Lambert and I, and many readers, agree that Ukraine has prompted the worst informational environment ever. We hope readers will collaborate in mitigating the fog of war — both real fog and stage fog — in comments. None of us need more cheerleading and link-free repetition of memes; there are platforms for that. Low-value, link-free pom pom-wavers will be summarily whacked.
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–Yves
P.S. Also, before further stressing our already stressed moderators, read our site policies:
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Monarch butterfly numbers were up 35% but still well under previous years Mexico News Daily
‘They’re everywhere’: Why California’s rattlesnake population is booming SFGATE (Re Silc).
A Fool and His Money… Joe Costello, Life in the 21st Century
The Tech Rout Isn’t Just Cyclical—It’s Well-Earned, and Overdue Bloomberg
Climate
No one is ready for the rising tide of climate litigation FT
Davos Man:
Alibaba Group president J. Michael Evans boasts at the World Economic Forum about the development of an "individual carbon footprint tracker" to monitor what you buy, what you eat, and where/how you travel. pic.twitter.com/sisSrUngDI
— Andrew Lawton (@AndrewLawton) May 24, 2022
#COVID19
People who rebound with COVID-19 after Paxlovid may be highly contagious, new studies suggest MSN. Good round-up, including links to studies.
COVID-19 Rebound After Paxlovid Treatment (PDF) CDC. “COVID-19 rebound has been reported to occur between 2 and 8 days after initial recovery and is characterized by a recurrence of COVID-19 symptoms or a new positive viral test after having tested negative. A brief return of symptoms may be part of the natural history of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) infection in some persons, independent of treatment with Paxlovid and regardless of vaccination status.” Nothing on contagiousness.
* * * Long COVID after breakthrough SARS-CoV-2 infection Nature. The Abstract: “Vaccination before infection confers only partial protection in the post-acute phase of the disease; hence, reliance on it as a sole mitigation strategy may not optimally reduce long-term health consequences of SARS-CoV-2 infection. The findings emphasize the need for continued optimization of strategies for primary prevention of [breakthrough SARS-CoV-2 infection (BTI)] and will guide development of post-acute care pathways for people with BTI.” Sadly, the Biden Administration and the public health establishment have systematically worked to destroy non-pharmaceutical interventions, so many “optimizations” are no longer available.
COVID-19 symptoms and duration of direct antigen test positivity at a community testing and surveillance site, January 2021-2022 (preprint) medRxiv. n = 63,277. “Antigen test positivity remained high after 5 days, supporting guidelines requiring a negative test to shorten the isolation period.” So once again the CDC “five-day, no test” policy endangers lives. Commentary:
They collected data from a HUGE study population— 63,277 persons over the course of 1 year (Jan 2021 to Jan 2022)
The other neat thing is that the testing site used the same eligibility criteria throughout and the same rapid test the entire time. 2/n pic.twitter.com/ZiKR6rwC07
— Dr. Jorge A. Caballero stands with 🇺🇦 (@DataDrivenMD) May 23, 2022
New Minnesota breakthrough COVID-19 data backs boosters’ protection Star-Tribune
* * * More New Yorkers Ignoring Subway and Bus Mask Mandate as Riders, Experts Debate Value The City. Joe, Rochelle, Ashish: Good job.
How the FDA (among others) failed us Niskanen Center
Monkeypox
Sex, rashes and outbreaks: A rational guide to the monkeypox risk in California LA Times. “Spread of monkeypox through the air is not thought to be a major source of transmission. But oopsie–
Clinical features and management of human monkeypox: a retrospective observational study in the UK The Lancet. From the Interpretation: “Prolonged upper respiratory tract viral DNA shedding after skin lesion resolution challenged current infection prevention and control guidance.” So it looks like aerosol transmission is a possibility. Who knew?
China?
China’s Top Two Leaders Diverge in Messaging on Covid Impact WSJ Commentary:
3/7
And it's not just policymakers who are worried. Conversations in the past year with former students in business and finance suggest that many are also deeply worried about the outlook, not just for now, during the COVID lockdown, but, more importantly, over what happens next.— Michael Pettis (@michaelxpettis) May 25, 2022
What signal did the National Economic Stabilization Conference release, and why was it held at this time? What China Reads
China turns a blind eye to labour violations to spur economy FT
The Only Five Paths China’s Economy Can Follow Michael Pettis, China’s Financial Markets. From April, still germane.
Singapore’s Lee Hsien Loong warns against nuclear ‘arms race’ on Asian soil, isolating China during Tokyo conference South China Morning Post
Myanmar
Myanmar central bank orders state bodies not to use foreign currencies Channel News Asia
Myanmar Regime Cuts Phone, Internet Access in Resistance Stronghold Sagaing The Irrawaddy
Syraqistan
Pak Army Deployed As Imran Khan’s Protest March Enters Islamabad NDTV. The march:
Near Attock. pic.twitter.com/monJvvIWzv
— Fereehaidrees@abbtakk (@Fereeha) May 25, 2022
Scoop: Biden officials in Saudi Arabia for talks on oil, planned visit Axios
Israeli Assassinates Another IRG Officer Tikun Olam
For Israelis, the future is impossible to see Middle East Eye
UK/EU
Sunlit uplands:
Partygate: Drunken fights and vomiting – but the Sue Gray report was a relief for Boris Johnson Sky News. “You might do a double-take at that given the brazen rule-breaking Sue Gray uncovered and documented, but crucially for Boris Johnson there was no smoking gun in this report that incriminated him further when it came to events he attended or the planning of them.” “Further.” Commentary:
Imagine being the cleaner having to scrub red wine off the walls inside No10 while banned from visiting your own family at Christmas
— Evie Breese (@EvieBreese) May 25, 2022
UK Risks Car Collapse as Jaguar Land Rover Looks Elsewhere for Batteries Bloomberg
New Not-So-Cold War
Readers, we could use some help on this one, especially since the primary sources aren’t in English:
Sonderrechte für “Verwandte”: Polen könnten in der Ukraine bald wichtige Ämter bekleiden (“Special rights for “relatives”: Poles could soon hold important offices in Ukraine). RT-DE. Quotes from Polish President Andrzej Duda and other officials. From the Google translation:
What rights Polish citizens could get in Ukraine remains unclear at first. However, in “informed circles” he speculates that Poland could in future take on posts in the Ukrainian administration, companies in the defense industry and security bodies. Patrols by Polish police in Ukraine are also possible, some Telegram channels write.
The Ukrainian president’s press office itself provides fertile ground for such assumptions, when Zelensky’s press secretary, Sergei Nikiforov, emphasized that in Poland, Ukrainians are practically on an equal footing with Polish citizens.
The RT-DE article seems to be the index case for other non-value add posts (here, here, here, here). However, this seems to be a human-written and parallel version of the story quoting Telegram channels, though again the About page is as dubious as it can be. Help!
Putin Signs Decree To Hand Passports To Residents Of Russia-occupied Regions In Ukraine Republic World
Rubles for gas: Who’s paid so far? Politico
Russia ready to set up corridor for ships leaving Ukraine with food, with conditions Hellenic Shipping News. As Yves pointed out three days ago, the corridors have already been set up, according to the International Maritime Organization.
Nuland-Pyatt Tape Removed From YouTube After 8 Years Consortium News (dk). Red tape at Minitrue causing delays?
Biden Administration
Will the Fed Be Able to Rein In Inflation without a Recession? National Review. No. Here it comes:
Inbox: Federal deficit is *plunging* to ~$1T this year and next per CBO. Roaring revenue + end of pandemic relief.
— Steven Dennis (@StevenTDennis) May 25, 2022
FDA official: Baby formula whistleblower report got lost in mailroom for months NY Post
Threat Lurks to STB’s Independence Railway Age (TW). Chevon deference and the Surface Transportation Board.
Uvalde
Salvador Ramos started shooting ‘whoever’s in his way’ at Texas school: police NY Post. Key quote from Department of Public Safety Lt. Christopher Olivarez]: “‘There was some police officers, families trying to get their children out of the school because it was an active shooter situation right now, it’s a terrible situation right now,’ Olivarez said. Caveat: The timeline on this event is all messed up. But then there’s this:
This video make so much more sense now. The cops literally stopped parents from helping their kids. pic.twitter.com/zhQfUjlpjd https://t.co/DqgZUH3uCC
— Matt Novak (@paleofuture) May 26, 2022
Apparently, it took an hour to get a key to the room where the shooter was killing the children. It certainly doesn’t take an hour to bust down some granny’s door in a pre-dawn, no-knock raid. What could have been the difference?
‘It’s time to die’ | Fourth-grader who survived Uvalde school shooting gives heartbreaking account of what gunman told students KENS5 (dk). “‘When the cops came, the cop said: ‘Yell if you need help!’ And one of the persons in my class said ‘help.’ The guy overheard and he came in and shot her,’ the boy said.” I don’t know if “heart-breaking” is the word I’d choose.
Supply Chain
On the waterfront: the political fight over organised crime at the Port of New York FT
Shortages
Russia Is Winning From the Global Food Crisis It Helped Create Bloomberg
US Shale Is Holding Back While World Clamors for More Oil Bloomberg
Tech
DuckDuckGo browser allows Microsoft trackers due to search agreement BleepingComputer. In the browser, not in the search engine, says DDG.
Zeitgeist Watch
Escape from Dimes Square The Baffler
Guillotine Watch
‘The haves and have-yachts’: on the trail of London’s super-rich Guardian
Class Warfare
The Global Fight Against the Gig Economy Tribune
Capitalism and Baby Formula Black Agenda Report
Sick With Covid, Americans Feel the Pressure to Power Through at Work WSJ (RS).
Antidote du jour (via):
Bonus antidote:
Besides being the ne plus ultra of cat videos, mugumogu’s documentation of Maru (and Hana (and Kitten Miri (and the material culture of Japan))) is an amazing multidecade project, an artistic endeavor of limited scope but great depth. Happy birthday, Maru. What good kitties!
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
158 comments
Comments are closed.
Individual carbon footprint tracker. Please form an orderly line and take your pill.
Yeah I believe I’ll take a pass.
We are living in Orwells world on Steroids.
The classical Left and classical Right should be on the same page on so many issues, but the culture war guns, abortions, etc.) stops that coalition.
Trend will continue as (IMO) the only utilitarian compromise (let the states decide, federalism) is unacceptable to a lot of people on every culture war issue
The “classical right” only behaved because they were afraid of people to the left of FDR.
People that has been largely out of the picture since the 90s.
These days it is soft-right and hard-right…
Agree. These days it is soft-right and hard-right and no-left.
It’s not even classical right-left anymore, it’s neoclassical up-down, the rich- the not rich. The neoclassical left and right are on the same page. Davos is bi-partisan. The rentiers vs everybody else. / ;)
Paul Wellstone has left the building. I remember listening to Air America in the early 2000s at work where there used to be some common sense and compassion found therein – before the internet got googled. NC – as far as media – seems to be the torch bearer (and eons ahead in turns of substance vs. AA radio) these days – ymmv.
Compared to Team Blue are terrorists and Team Blue flag waving, Air America (still some flag waving), it seemed nice, but I’m not sure Maddow and Randi Rhodes fell as much as they were always that way.
There was one guy with a Western country accent. I’m not confusing Imus, but do you remember who I am talking about?
Jim Hightower, perhaps?
I keep my old Air America mug to remind me that even I was once ignorant of the awfulness of the dems.
I do remember Randi Rhodes ambushing Ralph Nader on her first day. Ugh.
Thankfully, switched jobs before Randi got a show and stopped listening. But did listen to some interviews of guests/reporters/investigators that pointed out where ideas/data could be found in the world wide web (e.g., pre-wikileak sites or newsletters about things like the SF ATT switch vacuum – many years prior to Snowden). Perhaps, I was too naive – or reminisced with rose-colored memories – but it didn’t seem possible that ‘the left’ would have let Julian rot in prison back then. Nor did it seem possible that the ‘progressive’ wing of the democratic party would unanimously vote for a $40+ billion dollar laundry bill.
Cheers!
Left and right are wings of liberal capitalism. They adopt their passionate conceits to blame the other party for the privation that the reproduction of the capitalist cosmos requires. There’s a lot of frame-breaking to do, and not just in the Ned Ludd sense.
As always, the problem is what both sides are embarrassed to agree on: the continuation of a two-sided cosmos.
but we can cure this infection if you just BUY BETTER THINGS!
your inability to choose to buy better things is why we have all of these problems and the infection won’t go away. which is why we need to (re)educate on how to buy wisely.
no, we don’t want to target the source of the infection. antibiotics kill the good along with the bad, you know and we are good (because we said so)and we can’t allow ourselves to be killed off. that would truly destroy all of this beautiful system we have going for “our”selves, wouldn’t it?
why won’t you just buy better things? you are selfishly destroying the world!
Why “but people can choose to not buy” gets me into a near rage.
People will pinch their noses and spend on something that do not really fit their criteria, because they need to do so in order to survive and continue to function within the society.
Consumer choice is some of the biggest crock out there.
Wow! What a deal! How can an app change your habits? Pure BS!
What with this idea or Pfizer CEO’s scheme to track dose usage via chip, it seems the Davos crowd are harvesting qanon theories for their latest ventures. CT went from being whacko, to spoiler alert, and now to cutting edge lifestyle possibility all in a space of a few years. Insane.
I mean really, what is the difference between a “business plan” and a “conspiracy theory” anyway?
Since the rich got impunity, as best as I can tell there really isn’t one.
If your conspiracy works, whatever it is, and makes you rich, it’s a legitimate business.
But, but,… Carbon Trading! They can’t trade what they can’t track. Your activity becomes a “natural resource” for them from which they hope to make profits, (among its other uses). / ;)
Just show up anywhere to provide your, er, trackability.
Get scanned, retinal or otherwise.
Have a mystery aerosol sprayed to mark for subsequent monitoring. Black lights, nanoparticles, what is next?
By all means, carry that phone as we’ll be
pinging the sh&& out of itusing cool new features to assist you.Those wearing hats and sunglasses will be tagged as dissidents.
Yep, just another brilliant proposal from those super smart (in their own minds) CEO’s that run this country. Why don’t they test this on themselves first?
Come to think of it that is a key plot in the first SpderMan movie isn’t it? Tobey’s spidey suit against the goblin played by Dafoe? Dafoe took his own test case medicine and behold, a monster villain!
That’s a fictional anecdote of course.
I guess thinking he meant only the people at the event was wrong. I should have watched that clip.
I was expecting him to say that posting that information publicly about the leaders would show their commitment and encourage the rest of us to make similar sacrifices.
You know, buying a new more efficient jet or a hybrid Ferrari, to show how simple it is for all of us to reduce our carbon footprint.
.
I know. I know. Look at the source. Yet more dystopian surveillance “innovation” from our techie and corporate would-be masters.
But let’s not throw out the concept of the carbon footprint. We already have too much carbon in the atmosphere, and it’s important to have some mechanism to measure individual consumption contributions to the problem because merely measuring the supply side does not provide an accurate picture either from a triage or an equity standpoint.
While it’s a concept in need of discussion and improvement, carbon footprints tell us a couple of things:
1) the rich contribute far more to global warming than the poor even though the latter are far more numerous. The stat I keep repeating is that the world’s richest 10% contribute 50% of carbon emissions:
2) the U. S. and Canada are by far the worst carbon emitters when viewed from the standpoint of consumption. Europeans’ carbon footprint exceeds that in India or China, but the U. S. carbon footprint is twice that of the Europeans.
3) carbon footprints can tell us which non-essential activities, like private jets, make the most damaging additions to atmospheric carbon.
We are not able to continue with WEIRD country levels of consumption, especially among the wealthy, but also, let’s be honest, among the middle class. If we choose to love our SUVs, McMansions and winter trips to Florida more than we value the next generations’ ability to survive with some level of civilization, then this will all come crashing down before long. We can see how climate is sand in the gears of capitalism with the increasing effects on supply chains, agriculture, insurability of property, etc. If we prefer a soft landing for ourselves and our children, then we need tools like the carbon footprint to evaluate how we might triage non-essential activities to bring down carbon emissions rapidly. While it’s true that the Davos crowd is looking for ways to exploit our situation for more money and power, that can’t deter us from staying focused on rapid reductions in GHG emissions combined with safe ways of reducing the CO2 already in the air like regenerative agriculture.
Re: police officers standing around the school while the shooter did his thing.
First, here is a link to the AP News piece referenced by the quoted tweet in the linked-to tweet. Gives rather more details and all that.
https://apnews.com/article/uvalde-texas-school-shooting-44a7cfb990feaa6ffe482483df6e4683
Second, this seems to be a recurring pattern for “educational institution” mass shootings going back to Columbine. Specifically, at Columbine the police stood outside for at least a couple of hours (until the shooters committed suicide); at VA Tech they stood outside for, if I recall, around 20 minutes (also until shooter suicide). Here, it was 40 minutes plus until a SWAT team came by. I am sure other examples can be found.
Interestingly, the Orlando nightclub shooting a few years ago seemed a counter-example, as a group of police seems to have charged in almost immediately, before retreating…and, as I recall, there were no further deaths after they had retreated (the shooter sat around for three hours, then was killed by SWAT).
But regardless, it seems a fairly widespread SOP for police officers not to engage active shooters until SWAT or whoever else arrives, which can be a while. On the one hand, you can see a logic here – charging into an unknown situation guns blazing, especially given the “accuracy” displayed by many (though not all) police officers while shooting unarmed black men at close range, could just lead to a lot more people dying (as in the Orlando club). On the other hand, one 18-year old, and not exactly military-trained, in one classroom, 40 minutes. It clearly did not take that long to ascertain what was happening, and it does not sound like a speedier intervention would have done much more damage, though it would have required local police to actually, you know, go up against someone armed.
Wonder how this scenario would have played out if the school in question had been one of those posh $38k-per-child-per-year private deals I used to live next door to, however.
They were waiting to establish a no-fly zone/air superiority, and they couldn’t do that until they had thoroughly checked to make sure there were none of those nasty S-400s around.
They made a “personal risk assessment” that going in could be detrimental to their personal well-being.
——
While they were well-armed and protected with vests and helmets, etc., the non-SWAT cops on scene are likely not trained for confronting an active shooter in a building. That’s only for the elite SWAT team. :-\
the private schools probably have israeli-style private security like the rich do everywhere else.
Uvalde feels like it may be a turning point in the militarization of police if not gun control. A lot of minority enclaves consider the police to be just another gang on par with the other more local gangs they deal with. This seems like the sort of event to shift some of the ‘cosplay militias’ themes to ‘cosplay SWAT vigilantism’. Combined with the thing where elected officials just throw more tax money to the cops, muni tax receipts down and everyone poorer.. very bad.
Not a popular topic, but I’d like to see information about any current or past use of SSRIs or other medications. From memory, various shooters have had some history with such, and the topic should be investigated in a thoughtful, non-demonizing way to help current and future kids to see just what they are getting when they take advice about pills. The side effect lists probably don’t include reference to homicidal thoughts or actions.
Sorry, but we now have COIVID and the vaccine to worry about triggering episodes of mood disturbance as well. Rare as they are, should we really discount them? Are they only rare because, well, who is keeping track? I told the doctors about my COVID psychosis and they did not seem to care much nor put it in my health record.
https://www.psychiatrist.com/pcc/covid-19/psychosis-associated-covid-19-vaccination/
Those Cops were wearing armor, likely had entry gear in their cars,were armed with pistols and had either 12 gauge shotguns,AR 15’s or M16’s in their vehicles and stood around making sure that no one interrupted the murder of 10 Children.
American Cops.
Sovereign Immunity, the “LEO Bill of Rights”, largely funded through Civil Asset Forfeiture which is no more or less than armed robbery under color of Law.
“To Protect and Serve”
The right people.
You might be interested in this RadioLab episode about how cops don’t have to do the job we all think they have to do. Spoiler alert: cops let a guy get almost killed before apprehending the guy because they thought he had a gun, and another story about a woman in Colorado. It really changed my perspective of the police after listening to it. There is a transcript, too.
https://radiolab.org/episodes/no-special-duty
The key phrase in these incidents is “active shooter”. The cops summarily kill only non-active shooters holding toy pistols, TV remote controls, knives, etc. Active shooters present an unreasonable risk to their well-being.
ACAB
F.U. Gawr Gura.
I put my life on the line for my crooks, when they were doing right. It cost me badly. There’s a lot like me who end up burned or in prison, who happened to have forgotten the stash in their squad or were surfing child-porn on their issued laptop. I got lucky, and it only cost my family, my home, my career, and a few hundred thousand in lost earninings.
FU Gawr Gura.
David Graeber points out in his book on bureaucracy that cops are not there to necessarily prevent crimes, but to document them. Most of a cop’s work is coming to the scene of a crime after it has been committed and doing paperwork. Or they enforce searches and seizures. This all happens far more than they stop a crime in progress: “Stop, that man stole my purse!”.
So this standing aside waiting for orders shouldn’t surprise anyone. The most effective prevention a cop does is simply existing, which scares criminals into hiding their activity.
My thoughts are that police chiefs are terrified that their shoot-first officers will accidentally kill children, turning a mass shooting into a scandal about gun crazy police.
They’ve been trained to use no-knock warrants and then unload their guns on anyone who moves. This seems like less than ideal training for dealing with school shooters.
I was thinking the same; that has to be in the back of police chiefs’ minds when it comes to schools or churches. My 2 cents.
Can’t find a link to that original news story, but here you go. There are a lot of stories of police trying to mindlessly kill barking dogs they find threatening and accidentally shooting innocent people instead.
https://www.msllegal.com/blog/police-shooting-ohio-officer-accidentally-shoots-4-year-old-girl-while-aiming-at-family-dog/
FTP
It appears…
ACAB
.
Re: police officers standing around the school while the shooter did his thing.
Here’s an interesting, detailed, and recent link from an unusual site to the Parkland school shooting Valentine’s Day 2018. It is an in-depth narrative of the incident (with photos) and of the “non-actions” of Florida deputy sheriff and school resource officer Scot Peterson. Though long, it is well worth the read.
https://www.menshealth.com/trending-news/a39927553/scot-peterson-parkland-shooting/
It appears that Peterson is an object lesson in what a law enforcement officer 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘯’𝘵 do during a school shooting. In other words, he did nothing. The “Coward of Broward County” retired days after with his $104,000 a year pension intact.
Supposedly IIRC after Columbine some PDs did train officers who were first on the scene to form attack teams and try to take out active shooters immediately, instead of waiting for SWAT. One problem found was that cops on day shift tend to be older. The young guys/gals who might be more effective are on the less desirable night duty.
i know this makes me sound like a “let the shooter wander around killing people” answer but perhaps there is method in this madness.
if they rush in, they could get more people killed or turn it into some kind of hostage standoff. imagine they go in guns blazing and the kid just stands there with a long line of kids that he shoots one by one as the cops try to get through the maze of the school to where he is and take him out. others have already mentioned that the last thing most of these cops want to do is to accidentally kill the kids themselves by firing into the building.
a person doing this is likely operating on adrenalin. you can’t operate that way for long, especially untrained.
unfortunately, they appear to be waiting for SWAT but perhaps that gives the Tasmanian Devil a bit of time to cool off and then start worrying about what comes next, since the shooter likely hasn’t planned everything out to the end, or even presumes the cops WILL rush in and they can go out in a blaze of glory. then maybe they start to worry about whether and how they are going to get out of this alive (suicidality can pass).
and then what if they have rigged explosives? right, most of these are inexpertly done and amount to nothing even when these kinds of killers bother to do that, but imagine the police or parents running inside and the place detonating.
all around, it’s a bad situation and i am not really sure how you would just get that shooter without getting more kids killed, or cops, or parents being heroes. waiting for the shooter to exhaust himself, his supplies, and his will to continue may be the correct course of action, for all we know.
i would like to find out what behavioral science and SWAT teams themselves understand about these situations and how to defuse them. everything must be calculated carefully, so surely they’ve thought about this from all angles.
In Canada there is currently a Judicial Commission into a mass murder of 22 people. The revered Royal Canadian Mounted Police were the cops in charge. It is a coverup extraordinaire with top cops being allowed to testify via video to protect their fragile health. No cross-examinations allowed of these folk. One cop actualy admitted encountering the shooter but decided it was best to head in the other direction!
CDN MSM ignoring the real story. It is through the efforts and courage of mainly one intrepid reporter, Paul Palango, that some of the awful facts are surfacing. Here’s a sample:
“The man who murdered 22 people in a two-day shooting rampage in Nova Scotia in late April withdrew $475,000 in cash 19 days before he donned an RCMP uniform and started gunning down his neighbours, contacts and random strangers.
Gabriel Wortman withdrew the money from the Brink’s office at 19 Ilsley Ave. in Dartmouth, N.S., on March 30, according to a source close to the police investigation, who provided Maclean’s with two videos.”
https://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/the-nova-scotia-killer-had-ties-to-criminals-and-withdrew-a-huge-sum-of-cash-before-the-shooting/
Move over Warren and 9/11 Commissions!
>”It is a coverup extraordinaire with top cops being allowed to testify via video to protect their fragile health. No cross-examinations allowed…”
Well of course! You know a cop is lying when his or her hand is on the Bible!
$40 billion could have bought back 40,000,000 guns no-questions-asked for $1,000 each.
That wouldn’t have had an impact on the Ramos shooting, but definitely would have an impact in cities and handgun violence.
We DO NOT KNOW how many guns are in the hands of the American People.
The late Kevin R.C. O’Brien tried to come up with a reasonable estimate half a dozen years ago by checking Manufacturer’s records that were available through the ATF and IIRC the commerce department.
He came up with a figure of 300,000,000 sold to US Civilians over the prior few decades.
He also looked at AR15 production and back then the figure was about 12,000,000.
The AR15 continues ( With good reason) to be the most popular sporting rifle in America and the fad of making your own has become increasingly popular.
We’re likely looking at 15,000,000 as a SWAG.
And now we have the 3D printed FGC-9 Mk2
As a practical matter how do you disarm the American People and at what cost?
Disarmament has been a disaster, and I say we go big!
A neighbor has 3-D printed a Paris Gun and promises to put Pixley in peril, that is if he can 3-D print some 238 mm shells.
We may not know the exact number of guns but a 40,000,000 buy-back would be a good start. I read that many the guns are owned by a few people, so it’s not like there are 300 million people with guns. Some interesting gun stats here: https://brandongaille.com/gun-ownership-statistics-by-state-america/
What is “sporting” about an AR-15?
It is designed for “the most dangerous game”.
The story in Uvalde continues to unfold, so I’ll reserve judgment, but here is some additional background on Uvalde’s Police Dept. which helps underscore the rampant militarization of our local law enforcement:
https://twitter.com/thrasherxy/status/1529666660327620608
With a population of approx 16,000, Uvalde appears to spend an astonishing 40% of its budget on policing (and animal control).
They’ve got their own frikkin’ SWAT team? Seriously? For a town of 16,000 people? Well that puts a twist on my own comment below.
Like in most small towns, the SWAT Team is just a ‘collateral duty’ position. They train some regular cops to be SWAT members and call them away from their usual duties when they are needed.
Why did it take so long for a SWAT team to show up in a town of 16,000 people?
I don’t know what happened there, but I’m betting it had to do with calling off duty people in and getting their gear out of storage. Most cop cars are ‘hot seated’ meaning that officers don’t have their own dedicated cars and so can’t keep their specialized gear with them at all times.
likely related to border/ migration issues, and this is a Hispanic-Democrat jurisdiction. Not stereotyped white yokels straight out of “Deliverance”.
Race is not the issue with police militarization, which is why it is unfortunate that BLM couldn’t to make pan-racial police brutality more aware
‘Cops stood outside the school while the killer rampaged inside.
Onlookers yelled at them to go in. They didn’t. One parent urged bystanders:
“Let’s just rush in because the cops aren’t doing anything like they are supposed to.”’
Rage does not even come close to describing how that video made me feel. Those cops not only refused to stop children being killed but they stopped parents going in and even tasered one parent. If a ‘good guy with a gun’ had turned up, the cops would have probably have shot him as being a threat. What were they waiting for? A SWAT team to arrive from San Antonio? OK then. There is only one thing to do. Dissolve the whole, entire, complete Uvalde Police Department. Every single one of them. And don’t tell me that you can’t do it as NC has written before about one place that did it before. They are not fit for purpose. If a second school shooting happened in their city tomorrow, you know that they would do the same exact damn thing all over again. So sack the lot of them. And put their failure to act on their police records as you close out their employment too.
There is a well known Texas expression put to use frequently by Governor Ann Richards.
“All hat and no cattle.” I am certain we would have heard that and way more by now had this happened under her watch.
One does wonder what a real statesperson like her would be doing or saying right now instead of the current Ken doll Dem Beto. We should all remember after his performance yesterday that it was not even a month ago or so when he started his campaign that his campaign started with “y’all can keep your guns” signaling that gun issues were off the table.
My family member Dems in Texas last night put an open letter to Beto on Facebook. They have been big financial supporters of his campaign and are now suspending any future donations. What we really need right now is LBJ and what we have on offer is Puff the Magic Dragon.
Our politicians can no longer even manage a coherent narrative.
The cops are only good for shooting unarmed black people. They were waiting to find out if there were any unarmed blacks inside the school.
They get all these fancy weapons from the DOD that Obomber gave them but they only use them to scare the innocent public. Like in Boston in the aftermath of the marathon bombings.
O was quick to inadvertently make both your points; 1) race and 2) sales pitch for himself and his friends. So tone deaf I can hardly believe it.
“As we grieve the children of Uvalde today, we should take time to recognize that two years have passed since the murder of George Floyd under the knee of a police officer. His killing stays with us all to this day, especially those who loved him.”
https://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/1529555038246428672
O and Beto are quick to make hay (as we say) for themselves.
adding a bit of history: B. Clinton started the military hardware to local police in 1997, under rules in program 1033, to assist in the ‘war on drugs’. Over $7 billion in excess military equipment has been sent to over 8000 police forces, including many small police forces. In 2014, the militarization of police was spotlighted when coordinated swat teams descended on Ferguson, Missouri during the protests over police shooting of Micheal Brown. What happened shocked the conscious of the US and the world. The original BLM movement grew out of Ferguson. O doesn’t mention that event much. Not a campaign money maker I guess. The military hardware program to police is still in place.
https://www.newsweek.com/how-americas-police-became-army-1033-program-264537
The Newsweek article was written in 2014. My above comment’s $7 billion figure was current as of 2020.
Thanks for the links. It was such a ghastly act on part of the police officer who shot the black man in cold blood and let his body lie on the street.
if you want to understand fascism, you need to know its enablers: it was no accident that bill clinton opened his campaign for president on stone mt. where the modern KKK was formed
it was no accident that bill clinton when he instituted nafta, which is fascism, that america would be flooded with poor brown people who were economic refugees, he was warned
it was no accident that he made a speech right after, even as he was warned before we would be flooded, he simply unleashed all forces at the disposal of the america government, to round up them damn brown people flooding america and taking away jobs from whites.
it was no accident that little billy clinton and biden, instituted the new jim crow laws to jail millions of minorities that used to work in factories, as well as take away welfare, pure fascism.
trump did away with a lot of the fascism in NAFTA, trump did away with the fascist W.T.O.’s authority over america, which little billy clinton unleashed onto us.
to ignore or pretend little billy clinton was not the linchpin for modern fascism, is to ignore the black shirt, brownshirt movements and their leaders in the 1920’s
once you radicalize your people, its hard to get them back, it appears blacks are beginning to get radicalized against the democratic party, and its about time.
wanna get them back, well admit to your crimes, because they now know who did what to whom.
Leaked Footage Of Bill Clinton Being Racist Going VIRAL
The media has given Donald Trump such a hard time for being racist, but do you remember how Bill Clinton was??? If Trump said half the things Bill had, he would be murdered…
Have a look!
http://americanjournalreview.com/leaked-clinton-racist-2/
——————-
Bill Clinton Campaigned At Stone Mountain Where KKK Was Formed; Look Behind Him!
Being “tough on crime” was the mantra of the day.
By Wayne Dupree
August 27, 2016
Share Tweet Share Share Flip It Comment Print
It’s not what you are told, it’s what you know for yourself.
Bill Clinton campaigned in 1992 at the foot of Stone Mountain, GA, where the KKK was created and look who was behind him in shackles, lined up standing at attention? The Clinton team then went on to mass incarcerate many black young men giving them mandatory sentencing, investing in prisons for profit, the myth of the black super predator and the militarization of the police. This is who they are.
https://www.waynedupree.com/2016/08/bill-clinton-campaigned-at-stone-mountain-where-kkk-was-formed-look-behind-him/
Believe or not, Uvalde has its own SWAT team.
Next question: why did it take them so long to get there, then?
“You don’t know until you test it, but I think, I really believe I’d run in there, even if I didn’t have a weapon, and I think most of the people in this room would have done that too,” Trump told a gathering of US governors at the White House.”
https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/26/politics/trump-florida-school-without-a-weapon/index.html
Something something John Wayne, something make teachers carry guns, something something why can’t 8-year-olds be trained to wear body armor. I mean, we can’t get’em to wear masks as school, but still, we could if it was guns and Kevlar. Because Clint Eastwood movies. And Ronald Reagan acted in Westerns with a chimp. Thoughts’nprayers. Something something, hear that sound that’s the truck backing up to dump a load of tanks’n’drones’n’shit on the local Po-lice department. Yay! We’re saved (thank you Jeebus!)
What to do about it? If we are going to do something real to curb our mad murder culture, suggest we codify the NRA safety regulations into law. Yep. Do it.
Start by holding people responsible for being responsible with firearms:
https://www.stonekettle.com/2015/06/bang-bang-sanity.html
This won’t magically solve all our problems overnite, but that’s because there’s no such thing as a “magic bullet” that solves all problems. You start where you start. Start here.
How big of a hypocrite organization would the NRA have to be to not take its own regulations seriously enough to enforce them? It’s long past time for NRA members to hold the leadership accountable to practice what is preached.
Great idea–more laws.
Because the one that says you can’t kill someone else just isn’t enough.
Unfortunately, life is more complicated than Charleston Heston delivering simple Ten Commandments style fiats, such as “Thou Shalt Not Kill,” in the movies.
If the only law is the libertarian “Do what you will, just don’t kill someone else,” can anyone be surprised when the Wild Wild West ensues?
Well, I’m no fan of his, but taking Trump’s comments at face value, I do believe he is correct. And it was evidenced in the video above. It’s certainly true for me. I feel the social contract is still adult men are obligated to die in place of women and children. I take it personally that no men died, just women and children. What was wrong with those cops?
No question if my 9-year-old daugher was in that school, I’d find a way to go inside and try to help her. Crash through the sky light, stab the guy in the eye with a #2 pencil, whatever it takes. At least I tried.
That said, relying on the “good cowboy in the white hat” to save the day in these situations is a fantasy. By the time some asshole is shooting and kids are dead, it’s too late to “save the day” because the day is already FUBARed.
From a friend:
Freedom means not only the freedom to own a firearm, it means the freedom to not own firearms and to live a life free of people with guns trying to shoot you and your children.
The facts that police forces regularly use the ‘we put our lives in front of yours’ mantra, to justify pay levels, overtime pay and cushy pensions, makes one wonder if they should just go directly into politics. Men and women who work on power lines face more danger than these guys who do nothing more than stand outside and do crowd control. There are exceptions to police actually doing nothing more than standing around with their hands in their pants, but they seem few and far between.
And kudoos to whomever said, the next time compensation comes up, they should consider the teachers that risked their lives for the kids and not crowd control.
In our inner-ring suburb, a police officer recently gave CPR and then the Heimlich maneuver to a 4-month old baby, saving her life. Granted, he didn’t face death to do so, but that infant is alive today only because of him.
There was the border patrol initially involved. Wonder where federal involvement ends and local police involvement begins here. Also still wonder where this guy that didn’t seem to have a high paying job got the money for two AR15 guns and all that ammunition. He supposedly left home over WIFI being turned off. He posted pictures of guns as well as statements regarding his first killing of grandmother and that he intended on going to elementary school and kill some people. There are things here that seem to not add up too well.
‘They’re everywhere’: Why California’s rattlesnake population is booming SFGATE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A long-time mule packer for Sequoia NP was bit by a wee little rattlesnake w/o any warning when sitting on a chair in the backcountry, and he initially thought it was something else-the bite being of little consequence, and this happened around 5 pm on a summer day. and then the drama set in, as helicopters don’t fly @ night, and he almost ran out of time, but in the end a helo transported him to the hospital in Visalia where he needed 8 units of anti-venom on account of the venom being so concentrated and the young viper letting loose with all it had, and he earned a new Nick (that’s his first name) name in the process: ‘the half million dollar man’.
Generally, the way to avoid them in the Sierra Nevada is to go higher, i’ve never see a rattler above 8,000 feet…
Here in the Sierra foothills we have a neighborly pact, if you see a rattlesnake-kill it. I’m a live and let live type of guy, but the risk is just too much. Our neighbors had a German Shepherd mix we used to call the $19,000 dog, as it had been bitten twice and thats how much it cost for the anti-venom to save the beast.
Rattlers not on our property are free to go about their daily lives, but don’t slither around these parts.
Channeling Ross Perot ;p
If you see a snake, just kill it. Don’t appoint a committee on snakes.
If you see a snake in the wild, re-route your path away from it.
I was once held hostage by a rattler on the High Sierra Trail on part of the trail that had been blasted out of granite and there was no way to divert and it held us captive for five minutes, and then I had a brainstorm, and picked up a handful of dirt and small rocks and tossed it in an underhanded throw* at the cold blooded serpent, making it exit stage left. Works every time.
* Think Rick Barry
my family’s lake property is in copperhead and water moccasin territory (the former are much more dangerous) and we use something we call the snake rattle when we go outside the mown paths. Basically a handheld wood clapper that makes a loud thwock sound, you can make it really annoying by shaking it fast. I’m not sure how they’d work on rattlers but I suspect they probably wouldn’t like it for the same reason pit vipers don’t? the snakes don’t like movements/vibrations from something bigger than them and tend to move away from it.
I’ve encountered rattlesnakes a few times around here as they proliferate in the dry, rocky hills of eastern WA. There are certain hikes that I won’t do if the weather is warm. Spring is the most dangerous time for them as it’s when they shed their skin, which means they can’t see too well and will strike aimlessly if disturbed. Summer also not so good…
Run like hell away from the snake. I once saw a poisonous snake on the path I was in and that’s what I did!
My home backs up to some open fields and we’ve always had rattlesnakes, but we’ve already killed 2 young ones in our yard this year. We’d only had to kill one in the past 10 years. Like “Wuk”, if they are out in the wild, its their domain, but not in my yard. The biggest danger here is to dogs as people are more careful.
My Dad lives in a very rural area locally and he came upon an adult snake right outside his gate just sunning itself. His vision is bad so called me over to ID it. It was about 4 ft long, variegated grey/tan, small head, no rattles…just staring at us and flicking his tongue at us. We gave the gopher snake plenty of room and continued on our walk. My Dad is continually battling gophers as they love to destroy his fruit trees…he loves gopher snakes.
Serious question. How do you kill a rattlesnake? In case I ever must.
The best way is a shovel to the head, but one isn’t always nearby and I was weed whacking and heard the distinctive rattle, and went looking for a likely sized rock, and oftentimes small boulders can be boulderbergs, with 2/3rds of the granite not exposed under the ground, making them too big, but found a bowling ball sized boulder and went caveman on the serpent, using Newton’s gravity theory to it’s full extent with a drop on it’s body. Another time was an assault with a old school rake coming down on the soon to be corpus derelicti.
Came home to Descanso on my motorcycle after 6 months work tour in DC, opened the front door to see a small diamondback (2 rattles), stepped on its head (I was wearing motorcycle boots) and continued into the kitchen for a cold beer. We too killed all the rattlesnakes we saw (dogs and cats and our safety) but mostly avoided their territories.
Another boots story. I wore formal cowboy boots (pointed tips, etc) as part of my work uniform (coat and tie). For one of my projects I had to fly SAN-MSP twice monthly. And as usual I was busy with work during the trip, which was Direct but never Nonstop. At the halfway point (STL or someplace like that), I was sitting in the waiting room head down in my work. I heard a commotion and looked up. A small gray mouse was headed in my direction. I lifted my feet up and continued with my reading. But my legs got tired (boots are heavy) and I put my feet down. I heard some faint screams and children crying. I looked up and the flight attendant’s face was white and the janitor was coming towards me with a broom, a scoop and a sad smile. I lifted my feet again and the problem was swept away. And I continued with my reading. I was really busy those days.
Must be a good year for snakes. From BikeSnobNYC in the (obviously) NYC area.
https://bikesnobnyc.com/2022/05/23/drop-bar-days/
All the official facts re. the shooting are not yet out.
Situation could have just as easily turned out that the children were alive as hostages and rushing in would have turned the classroom, into the Beslan massacre.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_siege
Media, social media just makes tragedies like this even worse as people cherry-pick facts/narratives that reinforce existing worldviews.
no lessons learned, cycle just continues. worst timeline ever.
Not the first time that this has been discussed here on NC. A coupla years ago there was a shooting and as the guy was walking through the school shooting kids, the armed, deputized people that were supposed to help stayed outside the school behind their cars and refused to go in. You can negotiate with hostage takers – and you should. A good negotiator will bring a situation to a quiet surrender. But when the multiple gun shots are heard, that is when for better or worse you go in.
“It certainly doesn’t take an hour to bust down some granny’s door in a pre-dawn, no-knock raid.”
From a purely mechanical perspective, residential front doors open in, school classroom doors open out (and are usually of fireproof construction), so are, by indirect design, a bit harder to break down. To the extent that doors and classrooms in newer buildings have been further hardened against unauthorized entry, it could be even harder. I’ll wait for the full report to see where the errors were made…
One is tempted to fantasize about a situation whee a coupla cops had gone into that school and from outside, seen the shooter inside a class room-
‘Hey, Sarge. Are these windows bullet-proof?’
‘No. No, they’re not.
It is officially required that the findings will conclude that the entire deployment and incident resolution will be free of error. That is the official policy of Vlande PD. This post was fact checked by the Ministry of Disinformation.
The local schools always lock their doors after the morning bell. Being a small town school, they might have been complacent….or the school might not even have air conditioning, so the doors were open.
A friends is a police officer who wrote shooting response plans for the local schools….they have procedures, floor plans, backup plans, etc. Again being a small town, they may have been complacent or had other priorities.
of course by the time these questions get answered, the media locust will move onto the next hot topic
The claim is you can never go home again, but they must hot have had a vehicle.
About a decade ago I did a drive-by sleuthing of my elementary, junior high and high school campuses in East LA, which all had the look and feel of a minimum security prison, funds that once went into putting on concerts by the school band, now went to concertina wire (ok, I exaggerated that-saw no actual concertina wire surrounding the schools) and they more resembled frontier forts, warding off arrows & high velocity tomahawks.
The message it sends to the jugend must practically scream that the world is a most dangerous place-get used to it.
Cops with no responsibility except to wait for a SWAT team may have been complacent. Also, politicians and voters who think AR-15’s should be available to anyone who wants one, and that turning schools into armed fortresses is a solution, not a problem.
Payday Report has an item about teacher’s strikes in response to school shootings. It contains some good links, including this op-ed from the Erie (PA) paper:
https://www.goerie.com/story/opinion/columns/2022/04/14/ending-violence-ensuring-safety-and-security-at-erie-high-essential-to-student-learning/65349030007/
Given the panicked response to schools closing and the damn-the-torpedoes approach to re-opening them, it would seem that teachers actually have a lot of bargaining power. Not us much as longshoremen in Cali, but more than Starbucks baristas.
It will not be the NEA or the AFT that do it. They’re beyond co-opted. But an effort from leaders like those CTA/IWW teachers in Chicago that would close the schools until Covid and school safety were handled sanely might prove a powerful leverage point.
Off topic to a fellow Cleveland gardener, I’ve learned that angelica is quite adept at seeding itself. I have at least half a dozen plants opening blooms right now after having planted one a few years ago that I grew from seed. Their large, green, compound blossoms are quite cool. Smells nice too. Once the blossoms are fully opened, we’ll see how the bees like it.
The cops are bastards and they’re not here to help us. There’s your facts for you.
But… but if we just shoveled $ to equip Po-lice with Skynet stuff like robots and pew!pew!pew! lasers, it would be rainbow marshmellows and slumber parties for all…
https://www.france24.com/en/20160709-dallas-killer-robot-sparks-debate-about-police-militarisation
Because authoriarian figures told me so!
While I was talking to a friend last night, she got a call from her boss at the lab where she works, informing her that the person she shares an office with had tested positive for Covid. My friend’s going to be quarantining until she’s gotten a couple of negative tests back, but she was looking for any other guidance from the CDC and…well, you can probably guess how that went. She was shocked to find that “all they say is get vaccinated,” and that her searches for what to do if you are vaccinated, post exposure returned nothing useful. Any recommendations from the NC Braintrust would be greatly appreciated.
the” FLCCC” group has a lot of useful information on many pages to be found .
Just look up FLCCC, they have different protocols used at different points of exposure, prophylactic, post exposure(like your friend),and after initial diagnosis,…. before going into the hospital. As well as protocols for professionals, who administer the care in the hospital setting.
If your friend has some time, she could go through their recommendations. 1/2 are nutrition/vitamins/supplements… to be “up” on,and easily found.
As someone who has often tried to get my spouse to see the degree of the rot, for the last 2 years as “the covid” showed yet again ,how rotten our institutions are..
Only after two people in the household got covid, and were wondering just like your friend, what to do… and then going onto the algorithm allowed websites for information and just getting, CDC marketing for remsdesivir, and paxlovid…. and of course vaccines… does it prove the public healh system is in complete dysfunction.
You have to go look for the FLCCC website, to get there… and trying to get “the drug that shall not be named”.. is another matter.
All the non vaccine, or non- pfizer, or non-gilead info is censored. And now the dept of homeland security and their dis-informantion board will surely get going as it is inevitable, will surely not allow those who keep catching this cold, to even see what other countries get. Like a home kit for self treatment , in early stages…. with cheap medicines..
And the fact that besides us not being allowed a universal single payer healthcare system, we are not even allowed a reasonable attempt to save ourselves from being gouged by the state supported predatory medical system/insurance system, if we catch a cold….
should wake people up.
but I’m not counting on it.
Good luck to your friend, and everyone else…. cause we are on our own on this.
Thanks. I am skeptical of the FLCCC though, as they are still recommending HCQ, which I was pretty sure had been shown to be of little use, and makes me unsure about how much stock to put in the rest of their recommendations.
If it was of use that would be pretty inconvenient fact for getting the vaccines authorized and also make Trump look good since at one time he advocated it. I dont pretend to know whether it actually works or not, but I can think of many reasons why the medical establishment never seriously tried to find out
I was puzzled by their recommendation of HC. The problem is that everything was done to prevent anyone finding out if it worked. What decent science there is about it refers to its action as a Zinc ionophore which means it needs to be co-administered with Zinc (probably high doses, just for a few days). The major scientific scandal over HC was the Oxford trial that used literally TOXIC doses of HC and on already critically ill patients. I`m staggered that no relatives took the authors to court as they almost certainly hastened the demise of a proportion of the patients in the study. So long ago now that I haven`t a link to hand but it should be easy to find – download it and take a look. It wasn`t the only scandalous event – a paper famously published by the Lancet that was pounced on by many other researchers and shown to be actually fraudulent. All this has meant that we really have no idea if it works – just that a number of practising physicians (the kind that actually observe patients and try to find what works in situations like this where we are told to wait until we are hypoxic to be treated!). The point is that HC in the right doses is inocuous for most people and given with zinc just might help (a plausible mechanism). Instead people are often given antibiotics which make the whole situation rapidly worse (killing off the microbiome for many weeks). The evidence for the efficacy of IVM properly used is much more solid and again is harmless, so why ever not??
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1232869/
Interestingly FLCCC just posted this on their substack yesterday–
New article up: “How Our Thinking on Vaccines Has Evolved – And why FLCCC is Introducing a Protocol to Treat Post-Vaccine Syndrome.”
Indeed, the Google translation of the “Special rights for Polish relatives in the Ukraine” is pretty much accurate (German is a much easier language to translate than, say, Chinese). In a nutshell the article says that because of historical reasons Selenskij considers the Polish to be Ukraine’s “relatives”. Polish citizens will have the same rights as Ukrainans! The plan is to have in the end just a “formal” symbolic border between the 2 countries. I guess that’s the first step for Poland to take over West Ukraine, this was anyway always the West’s plan B. Now it’s starting.
Here is Pepe Escobar’s interpretation:
https://thecradle.co/Article/columns/10803
Washington’s plan is to keep the new ‘long war’ going at a not-too-incandescent level – think Syria during the 2010s – fueled by rows of mercenaries, and featuring periodic NATO escalations by anyone from Poland and the Baltic midgets to Germany.
Last week, that pitiful Eurocrat posing as High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, gave away the game when previewing the upcoming meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council.
Borrell admitted that “the conflict will be long” and “the priority of the EU member states” in Ukraine “consists in the supply of heavy weapons.”
Then Polish President Andrzej Duda met with Zelensky in Kiev. The slew of agreements the two signed indicate that Warsaw intends to profit handsomely from the war to enhance its politico-military, economic, and cultural influence in western Ukraine. Polish nationals will be allowed to be elected to Ukrainian government bodies and even aim to become constitutional judges.
In practice, that means Kiev is all but transferring management of the Ukrainian failed state to Poland. Warsaw won’t even have to send troops. Call it a soft annexation.
Connecting the dots a bit, this suggests:
Well, I remember when a US national was appointed post-coup finance minister of Ukraine – though they did grant Jaresko citizenship on the day she was sworn in.
I don’t want to question the “agency” of the Ukrainians, but…
Soft incorporation of western Ukraine into Poland. Stack the legislature then vote to join Poland. Coup success and not a drop of blood spilt.
The dismemberment of a large, failed state, the badlands of Europe. Will all the US cowboys go home after this is done? Yeehaaa.
So Poles get to ride free on Ukrainain trains?
https://twitter.com/Citizen6222/status/1529009576414265346
And do they run on time?
Dr. Phips — I agree that Ukraine is ‘evaporating’ with Russia annexing Crimea and recognizing the independent republics; EU finding alternative natural gas routes and cheap labor sources; Turkey’s probable management of grain shipment and delivery including ‘payment processing’; and now Poland’s soft annexation of West Ukraine. This will become a memory.
Is it the Russian plan as well? Three months ago at the start of this the Saker suggested that it was–that the Russians had no desire to rule over a region of hard core Banderites.
Not going to argue about the basic translation – just adding my comments on the feel.
The official statements basically state that just as Ukrainians in Poland effectively have all Polish citizenship rights except the vote, Poles in Ukraine are to have corresponding Ukrainian rights.
The Telegraph channels – which are not identified as official – are the sources of provocative statements like Polish policemen will patrol Ukranian streets, Poles will be in Ukraine’s civil service and Polish judges will lay down the law. Based on the official statements, these are possible outcomes in the same sense as people applying for positions in either country will be considered on a nationality-blind basis.
At this point this does not strike me as a slow-motion takeover of Ukraine by Poland or a slow-motion takeover of Poland by Ukraine. Note too, that Polish and Ukranian are not the same, and someone speaking only Polish would not be a good fit for any Ukranian position or vice-versa. Ukrainian grammar is more like Russian than Polish, but it has many Polish loan-words. The rhythm of the languages is different. That said, if you already have practice in two languages, Ukrainian and Russian, picking up Polish may be relatively easier than for a monolingual.
—
As far as Russian Telegraph commentary is concerned, this would become a Polish takeover, and the resultant Polish/EU/NATO expansion is a betrayal of Ukraine – and a provocation to Russia.
Of course, a Polish-Ukrainian union, with Kiev a border city on the Dnipro (as up to the late 1700s) actually seems to match Russian goals, other than that Russia would prefer to see Ukraine as a rump state rather than part of a stronger union.
—
Also to note, up to the late 1700s Crimea and the northern coast of the Black Sea was mostly under Tatar control. Seems unlikely that would be acceptable to Russia, even though, despite Russian conquest and resettlement, there is still a Crimea for Tatar movement.
I’m having cognitive dissonance here. Doesn’t Poland’s eastern border stand at Ukraine’s western border and almost in the middle of Galicia? That area being the subject of a controversial film by Polish writer and director Wojciech Smarzowski titled “Volhynia (Polish: Wołyń) – a 2016 Polish war drama. The film is set in the 1939–1943-time frame and its central theme is Ukrainian anti-Polish hatred culminating in massacres of Poles in Volhynia. The screenplay was based on the collection of short stories titled Hate (Polish: Nienawiść) by Stanisław Srokowski.
When “Hate” (for short) debuted, it caused diplomatic incidents, with plenty of ruffian rebuttal, in both Poland and Ukraine. How and why would Poland hope to administer this part of Ukraine?
Unless, after visiting Greece and listening to them talk about the Turks after 1,000 years of conflict as if it all happened yesterday, it is for revenge?
We truly have no real knowledge of what historian Timothy Snyder titled his 2010 book “The Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin.”
We should not be in this part of the world.
The Onion reported that the dog ate his homework.
The Babylon Bee prophecies often come true, some type of forecast with a time lag. Grist for future econometricians?
Can you believe that the mail room lost four copies of complaints addressed to four different people in high level jobs at the FDA. Hmm?
Can you believe that the well-credentialed, well-compensated ADULT permanent bureaucrats who are responsible for ALL food and drug “safety” in the greatest country ever invented would offer such an “explanation” out loud and in public?
These would be the same people who have spent the last 2 years proclaiming the absolute “safety” and “efficacy” of an inadequately tested, experimental “vaccine” for all people, including pregnant women and their unborn fetuses, are in the process of “approving” that “vaccine” for very young children, studiously ignored reports of adverse post-“vaccine” events, and supported societal ostracism for those who refused their bullying.
And never forget the industrial strength kneepads they put on for purdue pharma.
God only knows what’s still lost in the mailroom. My guess would be something about SSRIs and screen addiction rotting the teenage male brain.
They forgot to mention that it was sent by e-mail!
Book Tip:
The High Sierra: A Love Story, by Kim Stanley Robinson.
I’m about 100 pages in and KSR and I began our romance with the Sierra at a similar age, and so far his experiences mirror mine-the wonderment of it all being in the range of light, and what it has meant to both of our lives in shaping us.
I’m going to have to read it slower, if I go to fast i’ll run out of tales and that would be a tragedy.
China’s Top Two Leaders Diverge in Messaging on Covid Impact : WSJ Commentary
Reminds me of the hopium west press was promoting over Ukraine special operation, ie: completely lacking in understanding of how the CCP functions. Their messages are in sync on Covid control actions, (and Monkey Pox, has Dribble, er Biden said anything on Monkey Pox?) but Xi is speaking to how China will address international impact (not to USA, they don’t give two hoots for Biden Admin) on trading partners in Third world/Global South (select patronizing English term and insert here). Li on the other hand is speaking to domestic industry about measures that will be taken to assist them, and re-enforcing the message that CCP takes this issue seriously. WSJ needs to pay their hacks better so they will feel embarrassed at least to take the “supplemental income” from NED.
Baby’s First Beretta
Its an exciting time for new parents, your little bundle of joy who is frankly so defenseless, isn’t it time to consider getting them used to being all armed & dangerous @ a tender age?
Sure, they can’t even hold their head up, but it isn’t as if anybody needs that part of the body to shoot with, and of course, BFB’s will not come with any capability to actually fire a round, ensuring the little tykes safety from accidental discharge, which incidentally is how they came into being.
It’s even more cute when you give your pet their very first AK-47
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhxqIITtTtU (42 secs)
In the message to registered drone pilots, the FAA specifically noted that adding things like guns, bombs, fireworks, flamethrowers, and other dangerous weapons to your drone is a violation of Section 363 of the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018.
According to the videos viewable on Youtube, etc; there is little to no enforcement.
On the plus side commercial drones or even the home made kit versions are barely able to lift a camera, much less a gun or a flamethrower.
My comment very clearly says what it says, not what you say it says. As for the future, we are still waiting for Jeff Bezos to create your version of drone world.
Apparently drones are proving very useful in Ukraine but more for carrying cameras than weapons.
LINK Russia ready to set up corridor for ships leaving Ukraine with food, with conditions Hellenic Shipping News. As Yves pointed out three days ago, the corridors have already been set up, according to the International Maritime Organization.
Let’s hope this works Turkey in talks with Russia, Ukraine over grain-export corridor
Share of Wheat Imports from Russia and Ukraine
Additional discussion here.
MOA says Ukraine will barely have enough wheat this year to feed themselves, much less the rest of the world. Perhaps we shouldn’t have encouraged a proxy war involving such an important bread basket. In fact all of the current shortages including fertilizer were predicted in articles preceding the Russian invasion. And yet Blinken and Biden refused to negotiate and defuse the situation.
China has 51% of world’s wheat in strategic reserve. UN FAO is headed by Qu Dongyu, a Chinese national. Maybe China is waiting for an opportunity for grand gesture?
Mariupol. They have to be talking about Mariupol. The Russians have cleaned out the sea-mines as well as a total of some 12,000 explosives. They are also removing ships sunk by the Ukrainians so that port is ready to go. I believe that the Russians will be bringing in all their heavy stuff through this port to reconstruct that city with so it would make sense to use this port to take out wheat from here as well-
https://www.rt.com/russia/556121-azov-sea-safe-passage/
Washington, Brussels and Kiev may be grinding their teeth at this happening but as the other Ukrainian ports still have sea-mines off them, it is the only choice.
Last I heard the Mariupol port was already fully operational. They’ve been cleaning up the port and city for weeks; the fighting has effectively been over for that long. The Nazis, uh, I mean, glorious freedom fighters, in Azovstal weren’t fighting. They were just starving in a basement after all the fighting had concluded outside.
FWIW, reportedly police couldn’t enter the school because they did not have the keys or tools to enter.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10857101/Texas-school-shooting-cops-restrained-parents-trying-save-kids.html
My guess was they didn’t have a permission slip from their moms saying they could go on the field trip.
woof the DM slug really taps into that rage: “cops restrained parents trying to save kids”
This mom was able to get in. Rescued her two children. She knew exactly what was going on. But the fully armed, purportedly ‘trained professionals’ just couldn’t do anything. They should have followed Ms Gomez.
Stop stanning for these cowards. On the other hand, you may have a future writing press releases for the Uvalde PD and the Texas DPS
https://www.insider.com/texas-mom-ran-school-pulled-two-kids-out-uvalde-shooting-2022-5
$4.01k update:
Bitcoin is about to test the pivotal $28k barrier, which experts all agree is a key strategic line of defense, kind of similar to Robert Conrad daring you to knock an Eveready Battery off his shoulder.
Eveready Battery ‘I Dare Ya’ Commercial (Robert Conrad, 1977)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dD-Oekbmlo
That said, i’m contemplating slitting my risks and losing 50% on my investment by selling, which I would then parlay into a slurpee @ 7-11.
But quitting is for losers!
Speaking of ‘specialty formulas’, it’s just occurred to me that Ensure may also be endangered by shortages in this market. Has anyone been tracking the availability of meal replacement for old folks (another endangered demographic)? Don’t scoff. I’ve known a lot of people, including family members, who needed daily supplemental calories in as nutritious a form as possible to stay reasonably healthy and out of the hospital.
From what I read on the Reddit doctors forum (so take that source with a grain of salt), adult formula is running low as more people are taking it and trying to turn it into baby formula. But I haven’t seen anything about ensure, specifically, because that’s not seen as formula. I think it’s probably in safe supply because people aren’t using ensure to supplement, although they could in toddlers and older children if they are still on formula but don’t necessarily “need” formula (most healthy children don’t need formula after 1 year of age according to the American pediatric association). I also am of the opinion that there are enough weight loss/ protein shakes that are similar enough to ensure that they could be used in a pinch in older adults.
I am surprised that Western “media” hasn’t picked up this “story” reported by Taiwan News, https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4548656. The article has a link to an audio file that supposedly came out of a “secret military meeting” that took place in Guangdong just over 10 days ago. The powers that be at Guangdong province had allegedly received orders to mobilize and prepare for war with Taiwan.
Hopefully it’s not true. I am thinking of relocating to Taiwan in the next few months, and becoming Taiwan’s Gonzalo Lira is not part of my plans.
Re: Escape from Dimes Square
What useless drivel. Vapid online essayists and podcasters are leading the hip new Manhattan social scene? It’s all an extension of the Tumblr wars from 10 years ago? Pathetic.
Escape from Vimes Square?
Really hard to make sense of the fever-dream of an essay in The Baffler. Is anything more being described than a change in attitude of fashionable New York youth sub-culture (which, incredibly, still seems to have an economic base to support it 40 years into neo-liberalism)? A more coherent take on the ‘Vibe Shift’ is delivered by the consumer research professional quoted in this Metro article:
https://metro.co.uk/2022/03/27/how-to-make-it-through-the-vibe-shift-16228869/
Apparently, the Vibe Shift is a symptom of the generation gap between older Millennials and Generation Z. The Gen Zs are reaching cultural maturity and rejecting the habits of their Millennial elders – workaholism, pious woke-ism, posing on Instagram. Instead, they embrace an anti-work philosophy (‘lying flat’), irony and reactionary meme-ing (all features of The Baffler essay).
In other words, in classic dialectical fashion, Gen Z sees the return of Gen X, the original slacker generation, in altered form. Hey ho!
With monkeypox I hope TPTB don’t take their eyes off the ball regarding Avian flu.
Letter from DEFRA (UK govt) through our door today that we’re in one of the key zones. In fact if you look at the govt website, Nottingham has three zones covering major parts of it. Major outbreaks in various countries recently. The ability/likelihood of it mutating into a form that is both transmissible from humans to humans whilst retaining the potential lethality of an animal-human infection is beyond my paygrade but this is first time we’ve had a letter like this.
We got that letter a couple of weeks ago. I was wondering if it was because our neighbours keep chickens – do you have any fowl neighbours…? :-)
Ode to the Squad…
Mother, Father, we’re here in the DC zoo
We can’t come home can’t give up social media too soon
I got my paid for sentence
I got my online command
They said they’d make us famous if we met all their demands
I could be an influencer into scolding punishment
Or if you’d like be part of the establishment
We laugh behind the good old boys back and put some to the rod
But I never thought they’d put us in the
Goon squad
They’ve come to look you over and they’re giving you the eye, eye, eye, eye
Goon squad
They want you to come out to play
You’d better say goodbye, aye, aye, aye
Some turn out to be two faced
And some tales grow too tall
Some go thinking with the GOP base
Some are no fun at all
And you must find the proper place
For everything you see
But you’ll never get a lack of encouragement out of me
Goon squad
They’ve come to look you over and they’re giving you the eye, eye, eye, eye
Goon squad
They want you to come out to play
You’d better say goodbye, aye, aye, aye
Goon Squad, by Elvis Costello
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7OmpVYb57w
Very nice send up of the only Elvis that mattered.
Just saw a talking head going on about the way to change things is to make sure Republicans aren’t elected because they are too answerable to their constituents. Oh that wasn’t how they phrased it. They started with the latter and did a dance to transition to the former, but drop the filler in between and you have their point.
Forget pointing out that the Democratic leadership was going all out for a Democrat who was anti gun control on the day of the shooting OR even that Democrats have had the Presidency and a super majority in Congress in the last fifteen years and did diddly, I guess the hypocritical lack of logical thought has me gobsmacked. While I don’t believe it is about keeping their constituents happy for Republicans either, I am really truly mind blown confused that now we are supposed to be against elected officials representing the will of their constituents so vote Democratic! As in “We would never be so representative !”
They aren’t even trying to be sane.
My nomination for “Groves of Academe” – applicable to many disciplines! (A more delicate alternative term is “CV roughage”, i.e. lacking in nourishment, but fibrous enough to assist passage along the academic career path.)
Abstract
Research on sustainability and transitions is burgeoning. Some of this research is helping
to solve humankind’s most pressing problems. However, as this provocation argues, up to
50% of the articles that are now being published in many interdisciplinary sustainability
and transitions journals may be categorized as “scholarly bullshit.” These are articles that
typically engage with the latest sustainability and transitions buzzword (e.g., circular economy),
while contributing little to none to the scholarly body of knowledge on the topic.
A typology of “scholarly bullshit” is proposed which includes the following archetypes:
boring question scholarship, literature review of literature reviews, recycled research, master
thesis madness, and activist rants. Since “scholarly bullshit” articles engage with the
latest academic buzzwords, they also tend to accumulate significant citations and are thus
welcomed by many journal editors. Citations matter most in the metric-driven logic of the
academic system, and this type of scholarship, sadly, is thus unlikely to decrease in the
coming years.
Bullshit in the Sustainability and Transitions Literature: a Provocation
Thanks for this link. Yep. Academic self-licking ice cream cones.
From 2014, Democracy Now:
Cops or Soldiers? Pentagon, DHS Helped Arm Police in Ferguson with Equipment Used in War
https://www.democracynow.org/2014/8/15/cops_or_soldiers_pentagon_dhs_helped
Just a reminder.
I wonder if Poland is using the Ukraine’s war with Russia in the East to lay the groundwork for a land grab in the West. (Galacia)