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Links 11/17/2024

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The Bear Necessities of Larceny: Californians Arrested for Fraudulently Staging Bear Rampage Jonathan Turley

Immaculately Preserved Saber-Tooth Cat Cub Found in Siberian Permafrost Gizmodo

Three days with the true believers who won’t let Bigfoot die FT

Climate

Oil sector lobbyists the forth largest delegation at COP29 climate summit BBE Intellinews

Dispatches From the COP29 Climate Talks in Baku Exposed by CMD

* * *

To Protect Vast Expanses of Ocean Beyond All National Boundaries, 60 Nations Must Ratify the Treaty of the High Seas Inside Climate News

Syndemics

California DPH Reports First Known U.S. Case of Emerging Mpox Strain Avian Flu Diary

Emily Oster and raw milk Closed Form

Nursing aides plagued by PTSD after ‘nightmare’ COVID conditions, with little help NPR

China?

Readout of President Joe Biden’s Meeting with President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China The White House

At APEC 2024, Chinese leader Xi tells Biden he’s ‘ready to work’ with Trump Al Jazeers

Attempt to block economic cooperation is nothing but ‘backpedaling’: China’s Xi Anadolu Agency

Globalization without America? CGTN

* * *

New Details on China’s Powerful Hypersonic Glide Vehicle with Drone and Bomb Submunitions Military Watch

How Beijing flipped the South China Sea game with a single island South China Morning Post

* * *

What’s behind some Southeast Asia countries’ push to join BRICS and will Trump’s win be a catalyst? Channel News Asia

Far From Home: Through choppy seas and porous land borders, migrant workers risk it all to enter Malaysia. Why? Channel News Asia

India

A day in the life of a New Delhi roadside barber Al Jazeera

Why it is so difficult to walk in Indian cities BBC

If All the World Were Paper: A History of Writing in Hindi Asian Review of Books

How Big Toilet Paper dupes us all Vox

Syraqistan

Israel grants gas exploration license in areas considered to be within Palestine’s maritime boundary Anadolu Agency. Handy map:

* * *

What have Trump administration nominees said about Israel and its wars? Al Jazeera

Trump’s ‘pro-Israel’ Appointees Are the Worst of Our Enemies Haaretz

* * *

US envoy Hochstein expected in Israel after Lebanon visit for cease-fire efforts Anadolu Agency

Lebanon considers cease-fire plan while Israel launches new strikes The Hill

Hezbollah rebuilds resistance as national unity prevails, for now Middle East Eye

* * *

Reports claim Houthis make Red Sea vessel attacks a $2B business Freight Waves

New Not-So-Cold War

Ukraine may reconsider nuclear weapons if NATO membership is denied, says military expert Euromaidan Press

Russia pounds Ukraine’s power grid in ‘massive’ air strike Reuters

* * *

Is Ukraine becoming a kleptocracy? Unherd

Corruption looms over Ukraine’s massive reconstruction effort France24

* * *

Zelenksyy hopes Ukraine war will end in 2025 through diplomacy not fighting Euronews

Elon Musk mocks Zelenskyy’s insistence that Ukraine cannot be forced to “sit and listen” Ukrainska Pravda

Ukraine’s President Zelenskiy switches rhetorical tack from victory to resistance BNE Intellinews

* * *

Russia’s War Economy Is Hitting Its Limits Foreign Policy

Trump Transition

Trump names fracking executive Chris Wright energy secretary BBC

* * *

Jay Bhattacharya, an NIH critic, emerges as a top candidate to lead the agency WaPo

Elon Musk backs Howard Lutnick as agent for ‘change’ at US Treasury FT

* * *

Incoming US President Donald Trump examining possibility of deporting illegal migrants to Rwanda in process similar to ditched Conservative policy Daily Mail

Undocumented migrants hope Trump mass deportations only ‘for criminals’ BBC

Biden Administration

U.S Department of Commerce finalizes $6.6 billion CHIPS Act funding for TSMC Fab 21 Arizona site Tom’s Hardware

2024 Post Mortem

A Graveyard of Bad Election Narratives Symbolic Capital(ism)

Liberals speak a different language FT

The boys in our liberal school are different now that Trump has won Guardian

Digital Watch

The Great Migration to Bluesky Gives Me Hope for the Future of the Internet 404 Media

Bluesky and enshittification Cory Doctorow, Pluralistic

Zeitgeist Watch

The Overwhelming Noise Makoism

We have a dangerous blur: Philip K. Dick’s cult essay about false realities is as relevant as ever. Literary Hub

The Final Frontier

Where did the universe’s magnetic fields come from? Space.com

Imperial Collapse Watch

Britain’s multi-billion pound aircraft carriers get sunk ‘in most war games’ – and officials have discussed mothballing one to save cash Daily Mail

How America Lost the Arctic The National Interest

Guillotine Watch

Versailles’s Legendary Salon de Diane Is Getting a Lavish Restoration Artnet

Class Warfare

“Everyone loses”: Report Finds that Minnesota Workers Lose Billions of Dollars Annually Due to Payroll Fraud Workday Magazine

The Seeds of Social Revolution: Extreme Wealth Inequality Charles Hugh Smith

Social Theory for the Mid-21st Century: Part II. From -73000 to 2055: Malthusian Poverty to Modern Economic Growth Brad DeLong, Grasping Reality

“Here I Gather All the Friends” Public Domain Review. The deck: “Machiavelli and the Emergence of the Private Study.”

Antidote du jour (Rhododendrites):

Bonus antidote, via alert reader WE:

WE writes: “Here’s a shot from a friend who took in a hurricane refugee and her dogs. The trio, normally very rambunctious, turned into model guests during their stay. Sensible, given the likely emergencies to come.”

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered. To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.

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323 comments

  1. The Rev Kev

    “Elon Musk mocks Zelenskyy’s insistence that Ukraine cannot be forced to “sit and listen””

    Putin always measures his thoughts and speeches when making a public announcement and which befits his position and dignity as head of state. But it seems that when the Russians want to make a hard, sarcastic comment, then out comes Dmitry Medvedev with his biting attacks. Wouldn’t it be something if this happened with Trump and Musk and with Musk playing the part of Russia’s Dmitry Medvedev like here.

    3. timbers

      Team Biden & and The UniParty have been giving the comedian hundreds of billions of dollars for yrs with zero oversight and selling him to The West as The Second Coming. That he & his gang have embezzled a good chuck of that for mansions and what not in multiple countries is common chatter in non MSM outlets. Of course Zelensky has become an extremely self impressed spoiled brat demanding 2 sets of cars keys not 1 from daddy on a Saturday night.

    1. The Rev Kev

      But won’t somebody please think of those unemployed admirals?

      The whole point of the UK squandering so many resources on those two carriers was so that they could be seen as “useful” to Washington. It had nothing to do with defending the UK. That article did not say so but if the UK carriers are so vulnerable to modern weaponry, then the same must be true of those US carriers as well.

      1. ilsm

        I don’t know how vulnerable US Navy aircraft carriers are to modern “threats”, but each one is surrounded by Aegis air and missile defenses.

        The USS Abraham Lincoln, nuclear power aircraft carrier, spent most of its USCENTCOM deployment east of the Sea of Oman, “safe” distance from the Red Sea, and well outside the Persian Gulf.

        UK would need US Navy defensive support for its aircraft carriers.

        If it were reliable?

        1. The Rev Kev

          Carriers are vulnerable to subs and in recent times US carriers have been “sunk” by submarines from Sweden, France, Australia and the UK – at least. Of course Washington cracks down on reports of these incidents whenever they can because it is not supposed to happen. Here is just one example-

          https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/4500000000-nuclear-navy-aircraft-carrier-sunk-100000000-diesel-sub-209727

          And it was not that many years ago when a Chinese submarine surfaced in the middle of a US carrier task force.

          1. vao

            British carriers are all the more vulnerable because their propulsion systems keep breaking down — requiring those huge ships to be towed back to port. They have reportedly spent more time in the dockyards for repairs than sailing.

            A high probability to be left dead in the water in the middle of a battle not because of enemy action but because of faulty design and construction, may also have led to the on-going reassessment of naval priorities.

            1. Colonel Smithers

              Thank you.

              It’s not just carriers. Other surface ships are designed to operate in northern waters and break down in the mid Atlantic and further afield.

              When the QE2 and Prince of Wales went to on world tours, their escort vessels and aircraft were from overseas. The British ships soon broke down and were replaced by, sic, fisheries protection vessels.

        2. AG

          Martyanov

          2018:
          “(…)
          hypersonic weapons are such that they do provide a technological
          leap ahead which rewrites the warfare book radically—this is a
          definition of a revolution in military affairs. It is, of course, very
          premature to talk about complete obsolescence of modern surface
          fleets but it certainly spells doom for carrier-centric navies as fleets
          designed to fight for sea control against peers or near-peers. As a
          carrier-centric navy the U.S. Navy is not a force which can fight and
          win against Russia and China in their littorals
          (…)
          The real revolution in military affairs starts with modern hypersonic
          fully shoot-and-forget weaponry whose capabilities trump
          completely any kind of net-centricity by virtue of those weapons
          being simply un-interceptible by any existent means. Enter Russia’s
          latest missile, a hypersonic Mach=10 aero-ballistic Kinzhal. No
          existing anti-missile defense in the U.S. Navy is capable of shooting
          it down even in the case of the detection of this missile, which flies
          in a hot plasma cloud while maneuvering at the terminal approach to
          the target. Kinzhal’s astonishing range of 2000 kilometers makes the
          carriers of such a missile, MiG-31K and TU-22M3M aircraft,
          invulnerable to the only defense a U.S. Carrier Battle Group, a main
          pillar of U.S. naval power, can mount—carrier fighter aircraft at
          their stations around CBG. Carrier aviation simply doesn’t have the
          range.
          (…)”

          2024:
          “(…)The carrier-centric navies are in their final days of
          existence as a viable force on the 21st century global battlefield.
          (…)
          In fact, neither the USAF or the U.S. Navy air wings have
          anything which compares favorably with the arsenal Russia’s VKS use, both as
          air-to-air and ground attack missiles. As impressive as the R-37M is, the
          emergence of the Russian anti-radiation missile Kh-31PD (a rough equivalent
          of the USAF AGM-88 HARM missile) is also a major development, especially
          when one considers its range, which is 250 kilometers at roughly M=3.23 with a
          110-kilogram warhead.184 The transition of the Russian VKS to fully combatproven
          hypersonic missilery is already having massive tactical and operational
          ramifications for the USAF. U.S. combat aviation’s most potent serially
          produced air-to-air weapon is the AIM-120 AMRAAM medium-range missile.
          While its maximum range and speed are officially classified, it is undeniably
          not a hypersonic missile.185 It is dramatically outranged by the R-37M and in a
          BVR duel from the distance of 150 kilometers it would take the AIM-120
          AMRAAM at least one and a half times, possibly twice, as long to reach the
          intended target than for the M=6 R-37M, which will cover this distance in about
          63 seconds. The implications are clear since any carrier of the R-37M will have
          enough time to maneuver out of the kill envelope of the AMRAAM.
          (…)”

          If I remember correctly Oniks and Kinzhals were among the systems he suggests would sink a carrier. May be Zircon too.
          He therefore argues that carriers are worthless and are mainly flag posts for triggering non-conventional attacks if hit. Basically diplomatic entities seaborne.

          1. Es s Ce Tera

            The US probably had early intel suggesting Russia had this technology, needed to see it in action to properly scope the capabilities, which might be one reason why they were intent on provoking Russia via Ukraine.

            1. Yves Smith

              No, Putin announced, uncharacteristically, that they were developing them along with some other advanced weapons, IIRC in 2017 or 2018, to much Western derision. Given the state of search, I can’t find that quickly but I did locate:

              While the Soviet Union was the first to attempt to develop a hypersonic missile, efforts mostly stalled until the 2000s. Once the US announced its first hypersonic missile in 2011, other countries began developing their own hypersonic infrastructure and testing potential missiles. China became the second country to successfully reach hypersonic speeds in their 2014 missile test, while Russia announced their first missile in 2018 – three years after their reported first successful test in 2015.

              https://www.jpost.com/international/article-701965

              And I beg to differ with your “provoking Russia” theory. The US started that when it pushed NATO, over German and French objections, to state in 2008: “We agreed today that these countries [Ukraine and Georgia] will become members of NATO.”

              Did you also forget that the US and NATO saw the Russian military as weak and incompetent, and expected it to collapse quickly, if the sanctions didn’t do the job first? We still regularly get articles that maintain that Russia has a crappy military but is winning by brute force.

              1. Es s Ce Tera

                We’re not in disagreement about the nature of the provocation. When I said the US provoked Russia, I meant precisely what you just said, via offering Ukraine NATO membership, but I’ll also add via inciting Maidan in 2014.

                And the US are supremacists, think they’re better than everyone else on the planet, everyone is weak regardless of reality, but yes that would have been a major if not decisive factor.

                Where I was going with this, and I should’ve expanded, sorry, is if there was an underlying current in the US apparatus which wanted to see what Russia could bring to the table technologically, it could have provided added incentive to whatever Pro vs Con list led to however many green lights or satisfied preconditions led someone or some group within the US blob to proceed to down the path of “US Provokes War With Russia” national focus. Which now also has the “US Provokes War With China” national focus. Both of which intended to fabricate Casus Belli (with this new Russia/China tech, that intention may change).

                However, yes, it could also be that there was no logic whatsoever, just messianic belief in the God Given Greatness of the US to Prevail.

                And I’ll assume that if Putin announced a hypersonic missile in 2017-18 then it was probably already very well underway, more likely delivered.

                1. Yves Smith

                  Sorry if I got tart. You may be right, but the pronouncements about Russia’s equipment have been so consistently derisive that I find it hard to think we would provoke them to get a look at any supposed advanced weaponry, as opposed to putting Russia in its place.

                1. Martin Oline

                  That idea reminds me of the riddle “What’s the first thing that comes to a bug’s mind when he hits your windshield?”

            2. Glen

              The USN was pretty close to having vulnerable CVNs against the blue water USSR fleets ( the USSR had very good CV killer missiles and radar sats to track them), but after the USSR collapsed the CVNs were good for another 30 years of seal clubbing smaller nations. Those days are reaching a close.

          2. Mark Gisleson

            Thanks, this reflects the world I live in (one where the USA would be well advised to pursue isolationism).

          3. NYMutza

            The US Navy maintains a large carrier fleet for reasons other than force projection, though that is certainly a major reason. For Naval aviators the path to flag rank goes through command of an aircraft carrier. Aviators are not trained as surface warfare officers so for them command of cruisers, frigates, and destroyers is not available. Only carriers provide an opportunity for sea command experience.

            1. hk

              Begs the question as to why a navy needs a full scale air force so thst it needs to keep expensive and unnecessary ships around to give aviators means to get promoted.

        3. NotTimothyGeithner

          The basic idea is the carriers can extend force protectionwhile staying out of the fight. The basic problem is “cheap” missiles have ranges longer than the force projection of the carriers.

          In short, it doesn’t matter how effective the carrier missile defense because there won’t be enough against the adversaries we’ve helped create. A damaged runway on a carrier can’t simply be repaired.

          It’s not cool, but switching to drones might increase the practical nature of the carriers instead of planes depending on the ability to communicate with the drones.

          1. AG

            The current RU and coming Chinese missile threat with Ukrainian underground bunkers destroyed is based on speed and range. So I guess with a range of 1,500 km impact would occure within 9 min.?
            On what distance does radar/satellite detection set in? Immediately after launch?

          2. XXYY

            The basic problem is “cheap” missiles have ranges longer than the force projection of the carriers.

            I remember reading five or eight years ago and analysis of the US Navy versus China, and this was the exact issue. Once China developed anti-ship missiles with a range longer than what a US carrier could project (which I guess is attack aircraft range plus air launched missile range), then the US basically had no way to attack China. The carriers would just be sunk by land-based missiles and there would be nothing they could do about it.

            This seems like such an obvious and inevitable reality that I’m surprised the US still talks about any kind of military campaign against China. To say nothing of the myriad of other factors that would disadvantage the US in such a conflict.

            1. AG

              This is why at least Lawrence Wilkerson on THE DURAN said that US StratCom is playing through nuclear missile attacks as the only viable option to prevail. He adds that about 10 people are involved in these plans and know about them. Noone else. Very reassuring.

        4. Polar Socialist

          “The Pentagon has a perfect record in all of its war games against China: we lose everytime. […] Our whole power projection system is aircraft carriers. And you know, 15 hypersonic missiles can take out our 10 aircraft carriers in the first 20 minutes of a conflict.”

          Pete Hegseth, in an interview earlier this week.

          1. jsn

            Buy Boeing and Raytheon!

            Since “decisive action” in DC means throwing trillions at monopolist incumbents who can’t really deliver on their promises, that at least will certainly get done.

            7 year old realities leaking into the narrative, but still only where giving more money to people who don’t need it is the narrative solution.

      2. islm

        There have been many HMS Prince of Wales.

        Japanese air action sank the Battleship HMS Prince of Wales 10 Dec 1941.

        Earlier in WW II Prince of Wales had engaged Bismarck in a battle which saw both damaged and Prince of Wales withdrew from action.

        1. Wukchumni

          Re-read an amazing book from 1945 on vacay, titled ‘100 Best True Stories of World War Two’, and some of the tales are beyond belief, such as the CBS reporter Cecil Brown in Singapore, who is drinking snappy cocktails in the Raffles bar with other reporters, when an English commander asks if he’d like to accompany the HMS Prince of Wales & HMS Repulse which are headed out ASAP, and he’s on the latter as it sinks and barely escapes with his life and oh what a story.

        2. AG

          Having grown up a war history kid for me there was and is only one – “Sink the Bismarck” – HMS P.o.W., witnessing “Hood”´s demise…

            1. AG

              I forgot those details frankly…

              As a kid all in for old navy battles I was disappointed over the Germans not gathering their twin battleships Bismarck, Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Tirpitz and challenge British Navy in a good ol´ all or nothing Trafalgar style show of forces. Instead losing each of those in – as I found – most disgraceful ways. Same goes for “Hood” and others.

              1. Procopius

                Several decades ago I read that Hitler was strongly influenced by Mahan’s The Influence of Sea Power upon History: 1660–1783, especially the value of a “fleet in being.” At least that was one reason the German fleet stayed mostly in harbor. I tend to have felt the same as AG. Maybe Hitler (and his admirals) made the right choice, but it would have been so much more satisfying to have had a slam-bang full-out fight.

                1. hk

                  But that was the story of the High Seas Fleet furing WW1, too. The idea that the fleet would seek a decisive battle didn’t really gain traction. The one time when things could have gotten interesting, Jutland, kinda fizzled out after the scouting and screening forces (battlecruisers and just cruisers) drew some blood. Compared to the High Seas Fleet, the Kriegsmarine had next to nothing.

    3. sarmaT

      officials have discussed mothballing one to save cash

      In order to save even more cash, they could just scuttle both. In order to get some money back, they could sell them to Chinese. Unlike the Ukrainian one, these two would be turned into floating hotel and casino that would never leave port (which is much like what they are doing now, but with blackjack and hookers).

      2. ChrisPacific

        Additionally, if a carrier were to be scrapped, it would potentially leave the UK without any carrier capabilities for months at a time when essential services need to be undertaken.

        Essential carrier services? What are those, I wonder?

      1. Terry Flynn

        Indeed. I don’t care either way what the royal famiy does – even the “Charles + Camilla” phone call thing was a big nothingburger by the time the Crown did it. (Except for Gen Alpha X users who got attracted by the shiny thing for 24 hours).

        But one cannot ignore what was the number one story in countries like the UK for DAYS and caused no end of adults to have to explain to their elderly parents something they really really didn’t want to explain.

        I’m not going to go all moralistic….what they do, they do…..I don’t care and give it enough time virtually nobody does. I just spotted a chance to make a bad punny joke that unfortunately virtually nobody got. Mainly because most of the world has better things to think about! (I hate having to explain a joke…. so lame)

        1. ambrit

          “I hate having to explain a joke…. so lame)”
          Good thing then that you are not a Democrat Party “spin meister.” They have their work cut out for them “explaining” the latest iteration of the Washington Elite Defeat.
          [At least you didn’t try to resurrect the old “Prince Albert in Cannes” trope.]

          1. Terry Flynn

            There’s a weird thing going on. I’ve become so sick of streaming that I’ve begun rewatching the DVD first 3 seasons of Family Guy – The ONLY GOOD SEASONS.

            I laughed out loud at the Price Albert in a Can joke yesterday.

            Somehow I sense I’m going to be watching all my old physical media non-stop in future and not the streaming slop. Bubye Netflix. And I didn’t even have that stupid fight as an excuse to cancel!

            1. Jonathan King

              Terry Flynn People of good faith can and will argue that any list of Family Guy’s perfectly fine seasons extends past the third one, in particular those of us who are latecomers to its glories. I hear what you’re saying, though: The analogue in my favored medium would be my insistence that the Rolling Stones have gone straight downhill since their third U.S. LP, “Now!,” in 1965. And yet many appreciate “Goats Head Soup.” Go figure.

            2. Revenant

              Terry (and the rest of you, especially the UK and Irish contingent): watch Kneecap the film! It’s on Amazon Prime (boo hiss, explorative working conditions for electrons, I know) for no premium. You’ll love it.

    5. Revenant

      Actually, thinking about it, the other comedy neurone your comment unintentionally jogs is “I’ve danced with a man whose danced with a girl whose danced with the Prince of Wales”.

      A whole new “La Ronde” comes to mind by substituting your comment. :-)

      2. Terry Flynn

        I am annoyed most people missed the joke (and it is a joke) but I made a mental bet with myself that if anyone got it, it would be you ;)

        (I, being half Aussie, was using VPNs etc to see what Aussie docs and muck-rakers were saying about certain members of the Royal family yonks before super-injunjunctions lapsed here.)

        The Mirror here had the temerity a few weeks ago to “splash” the news that QE2 had cancer. Something 5 seconds using Google would confirm that Gyles Brandreth put in his EFFING BOOK serialised by the Times within months of her death. He was a mate of the Duke of Edinburgh; was told not to reveal the news til both dead. He at least kept his side of the bargain but using it to sell his book was…….distasteful to say the least.

        1. Revenant

          That’s a compliment! It’s amazing what a childhood of inappropriate reading and listening does to a sense of humour (Tom Sharpe and Round the Horne).

      3. ambrit

        But now, “La Ronde” infects “Le Monde” to the exclusion of “The Health of the Nation.”
        Considering just how dismissive of American “concerns” the rest of the world is becoming; we are indeed caught up in a “Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round.”

    2. Late Introvert

      Thanks a lot for this. I always click on Charles Hugh Smith links here at NC, but blogspot is null for me as I have all Scroogle domains (except gmail) blocked with Little Snitch. Highly recommended for Mac users.

  4. TomDority

    “Three days with the true believers who won’t let Bigfoot die” FT
    I had no idea Bigfoot was in such critical condition. I hope he gets better.

    1. divadab

      Bigfoot’s pronouns are “they, them”, according to my private conversation with one Charlie Saskwatch, trans-dimensional being. Incidentally, trans-dimensionality is why no bigfoot bodies have ever been found.

      1. The Rev Kev

        Speaking of pronouns. AOC has sniffed the political winds and so has dropped mention of them in her X bio. They’re gone and she no longer has her ‘she/her’ pronouns listed in her X bio description and she has also changed her moniker from the genderless ‘Representative’ to ‘Congresswoman’. How about that-

        https://www.rt.com/news/607700-aoc-drops-pronouns-x/

      2. TomDority

        Are you saying the whole lot of them is in danger a dying off without a trace….. except for their lasting memories?
        Its a grievous loss.
        Next you’ll be telling me that UFO’s are trans-dimensional.

      3. mrsyk

        Are you saying that befriending Bigfoot might get me off this stupid timeline? I’m hoping there’s a tutorial video out there.

    3. Es s Ce Tera

      I follow train hoppers on youtube, yes, it’s still a thing. I love to watch them move from place to place, and some of them wear ghillie suits to hide from the train/yard police. This led me to wonder if Sasquatch/Bigfoot sightings are related. About a year ago I came across a sighting map which also had railway lines overlaid and indeed sightings tended to be near tracks. So while not proven, I’m convinced what people are seeing are travellers in ghillies. According to Wiki, ghillie suits are as old as the 18th century Scotland, at least, were used in WW1. I know what I think about this but I don’t want to break hearts if people reallyreally want to believe.

  5. Santo de la Sera

    “Why it is so difficult to walk in Indian cities”

    When I visit Mumbai, I try to stay within walking distance of my business, and I look forward to half-planned walks that can stretch out several hours on my days off. These would be far less enjoyable if I had to use the kind of sterile footpaths apparently favored by BBC writers, who even think of hawkers as “obstacles” instead of as community.

    1. Bugs

      Yes indeed. Indian cities are fantastic places to walk if you just mind your surroundings. Bring a camera or your phone because there’s always going to be something interesting to see. And your appetite because there will be chaat and chai walas and who knows what else! Jai Hind.

  6. The Rev Kev

    ‘Anadolu English
    @anadoluagency
    Israel gives exploration licenses for natural gas in locations that are considered to be within Palestine’s maritime boundary in preparation for ‘occupying’ these areas
    Concerns raised over potential violation of international law and humanitarian consequences http://v.aa.com.tr/3138367‘

    Israel was always going to try to do this. It was a side benefit of the ongoing genocide in Gaza that they would be able to steal those gas fields and auction them off to create a revenue stream to pay for their present military operations. But at the rate that the bill for this war is clocking up, it will take decades to pay back using these gas fields. Assuming that they were never, ever attacked by groups with modern weaponry that is.

    1. vao

      The Israelis had been eyeing those offshore fields for a long time; now the opportunity has come to lay their hands on that precious resource.

      And by the way: assuming Israel conquers Gaza and empties it of its inhabitants, building a gas terminal, pipelines connecting them to the Israeli network, and a dock for the ships servicing the offshore platforms, will be the only infrastructure that will ever be built after the genocide is over.

      Gaza is a gigantic heap of ruins full of unexploded ordnance; roads have been excavated away; three quarters of agricultural land are gone; the infrastructure required to sustain a (modern) life has been systematically bombarded or blown up.

      Underground water, which was already heavily polluted, is now probably totally unusable — rotting corpses, burnt out synthetic materials, nasty chemicals from explosives, and the seawater used by Israeli forces to flood tunnels will leach into it for years.

      That devastation will not be transformed into a flourishing region with seaside marinas, spacious villas with a magnificent view on the Mediterranean, and prosperous agricultural operations. There will be no new settlements in Gaza. There is no money, no resources, no will for that. Who would pay for that anyway? Definitely not Israel. Not Europe (with its economy fast degrading), nor the USA (too many demands on the budget for foreign causes already). Not Russia (rebuilding the Donbass). Not China (devoting its attention to BRI). Even Saudi Arabia, under massively more favourable conditions, is not managing to have its NEOM project get really off the ground. Those prospective settlers who are buying plots at those (illegal) auctions in the USA or elsewhere are just being swindled.

      Gaza will be reduced to the staging area of a single-sector colonial extractive operation with no regards to sustaining life for a local population. I can even imagine that once the offshore fields are depleted, Israel just fences and abandons the whole place.

      1. jefemt

        Nat Gas LNG to Europe?
        That end of the Mediterranean is one of the most active and dangerous seismic zones on earth.
        Fun project for the geophysicist /petroleum engineering set!
        Petrodollars or Petrorubles?

        1. Colonel Smithers

          Thank you, all.

          JP Morgan is the account bank for the money made by Palestine. The Palestine authority can’t access the money for its own use, so JP uses the money. Tony Blair sits on the advisory body for the money.

    2. Cat Burglar

      Recall the US problems with the plan to sell Iraqi oil after the invasion — as an invader and occupier, the US couldn’t show a clear title under international law. How will Israeli seizure of the gas fields be any different?

      1. Polar Socialist

        Quite recently the western world has moved a lot towards not giving a hoot about the origin of the carbohydrates they buy. As long as there’s some poor copy of a smudged fax mapped somewhere proving that it’s not Russian.

  7. AG

    re: “We have a dangerous blur: Philip K. Dick’s cult essay about false realities is as relevant as ever.”

    Since Dick´s conclusions are beyond dispute, which almost everyone will agree with (i.e. non-NC readers too), then it should be obvious that Western talking points and perception of the wars going on are all not under foreign manipulation but manipulation by our own elites and governments (otherwise it would suggest our governments and media have lost total control which is no serious argument). Which eventually needs to lead to some serious questioning about what is said and done right now in the West. Questioning done not by NC readers but the RoW – Rest of the West.

  8. IM Doc

    Re: BlueSky

    The name is perfectly awesome – as in a Bush II/Obama era law – Patriot Act or HIPPA or Affordable Care Act OR possibly even a CIA psyop.

    I had several of my friends decide they were going to migrate there a few months ago – medical friends basically. What was found was that the far left censorship, shaming, scolding, etc was even worse there than it used to be at pre-Elon Musk Twitter. Thankfully, no one had built up a following there and had all their hours of work ruined, like the Doctorow piece suggests. It was an interesting experiment for us, but a total failure.

    It was censorship and moral scolding and virtue signaling times 10. We were trying to have medical discussions – only to have our threads hijacked with the loony censors. I personally was turned into the Blue Sky thought police for a comment in a thread about cholesterol levels having little to do with things the medical establishment purports like eggs. There is no obvious crowd checking of facts like there is on Twitter – only the MSNBC/PMC narratives and whatever they are that day.

    Since censorship and moral scolding are the bane of social media and our nation’s mental health, I am not a big fan of BlueSky. Again, it reminded me of the absolute nightmare that Twitter had become during the COVID pandemic and the rollouts of the vaccines.

    It also fills me with dread as a Democrat that all the liberals and left are now migrating there – to inhabit their own wonderful echo chamber. What could possibly go wrong?

    Whatever the members of my group think about Elon Musk – and there are some serious well-deserved negative vibes in a lot of people, we are all back on Twitter now – where we belong – where free and open dialog can occur – and minimal moral scolding and censoring around every corner.

    1. JohnnyGL

      It’s reassuring to know the utopian projects from team blue are going about as well as those libertarian fantasy-land attempts at building new cities with no rules or laws in poor, Central American countries.

      1. Lee

        Maher’s closing complaint that the Democrats’ arrogance and adherence to wokeness resulting in their loss of all three branches of government and thereby leavings us completely unprotected from Trump et al, assumes a fact not in evidence: that Democrat elites are committed to promoting the general welfare of its citizens. They can’t be. The donor class won’t allow it.

        1. Pat

          While he had a couple of valid points, I was more taken aback/amused by 1.) his belief that Covid has been over for two years and 2.) that Democrats are a protection for democracy or to a lesser extent the climate (his two priorities).

    4. Afro

      I do think that BlueSky is an interesting social experiment. From the perspective of the migrators, they’re going to recreate what Twitter was before Musk. But they may end up creating an extremely rigid echo chamber, which I think is likely and will end up costing them support over time.

      In my life, I’ve been banned off of multiple left wing forums for not respecting doctrine. Once, I was banned for arguing the CIA was involved in the Arab Spring. Another time, on a different forum, I was told that I should never say anything positive about China, Russia, and Belarus because that’s offensive to people who are LGBTQ.

      Woke-ism is effectively a religion in that it provides a doctrine, a set of rituals, and a sense of community. To be sure, those are genuine strengths. But it can also lose people over time due to rigidity as happens to many religions. I don’t know how things will turn out.

      1. ArvidMartensen

        Wokeism is more of a cult, and cults can be very dangerous. To adherents and non-believers alike. Some signs of a cult:

        # Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.
        # New recruits are inducted into a secret language of signs and symbols. They’re encouraged to identify as victims of the world outside and are promised a rebirth, a new body or identity within this life, or an afterlife.
        # Recruits are taught to see the world as black or white, good or evil
        # Recruits are weaned off family and previous support systems and expected to identify wholly with the cult

        So wokeism and zionism might fit into these buckets

    5. Screwball

      The migration from Twitter to BlueSky is real. My PMC friends are all doing it. It appears it’s for two reasons 1) to boycott Musk because they hate him. 2) Because of the censorship (in a way). By censorship what I mean is, they think it is a way to control their own environment. The ranted about Twitter and it’s “for you” tab. The “for you” tab has too much misinformation, and more importantly, too much “Trumper” stuff.

      It’s really about controlling the news and narrative they want to hear. They really don’t want to hear anything outside their selective bubble. This approach is why they are wrong about so many things – they refuse to listen to anything outside their bubble.

      IM Doc is correct calling it an echo chamber – that is exactly what they want. For example, many are flipping out over the healthcare stuff and what might happen to the CDC, NIH, and Fauci because they love them and think they are the greatest thing since sliced bread because science. Don’t dare break that bubble.

      1. Terry Flynn

        Yeah I’ve been on Bluesky for a while. It felt a bit echo-chambery early on but has ramped up a LOT this week. I’m also on Mastodon. This does not seem to exhibit the same behaviour, but that might be because Mastodon is less like Twitter and “migrating to it” is definitely not as easy as migrating to Bluesky.

        I’m keeping a low profile on both “alternatives”……just watching to see how things play out….If I see one of them giving me what I consider to be a somewhat balanced take on politics with no pronounced echo chambers then I’ll put more energy into that platform.

        Otherwise I’ll do what I have been doing on X/Twitter: just watch but not engage. BTW has anyone else noticed that ALMOST EVERY SINGLE ADVERT ON X IS FOR TEMU? Hmmmm…

      2. TimH

        BS is a social media representation of DNC leaning MSM outlets. People will join and post there and be reassured that their life-molding opinions are the correct ones. Not much different to a religion.

      3. Mark Gisleson

        Kicked off both platforms but in truth I never understood the libs who use Twitter to trash talk Musk. Kinda like complaining about Joe Biden while driving around in your Corvette. My brief time on Blusky was very, very, very boring.

        Not completely deplatformed (you are seeing this comment!) but also not missing X/Blusky. Instead of doomscrolling I now have more books, music and even “TV” in my life (recently discovered Star Trek Lower Decks and despite it being Archer: The Next Generation, I’m hooked on jokes like “Temba! His hands washed”).

        If I have a point (always a fair question) it is that I’m a very adaptable person. In real life I am extraordinarily foul-mouthed (my factory nickname was a 12-letter word you can’t use in most bars) yet manage to comment successfully at Naked Capitalism on a myriad range of topics. On X I got to swear but kept getting kicked off for saying true things that weren’t permitted.

        My social media ranking order continues to be Philip K. Dick memes>Naked Capitalism>X>Revolver>Citizens Free Press>Bluesky followed by various dead tree legacy lie-mongers.

        1. Terry Flynn

          Yeah one good thing about all of this is that I’m doing a LOT less “doomscrolling”.

          Trying to form views when looking at X and Bluesky and Mastodon is just too much effort. There are books I can be reading to tell me a LOT more. Plus I’m finding that I’m pressing “do not recommend channel” a LOT more to YT channels. YT has clone channels all over the place.

          The expansion is good, to the extent that it has caused me to stop accessing most of it……I have recommendations from NC and other sources that are plenty to help me…..the only downside is my long COVID has slowed my reading capacity a lot but slow reading still beats visual slop!

      4. flora

        Yep. Joy Reid announced her departure on Instagram.

        Ihttps://www.instagram.com/p/DCVm40HtnvC/?hl=en

        My prediction it Blue Sky with either:

        Become boring because everyone is saying the same thing in a closed bubble, or

        People on Blue Sky will start turning on each other as insufficiently virtuous; factional infighting will take hold. (See for example, what happened at The Intercept, or with the Jacobin “Reign of Terror” after the French Revolution. joke. Well, mostly a joke. / ;)

        So, eventually a lot of them will migrate back to twtr-X.

    6. Pat

      I knew the rush to migrate there was all about insulating themselves from inconvenient thoughts, ideas, facts that challenged their preconceptions. I didn’t realize it would cause those with an inflated sense of superiority to start attacking so-called allies. I might have to revise my internal bet on its longevity.

    7. Mikel

      “The name is perfectly awesome – as in a Bush II/Obama era law – Patriot Act or HIPPA or Affordable Care Act OR possibly even a CIA psyop.”

      I’m tickled. I said the same thing yesterday.
      Guess it’s not just my imagination running wild.

      2. ArvidMartensen

        Is it a CIA psyop?
        # Did the movement come out of nowhere, ready to go, just right after a loss in power or wealth by the dominant faction of the ultra-rich and their three letter agency security staff? see “elites”. see also 4Bs.

        # Will this initiative further divide the population into those who are lauded as intelligent, moral and deserving (the faction supporters) vs those non-supporters who are tarred as stupid, lazy, uncultured, immoral lowlifes?

        # Is the msm, which is majority owned by the dominant faction of the ultra-rich, all-in on the initiative?

        # Will this initiative hinder the actions of, and tarnish the legitimacy of, a legitimate win by the despised winning side?

        #Will this initiative further indoctrinate the followers of the ultra-rich faction?

        # Are the followers of the ultra-rich faction furiously encouraged to both fear and despise those who are not members of their group

        1. IM Doc

          I ventured today back into my BlueSky account – just to see what it was like after the mass migration.

          To my surprise – and I must admit horror – I will say that academic medicine en masse has migrated there. Yves and Lambert, you may want to take notes.

          After looking through a few threads of a very few colleagues that I know personally and well, I can tell we have entered yet again the zone of “The Science ( TM )”. We broker no discussion against the prevailing narrative and the overarching goal is to monitor and punish the evildoers. We hold up for ridicule anyone who transgresses.

          My older friends are all still on Twitter.

          Guys – this is not science. This is so so disturbing to me. We are still dealing with one pandemic – we may have two others on the way – we have a pandemic of obesity and diabetes and overall general bad health the likes of which the world has never known – we have a mental health crisis getting worse for years – and pretty much all of academic medicine – Big Medicine – has cloistered themselves into a groupthink echo chamber, completely impermeable to any questions or new ideas. Absolutely no lessons have been learned from the COVID fiasco.

          I am glad I am getting close to retirement. I find this very sad. I am glad I am a physician and can take care of me and my own rationally going forward. It is so very disturbing to watch them doing this immolation to themselves.

          1. flora

            re: After looking through a few threads of a very few colleagues that I know personally and well, I can tell we have entered yet again the zone of “The Science ( TM )”. We broker no discussion against the prevailing narrative and the overarching goal is to monitor and punish the evildoers. We hold up for ridicule anyone who transgresses.

            img , if you will. Are they most committed to their funding sources, aka “The Science”, instead of to their Hippocratic Oath?

            Thanks, IM Doc.

    8. Mikel

      “I personally was turned into the Blue Sky thought police for a comment in a thread about cholesterol levels having little to do with things the medical establishment purports like eggs. ”

      So people that think they can be on BlueSky and other platforms at the same time probably won’t be able to if the thought police catch any non-BlueSky approved posts on another platform?

    9. Louiedog14

      Because I only read things, I often don’t know how things are pronounced.

      So in my head, Bluesky is pronounced like a Polish surname. Thought maybe it was a social media for pipefitters or something. (Polish Grandpa was a pipefitter)

      1. flora

        Jack Dorsey. Worked once, why not again. Oh wait, Dorsey left Blue Sky. Everything old is new again. / heh

    11. Jason Boxman

      I don’t know why Bluesky hasn’t added the federation systems that would enable freedom of exit to its service. Perhaps there are excellent technical reasons to prioritize rolling out the other systems they’ve created so far. Frankly, it doesn’t matter. So long as Bluesky can be a trap, I won’t let myself be tempted. My rule – I don’t join a service that I can’t leave without switching costs – is my Ulysses Pact, and it’s keeping me safe from danger I’ve sailed into too many times before.

      I can answer this question, because it is obvious. Their investors invested into it because there are high switching costs. As soon as federation is implemented, there’s no longer any value in having invested in Bluesky, because the whole point is future enshitification.

      1. flora

        Good point. Also, showing a high membership number is attractive to advertisers and their dollars. Hotel California stuff. Welcome to the hotel Blue Sky web site. Easy to check in, hard to check out. Gotta keep the membership numbers up. / ;)

      2. jsn

        Excellent!

        So like the Russian sanctions they love (and all their unintended effects), these people are going self censor themselves into an ever more orthodox online cult. Sure they may be top tier PMC now, but they’ll be fading quickly in coming years.

        As the young and all other demographics continue their collective drift away, Bluesky will, like a reverse Cheshire Cat, slowly vanish, leaving only everyone else’s smile.

    12. XXYY

      I personally was turned into the Blue Sky thought police for a comment in a thread about cholesterol levels having little to do with things the medical establishment purports like eggs.

      I’m having a lot of fun trying to imagine how this interaction went.

    13. Just my two scents

      I would like to point out two alternative perspectives:

      1) Many posters want reach, and Twitter/X will not allow non-users to see posts. BlueSky provides one way of reaching out to people (like me) who are happy to read the insights of particular posters but who do not want to have an account and be tracked in order to read them

      2) Many posters (including the anti-Israeli crowd) are constantly getting shadow-banned or outright banned for expressing inconvenient truths about what is going on in Gaza. BlueSky is not banning such posters (at least not yet) and thus provides a means for getting less filtered up-to-date information.

  9. DJG, Reality Czar

    The Boys of Our Liberal High School (Hudson Valley, edition, so we mean bourgeois high school): The Guardian.

    Let me preface my remarks by saying that I admire the witty, insightful “influencer” Shoe On Head, who has taken on gender wars and politics many times:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSw04BwQy4M&t=71s

    Two million views. She isn’t Joe Rogan, but then Joe doesn’t dress up as a parody of a Catholic high-school girl. June Lapine (her real name) has much more to say and is savvier than Anonymous.

    Back to the travails of the Hudson Valley: Why am I reminded of the article is the NYTimes that Lambert Strether posted after Trump I election in 2016? The article about the liberal guy in NYC who was terrified of his plumber because he suspected that the plumber and other tradesmen had voted Trump? (Meanwhile, I was living in Chicago, and the plumbers I worked with, admittedly a small sample, were pretty much flaming Commies.)

    Here is the salient + anonymous observation: “It is not as if they are against abortion, or care much about the economy or immigration, or even feel remotely attracted to the rest of conservative dogma. But clearly, a shift back toward traditional gender roles is resonating with them now as progression toward female empowerment threatens their already delicate self esteem.”

    Ahhh. The boys agree with them politically. The boys are engaged in dangerous pastimes like all-boy poker games. “Female empowerment” means voting for Kamala and Hillary “I Adore War” Clinton (generally, serious men are much less warmongery than La Clinton, but Anonymous doesn’t seem to get out often). “Delicate self-esteem” — ah, helpful psychobabble,

    The tell is the curious use of the word “social circle” in the first paragraph. Because anyone who has gone to high school in the U.S. of A., Land of Eternal High School, knows that girls’ social circles in high school are notoriously benign.

    Maybe this girl should get out and talk to some of those dangerous boys.

    1. The Rev Kev

      That video by Shoe On Head is attracting a lot of attention since it came out. But reading that article, they still don’t get it. Check this bit out-

      ‘What we saw now was that all this was the result of an obsession – perhaps somewhat subconscious – with preserving an idea of traditional masculinity that both Biden and Harris threatened, in different ways.’

      For many years now males have been attacked for, well, being male. You had that phrase ‘toxic masculinity’ when an equivalent phrase ‘toxic females’ would never, ever have been tolerated. I have watched how conservatives have made a lot of progress socially by saying that being male is OK and not something that has to be apologized for. That don’t be a ‘soy-boy’ but go to a gym and work out your potential. And this year was the big pay-off. I’ll come out and say that one of the biggest mistakes that feminism has made this generation is by treating male-female relations as a zero-sum game. That for women to win, that men had to lose, must lose. No concept of cooperation and being mutually beneficial to each other. And women will lose a lot because of this. Would you believe that there are some mothers out there who say that they are going to take their frustrations of Trump’s win out on their boy children? One middle aged women said that she tried to raise her boys with her values but they voted for Trump. She said that they were either ignorant (which she called them to their faces) or else they were evil. But being a mother decided to give them the benefit of a doubt and say that they were ignorant – maybe. Bad times ahead socially.

      1. steppenwolf fetchit

        I had thought about that “toxic etc.” phrasing for a while from time to time. If there is such a thing as ‘toxic masculinity’, is there such a thing as ‘toxic femininity’? If so, what would it be and how would it be described?

        ( Then again, I wondered whether ‘toxic masculinity’ might be an ‘academic intellectual’ phrase for the kind of tough-guy bullying I remember from my school days. Perhaps we could call it ‘machisculinity’ or ‘machisculism’ in honor of ‘machismo’. And leave ‘masculinity’ alone to define and refine itself going forward.)

        1. anahuna

          Isn’t “toxic masculinity” the perfect phrase to describe Biden’s latest move in authorizing long-range missile strikes into Russia?

          After all, Woodward quotes him as saying: “‘Barack never took Putin seriously,’ Biden says about Russia’s theft of Crimea in 2014. ‘We gave Putin a licence to continue. Well, I’m revoking his fucking licence!'”

          (From a review in the Guardian, as you might be able to tell by the obligatory reference to the “theft” of Crimea.)

          1. steppenwolf fetchit

            Maybe yes. It could also be spite and pre-sabotage against Trump, hoping to lock America into a semi-war with Russia deep enough that Trump won’t be able to back America back out.

    2. .Tom

      Where appropriate I append to my statements of opinion: “… but being white-het-cis-male I’m part of the problem.”

      I enjoy shoeonhead too and have nothing to argue with what you wrote. I just want to add that we live in an utopia of scolding. The rewards for a good scold have never been so great. People love to elevate themselves by pushing others down and the algorithms deliver the greatest rewards to those who can do that most expertly.

    3. hk

      I could have sworn that she used to have another handle and used to be a fairly prolific Twitter user (I can’t remember the nsme, but there was a very savvy and sassy person whose “character” seems a lot like her (the only thing I knew about her was thst she is NYCer, though…)

  10. JohnnyGL

    I made the mistake of clicking on that link from theguardian about how “the boys in our liberal school act differently now”.

    Yikes, that paper seems to be drowning in a world of its own melancholy and existential dread. The grip on reality is tenuous, at best. Have they had a look at any of the stats from exit polling? Even young women moved toward trump as compared to the 2020 results. The same was true across every demographic cross section of American society except rich, white, educated people. They all moved toward trump to varying degrees.

    This isn’t a ‘male’ problem. We’re not going to learn anything if we keep assuming and insisting it is. But, maybe we aren’t trying to learn?!?!?

    1. Terry Flynn

      Most of the Guardian is self satisfied/wallowing trash these days. At least readers of the Sun were once self aware enough to call it “the comic”.

      One of the last “proper” editorials the Guardian penned was this last piece recently. He still doesn’t “get it” completely but he’s closer than the vast majority of his colleagues.

      I count 2 writers left who I respect.

    3. Andrew F

      If a young man gives his opinion it’s called “mansplaining,” sits comfortably on public transportation “manspreading,” and now recreational activities are all toxic right wing activities. A well known chef and someone who taught me a lot about cooking, Kenji Lopez-Alt, recently sent out a newsletter with his restaurant red flags. Had to cut ties with him when two of the red flags were an all white male kitchen and if a white male chef cooks food outside Caucasian cuisine (whatever that means). Oops, I better shut up and stop mansplaining.

      1. Pat

        Where the hell has he found an all white male kirchen? An all male kitchen, sure, but all white, not bloody likely. Is the hierarchy of western kitchens still largely white and male, sure, but the kitchens will always have a hell of a lot of minority workers, in some cases undocumented. And they will work hard for far less pay than they should be getting. (And in some cases, as with Batali and Joe Bastianich, getting cheated from agreed tips as well).

      2. timbers

        As a gay male, if I were 40 yrs younger and friends with author of this artlicle, I’d ask her “can you introduce me to some of these guys who take care of themselves by going to the gym? They sound hot.”

      3. Jeff W

        “…if a white male chef cooks food outside Caucasian cuisine (whatever that means).”

        Food from the Caucasus? (Even assuming the culinary diversity of the region, that seems like a pretty small ambit to confine white male chefs to.) And white female (or maybe nonbinary) chefs can venture outside that without raising red flags? I don’t get it.

      4. Jeff W

        Here, in part, is what James Kenji Lopez-Alt says are his “red flags” that make him “reconsider patronizing” a restaurant:

        1. An all-male, mostly white kitchen displayed on social media or on their website.

        This is the biggest red flag for me. It makes me ask two questions: Why don’t women or minorities want to work here? Or: Why doesn’t the chef want to hire women or minorities?
        …
        2. A white chef/owner making the food of minorities/underrepresented peoples.
        I’m not saying that white people can’t cook non-white food. That would be ludicrous. However, the reality is that white, male chefs have an advantaged position, and it’s all too easy to take advantage of that position, even without bad intent. Historically, this has led to the food and culture of minorities and immigrants–folks without power–being taken and profiteered by those with power. Sometimes it’s with a smile and a thank you and good will. Sometimes it’s not. Either way, the power dynamic makes it an issue that cannot be ignored, especially not by the chefs/owners doing the profiteering.

        [bold in original]

        With regard to “the food and culture of minorities and immigrants…being taken and profiteered” argument, it’s not like food and culture as used here are rival foods such that if a white chef/owner “takes” them, the “folks without power” no longer have them to do whatever they want (although, given their lack of power, that capability might be limited).

        Maybe there’s an equitable argument that if a white chef/owner is going to profit from the food of those without power, he or she should make at least a good faith effort to compensate or reward them in some way (e.g., having them work in the kitchen—though that’s dealt with separately in #1), but that seems a bit different than the “taking” per se being an issue.

        1. hk

          By the same token, should people boycott minorities selling “white” foods? Should stuff like kasutera or carne asada fries be damned as inauthentic cultural appropriations? Geeze.

      1. Quentin

        Consider that the byline of the article is ‘Anonymous’ written in pure Guardian highbrow gasbag style, full of cliches while supposedly reflecting the viewpoint of a high school pupil, undoubtedly female. It’s a pernicious piece of journalistic deceit at its worst. May the Mr or Mrs Anonymous journalist reflect on the meaning of the word misandry for a few seconds. Are we now to believe the US women high school students lack agency and grit?

  11. The Rev Kev

    ‘Here’s a shot from a friend who took in a hurricane refugee and her dogs. The trio, normally very rambunctious, turned into model guests during their stay.’

    Somehow just looking at that photo makes me feel relaxed. It must be the eyes. Respect to WE’s friend for stepping up to the plate in a time of need.

  13. Skip Kaltenheuser

    Re: Trump’s ‘pro-Israel’ Appointees Are the Worst of Our Enemies

    At a conference he key-noted, I heard Gideon Levy flesh out his recent essay, but nearly a decade in advance of it. Throughout, I wondered why we couldn’t have more journalists, and politicians, with Levy’s salt.

    Here’s a video of his speech, approximately 21 minutes.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGO3eBxQX7Q

    Here’s a transcript.
    https://www.israellobbyus.org/transcripts/4.2Gideon_Levy2.htm

    The man can turn a phrase, and pitch it like a knuckleball.

      1. pjay

        Thanks for this link. A typically accurate and eloquent essay by Lawrence. And thanks to Skip for the Gideon Levy links as well.

      2. steppenwolf fetchit

        Either Patrick Lawrence is wrong about one thing, or I am wrong about that one thing.

        He thinks that the newly nominated Hegseth-Huckabee duo want more Israeli Apartheid, settlements, conquest, etc. because he thinks that Hegs-Huck think those things will be good for Israel.

        I think that Hegs-Huck want these things sped up for Israel for a reason analogous to the reason that US-UK want to use Ukraine to fight Russia with. The Hegs-Huckists want to use Israel to set off the Great Armageddon War which will lead to the Return of Jesus in Triumph and the establishment of His Thousand Year Reign of Righteous Rule. Israel’s assigned role in this project is to be exterminated as part of the fulfillment of Darbyist Rapturaniac Armageddonite prophecy. The RaptureGeddonites have decided to make their play.

        I don’t think Lawrence has the slightest idea of what the HegsHuckists really want for Israel, which is to be ritually and prophetically exterminated as part of Jesus’s triumphant return in this End of Days. He thinks they want more apartheid, conquest, etc. for Israel’s benefit. ( I think Levy may have a better idea of what the Hegs-Huckists really want, even if he is too scared to say it to himself in simple unambiguous language.)

        Either Lawrence is completely wrong about what Hegs and Huck really want, or I am. At age 67, maybe I will live long enough to find out which one of us it is.

    1. The Rev Kev

      The authoress Dr. Elizabeth Buchanan – a senior fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute – seemed to have missed a very important data point. It was only back in 2018 that the US re-established the U.S. 2nd Fleet who would oversee not only the North Atlantic but also the Arctic as well up to the North Pole. And more recently they had military exercises in the Arctic like Operation Nanook where such Arctic exercises had not been done in decades. Doesn’t sound like they are ready to give up the Arctic. That articles also says that over 50 percent of the Arctic coastline is Russian territory. The fun and games begin when the US 2nd Fleet tries to stage Freedom of Navigation exercises along the Russian coastline.

      2. Kouros

        That would be against UNCLOS. Even War on the Rocks, years ago, admitted begrudgingly that the Russians have sovereignity between the land and the iceshelf, as per some articles and language in UNCLOS. It is not a specific distance here…

        1. The Rev Kev

          I think that the US does that sort of passage along internal Canadian coastlines for the same reason, much to the displeasure of the Canadians.

  15. Jester

    Zelenksyy hopes Ukraine war will end in 2025 through diplomacy not fighting Euronews

    He also hopes that his own life will not end in 2025.

  16. The Rev Kev

    “Reports claim Houthis make Red Sea vessel attacks a $2B business”

    Hey, those drones and missiles aren’t going to pay for themselves you know. They’re not a charity.

  17. Wukchumni

    The four men were charged with insurance fraud for staging fake bear attacks with the bear costume after a joint investigation by the California Department of Insurance and San Bernardino County authorities called “Operation Bear Claw.”
    ~~~~~~~~~~
    ‘Operation Bavarian Cream’ and ‘Operation Apple Fritter’ were apparently already taken by other coppers, and how funny that the pseudo attacks took place @ Big Bear Lake…

    One of the cabin owners in our community has a game camera that catches a lot of deer and occasionally something juicy such as a cougar out on a stroll, and another cabin owner had a realistic looking Sasquatch outfit, and the latter waited until the snow had fallen and made his way up to his cabin and donned the abominable, lurching in a most non-human manner past said camera…

    We had to wait until the spring for the cabin owner to see what had transpired, and he was practically giddy-which we allotted a few days of before lowering the boom on him.

    1. jefemt

      Hoping the boom was lowered on a crowded Friday evening when Sam Squatch bellied up to the Gravel Bar…

  18. Chas

    The raw milk article jogged my memory. I’ll try to keep this short.

    There’s another process raw milk is put through before it becomes commercial milk. This process is not public knowledge today but it was a big deal in the 1950s. I just googled homogenization and was told it is a process of forcing milk under high pressure through tiny holes. Why? To break up fat molecules to suspend the cream in the milk to save the consumer the little bit of energy it took to turn their milk bottle upside down for half a minute.

    I found out the real reason when I was a reporter for an agricultural magazine 40 years ago and researching a story about milk. When farmers began using machines to milk cows big time in the 1950s the machines caused infections in their udders. The cow immune systems produced white cells (somatic) to fight the infections. Too much infection kills the cow.

    Dead white cells piled up in the bottom of consumer milk bottles forming piles of pus on the bottoms of the bottles. Back then I spoke with a university scientist who told me the dairy industry introduced homogenization to suspend that pus into the milk so people couldn’t see it.

    Today cows are still infected — all of them in commercial dairies — and their milk is tested for somatic cells and if the count is above a certain level, the milk is rejected.

    Might there be a connection between these dead white cells and viri such as avian flu floating together in commercial milk? Might pasteurization and homogenization be working against each other in some adverse way?

    Here is a good project for some enterprising young reporter.

    1. mrsyk

      I like these two bits from that article,
      Because she’s a free-market economist with an anti-regulation agenda, that’s why. (she = Emily Oster)
      The worms in Emily Oster’s brain are metaphorical rather than literal, they got there via advanced graduate training in economics.

    2. IM Doc

      What can I say about milk?

      I see all of these people online touting the benefit of drinking actual raw milk……

      I am just not really buying it for one simple reason. Milk is nature’s food for baby animals to grow. Once you are an adult, there are several reasons why it may not be the best thing for a person to consume all the time. Occasionally yes, all the time no. There are all kinds of products that are distilled from various parts of the milk – cottage cheese and whey protein powder for protein – cheese from the fat – yogurt and kefir that have been fermented – cultured butter and buttermilk. These things are fine. But drinking actual milk constantly is something I tell my patients to avoid, especially the obese and diabetic.

      My family lives in an ancestral dairy farm area. All kinds of generational dairy farms all around. They are NOT Big Ag kinds of places. You can drive up to them and easily see the humane care given to the animals. You can see the loads of hay and other grasses fed to them. They provide us with large metal cans of milk that are pasteurized but free of growth hormone and antibiotics ( far more important issue that gets lost in the shuffle – especially the hormones). We skim the cream off the top for butter and cream. We ferment quite a bit of it into yogurt and kefir and whey/cottage cheese ( these are all astonishingly easy to do after a bit of practice – we do not attempt our own cheese – we get it from the dairy farmers) and it is the kids and various recipes that consume the actual milk. And, just wow, does it all taste so much better than the crap at the store. And one thing we noticed right away when we started down this road – the butter and other fat items from this type of milk changes color throughout the year – a green in spring – yellow in summer – and orange in the fall – all kinds of very helpful phytochemicals into your body, antioxidants, that get totally filtered out in the Big Ag approach.

      I know that all sounds so 1940s – but it works and works well. There was a day in my life when the above was absolutely available to city dwellers through dairies and the milkman. But like streetcars, interurbans, and other “old” things – that was all tossed by the wayside for profit and convenience. And therein is the very root of the problem.

      1. CA

        https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/14/well/obesity-epidemic-america.html

        November 14, 2024

        Three-Quarters of U.S. Adults Are Now Overweight or Obese
        A sweeping new paper reveals the dramatic rise of obesity rates nationwide since 1990.
        By Nina Agrawal

        Nearly three quarters of U.S. adults are overweight or obese, according to a sweeping new study. The findings have wide-reaching implications for the nation’s health and medical costs as it faces a growing burden of weight-related diseases.

        The study, * published on Thursday in The Lancet, reveals the striking rise of obesity rates nationwide since 1990 — when just over half of adults were overweight or obese — and shows how more people are becoming overweight or obese at younger ages than in the past. Both conditions can raise the risk of diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease, and shorten life expectancy.

        The study’s authors documented increases in the rates of overweight and obesity across ages. They were particularly alarmed by the steep rise among children, more than one in three of whom are now overweight or obese. Without aggressive intervention, they forecast, the number of overweight and obese people will continue to go up — reaching nearly 260 million people in 2050…

        * https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01548-4/fulltext

      2. Craig H.

        N=1.

        I drink a large glass of milk every day and only at breakfast. Never explored “raw”. I don’t eat anything that I don’t think is very very good for me.

        If I run out of milk I immediately go to the store and refill my supply.

        No two bodies are alike.

        1. NYMutza

          Ultra pasteurized milk has very little nutrition, aside from fat, calcium, and a bit of protein. Those can all be obtained from a wide variety of far less processed food. Make no mistake – homogenized milk is a processed food.

      3. heresy101

        I drank raw milk until I was 17 and went to college. Dad got 2 gallons daily from the neighbors because they had too much for their family. My brother and I drank a gallon and the rest of the family drank the other. Mom took the pint/quart of cream and made butter, yogurt, ingredients for all kinds of foods. Luckily, none of us had any illnesses. I have allergies to grasses and pollen from everything growing in Oregon’s rain, but no food allergies.
        Commercial raw milk may give different results.

      4. flora

        Thanks. I think northern Europeans developed or evolved the ability to digest milk lactose sugars even into old age. Many other peoples — from middle easterners, asians, and africans — lose that digestive ability after childhood. A fermented milk product like cheese and yogurt and kefir is better. But what do I know.

        1. Polar Socialist

          According to Nature, it’s a relatively new trait (5,000 years or so), and the thing is that while lactose intolerance won’t in general kill anyone, if and when there are other factors effecting nutritional intake (famine, disease) lactose tolerant have it much easier.

          FYI: I live in the worlds most lactose tolerant country, with adults consuming on average annually around 37 gallons of milk per person. My mother turned 80 some time ago and thinks she may be better off if she starts to avoid raw milk.

          1. eg

            There was a time when Ireland likely would have held the title of World’s Most Lactose Tolerant, but it’s possible that immigration patterns have changed that status.

      5. thousand points of green

        There is a theory that a particular protein found in cows’ milk comes in two slightly different forms in the milk of two different genetic lineages of cow-breeds. This theory considers one of those forms to be benign to humans and the other form to be harmful to humans. The “harmful” form is found in the milk of Holstein and Holstein-derived and Holstein-adjacent cow-breeds. These breeds are the mainstay of modern industrial CAFO milk mining. A whole other different set of cow-breeds like Jerseys , Guernseys, etc. have the non-harmful version of that protein in their milk.

        There is a book written about that called The Devil In The Milk, available from the Acres USA Bookstore. Here is a review of it.
        https://the-moneychanger.com/articles/devil_in_the_milk

        Here is a multi-page interview of the author himself, Keith Woodford, from the pages of Acres USA itself, available at this link.
        https://www.worldguernseys.org/PageMill_Resources/Acres_Woodford.pdf

        I don’t really know what to think about this beyond thinking that this could be worth knowing about and thinking about. I suppose that people who are having health trouble drinking lots of milk from Holstein-type cow-breeds with the harmful protein could switch to drinking the same amounts of milk from non-Holstein-type cow-breeds with the benign version of the same protein and see what happens. Maybe enough thousands or tens of thousands of people could be observed making that switch and keeping to that switch to see if there collective problem profile changes.

        1. Revenant

          UK dairies have experimented with selling milk expressing the “beneficial” protein only. I think the venture failed commercially and the clinical science is doubtful.

        2. Duke of Prunes

          I believe the “good” milk is sometimes called “A2” (for the other protein). You can find it in some stores. My wife can tolerate it a bit better than regular milk, but not enough to switch from her oat milk (mostly for coffee). There’s an ice cream/market/fast food chain in Oklahoma area Braums that only uses this A2 milk, and the ice cream is excellent and relatively inexpensive.

      6. chris

        I’m sold on raw milk cheese from my visit to France several years ago. I have no idea how they make it. I don’t pretend to understand how they finish it. French cheese is lovely and I wish we could come even a little bit towards the quality you can find at the local cheese monger in Paris.

        1. Yves Smith

          Sex without condoms is “lovely” too. I personally know HIV positive men who justify barebacking for the same reason. Physical experience and safety are in two different categories.

          Raw milk cheese in the US is lower risk than raw milk. And it still requires raw milk, which appears to be a vector for avian flu transmission. I don’t know if the handling of raw milk to produce raw milk cheese further increases avian flu transmission or not:

          Raw-milk cheese is a little different. The Food and Drug Administration requires raw-milk cheese, domestic or imported, to be aged for at least 60 days before it’s sold. (In some other countries, raw-milk cheeses aren’t aged as long.) During that time, the bacteria should be destroyed.

          That’s not always the case, but under normal circumstances, “if a producer follows strict sanitation protocols and good manufacturing processes, the risk of getting sick from raw-milk cheese is low,” says Adam Brock, administrator of the division of food and recreational safety in the Wisconsin department of agriculture, trade, and consumer protection. In 2016, the FDA tested 1,600 samples of raw-milk cheeses for salmonella, listeria, and E. coli and found less than 1 percent of the samples to be contaminated. Most of the contaminated cheeses were semisoft types, such as Fontina, or soft-ripened cheeses, such as Brie. Hard cheeses, such as cheddar and manchego, fared better, but there were still some contaminated samples.

          Avian flu has raised new questions about the risk though. FDA tests found that the live virus is not present in pasteurized milk (which is heated to kill germs), so cheese made from pasteurized milk is safe. However, recent research in the New England Journal of Medicine found that mice given raw milk from infected cows became ill with the virus. And a study in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases found that cats living on a farm with infected cows died from the virus, and that drinking raw milk was their likely route of exposure.

          https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food-safety/is-raw-milk-cheese-safe-to-eat-a1148876284/

    3. lyman alpha blob

      I found that article to be rather disjointed and a little hysterical and the author strikes me a someone who probably doesn’t know how many teats a cow has to begin with.

      The author claims the raw milk advocate is some pro-capitalist, big business loving, anti-regulation freemarketeer, which may very well be the case, but raw milk sellers aren’t exactly big ag. They point out that the number of raw milk illnesses might be low but it will increase as more is consumed. That is a rather trivial assumption.

      And I do not find the analogy that drinking raw milk is like playing Russian roulette to be an apt one, unless the gun has an enormous chamber. Since the author relies on anecdotes, I’ll give one as well. I drank raw milk exclusively for many years growing up and never once found the bullet, nor did anyone else from my extended family. I’d estimate that I drank raw milk around 5,000 times during the course of my life with no ill effects. I’d still be drinking it some today if my family hadn’t sold their small herd a couple years ago, no longer being able to compete with big ag and so many Congressional policies designed to favor large operations. But I’m not bitter…

      I am certainly not suggesting that pasteurization is not beneficial or that everyone should just gulp down any raw milk they can get their hands on. But if you know the farmer and they run a clean operation, there really isn’t much risk in drinking raw milk. On my family’s farm, the milk went right from the cow’s udder straight to a refrigerated bulk tank. We’d take out a little raw milk for personal use before the rest of it was picked up in a tanker truck and shipped off to the dairy to be pasteurized and processed,

      But enough of that. I’m off to have some donuts deep fried in lard.

      1. Terry Flynn

        Since the author relies on anecdotes, I’ll give one as well.

        Science doesn’t work like that and your arguments are completely at odds with what multiple fields have found when it comes to the reactions of individual human beings, whether in n-of-1 trials, discrete choice experiments or a host of other tests on individuals.

        In short, you may have one environmental or genetic trait that makes raw milk OK to you. On virtually every occasion. To use another anecdote to support this is frankly dreadful. Proper science looks across large samples. It ideally relates outcomes to as wide a variety of independent variable as possible, so as to identify and, where possible, link differences in outcomes with differences in interventions. Your comments about the author’s possible lack of knowledge of how many teats would be described as ad hominem by some.

        Try advocating for an n-of-1 trial or equivalent where the INDIVIDUAL is the sample: intra-individual variation can and is quantified. Factors such as the “clean farmer that you know”……HOW well do you know this? Particularly given the regularly quoted problems Jo(e) public has routinely in doing things right due to sociopolitical things that are reported on this site?

        If you have a “good gene” that protects you from the vast majority of raw milk problems then good for you, But you have no right to advocate for this generally, given the problems identified, and specifically identified as likely to be inherent to modern capitalist production procedures.

        Do an n-of-1 trial amongst a large number of people who are subjected to a large number of potentially difficult factors, to see if raw milk is somethiing that is “just bad for some people”, or “bad for people under certain circumstances” or “fine x% of the time given random variation” or “fine for everyone no matter” – history is NOT in favour of the latter.

        To use your anecdote and back it up with another is appalling. I have been very very careful in my posts to only ever post an anecdote when there have been “anecdata” – suggestions in the literature that there is something going on, but which needs proper investigation.

        1. Rory

          Isn’t any individual’s experiences learning what foods and food products are good or bad for him or her “an n-of-1 trial”? And why should that person not follow the trial’s results and/or inform others of his or her experiences?

          As I am sure I do not have to remind you, statistics measure results in populations, not in single instances.

          1. Terry Flynn

            Sorry, no. An n-of-1 trial is very specific that the participant must receive the active intervention or placebo according to a schedule randomising the order (double blinded). So for instance get the drug 16 times and placebo 16 times not knowing which in each of 32 cycles.

      2. flora

        I’m guessing your family’s dairy herd cows were tested annually for tuberculosis and the milk itself tested for e-coli and other pathogens. Someone from the county extension office would come around once a year and take samples. etc.

        That’s standard practice in the US now, and has been the practice for decades. Still, me being the cautious type, I love pasteurized milk (mild heat kills any pathogens) and non-homogenized milk (where the cream separates and floats to the top. / ;)

      3. ChrisPacific

        But if you know the farmer and they run a clean operation, there really isn’t much risk in drinking raw milk.

        There’s the thing. Raw milk is becoming increasingly popular in the US, including among city dwellers and suburbanites who have probably never set foot on a farm in their lives. The market, of course, is rising to the challenge. Regulations against cross-state selling prevent any supplier from entering big ag territory, but some are pretty large for all that. Raw Farms (the culprit in the article) claims 450+ locations throughout California, and California is big enough to be a medium-sized country on its own. That’s at least medium ag – certainly big enough to have to manage an industrial supply and distribution chain, which is where raw milk becomes a whole lot more difficult and challenging.

        How well do they do? Here’s their rap sheet. Oh, and that 2024 outbreak that’s listed as having either 10 or 29 illnesses? Turns out it was more like 165 and counting according to CA government reports that they had to be forced to cough up.

        This is arguably still not a bad record, given the inherent challenges in scaling this stuff. But it’s nothing like getting raw milk from your neighboring farmer where you can walk over and inspect their hygiene practices whenever you like, and I would definitely not describe it as safe. If you had drunk your milk 5000 times from this supplier, I suspect you would not have gotten off so lightly.

        1. lyman alpha blob

          Thank you. Like I said above, that article was a little disjointed and I didn’t pick up that Raw Farms was the name of an actual fairly large business – I thought it was the author’s catch-all term for any farm selling raw milk.

          So yes, as you say I would definitely not suggest that city people buy raw milk from a large producer – large producers selling milk to city people is why pasteurization was needed in the first place. That seems like a really bad idea.

          My point was that I and my extended family drank raw milk from our own family’s small farm, fresh from the cow. And I certainly wouldn’t want any regulator telling us we couldn’t drink the milk we produced ourselves until it had been mixed with other farms’ milk and sent off for further processing.

    4. Keith Howard

      Can anybody here say when commercial milk is deodorized? During a summer working in Mexico in 1980, I was intrigued that the supermarket offered both leche and leche deodorizada. I wish I could try some recipes from classic cuisines with milk that has its natural smell.

      1. Revenant

        The Chinese consider that Westerners all smell of milk (and farmyard) because of our duets (historically, China has begun to eat dary produce).

    2. Aurelien

      The airport is very close to the centre of the city and is approached precisely through the Shia suburbs where Hezbollah has its power-base in Beirut and where most of the attacks have taken place. The Israelis actually targeted the airport directly in 2006, but don'(t seem to have done so this time.

  20. Wukchumni

    I guess what I’m really looking forward to with Trump version 2.0 is the return of Space Force and those sappy uniforms they wear, which we really didn’t hear or see much of during Genocide Joe’s term in office-which could have been dangerous, what if somebody attacked us in space, ether and/or?

      1. steppenwolf fetchit

        I suspect a lot of Space Force’s activity for the first several years of its re-ramp-up will be Spy Satellite versus Spy Satellite type activity.

    1. Yves Smith

      I can’t evaluate what it says about Indonesia and Malaysia, but the very little it has about Thailand is dubious. It depicts being part of the grain exchange as a motivator, as if Thailand were a rice exporter. Thailand’s rice farmers are now losing out to Vietnamese rice, as in Thailand is now importing rice from Vietnam.

  22. The Rev Kev

    “Lebanon considers cease-fire plan while Israel launches new strikes”

    Remember Zelensky’s 10-point peace plan? The one that is also know as the Russia surrender document? That cease-fire plan is just like that. The Israelis continue to break their teeth trying to attack Hezbollah on their own turf and after several weeks, still has not occupied successfully any villages. But with that cease-fire plan, it means that Hezbollah – and Lebanon – surrender to Israel. Hezbollah pulls back to the north and abandons all their positions, they get disarmed, the weak, under-equipped Lebanese army occupies the south of the country while Israel continues with their constant aerial attacks. Then at a time of Israel’s choosing, they invade Lebanon up to the Litani river, expel all Lebanese from the south and then let in the settlers in to build all those pre-planned Settlements.

    1. Aurelien

      If you’ve been following events in Lebanon closely in recent years, as I assume you have, you will recognise this as just a variation on UNSC 1701 of 2006, which is generally acknowledged to be the solution if it could only be made to work. Under this Resolution, the LAF would progressively take over the UNIFIL responsibilities in the South of the country, the Israelis would stay out, and the rationale for Hezbollah’s existence would start to fade away. The main Lebanese factions are all, to varying degrees, in favour of this, even Amal which is Hezbollah’s main political rival in the Shia community. Hezbollah, of course, don’t like it (though they are part of a government which is committed to 1701 and they said they would respect it) because it would undermine their political status. They are very happy with a weak state and a weak LAF, because it increases their strength and their freedom of manoeuvre, and of course Iran is able to have more influence through them. But the other problem is that the US, which supplies most of the LAF’s equipment, has bowed to Israeli pressure and will not let them have the kind of heavy weapons they need to take over from the UN. The US are also, of course, completely irrational on the subject of Hezbollah and Iran, which doesn’t help.

      The plan now is to get Hezbollah to pull back beyond the Litani River (which is what 1701 originally envisaged) and to be replaced by a combination of the LAF and the UN, the former to be up-armed and able to take over in due course. The Israelis would withdraw since there would be no rationale for their presence. The problem is that this requires that Hezbollah observe a ceasefire, and it’s not clear that they are able to do this politically so long as the war in Gaza continues. And the West (and especially the US) won’t talk directly to Hezbollah, so everything has to go through intermediaries.

      There are fanatics inside and outside the government in Israel who dream of annexing South Lebanon, but it’s not a serious proposition, and the Army could not, and would not do it. A redeployment of Hezbollah would take away the last fig leaf of justification anyway. It’s hard to see this working (there’s a lot more detail and complexity of course) but I suppose we can always hope.

      1. nyleta

        Do you know if reports of French UNFIL troops seizing Hezbollah stores in Central Lebanon are true ? I can’t find any solid reports after the initial flurry.

      2. The Rev Kev

        Yeah, none of that is ever going to work. Hezbollah is the only reason that keeps Israel from taking over southern Lebanon. Look at what the Israelis do and not what is said. They are genociding Gaza for those settlers, doing the same in the West Bank, occupy the Shebaa farms still and you are trying to tell me that those fanatics are not a serious force? Israel is deadly serious about a Greater Israel and those hard liners are the government right now and they covet southern Lebanon too much to leave it. That UNSC 1701 was only a fig leaf to hide the fact that Hezbollah had defeated Israel and was a way of trying to get a win nevertheless through diplomatic means just like that present US “proposal.” Most of the political factions right now stand with Hezbollah as they see that Israel wants their country still and to make the Lebanese the new “Palestinians”. In short, Hezbollah abandoning half the country is a direct invitation for Israel to invade their country once more and Hezbollah or not, they are still proud Lebanese.

        1. Just my two scents

          Hezbollah is the only reason that keeps Israel from taking over southern Lebanon.

          It’s more than that, I think. It’s also that even if Hezbollah decides to back off now, this would only be a temporary respite. During that respite, Israel would develop its own strategy and arsenal to blow Hezbollah back to the stone age the next chance it gets.

          This is Hezbollah’s last, best chance, and the group isn’t about to squander it so that some European or American somewhere can claim a victory for peace or whatever.

          Like it or not, once this is over, the winner will be the dominant power for the next couple of generations. And right now, things look pretty bad for Israel

          1. Emma

            No. Even if the West gives Israel a “win” this round, they’re still doomed. Israel can’t survive a week without Western diplomatic, munitions, intelligence, and financial backing. And that West is fading fast.

        2. Emma

          Precisely. Not to mention that this is the same UN that hasn’t stopped the Israeli genocide in Gaza and war crimes against Lebanese civilians for over 400 days. Couldn’t enforce against the illegal occupation of the West Bank or illegal siege of Gaza after 1967. Reliance on UNFIL (last seen helping Israelis kidnap a civilian Lebanese sea captain) and LAF (wholly Western funded and headed by a Falangist, who has done nothing to repel Israeli invasion and killing of Lebanese citizens).

          Why would the majority Shi’a population of Lebanon have any confidence in this Western imposed “solution” to give Israel a win so its Tiktok army can redo its Lebanese occupation and steal Lebanese gas and water? This is colonialist thieving logic.

      3. Emma

        400 days of genocide, likely the biggest mass terror attack ever (beepers plus walkie talkies), and killing of over 3,000 civilians including numerous double tap attacks against paramedics, are obviously not red lines for the Falangists summoned to the Beirut US embassy. Whose leader perpetrated the Sabra and Shatila Massacre.

        Those not desiring reliving 1978-2006 may feel differently.

  23. Mikex

    Four beautiful dogs in the antidotes today. I’m particularly impressed with the second picture- I’ve always found it nigh impossible to get 3 animals to look at the camera at the same time.

    2. Milton

      The Chinese Crested actually looks pretty cute when it hasn’t been made bald and it’s tongue remains in it’s mouth.

  24. The Rev Kev

    “Readout of President Joe Biden’s Meeting with President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China”

    Would that meeting for Xi even matter? Biden is a lame duck and is on his way out the door. He never even made it to the election but was pushed aside for Harris. Xi probably met old Joe, listened to grandpa’s complaints, nodded every now and then, and then went afterwards for a stiff drink.

    1. NotTimothyGeithner

      Xi definitely kicked Biden on his way out, diplomatically of course.

      There was some messaging for Trump. Xi isn’t going to play games anymore. My guess is Beijing recognizes their early strategy of dealing with Biden because he wasn’t Trump was a mistake.

      Red lines is stark language.

    2. Wukchumni

      Biden: ‘Gee willikers, I never meant to say that my animosity towards you was ironclad, and what we ever do without all those consumer goods you make?’

      Xi: ‘Why’d he call me willikers?’

    3. CA

      “Would that meeting for Xi even matter?”

      Forgive a slight difference, but the meeting of Xi and Biden was astonishing and singularly important. Chinese diplomatic history extends for several thousand years and Xi knows Chinese history. Xi explained that China was the equal of the United States and would stay that way. There would be no containment, no Thucydides Trapping, no Cold Warring, no acceptance of interference in Chinese domestic affairs. Chinese was going to develop on its own terms, and work with other countries on development with respect for each country worked with.

      US partnership with China was completely welcome, but approaching China from a position of “strength” would be unacceptable.

      “Wow” is right:

      https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1858019192370507904

      Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand

      1. marku52

        Yes, that was an astonishing beat up. China has absolutely had it with the US. Laid out serious red lines, and implied that they were more than ready to defend them.

        Of course the US readout was banal.

  25. griffen

    Bigfoot should not be confused with another mythical creature, one that carries possibly less significance to much of the population as the legend below is more from recent memory.

    ManBearPig…it’s a real thing, for sure ! The young children of South Park, Colorado are experts on the creature. \sarc

    1. jefemt

      I was playing disc golf at a sprawling city park NE of Bakersfield, and a Chupacabra crossed the road about 100 feet from me. I trotted after it and tried to get good clear photos. It was very exciting and disconcerting!
      Coyote with mange, probably heading toward its Rendezvous with Destiny, leaving this mortal coil. Apparently mange sucks, big time.

    2. steppenwolf fetchit

      Parker and Stone used “ManBearPig’ to satirize what they derided as Al Gore’s silly belief in the mythical not-a-thing called ‘Global Warming’. As an episode, the episode was a funny episode.

      Later, when Parker and Stone were adversely affected by major flooding around Fort Collins and elsewhere in Eastern Colorado, they rethought their belief in the non-existence of ‘Global Warming’ and made another episode where they had the children apologize to the Al Gore figure and say they realized that ManBearPig is real. ManBearPig did some running-amok damage in the town of South Park and killed Satan in hand to hand combat in that subsequent episode. Here is an article about that.
      https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a25127458/south-park-climate-change-manbearpig-apology-season-22-episode-7/

      Back to the subject of Bigfoot itself, a natural scientist/ collector for the British Museum/ ecologist/ author of books/ etc. names Ivan T. Sanderson decided to write a book about possible evidence of, or at least about, big crypto-humanoids in different parts of the world. That book is titled Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come To Life.
      Here is a NOmazon link to a review about it.
      https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/223404.Abominable_Snowmen

      1. griffen

        Thanks for the added detail behind those episodes, I remember the initial episode but have seen references to the second episode and the motivation behind the second entry. I need to look that one up.

        Hurricane Helene was an unpleasant reminder* that in the long run, global warming is an issue whether or not hard in the wool conservatives want to deny that it’s true. *And it’s like a running series of reminder, nature sometimes just not caring about human attempts at protecting from it or delaying an inevitable event…

        1. steppenwolf fetchit

          Conservatives will have various fallback denial positions. Like . . . the climate is always changing, just like it has for millions of years.

          And when the denial runs out, the dismissal will begin. Like . . . its too late anyway, so why disemploy all those poor coal miners, oil workers, and oil company executives when its too late to matter anyway?

          Reverend Pat Robertson of the 700 Club had the most creative comeback to ” Its real and we must do something.” that I ever heard. His comeback was that global warming was a sign of the coming End Of Days, and that anyone who tried to do something against global warming was doing the work of Satan.

          Tucker Carlson has adopted this approach to global warming dismissal.
          https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/tucker-carlson-claims-abortions-cause-hurricanes-during-bizarre-rant/ar-AA1tvrM1

          But I don’t believe Tucker really believes that. I think he is the same grubby little hustler he was exposed for being during his appearance with Paul Begala on
          John Stewart’s show.

  26. The Rev Kev

    “Immaculately Preserved Saber-Tooth Cat Cub Found in Siberian Permafrost”

    Still waiting for the day that they discover the body of a Neanderthal frozen in the permafrost. The odds are good that there are prehistoric bodies frozen out there somewhere and it may be a matter of time until one is discovered. We learned a ton of stuff when they found Ötzi back in 1991 who was only 5,000 years old so imagine if they found a Neanderthal.

  27. Carolinian

    re Pluralistic–this is the good Doctorow as opposed to the Dem shill Doctorow. Back in the day he pumped the notion that the web is a libertarian project and those opposing this in the name of monetary interest (Microsoft) were the bad guys. Now he bemoans that his former allies have themselves become obsessive controllers of content. Clearly something happens when the powerless become the powerful. Meanwhile we the powerless still believe the meek will inherit the Earth. Go figure.

    1. TimH

      The expression “the meek will inherit the earth” is in the same tone as “may you live in interesting times”. The meek end up dead and buried, and that’s how they inherit the earth… or maybe the earth inherits them.

      1. IM Doc

        But the problem is that verse in the Bible is one of the most poorly translated – and it also has the unfortunate problem of word creep from the time of King James I of England.

        What am I saying? As someone who has studied the koine and classical Greek all their life. The word “meek” in modern English has a very subtle but profound difference than “meek” meant in the time of the King James Bible. This is not unusual at all in Biblical texts – and words translated 400 years ago mean different things now. Much less words between Britain and what the same words means in the old colonies….think something like fag.

        Koine Greek is also a very difficult language to pin down into modern English. For example, there are more than a dozen words in ancient Greece that are simply translated as “love” in modern English. Each and every one means very subtly different things that zoom right over the head of the readers of a modern translation.

        The “meek will inherit the earth” is in the Beatitudes – which is a group of verses that are linked together in Greek by a rhythm. A type of poem. The translators felt it necessary to keep that basic structure – so they chose to translate with very simple words that would fit the original rhythm. Unfortunately, you can have the rhythm or the meaning – but it is difficult to have both. Our modern word “meek” is not at all what the actual text means –

        The real meaning would be something like this – and I am not a poet – so I cannot think of a way to place it in the correct rhythm…….

        Blessed are those who wear the sword, who know when to use it and know when to put it down, for they shall inherit the whole world. That conveys the meaning of those few words in Greek into modern English much better than “meek” – but as you can see blows the poetic rhythm to hell and back.

        There are all kinds of issues like this throughout our modern translations of Greek texts – not just the Bible. And we have not even started with the portmanteau – which were an absolute favorite of St Paul. There are several scattered throughout his letters that are still very elusive with the “best guesses” in our modern Bible. People have been executed because of these things.

        What is even more frustrating is the modern ancient Greek dictionaries – they would show the word in the verse above – and place “Meek” as the definition in English. Not because this is correct, but because this is the traditional word used for ages. It is very circular.

        The big offenders here have been the generations of theology schools and seminaries which do “Biblical Greek” without even a minute of reading and poring over the classical texts. In order to really understand any ancient Greek, one must have a very thorough knowledge of the entire corpus, and seminaries simply do not do that.

        1. Martin Oline

          Thank you for this comment and all your other comments, Doc. Your insights and opinions are always the highlights of my day.

        2. hk

          But “the meek” does not originate from Koine Greek–the terminology is from Biblical Hebrew originally: “the meek shall inherit the earth” (in KJV) comes from Psalm 37 and this has been translated as “the humble” in other translations. Curious how the interpretation has evolved over time. (Always thought what Lee’s lineage elders did in East of Eden is pretty cool, personally)

            1. Polar Socialist

              From the context of Psalm and the Greek translation it meaning seems to be exactly the same as “al-islam” in Arabic – submitting to the God’s will.

              Not meekness or humbleness as such, but accepting that what ever happens is God’s will, and you must endure it. To do otherwise is wicked.

                1. hk

                  Interestingly, the passage does also appear in the Quran (Sura 21: verse 104), as follows:

                  وَلَقَدۡ كَتَبۡنَا فِي ٱلزَّبُورِ مِنۢ بَعۡدِ ٱلذِّكۡرِ أَنَّ ٱلۡأَرۡضَ يَرِثُهَا عِبَادِيَ ٱلصَّـٰلِحُونَ

                  (“God’s righteous servants shall inherit the land,” more or less. The termniology is عِبَادِيَ ٱلصَّـٰلِحُونَ, wa laqad kataabna–I’m just copying and pasting off of a bilingual Quran site Curious if someone who knows more about Classical Arabic and ancient/medieval Semitic languages can shed more light on this…)

                  Now, an Arabic Bible I found online also translates the passage in Psalm 37 as “the righteous shall inherit the land,” الصِّدِّيقُونَ يَرِثُونَ الأَرْضَ وَيَسْكُنُونَهَا إِلَى الأَبَدِ. I’m not sure how “good” the translation is–the translators appear to be Americans and perhaps not really in tune with the ancient Biblical teachings of the locals. But I also don’t think the Arabic speaking Christians had a tradition of translating Bible into the vernacular (I’d assume the Bibles that they used would have been in ancient Syriac or something–but it too is a Semitic language, so there should be some etymological linkages.)

                  In Biblical Hebrew, apparently, the word in question is וַעֲנָוִ֥ים, the plural of עָנָו, or anav, meaning “the humble” (or so they say). Wonder what the linkage to the equivalent Arabic word is….

  28. Carolinian

    Hindsight that is preaching to the converted (me) here but this is a good bit.

    “Outrageously, the Democrats are looking to scapegoat working-class voters, telling them they are racist and sexist for not supporting Harris, while themselves undoubtedly preparing to make further overtures toward the erstwhile Republican establishment.

    But we should not be surprised because the Democratic Party was never a working-class party. They were always a party of the bosses. They were originally the party of the slave owners, then after that the party of brutal Jim Crow segregation. They carried out vicious attacks on the labor movement, including many times calling in the National Guard to attack striking workers. They have actively supported, or led, every single bloody war of U.S. imperialism, including launching the Vietnam War. Now they’re responsible for a genocide.”

    Although surely FDR was pro worker even if it may have been in order to save capitalism for the bosses. Still his illness gave him the empathy that they lack. And it’s attitude at the top that is the problem. They should always be saying “there but for the grace of God go I” rather than “God anointed me.” Funnily enough a new book about Richard 2 and Henry 4 says that when anointed by a vial of ancient oil it made some of Henry IV’s hair fall out.

    Time to put away the holy oil.

    1. steppenwolf fetchit

      Wasn’t there a pro-worker faction of the Northern/Midwestern part of the Democratic Party which was bigger than just FDR his own personal self? How far would FDR have gotten if no such faction had existed? It seems to me that the Seattle Socialist who wrote that article is simply unaware of that pro-worker faction in the Northern-Midwestern part of the Democratic Party for several decades.

  30. CA

    https://www.nature.com/nature-index/institution-outputs/generate/all/global/all

    The Nature Index

    1 September 2023 – 31 August 2024 *

    Rank Institution ( Count) ( Share)

    1 Chinese Academy of Sciences ( 8617) ( 2589)
    2 Harvard University ( 3603) ( 1092)
    3 University of Science and Technology of China ( 2253) ( 760)
    4 Peking University ( 2766) ( 730)
    5 Zhejiang University ( 1888) ( 727)

    6 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences ( 3623) ( 724)
    7 Max Planck Society ( 2691) ( 699)
    8 Nanjing University ( 1691) ( 689)
    9 Tsinghua University ( 2256) ( 681)
    10 Shanghai Jiao Tong University ( 1770) ( 637)

    11 French National Centre for Scientific Research ( 4445) ( 616)
    12 Sun Yat-sen University ( 1517) ( 608)
    13 Fudan University ( 1619) ( 594)
    14 Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres ( 2895) ( 573)
    15 Sichuan University ( 964) ( 495)

    * Tables highlight the most prolific institutions and countries in high-quality research publishing for the year

  31. CA

    The Nature.com Index of high-quality science research publishing for the latest 12 months shows 4 of the top 5 publishing institutions are Chinese, 8 of the top 10 institutions are Chinese, and 11 of the top 15.

    Harvard is at number 2.
    German institutions are at numbers 7 and 14.
    A French institution is number 11.

    1. Afro

      That’s inevitable, they have a larger population and a greater emphasis on STEM.

      It’s worth pointing out that even in the USA, a lot of research is dependent on graduate students and postdocs from East Asia, South Asia, and central Asia.

      I’d be curious to see a comparison of the undergraduate stem curriculum, for example, if electricity & magnetism or integral calculus or organic chem are harder at Nanjing than they are at MIT.

      1. CA

        “I’d be curious to see a comparison of the undergraduate stem curriculum…”

        An important question, but the answer appears to be wide-spread math and science education from elementary school, with a bent to theoretical-conceptual as opposed to applied education.

  32. IM Doc

    I am not sure what happened in this situation, but such a large miss was either purposeful or some kind of psyop. Or complete incompetence. In any event it has now clearly led to the end of a career.

    I blame this sudden elation of extreme hope followed closely by devastation for the insane, mental breakdown in the MSNBC types. I have heard it over and over and over again for the past 2 weeks – BUT WHAT ABOUT IOWA, SOB, CRY, SOB, YOU JUST KNOW THAT TRUMP RIGGED IT.

    1. Mark Gisleson

      Des Moines Register’s comment:

      So far, a review of the final 2024 poll hasn’t revealed an obvious culprit for missing Trump’s runaway victory in the state, the paper said Sunday.

      In her interview with Mark Halperin, Ann Selzer clearly stated that she had not altered any of her polling techniques and that as usual she had complied with client parameters on how to target the poll. I real time I understood that she was saying that anything weird about this poll was the client’s doing, not hers.

      Selzer is clearly biased but I trust her work. I started reading the Des Moines Register in the 1960s (at school, at home we got the Waterloo Courier, the farm-oriented Republican newspaper that Nikole Hannah-Jones also grew up on). The Des Moines Register stopped being The Des Moines Register in 1985 when they were acquired by Gannett. Their thumbprints have been on every political story ever since.

      Telling that it’s Selzer taking the heat when the blame all belongs to the people running The Des Moines Register.

      1. Pat

        But…and yes I realize that this is in some ways being nit picky, wouldn’t an experienced pollster know that the parameters the client wanted would skew the poll? Maybe I give the people who do this too much credit, but I have always thought that they had enough knowledge of both demographics and linguistic programming to know when their polls are skewed or are push polls.

        1. Mark Gisleson

          If a pollster has a client it’s good to know who that client is. Selzer is being a good soldier and taking the fall but the DMR has been rubbing up against her parameters since always. Pre- or post-Gannett they have never been a neutral arbiter while aggressively putting as many thumbs on the scale as they can get away with.

          There was no culprit other than the Des Moines Register which has over the years become a very weird place that Iowans no longer depend upon or should trust.

          1. flora

            an aside: I knew something big had changed at the DMR — once home of editorial cartoonists Ding Darling (winner of 2 Pulitzer prizes) , Frank Miller (Pulitzer Prize winner), and Brian Duffy — when they eliminated the editorial cartoonist position entirely.

            Suddenly, mocking politics and politicians is not allowed? / oy

              1. Steven A

                When the Cowles family sold the Register to Gannett in 1985 the paper changed its state wide focus to just central Iowa. Donald Kaul, native Detroiter who wrote a witty daily column, moved to the Cedar Rapids Gazette and I am sure he would have had a great deal of fun with it.

                I was a Register reader when I started delivery the Sunday edition on cold winter mornings in Sioux City. Even after I left the state I had a mail subscription to the paper until corporate ownership turned it into provincial version of USA Today.

                1. Mark Gisleson

                  Not sure who was living in the Cowles mansion but I dated a gal who lived above the mansion’s carriage house for a while. The DMR used to be a huge part of Iowans’ lives but I think that stopped being true outside of Des Moines long before Gannett acquired them.

          2. Martin Oline

            I served on one of the ‘citizen ombudsman’ panels for the Register back around 2003 or so. We would meet in the conference room adjoining the news room and if you arrived early you could read what the management had posted on the bulletin board guiding the reporters. They had a notice to the beat reporters that if they were at the scene of a story they were to give priority to statements given by any minorities there. I’ll bet if the witnesses said “I didn’t see nothing” it never made it into the story. I meant to bring it up during the meetings but never did.
            Several years before that a city councilman, who later became the Mayor of Des Moines, voted to fund a drug rehab organization that he worked for at that time. I was at that meeting. This was a conflict of interest that a local later told me he used as blackmail to be appointed to a review board. This conflict was never understood by the reporter covering these meetings, possibly because he was an intern or a newbie from another city. This is the problem of using inexperienced and naive interns. They are so easily led.
            One problem with the paper was that multiple people were ghosting articles under other bylines. I know for a fact it happened with the book reviewer there.

            1. Mark Gisleson

              Reviewing the list of Des Moines’ mayors, it’s pretty easy to guess which one you’re talking about. Initials would be too obvious but you’re talking about a guy who once owned a cable radio station and had a very laid back style?

      2. flora

        She did not alter any of her metrics, but, in my opinion, the metrics she relied on altered themselves in the interest of presenting a reality the ‘authoritative metric producers’ wanted see. They blinded themselves to unwelcome data, to what was happening in the country. How was she to know they’d changed how they made their calculations? I think it is not even her fault. She trusted them, the ‘authoritative’ metrics producers, as she had done for years. I am very sorry her career ended this way.

        1. flora

          And if he pulls on that string what other things might be unravelled? Enquiring minds, don’t’cha know. / ;)

      4. hk

        The thing is thst Selzer always had a but of “mystical” approach to polling and that often worked to advantage (presumably because she knew Iowa, or so we thought.) Pretty much eeryone slices and dices poll numbers now because we know the samples we get are terrible. Doing it “by the books” means that we throw in even more stuff that are known to be questionable (eg data from previous elections, when we know things are different now even if we can’t translate them to useable numbers). Selzer didn’t–we know she usually weighted her data more “creatively.” On one hand, it’s one way to get things more right if your hunch is right, but can blow things up badly if you fool yourself into seeing things that aren’t there just because you think they should be.

    2. .Tom

      Polls being wrong isn’t surprising to me. It’s normal.

      I recall after the Brexit vote the media spent forever arguing over the question, “How did the polls get this so wrong?” The answer was obvious but they couldn’t see it, of course. Because the data was wrong. Because the public polling data was bad. It’s the news media that needs the public polling so they have something to talk about. Political campaigns have their own internal private polling data and there have been some stories that suggest they differ from what the news media gets.

  33. Not Again

    Oopppps…..

    Pollster Ann Selzer ending election polling, moving ‘to other ventures and opportunities’

    I hope that check from Harris-Walz 2024 didn’t bounce.
    OTOH, Pete Buttigieg now has a gig for January 2028.

    1. Martin Oline

      I’ve said it before but it bears repeating, pollsters are running businesses. They are not conducting polls out of the goodness of their hearts, but must make a profit to survive. I’m sure Ann will do just fine serving up dishes of hopium to her customers.

      1. hk

        Pollsters don’t make that much out of politics, certainly not those for public consumption. The real money, for many of them, comes from consumer research (or, at least, this used to be true about 10-15 years ago). You do political polling mostly for reputation. (This does not include “internal polling” kept out of public view.) You blow the public polls, you lose business elsewhere.

  34. Es s Ce Tera

    re: New Details on China’s Powerful Hypersonic Glide Vehicle with Drone and Bomb Submunitions Military Watch

    I did a search, at a speed of Mach 7 how soon can 600 km be reached, and the answer was 4.16 minutes. Just in case anyone was wondering.

    And the article says it can be attached to a booster, doubling its range. So 1200 km in 8 mins. That seems pretty fast. Not an awful lot of time to perform target motion analysis or calculate trajectory and destination so as to respond. And the things can change direction too, forcing recalculation. I already can’t imagine what could stop them but then this missile can also deploy multiple missiles, submunitions and drones midflight. AND on top of that can also perform surveillance and electronic attacks. AND can deliver nukes.

    Verily, NATO seems royally fUxx0red. If I were the West I might want to emphasis diplomacy and peace, sign the peace treaties and non-aggression pacts post-haste, rather than take a confrontational approach. Hello, this is far too much of a technological and military edge to be picking a fight?

    1. Just my two scents

      Verily, NATO seems royally fUxx0red.

      I think the bigger problem has to do with deterrence strategies.

      Once you see a “missile” (which may or may not be correctly identified) coming at you and you have only eight minutes to get somebody’s attention and decide how to react, what is the likely outcome?

      There will no longer be time for cooler heads to prevail.

  35. Mikel

    Social Theory for the Mid-21st Century: Part II. From -73000 to 2055: Malthusian Poverty to Modern Economic Growth Brad DeLong, Grasping Reality

    Well, well, well. What do we have here?

    “2055 is far from today, and is much farther from the 1905 that I think is still the focal point of what American academia teaches and thinks about. How far is it? I am going to claim that 2055 is as far from 1905 as 1905 is from the year -3000.”

    Yeah, 2055 is far from today. How impressive would his speculation be if he didn’t pull a model out of his butt about his probably Jetson’s view of 2055 and just compared up to 2024.

    How far away from 30 years ago with actual scientific theory and methods (not economic speculation) is humanity today vs 30 years ago?

    1. Samuel Conner

      Thanks for this. I feel a bit queasy about RFK in charge of HHS, but a point suggested by Redfield is that there will, under RFK, be more transparency in public health communication, which would be a good thing. Perhaps there will also be a serious push for anti-viral agent discovery (and, perhaps research into repurposing current drugs). RR acknowledges that there should, back in 2020, have been a parallel “warp speed” effort on antivirals.

  37. Mikel

    Liberals speak a different language – FT

    Nothing that esoteric about the term “gaslighting.”
    Comes from pop culture, from the 1940s, when the movie came out.
    And no Wiki (or “AI”) – it used as a term quite often by people before “the internets”.
    I guess the article is saying the term was “weaponized” – so to speak…

  38. Tom Stone

    “Is Ukraine becoming a Kleptocracy” is right up there with “Democracy restored to Haiti”, I’m glad I didn’t have a mouthful of coffee when I read that.

  39. Mikel

    Russia’s War Economy Is Hitting Its Limits – Foreign Policy

    My off-the-cuff thought is that many the views presented are also based on the assumption that Russia doesn’t have any committed and strong allies.

      2. Randall Flagg

        They have the missiles, it’s the chips they take from the washing machines to put into them that are in short supply…/sarc

    2. Cat Burglar

      The core of the argument is Russia’s low replacement rates of ammunition and armor. That might be true, but as Alaskan wisdom teaches, a bear chasing you can run 35 mph, but you only need to run faster than your buddy. If Ukraine’s replacement rate is lower and its forces are declining faster than Russia’s, then the case may be irrelevant. You’d want to see comparisons.

      Mark Ames posted a link to this study from anti-putin Russian economists who argue that the Russian economy should do very well under war conditions over the next 5 or 6 years.

      1. Mikel

        There is plenty of speculation about Russia’s economy in that article. Gives off the vibe that some are still counting on Russia being politically and economically isolated.

        1. ChrisPacific

          Is it worth reading? To me it looks like just another example of “Russia is about to collapse if we can just help Ukraine fight a little longer”.

          Hardly a month has gone by since 2022 that we haven’t had one of these and none of them have been right yet.

        2. Cat Burglar

          If they are counting on that, it is just whistling in the dark — we aren’t in 1965 any more, when the US could just apply the Jakarta Method to unruly neutrals and it could get away with it.

          In the Foreign Policy article, you had to love the section about the inevitable Russian post-war recession breeding political instability. And what historical precedent do they cite? Post World War I Europe. But why not Post World War II United States? There were plenty of demobilized soldiers and jobless defense workers then, too, and they got the GI Bill, a growing economy, and the suburbs to keep them quiet. When an analysis in a US journal skips over such a glaringly obvious historical comparison, you have to wonder what kind of game they are playing.

      2. Polar Socialist

        The simplest back-of-the-envelope calculation says Ukraine gets donated/borrowed/leased 400 tanks per year (and produces none), while Russia produces around 1,600 per year.

        Of course, according to Ukraine Russia has lost 9,162 tanks already, which is about twice the number of Russian pre-war tanks plus the whole war-time production. So, it’s possible Russia actually has minus 4,522 tanks, and will need another three years of production to be able to make that up and again roll one to the front…

  40. Tom Stone

    I am fortunately an introvert, which limits my exposure to both Covid and TDS.
    However both seem to be spreading at an alarming rate, I am hearing about colds that just won’t go away and “The worst ‘flu I ever had” while encountering acquaintances whose heads have exploded due to Harris’ loss.
    People have totally lost it, their fear is palpable and the few I have made the mistake of trying to talk down become angry that I don’t share their rage and fear.
    I would have thought the way Harris handled the Lab scandal would have disqualified her from any office of trust and responsibility, but it is just shrugged off.
    For those who did not follow that story the person running the County Lab was stealing drugs and money as well as testifying about the results of tests that were never run.
    When Harris was made aware of this she did nothing, the DA’s office continued to prosecute offenders based on the testimony of a known drug addict and embezzler for three months, until the scandal blew up.
    The outcome was predictable, a total of 1,400 cases were either dropped or the convictions were overturned.
    And people are losing their shit because Harris lost to TRUMP!!! after running the most tone deaf election campaign in American History.
    This might make more sense to me if I started sniffing glue…

  41. bobert

    A brief segment of an interview with Norman Finkelstein on why he was able to predict a Trump landslide in the last election:

    https://youtu.be/gy6hsxKa2yk?si=O46g4XPHucIrQ1nj

    TL,DR: When you have one candidate who offers you nothing and a candidate who is a “roll of the dice”, you go with the roll of the dice. Also, Trump doesn’t represent a move towards fascism. Why, Finkelstein asks, does the ruling class need fascism when they already have all the cards in hand to exert their will over society? It’s not as if there is a Left to contend with…

    1. Jhallc

      Watched a very good interview with Norman Finkelstein yesterday where he makes a similar argument. I mostly agree with and admire him greatly but, at the 19:00 minute mark he actually says Blinken and Sullivan are competent people. Perhaps compared to Pompeo and Hillary but, it’s been a pretty low bar lately.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBz68F1vTlw

      1. jsn

        With Finkelstein when he uses a word he has a specific definition of it in mind.

        Quick Google search, #3. “legally qualified or fit to perform the task”.

        I expect that’s all he means, and given the theater of mooted Trump appointments, apropos.

  42. matt

    re: liberals speak a different language
    that sounds a lot like internetspeak to me. i found that to be a lot of the issues with the harris campaign- it was very internety. only people extremely online would understand what ‘brat summer’ meant. because people working knowledge jobs spend a lot more time on the internet, or at least spaces of the internet that use language like that. of course, it’s more than just ‘internetspeak’ it’s also the language thrown around in college classrooms. people often share foucault memes with me when i know they haven’t read foucault but are trying to signify that they are academic. like they start including more references to famous thinkers and it’s weird. and again it gets exacerbated by the internet. you can talk to someone and immediately know what spaces they’re in online.

  43. Mo

    The guardian article about the bright wing boys I the liberal private school is amusing, obviously completely concocted. Does she actually know any boys? This line for example:

    “Obsession with achieving a more muscular body through excessive exercise and intense dieting”

    LOL. Teenage boys who work out are eating as much as they can fit in their mouths. But she’s pretending they’re a bunch of bulimics. Does anyone take this drivel seriously?

  44. Sub-Boreal

    How the Left polices itself and becomes self-defeating by reinforcing wacky positions that get no traction in the wider community, e.g. defunding police. I found this discussion by 2 Brits interesting. It starts off with some fairly mainstream analysis of the U.S. election, and then gets into a thoughtful discussion of promoting minority positions, actual listening, and what this means for how to do activism. Starts at 52 mins.

  45. CA

    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/17/us/politics/biden-ukraine-russia-atacms-missiles.html

    November 17, 2024

    Biden Allows Ukraine to Strike Russia With Long-Range U.S. Missiles
    With two months left in office, the president for the first time authorized the Ukrainian military to use the system known as ATACMS to help defend its forces in the Kursk region of Russia.
    By Adam Entous, Eric Schmitt and Julian E. Barnes

    President Biden has authorized the first use of U.S.-supplied long-range missiles by Ukraine for strikes inside Russia, U.S. officials said.

    The weapons are likely to be initially employed against Russian and North Korean troops in defense of Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region of western Russia, the officials said.

    Mr. Biden’s decision is a major change in U.S. policy. The choice has divided his advisers, and his shift comes two months before President-elect Donald J. Trump takes office, having vowed to limit further support for Ukraine….

  46. Jason Boxman

    Now that Trump is elected, the NY Times discovers: The Hidden Truth Linking the Broken Border to Your Online Shopping Cart (archive.ph)

    This year, America’s southern border was once again a flashpoint in a presidential election, with President-elect Donald J. Trump pledging to deport millions of people who he said were “poisoning the blood” of the country. Within days of his re-election, he announced his intention to appoint hard-liners on immigration.

    But despite the tough talk, the broken border has been a lifeline for America’s on-demand economy under both Democratic and Republican administrations, including Mr. Trump’s first term, an investigation by The New York Times found. Thousands of companies have exploited its porousness by plucking workers from the ranks of unauthorized migrants, sometimes with impunity.

    You don’t say?

    Also, Biden is insane: Biden Allows Ukraine to Strike Russia With Long-Range U.S. Missiles

    1. CA

      “Biden Allows Ukraine to Strike Russia With Long-Range U.S. Missiles”

      Yes, this to me is madness on any number of levels. The Biden administration was obviously determined to provoke a series of wars from the beginning, as the flocking to the administration of the Cheney family and the like showed. I am appalled.

      1. Screwball

        Madness for sure. What, exactly, are these psychopaths trying to accomplish here? Also, who is calling the shots? If they will do insane things like this, what else might they do? There is 2 month left, plenty of time to F things up.

          1. Polar Socialist

            Oddly enough, it seems that simultaneously USA, UK and France are experiencing problems on delivering any long-range missiles to Ukraine. If I’m not wrong, the excuse Uk has given is that they have none left to give…

            Which, again very oddly, makes the decision even more mad. It’s taking an enormous risk of escalation without any chance of a payoff. It probably also means Russia will need to take Kharkov, Sumy and Chernihiv regions as “buffer zone”.

        2. Tom Stone

          Oh, shit.
          Perhaps leaving the nation in the hands of a pissy old dry drunk with Dementia might have a down side…

      2. Martin Oline

        Long range missiles with unknown payloads and targeting provided by NATO? Launched from a country that is trying to create simple nuclear weapons? I think we will soon find out whether the Kessler effect is just a theory or not as taking out western satellites will be the logical response by Russia. An exchange of missiles with Russia might create a national emergency that could ‘temporarily’ delay any inauguration. What’s not to like if you are invested in the MIC?

  47. Joe Well

    Can we start a “worst of Bluesky” recurring segment?

    Here’s my nomination for today:

    https://bsky.app/profile/meidastouch.bsky.social/post/3lb5tq2jtis2j

    Meme comparing Massachusetts and Oklahoma.

    “One’s surviving, one’s thriving.”

    Among the points, Massachusetts has among the lowest poverty and Oklahoma has among the highest…

    Of course MA has such low poverty! They have been systematically pushing lower income residents out by refusing to build apartments or starter homes for over 30 years! There has been an exodus of thousands of US citizens every year, replaced by low-wage immigrants who go 10 to an apartment and are treated as disposable, and will cycle out into a lower cost state or back to their home countries if they ever decide to start a family, but hey, they will leave before they can get counted in any kind of health or education or poverty statistic.

    (Admittedly, not all of them, and MA does invest heavily in education and healthcare for immigrants of all status, but that is a big part of the dynamic…people tend to just leave when they can’t do it anymore…it’s like looking at the health status of elite athletes.)

    1. JP

      Whereas the people in OK can’t leave? Oklahoma is fast becoming the christian theocracy experiment. The locals will self sort for a different outcome.

      1. flora

        oh please. Oklahoma has large American indigenous populations. Look up Tribal Jurisdictions in Oklahoma. / sheesh.

    2. Screwball

      Can we start a “worst of Bluesky” recurring segment?

      Someone up thread mentioned to follow LibsofBlueSky on Twitter. There are several of those it appears. Anyway, I did follow one of them and the “worst” is going to be quite a task.

      I won’t link to it, and I’m even kind of afraid to explain it, but a person on Bluesky called for Trump, Vance, and all the cabinet members to not be around anymore. Let your imagination run wild – yes – it’s that bad.

      The place sounds like a real circus, but that’s about what I would expect from a bunch of pissed off unhinged MSNBC democrats expressing their extraordinary virtue.

      1. flora

        I understand Comcast is thinking of spinning off (out) their cable news channels like CNBC and MSNBC because the ratings are tanking and advertiser dollars are falling. (Fewer eyeballs are less appealing to advertisers.) Apparently, Rachel’s viewership dropped by almost 50% post-election. The ratings could bounce back, of course. CNN has announced major layoffs.

        1. Screwball

          I saw those numbers too. Good, they deserve it. As far as Rachel’s #s go, they should drop to zero and she should go away. Many would be better off for it.

          Funny, MSNBC and CNBC are suppose to be market news and general news, and neither has been much of either for years. I mean, when it comes to those two channels, what’s the difference between Jim Cramer and Rachel Maddow, other than the material they cover. If morals, ethics, and truth telling was the thing, neither should ever find their way in front of a TV camera.

          I haven’t watched a half hour of MSM news in years and I feel better and more informed for it. Thanks to places like here – thanks Yves, Lambert and company.

        3. IM Doc

          And if RFK is sworn in Jan 20, I fully expect one of the first things to go would be Big Pharma being allowed to advertise to the general public. It has been a boon to Pharma’s bottom line since the 1990s – but it has clearly left the country in a disastrous condition regarding Pharma prices.

          If that initiative succeeds, it will be Bye Bye Felicia to lots of our media like MSNBC and CNN and FOX whose income is very tied into Big Pharma advertising.

          1. Pat

            It won’t just be the news networks. I watch a fair amount of Hallmark and a couple of free streaming network channels with older reruns and brit home shows – I know what’s coming so know I am less likely to kill my television. Anyway this would be a big income hit for almost all of them. If it wasn’t for Jardience, where to get your GP1, and dupixnet ads, plus some supplement ads for hair loss I’m not sure there would be enough advertising to support them.
            Now that I think of it, I haven’t seen anyone dancing about their one pill a day Jardience in a while, GP1 must have replaced that. Lots of shots into arms and stomachs, the point still holds.

            1. johnnyme

              If pharma commercials are taken off the air, the void will be filled with even more Medicare Advantage commercials. :(

          2. rowlf

            Over the last three years I had to travel a lot around the world. Two observations while in different countries was the lack of pharmaceutical ads on TV and the ability to walk into a pharmacy and buy maintenance drugs (Albuterol and others) with no prescription at about $5 instead of $25 to $90 as in the US. (Generics seem to be the same price as in the US in my small sampling.)

            A slight aside. I came stateside from South America a while back and the Immigration officer at US airport entry asked in the course of questions if I had anything to declare. (this was about 7am and no long lines.) Being lazy and honest I said I had eight Albuterol inhalers I purchased as it was no big hit to lose these. She asked how much I paid, which I answered. She has to buy these for her mother and started winding up and then stopped, saying she was on shift and shouldn’t be discussing this. If it wasn’t for the plexiglass I think we would have hugged or shook hands. There are a lot of times I like people.

            I think a lot of us have more in common than differences, as Adolph Reed Jr has noted.

        4. JBird4049

          I guess actually reporting the news instead of being an establishment mouthpiece is not in the plan? The first might actually stop, even reverse, the loss of audience share.

        5. Pat

          If I thought Maddow’s ratings had dropped because people had finally figured out that she doesn’t know what she is talking about I would appreciate it more. Unfortunately, that is highly unlikely since she has been full of it for years.

    1. tegnost

      I saw that one and appreciated it for the schadenfreude. Towards the end DB talked of a humanistic responsibility of rich nations to accept immigration but he left out the responsibility of those same nations to not invade/sanction smaller countries for their own economic benefit so I wasn’t left without a quibble…can we not just try to get along without sending in smedley butler and worrying about the impact on united fruit?

      1. juno mas

        DB’s closing statement answers your last question: “We’re in the final throes of the contending classes”.—Karl Marx.

        The descent into despair will be unfair.

        1. tegnost

          yeah, I think he nailed that part, that and the PMC (he used a different acronym along the same lines) won’t change

  49. AG

    …sigh, for me Blue Sky, was always the unique animation studio that had created the “Ice Age” franchise, Rio 1&2, “Robots” or “Ferdinand”. Nothing evil about them. Which is probably why they were dissolved.
    p.s. in film “blue-skying” is the fun phase when you develope the vision, when anything is possible – the sky being the limit. Well, in strict theory.

    The animation team´s public farewell:

    “Scrat was the first character to appear in Blue Sky’s first movie, “Ice Age”.
    Like him, we were reaching for something that might have been unattainable.
    Yet time after time both we and Scrat have managed to
    get our arms around versions of that elusive acorn.

    Unfortunately it’s not possible to hold on to anything forever.

    We’ve had more fun bringing our movies to life than anyone should be allowed.
    We hope you’ve been able to feel some of that joy.
    Thank you, from the bottom of our Blue Sky collective hearts,
    for being with us all those years.”

  50. Tom Stone

    I had my third attempt to talk down someone with TDS earlier today, I simply suggested that Trump be impeached as soon as he sends one Bomb or one bullet to Israel because doing so would violate the Foreign Assistance Act, the Leahy Amendment, ITAR and the Genocide convention.
    Open and shut, done in a day or two and he is out on his sagging ass.
    This time the response was “YOU ARE AN ASSHOLE”, which while true, is Irrelevant.
    The first two responses were hemming and hawing followed by bye bye.
    Perhaps my assumption of good faith on their part is mistaken?

    1. Screwball

      Perhaps my assumption of good faith on their part is mistaken?

      If they are like the ones I know, it is. They are in full blown temper tantrum mode. I want to buy a large batch of “foolers” to hand out. That might get me a black eye, but it would be funny. It would also be mean, but these are the same people who wished some of us dead for various reasons, so it seems like fair game.

    2. Pat

      Hell for his second impeachment they could have impeached him for his assassination of Soleimani, and they wouldn’t have had to incite a coup. There was no question, he owned the decision and bragged about it. But similar to your high crime, such a thing would indict most of the Congress and government. Instead they will have to search for things that piss them off, but are not immediately associated with just being in any position of power in DC, and if possible make it up.

      But we are both probably assholes.

  51. Ann

    To all the men who responded to the story of the high school girls’ article in the Guardian:

    In 2016, I received an email at my university in Canada, along with some other female professors, from a colleague in sociology. She told us that a graduate student of hers doing her field work in the U.S. had emailed her telling this story. Every week she gassed up her car at the same locally-owned gas station. The owner had asked her about her license plate and then greeted her every week. Right before the election he told her, “When Trump is president, I can do anything I want to you.” She left and never went back.

    1. The Rev Kev

      There is a reason for that happening. That gas station owner is a total, complete d***. There is no other excuse.

  52. antidlc

    “Jay Bhattacharya, an NIH critic, emerges as a top candidate to lead the agency ”

    Oh, wow. Fun times.

  53. AG

    re: Qestion on Ukraine

    Do we have official sources (i.e. beyond bloggers) that confim that Storm Shadows, Scalps, ATACMS etc. have worked less and less mainly due to EW?

    (THE ATLANTIC had one piece early Oct. admitting HIMARS hit 10% but that´s a different matter of course.)

    1. Yves Smith

      Russia has been shooting a lot down so I am not sure anyone has said EW is the main reason for lower success. But if that were the case, it would mean out of the box you could assume ATACMS would perform about as badly as HIMARS now do.

      1. AG

        Exactly.
        Which makes this once more PR.

        p.s. I am not the expert though to judge in how far speed of Mach 3 by ATACMS in contrast to 80mph by HIMARS increases the challenge for RU AD or EW.

        Mercouris last night added this opens missile deliveries by the French and the British who had been very keen on this.

  54. AG

    re: HIMARS failure, The Atlantic

    “An example of this is HIMARS, the long-range rocket artillery that the U.S. has provided at a maddeningly slow pace. A year ago, HIMARS was the most in-demand system on the battlefield. Now it has a success rate of less than 10 percent because of Russian innovation in electronic warfare. Each rocket fired by HIMARS costs roughly $100,000. Because of the rapid decrease in HIMARS’s effectiveness, the Ukrainians have developed a drone that has a similar impact of the early HIMARS and costs about $1,000. The Ukrainians, however, are rightfully worried that, within a few weeks, the Russians will develop countermeasures that bring the effectiveness of this kind of drone down to that of the current HIMARS. It is, literally, an arms race.”

    The Abandonment of Ukraine
    30/9/24
    https://archive.is/o3mDM

    So my question is, in how far is a HIMARS easier to counter for RU than ATACMS German TAURUS? Why should latter work?

  55. southern appalachian

    COP 29- not sure where to put this, in 2019 UN announces we have 11 years to change to avoid catastrophe.

    https://press.un.org/en/2019/ga12131.doc.htm

    Trump 2.0 takes us through year 9, I think. Like watching my friend drink themselves to death. Keep saying put the bottle down and they say but my spouse/ kids/ job/ politics/ town/ neighbors, it’s too much, one more. We are talking about everything except the drink. I don’t understand.

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