‘Not for the human palate’: the fine dining cafe where dogs eat like royalty Guardian. BC: “I am all for sharing bits of my meals with my dogs, but this article is way too much in “let them eat cake” territory.”
Elephants: Covid and ethics reshape Thailand’s tourism industry BBC
Hog Wild: Sweden Suffering Boar Invasion Sputnik (Kevin W)
Damar Hamlin in critical condition after suffering cardiac arrest; Bills-Bengals postponed ESPN. Aiee.
New York approves composting of human bodies BBC (furzy)
The “landish heroine’s” death grip on Karlshamn The Evening News, Karlshawm (guurst). A long reported story on oxy use in Sweden.
Poor hydration linked to early aging and chronic disease in study NBC (furzy)
Could Getting Rid of Old Cells Turn Back the Clock on Aging? ars technica. Um, I don’t think so. Telomere length is a not bad proxy for biological, as opposed to calendar age.
#COVID-19
Science/Medicine
COVID-19 virus can affect vision and depth perception, finds study MedicalXpress. From before Christmas, still germane.
Effective vaccination strategy using SARS-CoV-2 spike cocktail against Omicron and other variants of concern Nature. ma: “Only problem being Biden et all are not looking for an effective vaccine strategy…..”
Vaccines: Potential Harms. Volume 724: debated on Tuesday 13 December 2022. UK Parliament. Have not read to see how well informed/substantiated. Many times these presentations mix solid points with items that are at best tenuous, allowing critics to dismiss the entire thing as unsound/hysterical.
Asia
Nearly 28% Of Mainland China Arrivals At Taiwan’s Busiest Airport Test Positive For Covid Sunday Forbes (furzy)
China orders Covid-19 sewage watch as ‘living with virus’ begins South China Morning Post
US
Except for the people who grow your food. And deliver it. And keep the lights on. But otherwise, great idea. https://t.co/V1CEgLx9JF
— Doug Henwood (@DougHenwood) January 3, 2023
Harrowing words from a senior emergency medicine doctor showing the despair at not being able to provide the level of care every doctor hopes to for their patients. Every doctor, nurse & HCW can empathise with this right now.
Shared w/ permission. Pls RT to get this out there. pic.twitter.com/tWHHJnWKVH
— Becks 🩺 (@EmergencyMedDr) January 2, 2023
For the first time ever the Walgreens national Covid positivity has gone over 40%!!!! #XBB15 #CovidIsNotOver pic.twitter.com/OvgjgTl7PN
— Covid Report (@CovidDataReport) January 2, 2023
Today AB-2098, the “physician misinformation bill” goes into effect as law in California.
Physicians can no longer communicate nuanced risk about mRNA COVID vaccines to their patients without potentially having their licenses revoked.https://t.co/UiKMiNY4vi pic.twitter.com/0rBGs2rZFl
— James Cintolo, RN FN CPT (@healthbyjames) January 2, 2023
Climate/Environment
Alaska’s Arctic Waterways Are Turning a Foreboding Orange Wired
China?
That really didn’t take long. pic.twitter.com/i2ZyEbUXte
— Philip Pilkington (@philippilk) January 1, 2023
India Set an ‘Incredibly Important Precedent’ By Banning TikTok, FCC Commissioner Says Techcrunch
‘Bid to destroy’: Dalai Lama lambasts Xi Jinping after Chinese spy held for snooping Hindustan Times (furzy)
China could claim parts of Moon – NASA RT (Kevin W)
ECB rate rises expose fears for Italy as eurozone’s weakest link Financial Times. We’ve warned about wobbly Italy for a while. Just because it’s taken a while does not mean sorta bad to bad outcomes were not baked in.
Old Blighty
Record 45,000 migrants crossed English Channel to UK last year France24 (furzy)
Northern Ireland’s post-Brexit trading set-up ‘too strict’, says Leo Varadkar Financial Times
Facing the Failure of Our Cruel Venezuela Policy Daniel Larison
New Not-So-Cold War
Russia planning prolonged drone attacks – Zelensky BBC
* * * Russia admits to deadly outcome of Ukrainian strike on military barracks Financial Times. A very bad look because the barracks were within missile range and worse, claims next to an ammo dump (!!!). If they really had to house men that close, Russia needs to put them in smaller groups. However, note that this is the lead story in many venues as the Western press looks past the fact that Ukraine losses are now up to an estimated 1 battalion + every day.
WESTERN REACTION TO CONFIRMED DEATHS OF MORE THAN 60 RUSSIAN SOLDIERS IS QUITE A TELL! Larry Johnson
* * * Bad blood between Hungary and Ukraine undermines EU unity on Russia Financial Times (Kevin W)
Ukraine Will Never Stop Glorifying Bandera No Matter How Much Poland Complains Andrew Korybko
Be careful what you wish for:
🇺🇸🇹🇷🇺🇦🇷🇺John Bolton,expressed the opinion that Turkey's membership in NATO could be called into question in 2023 against the background of the unwillingness of the Turkish authorities to take a tough anti-Russian position on the conflict in Ukraine.
— AZ 🛰🌏🌍🌎 (@AZgeopolitics) January 2, 2023
Ukraine Wants EU to Scrap Medicine Exemption for Russia Sanctions Antiwar.com (Kevin W)
* * * Wars make nations Gilbert Doctorow (guurst)
Putin’s approval rating ends 2022 at 81%, boosted by support for the war in Ukraine BNE. Note a small increase.
Are There Any U.S. Red Lines? Moon of Alabama
* * * Will Big Plans For Nuclear Power Work Without Russian Uranium? OilPrice (Kevin W)
Turkey directly threatens Greece with war Defend Democracy
Syraqistan
Fast-tracked war crime:
Today the Israeli District Coordination and Liaison Office (DCO) notified the Palestinian DCO that in the coming days, about 1,000 Palestinians from Masafer Yatta whose land was designated “Firing Zone 918” will receive notices to evict their homes.
— B'Tselem בצלם بتسيلم (@btselem) January 2, 2023
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Facial recognition technology blamed for mistaken arrest in Louisiana purse snatching case Daily Mail (BC)
EXCLUSIVE: TikTok Spied On Forbes Journalists Forbes (furzy)
Imperial Collapse Watch
Fossil Fuel Power Fell Up To 68% as Blackouts Hit US South Bloomberg
Aircraft Making Stops For Fuel Due To San Diego Shortage Simple Flying (roger s)
Trump
Trump tax returns raise alarms about fairness of US tax code The Hill
GOP Clown Car
Conservatives threaten to withhold critical McCarthy support, hours before speaker vote Politico. My conservative friends say the R refusniks regard MaCarthy as a RINO and want him to commit to a Ukraine audit and further funding skepticism and a hard line on immigration.
The Shallow Hawkishness of Tom Cotton Daniel Larison
Our No Longer Free Press
Elon Musk Is the New Trump: You Either Love Him or Hate Him Newsweek (Paul R). Speak for yourself. It is possible to escape halo effect cognitive bias, generally not like Trump or Musk, while also conceding that each has occasionally done something positive.
Porn, Piracy, Fraud: What Lurks Inside Google’s Black Box Ad Empire ProPublica (Randy K). From last month, still germane.
Tesla Fined $2.2 Million in Korea for Alleged False Advertising Bloomberg
Electric Cars Sales in Norway Near 80% in 2022, Tesla Top-Selling Brand Again Reuters
Big Freeze Stress Test
A brother and sister say they had to stop 6 times in one day to charge their rented Tesla in cold weather after the battery drained quickly Business Insider (furzy). I have said owning an EV anywhere where it gets cold in the winter and you plan to do more than local trips in it is playing with your life. What if the interstate gets jammed and you run out of charge in the cold?
‘I had to do it to save everyone’: Man breaks into school and shelters more than 20 people from blizzard CNN. ma notes:
In case you imagined we were any more decent at the micro level, than, say, in foreign policy…..this sentence caught my eye (in what I imagine is supposed to be a feel good story). If it is true….10 doors…..
“Withey said he went to 10 households, offering each $500 to spend the night on their floor. All of them turned him away. “I plead with them, ‘Please, please can I sleep on the floor, I’m in fear for my life,’ and they say, ‘No I’m sorry’,” he said.”
[This is a middle aged white guy, mind you–it does not say anything about the race/age/gender of the people who answered the doors he says he knocked on–I could see if they were not white, they might be scared of him].
In any case, this is in the middle of the most dangerous blizzard in 100 years. And
a). he feels he needs to offer $500 for anyone to take him in–his life being at stake not being motive enough, in his view; and
b). all 10 said–in effect–no, go freeze to death, I don’t care, you are not coming into my space. Even if they just gave him a space heater in the foyer or the garage–hard no–go away and freeze. I am safe and comfortable, you can die.
c). he felt the need to leave an apology on the school bulletin board, for breaking a window to get in and save his life (and 20 other lives–including 2 dogs, don’t we all love the dogs. Maybe if he had had a dog with him when he was knocking on those 10 doors….).
The Bezzle
Gemini’s Cameron Winklevoss Slams Crypto Exec Barry Silbert Over Frozen Funds Bloomberg
Genesis-DCG Loan Leads to Class Action Arbitration Case From Gemini Clients CoinDesk
Class Warfare
Six jobs no one will notice or care if you’re shit at Daily Mash
Happy New Year: 10 Takeaways and a Comeback RJ Eskow (Randy K)
Inequality might be going down now Noah Smith (Paul R). Erm, inequality fell in the Global Financial Crisis due to declines in financial asset and housing prices. The Fed in engineering a milder version of the same now. Does not make for a lasting change.
Antidote du jour (furzy):
And a bonus (furzy):
New year, same Fritz! Fritz is always camera ready! Hippos are large semi-aquatic mammals. Their eyes, nose and ears are located on the top of their head, which means they can see and breathe while submerged in the water. pic.twitter.com/1X8btqp9Bv
— Cincinnati Zoo (@CincinnatiZoo) January 1, 2023
And a second bonus (furzy):
Sneaking in for kisses..🐶🐾😘
🎥: tt | luislunapepe pic.twitter.com/H9ggv61t31
— 𝕐o̴g̴ (@Yoda4ever) January 2, 2023
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
143 comments
Comments are closed.
NFL player collapses on field. I only saw the aftermath of this, with the ambulance on the field and whole gathering of Bills players circled and kneeling. The feed live on ESPN during and after just became a halting display of what we don’t know, and the teams ultimately went to their locker rooms.
It will be most interesting to hear the status of this player during the day. And in related news, life can be a harsh reminder.
Saw this on the news tonight and I think that they had to give him mouth to mouth. ‘Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin is in “critical condition” in the hospital after suffering cardiac arrest.’ To tell you the truth, when I saw this story I thought of all those other sport stars that have been collapsing and even dying on-field the past coupla years. I mean, the guy is only 24 years old and one would assume to be in peak fitness so I guess this will be a story to watch over the next coupla weeks-
https://edition.cnn.com/us/live-news/damar-hamlin-collapse-bills-bengals-game-intl-hnk/index.html
Yes, this was my first thought too – is this 24 year old NFL player the first to be affected by what has been taking down soccer stars and other athletes?
And of course the anti vaxxers are claiming it’s the vaccine. Will be interested to learn more, hopefully as his condition stabilizes.
Well, if you’d like to learn more, it’s not the “anti vaxxers” claiming it’s the vaccine – it’s the scientists (at Pfizer no less).
Within the Pfizer documents is Document 5.3.6 (Post-Marketing Experience), a cumulative analysis of adverse event reports occurring in the 90 days after the public rollout of the Covid-19 mRNA injection. And within that report, 275 people suffered a stroke suspected to be attributed to the vaccine between days 1 to 41; 50% of these occurred within the first 48 hours after injection. Link: https://dailyclout.io/criminal-malfeasance-pfizer-knew-275-people-suffered-serious-strokes-in-the-first-90-days-after-vaccine-rollout/
Yet more form non “anti vaxxers” ….. Patient data from the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KBV – Germany) on the side effects of corona vaccinations provide frightening insights: With the start of mass corona vaccinations, the number of people who died “suddenly and unexpectedly” skyrocketed compared to previous years, more than fourfold. In every quarter, starting with the first quarter of 2021, more sudden and unexpected deaths were identified by panel doctors than in every year from 2016 to 2020 as a whole. Link: https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/12/shocking-study-reveals-massive-spike-deaths-following-forced-covid-vaccines-germany/
If you watch the video of the tackle Damar Hamlin made, you can see he suffered a strong blow to the center of his chest seconds prior to his collapsing on the field.
It’s been know for years that such a blow can stop a heart. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2005/jul/14/thisweekssciencequestions4
I agree with Mikel below that “nobody should be jumping to conclusions” but you nailed it, and I suspect that is because you have a level of knowledge that most of us do not. The doctor from the hospital where Hamlin is (hopefully) recovering, agrees with the conclusion you jumped to.
Nobody should be jumping to conclusions about what is or is not the cause with the increasing mess in healthcare, especially since 2020.
Watching all those life threatening injuries on the pitch during the World Cup, where they would writhe in agony just long enough to convince the refs that a wrong needed to be righted, only to get up and sprint down the field chasing a silly ball…
Every NFL game I watch, there are dozens of hits where I writhe in agony along with the player-as the injuries are all too real, sadly.
The thing that made this grievous injury different, was it looked like nothing happened, just the usual contact one sees a hundred times in a NFL game.
Just went looking to see a clip of this and you are right. He tackled a guy, got up, and just sorta stumbled back and fell. Poor guy. All the other players on the field were really distressed by this as they realized what had happened-
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jhBz849QkJU
Was watching the game live, routine tackle, no helmet to helmet smash up.
Guy just collapsed backwards, texted my cousin, I think I just watched a guy die on the field.
Prayers for him and his family.
He took a hard blow to the chest and it stopped his heart. This has happened in lacrosse a few times over the last 20 years where a ball hit the chest and a few kids have died. It’s a situation we had to be prepared for as coaches. If you get hit at the right spot in the rhythm, you’re done. When I saw the vid last night for the first time, I noticed it was to the chest, not anything to the head like a friend had told me.
Last night on CNN, the doctors they interviewed were mainly speculating this:
https://www.sportsmedtoday.com/commotio-cordis-va-88.htm#:~:text=What%20is%20it%3F,is%20called%20%E2%80%9Ccommotio%20cordis.%E2%80%9D
Yes. When I saw the video last night, I figured this is what happened and told a couple of friends that are Bills fans who had been watching the game, and my mother, whose former coworker lost a son that way(lacrosse ball). Not many people are aware this kind of thing can happen.
If commotio cordis is indeed the cause of his collapse then everything—everything—depends on how quickly medics were able to re-establish his heart rhythm. Anything beyond four minutes is not good.
I pray for the young man and his mother, who was at the game and accompanied him to the hospital in the ambulance.
Exactly. I am not optimistic.
Apparently it “took a while” before caregivers stopped trying to treat him for a head injury and realized he didn’t have a pulse. During that time they would have been leaving him immoblized with helmet and shoulder pads on.
Once they realized he didn’t have a pulse and they had seriously F’d up, they had to get his helmet and shoulder pads off and start resuscitation get the AED on the field and get his heart beat stabilized despite the somewhat low odds.
It could easily have been 4+ minutes. His agent say his vitals are now stabilized, but are keeping him on a ventilator and sedated and is still officially in critical condition.
Not good at all.
FWIW,
If you are ever in this situation and someone drops like that in front of you, I want you to do something for me. Especially if an AED is minutes away, and especially if the person is young and healthy.
It is called a precordial thump. As residents in the CCU we did this literally all the time back in the day when rhythm therapy was limited.
Take your right handed fist, get in the right side of the patient and as hard as you can thump them right over the left chest where their heart is. One time only.
That will deliver to their chest 1-5 joules of energy. In v fib, especially and some v-tach, that is all it takes to immediately restore rhythm. Other rhythm issues like AFIB and svt are going to require much more joules so the AED is essential.
I cannot tell you how many times this saved lives in the ccu years ago.
They took the thump out of the protocol because of rib fractures. Entirely ridiculous. I would much rather be dealing with rib fractures on this young man tonight rather than likely brain damage.
First, see Caldwell Esselstyne’s lecture about preventing stroke & heart attack. He explains the typical source.
Then watch The Game Changers on Netflix. An odd trio–James Cameron [Avatar], Jackie Chan, and Arnold Schwarzenegger–are producers.
The tweet from @EmergencyMedDr seems to be about UK NHS but is under US heading.
…and it is horrifying reading.
Mike Elk reports: Lula is back. In these grindingly immobile times, he is still remarkable.
Noting: “Lula announced the creation of the Indigenous People’s Ministry and revived the Office of Racial Equality, which Bolsonaro eliminated. Lula also restored the Amazon fund, which was used to help environmentally sustainable projects in the Amazon.
Lula also paused the privatization of the state-run oil company Petrobras.”
I’m sure that that last effort has been noted in Washington. I bet that Victoria “Liberator of Nations” Nuland is firing up her recipe for brigadeiro.
It makes one wonder if Jair is in Florida more for preparation than as an exile.
‘Hog Wild: Sweden Suffering Boar Invasion’
Just yesterday I was reading in The Guardian that Sweden was allowing a major wolf culling. Don’t wolves eat boar? Maybe just the small ones? Why cut down on the population of predators strongly motivated (hunger) to help curb the piggy population (and other destructive species)? Makes no sense.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/02/huge-swedish-wolf-hunt-will-be-disastrous-for-species-warn-experts
Wild bore are big, fierce and dangerous. Probably the best way to control them is through hunting. Because they are very smart this is difficult.I suspect unless a bore is old, weak, or injured a wolf would not be a threat.Once established they are hard to get rid of and they are very destructive.
Wild bore seem to be a contradiction unto themselves…
Avoid being trapped by one of those at parties…
We got them here in Oz too by the millions-
https://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/biosecurity/vertebrate-pests/pest-animals-in-nsw/feral-pigs/feral-pig-biology
Make that hunting – but with a large caliber rifle. With a telescopic sight. While occupying the high ground. I have seen them rip up clay-pans which had the density of concrete with their tusks so they are to be respected. And shot on sight.
I had a friend who in the 80’s, would hunt bore in the Big Sur Mountains with a pistol. He was chased up trees I was told.
I have a mate who uses a dog, himself and a large knife. Mind you, French paratrooper in previous life.
I’m trying to express some sympathy here for the wolves, who seem equally are to be treated in Sweden as an unwanted and invasive species.
Years ago I was at a gathering in Northern California where two guys showed up with a couple of small wild boar they had hunted down, ans so listened as they humble bragged about the boar they had bagged via how very wily and dangerous their prey was. Also later at the luau, how delicious, best tasting pork I’ve ever had.
I have no problem understanding why a country might have several motivations for thinning the piggy population. But why the wolves? Surely a country as enlightened at Sweden has a program to compensate ranchers for any livestock the wolves may take. If not livestock, then who are the wolves harming? My attitude is leave them alone; we need other apex predators. There’s more than enough humans.
I am somehow related to a family of hunters of elk, mule deer & white-tailed deer, but it looks more like a religion to me.
All of them would love to see wolves completely eliminated, so there wouldn’t be any chance at all for wolves to take any of the “game” species that they would like to kill themselves.
From what I’ve read about the wolves in Sweden, is that the hunting lobby (which apparently is big and powerful there), doesn’t like wolves killing moose, which are a favourite animal for the hunters.
The wolves are also apparently in an area without many farms.
The wolf population in Norway is apparently under even greater threat. And Finland which appears to have the biggest population of wolves in these three countries only has 300.
In contrast, Italy apparently has about 3000.
In my opinion wolves are on the edge of extinction in Sweden, Norway, and Finland. Which is horrific, considering the size of the countries concerned and relatively low population density.
Wild boar are big, fierce and dangerous.
Wild bore => Is that you Jeb?
Link for NBC story about hydration
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/poor-hydration-linked-early-aging-chronic-disease-study-rcna63741
Perhaps this is why coffee drinkers live longer.
And red wine drinkers!
Indeed! Although caffeine is a known diuretic, so maybe not? I am in the midst of an elimination diet to determine some food sensitivities and one of the things to eliminate is caffeine. I didn’t go cold turkey, am tapering. Today down to about a third of a cup and I have a fierce headache. And My daily dose is only a couple of cups in the morning! I don’t know if coffee will make me live longer but I do not plan to give it up permanently. It is one of life’s simple pleasures.
As for the article, it still doesn’t settle the argument about hydration. Some researchers see a link to disease and some do not. Certainly we know that acute temporary dehydration can cause some real problems. To me it stands to reason that long term dehydration would also be problematic. I did laugh about the skeptic who said that taking diuretics (prescribed for high blood pressure) can increase the salt levels in your blood. I am guessing that many people on diuretics don’t drink much water because diuretics make you urinate more frequently. I am sticking with my litre to litre and a half water habit, I get headache-y and hangry feeling if I drink too little water during the day.
FWIW, after a bout of vertigo I was told by my doctor to drink several cups of plain water every day. Coffee and other beverages don’t count.
Re Aftonbladet article about oxycotin in Karlshamn, Sweden. Karlshamn, a port on the Baltic coast in the south of Sweden happens to be a very big logistics hub between the Baltic states, Poland, Ukraine and Russia (or was in case of the latter), and other parts of Europe. From dry bulk, containers, ro-ro and ferries, plenty of scope for drug smuggling. And Sweden has been literally an open door for Ukrainian refugees, genuine or criminal.
As for ‘lantisheroin;, which seems to have baffled google translate, this would be hillbilly heroin.
“New York approves composting of human bodies”
I really do wonder about this ‘trend.’ There was one suggestion made her in Oz to plant dead people in bio-disposable bags in a cow paddock. No markers though and if relatives wanted to go visit their departed loves ones, they would be given a latitude and longitude to find the piece of grass that they supposedly lay under. We have often mentioned the concept of ‘atomization’ of the individual and this would be the ultimate one. There would be no grave, no grave marker – nothing to show for your existence that your family could go visit. Who would bother to go visit a cow paddock after all. The ultimate atomization.
In contrast, I was in Germany once in this small village. I forget which holiday it was but after a service, the whole village went to the local cemetery at night and lit covered candles on the graves of their family members and stood by them. And the older ladies also took care to leave lit candles on those graves that no longer had surviving relatives in that village. You could see the sense of community as well as a sense of continuance for those people. And a confession here – when I use to go down to Sydney to visit my late mother, I use to take care to visit this graveyard behind this church near where she lived. By coincidence, it was the same church we baptised our daughter at. And the reason to go was to visit this early 19th century family grave of early colonial family members. He was an Irish officer who served in the British Army but stayed in the Colony and his wife, daughter of a London merchant. I guess seeing that German ceremony left an influence on me on the subject of family graves.
What a great chance for revenge on that neighbor from hell!
Montana family: Hi, we just thought you might need some potatoes and carrots.
NFH: Okay, sure, we’ll take ’em. (Neighbors from hell don’t say thank you.)
A few weeks later…
Montana family: How were the potatoes and carrots?
NFH: All right. (Neighbors from hell don’t believe in praise or compliments.)
MF: Mildred grew them.
NFH: Mildred? Mildred died a long time ago. And I didn’t know she had a garden.
MF: She didn’t. Those potatoes and carrots were grown in her composted remains.
NFH: (Begins gagging and retching)
1. Graveyards are expensive, in particular urban graveyards.
2. crematoriums usually use natgas flames, and thus emissions are a concern.
But yeah, i fear that in their fervor to dismiss religions as obsolete and dangerous many ignore the community aspects of the rituals religions provide.
“Investors” are ramping up the Death-on-Demand industry in at least one Canadian province and multiple states in the US. Depressed? Angry? Just tired of it all? Come on down to Grandma Sylvie’s Passing iZone!
Sorry… but this whole death-on-demand outrage thing feels like astroturf. All I’ve seen from primary sources are discussions where end of life is being *allowed*. Under the old status quo, the health system wasn’t allowed to even let people end their own life, even under horrific pain, under penalty of prosecution for murder.
But all you see in the press (or commentary) are anecdotes of of supposed consultations where the option is mentioned, and it’s spun into “pressured” or “encouraged”. All third hand, of course.
Why does this whole situation remind me of the whole ‘sanctity of life’ talking point, where an unborn baby is priceless, but the minute he takes a breath, he’s welcome to live in poverty and starve.
End of life situations are obviously heartbreaking and painful, but all we hear on the ‘against’ side of the discussion are propaganda, allusions to death camps and snide jokes.
For me, I welcome being given the choice to say goodbye under my own terms.
A close, dear relative developed leukaemia (possibly related to solvent exposure at work). Treatment worked for a while, but towards the end, his extremely high white cell count was shutting down his peripheral circulation – extremely painful. His care team used a morphine infusion to help with the pain, with stepwise increases in dose. Morphine has a side effect of suppressing respiration and before too long, the pain went away. Forever.
Wasn’t euthanasia, though, not officially…
A friend once told me this is the actual cause of death for most people with cancer at a certain point.
This works, too.
This happens in the US south, common actually. Not so much in Nashville, Birmingham, or Atalanta, but in small towns and cities? Very common. Entire family (clan) gatherings that descend at some point on the cemetery to clean graves, leave flowers, light candles, and socialize. Also common are family graves on a familial plot of land where the whole family is seemingly buried. They also pool resources to bring home fallen soldiers. My Dad is buried in Panama in the veteran’s cemetery and my mom is fighting a rear-guard action for him to stay planted there because it’s where following retirement she continues to reside. She visits to tends his grave, but once she passes, I’ll sign off on returning him to Washington County, Alabama where he was born, raised, and still much loved.
The ongoing chaos around the new GOP Speaker election feels vaguely reminiscent of the last 6 months of Tory shuffling in the UK. McCarthy gets the gavel because he’s willing to be humiliated by the worst idiots in his caucus. Let’s see how this works out.
Maybe AOC and The Squad can step in and vote for McCarthy so those awful MAGA Republicans don’t stage another coup against Our Democracy. After all isn’t The Squad now all in on enteral war and blank checks for Raytheon and support for German WW2 like policies? Is there really that much policy difference between Blue team and the Red team any longer? It’s time for Bipartisanship. Ukraine is under attack, being the only nation that has ever been invaded after WW2. Even The Force will tell you that.
Maybe AOC and The Squad can step in and vote for McCarthy so those awful MAGA Republicans don’t stage another coup against Our Democracy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If My Kievan was to bleat support for the Ukrainians, he’d lose most of the Pachyderm Party, but gain almost all of the Donkey Show, and become speaker.
It looks like a job that nobody in their right mind would aspire to, so perfect for Kev!
He’s been burning the midnight oil on the stuff that matters-as always, with his latest effort coming on December 27th, being a co-sponsor for this important bit of legislation:
If he really wanted donkey support, he could always suggest renaming that postal facility as the “Stepan A. Bandera Post Office.” But that one would be located at the corner of Mariupol Drive and Azov Way.
Um no…”The Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy Post Office”.
How could you pass over that one?
Maybe his wife could open it up for him and take collections – just before heading off to Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills to blow another forty thousand on high-end shopping for herself.
Here in the States I’d watch for streets being named after Zelensky.
My Kevin (since ’07) has already lost the first vote, and until we get a speaker NOTHING can be done in Congress, not that they do all that much as it is.
Getting Your Ducks In A Row
Lavrov on Russian TV and the transcript of his interview was read at Duran. After saying Russia will soon be doing more in Ukraine, Lavrov noted retired military generals said the flow of Western weapons into Ukraine must be stopped, and then Lavrov added “We mean railways, bridges, tunnels”.
Maybe one of those ducks not yet in a row are hypersonic missiles powerful enough for the famously overbuilt Dnieper bridges being manufactured in Russian military production factories as he spoke.
I do not read this the way you do.
From the video at 9:45:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6btM9oPn7o
First, Lavrov was explicit that the discussion of bridges etc was coming from outside the government and not his or an official view. You indicate the reverse.
Second, he finished “I am convinced there are other plans….” as in he is NOT privy to these options.
In other words, he regards the suggestions as informed and likely getting consideration at the MoD. But that does not mean that is what Russia will do. Russia is now focusing on taking out weapons platforms and related repair/repurposing facilities, centers where staff that operate the weapons are housed, and the grid. I have the strong impression Russia does not want to destroy infrastructure that it might want in a reconstruction phase that it cannot repair readily. For instance, when it left Kherson, it cut a section out of the Antonovsky bridge. That is not a hard repair. If it had wanted to do more lasting damage, it would have blown out some of the supports.
In other words, Russia could do that but I saw this as Lavrov merely acknowledging ideas being bandied about in public discourse as options, not as likely as you allege.
Mercouris is way too wedded to the idea of Russia blowing the Dneiper bridges and that is distorting how he reads official remarks. If they thought this was a winner, they could have done that months ago. It’s at most an option they will exercise when circumstances make it look attractive.
I’m looking at about 51:35 in this video. It is an English readout. IMO the context is clear weather official/not official and what it is, is not hidden in anyway. The English version seems to tell us retired military seem to want bridges rails destroyed to stop Western arms flow. I believe there is good reason for them to be suggesting this. It is possible Duran may be placing or changing the order of translation.
Regardless, the point is disabling infrastructure “railways, bridges, tunnels” is a proven way to win militarily and it also has the additional virtue of how to fix safe borders – DMZ or whatever such as the much less practical idea Helmer suggested – for eventual peace. Had Russia done this sooner, many Russian lives might have been spared and the conflict might even be essentially over.
https://rumble.com/v23l2ug-russia-drone-strikes-losses-in-makeyevka-advances-in-zaporozhye-lavrov-hint.html
If the Russians had cut those lines, then most of the Ukrainian gear would have been stuck in the western half of the country and essentially out of reach of the Russian military. This way, the Ukrainians transport all that gear several hundred kilometers across the country right up against the Russians lines and right where the Russian military can take it out. And without a chance of Ukrainian air cover to try to protect all that gear with. Most of the military gear that the Ukrainians started the war off with as well as most of all those western weapons is now scrap metal in front of those lines because the Russians kept those lines intact.
Yes, and those infrastructures also allowed Russia to deplete Western military stocks, too. And now much of it has been moved East. All the more reason to close those infrastructures now. There is no longer a reason to keep rails and bridges intact for the purpose of draining Western military supplies because the draining has happened.
Reminder: one of the primary goals besides demilitarization and denazification, is to unite the Russian peoples in Donbass.
Brian Berletic disagrees. He has repeatedly argued that it works to Russia’s great advantage to have Ukraine have extended supply lines to bring men and materiel to lines of contact where Russia has short supply lines. Russia is out to destroy Ukraine’s army. Blowing up bridges and marching to the Dnieper before that = Russia with longer supply lines, Ukraine (and NATO) with shorter supply lines, and Ukraine very much still having army.
I think besides blowing up bridges…taking out rails = Ukraine with no supplies line to Donbass. Or at least greatly reduced.
I think the issue is different as between equipment on the one hand, and supplies and reinforcements on the other. I can see the logic of letting the Ukrainians bring the western equipment within range of Russian guns, to be destroyed. But it’s less obvious why you would let ammunition through, since cutting off ammunition in the end renders the western-supplied artillery useless anyway. Likewise with reinforcements: if these really are levies with a few weeks training, then even quite large numbers trapped in the West of the country are not a threat. Perhaps it’s not possible to actually discriminate between targets that precisely, but I would have thought that, as less and less western equipment is delivered, the balance of the argument may change. We’ll see how it turns out.
Please read or re-read the Vershinin Return of Industrial Warfare. Russia is draining the West of weapons stocks across all categories. Russia knows it is now waging war against NATO. It needs to demonstrate to the West it has comprehensively defeated them. Getting it to the point where it cannot resupply Ukraine without cutting its own defensive (and for the US, other projects like Taiwan) stocks will do that.
It is already working, as Brian Berletic has repeatedly pointed out. US/NATO weapons deliveries are shrinking over time. The bulk of the last one, granted at the time of Zelensky’s visit to the US, was one Patriot system. That’s a joke.
I agree. The point I was making is that, as long as the West still has equipment to send, then it is in the Russians’ interest to let it be deployed within range of their own forces and to destroy it. But as you rightly say Berletic has been tracking deliveries for some time, and they are dwindling rapidly now, because there is nothing else to send. There will come a point, perhaps very soon now, when literally nothing else can be spared, and at that point the Russians will have won a major strategic victory.
However, I was speculating that the same argument does not necessarily apply to ammunition, nor to movements of troops, including the evacuation of broken units and battle casualties. Once it’s clear that effectively everything that can be delivered has been delivered, and has been sent to the front line, the logical thing to do would be to seal the Ukrainian forces up in the East, so that reinforcements could not get in, and the sick and wounded could not get out, and to starve them of ammunition and logistics. The traditional way to do this was through trapping the forces in a pocket, and maybe the Russians will do this as well, or instead. But the Ukrainians are at the end of a very long and tenuous supply line, and the Russians might decide that they can achieve the same effect more easily and more cheaply by taking out a few bridges here and there: it doesn’t need to be a massive undertaking, and, after all, attacking your enemy’s lines of supply is an age-old tactic. I think that what we’re seeing at the moment is an exception to this way of waging war, because, as I think many of us are agreed , the Russians are happy to let the equipment be delivered and then destroy it (along with its trained crews and maintainers of course.) But when the West has nothing more to send, I would speculate that the Russians might revert to more traditional tactics.
The trick is that even though Azov and like see Russians as sub-humans, Russia seems to consider Ukraine a brother nation.
Thus this is not to them a invasion for land grab as such, but about disciplining a wayward brother.
Putin was visibility upset when he announced the commencement of military operations. I can’t help wondering if he wanted to shout “See what you have forced me to do!” afterwards.
Thus early actions and plans were to first of all shore up Donbass, and second of all to hopefully shock Zelensky et al to the bargaining table.
It almost worked, until Boris Johnson, perhaps after a heated call from DC, intervened.
After that Russia reorganized, moving away from threatening Kiev and focusing firmly on Donbass and Crimea.
Only after the Crimean bridge bomb showed that either Ukraine or NATO was willing to play dirty did Russia drop the idea of playing nice with the the Ukrainian population and start targeting infrastructure. But even then the targets, like power substations, are ones that Russia are better equipped ot repair than NATO members.
“Six jobs no one will notice or care if you’re shit at’
I suppose that others could be added. How about-
Economist-
Their predictions are so crap that they had to make up a pretend Nobel prize in Economics to cover up this fact.
General Officer-
Notice during this war how it is only ex-Colonels and Majors that have been giving realistic assessments?
Larry Summers-
Sorry, the guy needs his own category though he might have to share it with Thomas Friedman.
The one thing that unites them is that all of them are protected by the political establishments and are never punished for being wrong but in fact that they will be promoted and rewarded instead.
I’d add USA or EU voter to that list, and some more. Get as Educated as you can, it won’t make a difference.
Three economists go moose hunting in Alaska, at a remote lake site only accessible by plane. The pilot drops them off, says he’ll be back in a week to pick them up and bring them home, but the small plane can only handle the weight of one moose for the flight home. When he returns, each of the three economists has shot a moose, and they insist on bringing all of the moose back with them. After much cajoling and not an insignificant amount of bribery, the pilot relents, and they load up all the moose. The plane stalls out soon after takeoff and crashes.
One economist extracts himself from the wreckage and asks “Where are we?”
Another economist crawls out, looks around, and says “Looks like we’re a couple of hundred yards east of where we crashed last year.”
David Brooks, uh, Honorable Mention?
NY Times Opinion columnist.
That would be the broad job description.
If I was a San Franciscan and knew that an immense storm of amazing magnitude was about to lay the city low for a week starting tomorrow, i’d treat it like an incoming hurricane back east and get the hell out of dodge, a perfect time for a road trip to San Diego or a flight to Frisco, Tx.
Now for something else completely different. / ;)
Joe Rogan and Randall Carlson. utube. full episode, long. The first 30-40 minutes are the most interesting to me. Talking about climate, earth’s climate temperature averages over the past 10,000 years, and Greenland’s ice core samples going back 10,000 years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0Cp7DrvNLQ
Super random – but since you brought up Rogan, his recent podcast with Siddharth Kara was really interesting and moving. The depravity and slave adjacent conditions going on in the Congo that are required for every smartphone, computer, EV car etc. to be manufactured is tragic and an indictment of our economic system
Yes, I saw that interview. Heartbreaking and infuriating at the same time. Willful blindness.
to paraphrase Jared Diamond – the past was the golden age of ignorance while the present is an iron age of willful blindness – furzy’s antidote du jour almost brought me to tears – have more empathy for the animals of our planet than the animals our species has become –
When I was in seminary, I took a course that attempted to defend the position that the Earth is a few thousand years old since the denomination held to biblical inerrancy. The matter was of such importance to the professor that he had even written a book about the topic, the kind of thing you can find at fundamentalist Christian bookstores. He did a pretty good job of finding soft spots or scholarly disagreements in the argument that the Earth is billions of years old, and to his credit, he didn’t attribute the prevailing scientific view to the devil or the WEF, but his entire effort in denialism did nothing to change reality. It only helped some people avoid it for a little longer.
The Heartland Institute has been making a living off of this kind of thing for decades going back to the denialism the boys on Tobacco Road paid for. Now they’re doing it with climate and Covid.
I think anybody considering this kind of stuff should ask themselves which is more likely:
1) a conspiracy to take away all our stuff without much motive behind it other than sadism; or
2) a conspiracy to hide the truth about our adverse impacts on the Earth and our fellow creatures so that those who benefit can continue with Business As Usual.
We’ve seen it done with tobacco, dangerous prescription drugs, chemical pollution of our environment, etc. It’s been done with respect to this planet’s limits since Limits to Growth appeared. All we have to do is look around. People like Tucker Carlson can make fun of those concerned about the great die-off that’s occurring around us, but any of us old enough to remember when there used to be bugs on the windshield know better.
If you watch the first 30-40 minutes of the linked Rogan interview you’ll hear Carlson state several times that no one with any sense denies the climate is changing or that humans and human activity have an effect on that change. His point is that CO2 has been elevated as the only explanation and human action as the only action that matters in climate change, ignoring all other variables and ignoring the 10,000 year record of climate variability, which indicates to him the elevation of the CO2 issue is more a political agenda than an open, scientific analysis.
adding: to your point about fundamentalists declaring the earth is only 5-6 thousand years old, I knew a geologist who received a many page, impassioned, hand written letter from a ‘young earth’ believer. The letter essentially stated that after they discredited the Darwin they were “coming for the geologists next!”
The line of argument that “but there are other things contributing to climate change” is nothing more than a diversion. If the climate is changing, and human-emitted carbon is a significant factor, then the sensible response is to cut human emissions ASAP even if there are other factors. As we continue to warm, there will be lots of things to point to as contributors: methane coming from melting permafrost, the loss of the albedo effect as the northern polar ice melts and al the other secondary effects as we reach various tipping points.
These are all reasons to cut whatever we have control over, i.e. human emitted carbon.
Continuing to come up with excuses for not doing everything we can to reduce human carbon emissions, just so we can continue to “live our best life” like they say on the TV, is going to doom human civilization whether Joe Rogan can grok it or not.
Many people say so. The Greenland ice core record indicates something or many other things else in addition to. Why is its physical record of atmosphere (contained in the ice core and trapped air bubbles ) and climate temperatures waved away as a mere diversion? Because it doesn’t fit the current theory?
To paraphrase Planck; “Narratives change one Civilizational Collapse at a time.”
Once I finally figured out that Academia is but another branch of Organized Religion, it all became clear.
Earlier today, Phyllis and I were discussing “The Banality of Evil” and argued back and forth about the degree to which the structural nature of bureaucracy or the Terran human “Will To Evil” had a hand in malign Terran human works.
Know that you do not know is a very hard idea to get across. (I’m still not sure which one of us came up with that idea.)
Indeed.
“Until the High Middle Ages, monasteries were dominant centers for education. The High Middle Ages spanned from around the 11th century to the 13th century. ”
https://study.com/academy/lesson/the-rise-of-universities-and-displacement-of-monarchies.html
The grounding has changed but not the general structure and deference to “what is accepted as known.” That has both good and bad aspects, imo. Very conservative, slow to change can be good. At some point it can become a hinderance to new information and new understanding, imo. Where that point is becomes the question of moment.
MSM is mostly responsible for framing this clfkn with a side of the deniers focusing on a couple of hot buttons they could fiddle with to shape/suspend disbelief about it. MSM was using it just like Trump for eyeball outrage and a buck where as deniers only care about a ridged ideology not having anything fiddle with it less their income is effected.
AGW at its core is about energy and not temperature especially denoted in F/C when it should be Kelvin. Carbon is just the most simplistic way to in form the ignorant masses, sadly most of their lives as they know it are based on it being pumped into the atmosphere. Which makes great fodder for the deniers about liberties and freedoms, especially when couched in religious terms and some grand plan.
So at the end of the day its about the increase in the energy between all thermal sinks on the planet and how its a catalyst for a cornucopia of changes at a speed not seen since some global ELE cataclysmic event.
Ugh at the idea of making Greenland Ice cores a focal point when it requires all ancient ice cores globally be reconciled. Its not like some events have even distribution over a short time line or that something in one hemisphere will show up in another one at all. Not to mention all these so called – TALK Shows – remind me of some Victorian dinner party conversation and the so called host is the Séance/Fortune teller moderating the conversations. Its all like Glen Beck got some media training and writers … ugh …
Hansen and other climatologists have a track record of accurate predictions having come true as predicted from their carbon skyflooding heat-trapping theory of global warming.
Does this Randall Carson have an equal track record of accurate predictions having come true for the same events based on his theories? If he does, then his theories deserve consideration for their proven predictive powers. If he does not, then his theories are mere “theories” offered to get attention or prevent effective action or whatever other motive he may have.
So . . . . does this Randall Carson have an equal track record of accurate predictions having come true for the same events based on his theories? If he does, can someone provide a link to the record of his accurate climate predictions?
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Forum:Randall_Carlson
As far as I know Carlson has made no predictions, he’s only raising new questions based on new data about the current model that promotes CO2 in ppm as the ultimate climate mover.
I would argue it’s human population that’s the prime mover. All the “hockey sticks” in the charts, (CO2, ocean acidity, etc.) came after the explosive growth in human numbers since 1800.
It seems Paul Ehrlich of late-’60’s Population Bomb fame is still “very alarmed“, but few want to go there it seems. Conservative sites are all aghast that a respectable media outlet like CBS’s 60 Minutes would even talk to “discredited” Ehrlich, but I see him as perhaps the #2 Cassandra of our times, after Malthus of course. Eventually they will be proved right, but by then it will be too late.
Universal contraception as a way to avoid the worst, anyone?
I read Ehrlich’s book and found it persuasive when I was young. On the other hand, I know that the mid-1800’s was the end of the little ice age, per temp data as logged by geologic records. Do populations increase when warming weather creates conditions for better crop yield and food supplies? An unasked and unanswered question. (And yes, I know I’m being a bit of a gadfly here. But I do think it’s a question worth asking.)
As far as universal contraception, while I don’t disagree, good luck with that. You have only to look at the results of the earlier attempts.
adding: contraception is entirely a personal matter of conscience and must remain so.
Adding, NC is one of the very few sites that still accepts discordant views if they are grounded in reason and data. So many sites now banish contrarian voices.
Flora I made the distinction that basing a global event on one location is wobbly at best, furthered by the framework being used to discuss it is not even Scientific. Bad case of simplification to the point it loses all its context e.g. multifaceted event reduced to one or two facets.
BTW Rogan and Carlson platforms are not much different to Allen Jones aka infotainment for personal profit.
I respect your opinion. My take is that Carlson is looking at the Greenland ice core because Greenland was in the center of the northern hemisphere’s glacial ice age coverage. Maybe an Antarctic ice sheet core has been drilled since. The center of the Antarctic ice sheet must be thousands of feet deep. It would be interesting to compare the data from the north and south hemispheres if the Antarctic sheet has been drilled to the same depth of antiquity age.
They do this Flora yet the show focused on only one … ummm …
Yes, there is extensive ice core drilling in Antarctica. Still, I believe the oldest cores go back only a few million years. That’s still a “blink” in geologic time. There are other ways to estimate CO2 ppm that go farther back, e.g. the stomata of leaf fossils. There’s growing evidence that the earth had long periods of being much warmer and much colder than today. A bigger problem than absolute level of ppm may be rate of change, which is unprecedented in the anthropocene.
Academia is presented as unified on the danger of climate change, but climate modelers say there’s still a lot of uncertainty. E.g. more warming means higher cloud albedo, changes in ocean circulation, etc. etc.. These effects and their interactions are still the subject of much debate. Sadly, the climate deniers will seize on any uncertainty to advance their position.
“Civilization exists by geologic consent, subject to change without notice.”
– Will Durant
Skippy, that’s a bit much comparing Alex Jones to them.
I think that a big source of confusion and denial about the need to fight climate change derives from the mis-stating of goals and ambitions by climate change activists. We don’t have to prevent climate change to save the earth, or even life on earth — in the Mesozoic Era, this planet teemed with life, in conditions that could not remotely sustain humans. Earth has demonstrated that it is fine thank you very much, with just about any temperature; the earth doesn’t care.
But we do. Remember that if you compress the history of life on this planet to a calendar year, we arrived on December 31. Climate change activists need to stop saying “save the planet” and start saying “save the humans”. Less abstract, more compelling (?) — certainly more truthful.
I suppose it’s possible that they thought about this and rejected it: Afraid they might lose the support of those with a (much) broader world view, perhaps?
I watched the first hour of the video you linked to. This video makes a stunning though unintended and inadvertent indictment of Scientific literature with its jargon, and its turgid, obtuse, painfully obscure style of expression. Other than this, I was underwhelmed by the entertainment value and amount of content in the hour I spent listening to Joe Rogan and Randall Carlson.
The idea that myths and legends might contain some record of events is not new. Heinrich Schliemann pursued such ideas in his discovery of an ancient city he misidentified as Homer’s Troy. The book “Worlds in Collision” by Immanuel Velikovsky, published in 1950, posits possible past history from myths and various other evidence with much the same rigor as Randall Carlson portrays in his video, but to what I thought were much more exciting and imaginative possibilities. I enjoy reading Robert E. Howard fictions about Conan and the Hyborian Age — drop the magic from the stories and the Hyborian Age could fit into one of the ages of past and now lost civilization erased by the ravages of changes in the Earth’s climate.
However, when I am interested in what is currently known about the Earth’s climate and past climate I regard James Hansen as my goto source:
“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/
This paper discusses the Eemian Age throughout, Dansgaard–Oeschger (D-O) events– “6.3 Heinrich and Dansgaard–Oeschger events” [p.3798] — and the Younger Dyas in particular though very briefly [p.3791]. It explains at length the impacts of slowly varying insolation — “4.2 Millennial climate oscillations” [p.3787] — and the workings of CO2 — “4.2.2 CO2 as a climate control knob” [p.3789].
Hansen released a pre-print of a new paper “Global warming in the pipeline”, Hansen et al. 2022 https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.04474 I yet only skimmed over. From the abstract: “Improved knowledge of glacial-to-interglacial global temperature change implies that fastfeedback equilibrium climate sensitivity is at least ~4°C for doubled CO2 (2×CO2), with likely range 3.5-5.5°C. Greenhouse gas (GHG) climate forcing is 4.1 W/m2 larger in 2021 than in 1750, equivalent to 2×CO2 forcing. Global warming in the pipeline is greater than prior estimates. Eventual global warming due to today’s GHG forcing alone – after slow feedbacks operate – is about 10°C.” I would think this paper should be more exciting with its possibilities than anything in Randall Carlson’s video. It has not come out yet but Hansen is promising a second a paper in the works which he hopes to release soon. In this second paper Hansen et al. will focus on sea level rise as a consequence of the higher climate sensitivity predicted in the first paper.
Thank you!
‘Sneaking in for kisses..’
Adorable doesn’t even begin to cover this. You can see that they are buddies for life. As that puppy gets bigger, there may be problems however-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=II3fAuEAMaA (3:09 mins)
I love Fritz and his sister Fiona.
China could claim parts of Moon – NASA RT link – Projection?
The Guano Islands: Bird Turds and the Beginnings of U.S. Overseas Territories but How To Hide An Empire, by Daniel Immerwahr is does much further into it.
No mention of the Artemis Accord and the privatization of the Moon under US supervision…
‘Philip Pilkington
@philippilk
That really didn’t take long.’
Whether talking about microchip technology or some other field of science, knowing that it has been done before saves you half the effort. It then becomes a matter of replicating what has been done. Sure there will be a ton of mistakes to be made and a few false paths, but the Chinese were always going to solve those problems as for them it was a matter of national survival and not just so they could make a few bucks.
‘AZ 🛰🌏🌍🌎
@AZgeopolitics
🇺🇸🇹🇷🇺🇦🇷🇺John Bolton,expressed the opinion that Turkey’s membership in NATO could be called into question in 2023 against the background of the unwillingness of the Turkish authorities to take a tough anti-Russian position on the conflict in Ukraine.’
John Bolton is apparently unable to do simple mathematics. Below is a link to troop strengths of the NATO nations. The US tops the lot with 1,346,000 people but only a portion of that could be assigned to the European theater. And the next one down the list is the Turks with 446,9000 troops. The next nation after that is France with less than half that amount. The rest are mostly glorified security forces. Bolton has a history of being a bully who has been know to threaten an opponent’s children but this won’t work with Erdogan. If Bolton had his way, the Turks may leave but there wouldn’t be much left to work with-
https://www.statista.com/statistics/584286/number-of-military-personnel-in-nato-countries/
Yeah, i think Turkey has been the second biggest standing army in NATO pretty much since they were invited to join. In part because they had managed to stay out of WW2.
Who really cares what a FRightwingcrazed nutcase yahoo like Bolton thinks? It’s a shame too many stupids like him are the PTB.
I had to do it to save everyone’: Man breaks into school and shelters more than 20 people from blizzard
I found this sad. My siblings and I were all raised by the cleaning lady. She also cooked all our meals, nursed us when we were sick and made us say our prayers before hopping into bed. We called her “Mom.”
My mom grew up during the Great Depression and there wasn’t always an adequate amount of food for two parents and six kids in the 1930s. She never forgot being hungry and made sure that her own brood never, ever missed a meal. She also made sure no one around us ever missed one either. I can’t count the number of times I would arrive home for dinner – always at 6pm – not 6:01 or 6:15 – and you never knew who the hell would be there or in what numbers.
One Christmas Eve she walked to the store to get a loaf of bread and came home with an Australian woman who had travelled from Sidney to visit her friend who had gone skiing for a week and was unreachable (cell phones hadn’t been invented yet). She stayed with us the entire week. My 8 year old brother was so fascinated by this person that he developed a life-long obsession with Australia and eventually migrated there.
My aunt once told her she was crazy for doing this and my Mom responded, “Look around. Do you really think anyone wants to steal this stuff? We are the ones who get paid back for our meals by making our guests talk to us.”
My Mom, all 110 pounds of her, with her 8th grade education and who probably never used a four-syllable word in her life, was a really smart woman
I am very curious why the ten people refused to give shelter to Jay Withey. You noted that your Mom responded to an aunt’s questioning, with “Look around. Do you really think anyone wants to steal this stuff?” Did fear of theft motivate the refusals to give shelter to Jay Withey — or were other fears involved? I would have expected a small town in Erie to have a much greater sense of community and trust than might be found in a big city, especially in response to a blizzard. This incident in Erie casts ominous shadows on the future. What has become of ancient customs of hospitality, sharing, and trust in our Society?
My mom told me of an interesting episode in Calgary-adjacent on their farm in Okotoks, it was during an incredibly bad dust bowl storm in the mid 30’s and visibility was near zero and she related that about 10 First Nations men were on horse and asked if they could sleep in the barn, which her parents were ok with.
For what it’s worth in the boonies in the west during the 19th century, a traveler could knock on a door and ask to stay the night and perhaps a meal too, not uncommon.
So much of what we do these days is fear based, look at all the guns and people terrified of everything in our shoot first, question why you did it later, society.
Did anyone follow up on the story, or is it just the word of one person – who incidentally was technically committing a felony and had every reason to build a sympathetic case for himself
Your take on this report is disquieting. Suppose Mr. Withey broke into the school during the blizzard to find shelter for himself alone. Suppose he rifled the school cafeteria to scavenge for cereal and apples, managed to turn off the alarm, and found mats in the gym to sleep on. That account removes most of the sympathetic case the guy may have built for himself. Assuming away all but Mr. Whithey’s claim of seeking shelter from the blizzard — am I to suppose that as a police officer or prosecutor you would bring felony charges against Mr. Whithey, along with charges for as many other crimes as you could, and push for maximum penalties — that Justice might be served?
@Objective Ace — The Cheektowaga Police called Withey a hero and thanked him for saving the lives of 25 people. What the heck would make you have such a cynical take on this?
https://nypost.com/2022/12/30/buffalo-man-jay-withey-known-as-merry-christmas-jay-hailed-hero-for-rescuing-people-in-winter-storm/
The school Withey broke into was at 1635 E Delavan Ave, Cheektowaga – not exactly a small town setting, but (I’m guessing) a blue-collar suburb just over the Buffalo city line. Still, I’m surprised and disappointed that nobody would offer him shelter.
You were very lucky to be the child of this awesome woman.
“New York approves composting of human bodies” I read that as NY Times and thought, well, they did that back when they agitated for the Iraq War, so yeah.
See also California.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/01/us/california-human-composting-law-trnd/index.html
Soil-ent Green? / ;)
Off topic, but on Salon:
https://www.salon.com/2023/01/03/the-is-about-to-go-wild-with-phony-biden-investigations-the-media-must-not-take-the-bait/
My bold. Really? That the press was bullied into lying that this was Russian disinfo is not a story?
You have to understand the source – Marcotte. Go to her articles at Salon – they are all like that. Her narrative is a simple one – dems good, pubs bad. There is no in between. Then there are her ‘isms. Sexism, racism, and any other ism she can dream up. Hillary was denied because of sexism. It never ends.
I almost met this women. She was a writer along with an ex-family member who did writing for Salon under a different banner. She was invited to the wedding of my ex-family member who was marrying my ex partners daughter. The daughter thought this was one of America’s finest writers. They all love her and think she is brilliant. I didn’t go to the wedding.
These are pure PMC vote blue no matter who democrats who hate Trump and the GOP with every inch of their body. They are, without question, the scum of the earth (the right), while their nearly perfect democrats (except Bernie – they hate Bernie too) are just the bestest thing since sliced bread.
I think every time my ex and her daughter talked or read this person they got dumber. I miss my X to pieces, but I sure don’t miss her politics.
Yes, Marcotte. I don’t read Salon much anymore, so out of curiosity I did precisely what you suggest; I went to her listed Articles pages. As you say, every article was about the deprivations of the fascist right/Trump/MAGAs/GOP (they’re all basically the same to her). After about seven pages or so of articles listed in reverse chronological order, I clicked on one to check the date, and it was only *last September*! Seven pages of article titles listed, almost all of them on the same subject, in just the last three months or so!
https://www.salon.com/writer/amanda_marcotte
I was going to go back to early Russiagate, but I gave up. Your point was more than confirmed.
I believe Marcotte is a Clintonite specifically, and not just a Democrat.
Amanda Marcotte, is that still a thing?
Hard to keep up with or without a scorecard or bingo card!
I notice she has shut the comments off on her articles. I remember people giving her the business many times in the past because she was so ridiculous. I’m guessing it became so much work to delete all the ones that argued with her narrative, she finally just shut them off.
I responded once on her Twitter feed and was immediately blocked. All I did was point out a fact that she was wrong about. She is a one way street, and a bad one at that.
I see people like her no different than a Sean Hannity without the fame and money.
By now, Marcotte is shading into Falwell. Waiting for her to open a PMC university along the lines of Liberty U.
Once in awhile when my better half and I are on the road, i’ll find Hannity on the radio and torture her for about 10 minutes before she cries uncle and/or attempts defenestration from a moving vehicle, so it’s smart to lock down all of the windows beforehand.
The California State Government has never had any use for the Bill of rights, logic, science or good sense in any form.
I am writing to ask you both about something that’s high priority for me (along with another sequoia researcher cc’ed) to try and photograph and film in the southern Sierras this spring. A few years back, I was hiking Garfield Grove trail and got a late start. Sunset happened on the lower trail and then I saw these glowing millipedes crawling all over the place above the first perennial creek. It shocked me. They were everywhere! It’s something I will remember forever—it felt magical.
I assume you’re aware of the bioluminescent millipedes in the southern Sierra? They’re the only bioluminescent millipedes documented in the world. I was wondering if you happen to know any places that are easy to access (near a road, ideally) to see a bunch of them for photography/filming all night? Do you know what causes them to come out or when a good time to see them is? Finally, do you know if their populations have dwindled from the fires? I ask because I don’t think anyone is studying them, despite how cool they are. They also would excite people about the ecosystem—they’re the whacky bugs under these immensely beautiful trees.
If you don’t know about these, do you happen to know other folks who live in Three Rivers or Camp Nelson who might know or have had some crazy stories about dense millipede flushes?
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Got this query from a scientist friend who studies Giant Sequoias, and i’d never heard of these beasties before!
They produce cyanide, kinda interesting, that!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motyxia
We’ve got a version of these here in SW Vermont. They don’t glow in the dark, but they do light up under the portable blacklight and are easy to find in the dark. I did not know about the cyanide. I guess they’re off the menu.
I believe that scorpions also glow under the black lights. Bugs are so, outre.
https://news.yahoo.com/chinese-travelers-facing-covid-19-013308869.html/
Reading more reports of various countries and their China travelers’ testing policies.
I see these possibilities:
1) too many countries captured by big pharma dollars. I still suspect this us all an attempt to sell China mRNA shots and zero to do with stopping the sprrad of Covid. As in “get these shots” and we’ll help you with BS immunity claims
2) I also just read Lambert’s report on “vaccine” escape and immune dysregulation.
All of these countries could use a scapegoat for the failures of “vaccines” and the signs pointing to immune dysregulation that are a result of both ignorant and corrupt “let ‘er rip” policies.
When the West wants to demonise countries for refusing to hand over their stuff for free, then every opportunity counts.
Where I am, I’m assuming that the U-turn from not testing to testing came about because of the growing negative view of China as the big bogey man by voters. We as a nation have a proud history of fearing the yellow peril from Asia, and believing the domino theory that they are coming for us sooner or later. etc.
Antidote du jour:
Elephant finds a feather pillow and likes feather pillow.
Off topic, but re the Idaho killings case. I am wondering if the defendant in the Idaho murders will exercise his write to a speedy trial. People almost always waive this right to allow them to better prepare for trial. It the criminologist hubris narrative is true, he may demand a speedy trial, which would require a trial begin within 70 days, which would give the prosecution much less time to prepare their case, evidence, and reviews by expert witnesses. If he waives his speedy trial right, the trial would likely be next year. By demanding a speedy trial, he could play a strategy of forcing the prosecution to rush, in hopes of tossing out evidence or showing holes.
Neat, an NSF grant for low-touch AI censorship against microaggressions.
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2142739&HistoricalAwards=false
Re the NHS.
I successfully sued the NZ government for breach of an implied term of an employment contract of a duty of care not to expose the employee to serious risk of harm and to take steps to reduce or eliminate it.
While an overload may be temporary usually it is a combination of policy (to save money) and poor management. My advice is to first preserve your health. Otherwise if you must fight expect it to be a long and costly battle. At least you have numbers and public support,
First vote for Speaker of the House, and McCarty loses. I actually find it encouraging that Congress gets messy like this – democracy, it’s messy. I get more concerned when Congress only votes when the results have been prearranged in back rooms as seemed to occur with Pelosi – that’s not democracy.
I feel a little sorrow for Kev… imagine losing 3 times in one day, it takes a certain talent.
The Squad need their noses rubbed in that.
Them, along with the CPC, is all theatrics. When it comes time to vote, people tend to show their true colours, it seems.
People have woken up to what the members of the Squad are all about-
https://twitter.com/ItsLulu_7/status/1610157473369067520
Regarding electric cars in winter, yes, range is much reduced, by up to 50% based on my reading of owner posts on chevybolt.org. However, the slower one drives, down to about 30 km/hr., the more efficient the vehicle is (due to lower air resistance), so a traffic slowdown is not much of a worry in terms of range. If stuck in the snow, the battery can apparently provide heat for a long time (given that it is normally used to propel a 3,500 lb.+ vehicle for several hundred kilometres). There could be a problem, obviously, if an unexpected headwind, for instance, arises with little range left. So one should definitely leave some more range margin in winter.
In “The six jobs no one will notice or care if you’re shit at”, “primary school teacher” should be swapped out for “writer for DailyMash”.