Hooray, Hooray for Badger Day!! JStor Daily
Quantum computing and the financial system: opportunities and risks Bank of International Settlements
Climate
…MILTON STRENGTHENING OVER THE SOUTHERN GULF OF MEXICO… …STORM SURGE AND HURRICANE WATCHES ISSUED FOR PORTIONS OF FLORIDA… and HURRICANE MILTON National Hurricane Center. Commentary:
⚠️ #Milton is now forecast to become a Category 3 Major Hurricane before striking the west coast of the Florida Peninsula on Wednesday. pic.twitter.com/Mqu1VwODmO
— Zoom Earth (@zoom_earth) October 5, 2024
With Milton, Evacuation Is The Better Part Of Valor Avian Flu Diary
…KIRK ALMOST AN EXTRATROPICAL CYCLONE… …STILL CAUSING LARGE SWELLS AND RIP CURRENT RISK ALONG THE U.S. EAST COAST… National Hurricane Center. Commentary:
I’ve never seen a National Hurricane Center cone extend into Germany and Denmark. #Kirk pic.twitter.com/56xxMpjzqi
— Collin Gross (@CollinGrossWx) October 6, 2024
* * * America Is Lying to Itself About the Cost of Disasters The Atlantic
Safety Guidelines: Reentering Your Flooded Home CDC
* * * The Salmon Canneries of the Lower Eel River and the Death of a Fishery Lost Coast Outpost
What Is the Cost of Sustainability? JSTOR Daily
Water
All the buckets, real or imagined: How Colorado plans to store water is a big dam question. Colorado Sun
Syndemics
Doctor issues warning XEC Covid variant may bring back masks and social distancing Chronicle
‘More serious than we had hoped’: Bird flu deaths mount among California dairy cows LA Times
Mosquito-borne virus spreads at ‘unprecedented’ levels in L.A. Climate change may make things worse LA Times
Some of Our Top Schools Are Embarrassing Themselves Over Covid Gregg Gonsalves, The Nation
China?
The Rise of the ‘Community With a Shared Future’: China’s Foreign Policy Hierarchy The Diplomat
Young Chinese pessimistic about prospects as new graduates flood grim job market South China Morning Post
Government Wiretaps in U.S. Internet Providers Infiltrated by Chinese Hackers Matt Johansen, Vulnu
In Mongolia’s countryside, the underrated joy of a bucket-list experience without phone reception Channel News Asia
India
India government says criminalising marital rape ‘excessively harsh’ BBC
The Koreas
South Korea, Philippines agree to forge ‘strategic partnership,’ upgrade ties Anadolu Agency
Criminal networks in Southeast Asia flourish in Telegram’s ‘underground markets’, UN says Channel News Asia
Syraqistan
American Plan For War With Iran Outlined in This Influential Think Tank Paper Military Watch. Commentary:
The similarities btw the current Western dominant narrative and the late communist narrative are absolutely striking: In both cases, words have lost all relation to reality.
— Branko Milanovic (@BrankoMilan) October 6, 2024
The Case for Destroying Iran’s Nuclear Program Now Foreign Policy.
To Build a Nuclear Bomb, Iran Would Need Much More Than Weeks NYT. Commentary:
I mean I'm not a seismologist but that graph on the right looks like a test to me. https://t.co/ohSoY4Vhme pic.twitter.com/P0ubXI9iNf
— Armchair Warlord (@ArmchairW) October 6, 2024
Readers?
Iran resumes flights after brief suspension due to ‘operational restrictions’ Anadolu Agency
* * * ‘Outrageous’ of Israel to threaten peacekeepers in Lebanon, President Michael D Higgins says Irish Times. Commentary:
I’ve mapped out in green the area where #Ireland deploys its battalion in South #Lebanon, which refused to move or follow IDF evacuation orders. I’ve also overlaid IDF evacuation areas in red, showing where Ireland’s peacekeepers continue to hold their position. https://t.co/BG50dv6WKF pic.twitter.com/eWyMXXetzr
— A. Baydoun (@weatherwar) October 6, 2024
* * * What did Al Jazeera’s investigation into Israeli war crimes in Gaza reveal? Al Jazeera. More on “The Ghost Unit”:
2/19 “Refaim,” a Hebrew name for “the Ghosts,” refers to the Ghost Unit, a sniper team composed of soldiers from:
3 US (NY, Virgnia & Illinois)
2 France (Paris & Lyon)
1 Belgium (Brussel)
1 Germany (Munich)
1 South African (Johannesburg)
1 Italy
1 Ethiopia
1 Azerbaijan (Baku) pic.twitter.com/oVKz2jTn8S— Younis Tirawi | يونس (@ytirawi) October 4, 2024
Israel turned prisons into ‘hell’ with torture Anadolu Agency
* * * Gaza Strip in maps: How a year of war has drastically changed life in the territory BBC
US to give Israel ‘compensation’ if it hits acceptable targets in Iran – report Jerusalem Post
European Disunion
Spain to propose mini-coalitions to break EU capital markets stalemate FT
Dear Old Blighty
Starmer’s new climate policy is unforgivable Funding the Future
The Canary has a leaked copy of the second NHS eLearning module on ME/CFS. It’s not good. Canary
New Not-So-Cold War
Zelenskyy sends Ukraine’s Chief of General Staff and Deputy Prime Minister to US to discuss Victory Plan Ukrainska Pravda
How Ukraine got a chance to join NATO and what Rutte’s visit has to do with it European Pravda
After Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk, Kyiv assumes role of occupying army (excerpt) Le Monde
ISW assesses whether financial encouragement could affect Russia’s mobilisation rates Ukrainska Pravda
South of the Border
Bolsonaro’s right-wing party makes significant gains in Brazil’s municipal elections France24
Biden Administration
The Toxic Loophole Behind A Chemical Plant Disaster The Lever
2024
Harris won’t say whether the U.S. has “a real close ally” in Netanyahu Axios
The Supremes
Supreme Court declines to block EPA methane, mercury rules SCOTUSblog
Antitrust
Monopoly Round-Up: The Fed Took $3k From You and Gave it to Jamie Dimon Matt Stoller, BIG
Digital Watch
GEICO is Terminating Insurance Coverage of Tesla Cybertrucks, Says “This Type of Vehicle Doesn’t Meet Our Underwriting Guidelines” Torque News. Commentary:
The Stanford band's halftime show has some girl dressed up in a cardboard Cybertruck that keeps losing control and running into things.
— Andy Bitter (@AndyBitterVT) October 5, 2024
Do We Think and Feel Alike? Field Evidence on Developing a Shared Reality When Dealing with Service Robots (press release) Journal of Business Researchd
Substack wants to do more than just newsletters Semafor
The moral panic over social media and teen depression Mathew Ingram, The Torment Nexus
Heathcare
World-first therapy using donor cells sends autoimmune diseases into remission Nature. N = 3. “One woman and two men with severe autoimmune conditions have gone into remission after being treated with bioengineered and CRISPR-modified immune cells1. The three individuals from China are the first people with autoimmune disorders to be treated with engineered immune cells created from donor cells, rather than ones collected from their own bodies. This advance is the first step towards mass production of such therapies.”
Zietgeist Watch
News you can use:
Next time you're in Wal-Mart, walk the front end. Right next to the AED, they have a box containing multiple Stop The Bleed kits.
You may need to know this in the event of an active shooter. In a full collapse, the looters won't touch these and you need them. #Awareness
— Tactical Wisdom (@DolioJ) October 6, 2024
Class Warfare
‘This Scenario Is a Bit Unusual’ Railway Age’
A Means to Live The Nation. The deck: “The past and future of debt resistance.”
Adapt or Die, Or…? Charles Hugh Smith, Of Two Minds
If you’re excited by that $1.5B Michigan nuke plant revival, bear in mind it’s definitely a fixer-upper The Register
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
127 comments
Comments are closed.
OCTOBER 7TH AGAIN
(melody borrowed from Higher Love by Steve Winwood and Will Jennings)
The Israelis—wield an Iron Glove
Ironclad our commitment in support of
Without us—they can’t do their crimes
Every bomb they drop is yours or it’s mine
Gaza’s gone past repair
Fat and happy we don’t care
Humankind far across the sea?
They’re not our kind!—Don’t bother me!
Our hand is in their glove
Our hand is in their glove, (oh)
Our hand is in their glove
Our hand in their glove, and we’re spilling blood!
Wars are burning, they will keep dragging on
Rich racketeers are counting profits back home
Discerning—to the nth degree—
Starting the next one most profitably!
Wars mean cash for billionaires
This must be that laissez faire!
Pockets lined—profits guaranteed
Money produced from misery!
Our hand is in their glove
Our hand is in their glove, (oh)
Our hand is in their glove
Our hand in their glove, and we’re spilling blood!
Proxy states won’t quit—they call for cash and shit
Saracens are simply wrong
Just like the Viet Cong
(musical interlude)
We say might is right and profits could be higher
Step across those red lines as you require
Sharpened steel, a glove, a snickersnee
Make them squeal—there’s no referee!
(Ohhhh) Our hand is in their glove
Our hand is in their glove (oh)
Our hand is in their glove
Our hand is in their glove
Our hand is in their glove
Our hand is in their glove
Our hand is in their glove
Our hand is in their glove
Our hand is in their glove
Our hand is in their glove
Our hand is in their glove
Our hand is in their glove
Our hand is in their glove
$17.9 Billion so far.
But wait, it gets better. So Lindsey Graham – the senior Senator from South Carolina – was on Fox news a day or so ago. He started to say that he had been all over South Carolina and hadn’t got much sleep when he suddenly went off tangent and started talking about what was going on in Israel who was surrounded by people that want to kill them in a second holocaust and how they are running out of ammo and how we have to fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here. Pretty sure that if Hezbollah came to South Carolina, they would take one look at the situation, put away their guns and start to organize food kitchens instead-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w77X-hY73T0 (3:27 mins)
Graham is a disgrace to our state. It’s a wonder why he’s still in. (Apparently the establishment would rather keep him than someone running to his left, or to his right.)
THIS. – Please hoist from the comments (It’s from Brown University’s “Costs of War” project). This paper could be titled “The Cost of Genocide” or for an elementary student “How much money do you need to spend to exterminate a people?”. Wow. Just wow.
‘Conquest is expensive, but extermination is cheap’-
Science fiction author Jerry Pournelle
Pournelle always did think in the short run.
“US to give Israel ‘compensation’ if it hits acceptable targets in Iran – report”
‘The package would include a total guarantee of comprehensive diplomatic protection as well as a weapons package and was offered directly in return for holding off on striking certain targets in Iran.’
I don’t understand this article. Israel is already getting all of that package already and they don’t have to do anything. I can understand why it was offered. The Democrats are scared that Israel will try to get them into a regional war before the November elections and nobody is going to thank the Democrats for that. So maybe this offer is an effort by the Democrats to be seen to be “doing” something.
Plus the US does not do diplomacy and does not even have any diplomats.
Wait! They have Antony Blinken! Oh, never mind.
Antony Blinken: winkin’, blinkin’ and nod
But he says “a cease fire” with so much soul… :(
Perfect for Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper
“Israeli officials responded saying, ‘We consider the United States and listen to them. But we will do anything and everything we can to protect the citizens and the security of the State of Israel.'”
The second half of that disjunction invalidates the first. “I’ve considered your advice but am rejecting and ignoring it.”
Pretty sure that the survivors of the USS Liberty can tell you how much Israelis value American lives.
Since Hollywood won’t touch this story, wouldn’t it be hilarious if China made a grand epic film about the USS Liberty? It wouldn’t cost that much money but can you imagine the reaction and the wailing in Washington and Tel Aviv as they sought to ban this film around the world? Washington is already going nuts about a doco called “Russians at War”-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IJ5Qaj2GMQ (2:22 mins)
I would certainly pay to see that. My dad was fascinated by the NSA, and was not a fan of dispensationalism, so I heard about the Liberty from him.
Of course, even less coverage is given to the UN peacekeepers that Israel killed in the Six Day War. At least one was run over by an Israeli tank. All but one were from India, which is why it’s sad to see Modi’s government and supporters side with Israel.
I heard a Russian warship hung around and protected the liberty from further Israeli attacks until a us ship could arrive. So maybe Russia should make and distribute the epic. Plus, now’s a good time, some Americans seem to be more questioning of our ME policies.
“We consider the United States and listen to them. But . . .”
Remember what everything in a sentence is before the word ‘but’ is ….
Whatever the reason, paying Israel to not blow things up with the weapons you keep sending them comes across as desperate and pathetic.
If the US doesn’t want Israel to blow things up, how about stop sending them weapons?
I think we all need to understand that in the area of foreign affairs everything the US gov’t says is likely to be false. The US wants Israel to go to war but doesn’t want to be seen as instigating it–the reality is that the US foreign policy establishment has now become a cult where the object is complete domination of the planet and space. All the realists have been purged unless they are undercover somewhere at State or the think-tankery.
Geez, stop making sense … I guess the obvious solution you described is not considered, because shoveling confetti money out of a helicopter is now the “core competency” of the US govt?
The foreign snipers legion in Gaza. It proves again that Ritter’s statement that mercenaries are the scum of the earth is correct. Some of them also seem to want to push the linit of stupid a bit further. Specifically the ethiopian guy. Is he aware of the ingrained racism towards blacks in Israel? They wouldn’t respect him even if he was a Jew, he would still be despised. So this genius goes to Israel to kill children for a state that despises him? Where is the limit of stupid now: somewhere between Mars and Jupiter?
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0306396811433110?journalCode=racb
Israeli snipers are scummy enough. It came out 15 years ago that when snipers passed their course, they were awarded t-shirts showing a pregnant woman in cross-hairs and the slogan “1 Shot 2 Kills” while another showed a child in a rifle sight with the slogan “The smaller they are, the harder it is”. Judging by the number of children shot by sniper fire in their heads, this is the norm-
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/israeli-t-shirts-joke-about-killing-arabs/
That CBS article also said this-
‘In the Gaza Strip, Hamas-controlled media consistently send messages that Jews cannot be trusted and that Israel is a bloodthirsty, militaristic state eager to seize Palestinian land and slaughter Palestinian children.’
Boy, that didn’t age well.
There is a whole stable of these guys largely for hire by the US. I know a retired sniper who has killed all kinds of people around the world–largely for money but also for fun.
On ‘compensation’ to Israel if it hits acceptable targets in Iran, the headline says: ” US to give Israel ‘compensation’ if it HITS acceptable targets in Iran – report”
But the article itself contains sentences like . . . ” The US has reportedly offered Israel a “compensation package” if it reFRAINS FROM attacking certain targets in Iran, according to a report in Kan11 on Sunday.”
(caps added by me for emphasis). That seems almost opposite in meaning to what the headline says.
The headline seems to say America will pay Israel TO hit certain targets in Iran. The article seems to say America will pay Israel to NOT hit certain targets in Iran.
Well? Which is it?
Biden doesn’t want Israel to hit Iran’s oil infrastructure as that would cause the price of oil – and thus gas – to skyrocket but which would totally sink the Democrat’s chances of getting re-elected.
Given Bibi’s track record of blowing off anybody calling for restraint, it’s almost like Biden wants the Dems to lose.
And does Trump want to lose also? Selling shoes and Bibles does not get votes, I’m guessing. Maybe nobody wants to have a major disaster occur on their watch. And we have multiple disasters looming ahead.
When the government(s) give the media outlets their orders and what to write, broadcast, say, I wonder if they include the headlines too?
12 repetitions…
Young Chinese pessimistic about prospects as new graduates flood grim job market.
This guy though quit his well paid product manager job at Bytedance (Tiktok) to become a farmer, and he’s making plenty of money selling fruits online. What’s even better is that he is now helping his fellow older farmers to do the same thing, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3k4ADImzqU. I expect more and more people will eventually follow his footsteps and return to the countryside to try and make their fortune.
I just had a quick look – there does seem to be quite a trend among young Chinese for back to the farm/nature videos. Quite a change from 2 decades ago when my gf at the time, a typical Beijinger of the new generation, visibly shuddered at the very idea of going to the countryside. I think a lot of it has to do with the souring of the whole idea of office life. With rising youth unemployment, if you aren’t very highly qualified or otherwise ‘connected’, the working life can be pretty brutal. You can see the same thing in Japan, ROK and Taiwan (its the theme for more than one Studio Ghibli movie). But in reality, only a very small number I think will voluntarily do it.
That said, I’m always a bit leery of those video’s especially the ones seemingly designed to bypass the Great Firewall. A friend was a fan of the genre and was very disappointed to find out that the majority turned out in the end to be marketing creations of one form or another. She was a big fan of one in particular (I can’t recall the name, but it had many millions of views for every video), but it turned out that the woman who was supposedly living the trad life with her grandmother somewhere in Sichuan was a model based in Shanghai – the whole thing turned out to be a marketing campaign for some bamboo furniture brand.
I remember my sister & I watching those idyllic videos! My sister was somewhat convinced but I was not. The cinematography was just too good. Plus all that cooking and crafts would take up a lot of your waking hours. The genre was filling a Martha Stewart niche in China. I could hardly believe the amount of work that goes into making tofu.
From The New Yorker’s profile of Li Ziqi, the “influencer” from Sichuan and creator of what the Guinness World Records has called the most popular Chinese-language channel on YouTube:
[emphasis in original]
Personally, I wouldn’t want to harvest soybeans in the field, shell them by hand, grind them in a stone mill, and boil the mash in a wood-fired wok, transforming them into tofu, while all the while finding the right camera angles and being filmed by a professional videographer, all for some mapo tofu—and that just covers lunch—but each person’s vision of the ideal life-style is different, I suppose.
Ran across this cooking channel a while ago – https://www.youtube.com/@FarawayVillage
The videos are fun to watch and have some good tips, but I highly doubt this is done by two people in the wilds of Azerbaijan all by themselves. The cookware they use is mostly brand new so even though the cooks (actors?) never speak, it starts seeming like a long cookware ad after a while.
If you want videos done by two people in the wilds (of Serbia):
https://www.youtube.com/@AlmazanKitchen
If you want videos done by one man in the wilds (of Australia):
https://www.youtube.com/@primitivetechnology9550
P.S. Start with oldest ones.
https://www.youtube.com/@cnliziqi
Aspirational…
I wonder how much of the decision has to do with these reports from about a year or so ago:
https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/young-chinese-were-promised-prosperity-now-they-re-being-pushed-to-the-poor-countryside-20230508-p5d6nz.html/
Young Chinese were promised prosperity. Now they’re being pushed to the poor countryside
“Safety Guidelines: Reentering Your Flooded Home”
A reader gave a wise piece of advice a day or so ago. They said that if you are going to throw out old, spoiled food, don’t do so near your house as it may attract bears.
You really can’t throw it out. Even if the water is no longer moving, you don’t know where crews will be or what they’re doing. Tons of lumber and derbis to be stacked. World have enough to deal with without turning g up to a location that bears (and recently abandoned/lost dogs) consider prime territory.
There are also hogs, wild and newly liberated, and cattle for first responders and aid workers to worry about.
(Cattle will swarm anyone carrying a bag that could be feed.)
R: Iran resumes flights
I thought there would be an Israeli attack on Iran overnight. Maybe someone blinked?
Closing airspace reduces the chance of accidentally shooting down a civilian airliner.
Waiting for bipartisan “Israel has the right to defend itself” handwaving when Israel shoots down a commercial airliner claiming as it does so that Hizbollah/Hamas was on board.
#DearDEITYPleaseNo
I recall that Iran accidentally shot down a Ukrainian civilian airliner back in 2020, right after Trump killed Soleimani and Iran retaliated by hitting a US base in Iraq with ballistic missiles.
Add the scenario you describe above to the risk register. You can count me out on flying anywhere near the ME for the foreseeable future. It’s a kill zone,
“Andrea Mitchell says Kamala Harris has a ‘big problem’ connecting with men, who don’t take her seriously ”
I have a big problem with anyone who takes her seriously.
I believe she is with Alan Greenspan. If she can walk that line, she knows whereof she speaks in being able to connect with men?
The thought is that when Andrea Mitchell passes away, pancake makeup sales will plunge by 23%.
Do you mean the Tammy Faye Bakker Effect?
Mary Kay entered a serious slump after Tammy Faye’s demise in ’07.
Even before I clicked the link, I knew misogyny would be the culprit, not that Harris is a deeply unserious candidate who has done little to try to change that impression since becoming the nominee. Also, I wonder if women were polled on this, or was it just assumed they take Harris seriously since they share the same plumbing?
Well, she likely has a problem connecting with women as well. What a stupid “article”.
Harris uses the phrase “with all due respect” as if it is other than meaningless as “due respect” can range from zero upwards.
Maybe this is a trained automatic reply that allows her more time to think about what follows?
Perhaps a President Harris will be an accidental force for good change?
One can cope/hope.
“With all due respect” has a wide range of possible meanings:
– I’d like to raise a challenging topic in a positive and constructive way
– I’m about to say something really offensive, so I’m establishing a veneer of politeness so that you’ll look like the unreasonable one if you react
And everything in between.
In British English “with all due respect” is code for “I do not respect you; I think you are an idiot but am too polite to say so”.
Indeed one of those phrases that often means the opposite of what it says, like “Without meaning to be rude…”
https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1843162840892617099
Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand
This is a huge deal: about 5-8% of the global population are affected by auto-immune diseases (like lupus and multiple sclerosis) and China just developed the “world’s first therapy using donor cells that sends autoimmune diseases into remission”.
https://nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03209-4
It’s a big deal because for CAR T-cell therapy in autoimmune diseases (which is probably the most promising therapy) to date we had to use the patient’s own cells, which means that it wasn’t scalable and immensely expensive. But if you use donor cells, it opens the possibility of scaling up production. As the Nature article states: “Instead of making one treatment for one person, therapies for more than a hundred people could be made from one donor’s cells”.
It’s also a big deal because it proves once more that we all collectively benefit, as humans, from international scientific collaboration: scientists in Shanghai, such as here, can come up with revolutionary treatments for diseases that may affect anyone around the world. And if we build bridges instead of walls, we create synergies that ultimately bring life-changing treatments to millions faster.
World-first therapy using donor cells sends autoimmune diseases into remission
1:34 AM · Oct 7, 2024
I am afraid it is too early to count CAR T-Cell therapy a success. They still do not know what the long term outcome is. Getting rid of systemic sclerosis is only one outcome. Take a look at the risks on the CAR T Cell wiki page for a brief introduction.
It might turn out to be a “cure the disease by killing the patient” kind of thing.
Here we have the just published Chinese research and scientific commentary:
1) https://www.cell.com/cell/abstract/S0092-8674(24)00701-3
2) https://nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03209-4
The work indeed looks to be an important advance.
RE: “The Canary has a leaked copy of the second NHS eLearning module on ME/CFS. It’s not good.”
I have the honor(?) of being the son to one of the earliest woman to be “diagnosed” with ME/CFS by the Mayo Clinic in the 1980’s. In high school I would come home to her laying on the couch and crying.
So sad this is only how far we have come. I am sure I have a variation of it that they labeled “Depression”.
Medicine has become slow and stupid.
The British with their the stiff upper lip approach to the disease, have been psychologizing ME/CFS for decades. I’ve been a patient of the Stanford ME/CFS clinic for some years now with pretty good results. They subscribe to the hypothesis that the condition is of somatic origin, for which their strong indications.
Why the Psychosomatic View on Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Is Inconsistent with Current Evidence and Harmful to Patients National Library of Medicine
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2024-10-06/First-therapy-using-donor-cells-puts-autoimmune-disorders-in-remission-1xtWIzxngUU/p.html
October 6, 2024
First therapy using donor cells puts autoimmune disorders in remission
After receiving treatment using bioengineered and CRISPR-modified immune cells, two men and one woman with severe autoimmune diseases have gone into remission. The three Chinese patients are the first to receive treatment for autoimmune illnesses using modified immune cells made from donor cells as opposed to autologous cells. This development marks the beginning of the mass manufacturing of these treatments.
Mr. Gong, a 57-year-old Shanghai resident, is one of the recipients. He suffers from systemic sclerosis, a disease that damages connective tissue and can cause organ damage and hardening of the skin. He claims that three days after starting the therapy, he could once again move his fingers and open his mouth and felt his skin relax. He went back to work at his office two weeks later. He states, more than a year after the treatment, “I feel very good.”
Half a dozen products containing engineered immune cells, known as chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cells, are approved in the U.S. These cells have shown great promise in treating blood cancers and may also be used to treat autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis and lupus, where rogue immune cells release autoantibodies that attack the body’s own tissue. However, because the therapy is personalized and usually depends on an individual’s immune cells, it is costly and time-consuming.
The experiment is the first to publish findings for autoimmune disorders, and it is being headed by Xu Huji, a rheumatologist at Shanghai’s Naval Medical University. Last month, the results * were published in Cell. The patients stayed in remission for almost six months following treatment. According to Xu, another two dozen people have had the donor-derived treatment along with a slightly altered product. He claims that most of the outcomes have been favorable.
“The clinical outcomes are phenomenal,” says Lin Xin, an immunologist at Tsinghua University who is leading a separate trial using donor-derived CAR-T cells to treat lupus….
* https://www.cell.com/cell/abstract/S0092-8674(24)00701-3
The Israelis have just parked a Merkeva tank outside the wall of the UN compound. Ireland has suffered more casualties (48) in that region than any other country under the UN mandate. Nearly all were killed in attacks by pro-Israel militias, plus a few ‘accidental’ shelling incidents by Israel.
The doublespeak from the Israeli diplomat is infuriating. I’m 99% sure the Israelis made a statement through different channels that the Irish need to GTFO.
Weasel-y doublespeak doesn’t work on Irish blarney.
Its now reported there are at least 20 armoured vehicles next to the UN post – they’ve set up a whole firing position right next to it. They are clearly trying to draw fire onto it. Its not likely that the unit there has anything other than light vehicles and maybe Mowag Piranhas.
Sonsofbitches. The Israelis are using that UN post as a sort of cover, hoping that they can fire at Hezbollah while Hezbollah troops will be loath to put UN troops at risk. Always reckoned that when UN troops get stationed anywhere near Israelis, that they should be armed with manpads and ATMs – just in case.
Gee, that puts Genocide joe in a bind. Who does he give the okay 👍 to slaughter, his own kind, or the ones who shower him with schekels? Time for joe to go down on his knees and ask Bibi what should he do.
A novel modification of the IDF “human shield” technique.
I tend to think so as per your last sentence not being an expert on the Irish. Today is overwhelmingly rich in interesting and important links and this was one among the interesting themes. In general, these links on the ongoing military conflicts, climate change action (or inaction), reactions (good or bad) to oncoming climate disasters, plus the pandemics action/inaction, are very revealing of the chaotic state of “governance” in the Collective West. Neoliberalism is not bringing a “rules based order” but a total disaster in the making. I have a perception of “end of things as usual” as we are entering this new, chaotic phase of history in which everything can potentially go in the wrong direction. Thanks to the totally useless and idiotic leaders we have in charge. The PMC is unable to admit any mistake, and thus correct those many they are committing. They instead double down on idiocy. You can see this in all those subjects mentioned above. All this is creating lot’s of Lambert’s overly dynamic situations.
FWIW I have kissed the Blarney Stone (blech!).
I’m just getting sick and tired of the rhetorical structure used:
-FUD: You misunderstood us; this is what we actually said…
-Moral Umbrage: We’re just looking out for you; why don’t you appreciate our good will?
-Tranche of Guilt: You know, we (have been/are/will be) holocausted, so we can’t be the bad guys.
It just gets tiresome.
The link postab by SocalJimObjects about the young man going back to his parents farm was very uplifting, compensating for me for all bad things read here today:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3k4ADImzqU
US to give Israel ‘compensation’ if it hits acceptable targets in Iran – report
I made the mistake of reading the one comment and the sub comments in that Jerusalem Post article. The delusion and sense of entitlement are staggering. It pains me that my tax dollars are going to these a$$holes.
re: Iranian nuclear detonation tests
I wonder if someone has given Iran some nukes. It would be a very smart thing to do to at this point, would deter Israel, would prevent WW3.
And Iran, on taking delivery, would want to test one of them to ensure the goods are real. And the successful test is also a formal announcement.
I don’t think Iran would need to accept foreign nukes, though I guess they could if someone offered.
Since the Tweeter went there in more detail first, I’ll point out something. It’s probably been memory-holed now, & maybe it was disinformation, but the night Iran retaliated for Soleimani’s assassination (so almost 5 years ago & under Trump), a very brief but very interesting story showed up on the AP.
Around the same time Iranian missiles were inbound, 2 earthquakes occurred within exactly 30 minutes directly under the Bushehr nuclear plant, both above 5 on the Richter scale IIRC. Was it just a rumor, was it a freak coincidence, or something else?
I don’t know for sure, but consider how Trump (with his fragile ego) went crazy with grabbing & burying Pentagon info for the rest of his term. And then consider how confidently Iran has behaved since then, plus there’s other info if you’re tapped into Arabic-language news. I think the simplest explanation is they’ve had a credible, direct nuclear deterrent against all but the US (thus the Russian security guarantees) since Trump was in office.
And besides, Anthony Blanken says that Iran could have nukes within a couple weeks, every other week.
Iran has a very active uranium enrichment programme which started producing weapons-grade uranium-235 some time ago. Obviously I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they had enough uranium for a couple of bombs.
Little Boy-style uranium bombs are rather heavy, though; I doubt they would fit on the end of an Iranian missile. But the US famously gave Iran designs for implosion bombs which were supposed to be incorrect in crucial areas except that the scientist through which they were laundered apparently corrected all the deliberate mistakes. I don’t know enough about nuclear weapons to know if you can use uranium in an implosion bomb, but if you can, then Iran very possibly has the bomb, courtesy of Messrs. Trump and Biden.
I do not believe that the fatwa against nuclear weapons is a real thing. If Islam were truly against nukes, how would Pakistan have built its arsenal?
Can’t speak too much to the technical details, only that my understanding is you typically use plutonium from a heavy-water reactor (like Iran’s Arak facility) for the inner-core of an implosion-type device.
On the Iranian fatwa against nukes though, I’ve never looked in detail into how clear & official it was. Sunni countries probably wouldn’t give it much authority (though they may still factor in the underlying argument).
More importantly though, since fatwas are ultimately just legal rulings, they’re open to legalistic nitpicking. My understanding is that a major basis of the fatwa was Abu Bakr’s rules of warfare, which include non-harm against non-combatants and orchards / farmland.
If the fatwa is official, I would actually take that at face-value, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the Iranian thinking is that actually only prohibits nukes as aggressive, strategic terror weapons (as in a first-use). A defensive, no-first-strike posture though is arguably a cross between signaling and scorched-earth warfare. In that context, I could see the argument they’re legit because they function more as counter-measures (and a way of messaging people too stupid for real diplomacy) than functional weapons.
Here’s one scholarly article (columbia.edu) about Khamenei’s fatwa, with a lot of context. The writer seems to think that it’s real and more binding (for Iran) than the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
“Blanken” – not sure if that was a typo or not, but I rather like it.
Blank as in, a blank mind … or maybe, when it comes to diplomacy, he’s firing blanks.
Major McCarthyite propaganda campaign going on in Ireland now, creating a witch hunt to smear the entire political opposition, as elections are rumoured to be called soon.
It all centers around an alleged ‘Russian asset’ in Parliament, allegedly recruited by a Russian spy – with the kicker that they can’t be named (the Politico article even admits that is because it would be libel! Incredible…) – and so this has now sparked a witch hunt where there is speculation about all major opposition parties, and which one of their Dail/Parliament members may be the spy…
Original:
https://www.thetimes.com/world/ireland-world/article/honeytrapped-irish-politician-spied-for-russia-during-brexit-saga-k5wn7sfb2
Additional useful context:
https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-intelligence-kremlin-irish-lawmakers-propaganda-news/
In the recent European Parliament elections, The Times (a UK publication, and the source of this new story as well) engaged in precisely the same kind of smear campaign against Clare Daly and Mick Wallace – likely helping to affect the outcome of that election in Ireland, ousting both Daly/Wallace from their MEP roles.
Note the reliance on ‘anonymous sources’ and ‘expert opinion’ i.e. stenography for this smear campaign – reading it brings me right back to the War on Terror days of Glenn Greenwald’s writing on Salon, when he’d regularly excoriate these kinds of tactics, as used by the intelligence industry.
The Times belongs to Rupert Murdoch.
Security Services going in overdrive. Is happening in Canada too, with China as a target…
Hurricane Milton is looking grim.
Fun fact (ABC News). When Milton achieved hurricane status, it marked the first time there have been three hurricanes swirling simultaneously in the Atlantic, said Colorado State University hurricane scientist Phil Klotzbach. Hurricanes Leslie and Kirk were far out at sea and not immediately threatening land.
Fun fact. In 2017 about 7mm people were “urged” to evacuate as Hurricane Irma bore down. The 2020 census has the Tampa/St Petersburg metropolitan area population at 3.175mm.
Florida has limited evac routes, people will take multiple cars so that mom and dad and grandma all have a giant SUV on the road creating traffic and draining gas stations along the route.
It won’t be pretty. And the people who do the clean-up are fried after Beryl and Helene. (One has to wonder how things are holding up in Iowa and so forth with gangs of workers out of town, with equipment, for a month or two in Texas and now back on the road for Helene. Surely routine maintenance has been delayed and minor issues are piling up.)
Now a cat 5.
The latest NHC advisory for Milton has it now with 180mph sustained winds and a central pressure of 905 millibars. It is now tied for the 8th most intense Atlantic hurricane on record and has set the record for the fastest intensification of any storm in the Gulf of Mexico.
It will be interesting listening to all the climate denial gymnastics from the Florida Governor and other politicians from the region. Hurricanes that very rapidly intensify in the region are becoming a very regular occurrence, as is enhanced rainfall from such hurricanes.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/god-save-tsar-putin-receives-first-wishes-72nd-birthday-2024-10-07/
‘God save the Tsar!’: Putin hailed in Russia on 72nd birthday
MOSCOW, Oct 7 (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin was hailed a ‘tsar’ on his 72nd birthday on Monday by some supporters who said the former KGB spy had raised Russia up from its knees and would deliver victory against the West in the Ukraine war.
Putin, who took the Kremlin’s top job just eight years after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, is the longest serving Kremlin leader since Josef Stalin who died at his dacha outside Moscow in 1953 aged 74.
Impressive! The author gets “Tsar,” “KGB spy,” and “Stalin” into the first two sentences. Even for Reuters that’s pretty good.
Oh, it gets better. The third sentence has “autocrat,” “killer,” and “war criminal” in it.
Written by the Russian Bureau Chief of Reuters. They really don’t even have to pretend to be journalists anymore.
Indeed. This was rich –
“Unlike most of Russia’s historical leaders, Putin has no visible successor. He also has no serious rivals, according to multiple Russian sources.”
Reuters readers would be very surprised to find out that Rusians are actually able to vote, Putin is not a king, and so finding a successor is not actually necessary. They did lament the death of the “leader” Navaly who is more widely known in the US than in Russia and is also apparently an unrepentant racist. But he’s only racist against Muslims who he once labeled “cockroaches”. Since he was racist against the same people the US government hates, everything is kosher!
Some days I truly despair for this world, and today is one of them.
Lamentation for Navalny was far less than the outpouring of grief for Yevgheny Prighozin, with more memorials and more mourners. Of course, you wouldn’t hear that from most Western media outlets, nor would you hear much about how Prighozin defeated the Department of Justice, and debunked Russiagate in the process. (I do think he would have done far better than Putin against Kiev and the West.)
“Czar, I bless thee. I kiss the hem of thy garment. I drink to thy health and longevity. Give us war in our time, O Lord!”- John Mitchel (1815-1875), from his “Jail Journal, or Five Years in British Prisons”. (This quote was referenced by Years in “Under Ben Bulben”)
It’s a world of laughter
A world of tears
It’s a world of hopes
And a world of fears
There’s so much that we’d rather not share
That it’s time we’re aware
It’s a small country after all
It’s a small country after all
It’s a small country after all
It’s a small country after all
It’s a small, small country
There is just one chosen people who loom
They need more living room
And a Merkava means
Foreclosure to ev’ryone
Though the dogma divide
And to think we could live by the tide
Instead of side by side
It’s a small country after all
It’s a small country after all
It’s a small country after all
It’s a small country after all
It’s a small, small country
– ‘American Plan For War With Iran Outlined in This Influential Think Tank Paper’ – Military Watch
“The 2009 paper Which Path to Persia? focuses on using Israel as an effective proxy for Western Bloc interests to allow the Western world to maintain plausible deniability when internationally condemnable attacks are committed against Iran… This possibility is outlined in Chapter 5, titled: Leave it to Bibi: Allowing or Encouraging an Israeli Military Strike…”
Here are the authors of this well-known paper: Daniel L. Byman, Martin S. Indyk, Suzanne Maloney, Michael E. O’Hanlon, Kenneth M Pollack, and Bruce Riedel. These names will sound familiar to many who have been following our 21st century wars and the elite warmongerers behind them. Check out their various bios – very enlightening.
Neocons and their ideas never die. They just live on and on until it’s time to trot them out again.
The world is a very different place in 2024 vs. 2009, but the neocons never seem to quite understand the effects of the passage of time on such plans.
And people should remember that Pollack was Al Gore’s foreign policy advisor. It was bad enough that Lieberman was his veep choice, but those who fantasize that Gore, had he been elected, would not have started a war with the “others” like Dubya, should not be so certain.
>Quantum computing and the financial system: opportunities and risks
Sabine Hossenfelder from a year ago:
The Quantum Hype Bubble Is About To Burst
Is Iran making an online diplomatic/PR push?
I’d never heard of Mohammad Marandi, who I believe is a US born Iranian currently teaching in Tehran, until last week when one NC commenter (sorry for forgetting who it was) posted a link of him being interviewed by the BBC. Now I’m seeing him everywhere – he seems to be making the rounds with many of the dissident podcasters familiar to NC readers. I saw him on Danny Haiphong a couple days ago, and this morning he’s on Nima’s show. Right at the beginning of this one, he mentions that he was on Glenn Diesen’s show last week, right before youtube banned Diesen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4Y1IEmiIU0
No, Prof. Marandi has been a talking head for well over a decade. Google with a date range limit. He was often on Aljazeera, as well as CNN, PBS, and Piers Morgan, among others, over 12 years ago. He’s a hot ticket now due to the lack of Iranians that Western media knows well.
Some of our top schools are embarrassing themselves over covid article: This afternoon at Dartmouth, our M&I dept will be holding a screening of “Virulent: the Vaccine War” and after will be a discussion with Prof. Brendan Nyhan (from the Govt dept) who “has done significant research in vaccine misinformation.” This makes me furious, having been injured by the covid vaccine I was forced to take or else lose my job and housing. I had even provided papers and documentation backing my claim I was at risk of being injured and got laughed at and called a dumb hick right-winger. These are all vote blue no matter who hardcore Dems. The covid wastewater levels in Hanover are as high as they’ve ever been, and there is no mask mandate at the college or hospital, the college has made it more difficult to get masks and you are now limited to two tests at the stockroom. So yeah, our top schools are embarrassing themselves over covid and have been since the beginning. I don’t even know where to start with Mr. Gonsalves’ article. It’s a mess. I don’t agree with the GBD but if people want to have a conference, let them, but go and question and push back. That’s what conferences are for. And maybe he should talk to some of the vaccine-injured, and educate himself on the limitations of the vaccines. There’s plenty of stink to spread around, and rightly so.
On a related note, we were treated to a motivational speaker at work last week. At one point during her peppy, positive palaver she mentioned that we can do anything with the right attitude, just look how we came together to beat covid. Granted she is not a healthcare professional, but I thought this was a good representation of the zeitgeist, where we all pretend it’s over and we somehow “won”. I find that I’d rather drive a rusty, tetanus infected railroad spike through my temple than listen to vapid pep talks like this, but the coworkers I spoke to seemed to think it was a great talk, so I just kept my mouth shut.
Have you submitted a claim to the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, which if wiki is correct is officially “Office of Special Masters of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims”?
“Israel and U.S. Must Destroy Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Program Before It’s Too Late”
I know that Foreign Policy has become a garbage publication but this is a really bad article. I won’t bother taking it apart out will point out the author – Matthew Kroenig – who turns out to be-
‘an American political scientist and national security strategist currently serving as vice president of the Atlantic Council and professor in the Department of Government and the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University’
The Atlantic Council. I should have known. The same geniuses who brought us the war with Russia now wanting a war with Iran. There are thousands of American troops in this region and if the US attacks Iran, many of those troops will be coming home in body bags, not that Matthew Kroenig’s career would ever suffer.
Yet the headline explains very well, though partially, why we are now en route to the next proxy war with Iran. The nuclear weapons program being the demonization excuse but the fact is that Iran is becoming an important military and economic power by itself and with the cooperation of Russia and possibly China. For instance, we have witnessed how their missiles work. Some want to stop this now. The Atlantic Council is all in on the hegemonic pulse by the neocons.
War with Iran has been on the books in the US since 2001 but I don’t know how long for isreal
Some version of war is going to happen. Netanyahu won’t miss this opportunity, and so won’t Biden/Harris.
My question is Netanyahu going to use it as a way to sink Harris?
In a comment above I listed the authors of the infamous (prescient?) 2009 article ‘Which Path to Persia?.’ The lead author, Daniel Byman, is also a professor at the Walsh School of Foreign Service, among his many other interesting positions. With schools of “foreign service” like these, no wonder the US is no longer capable of anything resembling actual diplomacy. We only teach propaganda – I mean “public diplomacy” – today.
Someone must destroy Israel’ s nukes before it is too late.
He is a repugnant human being. I read sometimes the debates he has with Emma Ashford. She is less reasonable than George Beebe, but still not a nutcase. However, takes a lot of mental and intestinal fortitude to pair up with that human garbage.
The Railway Age article “’This Scenario is a Bit Unusual’” was actually quite fascinating – once you’ve deciphered all of the acronyms (see below). The bulk of the article describes a move by one of the railroads, and in response one of the unions, to “go rogue” – to bargain outside of the long-established national bargaining framework for the industry.
To me, though, the money quote was in a overview section toward the end in which a commentator quoted at length in the article (Frank Wilmer, a contributing editor to Railway Age) was comparing a wage increase of 17% over 5 years that the railroad workers are considering to the 62% increase over 6 years recently won by the longshoremen. Wilmer commented:
The adage reminds me of Lambert’s oft-repeated quip that when you’re explaining, you’re losing. But in this case it says succinctly what exactly losing looks like.
SMART-TD is one of the unions.
NCCC is the collective bargaining group for the railroads.
RLA is the Railway Labor Act.
PEB is the Presidential Emergency Board, the mechanism through which Biden rammed through the 2022 settlement.
I’m an old Man and I have taken Kamala Harris seriously since she took on K.O Hallinan.
Over the decades I have been paying attention to her she has displayed no evidence of having any Scruples, Morals or Ethics.
She has displayed a willingness to use any means, without limitation, to gain power.
Power is the most powerful addictive substance known to Humans and I have never observed a more pure example of addictive behavior than that displayed by Kamala Harris.
Sounds like a Hillary clone.
> Adapt or Die, Or…? Charles Hugh Smith, Of Two Minds
Need to contest a couple of his assertions. The counters are from Dan Brooks; Yves linked to him last May.
> absent any pressure from tumultuous change, nature is hard-wired to keep the genetic instructions unchanged
>> … in a Darwinian system, innovations evolve during the good times when there is no penalty for experimentation because success need not be immediate.
> This is the adapt or die moment, when species must experiment by churning out modifications (semi-random mutations in the instructions) and test them in trial-and-error: the ones that add selective advantages live, the ones that don’t die.
>> When conditions are stable, living systems accumulate variants, some fitter than others, but all fit enough. Accumulating variation is like saving potential to cope withan unpredictable world. When conditions change, organisms will inevitably come into conflict. The fittest variant may become unfit, and a marginally fit variant may become the fittest. It is then that living systems use preexisting variation as if they were spending potential to explore new opportunities for survival by conflict resolution.
This fallacy:
>> Herbert Spencer was instrumental in convincing most biologists to change their perspective from “evolution is long-term survival” to “evolution is short-term adaptation.”
informs the rhetorical shift in this line:
> There is little sense in the top circle that the extinction of the entire social order is a threat.
The social order is a decision process. Decision processes are metabolic.
>> The key to being evolvable is being able to exploit the surroundings through metabolism, which is expensive, while maintaining the ability to explore through inheritance, which is cheap.
Unhooking the inheritance argument doesn’t kill the essay, though.
> What’s different is humans can stifle or encourage adaptive churn.
Yes. There are what you might call guidelines for decision processes. [Taleb. Palchinsky.] So his subsequent argument is still valid.
I was in Sebastopol yesterday and also ran a few errands in Santa Rosa, “For Sale” signs and Harris/Walz signs were in about equal numbers.
In 2016 I saw @ 10 times as many yard signs as I do this year ( This is true blue territory) and in 2020 about 5X as many as I do this year.
And I’m also seeing a very few Trump signs and Bumperstickers this year VS almost none the last two cycles.
“More of the same, harder” doesn’t seem to be generating a lot of enthusiasm
What do people think of Harris’s comments about Netanyahu and Gaza in her 60 minutes remarks?
to
I agree with the premise of the article but it doesn’t dig very deep in what actually causes teen depression and depression in general. We have a militantly anti-convivial culture from school to retirement. We, in the USA, hate happiness, feeings of accomplishment, cooperation, and joy. We love competition (at every level of life whether it’s music or sport or “jobs”). We are also a deeply anti-spiritual culture other than the weird Christian cults who are also anti-spiritual and primarily materialistic. There is nowhere to go for sensitive and creative teens other than social media. These “depressed” children are reacting normally to the crisis of meaning, and endorsement of fantasy over reality. They are reacting to the lack of moral values (other than competition and hyper-materialism. Social media is not the problem it is just another attempt at finding relief for the mainstream culture of anti-conviviality.
It’s sad that Europeans are not wanting to trade their solid ground in Western Civilization for the worship of power, forever wars, and the USA. Beware of what you wish for, Euro-citizens.
America Is Lying to Itself About the Cost of Disasters The Atlantic
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Oh, to have the luxury of knowing 3 days ahead of time that a sizable earthquake is coming, as is common for big hurricanes.
There sure have been a fair number of smaller quakes in Cali as of late, precursors to a more prehensible performance perhaps?
Re: hurricanes: It feels like scheduling an appointment for a traffic accident. :/
I can just imagine the chaos if Trump becomes president and then there’s another big 1908 style earthquake in the Bay area…
I thought Trump handled the crisis of covid pretty well actually
Iran nuclear weapons test: Scott Ritter seemed dubious about the test but did go on to mention how quickly Iran could spin up its weapons program if need be. From George Galloway’s “Mother of All Talk Shows” yesterday.
The interview is pinned at the top of @georgegalloway on X, and the discussion starts at 1:50:00.
Yeah, come on all of you big strong IDF men
Uncle Sam needs your help again
Bibi’s got himself in a terrible jam
Way down yonder in Iran
So put up your dukes and pick up a gun
We’re gonna have a whole lotta fun
And it’s one, two, three
What are we fighting for?
Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn
Next stop is Iran
And it’s five, six, seven
Open up the pearly MAD gates
Well there ain’t no time to wonder why
Whoopee! we’re all gonna die
Well, come on AIPAC, let’s move fast
Your big chance has come at last
Gotta go out and get those Persians
The only good goy with a gun is the one who’s casting aspersions
And you know that peace can only be won
When we’ve blown ’em all to Kingdom Come
And it’s one, two, three
What are we fighting for?
Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn
Next stop is Iran
And it’s five, six, seven
Open up the pearly MAD gates
Well there ain’t no time to wonder why
Whoopee! we’re all gonna die
Huh!
Well, come on Wall Street, don’t move slow
Why man, this is War-a-go-go
There’s plenty good money to be made
By supplying the MIC with stocks of the trade
Just hope and pray that if they drop the bomb
They drop it on Tehran
And it’s one, two, three
What are we fighting for?
Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn
Next stop is Iran
And it’s five, six, seven
Open up the pearly MAD gates
Well there ain’t no time to wonder why
Whoopee! we’re all gonna die
Well, come on military industrialists throughout the land
Send your missiles off to Iran
Come on Congress, don’t hesitate
Send ’em off before it’s too late
Be the first one on your block
To have their empire lost
And it’s one, two, three
What are we fighting for?
Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn
Next stop is Iran
And it’s five, six, seven
Open up the pearly MAD gates
Well there ain’t no time to wonder why
Whoopee! we’re all gonna die
I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To Die Rag, by Country Joe & the Fish
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws0DLWApHko
I appreciate the debt resistance article, even though it is a bit hard to parse. The context around the farmers’ debt revolts is mostly missing; I’m not sure if it would improve the article if it was included but it would aid in understanding why action was taken (calling the 1930s fraught is putting it mildly, and the article is written by an activist). The message at the end about debt incurred just to survive really deserves its own article. Nickel and Dimed was written decades ago and the situation has definitely not improved since then.
How many here are aware of Kim Philby’s role in “Operation Northwoods”?
In 1948/49 Philby let the Russians know the details of the sabotage/ assassination teams of Ukrainian Nazi’s that the USA/UK was sending into Russia.
1948…it’s been happening for quite a while.
How Ukraine got a chance to join NATO and what Rutte’s visit has to do with it European Pravda
You can make no mistake with the political orientation of the European Pravda. Globalist pro-Western obviously. Now let’s go to some of the content.
“Seriously discussed” someone more realistic should explain the Ukrainians what this means. It means the neocons are searching for any brilliant idea to save face, no matter how lunatic, and claim Victory! after Ukraine’s NATO accession by some fantastic scheme. The message to Ukrainians is “Keep fighting to the last one of your soldiers because you will in the end (some end) find the path to happiness and prosperity by joining NATO and the EU”. Yet, the plans look utterly fantastic and this, almost certainly, is not going to happen. Not at least until well after the Ukrainian capitulation.
an aside: chlorine dioxide. Mentioning this because, after Katrina, I read many houses were saved from mold created uninhabitableness (is that a word?) by professional restoration companies specializing in essentially fumigating the house with chlorine dioxide destroying all mold. (House residents had to leave during the fumigation and recovery process, of course.)
https://www.selectivemicro.com/blogs/blog/eradicating-mold-with-ultra-pure-chlorine-dioxide-a-powerful-solution-for-mold-remediation
“Uninhabitability” I think
Thanks.
The back and forth between Gilbert Doctorrow and others (which received good bit of attention at NC as well) seems to be continuing:
https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2024/10/06/more-on-tails-wagging-dogs-and-vice-versa/
I think this is a bit silly and is losing the main thread (much the way the original bruhaha over the Israeli Lobby did, IMHO) and the two sides seem far closer than it appears. The key is that there are significant factions (Neocons, more generic “indispensablists,” religious fundamentalists, Jewish essentialists, and so on–not just “the Jews,” per se) in American politics who have certain agendas in the Middle East and elsewhere and view Israel as a very useful tool for achieving these. But the deal is a two way street, where many Israeli politicians are happy to extract a heavy price for the services that they render. Given that there’s big controversy over whether the agendas of the “friends (or masters) of Israel” in United States are, in fact, good for United States, it becomes dubious whether these agendas are actually in US interests (many, perhaps even a large majority, of Americans would think that they are not, I believe) or whether these people, by paying Israel generously do advance these agenda, are actually acting on behalf of Israel at the expense of United States.
These, to me, seem to raise a question more about American politics than about US-Israeli relationship: why are “friends of Israel” in US so poweful? It can’t be just because of the help they receive from the “Israeli Lobby,” although it is a powerful aid, no doubt. Israeli Lobby, it seems to me, is actually a more sophisticated version of the “Steele Dossier,” a foreign funded tool used by certain American politicians to discredit their domestic enemies, as much as a foreign tool used solely to advance foreign interests. I do wonder if there is a bit of “American exceptionalism” from the other side, the anti-imperialist side, that colors the “Israeli Lobby” explanation as well, the belief that the agenda of the “friends of Israel” is not “true American agenda” so they must be forcibly advancing a “foreign” agenda.
I find it easy to believe that keeping Iran (and Saudi-Arabia) from becoming regional power (and international second tier) is a shared objective for both Israel and USA. So why wouldn’t USA allow free hands for Israel, as long as it’s a willing proxy to fight Iran, with all the associated pain, when the time comes.
Or Egypt. Or Syria. Or Turkey.
Because Israel has no desire, nor ability, to wage war against Iran. The logistics would be a nightmare, and the terrain in Iran as well. You have to understand that war cannot be won by naval or air campaigns. You have to put boots on the ground, and the population of Israel is nowhere near enough to occupy Iran. They need American troops, and lots of them. I’m not convinced America has enough troops to take on Iran, even with our advanced weapons (if any). Also, it would take nearly a year to assemble the troops and set up stockpiles of food, weapons, and equipment.
Huh? Israel has ENORMOUS desire to wage war against Iran.
And you are assuming rationality. As I point out in 10/8 Links, much of Israel society, and particularly the extreme Zionists, are caught up in an eschatological fervor. They believe it is their duty (Amalek!) to destroy all enemies of Israel or God will destroy them.
The less irrational ones may instead suffer from believing their own PR, that Iran is backwards and the mighty US can smite it down. If you think the prejudice against Russia’s capabilities was bad, you can increase that by perhaps an order of magnitude with Iran due to racism/Orientalism (Russians at least for the most part look like Europeans and don’t sport beards and goofy headwear). Even our Teen Vogue is on the case: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/what-is-orientalism
The supposedly suspicious earthquake in the Iran desert was a 4.6. Iran is one of the most earthquake prone countries in the world. Sub-5 earthquakes would be a regular and unremarkable occurrence for them.
Fair enough. However, I see that the 100kt Sedan test in the early 1960s gave a Richter scale tremor of about that scale, and of course if one wanted to keep a nuclear test secret, the best place to conduct it would be in the middle of an earthquake zone.
Okay. I was peeking at the Nation article on the history of debt resistance — mostly to see if it would name that 1934 Supreme Court case. It didn’t, though I hope the book being reviewed does.
But while I was skipping past the ads (or trying to), I kept seeing one that piqued my interest enough to try to hear it as well. It seemed to show the D standard-bearer (if that isn’t an oxymoron) saying a few words from behind a lectern while most of the crowd was cheering — and a caption read (I believe):
“HARRIS STOOD UP TO THE PROTESTERS.”
I was on my phone, which of course made it harder either to see the scene clearly or to turn off muting and get the volume up — so I can’t confirm this yet . . . heck, I can’t even confirm the “THE” in that csption. And I also can’t find the ad elsewhere. But if it isn’t just a fig Newton of my imagination, it’s Arte Johnson-level verry interesting.
Has the Harris/Walz campaign really tried to spin the “I’m speaking” moment, and to make an ad out of it? If so, I suppose The Nation is about as likely an audience as any to lap up that message.
Has anyone’s else in the commentariat seen this ad?