A pufferfish: ‘probably nature’s greatest artist’ Guardian
Climate
Arctic Ocean may see its 1st ‘ice-free’ day by 2027, study warns Anadolu Agency
* * * EU pushes back deforestation law by a year after outcry from global producers AP
Genetic differentiation and precolonial Indigenous cultivation of hazelnut (Corylus cornuta, Betulaceae) in western North America PNAS (Sub-Boreal). On edible forests, see NC here, here, and here.
From definitions to solutions: Can local food systems sustainably deliver fair rewards for farmers and access to quality food for all? Sustainable Food Trust
Syndemics
DRC: Reports Of A Fatal `Mystery’ Disease in Kwango, DRC Avian Flu Diary
* * * Raw Farms LLC Press Release Claims Their H5N1 Shutdown Is A Political Issue Recombinomics
Raw milk recall in California expands after tests detect more bird flu virus AP
* * * Almost a third of preteens, teens with long COVID still not recovered at 2 years, study shows Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy
China?
Only China can now lead the world on climate Adam Tooze, FT
Chinese industry bodies urge caution in buying US chips over semiconductor export control CGTN
U.S. Navy Bolsters Carrier Presence in the West Pacific Naval News
Translating Ukraine Lessons for the Pacific Futura Doctrina
Japan’s audacious bid to become a semiconductor superpower FT
The Koreas
South Korea – Majority Wins As President’s Putsch Fails Moon of Alabama
How is a South Korean president impeached and does the opposition have enough votes to do so? Channel News Asia
South Korea’s Yoon focus of police ‘treason’ probe over martial law chaos Al Jazeera
Africa
Is U.S. investment in Africa coming too late to counter China and Russia on the continent? (transcript) PBS. Commentary:
Yet another masterclass in diplomatic self-sabotage: you can be sure this will go viral everywhere in Africa…
Combine this with Blinken's recent 'counter' to China's $3.5 billion Peruvian port – offering Peru some antiquated second-hand diesel trains – and you see why the… https://t.co/wTCgbyb4yr
— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) December 5, 2024
Syraqistan
Amnesty International Investigation Concludes Israel Is Committing Genocide Zeteo. Commentary:
“My name is Amos Goldberg. I am an Israeli Professor of Holocaust Studies. For nearly 30 years I have researched and taught the Holocaust, genocide and state violence.
And I want to tell whoever is willing to listen that what’s happening now in Gaza is a genocide.
A year ago… pic.twitter.com/a8i9oy4MjC
— Led By Donkeys (@ByDonkeys) December 4, 2024
Leaks, Distribution of Arms, Incitement to Racism, and Reckless Driving – the Allegations Surrounding Ben-Gvir Haaretz
New report shows pro-Palestine protests suppressed in Democracies Al Mayadeen
Calif bar considers campus protests in moral character review for lawyer licensing Reuters
TikTok isn’t anti-Israel: It’s Hired Unit 8200 Agents to Run its Affairs Mint Press
European Disunion
France’s Barnier to resign as no-confidence vote sparks new political crisis France24
Europe Quietly Prepares for World War III Newsweek
‘Third nuclear age’ threatens the West, armed forces chief warns BBC
Sweden’s ‘soft girl’ trend that celebrates women quitting work BBC. “Her boyfriend works remotely in finance….”
Dear Old Blighty
Warhammer maker Games Workshop enters London’s top stocks index Agence France Presse
New Not-So-Cold War
Trump Should Make Putin Wince Before They Sit Down to Talk Foreign Policy
A winning strategy to end Russia’s war against Ukraine The Atlantic Council
Trump’s Ukraine challenge will be bringing Putin to negotiating table: experts South China Morning Post
Is Zelensky softening his tone on territorial concessions? Responsible Statecraft
KYIV BLOG: It’s time to drop the charade that Ukraine can join Nato BNE Intellinews
* * * Blinken confirms Ukraine to receive $50 billion transfer from frozen Russian assets Kyiv Independent
Handing Out Grants, Zelensky Tries to Win Over War-Weary Ukrainians NYT. The deck: “Citizens will be entitled to a $24 one-off payment this winter, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced, in a move apparently intended to soften the blow of a tax rise to help fund the war effort.”
* * * Russian General Staff chief called his US counterpart after Oreshnik strike – media Ukrainska Pravda
The Ugly Truth about the Permanent War Economy The Stimson Center
The New Great Game
Georgia police raid opposition offices as PM vows to curb protests France24
Seizing the Moment: Armenia and Azerbaijan at a Crossroads War on the Rocks
Trump Transition
Trump Taps Vance Aide Gail Slater as Top DOJ Antitrust Cop Bloomberg. Commentary:
This is a very powerful statement that Trump wants to take on big tech. https://t.co/4Ei42e2vWc
— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) December 4, 2024
Trump nominates Musk collaborator to head space agency NASA Al Jazeera
Trump chooses fintech CEO to lead Social Security Administration Politico
Bitcoin tops $100,000 after Trump picks crypto-friendly SEC chair Al Jazeera
The Bezzle
UK uncovers vast crypto laundering scheme for gangsters and Russian spies FT
Revealed: the Operators Behind Four Major Neo-Nazi X Accounts Texas Observer
Digital Watch
The Facebook Apostate The Intercept. The deck: “She Joined Facebook to Fight Terror. Now She’s Convinced We Need to Fight Facebook.”
* * * U.S. officials urge Americans to use encrypted apps amid unprecedented cyberattack NBC
Shame on Google for Their Description of Google Messages’s Encryption Support Daring Fireball
The Final Frontier
Moon Should Be a State Pirate Wires
Why we can’t just name a quasi-moon ‘Moony McMoonface’ Space.com
Zeitgeist Watch
Yammering Madness in the Garden of Beasts Jesse’s Café Américain
Book Nook
Final Statement of the Balkan Anarchist Bookfair 2024 The Anarchist Library
Great power and great responsibility: how consciousness changes the world Nature
Antidote du jour (Charles J. Sharp):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
198 comments
Comments are closed.
Another Jew
(melody borrowed from Another You by The Seekers, 1964)
(Ben Gurion International Airport, or natbag as Israelis call it, has been busy for over a year as Jewish people head ‘anywhere but here’ to start their lives anew. Israel isn’t safe for Jewish persons no matter where you live, but especially not in the West Bank, where even Brooklyn settlers are pulling out to avoid the next Intifada.)
We came here from Brooklyn
Unto the Holy Land
And they gave us empty houses
And orchards on demand
But we can’t live here in safety
We know now that is true
And so Israel has lost another Jew
What they gave to us was stolen
The owners chased away
But theft is not forgiven
That’s what our scriptures say
It’s a hostile takeover
If these soldiers leave we’re through
And so Israel has lost another Jew
When I talked to an attorney
He only smiled and sighed
He said, ‘This is just the norm, it’s
Yours till you die—till you die!
Some night Arabs will come torching
And all your dreams will fall.
You can live like a commando,
Hanging rifles on the wall,
But when it comes to push and shove, dear
You run or you are screwed.’
And so Israel has lost another Jew
(musical interlude)
‘But when it comes to push and shove, dear
You run or you are screwed’
And so Israel has lost another Jew
Another Jew . . .
Another Jew . . .
DRC: Reports Of A Fatal `Mystery’ Disease in Kwango, DRC Avian Flu Diary.
A friend of mine had been few weeks ago not far from Kwango sampling for Mpox assessment. He has not a clue about this new thing.
Many years ago, before I went to Kinshasa, the doctor who vaccinated me said he was glad I wasn’t going further South. “There are diseases down there we don’t even have names for.”
Definitely not a confidence builder that.
Southern African health problems are still acute:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1BWLm
January 15, 2018
Life Expectancy at Birth for South Africa, Zimbabwe and Zambia, 1980-2022
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1BWLi
January 15, 2018
Infant Mortality Rate for South Africa, Zimbabwe and Zambia, 1980-2022
File under either Biden admin or Trump transition: from Politico.
Biden White House Is Discussing Preemptive Pardons for Those in Trump’s Crosshairs
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/12/04/biden-white-house-pardons-00192610
an aside: how can you have a preemptive pardon?
Pardons described as preemptive
Reveals enormous contempt of
The rule of law
And immense chutzpah
Such things may prove only attemptive
That’s a fine limerick, thank you.
It surprised me that Biden’s son got a pardon without having to admit in court the crimes he committed. They forced Julian Assange to attend a federal court in Samoa(?) to be charged formally before they would pardon him, claiming that he can’t be pardoned unless he’s charged. Just goes to show you if you’re part of the MIC/Intelligence you walk on water and can do just about anything and nothing will happen to you. The California bar should lose its license considering expressing your first amendment right affects your “Moral quality” and can deny you entrance. The CA bar board members should all be brought up on war crimes for encouraging a genocide if they feel that way. We need to go back to the Nuremberg standards for war prosecution. A good chunk of our leaders would be serving life in prison for the stuff they have committed. May they all rot in hell….
An astute observation by ChatET: “Biden’s son got a pardon without having to admit in court the crimes he committed.” So what Hunter got was actually an Indulgence, not a “Pardon.” We should insist on calling it an indulgence.
At some time in our unremembered past, indulgences were considered controversial, a symptom of corruption and apostasy. Could the Framers have intended to give the President the right to grant indulgences along with pardons?
“As soon as the coin in the coffer rings,
the soul from purgatory springs.”
Attributed (with some controversy) by Martin Luther to Johannes Tetzel, a Dominican friar who rose through the Church by selling indulgences, kind of like Lloyd Blankfein rose through the ranks of Goldman selling gold.
There once was a man not from Nantucket
Whose legacy was already in doubt
So he said (family-blog) it
Any chance he pardons Beau, just to be able to mention him one last time?
I’ll put money on that! (He might also forget Beau is dead. Any padon counts as a win.)
I was thinking some kind of twist on Minority Report, and whether the granter of the pardon could be charged as an accessory to some putative crime. But the proposal is just for crimes already committed but not yet charged.
‘how can you have a preemptive pardon?’
It’s like writing out a blank check. You fill in the necessary details later when you need it. But can old Joe write out a pardon for himself?
Biden might just issue blanket pardons to all his cabinet appointees and major DNC donors.
Then Trump can follow up by giving blanket pardons to all Jews with an Israeli passport.
We really are in reach of satire via Mel Brooks…the Blazing Saddles version. Joe really is William Le Petomayne come to fruition. Instead of those small gifts like the paddle ball from the movie, Joe gets to hand out pardons like a drunk gambler going all in.
“Gentlemen, this will cure the insane gambler!”
an interesting legal loophole….
If post-pardon Hunter is ever subpoenaed by Congress, he can’t plead the 5th amendment during testimony anymore due to this pardon. So he would have to tell the truth, lie, or not appear. 2 out of those 3 = new crimes.
To close that loophole, Hunter should have gotten a commutation (but that wouldn’t have covered possible Burisma acts)
Hunter had better stay away from small aircraft.
The “Deep State” has form in throwing its formerly useful ‘agents’ under busses, trains, and wheeled conveyances of all sorts. They also have a track record of tossing those who have “outworn their welcome” off of boats at sea as well. Then there is Lockerbie….
My favorite Hunter moment was when they got him all decked out in a suit-complete with old glory lapel pin, including a cavalcade of half a dozen black SUV’s arriving outside with his matching ride when he went to court, where he expected to get off, but didn’t.
As discussed on America This Week on Monday, this pardon of Hunter could enable him to run lucrative blackmails games against co-conspirators. He would be able to bear witness against them and not be prosecuted himself. Unless they pay up of course, and then he’ll stay quiet until the next payment demand.
I really like the original thinking that comes through on America This Week, twice a week on Monday and Friday.
…and give up a lucrative career as an artist in high demand?
So, if Congress subpoena’s Hunter and he answers questions with “I forgot.” Can they find him in ‘Contempt’ and confine him to the capitol jail until he remembers?
Biden likes to think outside the box–when he’s awake–so why not Nordstream the justice system? It would merely be another extension of the lawfare mentality which says the law is an intrument of power, nothing more or less.
Here’s suggesting that the election really was about a would be dictator. Fortunately his party’s candidate and his personal pick lost.
No republic without virtue.
The Supreme Court would certainly have something to say about that.
The power to pardon originates in the Constitution, Article II section 1. It simply states:
(Note that this means State-level offenses cannot be pardoned, only Federal ones.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_pardons_in_the_United_States
The Federal Courts have subject matter jurisdiction over any pardon controversy, because Article III states that the Federal courts have the power to judge disputes over any “treaties, laws, or the Constitution.”
President Ford’s pardon of Nixon for unspecified federal offenses during the Watergate era was essentially a pre-emptive pardon, so this is nothing new. Fords pardon was never tested in Federal Court, and I would be willing to bet that the current SCOTUS would enjoy getting their legal minds to work on a new case involving pardons.
(wish-casting)
Perhaps we may finally see the Courts push back on the power of the Executive branch. Of course, the same SCOTUS gave the President very broad immunity from criminal acts as long as they are done as part of their “official duties” so don’t hold your breath.
Flora, I’m guessing they will all go back to 2014! There was a whole lot of moola being laundered thru Ukraine! There was also a lot of messing around with Jeffrey Epstein. Then there is all that money sloshing around Obama, might have to go back to the 90s to capture everything that has gone on with the Demo-rat party. While we’re at it, it’s not just Liz Cheney, why not go all the way back and make sure there isn’t anything old man Cheney still has like all the documents he took with him, and that stolen Presidency that George got, when Supreme Court handed him a win by not counting anymore votes! Hell, we might as well let everybody have a pardon, Dems changing name to pardon party.
“New report shows pro-Palestine protests suppressed in Democracies”
Should I state the obvious? If Democracies are suppressing pro-Palestine protests, then that means that they are not really Democracies at all. And having these Democracies label people criticizing Zionism as being antisemitic is like 1930s Democracies labeling critics of the Nazis being racist against German people. We don’t live in Democracies. We live in Oligarchies and if you don’t believe me, just ask former president Jimmy Carter-
https://theintercept.com/2015/07/30/jimmy-carter-u-s-oligarchy-unlimited-political-bribery/
Emmanuel Todd in his book La défaite de l’occident (The Defeat of the West) refers to western countries as ”liberal oligarchies”, with ”liberal” not used in the US-speak sense but as traditional liberalism (focus on individual rights and private property) and most definitely not ”democracies”.
To my mind, these oligarchies are increasingly resembling organised crime.
But never mind, the only organised crime we are supposed to fear is Russian /sarc. Just look at the articles cited above whose headlines equate Russia with organised crime, or have the word “Russian” close to a word related to organised crime.
Gooooooooood Moooooooorning Fiatnam!
Most of the grunts in the unit had invested in Bitcoin, with the notable exception of Pfc Jones-who preferred garnering .01% interest compounded daily in a checking account back in the world.
When the news hit that it had crested the $100 grand barrier, the rest of the platoon was chorus despondent towards him for not believing, kinda in the same way a 5 year old knows Santa Claus is real-not imagined.
I am a BTC refusenik, refusing to participate in the charade despite the theoretical gotten-gains I’m sacrificing.
The whole thing strikes me as stupid, and sleeping well at night is a priority at my age.
An old saying in the coin business…
Clifford Hewitt
It strikes me as kind of similar to LLM AI – highly resource intensive and not many useful uses. In BTC’s defense, it seems to have had a much longer run of favorable public perception than the LLM’s seem likely to. I’ve heard it said that it’s wise to not peak too early in one’s career.
On one hand, its akin to not being a bowling league-on the outside looking in…
…on the other hand its as if the economy depends on it to survive
My only observation is that BTC can’t really become a full-fledged currency until it stabilizes.
Moon-shot BTC presents a problem which is the opposite of a tanking currency. Imagine you get paid in BTC … you don’t want to spend it right away, unlike Argentinian pesos or Weimar republic Deutch marks.
Such behavior would enrage the likes of Jay Powell, who want the currency to burn a hole in your pocket like a $100 bill in the hands of a young, horny cowboy at a Texas brothel.
The ponzi depends on increasing velocity of transactions. Getting paid in BTC would be just the opposite – everyone would let their paycheck pile up in the bank, trying for bragging rights at the next cocktail party. Vendors would try to delay payments, rather than demand them in 30 days after delivery of the goods. Better to be paid late than on time.
Economists would have a conniption.
In Ponzi’s defense, his scheme of buying discounted postal reply coupons in other countries and redeeming them at face value in the U.S. as a form of arbitrage… was legitimate, in theory.
Ever entertain the thought that Bitcoin in particular was thought up and brought up by Wall*Street, not some handy anonymous Japanese chap?
Let’s say you found a Jackson in the coat pocket of a garment you hadn’t worn in a decade, and now it was worth $103,179.70?
Strikes me as Bizarro World hyperinflation…
Wasn’t there a guy that purchased a pizza using bitcoin back in 2010 and was smiling because he could do it. But now that bitcoin that he used would be now worth over a billion dollars? That was one expensive pizza.
One of the back east Dartful Codgers I hang out with on skid row in Vail, related to me a few years ago that he bought $100k worth of BTC circa 2012 and still has it.
I tend to believe him, and if so he’s a billionaire on paper, er 1’s & 0’s.
No, the opposite of hyperinflation. Hyper-DEFLATION. That old Jackson could buy a 40 story office tower, in downtown Atlanta.
(Emptied out of tenants, but once you get the rats out, it would be some cool digs for young creative types.)
It’s enough to make a central banker have a heart-attack, like a mouse facing a King Cobra.
Or a Bizarro World Hyper-speculation.
Sure, but I must add, BTC is first and foremost a money laundering tool extraordinaire, and second, the international currency of criminals, and third, an excellent tool to avoid taxes. All three of these characteristics align with the interests of the one percent. BTC becoming a full-fledged currency would put all three of these “conveniences” at regulatory risk.
My impression is that it’s main use has been in “third world” places where many people do not qualify for bank accounts and/or the local currency is highly inflationary.
It would eventually be the same for both Bitcoin investors and horny Cowboys; something other than their hands would be burning.
In Bitcoin’s defense, it seems like better value than Dak.
Or Kaaron Rodgers.
BTC is the world’s major buy-only investment.
There is a deep dive opportunity for anyone both curious about the crypto currency boom and a very specific corporate approach to running a business. Nope it’s not Coinbase or even a similar entity, and it also is not a new gleaming, shiny object that attracts billions of unicorn chasing , rainbow catching angel investors or venture funders.
Microstrategy is a public corporation taking every advantage of a rising price for Bitcoin. It’s hard to predict the future for them, but man that company is having a heck of a run in the public equity market…
https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/MSTR
I have memories of such comparable looking stock performance trends…not the good kind of memory should things ever turn possibly sour. I expect this is not a unique memory. Wow I just refreshed the chart to reflect for 5 years.
If I had invested in every scamnyy investment idea that I noticed in the last twenty years instead of making fun of them, I might be as rich as Nancy Pelosi.
But who wants to be paid in ice cream?
She has bad taste in upmarket ice cream. Best ice creams in DC are Dolcezza and Happy Ice Cream.
Who want’s to be anything “as Nancy Pelosi'”, although I must confess to an uncontrollable attraction to the idea of easy money.
I drive by her stretch of the Pacific Heights once. Really nice place. Wouldn’t mind owning a place there.
Subzeros are really nice fridge/freezers.
Nancy always struck me as having $36,723 too much worth of plastic surgery done on her face.
Long-form front-page bloviation as NYT today breaks the news to the American sheeple that Russia has escalation dominance in Earth orbit with Cosmos 2553, a presumed EMP-capable satellite-killer. What price US orbital satellite primacy now, etc.?
The Warning
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/12/05/opinion/nuclear-weapons-space.html
https://archive.ph/WyDFt
**Ignore the stupid active graphics up top, which just make the original hard to read and leave a black space in the archived version and scroll down if you want to read it**
‘…That’s why Moscow claims Cosmos 2553 is there — to test out “newly developed onboard instruments and systems” against radiation. But what it’s really doing, U.S. officials say, is testing components for a Russian weapon under development that could obliterate hundreds, if not thousands, of critical satellites. Cosmos 2553 isn’t armed, but it does carry a dummy warhead, one of several details being reported here for the first time. So while the orbiting satellite poses no imminent danger, the officials caution it does serve as a forerunner to an unprecedented weapon.
‘Although they are almost invisible in our day-to-day lives, satellites increasingly control how we live ….’
Blah, blah, blah.
And to think that they did this without even having to form a Russian Federation Space Force. Latest reports are that the Russians are developing a device which let them make ‘Pew! Pew!’ sounds in the vacuum of space.
Egads! The crafty Russkies have finally discovered the Harmonious Ether?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Space_Forces
It turns out, Russian Space Forces predate United States Space Force. Also, Russian Marines predate USA.
You make fun of the Space Force – well, there is much there that warrants it, they asked for it with the name, uniform and pomposity. However, there is a real practical upside to the move. It lets that community protect itself from the pilots and ICBM button pushers who have commandeered all the command and management positions for decades, at the expense of anyone who could do math or think outside of a checklist.
Thanks, The author is either naive of an adjacent spook. The opinion is over seasoned with Russia-phobia. The idea that the Russian military satellite is bad because it threatens our military space projects seems to be the primary grievance. To me, this calls into question the author’s public face persona as public advocate (He’s a Fellow at Outrider, a seemingly anti-nuclear war organization). Nevertheless, this paragraph caught my eye.
“SpaceX has plans to greatly increase the size of its constellation in the coming years. That’s a lot on its own, but Amazon also has plans to build a system to compete with Starlink in the next few years. China hopes to launch 40,000 of its own such satellites in the next decade, and the Pentagon is set to spend nearly $14 billion over the next five years to build its new system of missile-targeting satellites in low-Earth orbit. All told, the global space economy is expected to grow to $1.8 trillion by 2035, roughly three times where it stood in 2023, according to a recent industry analysis.” That’s a lot of satellites.
Russia has escalation dominance! I am shocked! Shocked! Round up the usual suspects. And while you are at it … ??? I have no idea how to complete this. Have I not been reading about Russia having escalation dominance for the last two years?
That’s a lot of satellites!
I wonder if this could happen to us:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome#:~:text=Some%20astronomers%20have%20hypothesized%20Kessler,itself%20within%20its%20home%20planet.
“Kessler syndrome”. Exactly, and now I know what to call it, thanks.
When I was learning how to drink, ‘Kessler Syndrome’ was slang for a nasty hangover.
that’s some serious rotgut stuff Wuk – only 20% of it is some bathtub whisky and the rest neutral grain spirits – yuk Wuk – good slang & a monster hangover –
here’s a bit more on the Kessler Syndrome in space being discussed –
https://www.space.com/kessler-syndrome-space-debris
and other problems with too many satellites –
http://arxiv.org/pdf/2312.09329
https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/08/there-are-2000-plus-dead-rockets-in-orbit-heres-a-rare-view-of-one-of-them/
https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/spacex-starlinks-astronomy-1.7334803
Mrsyk: The idea that the Russian military satellite is bad because it threatens our military space projects seems to be the primary grievance. To me, this calls into question the author’s public face persona as public advocate
What’s a professional anti-nuclear activist to do given the chance to reach the larger general audience — and the prominence! — that the NYT will provide them? They’ll filter and align their message to suit the NYT’s propaganda requirements.
JMH: Have I not been reading about Russia having escalation dominance for the last two years?
You have here and wherever rational analysis is dispensed. Everywhere else, denial and/or stupidity have reigned, not least among ‘our’ political leaders and the MSM, who in many cases are literally unable to get their minds around the reality of how things have changed. Aurelien’s latest is good on this —
https://aurelien2022.substack.com/p/the-missile-will-always-get-through
There are historical precedents. Notably, I think, the Mamluk sultanate in Egypt who, along with much of the Islamic world thereabouts, presumed an Islamic military supremacy over European militaries that they hadn’t had for three centuries and were shocked when Napoleon’s armies turned up in Egypt and conquered the country in very short order.
This presumption of Islamic military dominance became more comical given that the Brits turned up shortly afterwards and in turn kicked Napoleon’s armies asses in even short order, so the French survivors were then shipped home aboard British ships.
More accurately, Nelson showed up and destroyed Napoleon’s fleet, at which point the army was more or less left high and dry. And then army was defeated at Acre by a combined Brit / Ottoman force. (according to wiki.) But your point stands.
There was a recent deep dive into the Nile battle on Big Serge posted here recently: https://bigserge.substack.com/p/the-apotheosis-of-lord-nelson. Patrick O’Brien fans would enjoy, Capt Aubrey talked about the battle often, but always as a third hand account.
Thank you. That’s fair if fair exists these days.
“Moon Should Be a State ”
And if it were, the neo-cons would try to color-revolution it and Nuland would be there to hand out cookies in her space-suit.
(Come to think of it, maybe this isn’t a bad idea … lots of accidents happen in space.)
The surface area of the US is about 9.8 million square kilometers while the whole surface area of the Moon is about 38 million square kilometers. What if any future colonies get the idea of declaring independence? If there are Russian, Chinese and Indian colonies, they may all band together. The US government would be outraged but looked at the disparity in size again. In the book “Common Sense” by Thomas Paine he makes the point that how can an island claim to rule a continent like the British did with North America when common sense said that it should be the other way around. I’m sure that that Lunar Republic would make the same point.
Tiny Israel should take notice. (I’ve forwarded your comment to Bibi and am expecting a ceasefire in the next 24 hours, lol)
Not so much the Mouse That Roared as the Rat That Crapped Over Everything.
Heh heh, you’re on a roll. My three cats will volunteer their services if required.
Well, given that the Romans, the Macedonians, the Arabs (later the Ottomans) as well as the Portuguese and the Spaniards (among others) all conquered huge territories from tiny origins, I’d say he was wrong, and it’s the historical default.
Merci, Aurelien. La Normandie, aussi. :-)
Yes, good point. The Normans were probably the first to have an overseas empire, although you can make the case that the Phoenicians had a trading empire held together by seapower, much as the British did in the earlier imperial stages.
Those names encompass two very different kinds of empires. The earlier empires did not make clear distinctions between the metropole and the hinterlands, did not focus on making class determinations based on the racial/religious characteristics subject peoples.
The post-Columbian Europeans did. They were also far more adept at using local minorities as compradors to buttress their control, and in case of the English using troops from a different part of the empire against the locals in other parts of the empire. This enabled control of non-contiguous land half way around the world while keeping a district division between the metropole and its hinterlands.
The pre-Columbian empires might have grown from small cores. But they typically grew to be quite sizeable through earlier conquests and alliances, by the time they started their run as world historical empires. That’s a very different trajectory than how the English colonized the world.
My vision of Nuland in space is Vicki the Hutt, in her remote redoubt, munching on wormy cookies. Antony Blinken standing by as nomenclator, whispering in her ear. Jake Sullivan chained by the neck to her throne, wearing a scanty costume. Now if we could only retroactively place them in a galaxy long ago and far, far away.
Lost in Space!
Nobel peace prize awaits any techie who can invent a teleporter to send Cookies, Stinken’ Blinken, and Jake the Snake to another galaxy. One way ticket.
Just sending them back or forwards by a second in time, but keeping them in the same place, is sufficient to put them 30km above or below the earth since the earth is traveling 107,000 km/h around the sun. Either should be fatal.
>Trump Should Make Putin Wince Before They Sit Down to Talk Foreign Policy
The link headline made me want to vomit. Only psychopaths who have no concern or regard for the sacredness of human life write this sh&t. That Putin “Wince” and the “maximum pressure campaign” referred to below translates to dead and mangled bodies snuffed out in the prime of their life. These people proposing this are the same degenerates that support the Israeli genocide.
Trump will need to bolster U.S. and Ukrainian leverage. And he must do so quickly, without the torturous delays and self-imposed red lines that have characterized President Joe Biden’s support for Ukraine over the last three years. The Trump administration should therefore formulate a maximum pressure campaign to convince Moscow to accept a good and lasting peace deal.
to convince Moscow to accept a good and lasting peace deal…. by making Putin “wince”. I seem to live in a society based on middle school values and behavior. hk was going on about western (lack of) diplomacy skills yesterday. This seems to be another example. Or maybe the author is contemplating the “Trump handshake”. Just thinking about it makes me wince.
You’re giving them too much credit – my initial reaction to the headline was more grade school playground.
nah…..terrible two’s at best –
Sanctity of Stalin’s made up borders and the neocon’s ability to put US nukes on the Dneiper are priceless in terms of Slavs killed and money sent to the MIC.
US needs to keep the slaughter ball in the air over Kiev to give Syria to the jihad. Then go do Tehran like it was Kabul!
I suppose there are many people who wince, at least inwardly, before talking to Trump.
And I imagine Trump enjoys the thrill of talking to someone so important and in grand surroundings. Answers questions and following up are his favorite activities but strolling in beautiful rooms to be important is fun for him.
What this does for the rest of us I do not know.
>Antidote du jour
Should be photo-shopped sitting in a kettle; like salamanders, magical creatures.
I won’t disagree with anything the article says, but it’s missing a key part of what keeps the stupid levels of defense spending going: self-satisfied suburbanites. The closest the writers come to recognition is the remark about poorer areas becoming more dependent on military industry.
If you’ve spent any time in or around the defense industry though, enough to do some casual ethnography, a few patterns become clear. The article only describes 2 corners of the iron triangle, but the employees and close associates, who also provide a reliable voting bloc, definitely help sustain the bezzle at a local level.
There are definite social & psychic pathologies that emerge within that group too (the one sarcastic term I’ve heard is “self-proclaimed STEM-lords”). I can get into more details, but maybe the biggest irony is that these pathologies ironically weaken the technical capabilities of the defense industry.
Most glaring to me was the implication that every dollar is equal to every other dollar. Spending money on corporate profits and weapons that are junk is not the same as buying effective, sustainable weapons. We’ve seen how the Russian weapons, at far lower cost, routinely destroy those we’ve sent to Ukraine. We’ve seen how the F-35 mission capable rates are notoriously low. Weapon systems we pay top dollar for don’t stand up under live-fire tests. The list goes on.
In the conclusion the author states “At this moment, inflating the Pentagon budget appears to be an end itself rather than a means to building an effective national defense.” How true.
Balaclava was a warrior from the land of no free healthcare lunch
With a Thompson gun for hire, fighting to be done
The deal was made in Manhattan on a dark and stormy day
So he set out for the Hilton to do the bloody fray
By perhaps pre-existing conditions he fought the health care war
With his finger on the trigger, knee-deep in gore
For days and nights UnitedHealthcare brought claimants to their knees
They killed them off to earn their living and to help out the S & P
Balaclava, the Thompson gunner
Balaclava, the Thompson gunner
The assassin shot him in the back in a last bequest
But of all the Thompson gunners, Balaclava was the best
So the coppers decided they wanted Balaclava’s head
He’d stopped in a Starbucks for a Macchiato, they said
Balaclava the nameless Thompson gunner
New York’s bravest son (to even up the score)
They can still see on video him stalking through the morning
In the muzzle flash of Balaclava’s Thompson gun
In the muzzle flash of Balaclava’s Thompson gun
Balaclava searched the continent for the man who’d done him in
He found him in Manhattan outside a Hilton and shot him dead
Balaclava aimed his Thompson gun – he didn’t say a word
But he blew holes in his body is what we heard
Balaclava the nameless Thompson gunner
Balaclava the nameless Thompson gunner
Balaclava the nameless Thompson gunner
Talkin’ about the man
Balaclava the nameless Thompson gunner
The eternal Thompson gunner
Still wandering through the night
Now it’s a day later but he still keeps up the fight
In disallowed claims, in pain, in hospital, to cite
A healthcare CEO heard the burst of Balaclava’s Thompson gun and bought it
Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner, by Warren Zevon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRWCK9zGynA
The unknown suspect is still at large. Phone recovered, but the coppers aren’t saying if it is just a burner phone.
Hard to believe that given the other precautions the guy took he’d ditch a personal phone. The heat also recovered some shell casings with markings, including the words “deny”, “defend”, and “depose.”
Was there a casing with “red herring”?
Nope, but one marked ‘post-existing condition’
[drum fill]
Karen has a new weapon in her arsenal:
“If you don’t let me speak to the manager, I’ll send the Thompson gunner”
Tin foil hat warning. I don’t trust or believe too much these days, to get that out there right up front. After reading about this killing and watching the clip from the security camera, it sure looked like a premeditated hit. So this may sound a little morbid, but one of the first things I did was look at their stock price.
I spun up my stock software and looked at a daily 1 minute chart for the day before the killing, and the day after. What I found was strange. The stock price itself from day to day didn’t change too much, and the stock doesn’t seem to be a very high volume or volatility.
The strange part, on the night (shown in after hours trading) before the shooting, the stock shot up from about $604 to $627 but then dropped to around $600 by midnight. The next morning around 8:30, which would be after the shooting (not sure when it hit the news) it dumped to $584. By 9:30 and market open it had recovered to around $610ish, and open, shot to $620. As the day went on it drifted down and closed around $610.
In the after hours session that is around a 7 percent move from low to high, which I find kind of strange this stock doesn’t trade like that for one, and more importantly, why did we see such volatility before the shooting? I can understand the vol after the shooting but not before. That is a lot of money changing hands. Did someone know something?
Tin foil hat off.
That was good thinking. To my untrained eye it sure looks like the hit was performed by a professional. Curious about the volatility.
He was in town for investor presentations, which often generate a fair amount of speculative trading activity leading up to the presentations. Prices in off-hours trading can be all over the place, without much rhyme or reason, as they’re typically ‘uninformed’ money. But sure, the assailant, or some associate, may have also been looking to cash in on the planned attack. As all those trades have to clear and settle through known traceable accounts, I would expect that the brokerage firms will be providing records of transactions to the SEC and FBI.
I agree. I looked at other overnight sessions to see what they looked like and nothing like what happened that night. But as you say, there was that conference which my have contributed. We don’t know.
Records of transactions, sure, but will we ever hear anything if there was in fact something going on? I have my doubts. Example, and I don’t remember when it was, but not too long ago, a major economic report was due. I intentionally watched the market real time to see if anything funny happened. Sure enough, a couple of minutes (or less, I can’t remember) before the embargoed release time, the minute candle took a huge move one way or another. It sure looked like someone had inside scoop.
It was reported on several financial sites but nothing ever came of it. They should be able to track the CUSIP numbers I would think. That would tell us who, what, when. But nothing happened. This was not a lone event either.
“will we ever hear anything if there was in fact something going on?“.
If they catch the guy and he’s going to go to jail for murder, it hardly makes sense for the SEC to spend the resources to charge him with some form of market manipulation, which will have a lighter (sadly) sentence. If he told a buddy that he was going to kill the CEO, then that buddy might be charged as a conspirator in the murder, as he didn’t notify the police about the significant likelihood of the event happening. Any charges of improper trading would be secondary.
On the press release thing — there have been cases brought over the improper use (i.e., trading ahead) of corporate news. The question about trading ahead of soon-to-be-public economic news (e.g., gov’t stats, Fed minutes, etc.) is an open question. The biggest loophole there is that there are no material restrictions on trading by elected officials, government employees, and their relations.
Every trade that goes through the US markets (as these would have because it’s a US stock) is fully traceable between buyer and seller, and the regulators have significant subpoena and computing power to find out what they want.
I saw Warren Zevon in a small college town back in the early eighties, and yes, it was a great show. Saw him again at the local pub afterwards as well. He was drinking for free (one round from me).
Saw him many times in El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles, mostly at the Wiltern Theater.
He was cleverer than most musicians, lyrics-wise.
His lp “Excitable Boy” has maintained a position near the front of my stacks (translation; gets played regularly) for almost forty years.
Lawyers, guns, and money is one of my faves.
He’s one I missed. He came through Seattle in the early 2000s and I had a conflict so I figured I’d see him next time, then he went and died. He did put out a great album about his imminent death which I think is one of his best – My Ride’s Here. His pal Hunter S gets a writing credit on one tune. His cancer was bad by the time it was diagnosed and I remember him saying he wasn’t going to get medical treatment. I hope I’m that brave when the driver comes for me.
Balaclava the nameless, is a Russian agent
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balaklava
We’d call them ‘hold-up masks’ if it wasn’t for the UK going to war in Crimea 170 years ago, be thankful for the small things.
For those who may be interested, the political situation in France is now back where it was in the summer. There will be no elections (and anyway there cannot be, legally until next summer.) So the blockage remains: three large groups, a number of small ones, and no way of constructing an absolute majority. Macron will have to find another statesmanlike figure to form a government, who will be subject to the same problems and pressures. It’s all the fault of the electors for voting the wrong way.
This was all quite unnecessary. The origin is that the four parties loosely described as the “Left” have been sulking ever since July. Some shady political manoeuvres gave them more seats in the National Assembly than their modest share of the vote entitled them to, whilst the Rassemblement national, which far outperformed them in votes, had fewer seats. Ever since, the “Left” has been demanding to be allowed to try to form a government, although it stands no chance of doing so, because they are a hundred seats short of a majority, and nobody else will join them in government. So the plan has always been to bring Barnier’s government down, force (somehow) Macron to resign and then install Mélenchon as President. Needless to say, this is a fantasy but a destructive one.
Any Prime Minister will need the approval of the RN, as Barnier did, and nobody is quite sure why Le Pen agreed to back the censure motion of the “Left” especially as it included a lot of criticism of the RN. It may be because Le Pen has recently been declared “ineligible” for political office, after one of the diversion of funds to pay for her staff scandals that are very common in France, where parties are run on a shoestring. Perhaps this is her revenge on the system.
Macron will speak urbi et orbi tonight. We are all holding our breath.
Mr Market doesn’t seem terribly worried. Yields are up slightly on one month and one year issue. Admittedly, mr market may not be the best metric here.
Thanks for explaining what’s going on. So, the US is not the only wacky-dysfunctional system out there.
The U.S. is still struggling with the 20th Century hangover.
France is still struggling with the 18th Century hangover.
I try to tune out of my country’s political intrigues as best I can, but wasn’t this about the odious pension reform again? If she hadn’t voted no confidence in Barnier, Le Pen would have put her own signature on it and thus torpedoed whatever future ambitions she had. Only with a complicit media providing a teflon shield, like Macron always had, could she have hoped to get away with it.
My guess is that Barnier, or anyone else brought to his position, will follow in “inertial” mode with budgets equal to those of 2024. Not that this will make much difference with a full-working cabinet capable to pass new budgets. Equally helpless.
Also no 2025 Budget so 2024 rolls on into the New Year, and not much likelihood of that changing any time soon. Which means that the pensioners get their increase in January and not put back to June, but the tax bands are not inflated so everyone likely to pay more income tax.
Personally I hope having no active government means the endless tinkering of just about every centrally imposed ‘law’ affecting your life will stop at least for 6 months. Every government of every hue has as its main aim to become more powerful and utilise that power to ‘manage’ its citizens more completely; so no government for a time, however short, is a blessed relief.
As I recall, that political maneuvering gave both the left parties and Macron’s coalition parties additional seats, in both case at le Pen and cos. Expense.
But surely the root cause was not the left’s attitude post-election, but the calling of the election in the first place.
I wonder if anyone remembers the Star Trek: Enterprise episode “Hatchery” where Captain Archer gets obsessed with protecting Xindi (hostile alien) hatchlings and seriously risks destroying the Enterprise to protect them. It turns out that they give off some kind of drug that warps the person’s mind and creates that obsession. Biden keeps reminding me of the episode, with regard to both Israel and Ukraine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatchery_(Star_Trek:_Enterprise)
“A winning strategy to end Russia’s war against Ukraine”
Bit the bullet and read what the latest brainstorming session of the Atlantic Council came up with and they did not disappoint. These are their ideas-
-Freeze the conflict and inform the Russians afterwards.
-The Ukraine goes into NATO.
-Rebuild the Ukrainian Army yet again.
-The US rejects any Russian demands.
-The Collective West does not recognize any territories not under Ukrainian control, including Crimea.
-Europe beefs up their MIC.
-The Collective West contains Russia and applies constant pressure on them.
And the last point-
‘The actions outlined here, which can earn the necessary Ukrainian public support, will bring peace to Europe, advance the security and prosperity of the United States and its allies, provide a check to would-be aggressors, and restore American global leadership: a clear winning strategy.’
Don’t forget to check out the list of experts that came up with this recipe for a future war that could easily go nuclear.
At least the three points in the middle are somewhat realistic. Albeit it’s kinda weird that Russia is now in the process of disposing of the third NATO trained and armed army without really breaking a sweat yet, and this somehow doesn’t give any pause to the NATO aficionados on the future prospects of the selected policy.
Thank you, I stopped after a few sentences!
What is Ukrainian public support? Azov?
And this will all be achieved thanks to West’s Wunderwaffen. The same old winning strategy that has produced excellent results so far.
1945: Imaginary divisions
2025: Imaginary division
People talking/writing in a vacuum. The report is no doubt useful in the smallest room in the house.
I consider a headline that begins with “Sweden’s soft girl…” clickbait. Damned if I didn’t have a glance.
When you get into it, this girl has decided to have the life of her grandmother and become a housewife. I have seen a coupla videos of American women saying that they are stressed and overworked with little time for relationships much less finding a husband and having children. And then they came out and said that they wished they had the lifestyle of a 1950s housewife where they could make a home, tend to their children, have a garden and have a husband to share their lives with. Feminists made out that those 1950s housewives were prisoners in their own home with no car, couldn’t go to PTA meetings, etc. but was that really the norm? For fun, go to YouTube and put in the search term 1950s housewife and see what comes back.
“1950s housewife” was a fave marketing target for Madison Ave.
Like “teenager”.
I disagree. She may think that’s what she’s doing, but she’s a girlfriend, not a wife.
It’s cheaper to rent than buy.
The Girlfriend Experience
Tradwife
Soft girl is another incarnation. Maybe a TV show in there?
This is a sadly popular trend in the US, called “tradwife” lifestyle. There are even lazy slugettes determined to be parasitic “trad girlfriends”. Yuck.
Is there a “tradhusband” lifestyle? Asking for a friend…
I know of some man hobby farmers with wives who worked office jobs that paid the bills. Lucky buggers though they work very hard in their “grifting” lifestyle.
I’ve stopped being so judgy about tradwives. The overtly Christian vibes can be a bit much to take and some of them are clearly not great moms and likely have rocky relationships in the background. But overall it seems better to have moms who are heavily engaged with their kids and families than not.
As for trad girlfriends and childless married – good on them for being good parasites. Most of us would probably prefer “homemaking” over working/commuting 60 hours a week to work largely meaningless jobs in faceless organizations.
That first bit is a fairly accurate description of me, though to be fair retirement is involved (and my wife would kill me if I described her employment as an office job, lol). I am a lucky bugger no doubt, one reason being we eat well.
Also, mansions on the ocean are cool (wouldn’t want to house clean) and high end kitchen appliances are awesome, but I’ll keep the camp and our 30 year old fridge that somehow keeps working despite all the moaning because I prefer keeping it simple (and run-on sentences ;)
YES. it is smaller than the tradwife segment, but one of my good friend’s life goal is to be a tradhusband. one of my classmates is getting his engineering degree but wants to be a stay at home dad. my age group is a bit too young to get married yet, but i shall see if their plans work out or not.
“And then they came out and said that they wished they had the lifestyle of a 1950s housewife where they could make a home, tend to their children, have a garden and have a husband to share their lives with.”
They better realize that the monied man that can support a family on one income now is also the man that has their pick of the litter by swiping on any app from the comfort of home.
$hit just ain’t the same.
My late mom was a classic trad-wife, and a Great Depression era kid who was taught to save everything…
About a decade ago when gave me her checkbook register for mid 1961 to mid 1962, and my coming out party was $190, the mortgage was $133 a month, and for a family of 6, there were a series of checks written to Dr. Evers, mostly for $6 and $7, with one whopper for $14, which could have only been for open heart surgery i’d imagine.
The total for Dr Evers came to $88, and I asked mom, did we have health insurance at the time, and she related that nobody did aside from those enrolled in Kaiser, and also rubbed it in that she was a half a pack of cigarette smoker when I was in vitro, ha ha.
She never saw a Time-Life book she didn’t like, and blew $37 on them that year.
…don’t try that today
My mother, who was a first generation American, told me stories about her mother, a Slovak, who emigrated to the US early in the last century. Your comment about saving everything reminded me of my grandmother telling my mother, Don’t throw it away, it’s not asking to be fed.
Thanks for the memories.
My mother was a housewife who hated being a housewife (wasn’t crazy about being a mother either). She went back to college and graduated from college the same year as I did, (1964) then graduated with a masters in social work the same year as I graduated from law school. She quit working after 2 years, having discovered that she hated working more than she hated being a housewife.
Probably just wanted to show that she could do it. College was actually quite affordable then.
Most of those 1950s feminists were either childless or had a lot of help from lower class women. They also held prestigious professional jobs where they controlled their schedule and workload.
The celebrated jumping fraud of veritas accounting, or is the antidote merely a toad?
Re: “Trump chooses fintech CEO...” for SSA.
Headline makes it sound like he’s some VC-backed kid. Fiserv has been around a while, and he’s come up through the tech and operations world of global banking. They’re technically very solid: they’re a significant – nearly ubiquitous – provider of banking infrastructure and payment processing, at a SSA-level of complexity and scope, though there’s some quirky stuff in their systems. He runs a financially tight ship, so this may be a good thing for the SSA, operationally at least.
Fiserv sold its healthcare service (claims handling) to UHC IIRC.
Frank is new and Fiserv has become a shit show since he took over.
He is a typical ego driven corporate goon. Fancies himself the company “coach” and wasted a million dollars so we could have a “locker room” interview with Dion Sanders broadcasted to the whole company. He is also one of the most highly paid CEOs. Financially tight my ass.
He just followed this up with a bunch of layoffs to boost stocks before his exit. Company is going down the shitter because it can’t keep it’s client commitments. It is directly because of his management style. Fiserv became successful because departments were given autonomy which allowed innovation. Developers were given a lot of freedom and weren’t under constant pressure to ship or lose your job. Now everything is “data driven” from the top by clueless managers. Forcing people back into the office and basing performance off of tracking software. Pretty sure a lot of good senior developers were fired because they spend time designing on white boards or mentoring newbies face-to-face instead of being “productive” by jiggling their mouse. And don’t even get me started about all the stupid new software developers are forced to use because some idiot executive thinks he is an engineer.
Is U.S. investment in Africa coming too late to counter China and Russia on the continent? – (transcript) PBS
The U.S. has plenty of investment in terrorist groups. They’ll just keep chaos going to hinder development projects.
Isn’t that how it usually counters? Arming some thugs somewhere? Or get with some local elite to sell out their fellow people?
The line about China building bridges and America giving lectures has ended real inroads for a long time.
It’s been a hot minute, but an argument for Obama over Clinton’s spouse was that the US had a terrible reputation and desperately needed a face-lift.
“From definitions to solutions: Can local food systems sustainably deliver fair rewards for farmers and access to quality food for all?“
I’m on my way to an urban/local food conference this morning here in New Jersey. I came into this particular universe seven years ago as a naive permaculture enthusiast from a farming family, ready to lend a hand with my agricultural knowledge. My perspective now, having now worked in the nonprofit food system of an impoverished city which includes a small “farm” and having tried to sell our produce using numerous sales channels and having attending countless meetings and events on the subject, is quite bleak.
I read articles like this in hopes I can learn something new…. something I can use. But the most important part, where the author brings up the importance of government support for local ag, is mentioned briefly at the end without any details. What should I be advocating then exactly? What policies have been proven effective elsewhere? What laws need to change that have advantaged the industrial system over smaller producers? I share all the principles mentioned but
It also advocates small farmers sell into the emergency food system as a profit model. I have heard this before and will likely hear about it again at the conference today. I am not against the idea, but keep in mind that the tremendous overproduction of the corporate system dumps enormous quantities of free food into the emergency food system. This dumping undermines any attempts to develop a fair price in that market. Maybe I am wrong and there are farmers out there who can make ends meet by selling to their local food bank… but I doubt that.
Maybe if the annual cash cow bonanza for big ag called the “Farm Bill” focused on sustainable agriculture, then small farmers could actually answer “yes!” to the article’s title’s query.
I see the problem as systemic. Make the local farmer less reliant on income to sustain himself, family, community. Tax policy that bemefits him. Subsidies (?) to reduce the cost of necessary utilities, power, and water. Hell, broadband costs me $45/mo for service that I only use a small fraction of. Then, he may become competetive, or just sustainable as an independent farming family.
The deliberate destruction of agrarian society is at the root of our current evil.
I’m getting a little disillusioned with the farmshare we currently purchase from. We recently paid $10 for a sleeve of 10 small butter cookies for example, with most other products being priced similarly. I expect and am happy to pay somewhat more for locally produced food, but that much more is a little outrageous. What I’ve noticed recently is the products we get in the weekly drop off don’t come from just one farm, but from several, and the farms are often a good distance away from where we live, sometimes a hundred or more miles away. I suspect that the high price we’re paying is due to transport and distribution by the middleman, which is what I thought the whole ‘buy local’ thing was trying to get away from. Instead, it’s becoming more like the system is was supposed to eventually replace. Not sure how much of my money makes it to the actual farmers.
Much preferred it when I could go to the small farm my family ran and grab some milk from the bulk tank and some veggies from the garden. But US agricultural policy, stupid sanctions, etc. recently put my family’s farm right out of business.
We’ve all seen shocking food inflation in the supermarket, and i’m noticing a lot of chain restaurants closing locations nationwide…
Just now getting used to the $23 sitdown breakfast, not sure i’d be in @ $32 though~
Eateries are getting squeezed on both ends…
That last part is terrible, sorry to hear it. Until the feds support sustainable farming, dollar butter cookies and lost family legacies will be the rule.
You may want to shop around for alternatives. I’ve been subscribing to CSAs for many years and there’s a lot of variation in quality. Overall it’s still reasonable to expect them to provide a generous amount of good quality produce at a lower than Whole Foods/farmer’s market prices. I would stay away from baked goods generally because the economics on them have always been bad (cookies from my favorite local bakery is about $3 whereas a big loaf of farm bread is $8 and half price the next day, and the sweets are not as good as freshly home baked goods).
We’ve tried several now. The meatshare we use has been pretty good. We pay on average about $10/lb for everything included in the box, from sausage on the cheap end to ribeye at the high end. It all evens out pretty well price wise – not much more than the grocery store, maybe less than Whole Paycheck.
The vegetable shares are trickier. In the summer the veggies are fresh, but one CSA would include stuff like garlic scapes and pea vines, where I would have preferred the actual garlic and peas, but you couldn;t pick what you wanted ahead. The one we’re on now is a winter vegetable CSA, so not a whole lot of fresh veggies this time of year other than storable roots like carrots, squash and taters. But they do let you pick what you want ahead and they carry corn and oat meal, cider, frozen ginger, and other packaged stuff like that. The problem is we pay more per pound for this winter veggie one than we do for the meat, which doesn’t seem quite right. More shopping around is in order.
You might be better off buying in bulk from the farmer’s market or farm stands and skip the winter CSA. Most of that stuff lasts for months in the fridge or in your pantry, so no point in paying a premium for them. They should be closer to $ 1-3/lb for organic root veggies, winter squashes, leafy greens and such. Charging close to $10/lb is crazy – the stuff in fall CSAs tend to be the easiest stuff to grow and store, my fall CSA shares that are full of this stuff is heavier than summer shares, usually works out to be less than $1/lb. In the spring and early summer the cost would be $2-3/lb and summer shares would be around $1 unless the share includes melons.
For pea shoots and garlic scapes, they tend to be side harvests for the main crop and would be available 4-6 weeks ahead. So not a surprise that one is available while the other is not.
It sounds like these folks have some kinks to work out in their pricing and sourcing. There’s no reason to be sourcing any of this stuff from over a hundred miles away or pricing so unevenly. The meat prices sound reasonable if the quality is good, but the veggie prices sound high to me even for the summer.
That sounds like a mess of a system we have.
If it’s a nonprofit, it should be harvesting the profits of the one-percenters and the bitcoin millionaires, allowing them to be ‘sponsors’ of healthy food that gets to poor folk, at costs to the folk that fall below Wal-mart. This is not radical, it’s what many many nonprofits do, transfer from the haves to the have-nots.
We need some serious income redistribution, and if it has to be done for now in the name of charitable contributions, so be it. Stop trying to make a profit off selling to the poor, they are kind of out of money right now.
Massachusetts has an interesting and effective model which supports local agriculture. The Dept. of Agricultural Resources (MDAR) has been running a program (APR) since the late 1980’s to buy the development rights of farmland, keeping prime ag land protected from development pressures. Thousands of acres in my locality have been preserved this way. MDAR is also supporting sustainable agriculture with a slew of grants (e.g. the CSAP program) for those financially savvy enough to apply (although they tend to be partial reimbursement grants, so it takes some money and good cashflow to avail of the free money). State SNAP benefits (food stamps) can be used at farmers markets, allowing non-traditional customers to partake in the good food. Local organizations (e.g. Berkshire Grown or CISA (in South Deerfield) do an amazing job of promoting local farms and supporting farmers). Of course, the State of Mass has gobs of tax revenue, but they are certainly doing an effective job of investing in agriculture. Hat tip, MDAR.
this is true!!! my cousins benefit from these subsidies for their farm. and the university of massachusetts system gets a lot of the food for their dining commons from local farms, ranging from produce to dairy to meat. plus the government buys food from local farms and gives them to food banks to distribute! it’s actually so heartening to see products of farmers i know being handed out at the food pantry.
over the summer i was part of a local gardening cooperative where you could get a plot and plant whatever you wanted on it. not all the space was being used, but it’s good to know that was there as an option. plus it’s a good way to share gardening tools and techniques!
Agreed. It’s hard to see how small farmers can compete with the bigs on selling produce or meats to food banks. Not only on pricing and packaging/transport but because most Americans are quite naive about most fresh produce. Most of them simply don’t know how to prepare things like kale and arugula unless they come pre chopped and prewashed in a bag. And the foods that clients are most used to are ones that only grow well in very specific conditions like carrots, apples, oranges, and broccoli. Seasonal veggies that have special handling needs and a stronger taste are simply not enjoyable for a lot of people.
“It’s hard to see how small farmers can compete with the bigs on selling produce or meats to food banks…”
Look to China, the answer is cooperative farming. Cooperative farming, and state or university agricultural research, has made China food self-sufficient and beyond. China is in the stored and exported surplus stage. Storage is provided by the state and is high quality and ample.
There are US co-ops of all scales and state run extension services that help farmers. However the small farmer and indeed all farmers are always handicapped under a capitalist system. They have to pay for the capital cost of land ownership (it is possible to lease but they tend to be very unstable and you can lose all the capital you put onto improving the land if you’re refused a lease renewal). They’re typically buying from monopoly businesses for farm equipment and inputs like seeds/fertilizer/pesticides. They’re also selling into markets where they have no pricing power unless they develop their own clientele and niche products.
I wouldn’t over romanticize Chinese agriculture. Traditional agricultural practices are grueling, especially in the hot and humid South. Farm income are still very low unless you specialize in high value production of certain fruits, aquaculture products, tea, etc. The transportation improvements certainly help farmers a lot with getting their crops out, but there’s a reason why peasants are willing to work in industry and construction days from their homes, rather than farm in their existing home communities.
This is my point. There are those who savor the effort to labor for themselves, as hard as it may be. Witness protestors and encampments who just want ro be allowed to live as they please. Capitalism doesn’t allow the ability to live off the land without having a hand in the matter,ï even though “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are enshrined in our founding document. Capitalism requires that they control the labor market. We see this now as even labor unions are beholden to capital.
Here in the suburbs west of Boston (Acton) the small local farm was taken over by the Boston Gleaners Non-Profit and is still farmed. It would have been a large housing development if it hadn’t been. The Gleaners use it as a Hub for collecting and distributing produce to local food pantry’s. At the food pantry where I worked, about half of the veggies (i.e. carrots) supplied by the Gleaners came from farms in Western MA. However, much of the fruit they gave us was from local orchards.
Sweden’s ‘soft girl’ trend that celebrates women quitting work – BBC. “Her boyfriend works remotely in finance”
Well, it’s a “trend” that will last as long as the relationship.
Many palimony lawsuits upcoming, no doubt.
“Genetic differentiation and precolonial Indigenous cultivation of hazelnut (Corylus cornuta, Betulaceae) in western North America”
Those early North American colonists would clear patches of forests to plant crops and used the felled trees for building homes, fences, etc. So what did those American Indians do when they were planting those hazelnuts. Did they fell the trees surrounding them? Did they plant groves of hazelnut shrubs or did they spread them around. How would you even find out what those American Indians practiced-
http://www.nomadseed.com/2019/04/the-american-hazelnut/
Thank you for the link to the most fulsome compilation of hazelnut lore. Duly bookmarked!
I was interested to see that it quoted 2 studies of the Robin Town village site, which is about 400 km west of where I live in British Columbia. My recollection from a brief field trip there a few years ago is that the woody food plants (hazelnuts, crabapple etc.) were intermingled pretty randomly, but the forest garden was relatively free of the much taller coniferous trees (red-cedar, hemlock) which dominate the local forests. Of course the site had not received any maintenance for more than a century, and the old shrubs / small trees were pretty gnarly and lichen-covered. I understand that there are some more recent experimental efforts to try to rehabilitate these plants by pruning and other measures.
To help you visualize things, Fig. 2 in this paper is a generalized sketch of the appearance of the vegetation in and adjacent to forest garden sites in NW BC (open access).
Thanks heaps for the link to that paper as it answers a lot of questions. The evidence is fragmentary but it looks like they cultivated & farmed several sorts of food supplies and I bet that mushrooms were on the menu as well. If they rigged it right, those foods would become available at different times of the year proving a stable diet.
“Research on a tiny nut suggests Indigenous people [in northern British Columbia] were cultivating food before wheat farming began in Egypt.”
https://thetyee.ca/News/2024/12/04/Hazelnuts-Reveal-Secrets-Ancient-BC-City/
“Temlaxam, which extended more than 80 kilometres downstream from the confluence of the Skeena and Bulkley rivers, is said to have been so extensive that “the birds, exhausted, fall to the ground before they are able to traverse the whole city,” according to the adaawx. The name of the walled city, which featured networks of streets and longhouses, translates to “where life is good.”
But Temlaxam was to become a cautionary tale. Its occupants’ mistreatment of the natural environment was blamed for geological and other disasters, including a catastrophic landslide some 3,500 years ago. The residents dispersed, some becoming the Gitanyow, Gitxsan, Nisga’a and Ts’msyen, also known as Tsimshian — First Nations that still share similar languages today.
Beyond the adaawx and some archeological evidence, little is known about the lost city.
Now, a recently published paper, “Genetic Differentiation and Precolonial Indigenous Cultivation of Hazelnut (Corylus cornuta, Betulaceae) in Western North America,” is shedding new light on Temlaxam and the people who lived there, indicating that they transported, planted and cultivated beaked hazelnuts, which still thrive in the area.”
I wonder how small a window of wakey hours Biden has these days? I’d guess he’s usually too late for McDonald’s breakfast and too early for the early bird special.
Last I heard I think that he is up about ten in the morning till four in the afternoon. Then that’s it. Said it before and will say it again. America is lucky that they don’t have the Biden of the 1990s as President.
here’s 1998 senator Biden – 1st class @ss – being the bully he’s always been harassing Scott Ritter –
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4842887/user-clip-1998-biden-chastises-weapons-inspector-ritter
notice never a stutter –
In the next year after Project 2025, if liberalism is still alive
If the Donkey Show can survive, they may find
In the year 2025
Ain’t gonna need to tell the truth, tell no lie
Everything you think, do and say
Is in the AI app you use today
In the year 2025
You ain’t gonna have any hope, won’t believe your eyes
You won’t find a thing to do
Nobody’s gonna vote for you
In the year 2025
Your Schumer hangin’ limp at your sides
Your pols got nothin’ to do
Some Dem machine’s doin’ that for you
In the year 2025
You won’t need no party, won’t need no life
You’ll take your son, make him your daughter too
From the bespoke woke, whoa whoa
In the agenda to Project 2025
If God’s a coming, He oughta make it by then
Maybe He’ll look around Himself and say
Guess it’s time for the judgment day
In the year 2025
God is gonna shake His mighty head
He’ll either say I’m pleased where man has been
Or tear it down, and start again
In the year 2025
I’m kinda wonderin’ if man is gonna be alive
He’s taken everything this old earth can give
And he ain’t put back nothing
Now it’s been 80 years
Man has unleashed a billion atomic tears
For what, he never knew, now man’s reign is through
But through eternal night, the twinkling of starlight
So very far away, maybe it’s only yesterday
In the year 2025, if man is still alive
If woman can survive, they may find
In the Year 2525, by Zager & Evans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoJa3qVDL9o
Fascinating article:
“A winning strategy to end Russia’s war against Ukraine” The Atlantic Council
I remember a guy prosecuted on fraud charges in FL for selling tickets for $100 to supposedly take a space ship to a planet made of crack cocaine. I wonder if any of the authors of this esteemed paper were victims?
It sounds like the only winning strategy for this war is Russia pushing all the way to the border with Poland.
The Atlantic Council is a dream palace for neocons. Makes no matter if they believe in their delusions or not, they certainly believe in the goal they have set for themselves. People who have neither brakes nor a reverse gear and the accelerator is nailed to the floor.
Perfect segue into: “Translating Ukraine Lessons for the Pacific ”
The only lesson Pacific nations need to learn from the SMO in Ukraine, is to not allow themselves to become involved in U.S. proxy wars.
Is Trump nominating more people for positions than Trump 1.0?
RE: South Korea – Majority Wins As President’s Putsch Fails Moon of Alabama
This bit deserves highlighting –
“As the putsch was ongoing the U.S. embassy in South Korea said nothing about the rule of law or democracy.
It is notable that the U.S. Ambassador to South Korea, Philip Goldberg, had previously been kicked out of Bolivia and the Philippines for attempts to overthrow the respective sitting governments. “
荣耀归于台湾
荣耀归于英雄
The core of the DPP are descendants of collaborators with the pre-1945 Japanese regime. Underneath the Taiwanese identity is the rejection of their Chinese identity, history, and culture. Sadly indeed a lot of parallels with the post-USSR Ukraine.
For all we know, the moon may well be an independent state already. It’s curiously downplayed in space development and exploration hype, and Lunar probes keep having ‘accidents.’
Iron Sky Official Theatrical Trailer [HD]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py_IndUbcxc (1.54)
I remember that from when it came out; lovely theme somg, whacky movie. It did make me think the USA missed out on President Palin.
Thanks for the Jesse’s Cafe if only as evidence that the blog world can have legs if not quite on the order of the 19th century birthed NY Times.
Even better news would be that the blog world can have more of a future than the 19th century NYT. I’d include the WaPo but they already look to be on the way out.
It’s not a typo. That’s 24 bucks (1,000 hrivnas) to pay utility bills, purchase food and medicine, and donate to the Ukrainian Army.
CIA does what CIA does.
I gotta bad feeling about things as we’re headed for a certain fourth turning event, it being 4 score since Trinity soon.
We’ve kept the lid shut on Pandoras Box for most all of us among the living, our entire lives.
Knowing nothing about the subject, would a limited nuclear exchange be similar in some respects to any old Nevada 1950’s test-site mushroom experience?
It isn’t as I worry about what went down in 1958…
It’s hard to imagine a limited nuclear exchange. Like most conflicts if one side gets hit they want to hit back then the first aggressor has to retaliate. And so it goes…
The Nevada tests involved single bombs. A war would result in a lot of explosions. The most serious damage would be in a radius of maybe 100 miles, including radiation pollution. Longer term, the Nevada tests deposited radiation downwind that caused health effects for a long time. A bunch of nuclear explosions would lift radioactive dust into the atmosphere to be spread around the world. There are plenty of places to read about this in detail. One compensation for the global south is that likely the bombs would go off north of the equator and the radiation would stay north of the equator (mostly).
If you are wealthy you can probably get filtered water and mostly clean food, maybe from South America and Africa. If you are poor you can pray.
Maybe the wealthy could get clean water from glaciers (Greenland?) and grow clean food hydroponically.
According to SK minister if defense, the aim of the martial law was to investigate “electoral fraud.” The first target of the army was the National Election Commission. So, Jan 6, with the army? Since I’m still worried about what the Biden regime might do about Jan 6, 2025, this makes me particularly concerned…
Should have secured a Biden blanket pardon before starting the autogolph.
Hurricane update; The local paper is lamenting that FEMA has delivered only one housing solution so far for our modestly small county west of Asheville.
The puffer fish!!! Mind blowing! Thank you for the link!
The new STRATDELA newsletter on WMDs and Co. is out:
European Ground-Launched Missile Projects
Euromissile Crisis 2.0…or Euromissile Opportunities?
by Dmitry Stefanovich, Moscow
https://1dkv.substack.com/p/stratdela-special-13-european-ground
Final paragraphs:
It is clear that Moscow will closely monitor the implementation of such programs in countries from where such missiles will be able to reach the depth of its territory (for example, Poland and Sweden) – and react accordingly. We are diving headfirst in the Euromissile Crisis 2.0, and only few people actually care.
The good news is that the Russian “INF Moratorium” proposal is still on the table, and its implementation does not need a lot of effort. The bad news is that it doesn’t seem that people in charge in the West really care.
I have been marinating over this clip on China’s need to capture more of the value chain (currently China is capturing 25 percent of the profit on manufacture and logistics, whereas 75 percent of the profits are captured by Western companies through branding, marketing, design, and IP).
https://youtu.be/wl4a15pc9Tw?si=l6cl-gEJ3fU2Bh_V
If Trump impose somewhat effective tariffs against Chinese goods, that seems like a good push for the Chinese producers and marketing companies to sell directly elsewhere to avoid US sanctions and tariff issues. Thus it could really accelerate this replacement trend.
“I have been marinating over this clip on China’s need to capture more of the value chain…”
What is important is revenue, not profit. Revenue is what allows for sharing with customers and employees and investing in research and development. What allows for future growth is not profits but revenue that allows for continually improved production and increased sales and earnings. Robert Solow explained this, but it has been much forgotten.
Ultimately what matters is the production of value for society as consumer products for people to enjoy or production capacity that can be used to strengthen society and trade with others. Everything else is just an accounting trick.
But having said that, if they can capture more of the value of each trade, that increases their ability to reinvest into their businesses and R&D, and will likely push down costs for their worldwide end consumers since they don’t need the sort “vig” that Western corporations expect.
“China’s need to capture more of the value chain…”
Remember what both conservatives and liberals repeatedly choose to ignore. China has a socialist economy China is socialist, with Chinese characteristics; really. I am really bothered that so few Western liberal economists can accept this, but reading Chinese explanations may be too discouraging.
re: The Facebook Apostate The Intercept.
When Meta counters with “This former employee’s claims do not match the reality of how our Dangerous Organizations policies actually work”, I would argue they’re correct.
Activists the world over know Facebook censorship started a very long time ago and was ALWAYS targeting the good guys, often at the request of state actors (Occupy comes to mind, but Byrne mentions others such as the Palestinians). Byrne mentions this, repeatedly even, but she also seems to think it was unintentional, or well-intentioned, which I would challenge.
Buried midway:
I would have started with this. Recall how Cambridge Analytica was selling profiling to political parties and governments around the world, arguing it had more data points than anyone which could then be used target users, control or influence narratives, create narrative dominance, and therefore control or influence thoughts and thinking about anything and anyone. And Facebook pretended to get all mad and told them to stop doing that cuz terms and conditions, they’re being veryvery bad, very bad *fingerwag*.
Well, here is an indication Facebook is now doing precisely what Cambridge Analytica was, has adopted the approach.
Facebook has always known its algorithms were having the intended consequences of suppressing the groups it wanted to suppress, so of course profile based approaches will now supplement the content based, with no intention of ending the former, which was working as designed.
https://www.eurointegration.com.ua/eng/news/2024/12/5/7200002/
Former foreign minister of Ukraine finds employment in US
Dmytro Kuleba, the former minister of foreign affairs of Ukraine, has become a senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School in Harvard.
The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs reports that Kuleba, who served as Ukraine’s top diplomat during the first 2.5 years of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, is “internationally recognised as one of the most influential diplomats of his generation and a global champion for democracy, freedom, and resilience.”
“His appointment underscores the Belfer Center’s commitment to addressing the world’s most pressing challenges in an era of deep geopolitical uncertainty,” Belfer Center stated.
@Aurelien
btw Mercouris has been praising you in his show a few hours ago:
TC ca. 54:20
https://theduran.com/west-chaos-biden-strategy-implodes-moscow-warns-pentagon-russia-offensive-syria-collapse/
(Earlier in that show he has a few odd Oreshnik statements via Postol I had the impression but that is unrelated to his praise)
Taibbi’s latest, no paywall.
Three Steps to Fixing the FBI: Interview with Whistleblower Coleen Rowley
Depoliticization, decentralization, and transparency are all achievable goals
https://www.racket.news/p/three-steps-to-fixing-the-fbi-interview
Two of the opening para’s:
Coleen Rowley, the Chief Division Counsel for the Minneapolis Field Office, absorbed agents’ concerns quickly and was aggressive in asking superiors to seek a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to investigate further. One of the goals was a look at Moussaoui’s computer, as agents believed he’d signaled he had “something to hide” in there. But unlike the former Northwest pilot Prevost, whose superiors trusted his judgment and escalated his concerns, Rowley and the Minneapolis field office were denied by senior lawyers at FBI Headquarters. The Bureau was sitting on the means to stop 9/11 when the planes hit the towers.
….
While the Bureau blamed 9/11 on a lack of investigatory authority, the actions of the Minnesota office showed otherwise. Rowley’s decision to confront Mueller with a laundry list of unnecessary bureaucratic failures made her perhaps the FBI’s most famous whistleblower. Her letter excoriated the Bureau’s Washington officeholders for failing to appreciate agents in the field, and for implicitly immunizing themselves against culpability.