For readers in Europe, Asia and Africa, and night owls in the Americas: We will be doing a Roundtable with Gonzalo Lira tomorrow, February 24, at 2 AM EST. We will post it on the site so you don’t have to run around finding it. You will also be able to watch it later at your leisure.
Apologies for the lack of original posts. Yours truly and Lambert got wrapped around the axle of what to say about China’s newly-released Global Security Initiative Concept Paper. It’s a poorly written document (and this is unlikely to be an artifact of translation; Xi’s readouts, published by the same agency, are crisp and clear) and treats quite a few things as factual or givens that aren’t. It’s also exhortative, which comes off as “China bossy”. Having said that, it also contains some promising bits.
I had mistakenly assumed this was the China position paper promised for the week of the SMO anniversary. Alexander Mercouris made great hay over the freakout at the Munich Security Conference of various leaders over the idea that China would be presenting a peace proposal, when China had purportedly only spoken of a position paper.
Wellie, it looks like the Munich Security Conference type were right. From China’s English language organ, Global Times, today:
China’s peace proposal provides Ukraine an opportunity to increase its strategic autonomy
And:
Russia and China didn’t discuss Beijing’s ‘peace plan’ – Moscow RT
So no point in dealing with the turgid Global Security Initiative Concept Paper, although it does sound as if some of its ideas will also show up in the peace scheme.
Meteorite crater discovered in French winery PhysOrg
World’s largest fog harvester produces water from fog.
🎥 Wasser Stiftung#engineering pic.twitter.com/tdIevMo8f0— Interesting Engineering (@IntEngineering) February 23, 2023
‘Düsseldorf patient’ cured of HIV in Germany after stem cell transplant Washington Post (furzy)
Science Falls Behind as Syphilis Stages Another Comeback TheScientist (guurst)
Big Tobacco’s ‘harm reduction’: Is it for real, or a sham? STAT (Dr. Kevin)
Meet the people who literally feel no fear ZMEScience (Dr. Kevin)
Vibrating Pill for Constipation Now Available Medscape (Dr. Kevin)
There is a worrying amount of fraud in medical research Economist (Dr. Kevin). Gee, ya think?
Climate/Environment
Biden Thinks Oil Will Be Around For A Decade—It’ll Be Much Longer OilPrice
Alarming Toxic ‘Forever Chemicals’ Found in Animals’ Blood Guardian
Unpriced climate risk and the potential consequences of overvaluation in US housing markets Nature (Dr. Kevin)
Is artificial light poisoning the planet? New Yorker (Paul R)
Italy faces new drought alert as Venice canals run dry Reuters (resilc)
China?
There's a lot of ridiculous commentary these days on China's relationship with Russia.
When you do not even attempt to understand China's context, you obviously won't understand its position.
Small 🧵 to put things back into context.
— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) February 22, 2023
U.S. Considers Release of Intelligence on China’s Potential Arms Transfer to Russia Wall Street Journal. Thought crimes? Seriously? This will not score any points with the Global South, and the EU needs to trade with China. So where does the US think trying to interfere in China’s relations with Russia, which China said is none of America’s business, will go?
China Tells Big Tech Companies Not To Offer ChatGPT Services Nikkei
Old Blighty
Rishi Sunak held hostage by Tory ‘malcontents’ on Northern Ireland, says Labour Financial Times (Kevin W)
South of the Border
Trial of Mexico’s Former Top Cop Neglected U.S. Role in War on Drugs Intercept. Resilc: “I like the Hillary photo.”
New Not-So-Cold War
Ukraine. Military Summary And Analysis 2023.02.23 (Part 1 – Morning) Military Summary (Martin Oline). This is a special extra show. Russian MoD made an announcement that they have intel that Ukraine is planning to stage a provocation in Moldova with troops wearing Russian uniforms to serve as a pretext for capturing warehouses with Soviet tanks and 155mm howitzer shells. Will Mr. Kinzhal pay a visit to these warehouses first?
See also Slavyangrad, which is solid on battlefield developments:
The Ukrainian Operational Command North has warned that the enemy is preparing provocations for the anniversary of the invasion.
In particular, the movement of military equipment without insignia with uniformed military similar to the Ukrainian one near the border with the Chernigov Region has been recorded.
“This is evidenced by intelligence data, where the movement of columns of military equipment near the border with Chernigov region without insignia and live forces dressed in pixel, similar to the uniform of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” the report said.
As a reminder, the Russian Defence Ministry earlier issued a similar message, but in a different direction. They said that Kiev intended to stage an attack by Russian troops from the territory of Transnistria.
Russian forces are attacking across the entire breadth of the Oskil axis, from Lyman to the border of Belgorod Oblast.
— Big Serge ☦️🇺🇸🇷🇺 (@witte_sergei) February 22, 2023
* * * German Lawmaker Calls for Nord Stream Probe Consortium News (furzy)
🇩🇪🇺🇦🇷🇺"The foreign minister[Baerbock] should watch what she says,verbal escalation can lead to an escalation of violence. We are helping Ukraine, but Germany is not at war with Russia. Mr. Scholz, stop Baerbock with her sloppy statements," Söder said on Die Welt TV channel
— AZ 🛰🌏🌍🌎 (@AZgeopolitics) February 22, 2023
Zelensky Is Challenged by Return of Domestic Political Troubles Wall Street Journal. Wonder if this is narrative hedging for what happens when it eventually become impossible to hide Ukraine losses of men and important battles from its citizens.
* * * West probes potential sanctions busting as exports to Russia’s neighbours surge Financial Times. Lead story.
* * * PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN SIGNED SAFE CONDUCT FOR PRESIDENT JOSEPH BIDEN, ONE RETURN PRZEMYSL RAIL PASS, 24-HOUR LEAVE PASS FOR KIEV, IN “COVERT” MISSION TO FOOL NEW YORK TIMES, LONDON TIMES, FINANCIAL TIMES (AND IT DID) John Helmer. Demonstrating that Russia has air superiority even in western Ukraine.
* * * How The U.S. (And UK) Sabotaged Peace In Ukraine Moon of Alabama (Chuck L, Kevin W)
Russia Did The Right Thing At The Right Time By Suspending Participation In The New START Andrew Korybko (Chuck L)
“Navalny,” documentary nominated for March 12th Oscar, is disinformation Lucy Komisar. So Bellingcat has gone into the documentary business.
Syraqistan
Sen. Bernie Sanders, “Embarrassed” by “racist” Israeli Government, Threatens to Withhold Aid Juan Cole (resilc)
A brutal Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus has left at least 10 Palestinians dead and over 100 injured. pic.twitter.com/2tJf1NwxIe
— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) February 22, 2023
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Supreme Court not interested in hearing about NSA’s super-snoop schemes The Register
Samsung Says Users Will Be Able To Clone Their Voice To Respond To Calls The Verge. hope this will kill financial institutions trying to use voiceprints as ID.
Imperial Collapse Watch
Cuba and Vietnam: What’s the Difference? The Future of Freedom Foundation (resilc)
State Department explains cutting ties with Soros-funded group RT (Kevin W).
If you've got billions to spend it will be spent https://t.co/SoH2a8TabU
— chinahand (@chinahand) February 23, 2023
Supremes
Supreme Court rules 9-0 that bankruptcy filers can’t avoid debt incurred by another’s fraud CNBC (Kevin W)
Supreme Court Rejects Ohio Man’s Bid To Sue Police Over Arrest of Facebook Parody NBC
Norfolk Southern Chemical Bomb
This was an extremely tough interview. What folks in East Palestine are going through is beyond words. The decisions they are needing to make are impossible. https://t.co/BAPdY86MnN
— Louis DeAngelis (@louisd217) February 22, 2023
Buttigieg Bashing Over Response to Ohio Derailment Turns Bipartisan Bloomberg (resilc)
Rail Unions Warned Us: Greed is Dangerous CounterPunch (resilc)
Gov. Tate Reeves unsure whether providing mothers health care would help their health Mississippi Today (Paul R). Only in America….
Governors form Reproductive Freedom Alliance to guard abortion rights USA Today (furzy)
L’affaire Jeffrey Epstein
Our No Longer Free Press
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Totalized Censorship Consortium News (furzy). Important.
Gunz
Alabama star Miller delivered gun used in killing of young mother, police say Guardian (resilc)
AI
AI-Created Images Lose US Copyrights In Test For New Technology Reuters
AI porn raises flags over deepfakes, consent and harassment of women Washington Post (resilc)
AI is Useful for Capitalists but Probably Terrible for Anyone Else Matthew Eric Bassett (Paul R)
The Bezzle
Mormon church fined over scheme to hide $32 billion investment fund behind shell companies NBC (resilc)
Tuition Revenue Has Fallen at 61% of Colleges During the Pandemic Chronicle of Higher Education (resilc)
The college-age population is about to crash. It will change higher education forever. Vox (resilc)
US Housing Market Is Overvalued by Billions Due to Ignored Flood Risk Bloomberg (resilc)
Electric Vehicles Are a Status Symbol Now Atlantic (resilc)
How Much Money Do Pediatricians Really Make From Vaccines? Wellness and Equality (Kevin W)
Class Warfare
McDonald’s locations in Pennsylvania broke child labor laws, with kids under 16 operating deep fryers, Labor Department says Business Insider (Kevin W)
Seattle becomes first US city to ban caste discrimination BBC (resilc)
Amazon Corporate Workers Face Pay Reduction After Shares Slip Wall Street Journal
Antidote du jour. A vintage pic taken by Marc B that has been marinading in my inbox. Please send images!
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
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STUCK IN ODESSA WITH YOU
(melody borrowed from Stuck In The Middle With You by Stealers Wheel)
Well we know there’s gonna be a big fight
Till it comes we’ve just gotta sit tight
Some say the Russians will roll in from the sea
When they do that’s where I don’t wanna be
Civilians to the left of me cannons to the right
Here I am stuck in Odessa with you
Yes I’m stuck in Odessa with you
And there’s not an awful lot we can do
Watchin’ freighters leave the port every day
I feel so jealous watchin’ them slip away
Civilians to the left of me cannons to the right
Here I am stuck in Odessa with you
NATO started all this brawling
Thinking Russia would just fall apart
But now NATO will come crawling
Meet the Russian bear and say ‘Please Please’
Our orders are to fight to the end
But we don’t have many shells to expend
Every soldier’s found a cellar to hide
Cuz we know the Russians won’t be denied
Civilians to the left of me cannons to the right
Here I am stuck in Odessa with you
(musical interlude)
NATO started all this brawling
Thinking Russia would just fall apart
But now NATO will come crawling
Meet the Russian bear and say ‘Please Please’
Well we know there’s gonna be a big fight
Till it comes we’ve just gotta sit tight
Some say the Russians will roll in from the sea
When they do that’s where I don’t wanna be
Civilians to the left of me cannons to the right
Here I am stuck in Odessa with you
Here I am stuck in Odessa with you
Yes I’m stuck in Odessa with you
Stuck in Odessa with you
Here I am stuck in Odessa with you
Interesting talk with Col. Wilkerson – https://youtu.be/6FvOBQSC6rQ
Nothing new to NC readers, but he is very clear and concise. This seems like a good video to show to friends who may not be aware of the contradictions and dangers of “western” discourse.
re the dialogue of democracy vs. autocracy as absurd:
“There’s more democracy in Iran than in Israel” – Wilkerson
‘Are one of my children gonna have to drop dread?”-Candice, #EastPalestineOH resident w/ 5 sons who have rashes & other symptoms after explosion. Sons had to take DECONTAMINATION SHOWER before DR—who couldn’t diagnose them w/ chemical burns w/out guidance from health dpt.🧵THREAD’
You know, if this was happening in the middle of a war it would probably be marked down as a war crime under the chemical warfare provisions. And if those doctors are too frightened about diagnosing kids as suffering chemical poisoning, why isn’t the American Medical Association stepping in and speaking up and helping out those people? It looks like the Democrats have decided that East Palestine is going to be the hill they they die on in the 2024 elections. And in a twist, they will die on this hill simply for not turning up. Came across an article a little while ago about testing in this area which says ‘The state used preliminary results from railroad-funded sampling to declare that East Palestine’s drinking water was safe in the wake of the toxic spill.’–
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ohio-train-disaster-water-sampling_n_63ef034be4b022eb3e35e585
Situations Normal Awfully Fouled Up. Keeping it clean for the family blogging readers.
Let your children smell the fresh air and drink the clean waters! We, the EPA, are declaring the all clear from any long term damages after a mere (counts for a second ) 2 – 3 weeks after the accident. Yeah not sure I would be trusting any person in authority at this juncture.
I’m surprised that no one has tried to publicly justify this by invoking white privilege. (/sarc)
Mayo Pete made a visit today. Trump was there yesterday and gave them a bunch of skids of water (a big photo op – Imagine that – but at least he gave them water). I don’t think Pete brought anything, except his press secretary. The cameras were rolling when he got there, but he walked right past them. They asked his press secretary why it took so long for him to get there, but she refused to answer while on camera. This went on for several minutes and she finally walked away. Not a good look.
I then read some headlines that Mayo Pete was in East Palestine inspecting the wreckage. LOL! He would know a hot box from a soap box. What a grade A creep. Him and Joe don’t seem to be too popular there. He best be careful, some of those deplorable Trump voters might have a stern word for him, or worse. I wish I could be there.
I also noticed, watching a video of the area – the burnt rail cars are still there – but the railroad looks replaced and a train going through. Imagine that! As my buddy who used to work these hazmat spills told me; the railroad only cares about one thing – get the trains running again. Seems so.
What a $hitshow.
“I don’t think Pete brought anything, except his press secretary.”
Is she ex McKinsey? Or present McKinsey?
This is kind of ridiculous. You would think after Trump, that the Dems would at least put on a show that they care about flyover and pass a few bills in their favor, but, nope, another forever war and just not showing up. I think I saw it here, a video of Biden talking about supporting Ukrainian pensions (!) with our taxpayer funds, or however they conjure all of it, just after a couple I know was telling me about the awful homeless problem in their town of Denver, which I’ve seen a few times. How is this good politics? Are they still stuck in “the suburban Mom will save us”?
Biden is probably recovering from the grueling trip to Kiev and Munich. They must have jacked him up big time with wonder drugs to live through that. But the old man shuffle looked real bad.
Yep. And B skedaddled out of DC to Kiev on the US’s national holiday Presidents’ Day. / ;)
PBS should re-run the entire UK old comedy series “Yes, Minister” and “Yes, Prime Minister.”
Except, there’s nothing funny about the Ohio train wreck or the complete lack of govt response. Nothing to see here, move along.
Voters don’t matter. Not when they manage to fool enough enough of the time or something to squeak out wins.
As I learn more, he showed up at 7am. How many people are you going to meet at 7am? Then there are pictures of him in safety glasses, a hard had, and a snot green reflective vest talking to workers. He has a “very serious” look on his face. What a great photo op by a weaselly little creepy snake.
I also watched a Fox video of Tulsi Gabbard who apparently spent the day there. Tells me she’s looking to be a VP pick?
On another note, my PMC friends are mad because the media is picking on GI Joe for going to Ukraine (that wasn’t a photo op, just so we know) instead of East Palestine. Poor Joe can’t get a break. But he did the right thing, according to this boot licker – why? Because Ukraine is more important than a train wreck.
I about fell off my chair. Go down to EP and tell those people that and see how long it takes to be knocked on your butt. I would pay to see that.
And…. about the Ohio factory explosion…
5 killed in Arkansas plane crash while en route to scene of a fatal explosion at Ohio factory
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/23/us/arkansas-plane-crash-five-killed/index.html
Mayo is an empty suit. He has company in DC with the empty tortoise shell, the empty suitcase, since resigned, the empty hair gel dispenser, and the empty vodka bottle(s).
Once there were Hollow
MenPeople. Now that has degraded to empty people.When does the gaslighting stop?
I’m having trouble understanding how a release of vinyl chloride like this causes “chemical burns”. But my general observation is it doesn’t matter how much air or water sampling and testing you do. It won’t be accepted if it doesn’t show a problem. Now that the NTSB preliminary report is out, we have some actual data to work from, but still many questions re past maintenance of cars and perhaps less-so wayside detectors (the detectors seem to have worked, unknown if as designed). Something that jumps out is that NS operating rules as reported by NTSB look at sensed bearing temperature, but no indication of having to do trend analysis.
There were several chemical products aboard the train. Releasing, mixing and then burning them is sure to result in a nasty toxic soup — but who knows what effects it can have.
Ukraine wants to ban a videogame because its creators refused to make a statement about the war – https://www.thegamer.com/ukraine-wants-atomic-heart-ban/
RE: China’s newly-released Global Security Initiative Concept Paper
“It’s a poorly written document (and this is unlikely to be an artifact of translation; Xi’s readouts, published by the same agency, are crisp and clear) and treats quite a few things as factual or givens that aren’t. It’s also exhortative, which comes off as “China bossy”.
It reminded me too much of the exact kind of establishment think tank policy outlines that come out of the USA. (Academia connections?)
No matter how broad and bold the plan may seem, I was only left with a feeling of dread and not “security.”
It’s a document primarily about security of and for international corporations.
I’ll have to pull up the piece and read it in detail. But the companion link about China’s alleged peace proposal caught my eye:
I would not want to be a TV in neo-con land. Bullets or brick incoming …
But, this is an official document of the Chinese Foreign Ministry. Tens of millions of Chinese speak and write English, and they do a clunky translation? Maybe the thing was originally written in a clunky manner. Just irresponsibly speculating…and hoping that the Chinese foreign office is not demonstrating the kind of mundane, everyday knuckleheadedness that can predominate in dysfunctional professional environments. Scary to think.
The Louis DeAngelis interview with Candice DeSanzo, divided in the tweet from Status Coup News, is worth your while. She is eloquent and self-controlled, describing in detail what is happening to her five boys. They are being poisoned.
Note the part in which she talks about the checks from Norfolk Southern: Hers hasn’t cleared the bank. And this is a time when check clear within a matter of hours.
It isn’t just the planned incompetence. It is also the gratuitous cruelty.
What is to be done?
Everything about this situation from a technical perspective was easily predictable. That the EPA signed off on a “controlled” burn immediately rather than forcing at least an attempt to remediate says it all. There was nothing “controlled” about the burn, it was just the quick and literally dirty way of handling the situation.
It’s true that keeping the spilling vinyl chloride cool enough to not boil off in this context would be a tall order, but there’s an argument to be made that the long term effects of even boiling off would be less than this. There could have been the option of knocking the VC down with water mist and cleaning it up from a limited area of soil contamination. I’m not in the ER team nor do I know anyone who is/was. Maybe the burn really was the only option, but I’d put it as the last resort option and it seems that EPA was on board with immediate implementation of last resort options. I’ll refine from my full opinion of Great Lakes EPA management but I will say that I’m not surprised by this.
Mass evacuation while proceeding with the burn wasn’t an option? I guess it isn’t possible for the EPA to talk to FEMA or the national guard..
If Biden’s visit was merely a prank on the lackeys and goons in the liberal media, why wouldn’t Putin have announced it and pull the rug out from under him and them both? Putin really could have orchestrated a better narrative about how he’s the gracious one merely trying to unite his people, is really the one in control of UA, that the US has to beg his permission to move around the world, and that this is evidence Zelensky has been an imperial puppet the whole time.
Just like the whole pipeline fiasco, if Putin knew some selective information that’s counter to the west’s consent manufacturing propaganda machines, why doesn’t he act on it in a way that’s consistent? All the incentives and motivations simply aren’t there.
They wouldn’t have reported it anyway. Why bother.
Old Joe wasn’t the only leader to make a visit to go see Zelensky. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni went just after him and gave Zelensky a kiss and a hug and it was all so cozy. When there was a few seconds blackout during a press briefing, she joked that Russiadidit when the lights came back on again. This tells me all I need to know about the state of Italian politics at the moment. After the last election, nothing fundamentally changed-
https://www.newsweek.com/zelensky-awkward-ally-giorgia-meloni-italy-visit-1782592 (2:06 min video)
Frankly, my dear, I don’t think he gives a damn.
Yeah the biggest “coup” of USA thus far is that they managed, pretty much over night, to make this a new “cold war” rather than than the ethnic conflict that had been brewing since 2014.
What is worrying is how much the European media is moving in lockstep defending that viewpoint. The very same media that was as late as 2021 talking about Ukrainians sporting nazi patches on their uniforms.
Yeah, that’s been very disconcerting to notice how impartiality became “putinism” on the morning of 24th February 2022.
Being able to follow Russian language media (English language Russian media being blocked in places with “European values”) I’ve noticed that the news my wife gets begin their journey from Ukrainian media, then appear in US media and only then they are published in the local media.
I do hope that this era will someday be the 101 course of how not to do journalism in whatever schools the journalists go to.
Yeah, i have become far more sensitive to the bylines in the last year. And i have noticed that far too much coverage of the conflict comes from Ukrainian “freelancers” via Reuters and AP.
And oh so much of the coverage is all about emotions, fear and safety.
Here in Oz I have the impression that news from the Ukraine originates from official Ukrainian sources and is whitewashed by the British before coming here. Maybe the 77th Brigade? And watching them you can see that they are not just random stories but part of a planned, media campaign.
Putin plays to a higher point on the bell curve.
A statesman intent on setting a lasting standard of respect and cooperation between nations will not permit such schoolyard tactics on his watch. All a statesman need do is look fifty years ahead to realize how much such behavior harms everyone.
It’s that fifty years ahead thing that Western politicians don’t get.
Because the only legacy they care about are the offshore accounts they leave for their (grand)kids.
“Putin really could have orchestrated a better narrative”
Putin isn’t fighting a postmodern war, he’s fighting a modern war.
“if Putin knew some selective information that’s counter to the west’s consent manufacturing propaganda machines, why doesn’t he act on it in a way that’s consistent?”
The question contains the answer. Anything Putin says is instantly engulfed by the “consent manufacturing propaganda machines.” Why would he waste his time? He’s busy winning a war.
You’re talking like an American. See Polar Socialist’s response.
He need do nothing, Joe’s trip off to Kiev is already playing to audiences in East Palestine, and soon in Poughkeepsie. How’s it pay working for the DNC?
I’ll just point out that anyone not on the payroll would see that Putin actually did “orchestrate a better narrative” by letting Joe F’ing Biden look like a complete fool, again – also Vlad’s winning the war so there is that whole narrative, erm.
“EXCLUSIVE: Arkansas cops rule suicide in death of Clinton aide linked to Jeffrey Epstein – who was found shot and tied to a tree with an electrical cord around his neck – despite no sign of weapon”
I read about this guy earlier. So out of the blue this guy decides to hang himself with an electrical cord. He gets a table under that tree, puts the noose around his neck and must have kicked the table away. And just so that he does a complete job of it, he also shoots himself in the chest with a shotgun. Even though a friend said ‘He knows nothing about guns! He hated guns; he couldn’t have tied a noose to save his life.’ And then he does a Harry Houdini and gets rid of the shotgun itslef. I guess the Clintons can tick him off as ‘terminated’ on their Excel list of enemies.
Whenever this happens I can’t help but recall the scene in Primary Colors when the Kathy Bates character realizes that the cause to which she has devoted her life is a lie. Her suicide is the result.
Regardless of the cause of death, he seems to be the latest of many used and later discarded and disillusioned Clinton supporters. This movie rings truer with each passing decade the Clintons are still around.
Fit’s nicely with Whitney Webb’s One Nation Under Blackmail: The Sordid Union Between Intelligence and Crime that Gave Rise to Jeffrey Epstein and Douglas Valentine’s The CIA as Organized Crime: How Illegal Operations Corrupt America and the World
Have you read Whitney Webb’s new Epstein book(s)?
He was not an enemy of Bill. He was a trusted lackey who personally escorted and signed Epstein into the White House. Man who knew too much.
The Webb book is very good.
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/51074723
Agreed! Whitney Webb has the poop…Reminds me of the 1961 case of Henry Marshall, mixed up with the various frauds of LBJ and Billie Sol Estes, who was found dead on his farm in Robertson County, Texas. County Sheriff Howard Stegall declared that “the sonavabitch shot himself” even though he had been shot in the chest five times with his own single-shot, bolt-action rifle, and had an eye split open and hanging out of its socket, a broken arm, and lungs filled with carbon monoxide. Arkansas has been owned and operated by the CIA since Bill Clinton was boy-governor, laundering their drug money.
The thing about writing fiction is the author has to make it seem at least plausible. I have never heard of Henry Marshall but I will never forget him now. Whitney Webb says Arkansas has a very small to non-existent middle class. You are either rich or poor.
PS Reading Whitney Webb’s books are a serious undertaking. I am starting the first one again to try and retain some of it.
Either they are high on their own hubris, or things have started to unravel, for them to be this blatant about cleaning up loose ends.
So who will play the part of Nero when DC burns?
Or they made it obvious to send a message.
My first dog was an Irish Setter named Nero, and my porn name is ‘Nero Hacienda’.
More of the story.
https://nypost.com/2023/02/23/shotgun-was-found-near-body-of-clinton-aide-new-details/
So, did that actually happen or are they trying to paper over shotgun sized holes in the story?
George Galloway said over 50 associates of Hillary Clinton have committed suicide in one of his latest MOATS shows,and asked/dared his viewers to name anyone who had more suicides associated with them. I was thinking of calling in with Hitler and Stalin, but was afraid that I’d win the Internet. No idea where he got the numbers.
There is an, er, subculture about them.
‘Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty or more
The Bloody Red Clintons was rollin’ out the score
Fifty people died tryin’ to end that spree
Of the Bloody Red Clintons of Washington DC’
I don’t see 50 but this site has 31 suspicious deaths with an additional 14 who served as bodyguards for Clinton at one time or another. I don’t think you can reasonably count people who carried weapons for a living as their jobs are inherently dangerous. It is likely most of these deaths are only tangentially related to the Clintons as Mena, Arkansas was a CIA and organized crime gun-running and drug smuggling center that also had Contras training there. State crime against democracy anyone?
The following link has only two from the plane crash in Croatia in 1996 but there were eight passengers who died listed with no mention of the crew members in the Whitney Webb book vol. 2 p.207. Those two were Charles Meissner and Ron Brown. The later had an apparent .45 gunshot wound to the top of his head. No autopsy was done and the X-rays disappeared. Three days after that crash, Niko Jeruic was found dead, shot in the chest. He was the head of navigation at that Croatian airport and his death was ruled a suicide. He is also not on the list of 31. Arkancide or Clintoncide?
I’m calling it a sports desk item and it is actually under the Gunz tag also, but that story is really a weird timeline. A bench warmer has already been quickly dismissed ( from the story, he is one of 2 that have been charged with the murder of a young woman ). The star from that team is a highly ranked freshman, most likely will be a “one and done” once he enters the NBA draft this summer. Obviously the athletic leaders and also senior leadership of the university have weighted the costs to allow the young athlete to continue to play. When that team plays opposing teams they are gonna hear the chants.
College sports, and particularly college basketball, has had these strange incidents happen before. Nearly twenty years ago if my recall is any good, Baylor men’s basketball had a monumentally bad instance of murder. And just to add, I pin this on the supposed adults in the room running these massive money making operations as I might on the young men involved.
Re the court ruling on AI copyright eligibility, if this decision holds, I think it could be a positive development. If AI is going to cause countless real human artists, journalists, and other writers to lose their jobs or income opportunities, then the least society and the law can do is to allow these AI products to be reused, modified, or repurposed by the public without cost or restriction. I think this should also extend to patent rights. Perhaps, especially so. Otherwise, there could come a point where the owners of AI technology could end up with a monopoly of written content and patentable products without any hope of reuse or modification without threat of legal actions (maybe written by AI lawyers). This could lead to a form of legal enslavement by AI owners, who would be the only persons with the right to alter their code.
If AI is to be sold as some ‘great gift to humanity’, then let it belong to all of humanity, and forever give any person the right to apply AI fruits however they see fit.
Re: Constipation — Here’s another remedy:
Kiwifruit Found Effective for Constipation
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/986297#vp_2
I have experienced canker sore healing after holding a slice of kiwi fruit against the sore with my tongue for a minute, then slowly consuming it and repeating with the remaining slices. Usually one kiwi will do it. Sometimes I have to repeat with an additional kiwi the next day.
Great to know it’s also a remedy for constipation! (Probably a lot cheaper than the vibrating “pill.”)
We’re about as likely to get our insurances to pay for our fruit consumption as a vibrating pill. At least the kiwi is high in Vit C and lysine. Lysine seems to work best in prevention… of cold sores, not constipation. It does diddly-doo-dah for constipation. YBMMV.
YBMMV – Literally laughed out loud. Classic incorporation of BM (Medicine: Bowel Movement) within the standard YMMV. Thank you for the laugh.
China peace baby–D.O.A
China’s peace proposal provides Ukraine an opportunity to increase its strategic autonomy
“…the US’ strategic purpose is to weaken Russia through Ukraine. In essence, the US is also taking advantage of Ukraine […]
[Ukraine] needs to be able to control its own fate. China’s peace proposal provides Ukraine an opportunity to expand its space for strategic autonomy, rather being kidnapped by the U.S.
Europe should also pay attention to the peace proposal, the logic is the same. To the US, Europe is a larger-size Ukraine, and it also needs to expand its own strategic autonomy.”
The Zelensky regime break with its imagined Supreme Benefactor and Savior–the US? Na gonna happen! Same for Europe.
Two things:
-one, it provides a framework for relations with China and Russia relations.
-two, US wonder weapons aren’t coming over the horizon. Plenty of guys will be left in Kiev and Lviv when certain apparatiks skip out. And let’s be honest, Ukraine isn’t going anywhere positive for decades. Foreign assistance will drop inevitably. It’s not an offer for Zelensky.
Z doesn’t care autonomy.
He only wants automoney.
“The college-age population is about to crash. It will change higher education forever.”
One side effect will be more videos like these. The first one is in New jersey-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lylbSTS7VM (18:57 mins)
And a second college-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvcUFkNLwrA (26:25 mins) – Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Uptp3IYLg8 (28:04 mins) – Part 2
Sad when you think that not that long ago that they would have been filled with students.
Here in Tucson, Slim’s inbox just got a panic-stricken missive from someone in a well-to-do neighborhood near the University of Arizona.
The panic is over the proposal to build another high-rise student apartment complex at the southeast corner of Speedway Boulevard and Euclid Avenue. Major intersection. Just a stumble and stagger away from campus.
And it’s not like there aren’t other complexes of this type in the area. I think I’ve counted five, but I’m willing to be corrected on that number.
Well, our neighborhood has a different opinion of these high rises. To us, they’re like giant vacuum cleaners that suck partying students out of neighborhoods like this one. And we like being able to sleep through the night. We really do.
Now, will the University of Arizona be affected by the birth rate crash? I think it will be. Not like the place is an academically elite institution.
As for the party towers, I think that, in coming years, they’ll be converted into luxury housing for retirees. Plenty of those heading our way, and I’ll bet that more than a few of them will want to live near the university and downtown.
How are they going to get water up to the top floor bathrooms in ten years?
Used to be abandoned malls that photographers and videographers documented, now it’s college campuses in ruins. The northeast has tons, with more every year. Vermont, the oldest state, just abandoned five campuses. Add to that the well seasoned former, er, mental health facilities, and, of course, factories, and a hobbyist can be busy for decades.
They should just cut out the middle man and just convert them directly to prisons… but wait… it’s middle men all the way down!
Hey Slim. You should start up a whisper campaign saying that if that high-rise student apartment complex is not built, then those well-to-do neighborhoods will have an influx of Airbnb rentals and there is nothing that can stop them. That should concentrate their minds.
Those nabes already have quite a few Airbnb rentals. So, it’s not like an influx will be anything new or different.
I’m a little surprised to see that those campuses left anything of a chemical nature behind. That would be attractive to meth producers – free chemicals! – and should make local law enforcement nervous.
Is the university actually building the student housing or is it one of the new generation of public-private partnerships where the university leases the land to a developer for nothing, the developer builds the housing, the students pay the developer, the university guarantees a minimum level of revenue for the developer, and the developer agrees to hand the building back to the university at the end of the contract (often 50 years or so)? Since the developer will build the cheapest possible building, the contract runs out right about the time the university will have to foot the bill for demolishing the building.
These agreements are all the rage in academia because housing functions as a separate business entity from academics and generally doesn’t maintain enough liquid funding to finance new construction on this scale. The only other option for building then is a Wall Street bond issue. And since the trend in university administration is to compete for students based on “student life” rather than academics, the building of a four year, all-inclusive resort must go on so as not to be left behind in the higher learning arms race.
The plot of land in question is currently occupied by single-family residences that have been rented to university students for decades. At one time, they may have had historical significance, but now, they look like bulldozer bait.
As far as I know the lots on which these houses sit are privately owned and the university won’t profit from their sale or from what is built next.
And this, my friends, is what collapse looks like! We are there! Gradual abandonment of what was. I can’t help but draw the parallels with ancient Rome.
The videos were great (and sad). Thanks!
I became a regular Proper People viewer during the pandemic. Kind of relaxing to watch nature reclaim man’s creations. They are the best of the many urban exploration channels on YouTube, they don’t talk too much or play up how SPOOKY everything is, they just walk around pointing the camera at interesting things they run across.
“Kind of relaxing to watch nature reclaim man’s creations.”
A guilty pleasure of mine is to mentally overlay nature reclaiming the environment around me. Buildings crumbling into themselves. Plant life sprouting from all angles. Birds and animals scurrying about unmolested. Cars rusting into dust. I’ll speed it up sometimes and try to imagine it all a million years from now. It’s so peaceful.
The documentary film “Ivory Tower” predicted that most higher ed will in the future be an online experience.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjfwnBuj3O0&ab_channel=RottenTomatoesTrailers
“Ukraine. Military Summary And Analysis 2023.02.23 (Part 1 – Morning)”
I think that Dima is way off the mark here with his suppositions. For a start, the Russians could blow all those warehouses full of ammo and gear. That could be done by the local Russian forces or else the Russians could do it with long-range missiles as they have the exact coordinates of those warehouses. And what makes Moldova think that the Ukraine will ever hand that territory over to them? I wouldn’t be that confident about that happening. Certainly the Russians are not going to invade Moldova to get to that territory as one, it would probably be a booby trap to kill any Russian forces and two, the shape of the territory itself makes it undefendable. It may be that the Russian garrison will enter Moldova and turn themselves in to that country than let the Ukrainians have so many prisoners. But likely they will put up a helluva fight first with the aid of long-range Russian weaponry. In any case, the Russians have demonstrated that they will let territory go and get it back later. So if they let it go, when they make their big push they will go all the way to the border and take back that territory. Moldova may scream about it but they are not In NATO and the Russians will respect the Moldovan border. Certainly by that stage the west will have nothing left in their armories to fight for Transnistria.
There are at least 3,000 Russian military forces there and it’s not like the residents are begging to be liberated. So likely Ukraine would need a minimum of 6,000 troops to even attempt invasion and capture of the munitions depot. Moldova doesn’t really have the military force to do anything. Romania joining in means NATO-Russia confrontation. And it’s not like Sandu is overwhelmingly popular in Moldova.
While it’s clear that Moldova is the next Ukraine in Biden’s grand plans, I think it’s not so easy as the US hopes and there’s a serious risk that the whole things goes sideways in the worst way.
Yeah, that “plan” sounds very suspicious to me. As far as I know, most of the usable stuff has was already removed from those warehouses by 2004. Ten years ago it was estimated that almost 60% of the ammunition that was left was unsafe to move, not to speak of using it.
There should be no weapons left in there anymore, just aerial bombs, artillery and mortar shells, grenades and ammunition. If they’re really lucky, the Ukrainians would perhaps gain 100k artillery shells and an angry 10k strong Transnistrian army in their rear.
Any less lucky, and they would create a mile wide crater and have an angry 10k strong Transnistrian army in their rear.
Of course if the Ukraine did this attack, the Russians could tell the Ukrainians to kiss goodbye to their actual power generating stations, telephone and internet as well. So far the Russians have refrained from going this far. So far.
I agree that “I think that Dima is way off the mark here with his suppositions” or at least I certainly hope he is. His third option of invading the estuary area of southern Ukraine is precisely what NATO wants as it can set up a conflict with Romania bordering west of this area. Biden said (transcript of remarks from the White House) “An attack against one is an attack against all. It’s a sacred oath. (Applause.) A sacred oath to defend every inch of NATO territory.” Romania is in NATO but Moldova has applied for membership and is not a member. A day ago Putin revoked a 2021 degree recognizing Moldova’s sovereignty over Transnistria, a Russian-backed separatists region which has been de-facto independent since a bloody war in 1992.
It might count as an attack on “Romania” if NATO decides to recognize Romania’s claim to Moldova. Of course, that would be, eh, weird given all that has and is transpiring, but I don’t put it beyond the WH “strategists” who think they are so dang clever.
“I think that Dima is way off the mark here”
Certainly wouldn’t be the first time! I gave up watching him about 6 months ago. Martynov is pretty worthless too. Alexander is the only wartuber i watch any more.
Missiles and nukes , cyberspec and vicktop55 have interesting points of view on telegram.
Who do you follow?
try https://simplicius76.substack.com
honest with his sympathies, impartial with his analysis.
ymmv.
Also MoldovaRomania could say that yeah, Russia can have Transnitria, no problem, please give back Bugeak, part of the Odessa Oblast that was taken from Southern Moldova//South Eastern Romania. It would only be fair, no?
The issue is that Moldova and Romania can vote to reunite (third time lucky) and there is no NATO countries vote on that. And if Russia attacks Transnistria, that would be an attack on NATO…
But, as a Romanian, I would rather get rid of Transnistria if could end up starting WWIII because of it. But Romanians’ opinion on this matter would not count for anything in Washington….
Thanks for mentioning Bugeak. I goggled it and found it is the ‘estuary’ area where Dima thought Russian troops could land and make their way north to Transnistria. If they were foolish enough to do that it could easily draw Romani into a shooting war. It’s not every day I can learn something new.
I just went to YouTube and the Democracy Now/Seymour Hersch interview is still there.
Articles about the DN censorship I’ve read have not mentioned what was blurred out: images of people killed in the My Lai massacre. People might be offended, or informed, by and about US history.
Reasonable.
I saw a particularly brutal meme on something recently that had dead babies hanging from a tree that was supposed to shock me into hating Banderites, but, just grossed me out.
The images were familiar to anyone old enough to have seen them on TV or in weekly news magazines when the massacre was revealed to the public in the late 1960s.
Blurring the images might have been requested as a way of effacing the massacre from contemporary public consideration — journalist Nick Turse, while researching his book, Kill Anything That Moves, found evidence that publicly available records in military archives documenting such crimes had been illicitly removed, and this is a similar move. Of course, some people might find reflecting on what their tax dollars are used for to be distasteful.
“Meteorite crater discovered in French winery”
I wonder if LIDAR would give a clearer picture of this crater? I found a very interesting line in that article where it said ‘Although this hypothesis was proposed by several geologists in the 1950s, it was dismissed by acclaimed colleagues a few years later.’ Humpphh. Acclaimed colleagues indeed. What is that saying that progress in science advances one funeral at a time? That crater is just a small one but I once saw an extreme one years ago. I was once in this beautiful German city called Nördlingen when I found out that that city actually lay in a huge impact crater caused by a 1 kilometer-wide asteroid hit. In fact, as it struck a local graphite deposit, it created about 72,000 tons of tiny diamonds, many of which are embedded in the buildings as they were built with local stone supplies-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%B6rdlinger_Ries
Re: Helmer’s piece on the Kiev stunt
With the disclaimer that I have an over-active neocortex, this got me overthinking.
What if, despite all the bellicose rhetoric and Putin-hatin’ going on in the headspaces of our so-called western leaders, there is a secret back-channel and Ukraine’s terms of surrender are being discussed?
Stay with me – look at the circumstantial evidence:
1. Helmer’s latest – evidently there are still open lines of communication between Russia, US
2. The situation on the ground – basically static, with Bakhmut about to fall but no other real breakthroughs
3. Blinken having a hissy fit about China sending something lethal to help Russia, maybe a boatload of ammo
4. The reality that the cupboard is bare in terms of “Wunderwaffen” to send Ukraine
5. Short term interest rates spiking in the US, threatening the Wall St. pigmen’s bonuses
Everyone is expecting some big arrow offensive by Russia on the anniversary of the SMO (tomorrow.)
What if we get a ceasefire spun as a “Heroic Ukrainian victory™” and a frozen conflict?
If Russia stops without the total capitulation of Kiev and their NATO backers, it will just become Minsk3. Another war will flare up when Ukraine and NATO have had time to dig in and rearm.
Yea, that is the likely outcome.
I should add a sixth sign that seems suspect:
Stories of infighting between the Wagner PMC group and the Russian military. If a big offensive were coming, you’d think they would be on the same page.
Dysfunction is ubiquitous. Could be there is a plan for a big offensive but infighting still occurs. Note that Prigozhin himself has said (per Kommersant) that some unidentified officials are denying Wagner supplies. Either he really is being obstructed, or he is playing political games, or both things are true at once. The war, “existential” or not, is one thing, but the businessman still has his own interests and officials have their own.
The outcome of this confrontation partly depends on whose dysfunctions prove more debilitating. After all, it’s not like the other side is completely unified and perfectly efficient either.
Just recently Prigozhin himself has said that the issue is now solved, supplies coming and “all the papers signed”. He also recorded greetings to all men in the front due to the Defenders of the Fatherland Day.
For what it’s worth, an expert (Juri Fedorov) on “Current Time” TV channel (run by Radio Free Europe and Voice of America) said this was all about a) Prigozhin’s private army competing with other security organizations b) the “penal battalion” experiment of letting prisoners to volunteer having failed (too slow progress in Bahkmut) so this was the way for the armed forces to bring the Wagner -group back into the armed force’s control.
To me, that actually makes sense. Say, if an offensive was about to be launched, the Russian army would want to make sure everyone gets their quota of shells, and that no loose cannons will get into trouble paratroopers or marines will need to be diverted to get them out of.
That would also explain the column of Wagner buses seen on their way to Zaporozhe recently. Splitting them into several smaller groups makes it easier to integrate them to then bigger plan.
But who knows. Maybe we live long enough to read the books some day.
About the imminent fall of Bakhmut. This has to be the longest maneuver since, I don’t know, the storming of this castle…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gHdDxKy2QW0
Every night Alex Mercouris has the task of saying, once again, “Bakhmut Cauldron Closing (a little bit more).” This does seem to be a very slow motion operation. The expected Russian “winter” offensive has apparently now become the expected “Spring” offensive. We’ll see what happens on the anniversary tomorrow. Maybe back to “winter offensive”?
I can’t figure out why the rush, and I’ve never heard the Russians claim they had a deadline. There are still Ukrainians being sent to the meat grinder, so it’s best if the meat is delivered to the most economic mill. Saves the Russians a lot of trouble and fuel.
You hear about the fall of Bakhmut and it seems to move at the rate of molasses. But then you watch the body count week after week and it all makes sense. Last I heard a couple weeks ago, the Ukrainians have already lost some 16 battalions, one after another. And they are still sending in more troops. As an attritional battle, it has been a wild success for the Russians.
The Supremes punt on the NSA, I brought this up yesterday and no one seemed to notice. I guess NSA mass surveillance is an ancient topic.
So I guess Senator Sanders has finally picked a hill to die on? Others were felled for even whispering in a stern voice about Israel. Would that it were universal healthcare during the largest mass death event during American peacetime, if peace it was prior to the SMO, in recent history. Oh well.
Senator Sanders proved that he can talk the talk, but pretty much disproved that he can walk the walk.
Both Jeffrey Sachs and Ray McGovern addressed the UN Security Council yesterday. The following link will take you to Mr. McGovern remarks only. I am sure a simple search on YouTube will get you Mr. Sachs remarks also. Ray McGovern addresses the UN.
Here is a more complete clip on Consortium News YouTube, I especially liked Mr. McGovern’s singing.
The creditability of the UN is on the line, that of the U.S. is already shot.
https://youtu.be/R_EX-VwKjng
I listened to the Russian guy as well – mocking the perps for not turning up to the meeting.
Anyway, thanks for the opportunity to hear rational views on the attack – even McGovern’s Grandpa Simpson singing!
No Norway, but the US rep was actually present and gave an emphatic denial.
The UK went with a sneaky open-source discrediting (Bellingcat, I suppose). China emphasized its global security proposals.
re:How Much Money Do Pediatricians Really Make From Vaccines? – Wellness and Equality
Thanks for the link. Might explain why on my last doc visit (new doc) the head nurse was really pushing me to get all the “great new vaccines. There are several for adults that your chart says you could take.” She was really pushing the product in a way I’d never encountered before. Quite a change from my old doc’s practice. Very puzzling. Until I read this article.
I took my son in for an annual “wellness check” which the pediatrician insisted on having as a condition of getting an appointment for something else.
It consisted of:
5 minutes with a South American lady who didn’t seem to speak much English. She took his vitals and weighed him.
25 minutes waiting for the Nurse to come in.
A 5 minute questionnaire from Nurse’s laptop and then 2 minutes with the stethoscope. Interspersed with small talk.
a $500 bill to the insurance company!
Headline prices listed on medical bills are not to be taken seriously. They prob have a contract with the ins company which means the dr office prob writes off like 80%, and gets like $100.
Medical billing is obscenely stupid
It’s typically around 40% write down for the agreed coding. So still $250 for not a lot of time.
I keep asking where is the money going? The leaders running the show, or their shareholders public or private.
The moat appears to be 100 miles wide and 1000 ft deep for medical practices. No wonder PE is on it like white on rice.
“‘Forever Chemicals’”
So I guess I’m a bit of a language curmudgeon but this use of forever as an adjective just sets my teeth on edge. It seems ubiquitous, at least in comments on YouTube, when talking about pets, as in such-and-such non-human animal finally found its “forever family,” presumably a reference to a permanent home. Are we now consigned to talk about “now events,” as opposed to current events? “Then lives,” rather than past lives?
That’s my lived experience, yes.
Thank you! I had a similar reaction to seeing the use of “forever” as an adjective but couldn’t quite put my finger on which hackles it was raising.
The first ‘forever’ item was stamps, as the post office tired of printing stamps with a set face value, as postal rates kept going up.
I can’t tell you how creepy I find that phrase “forever home,” with its weird, quasi-religious overtones but it seems like practically everyone involved with other animals uses it.
“Forever Stamps” never made me cringe in quite the same way, maybe because I viewed it, more or less, as a branding exercise.
Shades of Sy Hersh! From the NYTimes on McCarthy giving Tucker Carlson the security footage:
Not sure if “various sources” are a subset of “people familiar with the video” or something else entirely and reading the whole thing doesn’t provide any extra clarity.
I think what the public has seen so far is a combination of the “various sources” – security cameras, media, and videos by the participants.
NYT may be setting the theme in advance that if Tucker “reveals” a lot of uneventful scenes and empty hallways from additional security footage, people should remember the violent and/or rowdy scenes as well.
In honor of the latest bear market rally looking like it has passed it’s “sell by” date:
Powell packed up his bags, and he took off down the road
He left me here stranded, stuck here with stonks by the load
He gave me a false sense of hope
The treasury curve changed its’ slope
Fed hawks baby, they sure made me look like a dope
He left me here stranded like a junkie with no crack
I charged up a fortune thinking QE3 was back
He used me like a cheap trick
Man that was sure unkind
Fed hawks baby, they sure had a real good time
I looked for a pivot, I listened to shills
The closest I came was a 6-month t-bill
I checked the Fed minutes and they said he was gone
I caint understand how he did me so wrong!
So he packed up his bags and he went down the rate hike road
Said he was gonna visit sister Flo
He left me with a huge tax loss
Now I know that J-Pow is boss
Fed hawks baby, they took away hopium, bro!
Yeah Fed hawks baby, they took the punch bowl away, bro
Fed hawks baby, I’m gonna catch up sometime
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujTTjt5VkZM
Is Precognition Real?
Skeptics eviscerated a Cornell psychologist whose published evidence said yes. A decade later, his data has stood up.
More than ten years ago, a prominent research psychologist, Daryl J. Bem, published a paper in a respected academic journal that presented evidence for precognition. The response was swift and withering. Critics in academia and news media called Bem’s work an embarrassment; skeptics reran his trials and said they failed; one journalist argued that the clinician’s results themselves proved “science is broken.”
A decade on, however, the unthinkable has occurred. Bem’s data has stood up.
https://medium.com/@mitch-horowitz-nyc/is-precognition-real-a01805e3d723
I wonder if i was “Feeling the Future” when i posted this yesterday?
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/02/200pm-water-cooler-2-22-2023.html#comment-3853922
On the Mark Middleton death, a shotgun has been found near the body. (30 feet?)
Both the Daily Mail and the NY Post have updates saying this.
You think that the recoil of the shotgun – when he shot himself in the chest with (a neat trick) – threw it back 30 feet? /sarc
That is like the scene from a comedy film where this guy was in a room and had to shoot himself in the head. You heard a shot, there was a pause, and then another shot with the implication that he missed the first time.
He used a fricking shotgun to shot himself in the chest??? That is just about the hardest way to shot oneself if for no more reason than the trigger would likely be out of reach.
I don’t know about the gun laws of Arkansas, but I really would be surprised if he could have not gotten a handgun easily. If they don’t or didn’t check his hands for gunpowder residue, which he would have, if he shot himself, then I know he was Epstein’d; Arkansas would yet again prove its political vileness.
If they are going to murder someone, why make it so blatantly obvious.
Re: Ignored flood risk and real estate — we have been shopping for a house in western WA for the last few months and are only looking at those places and communities that are on higher ground. There are thousands of places that will flood in Whatcom, Skagit, and Snohomish counties yet the prices are hugely inflated — in many cases twice as high as they were just three years ago. Additionally should the worst happen, thousands of acres of valuable farmland will be under water. If local government had any sense they would be building dikes.
I noticed that most of the empty properties for sale that are within a 5 minute walk to Canada are also being snapped up. People need escape hatches for when the S hits the fan here in the states.
while shopping do not forget the cascadia subduction zone
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascadia_subduction_zone
(.0 earthquake + 100 foot tsunami
My hometown of Weirton, WVa is about 40 miles from Pittsburgh, on the Ohio border, so will probably see some effect from the Ohio train crash. Their water is already undrinkable–comes out of the spigot looking like piss. I was reluctant to even shower, when home. That area was already wrecked by a lifetime of steelmills, mining and associated industry. The local joke was foreigners swimming in the Ohio who emerged from the water as skeletons i.e. eaten by pollution! I was fairly old before I learned orange is not the normal color of creek water! Now, the last 20 years or so, there was a lot of fracking. The steel mill, was replaced with a plastic factory (Chinese owned, I think) and, lately, they are considering a battery plant. If I were an oncologist, I know where I would set up business!
Now they charge extra for the iron supplements and other bennies.
> If I were an oncologist, I know where I would set up business!
Not if you were an oncologist whose intelligence was greater than your greed.
I agree with the AI only good for capitalists article, although I wish people would stop calling these statistical models AI.
There is something very pernicious about the fact that even those who understand and create the learning algorithms cannot compete against the companies for which they work because training a model costs so much. So the people who benefit neither created the source material used for training, nor taught the reinforcement learning model, nor created the algorithms that did the learning. All they did is provide the capital, and reaped disproportionate rewards.
And to top it off, the source material (the internet) will be polluted by the output of their statistical models. They know this, and are working to ensure that a signature will be left showing which materials were generated by their models. But of course, only they will know. Everyone else trying to compete will have to work with a poisoned well… further tilting the playing field.
It seems to me that we need to determine in which domains market mechanisms work well, and in which domains they don’t. Transporting dangerous chemicals with poorly maintained equipment, and not being dragged to the stake when you pollute an entire town seems another example.
Curious to hear what NC readers think about this speculation:
All these troubles facing the Biden team! What a deep ditch they’ve dug for themselves, the EU and NATO over Ukraine. All of the latest “we’re all united on Ukraine” seems like PR theatre to buy time.
But buy time for what?
Could the U.S.-Russia back channel be active, perhaps cranking up some kind of deal?
That could help explain the Wagner Group’s complaints of being starved of supplies — maybe it’s the only way to slow it down to provide dealmaking space….? Could the real reason for Biden’s visit to Ukraine be to tell Zelensky et. al. what’s coming down?
Team Biden must know they can maintain the illusion of Ukraine “winning” (as Milley recently put it) for only so long, so time is limited. Then there’s the political dimension: Trump has recently proclaimed the folly of our whole strategy and spending on Ukraine to be a campaign issue in 2024.
This all assumes the U.S. can make itself “deal capable” in Putin’s eyes. Can it?
Karl – see my comment, above. We are thinking along the same lines.
I see this war ending in one of two ways – either with a sudden deal, with a “We’ve always been at war with east Asia!” feel. You know, Ukraine gives up Donbass, the southern bridge to Russia along the Kherson-Dnieper river area, and maybe in exchange Russia stops at the Dneiper.
Zelensky gets a ticker-tape parade in his new hometown of Miami.
Or it escalates into WWIII.
Well, a third possibility I suppose is it grinds on for 2-3 more years, and a sudden change in fate befalls the likes of Nuland, Lindsey Graham, Biden, and Blinken. They are disgraced, tarred and feathered, and run out of town with Pat Buchanan leading the charge.
I can always dream …
Thanks for that. Yes, we’re thinking alike.
If the U.S. is more concerned about China than Russia (?) as many neocons have said, I think the U.S. will have little choice but to make a deal and let Ukraine suck it up. Yes, ticker tape parade to try to put as good a face on as possible.
The worst case scenario you cite — “Or it escalates into WWIII” is a huge risk. But surely WW III with Russia would weaken both Russia and the U.S. (and Europe), and leave China to reign supreme (unless China is drawn in somehow).
Or maybe N. Korea will beat everyone to the punch and start WW III, another wild card Russia and China may have up their sleeve if needed.
This should be a Clown World story. ‘Sam Brinton, the non-binary nuclear engineer fired from the Biden administration after being charged with stealing suitcases from two airports, has been accused of stealing from a third woman — and even wearing her custom-designed clothes to public events.’
https://twitter.com/asyakhamsin1/status/1627541483245936642
And Vanity Fair even did a fashion article on Sam Brinton featuring him in one of the stolen dresses-
https://twitter.com/mgEyesOpen/status/1628621489271365632
The Biden White House sure knows how to pick them.
“Pride” cometh before the fall…
goeth… gah…
I musta been high again
Prevailing wisdom is that any China & US will fight/start over Taiwan. When most likely flashpoint will be North Korea starting something. US engaged in a Korean Peninsula conflict will find it near impossible to confront China over Taiwan. While China may enter a Korean conflict in expressed support of North Korea but really as an excuse take Taiwan expel US from the western Pacific.
Re: Politico/Crimea
Politico is disgusting. That article is full of lies, like:
And in the past few months, with Ukrainian forces continuing to reclaim regions from Russian forces, western voices have begun revisiting a topic they’d long brushed off: Crimea.
Ukraine hasn’t reclaimed anything since Kherson in November, and that was at best a pyrrhic victory, as the city is under fire control of the Russians across the river. Russia has since taken several important villages along the front, and has Bakhmut operationally encircled.
The whole rotten article smells like it was ghost-written by Nuland.