How could Macy’s overlook millions in hidden expenses for years? ABC
How to Get Ahead in Washington: Lessons from the Renaissance and Baroque Eras War on the Rocks
Climate
Seven Reasons To Be Skeptical About SMRs (With Four Charts) Robert Bryce. SMR = Small Modular Reactor.
UN chief says plastic pollution talks ‘did not fail’ despite collapse France24
Car tyres shed a quarter of all microplastics in the environment – urgent action is needed The Conversation
Syndemics
Bleeding eyes virus sparks global alert: Travelers urged to take precautions amid outbreaks Times of India. Marburg, but surely H5N1 as well.
Emerging H5N1 mutations raise risk of human infections The Hindu
* * * A twice-yearly shot could help end AIDS. But will it get to everyone who needs it? AP
How HIV Research Reshaped Modern Medicine (press release) Harvard Medical School
“The Meese Revolution” by Calabresi & Lawson Legal Theory Blog
China?
Chinese cities fight lying flat mentality with ‘snail awards’ for poor workers South China Morning Post
Chart of the Day: Interconnected roads improve people’s lives in China CGTN
Deadly attacks shatter China’s aspiration to be a ‘harmonious society’ Channel News Asia
Nobel-winning economist James Robinson on China’s place in his theory of institutions South China Morning Post
Syraqistan
U.S., Allies Reignite War On Syria Moon of Alabama
Mapping who controls what in Syria Al Jazeera
* * * Israel conducts military operations in southern Lebanon despite cease-fire Anadolu Agency
Journey to Idlib: An Interview with Wassim Nasr, Journalist, France24 Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. From 2023.
* * * Syria launches counterattacks in an attempt to halt insurgency, as Iran’s top diplomat meets Assad AP
Syrian National Army continues progress in Operation Dawn of Freedom against PKK/YPG Anadolu Agency
The US has backed 21 of the 28 ‘crazy’ militias leading Turkey’s brutal invasion of northern Syria The Gray Zone. From 2019.
* * * All Eyes on Somaliland: The Tiny African State That’s Key to Israel’s War on Houthi Terror Haaretz
Pro-Palestinian journalist found dead on rooftop in Marseille Al Mayadeen
European Disunion
Is France heading for a Greek-style debt crisis? FT
French PM risks tumbling as far right set to block social security plan France24
European Central Bank to abandon crisis-era strategy as inflation falls Irish Times
New Not-So-Cold War
Ukraine’s Dmytro Kuleba: ‘If it continues like this, we will lose the war’ FT
Russia Forges Ahead in Eastern Ukraine, Capturing More Villages in Recent Days NYT
* * * Five key takeaways from Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s interview with Sky News Sky News
Zelenskyy explains why he doesn’t request foreign troops: Half of partners would stop providing support Ukrainska Pravda
* * * National security advisor Jake Sullivan says Biden told him to oversee a ‘massive surge’ of weapons deliveries to Ukraine before his term ends Business Insider
* * * Scholz arrives in Kyiv Ukrainska Pravda
Ukraine’s NATO membership must include entire territory: Zelenskyy Anadolu Agency
* * * Is the ruble worth anything? Why is there no panic in Russia over its 7% depreciation against the dollar in the past week? Gilbert Doctorow
The Final Frontier
Earth or Mars? The future lies in choosing where, and who, we want to be Business Standard
South of the Border
Embracing uncertainty – monetary policy in Latin America Bank of International Settlements
Biden Administration
Joe Biden pardons Hunter Biden Axios. Commentary:
The start date of January 2014 for Hunter’s pardon is extremely notable because it coincides with Joe becoming the de facto viceroy of Ukraine. Hunter (who had and has never been in Ukraine) started raking in millions from a corrupt Ukrainian oligarch in April 2014. pic.twitter.com/wir4Q8LgoZ
— Hans Mahncke (@HansMahncke) December 2, 2024
Meanwhile:
We are gonna miss @JoeBiden's fundamental decency and normalcy in 51 days. pic.twitter.com/hKPNFHx74K
— Chris D. Jackson (@ChrisDJackson) December 1, 2024
We haven’t seen a pardon as sweeping as Hunter Biden’s in generations Politico
Trump Transition
Trump Labor pick surprises unions, rattles business The Hill
A Constitutional Crisis Greater Than Watergate David Frum, The Atlantic. The deck: “Trump’s nomination of Kash Patel threatens to turn the FBI into an instrument of personal presidential power.”
2024 Post Mortem
SBSQ #15: Democrats have a “fool me twice” problem Nate SIlver, Silver Bulletin
Antitrust
Monopoly Round-Up: Trump’s FDA Pick Knows How to Fix Medical Shortages BIG, Matt Stoller
Monopoly Capital and the Rise of the Synthetic Age Monthly Review
Digital Watch
Crazy cleaning fees have pushed once-loyal Airbnb travelers back to hotels Orlando Sentinel
Dear Old Blighty
Labour’s Choices Phenomenal World
Imperial Collapse Watch
Class Warfare
Karl Marx Explained the 19th Century. Wolfgang Streeck Is Explaining the 21st. NYT
A General Logic of Crisis Adam Tooze, London Review of Books. 2017 review of Wolfgang Streeck.
Cicadas 3 Quarks Daily
Xenophilia: Golden Rule of the Stranger JSTOR Daily
Losing your mind looking at memes? The dictionary has a word for that BBC
Antidote du jour (Basile Morin):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
Oreshnik
(melody borrowed from Maxwell’s Silver Hammer by The Beatles)
Almost Biblical, its apocalyptical—nothing like it’s known
Melts strong steel like it was an ice cube (ohh oh oh oh)
London or Berlin, Paris takes it on the chin—all the Eurozone
Landing like the lightning from scriptures (woe, oh, oh, oh)
There is no place that it cannot go—a whole new way of war
Putin didn’t bluff or stammer, he meant what he said
Simple words in simple grammar—‘Be careful where you tread!’
A missile is a tool, but then so’s a ducking stool—bases get destroyed
Thirty minutes warning to flee the scene!
Vlad attacks today, when and where we cannot say, radar’s simply blind
Punishing our crimes in one deadly blow oh oh oh
The West would love to have such a toy—we’d conquer all mankind!
Putin didn’t bluff or stammer, he meant what he said
Simple words in simple grammar—‘Be careful where you tread!’
(musical interlude)
What is to be done? All our proxy wars are done! We’re Oreshnik prone!
Forced to listen to angry strictures (ohh oh oh oh)
Lands like asteroids—buried bunkers get destroyed—war is obsolete (war is obsolete)
Guaranteed defeat before we say ‘Go!’ (oh oh oh)
The Russians have rewritten the script—to peace we are confined!
Putin didn’t bluff or stammer, he meant what he said
Simple words in simple grammar—‘Be careful where you tread!’
(Whoa whoa whoa, ohh!)
(Do do do doo doo)
Simple grammar . . .
Thanks Antifa. Good song choice as it’s so disturbing to start with.
And thanks to all who took part the comments on Saturday’s Rob Urie post. It’s a lot to get through but I found it helpful. I wouldn’t dare to try to summarize it myself. Perhaps we can ask ChatGPT to do that?
“Is the ruble worth anything? Why is there no panic in Russia over its 7% depreciation against the dollar in the past week?”
By coincidence, The Duran have just dropped a video talking about this and joke how this happens every year at this time and every year they do a video explaining it-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBS4y3KbGDU (20:24 mins)
“Is the Yen worth anything? Why is there no panic in Tokyo over its 38% depreciation against the dollar in the past 5 years?”
Working link for “How could Macy’s overlook millions in hidden expenses for years?” article at-
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/macys-overlook-millions-hidden-expenses-years/story?id=116230573
So maybe somebody should have a quick look at their petty expenses account as well.
Honestly, an internal controls failure so extreme that it allowed $154m in expenses to go unaccrued is just as bad as management collusion to commit fraud. As an accountant, I’m still betting on management collusion. I’m guessing there was at least pressure from someone in management to hide expenses as well as help from someone else in accounting to look the other way or cover it up. This idea that it was one lone wolf is absurd, or at least would be in any company where internal controls are present and functioning.
Both options are bad, it’s either management collusion to override controls and commit fraud or internal controls so broken that it wouldn’t even be noticed. Either way, pinning it on one individual employee is a crock. It’s a scapegoat all the way.
I’m going with the collusion angle, or IBGI-YBGI*
* I’ll be guaranteed income-you’ll be guaranteed income
It’s not the first time Macys (nee Federated Department Stores) has been scammed.
Bamboozlement was in fact, The Miracle on 34th Street?
I beg your pardon
Ixnay on me saying you’d get no Presidential pardon
Along with the potential of Burisma sunshine
There’s gotta be a little decadal refrain sometime
When you take you gotta give so live and let live or let go
Oh-whoa-whoa-whoa
I beg your pardon
Ixnay on me saying you’d get no Presidential pardon
I could have promised you things like Kamala coming through
But don’t expect anything after November 5th, if I was you
So you better think it over
Well, if by sweet-talkin’ word salad you could make it come true
She would run the world right now on a silver platter
But what would it matter
So smile for a while and let’s be jolly
Getting off shouldn’t be so melancholy
Come along and share the good times while we can
I beg your pardon
Ixnay on me saying you’d get no Presidential pardon
Along with avoiding Burisma sunshine
There’s gotta be a little decadal refrain time
I beg your pardon
Ixnay on me saying you’d get no Presidential pardon
I could sing you a tune and promise you the moon
But if that’s what it takes to hold you
I’d just as soon let you go
But there’s one thing I want you to know
You better look before you leap, still waters run deep
And there won’t always be someone there to pull you out after 1/20
And you know what I’m talking about
So smile for a while and let’s be jolly
Getting off shouldn’t be so melancholy
Come along and share the good times while we can
I beg your pardon
Ixnay on me saying you’d get no Presidential pardon
Along with the potential of Burisma sunshine
There’s gotta be a decade of free from crime time
I beg your pardon
Ixnay on me not giving you an ironclad Presidential pardon
Rose Garden, by Lynn Anderson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXHsWBKKNbI
Will Biden make a deal to resign the presidency a few days before January 20th in exchange for a pardon from the first female to hold the office?
…anything is possible in Poltempkin Village
Will she follow through or leave him hanging in the wind? My money would be on the latter. Surely there would be “further negotiations” were Biden foolish enough to start down this path.
Joe may need that pardon now that Hunter has his. The latter now is subject to subpoenas without any Fifth Amendment defense.
But not that long ago they found that old Joe was too old and frail to stand trial and that was the official report. Though not old and frail enough not to have the nuclear football and try to to get the US into a shooting war with Russia.
That was then. This is now.
I don’t care that hunter is not going to jail.
This entire slimy family has been a corrupt parasite on the american people for 50 years. 3 years at a Club Fed, courtesy of the american taxpayer, as “atonement” would not be nearly enough.
I hope Kash Patel exposes every scintilla of criminality perpetrated over the years by this slimy bunch and everyone who has fronted or covered for them (lookin’ at you, obama), and they ALL go down in history as publicly shamed and shunned exemplars of the rampant, highest-level corruption that killed millions for money, and (almost?) destroyed a great nation.
But Biden is only the poster boy. Corruption is our DC disease. Biden’s problem was that he was simultaneously corrupt and dumb–seemingly incapable of making the right decision on anything.
For all the squawking about Trump’s upcoming cabinet he seems to have gotten the message that we are sick of these people. Time for a new cast of potential villains (or–dare one dream–the opposite).
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
Corny, I suppose, but still true.
Thanks for Matt Stoller’s article. That’s a good read to start the week.
an aside: Stoller writes, “And the second is to shrink the profit margin for producers to virtually nothing, meaning that factories that make critical supplies are poorly maintained and prone to shutdowns for bad sanitation, which is what causes shortages. ”
(my emphasis)
To that point, the new head of the FDA, whoever it is, might want to revisit their 2019 rule change, which is still in effect, as far as I know. / my 2 cents
—–
Removal of Certain Time of Inspection and Duties of Inspector Regulations for Biological Products
…
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA, the Agency, or we) is issuing a final rule amending the general biologics regulations relating to time of inspection requirements and also removing duties of inspector requirements. FDA is taking this action to remove outdated requirements and accommodate new approaches, such as a risk-based inspection frequency for drug and device establishments, thereby providing flexibility without diminishing public health protections.
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/04/02/2019-06187/removal-of-certain-time-of-inspection-and-duties-of-inspector-regulations-for-biological-products
“National security advisor Jake Sullivan says Biden told him to oversee a ‘massive surge’ of weapons deliveries to Ukraine before his term ends”
Jake “The Snake” Sullivan tells Biden that Army Detachment Steiner will get on those deliveries straight away. They just have to stop off in Syria to pick them back up again first.
Somebody should think about all those poor North Koreans lost somewhere in the Kursk region, too. Nobody has seen them in 7-8 weeks for now.
Just goes to show you that the North Koreans had an unexpected, genius-level talent in camouflage. :)
They say that Catch 22% is the sweetest catch of all…
In their favor, they are used to the Ruble being worth not too much all of the sudden, in theory a Ruble was worth a buck fifty during the Cold War, but in reality not worth much in the west, and then when the curtain call came on Communism it took 1,000 Rubles to equal a buck.
Still, 22% interest is what you’d expect from a Latin American country with a woeful currency~
Car tyres shed a quarter of all microplastics in the environment – urgent action is needed The Conversation
I recommend Jane Holtz Kay’s book, “Asphalt Nation.” It featured the toxicity of car tires long before the word “microplastics” was in vogue.
I recall Michael Moore writing in one of his books how when he learned that a major highway skirted a body of water where New York drew it’s water from and would be accumulating all those tire microplastics, that that was when he started to buy bottled water for his apartment.
One of my favorite quips from a long ago MAD magazine is a complaint that since car tires don’t last very long, make the tires from concrete and the roads of rubber!
I think this answers the “Who is going to go in to remove the Houthis?” question. Probably Ethiopia, in exchange (so they believe) for a path to the sea through northern Somalia.
I saw a very banana republic style commercial this morning on Bloomberg from this organization exhorting their wealthy viewership to lobby Musk and Ramaswamy at DOGE to cut IRS funding. I spent five minutes looking for the commercial itself on Youtube but couldn’t find it.
If my memory serves me well, taxpayers protection alliance has been lobbying hard protecting intuit (turbotax) from IRS competition (developing robust free file) for a while now. There may be other motivations at this point as well. Rich people hate paying taxes, so defunding the IRS seems a natural fit.
“NYT op-ed argues ‘resentful’ men, ‘manosphere’ and overall anger and loneliness led to Trump’s victory”
Well, OK then. I guess that that mean that the Democrats do not have to change their long-term strategy and that they did nothing wrong in this year’s campaign at all. Good to know. So America has a man problem? Sarah Bernstein is seriously going to blame half the population but it does not occur to her that this same attitude led to so many groups abandoning Harris – women too – no matter how many fingers were wagged at them. Then she writes-
‘But if we are willing to reject the manosphere’s narrow ideas of masculinity, we will find that it is possible for both men and women to thrive at the same time — in work and in love.’
Maybe it might be an idea if both sides base relations between the two sexes on actual equal relations and not a zero sum game. That later strategy is what led to Trump getting to be President – twice.
Blame it on the testosterone.
Of course the chauvinist cohort have their own hormonal accusations as evidenced by the Greek origins of the word “hysteria.”
Clearly Freud was right and sex is the key to everything, at least going by the NYT.
I dunno about that Freud kink.
It says somewhere in the Bible that “For the love of money is the root of all evil.” (I Timothy 6:10)
Freud could have said its modern counterpart as “For the love of sex is the root of all evil.” It sounds suspiciously Calvinist, very suspiciously Calvinist considering Freud’s background and all.
I won’t even venture into the question of “Transitory Phenomena.”
National security advisor Jake Sullivan says Biden told him to oversee a ‘massive surge’ of weapons deliveries to Ukraine before his term ends Business Insider @@@@@@@ And what weapons would that be? Shovels? Mostly, the item we can surge to Ukraine is $USD. We’ve been doing that for 3 yrs. Sooner or later that comes back to us in the form of inflation or lowered living standards. Also, how much of these USD end up in hands of Hunter and the Biden Crime family?
Pro-Palestinian journalist found dead on rooftop in Marseille, RIP Marine Vlahovic, who, according to Global News, (Reddit link) “…was working on a documentary on the ongoing genocide in Gaza and was preparing to make revelations about the IDF.” From the Al Mayadeen article, “While the circumstances remain unclear, police have stated that there is no initial evidence that a crime has been committed.” To be fair, authorities are waiting for an autopsy to determine cause of death, nevertheless less there is already a faint whiff of cover-up.
Re Karl Marx Explained the 19th Century. Wolfgang Streeck Is Explaining the 21st
This is of a piece with Blyth’s Angrynomics, Piketty’s BRAHMIN LEFT VERSUS MERCHANT RIGHT: CHANGING POLITICAL CLEAVAGES IN 21 WESTERN DEMOCRACIES, 1948–2020 and Dani Rodrik’s trilemma: “democracy, national sovereignty and global economic integration — pick any two” …
“Is France heading for a Greek-style debt crisis?”
‘For the first time ever, France’s borrowing costs have risen above those of Greece, the country which sparked a euro-zone crisis.’
Didn’t see that coming. And because of France’s recent election results – or the ignoring of by Macron – France is now in a very unstable condition to handle this crisis. I’m sure that Macron will rise to the occasion by flip-flopping his way to a solution, probably involving Marine le Penn.
Didn’t see that coming, me neither. Are they using Macy’s accountants?
Just do a spin-off for “Emily in Paris” that is happening in Paris and tourism flow into Paris after that will fix everything.
It´s so easy, guys.
re Hunter–so Biden is determined to ooze out of office on a slime trail of sleaze. It’s a pity he can’t also pardon himself lest he wind up in an Alzheimer’s facility with bars, lots of bars.
The real question is whether grieving elites will break out of their trance and finally concede that Scranton Joe was one of the worst presidents ever. Not holding breath.
So Biden is determined to ooze out of office on a slime trail of sleaze.
Same way he oozed in.
Or, indeed, has gone through his whole life. Taken as a family, the Bidens are even viler than the Clintons.
Bill Clinton had his ties to financier Marc Rich, but those were just Beltway business ongoing and nothing much to see there….of course not \sarc
People who can retain memories into the future might well mark this moment. It wasn’t a Trump getting a pardon from a President Trump, no it was Hunter Biden receiving the pardon from President Joe Biden. Begs a question, just what exactly is the difference among our elected leaders and elite… they’re in it for themselves and I find it hard to believe otherwise.
Airbnb: Tools
“So we created a tool called the compare listing tool, where people can see how much other people are charging in the neighborhood.”
They allow you to compare prices? How is this possible? Is it even legal? Where do they get the technology? AI?
They don’t even bother with the “sharing” moniker anymore, not that it ever was sharing.
Oh oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh oh oh
Oooh
Up every evening
Just counting time
I give my complete attention
To a very good friend suffering from a TDS bind
He’s barely recovered from J6, he’s a
He’s got more derangement coming
So horrors graphic, oh DJT forty-five
November 5th brought him home, he, he sat around forlorn
He saw DJT forty-five, mind’s gone, he
He crawled right in, oh my, he crawled right in a quadrennial blind
So graphic horrors, oh DJT forty-five
Oh, so demonic, oh in regards to DJT forty-five
Maybe if I pray every, each night I sit there pleading
Send back my Biden loving baby, his main feature
In lieu of DJT forty-five, he, he just stares back unblinking
So horrors graphic, oh DJT forty-five
One of these nights he may jump back down rainbow woke way
Be with the Donkey Show, then he’ll spend some time together
So graphic horrors, oh DJT forty-five
My friend’s in there someplace, he’s ranting in the sky
So horrors graphic, oh DJT forty-five
Transition
Transmission
Transition
Transmission
Oy vey DJT forty-five, oh oh, DJT forty-five
Oy vey DJT forty-five, oh oh, DJT forty-five
Oy vey DJT forty-five, oh oh, DJT forty-five
Oy vey DJT forty-five, oh oh, DJT forty-five
Maybe if he prays every, each night he sits there pleading
“Send back my American Dream test baby, Kam’s my main feature”
DJT forty-five, he, he just stares back unblinking
So graphic horrors, oh DJT forty-five
One of these nights he may jump back down woke rainbow way
Be with the Donkey Show, then he’ll spend some time together
So horrors graphic, oh DJT forty-five
My friend’s in there someplace, he’s ranting in the sky
So graphic horrors, oh DJT forty-five
Oh oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh oh oh
Transition
Transmission
Transition
Transmission
Oy vey DJT forty-five, oh oh, DJT forty-five
Oy vey DJT forty-five, oh oh, DJT forty-five
Oy vey DJT forty-five, oh oh, DJT forty-five
Oy vey DJT forty-five, oh oh, DJT forty-five
Oy vey DJT forty-five, oh oh, DJT forty-five
Oy vey DJT forty-five, oh oh, DJT forty-five
Oy vey DJT forty-five, oh oh, DJT forty-five
Oy vey DJT forty-five, oh oh, DJT forty-five
Oy vey DJT forty-five, oh oh, DJT forty-five
Oy vey DJT forty-five, oh oh, DJT forty-five
Oy vey DJT forty-five, oh oh, deja vu DJT forty-five
TVC 15, by David Bowie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dh8RDktOdnc
An earlier comment disappeared into the nethersphere but when Joe Biden was showing off the Oval Room, just be aware of how it has changed over the decades-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3xC5GXdK64 (2:03 mins)
re: Gemany vs ICC/Gaza/reparations
– This is German only. Subs are not (yet) available –
Today there was a semi-official conference in Berlin where usually the government is holding it´s daily press conferences by 4 experts who demand that Germany participate in reparations for Gaza and follows ICC arrest warrants against Bibi and Gallant.
The site text contains the statements but not the Q&A which is almost an hour and only in the video.
https://www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=125587
Thank you, Lambert.
Further to the dear old Blighty link, I don’t think Labour will stray from its current approach, which is a continuation of Tory and Liberal austerity.
May I, please, explain why from my engagements with the former shadow Treasury and Business teams and the likes of the Labour in the City Network.
The (Labour half of the) neoliberal uniparty is functionally incapable of delivering: Many, if not most, of the advisers and the likes of the LCN have either gone straight into politics from university or after some, but not many, years in the civil service, often the case with the Blair secondees. Few, if any, have experience like the experts here such as Anonymous 2, Aurelien, Froghole, Harry, IM DOC, Ignacio, PK etc. Not only are they not familiar with the issues and technicalities, they are not interested, either, and don’t want to be shown up by engaging with the likes of the commenters I cite above. In a profession that requires being a courtier and even a courtesan, the only ability / experience that counts is getting close to or in power and staying there. Fixing problems are a distraction and not what they are qualified to do or in politics for, an issue amplified by the(ir friends in the) MSM getting people on air who are not experts in anything, vide assisted dying, where I never saw a doctor speak. In any case, these problems aren’t problems for the PMC. The LCN lot are rarely in big finance itself, but work in PR and perhaps legal in tandem with client firms. They often seem superficial.
There is no money, apparently, to fix the South Wales problems, but there is money available to throw at, e.g. London & the South East: These are provincial concerns. The above may even think that is “little Englander”. They are not interested, especially if insecure provincials running away from their backgrounds and are seduced by the big smoke, big apple and west wing. As above, fixing problems are a distraction and not what they are qualified to do or in politics for.
I’m hearing more and more about the Aberfans still out there. I dread to think of another tragedy happening. The alarm has been raised from Wales, but it barely registers in Whitehall. It’s not just ministers, but Treasury officials are no better. The Treasury needs to be broken up.
In short, Labour is, perhaps unwittingly, preparing the ground for a resurgence of the Tories, but in tandem with Farage’s Reform in 2029. Reform won’t need the money Musk is dangling as Labour has baked in its defeat.
On NYT op-ed argues ‘resentful’ men, ‘manosphere’ and overall anger and loneliness led to Trump’s victory
Yep — my comment on this didn’t make the cut, but I noted that the oped definitely didn’t mention online dating, which is a dumpster fire for most men. Of course, the Fox article also doesn’t mention this either. It’s literally a copy and paste of quotes from the oped. Hilarious this is getting the attention it deserves, I guess, as a political football completely devoid of context or any dose of reality.
Revealed: A space-tech behind Russia’s deadly Oreshnik missile
“On the 10th day after the Russian Armed Forces struck the city of Dnipro in Ukraine with an Oreshnik missile, more details about its origin began to emerge. The latest revelation came hours ago from Roscosmos’ General Director, Yuri Borisov.”
Above my pay grade. Hopefully useful.
Edit, from bulgarianmilitary .com
This is again a project of an unfathomable scale that’s just been completed in China and barely anyone has heard of it in the rest of the world https://x.com/tphuang/status/1863336445827776596/video/1
China has just finished constructing a continuous 3,046-kilometer (1,892-mile) green barrier – made of plants and trees – completely encircling the Taklamakan Desert, the world’s second-largest shifting sand desert which is about the size of Germany (!).
To put this in perspective, this is like building a living wall from Paris to Istanbul, or from Los Angeles to Chicago – except they built it in one of the world’s most inhospitable environments.
They spent about 40 years building this “green wall”. The final 285 kilometers was completed in 2024 on November 28. They built the “wall” with desert-hardy plants like Populus euphratica (desert poplar), Haloxylon (saxaul), and Tamarix (salt cedar), along with innovative sand-control engineering and solar panel installations.
The objective of the project is to contain the desert’s expansion and to protect surrounding agricultural areas and cities from sandstorms. Before this project, many towns in the region had to be relocated multiple times due to encroaching sand. For instance, the town of Qira in Xinjiang had to move three times in its history, with sand dunes once approaching as close as 1.5 kilometers from the town center.
This is easily one of human history’s most ambitious and grandest ecological engineering projects. It’s insane when you think about it: completely containing a desert the size of Germany!
And it’s also insane how little attention this has received globally: sadly we’ve apparently lost the capacity to be impressed by such a project, let alone have the boldness of vision to conceive of one ourselves. All resulting in the fact that whilst China is out there completing 40-year missions to tame entire deserts, we can barely fix potholes in our roads.
From
tphuang
from@RnaudBertrand
Thanks. That’s quite a feat. Interestingly, this just came across my alto transom, “Land degradation expanding by 1m sq km a year, study shows”, (the Guardian). This article is more about unsustainable agricultural practices, an adjacent lane.
It’s sad that the US doesn’t pursue forward thinking sustainability projects like the one you’ve flagged here.
The AL Jazeera article about mapping Syria doesn’t point out the area controlled by the USA. Hmmmm