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.
And for those who are new here, this is not a mere polite request. We have written site Policies and those who comment have accepted those terms. To prevent having to resort to the nuclear option of shutting comments down entirely until more sanity prevails, as we did during the 2015 Greek bailout negotiations and shortly after the 2020 election, we are going to be ruthless about moderating and blacklisting offenders.
–Yves
P.S. Also, before further stressing our already stressed moderators, read our site policies:
Please do not write us to ask why a comment has not appeared. We do not have the bandwidth to investigate and reply. Using the comments section to complain about moderation decisions/tripwires earns that commenter troll points. Please don’t do it. Those comments will also be removed if we encounter them.
Admit It, Squirrels are Just Tree Rats The Atlantic (David L)
Can Computers Be Mathematicians? Quanta Magazine (David L)
There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch QuoteInvestigator (re Šilc)
Why Are We Still Talking About Black Mountain College? New York Times (Don G)
Physician-Assisted Death for Patients With Dementia JAMA Psychiatry (Kevin S)
Whatever Happened to the Satirical Novel? Counterpunch (Anis S)
Shinzo Abe
Anti-Moonies being fingered. I have asked contacts who are fluent in Japanese for their take: Abe shooter says his mother bankrupted by donating to religious group Kyodo News
The Legacy of Shinzo Abe Adam Tooze
#COVID-19
Science/Medicine
‘Forever Plague’: Nikiforuk Responds to Critics The Tyree (Basil Pesto)
Australian medical authorities order Zero-COVID activist Dr David Berger to undertake “education” program or be deregistered and Scientists and anti-COVID activists defend Australian physician Dr. David Berger WSWS (Basil Pesto)
US
Army cuts pay, benefits from more than 60,000 unvaccinated National Guard, Reserves Fox
Monkeypox
As Monkeypox Hits California’s LGBTQ community, Activists Say Not Enough is Being Done LA Times
Climate/Environment
New report that all (or nearly all) ancient bristlecone pines growing in Panamint Range, Death Valley NP have died in 2022 Evan Frost (guurst)
Dead Solar Panels are About to Become a Lot More Valuable The Verge (David L)
Yosemite wildfire explodes, burns into famed Mariposa Grove SFGate(resilc)
New Zealand to Embark on World’s Largest Feral Predator Eradication The Guardian (furzy)
China?
US, China Top Diplomats Voice Cautious Hope In Rare Talks Agence-France Presse
US, China in a diplomatic tug-of-war for Marcos Asia Times (resilc)
Old Blighty
Next Conservative Leader. Who’s backing whom. Our working list. Conservative Home
Good Riddance Boris Johnson Tribune
La belle France
France to Nationalize Debt-Laden EDF as Energy Crisis Mounts Bloomberg. From earlier in the week, still germane.
New Not-So-Cold War
In Kyiv, Sen. Blumenthal Says He Hopes to See a ‘Hand-to-Hand Insurgency’ in Russian-Occupied Ukraine Antiwar.com
Germany confirms positive signal from Canada on Nord Stream 1 turbine Reuters (resilc)
Germany’s Largest Landlord to Restrict Heating at Night The Local (Brian C) and ‘The Situation is More than Dramatic’: Germany is Rationing Hot Water and Turning off the Lights to Reduce Natural Gas Consumption Fortune (David L). Rationing so soon?
It's over for nuclear in Germany. The SDP-Green coalition has won a vote in the Bundestag backing more coal burning so that the three remaining nuclear plants can be switched off as planned this year. Climate targets may have to be abandoned as a result.https://t.co/OAmexhAuUR
— Mark Lynas (@mark_lynas) July 8, 2022
Assets of Gazprom, Rosneft, Rosatom arrested in Ukraine, says country’s intelligence TASS
NOW – Protesters storm the presidential palace in Sri Lanka's capital.pic.twitter.com/Wv6oQ10kBQ
— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) July 9, 2022
Syraqistan
Violent Carjackings Increase Amid Poverty and Unemployment in Iran France24 (re Šilc)
Rojava’s State of Emergency Progressive International
Haifa’s New port – a Chinese Automatic Machine for Shipping Jerusalem Post
PAKISTAN;#Pakistan’s energy crisis looks set to drag on for months after another failed effort to buy #LNG.
📌A $1 billion LNG purchase tender for July-Sept. didn't receive ANY offers.
📌That's the 4th canceled tender in a row amid a global supply crunch. pic.twitter.com/JJfPnJ6uMB
— Africa Energy Insights (@EnergyInsights) July 7, 2022
Six reasons NOT to ratify the EU-Mexico Global Agreement TNI
Imperial Collapse Watch
What Happens When Americans Don’t Trust Institutions? FiveThirtyEight (re Šilc)
New Video Shows Fuel Leak at Navy Facility that Poisoned Base Water Supply Task & Purpose (Brian C)
Biden
Biden Unveils Executive Order to Protect Abortion Access The Hill
FDA Appears to Hold Off on Crackdown on Synthetic Nicotine Products, Despite Calls from Congress Stat
The Supremes
The Antiabortion Movement Is the Rotten Fruit of a Brutally Unequal Society Jacobin
Democrats en déshabillé
Rhode Island Progressives Push for Takeover of State Democratic Party The Intercept (re Šilc)
GOP Clown Car
Despite Rebukes, Trump’s Legal Brigade is Thriving Politico
What Happened to Michael Flynn? The Atlantic
First 12 Things Trump Will Do When He Inevitably Returns To Power Babylon Bee
Pregnant Texas woman driving in HOV lane told police her unborn child counted as a passenger Houston Chronicle (Dr. Kevin)
The Bezzle
Crypto Has Entered the Next Phase of Its Crisis New York Magazine
Speech by Vice Chair Brainard on crypto-assets and decentralized finance through a financial stability lens Bank of England Conference, London, United Kingdom. I must confess I have not read this, but Fed officials are in thrall of what they’ve been conned into thinking is innovation. Paul Volcker, for all his other faults, knew and even said that innovation in finance was a bad idea.
Boeing
Boeing CEO Threatens to Cancel 737 MAX 10 Unless Congress Acts Jerusalem Post (re Šilc)
Supply Chain/Inflation
UN Deletes Article Touting ‘Benefits’ of World Hunger: ‘Hungry People Are the Most Productive People’ Mediaite (Brian C)
Food Sovereignty and the Global Food System: A Review of Fordulat LeftEast
Don’t Trust the Federal Reserve on Inflation In These Times
Proceed With Caution! Comparing Inflation Across Countries is Complicated EmployAmerica
Buckraking: Did A Medical Monopolist Buy Off CNN? Matt Stoller (ctlieee)
Elon Musk Tries to Walk Away from Twitter Deal Axios
The ‘nutty’ professor behind rise of China’s electric vehicle giant Financial Times
Class Warfare
Full Employment Reduces Labor Market Discrimination Matt Darling
It’s Still Capitalism w/ Evgeny Morozov The Dig
Does Building Luxury Condos Create More Affordable Housing? The Nation
Uniper Applying for State Aid (translation) tagesschau (guurst)
Antidote du Jour (Tracie H):
This juvenile Mourning Dove, a few feet from its nest, is still working out how to fly. The nest sits in our backyard a-top a ladder that rests beneath the eves of our house, near enough to a couple of our windows to enable us, throughout the spring and summer, to hear the gentle music of cooing.
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
264 comments
Comments are closed.
Every Proud Boy Will Lie
(melody borrowed from The Hills Are Alive)
I
Every Proud Boy Will Lie
‘Bout his faded phallus
But his beer gut and beard
Mark a quaggy blade
So he’ll dress to impress
With his bulgy Boy friends
As he plays everyone
It is he who gets played
How he rants about Jews, blacks, and immigrants
And the Rothschilds and pedos who groom
But all he desires at the end of each day
Is a Proud Boy in his room
A lonely adult with wild facial hair
And his rooster flag unfurled
But all that we see . . .
Is a child who’s afraid of this world!
He knows in his heart
That Antifa’s out there
Out to replace
European whites
But he can’t seem to find
Any real Antifa
And it twists his tights
II
Every Proud Boy’s a troll
Marching for a fist fight
Hurting anyone else
Helps him feel alright
What he shouts make no sense
He’s an ill-trained magpie
The poor fool is snorting
His own supply
He wears lady things ‘neath his camo gear
Silky secrets that give him a thrill
As he prances through town in a mob of men
With a view to a kill
A posse of fascists with mayhem in mind
Wanting only to smash someone’s face
White Euro trash . . .
They won’t be hard to Replace!
Their obsession with boys
And with masturbation
Says all you need know
Of their true desires
They live to cosplay
In ferocious fury
As their kink requires
Love your Mad Magazine lyrics!
Last bit seems, how to put it, LGBTQI-hostile to me.
>>>Last bit seems, how to put it, LGBTQI-hostile to me.
The more macho a person is, the more I get suspicious. Look at me, I’m burning stuff down and stomping kittens, I can’t be homo! The most anti-gay/lesbian/whatever folks often seem to have extremely suppress leanings. As “Mister or Misses I am not a homo-sex-ual or sex-ual deviant!” is later found with partners of the wrong sex and perhaps some crack/weed/booze in an isolated house or in a hotel room. It is bonus gossip points for those whose sex partner(s) are still in the early stages of puberty.
It’s such an old and universal crutch of a trope to fall back on, though, to ridicule — and implicitly dehumanize as lesser — one’s political adversaries as pedos, trannies, and queers.
During the Trump years even the oh so politically correct New York Times and the New Yorker crowd kept resorting to the “Trump and Putin as gay lovers” caricature for want of any actual argument of substance.
The 1964 Walter Jenkins scandal — in which a top White House aide to LBJ was arrested in a YMCA rest room and publicly outed — made a great impression on me as a teenager. A hint of LGBT and even someone at the pinnacle could be tossed into a social and professional abyss overnight.
My body, my choice. This applies to vaccine mandates and abortion. And here we are still firing people. Wow. Compassion? Empathy? A true authoritative handmaid’s tale. Thanks
The difference here is pregnancy is not contagious and if someone chooses, or not, to have an abortion that choice does not risk someone else becoming pregnant. But if someone chooses not to be vaxxed and gets sick and infects others then their decision can pass on a possibly fatal disease. Plus if a vaxxed person falls sick they probably wont die. Apples and orange and another clever sounding linkage that is bogus. Pregnancy is not a disease. Covid is.
No, vaccinations do not stop infection and since Delta, do not reduce contagion. There was a case under wild type that it did, but no longer.
And under Omicron and the various BA, not only does begin vaccinated not prevent contracting Covid, MDs are now seeing serious cases proportionately more often among the vaxxed. The unvaxxed now seem to have a better time.
As someone who got a side effect from one shot that resulted in a medical procedure, and have been hearing from doctors (including gruesome photographs) of all sorts of serious and varied vaccine injuries, including death and very severe impairment, I’m no longer of the view that the vaccines are beneficial, certainly not the mRNA vaccines. The recent study by Peter Doshi et al on “serious adverse events” is damning. Doshi is an editor at BMJ and a very serious medical statistician, wrote a widely-used textbook. The co-authors are also heavyweights:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4125239
I would take Novavax when it becomes available or a killed virus vaccine. I would trade lower efficacy for safety all day (and Novavax doesn’t look like it will be lower efficacy).
‘It’s over for nuclear in Germany. The SDP-Green coalition has won a vote in the Bundestag backing more coal burning so that the three remaining nuclear plants can be switched off as planned this year. Climate targets may have to be abandoned as a result.’
Nuclear power plants are out but Germany is set to burn some of the most polluting coal-deposits in Europe due to neocon ideologues like Annalena Baerbock, thus leading to a more polluted climate in a time of severe climate change. Thanks German Greens, we couldn’t have done it without you.
It’s just a staggering betrayal of the environment, a complete denial of the climate emergency and formally means that the term green now means nothing.
I don’t think any there were many realistic plans to betray. Not there, not globally.
Think of this:
One of the big ideas now is to go on a mining spree (environmental degradation right there) to mass produce EVs – which still need oil at least for lubrication, tires, and any plastics in the interior.
The big ideas about getting ALL combustion engine cars off the road makes me think of the disposal aspect. Recycling is overhyped in terms of ability and capacity.
Crunch ’em up all you want but toxicity is still there and I can’t help but think of something as small as wet wipes causing an island of waste in the Thames.
There is probably as much plastic on the exterior of automobiles as there is inside. Front and rear bumpers are plastic. Many trucks have plastic wheel-well protectors and step-up rails, as well. The stuff is everywhere.
Whatever happened to CAFE rules? Some ICE vehicles get decent mpg.
EVs represent environmental degradation in many ways. Lithium mining, for example: Lithium carbonate extraction process harms the soil, can cause air pollution, uses a lot of water – approximately 500,000 gallons of water per ton of lithium, toxic chemicals leak from the evaporation pools into the water supply…
Vacuuming up the ocean floor for lithium also has negative and far-reaching consequences, while mining for cobalt destroys fragile desert habitats.
As far as I’m aware Germany gets a lot of its nuclear fuel from Russia too. So does Spain and most of the EU. Germany also has some hard-core ride or die anti-nuke activists. I remember seeing pictures of them destroying the rail track that trains carrying spent fuel for reprocessing would be riding over. I remember being told there were things we couldn’t recommend to German customers because we couldn’t guarantee replacement parts would arrive at the plants safely too. These activists removed the ties and laid down in the track for dramatic effect. Madness.
What I really don’t understand is that the rating on the coal fired generating stations they still have in Germany is about 25% of the output of the nuclear plants they’re trying to shut down. I haven’t heard of any new projects that are intended to make up the gap between what nuclear used to produce and what their back up coal option is capable of producing. Germany needs reliable baseload generation for its manufacturing sector. This seems like a really dumb idea right now. But perhaps there’s something I’m missing that will make it look more reasonable?
I don’t read German, but the stats I can see are that nuclear accounts for roughly 12.5% of German power generation and the additional potential coal plants they can bring online to replace them don’t produce the same amount of power.
But like I said, I don’t read German. If you have an English source for information I’d love to see it. Because from what I’ve seen, Germany is going to lose 12.5% and increase generation from hard coal and lignite by a potential 3-4%. That makes no sense to me. Happy to be shown differently.
How many residences/businesses can switch between coal fired electricity and natural gas to run their furnaces/heaters this winter? Can the electric grid handle the amount of extra power needed to switch very rapidly from natural gas heating to less efficient electric heating?
Greens or not, there isn’t a thing that Germany could do about it. Germany’s energy policy is entirely beholden to the US oil and gas lobbyists.
Ask yourself this: why would Germany spend billions and years building Nord Stream 2, only to cancel it after completion because the US says so? (This already happened before even Russia invaded Ukraine when they kept postponing the certification process)
It has become all too clear that the US would never allow Germany to seek an alternative energy source through nuclear power plants, but to force them to purchase expensive LNGs from the US for years to come.
I have never understood the political calculus here in the US for putting the American consumer of natural gas in competition with the entire continent of Europe. Short of fracking the soils below every garden in the US, there is no possibility of keeping the price low enough that there would not be anger here at the pols who initiated it.
Republicans cannot claim energy independence when the prices are set by foreign competition that can outbid us, and the Dems cannot claim Green cred when they are drilling everywhere to benefit a group so stupid that they cannot get it from next door for half the price. Clearly our own pols are every bit as beholden to oil and gas lobbyists as the German Greens are, but the blowback will ensure that no pol will be able to count on public service as a sinecure. That, right there, may be the only good news coming out of this plan.
As with everything else in this debacle, this was really badly thought out.
A commentator on PBS (I think, can’t find the link right now) a few days ago said that the natural gas market is not like the oil market where a world price determines cost. Natural gas pricing is determined through regional markets. The USA region has its own pricing based on domestic supply. Right now there is plenty of domestic supply so natural gas is less expensive here in the USA than the rest of the world. In a few years that may change as more LNG export facilities come online. A law needs to be passed that would require natural gas to have a reasonable fixed or capped domestic price that is not dependent on future gas export market prices while we transition to renewables.
From what I understand the primary thing keeping competition down in the natural gas market is the lack of facilities that can liquify natural gas, transport ships and plants in Europe that can de-liquify and distribute it. As you say, most of those are being addressed, but the fire at the Freeport facility should be, at least partially, fixed come September.
Not a good time for prices to start going up, and IIRC, most of the long term contracts are signed right around then. Lot’s of room for price gouging commodity futures, and I do not see anyone that will be interested in passing laws limiting what could be charged. These people started a war to get those prices up, I doubt they will recognize the career limitations that choice will impose until the last minute, when it will be too late and the market paradigm will have become something that can be litigated at the SC.
I suspect that will be right about the time we hear that corporations can sue for lost profits again.
I find this whole concept of “global markets” to be a surprising rejection of history:
The Oil Shocks of the 1970s
https://energyhistory.yale.edu/units/oil-shocks-1970s
As OPEC clearly demonstrated in the 1970’s, oil production and oil prices are controlled by the countries that control the resources. To have to learn this lesson all over again with Russia, all while people rant and rave about “global markets” is really just justifying really rich corporations doing whatever they want while President Biden acts like a completely powerless doofus.
And they are going to pull this same stupidity with everything: food, water, housing, etc.
I think China and Russia are demonstrating that you can have a functioning country or a kleptocracy, but you cannot have both.
There is a shortage of LNG ships too. Only on place in SKorea makes them.
And shale gas wells have very short lives. US production expected to peak in early 2030s and start declining.
There is a huge shale deposit over in Alabama that is as yet untapped. I am just waiting for them to start saying that we need to frack the “North American Amazon” because Ukraine. I am sure there are other places as well that have yet to be developed, but those shales we are already drilling are, as you say, about tapped out.
These people are not gong to be happy until they see oil rigs on the Mall in Washington. Welp, as we will soon see in California, we didn’t need those aquifers anyway. Governance for the next quarter is doing us no favors. At some point the national interest, if not national security, needs to become part of the conversation.
Exxon shouldn’t get all the airtime.
Constructing LNG terminals to ship natural gas is very environmentally destructive.
“”The production of natural gas produces air pollution through methane leaks and water pollution, too. It harms the ecosystem locally as well as the environment more generally. People like to say natural gas emits less carbon than coal, but the process of building these facilities, and liquifying that gas, and shipping it across the ocean just to turn it back into gas — that all emits a lot of carbon into the air…”
The actual shipping of the LNG releases sulphur and other contaminants.
Carcinogens:
“Cheniere Energy Inc has asked the Biden administration to exempt it from limits on emissions of cancer-causing pollutants, arguing they would force the top U.S. exporter of liquefied natural gas to shut for an extended period and endanger the country’s efforts to ramp up supplies to Europe…”
Our wise elites like to play international pressure politics with energy. A few years back, Wall Street was financing fracking that was losing money at NG prices at that time. Along with pushing the Saudis to pump more (back then too), it was part of an effort to starve out Iran and Russia with low oil and NG prices. Those of us who use NG in the US benefited from that at the time.
Now they’ve switched the game around. The goal now is to starve Russia by putting the embargo on their NG and crude. To do that, they’ll have to send NG to the EU to keep them from getting too cold. So the price is climbing, and we’re getting hammered.
Now as to whether it’s these crazy neocon international politics that’s driving all this or it’s all just a play by the Big Oil boys, I don’t know. Maybe the clincher is that in ‘Murca, the answer to every “why” question is: because somebody who’s already rich will make more money.
It looks like a community of interests that converged. Strangely, for being in an empire the citizens of this country just don’t have much interest in what goes on elsewhere. That has been a blind spot that has been capitalized upon up until now, but when the bills go out there is going to be a laser focus on what has been going on. I don’t think the consensus will be pretty.
Nothing concentrates the mind like bills one cannot pay. This…
“Maybe the clincher is that in ‘Murca, the answer to every “why” question is: because somebody who’s already rich will make more money.”
…is exactly right. I look forward to the American citizenry discovering that they can barbecue the rich on their brush fired grills much more cheaply than they can the steaks that have all been sent to China; starting with Ted Cruz. The Irish moved, I doubt Americans will.
Nah, ‘Muricans will just be bombarded with even more propaganda that impresses upon them that their sacrifice is really worth it. For Democracy and Freedom!
Consider this possible hidden agenda . . . . if American gas-merchants sell enough gas to Europe to create a gas shortage in America, and can make the shortage deep enough and long enough to make gas seriously more expensive than coal, then the utility industry can be price-tortured into using more coal again, which will create growing new business for coal companies.
What if return to a coal based power system is the secret agenda behind selling American gas to Europe so Americans can’t afford to buy it in America?
They are doing it Germany, something I thought I would never see. What happens when Joe Manchin decides to start a war with South Africa to to push up the price of WV coal?
Then he can charge us for collecting sticks in the woods. :)
I don’t think South Africa produces enough coal for use or export to make a difference to the price of West Virginia coal. I think that liquefying and selling enough American NatGas to manufacture a shortage of NatGas inside America would certainly raise the price of West Virginia coal
And for that reason, Manchin would certainly support the mass sale of all of America’s Liquefied Freedom Molecules to Europe. And so would Senator McConnell of Kentucky. And so would Senator Whomever of Wyoming. And on and on.
Let’s be fair to the greens: there is absolutely no way to continue fueling the nuclear plants in germany for at least two reasons:
First it’s impossible to get fuel that fast. Nobody has fuel rods in storage, they are produced on order, and even if you someone wanted to donate a lot of rods in his storage (i can’t imagine that) they wouldn’t fit. The rods needs a certain form (and there are, and were, no standards for that) and a certain composition.
Getting nuclear rods took years of lead time a few years ago, and that hasn’t got any better.
Second: the german nuclear reactors are old and have been scheduled for closure years ago. Maintainance has been reduced to the level needed to keep the things running to the end of the year, and that’s a totally different level than would be needed for long-term usage. These reactors are now at the end of their life.
There might be a third one, but i’m guessing here a bit: shortage of workers. At least a part of the workers trained for that plants are gone, and will not come back.
The shutdown of the german nuclear reactors is now inevitable. This is no fault of the greens, and especially not of baerbock. Not that i like the greens (i don’t and i never did), but fair is fair.
Coal… well. Thank you, ruling coalition (not the greens alone, though i understand if one is disappointed by them), for continuing the Merkel aera. No plans, not even ideas, but a total disregard for the future of this planet.
Did someone expect a change? Scholz is Merkel, but with less instinct and without her luck.
Which really bodes ill….
And now to be fair to Merkel: She provided the impetus behind building the NS II pipeline, which I am sure was thought to be the alternative to both coal and nuclear until greener tech could take over.
So, no. Scholtz is not a Merkel. He is a weak neoliberal tool masquerading as a Green. At least Merkel was honest about her motivations.
Also, the North Stream 2 pipeline landed in Germany in her electoral district which meant jobs, jobs, jobs for her voters.
Nuclear fuel does have a long lead time. But I’ve always understood it to be fairly standardized in form factor even if the composition of the rods in a package was not. Like, the shape and size of the pellets in a train were set, but the number of rods was not. At least thats how it worked when I was with the people designing the fuel packages for power plants.
But the decision to increase coal powered generation seems odd given that the latest data I’ve seen is that Germany hasn’t been keeping up with it’s ability to produce coal. So they’re importing coal. Back in January, Reuters was reporting in the YoY increase in coal imports. So rather than try to make nuclear work, which has a supply chain that you could potentially satisfy without Russia using components that aren’t exposed to fossil fuel related proce increases, they’re going to import more coal at a premium? And what if Germany has another year of poor winds for power generation? They’ll need even more coal to cover the gap than they did last year.
This seems like a situation that cannot last. Something will have to give soon if reliable gas supplies aren’t restored.
Even as Germany is importing coal from South Africa right wingers are blaming the “Green religion” for their plight. If there is anyone less intelligent than the coopted German Greens at this point it is the right wingers who cannot recognize the results of their own neoliberal policies in action.
A while back there was a controversy about some company wanting to mine uranium in the Grand Canyon, I wonder if there is a shoe that has yet to drop.
The Greens still deserve blame for helping block the construction of succeeding nuclear power plants as the last generation of power plants aged.
Although I don’t always see eye to eye with Jacobin, they have a good article about the German Green Party – they are neoliberals at heart.
https://jacobin.com/2021/05/greens-germany-federal-elections-pro-business-climate-action
They failed to build the reserve capacity for a crisis.
Russian gas was the transition bridge to renewables with 50% less CO2 than coal (not counting other pollutants from coal). But the Germans have decided to not only blow up the bridge needed for their retreat from carbon, but waited until they were all standing on it to blow up the bridge.
I always thought they meant “green” as in environmental, it appears they meant green as in dollars.
Burning coal isn’t only bad from a climate change angle, it also contributes to rising levels of mercury in the oceans.
Something to think about next time you eat fish.
Its why I’ve always said I want to see Pelosi eat as much tuna, especially the fancy white albacore tuna, as she can possibly eat.
In Kyiv, Sen. Blumenthal Says He Hopes to See a ‘Hand-to-Hand Insurgency’ in Russian-Occupied Ukraine Antiwar.com
“Long-range artillery is very, very important. But so is the hand-to-hand insurgency that we are hoping to see in eastern Ukraine, in the territory that’s already been occupied by the Russians,” Blumenthal said.
So, why didn’t he?
Senator Blumenthal was right there in Ukraine. Why didn’t he help them out and go fight the Russians hand-to-hand? And Lindsey Graham too.
There is a longer version of this report that quotes these Senators saying the people living in Lugansk are struggling against their Russian occupiers and urged them to hand-to-hand combat against Russia, too.
These delusional Senators are of course extremely mis-informed and are being insincere on top of that. Yet they vote on spending of trillions of dollars and the policy of the largest (but declining fast) economy in the world.
Well, what else could they say? It’s illegal in Ukraine to talk about the civil war and especially to say the Anti-Terrorist Operation in Donbass 2015-2018 or the Joint Force Operation in Donbass 2018-2022 has anything do with the current situation at all.
When in Kiev, do like the Kyivians do.
I wonder how much time Blumenthal has spent in VA Hospitals?
Visit the amputee ward,the burn ward and the head trauma ward,better yet work in each for two weeks.
Then you can say something about going hand to hand or the necessity of War.
Maybe spend a little time with parents whose only son died in a war that was based on lies, try explaining why his death was necessary.
It’s easier to avoid thinking about the price when someone else pays it, and you and your “Friends” benefit in so many ways.
Blumenthal is a foul and despicable man who has found his place in a decaying and corrupt empire.
Ditto, and suit up Graham as well. And all the other war mongering psychopaths cheering on this war.
I have to do some searches, but I read yesterday Ukraine wants more money from the DC pool of never ending war money. I forget how much. With a GDP of ~155 billion annually, we must be getting somewhere near half that in funds. And what do we get for it? 5 dollar gas?
What a world we live in. This can’t end well.
Just another $400 million for spare parts.
https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3087750/400-million-in-additional-security-assistance-for-ukraine/
Blumenthal, Graham and all the other chickenhawk “war for thee but not for me” types should be kitted out and sent to fight in whichever war they have a hardon for. There is nothing more despicable and cowardly than warmongers who let others get killed and maimed while they shout encouragement from the comfort of their homes and offices.
didn’t Blumenthal flat out exaggerate/lie about his Vietnam service?
Send him or his grandkids and some rifles to Ukraine.
No skin in the game makes everyone in DC talk like a wannabe Rambo.
I get it how Julius Caesar distained the Roman Republican establishment
I often think applying the law equally (it’s even in the Constitution) but in real, salt of the earth practical ways. Like…right to bear arms in front of the Supreme Court justices as they read their rulings in public, in the Senate and Congress viewing areas as they debate and vote on legislation, in the WH during tours and every public event including press conferences, make all public employees ESPECIALLY elected ones have only the same retirement and Healthcare we have. Have our people in our government live the same life under the same laws we live by. Equal application of the law. FOR REAL.
Good idea. They have more rights than others. They probably travel with armed guards, live in fortress type dwellings and eat in private restaurants where others are not allowed. Their children are exempt from their own laws.
In the USSR they called them the nomenklatura.
I’ve spoken with Blumenthal a few times. He is completely uninformed, or feigning it. He is just a Progressive figurehead. Whatever that means these days.
The Connecticut proletariat won’t speak up because we have a better than average welfare state with money going equally to Wall Street corps and Main St. The shakeout from recent health care mergers may change this dynamic.
He lost any veneer of progressivism when he attacked Ihlan Omar over BDS. That was a very revealing episode in any number of ways.
Neocons Blumenthal and Lindsey Graham both fabricated biographical details.
Blumenthal said he served in Vietnam. However, Blumenthal “never served in Vietnam. Rather, he obtained at least five military deferments from 1965 to 1970.”
Graham “peddled an embellished & inaccurate narrative of his service in reserve…war zone tours consisted of specially arranged stints that lasted a few days…”
Well, hand-to-hand I surgency in E Ukraine has been very important for last 8 years, just not against whom the good senator thinks.
Blumenthal can demonstrate what a foot-in-mouth insurgency looks like.
‘PAKISTAN;
#Pakistan’s energy crisis looks set to drag on for months after another failed effort to buy #LNG.
📌A $1 billion LNG purchase tender for July-Sept. didn’t receive ANY offers.
📌That’s the 4th canceled tender in a row amid a global supply crunch.’
Gee, a global supply crunch. Who could have predicted that? At least it is not like the time when the EU was buying up every vaccine in sight, thus starving the third world of any vaccines for themselves. Oh, wait –
‘European Union members are actively buying up liquefied natural gas (LNG) as an alternative to Russian pipeline supplies, depriving poorer countries that cannot compete for the fuel due to high prices, The Wall Street Journal claimed on Friday.
According to the publication, the price of LNG has skyrocketed 1,900% from its low two years ago. Current prices are equivalent to buying oil at $230 a barrel, while LNG normally trades at a discount to oil. Developing countries cannot compete with Europe for the supplies at such prices of about $40 per million British thermal units (MMBtu).’
https://www.rt.com/business/558631-europe-gas-scramble-hurting-poor-nations/
And Pakistan gets a mention in that article when it says-
‘“Every molecule of gas that was available in our region has been purchased by Europe because they are trying to reduce their dependence on Russia,” Pakistan’s Minister of Energy Musadiq Malik was quoted as saying.’
To add some irony, Pakistan is right next door to Iran. Potentially the second biggest reserves of NG after Russia.
Yeah, this is crazy territory here. For the sake of comparison, here’s our EIA showing rates for different US regions in terms of US$/ million BTU.
And here’s the same information in the same units for the EU.
So they’re paying roughly 6 times what we are during a period of relatively low demand. I expect US rates will increase once our big LNG port opens up again and exposes us to global commodity pressures. That should happen just in time for people to start turning on their furnaces for early fall weather in New England.
We’re in for a really bad time. Cold, hungry, people are not happy people. Combine that with article talking about the 60k unvaccinated national guard who are being dealt with and you have the start of a coup.
Indeed, the plan being to sell US gas to Europe is strategically inept in ways at least as dangerous as Europe taking as much of the global south’s gas as it can. If all you have is a gun, every problem looks like a target … even if you have to keep shooting your feet to prove you can shoot.
Nice listing from the Bee, satire is definitely a requirement lately. I think a few here would enjoy the listing at might move # 11 a bit higher.
Why stop with cabbage.
Thank you and welcome aboard, Jonah.
Further to John Helmer’s post about Philip Short’s biography of Putin during the week, the biographer was interviewed by the BBC World Service this morning. Short said there was no evidence that Putin is ill and owns property outside Russia. He added that Putin had never shown any interest in an oligarch lifestyle like summer holidays in the south of France. The interviewer was taken aback.
Oliver Stone recently commented that he’d spent time around super rich men, and Putin didn’t carry himself like one of them.
I hate to be snarky, but Putin’s most expensive habit seems to be his plastic surgery. I used to hold Jane Fonda up as the model for discreet work, but she’s now in her 80s and she’s looking a bit…done. Chubby faced (only young people have fat in their faces!) is way better than the stretched-out, too wide-eyed look that seems to be the aesthetic in the US.
Vladimir Putin is the greatest Czar Russia has seen in a very long time.
That’s how he sees himself, as a great Czar who puts Mother Russia first.
He has a moral compass informed by his Russian Orthodox Faith.
And he is a romantic when it comes to Russia, not a bad thing for Russia given the circumstances.
Ruthless when necessary, He has a fine intellect, a deep knowledge of history and an intuitive understanding of Men.
An impressive man in many ways.
Who have we in the West produced since Roosevelt, de Gaulle and Churchill to set beside Putin? In terms of both domestic and international importance. Serious question. I don’t suppose we can claim Mandela, can we?
The reversal of fortune he has overseen in a generation, after a decade of Western-backed Yeltsinian turpitude, is historic. It is not just the economic and military miracles. I read the other day that home ownership has risen by 30% in that time.
OK he’s a Czar, but what good are elections if the best we can manage is being ridden into the ground by Bojo’s and ‘Big Guys’?
We are having an election in 2024. I wonder if he’s interested? We could do – and have done – a lot worse.
Russia has presidential election in 2024, too. My current assumption is that Putin will retire and Medvedev will be his heir – it would explain all the noise M has been making lately to convince the security clique and industrial block that he’s not a friend of West anymore. And also why he still retains number three position after running failed policy for years (that of detente with the West).
So, Putin could be available. Hey, maybe he was born in St. Petersburg, Florida…
I fully agree Tom, Mr Putin is just as you say here. Quite interesting man. He has only cared for his country and its people in both actions and words. He is very intelligent and knows well the history and culture of his country. He looks better everyday compared to the power hungry narcissist that call them selves leaders of the EU and US. As for Great Britain I would point to the G7 meeting and the words and actions of Johnson the clown.
Years ago, a gay male friend pointed out that Putin walked “like a supermodel” and since then I haven’t been able to unsee it. The best view of this is when he does the walk through the gigantic gold doors to the podium where he gives speeches in the presidential palace(?) – it’s a regular thing, and it’s a long walk, a solid 10ish paces. I assume it is part of his athletic/judoka/19thC gentleman thing (he’s probably a great dancer too) but I always notice how he carries himself compared to other state leaders.
A couple of years ago, the western media were all parrotting that Putin had a ‘gunslinger’s walk’ (because hint, hint, he is ex-KGB). Not heard the supermodel walk one before.
Well, when you have two chunks of stainless steel you don’t want dragging on the ground and making sparks…
(Old fighter pilot joke)
Dubya had a characteristic walk which he practiced and practiced but still looked so unnatural. Unlike Putin he did not walk his talk. US politicians have a lot to learn from Putin and they’re just beginning to.
Dubya walked like Don Adams aka Agent 86, in “Get Smart.”
Drooling…
Even several years ago, the West was portraying Putin as the Devil incarnate. I listened to a short talk from the previous PM of New Zealand, John Key, who talked of his meetings with Putin at the G8 and said he was believed by Western leaders to be corrupt and in fact was “the richest man in the world” etc etc. It was clear they thought of him as The Enemy even when the G8 was still a thing.
In the eyes of the “USA, USA” crowd, Putin will always be the devil. There’s no shortage of people saying “why couldn’t it be Xi or Putin instead of Abe” in this Expat (Westerners living in Taiwan) forum I like to frequent.
What would happen if you posed the question on that forum – ‘If Putin was a native-born American, would you vote for him, Donald Trump or Joe Biden in a Presidential election?’
Better not try. You would probably get hounded for even posing that question.
Yeah, probably not a good idea. The only reason I am still hanging around in that forum is because I am moving to Taiwan in less than 2 months time and I will need some help in navigating the housing rental market. Mind you, not everyone in the forum gets triggered whenever the words “Xi”, “Putin”, “China”, “Russia” get bandied about, but at this point, I’d rather not hurt my chances of landing a good place at a reasonable price.
RK
What if the question, with secret ballot, was:
Who in speeches and general remarks, in the last few years, has spoken with the most cogency, coherence, and fidelity to reality
Biden
Trump
Putin
I really don’t think an intellectually honest person could answer anyone but …wait for it…
Biden
just joshing! Putin of course.
How about the question ‘If the earth was attacked by crafty and powerful aliens, which world leader would you select to direct our response?’
Class warfare in NL in two comments.
first from Wittgenstein-backtolife
Klaus Schwab and Mark Rutte, Prime Minister of the Netherlands
https://twitter.com/backtolife_2023/status/1545643068086538243
Here is what the Dutch think about Rutte’s authority-
https://twitter.com/Resist_05/status/1544869192293224448
And Klaus Schwab is just the guy from central casting you call when you need a Bond villain.
Rutte is a master of political gobbledygook.
The Netherlands sent Ukraine 50 “Accuracy International” rifles with all the gear.
The last time I looked at a package deal from AI it ran $16K for a rifle, scope and case.
Most will put 5 shots into .25 inch center to center at 100 yards,everything is adjustable to fit the individual shooting the rifle and they are very rugged indeed.
I wonder if a lucky few Russian soldiers will be taking one home?
Most were likely resold, they would bring a good price ($5k wholesale) and they would be very easy to sell.
Second from Al Jazeera.
Why are farmers in the Netherlands angry?
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/inside-story/2022/7/4/why-are-farmers-in-the-netherlands-angry
Why am I thinking the real effort is to drive small farmers out of business to clear the way for big conglomerate farms? Why am I thinking of the US’s mid-20th century urban renewal projects designed to move poor people in the cities out of their homes and neighborhoods to make way for the elites’ projects of freeway construction and other ends. “Renewal” was a friendly sounding, good intentions sounding cover for destruction of once vibrant city areas. The rich got richer. The poor got displaced.
Probably not conglomerate farms. The Netherlands remember is only about the size of Kentucky at 41,865 km2 (16,164 sq mi). More likely expensive housing or apartment blocks and the like. With the appropriate kick-backs to those in power and the banks of course. But yeah, like you said a land grab.
Best i recall, they have kinda specialized on greenhouses and similar in order to produce out of season berries etc.
Want a strawberry smoothie in winter in Europe, and it likely comes out of some Dutch greenhouse.
The Netherlands is still the EU’s largest exporter of meat and I would think that a lot of that goes to other EU nations. You cut that by 30% and you are talking about food shortages on top of the already looming food shortages for Europe-
https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/news/2021/25/the-netherlands-is-the-eu-s-largest-meat-exporter
Particularly pork. one reason why NL nitrogen is so high is that NL is the pig farmr for he EU.
Brussels/Rutte is using a regulatory neutron bomb against farmers when it should be a scalpel
The Dutch agricultural sector is pathologically deformed. They (and Denmark) are the closest place in Europe to US practices, with large dairy herd kept in sheds all year, with occasional access to grass in shifts; intensive pork production, again in shed; battery farming of poultry for meat and eggs etc.; huge energy intensive greenhouses producing fruit and vegetable and cut flowers. They produce far more per head and per sq m. than any other EU producer and the majority is for export. They are destroying their ecosystem to do this, given the nitrate and other pollutant levels in the water courses and the mono-culture of agriculture.
There are other places in the EU with individual problems (Almeria for the winter salads and fruit grown under plastic, with attendant water and pesticide use; Denmark for the pig industry etc.) but the Netherlands has managed to build an agricultural sector exhibiting nearly every pathology and all for the export trade. Their exports are hurting UK producers who operate to higher welfare legislation (no sow crates; minimum poultry welfare) and traditional methods (minimal intensive dairy operations without grass). The UK pork industry collapsed when the higher standards were introduced. The southern UK glasshouse industry is also on the backfoot.
That said, I don’t agree with expropriation. The Dutch farmers need to be given compensation to change direction.
The same story is playing out in the UK where agricultural pollution means that under EU water rules certain watersheds cannot build any more houses (because the new sewage discharges would exceed the nitrogen and phosphorous levels). There is currently a pause on housebuilding in the Solent watershed, which is thousands of square miles of southern England. The Wye river in Wales is now a toxic soup of chicken excrement from intensive poultry operations (no planning controls on cumulative effect) and a similar ban is coming in there. I suspect these controls are behind the Dutch decision to shrink the farmers. The Dutch have always been ruthless!
Thank you, excellent commentary.
Not discounting your well written response, just pointing that out making small countries accept more refugees while stopping house building while cutting food production seems, uh, not well thought out, (depending on the real goals of the planners). My 2 cents.
Yes, great summarizing commentary. If you want to know more, read the “Algal Bowl”. https://www.amazon.com/Algal-Bowl-Overfertilization-Freshwaters-Estuaries/dp/0888644841
It ain’t just the climate that’s changing.
Being the largest exporter of meat (pork) in the EU, what does a county the size of KY do with all the slurry that the hogs create? Also, Denmark. The North Sea is close by.
I think it’s recycled into handsome politicians and their policies.
At the moment a lot of it is being sprayed by farmers onto government buildings and outside politician’s homes. And the farmers protests have spread to Germany, Poland, Italy and I don’t know where else.
Most meat is a very inefficient use of plant proteins to make animal protein. Moving away from a meat based diet to eating the acres of grains and legumes we feed to animals ourselves instead is the way we fight the coming food shortages. Of course some meat is produced from truly waste inputs and in ways that complement soil producing agriculture so we won’t be vegans, but shutting down factory farms will actually increase global food security.
Those greenhouses need lots of energy. The coming winter might not be so great.
Almost seems like a playbook. See Canada. (Trudeau is WEF)
Trudeau’s nitrogen policy will decimate Canadian farming
https://thecountersignal.com/trudeau-nitrogen-policy-will-decimate-canadian-farming/
Fortunately, Nicole Kidman is already ahead of the game here and showing how it will go down-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3UqLAtdZ04 (1:51 mins)
Mmmmm, Gagh. Wonder what she was paid for that acting job. / ;)
RK
OK, not that I will EVAH have the opportunity, but 4 hours must elapse after a meal (dare I say mealworm) and me kissing Nicole. Or 3 stiff shots of whiskey (both of us)
I hate that the #McResistance makes me defend someone like Michael Flynn, but it’s beyond the beyonds (though in fact to be expected) that the Atlantic article about him makes no direct mention of Russiagate or the legal contortions that were performed in order to indict him.
These people are a pathological combination of deranged, dishonest and incompetent.
They certainly are out to get him – ‘Pentagon looks to recoup money from Flynn for unsanctioned foreign payments: report’ –
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/3549873-pentagon-looks-to-recoup-money-from-flynn-for-unsanctioned-foreign-payments-report/
Same here. I don’t like what Flynn stands for, but good gods did they go after him hammer and tongs for next to nothing.
Live by the blob, die by the blob.
New Zealand to Embark on World’s Largest Feral Predator Eradication The Guardian (furzy)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The bird world country (the winged ones ruled almost exclusively for nearly 20 million years) is a funny place from a wilderness standpoint in that you almost never come across animals
On one sojourn I walked around 200km on various great walks et al and the only thing I saw was a lone rabbit.
We walked the Rakiura track on Stewart Island about a decade ago, and the birds seemed much more numerous than on the North & South Islands and it’s a good place to eradicate the usual 4 legs bad (rabbits, stoats and Aussie possums) and see how it goes.
I couldn’t imagine trying the same thing on the main islands though. One interesting sight you’ll see on roads in the South Island is roadkill in the guise of almost always Aussie possums, with sometimes a majestic NZ falcon munching on them until you get reasonably close and then in a whoop-whoop-whoop, off they fly out of harm’s way.
It’s being tried in Wellington. Here’s a link to “Predator Free Wellington”.
https://www.pfw.org.nz/about/
I saw the head line and thought that NZ must be going after all those wack job billionaires that are going to use NZ as their personal hidey hole when TSHTF.
But alas no.
Too bad for all those rabbits, stoats and Aussie possums that lack the wampum to bribe NZ officials like the real predators. You think those critters are bad, wait till those billionaires show up and start calling the shots.
Wuk, is that Yosemite fire anywhere close to you?
Pregnant Texas woman driving in HOV lane told police her unborn child counted as a passenger
You can really take advantage of the situation–especially in red states–by claiming unborns on your taxes. Hell, why stop there, claim any and all embryos that are in the back of your freezers as they have souls and are worthy of personhood.
It is much worse than you think, there’s a move afoot in the red states to move back birthdays to the point of conception, giving kids in those states a head start on school, not to mention more ‘berthdays’.
Dare I say…Inception the Sequel? Arriving soon in a birthing room near you. \sarc
(quickly ducks head from flying debris)
This is the Korean age system (as well as adding on a year whenever New Year is passed).
Ditto China and (until late 19th century), Japan. But this has more to do with the lack of zero in common reckoning of numbers, though.
Milton
Why not sperms? I must have 60 trillions in deductions in a certain ….uh, container.
I thought about that but mine were so inept, in good conscience, I couldn’t consider it unless I put the whole lot as equivalent to 1/10 of a person per 100 loads.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eJEU8UKMXTs
Soooo…each one is about 10 thousand times smarter than your average politician (caveat – 10 million if the politician is a member of the dem leadership)
Yes indeed. They are definitely dependents.
Monty Python already did the theme song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUspLVStPbk
What a great production, I’m convinced!
Zygote personhood is a political position of forced birth proponents. Maybe the woman in the HOV lane was just trolling, but seriously there’s no useful argument opponents of government control of women can make that starts with accepting this as a valid starting point.
https://jezebel.com/texas-republican-proposes-bill-to-let-pregnant-people-d-1847871298/amp
Cryptocurrency and the linked speech given by the Vice Chair Brainard. I defer to the deeper and more thoughtful minded among the varied commentariat, but the speech includes a paragraph about the likely ongoing call for bank regulatory action and bank regulatory guardrail.
That’s been the hallmark of the development of the many burgeoning, and now flailing, crypto platforms. Avoiding the regulatory hurdles and intrusion. No dealing with any AML, or BSA, or the OFAC of the regulated US banking system or US Treasury, where applicable. Which to be clear, catches the small fry but the big fish are often caught after the fact ( money laundering, here? dear sir, not on our watch ).
Let crypto continue to burn with the passion of a thousand embers. And once or when those embers begin to burn less hot, it will be interesting what is left standing.
The YouTube channel Crypto Critics Corner is a useful tool for understanding this carnival of greed, corruption and Glibertarian nastiness.
While not on the “stuff-their-mouths-with-garlic-drive-stakes-through-their-hearts-and-set-them-on-fire” side of things that I would prefer, the hosts are knowledgeable and intellectually honest. They’ve been on top of the overlapping leverage that is endemic to the scene from the beginning.
Pre-Covid I spent a decade doing freelance camera op for a company that produces training videos for banks and credit unions. Fancy that, here on NC. The owner has gotten very rich as regulation requires this sort of thing, apparently. Over the years I got paid to film the same content 2 or 3 different times as tech and fashions changed. Digital cameras got a lot better and cheaper over the last 15 years, for instance.
Most of the training was aimed at loan officers or tellers, how to do due diligence. The most interesting was the robbery class, but next the OFAC class. The former requires a much longer telling, but the OFAC class was fascinating. The video portion included scenes of Feds showing up to arrest a bank employee, and the other staff’s reaction. Just throwing that out there, that’s a thing they teach people.
And then Trump’s lawyer got busted on OFAC charges. How did that all work out for him?
New report that all (or nearly all) ancient bristlecone pines growing in Panamint Range, Death Valley NP have died in 2022 Evan Frost
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Giant Sequoias which were thought to be invincible are also in danger not just from fire, but there are 3 separate groves where it has been confirmed that a small amount of trees have died on account of the beetles, and the Bristlecone Pines in Panamint were used to it being crazy hot, but the drought and loss of moisture in the soil is also playing out.
See them while you can!
That’s essentially what my friend Sue’s mission is, or as she calls it, ‘a farewell tour…’
https://www.ilovetrees.net/
Tempo is an all purpose insecticide produced by Bayer, I can’t imagine spraying the trees with a pressure washer would cost much to prevent infestation.
If the insecticide isn’t specific to the beetles there will be mucho collateral damage to other critters.
Most of these beetles (I don’t know about the Sequoias) live under the bark. And the larvae often live in the wood. Spraying the outside of the tree with insecticide is likely to do nothing.
The way the Musk/Twitter deal is reported in the MSM continues to frustrate. Most headlines I’ve seen in the past day are a variation of “Musk ends Twitter deal”, giving the impression if he says it’s done, it’s done, ignoring that he doesn’t have the ability to make that call and that the Twitter board has made it clear they intend to finish the deal. The Axios list seems to give a more accurate picture of the facts. IANAL, but it seems he’s going to have to make a much better argument than “they never told me there were bots!” since he waived due diligence. And, if I understand correctly, the $1 billion to walk away is IF the board accepts that, which they have made clear they will not.
I’ll be interested to see how all this goes down. Musk has a history of coming out on top of situations he creates, but I’m not sure how he does it this time. As mentioned earlier, the boy has been awfully quiet this last month. To me, it looks like his mouth finally wrote a check his a$$ couldn’t cash, but I’m cynical enough to not start celebrating yet.
From the outset, I had legitimate doubt as to what he was doing and why he place such a higher market valuation on the company shares. And if memory serves, he was slow to announce or disclose the accumulation of his percentage ownership.
Maybe he likes dancing with the devil, and daring the regulators to ensnare him once more. I do find his reasoning to depart this short term love affair is based on the bots angle, to be highly dubious at best. Good grief his lawyers are going to get paid no matter.
…and he can use the expense as a tax avoidance write-off for decades.
Only little people struggle for legal representation.
Isn’t Morgan Stanley the advisor of Musk on this deal? Not that I’m a fan of MS, but they should have a pretty good idea what they are getting into, one would think. We’ll see I guess.
Not always:
I think he came out of that big brained situation looking like a a moron.
I would not get on a spaceship, let alone a low earth joyride or interplanetary car disposal with his name near it.
I always had the sense that Musk is a modern day snake oil salesman…
Paul Jay interviews Peter Carter on the recent IPCC report. If you are not yet thoroughly depressed about humanities’ prospects, this will help.
A Dire Warning About the End of Human Civilization
Yes, I listened to this yesterday. Peter Carter goes on to say that anything above two degrees Celsius passes the tipping point and it’s game over.
“Army cuts pay, benefits from more than 60,000 unvaccinated National Guard, Reserves”
Effectively cutting the pay & benefits of about 40,000 National Guardsmen and 22,000 Reservists who refuse to get vaccinated? In a time when none of the branches of the US military can meet their recruitment numbers as in at all? There should be only one answer-
‘That’s us you see walking out the door. Good luck getting troop numbers for overseas deployments.’
yes, new enlisted recruits can get up to/around $50,000 in incentives. shortages in almost every military occupation
There is a reason for my increasing use of the term “brain trust” to refer to both the Democratic leadership and the Biden administration. They have apparently put their brains in a trust and never to use them again. It isn’t just stupid administratively, it is a serious error politically.
A lockbox…
It’s a blind trust.
Didn’t you mean Brain Rust?
Don’t worry. For the right price, I am sure there will be plenty of mercenaries out there willing to fight for Good Old Uncle Sam. No one available? Still not a problem. Here’s Uncle Sam’s battle strategy:
1. Fight an enemy to the last Ukrainian.
2. Fight an enemy to the last Polish
3. Fight an enemy to the last French
4. Fight an enemy to the last Brit
5. …..
6. ….
100. Fight an enemy to the last Mexican. Pretty sure plenty of people who just arrived from the Old World were immediately conscripted and sent off to fight in the Civil War.
You forgot the following:
101. Fight an enemy to the last deplorable. (Large majority of:US military recruits have come from the varied “deplorable” segments of the population.)
102: Give your own life for your vanguards in the senate,congress and the supreme court.
They will need it more than ever.
Once given, only they, with their original ideals, will be able to make peace with the new owners, whether they be extraterrestrial ,asian or slavic.
They can’t give up one of the most captive groups for this experiment and other experiments done throughout history.
And they are goingg to keep boosting them over and over and over again. Terrifying.
Recruitment? It’s hurricane season, and the national guard is usually tasked with whatever “response” the government manages to mount. Can’t wait for the “news” stories of truckloads of double price ice sitting idle for lack of National Guard drivers while the ice melts away.
And just by the way, are “we” still in a state of covid “emergency?” As far as I know, only 2 doses of pfizer “comirnaty” has fda “approval,” and that’s still not available in the u.s. Everything else–moderna, boosters, kids, babies–is still under “E”UA , and nobody’s acting like there’s much of an “E” anymore.
And no one was supposed to be able to be forced to take an experimental drug under the “E”UA anywayzzzzzz…
At a time when the vaccines no longer work with the current variants and have led to disaster breakthrough infections and a complete abandon of masks and reporting? Perfect.
I actually don’t have a problem with the military facing the same problems the rest of us are, frag them. Lying Losing Generals can kiss my hiney.
“What Happens When Americans Don’t Trust Institutions Anymore?”
Yup.
From the Article:
“Competence and honesty — these are really important factors that contribute to trust,”
In any relationship, in any functioning Society.
Here’s another great example:
‘I Felt Trapped’: Sexual Abuse of Teens in the Military’s J.R.O.T.C. Program
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/09/us/sexual-abuse-jrotc.html
From “What Happens When Americans Don’t Trust Institutions Anymore?”
“According to Gallup, between 2021 and 2022, Republicans’ confidence in the military fell from 81 percent to 71 percent”
Why does something make me think the Times article wouldn’t negatively affect Republicans’ confidence in the military, even if they read it, which they won’t.
And speaking of trust in institutions, I can’t even trust the article because it’s in the Times.
This country makes me sick.
“Abe shooter says his mother bankrupted by donating to religious group”
The guy went to a lot of trouble with building smooth-bore muzzle-loaders fired by batteries. In the end he used a simple two-barrel gun but when police went to check his place out they were in for a surprise. So maybe the guy plays Fallout?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/vuo78r/the_homemade_gun_they_found_in_the_home_of_shinzo/
I’d like to know which
cultreligious group the shooter’s mother gave all her money to.The police won’t say, but Japanese media have sussed out that it’s the Unification Church.
As representatives of the political right that has fanned the flames of anti-Korean sentiment in Japan, it is a bit weird that Abe and the LDP have connections with the Moonies, but it’s true. I didn’t understand this for a long while, but the connection seems to be around a shared, rabid anti-Communism.
The Japanese media has never really discussed this, but I expect the ties between the Unification Church, Abe and the LDP, will begin to receive some attention.
It turns out there is also an offshoot of the Unification Church — the World Peace and Unification Sanctuary Church, a.k.a., the Rod of Iron Ministries —, which has some interest in assault weapons.
When I saw the photo of the assassin, my first thought was “ah… an otaku?”.
And if this DIY cannon featured on the reddit page is the real deal, I’d say “yup… otaku”.
Again, though, it’s starting to sound like a bit like the assassin was p.o.e.d, because his mother was giving all of her money to religious whackjobs instead of to family.
Joe Manton made prettier volley guns.
Did he make his own gun powder?
Re: the LA times article on monkeypox and the comparison with AIDS in the gay community…
This part floored me:
In the age of AIDS, and COVID, and multi-drug resistant STDs, we have to ask people to be cautious about having lots of unprotected casual sex??? I’m not a prude by any means, but maybe we should consider a break in the rampant sex for a month or two while this outbreak dies down? Or, maybe just stick to having sex with people you have relationships with and can trust to not also be sleeping around so much?
HIV/AIDS was such a horrible change in public understanding of what was even possible for a virus to do. AIDS got into the blood supply and was complicated by the simultaneous surge in drug use. The people who claimed it was God’s punishment for homosexuality were monstrous. The people who couldn’t see how our treatment of homosexuality during the emergence of AIDS would affect the population as a whole were incredibly naive. But it really seems like monkeypox could be managed fairly well with some self assessments, good hygiene, and regular laundry services. Which applies for hetero and homosexual partners. So why is the default assumption by that group in CA that we should have more medicine to permit continued risky behavior? If we as a species and a country can’t conceive of exercising even that minimum of self control during a viral outbreak then I don’t think more vaccines are going to help.
Agreed. I really don’t understand the commitment to casual sex and multiple partners sex in the gay community. Although I do wonder if this is limited to the male gay community. I feel like we talk about the gay community as if it’s one thing, and I don’t think it actually is.
Man asks his doctor, “How long have I got to live?”
Doctor says, “Let me ask a few questions”.
“Do you drink?”
“No!”, The man replies.
“Do you do drugs?” ..
“Never!”…
“Do you enjoy casual sex with multiple partners?”
“Certainly not!”…
The doctor looks at him with a furrowed brow and says, “Why do you care then?”
Casual sex and multiple partners are by no means exclusive to the Gay Community.
They might be more common on a per capita basis because doods,but there’s no shortage of young men who think with their ….and like girls.
Or girls and boys and the more the merrier
I don’t think there is anything that compares to gay bathhouses in the hetero world, and my gay friends insist there is no gay man who has not been to one. Of course, this was in NYC so may be sample bias.
Another gay friend said, “They would kill us all if they knew how much sex we have.” He was considered to have a low sex drive by the standards of his peers. He estimated as of his 40s that he’d have over 600 partners and volunteered it was low for his age.
There are also gay males who aren’t part of the “scene”. There are plenty of promiscuous heterosexuals too. Boris Johnson is a prime example.
About: Does Building Luxury Condos Create More Affordable Housing? The Nation
The argument for trickle down appear to be that trickle down provides possibility of movement in the market – give to the people at the top and there’ll be enough movement/spillover to benefit the ones at the bottom. Observed reality for that theory is that it doesn’t seem to be a valid theory.
One similar case, where observed reality actually supports the theory, is about when people at the top retires. The argument for earlier retirement is that it allows the ones outside of work a chance to get a job, the argument against is in opposition to the trickle down theory and against observed reality. A senior retires, the next most senior gets promoted etc etc until a junior/outsider gets a chance to come in at the lowet rung of the ladder.
I am guessing that the reason why the theory is believed when it doesn’t apply and is not believed when it actually does apply is due to the ancient question: Cui bono?
A side note: The Social Democrats in Sweden have announced they are in favour of workfare schemes, to me it makes it official that they are no longer for anyone but the upper middle class. They, and what used to be their historic opposition, have now triangulated so much that my guess is that after the election the traditional enemies will sit in government together.
If it happens then my guess is that the reason to be given is that Sweden needs stability in these uncertain times and therefore co-operation across the traditional divide is the responsible thing to do. If there were such a divide (I currently barely see any divide) then I suppose it might make sense, as is then the Swedish Social Democrats might be looking at the unthinkable and be the smaller political party in a government coalition. The grass-roots aren’t happy so after the election we might see a historically small number of Social Democrats in parliament.
‘Admit it, squirrels are just tree rats’
Here’s why we kill squirrels:
1. Preference for birdsong/Cost of high quality bird seed
2. Undisturbed garden/ veggie plants
3. Quiet attic free of pests
4) Entertainment
‘Squirrels’ (a trigger word for both husband and dog) are referred to in this house as ‘tree rats’, usually spoken of in a calm, flat tone, and never while looking out the windows into the backyard.
However, if I’m downstairs sitting at my desk (like now) and out of the corner of my left eye I catch movement – bird at bird feeder (?) squirrel (?) – then turn my head to confirm, ‘Yes, squirrel!’, then the word I blare out is ‘SQUIRREL!!!’ like Agatha in ‘The Minority Report’. A crime in the future is about to be committed and there’s no Tom Cruise to catch the culprit in advance. In fact Husband has become quite stealthy in his sniper activities. We live in an HOA.
‘SQUIRREL!’ is followed by the sound of shoes bounding down the stairs (unless Husband is tethered to his computer by a conference call), both feet hit the first floor, sound of doggie toenails scrambling to catch up, six paws pound across the kitchen floor, back patio door is quietly unlocked, my Husband barks ‘No!’ to the dog, dog whines his frustration, and the hunt is afoot.
Meanwhile, immediately after Agatha blares ‘SQUIRREL!’ the tree rat heading down the tree nose first, has frozen its progress toward the bird feeder in place on the trunk like it had sprouted there organically… except for the nervous twitching of its tail. It heard every bit of that sudden activity inside the house and alarms of its own kicked in.
What to do? Reverse up the tree and try to hide in the foliage? Husband always hopes the rat opts for the canopy. Or scramble in a half circle around the trunk, leap for the Squirrel Super Highway (the fence) and make a mad run for it? Usually an effective escape. By the time Husband sets up his tripod and gun, the tree rat is long gone. In those instances, he leaves the gun* set up, comes back in the house, refreshes his cup of coffee, and either returns to the patio to wait or goes back upstairs. Hunting requires patience.
But if the tree rat made the mistake of heading straight up the tree (snort laugh), then he’ll slowly circle the trunk of the tree (as the dog would do) until he’s found the frozen squirrel amongst the leaves, moves his gear into position, and kills the squirrel in one shot. Not two!… inflicting suffering is not allowed and squirrels/rats are incredibly tough prey. Last week three of them lodged temporarily in our freezer till Trash Day (Wednesday).
Husband has been engaged in hunting invading squirrels for years now, and as quickly as he bags and tosses them, within a few days several more take their place. We must have hundreds of thousands of them in this small City of Trees.
The problem is two-fold. 1) The loss of natural predators in the local ecosystem, like coyotes and foxes. 2) Some of our neighbors think tree rats are cute and put out peanut feeders. 2a) Or they draw in the squirrels with peanuts to keep their indoor cats entertained. If you think abiding the presence of what, in your opinion, are your politically moronic neighbors… live four doors down from a guy who’s feeding the squirrels to keep his Maine Coon cat engaged in an outdoor life he’s otherwise denied. That’s insane! I think he’s gaslighting kitteh.
If you are a reader whose nose has been tweaked by this account…. good! (Grumpy Cat meme)
Oh my that was a hoot. My husband wants to know if yours uses a silencer?
We’ve had feeders on a pole for years with only a couple acrobatic squirrels who could jump above the baffle. Unfortunately since I found a pesticide that worked for my boxwood the shrubs have gotten big enough most of the squirrels can now use them to launch themselves to the feeders.
My husband has been using a pellet gun to modify their behavior and now when one does try its luck all we have to do is rattle the doorknob. Still as you say, cheap entertainment.
Yes. It’s likely some of our neighbors know what Husband is up to over here and it’s simply in their interest to ignore him. More difficult to do if he’s going to draw a lot on attention by himself by being loud in an otherwise quiet community.
Occasionally, the victim in a last burst of energy/adrenaline manages to make it over the fence, and in a final gasp dies out in the middle of the commons area where all and sundry can witness the illicit corpse… but we’re next to a busy street and you know how lethal a Prius can be?!
Sometime after dark, the evid…. I mean, the ‘body’ disappears. It’s a mystery.
I don’t know if you and/or hubby cooks but…
A modest suggestion….
Last year I bought something to deter the squirrels from getting into my bird feeder. It was boxed up all official like with fancy print, pictures and what not, but what it turned out to be was a slinky and a small zip tie. The slinky goes over the hook for the feeder and down around the pole. The zip tie anchors the zip tie to the hook.
This thing is genius. Never had a squirrel so much as look at the feeder much less try to climb up the pole. And, as a bonus, the slinky gives the birds a place to hang out while they’re waiting their turn to fight for a place a the feeder.
I’m with you double X, and would add that the bastards twice chewed through the gas line on my old Saturn sedan. How great was the smell of gas under the car in the morning!
I would add #5 to your list of why we kill squirrels.
#5. Squirrel stew
Coming from the rural south and with parents and grandparents living through the 1930s, I can assure you that squirrel stew sustained an entire generation of Southerners during those hard times. I actually still have the original hand written recipe from my great grandmother.
I can also share with confidence that squirrel is on the menu in several locations in New Orleans, right along with the nutria.
My late father-in-law was raised in rural Arkansas. Their family ate a lot of squirrels; his weapon of choice was a .22, and he took the dog with him in case the tree rat survived the fall, to snap its spine.
My side of family was out of rural Tennessee and probably ate squirrel too, but those stories were never told, or within my hearing. One family was proud of their heritage, one was ashamed of their poverty and what they did to survive.
A lot of disease in the squirrels and bunnies here. Husband can see something’s up in his scope even before he pulls the trigger. Growths sprouting out of their faces, and mange. When it comes to it, we may have to discern healthy from sick, but not yet.
While the foxes and coyotes packs are greatly diminished, the predatory birds are going quite well and nesting too among our tallest trees.
There’s a very old and large cottonwood across the street. It was old before this development went in. All the local tree dwelling wildlife communes there at some point in the day/night and launches off to hunt for food. Entertaining is watching the birds of prey at the top watch the crazed behavior of the ‘prey’ immediately below, as though they were in no danger at all.
There was this video on youtube of a tree rat and hawk on the railing of a backyard deck. The squirrel’s behavior was increasingly obtuse and the hawk starts to get offended. I just put it on a loop and lmao.
I have my grandfather Stone’s squirrel stew recipe, it’s good.
Make it a littlethicker and it’s a good filling for a meat pie.
I used a Beeman air Rifle in the city and a “Clark Squirrel Special” .22 in the country.
I’ve had that .22 more than a quarter century and it is still more than accurate enough for head shots at 50 meters if I do my part.
Late edit: * an air pellet rifle with .22 caliber shot
Squirrels are remarkable creatures and far more important to the environment than your carbon foot-printed/printing home and garden. And as someone who lives in Florida where rats actually live in trees, noticing the difference between them takes less than a tiny mind. The fact that you can not adequately protect your privileged human life and property from them means they are smarter than you .
I wish a million of them upon you and am confident who will win that battle.
Get over it, squirrel hater.
https://blog.nwf.org/2015/01/10-nutty-facts-to-make-you-appreciate-squirrels/
https://onekindplanet.org/animal/squirrel/
https://news.ufl.edu/articles/2018/01/why-should-you-love-squirrels-here-are-six-reasons.html
https://www.wildthingsfood.co.uk/news/the-secret-life-of-squirrels/
https://reformedperspective.ca/squirrel-wonders-and-the-failure-of-evolution-to-explain-them/
I’ll stop there, no need to further embarrass you.
Squirrels are wonderful animals and tasty too!
What’s not to like?
If squirrels are so smart, how come they haven’t figured out how to avoid cars…or .22’s?
LOL.
This squirrel video was a bonus antidote on NC, maybe coupla years ago? Surprised no one has mentioned it yet, as IIRC, readers thought it was hilarious (made me laugh so hard I couldn’t breathe). Also very educational.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFZFjoX2cGg
I come from an almost infinitely long line of people who killed chickens, hogs, pigs, sheep, lambs, steer, sometimes deer, and the occasional horse, to put meat on the table. But an ingrained credo was you never kill an animal, big or small, for fun or “sport.” When you had to do it, it was just necessary for food.
You don’t eat the squirrels? What is wrong with you? They are delicious. Best game I ever had and I’ve had a lot of game. I’m sure you can find someone who would enjoy them. They are good enough to eat prepared simply, although since I didn’t cook them, I can’t offer advice. They don’t need to be in a stew, unlike game-y meats, like the lean cuts of venison. Nice texture and good taste.
My father would never hunt anything just to kill it. He quit hunting coot (a very very very chewy stringy bird) when the few of his friends who would eat it moved away.
I can’t believe I’m saying this to you, but … did you read my comments in full? Husband doesn’t hunt squirrels or any other “game”. That’s offense… he’s playing defense, killing a nuisance animal, which is legal. Every critter beyond our property lines is perfectly safe, except from the intentions of the birds of prey, dogs, cats, traffic, the occasional fox or coyote passing through, and several endemic diseases.
Leaving our property with a .22 pellet gun and a pocket full of shot, and hunting squirrels? No, that would quickly create a doodystorm we don’t want. As tasty as you find squirrel meat, the concern trolls are connoisseurs and would trip all over each other on the path to city hall to grab the largest portion of social virtue for themselves by complaining as publicly as possible… mmmmmm, so yummy!
On the whole, we prefer to keep our activities here on the q.t.. Happy songbirds, happy veggie seedlings, happy homeowners, and we work to keep it that way for all the residents. It’s our little Eden, no snakes allowed… although, I’ve heard they’re delicious and should we find ourselves once again in New Orleans, I’ll be ordering that entree off the menu. I’ll sink my teeth into almost anything once.
You did not read what I said with any care and appear to be triggered by the use of the word “hunting”. And your husband is hunting. The fact that is it limited in scale does not make it any the less hunting. Per Wikipedia:
My father considered killing animals and not eating them to be wrong unless they were killing other animals. He later trapped coyotes on a friend’s farm because the coyotes were killing baby sheep.
Your husband is killing squirrels. The bodies are edible.
And hunters are generally not allowed to hunt on private property except for private lands with public access. That is often but not exclusively timberland.
And I hate to make the point, but people eat roadkill too. There is a lot of hunger.
https://www.wikihow.com/Eat-Roadkill
The squirrels are not predators who eat birds like cats. They are competing for the birds’ food. With all due respect, the case for killing them is not strong. It is because they are eating birdfood. We’ve featured anti-squirrel bird feeder in Antidote videos, where the squirrels basically get thrown off the birdfeeder via spinning or other means. IMHO this is a better way to have your revenge on squirrels.
Anything that can be hunted (never mind whether it was sought, pursued, or captured) must be eaten, if the body was edible? Anything?
Squirrels are killed by my Husband in our backyard for all the reasons I listed, not just one, and that’s a stronger case. You cherry picked the point you thought was weakest, and then split hairs.
We replaced the fence over the last two years to the tune of hundreds of hours of labor (ours) and thousands of dollars in cedar. First, to increase privacy living so close to the street and second, to keep the critters out so we don’t have to address the problems they inevitably create. But of course some always manage to get through, and there’s no keeping out the squirrels.
Nor discouraging them. Just because such devices exist and work for some, doesn’t mean they work for all, or even most. There are also youtube videos of squirrels just laughing off those clever devices and jumping past them to the bird feeder. Perhaps you could use one of those for an antidote. A slinky device is still hanging from one of our poles; we just haven’t gotten around to taking it down.
We’re dug in here and trouble is coming over that six foot fence anyway. I tend to deal with it by being funny. Deadly seriousness is behind most humor.
Did you think as you typed, that we reached for a gun first? No Yves, last… and it works every time. That pellet gun was worth every penny. We now spend zero time anxious about losing our vegetable garden to some squirrels who unearthed the plants burying peanuts, then flung the soil around again digging them back up. Given the choices between hard packed Colorado clay and soft garden compost, they prefer our raised vegetable beds.
Also tickled to say we have no squirrels in our crawl spaces. It’s annoying as hell to listen to the sound of toenails scrambling across the ceiling all winter long.
As for the reason of entertainment… well, our ‘tribe’ is small. Two aging humans and an even older dog who’s losing his hearing. There aren’t that many activities we engage in together in defense of ‘home’; we enjoy that one – killing squirrels, sniffing the blood on the grass (dog), and listening to the barking lamentations of their women. It’s barbaric bonding and we’re okay with that.
And I hate to make the point, but… as sagacity goes for how one might walk a virtuous path on this earth, wisdom from ‘daddy’ doesn’t hold a lot of value in this house. We’re including our own.
I look forward to your reply.
RE: Rojava’s State of Emergency
Everybody seems to believe that a Turkish attack on the Syrian Democratic Forces was a foregone conclusion with Sweden and Finland attempting to join NATO. In spite of that I think that is unlikely for quite a few reasons. Foremost among them being that both Russia and the US have remained committed to the territorial integrity of Syria in spite of their differences. I doubt that the Iranians will approve of it either.
If Manbij is invaded it would give the Turks a contiguous slice of Syrian territory that might be annexed. While an attack on Tel Rifaat would pose an existential threat to the country. The area constitutes the northern approach to Aleppo and it’s strategic value cannot be underestimated given that fact. It would signal the resumption of the war in earnest and potentially an attempt to dismember Syria.
The overall strategic equilibrium in Syria will probably hold for now with no territorial changes. However, Turkey will probably step up it’s war against the PKK in northern Iraq and continue to attack SDF units in response.
“Australian medical authorities order Zero-COVID activist Dr David Berger to undertake “education” program or be deregistered”
I have been trying to think of a comment that won’t get it bounced for language. Our medical authorities, like in other countries, sold us out and pushed for herd immunity. Compliance to governmental wishes is what got them selected to their posts and that is what our government wanted. For the good of the economy of course. Will they pay a price? Unlikely and I see that Dr. Brendan Murphy, – Chief Medical Officer at the time and who was even against masks at the beginning of the Pandemic, got made a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) in this year’s Queen’s Birthday Honours a month ago. And because of the decisions that they made to open up the country and go with herd-immunity, they will always have lucrative work to do for the rest of their careers. And the worse part is that maybe they still believe in herd-immunity or worse, who will say who could have known that the present situation would be the result.
Wasn’t the Western commentariat outraged when the story about the Chinese doctor who warned about dangers of COVID early got subject to a treatment like that came out?
An interview on the ABC between two medical doctors – Dr Norman Swan and Dr David Berger talking about how both are concerned about the stifling of medical opinion in Australia on Covid, and how other doctors are being cowed into silence.
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/healthreport/doctors-use-of-media-about-vaccination/13248600
And no, Covid is not airborne, according to the Australian government in 2021
“Based on the expert medical advice received, the Government understands there is little
clinical or epidemiological evidence of regular airborne transmission of SARS-COV-2.”
https://healthcareworkersaustralia.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/MC21-003462-Berger-reponse.pdf
Will it become necessary for medical authorities to set-up re-education camps to undertake the ‘education’ of wrong-thinking doctors and others who might spread subversive ideas about the Corona flu?
Oh yeah, she’s running.
Clinton moderates panel at Broadway Con with notable leading ladies
This is People, also covered by Variety, there was also an article about her being cheered at the shows she went to and the audience at I believe POTUS telling her she should be President.
I know, no surprise to the Clinton trackers here at NC, but I admit to being amazed at the choices here. Unless they are trying for really easy crowds to build momentum, any idea that this plays anywhere but southern NY and CA is…misguided at best, delusional at worst. Makes me think that Hillary should be the poster child for “learned nothing”.
Is it too much to hope that both Hillary and Trump drop out because they lose in the primary season? Or that Hillary can’t dislodge sleepy Joe from his perch? I don’t think I can handle whatever Correct The Record 2.0 is going to be like and stay sane. I would switch to voting straight Republican on tickets to keep that power hungry harridan from higher office.
She has never stopped running.
I think it must be keeping the brand alive for chelsea, I remember a headline somewhere* saying she is both wise and thoughtful, just, yet kind.
A worthy foe for liz cheney and the only person who might build the first library to a first lady, minus the computer records in various basements.
*probably the hamptons bugle or vanity fare
Hillary Clinton is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.
I’m so sorry.
Data point. I tested positive for Covid this morning, and the biologist said that they were being deluged with cases at the moment, although thankfully they are generally less severe than in 2020. All the health professionals say the same, and the 150,000 cases yesterday are probably only a fraction of the real number. But nobody is taking any notice. The Prime Minister’s speech last week didn’t mention Covid, and I am often the only person on a bus or in a shop wearing a mask. People have been dreading autumn, but I’m starting to wonder whether summer will actually be worse. The holiday season is in full swing and the trains, planes and terminuses are full. Organisations that run light in summer anyway may simply have to close.
Hope that you get through it quickly and easily, David. Helluva time that we are living in.
I and two family members who had been clear since the beginning, we all got it last week after a visit to London. I’m looking at autophagy via fasting as a means of clearing out any residue, perhaps boosted by trehalose.
Very sorry to hear about your positive test, David. I hope all goes well for you.
I was at a fundraiser for our cancer center yesterday and had a volunteer job inside the middle school gym where most of the action was(registration and getting the event tshirt). Of the probably hundreds of people that passed through yesterday, I could count all of the masked on 2 hands(and this is including volunteers). Almost no one was wearing a mask. It was mind-boggling. I wore an N95 my whole shift and gargled as soon as I got home. Thankfully, at least they had the two sets of gym doors open to the outside and a couple of fans going. The main event was today and it would be ironic and sad if it ends up being a super spreader event.
As of this morning five more people I know are down with Covid, 2 grandkids,Mom and both of Mom’s parents who are in their late 60’s.
It looks like the bug was caught at an outdoor Childrens Birthday Party others who attended have tested positive.
My P100 mask arrived today, with extra filters.
It fits very well and is more comfortable than an N95 mask.
Be lucky!
Sorry to hear that David, get better, we need you here.
I hope you have a brief case and no long covid.
I went in to volunteer yesterday near where I live in Silicon Valley and there were more people around than usual. I wore an N95 and had used anti-viral nasal spray, so here’s hoping. I stood around outside chatting with three people. They were all double vaxxed and boosted of course. One had just gotten back from Spain, where she had caught covid. Another had just gotten back from Mammoth Lakes, she had just had covid. One is recently widowered, and he hadn’t caught it yet, since he stays home. My unvaccinated state no longer horrified them, especially since I haven’t caught it yet (I won’t be surprised if I do sometime soon).
The Palo Alto area covid sewage numbers had been trending down a bit, but they are back up again nearly to the Omicron peak level.
I hope you have no lasting effects. Keeping my fingers crossed.
David, sending good thoughts for a mild case with no long aftermath. Take care.
>Boeing CEO Threatens to Cancel 737 MAX 10 Unless Congress Acts Jerusalem Post (re Šilc)
“In 2020, Boeing had a historically bad year, reporting a $12 billion loss and laying off 30,000 workers. At the same time, [CEO Dave] Calhoun earned $21.1 million in compensation.” (Wiki)
“Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury was paid just over 3 million euros [$3.7 million] in 2020, according to a report by the company’s board of directors published ahead of the AGM next month.” (Bloomberg Law)
Let’s see if I can get this straight. The CEO of a failing company, one that was forced to move its corporate headquarters to Arlington, Virginia in order to be closer to Pentagon pork is paid approximately six times more than his counterpart at Airbus, a company which just happens to be competing the a** off Boeing.
I have to admit, I’m confused. I always thought (because I was told this by CNBC) that high CEO compensation was necessary to acquire talent and guarantee performance. Maybe untalented and under-performing Dave Calhoun is just an exception to the rule. Or maybe not.
But then I should be fair to him. If making threats to regulators instead of flyable planes is effective, I guess he’s earning his wages. /sarc
https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2016/08/bill-clinton-ceo-pay-reform-000195/
“A new report I co-authored for the Institute for Policy Studies shows how Clinton’s reform has functioned as a perverse incentive for excessive pay and reckless behavior in the industry where such problems are most dangerous — Wall Street. As income inequality continues to rise”
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/09/the-bill-clinton-teams-secret-meeting-on-ceo-compensation.html
The (Bill) Clinton Team’s Secret Meeting on CEO Compensation
“When Bill Clinton first proposed his plan, compensation for CEOs at America’s 350 largest corporations averaged $4.9 million. By the end of the Clinton administration, it had ballooned to $20.3 million. Since then, it’s gone into the stratosphere.”
Surely that was just a coincidence.
Depression amongst CEO’s was probably sky high at that time.
That the world’s sexiest sax player played a tune lifting their hearts is something to celebrate.
You could never. ever again say that he did not reach out, lean in and prostrate his constituency for this beleaguered minority.
That they increased their wealth should be a lesson for us all.
It’s not about health destroying work, it’s about working the system.
Work harder,
Work smarter,
Forget ideology,
You’ve got a whole mythology going back at least 2 whole hundred years
Airbus, a company which just happens to be competing the a** off Boeing.
> France has neither forgotten nor forgiven.
Ha! #LoveTooSeeIt
Re the exceedingly long essay on whatever happened to satire.
Wrong, or IMO wrong. Good satire is an intellectual, rather than moral, critique and the moral self seriousness of our age is exactly the reason why humor is taking it on the chin (as recently pointed out by Matt Taibbi). The good satirist is out to puncture the rationalizations for our behavior while regarding human folly itself as universal. So George Carlin yes, the sour Nathanael West not so much. Taibbi even goes on to point out that the right, now the cultural outsiders in our media-verse, are often the ones producing the humor while the self serious figures like the formerly funny Colbert revel in their status as “players.”
I agree. The idea of a funny Woke Satire does not compute, that is, satire by the Woke does not compute. The Inquisition wasn’t known for its humor. / ;)
flora
two words: Monty Pytho….or Mel Brooks…which I guess is four words
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj8n4MfhjUc
Ha! (Diabolical laughter)
I think Bill Maher does a passably good job at presenting satire on his Real Time show between trying to one-up-manship the guests. Not that impressed with with his standup act however.
Bill Maher is so impressed with himself that I can’t get to the second sentence of whatever he’s saying without turning him off. Smugness and hubris personified. That and he really isn’t very bright.
He is an idiot. Watch him “debate” someone sometime. The slightest pushback and he is changing the subject, ad hominem-ing, straw manning, scrambling. Taibbi had him on the ropes without even really trying, Krystal cut him to ribbons more than once.
Yes she made him look the fool. Maher had no idea that the stock market crashed in Feb-March 2020 at the beginning of covid. And that the fed stepped in to bail it out. Maker kept saying “But there was no stock market crash at the beginning of the pandemic.” And he is supposed to be politically and economically knowledgeable?
Here is Krystal breaking down her appearance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaYgWkNdsGc
It’s true there was no “crash”, the parties who enable the congresstheys insider trading called their marks and said
“you’re about to lose a LOT of money, but you’re in a position in which you could make a LOT of money instead, it’s up to you… Let me know”
What passes for satire from Maher, IMHO, is smug and self righteous ho humming. Practically (an unfunny) parody of satire, I think.
A friend who teaches college level recounted that he recently asked a class of students who their favorite comedian is. They drew a blank, and one said that stand-up is “basically problematic”.
This kind of threw my friend (as it would have thrown me). They then asked him in return about his favorite comedian. He joked: “I can’t tell you, he’s too problematic”. They pressed, he said “Louis C.K.”, and while most of the students drew a blank on this name, one in the group replied “oh, him, he’s the worst…”.
Well Louis CK likes masturbating in front of unwilling women, so I’m not surprised your friend got some negative reactions. Tbh he should have thought more before choosing him (I say this as a former teacher), especially since the students didn’t think much of standup.
What a humourless bunch. Good thing that your friend didn’t tell them about George Carlin. A few minutes expose of him on YouTube might have led them to having an emotional meltdown.
Bill Burr is the best going right now! (Hat tip Dave Chappelle…)
Burr’s routine about corporations getting you to do the work for them is right on the money!
NSFW but funny as (family blog)!
That’s really funny. Thanks for the link.
And don’t forget the “economic” side of the neoliberal coin: making money is a very serious affair!
Maybe the author of “Whatever Happened to the Satirical Novel?” needs to get out a little more?
The “decline of satire” has been a long-standing worry, but AFAICT it came roaring back in the mid-2000s (a.k.a. the Shrub Years), and there’s been a decent volume of it since then. It’s a little odd that CounterPunch is publishing this essay on the putative decline of satire, when they also publish many articles by the satirist C. J. Hopkins.
Right wing humor though is… often so humorless, mean and cold-hearted. There’s a new brand of it too that I would call just fake humor. These videos purporting to satirize democrats, liberals or leftists that are really nothing more than… thinly veiled propaganda. I don’t know, it’s hard to describe but when you see it, you might recognize it as what I am talking about.
As far as talk show hosts anymore, they’re all pretty terrible but I do think that John Oliver is often pretty sharp, relevant and funny.
Good satire happened in the 60s. Scenes of men sitting in a circle in suits and ties singing Cum-ba-ya was like exquisite unintentional self satire. Maybe naivete isn’t that easy to laugh at these days. When I smile at the report that satire is now dead it’s because I’m thinking of how it has evolved from satire to double satire – a satire of satire. Which kills it. I’m thinking “Lolita” – Nabokov’s wicked masterpiece that was so embraced by (even intellectual) men in the late 50s as a profound description of their shared tragedy. So, really poignant satire becomes tragedy. And Trump who took himself seriously. I think his tragic-comedy was pure defiance. Sort of denial of satire.
First 12 Things Trump Will Do When He Inevitably Returns To Power – Babylon Bee
“Put Dr. Fauci in the stocks in the National Mall so everyone can throw cabbage at him”
Do not tempt me to vote for Trump. Please, stop.
Can someone send those pictures of Sri Lanka to Liz Cheney?
Hey LIz, THAT’S a coup.
(I hope all those Sri Lankans realize that they will be subpoenaed next week to appear at the January 6th Committee.)
Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister has resigned.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/9/sri-lanka-pm-mahinda-rajapaksa-offers-to-resign-as-crisis-worsens
Thanks, NC, for keeping Sri Lanka’s situation in the Links for now.
Can someone tell me why the PM’s brother is the President and still in office?
From the link:
“President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is the prime minister’s younger brother”
Looks like the president is resigning on the 13th, but that’s probably to save face – he’s effectively out of power. The presidential palace is in the hands of angry people, the PM’s house was burned down, and here’s video purported to be the president fleeing onto a naval vessel – a former US Coast Guard cutter originally named for the guy who wrote the Sherman anti-trust act.
It is watching a cliché. The men pulling the rolling suitcases are actually scurrying from the car and up the ramp.
All I could think of while watching the video and listening to the narrator was… when is he going to yell “Gooooaaal”!!!
re: Buckraking – Matt Stoller
Vizient is a little-known company that consolidated control over hospital purchasing and helped induce shortages.
Creating shortages is very, very profitable. / ;)
#BrainardAndTheBezzle
Hmmm … the thing I am looking out for is any portending that the Fed will provide insurance for crypto assets, or otherwise support dollar (stable coin) deposits. If that happens, it’s going to be horrible, horrible, horrible.
The title of the lead paragraph offers too much hope of legitimization to my liking:
“Distinguishing Responsible Innovation from Regulatory Evasion”
LOL … have we already forgotten the GFC? Are we still considering collateralization “responsible innovation”? Brainard answers the question at the end of section 2, titled “Insights From Recent Turbulence”:
I’m reading this to mean that DeFi outfits don’t have access to traditional Fed (or interbank) liquidity, hence the over-collateralization, but … that strikes me as exactly the dangerous territory you don’t want to enter.
Oh dear ${DEITY} … from the section titled “Private Digital Currencies and Central Bank Digital Currencies”:
How exactly is that different from a non-digital-currency backstop? Seems to me that they’re laying the foundation, and that’s not good. Can’t wait for GFC III precipitated by a $500B rug pull, where someone at the Fed tells congress that OpenSea, Ether and Coinbase are TBTF.
Ugh
#COVIDDownUnder
Wow … the west has really lost the plot. There are no heroes in government it seems. All of them, slavishly protecting the “sacred economy”, foolishly believing that such can be done while failing to protect citizens. Only a really virulent strain capable of debilitating early symptoms will stop this. So long as people see evidence that COVID is “mild”, nothing will change.
You are so not kidding. The latest in the most western province of Canada:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-third-omicron-wave-july-7-1.6514145 B.C. enters third Omicron wave as COVID hospitalizations jump 35% over last week
The minister of health and provincial health officer kept saying look, fewer hospitalizations, get boosted, boosted, boosted. Never mind about hospitalizations being a lagging indicator. They keep going on and on about their “immunization plan” and how they don’t think that any other precautions should be needed.
Biden Administration
Jared Kushner’s masterwork continues as Israel is the real winner of Biden’s meeting with the Saudi crown prince One Middle Eastern country has scored victory after victory under Biden. The U.S. president’s willingness to meet Mohammed bin Salman is just another win.
The night before the Exxon Alaska judgment OJ did what he did or didnt do and the ribbee suddenly passed away…after a long series of appeals, and 20 years later…the good folks of Alaska ended up with nowhere near the 5 billion in damages that was announced while Mark the cop was interviewing publicists for his 15 minutes of fame…if Twitter doesn’t find a way to make their business grow, they might not have a business in a position to collect a dime…he with the better lawyers wins…and many tall building law firms are conflicted out due to all the businesses Musk has been involved with…finally…if acquisition company signed the agreement without musk personally agreeing to guarantee the purchase…there ain’t probably no there there….
Crypto Has Entered the Next Phase of Its Crisis:
I am still not sure what social utility crypto offers, that is in need of saving? That working people have lost money on this is an inditement of poor regulatory exertion, and should never have been allowed. But rescuing crypto probably won’t save everyone that’s been conned, and it’ll let the games continue.
I would be curious about how crypto “lending” actually works. Traditional banks that take deposits create loans with balance sheet entries, and that bank money is convertible to dollars at par. What kind of bizarre mechanics are in play for dollars to go in, and crypto or stable coins or whatever to come out? Crypto is only “useful” insofar as, at some point, you can get real currency out of it or trade it for real goods. I cannot, thankfully, pay taxes in BTC, so eventually someone needs dollars.
Somehow I think the actual mechanisms in play are a bit more complicated than this lets on, whatever they are. (This also sounds like “loanable funds” which is debunked.)
Taibbi’s latest on the crypto front. No paywall.
The Financial Bubble Era Comes Full Circle
An unstable encounter with a $50 billion stablecoin
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-financial-bubble-era-comes-full
___
He has a longer piece up, paywalled:
Return of the Great American Bubble Machine
Albeit with new wrapping and new jargon, crypto has been infected by the same old problems of insider finance
‘Misperceptions about how certain types of investments were “fully hedged,” “asset-backed,” or faced only “de minimus” exposure to loss, were a major factor in causing the huge buildup of unrecognized risk that caused the last financial collapse fourteen years back. This market is now giving off a strong whiff of déjà vu. I’ll break a longstanding personal ban on a certain journalistic cliché to quote another former regulator:
‘ “It’s 2008 on crack.” ‘
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/return-of-the-great-american-bubble
See Benoit Mandelbrot …
Benoit Mandelbrot, who expounded the theory of fractals? Care to explain?
One definition of Fractal is: “A Fractal is a pattern that repeats forever, and every part of the Fractal, regardless of how zoomed in, or zoomed out you are, it looks very similar to the whole image.”
Substitute the words ‘financial scam ‘ for ‘fractal ‘ and the definition still works, imo. / ;)
Remember when the smart[tm] savvy people – all knew – that bonds followed Gaussian distribution functions … good times …
I know a guy who describes extremely bad things as ‘fractally bad, zoom in on any single part and it is just as bad as the rest’
Tell your friend I said thanks … going to use that … so fitting with a side of bushy eyebrows and curb/wall feelers in the ears …
See ECONNED.
Mandelbrot analyzed the distribution of prices in financial markets. They were always Levy distributions, meaning the variability was too great to be tractable in models.
Of course everyone said boo Mandelbrot and adopted markets that greatly understate the risk of markets. The entire edifice of financial economics is a fraud.
Cough … I was not going to steal your thunder in the hope you would pop up …
Next up for discussion is Bayesian inference/econometrics … eh … eh … aka the other choice …
Taibbis one of my favorites ever since Groftopia!
Thanks for the link!
Climate/Environment
Serial Collapses of Ancient Pueblo Societies Offer a Stark Warning For Today’s World
And led me to wonder if Russia’s conservative communitarianism is better suited for mankind’s survival than the West’s liberal individualism.
Crypto is prosecution futures,as Yves so helpfully pointed out some years ago.
Remember the promise of Anonymity these coins were supposed to grant?
Coinbase has a tool called Cointrace which unmasks the entities on both sides of the transaction.
Which will sometimes be corporations or partnerships of one sort or another,however it is an important link in the chain for anyone trying to determine the beneficial owner.
Coins are for speculators and crooks.
Greed makes people stupid and goodness LOOK AT ALL THAT EASY MONEY!!!
BIG MONEY!
There’s no risk to speak of…
Because their product is priced based on the underlying value of an electron.
The money launderers did well, the scam artists and wallet thieves did VERY well and the suckers had a wild ride before they lost their $.
“And two to take him” is the part of the quote every investor should keep in mind.
Its sorta like EMH and Rational[tm] agent models … preferences which enable a narrative which provides cover for anti social/environmental activity and sold as Empiricism.
Recently had a conversation with someone I’ve know for about 10 years that has always laid claim to being an old Keynesian/Tobin economic sort and not a fortnight ago was having a wobble about MMT in reference to a NC post. Then he started authoritatively using the term empiricism without unpacking it in reference to MMT. Better yet he then let the cat out of the bag and stated they ascribed too Neo/paleo Keynesianism
“Neo-paleo-Keynesian (NPK) research program is unashamedly neo-classical. It seeks to reconcile Keynesian ideas with the microeconomics of general equilibrium theory; and it does so in a new way. As with new-classical and new-Keynesian economics, neo-paleo-Keynesianism constructs models of rational actors who interact in markets. In contrast to new classical and new-Keynesian programs, neo-paleo-Keynesianism contains two propositions that are absent from the hard core of these agendas: 1) there is a continuum of possible equilibrium unemployment rates and 2) the unemployment rate that prevails is determined by the ‘animal spirits’ of investors.”
So there is your Empiricism … chortle …
Now for a really good time consider that economic research programs are not refuted, as in Popper, nor are they dramatically overturned, as in Kuhn – they simply attract more new adherents than their competitors aka in the ***Market Place of Ideas*** ….
So yeah, before one even, post facto, points out the crypto failures vs the sales pitch one has to consider the monkey goo it sprang forth from, deductive rationalizations, extenuated, and then mangled in the blender of Samuelson’s ‘neoclassical synthesis’. Then some ponder why “let it rip” is the standing order of the day because the ***belief*** that Markets[tm] will clear in the long run …
Almost nothing about this sentence makes sense, with or without context. Are our leaders actually trying to destroy everything around them?
Looks like the Ukrainians are getting nervous about their border with Belarus-
https://twitter.com/Militarylandnet/status/1545792628045791235
Such installations also keep ‘disaffected’ persons inside the Ukraine too. Any ‘defectors’ to the East, (really the North here,) will have to take to the forest paths now. Watch the Russians pull off another Ardennes Forest offensive. They have been there recently and should have mapped the terrain for future use.
The infamous Chernobyl atomic plant is in that region. Will someone more responsible than the Ukraine take it under their protection?
An explosion at a gas plant in Medford Oklahoma
https://www.koco.com/article/oklahoma-medford-oneok-explosion/40564786
Im sure this will help the EU…/s
Glenn Greenwald has been busy on Twitter doing some stirring. Two selected tweets-
Glenn Greenwald
@ggreenwald
Wimbledon, by banning Russian and Belarusian players, degraded itself into a glorified exhibition: no ranking points, top men’s player banned (Medvedev) with other great men and women’s players.
A big fear was British royalty would have to give the trophy to a Russian.
Yet….
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1545787598366457858
Glenn Greenwald
@ggreenwald
The woman’s winner is… Elena Rybakina, a Russian woman born and raised in Moscow, still lives in Moscow, allowed to play at Wimbledon only because she switched in 2018 to play for oil-rich Kazakhstan solely for financial reasons.
Just get her trophy with Princess Kate.🇬🇧🇷🇺
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1545787678490337281
I watched the final match between her and Jabeur (and was rooting for Rybakina because I think Jabeur’s reliance on drop shots is poor sportsmanship) and the description they gave of Rybakina was that she had been ‘rejected by Moscow trainers as not having enough potential so she went to Kazakhstan’. Literally anything to paint the Russians as eeeeeeevil. Preventing the Russian players from playing the Western tournaments is pathetic.
These bans are so phony, they are just Stupid and pointless. Sure Simone Biles just got a Medal of Honor, but does anyone with half a brain think any President would listen to her when they decide to say invade Iran?
Even worse are the morality signaling bans on classical musicians and tops in pointless posing classical music. Take that Tchaikovsky! (Shocked I haven’t seen anyone burning War and Peace or the Brothers Karamazov, probably missed it.)
God we are a stupid people.
LOL. So according to Walgreens we’re at 38.7% test positivity for a 7 day moving average. Peak of the last wave was 41.8%, for those keeping score at home. The NE is now partially bright red. The major caveat is that tests for the week are 50% of those from the prior week, so perhaps a greater share of the smaller number of people getting tested recently are positive, and this comes down if the number of tested overall goes up.
https://www.walgreens.com/businesssolutions/covid-19-index.jsp
Stay safe out there! This phase of the Pandemic is the most dangerous yet!
Holy cow. That line is vertical.
If mild cases can cause permanent damage – and yes they can – then this is indeed the most perilous stage. I know far, far more people who are catching it now than even during the big omicron surge. And, people have given up – someone recently said to me “if you’re gonna get it you’re gonna get it.” She wasn’t wearing a mask, and can’t be bothered to use preventive nasal sprays. She said it aloud, but I see it all over the place in actions.
Rhode Island Progressives Push for Takeover of State Democratic Party The Intercept
I note 2 distortions of the facts in this article. How disappointing.