Male and female gibbons sing duets in time with each other New Scientist
This wildlife rehabilitator rescued over 1,600 bats during Houston cold snap CNN
Emergency Prices (interview) The Polycrisis. Isabella Weber: “We are living in this age of overlapping emergencies where shocks to essentials are becoming more common, possibly even systemic…. [W]e might need a mindset of disaster preparedness in economic policymaking. This requires the state to have monitoring capacity and a policy toolbox for systemically significant sectors…. Ideally we’d be stabilizing prices well before the point where we have a price explosion. ” Hmm.
Man in motion James Madison University (Barkley Rosser, 1948-2023). Sadly, another old-school blogger is gone. Our condolences!
Climate
Assessing ExxonMobil’s global warming projections Science. “Our results show that in private and academic circles since the late 1970s and early 1980s, ExxonMobil predicted global warming correctly and skillfully.”
Seasonal temperatures in West Antarctica during the Holocene Nature
* * * Los Angeles’ Ban On Gas Stoves Could Mean the End of Many Asian Restaurants HypeBeast
Abigail Disney says private jets are a climate ‘cancer,’ calls out Elon Musk and other rich ‘babies’ MarketWatch
* * * No eyes on the skies Searchlight New Mexico. The deck: “New Mexico’s tough new pollution rules rely on oil and gas operators to report their methane emissions. Can self-policing work?” Wait. “Tough”?
Blood-lines and Milk-lines The Entwinement
Water
20 Years of Severe Drought Impede Huge Developments in Southwest Circle of Blue. Nature is healing.
‘A public health crisis in the making’: Agriculture pollutes underground drinking water in Minnesota. Well owners pay the price. Investigate Midwest
Is California still in a drought after the epic storms? Here are what maps and charts show San Francisco Chronicle
Extreme ‘Rogue Wave’ in The North Pacific Confirmed as Most Extreme on Record Science Alert
#COVID19
Q&A: Can inhaled vaccines mount comeback for one-time leader in China’s Covid race? Endpoints News
Study says most long-COVID symptoms resolve by 1 year after mild cases, but experts not so sure Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy
One billion days lost: How COVID-19 is hurting the US workforce McKinsey. Managing the knock-on effects of Biden’s policy of mass infection (essentially, a sicker, shorter-lived working class).
China?
China’s urban-rural ‘dual economic structure’ fueling inequality, says ex-finance minister South China Morning Post
Chinese deflation returns Macrobusiness
India
Factbox: India’s antitrust directives on Android that have spooked Google Reuters
What Are Central Asia’s Economic Prospects in 2023? The Diplomat
The Koreas
Blackpink’s Born Pink tour shows K-pop women are powering Asia’s post-Covid reglobalisation South China Morning Post
Syraqistan
Walking Amman (Jordan) Chris Arnade Walks the World
European Disunion
US pressures Serbia and Kosovo in effort to stop ‘violence metastasising’ FT
Europe’s largest deposit of rare earth metals is located in the Kiruna area LKAB. Sweden.
New Not-So-Cold War
Russia Faces Three Pivotal Moments in 2023 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Something Big This Way Comes Oliver Boyd-Barrett, Empire, Communication and NATO Wars. Summary of Mercouris’ on Russia’s command shuffle in Ukraine. And speaking of Mercouris, his Russia Consolidates Soledar, Focuses Bakhmut, Reshuffles Command; Kiev Floats & Rejects Armistice included a very nice shout out to NC (starting at 57:42)
* * * Germany not ruling out Leopard tank delivery to Ukraine Andalou Agency
Pentagon Balks at Sending Ukraine Long-Range Bombs Foreign Policy
* * * Ukrainian Disinformation The American Conservative
A blunder or a subtle diplomatic trick. What do we know about the new Ukrainian ambassador to Bulgaria? Bulgaria Posts. Wild stuff!
Latin America
Brazil police find draft decree in ex-minister’s house to revert election -source Reuters
* * * Peruvian Forces Accused of ‘Massacre’ of 17 Protesters Opposed to Government Takeover Common Dreams. A “takeover” which, sure as shooting, the US greenlighted.
Peru’s gateway airport to Machu Picchu closes as protests grow Al Jazeera. Will no one think of the tourists.
At Peru Protests’ Epicenter, Rage—And a Sense of Betrayal Americas Quarterly
Peruvian producers demand free transit on highways as nationwide protests increase Fresh Fruit Portal
Biden Administration
The classified documents and the Corvette: how much trouble is Biden in? FT
Animal testing no longer needed before human drug trials WWJ
The Bezzle
Crypto’s Tax Shelter Problem Institutional Investor
SEC sues Gemini and Genesis over crypto asset-lending programme FT
Supply Chain
Fraud is the biggest threat to cargo losses Hellenic Shipping News. Hmm.
USDA Now Says The U.S. Lost 1.6 Million More Acres Of Corn In 2022, Where Did They Go? AgWeb
Zeitgeist Watch
Should I Shave My Head? 5 Reasons You’ll Be Glad You Did Teen Vogue. Read before reacting.
Imperial Collapse Watch
Why the World Feels Different in 2023 Foreign Policy
Panic grips Special Forces community amid investigation into drugs, human trafficking Audacy
Guillotine Watch
Davos expects record turnout as resumes winter slot Reuters. Good gracious. Has it really been a year?
Highly Anticipated Government Report On UFOs Very Thin On New Details The Drive
Why Not Mars Maciej Cegłowski, Idle Words. Love the tagline: “brevity is for the weak.”
Antidote du jour (via):
Normally I don’t do zoo pictures, but what a cute kitty!
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
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Comments are closed.
>Ukrainian Disinformation – The American Conservative
The article started out pretty good, but then the author couldn’t help himself, I guess, like Dylan’s song states, everyone “gotta serve somebody.”
Ukraine is freer than Russia but is hardly a representative of the democratic ideal
Poroshenko…admitted that the European-backed Minsk accord between Kiev and Moscow was never meant to be implemented; former German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently did the same. The allies understandably say they cannot trust Moscow. However, why should Russia take any Ukrainian or allied promises seriously?
None of these factors change the fact that Russia’s invasion is criminal and the U.S. should aid Ukraine in defending its independence
https://youtu.be/wC10VWDTzmU
That hook at the end is really bad, isn’t it?
It begs the reverse question. Given that no diplomatic effect has been sincerely attempted for the last decade, we should change how we’re supporting Ukraine.
I’d like to think that seeing a whole bunch of European looking people be slaughtered would cause our war machine to stop and think a minute before sending more weapons. But I don’t believe anyone in our state department is capable of independent thought. Yves scenario still seems the most plausible to me. Russia will impose an end to the war when it feels it has accomplished its goals.
Because Russia will not allow Ukraine to re-arm and attack against, and because Russia cannot swallow the entire Ukrainian state, the likely end result is a marginally uninhabitable wasteland in-between the breakaway republics and the rest of Europe. If Putin really had cojones, he’d say he’s following the same two state solution model as the Israelis and dare someone to say otherwise. We’ve already thrown every sanction in the book at Russia. Short of nuclear war there’s nothing left for us to do. It would be nice if we stopped now and realized that but, like I said, no one in state has any capacity for independent thought. So we’ll keep fighting the Russians until we run out of Ukrainians and then we’ll ask the Poles to jump in :/
Short of nuclear war there’s nothing left for us to do.
This is what really has me worried. More than one commentator has speculated that the Collective West (I don’t quite know what to make of this term, but it seems to be gaining more and more currency in discussions I’m listening to) will mount a false flag nuclear incident that will escalate this conflict out of control.
Paul Craig Roberts, whose columns I follow, but do not always agree with, stated in an article published today that Putin really screwed up and that he should have acted long ago and much more forcefully. PCR now sees the potential for a nuclear escalation as almost inevitable. And yet, people as still talking about banning natural gas, personal pronouns, CRT, partisan maneuvering, etc…does it make sense to worry about weather change or any other topic if this is possibly outcome? I don’t know maybe I should just tune it all out. Is this how the mass population acted prior to entering WWII?
That’s why Scott Ritter emphasizes “escalation management” as a necessity for Putin. He says Putin needs to advance in such a way as to avoid causing the West to panic, e.g. slowly with the occasional reverse. So, in effect, Putin is the adult who has to manage the kids to avoid a meltdown. So far, he seems to be doing a pretty good job.
What this also implies is that when the end comes, it comes so quickly that the West doesn’t have time to react.
Why drop tactical nukes when Russian troops are already at the Polish border? It will be so much easier to save face by saying “Ukrainians had their chance and blew it.”
I think that Scott Ritter also said that the Russians have escalatory dominance right now so they are setting the timetable and are making the major moves that the west have to react to.
zagonostra
I agree – kinda reminds me of the article posted yesterday
https://eand.co/the-final-stages-of-american-collapse-ad21774c4f2
As I said:
It is one of those things – the fact that Trump is bad doesn’t mean Hillary is less bad. The Clintons are probably more responsible for the things the author decries than anything Trump did. And stirring up incredible hardship in the world to enact Russian sanctions and fueling the military CIA industrial complex because people refuse to see that the dems are as bad as the repubs is just something I can’t countenance.
It is amazing to me how many people have bought into the mythology of Russian interference in the 2016 election, and in my view, is, ironically, why so many of the authors concerns exist – the PMC, neoliberalism, or deep state, call it what you will, that distracts us from domestic problems by yelling Russia!, Russia! Russia!
And I think today’s post is exactly the same. The problem in Ukraine has far more to do with US flaws and a desire to impose a neoliberalism upon the entire world than anything Russia .
Extreme weather events, climate upheaval and rogue waves. Is life imitating the fiction of “the day after tomorrow”, or will it be more akin to the goofball fiction of “geostorm”? At least in the former, we get a listing of credible actors doing make believe in a horrific but particularly compelling storyline. “The Day after Tomorrow” was running on the US television set last evening, because other options were just that limited.
Seems like weird nature things are bound to continue happening.
A real live plot point from the series on Prime Video titled ‘The Rig’. On that show the collective bacteria that live at the planet’s core are very upset about the drilling and are fighting back. The lead actor is Iain Glen. Probably based on this platform:
https://www.offshore-technology.com/projects/blackbird-oil-gas-field-scotland/
The tension was further ratcheted up by how black the water is and how huge the waves slamming against the rig. The humans looked puny in the midst of all that power and metal.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14273790/
Sounds like the plot line from Wilson’s old sci-fi horror book “The Mind Parasites.” “Something from deep inside the earth is after us! Etc. etc.”
There have been lots of “We woke something up with our drilling!” books and films. Going back to H G Wells of all people, his Professor Challenger story, “When the World Screamed” (1928) covers a version of this plot somewhat uniquely.
Wikipedia attributes the Professor Challenger stories to the inventor of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, not H.G. Wells.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor_Challenger
Oh s—! Fair cop.
“Ready! Fire! Aim!”
“Curses Watson! Have you been diluting my 7% solution again?”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brain_Eaters
Seems closer to this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Swarm_(Sch%C3%A4tzing_novel)
Hansen et al. 2016, “Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms: evidence from paleoclimate data, climate modeling, and modern observations that 2 °C global warming could be dangerous”, https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/16/3761/2016/ describes evidence and interesting speculations about rogue waves on p.21(pdf)[p.3781journal] “4.1.2 Evidence of end-Eemian storms in Bahamas and Bermuda”. Even if Humankind finds ways to power electric mega-freighters or builds fleets of clipper ships, I would think these rogue waves might play havoc on the future of Globalization and Globalized trade. Of course Hansen et al. also describes paleoclimate data suggestive of some of the other changes in climate so dramatically portrayed in “The Day after Tomorrow”. The difference is that the Eemian events had a more gradual time scale. Of course the drivers of Eemian climate change ramped up much more gradually and to a lesser peak than the almost step changes [viewed wrt. geologic time] in CO2 and corresponding changes in the Earth’s alebedo which Humankind has accomplished in the period from roughly the 1950s to the present. [There were increases prior to the 1950s but they were of lesser scale and speed.]
That’s the Gradualist theory. The Catastrophist camp posits rapid changes, driven by extreme injections of energy into the Earth’s ecology. The Younger Dryas record shows very rapid sea level rises and climate disturbances. Not gradual at all.
It’s still a “Work in Progress.”
Stay safe!
I am not sure what the Gradualist theory is or how it contrasts with the theory of the Catastrophist camp. The climate changes during the Younger Dryas were indeed very rapid, but the energy injections were not. I am not aware of sources of what exactly what you mean by extreme injections of energy into the Earth’s ecology.
Insolation is the source of energy driving climate. Insolation varies slowly over geologic time. The Earth’s climate system is complex and only partially understood. The rate that insolation heats the Earth depends on the Earth’s alebedo — how much solar energy enters the Earth system and how much of that energy is reflected back into space. The Earth’s climate depends on how the energy retained in the Earth system is distributed. The oceans store a large part of that energy. The atmosphere and land store another part of that energy. Changes in the Earth’s alebedo and changes in whether the retained energy is stored in the oceans or in the atmosphere and land drive climate. The Earth’s alebedo can change rapidly — as it will when the poles have melted. The ocean heat conveyor can change rapidly shifting how much energy the oceans retain. I still believe Dr. Jim White’s, 2014 AGU NYE Lecture: “Abrupt Climate Change: The View from the Past, the Present, and the Future” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZdhPnsp4Is
provides among the best descriptions of abrupt climate changes. There is nothing Gradualist or Catastrophist in his lecture. Investigations of Paleoclimate indicate periods of extremely rapid climate change.
RE: Something Big This Way Comes Oliver Boyd-Barrett, Empire, Communication and NATO Wars.
With Gerasimov in command it is indeed possible to speculate that Russia is to intensify offensives in Ukraine soon. Whether will it consist on long movements of troops (unlikely, IMO) as opposed to big intensification of offensives along many points on all front lines including from Belorussia, that might surprise an already overstretched Ukrainian army, is something to consider, IMO.
There was an observation (can’t remember source) that Russia’s commanders from the Syria expedition are concentrated in Belarus.
Dima speculated on possible large number of AUF and/or artillery in Soledar salt mines if being true means RUF needs to be on guard.
That is the job for the Wagnerites, I guess.
Yes. There are over 200 km of mine tunnels at Soledar. Some of the mine spaces have been used as storage spots since the Soviet days, if not earlier.
Who knows what is really down there?
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soledar_Salt_Mine
I wish there was more technical information about those mines out there, but even without they’re not really an issue. The satellite imagery available to me is not super high resolution, but there are limited portals/shafts involved with these mines. Most of them are in Soledar proper, although Mine 7 is a bit to the west and may or may not be under Russian control. That mine is rumored to be the one that with the old Soviet small arms storage. It may connect to what is almost certainly a shaft in Paraskoviika (at the end of Lenina St and near the hospital). This system may or may not connect with the other mines.
I don’t see truck entry portals and the little bit of information I can find plus the aerial photos suggest they’re vertical shaft mines. That would make getting wheeled equipment down there difficult. The answer is the same either way though. You locate all the main shafts and barricade them, then any emergency and/or ventilation raises and barricade them, and then you cut the power feed into the mines.
It looks like the mines used electric equipment, which limits the required ventilation, but regardless the ventilation system would be electric and supplied from the surface. At least some parts are big enough to run diesel generators for a while without ventilation but not forever. Turn off the electric feed and mines become dark in a way that can’t be described, only experienced. It would be a bad place to store anything except packed, small arms/ammunition given that it’s always going to have salt dust and any moisture is going to cause rust.
Maybe the Ukrainians cut a portal for moving equipment in and out. They’re not very deep mines. Even if the measurements I’ve found are mine measurements (meters below sea level), the lowest quoted working areas would be ~400M below grade. That’s still not an easy task of engineering just to bathe any equipment you put down there in salt dust.
“Los Angeles’ Ban On Gas Stoves Could Mean the End of Many Asian Restaurants”
On the bright side, all that gas could be shipped to Europe at massively marked up prices so there is that.
It’s all a half-baked idea right now. Also, reports that it will be a regulation applied to new buildings.
On another bright side, election cycles might get more interesting if California became the mother of all swing states again.
California has always had a reputation for being “swinging.”
Nothing new to see here. Move along! /s
You’re saying the idea of banning gas cookers will be put on the back burner for now?
I wonder if “the usual suspects” will begin a series of ‘flame wars’ on the internet social media sites now.
Not exactly, I don’t think. Something I keep meaning to bring up is the way Gun-loving God-fearing Americans have been primed over the years to regard things like inhalation of lead at firing ranges as practically a good thing, and attempts to protect people from such as almost evil.
I believe the big picture is Capital versus The Commons, and the current gas stove stuff is routine maintenance of our populations’s conquered-via-division status.
Anything to make us more dependent on electricity and helpless when the power goes out. Anyone else use their gas stove to melt snow when the power goes out during winter storms so the water pumps aren’t working? Beats having a bunch of plastic water bottles lying around waiting to clog the ocean.
Re: “SEC sues Gemini and Genesis”
For those without FT access, here’s a link to the SEC action, which is a useful read as it quite clearly lays out who did what and why the SEC objects: https://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2023/comp-pr2023-7.pdf. It’s also a good example of how all the crypto hype words are used to obscure the actual cash flows and uses of the money.
Glad that the SEC finally found the keys to Howey, their steam roller, and are ready for a few runs around the neighborhood to level out some bumps in the crypto market (the crux of it: para 18-20, 44-48, and 56-67).
Thank you for the gibbon article. It rather reinforces the idea, which I like, that our ancestors sang to each other before developing language.
Iain McGilchrist is interesting on this, as on so many other matters.
I’m increasingly convinced that our last common ancestor with the other great apes will turn out to have been much more gibbon-like than had been previously imagined (See Oreopithecus and Homo naledi)) and that many of our ‘finer’ qualities aren’t things we ascended to, but rather conserved traits we retained while the other guys went ape – and potentially conserved from primitive monkey ancestors at that.
‘Should I Shave My Head?’
Millions of Americans try on this look every year, using chemo as their razor. It looks good on some, mostly already beautiful people. Not so much for those whose heads look like they were drawn by Charles Schultz (I’m talkin’ ‘cueball’!). Add the chemo face and the look was more Auschwitz to keep the lice at bay.
But it does have it’s upside, listed within the article. You wake up every morning giving your ‘bed hair’ no thought at all (like your dog) and it’s incredibly cheap. For the better part of a year, my ‘hairstylist’ consisted of picking up my husbands’ shaver once in a while and ‘tidying up’. As I get older the option to return to this style is looking more and more attractive than I will ever be wearing it… might be worth it though.
Seeing all those celebrities with bald heads does not seem to me to be a very good recommendation. Far from it. Personally I prefer a mop of hair while I have it. It protects you head against a hot sun and if it gets wet, well then it is drip-dry. And it must be said that a girl with a good set of hair makes her really stand out among her peers. When you think about it, there is a not a lot that you can change about your own natural features to give yourself your own look. But you do have control of how your hair looks which is far more true for females. Just put in the words below into Google Images to see what I mean-
Women hairstyles
“But you do have control of how your hair looks which is far more true for females” — Love ya, Rev, but as a female, I gotta say, this claim shows how much you really don’t know…
Well, I’m a conservative sort of guy who hasn’t changed his hairstyle in decades – much to the annoyance of my wife. :)
The Rev Kev
I’m the conservative sort too. Nature changed my hairstyle though: from Elvis- like mop complete with ducktail to current Friar Tuck fringe. The full mop has gone indoors.
My observations on life with females (wife, daughter, sister etc);
Here is the difference. When a man walks out of the barber shop with his hair newly cut he is feeling neat, fresh, confident and vowing not to wait so long the next time. He doesn’t worry what it cost and he has usually left a generous tip. Easy breezy.
Women on the other hand leave the shop/salon in much the same uncertain emotional state in which they entered. They are both excited with the new look and fearful that, take your pick (short list):
-its still too long/short
-its not curly enough,
or its too curly
-the bangs are too long/short
-the highlights are too dark/light
-it makes my face look fat
In other words the same old baggage that they entered the entered the shop with. And not infrequently they will go home, look in the mirror and start crying. Even in a guy’s wildest imagination he would never think about crying over a haircut.
So what I am saying is that a woman’s haircut conversation is pretty much a no win for her man. All he can do is attempt to determine in which direction the emotional breeze is blowing chart a downwind course.
I would suggest something else going on here as well. If I have a haircut, probably it will be a few days before my wife notes it and other guys don’t say stuff like ‘Wow, that’s a really good haircut that. You look great!’ Maybe not even gay guys. But if a woman does her hair, she immediately come under scrutiny by her female friends and I mean scrutiny-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKbDpp84dhk (30 secs)
Carla’s motion is seconded. All those in favor?
Yesterday my purchases were rung up by a guy with his hair up in a bun, blue eye shadow, false eyelashes with sparkles, and a shade of red lipstick I don’t think I’ve ever seen on someone born female. The reds women choose these days tend to be brighter… when I see a woman wearing any make-up at all.
Men seem to be breaking out of their molds for what’s acceptable in public. Pretty certain ‘the Pvt. Benjamin’ look for women will be short-lived.
‘And it must be said that a girl with a good set of hair makes her really stand out among her peers.’
Often not the fate of older women, Rev. We look increasingly like our husbands, and our husbands look more and more like old lesbians. We kinda meet in the middle with our middles and discuss the fine points of choosing a good barber, and how to remove those pesky mustache hairs just under the nostrils without cutting ourselves or leaving razor burn.
If I wanted to scare a teenage girl, I’d “share” some of those realities with her in graphic detail. Don’t get me started on bladder control…
What… TMI?
What about all the hair sticking out of your nostrils? Or is that just me?
It’s you… for now. Let’s see what hair grows where I don’t want it next.
I noticed quite a few celebs went bald shortly after covid hit. I got a patch of alopecia that spread in a weird way…. A few months into the pandemic the dermatologist told me rates of alopecia had gone through the roof.
Mine eventually began to reverse until I got my latest (3rd I think) bad bout in March last year and the alopecia started getting bad again (and worse this time). Biopsy showed mild inflammation – guy who did it showed me *his* scalp biopsy scar and said they’re practically the only type of biopsies he is doing these days.
The guy who played Karl Kennedy in Neighbours said it happened to him and the patches were so noticeable he decided it was best to shave it all off. I wonder if Will Smith’s wife is bald for covid or non covid reasons?
Before undergoing a radical “hair-ectomy” one should first consult with a trained phrenologist. An unfortunate head-shape or any unsightly bumps should dissuade one from the “surgery”.
I agree on the bumps on the head look. I shaved my head just using the razor with no clippers and my wife said I looked like a convict. Recently I started doing crews cuts myself with a number 4 clipper. You save money and don’t have to comb. Getting a straight line in the back of the neck is a challenge. You hold a hand mirror in one hand and reflect of the mirror in front and true tease your brain into getting a straight hair line. Not easy.
I read that if you put a ball cap on your head backwards and hold the brim where you want your hairline to begin you can use it as a guide for the clippers. You’d need a cap with a brim shape that works for this of course.
I, personally, love the “Sinead O’Connor”. It is cheap, easy, no one breathes on you and it only lasts a couple of weeks before you morph into the “Sgt. Bailey” and ultimately to the “Diana Ross”. At which point you just go back to the “Sinead O’Connor” and try it all over again.
Every time you look into the mirror it is an adventure. You just never know who you are going to see. Also, too, hats are great for covering up that strange dent in your head.
When I was in high school I gave myself a mohawk for a few months, then decided I didn’t want to bother putting it up so just buzzed everything. Fortunately for me, according to my mom at the time, my head shape looks quite like Sinead O’Connor’s. :)
If it’s good enough for Bezos, it’s way too much for me!
We might see this less and less as our national policy of eugenics eliminates those with compromised immune systems, such as those fighting cancer. Maybe this is Biden’s cancer moonshot? No person, no cancer?
The article writer is doing the comparison for herself of all the time and $$ savings she experienced, but that is truly individual. I have totally natural hair down to my waist. It is fine, dry, and curly and resists all efforts to “style” it to whatever the current fashion is so I gave up years ago. I spend 5 minutes/day brushing and braiding it. I spend an additional 15 minutes once a week washing it and combing it out using inexpensive shampoo and conditioner. I spend 30 minutes and $25 getting it trimmed once a year. I’m about 30% gray and okay with it.
I had a career in corporate america and nobody cared how I did my hair.
That said, my hair is the most attractive thing about me since I’m pretty ordinary and plain looking so it would hurt my vanity to shave it off.
The important thing to remember is if you decide to go the buzzcut route, that you are fully awake and alert whenever you do this.
I gave myself a trim last weekend and early the next morning, looking in the bathroom mirror, noticed I missed a spot so I dutifully reached for the clippers, and while still groggy, pulled off the clipper guide and “fixed” the error. Only after I saw the amount of hair that fell down after that first stroke did I realize what I had done and had to then finish the job.
Now I stick to my pillow. But it will all grow back.
Anecdata: my son had a full head of luxuriously thick hair in high school. He decided to shave his head at the age of 17. He did a good job using the same razor he shaved with. When he decided to grow it out again about 6 months later it did not all come back but went into male pattern baldness. He probably would have gone in that direction eventually anyway, but shaving seemed to bring it on sooner. He is now in his 40s with not a lot of hair left.
One of my brothers was very similar, except that he never shaved his head before the male pattern baldness took off. It seems to move very fast if it starts early, a bit like hair going grey, at least based on the anecdata of my experience and reading!
Those of us who live at higher latitudes may want to think twice about going for the bald look. I learned how much even a modest head of hair helped insulate my noggin 60 years ago when I got my first Army haircut. In the 45 seconds between going in one door of the post barber shop and out the other the difference was clear.
Thanks for the Ft Bragg link(Audacy). I live close by in the small town mentioned and the local paper would never ever publish anything about this. I like to forward this type of link to the editor.
One of the soldiers blamed it all on ‘boredom’, like they have not had enough killing to do lately. I wonder if it is because they think they are ‘Special’? I know how they behave in bars around here, and it is not with humility.
That’s a wild underlying story anywhere really, but there in Moore County it’s got to stand apart a little more. I’ve visited the area more times than I can count, as family has lived there since the middle 1980s. I have never really seen any of these “dudes” around on my visits. It is a very curious mix of locals, both retirees and the like who might go there for the golf or for the more simple lifestyle (with proximity to major airport like RDU, a mere hour north).
Boredom? You know, sometimes I get bored. But during those times, I never say to myself that what I really need are a bunch of drugs and an under-age girl. Funny that. Those are grown men and know better. I do reflect on that fact that in special forces around the world, you get some really scum-dog behaviour. You get Aussie special forces and charges of war crimes, German special forces and Nazis and so it goes on. If these guys are supposed to be the best of the best, then so should their standards be. But it seems the commanders of these special forces do not enforce proper military discipline because their men are so special and it is just not good enough. They seem to be buying their own special status and all that publicity.
Have special forces infiltrated politics overseas, as our underseas contingent, er the navy seals have?
Zinke seems to be the poster child for everything wrong with the proposal, along with others who by the way, all swing hard right.
It won’t be long before guys like that will be utilized in some kind of union busting operation. “Bored, son? Oh boy have we got a job for you, there’s this Starbucks up route xxx, and they’ve decided to join the local union. Why don’t you go there, do your thing, and show them that this country does not support commies!!!”
Ex-SOF Pinkertons
That’s a scary thought
That’s basically the origins and purpose of the American Legion in the period between WW’s l and ll. Unions in the 1920’s tried to forbid their members from joining, due to its anti-Labor notoriety.
Much more likely they would be unleashed by the next Trump against some antifa like target. After all the union members have a job. Students always make good scapegoats.
How to de-fang excess legions have been a problem since Roman times.
Usually you end up with them de-fanging government instead…
I’ve always thought wildland firefighting would be a good place to re-employ our excess police and military, but that’d be an option for a sane, kind country with an ability to accurately assess the important problems of the present and future.
Plus, having met some wildland firefighters, I’m not sure they’d like to have a bunch of ex-cops and special forces around. But then again, a common, inhuman enemy could do a lot of work to bring people from a variety of backgrounds and experiences together.
Their type was used in the 2000s for protecting replacement workers during labor actions.
The link reads like plot from a “Reacher” novel. Shades of Late journalist Gary Webb’s allegations dramatized in “Kill The Messenger” and elaborated in his book “Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras and the Crack Cocaine Explosion”. “In 2004, Webb was found dead at the age of 49 from two gunshot wounds to the head. Police ruled it a suicide.”
“This Is the Real Story Behind Kill The Messenger”,
https://time.com/3482909/this-is-the-real-story-behind-kill-the-messenger/
Weber elucidates that energy analysts and economists are siloed and don’t do cross disciplinary analysis. While primary effects are obvious certainly secondary and tertiary impacts swing some weight. She details the reasons “experts “ seem so out of touch. It makes me ask WTAF are all them doing anyway?
“Something Big This Way Comes”
The Russian Ministry of Defence has called it. Soledar has now been fully liberated so you can take that to the bank. Next up is Bakhmut. On the news they keep on saying that analysts call this town as strategically insignificant while the news keeps on reporting tens of thousands of men being sent in to defend this town. Go figure. But I came across an interesting article explaining the significance of Bakhmut today and I have to admit that there are some similarities between this town and Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge-
https://sputniknews.com/20230110/battle-for-bakhmut-why-the-city-is-key-to-russias-liberation-of-donbass-1106197085.html
Gooooooooood Mooooooorning Fiatnam!
‘Semper finance’ was our motto in the corps and every
ether-neck knew their duty was to faithfully make money online somehow, with cryptocurrency being the favored way as far as incursions on the internet went, utilizing bit and run tactics.
I read the NYT piece on the UFO report—
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/12/us/politics/unexplained-sightings-ufos-report.html?searchResultPosition=1
My sense is that both the NYT and the Pentagon are back in the business of trivializing the issue. If there is something genuinely weird going on, they don’t want public taking it seriously.
Who would want anyone looking at the machines which will someday be used by said who to subjugate them? I count among those machines the NYT and the terrestrial military experiments they are helping to mystify, of course.
They are waiting until they figure out how to financialize them.
https://secretsun.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-space-brother-conspiracy.html
One reason I mostly avoid the UFO issue and for that matter some more mundane issues considered fringe by the mainstream is that there is so much noise to cut through. Since I probably can’t know what the truth is, why bother?
I follow a few fringe topics, initially it was mostly just for the fun of the occasional item that really does make me scratch my head, and as a bit of a window on the zeitgeist. I didn’t anticipate how moving I would find many of the accounts.
For some reason it’s the accounts of a few seconds of what seems impossible punctuating mundane life that get to me.
Interested persons might want to check out Steven Greenstreet:
https://twitter.com/MiddleOfMayhem?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
Exasperated residents have appealed to treasure-hunters to stay away after they descended on the Dutch village of Ommeren searching for riches potentially worth millions, allegedly hidden by Nazi soldiers during World War Two.
The hunt was triggered by an old map, believed to reveal where German soldiers may have buried ammunition boxes crammed full of looted diamonds, rubies, gold and silver. The hand-drawn diagram complete with a red X to mark the spot is part of a case file made public by the Dutch National Archive only last week.
When the documents were released at the end of a 75-year confidentiality period, the declassified map made clear that Ommeren, in the eastern province of Gelderland, was where the treasure appeared to lie.
The village, and its red X, were near the Allied front line during Operation Market Garden in 1944, an audacious airborne attempt to create a land route into northern Germany.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64254209
“Germany not ruling out Leopard tank delivery to Ukraine”
As regards Germany or any other country sending Leopard 2 tanks to the Ukraine, Newt from “Aliens” has some advice here-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9yAfQ3CTnc
Does anybody remember what happened when the Turks sent in their Leopard 2 tanks into action against ISIS? It did not go well-
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/turkeys-leopard-2-tanks-are-getting-crushed-syria-95396
@Rev, 9:52am
Military specialist Martyanov (pro-Russian, at Reminiscence of the Future) says the reason the US won’t send Abrams tanks to the Ukraine is because they will perform poorly and be easily destroyed which will be bad for sales to foreign countries. Maybe the tank export market for Germany isn’t very significant.
The Leopards were deprived of adequate infantry support: bad idea.
The Leopards were deprived of their mobility: also a bad idea.
Tanks are more vulnerable than they look, but it doesn’t mean the Leopards are defective. But if they are used in improvised ways, instead of according to doctrine, they’ll be in trouble.
Thanks for a reasonable/nuanced reply.
Better than the incessant “the west is crap, its all their fault, won’t survive, will be humiliated, destroyed, etc.” mantra.
My understanding is that the WW2 U.S. Sherman tank was designed to be easy to manufacture/transport/repair and to not be too heavy for the roads/bridges it was going to be using. I wonder if modern U.S. and NATO tanks were designed with similar considerations…
No . Western tanks are all very heavy, the Leopards upwards of 70 tons. Abrams around 60. Russian tanks are lighter and smaller, under 50tons.
Modern Western tanks are more like WW2 German ones: they are heavier, more complex, and not very economical in both manufacture and maintenance (although, in principle, more user-friendly). Russian tanks are generally only about 2/3 in weight, much cheaper to manufacture and require less infrastructure/training/expense for maintenance (although, in theory, “easier” if you have appropriate gizmos), although supposedly, not as user friendly (in that the technologies incorporated into Western tanks make things easier for the crew–if they work properly.) Since Russian tanks are usually much smaller, they are also more uncomfortable and somewhat less safe (harder to bail out from), although I can’t imagine tanks of any country are all that “comfortable.”
The Abrams also uses a turbine engine, not diesel, and the fuel usage is astronomical. Douglas MacGregor was saying that on operations that they were having to refuel them every seven or eight hours. Anybody think that the Ukrainians would be able to keep up the fuel to even a handful of them? Certainly the pentagon does not want to see one of them on display at the Moscow military museum.
i’ll admit to a smidge of triskaidekaphobia in strapping planks affixed to my feet and hurling myself down steep embankments repeatedly, and yes i’ll be avoiding the #13 chair @ Snowbasin Resort in the Beehive state this Friday…
Don’t tell me. You are the fabled “13th Worrier?” What’s a crypto neanderthal to think?
“US pressures Serbia and Kosovo in effort to stop ‘violence metastasising’ ”
Financial Times telling porky pies again. Both the US and the EU have been stirring up trouble in this region using Kosovo as a proxy agent in order to put pressure on one of Russia’s allies to abandon their neutrality and to sign up with the anti-Russia band-wagon. Tough luck if you are a Serbian in Kosovo. I sometimes think that NATO stirs up trouble there from time to time just so that they can justify their military presence in this region.
Interesting, that Asian Restaurants may close due to LA Gas Stove Ban… mean while storage site with where the massive The Aliso Canyon gas leak occurred is being filled to the brim again.
The CA electric grid should handle the increased load with no problem. Assume a
can openerrobust electric grid. / ;)If all the diesel generators were not being shipped to Ukraine, I could see them being sold to all the restaurants converting to electric induction stoves. Then they can offer at a premium hot meals in a/c comfort and a free dose of carcinogens while LA is blacked out.
Biden classified document revelations picking up.
Harris, whispering 25, 25, 25 and measuring curtains.
Newsom asks, what about me?
Pelosi and Feinstein wheeze out California Gold Rush.
No kidding. This CNN article reveals that at least one classified document was found in a Biden folder labeled “Personal,” and that Biden’s personal stuff was transported and stored in at least three locations during the six-year period after he left office.
QN
https://nypost.com/2023/01/12/biden-already-admitted-guilt-hes-just-betting-garland-doesnt-prosecute-him-or-trump/
It appears, then, that Biden’s approach will be to avoid discussing the slam-dunk evidence and spin the equities of prosecutorial discretion to his advantage. He’ll say that the number of documents was comparatively small, that he self-reported the violation as soon as it was discovered, that he immediately turned the documents over to the national archives, and that he cooperated fully with the investigation.
The subtext, of course, will be that this compares favorably to former president Donald Trump’s conduct — hoarding hundreds of documents, fighting government efforts to retrieve them for two years, misleading investigators, and claiming in the absence of any known proof to have declassified the documents.
…
Yet the subtext doesn’t change the stubborn fact that Biden is apparently guilty of essentially the same offense for which Trump is under investigation by a special counsel. With the 2024 election looming, the Biden administration knows much of the country is white-hot angry over our two-tiered justice system, where, for similar conduct, Republicans are aggressively prosecuted but Democrats get a pass. If Trump is charged but Hur closes the Biden case by recommending against an indictment, millions of Americans will be irate. Biden — for whom Garland and Hur ultimately work — can’t afford that.
…
Now don’t throw stuff at me. I’m just telling you what is likely to happen, not what should happen. I believed Clinton should have been indicted because officials who are not famous and who hoard classified intelligence are charged, and some of them get sentenced harshly. And Democrats just spent several years telling us presidents are not above the law — at least when the president is named Trump.
In the America we want, there should be equal justice under the law for everyone, including President Biden. Alas, that is not the America we have at the moment.
==================================
And Hillary did things with the server that were ?100? …?1000? times worse? And yet no prosecution. I don’t see how anyone who is intellectually honest could not look at what Hillary did and not realize that the US legal system has been completely degraded – something that I believe is because of the defacto policy of a a two, and ONLY two party system.
Must we continue to believe in this chimera that the president and high government officials are equal under the law…when time and time again it is just a meaningless fantasy? Americans have a propensity to believe in things that are demonstratably not true. It seems to be getting worse.
And equal justice means not charging Trump for things you don’t charge Biden and Clinton for. But it also means the same standard of investigating – tell me, where were the armed FBI with circling heliocopters for Clinton and Biden, because classified documents are oh so important?
I’ll add that as President, Trump had the right to declassify documents and take them into retirement as there is precedent for that. Biden was only Vice-President at the time and did not have that right but the media are not talking about that but how the Orange Man was much worse and Biden only had a “few” documents.
In a CNN story titled “Biden’s whirlwind final days as vice president had aides scrambling to close his White House office,” the Biden team trots out what it probably thinks is a clever explanation for how those classified docs ended up in Biden’s office, garage and residence.
It’s a two-part defense. First, we learn in the article that Biden was such a human dynamo of political action at the end of his vice presidency that his office staff scrambled to keep up with the great man. Second, at the same time the office had to function in high gear, his aides had to pack up his workspaces and all the attendant documents, personal belongings and such.
As the article summarizes,
It’s a beautiful two-fer that aggrandizes Biden while back-handedly shoving a knife into the backs of his “lower-level aides.”
However, I’m not sure this story actually helps Biden. For example, deeper in the article we learn some worrisome details:
and
So Biden mixed in at least one classified document in a file labeled personal, which was among those collected in a muddled and hurried process and then possibly transported and stored in at least three separate facilities during their 6-year sojourn.
That doesn’t exactly inspire confidence to me.
Among other things, it kinda begs the questions, who the hell knows how many classified documents the were or are mixed in with Biden’s stuff and does anyone even know where they might be?
Stay tuned to find out just How much trouble is Biden in?
re: “…the Biden team trots out what it probably thinks is a clever explanation for how those classified docs ended up in Biden’s office, garage and residence. ”
Sounds remarkably exactly like the T team’s explanations for how certain classified docs ended up at T’s Mar-a-Lago home. Jeez, is the B team plagiarizing excuses now? That should be fun for AG Garland to sort out. / ;)
Flora
Sooooo….we should expect FBI helicopters and FBI scuba divers as the Biden garage isn’t too far from water??? And agents with long guns?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgEWZYdkRGA
After the Trump search, the MSM was essentially of the opinion that keeping classified documents safe (never mind that most classified stuff is ridiculous) is the highest purpose of government.
I agree. quoting Lemmy Caution
Among other things, it kinda begs the questions, who the hell knows how many classified documents the were or are mixed in with Biden’s stuff and does anyone even know where they might be?
nuclear launch codes…secret Swiss bank accounts….coke dealers…etcetera
I can’t verify it but I heard somewhere yesterday that one of the very last things that Biden did as VP was to make a visit to the Ukraine.
RE: The classified documents and the Corvette: how much trouble is Biden in? FT
I wonder how much the big guy’s “lawyers” were getting paid per hour to pack up the great man’s belongings for him. However much they’re charging, it’s obviously not enough since they must be either brilliant, clairvoyant or both. Having “stumbled upon” “classified” material taken 6 years ago, it immediately occurs to them to rifle through boxes in biden’s Delaware garage in case there’s more.
Here’s Andrew McCarthy’s take on the latest incidence of biden family serendipity:
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/as-a-new-batch-of-classified-documents-emerges-assessing-bidens-statements-about-the-first-batch/
When asked yesterday on Fox for a comment on the president’s “statement,” McCarthy chuckled, “I think we have enough for a guilty plea.” Neither he nor Jonathan Turley (former prosecutor and defense attorney respectively) could believe that the prez’s lawyers allowed him to admit to the possession. Apparently “inadvertently” is not a defense under the statute.
re: Animal testing no longer needed before human drug trials – WWJ
Ummm…. What could go wrong?
(They really think they know and understand everything that could cause a problem in the liver, eg, to the extent that a computer chip can be programmed to mimic everything that can go wrong? No a computer chip can only be programmed to signal on what is already known. Computer models are closed systems. What about the infinite things that are not known? The unexpected? It’s staggering hubris removing all animal testing in favor of only computer model testing. And cheaper. Because markets….)
Perhaps we should go back to the old days when those who would propose the usage of a substance in humans would be deemed irresponsible if they did not personally prove its basic safety by introducing it into their own bodies.
If the late independent pharmacologist Alexander Shulgin could put their skin and liver in the game, so can the PMC that impose themselves upon us today.
And assuming the pharma cos wouldn’t fiddle the computer model programming parameters to get the “good” results they want for a new drug. Big assumption. / ;)
From Wired magazine:
The US Just Greenlit High-Tech Alternatives to Animal Testing
From the article:
“This doesn’t mean it will be easier to get drugs approved, says Aysha Akhtar, a neurologist and president and CEO of the Center for Contemporary Sciences, a Washington, C, nonprofit that advocates for human-based testing methods. “The decision is still up to the FDA to decide whether the method was adequate and whether to allow the drug to continue through the pipeline.””
https://www.wired.com/story/the-us-just-greenlit-high-tech-alternatives-to-animal-testing/
“The FDA Modernization Act 2.0”
Why am I thinking of the C admin’s Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000?
“The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 (CFMA) is United States federal legislation that ensured financial products known as over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives remained unregulated. It was signed into law on December 21, 2000 by President Bill Clinton. It clarified the law so most OTC derivative transactions between “sophisticated parties” would not be regulated as “futures” under the Commodity Exchange Act of 1936 (CEA) or as “securities” under the federal securities laws. ”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_Futures_Modernization_Act_of_2000
That worked out well…not.
No Eyes In The Skies
More Sophomoric submissions from the MSM. Why is connecting the dots such a big problem? Or is not connecting the dots a requirement? I worked the Clean Air Act in NM for five years. Yeah, that’s pretty much how it works…strategic under-enforcement. But, why didn’t this woman mention that the state of NM gets around $2B annually in oil and gas revenue from these operations? A small fraction of that cash would go a long way towards emissions control and mitigation. To mix an old New Mexico metaphor…water flows uphill towards money.
“Seasonal temperatures in West Antarctica during the Holocene”
This paper reads as if it had been written by a team of lawyers and insurance liability specialists schooled in appropriate jargon. All these data and scientific contortions to conclude that … yes Virginia, the data extracted from proxy data from Antarctic ice cores does produce output data from our climate models consist with concluding that the Holocene climate changes do appear attributable to variations in the sun’s insolation. This unsurprising conclusion reached after 20 pages of tortured language and data graphs of statistically tortured data — seems underwhelming. Though I suppose this also provides some further validation of the current generation of climate models.
Private jets–
So Kylie Jenner (25 years old) and Travis Scott are playing a shall-we-take-your-jet-or-mine game. Sometimes I think our system funnels tons of money to people for doing absolutely nothing of social value just to troll us. And by “system,” I mean our billionaires.
When I was in law school, my spouse worked as a governess for a family rich enough to have the university name the football stadium after them. The parents had His and Her airplanes, but they were mere Cessna prop planes, and it was old money (N&W railroad). All Kylie’s new money flowed to her for exactly what reason?
…celebrity.
I guess the social utility is that celebrities keep the masses entertained?
> All Kylie’s new money flowed to her for exactly what reason?
Lip gloss.
Plus, a complete mastery of creating and marketing her personal brand of lifestyle products using social media.
Say what you will about the K family, they sure know how to glom onto a niche and milk it dry.
In case anyone is interested in an informed, in depth discussion about the airline meltdown over Xmas (or is just a Briahna Joy Gray fan), I can highly recommend this episode of Gray’s Bad Faith podcast.
It’s an hour long, but well worth the time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wimz9fPKduM
Great link. Thanks.
Thanks for the link. Bill McGee reminds me of a Bill Black for the airline industry
RE: Shaving your head
This article is about a ‘Buzz Cut’ not a shaved head. A buzz cut is what they do to military conscripts. Your head still has hair on it. A bald head is more work than a buzz cut, and it exposes the skin on your head to UV rays when outside. Leaving some hair on your head (buzz cut) is like having a natural hat. Healthier for you.
I shave my head because a buzz cut wouldn’t expose much less skin on my head anyway. My head has been shaved for about 30 years, since when almost everyone who had a shaved head, had a shaved head because they were… bald. I choose a shaved head because I would rather look scary than old. When my wife first reacted to my shaved pate — “you should let your hair grow back; it makes you look too scary” — she clinched it.
US pressures Serbia and Kosovo in effort to stop ‘violence metastasising’
FT got the headline wrong. Try US pressures Serbia and Kosovo in effort to help ‘violence metastasising’.
That’s more like what the US does.
Prince Harry speaks of his 25 person kill-count among other unimportant things in his ghostwritten memoir:
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2023/01/there-are-no-good-royals#rf4-24858
It’s amazing that monarchy has survived to the 21st century, though the current batch of royals seems intent on giving up the game.
JPMorgan makes a goof. Due diligence fail?
Innovation, Daily Cover
JP Morgan Says Startup Founder Used Millions Of Fake Customers To Dupe It Into An Acquisition
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandralevine/2023/01/11/jp-morgan-fake-customers-frank-charlie-javice/
That’s some “innovation.” / ;)
Male and female gibbons sing duets in time with each other New Scientist
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAmx_XdQky8
I’ve been wandering around the internet trying to answer my own question (“If it’s the mRNA vaccines doing all this damage, what’s the proposed mechanism?”) and came across this: The coronavirus spike protein induces endoplasmic reticulum stress and upregulation of intracellular chemokine mRNA concentrations
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17670839/
I think it might have been linked on NC previously, and I just never got around to reading it, but my memory’s pretty poor. I’m interested to hear what others make of it, as it appears to indict mere expression of the spike proteins of the coronaviruses studied as potentially injurious. Note that this is a pre-Covid paper. I found the link on this guy’s Twitter feed:
https://twitter.com/Parsifaler
I know nothing about him. He seems to be looking at the disease processes from an angle I haven’t studied much at all.
Nitrates in drinking water:
1. Article doesn’t mention that nitrate is an indicator for pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides that are expensive to test for. If nitrate is high, there are probably other contaminants there as well.
2. Political/regulatory action to regulate agricultural contamination of any kind is extremely difficult, as the minute it starts the offending politician/regulator is labled as anti-farmer and anti-food;
3. I’m a personal friend of one of the subjects in the article. He counters 2. (above) because he also farms. He’s a squeaky wheel who does great work even (especially) if it makes people uncomfortable.
Thanks for posting this one.