California Burning
From smoke to roaring flames: Inside the first hours of the deadly Pacific Palisades fire NBC
How one street in LA went up in flames BBC. Altadena (i.e., not the Palisades).
* * * Climate change plays key contributing role in LA fires Axios. Commentary:
Yeah, dead giveaway that things are broken
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 13, 2025
The pistachio billionaires who guzzle more water than all of fire-ravaged Los Angeles Daily Mail. With shoutout to Yasha Levine!
How Well-Intentioned Policies Fueled L.A.’s Fires The Atlantic. Commentary:
When the fire department shows up thats Socialism. 🙄
When the Insurance Company doesn't pay, or cancels your policy, that's Capitalism.
— Brad (@BraddrofliT) January 13, 2025
* * * California fires could be costliest disaster in US history, says governor FT. On fire-rated buildings, a thread:
Beginners Guide to Fire Rated Building Design:
I'm a professional engineer that has designed and built buildings all over the country, and around the world. The first critical fire design was in California🧵 pic.twitter.com/1IYwzktQvI
— Matthew Chang (@matthewachang) January 11, 2025
The California wildfires could be leaving deeper inequality in their wake AP
* * * Amid the fires, LA is warning some residents the tap water isn’t safe. Here’s why NPR
How you can help the incarcerated firefighters battling L.A. wildfires LA Times
FBI searching for operator of privately owned drone that punched hole in Canadian firefighting plane FOX
Climate
Biodiversity, Latitude and Conservation: An Essay on Ecological Patterns 3 Quarks Daily
Syndemics
Mpox Clade I in the U.S. Should Be a Wake-Up Call MedPage Today
Bird Flu Is a National Embarrassment The Atlantic
* * * ‘I was an infectious disease nurse, I’ve never seen a crisis like the quad-emic’ iNews UK. The deck: “[I]t isn’t possible for people to ‘hand wash their way out of the quad-demic.”
ANALYSIS: Why are B.C. kids sick all the time? Health experts explain Surrey Now-Leader. Report from Bonnie Henry territory.
* * * Neurological post-COVID syndrome is associated with substantial impairment of verbal short-term and working memory Nature. N = 90. From the Abstract: After “a detailed neuropsychological test battery,”Deep neuropsychological assessment showed that neurologic [Post-COVID Syndrome (PCS)] patients performed worse in a general screening of cognitive deficits compared to [healthy controls (HC)]. Neurologic PCS patients showed impaired mental flexibility as an executive subfunction, verbal short-term memory, working memory and general reactivity (prolonged reaction time).”
Syraqistan
Hamas to release 33 hostages in breakthrough deal with Israel, report claims Daily Mail
Israel Targets Houthi Ports of Hodeidah and Ras Isa With More Airstrikes Maritime Executive
Oil Tankers Back Up Near Yemeni Port After Israel Hits Tugs gCaptain
Could Trump’s Sharing of a Scathing Video Offer a Glimpse Into His Relationship With Netanyahu? Haaretz
The rules-based international order:
Across the now-decimated Gaza Strip, America’s mark is everywhere. In footage shot by CBS News in May, the ground is littered with US-made ammunition casings – some used to prop up tents, others turned into playthings by children. pic.twitter.com/zvfeA8wEi7
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) January 13, 2025
China?
China releases world’s most powerful electronic warfare weapon design software – for free South China Morning Post
China’s exports in December up 10.7%, beating estimates as higher US tariffs loom AP
Why Trump’s tariffs might be just what China’s ailing economy needs South China Morning Post
Cambodia’s China-backed canal on Mekong may threaten ‘fragile ecosystems’ South China Morning Post
India
Maha Kumbh set to begin in Prayagraj with Shahi Snan The Hindu
How India’s Assembly Line Education System Shapes the Perfect H1B Candidate The Wire
Africa
A startup city in Kenya tries to tackle Africa’s problem of urbanizing while poor AP
European Disunion
Sahra Wagenknecht, Germany’s combative ‘left-wing conservative’ Agence France Presse
Belgians brace themselves for a nationwide strike on Monday EuroNews
Brussels hushed up Ursula von der Leyen’s week in hospital with pneumonia Politico
Dear Old Blighty
Elon Musk’s Latest Terrifying Foray Into British Politics New Yorker
The truth about Dominic Cummings and Elon Musk’s ‘sabotage plot’ The Spectator
Who is Ivor Caplin? Former Labour MP who criticised Elon Musk, now embroiled in child sex scandal Times of India. Silver lining:
Ivor Caplin, the former chair of the Israel lobby group the JLM, which is closely linked to the Israeli embassy, has been caught by paedophile hunters attempting to meet a child.
He was chair of the organisation during the campaign to oust Corbyn.pic.twitter.com/d1CYMIN6Iv
— Lowkey (@Lowkey0nline) January 11, 2025
New Not-So-Cold War
Russian elites are delighted with Donald Trump’s Mar a Lago press conference Gilbert Doctorow, Armageddon Newsletter
Zelenskyy ready to exchange N Korean soldiers for Ukrainians held in Russia Al Jazeera
Massive rally in Bucharest protests court’s decision to annul presidential elections Anadolu Agency
Zelenskyy suggests Transnistrian authorities may be siding with Russia amid energy crisis Ukrainska Pravda
Slovak parliament delegation arrives in Moscow for official visit Anadolu Agency
South of the Border
President Xi’s special envoy attends inauguration of Venezuela’s president CGTN
Venezuela’s president praises meeting with Turkish minister Anadolu Agency
US maintains Venezuelan oil licenses despite ‘illegitimate’ Maduro inauguration S&P Global
* * *
Trump Transition
Trump ally Steve Bannon blasts Elon Musk as ‘truly evil’ in MAGA split Al Jazeera
* * * One poll finds majority of Greenland respondents support joining US The Hill
‘You don’t just go and buy a country’: Greenland plunged into geopolitical storm FT
Antitrust
Monopoly Round-Up: LA Fires Change America, and Mark Zuckerberg Begins Bargaining Matt Stoller, BIG
Digital Watch
Mark Zuckerberg Defends Decision To Fly Confederate Flag At Facebook Headquarters The Onion
Realignment and Legitimacy
Class Warfare
The truth behind your $12 dress: Inside the Chinese factories fuelling Shein’s success BBC
Striking a Balance — Advancing Physician Collective-Bargaining Rights and Patient Protections NEJM
Chartbook 343 : Polycrisis & the critique of capitalocentrism. Adam Tooze, Chartbook
From Gaza to California: the flames that connect us all Mondoweiss
Antidote du jour (Nikhil More):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
153 comments
Comments are closed.
Sell and move out, easier said than done for the 99%.
Expect haircuts on house prices in remote and brushy areas of Los Angeles, especially those with one way in and out. There is a risk discount cliff.
Not to mention “move to where”? Not everyone in those areas can work from wherever they want while forcing their employees back to the office five days a week.
Real estate was already headed down after the long bubble (a 2,300 sq ft house in the Palisades worth $3.2 million, fetched $75k 50 years ago) and you gotta live somewhere in the meantime.
LA’s salad days have come and gone, it has just a little MIC action and the entertainment industry has woes a plenty, and there’s homeless all over the place, now including some of the wealthier Angelenos in their ranks.
Probably the least dangerous place to live now in LA would be at the beach, albeit not a beach near any mountains, such as Hermosa Beach or Redondo Beach. These tend to be pretty spendy.
I’d expect an exodus elsewhere out of state as rebuilding is really time consuming, not to mention the usual jerking around by the insurance companies and the woefully underfunded California FAIR plan. (anything but fair, you pay up the wazoo for coverage)
Only a 7.1% CAGR on that housing price increase. I thought it would be higher. Those are health care cost growth rates.
Property values in LA were pretty similar at one time, my parents bought a new house in the San Gabriel Valley for $48k in 1968 that my mom sold 10 years ago for $700k.
The Westside story outdistanced the home I grew up in by a factor of 3 to 1 in valuation. (my old home Zillows for a million now)
Similar to my parents experience in the Bay Area. Bought a house for $23k in 1962 in the East Bay, sold it a couple years ago for I don’t know exactly how much ($750k I think).
It’s only in hindsight that I realize that in 1976 when I got my first union job that if I had I stayed in that job and saved up a down payment, that I could have bought a similar house to my parents. Now, I watched a younger couple, both with good “middle class” jobs, really struggle to buy what amounts to my parents old house, and they were only able to do it with very generous help from their parents. And this was right before the Fed jacked up rates, they probably would have needed much more help after to get the mortgage payment down.
It’s interesting that curlydan has 7.1% as CAGR for housing prices. It would be interesting to run the numbers and see what an average income would be if it had the same rate of increase. I just get the feeling that right now either housing is way overpriced or incomes are way too low. I suspect that a great many of the middle class people in LA that just got burned out will never be able to buy a house ever again unless something is done to make the American Dream affordable again.
Hollywood employs an awful lot of people during film production and for post. See film credits listing thousands, building sets etc, operations, handling all sorts of minutae. The contractors with those skill sets are largely where the industry is based… LA for West Coust film making. They risk livelihood if they move too far.
Most all of the CGFX are now done overseas, and that’s over 60% of what you see in many new films. Check out Toby Miller’s Global Hollywood 2 for the deets.
Even if they could find a greater fill to sell to, selling and buying elsewhere can mean a massive uptick in property taxes due to Prop 13.
True that, the example above of a modest home in Pacific Palisades that I found online had a property tax based on 1975, the last time the domicile sold.
Prop 13 has had a lot of unforeseen consequences on CA real estate. Folks will stay in oversized or poorly located homes to keep their grandfathered property tax rates.
For quite some time 1980-2010ish you also had local governments chasing sales tax revenue and over zoning for retail commercial vs residential and industrial uses.
Cash buyers only. I doubt we will ever get accurate numbers on the un and under insured, as revealing those would look bad upon the state of things and those who have brought us here. I imagine a few readers here have skin in the game, and more, like me, with family or close friends in the crosshairs. Perhaps we should assemble our own collection of anecdotes as things move forward.
Good time to sell and move out of the Bay Area, you’re probably not far behind. I hear there’s an influx of buyers.
Nowhere West of the Rockies is safe from a fire season, unless you want to move into an actual desert. Plus the entire coastline north of SF is at risk for an overdue Cascadia Fault full rip.
On the East Coast, we’re having highly destructive hurricanes and flooding hundreds of miles in-land. Just wait until the Greenland icecap melting weirds up the Atlantic weather systems and introduces isostatic rebound earthquakes/tsunamis.
The snowy, soggy dampness of upstate NY holds new attractions! Buffalo is the hottest real estate market, 2 years running:
Cali ain’t on the list…
Heh, “Indianoplace” has become a hot market! Someone should inform Hillary the Hut in case she plans to run again. Insulting Indiana’s capital city didn’t help her in 2016.
I spent a week in upstate NY in the Ithaca area recently. It’s a really nice area with open space outside the cities and towns. The Finger Lakes are quite lovely. The area has tourism and employment from the colleges. Affordable compared to the west coast. Cold in the winter though. They don’t get the snow they use to in the years past. I did notice and was confirmed by my sibling, that there are a lot of struggling citizens who are just hanging on. One has to make choices. Currently I live in a small Central CA community. There is a micro climate that has the best overall weather I have lived in. One needs to pay out for rent and property, but it’s still worth it to many. I am treading water till I decide to leave the country or join the downward trajectory of dirt poor seniors. I guess I need to build community to share in the collective fate on late stage dystopian capitalism.
The Finger Lakes are quite lovely… and get a long cold winter.
Cali folks will get a nice surprise with the property taxes in NY State.
The weather….
NY property taxes can be brutal, $10-15 on a 200k house will be sticker shock for many.
We’d sold our abode in LA 20 years ago and went to celebrate in Buffalo during my only visit to Nickel City ( as if I could resist a numismatic tie-in) and I picked up a real estate booklet and realized I could purchase 75 beater Buffalo homes for 1 LA tract home, hmmmmmm I pondered, yeah thats the ticket go east middle aged man and become a slumlord, when suddenly I was hit with most disparaging look ever from my better half who had escaped what she felt was an add-on Province in the Gulag Hockeypelago, No Sale!
“Nowhere west of the Rockies…”, You, I and other people paying attention know that. I imagine that there are still plenty of greater fools out there, at least for the time being. Eventually that will change.
In the East and North Bay the most likely fault to let go is the Hayward/Rogers Creek Fault.
If that happens during a high wind event in October you can say goodbye to everything from Richmond to Hayward along with Santa Rosa and some points in between.
The house in Piedmont my Parents purchased in 1957 for $16,000 is now valued at $1.793MM according to Zillow…
Western WA state is pretty wet, maybe that’s why so many people are moving here? Personally I’m not a fan of the drip drip drip in winter but my wife likes it.
Not to mention that selling means someone else has to buy and presumably move in. It’s nice to find some sucker to which you can offload your problems, but from society POV it’s zero sum game. If these places are becoming uninhabitable, they need to be abandoned for good and somebody needs to take lose on them (which obviously will not be the rich).
They’d have to pay cash up front. No mortgage without homeowners insurance. Mortgage lenders demand insurance.
Some info about CA homeowners current situation from Due Dissidence guys. utube, ~19+ minutes.
LA Resident With CANCELED FIRE INSURANCE Defends Her Parents’ Home
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj0_ClHSoyE
To keep the party rolling, there’s forced mortgage insurance, that is limited to protecting the bank.
Only uninhabitable if we keep doing business as usual, employing incompetents, building houses out of flammable materials, cheek to jowl, building natural gas infrastructure not to automatically shut off in case of fires, not filling reservoirs, and evacuating everyone who could actually help fight the fire, etc.
When there’s a will, there’s a way.
i Allegedly Dan’s take on the LA fires.
We are all going to be paying for this in terms of higher homeowners’ and renters’ insurance policy costs. The insurance companies will be raising everyone’s rates, everyone in the US, to pay for this.
utube, ~14 minutes+
LA is On Fire – No Water, No Mayor – LA’s Fire Crisis Exposed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knYqkeO0aDg
adding: part of the reason insurance companies pulled out is because the CA lege and Newsom capped the amount insurance companies could raise rates there, at the same time
CA was experiencing devastating fires for years. Land management is part of the problem.
Good explainer on insurance from News Nation. utube, ~8+ minutes.
Insurance companies dropped fire coverage across US | NewsNation Prime
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HndsSDLdTVg
It is easier to rebuild, especially since all the roads and the piping and cabling is in place. This time though, use more bricks and concrete, and metal or ceramic roof tiles, and maybe some sprinlers for outside the walls and roofs of houses.
China can help…
“One poll finds majority of Greenland respondents support joining US”
Sure they do because they just love the idea of adopting the American healthcare system. Sorry but this poll sounds as dodgy as. It was done when Trump jr was in Greenland and they were bribing mostly poor people to come inside this restaurant and get a hot meal. All they had to do was to wear a MAGA cap and tell the cameras how they would love to become part of the US. One old boy actually said that he supported becoming part of the US as wanted to bring in the American healthcare and education system into Greenland which made me suspect that they were being fed their lines. This is the mentality of the Trump family. Took a quick look at who that polling firm was and found this-
https://patriotpolling.com/about-us
Truth is, outside of the US the word ‘patriot’ always has a weird ring to it so Patriotpolling sounds suspect from the start. Can’t prove it of course but I suspect that this is an astroturf organization for Trump and co.
The Greenlanders have wanted independence from Denmark for years. Why would they suddenly be all in to become a colony of the US where ordinary people are treated far less well than in N America.
Now, now, now. I’m sure that if Greenland became an American colony, that the people there would be treated just as well as Puerto Ricans are right now. Say, maybe they can take a leaf out of the history books and set them up on some cute reservations in the interior. Well, maybe not those not needed to become Uber drivers and waitresses that is.
What I don’t know and what would be interesting is what was floated in Greenland. While PR is surely an example of how American’s typically treat their territories, Alaska was bought from the Russians and because of all the Alaskan oil royalties residents of Alaskan now get mailed checks every year. With Greenland resources to be exploited it would be possible to bribe them with a similar scheme.
I got an idea. The population of Greenland is about 57,000 people, right? So if there is an Anschluss, what if the Greenlanders get one vote in the US Electoral College for every 1,000 people. Then they could not be ignored but must be listened to. Sounds like a plan to me.
Not just Puerto Rico, lol. A cursory look at Uncle Sam’s treatment of indigenous people both backyard and around town should give one pause. But then again, we’re in a timeline where new rules apply.
It’ll be whiskey with my popcorn.
Maybe thanks to Trump’s generous insight, Greenlamders will see the light and open grandiose casinos to fleece the Inuit.
Mr Lee’s Greater Hong Kong in real time.
Franchulations!
You’ve been selected…
Shouldn’t it be the Inuits opening casinos, if the American model is extended to Greenland?
Mr Thiel wants virgin lands to institute latifundia in. Nobody will be wanted to tell him how to treat his slaves. No doubt his medical tech people have told him he will live to an age great enough to see Greenland melt.
Russia might take Spitzbergen to counter, Norway’s claims are quite specious.
Puerto Rico had used subsidies to drug companies to spur growth for decades. Then President Clinton decided to remove the subsidies a few years after the presidency would be finished. Subsidies were removed and drug companies immediately began leaving Puerto Rico. The island government had never tried to lock in the drug companies and the leaving has simply stopped island development.
Importantly, Ireland was immensely helped by subsidizing advanced technology companies that would invest in Ireland but immediately Ireland began to lock in the companies. Ireland went from poor among EU countries to rich and my sense is Ireland will continue to be relatively rich.
You really think that the profit $ from the Analog Devices location in Limerick benefits Eire? Tech salaries are the only local spending goodie, sorry.
Let them vote for independence, then offer all 56,000 Greenlanders $1 million each if they join the US. That costs the US only $56 billion, which is only 10 days worth of government budget deficits!
Thank you, both.
I’m looking forward to Denmark’s EU and NATO partners backing the US or staying out. David Lammy gave the game away on LBC last week.
What’s Denmark going to do? Appeal to the international community, the UN, their king’s British, Spanish, Norwegian and Swedish cousins, the BRICS etc.
I’ve got the popcorn ready with the rum as Denmark is sold out like Palestine.
lol The Europeans would do well to go back to the inbred cousins model of international diplomacy. Much cheaper, more reliable, and less dirty than the current model.
“Great Valley High School senior working dream job as congressional campaign manager for Republican Neil Young
Only a senior in high school, Lucca Ruggieri is already working his dream job and now has a new title: campaign manager. Ruggieri, a Chester County native who formed a polling company called Patriot Polling, was recently hired as a campaign manager for Republican Neil Young’s campaign for Pennsylvania’s 6th Congressional District.”
I’m all for encouraging our young leaders of the future but rigorously impartial scientific polling methodology is not my expectation from the kind of partisan weirdo who has already decided at the age of 17 that his “passion” is politics.
I agree with your thoughts.
Though if one takes a look at the growth in the wealth of our congresspeople once in office why would you not want to enter politics?
Congressperson, become a lobbyist, etc., the revolving door to riches…
Montana Junior Senator Tim Sheehy, for example.
Skipped local office, state office, congress. Straight to the Senate. How is that even possible?
Being a useful idiot is actually quite useful to the oligarchs who buy politicians.
They must have something really dirty on him so they can trust him for a big job.
It’s really sight to behold how EU is spending hundreds of billions on futile attempt to take over Crimea while in the process of losing territory the size of half of EU, which it already owns, and which would take fraction of the money to keep on.
An aside: Maybe it’s a mistake for Netherlands and Germany and UK trying to put their family farmers out of business all the while dreaming of getting hold of all that rich Ukr farmland for big corporate Ag Biz. All that rich Ukr farmland looks increasingly out of reach.
Inside the US, “patriot” has a weird sound too. It is a dog whistle. It is a shorthand… for being braindead.
For being “all about america”…. yet showing that you probably have only the slightest idea of what that was, and who that IS. It is a thing people who really don’t know history, and because of this ignorance can’t understand current events. Throw in toxic masculinity, peer pressure, brainwashing, over compensation for ….. and throw in some christian fundamentalism….and here we are.
Watch out for “patriots”.
Re; Syndemics
Largest gathering of humanity begins in India
The 45-day Maha Kumbh Mela festival began in India on Monday with a ritual dip taken by tens of thousands of Hindus seeking to cleanse themselves of their sins. The event is expected to attract 400 million devotees this year.
https://www.rt.com/india/610793-maha-kumbh-mela-india-2025-video/
The ultimate super-spreader event.
I witnessed a similar event across the Ganges from Varanasi about 10 years ago. There was a giant crowd rush incident on a bridge and people went into the river, etc. Something like 200 deaths and the event just continued on. There are these gurus, so-called god men, who attract huge followings and bring them to the large rituals. All the government can do is set up basic security and sanitary and hope that things don’t get out of hand. Think of it like a music festival, in a western comparison. Plus you’re talking about Uttar Pradesh, the most populated and poorest state in India. I don’t think epidemic prevention is top of the list of worries. I’m going to the south tomorrow and if I hear anything relevant, I’ll write something here.
This has been going on for a few centuries. The scale has increased with population. And now there is instant sharing of information and we in the west can comment accordingly. India is a fascinating country with its share of challenges. Their history in spiritual teaching is paramount. I do wish it could right the wrongs of the caste system and bring family planning to the masses.
Family planning is going ion the right direction if recent statistics are to be believed – https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/india/big-news-is-indias-population-growth-is-below-replacement-level-un-expert/articleshow/99629102.cms
So PandemicCollab has a weekly Saturday zoom call, and there are a dozen or so Discord servers that I’ve found. This is all predominantly US and Canada, and some Europeans. But all total, there can’t be more than a few thousand people. And Saturday has maybe ~ 50 people on, and the Discord servers might have chats with a few to a dozen people active at times.
I don’t think that the number of people in the US that take COVID seriously still can possibly even number in the millions, hundreds of thousands maybe, I hope?
Kind of bleak.
Correct link for Exclusive-US probe finds China unfairly dominates shipbuilding, paving way for penalties, sources say.
Next at 11-
‘Exclusive: US probe finds China unfairly dominates high-speed rail, paving way for penalties. US probe says proof of this is how China has 45,000 km (27,960 miles) of high-speed rail while the US has diddly-squat.’
https://english.news.cn/20250102/4f77df2518cd4c0bb6e1b1bcc6e8bc01/c.html
January 2, 2025
China’s operating high-speed railway to hit 60,000 km by 2030
BEIJING — China aims to expand the length of its operating high-speed rail tracks to around 60,000 km by 2030, up from 48,000 km at the end of 2024, data from the country’s railway operator showed on Thursday.
As the country continues to improve its railway infrastructure, the operating mileage of its railway network is expected to reach 180,000 km by 2030, up from 162,000 km at the end of 2024, according to China State Railway Group Co., Ltd. (China Railway).
China Railway said the country’s fixed-asset investment in the railway sector is projected to reach 590 billion yuan (about 82.08 billion U.S. dollars) in 2025, with an estimated 2,600 km of new rail tracks set to become operational within the year.
China’s railway network handled a record 4.08 billion passenger trips in 2024, marking a 10.8 percent increase compared to 2023, and this figure is expected to continue rising in 2025, potentially reaching 4.28 billion trips, according to the company…
Thanks CA. I always get something useful from your links.
Ah. Thanks for the correct link.
Hilarious and pathetic. A couple of samples —
“China’s targeting of the maritime, logistics and shipbuilding sectors for dominance is the greatest barrier to the revitalization of U.S. industries in these sectors,” the report concludes….
How unfair of them, huh? And as if the US didn’t do exactly the same thing, till US elites decided there was more and easier money in financialization and dumping the US working class. Also – –
Scott Paul, president of the American Alliance for Manufacturing … said he understood that the findings were compelling … “We’re way too dependent on China … We do not have surge capacity. We have very little shipbuilding capacity, and for a superpower that’s completely unacceptable,” Paul said.
Maybe the US is only a superpower in its ‘exceptionalist’, narcissistically delusional mind.
We can’t even make a choo-choo from Chinatown in LA to Chinatown in SF.
And to add… we can’t even maintain Amtrak trains to a level close to any other country. I was coming from LA to SLO last year and some of bathrooms were out of order and the coaches being very trashed. I did the same route last month and I did observe something positive if you care to call it that, on the bottom floor of the coach’s the conductors don’t check for tickets. The word is out and I observed several struggling citizens (aka homeless perhaps) getting on to reach their destination without being harassed by the man. A small win. But yes, sad we can’t have trains for the masses in this country to the degree needed.
Time for a movie plug….
Emperor of the North
Lee Marvin versus Ernest Borgnine
Looks good. Never heard of it. Both great actors. I picked up Jack Kerouac’s Dharma Bums recently to reread it. First few pages, Has the character Ray Smith (Jack) jumping a freight train north out of LA to Santa Barbara. A great narrative of a rail bum. I would have loved to be in CA in that timeline.
“Trade Act of 1974, which allows the U.S. to penalize foreign countries that engage in acts that are “unjustifiable” or “unreasonable,” or burden U.S. commerce”
– Tonya Harding geopolitics in action. Instead of getting better, just kneecap competition. Is this the threat that cow European politicians behind the scenes?
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202410/1320959.shtml
October 10, 2024
China secures 70% of global green ship orders in first three quarters of 2024: report
Major indexes of China’s shipbuilding industry have risen steadily in the first three quarters this year, data released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) showed on Thursday. China captured more than 70 percent of global green ship orders in the first three quarters, according to China Central Television Station (CCTV).
Data shows from January to September, China completed 36.34 million deadweight tons (DWT) in shipbuilding, an 18.2 percent increase year-on-year, while securing 87.11 million DWT in new orders, up 51.9 percent. By the end of September, the total orders on hand reached 193.3 million DWT, a 44.3 percent rise.
During this period, China accounted for 55.1 percent of global ship completions, 74.7 percent of new orders, and 61.4 percent of the global holding orders, according to the MIIT…
First it was the EV cars and solar panels that China was “overproducing”, and now the ships. The US demanded that China stop being dirty commies and turn to capitalism, but they weren’t supposed to get so good at it.
So much for the US capitalist mantra that countries with McDonald’s don’t fight with each other. Another fail for the moustache of understanding, Tom Friedman. That “rules based order” can make a fool of the best of us, and Friedman too.
If the US really wants China to stop building ships, it should surely stop ostentatiously preparing for a naval war with China. In fact, probably withdraw from Taiwan altogether.
EGYPT: don’t know if this has been posted on NC yet:
Ahmed al-Mansour: The Egyptian fighter in Syria causing Sisi alarm
Arabic social media has been flooded with the hashtag ‘It’s your turn, Dictator’, which claims Egypt’s president will face the same fate as Assad
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/ahmed-al-mansour-egyptian-fighter-syria-whos-causing-sisi-alarm
It’s a good thing I didn’t have a mouthful of scrambled eggs or similar when I began to scroll upward through to the top of the Links above….oh goodness that Onion article headline….
Making the likes of Twain or from our more modern era, Mel Brooks smile with the biting satire…
billionnaires are so stupid. they are so used to thinking like crocodiles without ever needing to think things through that they say things like that. Who’s going to buy your house after it’s already uninsurable?
The are not stupid, but evil. This has “let them eat cake” vibes.
Today a read what was possibly the most idiotic headline by El Pais on the NKans in Russia issue:
“North Korea pressures its soldiers in Ukraine to commit suicide before being captured, South Korean spy says” .
-Ups- replied in the wrong place!
These NKans are so baaad!
It wasn’t that long ago el Pais was a good paper.
Funny that, our billionaire oligarchs admitting that “things are broken”? Just like Peter Thiel admitting that technological progress has stopped?
Well, when does somebody point out to them that back when “America was great” as in MAGA, THERE WERE NO BILLIONAIRE OLIGARCHS.
“Amid the fires, LA is warning some residents the tap water isn’t safe. Here’s why“: NPR
Oh, great. This means boil advisories, which could actually cause more fires. It happens when somebody starts boiling water and then forgets about it, likely due to some distraction that causes them to leave the room (or even the house). The water boils away, the pot gets super-hot, something immediately above the stove catches fire, and voilà… House fire.
A variation of this happened to a friend of mine during high school. He was grilling some meat on the stove and was distracted by a phone call. He left the house, and when he got back, he was greeted by firefighters putting out the huge fire that had mostly collapsed the house. Only two exterior walls and first floor filled with smoking rubble remained. The roof, second floor, and other exterior walls were all gone.
If something like this happens in the LA area when fire crews are over-stretched, water supplies are thin, and Santa Ana winds are blowing furiously, it probably won’t stay limited to one house.
Every Angeleno ought to have stored drinking water for earthquakes, as all H20 is imported into the City of Angling to get other peoples water, somehow.
I hate to keep harping on it, but the homeless are the real X factor here, they’re everywhere in LA and they have outdoor fires all the time, and being our Untouchables, they couldn’t give a fig after fire safety, nadir greatly affecting zenith.
twtr.
This guy started a fire and the cops just drove off like it’s nothing
https://x.com/ClownWorld_/status/1878293327025737880
And this report is interesting. Citizens arrest. From Jan. 9th.
Woodland Hills residents stop man with blowtorch who may be connected to Kenneth Fire, officials say
https://www.foxla.com/news/woodland-hills-residents-stop-man-blowtorch-who-may-be-connected-kenneth-fire-officials-say
Second embedded video is the most interesting, imo.
The media has rather assiduously avoided mentioning that homeless are potentially the perps in widely spread apart fires, why’s that?
Because the media care so deeply about the plight of the unhoused? /s
Burning a city out of its houses rather ups the ante on shooting one healthcare CEO. Perhaps the homeless aren’t all crazy, in forcing the issue onto the front-page. And perhaps that’s why the link is ignored.
Of course, Mrs O’Leary’s cow may have been an early vegan activist.
I caught this interview late yesterday, where an actor of note Dennis Quaid stops if just briefly to answer a few questions by an NBC reporter…Quaid actually provided some useful information on a shut off option for any gas line when leaving his home.
To be fair he would have been right to reply ” Outta my way bro, we gotta get the heck out of dodge and quickly!…”
https://pagesix.com/2025/01/11/celebrity-news/dennis-quaid-fans-slam-reporter-for-interviewing-actor-as-he-flees-la-wildfires/
Steve Bannon: Elon Truly Evil.
Vivek is only mini-evil. And the two of them together are the looking to “reform” things, eh.
The interview appeared first in Corriere della Sera, which is the good-thinking newspaper of the Milanese bourgeoisie. Now, it is well known that Bannon has cultivated ties in Italy, but the article has a double siignal: First, would a U.S. paper publish such an interview (noting that Al-Jazeera is the news source that Englished it)? Second, this is a sign of Italian discontent and skepticism about, among other things, the StarLink deal, which is likely to disgruntle some Milanesi.
Sì, sì, sì, it’s all cremlinologia, but I’d keep following the fault lines if I were you.
It’s a weird comment by Bannon, as … What can he possibly do?
Shake his tiny fist his way and buy an internal combustion engined car to spite him?
For Steve Bannon to say South Africans are the most racist people on earth is interesting coming from someone who was the architect of Trump’s anti-immigraiton policies and who has been accused of (and I think he even openly acknowledged) wanting to restart the Crusades against Islam? Wasn’t his media network the organizing force behind the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Three Percenters, Identity Evropa, etc? So wouldn’t Bannon calling someone a racist be, for him, a compliment?
Is being anti-immigration necessarily racist? Perhaps it’s purely based on economic concerns. Base, superstructure, and all that.
An anti-immigration stance becomes racist when it’s targeted at specific groups, ethnicities, rather than trying to address systemic or structural issues needing to be resolved (e.g. do we have enough jobs, housing, resources, to support immigrants).
Or, as with the Zionists, when racial purity is invoked and living alongside non-Jews will lead to miscegenation or dilution of the pure and superior race.
Or, for example, when so-called security concerns about terrorism are based on unfounded beliefs that a high percentage or every Arab or Islamist is a terrorist.
Or, for example, when there is concern that the “national identity” is under threat of being altered by influx of immigrants. For example when it implies or suggests an in-group’s ethnicity, traits or distinctiveness is under threat from an out-group.
Which is to say, I imagine most cases of anti-immigration will turn out to be racist or rooted in bigotry.
Steve Bannon has been anti-immigration on the basis of security and preserving national identity, and his particular beef is with Islam and Arabs, which puts him in the racist category. And Musk is pro-immigration, so if he’s racist it’s not apparent to me.
Are you saying Bannon is… Marxist?
I would say that Bannon is a Fundamentalist Catholic Leninist, who vehemently hates the Benthamites. A fully postmodern case. I don’t think he hates “Arabs” – broad category – but rather his Catholicism is opposed to ecumenicism and moreover, political Islam. I’m willing to bet that he’s hooked up with some of the Hindutva goons but I’m too lazy to look for references.
Perhaps Bannon wants to impose Canon Law on the world via a “Fundamentalist” Catholic Caliphate?
Catholicism since the second vatican council (1962) has specifically endorsed ecumenicism, religious freedom. And religious freedom goes as far back to Lactantius advising Constantine not to impose Catholicism on his subjects, emphasizing a need to voluntarily choose Christ. The church has also long embraced migrant rights. And the church as well as the last three popes have explicitly condemned racism. The life of Christ provides a big hint why. Actually, even the OT is a strong testament for migrant rights (think Exodus). So I don’t really know what his “fundamentalist Catholicism” might refer to.
Did Bannon ever call himself a racist? I remember that he allegedly called himself a Leninist (but it seems has since denied saying so). If he does think of himself as a Leninist, then he has an obvious model for supporting anyone he considers temporarily useful for the cause without being one himself and without having a good opinion of them.
Thank you, Lambert.
Further to the Ivor Caplin scandal / link, please let this sink in: Caplin*, a former junior defence minister and cheerleader for the invasion of Iraq, hid in plain sight. His x feed is sick making, but that does / did not stop Labour grandees from following him on social media. There are many more like Caplin, including at higher levels. Many insider sympathisers, often at personal and professional risk, shared information on his tormentors with the Corbyn camp, if not with Corbyn himself. Had the material been used, many of the tormentors would have had some serious explaining to do, but Corbyn said he did not want to do politics that way. Corbyn was warned politics done that way would do for him. Corbyn can repent at his leisure. Corbyn’s team were little better and allowed the likes of hack Owen Jones and Jon Lansman to sabotage internally.
*It’s not clear if Caplin is related to the friend of and intermediary for the Blairs, Carole Caplin. Older UK based readers may remember the scandal around her.
As Ali Hasan Abunimah said, a sentiment shared by many, “If Corbyn won’t fight for himself, we are unable to fight for him.”
I agree with Abunimah on wanting Corbyn to fight harder but I do wonder if it would have mattered at all. I heard of a substantial military plot to kidnap and kill him if he did become the prime minister. Even if that plot gets foiled, we see from Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, how easy it would be to take down a prime minister.
Thank you, Emma.
There were mutterings in the security establishment. I doubt they would have needed to go that far.
With regard to his main securocrat tormentor, a man who threatened Theresa May, his City slicker son could be prosecuted for wire fraud. All’s fair in love and war.
“Zelenskyy ready to exchange N Korean soldiers for Ukrainians held in Russia”
The Azov guys. That is who Zelensky is talking about and likely the ones captured in Mariupol. He wants them freed so that he gets in good with the Azov formations and get them on side.
Nah. This is just a show for the Western audience, to “prove” that there really are Koreans in Kursk.
Seoul’s spy agency says North Korean soldiers captured in Ukraine haven’t shown desire to defect
https://apnews.com/article/north-korea-soldiers-capture-ukraine-russia-defect-141433c872649d55358748b179781758
I doubt North Koreans are fighting in the Ukraine. However, I am not sure whether or why it matters whether North Koreans are or are not fighting for Russia in the Ukraine. The North Koreans and Russians are natural allies. Much of Siberia is occupied by former Koreans. I recall an old proverb: “Scratch a Russian — find a Tartar.” I am still waiting for an extension of the Trans Siberian Railroad through North Korea to Seoul, South Korea. It would greatly benefit Russia, North Korea, and South Korea. [However, I am not sure the u.s. would see much benefit.]
Push the issue of North Koreans fighting in the Ukraine too hard, and it raises a lot of embarrassing questions about what non-Ukrainians are fighting for Ukraine … and in what roles.
Gazan Lies
Sung to the tune of, “Southern Nights”, by Glen Campbell
Gaza lies
Are you finally sick of Gaza lies?
Hid like Febreze
On a carpet with fleas
There’s a stench of dead bodies, ya know?
Gaza lies
They’ll keep on comin’ when Trump’s baptized
He won’t apologize
To anyone who we helped to slay
He won’t find a better way
Media lies
Have you ever noticed our press lies? (our press lies …)
They’ve shirked their duty, to
expose government lies
They go selling out their souls
Like the Judases of old
Old man
He’s headed straight for historys’ ash can
Every Gazan killed by his cold hand
As he slowly walked by
Creepy neocons would cry for joy, joy
Feels no good
Feels no good, it’s frightening
Wish I could
Stop this world from fighting
La-da-da-da-da, la-da-da-da-da, la-da-de-da-de-da
Mysteries
Like this and many others in history
Blow in the night
In the Gazan lies
Gazan lies
They make us feel so good, it’s frightening
Wish I could (Gaza lies)
Stop this world from fighting
Gaza lies
Will you ever notice?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYTfV5o2ZMY
Thank you Chris. The original is a very pretty song.
Here is a link for those who haven’t had the pleasure of his work.
Southern Nights
“Old man He and his dog they walked the old land
Every flower touched his cold hand
As he slowly walked by The weeping willow would cry for joy
Mysteries Like this and many others in the trees
Blow in the night In the southern skies.”
Thanks, I appreciate the learning opportunity on who wrote the original.
Allen Toussaint was interviewed 12 years ago here. He wrote a great many songs including Java, Fortune Teller, Mother-in-law and died in Paris a few years back. Here is a list of some of them. He plays piano on this live recording of Fortune Teller which, as sung by Cyrill Neville, is totally different from what you might expect if you’ve heard the original.
“California fires could be costliest disaster in US history, says governor …” ***** Now, atomize that to the personsal individual level then multiple it by a few hundred million. That’s Healthcare in Amerca’s insurancized privatized financializedd commercialized profitized Healthcare biz.
We are on fumes. Apparently some are very flammable!
> Chartbook 343 : Polycrisis & the critique of capitalocentrism.
Wow! The journey through abstract theory took me back to old Dr. Strange comics, through the dimensions on the way to Dormammu. It concerns me that I understand every reference.
>> Polycrisis is underspecified. It is a weak theory. But those who criticize that in the name of greater clarity or stronger theory underestimate the scale of the mess that we are in. Polycrisis is useful precisely because it reminds us of the knowledge crisis, the gap between inherited critical theory and the radicalism of our present.
He just convinced me. Note no definite article.
>> My suggestion is not so much that capitalocentric readings of modernity tend to lead us to underestimate the possibilities for radical agency, but that they tend to lead us to underestimate the scope for catastrophe.
See Taleb et al> Risk is overrated. Ruin is underrated.
>> At stake here is both the scale of the historical rupture – what endures? – and its character: what is possible in new times?
Gerald Weinberg: Why do I see what I see? Why do things stay the same? Why do they change?
The three main questions of theoretical philosophy. Tooze notes two of them. The concern I have is with the attention to abstractions, that multinomialing the history will lead to a set of answers via social theory. But reflections of reflections look like an unsolvable number of dimensions. I’d start with energy flux, and agree with Tooze here:
>> The ecological crisis now must be the pace-setter and the paradigm of all other critical thinking.
As for abstractions, I’ll suggest the first few dimensions swamp the nuances of subsequents for universal solutions. I’ve found much insight from network analysis, which tends to a variety of local solutions with plenty of nuance. And can be described by a square matrix. But how much does the simplicity of method influence my interpretations? There to the third question: Why do I see what I see?
I don’t understand that Adam Tooze article.
This is the man who wrote the brilliant Wages of Destruction, by digging through the driest of Nazi Germany economic records to show that Germany depended on looting and plunder. How can he have become so unmoored from historical enquiry that he is wandering around a hall of theoretical mirrors and calling it progress?
If his writing is the standard of the analysis and polemic that the polycrisis inspires, I will stick with Marx – who is at least grounded in physical reality, if sometimes impenetrable – and Keynes, who writes beautifully in spare, lapidary English.
What do Tooze and the rest us need to know beyond “Because Markets; Go Die”?
It is a little dense, isn’t it? I picked up a copy of Crashed a few years ago and couldn’t get going with it at all.
As for polycrises that include environmental degradation and economic disruption, this is a good primer – 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed. It all boils down to “Stuff happens, sometimes a lot and all at once.”
Cline wrote a sequel last year discussing the dark age, or Iron Age, that followed the Bronze Age collapse. Just finished it yesterday and I can not recommend it – it comes in at 200 pages and should have been about 50. Extremely repetitious and in need of editing. But he does touch on Steve H’s question 3 – Why do I see what I see? In that case, you see what you see because other things you might have seen have long since disappeared, so you make loose theories based on the extremely incomplete and degraded physical reality that you have to work with. Much like present day economists do, with their “assuming of can openers” when the questions get too tough.
I thought the Tooze lecture clear and straightforward and useful. Everything we do has a theoretical basis – walking down the road to a bus stop, frying an egg, choosing book to read – but mostly we do not think about theory. But without a theory, a frame of reference, events will just happen and we might not even realise that they have happened. A mind without theories is just a blank. However, most of us realise it’s dumb to walk down the middle of the road to get to the bustop, we try and avoid splashing ourselves with hot oil when the egg is served and, hopefully, and we know, more or less, not to judge a book by its cover.
Tooze’s point is that while we might have theoretical constructs which enable us to think about relatively discrete problems, we have a profound lack of knowledge when it comes to analysing and predicting the outcome(s) of a polycrisis, ie, a complex of related and/or unrelated and possibly continuing events the consequences of which are unpredictable because we do not have a theory or theories to deal with highly complex relationships between, say, the environment, political, biological, military, et al, which will enable us to understand with a reasonable degree of probability what tomorrow is going to throw at us. And today is always yesterday’s tomorrow (the simplest approach I can think of to a theory of history) and one of the uses of a knowledge of the past is to help us predict possible future states of the world.
Still, at least on a day to day level, we do have the theoretical structures which allow us to assess the probability whether it would be advisable our brolly as we wind our way to the bus stop where we can we can drily amuse ourselve calculating why there’s no bus for the next hour and then three suddenly come along.
My take on History is that stuff happens after people do dumb things. Simple theory.
There is no predicting the future. People do dumb stuff and shit happens. People then do what they can to survive.
Read the very first comment to Tooze’s most most erudite pontifications to find agreement with your assessment of Tooze’s Chartbook 343 => Lizzy Liberty and the reply by Federico Zuin. I quit reading Tooze some time ago. Although I think some of Mirowski beats Tooze for obscurity, jargon, and oblique references, the result of interpreting what he is talking about has proven — for me — much more fruitful than the payoffs from similar and often greater efforts trying to understand Tooze. I can only conclude that ‘learned’ pontifications are not intended for communication beyond the extremely limited sphere of the those truly initiated to Apollo’s mysteries.
“How you can help the incarcerated firefighters battling L.A. wildfires”
It has not escaped some people attentions that California is using a form of forced labour with those prison firefighters while elsewhere, the US is sanctioning Chinese industries on bogus charges that they are using forced Uyghur labour. But personally I think that those prison firefighters should have a week commuted from their sentence for every day that they are fighting fires.
6.9 quake just hit southwestern Japan…
Met a fellow who is a state geologist whose expertise is earthquakes while soaking at Saline hot springs years ago, and like yours truly is a recidivist when it comes to such things and he was there over new years, and I like to pick his mind over matters underneath the surface, and among many questions of course, was when will the Big One hit?
He thinks that something big is more likely to happen sooner on the Ridgecrest area fault which has been active as of late
That’s good news for beleaguered urbanites, that’s a lightly populated area.
The 2019 quake apparently caused a Billion $ worth of damage to the China Lake NAS facility.
Being one who has the itch for reading of the stars (astrology), my go to Canadian reader in her predictions for 2025, has the “Big one” on her list. You have been warned. Side note, I had a premonition of the Loma Prieta quake six months before.
Any discussion of the activity on the Long Valley Cauldera? Pretty close to those hot springs.
The prison firefighters should have a week commuted from their sentence for *every hour* that they are fighting fires.
For some reason, the Elton John/Bernie Taupin song “Rotten Peaches” has been going through my mind lately…
Good thing CA didn’t just overwhelmingly reject an anti-slavery ballot measure this past election. /sarc
https://calmatters.org/politics/elections/2024/11/california-election-result-proposition-6-fails/
Like everywhere else history tends to rhyme here in California:
https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300283358/california-a-slave-state/
My brother, who is long on talk and wind, and who worked as a fire-fighter in his varied past, told me much of the fire fighting he did — I assume much of the fire fighting others did — was purely for show. No one on the fire line had any tools to fight the kinds of fire they were sent to quell.
Firefighting theater, similar to security theater? Is everything theater now?
Connected fire- Gaza and LA. I had a different thought when seeing how some neighborhoods were completely charred, while other adjoining neighborhoods appeared to have no fires.
The 1988 Yellowstone fires. The fires burned in a mosaic, with some islands of timber and wildland being miraculously skipped over.
So, my cross-eyed softened view from ecology 101— maybe man is a part of nature, not apart from nature, and when a conflagration fire hits, it may retain that mosaic pattern, whether in a densely populated sprawl setting, or a protected wild space like a National Park.
Spit-balling 2 pennies…
Brings to mind Clint Eastwood—“I know what you are thinking…. are you feeling Lucky?”
Also, Marta and the Vandellas— Nowhere to Run…
My view of your observation that “some neighborhoods were completely charred, while other adjoining neighborhoods appeared to have no fires” is quite different. I would wonder what differed between the communities and whether those differences might explain the difference in fire damages. To assert that man is part of nature is both tautological and far from explanatory. Assuming fires burn in a mosaic pattern in nature as you state, how does that explain why fires should burn in a mosaic pattern in human neighborhoods? Both cases suggest a need for some further explanation rather than bringing in “man as a part of nature”. What is the root cause that fires burn in a mosaic pattern in nature? Might that same root cause explain why fires burn in a mosaic pattern in human neighborhoods?
Not seen it covered here, but there is an amusing ‘scandal’ gathering momentum over Musk’s claims to be “a world class gamer”, he has calmed this about numerous games in interviews (with interviewers embarrassing themselves with their credulity), that he was “world class” at Quake (a first person shooter) back in the 90’s (it is said a lot of people thought they were “world class” at Quake on the Local Area Network, but once they got into the real internet they learned their place), recently he’s live stream himself playing a relatively new game called ‘Path of Exile 2’ he is ranked level 97 which is in line with the top players in the world, however AFAIK due to the nature of that game and how levelling scales you would effectively have to be playing the game 24/7 to maintain that and his live-streaming indicates he doesn’t understand core mechanics like inventories and so on.
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/path-of-exile-2-players-are-calling-foul-on-elon-musks-high-level-hardcore-character-after-he-streams-his-struggles-with-core-game-mechanics/
Seems in line with the lvl 100ish Elden Ring build he showed a couple of years ago, which made no sense and showed a fundamental misunderstanding of the game’s encumbrance mechanics. Can’t remember if he couldn’t roll or thought fat-rolling was good enough for a mage w no vigor.
Re flu and rsv in BC
Quotes from Bonnie Henry:
“The flu season… hit young people early and hard this year [2022-2023], likely due to their lack of immunity after two years of COVID-19 prevention protocols.”
“If you’ve had COVID recently, you’ve had a boost to your immunity, so that’s a good”
So after two years of Dr. Henry’s orders maybe she’s realized that keeping kids inside wasn’t healthy. I’m not sure having had Covid-19 is good for your immunity and given the latest data available getting more Covid vaccines isn’t helping. It appears from recent data that the more vaccines you get the more you are likely to get Covid-19. Remember she forced or fired thousands of healthcare workers to get vaccinated even if they already had Covid-19, claiming that the unvaccinated were a threat to everyone. Many here can’t get a doctor and it can take three weeks or more to see one.
Dr. Henry‘s mandates in 2021 have led to over 2,500 overdose deaths a year. Up from 1,700 in 2019 which had been falling since the overdose crisis was announced in 2016.
See here: Comparing mortality from covid-19 to mortality due to overdose: A micromort analysis – ScienceDirect
“The mortality associated with covid-19 is apparent and distributed unevenly across subpopulations. The mortality due to overdose has increased during covid-19 and exceeds mortality due to covid-19. Our results instantiate the triple threat caused by covid-19 (i.e., public health crisis, economic crisis and mental health crisis) and quantitatively highlight the externality of increased mortality due to deaths of despair in response to public health efforts to reduce covid-related mortality.”
The median age of official Covid deaths in BC stands at 86 years of age, flu/pneumonia is 86, overdoses now at 44 years, up from 41 in 2019. Overdose deaths went from ninth in 2019 to fourth in 2023 and now are the second largest cause of years of life lost.
One more thing, I’ve referenced this here before but I believe in needs to get out there. If we are so worried about kids getting the flu/rsv ect. What about this stat? I got the idea from Dr. Guy Hatchard of NZ who reported on the large increase in ED presentations for chest pain in under 40 year olds in NZ. I filed an FOI request to BC Ministry of Health for the same data. I was unable to get the full data set for ED presentations in that age group but they gave me the number of admissions that came through the ED, I used the ICD-10 codes I00-I99. The average for the years 2017-20 was 2500/year. In 2023 it has gone to over 4000. A 68% increase. I have written her with my concerns as my son in law was one of those who went to Emergency with chest pain. It was right after one of Dr. Henry’s recommended interventions. I’m still waiting for her response.
Take a round of bows, Biden and public health:
Childhood Vaccination Rates Were Falling Even Before the Rise of R.F.K. Jr.
Perhaps, but you’ll notice the further declines starting in 2021.
It is most profound in Trump states, but forcing people to take an experimental modified RNA shot, or starve, was probably not the best approach to ensure compliance, particularly when the shots were, by the time of the mandate, very clearly non-sterilizing.
And
And the risk is growing
Perhaps the COVID shot mandate has nothing to do with it, who knows, but curiously this all came to a head subsequent to that mandate. It’s almost as if the mandate approach stoked a distrust that wasn’t as prevalent prior to 2020.
The declines in vaccination rates preceded RFK as a candidate for high office. Perhaps as only Nixon could go to China … at this frightful juncture only RFK could reverse this spreading mistrust in vaccinations [assuming he might see the Light past the corruption the Corona flu vaccines exposed — which I seriously doubt].
I kind of have to agree with you. I think calling an injection a vaccine when clearly it was NOT what most people think of as a vaccine as it did not prevent either getting the virus or transmitting it to others. Forcing people or lose your livelihood.
Feeding the stock price and making billions for not only the drug company but also the congressional stock holders. Now that we know Biden was not calling the shots, there are some people that should be held liable for this decision.
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2025-01-13/China-s-2024-imports-and-exports-hit-record-high-1A7Xk00k9gs/p.html
January 13, 2024
China’s 2024 imports and exports hit record high, driven by robust export growth
China’s foreign trade reached a record high of 43.85 trillion yuan (about $5.98 trillion) in 2024, a 5 percent year-on-year increase, the General Administration of Customs said Monday.
Exports exceeded 25 trillion yuan for the first time, reaching 25.45 trillion yuan and increasing 7.1 percent, marking eight consecutive years of growth. Imports totaled 18.39 trillion yuan, up 2.3 percent.
In 2024, China’s export product structure saw continued optimization, with electromechanical product exports rising by 8.7 percent, accounting for 59.4 percent of total exports. Notably, high-end equipment exports surged by more than 40 percent. Key exports such as electric vehicles, 3D printers, and industrial robots grew by 13.1 percent, 32.8 percent, and 45.2 percent, respectively, according to data released by the General Administration of Customs.
The proportion of China’s trade with countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) surpassed 50 percent for the first time, with imports and exports with these nations increasing by 6.4 percent. This trade accounted for 50.3 percent of China’s total trade, with exports up by 9.6 percent and imports rising by 2.7 percent.
China’s trade with ASEAN continued its growth streak for the ninth consecutive year, and the region has been China’s largest trading partner for five years. The BRICS countries also saw a 5.5 percent increase in trade with China…
Massive rally in Bucharest protests court’s decision to annul presidential elections. Anadolu Agency
That could well have been post under the European Disunion section. El Pais reported 20.000 protesters in Bucaresti (you may take the number with the necessary grains of salt coming from a PMC-friendly outlet). More protests will follow according to AUR (Georgescu’s party) representatives. They have also filled an appeal in the ECHR (Eur. Court for Human Rights) which will probably go unnoticed even by the same Court which I guess will rule this is a political thing, not a HR thing. The interesting question here is that many Romanians seem to see this as the next case of political corruption of which many, if not most, are already fed up with. Has potential to gain momentum.
From Bird Flu Is a National Embarrassment
Too charitable. Big Milk actively stymied any attempts at education or containment of the virus. And there’s substantial evidence that attempts to take this seriously were interdicted at the highest levels. The failed response to this is willful and calculated.
Fire is and will be our sworn enemy as we all endure the Big Heat Age, and the idea we had to borrow a couple super scooper planes from the Canadians was bad enough forward thinking on our part, and then one of them getting hit by a drone and being out of commission, took us down to 1 super scooper!
Ok, I get it when you say, hey wait a second Wuk, what about all that groovy graft making F-35’s and such?
Look, larcenists love larceny, just redirect it
I’d be ok with larceny on the high seas, er clouds, if it benefitted us, not the MIC.
Regarding the article “China releases world’s most powerful electronic warfare weapon design software – for free”, it would have been nice if they had published a link to this “free software”. I would love to evaluate it!
There is nothing special about what they are describing. There are many open source electromagnetic simulators out there. I have been using them for years. I mainly use them for designing antennas and other electromagnetic structures for mundane, everyday applications like GNSS, satcoms, personal comms, IoT, radar & radiolocation, etc. These software packages are also ideal for developing electronic warfare (EW) applications as well. This is nothing special because such high frequency design packages are inherently dual use.
If they are trying to say it is better than Ansys HFSS, this is a bit of a low bar. Commercial simulators are often so “feature heavy” and opaque in their operation, it can be very difficult to verify solutions of unusual design problems and are very cumbersome. Plus, customer service has been so totally crapified and companies like Ansys and Dassault, COMSOL, et al. have moved to lock people into subscription based services, that open source, despite its somewhat steep learning curve, becomes well worth it. Open source user forums are often far more responsive and helpful than commercial call centers. Plus, more and more of these companies are pushing cloud services as well – a big data security risk in my opinion.
In short, I would like to know more – like how it would complement the already existing open source simulation offerings.
Regarding the article “China releases world’s most powerful…”
An excellent comment, that reflects Chinese economic relations with Belt and Road countries. An Ethiopia or an Indonesia are developing at an earlier stage and need not just trade with China but trade that allows for domestic growth. The means Ethiopian phones that the Chinese sell to Ethiopia allow for all sorts of innovations by Ethiopians that meet particular domestic needs.
“Transsion” phones are important to Africans in being designed for express African needs and open to expanding those needs. For instance, the cameras allow for design of shading that assists in capturing African skin shades. The phones are everywhere in Africa.
Do you know of any open source alternatives to HFSS? I’m aware of openEMS but are there others? Also, something like ADS. I like to do exactly what you described.
I have been using FEniCSx for the last couple of years. It is a pretty good suite of finite element solvers that runs well on easily assembled PC clusters. I also use a wide range of self-developed codes in Python or Octave scripts for solving specific problems for signal processing and EM fields. The ancient NEC2 code is hard to beat for wire antennas. As far as circuit simulators, QUCS pretty good.
Some “truthiness”:
https://news.antiwar.com/2025/01/12/report-israel-refusing-to-commit-to-a-permanent-gaza-ceasefire-as-part-of-hostage-deal/
Don’t believe the lies in the press about a non-existent ceasefire. Biden lies, Blinken lies, Trump lies.
We in the Palinstinian Movement lost considerable thunder when our doyen stepped out of the limelight, presumably to ride a snow machine off into the twilight, but thank our lucky stars we didn’t run out of heroine when M T-G stepped in to fill an enormous void.
She has proposed making the winds do what we want, not for want of her being long winded.
I would encourage NC readers to read “From smoke to roaring flames: Inside the first hours of the deadly Pacific Palisades fire”
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/pacific-palisades-highlands-fire-first-hours-rcna187156
The importance of this story will be clear by the time I’m through. Still, the bottom line is that this ongoing tragic conflagration in LA will be only one of many more if urban development in North America (and elsewhere) continues in ecological regions like that surrounding the north side of LA and neighboring counties. The issue centers around development along the Wildland-Urban interface, a well-studied subject in professional academia.
The LAFD staged a presser on 01/07/2025 at around 10:30 a.m. and gave an exact location of a “brush fire” in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood known as The Summit; 1190 N Piedra Morada Dr. To me, it seemed as though we were looking at somebody’s backyard, but the NBC story above cleared up what was an intense mystery for me until just now. The Palisade fire began in the Chapparal, which abuts the upscale development. A similar situation holds for the Altadena fire.
https://lafd.org/alert/update-brush-fire-01072025-inc0738
Travel to the map location using the link in the release to begin understanding the Wildland-Urban interface. The surrounding undeveloped lands are part of Topanga State Park, Chapparal territory, 81b Western Sonoran Mountain Woodland and Shrubland 81c Western Sonoran Basins, and the Venturan-Angelono region. There is ample literature that covers this vast topic, and a good place to start is Ecology of California. (2024, November 4). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecology_of_California
I go into such detail to counter much third-class chatter about possible courses of action for fire mitigation in California.
“A furious blame game has erupted over the cause of the LA inferno that has killed 16 and left thousands homeless. Now, as DAVID PATRIKARAKOS reveals, a new theory has emerged – and it could spell the end for Gavin Newsom’
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14274379/cause-LA-inferno-killed-11-left-thousands-homeless-theory-Gavin-Newsom.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490
From the article:
This analysis is akin to Trump’s proposal to rake the leaves. From the academic literature again.
https://sheltonherbert.tripod.com/bio1/native_habitats.pdf
The lack of trees in the wildland area around LA makes logging a non-starter, while the broad extent and density of the chaparral make utilizing grazing animals and brush-cutting operations completely impractical. There’s much in the literature about the dangers of these proposals; I’ll save a review of that for another day as the rush of the clock pushes me on. The final complexity in this quick analysis is the recent advance of invasive species that flourish in wet spells and die off in drought, rendering poorly planned mitigations worse than useless and aggravating the fire-prone nature of this unique environment.
I’ll leave this rendering of the ecologically based literature with reference to the nature of the Wildland-Urban interface and the dangers of the nation’s path regarding the vast urban development projects that have been and will continue to be a feature of our lemming-like rush to the edge.
Rapid growth of the US wildland-urban interface raises wildfire risk
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1718850115
P.S. Any constructive amendments from long-time residents of the LA region to this admittedly brief take are appreciated in advance.
Native So Cal resident. One issue is that rears it’s ugly head about “clearance” is that you can only clear your own property. Do to the recent updated “fire maps”, fire departments have added many houses to their annual inspections. You get a $150 fee added to your property taxes for this. However, at the meeting I went to, the LA County fire department kept talking about clearance distances that went beyond my fenced yard into areas that are controlled and maintained by the city called “landscape management districts” which are mostly hillsides which are landscaped for erosion control. While I technically own the area, I can’t build on it or otherwise use it and the city waters and maintains it…in principle. Mostly it means they have a few workers walk thru twice a year to do a little weed wacking. If I were to remove any significant vegetation, I could be cited.
The fire department wouldn’t answer if they would be citing the city for bad maintenance and make them fix it.
This also applies to anyy neighbor that you have no influence with. From private owners to, as noted, federal, state, and county parks and wilderness areas.
Thanks for the update. I’m exploring this topic remotely via Google Earth and have seen many such areas. This additional information helps me understand it better.
Are you allowed to put plantings of any sort in that clearance area?
M.Farmer, welcome to the environmental/political complexity of California. The issues surrounding the WUI in SoCal are not easily resolved. The natural setting: ocean, climate, topography, geology, geography, and vegetation all interact in a way that makes political decisions regarding fire safety difficult. The coastal mountains are very steep and erodible.
The Chaparral vegetation is a natural selection response to the mountain soil and a climate that ranges radically between wet and dry. It is deep rooted and so it can mitigate erosion in wet years AND it stump sprouts quickly following fire events. But it burns rapidly and intensely, and mostly unencumbered while sweeping through very rugged terrain. However, when coupled with intense down-canyon (Santa Ana) winds the Chaparral becomes the ignition source that consumes homes serving as habitat.
These homes creep up into the mountain foothills because there is always someone willing pay enough money to construct something on yet higher ground with a steeper driveway than the next guy. Like the ocean front lot, it is for the unencumbered distant VIEWS. It’s all a matter of Democracy and Freedom!
Once the fire storm enters the (sub)urban environment, no amount of water or fire dept. equipment can contain the conflagration. Luck is your best friend, at this point. Yes, there are ways to minimize the fire contagion, but glass, steel, and concrete are not a panacea. Steel loses tensile strength when heated and glass transmits heat from outside to inside which ignites the combustibles on the interior of homes. And that concrete structure pictured on X , while still standing it has clear exterior and interior damage to that structure.
The response to the devastating impacts of fire storms in California will be those that can afford to rebuild in place will do so. And those that can’t afford it? Won’t.
This article from the LA Times from a few days ago gave an interesting, different perspective. Going from memory, two people who have long studied wildfires say that this was more of an urban fire than a wildfire. The vivid example they gave was that in a lot of photos and videos you can see trees with intact canopies standing over completely burned down houses. I have indeed observed this myself after they pointed it out.
It seems that changing building codes to require more fire-resistant materials as well as requiring maintenance of vegetation such as clearing it up to a certain distance from buildings would go a long way to make this scenario less likely in the future. It’s an interesting article and interesting perspective. Again, I’m going from memory from a few days ago, so pardon any slight inaccuracies.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-11/fire-experts-asses-los-angeles-blazes-amid-changing-times
Thank you for the clarification. I was rushed trying to get my post out on time. I agree with the final description of the fires as urban. However, it’s important to note that the Palisades and Altadena fires started in wild parklands, including Topanga State Park, the Santa Monica Mountains Recreation Area, and Angeles National Forest, before spreading to developed areas.
I found the article informative, but I believe it lacked depth in certain respects.
The contentious point here is primarily a matter of emphasis. The opinions held by proponents of the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) theory challenge the established narrative of the building industry, which promotes urban development as positive. The WUI theory calls into question the foundation of a multi-billion-dollar industry.
We can all agree that better building codes must be implemented. In some cases, building individual homes no longer makes sense; housing should be constructed using steel, glass, and concrete, with double-wall designs. However, this approach often exceeds the budget of most families. Therefore, I believe that multi-family housing is the way forward.
No problem, thank you as well. I don’t really have a strong position on this anyway. I just thought it was an interesting article with an interesting observation about the tree canopies being intact. Just something to consider when trying to evaluate the best way forward.
re: Germany and conservative discourse
I find this a short but noteworthy reminder of where German new “conservatism” has started, too:
Christoph Butterwegge (*1951) – one of the few prominent critics of German anti-social policies – about the origin and nature of Friedrich Merz’s political positions:
Chancellor of the Rich? Why Friedrich Merz is deceiving the middle class
January 13, 2025 Christoph Butterwegge
https://archive.is/4dBaJ
this is 20 years ago:
“Now, anyone who declared “multiculturalism” a failure, warned against a “cultural foreign infiltration” of the country, emphasized his pride in Germany or predicted the “extinction” of his own people in the demographic discourse was no longer seen as backward or backward-looking, but as highly modern. In the meantime, a “policy change” had taken place, as propagated by the Union in the current federal election campaign.”
Foreigners might not be aware of this – I very well am – there was a normalcy pre-2015. And the fact that the left failed on the immigration issues was also due to their lack of insight, that the situation had moved away from that pre-2015 status quo.
“Already in the first chapter of the long version of the joint election manifesto of the CDU and CSU, national pride is once again invoked under the title “For a Germany that we can be proud of again”.
The fact that the Union parties promise to “bring Germany forward again” is fatally reminiscent of Donald Trump’s election slogans “Make America Great Again!” and “America First!”, but Friedrich Merz considers it normal. Nobody is particularly upset about it, although the national conservative views of the two politicians differ only in nuances.”
I do not find the finding that we have moved into US directions particularly surprising. What is surprising though is how smoothly this happened. Of course with the “support” of such shocks as Covid and Ukraine.
One must ask what would have happened without Covid? On the other hand the answer could simply be, Ukraine would have happened a year earlier.
But like in the US where a sea change surfaced with the 1980 election, in Germany too there was once an old normal and a new one. And today too many act as if there had never been a yesterday.
“Shortly after his election as CDU chairman, which he only managed to do on his third attempt, Friedrich Merz announced that he wanted to halve the votes of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) by correcting Angela Merkel’s liberal refugee policy. If we take stock today, however, the result of his work is catastrophic, because although Merz has almost halved the vote potential of all democratic parties other than the Union, he has more or less doubled the vote potential of the AfD.”
Butterwegge’s economic criticism I often remember as simplistic a bit. Here he again likes to talk about taxes in the entire second half of the text.
But it´s worthwhile to keep in mind that in 20 years the level of progressiveness in the public has almost vanished. Butterwegge now is an outlier.
“In its “Agenda 2030” adopted on 10/11 January 2025, the CDU Federal Executive Board announced the most comprehensive tax reform in decades:
“We will significantly reduce the income tax burden. The increase in the income tax rate will be flatter in the future. The so-called top tax rate will only apply at 80,000 euros. We will increase the basic tax allowance annually. Overall, this will lead to a lower tax burden for all taxpayers, especially for the working middle class.”
Of course Butterwegge is too much academia bubble to not include AfD into the democratic culture. Which is as serious a flaw which I have gotten used to but as alarming as what he is correctly criticising.
p.s. still I wonder: Let us assume the level of immigration would not have changed since the mid 2000s – would we or would we not have the very same discussions now? I believe we would. The scapegoat as in every decade has fulfilled its duty once more.
Germany immigration:
Very simplistic statistics 1991-2023 :
https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/28347/umfrage/zuwanderung-nach-deutschland/
Germany emigration:
https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/157440/umfrage/auswanderung-aus-deutschland/