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.
252 comments
Comments are closed.
‘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.
If only.
The Democrat establishment is not dead until something replaces it. The current standoff between pro-wrestling and pro-wokeness can go on for decades if nothing else replaces it.
no, Dems. made no ground w/suburban women. Only suburban women with incomes >100,000 USD.
Are you suggesting that other people exist?
Oh well played, mam
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?
Doesn´t necessarily mean anything but Postol was furious when – was is a think tank lady? – first came up with the paper for Aegis Ashore. He said it would upset any attempt for “security”. Which of course it did. But that was it´s very purpose. Which doesn´t mean they are entirely without threat potential.
With all my listening to Martyanov. I am still not at all clear over how well Russians can take down any of the major systems either through EW or allegedly S-400+.
Tomahawks?
With Ritter he doubted that even Minutemen were the real problem for RU High Command. Only Trident. Why? Due to shorter flight time from US-SSBNs parked near Russia? Or for other technical differences between both missiles?
The nuclear Tomahawk variant is long gone. Trump admin supported a Congressional initiative to create a replacement but Biden killed it saying the Trident W76-2 was sufficient.
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.
More interesting analysis on the oreshnik strike, from a youtube channel that occasionally focuses on the war in Ukraine – and some of the comments below seem informed, which is unusual for youtube. The channel covers aeronautics, and there is one advert in the middle.
He estimates the energy delivered was the equivalent of 2x fully-loaded B-52s. The comments have some chatter about how deep the rocket storage compartments were.
“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.
Judge Napolitano and Alastair Crooke this past Monday, 11/18. utube, ~33+ minutes.
Alastair Crooke : The West Lusts for War.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx4_kXN3To8
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.
Putin made a big show of explaining the doctrine of retaliating on whatever nation provided the advanced weapons that are used to attack Russia from Ukraine. He’s going to have to make good on that promise, perhaps not in the next retaliation but soon.
France just lined up to be hit…..
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.
As per your last question: please ASAP!
The most extreme types of stupidity come when, for instance, one believes it is existential to keep his/her position “firm” ignoring all evidences and realities on the ground. These people repeat themselves, possibly hundreds of times each day, that Russia is in tatters, suffering losses of thousands each day, they are in the brink on rendition, and Putin is about to be overtaken one of this days by some “democratic” guy. When they go so deep on fantasy land, new risks that one would have thought to be unthinkable may come real. That is what now worries me. If we, the populace, are unable to show them how unhinged they are I don’t know how far this idiocy can go.
Yes but these political leaders have military staff who know some facts. On Sep 13 it looked like Biden and Starmer we meeting in order to announce that they were going to start fighting Russia with ATACMS, Storm Shadow, etc. The general impression was that the Pentagon explained what the consequence of that would be so they decided to shelve it.
What changed between then and now? My guess is what changed was the election of Trump who was clear about intending to stop the war. Harris was sure to keep it going but Trump cannot be trusted to do so. And perhaps top Pentagon people know their time is up under Trump. Idk.
I’m generally disposed to a psychological analysis since it fits my prejudices but it might not be the whole story.
I think that paradoxically what has changed is the Russian missile strike, and before that the explicit warnings from Moscow. Stopping attacks by ATACMS, etc. has suddenly become a lot more difficult, because it will now be presented as “giving in” and the West “being afraid” of Russia. After Moscow began to threaten western states directly with retaliation, more attacks on Russia became a matter of national pride and virility, and now the West has embarked on a process it can’t win.
Part of me wonders whether this is what the Russians want. For western leaders to be humiliated and forced to back down would do a lot to end the fighting. Yes there would be screams of outrage, but there’s nothing behind them. Western populations aren’t going to like the idea of the war coming home anyway.
I believe that Putin possibly did not like it (the retaliation) but felt politically forced to go with it.
Total humiliation could open a road towards a holistic European security arrangement – of which NATO may or may not be a part, but EU gaining some sovereignty back certainly should.
Polar Socialist:
What was especially important was showing that China has mastered the manufacture of advanced engines for aircraft:
.https://english.news.cn/20241113/b90cf2e69eb54edeaf3bd944acd03b10/c.html
November 13, 2024
Upgraded tech, homegrown engine on J-35A fighter boost combat effectiveness: Chinese Air Force
https://english.news.cn/20241111/48254c3753784c5e9b0a1e1cfe08dbc0/c.html
November 11, 2024
Spotlight on key military hardware at Airshow China
I dont see another way that doesn’t end with the US building up another country, say Poland, to take another shot at the RF.
I doubt putin wants it, doesn’t seem to want his hand forced, nut he does seem irritated.
The west doesn’t give a fig about Russian retaliation against Ukraine, whether casualties or infra. And I doubt Russia will yet attack nato bases, which might dangerously escalate the conflict to something with only losers. But there are significant opportunities in ME:
More AA def for Iran and/or same for Syria/iraq/lebanon.
Assistance for Houthis.
Plus, maybe more diesel for Cuba and/or help for Venezuela. Or,
More military help for Africa.
The world-wide empire has world-wide vulnerabilities.
Like I said above, Putin promised to retaliate against the countries supplying the weapons that attack Russia and he’s going to have to make good on that promise sooner or later. He surely well understood the consequences of this promise. The only upside I see is two little get-outs included in his speech: first that Russia will continue testing Hazel (he described Dnipro as a test), and second that Russia will give warning to allow civilian and citizen evac. These allow Russia to continue using Hazel for a few more exchanges in Ukraine with enough warning that the US may not be forced to launch their own nukes when they see the Hazel launches (because you can’t see what kind of weapon an IRBM flight caries).
I’ve been thinking if there’s a polite way to say thank you and goodbye to friends in advance, just in case. I got nothing so far.
You may well be absolutely correct but until Trump arrives (supposed he is able to turn away from Ukraine) too many stupid things can be done and meanwhile, the very same idiots remain in Old Europe still wanting to double down even if they yet have less possibilities without the US. For instance with Taurus missiles. When i wrote ASAP I meant something like tomorrow the latest.
Fairly significant anti-Nato demonstration in Montréal yesterday, which merged en route with a pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel march, resulting in large numbers and a massive police intervention, resulting in some violence and arrests.
Extreme position on Russia but also on the course of the war. Certain articles are now noting that it is not all rainbows and unicorns for Ukraine, but anything seen as a Russian victory and Putin then not invading Poland, Romania, Germany, Finland, Denmark and all of Europe would cost the MSM any remaining credibility.
Pontificating a bit:
a) I think that an underlying current in the West’s and in particular the neocon’s response is allowing Putin to remain in power after seizing the 1990s-era Oligarch’s assets would be unprecedented and that cannot be allowed to stand, and
b) My gut feeling a few months into this conflict was there was an ~ 3% chance that it ends in a civilization-ending conflagration, if only because I believe this is existential to Russia and has been sold as existential to the Western World by MSM, but I feel that is low and gut is now saying 10%-15% chance.
How does the crisis of political legitimacy in the West factor into your calculation? The Single Transferable Party lost in the USA and is losing through much of Europe. The ruling elite (political and oligarchs behind them) isn’t going to politely step away from power. The dramatic rise in overt authoritarian social control in UK and DE shows it. How does a desperate ruling elite who sees the end of their road approaching affect their war calculations?
A complete loss of legitimacy is what Biden faces. Lame duck, defeated by the candidate promising to end the war, defeated his own party, angry, vindictive, 82, almost dead, nothing left to lose. Frightening thoughts.
A couple of thoughts:
1) “The Single Transferable Party lost in the USA.” I do not generally agree with that proposition given Trump’s cabinet picks are largely swamp creatures plus a few outsiders that might not be confirmed. I am obviously hoping for a shift in Ukraine policy as some of his national security picks do not seem to want all of us to die.
a) The rise of the neocons after the Iraq War fiasco is a strong testament to their hold on MSM and that will not change until the MSM is gutted in its entirety and replaced by a new media structure. As important, campaign finance laws would need to be reformed to overturn Citizens United and passing legislation restricting mega-donor’s influence. Will. Not. Happen. (not to insult your intelligence).
2) Recent European elections have been promising in terms of overall anti-ruling class voting, but the EU governance structure appears to be tamper-proof against that resulting in policy changes. Macron appointed a Prime Minister from a party that received 9% of the vote, ignoring the two parties with ~ 30% of the vote. Angelina Baerbock stated she does not care what voters want with respect to Ukraine, and earlier this month German police raided the home of a 64-year-old pensioner for referring to a Green Party official as an “idiot” (or the German equivalent). Also, the actual law-making process in the EU is byzantine and almost seems designed to ignore election results. And as for the UK . . . you alluded to that. As a microcosm of one decision, France will allow SCALP missile strikes within Russia, while German public option polls showed 28% of voters in favor of Germany doing the same for Taurus missiles, and doubt if German and French public opinion are that different on foreign policy).
Perhaps we differ in that I do not see the loss of legitimacy and corresponding election results as making the slightest difference.
28% of voters in favour = 72% of voters against (or, at least, 72% not in favour).
Progress?
(At least it would be, if democracy were in play.)
For a good technical and strategic assessment of what this attack means, I’d recommend the Millennium*7 channel.
He thinks it was based on the R-30, a submarine launched ballistic missile adopted for medium range use with a much larger warhead (6×6 submunitions of around 100kg each). It fits the overall size and range of what we can see from the videos. If so, its a typical example of Russian pragmatic engineering.
It shows a capacity to hit every NATO airfield within minutes. Russia already has this capacity, but an R-30 Bulava variant has would be immune to Aegis (possibly SM-3’s could hit if if they had enough warning) and can deliver a lot more strike power than a single Kizhal. So while its not a fundamental change in the strategic balance, it is definitely a much more formidable weapon than existing missiles.
I’ll second–third actually–that vote for Millennium 7, always interesting.
Political suicidal? But none of the ruled (maybe crazy Balts) really want war and escalation. It is more like Catch 22, if they backtrack, they are proven wrong and replaced, if they continue, they will also be replace by saner sounding voices – thus the Deep States are likely preparing the second eschelon of cadres for the big bamboozling game.
It looks like there is a race by the US to cause a hot war between Russia and the US European slave countries. And also a US race to ramp up Israeli slaughter to cause a hot war in the Middle East. A hot war means $trillions of taxpayer and printed dollars going straight to the US weapons industries.
Which means the US war machine is racing to ignite these wars before Trump gets into the WH and starts ending the wars. Perhaps if conventional weapons are not successful then the US will get one of their proxies to lob a small tactical nuke into Russian territory as a last resort.
Trump’s focus on doing deals to end wars, and to stop funding US “defence” alliances overseas are probably what put Trump in the crosshairs of the US military-industrial-media-political complex, literally and figuratively. And was behind the hysterical anti-Trump campaign over the last 9 years.
What they are doing now is trying very hard force Trump to be a war President with no option but to keep funding the war companies indefinitely.
US weapons industries cannot produce anything on an actual wartime schedule. They need a high-BS, low-kinetic environment to thrive.
Why so serious? Stupidity has always been civilisation’s strongest driver. And war is all just a part of life’s great pageant, even though the human species might be reaching the end of the procession with this one, and we are all born to die anyway. So why not in concert? After all, we have greart minds like this advising us:
Joe Biden’s Ukraine ATACMS Move Is a Gift for Trump—Ret. General Newsweek
“The retired general also said the move should have been made “a long time ago.”
“They should have been doing this a year ago,” said Kellogg.
“You do not fight a war allowing other countries to have sanctuaries.””
The Russians are certainly in full agreement with this statement, and I imagine that we in the West will soon experience its fruits in all their glory.
And, on a brighter note, I’m pretty sure the oceans will begin the task of restoring life once they have stopped boiling.
Taking out a half trillion dollars worth of F-35s at Ramstein might get their attention.
Well, still part of the equation is that Russia has alliances it wants to maintain and nurture.
Is it really Biden though? The guy seems out of it mentally – I wonder who is actually running the show.
It’s a good question. I think probably it is Biden. Who else has sufficient political motive to be so extremely reckless? Everyone else in his orbit can wait to fight another day without dire career/legacy consequences. Biden picked this fight with Russia and has only a short while to try to finish it.
Biden has very little idea what he is doing, which makes him the perfect permission leader for everybody else.
“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.
Would be interesting to know if it was a Marcionite church, since those Christians rejected Yahweh as a demiurge. ‘Jesus is God’ seems to fit.
My understanding is that the Marcionites believed Jesus was the son of a different god, sent to ransom humanity from Yahweh (who they viewed as a demiurge as you say). All this is somewhat speculative since there are no surviving Marcionite texts, only what can be reconstructed from quotes by opponents and our (heavily edited) Bible versions.
Agreed. Our information on Pelagius comes by a similar route following his disputes with Augustine over original sin. In the spirit of never attributing to malice … his and Marcion’s writings probably faded out through lack of demand for copies.
Israelis are likely interested in preserving any artifacts that promote ([evangelical] Christian) tourism.
If present Israeli-mandated genocides ever cease, and risks of tourists becoming collateral damage moderate, Christian fetishists will flock to this and other, um, sanctified sites.
Christian Zionists are probably about the last group crazy enough to vacation in Israel these days.
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 was for peace and love and Washington was for war.”
And all the cold warrior moves against Russia–boycotting the Olympics, Afghanistan? Some have claimed that Carter was a David Rockefeller cats paw but one should point out that his secret Afghanistan scheme led ultimately to 9/11 and that to now.
Before that he was considered a very triangulating governor of Georgia. Being a Christian maybe he thought he had a lot to seek forgiveness for and hence his admirable post presidency. But one shouldn’t sugar coat all the bad in the Carter administration.
To be blunt, what the establishment hated about Carter was his preference for peace and human rights–I have this from a senior gov’t operative–this is not rumor but, rather, what people in the Senate and State talked openly about at the time. As for the Cold war stuff and BS posturing, that’s trivial and as for Afghanistan, like most people who come into the office, decisions at that level are beyond the POTUS pay-grade.
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?
This self-own didn’t help – https://photos.com/featured/michael-dukakis-riding-in-a-tank-bettmann.html
Neither did Lee Atwater’s rat[family blog]ery – https://retroreport.org/video/willie-horton-political-ads-that-shaped-the-battle-for-the-white-house/
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.
I was with you up to when you brought Bill Clinton into the post. The guy led with his pecker. Between insertions tab A into slot B, he amped up neoliberal vamping. His Third Way was a big FU to voters on the way to corporatizing gov’t.
Indeed. Some of the older voters in Oklahoma who went “red” later, never changed their Democratic Party registration.
Oklahoma bred plenty of contrarians, populists, and characters like Sen. Thomas Gore (who was legally blind) – and whose famous relative was Gore Vidal.
I share your criticism of “PMC Dems” and also resent their condescending dismissal of “deplorables.” But though the South was once solidly Democrat, it would be very misleading to describe it as “blue.” Distrust of “big government” and, especially, race and civil rights issues were very much a part of that political culture. It is true that an authentic populism could appeal, but this was often mixed with racist scapegoating and anti-government rhetoric. Johnson predicted that passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts would doom the Democrats in the South, and he was right. The Nixon Republicans took over the language of the Wallace Dems, and the “solid South” went Red very quickly.
I’m not trying to perpetuate stereotypes here, but this was the historical reality. I also have family scattered across Texas and Oklahoma, and I grew up in Kansas on the Oklahoma border. There is a populist tradition. But some of the worst racist demagogues I can remember had their little fiefdoms down there as well. That makes me admire people like Harris even more. But…
IMHO you are off base in depicting Oklahoma as the South.
The South I lived in (Alabama) does not consider Oklahoma to be the South. It’s north of Texas, which they don’t see as the South despite it having been part of the Confederacy. Both are oil country. Slave-dependent farming by white people was not a big part of their history. Slavery in Oklahoma was perpetrated by the big Indian tribes! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_Oklahoma
Similarly, Southern Baptists are the biggest denomination in Alabama, like most of the Deep South. In Oklahoma, United Methodists are #1 and Oklahoma Assemblies of God #2.
In response to IM Doc’s Oklahoma remark I used “South” broadly as a shorthand for the solid belt of once Democratic states that swept from Texas eastward. I know that Oklahoma and Texas are not considered part of the geographic “South.” But in terms of their politics and political culture they were “yellow dog Democrat” states that switched very rapidly to solid Reds in the late 60s and early 70s.
On the other hand, I appreciate your Alabama perspective. In terms of public perceptions, my wife and I were always amused when we moved from Kansas to NY that many upstate New Yorkers considered Kansas part of the “South,” apparently unaware of its Civil War history. Even when I was a kid, as conservative as Kansas was, there was a real difference in political culture right across the border into Oklahoma – or east to southern Missouri for that matter. But to IM Doc’s point, I guess they’re all “red states” now.
To my Kansan friend, Missouri was definitely the South (and the Confederates did count MO and KY among their states, as factions of state gov’ts in both did declare secession. KY state gov’t split into pro Union and secessionist factions while most of MO’s did back secession, only to be driven out of state by the federals.) But my favorite lady, wjo is from Louisiana, thought even northern AR didn’t look Southern enough to her as there were too many “Midwesterners” and not enough magnolia…
Descendants that can prove matriarchal relations to certain tribes can take part in tribal benefits.
https://time.com/5954759/slavery-in-indian-territory/
“…The same treaties that reneged on the United States’ promise to the Chickasaw and Choctaw Nations to never disturb them in their new western home, and which took even more land from them, provided my family with their land—making them part of the only group people of African descent in the world to receive what we might see as a form of direct, large-scale reparations from the federal government…”
just about finished with “One Vast Western Count” by Colin Calloway which i started after reading “1491” by Charles Mann who suggested Calloway’s book – it was eye-opening to read of the widespread slavery among indigenous folks in the Americas – as well as the warrior culture and internecine tribal conflicts –
The Southwest by no means has a monopoly on the worst racist demagogues or elite little fiefdoms.
“As long as you’re south of the Canadian border, you’re down South.”
Malcom X
He represented Oklahoma in the Senate, and introduced legislation to nationalize the oil industry: how’s that as a marker for how the country has changed?
I’m old enough to also remember Democrats elected to the Senate from South Dakota, Idaho and Montana back in the day, in the latter two largely because of the mining and smelter worker unions (which had a very radical history going back to Big Bill Haywood and the Western Federation of Miners); hard now to believe it was ever the case.
Tom Daschle was a South Dakotan and a friend of NRA, besides the Dem Sen maj leader. That doesn’t feel like such a long time ago (ok, so I’m getting old)…
>> 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.
Tanasi is the primary author on the Nature article in the comment, which is where the three species listed came from.
Agreed. I was hoping for the recipe.
As for “fertility ritual,” well, how non woke can you get?
“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.
No economic clout? Don’t they export lots of veggies? Oh, that probably doesn’t count in a red meat world.
Danish bacon exports to the UK?
And don’t forget Carlsberg, the genuine stuff…
Denmark exports substantial quantities of cheese, too.
I don’t think cheese is too popular in China.
Opportunity for growth!
“I don’t think cheese is too popular in China.”
A significant level of lactose intolerance has limited consumption, but New Zealand farmers in particular are working successfully on lactose-free products.
I think it’s more about them not having a taste for it, as it was never part of Chinese culture.
There was a big meme a couple of decades ago on Chinese internets having to do with Inner (Chinese) Mongolian cheese…
Interestingly, China is just now working through research and development on increasing the healthy consumption and popularity of milk and milk products:
https://english.news.cn/20241019/4f959a49f33c4782996da277f964656b/c.html
October 19, 2024
China’s Yili wins innovation award at World Dairy Summit
PARIS — Chinese dairy giant Yili has won the International Dairy Federation’s (IDF) innovation award, IDF announced on Friday.
The announcement came at the 2024 World Dairy Summit in Paris. Yili won the award in the category of new product development, with focus on food safety and consumer nutrition.
The IDF Dairy Innovation Awards have nine categories, and this year Yili Group was nominated in four. It won with its product Satine Active Lactoferrin Organic Pure Milk, in recognition of its breakthrough in directional lactoferrin extraction and protection technology.
Speaking to Xinhua, president of the jury for this year’s IDF Innovation Awards Caroline Edmond said that China is a strong presence in the context of innovation for the global dairy sector.
“Year after year, since we have introduced the innovation category, we see great participation from the Chinese community” …
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~
Hmmm…. “…bums in gutter…” as in Epstein Economy?
Nah, it was another Sweathog from the TV show… ‘Whore Shack’
LBJ to Paley: Send in the B-52s. (And make sure the “workers” have had their shots.)
[Did the producers of the show set on the Pacific Princess cruise boat imagine their idea being turned into the Lolita Express?]
send in the b-52’s?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxHyliIspkA
a little levity to lighten the mood :)
>>>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
> I am very happy with the results, and it validates my water OCD, lol
Our little city fired two City Chemists who actually tested for PCB’s. In any case, contaminants often come in short pulses, which undercuts testing procedures. It’s been known for decades that chloramine disinfection produced carcinogens in the presence of organic solids, so this one is just a new riff on an old song.
Clean air, clean water, clean food. Just because it comes out of the ground doesn’t mean the water is clean. Use the filter. Or distilled, with supplement minerals.
have stayed away from flouride for decades – new info bubbling to the surface –
https://www.science.org/content/article/does-fluoride-drinking-water-lower-iq-question-looms-large-court-battle
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6923889/
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/fluoride-childrens-health-grandjean-choi/
Some countries do have water supplies with naturally occurring fluoride (the USA is not one of them) and there is a maximum recommended level for public health. So it wouldn’t surprise me if some of them need to remove at least some of it.
Regarding the newly identified chemical, concentrations matter and also other factors like how long it stays around. Chlorine and ammonia, the reagents, are both very toxic as well but are used at very low concentrations. They are also quite volatile and degrade quickly to less harmful substances. The article is missing most of the information we would need to determine how much of a problem this is.
Why electric? Wouldn’t a fairly inexpensive (around $200) passive reverse osmosis system filter all this out?
simplicity.
reverse osmosis is only as good as the filter and regular filter-swapping/maintenance.
Downside of a basic distiller is that it’s slow. if you have a large family, you likely will need at least 2.
have used under sink RO unit with 3gal reservoir for over 30 years – filters last a long time and have it hooked to ice-maker in fridge – very easy and simple – use the K*****co RO system – have heard of problems with whole house RO systems and those filters are very expensive –
When I was still living in Seattle I sold my espresso machine to a recently retired guy who had worked for the city water department. I brought it over to his place and noticed that he had one of those 5 gallon water dispensers in his apartment. When I asked him about it he said he would never ever drink city water. We use a Berkeley water filter for drinking and cooking purposes.
the Berkey system is the best passive system available imho and use at cabin where we pump water –
I actually trust the NYC tap water in general. What I don’t trust are the pipes.
– ‘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.
English translation of a short German text from indie site Telepolis on the issues with Applebaum and Snyder and their “historic scholarship”:
Far from Science
June 8, 2022 – David X. Noack
https://archive.is/KbXQm
That hack Snyder was on TVO’s “The Agenda” last week along with three other equally pro-Ukrainian panelists — it was painful to endure.
I can well imagine that pain…
“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)
Is this not like the master viroligist, guy who didn’t see the internet(the road ahead), declaring AI energy needs would be paid out by AI efficiency?
The guardian is not a serious publication.
There won’t be more weapons, just that what meagre weapons will be produce will be much more expensive…
I believe the Russian assets at Euroclear are closer to $190 billion, so after everyone has had their cut, there may be enough left to get a decommissioned, rusty LAV-25 and a cup of coffee.
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?
How would he get out, with a chauffeur?
https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/aunb4d/tesla_driver_killed_after_being_trapped_in/
https://www.autoblog.com/news/tesla-is-responsible-for-more-fatal-accidents-than-any-other-carmaker-the-reason-why-may-surprise-you
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.
I see it as proof of concept only, not meant to be functonal or mass produced. The angular lines, sharp angles are intended to keep not only the truck minimal, but also the production lines, because smooth curves = production/manufacturing complexity = additional cost. Musk is all about the production lines, obsessed even, constantly trying to impose the SpaceX model where he dramatically reduced the cost of rockets by stripping them down to absolute essentials and minimals, removing anything unnecessary, anything that adds bulk and cost. The Cybertruck is the same – hence the half-steering wheels.
But apparently the look comes direct from combining the cars in the film Blade Runner, the Delorean in Back to the Future, the Warthog in the game Halo, and the Mars rovers. So naturally the look is likely only going to appeal to gamers and perhaps fans of science fiction.
Design by KISS rule? Keep It Simple Stupid.
We should have more of that. At some point, our genius car designers decided it was a good idea to put fuel pumps “inside” gas tanks. One of the dumbest idea’s ever.
Of course that doesn’t mean to design a car this ugly, and they are ugly.
I saw one recently in NYC. They are even uglier in real life than in the pictures.
Not only ugly but amazingly, considering the expense and supposed materials, like a 3D printer plastic model reject.
They are delibarately so, the suburban do not tread on me, and i’ll never need a charge.
Economy. A neighbor bought one several months back. He said he drives about 70 miles most days. He told me his gasoline pickup used to cost him about $400/mo while his CT only increased his electric bill by about $8/mo. Even if I heard wrong and his electric bill went up by $80/mo he’s still saving a lot of money.
So if he drives it for the next 15 years and assuming no battery replacement, financing costs, or other costs over the truck, he’ll break even. $8 a month does sound implausibly low assuming 70 miles a day for 22 days a month.
Or he could have bought a Prius or a Ford Maverick and pay about $110-140/month for gas and have a far easier time parking.
My niece’s boyfriend’s boss has one, and he got the extra battery pack installed. I believe it weighs something like an extra 2000kg, and – get this – it halves the already limited space available in the “truck bed”. Plus, when the batteries get low, they begin to drain REALLY quickly with all that useless extra weight to haul around.
In the very wealthy – MS, Amazon, Google, Arsebook, etc. – Bellevue/Redmond/Kirkland area (just east of Lake Washington and Seattle) they are fairly common, but one still never gets reconciled to the staggering ugliness. We saw one with a Stars ‘n’ Stripes full-vehicle wrap a few weeks back: most ridiculous-looking vehicle ever? We think so…
Given the occasional vehicle to vehicle shootings in our neck of the woods Musk must see a market for a bulletproof vanity truck. Our precedent may be more Mad Max than Back to the Future.
Something is off with this story. The truck body is supposed to be made of stainless steel. If it was stainless steel you wouldn’t be able to attach magnets to it. Nor would it rust. As most boat owners know, mixing and matching different kinds of metal leads to galvanic corrosion, hence why mariners tend to use SS, and the Cybertruck engineers would have known this too, I assume it’s why they chose SS. So I’m not sure if I should be doubting the story – need to go get a magnet and find myself a cybertruck to test whether it’s SS or not.
Does anyone in the NC commentariat know anyone with a cybertruck?
I’m not privy to the design of the CT but if there’s plain steel behind a layer of SS then strong magnets will stick.
SS is actually corrosion-resistant steel and, yes, it can rust under the right conditions. Typically the rust forms at the edges of anything touching it, even dirt. I can’t remember the details from my studies 50 years ago but IIRC it has to do with the oxygen levels at the edges of the SS and whatever is touching it. I’ve had many pieces of SS corrode so I’m careful to keep everything off the SS. “Crevice corrosion – also localised corrosion that occurs at the crevice between two joining surfaces. It can happen between two metals or a metal and a non-metal.” – https://www.thyssenkrupp-materials.co.uk/does-stainless-steel-rust
If Im not mistaken, cheap stainless steel has a lower nickel content in the alloy making the SS magnetic.
Musk took a page out of the appliance makers handbook.
See my comment above.
There are two primary types of stainless steel, one of which is magnetic.
And stainless will definitely rust under certain conditions. Frank Gehry was forced to use stainless rather than titanium veneer on panels for his Beekman tower in NYC and between the salt air and crud buildup on the surface it started rusting in about a year.
They sand blasted and sealed the steel under a clear sealer. We’ll now learn what the design life of the sealer really is…
Thank you jsn. You win and you get your choice of prizes off of the top shelf. One of the things I love about this site is if you can keep your mouth shut someone else will give the correct answer.
They are rusting because no one likes them. All of their owners are also rusting inside, except for the Kadyrov guy.
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.
“Unprovoked” should be in quotation marks. Russian counterattack will be as unprovoked as American attack on Japanese planes at Pearl Harbor and everyone around the world other than the most deluded will see it.
I honestly can’t tell to what extent most Westerners will see it.
Try this: the US Blob recongnizes that the UKR is lost. How to recover something out of it?
Get Europe and Russia to attack each other with nukes. While the US sits by and watches.
It’s a win. Russia damaged, the Russia-China axis strained (is China going to take a nuke or two for Russia?). And the US gets to move ahead to its war with China, with the Chinese ally in a damaged condition.
Dark? Yeah but no matter how cynical I get, its hard to keep up.
Interesting.
Most of the nukes in Europe that could get to Russia will some be US’. UK and France shooting all theirs not that big!
I had not heard of any war games including during pre INF intermediate forces treaty that ended short of MAD.
Will Russia limit its nukes just to Europe, if they go nuke? IIRC, Russians used to plan nuclear war such that if they do go nuclear, they’d go big. None of the NATO countries will survive as functioning states, that is, if we get lucky.
As we have seen, Putin likes to escalate incrementally. Firing just one towards Baltics, or Poland, could be thing. Would USA fire the nukes because Vilnius is no more? Not really. It sounds a bit Ukrainian anyway.
“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.
He’s not quite who you think he is. Stephen, and I call him by his first name because I know him personally, has quite a lot of affection towards Russia (he even has a Russian husband!). Rather naively, he still believes that good relations between Russia and the US are possible, a lot of his ambitions are guided by these hopes. Buying NS 2 is rather zany scheme, and it has almost no chance of coming to fruition, but I do give him some points for creativity.
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.
The ICC was the logical outcome of the Special Tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and the Special Court for Sierra Leone. It was pushed by NGOs, human rights lawyers and goodthinking donor countries like Canada and Sweden. The arrival of Blair’s government in 1997, with a lot of NGO baggage, also helped a lot. The idea was explicitly to provide “justice” for those otherwise denied it, mainly in countries where the justice system was not operating and the state had broken down. Whether this was ever practicable is a separate question, but it was obvious from the start to those of us of a sceptical turn of mind that the Court would soon be politically manipulated, and this proved to be the case, not least because of the incompetence of the Prosecutors. Now, boot meet other foot.
That said, I wouldn’t understate the embarrassment and harassment that this is going to cause. No signatory state will now let Netanyahu visit, which is going to hurt his holiday plans. The words “indicted war criminal” will be appended to his name everywhere he goes. I assume the ICC investigation is still continuing, so all sorts of other senior people might start to feel nervous about what they’ve done and what might happen to them. By itself the indictment won’t change anything, but as a political multiplier it could still be quite significant.
Imo it will, and maybe already is, goosing demonstrations. It took time, but that ended the Vietnam war and draft.
Beyond that, it might boost BRICS enthusiasm.
Isn’t an NGO just an infectious particle of Oligarchy?
Maybe a “plutostule”?
Most politically oriented NGOs are intel operations or at least they form a key part of that community.
Not in the UK, anyway. It was the likes of Saferworld, anti-militarist organisations, Quaker peace movements, Oxfam, Amnesty International and various human rights groups and church organisations that were pushing for it. I met some of those concerned, and they were true believers. The Labour Party had been out of power for 17 years at that point, and they leaned very heavily on such groups, and were greatly influenced by them.
I think maybe the Plutostules are a Democrat adjacent American phenomenon.
Yes, I remember Philippe Sands’ activities and books in that regard. However, it is surely possible to be simultaneously a true believer and a front for something else rather evil. In my experience many people who are true believers also believe that in the long run everything they do will end up promoting good, even if they are working for Satan himself.
Over time you may be right but for the moment it means very little. The “world” knows that the US and Israel make their own rules using force wherever they can. There is, as far as I can see, nothing like the situation in the late 90s. It’s a completely different world. Maybe some countries will claim to want to honor the ICC but in fact won’t–I’ve seen this kind of thing before with international organizations. As for the citizens of the US and Europe–they generally don’t matter in foreign affairs and wars and can be ignored or jailed.
The weighed judgement is an important reminder.
However the state since that decency has collapsed completely.
It´s insane (think Canda and Sweden then and today)
>”No signatory state will now let Netanyahu visit, which is going to hurt his holiday plans.”
lets make a list in 2025.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States_parties_to_the_Rome_Statute
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.
Watch out there Carolinian. After the “free wood” sign gets used, the elites will follow it up with a ban on wood heaters and fireplaces. To save the planet, don’cha know.
How’s that gentrification program going up there in the piney woods? (Pay close attention to proposed zoning regulations. The elites have fully incorporated the strategy of not letting any disaster go to waste.)
I got nothing against Bob & Betty Bitchin’ from Burbank and their fetching kids: Trevor & Truly, on a 3-day-tour, a 3-day-tour… but i’m out as far as being a wannabe-Hilton.
“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.
Would that the Pentagon were … or is it?
Well, there already is the Concourse in the Pentagon so could build around that, but kind of redundant given Pentagon City across the freeway.
Re Stoller on Google and possible trial results
“Google pays these entities to default its search engine, and not feature the search engine of its rivals”
I use both a Chromebook and Android and now Apple. On all three I have made DuckDuckGo the search engine used in the address bar. So this is not a monopoly although undoubtedly the great majority of people owning these devices never bother to change the default in settings. But if corporate dominance is the target then surely Amazon must be next or even Walmart.
To be sure Google has decided to be evil after all with its recent plunge into censorship so it’s hard to feel sorry for them. But I’m not sure justice is being served if the solution is to throw more business to rival behemoths. Apple is one of the world’s richest companies and Microsoft owns the search engine used in DuckDuckGo.
So, antitrust theater or truly a step forward?
“I use both a Chromebook and Android and now Apple. On all three I have made DuckDuckGo the search engine used in the address bar…”
You’re going to get me riled up and say the main feature that so much tech depends on is laziness.
Yes we were Duck users for quite a while. However, when they announced they were elimiting any links from Russia (and what other “misinformation”?), we dropped them quick. Russia Russia – Baaaaad. Been using Brave which is quite open and clearly anti-Gaggle.
“Try it you’ll like it”
Brave is built on the Microsoft Bing platform. I use it, but it has been blanking out all images for me in search results. So I’m looking for a new browser. Does anyone know of problems with Firefox?
Firefox works fine for me – also use Brave as well as Duck & Gaggle(rarely, but love the maps) and Yandex is another alternative to use without the gaggle sieve –
I’ve been using Brave for a while now. Just today I noticed that every second or third time I open a new tab, instead of the normal background, I’m treated to some crypto humping DOGE laser dog.
Not amused.
I use Presearch. It was mentioned here a while back, so I installed it. I like it.
have Presearch as well in the lineup and SwissCows was also mentioned a while back too –
No one changes the default settings. Or more pedantic…. the tiny minority of techies that bother to look through menus and change default settings are not the population that pays any attention to ads, so they don’t exist in the context of capturing marketing dollars.
This goes way back before browsers even existed…. no one ever installed software that came in the box as long as the hardware was minimally functional without it. And of those that did – the software would never get used, people couldn’t be bothered.
about:config is your friend
Thankfully, this was litigated at length in the trial. And Google is a monopoly. The fact that you were able to change your default search engine does not make it less so.
That was the decision of the judge. It doesn’t mean we have to agree with it. Personally I could care less which tech bigfoot controls the online ad market.
In my view Google’s real sin would be recent attempts to limit and control online speech and that’s what the Biden admin wants it to do.
You certainly don’t, but given the preponderance of evidence, that’s puzzling.
So you don’t believe that Google thwarts competition in Search? Neeva didn’t fold because of Google’s dominance in this area, but some other reason? There hasn’t been a serious other entrant in Search, from either startups or Apple, because Google has the best Search? I guess it works really well for you, then?
All puzzling. But people have weird beliefs contrary to evidence all the time, so I guess this shouldn’t surprise at all.
90 percent of my searches are for routine things like Wikipedia and like I say I only use DDG which is fine for that. One reason I don’t Google search is that they enclose their links in a Google link along with their in general spybotting which is designed to keep you online as much as possible and to even follow you around. At one time they would even read your Gmails for ad suggestions although they claim to no longer do that.
It’s true that DDG and likely any startup search engines don’t give you the kind of exotic and useful results that Google was once famous for, but then Google itself seems to have lost interest in their original mission and the web itself has changed. And as I said upthread, when it comes to crushing startups they aren’t much different from Amazon and other big tech competitors.
‘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.
Itis good to have someone reliable upon whom we can count. Lindsay Graham. Always on target with the stupid of the day.
But he should keep an eye on his six. Tom Cotton is closing fast.
Yes, the last bedrock, the anchor of stability in USian society now is the stupidity.
In the same way that however cynical I become it isn’t cynical enough, whenever I think we’ve hit bedrock stupidity I’m inspired by some new hyper-dense, blunt reality these anti-thinkers have conjured that promises some grand advance in entropy!
The other day there was a conversation on here about Musk buying MSNBC. Today, if you have a Twitter account Rachel Maddow is trending. There is a clip of her on her show talking about Musk buying MSNBC and she had a meltdown and broke down in tears. I don’t know how fake it is, but if it were come to pass it would be quite funny IMO.
She’s made millions lying her ass off for years, so I think she’ll be fine and will have the last laugh with all her millions. As dirty as it they might be.
Comcast reportedly cut her salary from $30 million a year to $25 million a year in her contract renewal a few days ago.
https://nypost.com/2024/11/21/media/msnbcs-rachel-maddows-salary-reportedly-cut-by-5m-despite-being-ratings-viagra/
Still a highly paid liar. Then again, most of them are. That’s why people shouldn’t freak out if Musk bought MSNBC. Maddow and company would be glad to spew a different line of BS if they were paid enough to do so.
Look at Nicole Wallace, one of the MSNBC darlings today. Used to be a full blown neocon under Bush, and hated by the left.
As far as highly paid liars go, isn’t Musk the king of ’em all?
No, the only liars in the world are Fox News. I heard this at a dinner party last night when my neighbour, who runs a remote-controlled NGO in Myanmar, told us after visiting Indonesia (where she’s planning another remote-controlled NGO, or rather her funders presumably are) that everyone there supports Trump because the only foreign news channel she could get was Fox News.
I don’t think it quite occurred to her that most Indonesians prefer to speak their home language, and that she had no idea what the Indonesian-language channels were saying. I really doubt that Rupert Murdoch has turned all of Indonesia into his clones.
Rats flee the ship…between that channel and CNN it just couldn’t happen to a nicer collection of duly educated elites. I saw a reference to Nicole Wallace, presenting an example of a once card carrying Republican being a show anchor or host…a little taste of vomit was in the offing after reading that. She goes in the camp with David Frum over at the wondrous Atlantic ( sarc ).
For CNN by comparison, I can take a weekly dose of Michael Smerconish but not much more than his one hour on Saturday.
Speaking of newsrooms, this just in: “Israel sanctions Haaretz”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqB–QLg8rA&ab_channel=AlJazeeraEnglish
wow. Thanks for the link.
I’m surprised that they lasted as long as they did.
that link is now erased – nada – vanished!
an aside: A 2006 short essay in the FT about The City of London, no paywall.
How the City of London came to power
https://www.ft.com/content/269241e0-b840-11da-bfc5-0000779e2340
Behind a subscription wall for me, had to go here:
https://archive.ph/joKTv
As Yves has often remarked, “archive.org is your friend”.
cool
A piece of propaganda so impressive it must have been written by Laura J. Richardson.
Terror to the South: Hezbollah in Latin America
“Hezbollah’s presence in Latin America should alarm Western defense officials. While the terrorist organization continues to volley missiles at Israel daily, it is also increasing its involvement in transnational criminal activity, as its financiers the Islamic Republic of Iran increases its influence in the region. The incoming Trump Administration, with newly appointed Secretary of State Marco Rubio—an unyielding opponent of repressive regimes—should work closely with its Latin American allies and Israel to destroy Hezbollah’s fundraising in the region which not only enables terrorist activity in the Middle East, but also threatens the southern border with illicit drugs and potential terrorism.”
https://realclearwire.com/articles/2024/11/22/terror_to_the_south_hezbollah_in_latin_america_1073998.html
>Marco Rubio—an unyielding opponent of repressive regimes…
Gasp! Who knew?
Somebody is watching the Lioness TV Show and thinks is a documentary, same as with that old one, The West Wing, eh…?!
Huckabee as Trump’s pick for Israel ambassador is a win for Christian Zionism. Here’s why – USA Today
Trump trying to live up to his internet moniker of “Zion Don”.
If MMT is wrong, why is it so much better at predicting the economy – and economic disaster?- Dougald Lamont’s Substack
“They did not recognize how difficult it is to make reliable inferences about causality from observations on variables that are part of a simultaneous system…”
Hence the dream of governments and corporations going back to the earlier part of last century: that society can be controlled in a computer simulated environment of 1s and Os.
Society AND nature.
“…After the crash, Mellon thought the answer was to let everyone go bankrupt – with the “free market” idea that once the prices of labour and everything else got low enough, the system would fire up again. He said:
“Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate. It will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up from less competent people.”
The “free market” as rebranded Social Darwinism by way of Calvinist capitalist values.
“…The global financial crisis and the Euro crisis driven by Greece are perfect examples of economists’ failure to see a catastrophe coming.
They were often predicted by heterodox economists – so-called “Post-Keynesians” who follow Keynes legacy most faithfully, as well as proponents of MMT who recognized that the business cycle – the boom and bust – is driven by private debt.
To others – including Alan Greenspan – these crises somehow managed to be a complete surprise, followed by mass panic and policies that only manage to push the problem further down the road.
If you read reports of central banks the year before the global financial crisis, there is no clue that anything untoward might happen. Greece actually received a reward for one of the best run economies. Many governments had actually been in surplus…”
Everything isn’t oversight. Pump and dump – intentionally – is a real thing.
https://www.ft.com/content/da966006-88e5-4c25-9075-7c07c4702e06
Russia recruits Yemeni mercenaries to fight in Ukraine
Russia’s armed forces have recruited hundreds of Yemeni men to fight in Ukraine, brought by a shadowy trafficking operation that highlights the growing links between Moscow and the Houthi rebel group.
Yemeni recruits who travelled to Russia told the Financial Times they were promised high salaried employment and even Russian citizenship. When they arrived with the help of a Houthi-linked company, they were then forcibly inducted into the Russian army and sent to the front lines in Ukraine.
Yes, for as everyone at the Financial Times knows, there is nobody in the Russian Army at all, it is a cardboard cutout, and all that is needed is to kick down the door and the whole rotten structure will collapse, ja werklich.
Regarding the Patricia Marins X post linked above on the topic of the attack on the Ukrainian Yuzhmash facility, this is the first attempt I have seen to describe, even if hypothetically, the current (or, rather, up until the attack) disposition of the facility. I had been wondering if it was being used to manufacture drones, or as a storage site for military equipment, or possibly even as a military planning site. Patricia implies the site was suspected by the Russians to produce components for drones, as well as for Bradley and Leopard repair — the latter begging the question of whether the repair teams included America/German personnel.
Provided this is true, the Russians got a three-fer for this attack:
1) Successful field test for a novel weapons system
2) A stark demonstration/message directed more towards the Western backers of Ukraine than Zelensky and co.
3) The (presumably) successful destruction of a target of some military value, significance unknown
I placed these in this order because 1) must necessarily precede 2); if the deployment had failed, then 2) is negated. However, there may have been enough confidence in the system due to rigorous prior testing that 1) is diminished as a goal.
Regarding the testimonies alluded to by Martyanov that the facility vanished into oblivion, some visual evidence would be “nice” — maybe some Shaheds or what have you can courteously snap a few photos/videos en route to other destinations. Given that these appear to have been penetrator-type kinetic payloads, one can imagine the sub-structure supports being compromised (if not outright vaporized) and the above-ground structures collapsing into the “hole”, if you will.
One thing I wonder about this missile system is if modularity is implied; in other words, considering four major components (booster, capsule, vehicle, sub-munition) if configurability and compatibility weren’t objectives. They could produce any of the four independently, but each would be compatible with any other component (save maybe capsule and booster would have to be coupled.) So any sub-munition, be it kinetic, conventional, fissile (if that’s even a thing anymore), thermonuclear could conceivably be installed on an IRBM, SRBM, or ICBM as seen fit. Admittedly, that is pure speculation and may not be technically feasible.
Finally, M. K. Bhadrakumar has a new post where he relays speculation as to arrival times of Orezhnik to any destination in Europe, if launched from Kaliningrad, to be under seven minutes. The outer range of the missile is cited at 5000km. Just for giggles, I pulled up Google maps in Globe mode and used their measuring tool to see what 5000km got us from particular starting points. The continental US (c-US) is out of range from most of Russia, but from the far east could reach western states within an arc from approximately Minnesota to California (including San Diego). However, if placed in Venezuela, roughly 75-80% of c-US is in range. In Cuba, the entirety of c-US is conceivably targetable. Now, didn’t the Russian navy pay a friendly visit to Havana maybe six months ago or so?
Best coverage of Russia’s Orezhnik missile strike on the Yuzhmash facility in Ukraine was linked above by Yves to this substack from Scott Ritter:
https://open.substack.com/pub/scottritter/p/on-the-brink
@hamstak
Lots of interesting detail in that article; thank you. What confuses me a bit is that Putin states that the missile is still in a test phase, but at the same time that it is entering serial production. Not sure what to make of that.
US’ F-35 has not passed many tests and US has built almost 700. It needs either a new more powerful engine or cooling that requires no energy! The $2 trillion life time price tag is fiction.
The F-35 is getting a new front radar that needs more cooling!
USS Gerald Ford has been on the water for years and some of it is not fully accepted, and the next copy is well on the way.
After the in the recent field test I think Putin can go produce the rocket!
Especially if the “Orezhnik” is something like a slightly smaller version of the Topol-family of ICBMs. Remove one stage and add some maneuvering in the upper layers of atmosphere and it will have half the range.
You’d be basically working with true and tested 1970’s solid-fuel technology with less than 10 year old production lines. You would merely need to test if it works as intended, and be ready to start churning them out.
I gather that the new technology is largely the hypersonic multiple warheads.
I have chided you before for opining in areas that require expertise and not providing links.
No and I have a post soon to launch on this. The consensus is that the warheads struck the ground at hypersonic speed, as measured from videos of the final impact. That would enormously increase the destructive forces, both kinetic and the incredible heat. That looks to be a new accomplishment and not sufficiently acknowledged anywhere. Simplicius had earlier said in a long form treatment of Russia’s other hypersonic that they were NOT traveling at hypersonic speed at impact, that the air resistance slowed them to below hypersonic speeds. One of the new accomplishments is special alloys to withstand the atmospheric friciton.
sorry if this was already addressed e.g. by scientists among the commentariat
…perhaps it´s possible to answer whether the concept of hitting targets deep underground – (see also the bunker used by NATO destroyed this spring via Kinzhal) – includes explosives in the warhead or relies only on the kinetic energy without explosives.
Comments on MoA on this WE had a few comments re: the kinetic energy released through hypersonic speeds.
p.s. drawn from MoA comments section to
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/11/ukraine-open-thread-2024-279/comments/page/2/#comments
Nov. 21
-“A question: I understand a heavy inert mass traveling super duper hypersonic releasing great energy on impact, E=MC2 and all that, that’s how a meteor works, but how does an active hypersonic warhead work, wouldn’t it be destroyed before it could detonate?”
by LightYearsFromHome
-“That is not how a meteor “works“.
E=mc^2 is the equation for conversion of matter into energy. It does not apply to the mass of moving missiles, meteors, lumps of material at well below the speed of light.”
by Liolia Paluzas
-“Mach 13 is 4.3 times faster than Mach 3. Kinetic energy increases by the square of the velocity, so a Mach 13 impact would be 18.7 times more powerful than a Mach 3 impact of the same mass.”
by Norwegian
-“Atmospheric friction causes materials to burn like it was demonstrated live with the recent “Starships”. But if you have sufficient heat-resistant materials and/or perhaps some unknown way to e.g. use the ionization to act as an insulator then you could do impressive stuff at incredible speeds. After all there is talk of “new physical principles” from the Russians.”
by Norwegian
-“To convert speed of an object in energy multiply the square of the speed by the mass a divide by 2. That’s for Newton physics, not relativity (E=MC2).”
Posted by: scc
Nov. 22
-“TNT releases 4.2 MJ/kg
impactor @4km/s releases 8 MJ/kg
impactor @7km/s releases 24.5 MJ/kg
i.e. no explosives needed
Nothing blocking the US from using their assets in a similar way?”
by: MAKK
You should make of it that Putin is keeping his cards close to his chest. In times of war, there are no extra points for telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Some things to ruminate…
artificial limbs market and their research and development uses in robotics, think having human users brainstorming for robotics manufacturers (unpaid labor) on the excuse that feedback will improve patient experience but in reality it’s being used to improve robots. This article below never mentions wartime injuries as a growth point, but it very obviously is a major driver…
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/artificial-limbs-market-report-2022-142400535.html
Second mouthful of cud…
Had the us not blown nordstream, where would the us glut of natgas been sold, and would that not have caused usian prices to be much cheaper for the hoi polloi? Cui Bono?
This last as I wondered why the panic in small circles re tariffs…do we not have 100% tariff on byd?
Are sanctions not tariffs under another name?
The sanctions/tariff thing probably does have an explanation I am not qualified to regurgitate in digestible form…
To the poster above me re san diego I noticed a news story last week touting 3 aircraft carriers leaving SD on the same day, according to the blurb an unusual event
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/why-did-3-aircraft-carriers-just-leave-san-diego-213787
Thanks for that second link; it interests me as I am a denizen of (or rather semi-permanent visitor to) that very city. However, the headline is a bit sensationalist — perhaps not surprising coming from TNI. As per the article’s contents, the Nimitz is heading to Seattle for retirement; the Carl Vinson is off to the Indo-Pacific; the Kaga is in fact Japanese. What is interesting about the presence of the Kaga is that it had been involved in training with F35Bs, for whatever that is worth.
So antivaxers are losing their minds over Trump’s surgeon general pick, because she recommended COVID shots once.
And that got me thinking, about Biden effectively ending public health as we’ve enjoyed it the past 50 years. How do you convince someone that sterilizing vaccines actually work? How do you convince someone that public health works? We’ve lived in a golden era of infections disease control.
How do you provide the absence of disease, to someone that distrusts you. And thanks to Biden, with good reason. Using economic terrorism to force people to get a — know at that time — non-sterilizing vaccine. How could that end well?
This isn’t like arguing about the sunrise. Drop a denier near the equator and tell them to wait 12 hours, for their ignorance shall be revealed by the light of the morning sun. No so with public health. We can only demonstrate effectiveness with population level statistical data. You can’t make someone a believer in the visceral way that the rising sun makes you a believe that the sun does indeed rise.
What a debacle.
How this ends is a return to an era of infectious disease out of control, with death, disfigurement, and disability. Only then, is there even some possibility that people might take public heath interventions seriously, and not necessarily even then.
Thanks Democrats!
I told a friend that Biden and Kamala ripping their masks off to declare the end of Covid because of the vaccines along with the governmental actions that followed was a far bigger mistake than anything Trump did. I even said this will blow up public health. When we were catching up a few weeks ago, he brought that up out of the blue. I was shocked, because similar to inflation supposedly being over, the media continues the pretending Covid is no big deal even when they have to notice it because an outbreak has closed schools or filled up hospitals and Long Covid is more prevalent. He may have thought I was overreacting, but is now firmly of the belief that deliberately fostering willful ignorance is backfiring and any major outbreak will be unstoppable, even in the unlikely event that our public health bodies and elected officials choose to try.
This was one of the times I really wish I could go “boy, was I wrong.” Unfortunately it is not.
Some of the more cynical among us consider this as an aspect of the ‘Jackpot’ strategy to reduce Terran human population levels world-wide. When tasked with this opinion, I refer back to the 1968 Club of Rome report on world population. It suggests that 500 million is the optimal world population. Since much of the past century’s population increase is due to the effectiveness of Public Health measures, then it is perversely logical that removing the effects of positive Public Health would be an “easy” way to return the world to the halcyon days of “The Golden Age.”
Think the world post the Great Plagues but with robots to do much of the labour.
Stay safe. Do your own Personal Protective Programming.
Re: antidote
I checked the poster’s feed on Twitter/X. They have a real gift for captions. I’m not sure whether all the images are genuine, but they do collectively convey a sense of place (somewhere in North Asia, it seems) so who knows.
Sample caption, on a closeup of a quizzical-looking snowy owl:
Are you lost, friend? There’s many paths through these ancient and mysterious woods, but only one of them leads out.
re: Ukraine
Tonight 8 pm
panel: CN Live! — ‘Escalation’
Tension is soaring in the two insanely dangerous wars in Ukraine and the Mideast.
We pick the brains of Ray McGovern, Scott Ritter and Ted Postol at 8pm EST tonight!
https://consortiumnews.com/2024/11/24/watch-cn-live-escalation/
Thank You AG!
Very interesting conversation.
tawal
sorry but JACOBIN has an article “Democracy Is Not a Customer Loyalty Program”
written by a! Joseph Gubbels!
🤣🤣🤣
that´s almost “Hynkel” quality
The New Oreshnik Missile Attack on Dnipro Millenium 7* Youtube 25 min.
Full disclosure I’ve more or less tuned out from the Clash of Empires, so possibly/probably someone else has raised some of the points he outlines in the video.
But it left me wondering, how does this new turn not present a security dilemma to Europe?
How does it not present a security dilemma to the US, by way of the example in the video of the Misawa AFB in Japan?
I tried getting through the previous commentary on the topic of Oreshnik. Yes probably some of what people were saying above is true – what is also true is, with the missle tech gap widening between East and West, the only logical choice (from a certain perspective, one to which I don’t personally subscribe, even if I can understand it) is to continue fighting.
The only hope, if hope is the correct word, is to continue disrupting and attriting the Russian military industrial complex in order to slow the production of munitions against which the Western powers do not currently have a defense, and cannot field equivalent offensive systems.
The Soviets (now the the Russian Federation) had (have) the Dead Hand.
What shall we name our doomsday device?
For all his lofty rhetoric, Mr. Putin still controls the final move. Who is the more cynical party?
I would say we won’t know until the missiles are flying, but they already are.
lolz
The internal logic of the situation is exactly that of the schoolyard. Unless someone goes home to tell Dad what happened both parties are committed to their next move already. The West must make another attack sufficient to warrant reprisal and Russia must strike outside the borders of Ukraine.
What happens after that is the question, how will the West respond. Large movements of forces are not likely because they could easily trigger preemptive strikes in this situation, they would come later. Of course Russia already has nearly a million troops on the line of contact with 3 new armies stooging around in the background but these are not the forces needed if the West responds badly. I would think that tactical nuclear warheads on both sides are being served out to short range and medium range systems as we speak.
If you didn’t watch the video, i can’t say i blame you, even for a lazy sunday (my time) 25 minutes is a good chunk of time to devote to someone on the internet.
He explores the implications (again, this may have been stated elsewhere already) of the Oreshnik system thusly:
Discussing its possible/confirmed range,
Its possible missile family – he supposes its from a group that has been in service with the navy for some time, ie, the factories are built and could possibly be poised for or already scaled to mass production,
The massive offensive efficencies gained by a system with its capabilities, he infers in his Misawa example that Oreshnik reduces the number of missiles necessary for crippling a forward base of operations of its kind by close to 100, maybe more i can’t remember,
The potential to completely ground NATO air superiority capabilities in Europe, the cornerstone of NATO military strategy,
The potential to completely/preemptively disarm NATO missile strike capabilities in Europe,
The possibility of sharing such technologies with “friendly” countries, who might know a thing or two about mass producing missiles.
This is as close to a checkmate move as I think we’ve seen so far. I’m not sure what flipping the table looks like in this situation but i’ll remain hopeful – because why not right – that it doesn’t look like the obvious thing you’ve suggested.
p.s. The almost total lack of targets on the Scandinavian peninsula is a point of interest for me. Is that because of a lack of targets or the difficulty/ineffectiveness of shooting into that type of terrain? Or something else entirely?
Soft spot for trolls maybe?
Sweden was officially “neutral” since 1809, and even if Norway for some incomprehensible reason chose NATO in 1947, it categorically refused to have NATO bases and nuclear weapons within it’s borders.
Just give them some time; their “security” now requires them to paint huge targets on themselves.
I suspect that if Russia is looking for a target outside Ukraine to make an example of, they will strike the Brits. Nobody likes them anymore, and Keir Starmer has a face everyone wants to shoot a hypersonic missile at.
Eyup Lovely has the English dead to rights, and Putin cannot fail to have noticed.
There is nothing outside the US that is worth risking nuclear war over!
The old borders of the Ukraine SSR is nothing if it caused a nuke on DC.
Speaking of borders, it just occurred to me that both current big conflict areas – Ukraine and Israel – got their borders defined during the last century. Ukraine between 1922 and 1954, Israel between 1948 and 1968.
And in both cases mostly without giving two hoots about the local population’s opinions.
If DC got nuked and only DC, would that be so bad? You begin to wonder.
But the monuments!
It could end up like Logan’s Run, with Peter Ustinov and all of his cats in the Senate.
Might be an improvement, actually ?
“For all his lofty rhetoric, Mr. Putin still controls the final move.”
Russia isn’t some rogue isolated state with nothing to lose.
As I said earlier, Russia has alliances to maintain and nurture.
I would certainly agree with your assessment of the Russian government’s prudent management of their external commitments. However, the very existence of a Dead Hand defense precludes cooperation beyond a certain point. It would be irrational to believe otherwise.
It would also be irrational to ever test such a defense, or, equally important, to activate it.
To rebut your specific language, I believe Tzar Alexander III already has the last word – I’m sensing a pattern here – regarding alliances: “Russia only has two allies; the army and the navy.” In Mr. Putin’s words (paraphrased), “yeah, what he said.”
There’s a deeper observation somewhere here about a people/culture/nation that set out to dig the world’s deepest hole. Not in an (entirely) mocking way either, rather in what it reveals about the psychology of a people who would set out to do such a thing in the first place.
Seahawks are in first place in the West, for this week anyway.
Bread and circuses.
“What shall we name our doomsday device? ”
Joystick?
Regarding people hacking LLM robots. Go back and watch the movie Dark Star from 1974. The machines all have a kind of AI and talk to each other in English. The really funny part is this huge bomb that has gone a little mad and decides to detonate and destroy the space ship. The ship computer has several conversations with the bomb to convince it not to detonate. Finally one of the astronauts has a philosophical discussion with the bomb to convince it not to detonate. Amazingly prescient. I can imagine we’ll all be having conversations like this in the not too distant future.
This was a school project that evolved into a feature film. Really low budget but quite good.
Seconded. An early outing with John Carpenter and Dan O’Bannon !
“… and now for your listening entertainment: the ‘Ballad of NGC-891’.”
Dan O’Bannon also wrote the script for the near-perfection of the first Alien movie.
Yep, a script whose story bears an uncanny resemblance to Mario Bava’s Planet of the Vampires.
And the Van Vogt story “Black Destroyer.”
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Destroyer
Ah, yes, the sage advice of Commander Powell:
“Talk to the bomb. You have to talk to it, Doolittle. Teach it PHENOMENOLOGY.”
Mind you, the good Commander is dead at the time he gives this advice. Now there’s a phenomenon you don’t see every day, Chauncey. Oh, yes, and the director and co-writers . . . well, you may have heard of them, as noted above. But please feel free to, ahem, *surf* over and explore for yourself.
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0069945/
Well, we have a King who talks to plants. He’s been doing for years so it must work. The question is, does Keir Starmer have the mental ability of a twig. Otherwise, a great idea.
Live now:
ESCALATION – Scott Ritter, Ray McGovern & Ted Postol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ka2gVAdvWUE
Thanks Glen. Good information!