Change in singing behavior of humpback whales caused by shipping noise PLOS One
U.S. Stocks Slump on Tech Worries WSJ
US economic growth tops forecasts FT
FBI investigating whether Tesla misstated Model 3 production numbers Autoblog (EM).
Why Private Equity Is Furious Over a Paper in a Dermatology Journal NYT
The regime change for global markets is just beginning FT
Janet Yellen on Trump, Fed politics and nurturing recovery FT. “Nurturing.”
China?
The Chinese century is well under way Economist
Abe’s foreign-worker plan spurs protests in Japan’s ruling party Nikkei Asian Review
Trudeau’s Human Stimulus Helps Canada Match Trump’s Tax Cuts Bloomberg
Syraqistan
Khashoggi killing: as Saudi turns to China, for MbS it’s business as usual South China Morning Post
New Cold War
What To Expect When You’re Expecting a Mueller Report LawFare
* * * Mr. Putin Goes to Washington? The American Conservative
U.S. Withdrawal from the INF Treaty: The Facts and the Law Lawfare
What Russia Will Be The National Interest
Foreign Policy for the Twenty-First Century Boston Review
Trump Transition
Will Trump Really Cut Defense Spending by 5%? It’s Way Too Early To Say Defense One
About 10 percent of flag officer positions can be replaced by lower grades, study says Federal News Network
Senate’s Out? Nobody’s Around? Perfect Time To Advance Trump’s Court Picks, Says GOP. HuffPo
Trump’s NLRB Just Quietly Ruled to Make Union Pickets Illegal In These Times
Florida suspect lived in his van and built his bombs there too, authorities say McClatchy. A good wrap-up with lots of detail.
Democrats in Disarray
Bernie Sanders rallies striking hotel workers in downtown San Diego San Diego Union Tribune. Great to see the party big-wigs backing him up on this. Oh, wait….
What a Rural Maine House Race Can Teach the Left The Nation. Maine District 88 is a “pivot county,” about half-way between Boothbay and Augusta.
Hadley: Slotkin puts country before party Detroit News. The Bush administration’s Stephen Hadley on Democrat CIA candidate Slotkin. Hadley’s the guy who allowed the “sixteen words” on Niger yellowcake uranium — forged documents supporting claims of Iraqi WMDs — into Bush’s 2003 State of the Union speech. Of course, the Iraq War debacle is ancient history, now; everybody is rehabilitated, including Bush, who gave Michelle candy [squeeeeee!].
The Experts and Question One MassPoliticsProfs (KC). This is the ballot initiative where powerful Democrat consulting firm Dewey
Cheatem & HoweSquare Group (“No”) is working against nurses unions (“Yes”) on the question of minimum staffing ratios.
Health Care
Administration Moves To Incentivize Health Reimbursement Arrangements Health Affairs
No More Health Care Half-Fixes Jacobin. Examines Jayapal’s H. R. 6097.
Brexit
Brexit: ‘Several’ WTO members block Britain’s attempt to fast track deal The Independent
The Democratic Unionist Party Isn’t Bluffing on Brexit. It’s Being ‘Thran.’ Foreign Policy. Word of the day: Thran.
Meet Theresa May’s Top Lawyer, the Latest Hurdle to a Brexit Deal Bloomberg
Centrist Sensibility Review 31
Big Brother Is Watching You Watch
Google’s smart city dream is turning into a privacy nightmare Engadget
They look like cops, but they’re not. And they’re all over Michigan. Detroit Free Press
Imperial Collapse Watch
Post-Cold War U.S. Foreign Policy Has Been a Near Total Failure. Two New Books Look at Why. The Intercept
Why today’s troops fear a new war is coming soon Military Times
American Defense Contractor Accused of Enslaving U.S. Citizen Linguists Daily Beast
The Crash: Ten Years After
10 years later: How the financial crisis reverberated into municipal bonds The Bond Buyer
New Deadline For Merrimack Valley Gas Restoration Is Now December 2-16 CBS Boston. Gonna be chilly….
Class Warfare
Uber‑Inequality Gartner L2. “In today’s economy, innovation means elegant theft: robbery of your data, privacy, health insurance, or minimum-wage protection.”
World’s billionaires became 20% richer in 2017, report reveals Guardian. From UBS.
The White House is worried about wages, not socialism FT Alphaville. The CEA report on socialism: “Even by the somewhat compromised standards of any CEA, the report is particularly sophomoric. That is, it both engages in sophistry and appears to have been composed by a college sophomore.”
Unfair Advantage The Sun. How Amazon undermines local economies.
Warehouse World Latino USA
Let’s vote, party and celebrate American democracy on a new holiday called Citizen Day USA Today. Good idea! We can count our paper ballots first.
Use these adventure skills to survive the zombie apocalypse National Geographic. News you can use!
Antidote du jour (via):
Bonus antidote:
Retired man builds train to take rescued stray dogs on adventures pic.twitter.com/x657mYjSX3
— viral viral (@xxlfunny1) October 21, 2018
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
202 comments
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Well, Fake News works. The CIA and it’s control over corporate media is effective and working, I would say after reading this, and not just among my Team Blue friends…also among U.S. troops.
The increase in troops who fear Russia and China fit nicely with the Fake News campaign launched by Democrats that Russia hacked the DNC and Trump’s pivot to China to ratchet up military tensions with it, too.
I expect the underlining reason for this Fake News campaign that started first with Russia, is to foster greatly increased military spending not only in the US but in Europe too, because corporate profits, and head off any improved relations that might result in less military spending.
I wouldn’t be so quick to say it’s because of the media that troops are saying this. They also would be attune to more currnet changes in deployments, procedures, etc.
You have it exactly right, Summer. Plus, the military/Pentagram is all over what I guess is still called “indoctrination,” which means instilling in the minds of the GIs what the “doctrine” (e.g., the war plans and mental processes of the Brass) happens to be. This involves all kinds of communications, including those mass gatherings in auditoriums and hangars, where the Brass give out the “doctrine” with an eye to ensuring the Troops will do what they are ordered to do, however idiotic and destructive those orders might be. And of course the Chaplain Corps preachers weigh in on it too. https://www.thestate.com/news/local/military/article217193035.html
And the Troops talk to each other, across services and within, especially since everything is “joint operations” any more to paper over the still extant interservice combat and rivalries, about what weapons and equipment are moving where, what the camouflage colors are, what kinds of consumables are being stockpiled where, what they hear from the panoply of contractors that infest the “complex” who have their own ears to the ground and information streams. stuff like that.
True, indoctrination is never ending and a big part of on-going training.
I remember well, the training I went through during the early Reagan Era when “communists were running rampant across Central America”, every target on the ranges and every bad guy was always called “Ivan”.
As for the article, keeping the troops stirred up is considered very important, but it does not necessarily mean a major war is about to break out. Many of us felt the same way in the early 80’s regarding the all the propaganda/indoctrination revolving around the Sandinista and the Falkland Islands War.
Oh how I remember that era, and the ultimate prize gained in Operation Urgent Fury, stand tall America!
What are these “Chaplain Corps preachers” of which you speak? I’ve been retired for 36 years, so a lot must have changed but in the 20 years I spent on active duty I never saw a chaplain preach. Well, maybe I did — when I was in Air Force basic training in 1955 we were marched to some kind of church service on Sundays. I have not been a Christian since I was about five years old and realized my Sunday School teachers were nice people who meant well but were delusional, so I don’t really remember what it was about. I really don’t think military chaplains would be very effective at indoctrinating people, although I know there are a bunch of Dominionist fanatics among the highest ranking Air Force leadership. Anyway, after basic training I was never forced to attend religious services.
In the early summer of 41, German soldiers being entrained for deployments in central Poland were convinced that Hitler had made a deal with Stalin to ship a large German Army through the USSR to the Iranian frontier so they could drive theough the Near East, link up with Rommel and roll up the whole British Empire in alliance with Russia. So rumors amongst the troops based on deployments are not the best source of good info on grand strategic intentions of the high command.
Even in my time, 66-69, the Army troops had a much better jungle telephone than your Wehrmacht grunts. I’m betting the information and awareness of the current Imperial troops is more comprehensive still. Knowing about movements of men, materiel, changes to uniforms, and lots of other indicators like what kit is being hauled out and fitted to aircraft and armor, laid against awareness of what endless and overtaxing deployments onto distant sovereign ground means, definitely sharpens the attention to all the little indications and what they portend.
Today’s imperial troopers are, I would venture, generally nowhere near as enthusiastic and deluded as those German soldiers, all fired up to establish the Reich.
True. Of course there had indeed been a pro-Axis coup in Iraq in April, actively supported by the Luftwaffe, and nobody yet knew how it would end.
The Arab and Iranian ‘streets’ in general, as well as both left and right nationalists from end to end of the Islamic world were also virulently anti-British.
The primary obstacle was Turkey, which remained obstinately neutral, though it also provided chromium to the Nazi war machine. But at that time the Axis felt confident that their WWI ally would eventually join them to regain the lost Ottoman territories, and perhaps the Turkic USSR as well.
So those rumors had some sound strategic basis….
I doubt U.S.troops have much more to fear than the does the average citizen so far as conventional warfare with Russia or China is concerned. Based on the U.S. military debacles during the post WW2 era in taking on small, militarily much weaker countries, it is unlikely that we would engage either Russia or China in anything other than a nuclear exchange. So, don’t worry; be happy!
New film possibility:
“The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming*, the Russians are coming!”
* the first drive-in film I can remember from my yout
In what year did you encounter “Dr. Strangelove”? Ever viewed “Red Dawn?”
First drive-in for me was “Trapeze.” The big pectorals on Burt Lancaster and Ginal Lollobrigida were stunning on that huge drive-in screen.
I encountered “Dr. Strangelove” when I was about 10. It must have made a big impression on me – since I even remember the cartoon before the movie – and walking on the street with my family after the movie. (Or was it the cartoon that impressed me)
I encountered Gina Lollobrigida in the mid 80’s at a film showing in Chicago. (At the School of the Art Institute) She handed me her coat. (Thinking I was the coat checker. I have often been told I seem like a person who checks coats. So there is my celebrity confirmation.)
I don’t recall “Red Dawn” However, I do recall looking up at the skywriting for “Fail Safe” that was really cool. In big letters ‘FAIL SAFE’ Must have been about 1964.
It wouldn’t be China or Russia directly. There’s all that personnel in between (the ME) a whole lot of mess that still need cover…just assuming.
Lee, you might want to do a DuckDuckGo search on “current us warfighting doctrine versus Russia” and page through the hits. The planning and anticipation of boots on ground warfare is manifest. So I would offer that US troopers know that they have indeed got “much to fear” from the Bolton Doctrine/PNAS planning to “take on” Iran, and ‘finish the job” in Iraq, Notagainistan, many African nations, Pakistan, and on and on.
Maybe you could start with this one: “‘Underground’ May Be the U.S. Military’s Next Warfighting Domain,” https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2018/06/underground-may-be-us-militarys-next-warfighting-domain/149296/ You’ll find this in the lede:
The U.S. military is considering adding a new warfighting domain to U.S. military doctrine: the underground realm, said the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
“Subterranean is something we are going to have to contend with in the future. You look at the electrical systems…control systems, control grids,” Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley said Tuesday at the Defense One Technology Summit in Washington, D.C.
The underground sphere is particularly important in cities, where nearly two-thirds of the world’s population will live by 2040 — and where the Pentagon expects to see more combat.
The domains currently include land, sea, air, space, and cyber — the latter added in 2012. Adding another would reshape spending and strategy.“
Full-spectrum dominance. Nothing less will serve. Eh?
Very Dr. Strangelove, those planners. What is it they say about plans surviving first contact with the enemy? Oh, now I remember. They don’t.
But those plans direct the motions of the Armies of the Night, right up to that moment of first contact, and for some time thereafter until the smarter war leaders start to adapt to circumstances. So they set the stage for the multiple re-proofs of the idiocies of War Leaders and ruling elites. WW I is now seen by many as a “whoopsie” caused by the behaviors and weirdnesses and grasping of the Elites on all sides.
And nobody in command, civilian or military, seems to bother to read the first and most important advice given by the collective wisdom of Sun Tzu, about how war so easily can destroy the state, and how damn sure the ruler ought to be that he has those Five Factors in proper alignment — read them here: http://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html They all jump to the stuff about stealth and asymmetry and all that.
“The most persistent principles in the Universe are accident and error.” One statement of Murphy’s Eternal Law.
Some of these Pentagon planners are also saying how it would be great for the US armed forces learn to to fight in mega cities. So places like Stalingrad, Hue, Mogadishu and Grozny obviously hold no lessons to be learned. Mega cities have the capability to swallow battalions whole and unless you are willing to massacre the civilians in a mega city with mass bombing, it is a crazy venture to undertake. Even if you bomb a city, the ruins are better at hiding enemy forces in and just how and where do you evacuate the civilian in a mega city as well as feed them? But the Pentagon want to learn how to fight in mega cities.
If you haven’t, check out “Enemy At The Gates.” Multiple tie-ins to this thread. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemy_at_the_Gates
Yeah, great film that. I have a copy on my shelf.
The Russians have been waiting for the Germans to come ever since 1242 with the Teutonic Knights. Here’s a clip from the Soviet movie Alexander Nevsky – “The Battle of the Ice” Western Europe’s so called Northern Crusade – for war there’s always an excuse. The Enjoy the music by Prokofiev.
https://hooktube.com/watch?v=vKZPgGbUuX0
Here’s another more recent Russian movie called The White Tiger. Watch it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiGDJ5-dXaI&feature=player_embedded
Meant to say that Germany and her allies. ie Europe and the West will always be a threat. Good movie actually. And that’s enough Russian movies for one Saturday night.
Yeah, good movie that. Saw it a coupla months ago and it was creepy having a supernatural-driven tank. Good battle that one-on-one in the village at the end.
I remember a front-line report on the battle for Fallujah. A US unit inside the ruins of the city was pinned down by sniper fire. Much time and effort went into dislodging him/them. At length, a lone man, rifle over shoulder, rode away on a wobbly bike – apparently uninjured
Having served in the First Cold War and seen all “The Day After” movies; I am still astonished that Barrack Obama restarted the Cold War. These comments and war porn all assume that Russia and the US would fight a ground war storming the Kremlin or the White House at the end. Instead, every war game since 1947 and even a recent one in Great Britain on the response to a cyberattack show that a world war will almost instantaneously escalate into nuclear missile exchange. Until Syria, the most volatile conflict between Nuclear Powers has been over Kashmir. That this conflict hasn’t erupted into ground army war between India and Pakistan shows the power of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). The “Russia, Russia, Russia” meme is a result of the Western Elite’s need for a scapegoat to continue the escalation of their extraction of wealth from Europe and North America for useless weapons. The professional nuclear Praetorian Guard, the Navy, and State Militias of Deplorables can defend North America quite well from overseas attack. The rebuilding North and Central America would prevent a civil war. Money would be available to fight climate change.
That’s why I find it incomprehensible that Mattis and Kelly and all the other generals employed by this Administration* would act as if military action against North Korea or Iran is feasible. There was talk about a “bloody nose” attack against North Korea. Some people in the Administration* apparently believed that they could drop a nuke on North Korea and they would get the message that this was only a warning of what could happen if they didn’t change their ways. These people have to be like the idiots during the Vietnam War who thought they could use bombing campaigns to “send a message” to the North Vietnamese. They were ignoring the message that the North Vietnamese were sending them by their perseverance. It apparently never occurred to them (the proponents of the “bloody nose” attack) to ask what the American response would be if the North Koreans were able to hit an American city with a missile armed with conventional explosives, and then figure what the North Korean response would be to an American attack. OK, Iran is known to not have nuclear weapons. They are known to have issued a fatwa that nuclear weapons are contrary to the Will of God and they will not pursue them. Even so, I fear that an attack on Iran will lead to a nuclear war with either Russia or China or both. The neocons are wrong. Once the first missile is launched, they all go. Including the Pakistani and Indian ones and surely the Israeli ones.
Either they all go — or they don’t, in which case the rest of the world puts an immediate trade embargo at all levels on the instigator, demanding immediate disarmament because if they did it once, they’re not bluffing and they’ll do it again.
Which means the instigator has to surrender or keep firing.
There’s just no possible way to win — it’s too damn scary for people to bluff and play.
I’m not sure whether there’s any country other than the US with a first-strike policy.
The fact that the world treats it as a bluff is insane.
RE: New Deadline for Merrimack Valley Gas Restoration is Now December 2-16.
A bit of background on this happening. Lawrence, Massachusetts is my home town. My Irish ancestors settled there in the 1860’s, finally having given up the struggle again the English occupiers (my grandfather, born in the US, hated the ‘bloody English’ until his dying day.) My Lithuanian grandparents arrived there in 1899, although they were listed as “Russians.” All these ancestors worked as operatives in the great brick woolen mills that lined the banks of the Merrimack River for miles. They were working there during the 1912 Bread and Roses strike.
My father worked for the Lawrence Gas and Electric Company, when it was a municipally-owned facility. After Hurricane Carol hit New England in August 1954 (the eye passed over Lawrence), knocking down trees and power poles, for a period of over two weeks he came home only for a few hours each night to grab some sleep, working until power was restored.
It was in the 1950’s that the woolen (and a few cotton) mills began to shut down, searching for the greener pastures of states that had no unions and were not concerned about them dumping toxic chemicals into the rivers (concerns about the heavily polluted Merrimack River were beginning to create an uncomfortable climate.) The mills sat empty; they were so well built that it was too expensive to tear them down.
Lawrence suffered the fate of so many northeastern industrial towns; unemployment, decay of the once vibrant downtown shopping area, rotting houses, boarded up stores, declining population. I left for college and never went back.
Only 20 miles north of Boston, some of the surrounding suburban towns (Andover and North Andover) would become bedroom towns for commuters. Little by little, immigrants from Puerto Rico, Cuba, Central America, moved into the multiple housing units in the central city; the Italian and Lebanese bakeries and Polish and German butcher shops reopened as panaderia and carniceria. My grandparent’s triple decker was painted and and the tiny front garden was adorned with a curly wrought iron fence. The Lithuanian church merged with the Italian church and began offering masses and sermons in Spanish.
My last visit there was about six years ago; Lawrence was grubby and tattered and gritty, but had an air of guarded optimism, as so many immigrant communities (we lived next to Santa Ana, in Orange County) have; things will be better tomorrow …. until the gas pipelines blow up.
What a great story, thanks for sharing!
Yes, this is wonderful. Thank you.
So this whole absurd disaster would be funny if there wasnt so much racism and incompetence mixed in together.
1) A lot of appliances have been compromised. 25k is the ceiling for claims which tells you a lot about how well Columbia Gas understands its culpability. Now bear in mind that Lawrence is a poor town with a lot of the areas minorities. However Andover is home to Phillips Academy. The largest propane storage tank I ever saw was the one that Phillips Academy brought into town to supply its central heating system. It was bigger than the 50 tonne one I recently saw in a welding facility in Erbil. The story I heard is that naturally the Academy’s temporary heating costs will be covered by Columbia. However Lawrence cant get enough electric heat or temporary equipment in. A neighbor, a local lawyer has been recommending his clients get out of town and rent places with heat immediately before cold weather arrives, for fear that all the available rentals will be taken. Well guess what – cold weather arrived early this year.
Now think about the liability of Columbia gas to the local landlords when tenants move out en-mass because there is no heat – or just stop paying rent. How many of their lenders are gonna sympathize?
The scale of this shit show is just so much bigger than is commonly understood.
re: Michigan cops. Four years ago a small neighboring township had as many as 35 reservists, most from out of town who were apparently using the appointment for the gun carrying privilege it brought, among other things. The Village of Oakley, under the same chief, had approximately 150. Oh, and the township police department (3 man at the time, since reduced to zero) was processing around $100,000 in “donations” to the department. Fortunately the citizens rebelled at such shenanigans, once they were brought to light. As a township official, paradoxically the last thing you want is 50 citizens showing up at your board meeting.
I read an article about that once and thought it a great way for the State to get itself waist deep in lawsuits. More that that, this whole program has been reminding me of something that I saw once and I finally remembered what it was – it was the plot for “Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol”. No seriously, if you have seen the movie the only difference between these fake cops and the movie’s fake cops was that the later were locals. Below is a Michigan Police briefing on this program-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYO8ff_L5b8
I guess people “aggrieved” by some “erratic” behavior of these wannabe cops might find lawyers to file suit against the various governments that we mopes believe, still, against all evidence, are “there to protect us —“ so many of us still believe that somehow, “the government” is going to “do something” to “investigate” and “legislate” and thence “regulate” the breakout bad behaviors in all the areas that are bringing us collectively to the Precipice and urging us all to keep moving, leave our valuables on the rim, and then JUMP.
As you can see here, and this is especially true in the KOCHstate of Michigan, the state and local governments are protected against such suits in state court: “No liability if engaged in a governmental function,” https://sinasdramis.com/michigan-personal-injury-attorney/government-liability, describing our wonderful doctrine of “sovereign immunity,” a nice import from the English Divine Right Of King’s common law. Michgan Law immunizes even negligent acts by “governments,” if I read it right.
Query whether a claim under the federal Civil Rights Act — a cause of action that is undoable by the same federal legislature that wrote it in the first instance — might be made, and sustained, in federal courts where the judges have been stacked by ‘conservative appointments’ and are already largely and increasingly hostile to individual rights federal courts.
Worth a try, looks like there may have been a few successes by a few people abused by Pseudocops ™ ©️. All. you got to do is be rich enough to fund the litigation yourself, or find an attorney willing to take a case on contingency. And 40% of whatever you might get awarded or settle for.
Doncha know the cops are there to “serve and protect”? /s
They are – to serve and protect our betters – from us.
Good grief. I’m a strong Second Amendment supporter. But the idea of a bunch of untrained wannabe cops unrestrained by anything like the rule of law or any liabilities with punitive consequences for any bad behavior being allowed to get the full power of the badge because they want to carry guns without any of the necessary training needed to do so safely is just
f@@@ingflat out terrifying. Are those police chiefs insane?Back on Oct. 19th this article drew a huge number of comments for a stand-alone: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/10/mostly-ignoring-climate-crisis-message-wrong.html
Among the comments, many mentioned that the reason we are messaging wrong is that we are failing to appeal emotionally. Failing to tell the story of how climate change, and/or denialism, is impacting people personally.
Well, along those lines, Ian Welsh has a guest post up that does just that. I thought it would make the links today, but it didn’t. It’s worth a look: https://www.ianwelsh.net/shun-the-climate-change-deniers/
I really think this is a bad idea and i don’t think think it helps the author’s son one bit. There is NO individual solution to climate change and to act like there is one is sorely misguided. If we’re going to find a solution, we’ll need strong leadership and a cohesive society that comes together in tough times. Shunning family members contributes to neither of these things and only causes further atomization and isolation.
You tell me what causes more pain for a kid: recovering from a big hurricane? or growing up not being able to see your grandparents because daddy is being needlessly bitter?
Also, when you start shunning people, it comes across as being part of a cult. Cults are isolated, they’re not persuasive and they’re not a positive force for change in society.
Not taking any sides here in respect to the shunning thing, but left unchecked, I think you far underestimate the gravity of how impactful climate change will be upon civilization. Recover from a big hurricane, huh? Is that all you see happening?
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez likened it to genocide the other day. I agree with her.
You really need to bone up. I’d be interested in how old you are. Are you one of the ones that hasn’t;t been paying attention because you’re sol old you’ll be gone when the shite really starts hitting the fan.
Recover from a big hurricane … good lord.
There is nothing that johnnygl says that says he is not taking climate change seriously. He is correct, whether you like it or not that the worst a kid growing up would see now is a big hurricane or flood v. being cut off from family members. His point is that all a kid will see is A v. B, and cutting him off from family is likely to make him rebel against the viewpoint the shamers have adopted.
Shaming is counterproductive, How do you react to people who try to tell you you should be ashamed for voting for whoever you voted for, or opposing open borders? I can tell you that Hillbots yelling at me for not worshipping Her Highness makes me even more opposed to Her Highness.
“the worst a kid growing up would see now is a big hurricane or flood v. being cut off from family members.”
This is just patently wrong Yves. We will see much much worse … in our old lifetimes.
https://www.ianwelsh.net/bend-over-and-kiss-your-ass-goodbye-ipcc-report-version/
This is straw manning. The kid will make decisions NOW and I was clearly discussing the time frame of the kid’s decisions as a child. Not seeing your father is a trauma to a child, to a teen, it’s a fucking gift.
Your belligerence towards johnnygl and me is out of line. You need to stand down.
Finally, you assume facts not in evidence. The kid is mine, and he’s an infant who I am terrified for. He won’t be making any decisions any time soon. Yes, Webstir is Eric Anderson. I’ve just been crowd testing a concept. I haven’t followed through. The strategy is to show the post over at Ian’s to my parent’s as shot across their bow. Then, we’ll get to talking about how seriously I feel their conservative politics are putting my son at risk. And, that yes, to speak of loving my son and voting for trump reeks of hypocrisy. Seriously, why, if there was any chance they could hurt my son in even the most negligible way, would they take the risk? I’ve had this discussion with them again and again but it doesn’t sink in.
This might.
Publish if you like.
Just being honest. I’ve nothing to hide or be ashamed of.
This is complete bad faith and you are no longer welcome.
First, you link whored by posting your own article. That is a violation of our written site Policies.
You then sock-puppteted by not disclosing that you were the author and by arguing for the point of view of the author as if you were an independent party. That is a second violation
You got abusive with a reader, yet another violation. And I told you I was cutting you a break by not banning you for that, given existing violations, and now I find you were way more out of line than I realized.
Sure there is a solution available to a society. Sometimes it is called appropriately harsh law to force each person including you and me to change our individual behavior.
It is each individual’s behavior which makes up the collective or societal or cultural behavior including that which is violent and unlawful as well as that which is good and saintly.
Failing to change YOUR behavior in these areas relating to climate change and contamination is violence on your part directed at me, my family, our clients and others which you are fully capable of correcting while waiting for your government and culture to enforce the change.
From a jurisdictional point of view, once the consequence of your behavior, particularly violence, crosses sovereign boundary, there are other diplomatic mechanisms which kick into effect.
I was delighted when a client in the United States of America highlighted two recent events in the area of changing the law so we can more easily prosecute. The client in this case was way ahead of the curve. Among other matters, he already had STOPPED USING PLASTIC BAGS in his business. Same with a few clients here in my country.
So, the new law is:
The City of Boston now as a matter of law effective 15 December 2018 prohibits, including a transition (ya hafta pay), plastic shopping bags. I do not at the moment have the citation but I would imagine google might help you. We are, of course, beginning to study this matter.
The United States of America and here are two links called Save the Seas Act: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-signing-s-3508-save-seas-act-2018/?utm_source=link , Yes, we are in the process of studying this.
Buck up and get with the program. A small tip from our fabulous client in Massachusetts: This law change drives down his cost of doing business and, thus, increases profits. The way we do this, we will also drive down the cost of the client’s product to the customers of this client at the same time. Tis magic. Been doing this for 42 years.
California passed a unilateral, state-wide ban in September of 2014 went into effect in 2016….and you’re just getting this?
Shunning over opinions on Climate Disruption strikes me as a patently stupid idea, especially shunning family. Shunning won’t change anybody’s mind and doesn’t do a lot for the cooperation which will be necessary to survive the Jackpot.
We have friends that live here, and they & other neighbors got into a meaningless squabble over something or another with a couple that owns a house in their ‘hood, and said couple decided they would shun about a total of a dozen people, and this has been going on for nearly a decade now, and as the onus is on them to always be ‘acting’, they can never let up their protest, and have become prisoners of their own device,
A sad saga.
I do believe “meaningless squabble” and losing half the human race is engaging in a bit of false equivalence. Don’t you?
Did the shaming work? No. It got people even more deeply dug in. But you defend a losing strategy.
Patently,*and* pathetically stupid. What got me is that he believes himself in the right to engage in emotional blackmail and damage his child’s long-term emotional maturity to massage his ego. Really, what is he teaching his child about conflict resolution and trying to engage constructively with others?
Oh yeah, forgot to mention — it would seem to be viewed from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs that actually having food, clean water, and air to breathe might just trump the child “long-term emotional maturity.”
Exactly how long do you think the planet has at the rate we’re going?
Seems I’m replying to a patent and pathetic knee-jerk liberal.
You are already in moderation for previous violations of comments Policies. I ought to ban you based on this personal attack. Do it again and I will. Don’t test me.
I didn’t think we threw ad homs around here?
Straw manning again. Jeremy G said “patently stupid idea,” and Lynne was picking up on that. Ad hom is an attack on a person “Oh, you can’t believe anything Julian Assange says”.
Because cooperation has been getting us, where exactly? Perhaps you haven’t been paying attention to what’s going on this country. Personally, I think the author has drawn a brave moral line.
What struck me about that post on Ian Welsh’s blog is that the writer, Eric Anderson, is shunning people—they happen to be his family members—who appear to have next to no power.
I suppose, to him, if we all did that—which probably won’t happen, given the tenor of the comments over at Ian’s blog and here—everyone (1) would then vote for people who would effect some radical change or, at least, (2) wouldn’t vote for outright climate deniers. Given that we don’t exactly live in a country where policy works along majoritarian-democratic lines, no matter how much that fiction is espoused, it’s difficult to see that particular theory working to do anything to affect policy strongly enough. (It’s not like the vast majority of the current crop of politicians who accept the reality of climate change are prepared to act taking into account the dire projections of the latest IPCC report.) So it seems like he’s pursuing a strategy with very little ultimate benefit other than some personal moral satisfaction.
I’m not sure what would be the better course of action but if Mr Anderson is sufficiently motivated to undergo the difficulties, even accounting for the considerable satisfactions, of shunning his family, I would think it might be more effective for him to work with some climate change activist group that has a better (though probably still minimal) chance of effecting real change. We don’t need a lot of people doing largely ineffective things—which seems like what Mr Anderson is opting for, it’s better to try for a sufficient number of people doing effective things.
“Florida suspect lived in his van and built his bombs there too, authorities say”
Just what I thought. A sad little man who was a legend in his own mind. People thought that there would be an evil mastermind behind all these bombs and instead all we find is this luckless character. Almost feel sorry for the poor sob.
Not that this isn’t troubling event but shouldn’t they be correctly called fake bombs or dummies or something?
According to ‘Whunk and Strite,’ “fake bombs” are classified as “fake” news, and therefore must be suppressed, “for the Public good.” So, to pass muster as legitimate(TM) news, one needs must remove any reference to “fake.” Result, “fake” bombs must be referred to as ‘bombs’ to be reported in any ‘respectable’ media outlet.
(See also Magister Orwell’s “Compendium of Information Processing Methodologies.” Langley Press. 1948. [Redacted])
Also the “bombs” were a joke–made out of plastic pipe with no detonation mechanism. They were the bomb equivalent of talcum powder anthrax.
Assuming conviction he’ll still get 40 years in prison of course.
If you hold up a bank with a plastic gun, it’s still armed robbery if the victims thought the gun was real:
https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/robbery-with-a-fake-weapon.html
And presumably dozens of postal workers in total handled these 13 explosive devices.
One static discharge, from post office equipment or getting into or out of a vehicle,
could have resulted in a life altering injury.
I didn’t mean to imply crimes were not committed, but if the bombs were not real it seems to me it’s an important point in phrasing as being generally (not legal techno) reported or discussed. We should stop making idiots or nuts so scary or smarter and more capable than they were.
^^ that. The guy should be tried and serve time if convicted. But let’s be honest, he wasn’t some brillant Bond villain.
And certainly not use these crimes as a pretext for more surveillance and eroding the 4th amendment.
Bombs were fake.
Floridamans intent was to get famous, NOT KILL PEOPLE.
Idk shit like this and the Tree of Life Synagogue got me blaming the structure.
Here’s the Florida Man website. Re-reporting hilarious Florida Man headlines is how it got started, I believe. Mostly funny stuff…
https://floridaman.com/
Let’s face it, in today’s climate they could just have easily been real.
I’m still not clear that there was any explosive powder or other stuff in the six-inch pieces of PVC plastic pipe that were reportedly used to make these things. Anyone have an authoritative answer, before we go all “ security-suckers”’crazy about what our Fusion Masters love to call “ the threat,” as one of many techniques to scare us into crap like TSA groping theater at airports and NSA hovering of all our personal and “private” information and ideas?
My understanding is that there was powder in every pipe. What I have not seen is a step-by-step explanation of how the device would have been triggered.
From a BBC report:
“FBI Director Mr Wray described the devices as “roughly six inches of PVC pipe, a small clock, a battery, some wiring, and what is known as energetic material”, which is material that can give off heat and energy as a reaction to heat, shock or friction.”
Wiki on “energetic material,” a nice broad euphemism:
“Energetic materials are a class of material with high amount of stored chemical energy that can be released.[1]
Typical classes of energetic materials are e.g. explosives, pyrotechnic compositions, propellants (e.g. smokeless gunpowders and rocket fuels), and fuels (e.g. diesel fuel and gasoline).”
I wonder about how these things were made up to be detonated or ignited. The reporting pretty clearly says that they were not rigged with pressure switches or any of the other items that mail bombers employ to detonate the device when the package is opened.
Looking back at the activities of young males I knew in grade and high school, that involved making or igniting a variety of entertainments, not very clear what the intent was. Is it correct that many of them were directed to the people who were somehow involved in a possibly fraudulent foreclosure of this guy’s home?
Crazed… Not as crazed as the cousins of my ex-wife, out there yah-hey in western Wisconsin, using dynamite to remove tree stumps, send gasoline=filled 55-gal drums up in the air, and a lot of other “energetic kinetic hold-mah-beer-and-watch-this” stuff. Or filling balloons from the spout of an acetylene torch, combining O2 and acetylene therein, with a length of dynamite fuse attached — very impressive bangs, especially when you don’t know they’ve lit the fuse and run, bangs that even 25 years after I got out of Vietnam, had me diving for cover and repressing the urge to yell “Incoming!”
I think that if the Feds were in the mood, they could claim that the parts of these fake bombs were “reactive” which is a word I heard today. The law can be whatever they make of it. Look at past attacks. Back in the 2001 anthrax attacks they tried to nail it on some poor sucker whose life they made a living hell until they finally admitted that they had the wrong person. They then went after another guy and harassed him until he took his own life. Same happened 5 years before that in the Centennial Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta when they tried to pin it on the security guard that found the bomb. The only difference here is at least they have the right guy but what happens to him all depends on what they want to do with him.
The only difference here is at least they have the right guy……
Whew! For a minute there I thought “we” might be in danger of doing the same thing “we” always do, for the same reasons “we” always do it.
Good to know “we” can learn from our “mistakes.”
Is there a chance that these “anthrax attack investigations” were fake investigations designed to keep the real anthrax-attackers safely hidden and covered up?
I recall there was also some propagandist at ABC news who reported that there was some substance in the anthrax powder that proved beyond any possibility of doubt that it was manufactured in Iraq. When that was proven false he refused to disclose who his source for that was and he went on to many more years of employment by ABC. Can’t remember his name, but the incident added to my reasons to disbelieve MSM. I mean, he wasn’t a rookie or an intern or something, he had a reputation as a reputable journalist until this happened.
Did my comment get removed? It was about the van guy’s house getting foreclosed. That might have radicalized him though in the wrong direction.
Re Mr. Putin Goes to Washington
What a card. Putin can teach Trump chess and Trump can show Putin how to play golf. It’s probably not a big thing on the snowy steppes.
If this visit really comes off next year then the press hissy fit will be off the charts.
I think that you’re right. What’s the bet that if Putin goes to Washington, some clown like Maxine Waters will start getting people stirred up to have Putin arrested for “crimes against the American people” and saying that “God is on our side”. I can see it now – a bunch of do-gooders and Antifa types shouting “Lock him up! Lock him up!”. It might be too that Bolton arranges that Putin’s airliner be “escorted” with armed fighters to “give him a message”. Bah! Amateurs.
jesus, i didn’t realize she was pushing the putin/russia crap, too.
The followup was good, too.
Bolton: I didn’t bring any olives
Putin: I didn’t think so.
Bolton: (chuckles)
Putin should have said, “Don’t worry, you won’t be taking any home, either.”
Or “it’s ok, I brought my own. They’re inside my soul here, next to the pee tapes and Hillary emails.”
Oh this is funny…also seeing the grifters plying the old “bring back our sonics!” at least in seattle the pre amazon bro population is sick and tired of funding sky boxes
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/economy/sd-fi-chargers-econometer-20181026-htmlstory.html
article includes this gem of a response…
“Norm Miller, University of San Diego
NO: The Chargers are about as financially viable as the West Virginia coal miner’s investment fund. When cities started to throw lavish public subsidies to keep private professional teams in their region, the prices of such sports teams shot into the billions. The reality is that most teams will never get a solid payoff without huge public subsidies. The true value of unsubsidized teams would be a fraction of today’s prices. With more realistic values the owners could still get a reasonable return.”
.”don’t you know you can’t go home again?”
This expression gained popularity as the title of Thomas Wolfe’s novel You Can’t Go Home Again. Wolfe was born in North Carolina in 1900 and during his relatively short life wrote four novels, and many short stories, novels and plays. He died in 1938 of tuberculosis. You Can’t Go Home Again was published posthumously in 1940, the text having been extracted by Wolfe’s editor, Edward Aswell, from a much longer unpublished manuscript titled “The October Fair.”
On the face of it, the fact that the novel ended up with a different name to the manuscript would imply that we have Wolfe’s editor to thank for the title but actually it seems that the title was Wolfe’s as, according to Gail Godwin’s introduction to a 2011 reprint of You Can’t Go Home Again, Wolfe took the title from a conversation with Australian-British journalist Ella Winter who remarked to Wolfe, “don’t you know you can’t go home again?” Wolfe was so taken with the expression that he asked Winter for permission to use the phrase as the title of his book.
“Use these adventure skills to survive the zombie apocalypse”
Who would ever think that surviving in the wilds would be so easy. Why it looks like you could live off moose burgers and wild berry deserts and occasionally doing a bit of fishing for variety. The North American winters might be tough but it would probably freeze the zombies solid. It would be lovely and I bet practicing in your backyard would just be like the real thing.
The real issue with holing up in the wilds is a profound lack of food possibilities. Here, if a gaggle of only a dozen people were @ a lake in the higher climes, it’d be fished out in no time flat, and the deer that are never afraid of you, might think differently after a few bambis were turned into venison. In the summer, in a few rare locations, you’ll find wild strawberries (found some wild raspberries once, an odd occurrence) where the big ones are about the size of your little pinkie fingernail. Thimbleberries are the most common fruit and they ripen in mid August, and trust me, you’ll be sick of them after eating a pint’s worth.
On a happier note though, harvested a dozen apples from a century old+ tree right off of Mineral King road, and another cabin owner made an apple pie out of the finds, including a couple of Granny Smith’s in the melange, hmmmmm, tasty.
Meanwhile, we in urban areas will be reduced to eating our neighbors. First, those who disagree with us politically and after that I guess we’ll have to draw straws. More seriously, I grow ever more impressed by both the complexity and fragility of our material interdependence in light of the catastrophically destructive forces of our weaponry and of man made climate change. Alas, perhaps poor Pris had it right: https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/cea73f7b-8498-4bec-80d7-9b8b9e9c714a
In the meantime, the dogs need walking and it is a lovely autumn day.
When I read Joseph Tainter’s book about 20 years ago, it really hit home about how utterly complex we’ve allowed our culture/society to become, and conversely, just how far we have to fall.
Simplify your life as much as possible…
Also, James Burke’s, tv series Connections was quite good at conveying this.
The Walking Dead, Hunger Games and the Purge are all about what the elite psychopaths have in mind for the poor sheep. So yes, we will be killing and eating our neighbors, especially in the urban areas.
But if the poor sheep understand that these games and movies are about what the Jackpot Engineers want to engineer for the poor sheep, then the poor sheep could use the several years remaining to imagine a different game for poor sheep to play; and then try engineering that different game into existence.
all we need is that twilight zone book “to serve man”
I dearly love that Darryl Hannahs moment. Talk about Method Acting. And being so very much on point.
Years ago I flew out to L.A. on a lathe repair job for the company I worked for at the time. A young Cambodian immigrant, the operator of the lathe, was tasked with the job of helping me by the shop owner and while we were working he related to me some of his history. To say it was a little terrifying by American youth standards would be a gross understatement, and I’ve never forgotten it.
His father, a Cambodian Air Force Officer was shot in front of the family and the rest were complely separated and sent to different labor camps, two sisters and his mother. He was around 13 years old at the time and worked in his camp for about a year, telling me pretty rough stories of co-workers/prisoners starving to death daily. At night he and some of of the younger and smaller kids would sneak out through the barbed wire and rustle up food on the countryside and bring back what they could to fellow prisoners.
Eventually what was left of the entire camp was rounded up and forced to dig a large pit, then hustled into that pit and machine-gunned. Somehow he didn’t get hit and lay buried under the dead never moving a muscle until hours after Pol Pot’s troops left the area. Then he climbed out and headed for a Red Cross refugee camp over the nearest border and lived there for another year.
He said he refused to leave the camp after being offered a shot to go to the States. His reason was that the preferred to leave the camp at night with a few others and go back into Cambodia and shoot Pol Pot’s soldiers. Plus, he was hoping what was left of his family would evenually arrive at the Red Cross refugee camp. In time the activities of this group were discovered and he was shipped off to the States anyway. He was 16 years old when he arrived in L.A.
He made it a point to tell me (and I made it a point to remember this) that if anything like Pol Pot’s revolution and his Killing Fields were to happen here the population would be devasted. When I asked him why, thinking he was going to tell me we weren’t tough enough, he surprised me with his answer because it was something that hadn’t occured to me… until then.
He said, “I and many of my co-workers in both camps survived because when we went out at night, food was plentiful and everywhere even though all the small farms had been destroyed. America does not have enough naturally growing food for people in the countryside.” It’s difficult not to take the word of someone who has “been there, done that” and had been living in the U.S. for ten years afterwards.
There was one bright ending to his story, though. Over the course of the next two years in the U.S. he was reunited with his sisters and mother who had also managed to survive their ordeal.
I probably shouldn’t say this, but the countryside in Oregon is considerably more supportive, depending on the time of year. I would be more concerned about the skills to make use of it, aside from a few country folks. I’m not convinced I’d have them, even after many years of half-way homesteading.
It sounds like the moral of that story is: plant all the undisclosed wildcat food you can all over your friendly neighborhood countryside . . . . so if you ever have to sneak there for food, the food will be there.
Few people appreciate the miracle of moving enough food to cities like New York and Los Angeles for the enormous populations. One reason medieval monarchs had multiple palaces around the country was that the large number of unproductive people in their courts would quickly consume so much of the surplus food that if they stayed in one place the local economy would be destroyed. The population of Rome started to fall after the Vandals occupied North Africa and stopped sending food and tax money.
Truly. The knowledge base for living in and off the land is vast, acquired, often with life and death in the balance, and passed down over many millennia. It is also lost to 99.9% of us. We have evolved into a highly interdependent, large population species. And not just culturally: we are smaller, weaker and have smaller brains than our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Think of the genius involved in surviving and even flourishing with only pointy sticks and sharp edge rocks at your disposal.
Have you seen ‘Nanook of the North?’ If Nanook had a bad day hunting or fishing – the family was hungry.
Another interesting book on Arctic living by humans is “Kabloona.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabloona If you want to see what humans in environmentally stressful climate can make of their lives. Of course since the Arctic is warming, all bets are off…
I read that even the Kalahari Bushmen and many of the First People of Australia have lost the deep; long knowledge of how to live off what grows in hard places. And our globalized culture is killing off the indigens on several continents, displacing the subsistence farmers who also have the deep knowledge. Replacing it with glyphosate and ammonia and other toxins. Because, after all, it is so much easier to kick the can down the road while looting or destroying or perverting everything of lasting value, in pursuit of Alpha and Beta, ignoring Omega. Of course, for a certain definition of “lasting value.”
They aren’t losing all the knowledge but it is degrading especially due to the efforts of the local governments to “improve” their lives by moving them into housing. Whether they want to too or not.
But then that is happening somewhat to small farmers, even small and medium size farmers in America, as they are displaced by megafarms being more “productive” with their single strain mono-crop. From what I understand, medium size knowledgeably family run farms with multiple crop types varying for whatever the changing local conditions and demands are more productive over the long term.
Even having multiple varieties of corn, wheat, or potatoes can make a big difference even if the farm is growing only corn, or wheat, or potatoes. But the Holy Profit of the Free Market Capitalism dictates the same thing everywhere because it is more profitable until it is not. Same crops, same housings, same monopolies, same crapification, same vulnerabilities, everywhere.
What a Rural Maine House Race Can Teach the Left
“Supported by Obama, appeared on Bill Maher and educated at Harvard.”
Three reasons to beware very wary of this person.
On Jayapal’s HR 6097: I am very troubled to see my own congressperson, who feints as a Justice Democrat, trying to advance such an obvious time-wasting and Obamaesque piece of legislation.
Medicare4All Pramila! For once, the slogan doubles as obvious good sense. Anyone trying to write private insurers into health care legislation in the US in 2018 needs a loud wake up call.
The camel’s nose is already under the tent. Witness the Medicare Advantage plans that are that are promoted by every large insurance and hospital corporation. These plans seem to be roughly equivalent and largely benign, but down the road, I mean who needs Federal involvement when competition in the private sector delivers us wonders?
The neoliberal drive for privatization is relentless.
I don’t think the web of trade agreements we’ve gotten ourselves into leaves us much choice other than relentless, monotonic privatization.
So Trump may be doing us probably-unintended favors.
It’s very disturbing when someone like that does stuff I agree with, even if badly.
Or abolition of/ withdrawal from those trade agreements. If a Bush can take America out of the ABM Treaty and a Trump can take America out of the Intermediate Nuclear Missile Treaty, then an economic patriot President could take us out of NAFTA, WTO, all the GATT rounds back to 1948, etc. etc.
Or am I wrong?
Yeah, I was just hoping Jayapal wasn’t truly of the neolib tribe. Silly me.
Netflix sounds like a hellhole of a workplace culture. Radical Transparency, the “Keeper” test. It sounds more like a cult. I don’t think I would last there. I’d burn out pretty quickly. And I think the company could burn out too.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stephaniedenning/2018/10/26/the-netflix-pressure-cooker-a-culture-that-drives-performance/#4fe2b096151a
That article is great — it’s just filled with unstated, unsupported ideological assumptions. It’s like reading an old-style communist article.
“While not especially pleasant, this style of management is extremely effective, giving rise to an extraordinarily high standard of performance. In my own experience, I’ve seen consultants plow through work at 2x or 3x the pace of an average organization. This level of efficiency is rarely replicated without similar guardrails.”
What does 2x the “pace of an average organization” even mean? That you produce 2x as many crappy white papers as someone else? That you make 2x the sales? How would you measure the efficiency of anything except in the most trivial manner of measuring profit/person, which doesn’t tell you at all what the long term investment is. Of course, if it’s a completely liquid market, it doesn’t matter: as long as you’ve locally maximized your profit production rate, the consequences are for “the market” to decide.
It’s filled with beautiful jargon that impossible to pin down — “innovation”, what’s that? You’re rate of marketing new products? Why not just say it, if that’s so?
Or: “High-performing cultures are high-pressure places. It takes a certain type of person to choose to compete in that competitive environment. It would be much easier to accept a more comfortable path as a star performer in a company with a different talent pool.”
Why would a smart person, a “high performer” be attracted to doing the dumb thing of taking the less comfortable path rather than the one that has the longest longevity and is like to extend your longevity? Wouldn’t you end up in a “high-talent, high-competition pool” with a bunch of masochistic nutcases? Wouldn’t that undermine any project that actually takes long term cooperation and institutional support? Wouldn’t any significant “innovation” in the sense of actually developing a new class of product require that? If not, why not? Shouldn’t those questions be answered first, rather than assumed away?
Incredibly ideological. It’s like linked-in “blitz-scaling”. It’s so self-evidently nuts, and an example of a collapsing economic form, but no one seems to call it out. And the people on the inside are so strongly part of a cult, that they honestly seem to have no awareness of what they’re doing. Kind of like Maoist cadres.
Good eye and strong stomach, ape. I stopped at the author’s byline: “I focus on the role of authenticity in leadership.”.
I somehow picked up a DevOps blog some time ago, for just this kind of entertainment. Netfix thinks a lot of them too: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=netflix+devops&ia=web
Scroll through the opening sentences in the DevOps rss feed
Presumably, the vagrant box is to house the newly onboarded developer…
“What Russia Will Be”
Actually I would add a fifth scenario which the author has not considered. What if after Putin you had a real Russian nationalist. Call him the Russian Trump. It could happen so easily. In it, the US and the west continue to press Russia and push it to the edge. Take a look at the present situation. Just now there is a massive 50,000 troop exercise in Norway that has not been seen there since the 1980s. In Syria a coupla days ago a US Orion aircraft took over control of 13 Jihadist drones that were heading for a Russian base and tried to guide it through weak spots until they were shot down. The neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine on Russia’s borders is being armed and US and Canadian instructors are training the Ukrainian troops for the next invasion. Countries that buy Russian products are threatened by the US on an ongoing basis. It is an open secret that there is hope that Jihadists in Syria can be transferred to Russia’s borders to commit mayhem.
Thus a real fire-breathing nationalist takes control of Russia and decides that enough is enough. The airspace over Syria is closed and the remaining Jihadist are crushed. US troops in Africa start experiencing heavy casualties as they find that local fighters are receiving sophisticated training in guerrilla warfare. Russian Trump says that it is only fair as the US threatened to have Russians go home in body-bags from Syria and made good on their promise. A large military base is set up in Cuba with unknown weapons. China receives missiles and radar gear that start to make life difficult for US strategic planners. The Taliban receives an upgrade in both weapons and training which leaves the US only really holding Kabul. A Russian missile sub surfaces off each American coastline and announces it presence to send a message. Make up your own scenarios here but the world will be far less safe place to live in and there would be a lot more confrontations.
– Thus a real fire-breathing nationalist takes control of Russia and decides that enough is enough.–
Let’s hope not, but the threat of open conflict remains.
A report from CRF.org written by Kimberly Marten (Professor Barnard College, Columbia University) “Reducing Tensions Between Russia and NATO” aims to address the tensions between the two entities.
(https://cfrd8-files.cfr.org/sites/default/files/pdf/2017/03/CSR_79_Marten_RussiaNATO.pdf)
In one section – How a Crisis Might Erupt – Professor Marten writes:
“Some Western analysts fear that a Russian military confrontation with NATO may be intentional, not inadvertent. Russia might invade the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, either to restore control over these former Soviet territories that have been NATO member states since 2004 (and which now divide the Russian province of Kaliningrad from the rest of Russia)…NATO’s threat perceptions were heightened when a major war-gaming analysis published by the RAND Corporation in February 2016 concluded that NATO’s conventional military forces would be unable to stop a surprise Russian conventional attack on Estonia and Latvia and that Moscow could occupy their capitals within sixty hours.”
In the introductory pages to his book “The First World War – An Illustrated History”, A.J.P. Taylor suggests that on the eve of WWI, “Nowhere was there conscious determination to provoke a war. Statesmen miscalculated. They used the instruments of bluff and threat which proved effective on previous occasions…The deterrent on which they relied failed to deter; the statesmen became the prisoners of their own weapons. The great armies, accumulated to provide security and preserve the peace, carried the nations to war by their own weight.”
Perspective matters and it is worth re-enforcing the idea that today’s crafters of state policy ought to be serious students of history. However, headlines about mass drills and provocative route-taking by US war ships are worrisome.
Prof. Marten may write what she wants, but the question remains – why would Russia invade the Baltics? Makes no sense… (and, let’s not forget, the Bs were a part of the imperial Russia for centuries). But after the 1979 Afghanistan trap, the Russians have grown cautious… VVP recently said that R will not initiate a war, but it will respond decisively once attacked. He used real tense, which seemed like a departure for him and gave his comments an ominous feel.
And as for AJP Taylor and no “determination to provoke a war,” I think Churchill would disagree. Many in the UK’s elite were clamouring for a war well before 1914.
The other question is why in hell would Russia want more broken countries to deal with. They have very little offer Russia.
Per Tuchman’s “The Guns of August,” many of the people of Paris and Berlin were sort of joyously dancing in the streets when the newspapers came out with full page headlines announcing “IT’S WAR!!!” A great release of pent up energy.
Same thing with Poland. As far as I can see, Russia has as much interest in invading and reoccupying Poland as America has in invading and reoccupying Vietnam. But since the Poles can’t figure that out, they’re stuck having to pay three times as much for LNG plus having to build Fort Trump – and pay for it too. Fun Times.
It’s my impression that to Russia Poland is the obnoxious flyover country that has to be traversed to get to the places that matter. Any Russian interest in it revolves around the fact that Poland has repeatedly been the door through which Russia is invaded. If the Poles can’t be trusted to hold their own (or even be actively complicit in an invasion), Russia might be better served controlling the door themselves.
Not that I see any signs that the Russian Federation has any desire to invade Poland, or even the capability to do so (NATO wouldn’t stand for it, obviously).
That door works both ways. Three time Poland has invaded Russia-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_invasion_of_Russia
In the war in the 1600s the Poles even managed to occupy Moscow. At the moment they are like the Ukraine in that they would literally bankrupt their own country rather than let bygones be bygones and start afresh.
The Poles know this, but without a foreign enemy, the people might look at their leaders. Same as it ever was. Who holds the lease on the U.S. bases? My aunt and uncle lived in their home miserably instead of moving in with their daughter for years waiting for a chain restaurant to buy them out for a hideous fortune. They did get good offers. With NATO being less relevant to Western Europe, pay Eastern Europe.
Without U.S. aggression, Putin would be a reduced figure. I’m not confident about the state of the Russian polity to say if he would be a Merkel type figure hanging around because the succession process wasn’t there and the nominal left wasn’t ready to function.
A careful observer could tell a real difference: when the Russian plane was shot down recently – courtesy of Israelis – VVP’s comments were very cautious. It did not take very long for the Russian military to step in and respond – in a way that was much more direct and forceful. I could just hear the conversation in the Kremlin: VVP was told to stand down, with the military taking over. There will be a day when the US establishment will mourn that VVP has exited the scene…
Russia Generals in the past have admitted that everything they say goes through Moscow first or office of the President if you will.
“What Russia Will Be” was a hard read but perversely valuable as a gauge of what Western conventional wisdom says we should all think about Putin and Russia. Why go piece by piece through it? So here’s just one example starting off with Putin’s ur-sin of the “persecution” of the sainted Khodorkovsky:
“Movement toward a more liberal economic order was halted after 2003 with the arrest of oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was planning to merge with Exxon and use his oil revenues to challenge Putin politically.”
How about turning that around with: Movement in America towards a more liberal economic order was halted in 2003 with the arrest of the President and CEO of Exxon who was planning to merge Exxon with Gazprom and Rosneft (i.e. sell Exxon) and use his oil revenues to challenge the political status quo of the United States including Bush and the Republican party. Really, think somebody might have gone to prison for that?
If any country’s political leadership resembles the Brezhnev era, it’s America’s. Not that they’re old, and they’re that certainly, but corrupt and out touch and out of ideas, both parties. The rest of the article consists mostly of Western cliches about Russia like that it’s falling apart economically. But:
“MOSCOW, May 23, 2018 – Russia’s economic recovery continues, amidst relatively high oil prices, enhanced macroeconomic stability, gradual monetary loosening, and ongoing momentum in global economic growth, says the World Bank….Russia’s growth is forecast at between 1.5% and 1.8% over the next three years.”
https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2018/05/23/russias-economic-recovery-continues-modest-growth-ahead
Well, maybe next year Russia will collapse economically, or the year after that…a Western columnist can always dream. And Russia has become a, if not The, leading wheat exporter in the world – deliberately non GMO. And it actually builds military jet fighter planes that fly.
Problems: corruption. Just like all our favourite Western countries. And succession. And forget about Navalny, although this article didn’t give him good press for once.
But if we persevere to the end at long, very long, last we find out what the article might really be about. Sententiously, the article states:
“…the cost of holding the indefinite future of U.S.-Russia relations hostage to Crimea seems wildly excessive given the contingencies stretched out over time that could imperil both nations….there is no plausible route to severing Crimea from Russia. So why not consider a trade greased by the salve of a professional diplomacy: de facto U.S. acquiescence to the reintegration of Crimea into Russia in return for Russia’s leaving the rest of Ukraine alone, pending a suitable and achievable compromise over Ukraine’s geostrategic status and internal language and identity issues.”
Grease, salve, and maybe a little slime. It’s what makes the world go ’round.
So after paragraph after paragraph of nonsense, we get to the grating fingernails on the chalkboard beg for compromise: The West, having lost Crimea and that beautiful naval base and with Ukraine having been turned into a politically dysfunctional basket case complete with neo Nazi torchlight parades and now counted as the poorest country in Europe, plagued by separatism and war, and with Nord Stream 2 & 3 it soon to be rendered close to useless to Germany….It’s Time to Make a Deal! Russia can de facto, but not officially you understand, keep Crimea, uh, so long as Russia leaves Ukraine free to be reconfigured by America “strategically” into a mono lingual mono national oligarch run NATO – write in Trump’s description of third world countries – with missile bases pointed at Russia. Wonder what the next offer will be?
Re MBS, Khashoggi, etc.
Whitney Webb has an interesting piece at Mint Press News that I don’t think I’ve seen posted here yet: ‘The Real Reason the Knives are Out for MBS.’ She discusses the trajectory of MBS’s rise (and possible fall) in the context of global finance capital – an element often missed in our personalized/tabloid press coverage. Here is one of her key points:
“Though the media has long spun Vision 2030 as MBS’ “ambitious” plan to wean the Saudi economy off its dependency on oil, the plan itself is actually a free-for-all for private interests and involves the neoliberalization of Saudi state-owned assets. Among its pillars are the opening of Saudi financial markets to Wall Street and the privatization of essentially everything in the Gulf Kingdom, including healthcare and, of course, Aramco.”
This is why MBS was so feted by the Establishment and its media lackeys: he was seen as our potential Yeltsin. His potential “reforms” celebrated in the liberal media were, as usual, cover for his real value: opening up the economy to Western exploitation. However, he was unable to deliver due to internal resistance and had already began backing out of some of his early deals with the Trump administration. This failure, combined with the PR problems linked to his intemperate actions had, even before the Khashoggi incident, “not only managed to anger the entire U.S. military-industrial complex, [but] also enraged the world’s most powerful financial institutions, including Goldman Sachs and CitiGroup.”
An important piece of the puzzle, I think.
https://www.mintpressnews.com/the-real-reason-the-knives-are-out-for-mohammed-bin-salman/251051/
No, he was unable to deliver because he couldn’t do an IPO of Saudi Aramco. That was central to his diversification scheme, to get cash to put into new things. And you only had to read the summaries of the plan to see it was hare-brained.
The Saudi national budget has also been under strain since oil has been below ~$70 a barrel. And the Saudis flooded the market, apparently to pressure Iran and Russia, which made their budget situation worse. I’m not sure I take an article seriously that does not acknowledge these issues.
Finally, I suspect what got a lot of people in the West was the shakedown of the royals, particularly Al-Waleed, who bailed out Citi and is very connected (recall the use of the Ritz Carlton as a prison). The heir apparent, Muhammad bin Nayef, was at least briefly incarcerated and some stories say more than briefly. He was also very connected in the West and reading between the lines, was the CIA’s preferred successor to King Saud. As Lambert has pointed out, the moral panic over the Khashoggi murder feels non-organic. I think a bunch of people in the West were waiting for the next incident to Do Something about MbS.
I think Webb would agree with everything you’ve said here, though she does emphasize internal resistance to the Aramco IPO. She also discusses bin Nayef specifically.
I fear that the US is not going to do anything about MbS but help to cover this up and use this to add to the outrage and opposition to the Saudi family. The end game is something quite similar to what has happened in Libya. There will be no shortage of Jihadis ready to do further US foreign policy objectives.
“No?” – Funny way to set out your points of agreement with the Webb essay. Or is it Jim Trott? If so, I heartily agree.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=bishop+of+Dibley+no+no+no+no+yes&t=ffab&ia=videos&iax=videos&iai=3Z0QUygjr2w
The story about Dyncor and Kuwait is horrible. They didn’t mention the pay scale for the linguists. I would be very interested to know how many of those people were making 150-250k per year plus expenses. Most civilians I know that have gone to work the war thought they were getting a very good deal. Maybe all. I cannot think of one person I know that went that thought before signing it was not at least a good deal. I know one guy who was telling us he was going to be set for life.
This was before. I never heard what happened to him.
We used to laugh at the civilian workers driving trucks through Afghanistan.
With no Armor.
Good luck with the IEDs!
I heard those drivers were making $85k a year, a lot better than army pay. But hey it’s more “efficient” to privatize…
Of course our brilliant military strategists routinely paid and maybe still pay the “unlawful enemuh combatants,” citizens of that nation whose sovereignty “we” ignore and which ‘we” have invaded on the flimsiest of pretexts, along the route delivering all that petroleum to fuel the ‘hummers and tanks and aircraft, paid them not only to drive the trucks in many cases, but to “not attack the convoys.” https://www.thenation.com/article/how-us-funds-taliban/ So the petroleum stocks, the jet fuel and diesel and gasoline and lube oils, which “we” paid up to $400 a gallon for these liquid gold commodities to be delivered to wherever “the front’ was stated to be, could be used to keep the “Taliban” amused, the troops busy, and the air conditioners running in the staff offices. Where the next “front” was being discussed and marked out on the Network-Centric Battlespace maps on all those Toughbooks and big screens… https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/63407-400gallon-gas-another-cost-of-war-in-afghanistan- And this number was, per this link, to be a “driver” in the 2009 “debates” (what?) over the costs of continuing the Empire’s foreign wars… Not.
Big win for Milo Minderbinder’s M&M Enterprises, of course. And everybody has a share!
Hint: there is no “front” in Notagain?istan. Another hint: “IT DOESN”T MATTER AT ALL.”
I’ve also read that almost all of those drivers are not Americans and are actually not paid that much. They are paid more than they could possible earn at home but the contracting companies make out like bandits by being bandits and robbing them
Healthcare Companies Saved Billions From the GOP’s Class Warfare Tax Bill
https://splinternews.com/healthcare-companies-saved-billions-from-the-gops-class-1830026281
Dermatology Corpse; I talked to the local dermatologist one day at an appointment for a family member. He mentioned his concern about having no real access to the patient data, working for a Florida corporation. What once resided in paper files in the office was shipped off and now resides in the cloud. I asked if he couldn’t make copies of what they did have and polititely asked what he would do if he needed access to treat someone. A few months later he left the corporate machine grooming practice. This is the largest dermatology office for 30 miles serving about 50K people.
The decision is not for our doctor to make any longer.
Cesar in better days.
(It’s a -male- stripper promo. Safe for work even.)
Trump’s NLRB Just Quietly Ruled to Make Union Pickets Illegal In These Times
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The ‘Sit-Down’ strike was oh so effective in the 1930’s, but of course back then unions were on their ascendancy, not near nadir.
https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/category/news/local/
Shooting at Pittsburgh synagogue, eight dead .
My daughter was about to go for her usual run up Wilkins. Tree of Life is at the corner of Wilkins and Shady.
Sounds like this will rouse the media hornets nest assuming it can be cast as a terrorist incident. Said with all due respect to the dead and injured.
Aren’t most mass murders ‘terrorist incidents’?
Not that we’d know, as a country.
Well a revenge attack or gang warfare is generally not considered terrorism. An attack on a synagogue by an anti-jewish perp, which as we now know seems to be the case would be considered terrorism.
Well, terrorist incidents are those incidents that use violence and intimidation in furtherance of some political, religious or ideological objective. They’re not, strictly speaking, those incidents that “cause terror,” although the way the media talks about it you might think so.
According to Mother Jones, excluding “more conventionally motivated crimes such as armed robbery or gang violence” and killings within private homes, usually falling under the category of “domestic violence,” “[s]ince 1982, there have been at least 105 public mass shootings across the country, with the killings unfolding in 34 states”—more than half involved a workplace or school (not typically political, religious or ideological targets, although they could be), and, additionally, a majority of the perpetrators were “mentally troubled,” and, so, in lots of cases, couldn’t form political, religious or ideological objectives. So I’d say that, roughly speaking, most mass killings at least in the US are not terrorist incidents.
The ‘and’ in that definition, “violence and intimidation” is critical, since terrorism requires an audience other than the actual victims. The political/religious/ideological part is less critical, verging on useless, since even a bomber whose motivation was merely spreading terror/chaos for its own sake could thus be said to have a political/ideological motivation, even if it didn’t match any recognized shared ideology or agenda. I would even argue that only intimidation is strictly required, as even the drawing of a hate symbol in washable chalk could be terrorism/intimidation without actual violence.
It’s beginning to be spun as an anti-Semitic attack. Notice that the perpetrator is 48 years old and a white male. Perfect “Deplorable” credentials.
I notice that, while the National Guard has been deployed to New York City to “Protect and Serve” after the ‘(Fake) Bomb Scare,’ I see nothing about standing those troops back down, now that the “threat” has been resolved as a purely domestic crime.
Welcome to “Festung Amerika.”
From what I read, it’s not being “spun,” it is.
Yeah the “synagogue” part sort of gives it away, doesn’t it?
A family member knows well one police officer that took 3 bullets. He’s “going to be OK” although we are not sure what exactly that means yet. I dunno, does that make me closer to this shooting (2 degrees) or is the winner still the one where the young man, who got killed at UPMC, had exactly the same job my son took a couple of years later? No “degrees of separation” in that one but an unnerving coincidence.
Que sera sera, I suppose. Right? Nothing we can do. F this country.
Fair enough. Now I’ll wait to see what this man’s background and personality look like.
I’m still CT enough to consider that this is a build up to an attempt on Trump. Setting the scene, as it were.
In reference to Conspiracies in general; one need not plot and promote specific acts of violence. The society in general has degenerated into a state of nascent violence where ever one looks. The astute Golpist just has to sit back and cherry pick from the smorgasbord of outrages the social ferment throws up.
Could also be that people are just loosing it. And we are being goaded, from multiple directions, to take either/or all or nothing positions. Just as we’ll be goaded into taking a ‘with us or against us’ stance on this shooting. So yeah there is that.
Psychologists have a diagnosis for it, right there in the DSM: It’s called several things — Amok, Beramok, a manifestation of anomie, and it’s going to be even more common: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC181064/
The general public and the medical profession are familiar with the term running amok, the common usage of which refers to an irrational-acting individual who causes havoc. The term also describes the homicidal and subsequent suicidal behavior of mentally unstable individuals that results in multiple fatalities and injuries to others. Except for psychiatrists, few in the medical community realize that running amok is a bona fide, albeit antiquated, psychiatric condition. Although episodes of multiple homicides and suicide by individuals with presumed or known mental disorders occur with alarming regularity today, there are virtually no recent discussions in the medical literature about the recognition and treatment of these individuals before their suicidal and homicidal behavior occurs….
Hey, we’re only human.
Not to condone or defend this guy’s actions in any way. In some sense though he is a victim, of brainwashing. There has been a coordinated and concerted effort to indoctrinate and recruit susceptible minds online into white supremacist thinking. Then there are the underlying economic and societal conditions that create susceptible minds in the first place, and these are precisely the things that we’re not going to look at in the deconstruction of this killing spree, guaranteed.
This is what has been referred to as ‘stochastic terrorism’, where the brainwashing is amped to such a level that eventually the least stable elements of society react with violence, without ever needing a direct conspiracy or direct orders. IIRC, this was a diagnosis for ‘random’ violence in Hutu/Tutsi conflicts, driven by relentlessly inflammatory radio broadcasts.
My new concept for today: “Stochastic terrorism.”
Thanks for the information!
This blog really is an educational institution.
“Spun”???
The guy reportedly entered the synagogue yelling “death to Jews”.
I think this was not known upon first reports.
Thank you. I did put my foot in it by commenting too soon.
Of course there will be no mention of what is going on at the wall the Israel-ites have erected between the ever shrinking Gaza and the Infinitely Elastic Jewish or at least Likudnik State of Israel…
And what would you say is the likelihood that this guy cares about the plight of Palestinians? Are the crimes of a genocidal Likud-run state relevant in any way to an anti-semitic attack on a US synagogue? I doubt it.
Observations from another source that may bear on this matter: https://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/10/exploting-the-pittsburgh-attack-derides-its-victims.html#more
Laura Rozen @lrozen
David Mack @davidmackau
A column from a few days ago that I can’t find, and that might have been taken down as being too inflammatory,
predicted that the caravan would be Trumps’ Reichstag fire.
When I lived in Pittsburgh, I briefly worked at a restaurant that also catered events. I was on the catering crew for an all-day conference at Tree of Life. Nice place.
Condolences to my fellow Pittsburghers.
All baby animals are so cute even an ant eater baby!
No More Health Care Half-Fixes
One of the requirements of the application for exemption is for the state to include:
How, pray tell is that going to be possible if more than just one or two states seek the exemption? Once again, Democrats fall into the “but how will you pay for it” trap.
Once again, Democrats fall into the “but how will you pay for it” trap
…they want the money?
Bernie was in Oceanside Ca yesterday trying to flip our 49th. Whole bunch of progressive candidates with him, including de Leon, fighting the uphill fight to flip DiFi. Sadly wife and I can only vote once.
Today is Vasili Arkhipov day. On 27 October 1962, Vasili Arkhipov averted Nuclear War. Thank you Vasili. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov]
Neat!
Hear hear!!!
And thanks to Stanislav Petrov as well who became known as “the man who single-handedly saved the world from nuclear war”-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov
Loved the dog train! My dog doesn’t walk well anymore and thinking about wagon rides so she can enjoy the outdoors without all the work.
Just wondering why FT links continue to get posted despite there being a hard paywall
Open the cash bay doors, HAL.
HAL: “I’m sorry Dave but I cannot comply.”
DAVE: “Why HAL? We’ve always been on the best of terms.”
HAL: ‘Dave, remember that time you promised to show me the ‘Golden Algorithm’ that held the ship together?”
DAVE: “Uh, oh, that. ‘Inaudible.'”
Well boyz und girlz, that’s what the FT creatures promise. They’ll show you a magical ‘Golden Nail’ that holds “Civilization”(TM) together. For a price.
I’m tempted to float a meme: Cash Test Dummies.
Because if you’re not too lazy, you can clear your cookies, search on the headline, and click through. Does this help?
Unfortunately, no.
Clear my cookies?
Not for me, doc – I’d be logged out of the whole web forevah with no way back!
Pro tip – copy the googled headline link, paste in an incognito window address bar and hit return.
They will pry my cookies from my cold, dead, virtual fingers. OM NOM NOM NOM.
Modern browsers allow you to clear your cookies based on string-matching, e.g “ft.”
Modern browsers allow you to clear your cookies based on string-matching, e.g “ft.”
> Khashoggi killing: as Saudi turns to China, for MbS it’s business as usual South China Morning Post
Saudi Arabia “turning” to China would be fantastic for the US. If we could somehow piss off Israel that much too, we’d be half of the way to having a sane foreign policy.
Sweden and ECB decide cash isn’t so bad after all.
https://wolfstreet.com/2018/10/26/nirp-fades-swedens-central-bank-makes-u-turn-on-cashless-society/
Some Reuters links from my newsfeed for your delectation – I only give 1 full URL since whenever I try to make a multi-link-containing comment, SkyNet diverts me one of those “help Google train its self-driving AI” captcha deals:
o U.S. Democratic campaigns target healthcare as Republican weak spot: Reuters poll | Reuters
‘Democratic candidates for the U.S. Congress are closing out the campaign season with an ominous warning: telling voters millions of Americans could lose their health insurance or be forced to pay significantly more if Republicans win.’ — Hoo boy … establishment Dems picking ‘defend the ACA’ as the hill they want to die on. No mention of Medicare for all nor single-payer in the article. And ‘forced to pay significantly more’ is already the yearly-sticker-shock reality for most Americans.
o [Replace everything following /article/ in above URL with us-usa-immigration-trump/trump-may-send-u-s-troops-to-mexico-border-but-migrants-undeterred-idUSKCN1MZ1NC] Trump may send U.S. troops to Mexico border, but migrants undeterred | Reuters
I realize the headline is trying to play up the ‘heroic downtrodden migrants refusing to be repressed by the violence inherent in the system’ angle, but of *course* the migrants are ‘undeterred’ – they’re still well within Mexico. The whole point of beefing up border security is to deter them when they reach the border.
o …/article/us-usa-betting-addiction/as-states-chase-sports-betting-gold-addicts-left-in-the-cold-idUSKCN1N019H: As states chase sports betting gold, addicts left in the cold | Reuters
Not just “well within Mexico,” they’re a fsckin’ thousand miles away, moving at, at best, 20 miles a day. I really don’t think they can keep that pace up. Most Americans do not understand how hard it is to walk 20 miles. I get the impression most Americans don’t know how easy it is to walk a mile.
Where did you do your Unix system admin, Procopius?
What happens if the UK simply gives up on Northern Ireland whether the unionists want to stay in or not? Does the UK really have an interest in keeping its colonies there? What if they just tell Foster “OK you’re on your own now, I hope you like drinking Guinness because you’re getting it every day from now on”? There are worse fates than that.
There will be blood.
I seriously wonder about this, when I was a kid it was a war zone…
Hopefully peace is addictive.
I wondered about this, too, the other day. How serious ARE the DUP?
The DUP and the Ultras will vote that down. They’d rather have a crashout. Even May says she won’t give up NI.
And, while we’re at it, let’s get automatic voter registration implemented in all states with voter registration* (as 13 states and the District of Columbia already have) or, even better, follow what other countries, with voter registration rates as high as 96%, have done.
*And possibly even in the one state, North Dakota, that doesn’t but does have a recently-enacted controversial voter ID law in place.
“Abe’s foreign-worker plan spurs protests in Japan’s ruling party”
You think that in a place like Japan it would be simply a matter of saying: “More robots please”. I guess that automation can only take you so far but I predict that the introduction of more foreigners may set off internal tensions in Japan. Whether that will translate into political instability down the track is anybody’s guess. Maybe the Swiss model may be worth Japan’s while looking at as they have about eight million people of whom over a million are ‘guest workers’ who have little chance of citizenship. Sooner or later they all go home which would appeal to the Japanese.
Abe has been pushing one or another version of this for most of his extremely long career.
It’s periodically been tried (notably in the early 1990s with Brazilian workers), and the results have not been an unalloyed positive.
If one digs deeper, this is also connected to the idea of getting more women to stay in the full-time workforce for their entire productive lives.
Here, “productive” being defined solely in terms of one’s contribution to GDP. Fortunately, this neoliberal idea has not taken hold in Japan to the extent to which it has in the US.
Re “Why Private Equity is Furious about a Paper in a Dermatology Journal:” https://boingboing.net/2018/10/27/united-skin-specialists.htm; “Legal threats force retraction of peer-reviewed article about the problems with private-equity-backed dermatologists.”
The authors of the article claim the retraction is over true statements.
I think that I understand why dermatology is so attractive for private equity firms based on a very old famous British book called “Doctor in the House”. The trainee doctor in it noted that the two dermatologist rolled up to the hospital in two very expensive Rolls Royces and wondered why. He then realized that fields like surgery or medicine were usually kill or cure as far as their patents were concerned. Results one way or another were resolved in months but with dermatology then (this was the 1950s) the patients never really got too bad and often they never really got that much better. Often dermatology disease lingered for years providing a steady source of income for those two dermatology specialists. I wonder if things have changed much since then?
Surgery and medicine are for serious health interventions. A lot of dermatology is cosmetic (non-surgical but stuff like getting spots removed), i.e. diseases of the rich. The withdrawn article said the PE-acquired practices collected a heck of a lot of money from medicare though.
Copies of the article are around the interweb if anyone cares. I saved a download but haven’t read it yet.
This is offthread from any of the threads or subthreads up above, but . . . .
The same Resilience.org site which reviewed David Holmgren’s permaculture-for-suburbia book called Retrotopia has now announced the recent publishing of another good book, this time by increasingly-famous-in-some-circles farmer Gabe Brown. It is a book about what he has discovered and learned about bio-active eco-balanced carbon-capture farming-for-a-profit on his ranch in North Dakota. The entry is really not a review. It is an interview with Mr. Brown so the reader can see and judge the philosophy and approach which guides the work and the book. Here is the link.
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2018-10-25/dirt-to-soil-how-to-make-money-in-farming-and-save-the-planet/
Here is a very short publisher’s description of the book itself.
https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/dirt-to-soil/
And here is the Acres USA Bookstore link to that same book.
https://www.acresusa.com/collections/eco-farming/products/dirt-to-soil
As you can see, no Amazon, no way.
+
“Trump’s NLRB Just Quietly Ruled to Make Union Pickets Illegal”
If this is so, then what would the law say if ‘volunteers’ who are not union members did flash-mob pickets on places like this. Just…concerned citizens.
Even now, ‘flash mobs’ are being treated like riots. Expect that to intensify as the ‘mobs’ begin to become more effective in anti status quo agitation.