Links 10/13/2024

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1. Antifa October 13, 2024 at 7:00 am

   BOMBING BEIRUT
   (melody borrowed from No Roots  by Alice Merton and Nicholas Rebscher)

   Pray for martyred souls ‘neath all the smoke and mayhem
   Israeli misanthropes make bloody pieces of them
   Bombs from overseas—what gives America the right?

   The bombs that they create for the Jews to toss around
   The impact shakes and shocks us—death with the next one coming
   Check your extremities! Look see your children are alright!

   Drop two thousand pounds of TNT—for lust and lies!

   Bombing Beirut! Leave your home before they knock it down!
   Bombing Beirut! Flesh and bone the Devil’s come to town!
   Bombing Bei roo oo oo oo oo oot!
   Bombing Bei roo oo oo oo oo oot!
   Bombing Beirut! Leave your home before they knock it down!
   Bombing Beirut! Flesh and bone the Devil’s come to town!
   Bombing Bei roo oo oo oo oo oot!
   Bombing Bei roo oo oo oo oo oot!

   This time it’s not a drill—Oy! Get Grandma to the van!
   Our neighbors want to come—go give them both a hand!
   No more pleasantries—we are two families in flight!

   Hezbollah’s in their bunkers, their missiles taking aim
   They’ve got the target ranges, they’ll set them all aflame
   And the Yemenis—they’ll set the Haifa port alight!

   They took vows and they will lock and load for Jewish crimes!

   Bombing Beirut! Leave your home before they knock it down!
   Bombing Beirut! Flesh and bone the Devil’s come to town!
   Bombing Bei roo oo oo oo oo oot!
   Bombing Bei roo oo oo oo oo oot!
   Bombing Beirut! Leave your home before they knock it down!
   Bombing Beirut! Flesh and bone the Devil’s come to town!
   Bombing Bei roo oo oo oo oo oot!
   Bombing Bei roo oo oo oo oo oot!

   Pray for martyred souls ‘neath all the smoke and mayhem
   Israeli misanthropes make bloody pieces of them
   Pray for martyred souls ‘neath all the smoke and mayhem
   Israeli misanthropes make bloody pieces of them

   Bombing Beirut!

   Beirut!

   Bombing Beirut! Leave your home before they knock it down!
   Bombing Beirut! Flesh and bone the Devil’s come to town!
   Bombing Bei roo oo oo oo oo oot!
   Bombing Bei roo oo oo oo oo oot!
   Bombing Beirut! Leave your home before they knock it down!
   Bombing Beirut! Flesh and bone the Devil’s come to town!
   Bombing Bei roo oo oo oo oo oot!
   Bombing Bei roo oo oo oo oo oot!

   NO!

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2. The Rev Kev October 13, 2024 at 7:16 am

   “Two weeks later. Taking stock of storm recovery across Western NC, county-by-county.”

   I have no idea what it is like in the US news but for the news here in Oz, information & videos of the hurricane that hit Florida has entirely pushed off any news from places like South Carolina from any sort of mention, even though that later was hit much harder and over a wider region.

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   1. ChrisFromGA October 13, 2024 at 7:56 am

      This part has me a bit suspicious:

      (Number is for Buncombe County, not the entire state)

      As of 4 p.m. on Thursday, 42 deaths as a result of the storm have been confirmed in the official tally. Sheriff Quentin Miller was reporting a death count as high as 72 people last week, before the county started deferring to DHHS’s official count. The reason for the difference in the counts remains unclear.

      (I’m going to presume that the acronym DHHS stands for the North Carolina Dept. of Human Health and Services.)

      Thankfully, I’ve never been in the body counting business, so I have no inside knowledge or “competency” to offer here. But my ability to think does remain intact. There are certainly innocent explanations, like a number mistyped into a spreadsheet. However, it seems to me that a local sheriff on the ground would have a better handle on the number of bodies recovered than a state government bureaucracy would.

      As we have seen in the Russo-Ukraine war, both sides use body counts as propaganda. It seems at least plausible that somebody in power decided to keep things under wraps for a while, in terms of the true number of deaths from the storm. Maybe, until after a certain event in early November?

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      1. dougie October 13, 2024 at 8:36 am

         You are correct to trust the numbers from the sheriffs office, IMO. They will be closer to the truth, and also a bit low when all is said and done. After 2 weeks, officials need to start calling a spade a spade and the “missing” what they are……DEAD and buried, unrecoverable.

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         1. Carolinian October 13, 2024 at 9:03 am

            A story said that many of the missing in Hendersonville below Asheville had been accounted for. Loss of cell towers and other means of communication undoubtedly contribute to the fuzzy statistics.

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            1. dougie October 13, 2024 at 9:16 am

               Let’s hope so. We housed some friends from Hendersonville for a week after they escaped the area the day after the storm. The pictures they shared with us were almost beyond belief.

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            2. ChrisFromGA October 13, 2024 at 9:20 am

               Silly me would think that no sheriff would want to or even be legally allowed to declare someone dead until a body is located. So, that’s good news that a lot of the missing are being accounted for, but that ought to be irrelevant to a body count suddenly going in reverse.

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   2. Carolinian October 13, 2024 at 8:43 am

      Here in Upstate SC life has returned to a seeming normal other than piles of wood everywhere and complaints about the slow return of cable internet. Even the recently built walking/biking trail system has been cleared enough to be used. All of which is to say that the storm was catastrophic for some of our wooded areas which the real estate developers were in the process of cutting down anyway.

      But they, and the weather, have a long way to go to eliminate our many many trees.

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3. ilsm October 13, 2024 at 8:00 am

   US Ambassador to Lebanon.

   The US “intelligence” establishment thinks that 80 bunker busters constitution crushing a Tet offensive……..

   Second THAAD (first one damaged?) transportable radar for Israel, will be operated by the US Army deployment “package”, that is US soldiers and contractors.

   History rhyming.

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4. The Rev Kev October 13, 2024 at 8:15 am

   “Navy SEAL drowning deaths were preventable, military probe finds”

   Lots of tap dancing in this article, check this bit out-

   ‘But both sank quickly in the high seas off the coast of Somalia, weighed down by heavy equipment they were carrying and not knowing or disregarding concerns that their flotation devices could not compensate for the additional weight. Both were lost at sea.’

   In other words it was all their fault. No it wasn’t. Those waves were crazy high and those men should never have been told to board that ship. It could have waited for better weather but a gung-ho, can-do Navy officer overrode the Seals concerns and ordered them to board that ship. One was taken by the waves and his buddy went to his aid and both died. And then there was the other bit of tap dancing-

   ‘Both were wearing body armor, and Ingram also was carrying radio equipment that added as much as 40 more pounds. Each of the inflatable floats can lift a minimum of 40 pounds in seawater, the report said.’

   Nowhere in that article does it list what weight they were carrying. One guy had 50 pounds of gear so the other guy was carrying then about 90 pounds. They never stood a chance.

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5. Ben Panga October 13, 2024 at 8:18 am

   Now that’s a meeting!

   From the Indian Punchline article:

   Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi was in Riyadh on Wednesday and was received by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The Saudi readout said they discussed bilateral relations and regional developments as well as the “efforts exerted towards them.” The meeting was attended by Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman, Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah and Minister of State and National Security Advisor Dr. Musaed bin Mohammed Al-Aiban.

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   1. The Rev Kev October 13, 2024 at 10:14 am

      Serious people from serious countries having serious meetings. It’s kinda refreshing to see that it is still happening.

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6. Lena October 13, 2024 at 8:22 am

   RE: Anxious Democratic voters

   Democrats I know here in the Ohio River Valley are definitely more anxious about the election than Republicans. They are convinced the world will come to an end if Trump wins. They are having trouble sleeping and experiencing a variety of other stress related symptoms. A lot of them are on antidepressants, antianxiety or sleep medications.

   Republicans I know seem a lot more calm. One reason for this may be that they are very religious people. Does their faith act as a buffer to stress? Do they believe God is in control, and therefore whatever happens, it is in God’s hands? None of the Republicans I know are End Times Christians, yet perhaps they do think if the end comes, it is God’s plan. I am speculating here.

   I am anxious no matter who wins. We live in dangerous times. I am a spiritual person but have always struggled with having faith in a benevolent higher power. I have seen few signs over the course of my life that such a power exists.

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   1. The Rev Kev October 13, 2024 at 8:32 am

      The fun and games start if election night next month is like election night back in 2016-

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHG0ezLiVGc (5:36 mins)

      Those people should remember to control what they can and live with the rest. Less stress that way.

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      1. Hank Linderman October 13, 2024 at 9:19 am

         Words of wisdom.

         Best…H

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   2. Randall Flagg October 13, 2024 at 8:37 am

      >I am anxious no matter who wins. We live in dangerous times. I am a spiritual person but have always struggled with having faith in a benevolent higher power. I have seen few signs over the course of my life that such a power exists.

      Signs on a lager scale? I would tend to agree.

      I wonder if those signs of a higher authority are most visible in the very small everyday occurrences. The things that happen in people’s everyday lives that appear to be miracles of some sort. If that makes any sense.

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      1. Lee October 13, 2024 at 10:13 am

         A definite yes to all small good things.

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   3. ChrisFromGA October 13, 2024 at 8:41 am

      I’ve come to terms with the fact that either of the two major candidates means more suffering.

      I’ve gone back and forth on which one is more likely to get all of us killed in a nuclear war. Some days, I think its Harris, as she lacks any foreign policy chops, has shown zero evidence of understanding the issues in Palestine and Ukraine, and will get carried away by the neocons like flotsam and jetsam on a raging river. It wouldn’t surprise me if she keeps Biden’s foreign policy team of Blinken and Sullivan intact.

      On the other hand, Trump is unpredictable and prone to impulsiveness, not characteristics you want with the guy with the nuclear football in these times. I can see him going even further in support of Israel than Biden, if that is even physically possible (I don’t think Biden has done a single thing to restrain Netanyahu, other than utter a few remarks indicating frustration with him.)

      Obviously, foreign policy is my number one issue, and it’s a random coin flip on which of these two jokers is more likely to wake up one day to a big “flash” followed by incineration. So, putting your faith in a higher power makes a lot of sense, IMO.

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      1. schmoe October 13, 2024 at 9:51 am

         I agree with everything you said, but wonder if either VP will be sidelined or have a seat at the table. I perceive both VP candidates as more knowledgeable than the Presidential candidates for foreign policy, although Walz is more of a blank slate but could not be less knowledgeable than Harris.

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      2. ilsm October 13, 2024 at 9:55 am

         In the sole debate Trump referred to nuclear weapons 3 times, in the thread about Ukraine.

         Harris said Ukraine SSR borders are a test of US’ “norms”.

         I would worry more about the one who does not say anything about nuclear war.

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   4. mrsyk October 13, 2024 at 9:33 am

      I am anxious no matter who wins. We live in dangerous times. Me too, Lena.

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   5. Lee October 13, 2024 at 9:35 am

      I am anxious no matter who wins. We live in dangerous times. I am a spiritual person but have always struggled with having faith in a benevolent higher power. I have seen few signs over the course of my life that such a power exists.

      Have you considered non-theistic religions that would seem to rest upon something akin to what the atheist Camus called “certain strange feelings of [existential] fidelity”? Sometimes that’s all one has to go on in the absence of external signs and wonders deemed by one to be positive.

      You might find this little parable by Robert Louis Stevenson of interest. XVII. – Faith, Half Faith and No Faith At All.

      As to the end, it is not to be taken in a literal physical sense but as a positive psychological orientation that carries on in the face of adverse circumstantial vagaries.

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   6. Jackiebass October 13, 2024 at 10:13 am

      I used to get stressed out and concerned about who won an election. Experience over the years told me in the long run it really doesn’t matter that much. Things seem to just continue without drastically changing my life. To me there are a lot more important things that effect me than who won an election.

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7. Terry Flynn October 13, 2024 at 8:31 am

   Using methamphetamines or their relatives is surprising to me only because it has taken this long for it to become an issue. Let’s be clear here. You do not need to go in search of possibly dodgy “mainstream meth” to enable workers to do the things reported in this article. Get the right physician and you’ll get a nice cheap prescription for an anti-depressant that although now is not thought to metabolise to an amphetamine derivative, it definitely mimics meth in terms of hypomania, particularly when used in conjunction with everyone’s favourite “nasty drug of the early 2020s” Pregabalin.

   I personally “yellow carded” Pregabalin+the MAOI in question to UK authorities when I realised what was going on. Drug induced Hyperthymia has been observed and the hypomania has been proposed to result from monoamine hyperactivity but research is ongoing.

   Patient forums on the web used to astonish me (and yes I’m not afraid to reveal I am speaking from personal experience, coupled with pharmacological knowledge from colleagues): The UK NHS has a very conservative maximum dose of the MAOI I was on at the time; Australia allowed doses that definitely caused interactions with other drugs to induce hypomania whilst the claimed dosages of many USians made my eyes water. I’d always thought this would be an uncommon issue because the MAOI is mega expensive in UK/Australia but I did some digging and found out that in other places like the US it is literally 10% of the price elsewhere, using purchasing power parity. Mental health drug cocktails are becoming too numerous to keep tabs on so I’m guessing these problems of inducing permanent hypomania so as to “work til your heart gives out” will only get worse.

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8. mrsyk October 13, 2024 at 8:32 am

   Alex Salmond. Always My Hero. Craig Murray

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   1. The Rev Kev October 13, 2024 at 8:40 am

      He never lived long enough to see Scottish independence but when it happens, they will all acknowledge that he set it all in motion.

      RIP

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   2. britzklieg October 13, 2024 at 8:48 am

      Sad and depressing news indeed. RIP Alex Salmond.

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9. The Rev Kev October 13, 2024 at 8:53 am

   “AH had ‘some good ideas’, a fifth of Gen Z Americans believe according to Daily Mail poll”

   This poll missed a great opportunity by not asking follow up questions. So what were his good ideas? Become a vegetarian? Be kind to animals? Ensure your country has a good highway system? But they never asked. But they did note this-

   ‘A Pew Research poll in 2020 found that while half of U.S. adults knew what the Holocaust was and when it happened, but less than 50 percent could answer how many Jews were killed and when Hitler came to power.’

   Yeah, that kinda does not surprise me at all-

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fA9HHhNHto (2:53 mins)

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10. GrimUpNorth October 13, 2024 at 8:54 am

    COVID definitely effects the ability to drive. I caught it and had mild cold symptoms. My driving was no longer risk-averse. Thanks to Lamberts Water-Cooler I knew about cognitive damage so I tested when I forgot my four digit PIN
    I now drive overly cautious, to the point that it annoys other drivers, which has caused some to overtake badly. I have no idea if I’m now OK, but I quite like the cautious driving style, plus my fuel economy has increased.

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    1. midtownwageslave October 13, 2024 at 9:34 am

       Anecdotally, this change in driving behavior has been noticible. I find that drivers these days have issues staying within their marked lanes at speed and disregard roadway safety in ways that would happen less often in pre-pandemic times.

       I wonder if autonomous driving systems can compensate…

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11. mrsyk October 13, 2024 at 8:55 am

    The Waltz “hunting video”, is damn close to a Dukakis “tank” moment. (That one silly black lab saves it, IMO) Where’s Rove when you need him?

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    1. The Rev Kev October 13, 2024 at 9:00 am

       At least he didn’t shoot anybody in the face and had them apologize after nearly dying. There is that.

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       1. tegnost October 13, 2024 at 9:41 am

          the modern version of if a tree falls in the forest is if a dem politico shot someone in the forest would the censors let you hear about it…

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    2. NotTimothyGeithner October 13, 2024 at 9:41 am

       This campaign is such a joke I suspect it’s gone beyond the usual Team Clinton incompetence to sabotage to keep 2028 open for Mother.

       Also, what is the current obsession with guns?

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       1. mrsyk October 13, 2024 at 9:54 am

          Gunz! Current obsession or ongoing, or both? What’s up with campaigning with a gun in hand, more to the point. It seems like Waltz is not very comfortable holding a shotgun (maybe a reason to vote for him?).

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12. Psyched October 13, 2024 at 8:55 am

    I read the news here everyday and I am constantly nagged by the question, with all of these calamities, what is the one thing we should be focused on that is the root of all of these problems (climate change, corruption, economic inequality, war)?

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13. The Rev Kev October 13, 2024 at 9:32 am

    ” ‘Prepare for post-Hezbollah phase’ US envoy tells Lebanon as Israeli massacres intensify”

    ‘US Ambassador to Lebanon Lisa Johnson has asked political forces in the country to “prepare for the post-Hezbollah phase, where its control over the state and its institutions and the state’s border crossings is no longer permitted.”’

    Say, does anybody remember that time during the Blitz in WW2 when London was being bombed by the Luftwaffe, how the US Ambassador to the UK ‘asked political forces in the country to “prepare for the post-Churchill phase, where its control over the state and its institutions and the state’s border crossings is no longer permitted”? ‘ Even the US War Department thought that the British would break.

    This is just wishful thinking on Lisa Johnson’s part as the Lebanese know that the Israelis want to push them out of the southern half of their country and bring back the settlers again to stay this time. And to the Israelis, the Lebanese are just more subhumans.

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    1. Mikel October 13, 2024 at 10:12 am

       Some of the other things I see and hear in various media:

       As the war continues to expand in the Mid-East, the line from various govt officials on all sides is that they are trying to stop the wars from expanding.

       In MSM: Anything Israel does is not treated like an expansion of war by officials in the West, only other Mid-East countries responses (especially Iran’s) are considered to be a threat of expansion of war. Thus, the US, Israel and associates can expand war in the region as much as they want and Iran (and other countries) can only respond “legitimately” when they are attacked directly.

       Iran has allies, however, as a bloc their primary concern at the moment is getting together a payments system that helps their corporations and elites avoid sanctions from the West.

       Israel has more financial and military support from around the world than Ukraine (who is fighting a more powerful military), however, one of the narratives making rounds is that Israel will collapse from within and by that time (after suffering years of destruction, death, disease, and population loss) the other countries will rise from those ashes. Then, there is some assumption that all the countries that helped Israel will then be gung-ho about helping the other bombed out countries for the benefit of the people they previously watched (and helped) get bombed to hell.

       I suppose there is no better way in the minds of other govts to ensure they determine the future of the countries in the Mid-East. Imagination appears to be lacking among too many global leaders and institutions to consider any other alternative.

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14. Katniss Everdeen October 13, 2024 at 9:44 am

    This Tucker Carlson interview is an eye-opening deep dive into how kamala got where she is.

    Harmeet Dhillon is an Indian American lawyer who ran in the same SF circles as kamala when k was “coming up.” Interesting commentary on SF politics and california politics generally.

    Long, but can be listened to in shorter, very interesting pieces.

    https://rumble.com/v5ibbnx-harmeet-dhillon-the-shocking-origin-story-of-kamala-harris-and-all-the-crim.html

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15. mrsyk October 13, 2024 at 9:47 am

    Israel Data Show Hundreds of Structures Damaged in Iran’s Attack, (Bloomberg). “Tax authority says a total of 2,500 claims filed so far Many private homes, apartments damaged in missile barrage”
    Seems like Iran scored some hits “in the vicinity of north Tel Aviv”.

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