Footprints in Kenya ‘show distant relatives of modern humans coexisted’ Guardian (Kevin W)
The Mayflower passengers who arrived in Plymouth November 11, 1620
vs.
The Mayflower passengers who survived to Thanksgiving 1621, less than one year later. pic.twitter.com/wxc5y3nkll— The Redheaded libertarian (@TRHLofficial) November 28, 2024
#COVID-19
Friend visited cardiologist and told me they found mild atrial irregularity years after one covid infection (no vax).
"Don't worry, doc says it's fine because he sees it in almost everyone nowadays."
So, ugh…organ damage is now normal because everyone has it??
— Zagreus | Escaping Long Covid Hell (@zagreusrevival) November 28, 2024
Climate/Environment
BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street sued by Republican states over climate push Reuters (Micael T)
A strange new climate era is beginning to take hold Washington Post
Unexplained heat-wave ‘hotspots’ are popping up across the globe EurekAlert
Polar ice sheets decisive contributors to uncertainty in climate tipping points British Antarctic Society
If it seems like the Northern Hemisphere pattern has been volatile this month, you're not wrong.
Based on 45-90°N daily variability of 500mb heights, November so far has been the most volatile since 1985. Centers of action have been over SW Alaska, Baffin Island, and N Europe. pic.twitter.com/EFlc0g0ZXW
— World Climate Service (@WorldClimateSvc) November 27, 2024
Scientists trying to figure out why the last two years have been so hot Weather Network
China?
This is genuinely hilarious, when reality hits…
Milei in September 2023 (https://t.co/uwD2dbjnP8): "Not only will I not do business with China, I won’t do business with any communists."
Milei in The Economist today (https://t.co/Yk10RtAbT4): "Relations with China are… pic.twitter.com/BGe8vev6uq
— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) November 29, 2024
E.U. Vessels Surround Anchored Chinese Ship After Cables Are Severed in Baltic Sea New York Times (Kevin W). How is this detention not an illegal seizure, aka piracy, or at least illegal interference? From the article” “But U.S. intelligence officials have assessed that the cables were not cut deliberately”
India
Numb in India, part 7: Land of gloop Sam Kriss. Trust me, worth a read.
South of the Border
Bolsonaro allies nearly launched military coup in 2022, police report says Guardian (Kevin W)
European Disunion
Bloomberg: Europe set for coldest winter, posing energy risk International Affairs (Micael T)
Hope lies with Ursula Aftonbladet via machine translation. Micael T: “Media employees moonlighting as Monty Python.”
Well, then let’s talk about military capability Nachdenkseitsen via machine translation (Micael T)
Why is the Green Party using activist front groups to subvert the law and allow refugees to convert government benefits into untraceable cash? eugyppius (Micael T)
Romania orders election recount after TikTok bias claims BBC. Kevin W: “Apparently the Romanian main stream media ghosted this guy during the elections. Hey, can the US order an election recount after a Twitter bias claim?”
Old Blighty
British Parliament votes on euthanasia Aftonbladet via machine translation. Micael T: “‘Prime Minister Keir Starmer has previously spoken out as a proponent, but ahead of Friday’s vote, he chooses to keep quiet about how he will act.’ So he wants to kill you.”
You won't hear it on the news but CCTV cameras in London have been off for the last 24 hours.
Strange eh? pic.twitter.com/bqRtmxoSUg
— JeniusConcept (@ConceptJenius) November 27, 2024
Are they planning a false flag event in London? Alex Krainer (Micael T)
Israel v. The Resistance
Israel’s Genocide Day 419: UNRWA warns conditions for survival are ‘diminishing’ for Palestinians in north Gaza Mondoweiss (guurst)
Gaza facing most intense bombings since WWII: UN agency Anadolu Agency
Ceasefire Falters as Israel Launches Airstrikes, Artillery Shelling on Southern Lebanon Antiwar.com (Kevin W)
If The Gaza Ceasefire Holds, Israel Has Won Ian Welsh (Micael T. Note Israelis think over 2:1 otherwise, per below.
‘Why is Hezbollah celebrating?’ Israelis unconvinced by ceasefire agreement Middle East Eye
Prof. Mohammad Marandi: IDF Defeated by Hezbollah Hands Down – Tensions in Syria Growing Dialogue Works
Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire shows Iran a paper tiger Asia Times. Major difference with Marandi above. Marandi before had stressed that Iran had had to hold its fire while Gaza ceasefire talks were on so as not to be charged with being a spoiler. The US has played up the idea that Gaza ceasefire talks are again on after the Lebanon ceasefire. So those may need to die out before Iran strikes again. Marandi, who was correct and in a minority before re Iran’s actions, maintains that Iran will hit again and hit much harder than before.
Israel’s Trump Delusion Foreign Affairs
New Not-So-Cold War
Speech at a restricted attendance meeting of the CSTO Collective Security Council President of Russia
Ukrainian defenders hit oil depot in Russia’s Rostov Oblast and destroy radar for Buk air defence system – Ukraine’s General Staff Ukrainska Pravda
Lindsey Graham: Ukraine War all ‘about money’ International Affairs (Micael T)
* * * Russian Ruble Collapses As Putin’s Economy in Trouble Newsweek (Micael T). Russia is close to an autarky these days, and it banks are not exposed, so this is less consequential than it might seem. If I had to guess, the Russian very high inflation plays a big role, particularly if interest rates are deemed to be too low in light of that. But it may just as well have to do with technical matters, like Russia (generally? always?) requiring FX trades to be crossed on the Moscow Stock Exchange. While this greatly increases the value of Russia’s energy exports in home country terms and should boost inbound tourism, Russians who normally travel to warmer countries for vacations will likely shelve those plans for now. Historically a low rouble has been seen, like depressed stock prices, as a sign within Russia of weakness. I don’t know if that is as true now as it was historically.
A more granular take:
What is happening with the ruble?
The ruble has experienced the most significant rate of devaluation since August 2023. Compared to the dollar, it has reached lows not seen since mid-March 2022. It's currently trading at 108.1 rubles per USD.
One major factor contributing to…
— Russians With Attitude (@RWApodcast) November 27, 2024
Who benefits from a weak ruble? Vzglyad via machine translation (Micael T)
* * * Atlanticists mobilise to salvage NATO as Russia toughens its stance Indian Punchline (Kevin W)
Cyprus could become a member of NATO when conditions permit, the country’s president says Associated Press (Kevin W)
* * * Ultimate Irony Comes as Taliban Asks Russia’s Help To Evade US Sanctions, Closing 50-year Loop of Violence Antiwar.com (Kevin W)
Trump 2.0
Mexican president claims ‘no potential tariff war’ with US after call with Trump Guardian (Kevin W)
“Reimagining” the Resistance: Lawfare Warriors Express Regret But Not Remorse After Election Jonathan Turley
2024 Post Mortem
An Outside View of the US 2024 Presidential Election MR Online (Anthony L)
Federal Judge Pushes for Receiver Takeover of Rikers Island The City
Abortion
Trump Doesn’t Need Congress To Make Abortion Effectively Unavailable KFF Health News
Our No Longer Free Press
Trump-Zuckerberg’s Mar-a-Lago Chatter Suggests Imminent Changes in Meta* – Whistleblower Sputnik
AI
‘AI Ambition is Pushing Copper To Its Breaking Point’ The Register
Class Warfare
The dream wedding has gone to debt collection Märtha ran away from the bill Seher via machine translation (Micael T)
How the left became the enemy of the working classes Thomaz Fazi (Micael T)
Coffee at Highest Price in 47 years Semafor. Price of the excellent Thai coffee I buy has not budged.
Turkey Propaganda Doug Casey (Micael T)
Antidote du jour (via):
And a bonus:
They know exactly what they’re doing 😂 pic.twitter.com/Vqfvnazxp1
— Why you should have a cat (@ShouldHaveCat) November 29, 2024
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
‘Arnaud Bertrand
@RnaudBertrand
This is genuinely hilarious, when reality hits…
Milei in September 2023 (https://cepr.net/167657-2/): “Not only will I not do business with China, I won’t do business with any communists.” ‘
Maybe he got a shock after being elected that though he was a staunch supporter of the US & Israel, that did not mean that he would get preferential loans or ones without endless strings attached and preconditions. Maybe they even tried to steer him towards IMF loans or something. The fact that the Chinese are acting just like business people may have saved his bacon and explains why he is so happy with them.
In a similar vein, from the link to Numb in India with this quote, “…it turns out that if you want someone to administer capitalism well, you could do a lot worse than a Communist Party.”
Starmer will vote in favour IMO. Why do I predict that? Our newly elected UK Labour MP was one of the new intake that got immediate promotion to a select committee (thus annoying long-serving MPs). This has confirmed in the minds of everyone round here that he’s a Starmer …. ahem …. loyalist.
He posted his letter to Twitter announcing his support in last day or so. He might have hoped it wouldn’t get noticed, given that he’s one of many Labour MPs suddenly to have new Blue-sky accounts.
So I screenshot his letter and posted it to my mostly quiet Blue-sky account, tagging him. Irony is I’m probably not his least liked member of my family after my mum wrote rude stuff about him on Facebook within weeks of voting for him at the general election. All fun and games in this very marginal constituency!
His track record proves he is all in for the kill
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/starmer-winter-fuel-allowance-pensioners-b2611986.html
Re Russian economy: Yesterday I had a long phonecall with an excellent Russian journalist whom I have known for a long time. We talked about the prospects of an armistice and he believes that chances are quite good. Trump would give Selensky the necessary cover – “the bastard doesn´t want to deliver weapons anymore” – to call it quits and Putin is under a lot of domestic pressure because of inflation. There are also big problems re spareparts for the railways and other economic troubles.
I’m hoping your journalist friend is correct. I for one would appreciate moving away from the cliff edge.
Too optimistic?- The Europeans will try to torpedo any kind of agreement. What if they decide to admit Ukraine in the EU (I am not sure this is possible) that is now seen in Russia as NATO proxy?
“Snowless Finns suffer ‘eco-grief”
‘Snow has special meaning for many Finns, often connected to cherished memories, but a lack of snow can cause a sense of loss that researchers refer to as eco-grief.’
It’s those damn Russians. Finland joins NATO. Then suddenly their snow starts going away. Coincidence? I think not!
Does the Baltic Sea still freeze in winter, allowing one to wander for kilometers on the ice?
Damn, those pesky Russians are behind everything.
This quote from Anne Karhu-Angeli caught my eye, Snow brings light with it. It’s no longer dark and horrible. You can feel it in your body and your mind,” she says. I have a friend in Alaska who every winter spends two weeks in Oaxaca to beat the endless nights. He has mentioned that this is a thing for those who can manage it, and that the extended winter nights literally drive people crazy.
Same thing in all Nordic countries. During winter holidays, those who can fly away to places with a 100% sun-guarantee.
Useful Idiots on RU just posted:
Ukraine vs. Russia: Nuclear War, Frozen Conflict, or Peace? Debate w/ Simon Shuster
Senior Correspondent at TIME Magazine Simon Shuster on newly increased aggression in the Ukraine-Russian War
p.s. since I only started – Shuster as expected so far, is – well – in military terms not speaking about Ukraine but some other conflict on Venus or Pluto may be. But not this one.
https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/ukraine-vs-russia-nuclear-war-frozen
I wonder what others have to say to this.
Because the deep-seated prejudice of Shuster is very unsettling to witness.
The disagreement with Maté starts TC 20:00.
99% of what Shuster says is State Department ideology the kind of which doves share. Which is probably worse than nutty people who want to to bomb Russia but would never dare to carry that out.
Shuster is undermining serious understanding and makes scrutiny of US responsibility virtually impossible in the future.
One point where Maté agrees much too easily is Shuster´s allegation that Putin – of course – was lying around 2015 when neglecting RU troops in Donbas.
Jacques Baud has showed that there were no covert RU supportive military operations.
What is an undeniable indication that something is fundamentally wrong here – never would Shuster in this context say that e.g. Biden oder Austen or Blinken lied.
Putin? YESSSS!
WH? neva.
p.s.When Shuster says “the genocidal regime” early on it´s hard to wonder why the interview is happening at all.
What is the surplus value here?
Of course their bulk audience is not just NC-commentariat.
But it´s disconcerting. With this kind of mindset I see no way out of this for the next 50 years.
This is a closed “cold case.”
This is really distressing.
Re 2015, the media was braying with one voice that Russia was sending troops and materiel to Donbass. Baud finding for the UN that there were no Russian small arms sent would seen pretty dispositive, since that would be the easiest to provide.
The theory I once had, but it does not fit Baud’s facts, is that Russia might have provided deniable support, by allowing Russian soldiers to go what would otherwise be AWOL for some set time to help relatives in Donbass.
‘Why you should have a cat
@ShouldHaveCat
They know exactly what they’re doing 😂’
My god. I had forgotten that about cats. Sometimes having a cat in your home is like having an unsupervised toddler running around and not noticing them.
The picture was most probably generated. Even the HTTP link looks like a prompt: “a-butterfly-with-orange-and-black-wings-on-a-beige-background”.
Looks like a photo of a gift shop trinket.
‘The Redheaded libertarian
@TRHLofficial
The Mayflower passengers who arrived in Plymouth November 11, 1620
vs. The Mayflower passengers who survived to Thanksgiving 1621, less than one year later.’
Looking at the survivors for patterns, I can see a few. Larger families had a better chance of surviving than individuals. Women were heavily hit. And I notice more than a few children/teenagers as well surviving. Of course that is all only first impressions and would need a statistical analysis to see what the real story was.
Aftonbladet tells us that assisted dying is on the docket in England and its captive nation, Wales.
The headline is: “British Parliament votes on euthanasia”
Two thoughts:
— For whom? And will there be less parading around by the members in silly costumes with props like maces?
— Will anyone notice if the brain-dead English elite is euthanized?
I think that we all know that assistance in dying has gone on since time immemorial. Pneumonia is called the old-man’s friend. There is a debate in Italy as to exactly what women in Sardinia who took on the roles of an abbacadora did in easing death. The irony here is that people now want to schedule their deaths.
PS: Of course, zombies exist in the U.S. of A., too. Steny Hoyer, at the age of 172, was just returned to the Congress. I don’t subscribe to the idea that the voters are stupid, but I sure would like to know what kind of stun drugs are in the moo juice in southern Maryland.
Israeli scorpion gotta 🦂
https://x.com/RaniaKhalek/status/1862397943195562124
https://thecradle.co/articles-id/27889
That article says that Hezbollah are waiting for the Lebanese army to deploy but the army itself has no illusions what the Israelis are all about. Several times during the past few weeks the Israelis deliberately murdered troops of the Lebanese army with an airstrike for no reason whatsoever. The commander of Lebanon’s Armed Forces has just briefed the government on their plans for deployment but he also refused to go into any detail or say where Lebanese soldiers would have their barracks. And that can only be because he is not willing to show his plans to the Israelis. They are quite capable of bombing a barracks full of Lebanese troops on the grounds that they are not effective enough in disarming Hezbollah forces as a sort of message-
https://thecradle.co/articles/beirut-in-the-dark-about-lebanese-armys-deployment-plan-for-south-lebanon-report
The AP report on Cyprus becoming a member of NATO is like some letter from some fantasy land.
Cyprus is a well-kept mess for the convenience of the bigger states involved. Note the mention of Turkey having 35,000 in the occupied / breakaway north. This is on a small island with a total population of roughly one million.
From WIkipedia: “The Turkish invasion, the ensuing occupation and the declaration of independence by the TRNC have been condemned by United Nations resolutions, which are reaffirmed by the Security Council every year.[126]”
Meanwhile, the final paragraph is a piece of self-defeat: “Cyprus’ Andreas Papandreou air base on its southwestern edge is currently hosting a U.S. Marine contingent and a number of V-22 Osprey tiltrotor military transport and cargo aircraft prepositioned to assist in potential evacuations from nearby Lebanon and elsewhere.”
I’m taken aback that this base is named after socialist politician Andreas Papandreou.
Natch, there is no mention of the U.K. extraterritorial carved-out bases of Akrotiri and Dhekelia.
So Cyprus is just a little Ukraine waiting to happen.
Can’t see the Turks voting to let Cyprus into NATO. If it happened, that Greek part of Cyprus would be quickly overrun with NATO bases for troops and ships and would become a festung in the eastern Mediterranean. And that would mean that all sorts of pressure could be brought to bear on the Turkish part of the island, even though they are in NATO as well, and maybe forcing some sort of deal on them. That is one headache that the Turks do not need.
Re: Turkey Propaganda
Word on the street was that turkey outside Wilmington, NC was $0.29 / lb., so maybe that was the ‘Farm Bureau’ price. Somehow I doubt that was the price at Whole Foods.
Ian Welsh is clear and to the point. I have nothing else to add except that he’s spot on.
The resistance will be picked apart one by one.
Not so sure about that. Maybe Welsh hasn’t been keeping up on current events but the Israelis have just had their a**** handed to them by Hezbollah. Remember, Hezbollah has their base in the Lebanese people and if they had let the massacres by the Israelis to continue, would have led to the loss of support of their base which is why the – temporary – truce. Hezbollah has used a fair number of their rockets up but they made to make sure that the really good stuff was kept stored. As it is, the north of Israel remains unstable and people are afraid to move back there which will roil Israeli politics. And five IDF divisions and more have been badly mauled by Hezbollah with thousands of Israeli casualties. If this is an Israeli victory, then it is a Pyrrhic victory.
Re: ‘organ damage’
As a cardiologist with Long Covid and a fan of this blog permit me to say that it’s impossible to know what to make of the “mild atrial irregularity” without knowing the age of the patient or the nature of the “irregularity”. Millions of people had mild atrial issues long before COVID — and it correlates with age and various other items like hypertension, alcohol consumption patterns, etc. Atrial arrhythmia is one of the most overdiagnosed and overtreated cardiac ‘conditions’, and a source of much business for the electrophysiology labs that have sprouted up all over the country in the last 20 years.
That said, since so much of the phenotype of Long Covid runs parallel with aging in general, it wouldn’t surprise me if an increase in atrial issues were one of the post-acute things we see. Still, I wouldn’t put it high on the list of things those of us with Long Covid need to fret about. (alas)
Vikas, I very much appreciate the analysis and always will, but what I hope for most is that you be well. As for me, jogging or walking daily, whether I want to or not, * seems to keep me fit.
* I never want to, but almost never miss.
“Hope lies with Ursula” One would think, or hope, that as a former defense minister, EC President von der Leyen would demonstrate a significant grasp of what’s happening in Ukraine and what’s at stake as the war escalates.
No it didn’t. US had intentionaly spent gazillions arming extremists of all sorts all around the world, knowing very well what they are, and rebranding them as freedom fighters in order to sell the lie to idi*ts.
“Russian Ruble Collapses As Putin’s Economy in Trouble”
I think that Newsweek are getting their hopes up. I don’t think that the sanctions are causing the inflation in Russia so much as the Russian economy is overheating due to it’s expansion as a wartime economy. A shortage of workers is not helping things either. Inside Russia the ruble is not a problem as that is what the workers are getting paid in so if Newsweek is hoping, like Biden, that the ruble will become rubble they may have to wait a while.