Rare beaked whale delights scientists Tagesschau via machine translation (Micael T). But it’s dead :-(
Formaldehyde Causes More Cancer Than Any Other Toxic Air Pollutant. Little Is Being Done to Curb the Risk. ProPublica (Robin K)
Dementia Incidence Linked to Inflammatory Foods MedPage. Caffeine is anti-inflammatory, along with calorie restriction
Climate/Environment
Rising wood fuel consumption shows limits of energy transition JKempEnergy
Climate Science Legal Defense Fund gears up for a busy four years Yale Climate Connections (Dr. Kevin)
Polluting shipwrecks are the ticking time-bomb at the bottom of our oceans The Conversation (Kevin W)
Cambodia’s giant lake shrinks as climate change, Mekong dams cut fish supply Nikkei
China?
China pledges more debt, rate cuts as Trump tariff threats loom Reuters
US Curbs Scope of China Science Accord Amid Tech Rivalry Associated Press
Wang Yongli clarifies China’s issuance of USD-denominated Sovereign Bonds in Saudi Arabia Pekinology. We debunked the hype over this in comments early on.
Koreas
South Korea MPs vote to impeach president after mass protests over martial law BBC
Korean economy on alert amid rising debt, weak consumption Pulse
Africa
Mali arrests, Niger site seizure rattle Western miners Reuters
Mining firm defaults on US loans amid Mozambique political unrest EEnews
European Disunion
ECB cuts rates again and keeps door open to further cuts Reuters
Macron appoints centrist ally François Bayrou as France’s fourth prime minister in 2024 Le Monde
The Economic Roots of France’s Political Collapse Daily Economy
Revealed: The ‘Vested Interests’ on the EU’s Agriculture Committee DesmogBlog
What Ireland’s Great Famine can teach us about the EU-Mercosur free trade deal Thomas Fazi
European countries quarrel over gas Vzglyad via machine translation (Micael T)
Swedish minister open to new measures to tackle energy crisis, blames German nuclear phase-out Euractiv
Old Blighty
UK economy shrinks again in another blow to Reeves, new figures show Independent
NFU chief says he ‘cannot rule out’ food shortages if farmers go on strike Sky
Israel v. the Resistance
Enduring the Trauma of Genocide (w/ Gabor Maté) Chris Hedges (Chuck L)
Iran’s currency drops to lowest rate ever against the dollar Intellinews
New Not-So-Cold War
Russia launches huge attack on Ukraine with dozens of cruise missiles and drones Guardian. So now it’s official.
Russia Retaliates For ATACMS Strike – Improves Trolling Moon of Alabama (Kevin W)
EU prepares first sanctions against Russia for disinformation – Bloomberg Ukrainska Pravda
Ending the War in Ukraine: Analysis and Recommendations Paul Robinson. Mentioned approvingly by Alexander Mercouris
Syraqistan
Pieces Begin Slowly Falling into Place in ‘New Syria’ Simplicius
Inside Israel’s opportunistic invasion of Syria Mondoweiss (guurst)
Prof. Mohammad Marandi | Syria’s Truth: No Winners, Only LOSERS – Short & Long-Term Chaos EXPOSED Dialogue Works. A contrary view on what the collapse of Syria means for Hezbollah and Iran. We’ll see in due course if his take is proven correct.
The Roads to Damascus Tariq Ali, New Left Review (Robin K)
Erdoğan’s Syria? Cihan Tuğal, New Left Review (Robin K)
Turkey: A slim majority of Turks sees Assad dynasty’s fall as positive Middle East Eye
Turkish-backed fighters accused of executing Kurdish soldiers in hospital Telegraph
Russia appears to pull back its forces in Syria Financial Times. As we predicted
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
THREAD: The official narrative of how Luigi Mangione was apprehended doesn’t add up. Evidence suggests a deeper surveillance operation involving real-time facial recognition technology. Let’s delve into the inconsistencies and explore the implications. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/catXgNjG4v
— Marlo the Hutt (@YesYoureRacist) December 12, 2024
Imperial Collapse Watch
NATO must shift to wartime mindset, secretary general warns Sky
Resource nationalism on the rise amid geopolitical tensions Financial Times
US, China, Russia gearing up for space wars to come Asia Times (Kevin W)
The Stinking Legacy-Prisons and concentration camps of the USA Marat Khairullin (guurst)
1/6
The Jan. 6 Verdict Is In: The Rioters Lose, Even If Trump Pardons Them Politico (Kevin W)
Trump 2.0
Ontario threatens to cut off US’s power over Trump tariff row Telegraph
Trump aides mull abolishing FDIC as part of dramatic banking deregulation spree: report New York Post. This would instantly crash the banking system.
Attacking Iran Would Be Insane Daniel Larison
Biden
Important. Please click through or read the threadreader:
1/ The media isn’t reporting it but the Biden administration appears to be going into full Hitler-in-the-bunker mode and trying to destroy global energy markets to crush the EU economy and lower American living standards through more inflation to hurt Trump. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/qrVsDlC4Rr
— Philip Pilkington (@philippilk) December 13, 2024
Biden commutes sentence of Luzerne County kids-for-cash scandal judge Conahan WVIA. James C: “Helping to slaughter thousands of Palestinian children wasn’t enough for Joe. Now he’s giving a pass on torturing US kids.” Moi: This case was so notoriously awful that it inspired a segment on Law and Order: SVU. See here for the trailer.
Victims ‘shocked’ after Biden grants clemency to ‘kids-for-cash’ judge and $54 million embezzler CNN (Kevin W)
have you considered embezzling funds to buy a show horse? https://t.co/240QYfmdp4
— chinahand (@chinahand) December 13, 2024
NYT: Pelosi fractures hip in fall abroad SFExaminer. This was destined to happen unless she was religiously doing balance exercises. At 84, she was wearing high heels (see here) and regularly walking on very hard floors (note other shoes now fashionable for women, lower “kitten” heels with a tiny point of contact, are also risky despite looking otherwise). The odds of death in older people rise dramatically in the six months following a bad fall.
Abortion
Texas AG sues New York doctor for providing abortion pills across state lines The Hill
Woke Watch
AI
1 big thing: Chatbots are learning to lie Axios (Dr. Kevin)
OpenAI whistleblower found dead in San Francisco apartment Mercury News (Kevin W)
Legal Tech Unicorn EvenUp Relied Heavily on Humans Despite AI Claims Business Insider
The Bezzle
Texas House Introduces Bill To Establish a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve CNBC
McKinsey to pay $650M settlement over Purdue opioid consulting, reports say Axios (Dr. Kevin)
Guillotine Watch
Macabre signs and art have cropped up across the U.S., targeting health insurance executives and repeating words connected to the killing of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Watch more: 🎥 https://t.co/m1eC8QdNYf pic.twitter.com/W6PRIX92F5
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) December 13, 2024
Piers Morgan asked Antichrist Peter Thiel what he would say to people who celebrated Luigi Mangione — who was a fan of Peter Thiel and Elon Musk — murdering an insurance CEO.
If someone can find a worse answer to any question, I’d love to see it. This is excruciating. pic.twitter.com/Y7JTFQlUzv
— Jim Stewartson, Antifascist 🇺🇸🇺🇦🏴☠️ (@jimstewartson) December 12, 2024
Florida mom arrested for saying ‘Delay Deny Depose’ on call with BlueCross BlueShield health insurer: ‘You people are next’ New York Post
A Manifesto Against For-Profit Health Insurance Companies Michael Moore
Bret Stephens: A Real Upper Class Asshole – and Journalism Fraud and Liar Too Washington Babylon (Micael T)
Class Warfare
Americans spend more years sick than rest of world: Study Bloomberg (Robin K)
A Holiday Strike at Amazon? Drop Site (Micael T)
Antidote du jour. A very old one from Mark T that I just found in my inbox. “I am a rescue cat who’s a bit special, but now have a home :-)”
And a bonus (Chuck L). I had no idea snowy owls were so large:
"Meet the Snowy Owl: The Arctic's Enchanting Ruler"
In the linked video, we are invited to discover the captivating Snowy Owl. This magnificent creature is truly an ice and snow spirit, reigning supreme in the Arctic. With its beautiful plumage and piercing eyes, it is a sight… pic.twitter.com/yTjGmfpZG5
— Zhang Heqing (@zhang_heqing) December 3, 2024
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
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“NYT: Pelosi fractures hip in fall abroad”
‘The odds of death in older people rise dramatically in the six months following a bad fall.’
I read the same earlier today but here is the thing. When Nancy shuffles off her mortal coil to go the great counting-house in the sky, what if on the internet she gets the same treatment as that assassinated CEO? That people come out and call her out on what sort of person she really was. She once called herself the most progressive Democrat in the House but does anybody believe that? We may soon find out.
Rich Democrats believed Pelosi was the most progressive Democrat in the House because she was the [only] kind of Democrat they could get behind. Nobody else believed it of course.
Her trading account will “mysteriously” continue to rake in profits despite her passing.
Let’s start a GoFunMe campaign for Nancy…
Urgently needed:
Noisemakers-in particular the ones that roll out like a 10 inch tongue, kazoos, elongated clown shoes with exaggerated features, and of course any sort of party favor you can think of.
Six-inch Louboutin stilettos?
While I’m no expert on cosmetic surgery it seems obvious that Pelosi has had a bit of it. It would be ironic indeed if her vanity and high heels proved to be her downfall with emphasis on fall.
Karma–it’s a thing.
Six inch stilettos? More like a misericord, usually a bit longer than six inches.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misericorde_(weapon)
“Party favours,” like what the lobbyists get for Appropriations Time?
Stock options aside, Nancy and Luigi seem to be connected:
https://x.com/HueyJackNation/status/1867299793095340088?t=g9Kvofrvq0UjNxhebrGdtw&s=19
Speaking of problems of medical care and surgeries, in the wake of Luigi Mangione, I note this little dilemma for Nancy from the article about falling down the stairs in Luxembourg. (Depth perception becomes a problem with age, too.) >>
From the article, “They said doctors were confident the damage could be repaired with a routine operation, but it was not yet clear whether that would be done in Luxembourg or in the United States.”
I suppose she’s checking with Blue of California to see if the country of Luxembourg is in-network.
She’d be a fool to risk a trans-Atlantic crossing at her age with such an injury. The question is how much the Luxembourg health-care system would charge her. Not much. Ironies.
Another irony: I checked her bio on Wikipedia. Nancy Pelosi has never worked in private industry, not as a factory manager, not as a clothing buyer, not even as a personal shopper. Yet she’s worth something like 100 million quatloos.
From her Wiki bio: “As of 2021, Pelosi’s net worth was valued at $120 million, making her the 6th richest person in Congress. According to journalist Glenn Greenwald, the Pelosis have traded $33 million worth of tech stocks over the past two years, including Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, and Google stocks.[397]”
At least, she’ll have a nice funeral.
Oh, the benefits to insider trading! I like this quote from David Axelrod and Hannah Welsh’s Politician Trading: If You Can’t Stop Them, Join Them,
In 2012, Congress passed the STOCK Act, which prohibits U.S. senators and representatives from trading on information they learn in their official capacities and requires frequent financial disclosures. But the STOCK Act has its fair share of issues. The reporting requirements allow weeks to pass before members of Congress must publicly disclose securities transactions, compliance with the act has been difficult to discern, and enforcement has been seemingly nonexistent. Indeed, no charges have ever been brought against a senator or representative under the act.
And the Stock Act was amended on April 15 a year later to remove many of the disclosure requirements.
April 15 is a good date to pass legislation as citizens are distracted by taxes.
An American success story, Nancy, daughter of a Baltimore politician, heads west, serves the USA while accumulating a large fortune.
I read a interesting theory on Reddit on why Nancy and the Mitchster won’t leave Congress until they’re literally carried out on a gurney.
You’d think they’d just retire and enjoy whatever quality of life they still have. But their masters have invested too much money in them. Think of them as assets for corporate America. If they retire, they’ll have to be replaced by someone new and maybe not captured.
They literally aren’t allowed to retire. They still have work to do ruining the country for Big Pharma, the MIC, etc.
Fellow Chris, this is their retirement.
They have easy schedules they can shape however they want. They get to talk to their friends. They get to travel to interesting places. People want to talk to them and listen. They have free healthcare. They can eat at great places. Their hairdresser is free too. The senate and the house are the best retirement programs we offer our deranged elite class.
Why would they want to leave?
Well, there is that, too. Pelosi gets to fly over the world and get the best medical treatment on the planet. The Mitchster is probably not as cosmopolitan but he gets pampered in his own special way. Maybe they change his adult diapers for him.
Here’s ALL you need to know about pelvic injury to the elderly:
https://elderlyguides.com/pelvic-fractures-in-elderly/
Pelosi is not likely to be alive for the Dems to take back the House (two years).
Thanks. Sounds like she’s off the game board (Congress) for at least six weeks.
I really hope we are spared the ghoulish spectacle of her being wheeled out onto the House floor in February for some close vote. With the GOP having only a 220-215 advantage and up to three of those GOP votes joining the Trump admin, I can see it happening, though.
Perfect excuse then not to attend Trump’s inauguration. The grinding of her teeth would have been a distraction anyway.
The friend (see below) who was younger than Pelosi and pretty robust looking who had a pelvic fracture and did not need surgery was told to stay in the hospital for 3 months to assure she’d heal properly. Bone breaks or fractures in the old generally take 2x as long to knit properly as for the young, so what would take 6 weeks to repair for a young adult is assumed to take 3 months in someone elderly.
A pelvic fracture is not the same as a hip fracture. I had a friend who had a bad fall. They found no hip fracture (no break in the ball of the ball and socket joint). But she was still in pain. IM Doc said she should go back and have them look for a pelvic fracture, doctors often overlook that in looking for a hip break or fracture (BTW if they find a fracture, they are sure to break, they can’t take much loading). Indeed, she had one!
She got treated at a US military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany (single-payer?)
She intentionally fell abroad, because they have better healthcare.
I am confident Air Force One (or at least Two) will whisk her back to Walter Reed if that’s what she wants. I’m not sure why every time I hear her name, I think of the song “Ebony and Ivory” but with new words…..”Ignorance and Arrogance, working together in perfect harmony…..”. Maybe that is not fair to the song.
I should have added, her pardon will be under the pillow on the plane, to bolster her morale. I’m not bitter…..
Didn’t I read somewhere that she has her own big, well-tricked-out plane to get her back and forth to california?
It was four years ago during the Floyd – African garb wearing – kneeling episode in the Capitol – that I looked to my wife and said – “It will not be long before she breaks a hip”. There are two different footages of that day – one during the actual taking the knee – and the far more difficult to find – but present – of her getting back on her feet and having to be helped by staffers.
This is not any kind of special knowledge on my part – it was literally how doctors were trained once upon a time. In Medicare age women with an adequate level of fitness and maintained frame – you can tell fairly quickly what their level of hip fracture risk is. You have the patient take a knee and then watch them carefully as they get back up. If they immediately spring up – they are good – some of them begin to rock and get momentum and then launch up ( moderate risk of hip fracture) and some just cannot do it at all – they are stuck – ( severely elevated risk). In simple English – weakened abdominal and pelvic core causes the hips to be held in a very unfortunate manner – and at some point they will torque and break. We would then order PT and/or teach the exercises yourself. Then they would get sent to the senior center to continue to work on this. And I follow up on it. And even unto this day – women, and men, respond to this – and many successes are seen. And they are not pumped full of osteoporosis meds and all the hideous problems that go along with them.
Hip fractures come from weakened bones but that is a small part of the problem no matter the fact that this is the ONLY thing that “matters” now. Lots of expensive tests and meds for osteoporosis can be prescribed, and these are very easy to tabulate in utilization databases in the EMR – and therefore that is the physician bonus structure. THE FAR MORE IMPORTANT ISSUE is abdominal and pelvic core fitness – and the kneel test is perfect to evaluate it. There are no meds, tests or labs for this – nor is there lots of money. It is the patient doing a physical activity and the doctor carefully monitoring them. It is a matter of being taken care of by someone who is not practicing medicine to fill in bubbles on a test sheet – but someone who is there for your health.
Since the advent of Obamacare and EHR – the entire manner of these Medicare wellness visits has changed. I am told by MBA types – do not touch the patients – this is not an exam – this is only an interview to monitor deficiencies. The “deficiencies” are of course all very costly tests, labs, vaccines, etc. Nothing about core strength, mental health or important things in life. We fill in bubbles on computer screens. And corporately and individually get bonuses. Actual medical prevention means nothing. The items that are monitored almost to the one are things that bring in shekels. Vaccines, colonoscopies, mammograms, bone density studies, etc. Long gone are mental health, physical health as I describe above, etc. There is no money in it. And so what occurs are simple important things never get done. And I hate to say this – these examinations are NOT EVEN BEING TAUGHT ANYMORE. The thirtysomethings I have in the room during Medical Wellness visits look at me with horror – “You actually examine the patient? That is against the rules”. “This is just supposed to be an interview – what are you doing?” “We were told never to do these things – we will be reprimanded”. Again, generations of acquired wisdom in dealing with elderly health are just gone…..dust in the wind.
It is all about money.
If I had been Pelosi’s physician four years ago and had seen that video – I would have immediately started her on a program. It is very likely that Pelosi’s physician would not have recognized what they are seeing at all. And this is a core problem in my profession with regard to patient health. You cannot just turn on a switch. These young doctors are not even being taught these things at this point. It will take generations to fix, if it can be fixed at all.
My grandmother suffered horrible falls and the inevitable hip fracture.
Doctors told her to do all sorts of things, including exercises, and while she sometimes adhered to or even exceeded the regimen (her best health and mobility was when she had a handsome personal trainer), she just as often ignored or discontinued her doctor’s orders.
It’s highly probable that Pelosi’s fancy doctors advised her to be careful and to do some of the things you describe, but she couldn’t be bothered. Before I moved recently, I had an excellent doctor, one with whom I developed a report. She candidly told me that patient adherence, even when warned that resistance will result in severe or life-threatening consequences, to prescribed therapies is very sketchy–diabetics who eat terribly, people with scary infections who cease their antibiotics after three days, etc.–and that she encountered the most resistance when suggesting any form of regular exercise, though exercise would be the most effective and least costly of any therapy!
My guess is that *no one* tells Pelosi what to do, especially not some sniveling doctor she regards as little better than a servant.
Wow. Unlike me you are the expert. Thanks for the info.
I know someone who just broke her pelvic bone after slipping on the floor while getting into bed. She is still big on playing golf but riding around in a golf cart may not promote the below the waist muscles.
All about the money. Not sure if this was on the NC feed, or not. Local Doc makes the Big Time:
Long read… 10-15 minutes, but absolutely amazing story. Made me think of the timing of Matt Stollers article on health care reform on NC yesterday.
https://montanafreepress.org/2024/12/07/a-propublica-investigation-of-helena-montana-oncologist-tom-weiner/
https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/its-time-to-break-up-big-medicine
Thanks so much for sharing this. I’ve managed to solve and prevent joint problems over the years with targeted moves to correct imbalances, and I’m fitter and more flexible than most of my compadres. I’ve found there are some great doctors and PTs uploading demos on routines to keep back, shoulders, and knees strong, etc.
But today, I didn’t pass the rise-from-the-knee test, and my searches are coming up with nothing on that particular test, and searching for exercises to ward off hip fracture result in vague exhortations to walk more and ‘get exercise’. Part of the ‘crapification’ of search engines, I’m sure.
So, if you or anyone else has links for a program to help with this, I and others surely need it.
It is not really anything special – please see the above – the patient can either do it, do it with help, or not at all. That is a physical exam finding. And as I stated above, I am certain there are all kinds of these type of things which are nowhere to be found online. In the age of Big Medicine, they no longer matter. These maneuvers and findings were all taught to me by internists that decades ago were in their 80s. It was their world then, the end of an age, that is now almost completely obliterated by the profit motive.
Please note, this applies to those who are still in reasonably good shape. If the person is obese at age 70, they are not going to be able to do this anyway – and that is a set of problems much more pressing than hip fractures. Those who have been ravaged by cancer, heart failure etc are also not really applicable. The exercises can be nothing but help for them – but it is unlikely at their age and condition they will be able to normalize in any way.
The exercises consist of largely the same thing a trainer would do to increase the core strength – we used to call them calesthenics. Planks, crunches, lunges, etc – all done at the physical level where the patient resides. Great care must be taken to not have a “drill sergeant” PT. The hospital where I work has a just incredible group of physical therapists and multiple completely free sessions every day where the elderly come for this kind of work. And they do. It is a social outlet for many of these people as well. And it is like clockwork, almost monthly, that these PTs find something on a patient that I need to address – cardiovascular status, etc. This is what medicine should be. I have not done so in a while, but just looked it up – our region’s hip fracture rate is in the lowest quartile. Lots of good lifestyle living – it is largely rural with lots of activities, etc – but I also truly believe a lot of this is due to these kinds of medical efforts in our community. Again, this type of thing is MUCH MORE IMPORTANT than filling out boxes on computers.
I have also become much more cynical about all of this as I have gotten older and seen the amount of tragedies and missed opportunities. In the things that are paid for and covered – ie vaccines and colonoscopies, etc – the money all comes in up front in preventive tests, etc. In things like hip fractures – the money all comes in after the fact – surgery fees, hospital stays etc. So things like hip fracture risk is ignored in the preventive efforts – the systems make much more money after they have occurred. I hate to be so cynical – but watching MBAs and corporations make mincemeat of the ideals of my profession over the past two decades has made me that way. And unfortunately, it is far worse than I am able to express.
Thanks so much for that, I will hit core strength harder and more carefully.
And sorry for getting off track of your main point. We have seriously misguided standards and practices. The MBAs have trashed all our industries, but the most dangerous damage they have done is in medicine.
Concur IM Doc,
Whilst I have been active and fit most my life, farm, military, sports/lifestyle, and lastly work [manual arts] my DAI head injury from a fall [above 3m] in 08 changed all that. 7 cm blunt force cut to the bone on the back of my skull and exploded capillaries around neck. This is highlighted by the injury becoming a legal matter and all medical personnel – on both sides – lost the plot due to profit incentives and patient care was not even on the list.
Long story short I had to work on my mind first knowing how long that all takes before a baseline can be established and attempt to maintain some sort of physical activities. Due to the injury and family dynamics I was only able to return to work 2017. All I can say is that was epic on so many levels.
So back to your point … even after returning to work, grinding through the day and needing rest afterwards, both mind and body, less than a year ago I finally got stuck into a full fitness program. 20 min of calisthenics in the morning, 3 stations on the 25 in one home gym, shred protein/EEA’s, intermittent fasting, physical labour for 8 hr, and then hit the 25 in 1 for more weights throughout the night. All I can say is wow, went from a comfortable 32 inch waste to 30 inch in less than 2 mo. Muscle gain/definition, flexibility [palms to the floor etc], energy levels, and the looks out and about lol. Even people that have known me for a long time are impressed, strangers think I am early mid 50s when I just turned 63.
Its not hard to do chair yoga or floor types of calisthenics in ones lounge room for 15 min a couple of times a day or just even once a day i.e. I do leg lifts on the lounge when watching a movie or show day and night. Anyway my 38 yr old girlfriend noted that I am more fit than most of her age cohort, so there is that …
I remember reading awhile back about a study, in Japan I think, looking at susceptibility to hip fractures in women.
It found that women who gardened seemed to be at lower risk. The study pinpointed raking, leaves and such, as so beneficial as to produce statistically significant decrease in risk.
Apparently raking, planting your feet and then pulling with a twisting motion, strengthened the bones and muscles necessary to prevent such fractures.
Also read once that strong walkers were less prone to hip fractures. Apparently strong walkers move forward, and if they fall, they fall forward, possibly breaking a wrist which is far easier to recover from. Weak walkers tend to move side-to-side more and if they fall are more likely to fall on their hips. Always sounded reasonable to me.
I used to be pretty fearless rock hopping across Sierra streams, but now look at them with some trepidation and i’m a quarter of a century younger than Nancy…
Can’t remember the last time I fell though, its been awhile.
Your comment about “fall” is good. I recently fell, tripped on a sidewalk crack. Not a good thing for a slightly elderly women. But in the past, I was adept at softball. That past sports activity saved me. I instinctively rolled (I was an outfielder) and didn’t land hard on my wrist or hip. So, because of that, hubby and I have been practicing falling in the garden. The ground is soft and we let the other person slightly push us with a preplanned route for the fall. In a silly way it’s actually fun. “Practice makes perfect” – to an extent.
I have heard, more than once, that it’s very important to “learn” how to fall.
Stiff and tense is bad. A relaxed crumple is the holy grail. I’m practicing too.
Years ago I spent a summer in a Butoh workshop. One of the exercises consisted of walking while imagining that you were suspended by a silken cord attached to the center of the head. From time to time, at a signal, the cord was cut and we all crumpled to the floor. A wonderful practice, which saved me bruises later on when my foot twisted in a loose sandal while stepping off a curb in Soho. I happened to be answering a call on my cellphone at the time, and scarcely noticing, I instinctively crumpled to the ground. I didn’t even feel the impact. Result: no shock, not even a bruise. Here’s to the crumple!
There is a lot of evidence that culture where there is a lot of squatting (as in all over Asia v. the West), there are fewer hip fractures. I suspect it is the squatting.
Good news for me: I definitely fall forward, as I found out a few months ago. To “possibly” you should add “possibly breaking 2 teeth” which can be fixed (at a cost).
> If I had been Pelosi’s physician four years ago and had seen that video – I would have immediately started her on a program.
Myself: Two hundred million and she couldn’t find a doctor who cared.
Janet: What wealth won’t buy you.
The American death-care system in action. What a travesty.
[ It was four years ago during the Floyd – African garb wearing – kneeling episode in the Capitol – that I looked to my wife and said – “It will not be long before she breaks a hip”. There are two different footages of that day – one during the actual taking the knee – and the far more difficult to find – but present – of her getting back on her feet and having to be helped by staffers. ]
I was startled at the foolishness of the kneeling episode, since the danger was immediately obvious while the example might have been followed by others who were unconditioned. The need would be for Nancy Pelosi to be exercising daily, and always wearing shoes such as New Balance walking shoes, and not kneeling in any event.
The foolishness of aides was even more troubling. ]
Hope Nancy has United as her Healthcare provider! (Of course she doesn’t. As the sign reads as you cross the boarder from Massachusetts into Vermont “Give us the same Healthcare Congress has”).
Nancy’s fall could have implications for close House votes in the next Congress. It sounds like a long convalescence. I certainly wouldn’t want to put any 84 year old with a fractured hip on a plane for at least a month after any procedure, even a super comfy private jet.
Whether she’ll be able to make any votes on the House floor for the next six months is seriously in question. If she needs a hip replacement its probably a zero.
As part of the Obamacare / ACA horse-trading if Congress people want gov’t payment support for health insurance, they have to buy an ACA plan — they got kicked out of FEHB that other Feds get. Of course the members themselves do have their own physician within Congress itself.
I love that our decrepit gerontocractic rulers have a much worse enemy more insidious, omnipresent, and cunning than the axis-of-resistance and mob-rule could ever be:
Gravity.
Shortened life expectancy, and it hurt. Am I missing something ?
Flu EXPLOSION: Shocking one in four adults who are sick have flu – double last year’s rate… as terrifying ‘quad-demic’ surge engulfs Britain hospitalising thousands
I am very surprised about the absence of an accompanying comment of the kind “What could have caused the population to become more vulnerable to respiratory infections? ‘Tis a mystery!”
All the more so since, as the article states:
To add to the NHS’s woes, serious cases of both norovirus and RSV are also on the rise.
Truly, why have people become so much more susceptible for respiratory infections in the past couple of years? ‘Tis a mystery!
But there is something that is thoroughly depressing:
children aged five to 14 who had a rate of 30 per cent, the highest of any group
The past half-decade has seen TPTB openly and mercilessly sacrificing the young generation — whether by refusing to take measures to protect it from Covid, letting it be slaughtered in Gaza and taking away the little support it received from the UNRWA, reducing the usage of well-known, life-saving vaccines (or screwing up vaccines, e.g. polio). In this forum it was asserted that TPTB are actually carrying out a eugenic plan; I am still unsure whether it is a deliberate approach or just instinctive actions, both resulting from a fundamentally warped mentality, but there sure is something eugenicist in what is taking place nowadays.
The COVID pandemic was an operation. Against us. A horrendous crime and so far none of the criminals has been held accountable. It seems to me the only solution for me and my family going forward is to go full Amish. Disengage totally from the satanic matrix.
Perhaps disengagement can be regarded as a series of pieces of Swiss cheese. ( Borrowing from the Swiss Cheese analogy for counter-Covid safety along a gradient from zero to full. Here’s a bunch of images of the Swiss Cheese Model.)
https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?p=swiss+cheese+model+of+pandemic+defense+image&fr=sfp&imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic01.nyt.com%2Fimages%2F2020%2F12%2F08%2Fscience%2F08SCI-cheese-graphic-REV2%2F08SCI-cheese-graphic-REV2-videoSixteenByNineJumbo1600.png#id=0&iurl=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic01.nyt.com%2Fimages%2F2020%2F12%2F08%2Fscience%2F08SCI-cheese-graphic-REV2%2F08SCI-cheese-graphic-REV2-videoSixteenByNineJumbo1600.png&action=click
So perhaps there can be a Swiss Cheese Model approach to disengagement along a gradient from zero disengagement/total engagement to total disengagement/zero engagement. The more Swiss Cheese layers of disengagement, the more safety. Some is better than none and more is better than less.
I am not totally disengaged. I still go to work. Personal procrastinertia has kept me from upgrading from my Saggy Baggy surgical masks to the N/K/Etc. 95. But I minimize my restaurant going. I don’t go to concerts or movies or demonstrations or other mob scenes. I live a semi-shut-in life. But only semi.
I have gotten covid once that I know of. Between the onset of covid and right now today I have gotten a tiny fraction of the colds and sore throats I used to get. And none of them have been of my normal BeforeTimes severity.
So partial disengagement works better than no disengagement at all. If you discover you can’t go Full Amish, Half Amish is better than no Amish at all.
With Covid we not only added a new one to the large collection of respiratory viruses. While Covid has been dominant the rest were there behind waiting to come with a vengeance. There might be at least two factors at play: 1) you might have your immune system a little bit impaired after one, two, three, several Covid episodes. 2) Because years have gone by your immune memory to the others in the collection has waned and you are more susceptible. I have just passed a common cold most probably caused by Rhinovirus with its typical three week development . It has been quite nastier than usual. I blame it to cause #2.
You mentioned “several Covid episodes” but didn’t mention several vax episodes. I can bring this up because I won’t have my youboob channel demonetized, my health practice license taken, nor be de-banked. Not yet any way.
I genuinely think there is a tipping point on the vaxes (separate from the side effects). I believe the study that found negative efficacy after 3 months was >3 vaxes.
If the following isn’t the study you’re referring to, it would appear to support it:
IgG4 Antibodies Induced by Repeated Vaccination May Generate Immune Tolerance to the SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein
No, the study used Cleveland Clinic data, large sample, and was solely about Covid. And it was persuasive because the negative efficacy after three months was a not-intended finding.
https://academic.oup.com/ofid/article/10/6/ofad209/7131292?login=false
This may be the study you referenced.
UK population is chronically VitD deficient. Especially in winter. And the Govt does nothing about it.
as someone who grew up in Scotland I have told my relatives about the need for Vitamin D, but I doubt any of them listen.
I have my Vitamin levels checked every few years….and I have to pay for it (I an in Canada) and when I first started doing it my doc said “why bother they will just be low” to me this comment is insane.
So I take 2 vitamin tabs in summer and 3 in winter…this brings my levels up to barely normal
I do not understand what the medical community does not take this seriously??
There is little to no money in preventative care. The “real money” is in repairing the ‘issues’ arising from neglecting preventative care. My Medica, though pretty effective on most issues, has little to no interest in vitamins and supplements. She said once that she wasn’t trained to care about them.
As IMDoc has stated, the medical profession has devolved from “First do no harm” to “First assess patient’s financials.”
Stay safe.
Vit D is cheap and you have to take an insanely high dose for it to be toxic. IMHO everyone who does not work outdoors with a fair bit if bared skin should take it.
Re Polluting shipwrecks are the ticking time-bomb at the bottom of our oceans
One big problem with polluting shipwrecks dating from WW2 and 1, are that many are classified as war graves and therefore out of bounds for salvage and clean up operations. One classic example is the German heavy cruiser Blücher, that was sunk in Oslofjord as it approached Oslo during the German invasion of Norway in April 1940. Over 1,000 German sailors went down with the ship. Now the wreck is a source of significant pollution with the leaking of oil and diesel etc., as it rusts and disintegrates. At what point should environment concerns outweigh human sorrow and respect for the dead?
War graves desecrated in Davy Jones Locker become an issue that gets disregarded when that ugly 6 letter word shows its face, profit über alles!
The aforementioned Blücher is a candidate~
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-background_steel
If the Blücher had sunk in the Pacific, it would not be a problem as by now scrap merchants would have illegally broken it up and raised it to sell off all that steel-
https://www.military.com/history/thieves-are-stripping-sunken-world-war-ii-shipwrecks-of-their-valuable-steel.html
And I can hear the horses whinny as I read about the scow Blücher.
“Walk this way.” “This way?” “No, this way.”
How about Tirpitz?
Or the Britannic, a sister ship to the Titanic, sunk in WW-1.
See: https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/titanic-sister-ships-olympic-britannic
St. Elon should get up off of his assets and start asteroid mining in earnest. Steel from the stars folks! Let the dead rest in peace.
Battleship Arizona is another one.
A watery grave site for over 600 servicemen, the USS Houston was sunk late February of 1942. There is quite the tale of survival for those who lived through the actual hell as POW until 1945.
A now deceased distant uncle, younger brother to a grandparent, was on the ship when it was destroyed and sunk and survived the aforementioned horrid conditions. He finally returned to the US and his family home in eastern Tennessee afterwards, and said that a bowl of rice would just never look the same again.
https://www.history.navy.mil/news-and-events/news/2014/ww-ii-cruiser-uss-houston–ca-30–final-report-completed.html
Speaking about bombs and shipwrecks,
Unexploded Bombs off the British Coast: the SS Richard Montgomery
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9u41aeItss
Not just “off the British coast” but at the mouth of the Thames, just below London!
Much worse than UXB’s are the vast amounts of weapons, including chemical weapons, deliberately sunk in the Irish Sea (mostly around the Beauford Dyke between NI and Scotland) in the post war years. Something like one million tonnes of munitions, including phosgene shells, were sunk in defunct ships. It’s a serious issue for the laying of undersea cables or pipelines. Shell regularly wash up on NI beaches, including the phosgene ones.
This article speaks to more human arrogance. We’re going to find a scientific solution to fix everything we’ve been fouling for the last century and a half. Improved capabilities for pin pointing and mapping wrecks; then what? Mitigate the hazard? When that’s accomplished what about locating all the containers that have fallen overboard since the 1950’s filled with all of our products of the modern world.
And then there’s the issue of the oceans having become the world’s plastic dump. Good luck.
Exactly right. Nothing will be done. We are too busy trying to figure out how to trash Mars.
Was there a NC assessment of Rosneft’s report on how they see climate change?
In case it matters, here the download link:
XVII VERONA EURASIAN
ECONOMIC FORUM
REPORT BY IGOR SECHIN, Chief Executive Officer, Rosneft Oil Company
FAREWELL TO ILLUSIONS
The energy world is in a Thucydides trap
Dec. 5/6 2024
https://limited.rosneft.com/upload/site2/attach/0/22/11/pdf_05122024_1_en.pdf
Or via the Rosneft site with a summary.
On the bottom 2 links:
The above report AND the visuals which are in a separate document:
https://limited.rosneft.com/press/news/item/221353/
“Macron appoints centrist ally François Bayrou as France’s fourth prime minister in 2024”
Called it. Said that Macron would choose a centrist and loyalist and here we are. To try to make his government more stable, he is trying to split the leftist coalition and recruiting SINOs to help support him – Socialists In Name Only. And they have their own demands-
‘Socialists quickly posed conditions for not supporting a no-confidence motion in an open letter to Bayrou. He must agree not to ram laws through without a parliamentary vote and not to rely on support from the far right, the party’s board said.’
But what happens if Macron needs Marine le Penn’s votes down the track?
Time to bring out the head of lettuce, again?
Romaine-ia?
Part of which soon becomes Mould-over; which soon spins off Trans-listeria.
Bravi, both, ‘Cos you are funny, let us admit!
NB: lettuce is the only vegetable from which no preserved form is made….
Is that why the ‘Romaine Party’ lost the Brexit vote? No stamena. Sorry. I couldn’t resist the urge to take the pistil. I hope I don’t have to endure the stigma of flowery pun-ishment.
As the pun is the lowest form of “humour,” so am I lower than ye serpent’s belly. Now, where’s that apple tree?
“Meet the Snowy Owl”
Is this an AI/manipulated video test? The woman’s clothing and her scale to the owl is constantly changing. The Snowy apparently grows up to 27 inches in size – how tall is the woman?
Wondered the same myself although I enjoyed that video. Snowy Owls seem to grow to 52.5 to 64 cm (20.7 to 25.2 in) in total length and that Owl is bigger than that. Also, look at her hands near the beginning of that video-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowy_owl#Size
Had the same thought, the woman may be of small stature. Looking closely at when the owl nuzzles (heart!) her collar, it appears real. I want to believe this one. What a magnificent creature.
I think there are supposed to be three (artificial) women in the video. The only place Snowy Owls can ever be seen in Chinese mountains is a tiny corner of the Altai mountains right on the border with Russia.
And honestly, the (artificial) scenery looks more like the Russian/Kazakhstan side of the mountains, not the southern slopes. Or Sichuan, but that would be way, way south of Snowy Owl’s range.
That video is very well done. It looks convincing if I didn’t know any better. I’ve seen a snowy owl in the wild while hiking in arctic Sweden. It’s a majestic bird, but it’s nowhere near that size. But they are stunning enough as they are!
I’ve had a close sighting of an owl a few times and the most striking thing is they are absolutely noiseless. You see this quite big shape moving fast through the air and there is zero sound. It’s quite a perceptive dissonance.
Yes, that’s a thing. Uncovering the secrets behind the silent flight of owls, Science Digest, January 23, 2024.
Owls produce negligible noise while flying. While many studies have linked the micro-fringes in owl wings to their silent flight, the exact mechanisms have been unclear. Now, a team of researchers has uncovered the effects of these micro-fringes on the sound and aerodynamic performance of owl wings through computational fluid dynamic simulations.
Since getting hens in the backyard I’ve had several sightings, and you are right, totally silent. The funniest one was when they were chicks out in their day cage, there was an owl not 20 feet away in broad daylight, and I was pointing at him and talking about him, and he did not budge for a long time.
You saw one only. They can can grow big, up to 70 cm in height and 3 Kg. That is a large bird. I have seen eagle owls of about that size and they are impressive as well as nice.
If she were supporting the weight and talon grip of that owl as pictured without a protective gauntlet her sweet little hands would be bleeding profusely.
Exactly my thought. But thankfully those aren’t human hands so no danger.
yeah, i clocked that as ai just from the thumbnail. looking at the way her hands move also points to the video being ai. it also just looks weirdly smooth in the way ai generated videos tend to look.
Same. Suspected AI just from the thumbnail and confirmed based on feeling of unreality (that’s a very large bird to be held work no gloves) and very obviously the girl’s hands do the AI hands thing.
It looks fake to me too. For comparison, I took photos of owls being banded at Centre Wildlife Care, with the first and final four photos being of a snowy. The people holding the snowy are all average height (for size comparison). The snowy was released a few months later.
Thank you for the pix. We hear screech owls all the time but never see them. I had no idea they were so petite!
It’s definitely AI generated. Maximize it and watch her hands and the artifacts are quite clear. It looks relatively smooth and realistic but concepts like weight and physics are notably absent.
Yours are much better – thank you!
(Incidentally, the sappy blurb is another tell – Chinese social media is full of this stuff. It seems to be the Occupy Democrats of the AI era)
Yes.
“Biden commutes sentence of Luzerne County kids-for-cash scandal judge Conahan ”
This has me so angry!!! What is wrong with Biden and the Democrats???!!! The only thiing I can thing of is that so many people have dirt on them. Just absolutist heartbreaking…
At this point, I can only conclude that the Democrats are simply complicit in making their own brand look detestable.
I’m sure you’re right about many people being aware of their dirt, but how can the Dems’ private activities look much worse than public actions like this one? It’s so brazen, like the Nast cartoon of Boss Tweed: “Try and stop me!”
This is why all their constant denials of populist reasons for their electoral thrashing look so fake to me. We’re supposed to believe that they ‘just don’t get it’? Still? In 2024?
“What is wrong with Biden and the Democrats?”
They are utterly depraved scum. Filth.
What do you call that act?
“The Aristocrats!”
“The AristoDems!”
There is no excuse for letting that slime out of jail. To be honest, I’m surprised he’s still alive. Usually corrupt law enforcement officials are the first in line for some inmate justice.
I thought kidnapping – this case certainly looks like all the elements are met – a capital offence.
At least Misprision.
Are these state criminal charges or did they rise to federal prosecuted crimes. If Federal then the Pres would have privilege.
It is disgusting that this kickback/bribery money scheme for private gain came at the complete obliteration of constitutional rights and freedoms for humans…..seems familiar in this regard as to much of privately financialized and corporately captured legislative branch.
So Biden’s legacy should reflect war mongering, fear baiting, human rights violations, genocide supporting, constitutional rights violations, usurpation, impoverishment……….. Oh wait a second…..that stuff applies to both parties who have been supine to financial violations of the body politic for many decades now… those vested interests have sure got their money’s worth given the decades long low market rate for prostitutes.
A friend in San Diego was riding his bike down by Black’s Beach and filmed a hillside coming down over a period of about 10 minutes, and its remarkable that he uttered not 1 swear word the whole time. It’s up to 14 million views now…
That Snowy Owl video is pretty fake, how much longer before AI can replicate this, so you wouldn’t be able to tell fake from real take?
Torrey Pines landslide, ends with a boom
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0TjcmNsjPE
His camera work made me a little seasick. I wish he had unzoomed and switched to recording horizontally. I wanted to see it all but just couldn’t take it.
Wow. That is a crazy video.
i’ve been using ai since i was 14, which is like 1/3 of my lifespan. so i get to say i grew up with ai. consequentially im decent at clocking it. and i generally struggle more with noticing if landscapes are ai or not rather than people. but generally what gets me is something about the lighting. it’s hard to put words to it, but ai lighting looks really specific. more high contrast, like its out of a stock photo. like it was exclusively trained on images pre-edited too add contrast and therefore clarity. i think this comes about from how a lot of ai models are trained on stock photos. i do think interesting results could come about by training ais on more real life data. dont know if someone has done this already, but attaching cameras to people and using all the data coming in to train ais. that might result in some progress. but as of right now, an ai version of that video would probably end up being more high contrast than the real version.
Welcome to the NC commentariat, Matt! Oldsters like myself are overrepresented, glad to ‘see’/read you.
…is it possible that one particular image generating software “bundle” for less affluent, i.e. indie news platforms has been used extensively this very year.
I am probably referring to something different than you and I don’t know any of these things but I am observing and noticing some oddities online. And those AI generated pics are “odd”. Their colours are off like computer-gamey, and they have unnatural headlights, a blueish tone of lighting. And yes, too much contrast, as if overdoing the 3-D effect or something
And they suddenly popped up many places this year making every image landscape look the same.
“ECB cuts rates again and keeps door open to further cuts”
It shows you how dishonest these people are. When a few years ago they thought inflation was “too low” (it was 1.0 – 1.8%! Still losing purchasing power), they introduced deeply negative interest rates and a “symmetrical” inflation target, meaning that inflation was allowed to run a bit higher to make up for “low” inflation in the past.
Well, inflation went completely out of control, destroying the financial well being of the majority of the non-rich population.
So, if they were honestly sticking to their “symmetrical target” pledge, they would now be running a much more restricted monetary policy, and aim to cause some CPI DEflation for a while to enable household incomes and savings on the non-rich to partly regain what was lost due to their policy errors.
Even though the ECB has only ONE mandate (low inflation), they have destroyed the currency. Around 2010 the euro was still around 1.50 against the US$. Right now it’s 1.05.
Many of the actions they did, like QE, directly funding governments and buying corporate debt (at negative rates, literally handing out free money to them, at the expense of the population who need to deal with the inflationary effects) were illegal per euro treaties, but nobody is holding them to account.
The dishonesty is rooted in the claim that monetary policy can control inflation, when really it’s fiscal policy that is the most flexible and powerful instrument for macroeconomic management.
“Turkish-backed fighters accused of executing Kurdish soldiers in hospital”
Par for the course in that part of the world and they could have done worse. That article did mention this-
‘A ceasefire in Manbij mediated by the US was announced on Wednesday morning after it fell to the SNA, although small clashes are reportedly still taking place.’
That was a result of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and afterwards they shook hands for the camera. But over a coffee today I realized what I saw. The representative of an agreement-incapable nation shaking hands with a country that always betrays their partners and allies. So how long will that agreement last?
Not very long. Today’s Military Summary Channel video claims that Erdogan is going to annex Aleppo and Idlib and make them part of Turkey. Blinken is gone in 36 days or so, anyways. So Erdogan can cancel any agreement with him as “null and void” due to personnel change.
https://youtu.be/w2wocyrPoFE?t=658
(Dima makes the claim about 11 mins in to the video)
PS – Damascus and Raqqa, too. Combine that with kicking the Kurds out of the east, and that’s a nice little payback for Sykes-Picot. Maybe the Chosen get the Golan Heights.
Cartographers better start getting ready to make Turkey great again!
Call me a cynic, but I do believe the Gulf states have enough money to make the HTS and SNA suddenly remember what Syrian patriots they are and how they have to work with their Arab brothers against the neo-Ottoman imperialism.
It’s not like changing loyalty, agenda and identity is a new thing for these groups. And frankly, Erdogan just hinted offhandedly that those areas uses to belong to Turkiyet. It’s still a long way from annexing them and may require the civil war to break out again.
By his own argument, Israel and Egypt also belong to him as they used to be part of the Ottoman empire.
Not to mention Greece and Hungary.
Gee, two militarist, expansionist, untrustworthy countries meeting at Damascus. I wonder what will happen? I read the History of the Ottoman Empire a couple years ago. The history of Israel is yet to be written but I suspect the end is near. It couldn’t happen to a better group of people. I guess I am going to have buy some more popcorn.
They have done worse, but off the camera.
Turkey has the right to defend itself, no? /sarc
Scale AI accused of wage theft, it seems that all sorts of theft are rampant in the AI industry.
When “AI Agent Lawyers” come on line, and you wake up one day to discover you’ve received 10,000+ lawsuits in 100+ jurisdictions, how will you handle this? @peterdiamandis
I wasn’t able to log in yesterday but am posting this re: Ukraine fatalities since I deem him a fairly unbiased source and not prone to the hyperbole that infects both sides:
https://x.com/I_Katchanovski/status/1864883422730104988
“My current research estimates of Russia-Ukraine war casualties: Ukrainian forces: about 140,000 killed & 560,000 wounded based on US & Ukrainian admissions. Russian forces: at least 85,000 killed & 340,000 wounded based on identification by name by BBC. Donbas separatists: about 25,000 killed & 100,000 wounded based on BBC Russian estimate from obituaries and messages about search for missing. The numbers of wounded are estimated based on 4 to 1 wounded to killed ratio.”
I hate to tell you but this isn’t credible. Kills and wounded in action are strongly correlated with the level of artillery shelling. Russia has been out-shelling Ukraine by over 5 to 1, and many estimate 8 to 10 to 1, for a very long time.
A few additional factors:
1) Russian artillery is considered less accurate and Ukrainians had a certain amount of Excalibur shells that were very accurate unless electronic warfare interfered with their guidance. In 2023 Russian troops were advised not to shelter together because they would likely be taken out by a single shell.
2) There is ample footage of Ukrainian trenches surrounded by Russian artillery misses that look like the surface of the moon.
3) Russian force took heavy losses from drones trying to cross open fields at Ugledar (sp?), among other locations.
4) Russian forces have generally been on the offensive and not hidden in bunkers or basements like Ukrainian forces defending Chasov Yar and other cities. ‘Ukraine surely took very heavy losses on the genius decision to seize a few apple orchards in Kursk.
5) I would take HIMARs v. TOS weapons if I could choose.
On the other hand, Russia is now making effective use of FAB bombs and when Russian forces face overwhelming odds or a poor risk/reward such as the Liman area in 2002 and the right bank of the Dnepier in August 2022, they retreat.
I do pay attention and have heard nothing along those lines, plus the West likes to denigrate everything Russian as inferior, so I would like to see sources. Alex Vershinin, in his July 2022 Royal United Services piece on the Return of Industrial Warfare, took Russian artillery to be on a par with Western. And many of the shells NATO members hauled out of mothballs and sent to Ukraine were reported to be duds. See this NYT headline: In Rush to Arm Ukraine, Weapons Are Bought but Not Delivered, or Too Broken to Use
I believe it was CBS News that reported in a documentary, then was bullied into excising this section, that 30% of the weapons sent to Ukraine were sold on the black market.
Ukraine’s bunkers are also reported to be inferior to Russia’s.
My comment on artillery quality relates to Russian forces faring very poorly in counter-battery exchanges in 2022 and 2023 (that issue has since dropped off my radar) and articles that I could not locate that M777 and other NATO barrels are made with greater precision than Russian barrels which allows more consistent accuracy.
The M777 barrels also need replacement much more often than the Soviet artillery and that was widely reported as not happening. The Ukrainians both did not have have anywhere near enough barrels and the rear areas where they could do that were remote relative to the Russia repair/refitting depots. Artillery fire becomes less accurate and the shells can even explode in the barrels.
Your sources sound biased, big time.
In 2023 RUSI report claimed Russian counter-battery fire had 3 minute loop from observation to fire on target. Which they thought was impressive given that the sheels take 75 seconds to travel the distance.
That said, the ammunition is the biggest contributor to the accuracy – every shell has to be not just same mass, but same weight distribution. And the quality and amount of powder the same, too.
To that end, Russia has 152 and 122 mm Krasnopol guided ammunition and 120 mm guided mortal shell, all of which they used to cut supplies to Bakhmut, as they are good enough for hitting even moving targets.
Aha! To your point about accuracy, I have seen reports that all 155 mm shells are not the same, as not even well standardized! Presumably this is across the countries made.
The thing lacking in all of this is the layers of intel and systems deployed to arrive at a result. Focusing on the pros and cons of any one weapons system is a fools errand and fodder for unwashed propaganda.
A. more artillery and shells wins the day regardless of pin point accuracy because of blast radius.
B. Counter – battery fire is dependent on radar systems which can be targeted themselves.
C. Regardless of technical abilities involved the whole thing comes down to lag time in coms, post identifying offending targets and speed of counter measures of which artillery counter fire is just one option. Heaps of lingering drones abound to target anything that presents a silhouette to the natural back drop.
At time of manufacture, this is true, but Russian metallurgy has always been superior to US metallurgy, and US-made barrels wear out at a faster rate than Russian/Soviet-made barrels, so after a given number of shells fired, the Russian tubes become increasingly more accurate than US/NATO tubes, and on top of that, the Russians are doing field replacement of gun tubes, whereas the Ukrainians are not.
I would take a fork over a spoon if I had to chose.
Yes, I ignored this one and I should have jumped on this big time. Category error to the degree that it makes no sense. TOS are short range, mainly deployed on tanks, FFS.
I was referencing each side’s best anti-pesonel volley weapon. Does Russia have a volley weapon with precision accuracy and range that can strike over 100 km? Iskanders can be fitted with cluster munitions to achieve an anti-personnel effect, but are rarely used for volleys except high-value targets. To me, the Iskander is comparable to ATACAMS in terms of range and use.
ATACMS is not an anti-personnel weapon. It can carry warheads that serve mainly as anti-personnel. There was also consideration of making ATACMS nuclear capable. Why do you depict using something as expensive as any sort of ballistic missile as having its use highest and best use be anti-personnel? They are generally deployed against higher value targets, as Russia mainly has (ammo depots, air defense systems, electrical infrastructure). Again, category error. The last 6 ATACMS missiles shot into Russia were v. an airbase.
Russia has most assuredly demonstrated it can hit precisely all across Ukraine, witness an strike early on against Lvov widely reported to have hit a gathering of Ukraine and foreign pretty senior personnel. I don’t understand why you Russia as lacking in precision missiles, and I don’t see the case of a “volley weapon,” (Google hits on that category are all very antique) offering some sort of whiz-bang special advantage. These days, a point might be to saturate air defenses, but Russia is very good at doing that with much cheaper drones and even decoys.
More from Wikipedia, emphasis mine:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATACMS
Of course, Tornado S. Also, ATACMS dreams about becoming Iskander when it grows up.
I’m surprised Katchanovski would accept Ukrainian/US figures. IIRC, even some ex-ministers or other retired officials in Kiev have been quoted giving much higher numbers. At the top end I have been hearing up to 400–500k dead. I would guess wounded at much higher but that may depend on how fast the Ukrainians can evacuate the wounded and I could swear I heard a reporter CDC or BBC talking about volunteers with a bus evacuating the wounded in one place.
It looks like Russian deaths are from Mediazona so probably pretty close.
Yes, I expressed my doubts about the ratio, not Mediazona. They were going to change to an algo-based method, abandoning their careful tracking of deaths, apparently because the figures were too low in light of what was occasionally admitted about Ukraine losses. Apparently there was enough criticism of that plan that they stuck with their established approach.
Andrei Martyanov (Whom I know has issues with cheerleading) shared a photo of a television screen showing a Ukrainian news channel reporting over 1.1 million DEATHS for Ukrainian armed forces, and that was over 8 months ago, at least. I figured that that had to be the floor for that figure (if not the truth), given they were reporting it to their own population. Anyone attempting to report anything under a million deaths for the UAF just makes me roll my eyes, at this point.
I had not realized it would be that high. As said, I was thinking 400-500K was high. I am having trouble imagining how the Ukrainian military can keep in the field with that level of loss. Combing KIA & WIA we’re getting up to something like 10% of the population! We’re soon going to be up to Paraguayan numbers.
I don’t know who’s counting the Ukrainian obituaries, but the current count is claimed to be a tad over 550,000. It’s presumed to be missing 2-3 months worth of casualties, as reportedly Ukrainian units can and do delay informing to families and relatives.
In the numbers you quoted, are the Wagner casualties part of Russian casualties? As they were not part of the Russian forces.
Also, based on the news reports, it’s very likely that the two sides don’t have the same wounded to killed ratio, as Russians have much capable military medicine.
He is not a source (unbiased or not), but just repeating what he saw on the Internet (as are we).
I should have said “person” v. “source”, but as a Ukrainian he can easily assess any publicly available information and likely retains contacts there.
He is a frequent guest on the Neutrality Studies webcast and my comment on credibility derives from each side having vehement cheerleaders whose past predictions of imminent collapse for the other side affords them – at least IMHO – little credibility other than to describe the general contours of the conflict.
Between Russia & Donbass we are plausibly at 100k deaths for that side.
UA deaths are certainly higher than that estimate, and it has nothing to do with Russian claims. We have MANY correlated indicators that point to significantly higher numbers: surveys, amputee numbers, cemeteries, prisoner exchange numbers, mobilization troubles, Ukrainian officials routinely letting things slip, etc.
I agree with you (schmoe) that the Russian artillery advantage is overstated. Russia leaned on WW2 artillery methods that undoubtedly resulted in more wasted rounds than Ukraine. They did this simply because they could, while Ukraine–with its limited stocks–could not.
The other arguments don’t stand up however. Western precision weapons–with the exception of Storm Shadow**–have been rapidly neutralized by Russian tactics* while the reverse is not the case. Ukraine’s only enduring effective weapon has been the drone–an essentially native capability. Ukraine’s only other advantages are leaning on US ISR and related systems that Russia lags in: Starlink, some digital communications & networking stuff, and the like.
* If you find a source that starts with ‘Western weapons have shown their superiority in Ukraine…’ immediately discount them. Ukraine has been an unequivocal calamity for Western weapons. The West proved several strengths (see above) but absolutely, resoundingly NOT in weapons systems.
** Probably due to Russian ISR problems, particularly their appalling lack of AWACS.
Re your second footnote, HUH?
AWACS are used only for long ranges and are on airplanes. Please tell me what if any role they have played in helping stop Russia’s regular missile barrages. Russia has had air superiority, arguable air supremacy, in Ukraine. Admittedly Western planes can putter around the Black Sea and thus can fire on Russian positions in Ukraine, but even then, the big Western asset there seems to be Reaper drones, which Russia occasionally harasses and appears to have signal-jammed once or twice to make a point.
Russia is ahead of AWACS in battlefield operations. It has net-centric warfare, so all major platforms (like tanks) plus drones are feeding real time info in all the time. Russia lays down a drone plan first and sends in drones for recon and early action. Russia has such an large supply of drones that there are numerous cases of using FPV drones to kill individual soldiers.
I’ve been following Katchanovsky for a couple of years & I like him. Here I think he’s on shakey ground due to relying on the BBC, but as always he shows his work & documents how he arrives at his (in this case flawed) conclusion.
I’d like to take the opportunity to put in a plug for Katchanovsky’s latest book on Maidan. Maidan deeply affected me at the time, both in terms of what was happening and in terms of what was being reported, and not reported, as happening. I’d race home after work to log on to Moon of Alabama and, especially, The Saker to find out what The Guardian & the BBC weren’t telling me (I didn’t know Naked Capitalism then).
Now, years later, I am pleased as punch to find everything I learned while ignoring legacy media and instead tuning in to Bernard & Raevsky confirmed in the careful, forensic, academically rigorous work of Katchanovsky.
A recent interview (for background) :- https://www.thecanadafiles.com/articles/book-publisher-censoring-canadian-university-professor-who-exposed-maidan-massacre-false-flag
The book :-
The Maidan Massacre in Ukraine : The Mass Killing that Changed the World, Springer, 2024
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-67121-0
Katchanovsky is relying on Mediazona figures for deaths.
If people like Doug Macgregor and Alexander Mercouris think they are pretty good, I’m going to accept them.
Given that we are dealing with such a radically different type of war I am not sure that any rule of thumb about extrapolating wounded rates from fatalities still holds true.
As I said, I objected to the ratio. Both sets of #s cannot be correct.
Re. Ontario threatens to cut off US’s power over Trump tariff row
This is stupid bloviating by the over-fed Doug Ford. Only an idiot or liar would claim he could pull the plug like an extension cord. Ontario is closely tied with the eastern interconnection. While there certainly are imports from Ontario to New York and Michigan, there are exports going the other way. More specifically, the interconnected network allows much more stability and control which has great benefit to Ontario.
Quebec is a different story; it is its own grid (like Texas) and has DC connections to the northeast. They could pull the plug and sacrifice billions in revenue.
Isn’t he the mayor that got caught smoking crack, or am I mixing him up with another Toronto mayor?
Brother
This is stupid bloviating An accurate description of sanctions and “politician speak” whole cloth in the present day.
Yes, Rob (the younger brother) was Mayor of Toronto — Doug is the Premier of Ontario.
His brother Rob Ford is the one who admitted to being a crack addict. However, in their younger days, before they became politicians, both Doug and his brother Rob were widely known hash dealers. And while Doug was always the “clean” one, the older brother, these days he’s certainly looking like he’s on something again.
Premier Ford is the brother of former Mayor Ford
Thanks. Since I left the land adjacent to the Great White North, I haven’t been paying attention.
That was his older brother, Rob Ford, who died in 2014 of cancer:
https://www.reuters.com/article/world/rob-ford-notorious-for-smoking-crack-while-toronto-mayor-dead-at-46-idUSKCN0WO2C8/
Both are/were terrible mayors, but Toronto keeps electing them..
Doug was never Mayor of Toronto — merely a Councillor. But he is bitter about his failure to win the Mayoralty of Toronto after his younger brother’s death, and has been bullying the city ever since he won the Ontario provincial election 6 years ago.
First, I think Rob and Doug Ford provided the populist model which has been used by Trump to great success. This is the model of the ugly, overweight, bad hair, scrappy, blatantly imperfect in every way, honestly dishonest, person who speaks incoherent everydayspeak, the language of the masses.
Given this, and given Doug is conservative, you’d think Doug and Trump would be best buds, right?
But I think what’s going on here is both Ford and Trump are xenophobes and isolationist, it’s the one thing they both campaign on, and the US and Canada entering a tariff war is an excellent path toward isolation. We should be picking up on why sleepy drugged-out-of-his-gourd-with-his-glazed-over-eyes Doug, who is all about the politicians profiting from secret real estate deals, all of a sudden likes this story, has latched onto it, become animated and excited by the prospect.
I do think he would pull the plug, would LOVE to have a reason to. This is a gift from Trump to Ford.
Es s Ce Tera, this is exactly correct.
OH, Canada, my home and native land.
I would offer rather Berlusconi as the more accurate template for Trump, but Rob Ford is certainly a good one for the sloppiness of Boris Johnson.
But British Columbia could do it, since it exports about 1 Bill worth of electricity down south.
Only an idiot or liar…
Oh, you are talking about my premier though I’d go for idiot & liar and that is about the best one can say about him.
Rising wood fuel consumption shows limits of energy transition JKempEnergy, the heart of it;
“Continued growth in consumption of wood fuels illustrates that the energy transition has so far been characterised by the addition of new forms of energy rather than the replacement or substitution of older ones.”
Besides tying growing consumption to rising populations in developing regions, the article points out;
“Countries in Northwest Europe and Northeast Asia are burning increasing volumes of wood, including in pellet form, to generate electricity.”
Pellets and other wood fuel have become popular with generators because policymakers have characterised them as a renewable fuel with low net emissions, ensuring favourable regulatory treatment, provided they meet standards for sustainable forest management.”
A cursory search for Wood Pellets and Old Growth Forests produced these headlines
Europe Is Sacrificing Its Ancient Forests for Energy, NYT, 2022
BBC Reveals Drax Logging Old-Growth Forests for Biomass, BBC, 2022
The U.K. Is Burning Canadian Forests for Fuel, NRDC, 2024
B.C.’s old-growth protections come under renewed scrutiny, CBC, 2024
Impacts of Wood Pellets In the US, Dogwood Alliance, undated, post 2018, link provided, quote;
“In North Carolina, the epicenter of the biomass industry, the state has lost 120,000 acres of bottomland hardwood to logging.” So, about that flooding. Clearcutting watersheds is a known recipe for disaster in regards to excess water management.”
Lots of good detail in the dogwood alliance piece.
I read A Forest Journey: The Role of Trees in the Fate of Civilization by John Perlin, a couple years ago and can’t recommend it enough…
Civilizations that burn through their wood resources aren’t long for the world…
The image I remember from the book was the map with the port/bay that was miles from where it had been, due to siltation from the trees upstream being cut & floated downstream. Erosion ensues.
Wood is such an amazing material, foolish to just burn it. Of course, the same could be said for oil. See Epimetheus.
We were at Ostia Antica, which was ancient Rome’s main sea port, now 2 miles from the ocean due to silting, sand invasion and no doubt the cutting down of forests in the area.
Amazing mosaics abound, worth a visit~
https://blog.spanishstepsapartment.com/2018/06/30/ostia-anticas-black-and-white-mosaics/
It’s a question of which trees and where.
Hate to see any bottomland hardwood cut, but what do we do out west with miles and miles of overstocked, single-age stands?
I worked a fire in a sub alpine fir forest in Wyoming this summer. My guess was that 70% of the biomass was either standing dead, or downed heavy fuels. Miles and miles of it in every direction. If a fire gets the right alignment in those fuels it would make the yellowstone fires seem like prescribe burns.
At the same time the scale of the issue is enormous and outside of any conceivable budget. I recently heard a credible analysis that CA would need to treat a million acres a year for the next 20 years to get on track back to manageable fuel loads. At $2,000 an acre it’s not happening in CA or anywhere else.
All those folks flocking to quaint mountain towns will be smoke refugees in short order.
Luckily for yours truly, there’s only maybe another 50% more of Sequoia NP left to burn, below timberline.
Agree with you on out west forests, its ridiculous the buildup and number of trees per acre as opposed to before we done showed up., not to mention the tremendous understory of duff and decaying branch offices, its tantamount to the worst hoarder’s home you can imagine, chock full of nothing really.
The ecologist’s curse is being able to stand on a mountaintop and look out at forests and streams in every direction while feeling nothing but despair.
It passes quickly though. And then I’m back to “At least it’s here now.”
Aldo Leopold said something about that several decades ago. Here is link to quote.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/93532-one-of-the-penalties-of-an-ecological-education-is-that
miles and miles of overstocked, single-age stands? Am I right guessing that this is the result of “sustainable” timber harvesting practices?
Doubt any of what I was looking at in WY ever saw much large-scale continuous commercial harvest. The wrong trees in the wrong spot for industry.
Commercial replantings will be single-age stands (at least here in NA), but they won’t be overstocked.
A better guess for the source of the problem would be 100 or more years of fire-suppression, disease, pests, and climate change.
None of those are independent variables, as they all have higher order interactions.
Thank you. This country could use a WPA scaled Youth Conservation Corp. Like now.
So for the cost of one or two of those new B-21 stealth bombers this country doesn’t need. Ugh.
It would be a great way to employ a bunch of people, too.
Thanks- new title to me.
Thanks for the recommendation. I’ve just asked my local bookshop to find me a copy.
Forest Management as a scietific practice started in Germany in 1700s because they were running out of forests to cut for timber and fuel.
From the land of Helene–take our wood fuel, please!!
And yes pre hurricane satellite pics of the NC mtns would show appalling clear cuts with much wood no doubt going to pellet mills. Despite my feeble jest the downed wood that I now see everywhere is probably not suitable or in line with high efficiency clearcuts that are part of pellet business. The county next door say they are chopping removed debris into mulch that is then sent to a downstate facility for further processing.
I’m reading now that charges against Florida mom have been dropped. Still, the message has been sent.
No, not correct. Someone has been trying to promote that idea. She is out on bail and under house arrest.
“NATO must shift to wartime mindset, secretary general warns”
Sky News, along with other publications, is giving cover for Rutte here. He says that he wants banks and pension funds to invest in the MIC which is mentioned in this article-
‘Mr Rutte, a former Dutch prime minister, called on NATO members to “stop creating barriers between each other and between industries, banks and pension funds”.’
But what is not mentioned is how he wants cuts in pensions, healthcare and social security systems so the money saved can be given to NATO because otherwise Putin will occupy Brussels.
‘He urged the audience to tell their governments that “security matters more than anything” and that they “accept to make sacrifices today so that we can stay safe tomorrow.”’
I am going to say right now that cutting pensions, healthcare and social security systems is the plan all along and this dash for cash is just an excuse to be able to do it. Money given to plebs is just wasted when otherwise it might be given to corporations who would be sure to show their gratitude (ka-ching!).
https://www.rt.com/news/609272-rutte-nato-spending-welfare/
War made the state, and the state made war.
“NATO must shift to wartime mindset, secretary general warns”
The matter that has become evident, is that NATO, along with the European Commission under Ursula von der Leyen, is becoming increasingly authoritarian, increasingly incompatible with national democracies. VDL should be quite frightening to European democrats, and surprisingly to me she has support all through European governments. I wish I could find a decent sociological analysis, but then look to the autocratic ways in which German Green leaders such as Annaleena Baerbock develop policy echoing the EC and NATO (since Baerbock is Foreign Minister).
I don’t understand why, since Sweden and Finland joining NATO was such a big strategic defeat for Russia, Russia is losing the war in Ukraine and anyway about to collapse economically very soon.
Russia surely can’t be the threat NATO must prepare for. Otherwise people would start to think that NATO expansion diminished the European security and thus was a completely wrong move and should be corrected.
Does Rutte work for Lockheed?
NATO F-35’s can be dumbed down so maybe they don’t need a new engine.
Wjhy would Putin want to go to Brussels?
To accept it into Russian Federation.
“NATO must shift to wartime mindset, secretary general warns”
A crucial reason for the existence of NATO, with the US in charge, has been to prevent Europeans from fighting each other because without a US presence the Europeans will likely revert to type as their history demonstrates. For example, the triple entente was allies GB, France, and Russia balanced against Germany and Austria.
If you’ve ever seen one of these time lapse graphics of European boundaries as they changed over the centuries, their borders seem to change every month during the previous millenium. All of this froze when the US took control in 1945 along with the Soviets, of course; little has changed since 1945.
If the Europeans are going to provide their own security under Supreme Leader Trump we should pay attention how power shifts because Russia will be back in Europe and European ambitions revived.
Russia is in Europe; it’s the largest and most populous country in Europe.
As history tells us, the very reason for founding NATO was to keep the European conflict burning on. And it seems to be working well!
WHy does he thinks that Russia will accept a conventional war with the EU?
Trump thinks that he can get a ceasefire on Day One in office. Good luck with that one.
About “The Drones over New Jersey” I saw a video that had D@vid Petrayus describing a system that was designed to be an electronic concentration camp. He was trying to sell it to Israel to solve their Palestinian “problem”. He described it as using drones along with AI to minimize the number of guards to monitor a population. The drones over NJ exhibit electronic warfare technology. Stories of people’s drones being disabled, phone cameras exhibiting strange behavior. They could be scanning phones which would be an interesting experiment to identify the attacks on privacy. Perhaps the drones being experienced now are training the AI for the electronic concentration camps to be funded by the US and perpetuated on the Palestinians by the IDF. Anyway just an interesting thought that connects the dots.
Musings:
: At 7 this morning, my twitt ‘For You’ was flooded with UAP/drone videos. Zero at this moment.
: Pterodynamics XP-4. Once vid showed UAP changing from ball to fixed-wing.
: AI Hunter-Killer drones in Gaza.
: Federal non-response.
: Putin doesn’t care about space aliens.
So why now? Two points:
: Sep 20 ‘Cauldron bubble.‘
: Putin: Oreshnik renders nukes ‘obsolete’.
In the spirit of automobile manufacturers making it seem as if everybody gives each others new cars for Xmas on TV commercials, maybe the Decembris Movement needs something similar, with the citizenry giving each other new governments, some wrapped in a festive bow.
The odds are good, even if the goods are odd:
Over/Under line on the Ukraine going under: 12 days
because car sales hit a seasonal bottom around this time of year (every year), given that peeps are too busy spending on Xmas (and year end bonuses, tax refunds don’t hit until late January – March).
So adverts come to the rescue, making one look like a poor chump if he doesn’t buy a car wrapped in a boe tie for wifey.
“In the spirit of automobile manufacturers making it seem as if everybody gives each others new cars for Xmas…”
Damn, I’m glad I’m not the only one who finds that advertising beyond infuriating. I mean WTAF?
I’m not much of an SNL fan these days, but I liked this skit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcEylCwkSxE
> Over/Under line on the Ukraine going under: 12 days
? Trump ends Ukraine war by first 90 days? = 48%.
…you can’t be a player in the Decembris Movement unless you capitulate
Germans did nothing wrong, they were just following orders. It’s all the fault of Russians, and the Putin destroying power plants. /s
“South Korea’s President Yoon suspended after MPs vote to impeach him”
Rumour has it that after their parliament told President Yoon their decision and he turned to leave, the parliamentary head called out to him and said-
‘President Yoon. Before you go – give us a song?’
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/south-korea-president-yoon-sings-american-pie-white-house-dinner-biden-rcna81712
It’s funny that Yoon got reverse-coup’d by his party and parliament.
What a maroon!
China is repeatedly criticized by Western economists for investing too much. The fierce criticism has continued even as Chinese per capita growth has been far faster than any G-7 country. But beside dismissing the emphasis on long run growth described by Robert Solow, why not look at what China has been getting, say, for this year’s $150 billion investment in water conservancy:
https://english.news.cn/20241213/c20b2f6df2f64140884f45275188f04d/c.html
December 13, 2024
China’s reservoirs see increased total storage capacity since 2000
NANJING — China’s reservoirs have witnessed a total increase in storage capacity of approximately 470 billion cubic meters, or 90.8 percent, since the year 2000.
The results * ** were published in a research article in Science Bulletin, noting that the reservoirs have significantly enhanced the available freshwater resources for drinking water.
The study found that there were 2,670 lakes and 5,156 reservoirs each with an area of more than one square kilometer nationwide.
Since 2000, the major water conservancy infrastructure projects have significantly promoted the available freshwater resources in lakes and reservoirs, enhancing the safety of drinking-water sources.
The levels of nitrogen-phosphorus nutrients and biochemical oxygen demand have notably decreased, according to the study, while the apparent rise of dissolved oxygen indicates a continuous improvement in the water quality of lakes and reservoirs.
From 2016 to 2023, the percentage of lakes and reservoirs categorized as centralized drinking water sources has increased consistently, the research article noted. This progress has enabled 561.4 million urban residents to access improved drinking-water sources in 2022, compared to 303.4 million in 2004.
In addition, algal blooms have been markedly alleviated across the country over the past four years….
* https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2095927324004432
** https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022169424016925
https://english.news.cn/20241213/eaf40f784db149c39f0788afb3dab932/c.html
December 13, 2024
China’s mega water diversion project transforms lives, boosts development
BEIJING — Contrary to the Chinese adage, “distant water cannot quench present thirst,” China’s South-to-North Water Diversion Project has proven that delivering distant water is not only possible but also effective.
The largest of its kind in the world, this mega water diversion project transports water over long distances from the country’s water-rich south to its northern regions, where hundreds of millions of people once faced “absolute water scarcity” as defined by United Nations standards.
The conceptual development of this project began in the 1950s, with the first phases of its middle and eastern routes becoming operational in late 2014.
During the past decade, it has diverted more than 76.7 billion cubic meters of water to the country’s northern regions, providing a stable water supply to 45 major cities and more than 185 million people, according to data from the Ministry of Water Resources.
The project has improved China’s water resource distribution, generating growing economic, social and ecological benefits, Vice Minister of Water Resources Wang Daoxi told a press conference on Thursday.
Designed with three routes, the project stretches across four of China’s major river basins, namely, the Yangtze, Huaihe, Yellow and Haihe.
The middle route, the most prominent of the three as it supplies water to the Chinese capital Beijing, begins at the Danjiangkou Reservoir in central Hubei Province.
Most of Beijing’s drinking water travels over 1,000 kilometers along the middle route from Danjiangkou. The water flows north via canals and pipelines, crossing beneath the Yellow River before reaching the city’s water treatment plants. Today, nearly 80 percent of the water consumed in Beijing’s urban areas has made this 15-day journey from Danjiangkou…
Another aspect of Chinese investment emphasis that is increasingly being realized is in food production, advanced storage and self-sufficiency. China has a broad and intensive scale agriculture research and development program. The agriculture program is meant to assist in production in global south countries and involves work on traditional crops from Egypt to Madagascar:
https://english.news.cn/20241214/704b4081ee4b4777831e19ef5f249566/c.html
December 14, 2024
China’s 2024 grain output tops 700 mln tonnes, a record high
BEIJING — China’s 2024 grain output hit a record high of 706.5 million tonnes, an increase of 1.6 percent from the output last year, official data showed Friday.
The year 2024 also marks the first time that the country registered a grain harvest of over 700 million tonnes, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data. Previously, the country’s annual grain output had been above 650 million tonnes for nine consecutive years.
In grain categories, the output of cereals rose 1.7 percent year on year, with rice, wheat and corn all reporting production rises. The output of tubers rose 1.5 percent. Soybeans, however, saw a decrease of 0.9 percent in output, the data showed.
This year’s bumper harvest was accompanied by a rise in grain planting areas in the country, which stood at over 119 million hectares, up 0.3 percent year on year. Meanwhile, grain output per unit area also increased 1.3 percent, the data showed….
X has deleted the Donziger tweet video. I thought Musk was a free speech advocate.
Not when it comes to corporations. Maybe Chevron rang Musk and asked him to do them a solid or something.
Color me unsurprised. I’m assuming the PTB would prefer to use censorship and narrative over creating a population of political prisoners, shots having now been fired over the bow of their luxury yachts, see Florida woman. Sorry Steve, but I’m guessing you didn’t actually believe you were getting a pardon.
The Philip Pilkington thread should cause all to wonder whose calling the shots. “Biden this and Biden that”, lol, Joe Biden can hardly tie his shoes these days.
Apparently no one has explained to you how Irish Alzheimers works.
You forget everything except the grudges.
That’s as good a working theory as any I’ve heard.
Political Muscle Memory?
Thanks for that…..
I observed to a friend during the past week that Arabs are as bad as us Irish in the memory of anger role.
YS:
Pilkington’s point 11 seems to accord with the idea that it is now all grudges and resentments, regardless of consequences, because Joe has no plans for a long retirement polishing the Corvette:
I wonder if Pilkington is being lyrical here, when it would be better to state flat out that Biden is madder than King Lear.
Can Trump overturn those executive orders? After all, he reneged the JPCOA, no?
Ending the War in Ukr. I started at the end and found VVP’s original req’s. US continues to see RF as an invader. Why would they would want any of Europe is beyond me.
“Any settlement of the war must therefore address the issue of the future security of both parties. That means that any third party attempting to mediate between the two must take seriously the security concerns of both belligerents. In particular, ignoring the concerns of the stronger party is very unlikely to result in successful war termination. Accepting this will require a considerable change in attitude from Western leaders. It is also a precept that many in the West will doubtless strongly resist. Overcoming this resistance may require some strong diplomacy and will involve taking steps that incite sharp criticism from some quarters. The potential benefits, however, far outweigh the risks.”
Umm, the only third party with the oomph to ‘authorize’ a peace agreement is the US. And they have shown they are agreement incapable, untrustworthy, and liars and cheats. That article was talking in circles.
Threadreader of the Luigi Magione surveillance posts: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1867234126086254976.html
Definitely worth a read.
https://x.com/district12kitty/status/1867000300726337920
Saint Luigi. You can find many similar posts.
Then there is this:
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-12-14/after-unitedhealthcare-ceos-killing-san-francisco-police-gave-fbi-tip-about-suspects-identity
‘Jim Stewartson, Antifascist 🇺🇸🇺🇦🏴☠️
@jimstewartson
Piers Morgan asked Antichrist Peter Thiel what he would say to people who celebrated Luigi Mangione — who was a fan of Peter Thiel and Elon Musk — murdering an insurance CEO.’
Dude! What the hell is happening with Peter Thiel? Is he having some sort of malfunction or something? He looks like an alien from Star Trek Voyager here. If this is the result of injecting young people’s blood for the purpose of rejuvenation, then that is not a recommendation for this course of treatment. He looks like hell.
Well, he’s 57. I guess he prefers to look like a weird under-50-year-old than his age.
Could also be Botox. IM Doc on that:
Botox has numerous off label uses as I underwent Botox treatment for the neuropathic pain I experience in my eyes and face. Certain sounds also cause pain in my ears (otalgia), but curiously enough my ENT doctors don’t call this neuropathic pain, i.e. allodynia or hyperalgesia.
Anyway, Botox is potent stuff, just not in the way that you would expect. I joked with my doctors that prior to Botox, I experienced a level two amount of pain, and after Botox I experienced a level one amount of pain. If I wanted to lie with statistics, I could claim that Botox reduced my pain by fifty percent! I concluded that any marginal pain reduction I experienced was not worth two or three months of strange feelings on my facial muscles. Freaky looking celebrities and billionaires like Peter Thiel obviously have different priorities in regards to Botox.
re: plastic surgery
What about the hands?
I find it odd when someone I talk to obviously got something made and his or her true age is revealed by their hands. This might not matter on camera. But everywhere else it shows.
p.s. oddly people never address that discrepancy with the hands. They dare ask about surgery also if it worked out or not. But the fact that the hands age normally and show it seems to be not decent to ask or interesting.
I know people who do with other cosmetic treatments (as in they do the hands too), so this is not so. But you can’t do the equivalent of a facelift on the hands and Botox is obviously not on for hands. Putin has had terrific plastic surgery and I believe his hands look not out of place given that. He has probably gotten injections of his own fat as filler (preferred in Europe; here we like substances) and that could be done to the hands.
Silicon is but a song we sing
Fear’s the way we die
You can make the warning bells ring
Or make the angels cry
Though Thiel looks harrowing
And you may not know why
Come on, people now
Spy on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to surveil one another right now
Some may come and some may go
He will surely pass
When the one that left us here
Returns for us at last
We are but a moment’s sunlight
Fading in his grasp
Come on, people now
Spy on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to surveil one another right now
If you hear the song I sing
You will understand, listen
You hold the key to all you fear
All in your trembling hand
Just one key unlocks them both
It’s there at your command
Come on, people now
Spy on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to surveil one another right now
Right Now
Right Now
Get Together, by the Youngbloods
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBJYxPN8qIA
I hope he feels as bad physically and health-wise as he looks. And I hope he lives for another hundred years feeling that bad or worse.
(It sort of reminded me of a late-in-life TV appearance by Roy Cohn. I thought he looked like a living corpse with pure hate and evil running down his face out of his eyes. I wondered how he could look that sick. I later learned he died of the AIDS he pretended he never had.)
it was fun watching all of Thiel’s brain modules disconnecting from eachother and freewheeling aimlessly.
When he goes to ground in his New Zealand bunker, I hope some of his New Zealand neighbors weld all his doors shut and stop up all his air vents.
“Ending the War in Ukraine: Analysis and Recommendations”
It’s an interesting paper but there are realities that would sabotage any peace negotiation. The Russophobia shown by several European states for example or how Russia has zero trust in any agreements with the west. The insistence of the neocons that only a Russian military defeat will satisfy them too. Unless those factors are taken into account, there will be no negotiated peace.
Presuming Trump wants to go Mackinder, that is grab the Eurasian land mass, an argument can be made to leave Ukraine for later and go to Iran…..
That said Trump is as much into Mahan going for a replay of Plan Orange… over Taiwan.
But that would be thinking like Xi.
Why would Trump want to do that? My feeling is that if Trump is capable of sustained strategic thought and action, that he would want to minimize American contact with the Mackinder heartland and focus on America’s “Near Abroad” of North, Central and South America and the Caribbean. He might try to conquer Greenland if he thought he could get away with it.
OpenAI Whistleblower Suchir Balaji had written an essay considering whether Generative AI is Fair Use: https://suchir.net/fair_use.html
My initial reaction was to consider him as kin to Aaron Swartz, but there’s no information on his background. Aaron was known to be depressed at the time and was much further along in the process and almost certainly facing prison time. Also, Suchir died a couple of weeks ago and this story is just now coming out.
interesting article. for me less the copyright stuff, more ai’s effect on the knowledge community.
i’ve found chatgtp functions as a sort of ‘bonus office hours’ where instead of going to actual office hours, students just ask chatgtp for help. which i actually get. i’ve done it twice because its just easier time wise to have a little answer guy at your beck and call vs waking up early to go to 9am office hours across campus. especially when you start homeworks late. (oopsie.) but my point here is that people are relying on ai for answers instead of each other. which is uh, interesting, and im sure it will have some effects on the loneliness epidemic. i have friends who use chatgtp for therapy. and it’s like we’ve progressed from robust social networks –> paid therapsists –> cheaper online version of therapists. instead of again, relying on each other. because while chat gtp doesnt form social bonds, it is a hell of a lot easier. kinda breaks community ties, both on campus and i’d imagine in the workplace.
whats also interesting is that chat gtp generally gives the same answers as textbooks. but i have professors who discourage use of chatgtp because they want us to learn how to read through the handbooks to solve problems. organized data management vs the answer being somewhere within the amorphous blob of knowledge. you know the answer is out there somewhere, you can either go to a specific knowledge base (textbook or professor) or again, amorphous blob of knowledge. it’s a lot easier to access the amorphous blob of knowledge. reading the textbook or knowing how to work with professors are skills that have to be developed. with chatgtp you can just go ‘reword please’ and it wont complain.
From the Mercury News article;
The medical examiner’s office determined the manner of death to be suicide and police officials this week said there is “currently, no evidence of foul play.”
Information he held was expected to play a key part in lawsuits against the San Francisco-based company.
Color me skeptical on that suicide. Mortality rates among “whistle blowers” is challenging Vietnam war era helicopter “Gunner-man” for urban legend status.
A search for “vietnam helicopter gunner life expectancy” (no quotes) retuned;
two weeks
“Over 10% of Vietnam casualties were helicopter crew members, and most of those were the door gunners that protected the helicopter, its crew, and its transports, from their exposed position. The average lifespan of a door gunner on a Huey in Vietnam was just two weeks.”
Speaking of Dem B and the pardon racket… er… gifting, this somehow confirms what I’ve been thinking about the neolib, 3rd Way, DLC Dem crowd for a long time now.
Clintons Open to Possible Preemptive Pardon as Deep State May Abandon Them
Former President Bill Clinton has indicated he is open to discussing a “pre-emptive pardon” for his wife, Hillary Clinton, with outgoing head of state Joe Biden, while maintaining that she has done nothing wrong.
This development was anticipated, according to Wall Street analyst Charles Ortel, who tells Sputnik that Bill Clinton is also likely to seek a pardon for himself and his daughter.
….
The alleged fraud and pay-to-play activities involving the Clinton Foundation were significant issues, according to Ortel, who has been investigating the charity for many years.
https://sputnikglobe.com/20241213/clintons-open-to-possible-preemptive-pardon-as-deep-state-may-abandon-them-1121159825.html
It’s cornpop… er… popcorn time. / ;)
I’m long past getting my hopes up that there will ever be any justice for these people, but it is a nice dream.
A Biden pardon of the Clinton Crime Family would be a full circle moment. I remember Clinton’s pardon of Marc Rich on his way out the White House door in 2001. Rich was in the middle of the whole Middle East shell game going on in the 1990s, leading up to the full unleashing of the neocons a few years later. They’re still at it. I had just watched Aaron Good’s interview with Lawrence Wilkerson and Gary Volgler on Iraq, where they discuss the role of oil, Rich, and Israel. An informative interview that provides some important puzzle pieces:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_OcPC7MJok
It’s been said here many times before, but the Clinton’s make Trump look like a third rate street thug by comparison.
The pardons may open a window into who the rich crooks are.
There might be people we had no idea about. Him! And her! Who would have thought!
Can’t wait for the rest of the real pardons. Of course, we all knew about Hunter, that was no surprise.
39 pardons so far. 1500 commutations. List of the 39 in on USA Today’s site. Jesse Watters rakes several of the pardoned. From twtr-X.
Joe Biden’s been pardoning crack dealers, drug traffickers and some of the most notorious fraudsters in American history. Here’s an inside look into the people Biden’s handed out a free pass to.
https://x.com/JesseBWatters/status/1867750348318028020?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Were they big donors? Inquiring minds…. / ;)
Any more pardons coming?
“Attacking Iran Would Be Insane”
Another factor unmentioned is that Iran will not stand alone like Assad tried to do. Iran is in BRICS and both Russia and China will not let that country go down by itself. There has been Russian defensive equipment in Iran for months now and they are certainly integrated into Iranian defenses. Iran is a red line for Russia. And China is not about to let a main supplier of oil be taken away from them by the US and their allies. Trump was told nearly five years ago that the US could not take on Iran without it gong into a fight that might last a decade. As Iran has only gotten stronger and the west weaker, will Trump fall for it or will he try to make a bargain? I’m afraid we will have to wait and see just what Trump does as President.
It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.
👍
If I may be so blunt as to point out that this not how BRICS operates, or what it’s for. Russia, China and Iran can use BRICS mechanism to trade between each other outside of the West controlled systems, and that’s about it.
Now, as to why China and Russia want to do that with Iran (trough BRICS) is because Iran has a relatively big role in their strategic thinking – even when they think differently from each other.
That said, neither China or Russia really care who runs Iran and how, as long as Iran’s actions align somewhat along the interest of China or Russia. If Iran somehow turned to Zoroastrian Communist society, Russia and China would continue business as usual with it.
*Sigh*
Russia and China do not need BRICS to do bi-lateral trades outside the dollar with each other. They’ve been doing it since 2014:
https://carnegieendowment.org/posts/2017/04/why-a-russia-china-currency-swap-agreement-turned-out-to-be-a-damp-squib
Having better electronic systems will not solve the problem that led to underwhelming results with the earlier attempt: currency volatility.
Fun fact: first Sino-Russian trade agreement (Treaty of Nerchinsk) precedes US dollar over 100 years.
Anyway, my point was the trilateral trade between the three instead of The Rev Kev’s defense alliance type of thinking. The strategic dimensions being the Belt and Road Initiative (China) and International North–South Transport Corridor (Russia) which both need Iran to play along.
Not true. A government of Iran that would renounce the newly established connector between Russia and India would not be desired by Russia, but loved by the US. It is not only the oil that matters.
Iran has Islamic republic military formations in addition to its draftee military. Iran also has several non state Shi’a militias in Iraq who allied with Quds to throw ISIS out of Kirkuk when the US and local Iraqi units could not.
Five years after tossing the Shah Iran fought US backed Saddam Hussein’s Iraq to a standstill.
RF and PRC assistance would be mostly technical military aid as Iran has access to well over 100 million Shi’a population between it and the Shi’a sections of Iraq.
Distances are challenging and if US goes overland from Turkey it has long lines of communication problems. Coming in from Iraq has similar. with sea route through Hormuz, and possibly hostile forces on its line of communication.
While RF can supply over maritime routes through the Caspian Sea.
Big arrow thrusts could be severed! Long lines and harsh terrain!
However, grabbing Iran has the Mackinder strategy of going through the outer crescent of the Eurasian land mass.
Wilkerson claims to have seen the plans and they are daunting, US would be tied down for a decade! And lose!
Yes. Alex Krainer says Syria is a trap set by Russia, Türkiye and Iran to become a quagmire for the U.S. and Israel, just as Afghanistan was a trap for Russia.
https://alexkrainer.substack.com/p/syria-will-it-prove-to-be-the-empires
His argument is persuasive to me, but the poor Kurds, caught in the middle again.
*Sigh*
Some people want to see the world as more orderly and controlled than it is.
There are huge and genuine recriminations all across Russia, including political and military Russia.
This may well work to Russia’s advantage in the medium to long term, but saying it was a plan is utterly fantastic.
Not claiming that I am free of making this error too from time to time but this notion of seeing a hand and an intricate huge plan behind everything gaming out to the last detail is part of what you referred to as a narrative-ism, with Larry Johnsons recently.
A new phenomenon visible in more and more strata of society.
What I’m seeing in Russian; Iranian and Turkish media is that there indeed was a plan – put hastily together between the three about 48 hours before Assad left.
What I’m not seeing is even a hint of recriminations in Russian media (comment sections are, of course, a different matter). What the media is saying, even quoting Reuters, is that the two big Russian bases will remain for now, the negotiations with the new rulers are about to be concluded. The troops and equipment in the minor Russian bases in Manbij and Aleppo area have been safely pulled to the big ones.
All and all, Syria doesn’t seem to be a big thing on Russian news sites.
Those Jihadists might just ask the Russians to keep their two big bases there. The Russians wouldn’t attack them anymore and it would give them a bit of leverage with the US. Bonus points for driving Biden and Blinken nuts but those Jihadists don’t have that many cards to play and have to play nice with the bigger powers. I hear that the head of Turkish intel was in Damascus and Jolani was acting as his chauffeur. And when Israel continued to strike Syria they took immediate action – by sending a complaint to the UN.
Literally the dog that caught the car.
A problem that is increasingly evident and troublesome even as the Biden Presidency comes to an end, is that Biden policy makers are determined to limit the range of change possible for Trump planners and Biden policy appears ever more antagonistic. China is subject to almost daily policy attack now, with positions being taken that are supposed to be quite difficult to undo should that be a Trump intent.
How the heck could America have come to so antagonistic a presidency?
bill clinton enshrined regime change policy, into official government policy. before it was unofficial, and used often. but after 1993, it became official u.s. planning right out in the open. take out nuland out of government, someone is ready to take her place, because its official now.
https://books.google.com/books/about/Warmonger.html?id=cAfmEAAAQBAJ
“policy was just as bad as his domestic policy. Cultivating an image as a former anti-Vietnam War activist to win over the aging hippie set in his early years, as president, Clinton bombed six countries and, by the end of his first term, had committed U.S. troops to 25 separate military operations, compared to 17 in Ronald Reagan’s two terms. Clinton further expanded America’s covert empire of overseas surveillance outposts and spying and increased the budget for intelligence spending and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a CIA offshoot which promoted regime change in foreign nations.
The latter was not surprising because, according to CIA operative Cord Meyer Jr., Clinton had been recruited into the CIA while a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, and as Governor of Arkansas in the 1980s he had allowed clandestine arms and drug flights to Nicaraguan counter-revolutionaries (Contras) backed by the CIA to be taken from Mena Airport in the western part of the state. Rather than being a time of tranquility when the U.S. failed to pay attention to the gathering storm of terrorism, as New York Times columnist David Brooks frames it, the Clinton presidency saw rising tensions among the U.S., China and Russia because of Clinton’s malign foreign policies, and U.S. complicity in terrorist acts.
In so many ways, Clinton’s presidency set the groundwork for the disasters that were to follow under Bush II, Obama, Trump, and Biden. It was Clinton—building off of Reagan—who first waged a War on Terror ridden with double standards, one that adopted terror tactics, including extraordinary rendition, bombing and the use of drones. It was Clinton who cried wolf about human rights abuses and the need to protect beleaguered peoples from genocide to justify military intervention in a post-Cold War age. And it was Clinton’s administration that pressed for regime change in Iraq and raised public alarm about the mythic WMDs—all while relying on fancy new military technologies and private military contractors to distance US shady military interventions from the public to limit dissent.”
Thanks.
Appreciate the insight as usual.
re: THREAD: The official narrative of how Luigi Mangione was apprehended doesn’t add up.
I thought it was a McDonald’s customer who spotted Luigi and called the police? Ah well, impossible to know now that the media has muddled the waters so much that search engines are ineffective.
If you clicked through and read the thread, it acknowledges and questions that account.
I had clicked through and read the thread. I hate Twitter but nevertheless I did this, waded through.
I see 3, maybe 4, people in the hundred or so comments pointing out it was a customer and nobody acknowledging them, including the OP, just continuing with the agency connected spycam thesis without correction or refinement.
But maybe I’m missing something? Maybe there’s a reason I’ve hated Twitter/X since its inception.
HOW DO YOU KNOW IT WAS A CUSTOMER, ffs? You are just taking McDonald’s manager’s say-so, when the point is they would not want to call attention to the other uses of their kiosk scans, particularly since they no longer allow any other way to order.
Has the customer come forward? You’d expect the media to be all over themselves trying to interview him and therefore working all angles to find him.
We don’t? Like I said.
Here’s what the LATimes is reporting:
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-12-14/after-unitedhealthcare-ceos-killing-san-francisco-police-gave-fbi-tip-about-suspects-identity
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/12/14/7489063/
Lithuanian athlete withdraws from World Championship over T-shirt with “Make Russia small again” inscription – media
Körnelija Düdaitė, the Lithuanian national team representative in functional sports, has decided to withdraw from the World Championship currently taking place in Budapest (Hungary) due to a T-shirt with the inscription “Make Russia small again”.
It seems the the athlete was disqualified by the organizers after refusing to remove “Make Russia small again” T-shirt. After the International organization backed the organizers, the Lithuanian federation asked all Lithuanian athletes to withdraw from the competition.
All three Baltic countries together, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia have a combined population under 6-million people. Lithuania’s population is under 2-million. Mr. Düdaitė should be careful what he wishes for.
Russia has been made small by the athletic “community.” The 4 Nations Face Off in hockey is coming in couple of months. Canada, Sweden, USA and Finland. Where are the Russians who play shinny with the best of them? And where are the Czechs who play like champs? Big time athletics really hurts the head. But hockey players, notwithstanding the Lithuanians, have the hurtest heads of all.
I suppose I’m not surprised the carelessness, given a Ukrainian source. But the Lithuanian language (and hence, our names) lacks the letters ö and ü. We do, however uniquely have ė.
Also, Victor, Lithuania’s population is brushing against 3 million. Not “less than 2”. It’s another small detail, but on the other hand, 35% is quite a bit to be off.
Oh, and names ending in ‘a’ or ‘ė’ are ‘she’, not ‘he’.
RE: Flu EXPLOSION: Shocking one in four adults who are sick have flu – double last year’s rate… as terrifying ‘quad-demic’ surge engulfs Britain hospitalising thousands Daily Mail
COVID-19’s SARS-CoV-2 seems to have some relationship to other viruses. In 2020 SARS-CoV-2 crowded out the regular flu virus. This holiday season’s COVID surge seems to be less than expected. Maybe that has something to do with the fact that this summer’s COVID surge was so much greater than expected. Maybe a lower prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 is allowing regular flu virus to surge.
I doubt that diseases typically compete as in getting one somehow precludes getting another. Indeed, quite the opposite is probably more often true in that the stress of one can make one susceptible to another, unless the disease is caused by closely related pathogens in which case cross immune reactivity may be protective.
*Sigh*
In 2020, people were masking and distancing. Hardly anyone was taking airplanes. I know, I was one of the few (for medical reasons). Many many flights cancelled, hotels closed entire floors or even entirely. Gyms, which are HUGE winter flu transmission vectors (hand on free weights and grips on machines) were nearly all closed and the ones that re-opened after lockdowns remained very much under-populated v. pre-Covid levels. I can’t speak to how many schools were still providing remote instruction, but kids are even bigger disease vectors than gyms. My recollection was that remote learning was still on until the vaccines had been out a while, as in spring or summer 2021.
File this under “Questionable Decisions During a Pandemic”, or maybe “Yet Another Reason I Will Never Fly Again”.
Flying pigs force unexpected landing for flight to Mexico
This caught my eye;
The airport operator said: “Meanwhile, the pigs — living high on the hog during their impromptu holiday stopover — are being cared for at a secure location on the island, with assistance from a government veterinarian.
https://www.rt.com/news/609351-georgia-elects-new-president/
The Georgian parliament has voted to appoint former Manchester City player Mikhail Kavelashvili, whose party is a member of the ruling coalition, as the new president of the country.
A qualified candidate I see. Lol. The evolution of “leader” to “role player” is fascinating, or, at least its optical emergence is.
Well, the Georgia presidency is more symbolic “head of state” than exerciser of political power.
We older cynics date the “formal” emergence of the ‘leader’ to ‘role player’ devolution to the election of the former Hollywood actor Ronald Reagan back in 1980. Do remember that the GOP “engineered” the horrible optics of Carter not being able to “free” the American hostages in Iran by making very illegal deals, see the later Iran Contra affair for a taste of the GOP “very foreign policy” policy in action, that induced the Iranians to hold back on releasing those hostages until after the 1980 Presidential election.
I thought that Ronald Reagan was a standup comedian telling jokes about Ruskies, with an astrology side business ran by his wife.
If only I could forget! That “astrology business” turned out to be the United States Government.
It is meant to please the public more than anything else, especially since the removal of the present one might involve insightly views of an old woman being dragged on the floor, all screaming and grasping at doors and furniture.
He’s 57 years old, and played his last game in 2006. Entered politics in 2016, so been there longer than, say, AOC. Not an excuse, mind you, just to say that he’s not going to perform presidential duties only on half-times.
“But consumers feel less wealthy due to falling property prices and minimal social welfare. Low household demand is a key risk to growth.” —- I guess this is the playbook – falling property prices mean entrants don’t get into so much debt nor, does finance issue as much- so the part “household demand is a key risk to growth” needs finishing as- household demand is a key risk to growth in the financial services sector’s issuance of debt-
“Beijing has issued increasingly forceful statements on boosting consumption throughout the year” – boost consumption – why boost consumption – it only boosts the financial sector who would finance this, adds to environmental harm, encourages a throw away society, increases pressure on products that are engineered to need replacement etc. – it only affects privately over-leveraged producers – because 5% growth is pretty dang strong.
“vigorously boost consumption.” ??? what about vigorously boosting conservation
“Markets could be encouraged,” Lynn Song, ING’s chief economist for Greater China, said. “The call to vigorously boost consumption is a good sign.” – ING, a global financial institution of Dutch origin who – from their web site “At ING we aim to put sustainability at the heart of what we…” “Climate change is an unparalleled challenge to our planet’s …
So I guess, they don’t give an F about anything except putting everybody into debt peonage.
Debt peonage leads to debt deflation leads to Fed free money pump leads to debt peonage…why it’s the virtuous cycle!
The kids-for-cash mess made me think again about how things are run now in the White House. My theory is that someone trusted by Biden puts papers in front of him to sign, telling him lies about what the papers are about. Biden hasn’t the inclination or energy to read it, and bingo, another scumbag is out of jail.
Over at Inside Climate News
How to Buy a Piece of a Lawsuit and Impoverish a Country
Investors buying into claims against governments are winning huge payouts. Developing nations, and the environment, are losing big.
By Katie Surma, Nicholas Kusnetz
December 8, 2024
I am not good at linking – or have problem doing so – sorry
I got your back (and thank you for highlighting this!) It looks like ISDS is rearing its ugly head:
How to Buy a Piece of a Lawsuit and Impoverish a Country
So, what if the government being sued simply refuses to pay? I’m pretty sure the arbitrators don’t have their own army, navy, air force. Is ISDS part of some international free trade agreement? Is Greenland a signatory? Are all the signatories obliged to physically enforce the arbitrators’ decisions? Is it certain the U.S. will impose sanctions?
From The Jan. 6 Verdict Is In: The Rioters Lose, Even If Trump Pardons Them
(bold mine)
I’ll bet, yet no one knows what became of the gallows, or where the pipe bomb came from. And as I recall, liberal Democrats of the 6 Jan Committee destroyed the video evidence, at least according to Republicans.
Funny, that.
Certainly a heavily propagandized event, to be sure.
If I recall correctly, 43 people were never charged with offenses which tells me the minimum number of Feds in that building on that day. And that would only be a baseline number.
accidentally discovered this bunch and went and downloaded a bunch of their wandering through vineyards videos.
turns out,it’s Georgia Folk Music Day on Amfortas’ Farm.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJr5gEKsPDM
Thank you. That’s listenable! I also enjoyed the small tour of a neighborhood impossibly far away.
You may also like
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDUGgiv4JrQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-zH3Dgo7ow
About that Peter Thiel clip. The first thought that crossed my mind was this guy is a genius?. The second was whoever removed the bolts from the sides of his neck is to be commended, you can hardly see the scars. And the third was what possibly was going through his mind at the time?
—
No biggie, CEOs are a dime a dozen—
What’s this healthcare system you’re talking about? Doesn’t everyone have medical staff on retainer?—
That Mangione kid is hot. Wonder how much it would cost to get him as a house boy.—
That Mangione kid is hot. Wonder how much it would cost to have him as a blood donor.—
Damn. I’ve really been putting off having that empathy subroutine installed for too long now.It’s the 30 second pause and the fact that he looks like a wax figurine exposed to the sun that get me (as previously noted). Not that your points don’t have merit. Borderline surreal.
He’s about to become the most powerful man in the world
This may interest some. An insider voice from lefty linux maintainers on expulsion of russian devs from the kernel.
https://sysdfree.wordpress.com/2024/12/10/389/
Thanks for that. Big Linux fan since 1993 so this is very saddening. The reflex to censor and preemptively “protect” from wrong-think keeps creeping into everything, and the actors are not even realizing that they are destroying their own work. It’s very short-sighted and seems to suggest that the values which were espoused as sacrosanct were in fact not sacrosanct but a show for in-group peers.
Taibbi’s latest, public excerpt:
Fine Woke Cannibals
“We Have Never Been Woke” by Musa al-Gharbi may be academia’s first serious effort at self-analysis, and its surprising, enraging diagnosis rings all too true.
https://www.racket.news/p/fine-woke-cannibals
The ICC meetings are available as streams on Youtube if you search for ICC ASP23. There are several hours of meetings. Unfortunately no playlist on the channel. Might be advisable to download these.
Thanks!
I hope downloadable via ICC as well
“That’s justice wasn’t a mirage”…
Re: China issuing US$ bonds in Riyadh
Wang Yongli says:
Bu the only explanation he offers is:
Which hardly seems an adequate reason. It’s almost like he’s confirming the ‘speculations’ by denying them. Why bother? There’s probably only three of us who read them.
We debunked this. China has been issuing small (>$5 billion) sovereign bond issues every couple of years or so. This issue was part of an established pattern. Only difference was targeting Saudis. The point may have been to assure getting a very good price (via VERY targeted marketing and promotion), which would call into question the comparatively low rating the agencies give to China. Another reason for that bond getting off so well might be Saudis wanting to make a small vote v. US supporting Israel….but they are still using dollars!!!
“China issuing US$ bonds in Riyadh”
China only had $3.2659 trillion in foreign currency reserves this November, not to mention sovereign wealth fund assets and gold reserves and 20 and more years of trade surpluses:
https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/weo-database/2024/October/weo-report?c=924,532,534,158,542,546,548,576,578,&s=BCA_NGDPD,&sy=2000&ey=2024&ssm=0&scsm=1&scc=0&ssd=1&ssc=0&sic=0&sort=country&ds=.&br=1
Further evidence towards my theory that the NJ drones and the last few years UFO flap are about Thiel’s boys wresting control of the defence budget from the old guard:
During the Army v Navy game, they screened this Palantir ad for drone defence.
Bonus photo of a happy Trump, Vance, Musk at said game, lit up on the Palantir sponsored big-screen.
‘evidence’ is too strong. Let’s say ‘data-points’
Trump aides mull abolishment or possible consolidation of regulatory agencies…Yeah that goes on the heap of worse new ideas I’ve heard in quite a while. I hope they can listen to a former and respected FDIC leader such as Shelia Bair and recognize what they don’t truly understand ( yeah it’s a wish upon a star riding my personal unicorn…)
Start elsewhere…gutting the mechanics or machinery that underpins our banking and financial systems is just stupid. And I’ll add $100 says these aides likely know nothing or little about critical functions like securities settlements and daily payment system balancing. It is highly complex, based on my previous experiences.
OK, so by trying to shut down the FDIC, they are giving the Dems an opportunity to step up and save the day. They can make a big dramatic week about it and it allows them to repair their image with the public.
It is political currency that Trump can use to trade for getting other things he wants done.
“Trump wants a crash to benefit the ultra wealthy”. Really? Who would say such a mean thing? Well . . . Richard Murphy would. And he did. And he has. I mention this because Richard Murphy is, I gather, a figure of respect at Naked Capitalism. So I should imagine that if he says ” Trump wants a crash to benefit the ultra wealthy”, then he might at least be given a respectful listen before being dismissed on the subject.
And here is the link to a Richard Murphy video from 6 days ago titled: ” Trump wants a crash to benefit the ultra wealthy.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRAfLJiH0qA