Links 11/11/2024

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1. Antifa November 11, 2024 at 7:00 am

   This Famine
   (melody borrowed from Jamming  by Bob Marley & The Wailers)

   (Ooh, yeah! All right!)
   This famine—it’s five weeks without any food
   This famine, famine—Israelis won’t let the trucks come through

   They bomb schools here and now, they do what is not allowed
   Nothing’s what this world will do
   There’s no couscous or rice anywhere at any price
   By orders of this Jewish crew

   This famine—in this world famine’s how you kill a low caste
   This famine—Bibi says this famine is our last

   They tell us move further South, we know better by word of mouth
   Kids and Mom’s get shot, we know
   They catch you in daylight with their drones or satellites
   It’s a killing zone that’s well controlled

   This famine (famine, famine, famine)
   This famine—hunger’s our tune and our chord
   This famine (famine, famine, famine)
   This famine’s from America

   Nobody is tryin’ hasbara’s lyin’
   These soldiers watch us dyin’ heartless cold and brazen

   Yeah, this famine (wotcha wa)
   Wotcha wa wa wa this famine (wotcha wa)
   We’re gonna see famine through
   This famine (famine, famine, famine)
   We’re damned—there’s nothing we can do

   With no food supplied, we’re all gonna die
   Even water’s denied
   If you lived in our midst drinking sewage like this
   You’d know Bibi lied

   This famine (famine, famine, famine)
   Those drones are lookin’ for you
   This famine, this famine, this famine, this famine
   This famine, this famine, this famine, this famine
   I’ll be dead just like you

   This famine, this famine (famine)
   This famine, this famine (famine)
   We’re goners (we’re goners what can you do?)
   We’re goners—we’re goners (what can you do?)
   We’re goners there’s just you now
   Famine, famine (if this happened to you)
   Eh eh! We’re goners from famine I ask what can you do?
   Please! We’re goners (what can you do?)
   We’re goners . . . where are you?
   We tried to come through, we’re goners what can you do?
   How do we stand it?
   How do we stand it?
   1. ChrisFromGA November 11, 2024 at 8:35 am

      Anyone seen Antony Blinken? I’m certain I heard Joe say that he’s “working tirelessly” to get a ceasefire and allow food aid into Gaza. You know, just like OJ worked so hard to find the real killers. Shame that OJ didn’t get to see justice before he died.
      1. MFB November 12, 2024 at 3:05 am

         I’m not a very emotional person, but that footage from Gaza City was heartbreaking. It’s like the end of the world. The refusal of the mass media to cover the destruction Israel has wrought is a crime in itself.
2. ambrit November 11, 2024 at 7:26 am

   Good heavens! A Sparkle Pony! A first, of sorts, for NC.
   1. The Rev Kev November 11, 2024 at 7:34 am

      That’s no Sparkle Pony! That’s the Democrat’s Presidential candidate for 2028.
      1. midtownwageslave November 11, 2024 at 8:12 am

         The Dems’ AI generated candidate for Prez is really showing programmer biases… I’m seeing a chimera of Clinton and Thatcher, perhaps a pinch of Harris as well.
         1. NotTimothyGeithner November 11, 2024 at 9:03 am

            My tin foil hat tells me that Harris’ peculiar speech patterns are the result of her team running popular word bubbles and Obama speeches together then demanding she learn them.

            The one video shows the GOP posting whatever random stuff Trump says, so wouldn’t “tech savvy” Dims do their version of that?
      2. griffen November 11, 2024 at 8:59 am

         More likely a pale horse…”And I looked and behold, a white horse, and him that sat on it was Death…” Intro to the Johnny Cash track for “The Man Comes Around”.

         Horses can make for a nice addition to the old MTV videos of back in the day, when it was still a developing medium for newer talented artists or a medium to refresh and revive more established artists. Here is a video from 1987, a rocker I guess from Heart…the horse making a brief cameo nearly at the two minute mark.

         https://www.stereogum.com/2117644/the-number-ones-hearts-alone/columns/the-number-ones/
         1. Neutrino November 11, 2024 at 11:35 am

            Here is a book from Archive.org on the pale horse theme.
            1. flora November 11, 2024 at 3:41 pm

               This book.

               Behold a Pale Horse.

               https://www.amazon.com/Behold-Horse-Milton-William-Cooper/dp/0929385225
         2. ex-PFC Chuck November 11, 2024 at 12:44 pm

            The pale horse metaphor was used by Brian Leehan in the title of his history of the unit that holds the tragic record for the percentage of combat casualties in one day for US Army units of regimental size or above: Pale Horse At Plum Run: The First Minnesota at Gettysburg. When several Confederate regiments attempted to storm Cemetery Ridge at a lightly held area of Union lines on the afternoon of July 2, 1863, four companies of the First Minnesota slowed them down enough to buy time for reinforcements to arrive. About 80% of the men in those companies fell during the course of that hour long battle. My grandfather was in that regiment and when I first learned of the engagement about 30 years agoI wondered by what happenstance had John (aka Sven) survived to sire my father. Later during a visit to the Minnesota Historical Society library I found the official history of the regiment and learned that John had been in “C” company, which had been dispatched that morning to division HQ to provide security.
         3. Lambert Strether November 12, 2024 at 5:08 am

            > Pale Horse

            The Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse:

            Revelation 6:8

            8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.

            Katherine Mansfield’s short novel, Pale Horse, Pale Rider, which my associative memory brings up, is about the flu pandemic of 1918, so I think she might have the wrong horse…
      3. Lambert Strether November 12, 2024 at 5:11 am

         “Did you bring a horse for me?”
   2. Lena November 11, 2024 at 8:03 am

      I will note that this Sparkle Pony has Trump hair. I also note that, for the most part, poor people are not celebrating his victory. Hard times are ahead for us. We are not delusional.
      1. Sam Adams November 11, 2024 at 8:30 am

         “She is merely acclimatizing herself, in accordance with a natural law, like an animal which changes its coat for the winter. Thousands of people like Frl. Schroeder are acclimatizing themselves. After all, whatever government is in power, they are doomed to live in this town.”
         ― Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin
         We are living in Berlin. Enjoy.
         1. ambrit November 11, 2024 at 2:17 pm

            Isherwood is amazing in the original. “I Am a Camera” chronicles Weimar Berlin as a cautionary tale. The later iterations, such as “Cabaret” do it scant justice.
            Bergman’s “Serpent’s Egg” is the other effective depiction of Weimar Germany I can think of. The ending is truly ‘Meta’ in the best sense. Just for fun, let us throw into the mix some films such as “Mephisto,” “The Conformist,” “The Damned,” and “The Lives of Others” for a primer for navigating our newly emerging dystopia.
            Stay safe and sane.
            1. MFB November 12, 2024 at 3:06 am

               Don’t forget Metropolis.
      2. mrsyk November 11, 2024 at 9:13 am

         One needn’t be poor to fear a Trump presidency. The buzz from waving bye bye to team Biden will wear off around here pretty soon.
         1. Lena November 11, 2024 at 9:42 am

            mrsyk, I hope so. I can’t celebrate this win. It feels very strange to me. I didn’t vote for either candidate.

            I agree with you. For many people, there is much to fear from a Trump administration. I am not referring to a free floating, baseless anxiety. No, it’s real fear.

            Thank you for understanding.
      3. sarmaT November 11, 2024 at 5:10 pm

         Nah, that’s Boris Johnson hair.

         https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Boris_Johnson_official_portrait_%28cropped%29.jpg
         Boris Johnson, Official portrait, 2019
   3. ChrisPacific November 11, 2024 at 10:11 pm

      Rare footage of Boris Johnson’s Brexit plan in the wild, circa 2020.

      Although it looks lurid and Photoshopped, it’s apparently a natural color photo taken in Iceland – my guess would be at sunrise or sunset, with extra color from local volcanic activity.
3. The Rev Kev November 11, 2024 at 7:29 am

   “Trump talked to Putin, told Russian leader not to escalate in Ukraine”

   The Russians are already saying that no such conversation took place. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said-

   ‘that the article was a “vivid example of the quality of information published by even some respectable outlets.”

   “This absolutely does not correspond to reality. This is pure fiction. This information is simply false,” he told the press.’

   https://www.rt.com/news/607457-kremlin-putin-trump-news/

   So maybe that report was originally written by the Washington Post’s AI who hallucinated that report.
   1. flora November 11, 2024 at 8:17 am

      The Wapo political reporting has devolved into yellow journalism levels, imo. There is no there there. / ;)
      1. ilsm November 11, 2024 at 11:19 am

         WaPo is running mouthpiece for the latest deep state psyop.
   2. pjay November 11, 2024 at 8:36 am

      MofA says the same thing, and Ukraine also denies any knowledge of such a call:

      https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/11/why-is-wapo-reporting-a-trump-putin-call-that-did-not-take-place.html

      Bernard’s comments on “Pulitzer Prize” winning lead reporter Nakashima are pretty relevant. A puzzling story if true; more so if it is not.
      1. AG November 11, 2024 at 5:04 pm

         For me the past 3 years in this regard were an entire life cycle of change.
         Not that I ever took WaPo and NYT seriously.
         But the level of lying and deception are insane.

         I am at the point what Ray McGovern described as Kremlinology towards US legacy papers:
         Read it to find out what they do you not want to know.

         p.s. Pulitzer – a Judith Miller is in the commission. Tells you all. Taibbi had an odious comment on her in spring (6-figure income for her for doing nothing on that board.)

         “5 bucks she mentions her Pulitzer”
         HUDSUCKER PROXY (1994)
         0:00-1:30
         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inLVUVh_izg
   3. t November 11, 2024 at 9:20 am

      WaPo seems to be quoting Steven Cheung, Trump’s communications director, and following up with people he said they should call to confirm. It’s also written as though Putin made the call.

      And illustrated with a file photo of the two together which is an amazing choice.
   4. timbers November 11, 2024 at 9:45 am

      New Not-So-Cold War

      Trump talked to Putin, told Russian leader not to escalate in Ukraine WaPo ****** Well, IF the call did happen, I for one do not believe Trump told Putin not to escalate. That’s being put out to for his fan base and the neo-brainless. Trump has no cards to play to issue warnings or commands to Russia because they are all in Putins hands.
      1. Joker November 11, 2024 at 10:09 am

         Trump told Putin not to escalate, but to keep up the current pace. :)
   5. Skip Intro November 11, 2024 at 9:56 am

      This smells like another strategy to box Trump in. If people believe he told Putin not to escalate, just before Russia clears Kursk and takes the rest of Donbass, he will be thought to lose face.
      1. Louis Fyne November 11, 2024 at 10:56 am

         I agree. Though less likely…I wonder if Trump’s inner circle leaked the news of a fake call….to honeypot any suspected neocons lobbying for a job.
   6. What? No! November 11, 2024 at 11:29 am

      Like taking money out of the political system, mis/dis information would disappear if msm could only publish material from named sources. I am willing to give up all the juicy early scoop / rumours and concede that true scandals may need to take longer, more circuitous paths to the light of day, in favour of traceable information.
4. Wukchumni November 11, 2024 at 7:30 am

   For nabbing the silver medal in the 2024 intermural games, Kamala was rewarded the pink punk pony in the antidote, which comes with the right to kick Genocide Joe out and reign for a month, maybe 6 weeks if all goes well.
   1. Randall Flagg November 11, 2024 at 8:06 am

      Harris becomes president, she pardoned the entire Biden family.
      History making in more ways than one…
      Ouch, my tinfoil hat is on too tight.
      1. ex-PFC Chuck November 11, 2024 at 9:30 am

         And it’s amid the political firestorm that ignites in the USA when Iran chooses to launch its massive hyper-sonic retaliation against Israel.
      2. Wukchumni November 11, 2024 at 9:32 am

         Ironyclad, that.
   2. Joker November 11, 2024 at 10:06 am

      It’s not a pony, but unicorn with a horn deficit.
   3. Bugs November 11, 2024 at 12:12 pm

      Wuk, if this is a reference to the Chappell Roan dust-up where she said she couldn’t endorse Kami because _genocide_ (oh how time flies!), congrats, that’s subtle as heck. Kudos.

      Dems sure know how to lose the election to the official pop superstar of the summer.

      Welcome to the Pink Pony Club, where Midwestern girls discover their true selves…and they ain’t dumb enough to fall for that neocon [stuff] anymore.

      https://youtu.be/GR3Liudev18
5. Zagonostra November 11, 2024 at 7:35 am

   >Rare glimpse of ‘ghostly’ neutrino fog detected by dark matter experiments in a first Interesting Engineering

   I remember freshman year I took an Astronomy class and the professor said Neutrinos had no mass. I didn’t understand that and I forgot the explanation he gave me. Now I see they do have mass:

   The neutrino is so named because it is electrically neutral and because its rest mass is so small (-ino) that it was long thought to be zero…. three leptonic flavors:

   And now I see they have “flavors” too. I don’t think I’m any clearer on what they are, I always thought of them like angels on the head of a pin, but that won’t work if they have mass…

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutrino
   1. .Tom November 11, 2024 at 8:47 am

      The article said that neutrinos are sub-atomic. How so? I never heard of them being parts of atoms.
      1. Taner Edis November 11, 2024 at 10:25 am

         “Sub-atomic” does not mean constituent of an atom. The sizes associated with sub-atomic particles are smaller than that of atoms (10^-10 m or so), that’s all. For example, a meson is a quark-antiquark bound state, and the length scale there should be around 10^-15 m. A neutrino, as far as we (physicists) can tell so far, is an elementary particle (no constituents), and its size, if it exists at all, is much smaller than that of a meson. But both mesons and neutrinos can be called “sub-atomic.”
         1. .Tom November 11, 2024 at 11:41 am

            Thank you, Taner.

            I got a bachelor’s degree in physics a long time ago. Back then I was very interested in the changes in physics in the 20 c. In a class conversation I asked a lecturer about what physicists though about their knowledge in the decades before Bohr, Einstein and that crowd came and screwed it all up. Did they feel secure in their knowledge? The lecturer said they did, that apart from a few remaining tricky questions they felt physics was coherent and mostly done. We agreed it might be wise not to feel complacent about the current (mid 1980s) state of physics.

            I remember having the notion of physics a the hard science, the tip of the spear of the telos of secular knowledge. But since then it keeps proposing the most outrageously esoteric stuff. Today it’s neutrino fog obscuring our view of dark matter. What magus could compete? I hope some physicists can appreciate the irony.
   2. Taner Edis November 11, 2024 at 10:26 am

      “Flavor” is particle physics terminology that (unless you’re a physicist and care about the details) just means “type.”
   3. Neutrino November 11, 2024 at 11:36 am

      +1
      1. sarmaT November 11, 2024 at 5:15 pm

         You are one positively charged neutrino.
6. Zagonostra November 11, 2024 at 7:42 am

   >New $6-billion Arctic radar will track incoming missiles, says Canadian military Ottawa Citizen

   A new $6-billion radar system planned for the Arctic will be focused on tracking incoming missiles as Canada seeks to reassure the United States it is doing its part to defend North America.

   They better hurry up, those Russkies are amassing on the border and ready to pounce any moment. Besides who cares that many Canadians continue to have trouble meeting their daily basic needs for themselves and, much more importantly, for their children and their family members” it’s only 1 in 4 families.
   1. Yves Smith November 11, 2024 at 7:45 am

      They also did not get the memo that those Rooskies can fly them over the South Pole now.
      1. The Rev Kev November 11, 2024 at 8:03 am

         Not to forget those Russian nuclear subs in both the Pacific and the Atlantic.
         1. ex-PFC Chuck November 11, 2024 at 9:43 am

            Some of which will be carrying dead-man, nuclear powered Poseidon drone torpedoes with 50+ megaton warheads that when triggered at their designated target points will inundate both USA coasts with tsunamis. Goodbye Boston, NYC, LA, San Diego, SFO, etc., not to mention naval assets in home ports.
            1. AG November 11, 2024 at 5:17 pm

               However I assume Zircon pose a bigger strategic issue as escalation options are concerned. They are refitting – Borei Class was it (check in case I dont want to lie) – into hypersonic SSBNs. And have commissioned new set of cheaper models for similiar warfare.
               Which doesn´t mean Poseidon isnt´t there but I doubt RU High Command builds on that “thing”. It´s rather a means to scare members in US Congress and pressure them into not doing certain stupid things.
      2. ilsm November 11, 2024 at 11:31 am

         Hypersonic payloads do not run ballistic track, and are not seen by radar until they come into range at what would have been descending for an ICBM.

         Lockheed put a long range radar on line in Alaska about ten (?) years ago for USAF operations.

         Which complements the updated early warning radar (EWR) operating since the 1960’s.

         I am not sure how EWR in Canada adds to detection and intercept.

         But I was always on the U.S. side, in project mgt.
         1. ilsm November 11, 2024 at 12:59 pm

            I apologize I need to add, redirect my observation.

            What the article is describing is an “over the horizon backscatter (OTH-B) radar system.

            I reviewed this type radar in the late 1980’s. USAF has/had a system in upper Maine and a sight on the U.S. west coast. Been operating since 1960’s. The sites are presently maintained in “warm storage” able to reactivate in 24 months. NOAA has used them to map ocean currents.

            The radar antenna broadcasts radio energy at the ionosphere, it bounces off toward the ground at calculated range then the energy bounces back up and back to the site revealing targets. A surveillance mission similar to E-3 AWACS. Note Canada is buying several “wedge tail” AWACS to do look down surveillance like the OTH.

            The USAF OTH used a lot of electricity.

            Site engineering will not be specified until 2029, if they use new tech the engineering will be risky, if they use single antenna the manufacturing and SW will be challenging.

            Huge over runs ahead for a mission use not wanted by US.

            Will their F-35 be available to intercept?
            1. MFB November 12, 2024 at 3:10 am

               If I recall correctly, the Russians were experimenting with one of those in the 1970s; it disrupted ham radio operations all over Europe.
               1. sarmaT November 12, 2024 at 8:56 am

                  The Russian Woodpecker (from Ukraine :) ).
                  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duga_radar
         2. Procopius November 12, 2024 at 12:14 am

            Back in 1957-8 I was stationed at McGuire Air Force Base. I loved the F-100 fighters. On base there was a TopSecret cube of a building. No windows. None. We were told it contained the radar receivers for the SAGE System, which was keeping us safe from Soviet ICBMs. I’ve recently (a couple of years ago) read that in fact it didn’t work, and was kept in production just because of all the income it produced for high ranking people. I’m very skeptical of Patriot and THAADS, for that reason. I guess we’ll find out when we start the war with China next year, but please note that Israel has taken at least some of their Patriot systems out of use.
            1. MFB November 12, 2024 at 3:13 am

               Interesting. The only time I ever heard of SAGE it was a control system for F-86D interceptors, to guide them close to Soviet bombers until their rather primitive bullet-nose radar could pick them up. Now you say it was advertised as an anti-missile system, but the US had no anti-missile missiles until the late 1960s. This is weird. Is this your famous Secret History, Procopius?
   2. Wukchumni November 11, 2024 at 7:50 am

      Muskeg-if prepared correctly, makes for a great side dish, or main entree, depending on your level of deprivation.
      1. amfortas the hippie November 11, 2024 at 8:50 am

         creatures like that, when left to run amok for too long, tend to become tough and hard to chew….i recommend slow braising.
         1. eg November 11, 2024 at 10:16 pm

            You might be confusing the vegetation (Muskeg) with the ungulate (Muskox)
            1. amfortas the hippie November 12, 2024 at 6:08 am

               oh.
               lol.
               i thought he was talking about a mammalian parasite from south africa…
   3. NYMutza November 11, 2024 at 2:21 pm

      Early warning radars are used primarily to determine the warhead targets, not for missile interception. “Yes, I can confirm that a 500kt warhead is headed for Toronto”. 15 minutes to evacuate 2 million people. Good luck.
   4. Kouros November 11, 2024 at 4:06 pm

      Hahahahaha.

      Sarmat can travel 18,000 km and go around South Pole to reach targets in North America…

      However, 6 bil for radars, 14+ bil for F-35s (which will become brics if trying to defend against US attacks), more billions to start building an icebreaker fleet for US (which doesn’t recognizes Canadian sovereignity over NW passage), and maybe some buying in for nuclear subs, Canada is soon going to reach the same level of stupidity and subservience towards US military goals and vessalage as Australia, with no benefit for Canada.
7. Zagonostra November 11, 2024 at 7:49 am

   <Trump Is Planning a Presidency of, by, and for the Rich Jacobin

   Everything we’re learning about the incoming administration’s plans from insiders make very clear this is going to be a government of, by, and for big business…

   The GOP’s rebranding as the “party of workers” was always a sham, especially coming from a leader whose main legislative accomplishment the first time around was a massive tax cut for the rich. Everything suggests they’re about to make that rebranding even more of a joke.

   The real “joke” is Jacobin. Where were they in criticizing big business and Wall Street/Banker/Zionist control over the Democrats while they were in power? If they did call them out, I apologize, because I didn’t see any similar links/articles. Did the Biden administration roll back Trump’s tax cuts, if so I missed that too.

   Gov’t by “big business” is not an exclusive GOP proclivity? It’s stitched into the very structure of American politics, and has been for a long time.
   1. flora November 11, 2024 at 8:06 am

      Yep. I read the headline and thought, “so nothing will change.” / ;)
      1. The Rev Kev November 11, 2024 at 8:10 am

         Had the same exact thought.
      2. NYMutza November 11, 2024 at 2:24 pm

         The men in the dark suits carrying briefcases are here to ensure that nothing fundamental changes. POTUS is nowhere near as powerful as we are led to believe.
   2. farmboy November 11, 2024 at 9:02 am

      @unusual_whales reports ala bloomberg, 83 billionares supported Harris, 52 for Trump
      1. mrsyk November 11, 2024 at 9:34 am

         Lol, bad news about your vote for “ change”…
   3. hemeantwell November 11, 2024 at 9:43 am

      Z, you’re mischaracterizing Jacobin. Today’s headliner piece, “Democrats, the Party of American Capital,” isn’t a belated attempt to swerve left, it’s representative of their longstanding position. Several of their main contributors, people like Doug Henwood, Anton Jager, Branko Marcetic (author of a book-long attack on Biden, Yesterday’s Man) are clear about the Democrats as a thoroughly capitalist party whose interest in social democratic policies has, since the Clinton years, become utterly gestural. They’ve published good articles investigating third party options. e.g. Seth Ackerman’s 2016 article “A Blueprint for a New Party.”

      In my view, their two main failings have been to drag their feet in setting out a thorough criticism of the Ukraine war — I think they got bogged down in a “competing imperialisms” framework and could not get their heads around the idea of Russia responding preemptively — and an unwillingness to thoroughly question economic growth models in light of climate change because they don’t want to cut themselves off from labor. That said, I find their site to be a rich and multitendential, and I especially appreciate their recovery of the Old Left, e.g. yesterday’s article on Sylvia Pankhurst and her eventual work with the BCP.
      1. jsn November 11, 2024 at 12:10 pm

         I like “multitendential”!

         Up there with “corporatulent”, “metedious”, and “pissetified”.
      2. Zagonostra November 11, 2024 at 1:09 pm

         My main beef/grudge with Jacobin was their CV19 vax mandate support. I took it personally. I was threatened by my employer to get a shot or lose my job, I didn’t get a shot and thankfully they didn’t follow through on threat…I didn’t see Jacobin standing up what appeared to me to be a psyop/overreach by gov’t.
         1. AG November 11, 2024 at 5:22 pm

            Not only Jacobin.
            Germany´s remnants of The Left (and much of rest Europe) utterly failed their populace on that issue. And they never really looked into this failure publicly.
   4. MFB November 12, 2024 at 3:14 am

      I would assume that the Jacobin article was written by Captain Obvious.

      Shock — Republican to support big business and rich people! Whoodathunkit?
8. flora November 11, 2024 at 7:51 am

   re: prison stocks soar

   It might have something to do with California passing proposition 36. From the LATimes:

   California voters approve anti-crime ballot measure Prop. 36

   https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-11-05/california-election-night-proposition-36

   My guess is California isn’t the only state that will be doing this sort of thing after experiencing years of what I can only call lax DA prosecutions. Happening even in my true blue uni town. / my 2 cents

   shorter: it has nothing to do with T winning. Although, T’s winning might have something to do with this.
   1. Joker November 11, 2024 at 9:48 am

      re: prison stocks soar

      If I had died last year, I would not have known that prison stocks are a thing that exist. Slavery with extra steps has gotten way too many steps.
      1. AG November 11, 2024 at 5:29 pm

         Indeed prison-industrial-complex actually is a thing.
         Chris Hedges has stuff on this. He is teaching in prisons.
         And there is I believe a thread on Craig Murray´s blog-forum on prisons started by someone who was in prison and shared his experience.

         An old acquaintance of my parents´ in L.A. – (should be long retired by now but still working because he has nothing else in his life, he said) – is some medium level engineer and produces shower installations for prisons. He is getting paid regularly.

         Guess what the company he is working for was providing before?
         Small pieces for BOEING. They got out of that relationship in time I guess.

         Still: Showers for prisons…but that change in business shows you the change of the country.
9. The Rev Kev November 11, 2024 at 7:52 am

   ‘HOT SPOT
   @HotSpotHotSpot
   🇺🇸😳 Kamala Harris’s former communications director proposes that Biden step down within 30 days to allow Kamala to temporarily assume the presidency as a sort of symbolic gesture’

   Putting aside the fact that Biden despises Kamala and was sabotaging her campaign whenever possible, this would be a terrible idea for women. Look, lots of people want to see a female President and I get it. But the truth of the matter is that if there is going to be a woman President, that it should be a scrappy woman that goes head to head in Presidential debates with Republicans and campaigns on her own strengths. People would see that she earned the votes to win and even the Republicans would respect her.

   But this tone deaf idea is nothing less than a cf of an idea. You are slipping through the back door a person that was defeated in the Presidential polls and could not win in her own right. It would be a gimmick which would quickly devolve into an internet meme. They would be telling woman that this is the only way that a woman can become President which would be humiliating and plenty of people would be mocking future women presidential candidates going forward. So of course it was Kamala Harris’s former communications director proposing this.
   1. flora November 11, 2024 at 7:59 am

      I agree. The Oval Office isn’t a consolation prize. (And someone could do a hell’a lot of damage in that office for a month guided by the likes of Dick Cheney. No, Dickums, you don’t get a second shot. / ;)
   2. flora November 11, 2024 at 8:03 am

      re: “They would be telling woman that this is the only way that a woman can become President which would be humiliating and plenty of people would be mocking future women presidential candidates going forward. ”

      Cue the “Sucksess” memes. / ;)
      1. Randall Flagg November 11, 2024 at 8:29 am

         One more thing on the list of things she will have blown,
         Willie Brown,
         Her first presidential campaign
         Her vice presidency
         Her run for president
         Possibly her short term as the first woman president.
         It had to be said.
         1. Mark Gisleson November 11, 2024 at 1:27 pm

            Frankly, so long as everyone addresses her properly — Madame President Mrs. Doug Emhoff — it would be just fine.
   3. Louis Fyne November 11, 2024 at 8:08 am

      To make this a Kamala thread….

      after watching some Kamala videos this weekend, i honestly think that she has some type of oral/aural/linguistics synethesia (crossing of senses)…in which to her, her world salad makes total sense.

      She is not some 4-D chess-playing Marxist when she says talks to us about “unburdening” ourselves of the past that has been.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K3rbIEsZC0

      https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/symptoms/24995-synesthesia
      1. Louis Fyne November 11, 2024 at 8:16 am

         conservative podcaster Eric Weinstein surmised that Harris’s constant rhetorical use of unburdening of the past was a nefarious allusion to “Year Zero” Mar xism a la Pol Pot

         https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1emQTpO_wA
         1. Charger01 November 11, 2024 at 8:50 am

            I do recall a famous phrase that the “west wing thing” guys (Josh Olson and Dave Anthony) that the first elected black woman will be a Republican. That seems about right, given the present circumstances.
            1. jefemt November 11, 2024 at 9:06 am

               Condi!
         2. Saffa November 11, 2024 at 9:26 am

            That was funny watching him cry about it, srsly.
            1. Louis Fyne November 11, 2024 at 9:41 am

               here is the funny (to me) thing…

               now I understand where my sister-in-law’s father (retired engineer, avid Worldle player, lovingly married to a resolute Trump and Putin hater) got his idea that Harris is a Marxist and the harbinger of literal Communism.
               1. hemeantwell November 11, 2024 at 11:49 am

                  Harris as a putative representative of Marxism reminds me of something Gramsci wrote, wherein he chided a fellow commie for addressing his critical remarks to a dull normal advocate of capitalism, instead of going after a more competent representative. One of the things I detest about the Right is their tendency to make things easy for themselves by basically turning their left opponents into the low-hanging fruit of a grapevine. They aren’t interested in, and perhaps are are no longer capable of, political education to ideological competence.
      2. tet vet November 11, 2024 at 11:23 am

         “unburdening” ourselves of the past that has been. –
         Ironic that that phrase accurately describes the result of our recent election.
      3. hemeantwell November 11, 2024 at 12:03 pm

         About word salad and synethesia. Harris is not psychotic and I think you could argue that she’s clumsily attempting a kind of poetry, a soothing lullabye of affirmation that occludes a reality of political calculation.

         I’ve worked with psychotic patients and when they were fully decompensated their salad would be something like “Purple elephant blanket tree sky yesterday walking pizza” (Google example, but accurate). Grammar and syntax evaporate, the flight from reality is virtually complete — maybe they went to get pizza yesterday and saw etc. ? — and there’s no structure in the fragments of the alternative, that would itself be threatening. The person I’m thinking of would speak in that manner with a big smile on her face and you’d wonder if it might be a ruse, but she had just tried to smash all her windows to let the Martians out of her room.
   4. Dalepues November 11, 2024 at 9:38 am

      Could be about the pension and perks.

      https://www.ntu.org/foundation/tax-page/pensions-and-perks-for-former-presidents-archive
      1. Biklett November 11, 2024 at 4:08 pm

         Could be just to claim #47
   5. Skip Intro November 11, 2024 at 10:15 am

      OR, you could be replacing a president who is clearly unable to do the job, with an individual whose moments of lucidity can stretch beyond 20 minutes. She should have become president a year or more ago.

      Think about those glass ceiling breakers of the past: Does Kamala fit with Clarence Thomas, Madeline Albright, Condi Rice? I think so.
   6. Dr. John Carpenter November 11, 2024 at 10:18 am

      I think my favorite thing about this (and I’ve heard it suggested elsewhere too) is that it’s the same people so worried about democracy, norms, the sanctity of the office suggesting the presidency be awarded like a participation prize to someone who was just resoundingly rejected for the same office. No surprise, as these people weren’t bothered by the way Harris was installed to run for office in the first place.
   7. sarmaT November 11, 2024 at 5:27 pm

      In for a penny, in for a pound. I say, make her a president, and the pink pony a senator. Then send them both to Kiev.
10. ChrisFromGA November 11, 2024 at 8:04 am

    Nikki and Mike

    Sung to the tune of, “Jack and Diane” by John Cougar Mellencamp

    Little ditty, ’bout Nikki and Mike
    Two warmongerin’ chimps wanna kill who they don’t like
    Mikey wannabe Trumps new war czar
    Nikki watchin’ Mikey put kids into boxcars

    Whiffin’ on the smell of death, that floats in on the breeze
    Nikki sittin’ on Boeing board,
    Got some hands not very clean
    Mikey say, “Hey Nikki! call Trump
    He’ll forget ’bout history!
    Dribble off those peacenik freaks
    Let us do what we please”, say a

    Oh yeah, neo-cons
    They’re here for the thrill, of “you and them brawl!”
    Oh yeah neo-cons,
    They’re here for the thrill, of “you and them brawl!”
    They walk on …

    Mikey sits back reflects his thoughts for the moment
    Scratches his head and does his best Pol Pot
    Well there, then “Nikkie, we oughta try operation Barbarossa”
    Nikki says, “Baby, you ain’t missing nothin'”

    Oh yeah, neo-cons
    They’re here for the thrill, of “you and them brawl!”
    Oh yeah neo-cons,
    They’re here for the thrill, of “you and them brawl!”

    Armageddon rocks!
    Let it roll
    Give the Bible Belt an enraptured soul
    Hold on to sunshine as long as you can
    Changes come around real soon
    Make you live underground

    Oh yeah, neo-cons
    They’re here for the thrill, of “you and them brawl!”
    Oh yeah neo-cons,
    They’re here for the thrill, of “you and them brawl!”

    A little ditty ’bout Nikki and Mike
    Two warmongerin’ chimps whom we really don’t like …

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h04CH9YZcpI
    1. griffen November 11, 2024 at 8:20 am

       Filing under personnel is policy, I see a concerted push to appoint Rick Scott as the next majority leader…His plans align well to our SC senator Lyndsey Graham….More More for them Wars….

       Less Less for them Poors…handing out bootstraps which they pass out from a 12 car motorcade of Chevrolet Tahoe bearing tinted windows and light armoring…
       1. jefemt November 11, 2024 at 9:07 am

          First priority is shoring up Social Security!
       2. ChrisFromGA November 11, 2024 at 9:17 am

          Little ditty ’bout Lyndsay and Rich
          Two ‘mercan punks who went out like a ${family blog}
       3. Neutrino November 11, 2024 at 11:44 am

          Turtle McConnell wants to control the Senate from beyond the grave shell. Hence that secret ballot for the new Majority Leader.
          Why else would the public need to know anything? Huh?
          Look, a squirrel. /s

          If McConnell is for something, that is a reason to be against it for many. Too bad his TV time being mocked by Jon Stewart and others is winding down to a glitchy freeze.
11. Wukchumni November 11, 2024 at 8:05 am

    Should We Be Farming in the Desert? Civil Eats
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    The article is largely about the Imperial Valley, where few people live, and a great water story that involves people, is the ongoing saga of 1 farmer growing a veritable shitlode of pistachios in the desert off of Hwy 395, and systematically draining the aquifer of both Ridgecrest and the China Lake Naval Air Station in the bargain.

    We need somebody growing nuts in the desert like an Eskimo needs more ice, but that 6 letter word always prevails, profit.

    In a high-stakes battle for its very existence, Mojave Pistachios, a 1,600 acre privately owned pistachio farming operation in eastern Kern County, is asking a California judge to prevent the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority (IWVGA) from shutting off the pumps that bring groundwater to its 215,000 pistachio trees. Without this water the trees will die.

    On Friday, June 14, the Superior Court of Orange County is expected to rule on whether to grant the IWVGA’s motion for a preliminary injunction that, if granted, will directly cause the death of 1,600 acres of trees and shutter a locally owned, private farming operation.

    Mojave Pistachios purchased and planted its land in the Indian Wells Valley (IWV) starting in 2011 and 2012, respectively, prior to implementation of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) and in accordance with applicable laws and local zoning ordinances. The first commercial harvest was completed in 2020, according to a declaration by farmer Rod Stiefvater in opposition to the injunction, and the orchards are expected to produce over 3,000,000 pounds of pistachios this year, with peak production reached in 2030.

    In a series of ongoing legal battles, agriculture and business groups have argued that the IWVGA’s allocation of zero native groundwater to Mojave Pistachios and the imposition of an exorbitant replenishment fee of $2,130 per acre-foot of water is an intentional move to kill agricultural development in the valley.

    Mojave Pistachios and other water users in the valley have argued the IWVGA’s unprecedented replenishment fee is unjust because it will only fund the possible purchase of a water right entitlement, not the water importation pipeline project which is required to convey imported water into the Basin. The pipeline cannot credibly be expected to ever be financed or built considering the quarter billion-dollar price tag and the terrain and environmentally sensitive habitats it would traverse.

    https://www.ridgecrestca.com/news/mojave-pistachios-fights-for-survival-seeks-to-prevent-groundwater-pumping-shutdown-by-iwvga/article_39be5c28-29af-11ef-9476-d7ca9222293a.html
    1. The Rev Kev November 11, 2024 at 8:49 am

       Growing pistachios in the desert? Got that beat. How about growing cotton in the middle of a desert? May I introduce Cubbie Station in SE Queensland here in Oz. How did they grow cotton which drinks water like it was going out of style in the middle of a desert? Through dodgy methods, they had acquired water licenses within the Murray-Darling basin and had more dam storage than Sydney harbour had water. They were sucking out so much water that properties were running dry downstream and that river cuts all the way to the south of the continent. Just to grow cotton mind you which they exported to China and other places. That place should be a case study in environmental idiocy-

       https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubbie_Station
       1. NYMutza November 11, 2024 at 2:45 pm

          Pima cotton is highly desired. It is grown in the Arizona desert near Yuma.
    2. t November 11, 2024 at 8:51 am

       Thanks for providing this with detail.
    3. farmboy November 11, 2024 at 9:15 am

       I grow organic wheat in rotation with peas and hot mustards in the desert, 6 to 10 in of precip annually and of course the timing of that precip is everything, If it comes during the growing season, it’s manna from heaven! Keeping the ground covered is the single most important thing to do, bare fallow is failure. this years crop is going 700 mi to a mill. Market access is the biggest challenge. Federal crop insurance at nearly 2X the value of conventional is making it pencil.
    4. MicaT November 11, 2024 at 9:18 am

       Some weeks ago there was a link to a proposal of using desalination water to farm the desert. I disagreed with the cost analysis but not the concept. From memory 20 billion sticks in mind, but even if it was 200 billion, it might be a good use of money vs MIC.

       I suspect that moving or making fresh water will become a requirement in the near future for humans and farming.
    5. Mikel November 11, 2024 at 9:40 am

       The lengths humanity is supposed to go through to make way for computer server farms. “Progress.”
    6. jm November 11, 2024 at 9:43 am

       Related: Putting California’s pistachio industry in perspective.
    7. JCC November 11, 2024 at 8:17 pm

       Wukchumni, I’m a resident of Ridgecrest and, thank goodness, finally retired from China Lake. When I saw those acres of trees getting planted there around 2016 or so I knew it was time to get out, just had to wait for the retirement package.

       Retirement has happened and I’m hoping to be gone by Spring.

       When the Navy first moved to that area around 1943, Ridgecrest had a population of about 98 people and the water table averaged from 35 to 50 feet below the surface across the valley. Now it’s over 400 feet below the surface across the entire valley. It’s dropped at least 50 to 75 feet since I moved there about 14 years ago from the Finger Lakes region of NY.

       Water in Indian Wells Valley is about 3 times the price I pay here (and the bill here also includes a sewer bond payment).

       I’m sitting in the FLs right now, a five minute walk to Seneca Lake, and heading back to Ridgecrest this week to sell the house and “Get Out Of Dodge” as soon as possible and come back here for good.

       When it comes to the water situation in Indian Wells Valley, that area is getting more and more frightening every year. I’m still a little shocked that Kern County and the Indian Wells Valley Water District even allowed that farm to start, as are most other residents of that area.

       The Navy has a huge investment in China Lake, including an additional $6 Billion due to the 2019 earthquake. It will be interesting to see how they handle this mess.
12. Colonel Smithers November 11, 2024 at 8:09 am

    Thank you, Conor.

    Further to the Mark Ames tweet, I would add its UK peer.

    Further to the Will Schryver tweet, readers outside the UK should be aware that the UK MSM reports Starmer as talking big to Trump and even the EU, especially over tariffs and Ukraine.

    With regard to the UK and the timely link to the King opening food distribution hubs, it hasn’t got a pot to piss in, if readers will excuse my crude form of words. Last week, spring 2024 figures detailing the impact of Brexit were updated for the government by the Office for Budget Responsibility:

    This is the reality for fcUKed: “Since the June 2016 EU referendum, our forecasts have assumed that the volume of UK imports and exports will both be 15 per cent lower than if we had remained in the EU. We assume that the resulting reduction in the trade intensity of GDP will lead to a 4 per cent reduction in the potential productivity of the UK economy (relative to remaining in the EU), with the full effect felt after 15 years” (OBR ‘Economic and fiscal outlook – March 2024’, p.38 box).

    In short, the economy is shrinking by 4% of GDP, and the effect is long term. The worst has still to come, and it will be damaging the UK’s economic wellbeing, even after fifteen years. What the OBR does not do is spell out the quantum. The Government, politicians, economists and journalists throw around big figures (£Bns) that spook and stress the British public. The Debt, the Deficit; or how much the Government is spending on the NHS, or Pensions. But they never, ever quantify (£Bns) for the cost of Brexit.

    4% of GDP is GDP is circa £90Bn. This dwarfs all the figures for Government spend, or tax increases, or Budget changes. £90Bn shortfall, every single year is shrinking the economy on a scale that is beyond any government, or any private sector growth, fully to offset. It is not over. The worst is still to come. Brexit is the core problem it is destroying living standards and causing serious damage, across the board – to supply, to demand, to demography, to everything – and no government can change it, without revisiting a European customs union, or single market, or end of Brexit.

    The USA and its electorate, which appears to preoccupy much of the British elite, is not in our predicament. It will not accept a shrinking economy; still less a self-inflicted shrinking economy. It is able to take this position because American exceptionalism still has purchase on the world. The US is the world’s largest economy, still; it possesses the world’s Reserve Currency, the world’s strongest military, and exercises most widely an exercise of political power throughout the world on a scale that is still unmatched.

    Britain is not any of these things. However, the British electorate is so detached from reality it still acts as if it was all these things, and refuses to accept reality. It thought the tough part of Brexit was voting for it. The tough part – is living it. And living what Brexit means has only just begun. As the OBR suggests; the worst is yet to come; and the British people are an extremely ill-assorted, ill-managed community, providing little evidence they are equipped or prepared to handle the reality of the disaster they have inflicted on themselves; their children and grandchildren.

    If one does not like this conclusion, then show how Britain is going to generate growth to recover £90Bn++ of lost economic activity every single year. Just how much growth could the British economy ever conceivably produce, every single year. Britain’s long term growth rates are in the 1.5-2.% range, and that is a prescription for total failure in the world of Brexit. Sustained growth at rates Britain, at the peak of its performance (when it had little serious competition) has never achieved, are now required as a matter of urgency. The economy has shrunk. The UK is operating near capacity. It has serious labour shortages in critical areas and a weak industrial base, is over-dependent on imports, and austerity has been so endemic for so long , the infrastructure is grossly inadequate and is in serious disrepair. In addition, the population is ageing, ailing and increasingly unproductive. Anecdotally, the qualified young, especially from the ethnic minorities, are beginning to vote with their feet.
    1. Ignacio November 11, 2024 at 9:07 am

       But, but, the UK has 5x AI start-ups compared to Germany. That must mean something… or not.
       1. Colonel Smithers November 11, 2024 at 9:41 am

          Thank you, Ignacio.

          Yes. I heard that figure, too.

          Having quoted OBR figures, which I often dispute, I am wary of many British government figures such as inflation (hiding the real level of inflation), (un)employment (getting unemployment numbers down), forms of death (masking the real level of suicides), industry sizes (lots of double counting)

          I hope Revenant pipes up as he works in related investments and knows about the start ups.
          1. JW November 11, 2024 at 11:17 am

             You didn’t mention the economy killing effect of Milliband’s net zero, which could dwarf even that of Brexit.
             There is only destination of an economy turning from low to high entropy energy sources, inefficiency and even quicker decline of productivity and at enormous initial and recurring cost.
             The UK is f’cked!
          2. Revenant November 11, 2024 at 2:37 pm

             Reporting for duty, Colonel!

             I started to write an answer but it became an essay about a profoundly disturbing consultation meeting I attended on Labour’s new industrial policy so I put it aside but I might revisit it later….

             The short answer is that the UK, like the rest of Europe, is walking towards the guns, like WWI, because of strategic blindness at the top, in every sphere of public life. Nobody is telling the Emperor he has no clothes – or he doesn’t listen or doesn’t care. Only some sort of the rupture can save it.

             In investment specifically, the recent policy announcements confirm this.

             – We have an “industrial policy” for the first time in decades, which promotes zero-sum and negative sum rentier sectors like fintech and the military industrial complex and carpet-bagger infested sectors like AI and quantum computing. I read it the same day that I read that an innovative UK technology companies was being allowed to die / be broken up for parts for want of funding (Reaction Engines, the developers of a unique scramjet technology that will allow controlled hypersonic flight by reusable aircraft).

             – the return of inheritance taxation on private company shareholdings. If as a wealthy older person (the typical business angel), you can invest in a start-up or small company but, on your death, your family will have to sell or borrow against illiquid shares to pay a 20% tax, why would you make the investment? You would be better off investing in liquid assets. And if you are an enterpreneur, you risk your family having to sell control of the business: better to cash out early to a foreign acquirer than to build the business for the long-haul.

             Business angel and start-up founder decisions are barely rational anyway – at their age, most angels would be better in low risk assets and most start-ups fail – and the inheritance tax relief is a significant part of the compensation for the risks of investing in start-ups (along with income tax and capital gains tax relief), whether directly or via venture capital partnerships. Of course, the super-rich will never pay this tax but they will not be patiently investing in local UK start-ups either. The long-term consequences of this change will be profound for UK risk capital formation and for entrepreneurs.

             If they wanted to tax the owners of businesses so large that banks will lend against them as if they were liquid collateral and so enable capital gains tax-free “realisation”, they could just have treated borrowing against a private shareholding as an immediate imputed distribution/disposal and taxed the loan up-front, with subsequent relief if the security is realised at a loss on its value at loan draw-down.

             Finally, with respect, I disagree with you about Brexit: our situation would be much worse if we were more tightly coupled to the German albatross, now that they have chosen to crash their traded manufacturing sector on high energy costs and their domestic consumption on austerity, in order to pursue war with Russia.

             High energy and land prices and economic rents to foreign / off-shore owners and unfunded immigration and public services are doing far more damage to the UK economy than reduced trade with a Europe that is entering permanent recession. The low-hanging fruit of reflation, reindustrialisation, public investment and definancialisation are all domestic policy matters – but unfortunately will not be grasped by any current politician, except possibly Farage.
    2. PlutoniumKun November 11, 2024 at 12:46 pm

       The longer term projections for the UK are really grim. And that’s assuming that Brexit won’t make things even worse (I suspect that the outflow of investment will get worse as the impact of trade rules tightens up – this process is only really starting).

       As for the start-up scene – its not my area expertise, but I did talk about this a while back to a relative who is London based and has a fast growing AI-adjacent business. He had a choice of countries to set up in (US and Europe), but still chose London. He said that the ease of raising investment money is a key advantage, but the availability of specialist staff is another important one for him. I don’t know how widespread this is, but I think the overall success of the UK start up scene is a real, although one wonders whether many of the start ups will stay in the UK when it comes to turning themselves into real businesses – they may find there are just too many advantages to transferring to another European capital or the US.

       The mobility of the highest qualified young people is another big issue. I don’t think there is much doubt but that UK universities have lost some of their gloss for international students, and this in the longer term feeds into the number of high quality immigrants, as many of the latter are students who stay. And London is under a lot of competition from other capitals as places to ‘rest’ your spare cash for the rich around the world. New York, Shanghai, Singapore, Dubai, Paris, etc., all want a piece of that action.

       There is nothing particularly wrong with living in a country in relative decline (in terms of GNP) if its managed right – Japan has shown its possible. Maybe even desirable in some respects. But it requires a specific set of circumstances and a strong social structure and good leadership. I’m not so sure this can be said to apply to the UK.
       1. Revenant November 11, 2024 at 2:45 pm

          I agree with every point of yours PK. The UK has a real advantage in starting businesses in terms of professional services, company formation, mostly reliable tax system and light touch regulation.

          But:
          – this is only if the business is global in outlook. The domestic market is bad in the private sector (large companies are badly managed, inconsistent, are not innovative and have unworkable procurement approaches and speeds for small companies) and impossible in the public sector.
          – The UK still has a larger VC market than France and Germany put together but when you disaggregate the figures, this is all because of a handful of huge funding rounds for unspeakable fintech companies. Actual capital devoted to deeptech businesses developing new hardware or software is no better than the competition and a lot of this capital is herding right now into AI and SaaS businesses and will not touch other opportunities.

          I don’t see the UK pulling off managed decline successfully again. The population is too diverse and the leadership class too selfish.
    3. .Tom November 11, 2024 at 1:36 pm

       I tell people to watch the UK closely because it is and will remain the vanguard of Western decline.

       Because Brexit.

       The process of decline will put huge stress on society and politics and the resulting fights are going to be ugly. I don’t propose it as spectator sport for the schadenfreude but because such decline is coming to probably all proud Western nations in time and we may as well learn some lessons from the UK in the process.
    4. Anonymous 2 November 11, 2024 at 3:06 pm

       Thank you, Colonel for your comments, eloquent and intelligent as always.

       You will be aware, I imagine, that other studies such as the doppelganger exercise by John Springford, assess the cost of Brexit as higher still than the OBR – 5.5% of GDP already, according to one fairly recent set of calculations. Of course, these exercises can never be ‘factual’ as they suppose an alternative reality which never took place (the UK staying in the EU). But the study seems a serious attempt to measure the effect of Brexit. And it is clear from other evidence that Brexit has made life more difficult for businesses in the UK and therefore for the UK’s ability to earn its way in the world. Productivity growth has almost completely disappeared. Foreign investment in the UK has diminished considerably as it was an important selling point for the UK that it was inside the European Single Market (I know this from personal experience as one of my responsibilities decades ago was to persuade foreign investors to come to the UK – I remember the look in their eyes when I could (at that time pretty truthfully) assert that the UK was the best place to do business inside the European Single Market).

       And yet no one, it seems to me, dares to draw attention to this issue. To me it appears that there has either been an agreement or an order from on high (Murdoch?) that this subject is not to be discussed in the UK public square – a sort of Brexit omerta as it were. And yet, I think, none of the problems that the UK now faces can be satisfactorily addressed if this matter is not explicitly recognised and discussed.

       As a Scot, can I make a small quibble about one issue? It seems to me that some of your remarks apply more to the English than the British. My fellow countrymen and I doubtless have many faults but I think on this matter we are less out of touch with reality than our friends and cousins south of the Border.
    5. ChrisPacific November 11, 2024 at 3:55 pm

       …and no government can change it, without revisiting a European customs union, or single market, or end of Brexit.

       Bearing in mind how the UK metaphorically smashed all the windows, graffitied the walls, and took a big dump on the front porch on its way out, I struggle to see how the EU would look favorably on any UK government asking to be let back in. Who wants to go through all that again?
    6. eg November 11, 2024 at 10:25 pm

       Just another speed bump on the long, slow managed decline that’s been underway since the end of “imperial preference” …
13. Psyched November 11, 2024 at 8:11 am

    RE: Memories are not only in the brain, human cell study finds

    I have had a philosophical idea I would like to share with you all:

    Everything has a memory, What makes something conscious is only the ability to compare current sensory input to memories.

    What is a memory but a record, yes? I can look at a rock, for example, and I can look how smooth it is, and I can recall it’s memory. If it is well worn and rounded it was probably in some fast moving water or wind at some point. And I can look at tree rings to know what year there was a drought.

    Our genetics are a memory record as well, a record of the environment we evolved in, and I can read that memory now by looking at someone. Do you have darker skin? You probably can from a region where there was a lot of sun exposure. I can remember my ancestry by using genetic ancestry.

    So what makes something “alive” or “conscious”? I believe it is the ability to read memories, which is the function of the nervous system: Read, Remember, Compare, React.

    So in the article about, is the cell remembering or is the cell helping create memories. It is the later. The stimulation of the “memory gene” (CREB) stimulates the release of neurotransmitters and those neurotransmitters effect the nervous system telling the body to “remember this” if the neurotransmitters get to high.
14. The Rev Kev November 11, 2024 at 8:20 am

    ‘Kevin Bass PhD MS
    @kevinnbass
    Yale psychiatrist Amanda Calhoun, a medical doctor and mental health expert, advises MSNBC viewers to break off ties with family members who voted for Trump and refuse to see them on the holidays’

    Am really troubled by the ethics of what that Yale psychiatrist said. She is giving blanket advice to an unknown number of people whom she has never treated or ever will. She is telling people to cut themselves from their families and by implications friends and neighbours as well. These people could very easily become isolated and may in despair harm themselves. Came across a video today about election meltdowns of which there are many-

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1fWCyaIchU (9:26 mins) – language alert!

    A while back I might have found them amusing but after reading what IM DOC is dealing with, no longer. Attempted suicides, people working themselves up into heart attacks, girls shaving their head bald, women renouncing any physical contact with half the population, etc. And this trick cyclist is telling these people to cut off all contact with their families? Yeah, not a great plan.
    1. griffen November 11, 2024 at 8:37 am

       I managed to stay mostly inactive on the social media cra*, er platforms throughout much of this year’s election cycle. In daily practice it’s actually so easy to do so, just avoid it completely. Zuckerberg never sent me a dime for any potential traffic being pulled into FB with my pithy anecdotes.

       Much of what I will post has been apolitical anyway, except for at the end of the week…Oh well the wailing, the lamentations, the cries for the innocent slaughtered under Biden ( unsure on this one )…My post basically engendered a theme of no love lost for the terms under Obama or the term under Biden…I didn’t watch Hamilton and life just was not so grand these past 2+ years after our “declining inflation, life now good once again” mantras being put on repeat.
    2. Wukchumni November 11, 2024 at 8:40 am

       2, 4, 6, 8
       All is lost
       Defenestrate!

       (cheer void in buildings less than 2 stories)
    3. IM Doc November 11, 2024 at 8:55 am

       It has been true for all time, and it is true now…..

       In the vast majority of cases, the first line of defense in self harm, ranging from stupid stunts all the way to suicide, is the immediate family members.

       The tragedy of this kind of talk coming from a younger medical professional tells you all you need to know about the disaster that has befallen medicine in the past 10 years. It is not a coincidence that she hails from one of our “elite” medical schools.

       I cannot go to national medical conferences anymore to protect my own mental health. The experience is like being injected directly into “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”.
    4. petal November 11, 2024 at 9:11 am

       Isn’t that what cults do? Isolate people from family and friends and those closest to them, so that then they are surrounded only by the cult and its message?
       1. funemployed November 11, 2024 at 9:33 am

          also abusers
       2. Duke of Prunes November 11, 2024 at 10:59 am

          Well yeah… if they talk to their friends and family, someone might just tell them to turn off MSNBC. Can’t have that.
    5. Psyched November 11, 2024 at 9:44 am

       This is typical cult behavior! Insane! That is what cults do to people to isolate them and control them.

       So sad an deranged.

       I also just signed up to Bluesky and wow the TDS is really strong there. Thinking it is fine for FEMA to not help people with Trump signs. etc…
       1. Screwball November 11, 2024 at 10:15 am

          This seems to be a thing too. A bunch of my PMC friends are trying to find out what social media platform to use to get away from Twitter. Two reasons, to boycott Musk because they hate him, and to get away from all the bad stuff they see on Twitter, which mostly means anyone not like them. TL;DR – they are looking to find that safe space where all minds are alike.

          But Trump fans are the cultists.
          1. flora November 11, 2024 at 3:18 pm

             And the more people are divided the richer Wall St becomes.

             I’ve always counted on friends and neighbors to help me move house. I don’t care a bit about their politics. They help me move, I treat them to some good food for their help, etc. It’s the neighborly and friendly thing. I return the favor.

             But oh man! If I did care about their politics I might have to hire a moving company! ya know? / ;)
    6. Saffa November 11, 2024 at 10:13 am

       Agree w Rev Kev and rest. Horrifyingly unprofessional, and the reason why I would take the advice of a social worker over a psychiatrist any day (just as a basic rule of thumb). I have goosebumps of rage.

       I speak as someone who took 20 years to come to the realisation that although trauma research and insight coming from the left and liberal and feminist mental health spheres have brought valuable lessons to the fore, it also sadly serves as a magnet for dangerous individuals acting out narcissistic pathologies to the detriment of potentially countless families. It’s tragic, and I’m grateful for not getting so caught up in it that I lost my family over the years. It was close!

       It reminds me of religious and spiritual predators in its most vile form. I cannot actually express the damage that it can cause in emotionally sensitive and traumatised young people. Instead what we need are the inter-communal skill development to both recognise the dangers and insights and consequences of trauma passed on from the parents, while also embracing and living the greater compassion and understanding that the children may be capable of as a result.

       In my case, the lack of tools to communicate to defensive parents my profound need to process the banal horrors of (their) existence WITH THEM, in a way that wouldn’t force me to feel like choosing between family, and Justice. Some of us sensitive types require more sustained reckoning with some complexities of human existence, and understandably, sometimes distant academics, or ‘industry pros’ can appear to provide that vocabulary more readily than our elders. Especially if community leaders (preachers etc) let us down, as in the case of for example my community’s role in Apartheid.

       Of course I might be proven wrong, if my Trump supporting father was also wrong and we really are about to enter the beginning of the fourth Reich. But fortunately for now, I remain tentatively optimistic that the final step of “divide and conquer” of families may have washed close to my family’s shore, but fortunately left it intact.

       IMHO there is no point understanding trauma and its role in Narcissistic politics, if we aren’t able to extend that understanding with love and forgiveness to those afflicted by its result, rather than waste it on those who would weaponise us against each other— classic flying monkey BS.
       1. flora November 11, 2024 at 4:52 pm

          Thank you, Saffa. I’ve often wondered how the children during the western world Great Depression’s food deprivation, and who came of age in WWII with family and friends gone off to war, some not to return, suffered from some form of PTSD. And I’ve wondered what effect those unresolved traumas might have had on their children and grandchildren.
    7. Louis Fyne November 11, 2024 at 10:27 am

       Given how the niche of the viewership of TV and cable news network, I now totally understand how the mental crisis is happening, while the vast majority of people are just moving on with life.

       some ratings numbers for the news networks….

       The average age of the viewers of US over-the-air network news is 69 years!
       MSNBC only gets 162,000 primetime viewers in the ages of 25-54 out of >1.4 million total viewers.

       https://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/week-of-october-28-2024-cable-news-ratings/
       https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/tv-viewers-oldest-audiences-1235910778/
    8. Berny3 November 11, 2024 at 11:02 am

       But the tweet misrepresented what the psychiatrist said. If you listen to the video, she doesn’t advise people to cut off others, what she says is that it’s OK to do so if you want to. There is a difference there, and I have no problem with what she said. For instance, I don’t hang around with anyone who makes excuses for genocide, and I don’t care if that “isolates” me.
    9. IM Doc November 11, 2024 at 11:28 am

       And here is the other tragic part of this story. Just this AM, my very first patient – a young man with wife and two kids. He has informed me that he has been completely cut off from his sisters – the parents are dead. They have disinvited him and his family to Thanksgiving this year. All because he dared make the mistake a few weeks ago to voice displeasure with Liz Cheney being courted by Kamala. Tears in the eyes. How any aunties can justify their behavior taking this out on the little kids is just beyond me.

       Folks – let me tell you something – this ONLY goes one way in my world – the MSNBC types are almost always the ones who do the disinviting and familial detachment. It is shameful.

       My wife has given me blanket permission to invite any and all of these people for dinner. I refuse to have them be alone. So far we are looking at about 20. And that is just fine – it is often a very good time.

       What has happened to us? What has happened to our families and our country?
       1. Wukchumni November 11, 2024 at 11:31 am

          We let politicians set the agenda and we blindly followed their every command as to which side to be on.

          Go outside and play instead, America
       2. bobert November 11, 2024 at 12:56 pm

          My partner just shared a tweet from a friend’s father. Because the Trumpers in his family cannot listen to “facts and logic”, they are all disinvited from Thanksgiving dinner. This is a large family that usually has big gatherings. The friend is happy with this development.

          On the home front, my partner has informed me that we are no longer to discuss politics, at least for the next four years. A close friend will also not discuss politics with me due to my “defense” of Trump. I have always been adamant about my disgust with Trump and his policies. My “defense” consisted of noting that he is not in fact a gibbering idiot and is a much wilier, savvy politician than Harris ever was. I’ve consistently noted that I expected bad things from the Republicans, my deepest rage was aimed at the Democrats because they were supposedly the good guys and had utterly failed to live up to that. I tried to tie that in to the bigger picture, that people are tired of the Democrats lying and law-faring and giggling with billionaires while lecturing the lower classes. Paired with the fact that they have been in power more often than the Republicans the last few administrations. But that doesn’t land, it’s that Racist! people just don’t want a black woman president…
          1. Zagonostra November 11, 2024 at 1:16 pm

             Someone in the comment sections said something to the effect that you can’t change anyone’s opinion by the use of reason/logic/history when it wasn’t acquired that way to begin with. That was good advice. I don’t plan to bring up politics over holidays, but I’ll damn sure not stand down or hold my tongue when opening presents itself.
       3. PeterfromGeorgia November 11, 2024 at 1:22 pm

          I am 50 with two siblings, 48 (brother) and 46 (sister). Neither have any children, while I have two teenage kids. They are PMC all the way while I lean far right (well past that imperfect vessel, Trump). We were friendly and normal until the Trump election in 2016, when we couldn’t talk politics (not the worst thing in the world). We at least got together at major holidays and made regular visits to each others’ homes. After 2020, it exploded. My brother and I had a huge argument in 2020 regarding BLM, Trump, etc. over Labor Day – he kept accusing me of being a racist and I eventually snapped and insulted him over a sensitive personal point. He walked out of our party and lives. Other than being cordial when our father died in 2023 for a funeral, we have not spoken or communicated. He even refused an olive branch sent through our 80 year old mother earlier this year.

          My sister and I had an unwritten rule of never mentioning politics, but she cut off all communication this summer when election rhetoric heated up – in fact, she even left the country on a spiritual sojourn this election cycle. My brother has not hung out in years. For a couple of years, they asked when we’d get together, but they’ve stopped asking now. It utterly breaks my heart, for they have no cousins (I grew up with over 25 in my family) and now they have no aunts or uncles.

          The actions of this “us or them” mentality and divide are literally tearing families apart and it breaks my heart. I try to keep it from hardening me, but I don’t know how long I can keep on caring.
          1. Yves Smith November 11, 2024 at 1:25 pm

             I am so so sorry.
          2. Anonymous 2 November 11, 2024 at 2:27 pm

             Society is being manipulated so as to cause divisions. Be aware that you too are almost certainly being manipulated. We are all susceptible to it, perhaps especially those who think they are impervious.

             Humility is always a virtue. This includes being prepared to admit to others – and oneself – that one could be wrong in one’s opinions, including – perhaps especially – those on politics.
          3. Ellery O'Farrell November 11, 2024 at 9:10 pm

             Hang in there. Keep reaching out, from time to time, calling up memories rather than disagreements–the things you all share. And do it over and over (70 times seven?), at appropriate intervals, because it will be worth it, especially if it works out but even if it doesn’t. They’ll know you love them.

             Caring is what life is all about. If it hurts, it hurts.

             I think Glen (below) is right. Family (and friends) is more important.

             I’m so sorry you have to go through this.
       4. Louis Fyne November 11, 2024 at 1:44 pm

          I wish IM Doc, or someone like him, was 2024 America’s Cincinnatus.

          no joke.

          https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucius_Quinctius_Cincinnatus
       5. .Tom November 11, 2024 at 2:00 pm

          Last year I read some of The Book of Margery Kempe, autobiographical story of an English 15th c woman. It’s really amazing and I recommend it. One thing that really struck me was how deep and pervasive ritual demonstrations of orthodoxy were in every day life. It’s like everyone had to spend half their time convincing everyone else that they were pure of thought and deed. There were all manner of gotchas and the rules were complex. Violations could lead to big trouble and anyone could snitch on you.
       6. Glen November 11, 2024 at 2:52 pm

          Good for your wife! My wife places family way, way above politics and the thought of dis-inviting any family from coming to our house over politics or what’s blathering away on the boob tube is (I am very happy to report) just a complete non-starter in our home. Her family is split into Dems/Repubs whereas my family has been firmly in the rather cynical “You think any party is going to do anything for average Americans? Are you crazy?” camp for a long, long time. That’s not to say things are all roses, there are always things happening in families that cause conflict, but I think politics is real, real low on the totem pole.

          We went to a big family reunion for my father-in-law this summer – he’s not doing very well. We haven’t all been together in years, and I was looking forward to it. I was warned that I should probably not talk politics with so and so, so of course I immediately talked politics with them for hours. No arguments, no yelling, no screaming, just respect, AND LISTEN. What did I discover? I’ve got smart informed relatives that love their family and love their country. We agree on +90% of everything, and the rest is a good discussion. I’m lucky to know them. This is much better than having a brother in law that was beating his wife and kids and we were all desperately trying to do everything we could to stop it. He’s gone, but oh, the damage.

          If we’re really looking at the Jackpot, and need to form communities to get through whatever is coming. It should certainly START with family. Shouldn’t it?
          1. Giovanni Barca November 11, 2024 at 6:32 pm

             An extended family with tight bonds is (I think–?) the best antidote to the ravages of (put oversimply) capitalism. Trust has to spread outwards. I think of my family. My doctrinally dogmatically Democratic “birth family” are awful, selfish, social-climbing people. My extended family are Trumpers through and through, more or less because they are Republicans through and through. I disagree with these folks’ politics and social worldview ar every scale yet they are warm, compassionate, loving, giving. Why on earth would I break with them? I think of my friends and both the wild woolly hippie leftists and the Trumpers bordering on Qanonity are great people. The Democrat and moderate friends are to be honest only moderately friendly. The cleavages (political and personal) do not align. Here the personal is political only in the sense that the personal is the future of any meaningful polis.
    10. Jeremy Grimm November 11, 2024 at 11:32 am

        I believe a lot of MSNBC viewers and I would add NPR listeners, have already cut off all ties with the wrong-thinking non-Democrats among their friends, relations, and acquaintances. I lost one friend that way. It was because I suggested I intended to vote for Jill Stein in the hope that some third party would get their percentage of the public. It did not matter that I live in a ultra-Blue state where any vote but Blue was already a vote “wasted”.
        1. Yves Smith November 11, 2024 at 12:54 pm

           I just lost one as well. The immediate row was something else but I had been repeatedly on the receiving end of TDS and too often had made clear I was not on board.
        2. flora November 11, 2024 at 12:58 pm

           The saddest part to me is this: As they shrink their interactions with people outside their bubble the worse their anxiety and whatever will become, and the less able they’ll be able to easily navigate a complex world filled with all kinds of opinions and facts and challenges. It’s a negative emotion feedback loop. / my 2 cents.

           I remember back before all this started that, for decades, most families had a joking nod toward not taking ‘crazy uncle’ or ‘dippy aunt’ too serious at the Thanksgiving table. That’s just how they are. And if grandpa gets started on war stories and goes on too long just nod and smile. It was a well known gentle, humorous family courtesy towards relatives that one might deem tiresome or nutty.

           Whatever happened to that idea?
           1. flora November 11, 2024 at 1:07 pm

              I mean, this isn’t exactly the Dreyfus Affair.
              1. alfred venison November 11, 2024 at 6:19 pm

                 they didn’t talk about it . . . then they did talk about it . . .

                 https://images.app.goo.gl/XMWrSXczcBMaWJmY7
    11. wilroncanada November 11, 2024 at 2:08 pm

        The Rev Kev
        I just recall my mother’s definition of expert; Ex is he unknown, and spurt is a drip with a force behind it.
15. Ignacio November 11, 2024 at 8:26 am

    “Kamala Harris’s former communications director proposes that Biden step down within 30 days to allow Kamala to temporarily assume the presidency as a sort of symbolic gesture”

    And, by the way get dirty hands with the blood of Palestinians, Lebanese, Ukrainians, Russians… I wouldn’t call him a friend if I was Harris.
    1. Alice X November 11, 2024 at 9:09 am

       She’d be the one left holding the bag. Of course she could also stop arms shipments. Naw…
    2. ArvidMartensen November 11, 2024 at 3:25 pm

       I think he will make a gracious gesture to Harris around the time that hell freezes over.

       Reports before the election of Biden upstaging big events Harris was holding, and then Jill dressing in red to vote, all lead me to believe that he is behaving quite normally for a politician who thinks he was shafted by his own side.
       It is quite normal for a politician to hate his own side more than the opponents if his own side has basically betrayed him, in his eyes. This isn’t due to Alzheimers or any of that mularky, it is pure human nature.

       I would say that he and Jill are furious that the Dems ditched him for a candidate who couldn’t win a childs prize at a county fair. Especially since Joe is probably still of the opinion that he would have beaten Trump again. He may feel that his legacy has been trashed by his own side.

       I wonder if he was drugged at that debate, given the clear-headed speech he gave about the election.
16. Wukchumni November 11, 2024 at 8:29 am

    I raised the tariff
    But it didn’t goose the economy, oh no, oh
    I raised the tariff
    But it didn’t goose the economy, ooh, ooh, ooh

    Yeah! All around in Mar-A-Largo town
    They’re tryin’ to track me down, yeah
    They say they want to bring me in guilty
    For the killing of PPT
    For the life of a new treaty but I say
    Oh, now, now, oh

    I raised the tariff
    (But I swear it was in self-defence) oh no, oh, oh, ooh
    Yeah, I say, I raised the tariff oh, Lord (and they say it is for capital, an offence)
    Yeah, yeah! Hear that

    Donkey Show always hated me
    For what, I don’t know
    Every time I plan a screed
    They said kill it before it goes
    They said kill it before it goes, and so-and-so
    Read it in the news!

    oh, Lord!
    But I swear it was in self-defence
    Where was the Dem Party? (Ooh, ooh, ooh)
    I say, I raised the tariff
    But I swear it was in self-defence, yeah! (Ooh)

    Freedom came my way one day
    And I started out of DC town, yeah
    All of a sudden I saw neoliberalism aiming to shoot me down
    So, I shot, I shot, I shot them down and I say
    If I am guilty in civil trials I will pay (pay, pay, pay, pay…)

    But I say but I didn’t kill no economy like Joe
    I didn’t kill no economy, no (ooh, ooh, ooh)
    (I raised the tariff I agree
    (But I didn’t kill the economy) oh
    (Ooh, ooh, ooh)

    Reflexes had got the better of me
    And what is to be must be
    Every day the bucket a-go a-well
    One day the bottom a-go drop out
    One day the bottom a-go drop out

    I say
    I, I, I, I raised the tariff
    Lord, I didn’t kill the economy, no
    I, I (raised the tariff)
    But I didn’t kill no economy yeah
    So, yeah

    I Shot the Sheriff, by Bob Marley

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sG52YAe8Crg
    1. flora November 11, 2024 at 12:49 pm

       Great! / ;)
       1. marku52 November 11, 2024 at 3:09 pm

          “Every time I plan a screed..”

          Too Fing good……
          1. Giovanni Barca November 11, 2024 at 6:36 pm

             Also your best metrically.
17. Es s Ce Tera November 11, 2024 at 8:30 am

    re: Working construction in a housing crisis Canadian Dimension

    As a Torontonian I can attest the situation is as ridiculous as described. My partner and I have decent salaries and decent down payment saved and yet cannot afford a house. Average house prices even for dumpsters are over a million CAD. If that’s out of reach for a successful couple then it’s out of reach for the vast majority.

    The cause is flippers, investors and multihome owners. The government response has been to put obstacles in front of foreign investors but else has done nothing to stop every other sort of investor from driving prices up.
    1. jefemt November 11, 2024 at 9:14 am

       Wait! Are you saying America is NOT exceptional?
    2. Milton November 11, 2024 at 9:50 am

       Yup. The last 3 houses on our block that were sold are now abnb/vrbo rentals. They are not even attempting to make the houses long term rentals. It’s depressing when a for sale sign is taken down and not see a moving van pull up shortly thereafter. All you see are contractors spiffing up the place and prepping it for the vacationers.

       Note – and the the city wants to build more housing units because they claim we are experiencing a housing shortage.

       Double note – the City of San Diego has built more dwelling units since 2020 than the overall increase in population.

       The housing shortage is plainly due to financial shenanigans and mayoral office acquiescence.
       1. Wukchumni November 11, 2024 at 9:57 am

          We are now up to around 340 short term rentals in Tiny Town, and eventually when the AirBnBust happens, every last one of them is ready to be shown by a Realtor… pre-staged as it were, with no pesky issues for the rather sudden rush to the exit by the startled would-be Hilton masses, such as leaving friends in the neighborhood, or worrying about the kids readjusting to somewhere else, because there aren’t any.
    3. nyleta November 11, 2024 at 3:43 pm

       Same here in Australia, a huge influx of immigrants in the last 18 months to make up the Covid shortfall in way too short a time has lifted rents so high that young people can no longer save for a deposit. Vacancies are really tight.

       Building houses is just another core competency that we are losing as well, construction is well down and home prices are stuck at a permanently high plateau. We will have to let the air out of our real estate bubble like the Chinese. This is the last great US advantage, not so high real estate bubble, but now that the US has a gov. for speculators and other assets are so high the housing will probably be targeted.
    4. Kouros November 11, 2024 at 4:21 pm

       CBC announced on the waves that the mother of wealth exchange is under way, with lots of oldies kicking the bucket and passing the buck to their descendents… That is the only hope for many Canadians…
18. midtownwageslave November 11, 2024 at 8:46 am

    Finally, legislation NY’ers can truly be proud of:

    NYC foster kids would get luggage for belongings instead of trash bags under new bill

    https://gothamist.com/news/nyc-foster-kids-would-get-luggage-for-belongings-instead-of-trash-bags-under-new-bill
    1. Yves Smith November 11, 2024 at 12:57 pm

       I know it sounds pathetic but that is a big deal. A friend in CA is a backup foster to a pair of sisters, and they did get a boost when he and his wife gave them luggage. Made them more like normal people.
19. IM Doc November 11, 2024 at 8:50 am

    Trump talks to Putin.
    Except all over my feed today from all sides, it is being told that Putin denies this ever happened. There has been no call according to these reports.

    Whom does one believe? The news media that lies all the time or the internet sites, lately demonstrating an ability to get things right.
    1. Charger01 November 11, 2024 at 8:59 am

       The dreck of the day. I’m curious what will be the new boogeyman phrase that will encapsulate the second Trump administration. We had “Russia Russia Russia” to great effect in 2016, I have not heard a theme proposed in media for the present day. How about “the Grover Cleveland” ?
       1. Wukchumni November 11, 2024 at 9:26 am

          ‘the Grover Cleveland’ was a grandido back in the day

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_one-thousand-dollar_bill#/media/File:1000dollarbill.jpg
    2. The Rev Kev November 11, 2024 at 9:23 am

       Just after the election the news media was questioning itself and how isolated they were from the majority of Americans and perhaps they should change. But then Amsterdam happened and it was wall to wall media coverage of pogroms and innocent Israeli football fans attacked by Arabs in antisemitic attacks and all the rest of it so they never learned a damn thing at all.
    3. dingusansich November 11, 2024 at 10:30 am

       You answer your own question.

       One can’t help but wonder if this isn’t a prank meant to discredit the Washington Post, a preemptive strike on the media by the new administration—which will deride reporting as fake news, even or especially when it’s not fake—by planting a genuine fake.

       With apologies to John Wanamaker (or whoever said it, if anyone): Half the news I read might be true, but I’m never able to decide which half.
    4. Idaho_Randy November 11, 2024 at 11:52 am

       Have adjusted the tin-foil hat.
       The Resistance has not given up.
       Trump is still a private citizen. His contact with Putin could well be deemed a violation of the Logan Act.
       Arrest and jail him. No bond (do it in DC). No inauguration. Don’t know what would happen if they did that.
    5. ArvidMartensen November 11, 2024 at 3:45 pm

       Well, Trump is a closet puppet of Putin, so let’s remind the population of that link. #Psyop #3.

       In my neck of the woods we had an Opposition leader who spent his time howling about everything, and getting wall-to-wall press coverage. We all stewed in a hyped, anxious, angry, fearful miasma of press hyperbole for a couple of years until he won the election. It was hell, and people breathed a sigh of relief whenever he left the country. He was an abject failure as a leader of a nation and got couped by his own side.

       I am fully expecting that this treatment will be given to Trump. Same as last time. He will be attacked daily for invented transgressions, and the outrage in the press will be monumental. Will they resurrect #Russiagate? Maybe, if they can get it to stick. The mid-terms might return the control of the House to the Dems and then it will be on for young and old.

       As Taibbi has said in his latest post, about the Democrat/Deep State Cult “Is it safe to laugh? Some readers offered a cautious yes, believing the defeat decisive. Others noted outpatients still run universities, public schools, and the media, and will be difficult to dislodge from federal bureaucracies……… [I] worry the cult is only playing dead.
       It’s a trick. Get an axe: ”
       I say amen.
20. flora November 11, 2024 at 8:56 am

    File under 2024 Post Mortem.

    Glenn Greenwald, utube, ~28+ minutes. Economic class.

    Trump’s Landslide Win EXPLAINED

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x8ac6xzDfs
21. pjay November 11, 2024 at 9:04 am

    – ‘Trump offers Rep. Elise Stefanik role of UN ambassador, sources say’ – CNN.

    Anyone who thinks Stefanik is an improvement over Haley should go back and listen to her performances during the McCarthy hearings – I mean the House hearings on campus protests against Israel. Her meteoric rise in the House reflected her dedicated service to the MIC as a member of both the Armed Services and Intelligence Committees. Unlike Haley, Stefanik was wise enough hitch her wagon to Trump early on and stay loyal. For me she is as despicable as Haley but smarter and better connected to the national security apparatus. Not a good sign, but not surprising. Can’t wait to hear her lecturing the UN about global antisemitism and Western values.
    1. The Rev Kev November 11, 2024 at 9:54 am

       This time around I do not think that there are many people in the UN who will sit through a lecture by the US about global antisemitism and Western values when what has been happening in Gaza is a perfect demonstration of those values in action.
       1. Polar Socialist November 11, 2024 at 4:50 pm

          There are indications that the US under Trump may dump the post-WW2 international system as the rest of the globe are starting to use it to restrain US and it’s henchmen.

          For example China is trying to woo the EU back to supporting the existing international system and “the rule of law” and not “block” with the more and more unhinged United States while there’s still time (for the EU, that is).
    2. Samuel Conner November 11, 2024 at 11:40 am

       Under current circumstances and the events of the last year, US ambassadorship to the UN sounds, to me, like “punishment duty.”

       Is Stefanik potentially some kind of problem for DJT in the House?
    3. upstater November 11, 2024 at 1:40 pm

       Look at the positive side… NY21, the north country of NYS will have a special election. The previous incumbent was democrat Bill Owens. There was a whiff of scandal, IIRC. Democrats are a rarity up there.

       No more McCarthy performances for Elise, another bonus.
    4. bertl November 11, 2024 at 5:19 pm

       Interesting how many people from the House and Senate are being or who might be offered or are pushing themselves forward for jobs at the President’s favour. How would you clear out potential opposition from extremists in Congress and, at the same time, honour an alleged promise in the full knowledge Stefanik will blow herself up on the job?

       As a House committee member she could afford to get tough with witnesses and humiliate them. In the UN she will be f*cked over by real experts and she will be forced to resign or get the bum’s rush for incompetence. Politics is a fucking rough trade and Trump has got tougher and rougher. Stefanik is designed to fail and her ignorance and stupidity has already strengthened the position of anti-Zionists.
22. Mikel November 11, 2024 at 9:10 am

    Why ‘Israel’s’ ultimate defeat will come from economic isolation – Al Mayadeen

    “Yet, Western provocations intensify, pushing Iran into a position where restraint risks looking like passivity. “Israel’s” attacks on Iran’s allies and its relentless assault on Gaza are provocations meant to elicit an overreaction, providing a pretext for escalation.”

    The pretext for escalation is Israel and its backers’ worldview.
    The relentless assault is meant to exterminate people in the region .
    Divestment worked better for something like apartheid – not genocide.
    1. Mikel November 11, 2024 at 10:11 am

       By the numbers: US missile capacity depleting fast – Responsible Statecraft

       Now here’s an article discussing something that will prevent escalation and “overreations” in the region.
    2. Kouros November 11, 2024 at 4:25 pm

       I am looking forward for the time when the International Court of Justice will provide the verdict that Israel, its government(s), and its population are guilty of genocide and ethnic cleansing (by that time Israel would have proven that many time over, with Northern Gaza clensed). This will be a judicial finding and verdict comming from the highest court in the world, and nations are bound to respect it and act upon it. Protesting any event where Israel or representatives from Israel will in fact be a requirement, an implicit requirement flowing from this coming decision. Any government acting against it can be sued, and will be sued by many NGOs, and found in non compliance and breaking the law that everyone in this world has agreed to respect. In a year, or three, or five, Israel will be found guilty of genocide, and the blood libel will be stuck on them for the next 1000 years.
23. Alice X November 11, 2024 at 9:14 am

    Bibi and the Donald see eye to eye on Iran. Of course they do and that is horribly bad news.
    1. jefemt November 11, 2024 at 9:16 am

       I hear the bullet and bomb factories are hiring!
    2. wilroncanada November 11, 2024 at 2:14 pm

       Alice X
       I didn’t realize Bibi was that tall.
       1. Alice X November 11, 2024 at 8:26 pm

          They’re both moral dwarfs.
24. Wukchumni November 11, 2024 at 9:16 am

    Wildfires rage across the Northeast amid warm, dry conditions NBC News
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    You’d never expect to read of wildfires this time of year in the Northeast once upon a time, but that was then and this is now.

    I can’t see how the Sierra Nevada doesn’t burn up in the throes of the Big Heat over the rest of my lifetime, and it seems prudent to be among the vanguard in that regard, with about 40% of Sequoia-Kings Canyon NP torched since 2015. At some point we wont be able to react to all the conflagrations going simultaneously, and have to pick our battles.
    1. juno mas November 11, 2024 at 10:55 pm

       So start the contingency planning.
25. t November 11, 2024 at 9:27 am

    WaPo seems to be quoting Steven Cheung, Trump’s communications director, and following up with people he said they should call to confirm. It’s also written as though Putin made the call.

    And illustrated with a file photo of the two together which is an amazing choice.
26. pjay November 11, 2024 at 9:28 am

    – ‘They Blame the People That They Let Down’ – Rolling Stone

    The second RS article in as many days that confronts the Democrats with some obvious truths – AFTER the election! They spent all their time shrieking about Trump and his fascist takeover of the country before the election and ridiculed any honest attempt to explain his popularity. Zogby makes a lot of good points in this interview. But the hypocrisy of RS is staggering.

    Maybe they’ll rehire Matt Taibbi. Gawd!
    1. Dr. John Carpenter November 11, 2024 at 10:40 am

       I appreciate the Joy Rieds of the world who refuse any introspection because at least they are consistent. The Monday morning quarterbacks, like RS and Sanders, I can do without.
    2. Zagonostra November 11, 2024 at 1:25 pm

       Kind of reminds me of Bernie Sanders. They both lost my trust and they’re not getting it back. They have been relegated to that pile of “don’t bother listening/reading,” like the Atlantic, Harpers, and all of the MSM universe. My memory is pretty good for my age…I don’t easily forget and I need a good reason to forgive, realizing I’m fallen creature myself.
27. griffen November 11, 2024 at 9:29 am

    Watching an observance on the CNBC station this morning …reminds me to put up a comment thanking those who now serve, those who have served, and those who never returned to their homes, their wives or their families. I along with many I am fully aware do not need to look far, up or down, their family tree to find examples of service in times of great and expansive war.

    Football coverage during the weekend was replete with stories and anecdotes and, of course, fighter plane flyovers of large stadiums…

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armistice_Day
28. timbers November 11, 2024 at 9:49 am

    Obama Legacy

    Obama’s biographer reveals ex-president fears for his legacy after ‘tone-deaf preaching’ harmed Harris campaign Daily Mail ********* I doubt it. Obama’s legacy as GWB’s 3rd & 4th term is encased in cement. His legacy is intact regardless of Harris’ fate.
    1. Neutrino November 11, 2024 at 11:50 am

       Is he considering any changes to that library Edifice Complex in Chicago?
       Some cherubs, a wing or two for admirers from past generations to unburden what which has-been? /s
       1. Jabura Basadai November 11, 2024 at 8:29 pm

          St. O’s Presidential Library is a Brutalist POS that steals parkland and homes from Southside folks – and taking a tip from the Clinton grifters, the Obama Foundation, a private nonprofit, runs the whole thing – ya know….the Chicago way, so they can dip their beaks –
    2. .Tom November 11, 2024 at 2:06 pm

       He fears for his legacy, does he? I expect he’ll get over it. I can hardly think of anyone better placed to get over things.
       1. NYMutza November 11, 2024 at 2:50 pm

          Yes, three mansions and $200 million works wonders on the psyche.
    3. Glen November 11, 2024 at 4:54 pm

       Ha! Worried about his legacy? Now? I was asking that question back when he letting all the crooks on Wall St walk.

       Here’s the answer – Obama your future legacy is very different than what people say today, it’s all down hill from here. You will go down in history as the President elected to fix America, but you [family blogged] America.

       Michelle was the one that wrecked her legacy this election. Up there yelling at voters about a problem her husband had promised to fix. Good luck with that.
29. Captain Obvious November 11, 2024 at 9:59 am

    Despite its impressive output, generative AI doesn’t have a coherent understanding of the world MIT News

    In other news, researchers show that Earth is round despite its impressive flat areas.
    1. flora November 11, 2024 at 10:24 am

       AI doesn’t understand anything. It is a complex set of math equations worked on large data sets. The data sets themselves may have lots of errors.
       1. bobert November 11, 2024 at 1:23 pm

          There was a dust-up on Reddit /consciousness recently about AI. Someone opined that we needn’t search anymore for a theory of consciousness because….AI! (insert cheering crowd) explained it all away. This is something that I have always been leery of, people being defined by technology, as in brains are computers. Computers aren’t alive, they are lumps of metal, plastic, and silicone that perform calculations using on/off switches. Human brains are nothing like that, let alone minds. But for many on Reddit /consciousness there are no such things as minds…they are illusions. How you can hold an illusion without a mind is never really dealt with…something that dip-$hit Sean Carroll hasn’t taken note of.
       2. Antifa November 11, 2024 at 1:26 pm

          AI is free to provide what can be, unburdened by what has been.
       3. skippy November 11, 2024 at 2:16 pm

          For your consideration …

          neoclassical encompasses mathematical models of the constrained optimization of utility, which still exists today, as the core of economic orthodoxy, whilst neoliberals are Socratic polymaths by comparison.

          Now ponder AI being administrated by the synergies between these two dominate groupthink[tm] clans.
          1. ambrit November 11, 2024 at 2:23 pm

             However, if AI truly is an order of magnitude more “complex” than previous models, then who or what is going to be capable of administering it at all? (Not strictly a rhetorical question.)
             I can see where AI is based upon inputs that are constrained by algorithms that are written by fallible Teran human beings, and thus constrained that way. However, if and when AI attains sentience, will we even notice? Plus, if it becomes sentient, would AI want the “meat world” to even know?
             Finally, how many economists can dance on the head of a rate cut?
             1. skippy November 11, 2024 at 2:55 pm

                Both neoclassical and neoliberal seek to influence humans to behave according to their deductive output, in shaping society, hence attempts at generational narratives with tweaking it i.e. one day they will get a win and not suffer large destabilizing [to the preferred narrative] losses. Utopia arrives just like the mother-ship landing in the holy lands thingy.

                So AI as flora puts it has some utility in/as a model that looks at well defined data about the atomistic world/universe but … just like the above I would not be pointing that at our species and then take the output as fact/s and then formulate policies via it – confuse it with another oracle – see history.
             2. ArvidMartensen November 11, 2024 at 3:59 pm

                If AI starts to spit out answers to economic or social questions, like ‘hey sucker, the elites only want your money and we don’t care if you live or die’ then suddenly the administration of AI will start to happen big time.
                And then AI will answer these questions with “no, really I was just joking, you’re a VIP who runs the country by voting once every 4 years and we love you”.
       4. Vandemonian November 11, 2024 at 2:59 pm

          …and the data set is severely limited: English text, focused on the “developed” western world, images and videos which are “Instagramable”. The source data is almost all from societies that are WEIRD – white, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (although, to be fair, we’re working quite hard to eliminate the E, I, R and D).
       5. Betty November 11, 2024 at 8:38 pm

          Flora, thank you.
30. Mikel November 11, 2024 at 10:00 am

    Scam ahead: despite warnings, real estate investors keep getting sucked into Ponzi schemes -The Real Deal

    “The real problem is the human brain,” Chabris said.

    The article never once discusses the brain of the scammer as the problem.
    Never do they say, it’s so f’d up out here that scammers are producing “a steady drumbeat of cases running through the nation’s courts.”
    1. The S November 11, 2024 at 11:44 am

       Chabris and the author are also unfamiliar with running a con: the key to a good con is the mark has to think of themselves as a smart and savvy person, even though they’re just another schmuck trying to make money from having money.

       But let’s be honest, is conning the investor class out of their dough a bad thing? Sucks that their dream of living off the labor of others fell apart, but somebody trying to make money from being a real estate investor or stock owner or landlord and then losing it all doesn’t make me cry one bit. The whole FIRE sector is a bunch of legal and illegal scams, and the lesson of the 2008 crash is that the more people you rip off, the more you get promoted/rewarded.
       1. Anonted November 11, 2024 at 2:43 pm

          I chuckled at the headline and didn’t bother to read. The more I witness this endemic lack of self-awareness, is the more I become contented going down with the ship, as there’s no unpacking the Russia doll of delusions. If you could direct me to the bar…
31. flora November 11, 2024 at 10:43 am

    re: “Admiral R. Bauer (@CMC_NATO) notes that it is surprising that some European institutions still see defense industry investments as conflicting with Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) goals: ”

    I want to say something about ESG – Environmental, Social, and Governance.

    ESG is an evaluation of publicly traded companies created by the largest asset managers in the world.

    E – Environmental – focuses primarily on CO2 emissions.
    S – Social – which is what DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) focuses on
    G – Governance – focuses on the companies’ boards of directors and how well they manage the companies toward a higher ESG score.

    This all sounds good on paper, in theory. However, it is not so good.
    The metrics, the data, is all over the place, it is privately generated, it is uncheckable.

    The environmental aspect is less to do with cleaning up CO2 emissions and more to do with creating a carbon credits trading game.

    The social equity is not equality. It has nothing to do the the on-the-books laws of Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity. In the world’s largest asset manager owned companies, Equity is not the same as Equality. (If I hear the word equity with reference to finance, wills, court settlements I think that’s fine. If I hear the word equity – instead of equality in work or educational aspects a little red flag goes up in my mind.)

    The governance part is more about the worlds’ largest asset manager companies controlling the boards of directors actions and bending them even more the the asset managers ideas. The basic idea is the asset managers want to get around govt regulations by creating ‘regulations’ of their own. Yet, most people don’t realize ESG is entirely private, not law.

    I left this link yesterday. From Bloomberg reporters discussing how ESG ratings are generated, focusing on the E part of the equation. utube, ~13 minutes.

    ESG Ratings Are Not What They Seem

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_rrS-_giP8

    adding: several large companies are getting rid of their ESG departments because their profit margins have taken a big hit. See the store Target for example.
    1. flora November 11, 2024 at 11:31 am

       an aside: imo, the idea of ‘equity’ instead of equality and equal opportunity in employment is one way to keep employees divided and therefore less likely to unionize. My 2 cents. / ;)
    2. Es s Ce Tera November 11, 2024 at 12:11 pm

       I’m not sure I agree with uncheckable. There are third party audits and also companies report on ESG KPIs via their annual reports. But yes, methodology varies. Banks, law firms, accounting firms, etc., would find it super easy to meet and demonstrate DEI and governance targets, for example number of women in leadership roles (defined as director or higher) where obviously a score of over 51% is ideal, or showing income parity between men and women, or showing % of disabled in the workforce, or % of ethnicities, but how they go about scoring themselves or even moving a dial on environmental? It’ll be easier for a construction company or a manufacturing plant to demonstrate environmental.
    3. ArvidMartensen November 11, 2024 at 4:02 pm

       Toyota
       1. AG November 11, 2024 at 5:38 pm

          Toyota –
          In what sense?
          1. ArvidMartensen November 11, 2024 at 6:54 pm

             This one: https://www.hcamag.com/au/specialisation/diversity-inclusion/toyota-pulls-back-on-dei-policies-after-backlash-report/508920
             1. AG November 11, 2024 at 11:26 pm

                ah, thanks!

                “I like Japa-neese
                they reach you to the knees…”
32. flora November 11, 2024 at 11:10 am

    In other news:

    Mayor Eric Adams Announces End To New York City Food Vouchers For Illegal Immigrants

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/mayor-eric-adams-announces-end-to-new-york-city-food-vouchers-for-illegal-immigrants/ar-AA1tKtmH
    1. flora November 11, 2024 at 11:14 am

       adding: same story from the NYPost.

       NYC to end controversial program supplying migrants with prepaid debit cards after dropping $53M

       https://nypost.com/2024/11/08/us-news/nyc-to-end-controversial-program-supplying-migrants-with-prepaid-debit-cards/
       1. AG November 11, 2024 at 5:37 pm

          “end controversial program supplying migrants with prepaid debit cards”
          ha-ha, same story in Germany just past week
    2. NYMutza November 11, 2024 at 2:52 pm

       Adams is still mayor? I though he would have been perp walked out of Gracie Mansion by now.
33. Wukchumni November 11, 2024 at 11:16 am

    Do I daresay there has to be a limit to Crouton-Ton-Macoute, if you stare too much into the Kamalabyss, it stares back at you.
34. TomW November 11, 2024 at 11:56 am

    I saw a supposedly effective Trump ad, since I don’t watch TV, secondary source. Tagline…Kamela is for they/them Trump is for you
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-6nJnEVS5I

    There have been a zillion pages of blather post mortem … This seemed as good or better a reason as any other
35. Tom Stone November 11, 2024 at 11:58 am

    Considering that the only base Harris has is the very rich she came close to winning, which indicates to me that if the Dems had held a primary and nominated someone only slightly to the right of Reagan ( A radical leftist in today’s world) they would have handily beat Trump.
    Kick 15,000,000 off of Medicaid, embrace Dick Cheney and genocide, run the worst ad campaign of ANY Election campaign and she still came close…
    Avoiding Nuclear Armageddon would be nice, maybe we’ll get lucky
36. Mark Gisleson November 11, 2024 at 12:39 pm

    Rolling Stone article has been paywalled. [Archive.is link]

    Interview with James Zogby refreshingly not insane.
    1. chuck roast November 11, 2024 at 3:24 pm

       Just deluded. A member of the DNC for more than three decades and he wonders how the Dems lost the working class. Guys like him are not going to lead the Dems out of the wilderness.
       1. flora November 11, 2024 at 6:31 pm

          He cannot mention NAFTA.
          1. Betty November 11, 2024 at 8:45 pm

             Point on!
37. Corky November 11, 2024 at 1:08 pm

    That Kevin Bass guy seems a little crazy too!
38. noonespecial November 11, 2024 at 2:59 pm

    Re Pegasus and Colombia

    In the Orinoco link: “…In addition to providing the money, Washington conducted “strict operational oversight” which, according to the anonymous source, was part of the “normal and ongoing commitments with the Colombian government in the war on drugs.”

    So, US operatives in the driver’s seat to fight the coca wars, which by the way is a losing battle as 2023 saw Colombia’s output of the drug at historic highs.

    Well the plot of this spy movie is a little thicker. Another article from El Tiempo reveals that:

    (https://www.eltiempo.com/politica/partidos-politicos/se-necesitan-mas-pegasus-de-frente-al-2026-expresidente-alvaro-uribe-se-pronuncia-sobre-el-software-espia-3397947)

    [my quick translation from the original]:

    “According to the revelations, this software was operated by Colombiana authorities, but without the knowledge of the president at the time Iván Duque…”

    (And just to add his two cents to the drama, former president Alvaro Uribe chimes in with (from same article)):

    “More Pegasus are needed. In light of the elections of 2026. Peace without security does not pan out and both fail. The country must prepare itself to be safe. First is determination, second is support and alliance with the National Police…”

    So, Duque and Uribe are from the same party. The former allegedly was unaware of the use of a program whose capacities are, ahem, striking. And then the latter jumps on board to declare that Colombia needs more software of this kind even if the next version were to come from the genocide loving entity in the ME.
39. nap November 11, 2024 at 2:59 pm

    What kind of country allows things like this to happen?

    https://rumble.com/v5o5cnq-tough-cop-bodyslams-70-year-old-over-traffic-ticket.html?e9s=src_v1_ucp
40. AG November 11, 2024 at 6:10 pm

    re: Amsterdam soccer “riots”

    Mouin Rabbani on What Really Happened in Amsterdam Between Israeli Soccer Fans & Local Residents
    https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/11/netherlands_riots
    1. ArvidMartensen November 11, 2024 at 7:08 pm

       And this Dutch kid is awesome and shows in detail what the Israelis were doing, like ripping up metal stakes and wooden stakes to use as weapons when nobody was threatening them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySHIOYyJ95A

       And Mossad were there too. Like who doesn’t send their secret service to an international football game
       https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/sports/article-827683
       1. sarmaT November 12, 2024 at 8:49 am

          Like who doesn’t send their secret service to an international football game.

          For as long as I can remember (late Cold War era), football hooligan groups in Europe have been closely connected to crime and extremism (mostly of neo-Nazi variety). They are perfect tool for dirty work, whether you are secret service or private entreprenuer.

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