Meteorite 200 times larger than one that killed dinosaurs reset early life Chemistry World
Newly discovered amber reveals Antarctica once looked very different WKRC
Whither inflation targeting as a global monetary standard? Bank of International Settlements
Climate
As talks in Baku cross the halfway point, nations are no closer to a goal on cash for climate action AP
COP29: China will only make voluntary climate finance contributions: official S&P Global
* * * Extreme heat weakens land’s power to absorb carbon Climate & Capitalism
A climate solution or distraction? The carbon capture facility at Chevron’s Gorgon project tells a cautionary tale ABC Australia
* * * Asia and Europe on divergent coal paths Splash 247
German utilities say no way back for nuclear power despite market hype S&P Global
Syndemics
Arizona Reports Their 1st H5N1 Outbreak In Commercial Poultry Avian Flu Diary
Water
Trump vowed to roll back regulations targeting climate change. How will the Great Lakes fare? Cleveland.com (Carla).
Invasive Species Are Threatening the Quality of New York’s Tap Water Wired
Raw sewage from new homes being flushed into river BBC
Saltwater flooding is a serious fire threat for EVs and other devices with lithium-ion batteries The Conversation
China?
If China’s statistics can’t be scrutinised, doubts about the economy will only grow FT
China imposes new cooking oil transport rules after fuel tanker scandal South China Morning Post
Xi reminds Biden of China’s ‘red lines’ in meeting on margins of APEC summit Anadolu Agency
Myanmar
China, Myanmar to Establish Joint Security Company, Reports Say The Diplomat
Detaching Australia from the death grip of the United States Pearls and Irritations
India
India successfully carries out maiden test of long range hypersonic missile The Hindu
Syraqistan
USA Tries to Pound Lebanon Into Submission Craig Murry
Rare Israeli strike on central Beirut kills Hezbollah’s chief spokesman, official says PBS
Israeli forces blow up historic Shrine of Shimon in southern Lebanon The New Arab
* * * Clashes erupt in central Israel amid protests over conscription of ultra-Orthodox Jews Anadolu Agency
Citing Genocide Convention, Seven Lawyers Launch Historic Lawsuit Against Canada Internationalist 360º
The New Great Game
“We will not leave”: Opposition paralyzes central Tbilisi demanding new parliamentary elections JAM News
New Not-So-Cold War
US allows long-range strikes only in Russia’s Kursk Oblast, where North Korean troops are present – media Ukrainska Pravda
Biden Ramps Up Nuclear Brinkmanship On His Way Out The Door Caitlin Johnstone
Fury in Russia at ‘serious escalation’ of missile move BBC
* * * Russia grinds deeper into Ukraine after 1,000 days of grueling war AP
Operation ‘Dark Winter’ Resumes as Massive Russian Strikes Again Cripple Ukrainian Power Grid Syraw, SImplicious the Thinker
* * * Trump’s Push for Ukraine Peace Finds Growing Acceptance in Europe WSJ
War in Ukraine may only intensify under Trump, says Dmytro Kuleba The Economist
G20
Brazil hosts a G20 summit overshadowed by wars and Trump’s return, aiming for a deal to fight hunger AP
Troops, armoured cars protect G20 summit, as favelas champion solar Channel News Asia
Biden becomes first US president to visit Amazon as Trump signals climate policy shift France24
Trump Transition
What to expect from the markets under Trump FT
* * * Gabbard Could Help Change US Foreign Policy John Kiriakou, Consortium News
Trump picks Big Tech critic who wrote ‘Project 2025′ chapter to lead FCC Al Jazeera
Gaetz-gate: Navigating the President-elect’s most baffling Cabinet pick FOX
Jared Kushner’s $3 billion conflict of interest Popular Information
2024 Post Mortem
Trump’s victory represents a historic protest vote, no more and no less FT
Trump and the triumph of illiberal democracy New Statesman
Jen Psaki says Democrats are lost in the ‘wilderness’ without a ‘clear leader’ after Trump’s victory FOX
Our Famously Free Press
Influencers Are Going Full MAGA New York Magazine. The deck: “After Trump’s win, a red hat no longer seems so bad for business.”
Zeitgeist Watch
We built our house for LAN parties Pan Party House
Digital Watch
Harpercollins wants authors to sign away AI training rights Cory Doctorow, Pluralistic
Imperial Collapse Watch
U.S. Foreign Aid Is Embarrassing Itself Moon of Alabama
Why Federalism: Creating the Cataracts Benjamin Studebaker, Streit Council
Class Warfare
Strike by workers at a casino near the Las Vegas Strip enters 2nd day AP
How the Ivy League Broke America David Brooks, The Atlantic
Luddites On Trial JStor Daily
Nicolais: Our courts face a growing problem of incivility and threats Colorado Sun
Legal Theory Lexicon: The Veil of Ignorance Legal Theory Blog
Tesla Has the Highest Fatal Accident Rate of All Auto Brands, Study Finds Road and Track
Antidote du jour (Rhododendrites):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
117 comments
Comments are closed.
“Fury in Russia at ‘serious escalation’ of missile move”
This may be Trump’s first test before he even becomes President. Hopefully one of his advisers will point out that when those missiles hit Russia, then it can be expected that US troops in other countries will be hit by local “proxies”. It is now baked into the cake. And Trump must know that this is not so much Biden acting out of spite but also trying to lock Trump into following his Ukrainian policies. So Trump should publicly tear strips off Biden for this attempt at trying to start a direct shooting war with Russia and should announce on day one of his Presidency that all that comes to a full stop. He this might have a chance at establishing a working relationship with Russia and may get them – unofficially – to not hit back so hard against US troops.
Rev Kev: “And Trump must know that this is not so much Biden acting out of spite but also trying to lock Trump into following his Ukrainian policies.”
I tend to agree. Biden is also locking in the EU and its failed policies.
I’ll point out that Kamala Harris, who claimed to be so deeply moved by photos of slaughtered Palestinians, never so much as questioned the Ukraine Project.
On the third hand, I’m wondering if Joe Biden is now reduced to pure senile resentment and to the part of his personality that is nothing but lust for power and attention. Why does Joe Biden hate America?
She was so deeply moved that she couldn’t propose one single policy change from the Biden administration’s sponsorship of genocide.
Maybe because “America” let his fellow Democrats push him out of the way and pushed Kamala forward to take his place as President. Can you imagine the resentment that he felt and the betrayal? And didn’t somebody in comments say a few months ago that there is an Irish saying that with very old people, the last thing that go are the grudges?
Irish Alzheimers: Forget everything but the grudges (see The Banshees of Inisherin). I’m 46% Irish according to my sis’ DNA test. Clapback and I’ll resent you.
I’m at least 28% Irish according to my brother’s DNA test but for Oz that may be normal. About two generations ago the typical Aussie was about one third Celtic. Going by Celtic DNA instead, that percentage more than doubles for me. It explains a lot. :)
I think Biden hates Russia and Putin. He’s doing this because he wants to still hold on to the belief he can beat Russia and still thinks he can be a winning war president.
It’s not locking in Trump, it’s trying to defeat Russia in the time he’s got left.
Remember what he did about the 30 day mark for Israel in Gaza. Came and went. It was just a political stunt, never ment he was going to do anything different.
No amount of data or information will change his views as the situation in the ME and Ukraine get pushed further into crisis than away.
And as to Harris, she has had more opportunities to distance herself from the continued actions of Biden and as she hasn’t means to me she’s all on board.
Finally as to Russia taking all of Ukraine as is sometimes discussed, I don’t see it, Putin is too smart. He’ll leave the west of Ukraine alone. He will have to live with nato on his border.
I think Biden just solidified russia taking more oblasts and the southern port area.
Why has Biden been so obsessed with poking Russia anyway? If that was mostly a Nuland thing, wouldn’t it have slowed down after she left? Is Biden a cold war fossil or what?
For Biden it is very much personal. Remember when he was in Poland and demanded that Putin step down as President and he had to go? That was pure Biden right there. If I remember correctly, years before the war there was an election in Russia and Biden told Putin not to run but was furious when he did anyway and won. With Biden, he is used to doing whatever he wants and getting away with it and never, ever being held to account. Tara Reade will back me up here. But here is the leader of a country that is not obeying him and it riles him no end.
Obama said at one point that one shouldn’t underestimate how Joe Biden could screw things up. I.e., it was known. So was he put in place for the purpose of screw things up?
https://nypost.com/2023/07/11/barack-obama-was-right-to-be-wary-of-joe-bidens-ability-to-f-k-things-up/
Joe Biden was chosen as nominee by Bill Clinton, Obama, and Clyborn only because they could use him to steal the nomination from Sanders. They don’t care about general elections, only about maintaining their own power within the party.
I took Obama’s “Never underestimate Joe’s ability to f*** things up” as an insult at first, but I’ve come to believe it’s praise. It’s like “Never underestimate Dennis Rodman’s ability to sabotage an offence.”
Sabotage is everywhere!
“Leader of a country that is not obeying him”
For a minute, I was thinking you meant the American people. ;)
its because bill clinton codified regime change policies, as official out in the open government policy.
so to stop this, requires legislation. not gonna happen.
https://books.google.com/books/about/Warmonger.html?id=cAfmEAAAQBAJ
Warmonger: How Clinton’s Malign Foreign Policy Launched the US Trajectory from Bush II to Biden
Front Cover
Jeremy Kuzmarov
SCB Distributors, Dec 1, 2023 – Political Science
During the 2016 presidential election, many younger voters repudiated Hillary Clinton because of her husband’s support for mass incarceration, banking deregulation and free-trade agreements that led many U.S. jobs to be shipped overseas.
Warmonger: How Clinton’s Malign Foreign Policy Launched the Trajectory from Bush II to Biden, shows that Clinton’s foreign policy was just as bad as his domestic policy.
Cultivating an image as a former anti-Vietnam War activist to win over the aging hippie set in his early years, as president, Clinton bombed six countries and, by the end of his first term, had committed U.S. troops to 25 separate military operations, compared to 17 in Ronald Reagan’s two terms.
Clinton further expanded America’s covert empire of overseas surveillance outposts and spying and increased the budget for intelligence spending and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a CIA offshoot which promoted regime change in foreign nations.
The latter was not surprising because, according to CIA operative Cord Meyer Jr., Clinton had been recruited into the CIA while a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, and as Governor of Arkansas in the 1980s he had allowed clandestine arms and drug flights to Nicaraguan counter-revolutionaries (Contras) backed by the CIA to be taken from Mena Airport in the western part of the state.
Rather than being a time of tranquility when the U.S. failed to pay attention to the gathering storm of terrorism, as New York Times columnist David Brooks frames it, the Clinton presidency saw rising tensions among the U.S., China and Russia because of Clinton’s malign foreign policies, and U.S. complicity in terrorist acts.
In so many ways, Clinton’s presidency set the groundwork for the disasters that were to follow under Bush II, Obama, Trump, and Biden. It was Clinton—building off of Reagan—who first waged a War on Terror ridden with double standards, one that adopted terror tactics, including extraordinary rendition, bombing and the use of drones.
It was Clinton who cried wolf about human rights abuses and the need to protect beleaguered peoples from genocide to justify military intervention in a post-Cold War age.
And it was Clinton’s administration that pressed for regime change in Iraq and raised public alarm about the mythic WMDs—all while relying on fancy new military technologies and private military contractors to distance US shady military interventions from the public to limit dissent.
also good to mention Clinton’s favorite professor at Georgetown and his succinct definition of the two-party system – from a Covert Action article:
Clinton’s favorite professor at Georgetown was Carroll Quigley, a Defense Department consultant and author of Tragedy & Hope: A History of the World in Our Time (1966), which traced the power of a small Anglo-Saxon banking elite and how they effectively ruled the world.[7] Quigley wrote that “the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can ‘throw the rascals out’ at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy. The policies that are vital and necessary for America are no longer subjects of significant disagreement, but are disputable only in details of procedure, priority, or method.”
this link was in NC a couple of years ago and saved it –
https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/01/03/there-is-absolutely-no-reason-in-the-world-to-believe-that-bill-clinton-is-a-cia-asset-except-for-all-the-evidence/
thanks, he was the one who got it all done for the oligarchs. to reverse what mess america and the west are in, will require decades of legislation to reverse americas downward spiral into a ungovernable mess.
clinton gutted FDR’s new deal and Trumans Gatt. sending america into a downward spiral into a third world nation.
“Hopefully one of his advisers will point out that when those missiles hit Russia, then it can be expected that US troops in other countries will be hit by local “proxies”.” ****** Unfortunately, IMO the appropriate time for Russia to respond to US aggression with attacks that destroy US military assets thru proxies has long since past. That’s exactly why we are at this current point. I predicted long ago the US would do more and more long range attacks on Russia towards the final stages of Ukraine collapse, because no red lines and lack of will to enforce deterance by Moscow.
Fury in Russia, joy in Sorosland.
https://x.com/AlexanderSoros/status/1858245904651743341
This is great news!
Yet I think it will be cleverer for Trump to say nothing until the day he is able to execute arrives.
Notes on the North Koreans in Russia, which seems to be in dispute in these here parts.
Fabio Mini, a retired Italian general who oversaw NATO’s force in Kosovo, writes regularly on geopolitics and military strategy at Fatto Quotidiano. He wrote a column the other day in which he more or less accepted that the North Koreans are in Russia.
Some other ideas from Mini to contemplate:
—Mini doubts that the Russians invited the Koreans in. Russians don’t have much need of help.
—But the NKoreans sure do want to test out their troops and their ordinance. So Mini thinks that they are volunteers.
—Playing with a Newtonian idea of ‘equal and opposite” reactions and actions, Mini reminded readers that the South Koreans participated on the U.S. side in the Vietnam War. He remarked that the Americans considered the South Koreans ruthlessly effective. And we know how bad U.S behavior was in that war.
—All in all, Mini considers the tit for tat exchanges about NKoreans to be minor. Consider the NKoreans a tactic. Do they alter the strategy of the Russians? No. Does the U.S. government, for all of its caterwauling, have the wherewithal to dislodge them? No.
Non-issue? You tell me.
I don’t know if the N. Koreans are in Russia or not but I do know that reports of it could be invented by the mainstream media which seems, over time, to be inventing as well as reporting stories.
The North Koreans are almost certainly there, but my guess is it’s more for retraining from a conscript to a professional force trained in modern tactics (a RF effort in the last decade). With nukes, NK doesn’t need the artillery they have, so it stands to reason they would be looking at changing their firce disposition. They aren’t unaware of the guns vs butter argument.
Shrub tore up deals Clinton made, and Obama more or less ignored the situation while committing his own atrocities. They can’t accept the US for obvious reasons, but there is room for force realignment that they didn’t have 10 years ago.
The Chinese would probably prefer Moscow to deal with the nearby smaller states to avoid accusations of creating vassals.
Repeating this – my ignorant self thought they go to Russia for training exercises and other friendly exercises from time to time and there’s nothing unusual.
Occasionally a news story about a local violent crime includes a detail about something that may have been smoking paraphernalia that may have been found in one of the cars in the parking lot at the bar – as if this is novel and noteworthy and relevant.
US State Department has been annoyed since 2012 of the Russia-North Korean military exercises in the Russian Far East.
Considering that the conscripts in North Korea serve 10 years, train 17 hours per day and have only to leaves during their service, they are probably way better trained than any professional army.
Originally it was claimed that the first 1,500 North Koreans in Russia were from the Korean People’s Army Special Operation Force, which are supposed to be the best trained and equipped of North Korean units.
In the 1960’s thirty of them tried to attack the Blue House of South Korean president, and managed for days to avoid 2-3 divisions of South Korean and US forces. Only one returned to North Korea, though. It seems that they are capable of initiative, deception, ambush and being well indoctrinated, last stands. What they don’t do is attritional warfare.
This has all struck me as a pivot to the new “Yellow Peril”. When they found that no one was worried about Russians under the bed they had to go for something else, and that they went for that tells us a lot about them.
Leaving aside the fact that we have zero, none, nada, proof of any kind beyond the verbal say-so of anonymous Ukrainian officials and South Korean intelligence persons.
1. Integrating a 10-thousand strong unit – or even battalion-sized components thereof – into a modern battlefield with constant vertical and horizontal communication from individual squads all the way up to brigade or division command, when members of said unit speak a completely different language, is borderline lunacy. I am not saying it cannot be done, if one tries really, really hard, and has enough interpreters or bilingual officers on hand, but please.
2. No-one is yet to explain to me in a coherent fashion where the weapons and equipment, including vehicles, tanks, artillery, ambulances, et cetera, for these North Koreans are supposed to come from. A basic motor rifle battalion of 400 men needs 50 BMPs just to move around, not counting supply trucks, a tank platoon or two in support, anti-air, some artillery or heavy mortars, buggies-bikes for assault groups, reconnaissance and strike drones, and so on. Most of the North Korean stuff is either very, very old Soviet stuff that the Russians wouldn’t want to use on the frontline, or wholly incompatible with what the Russians do use on the frontline, or is available in extremely limited quantities, or does not exist altogether. We are basically suggesting that the Russians will take the gear meant for 10 thousand of their own volunteers and give it to the North Koreans. Because why, exactly.
3. Said Russian volunteers routinely spend many months on the training grounds before going anywhere near the frontline, and then usually as reinforcements to existing veteran units rather than separate brand new formations. In fact, more than one English-language source has now noted that the Ukrainian practice of just creating new brigades instead of reinforcing existing veteran ones is, at best, highly inefficient, and at worst utterly wasteful. Furthermore, even veteran troops are rotated back to the training range every few weeks in order to either hone their general skills, or to practice against a copy of the specific defensive position they are about to face.
Either the North Koreans have been practicing somewhere in Siberia for the past six months, or letting them anywhere near the frontline would violate pretty much every practice established by the Russian army to date.
4. I await any evidence of this mythical manpower shortage that is forcing the Russians to accept an extra 10 thousand foreign troops. Aren’t the same Western sources squealing about the North Koreans also telling us about the 120 thousand Russian troops sitting around in the Zaporozh’e area doing pretty much nothing? Or that the total Russian troops deployed along the frontline now outnumber the Ukrainians?
5. If the whole thing is a matter of the North Koreans gaining “experience”, then why not have military attaches at various HQ levels and small groups of 5-10 specially selected officers attached to combat companies here and there? Why constitute a 10 thousand strong block that no-one knows what to do with?
6. North Korea will not do a bloody thing without getting a tacit approval from China. Why China would want North Koreans in direct combat with US proxies anywhere in the world in general, or especially now, when a new President is coming in, is clearly not something anyone is bothering to address.
—–
Look, I am as happy to continue discussing this, err, topic. While we’re on the subject, we might resurrect the old Russians-paying-bounties-to-Taliban pile of steaming male cow manure. But what is the point? Until any actual evidence is produced, this is just another Iraqi weapons of mass destruction type of psyop designed to justify the escalation on the US side, to wit, the mythical North Koreans are literally the stated reason for permitting the Ukrainians to use ATACMS against core Russian territory.
And yes, in theory anything is possible. I could, theoretically, be an exceedingly distant (250000 B.C. or so) relative of the King of England. You know, since at one point back then the entire global human population dwindled to about 2 thousand or so due to some extinction event or another.
>>>You know, since at one point back then the entire global human population dwindled to about 2 thousand or so due to some extinction event or another.
That actually happened twice, but who’s counting? ;-)
Plus the difficulties experienced by the initial waves of human colonists. Moving to a new planet and setting up shop is not a walk in Eden.
But what about that photo all over social media of a dead guy in Ukraine! How can your reliable analysis stand up to a source less photo!!!
(Dead guy looks clean and alive to me, but photography is tricky and I don’t have the botany to ID the plants in the photo so I cannot 100 prove nonsense. And for what it’s worth he doesn’t even look entirely like the Yellow Peril. Could be a random prankster.)
No need to go that far back. It’s highly likely that almost every anglo citizen of the UK is descended from Henry III:
https://www.waterstones.com/blog/family-fortunes-adam-rutherford-on-how-were-all-related-to-royalty
Thanks for this. As you say, having NK units on the front lines makes zero military or political sense, but the claim that they are there IS being used to allow use of ATACMS inside Russia. So the odds that it is US propaganda are very high indeed.
The mythical North Koreans in Kursk are now the only permissible ATACMS ‘long range’ targets, and “the Russians are furious”. This is pure theater fabricated by the lazy but productive neocon shill mills.
Reading this the though occurred to me that we may quite soon hear how these North Koreans have been withdrawn back to home after suffering horrible losses under missile bombardment.
It’ll be like shooting imaginary troops with imaginary missiles and claiming real victory for The West!
Once the NK menace is sent scurrying, The West can revive ‘The Surge’, and surge the remnant of the Kursk forces into Kharkiv, or even Kiev. Seizing strategic victory from the jaws of operational defeat! Promotions all around, and on to Taiwan!
Jared Kushner has a conflict of interest, perhaps, but it also presumes something that many here have come to terms with these past decade plus after the GFC. Rich and wealthy like having those vasts stores of wealth! Nothing better in life I will suppose than running an investment firm based on gathering up large amounts of OPM(!). ( \ sarc )
Just ask the original “goats” of doing such, George HW Bush ( Carlyle group* I believe ) and naturally the Clinton Global Initiative. It’s a well trodden path, for those elite enough and high up on society’s totem pole to pull it off, and well enough that the press just glosses past it….okay Kushner is a snake in the grass dealing with a whole den of vipers…
Life. The highly cynical view, it is One big Money Grab…or instead to quote the band Boston..”can’t you see there come a day, when it won’t matter, come a day when you’ll be gone..All I want is my peace of mind…”
Boston, from The Wall Street Album? ;)
I’ll Be Gone, You’ll Be Gone.
/s
Ha, yeah the “Tom Scholz” sell out was their second album or maybe it’s the third depending on who is judging works from the group. \sarc
Damned the music industry is a business, and they wanted more nifty widgets, or rock tunes, to keep the gravy train rolling. Back to Kushner and that business model, well it’s a dirty business to get funds from such a “stellar clientele” listing but someone must grovel to reap those billions!
Jared Kushner’s Iraq concert?
It does sound like Kushner has a conflict and that he probably should be registering as a foreign agent if he is working on behalf of the Saudis. Of course, Hunter Biden rather famously did not do so in similar circumstances and we’re told he did absolutely nothing wrong. Dear Hunter was just making an honest living!
I was more surprised (and rather pleasantly so) to read about Kushner’s Serbian connections. Just hearing the country mentioned I at first assumed he was doing something to undermine Russian interests, but perhaps not. This from the article is worth highlighting –
The world’s smallest violin plays a requiem in honor of the Senate Finance Committee’s complaint.
Your first assumption is right. The article is full of crap, just like everything US writes about the region (I guess CNN BS will never wear off). The building itself has become a monument, and Kushner leveling it and building on that place is equivalent to his real estate projects in Gaza (adding insult to injury, aka pissin’ on the graves).
2x JACOBIN – on fighting inflation / DIE LINKE future
Engl. translation from German edition
Isabella Weber: This is how anti-fascist economic policy works
Inflation is a redistribution from bottom to top, and there is an effective way to combat it: price controls. Economist Isabella Weber explains how this works in an interview.
https://archive.is/9kG2V
among other things referencing her GUARDIAN article from 2021:
Could strategic price controls help fight inflation?
To prevent inflation after World War II, America’s leading economists recommended strategic price controls. Is there a case for doing so today, too?
https://archive.is/YKvrO
* * *
Former JACOBIN senior editor Ines Schwerdter who joined DIE LINKE in an interview with her former colleagues
Die Linke Has to Be a Party for the Working Class
An interview with Ines Schwerdtner
Ines Schwerdtner is the newly elected cochair of German left-wing party Die Linke. In an interview with Jacobin, she explains how she wants to reconnect the party with a working-class base.
https://archive.is/7ZiXS
Nixon employed price controls to manage the first U.S. oil shock. Carter refused to use price controls, costing him his job and me my house.
But Nixon’s WAGE (and price) controls failed to control price inflation, though they were fairly effective in preventing “excessive” wage increases.
Then Ford was reduced to WIN buttons as a tool.
Leading to that inevitable Carter era Moral Equivalent of War. lol
goodness … 😮
Die Linke had Sahra Wagenknecht split off into her own social conservative but economically leftist party if I understood it properly. Was that something sane, was Wagenknecht being nuts, was Die Linke being too woke, or what?
Die Linke in Germany had abandoned the working class and was just going after the PMC votes which is why Sahra Wagenkenecht left them. They had become like American Democrats.
Recommending to you: Craig Murray’s USA Tries to Pound Lebanon into Submission.
Note his comments on Lebanese Christian attitudes. Note the embedded twiXt by Sarah. Note the oversized embassy (Baghdad all over again). Note the cameo appearance by the absurd Hochstein.
And for Israeli relations with Lebanese Christians, the article from the New Arab on blowing up of the Shrine of Shimon (as in Saint Peter) is worth your while.
But, wait, hasn’t the Israeli army blown up all of the mosques in Gaza? Why am I detecting a pattern?
Meanwhile: The Pope called for an investigation into Israeli genocide in Gaza. The Israelis, natch, had a meltdown and evoked the 7 October massacre (now trademarked). I’m surprised the Israelis didn’t mention the own-goal soccer riot of Amsterdam. Viva Francesco! An old fox for God.
“Seven countries in five years.” One of them was Lebanon. The others were Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran.
It has taken a little longer than the neocons planned, but their project for a New Middle East has made steady progress through both Democrat and Republican administrations. We need to keep asking how and why this is the case. We need to keep asking it over and over. Lebanon has always been strategically crucial to this project, though stubbornly problematic for a number of reasons, some of them noted in Murray’s comments.
We’ve memory-holed this, just as we’ve memory-holed all the warnings about NATO and Russia. No doubt Wesley Clark would be less than helpful on the latter, but he was determined to lay some truths on us here. We need to keep repeating them over and over.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY2DKzastu8
I can imagine the Israeli thought process for killing Lebanese Christians. They figure that this will scare them so much, that they will help fight Hezbollah which might even bring about a new civil war in Lebanon which will open up a space for the IDF to invade the country. If you just kill enough people, you will always get what you want. I think that these murders will lead to the Christians to support Hezbollah even more.
But deliberately killing over 220 medics and paramedics? That is lower than whale s*** that. And they do the same to firefighters as well. At least Israel no longer has to worry about their reputation after the war is over. They don’t have one anymore. In fact, they will have to add several more protocols if not a fifth treaty to the Geneva Conventions to take into account all that Israel has been doing.
Like “leaders” in many parts of world:
The reputation they desire to keep is one where no institution can hold them accountable and there are no personal consequences for their actions.
You miss the obvious–Israelis do not like Christians or, as far as I know, any non-Jews that are not of use to Israel. The religion of Israel is not Judaism as a spiritual religion but Jewry itself–that is why those sorts of Jews are so dangerous to others and why they have no problem slaughtering women and children–in fact they see to exult in their cruelty.
Lebanese are just as much Amelek as Palestinians and they also sit on some nice coastal real estate, gas reserves, and water sources. Don’t let something as trivial as Westphalian statehood get in the way of colonial land stealing.
Can the Pope expel Biden from Catholic church or something?
Send inquisition?
Eat the wafer-take the rite.
Get in line in that processional
Step into that small confessional
There the guy who’s got religion’ll
Tell you if your sin’s original
If it is, try playin’ it safer
Drink the wine and chew the wafer
Two, four, six, eight
Time to transubstantiate
The very best lyrics ever — bar none!
(And a grand prize to whoever can continue with a link connected to those last two words — though the next words are from someone else about 20 years earlier, someone who didn’t perform them. . . .)
Murray was a western diplomat and he still thinks like one. Lebanon is the original country where there is no useful limit to the layers of subtlety you can encounter, and where everything important is left unsaid except to people, usually of your own confession, that you know well. It’s not a question of “friends” and “enemies” or “support” or “opposition” but of advantage, especially as perceived by the heads of the clans, who still hold much of the real power.
Historically, the major communities all looked abroad for support and protection. The Shia looked to Syria and more recently Iran, the Sunni to Saudi Arabia, and the different varieties of Christians originally to France, more recently to Israel and to a certain extent the US. This doesn’t mean they “like” or “support” Israel (I’ve often heard Christian Lebanese speak in pretty damning terms about “our neighbour”) but that Israel is useful to them against their domestic enemies and that it would be in Israel’s interest to take their side in any future conflict. (It’s worth reminding Murray the Israel attacked targets all over Lebanon, including many in “Christian” areas in 2006, to try to intimidate the Lebanese into abandoning Hezbollah. There’s nothing really new here.) By contrast Christian Lebanese often speak with guarded approval of Hezbollah, not because they like them, but because they have been useful keeping the Israelis out.
Other communities in Lebanon are naturally nervous of Hezbollah, for all that it fulfils a useful function. The Sunni have not forgotten the Syrian occupation, nor Hezbollah’s assassination of the Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005 at Syria’s instigation. Nor have they forgotten that Hezbollah went to fight in Syria to support Iran, against a revolt led at the beginning by Sunni defectors from Assad’s army. These things can be overlooked on the traditional my-enemy’s-enemy argument, but they remain unspoken beneath the surface. The Christian community is getting increasingly nervous about the rise of Political Islam in the region, and many are leaving. In the circumstances, whilst Hezbollah is useful in keeping Israel out (which everybody wants) there are also many who think that it might also be useful if Hezbollah got badly beaten up in the process, to reduce its relative power within Lebanon.
There’s nothing surprising about the US having a large Embassy: everybody does, the Russians for example. Beirut is, or was, the last place in the region with good communications, an educated population, a sophisticated economy and a reasonable infrastructure, as well as, amazingly, still being relatively politically stable. As a result, if only by default, it tends to be a regional base for governments and organisations. Go to Beirut and you will be astonished at the size of the expatriate community: every NGO, media outlet, western (and other) government, international institution, the UN, the IMF and whatever, all have their regional base there. The US is in particular need of Lebanon, because it’s their last purchase in the region after the disastrous failure of the neocon project of planting stable “pro-western democracies” throughout the Middle East.
With friends in publishing I often encountered them talk about the “marvel” of a genuine Lebanese publishing sector. I don´t know about this today however.
re: Murray – I wouldn´t discount him. On the contrary he is not the cynical establishment guy. In fact as one of his readers once said, “gullible”. I would add integrity up to a point of self-inflicting harm.
As politics go he until recently still had faith on some goodness in the apparatus that had once spit him out. (Keep in mind how awfully he was treated.) And yet he didn´t resign to cynisism.
That said I would argue some of his analyses were naive in a way. Which he later to an extent admitted even. (What former ambassador would ever admit such an error of judgement.)
Lacking your knowledge on these issues I would still say he argues in good faith, i.e. NOT as ambassador. But his integrity since so out of this world might actually take the shape of its very opposite.
FWIW: I would trust that man with my life if it came to it.
Orientalism much? Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran, and Yemen have always been very clear about their intentions and actions. They’re the ones with popular support in their countries, not the oh so sophisticated Western compradors and Falangist Fascists to whom the US ambassador just have marching orders to start a new Lebanese civil war to deflect Israel’s utter lack of success in Southern Lebanon. Effective mass movements rely on accountability and openness to the public, not orientalist back room deals to betray their own supporters.
And there’s no concrete evidence of Hezbollah assassinating Harris and it was very much against their interests to do so. They have no track record of assassinating the opposition and their willingness to tolerate even the Falangists within the Lebanese political configuration shows how behave. Given Israel and Western intelligence’s lack of scruples around assassinating foreign leaders, the far more likely case is that the Israelis assassinated Hariri to stoke up Shi’a/Sunni tensions, and this is indeed what most Lebanese now believe.
Well, I assume you’ve read the Prosecutor’s brief and the Judgement in the Special Court that tried the four Hezbollah operatives in absentia for the murder of Harris (Hariri?) and you are not convinced by the technical arguments, particularly those involving telephone usage. Given that the assassination was a suicide bombing it’s hard to think who else would have planned and carried it out. There are certainly conspiracy theories about the Israelis, but it’s hard to see what they had to gain from it, and in the event there was no increase in Sunni-Shia tensions, as could have been predicted. In all likelihood, it was not Hezbollah’s initiative, because they had no particular reason to kill Hariri, but done as a favour to Assad, because Hariri was becoming increasingly unmanageable, at a time when Syria was basically running the country. I remember being told by somebody in the Prime Minister’s office at the time that there was a special underground entrance into the Serail used only by the Chief of Syrian Military Intelligence, who was the effective ruler of the country, and who arrived every evening to tell the Prime Minister what to do. Hariri eventually rebelled against this and was taken out as a warning. You can believe that Israel and the US are responsible for all the ills of the world if you like, but you risk falling into a neo-colonial attitude that denies the agency of people with non-white skins.
And no, the US is not trying to start a new civil war. They are inept, but they are not stupid.
Hezbollah hasn’t done a suicide bombing for a very long time. Who else could have done it? I already said it was done to escalate tension between the Shi’a and Sunni and it largely worked. Assassinating a popular leader of one group and accusing the other side of doing it is an extremely effective way to sowing division within a nation or a grouping. The West is on record for using it in Cointelpro and in Indonesia, but likely many other places.
My opinions are formed by people who have experience in the region like Sharmine Narwani and Elijah Magnier and Jonathan Cooke. They have a perspective, but is an internally consistent one that’s not backed by bags of Western NGO funding. It’s also based on knowing the past actions of the different groups and their funding sources.
On inept versus stupid. The US has been 100 percent supporting the most obvious genocide ever, with no holdbacks for legality or humanity. They openly cheered for a mass terrorist beeper incident that will push much of the world to source Chinese products for safety reasons. They’re betting on 7 million Jewish Israelis who haven’t been able to clear the speck of Gaza after 400 days against hundreds of millions of Arabs (the ones living in West Asia and North Africa, not the family despots with mansions in Parisian suburbs and McLean, VA. Is there a reason they can’t be both inept and terminally stupid and cartoonishly evil?
But I’m the neo-colonialist because I have listened to speeches by Sinwar and Nasrallah and believe them. I am a neo-colonialist because I see their struggle against the Zionist entity and its Western backers in light of Algeria and Vietnam. I’m a neo-colonialist because I believe materialist interests like not getting bombed by Israel and get your house stolen by “Brooklyn Jews” outweigh “it’s complicated” narratives obscuring a situation entirely created by European Zionists 100 years ago.
Okay then!
Here’s a list of a countries couped by the US. https://x.com/FiorellaIsabelM/status/1598415894807445505
Why shouldn’t it be treated as responsible for almost all ills in the world. Even the most repressive anti-US regime, such as the DPRK and Syria, are the way they are because they needed to do so to survive.
Thank you Emma.
I always read your comments.
That list you linked leaves out the Whitlam Dismissal in 1975 which I think the CIA have been linked to.
Also the replacement of Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister in 2010 by Julia Gillard which the American Ambassador has been implicated in.
The first things Gillard did was to abandon Rudd’s proposed Resources Tax and join Obama’s pivot to Asia which Rudd opposed.
Shrewd and incisive comment. I would disagree, however, with the certitude of Hezbollah’s role in the assassination of Hariri. It is a puzzle to me why “Lebanon”, its creation and existence, is considered as a “nation state” in the modern definition of the term. Convenience and habit, I suppose.
Well, there goes the chance the Putin-loving Magnetic North Pole had in American politics.
Sorry for the interruption. I’ll return to my corner now.
The Magnetic North Pole just wants to be a part of a new multipolar world.
Newsflash! The Magnetic North Pole has just been given associate membership status with BRICS.
Just another Russian Conspiracy!
Awaiting headlines in the checkstand news from Enquirer et al.
Men in Black movie informed all they were the finest investigative journalists, so it must be true. /s
NC commentariat going wild with sarcasm on the Very Serious People. Insane sanity.
The basic function of Court Jesters, very necessary alt-apparatchiks.
Ukrainian chestnuts roasting on an open fire
Jack Frost nipping at their nose
Energy infrastructure being stung by Russian ire
And Kiev folks dressed up like Eskimos
Everybody knows a lame duck, with 2 months to go
Can help to make the rockets red glare bright
Tiny little Tatar tots with their eyes all aglow
Will find it hard to sleep tonight
They know that Genocide Joe still gets his way
He’s loaded lots of long range missiles and goodies for his slay
And every satellite is gonna spy
To see if a Kinzhal really knows how to fly
So I’m offering this simple phrase
To kids from one to ninety-two
Although it’s been said many times, many ways
This might be the last Merry Christmas for you
As Siskel&Ebert used to say:
“TWO THUMBS UP!”
Looking like Christmas and seasonal holiday tinged movies are getting a cold shoulder from movie going audiences in the USA…. Sufficient to suggest that, well it’s early days yet, I’ll go on a limb and say his new film “Red One” may not be a memorable entry from Dwayne Johnson…
Too bad, the trailers look entertaining. But it ain’t gonna match Die Hard 2 ! I make no apologies, John McClane is an American film hero original.
https://people.com/red-one-disappoints-box-office-pummeled-critics-8746261
…haven’t been to a picture show in a world* of Sundays
* about 377 of them
Red One looks lame.
Doesn’t even really seem like a Xmas movie tbh.
I’m sure it’s good but I’m so sick of these war themed movies. Blah.
Gonna start off my Xmas holiday watch season as I always do – by watching Krampus!
Krampus is a character in “Red One.” However, he, she, or it is not sufficient to encourage going to see the latest “Rock”y horror picture show.
I want to see a “Creepy Joe Biden Christmas Special” on MSDNC. In it, all the good boyz and girlz get their stockings hung on the fireplace stuffed with “Cope.” (Thus, the construction term: coping. Also, specifically relating to the PMC, especially Democrat Party allied PMCs, the phrase; “Put a sock on it.”)
“U.S. Foreign Aid Is Embarrassing Itself”
This story is kinda embarrassing. So China helps build a deep water port for Peru which will mean a lot more trade between those two countries while Peru can use that port to ship stuff to other countries. So Blinken tries to spoil the party by announcing that the US will help build a new passenger train line. Maybe they can use those railway engineers that were suppose to be building California’s high speed rail the past 16 years but never managed to lay a single track. Then to add insult to injury, they sell – for money! – these 40 year-old rattlers of trains to Peru that may have ended up in the scrap yard otherwise. But what if China comes in later and offers to sell cheaply modern railway equipment to Peru? They have a lot of experience with this from Southeast Asia alone with high speed rail-
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/25/travel/china-south-east-asia-travel-train-infrastructure-intl-hnk/index.html
I’ve waited 18 years for the bullet
Got me nowhere, wonder when they’re gonna pull it
I’m tickled to drive now
I’m a road trip son-of-a-gun
So hold it right there little choo-choo
We’re gonna have big fun when it goes to Malibu
Might be an outlier-the inland route
It may take forever to complete it, but oh, yes I will
I’ve waited 18 years for the bullet
Got me nowhere, wonder when they’re gonna pull it
It’s a super fast, sure shot, yeah
It’s a national breakout
So how come it’s gone nowhere
Huh, c’mon let’s figure it out
It’s high on the debt chart
It’s close to the tip of the top
But you can’t stop something you start
It ain’t never gonna stop, never, never entertain that thought
We got a smash north-south double-header
If we can only keep it together
Talkin’ ’bout you Tehachapi
Talkin’ ’bout you Pixley
I’ve waited 18 years for the bullet
Got me nowhere, wonder when they’re gonna pull it
18 With a Bullet, by Pete Wingfield
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x35B0XCofeU
In the SF Bay Area the private train service Caltrain recently made the switch( after decades of delay, of course) from diesel trains to electric trains. The diesel locomotives and associated rail cars will be donated to Peru in order to beef up train service there. Perhaps Blinken orchestrated the deal.
The article says that that gear is being sold to the Peruvians and not just donated.
Spirit Airlines files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy:
https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/spirit-airlines-files-for-bankruptcy-7060202/
(Sung to the tune of, “Spirit in the Sky” by Norman Greenbaum)
When I die and they lay me to rest
Gonna go to the place that’s the best
When I lay me down to die
I’m off to see the Judge and like Spirit I’ll still fly
Chorus:
Goin’ up like Spirit I’ll still fly
To bankruptcy court where equity dies (equity dies!)
When corporate citizens die and they lay ’em to rest
They’re gonna go to that place shareholders detest
Prepare yourself, you know it’s a must
Gonna have a reorganization
So you know that when you die
Your business gets rightsized while the shareholders get fried
Chorus
[Musical Interlude]
I’m a Wall Street sinner, my balance sheet sinned
I’ve got a friend in USC Chapter Eleven
So you know that when I die
The judge’ll fix me up so like Spirit I’ll still fly
Oh set me up like Spirit in the sky
To bankruptcy court where equity dies (watch it die!)
When I die and they lay me to rest
I’m gonna go to that place you’ll detest
that’s too bad. I had very good experiences w/Spirit, it was certainly no worse than the big 3 carriers.
hope that there are no job losses and it’s just the equity getting wiped out.
It sort of looks that way, with the large caveat that bankruptcy court is messy and surprises can and do happen.
The bondholders agreed to big haircuts in return for paying unsecured creditors like the mechanic who just fixed the plane and is owed $60k 100%. That keeps the small guys away from the table.
The more I learn about Chapter 11 the more of a farce it seems to be.
Apropos to travel of various manners and means, flipping around the cable channels yesterday late afternoon I stumbled across the classic of any travel mishaps…Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Talk of a “buddy pic” where you’re sure neither person is compatible given the no luck situation after no luck situation in the film.
I’m sure Spirit can’t really be all that worse than competing airlines, but I have heard anecdotes about their early boarding process. Sounds a bit less than the friendly skies, as it were.
The phones should be fine. They can get updated with the new position of the north magnetic pole, and still be able to compute the direction of true north just fine, just as they already do.
What will be messed up is paper maps that are printed to align with magnetic north. Yes those really do exist. They are to make it easier to navigate with a compass. Oops.
How about Russian artillery compasses?
Putin has magnetic attraction. Trudeau repulsive indeed.
The new maps will give updated inclinations toward the declination?
Printing those may count toward increased job growth, so there is that.
Now, what to do with those old, outdated compasses? Worn out from confusion and overuse, calling out for a federal program with enterprise zones and training programs, natch. /s
Wow, I’ve never seen those maps, only the more traditional aligned to geographic north. Maps for hiking and charts for boating have the correction for magnetic to true listed somewhere on them. Anybody serious should just get a table listing the new corrections. I wonder how many people are left in the US that use them.
We always carry maps with us on a road trip (and charts when we owned a boat) because assuming GPS and Internet service will always be there is a bad assumption. We were poking around on some back back back roads in Colorado early this year and even the GPS mapper gave up and said you’re in Colorado.
Marine charts have a compass rose on them with true and magnetic north, with the magnetic variation indicated for a specific year and annual rate of change. The correction of True North to Magnetic North will therefore vary year to year.
You are right that mariners routinely correct their charts using Notice to Mariners, which in a case like this would have them print out a new table to overlay on the old one, or simply order new charts.
Electronic charts would get updated automatically, and that is the most frequently used method anyway.
Opencpn and S-57 charts is the way to go.
Until your boat has no power, then those paper charts look pretty good. I know of a race boat coming back from Hawaii that pitch poled, lost all its electronics, and navigated to the nearest port with a road map.
“Detaching Australia from the death grip of the United States”
Not a chance. Both major political parties do and say whatever Washington wants and in fact our foreign affair and defence policies are now run out of Washington itself. All our major political figures give debriefings to the US Embassy as if that was a normal thing to do. As the late Gonzalo Lira said, we are being set up to be the Ukrainians of the Pacific-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYMhIe14uF0 (9:58 mins)
There is a limited series on Netflix titled Pine Gap that you may wish to watch.
“Jen Psaki says Democrats are lost in the ‘wilderness’ without a ‘clear leader’ after Trump’s victory’
I’m trying to think of a charismatic Democrat that would be capable of leading them to victory in 2028. Hmmmm. All I’m coming up with are crickets.
The Daily Mail had a big headline story yesterday on Gavin Newsom’s new 9 million dollar house and his kids are now in the most expensive private school in Marin County.
It does look like a swell house.
It’s been very good for Gavin having billionaires and Willie Brown on his side.
Willie Brown? I thought that Brown and Newsome were straight.
“After”? Lol, am I remembering these last Biden years incorrectly?
Regarding the Invasive species in NY waters and goby fish and zebra mussels, I think those of us familiar with the Finger lakes region may welcome them. They eat zebra mussels! Those who have had their swimming interrupted by a trip to the hospital for stitches (3 over the years at our family cottage) might well appreciate this species
http://fingerlakesanglingzone.com/dec-confirms-round-gobies-in-seneca-lake/
Amazing what nerds can come up with to avoid engaging in the real world.
very rich nerds. less endowed nerds carry their computers on the bus to their friends’ apartments to “party” (tbh they probably have to get ubers now because everyone with a place large enough for all the computers has moved out to the suburbs off the bus lines)
Or they rent the meeting room at Panera or somewhere.
Honestly, I am both impressed and repulsed. Myself, I have low tolerance for higher intensity visual stimulation. It makes me cranky.
Wonder how much it cost.
He says “7 figures for the house”. I say GOOD FOR YOU! /s
I’m all for letting people spoiling themselves with their frivolity, but it’s when they think their spoils entitle them to have any unique insight into other matters that I start to chafe:
Home prices in Austin didn’t start to decline because of new housing. They have started to stagnate (not “decline rapidly” mind you) because there was a massive housing bubble driven primarily by people like these who relocated after lucking out with a huge windfall from owning property in California.
This type of tech bro, easily digestible reductionism works in business but it’s toxic when it seeps into public policy. It’s a big reason why Austin has turned from a smaller city with its own quirks and charm into a libertarian hellscape.
Teddy Roosevelt visited the Amazon in early 20th century. Granted, he was a former president at that time, but then, so is Biden.
Candice Millard’s The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey, is a hellova read.
When I read the comment about TR in the Amazon, I immediately went to find a body count of animals killed.
I came across an abridged version of the story you are talking about:
https://www.history.com/news/the-amazonian-expedition-that-nearly-killed-theodore-roosevelt/
Very best take on the election!!!Arijit Chakravarty
@arijitchakrav
·Nov 16
(🧵It’s the Сονіd, ѕtυріd!): Viewing the US election through the lens of the ongoing ЅАRЅ-Соν-2 раndеmіc.
(My hot take on what happened, and where things are headed. Prelude to the final 🧵in the “How does it end” series)
very disturbing Salvatore Mattera on X, supports arguments from Arijit
Long threads about COVID. Finance manager at Google. All views my own. Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
Re:
The main obstacles as the Germans see it:
In other words:
O no place to put the waste.
O the need to get state, Federal, and regulatory permitting and approval.
O need to hire and train personnel to operate the plants.
O legislation to ensure the owners will make money no matter what.
These are pretty much the main factors that affect all nuclear power plants anywhere, whether they have already been built or not.
(One thing strangely left out is the need to mine, process, and transport high-grade fuel for the reactors. Russia is one of the big remaining suppliers, I don’t know if there are others.)
It all sounds extremely dubious, as usual.
Iran is another possible source of fuel.
No, not really. Iran’s crude is heavy, sour crude, expensive to refine and produces mainly heavier distillates, which are less valued for transportation that light sweet crude (think Saudis, Iraq, the US as big producers) or Urals crude (medium grades, well-suited for diesel, which is why the EU cars are mainly diesel while the US uses “gasoline”). I believe heavy crudes are good for home heating fuels and petroleum products like asphalt.
US crude is so much skewed towards light grades that we do need to import some heavy crudes to mix to provide for all our needs.
I imagine that Craig Murray is in some danger in Lebanon. I hope he gets out of there alive, and doesn’t end up as another image on X joining the long list of people taken out by Israel.
Just one of several reasons I retired out of practice and found it more relaxing (and rewarding) to do Other Things.