The Essay as Realm Georgia Review
Through the Looking Glass, and What Zheludev et al. (2024) Found There Asterisk
Why the World Bank and IMF matter more than ever FT
Climate
To prepare for the climate of tomorrow, foresters are branching out Grist
Research shows that plants ‘hold their breath’ in smoky environments NPR
Syndemics
CDC Bird Flu Response Update October 18, 2024 Avian Flu Diary.
Long COVID Is Harming Too Many Kids Scientific American. Meanwhile:
Congratulations to @RWalensky, the recipient of IDSA’s 2024 Anthony Fauci Courage in Leadership Award.
By asking hard questions, and speaking scientific truth with integrity and perseverance, Dr. Walensky inspires not only her colleagues but rising generations considering… pic.twitter.com/Nf74N56r03
— IDSA (@IDSAInfo) October 19, 2024
Study on sentinel hosts for surveillance of future COVID-19-like outbreaks Nature. From the Abstract: “The spread of SARS-CoV-2 to animals has the potential to evolve independently. In this study, we distinguished several sentinel animal species and genera for monitoring the re-emergence of COVID-19 or the new outbreak of COVID-19-like disease.” Dog, cat, mink, deer “should be monitored to prevent the re-emergence of COVID-19 caused by novel variants.”
China?
Why US elections are losing shine for educated Chinese once drawn to democratic process South China Morning Post
China fortifies resource security with strategic mineral, energy reserve gains South China Morning Post
Prabowo sworn in as Indonesia’s eighth president; urges nation to be brave in tackling challenges Channel News Asia
The US Risks Irrelevance in Asia The Diplomat
Syraqistan
Pro-Iranian account leaks alleged U.S. intel on Israel’s attack plans Axios
Israel Preps for Strike on Iran, Top Secret Leak Reveals Ken Klipperstein
The US is investigating an unauthorized release of classified documents on Israel’s attack plans AP
* * * New Evidence Reveals Netanyahu’s Relentless Efforts to Block Hostage Deal, Report Shows Haaretz
Netanyahu accuses ‘Iranian proxies’ for assassination attempt after drone attack on his home Anadolu Agency
Dear Old Blighty
Keir Starmer’s bonfire of red tape is very dangerous Funding the Future
New Not-So-Cold War
Four scenarios for the end of the war in Ukraine Chatham House
Ukraine’s ‘victory plan’ receives mixed reactions from Western allies AP
With US elections looming, Biden’s Berlin swan song was all talk, no action on Ukraine Kyiv Independent
No Fury Like a Proxy Scorned Beyond the Wasteland
* * * An Armageddon for NATO Expansion Gordon Hahn, Russian & Eurasian Politics
Imminent Ukraine invitation to NATO unlikely Reponsible Statecraft
Ukraine’s accession to NATO without occupied territories out of question – senior Ukrainian official Ukrainska Pravda
* * * Ukraine – Threat Of North Korean Soldiers Is Based on U.S. Info Campaign Moon of Alabama
* * * Mariupol Defenders Released in Major Prisoner Swap With Russia Newsweek
Ukraine’s General Staff says 20,000 conscripts are being trained simultaneously, down from 35,000 in past Ukrainska Pravda
Investing in Ukraine’s homegrown defence industry could help the west Gillian Tett, FT
* * * Russia’s real estate market rocked by the end of generous mortgage subsidies BNE Intellinews
South of the Border
Much of Cuba remains without power – 24 hours after main power plant fails BBC
Global Elections
Tunisia constitutional vote gets at least 27.5% turnout: electoral board Le Monde
Moldovans elect president, vote on EU path as claims of Russian meddling spike France24
2024
Trump kicks off a Pennsylvania rally by talking about Arnold Palmer’s genitalia AP. Commentary:
JUST IN: Kamala Harris releases dating ads on Snapchat and Instagram telling young black men they won't get laid unless they vote for her.
The ads are running near college campuses in key swing states.
Here is where it gets interesting: According to Meta Ads Library, the… pic.twitter.com/GXs6lkGohw
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) October 19, 2024
Trump asks Pennsylvania crowd, ‘Are you better off now than you were four years ago?’ FOX
Microphone malfunction: Trump waits on stage for 18 minutes during ‘technical difficulties’ USA Today
Kamala Harris’s campaign flexes celebrity support in Detroit and Atlanta Al Jazeera
‘The West Wing; cast hits the trail for Harris in Wisconsin The Hill
Two Texas cities represent the divide between those who vote and those who could, but often don’t Associated Press
The free world teeters on the edge of a knife Noah Smith, Noahpinion
The Supremes
US Supreme Court declines to block EPA’s carbon capture rule for power plants S&P Global
‘Fat crazy lady’ wins a crucial victory for citizen journalists Jonathan Turley, The Hill
The Final Frontier
Starlink satellites create light pollution and disrupt radio frequencies. And it’s getting worse CBC
Supply Chain
LA Refinery Closure Adds Long-Haul Demand for Product Tankers in Pacific Maritime Executive
Our Famously Free Press
Republicans, young adults now nearly as likely to trust info from social media as from national news outlets Pew Research Center
Sports Desk
India vs New Zealand: Black Caps record first Test win in India since 1988 Al Jazeera
Realignment and Legitimacy
Pluralistic: Blue states should play “constitutional hardball” Cory Doctorow, Pluralistic
Imperial Collapse Watch
Class Warfare
Boeing reaches tentative deal with union to end month-long strike FT
Estate Enigma Sherwood News
How to Do a Conjunctural Analysis Tricontinental
Strolls with stops use more energy than continuous walking, scientists show Guardian
Antidote du jour (Charles J. Sharp):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
‘Collin Rugg
@CollinRugg
JUST IN: Kamala Harris releases dating ads on Snapchat and Instagram telling young black men they won’t get laid unless they vote for her.
The ads are running near college campuses in key swing states.
Here is where it gets interesting: According to Meta Ads Library, the campaign is actually targeting women with the ads.
About 65% of the ad spend is going towards women.’
Not an ad that makes women look good by any means. You’ll note that the three questions that they ask this handsome guy are just 1) Are you rich? 2) How tall are you? and 3) Are you fit? If I was single and dating and these were the first three questions asked of me, that would be raising all sorts of red flags causing me to exit stage left.
Harris considers sex transactional.
Good observation. The ad itself doesn’t tell the audience to vote for Harris, explicitly. It just says, “Vote!”
So maybe those young men can have their cake and eat it, too. Vote for Stein, Trump, or Oliver, and still get a booty call.
Don’t be silly, the ad also implies that it would be ridiculous to even consider such a notion.
Biden said it crudely, but probably reflected elite dem understanding that if you don’t vote dem, “you ain’t black”.
As to the specific ad, I think it appeals to people who believe having a politician randomly say the name of a summer album will get young people excited about voting. The Team Blue elites are shallow but see everyone else as shallow versions of themselves.
No one asked for “Lynne Cheney” or would know who she if Team Blue didn’t pimp her constantly. She should simply be a former representative bitten by the forces she helped create. Now that this has failed they are looking at best of lists and hoping those will work.
This. Good eye Judith.
Early voting started yesterday here, so I went and did my civic duty, something I have blown off in about half the 21st century elections to date.
So, who do I call now to get the quid pro quo?
Oh, yeah…Stein. Obviously.
🛎️🛎️🛎️
“Harris considers sex transactional.”
Or consensual vex?
At least the chap didn’t greet the female group with “Hey guys!”
The guy is standing right next to them, and they are asking him how tall he is.
Also, the fattest of the ladies asks basketball-player-looking-guy if he works out. :)
These shows are meant for you laugh at the participants.
“Wow, they’re stupid”
“Look at the gold-digger get what she deserves”
“Look at that cocky, superficial jerk get humbled”
I assume it’s meant to be a play on that annoying earworm song about ‘working in finance, 6’2’’’ from a year ago.
Rugg makes the interesting observation that the ad appears to be aimed at women, not men, judging by where it’s released. So it could be based on reinforcing the idea that it’s a woman’s job to ‘force’ her man to vote (the right way, presumably). If you assume the people who make these ads know what they are doing, then there may be some interesting psychology going on.
That said, in my experience, most political ad spend is designed to make the donors think their money is well spent, not to actually make a difference (since nobody really knows how to do that). So it’s possible that it’s simply designed to make liberal millionaire donors snigger and go ‘how clever!’ when they are being shown how their money is being spent.
I suspect it was a payoff, but MSDNC was wall to wall non-issue HRC ads in 2016. If it wasn’t directly repaying Comcast, it was to make the donors see the results of their donations. Its much harder to show the work that turns a town like Charlottesville, Va from a 70% turnout to an 80% turnout, when replicated on a larger scale seats flip.
I think “half of advertising spending is wasted, the problem is you can’t tell which half” is too optimistic.
Following in the feet of Richard Lovelace, once might she is arrempting to muff the election.
I thought that she was following in the footsteps of Linda Lovelace myself. Oh, excuse me. Did I just type that out aloud?
My pet perversion is bad literary jokes. Although, I must admit that the cackle must originate from somewhere, something or someone, so you may be pushing towards a truth that the MSM will not dare to go near – until it’s clear that Trump is the victor.
I’m old enough to get distracted by this comment. Thanks!
Believe it or not, I do try and choose my words carefully despite my bloody anticipater, grammar and spell checkers who are the greatest enemies known to truth after the MSM and Useles fonda Lyin” and make my life hell by reducing even the greatest poetry to one of Harris’s extended word salad moments.
As many of you have no doubt already guessed, I meant to write, “Following in the feet of Richard Lovelace, one might think she is attempting to muff the election”.
Mark G makes a good point that this is about grabbing donor dollars. Money spent on field organizing doesn’t go to James Carville.
The other side is Team Blue elites are dumb or just Republicans in drag. Good ideas are few and far between. Whitmer should have known that the communion bit was a bad idea, but she’s an ignoramus. The staff involved was probably highfiving. If she continues in politics, she will be apologizing for it.
I’ve seen some of these goofy online dating shows. They’re a more raw, fully neoliberal version of the older TV game-shows that go at least as far back as the 1970s, with shows like “the dating game” or “newlywed game”. Remember “Love Connection” with Chuck Woolery as the 1980s and 1990s rolled on? My mother loved those goofy shows. They give you an opportunity to laugh at all the awful people out there and feel better about yourself. I’m sure a lot of them are paid actors.
But, back to the current topic at hand…are these Democrat ads aimed at persuading voters? Or are they more about entertaining, encouraging and reinforcing a shared loyalty and understanding among the democratic voting faithful. We’ve all seen Hollywood elites create movies that are clearly meant to be enjoyed by themselves and their narrow social circle, and those that want to feel like they’re along for the ride with them (not for a broader audience). This seems like the political equivalent of that.
A sharp-eyed Republican response to this ad would be framed as “Black Americans, look at the contempt and condescension the Democratic party has for you, and your peer group, and your love life!”
This is theater meant solely for their own amusement. Someone got paid to do this and I strongly suspect that the true motivator here was that the actors, a film crew and a consultant got paid.
Harris’ staff isn’t fighting to win an election, they’re fighting over how to divide the billion dollar pie that is her campaign budget.
I appeared in a campaign ad for Senator John Culver back in 1980. They don’t pay real people to be in these ads. The money’s all for the pros who, after all, look more real than real people : )
Another issue plaguing Harris is that some very rude folks (who I retweet) are talking about her lack of faith. She was not raised Christian, is not a member of any church of record. But she did, as I previously pointed out, close her Al Smith dinner vignette by lapsing into the rhythms of a Christian benediction. I’ve been a lapsed Lutheran for over fifty years now and I was still deeply offended by her cosplay.
Yes. If my memory serves me well, HRC 2016 campaign paid a handful of “consultants” somewhere in the ballpark of a combined $700mm. This revelation was part of the motivation for the power consolidation at the DNC shortly thereafter.
I’m so old I remember Joan Baez urging women to say yes to men who said no to the draft. Dare I say it worked for me as a raggedy low income long haired 5’9″ tall drop out? Probably shouldn’t.
A nice ending would be Trey leaving with the white chick who didn’t pop a balloon, as she says, “Wow, those girls were WHACK.”
This is a well known only dating trope. Women pick me that have 2 of the 3 6’s.
1. Height…6 ft or taller
2. Income 6 figures
3. Body 6 pack
Men who have 2 of the 3 have a much higher chance of getting picked on dating apps.
I tease my wife that I have 2 of the 3 plus I have an above average IQ and I’m vegan.
Online dating is incredibly shallow.
The Boeing headline from the FT is misleading. A better statement of fact would be that the union has agreed to a vote on Boeing management’s latest proposal for a 35% pay raise.
The vote could go either way. The term “tentative agreement” doesn’t hold up. Agreement means that both parties have agreed and the vote is a formality.
Assuming it does get ratified, the Fed will have a big problem on its hands. This is very inflationary, who wouldn’t love a 35% raise? And it will spread to other industries.
“This is very inflationary, who wouldn’t love a 35% raise? And it will spread to other industries.”
No offense but: “This is very inflationary” unsupported – given size
who wouldn’t love a 35% raise? Got me their. Does it have anything to do with anything?
“And it will spread to other industries.” unsupported speculation – it may spread to other industries because other industries have hollowed every class – 95% of everyone in USA
Granted, spreading to other industries is speculation on my part. But I think it is at least informed speculation. I have a LinkedIn account and there is lots of talk in tech about a tougher job market, multiple offers not happening, candidates having to join the rest of the schmoes in sending out 100’s or resumes to get an offer.
If I am hearing you, you’re saying that this is an isolated event limited to aerospace machinists, a small cohort. However, it has to be viewed in the context of airline pilots, flight attendants, and ground workers all getting significant raises in the same ballpark over the past 4 years. So within the airline industry, it is inflationary as Boeing is going to have to raise prices for their airplanes and that will affect Delta, American, United, and other customers. Expect much higher fares.
WIll that spread beyond the airline industry? I think when people in other skilled trades hear this, they’ll ask “why not me?” The shortages in skilled labor are very real. You can’t plug and play with an illegal immigrant. It takes years to develop the skills to work in aviation. Other industries – it depends. Swing a hammer, no. But anything unionized is likely to be a no-go for illegals, who are Wall Street’s preferred answer to wage inflation.
I’d say the jury is out, but this is another data point that says the Fed’s not done with inflation and declaring “mission accomplished’ was premature.
So rising wages are inflationary? But not for profit tax payer bailed out and subsisized “defense” firms like Boeing doing stock buy backs to fund outrageous CEO bonuses or finscialized education or for profit privatized heathcare or “healthcare” insurance mandates? I would call the wages as trying to keep with the inflation that worker wages have not and did not cause, according to any balanced and objective analysis.
Objectively from a pure economic theory perspective, yes.
I would say that favoring shareholders over workers benefits only those at the top. So, less inflationary, unless you’re looking at luxury goods like designer shoes and cruises to Antarctica.
I agree that these wage increases are “fair” to keep up with the inflation, created by the Federal Reserve and Congress in recklessly allowing these sort of things (buybacks, more importantly the Fed’s debasement of the currency which always hurts “the little guy” much more than the elites who can hide out in stonks.
Plus, I can make an argument in that by ignoring the issues of safety and corporate malfeasance at Boeing, regulatory agencies and Congress are also to blame in ruining a once decent corporate citizen. A shit-show of an aerospace duopoly resulting in yet more inflation.
I would add not having an excess profits tax. Those corporations shouldn’t have the money for stock buy backs. The choice should be to lower their prices OR spend the money on new product research and plant and facilities (in the US) upgrades, with anything not going to that being taxed at 95% off the top for profits above say 15%.
Unfortunately we have an industrial policy, not to mention tax policy, that is written by those stock holders and over paid C Suite denizens, most of whom couldn’t actually build a real business from the ground up if their lives depended on it. (See most Private Equity folk if you don’t believe that.)
If I ran the zoo I’d go further and nationalize the airlines and Boeing. They’re too important to the nation’s public infrastructure. They should be run as utilities.
Even taxes will be somehow passed on to consumers. No airline has any business paying a dividend or buying back their stock. All profits should be put back into research, safety, and paying the workers a good wage. Perhaps they could also be restructured in the law like a REIT that has to pay a certain percentage but no more to the shareholders.
I disagree. Favoring shareholders can lead to inflation, just in different goods than those purchased by laborers. Ever hear the term “multiple expansion” used as an explanation for rising prices in common stocks? That just means higher prices than justified by discounted cash flows, i.e. inflation. Too many dollars chasing too few investable assets rather than being put to productive use.
Higher labor income is more likely to be spent on non investment goods, creating additional opportunities for productive investment. Whether higher labor or capital share would be beneficial to an economy depends on your starting point.
If you read people like Michael Pettis (main focus is macro in China) he has opined that the imbalance in the US economy at present is too little demand due to capital retaining too much surplus.
In our overly dynamic, pandemicly incipient apocalyptic moment, I think “inflation” has lost its meaning.
Abba Lerner’s preface to his 1972 book, “Flation”:
“The term “flation” was first (and perhaps last) used, so far as I know, in an early James Stewart film, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington; a United States Senator declares himself to be in favor of “neither inflation nor deflation but flation.” This must have been about the time (1941) that I coined the term “functional finance” to describe a policy of having “neither too much spending nor to little spending” in the economy as a whole. “Functional finance” did go a little further than “flation” in dictating the nature of the instruments that government could use in carrying out this policy, but functional finance suggests a complete symmetry between “too much spending” and “too little spending” even more than “flation” suggests symmetry between inflation and deflation of prices.
A major part of this book deals with the tragic consequences of policies based on the view that the inflation-deflation issue is a purely symmetrical matter of prices going up – inflation – when there is too much spending, and coming down – deflation – whenever there is too little spending. These policies, both here and abroad, consist of treating inflation due to pressure by sellers (sellers’ inflation (a big chunk of what we’ve had recently, my own editorial jsn) as if it were demand inflation (inflation due to too much spending). They treat it by holding down total spending in the economy. Unfortunately, this has little effect on the rising prices of sellers’ inflation, but is very effective in deflating the economy – increasing unemployment and creating recessions if not depressions.
For the audience of Mr. Smith, durring the great depression of the 1930’s, “deflation” inevitably suggested disastrous unemployment, although the depression was often confused with, or supposed to be caused by falling prices. But the effective appeal of “nor deflation” was in its being taken to mean “nor depression.” The slogan of “neither inflation nor deflation but flation” was sufficiently ahead of its time for its wisdom to be seen only as wit.”
Its the causal chains before prices rise or fall that are subject to useful policy intervention that require understanding of dependencies, and increasingly power asymmetries. It was also Lerner who said, I may botch this from memory, “economics made herself the queen of the social sciences by selecting as her domain the set of solved political problems.” NeoLiberalism has unsolved the great many political problems the New Deal and Great Societies built institutional infrastructure to manage, politically. The dismemberment of that administrative apparatus is what prevents coherently addressing underlying causality and is the reason I agree with what I believe Yves has said here, something to the effect of “we need a government as complex as the technologies we choose to live with” because failing that, as we’ve seen in the last 3-4 decades, the technologists run off with everything.
Shared loyalty. Her team is combination of people from California and safe Blue seats.
Her chief of staff worked for losers or worked at George Washington University for the decade pre ending her time with the VP. She is also from Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Her campaign manager has a famous name. Otherwise she has overseen a decline in Latino and Hispanic support.
Dillon has some bonafides with Edward’s primary surge in 2004 and as director of Obama’s 2008 battleground states. Of the latter how much was baked in. Indiana was a shock, but Virginia was already primed.
Fulks worked with Warnock.
Then you consider the echo chamber. Her chief of staff worked as a full time volunteer in 2008. There is something odd about that relative to that campaign. My gut is they only get weird polysci needs who took the same variation of the same class who come from backgrounds where they can feel comfortable “working” for nothing.
This is a reply to JohnnyGL
I am not going to wade into this article in today’s NYTimes, but I would like you to know of its existence:
Jill Stein Won’t Stop. No Matter Who Asks.
People in Stein’s life have implored her to abandon her bid for president, lest she throw the election to Donald Trump. She’s on the ballot in almost every critical state.
“People in Stein’s life” is sheer tattling and gossip. The “lest” is a fine baroque touch in the deck. “Throw the election”: Why do I have an inkling that the NYTimes, Pravda of the bourgeoisie, is going to be leading the incriminations as a stand-in for part of the Democratic Party, even as people like Hillary Clinton engage in what they think of as clever name-calling and less-than-clever red-baiting?
Meanwhile, my ballot went from the Chocolate City to the office of the Clerk of Cook County (Illinois) on 3 October. After much wrangling and lawfare and signature challenges, typical of Illinois Dems, the Democrats seem to have eliminated both the Greens and the Libertarians from the presidential ballot. This is remarkable, given that the Greens and Libertarians have been on the ballot at least since Obama’s first presidential election.
There is a line for a write-in candidate for president. Mighty white of them. I wrote in Stein.
Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy vote count.
Wasn’t it Stalin who said that he did not care how people voted but only who counted the votes? Oh well, at least Jill Stein can hang around with Ralph Nader who was also accused of being an election thrower.
Good company, Ralph Nader. I will be voting for Stein. Quite simply, her platform most represents what I want. It will be a write-in here in Vermont.
A bumpy vote count is indeed on the way.
I find it interesting that Brother Cornel made it on the ballot given that I’ve seen nothing from him for quite a while, yet Jill did not.
Wikipedia says-
‘As of August 2024, West had been polling below 1% nationally, was $17,000 in debt, and was no longer actively campaigning.’
He is not the person that you think he is. Jimmy Dore was excited to have him on his show but afterwards said how he was heartbroken how West refused to talk about class issues and even called Dore a Trump supporter for disagreeing with him. Best, like old soldiers, that he fades away.
Well, yeah. That’s been pretty clear since 2016. Likewise Bernie Sanders, who should have retired before his reputation and legacy, built over decades, was shredded.
But the question is, why is West on the ballot while Stein is denied? My tin hat says it is due to the Democrats, who have also coopted the Progressive party. I was wavering over whether to vote, which I have faithfully done for almost a half century. Then I thought I might write in Aaron Bushnell, like I did for the Democratic primary. But I guess I’ll be voting Jill again; we misogynists have to stick together.
Dr Stein has a much better chance if hitting that magic 10% than Dr West.
I don’t believe that I have to compare these two to the interlopers who are actually on the ballot :-(
West is off the ballot in California, where write-ins are throw-aways. But I appreciate that Jill Stein clarified the Greens are the Official Democratic Party Spoiler Party. She notes that, with 5 percent of the national vote, the Greens will qualify for government subsidies to better spoil the Democrats. I’m in!
>Quite simply, her platform most represents what I want. It will be a write-in here in Vermont.
That’s what ticks me off every time I wander onto Faceborg and within seconds an ad from Bernie Sanders telling me that I need to donate and vote for Harris scrolls by. What a sellout. I would think the ideas he has been preaching for decades would align with Stien.
Here’s the thing, Randall. I don’t think Bernie is a sellout. There’s all sorts of evidence that the man is just not particularly interested in money. I don’t even think he is a sheepdog: a working sheepdog is never on leash. They work for the joy of it.
And yet, he is out there, mouthing the party line and sacrificing the principles which, as you say, he espoused for decades. If you look at his face now, as opposed to late 2015 when his movement unexpectedly caught fire, he is not a happy man. So what is the very short leash the DNC holds? I would love to know.
Ugh. Sanders. I saw some Sanders tweet last last night, I see these now, and those from Obama and Biden, ugh. It pains me.
Sanders said some trope about fighting for or whatever.
Never ends.
Stein is on the ballot here in OR and gets my vote.
You had to go there, hadn’t you…
Condensed version of a Russian-language fact-checking article on this exact “quote” (https://provereno.media/blog/2021/02/16/pravda-li-chto-stalin-avtor-citaty-ne-vajno-kak-progolosovali/):
…in effect, the only source that attributes a similar quote to Stalin during his lifetime are the [1930] memoirs of his secretary [Boris Bazhanov], who had defected to the West. There is nothing like [this quote] in the extensive digitized archive of his writings. By contrast, foreign sources provide a number of variants of this quote even well before the Stalin era. For instance, in an 1871 newspaper cartoon depicting William Tweed, one of the least principled politicians in the history of the US, the sign on the ballot box states “in counting there is strength”, while the caption states: “Boss Tweed: As long as I count the Votes, what are you going to do about it? Say?”…
…in 1877, a Californian newspaper, the Daily Examiner, attributed a similar phrase to the Secretary of the Interior, Zachariah Chandler: “Give me the Returning Boards, and I won’t care who voted which way.” While in 1880 the New York Times connected a similar statement to Napoleon III, but in the form of a denial. Quote: “‘I do not care who votes which way, so long as I am the one counting the votes,’ said (not really) Napoleon once. Had he said it, however, he would have enriched the world’s supply of quotes and expressed the essence of imperialism.”…
In other words, most of the things famous people are said to have said according to the Internet, they never actually said. Or, to pull my favorite Internet quote from Don King, I can’t believe that having said what I said was interpreted as having been what I said when I said it, because I said it where I said it, when I said it, and who I said it to.
—–
On topic. In order to logically prove that a vote for any third party candidate X would “throw” the election from mainstream candidate A to mainstream candidate B, one has to establish that those persons voting for X would have otherwise voted for A. This is, in many if not the vast majority of cases, patently untrue. People will vote for Jill Stein precisely because they cannot stomach voting for Kamala Harris, and if Jill Stein hadn’t existed as an option they would likely have stayed home, or not voted on the Presidential line, or written in Mayor Quimby or some such. Of course, trying to explain this to a card-carrying New Yorker-reading creative-class female from an affluent family is very much like attempting to demolish a brick wall by appealing to its sense of community. One speaks from thankfully brief personal experience.
I agree, I just think these people would have voted for no one. I am a no one voter, when I lived in CA. Where I had third parties like peace and freedom party, and a whole host of evil corporate propositions I voted third party for years, with exception of Bernie the first time around. The second time around , I knew better and never supported him again. Now I just don’t vote, since I live in a GOP state and there’s nothing going to get me to register as a Democrat ever! and can’t stomach a republican vote. I’m just going to hope people stop engaging in the democracy game. Quit voting…..then what are they going to do? Fake it all like they do now.
Stein is the only candidate on the ballot, other than Cornel West (who isn’t even on the ballot in a lot of states) that has a platform to explicitly end all the foreign wars:
https://www.jillstein2024.com/platform#foreign_policy_and_demilitarization
No need to go on. You had me at “bipartisan endless war machine”, Ms. Stein.
I will be voting for Stein. I bought a nice tee shirt and hat off her official site. I haven’t voted for either of the donkeys or elephants since, well I can’t remember. I think since the 80’s. Easy to see what bullshit they represent.
One side of the duopoly has core members (often older) scared of communists like its the early 1900s and the others has core members (often older) scared of a return to the Jim Crow America of the early 1900s. Because it’s an election year and raising fear is as much a priority as raising funds.
They think of the wars as an abstraction not related to all the budgetary cuts or falling living standards and not something that put a damper on all of their budgetary hopes they think the other team is hell bent on ending.
Well said!!!
Funny how the groups that want to blame others for voting wrong miss that it is a candidate’s and their party’s responsibility to make the case to the voters that they deserve to be elected. And that the failure is not that of the voters but of the candidate if they lose.
It is especially egregious when the group playing that blame game has been enabling the candidate to ignore the will of the voters for the benefit of their portfolio and their advertisers.
If the New York Times had one ounce of integrity that would be at the top of their article of how Harris failed and how she was helped to fail. But they dropped integrity decades ago.
Pat: You are on the mark, as ever.
Further, I agree with mrsyk and Randall Flagg, above, that Jill Stein and the Green Party have the platform that I support. They are talking about programs and benefits that Americans deserve and that the mono-party of property insists on denying to the populace.
Proving the Democratic Party would rather lose to Donald Trump than act on the policy preferences of the majority of their voters–as opposed to those of the donor class and its lackeys. And putting the lie to their entire argument about the world ending should Trump win.
DTS keeps people from thinking about all the years the USA’s national security apparatus overthrew democratically elected governments, which plays a big part in the global rightward turn and practice of austerity economics all over the globe. Privatize the profits, socialize the losses.
The Democrats obviously believe Stein is stealing their legitimate possession of progressive voters. It’s mine, my Precious, i told you I told you!- That’s Democracy to the eyes of the Democrat establishment.
Just desserts. Where is Blinken with his phony ceasefire? Oh yeah, it is in the garbage can while Bibi keeps maiming and killing Palestinians.
It actually makes voting for Stein way more fun. You really drive the NY and DC elites crazy in a way that’s hard to fathom would otherwise be possible.
So the Dems are going to be all Jill Stein ate my homework? Meanwhile on Fox, Harris blames all the problems during the Biden admin on Trump, another homework gourmet. These kids need a good spanking so they’ll quit with the lame excuses.
Stein is mostly invisible to the TDS PMC pack, so it is safe to bring out ambiguous versions of their talking points like,
This is a historic election, with so much at stake I’m glad to vote for the woman who could save our democracy!
A stronger case can be made that the Libertarian Party, which also wants to upset the two party system, cost Trump the election in 2020 and might do so again. Biden won the EC 306-232 which included 3 crucial states AZ, GA, WI by roughly 43,000 votes total.
Biden won AZ (EV-11) by 10,457 votes. The Libertarians received 51,465 votes and the Greens 1,557 and all others combined received 475.
Biden won GA (EV-16) by 11,779 votes. The Libertarians received 62,229 votes and the Greens 1,013 and all others combined received 1,231.
Biden won WI (EV-10) by 20,682 votes. The Libertarians received 38,491 votes and the Greens 1,089 and all others combined received 17,411.
In 2020 overall, the Libertarians won 1,865,535 votes, the Greens 407,068 votes and all others combined 649,552 votes. I’m not sure if the results in 2024 will be much different.
Lastly, nobody forced Harris to complement Dick Cheney for his endorsement. Nobody forced Harris to invite Liz Cheney to campaign with her. Harris could have invited Bernie Sanders on her campaign stage who is 10x more popular than Liz Cheney and 1000x more popular than Dick Cheney.
I’m not sure Bernie Sanders is more popular than Liz Cheney these days. The TDS afflicted love them some Liz, and the people who doorknocked and donated their hard-earned $27 are pretty bitter.
Most I know hate Bernie and his bros because they cost “It’s her turn” the election to Trump. They hate Bernie and the progressives almost as much as Trump, Musk, Putin, Tulsi, and any GOP person except Liz and Adam K. All the former being on Kremlin payroll as well.
“Upset the two-party system”
Ummm…where is it written that the “system” has to be “two-party”? I consider both of the major parties to be culpable for the current state of affairs in this nation, and neither of them to be worthy of my vote, anywhere on the ballot.
I ‘m getting flashbacks to my Gov 101 class my freshman year at UT, wherein the bulk of the focus was on Prisoner’s Dilemma analyses. Ugh. It’s focus on 2-dimensional analysis creates a warped view of the political process.
As a libertarian, I’m having a real tough time with this election. The Libertarians have gone all virtue-signaling trying to make gains in a marginal voting bloc, forgetting that the principles of libertarianism are for the benefit of all the citizenry. I’ve considered Jill Stein, but have strong reservations. This may be the last Boomer election, and in a nation of >300 million citizens this handful of chuckleheads is the best we can do?
Ummm…where is it written that the “system” has to be “two-party”? I heard that is written in most of US States legislation, since the US Constitution delegates voting management, etc to the states…
I filled in (with “black ballpoint pen”) the little oval next to Stein’s name on my Florida Mail-in ballot and sent it yesterday. Whether or not it will be counted is impossible to know. And I suspect the millions of voters disrupted by Helene and Milton might have other things on their minds. I, thankfully, was mostly untouched by the storms, although I live in St. Petersburg where much destruction occured.
Since ’96, I refuse to vote Democrat except for Obama because my family begged me to vote for him–I knew better but was living in a total blue state so I did just so I could say I voted for the dude.
Anyway this year I’m voting for Trump, not because I support him, though in some sense I agree with some of his policies–though I’m not sure what that is. But I’m voting against Harris and the (to me) neo-fascist Democratic Party. I have visceral hatred of the DP who betrayed and destroyed what was left of the left and want to bring us into a clearly totalitarian future. Whereas Trump is indicating he will not want to push the Empire and may care and perhaps, this time, hang out with people who care somewhat about the welfare and happiness of the American people. I know the Democrats are incapable of even that. BTW, I used to know these people–I’m not just raging at the machine–this is personal.
However, as an old leftist I respect Stein and those who vote for her but I can’t do it this time. I live in North Carolina so my vote sort of counts.
I live in a different tossup state – we have cacti instead of hurricanes.
I wasn’t going to vote at all but decided to mail in my ballot with Jill Stein’s circle filled in. I only did it in the hopes that Jill gets more votes than Trump wins by. I want them to cry for 4 years how genocide/Jill/Biden/Black men/white women cost them the election.
Agree about the Democrat Party. At least Republicans are honest about what they’re about.
Stein is not on the ballot in this state either so I’ll write her in. (Jill was on the ballot here in 2016) .I requested petitioning information from the state coordinator early in the year. The envelope she sent me appeared to have been tampered with.
Am I the only one here who could vote for her (NJ)?
She’s on the MA ballot
Here in Hawaii too.
My wife and I are voting for the real Dr Jill (Stein) and we’ve heard no end of shock, exasperation, ridicule and catastrophism (“throwing your vote away in the face of fascism”) from our friends. As we are in Pa, one friend from Mass volunteered to fly here to try to convince us -and like-minded Stein-supporers she thought we have here- of the massive mistake we’re making. I thanked her- she’s a sincere and brilliant person- and informed her all our friends here are voting Blue. IMO, this is PMC-based panic as well as an absolute inability to recognize America is an empire in decline.
Dems are panicking that Harris might lose to that hitler, trump. If saving their democracy is so important, maybe Harris should withdraw to give stein a chance. Oh, wait… maybe stein isn’t part of their democracy…
RE: leak of Israeli plan to attack Iran
This has the intelligence agencies’ fingerprints all over it. Why not leak it, they have motive:
Delay/stop Israel from attacking Iran during the next two weeks before Nov. 5. The polls are going the wrong way for Harris, and the last thing she needs is a big escalation causing fear to embed itself in the voters minds. Harris needs an oblivious, “what me worry” electorate more focused on joy.
Trump wins if the number one issue is foreign policy (not in my book, but I don’t count.)
In DC, everything outside the beltway is ‘foreign’.
I don’t know. If you read the documents, they aren’t very exciting, and they are full of carefully nuanced judgements, using words like “probably” “possibly” and so on. The first looks like an internal more technical document, the second seems to be a bullet point summary, probably for the use of decision-makers and foreign partners. The report mentions concealment techniques used by the Israelis, who therefore understand that the US will be carrying out satellite surveillance of them, and what they will be able to deduce from it. I don’t see how leaking technical and very nuanced documents like this actually achieves very much.
Could it be a warning shot across the bow to Israel?
A lame, half-baked leak as a precursor to a real nasty one, served directly to the Iranians if Netanyahu doesn’t heel?
My first inclination is to not think so, but maybe the rage at having your election campaign sabotaged might override longstanding loyalties? And what good is all that lobby cash if the lobbyists go on and undercut you?
The polls have tightened and it seems that Blinken the Stinken has totally given up on a Gaza/hostage deal. So, yeah, retribution could be in play. You stole my chance at a legacy, now rot, Bibi.
Yes. Anodyne and something that could be assumed by the majority of those paying attention. My thought was that whoever leaked this didn’t think was too damaging, so it would prove the point that security needed to be increased to prevent worse leaks.
I’m asking myself what the US/Israeli propaganda engine wants to induce me to believe with these “leaks”. The answer is that the US needs to spy on Israel to gather intelligence indirectly, doesn’t necessarily know first hand what Israel is planning or doing, is not directly involved in Israeli military activities.
And I don’t buy that, at all.
And further, I think this is an attempt to counter recent seeds of an idea that the US may be in control of a proxy Israel, rather than the other way around. The timing is….interesting. But regardless who is driving who, the US is 100% complicit.
“The US is investigating an unauthorized release of classified documents on Israel’s attack plans”
It was probably the US that leaked those plans in the first place. In the past Israel would attack a country and then tell them that if they dared retaliate, then Israel would hit them harder. Schoolboy bully tactics. But Iran is different. They have the ability to wreck Israel and told them point blank that they are fed up with their *** and if they attack Iran, then Israel gets clobbered. Israel may still be thumping their chests and claim that they will defeat Iran but the Pentagon at least knows what the real deal is so they may have leaked that info to spike an Israeli attack. And certainly the Biden White House does not want an attack right now. Not now with less than three weeks before the elections so they too may have let that info go out.
RE: No Fury Like a Proxy Scorned Beyond the Wasteland- by Kevin Batcho
This article expresses very well (IMO) the possibility that things might turn in unexpected ways in Ukraine if and when they feel abandoned by the CW after so many sacrifices. This ghost has been there awaiting all along the duration of the war as the dim possibilities of Ukrainian victory have been fading away. One could expect that at some point the commitment of the West would be tested and the West would fail to Ukraine’s demands. How this mixture of feelings will unfold in Ukraine is unpredictable though if Z’s discourse in the Rada serves as any indication it looks like the West can still be confident that Ukraine will continue fighting to the bitter end and that Ukraine won’t fully loose the faith. Yet, we have not already seen the more critical episodes for Ukraine in this war. Mix the scorned proxy feelings with the desperation of the troops in the Wasteland and see what grows from this.
I noticed one section in this pseudo-sexual analysis-
‘Since the war began in 2022, Ukraine has sacrificed hundreds of thousands of men in pursuit of a Western-backed future, clinging to the promise of NATO membership and economic integration with the European Union. Yet despite this sacrifice, the West steadfastly refuses to offer the kind of unconditional commitment that Ukraine craves’
So is this guy Kevin Batcho saying that the west has “commitment issues”?
Well, add up the dead, those rendered impotent through war injuries, and the guys who have, quite sensibly, emigrated, and how does Ukraine re-populate?
Will the Russians, in an embrace of eternal fraternal friendship and love, be willing to pick up the slack and offer the possibility of mass insemination by the bucket load?
The US illegals tossed out in the new/old Trumpian regime the Biden White House has suddenly decided to re-invigorate in time for the election?
Zionists fleeing warrants?
Deserters?
Illegal asylum seekers from the rest of Europe?
Employers with offers of domestic service in the Congo mines or London’s steamy brothels?
How does Ukraine repopulate, and with whom?
Rev Kev: Given that so-called feminists like Annalena Baerbock and Hillary Clinton adore war, I suspect that they consider the slaughter of thousands of men to be a win-win outcome.
As a man, I have a visceral reaction to this kind of nihilist support of war. Real men know what Gen. Sherman knew, that war is hell.
If history is any guide, and my ability to “read between the lines” is half-decent, absolute majority of Ukrainian soldiers would rather return to their homes and start building a new* life than pick up another fight with the West.
Of course there’s also the group of Ukrainians who define themselves trough hatred of all things Russian, and who would feel most betrayed – but they have to live, too, and only party willing to fund their clandestine campaign against pro-Russian Ukrainians would be the West.
Budanov and his ilk would be living in Vienna (in some luxury paid by CIA) and coordinate “resistance” inside Ukraine until the population gets fed up with the resistance (which brings only violence and instability) and turns on them.
After that the candles for Bandera will burn bright only in Canada and USA, and in some blacked out cellars in western Ukraine, biding their time and preparing their grandchildren for the next round sometimes in the 2070.
* in which you can speak which ever language you want and serve your god whichever way you want, in which you can have elections and maybe even a bit less corruption.
A difference with past times is that now, information, disinformation, rumours, ideas, all that, flows fast through social networks with potential to make things change all of a sudden. Though may be these social networks are not that influential at the end of the day.
I can envision two potential models for post-war Ukrainian insurgencies. The first, based on a “stab-in-the-back” myth, could see Ukrainian militants turning their anger against Europe and possibly even the U.S., similar to how the Organisation armée secrète (OAS) emerged in Algeria among French hardliners near the end of the Algerian War. With deep resentment towards their perceived Western betrayers, these militants might utilize their expertise in drone warfare to exact punishment.
The second model is closer to what you suggest: after the war, Western intelligence agencies could support surviving militants in launching insurgent attacks on Russian-controlled areas. This strategy would draw on NATO’s “Stay Behind” networks and Operation Gladio, covert operations designed to disrupt potential Soviet advances during the Cold War. The idea would be to maintain a low-intensity conflict against Russian forces, keeping pressure on them even after conventional warfare ends.
https://www.beyondwasteland.net/p/consigning-ukraine-to-hospice-care
An amusing allegory, but «echoing the Red Army’s brutal conquest of Berlin in 1945» ?? The West can’t forgive what those brutes did to its friends.
The comment on Berlin is really more of a warning of the dangers of “jusqu’au boutisme” than it is a moral judgement on the Red Army’s actions in 1945.
Precisely. The fight to the bitter end that the Allies refused to join, preferring instead to conclude a “separate peace”, recruiting top Nazis (“Operation Sunrise/Paperclip) in preparation for the recapture of Kursk.
A lot of arms and Ukrainians floating around might be concerning. To what uses might they be aimed, like the remnants of the Iraqi military?
I’ve been quipping about blowback and waiting for the realization to start hitting the press since the beginning of the war.
I guess it’s taking Z running around talking about getting or building nukes for people to start wondering how bad it could this time around. Same game, different names.
The chickens come home to roost.
2024 Anthony Fauci Courage in Leadership Award, heh heh, hoo boy. I’m surprised it didn’t go to……. Anthony Fauci.
He had to make do with only a Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Shades of the war criminals getting medals while Assange got shafted.
I immediately thought of the
The First Annual Montgomery Burns Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence
In memory of Alfred Nobel, naturally
There’s a saying (but I can’t remember who first said it) that goes “awards are like hemorrhoids: sooner or later every a**hole gets one.”
Netanyahu accuses ‘Iranian proxies’ for assassination attempt after drone attack on his home Anadolu Agency’
Nothing is Israel’s fault; everything is Iran’s fault.
However, ‘Israel Preps for Strike on Iran, Top Secret Leak Reveals Ken Klipperstein’
Oddly, This could be seen by the casual bystander in dark glasses with a bulge under his arm and an AK-47 held delicately across his chest, or a technician deep in the bowel of Iran finger poised over a big red button, as a churlish attempt to disrupt BRICS by the US’s pet proxy.
It also provides great cover for Iran with BRICS if Tehran decides to launch a massive preemptive strike against all military assets and utilities – energy, water, even to the point of accepting hospitals treating soldiers as collateral damage.
This is the most important week for BRICS and any actions taken against the Ukraine, Nato and Israel in response to threats will be a major catalyst in pulling it together. China is already prepared, North Korea will be ready for a fight against NATO and Israel, and the rest will have to follow.
It’s the West playing three card brag while the others are playing Go! and chess.
One of my neighbour’s going to go for a family holiday near one of the British bases in Cyprus shipping materiel to the forces of the Great Darkness tomorrow and I’ve told him that it may become very hot at some point during his hols to no avail. I suppose lots of people think that hot is good once we develop a little nip in the air.
Invest now, for even bigger explosion.
Heh! Heh! Heh!
Tett Offensive? Missing a comma
Are there not bounds to the accolades for those who do bad deeds?
Daily I see those who promulgated the disasters that are Afghanistan and Iraq deemed worthy to opine on matters of foreign policy. That is bad, but the consequences roost in places far away from our country.
Now however, the infectious disease board commends failure too. This folly damns the young to a sickly life that will likely be far shorter than mine.
Which will be the next field to reward depravity?
It shows just how vulnerable electricity grids can be if you don’t have in-built overcapacity and resilience. The power station that is knocked out is relatively small (c.300MW), but there is no spare capacity in the Cuban system so it can’t handle the outage – a very bad sign for the future. No grid should be so vulnerable that it can’t handle a single power plant outage.
The plant, along with nearly all Cuba’s capacity – is an oil burner. Cuba produces around a third of its oil needs and 100% of its (modest) gas consumption. The remainder nearly all comes from Venezuela. It’s mostly the heaviest and nastiest residual fraction. Unfortunately, some optimistic projections for off-shore oil in the early 00’s seem to have persuaded the government that oil and gas burning was the way to go – that may prove to have been a very bad bet, as most of the oil plays have been disappointing. It has three small fields in operation.
If there is a country that should go all in on solar, it’s Cuba. It desperately needs that inbuilt resilience. The generating stations are nearly all along the coast (the Antonio Guimeres plant is right next to a beach, not a great place to build a power plant in a hurricane zone). At the moment, just 5% of Cubas energy comes from renewables.
“The US Risks Irrelevance in Asia”
‘Second, the United States need not be the single most powerful player to make positive contributions to regional order. Washington policymakers are deluding themselves if they are crafting regional strategy from the assumption that the United States still enjoys unchallenged primacy in Asia. That ship has sailed. Primacy should no longer be the lodestar of U.S. strategy; it is an unrealistic goal. This reality check should not lead to a crisis of confidence, however, and opens up opportunities for smarter strategic choices.’
The Diplomat is mistaken in this regard. Actually, it is wrong. Washington has never given up on unchallenged primacy aka world domination. It is the policy that drive Project Ukraine, it drives the confrontation with China on their own borders, it gives support to wanting to bring down Iran, to wreck BRICS, to loot both Africa and South America’s resources all for themselves, to militarize the entire Pacific, to regime change any country that does not obey Washington. They will not even think about any other alternative. It’s like watching a guy with a tin pot on is head charging head first into a brick wall determined to break through or break.
Yes, this became one of those “The next administration has a chance to reimagine …” articles, which you read and know that it simply won’t happen. None of the three proposed “guiding principles to get the balance right” will be followed.
E.g., the article proposes “a more benign and sustainable U.S. presence, one not simply predicated on security partnerships and military bases but capable of delivering much needed public goods such as economic investment and development finance to meet the needs of Asia’s rapidly growing middle classes” Yup, but na gonna happen. Next: “This reality check should not lead to a crisis of confidence, however, and opens up opportunities for smarter strategic choices.” … except that “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.” And as for “the reality is that Asian states do not want to be forced to choose between China and the United States” — true, but the Washington policy will still be: “that’s a nice bit of infrastructure ya got there, it would be a shame if it got Nordstreamed”.
Conclusion: Washington can’t be bothered with this sort of yammering from the reality-based community, and thus the US will happily continue down the road to irrelevance in Asia.
The U.S. Navy is approaching irrelevance (outside doomsday SLBM).
It’s like watching a guy with a tin pot on is head — “Just a flesh wound” The Black Knight
“Washington has never given up on unchallenged primacy…”
Really important comment.
Containment of China was no concern before the Obama presidency. There was an American dismissal of China as industrially competent up to the independent development of a comprehensive Chinese space program. Then the American project became China containment, formally in 2011. Far too late however.
‘The West Wing; cast hits the trail for Harris in Wisconsin That headline, like the Dude’s rug, “really ties the room together”. The Harris campaign strategy has gone all in Kamalot, the Musical!. Todays episode features the cast of “West Wing” and some bizarre dating game where the bachelorettes are team blue militants. in the future, historians will refer to 2024 as the “Netflix Election”.
Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends
We’re so glad you could attend,
come inside, come inside (E,L&P)
Thank you so much for posting my “No Fury Like a Proxy Scorned.” I spent many years commenting at Naked Capitalism, learning and honing my critical thinking skills!
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this, and I think your analogy is spot on. My only (tiny) quibble is that RU does not see the present situation as a divorce, but merely as a marital separation. (Probably many UKR citizens see things the same way). A temporary husband-wife spat which will eventually be patched up, as soon as the western sugar daddy stops wooing UKR. And yes, UKR could very well go crazy-ex and do something thoroughly irrational, lashing out unpredictably. Which I think is a major reason that Putin has been treading so carefully and cautiously, so as not to provoke the angry and frustrated spouse.
Kamala Harris’s campaign flexes celebrity support in Detroit and Atlanta Hmm. Been awhile since Sean Combs has come across my news feed.
Noahpinion
A day after posting this cutting insight has gathered a giant two comments. Who is Noah Smith and why do we care about his “pinion”?*
*Turns out he does have a Wiki entry–written by himself?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah_Smith_(writer)
I masochistically forced myself to read this whole article. I just had to know how high he would shovel this steaming pile, and I was not disappointed. If anyone still has the inclination to take anything Smith says seriously, I’d recommend reading this. Perhaps he can join the West Wing troupe in their warnings to the “free world’s indispensable nation.”
I did too, even though I know it’s wrong first thing in the morning.
Possible highlight: Dan Coates ‘believes’ Putin is blackmailing Trump. It never ends!
I loved how he wrote that we “saved” Europe with our LNG imports, while conveniently saying nothing about the Nordstream bombing.
Who are these people, and why are the rest of us subject to their delusions and idiocy?
I read the whole article too. Funny to see that he’s picking up the “ZOMG the Norks R Coming!” without critically evaluating it. He even enlarged it. Now there are 13000 soldiers training in a place they’re unfamiliar with, in a language they don’t understand, for a cause they don’t support, woth weapons they won’t use to fight the South Koreans, because Putin Is Evil. Just like Trump apparently smashed the consensus on free trade but allegedly did nothing to support domestic manufacturing. That all happened under Biden. Because obviously no one tried to discourage and argue against what Trump wanted to do when it came to all of his domestic policies, especially on domestic manufacturing. Which makes sense according to people like Mr. Smith, because the US will be manufacturing all these advanced chips with workers who TSMC has complained are substandard.
It’s all absurd.
That article is a cautionary tale IMO. Here is a person who can write, and can read, and feels like they’re informed enough to produce something of value discussing the complicated state of the world right now. They just happen to be completely wrong about everything because their main point of reference is WaPo.
He clearly doesn’t read Moon of Alabama. His “pinions” read more like propaganda than anything he might have thought of independently. Funny how the alternative news outlets can find RAND saying ‘the US should spread fake news about NK’ and then notice it happening shortly afterward, but hacks like Smith never seem to pick up on it even though they have access to the same search engines, and instead just spread the same fake BS. Funny.
Noah ought to have quit while he was ahead, having noted in the second sentence that “I am also not an expert on geopolitics.” What follows is an exercise in making this painfully obvious, erasing beyond a shadow of a doubt his cluelessness in this regard.
That he goes to such trouble to display his total ignorance of the subject is, well, entertaining at least …
– ‘An Armageddon for NATO Expansion’ – Gordon Hahn, Russian & Eurasian Politics
This is a good piece overall, but for me its most useful feature is highlighting the spineless servility of William Burns. Much of Hahn’s discussion is built around Burns’ now well-known 2008 cable when he was Ambassador to Russia, warning of Russia’s perception of NATO expansion with particular emphasis on Ukraine (thanks Wikileaks). In yesterday’s Links, the post by Craig Murray nicely described how mid-level bureaucratic functionaries go along to get along on policies with which they may disagree. But here we have the Director of the CIA doing the same, with the potential for much more serious global consequences.
Historians have sometimes acknowledged the role of crucial whistle-blowers. But I’m not sure they have emphasized enough the role of spineless yes-men (or women) – those who have enough knowledge and reputation to challenge disastrous policy but instead serve themselves by going along. People like George Tenet come to mind – or our gallant and heroic General Colin Powell.
No one has more scorn for Burns than Larry Wilkerson, who has opined that Billy-boy is aiming for Sec. of State should the Dims win in November. That such a move would be an improvement (granted, not much of one) kinda says it all…
“Republicans, young adults now nearly as likely to trust info from social media as from national news outlets”
Republicans may have some wacky beliefs but at least their heads are screwed on right about those national news outlets like CNN or MSNBC. By this stage those outlets are less trustworthy than a used car salesman. In fact, trust is stronger on Congress people than media outlets which shows how bad they have sunk. Here in Oz I no longer use the TV news as an actual source of news but just use it to get an idea of what the latest narrative is.
Though primarily known as a tea & lemonade beverage, who knew that Arnold Palmer used a 14 iron?
Before a big tournament, according to Johnny Carson, Palmer would have his wife kiss his balls to make his puts go straight.
1 stroke penalty
Never seen the clip but I understand that Carson’s retort was – “I bet that really made his putter stand out.”
That “The world teeters on the edge of a knife” by a ridiculously young-looking associated professor in Behavioural Finance (why do I get a sudden whiff of concentrated bullshit here?) is disturbing to sane people.
If you’re on the edge of a knife, actually of the blade of a knife, then you’re not teetering, you’re about to be bisected. In other words, the author uses metaphors without any understanding of the meaning of the words with which they are constructed.
Meanwhile, it’s actually a deranged rant about the glories of the Democrats and the horrors of the Republicans. If the Republicans win, they won’t go to war with Russia and China, the author warns, whereas the glorious Dear Leader Biden’s wars with those countries have been uniformly successful and triumphant. I wouldn’t actually have thought, at this stage, that any sane person would be promoting Biden for his foreign policy successes – and the author doesn’t seem to have noticed, or perhaps doesn’t care, that Biden is not actually on the ballot, or perhaps he is actually just admitting that the people running the show since the last election have not included Biden.
Vote Karmala and save the planet, is the message. (Palestinians do not exist and never have existed.) Nobody else will do it, and the evil Russians and Chinese will take over unless Karmala is there to defend us, something like a combination of Gal Gadot and Hillary Clinton.
The scariest thing is, is it not possible that the author, although immersed in excrement to above the eyebrows, really believes that he and his friends all smell like roses the which everything is coming up?
Why wouldn’t the author believe that he and his friends don’t all smell like roses the which everything is coming up? The profile says: Bestseller, Tens of thousands of paid subscribers. That’s an enormous circle jerk. You could make a religion out of it.
“Ukraine’s accession to NATO without occupied territories out of question – senior Ukrainian official”
Looking at the image of that Olha Stefanishyna at the top of the article who is saying all this, well, is this the face of a crazy person?
As a retired architect who has been a writer all his life, I loved “The Essay as Realm.”
Except for the sentence when she claims that architecture books “are full of good writing.” In fact, architecture books are full of the worst writing known to humankind.
Seconded. I found it a wonderful read.
Went in vaguely expecting some reflections on Montaigne, Seneca, etc., but instead encountered Alexander, Harbison, Venturi, and even Tanizaki.
It’s almost more about architecture than the essay form, but grounded in the essay and writing, offering a completely different approach, more about experience per se than “que sais-je?”.
Having read the abstract and intro for that Nature article, I’d like to be living on the world the authors are on. Apparently for then humans aren’t a primary risk for mutations or novel versions of COVID, and implications are that it’s been done for some time and this is just a precaution to avoid it coming back.
Sure it would be lovely to test those species, but that’s like worrying about a papercur when you have a pipe through your chest. People need to be tested and taught to take it seriously again first.
Hey all, was just wondering if anyone has heard or can confirm that Internet Archive got hacked and everything from 2019 – 2024 was erased?
There’s gotta be air-gapped back ups somewhere right?
Hacked, yes. Erased, no. It’s partially running again, read only.
Check their social media feeds for deets.
The “darknet” has been wobbling a bit lately. One of my music sites got flooded with comment spam. No one could remember that ever happening before.
Your computer is a bonfide Star Trek replicator. It can replicate ANY digital file.
So we have onerous ©opyright laws with penalties of up to $20,000 a song for anyone who dares replicate a digital file protected by ©. Many creators now do not assert copyright because they want their creative works to be more widely shared.
To be fair, I’ve always suspected that replicated “Earl Gray hot” tasted like vending machine tea. But a replicated digital music file is indistinguishable from the original so our legal system says no, you can’t have it. Soon you’ll be able to have perfectly forged copies of famous paintings courtesy of 3D printers. Except it will be illegal because France holds the “copyright” on Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. No, not copyright literally, but museums are control freaks. Most thieves are.
The buggy whip manufacturers are running our world into the ground. Every child could have access to ALL the great literature and art in the world but it’s all owned and you can’t have a copy but we’ll rent you some of it. You can always rent it again later as many times as you like/can pay for : )
In a pickle
He needs some lettuce
Having a Presidential fast food employee
Doesn’t upset us
All he asks is that we vote his way
I like your short poem very much although I am not entirely sure why, lacking the ability to fully understand its meanings. It rings with allusions.
Its a riff on a Burger King commercial from the 70’s
That much I could really apprehend. That allusion conjures meanings in the context of the election but the breadth of those meanings elude me. I have a vague sense of the degradation of what was once a high office, and the Corporate ownership of employees. A vote “his way” suggests Trump and a certain power madness.
Russia’s real estate market rocked by the end of generous mortgage subsidies – BNE Intellinews
Another country with a housing affordability crisis.
With varying demographics, geographic locations, resources… matter how different
countries may be, all have the same problem: something not quite right with the housing market plumbing.
Yet, each instance of the issue is individuated.
What incident touched the world over, especially in terms of housing markets, and was never probably resolved? Hmmm….I wonder what it could be???
But then what else should be expected when so many countries have dabbled in or been thrust into neoliberal economic regimes at some point?
“no matter how different countries may be”…
I do think it’s an interesting piece in that Russia has no shortage of lumber or construction companies, so these aren’t the constraints or the cause, which points to only one remaining culprit, and one which all countries have in common, namely banks.
And this in turn suggests the solution – governments taking over and nationalizing mortgage lending and housing, not leaving it to banks to manage.
Interest rates are such BS…total exploitation.
Another fine article by Ben Aris, whose assessments of RU economic trends are consistently good. I have been astonished by the number of new apartment high-rises that have been sprouting up in Moscow over the past few years, but especially since 24/2/22. Not just in the city proper, but also in the surrounding exurbs. It makes no sense to me; the RU economy overall is doing OK, but many high-earning IT/finance types (lots of whom lived in Moscow) have moved abroad since 24/2/22, while most of the increased defense-related spending has benefited workers living in industrial cities (not Moscow). So there seems to be a mismatch. I view it as a real estate bubble in the making (at least re Moscow), as there is no way that most young people can afford to buy these apartments without state subsidies (which are now being chopped) or rich parents. Offspring no.1 rents an apartment near the center of Moscow and (earning a nice banker salary) is interested in buying something, but the asking prices are insane, as are the interest rates. And yet my wife’s real estate friend says that all of these new apartments are pre-sold (presumably on credit terms) before the buildings are even finished. This is not sustainable, and I don’t see how it will end without much wailing and gnashing of teeth. The RU government has nobody to blame but itself for this looming mess.
“Moldovans elect president, vote on EU path as claims of Russian meddling spike”
Last time around, Maia Sandu got to be President on the strength of ballots lodged by Moldovans living outside the country. Totally legit that. Question is whether she can do the same. If she loses, will she claim that it was due to Russian interference and she will therefore nullify the election results? They are getting so paranoid over there that on the news tonight I saw that they were using sniffer dogs to identify people in airports and the like with money to on them check if it is legitimate or whether this is Russian money being brought into the country to buy votes. Good opportunity for a shakedown was my first thought.
America’s gullibility crisis – Axios
Special thanks to Edward Bernays.
…and nothing about “Russiagate” which required uber-gullibilty.
“Never before have so many people been so exposed to so much misinformation”
Remember the Maine.
But yeah, if you were born yesterday and simply know that the system works perfectly, then dissent is misinformation.
I’ve got to go work on my Missile Gap now.
I thought at first that the “Anthony Fauci” award must be satire.
After a moment I realized that awarding Walensky is entirely appropriate, these two have destroyed more American lives than any other two people.
And made bank doing it.
It’s AMERICA!!! because Markets, go die,
“Long COVID Is Harming Too Many Kids”
That was a depressing read, I think I’ll go for a walk outside.
No kidding. Not clear to me how capitalist reproduction occurs if we’ve whacked all the children. Leaders in the west are too busy gratifying themselves to have any care about governing, probably couldn’t govern if they cared to try. What a debacle. Truly sleepwalking into an abyss.
Two grandkids, a 4 month old and a 22 month old, are currently the incandescent lights of my life. I will take a walk and then read the article.
Speaking of kids, COVID brain damage? We know it effects emotional regulation:
Number of Young People Accused of Serious Crimes Surges in New York City (NY Times via archive.ph)
Includes data from 2017 to recent, so disaggregating to 2020+ isn’t possible.
But we have:
So who knows.
The most depressing thing about it is how much of an accelerant repeated covid exposures are for so many issues in our society. There are numbers of children in our area who have never had covid, because their parents live in places that support interventions and HEPA filters being everywhere.
The kind of places where you can go to restaurants where the diners are treated well and the servers wear masks. So these kids will have advantages that others won’t be able to match, and those advantages will multiply greatly as they go out in the world supported by families with increased material advantages. That means this issue is going to make nearly everything that is discussed on NC worse. Class conflict. Crime. Gaming the system. Climate change. Lack of resilient systems. All of that will get worse over time because the people growing up will be affected by repeated covid exposure.
2 of my 3 kids have never had covid. We’ve tested them repeatedly. We’ve had it confirmed with PCR. One of my kids has only had covid once. Again, confirmed multiple ways. They all have friends who have had similar experiences. Few of their peers are being raised to believe that these class born advantages are significant.
There’s a place where “the help” is still required to wear masks and there are HEPA filters running? Where is this mythical place where COVID is taken seriously?
I’m asking myself what the US/Israeli propaganda engine wants to induce me to believe with these “leaks”. The answer is that the US needs to spy on Israel to gather intelligence indirectly, doesn’t necessarily know first hand what Israel is planning or doing, is not directly involved in Israeli military activities.
And I don’t buy that, at all.
And further, I think this is an attempt to counter recent seeds of an idea that the US may be in control of a proxy Israel, rather than the other way around. The timing is….interesting. But regardless who is driving who, the US is 100% complicit and very tightly integrated with everything that Israel is doing.
Sorry for the dupe, it didn’t seem like it had gone through so I thought it was glitching. Turns out it’s not, just wasn’t giving me the usual instant feedback and positive reinforcement.
I’m not buying either…
What I am buying is something needs to disrupt the brics meetup
The project of taking over the world, previously a foregone conclusion, is not going well at all.
Bolton, kristof, and cheney as dems is like circling the wagons in those old westerns.
UK cracks down on Russia’s ‘shadow fleet’
Sanctions include restrictions on six vessels recently identified by the FT
“Ukraine’s western allies are seeking to limit Russia’s ability to spend oil revenues on crucial components and systems for its war effort by targeting intermediaries in third countries. On Thursday, the US announced sanctions against two Chinese companies that it said were producing a long-range attack drone that Russia is using in Ukraine.
“The shadow fleet is part of a sprawling network of entities around the world that help the Kremlin fund and supply its invasion.
Since the first western restrictions on Russian oil exports were introduced in December 2022, Moscow has expanded the capacity of the shadow fleet, circumventing sanctions and generating billions of dollars a year in additional revenue for its war effort.
“I have made it my personal mission to constrain the Kremlin, closing the net around [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and his mafia state using every tool at my disposal,” said UK foreign secretary David Lammy.
“As part of the latest measures, the UK said it would also challenge vessels passing through the English Channel about their insurance status, allowing London to use its position on a major shipping route to gather information about the coverage being used by the shadow fleet.”
Can someone clarity a point for me, please?
Does Lammy intend to merely obtain paperwork from the London insurance market to effect this “crack down”, or does he intend to waylay ships and have UK seamen risk their lives by deliberately attempting to interfere with the passage of specific ships in an effort to enforce illegal sanctions against a sovereign nation and would this be an act of war?
Or does he envisage that our Jolly Jack Tars will be operating from boats or ships under the aegis of the International Maritime Organisation?
Will Jolly Jack Tars from a neutral country, say, India or Brazil, be tasked, bearing in mind that Russia has already declared the UK to be party to a war against the Russian Federation.
Or is this just Lammy fighting valiantly for his position at the bottom of the dimmest bulb stakes?
And what happens if any of the ships are accompanied by armed Russian Federation Naval vessels who see this as a potentially violent event to deny the customary right of innocent passage of ships through the English Channel or any other waters?
Why the World Bank and IMF matter more than ever – FT
The end:
“As US Treasury secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr said in his closing address at the conference in 1944: “We have come to recognise that the wisest and most effective way to protect our national interests is through international co-operation.”
Too late. The cat’s out of the bag. Whenever officials from the USA talk about “international co-operation”, it’s means “my way or the highway”.
It’s a sick joke that they may believe the words coming out of their mouths.
Please…keeping other countries underdeveloped and ripe for exploitation seems to be in the bylaws of the IMF and World Bank.
These people just can’t get enough. “weird”. From Microphone malfunction: Trump waits on stage for 18 minutes during ‘technical difficulties’
Harris’ campaign and liberal Democrats just can’t help themselves. Who does this play to? Independents? Swing voters? Or just TDS liberals?
Yep. TDS. Fun fact: Democrats are already voting for you guys. What’s this accomplish except yet again demonstrate the kind of smug contempt with which liberal Democrats hold much of the populace?
Biden “awkwardly walks in circles on stage” when the mike is working fine. Working too well in fact.
Trump is like a sporting event to the TDS inflicted PMC. Each day there is a new hair on fire incident, made up if need be. Their life revolves around making fun of anything he does. They can always find something. This one was interpreted, like so many others recently, Trump has dementia and can’t function. This has of course been said by Harris too on the campaign trail (when she wasn’t creating stupid ads). Context never matters, they find something.
One guy even commented, “can you imagine the pharmaceuticals they are pumping this guy up with just to keep him going even as well as he is?” LOL, OK. It wasn’t more than a couple of months ago the same guy went ape **** nuts because someone accused Biden of the same thing. How dare you! Are you a doctor?
These people are nuts. They can’t lose their minds because there isn’t any left to lose. I can only imagine what will happen if Trump wins.
There was a Michigan election person on Face the Nation today and said the results wouldn’t be known until Wednesday. Great! Here we go again. Neither side will believe the results, IMO. Which will do nothing but fuel more speculation, conspiracy stuff, and of course more hate for the two tribes.
What a wonderful time of the year. Spit!
Kind of odd, or maybe not, that since the 2000 election that was decided by a SCOTUS decision NOT intended to set any precedent(!), exit polls which were once the gold standard in determining election shenanigans are now not to be trusted, hackable machines have been implemented all over the country, and we can no longer count votes quickly and we’re expected to wait for the outcome, unless of course one wants votes counted by hand and then ‘taking to long to count’ is one of the standard rationales for not doing so.
And yet our ‘leaders’ wonder why nobody trusts the system anymore.
My longtime backpacking partner is a 1/2 a pack a day cigarette smoker, which gives me about 100 minutes of rest while he takes smoking breaks. I’ve never really been a walk and don’t stop type, and it fits my style perfectly.
Birdwatching is like that. A two-mile walk can take a few hours.
Mushroom season does that as well.
It also makes biking interesting when your eyes are habitually looking away from the trail. ; )
Can someone explain how the US/Israeli operation in Gaza that located and killed Hamas leader can not locate and rescue the hostages over one year?
Maybe the families of the American hostages get together and ask Biden this question.
The short explanation is that US/Israeli operation in Gaza did not actually locate Hamas leader, but merely a wanton destruction that managed to capture a leader leading from the front line. That
The longer explanation could be that leaders have to communicate with those they lead, and with enough intelligence resources communication hubs can be identified, located and attacked. People guarding hostages don’t need to actually communicate with anyone until somebody tells them to move, release or execute the hostages.
On the vein of killing leaders, E.J. Magnier is claiming that Hezbollah has started a campaign to hit Israeli military commanders and politicians. Hamas got today the commander of the Israeli 401st armored brigade with his tank.
Or, the simpler explanation that if the hostages were rescued, they’d have to manufacture some other excuse to keep dropping bombs.
US writer Anne Applebaum appeals for arms for Ukraine as she accepts German peace prize
Ouch.
Seven days until Vasili Arkhipov day.