Links 11/1/2022

Eerie events around the country mark Halloween RTE

Eurasian jays ace the famous ‘marshmallow test’ Popular Science. Resilc: “Write them in when you vote.”

Many Baby Sea Turtles Never Make It to The Sea. This Genius Idea Could Save Them ScienceAlert (Chuck L)

Could AI help you to write your next paper? Nature (Dr. Kevin)

Are Gas Stoves the New Cigarettes? New Republic (resilc)

What to do in a potential crowd crush and how to survive it Washington Post (Dr. Kevin). Black Friday is coming!

#COVID-19

Science/Medicine

Evidence for Biological Age Acceleration and Telomere Shortening in COVID-19 Survivors International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ma)

COVID ‘variant soup’ is making winter surges hard to predict Nature (Dr. Kevin)

New research suggests booster dose of Novovax NVX-CoV2373 vaccine is effective against SARS-CoV-2 Omicron subvariants News-medical.net

But as GM cheerily points out, the variants Novovax was tested on are very far away from current lineages:

Is SARS-CoV-2 an oncogenic virus? Journal of Infection (ma)

Asia

Shanghai Disney: Visitors unable to leave without negative Covid test as park shuts BBC (resilc)

Fearing Covid, workers flee from Foxconn’s vast Chinese iPhone plant CNBC (resilc)

US/North America

How Republicans Claimed COVID as a Winning Campaign Issue New Yorker (resilc)

Climate/Environment

Wild horses could help fight wildfire in the west NPR (David L)

Why It’s So Hard To Recycle Electric-Car Batteries YouTube (resilc)

I’m No Longer Sure New York Will Protect Itself From Rising Waters New York Times (David L)

China?

Does the U.S. Chip Ban on China Amount to a Declaration of War in the Computer Age? CounterPunch. We warned about this as an own goal as soon as it was announced. Resilc: “When does USA USA reach peak nonsense across the board?”

Wang Yi urges US not to be ‘blinded by ideology’ in phone call with Blinken Global Times. Seems pretty testy.

Japan’s empty villages are a warning for China Financial Times (furzy)

Old Blighty

Energy giant Centrica reopens mothbolled site amid warning UK ‘has only nine days of gas stored up’ Independent

White-Collar War Crimes and For-Profit Famines Current Affairs (resilc)

New Not-So-Cold War

Russia tells UN it will inspect Black Sea ships RT/ Russia’s cancellation countermove was obvious, particularly since they were already signaling reticence to renew the deal (IIRC which was to expire shortly) due to grain going to Europe, not poor countries, and Russian grain (whose supply vastly exceeds that of Ukraine) being de facto embargoed, contrary to promises.

Ukraine Grain Flows to Port Freeze Up After Russia’s Provocation Bloomberg. Um, even the New York Times credited Ukraine with the attack on Sevastopol.

Ascot suspends writing new cover for Ukrainian shipments Insurance Business

* * *

Weapons sent to Ukraine may have ended up in Finnish underground EurActiv

New plan to secure US weapons in Ukraine leaves gaps: experts Responsible Statecraft

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko: ‘Please stay with Ukraine’ DW. Resilc: “Uncle Sam: Send mo moneknee.”

* * *

Russian Trade Boomed After Invading Ukraine, Providing Ample War Funds New York Times

New Study Finds The Rest Of The World Supports China And Russia Caitlin Johnstone (Kevin W)

* * *

Syraqistan

Israel Election: The Eight Scenarios That Could Happen on Tuesday Haaretz

Gridlock, fascism or more polls? Israel’s latest election could provide all three Middle East Eye

Imperial Collapse Watch

Welcome to the world of the polycrisis Adam Tooze, Financial Times (David L). From ent of last week, still germane.

2022

79 percent of voters describe the US as ‘out of control’ The Hill

Biden’s Foreign Policy Is Sinking the Congressional Dems—and Ukraine Jeffrey Sachs, Common Dreams

Biden accuses oil companies of ‘war profiteering’ and threatens windfall tax Guardian. How dumb does he think voters are?

These five races will determine the Senate majority The Hill

Pelosi suspect charged with kidnapping; police say he wanted to hold Speaker hostage The Hill

Our No Longer Free Press

Truth Cops: Leaked Documents Outline DHS’s Plans to Police Disinformation Intercept (Jules, Kevin W, Chuck L)

How Google’s Ad Business Funds Disinformation Around the World Propublica (David L)

Inflation/Supply Chain

Think the Energy Crisis Is Bad? Wait Until Next Winter Time (resilc)

Prices At The Pump Fall For Third Straight Week OilPrice (resilc)

Nearly 40% of small businesses in the US failed to pay rent in October – with more than HALF saying their prices have been hiked at least 10% over the past six months Daily Mail

The Bezzle

Even After $100 Billion, Self-Driving Cars Are Going Nowhere Bloomberg (David L). From a few days ago, still germane.

New York Could Become First State With a ‘Right To Repair’ Law for Electronic Devices Spectrumlocalnews

“What happens when you put ideologues in charge of a university” Popular Information

Class Warfare

Supreme Court’s conservative majority seems open to eliminating affirmative action in university admissions process: ‘Why do you have these boxes?’ Business Insider (Kevin W)

US Workers Have Gotten Way Less Productive Washington Post. Right. The productivity decline is due 100% to faffing off workers, as opposed to supply chain issues meaning they can’t complete work on a timely basis, plus co-workers being sick also messing up task/project completion.

The Mansion Tax Battle The Lever

Barry Ritholtz via resilc:

Antidote du jour (CV):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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175 comments

  1. Antifa

    SELL THE NARRATIVE
    (melody borrowed from Sink the Bismarck by Johnny Horton)

    Every war is hybrid and the lies are half the fun
    Lurid news of babies skewered by the evil Hun
    Lucid tales of awful crimes that never did occur
    With fuzzy distant pictures of events that never were

    Behind our soldiers stands an angry public in a blaze
    Bloodthirst rules the papers and all of the airwaves
    The enemy is evil but God is on our side
    Our virtue is so obvious that bombs are justified

    War is massive murder an assembly line of death
    Bloody murder till you take a sudden final breath
    We’ve got to keep the public in a rage in every town
    We’ve got to Sell the Narrative or they could shut us down

    It’s hard to fool the public when coffins come back home
    His mother gets a folded flag he sleeps beneath the loam
    To really Sell the Narrative you film her as she weeps
    And publicize this pageant for a boy who’s gone for keeps

    She puts a golden star up in a window to the street
    And gets a shot of sympathy from everyone she meets
    His Captain’s letter said his death was due to odd caprice
    His buddies took the time to go and gather every piece

    War is massive murder an assembly line of death
    Bloody murder till you take a sudden final breath
    We’ve got to keep the public in a rage in every town
    We’ve got to Sell the Narrative or they could shut us down

    The fog of war’s deliberate and well planned in advance
    The PR hacks get out there and do their song and dance
    Any lie that works in war is absolutely fair
    Our job’s to sell the public on the fighting Over There

    And when the fight is over we will write its history
    The people who have profited remains a mystery
    We lied to all those young men those soldiers and marines
    We Sold the Narrative because the end allows the means

    War is massive murder an assembly line of death
    Bloody murder till you take a sudden final breath
    We’ve got to keep the public in a rage in every town
    We’ve got to Sell the Narrative or they could shut us down

    War is massive murder an assembly line of death
    Bloody murder till you take a sudden final breath
    We’ve got to keep the public in a rage in every town
    We’ve got to Sell the Narrative or they could shut us down

    1. ArvidMartensen

      Such a clever way to point out propaganda.
      Words are weapons that the rich (self-named) “elites” spend a lot of money on to weaponise. And to deploy against the people they want to control. Us.
      Get us spending. Get us voting correctly. Get us sickening and dying from Covid quietly and out of sight. Get us afraid of others. Get us hating others. Get us enlisting. Get us celebrating the “heroism” of our children dying in their endless and lucrative wars.
      For example, “Disinformation”. When what they mean is opinion and facts that go against US Government-Approved-Messages. Aka propaganda.
      If the Propublica article was headed correctly it would say “How Google’s Ad Business Funds Dissent Against US Government-Approved-Messages Around the World”.
      Now, that would be real truth in advertising, wouldn’t it.

  2. Sardonia

    Rochelle Wallensky gets Covid, takes Paxlovid, tests negative – then tests positive again yesterday. So, I imagine Rochelle and The Virus singing Sonny and Cher’s classic Love Duet, “I Got You Babe.” (live tune from 1965 in the first reply).

    (Rochelle)
    They said the vax would keep me well
    If not, their med would keep me, out of hell.

    (The Virus)
    Well I don’t know, if all that’s true,
    But you got Me, and Baby…I got You.

    (Together)
    Babe….
    I got you Babe.
    I got you Babe.

    (Rochelle)
    They say that now, you’re kinda mild
    But I feel like, my body’s been defiled.

    (The Virus)
    I guess that’s so – they just don’t know squat
    And I’ve lost count, of how many folks I’ve got.

    (Together)
    Babe….
    I got you Babe.
    I got you Babe.

    (The Virus)
    I got proteins,
    That let me
    Latch your cells.
    Your lock – my key

    (Rochelle)
    And now I’m sick
    Can’t get around
    I’ve become your
    New breeding grou-ou-ou-ound!

    (Rochelle)
    My words were all lies
    I’ll be unemployed
    My legacy is
    The country’s Schadenfreude

    (The Virus)
    Then put your
    Little hand in mine
    Together, we’re each other’s
    Valentine.

    (Together)
    Babe….
    I got you Babe.
    I got you Babe.

    (The Virus)
    I got you, to let me in.

    (Rochelle)
    I got you, my Mortal Sin.

    (The Virus)
    I got you, to make a home.

    (Rochelle)
    I got you, feel free to roam.

    (The Virus)
    I got you! I won’t depart!

    (Rochelle)
    I got you, in all my heart!

    (The Virus)
    I got you! I won’t let go!

    (Rochelle)
    I got you, from head to toe!

    (Together)
    I got you, Babe!
    I got you, Babe!
    I got you, Babe!
    I got you, Babe!
    I got you, Babe!

    1. Karen Wieckert

      Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, with colleagues from the ACTIV-2 trial , part of the U.S. government’s response to COVID-19, investigated whether symptoms of COVID-19 recurred following a two-day symptom-free period in persons who did not receive any treatment for the disease.

      They sought to determine whether such recurrences might be different from those that have been documented in persons treated with Paxlovid, a phenomenon known as Paxlovid rebound.

      Writing in the Oct 27, 2022 issue of JAMA Network Open , the scientists tracked 13 defined COVID-19 symptoms for 29 days in 158 untreated study participants. They found that more than one-third of the participants who reported complete resolution of symptoms for at least two consecutive days subsequently reported a return of symptoms.

      ”It is clear that COVID-19 has waxing and waning of symptoms, whether they are treated or not,” said the study’s lead author Davey M. Smith, MD, head of Infectious Diseases and Global Public Health at UC San Diego School of Medicine and an infectious disease specialist at UC San Diego Health.

      https://health.ucsd.edu/news/releases/Pages/2022-10-31-treated-or-not-covid-19-recurrence-seems-symptomatic-for-some-.aspx

      1. tegnost

        ”It is clear that COVID-19 has waxing and waning of symptoms, whether they are treated or not,”

        the scientists tracked 13 defined COVID-19 symptoms for 29 days in 158 untreated study participants.

        Is this a contradiction? They studied untreated and extrapolated treated from that how?

        1. Karen Wieckert

          No this study was of untreated patients, pointing to the fact that “rebound” happens. To add, it happens with many viral infections.

          Recurrence of symptoms, “rebound,” may occur in cases of COVID after treatments as well. The expectation is that treatment will decrease the likelihood and lessen severity of those symptoms, which generally, as data is gathered, seems to be the case.

          The CDC Director’s case seems not unusual, nor unexpected.

        2. French75

          The recurrence of symptoms under a paxlovid regimen (treated) was established prior to this study. This study showed recurrence under a no treatment regime. Ergo: both treated and untreated.

          1. tegnost

            How do you know which is worse if you haven’t compared them head to head?
            Which group is more likely to go out and infect unsuspecting people, recovering “naturally”, or paxlovid. There’s also the detail of who gets paxlovid and who is on their own. I’m all for scientific studies, but I want them to be scientific, not a covering action to protect the economy…oops, I mean phizer.

      2. Lee

        It’s my understanding that rebounds, whether with or without Paxlovid, are a secondary post-viral inflammatory response to the initial viral phase of the disease. Viral material can still be detected during the second phase but the virus is by then no longer replicating. This is according to various statements made by Vincent Racaniello, Dr. Daniel Griffen et al on This Week in Virology.

  3. zagonostra

    >A dialogue with Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin, following the tragic death of his daughter Darya Dugina

    when ideas really matter, you get murdered for your ideas…The West is not just synonymous with economic and technological development, the West represents a kind of consciousness, including hegemony, racism, and ontology, which can be extended to colonialism and unipolarity…

    If you don’t understand yourself, you can’t understand others. If you are not confident and lack your own identity, it is impossible to understand the identity of other countries and the future of multi-polarity. To understand the world, you must first understand yourself.

    https://www.geopolitika.ru/en/article/wang-wen-dialogue-dugin-if-russia-seeks-solve-issues-it-should-take-china-example-be-studied

    1. The Rev Kev

      It sounds like Alexander Dugan is channeling his inner Sun Tzu-

      ‘If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.’

      1. Michael Ismoe

        I think Dr. Spock already addressed our Ukrainian misadventure:

        “Physical punishment teaches children that the larger, stronger person has the power to get his way, whether or not he is in the right, and they may resent this.”

        I wonder if Antony Blinken has kids?

  4. The Rev Kev

    “Weapons sent to Ukraine may have ended up in Finnish underground”

    That’s going to be a really bad brew moving forward. The EU leadership is determined to continue their campaign to shove the EU countries into financial and social disaster. Gonzalo Lira was estimating that the true inflation rate for the EU is running about 18-20% – and rising. And as the wheels come off the EU project, you suddenly have the criminal gangs in Europe being armed with the latest in military weaponry. I really hope that it does not get as bad as 1990s Russia, an era when a younger Putin went to bed with a shotgun alongside him as things were so bad.

    1. US War on. EU

      My bet is that those weapons have been directed to neonazis and organizations affiliated with Gladio. This to make sure that any one opposing the vassalhood of EU will be met with violence and death.
      Also, destabilizing criminal drug clans must have received weapons to secure a market for CIA.

      1. Paul

        I’ve been of the opinion lots of bad hombres have got to be buying the “good stuff.” For Europe the terrorist with an AK is going to be replaced by the terrorist with the m16.

        Frankly not just the right wing boggy man of the liberals is motivated to get armed. It’s the internet so every 5th comment is about Nazis; Communist in Germany have liked guns plenty too! And all sorts of ethnic, religious, and various causes can and do get violent.

        My main thinking though is while I don’t know what you call the KGB now they are just as able as the CIA to use surveillance, see whose buying, chase them down… and then offer a better deal in the future and hand out free samples. Buy 3 American get 5 Russian free.

        Russia probably will pick up every M16, and javlin, and whatever found and hand it back out around the world. They can’t get blamed for those guns exactly, and every serial number they read off off a dead terrorist will for a long time remind everyone the US congress paid for it.

        And even if Russia does none of this… the Al Quada mercenaries have got to be thinking that way as they fight for Russia. Lots of little bonuses for the hommies back home and Russia’s not gonna ask what they are boxing up and why.

        We have already seen this before, so its not even novel. Heck, just getting all the handguns you can into gangs’ hands in Europe would be a massive social game changer.

        Europeans don’t know what it’s like to have people use guns in the major metros even for simple robbery such as to knock off a liqueur store. Or for 1 angry guy to shoot the president randomly.

        Welcome to GTA Europe edition.

        1. OIFVet

          “the Al Quada mercenaries have got to be thinking that way as they fight for Russia.”

          When did they go fight for Russia, before or after Russia bombed them in Syria, where they were being armed by the US?

          Other than that, one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. If some Haitian starts shooting up US Marines in Port-au-Prince tomorrow with weapons that should have been in Ukraine to use againstRussia, is he a terrorist or is he a freedom fighter?

          1. JBird4049

            >>>Other than that, one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. If some Haitian starts shooting up US Marines in Port-au-Prince tomorrow with weapons that should have been in Ukraine to use againstRussia, is he a terrorist or is he a freedom fighter?

            Considering what the French and the Americans have been doing to the Haitians for over two hundred years, I kind of lean towards the latter and not the former especially as the shooter would be a native and not an invader.

            But what I worry about are the anti aircraft missiles that must be floating around. I can see some airliner going kablooey and hundreds of innocent people dying.

        2. digi_owl

          Nah, the AK is still what is being used in Ukraine.

          And Europe has only “recently” gotten onto the 5.56 bandwagon.

          Thus if said groups were to adopt home grown rifles, it would be something like the various local variants of the HK G3 that was the go to NATO rifle for decades.

          1. The Rev Kev

            Lately when I see video of Hamas fighters, I see that they are all armed with American AR-15 assault rifles. Maybe for them it makes sense to use the same ammo as their enemy.

        3. Anthony G Stegman

          Many of these weapons may eventually be used against China in the contested Xinjiang region. The US has been stirring the pot their for a good long while.

  5. griffen

    Joe Biden with megaphone, these oil companies are just evil and like the dragon from the
    15 Hobbit films by Peter Jackson they only desire to gather more to themselves. You know it’s like they are in it to win it. As a hard data point, I noticed in my regional data points that average gasoline, 87 octane, is running consistently $3.20 to $3.40. Southeastern US.

    As Senator Joe Biden, I am peculiar to ask what his positions were on banking and insurance companies and related regulations for their goal of “profit seeking”. Curious and curiouser.

  6. bassmule

    Are gas stoves the new cigarettes? Not a word about restaurant stoves, or the people who operate them.

    1. OIFVet

      You didn’t think they actually care about the kitchen staff, did you? In any case, I will stick with the gas range, thank you very much. I enjoy cooking and for many things electric ranges are simply nowhere close to gas ranges. Then there is the issue of cost and reliability, where gas ranges are cheaper, more reliable and cheper to fix if something breaks. The high-end electric ones are expensive and prone to requiring expensive repairs. Comparing them to cigarettes is beyond absurd as no one takes their gas stove with them in public and starts cooking on the street corner.

      To me the whole thing is a smaller version of the electric and autonomous vehicle push: pushing people into higher-priced options with less utility and rather expensive maintenance. No, thanks.

      1. Bugs

        I loved my gas stove too but in the end decided it was too much hassle to deal with the tanks since there’s no public gas where I am now.

        Until recently, we had an old electric stove/oven that was garbage so I got a new Smeg with a fancy convection oven and induction hobs. I’ve found induction as easy to use as gas and even more precise in some ways. When you turn off the burner, cooking shuts down so fast. And there’s no comparison cleaning the cooking surface – that’s the best part.

        American gas stoves and furnaces used to have a “pilot” light that kept gas burning 24/24 to make it easier to turn on the burners. I would suppose they use a spark light now.

        1. John Zelnicker

          Bugs – My gas stove uses piezo-electric lighters to produce the spark. My new hot water heater still uses a pilot light.

      2. John Zelnicker

        OIFVet – Yes, indeed.

        I stan for gas stoves. They are so much easier to use and far more responsive with temperature changes. Just as important, they still work during a power outage and, in a pinch, they can be used for heat.

        Never leave a stove burning unattended.

          1. The Rev Kev

            Pretty sure that Twitch banned this guy after a coupla days and he may have gone to different social media. But it was epic of him.

      3. Bill2

        Gas producers and fossil fuel usually donate Republican.
        Electricity providers tend Democrat.

        In California, where we used to live, Newsom gets heavy Pacific Gas and Electric donations, as does his wife and her nonprofit.
        https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article251907588.html

        Electricity can be turned off instantly and with so called Smart Meters, house by house. That’s control. Power failures for people with all electric houses mean the guy next door is warm and you are cold, you can use his gas fired water heater to take a shower and to cook your food.

        1. Anthony G Stegman

          All-electric homes are viable only for homes equipped with solar panels. Depending on utility-provided electricity (most especially PG&E) to power all of your home’s appliances is very foolish. In California the recent law requiring new homes and major home renovations to have all-electric appliances needs to be reversed. A ballot measure will be required to accomplish this since the governor and state legislature are bought and paid for by PG&E and the other utilities.

          1. John Zelnicker

            AGS – Back in the 70’s, all-electric homes were a big thing. They even had medallions by the front door advertising it. There were good reasons why the concept was ultimately abandoned back then.

    2. hunkerdown

      Before stealing working-class valor in service of the parasitic process of moral entrepreneurialism, better ask how many air changes per hour happen in a commercial kitchen.

      1. semper loquitur

        I will say that those stoves at least should have a hood above them sucking away the fumes. I believe they are required in NYC commercial kitchens. When I cooked, we used to burn joints underneath them and no one else could smell the weed.

        1. hunkerdown

          NFPA 1 (the Fire Code), chapter 50: “Cooking equipment used in processes producing smoke or grease-laden vapors shall be equipped with an exhaust system that complies with all the equipment and performance requirements of this standard.” In the 19 states which have adopted the Fire Code, anything more than an electric rice cooker with no butter is likely to fall under its purview, which calls for 1200ft/min. air circulation, which could work out to quite a large volume of fresh air. I’m having trouble finding out what the International Fire Code has to say about it, which (strangely) seems to be more widely adopted in the USA by 41 US states.

    3. Lexx

      I was thinking about all those folks living full-time in trailers, almost all of which have propane stoves operating in tight square footage. That’s millions of people in anything from single-wides to travel trailers.

      We just bought a 5-wheel with a three burner stove (although I rarely use more than one at a time, plus the oven). We open the windows while cooking, this is recreation for us fair weather vacationers, but for full-timers in winter? I’ve seen some very old, very small trailers in those rv parks that were not manufactured with winter camping in mind.

    4. Karl

      Are gas stoves the new cigarettes?

      I was wondering: why the focus on gas stoves rather than other gas appliances like water heaters and furnaces. The reason is that the latter’s emissions are largely vented to the outside. If you have a ventilation hood over the stove, and use it, you’re probably OK.

      Gas stoves emit some uncombusted methane every time they are turned on, which normally has traces of ethane, benzene and other wicked stuff that may be carcinogenic. Enough to worry about relative to all of the other indoor pollutants we live with every day? Who knows?

      Some gourmet cooks like the “instant responsiveness” of a gas flame on the stove top. If you can afford it, I’m told electric induction stove tops are just as responsive (or more so). A saying I’ve heard is that natural gas stoves are to induction stoves as model T’s are to Teslas. This is just anecdotal–I’ve never owned one.

  7. DJG, Reality Czar

    Wikileaks.

    There’s a comment that this is Julian Assange’s “dead man’s switch” among the responses to Girl Interrupted.

    I’m wondering if it instead a way of putting an end to the war in Ukraine, adding a well-deserved pile-on to the U.S. Democrats, and remaking the “narrative.”

    Likewise Briahna Joy Gray, who seems to have come to a major decision about her political stances within these last few days. A hint: She declared the Democratic Party dead.

    And it comes back to the politics of death: Right now, the Democratic Party wants to be the leading warmongering faction in the two-faction mauve/teal system of the Party That Considers Property Sacred.

    1. hunkerdown

      The four newest, most powerful, longest-wanted words on Twitter:

      Ukraine state-affiliated media

      It seems some stagnant water is getting flushed out of the cognitive pipes just before the election. Now that loyal #Democrats have gotten their ballots in or #MadeAPlan to vote, it doesn’t matter as much, and can’t even dissuade PMC turnout.

        1. Mark Gisleson

          I was just wondering that exact same thing. The Hill’s take on the five key Senate races had a curious line in it:

          Democrats have been pouring cash into the race in its final weeks, hoping to give Barnes a last-minute boost. Former President Obama, still one of the most popular Democrats in the country, swung through Wisconsin over the weekend in an effort to salvage his party’s chances there.

          Emphasis mine. When a campaign swings through a state, doesn’t that imply more than one stop? Obama did Milwaukee (the safest Congressional seat in Wisconsin) and then, like Hillary, fled the state. I don’t think he even stayed overnight or appeared in more than one location but it’s hard to wrest any kind of details from reporters retyping press releases.

          Democrats openly mock Republicans but just as openly flee confrontation with those who hold opposing views. Not because they can’t out-argue a Herschel Walker or Ron Johnson, but because they have no answers for the statistics and facts that radically undermine their carefully worded claims about how well they’re running everything.

        2. fresno dan

          OIFVet
          Well, from today’s post, apparently all US mass and social media already IS state affiliated media…
          https://theintercept.com/2022/10/31/social-media-disinformation-dhs/
          The work, much of which remains unknown to the American public, came into clearer view earlier this year when DHS announced a new “Disinformation Governance Board”: a panel designed to police misinformation (false information spread unintentionally), disinformation (false information spread intentionally), and malinformation (factual information shared, typically out of context, with harmful intent) that allegedly threatens U.S. interests
          …..
          According to a draft copy of DHS’s Quadrennial Homeland Security Review, DHS’s capstone report outlining the department’s strategy and priorities in the coming years, the department plans to target “inaccurate information” on a wide range of topics, including “the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, racial justice, U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the nature of U.S. support to Ukraine.”
          ============================================
          What would be interesting is what the US specifically thought was misinformation. I guess it thought the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation? That talk of covid vaccines NOT stopping transmission was disinformation??? That Trump WAS NOT a dupe of Putin was disinformation??? I would bet what most NC commentators think is true and what the US government thinks is true varies by a wide, wide, WIDE amount…
          remember – their interests and your interests do NOT coincide…

          1. OIFVet

            Hah, I still want that label slapped on all MSM accounts and the accounts of their “journalists” because I am really fed up with the continuing narrative aimed at our populations that we in the West have a free and independent media. I am not holding my breath for Musk to do it, though. Should he surprise me, I would recommend more granular categories: DNC affiliated media, RNC affiliated media, Blob-affiliated media, Lockheed Martin -affiliated media, etc. And a special label for Bono: Fluffer-in-Chief of the rich and powerful.

          2. chuck roast

            …the department plans to target “inaccurate information” on a wide range of topics…

            If this means the end of corporate advertising I’m on board.

    2. spud

      the look on Briahna Joy Gray face was one as being stunned, the nafta democrat shills idea of diplomacy is capitulate, we will carve you up, period.

    3. Mike

      She is not posting anything new, this tweet seems to resurface every so often. Doesn’t contain some of the documents she is even claiming, which she later admits. I don’t think she looked at anything in there.

  8. caucus99percenter

    Antifa and Sardonia, you both have outdone yourselves today!

    To make a very dated 1960s analogy, the imaginary musical interludes here are like The Smothers Brothers crossed with That Was The Week That Was.

    1. MaryLand

      Those two shows were must see tv for many of us back in the day. You won’t see shows like that now or maybe ever again.

  9. The Rev Kev

    Re the tweet about relationships in the past. Yeah, not so simple as swapping your daughter for five cows. So I have read how in the 19th century for example, that you had marriage brokers who would settle the finances of two families being joined by marriage and at what price. But I have read of another continent where this custom is still going on and is called Lobolo. In effect, it is like a dowry and missionaries hated it. But it is so dug into Bantu culture that it still survives. It gave the Bantu wife status as well as a definite economic value. If the wife had to be returned to the parents, then the Lobolo had to be refunded and barren wives were usually replaced with a sister. Also, the Lobolo helped support parents of the girl in their old age but there was more to it. For a young Bantu, Lobolo made marriage a serious matter so acquiring the cattle for Lobolo proved him being responsible and efficient. Even a single cow in the 19th century was a sizable investment. Yes, there were and are abuses but it is part of a culture several thousands of years old so has proven itself to that culture. It was a funny cartoon but the past is a very complicated place, especially anything to do with relationships and marriage-

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobolo

    1. CanCyn

      China and India still practice arranged marriages. Pretty sure it is all about dowries and status in both countries. I worked with a Chinese guy who went home to China for a visit and came back to tell us he’d gone to meet his potential in-laws – note, not his future wife. The next time he went home, he came back with his wife. Their first meeting was on their wedding day! She was pregnant before their first anniversary. We in the workplace had 80 billion questions but being polite Canadians* we didn’t ask and he didn’t volunteer. Let’s not even talk about how expensive the visa process would be, my co-worker was not a Canadian citizen.

      *Q: How do you get a bunch of Canadians out of the pool?
      A: Just say, “Everyone out of the pool please”

      1. Yves Smith Post author

        I had a Sikh I worked with who thought arranged marriages made perfect sense. The families usually go to some lengths to see if the prospective couple have what look to be compatible interests and personalities. Either party can say no to the match but the unwritten rule is you can’t say no too many times.

        Of course, there is the wee problem of the ugly daughter or the stupid or bad tempered son….

        Similarly, I had someone Chinese explain, “You Westerners see marriage as a love story. We see it as a life long romance.”

        1. nippersdad

          There is an entire genre of Bollywood movies on NetFlix that goes into the nuances of arranged marriages in India. It appears that they have a lot of fun with the idea.

          1. LY

            Netflix has a reality series about Indians going through the matchmaking process https://www.netflix.com/title/80244565

            Though, would going through a formal matchmaker still considered being arranged? The the prospective couple does go through a series of dates, and each person going through the process has a lot of input. But so do the parents…

            1. nippersdad

              “The the prospective couple does go through a series of dates, and each person going through the process has a lot of input.”

              I agree, and I have to wonder if that has not always been the case for matchmaking in India (and perhaps elsewhere in the East). When one thinks of “arranged marriages” from the Western perspective it always leads to Henry VIII type scenarios, when, for regular middle class type people, the whole idea is just to maintain stability within families. Are the parents really trying to become Habsburgs or are they just wanting some grandkids without the potential for having to raise them on their own? Also, too, could a culture that came up with the Kama Sutra not have value for the fundamental need for some kind of chemistry in a relationship?

              The idea may be alien, but the numbers do not lie; they do not have over fifty percent divorce rates.

        2. eg

          As I understand it, in the West marriage was originally a property contract. Since women (along with minors of either gender) were chattels rather than independent persons, the father transferred responsibility for (ownership of) his daughter to his son-in-law.

      2. hunkerdown

        The economic and social-reproductive aspects of marriage, those that actually control and structure the arrangement, can be seen more clearly for what they are when one doesn’t accrete an ideology of love to it, or romanticize it so to speak. In fact, marriage is not about love, it’s about furniture, and particularly, the furniture of petty nobility.

        1. digi_owl

          Makes me think of Soylent Green, and how one of the witnesses were a young lady considered “furniture”. Meaning she came with the apartment of the dead exec who’s murder is being investigated. Best i recall, she was basically a resident maid/prostitute.

          1. hunkerdown

            Heh, the Soylent Green institution of furniture slavery wasn’t what I had in mind, but I can see that line of thought.

      3. Will

        An Indian friend (Brahmin caste) was finally able to marry after more than 2 years of intensive vetting by his mother and sister of potential matches on a global “dating” website. Not exactly an arranged marriage since he was allowed to contact the family approved candidates and basically exercise a veto. But certainly not an example of a Western love story.

        Interestingly, one of the main reasons he was finally able to get married, and a major reason for doing it, was getting an MBA from Stanford. An engineering degree just wasn’t enough to compete with doctors, lawyers, etc., in attracting the attention of suitably qualified mates. Credentialism and social reproduction are a lot easier to see when it’s explicated within a formal caste system. Even when members of that caste grow up in the West. (Specifically Canada but now living in San Francisco.)

        As with Yves’s Chinese acquaintance, my Indian friend said that marriage was a lifelong endeavour and so courtship beforehand was not necessary. At the same time, during the (week long) wedding, I heard many an uncle wax poetic on their love match and how they were fated to be together.

        1. Anthony G Stegman

          In China it is nearly impossible for a man to find a wife if he doesn’t own a home. That is absolutely required. There is an old saying – No money, no honey. It is a global truth.

      4. GramSci

        I taught for too many years at a Catholic college whose business model was charging steep tuition so well-to-do Catholic girls could be introduced to similarly well-to-do Catholic boys.

        1. GF

          I wish the “Most Expensive College…” post in links would have also included the least expensive 4 year non-vocational college too.

    2. OIFVet

      I just received an invitation from an acquaintance to join what appears to be a dating club cofounded by her. Their hook appears to be a “keen understanding of individual needs and desires” backed by the long track record in the self-improvement business by one of the founders (she claims to be a psychologist, which in the BG context means she has read some self-help books of dubious provenance and taken an online course from an unaccredited “institute” to earn a “diploma”) and by the other founder’s degree in astrology from the Moscow University of Astrology (I swear I am not making it up). Both of these ladies are 45+ and never married. The fine print gives it up – it’s rather pricey per event or on annual membership basis. I can tell by some of the other invitees that it targets people with disposable income and that it will likely lead to lots of casual sex and no real long-term commitments. Not that there is anything wrong with that, though I can go to any number upscale piano or jazz bars and find a short-term companionship for the price of an interesting conversation and a couple of cocktails. So, hard pass on this club.

      Anyway, I guess my point is that while people in the target group of this dating club will look down on arranged marriage and cultures that have it, the institution appears to be successful in creating stable marriage and committed companionship. That’s a stark contrast with some of our woke and modern societies. The epidemic of loneliness in such societies speaks for itself.

      1. Eureka Springs

        Perhaps loneliness has always been around. Difference being with eight billion of us and this thing called the internet so many more people are aware they are not alone in their loneliness. Including many who are in a ‘relationship’.

        How I miss a good dark smoke filled jazz lounge.

        1. Lee

          Yes, life and romance found a way before the internet: bars, workplaces, political organizations and demonstrations, bookstores, cafes, musical events and so on. Of course, that was all also before Covid.

          1. Anthony G Stegman

            Covid is no longer interfering with the pursuit of romance, despite the fears of Naked Capitalism readers. Whether or not it is foolish, most people have moved beyond Covid. They know it’s out there, but familiarity breeds contempt and so they no longer fear it.

      2. skippy

        Oh … don’t make me describe the after math of my first date in about 30 odd years OIFVet or the business models of some of the dating sites [my own research] nor the heavy marketing of the individual seeking a good[date] to flesh out some paint by number reality expectation[plug and play = happiness] … whoboy …

        Too early and off to work … phew …

        Ex wife got hit on though … hahahaha ~~~~~~~

      3. skippy

        Back from work so here I go OIFVet and NC’ers ….

        After mental condom was getting a wee bit thin after looking at profiles/photos I saw two that look genuine so I responded. Great texting chat with the first which is very close to where I live, but was heading down to Victoria to see the girls that week. So that left #2. Had a nice text chat and then she offered phone number because she does not like the typing so much. Great conversation, attractive, Dentist [late 80s vintage degree] that sold business and now working 2/3 days a week at some younger couples dentist office and financially secure.

        So we set a first meet and greet at a close by coffee/cafe place for a Sat morning at 9:30am. She was running late and I was standing out front when she drove up in her Porsche Macan. Rubber necked hard at me even after going past me up the street. Needed to check something on my phone and she ended up walking up to me after parking before I noticed, gezzzz she was perky having a look up close. Anywho had a nice time for about 2 hours and decided another date would be in the works in about a week.

        Then the texts whilst at work and phone calls after works started. Had to tell her that I’m flat chat from 4:45am to around 7:30pm and can’t reply or I don’t check my phone like that. So last Sat having a chat with her on the phone before the 2nd date she kept bringing up family/her values in a round about way to owning a home. I had already informed her of my circumstances with the ex and renting 2 doors down from her parents, her medical ICH event, and how I am still here with the 2 boys of age till the eldest wants to buy in 2 years due to change of work and wanting some years in it before pulling the trigger.

        Wellie that did not seem good enough and she was getting a wee bit pushy so I had to pull the pin on that and the excessive texts/calls, which she then took umbrage, and at the end of it all I stated what a shallow life she must life …. gasp horror … the date after that she suggested was seeing Hamilton … would have to attend with my NC rosary beads to ward off ev’bal PMC spirits for that gig … punchline is I’m worth a lot more than she is … but ….

        Yet I am having a bit of fun doing my socioeconomic leg work going through this whole new dating site thingy. Some are just for dirty talk and happy endings[seems like bots in call centers or at home], others frisky hook ups/ONS[one night stands], and others a mix bag of gotta have a man before too old or because thingy. Regardless of whichever there is a check list paradigm with each one and everyone is trying to present themselves in a manner to hit all the boxes. Over the top photography, staged photos in the right places, mind numbing PR/marketing descriptions of self, e.g. everyone is just a commodity that self imposes a pigeonhole to reside in to fetch the dream[tm] man … ugh …

        1. OIFVet

          I feel you, Skippy. I can no longer bear the dating app thing, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are good reasons why people are on them past a certain age: shallowness, materialism, impossibly high standards (which masks other things) and inability to hold a normal conversation. There are exceptions, of course, but trying to locate a needle in a haystack ain’t my thing at 45 years of age.

          Now, I did find two decent ladies on these apps, but at the end it didn’t work out. The first was 29 when we started dating, responsible, driven and mature for her age. But impatient and ultimately a tiny bit less mature than needed. When things began to turn serious (as in talks about kids) is when it went wrong. I am unable to father children the traditional way, in vitro is the only way. I understand it is an unpleasant procedure for a woman, but that fact about me was something I had disclosed on the very first date, I know what a 29 year old woman has planned for and I am not the kind of man to drop unpleasant surprises only after things get deeper. Well, she didn’t want to go through in vitro and suggested some procedure for me her gynecologist had told her about, expensive while having less than 40% chance of being successful. The cost-benefit simply didn’t add up. Still, I was game to try it on the condition that she committed to an answer what will happen if the procedure was unsuccessful. Well, I didn’t hear the answer I needed to hear so I ended it.

          The second relationship ended recently after 13 months together. Slightly older than me, HR professional, mature and responsible. A PMC liberal through and through, though I am not the kind of guy to hold that against a person I am trying to have a relationship with. It wasn’t quite mutual, though. Her brother-in-law was the majority whip of the neoliberal Harvard party in the last parliament and is still a top guy at the party, so my failure to be in awe of Harvard grifters was rather grating on her. She could see me being the fly in the ointment at family gatherings. Still, we pressed on. Then the war in Ukraine came and with it, the fights. At least, she fought and I was trying to have discussions, but in a typical liberal fashion it was her way or the highway, reason and facts be d@mned. Cavemen russophobia was one thing, joining a protest in front of the Russkie embassy, where Azov flags were being waved, was quite another. Patched it up somehow after I made it clear that it was either me or the Ukie neo-scumbags waving the Azov flags. But during the last election, my failure to drive 200 miles one way to vote at my registered jurisdiction because 1. I am too tired teaching unruly high schoolers and 2. There really is no party worth voting for, was too much for her. The corruption party won because of my failure to cast a ballot, or so she implied, and not becauseher brother-in-law’s party was too incompetent when they were in power, or because they managed to alienate a lot of voters with their attempts to arm Ukraine and with being the first to drop Russian gas supplies and therefore hitting people’s pocketbooks. And then she drove this message home again and again and again for couple of weeks. Well, that gets old for me, fast. And when she starts making weekend plans that didn’t include me, well, I got the message. It was a shame she didn’t have the guts to just come out and say that she viewed me as incompatible for political reasons. Frankly, she couldn’t quite square my education and previous achievements with my failure to be a good little liberal PMC, or with me choosing to teach instead of opting for something more prestigious and better paid. Meanwhile all I wanted is the freedom to be me and to express myself without being demonized and being called a Putinist.

          Anyway, I am now of the firm opinion that I will only look for a partner in the traditional way and that I will never compromise my freedom to have my own opinions. Open-mindedness is a must and living in the closet or in an enforced echo chamber is not my thing. Problem is that people are largely driven by stereotypes. In my case, my background means that the stereotypes about me are: must be USA USA type of person, probably excessively liberal, not Bulgarian enough, must be American-rich (for the less well informedgold digger types), etc. It’s truly a difficult and well-mined landscape to navigate. So, fun one night stands it is for the time being, but those get old fast for me, not enough mental and emotional stimulation.

    3. digi_owl

      It always comes back to money, as a proxy for power.

      For the Bantu it is a herd of cows, for the modern westerner it is an expensive car.

  10. Katniss Everdeen

    I love Briahna Joy Gray.

    I listened to part of this podcast, and she more than held her own against this insufferable ex-state department hack demanding that his “opinion,” that the milquetoast “progressive” letter urging “diplomacy” in Ukraine was somehow staff-generated “dumb diplomacy,” be taken seriously.

    She was especially good when, in an attempt to “prove” his point, he lamented the fact that pramila jayapal damaged her chances at a congressional “leadership position” by releasing the letter, and Gray responded that she “didn’t give a fig” about what happened to jayapal given what a weak, spineless and ineffective “leader” she’d proven herself to be.

    I really don’t know how Gray continued the “conversation” for over an hour with this guy. If his frustratingly patronizing incoherence is any indication of the way the u.s. “state” department does business, it’s no mystery why this country finds itself in the massive international mess on numerous fronts that it does.

    1. IM Doc

      Me too.

      When she asked how Tulsi Gabbard had been untruthful, his best answer is she used the word Democrat when referrring to Dems. Oh yes, oh yes he did. These people are really a clown show.

      When you look at her tweet, very early on in the comments, he post a reply of basically “Why can’t we all get along?” And then suggests on article from Foreign Affairs. I would call that publication the organ of the neocon impulse in foreign affairs. I was one of the cool kid liberals back in GWB who decried everything to do with neocons. They have now migrated to control the entire Biden State Department. Scum like Bill Kristol and Jennifer Rubin are now the mouthpieces of the Dem Party. How did the Dem Party allow these morons to have such control?

      Warmongering? How about the drip drip drip of 30 billion for Ukraine here and 52 billion there? I cannot even keep track anymore.

      Meanwhile, I get to go to work today and deal with young diabetic fathers tasked to pay 800 dollars a month for insulin on top of almost tripled commuting cost, 5 dollar a dozen eggs, rent blowing out the roof. And yet we can afford to throw billions down a mess that has nothing to do with us?

      How much insulin would the now more than 100 billion given to Ukrainian mobsters buy?

      I just saw on CNBC the head of Biden’s economic policy asked why they are so hell bent on windfall taxes for the oil industry but not big pharma. After all they both have windfalls from the pandemic. “We have already passed a plan to have Medicare forced to bargain for drug prices. We hope that will move out into private insurance as well.” There’s that word “hope” again. Kinda liked Birx announced “we hoped the vaccines were going to work”.

      And yet Medicare will not be able to do a thing until 2026 and it will be a very limited number of drugs. It is a total farce. And it will do nothing for 30somethings.

      This Dem is hoping the thrashing is severe and unforgettable next week. These people need some serious contemplation time in the wilderness. When I can see that true repentance has been achieved, then and only then will I even consider voting for them again. I do not think I am alone by a long shot.

      1. rookieEMT

        Honest question, have you considered not voting Dem for the rest of your life?

        I’m probably younger than you by a long shot but I just see an abusive relationship where Democrats will reform temporarily and then go right back to being worse than Republicans. It can’t reform. It’s done.

        Actual progressives or even sane people who do not like the concept of WWIII now have the green party, maybe libertarians, or straight up socialism. Not much choice, but we aren’t really a democracy anymore.

        1. Eureka Springs

          How far back should we go? Our inception – native American genocide, Monroe Doctrine, any and every military move since the end of WWII? The duopoly has always agreed more than not, especially on matters military and empire. The people, democracy, be damned, but we should encourage them to think they have democracy. Ha!

          One of the many reasons I have removed myself from the voter roll in a personal vote strike is because all parties, even green, socialist, have no democratically established platform nor are they bound to represent it. Why hire someone with a new name who can ignore and or usurp all duties?

          1. Anthony G Stegman

            I agree with you, and have also decided to forego voting. The nastiness of the United States goes to the bone and further to the very DNA of the nation. It makes no difference how many different offspring there are because the nastiness will be inherited by all following generations. Bernie Sanders calls himself a socialist. He behaves as an imperialist because that is his DNA, as it is with all Americans. It simply can’t be helped.

        2. LilD

          Yeah, I vote green or write in
          Do I think republican policies are better than democratic policies? Hell no. But I believe that I have been betrayed by the democrats too many times

          My congressman is jimmy panetta, son of Leon, ex military. It’s a blue district …

          I really can’t see a path towards a society that I want to live in but I read my Marcus Aurelius and keep trying to do my part, as feeble as it is

      2. Screwball

        I do not think I am alone by a long shot.

        I don’t think you are, and these people can’t get lose bad enough. I don’t believe in censorship (which so many of these people do), but I really hope they get a huge dose of STFU.

      3. Acacia

        Agree. They need to get slammed hard. Not just losing a majority in House and Senate, but really slammed into the wilderness, like IM Doc says. It needs to be serious enough that they can’t just blame shift onto deplorables/racists/haters, etc. They need to really see that they own “base” has given them the finger and dumped them.

        Unfortunately, though, I don’t see it happening in the midterms. The Dems may even maintain a majority in the Senate. So many people have been persuaded that there is some great and important difference between the Dems and the GOP, and that “the alternative is so much worse”. It seems clear that this logic means really nothing will ever change, but so many Dem voters act like they’ve got Stockholm syndrome. Honestly, I don’t understand it.

      4. Katniss Everdeen

        No kidding with respect to Tulsi calling it the “democrat” party. That’s a well-deserved pejorative, not a “lie.”

        And with respect to your comments yesterday about your republican-voting relatives being dishonestly portrayed in the media as being “responsible” for what happened to pelosi, did you happen to see Tucker Carlson last night? This is how he put it: (paraphrasing)

        What they’re telling you is that dissenting in any way from the editorial positions of, say, the washington post or the daily beast or the atlantic magazine, disagreeing with those publications and the consensus they represent, isn’t simply immoral. No, it’s worse than that. It’s violence. It gets people killed…..When you question, say, covid protocols or drag queen story hour or the war against Russia, you are effectively smashing an 82-year-old man in the head with a hammer.

        It’s revolting.

      5. flora

        “Meanwhile, I get to go to work today and deal with young diabetic fathers tasked to pay 800 dollars a month for insulin….”

        When I think the of minimal cost of insulin manufacture and that Banting* sold the original patent for, what, $1.00 , I’m constantly impressed that Dr. IM remains so civil in his comments in the face of all this. Dr is, if I may say so, a good role model for all of us during this horrible time. Anger perhaps but without surrender of reason to emotion.
        My 2 cents.

        “About the sale of the patent of insulin for $1 Banting reportedly said, “Insulin belongs to the world, not to me.”
        https://bantinghousenhs.ca/2018/12/14/insulin-patent-sold-for-1/

      6. skippy

        Flexians will move where reward sends them …. see PMC now … its logical and rational under the auspices of neoliberalism …

          1. skippy

            Its just basic sociological psychology with a term to describe an antiquarian observation based on the haves[priests narrative writers for the divine rulers] and the not-haves[unwashed] … hence the good works to diminish social psychology over the years with the DSM to advance atomistic individualism above all other considerations … e.g. consumers are weak and capital is in control.

            This is a level what Hudson bangs on about IMO …

    2. The Rev Kev

      I’d heard the name Joe Cirincione once or twice but that is all. Took a look at his Wikipedia page and it seems that he is just a think tank wonk-

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Cirincione

      But listening him actually talk was like listening to a petulant, little kid talking to a patient adult – here the adult being Briahna Joy Gray. I hope that she is as good as she sounds.

      1. pjay

        Much of his Wikipedia bio is informative, but I couldn’t help but notice this:

        “He joined the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft as a non-resident fellow in September 2020, and is an adjunct faculty member at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service.[4][5] He resigned from the Quincy Institute in August 2022 in protest of its dovish response to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, which he described as “a completely unjustified, unprovoked invasion of a sovereign state”.

        The “Democrat” party as warmongers? Preposterous says Joe! They’re defenders of Democracy – it’s in their name! Tulsi’s a liar!

    3. albrt

      Am I correct in recalling that Gray started out on Daily Kos as “angrymouse”? She seemed sensible and well-centered even back then, although she must have been very young.

      1. Katniss Everdeen

        She was National Press Secretary for Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign.

        Compare and contrast to karine jean pierre.

    4. nippersdad

      I just got done watching that podcast, and it was remarkable to me how all of the precursors to the Russian SMO had just been memory holed. If Cirincione’s big problem was the changing of European borders then the natural answer to that would have been our support for that very thing in Yugoslavia. How do you talk for an hour about Ukraine without mentioning the Normandy process and the two Minsk agreements?

      I think she did a great job with that interview, but it would have been a lot better had she deep sixed the entire notion that this was about building up a fledgling democracy in a place where democracy was something that was specifically ruled out when we sent in the MBA’s to create an oligarchy there in the Nineties. What Cirincione needs to answer is why he is OK with Ukraine being the poorest and most corrupt state in Europe and how Russia managed to avoid that fate.

      Everything else was just fruit of a poisoned tree.

  11. Basil Pesto

    Right. The productivity decline is due 100% to faffing off workers, as opposed to supply chain issues meaning they can’t complete work on a timely basis, plus co-workers being sick also messing up task/project completion.

    It’s amazing stuff, but you might have missed this tweet by the world’s pre-eminent galaxy-brain, Matt Yglesias

    Heck, never mind Covid, which is just a flu, or Long Covid, which is obviously just fearmongering to keep the fake left wing coronavirus in the headlines, or whatever. Consider this article about SARS1, SARS2’s close cousin that only infected ~8000 people, which prevented it from becoming politicised as virtually nobody had to care about it. It’s a ten year patient follow up of infectees in Canada, from 2013. They note:

    “They’re still, after 10 years, experiencing problems. Issues such as fatigue, muscle and joint pain, shortness of breath and some newly developing problems such as neuropathy, numbness in the feet and hands,” she said.

    And those are just the physical scars.

    Studies looking at patients seven years post-SARS have shown 41 per cent of patients report depression and post traumatic stress disorder.

    and

    About 40 to 50 per cent of her sample was unable to return to work.

    “These are professionals, this is an identity they had,” she explains.

    The overwhelming tiredness changes their lives.

    “We’re not just talking about feeling a little bit tired each day. This is a disabling fatigue,” Gardner says.

    Some patients take on an activity for nearly 20 minutes and need to return to rest.

    and we’re really just going to pretend that its close relative, empirically known to cause similar problems after less than three years (although the cardiovascular/clotting stuff with SARS2 seems new, yay), and with which hundreds of millions if not billions of people have been infected, isn’t going to have an effect on labour/productivity? Truly, insanely vacuous timeline we have here.

    1. Mikel

      The Fed and many economists are dedicated to blaming worker wages, benefits, subsidies, and bargaining power as the main culprit of all economic ills.

    1. nippersdad

      But Biden is just a tool.

      I have viewed this a Clinton war. It was they who pushed NATO into Eastern Europe despite all warnings to the contrary. It was the “former Goldwater Girl” who never got over the Soviet Union and put all the players on the board while she was SoS during the Obama Administration. It is she that has formed the nucleus of the Russia Russia Russia psyop we have been subjected to ever since.

      It seems pretty clear that, had she won the presidency in ’16, she would have driven her Panzers into Russia the next day, and likely won while they were still weak. I am actually grateful that Trump intervened so that we could see who was behind that particular curtain. Hopefully that group will be so discredited that we may finally be rid of them.

      1. GramSci

        The plan was for the Clinton Foundation to cash in on the bounty from the Harvard Boys. Putin squelched her plan, and Lady Macbeth has never forgiven him.

        1. nippersdad

          Exactly. I have heard it said that they keep lists and never forgive anyone, now we see just what they will do to get their revenge. They are just a black hole of horrible people that attracts yet more horrible people, and now we are seeing an event horizon that threatens to suck us all into their issues.

          She really does need to spend more time in the woods with her chardonnay and leave us all alone.

          1. Anthony G Stegman

            Hillary Clinton is a product of her time. In the Bay Area there are many supporters of Hillary Clinton. They identify with her in many ways. The rabid support for Ukraine by these people is easy to see. Hillary is not at all an anomaly. She is a one time 1960s flower child who turned into a PMC cretin as many of them have done. Money, power, and the limousine liberal lifestyle is what these strivers strive for.

          2. The Rev Kev

            ‘I have heard it said that they keep lists and never forgive anyone, now we see just what they will do to get their revenge.’

            They actually use Excel for their enemies list.

        1. nippersdad

          I had read that, but missed anything about the Bush Admin. having dedicated themselves to pissing off the Russians. Wasn’t Baker the one who had the NATO policy of “not one inch further East”? There have been a lot of documents that came out recently to show that had been their policy, and that it was the Clintons who took advantage of its not having been put into a treaty (“nothing in writing”).

      2. spud

        100%, if you want to change the future, you must understand and address the past. since 1993 america became a super charged war machine, even worse than previous history.

        https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-bill-clinton-legacy_b_106089

        “Free trade, democracy promotion, and the use of force to uphold global norms comprised the core of Bill Clinton’s foreign policy – and they remain the central ideas of today’s Democratic foreign policy establishment.”

      3. Karl

        I hate to sound like a right wing conspiracist, but maybe it should be called Soros’s war? I know he’s a favorite whipping boy for autocrats of the right like Orban of Hungary, but we can agree he is at least an important Dem Party influencer over these past 40 years?

        We know how important the donor class is on influencing policy in hot spots (e.g. Taiwan). Inside the DC beltway there are all of these people who have grown up in families who fled Eastern Europe after WW II, like Biden’s Deputy SOS Nuland (Ukraine) and Clinton’s SOS Albright (Czechoslovakia). Soros is the Dem Party’s #1 donor in 2020 (and probably past years) and his Open Society Foundation almost certainly had a strong hand in cultivating the “right” people for the right positions in foreign policy establishment. To give an idea of the magnitude of his Foundation’s influence in dollars, it has spent $18 Billion since its founding in 1979 on “pro-Democracy” projects and $1.4 Billion in 2020 alone. According to its website, its activities in Eastern Europe started in 1989…

        By the fall of the Berlin Wall, Open Society has established a presence in Poland, Ukraine and Russia. Over the next five years, the Open Society Foundations establish a network of offices in Albania, the Baltic States, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Romania, and Slovakia.

        Soros was born in Hungary in 1930 and is a survivor of the Holocaust. Ironically, much of his pro-democracy work in East Europe did not take root in his native Hungary.

        I am no opponent of Soros’s “Open Society” lofty goals (a name derived from Carl Popper’s influential book) but we all know the road to Hell is paved with good intentions….

        Perhaps I am off base giving Soros too much “credit” for getting the Democratic Party and this country too deeply involved in Ukraine….? It’s hard to see the sense of this seeming obsession with Ukraine otherwise…. Of course, this war could also be called “McCain’s War” or “Graham’s War”–clearly the Russophobia is a bi-partisan disease.

    2. Questa Nota

      Give a shout-out, or raise a finger or two for those across the pond, to Victoria Nuland, Obama et al.

  12. tegnost

    It’s only a real protest when it’s the PMC doing it like the pink hatted election deniers

    We’re reaching levels of internalized propaganda that make “preemptive strike” seem reasonable.
    …yeah, but a preemptive strike on what? The DNC? NYT? WaPo?

    quite obviously we can look back 10 years to Crimea’s invasion and Maidan before that.

    the maidan was 8 years ago…Facts!
    Personally I call it nulands war, but vindemans war works, and it was hillary’s turn to have a war, but… anyhow, the rev is right, biden owns it now.

  13. tegnost

    So great to know I aged 5 years this week, but it was mild aging, so there’s that…
    at least I’m over 60

      1. tegnost

        Accordingly, the vast majority (76.6%) of the post-COVID-19 group had an average DeltaAge acceleration of 10.45 years (Figure 2, red dots). Considering that this method has a tolerance of about ± 5.2 years [20,31], the corrected average accelerated DeltaAge for this group was 5.25.

        I won’t ever understand statistics but I think 10.25 +_ 7.29 corrected average somehow turns into 5.25. Those more knowledgeable may pipe in to clarify if they think it’s worth doing…

        1. Yves Smith Post author

          No, what you said was the range is 10.25 – 7.29, or 2.96, to 10.25 + 7.29 or 17.54. The midpoint of the range is still 10.25. I have no idea how you fabricated these numbers from the text you quoted. You also wrote 10.25 when the text says 10.45. Was that a typo?

          I agree the 5.25 makes no sense based on what they presented. If you take their 10.25 or 10.45 and multiply it by .776 (assuming the result of the population had no Delta acceleration) the adjusted average would be 7.85 or 8.00

    1. Anthony G Stegman

      I have noticed that among people I know and interact with, most seem to have physically aged more in the 2.5 years of Covid than they did in the prior 5-10 years. Perhaps others among you have noticed this as well.

  14. hunkerdown

    It’s really amazing how mentally ill partisan PMCs think their feelings are worthwhile, even urgent matters for public discussion rather than throatpunching. Maybe you should explain in detail why any of you cognitively defective feelings-bags should be allowed to trouble an audience at all instead of being billed for the free mental health care psychotic partisans such as yourself desperately need.

  15. OIFVet

    “Let alone who “provoked” this situation, when quite obviously we can look back 10 years to Crimea’s invasion and Maidan before that.”

    Please, do share your thoughts on the Maidan and Crimea. Perhaps you ought to go back a bit farther, say 2008 or thereabouts.

    “We’re reaching levels of internalized propaganda that make “preemptive strike” seem reasonable.”

    Who are “we” and how did “we” get there?

  16. Colonel Smithers

    Thank you.

    The Arabian peninsula, too.

    One of dad’s team had a wedding arranged. When his family and he turned up at the bride to be’s house, he spotted her younger sister and decided she was the one. The pair are still married and have two children who nearing primary / junior high school age. He’s entitled to three more wives, but has not taken up the, er, opportunity, an increasing trend.

    I wondered what happened to the elder sister and what the reaction was, but daren’t ask.

    Men and women may gather under the same roof, but must not celebrate together in the same room. This was not observed. The bride dressed like a westerner in white under the abaya. The groom dressed in a suit under his robe.

    This is a reply to the Rev Kev, Cancyn and Yves.

  17. Polar Socialist

    Not that it matters much, but there really was no “invasion” in Crimea. Russian troops already stationed in Crimea took possession of certain road crossings and enclosed Ukrainian troops into their barracks. Over half of the Ukrainians switched sides right there and then, which took the fight out of the rest.

    This intervention allowed the autonomous (as in having the freedom to govern itself, according to the Ukrainian constitution) Crimean parliament to declare independence – IIRC it was a tenth attempt since 1990, and the first one not prevented, suppressed or totally ignored by Kiev.

    At no point, to my knowledge, did the “polite men” take any action regarding the proceedings of either the Crimean parliament, administration or the following referendum. They did not force Crimeans to do anything, they did not impose themselves on the governing process, they just allowed what was a long planned and yearned political process finally to take place.

    One should also remember that a day or two before the Russian army took action, there was an protest on the Crimean parliament building, where Ukrainian (Right Sector) and Tatar activists demanded ending Crimean autonomy and they even in to the building. Police was present, but did not interfere.

    The Crimean politicians had actually been sure that Donetsk and Luhansk would be the first to leave Ukraine, and were somewhat surprised they had the chance to take the lead. As the situation unfolded, they saw no other possibility than to declare independence to prevent the Maidan thing spreading to Crimea.

  18. The Rev Kev

    ‘This is precisely why eliminating covid will remain an issue. Long covid will be decimating health and productivity of our populations, as reinfections will wreak ever greater havoc. We either eliminate covid or we will have a population of invalids.’

    I think that this guy is right. So let’s do some simple kitchen mathematics here and I will choose the absolute worse possible case here just because I can. So let’s take an average blue collar worker whose job entails working with people all day long. And management says no masks as it puts customers off. And add in a busy social life as well as mixing with is neighbours often. So we have seen with Coronavirus that you can get re-infected after only a month of being infected. So it is technically possible to be infected a dozen times a year. And that means that over the course of the ten years this guy is talking about, it is technically possible to be infected maybe 120 times. You won’t as you would be long dead of it but bear with me. So, just for fun, we’ll knock off 90% of all those infections which leaves you being infected about a dozen times in the course of that decade. Also, as you will suffer permanent damage one in three times that you get infected, that means that four times you will get serious damage. And I am not even going to go into T-cell damage. In short, the mathematics of Coronavirus sucks. And this guy is right. Ignoring it is not sustainable and maybe in ten years time we will have a generation of people crippled by this virus. Then where will be the economy that all those people were sacrificed for?

    https://health.anu.edu.au/news-events/news/how-soon-can-i-get-covid-again-experts-now-say-28-days-%E2%80%93-you-can-protect-yourself

    1. JBird4049

      Goody, go insane because you have to quarantine yourself or obliterate your body because the boss says so. Either way, eventually become homeless because you can’t work anymore.

  19. SocalJimObjects

    That tweet by Yanzhong Huang. I just had to laugh listening to the guy using a word like “lying flat” a.k.a taking things easy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_ping to describe the West’s attitude towards Covid. And yes I can confirm that the guy did say that after 10 years, the entire world will collapse absent zero Covid policy. Excepting China obviously.

    However, there’s a section in the middle of the speech that I found to be quite “strong”. He said something along : “The people in the system (I am guessing this refers to the CCP) are much smarter and more sophisticated than us. You guys don’t know the full picture and lack their broad perspective, so just listen and obey them when it comes to Covid”.

    1. cnchal

      > . . . I just had to laugh listening to the guy using a word like “lying flat” a.k.a taking things easy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_ping to describe the West’s attitude towards Covid.

      Yep, I laughed too. He should have used “let it rot” to accurately describe our covid condition.

  20. Glossolalia

    RE: Self-Driving Cars Are Going Nowhere

    I can’t read the article because its paywalled, but I can guess the gist. One of my favorite indicators of tech industry grifting is the eternal promise that self-driving cars are just around the corner. Invariably when I mock the idea online I get a bunch of Tesla/Uber/etc. fanbois insisting that self-driving cars are already here! (and then citing some tiny pilot program like how autonomous taxis are driving a one mile loop around the Phoenix airport).

  21. The Rev Kev

    “Ascot suspends writing new cover for Ukrainian shipments”

    I should have thought of this myself. One ship has already been hit by a mine ad there are till perhaps four hundred more mines out there with some getting away from time to time. Unsaid is the possibility that the Ukrainians may let a ship hit a mine so that they can turn around and blame Russia from pulling out of escorting those ships in a propaganda stunt. The Ukraine and Türkiye may want to have the scheme keep going but that is because they want the money from it. The Ukraine needs the cash payment for those shipments and Türkiye receives about 34% of all that grain and don’t want to lose it. But for an insurance company, that would be a helluva risk.

  22. Alice X

    Apologies if I have missed this anywhere hereabouts, but even if so, it might bear repeating. An adverse ruling by the Supremes in the case Moore v. Harper could overturn judicial review of state legislatures regarding their election laws. It could be a big bad deal. From Counterpunch:

    Independent State Legislature: the New Pitch-Black
    by James C. Nelson

    It is always darkest–right before it gets pitch-black.

    Sadly, that is also true in constitutional law. The case in point is Moore v. Harper, pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. That the Supreme Court even took this case begs a conclusion that the conservative fix is in and that the Court will decide before the summer of 2023 what J. Michael Luttig (former 4th Circuit Court Judge, appointed in 1991 by President George H.W. Bush) has described as “the most important case for American democracy in the almost two and a half centuries since America’s founding.”

    1. jsn

      Back to the Articles of Confederation!

      Signed into law 1781, broke down 1786.

      With todays economic and political tempos, misaligned as they are, I give the re-run 2 years before the polity, such as it is, disintegrates.

      1. hunkerdown

        It would be a good start, but unless there is an absolute right to freedom from religion, it will be corrupted within about 5-10 years.

    2. Janeway

      I guess it might benefit R over D – but here in NY, if it weren’t for the courts, the D Legislature & D Gov would have eliminated all but 2 R leaning congressional districts, and even then it would have likely been just 1 R congressperson from NY.

      Regardless, I trust both R & D to take full advantage if this comes to pass and any R gains would be offset by D gains in single rule states.

  23. caucus99percenter

    I was actually at the Theaterplatz in Dresden that afternoon, just to see with my own eyes what one of these events is like.

    The event was billed as “Day for Peace and Freedom / Tag für Frieden und Freiheit.” Police were on hand, of course, to enforce separation and avoid clashes between march participants and possibly violent counter-protesters. There were also some volunteer organizers in yellow vests. But the area is an open public square surrounded by architectural landmarks. The weather being good, many families were out for a stroll; there was an ice-cream vendor doing a land-office business; gawking, photo-taking tourists were wandering through the whole time.

    The point is: anyone could show up and mingle. Nowhere was there a gate or door or checkpoint manned by a disco bouncer, security guard, or other authority, controlling the composition of the crowd (= the later Spaziergänger / marchers).

    What I saw was a pretty good approximation of a cross-section of Dresden: people of all ages and backgrounds, ranging from passionate, bohemian-looking “peace moms” with hand-drawn signs and a toddler in tow, to tightly organized, sectarian-looking little leftie or rightie groups (whose flags and professionally-printed signs and banners tend to “hijack” visual impressions of such gatherings).

    It’s hard to say much more than that. What I do know is that easy generalizations about the participants are probably false. Attempts at disparagement along the lines of “The whole thing is tainted because XYZ type crackpots were very visible” fall flat because one of the basic themes in grass-roots movements is not having power-monopolizing gatekeepers (“If today they can ban XYZ, tomorrow they can ban you).”

    1. jsn

      Thank you!

      People don’t show up with the labels our betters use to divide them unless they’re paid to.

      I saw how that worked in Rockland County NY the first weekend of the Tea Party protests, with GOP operatives and satchels of cash. There’s likely no one with the money to fund a peace protest!

    2. Skip Intro

      Attempts at disparagement along the lines of “The whole thing is tainted because XYZ type crackpots were very visible” fall flat because one of the basic themes in grass-roots movements is not having power-monopolizing gatekeepers

      And of course the possibility of discrediting an event on the virtue of a single sign or group is really an invitation to literal ‘false flag’ operations. And this may be why facile this dismissal by self-annointed sensible people is such a standard ploy.

    3. Maxwell Johnston

      Vielen dank for your on-site report. Fascinating to watch how Deutschland will eventually respond to ongoing events, given its long history of Ostpolitik (not to mention the billions that German firms have invested into RU since 1991). I think the present rickety coalition government under Olaf is not long for this world, but I’ve been wrong before.

  24. Michael Ismoe

    Yesterday:

    Speaking at a Pennsylvania Democratic Party event, President Biden called the attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, “despicable,” and spoke out against political violence and disinformation. “Enough is enough is enough,” Biden said.

    Today:

    When President Joe Biden rallies Democrats in Florida on Tuesday for a final-stretch campaign stop, he will finally land in the state his advisers have long eyed as the ideal backdrop for his warnings against “mega-MAGA” Republicans.

    For months, Biden and his team have been hoping to use Florida’s constellation of Trump-aligned Republicans – including the former president himself – to crystallize Biden’s closing pitch that the election is a choice and not a referendum and galvanize Democratic voters.

    “You can’t shake a stick (in Florida) without hitting a Republican that represents the MAGA extremes that the president is talking about,” a senior Biden adviser said. “So, it allows the president to really drive home what’s at stake and what the choice is.”

    Biden makes that argument to voters in Miami Gardens on Tuesday, a week from Election Day. The rally comes as Biden has sharpened his attacks on Republicans and painted an increasingly grim picture of America under a Republican majority in Congress.

    Pot meets kettle.

  25. nippersdad

    “Starving or Freezing to death” is beyond hyperbole.”

    Why?

    Frankly, I was AMAZED that they weren’t out in the streets when the sanctions regimes were first initiated. Just because their pols were either deluded or actually bought into the idea that they could crush a country that they had spent a decade forcing into becoming an autarky does not mean that the people would have any interest in the experiment. Having access to something is not the same thing as actually having it, and the potential for losing access to something one used to take for granted should have concentrated minds far more than was in evidence when it might have made a difference.

  26. Screwball

    The Pelosi saga. Did anyone read the FBI report? It is out and can be found online. It’s about 8 pages. It cleared up a few things, but left many other things unanswered. I haven’t read many reports like this so I don’t know if it compares to others similar in nature.

    IMO, it kind of validates the belief he has some serious mental issues. Section 15a gives us hints of a motive as I can find.

    Section 15a:

    DEPAPE stated that he was going to hold Nancy hostage and talk to her. If Nancy were to tell DEPAPE the “truth,” he would let her go, and if she “lied,” he
    was going to break “her kneecaps.” DEPAPE was certain that Nancy would not
    have told the “truth.” In the course of the interview, DEPAPE articulated he
    viewed Nancy as the “leader of the pack” of lies told by the Democratic Party.
    DEPAPE also later explained that by breaking Nancy’s kneecaps, she would then
    have to be wheeled into Congress, which would show other Members of Congress
    there were consequences to actions. DEPAPE also explained generally that he
    wanted to use Nancy to lure another individual to DEPAP.

    Curious what others might have thought about the report.

    1. Paradan

      The FBI agent they put in charge of this has only been in the FBI for 2 years, and I haven’t seen any info on prior law enforcement or legal experience.

    2. Michael Ismoe

      I want to know if DePape’s statement gave them sufficient cause to raid Mar-a-Lago.

      “Will no one relieve me of these troublesome polls?”

    3. Mikel

      I’m also still wondering why he had such trouble catching an 80-something year old man, who was just waking, and tying him up.
      On tv, I always see a perp tie the person up and then ask questions.

      Haven’t heard of anything this high profile and bungled since Watergate.

    4. Screwball

      Here is a link to the report (8 pages);
      UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

      According to my PMC friends this is the smoking gun it was a MAGA extremist, and anyone that thinks otherwise is a complete idiot who only listens to right wing TV, believes in every conspiracy theory, and simply hates democrats. They should also apologize for even questioning the Pelosi’s and buying into such BS.

      Don’t hold your breath on my apologies. Same with yesterdays article in the Atlantic telling us to forget and forgive how these very same people treated others during the pandemic.

    5. Acacia

      How much of this account of Depape’s motives is FBI fiction, and how would we ever know that it’s not? Are they going to release video interviews?

  27. jsn

    Before Herman Daly was Nicholas Georgescu-Rogen with “Entropy Law and the Economic Process” and before that , Donella and Dennis Meadows, Jorgen Randers and William Behrens III with “Limits of Growth”.

    This stuff was fairly well known before the American Chamber of Commerce set about wrecking the careers of any scientist who remained committed to these kinds of ideas.

    Whatever faults Al Gore had/has, and there are many, he tried to push back on the agnotology sponsored by the Oil Industry 23 years ago. Since then, the political lesson has been learned.

    1. Michael Ismoe

      We left. a billion dollars worth of war toys in Afghanistan. Maybe Zelensky could pick some up cheap. Taliban isn’t taking our phone calls.

  28. fresno dan

    https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-is-rigged-crooked-and-evil-donald-trump-says-then-blames-joe-biden-101667203666685.html
    “The Witch Hunt continues, and after 6 years and millions of pages of documents, they’ve got nothing. If I had what Hunter and Joe had, it would be the Electric Chair. Our Country is Rigged, Crooked, and Evil – We must bring it back, and FAST. Next stop, Communism!” Trump posted Sunday morning on his social media platform Truth Social, Newsweek reported
    ==================================================
    I have to agree. And I have to think I am living in the 2020 version of the 1950 Soviet Union. It seems one of our political parties and mass/social media thinks the innocent (e.g., Russiagate) is guilty, while the guilty are innocent (Hunter). Now if only Trump could understand that the vaunted US system steamrolls most people, here and abroad, we’d have something…but delusion seems an ingrained aspect of the system.
    I wonder what is going on with all those Mar-a-logo documents???

  29. Eureka Springs

    One has no choice in who shows up at a demonstration, if they are even on topic or what they might say. It’s why provocateurs are so effective. Much like most blog threads /s. Also why what most people say doesn’t matter, difficult to understand speakers. Bullhorns and such are the antithesis of clarity. And anti-democratic governments are only listening in order to discern how to co-opt, not represent. I immediately noticed in that little video very few young people.

    I remember as elementary school aged kid watching large demonstrations in Germany on Walter Cronkite and realizing in my own young inarticulate way that government also had contempt for its people.

  30. fresno dan

    https://ndsmcobserver.com/2022/10/the-flip-phone-experiment/
    However, semester after semester, I found myself throwing those precious minutes down the drain. The time sucker? A cracked iPhone 8 in a dilapidated red phone wallet….
    I tried to get that number down. I really did. I set screen time restrictions, I ditched social media and I even put my phone in black and white to make it less desirable. But no matter how hard I tried, the phone would win. Even if I had a good week with phone use, a bad week would come, and I would find myself robbed of that coveted time.

    … I found myself having an intrusive, insane thought: What if I could eliminate the temptation altogether?
    What if. I hate what-ifs. So I drove to Target, and I bought a flip phone.
    =======================================================
    I am not saying a flip phone would solve 90% of the problems in the US.
    NO, I’m saying flip phones would solve 99% of the problems

    1. Late Introvert

      I had to get a smartphone so I could run Microsoft Authenticator (don’t get me started). I bought a $10 one, hooked it to my wi-fi, use it for that one thing, then back in the drawer. Bummed it won’t let me pull the battery.

      My flip phone has the battery pulled until I need it, which is hardly ever.

  31. semper loquitur

    Stuff the “Yves is promoting!” jive. One of the site’s goals is to tear apart and analyze narratives from a multitude of sources. Sometimes that even means reading something you may not agree with. Scary, I know.

  32. JBird4049

    >>>White-Collar War Crimes and For-Profit Famines Current Affairs (resilc)

    A good read on just how famines for profit can work and just how murderous they can be is Late Victorian Holocausts by Mike Davis. Great Britain, and therefor much of the world, was governed under an extreme (using a modern term) libertarian ideology.

    Most of the mass deaths from famine that happened during the 19th century would happen been avoided if either the previous 18th century British governments or the previous local rulers before the British Empire took over. The most well know famine, although not the worse, is probably the Irish Potato Famine, and the island kept exporting food even during the worst of the famine.

    The food being exported had been grown by the Irish tenant farmers to pay their rent with the small plots of potatoes being used to feed themselves. No potatoes meant no food as you were not allowed to eat the other crops you had grown. If you did manage to illegally eat your corn, wheat, beef, and eggs, you would be evicted for nonpayment of rent; the landlords who did not evict their tenants because they had a conscience were eventually forced by the British government to do so or lose their land often after going into debt themselves to do what the government would not do. Evict your tenants, or lose your land, and have them die anyways.

    But it did help the authorities to quote “remove the surplus population.” Sir Charles Trevelyan if I remember right. If anything, the Indian famines were even more… infuriating. Maybe, loathsome would be a better word.

    Do not tell me that our current lords and masters do not feel and would not do much the same albeit without invoking the mercy and wisdom of a Divine Providence removing the Irish as some British writers did about Ireland.

    Kinda funny. I never read anywhere about God, certainly not a certain carpenter, approving of such mercy that favored the wealthy and comfortable over the poor and suffering. It is amazing what people can invent to sleep well at night. Nice system, yes?

  33. Rick

    Re: covid in Ontario year over year.

    Coronavirus-19 seems to be somewhat seasonal even if not as completely as influenza. I’ve made a comparison of mortality for the spring/summer and fall/winter periods year over year for Oregon.

    This comparison removes the seasonal ups and downs from the picture of the epidemic.

    So far, doesn’t look like it’s over.

    I’ve started looking at mortality as well as cases due to the dismal state of case data.

    Mortality by season and year in Oregon

  34. will rodgers horse

    Talk of eliminating covid: is there any well written paper about just how at this point such a thing is remotely possible? I mean it infects 1/3 of all deer in places…
    Perhaps I am missing something?

  35. ThirtyOne

    The hot cold war

    September. Ukraine is ready to supply Europe with electricity to prevent an energy crisis.
    November. Europe is ready to supply Ukraine with electricity to prevent an energy crisis.

  36. lyman alpha blob

    Petard: “It’s really amazing how this whole “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” thing works in a war.”

    A hoisting: I know, right? You wind up with the Democrat party supporting a bunch of Nazis.

  37. digi_owl

    It would seem like USA has reached late stage USSR:

    “they pretend to pay us, we pretend to work.”

  38. Roland

    War belongs to everybody who fights it. You fight it, you own it, it’s yours.

    It’s Zelensky’s War, it’s Putin’s War, it’s Trudeau’s War.

    It’s the Macronic War, the Scholzic War, and the War of the Bidens.

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