon commission to discuss potentially restraining his baser impulses.

    7. timbers

      Zelensky should share this article w/Biden team and demand nukes telling them he will soon be President of Russia.

      1. sarmaT

        In order for Zelensky to become President of Russia, he needs to film a TV series of him becoming President of Russia first. It’s the victory plan he wanted to present to Biden.

    8. sarmaT

      It’s a tough competition in the rubbish (or creative writing) department today. Guardian adds that

      The US and its allies are capable of threatening and destroying all of Russia and China’s nuclear launch sites with conventional weapons,

      and Military Watch that

      in the post-Soviet years Russia’s fighter aviation industry has fallen significantly behind leaving it without a fighter with comparable offensive applications to the F-35.

      Not to mention the bollocks from the mouths of spy chiefs that have been especially active recently, for reasons known only to Bond, James Bond.

      1. Michaelmas

        Russia’s fighter aviation industry has fallen significantly behind leaving it without a fighter with comparable offensive applications to the F-35.

        Comedy gold.

        1. Polar Socialist

          I think the writer is correct. It would be really hard for any industry to build a fighter with comparable offensive application to the F-35.

          It’s quite likely even Pakistan’s latest JF-17 block 3 fighter’s will have superior offensive application to F-35 – fraction of the price (so there’s way more of them), somewhat faster and carries almost twice the payload (unless F-35 is willing to sacrifice it’s only trick). They do suffer about a similar mission capable rate, though.

        1. sarmaT

          It attacks the enemy with harsh language.

          F-35: Yo mama so fat, that Putin had to annex Donbass in order for her to fit inside Russia.

      3. XXYY

        Quite a horrifying passage from the Military Watch piece:

        The F-35 is considered unrivalled in terms of sophistication by any non-Chinese fighter class, with its advanced penetrative capabilities providing an ability to deliver conventional and nuclear strikes deep into Russian territory. A single F-35 deployed a B61-13 nuclear bomb is estimated to be able to kill up to 310,000 citizens in Moscow, while the aircraft have a potent capability to seek and destroy Russia’s own nuclear assets to prevent retaliation. This makes deployment of the aircraft to Finland a potentially very serious threat to Russian security

        Despite the ridiculous claims about the F-35 in particular, the tone of this passage is straight out of Dr Strangelove (a film that was supposed to be a comedy but increasingly seems like a documentary).

        Here’s a fun thought experiment. Imagine Russia instigated a coup in the province of Quebec, installed a cocaine snorting comedian as leader, and then started publishing pieces about how great this all was and how a single Russian plane based in Quebec can kill 300,000 Americans by dropping a big nuclear bomb on Washington DC. Needless to say, every single media pundit and citizen would be foaming at the mouth, and rightly so.

        I’m always surprised at the restraint shown by the Russian leadership in the face of these kinds of threats and provocations. Recall John F Kennedy instantly threatening to trigger the destruction of the world in similar circumstances.

    9. divadab

      Just cancelled my youtube subscription to ReasonTV channel. I wonder how much they were paid to run this sick piece of utter disinformation?

      War propaganda should be anathema to Libertarianism. These people are fakes and liars.

    10. SocalJimObjects

      Darn, just when my “Vladimir Putin, GOAT of Russia” T shirt is about to go to production ……

      1. ambrit

        Not the one with the Orthodox Pentagram on the back. Please, have you ever tried to conjure up a Politico using Cyrillic iconography?

    11. Mikel

      There was a time when a MSM that was a bit more frisky would have set up a debate with Paul Schwennesen and maybe someone like Alexander Mercouris.

    12. Kouros

      The spooks are infiltrating every media outlet possible. It is almost like the personalized advertisment in the Minority Report…

    13. chuck roast

      He listened to his old man. His old man, realizing how dumb this kid was, kept pounding it into him…’If you get a job, keep it. If you get a job, keep it. If you…’ The kid got a job, and the rest is history. I, for one, can only marvel…

    14. playon

      Ya think?

      “Paul served ten years in the US military in weapons-systems acquisition, foreign area intelligence, and flightline operations which included deployments to Central America and Afghanistan.”

  2. communistmole

    This is off-topic, but: Aryna Sabalenka, from one of the countries that must not be named, has just won the US Open in tennis, beating Jessica Pegula in the final, heiress to a fracking billionaire, after beating a loan shark billionaire heiress in the semi-finals (both heiresses from the USA).

    A good day for the international proletariat!

    1. petal

      Don’t forget to include that Pegula’s parents own the Buffalo Bills and the Sabres. Big new stadium coming for the Bills with taxpayer help. I’m so glad she lost. Cannot stand them.

      1. Wukchumni

        Nope springs eternal for Long Suffering Bills Fans*, and why shouldn’t taxpayers play along all season long and then sum?

        *LSBF for 33 years now, I know the drill.

    3. Bosko

      I like your framing, communistmole: I’m a tennis fan, and I’m not even sore that you posted a spoiler (jk, I really don’t care and probably would have seen the results elsewhere… I mostly only watch highlights at this point). I didn’t know that about Pegula’s family. Sabalenka seems like a nice young woman, with a big, genuine smile–she was featured in the recent Netflix series. Unfortunately, she had to run through my new favorite player in the women’s game: China’s Zheng Qinwen. Professional tennis sure puts an interesting mirror to the US’s waning geopolitical dominance…

      1. Wukchumni

        Tennis was so hot in the 70’s, it might have required a warning label…

        The few remaining players out there now seem to be a fly in the ointment or vice versa to pickleball players~

        One of the cabin owners in our mountain community was a tennis instructor for over 25 years, and I asked what happened to the game?

        1.) Repetitive injuries with all those sudden stops and more. Remember ‘tennis elbow’?

        2.) Gyms became popular in the 1980’s-just as tennis began to fade.

    4. Vandemonian

      In my twilight years, I’ve come to see professional sports as a part of Juvenal’s bread and circuses.

      Unfortunately for the masses, the circuses have become much less entertaining, and there is no bread.

  5. The Rev Kev

    “Sorry Mr. Sullivan, But You Just Got China So Wrong”

    I can see why this Chinese scholar has five million followers as he is not pulling any punches. But halfway though it I realized something. You can bet that somewhere in the Chinese government that there would be a branch devoted to studying and analyzing American politics. Those poor sobs. Can you imagine? All the different power fiefdoms struggling for control with a President that is now MIA and a Vice President who is only thinking of getting elected and not to helping run the country. Alcohol consumption must skyrocket every four years when the Presidential elections occur as they try to get a grip on just what the hell is happening. Pretty sure that they do not look forward to giving their superiors their briefings as some of it would sound too outlandish to believe, even for them.

    1. gk

      Sullivan, in Foreign Affairs, around Oct 10: “Although the Middle East remains beset with perennial challenges, the region is quieter than it has been for decades”. Why does anyone take him seriously?

      2. Rory

        I was struck by the author’s observation that “the U.S. decision-making elite, especially their foreign strategy team, is not normal in its cognition.” As understatement, it ranks up there with “the U.S. is not agreement capable.”

    2. Alan Sutton

      Yes, that was an amazing article. Extremely undiplomatic which must reflect some of the frustration in China with the so called “grown ups” in the US.

      It is sobering to think how pitifully the Chinese must look at the juvenile antics of the US Govt. these days. No, not sobering, downright embarrassing isn’t it?

      I am more and more reminded of Shikasta. Lessing actually mentions the Chinese in that book I think. Or maybe one of the others in that series. She was already confident that China would be running the world in the future in 1974 (ish).

  6. Jester

    Western Europeans fail to understand the extent to which they were f*cked by the 2008 subprime crisis.
    It’s actually quite extraordinary: if you take the example of France in 2008 we were almost on par with the US in GDP per capita, $45.5k vs $48.5k, a small 6% difference.… pic.twitter.com/Pf0Qbg47aq
    — Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) September 3, 2024

    Western Europeans fail to understand that it was just a foreplay.

    1. Yves Smith

      *Sigh*

      This is not exactly correct.

      Yes, US subprime DIRECTLY did a lot of damage to German banks.

      However, Ireland, the UK and Spain all had their own large housing bubbles.

      Eurobanks (and ONLY Eurobanks) also allowed their traders to speculate in subprime CDOs in a way that allowed them to book all theoretical profits from the CDOs after hedge costs up front and paid the traders hefty bonuses on them. These trades blew up as the insurance proved to be no good. This was done on a scale at UBS that forced a government rescue. Paribas and SocGen were also big victims. I explain this in very gory detail in ECONNED.

      The other reason the Europeans have had a decade of crappy growth was the refusal across the EU to force the banks to take big writedowns and recapitalize. And a big reason for that was EU budget rules. They could not run big enough deficits to compensate for the deflationary effect of cleaning up bank balance sheets.

      So while our housing bubble did hurt a lot of European banks and investors, there was plenty of self harm too.

      2. vao

        Let us not forget the banking cataclysm in Iceland.

        And since Europe is a mosaic of countries, there were also a number of banking disasters with national idiosyncrasies not linked to the real-estate and CDO crash.

        Typical is Austria, whose entire banking system was whacked when the foolhardy bets on Eastern Europe went sour: Volksbank (Romania, Russia); Erste (Romania, Hungary); Bank Austria (Ukraine); Raiffeisen (Ukraine); Hypo Alpe Adria (Balkans). Both Hypo-Alpe-Adria and Volksbank had to be taken over by the Austrian State before being liquidated. The others managed to survive after writing off massive losses in their Eastern European businesses.

        In Germany, a whole group of regional banks (linked to the shipping sector) had, because of the so-called “shipping crisis”, to be either saved from bankruptcy at taxpayers’ expense: HSH Nordbank, Norddeutsche Landesbank; or transferred to other institutions: Bremer Landesbank (to the Norddeutsche Landesbank); or taken over by other institutions: DVB Bank.

        I agree: Europe did not, and does not need the help of the USA to muck up royally its own financial sector and its economy at large.

        1. The Rev Kev

          I would call Iceland a special case. During the financial crisis the UK used an anti-terrorist law to freeze the British assets of Icelandic banks. Who knew that Iceland was a terrorist state? But they got their own back. They tried and sent to prison about 20 bankers which had caused the crash in Iceland much to the horror and protests of EU officials.

          1. vao

            Yes, this was a bit my point: for all the talk about the common market and all that, Europe is a whole bag of special cases — Iceland being just one of them. But crucially, the banking crisis in Iceland had an impact beyond its limited financial market.

          2. .human

            They tried and sent to prison about 20 bankers which had caused the crash in Iceland much to the horror and protests of EU officials.

            Hence the “terrorist” designation. Can’t have those assets leaving the UK or EU.

      3. Revenant

        I think the coverup was worse than the crime, I.e. it was the self-poisoning with austerity medicine in the Eurozone and the UK really killed headline demand and growth, by sacrificing aggregate demand to propitiate the now-fictitious capital of the lenders who had been bailed out. You can see this in the domestic UK bank share prices (Lloyd’s, NatWest) which took years to begin to recover: the domestic economy (like their balance sheets) was banjaxed.

        In the UK, ZIRP kept the housing market barely alive for 2-3 years of the acute “recovery”. It eventually started to boom again (not recommended but the UK economy is a one club golfer these days) in the mid-2010’s but there was no feeling of growth.

        Only from 2017 did the economy start to fizz and then only in ZIRP sectors like private equity and VC where I was working. The “tourists” arrived (banks, corporates, hedge funds) chasing yield and the late stage VC bubble. It felt unstable (WeWork!) and then the pandemic hit and everything became fantastical. None of this growth appears to have stuck, easy come easy go. Much of it was foreign / offshore capital anyway. But unlike the Victorian railway boom or the dot.com dark fibre boom, all we are left with is empty coworking spaces and £5 latte instagrammable cafes. :-(

        It certainly feels like everything has gone sideways for a decade and a half. Interestingly, two cousins moved to the USA and have prospered (one joining a hedge fund after an MI6 career, one buying trailer parks and Rustbelt row housing after a VC/founder career).

        Individual success stories don’t reflect aggregate outcomes but they make for interesting exemplars of the point, that the US has boomed on cheap money and, as a result, cheap energy (the fracking needed ZIRP to fubd it) and the internalisation of petro-dollars.

        Michael Hudson showed in the 1970’s that the US deficit was entirely military foreign expenditure (the rest was transfer pricing of US energy and commodity companies). I suspect the same is true now, with fracking and big oil and finance dollars balancing the China import bill and the difference being whatever 800 bases around the world cost (that isn’t paid to US contractors).

        However I don’t think living standards are so far apart. The historic public infrastructure capital in Europe is much higher and the US growth has accrued very unevenly and the US public investment has been run down (collapsing highway bridges…). We may be poorer on the surface but I suspect modal European lifestyles *for the middle-aged and middle-class* are not much different when public goods and transfer payments are properly unaccounted for. The real difference is in the living standards of the young, which have been cannibalised everywhere by their parents through expensive housing and public disinvestment, and the 1%….

    2. danpaco

      I wonder how long a Palestinian (PDL if you will) organization wearing tactical vests around the campus of
      U of T would last. I can see the headlines now about “anti-jewish militia running amok ” on the front page of the National Post already.

    1. The Rev Kev

      Thanks for that reminder about Larry. Apparently Larry does not play well with others as No. 10 is his turf, not those stupid humans or any assorted cats. And he has seen so many Prime Ministers come and go by that now, High Chancellor Starmer does not impress him at all. Larry is one helluva battle cat.

  9. DJG, Reality Czar

    Stanford fires its creative-writing program. You may wish to click through to the underlying Stanford Daily article, which doesn’t clarify matters.

    Of all the names mentioned, I recognize only Eavan Boland. (Stegner, of course, but I can’t say that Stegner’s reputation has held up. Does anyone still read Big Rock-Candy Mountain?)

    This is the central issue with creative-writing programs. Lots of peeps are parked there writing lots of things that have little impact on the wider culture and a wider audience. These programs seem to be the place where one goes to muddle on after publishing that first “tenure” novel or book of poetry. As a writer who has made his way without an M F A, I am skeptical.

    I am also reminded of how ineptly arts organizations are managed. They aren’t even managed. I’m not sure what word to use. I recall a theater company in Chicago that hired an “edgy” new artistic director who then immediately fired the ensemble of artistic associates / actors who were the founders of the theater. Victory Gardens Theater and its staff / artistic associates over the last two decades have been famous for nasty internal battles, resident playwrights with no fixed term, bizarre public battles, political posturing of all kinds (and always very loudly), and general disorganization.

    Maybe Emily Dickinson had good ideas about where writers should write.

    1. Yves Smith

      One of my college roommates, Alice Goodman, got the first summa in Harvard’s creative writing program, and that was about ten years after it had been established. She could quote pages of verse. She wrote the libretto for Peter Sellars’ Nixon in China shortly after getting her undergraduate degree. She later became an Anglican priest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Goodman

      In general, and sadly, I think that who “makes it” in creative writing, just as in visual arts, depends on attracting patrons or other promoters.

      1. Mikel

        Patrons or other promoters.
        Here in LaLa Land, I use the phrase “co-signers and cliques”.
        Co-sign means having enough people with pull and power giving talent the nod. Cliques is having family or old friends that “make it” and one rides those the coattails.

      2. .Tom

        Very cool. I have the 3LP box set of Nixon In China. Very disappointingly it has the same booklet as the CD box set, a tiny little thing set inside the LP box.

        I has been sitting in my collection all this time while I very slowly pick up some understanding (thanks in part to NC, check already sent) of the related history and politics. The title and cover picture come to mind whenever the topic comes up.

        https://www.discogs.com/release/2732560-John-Adams-Alice-Goodman-Orchestra-Of-St-Lukes-Edo-de-Waart-Nixon-In-China-An-Opera-In-Three-Acts

      3. Alice X

        ~In general, and sadly, I think that who “makes it” in creative writing, just as in visual arts, depends on attracting patrons or other promoters.

        And then there is music, where only a corporation can protect and promote a copyright (because they get a cut), the existence of which is another discussion in itself.

      4. britzklieg

        Alice Goodman. Huge brain. Huge talent. Yay!

        Forgive a small clarification but… it’s John Adams’ Nixon in China, although, arguably, it would never have been written/composed without Peter Sellars… you probably know the Boston backstory of all that better than I. Quite a team: Sellars, Adams and Goodman

        1. Yves Smith

          Yes, I was a bit parochial and therefore inaccurate.

          I stage managed a Three Sisters and produced a summer theater season with Peter before he started working with John Adams. Peter knew Alice independently; we all lived in Adams House and she was a known literary personage. It was Peter who put Alice and John Adams together. So even though he was formally the director, he was effectively the producer.

      5. wol

        In the visual arts it helps one’s career to share the PMC interests of the curators, directors and collectors, typically militant ID politicians. Otherwise dig deep to pay a publicist. Or fuggetaboudid, keep your expectations very low and your acceptance very high.

        (I donated, less expensive than a therapist).

    2. Mikel

      “…the underlying Stanford Daily article, which doesn’t clarify matters.”

      Enter LLMs?
      Look at the area where the school is located.

    3. AG

      Art production is of course an elite culture.
      Just today alternative German site Nachdenkseiten has an item on the lack of independent political thought among artists presently.
      The chaos in the German art scene may be of a different kind since here everything is run by the state.
      That assures income for a certain group (including classic labour who are often met with disregard by the “artists” but are more unionized.)

      p.s. I am often struck by the naivité of the media public who turn to artists for political advice and comments. Which makes zero sense because most of them are uninformed due to lack of time and are dumb as shit. So no surprise if an actor as Sean Penn, who wrote the preface to a book by Norman Solomon now smears people who want the UKR war to end peacefully as cowards because they don´t want WWIII. Or when every Ukrainian artist in Germany speaking out publicly seems to have a special relationship with “The Day After”.
      And here writers are at the forefront of reigning idiocracy.
      (Admittedly many are said to be opposed out of common sense but those are silent as the dead. For obvious reasons. And I personally haven´t met any.)
      I get up every single day with this on my mind. I have 1000 cool explanations. But they still are only cheap excuses for what cannot be explained in a decent way.

      p.p.s. It fits that Alice Goodman turned to the church. May be a way to not lose one´s mind. Religion and art presenting two sides of the same coin.

    4. Michaelmas

      DJG, Reality Czar: Of all the names mentioned, I recognize only Eavan Boland. (Stegner, of course, but I can’t say that Stegner’s reputation has held up. Does anyone still read Big Rock-Candy Mountain?)

      Back in the day Robert Stone, Larry McMurtry, Wendell Berry, Ernest Gaines, and Ken Kesey, among others,were Stegner fellows, in the Stanford writing program. McMurtry isn’t be sneezed at and Robert Stone is arguably one of the great American authors of the later 20th century.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Stone_(novelist)

      Yves Smith: In general, and sadly, I think that who “makes it” in creative writing, just as in visual arts, depends on attracting patrons or other promoters.

      Perhaps. But of the above group, pretty much all had lives furnished in early poverty, excepting Kesey. Stone’s was particularly hard-scrabble: raised by his schizophrenic mother till she was institutionalized, then several years in a Catholic orphanage from which he was expelled at 17, whereupon he joined the Navy.

      It was a different time and US, of course.

      1. Alan Sutton

        I am reading Robert Stone a lot lately.

        “ and Robert Stone is arguably one of the great American authors of the later 20th century”

        There’s no arguing about that for me.

        Hall Of Mirrors is incredible. The film of it is worth watching too.

        A worthy sequel to Sinclair Lewis’ “It Can’t Happen Here”.

        The verdict is: “Yes it can”!

    5. Otto Reply

      One may not read Stegner any more, but plenty of his students are still worth reading: Ken Kesey, Larry McMurtry, Ken Babbs, and Wendell Berry to name a few.

  10. Wukchumni

    Gooooooood Moooooooorning Fiatnam!

    It was business as unusual in the green felt jungle of lower Manhattan as the platoon avoided NVidia sticks sharpened to a fine point and then slathered with breathtaking returns if you’d only bought in way back when-seen one ersatz punji stick trap-seen ’em all… was the thinking.

    1. i just don't like the gravy

      Every once in a while your comments strike me as Pynchonian and put a smile on my face.

  11. Katniss Everdeen

    RE: Israeli forces accused of killing their own citizens under the ‘Hannibal Directive’ during October 7 chaos ABC Australia

    Had to check the date on this article. It’s 2 days ago.

    Max Bluementhal, Aaron Mate and Katie Halper, among others, have been talking about israel’s use of the Hannibal Directive since a few weeks after Oct. 7, which israel ultimately admitted invoking.

    While mass murder in Palestine has been “justified” by the number of israelis killed on 10/7 by Hamas, there is no way to determine how many were killed by Hamas and how many by israel. israel has refused to allow an independent investigation. And as Blumenthal et al. have pointed out, some of the damage done to kibbutz homes was too extensive to have been done by the small arms Hamas was carrying, and many of the corpses were so completely incinerated that it was impossible to distinguish whether they were Palestinian or israeli.

    As noted in the article there was “mass Hannibal,” and uncontrolled “panic” among “command-less” israeli forces. And then there were the Apache gunships:

    “Twenty-eight fighter helicopters shot over the course of the day all of the ammunition in their bellies, in renewed runs to rearm. We are talking about hundreds of 30-millimetre cannon mortars and Hellfire missiles,” reporter Yoav Zeitoun said.

    As usual with israel, things are not always as they seem, but violently exploiting those obscurities is as straightforward as it gets.

    1. Carolinian

      Somebody should tell Kamala/Biden as well since they are still pushing discredited claims about the event. Also the NYT needs a memo.

      This Scheer/Hugh Wilford link is a bit hard to read (also on video) due to the automated transcription but discusses the remarkable incompetence of the CIA and it’s contribution to our own MIC. It could be that competence more than democracy dies in darkness. Naturally buffoons love censorship.

      https://scheerpost.com/2024/09/07/the-cia-the-worlds-first-secret-empire/

      1. Chris Cosmos

        Are you serious? Incompetence? There may be some of it in the Neocon halls of DC and Langley but this is policy. The Washington milieu is on the good/evil scale about as bad as it could by any standard or morality. It’s about getting what you want no matter how high the pile of corpses. It’s all about the mission and nothing but the mission (i.e., the various bits of nasty in service of the conquest of the planet)–for the covert warriors or keyboard jockeys, who work in the power centers. It’s Goodfellas writ very large. This BTW, has been the general atmosphere for a couple of decades now–it was never even close to being this bad before then. 9/11, as they say “changed everything” which the powerful mentioned over and over and over again.

        1. hk

          Incompetence does not exclude evil. If anything, incompetent evil people who are trying to be too clever by half thinking themselves geniuses probably make for the best explanation of the situation.

    2. The Rev Kev

      They know exactly what happened that day and there was no confusion. That is why the 1,000 vehicles destroyed that day are being shredded and buried. So that there will never be a forensics examination of them to find out what happened to them.

      1. pjay

        In the days immediately following 10/7, when we were hearing about mass rapes and babies baked in ovens, I remember seeing those videos of burned out vehicles as far as the eye could see and thinking no way the Hamas attack as described could have done that. The other stuff also sounded like blatant propaganda as well. Not surprisingly, my first instincts were correct. Unfortunately, and also not surprising, most people only know what was shouted out in the media those first few days.

    3. Polar Socialist

      A week or so after Oct 7 I saw video, filmed from an Israeli first responder helicopter (or some such) of an Israeli tank shooting up houses in a kibbutz. The helicopter crew can’t believe their eyes, and as they try to report to their ground controller that landing is impossible because Israeli tanks are shooting at everything, the controller doesn’t believe them.

      I wonder if that kind of trauma has brought on the surface the horrible blood-lust in so many Israelis – they can’t trust either Palestinians or IDF not to kill them. As long as IDF is killing people in the occupied areas, they’re not killing people in Israel…

      1. tegnost

        I too recall the same or similar videos, thanks for bringing it up, no time to search right now (if they’re even still available)

    4. Chris Cosmos

      Americans and people in the vassal states have difficulty dealing with the problem of evil. Most people cannot believe that anyone would do the sort of things that the Israeli government and most Israelis are willing to do for their “religion.” One of the things that bothers me is the stunning ignorance of most Christians of the Old Testament which, in the early books, is all about slaughtering killing, raping, and looting neighboring tribes and cities. Israel is the re-incarnation of that culture. This is not just about political leaders in Israel–it’s most of the ordinary people. Morally, just to be clear, we are no better, we just, as a culture, refuse to face reality and live in the fantasies of super-heroes and hate those who tell the truth particularly if they are described as “other.”

      1. JBird4049

        People are ignorant of the Old Testament and too many people ignore the inconvenient parts of the New Testament as well.

        1. gk

          They are definitely ignorant of the evil things in the Old Testament. I’ve friends who have read “The Third”(in Samizhdat) admire how well he predicted what Israel is doing. Sarid did no such thing, just using a close reading of the Bible to see what will come.

          As for ignorance of the New Testament, are there any evil parts you have in mind, or are you talking of the debt relief?

          1. b

            Look up instructions for dealing with the Amelikites to get the land God promised that was already inhabited. Sound familiar? That’s where I learned how to hold babies’ heels while dashing their heads on rocks. There’s more! Bibi et al often refer to them.

          1. gk

            Not really. When I lived in NY, there was a talking point among the idiots there that there was a narrow passageway whose name was the Aramaic for “camel”. That’s what Jesus had in mind. When challenged, nobody could give a source for this placename.

    5. Vandemonian

      Although the message in this article may seem a bit old hat to the NC community, there’s one aspect of it that I find quite remarkable. This is from the ABC – Australia’s government-run national broadcaster. Pravda on Sydney Harbour if you will.

      Australia as currently run is a loyal and devoted satrapy of the US: Five Eyes, AUKUS and all that. It seems that the Official Narrative is beginning to fall apart.

      1. vao

        Australia is an interesting case.

        Recently, several high-ranking civil servants and well-known politicians have come very publicly and unequivocally against AUKUS, the submarine deal with UK and the USA, and the current policy with respect to China.

        In other words, within the Australian ruling elite some factions (whose importance and influence I cannot assess) have concluded that the current diplomatic, military, and economic choices go frontally against the interests of the country and that a change of direction is urgently needed. That ABC report fits in that agitation.

        From this perspective, the situation in Australia is much better than in Europe, where I cannot think of any comparable elder statesman, civil servant, or career military officer who has dared going public with sharp criticisms against the European policies regarding Ukraine, Palestine, Russia, and Iran.

        1. The Rev Kev

          Maybe somebody in Canberra checked Wikipedia and decided that a country of 25 million people trying to fight a country of 1.4 billion people may not be the best use of our time. Trouble is that too many people in Canberra have delusions of adequacy.

        2. Alan Sutton

          This is the most prominent website where this elite argument is played out: https://johnmenadue.com/

          It’s run by an ex politician from the Whitlam era (I think, at least the Hawke era) who became a prominent business operator. Menadue was the CEO of Qantas I think, or something nearly like that in the 80s.

          Lots of ex public servants write here. Most famously Paul Keating, an ex Prime Minister of Aus who was very keen on an Asian Pivot in his day, which meant something different for him that it did for Obama.

          NC often link to this site too so no new info from me really.

  12. Carolinian

    Re the Raspberry Pi link–this is way over my pay grade but my brother gave me one of the souped up RPI 5 boards and it puts out a fine image on my video projector. He knows that I like Linux, not that I’m an electronics geek. I have a couple of other Pi in a drawer and have never used the GPIO pins or tried any “projects.”

    1. hardscrabble

      FWIW, I’m a Pi fan. I’m writing this on a Pi4 with 8G RAM ($75). Running chromium (not Chrome), it makes a nice web portal while using Libre office tools and thunderbird email tool. Do not attempt this with only 1G RAM, web sites are hogs these days. An older model runs my heating system and uses the GPIO to read from multiple temperature sensors. Another runs my stereo cabinet via a GPIO add-on board. I’ve only used the hdmi port(s) with video monitors, no issues yet. And I avoid overclocking, I don’t like (potential) glitches.

    2. GrimUpNorth

      I’m a big Pi fan as well, and have never used the gpio pins.

      I’m writing this on the 7 year old 3b+ and at the same time it runs music and a wifi hotspot. I can also watch TV via a USB adapter.

      The old pi 3 is great as it gets power off the old USB connector type, so I can can use it with any TV without need for a mains plug adapter. It draws only 1 amp so it is the greenest desktop you can use.

  13. The Rev Kev

    “Mild at First: A Brief History of The 1918 Bird Flu Pandemic”

    ‘The flu resurfaced at an army base on the other side of the state. This time, it caused an outbreak among soldiers in overcrowded, unsanitary conditions. The military did nothing. They didn’t care if their soldiers got sick, or even if some of them died.’

    That is not true at all. The Army arranged to have three top medical specialists to go to that camp – Fort Riley in Kansas I think – and find out why there was so many dead and dying soldiers. They found dead soldiers stacked up like cord-wood and so blackened by the course of that virus that it was impossible to identify which where white and which were black. It was something like out of The Andromeda Strain. The odd thing was that years later they never really talked about their experiences, not even in their autobiographies and for most people, that whole episode got dropped down the memory hole.

    1. vao

      The odd thing was that years later they never really talked about their experiences, not even in their autobiographies

      All right, how do we know about that episode then? Who else reported on it and about those three physicians?

      1. The Rev Kev

        If I recall correctly, that episode appeared in either John Barry’s book “The Great Influenza” or Alfred Crosby’s “America’s Forgotten Pandemic'” They went to the source material for that era, including newspaper accounts and reports. I would assume that they checked the works of those three physicians and in any autobiographies found virtually no mention much to their surprise. Before those books came out, I don’t think that the great flu pandemic was even taught that much in medical schools except as a checkbox to tick. The time of the Flu Pandemic was also the time that the US sent a military force to invade Russia but you don’t hear much about that either.

        2. Jorge

          Ha! The Arkangelsk expedition. During the WW1 Armistice in November 1918, the Allies (or whatever they called themselves) decided to invade Russia and put down the October Revolution.

          They invaded Arkangelsk, at the northernmost part of Russian Europe, in November. Tired troops, not the right gear, etc. etc. It was utterly terrible, the greatest military foolishness of WW1. They talk about Gallipolli to avoid talking about Arkangelsk.

          For those of you who are fans of the game Disco Elysium, it can (sort of) be read as an alternate history where an Arkangelsk-style invasion was successful in suppressing the October Revolution.

          https://www.google.com/maps/place/Arkhangelsk,+Arkhangelsk+Oblast,+Russia/@64.5150202,36.9860087,6z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x441833f755c232e1:0x403eec437ac89a31!8m2!3d64.5458549!4d40.5505769!16zL20vMHZndDM?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MDkwNC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

    2. Anonymous 2

      I grew up in the 1950s in a very medical family in England. They had certainly not forgotten the 1918 epidemic. I can’t speak for later or what was taught in medical schools in recent decades.

  14. Wukchumni

    Ahhhh
    Here come the Sum King
    Here come the Sum King
    Everybody’s laughing
    Everybody’s happy
    Here come the Sum King
    Quando para mucho mi amore de felice corazon
    Mundo paparazzi mi amore chica ferdi parasol
    Questo obrigado tanta mucho que can eat it carousel

    Mean Mister Musk sleeps in the dark
    Slaves in the park trying to save Tesla
    Sleeps in a hole in the internet
    Saving up to buy a 1-way ticket to Mars
    Keeps who knows what up his nose
    Such a means oriented man
    Such a means oriented man
    Such a dirty rich man
    Dirty rich man

    Sun King, by the Beatles

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bNMxWGHlTI

  15. Well Worn

    What has drawn the Israelis to such savagery – – intentionally shooting, bombing, and starving children? I think commentator Chris Cosmos was right when he recently wrote that (I paraphrase here) nothing has changed – – the Jew has always been, and will remain, this way.

    As my admittedly brief research appears to show, many scholars, including Jewish rabbis, argue that Western morality plays no role here. Pursuant to Jewish religious duty, Israelites are commanded to exterminate the non-Jew, or at least certain ethnic tribes, including the Palestinians. That dictate applies to the eradication of noncivilians and civilians alike, whether man, woman, or child.

    Although Israel would of course prefer that it remain on the receiving end of our sympathy as to the Holocaust of WWII, that nation is likely not terribly occupied with what the rest of us think. As far as the US-Israel relationship goes, all that matters to Israel is that the US continue to (1) remain the mother lode of Jewish enrichment, and (2) supply weaponry to help Israel exterminate the non-Jew.

    Originally, I thought that a partial explanation for Israel’s mayhem was based on that previous holocaust (as opposed to today’s Jewish implementation of holocaust against the Palestinians). In short, decades ago, the Jews were the victims of the Nazi bullying, and now, decades later, the Jews themselves had become the bully. I think now that the Jews very unlikely care whether we feel sympathy or not. Any such feeling would be irrelevant.

    But if today’s holocaust were not tragic enough, we Westerners, especially we Americans, have made it all the more so. We step into the fray to aid the slaughter. The “beacon of light” lands a hand to enable one peoples to exterminate another. And we congratulate ourselves in doing so, proud to supply the bombs so Israel can blow the limbs off children.

    A few minutes ago I watched again the video posted on NC earlier this week of the little girl dancing so beautifully. As I did so, I bore in mind that Israel and America, with the eager assistance of the British, continue to work diligently to kill thousands of such children. Purposely, intentionally, deliberately. Bibi, Smotrich, and Biden dropping their bombs from a safe distance, living their safe, ice-cream lives. We are beyond sick. Our “leaders” are the Masters of today’s Universe in the same way that Goebbels was the Master of his.

    Even if it didn’t work, British officers’ willingness to contemplate using smallpox against the Indians was a sign of their callousness. “Even for that time period, it violated civilized notions of war,” says Kelton, who notes that disease “kills indiscriminately—it would kill women and children, not just warriors.”

    But Kelton cautions against focusing too much on the smallpox blanket incident as a documented method of attack against Native Americans. He says the tactic, however callous and brutal, is only a small part of a larger story of brutality in the 1600s and 1700s. During this period British forces tried to drive out Native Americans by cutting down their corn and burning their homes, turning them into refugees. In Kelton’s view, that rendered them far more vulnerable to the ravages of disease than a pile of infected blankets.

    https://www.history.com/news/colonists-native-americans-smallpox-blankets

    The Israelis are now committing the same savagery against the Palestinians. Destroying their homes, their crops, and intentionally killing their civilians. May God have no mercy on the Israelis’ soul, and that goes for the Americans who are contributing to this mass murder. What in the f – – – is wrong with us in the West? Forget the smartphone, the social media influencers, the electric vehicle, and other trinkets of today’s life; we remain the same execrable beings as those in the past. We might even be worse, in that we claim to have learned from the past, but in practice we have learned nothing. Nothing.

    So what does the US Government see as the benefits of the above? As tempting as it is to complicate it, our so-called leaders seek to continue to enrich themselves, not just with literally money, but, more importantly, the power which money confers. And power apparently trumps lives every time. So, dear boys and girls, sorry, but our “leaders” are going to continue to aid Israel as it “advances” to snuff you out.

    1. DJG, Reality Czar

      Well Worn: Your comment starts with three paragraphs of essentialist arguing. The eternal evil Jew? What’s next? Shifty Italians, inscrutable Chinese, smelly “Red” Indians?

      Kemo Sabe: The issue in Palestine and in Ukraine can be divided into two big, big interlocking problems: The misuse of religion and its universalizing tendencies. Extreme nationalism that overwhelms the state and its guarantees.

      In Ukraine, you had the Ukrainian government burning Russian-language books. This is nationalism taken to an extreme.

      In Israel, you have the government conducting a genocide to engage in a land grab.

      For that matter, you have the U.S. of A. drenched in Calvinism, which theologically is doltish and has devolved into greed.

      These are not problems of essentialism. These are problems of bad categories, absurd arguments presented as “theory,” bad analysis, resentments, and greed.

      The road to peace isn’t going to be marigolds, incense, and popsicles. The road to peace means being hard-headed about propaganda, panic, and plain vulgar thinking out there. One must cut through it.

      I suggest that you read Kaputt by Curzio Malaparte.

      1. Well Worn

        DJG, I sincerely appreciate your comments. I did not intend to say/imply that all Jews, nor, for that matter, all Americans/Westerners, are evil. Instead, I am continuing to wrestle with the fact that so many humans, even if not inherently evil, act as though they are. And I know that religion will commonly continue to be used as a crutch to justify some of one’s own personal, selfish acts (in this case acts which seriously harm others). But, again, I do welcome your comments. Sometimes there are no “answers” to be found, or at least no satisfactory ones. I acknowledge further that even at my advancing age, I remain more than a little naive.

        1. Yves Smith

          Sorry, that is what you pretty clearly said. It is hard to take seriously your claim that you don’t control your register. Frankly, I read you as disingenuous. Your make what is an unacceptable remark and misrepresent what another reader said to do so, and then affect “Aw shucks” and highminded rather than offer an abject apology.

          I should rip your comment out except we would have to rip out the entire thread to do so. Your comment is a denigration of the site and of Chris Cosmos.

      2. pjay

        Yes. Maybe Chris Cosmos will respond to clarify whether he was “paraphrased” correctly.

        I could certainly see that first paragraph about “the Jew” being singled out and used to smear NC and its readers as “antisemitic.” Hmm.

        1. Well Worn

          pjay, please see my reply to DJG’s comments. I am continuing to struggle with the fact that thousands of innocent lives continue to be lost at the hands of the leaders of Israel, with the American administration contributing in a major way.

      3. gk

        I sort of share your recommendation of Kaputt (and the sequel, la pelle). But I wish there was an annotated edition to separate fact and fantasy (He obviously didn’t go to receptions by the Princesse de Guermantes. But did he really have long dinners with Governor-General Hans Frank?) It all reads like it was true, but I have my doubts.

      4. Revenant

        Ah, DJG, is it you I have to thank, for the recommendation here of Kaputt? I enjoyed it very much, if that is right word. So many places back in the news, e.g. Jassy / Iasi. And so many powerful images: the passage where he sleeps in a field of sunflowers and is woken by their collective creaking to face the dawn is arresting.

        Are you also responsible for recommending the Good Soldier Swejk?

        1. Alan Sutton

          Are you also responsible for recommending the Good Soldier Swejk?

          Even if he isn’t that is one hell of a book. Highly recommended.

        2. Wukchumni

          Humbly Report, sir

          I’ll take credit for it, a tour de farce of monumental dimensions!

          p.s.

          Read The Radetzky March by Strauss before, to give you some idea who all those Habsburgs are in the Good Soldier Švejk

    2. Chris Cosmos

      I didn’t say Jews will never change or at least didn’t mean to. There are plenty of Jews who are not rabid Old Testament style Zionists but, even in Israel, there are Jews who don’t like the pure evil their country is pursuing. Just as evil, if not more so, is the obscene drive of Washington barons to pursue complete world conquest. It is Washington that is feeding this growth of what I can only describe as pure evil and I know its lineaments.

  16. Wukchumni

    No Regrets dept:

    Genocide Joe will cement his awful legacy with his last act of office in rescuing his son from a long stint in the all bar motel, in 1 last lie in an administration based upon them.

    He has nothing to lose, and once the election is over will have approx 66.6 days left as the lamest of ducks since LBJ to screw us over somehow.

    1. albrt

      We don’t really know how lame of a duck Biden is unless we know what level of personal access and control he and Dr. Jill have over things like the Epstein files, for example.

    2. ChrisFromGA

      His last shot at redemption slipped away when Antony “Fraud in the Factum” Blinken couldn’t commit enough accounting crimes to make Arthur Anderson look like Mother Teresa.

  17. Roger Blakely

    RE: ‘Special forces-styled travel’? Changing face of mainland Chinese travellers triggers Hong Kong tourism rethink Channel News Asia

    Please send us high-value tourists only. We don’t need anyone traveling on the cheap.

    Being a member of the riff-raffs myself, I understand their sentiment.

    Please bring back rank materialism. “Retail business is now 70 per cent less than its peak two decades ago, with a steady decline over the past 10 years.” “Hong Kong’s past focus on luxury goods like handbags no longer suffices.”

    I like the idea that the internet is hurting tourism because it allows people to experience a place without having to travel there.

    1. chuck roast

      My little city by the sea can’t fit anymore tourists because many members of the happy motoring public can’t find space on the island. So, now they are coming in their thousands on the new stretched out Ruby Princesses. Always a pleasure to welcome the latest petri dish. They all buy an ice cream cone and maybe, a t-shirt. The cruelest fate may await HK.

  19. Mikel

    Nearly half of Nvidia’s revenue comes from just four mystery whales each buying $3 billion–plus – Fortune

    Hmmm. All of that rings a bell. Remember the article in Financial Times earlier this year:
    “Sell Nvidia” was the provocative title. https://archive.ph/MHMci/

    “…Though the total amount of funding and the specific structure of the deals (cash, stock, tech, or services) are unknown, Nvidia has become linked with a host of companies that we expect are using Nvidia technology. CoreWeave, an Nvidia-backed cloud computing startup not only uses Nvidia chips but has secured $2.3bn in financing using Nvidia H100 GPUs as collateral. This financing will be used to purchase more advanced chips, most probably from Nvidia. It is estimated that CoreWeave was Nvidia’s 7th largest customer of H100 GPUs in 2023, purchasing 40k of the processors for 4.5% of total revenues (an H100 GPU sells for $30k). Meta and Microsoft tied for number 1 at 150k each.

    The core takeaway is that an increasing share of NVDA’s revenues from the past two quarters can potentially be attributed to startups NVDA has funded itself. These companies operate in robotics, machine learning, SaaS, and cloud computing, all sectors reliant on AI chips. This self-funded demand is a risk because it is dependent on NVDA’s own investment spending and potentially misinterprets independent demand for NVDA chips because NVDA is essentially funding its own customers….”

    And the FT article came after a YouTuber made some observations about the background of CoreWeave.
    CoreWeave was founded by “finance bros” rather than actual “tech bros”.

    1. NYMutza

      The argument against Nvidia is weak. The automobile industry has long financed its customers. There is nothing inherently wrong in doing so. Credit is what makes the world go round (and I be you thought it was love).

      1. Mikel

        The auto industry that has received bailout after bailout.
        Just great…it seems bailouts make the world go round in that case

      2. ChrisFromGA

        What happens if those startups are not economically viable? I don’t recall Ford, GM, Packard, or Morgan having to create customers. Maybe that old Henry Ford was even wilier than thought?

    2. ChrisFromGA

      I recall listening to CNBC a few months back, and I think it was one of the Najarian brothers or maybe Guy Adami who pointed out that between Nvidia and Microsoft, one of them can keep up their profit margins but not both, due to the reliance on each of them on the other and the nature of computer hardware markets.

      I may be off here but I think what he was saying was that either Microsoft starts funding or moving to competitors of Nvidia to help bring down their costs of buying NVidia GPUs to a more reasonable level, or Nvidia gets greedy, hurts their own customers, and MS margins fall as they have to keep paying more and more to stay on the cutting edge of technology.

      So one of them has to “lose.”

      I made a mental note of that bit of wisdom and filed it away. THere is probably some sophisticated option strategy to bet against Nvidia and Microsoft both having their cake and eating it too.

      (Throw it in the hopper with your observation on Nvidia funding startups to create demand for their own hardware. What happens when those startups go Tango Upsilon?)

  20. Maxwell Johnston

    US arms advantage over Russia and China threatens stability, experts warn — The Guardian

    versus

    Amphibious Ship Suffers Breakdown, Marking at Least Third Navy Mechanical Issue This Year — Military.com

    An interesting juxtaposition of articles! The Guardian isn’t actually referring to superior USA missile technology (which doesn’t exist), but to the Rapid Dragon program, which has been much talked about but never used in combat. The problem I see with Rapid Dragon is that these lumbering transport airplanes will be seen approaching the Russian (or Chinese) borders in large numbers long before they can unleash their payloads, so they will lack any element of surprise, so what’s the point? At least a stealth bomber might go undetected. Of course if the USA deploys hundreds of these transport aircraft to eastern Europe and Japan and the Phillipines, then this would be terribly destabilizing; China/Russia would have to assume that each of these aircraft was a nuclear weapons carrier and act accordingly. The potential consequences make one shudder. But this technology has been around for awhile (and presumably the Chinese and Russians have something similar), so there’s nothing really new here, which makes me wonder why The Guardian chose to run this story.

    As for the US Navy’s mechanical woes, these have been going on for years now. But given the lethality of modern anti-ship missiles and drones of all sorts, I cannot imagine any navy being able to pull off a large-scale amphibious landing against any near-peer opponent. It would be utterly suicidal. So in all fairness, I don’t see that a shortage of amphibious warships will seriously affect the USA’s military posture vs any serious opponents (China, Iran, North Korea, Russia).

    I enjoyed this line from the article (which I don’t think was intended to be amusing): “…..his ability to make good on that goal relies heavily on the Navy having enough amphibious ships to support the Marines, and he added that, “in the meantime, [Marines] must find creative solutions in lieu of perfect remedies.”” So exactly what creative solutions are the Marines supposed to use, in the absence of amphibious warships? Speedboats? Jet skis? Cruise ships?

    1. Chris Cosmos

      Even leadership and those who slavishly enable these monsters (thank you for your service) in the US live in fantasies and super-hero movies. We used to think, or at least I did, that that 1930s era of power games that resulted in the Gulag and the ear of concentration camps died in WWII. As later research has shown me, it didn’t die, but the flame was kept burning by the CIA and its tentacled until it erupted in this century as a fully formed monster. While the denizens of the West are drugged mainly psychologically, but also materially.

  21. Alice X

    Three thoughts (2 tweets and 1 pic):

    •The pre-doomsday market, how is the futures market there doing?

    •The before and after US Israel Ambassador tweet…

    •The antidote, is that the American people?

    I am trying hard to not believe that I need a drink, or a whole big bottle… of strong stuff.

  22. The Rev Kev

    “There was genuine risk of Russia using nuclear weapons at start of Ukraine war, CIA boss reveals”

    Bill Burns would know that the Russians are hardly going to nuke a part of their new territories that would join such places as Chernobyl and Fukushima for being a nuclear wasteland. What would be the point? But then again, CIA people actually take a course in how to lie effectively but it sounds like Bill Burns flunked it.

    1. AG

      Thank you for mentioning this.

      I have been telling people what a PR stunt this entire RU WMD thing was but to no avail.
      Even sane people like German BSW foreign policy expert Sevim Dagdelen in her new anti-NATO book mentioned that taking it of course at face value.

      I even wrote a piece about David Sanger´s ridiculous NYT item from March 2024 about RU possibly using WMDs in Oct 2022 (60 years Cuba – just a coincidence, right?!) which has ZERO proof. But a letter to the editor was ignored.

      In fact CNN too was covering the same story the same week admitting almost in the very end, quoting a CIA source, “we have no evidence.”

      But of course who is going to read to the end. It´s like showing-off “Ah I read Anna Karenina”. Sure you did.

      People don´t read any more and they seem to not understand what they are reading. It´s mind-boggling.

    2. hk

      Bill Burns is a riddle wrapped in mystery within an enigma. He shifts between being the only sane man in DC and the looniest of the loonies, sometimes within hours. But, perhaps there is a key: Burns’ personal ambition in the universe of Washington swamps.

      1. bertl

        Or just a guy cashing a paycheck whilst waiting for a big book advance, a professorship and a batch of handy retainers for his advisory roles to an unimaginable number if entities in the MIC.

      2. AG

        Seymour Hersh wrote a nice piece about Burns becoming what he is now.

        He describes him as decent – basically.
        But ambition of course gnaws through.

        Hersh ends beautifully about Burns´s true goal, Secretary of State, quoting The Merry Wives of Windsor –
        “because for the Secretary of State the world is an oyster” – and as we learned from the Bourdain post here not so long ago – no sense to resist the mind-blowing effect of that.

  23. Wukchumni

    In Sequoia National Park this question of whether or not to intervene has land managers and environmentalists at odds with one another. Host Ayesha Rascoe talks with reporter Marissa Ortega-Welch about her new podcast series How Wild. In a segment from the first episode Marissa asks: with increasing wildfires threatening giant sequoias, known as some of the world’s oldest trees, should we intervene or leave the wilderness to evolve on its own?

    https://www.npr.org/2024/09/08/1198914083/wilderness-in-the-age-of-climate-change
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    An interesting 33 minute podcast in regards to my backyard and the goliaths who inhabit it~

    1. Carolinian

      Way more than I wanted to know about an epic battle between two losers. Key takeaway

      Iger, who started his career as a weather forecaster on a cable channel in upstate New York

      Meanwhile his opponent came from the product marketing department. At least at the Eisner Disney there was some creative spark but Iger is little more than a bureaucratic drone out to exploit the ideas of other people including, most especially, his predecessors whose movies he remade over and over and over. It’s hardly surprising that his real concern was staying on top and if the article is right he may only leave feet first.

      Of course there have always been complaints about the synthetic nature of Disney’s “imagineering” and arguably the company’s real crisis was with the strike in the 1940s when Walt’s paternalistic reign was challenged. By the 1950s he had become more interested in his theme park.

      Which is to say the decline of Disney may not be that great a loss but does serve as a cautionary tale of how incompetents rise way above their appropriate station. Making the company all about money is something its founders would have hated.

      1. Wukchumni

        We slipped the nuisance of having Disney lord over Mineral King when the Major Major Major Majordomos left after Walt passed, used the implied immediacy of building a ski resort here before embarking on their Disneyworld project in Florida, and thus the Reedy Creek part was practically given away to the mouse that roared, only to surface a few years ago-the chicanery. That was in 1967, and Disney really did nothing in regards to MK after that.

        Walt was a skier and a winter outdoorsman, his brother Roy-not so much.

        Using as many as 3 and 4 shadow buyers, Disney managed to acquire almost 30 acres in Mineral King when it was Forest Service land in the early 1960’s.

        When you park at the Eagle Lake-Mosquito Lakes-White Chief Canyon lot, you are what locals call the Disney Parking Lot’ as they still own the land you are parking your car on for free, which must cause a certain umbrage to their way of thinking.

        As an added bonus its the most unsightly Disney public property of all, a mixture of broken asphalt, dirt, gravel & occasional protruding rocks.

  25. Tom Stone

    If Harris does win the throne NC will need a special category for her statements and policies and the Commentariat is uniquely qualified to give it a name.
    I have two suggestions: “The People’s Choice” or “Mommy Knows Best”, I’m sure others can do better…

    2. Screwball

      The debate is Tuesday I think. A buddy of mine asked me yesterday “are you going to watch the comedy special on Tuesday?” I asked him if I could use that and he gave me permission.

      It fits, because this is all just a bad dream, or a complete and utter joke. IMO, there is no way they allow for Trump to take office – none – no matter what they have to do. If he destroys Harris on Tuesday (not saying he will) the media will say otherwise until they can find more dirt, another way to charge him with something, and/or, in the end cheat.

      Whatever it takes to keep Orange Hitler from office.

      1. tegnost

        Maybe “they” will nuke the venue and get rid of both t and h, plus get an excuse for the world war…and yeah, I’m almost serious
        Hillary Haley. (I know, I just can’t let it go, too perfect, I mean dick cheney is a democrat, what bridge is too far?).. all female unity ticket plus there obviously can’t be an election in these dark times :/

  26. Zephyrum

    The “Sorry Mr. Sullivan” article is excellent, and I’m glad to see Chinese voices speaking so directly in public. I particularly liked the characterization of Sullivan as akin to an envoy in ancient China. However towards the end of the article he says:

    Sullivan arrived and stepped off the plane with no red carpet, only a clearly marked red line on the ground. Even if there’s no carpet now, he doesn’t mind; he still came. Last time, when Blinken visited Shanghai, he was left on his own, but he didn’t mind. Why? Because he doesn’t have the stature to act that way, nor does he have the leverage to make so many demands. Everyone is discussing matters pragmatically—regardless of China’s attitude, they still have to sit down and talk seriously. [emphasis mine]

    It sounds like the author believes that the American response to this “snub” is a signal that they are willing to sit down and talk seriously. But despite his accurate assessment of their arrogance earlier in the article, I don’t think he understands how deeply this goes. The US view is that if you kowtow, great. If you don’t, then it’s your problem. Either way the US believes the rest of the world are ignorant savages who don’t know how to treat their betters properly. For the rest of the world, you can just assume that US arrogance is infinite. You won’t be far wrong.

  27. urdsama

    I see Musk is at it again.

    Why does anyone pay attention to his statements on tech and his proposed timelines? He’s a grifter, not an engineer.

    1. Revenant

      Lol, thank you for that! And for the thread on Sarscov2 over dispersion of infectivity that it was jammed in the middle of. :-)

  30. Fritz

    Turkey’s stray dogs
    The human population of Turkey is 84.34 million according to: https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/turkey
    According to: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/turkey-s-stray-dogs-once-masters-of-the-road-face-new-peril/ar-AA1pTGTf there are roughly 4 million stray dogs in Turkey.

    Therefore, 4 ÷ 84.34 x 100 = 4.72, means stray dogs are approximately 4.72% of the population.

    “Nearly one-third of Turkey’s population is currently at risk of poverty…according to a recent report published by the Turkish Statistical Institute” Source:   https://www.euronews.com/2023/08/08/economic-mismanagement-and-rising-prices-just-how-bad-is-poverty-in-turkey

    Perhaps there is a partial answer to the 4 million stray dogs in Turkey and its human poverty, part of the solution may be found in Vietnamese practice: https://theworld.org/stories/2016/07/30/eat-prey-love-vietnam-s-dogs-double-family-members-and-dinner

    Before you become outraged, remember a great deal of the people in the west, unless they are vegetarians, eat cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, turkeys and chickens. There are even some restaurants which serve pork tenderloin passed off as the more expensive veal cutlets. “Veal” is baby cattle.
    Okay, time to express that holier than thou routine.

  31. bertl

    Truly a collectors item. This bodes well to become my favourite example of how so few have thought so little for so long purely to demonstrate so effectively the essential stasis of what passes for post-Wilsonian Democratic geo-political thought with so little regard for the paranoid narcissistic stupidity of its assumptions and its inevitably unhinged conclusions:

    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/09/kamala-harris-foreign-policy-challenge/679678/
    WHAT AWAITS A HARRIS PRESIDENCY
    If the Democratic nominee prevails in November, she’ll face a complicated world.
    By Eliot A. Cohen

    “The first of these is the global security crisis caused by the growing alignment of Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea in opposition to the United States and its allies. The next generation of American policy makers must begin with a conceptual leap, from focusing on regional problems to global ones.”

    “A war that began over Taiwan would not end there, in the same way that the war that began at Pearl Harbor was not confined to the seas around Hawaii. And the American strategic challenge will be exacerbated by a Russia that, no matter how the Ukraine war ends, will seethe for many years with anger against the United States and will seek revenge. Americans may think Russia is waging war against Ukraine. Moscow believes that NATO, led by the United States, has waged war against Russia, and, under President Vladimir Putin or a successor, it will seek payback.”

    “As vice president, Harris has made the case for American global leadership, which is good. I hope that she, and those around her, will realize that what we call “the rules-based international order” is really an American-made and American-led international order, something that will not exist without American strength. In the world of foreign-policy speeches, cant and clichés mask the need for genuine strategic choices.”

    “To meet these daunting problems, unprecedented since World War II, a President Harris will turn to the Democratic foreign-policy elite—predominately the cadre of 30-to-50-year-olds who staffed Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
    These officials are, to begin with, shaped by a preoccupation with the Iraq War and contempt for George W. Bush’s administration, which launched it—no matter that many Democrats, including Biden and Hillary Clinton, supported it. That attitude is captured in the “Don’t do stupid stuff” injunction of Obama, and it pervades the writings of those who have served in supporting roles since 2008.
    But a supercilious sneer derived from the debates of two decades ago is not the basis for a sound foreign policy. The assessment that both the Iraq and Afghan Wars were botched, and that an assertive American stance would be folly, helps account for the disasters of Obama’s Syria policy and Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. It has led to a policy of patching rather than shaping—visible in the deal that attempted only to delay (and not end) Iran’s nuclear program while doing nothing to address the core of the problem: Iran’s drive for hegemony in the Persian Gulf and Middle East and its inveterate hostility toward Israel and the United States. In its inclination for caution, if not indeed timidity, this approach accounts for some of Biden’s hesitation about arming Ukraine to the fullest, with maximum quality and speed.”

    God help America. And God bless the rest of us.

    1. Jonathan Holland Becnel

      Please dear lord baby Jesus I hope we vote these bad people out of office and turn off the money spigot to outlets such as The Atlantic!

  33. XXYY

    The first Starships to Mars will launch in 2 years when the next Earth-Mars transfer window opens.

    Among the thousands of fatal problems surrounding human space travel to Mars is the fact that one can only launch ships between Earth and Mars at 2-year intervals. This is obviously an overwhelming problem for any program or business plan based on such launches. Recall the launch of NASA Shuttle Challenger, which was launched in conditions known to be unsafe because the program didn’t want to delay the launch a few days! Obviously this situation will arise on Mars launches, except the penalty will be delaying the launch by 2 years, after which time the staff and money that would have been used for the initial launch will likely have moved on to other work, retired, died from COVID, or whatever.

    Of course, the situation is much worse for people on Mars trying to get back to Earth, or for rescue attempts.

    I know musk has to talk his book, but give it a rest.

  34. Wukchumni

    I don’t remember what day it was
    I didn’t notice what time it was
    All I know is that the Donkey Show fell in love with you
    And if all their dreams come true
    I’ll be spending time with you

    Oh, they love you more today than yesterday
    But not as much as tomorrow
    They love you more today than yesterday
    But, darling, not as much as tomorrow

    Tomorrow’s debate means showtime’s just a day away
    Willie, we don’t need ya now, be on your way
    I thank the Donald for loathe like ours that grows ever stronger
    And until November 5th always will be true
    I know you feel the same way too

    Oh, they love you more today than yesterday
    But not as much as tomorrow
    They love you more today than yesterday
    But only half as much as tomorrow

    Every day’s a new day, every time they love ya
    Every way’s a new way, every time they love ya
    Every day’s a new day, every time I diss ya
    Every way’s a new way, oh, how they love ya
    Every day’s a new day, every time they love ya
    Every day’s a new day, every time they love ya

    More Today Than Yesterday, by Spiral Staircase

  35. spud

    i believe what we face today, is not unlike what the ottoman empire found out. when you elevate people above everyone else, where its almost impossible to hold them to account. you create a elite drunk with power that view us with contempt and disrespect.

    https://www.warhistoryonline.com/medieval/janissaries-elite-ottoman-army.html

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tmtdF5uo9A

    Prosecutor Who Wants to be a Judge

    trying to reform at the top is almost useless, to late, that ship left in 1993. we should concentrate below. there are laws that can be forced to be enforced, that may change things.

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