First-of-Its-Kind Glowing Sea Creature Discovered in Ocean’s ‘Midnight Zone’ Gizmodo
Why Hunting Coyotes May Actually Increase Their Numbers ScienceBlog (Dr. Kevin)
The Air Force once almost nuked the Moon Task & Purpose (Kevin W)
First amber find on the Antarctic continent ScienceDaily (Kevin W)
Robot that watched surgery videos performs with skill of human doctor ScienceBlog (Kevin W)
The flavour of mechanisation aeon
Insurance companies already refusing coverage on basis of genetic risk BoingBoing
Standing desks may be bad for your health, new research finds CNN
Requires no equipment:
Children in China are required to exercise between different lessons in school pic.twitter.com/BmuozQ40gb
— Interesting As Fuck (@interesting_aIl) November 12, 2024
Climate/Environment
COP29: Low expectations mar the start of crucial UN climate summit BNE
Dutch appeals court overturns landmark climate ruling against Shell Associated Press (Kevin W)
Record global warming risks aggravating war and violence Financial Times
Is the climate change food crisis even worse than we imagined? New Scientist
Farming in Crisis: Suicides and Climate Change Threaten India’s Agrarian Future IPSNews
‘Smog, water scarcity rapidly becoming critical challenges’ Business Recorder (Pakistan)
Caribbean faces new era of drought as climate risks grow Voice Online
In early November this year, the average temperature in China was 8.21℃ (+2.2℃), the warmest in the same period in history. Seven provinces broke the warmest record. It is expected that the temperature will continue to be significantly higher in mid-November! @extremetemps pic.twitter.com/CHUnVt3v7u
— Jim (@yangyubin1998) November 11, 2024
Australia has lived an exceptionally long and intense heat wave with temperatures up to 45.9C and minimums up to 33C.
Birdsville,Queensland minimum of 31.0C is a new record for November hottest night. pic.twitter.com/aQs5okh4M6— Extreme Temperatures Around The World (@extremetemps) November 10, 2024
‘Weak leader’: Japan PM Ishiba has his work cut out on economy, US ties after surviving parliament vote, say analysts Channel News Asia
The New Venezuelan State To Be Based on Direct Democracy: President Maduro TeleSUR
🇷🇺🇨🇺 Russia to send Cuba 80,000 tons of diesel fuel worth $60 million to assist the island nation in its energy crisis. pic.twitter.com/rpMMWgktVE
— BRICS News (@BRICSinfo) November 12, 2024
China?
Rubio brings China Realism to the State Department Asia Times
Why The U.S. Is Freaking Out Over China’s New Peru Port YouTube
European Disunion
Germany: Parliamentary leaders propose February 23 election DW
Germany’s Scholz to face December 16 confidence vote ahead of February election France24
Israel v. The Resistance
Chris Hedges: Genocidal Scorecard ConsortiumNews
President Biden’s Gaza Policy Leaves the Middle East in Flames Juan Cole, Counterpunch
Trump Picks Mike Huckabee, Supporter of Israeli Annexation, as Ambassador to Israel Antiwar.com (Kevin W)
* * * The Israeli Army Is Allowing Gangs in Gaza to Loot Aid Trucks and Extort Protection Fees From Drivers Haaretz (guurst)
US Confirms Israel Will Face No Consequences for Not Improving Aid Situation in Gaza Antiwar.com (Kevin W)
Look at what our team @EuroMedHR documented yesterday and today..
Yesterday, Israel allowed a humanitarian aid truck into a shelter in the town of Beit Hanoun, amidst widespread media coverage.
This morning, Israeli forces stormed the shelter, killed some civilians, forcibly… pic.twitter.com/OzDxtqkXSc
— Ramy Abdu| رامي عبده (@RamAbdu) November 12, 2024
* * * * * * Yemen’s armed forces conduct special operations in Red Sea, Indian Ocean; hits 3 US vessels Islamic Republic News Agency
TRUMP WINS – A NEW PRESIDENT WITH OLD PROBLEMS – WITH ANDREI MARTYANOV AND SCOTT RITTER Garland Nixon. Li: “Listen to the end, Houthis shooting down Reapers with older SU-200.”
New Not-So-Cold War
>Raw Materials and Troop Deployments: How Zelensky Tries to Woo Trump With Revised ‘Victory Plan’ Sputnik
As Ukraine Struggles for Troops, Its Constitutional Court Considers the Rights of Conscientious Objectors Just Security
Why Merz, von der Leyen and Kallas are so openly risking a war with Russia Anti-Spiegel (guurst)
Imperial Collapse Watch
Welcome back to 1945: The liberal world order was always a myth UnHerd. Today’s must read. A terrific piece.
THE WAY THE TRUMP WIND IS BLOWING MEASURED ON THE KREMLIN SCALE John Helmer. The meat of this post is a translation of an article from Vzglyad, Trump will abandon two key principles of US foreign policy, which dovetails with the UnHerd piece.
By the numbers: US missile capacity depleting fast Responsible Statecraft
🇰🇵🇷🇺 The missiles that Russia is transferring to North Korea pose a serious threat to the mainland United States, Europe, the Indo-Pacific region and the entire Euro-Atlantic region – Rutte
— Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) November 12, 2024
American intelligence has decided to shake off the old ways Marat Khairullin
Trump 2.0
Trump cabinet 2.0: Full list of key appointments including Musk, Ramaswamy, Ratcliffe Times of India
See Trump’s Cabinet picks and other White House appointments so far CBS
Read the Leaked Rubio Dossier Ken Klipperstein
Trump picks Fox News host and Army National Guard veteran Pete Hegseth for defense secretary NBC. Dem concerns about lack of experience start in the middle of the piece.
Trump Draft Executive Order Would Create Board to Purge Generals Wall Street Journal (Kevin W)
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Reveals Plans to Fire 600 Federal Health Workers Mother Jones (Kevin W)
How fierce Trump ally Kash Patel could help reshape the FBI or Justice Department ABC
Tim Barker, Dealignment New Left Review. Robin K: “‘The things about him [Trump] which are supposed to be deal breakers – racism, xenophobia, misogyny – can only be seen as outside the American mainstream by someone with the mental equipment of an earnest child.'”
The Second Resistance Movement: Why the Campaign Against Trump This Time is Different Jonathan Turley
2024 Post Mortems
Kamala Harris Owes a Lot of Money Active Measures (Micael T). Wowsers, Trump was not just trolling.
JAMES CARVILLE SAYS 'I TOLD YOU SO' TO DEMOCRATS
'We told you this identity shit was a disaster. We have no power. Nothing.'pic.twitter.com/h7888HriC2
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) November 12, 2024
Crime Blotter
Pentagon leaker sentenced to 15 years for sharing classified documents online Anadolu Agency
Mom Jailed for Letting 10-Year-Old Walk Alone to Town Reason (Kevin W)
Our No Longer Free Press
Advertisers set to return to X as they seek favour with Elon Musk and Donald Trump Financial Times. BWAHAHA.
Guillotine Watch
🧳 Louis Vuitton sells a folding suitcase bed for the price of a one-room apartment. pic.twitter.com/dCP3Pd9mQo
— Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) November 11, 2024
Class Warfare
Consolidation Threatens US Postal Service ConsortiumNews
Antidote du jour (via):
And a bonus (Chuck L):
Humans rescue a huge Mako Shark in Florida pic.twitter.com/nM6k7LUpcg
— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) November 11, 2024
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
231 comments
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Free Palestine
(melody borrowed from Sunshine Superman by Donovan Leitch)
(Israel cannot win against the forces opposing it. Simply put, Israel has to obliterate and occupy all enemy territories to win. Their enemies need only still be standing when Israel falls apart, which is already happening before our eyes. That’s when the murder will stop.)
Long lines of martyrs are now in Heaven to stay
We remember each, we delight in souls so brave
Now is our time, we know it, all our rank and file
The fruits of the vine, we’ll grow it—food you can’t defile
We’ll free Palestine when your troops can’t hold the line
Your sacred red cows, all the spells in your books aren’t holy
Blood isn’t divine
Palestine is suffering, and this world doesn’t intervene
Bombing clinics and schools, that goes on wherever we’ve been
Our rockets can reach to Haifa, they cannot defend
We hit them a lot more, lately, now it never ends
We’ll free Palestine when your troops can’t hold the line
(mmm mmm mmm mmm)
We’ll free Palestine when your troops cannot hold the line
We’ll free Palestine when your troops can’t hold the line
Your sacred red cows, all the spells in your books aren’t holy
Blood isn’t divine
(musical interlude)
Peace is our first concern, it won’t come easy or free
All our gardens are fertile but their side cuts down olive trees (yep!)
They make our water unfit for drinking—all our wells are blown
Who could suppose men this bad? A pure killing zone!
We’ll free Palestine when your troops can’t hold the line
(mmm mmm mmm mmm)
We’ll free Palestine when your troops cannot hold the line
We’ll free Palestine when your troops can’t hold the line
‘Lord Bebo
@MyLordBebo
🇰🇵🇷🇺 The missiles that Russia is transferring to North Korea pose a serious threat to the mainland United States, Europe, the Indo-Pacific region and the entire Euro-Atlantic region – Rutte’
But Rutte will assure everybody in Europe that the tactical nukes that the US wants to deploy there are only for peaceful purposes and will only stabilize that sub-continent.
They will be used only for war-wilding.
Tell him, Rutte i mean, not to forget to underscore that this is also the best way to fight against climate change. Win win.
“North Korea poses a threat to US & Europe”…as the Euro rats prattle endlessly for deep precision strokes at Moscow and Russia…
But, by the same logic, the presence of missiles. doesn’t the US pose a threat to Europe and North Korea … and China and Russia and South America and Africa and India, et al. Rutte has a parochial perspective.
Working link for “Robot that watched surgery videos performs with skill of human doctor” article at-
https://scienceblog.com/549351/robot-that-watched-surgery-videos-performs-with-skill-of-human-doctor/
Hopefully there will be a surgeon supervising that will have his finger on a “kill switch” in case the AI powering that robot hallucinates an organ or a procedure that does not exist in the real world. Until proven otherwise, I will insist that all AI software are still in their beta stage of development.
However, if AI starts performing the majority of surgeries, human surgeons will lose the technical skills necessary to competently intervene.
Feature, not a bug?
I highly suspect that Wall Street’s model for pushing AI is the same as the corner dope pusher.
The first few hits are free, then they get you hooked … next thing you know, you’re in a state of dependency.
That has been the aspirational model for tech companies since the 2010s. The “platform” monopoly is explicitly what VCs shoot for.
They subsidize SaaS rents until sufficient size where they can crush or absorb the competition.
It’s been pretty clear from the beginning that this was the plan lol. Why else would Microsoft be willfully burning money on OpenAI if they didn’t think they could build a moat around it?
Right. This leads to my conclusion that AI is just SaaS on steroids.
They’re already trying to embed it in every software platform. If you worm in and then voila, it’s no longer free. Sorry, punks!
(Oh, and by the way, that cool Lina Khan cat who might have gone after MS on Antitrust or RICO grounds … sorry, she got canned.)
Can AI self review or self reflect on a recently performed surgery to determine what could be done better during the procedure? Or using info from follow ups on the patient’s outcome from the surgery to get better?
Good points. A good doctor/surgeon would take a holistic look at a patient in front of them to maximize better outcomes. A robot is only focused on the surgery itself and knows nothing of the preparations for the surgery much less the after care. You might have a patient in a hospital for a month with the actual surgery only lasting a few hours so this is only a very narrow slice in the medical care of that patient.
>You might have a patient in a hospital for a month with the actual surgery only lasting a few hours so this is only a very narrow slice in the medical care of that patient.
It’s the situation with many surgeries now it seems, show up in the am, get operated on, sent out the door later in the day after being cleared to go home. It’s the equivalent of a McDonalds or JiffyLube oil change franchise or a factory production line. How can the knowledge AI “needs” be improved on without the holistic approach as you rightly
mention?
Would love the thoughts of IM Doc on the subject. Or any other surgeons in the commentariat.
re jiffy lube, it’s all about the number of beds and bottom lines. Now AI is on the scene to trim staff numbers and liability risk.
The analogy above about a Jiffy Lube is applicable to my direct experience two years ago for cataract surgery. First on the left, three weeks later on the right ( eh, it was vice versa ). The lobby was full up, and once you are called back there were another 6 to 10 in the prep area for checks and prep, and local anesthetic only.
There is no way I’m trusting anything not human in that operating room, once I’m sent in, to get my old lens off and out, and replace with the new improved version to correct my vision and my accompanying astigmatism as well.
We’ve been told over and over that the robots now used for automobile assembly have improved the overall quality of the vehicles moving down the assembly line. If this is true then the surgical robots may also improve the quality of surgery. After all, lots of surgeons have made horrific errors that have disfigured and even cost the lives of patients.
Since the surgery was being performed on each eye at separate instances, it’s not like i could actively watch or participate! Ha ha, stating the obvious.
The eye surgery I referenced was definitely a laser, or robotic if you, will cataract operation but the opthalmologist surgeon was at the controls 100%. Each instance went quite smoothly, just tell yourself this Dr is routinely performing these once per week on likely a full day’s scheduling. So it wasn’t his or her first rodeo.
There is an additional problem. All humans are different. Anatomy is not the same in every individual. I once saw someone with one renal artery originating in the “wrong” place. No problems for the person, but this would really confuse AI. Often surgeons will be surprised by some anatomical anomaly that does no real harm, but necessitates a work-around.
No thank you, I will never submit to this.
Also robots do not “watch” videos. More attempts at humanization of AI
I attended a presentation at a national meeting yesterday morning about using video + AI to evaluate medical students’ proficiency at hand-washing and sterile glove technique. Yes, these are important skills that must be learned. After two years IIRC, AI is still only 70-80% proficient at giving a student a grade for these skills.
Anyway, ask any cohort of medical students who have finished their gross anatomy laboratory course and all of them will have tales to tell about significant individual variation among the cadavers.
Oh, and then entire project is an extremely large data and energy sink.
Cadavers were people. As someone who has to assertively tell the dentist to look at my xrays every time I need dental work because every hidden component of my teeth was apparently custom designed (the dentists always respond “oh my!” LOL), the thought of AI surgery terrifies me to the core of my being. This is going to kill and maim people FFS.
Isn’t it the case that many ‘routine’ eye surgeries, like Lasik correction, or cataract, are done with mechanical and human synergy?
I’m still enough of a provincial chicken-sh*t that the prospect of eye surgery scares the bejeezus out of me.
Would hate to be the .001 that has damaged vision as a consequence of a botch. I mean, despite all the ugly in 2024, there still is a lot of beauty to behold.
> the prospect of eye surgery scares the bejeezus out of me
Er, probably a good idea to skip watching the movie Final Destination 5 then.
I avoid all H’wood movies for a long time now. They are sadistic, along with all of the cop shows on TV.
obviously robo-surgery needs safeguards.
but if i had a choice between random human surgeon, and random algo-robo machine, I’d choose machine!
given a choice between top 15% human surgeon and machine, I’d pick human
Given a choice between random human taxi driver, and random algo-robo machine driverless taxi, what do you choose?
How about trusted taxi driver, why isn’t that a choice?
Your taxi driver is the luck of the draw.
Robotic assisted surgery for knee and hip joint replacement has been common for a few years. It’s basically a robotic arm with surgeon override if necessary. A special 3D CT scan is taken about a month before the surgery. It’s sent to the robotics company where they use it to program the robotic arm for the surgery. My surgeon said the robot can make more precise cuts than he can but he has override if needed. A physical therapist told me she sees quicker and easier recovery for those who had the Mako procedure. I had the Mako assisted knee replacement surgery because of her observation. The operating room was very large with just one patient, me, and no other beds. There was a table for instruments about 40 feet long. It resembled an auto mechanic shop except that everything was sparkling clean. I saw the robot about 50 feet away from me. I was surprised that it was about as tall as two humans and as wide as two humans. I was glad the anesthesia took over before I could see it come towards me. I don’t need those kind of nightmares. They told me it was AI, which I am usually opposed to, but the outcome was my deciding factor. The recovery has not been a walk in the park, but it seems I have have had somewhat less pain than others I know who had the standard surgery. Just my experience.
https://patients.stryker.com/knee-replacement/options/mako-robotic-arm-assisted-total-knee
Thinking about it more, what I thought was the robot could have been its power supply. The conclusions you jump to while on the surgery table!
I immediately wondered: How often does it drop the needle?
“Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Reveals Plans to Fire 600 Federal Health Workers”
I am really tired of the mischaracterization of RFK Jr. as “anti-vaccine”. He is not anti-vaccine, he is for save vaccines and safe vaccine administration.
I always call this out to people and ask them to show me one time where he wrote or said that no one should get any vaccines. I do not care what your views are on RFK Jr, but if you cannot be honest about his actual positions I can have no respect for your ability to discuss anything else about his.
He has said; “There’s no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective.” And that is true, there are risks with taking nay vaccine, but we need to weigh the risks by not having all the side effects hidden. And is he against vaccinating babies? Yes! But he also think that vaccinating the same babies when theya re older is ok.
I don’t agree. His claim that the MMR vaccine produced autism has been decisively disproven. Yet he has not reversed himself and that attack on vaccines has severely dented childhood vaccination, particularly for measles, which DOES kill babies who are too young to be vaccinated.
In addition, I started to read his Fauci book. I had to stop after the first chapter. Not only did it include bullshit claims about natural immunity with Covid (which was and is nonsense, there is no durable immunity to any coronavirus) and denigrated masking, but I checked out his footnotes. About 25% showed the text had abjectly misrepresented what the study actually found. Another 25%+ were outlier and/or poor quality studies.
So he is intellectually dishonest and he IS anti-vax. If he were not anti-vax, he’d recant his false autism claim.
Thanks for that YS.
This is again a media fed lie that I can never get people to certify as true. RFK, Jr has never said that MMR vaccines cause Autism. Never. Not that I have found.
He did try to fight for a groups religious rights to refuse vaccination, and lost (2019, NY) which included, but was not limited to, MMR vaccines.
And he did advocate for the removal of thimerisol from vaccines. Which was removed.
RFK, Jr wants safe and openly studied vaccines so we can asses the risk. Even if he does that ham-handedly I applaud him for it. Do you think for some reason that BigPharm has no hand in vilifying him?
And I also feel you have a misunderstanding of natural immunity to COVID, because there is a natural immunity to COVID. Does it last? Just as long as vaccine . And remember all the liars that said if you get the vaccine you will not get COVID? OR how natural immunity did not exist?
How can you read these papers and say that natural immunity to COVID does not exist?
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40121-022-00753-2
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0281689
Sorry this is Making Shit Up, big time.
1. RFK most decidedly has, and continues, to cite childhood vaccination as a cause of autism:
https://apnews.com/article/rfk-kennedy-election-2024-president-campaign-621c9e9641381a1b2677df9de5a09731
And RFK, Jr. did specifically blame the MMR vaccine:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5789217/
As you can see, RFK, Jr. did say the MMR vaccine, by containing thimerosal, caused autism.
Rolling Stone retracted a 2005 article of his. From his editor:
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/rfk-jr-vaccine-disinformation/
RFK, Jr. did not need Big Pharma. He did this all to himself. And a mere one chapter of his book demonstrated him to be intellectually dishonest.
2. You have no business lecturing me about Covid. Lambert and I have been covering it intensely since mid-Jan 2020.
As I indicated, it is misleading to depict a 6 month or less duration of reduced infection risk as immunity, which laypeople take to mean durable immunity, even though technically an increase in disease resistance due to prior infection is “natural immunity”. No one before Covid would ever have said, “Getting a cold will make you immune” when that immunity is at most for six months. The Great Barrington Declaration touts were claiming early on, using “natural immunity” as their rallying call, that getting a case of Covid would produce life long or at least very long lived immunity. There is plenty of evidence confirming that from extensive UK Covid hearings. For instance, the “natural immunity” types denied there could be a second wave. See here for one of many confirmations: https://bylinetimes.com/2024/10/09/covid-inquiry-media-second-wave/
In fact, RFK, Jr.’s either sloppiness or mendacity has set back the cause of legitimate criticism of the Covid vaccines.
My understanding is that you do become naturally immune to the variant which you caught. The problem is that coronaviruses are RNA viruses and therefore mutate extremely fast, and within 6 months a different variant is in circulation. Given how different Omicron was from the first incarnation of SARS-COV-2, it could have been given a different name. The fact we called it the same thing is on our laziness, not on our immune system.
It seems you are claiming that natural immunity for a given variant does not last more than 6 months. If so, what is the evidence for this claim?
Or are you only saying that since most people misunderstand what the term natural immunity means, one should not use it colloquially?
Thanks!
No, that is incorrect.
Immunity to ALL coronaviruses is short lived. This is independent of mutations. This was widely discussed early on. The common cold is six months. The longest is 34 months, for MERS which for convenience of memory, also just happens to have a 34% mortality rate. That is also why (as we pointed out), the claims made for the vaccines were clearly an overreach.
The UK was running a study called REACT, large-scale blood sampling of >100,000 citizens at about five week intervals. They estimated that for wild type (as in original Covid, only one variant, which was also weirdly at a time that people who should know better were maintaining that Covid had not and therefore would not mutate), based on the decline in antibody levels after infection, immunity was six to at most eight months.
With Omicron, there were many reports in Dec-Feb 2021 were getting reinfected as soon as at a one month intervals (as in many whinges on Twitter from holiday partiers). Unlikely a new variant with such a close spacing. The CDC defines a reinfection as an infection that occurred after two months or more (https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/study-suggests-reinfections-virus-causes-covid-19-likely-have-similar-severity-original-infection) but has elsewhere conceded that reinfection can occur as soon as after two weeks (https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-magazine/news/coronavirus-and-your-health/covid-news)
Thank you Yves.
Here’s some more evidence: serum IgG levels for SARS-CoV-2, which waned within 3–6 months after vaccination.
YOU added the “variant” weasel word. Do not put words in people’s mouths.
In any case, no one I know of would consider getting infected by omicron after being infected by delta to be two different sicknesses, it’s all just COVID, so what was your point?
If you look at the gene sequence they are very different. Variant is not a weasel word.
Sorry but this is BS. I’ve unfortunately had 4 COVID infections and and now have long COVID. If prior infections confer any kind of immunity it would be news to me.
Solid take Yves.
A good start to filtering anything RFK Jr. says is to assume 50% of what he claims comes from a study or paper is BS.
RFK Jr. may be able to equivocate whether or not he isnot anti vaccine but he is certainly pro Conspiracy Theory related to them.
I saw him talk at length about how he became involved with the vaccine issue. He had been trying to keep mercury out of the environment in his capacity as an environmental lawyer, and a bunch of these anti-vax people approached him about the mercury in vaccines causing autism. Since he was already very much anti-mercury, he then took up the cause with the anti-vax stuff too.
While Kennedy did some good things in his capacity as an environmental lawyer, he is also still a lawyer and prone to talking his book when his livelihood is involved, just like a lot of people. Of course, the study the anti-vaxxers tout was soundly debunked a long time ago and if I remember right, mercury has since been mostly or completely removed from vaccines. But Kennedy has still not admitted those two points as definitively as he should, and I do think talking his book is likely the reason there.
The interest in mercury as an angle makes sense but he never bothered understanding the compound or the concentration. See this take:
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/note-robert-f-kennedy-jr
See additionally:
https://apnews.com/article/rfk-kennedy-election-vaccines-2ccde2df146f57b5e8c26e8494f0a16a
And RFK, Jr. has stoked fears about the MMR vaccine, in Samoa, contributing to 83 deaths from a measles outbreak:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2019/12/11/cdc-sends-experts-fight-measles-outbreaks-pacific-islands-neighboring-samoa/
He has said, “There’s no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective.”
This is utter nonsense.
That all vaccines have a finite risk for certain people is well understood. I have a younger friend who is that “one-in-a-million” who got polio from the version of the live, attenuated Sabin vaccine she received as a child. She is now an outstanding practicing physician who walks with the same limp she has had her entire life. This does not mean the polio vaccine is not “safe and effective.” Have certain vaccines been more problematic than others? Yes, again, as we have all re-learned during the past several years.
As for RFKJr’s book on Fauci, I stopped reading within an hour. The book was written by a crank. I do have some content knowledge and much of the content of The Real Anthony Fauci is utter nonsense. But it sounds good to those predisposed to accept his message. The easiest person to fool is yourself (myself included).
RFKJr has done some worthwhile environmental work, but until he corrects himself on the spurious and severely damaging connection of MMR and autism gifted to the world by the stricken-off British physician Andrew Wakefield (a resident of Texas last I heard, where he is still spouting nonsense), RFKJr is not to be considered a serious person.
Why we have to keep repeating this after all these years….
FWIW – here is how I feel about the RFK situation.
We in the USA spend far far more than any other country per capita on health care. For all that spend, we are the unhealthiest country in the developed world – and this is not even close. Over the decades, I have personally witnessed the absolute devastation of the health of the nation. It is happening alarmingly commonly now among the young – who used to be orders of magnitude healthier.
I am now in the position as a physician because of the absolute corruption of our health agencies like FDA to be able to prescribe meds that cost my patients 250,000$ a year. I am old enough to remember the absolute scandal that occurred in the mid 90s when the very first drug ever to cost more than a dollar a day was released – FOSAMAX. There are now hosts of generic drugs that cost many multiples of that. Because of FDA’s negligence regarding safety, I am now in a position to prescribe Alzheimer’s medication that has very limited efficacy but causes brain bleeds in 1/3 patients. All at a cost to the taxpayer of 50k$ a year – that is just the med – not the hundreds of thousands to take care of dementia patients who now have had a massive stroke.
I have lived to see the patient protection functions of things like IRB completely subverted. I have now lived to see the day where repeatedly major papers from major researchers from major centers are having to be retracted left and right because of fraud – even though they were “peer-reviewed”. This is leading to some epidemiologist’s claim that up to 2/3 of the medical literature out there is a complete fraud. And yet all I hear all day is RCT and EBM – over and over.
I have spent much of the last 10-15 years of my life begging my colleagues to wake up – and get back to basics. No dice. It is all about money and more and more greed. The profession has no intention whatsoever to right itself – indeed they do everything they can to punish those who say anything critical. I have been warning for years that the day of reckoning was on the way. That we need to fix this mess ourselves or it is going to get fixed for us – and we are not going to like it. I saw the train wreck on the way – and headed for the hills. I am now working with real people – all day – and having some of the most hectic and busy days of my life – but also by far some of the most rewarding. I will never go back. I am going to have to stand and answer to God one day at the judgement bar – and unfortunately being an active participant in modern medicine in the corporate “The Science” world is not going to be a good look when the roll is called up yonder.
No one listened to me and countless others out there. And here we are. Nemesis has finally arrived.
I for one could not be more happy. For the health of my patients and my country – and its economic health too. We are literally headed for the brick wall of bankrupting everything if this continues.
And they know it too – you should hear some of the things I am hearing right now. This is also becoming clear in other ways as well. Just look at the stock price of Moderna since the Trump win. That is a company almost literally owned by the upper echelons of the NIH – and now they are selling as fast as they can – the stock price is going straight down. Let me put it this way – “They know”. And so do many others. I am as relieved as I have been in some time.
My only concern so far is a formal appt has not been made for RFK or Tulsi Gabbard for that matter. I hope that is not true a week from now.
All true. I see it every day in medical education. Physicians are the one group who could have resisted the neoliberalization of their profession. Alas, they went along instead, for the most part.
If RFKJr wants to be taken seriously, he can begin by admitting he was mistaken about MMR/Thimerosal and autism. This is not a big ask, but it is essential.
Synchronicity. I was listening to this (7:40) earlier today in tribute to Quincy Jones, the Chairman of the Board, and The Count. Be sure to listen from the beginning, too. This orchestration was by the same artist who produced Thriller. Range! (h/t to GS)
Peace.
Over the decades, I have personally witnessed the absolute devastation of the health of the nation…. It is all about money and more and more greed. The profession has no intention whatsoever to right itself – indeed they do everything they can to punish those who say anything critical.
Devastating critique of the medical “profession.” Sorry to say, it’s mirrored in many other professions I come into contact with, and that impending “bankruptcy” is probably the only event short of a hot war with Russia or China that will change the current rotten political power structure.
Thank you Doc. The way I look at it, since we can get into the fine details of what RFK Jr. said, has retracted, won’t retract, or has learned or misled – – – the other “side” of the argument is Big Pharma. I’m going with RFK Jr.
Thank you, IM Doc. Your posts have encouraged me as an older person who could not participate in medical care as practised today for financial reasons. If I did I would soon be homeless. So, I did my best for my immune system, still do. I have no idea if I have had covid; I don’t think so. Medicine wasn’t always this way; our family doctor when I grew up was a friend of the family. I know, all sorts of reasons for that having changed . I did have excellent surgery on my hip years back, took me three years to pay the bills associated with that apart from minimal medicare, and I did it. These days it would be much longer, so I am very careful not to slip on wet linoleum as I had done then.
I hope that, as happened to my mother, a stroke will take me in the end, but that is up to God to determine. It will not be up to a doctor if the system stays as it is. I love RFKJr – he sent us his book free of charge. We isolated, and I wore my handmade mask when shopping for groceries.
I love to read, and once I read that Isaac Basevic Singer (sp?) never saw a doctor, all the way to his death at a respectable age. I can’t say I have followed his lead, but he motivated me. We each make choices in life, what we can afford, how we want to live. Mine have been good for me. I gave up my car the same way — I like to eat good food, and with no car expenses I can. Plus I get good exercise with my trundler.
Thank you, and thanks to RFKJr. His environmental work was very good also, and I loved his dad.
I am sad that Trump did not steer RFK Jr. toward efforts to open the documents of the JFK assassination, with them documents from the other assassinations from those times — and make sure the documents are released with only the most limited of carefully justified redactions. After that, Trump could sic RFK Jr. on the CIA, FBI, Homeland Security and as many of the other alphabet ‘security’ agencies he can sink his teeth in.
Yes, he should have kept him away from vaccines and related issues, where he is regarded as radioactive. The intel state or the food-only part of the FDA or the Dept of Ag as a way into food would be workable and positive contributions.
Excerpt from the Al Manar TV Live Feed:
https://english.almanar.com.lb
If(?) this live feed is credible, there’s a lot of sh*t going down.
I suspect the Houthis had a lot more success in hitting those US vessels in the Red Sea than we’re being told. At any rate they are steadily attriting the US Navy’s cache of missiles and every day that the Navy is pinned down in the area is another day they cannot project any force in the Pacific, where the real next war is going to be.
Plus it diverts resources and attention from “Project Ukraine.”
The best hope for ending the war in Ukraine may be reality – the US can no longer afford to send all the supplies and weapons they’ve been sending, as they need to conserve them for the ME and a potential Taiwan adventure.
>The best hope for ending the war in Ukraine may be reality – the US can no longer afford to send all the supplies and weapons they’ve been sending, as they need to conserve them for the ME and a potential Taiwan adventure.
I can hear the wailing now.
But, but, then the Russians can roll right up to NATO’s borders and before you know it they will be at the Mediterranean seas and the English Channel. We must keep supporting Ukraine, Russia’s Military is going to collapse any day now from manpower and equipment losses. The supply of washing machines for computer chips is running low. Putin is going to die from cancer any day now.
We need to fight a 3front war.
The reasons the warmongers concoct to continue this farce and endless defense spending are endless.
Say goodbye to social programs. “Fill the tub, then drain it’.
I’m a gonna tell you what: bullet, bomb, and rocket futures!
But the whole war is about NATO’s right to roll right up to Russia’s borders, which in the end is still the same thing!
I could not agree more with that. I just mentioned that as one of those BS reasons presented to keep the fight going to the last Ukrainian.
I listened to some of those chattering class PMC news shows at the start of this and numerous “guests” would spout that line as if the entire history of this tragedy started in 2014 or so rather than going back 30 years or more.
The Navy is not pinned down in the red sea. They can and do leave and enter whenever they want.
They can and do leave and enter whenever they want, because they say so. If you believe everything they say, I have a bridge over the Red Sea to sell you.
Zelensky said that he could take over nuclear power plant in Kursk, but he did not want to.
But will they be leaving in ships?
>Rubio brings China Realism to the State Department Asia Times
Some commentators already speculate that the selection of a bona fide China hawk like Rubio might prepare a grand bargain with China, like Nixon’s 1972 China trip.
One can hope, I suppose. But more likely some explanation has to be put forward by what is appearing to be a complete sell-out to those who were hoping for a “America First” non-interventionist Administration. If anything, Trump’s recent Admin pics seem like a complete sell-out to donors and war hawks.
I think internal U.S. politics is the immovable object that can only diverted/checked in its quest/maintenance of global dominance , one where there are no peer competitor countries, is when it meets the irresistible object. The deep state, “inner circle,” oligarchs, have a strangle hold on party politics and the bureaucratic structure up and down the political system. I fear that nothing within U.S. politics will change foreign policy in a substantive way.
It is truly amazing to watch, in a sort of morbid way, how US politics actually operates behind the scenes. Or Western politics more generally for that matter. No matter who you vote for or whatever sound bite these people spew, the actual ‘policy’ on offer (if one could truly call it that) is always some flavor of Israel-first, Oligarch-friendly, Neocon-swamp creatures’ friendly policy on offer. The traditional mechanisms of how policies get chosen has been totally, utterly captured by these interests, and I suspect that no substantive change will come barring some kind of complete collapse.
No reverse gear on offer until then as the Duran guy’s say.
Agree. Only after complete collapse will there be any changes in the way things are done (assuming there will be some survivors). Hopefully, those who do survive will be extremely hostile to any attempts to get back to the old ways.
Vladimir Putin mentioned how things work in the US during one of his talks. He was spot on. According to Putin: An American president gets elected. Some of them have some ideas. But then men in dark suits and bright ties carrying briefcases show up at the White House and instruct the president how things will actually be done. This is why, especially when it comes to foreign policy, the song remains the same regardless of who occupies the Oval Office.
Figaro Interview with Putin 2017 : Red Tie
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/54638
* * *
I have already spoken to three US Presidents. They come and go, but politics stay the same at all times. Do you know why? Because of the powerful bureaucracy. When a person is elected, they may have some ideas. Then people with briefcases arrive, well dressed, wearing dark suits, just like mine, except for the red tie, since they wear black or dark blue ones. These people start explaining how things are done. And instantly, everything changes. This is what happens with every administration.
Great quotation, that.
I won’t quibble over the omission of the Zapruder film screening for every incoming POTUS (adjusts tinfoil hat).
The Blob.
– “If anything, Trump’s recent Admin pics seem like a complete sell-out to donors and war hawks.”
Indeed. I would add that his appointees share another characteristic: they all demonstrated strong loyalty to Trump when the entire Establishment (including some notable Republicans) turned against him. That is why so many of them are from the middle levels of power – MAGA Republicans from the House, ex-military of middle officer rank vs. generals, etc. But ideologically, it sure seems to be a rout by the warmongers so far. And the biggest winner, by far, is the Israel lobby. Stefanik? Huckabee? Rubio (potentially)? You’ve got to be kidding! That, at least, was no surprise; Trump has never been ambiguous about his views regarding Israel/Iran.
As for Rubio being the wise and well-informed “realist,” I laughed out loud at that. The author, David Goldman, explains this ridiculous judgment when highlighting “Rubio’s” China study:
“Full disclosure: the report cites Asia Times and this writer in particular, including our groundbreaking analysis of China’s export success in the Global South…”
Hey, he must be a well-informed realist if he cites Goldman’s own “groundbreaking” analysis.
The “hacked” profile summarized by Klipperstein is more accurate. And as I said yesterday, I’ll be waiting for the reaction by Tucker Carlson and the “anti-war” conservatives if the Trump administration shapes up as it currently appears to be doing.
The reaction of anti-war and actual *America* first folks is likely to be Obama style “4D chess”, “Trust The Plan” type cope that we saw from so many Dems after repeated Obama sellouts. Whether the resulting rage/disgust at the betrayal can be harnessed into something useful for America remains to be seen.
As Churchill said, the US will do the right thing after it has exhausted all the alternatives… and exhausted itself in the process, I might add. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll see the time when the US will be majorly exhausted and accept to be just another country, be that a power on its own.
I don’t think I’ll see the time when the UK will accept to be just another country, and stop pretending to be the player in some great game.
Congress holds a UAP hearing today
YT for hearing
I do not expect any shocking new revelations, as 3 of the 4 known witnesses have already told their stories publicly. The 4th (Michael Gold) maybe has the potential for a bombshell. I expect Shellenberger’s claims may be of most interest to the committees (see page 6-7 of his witness testimony)
A lot of Trump’s announced appointments have spoken about UAPs.
Here’s John Ratcliffe speaking from a place of knowledge saying there should be some “disclosure” on UAPs . Notably Shellenberger’s allegations may end up implicating the CIA in some bad and illegal stuff.
Rubio has (seemingly) been one of the drivers in the Senate to push for “disclosure”. Here’s him speaking at length on the topic last year
The story continues to unfold, yet foggily.
If Aliens are visiting the Earth, why do they seem to only be visiting the West?
It’s always been like this. When Martians invaded in War of the Worlds, with the entire planet to chose from, they picked England….
shows you they were smart
easy victory
if it weren´t for those awful sanitary conditions that killed them…
Brazil has a list of UFO sightings.
Maybe the West has way more means to detect them?
West has way more means of making blurry videos in times of high definition cameras.
I remember that the Soviets also claimed sightings. Could have been to hide weapon tests, or to explain the US Blackbirds flying overhead.
We had a UFO landing near where I live, in Fort Beaufort. A local police officer famously took a shot at it.
Notes from the good old days in South Africa. . .
From 2016, but…
Here Are Trump and Rubio’s Best Schoolyard Insults
https://time.com/4242827/donald-trump-marco-rubio-insults/
Believer
(melody borrowed from Fever by Peggy Lee, 1960)
(My QAnon neighbor explained all this to me already . . .)
Stars are in the sky above you, lizard people come from there
They have no use for human boundaries, and I hear their private parts are square
I’m a believer, always listening, Qui vive keeps me up at night
Receiver shrieks a warning and my panic room gets locked down tight
Lizard trails of green slime only shines in UV light
My trailer park still looks the same, but you know my neighbors don’t look right
I’m a believer, always listening, Qui vive keeps me up at night
Receiver shrieks a warning and my panic room gets locked down tight
Lizard folk are bold deceivers, UAP’s and UFO’s
Every day they’re out recruiting, makin’ human/lizard embryos
Lizards run the internet, never use your real name
Or you’ll have a strange encounter and be a pawn in their galactic game
I’m a believer . . . I see lizards, and that’s the gospel truth
See that? I’m no liar. Trust me, I’m a lizard sleuth
Who knows why these lizards want us? They prolly lost a war out there
They’re winning while our world is spinning. I tell strangers but they just don’t care
So few believers—no one listens. We’re giving up without a fight
Believe in—your suspicions. Sounds batty but you know I’m right
They don’t come from a laboratory. Our governments have all been paid
Lizards are our world leaders and the UN is a masquerade
These lizard Caesars, I can list them
Humans are their least concern, every top official
Does his job for what he earns. Doesn’t care if this world burns.
Fills our world with lizard germs. Surrenders to the lizard terms.
> Trump 2.0
Compare Trump to Biden appointments. Much more churn with Trump, 9:2 with multiple appointments. Who he starts with is unlikely to be who he ends with. Excepting Treasury?…
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/nominations/Trump_cabinet.htm
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/nominations/Biden_cabinet.htm
There is a reason it’s called Trump 2.0.
Trump first term was a complete outsider. Many (most?) of the people who joined thought they could control him. So he had to fire a lot of them. Not that the replacements were any better, since his choices if anything would be even more limited given the Russiagate furor.
So it’s a mistake to assume the same pattern now, particularly since he is overwhelmingly choosing loyalists.
That seems to be the common thread in those appointments. That they are all loyalists to Trump with a proven track record for being so over the years. Well, maybe not Marco Rubio but maybe his appointment was a result of some political dickering.
An administration full of boot-licking loyalists … what could possibly go wrong?
Well, don’t the democrats pick loyalists too? What’s the diff.?Democrats never pick from “outside the box”.
Welp, he’s appointing Musk to the “Department of Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E.)”. Talk about “churn”…
https://x.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1856658569124262092
How many Robin Hoodlums will Buy Buy Buy DOGEcoin on this news? Lol
Down on Ye
(Sung to the tune of, “Down on me” by the Southern hard-rock band “Jackyl”
All the things I see in you
All the things I know that are true
And when the light of a new administration comes shining through …
I see, I see
I see the Musk, shining
(Gonna right-size ye)
I feel the heat of downsizing
(Down-size ye!)
I love the thought of you fired
(Collect UE)
And just like “X” Musk will send those
(Pink-slips to DC)
Down on ye, Down on ye
All the useless eaters, see
All the things they cannot be
And when the man with the moonshot
Looks straight at you
I see, oh, I see
I see Elon shining
(Right-size ye!)
I feel the heat of redundancy
(Downsize ye!)
I love the thought of dear Vivek
(Outsource ye!)
And I’m so wet from Musk sending
(Pinkslips to ye)
Down on ye, down on ye
And it’s a new kinda way
Unemployment lines gettin’ longer every day!
Get yer buyout and heat it up hot
One thing’s for certain, it ain’t never gonna stop
I see Elon shining
(Right-size ye!)
I feel the heat of his wrath
(Downsize ye!)
I love the thought of dear Vivek
(He’ll outsource ye!)
And I’m so wet from Musk raining
(Pinkslips on ye)
I see Elon shining
(He’ll can DC)
Oh, I feel the heat of his wrath
(Right-size ye!)
I love the thought of Mr. Vivek
(&^%$-canning ye)
And just like X Musk will fire!
(All of ye!)
I see the pinkslips raining … down on ye …
All of ye! Begone, all of ye!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNnSQ8VwV8Y
Arnaud Bertrand did point out the irony of nominating two people to lead the “Department of Government Efficiency“. I don’t think this timeline is a serious one anymore…
Wouldn’t Kristi Noem have made more sense leading the D.O.G.E.?
(Drum fill noise)
Good one!
Strongly suspect I’m the only regular here who used to help clients fill out government hiring forms. Once you get past GS-14 (going from memory here) you are at the federal executive level. The tons of manure I shoveled growing up on the farm was nothing compared to how much manure goes into the Qualifications responses for executive level jobs and my experience was entirely pre-woke. I worked with classic jargon, helping the client use language to demonstrate expertise in their field, and then padding everything to a suitable length to show bureaucratic competency.
No clue if Musk is the right person for this job, but Trump needs to make DEEP cuts in federal employment. We don’t just have too many federal employees, we have too many federal employees with no actual job skills. Not joking. I worked with executive level government employees who composed their correspondence by cutting and pasting from previous letters. No typing, spelling or grammar skills: just an incredible nose for which butt to kiss. [Caveat: needless to say, most of my clients were deficient in some regard, well qualified clients only needed me for formatting.]
The proof will be in what happens to the downsized employees. If Trump is wrong, the private sector will snatch them up. If Trump is right, those people will be all but permanently un- or underemployed like the 1000s of featherbedding corporate executives who were downsized in the ’90s.
I say this as a strong believer in federal government. There is a point at which a bureaucracy goes all ouroboros and we have most certainly achieved full circularity. The Feds have a corporate-style bureacracy in which there is next to zero upward lines of communication and the folks at the top making the decisions are often the least qualified to do so.
Isn’t a major problem the lack of capable workers doing what the government is supposed to be doing, much as they all seem to be going through the motions, following a checklist, instead of actually doing their jobs?
Trump needs to make DEEP cuts in federal employment
Indeed cuts will be made, but I suspect it will be front line social workers who are helping people with mental illness, drug problems, housing, etc…it won’t be the bureaucracies running the National Security State or the Pentagon or the war pigs.
The GS ladder goes to GS-15. SES (Special Executive Service) is the next level up.
In my career, I worked for large household name corporations, did consulting for both industry and the Federal Government and, after 9/11, worked as a federal employee. The Federal civil service has been under unrelenting attack for decades. Minimally going back to the Reagan years. In most areas of the government the federal workforce, outside the security state, has shrunk markedly. You may see a lot of people in what look like Federal roles but many, many are actually contractors. Your average Federal worker today is demonstrably underpaid, overworked and constantly barraged internally and externally with the messaging that they are the problem.
There are more and more roadblocks with each new election cycle to hiring ANY Federal employees, much less experienced ones. Many who do are like me and took a big cut in salary to do what they thought was useful and important work. For your trouble you see your compensation fall further and further behind (only partially alleviated by grade inflation, especially in DC). And are constantly forced to be lectured by 25 year old consultants who slog through rehashed corporate presentations about customer experience and business best practices. Many of which are simply illegal or patently counterproductive on their face.
Many of the higher grade employees have ‘burrowed in’ from the non-GS staffs of prior administrations. Most of which were hostile at best to your agency’s mission. And come from a background where your expertise and knowledge about how to get things done legally are considered obstacles.
There is always a constant tug of war between the old spoils system (political appointees) and a professional civil service. Its gone so far now that we have a government that even on its best days struggles to minimally meet its legal mission. Though that’s obviously considered a feature not a bug.
And don’t get me started on the Federal hiring process. Everyone hates it, not just those who have to fill out the forms. A job outside the government that I usually got with a 1 or 2 page resume, an interview, and my reputation in the industry would not have gotten me a GS-5 clerk job in the Federal system. I think, when I made my jump into a directly Federal role, my application was over 40 printed pages. And this was for an agency that was dying to get me to ‘come over’ and I could list more than dozen highly placed references in multiple agencies who were familiar with my past performance for them.
There are reasons for all of that but many of those reasons are about clogging the hiring system up.
The most damaging in the long term may be the driving out of Federal positions that involve expertise beyond administrative. Besides the lure of much better compensation outside of government, Federal employees who are essentially among some of the best in their field are routinely denigrated in favor of contractors with not much more than a slide show from the last corporate job they had. And many find themselves stuck in the situation that their most likely private employers don’t want them because they hold Federal contracts and the limitations Federal ethics rules impose on a former Federal employee are seen as ‘disloyalty’ at many employers.
So gradually the Federal civil service has been hollowed out into what I would agree is now a corporate bureaucracy. With much of the obvious disease that infects the private sector in this country. But keep in mind, that has been be explicit design. Civil servants generally aren’t to blame.
Merchants of Venice…
Anybody else find it more than a little ironic that to curb government waste and improve efficiency, a whole new government department is being created?!!!?
Maybe Musk will cut himself first.
This isnt an actual government department. According to Trump it will “outside of government” so no real power to do anything.
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/trump-says-elon-musk-will-lead-department-government-efficiency-vivek-rcna179899
I can’t imagine Musk or Vivek have much time to devote to this position but, hey who knows. Wonder if they will get a salary? I wouldn’t think so, unless they go the Oprah route and are reimbursed for time and expenses. My experience with government work is that there is a core of folks, maybe 20%, who are the good competent folks making things run. The good will be tossed with the bad unfortunately and the worst, with the right connections, will figure out a way to change their job title/organizational slot to avoid it.
Having no real power to do anything, they will be just posting memes on Twitter.
They’ve been reforming DOD weapons system R&D and acquisition as long as I remember, C-5.
They had a Packard commission 40 odd years ago.
Then about 35 years ago they tried W Edward’s Deming, then Toyota.
Then Six Sigma and Lean.
We got F-35!
Musk has to over come the revolving door and K Street.
Since Uncle Sam sold salted beef, no one ever lost money selling to the U.S.
Um, yes they have, some pretty good companies too. But they have to be small, and pretty specialized. The real large ones routinely get away with what amounts to contractual malfeasance all the time.
Here’s an example of one we “fixed”, and one we “killed”.
The History of Motion Simulation https://assets.ctfassets.net/4yshkjk9i7lb/3qmBVhRXevycwDZ0juWFcy/e667dec52225a22c192413386a834b07/nl_5_p2_3.pdf
Carco Electronics sold the USN a motion simulator that was “uncritically damped” (oscillated like a drunk on a Harley) and we showed them how to make a good motion simulator. Contraves Goerz actually made a much better motion simulator, but mis-bid some key fixed price contracts (I had the contract with the USN). Down they went. Carco bought them.
Peter Thiel wonders why applied science has stopped in America. This is one of the reasons why. The large corporations are unaccountable, the little companies, even very good ones get wiped out. Rumor has it a lot of those old Contraves Goerz motion simulators went to China. China’s not as stupid greedy as we are. We used them to design and test the guidance package for the MX missile. I wonder what they did with them.
So I alluded to a story about large corporation malfeasance. Here’s one of them.
I’m out of the service and working for a very large aviation corporation. The boss gets a call one day from a high corporate muckidy muck. The State Department has contacted us about controlled technology found in a country in the far east. We are going to send somebody there to bring it back or destroy it. I’m not going to go, I had signed some security agreements long ago that restricted the countries I could travel to so the guy that has the desk next to me goes.
After he comes back, we all gather up for the “after action” report. It was a CNC machining center sent there by the Jack Welch MBA lead corporation that we had just merged with, and it got blow torched into real small pieces while the State Department watched. It had been busy doing SOMETHING because it was all worn out. My comment at the time, “Wow, this corporate rules and governance is sweet. Last place I worked the rules were Federal law, and someone would have gone to Leavenworth for a long, long time.” We all laughed.
Later on I watched Obama bail out all those Wall St CEOs, and just went, yeah, that’s how it works. Call it corporate governance, and nobody is responsible, and nobody goes to jail. It’s pretty sweet.
The Packard commission was headed by Dave Packard of Hewlett-Packard.
I heard of a story that he was asked what he accomplished during his service as Deputy Defense secretary under Nixon.
His response “I quit smoking”.
Re: Welcome back to 1945: The liberal world order was always a myth UnHerd
A great article indeed but the UnHerd comments section is a sewer pit of genocide supporters. There are some very nasty individuals out there. Perfectly respectable educated people giving cover to the organised murder of babies, children and women. I don’t know how much more of it I can take but hold out hope of a Nuremburg 2.0
I think UnHerd fails to shake off labels that just obfuscate deeper geopolitical dynamics. For instance, when they quote Mearsheimer they take the bait of thinking there is an “American global liberal order.” I think rather there is a Transnational class that owes allegiance to no one. It pursues “imperial dominance” and far from failing, it has been very successful, thus far.
For as Mearsheimer notes, the American global liberal order, which claimed the mantle of the 1945 victory to justify its imperial dominance, was “bound to fail”.
Well said. I think the article becomes something of an analytic mishmosh because he picks up on a series of ideological thematics without looking under the hood. For one thing, and to harp as I’m inclined to do, the US and the Soviet Union become “competing empires” and so the history of the development of that conflict is lost. If one were to at least consider the possibility that the development of the Ukraine conflict, in which Russia was denied membership in a “security community” and ended up compelled to go to war, just might in some ways parallel what happened in 1945-50, he would have written a different essay.
The article mentions neoconservatives only once, failing to mention the ones on the right. And completely avoids mentioning neoliberalism, which is at heart of the “American global liberal order”. It also fails to follow up the thread of anti-communism, but given the audience, that would probably have been a bridge too far.
When you read through comments anywhere online in English, don’t ever forget that Hasbara is a thing.
Jeebus.
Someone should do an update of Sartre’s Nausea, it’s acquired a new existential foundation over the last few years.
I couldn’t believe what some commenters wrote. They openly advocate for the extermination of an entire people. According to them Israel should have done this years ago already, but was prevented by the meddling international community to do so. Unbelievable. The same people yell “antisemitism” at every turn but don’t realize that their positions are indistinguishable from nazism.
RE: James Carville and “We Told You”
Crying We, We, We…
When did James Carville and his royal tapeworm tell us ANY of the things he is saying in that video? Because I missed them when he did. I must have been at brunch.
He is not the only one – take a look at the video in this tweet – https://x.com/Dialectiks/status/1856463633603277164
(I do not know the source of this video – it was the first one up when I searched – I saw this on YT while watching the Young Turks in the past few days – and wondered if there was a clip – there was)
Ana Kasparian is an interesting story – she is one of the Young Turks. I used to watch them a lot several years ago – I just no longer have the time. She is a classic liberal with some good tendencies who in the past few months has really begun to notice some unfortunate things about how the Dems behave. A constant refrain of hers is how good they are at betraying their voters. I do think this is going to be a fascinating read when all of the stories from the past 6 months start coming out.
Watched that with interest and her comments about the Ds in charge covering up Biden’s declining mental faculties, I wish she mentioned the MSM participation in that part of it.
Carville just wants to make sure trans kids are blamed instead of Team Blue decision makers.
https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/carville-article-012008
He was feeding his wife, a GOP operative for Shrub, details of the Kerry recount effort.
In fairness, if Carville did say anything anti-trans or even anti-woke in the last 4 years, Team Dem would have done everything it could to make sure it did not get in circulation.
What exactly was the Donkey Show’s preoccupation with trans people anyhow, aside from it replacing Roe v Wade as an incredibly divisive issue?
The powers that be in the DNC had to know that evangs hate anything trans with a burning passion, was that the reasoning?
(take this with copious salt)….
one hypothesis is that the Pritzker family money has astroturfed a lot of the trans issues into mainstream dialogue as one of the heirs identifies as trans….much to the chagrin of “paleo gay” men.
That makes sense. Also, there is lots of money to be made by pharma and some medical practices, especially if minor kids are convinced to make the changes with drugs or surgery before they’re legal adults. So there’s that.
Did Carville say anything that is untrue whether or not he was the one who told the Dems they were off base?
Carville is playing the CYA card. He’ll want to be an assistant coach for whatever Team D can salvage and reconfigure.
It’s all about the rice bowls.
There’s a group here called EqualityMaine. Many years ago they advocated for gay marriage, and my family gladly donated to the cause. Of course after we donated, we were then inundated by them with requests for even more donations, by phone and mail, and those efforts probably cost the organization more than our original donation. But the issue eventually won the day, we were glad to help, and I thought that was the end of it.
But no! It hadn’t occurred to me that they were a full time organization with a staff used to being paid on a regular basis, so rather than celebrating the win, calling it a day, and moving on to new chapters in their lives, they continued to think up more issues to be aggrieved about, and we continued to receive more requests for money. At some point I told them that although I had been glad to donate in the past, I no longer would for the reasons described above, and we finally got off their list.
Division can be very profitable for some people.
It is a great way to distract people from serious issues that the GOP do not want to discuss, maybe like tax breaks for the rich and so on.
I am sure the Democrats have similar ones but I just don’t pay that much attention to internal US wrangling to notice them.
He complained back in March about “preachy females”.
James has mommy issues.
Yep. Before the election, he was scolding the various voting groups who were less than thrilled with KH. His and other Dem estab scoldings had the flavor of: The beatings will continue until morale improves. (Morale did not improve.) / ;)
However crudely put, there is something to what Carville says: Dems have been cultivating an ever smaller slice of the electorate with their choice of cultural issues.
Between the two statements, I take JC to mean that the Democratic Party’s take and emphasis on particular cultural issues–abortion, trans, LGBT+, masculinity/femininity, affirmative action, popular media (movies, TV, video games), immigration–appeals disproportionately to… single college-educated women(?).
You may agree with the Dem position on these issues, you may not. You may or may not agree with Carville’s characterization of the demographic these Dem positions emanate from and/or resonate with.
But there is a point to be reckoned with here. Like it or not, the Dem emphasis increasingly alienates rather large swaths of the electorate–and not just your typical ‘knuckle-dragging conservatives’.
Do elections turn only on these “culture war” issues? Of course not. But I think it’s a non-trivial factor.
Yep. On the other hand, he’s the only old Dem estab person I’ve heard say this. Everyone else, from high level Dem pols to MSM talking heads, blames the voters. Joy Reid is especially rich in that way. The party estab cannot fail, it can only be failed. That’s an abusive relationship between the estab and the voters, imo. Turn their voting base disappointment and anger outward away from the party estab; the estab that foisted the worst candidate in 50 years on them. Pretend the campaign is going great and the poll numbers are really close when neither was true, Bankrupt the party’s finances in service of… what?
I’m still getting fund raiser emails from KH, the DNC, O and Pelosi. The nerve, the gall, the chutzpah of those
griftersbeggars.A side note to young women taking up the 4B thing after this campaign in protest of the outcome: Please don’t cut off your nose to spite your face. The Dem estab party leaders are the problem. They aren’t worth your sacrifice. / my 2 cents
Agreed. If you want to be active in politics, you could do much worse than to listen to Carville. Very annoying but he makes it work for him.
If you’ve been dismissive of “woke,” accept that the language of rejection will be pre-woke and yes, that will trigger a lot of folks but that’s a feature, not a bug. If you are triggered by words, you are not well equipped to face the future where words will be the least of your problems.
Back in the day campaigns were rife with cussing. So much so that many campaigns had double office setups to help isolate actual staff from volunteers who might not appreciate the expletives. Not sure how many have checked out the conservative podcasters but they do seem to know their swears which, imo, are the lifeblood of electoral politics.
I met him once when I was working at a restaurant/bar in the second half of the nineties, he was a late diner and ended up afterwards in the lounge playing chess deep into the evening with the line cook, while a few of the staff watched and carried on. I was impressed that this was how he spent his one night in town.
“Well, Mr Carville sir, we went to the Dem tool box and all we seen in it was some ol’ rusty screws and a little metal box with CMBs wrote on it, but it was welded shut and we lacked the implement to open it. So what was we to do? We had to make up something quick and Pudd’n (you remembers him, the tall lanky fellow with the nice voice), he said that Identity was what we need to look for, and it wouldn’t be found in no tool box. It was something we would have to kind of make up as we went along. So when you hollers and cusses, you forgettin’ that we only did what was left for us to do. The tool box was empty, so to speak.”
School children in China video is impressive. The desks and chairs have adjustable height and the desks have nice table cloths. The teacher does a great job leading the exercise. Judging from the kids clothing I think they may be warming up after arriving from the cold outdoors.
agreed! a healthy and clever way to keep kids’ attention,
perk up the group and keep them from getting restless
Also note: one teacher, many children … and yet they learn. I am so old that I spent my elementary school years in a two room school. One teacher, all subjects, four grades per room, and between 20 and 30 per room. … I don’t recall exactly. And yet we learned.
There were no English speaking schools where I lived when I was 10/11, so my mother started one with donations from the American community etc. maybe rive grades in one room, about 15 kids, she hired one of the wives/former teacher to teach the Calvert system.
Imo I was pretty well prepared.
https://english.news.cn/20240926/fc2c26a1f2f4475eb8cd3f8e87625582/c.html
September 26, 2024
China to ensure 2 hours of daily physical activities for primary, middle school students
BEIJING — China will make sure that primary and middle school students engage in at least two hours of physical activities each day, an education official said Thursday.
Every day, students will attend one sports class and an hour of physical exercise after class, said Wang Jiayi, vice minister of education, at a press conference.
The move is aimed at solving common eye and weight problems among students by ensuring sufficient exposure to sunshine, he said.
In Beijing, the 10-minute break between classes for compulsory education has been extended to 15 minutes starting this autumn semester.
Municipal education authorities said the decision aims to provide teachers and students with ample break time between classes, while also encouraging students to spend time outdoors to further promote their physical and mental well-being.
>The Israeli Army Is Allowing Gangs in Gaza to Loot Aid Trucks and Extort Protection Fees From Drivers Haaretz (guurst)
The IDF spokesperson said the army attaches “supreme importance to providing humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. As a result, we are acting to enable and ease the transfer of aid in coordination with the international community and subject to careful security checks at the crossings.
I’ve seen nothing that suggest the IDF gives a rat’s arse about “providing humanitarian aid” or the conditions and lives’ of Palestinians. The only aid I see is in helping snipers target journalist, UN workers, bombing civilians, and imposing death and destruction to the area.
A convoy of 11 aids trucks arrived in Beit Hanoun and Jabalia. Eight of those trucks were immediately hijacked by Hamas gunmen. The US watched it happen, live, monitoring not only Israel’s progress in improving aid distribution, but also Hamas’s ability to uphold agreed upon humanitarian goals negotiated in Doha. The fact that Hamas summarily executed an American citizen among 5 others would complicate Hamas’s future if that future hadn’t just been scrubbed.
Mao Zedong would say Hamas failed as guerillas:
“Hamas, your defeat is a fruit of your ongoing failure to defend your Sanctuary. You failed to protect your people. You need to be able to withdraw and disappear into your Sanctuary after swift fights. A guerilla makes Sanctuary in jungle, in mountains, and among the people. A guerilla doesn’t try to fight in his Sanctuary. Some bomb shelters would have been the least you could do if you were going to start a war. And some water wells. Even kids in the PeaceCorp manage to build wells.”
Thanks, Mao! — Anyway, 22 of Hamas’s 24 brigades buried themselves under a lot of good people. That’s at least 66,000 soldiers no longer fighting. The rest of Hamas fighters are in two gaggles, Rafah and the North, which couldn’t be logistically further from one another. It is a war started by a bad idea conceived by the pathological. There is no point to any of it.
As Pearl Rangefinder commented above at November 13, 2024 at 9:24 am.
Yes. My thoughts as well. It would be laughable if it was possible to laugh at such genocidal pathology.
The war did not start on Oct 7th, which in and of itself seems very suspicious. An Israeli Lebensraum is more at the heart of the ongoing genocide than Hamas hang glider attack. But I agree with you that Hamas was/is a complete failure as far as protecting Palestinians. But I lay the blame on the failure to “uphold agreed upon humanitarian goals” on Israel and the U.S.
I don’t know the details of what was negotiated at Doha, I’ll have to educate myself.
“Eight of those trucks were immediately hijacked by Hamas gunmen. The US watched it happen, live, monitoring not only Israel’s progress in improving aid distribution, but also Hamas’s ability to uphold agreed upon humanitarian goals negotiated in Doha”.
sounds like bs. All three networks would be running said videos 24/7. also the Mao quote, while true is nowhere comparable. Hamas situation more like a prison uprising in a tactical environment sense.
as far as your contempt for freedom from oppression, very american of you.
Thank you. I was wondering where all the Gazan jungles and mountains are that these guerillas should be fleeing to.
I’ve been told there are no Hamas gunmen left in Gaza anymore (except a few hiding under the only remaining hospital, but they will be dealt with soon), so no need for jungles and mountains.
>Mom Jailed for Letting 10-Year-Old Walk Alone to Town
Showing my age, there wasn’t enough prison space in the US if all of our parents went to jail for that when we were kids 4/5decades ago. And earlier.
Never mind the biking without helmets, pickup football games, whittling with picket knives, wandering through the woods with BB guns. Working around farm animals. Maybe worst of all, drinking from garden hoses!
Guess I’m out of touch with todays norms/sarc
As a kid, we were told to come home by the time the street lights came on. So long as we came home with no broken bones or gushing blood, then all was cool. If we were forced to have a tracker like they want this kid to have, we would have accidentally left it at home. The PMC hivemind at work here.
Maybe this is ridiculous, but why then are we wondering why so may people are losing their minds over being in the wrong side of the recent election. Too much hand holding of kids? Not letting them figure out a lot of things in life, both by themselves and just banging around on their own with their friends? Is this what 2 +/- generations of participation trophies given us today?
One must be vigilant on the road to town. What if a child were to run into Putin??
On no! Not that old Zone aphorism? (Famous Zone Buddhism saying, attributed to the Master Woo.)
“If you meet the Putin on the road, kill him, and his Republican stooges.”
I must agree with one base tenet of Zone Buddhism. The proper purpose of life is Nothing. (And its prophet is Gahan Wilson.)
“Is Nothing sacred?”
Even worse. Being a child alone in the big city, during the Christmas season. One can never be sure just all manner of risk and where evil lurks…\sarc
Home Alone 2 with a brief cameo…
https://youtu.be/XWhk9elEuKs?si=B2APvOnHC3Vr3dBg
Anyone else remember the call “ollie ollie oxen free free free”? No idea how to spell it.
There is some room for variations — even in “Peanuts”.
https://everything2.com/title/ollie+ollie+oxen+free
When I was 10 was the golden age of fort building, all my life until I was an adult, there were new housing developments springing up and we ‘borrowed’ everything you’d need to make quite deluxe fortifications, including wall to wall to ceiling carpeting, trap doors (our crowning glory was a 5 story fort circa 1974, secured against the side of one of my friend’s house) and a stash of Playboy mags.
I feel guilty about making off with the goods, but oddly enough our parents didn’t seem to care about what we were up to, and they had to know that we stole every last item from penny nails to plush shag carpet and the most important part, long sheets of plyboard.
Do kids make forts nowadays or merely play Fortnite?
If a kid tried that nowadays, you would have his movements transporting that loot recorded on dozens of doorbell cameras, local social media identifying that kid so that they could be reported to the authorities, cops showing up at his door, them being arrested and put into handcuffs and transported in the back of a cruiser and that kid getting some sort of permanent record for the rest of their life. Parents have been arrested for kids playing by themselves in either their back or front yard. And it is not like that kids on the street are welcomed anymore. If I was a kid I would say to hell with it and play a video game.
We didn’t have a tree fort but we had the trusty woods behind my best friends house.
Many a wasted day was spent there, setting various things on fire and playing with chemicals.
I’d have a rap sheet a mile long if I were born in 1996.
For my part, some of the happiest days of my 9-year-old life were spent playing pirate on the bulldozers and other heavy equipment rusting away in front of the BOQ barracks that temporarily housed the families of civil servants on Guam, 1946. The others were all boys. I convinced one of them to sneak into a war crimes trial with me — there was a Japanese Colonel on trial for cannibalism. After a while, someone noticed, and the MP’s escorted us out.
Not easy to fit into “normal life” on my return. Never really mastered the codes.
We have big holes dug in a few yards/forts built from pallets pulled from trash (with nails! OMG). Small town, kids given freedom, allowed to be ‘feral’, neighbors watch and speak, etc. So, yes, a few kids still do in some places.
Kids are different now. After the recent election of Trump, I saw a social media post by a woman titled “What do I tell my 9 year old trans niece?” I immediately thought to myself, for chrissakes, tell her to stay the hell off social media.
>What do I tell my 9 year old trans niece?” I immediately thought to myself, for chrissakes, tell her to stay the hell off social media.
That and maybe these kids should have a full understanding of the three branches of government, how the voting and campaigning works in the US (in concept), how to win and lose with grace, how the big donors really run the shop, how we really have one party, the Ds and the Rs each being one side of the same coin,etc., etc., before projecting all your BS onto your kids.
Probably because our neighborhoods aren’t fit for walking? Gotta protect those cars from people.
Meanwhile, Japan has a TV show https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Enough! where pre-schoolers and kindergarteners are sent out on errands.
My first solo trip to London to stay with my grandparents was on 9th August 1974 – the news was still full of Nixon. From my south coast city, through the tube system, to the East End. I was eleven. Probably head line news these days :-(
My dad would have been on Nixon’s enemies list, that is if he wasn’t a nobody in the scheme of things. He despised Tricky Dick was a passion that was unburdened.
How many of your parents threw an impromptu celebration party on August 9th 1974, as our family did?
Bought a pony keg and partied all night as the college radio station in Ames kept playing Roy Roger’s Happy Trails to You over and over and over again.
College radio station in Bridgeport, Conn. played David Frye’s comedy album Radio Free Nixon, ending with a rendition by “Nixon” of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.”
Himself and I were talking about this just the other day. Yeah we all received the boot in the butt in the morning and told to be home in time for dinner.
I recommend watching the early 60s movie of “To Kill a Mockingbird and watch what the kids in that movie do. That was not too different from the kinds of things we did as kids (although it depicts an earlier time of course).
Parents today would apparently faint to see it!
“FEMA worker accused of telling staff to skip hurricane-ravaged Trump homes claims it was common practice: ‘This is not isolated’ ”
‘A FEMA official backed up Washington’s claims, telling The Post the agency’s practice of skipping Trump-supporting houses — or avoiding “white or conservative-dominated” disaster zones altogether — is an open secret at the agency that has been going on for years.’
Gee, maybe they should also do an investigation of what FEMA was doing in East Palestine and Maui as well since this seems to be a long standing policy. Trump could score a lot of credit by investigating and reforming FEMA so that it support all Americans and not just those of the right ‘pedigree’. I found one bit remarkable in that article where it said-
‘Asked for examples on what “political hostility” entails, Washington said during the interview: “People will tell you ‘I don’t like FEMA, that’s part of the Biden-Harris campaign, you’re lying to people, you’re not helping people.’” ‘
Turns out that that was an accurate assessment. FEMA was part of the Biden-Harris campaign, it was lying to people, it was denying help to some people so no wonder they did not like FEMA.
It’s from X.com but its Simplicius so I give him some benefit of the doubt.
https://x.com/simpatico771/status/1856588627859382415
This is the first known attack in the world on “Printer go BRRRRR!”
Jerome Powell is now asking for some Patriots to protect his laptop.
I saw a headline somewhere that the Russian issued credit cards are now working in Iran. Interesting timing. I wonder if there are tee vee ads in Ukraine touting that cool new card?
It’s everywhere you want to be?
What’s in your wallet?
Banking, re-imagined?
Here is an article about that development-
https://tass.com/world/1871687
I should have guessed that it was the Mir card they were talking about.
The Hegseth appointment to SecDef might be encouraging in that whatever managerial skills he possesses are not relevant to weapon system evaluation and procurement and so he’ll be led around by the nose by the various services, hopefully leading to a less lethal outcome. Comparing him with Robert McNamara, a best and the brightest who contributed mightily to the Vietnam disaster, can serve as another indicator of how far the US has fallen in managerial depth. But perhaps when it comes to overseeing the DoD that may be politically desirable.
When McNamara came to Defense from FoMoCo, he went about establishing a policy analysis framework similar to the one he and his associates has set up at Ford. The Planning Programming Budgeting System’s central feature was to promote competition between the armed services in warmaking potential. Each service had to demonstrate that its paraphrenalia could get a job done more efficiently than others. E.g. would it make more sense to use the Air Force or the Navy to bomb supply depots. Nominally direct comparability led to such a spike in interservice conflict that the program was scuttled so the “proud traditions of service” with duplicating functions could continue.
Do you think that promoting within and business as usual is working out pretty well at Defense? Because ANY analysis by a well-intentioned outsider with the power to disrupt things might be a good idea. Even getting Rick down at the tractor shop to look over the situation would be good.
That said, yes, it’s very complex enterprise and Hegseth will likely get chewed up and spit out by it. But I kind of like to see someone even being allowed to take a shot.
It’s early yet, but these appointments are gonna prove out the personnel is policy trope I think. Shouldn’t be terribly shocked if Trump indeed ventures outside of any norms or SOP. Time to break out the listing of accomplishments before this nominee for Defense gets excoriated in the media. It does seem to be a reach, I submit; possibly a bit of a green behind the ears for a Cabinet role
Adding a simple anecdote, his Princeton men’s college hoops team lost my UNC Tar Heels in the first round of the 2001 men’s basketball tournament. Good enough to play college hoops at Princeton well that means he and our 44th President have one thing in common, college hoops. That might be it though.
Finding this as well, from CNN…
https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/13/media/pete-hegseth-fox-news-trump-defense-secretary/index.html
CNN – nice find. As you say…
” … From Gitmo to guest host
Hegseth’s worldview was shaped by the wars of the George W. Bush era. As a student at Princeton University in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks, Hegseth wrote a letter to the school paper in defense of military action when a fellow student urged restraint. “
This was the kind of youngster I loved to hate. How can you be so stupid? (sorry, this brings back memories). They were the kind who knew nothing about history or the world, too dumb to know it but smart enough to not care either since he wasn´t the one who would be bombed. Sometimes those encounters really put me into RAF-mode (German terrorist organisation from 1970s.)
Almost started to fight a cop at one of the big demonstrations back then. Wonder how life would have turned out if I had not stopped in time…
Hegseth…the hypocrisy of these people. I mean ALL of them uniparty clowns. 🙄
Hegseth’s worldview was shaped by those wars, but not in the way suggested: check the Deus Volt tattoo. Most likely the FBI has been spying on him for years.
My sense is he views Israel as a useful proxy but likely sees neocons as a fifth column mix of aliens (Bill Kristol) and traitors (John Bolton).
The former point, which I do not share, is arguable. The latter, which is my own view, is accurate and I hope he actually does share it.
But none of this matter so long as he is able to assist in the firing of 3/4 of the current general officer corps, which is filled with losers, incompetents, and diversity hires.
Some day someone with the time and the chops is going to write a good book about he purge of the officer corps that Obama conducted.
> “Some day someone with the time and the chops is going to write a good book about he purge of the officer corps that Obama conducted.”
Again something I don´t know about!
https://t.me/DDGeopolitics/129747
[video]
🇺🇸Trump’s chosen Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, on Russia.
At the end of my career the Joint Chiefs ran the requirements process their analysis and recommendation run thru defense science and big time defense acquisition boards )DAB). Requirements one point of tripod.
PPBS is now in the requirements point of the tripod, with service run acquisition the third point.
DAB is the go ahead agent. At full engineering the BAD reviews and make rule an Acquisition Program Baseline (APB), that is rarely defended or delivered
Been thus since 1980s when I went from honest work….
Working link for Patel/FBI story.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/fierce-trump-ally-kash-patel-reshape-fbi-justice/story?id=115660992
“Melania Trump snubs Jill Biden: First Lady makes revealing first move by skipping traditional White House meeting”
I suspect there to be a lot of bad blood between not only Jill and Melani but also all of the ex-Presidents wives as she is not “one of them.” An interloper who is not part of their club and at Rosalynn Carter’s funeral in November of last year, all the living former first ladies treated her with chill politeness according to The View. This being the case, I suspect that Trump has told her that in this term, she can cut loose as it is no skin off his nose so long as she does her Presidential First Lady duties. So I guess no more interpretive tap-dancing displays for Christmas at the White House anymore.
IF we look at Melania Trumps actions during Trump’s first term, I think it was very clear she was not even slightly interested in being “First Lady”. As an immigrant to the USA see may even see the role as a bit absurd.
Good for her for skipping a tedious, if not unpleasant, ordeal.
I actually warmed to her once I realized that. The whole ‘First Lady’ concept is asinine, so why bother playing along?
I recall there was a huge but brief controversy when she wore a coat with a slogan on the back that appeared to be a snide comment on one of the hot button issues of the day (I forget which). I thought it was pretty funny when it turned out that it was a standard design from a big fashion label and she’d obviously just grabbed it from the closet without a thought, and the media had whipped itself into a frenzy about literally nothing.
Is this against sactions? Is USA going to enforce naval blockade, and create some Cuban Diesel Crisis?
I wonder if those ships will have armed Russian soldiers aboard to protect them. The US does have a history of hijacking oil tankers and the like and then selling off the ship and oil for profit. Kinda like doing piracy. Not sure then if you can talk about the United States of Arrr!-merica.
I biked around Western Cuba 12 years ago and found the people there to be nothing but friendly and interested in hearing about what was going on in the USA. Besides the plumes of diesel coming out of the tailpipes of the 50 year old converted cars it was a great experience. The Cuba lobby in South Florida is just as bad as AIPAC when it comes to our foreign relations. Can’t they just get over Fidel after all these years.
San Diego has finished pulling more than 155,000 pounds of debris out of just one prominent riverbed encampment, illustrating how complex and expensive responding to homelessness can be when it’s allowed to last for years.
The operation required a multimillion-dollar state grant and some of that money will now be spent helping former residents get, and keep, housing.
Around 100 people had lived at the site by the San Diego River.
“The intended goal is saving lives,” Ketra Carter, a leader of the city’s homelessness strategies and solutions department, said in a phone interview.
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2024/11/12/just-one-homeless-encampment-created-155k-pounds-of-debris-by-the-san-diego-river/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That works out to 1,500 pounds of junk per person, for those of you scoring @ home.
I daresay far more than 100 people have taken refuge there over a period of many years. Viewing it as a pesky debris problem is unkind to the people who needed to be there, and who didn’t have an SUV to haul their stuff to the appropriate disposal facility.
I took it more as a commentary that despite your wealth or complete lack of, we cling to stuff.
At 55:35, he didn’t say the they shot it down with S-200, but listed few good old Soviet systems that came to his mind (S-200, Buk-M1, Osa). Reaper is a big and slow moving target.
“Insurance companies already refusing coverage on basis of genetic risk”
They have been doing this in Oz for donkey’s years. When DNA testing came out I thought it a great idea for families to learn about the risks inherit in their genes. So if one person learned that their family members were prone to strokes, that they could take early counter-measures. But then the insurance companies got involved. They got (bribed?) the federal government to pass a law that says that if you have one of these DNA tests, then you are required by law to send your insurance company a copy. So of course the result is that people don’t do the test if they have an insurance policy in case something came back that would cause your insurance company to cancel your coverage.
23 and me is circling the drain – maybe partially because of this.
PSA: If you used 23 and me to run your DNA, get in touch and have them delete it. It’s within your rights. I’m told there is a link on their site somewhere. Why? If/when they go into bankruptcy, they will most likely be selling your DNA to the highest bidder. Who know where it will end so save yourself some trouble and have it deleted.
I bet they have already sold the DNA to someone.
I bet it was the plan right from the start.
One of the oddest things 2023 – how quickly Jack Teixeira was forgotten!
“Pentagon leaker Jack Teixeira sentenced to 15 years in US prison”
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/pentagon-leaker-teixeira-faces-sentencing-us-seeks-17-year-prison-term-2024-11-12/
What did happen back then?
Had to look it up myself. Here’s Time’s take:
https://time.com/6837530/teixeira-discord-leak-guilty-plea/
TLDR; It’s all Top Secret, but it must have been very dangerous. We must be afraid. Putin is under every bed.
If it was posted on the internet the details are likely still out there somewhere.
The leaks are known but not how that came about.
The wildest theories were floated for weeks.
Some thought it was an inside job by the likes of Avril Haines.
Others argued it was the surest sign for the demise of the deep state that a kid could get them out.
So far – as far as I read – there was seriously no explanation how the info got out.
Was it a failure or on purpose?
And nobody seems to bother any more.
“Israel and the U.S. are interfering in Lebanese politics to oust Hezbollah — here’s why it won’t work”
Say, does anybody remember reading how back in WW2 when the Germans were Blitzing England, that the US and Germany got together a proposal for British forces to pull back from the coastline all the way to the north of England behind a line stretching from Bristol to Hull? And that Edward VIII would be brought back from exile and become King again when his brother George VI stepped down? And how the Luftwaffe would still have the right to patrol the skies of England and do any necessary strikes? No, I don’t remember that happening either.
Melania Trump snubs Jill Biden: First Lady makes revealing first move by skipping traditional White House meeting Daily Mail
To bad. The guys at Duran mentioned the other day, Trump declined the traditional transitional assistance offered President Elects. They implied it comes with financial assistance with strings attached. I took that to mean establishment Uni-Party redlines to make real change harder. Biden is clearly mentally impaired. Why should anyone have to deal with him? That was clear 4 yrs ago and is only gotten worse.
House Freedom Caucus dies with a whimper:
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/11/13/congress/johnsons-challengers-update-house-speaker-gop-00189265
Mike Johnson will be the next House Speaker. M T-G, how you have disappointed me. The swamp strikes back.
Re: “Standing desks may be bad for your health, new research finds”
Up next: treadmill desks
re: Sleuthnews – Russiagate
I like the straight forward attitude here:
“Russiagate”
So what should the Republican House or Senate do? Or what should the Trump administration and DOJ do?
https://www.sleuth.news/p/russiagate
“There are two avenues at this point. First, they could order a mass declassification of documents. There is what is colloquially known as the “binder of documents” from 4 years ago and there are likely some very interesting documents.
The second avenue is to use subpoena power to go get answers. This is subject to the appetites of members of Congress or the Trump DOJ and quite honestly, I don’t see them doing it. The Republicans had the House 2 years ago and did nothing.”
The GOP Uniparty Senate members, under McConnell’s leadership, are plotting against T’s programs already. See the machinations over the Senate leadership question as McConnell steps down but does not leave his Senate seat. Sort of like O and Pelosi being in charge in the background, McConnell plans the same for himself, imo.
This is the Uniparty,( which for convenience I call the neoliberal faction), there is the not-Uniparty, and that gives me a better idea of what’s happening than the Dem – GOP designations. ymmv / ;)
Coming out of the gate, Trump is already a lame duck president. Every politico in the country recognizes that. Many of the supporters jockeying for a place in his administration no doubt already have their eyes on the 2028 presidential race as the heir apparent to MAGA. Just a few Republican votes in the Senate against Trump policies could defeat their dreams of MAGA now, MAGA tomorrow, MAGA forever. Not to mentions if economic conditions take a nosedive. No way that food prices, home prices and rents, energy prices, and the price of manufactured goods, and everyday necessities come down to pre-covid levels, short of another deflation similar to the 2008 crisis or an all out recession. If material condition don’t substantially improve, the natives are going to get restless. Like the late, great philosopher Jim Morrison said, “the future’s uncertain and the end is always near.”
Prices may not go down, but Trump could always cut the people a check.
People may not remember, but way before any covid checks were cut, George W cut checks to every voter around 2001, looking to curry favor. I remember because I was working at WAMU bank then and one very funny older black guy came in to deposit the check and sarcastically said ” I give thanks to my great white father!” when he handed it to me. Cracks me up to this day!
File under 2024 Postmortem:
From Due Dissidence with Thomas Frank, utube, ~53+ minutes.
Thomas Frank on 2024 Trump LANDSLIDE, Democrats’ Working Class COLLAPSE, and More
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZggaRAWdUaU
*Sigh*
It was not a landslide. It was a solid win. I hope that word is Due Dissidence clickbait and not Frank.
A rare dust storm caused a multi-vehicle pileup and shut off power to Central Valley residents Monday.
The so-called haboob swept through the valley from about 1:30 to 4 p.m. Monday, said Emily Wilson, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service at Hanford.
Several people were injured in an accident on California 99, and Pacific Gas & Electric reported outages for about 15,000 Fresno county residents as abnormally high winds kicked dust up into a menacing cloud.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-11-12/rare-haboob-dust-storm-brings-central-valley-to-a-halt
Thanks, Wuk. Haboob is a new word to me. Do you have any idea of its origin?
Arizona, ha ha
It’s an Islamic word I believe, but not sure.
an islamic word?
Arabic.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/haboob
Why Merz, von der Leyen and Kallas are so openly risking a war with Russia – Anti-Spiegel
“Western politicians know that their actions have no consequences for them personally.”
Something I’ve been harping about…
Unless they cross their paymasters, it’s a case of the unaccountable doing the bidding of the unaccountable.
A remarkable show
Israel’s War on the Foreign Press (w/ Jeremy Loffredo) | The Chris Hedges Report
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/israels-war-on-the-foreign-press
omfg the Suitcase Bed is a masterpiece, I hope Temu releases budget friendly knockoff soon.
Marcetic seems pissed over Dem loss…
This is an unusually short piece on the rich profitting off Trump now:
Trump Is Planning a Presidency of, by, and for the Rich
By Branko Marcetic
Now that the “pro-worker” GOP led by Donald Trump holds the reins of government, what does it plan to do? A program of handouts for big business and austerity for the rest of us.
https://jacobin.com/2024/11/trump-musk-billionaires-tax-cuts
One thing that strikes me about this election is how eminently beatable Trump was, by a “New Deal” Dem.
Harris was a terrible candidate and her campaign strategy was idiotic, embracing Cheney and running what are arguably the worst campaign ads ever on top of promising more of the same, harder..
Add a little sabotage from Genocide Joe and Slick Willie and she still made a decent showing.
A pantsuit empty of everything except shit stains garnered millions of votes…
She ran on Biden’s record and the bottom 2/3 thought it stunk. But some of them hated trump, so she still got close to half the votes.
Sure Bernie or anybody running in either major party on his platform would win, but elites job 1 is to keep that platform off the ballot. Imo Dem elites would vote trump before Bernie bc donors.
Stein did run on a progressive platform, she got nowhere. Bernie would have done better than she did on the green ticket, but imo he knew there was no chance of winning, and dems would see him as a spoiler as they did Nader, probably ending his senate career where he still gets to make minor improvements to bills. Plus, maybe it’s fun to be a senator.
Just saw that Matt Gaetz is nominated for AG. I had to check it on another site to be sure it wasn’t an Onion headline. We are truly in a post-serious world. Reminds me of “Back to the Future” joking about Jack Benny as secretary of the treasury. Look how bad this is now and remember the insanity is just starting.
Irony is truly dead. Trump creates a new bureaucracy to tackle government efficiency and staffs it with two, not one, two leaders. LOL This could be a windfall for Musk. Depending on the specifics, if he gets a WH job and has to divest some stock he can do so with no capital gains tax.
The video of Chinese schoolkids exercising was awesome. I’m pretty sure some of the older nuns at St. Denis would not have been able to lead those exercise. ;)
Is no one curious about the operational state of the USS Abraham Lincoln? What is the relevance of the Houthi attack lasting “eight hours”, and why are they being so cryptic?
I’m curious. There are posts on Twitter claiming to show the ship under attack and on fire:
https://x.com/AsgardIntel/status/1856597696259162305
https://x.com/AsgardIntel/status/1856593159435768080
Not sure how to evaluate this, but I tend to think we are not going to get any honest account of what’s happened from the Western media.
I don’t know what to think here. The superstructure of one of the vessels shown in the first video looks suspiciously like an American battleship. Do we even have any functioning battleships anymore?
What we probably need is satellite photos of the ships in question from the Russians.
The first one (0:45) is from some computer game or whatever (it’s pretty obvious for those that have seen few of those). The second one is old video of different ship (as mentioned in the replies).
P.S. Those that can’t be bothered with making X acount (like myself), can see the whole thread here:
https://xcancel.com/AsgardIntel/status/1856593159435768080
. . . ” JAMES CARVILLE SAYS ‘I TOLD YOU SO’ TO DEMOCRATS
‘We told you this identity shit was a disaster. We have no power. Nothing.’ ”
And WE told YOU that this Free Trade shit was a disaster. We have no industry, nothing.
Maybe fellow commenter Spud will also have something to say about this deep wisdom from James Carville, the Agen’ Cajun.
Pretty cool that the banner ad on that Mother Jones article about Joonya coming for the NIH is Swisher Sweets “Legend” cigars, on my viewportscreenfeedtrough anyway.
Always get the best ads after a cookie/data/history reset. Algie’s tryna figure me out again. Seems to think I’m an overweight woman, keeps hectoring me with GLP-1 injections for weight loss. I remember that time I was worried artificial 3D printer robot intelligence was coming straight for my job, silly old me…
Cigarette does sound good though.
Guess they’re playing the long game…