‘No Mow May’ encourages homeowners to help bees by letting their lawns grow NBC. Let’s make it year-round!
Call combinations and compositional processing in wild chimpanzees Nature. See also.
PwC races to contain widening Australian tax leak scandal FT
Climate
Waller Says Fed Shouldn’t Let Climate Concerns Distract From Overall Stability Risks WSJ. Eyes on the prize, in this case making sure those deck chairs are properly arranged.
Water
Colorado’s legislative action on water this year was mostly about what lawmakers didn’t do Colorado Sun
#COVID19
Massachusetts sources on MGH’s stupid and lethal partially rescinded* mask policy:
I’m worried about going to hospitals without a mask Commonwealth Magazine
Advocates Raise Concern That Lifting Universal Mask Mandate Leaves Most Vulnerable At Risk Quincy Sun
NOTE * The stupidity of requiring double-masking remains. (You have the choice of using one of MGH’s “Baggy Blues,” or putting one over your own mask, likely to break the seal. It’s really just a compliance measure meant to show the patient that Hospital Infection Control is boss, just like “Let me see your smile!”)
* * * Hollywood’s Covid Protocols, Which End Today, Cost Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars Deadline
Sick and tired: Casting a long shadow (PDF) Parliament of Australia. Report on Long Covid:
7.14 The Committee recommends the Australian Government establish and fund a multidisciplinary advisory body including ventilation experts, architects, aerosol scientists, industry, building code regulators and public health experts to:
• Oversee an assessment of the impact of poor indoor air quality and ventilation on the economy with particular consideration given to high-risk settings such as hospitals, aged care facilities, childcare and educational settings • Lead the development of national indoor air quality standards for use in Australia.
Cell-Specific Mechanisms in the Heart of COVID-19 Patients Circulation Research.
From the Abstract: “This review seeks to provide an overview of the current understanding of COVID-19 cardiac pathophysiology.” From the Cardiac Vasculature section: ” In its healthy, naive state, the vascular endothelium expresses membrane proteins that inhibit coagulation, maintain vascular endothelial integrity, and exert anti-inflammatory action. With SARS-CoV-2 infection, procoagulant factors like VWF (Von Willibrand Factor) are upregulated and anticoagulant factors like thrombomodulin are downregulated, thereby creating a procoagulant milieu.” From the Myocardium section: “The global impact of long COVID and subclinical COVID-19 cardiac dysfunction may not be fully appreciated for some years to come. The looming tsunami becomes an urgent call for increasing and intensifying the application of single-cell analyses and other novel high resolution, molecular technologies to yield more hypothesis-driven mechanistic studies of both acute and long COVID.”
“Looming tsunami” isn’t the sort of phrase one often encounters in the literature.
End of COVID emergency leaves a black hole of health data Axios. Back to Yankee candle reviews, I suppose.
US Covid emergency status ends as officials plan ‘new phase of managing’ virus Guardian. I’m sure everything will be fine.
China?
How the U.S. Is Trying to Block China’s Control of Ports Around the Globe WSJ
Reported Joint Chiefs pick a boon for China hawks Responsible Statecraft
Liver drug unproven for COVID prevention in high demand in China Center for Disease Research and Policy. Ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA). The link is from 2022, but the demand seems to be there today:
Italy's export surge to China
1. Last week we flagged a big rise in Italian exports to China. Here's the story. Without western vaccines, China's consumers are buying a generic liver drug made in Italy that's rumored to prevent COVID. Big thanks to @bancaditalia and @p_ceretti… pic.twitter.com/mlHnJXF6tL— Robin Brooks (@RobinBrooksIIF) May 9, 2023
And:
7. Bottom line: Italy's export surge to China isn't about possible evasion of western export restrictions to Russia. It's about China's policy on western COVID vaccines and a scramble among Chinese citizens to get the next best thing. Thanks again to @bancaditalia and @p_ceretti.
— Robin Brooks (@RobinBrooksIIF) May 9, 2023
Next China: Catching Spies Bloomberg. Doing due diligence in China.
Myanmar
ASEAN cannot go back to ‘business as usual’ with Myanmar: PM Lee CNN. Then ASEAN should recognize the NUG.
Syraqistan
Yemen Peace Push ‘Serious’ But Next Steps Unclear: Saudi Envoy Agence France Presse
Dear Old Blighty
‘Brits are dying in their tens of thousands – and we don’t really have any idea why’ Mirror. ‘Tis a mystery!
New Not-So-Cold War
About that counteroffensive:
Ukraine SitRep: Delayed Counteroffensive, Russian Defense Lines, Weapon Efficiency Moon of Alabama
Zelensky, Citing Equipment Gaps, Says It’s Too Soon for Counteroffensive NYT. The deck: “Ukraine’s president played down the chance of an imminent military move, but the claim was greeted with some skepticism.” How does a proven liar actually decieve anyone….
Head of Wagner group claims Ukraine’s counteroffensive ‘in full swing’ Anadolu Agency
* * * UK Shipment of Long Range Cruise Missiles to Ukraine Radically Changes the Conflict Gilbert Doctorow
How long-range Storm Shadow missiles could help Ukraine destroy the Crimea bridge The Telegraph
* * * Victory Parade on Red Square President of Russia. Includes brief but pointed speech by Putin.
Prigozhin’s Strange Attack on Russia’s Leadership Stephen Bryen, Weapons and Strategy
The fall of the USSR – a disaster for the West? Intellinews
Death Merchants? New Left Review
South of the Border
Mexico to send more National Guard troops to the southern border Mexico News Daily
Number of Internally Displaced People Worldwide Hit a Record High in 2022 The Wire
Biden Administration
The gathering storm around Title 42 Politico
Top Biden aide tells Chinese diplomat that US wants to ‘move beyond’ spy balloon AP. No doubt!
Washington’s Angriest Progressive Is Winning Over Conservatives – and Baffling Old Allies Politico. From April, still germane. Spoiler: It’s Stoller!
The Supremes
2024
Trump appeals jury’s verdict in E. Jean Carroll’s lawsuit Axios
* * * Trump’s pledge for Ukraine peace met with doubt, derision The Hill
Trump’s blast radius Axios. The volume and intensity of liberal Democrat reactance to Trump’s Town Hall on CNN would have been identical no matter how the transcript read.
* * * RFK Jr. says he will ‘make the border impervious’ if elected as Title 42 is set to expire FOX
* * * John Brennan’s closed-door hearing ‘confirmed’ Hunter laptop letter was ‘all political’: Jim Jordan and The walls are closing in on Biden family corruption FOX (press release on the latter (TomW)). Not as bungled as the Benghazi yarn diagrams, but still needs tightening and focus. It may be that for both Republicans and Democrats, the embubblement of operatives charged with making a case to the public is such that they can’t tell what the public needs to hear any more. “Explain it to me like I’m five” is not such a bad trope. For example, if I have this right, it’s pretty amazing that the Biden children (minors?) got wire transfers from some corrupt Hungarian dude, as shown by bank records, but the dude needs a name (hopefully memorable) and what role Biden played needs to be explained in two or three words. The Democrats don’t do this well is shown, ironically enough, by the headline: How often have we heard that “The Walls Are Closing In” on Trump? Well, if the Republican wish to avoid the same ever-receding horizon with Biden, they need to up their already somewhat-upped game. (And don’t tell me to watch any videos where everything is explained.)
Spook Country
Report on the Censorship-Industrial Complex: The Top 50 Organizations to Know Racket News (Rev Kev)x. Eight reporters, so Racket News must be doing OK. Must read, grab a cup of coffee, and keep it well away from your screen. Handy chart (click for full size):
Digital Watch
GitHub, Microsoft, OpenAI fail to wriggle out of Copilot copyright lawsuit The Register
The Surprising Synergy Between Acupuncture and AI Wired. The “synergy,” I kid you not, is that we don’t know how either type of woo woo really works.
End of the Billable Hour? Law Firms Get On Board With Artificial Intelligence WSJ
Healthcare
Drug shortages have worsened and may only increase in the future, experts say Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy
Gunz
Children and Youth Nearly Twice as Likely to Die in the South as in New England CEPR
Class Warfare
Workers Are Happier Than They’ve Been in Decades WSJ
College Students Are Urging Their Schools Dump Starbucks Coffee Over Shutdowns of Unionized Cafes Bloomberg. Cornell, naturally, called the cops:
Cornell called the police on students who were selling coffee outside the dining hall to raise money for striking Starbucks workers.
Workers and students are protesting the company's decision to shut down all their stores in Ithaca — all of which are unionized. pic.twitter.com/pPozdhJxyz
— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) May 11, 2023
And:
Cornell students are occupying administration offices demanding the university stop selling Starbucks coffee on campus after the company announced it's closing ALL union stores in Ithaca. Solidarity! Keep up the pressure! @SBWorkersUnited https://t.co/PKKOwp6zRB
— Labor Notes (@labornotes) May 11, 2023
It’s hard to think of administration offices that should not be occupied, at this point, no matter the institution.
Google Insiders Are $9 Billion Richer After AI-Fueled Stock Rally Forbes
A Number System Invented by Inuit Schoolchildren Will Make Its Silicon Valley Debut Scientific American. Neat!
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
137 comments
Comments are closed.
>‘Brits are dying in their tens of thousands – and we don’t really have any idea why’ – Mirror.
These shocking figures raised a number of important questions about what is happening to the country’s populations, how it’s changing, and why so many more people are dying
Yes, raises many questions, but there is one that can’t be countenanced or even alluded to, one which the alt-media universe is screaming from the top of its lungs.
>Collapsing social trust is driving American gun violence – FT
Article is paywalled for me unfortunately. I wonder WTF FT means by “social trust.” Do the authors connect it to the wider “social structure,” American culture? Do they take into account the socio-economic deterioration and paranoia (justified?) that seems to fueling so many of my friend’s outlook?
I’ve been thinking about buying a gun myself, though I never owned one (I did buy BB gun with money I earned cutting lawns when I was 13 but my dad took it away.)
It’s not just “collapsing social trust. As has been mentioned here recently, one of the effects of Long Covid seems to be a diminishment of self control. I have seen the public mood worsening over the past year, but had credited it to the deterioration in the general standards of living. Add to that a physical decline in the average infected Terran human’s cognitive capacity and we get a worsening of the public mood. Now the question will be; is this effect linear or exponential?
If you do buy a firearm, seriously train using it. Too many people die accidentally from gunshot wounds. Not just the old “shoot yourself in the foot” action, but also the, “Oops! I didn’t know it was loaded.” scenario.
Second basic rule, don’t draw the weapon unless you are ready to use it. ‘Flashing’ a gun around is just asking for trouble.
Guns are serious tools. Treat them with respect.
Stay safe, either way.
If you think Long Covid diminishes self-control, you should read what all of the (usually unnecessary) psych meds fed to so many teenagers do to self control.
Yes. I knew something was wrong when I read about High School students using Adderall as a stimulant to “improve” their study times.
I used to ‘quip’ to persons with whom I was arguing the fact of giving psychiatric meds to grade schoolers that; “What ever happened to the idea of ‘Kids being kids?'”
“There is a pill for that” rivals the saying, “There is an app for that.”
We thankfully managed to keep our children out of the clutches of the Pediatric Pharmacology Program. They are still reasonably sane adults.
You should also read about how 5G can affect self-control. A point I was trying to make two days ago.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15368378.2018.1545665
You should also read about how Fox (no) News, the Washington Post, social media and allergies can affect self control.
Speaking about social trust, 10 or 15 years ago, I would have thought it nuts that there could be any negative effects from 5G towers or exposure; Why would there be, right? The government says it’s safe, so do the manufacturers.
I definitely wouldn’t take that at face value today. I’m suspicious by default of any industry claim, and doubly so any government claim. That’s social trust in a nutshell, I think. I’m also suspicious of the motives of anyone that speaks in a public form, that said speaker is just talking their book.
That link is IRRELEVANT to 5G. It is about extremely low frequency EMF. We get that all the time in low doses, from the wiring in our house, hair driers, and electric blanket. Oh, and disproving your contention that that level of exposure has the harms found above, IN AN INDUSTRIAL SETTING where exposures are much higher, electric blankets improve sleep quality.
From ARPASNA:
I am not wasting any more time on your nonsense.
You come here only to thread-jack on your 5G hobbyhorse, which is a rule violation, as is carrying over a debunked argumet into a new and unrelated post. That is after rule violations on the thread you mention.
You are now blacklisted. Get your own fucking blog.
…”I have seen the public mood worsening over the past year, but had credited it to the deterioration in the general standards of living…”
This describes some sort of natural social law.
“People will put up with a lot (on the way up) and not very much on the way down.”
A friend has just taken concealed carry training in AZ. Per that, if you have a concealed weapon and you show it, that is an arrestable offence as a threatening action.
Good morning, ambrit. Best to you and yours.
I have never owned a gun and have always forbidden them in my home. However, when Trump was elected and all the gun-toting, right wing diehards started reaching a critical mass I started giving very serious consideration to buying one.
You make a couple of very important points. Training is absolutely necessary. I did a lot of Junior NRA target shooting in high school many years ago and have a bunch of their medals. Without comprehensive training, people indeed are more dangerous to themselves and their loved ones.
Training should include the principle that you never pull out a gun unless you intend to use it. If I ever do get a weapon, no one will know that I have it. Guns are not appropriate for show and tell. Besides, if someone with bad intentions finds out I have a gun, they will come prepared for that with their own gun. If they don’t know, they might just figure they can easily knock out that fat old man and don’t need a gun.
Stay safe.
Greetings from the Hill Folk Mr. Zelnicker!
I do remember one time when I was working at Lowes when a woman dropped her concealed carry revolver in the aisle in front of our desk. The etiquette was quite questionable. Should we pick up the gun and hand it back to the woman or just stand around and pretend that nothing had happened. My partner, who had been a blown up Afghan vet slid round, picked up the gun, checked it for safety, and then gave it back. The woman was nonchalant until the Vet mentioned that revolvers, like the gun she had, had a history of going off when dropped, if you had a round under the hammer, which she did. He smiled it off, but the point was made. With many revolvers, do not carry with a round under the hammer. In the “real” Wild West, those “six shooters” were really five shooters since no one with sense ever carried a revolver with a round under the hammer.
Anyway, that’s my story….
Most post WWII revolvers have a hammer block (S&W), safety assembly (Colt) or transfer bar (Ruger) to prevent firing if the trigger is not pulled.
And part of that training must include retaining and controlling your weapon. Which is why the idea of guns in classrooms is ludicrous. You really do need to train. You really do need to learn specific skills. And you need to be prepared to destroy whatever is in front of you if you pull your weapon from your holster. If you’re not capable or interested in any of that, the choice is easy, don’t own a gun.
I would remind that no amount of gun safety classes or range time can prepare oneself for the emotional fear and adrenaline pumping through the body, when first confronted with the prospect of using firearms too kill another person/human being.
First rule of conflict – don’t get hit applies here ….
First rule of conflict: be observant enough to anticipate the likelihood, and skedaddle beforehand.
This is from pundit David Brooks:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/10/collapsing-levels-trust-are-devastating-america/616581/
Brooks: “Our moment of moral convulsion began somewhere around the mid-2010s, with the rise of a range of outsider groups: the white nationalists who helped bring Donald Trump to power; the young socialists who upended the neoliberal consensus and brought us Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; activist students on campus; the Black Lives Matter movement, which rose to prominence after the killings of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, and Tamir Rice. Systems lost legitimacy. The earthquake had begun.”
David Brooks makes me sick. The disgusting lack of agency in “after the killings of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, and Tamir Rice” takes all the punch out of the last two sentences in the paragraph. Had he just said “after police killed” those last two statements would actually make some sense.
And he gets the timeframe all wrong. The “moral revulsion” began with the 2010 mid-terms, not in the mid-2010s. Voters quickly showed their intense displeasure with Obama’s “change” betrayal by giving the Republicans a majority in the House and a large gain in the Senate.
Start with a false premise and end with a false conclusion; one that places blame on everyone except the real culprit. But that doesn’t stop Brooks. He goes on casually to write off people who don’t agree with his opinion as “outsider groups”, “student activists”, etc. as if the interests of these groups are of no importance.
He simply (and probably disingenuously) ignores the fact that millions of voters were lied to in 2008 and—funny thing this—people don’t like being deceived. They predictably took their revenge in 2010, and that’s when the earthquake really began. What has come since have been the after-shocks. The Big One will strike in 2024, when Donald J. Trump is elected 47th President of the USA.
Trump being elected to another term would be an extinction level event as far as the PMC and deep state are concerned. I think we would see all kinds of shenanigans and perhaps even some revelations about how bad the voting machines really are to prevent that from happening. It is also an incredible farce that we may see these two aging fools face off again in an election. Some kind of democracy “we” have, right?
Indeed. If I had a parrot, I’d want something much better than a Brooks column for my avian friend to crap on.
How many decades has Brooks spouted half-truths and lies about conservatives and the boon they are for the US, even as they’ve robbed us all blind? And I use “conservative” very deliberately rather than Republican or Democrat, because there are plenty of these types in both parties.
Maybe Brooks should take a look in the mirror if he wants to understand why people lack trust in pretty much any institution these days.
Neolibs have tamed whatever in Sanders and Cortez once may have gotten their attention.
Just me, but I would ask, are you ready to take a life, and deal with the consequences… beyond law, repercussions, the inevitable hell-storm of 18-36 months post-event… but in your own soul and mind, now and forever?
What is the basis of the fear and can we not manage around it? Serious question: I live in a state loaded with recent wing-nut transplants, whose psyches, for many reasons, are frayed to a snapping point after the last 7 to 8 years. If you aren’t carrying, you are in the minority. It is INSANE.
And that doesn’t begin to cover the longer in tooth residents… most of whom I would say would be very reticent to shoot another person. Not saying they woudn’t brandish a gun, or shuck a shell into a chamber like Mucus McCain or Jack O’Connor…
More guns does not- to me anyway- seem to be a logical, rational, or acceptable answer.
We certainly are in a gun hole, but I would suggest we put the guns and shovels down and stop digging.
I’d suggest moving, but that seems to make everything worse everywhere.
Build community… those trite, vapid, amorphous palliative words. Hmmm, maybe a block party potluck brunch…
I wish that a block party potluck brunch were an option, but I saw one in my neighborhood this past weekend and people were all squished together in the shade, yakking directly and close up in one another’s faces, definitely close enough to catch covid. It is funny how when people are outside they think they are utterly immune.
Seems like comments are being associated with comments that are not germane.
I was responding to Zag’s contemplating a Gun purchase.
Never let a paywall stop you. https://archive.ph/A69BC
Neat trick, thanks.
Looking at the US from outside, it looks like guns are used for two reasons. Killing for revenge and stopping being killed in revenge.
Who to kill? Classmates, teachers, work colleagues, ex-work colleagues, partners, other family, anyone who owns something you should have, aliens and random strangers if the real targets are unavailable (corporations, society)
Who to protect yourself from? Fractious pre-schoolers and kindergartners. Embittered school kids, dropouts, grads, partners, extended family, work colleagues, ex-work colleagues, cops, ex-military, random strangers
The US has made Revenge into a speciality dish, served both hot and cold. Branches worldwide run by that hegemonic US Corporation ‘Heck’s Kitchens’.
A runaway success in the US. Branches worldwide including in Indonesia, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Sudan, Ukraine, Europe, UK. Opening soon in Taiwan. Exploring options for new stores in Japan, the Phillipines and Australia, and the South Pacific including Fiji.
No, the biggest use of guns is for suicide. That constitutes 54% of gun deaths:
https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/home-and-community/safety-topics/guns/
“I’m worried about going to hospitals without a mask”
And so they should. Last time I went to a local hospital, not only did most of the staff not have masks but there was a nice big friendly sign at the door saying that people no longer had to wear a mask if going into the hospital. In a sane world, the conversation should go like this-
‘I have to go to hospital and am wondering about masks. Got any ideas?’
‘How would you describe people with Covid?’
‘Uhhh, sick people?’
‘That’s right. Now where do sick people congregate?’
‘I suppose in doctor’s surgeries and in hospitals. Oh yeah, right.’
‘And if the doctor’s and nurses aren’t wearing masks when you go there?
‘That’s their lookout. I keep mine on. And I lead by example.’
Make a statement. These protect better than N95s, not due to better filtration, but pretty much assured very tight fit to the face. I own one of each and have regularly worn the less scary one on airplanes. They do pinch the face a bit but are actually easier to breathe through than the 3M Aura:
https://www.amazon.com/GVS-SPR644-Elastomeric-Professionals-Replaceable/dp/B095YBV2T9/
and for you drama queens:
https://www.amazon.com/Safety-Works-SWX00320-Multi-Purpose-Respirator/dp/B01ND42P1Z
Sorry for Amazon links, but you can get your revenge by reading their reviews and then buying from Home Depot or somesuch.
Why apologize? $34.21 won’t alter Jeff Bezos’ life, but could save the life of some readers here. Link is much appreciated!
Whenever I hear ‘Bezos” I conjur Jerry Seinfeld exclaiming, NEWMAN!!
Clearly more expensive than 3M Auras, which can give you about 40 hours of use if you don’t snap the straps. But I think you get at least 4X as many hours w/ no strap malfunction risk.
Do those make you sound like Darth Vader when you breathe through them?
Would really complete the effect.
Haha probably not unless you affect vocal fry like Elizabeth Holmes in her heyday. But at least on planes (ambient noise) you really do have to speak up. It does dampen sound.
Mask thoughts: I’ve mostly been using kn95 behind ear masks for quick visits to places with good ventilation. I do have a Flo Mask Pro (behind head strap and Elastomeric fit) for when I think I will be at higher risk (like 12 hrs in airports and planes on a long trip). Been going to the local hospital for uvb light therapy 3x/wk. Luckily they still require masks but sadly the bogus surgical masks are nearly universal. Today as I was walking back to the parking garage I passed a smoker with my kn95 on. I could smell the smoke. Contrast to my last plane trip, using the P100 Flo Mask I was in a transfer airport bus which stopped next to overflowing porta potties. I could smell nothing, but others around me seemed quite uncomfortable!
Overall since the “pandemic is over” many fewer persons wear masks, peer pressure seems to be becoming more unpleasant.
Given the ever more evasive new variants, and less and less precautions (not to mention no new vaccines or nasal vaccines!), I have to think there will be a few new waves this year. Maybe Summer in Southern US states or everywhere in Fall/Winter.
Course without testing it will be a mystery as to what is happening.
I believe what stops the smell is the VOC filters; I didn’t get the VOC filter for my GVS, just the default P100, so I smell everything.
Holmes didn’t use fry, at least in any samples I’ve heard. She just lowered her pitch the way a singer does.
Voice coaches beg to differ:
https://www.womenshealthmag.com/life/a39303133/elizabeth-holmes-voice-change/
Having said that, as a non-expert listening to this TED talk, she seems to be frying only when she uses the lower tones in her baritone range, so not all the time. But sure sounds like it when she drops her voice at the end of sentences and phrases:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SX7ec3uDlhs
Thanks so much for these recommendations! I’m always interested in improving my masking practice. I’ll pass these on, too.
Again, thanks!
We bought the Ellipse masks some years ago when smoke from wildfires was traveling down various watersheds and settling in the SF bay area. We’ve been using them to good effect throughout the pandemic and I don’t see this changing any time soon.
I have those GVS Elastomerics but have also recently purchased a more “normal” looking
Breathe99 Elastomeric Mask Kit
Cosmetically, to my eyes, it is better looking than the N95s the public library was, until recently, handing out. Is it equivalent in terms of filtration? I am hoping so.
I expect to wear this sort of thing in public for foreseeable future, however long that is.
Thanks for the recommendation.
Has anyone found a mask that doesn’t cause “maskne?” My face has been a mess since the pandemic started. No teenager here. Going on 80.
Right On Yves! bought an Elipse mask 2 years ago – was told i looked like a hornet, but sure felt safe when on an airplane as well as any crowded place i had no alternative but to be at – for around town i’ve found these masks to provide a good seal –
https://www.amazon.com/Honeywell-Respirator-Safety-NIOSH-Approved-DC365N95HC/dp/B096BGQ88W/ref=sr_1_1
had one on at my echo-cardiogram this morning and my technician was wearing a mask as well even though many were not – sad –
I’ve got that GVS on your recommendation, it is my daily wear now! It has quite possibly saved my life.
In my very limited experience, elastomerics can make it hard to talk and be heard intelligibly. Have others had problems? Are some brands better than others in that way?
May I suggest Airgami masks? For me they are the most comfortable ones I wear and far more likely to have a good seal. They also have styles other than basic white and black. The only problem is that they are more fragile than most masks.
The link you provide does not take one to a site with masks, or at least I can’t find them and it seems a bit spooky.
The Airgami.life given doesn’t work just because it is missing a colon after https. Just putting airgami.life in the browser should work.
I was wondering about the spookiness.
My apologies for that and thank for the correction.
The fall of the USSR – a disaster for the West? Intellinews
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sometimes you need a competitor to bring out the best in you, and its fair to say that we had as it turns out-the perfect adversary, tempered by a recent world war where 50 million perished, and survivor’s bias all over the globe.
The fourth turning is upon us, as we have a history of going to war in a big way every 80 years, since that final victory in the War of Independence that set us on our course in 1781
1781: Yorktown
1861: Fort Sumpter
1941: Pearl Harbor
2022: Kiev
As i’ve mentioned too many times to count, the collapse game is Bizarro World stuff when comparing the USSR to the USA, everything is backwards, Lets go Brandropov!
In the scheme of things, there wasn’t much fighting between one another as the USSR was in it’s swan song, but look at us, we’re to the point where the latest mass murder is news for only a few days no matter the kill-ratio.
We’re primed to tear each other’s throat’s out when the deal goes down and the gun lobby wins, when it all boils down to who is the best Annie Oakley or Ned Buntline?
I’m sticking with 2028 on my personal bingo card, but this conflagration that began in Kiev may just not end or rather it winds up bearing similarities to Afghanistan and lasts two decades without victory. I have a cynical hunch it won’t necessarily end, so we continue to support our military industrial companies with our full hearts and empty wallets.
Bizarro world, where cheating the rules and lies on bank records are only done by the cleanest of American citizens. What a stupid timeline. “We’re on an express elevator, going down!”
Janet and I have been discussing time in terms of planning. We’ve done two one-thousand-day plans, not dead yet. But events are quickening. Do we halve that, or log it. One is five hundred days, which is how long we cared for my dying stepmom (past), and about to the next election (projection) (hopefully).
Logging is 100 days, just over the quarterly report, the attention span of most of the machine, apparently. Fack, is that where we are now? *grumble*
Would you mind explaining what your 1,000 day plans are for? And why the 1,000 day limit?
Probably started once the kids growed up and moved out. Now what? (Get out of debt (mostly).) Now what? (Get to retirement.) Now what? (Survive, try to thrive.)
The limit is a function of uncertainty at the event horizon. The horizon shrinks as uncertainty increases.
Thanks, the many stages of life are a challenge we try to navigate as well as we can. As someone who made it to retirement with the kids all grown, our horizon inevitably shrinks, but trying to stay as healthy as possible becomes a daily goal.
Was the US “thriving” during the Cold War rivalry or in a state of turmoil given the failed war in Vietnam, race conflicts, a manufacturing economy that had fallen into decadence as exemplified by Detroit’s crappy cars? Of course you are right that there’s a faction that thinks we need to revive the big power rivalry by pretending the USSR still exists. But the downturn for the US was arguably winning WW2 rather than the Cold War. Our prosperity during that period was a result of everyone else’s lack of it. They crushed themselves with their own great power conflicts.
Now the planet itself is threatened by capitalism. Enough with the stupid Fukuyama.
After the fall of Saigon, we were quiet as a church mouse militarily until Operation Urgent Fury, but ramped things up considerably after the fall of Kabul. Its difficult not to feel that we are betting into a losing hand.
Actually, to give the devil his due, Clinton’s eight years were a brief halcyon time for the US economy. Buoyed by the “peace dividend” and rising stock markets, the consequent increase in revenues from dividend income and capital gains taxes allowed the US to run budgetary surpluses for four years (1998-2001) while the national debt fell from 47% of GDP to 31%.
During Clinton’s years that national debt was ~$5 trillion. Then along came 9/11, tax-cutting war-mongering G.W.Bush, the War on Terror, and Afghanistan and Iraq. Goodbye surpluses. Today the US national debt is ~$31 trillion.
I know there are those who think debt and deficits don’t matter. I am willing to listen to your arguments, while meanwhile pointing out the tens of thousands of migrants lining up at the Mexico-US border. If debts and deficits don’t matter then what’s the problem? Just welcome them to the country and provide them with limitless food stamps, shelter, and clothing.
Imo, I think we are seeing the end of Keynesianism. His sensible theories from eighty years ago could not have possibly predicted the chaos today. Keynes’ lender-of-last-resort, counter-cyclical remedies to deflationary pressures, no longer apply. Because the lender-of-last-resort, the government, is running out of money.
Just a few things … the Clinton surpluses set up the Bush year recessions, which then gave the GWB administration cover for cutting social goods whilst advancing EMH free market ideological policies. Economic policies have a lag effect that filter through and transcend election cycles due to economic/business cycles.
Keynesianism ended with Samuelson converting it to neoclassical through core axioms fleshed out with bad maths and physics, hence neo/new Keynesianism and now Paleo Keynesianism i.e. IS-LM with Taylor rule bolt on. Hicks even abandoned it at the end, but by then may had enshrined it and defend it with quasi religious fundamentalism.
The government cannot run out of money it creates at will. Its distributional effects on shaping the market and socioeconomic outcomes is a different argument all together e.g. back filling/pumping financial asset prices has narrow distributional effects.
China does the same but uses a different methodology in policy formation, hence the different outcomes for them. They even memory hole huge amounts of debt when necessary rather than make the investors whole again or even better off …
Those rising stock markets in the Clinton years were helped along by the first dot com bubble, which should not be mistaken for productive activity.
Greenspan The Maestro[tm] Put ….
https://www.creators.com/read/robert-scheer/07/14/citigroup-the-original-gangsta
“robert scheer has no love at all for bill clinton: Those filled with Clinton nostalgia these days might want to reflect back on how truly destructive was his legacy for hardworking people throughout the world who lost so much due to the financial shenanigans that he made legal.”
“The Clinton era epitomized the vast difference between appearance and reality, spin and actuality. As the decade drew to a close, Clinton basked in the glow of a lofty stock market, a budget surplus and the passage of this key banking “modernization.” It would be revealed in the 2000s that many corporate profits of the 1990s were based on inflated evaluations, manipulation and fraud. When Clinton left office, the gap between rich and poor was greater than it had been in 1992, and yet the Democrats heralded him as some sort of prosperity hero.”
Rubinnomics by – its true – name spud, Clinton was clueless lest we forget he was the voice in Bills empty head. Clinton was just the Rhodes Scholarship flexian to deliver the good news to all the unwashed e.g. your Mfg jobs are going overseas so you pay lower prices for stuff and you all need to retrain for the new[tm] digital economy. Mean while the C-suite and Financial Capital BSD were making squillions …
Its an insult to intelligence suggesting Bill was some sort of master mind of it all, when it was the economic advisors and their benefactors driving the agenda. Something that had been in the works since neoliberalism became dominate.
Trump says he would have a Ukraine peace plan in, his words, 24 hours, okay we’ll just go with he would arrange a peaceful end. No, no a thousand times no. Putin must not win. Trump is horrid and wrong because peaceful outcomes are just not likely? “Things could be better, Lloyd…” to borrow a quote from Jack Torrance in the Shining.
RFKJ–
Megyn Kelly did a friendly one-hour interview of Kennedy yesterday. They covered Ukraine where Kennedy has been evolving, vaccines, Big Pharma, Kennedy’s friendship with Roger Ailes, Tucker Carlson’s firing, trans issues and non-pharmaceutical interventions where Kennedy continues to spout nonsense like Cochrane and Great Barrington.
Bobby makes a good point early on about how the government and media treat Americans like children who must be protected from both lies and the truth, but he fails the grasp the social aspects of a pandemic. It’s especially surprising that someone so skeptical of Big Pharma and vaccines would be so quick to dismiss the only other weapons we have against a pandemic.
“They covered Ukraine where Kennedy has been evolving…”
Did you buy his point about how he and his son, “the machine gunner at Kharkov”, went into Ukraine thinking it was a “humanitarian mission”? He clearly knows the history, so when stuff like that comes up it is really jarring.
His son went to Ukraine. He did not inform his family that he was going to that war zone. I don’t follow your pont.
I’ll have to listen to the Kelly interview but he has been consistent on his podcast. He just had Macgregor on and another Ukraine focused pod but I can’t remember the name.
>New Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino
I was just starting to enjoy Twitter’s new openness, oh well.
In her LinkedIn profile, Yaccarino notes that she’s been a WEF Executive Chair since January 2019. Currently, she’s the Chairman of the WEF’s Taskforce on Future of Work. She also sits on the WEF’s Media, Entertainment, and Culture Industry Governors Steering Committee. Additionally, she is highly engaged with the WEF’s Value in Media initiative. Yaccarino has spoken at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting about shaping the future of media, entertainment, and culture.
https://reclaimthenet.org/linda-yaccarino-world-economic-forum
Did Tucker Carlson know about this upcoming change at Twitter before he announced he would use that platform for his new show?
Musk is a graduate of the WEF global young leaders program as well.
Dima says Ukraine has made a counteroffensive to the north and south of Bakhmut and confused reporting suggests Russia has given ground:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8Hynd4fEIc
However, Dima adds the new grouping in these areas is to have Russian ground troops in the front and Wagners as a second line of defense. This is consistent with my line of thought a few days ago, that the weird rotation melodrama was to cover for beefing up the manning around Bakhmut.
Dima posted an update to the Ukrainian attacks and it hasn’t gone so well though these may be just probing attacks-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-M2IOjgFC0 (4:56 mins)
“Hollywood’s Covid Protocols, Which End Today, Cost Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars”
I think that this might be an example of survivorship bias at work. They are looking at the past few years and are moaning about the money that they spent. Well now that the precautions they take are over, we may see what happens when they let the virus run free. So what happens with a multi-million dollar filming schedule when key staff or actors are out sick and cannot work? What if the lead actor or actress for a major film production falls sick and actually dies? It has happened. What if that person was very famous and lawsuits result for putting them into a situation where they got sick and died? Look at it this way. Those studios pay insurance and although they may bitch and moan about the cost of doing so, no studio would think of cancelling it and taking a chance that there are no problems. This is the same-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
I am proud of my workplace:
“Effective May 12, 2023 there will be new COVID Protocols due to President Biden ending the COVID-19 national emergency declaration on May 11, 2023. Many federal policies will expire, but it is not the end of COVID-19. We will continue to take protective measures for the health and well-being of the community.” (emphasis added)
I would go a little further regarding ventilation and masks, but we have done much better than other similar institutions of my acquaintance.
Actual sanity, listening to common sense with the backbone to follow it? I am impressed.
It is sad that it is so, but there it is.
Kennedy and the Impervious Wall. Sure you will. Great summer garage band name!
He’s right on the sources and consequences, but the impervious wall statement is a bit too much in the mold of the other vapid exhausting promises we already have heard.
I will have to look for his in depth interview. I am still pondering why/ how announcing to run he went Team Dem. Did he not see Obama and Harris’ chef’s knives rolls rattling around the back seat of Jamie Dimon’s Limo?
Kennedy has a podcast that you can listen too. He has over 70 episodes on Spotify including Max Blumenthal, Douglas Macgregor, JP Spears, Tulsi Gabbard and other notable voices especially on the environment and environmental toxins.
“US Covid emergency status ends as officials plan ‘new phase of managing’ virus Guardian”
‘I’m sure everything will be fine.’
Saw an example on the news tonight of how well this is working out. Down in Sydney they had to shut down four schools due to the increase of cases. A health expert has described the shut-outs as “completely inappropriate” because they don’t know what a pandemic is and parents are furious that healthy kids have to stay at home as well. The sub-title for the following link shows an amazing amount of lack of self awareness-
‘Schoolchildren at four NSW schools have been ordered to learn from home as Covid cases disrupt classes despite the end of the pandemic’ They actually said that the pandemic is over (eye roll)-
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/parenting/school-life/kids-at-four-nsw-schools-to-learn-from-home-as-covid-cases-rise/news-story/db9ce3b802c348f823fbcbdcc302e521
In case anyone still harbors the view that the proxy war in Ukraine started February a year back, and in case anyone still cannot fathom why the Russians are disgusted with the West, my FBok page presented me with this “memory” today.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/05/americas-use-finance-foreign-policy-tool-backfired.html
The underlying article by Ben Judah also is still available.
Note the date: May 2014
Note the detail at the bottom of stealing Ukraine’s budget for HIV treatment–and note that Ukraine has/had a health system so poor and so badly managed that it was reaching epidemic levels of infections.
That’s how bad the corruption there was/is.
February 2022? The Anglo-American elites are all too happy with the tactic of “let’s you and him fight.”
So: Just some perspective on how war is a racket, how this proxy war is a racket (as were Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yugoslavia), and how it is more than likely that the strong whiff of corruption around the Bidens is from something truly rotted.
And the irony is that when Trump is the peacemaker (and we all do recall “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God”), it does make even this leftist wonder.
Relentless rain combined with extensive burn scars from the KNP Fire in 2021 did quite the number on mountain roads into Sequoia-Kings Canyon NP’s. The Generals Hwy to the Giant Forest & the Sherman Tree won’t be opened until July at the earliest, and my ‘driveway’ is closed to the public through August and maybe later-as in all season.
Contemplating my first ever backpack trip on asphalt with a few other cabin owners in Mineral King, and it’ll be a slog of a dozen miles and 3,000 feet elevation gain on the road, and something i’d frankly never do otherwise, and its amazing how much ones sees that was always there, but you never noticed, when behind the wheel~
In the past, its about an hour and fifteen minutes from the all cats and no cattle ranch to the cabin or vice versa, but that was then and this is now, i’m looking at 2 days walk in with camping along the road, and not really relishing walking on a hard surface-as that isn’t my bag.
https://snowbrains.com/sequoia-and-kings-canyon-national-parks-provide-updates-to-estimated-reopening-dates-ahead-of-the-memorial-day-weekend/
Now is the time to resurrect an old WW2 motto and place a sign at your town’s border saying
“Is This Trip Really Necessary?”
I was just thinking. If vital supplies were needed by your town and they weren’t heavy, perhaps an arrangement could be made with friends at the other end of that damaged road. They could bring up those goods to one end, load them up onto a drone, fly it along the road (for ease of navigation) where people in Mineral King would be waiting for it. They are already using drones to drop vital supplies in the Ukraine so this would be more of the same and is a proven idea.
Tiny town is well supplied, and Mineral King only a summer destination-nobody lives there year round, for I think you’d go slowly but surely stir crazy being the only human around for 20 miles in all directions in the winter.
In the aftermath of the flooding here, some parts of town were supplied by helicopter, and a friend was the recipient of a care package of food, and thought the contents so novel, he wrote them to me in an e-mail.
“Wuk, down to my last can of Underwood deviled ham, when Tulare County came through with:
TastyBite Indian Madras Lentils 10 oz packet
Dried chili mango, 2 oz strips
Microwave package baked beans, 4 oz
NuGo orange smoothie nutrition bar
Smallest little Hershey bar”
Seriously? That was what was dropped off to your mate? They would have done better dropping off US Army MREs.
horses are often used post-floods to access remote homes.
but on wuk’s link, it looks like they may not allow even horses in for some time:
“Mineral King
Due to severe road damage along Mineral King Road, both inside and outside the park boundary, no vehicular public access is anticipated before August, and likely to be later. Other types of access will be assessed in June after Tulare County completes temporary repair work, and park personnel can go in and assess the damage within the park boundary.”
https://dailyyonder.com/four-legs-beat-four-wheels-for-some-early-flood-relief-teams/2022/09/04/
safe journey wuk!
“Top Biden aide tells Chinese diplomat that US wants to ‘move beyond’ spy balloon”
I don’t think that this story means anything. Some time ago the Chinese complained that Biden would say one thing and then would do the opposite. And that he would so this constantly. That Biden aide may say that they want to move on and Jake Sullivan did meet with China’s top diplomat in Vienna but at the same time the Biden regime is constantly talking about more weapons for Taiwan and threatening to bomb Taiwan’s chip foundry if China takes over. China would be judging Biden by his actions rather than his words so probably any contacts would stay low level at the moment.
Re Politico on the border
Translation: the US declares certain countries south of our border to be “bad guys” and then offers asylum according to said declaration.Since US hostility greatly aggravates economic problems in those countries they have every incentive to flee, not the least being an open border offer to citizens of countries we don’t like. It’s yet another example of the foreign policy tail wagging the domestic policy dog.
Or maybe it’s just typical Biden era incoherence. His toothy grin indicates a mouth big enough to talk out of both sides of it.
Even if you want to act with a higher degree of social trust it’s hard to ignore two things:
1.) Stress imposed on people from sources they can’t control does not typically bring out the best in them.
2.) We live in a time where stress is imposed from many sources we can’t control and… the intensity of that stress is elevated.
Re: No mow May.
Just remember that at the first mowing, don’t cut the grass more than 1/3 its height. Cutting lower may kill the grass. Definitely don’t cut into the lightgreen whitish part of the grass blades. (Sod companies would love that. More business. )
https://www.thespruce.com/how-high-should-grass-be-cut-2132358
I wish it was no mow May, but its all about weed whacking the next month or so, taking down 4 foot high grasses & flowers that died with their roots on, and will be getting a butch haircut.
I’m initially enthusiastic to use my big 17 inch tool when whirling around, but enthusiasm wanes. Tulare County Fire comes by in a month or so to verify you’ve done your clearance.
A whole lot of fire maps were recently updated here in Los Angeles County resulting in
1. My house has been added to the annual fire dept inspection list including a $150/year increase in property taxes to pay for it. One rule is that grass may not be more 3 inches tall.
2. My homeowner’s insurance doubled in price.
No-Mow May sounds like another issue for pitting neighbor against neighbor.
They can always work out their differences with gunz.
Wizard! We can use the Israeli Method: Mowing the Grass!
See: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2018/05/10/mowing-the-grass-and-the-force-casualty-tradeoff/
There are quite a number of books at the public library on how to turn your garden/yard into an insect or bird haven, but as noted below, hopefully the zoning commission or homeowner associations or Karen with a gun won’t be on your case. Some of these fit into my idea of permaculture/low maintenance.
I planted creeping thyme instead of grass, and it is no-mow-ever. Loads of insects etc, bees love the flowers, but still needs water, albeit less than a grass lawn.
I have a lot of creeping thyme also along with an increasing amount of Virginia wild rye, a native to our area. The wild rye gets calf-high, then adds the seed head.
Creeping thyme and wildflower meadow. No mowing ever. In our old place we had a lawn, but you’d mow it April-May, it would die June-July-August in the heatwaves, look terrible in September and maybe recover in October before going into winter mode (West-Central Europe), why bother?
My front, back, and side yards are covered in trees. What grass can grow isn’t fancy or well kept. I consider chopping down more of the forest every once in a while so we could install a solar field, but I love the trees too much. I’ll keep them up until they need to come down due to age or disease.
on no-mow: tall grass harbours ticks. i’ve been intending to ask about this on here for awhile whenever this topic comes up. does someone know to what extent this is a concern and what to do?
how do permaculture practitioners acknowledge and deal with the rapid spreading of–and emergences of new–tick-borne diseases in USA? in my county in the northeast, one of the highest rates of human lyme disease infection in the USA has really changed hiking and walking. in the heat waves you have to walk (as at all other times) with your socks pulled up around your ankle-length pants. some people spray their clothing, and i’m sure it’s not always with environmentally safe insecticides.
yes, if you carefully inspect your entire body (with close attention to all the hair and all the crevices), your kids’ bodies if you have any, your pets’ bodies if you have any (and what if it’s a big long-haired dog!), the same evening of your outdoor time, you can hope to completely avoid lyme. if you and you family are active outdoors, as most people around here are, this is now a daily ritual from march to november.
with the winters warming, the number of months is growing. this year the tick season started much earlier than any prior year.
if you do get a bite, the standard medical response now, here, if the tick has been attached to you for 36-48 hours (you have to try to guess how long it’s been since the initial chomp) is a prophylactic dose of 200mg doxycycline, a powerful antibiotic, given after 72 hours since the bite (again, you’re likely guessing when it attached to you). to make the guessing more challenging, ticks anesthetize the area around the bite for awhile initially, allowing them to begin feeding before you notice them.
in april my dog had to take a full course of 2 weeks of doxy because she tested positive for tick-borne anaplasmosis. she is on a high-level, expensive supplement that has done a great job of keeping ticks off her body, before this year. also in april, after a tick bite that i discovered quite early (minimal engorgement of tick), i had to take the prophylactic. dog is fine. the doxy messed with my gut bigtime; i am still recovering. just the 200mg can take a year to recover from for some.
we ask one another which is worse, the disease or the antibiotic. it’s just a joke, because we know that YOU DO NOT WANT TO GET LYME. it can be every bit as bad as long covid. if lyme is not diagnosed in the early stages, the bacteria can begin to spread slowly throughout the body, and symptoms may not manifest until months or years have passed. in some such cases IV antibiotic treatment is required for many months. it does not always work.
so i’m ambivalent now about the idea of unmowed “lawns”. if i owned a lawn, i would try to cultivate creeping thyme. so far it has not done well in my tiny condo garden–i think it needs more care than i’ve given it. i discovered a lawn full of creeping thyme in my town when i inhaled its lovely fragrance one day as i rode by on my bike. there may be others i have yet to ride by.
Lyme disease and ehrlichiosis and alpha-gal syndrome are no laughing matter. For tick repellants there are many good utube vids on clothing and socks/footware treatments to ward off those blood suckers. Hikers on the Appalachian Trail have stories to tell.
My uni stopped mowing its mostly unused in-city acerage grounds, and we jestingly call those areas a tick wildlife preserve. Within the city’s limits. Funny but not funny. Not funny. Dark humor.
I have a friend who was diagnosed with MS. 10 years later, they are now saying Lyme disease. Gives you an idea of how bad Lyme disease can be.
Yep. Ehlichiosis can be be equally deadly. Nearly lost a friend to that who thought at first he only had the flu. If it hadn’t been for his wife who thought his fevers and symptoms were something really not right for a normal flu infection and insisted he go to the doctor he might have died. Glad his doctor recognised the symptoms and prescribed accordingly. And alpha-gal — a tick born transmission of allegeric reaction to red meat — can be deadly unless you carry an epi-pen and know how and when to use it.
This is just in the Midwest flatlands. The mountain areas have their own tick species and diseases — rocky mountain spotted fever for example.
As global warming spreads disease ticks throughout the North and Upper Midwest, the ultra-short mowed lawn will make a tick-prevention comeback.
And trails through the woods will be made wide enough that people can walk down the middle of them and no tick from either side could possible reach them.
Edward Dowd on Gettr. cartoon / ;)
https://gettr.com/post/p2gpl8z4c8e
Pretty good take imo.
Didn’t read Workers Are Happier Than They’ve Been in Decades WSJ for several reasons, but it sounds like morale has improved enough for the beatings to stop.
Happy workers go on strike. right? Or maybe striking workers are happy workers? / ;)
And/or “quiet quitting” workers.
https://fortune.com/2023/05/05/remote-work-productivity-5-straight-quarters-decline-gregory-daco/
I don’t know how effective those British long range missiles would be against, say, the Kerch Strait bridge, but I have to wonder how prepared Britain would be for retaliation against the Chunnel. They need to start watching out for sailboats that hang around there a little too long. They are building up some pretty bad karma.
In 2018 RAF launched 8 Strom Shadows against targets in Syria (as part of that +100 cruise missile attack), and Russia claimed Syrian air defenses shot all of them down. Presenting multiple parts of the missiles as evidence of this.
Considering that HIMARS rockets were recently deemed as “inaacurate” due to the heavy Russian EW, I doubt these can find the Crimea Bridge on their own. If they ever get to fly that far.
They have some decent imaging infra red cameras on them so if they can get within, maybe 20 miles of the bridge they can lock on to it. Their inertial nav can handle that just fine, but your right, they’ll get shot down long before they get there. Crimea’s not a good choice for these, they’d be more successful using them in NE or E Ukraine where they can use the hills for terrain masking.
But then how would the aid packages get from Folkestone to Calais?
I was wondering how much of Britain’s food supply comes through the Chunnel these days. There is a lot of freight going through that tunnel. Strikes me that if they had to suddenly change supply lines on the fly that would not help their economy in any way. Getting tanks to Ukraine might be the least of their problems.
But, as you say, it would be a legitimate target for the Russians if they decided to make a point and bring the consequences of war home in a way that such as Johnson, Truss and Sunak have yet to envision.
Brexit was/is too mild in reshaping the populace …
The missiles need a properly outfitted plane to launch, so are they supplying Tornado’s with them? They’ll need a lot of them because the S-400’s will take the planes out before they can return to base. They have to be up high to launch, no ground hugging. Then the missiles are subsonic, so really only useful against tribal weddings and children crèche in the hills.
Frankly, these are being used because they are so ineffective, it’s a great way to clear them out of inventory, opening warehouse space so more junk can be ordered, more bribes paid, all while not pissing off Russia very much as they won’t do any good. Win all around.
Apparently, there are Su-24 and/or Su-27s that have been modded by Poland to launch HARMS, and presumably the same or similar kit can be used to launch Storm Shadows.
Su-24, if you believe the Russian MoD. (using machine translation)
===
On May 12, at about 18.30 Moscow time, combat aircraft of the Ukrainian Air Force launched a missile attack on the Polypak polymer products enterprise and the Milam meat processing plant in the city of Lugansk. Storm Shadow air-to-air missiles supplied to the Kyiv regime by Great Britain were used for the strike, despite statements from London that these weapons would not be used against civilian targets. As a result of the strike, a fire started on the territory of Luhansk food and chemical enterprises. There is destruction of nearby residential buildings. Civilians were injured, including six children. Fighter aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces shot down a Su-24 aircraft that launched a missile attack on Luhansk and a MiG-29 fighter aircraft of the Ukrainian Air Force covering it.
===
And keep diligent for a small yacht.
The Hill Rising. talking with Michael Shellenberger about sensorship. utube. ~13+ minutes
Inside GOVERNMENT COLLUSION To Squash Free Speech Via ‘Disinformation’: Michael Shellenberger
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nC1i1rBUXk0
“UK Shipment of Long Range Cruise Missiles to Ukraine Radically Changes the Conflict”
Doctorow was right about Americans being riled about being described as “Anglo-Saxons” and the US ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy was protesting about this but nobody there listens to her. Last month Russia published its updated foreign policy doctrine listing “the US and other Anglo-Saxon states” separately from countries in the “European region” so now it is official. And if we are going to be honest, what else is the Five-Eyes group but an Anglo-Saxon alliance?
But here the UK has really screwed up. They thought that supplying this cruise missiles would make the US supply their own but it’s not happening. So when the Russians dish out some payback down the road, it will be all on them. This will not change the course of the war but it’s only real purpose is to kill Russians. So who can say how the Ukrainians will use it. The Kersh bridge? Moscow? Another Russian city? It will not take the Russians too long to work out a way to nullify them as they have done for weapons like the HIMARS and the JDAMs. So it won’t be a wonder weapon after all but with the Ukraine about out of gas, the UK government can think of nothing better than to antagonize the Russians even more.
The link for the Antidote goes to yesterdays tortoise. So, it really is testudinata all the way down!
Oh, and I think that the fuzzy kitty is saying: “But I don’t want to be a lap poodle!”
> “But I don’t want to be a lap poodle!”
From what I just read, it probably does. I just searched for “kitten that looks like a poodle,” and discovered that “poodle cats” actually are a thing, official name Selkirk Rex. Apparently one of their traits is being very attached to their person, with curling up on a warm lap being a favorite pastime. Sounds like they need to do a lot of research before deciding on the right person; ideal match may be subspecies Couch Potato.
I’m scheduled for surgery on my cervical spine the 25th of this Month and I’ve begun drafting my letter to the ADA compliance officer at Memorial Hospital in Santa Rosa Ca.
Kaiser just had a nasty outbreak of Covid here and it struck me that there may be a way to leverage that to encourage better policies regarding masking and air filtration local Hospitals.
I’ll be pointing out the increasing liabilities Hospitals will be facing if they don’t do something to mitigate risks and it would be nice to get the Nurses involved because strange as it may seem it is not just about Tom.
Any suggestions in regard to strategy or effective wording would be appreciated, I have already dropped off a note with my PCP’s office requesting a PCR test the day prior to my Surgery.
The best of luck Tom! I’ll bet that the nurses will be your best allies.
We expect to see you touring the Giant Sequoia groves with Wuk next spring!
What Ambrit said. Best and all of everything.
A perfect example of casual murder, by our hospital MBA class. And without a doubt, this will murder some, but we’ll never have metrics, because why measure what you don’t care to know?
Good report from The Greyzone on the situation in France. https://youtu.be/5P2x3M4TFvw
Am I the only one who thinks that Covid driven neurological illness is driving the gun violence to a significant degree?
We saw the same thing with lead leading to an increase in violence and crime.
Note that I am not talking about the surge in urban violence following introduction of leaded gasoline following WWII,
I am talking about the surge in rural violence in the laste 1800s in the United States, where it was driven by the construction of the national road, which allowed the pigment lead oxide to make it into the hinterlands.
Substitute Covid for lead, rinse, lather, repeat.
The boys back in those day mixed the paint by hand. Yet back in the late 90s I worked on the Brisbane Airport railway line with the biggest national fabrication and coatings Corp – Transfield. The site was in operation for decades and saturated with all the coatings over that period, over spray and open air whip blasting of old coatings. Site had a water truck that ran around twice a day to keep the dust down. Funny thing about that food distribution warehouse for a major Oz super market across the road.
Everyone was supplied with industrial masks and PPE, but, getting them to wear it was another thing. Filter life … what is that, safety glasses make you look stoopid* – until a glob of zinc primer smacks you in the eye and end up running around the big shed like a headless chook and best of all everyone shows up all chatty and full of vig and as the hours pass till end of day – until its zombie parade out the front gate …
Wipes tear from eye … isocyanates, zincs, heavy metals, chlorinated, EMK and all the other high aromatic solvents, short list …
Someone fooled the Irish Times with an AI-generated tabloid-quality trashy rage-bait article:
https://archive.ph/tllkW
Original:
https://archive.ph/rDHfl
Edited/Retracted – “pending checks”, heh:
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2023/05/11/irish-womens-obsession-with-fake-tan-is-problematic/
The article “The fall of the USSR ・a disaster for the West?” is thought provoking but its invocation of the fall of Carthage as the cause of the fall of the Roman Empire does not make sense. Carthage fell in 146 BC. The Roman Republic lasted until 27 BC. The Roman Empire in the west lasted until 476 AD. (The last date is much subject to interpretation and the empire lasted in the East with varied degrees of success until 1453.)
To put it another way, Carthage fell over a century before the Roman Empire even began and half a millennium before it fell.
In the case of the Roman Empire, the Persians made sure that Rome never lacked for a rival, so the cause of the fall of the (western) Roman Empire must be sought elsewhere. The republic fell because the constant wars of conquest greatly weakened the ordinary Roman while vastly enriching the elites. Sound familiar?
Huh. Is Elon following the current crowd here? Going with the flow? Who knows. From Denninger.
You Cannot Criticize Twitter.
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=248778
adding: I guess we will see. I guess time will tell, as the saying goes.
As I responded above thread – Musk is a graduate of the WEF global young leaders program as well.
This is my point about projections on individuals regardless of what they are saying flora. You need to do a deep dive and rigorous due diligence before supporting them or worst having some emotional attachment. This is all made even more difficult do to synergies that over lap as time and space shift e.g. most have a income/social factor and will say and do stuff as long as that is not at risk. Especially if it effects family, how will little Johnny/Jenny grow up if scared by being ripped from the social status and lose all the network dynamics worked so hard for by parents.
Remember how Musk dissed his first wife that played the part of an author et al and then he miffed that she was a blogger … golf clap … then married Grimes … lmmao …
Behavior is the most honest form of communication, and while I’m glad Musk released the Twitter Files to Taibbi, et. al., based on that I’d say he rates a Meh, at best.