“People fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they have not communicated with each other.”
— Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. #mlkday2025 pic.twitter.com/gYIO4LKDHe
— Bill Garland (@BillGarlandSpkr) January 20, 2025
Argue Your Way to a Fuller Life Nautlius. Micael T: “Yes, nothing beats being sentenced to death by your fellow countrymen. I like her approach but the main hurdle in my experience is that people just want to believe, not know.”
Luca is the progenitor of all life on Earth. But its genesis has implications far beyond our planet Guardian (Kevin W)
Inside the world of medieval espionage Engelsberg Ideas (Micael T)
Spanish Flu Killed 50 Million. Terrorists Can Now Create Synthetic Version of the Virus. American Council on Science and Health (Dr. Kevin)
The Updated Red Meat Story Eric Topol (Robin K)
Climate/Environment
The Environmental Impact of Fast Fashion, Explained Earth.org
Large-Scale US Solar Farms Brings ‘Solar Grazing’ Work for Sheep ABC
California Drops Its Pending Zero-Emission Truck Rules After Inaction by Biden EPA Los Angeles Times
China?
Economic alarm bells ring as Hong Kong bankruptcies skyrocket DimSum Daily. I can tell you here from the sex capital of Asia that China’s economy is in bad shape. And the evidence was in well Chinese started canceling trips due to the abduction of a Chinese actor caused a panic.
Why China probably isn’t panicking over Trump Asia Times (Kevin W)
As China wields rare earths in US trade war, weaning off that reliance could take time South China Morning Post
Koreas
Yoon supporters’ courthouse riot deepens South Korean political crisis Nikkei
North Korea condemns Japan’s opening of NATO mission as escalating regional military tension Korea Times
Africa
Why France Will Tolerate Insults from Africans Vzglyad via machine translation (Micael T)
Power outages hit army-controlled Sudan after drone attacks Reuters
Mozambique Weighs Restructuring Public Debt After Vote Unrest Bloomberg
European Disunion
Why Europe will struggle to buy more US gas Financial Times
Germany is main EU target of Trump tariffs, warns economy minister Politico
German city plans to make refugees work or lose their benefits The Times
Far-right Romanian party leads protests against cancelled presidential election EurActiv
Old Blighty
Wages stagnant since 2008 as economy faces downturn Telegraph
UK: Police chief tells pro-Israel group he imposed unprecedented restrictions on Gaza rally Middle East Eye (Kevin W)
Public inquiry into Southport attack announced BBC (Kevin W). Starmer is to address the nation over this?!?! It’s a horrific crime, but this was only three deaths. This looks to be more proof of how weak Starmer is right now.
Israel v. The Resistance
Smotrich: "We will wipe the smile from the Palestinians, but the screaming will remain" pic.twitter.com/VhdjnbYfWc
— Dr. Mustafa Elmasri (@Gaza_Psych) January 18, 2025
Israeli forces advance, blow up homes in south Lebanonhttps://t.co/CLk6rK9bqN
— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) January 21, 2025
Yemeni Houthis to Limit Red Sea Attacks to Israeli-Linked Ships OilPrice
Yemeni rial hit by Houthi crisis despite Saudi bailout Yemen Online
Iran Reveals Deep Gulf Missile Base as Regional Tensions Mount Morocco World News
New Not-So-Cold War
Russian retaliatory strikes have begun to reduce Ukraine’s military potential Vzglyad via machine translation (Micael T)
UKRAINE Eastern Front in Danger of Collapse as Trump Takes Reigns Daniel Davis, YouTube. “Reins”
Sweden deploys troops near Russia’s border for a NATO mission AZ
Balkans
Professors, lawyers join students in anti-Vučić protests across Serbia EurActiv
Syraqistan
When Israel and Turkey go to war Asia Times (Kevin W)
Military escalation; 17 civilians killed and injured in Turkish airstrikes on Teshreen dam SOHR
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Europol Chief Says Big Tech Has ‘Responsibility’ To Unlock Encrypted Messages Financial Times
The Powerful AI Tool That Cops (or Stalkers) Can Use to Geolocate Photos in Seconds 404Media (Randy K). Nowhere near as specific as the headline implies. But confirms my refusal to be photographed.
Imperial Collapse Watch
Accidents, Not Sabotage, Likely Damaged Baltic Undersea Cables, Say US and European Intelligence Officials Washington Post. Of course, announced when the Trump inauguration is starting and the Executive Order flurry is about to start
International Hierarchy Expert Survey: Wave III Report Russia in Global Affairs (Micael T). Small sample but still interesting.
Iran-Russia monetary agreement implemented, bank networks connected Tehran Times
Trump 2.0
Trump’s inauguration: In pictures BBC (Kevin W)
The press is awful. I spent a good 15 minutes trying to find a full list of the executive orders Trump signed and came up empty. If anyone finds something comprehensive, please pipe up in comments.
INITIAL RESCISSIONS OF HARMFUL EXECUTIVE ORDERS AND ACTIONS White House. Quite a few ugly items, like “Executive Order 13989 of January 20, 2021 (Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Personnel).”
Trump to hold fire on immediate tariffs, call for trade deficit review Nikkei
Trump orders federal workers back to office full-time Reuters (Kevin W)
China ever-so slightly softens stance on possible US TikTok sale The Register
‘Everyone wants him out’: How Musk helped boot Ramaswamy from DOGE Politico Politico
Trump Off to a Fast Start, But Stumbles on Russia Larry Johnson
Gov’t Says ‘Never Heard’ of Trump’s Plan to Relocate Gaza Residents to Indonesia Jakarta Globe (Kevin W)
Trump versus the bond market: president-elect’s campaign rhetoric puts investors on edge Guardian
Trump Triggers a Crisis in Denmark—And Europe Atlantic
Junk Food Turns Public Villain as Power Shifts in Washington MedPage
Biden
Patrick Lawrence: Exeunt, the Man from Scranton Sheerpost (Anthony L)
Biden pardons Fauci, Cheney, Milley and Jan. 6 committee RT (Kevin W). Lambert has this in Water Cooler but too important to miss. IM Doc was keen to see a Fauci pardon, as in he is too old to be prosecuted effectively while a pardon signifies some odds of success of a criminal case. From the TCN News e-mailed morning note:
CROOKED: Biden Gives Fauci, Milley and Cheney Blanket Pardons
He really did it.
Joe Biden rang in Inauguration Day by pardoning some of permanent Washington’s most nefarious figures, including Anthony Fauci, Mark Milley, Liz Cheney, and Adam Kinzinger.
The pardons are not for any specific crimes. They are blanket, preemptive orders to ensure the recipients are never held accountable for whatever federal offenses they may have committed during their times in the halls of power. Considering Fauci swore under oath that “The NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” Milley reportedly told the Chinese he’d tip them off if the president ordered a strike, and Cheney made unethical contact with a key J6 Committee witness without an attorney’s knowledge, there could be plenty of substance to look into.
Our No Longer Free Press
REPORT: In Israel’s Parliament (Knesset) earlier this month, ADL’s Chief @JGreenblattADL said:
“Capturing TikTok might seem less meaningful than holding onto Mount Hermon… but the next war will be decided based on how Israel and its allies perform online as much as offline.”… https://t.co/E4DZHYfVcZ pic.twitter.com/UH2gfNJZP8
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) January 19, 2025
AI
The Pentagon Says AI is Speeding Up Its ‘Kill Chain’ TechCrunch
AI Designs Computer Chips We Can’t Understand — But They Work Really Well ZMEScience (Dr. Kevin). So AI can readily start implementing SkyNet.
In AI Arms Race, America Needs Private Companies, Warns National Security Advisor Axios
The Bezzle
Trump’s promise to strike down the Basel Accords has the banking industry elated Le Monde
Elon Musk bet me $1 million the U.S. would not see 35,000 cases of Covid—then turned on me when it happened, says Sam Harris Fortune (Kevin W)
Class Warfare
Champagne demand slumped last year as consumers across the world felt there was little to celebrate This Is Money
After Forced Return-to-Office, Some Amazon Workers Find Not Enough Desks, No Parking New York Post
We Are on the Precipice of a Grievance-Based Society Time. They say it as if it is a bad thing. From Richard Kline’s Progressively Losing in 2011:
At best, progressives seek to convert. In the main, they name and shame—ineffectively. American ‘progressives’ distrust political power, period, are queasy about anyone having it, and suspicious toward anyone who actively seeks it, including other putative progressives. The contest as progressives conceive it is fundamentally a moral one: they believe they are right, and want their opposition to see the light and reform/conform. Thus, they don’t frame what they engage in as a fight but rather as a debate.
There has been another and more radical trend on the left-liberal end of the spectrum previously. That trend derived from radicalized, Continental European, immigrants, it sourced much of labor activism, and is largely extinct in America as of this date….
The key point is that the tradition of radical activism is integrally an economic one, and secondarily one of social justice. It was pursued by those both poor and ‘out castes,’ who often had communal solidarity as their only asset. It was resisted by force, and thus pursued by those inured to force who understood that power was necessary to victory, and that defeat entailed destitution, imprisonment, and being cut down by live fire from those acting under color of authority with impunity…
Critically, these are grievance-driven policies. One could say that the goal of radicals is to force an end to exploitation, particularly economic exploitation since most radicals come from those on the bitter end of such equations.
Antidote du jour (via):
A bonus (Chuck L):
— فيديو🎥 (@3m__1) December 2, 2022
And a second bonus (Chuck L). Notice the cat’s action!
Dog moves security camera so he can secretly eat food on the table
— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) January 19, 2025
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
@BillGarlandSpkr
“People fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they have not communicated with each other.”
— Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
I couldn’t help but comment on the first post this morning. My personnel reaction to Rev. Lorenzo Sewell benediction at President Donald Trump’s inauguration was embarrassment. I could see the comments ridiculing the speech in real time so I know my reaction wasn’t unique. It felt like a slap in the face for MLK’s legacy, a disingenuous sham act…along with a Rabbi coming out before the two Christians to give the benediction, was also a slap in the face to the notion that we are a “Christian Nation.”. With Trump failing, by accident or intent, on placing his hand on the bible when taking presidential oath from Chief Justice Roberts, I’d say on the religious related scripting, yesterday inauguration did not play so well.
MLK – the conviction can be seen in his eyes. I’ve noticed it before in clips of him speaking. That photo captured it.
“Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.”
– Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Note the differences between the oaths taken by the President and the Vice-President, both prescribed by the Constitution:
President – “I, (name), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. So help me God.”
Vice – President – “, I (name), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_office
Executive orders list: https://www.whitehouse.gov/news/
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/
“Delivering Emergency Price Relief for American Families and Defeating the Cost-of-Living Crisis”
Easy money escapes blame in this version of the inflation story.
I’ve personally taken to googling for the official government sources on just about every story these days. What the press fails to link to, they don’t even report. You learn a lot more going straight to the source than from even “paper record” newspaper.
“Trump Off to a Fast Start, But Stumbles on Russia”
‘Trump paid the BRICs countries a back-handed compliment by vowing to impose sanctions on any BRICs member who does business in the United States.’
I heard tell that it is 100% sanctions on anything from a BRICS country. But if he does that for BRICS countries like Russia, China and India then the US is in for a rough ride. I mean, 100% tariffs on uranium, oil, titanium, rare earths, medicines, etc. Is that wise?
I don’t recall either Gaza Genocide or Ukraine war being mentioned at all in Trump’s inauguration speech. The two events that for me, were/are, the most important. Only generalities about wanting to be the remembered as the “peace president.”
Yeah, a piece of Denmark, a piece of Panama, maybe a piece of Mexico, a big piece from Canada, yada, yada, yada.
How angry must you feel if you’re a Danish citizen? Your government fell for the Russians are coming hype, and now you’re looking at your territory being conquered and taken away by Not Russia, but rather the country that manufactured the hype.
Then there is the F16 instructor who got turned into pink mist In Ukraine.
Not a good time to be a Chihuahua. Master is cruel and there are no cops to file charges on cruelty to small animals.
They have been duped before. There was a B-52 that crashed in Greenland back in 1968 that had nukes aboard-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Thule_Air_Base_B-52_crash
And it was only later that it came out that this plane was not diverted there due to an emergency but was on a regular patrol, that the US stockpiled nuclear weapons in Greenland until 1965 even though the Danes denied it, and that there was a secret plan to store 600 missiles under the Greenland ice cap which quickly proved impossible due to the ice being in constant motion.
As the indigenous people groups found out in the Americas, if you can’t keep the white man off your land they’ll take it.
US crashed their nukes in other places too, so the Greenlandians don’t feel singled out.
A little bit of Panama in my life
A little bit of Canada by my side
A little bit of Greenland is all I need
A little bit of EU is what I see
A little bit of Gaza in the sun
A little bit of Gaza all night long
A little bit of Mexico, here I am
A little bit of you makes me your man
Mambo Number Five
+100!
You can’t have a proper Mambo without some Cuban beat.
Trump also seems to think Spain is a member of BRICS, well the S might as well stand for Spain, I suppose.
Olive oil: 100% tariff. Granted. Not that i care. On the contrary.
re: pardons
What the MSM and Dems said when T was considering pre-emptive pardons. / ;) twtr-X
Nearly 3 minutes straight of Democrats saying preemptive presidential pardons means you’re guilty:
Biden just preemptively pardoned Fauci, Milley, Jan 6th committee, and his family.
https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1881430072747589835
(I’m enjoying the schadenfreude. )
The pardons are projection by “whoever” decided Biden must sign what “they” wrote
They say the “new DoJ will be as Stalinist (not quite as Maoist) as the Jan 6 committee” and as dangerous as HHS during the 2021 and beyond covid miasma!
In particular the Jan 6 committee tore apart the Bill of Rights. They must not be protected.
They do not want any investigation into the 4 year nightmare run by “whoever”……
First question: “did Biden know anything?”
Serious discovery will raise too many questions.
Interesting line of thought, thanks, now we must view the pardon list as a gallery of potential usurpers after the fact. I imagine the penalty on that could be grave. Liz Cheney stands out, just by blood line.
The family pardons, and the reasoning or excuses behind those, represent yet another stain on the corrupt DC system,. That will begin to fade when a few of those siblings and uncles get subpoenas and have to testify without the benefit of a Fifth Amendment.
In the meantime, when will the book deals be announced? Will the advances be enough to keep those Delaware beachgoers in food deliveries?
Well Ford’s pardon of Nixon did later lose him an election (probably). Guess we’ll see if Biden’s typically reckless and ill thought action will have consequences. I doubt that Trump really would have gone after all those people including the family Biden. At this point a lot of us never again want to hear the word “Biden.”
“I doubt that Trump really would have gone after all those people including the family Biden.”
Look at the terrible things he did to Hillary Clinton after his “Lock Her Up!” Campaign in 2016! It’s tragical!
Fauci will not be missed from the public scene. Jimmy Dore put out a tweet reminding people what he did such as-
‘He also tortured dogs on the regular. As the White Coat Waste Project reported he approved “research” that starved Beagles and then had their vocal cords removed so that they couldn’t howl or bark — beagles had their heads trapped in cages with hungry sand fleas that ate their hosts alive.’
And the reason that beagles were chosen is that they are the most friendly to humans. It is my fervent hope that when Fauci passes away, that the National Beagle Club of America make it a point for each of their members to go visit his grave – and to bring their beagles along as well.
Dogs!?!
What about all the PEOPLE who suffered and died during the early HIV era because of his pronouncements and policies?
Like the hemophiliacs who he told not to worry,(every last one ended up with AIDS, unless they died of something else first) or all the people who took the incredibly useless(after a few weeks), toxic but incredibly profitable AZT monotherapy, based on CDC guidance.
To add insult to injury, his name has been on every edition of THE textbook of Internal Medicine for forty years.
Burned them all shortly after the start of Covid.
Yes dogs. US public cares more about dogs than people. Homeless dogs find homes much easier then homeless people, not to mention getting free healthcare (though some private parts tend to suffer in the process).
Perhaps consider Rev Kev’s comment as an assessment of Fauci’s character. And spare me the aghastitude. I’ll speculate that there’s plenty of people that consider the well-being of animals on equal footing or better with the well-being of our species. You may count me amongst them.
Well, some knickers got in a twist. I bet you would not attack a dog that way.
Probably not, true. Sorry bout that that (serious).
Walter expresses my anger pretty well. My 2 cents: This is the end of the PMC class claiming the right to rule, demanding to be listened to, and the end of me ever listening to them ever again.
This is yesterday afternoon’s ATW. Jump ahead to the 10 minute mark to start. utube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2yLZxYJIs4
A starting point for DJT Ex- Executive Orders?
https://x.com/Phil_Lewis_/status/1881536000528372000?t=aTNzxZp__bNrZIZgRrb2hw&s=19
Joe Biden rang in Inauguration Day by pardoning some of permanent Washington’s most nefarious figures, including Anthony Fauci, Mark Milley, Liz Cheney, and Adam Kinzinger.
The pardons are not for any specific crimes. They are blanket, preemptive orders to ensure the recipients are never held accountable for whatever federal offenses they may have committed during their times in the halls of power.
MLK must be turning in his grave: We make our fervent pleas for the high road of justice, and then we tread unflinchingly the low road of injustice. MLK
Reminds me of the movie Minority Report in reverse, where in the movie, precogs are reporting crimes before they happen, Biden et al, wipe away crimes after they happen.
Zaganostra: Biden et al, wipe away crimes after they happen.
It’s the political instantiation of the Quantum Eraser effect —
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_eraser_experiment
‘The quantum eraser experiment is a varation of (….the) classic double-slit experiment …The experiment creates situations in which a photon that has been “marked” to reveal through which slit it has passed can later be “unmarked.” A photon that has been “unmarked” will then interfere with itself once again, restoring the fringes characteristic of Young’s experiment….’
That cat’s a rat!
Busted, lol!
The cat was quite the twist to the story.
re: Lebanon
Craig Murray, twtr-X
The U.S. is building a MASSIVE embassy in tiny Lebanon—the second largest embassy in the world.
Why?
To run secret prisons, spy on Lebanon and the region, and use it as a hub for flights to Cyprus.
This is not an embassy.
It’s a fortified CIA base.
https://x.com/sahouraxo/status/1880757780958924938
I’ve heard that place described as a modern Crusader fortress – maybe in comments – and that is not a bad description. That massive US Embassy in Baghdad in the Green Zone was supposed to be used to run the Middle East from when Bush had it built but that never worked out so it looks like that this is it’s replacement.
The crusader castles of 1,000 years ago never worked out nor will this. Might take time, but in the end …
I visited Malta and the Levant and all I got was this lousy
t-shirtplastic falcon.>The crusader castles of 1,000 years ago never worked out nor will this. Might take time, but in the end …
I doubt there are now any structures on this Earth that Mr. Oreshnik cannot make short work of if things go fantastically wrong…
Nobody who is familiar with Beirut and its security problems, and especially the murderous attacks on Embassies, would be surprised by this, though it’s true the US goes to typically gigantic lengths. The Embassies of all major countries in Beirut are now fortresses, with armed guards and blast proof walls. All major nations treat Beirut as a hub for their Middle East activities, because it’s (reasonably) safe and has good connections with the outside world and a partly-European style culture. Everyone has an Embassy in Beirut: even the Ukrainians are there. All embassies act as intelligence-gathering installations and always have, and there are probably more spies of various nations per square metre in Beirut than anywhere else in the world.
It’s probable that the US has decided to concentrate all national staff and local employees in the same place, including various government agencies and training teams, as well as US NGOs. Quite possibly also there will be staff accommodation there, meaning that, for example, the Ambassador’s residence doesn’t need separate round-the-clock armed protection any more. This model, by the way, is used in doubtful countries by many different nations.
If you are building an Embassy on dedicated terrain (not usually possible in Beirut) it makes sense to build it as large as possible. Car and truck bombs can project their effects over several hundred metres, and with drones and other remote weapons, you want the maximum empty space between the outside perimeter and the target area, among other things to give defenders time to deploy if anyone does succeed in forcing entry.
I’ve been to US Embassies in a number of countries and, even in Europe, they tend to be surrounded by what I personally think to be a paranoid level of security. But then I suppose they are still haunted by the 1983 Embassy bombings.
Thank you, Aurelien.
The new US missions in London and even Mauritius, under construction, are not dissimilar.
What you say might be true but seriously, 5,000 people? That is enough men and women to fully man that Embassy and then have enough left over to man a full fledged US combat infantry brigade. Hell, that complex is big enough to hide the equipment for a brigade there. Come to think of it, I wonder which part has the underground CIA torture chambers? They probably appear on the blueprints for that Embassy as the “wine cellar.”
The State Department has only 11,000 career employees so I don’t know where that number came from. This link provides details of the construction and the “village” design, which is also better for security.
https://lb.usembassy.gov/new-embassy-beirut-compound/
I have no idea what that figure relates to, but it probably refers to the maximum number of people the compound can accommodate in an emergency. It’s standard practice for nations to gather their nationals in one place for evacuation if necessary, and this would be a good site.
Btw and fyi–the most recent Alastair Crooke gives you a shoutout.
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/01/20/competency-crisis-proliferating-west/
I followed that link and read the entire article by David Samuels and it was painful. In the first part of the article, the bulk of it really, he says very informative things about the social media messaging system set up by Obama. It explains a lot about why public information has felt so manipulated these days. Then, at the very end of the piece he veers into celebrating Bibi’s glorious victory in Gaza. The contrast between the insights at the start of the article and the venal madness with which he ends it is mortifying.
There seems to be a supersizing of embassies worldwide, which does seem ominous. Even in Ireland, the US is about to spend $700 million on what seems to be an insanely large new embassy on a very expensive site – and this was announced a year after Russia proposed a huge increase in the size of its embassy. Russia’s neighbours got the hump over it – its not exactly high architectural style, not popular in a very posh part of the city. Whatever you say about the US State department, they have excellent architectural taste (the existing embassy was designed by Saarinen). One can just hope Trump doesn’t get one of his pet architects involved (more gold leaf!).
Mind you, the US embassy in Dublin has been known to be vulnerable – famously, Obama’s armoured limo got stuck exiting it as it couldn’t go over the engineered ‘hump’ at the carpark entry (you can find it on YT). The British embassy is pretty much a fortress, but then again, it was burnt to the ground by a mob in 1974. I once brought a friend there for her visa application (needed solely to transit via Heathrow), and the security was so intense she got quite nervous, I don’t think she was expecting that.
Speaking of US embassies we arrived recently in Vanuatu less than a week after a 7.4 earthquake left the town in shambles. In fact the airport had been closed and opened only a few days before our arrival.
From driving throughout the city we quickly realized how Vanuatu occupies a geopolitical pivot point between Australia, China and the USA. From our hotel everyday we had to pass the Chinese embassy on our way to town and back. The place was a large, modern sprawling complex with high walls topped with razor wire and scanning cameras. The Australian presence is an imposing modern structure sitting on a bluff high above the harbor. Both embassies were open for business.
By contrast the newly opened (July) American embassy was located in a simple looking repurposed office building along a blocked street in downtown Port Villa. It was closed due to extensive earthquake damage.
We also learned that The Chinese had just dedicated a new Presidential Palace to the country, built free of charge and with ‘no strings attached’. It sits atop a hill and overlooks the city and harbor. Additionally, many of the little shops and grocery stores had Chinese names. Lots of Chinese restaurants.
From this and other observations it appeared to us that the Chinese are way ahead of the competition for the hearts and minds of the local populace.
Thanks. I’ll throw in grifting, the bigger the project, the more to be siphoned off.
Mr Murray mentions a clean sight line of Mount Troodos as a prize worth defending, so perhaps capacity for a full battalion is on the mark.
As I fashion a balaclava from tinfoil, space weapon control and coordination center?
“…though it’s true the US goes to typically gigantic lengths. The Embassies of all major countries in Beirut are now fortresses, with armed guards and blast proof walls. All major nations treat Beirut as a hub for their Middle East activities, because it’s (reasonably) safe…”
Thank you for the hundreds of thousands of valuable words you’ve written and shared.
Regarding this juxtaposition, as we say in American football, “You gotta figure that’s one he’d like back.”
1980s intrusion into the otherwise by the book four way violence, lobbing of battleship shells at random, and unleashing Sharon was what first popped to mind for me. Context added/deepened by subsequent theater disasters and crimes. Here I once again see U S. activity as differing in kind, not simply degree.
Interesting, Iraq’s U.S. Embassy was the largest at one time, last month Mexico inaugurated the largest U.S. Embassy, costing tax payers ~$1Billion. Now Lebanon? Maybe we could build some “embassies” in the U.S. to economically anchor dying regional cities/towns. After all, at some point they’ll want to spy on Americans and maybe build some “secret prisons” here.
“They” already have a ‘secret’ domestic prison in Chicago. Not to mention all of the nascent FEMA Re-education Centres. “They” also have an out in the open Federal lockup in New York City where ‘inconvenient’ prisoners can be and are sent to “commit suicide.”
US “facility” in the Green Zone in Baghdad was the same.
So formidable that US needed IRGC/Quds allied with Iraqi Shi’a militia to oust its ISIS from Iraq.
It will probably run the Lebanon branch of HTS…..
The new US embassy in Mexico City is also a fortress, coming in at around 1 million square feet, set back from the street, with high walls. To their credit, the architects at least planned for lots of plantings:
https://www.davisbrodybond.com/united-states-embassy-mexico-city
Stupidity. No matter the reinforced underground “chambers”, it’s a nice, juicy target. (I doubt it will be American workers who do the actual construction, so inside info will be readily available to those seeking it).
Re: Medieval intelligence
I had always thought the clergy was the first organized medieval ‘intelligence service’, originating with the privatized Sacrament of Penance emerging in the fifth century, probably already weaponized by the time of the Albigensian Crusade, and certainly already an institution by the time of the Hussite Wars.
Apparently the Vatican has a highly developed intelligence service that dates back to about 1566 so is this the one that you mean?
https://www.csactu.fr/the-vaticans-secret-services/
On His Holiness’s Secret Service.
Licensed to order penances and burn heretics at the stake
And Cardinal/Pope Ratzinger, he of the Hitler Jugend, presumably used it to ferret out pinko nuns and priests in the ‘80’s and ‘90’s… you know, the kind who were murdered by Central American death squads.
@Rev Kev
Did I mean the 1566 Vatican CIA??
In that time frame was thinking more of the likes of Richelieu. Did he work for the Church or the State? With the Reformation, it seems to me that lots of ‘clergy’ went rogue.
France under Richelieu was the major funder of the Protestant side in the Thirty Years War.
He certainly persecuted Huguenots in France. It wouldn’t surprise me if he funded Protestants outside of France…
My pet peeve is that the title should be “medieval Europe”. I am sure that there was lots of espionage in the Chinese space, Indian space, Eurasian space in general in that period.
@Kouros: Certainly Hsun Tzu (about 500 BCE) had quite a bit to say about the value of spies to a general. I’m pretty sure the general didn’t recruit and run the spies himself, although I’m also sure he kept a close eye on the operation. Every dynasty had secret police, who probably kept an eye on foreign barbarians as well. The government had separate buildings, but that doesn’t prove the intelligence services were organized. In Thailand up until the time of King Rama V many government ministers conducted their government business from their homes. I don’t know enough about China to know if they were the same. They were certainly not effective under the Qin Dynasty, but the Communists in the 20th Century were very good at it.
>Trump’s inauguration: In pictures BBC (Kevin W)
Since we’re talking pictures here, what struck me was the following:
Trump looked pretty good, tanned and rested
Melania’s outfit reminiscent of “V is for Vendetta” and contrasted with the pink of Usha Chilukuri Vance Pink.
Barron Trump looking morose, contrasted with Elon looking ebullient and animated
Zucker’s glance at woman’s cleavage
Billionaires all seated together glancing at their smartphones
Miriam Adelson seated right behind former presidents
Bush wearing his trademark smirk
Fetterman sartorial travesty
Clintons looking dejected, Biden trying to stay awake
Elon’s salute, or whatever you call it, being equated by people like Ralph Nader as a Nazi salute, pathetic
Thanks for the distillation. I’ll take a second helping of “Clintons looking dejected”.
They both, imo, looked like pictures of Dorian Gray.
My favourite clip of the Clintons-
https://xcancel.com/RealJessica05/status/1881016268519858401#m
I find it impossible to take Fetterman as a bad joke much less seriously. he is the derelict at the garden party.
I found the Trumps and the Vances to be properly dignified in both comportment and appearance. As the citizens of this once great country have a right to expect.
But it could be that my impression was influenced somewhat by my considerable relief that the ignorant, demented, criminal slime of the biden / harris regime was oozing out the door at long last.
My inappropriate-trash-of-the-day award goes to the j. bezos paramour who has, apparently, over-internalized the amazon mantra of “always be sellin’.”
Zuck got caught sizing up the goods.
Or was that seating pre-planned to give him an opportunity at further de-robotizing? /s
I thought Mrs. Vance was the only one on that podium who seemed normal. She’s cute!
When Trump spoke later to his supporters downstairs he said “you’re a much better looking crowd.”
Not just “people like Nader”
https://www.wired.com/story/neo-nazis-love-elon-musk-nazi-like-salutes-trumps-inauguration/
It was very clearly a Nazi salute, and it is very unlikely that it wasn’t intentional. I would encourage any doubters here to watch the video for themselves.
It was an homage to Dr. Strangelove, who is an homage to Wernher von Braun, a rocket scientist that put the man on the Moon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddWNMSUbcGI
This issue has broke the internet. I’m not sure what the end game is suppose to be. This is proof Musk, and therefore Trump, are Nazi’s? Most think that anyway. Why does this matter so much?
There are 3 kinds of people;
1) TDS 1 – people who hate Trump and anything connected to him
2) TDS 2 – people who love Trump and anything connected to him
3) The sane.
People are one of the above and it seems 1 and 2 are fighting about this. 3 doesn’t care. Tomorrow, or most likely later today, 1 and 2 will be fighting about something else, and 3 won’t care.
This is what we do. So much of it seems so petty, and I’m not talking Tom.
I think many people who do not suffer from TDS might find a roman salute being delivered at the US inaugural disturbing and commentworthy.
There is comment that it is the Bellamy Salute, which the not at all fascist USA used to require all its schoolchildren to perform not at all fascistly to the national flag. Definitely not fascist.
I suppose so. I think they have come to a conclusion based on what I see online. Trump, Musk, and anyone who likes them are Nazi’s and that proved it.
Now maybe we can move on to something else. It was also brought up our new first lady is a whore. That might be next. I’m not sure of her background so that might be true as well.
I’ll be glad to give the whole corrupt bunch of Ds and Rs the salute with the middle finger on each hand.
Why can”t we be disgusted by Musk but be ambivalent about Trump? Be suspicious of Kennedy but hopeful about Gabbard?
There are only 2 kinds of people;
1) The sane – people who share my opinion.
2) Deranged – everyone else.
Also not Tom Petty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9jXnZS3ouU
“Sweden deploys troops near Russia’s border for a NATO mission”
In the same way that the British political establishment has an obsession with Russia dating back to at least the 1840s, I do think that the Swedish political establishment has never forgiven the Russians for beating them in the Battle of Poltova back in 1709 which helped put paid to the Swedish Empire at the time. The actual people of both countries could not care less about events from so long ago but not so the political establishments it seems.
Thank you, Rev.
Boris Johnson has talked / obsessed about that, especially when he ordered a Royal Navy vessel, with BBC stenographer aboard, to the Crimea.
I’m just back from Mauritius and note settlements like Alma and Sebastopol and streets like Inkerman In Rose-Hill. I’m aware of similar in Australia and Canada.
Not related to Russia. There’s a street in Port-Louis called Edith Cavell. A securities dealer based on the street uses that name.
I did see a fashion article in one publication recently that was promoting Balaclava headwear as well, though not Raglan sleeves on knitwear as yet.
Thank you, John.
There’s a Balaclava, too, in Mauritius.
Bally’s are so back!
Obligatory kneecap link.
https://www.instagram.com/kneecap32/reel/DDCSiUWMdJ8/
Thank you, Colonel. Not only did we get streets named after Crimean battles but we even got a fort out of it. Just in case a Russian raider came here from Vladivostok which I note is nearly 9,000 kilometers away-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Denison
Of course nobody here has a clue what those names mean or what the reality was like-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ut3pCL0FTs (8:13 mins)
“British political establishment has an obsession with Russia dating back to at least the 1840s…”
Really important understanding. Precisely why the British political establishment is incapable of understanding why Britain desperately needs a partnership with China no matter the unending resentment for having lost China as a colony. The British resentment even at the loss of little Hong Kong is bizarrely self-destructive.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1pOZz
August 4, 2014
Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for China and United Kingdom, 1977-2023
(Indexed to 1977)
“The British resentment even at the loss of little Hong Kong is bizarrely self-destructive.”
Dealing with people (and not only the British establishment) more concerned with power than reason.
I should post a picture of what an armadillo did to my garden last year. It looked like it had been roto tilled, every square inch, in an hour. The next night it dug a thousand 6 inch deep holes in my yard. Then it got hit by a car.
‘Then it got hit by a car.’ Hmmmmmm. At least you got a garden where the soil had been turned over completely.
How many Texans does it take to eat an armadillo?
Three, one to eat while two watch for cars.
FWIW about armadillos – there is a scientific connection between armadillos and syphilis, especially in the southern United States – troubling implication of some bestiality in the past? – also carriers of leprosy, leptospirosis, salmonella, histoplasmosis a fungal infection, rabies and tapeworms –
Exeunt, by Patrick Lawrence.
Lawrence is at it again. Good.
To quote him: “The long-attempted FDR comparison didn’t stick, after all: Biden to Roosevelt, if my editors will again excuse me, is chicken shit to chicken salad.”
Piquant. Highly recommended for the portraits of Biden and Blinken, two jamokes of easy morals.
That chicken s#*^/chicken salad quote is Senate Majority Leader LBJ talking about Vice President Richard Nixon, as related by Russell Baker in the second installment of his autobiography.
Thank you so much for that observation. This morning I tried to read a post by Heather Cox Richardson because a relative that I want to get along with thinks highly of her work. The post that I read attempted to pretentiously equate Biden with FDR. It made me so angry that it took a while to cool down. The chicken shit to chicken salad formulation is satisfying, and ever so much more polite than the one that came to my mind.
The Department of Health and Human Services on Friday barred EcoHealth Alliance and the group’s former president, Peter Daszak, from receiving federal funding for five years after they failed to report potentially dangerous gain-of-function research experiments to the government.
If EcoHealth Alliance lied to HHS then did Fauci lie to congress??
No. For those who came in late, everything Dr. Fauci has said has been certified as a non-lie by his wife, who is the the head of the Department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center.
I read “The Updated Red Meat Story” by Eric Topol, who seems to be a doctor of some sort, and I am sad to see him ignore the diversity of humanity. Like I brought up the other day, my people, the Sami, survive on much red meat (Reindeer), and fish, and very few plants.
But his first chart bothered me the most. On the left, all vegetable, on the right we do not have meats like reindeer or grass feed lamb (both know as “land salmon” for their high Omega 3 content) but french fires, a can of soda(?) and a hamburger? Why are the vegetable not compared to a picture of smoked reindeer meat, grass feed lamb chop, wild grouse, and a pile of offal?
So I do not think he is that serious. I would like to ask him if he has ever seen a diet study that took a person’s heritage and genetics into account. He should read: Inuit metabolism revisited: what drove the selective sweep of CPT1a L479? or “Genetics, Nutrition, and Health: A New Frontier in Disease Prevention“.
So I agree, for most of you agriculturalists, that his diet is the best, but do you know if you even are an agriculturalist? “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” is a death sentence for my people and the Inuit.
And then he has the nerve to talk about environmental impact? As a third descendant the Sámit, I find it really insulting.
I also questioned that one of the charts depicted chicken as healthier than fish. That makes no sense unless perhaps the fish is tuna salad (mercury + mayo!). In other words, there was no consideration of typical food prep.
We made mayo back in the day. Now it is hard to find mayo in stores that does not have bad oils. Maybe time to try again at home with healthy options.
I occasionally make my own. With a stick blender you are looking at a good ten minutes work.
just the other day i was mildly annoyed when my local gastropub didn’t have smoked reindeer on the lunch menu.
I just wanted to commend the Sami on their successful opposition to Harvard’s Gates-sponsored geoengineering adventure/fiasco. Now if someone could get them to stop with the robot bees.
Thanks for the articles on genetics and nutrition. I have long believed that we are all different. As for red meat being the enemy – I would like to know what else those red meat eaters are eating. Wheat? Sugar? Highly processed foods? Alcohol? Big ag, not small well tended farms. It is pretty clear that obesity and heart disease have increased along with the west’s reliance on processed and highly sweetened foods and big ag. One of the commenters on Topol’s article has it right – scientists looking to prove what they already believe. Not starting with nul hypothesis. Not to mention the high unreliability of human diet studies. People tracking what they eat cannot be trusted. I am 63, no heart disease, cancer or diabetes.
I eat red meat, not a lot, from small farms, grass fed when I can get it. And I eat as much locally farmed produce as I can. I know I am lucky to be able to afford it. My body doesn’t seem to like plant protein as much as animal protein. On a vegetarian diet, I am sluggish and foggy. And I am one of those people who cannot digest lentils – yes this is a thing. Yes, yes, I know, n=1. Nonetheless, if we could all stick to whole foods, skewing plant or not as our bodies need, and eat a little less in general and get more exercise, we’d all be much better off.
Has anyone heard from Antifa?
I also wonder about Arizona Slim, from whom I haven’t seen a posting in a good long while, and to whom I am forever grateful for advice on how to get rid of my sciatic pain. For any in need of such:
Absolute Best Exercise for Sciatica & Herniated Disc- McKenzie Approach.
Thanks! Providing link to sciatica and herniated disc sufferers that I know.
I’ve wondered about the same thing…
Toss the recently married Fresno Dan into that list. The Pink Bunny Radio Slippers have gone silent.
Thinking about it, I will opine that we are all eventually going to go and visit “that bourne from whence no man doth return.” Do not allow that knowledge to stay your hands from performing acts both noble and common to increase and improve your self, your home, your community.
Staying safe is both an individual and a community imperative. Do so to the best of your ability.
Thank you for mentioning Fresno Dan, ambrit. I was thinking of him, too, and have also been wondering/worried about Slim. I hope they are both okay and happily busy with good things.
I miss Oregon Charles.
Henry Moon Pie was very ill and hasn’t been here in a while either. Hope he’s alright.
Thanks for thinking of me. I’ve been posting, but less frequently and definitely more concisely. My left hand is screwed up some after the last surgery, and I’m sort of like my grandfather who typed with three fingers.
Best wishes, HMP
always enjoy your comments
From yesterday:
Henry Moon Pie
January 20, 2025 at 11:11 pm
On Sunday, I watched those Detroit fans as the game ended and remembered how many times I had felt just like that.
He’s been around here and there.
There is a very long list of decamped and good commenters on NC going back to 07.
Yes, for instance, we lost vlade, our longest-standing commenter, over our take on the Ukraine conflict.
You begged for a pardon
I’ll give you one in the rose garden
Along with whatever prior crime
There’s gotta be a little leniency sometime
Whatever it takes, i’m gonna give
So live and let live & let prosecution go, whoa-whoa-whoa
You begged for a pardon
I’ll come through on January 20th in the rose garden
I promise you things since 2014 are covered
But you don’t find pardons growin’ on stalks of clover
So no need to think it over
Well, if sweet-talkin’ you could make it come true
I will give you a pardon right now on a silver platter
But what would Donald do that could matter?
So smile for a while and let’s be jolly
Clemency shouldn’t be so melancholy
Come along and share the good times while we can
You begged for a pardon
I’ll give you one in the rose garden
Along with whatever prior crime
There’s gotta be a little leniency sometime
I got your pardon
Delivered January 20th in the rose garden
I could sing you a tune and promise you the moon
But if that’s what it takes to keep you out of jail
I’d just as soon let you know
But there’s one thing I want you to know, you’re free to go
You earn what you reap, still waters run deep
And there won’t always be someone there to pull you out
And you know what I’m talking about
I got your pardon
Delivered January 20th in the rose garden
I never Promised You a Rose Garden, performed by Lynn Anderson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXHsWBKKNbI
Good job that. But please, please tell me that Biden announced those pardons from the White House Rose Garden.
Thank you. That song is built for parody.
AI integrated circuit design:
The article goes into more detail. These are mixed signal chips (meekly behaved low voltage digital one side, controlling hairy, analogue radio outputs on the other – ultimately, WiFi and radar are all some kind of radio…). It is acknowledged by all electronics engineers that mixed signal circuit design is black magic. All the nice tidy rules and templates and layout tools for processors and memory, forget Jake, this is Chinatown. Brilliant mixed signal circuit designers cannot always explain what they do. Using AI won’t make it any less a product of intuition and mystery.
Franky, even pure digital processors contain AI-levels of serendipity and mystery. ARM’s first processor had a shoestring development budget and it was all spent. They couldn’t afford another tape out (mnfg run). They had to show working silicon to the investors. They powered it up and… it worked first time (if a little crankily). Afterwards they realised that although the processor design was correct, the integrated chip would not have worked if implemented correctly because of broken power connections. However, the ARM chip required so little power that the processor was getting power through a leak to ground fault elsewhere on the board!
“Spanish Flu Killed 50 Million. Terrorists Can Now Create Synthetic Version of the Virus.”
Why would they bother? No seriously, why make the effort? After all, the now departed Biden regime have set the US up for a deadly outbreak of HPAI A(H5N1) bird flu and the present form has spread through multiple States. It took a lot of work to ignore all the warning signs and to do the minimum possible but by gum, old Joe did it in his last year in office. And Trump will probably continue this work – until it all blows up. So those terrorist might as well settle onto their lounges, kick off their boots and pop a bottle of beer or two while they watch the show.
“Spanish Flu Killed 50 Million. Terrorists Can Now Create Synthetic Version of the Virus.”
Now suddenly? This has been true for twenty years.
Good point, and while I mourn in advance for humanity, the worst of it for me will be making honest cats out of our three mousketeers. Methinks they are not going to take the transition to becoming indoor cats peacefully.
They resurrected the 1918 flu virus from a buried corpse in Alaska back in 1997. This article from 2020 discusses how is was found.
https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/science/2020/03/22/how-an-alaska-village-grave-led-to-a-spanish-flu-breakthrough/
“Using $3,200 from his savings account, Hultin traveled to Brevig Mission in August 1997. After receiving permission from the elders, he again opened the mass grave. Note the bird to human connection.
At a depth of seven feet, he saw what he was looking for: a well-preserved body. The body was that of an obese woman. Her lungs, which Hultin removed, were well preserved. Hultin said the body’s excess fatty tissue had insulated the lungs from decay during brief periods of permafrost thaw.
With the samples from the obese woman, in 2005 Taubenberger and his colleagues reconstructed the virus. They determined it had originated in birds and had mutated to infect people.”
After Forced Return-to-Office, Some Amazon Workers Find Not Enough Desks, No Parking – New York Post
They should just order the desks they need from Amazon. With luck they’ll be delivered the next day.
Jump back, what’s that sound ?
Here he comes, full blast and top down parvenu
Hot to trot, burnin’ down Pennsylvania avenue
Model citizen zero discipline
Don’t you know the canal is coming home with me?
You’l lose it in the turn
I’ll get it back!
Panama, Panama
Panama, Panama
Ain’t nothin’ like it, our Teddy’s whet dream
A man, a plan, a canal, Panama!
Got the feel for the art of the deal, keep the moving parts clean
Hot to trot, burnin’ down Pennsylvania avenue
Got an on-ramp comin’ through my Monroe Doctrine
Don’t you know the canal is coming home with me?
You’l lose it in the turn
I’ll get it back!
Panama, Panama
Panama, Panama
Yeah, we’re gonna take it back, I think
I can barely see the Panamanians making a stink
Ah, you reach down, let me pull your legs
Please adjust expectations back
He’s not bluffing, I’m guessing
Right behind the 2020 rear-view mirror now
Got the feeling, power canal steering
Champagne popping, ain’t no stopping now!
Panama, Panama
Panama, Panama
Panama by Van Halen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMoDJ4HWWaE
Nice. Diamond Dave and Alex VH would approve.
Lots of debate back in the day on Dave vs. Sammy, but I say that both are great, and without Dave leaving, we would not have seen Eddie and Alex extend the band into new directions.
This was always my favorite from the Van Hagar era:
Dreams
Definitely not as edgy, but when it comes to keyboard-driven pop metal, Eddie proved his genius was not limited to the fretboard, and lawdy those notes Sammy can hit!
Crank it to 11 and hit the slopes, man.
Thanks-
Alta today…
Sharing because a number of stupid updates triggered the dreaded Black Screen of Uselessness on my Windows devices yesterday. Hopefully this article helps anyone else similarly afflicted.
Southport public enquiry:
Don’t dismiss this case as small beer and a media circus. Starmer’s weakness lies in the broad political background to the case, not his ordering an enquiry into it which is merely a symptom of weakness.
– a maladjusted, possibly mentally unwell immigrant attacked school children
– social media users claimed he was a Muslim (unproven, he had a devout Christian upbringing but there’s no official record of his religious confession one way or another – and I don’t think you enter a plea on oath so there may never be one)
– social media users also claimed the attack was terror related
– anti-immigrant factions incited mobs across the UK on social media which attacked immigrants and hostels, urging arson etc
– the political class denounced the mobs but also denounced the social media posts as misinformation, denied any links to immigration, islam or terror, and subsequently organised 24h kangaroo courts that have seen people gaoled for several years over tweets
– the guy is eventually charged with terrorism offences (admittedly not hard in the UK, you could peel a banana wrong and be a terrorist with our authoritarian legislation), including owning an All Quaeda training manual (LOL, Al Quaeda HR want their ring binder back!)
Meanwhile, there has been a string of controversies around:
– the policing of protests
– selective (non-)-prosecution of immigrants, for violence, particularly stabbings
– institutional toleration of sexual abuse, ranging from the CofE (Archbishop of Canterbury just resigned) and Westminster (former Defence Minister just arrested for offences, who tweeted about his proclivities and was still followed by lots of top Labour politicians) to local police and social services (Pakistani rape rings in English provincial towns) and, further back, high profile paedophiles in the establishment and their cronies (Grenville Janner, Clement Freud, Savill, allegations regarding Edward Heath and Mountbatten)
– labour party corruption regarding rotten boroughs in local politics (Lutfur Rahman in Tower Hamlets) and the Muslim block vote (households / mosque congregations) in general elections
Starmer’s problem is threefold:
– he was the long-standing Director of Public Prosecutions who presided over all of these inactions, failed prosecutions, lenient sentences etc. and Crown Prosecution Service internal policy
– his MP’s are metropolitan liberals but his core Labour vote is working class and split between immigrants and white voters. Many of both groups are socially conservative and feel that unfunded further migration and poor integration is destroying their communities – and a hardcore of white Labour voters are also racist.
– Reform is riding high in the polls and has no problem with illiberal views. The Tories are led by a black woman who is competing with Reform and is politically untouchable on race and immigration. And Starmer has no economic success to deflect with, quite the opposite.
Both parties know that Starmer’s record as DPP is his Achilles’ heel. They can force him to defend all sorts of unsavoury behaviour in order to defend himself.
And his situation is getting worse: Tulip.Siddiqi, one of his Ministers, of Bangladeshi immigrant background, has just resigned because she appears to be benefitting from the proceeds of crimes by her aunt, the former ruler of Bangladesh, and her extended family’s unexplained wealth in the UK. She was in charge of UK anti-corruption efforts – whereas other dictators’ close relatives have been the subject of confiscatory unexplained wealth orders, quite possibly sought by Starmer as DPP!
Starmer has no good options for escaping a whirlpool of scandal (race, religion, sex, corruption, immigration). These issues attend the entire UK political class but particularly the PMC Labour apparatchiks who have tolerated or manipulated it for their own ends in administrative or political power. The Tories were booted out for economic incompetence and Covid corruption but voters are equally angry about these issues and Starmer is responsible for them, many of them personally.
And so, with no good options, you hold a public enquiry. Choose the right judge, slow-roll the progress (Skripals? Grenfell? Bloody Sunday?!!) and you can buy yourself decades of time and shutdown all commentary by reference to not prejudicing the judicial process….
So, yes, Starmer is weak but you need to understand the depths of that weakness. Starmer is weak like a blackmailer’s victim. His entire career and colleagues are evidence against him and he cannot repudiate them so he has to find ways to limit the discussion until good economic news turns up.
Hence addressing the nation to announce a public enquiry into a case that appears to be nothing in itself. He hopes to limit discussion of his DPP record and immigration policies and get Tulip Suddiqi off the front pages.
Point of fact: Rudakubana is not an immigrant. He was born in the UK.
Politically I think Starmer has chosen to go down this enquiry route because the blame for what occurred can be placed pretty firmly on his predecessors’ time in office. The case has nothing to do with his time as DPP or sexual abuse. In that respect it is arguably a shrewd move on his part.
But you are right that, until there is economic growth, then Starmer has problems. And there has been no real growth (other than that caused by immigration increasing the population) since 2008. Nor is there any realistic prospect of growth in the foreseeable future. The UK is basically s*****d.
You’re right, the attacker is not an immigrant. His parents both immigrated to the UK from Rwanda five years before he was born. He’s Welsh! (Bloody foreigners! :-) One of my sons was born in Cardiff).
So the score is two half truths and a truth to social media, two half rebuttals to HMG.
I don’t think Starmer is smart to call the enquiry. First, nobody remembers their terms of reference, they are just a blank sheet to project onto when attacking. The apparent success of Grenfell, Saville and Skripal enquiries at killing the ball is entirely due to subject matter:
– Grenfell: dry finding of liability in a complex supply chain, most people don’t live in tower blocks, public sympathy immense but public interest hard to sustain over years
– Skripal: national security and Russia Russia Russia means media have cheerfully gagged themselves, when they aren’t directly stenographers of MI5 and MI6 (Luke Harding)
– Saville: Northern Ireland, vox pop view in mainland Britain was “a plague on both their houses” and is now “didn’t the Good Friday Agreement solve this?”
Whereas this enquiry is parked politically if not legally in the Venn diagram from Hell, of live issues in a zero-sum UK economy:
– immigration
– criminality / breakdown of public order / social homogeneity
– sentencing
– social services
– policing
– Starmer’s previous record as the country’s prosecutor in chief and final arbiter of all policies of prosecutorial discretion.
I think he hopes to kill the topic but he’s made a big show about changing things (promising to invent new kinds of terrorism just so he can declare himself right on a technicality but not offend the public by calling them wrong!) and the enquiry will give Reform a daily platform for attack. They are absolutely not complicit in past failings, they would say that they have been ignored for years by Tories and Labour on these issues. And Starmer’s problem is that his political competition in places like Southport is Reform. If the Tories have any sense, they will let Reform and Labour slug it out from the Reform corner of the political canvas.
All of the other stuff, the endless sexual abuse scandals, the corrupt electoral practices in certain ethnic politics, the rumours from Guido Fawkes that he has a child out of wedlock, whenever the enquiry is quietening things, all these other matters will be stirred up by the Tories and Reform. They will paint him as brittle, entitled, remote, authoritarian, hypocritical and unfit for public life. Because he is.
(PS not a Labour voter since Corbyn left or a Tory voter ever. Reform-curious, to watch it all burn).
“N. Korea condemns Japan’s opening of NATO mission as escalating regional military tension”
North Korea should totally open up a mission in Kaliningrad. And then have a Korean People’s Army drill team of a dozen women go through their paces in a public park each day. Can you imagine? The Baltic States alone would claim that there were 10,000 North Korean combat soldiers training there ready for deployment.
On a positive note, Biden pardoned Leonard Peltier. So at least he fixed that small historical injustice.
Thanks. Not so small an injustice. In all the brouhaha I didn’t catch this.
I don’t suppose Mumia Abu Jamal made the cut. Neither did Snowden or Assange, in any case.
Biden, on His Way Out the Door, Grants Clemency to Leonard Peltier
It’s not quite a full pardon and it takes effect February 18th.
At DN today:
Leonard Peltier to Be Freed After Half-Century in Prison: “A Day of Victory for Indigenous People”
https://www.democracynow.org/2025/1/21/leonard_peltier
Sort of. It wasn’t really a pardon, but I’m quite sure Biden would like the public to think it was – https://www.mprnews.org/story/2025/01/19/leonard-peltier-indigenous-activist-clemency-released-by-president-biden
He was let out of prison to finish his sentence under house arrest. From the link –
“According to the executive grant of clemency signed by Biden on Jan. 19, the commutation takes effect Feb. 18. In a statement, Biden said Peltier is to serve the remainder of his sentence at home and reiterated it’s not a pardon.”
He’s been in prison for 50 years, is apparently in ill health, and he won’t get out for another month. So we’ll have to see if Peltier ever sees the outside of the prison.
If Biden wasn’t pardoning his entire crime family, I doubt he or whoever was pulling the strings would care one bit about Peltier. But “freeing” him does provide some nice cover for the criminals he did actually pardon.
Re Israel and TikTok–so this is the real reason for the ban? That deep state is really deep.
And re Federal employees back to the office–I know someone who got an exemption from an earlier such call because she needs to keep an eye on her aging mother. I hope the Trumpies aren’t going to be too draconian about this.
It seems to me that this order is just petty, mean, and low-class.
There are huge orders of differences in the day-to-day job duties of the Federal workforce. IT workers can largely do their jobs from anywhere. Scientists in the EPA and NOAA might require more face-to-face meetings. To have a blanket RTP (return to the past) for all federal workers reeks of the sort of rotten-to-the-core, termites in your soul crap we’ve come to expect from Jassy and Dimon and their gang of unctuous CRE cretins.
You’re a rotter, Mr. Trump.
Oh this is definitely a twofer. First real estate guy Trump knows that CRE is in trouble. It might only be emblematic, but the federal government forcing return to the workplace helps make in person office work the national norm again.
It also plays into the DOGE, Republican belief that the government has too many employees doing too little. It is petty, but a lot of people believe the propaganda that most of the remote workers are only working a couple of hours a week and are watching Netflix and getting paid for it the rest of the time. So it plays to supporters and helps Musk further hinder the government by cutting the workforce, starting with those who have very real reasons for working from home who will have to quit rather than return.
The CREtins know that this is the year of extend-and-pretend hitting the wall. Interest rates are rising again (at least in the mid-to-long term end of the curve) so they can’t refinance.
If they don’t get workers back, its jingle mail time for that 30 story edifice wreck.
In other news, from Oakland, CA.
Former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao faces up to 95 years in prison on federal charges
https://abc7news.com/post/recalled-oakland-mayor-sheng-thao-criminally-indicted-federal-grand-jury/15808893/
I believe I have this right when I say it’s a turf war between organized crime families (“what’s new?” you might ask). Remember this from last summer? Oakland’s Summer of Discontent, Bleeding Edge.
“Israeli forces advance, blow up homes in south Lebanon”
That’s been the game. Work up a bogus “ceasfire” with one faction of the opposition and then go to work on another. Then work out a bogus “ceasefire” with that faction and go back to work on the other. Methodical.
Wouldn’t something that would be closer to a ceasefire include all factions and Israel/USA going to the table at the same time? Not suggesting anyone hold their breath…
It keeps Israel from having to keep taking them all on at the same time.
The ceasefire lies continue. Yesterday, the IDF shot a kid to death in Gaza. Al-Jazeera had a story up in their live updates, but then today they senselessly spit out a headline of ‘Gaza ceasefire holds.’
It’s almost enough to make you want to chug a bottle of hemlock. We’re in the worst timeline ever, maybe the Dark Ages need to be renamed?
Yes, that’s the other part: the side of the opposition that agrees to an alleged ceasefire holds to it more than Israel.
Methodical.
Schrodinger’s ceasefire. It’s either dead or alive, depending on the observer.
The Gazans are returning to the rubble that was their homes. The Zionists play eleven dimensional chess.
I’ve just finished Ilan Pappé’s A Very Short History of the Israel–Palestine Conflict, now I will read it again and internalize more of it. It filled in some of my blank spots, but of course, there is much more to learn.
So many are misled into believing that the UN General Assembly resolution 181 of November 1947 was the legitimate basis for the founding of the Zionist Entity. But it, as bad as it was, was never implemented. Instead, Plan Dalet was implemented, though incompletely. Its completion is ongoing, the elimination of the Palestinians (and the adjacent) and the creation of a greater Israel.
Rashid Khalidi is also very good in The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine.
Thank you, I am aware of that.
The 100 year war on Palestine w/Rashid Khalidi | The Chris Hedges Report
I’m always taken by Willie King’s theme music, for anyone who would welcome knowing of the source:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piFH6asPTlA
Which brings me back to another fleeting thought I had when I saw Russia’s agreement with Iran.
A good portion of it was additional binding of Iran to UN resolutions, while Israel carries on with its rampage.
Looks like the Russians are leaving Syria, roll on/roll off ships lining up now. Will anyone try to interfere ? And where is the gear going ? The field is clearing now, Hezbollah has an agreement with the new President but what is it worth now ?
Trump revokes Biden removal of Cuba from US state sponsors of terrorism list
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/trump-revokes-biden-removal-cuba-us-state-sponsors-terrorism-list-2025-01-21/
That will show those Cuban terrorists, that no one ever heard of.
The gusansos have their Man from Miami in the cabinet now, running Foggy Bottom ffs. This was to be expected.
The US is the terrorist state. Can we just leave the poor (poor because the US crushes them) Cubans alone?
Can the scorpion not sting the frog?
Sing to the tune of “Rocky Mountain Way” by Joe Walsh
Misspent the last year, rocky MAGA way
Couldn’t get much higher
Joe’s out to pasture, think it’s safe to say
Time to openly fire (Goodbye Milley!)
And we don’t need Pelosi crocodile cryin’ cause the story’s sad
Cause the rocky MAGA way is better than the way we had
Well Trump’s tellin’ us this, tellin’ us that, changes it every day
Says it doesn’t matter
Bases are loaded and Greenland’s at bat
Taking it bay by bay
Time to change the mappers
And we don’t need Pelosi crocodile cryin’ cause the story’s sad
Cause the rocky MAGA way is better than the scam we had …
[Guitar solo]
And we don’t need Obama crocodile cryin’ cause the story’s sad
Cause the rocky MAGA way is better than the scam we had …
Bravo!
RE: Argue Your Way to a Fuller Life
[Expletive!], do I hate Socrates. From the article –
“Callard discovered Socrates in high school, and by the time she was a senior in college, she was obsessed. “I didn’t just want to interpret Socrates,” she writes. “I wanted to be Socrates.” She started hanging out on the front steps of the Art Institute of Chicago and would walk up to strangers and ask if they wanted to have a philosophical discussion. At first, they were intrigued, but then they just wanted to get away from her. ”
Given the reactions of others, sounds like she absolutely nailed it! Always been a fan of Diogenes myself, and of his modern incarnation, George Carlin. Now get off my lawn, and stop blocking my sun.
I bought 2 bottles of (cheap) champagne for NYE anyway. We ended up drinking just one and leaving the other unopened. A couple days later the second bottle literally exploded while just sitting there in the room. No serious damage, but champagne and broken glass everywhere. Web search indicates this happens now and then. I still say the glass seemed thinner than I’m used to. Enshittification never stops.
Nowdays even wine comes with planned obsolescence.
Actually, it may be more than enshittification. There has been a trend in the wine business to use lighter weight bottles to reduce waste and shipping costs. Don’t know if this applies to sparking wines (due to the internal pressure), but it certainly applies to still wine.
Another factor for the champagne slump might be the increasing number of quality affordable alternatives now available: we had a lovely ‘classical method’ sparkler from Mt. Etna made from grapes grown at high altitude on volcanic soil.
Also, gun manufacturers have responsibility to resurrect deceased gunshot victims. Good luck with that. After the Salt Typhoon attack, even the FBI is telling people to use end-to-end encryption now. After they spent decades trying to stop people from using it.
RE: the TikTok ban.
https://x.com/5149jamesli/status/1880888299080098163?
In effect re-igniting the blockade.
In response to further Houthi actions, the US and UK will re-commence attacks on the Houthis and in turn their shipping will again be targeted. So shipping-wise nothing will change.
The alternative is no Israeli or Israeli linked ships will transit the Red Sea/Suez canal. But I don’t see this option being exercised. If the magnates were that cautious they wouldn’t have kept trying to run the blockade. Perhaps we’ll see (container) armored shipping containers making the run.
‘Eventful’ day. Ross Ulbricht, founder of Silk Road dark web drugs website, apparently is pardoned:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/21/ross-ulbricht-silk-road-trump-pardon
This is a guy who allegedly paid hitmen to murder people:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Ulbricht#Trial
Much of Reddit wants to ban all Twitter links over Musk’s salute – pretty much nobody seeing the irony in returning to a quintupling-down on authoritarian censorship.
Re: Southport, I find it rather disgusting to downplay the murder of three little girls in a daycare by someone who was known to the authorities as “only three deaths”
It deserves to be a national scandal and Starmer is utterly abhorrent.
I follow Novara Media (UK), solid leftist folks. Weekday daily show at 6pm London time. They’ve been on this.
No they’re fake left tools of empire, just like Qatari media that appear to champion Palestinians but weave horrible lies about every group that took substantive efforts to support Palestinians (Syria, Iran, Hezbollah, Yemen, PFLP) while backing ISIS headchoppers.
They took the lead in tarring Corbyn on fake antisemitism charges, lying about the Syrian dirty war, and are still clear liberal Zionists who condemn Palestinian right to armed resistance and insist on Israel’s right to exist.
https://x.com/search?q=from%3AAliAbunimah%20owen&src=typed_query&f=top
Link(s)?
Caitlin Johnstone
Bat Shit Insane Religious Fanaticism Is A Requirement For US Empire Managers
January 22, 2025 (In Oz)
Oh brother, Elise (ƒ¨ç˚ˆ˜©) Stefanik as Ambassador to the U.N., gawd, what we have perpetrated on the world body. And so many bodies of the world.
Trump said Gaza is beautiful, there’s great opportunity there. So don’t celebrate the ceasefire too much just yet.
Ten below outside in SE Michigan but I’ve got a bottle in front of me.
Novara Media (UK) Live had a segment with a Palestinian Gazan reporter. He describes the daily timeline of his living conditions. Lines and more lines in queue for some necessities of life.
https://novaramedia.com/2025/01/21/donald-trumps-avalanche-of-executive-orders/
Starting at 27:27
https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-russia-donald-trump-vietnam-steve-bannon-richard-nixon-war-room/
Bannon is going to keep MAGA hectoring Trump on Ukraine before he loses focus during deep state stalling.
Simplicius discusses at length. https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/trump-storms-out-the-gate-but-already?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1351274&post_id=155115182&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=s76te&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
The Politico piece is short.