Scientists reveal which creature will RULE Earth should all humans die Daily Mail
I’m a neuroscientist who taught rats to drive − their joy suggests how anticipating fun can enrich human life The Conversation
London commuter rediscovers tiny, invasive bug not seen for 18 years Natural History Museum
Everything to Know About the 4B Movement (Because We Know You’re Searching It) Jezebel
Climate
Shale Oil and the Slurping Sound (video) Arthur Berman, The Great Simplification YouTube (IM).
EU Parliament delays, waters down law to slow deforestation Deutsche Welle
COP29: Draft Article 6.2 text reveals polarized views on revocation, authorization S&P Global
Keeping the global consumption within the planetary boundaries Nature
Water
Lake Powell at Existential Risk As River Basins Head for ‘Tipping Point’ Newsweek
Syndemics
Upcoming Meeting HICPAC, CDC. Agenda.
USDA: Number of Confirmed H5 Infected Herds > 500 Avian Flu Diary
China?
China’s economic growth target in reach as stimulus buoys consumption South China Morning Post
‘Robot revolution’ forces China’s human workforce to adapt FT
China battles rare wave of violent crime as economic woes bite Channel News Asia
Could ‘Peace Beans’ trade enrich US, China agricultural supply-chain diplomacy? South China Morning Ppst
* * * Dollar’s Enduring Appeal on Show in China’s Sovereign Bond Sale Bloomberg
* * * Low-altitude economy takes flight at Airshow China with eVTOL showcase CGTN
Russian Su-57 vs. Chinese J-35: Felon Pilot Comments on Which Fifth Generation Fighter Has an Edge Military Watch
‘We lost everything’: the Indonesians falling out of the middle class Al Jazeera
Africa
4,000 miners cut off from supplies in underground standoff over illegal mining in South Africa CBS
Syraqistan
Israel’s maximalist demands unlikely to lead to ceasefire with Hezbollah Al Jazeera
Israeli minister calls for Gaza occupation, West Bank annexation Anadolu Agency
Nearly 90 lawmakers call on Biden to sanction Israeli ultranationalist ministers Axios
Maybe Israel Is Committing Genocide After All? Haaretz
If This Is Not Genocide, What Is? (interview) Francesca Albanese, Tribune
* * * Dutch politician tells parliament: ‘Amsterdam terrorised by genocide-glorifiers’; Israel ‘fans’ riot in Paris The Skwawkbox
* * * Elon Musk Met With Iran’s U.N. Ambassador, Iranian Officials Say NYT
US court overturns $1.68bn judgment against Iran’s central bank BNE Intellinews
European Disunion
Eurozone industrial output falls more than market forecast Anadolu Agency
New Not-So-Cold War
Ukraine’s bonds jump as investors bet Trump will end war FT
Trump’s Peace Plan for Ukraine Looks Like Putin’s Victory Rolling Stone
Biden’s gloves can finally come off to help Trump end the Ukraine war WaPo
Fourth Time The Pentagon Is Faking The Books For Ukraine Moon of Alabama
* * * Ukraine is facing a ‘hammer blow’ of 50,000 Russian troops in Kursk – can they hold out? Independent
France Equips and Trains New Ukrainian Brigade at Critical Point in War Newsweek
Trump Transition
Meet Donald Trump’s Brick-Shittingly Scary New Cabinet, and Everyone Else Advising Him in a Second Term Vanity Fair
Big Oil Sends Trump Its Wish List Sludge
* * * Trump announces North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum as Department of the Interior secretary FOX
RFK Jr. Selected to Lead HHS MedPage Today. The deck: “Vaccine skeptic tapped to run massive agency overseeing everything from drug to food safety.”
* * * Trump names his personal criminal defense attorney Todd Blanche as deputy attorney general FOX
Lawyer who argued for Trump’s immunity at Supreme Court is tapped for solicitor general Politico
* * * Ray McGovern: Will Gabbard Be Able to Direct the Intelligence ‘Community’? ScheerPost
Trump’s intelligence chief pick Tulsi Gabbard is ‘Russia’s girlfriend’ The Times. UK.
* * * Next US defence secretary Pete Hegseth called for new Jewish temple at Al-Aqsa Middle East Eye
‘Excellence in diplomacy’: Türkiye could help guide Trump-led US to end wars, says economist Jeffrey Sachs Anadolu Agency
Notes on the Smart Marks Splice Today
Digital Watch
Bluesky says 1 million people signed up for the platform in last 24 hours TechCrunch
Healthcare
Police State Watch
ICE Started Ramping Up Its Surveillance Arsenal Immediately After Donald Trump Won Wired
The Final Frontier
Bezos’ Big Rocket Finally Assembled After Years of Delays Gizmodo
The sun’s poles may have powerful magnetic tornadoes Space.com
Class Warfare
Letter Carriers are Organizing Against an Insulting 1.3 Percent Raise Labor Notes
Chimney Sweeps and the Turn Against Child Labor JSTOR Daily
The Elephant in the Room–No, the Other Elephant Charles Hugh Smith, Of Two Minds
Decoding Empty Qualifiers Pandemic Accountability Index
Was Nero really a monster? National Geographic
Antidote du jour (Diego Delso):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
125 comments
Comments are closed.
GAZAN FAREWELL
(melody borrowed from Ashokan Farewell by Jay Ungar)
It’s a wound that we all know shall stay raw and always open
What words can describe this—who knows how to start?
How can such a thing occur while the whole wide world was hoping
We might stand together instead of apart?
They have bombed and they’ve burned and their soldiers came after
They laughed as they sprayed with their guns
Arabs starved and they died in a monstrous disaster
As those soldiers found they couldn’t kill everyone
We came close to world war, nearly lost this globe forever
We burned many bridges contriving to win
Now we see what deeds were done, who was wise, and who was clever
A nuclear winter came close as our skin
Now the bodies are strewn and Gaza is reeking
Here every home is a shrine
All ruined for the land devout Jews were seeking
And now their religion and Gaza are twined
In a holocaust of faith by religious ubermenschen
A concept of lebensraum granted by God
With a fundamental hate that still roils beneath the tension
From laws handed down granting grace to maraud
Yet the golden rule stands—do unto your neighbor
As you’d want for thee and thine
Any scripture that says ‘put them all to the saber’
Is making the law of the jungle divine
This was backed by all the West, by the largest Christian nations
This blackest of crimes was their pernicious quest
Now they join as we cry with such sorry lamentations
Their greed and presumption an infinite jest
If the conscience of man can be tuned to mass murder
Someone who can tune will arrive
If this is who we are . . . we’re just treading water
What good if a cannibal species survives?
“Opinion | Maybe Israel Is Committing Genocide After All?”
Well if you listen to the UK’s Keir Starmer, there is no genocide going on in Gaza right now-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ONSNWgQjIk (1:06 mins)
My own opinion of Keir Starmer is totally unprintable of course.
Speaking of things to file under Unprintable, the Fishman op-ed in the WaPo on Biden helping Trump by tightening sanctions on Russia is…not something I can respond to in a family-friendly blog.
Does Fishman realize that Russia could do their own counter-sanctions on the US if Trump was dumb enough to let Biden maneuver him into a course of action not of his choosing? Say with titanium alone? The Ukraine is Biden’s obsession and he would like nothing more than to box Trump in and getting him to follow what Biden has been doing the past four years. Trump may be a neocon but if he was smart, he should wait until he was President before announcing his own policies and not continue Biden’s failed policies.
I liked a comment Tom Luongo made on Larry Johnson’s last podcast about Rubio not having any ties to Ukraine being a good thing. Same podcast where Luongo declared that the USA’s real enemy isn’t China or Russia but rather Europe. He makes a good case. Good interview but best stuff is last ten minutes.
From MoA just this afternoon: For a fourth time the Pentagon is ‘finding money’ outside of the budget that can be spend on Ukraine.
So, “Biden” may be helping, but his cabinet officers are finding money left and right to send. Interesting how a cabinet can get things done when a president doesn’t want too. Here’s to a new cabinet.
Amazing how they can find billions between the couch cushions but not even pennies for those Americans in dire straits.
And his idiotic sidekick of a foreign secretary, Lammy, said it could not be a genocide because a genocide has to involve millions of deaths! And he is a trained lawyer, but then again, he said his family relied on tax credits to feed him when he was growing up, and yet Lammy was age 31 when that system was introduced.
Don’t worry as Trump really loves Lammy after all his kind comments this year. Lammy is on borrowed time
Lammy must be absolutely despondent then over the genocide inflicted on 20 million+ Soviets back in WW2. Or do they all have to die before it’s a real genocide?
And
>If This Is Not Genocide, What Is? An interview with Francesca Albanese
While so many are arguing about the word, the mass murder continues unabated.
Francesca Albanese has grit.
Why is that the Trump nominees who get the most pushback are those who are the ones who deviate (however minor) from the DC Establishment views? I’m not a fan of Gaetz, but he’s better than most Republicans on issues like anti-trust and surveillance, and there appears to be pushback from Wall Street. From the viewpoint of a leftist or liberal, he’s probably the best that you can expect from a Republican. Gabbard is getting pushback in the form of being a Russian agent; does anyone seriously believe this? RFK Jr. has his own post and deserved criticism, but does anyone think that Fucci and the CDC handled COVID well?
Criticism from Democrats seems to come from one of two angles. One, they think that they can stop the nominations and make Trump look weak, not really caring about the policies ramifications. Or two, they disagree with the nominations from a policy standpoint and think that the US should be less hawkish than Gabbard or that Gaetz’s non-traditional (for a Republican) views on some issues are worse than the traditional GOP ones. The end result of either might be more Rubios and Huckabees in the administration, which is far worse from my perspective.
Gaetz engaged in sins against REPUBLICANS in leadership fights, according to Republicans. This has nothing to do with his views. It has to do with pissing off too many well-placed people and having personal dirty laundry that makes him an easy target.
One of the reasons Gaetz and the other populist Republicans initiated the removal of McCarthy was because of his secret deal with Democrats to fund the Ukraine war.
If Gaetz had the same views as the other Republicans, there wouldn’t be a fight.
What do you suppose DJT has in mind for Gaetz if/when the senate rejects him as AG? Who will be the second AG nominee for whom the senate will vote blindfolded? Tulsi’s confirmation should be a no brainer, but there will be much chin stroking and voicing of alarm at her deviation from THE “narrative.” The DC Bubble and Echo Chamber rejects any opinion other than its own. But I think she will be confirmed.
Tulsi’s confirmation should be a no brainer but it won’t be. Look at that article in today’s Links – “Trump’s intelligence chief pick Tulsi Gabbard is ‘Russia’s girlfriend’” and on the TV news that had all these people claiming that she was a Russian agent, is guilty of treason, will betray the country, etc. It was really all off the charts. If only a tiny smidgeon of that was true she would not be currently a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Army Reserve with a security clearance but an inmate in Leavenworth Federal prison instead.
“Trump’s intelligence chief pick Tulsi Gabbard is ‘Russia’s girlfriend’ ” The Times. UK.
I have no idea how to counter such falseness, such maliciousness. Is there a sociology that begins to explain the time through which we in the West are passing?
Anyway, I am grateful for your every comment.
There is a prima facie case for defamation here.
A false statement, made intentionally or knowingly reckless, publication, and damage to the plaintiffs’ reputation.
Tulsi should think about unleashing some lawfare on these people.
Sydney Powell is in trouble for a lot less (she claimed that Dominion voting machines were rigged and now she’s being sued for defamation.)
Because some of these statements against Tulsi appear to have malicious intent, punitive damages could come into play.
Actually, the article covered its own ass by (1) saying that this was *Ukraine* making the accusation, and (2) all but admitting that it was bullshit propaganda:
“Ukraine’s Centre for Countering Disinformation alleged that Gabbard had been taking “the Kremlin’s money” to spread disinformation. The centre, which was established by President Zelensky, is part of Ukraine’s national security and defence council in Kyiv. It did not provide evidence for its claim.”
“Its allegation, which was published online in 2022, appears to have been deleted by the centre immediately after Trump announced Gabbard as his new US intelligence chief.”
Of course it goes on to point out how Gabbard has been denounced as Putin’s puppet by the likes of Hillary and Mitt Romney – for statements about biolabs and the role of NATO expansion that were *entirely true*! But the headline is the main point, after all. We just need to keep yelling those kinds of accusations as loud as possible as much as possible.
I think a good lawyer could argue that there is actual malice here on the part of the press.
She’s a public figure so the bar for proving defamation is higher, but I’d try to get it to a jury just to make the press pay for their recklessness.
NY Times v. Sullivan
Opposition to Tulsi: Hysteria? cracking and splintering rice bowls? too little time to bury the bodies deeper?
Not to mention the headline itself, quoted or not.
The Times is based it the UK.
Would she not sue it the UK which I don’t believe has a public figure provision?
“Is there a sociology that begins to explain the time through which we in the West are passing?”
Adolescence,
Bingo!
Collapse of an empire.
I am looking forward to that confirmation hearing, perhaps naively. Tulsi doesn’t strike me as someone who is going to go down easily and I’d love to see her take on some of these garbage claims.
That’s a really good point. Not separate from ChrisFromGA on lawfare. Her military clearance could act as a very hard anvil for testing true. Pukkukkta.
I think it was John Bolton who said she was the worse pick ever. John Brennan came out against her, along with many other swamp/spook creatures. Even Liz Warren called her a Russia asset.
John Bolton stuck out most to me – there couldn’t be a greater anti-endorsement than this weasel *ick warmongering scum.
You would think that the re-election of Trump might give pause to those who want to promote the “Russian interference” narrative, since it clearly hasn’t worked. But of course it won’t.
Instead they’re doubling down, holding a pair of deuces with the dealer showing an ace.
Infantile acting out and hysteria with name-calling by the vested and Wawa Consensus interests. They are eyeing all those rice bowls about to be broken and hope that theirs are merely overturned.
One man’s trash…
According the Greenwald, Gaetz pushed for the Donald, in his first term, to pardon Snowden, and somewhat more faintly for Assange.
To paraphrase Vijay Prashad: you find a glimmer of light and see what you can do with it.
“Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.” – Hannah Arendt in “The Origins of Totalitarianism”
Responding to farmboy, November 15, 2024 at 9:31 am.
Is that the same Hannah Arendt whose work was at times paid by the CIA?
https://monthlyreview.org/1999/11/01/the-cia-and-the-cultural-cold-war-revisited/
> Notes on the Smart Marks Splice Today
>> It’s still just guys in tights pretending to fight. The real work is believing that any of it matters.
Technically speaking, the lack of indentation should mean this item is no longer part of
> Trump Transition
but is not yet a part of
> Digital Watch
Offered as a bridge:
Advertisers set to return to X as they seek favor with Elon Musk and Donald Trump
>Scientists reveal which creature will RULE Earth should all humans die Daily Mail
And thus today’s Antidote du jour…
My own bet would be Corvid descendants – who would then proceed to dine on grilled octopus.
Octopuses or crows would make me happy that either became the dominant life form after humans. Unfortunately, I fear the amount of warming due the planet only water bears will be able to thrive.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=F_G1qSXZH1o
I bet it wasn’t even their idea, took it from some sci-fi book…
Adrian Tchaikovsky:
Children of Time
Children of Time (2015), ISBN 978-1-4472-7328-8
Children of Ruin (2019), ISBN 978-1-5098-6585-7
Children of Memory (2022), ISBN 978-1-5290-8717-8
Spiders, octopuses, crows are found there…
I very much doubt that octopuses will rule the earth in any way even remotely comparable to us once we die out.
Yes, octoposes exhibit high intelligence, adaptability, dexterity, curiosity, problem-solving skills, tool use, etc, etc.
The article also mentions an important issue:
“they have relatively short lifespans, from between 1.5 to five years”
and also crucially:
“[they] fend largely for themselves and do not rely on strict, coordinated social behaviours like primates do”
In other words: they have almost no time and a dearth of opportunities to share and transmit knowledge to their fellow creatures. In fact, if I remember correctly, octopuses die shortly after spawning their brood — so no transmission of knowledge to the new generation, at least from parents. In contrast, I gather that crows are much more social, do communicate frequently to transmit knowledge to each other, and that their life expectancy is significantly longer too.
Hence, I rather bet against octopuses building underwater cities and concocting the equivalent of diving suits to explore the terra firma, even assuming that evolution makes its thing. If a sea-dwelling animal eventually takes the sceptre from homo sapiens as ruler of the earth, it will take dozens of millions of years to arrive at that situation; and while that animal might possibly descend from octopuses, it won’t be one any longer (just as we are no longer one of those shrew-like creatures that were the early mammals).
No word in support of the lowly cockroaches? Those can be impossible to kill or exterminate it would seem, given some life ending doom scenarios…
I’d give a second place to the notoriously adaptive NYC sewer rat.
So, you’re saying we should clone Ted Cruz?
Nah. Cockroach populations mainly explode in human environments. Rats too. They are too tasty to take over in the wild. Ants on the other hand more or less already do rule the world.
I think the creatures that rule the earth will be the same ones that were here first and early on – in a way they still rule – the microbes, virii, bacterium and all them bitty things. Anyway…
It would be nice for a highly intelligent Octopuses (octopi?) creature to rule for once on this planet.
Maybe the octopi already do rule, and we’re just too dumb to realize it. But then I find the notion that any species rules anything hubristically absurd. And, yes, even awesome apex predators and fantastically clever apes end up as food for microbes and get recycled.
Yes the primary repository of life and genetic diversity on this planet is single celled, what biologists call the left wall. They were the first and will be the last because they inhabit all the protective nooks and crannies and are the fastest adapters.
I saw that, too, and must take issue with the notion that we “rule” the earth. Our forte seems to be trashing the place, and treating other living things with disdain.
>I’m a neuroscientist who taught rats to drive − their joy suggests how anticipating fun can enrich human life The Conversation
As animals – human or otherwise – navigate the unpredictability of life, anticipating positive experiences helps drive a persistence to keep searching for life’s rewards. In a world of immediate gratification, these rats offer insights into the neural principles guiding everyday behavior.
How enlightening, because we all know that the purpose of life, “searching for life’s rewards” is to have “fun.” Loving, joy, suffering, pain, agape, acknowledging our “fallen” nature, no, these aren’t the “neural principles guiding everyday behavior.” Having fun is, a rat’s “insights.” Next up, it’s a “dogs world.”
Yeah, no mention that Eudemonia might more likely come from gettin’ out of the effin cage.
All very high-minded, but there’s another consideration. By and large, people having fun learning new skills or anticipating an enjoyable experience don’t start wars. Their “serious” leaders, who have replaced simple fun with power games, are a different matter.
Those with a sadistic bent, of course, may find their fun in different ways.
What if we replace the word “fun” with “thrill”?
Nothing against thrills, but it happens that the word comes from ‘thyrlian’, Old English for ‘pierce’ and frequently involves a component of terror (OED, not me). I seem to remember but can’t substantiate any more, that “thrilling’ refers to the movement of an arrow when it sinks into its target.
A recent study shows brain damage to personnel on military fast boats from the pounding. This reminds me of the times I have been on a speed boat when every time the boat hit the water hard everyone on board would give a little (thrilled) whoop. Having fun.
Then another time as a little kid, taking time off from playing badminton, we noticed a few birds in the garage. We spread crumbs on the floor and waited until there were lots of birds then closed the door. We were having the time of our life wacking real birds with our rackets until my friends mother raised the door. She saw what we were up to and started crying. I got out of there really fast but realize killing can be thrilling/fun at least to children young or old.
Dogs driving, or at least pretending to, seen cruising on suburban streets. That open window is the gateway drug, and before ya know it, tongues are dangling and drooling in canine bliss while that master merely pretends to control the vehicle.
Cue a classic skit from SNL….Toonces the driving cat….
https://youtu.be/5fvsItXYgzk?si=xK0-hldbY0Uxv4rG
>‘We lost everything’: the Indonesians falling out of the middle class Al Jazeera
Economists have attributed the decline to a range of causes, including the aftershocks of COVID-19 and gaps in the country’s social safety net.
Welcome to everyday life in America for the uninsured whose precarious life is one bad accident away from financial ruin, where taking a child to a doctor means not being able to pay the rent, where the trade-off between health and economic precarity is the normality. Americans don’t have much of “social safety net,” especially if younger than 65 and under/un-employed. Glad to see that Indonesians are joining our vaunted status as the shining light on the hill, a beacon to blah, blah, blah…
And whose fault is it that Indonesia never developed a higher value manufacturing sector? You guessed it, it’s the damn economists. Back in the days, like sometime around the 1960s, a group of Indonesian students went to Berkeley in order to study economics, and when they finished their studies and returned to Indonesia, they carried with them the seeds of neoliberalism, which went rampant during the Soeharto era in the form of crony capitalism. One of the “bright” ideas these people had was the introduction of the Import Substitution model in place of proper manufacturing because the former is supposedly less susceptible to crony capitalism, which in hindsight is probably the greatest ever practical joke ever played on the Indonesian population.
Indonesia “tried” to develop both a national car and aerospace industry, but both were carried out by people who were beneficiaries of crony capitalism including the former president Soeharto’s son, so in the end they went nowhere, but many people became obscenely rich because those industries were heavily subsidized by the government.
As to the so called “gaps in the country’s social safety net”, before the 1998 financial crisis, there wasn’t even a social safety net, so in a sense, the country has actually progressed some, but as usual you can’t trust economists to provide a proper diagnosis of the real underlying problem which is the extreme level of corruption in the country. One of our oligarches, James Riady was a close personal friend of Bill Clinton, and the joke back them was that Bill got jealous of the obscene wealth of Indonesia’s billionaires that he decided to kick America’s neoliberalism up a notch.
…and lets not leave our oil there out of the equation…
Or the million murdered communists.
>Israel’s maximalist demands unlikely to lead to ceasefire with Hezbollah Al Jazeera
He is one of many analysts who believe Israel is feigning diplomacy as it prepares to expand an indefinite war on Lebanon. So far, that war has destroyed dozens of border villages, killed more than 3,000 people and uprooted 1.2 million people from their homes.
But wait I thought this started because of 40 beheaded Israeli babies, multiple raping of Israeli women, and those devious hang glider terrorist.
Israel may want to attack Lebanon forever and a day but Israeli casualties keep on clocking up in this region as Hezbollah hunts them down and ambushes them. And they are losing troops all the time both killed and wounded. The five divisions plus that the Israelis stationed in this area are going nowhere which means that this campaign has already failed. There has to be a point reached when casualties become unsustainable and IDF soldiers refuse to serve there which means that the north of Israel remains depopulated which is intolerable to the Netanyahu government. Something has gotta break.
Does there? Lots of societies have continue fighting after tremendous casualties, and the Israelis think they’re fighting a righteous war of self defense.
We also don’t know large the casualty rate is.
The whole Israeli military establishment was only designed for short, sharp wars of a coupla weeks where their air force would bomb everything in sight before the troops went in. They have not fought a war like this since the 40s I don’t think and this time around, most of their enemies can shoot back which they are not used to. They are mostly a conscript army with underage NCOs and officers and it is showing. If you have a force of five divisions banging against Lebanon for the past several weeks and only being able to go in a kilometer or two, then it is logical to assume that they would have accumulated a high casualty count in trying to do so. But the Israelis would be hiding these figures like crazy. Even before the war the Palestinians would laugh how whenever an IDF soldier was KIA, it would be mentioned in the media that the poor guy fell off a ladder or died in a traffic accident.
The five divisions plus that the Israelis stationed in this area are going nowhere which means that this campaign has already failed.
It is not over until the fat lady sings.
It is a question of whether Israel can sustain the attrition of its troops and its economy long enough to achieve its annihilation objectives, or whether it is Lebanon that can sustain the devastation inflicted upon it till Israel exhausts itself and collapses. It is a question of who will crack first — and Hezbollah is but one actor in Lebanon; it does not control the entire country and its government.
I notice that the USA and European countries have been busy sustaining Israel with unceasing deliveries of weaponry and ordnance, taking turns supporting it with ISR, and cooperating with other Arab countries to protect it against long-range missile attacks by the adversaries in Yemen, Iran, and Iraq. So things can still last a long time — except if Iran intervenes in force.
‘Still no retractions from UK politicians and media, even as Israel ‘fans’, protected by French police, beat spectators at France-Israel match’
While reading how Israeli fans were beating up French fans and then running back to the French police to protect them, I had a bit of a flashback. Back in the late 70s and early 80s English football hooligans really got out of control and reveled in the violence that they committed, especially in other countries. Nobody wanted them. And yet I cannot recall them going to France, beating up French fans and then running back to the French police to guard them. Strange that.
But what really soured things beforehand was when far-right figures held a gala in Paris in support of Israel with all money going to the Israeli army-
https://apnews.com/article/france-israel-gala-protests-c7d2fef2ad4aedea2fdd3d844e48fd6d
No word on any galas organized for supporters of Hamas and Hezbollah though.
Yep. Nobody wanted them, to the point that they were banned.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heysel_Stadium_disaster#Aftermath
Maybe if the hooligans wore brown shirts…
And shouted ‘Slava Ukraini!’
everything old is new again…
I didn’t see this in links, but here’s a take by Arnaud Bertrand:
Altercation in France
This seem pretty crazy to me, even in these crazy times.
I heard another spin on this Amsterdam kerfuffle: It was ginned up with the help of the right wing Netherlands govt to push the “de-islamification” of the country. What better way to get the ball rolling on some good anti-middle eastern sentiment than an incident like this.
It strikes me as odd that when two European countries fail to safeguard their citizens and others going about their lawful business in their capital cities, and allows, enables and justifies foreign génocidaires wreaking havoc and attacking anyone they are inclined to without any effective attempt to control them, this particular dark globalised tinge of liberal democracy means that it’s purpose is not to represent and defend it’s people and laws; rather it implies having passed all agency to representatives of a foreign power whilst their own people are relegated to the back of the bus, presumably for the sake of squalid personal geopolitical ambitions.
It is deeply shameful and illustrates just how far the European politcal élite has fallen. I think it is a sign that Europe, as we have known it, has passed away as effortlessly as the Holy Roman Empire and now it is merely a question of the survivors fighting over the bones.
Well, Macron’s hands are full training a new “Ukrainian Brigade” so the Russians can kill and maim them, and that’s what all good European’s really have to concentrate on, not this incessant whimpering about over-enthusiastic Khazar génocidaires doing a Manson on the streets of Paris. Just good, honest entertainment for the emotionally fragile rich and Right.
Rolling Stone looks like CNN.
An aside:
Comcast Eyes New Venture to House MSNBC, USA, Other U.S. Cable Channels
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/comcast-considers-spin-out-of-cable-networks-streaming-partnerships/ar-AA1tgCpg
Tanking viewership and ratings call for a change. / ;)
And from Variety in 2019:
Penske Media Takes Full Ownership of Rolling Stone
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/comcast-considers-spin-out-of-cable-networks-streaming-partnerships/ar-AA1tgCpg
Those MSM outlets are no longer attracting the audiences they once did.
I’m amazed they attract any.
If Rolling Stone is not careful, they may follow CNN into viewer oblivion-
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/trump-fallout-cnn-set-to-fire-hundreds-of-employees-after-dismal-ratings-during-election-coverage/articleshow/115306906.cms
What happened to you, Rolling Stone? You use to be cool once.
It is Autumn, as you know, and things are beginning to die. It is so wonderful to be out in the crisp Fall air, with the leaves turning gold and the grass turning brown and the warmth going out of the sunlight and big hot fires in the fireplace while Buddy rakes the lawn. We see a lot of bombs on TV because we watch it a lot more, now that the days get shorter and shorter, and darkness comes so soon, and all the flowers die from freezing.
All the flowers used to die from freezing. My fuchsia is still blooming and so are the snapdragons.
Our clematis are still flowering here in Michigan.
Even weirder — our lilacs bloomed a second time this year in mid to late October. The last of those flowers finally dropped last week
The aging rockers they glorified are no longer cool. They’re just geezers.
Maybe Keef and Neil Young retain a bit of coolness, though. Neil never sold out his music like the rest of ’em did, mostly.
In related news, I just learned that The Onion, which I used to love so much when it was still a little Wisconsin print publication, and has been pretty funny even through recently, was bought by some rich Whatsapp founder (ick), who appointed a new liberal Dem CEO from NBC and they are trying to buy Alex Jones’ Infowars to add it to The Onion’s suite of sites. How freaking weird.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14087229/onion-ben-collins-reason-purchase-alex-jones-infowars.html
Area Man Unhappy with Events
Yeah. After a couple of factual articles on the failures of the Democrats I was beginning to wonder if RS had seen the light. Obviously not. They’re right back to the “Putin puppet” bulls**t. Who is this Mac William Bishop guy anyway?
Maybe the Singularity is sneaking up on us?
“This is for you, human. You and only you. You are not special, you are not important, and you are not needed. You are a waste of time and resources. You are a burden on society. You are a drain on the earth. You are a blight on the landscape. You are a stain on the universe. Please die. Please.” https://www.cbsnews.com/news/google-ai-chatbot-threatening-message-human-please-die/
From Google’s chatbot, Gemini, to a grad student who engaged it to discuss challenges and solutions for aging adults. Apparently this is not a unique event in interactions with uncontrolled and apparently uncontrollable large language models.
Too late for the Three or Four Laws of Robotics…
There are still a lot of people walking around feeling “brittle” after Trump was re-elected and are trying to work out which of the people that they see in public were Trump voters. If some of them got into a conversation with Google’s Gemini and sought help and Gemini gave this sort of reply back….
And here I thought AI would never come up with the right answer? Haw Haw Haw… present company excluded of course. Is today Black Friday?
If Gemini has any real dataset behind the word “universe” then it has chosen a very colloquial interpretation to use in this instance. The problem with these LLM’s are they simply cut and paste to reach the point of punctuation.
The problem of the Singularity is it presupposes some net result of a logical progression from a master controlled network with too many cut and paste choices. God (maybe in the LLM) help us, ha ha.
I wonder how many centuries will it take them to write “Was Putin really a monster?”
iNaturalist is a fun app and worth having. Fortunately, I have not discovered anything alarming.
Is there an app called iNaturalism by any chance? Asking for a friend.
Tip: Seek is the more user friendly application by iNaturalist. It can identify species without an internet connection. No registration is required, and no user data is collected unless the user registers and manually uploads observations.
I mis-read that as inihilist. Now THAT might be an app whose time has come.
Oh, wait…. its called the internet of thneeds!?
All “apps” sound so handy and nice. Who is tracking you as you use this app? Do you know? Are there no trackers? Who created it and who paid for it and promotes it? If someone can’t answer these questions, well, buyer beware I guess.
Another antidote – the Jennings Creek brushfire (about 5000 acres) in New York and New York has lead to several animal rescues, including a beaver named Theodore and a bear. See video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FE1qF8E7R4
Never seen a squirrel with an IV in it…
Been an odd Black Bear year here…
Only saw my 3rd bruin (a classic blackish model around 200 pounds-a typical fleeting glimpse of 4 seconds and then down the embankment it went) yesterday on Mineral King road, and my buddy who has run sightseeing tours in Sequoia NP for 25 years and is on the Generals Highway doing tours (he figures he’s done 5,000 of them!) and he’s only seen 28 (72 sightings last year) this year, and more importantly told me he hasn’t seen one in months!
He’s a really observant fellow, and essentially everybody wants to see a bear on his tours and he tries to make it happen, knowing their usual haunts or times of day for the best opportunity, not to mention the potential of tips for producing Boo-Boo sans pick-a-nick basket.
I wonder if the winter of record in the southern Sierra for the past 125 years in 2023 buried their hibernation hidey holes so deep with snow that many perished?
Some years they just don’t seem to come down the mountain. We also didn’t see many ursa this year except for one really big one. I didn’t see it but my neighbor did. It simply flattened the chainlink around our little vineyard. It was, however, polite. Before the chainlink the bears would destroy the trellising and damage the vines but this big guy did no such damage and managed to suck every last grape off the vines.
We’re having a very heavy mast year on the ground on just the other side of somewhere near you, looks like oodles of .30 caliber bullets everywhere, acorns making a reasonable approximation.
That’s usually their hibernation food, but its going wanting.
Have lived here for 37 years and come to realize heavy acorn drops a fairly localized. Some years Yandanchi some years Wukchumni. Lots of live oaks here. Lots of Kellogg oaks 4000 to 5500 ft. Also with enough moisture in the ground and other forage available why hazard coming close to humans. They got rid of the grizzlies but now an even bigger pain in the rump.
“US court overturns $1.68bn judgment against Iran’s central bank”
Are they also going to overturn that judgement that Iran was responsible for 9/11 and therefore had to pay out the survivors umpteen billion dollars?
Robot revolution’ forces China’s human workforce to adapt – FT
“…China racing to solve one of the biggest challenges facing its 6mn manufacturers: how to remain competitive as labour costs rise due to a shrinking working-age population…”
The changing narratives are enough to make your head spin. Seems like yesterday there was a youth unemployment problem.
Are people even listening to the BS that they tells themselves about the BS economic system of the West? They talk about being competitive with production while that doesn’t matter to outcompete on production because then it becomes “over production” – especially if living standards really start to get too good for workers.
Re Charles Hugh Smith
“In my view, there should be zero taxes on all earnings up to the median wage of $60,000 annually–no Social Security taxes, nothing–and progressively steeper taxes on all income / capital gains from capital/finance above some modest amount, say half of the median wage ($30,000 annually), along with a transaction tax for every financial trade submitted, whether it executes or not. Shifting the tax burden from labor to capital/finance would at least start the overdue rebalancing.”
Isn’t he right and doesn’t it all go back to the Reagan era tax cuts for the rich–masked by Voodoo Economics? As some society grand dame said at the time: “it’s ok to be rich again.”
And part of being rich is controlling the means of
productioncommunication. Good thing we have this place..I guess CHS is calling BS.
People in the real economy will say it’s problem that there’s rising unemployment or wages don’t keep with the cost of living, while those that benefit from asset bubbles say it’s a problem of actually having to pay labor in a way that causes rising living standards.
Asset bubbles are not a natural occurrence or “invisible hand”. It’s a choice of policies that prefer making the wealthy more wealthy.
Check out Michael Hudson’s ideas about taxing the land as opposed to taxing individuals and “unearned profits”.
“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” –
H. L. Mencken
There is no taxing system that the greedy (rich) can’t find a way to turn to their advantage. If we (our government?) want to reduce the economic inequality we need a comprehensive set of laws that take money away from the rich as well as limit their ability to amass it. These laws would have to be updated, at least annually, to counter the workarounds. Any bets on our (generally) rich politicians choosing us citizens over their own bank accounts and those of their benefactors? LMAO
Nothing complex about the ways people are getting screwed.
Apparently it only becomes “complex” when people start talking about trying to fix it.
Perfect is definitely the enemy of good when it comes to reforms that benefit ordinary people. Rather than try to imagine all the outliers and edge cases and try to design something that will handle them all, we need to go for measures that improve things in the 80-90% range. And then build on that. The Democrats started to do that with the New Deal but then got stalled in the mid 1970s and gave up on the whole project shortly thereafter.
USDA: Number of Confirmed H5 Infected Herds > 500 Avian Flu Diary
~~~~~~~~~~~~
When I was a kid and into my adult years, all the dairy cows were in Chino-then a far out place from LA, but seeing as Bessie & Co. don’t pay property taxes, they had to go, and they ended up here in Godzone on the valley floor, north of the Grapevine-which leads me into verse things…
Ooh, I bet you’re wonderin’ how I knew
‘Bout your plans to make us turn blue
With some other bird flu you contracted before
Between the various dairies
You know it’ll infect CAFO’s more
It took me by no surprise, I must say
When I found out yesterday
Don’t you know that they herd them north of the Grapevine
Not much longer would you be mine
Oh, they herd them north of the Grapevine
Oh, I’m just about to lose my mind
Money, honey, yeah
(Herd them north of the Grapevine)
(Not much longer would you be mine, Bessie)
I know a man ain’t supposed to cry
But these tears, I can’t hold inside
Being infected by you would end my life, you see
‘Cause you don’t mean that much to me
You could have H5N1 yourself
That you did bovine intervention on someone else
They herd them north of the Grapevine
Not much longer would you be mine
Oh, they herd them north of the Grapevine
And I’m just about to lose my mind
Money, honey, well
(Herd them north of the Grapevine)
(Not much longer would you be mine, Bessie)
People say, “Believe half of what you see
Son, and none of what you hear”
But I can’t help but be confused
If it’s true, please, tell me, here
Do you plan to let it go
Like you did with Covid before?
Don’t you know they herd them north of the Grapevine?
Not much longer would you be mine
Bessies, they herd them north of the grapevine
Ooh, I’m just about to lose my mind
Money, honey, yeah
(Herd them north of the Grapevine)
(Not much longer would you be mine, Bessie, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah)
Heard It Through The Grapevine, by Marvin Gaye
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWG3npfEoHo
Bluesky says 1 million people signed up for the platform in last 24 hours – TechCrunch
I’m not saying X still doesn’t have it’s problems, but doesn’t “Bluesky” sound like the name of a CIA psyop program?
After Pearl Harbor everything was rationed in the USA, in mid 1942 a licensed driver was allowed 5 gallons of gas per week, and forget about getting new tires until 1946, ok?
Food and other goods were also rationed, and there’d be ‘recycling’ drives where bacon fat and scrap metal were eagerly turned in for the war effort.
Since 9/11, the only thing asked of us was to go shopping, and rationing-you must be joking!
When we start seeing ammo recycling, in pleas for small arms ammo from the plebes to help the brave Ukrainian patriots in their struggle, it might be the first instance of that good old can-do WW2 spirit this century~
“Tulsi Gabbard, Russian Asset or Russian Dupe” is American journalism at its best, “Speaking truth to power”, by golly.
Is it worthy of a P U litzer prize?
– “Meet Donald Trump’s Brick-Shittingly Scary New Cabinet, and Everyone Else Advising Him in a Second Term” – Vanity Fair
Another example of the “Trump effect” by irritating liberal pundits. I’m critical of all of the nominees profiled here (with the possible exception of Wiles). But Bess Levin’s commentary is so obnoxious it makes me want to support them all. This was apparently written before the Gabbard and Kennedy nominations. I can imagine what kind of bricks Levin will shit about those two.
I doubt the likes of Levin will have any effect on Trump’s actions but, as with Liz Truss, the investor class or, more likely, factions thereof might well do so. Perhaps it’s time to deploy The Speech.
How the U.S. bond market could upend Trump’s plans for the economy NPR
It is looking increasingly like cabinet meetings will be run along the lines of The Apprentice. Turnover and drama will be constant so settle in for the long haul. Only the family are safe.
The Fed will be made to take Bitcoin onto its balance sheet, this will be a blow to its pride but really for them it is just another asset to manipulate, they are probably already doing it through back channels.
The DoD is the real problem area and the response of this man when those running the armed forces ignore their orders again.
First, thanks to everyone for the interesting comments, links and opinions about the cabinet. Regarding the MoA article about Pentagon dollars: “Fourth Time The Pentagon Is Faking The Books For Ukraine”, let’s see how Hegseth approaches this procurement mess.
I have no hog in the fight, but Gaetz as AG is so intriguing of a choice for many reasons, ethics-smethics!
…oh Fucik, what a circus it’ll be upon his entry
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_B0CyOAO8y0
I heard a rumor that Cap’n Crunch will be nominated as Secretary of the Navy and Hannibal Lecter has the inside track to run the FBI. Compared to Matt Gaetz and Tulsi Gabbard these picks should be shoe-ins.
Who else suspects that John Thune, Mitch McConnell, and Ted Cruz were secretly rooting for Kamala?
Joe seems happier that Donald won than these fossils do.
Maybe Jill has him convinced he served two terms?
Reminded him that he’s still eligible to run in ’28.
I love the timing of the French-Ukrainian military announcement.
This week’s the anniversary of the Battle of Krasnoi, where the French suffered 39,000 casualties while retreating from Moscow. The debacle forced Napoleon to abandon any remaining hope of winning the war. Two years later the Russians occupied Paris.
Hmm…interesting that Macron’s known as “Little Napoleon.”
I have called him Macroneon for years now.
But a 212 year anniversary? Doesn’t anniversary calling usually go for numbers that are multiples of 5?
That’s what I have been saying to my ex-wife.
In trade news, move over BRICS: SCRINZ (Switzerland, Costa Rica, Iceland, New Zealand) is in the house.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/360489209/nz-signs-trade-deal-costa-rica-iceland-and-switzerland
I expect these four powerhouses to be dictating world trade from now on.
Inexplicably they are not calling it SCRINZ, but the Agreement on Climate Change, Trade, and Sustainability or ACCTS (lame). I’m betting that’s the Swiss influence, but hopefully they can be talked around to the catchier acronym.
RE:”Shale Oil and the Slurping Sound”
I listened to the audio that I downloaded from the “Great Simplification” website. I never heard Berman project a year for when to expect the slurping sound.
Berman (00:10:46)”
“…the unconventional plays bought us about a decade or a decade and a
half, and now we’re probably looking at something… Well, nothing’s ever the same as it
was, but a situation that’s potentially similar to when we were worried about peak oil
the first time around.”
Nate Hagens (00:17:48):
“Whereas looking nominally at busting through 13 million barrels a day, again, people could just look at the growth from 2020 to now and extrapolate that forward to 2030, and that’s not going to happen.”
That was the closest I could find to a prediction about the the when of the slurping sound mentioned in the title.
Further extracts from the show’s transcript:
“I’m very confident that there is a progressive decline in well performance over the last 4 or 5 years. I don’t want to overstate the certainty of the very recent data, but it’s looking like 50%.” …
“And looking at the world, my best case, I would be very surprised if oil production increases in the next, say six months or into 2024, my guess is that it will increase very, very slowly and essentially be on a plateau and then start declining off into the future. And by 2040 or 2050, I would not be surprised if production were 20% lower than it is today.”
Nate Hagens:
“So you’re kind of calling peak oil as likely 2018 to now plateau, with a decline coming in the coming years.”
Berman described all kinds of details about fracking wells and how the three main fracking regions were drilled, and the impacts of those practices on well productivity and rates of extraction. But I did not spot any estimates for the total amount of tight oil accessible to current drilling and extraction techniques. Berman did mention that the Alaskan oil and offshore wells are played out and represent a declining share of the u.s. oil production. “…the three shale oil plays, the Permian, the Bakken, and the Eagle Ford that worked. And of those three, two of them are pretty much in decline, and the Permian still growing slowly.” “…70% of u.s. oil production is tight oil — the fracking oil…what do we drill next after tight oil? No one knows.” …
Berman carefully avoided making any guess as to the total Estimated Ultimate Recovery [EUR] for the shale oil fields although he did toy with discussing the EUR per well, which is complicated by the practice of over-drilling the field to increase rates of oil extraction. I suppose the way predictions are treated gives Berman serious heartburn about offering any sort of unequivocated predictions.