Overthinking what you said? It’s your ‘lizard brain’ talking to newer, advanced parts of your brain Medical Xpress
If MMT is wrong, why is it so much better at predicting the economy – and economic disaster? Dougald Lamont’s Substack
2,000-Year-Old Psychedelic Potion Found in Ancient Egyptian Mug SciTech Daily
Climate/Environment
The Deregulation of Cancer Texas A&M Law Review
Huge gas plant eyed to power mystery $5B Louisiana data center Floodlight News
Water
After ‘The Love Boat’ ship mysteriously sinks, town worries about safe drinking water: ‘Nefarious dark stuff’ New York Post
Pandemics
Some good news…
Novavax just released animal data on their H5N1 vaccine.
It both worked as a priming vaccine and as a single dose on top of existing influenza vaccines in primates…
And as a intranasal and intramuscular in mice.
Take the intranasal data with a grain of… pic.twitter.com/8U31nVAQDU
— Don Ford – The People’s Strategist – (@DonEford) November 22, 2024
***
New research shows younger and middle-aged adults have worse long COVID symptoms than older adults Northwestern Medicine
Healthy elbow room: Social distancing in Neolithic mega-settlements Phys.org
China?
Huawei’s chip breakthrough makes Apple in China vulnerable Al Maydaeen
Adrift in the South Granta
Old Blighty
Beyond Growth Phenomenal World
Why do Labour believe in private equity? Funding the Future
European Disunion
A Miami Financier Is Quietly Trying to Buy Nord Stream 2 Gas Pipeline WSJ
Europe Is Already Facing Its Next Energy Crisis Bloomberg
Radek Sikorski wants to be Poland’s president. Is his wife’s Trump-bashing a problem? Politico
Syraqistan
Patrick Lawrence: The ICC Warrants and the World They Announce Scheerpost
Hague Invasion Act: Can US invade Netherlands to protect Israel? The New Arab
The World Rejects Israel’s ‘Generals’ Plan’ for Gaza, So the Generals Work Around It Haaretz
***
Huckabee as Trump’s pick for Israel ambassador is a win for Christian Zionism. Here’s why. USA Today
Oldest ever ‘Jesus is God’ inscription found in Israeli prison, deemed greatest find Interesting Engineering
***
Merkava IV Barak Down: How Israel’s Enhanced New Tank Was Designed to be Near Indestructible Before Being Taken Out Military Watch
Yemen Appears to Have the Upper Hand in Its Conflict With the United States Countercurrents
Massive Israeli airstrike levels apartment building in central Beirut The Cradle
Is Israel expanding territorial control toward Syria? Responsible Statecraft
New Not-So-Cold War
The message Biden Admin got from Russia’s IRBM missile strike is that Putin will escalate if the US/NATO fire ATACMs missiles into Russia. That’s what Biden wants. So today, more US ATACMs hit Russia, in the expectation that Putin will further escalate.https://t.co/Q1jovjU4gt
— Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) November 24, 2024
Joe Biden’s Ukraine ATACMS Move Is a Gift for Trump—Ret. General Newsweek
Trump depends on the EU and UK to act as peacemakers more than he thinks The Guardian
France Allows Ukraine to Strike Russia: “No Red Lines” in Defense Support United24
Making the Most of Ukraine’s Freedom to Strike Russia The Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies
Key European NATO Bases in Reach of Russia’s Oreshnik Hypersonic Missile Sputnik. Map:
On the Brink Scott Ritter Extra
Why ending with a whimper may be better The New Indian Express
***
Russia ‘likely’ to transfer submarine tech to China, N. Korea: INDOPACOM Chief Breaking Defense
Russian weapons are a hit seller Marat Khairullin Substack
***
Responding to America’s Machiavelli Wannabes on Ukraine Landmarks: A Journal of International Dialogue
Why Ukrainian soldiers came to Idaho to study nuclear forensics Defense One
The Russians are taking Zelenskyy’s declarations seriously.
Recently, the Russians struck the legendary Yuzhmash with six high-explosive warheads, raising questions, especially:
What is Yuzhmash?
Yuzhmash is the largest and oldest military space factory, and during Soviet… pic.twitter.com/QHNqoGJQNg
— Patricia Marins (@pati_marins64) November 23, 2024
***
Has Denmark challenged the right of innocent passage? Watch Yi Peng 3 to find out Lloyd’s List
Imperial Collapse Watch
Graham: So to any ally, Canada, Britain, Germany, France, if you try to help the ICC, we’re going to sanction you. pic.twitter.com/skSkAWiLp8
— Acyn (@Acyn) November 23, 2024
Trump Transition
Unions Note Chavez-DeRemer’s Record, ‘But Donald Trump Is the President-Elect’ Common Dreams
John Bolton rips into Trump’s pick for counter-terrorism chief Sebastian Gorka The Guardian
Trump named Sebastian Gorka as a Senior Director for national security policy. Here’s a discussion we had on X Spaces, with a special appearance from @aaronjmate
– Gorka calls Putin a “KGB killer” with whom no negotiated settlement can be reached to resolve the war Ukraine.… pic.twitter.com/MePBnOiJWI
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) November 23, 2024
2024 Post Mortems
Brunch, Interrupted The Gauntlet
The impact on Michigan voters was more notable pic.twitter.com/8siEur6Fn9
— Polling USA (@USA_Polling) November 22, 2024
Realignment and Legitimacy
Vaticanista Sandro Magister on the Ascendance of the Postliberal Right. Postliberal Order
Obama Legacy
The State of Health Insurance Coverage in the U.S. Commonwealth Fund. 23% of working-age U.S. adults are underinsured and 9% are uninsured.
Healthcare?
Supply Chain
How supply chains fuel transnational conflict in the Middle East Chatham House
Groves of Academe
Breaking the Cycle: Against the Militarization of Neuroscience Research Logic(s)
AI
Deadly and Imminent: The Pentagon’s Mad Dash for Silicon Valley’s AI Weapons Public Citizen
Why Ukraine is Establishing Unmanned Forces Across Its Defense Sector and What the United States Can Learn from It Center for Strategic & International Studies
It’s Surprisingly Easy to Jailbreak LLM-Driven Robots IEEE Spectrum
The Bezzle
Meta Removes Over 2M Accounts Linked to Pig Butchering Scams CNET
Tesla Cybertruck Owners Discover New Weakness: Magnets Jalopnik
Antitrust
The Proposal to Break Up Google Is Finally Here Matt Stoller, Big Tech on Trial
Class Warfare
Humanoid robot Figure 02 impresses at BMW plant with 400% efficiency upgrade Interesting Engineering
An interview with David Hemson – lessons from the South African liberation struggle Review of African Political Economy
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
‘Polling USA
Nov 23, 2024
@USA_Polling
The Cheney endorsement made nearly 3-in-10 independent Pennsylvania voters less enthusiastic about Harris’ campaign’
But for every independent Pennsylvania voter that they lost because of the Cheney endorsement, I ‘m sure that they gained two or three Republican suburban women. Well, I guess that that was the plan – or maybe the hope. At least that was what those very expensive consultants were saying would happen. Is it too late to stop their checks?
File under 2024 Postmortem: Due Dissidence goes through FT article about what most likely moved the electorate toward T. utube, ~19+ minutes.
DECADES of Data Shows How Democrats Became SO OUT OF TOUCH
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2MmgIASQ6I
Who cares? Team blue is dead and I’ve an inkling that Dick Cheney is laughing. My algos are hinting that Sarah McBride is the new ascending star, and that “she” should get to use the ladies’ room.
no, Dems. made no ground w/suburban women. Only suburban women with incomes >100,000 USD.
Stop their checks…..bwahahaha. Newsom and Pritzker are probably hiring them for 2027-28 as this is being written. The suburban Republican meme has been shown to be false for three Presidential campaigns now. Unfortunately that is all the DLC and OFA and our corporate donor whores have left the party as all voter friendly policy has been deemed toxic and impossible.
Pritzker should easily get the nomination. As he said at the DNC, he’s a “real billionaire” who will bring the working class back to the Dems
More analysis of Oreshink missile – but still no damage assessment.
The map of NATO bases in Europe doesn’t include the British and German bases in Cyprus.
NATO-base is that a euphemism for US occupant forces or does it include local forces too?
If US-troops, then you are looking at a rape and killing hotspot. The local media are suppressing all the rapes and violence that the US troops are
committing locally.
this is pretty wild.
the first live use of a nuclear-grade ballistic missile in combat, and a nationally televised address by Putin explaining his actions to the Russian people and his commitment to symmetrically respond to any foreign threat with no limits.
Yet, the front page of the NYT is Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump.
First 4 of 5 stories today are about Trump, #5 is about the future of Blacks and Democrats
Biden may send a US Army Typhon battery to Poland, as a deterrent for more responses to his proxy war. He could train Ukraine soldiers on it! US temporarily deployed a battery to Luzon in the Philippines to “deter” in the South China Sea..
What would Biden shoot with a few land launched Tomahawks?
Tomahawks? You mean the missiles that can have a regular payload or a nuclear payload and you cannot tell which until it hits? Those Tomahawks?
Funny you bring that up.
The Typhon launch “tube” is a knock off of the vertical launcher common to Aegis ship and ashore vertical launchers. Yes the launchers in Poland and Rumania could have nuclear tipped Tomahawks.
Aegis ashore could be targeted but why cut the US off from maintaining a nearly useless cost burden called Aegis?
Martyanov reported yesterday that witnesses on the ground said the target doesn’t exist anymore, including the underground portions. Vaporized, effectively.
The missiles are expensive so likely reserved for hardened high-value targets.
“The message Biden Admin got from Russia’s IRBM missile strike is that Putin will escalate if the US/NATO fire ATACMs missiles into Russia. That’s what Biden wants. So today, more US ATACMs hit Russia, in the expectation that Putin will further escalate.” Earlier I noted Putin’s sane rational logic speech on the significance of the new technology he used = Putin not talking a language Neocons are capable of understanding (“weakness, bluffing”). Hate to have to say it, but Putin will have inflict pain and suffering upon the Western Neocon ruling class before they start to understand anything.
Agree. It rather looks like US-NATO is fully intent on escalating, Oreshink or not, and to then declare a casus belli.
The next “test” of the new IRBM could be against Z’s command bunker in Kiev, or that Aegis missile base in Poland, or… but the Russians have a habit of surprising with the unexpected.
Who or what is it that’s behind this insane push? Is it the global money power; is it the City of London? War can be very very profitable if you win and get control of resources: land, gas, oil, timber, gold, minerals, etc. T says he wants to make peace. ((oh horrors)).
Its to blame Trump for the inevitable loss. See Biden and Eurocrats did everything. They didn’t blow all that cash.
I read that Zelinsky went into full panic mode after the Oreshink ‘test’. This is because he realized he was no longer secure in his bunker. He is no longer safe and it brings the whole war into sharp and sobering focus. What good are all those luxury homes if you are turned into jelly?
With half a million dead Ukrainians on his hands it makes for some simple math. Each of the million dollars he has moved offshore is equal to a profit to him of $2 per life, a life cut short to feed his ambition and greed. How much has he stolen personally? I remember the constant stream of western “leaders” going to Kiev when this started. You can be assured their suitcases were empty when they arrived and full when they left. This explains the ecstatic expressions on their faces in the press conferences. Every billion dollars stolen represents $2,000 per lost father, lost husband, lost son, lost future.
I don’t think western leaders see it like that. Firstly, they have taken such an exposed and extreme position on Russia that they can only go further on: it would be politically unthinkable to be seen to be “giving in” to Russian demands, and any national leader who did so would rapidly fall from power. So they are comforting themselves in the belief that, you know, bullies are cowards, and that so long as they remain firm, the Russians will back down. They assume, no matter how bizarre that may sound, that they have escalation dominance. Thus, Putin will give way, there will be no retaliation, and the West will have scored a huge political victory that may by itself force a change of government in Russia and bring the war to an end.
But secondly, they can’t allow themselves to think anything else. Since it would be politically suicidal for the western political class itself to back down, they have to construct an alternative reality in which NATO is strong enough to wage war for more than five minutes, in which the Russians understand this, and in which the West therefore has the upper hand. The question is at what point reality breaks in and national leaders are forced to recognise that NATO is in no condition to fight anyone.
“Oldest ever ‘Jesus is God’ inscription found in Israeli prison, deemed greatest find”
I guess we should be grateful that the Israelis did not simply put a bulldozer through that mosaic on the grounds that it represented the wrong religion. :)
Rev Kev: The whole article smells of propaganda.
And there is this anachronistic assertion: ““This is the only one in Israel,” Alegre Savariego, curator of the Rockefeller Collection and mosaics at the Israel Antiquities Authority told JNS. “We found the name of Jesus before Christianity was part of the Roman empire,” she said.”
She has no idea what she is talking about. The inscription is from a “prayer hall” — more likely a church if it had a eucharistic table — built in 230 A.D. By then, Christianity was well established in Rome, much of the Greek-speaking East, and in cities like Lyon and Milan. Clement of Alexandria and Irenaeus of Lyon were already dead.
The assertion by the clueless informants in this article may mean before Constantine’s conversion and his recognition of Christianity. But that’s a separate issue.
Re: Overthinking lizard brains and fMRI
I’ve always been amused by how brain researchers with their Really Expensive Tools have persisted in thinking of the brain like it’s a system of trucks and warehouses. So now this is news??:
“Previous studies have found co-activation of the amygdala and social cognitive network, but our study is novel because it shows the communication is always happening.”
Kinda like Amazon midnight delivery, I guess. Always shipping! /s
Speaking to the brain and functioning of the varying regions, I am reminded of a college class attended by none other than Bobby Boucher in the movie, The Waterboy.
“Mama says alligators are ornery cause they gots all them teeth and no toothbrush”
“Well, mama is wrong. The medulla oblongata…”
“Colonel Sanders you’re wrong. Mama is right”
safe to say Bobby wasn’t quite prepped for his college education \sarc
Fred R. Harris is dead. The former U.S. Senator from Oklahoma ran for President in 1976. I was rooting for Mo Udall but Harris impressed my friends in Ames who were on six-year graduation plans and still working at Iowa State’s Hilton sports complex which hosted that year’s Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner. One of my friends accidentally entered Fred Harris’ enclosed area and caught the candidate eating fried chicken. The Senator immediately wiped off his hands and extended one for my friend Dave to shake, “Fred Harris, running for President!”
I don’t think my friend turned out to caucus for Fred. I didn’t caucus that year because I wasn’t reengaged yet but in retrospect I wish I’d shown up for Fred. Time has erased the ugly memories of Jimmy Carter’s inflation-ridden administration. Without Carter we might not have had Reagan. Without Reagan we probably wouldn’t have had either Bush.
Thanks for trying Fred. Living to 94 and still not out “living” Jimmy Carter? There is no justice but I think Fred still checked out as a winner.
Inflation pre-dated Carter. He really was kind of helpless in Washington. Congress and the permanent state community in Washington was solidly against Carter doing anything about anything. He was for peace and love and Washington was for war. The Democratic Party in the late seventies embraced the Deep State or “interagency” and decided to woo donors rather than labor and other (real) leftists. Carter was continually sabotaged at every turn during his administration very much like Trump was in his first term.
He had a humility about him that is hard to find in politicians today. I remember when he dropped out of the race he had a press conference and said “We have looked at the latest poll numbers. While we can’t call the numbers bad, we can’t call them good, so we have decided to call it quits.”
great stories
p.s. what was with Gary Hart btw?
Wiki says, Dukakis had a 17-point lead against Bush ´88 in polls.
WTF went wrong there?
There really was a time when places like Oklahoma were as blue as they could be. Woody Guthrie, Will Rogers, Fred Harris etc.
I have elder family members all over areas like this who are and were Democrats in this mold. They feel totally betrayed and are probably gone forever for the Dems.
Modern PMC Dems, when I talk to them about this, inform me that my family members are just racist misogynist troglodytes. I just say back – “Get used to losing, then. You have no idea what you are talking about.” Say what you will about Bill Clinton. He got this concept in the core of his being.
>> Hallucinogens were found in an ancient Egyptian mug, confirming their use in fertility rituals linked to the god Bes.
Let me tell you about Bes, he took away my rhythm at a drumming circle when I wouldn’t bend the knee. But the beat was excellent overall, people were happy, the party was good, so I accepted my spectator status.
Also, he’s not a dwarf!. That’s how you look when you wear a lion hide and go into a full horse stance. If you hang a drum from a neck strap and pound away, you just might look like a fertility god.
> Multianalytical investigation reveals psychotropic substances in a ptolemaic Egyptian vase
nature.com/articles/s41598-024-78721-8
>> Our analyses revealed traces of Peganum harmala, Nimphaea nouchali var. caerulea, and a plant of the Cleome genus
Peganum harmala contains harmaline, a substance associated with telepathy, and that induces a visual of reversed trails. Harmaline is a primary incredient of Banisteriopsis caapi, the vine used in the now-fashionable ayahuasca brew.
It was pretty much a worthless article considering that it didn’t even name one single hallucinogen that was supposedly identified.
“Has Denmark challenged the right of innocent passage? Watch Yi Peng 3 to find out”
About 30 years ago you had the Yinhe Incident. This was a Chinese ship that was accused by the US of having chemical weapons aboard for delivery to Iran so the US had that ship isolated at sea and tried to even starve the crew at first. When there was an eventual inspection by the Saudis/US they found zip but the US refused to apologize-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yinhe_incident
Maybe Denmark should be told that the China of 1993 is in no way like the China of 2024 and does not have to put up with this crap anymore and certainly not from a country with no great economic clout.
Gooooooooooood Moooooooorning Fiatnam!
Would LBJ have done MMT while eating a BLT on the throne, or was it all in regards to a buns in gutter economy as far as the Great Society of peak USA was concerned?
NSFW was the general consensus in the west, more land in south-east Asia generally would not play a part in the CPI on account of it not existing then as a GDP factor, more of a gore goods & services categorical, seasonally adjusted… a napalm rotisserie league~
>>>Newly identified chemical in drinking water is most likely present in many homes and could be toxic, study finds
In my opinion, everyone should at least get an electric, home water distiller.
It’s a pretty obvious, but under-studied, hypothesis that publicly-regulated water is a big cancer vector for some (many? most?) people, particularly if your area uses aquifers (which is the vast majority)
But this cuts against the decades of eco-rhetoric to avoid bottled water.
I wanted to post a few days ago but it wouldn´t translate – a German reporter lives in Sofia now and had an entire piece about how excellent the soft tab water there is compared to the one in Berlin which is rather hard, which I can confirm.
So he describes how everyone in Sofia is getting water from public springs.
Downside late into that same item: Fluoride content is so high that it apparently destroys teeth.
I was wondering which of these is worse…with the answer obvious to me if he is right with his statement.
p.s. RFK Jr. – in Germany there is the view that US is having too much fluoride in its water.
In the US, the first public trials of flourinated water began when modern flouride toothpaste didn’t even exist.
Not going to step into that minefield.
my own unscientific anecdote is that the kids lived off of Costco and private label powdered baby formula (made by Perrigo Co. i think) always mixed with distilled water until they could eat solid food.
I am very happy with the results, and it validates my water OCD, lol
Why electric? Wouldn’t a fairly inexpensive (around $200) passive reverse osmosis system filter all this out?
– ‘Radek Sikorski wants to be Poland’s president. Is his wife’s Trump-bashing a problem?’ – Politico
When Applebaum is introduced as “a US historical and journalist,” my brain automatically puts those two words – “historian” and “journalist” – in irony quotes. And there was a time, long, long ago, when the description “Pulitzer Prize winner who writes for The Atlantic” would have been a positive label rather than credentials for a top Establishment shill, as it is now. Is her “Trump-bashing” a problem? I’d like to think so but I doubt relations between Poland and our National Security apparatus will change much at all.
“The US doesn’t need to spend more on Ukraine. Britain can bring funding to the table – and help Trump reboot alliances”
‘If the EU and UK seize the $300bn of Russian state assets sitting in Euroclear, money Putin has long written off, we can bring serious funding to the table. Trump does not need to spend any more money on Ukraine – we can buy the weapons. America can even make a profit while securing peace in Europe. Trump would be able to show how he got those parasitic Europeans to cough up, prove his detractors wrong by rebooting America’s most traditional alliances – all while putting “America first”.’
I think that the Guardian is losing it as they can see the Ukraine get hammered to the point of being delusional. If the EU/UK steal that $300 billion the next thing you would hear would be a great whooshing sound as every investor on the planet pulls their money out of the UK/EU. In any case, the UK/EU is in no position to support the Ukraine, certainly not according to The Duran-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5CtkEZBrGk (12:58 mins)
re: Plutonium core and the Slotin accident
Alex Wellerstein has an interesting new entry on this from the perspective of memes using the incident:
The meme-ification of the “Demon Core”
The strange transformation of a criticality accident into dark Internet humor
https://doomsdaymachines.net/p/the-meme-ification-of-the-demon-core
He among other things links to the scene in the Manhattan Project biopic “Fat Man and Little Boy” (1989) where this 1946 event was predated. The character suffering a Slotin-like death is played by John Cusack who somehow in real life as an actor manages not to age…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQ0P7R9CfCY
Tesla Cybertruck owners have a new glitch on the listing of known glitches…no magnets, well basically not much of anything on the vehicle exterior as the article delves further into the problems that have arisen. What a hideous looking albatross from a prominent car manufacturer. Even after the problems with manufacturing and the company owner getting sentenced to prison, weren’t some DeLorean vehicles eventually collectibles at least? Maybe a Spielberg movie boost helps!
Oh well, I guess the Cybertruck looks futuristic and cool though ! \sarc
Akin to the agreed upon previous ugliest vehicle of our era: Walter White’s Aztek in Breaking Bad, the Cybertruck needs a less than wholesome driving force, and they’re similar to a limo and that you can’t really see whose behind the wheel…
Local kid makes good (Adin Ross) gave one to the Donald a few months ago, will he suffice in place of Walter?
I’m still struggling to understand the use case for the Cyber truck. Since it’s electric, it’s not even good as a Mad Max post apocalyptic raver vehicle. I’ve seen one regularly parked in a strip mall and it’s even uglier and more awkward in person.
Oh boy, The Hague Invasion Act emerges from the shadows of the memory hole. Good times! Cotton-ing on spontaneously outbreaking amongst the true-believers, “The ICC is a kangaroo court and Karim Khan is a deranged fanatic. Woe to him and anyone who tries to enforce these outlaw warrants. Let me give them all a friendly reminder: the American law on the ICC is known as The Hague Invasion Act for a reason. Think about it,” (Tom Cotton). S’more from Senator Linsey Graham Cracker, who warned allies of the United States on Friday that if they attempt to enforce it, the U.S. will “crush your economy.” Graham is so worked up he let slip “We cannot let the world believe for a moment that this is a legitimate exercise of jurisdiction by the Court against Israel because to do so means we could be next,”. “We” you say.
Three possibilities concerning the ATACMS:
1) NATO leadership assumes that Putin is bluffing, and he won’t escalate against Non-Ukraine NATO assets. Ok fine.
2) They want Russia to escalate. They think the unprovoked counterattack will give them a Pearl Harbour moment, needed to mobilize the population and then conquer Russia.
3) They think the escalation will be very modest. Just strong enough to undermine Trump, just weak enough to ensure nothing valuable gets hit.
Or maybe something else, it’s hard to get into the minds of these delusional and narcissistic people.
These people in the Imperial ruling class are not delusional they are just vicious fighters. The Empire and its officials in the US and Europe have to make the cost of winning in Ukraine for Russia as high as possible. As has been noticed before the Empire does not have to “win” wars only make wars as expensive as possible for its enemies. Since the Empire can always print money the cost and burden of war is no problem for the US and its vassals. As we’ve seen the subject populations are easily led by their noses by and unending stream of propaganda/mind-control produced by the news and information spaces both in the mainstream and online. This policy of making war around the world has actually benefited the Empire’s ruling classes and their ambitions and increasing the cost of war for Russia just short of nuclear war will show where Russia’s real “red-lines” are.
Again, we have to grasp this essential truth that world-conquest is the goal of Washington and it is deeply ideological and seen, by those in Washington, as a kind of crusade. Again, as I have mentioned many times the FP community sees the world as “either the Chinese or us and it better be us” mentality as their big-picture POV. There is little opposition to thie among the Empire’s populations even by those who don’t believe that’s what life is all about, i.e., fighting for complete world-domination.
“A Miami Financier Is Quietly Trying to Buy Nord Stream 2 Gas Pipeline”
That guy is a real piece of work. So he wants to buy up that undamaged NS2 pipeline for pennies on the dollar so that the US will have their grip on it and leverage its use to put pressure on Russia to end the war in a way that will ‘serve U.S. long-term interests.’ And of course he would be collecting rents from the Russians and/or the Germans for his troubles. If this ever happened I am sure that the Russians would weld shut that pipeline from their end thus rendering that pipeline as a hunk of junk. China would be more than glad to buy that gas from the other end. But there was a twist in that story.
Back in 2007 there was a Russian oligarch named Mikhail Khodorkovsky who managed to get hold of Yukos and its oil fields. He organized a bogus auction where all those Russian oil fields would be sold to the US so that the US would have control of the Russian economy forever and a day. Well Putin threw Khodorkovsky’s a** into prison on tax evasion charges and the auction was cancelled. A Texas judge ordered it go ahead but it was discovered that Texas did not have jurisdiction in the Russian Federation. Point is that this guy Lynch was one of those foreign investors who wanted to buy up those assets for Bush’s America. And now he wants to pull the same stunt again.
Patrick Lawrence: The ICC Warrants and the World They Announce
Good article by Lawrence but I can’t agree with him that the ICC warrants mean that much. The ICC is a leftover from a different set of power arrangements and standards. We are solidly in a Machiavellian world order where force, deception, deception, conspiracies (people who don’t know history keep harping negatively about conspiracy theories as being a priori a sign of delusion and paranoia–in fact, as someone who has observed gov’t for a long time conspiracies and a constant feature of politics particularly in Washington), and war-war-war. We don’t live in a world that is a “rules-based-order” because the rules are not published or agreed upon and that term, like “international law” of which the ICC sees itself as a part of is null and void. “Law” is now whatever a country or entity can enforce through physical (invading the Hague) or financial means and has nothing whatever to do with any philosophical concept of justice. The world of the ICC, the Geneva Conventions on War, the UN, and other international organizations is over other than to the extent Great Powers can manipulate those organizations. If Israelis want to systematically torture, kill, starve and so on its Helots they can and will, and nothing can be done to halt that ongoing genocide short of a major war rather than platitudes of courts that have no enforcement mechanism, i.e., no military force behind them.
Short-term rentals – so-called AirBnBs – are apparently still causing chaos in Visalia, and City Hall aims to bring scofflaw landlords to heel. They’re going after their pocketbooks.
Just about this time last year, the Visalia City Council revamped the city’s zoning rules in an effort to bring short-term rentals (STR) under control following complaints about parking, noise and misbehaving tenants. Apparently, it hasn’t worked. So far, the city’s planning department has issued only 33 permits for SRTs as of September 24. That’s almost an entire year since the zoning law was changed.
That seems to indicate less than 6% of the city’s SRTs – rentals intended for occupation of 30 days or fewer – are operating legally. But the number of landlords complying could be lower.
It’s hard to track down how many STRs are available in Visalia at any given moment. But it’s not impossible. As of late November just a week before Thanksgiving, AirBnB’s website shows there are 320 short-term rentals available in Visalia. It doesn’t mention how many are booked up. And of course they’re not the only company listing STRs here.
https://www.ourvalleyvoice.com/2024/11/22/most-landlords-ignoring-visalias-airbnb-rules/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To put things in a mad perspective, we have at least 320 short term rentals here in Three Rivers, with about 1/100th the population of Visalia!
Being unincorporated, there are essentially no rules regarding AirBnB’s et al, not that it seems to matter in the Big Smoke 40 miles away.
Somebody related to me that one of the gas station owners in town has 19 AirBnB’s in Tiny Town, that’s around $8 million worth of houses, yikes~
Sounds like your big opportunity–the “all cats no cattle” BNB.
Meanwhile here in my medium town we are thinking of putting a “free wood” sign on some of the debris.
“Yemen Appears to Have the Upper Hand in Its Conflict With the United States”
So what happens if other countries around the world look at what Yemen is doing and wondering if they can do the same. I’m sure the Russians would be wiling to sell some of their missiles and drones to them.
We turn the Pentagon into a shopping mall?
Although come to think of it malls are about as out of date.
‘Acyn
@Acyn
Graham: So to any ally, Canada, Britain, Germany, France, if you try to help the ICC, we’re going to sanction you.’
Maybe Lindsey is worried that somebody will come for him some day. But Lindsey has other matters on his mind – money!
‘The Republican senator from South Carolina told Fox News that the Ukraine conflict is ultimately “about money.” An extract of the interview was published on the senator’s YouTube channel on Wednesday. “You know that the richest country in all of Europe for rare earth minerals is Ukraine?” he said, estimating the worth at 2 to 7 trillion dollars. Graham added that Ukraine is ready to “do a deal with us,” but not Russia. “So it’s in our interest to make sure that Russia doesn’t take over the place,” he said, describing Ukraine as the “breadbasket of the world.” “We can make money and have an economic relationship with Ukraine. It would be very beneficial to us, with peace,” Graham went on to say. “Donald Trump is going to do a deal to get our money back, to enrich ourselves with rare earth minerals. A good deal for Ukraine and us.” ‘
https://www.rt.com/news/608128-ukraine-can-make-america-rich/
So maybe Lindsey has a few investments in the Ukraine he is worried about losing out on to those damn Russkies.