Why sabre-toothed animals evolved again and again New Scientist
California Burning
Los Angeles fires: the damage in maps, video and images Guardian
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory evacuated due to LA wildfire Space News
* * * In Los Angeles, people snap up air filters and wear masks against smoke pollution AP
Wildfire Smog Is Deadly—But LA’s Covid Mask Organizers Have It Covered Mother Jones. “Mask blocs.” Original URL: “california-fires-covid-mask-mutual-aid“.
* * * Transcript – America This Week, Jan 10, 2025: “California Fires and America’s Competency Crisis” Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn, Racket News
It’s the End of California As We Know It Michael Moore
Dem senator warns ‘LA fires are preview of coming atrocities,’ claims Trump bought off by ‘Big Oil’ FOX
* * * These are the conditions fueling the Los Angeles wildfires: What to know The Hill. For example:
It's not a miracle. It's called "concrete." pic.twitter.com/7nXHlSkGBV
— Saul Sadka (@Saul_Sadka) January 11, 2025
What ignited the deadly California wildfires? Investigators consider an array of possibilities AP
Why fire hydrants ran dry as wildfires ravaged Los Angeles Axios
* * * How Watch Duty’s wildfire tracking app became a crucial lifeline for LA The Verge
Climate
Don’t Waste Your Greening Life-Force: Hildegard’s Prophetic Enchanted Ecology The Marginalian. Hildegard of Bingen (1174).
The New Rasputins Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic
Syndemics
EID Journal: Comparison of Contemporary and Historic Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza A(H5N1) Virus Replication in Human Lung Organoids Avian Flu Diary
China?
Scott Bessent Can Break China’s Stubborn Central Bank, Too Bloomberg
US ‘risks electronic warfare’ with China after unveiling anti-satellite jammer network South China Morning Post
Dutch firm ASML becomes European ‘hostage’ in China-US technological competition CGTN
The Koreas
Thousands protest in South Korea as Yoon resists second arrest attempt Al Jazeera
South Korea’s spy agency backs Ukraine account on capture of North Korean soldiers Anadolu Agency
Hotdogs banned in North Korea Language Log
With Indonesia, Brics is adding Southeast Asia to its power base South China Morning Post
The New Great Game
Luke Coffey on Georgia: “There is no ‘deep state’; it is merely government propaganda” JAM News. Coffey is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.
Syraqistan
Israel approves plan to withdraw troops from Gaza: Report Anadolu Agency
Prompted by Trump’s Threats, a Hostage Deal and an End to the Gaza War Are Inching Closer Haaretz
What if Hamas Doesn’t Release the Hostages by Trump’s Inauguration? Foreign Policy
* * * No Legal Term – Even Genocide – Can Fathom Israel’s Atrocities in Gaza Novara Media. “Legicide.”
* * * Turkey sidelines France in favour of US partnership in northeast Syria France24
Israeli ministers discuss plan to divide Syria along ethnic, religious lines: report The New Arab
European Disunion
‘No to Nazis’: Protesters delay start of German far-right AfD party congress France24
Thousands Protest in Romania to Support Pro-Russian Candidate Bloomberg
New Not-So-Cold War
Total Kievan Debellation Big Serge, Big Serge Thought. Big picture:
2024 brought three important strategic developments:
- Russian victory in southern Donetsk which destroyed the AFU’s position on one of the war’s key strategic axes.
- The expenditure of carefully husbanded Ukrainian resources on a failed offensive towards Kursk, which accelerated the attrition of critical Ukrainian maneuver assets and substantially dampened their prospects in the Donbas.
- The exhaustion of Ukraine’s ability to escalate vis a vis new strike systems from NATO – more broadly, the west has largely run out of options to upgrade Ukrainian capabilities, and the much vaunted delivery of longer range strike systems failed to alter the trajectory of the war on the ground.
Taken together, 2024 revealed a Ukrainian military that is increasingly stretched to the limits, to the point where the Russians were able to largely scratch off an entire sector of front. People continue to wonder where and when the Ukrainian front might begin to break down – I would argue that it *did* break down in the south over the last few months, and 2025 begins with strong Russian momentum that the AFU will be hard pressed to arrest.
Grab a cup of coffee for a must-read (debellation).
The Fool’s War: Useful Idiots at the Wheel of the Paddy Wagon (excerpt) Simplicius the Thinker
Ukraine captures North Korean troops and takes them to Kyiv for questioning The Telegraph. Big if true:
Our soldiers have captured North Korean military personnel in the Kursk region. Two soldiers, though wounded, survived and were transported to Kyiv, where they are now communicating with the Security Service of Ukraine.
This was not an easy task: Russian forces and other North… pic.twitter.com/5J0hqbarP6
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) January 11, 2025
Ukraine war turns into absurdist fiction India Punchline
* * * Russia’s unjammable drones are causing chaos. A tech firm says it has a fix to help Ukraine fight back. Business Insider
Thousands of drones for Ukraine stuck in Lithuanian warehouses, media outlet says Ukrainska Pravda
* * * America’s Polarization and the Challenges of Confronting Russia Russia Matters
A Pathway to Peace in Ukraine RAND
* * * Ethnography of Russian Regions during Wartime The Russia Program, George Washington University
South of the Border
Trump Transition
Scoop: Denmark sent Trump team private messages on Greenland Axios
How Jack Smith destroyed his own case against Trump The Hills
Democrats en deshabillé
Top Oversight Democrat says he’s open to collaborate with the DOGE NextGov
Knives come out for the D.C. consultant class as Democrats search for a new leader Politico
The Supremes
Supreme Court skeptical of ban on TikTok SCOTUSblog
Digital Watch
The Limits of AI Consortium News
Author Anita Say Chan thinks Silicon Valley may have a eugenics problem. Here’s why San Francisco Chronicle
A man trying to recover a hard drive containing $750 million of bitcoin from a landfill just had his latest bid rejected Business Insider
Zeitgeist Watch
How To Use Your Body To Make Yourself Happier Time
No, ‘Raw Water’ Isn’t Healthier Than Tap—It Could Actually Make You Very Sick Self
The Final Frontier
The Habitability of Planets (podcast) In Our Time, BBC
Class Warfare
The cod-Marxism of personalized pricing; Picks and Shovels Cory Doctorow, Pluralistic
Flurries: News, like icy snow, keeps coming but rarely sticks Francine McKenna, The Dig. Interesting round-up.
Antidote du jour (Diego Delso):
Bonus antidote:
A family of cheetah sleep with the forest guard every night.
This is what the camera recorded.pic.twitter.com/VVgFbSCvze
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) January 7, 2025
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
“US ‘risks electronic warfare’ with China after unveiling anti-satellite jammer network”
The US Space Force has said that it’s mission is to ‘dominate’ space so I guess that this is part of it. Of course if China found itself pressed to the wall militarily, they might shoot off a few missiles to trigger a Kessler Syndrome in space as the US military is so dependent on space-borne capabilities. It would have the same level of threat as a nuclear attack but without all the radioactivity and wreckage of an actual nuclear attack. It really would be a nuclear option that no country would like to see happen-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome
China would be telling the Pentagon ‘You’ve gotta ask yourself a question: “Do I feel lucky?” Well, do ya, punk?’
Who knows what to expect from here, but the Biden administration has been astonishingly destructive from the beginning and is trying to set destructive policy for the coming administration since a change in direction takes time even when the direction has only come from the White House.
China however has a few thousand years of diplomatic experience and has understood Biden policy from the beginning quietly preparing counters.
“Scott Bessent Can Break China’s Stubborn Central Bank”
Yes, the coming US Treasury Secretary can just say “break” to the Chinese central bank and break there will be. Being “stubborn” will be to no avail. Wasn’t there a “Scotty” in a US science fiction film? That must be the one this writer is imagining.
It used to be said that if the US economy sneezed, that the world would catch a cold. These days? If the Chinese economy came down sick, the world would end up in intensive care.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-01-07/scott-bessent-can-break-china-s-stubborn-central-bank-too
January 7, 2025
Scott Bessent Can Break China’s Stubborn Central Bank, Too
Beijing will have no choice but to weaken the yuan if Trump’s pick for Treasury secretary takes an activist approach to bond issuance.
By Shuli Ren – Bloomberg
Scott Bessent, the man who helped George Soros break the Bank of England in 1992, can also sow chaos at the People’s Bank of China, another stubborn financial establishment that insists its currency is worth a lot more than everyone else believes.
While moderate in his stance on trade tariffs, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for Treasury secretary is taking a decidedly activist tone on government borrowing, an area where he has tremendous sway. Worried about the US’s ability to roll over debt, he has proposed selling more long-dated bonds so fewer liabilities come due in the short-term. He has criticized current secretary Janet Yellen’s decision to issue a greater proportion of bills as a “risky strategy,” saying she has “distorted Treasury markets.” In the 12 months to November, 86% of issuance was bills under one-year duration.
Short-Term Thinking
Bills accounted for about 86% of total Treasury issuance last year
When Bessent talks about macroeconomics, markets listen. In 1992, he was on a small team at Soros’ investment firm, wagering that the pound was overvalued. Not able to withstand the pressure, the pound plunged in value and the fund earned more than $1 billion. In 2013, he made another billion for Soros betting against the yen.
If Bessent gets confirmed, we can expect more long-term bonds to be auctioned, and the 10-year Treasury yield will likely rise further…
«Beijing will have no choice but to weaken the yuan if Trump’s pick for Treasury secretary takes an activist approach to bond issuance.»
It seems just yesterday that the yuan was undervalued.
“It seems just yesterday that the yuan was undervalued.”
Agreed; after all China has a decades-long trade surplus. Trillions of currency reserves, gold reserves, foreign investment holdings, outstanding bonds that are overwhelmingly in Yuan, an economy that appears to be US sanctions-proof…
Remember too, that the US has been issuing China-sanctions continually. What the heck am I missing?
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=yeYT
January 15, 2018
Real Broad Effective Exchange Rate for China, United States, India, Japan and Germany, 1994-2024
(Indexed to 1994)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=PDFT
January 15, 2018
Real Broad Effective Exchange Rate for China, Indonesia, Brazil, France and United Kingdom, 1994-2024
(Indexed to 1994)
“Scott Bessent Can Break China’s Stubborn Central Bank, Too”
I should not be arrogant, so please explain to me why this Bloomberg essay makes sense. How can the US Treasury break China’s Central Bank? What am I missing in the argument?
The delusions of grandeur.
Guy broke the BoE when it first became obvious the UK was post imperial, but still carrying the imperial financial overhead.
US builds towers of leverage, China builds everything else. The “middle income trap” is about getting privileged constituencies out of the way of the common good. It will certainly be challenging to shift from export driven mercantilism to something internally sustainable, but my money, if I had any, would be on China.
Ah yes, the guy who Nancy Pelosi pushed aside AOC to install. Heck of a job, Nancy.
She, and Jeffries,love it when a plan comes together. You can’t make it too hard for the big donors to get what they want.
Those ” Koreans” look like they’re from Sakha, Siberia. One just got the Russian “Medal of Honor” recently.
https://www.barrons.com/news/putin-decorates-russian-soldier-in-hand-to-hand-combat-video-55031b31
Put them in the “Raiders of the Lost Ark” warehouse beside the Ark of the Covenant, and Iraqi yellowcake.
How you go grocery shopping in Siberia in winter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1j7lo6xovY
She has cropped up before on NC and she has a very interesting channel-
https://www.youtube.com/@KiunB/videos
Reminds me of a little bit of a ditty that I heard years ago-
‘Cold as an iceberg,
gloomy and glum.
Cold as the hair,
on a polar bear’s ***.’
I spent a couple of years near Fairbank Alaska with the USAF. We had a number of descriptions of “cold” most not fit for family use.
Could have been worse. They could have sent you to McMurdo Station for winter-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz2SeEzxMuE (1:03 mins)
Or… Russia has an ethnic Korean minority. My friend’s girlfriend is Korean-Russian. They were living there before Russia took it away from China.
That’s a good point that. Russia does share a border with North Korea and a bit of checking shows that they are actually a thing-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koryo-saram
There are Siberian indigenous people in Russia who are genetically not so distant from Koreans and look much like them. And their men seem to be overrepresented in the Russian military.
I’ve seen some Russia-hostile sources claim to have data that shows that ethnic minorities and/or hinterlands are overrepresented in the military v. men from, say, Moscow and St. Petersburg. But I doubt that is due to some sort of nefarious discrimination. Military pay is high and it will look even more attractive in parts of Russia where prevailing wages are low. People from rural areas are overrepresented in our armed services for that reason, the lack of better opportunities.
Precisely this. Also, provincials and indigenous Asians are much likelier to support Putin and/or the SMO than affluent ethnic Russians in big cities. They’re much less liberal and Western-influenced, as a rule.
@yves you said big if true about whether or not North Koreans are fighting in Russia. Why is this such a big deal? People from many nations are fighting on the Ukraine side. What are the real world consequences of North Koreans fighting in Russia? Please elaborate
I never never never said any such thing. It’s obviously bogus. Any military person would tell you so. You can’t integrate troops who don’t speak your language and have not been trained in your operational systems.
The most North Koreans might have is some observers to see if they can glean some new approaches.
@Expat2uruguay I believe Lambert said it.
Yves, Thank you for the clarification. Lambert says it in the Links text above and I simply can’t understand why it would be a big deal. Everything Yves says is completely true, it’s a big “so what?”
It could be a big thing if your name is Yoon.
Indeed. One of the Soviet Union’s famous rock stars, Viktor Tsoi, was Korean-Russian.
Indeed. As an aside, for some reason, a lot of Koreans in Russia have distinguished themselves as musicians. Yuliy Kim is the other famous one; he wrote a lot of songs for Soviet movies that remain popular to this day (both the songs and the movies, but sometimes more the former). But I’ve also heard of locally celebrated Russian Korean music teachers and so on.
For that matter, there has also been some number of Koreans from the same group in Ukraine, though apparently many of them have left for South Korea since 2022.
Oleg Tsoi, the famous test pilot for the Sukhoi Bureau, also. He looks very Korean, incidentally.
And then, there’s general Kim.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Kim
It turns out Zelensky have been fighting Koreans all along.
Olga concurs with you! Korea adjacent maybe…? Tuvans.
https://x.com/DefensePolitics/status/1878067960209895600?t=T5leCTrOVmHvz6P6DQgZoQ&s=19
Lots of comments on Zelensky’s post identifying the “Koreans” as Tuvans. Guess the i.d. booklet written in Cyrillic was the tip off/eye roll
The top one could be ethic Korean but no way the POW on the bottom is Korean. Could be Tuvan or another Turkic/Mongol people.
You forgot to mention Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction and the torpedoes from the Gulf of Tonkin incident.
The interview with him is better than a Rambo movie, grab popcorn.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/BH1SPXbRhalO
I drink raw water straight from the ground without filtering or boiling whenever I can find springs in the Sierra Nevada-which are quite numerous, maybe I’m aware of a few hundred sources, there’s probably a dozen within a few miles of my cabin in Mineral King.
Its ice cold & delicious, and absolutely free. There are maybe 6 springs right next to Mineral Road, my favorite being just below Atwell Mill, a seep without quit that produces a continual small pond of sorts along the road even during the winter when there is oodles of snow on the ground, just put your Nalgene under the source and 10 seconds later you’ll have a liter of the best water imaginable.
On the other hand there’s water from hot springs that I’d rather soak in than drink, although there have been times where no other water source is available, so we filter and boil it-
We use a tent site in the [forever wild] Adirondacks, of NY. We are on the low part of a ridge, we use water from an artesian spring, no filtering, we only clorox the water when we start the gravity flow, for the hose. We have a creek 50 yards from the tent but have only used it once to keep a deer cool in exceptionally warm weather…. I have never had a problem from the water there, 6 miles in from the parking area.
We usually have a lot of canned beverages, too!
It’s all about knowing what’s upstream/uphill.
Water seeping out of bedrock below a protected mountain is a go. Water seeping out below an abandoned mine or cow fields… that’s a hard no.
Good maps with topological info are helpful, like the ones I used on section hikes off the Appalachian Trail.
Yes but is it as good as “pure rainwater” (see Kubrick, Stanley)?
My town once had great tasting water but now that reservoir is surrounded by houses with fertilized lawns because why would you build a lake and not put houses around it? Our water company geniuses supposedly enforce some regulations on this but spend a bit of effort removing the algae taste from the result. Should I make it to the high, rocky Sierras will try it your way.
Keep in mind that Sequoia NP was the 2nd National Park in 1890 and there wasn’t any industry prior and certainly nothing after it became a NP, so i’m the least bit worried in regards to contamination of springs.
Salt Lake City has some artesian well springs in the middle of the city that people fill up giant jugs of water from. The city has tested it to make sure it’s safe. I’m fine with the water that comes out of the tap, but some people are picky.
My former in-laws also had an artesian well. Their house had been in the family for generations and they’d tapped into it and added a line to the house so the could use it for cooking and drinking without going outside.
Trick is, you have a pretty good idea what’s in the ground and upstream from where you’re drinking.
When I was a kid, Shoal Creek in Austin had lots of frogs, crawfish, catfish, perch and a variety of turtles. We took the frogs and crawfish to be reasonable proxies for cleanness of the water that was spring fed from the limestone formations upland from the creek. My dad collected water from one spring and had it tested, this was maybe 1968 or so, and it had e-coli in it.
So, even before suburban sprawl turned the creek into a floodshed, there was enough habitation to pollute the groundwater even in a naturally cleansing limestone formation.
Around here, you can pretty much expect any surface water is a source of leptospirosis, much due to wild pig population.
On the bonus antidote…yes a family of cheetah sleeping with their pet human / pet minder appears well, encouraging to the rest of us. However I must add my level of caution and fear would be just off the charts , not sure I can trust that an animal with the innate predator capabilities just wouldn’t one day decide I would be better as a serving on a silver platter so to speak.
Or for the flaming point my comments above are yes, directly sarcastic….I submit a classic video clip from the film that depicts Nascar racing by the Ricky Bobby ” Talladega Nights ” movie…the dad was hilarious in this movie. Is there a role that this actor can’t nail?
https://youtu.be/1vCulArInkw?si=9Hk6TCGHrf94K2kP
Re: Antidote
That is what I would call a cuddle puddle.
He’s thoroughly marked with the cheetah pack scent, he should be okay, as long as he stays marked. And they seemed determined to mark him. Cheetahs are very social and live in packs.
Cheetahs actually have been turned into pets more successfully than a lot of wild cats. They seem to be somewhat dog like in their personalities.
And they get along extremely well with fogs. (Quite a few articles and documentaries on how zoos send in lab puppies as “friends” for cheetah cubs ).
Dogs, not fogs. Slippery fingers and tiny touch keyboards….
This video set has been around for awhile. The guy was sleeping in his hut and woke up one morning with a cheetah next to him. He was a little non-plussed, but rolled with it. Next night, it was back. As weeks and months went by, it (presumably a female) brought more back with it and they became a pack.
Cheetahs and bobcats are known to be fairly domesticable. A friend’s parents had a pet bobcat.
There are pet pumas, but they all seem to be adopted when young and very sick or damaged, are nursed back to health, and they are permanently kitten-ish and may be brain-damaged. I recommend the “Messi the Puma” YT channel.
The world’s fastest land hot water bottles! I am so envious….
The children take the cats up with them at bedtime but I have to go round removing them at midnight because otherwise cats wake everybody up because they want to go roaming at 3am or want feeding at 6am. :-(
From the Library of Congress. utube, ~14+ minutes.
San Francisco earthquake and fire, April 18, 1906
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOwWmt9NBM0
Interestingly today from Harper’s:
https://mailchi.mp/aadd12e424e0/back-matter-lewis-h-lapham-on-disaster?e=5fb2ea13e6
I do miss Lewis Lapham. RIP.
It’s the end of the world….for Californians apparently or that is per the above linked column by Michael Moore, where he is actually providing a spotlight to a separate author’s post. Ah I see Steve Schmidt carries on in the Liz Cheney mode, of how everything Donald Trump must be 100% accepted at face value. The reality is well, he’ll be the 47th President here shortly and many of the impacted California citizens are going to need Federal government assistance, absent anything the state and local authorities put on offer. I submit the situation there looks dreadful yes, horrific. Western NC is facing a similar rebuild but that is for entirely different reasons.
Here’s a sidenote to address your questions and concerns, Mr. Schmidt. The people in small town Ohio, of East Palestine wish to say a word to you as well as those former residents of was it Lahaina I think where the fires scorched the island. Our dear and mighty leaders at the national level are a joke, they’ve been a joke and they only pretend at caring for you, dear citizen!
Michael Moore trying to stay relevant here just like he is accusing Trump of doing here with these fires. He kept on going on about how great and wonderful California is but halfway through him writing about it I wondered what did that make the other 49 States. Chopped liver?
Me thinks he doth protest too much.
What does that make the other 49 states? I bet quite a few are glad they aren’t California. / ;)
Just reading the annoying Moore and his quotee. California is a beautiful state and maybe when this is all over we can turn the whole thing into a national park. The rest, about the “genius” of California, is just noise. Guess Moore and company never read The Grapes of Wrath or remember that Ronald Reagan was once governor.
I don’t think Moore has ever been to Trona, also part of California as luck would have it-the ugliest place in the state.
Near the epicenter for the 7.1 2019 Ridgecrest earthquake, I was certainly pulling for the temblor to do its worst.
I passed through Trona at the end of a Mojave desert field trip about 10 years ago, and would completely agree. With the rusting industrial infrastructure and bleak landscape it felt like being immersed in an Edward Burtynsky panoramic photo!
I was listening to the LA Infernos press conference on Thursday, and one of the talking heads related that we got a promise of 100% coverage by the Feds, which was most unusual in that you are lucky to get 75%.
I can only imagine on account of Cali being specialer than perceived lesser states…
North Carolina for example? Or Florida? Or Ohio? Or Hawaii? Don’t recall Biden rushing aid there like he did for California or all the financial support offered. It’s actually kinda gross.
…not many brand name thespians in East Palestine
As Warren Beatty says to a constituent in Bullworth: “but you didn’t give any money to my campaign.” H’wood coughed up millions.
But Biden’s promises are running out of shelf life.
Yeah, Benedict Donald has a little bit of a lust-hate relationship with us. He bought a 17 hole* golf resort 20 years ago in Rancho Palos Verdes and deployed one of his favorite tricks in defeating the ordinance regarding size of things allowable
* to be fair it had all 18 holes when he bought it, but one of them had previously collapsed, said course having been constructed on shifting land-a weirdly common problem in RPV.
So what’s the trick Trump used to defeat the ordinance regarding the 70 ft tall flagpole?
…the last refuge of of a scoundrel
They say that patriotism is the last refuge
To which a scoundrel clings
Steal a little and they throw you in jail
Steal a lot and they make you king
“Sweetheart like you”
Of course when the president does it, it isn’t illegal . . .
Those places don’t have a bunch of Zionist millionaires like Spielberg, Seinfeld, and James Wood.
In order to succeed in the entertainment industry, you have to at least bend the knee to Zionists (I know there are a few, very few honorable exceptions but how many of them have active careers anymore?) but for many it goes a lot deeper ( how else to explain the inexplicable careers of Amy Schumer and Sasha Baron-Cohen). West LA is basically an Israel annex. So paying them off is basically like giving money to Israel.
In fairness the movie biz was Jewish long before parts of it were Zionist. There’s even a book (A World of Their Own). And I’m not sure how Zionist Spielberg is since he made a movie criticizing the wave of israeli revenge after Munich. He’s more in the assimilated tradition of those pre Israel movie moguls. Baron-Cohen on the other hand has roots in Israel.
Spielberg is one of the biggest contributors to various Zionist causes in Hollywood. https://x.com/Lowkey0nline/status/1735232074934628445
I would not characterize Munich as an anti-Israel movie, more in line with the “shooting and crying” movies that whitewashes Zionist crimes against other peoples into self victimhood.
n.b. An Empire of Their Own by Neal Gabler
great cultural history, recommend!
Looked it up yest and he did same for Helene-but in Helene, good for expenditures across first 90 days only. So, e.g., the inevitable mudslides, shelter coverage for people whose insurers drag things out beyond 90 days, etc.- well, that would be socialism. Some outlets reporting 180 days for CA wildfires.
Seriously? Does anyone really think that Trump will give a dime of disaster recovery to California?
Yes
He may have pause due to the fact that there are 9 Republican House members from CA. If he disses CA maybe nothing he promotes gets through the house??
I’m still stuck on fire dept cuts that happened in LA and Cali.
Like creating a self-fulfilling prophecy and calling it something else.
I don’t think the fire department cuts could have solved the winds and the bad infrastructure that made the fire hydrants have low pressure. I don’t remember where I read it, but the fire hydrants were connected to the same lines as the houses. As the houses burned their water lines stayed on and reduced pressure to the hydrants. If they had been on different lines the pressure would have stayed. Vancouver, Canada has a backup hydrant system with salt water not connected to the regular system.
If they believe what they are saying about the climate, they need more personnel and equipment.
There is this incredible piece of high technology called a shut off valve. A serious, competent government would have educated people to use it before evacuating their homes, mitigating this problem.
Maybe educating people who did not get the point of “The Three Little Pigs” is a reach. At lest they did not build straw houses
Houses burn so hot, they probably melt the solder at the shut-off valve, thereby opening the line. Just saying. Fires this big in a city are a different kettle of fish.
I can give first hand evidence of what burned and melted in the 2017 wildfire that consumed my house in Northern Calif.
Glass will soften and I saved a very deformed Corelle bowl (laminated glass) as a sample.
Glass is rated to melt from 2552F to 2912F depending on composition.
Aluminum will burn, but some alloy wheels melted onto concrete and left an interesting “sculpture” (that I saved) on the concrete driveway.
I assume the local oxygen supply was so lean in the area that the aluminum did not burn to aluminum oxide,
Aluminum melts at 1221F.
Steel/cast iron survives as the former location of the redwood deck was a field of steel deck screws on the ground.
My cast iron wood shaper top survived (but was very warped)
Iron has a melting point of 2800F.
If one simply looked at the residue, one might not believe wood was used in the construction at all as there were few charred samples of wood.
Stucco, cement, iron, gypsum from sheetrock survived.
A long copper bar survived (1984F melting point)
Some sterling silver melted (1637F melting point)
That gives some evidence that the peak temperature was less than 1984F but more than 1637F.
Tin/led solder, 60/40 melts at 361F to 376F, so any copper pipes and fittings would see their solder bonds fail
My John F. Kennedy tie clasp, that I got when I was a kid on the street watching JFK arrive in Los Angeles for the 1960 convention, survived in damaged but recognizable shape, which was a nice thing to find in the rubble.
Listening to a podcast half asleep in the middle of last night – a little bleary so I can’t identify it – but heard an LA firefighter quoted as saying that even if every house in LA County had a fully-loaded tanker and a firefighting crew devoted to it, everything still would have burned down because of the winds and desiccated landscape. The general orientation of the canyons in the Santa Monica Mountains turns them into fire bellows when the Santa Ana winds erupt. My guess is that a search of newspaper archives from a century or more ago would find ample references to huge conflagrations in the Santa Monica and San Gabriel Mountains; the difference wasthat those firestorm canyons and hillsides weren’t full of faux Mission-style McMansion cul-de-sacs…
Read The Ecology of Fear by Mike Davis and you’ll get a good idea, given the bi-partisan Growth Coalition ethos of California politik, why these fires were inevitable.
Davis’ book was written almost thirty years ago, so no one can say they weren’t informed.
Here is link that mentions Davis’ book as well as Richard Henry Dana’s 1826 observation of a Topanga Canyon wildfire.
https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2025-01-09-la-apocalypse-was-entirely-predictable/
Imagine how difficult it would be to require building to a standard that would allow the ancient Chumash Indian neighborhood burns, mentioned in this piece, to yearly sweep through Pacific Palisades to clear out underbrush.
Yep.
“Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown .”
austerity + climate change = Pacific Palisades
NYTimes.
An Important Reservoir Was Offline When the Fires Began.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/10/us/wildfires-pacific-palisades-water-shortage.html
The reservoir, the Sana Ynez reservoir in the Pacific Palisades was empty and had been empty for almost a year. It normally holds 117 million gallons of water.
More water for the fire dept. was NOT going to stop Palisades from burning. More firemen was NOT going to stop Palisades from burning. Sustained, intense wind blowing embers all over the landscape was essentially unstoppable.
That is a conjecture, of course. It couldn’t have hurt to have 100 million gallons of water available in the Palisades. It might have helped.
While very likely true, cutting the fire department’s budget to shift it all to the police department after being told that the department was already finding it impossible to do its normal work as well as emptying out the largest local water reservoir in the area where the fire started (and not informing the fire department of this) are symptoms of a dysfunctional government. Between the dry local weather and the massive fuel load, it was obvious that a fire could escape control even with “normal” Santa Ana Winds. All this and the fact that the local landscape normally burns so often that it depends on it to remain healthy.
And yet, the LA government decided to cut the fire department’s budget. I could forgive the fires getting out of control due to the winds, but I can’t forgive all the other details.
We got roughly 80% in Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina.
Yes. California is “Special.” The rest of us are “Children of a Lessor God.”
Don’t be too hard on yourself-you’re all you’ve got.
And I’m already going at a 20% discount.
We here in the North American Deep South often something or other.
Oh dear, I feel like Anti Theseus, always losing the thread.
California sends more money via taxes to the Federal government than any other state, by far !. Federal disaster aid will simply be repatriation of some of the those funds.
On meet the press this a.m., gov. newscum opined that debris cleanup, necessary prior to “rebuilding,” could take “9 months to a year.” That “estimate” could be premature since the winds are kicking up again and no new water has been discovered in the last couple of days.
LA is scheduled to host the world cup in 2026, the super bowl in 2027, and the grandaddy of them all, the olympics, in 2028. Sounds like a pretty tight timeline.
It would appear that socal is poised to become the most expensive ward of the state this nation has ever known. zelensky and netanyahoo are prolly wondering what they did to deserve this, since the american taxpayer may just have had enough of paying to “rebuild” things that never should have been destroyed (or possibly even built) in the first place.
I was born and raised there, but I had no choice in the matter early on and it wasn’t a bad place once upon a time, but LA’s salad days have come and gone, albeit with a 1964 3/2 sfh in an ok area with gang activity a few miles away, now fetching a million clams.
Warren Zevon wrote a couple of the best songs in regards to the City of Angels, enjoy!
Desperados Under the Eaves
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXCly4X3cqw
Carmelita
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xyuQG0IyGs
California is still lovely for a visit, but can’t imagine paying so much in rent and income tax to live in a state with a 6-months fire season.
Took about a year to clean up Lahaina, but now I guess that’s done though hundreds are still waiting for the County to give them building permits.
You do realize that the Eaton fire destroyed a working class/middle class neighborhood with a large number of older retired people and young families just trying to survive in over priced LA? Your lack of empathy for the suffering of others is amazing.
I’ve recently read a history of LeMay’s WW II efforts against Japan, first fire bombing then the two A bombs!
The pictures from LA remind me of Tokyo after a 900 B-29 fire bombing. They used the fire bombs because the accuracy of bombing was not taking out military-industry targets.
The history alludes to Japan’s pre A bomb peace feelers blunted in part because the Japanese used the USSR….. and USSR had agreed to enter the Japan war at Potsdam…….
The USSR neutrality treaty with Japan was to expire in Jan 1946. By Aug 1945 USSR had move huge forces to the Far East.
The A bombs were each a fire bombing raid with one instead of 900 B-29;s, to LeMay!
“Israeli ministers discuss plan to divide Syria along ethnic, religious lines: report”
The Israelis know what they want here. When the US invaded Iraq it was a mixed society with the Sunnis, Shia, Kurds sharing neighbourhoods, But then the US decided to divide up Iraqi society along ethnic and religious lines in not only the Constitution but in where people lived as well. This encouraged ethnic cleaning so in Baghdad for example where you had Sunni/Shia neighbourhoods that had been that way for generations, soon they were all Sunni or all Shia neighbourhoods. I think that this is what the Israelis want to do to Syria which is also a mixed society where so-called Cantons will be composed of only members of a ethnic or religious group so that they can be set against each other to Israel’s benefit. The Israelis should be told to take their ideas and go pound sand with them.
Israelis thought they could cultivate the Shia in South Lebanon after 1982. They got Hizb’ullah instead. Even Lebanese Christians (of different factions), with all their issues, never turned “pro” Israel for most part (the “other” Nasrallah, Cardinal Sfeir, playing important role here). I don’t think Israelis will ever find any Arab allies who are not dictators in cozy financial relationship with US.)
Daily Mail, California fires, Mayor slashed and slashed again Fire Dept budget …. The guys at Duran have pointed out with gallows humor more than once that Biden Team has a penchant for announcing billion dollar aid packages being rushed to Ukraine the same time natural disasters affecting millions of Americans strike. Funny MSM doesn’t seem to ever connect those particular dots. Perhaps Kamala should have joined LA Mayor Bass at her news conference in which she splained to her LA peasenrty that fire relief can be had at “URL” so Harris could tell LA to cheer up because she’s rushing billions in aid to Ukraine.
We pretend everything still works, and they pretend to pay attention to us.
With that, I’m going back to bed. Thanks Wuk.
Kamala may soon become one of California’s homeless people-
‘Pro America Politics
@Pro__Trading
🚨BREAKING: The wildfires have REACHED Brentwood where Kamala Harris, Lebron James, Arnold Schwarzenegger and many other famous celebrities live.
Oh boy.’
https://x.com/Pro__Trading/status/1878247172141158501
Don’t worry. She’ll be fine. From Town&Country magazine.
A Look at All of Kamala Harris’s Homes
https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/real-estate/a33825054/kamala-harris-homes-real-estate-photos/
One poor pitiful celebrity article said it all for me. It was all about Candy Spelling losing the home she shared with her husband for over x number of years. I had to click because I remembered her selling the giant monstrosity Aaron Spelling built to someone for record millions.
You know the one where she had not one but two rooms dedicated to gift wrapping and a bowling alley.
No, as it turned out this was a getaway place in Malibu, so it was never a primary residence. It ended with her son assuring people that Candy was safe in her current Beverly Hills home.
They should be happy I am not in charge because assistance to rebuild would not be coming for anyone who could afford to rebuild on their own. Even if they had insurance, think of it as the United Healthcare version of home insurance.
Bling there-done that.
I remember or recall very well, the tony location of Brentwood for a much decidedly different, but very much on the human suffering scale specifically worse for two families. The OJ Simpson affair featured prominently in the upscale neighborhood.
Maybe OJ found the real killer once he, at long last, reached his rightful place in Hell…
If Kamalalf (homage to Landon) were to lose her residence to fire, she’d write a book titled ‘What can be, unburdened by what has been’ and get a $25 million advance on it.
Or following AOC’s lead, she could write about her terror being confronted by the inferno, even though she was no where near the home that burned.
Can’t let an opportunity to be a righteous victim go… I mean she isn’t President because she is female and black.
“Courage under fire”
No sniper either this time.
Slashing budgets of services for the commons is wrecking crew behavior. It’s bipartisan.
If it isn’t funded, then they can say it doesn’t work and needs privatization.
Then it it still doesn’t work (but there is better PR), but the few perps of the scam can skim. The government will still get the blame because that is its role in the “private-public partnership”.
Isn’t there anything in the LA area that blackrock wants to get its mitts on? They’ve got trillions to “invest” or so we’re told.
This sounds like something they could find a way to creep into:
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-12/newsom-suspends-landmark-environmental-regulations-palisades-altadena-fires/
He (Newsom) called for a California version of the Marshall Plan, the American effort to rebuild Western Europe after World War II.
“We already have a team looking at re-imagining L.A. 2.0,” he said, “and we are making sure everyone’s included, not just the folks on the coast, people here that were ravaged by this disaster.”
Also, I’ve noticed a lot of the LA Times local fire coverage news is not being subscription blocked.
Remember, many (how many?) of the firefighters are current prisoners who are making $5 a day. Public/Private, yea baby!
An aside, but here’s some information on some of the stories going around about water systems, and using salt water for fire fighting:
Can Seawater Fight Fires in SoCal | Why No Water | Fireboats | Damage From Seawater
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1N2BwcAT-s
I bet the questioning was conducted in Russian language.
And the “North Koreans” will have made up (pseudo) Chinese/Japanese/Vietnamese names.
(Ukrainians are actually surprisingly savvy about things East Asian–I was pretty surprised when I heard actual Ukrainian propaganda in surprisingly good Korean in February, 2022, right after the whole thing started. But the NK story is directed at the clueless West.)
I wonder if Ukraine’s over ten thousand strong Korean diaspora had something to do with this propaganda?
Probably. I’m often amused that both super-Banderite governor of Nikolayev and one of deputy chiefs of Stavka are both Kims (although I don’t think either looks particularly Korean.)
I joke to my mother that Korean hangers-on from different regions with the Mongols must have introduced dumplings to Eastern Europe (the joke is that Northern variety is big and looks remarkably like pierogi or vareniki (not too sure about the latter–it is big like the Polish stuff, no?) while the Seoul variety is small and looks like pelmeni. My mother’s family is originally from the North, although they wound up in Seoul the long way, via China, and took them about 40 years to get there, pretty much all of the Japanese rule over Korea, and my grandmother always talked about how tiny the dumplings in Seoul were–tbose dumplings are about the only thing that she kept of the North.)
RE: Wildfire Smog Is Deadly—But LA’s Covid Mask Organizers Have It Covered
I wear my respirator in all indoor public spaces because I can’t handle the COVID. Now I wear my respirator outside too.
Today is a good day. Winds are light. The fires are not burning too badly. Air quality is pretty good. Winds pick up again tomorrow night into Tuesday.
As do I with my wonky immune system plus advanced age and particular vulnerability to pulmonary infections. I originally bought my P-100 respirators before Covid when the SF bay area basin became a big bowl of smoke due to wildfires north and east of us. May your winds be favorable.
O Lambert. 1000 points for the debellatio link with the Prof defining it!
Re Applebaum and the new Rasputins
“He twice met with Alexander Dugin, the Russian fascist ideologue, who posted on X a (subsequently deleted) statement that “Romania will be part of Russia.”
You mean like your husband subsequently deleted his tweet congratulating the US on blowing up Nordstream!
Applebaum is a “historian” who goes out of her way to make stuff up so that she can write “history” that makes Russia look as bad as possible. A continuation of the Cold War Robert Conquest garbage. These people get paid to spread mystical hatred of anyone who resists the West. Applebaum is the one who rejects the Age of Enlightenment, rejecting the basic tenets of historical research in favour of propaganda.
Georgescu, an ex-UN Special Rapporteur for human rights and Romania’s representative on the national committee of the United Nations Environment Programme can hardly be described as “right-wing”. Also was the executive of a national centre for sustainable development and also worked for the Club of Rome. He is an anti-war nationalist, does not want a huge NATO base on Romanian soil, and can empathize with Russia’s interests – so he must be defamed as much as possible.
Anne is not curious enough to learn how religious in fact are most of Romanians. The highest level of religiosity in EU, and more than Ukrainians and Russians for instance.
Heck, Ceausescu burried his mother with 7 priests.
And there is a lot of mysticism in that part of the world, from pre cristian times and from orthodoxy as well. In my forest management work in the foothills around the Carpathians, where a lot of monasteries reside, I met many a monk or a nun. I have Uni colleagues that took the robe and found them helping repair churches and monasteries.
As for Antonescu, he put down the Iron Guard and re-established order in the country. He did not conspire to attack USSR.
Neither the Atlanticist nor Bloomber article mention the fact that the Tiktok capmpaign that promoted Calinescu was funded by the Liberal party, to split the votes.
The news report a couple of thousands of protesters. People have put up drones showing the masses and then they were fined…
One thing kind of striking in regards to watching LA fire porn videos after the fact is just how many live trees and green foliage immediately adjacent to burned out hulks survived the maelstrom.
Trees have evolved to have survival mechanisms, unlike your friendly neighborhood clap-trap starter mansion.
The latter has evolved to put as much profit as possible into the fewest pockets.
I can burn a piece of recently live wood, but only if there is a raging fire consisting of dead wood underneath it, otherwise forget it.
Live oak will burn green albeit slowly. An old timer told me that’s how they banked their fires before the advent of tight wood stoves. I have tried it. A couple of logs side by side over coals will keep the house warm all night.
It was the same in the Paradise fire.
Most framing lumber is kiln dried. Perfect for burning should someone (nature perhaps) decide to put it to that use.
Here here. I was happy to see the “It’s not a miracle. It’s called ‘concrete'” tweet. Now if only we could get insurance companies to understand how to apply this logic…
(In reality it might require more research and the formulation of standards and certifications and hey, maybe California could lead the way! Because maybe cement fiber siding, properly applied, over a wood frame would be good enough. And what are roof options that are reliably safe? I have seen a bit of research into this stuff but seemingly there is not enough for insurance companies to feel comfortable putting a number on it.)
We have friends who’ve lost everything in the Oakland, Paradise, and other fires. One got out of Paradise with just his wallet and underwear.
The last time we did the roof here in the Bay Area, maybe 20 years ago, rather than the usual tar and gravel (for a midcentury modern house with a low pitch roof), we installed a commercial grade single-ply PVC material, with an internal scrim (fabric reinforcement), that was hot-air welded /fused rather than torched, like modified bitumen, so no risk of fire during installation. All metal flashing and downspout outlets were replaced by the same material, so there are no issues with petroleum derived products deciding to delaminate from the metal and then causing leaks. Plus 2″ rigid insulation, so it stays fairly cool inside. It was 1/3 more expensive the T&G, but the material warranty was 15 years, it’s so cool that I can walk barefoot on it in the middle of summer, and IT WON”T CATCH FIRE FROM EMBERS.
Metal roofs work too.
We also looked at flood risk, wildfire risk, earthquake risk, landslide risk, etc., before we decided exactly where we’d consider buying. Not saying we’re immune from all risk, but we made damn sure to do our due diligence. We’ll need to replace the siding soon. Will we use concrete panels? Not yet sure what we’ll do.
I owned a home that was built in the 1950’s. The shingled siding was made with non-burning asbestos.
Add in lead-based paint on the interior walls and it would have been complete.
The building and zoning codes that allowed structures (in a well known fire hazzard fire zone) constructed of flammable material to be packed together like sardines are truly criminal!
Well, we should remember that Los Angeles is an earthquake zone and that affects the building codes. Concrete may not be flammable but it’s also rigid and stiff which causes problems in an earthquake. You need a flexible material which may be why so much wood was used in the area.
Living in Uruguay, where there are no earthquakes, about 99.9% of all structures are built out of concrete. Also, many houses have bars on their windows. From these two facts I infer that house fires are either rare or don’t spread very much here, otherwise people wouldn’t put bars on their windows. And most homes here are like condos, with apartments that you can own, in buildings ranging from three stories with no elevator to 15 stories with elevator. This density is one of the things that makes the Montevideo very livable and walkable, because this density works well for mass transit and also having neighborhood shops like butchers, bakers, shoe shops, so many small businesses!!
I hope that when Los Angeles rebuilds it takes advantage of the opportunity to create greater density structures, which would enable more mass transit and affordable condos of 800 sqft in apartment buildings. It really is a once in a century opportunity to respond to some serious problems in the great state of California. But I’ll be very surprised if anything like that happens… I lived in Sacramento for 30 years, so I know what it’s like there.
Its as if all these homes were built in the 1960s and 1970s, before climate change turned these areas into high risk zones. And, as shocking as this sounds, those flammable materials are more affordable than concrete structures and have done fine through out the state during periods were abnormal winds did not blow flaming embers miles away from the dried out forests created by historic droughts. Maybe we should be talking more about climate change? Nah, being judgmental is so much more fun, isnt it?
While I agree that the SEVERITY of the fires was due to climate change, it was incompetence and expediency to allow this type of structure to be built. You don’t see much/any housing like this in the climatically-similar Mediterranean. They are made mainly of stone or other non-combustible materials. Similarly, here in Thailand, which is not as dry as California, native Thais would never never build a wooden house, out of concerns over fire risks.
Yea, blame everything, and everyone, but thyself. That’s the American way. It’s the climate change caused by the Chinese industrialisation and overcapacity, and also Putin, Commies, aliens (of space and illegal kind), and Sun spots.
Next time try hiring those Chinese, to build back better and more affordable. Or, maybe, Russians. The ongoing war have shown that Soviet built stuff, from 1960s and 1970s, is capable of taking tons of high explosives and incendiary bombs, and somehow still stand. Even Gaza required multiple passes of democracy bombs before it was completly flattened. It’s either that they’ve built differently, or that all those foreign countries are lagging behind great USA so much, that the climate change have not arrived for them yet.
Re Luke Coffey on Georgia
“If it comes to the point where the U.S. does not recognize the legitimacy of the Georgian Dream government, this would mean that U.S. attention and resources should shift toward those who can be considered legitimate—the Georgian people.”
So Coffey considers the Georgian people can be legitimate, but does not recognise the government for which they voted as legitimate. How does that work?
Anne Applebaum. The Atlantic. Usually either of those names would cause me to skip over an article, let alone both together. But my curiosity got the better of me and I had to find out who the New Rasputins were. I read far enough to find out that it was a typical Applebaum hit piece. Her opening target was Georgescu, original winner of the first round of the Romanian presidential election, here depicted as a Hitler-adjacent (naturally) lover of Russian fascists (naturally) and user of pseudo-mysticism on Tik-Tok to dupe the public for the benefit of those devilish Rooskies. Thank goodness champions of Western Values like Applebaum are on the case! Hitler! Fascists! Anti-science! TikTok! Russia!
I didn’t bother to go around the paywall. The first two and a half paragraphs were enough Applebaum for me.
Neocon opinion writing seems like a field that is very AI ready. In fact I would say that a small room of monkeys might do quite well when equipped with an adequate supply of buzzword refrigerator magnets and full bowels.
I have to marvel at the TDS on display in the Michael Moore piece. Between his use of Schmidt’s commentary to the desire to deface Trump’s grave in the subscriber only comments it is overwhelming. While there is a nugget or two of sanity in those comments (a mention of NC, and of Newsom) there seems to be no recognition that there were four years of Biden and numerous terms of Democratic control locally that helped lead to this. No, it is all Trump hates us and loves watching us suffer.
And they think Trump is narcissistic.
I’ve had a bit of a meltdown during this past post holiday season. I’ve lost time and whole days. Todays Marginalian link puts it all in perspective as I try to make sense in a non-nonsensical time line, as put by many here.
The loss of Mrs Human 4 years ago, followed within a year and a half of the loss of our dog, then cat and the ultimate loss of our residence of 12 years due to non-renewal of the lease by a new landlord, resulted in my purchase of an old property in an out-of-the-way location in state. Something that I could afford out-of-pocket as my past paperwork is somewhat incomplete ;-)
The past 3 or so weeks of sub-freezing temperatures has required continuous trips to the wood pile and attention to the firebox, my only source of heat other than a propane stove and small space heater in one of the pantries. Cooking has occupied much of the remainder of my time. A quantum of solace in this mad world.
When neighbors put up Trump or Harris signs, I put up a small Stein sign made from Walmart components. One sighed, “If only,” while others backed away as I explained that I don’t vote. “This would give the system legitimacy.” I haven’t voted in a presidential election since Nader lost, and haven’t voted Democrat since McGovern.
Humans have indeed lost our way. We can’t even look each other in the eye and have dialog without it leading to Trumpism, Covid, and the myriad other talking points meant to divide, cause fear and hatred. The classic FUD that my WWII sailor uncles clearly understood as well as SNAFU, which they would not expand being reasonably moral.
I take a jar of jam from the cupboard and spread it on warm biscuits straight from the oven as I pour my coffee. My reality. Picked some herbs from the garden after clearing away snow and winter mulch.
I had a dream last night of Mrs Human. We were somehow in an Eastern European country living with soldiers (the Mrs and I being Russo-philes this never bothered us. A trip to St Petersburg was in our bucket list. Also, I have Russian ancestry.) The loss to families of lives, limbs, and treasure just never mattered as people looked to the end of hostilities, the return to The Land, the honoring of our antecedents and ourselves..
The ultimate lesson of Hildegard from 850 years ago!
To life!
and as an old Slovak girlfriend would say, na zdravie!
Thanks for sharing this. Lovely.
“I take a jar of jam from the cupboard and spread it on warm biscuits straight from the oven as I pour my coffee. My reality. Picked some herbs from the garden after clearing away snow and winter mulch.”
I am reminded of the end of a favorite Raymond Carver short story, A Small Good Thing. After a great loss people finding a sense of contentment in the resolution of a conflict and in the enjoyment of freshly baked bread. Never underestimate the power of good intention and small good things.
Yes, take a jar. Ours is made from our fruit. As the neighborhod filled in, many alleys and back yards still have the original trees from the previous orchards. We planted ours but in the past, when I was very low income, I made maps of where the unattended trees were and had a bounty every year. Free food! Part on!
A spoon of jam always reminds me of Edward G. Robinson in Soylent Green.
It strikes me something that you wrote (we can’t even look each other in the eye and have a dialogue…) as something that is reflected very much in American TV series though possibly somehow exaggerated (in the series i mean). Note, i do not watch American series. Sometimes someone recommends me one, i give it a try, but generally do not get to the end of the first episode. I find them unnerving and i cannot connect with any of the characters. Looks like a contest to see who is the most unpleasant son/daughter of a bitch.
As an American, I too find US television to be highly unpleasant to watch. Everyone seems to be a wise-a$$, everyone is constantly trying to verbally dominate others with sharp words and “thought stopper” quips. It seems like the speech patterns of bratty 14 year olds to me. That along with the constant themes of grotesque wealth and inequality, as well as super slick production values that lend a sense of unreality to everything.
Nobody ever watches tv on tv shows, and nobody ever goes to the bathroom unless it’s a plot device.
As a matter of fact, Wuk, last night my son and I were watching an episode from Slovenian series called The Lake Trilogy, in which a husband and wife sit down and watch a film on television. He’s an interestingly sardonic detective named Taras Birsa. It’s on MHz, for the benefit of those like me who rarely find American productions interesting.
Ever seen ‘The Sopranos’? David Chase + Co. got it right. TV is a huge part of the average American’s life, TV is the background noise of American life. As for the toilet, never women only men. Except in a few films.
There’s the great scene in Michael Clayton with Tilda Swinton’s character freaking out in a bathroom stall.
@bobert
US television: I find most of it unwatchable but I do confess to enjoying Jesse Stone. It was recommended by a couple of people here on NC. It is a series of nine 90 minute made-for-TV episodes. Thankfully the dialogue is sparse with no wise-cracking, annoying characters. I even enjoyed the discreet presence of the golden retriever even though I am a cat person.
I’m with you 100% on US serials. I.am a fan of britbox and AcornTV. Much.international content.and the side benefit of _no commetcials_.
When you think about it, you recognize that the whole purpose of advertising is addiction. Not just to the product being hawked, but to the commetcial itself. How many times do you catch yourself humming a jingle or recalling a situation from an ad? Some develop.cult-like followings. It is positively scary. Edward Bernays had it just right.
If you like Britbox and Acorn TV you might also enjoy MHz for continental European fare. For instance, they have Babylon Berlin, which is one of my personal favorites.
.human, thank you for sharing. We recently subscribed to The Criterion Channel which has been a life-changing decision, no exaggeration. https://www.criterion.com
Thanks .human for the open and honest observation.
Winter is such a test of our inflection and introspection. hang tough, wave at your neighbors, keep that woodpile dry, and keep your heart open…
@.human
Thank you for the account of snippets of your life and the recollections of Mrs. Human.
Somewhat related to the story on jamming in space, here’s a recent article in South China Morning Post about tracking Starlink satellites using a technique developed from studying whales.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3294047/chinese-scientists-simulate-hunting-starlink-satellites-orbit?module=top_story&pgtype=homepage
Can’t imagine what might cause that. Young people dying. What a mystery.
Online, She Inspired Millions. At Home, She Was a Single Mother of 2.
If we the hoi polloi can contribute a couple of links the latest Construction Physics has some interesting info on the fires.
“And this 2021 article from José Luis Ricón discusses the broader reasons why California is so fire-prone and the history of wildfire in the state:
‘But in gauging the longer-term trend of what’s really happening with the fires, it’s necessary to go back much further. Data derived from written records from Cal Fire and the U.S. Forest Service dating back to 1919 show that wildfires, far from increasing, have actually declined over the last 100 years. And in fact the website of the National Interagency Fire Center previously noted that fires were at their very worst a century ago. (See data, research, and methodology for this article.)
The same trend can be seen in a review of three separate long-term wildfire data sources, which show that wildfires declined from 1919 to about 1996 and have ticked upward since then, but not to the levels of a century ago:'”
https://www.construction-physics.com/p/reading-list-11125
And last Friday’s Alastair Crooke describes the psychological aspect of the Ukraine war stretching back to WW2 where the Banderites claimed to be Viking stock and European versus the Slavs. Whereas in reality they have always been Slavs themselves. Given that the Ukraine fighters now call Russians “orcs” perhaps there’s a Lord of the Rings Hollywood angle too as America (via New Zealand and England) conquers the world culturally if no other way.
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/01/10/can-trump-save-america-from-itself/
Here’s a sobering prediction for the year ahead, one that I more or less agrees with:
https://x.com/alon_mizrahi/status/1878298631058731249
Thanks for this. And I agree, as well. This is entirely consistent with Trump’s extreme pro-Israel picks. I’m fully expecting Israel to go nuclear against Iran, given the genocide it has no reason to care what the world thinks.
Long Twitter post on the happenings in the genocide.
Re: Scoop: Denmark sent Trump team private messages on Greenland – Axios
Alan MacLeod offers insights into that article’s co-author Barak Ravid that are worth one’s time:
Revealed: The Israeli Spies Writing America’s News
https://scheerpost.com/2024/10/17/revealed-the-israeli-spies-writing-americas-news/
Ravid comes out of Israel’s infamously oppressive intelligence Unit 8200, said to spawn terrorist attacks like exploding pagers and Orwellian nightmares like Pegasus. MacLeod writes that the unit compiles dossiers on every Palestinian, with an eye toward extortion and blackmail.
There is no starker statement on the state of US media than Ravid winning last year’s White House Press Correspondents’ Award.
It’s hard now to read Ravid, or Axios, unless curious to detect what agendas lurk beneath.
What ignited the deadly California wildfires? Investigators consider an array of possibilities AP
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Never once mentioned in the article was the unhoused having been the culprit, i’m thinking AP was bought off by Big Homeless…
…nobody else has outdoor urban cooking fires on a regular basis
Because the homeless did not cause the Eaton Fire or the Palisades fire. Climate change created the conditions for these fires to thrive. Stop trying to muddy the discussion.
RE: Knives come out for the D.C. consultant class as Democrats search for a new leader
In case you were thinking the Democrat party may have learned a lesson from losing to a carnival barker a second time, rest assured they have not learned one [family blog]ing thing –
“O’Malley pegged Democrats’ disconnect from Americans’ kitchen tables as the party’s “biggest mistake.” Wikler lamented that “there were millions of Americans who didn’t know that we were fighting for working families.” And Martin decried voters’ perceptions that Republicans, not Democrats, best represent the working class — a concept he said was only reinforced by Democrats’ over-performance with wealthy households and college-educated voters — as a “damning indictment of our party brand.”
But they weren’t offering many concrete solutions to bring those voters back to the fold on Saturday — a sign that while Democrats have diagnosed a major flaw in their messaging, they’ve yet to figure out how to fix it.”
Maybe those working families didn’t realize democrats were “fighting for” them because Democrats were not really fighting for them. A watered down infrastructure bill?!???! They tried touting that as some great achievement when fixing the potholes and making sure bridges don’t fall down is pretty much the very least a government can do. They took away the child tax credit which was a big benefit to a lot of people, and I don’t remember much outcry about it getting the axe. They catered to the wealthy instead, which would explain the “over-performance” in that demographic, something Chuck Schumer famously mentioned as a Democrat goal.
And yet after all that hand wringing, what they come up with is not providing concrete material benefits, but better branding, and they apparently can’t even do that.
Biden still owes me $600.00. Let’s go Brandon.
Somehow the fascism and Democracy under attack message didn’t fly, either. Maybe because they very demonstrably did not believe it themselves, given how cosy they are with Trump now that he’s president-elect. But the Left, such as it is, was once again defeated, so mission accomplished!
Of course they haven’t learned anything. And now the democrats have 4 years of running on “we’re not Trump” and their base will eat it up. They will not change, nor will they ever see what the problem is – them. It’s beneath them. The party, like their worshiping followers, have zero self reflection. They know nothing other than to blame their own failures on everything and everyone else. It’s simply who they are.
RE: The cod-Marxism of personalized pricing; Picks and Shovels
Cory Doctorow wins the interwebs today for turning the name of a former UK PM into an adjective to describe decaying vegetable matter. Ha! –
“Some customers will happily accept a lettuce that’s a little gross and liztruss if it means a discount.”
A few logistics questions on the Los Angeles wild fire.
– with the scale of the destruction, where will all the mountains of debris be relocated?
– how many trucks, heavy equipment, and personnel will be needed?
– How will toxicity of the debris be evaluated and mitigated?
– If everyone were to receive a check for the full restoration value of their homes tomorrow, where would all the building materials, construction equipments, and crews come from to address the scale?
-How long will it take to perform all the construction designs, permits, and contracts with land owners?
Also wonder on the insurance side:
If someone owns a home that was untouched by direct fire damage, but the electricity, (potable) water, sewer, and schools, and local businesses are gone, would they have any ability to get assistance from their insurance policies and government programs?
And where to dump/recycle all the paper documents, confirmation letters, scam/spam letters sent, emails printed, certified letters, summons ……….
What we do in Australia is usually pick a recently retired or even serving Major General from Army Logistics and negotiate special powers from the State involved with a straight credit line to the Commonwealth Treasury. The final financial details are worked out later. Seems to work O.K. but the disruption to ongoing construction in the rest of the country is major for a couple of years, especially now with resources of all kinds seemingly permanently constrained.
Less than cleaning Gaza…
The cleanup of the LA Fires will be a long term effort.
Millions of tons of debris and contaminated soil will need to be removed and dealt with, this is not something you want leaching into your water table.
Thousands of heavily laden dump trucks will increase wear on the roads and they will pile up at choke points, it may be advisable to dedicate a lane on the freeway to them, and wherever the debris ends up will need to be organized in a way that allows for the most efficient transit and unloading.
After the Tubbs fire we had dump trucks from all over the West show up, not all of them well maintained.
And they were bumper to Bumper waiting to enter the County Landfill from the Dump to Stony Point Rd for Months.
That’s about 2.5 miles of Trucks, bumper to bumper.
And wherever that toxic plume of smoke landed will be contaminated by very nasty stuff.
I was born in East LA and although Hollywood was only 25 miles away and the tony Westside another 15 miles distant, I didn’t know anybody in the entertainment industry, the San Gabriel Valley being almost Mayberry, and completely disregarded by the LA Times… it was as if we didn’t exist.
That sort of sentiment got even stronger as I grew up, and now they don’t exist. Poor things might have to live in Century City.
You can’t schlepp their identity off to the dump~
Century City by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Dq5Wsx9lCU
Shift happens…
And the cleanup from this group of fires will probably be well short of completion when the next round hits.
Chronic Pain Is a Hidden Epidemic. It’s Time for a Revolution. (archive.ph via NY Times)
So, no, then.
~15-25 minute read.
From How Watch Duty’s wildfire tracking app became a crucial lifeline for LA
Literally provides a more robust, useful service, for free, than state and federal government. In a functional country, this would immediately be followed as a model for a nation-wide approach to rapidly providing this information. In America, this would never happen because of the cesspool of outsourced IT contracting, so the federal government lacks the competency to do this, and it would likely reduce trough feeding by multiple garbage contracting firms.
Sigh.
Great things can be done.
Empire-building and career advancement through games with budgets, staffing and outside support opportunities, designed to benefit the organization. And by organization, substitute Me, Myself and I.
Public benefits, not as much. Competence doesn’t enter into the discussion unless outsiders bring it up.
DOGE
Note: anonymous sources
“An unpaid group of billionaires, tech executives and some disciples of Peter Thiel, a powerful Republican donor, are preparing to take up unofficial positions in the U.S. government in the name of cost-cutting
…
Many of the executives involved are expecting to do six-month voluntary stints inside the federal government before returning to their high-paying jobs…and have been asked by [Musk] to work 80-hour weeks.
…
DOGE itself is now unlikely to incorporate as an organized outside entity or nonprofit. Instead, it is likely to exist as more of a brand for an interlinked group of aspirational leaders…”
Non-paywalled link
The 1906 SF earthquake was a catalyst for the Panic of 1907, and i’d mentioned previously that Grover Cleveland’s 2nd term was marked by the Panic of 1893 hitting a few weeks before he was inaugurated. Trump appears to be following in a similar pattern.
The LA Infernos look to be as destructive if not more than the SF quake, and it has legs. Crazy winds are on tap until Wednesday in this everlasting gobstopper of a conflagration.
About the only avenue left for prominent far left TDS types is to tank the stock market, and they’re doing a pretty good job lately. Lotsa scorched earth, er bits.
What may be not well-known is that The Panic of 1893 was directly afterwards in time to “The Great Russian Flu” of 1889-1890. That illness in that period of time was actually known as “The Great Flu” until 1918. It was profoundly devastating and disruptive. It even made it into the pages of the Sherlock Holmes canon which was being created at the very time. 1889-1892 were the bad years, but it actually lingered for more than a decade. I will remind everyone again that “flu” was actually most likely the initial pandemic introduction to the world of a coronavirus variant we still have circulating today – OC43. There is enormous peripheral evidence that this is very likely. And I will repeat again, when one looks at much of the medical literature in the immediate period thereafter, there was some degree of acknowledgement that that particular outbreak was not like any “flu” they had ever seen. The symptoms and pathology were much different.
We like to think we are “different” and “indispensable”; that our technology makes us bulletproof. Think again.
The more or less casual disregard for H5N1 is par for our current course, steady as she goes cap’ns of industry!
In terms of numismatics the years 1893 to 1895 are the rarest era for American silver coins, there just wasn’t that much demand for money-back when money was specie, which gives you an indication of how dire the depression was.
I am not surprised that there was a lack of demand. IIRC, that was the time of the “Long Depression” of two decades, also call the “Great Depression” until the later Great Depression. Twenty years of unending economic depression. I really hope that we don’t get another one that long.
Investor newsletters ripe with How to survive the coming crash pitches. Scary tales of likely 50% collapse, predicted by our proprietary models, avoidable if you order now for a nominal fee that gives peace of mind for your loved ones. Run-on intentional to convey breathless emotional momentum hook. Past performance is no guarantee of future results, once your payment clears.
If you invest, search on the promoter’s name and add the word review to find out about scams, penalties, sanctions and other under-publicized news.
When I was pushing metal back and forth like some sort of Numisisyphus, scams had to be person to person-as in you had to be there.
Nowadays one needn’t leave their computer in order to be fleeced~
Here’s the most creative scam attempt I remember, circa 1990:
I worked for a large retail coin and bullion firm with a metals trading desk, it was the big leagues.
Trader gets a call from a voice on the phone and the fellow wants to buy bullion and states he’s going to do a series of money transfers and wants our bank # to facilitate the trade-and he’ll pick up the goods via courier, so we give it to him, and a few days later we get 3x $58k bank transfers all from different sources which is way fishy, and here’s how the deal went down:
He took out an ad in the WSJ and had a 1990 Mercedes 500SL for sale for $58k with 1,236 miles, and the reason for the quick sale at about 10% below the cost of a new one at the time-being relocated overseas, was enough of a catalyst for 3 well heeled peeps to send him, er us the money. No Sale!
Lots of trail spoor, how does he pay for the WSJ ad, and the courier gambit would have involved an innocent-not cognizant of what was gonna hopefully go down, and more.
…but then again in 1990 a hacker was merely a bad golfer
It’s the end of California as we know it. This sentence in the opinion article sums it up “He (Trump) has used the disaster to attack the California governor”. It’s amazing how dems, including Michael Moore and Steve Schmidt, can invert a tragedy and blame Trump. The disaster is caused by climate collapse and heightened by a completely Democratic controlled state. I grew up right there and know the Santa Anna winds like the back of my hand. I rode my bik and cars all through those neighborhoods. The disaster is evidence of a complete lack of accountability, over decades, by the Democrats. It has nothing to do with the confused mind of D. Trump. “to attack the California governor” – he needs to be attacked!!! And don’t get me going on the mayor, wow!
It’s not just climate collapse. Nowhere in the Mediterranean, which has a similar climate, has wooden houses. This is an insane material to use heavily in a warm, arid climate. Even here in Thailand, which is more lush and the air is a tad more humid (65% average in LA over the year v. 77% where I am), a native would recoil at the idea.
Speaking from experience, Angelenos tend to be a pretty flaky bunch with an emphasis on pretty, and think of the San Ynez reservoir right smack dab in the middle of Elysian Fields, but it turned out to be in essence… a clever Hollywood prop in not so Poortemkin Village.
“Nowhere in the Mediterranean, which has a similar climate, has wooden houses.”
Similarly, buildings through China are concrete.
Also, China has been spending from $120 to $150 billion yearly on what is called water conservancy but this means the provision of fresh clean water all through the country. There were more than 56 million hectares of wetlands in the country at the beginning of 2024.
Kevin Klombies is laying out the argument for a crash. I’ve been reading his analysis for 30 years, he seldom is so blunt. “We likely burned through all of our credibility a long time ago but, even so, if a bearish outcome is ever going to begin this
appears to be a reasonable time for it. The stock market (SPX) is holding near its highs in anticipation of another round of
corporate earnings- with investors likely hoping that ‘greater fools’ will charge in at even higher prices so that positions can be
unloaded.
The problem with this can be seen on the chart comparison below. In theory, of course, we could start off this week with the
British bond market and currency rocketing back to the upside but as long as they continue to grind lower the pressures on the
equity markets will continue to build.”
There is no reference link, and I have no idea what this (readable) sentence is about with regard to US investment markets:
“The problem with this can be seen on the chart comparison below. In theory, of course, we could start off this week with the British bond market and currency rocketing back to the upside but as long as they continue to grind lower the pressures on the equity markets will continue to build.”
re: Boris Johnson calling Putin “fucking idiot”
Only one question:
Would Boris J. have the balls to tell this Putin directly to his face?
Alex Christoforou
Jan. 12th, 37 min.
https://theduran.com/boris-has-putin-meltdown-russia-wants-nato-rolled-back-alice-weidel-wants-nord-stream-back-on/
Boris, why so harsh given your name? No love for the Motherland?
Oh, yeah. You sold out Europe when you tanked the peace talks.
Pound sand.
I have been saying it for a long time, the only country that can guarantee Ukrainian security, both ways, is Russia:
“The only countries that are ready to fight for Ukraine are Russia and Belarus” – Arestovich and Latynina agree
https://x.com/MyLordBebo/status/1878354443885760984
Fully agree. Western countries can only occupy the Ukraine to re-arm them for another go at Russia which would be hopeless. Only Russia can guarantee a final peace.
I haven’t followed Latynina in a while and don’t intend to resume now. I’m not too surprised that she would say that, though. Her ultraliberal anti-Putinism has never kept her from occasionally agreeing with him out of sheer ideological contempt for putative modern progressive Western politics and those who try to emulate them here. (For those not in the know, Yulia Latynina is a bit like a more highbrow Russian Ann Coulter. Wrote some IMHO decent though obviously slanted novels back in the day too.)
Who is Ann Coulter?
Asks the idiot from outer space.
p.s. very associative note on “sheer ideological contempt” –
in a recent piece which I haven’t read (yet?) Alyona Lobankova describes how The Putin is replacing university leadership in RU and destroying Russian civil society!
“My own classmates turned me in”: How Russian universities are cracking down on anti-war activists
https://theins.ru/en/society/277684
From an anti-Russian German site that I have declined to read since 2022 (after one of their pundits started to demand nukes against RU and CHINA) a summary of above essay (- this is the first time since 2021 that I am quoting them):
“”Although repression at universities became systematic after Alexei Navalny’s protests in 2017 and 2018 and intensified after the invasion of Ukraine, its roots go back to the late 2000s and early 2010s. At that time, according to historian Dmitry Dubrovsky, the state stripped universities of much of their autonomy in exchange for ‘a lot of money’. (…) In the early 2000s, most university leaders were still elected by academic councils. After 2005, this system was gradually abolished.” In 2009, the State Duma abolished elections for the rectorate for the largest universities. “Increasingly, these posts have been filled not by academics but by ‘professional managers’ closely linked to the authorities. Another problem plaguing Russian universities is the widespread practice of using fixed-term contracts for professors. In most cases of politically motivated dismissals, the professors were employed on fixed-term contracts that were either not renewed or terminated early. ‘The majority of professors in Russia work on fixed-term contracts because their employers – directors, deans and rectors – benefit from it,’ notes [the former mathematics professor and now branded ‘foreign agent’] Lobanov. ‘This puts professors in a dependent position where they demand less, and the administration is ready to make dismissals whenever it is asked to do so.'”
But with my newly acquired internet knowledge aka “structural rumourism” I happen to have heard that many of these positions were still 90s neo-liberal type people (in economics chairs e.g.). So changes in personnel if at all will make a difference only in the mid-term future. Not to speak about the content and true nature of those changes…
So in above summary for starters and as an outsider I would doubt and check every single statement.
“Who is Ann Coulter?”
More lowbrow American Yulia Latynina, from what I’ve read…
In seriousness, both are ultra-right-wing female pundits who have carved out peculiar niches of stirring controversy by saying/writing outrageous things to scandalise their audiences and push the boundaries of political discourse. Every now and then they let slip something sensible, obvious and unacknowledgeable, the rest of the time they’re ludicrous caricatures of the right.
As for universities, of course one should be skeptical, but gratutious attacks on the different-minded are a real and objectionable phenomenon (how ever much I may dislike them myself, that doesn’t mean they should be hounded for their foolish views, let alone arrested). That isn’t what will kill our universities, though. They’re dying, slowly but surely, of the same thing that was killing them long before the war, i.e. being ran into the ground for profit. Technological/hard science departments are relatively safe, but I’m not sure if they can escape institutional rot forever. Humanities seem to be largely beyond hope of recovery, at least any time soon.
thanks for the assessment
Anesh D’Coulter . . . . .
( that little name re-working would have meant something back when Dinesh D’Souza was marginally famous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinesh_D%27Souza )
I started musing that Greenland is Norway to Ukraine’s Finland (the reference is to the Napoleonic Wars–the Swedes lost Finland to the Russians and they installed Napoelon’s underling, Marshal Bernardotte as the regent and crown prince to their heirless king hoping to gain favor of the French dictator should he go to war against Russia. Bernardotte, knowing more about Napoleonic empire than others, wisely opted against joining Napoleon and, in fact, turned against Napoleon (and more important, Denmark, one of Napoleon’s allies who at the time controlled Norway. The result: Sweden wound up among the victors and conquered Norway to make up for Finland.)
It does occur to me that, for past 200 plus years, Denmark repeatedly made bad diplomatic choices that cost it pieces of territory every few decades–Norway, Schlewig-Holstein, Danish Virgin Islands, Iceland, and, I guess, Greenland and Faroe Islands.
So with Blue Origin hours away from a launch, here’s Scott Manley bringing us up to date on the American space companies:
Blue Origin New Glenn Finally Ready To Beat SpaceX’s Old Rockets…. Is It Too Late
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKt0hn4R_uU
And here’s the New Glenn (Blue Origin) launch:
🚀 Blue Origin’s New Glenn Rocket Attempts to Launch and Land for the First Time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YBAsi5pY2o
re: German peace movement
Translated excerpts of a panel discussion that took place on Saturday as part of the annual Rosa-Luxemburg Conference in Berlin, organised by Germany’s last remaining reliable daily, Junge Welt.
I couldn´t archive so I post the entire piece here:
p.s. German version
https://archive.is/Lp1oB
“A threat to us all”
“Ready for war? Never again! How do we stop the rearmament in Germany?” Excerpts from the panel discussion at the 30th International Rosa Luxemburg Conference
On Saturday, Junge Welt editor-in-chief Nick Brauns discussed the topic “Ready for war? Never again! How do we stop rearmament in Germany?” with Ulrike Eifler (spokesperson for the BAG company and trade union, board member of the Left Party), Mark Ellmann (member of the DKP peace commission and the GEW), Petra Erler (member of the SPD, former state secretary in the de Maizière government) and Willem (disarming Rheinmetall) on the topic of “Ready for war? Never again! How do we stop rearmament in Germany?” We are documenting excerpts from the panel discussion here. (jW)
Nick Brauns: The topic of today’s panel discussion is “Ready for war. Never again. How do we stop rearmament in Germany?” It is now almost three years since a social democratic chancellor declared a turning point without much public debate. Last year, Boris Pistorius made clear what this turning point meant when he said, “we must be ready for war by 2029.” He meant a direct war against Russia. The NATO proxy war against Russia has been going on for a long time. And right now we are experiencing an arms race. Rearmament is direct preparation for war and it is happening at the expense of the working population in particular. The working classes have nothing to gain in this turning point and everything to lose. What does the turning point with the goal of being ready for war mean for the world of work?
Ulrike Eifler: The turning point is above all a frontal attack on the interests of dependent employees, a frontal attack on the world of work. What did Rosa Luxemburg say? “In wars, dividends rise and the proletariat falls.” There is really nothing to add to that. It is not the sons and daughters of the oligarchs who are fighting in the trenches, but the sons and daughters of our colleagues. It is the working population that is sent to war and is sacrificed there. The turning point is being paid for by dependent employees. They are being told to tighten their belts. 3.5 percent of GDP for militarization, but no basic child benefit. In this atmosphere, union struggles are becoming more difficult. At the same time, we are experiencing that the turning point is a huge redistribution program. A single tank costs 27.5 million euros. A single shot from the Bundeswehr’s new anti-tank system costs 100,000 euros. The federal government has a very clear idea of where the money for such purchases should come from, as it is stated in the national security strategy. There is talk of redistribution in the budget, and that means cuts in other budget items. The pension level is to be frozen, the attack on continued payment of wages in the event of illness was recently tested, and basic child benefit is off the table. Savings will be made until the worst happens in order to finance the change of times. Especially if Friedrich Merz becomes chancellor. Moreover, the change of times will accelerate climate change. One hour of flight of the “Eurofighter” or the F-35 emits more CO2 than each of us produces in a year. And a change of times also means an attack on democracy and on employee participation in companies. Basic rights are being restricted. At the beginning of September, the federal government presented a law that would make it easier to apply the emergency laws. Accordingly, all women between the ages of 18 and 50 can be forced to join the civilian medical service. This emergency legislation is a fundamental threat to our colleagues in the companies, to all of us.
Brauns: The DKP speaks of a militaristic, reactionary restructuring of the state. What is the connection between the demand for military capability? What does the change of times have to do with the dismantling of basic rights?
Mark Ellmann: German imperialism began restricting basic rights five years ago. This was against the backdrop of Germany becoming a leading power again. We want to make the driving forces behind this restructuring clear. And there are other examples of this restructuring, such as the new police laws in the federal states. During the pandemic, basic rights were restricted almost overnight. In Bavaria, it took nine months before any opposition expressed criticism in the state parliament. But the turning point represents a new quality, and that is because the rulers are arming themselves for their military conflict with Russia and China. The Bundeswehr is now visible everywhere. The THW has been cut to pieces, the Bundeswehr is stepping in to provide disaster relief. Large-scale advertising by the Bundeswehr in urban areas, on house walls, on trams and so on. In Bavaria, schools are obliged to let the Bundeswehr advertise to students. In addition to the legal changes mentioned, the public discourse is of course also changing. There is talk of lumpen pacifists when the arms deliveries to Ukraine are criticized. I experience that friends and colleagues hardly dare to articulate their critical point of view anymore.
Brauns: The rearmament of the Bundeswehr is justified by the claim that Russia represents a threat to NATO countries and especially to Germany. What do you say to those who say we need to rearm to stop an aggressive Russia?
Petra Erler: In the book that I wrote together with Günter Verheugen, we oppose the narrative that Russia is genetically aggressive and imperial. Instead, the West missed the great opportunity of 1989 to 1991 to put the world in order in the spirit of the United Nations, an order in which humanity tackles its major collective problems together. This contradicted the declared will of the USA, which, as the only remaining superpower, felt destined to dominate the world and which has taken an extremely militaristic course that the Federal Republic of Germany is now also taking with this turning point. We live in a world that has gone mad, in which the only thing separating us from ruin is the promise that we will never wage nuclear war. Yet there are people who say that perhaps a limited nuclear strike can be risked after all. There is also climate change, the major environmental problems, and nothing has been done for decades. There are the major problems of poverty and migration caused by armed conflicts. There are the multi-billionaires who, because of their wealth, have a significant influence on politics; not in the interests of workers, pensioners, young mothers and small children, but in their own interests of accumulating wealth. The question we are discussing today is therefore not just a German problem. We are part of one humanity and we must understand that. As different as we are, we will only succeed together, or we will perish together.
Brauns: Let’s talk about the arms industry. What role does it play, what makes Rheinmetall so special among arms manufacturers?
Willem: Rheinmetall is the largest German arms company. Rheinmetall was a major arms producer in the Second World War and has washed its name in the years since. In the public eye, the company has now shaken off its sleazy image. Rheinmetall workers give interviews and say they are happy that their work is finally being recognized. Nevertheless, Rheinmetall is only representative of all arms companies, of the increasing militarization, of the industrial-military complex as a whole. And that is what our actions are aimed at. The arms companies play an enormous role. Rheinmetall builds weapons in Ukraine, Lithuania and in 28 countries around the world. Rheinmetall therefore has an influence on the war in Ukraine. In Gaza, too, you keep coming across remnants of weapons that come from Rheinmetall. In Turkey, in Syria, in Kurdistan, Rheinmetall has a hand in everything, but of course so do the other German arms companies. We at the “Disarm Rheinmetall” initiative are setting up action camps in front of the gates of the weapons factories and want to effectively block the arms industry. It may only be for a few days, but we are sending a message: Weapons that are used to murder people all over the world are produced in Germany.
Brauns: What is the situation regarding antimilitarism in the Left Party? How does it behave on the issue of peace? The Sahra Wagenknecht alliance seems to be much more consistent on many issues than the Left Party.
Eifler: The Left is increasingly perceived by the peace movement as less of a peace party. This has to do with certain decisions that were made in the recent past. And it also has something to do with the focus of the current election campaign. If all parties are talking about cannons instead of butter, and the SPD is perhaps still talking about cannons and butter, it is the Left’s job to talk about the cannons and not just the butter. I think it is a major strategic mistake that the Left decided not to address this with the necessary urgency before the federal election campaign that is now starting. A hesitant Left weakens the peace movement. The peace movement has had no organizational backbone since the NATO war against Yugoslavia in 1999, which the red-green federal government supported. The Left’s job – after all, this was also the consensus when the party was founded in 2004 – should in any case be to position itself clearly against war. It should be a matter of course for a left-wing party to see itself very clearly as part of the peace movement. There are reasons for the party’s hesitant behavior. Left-wing parties have always run into crisis when there have been major wars. Just think of 1914, the Vietnam War, the Kosovo War. There have always been mistakes. We are all exposed to ideological filth every day. But I would like to say one more thing. The Left Party does not support this turning point, nor does it support a two, three or five percent target for rearmament, nor the 100 billion Euro special fund. It is critical of this. And there are many comrades who want The Left, their party, to proudly and confidently join the peace movement.
Brauns: Petra Erler, you are a member of the SPD and in recent years, together with Günter Verheugen, you have signed several appeals and statements calling for an end to the war in Ukraine through diplomatic measures. So there are still voices of reason within the SPD. At the same time, your party has the Chancellor who has proclaimed a turning point and the Minister of Defense who wants to make us capable of war. Accordingly, your comrade Ralf Stegner received a lot of derision at the peace rally on October 3 in Berlin for his statement that the SPD has always been a party of peace. Some people recalled 1914, others 1999, the Kosovo War, the first war of aggression in Europe after the Second World War. Do you still have hope that the SPD can actually play a role in peace policy? Or has it not long since become part of the problem itself?
Erler: Based on the polls in the Federal Republic of Germany, I have reasonable hope. There must be a discussion in all parties about how we can get out of the current situation of uncertainty. It is true that since February 24, 2022, we have been confronted with a war of aggression against parts of Ukraine that violates international law. I say parts of Ukraine because two breakaway Donbass republics are fighting on the Russian side. In that sense, it is not just a proxy war, it is also a fratricidal war and the continuation of this war since 2014. If we now have war again in Europe after 1999 and the bombing of Serbia, then it is everyone’s goddamn duty to end this war as quickly as possible. Despite the change of times, the Chancellor was initially in favor of a negotiated solution. He no longer wants to know that today. We were close to it in Istanbul, until April 15. Who didn’t want peace? It wasn’t Putin, it was the West. Above all, it was the Americans and the British who said: it is too early. Since then, everything that has happened in this war is no longer just Putin’s fault. It is also our fault. Who knows how many Ukrainians have fallen in the meantime? Is it 30,000 or 40,000, as Zelensky is talking about? Is it perhaps a million wounded or killed? How can we look on with a clear conscience? We still believe that every dead Russian is a win, because it has turned out that this war is not really about Ukraine. It is actually against Russia. The strategic weakening of the country, its potential destruction, is the aim of the war. Anyone who supports this – and at the moment it is the majority of the Bundestag, but not the majority of the population – must know that it is bringing us to the brink of nuclear war. And then we have 20 minutes left and will hopefully be near those we want to hug again. Because after that, everything is over. That is irresponsible politics. My party is the party of Willy Brandt, the party of détente, and that is exactly what I am calling for again, as are many others.
Brauns: Now you can also hear voices from the AfD that speak out very clearly against arms deliveries to Ukraine and against NATO’s war policy. The AfD is trying to portray itself as a peace party and, as the election results in the eastern states show, it is obviously having some success in doing so. How credible is the AfD as a peace party? You can even hear voices saying that even if we completely reject the party’s program, we must work with them on the issue of peace.
Ellmann: Because AfD politicians express positions that are similar to what we as a peace movement are demanding, that does not mean that we as a peace movement share the AfD’s position or are in any way open to the right, as the media would have us believe. But unlike all other parliamentary parties, the AfD – in addition to all its racist and nationalist agitation – addresses connections that exist. It was mentioned earlier that prices have risen due to the government’s energy policy. The AfD addresses this, and it does not make it wrong that it is the one doing it. The fact that people are falling for the AfD is dramatic. We must therefore expose the AfD for what it really is: a nationalist and nationalist formation with a strong fascist wing that advocates German rearmament at every turn. This is not compatible with the peace movement. Claiming that the AfD is a peace party is crude propaganda to discredit the peace movement. In the end, the AfD is just an alternative for the ruling monopoly capital in this country and its ambitions to become a great power. Our criticism should be directed at the class positions of the AfD. But one more thing: I think it is important that we do not join in the howls of the rulers that the AfD is betraying German interests, as was said in the last EU election. That is not our class position from which we criticize the AfD. We criticize it for being flesh of the flesh of the CDU. The AfD is not a peace party, it is the key figure for the reactionary government policy in this country.
Brauns: The fear of war, but also the worries about the social consequences of the arms buildup and the economic war against Russia, are setting very different groups in motion. In the East in particular, the anti-war protests often extend into far-right groups. Conversely, we have the absurd situation that liberals and Greens who have turned bellicist and even some former radical leftists or parts of the Antifa want to defame the peace movement as a whole as right-wing or openly right-wing. How should left-wing opponents of war and anti-militarists act in such a mixed situation?
Willem: This mixed situation stems from the fact that there is a certain lack of orientation in both the left and the peace movement. The Left Party is not doing what it once stood for. It is not providing any orientation in the peace movement. We have right-wingers who – pushed by the media discourse – present themselves as anti-establishment and anti-war forces. At the same time, the peace movement has never been a homogeneous movement. The peace movement that I know ranges from K to K, from the church to communism. It is important for us that we bring a class position into it. The working class has no interest in war. Then there is Karl Liebknecht’s old slogan: the main enemy is in our own country. And that is where the differences become clear. Because it is not just the US corporations that are waging this war. No, it is German corporations, corporations that we can take action against here locally. That is the difference to the AfD and other right-wingers: the enemy is here with us. Basically, I would say that it is our job to bring an anti-capitalist orientation into the peace movement and to make it clear that war is inherent in capitalism. A truly long-term peace can only exist in a society beyond wage slavery and the dictatorship of capital. The radical left has largely changed its mind. There are people who are calling for arms deliveries to Ukraine or are supporting Israel in the war in Gaza. We at “Disarm Rheinmetall” are against this. We have many different actors, but there are clear, firm principles: international solidarity, anti-capitalism, standing up against arms deliveries and for long-term peace. We agree on the crucial issues, in solidarity with Kurdistan and Palestine, and on the question of the main enemy.
Brauns: We are now threatened with the stationing of US medium-range weapons from 2026. What dangers does this pose? And what would have to happen to prevent this?
Erler: The basic decisions on stationing were made in the USA in 2017. Long before the Ukraine war, long before the Americans unilaterally terminated the INF Treaty on intermediate-range missiles. The Russians followed suit then. All attempts at mediation failed at the time. The foreign ministers of the European Union wanted to keep this treaty. But NATO wanted it that way because there is a primus inter pares in NATO, and that is the USA. What we are doing is following American decisions. Nothing more, nothing less. We are like servants. I would have expected that a public discussion would take place, at least in the Bundestag, on such a far-reaching issue as the stationing of offensive weapons on our territory – because it is not about defense, it is about attack. In the US media you can read the reasons why these weapons are to be stationed. It is not about Russian weapons in Kaliningrad. The issue is that the US Army can no longer act as it would like to everywhere in the world. This is because China and Russia have built up territorial defence systems. The American Army wants to break through these. Then you can take Kaliningrad and quickly get to St Petersburg. And it won’t stop with these weapons, it will escalate further. Let’s remember what happened in the case of Ukraine. At first it was helmets, then bullets, then tanks. The Chancellor is only still standing up for Taurus because we fortunately had talkative generals who said that this was tantamount to direct German participation in the war. Damn it, do we really no longer know what we did in the Soviet Union in the Second World War?
Brauns: What initiatives are currently being taken by the unions to put pressure on the issue of armaments?
Eifler: The debate in the unions is not easy, of course. This is also due to the fact that we have a social democratic chancellor and the unions are integrated into the government’s policy. But there are a number of colleagues who are debating that the unions must be part of the peace movement and who also oppose the stationing of medium-range missiles. That was a mistake even before Trump was elected. But with Trump, who is threatening Greenland, who is threatening Denmark, who wants to increase NATO’s two percent target to five percent, a madman is at the head of the USA. Many of my colleagues expect the federal government to draw its conclusions from this and reverse the stationing of medium-range missiles. The question of peace certainly plays a role in the unions. We organized the union peace conference two years ago in Hanau. We repeated it last year in Stuttgart, both times in cooperation with the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. There will be another trade union conference for peace this year, in July in Salzgitter. The trade unions are irreplaceable for the peace movement. Only through the trade unions can the peace movement become broader.
Ellmann: I also believe that we ultimately have to take this debate back into the workplace. I come from Munich, where the GEW and Verdi, together with the Peace Alliance, called for a protest on October 12: “Social welfare up, armaments down.” That is an important signal. We have to link the social question with this war policy, also with a view to the wage negotiations in the public sector, for example. What are we hoping to achieve if we continue to keep quiet?