Grey Swans Are Circling Charles Hugh Smith, Of Two Minds
Accurately predicting the next crash is impossible FT
U.S. economy: An exceptional boom or a bubble to burst? The Next Recession
Part 1: Current State of the Housing Market; Overview for mid-December 2024 Calculated Risk
Climate
Xylella Fastidiosa: A Billion-Euro Crisis Brewing in Europe’s Olive Groves Everyman Science
Practical Reverence (transcript) Emergence Magazine
China?
Nvidia could face massive $1 billion fine over antitrust violations in China — Nvidia’s Mellanox acquisition is in Beijing’s crosshairs Tom’s Hardware
China’s ‘explosive’ ironmaking breakthrough achieves 3,600-fold productivity boost MSN
Chinese engineering graduates often lack basic knowledge, survey finds South China Morning Post
Beijing’s Daxing airport sees record footfall of foreigners in 2024 CGTN
Myanmar
Senior Chinese officials hold private talks with anti-junta Kachin organisation Myanmar Now
The Koreas
South Korean ex-defence minister tried to kill himself: Prisons official Channel News Asia
Ex-defense chief suspected of plotting war with North Korea to justify martial law Hankyoreh
What is a self-coup? South Korea president’s attempt ended in failure − a notable exception in a growing global trend The Conversation
Syraqistan
Syrian rebels had help from Ukraine in humiliating Russia David Ignatius, WaPo. CommentaryL
Due to economic challenges, CIA is now providing standard uniforms to employees. pic.twitter.com/aN6sWGKybP
— Iran Military (@IRIran_Military) December 10, 2024
The Roads to Damascus New Left Review
The Wicked Witch Is Dead, but Will Syria Return to Life? Haaretz
The fall of Assad is a defeat for Russia — and no ‘win’ for the US Responsible Statecraft
White House: US troops are staying in Syria Channel News Asia
Second Islamic State Leader Killed in Hayat Tahrir al-Sham Territory The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. 2022.
* * * Ex-president Rivlin: Queen Elizabeth ‘believed that every Israeli was either a terrorist or a son of a terrorist’ — report Times of Israel
Singapore Property Billionaires Seek Middle East Opportunities With Abu Dhabi Family Office Forbes
The New Great Game
Opinion: Russia loses Syria and may take tougher stance in South Caucasus JAM News
European Disunion
Critical raw material supply gaps threaten EU clean energy goals: report S&P Global
Romanian police raid houses linked to vote irregularities probe, prosecutors say France24. Commentary:
Uhhhhh a NATO country nullifying an election because of alleged disinformation seems really bad. Lot of horseshoe theory between the disinformation people and the authoritarians.https://t.co/5DkoZzRxtM
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) December 11, 2024
And:
You know things are going badly when even the BBC begrudgingly admits claims of Russian meddling in Romania's presidential election were a bullshit pretext for cancelling the vote because an anti-establishment outsider said things the general public liked and agreed with https://t.co/IC7uO4lFkb pic.twitter.com/U1yMoxYmRd
— Kit Klarenberg 🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻 (@KitKlarenberg) December 11, 2024
Dear Old Blighty
New Not-So-Cold War
Russia is “close to achieving all its war goals and holds the “strategic initiative in all areas of the war”, says Russian spy chief BNE Intellinews
Zelenskyy open to Western troops providing security for end to war in Ukraine AP
Zelensky reports ‘successful tests’ of mysterious new Ukrainian-made missiles New York Post
How cotton from Central Asia is helping fuel Russia’s war in Ukraine PBS News
Trump Transition
How Trump Will Lawfully Appoint Loyalists Without Senate Consent Lawfare
John Mearsheimer: Trump is appointing Russophobic hawks Unherd
The criminal’s ‘go-to cryptocurrency’ has a new friend in the White House FT
Trump’s NIH pick wants you to believe he’s a victim of government censorship MSNBC
Mitch McConnell: ‘We’re in a very, very dangerous world right now’ FT
The PayPal Mafia is taking over America’s government The Economist
Blame Cannons
Why Bidenomics Was Such a Bust James Galbraith, The Nation. A must-read.
Spook Country
FBI Issues Statement as Mystery Drone Sightings Reach New York Newsweek. Commentary:
Ok, let’s dig into the NJ Drone thing:
An easy way to tell if there’s a problem is to see if local airports are issuing “NOtices To Air Missions” (NOTAMs) warning pilots about the activity.
If there were car-sized drones flying around, ATC would put out a NOTAM quickly…it… pic.twitter.com/RyEOl9rO46
— KC-10 Driver ✈️ 👨✈️ B-737 Wrangler (@MCCCANM) December 11, 2024
Healthcare
How to Research Your Hospice (and Avoid Hospice Fraud) Propublica
Candle in the wind Closed Form. Important.
Deltona mayor calls for Volusia School Board chair’s removal after disparaging remarks Daytona Beach News-Journal
Digital Watch
Creation and Competition in the Metaverse (PDF) SSRN
Imperial Collapse Watch
Summers Warns US Is Getting ‘Lonely’ as Other Powers Band Together Bloomberg
The Claims Adjuster
Luigi Mangione denied bail in Pennsylvania following New York murder charge Axios
Is this the real reason Luigi Mangione gunned down UnitedHealthcare CEO? Daily Mail
Obamacare provision among Ivy League murder suspect’s possible triggers: Ret. FBI agent FOX
UnitedHealthcare’s Leaked Talking Points Ken Klippenstein
UnitedHealthcare CEO’s killing highlights rising tech executive security costs San Francisco Chronicle
Class Warfare
In Hurricane Ruins, North Carolina Food Workers Organize and Fight Labor Notes
The Spanish Anarchist Movement (1871–1939) The Anarchist Library
Antidote du jour (Charles J. Sharp):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
What They Pay
(melody borrowed from Four Strong Winds by Ian Tyson, as performed by Neil Young)
The USA plans to bomb Persia
Tel Aviv has made the call
Devious ends hide why we need another war
War with goals so undefined
It’s the blind leading the blind
Why send soldiers? Where’s our diplomatic corps?
Wall Street wins against the lowly
As their profits reach the sky
As they tighten up our chains each working day
We can see what’s goin’ on—
We’ll pay off their next black swan
They will end up even richer that a way
We have ruined all our allies
Blowing pipelines where we could
Bombs and bullets are the only things we’ll share
We crank up our money printer
But that’s not for me or you
It’s for weapons that get shipped out everywhere
On Main Street things fail slowly
All our taps are running dry
Everything’s feeling strange, lookin’ gray
Every home is overdrawn
From Bangor down to Tucson
And nobody’s gettin’ by on what they pay
(musical interlude)
They write laws and get them signed
We will never see a dime
Just our sons off fighting splendid little wars
Here at home things fail slowly
Billy Clinton wears a tie
Everything’s feeling strange, lookin’ gray
Every soul is overdrawn
From Bangor down to Tucson
And nobody’s gettin’ by on what they pay
And nobody’s gettin’ by on what they pay
“Zelenskyy open to Western troops providing security for end to war in Ukraine”
Zelensky is starting to lose it. After meeting with Trump in Paris, Zelensky went out of his way to dismiss Trump and say that he wants to talk to Biden instead. Is that a bridge that he thinks that he can burn already? Biden can’t give him NATO as all the countries in NATO would have to agree first and certainly countries like Hungary will never give him the nod-
https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/1866151332878364956
Reddit is very doubtful of the official line that some rando at McDonalds recognized Mangione from the crappy video images. They are sure that Mangione was tagged by a facial recognition system and that the McDonalds call was data laundering.
Meanwhile the shooting may have just been a big misunderstanding. UHC said open enrollment and the shooter thought they said open season. Oops! Honest mistake.
It was just the one mistake-
https://xcancel.com/Pinko69420/status/1866603278416367756#m
I’m not sure why TPB would want to hide it. Everyone pretty much presumes that those cameras in airports, banks, etc. are all hooked up to Skynet. And, it would make a great tout for BubbleVision TV – “Look at how AI solved the case? Buy, buy, buy, Mortimer!”
Meanwhile, one day after the shooting, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield walked back its earlier decision to limit coverage for anesthesia beginning in Feb. 2025. They claim it was because of the online outrage about the policy change. Announcing this one day after the shooting happened is merely a coinkydink.
Anthem BCBS is reversing its anesthesia policy after online outrage
https://www.msn.com/en-us/public-safety-and-emergencies/health-and-safety-alerts/anthem-bcbs-is-reversing-its-anesthesia-policy-after-online-outrage/ar-AA1vp6yG
Perhaps one could amend the famous Google motto to “don’t be more evil than necessary to maximize profits.” In this case, perhaps the risk of losing customers would counteract the expected profit increase from the policy change.
Those eyebrows. and he was wearing a medicial mask in Altoona, PA of all places.
Humans are good at taking a small amount of info (eyebrows) and extrapolating a bigger set of data.
there are better, actual, conspiracies for Reddit to latch onto. No panopticon, yet.
Reddit 1) underestimates the number of people who are motivated to study crappy video images in order to try to get a $10k reward, and 2) generally loves the complicated solution over the simple one.
He’s pretty generic in his good looks, so there might have been quite a few finance and tech bros in the NY region who had an officer show up at their door.
The taxi cab pics were very high resolution. all over TMZ, Daily Mail, etc.
Right. Camers aren’t eyes – you can go online right now and find posts where people are drawing boxes and arrows on photos to highlight differences… while posting other photos that clearly show differences because of how photography works. Reminding me of the old time plastic surgery blogs that made outrageous claims while sometimes using photos from the same event that were from different photographers, at different angles to “out” Paris Hilton for having chin implants.
And we don’t know how many calls and tips law enforcement recieved. There’s an entire population who calls the cops everytime there’s a crimestoppers because their brother-in-law seems kind of shady.
Shake it up
Sung to the tune of, “Shake it up” by the Cars
Melody
Uh well, bomb all night, play all day
Don’t let nothin’ get in the way
Scramble jets to Hama and Homs
Don’t you worry ’bout Sykes-Picot
Shake it up!
Shake it up!
Shake it up! 2x
Well bomb all night, get real loose
IDF don’t need no bad excuse
Pick a fight with anyone
Don’t let no one stop Bibis fun
Shake maps up!
Shake maps up!
Shake maps up!
Shake maps up!
That’s right I said bomb all night
(Go go go)
Make urban blight
(Strafe ’em real low)
Go all night
(Get in a cheap shot)
Well, empty out the arsenal, with all you’ve got, woo
[Guitar]
Uh well bomb all night and whirl your hair
Make the Kurd cats stop and stare
Bomb all night, go to work
Do the move with a Stuka bomb jerk
Shake it up 4x
We’ll bomb all night
(Go go go)
Make urban blight
(Strafe ’em real low)
Go all night
(Get in a cheap shot)
Well, empty out the arsenal, with all you’ve got, woo
Shake it up, make a scene
Let cartographers know what you really mean
And bomb all night, keep the beat
Don’t ya worry ’bout any defeat
Just shake it up, oo-oo
Shake it up, oo yeah
Shake it up, that’s right
Shake it up
Shake it up, oo-oo
(Shake it up) oo yeah
Shake it up, oo-oo
(Shake it up) oh yeah
(Shake it up)
Shake it up
Shake it up baby
(Shake it up)
Shake it up, oo-oo
“China’s ‘explosive’ ironmaking breakthrough achieves 3,600-fold productivity boost”
This is big and just goes to show you what happens when you spend money on research and development. I suppose that it will revolutionize the industry as it removes pollution by not having to use coal and is far, far faster to make iron. I wonder is iron & steel makers in other countries will adopt this technology. Might be a nasty hit to those countries that export coal like it is going out of style (cough!*Oz*cough!) but overall it will be good for the planet. I wonder too how much cheaper it will make their steel production. They are the largest producer already but this will give them industry dominance. Unless some countries jack up sanctions on that steel, that is.
I guess the biggest thing is that the technique makes poorer iron ore feasible for use – you can just imagine all those brand new open-pit mines opening everywhere…
True that. But think of all the resources spent shipping iron ore to China and other countries in terms of shipping and bunker fuel alone which will be reduced as no longer being needed. That’s gotta count for something.
The core of advanced technology development in China is an ever-present emphasis on greening the environment. This is repeatedly emphasized by government officials, and when not practiced there will be corrections. Development will be green. The process may be uneven, but it will not be forgotten because China’s well-being depends on green process.
The point is not to boast about China, but to watch and understand the development process that has been adopted governmentally. This is making socialism tangible or resolving the problems of the “commons.”
We have lots of that “green development” in the USA. If it requires energy beyond muscle power, it ain’t green.
“If it requires energy beyond muscle power, it ain’t green.”
Thank you so much for explaining. The Chinese are evidently slow at learning though:
https://english.news.cn/20241211/92510de76a5f45aaa3185d953010f6bd/c.html
December 11, 2024
Why China’s green drive matters to global desertification battle
My comment wasn’t actually referring specifically to China, but to the many countries around the world lacking good iron ore resources.
I’d say you’re right that the biggest thing is that it makes low-grade ore feasible for use. Possibly that might lead to less need to open up new mines as existing mines might have the low-grade ore available and in close proximity to the necessary infrastructure to transport and process the ore.
There was some story some time back about using other technologies as well to use low-grade iron-ore:
I can’t find the exact story again, it was based on electrochemical-hydrometallurgical solution.
https://www.weforum.org/stories/2024/04/technologies-cleaner-steel-industry/
https://www.electra.earth/clean-iron-for-green-steel/
Not sure what kind of waste is produced and depending on that then it may or may not be said to be a ‘green’ product.
There has been research on this for quite a few years – the University of Utah had an experimental flash smelter running for a decade. The research is published here. The USDoE publication here gives an overview. I don’t know what happened to it in the US, but judging by the article its been taken forward by a joint Chinese-Finnish-US project based in Jiangxi province. It wouldn’t be the first time the Chinese have taken a basic idea developed elsewhere and put the money and resources into it to make it viable.
However, I’m always a bit sceptical about articles like this in the less technically choosy parts of the press – they are often little more than pleas by the researchers for more money (so far as I’m aware, nothing about this has been published in the most important industry journals, there is no link to the paper cited in that article). The huge investment in the already oversupply of smelters worldwide would make it unlikely that the industry would embrace it unless they were given no choice.
Thanks. One of my pet peeves would be articles about technology that just recycle the press release.
A definite positive development – does not matter what country developed it – the USA could have but, the financial wizards co-opted with MIC thought it better to cheat competitors than to run the race.
Yes, this is an amazing advance and I hope it’s adopted widely. One thing to note, here in southern British Columbia, there are enormous coal mines in the Kootenay region in the Rocky Mountains. It’s all coking coal. Nineteen full trains of coal cars filled to the brim travel through Kamloops each day bound for the west coast. There they are loaded onto ships and sent to China for making steel. If this goes away, BC will lose a lot of jobs. I’m in favor of this loss, but added to the dire straits of the timber industry right now, our standard of living will plummet.
If that happens, we’ll elect a Conservative goverment, lose our health care, face massive homeless crises, drug use will rise even more, and we will revert to the backwater we were in the 1800’s.
> Antidote du Jour
Can’t help thinking that water is getting warmer and warmer.
Strange, I’ve seen that frog before
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu8bC-gGp9A
As opposed to the fabled frog that boiled – because it had the brain removed first, our today’s antidote seems fully functional and likely will try to find a rock to hide under, unlike most of humans, wlaking about like adled zombies. Romero’s first stab at the topic, showcased in a mall, is a better parable.
I had to look to see if there was a scorpion on its back.
>Summers Warns US Is Getting ‘Lonely’ as Other Powers Band Together Bloomberg
“We are on the right side of history — with our commitment to democracy, with our resistance to aggression in Russia,” he said. “But it’s looking a bit lonely on the right side of history, as those who seem much less on the right side of history are increasingly banding together in a whole range of structures.”
Yes it’s feeling lonely, I agree. With Australia missing deadly viruses that “went unaccounted for after a freezer broke,” my gov’t using tax money to fund the same Jihadist terrorists I was told beheaded people and chanted death to the West, Trump appointing one Zionist after another as Israel’s Lebensraum is in full view and the world shrugs as genocide continues unabated. It’s though being on the “right side of history.” I’m sure Larry Summers feels deep compassion for his fellow Americans in Western North Carolina living in tents, sick people made sicker by healthcare cost, crumbling infrastructure, a moribund political party system, rapacious college cost, etc…
I remember Larry being on the right side of Harvard Endowment’s investment strategy. / ;)
Larry Summers Lost Harvard’s Money
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2009/11/larry-summers-lost-harvard-s-money/347426/
The ploys of Summers got SVB depositors their gotten gains over the $250k FDIC limit back, he’s a player-but only for a just cause.
He never gets credit for facebook while he was at Harvard. He took what should have been a huge breach of privacy to his Wall St friends and they made millions.
Oh Larry….Larry who wished upon a time when serving as the US Secretary of the Treasury (I wish to recall) that US companies should and could move the US means of production offshore since it meant free market economics….pity poor Larry Summers…
If Larry Summers wasn’t real we’d have to fabricate him.
Larry who? Lol, the path to obscurity is littered with good inventions.
Overheard on the radio not that long ago. “If there’s a radio talk show and no one listens, did it really happen?”
‘We are on the right side of history — with our commitment to democracy, with our resistance to aggression in Russia’
‘And all our support for Nazis and Al-Qaeda and ISIS’. Hmmmm. Did he say the right side of history or the extreme-right side of history.
Don’t forget:
Canceled Romanian elections – didn’t like the outcome;
Support for losers like Guiado
Support for Zelensky – he’s been illegitimate since May;
etc.
Just goes to show that liberal democracy is not like the traditional or conventional democracy.
“Ex-president Rivlin: Queen Elizabeth ‘believed that every Israeli was either a terrorist or a son of a terrorist’ — report”
Well, she was a very old lady and so can be excused for her foibles. After watching Israel for the past year I can now say positively that it is more of a case of every Israeli either acts like a terrorist or a son of a terrorist. Big difference.
post-1945 Palestine was a hotbed of literal Zi….ist terrier -ism.
Imagine you’re a 18 y.o. conscript….whew, I dodged being sent to France, only to be sent to imperial garrison duty and getting killed outside of Jerusalem.
ER was not wrong.
https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/conflict-Palestine
100,000 UK troops tried to keep a lid on sectarian violence in pre-independence Israel.
How, by killing 20% of the fighting Arab male population? It didn’t kill the zionists; instead it thought them all the tricks in the book (which we now see) on how to deal with such upity Arabs.
One should remember that the first pictures with emaciated people from concentration camps wer those of the families of South African boers put in said camps by the British…. And the Scots, the Welsh, the Irish are fine examples of British cultural genocide…
This revelation about the Queen is a case of “takes one to know one”.
In the excellent show The Crown they like to have scenes where Elizabeth flusters her various Prime Ministers by asking a commonsense question about British policy. Vox populi?
Of course the show’s fly on the wall approach to the royals doesn’t mean that’s actually what happened. But one would like to think so. It’s a very entertaining show.
They did include the episode with that landslide that collapse over a mining town and the guy that snuck in the Buchigam Pallace though…
Pot…kettle….
Zelensky reports successful tests of a new type of Ukrainian produced missiles…for a quick second my instinctive reaction was the Babylon Bee was providing foreign and overseas US allies & their military forces with media headlines as a PR firm…\sarc
I couldn’t resist….hey it’s two weeks before Christmas Day, has the dear leader of Ukraine provided his wish list to those friendly folks in the US Congress and the departing Biden administration?
Biden tried to send another $24B (with 10% to the Big Guy), but Mike Johnson stepped in and now it looks like just a lump of coal for the Z-man.
On Ukraine – just Tweeted by Col. Macgregor
BREAKING: Ukraine attacks Russia Airfield with US supplied ATACMS Missiles..
Developing.
That doesn’t sound good. WTF are we doing?
Reuters…
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-ukraine-fired-us-supplied-atacms-missiles-airfield-vows-revenge-2024-12-11/
Keep poking the Bear…
Grey Swans Are Circling Charles Hugh Smith, Of Two Minds
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
3 incredibly disparate countries have had Decembrist uprisings, the tried and true old fashioned normals being replaced by upheaval, not all that different from what climate change is performing on a daily basis-not that we are all that privy to it, as most of us live in big cities surrounded by concrete & asphalt-which tends to endure.
It’ll be a year shy of a quarter of a millennium soon, in this American tale that’s looking increasingly long in the tooth, and the citizenry is itching for a fight against the powers that be, as evidenced by the recent assassination and outpouring of sympathy with the shooter.
If he had been an ordinary murderer that took out a relative nobody on a grudge, nobody would care or align themselves with him-just the opposite, they would be upset in a fashion that these random killings of a boss, co-worker or jilted lover deserved a better fate than a cold blooded murderer plugging them in the back-which we all know from westerns, is what what the cowardly bad guy does.
You notice with this assassination, that there are two phrases that have not been uttered when normally they are? By that I mean ‘thoughts and prayers’ and ‘gun control.’ Strange that. Of course that executive probably helped kill more people in an hour than Jeffrey Dahmer did in his entire career.
That could bring an interesting defense to murder into play:
Defense of others. Mangione acted to save others from being killed by the CEO’s criminal enterprise.
It’s a legitimate affirmative defense for battery, but I am not sure about criminal homicide.
If I were the defense attorney I’d be thinking about putting the healthcare industry on trial. The prosecution will have a conniption and try to get the Judge to rule that out, though.
Most “legal” killings in the Wild West were shots to the back. The rule then was that, if you were armed, you were fair game. Many sheriffs “kept the peace” from behind.
What is fascinating here is that ‘normalized’ murder has finally “come home” from the ‘stans, where it was perfected as a tool of the Hegemon. Evidently, ‘Blowback’ can be anybody’s b—h.
Now we wait to see if there will be a spate of copycat attempts at “Executive Claims Adjustment.”
Unlocked link for “The criminal’s ‘go-to cryptocurrency’ has a new friend in the White House FT”
Had a shoeshine boy moment yesterday getting my teeth cleaned at the dentist, my hygienist asked what I did for a living, and I told her that I was retired, but had been a numismatist, which is hard to say when you have a suction device dangling from your lower lip, but I prevailed.
She related that she was into Bitcoin heavily after I explained what my livelihood* entailed, and I think this gave her the go ahead to check her smartphone 3 or 4 times for an updated quote during my session in the chair.
*interestingly, the Hobby of Kings is pretty moribund-young adults could have potentially hardly ever had to use round metal discs in their lives in commerce, why would they care about aged ones?
It’s a dying hobby, and yet the very same kids are oh so into the numismatrix online.
both my boys have flown the coop anyways…but while Tam was still with us,and for a good year and a half after she passed, i made beer money from doing their laundry…and often just examining the debris field where they parked. lotsa change, of course, but sometimes paper, too.
found an hundred dollar bill in the tall grass where Youngest parked, once.
but then they went all in on th plastic(debit cards), and that lucrative income stream dried right up.
(and yeah,lol…i took it…for services rendered…and hell, if they aint gonna keep track of their filthy lucre, why not abscond with it myself?)
I was astonished to learn, too, that nowhere on the texas tech campus takes cash money…at orientation, waiting for son, i had a ten spot waving, trying to get a cup of coffee. asked the PYT at the help desk where i could pay cash for a cuppa, and she looked at me like i just stepped out of 1934(or 1834, given my attire and general hoary visage)…she took my tenner and went with me to starbucks down the way.
paid for her cup as recompense.
Britain, paedophile island.
Part 1: Current State of the Housing Market; Overview for mid-December 2024 Calculated Risk
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Boy, that is one heck of a lot of used homes on the market, and in the past decade AirBnB’ers would have bought up the inventory, but you’d guess the shine has gone off the apple in that game.
Imagine a short-term rental bust and oodles and oodles of homes coming on the market, all ready to be shown tomorrow-as there aren’t any ties to the community, nor is there anything in these houses aside from the basics-they’re all pre-staged.
I think one of the main reasons AirBnB et Al became popular is that even if you barely covered the mortgage on your garage mahal, it was going up in value, a win of sorts.
What happens when said domiciles start falling in price and desire?
As Cambridge scholar Joseph Needham took decades and twenty-seven monumental volumes to explain, Chinese science has been cultivated and developed for thousands of years. Western and Japanese military colonists may have interfered for too long a time, but Chinese science development is assuredly returned:
https://www.nytimes.com/1982/04/18/books/the-china-the-west-knew-nothing-about.html
April 18, 1982
The China The West Knew Nothing About
By Jonathan Spence
SCIENCE IN TRADITIONAL CHINA: A Comparative Perspective.
By Joseph Needham.
https://www.nytimes.com/1971/06/20/archives/joseph-needham-the-real-thing.html
June 20, 1971
Joseph Needham, the Real Thing
By Richard Boston
For something a little different, the Archdruid has put up his 2nd post on Wagner’s Ring Cycle and what it all means – https://www.ecosophia.net/the-nibelungs-ring-the-valkyrie-2/
As a Wagner dilettante, I find it very fascinating. Not only did I not realize how much Tolkien cribbed from Wagner, I’ve never heard the Ring Cycle described as a critique of commodification and industrial capitalism.
Hat tip to Loony Tunes for sparking my interest so many years ago – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kH0Bag0akc
And Wagner learned a fantastique amount from Berlioz.
Thank you, it is good to listen again to HB.
“Wotan, armed with all the grubby tricks available to him as king of the gods and supreme sleazeball of the Wagnerian universe, wants the ring back, but he can’t break the agreements he’s made without losing his power.”
The USA seems to have broken that particular cycle. Whatever happened to Wotan, anyway?
I’ve really been enjoying the Wagner posts a lot, very informative…and I absolutely love JMG’s dry humor.
>I’ve never heard the Ring Cycle described as a critique of commodification and industrial capitalism.
Nietzsche, IIRC, changed his mind on that notion.
The article about Science versus ‘science’ misses an important point. The official spokescreatures for “The Science” were shown to have been lying to the public. Lies that caused harm and death to individuals worldwide. Lies that were linked to the increase in profits for large, politically ‘connected’ medical and pharmaceutical corporations. Lies that were diametrically opposed to the stated ethics of ‘science’ in general.
Is it any wonder then that the public is now searching for alternatives to the “official narrative?”
People can argue that Public Health is part science and part politics. That is an acceptable synergy. It serves the society fairly well over the long run. What is not acceptable is the addition of private profit to that definition.
Private companies are profit oriented. That’s the nature of the beast. This is understood by even the most rabid anti-capitalist. Government, of which Public Health is a sub-set, cannot be so oriented. At that point, the government ceases to be involved in promoting the public good and becomes a tool for private good.
History shows that overtly predatory regimes soon fall prey to internal corruption and external resistance.
I wish we didn’t live in interesting times, but here we are.
Stay safe.
My friend Wonderhussy is having trials and tribulations in her attempts to maneuver through our medical system…
Sad, Scared and Mad as Hell: Adventures in the American Healthcare System
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXpvsxyszzs
Wonderhussy is a lovely nickname and I wish her well in her health battles.
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2024-12-10/China-develops-polarization-photodetector-mimicking-desert-ant-1zdMXcZjNNC/p.html
December 10, 2024
China develops polarization photodetector mimicking desert ant
Chinese researchers have developed an on-chip integrated polarization photodetector (pol-PD), drawing inspiration from the unique polarization vision of desert ants.
The study, * recently published in the journal Science Advances, was conducted by researchers from the Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry (TIPC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Pol-PDs have widespread applications in geological remote sensing, machine vision and biological medicine. However, commercial pol-PDs usually require bulky and complicated optical components and are difficult to miniaturize and integrate.
The researchers observed that desert ants can navigate back to their nests across barren landscapes without landmarks, thanks to their compound eyes’ ability to detect polarized sunlight. They aimed to mimic this capacity with their pol-PD.
The researchers proposed a one-step nanoimprinting crystallization method. They used this method to fabricate a high-crystalline perovskite, single-crystal-thin film with high-throughput, quadridirectional grating arrays. Based on this film, the researchers constructed a single-shot, on-chip pol-PD without any additional polarization optics…
* https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adr5375
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adr5375
December 4, 2024
Bioinspired single-shot polarization photodetector based on four-directional grating arrays capped perovskite single-crystal thin film
By Wenzhong Fang, Chengben Liu, Zixin Zhu, Chao Wu, Qunfeng Cheng, Qian Song, Yang Wang, et al.
Abstract
Polarization photodetectors (pol-PDs) have widespread applications in geological remote sensing, machine vision, biological medicine, and so on. However, commercial pol-PDs use bulky and complicated optical systems with lenses, polarizers, and mechanical spools, which are complex and cumbersome, and respond slowly. Inspired by the desert ants’ compound eyes, we developed a single-shot pol-PD based on four-directional grating arrays capped perovskite single-crystal thin film without other standard polarization optics. Our pol-PD has a high detectivity, two orders of magnitude greater than that of commercial photodetectors, and exhibits high polarization sensitivity. The high performance of our pol-PD is due to the highly crystalline perovskite single-crystal thin film and regular nanograting structure, made by a nanoimprinting crystallization method. Our single-shot pol-PD is a compact on-chip optoelectronic device that demonstrates excellent performance in a wide range of applications including accurate bionic navigation, sharp image restoration in hazy scenes, stress visualization of polymers, and detection of cancerous areas in tissues without histological staining.
Galbraith on Bidenomics addressed items that Summers, et al didn’t. The latter group abstracts away the agency that those legions of consumers, some of whom even vote, and presume to tell them what to think.
Pay no attention to that grocery store clerk ringing up yet another large bill, you are obviously better off because we say you are.
Imagine if Summers followed Krugman away from opining! That chattering and scribbling academic wing of the PMC will realize eventually that whatever credibility they self-willed has shrunk. Their media friends, those who are still employed, could tell them cautionary tales.
I’m starting to wonder if the chattering and scribbling caste is far more damaging to society than their often absurd pronouncements would indicate. There’s a theory that the answer to the Fermi paradox is that intelligent lifeforms that reach a sufficiently advanced level of technology destroy themselves. But I wonder if, rather than technology, it’s intelligent lfeforms developing a caste of intellectuals and venerating intellectualism that’s to blame, since all kinds of the most irrational and ridiculous and self-destructive schemes are put in motion with justifications provided by and promoted by intellectuals. And how much of what they churn out is really valuable? If, for instance, you eliminated from our timeline all French intellectual writings about politics, society, culture, history, art criticism, literary criticism, and generally all other “critical theory”, would our lives be any worse? Might they not even be better? Whereas you couldn’t eliminate French painting or sculpture or music without noticeably impoverishing world culture. Talking about things from the balcony of one’s ivory tower is not only of far less value than actively creating things, but it may in practice turn out to be an actual evil rather than neutral or a good.
“Mitch McConnell: ‘We’re in a very, very dangerous world right now’’
He should know – he helped create it. Has there ever been a war that “Glitch” McConnell did not support? This article makes him out to be a fine, elder statesman that is getting ready to head off into the sunset. I think that most people will say good riddance.
Mitch should be more worried about bath mats and slippery floors. That sunset may be coming soon.
And the USA, in such dangerous times, deserves better than senile and mean-spirited ‘leaders’. Time to hang up the keys, Mitch.
I would prefer someone just tell him to GTFO, and don’t let the doorknob hit you where the good Lord split you…
Re: Tweet of Zelensky and HTS leader Jawlani separated at birth-
I’m thinking the CIA had some leftover uniforms from a 1960’s plot they deep-sixed to flood Cuba with Fidel look-a-likes. I wondering who ended up with all the Cigars!
Monica Lewinsky?
Thanks for that, now I have to clean my iPad screen of splattered coffee!
“It wouldn’t be the first time the Chinese have taken a basic idea developed elsewhere and put the money and resources into it to make it viable.”
Here we find shameless Chinese scientists “taking” a basic idea from ants.
Referring to above abstract about a basic idea taken from desert ants:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adr5375
December 4, 2024
Bioinspired single-shot polarization photodetector based on four-directional grating arrays capped perovskite single-crystal thin film
“Britain’s ‘paedophile island’: The damning truth about idyllic tourist retreat where imposter monks raped or abused 54 children in hidden den of sexual deviance and moral iniquity.”
The British press can be selective about their outrage about such people. So you ask them-
‘Did you ever follow up on the Jersey Island child abuse investigation?’
‘Shut up!’
‘Did you find out who gave Jimmy Savile all that cover for all those decades?’
‘I said shut up!’
‘What about Prince Andrew and all those under-age minors’
‘Look. That’s all in the past. Let’s talk about those imposter monks instead.’
Once upon a time winning a war gave you more territory and a buffer zone, not to mention all the wealth you could make off with, their women and livestock, it was a win-win.
Now winning a war really only produces expenses for the short duration you’re there, and there are seldom buffer zones. Said countries are often riddled with debt-nothing to take there, the infrastructure needed major improvements circa 1975 that never happened, and women aren’t hep on Laissez-faire fraternizing these days. You can have the cows though, ok?
The IDF don’t care about leaving a devastated landscape of leveled buildings and a surveilled economic wasteland as a buffer zone. Their motto is “we break it, you buy it!”
Or sheep. There was a twitter with some IDF clowns inspecting with a drone a barebone building (with doorsclosed) and little windows in Syria. Ended up terrorizing about 50 sheep with their drone…
Healthcare links from today, the hospice column caught my attention. Calling this an extended family situation may well stretch the bounds of the proverbial ” chain that keeps us together..” From the Fleetwood Mac track and the excellent Lindsey Buckingham performance on his guitar…but I’m digressing. A recent addition to the family circle has a parent facing that dreaded end of life time horizon. Damned cancer that just won’t quit, as it turns has apparently spread enough to impact speech and similar functions.
I’m making plans to share that guide…good and reliable information on such services should be broadly known and yeah one more thing, to look out for fraudulent assholery in the process…
https://x.com/spectatorindex/status/1866614431452631111
BREAKING: Syria’s new government announces it will move away from state-controlled economy to a free market model to attract investment
First Syrian product to enter the market: rubble – offered at a very reasonable price! Order a ton and Syria will throw in a free fake WMD.
Yup, Baath Party was to close to socialism, and nationalism…
Anything about interest and how is that haram in islam?
RE: Trump’s NIH pick wants you to believe he’s a victim of government censorship
Of course they just hand wave everything away –
“In the years since the start of the pandemic, Bhattacharya has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that the government worked with social media companies to suppress his views. But a recent Supreme Court ruling found no indication that content moderation decisions by tech platforms were made at the government’s behest. ”
Then it gets a bit more vague, with weasel words added –
“The problem is there’s basically zero evidence to support Bhattacharya and his supporters’ claims of censorship. ”
Matt Taibbi, along with many others who have seen the emails between government officials and the tech platforms, disagrees. The whole article is based on the premise that the government didn’t order the platforms to take down content and there weren’t any direct consequences for disobeying government “suggestions”, but they can’t even be explicit about that, failing to mention the thousands upon thousands of government requests to censor content.
Say what you will about Bhattacharya’s research, but that’s beside the point here. He most definitely was censored by the US government by any reasonable definition of the word.
What a pile. the censorship oaf any non-approved Covid information was entirely over the top.
Dr. John Campbell took to calling it “that medical intervention” to keep from being automatically censored.
1. That was more like a tweet than an Economist article.
2. For those wondering why Peter Thiel has not been all over the Trump news there was an offhand mention in another vendor’s article on the topic. They claimed that Thiel refrained from making any campaign contributions this year. They did not say why.
Maybe he has moved into the deepest deep state orbit where they don’t even have to pay attention to the Republican Democrat distinction. Maybe he has decided he wasn’t getting enough return on his previous investments in campaign contributing. Maybe he is running low on money.
(If anybody knows why I would like to know it.)
Craig Murray:
What this potentially amounts to is the end of pluralism in the Levant and its replacement by supremacism: An ethno-supremacist Greater Israel and a religio-supremacist Salafist Greater Syria.
https://consortiumnews.com/2024/12/11/craig-murray-the-end-of-pluralism-in-the-middle-east/
it is ethno-religious supremacism in Israel. God chosen people that promised everything.
Aren’t these two good cousins, all “semites”, les the Askenazis, who are 100% caucasians
Saw this on Twitter so I went to the website. Seems legit, but I’m not an expert. This is from ASPR.
Link; Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act
Bold mine. There is a link to a 25 page PDF below this. According to word on Twitter, extends the “emergency declaration” for COVID-19 to extend liability protections for the deadly mRNA COVID “vaccines”
IF, true, why are they doing this?
U.S. economy: An exceptional boom or a bubble to burst? – The Next Recession
“Productivity growth”
At the end of the day it’s always about trying to get products made and services done without having to pay workers.
“Maybe so, but the huge investment spending in AI has yet to be see real results across the whole economy that could reduce significantly jobs and so sustain a a large rise in productivity per worker. That could take decades.”
It’s the only dream the lovers of this system have. How to get rid of workers and be “productive”? Yet, at the same time there’s the part of the system that needs workers to be able to service debt. People servicing their debts is then labelled as “growth’.
“And if we are talking above relative growth in average income per person in the US, look at this table that I have compiled from the World Inequality Database. Average earners in the US are seeing less and less progress (even relatively), particularly in the 21st century.”
Then later:
“The stagnation and ‘long depression’ of the 21st century is exhibited in rising private and public debt as governments and corporations try to overcome stagnant and low profitability by increasing borrowing.”
And yet, the dream solution is to “reduce significantly jobs”.
Xylella Fastidiosa: A Billion-Euro Crisis Brewing in Europe’s Olive Groves Everyman Science
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There used to be a fair number of olive trees in the Central Valley-and they were my favorite, so wild looking and out of control compared to other staid food trees, and then about 5 years ago the protective duty on eating olives being imported was relaxed, and said orchards are being pulled out all over the place.
That looks a little short sighted to me. They may regret that when Olive oil hits $200 a gallon. The settler/colonists in the West Bank may also regret burning and ripping out all those 100+ year old olive trees that the Palestinians there planted.
These are eating olives-not oil olives.
No Martini’s with extra olive’s for you!
I consume five gallons of olive oil per year. I kinda like the stuff.
If this bacterium is so devastating to olive trees, and if we don’t have a good solution in the short term, why shouldn’t I invest in olive oil as a commodity?
Olive oil doesn’t seem to be like wheat where you can buy the Teucrium Wheat Fund ETF (WEAT). All I’ve been able to figure out is that the market symbol for tracking the price of extra virgin olive oil is EVOO. Does anyone know how to invest in olive oil?
I was never much of an olive eater but I recently discovered Castelvetranos and now snack on the daily.
More drone fun in NJ. Congressman Chris Smith seems calm ;).
https://www.shorenewsnetwork.com/2024/12/10/u-s-congressman-strongly-believes-drones-over-new-jersey-an-incursion-by-foreign-power-from-offshore-warships/
The Adjuster’s assassination of Thompson was a straightforward act of political terror.
But there has been no terror charge against against suspect Mangione. Not even a peep about terrorism from the media. That is impressive message discipline.
Better not to put the political motivation for the act before the public or a jury. You can just turn the Terror War on or off when you need to.
It wasn’t terrorism, by definition. Mr. Thompson was a General in the Insurance Wars. He killed by spreadsheet and algorithms, but he was a combatant, none the less. Terrorism claims the lives of the innocent. If anyone was a terrorist, it wasn’t Luigi.
You know exactly why the media is handling this as they are. There’s no way the powers that be get a win on this. Period.
I agree with the direction you’re taking but have some problems with the definition of terrorism you’re using.
The definition used in US dictionaries says that an act of terror is unlawful and usually against civilians. But that is not consistent with the historical record of political terror, or the historical usage. The Terror during the French Revolution was lawful — it was an act of the State. Assassinations of government officials, as happened in the leadup to and revolution in Russia and other places, were also characterized as political terror. The early Soviet Government even explicitly called one of their policies Red Terror. Governments in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador conducted campaigns of state terror when they did mass murders of combatants and civilians.
It looks to me that US dictionary writers have drawn on US government propaganda from the Terror War — that acts of terror are never conducted by governments under color of law, and that vitcims are always innocent — for their definition, and not on historic usage or utility as an analytic tool. We want to have a clear sight on the situation.
Thompson was a private citizen working for a corporation, executing as his job a ruthless policy — thanks to Elon Musk for putting it right out there! –of killing thousands people for private profit. He was not in fact a General, except metaphorically. The Claims Adjuster killed him for it, with the political goal of stopping the pitiless industry-wide murders allowed by legal default of the government. It was an Attentat as Johann Most would have defined it.
I hope you’re right that the Powers can’t get a win on this, but let’s not underestimate the cunning and power of our adversary.
Oops
Recent Immigration Surge Has Been Largest in U.S. History
Thanks for the “Candle in the Wind” link. Worth a read for anyone, especially for liberals trying to understand the appeal of Trump or RFK Jr. and what the “left” can learn about how to do messaging and activism better.
Could also be both.
What is a self-coup? South Korea president’s attempt ended in failure − a notable exception in a growing global trend – The Conversation
As one Seoul resident told reporters: “It feels like a coup d’état.”
2024: It feels like a coup d’état.