Bears in Japan: Living with Wild Neighbors Nippon
Chimpanzees and Bonobos May Remember Faces for More Than 20 Years Smithsonian
The Learning Labs of Sailing Ships JStor Daily
Climate
The Sahara Desert Used To Be a Green Savannah and New Research Explains Why The Wire
‘Everything is dead’: How record drought is wreaking havoc on the Amazon Al Jazeera
#COVID19
Inhaled COVID vaccines stop infection in its tracks in monkey trials Nature
‘A mass exodus’: Why so many LA restaurants are closing SFGate. Bob Wachter must be crying. I love restaurant dining, but since airborne mitigation hasn’t been taken seriously by the industry….
“It Wasn’t That Bad.” The Infuriating Paradox of Preparedness Jessica Wildfire, OK Doomer
China?
Xi warned Biden during summit that Beijing will reunify Taiwan with China NBC
China’s Spaceplane Has Released Multiple Mystery Objects In Orbit The Drive
China still has a long way to go to make the ‘rural dream’ a reality South China Morning Post
Chinese scholar Jiang Ping, who helped lay legal foundation for market economy, dies at 93 South China Morning Post
Myanmar
‘Walking the revolutionary path’: Myanmar ethnic minority fighters seize town Channel News Asia
‘Unprecedented’ weapons seizures in Myanmar boost anti-junta resistance morale France24
India
To Save Our Democracy, Anger With State Policy Must Be Tied to the Electoral Process The Wire. Optimists.
Living Root Bridges of Meghalaya: A Stellar Example Of Regenerative Architecture Madras Courier
Syraqistan
Industrial Killing of Civilians in Gaza Won’t Defeat the Armed Insurgency Jeremy Scahill, The Intercept
“They call it ‘genocide’ – but don’t invoke the Genocide Convention” The Nordic Times
When they tell you who they are:
Israelis, when speaking in Hebrew, are often far more candid and truthful about the real goals of Israel in Gaza than their American supporters in both parties are: https://t.co/2gFY7SmLQ5
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 20, 2023
On the nakba:
If you listen to anything today.
Let it be this. pic.twitter.com/lANT0KXc4y
— Dr. Jennifer Cassidy (@OxfordDiplomat) December 19, 2023
* * * Blinken underscores US’ commitment to ‘independent Palestinian state’ in call with European counterparts Anadolu Agency. Lol.
Master and Servant Wolfgang Steeck, New Left Review
* * * Are Houthi Red Sea attacks hurting Israel and disrupting global trade? Al Jazeera
The West’s 3 Options to Combat the Houthi Attacks Foreign Policy
Israeli-owned ships banned from docking in Malaysia Channel News Asia
* * * Israel preparing citizens for ‘concessions’ with Hamas: Israeli media Anadolu Agency
Voter support for US military aid to Israel drops in new poll The Hill
Memory Failure London Review of Books
European Disunion
Orbán laments that Ukraine’s accession to EU will deprive Hungary of all European money Ukrainska Pravda
The Closing of the Bulgarian Frontier Switchyard
New Not-So-Cold War
US aid debate pushed to 2024 as Ukraine continues to battle Russian drones Al Jazeera
SITREP 12/20/23: Putin and Zelensky Crossfire, MidEast Heats Up Simplicius the Thinker(s)
What? Ukraine Is Not Winning the War? Patrick Lawrence, Scheerpost
Greek Group Owners And Shipowners Transport 20% Or More Of Russian Crude Oil Flows Says S&P Global Market Intelligence Report Hellenic Shipping News
South of the Border
Argentina’s Javier Milei unveils sweeping decree to deregulate the economy FT
2024
Texas begins flying migrants to sanctuary cities with first flight to Chicago FOX
Opinion: Brace yourself. The elections of 2024 could shock the world CNN
Antitrust
Rite Aid banned from using facial recognition software after falsely identifying shoplifters TechCrunch
Tech
Twitter back online after global outage hits thousands Reuters. Why today’s Links are a little anodyne.
* * * Study uncovers presence of CSAM in popular AI training dataset The Register
GPT and other AI models can’t analyze an SEC filing, researchers find CNBC
Learning from the OpenAI Staff Mutiny RAND. Stock options are the main driver?
* * * Tesla blamed drivers for failures of parts it long knew were defective Reuters
Consumer Reports says Tesla’s Autopilot recall fix is ‘insufficient’ TechCrunch
The Bezzle
Realtors face billions in damages for overcharging home buyers and sellers Markets Insider
Healthcare
How a well-timed legal assault unraveled Mississippi’s stellar record in vaccinating kids NBC. The deck: “Mississippi was forced to grant religious exemptions from vaccines.”
Boeing
Boeing wins key clearance from China’s aviation regulator on 737 Max deliveries, report says CNBC
Supply Chain
Majority expect prolonged downturn for container shipping: reader poll Seatrade Maritime
* * * Shippers Know the Suez Is Always a Crisis Waiting to Happen Bloomberg
The West is sleepwalking into an economic catastrophe in the Red Sea The Telegraph
Imperial Collapse Watch
“Tne end of history” my sweet Aunt Fanny:
Here Francis Fukuyama plots w Kate Starbird & Renee DiResta (all 3 of them together on the same Stanford panel) to end the First Amendment & make US speech law similar to Germany's speech crime system
0:58 – 1:21: "But the question is, politically, how are you gonna get there?" https://t.co/YiNUPjRoKS
— Mike Benz (@MikeBenzCyber) December 20, 2023
Once you’re “made,” you can go on the teebee over and over again, no matter how wrong you are. Take Larry Summers. Please! Musical interlude.
‘Fat Leonard’ in Navy Bribery Cases Returning to U.S. in Venezuela Prisoner Swap Times of San Diego
Class Warfare
“It Looks Like the Railroad Is Asking for You to Say Thank You” ProPublica. The workers Biden stiffed because it wasn’t an election year.
Keith Richards at 80 TPM. I rarely link to Josh Marshall….
Antidote du jour (via):
Bonus antidote:
There are no plants in this picture.
pink: orchid mantis
brown: ghost mantis
dark green: hooded mantis
light green: leaf insect
grey: cat-eyed mantis pic.twitter.com/QcQShqp4lA— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) December 2, 2023
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
158 comments
Comments are closed.
HEADLINES
(melody borrowed from Twelve Days of Christmas)
To save space, I’ll post only the final verse of this carol.
You can fill it out into all twelve verses as you please.
No doubt the erudite NC Commentariat can easily come up with
twelve even better headlines — please do!
Ya know what . . . it would be even more fun to hear
suggestions for next year’s twelve headlines.
What headlines will we sing by Christmas ’24?
As I ponder the headlines of 2023:
Conduct unbecoming
Inflation stunning
Flying saucer sightings
Deficit expanding
Ruble isn’t crashing
Crypto kings are skimming
College loan repaying
Chinese Balloons!
Biden wanders off
Wars neverending
Long Covid lungs
And we live in an oligarchy!
It’s hard to top that last line.
I really like “Crypto kings are skimming.” That would get my vote for biggest bezzle of 2023. It really summarizes the whole scam nicely. Someone invented something useful, or at least interesting in bitcoin. Then a whole flock of fraudsters and scammers descended upon it, creating a cottage industry of fraud. SBF is only the tip of the iceberg.
How about “Fake AI scamming?”
Seven balance sheets a-duping?
Happy Holidays!
Suggestions for next year:
(A lot won’t change, so keeping some of the 2023 ones is a sure winner.)
2024 headlines
Russians in Kiev
Houthis a-sinkin’ ships
Fed still a-hiking
Deficit expanding
Kamala now president
Mitch glitches for good
Contested election
5-4 Supreme court ruling! (Sorry, Kamala)
Four shrieking war hawks
Wars neverending
Long covid lungs
And we (still) live in an oligarchy!
good list.
i’d add some problem with the food supply for the usa.
be it weather, crop pestilence, plagues of locusts(would be clarifying),strikes, or some unforeseen idiocy.
also expect some cyber attack thing that screws up things like POS software(who remembers how to do all that by hand, as it were?)
I think what’s saving us from the cyber attack thingy is the diversity of tech stacks in play.
Java, J2EE, ASP.NET, Linux, Windoze, they’re all out in the wild and exploitable with various degrees of difficulty. But any one attack vector is limited in what it can achieve – there is no central weak point like the Death Star. At least, that we know of.
A fun scenario to contemplate is all the GPS satellites getting taken out, maybe by an adversary or just the Keppler effect (mass debris field turned into mayhem)
Would our society function without it?
to clarify, POS= point of sale…the gee whiz thats replaced cash registers and pencil and paper.
China? Xi warned Biden during summit that Beijing will reunify Taiwan with China NBCChina?
Isn’t that like telling the stranger begging your groceries or the guy changing your car oil that you’re planning on getting back together with your X?
Well the US through the US State Department recognizes Taiwan as being part of China. But the US still wants to be the (redacted) blocker.
US troops are in Taiwan. If XI wants to be taken seriously, he needs a plan to eject these troops AND US military weapons from Taiwan. Others wise he’s just doing a pre-confessional Putin watching Ukraine being lead down the “primrose path” being armed to the teeth. A building up to a possible China ultimatum that ALL US troops and equipment be removed needs to be considered. And NOW is very opportune time hint hint.
They(State Dept) should start calling Taiwan, “Trans-China”. That way everyone will know they’re serious.
They all think they’re different and will be the ones respected as equals…until the wake-up call.
Let’s call it the “Putin Wake-Up Call.”
And that’s a diplomatic or PC way of describing the “wake-up call.”
That is standard policy of China. It has been. For Xi to say this is to be as expected as the next thing out of Blinkin’s mouth is a lie.
America has been waging an ever fiercer economic war against China since April 2011 and the passing of the Wolf Amendment. America is also increasing a military presence around China. China is of course defending itself and doing so remarkably successfully. However America is persisting in waging the economic war and threatening China militarily, just setting a new set of sanctions on Chinese companies and increasing weaponry off the Chinese coast.
Xi Jinping has been trying to explain that China will not be undermined in the range of its long term national objectives.
‘The settlers want to see the sea. That is a logical and romantic demand. Gaza must be erased so that settlers can see the sea. We must evacuate #Gaza of all Arabs and build Jewish settlements in all of Gaza” – Daniella Weiss, head of a Zi*onist settler movement #GazaGenocide’
The banality of evil at work again. There is an Israeli real estate developer specializing in the construction of illegal settlements that is now advertising saying ‘A house on the beach is not a dream’ by which they mean a Gazan beach. The ad depicts an artist’s rendering of luxury homes superimposed over an actual photograph of a Gaza neighborhood destroyed by Israeli attacks. I would imagine that the idea is that this firm would buy that Gazan land for a nominal price – after heavy kickbacks to Netanyahu and his buddies – and then selling it for top dollar to Settlers which finance coming from organizations in places like the US-
https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2023/12/20/cashing-in-on-genocide-israeli-firm-pitches-beachfront-real-estate-in-leveled-gaza/
“I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside” … (“you’ve got to settle down“)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHGfQ6Pw8ow&ab_channel=HeadmasterHastings-Topic
This is the long version.
They made a beach resort and called it peace?
The prob for Israel is that the 7 million Jewish residents living along the Mediterranean are not Rome. Meanwhile back at the actual hegemon eyes are being opened.
and all that broken concrete(and bones) would perhaps be useful in building some reefs or something…or island resorts.
and the seaside donkeys are already there for the children to ride on …
Like Russia, Israel is dictating the facts on the ground; with a humanitarian crisis in progress, this sets the stage to force some kind of resettlement, or the eventual death of everyone from disease, starvation, dehydrate, and bombing. But the clock is ticking on the Israeli economy. The outcome here is decidedly uncertain geopolitically, except for mass death.
“Argentina’s Javier Milei unveils sweeping decree to deregulate the economy’
I saw a brief video today where this American guy was disappointed that he would not see Ron Swanson elected as President of the United States as Argentina had already beaten them to the punch.
Everything going as planned (i) have oligarch elevate oligarch-tool through his own media network and the help of others (ii) create chaos in the Argentinian economy through economic hooliganism, while allowing the rich to get their money out e.g. Macri (iii) get oligarch-tool elected (iv) massively devalue the exchange rate to allow the oligarchs to repatriate their money and buy up more chunks of Argentina on the cheap (v) cut all that oligarch-limiting red tape, sell off everything that can move from the state at cut prices (vi) slash all parts of the state that cannot be sold / don’t benefit the oligarchs (vii) massive economic crash that the masses will have to pay for (viii) go to (i). The story of Argentina, with a few coups and dictatorships when (iii) doesn’t work.
In Argentina it’s comprador elite looting all the way down.
Nothing about the hideous Colorado supreme court decision yesterday? The 4 judges voting to remove T from the ballot are all Ivy League school grads. The 3 judges voting to keep T on the ballot are not Ivy grads. All the judges are Dem appointees. I’m going to start calling the Ivys the Idiot League schools.
There were 3 in yesterday’s links, plus a bunch in watercooler. And Idiot League wouldn’t be far off.
Can you imagine being the US Ambassador in Serbia right now who is complaining that Vucic’s recent win was because of dodgy voting practices? Only for the Serb’s to ask if it was anything like how a sitting US President is trying to have his main opponent disqualified by some pretty dodgy lawfare means. What could he say?
‘It’s OK when we do it.’
The B team/ Dem estab declare B will be the nominee in 2024, and now attempt to disqualify his chief GOP rival from a GOP primary election. B by unanimous acclaim! This would be a Monty Python comedy bit if it wasn’t actually happening. SCOTUS needs to slap this down fast.
ahh yes, SCOTUS – Juice Media got it right –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jL5LaLT2BJM
Back to the 1880’s. Gilded Age, here we come. / ;)
That’s pretty good, but dead wrong. If you insert the word “Democrats” for SCOTUS, it would be more true. Abortion? Dems could have enshrined it in law. Indoctrination in schools (pass the trans please), gun control – any action on that while having a majority??, environmental protection as Biden opens up drilling more and more. Kinda cute, but dead wrong.
maybe not ‘dead’ wrong but get your point – forgot to add demoncrat Obuma who gave the bankers a walk with an even better majority in both houses and what did he give us – Obumacare – yeah bum because that’s what he was carrying on the neoliberal BS that Slick Willy gave us for two terms – nafta anyone? – FDR tried to add justices and met strong opposition – we’re stuck a corrupt right-wing SCOTUS
adding: The Dems are really really really concerned about voting rights for all… only as long as you vote for their chosen candidate, apparently. / ;)
But but if you could keep the new Hitler off the ballot using legal funny business wouldn’t you do it? Buy the premise, buy the bit.
It’s the same mode of operation that has long underlain our foreign policy–the ends justify the means. So it is working so well overseas why not apply it domestically? You need a degree from Harvard to think up these brilliant strategies.
We simple folks just aren’t getting it.
I luvs the Dem estab’s projections. / ;)
The sitting US president is really not in the driver’s seat on this. Nor is the DNC. This is about an extremely divided electorate. The world is taking a hard right turn but there is some push back at the ground level. Not taking sides, just looking past the finger pointing.
I agree that the Democratic party has taken a hard right turn. The question is what to do about it? Perhaps voting and open debate would help rather than rigging primaries and elections to make sure the senile guy wins.
And btw reports say the group in Colo challenging the ballot is tied to Biden.
I think the electorate is nowhere near as divided as you say. The division, as Matt Stoller tweeted yesterday, is between the public and the political establishment. They hate each other.
The president is not supposed to be in “the driver’s seat,” and it has nothing to do the electorate, which is supposed to be free to hold whatever political views it wants.
This is purely about the judiciary, which has abandoned the only principle that provided its authority–impartiality and absolute fealty only to the law, uninfluenced by politics.
It’s very basic–a person cannot be punished until he is accused and convicted of a crime, and has had the opportunity to access all protections provided for under the constitution like trial by jury, legal representation, cross examining witnesses, and mounting a defense. In this case Donald Trump has been afforded none of those protections. He has simply been declared an “insurrectionist” and pronounced guilty.
When you have lost the judiciary, and “we” have, you have lost the ball game.
I get that right wingers don’t like this but it seems reasonable to me. Somehow America has to be able to defend itself from traitors like Trump. Until he is is locked up the least we can do is keep him away from doing any more damage. Trump launched an armed mob at the Capitol to overthrow the government. Thank God some is protecting us from him.
And if the majority of the public still want Trump to be president then should they be locked up too? Current polls have him easily beating Biden who is at 34 percent.
It’s true Trump himself once said “lock her up” re Hillary but he didn’t demand she be removed from the ballot due to his opinion that she was a criminal. You are getting the law and democracy all mixed up. If Trump tried to overthrow the government that day he should be prosecuted for it. As Turley points out he hasn’t been, even in sure to convict DC. That trial is about him supposedly lying re his mental state at the time.
There were no firearms in the capitol other than law enforcement.
Maybe your view from a higher horse is clearer on this issue but I believe it is standard process for states AG to put constitutional issues through their supreme courts knowing they will be decided by the federal supreme court. In spite of all the hyperventilating it seems a valid question that has been much discussed and now deserves a definitive ruling. Maybe your analysis is spot on. My analysis is Trump will do whatever is necessary to run the clock so there never will be a conviction for anything. This is what an endless supply of money can do. It is what he has always done to avoid justice.
Trump’s potential crime here was not obscure. The evidence was well broadcast to the electorate that you disenfranchise. The electorate is very much involved as it has become a culture war issue. This thread demonstrates how polarized it is. But I live in a small town and what we fight about is less important then choosing up the teams, which is why these cultural issues are more important to us then electing a competent representative.
I would like to be able to sue Donald Trump for fraudulently declaring my vote and, the majority of peoples votes who did not vote for him void; he is a corruptor of the Constitution and a total coward ….. but you know,
If the Dems would STOP making their run for office with their pleas for money to get in, Stop relying on ‘stopping Trump’ or Stop fear mongering and Stop excuses for not doing the peoples work but instead doing finance capital’s work –
Well you know this is a separate but equal three branch system we got here and, the way that money has corrupted this system and elevated the office of the president way beyond the other two is more PR than tooth – like Abraham Lincoln said “We, the People, are the rightful masters of both the Congress and the Courts. Not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who have perverted it.”
So as far as that “hideous Colorado supreme court decision yesterday”. I don’t care about the judges background or who they were elected or appointed by or their Ivy or not credentials because IMHO the masters of both the Congress and the Courts are the financial parasites in this country who have been perverting the constitution for too long – Trump has reached a new height of perversion and he is #1 Coward deserving of all he loses
…Stop relying on ‘stopping Trump’...
Well, apparently it worked on you the last time. Or were you persuaded by his “promises” to mandate experimental “vaccines” and lock the country down, cause horrendous inflation by pouring trillions into the “economy” because covid, start a war in ukraine and pour endless money into it, throw the power of the mighty u.s. behind israel’s Gaza genocide, and open the entire southern border to millions of illegal immigrants that the rest of us somehow missed?
Maybe someone should sue biden voters for installing a bloodthirsty, corrupt geezer in full on dementia for nothing more than NOT being Trump.
…Stop relying on ‘stopping Trump’…
Well yea – I guess I should have expanded by saying the Democrates are not offering anything better than ‘stopping Trump’
and you thinking that I was persuaded by His promises (don’t tell me what I think or what my motivations may be) as opposed to what Bipartisanship has brought us and its ugliness, war crimes and atrocities – or that I share your view about cause and effect – like the cause of inflation – Frankly, Biden has become unelectable.
As far as sueing voters for exercising there voting rights? What do you want to do – turn back the right to vote? – line item veto the constitution? If that’s the case – I have issue with you in the negative – If you are just all upset that Trump did not win well – I am sorry that you are so sore about it.
Do I like what Biden is doing -No no and no.
Trump had some good ideas – his idea about curbing stock buy backs for instance…. building a wall on the southern border especially after Reagan told some other ‘leader’ to tear down a wall. it was such a piece of con-man bravado for a man wrapping himself in patriotism without apparent knowledge of the constitution. – the man who said he would pay the legal bill for someone to take out a non-conformist in the crowd (only a coward does that). A man who calls a whole party Vermin is a coward. A man who acts all bravado but avoids service and calls POWs losers…is a coward. So go on with your thinking how you are thinking- it’s your right – as will I
I ain’t cutting either party any brakes – but aggrandizing the office of the president by both parties to give cover for complicity of both parties to what is going on in the world – not liking.
“Well, apparently it worked on you the last time” No, it(?) did not work on me.
“Or were you persuaded by his “promises”” I am never much persuaded with promises –
least of which his, which I believe says a lot since: long before Trump came to political aspirations, I knew what a narcissistic, self-aggrandizing, spoiled brat, con-man and coward he was by his actions and his treatment of sub-contactors – and his need to hire only people who would live full nose up his a&& .
Says a member of the TDSS, Trump Derangement Syndrome Society. I think you spelled Biden’s name wrong in this sentence: “Trump has reached a new height of perversion and he is #1 Coward deserving of all he loses”
LOL – Thanks for the comic relief.
How do you join that TDSS ? does it have to go through your rigorous approval process ?
Agree that this issue should be kept front and center. It’s far too fundamental to be left to the knee-jerk usual suspects like AP, or NY and LA “news” outlets, all owned by the same people, who have a vested interest in keeping things superficial and “tribal”, and pretending that this is just more “fascist” Trump business as usual.
The analyses of more thoughtful, serious, and far less jaded commentators–those who are taking the time to study what is happening and its ramifications, and are interested in fully informing the public–are just beginning to come out.
Glenn Greenwald was excellent on Rumble last night, and this opinion by former repub representative Peter Meijer is also excellent.
The uber-short attention span of the mercilessly propagandized american public is being exploited by the authoritarians determined to stay in control by any means. Dire “emergencies” are coming non-stop. The only “issues” that seem to have any staying power are those that are cynically manufactured and completely false, like Russiagate.
While TPTB may try to convince people that the most pressing issue of the day is “oprah’s favorite Christmas things,” it would be a colossal mistake to let what’s going on in advance of the 2024 “election”
get prematurely and uncritically memory-holed.
While getting ready for work this AM, my wife had on one of the network news shows.
Of course, they were stating that a poll conducted since the CO ruling was showing that 54% of the American electorate were behind this and fully supportive of yanking Trump from the ballot.
These people literally cannot help themselves.
I wonder if this is the same 57% of Americans who were aggressively planning to get the new COVID booster back in August. That poll came out conveniently a week before the boosters were widely available.
Have you looked at the uptake numbers on the boosters now 4 months later? Have you looked at Pfizer and Moderna stock prices lately? The bluest of the blue states have very low uptake – on the order of 17%. And yet 57% were going to rush to the pharmacies to get it in August. At some point, there has to be a realization that these are not just simple polling errors. These “polls” are being pushed as gospel truth on our media, and in reality are nothing more than marketing tools.
I can assure everyone that here in my blue hive, there is grave concern about this ruling. The 54% may be so in the blue areas on the coasts. Here in the heartland, it is not even close.
Not very encouraging about the electorate. They act like weather vanes at times, and are just as fickle as the wind.
It has been 32 Months since my second Moderna jab and the pain in my elbows still wakes me up when there’s a change in barometric pressure.
It’s been about 27 months since my single dose JNJ, and I’ve gotten COVID at least twice, and have tinnitus that never goes away.
Still, I consider myself lucky, I have no pain and haven’t stroked out in public like “Glitch” Mitch, nor collapsed during exercise as some pro footballers have, so there is always something to be grateful for.
Of course, they were stating that a poll conducted since the CO ruling…
[ I wonder if there is significant unease in openly expressing a range of political opinions in this country at this time. I do not think the matter is isolated to Chinese-American scientists:
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2216248120
June 27, 2023
Caught in the crossfire: Fears of Chinese–American scientists
By Yu Xie, Xihong Lin, Ju Li and Junming Huang
Significance
Our study reveals the widespread fear among scientists of Chinese descent in the United States arising from conducting routine research and academic activities…. ]
Why do I have a feeling this was an online poll on select media site. In some cases it might have been a landline phone poll, but I am pretty sure that response would be more divided, not to mention more costly as it would probably take human workers to get it.
Push polls (via Wikipedia) are a thing, yes …
To add to what you rightly say, how is Trump a “fascist” in this situation? It’s the Dems who love the Panopticon, wars and other violence, the supremacy of the looting class, and the ones who seek so many ways to control the little chimaera of “democracy” we mopes are allowed, by stunts like “self-effectuating” removal of T from the ballot.
Mopes are screwed, though it’s interesting from how many directions in the political-economis space one hears rumblings and warnings, and morbidly hopeful noises, that “rapid unintentional disassembly” is next. https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/10022/who-coined-the-phrase-rapid-unscheduled-disassembly#10219
Patrick Lawrence’s ‘What? Ukraine Is Not Winning the War?’ has my vote for must-read piece today.
If what Lawrence says is true — and I certainly hope it is — the Pentagon now so distrusts Biden and company’s unfailing stupidity, arrogance, and default recourse to unrealistic militaristic responses that it’s doing its best to keep Biden & co. out of the command loop.
If so, as Lawrence writes, we are “for now, in a twilight zone. We have to hope that Joe Biden, as his political fortunes crash, is indeed cut out of the West Wing conversation such that he cannot make some desperate move to salvage himself. Go, Deep State, go, strange as the thought is.”
And to remember how much TDS wailing there was to use the 25th Amendment against President Trump early in his presidency…https://www.google.com/search?q=trump+and+the+25+amendment&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari
This has nothing to do with Biden & Co.
It’s been and would always have been the US response, under any president (Trump armed Ukraine when Obama wouldn’t), it’s a bipartisan project as shown by how Congress & Senate behave.
Didn’t the Republican controlled Congress just pass laws preventing any president from LEAVING wars in Syria?
>Didn’t the Republican controlled Congress just pass laws preventing any president from LEAVING wars in Syria?
What war? My understanding is these are just “skirmishes” since it’s illegal for Presidents to declare war. Anything outside of Congress formally declaring a war is illegal. (The last time Congress doing so being ww2)
Leaving NATO.
They voted down Rand Paul’s proposal to remove US troops from Syria right now.
Agree, it’s a good article.
For anyone who may be interested, I addressed partly the same issue in my most recent article. In brief, I think we are going to see a relatively short but potentially very dangerous period of denial by the western political and media classes (ie going well beyond current political leaderships), when they will continue to threaten and bully without having the means to follow through their threats. This is likely to be followed by wholly unrealistic ideas of “rearmament” and somehow rebuilding western capabilities against a Russia that they own stupidity has made a lot stronger than it was. The next phase will be a terrifying recognition of the degree of western vulnerability, which could lead to all kinds of things, including social breakdown. Just the stuff to cheer you up in time for the festive season.
Aurelien:The next phase will be a terrifying recognition of the degree of western vulnerability, which could lead to all kinds of things, including social breakdown. Just the stuff to cheer you up in time for the festive season.
Merry Xmas to you too. I read your lastest one, recommend it to everyone here, and agreed with everything in it this time. Indeed, maybe you understate the collapse in capability. These two items just in —
Here in 2023 the US may not be capable of building and fielding new ICBMs —
Likelihood Grows of US Abandoning Nuclear Triad: Would ICBM Funds Be Better Used Elsewhere?
https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/abandon-nuclear-triad-us-icbm
The LGM-35A Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) currently under development for the United States Air Force is facing growing prospects of deep cuts and possible cancellation due to tremendous cost overruns very early in development, which have fuelled concerns that fielding such missiles may not be affordable….
Whereas North Korea very much can —
North Korea Demonstrates Ability To Strike US Mainland on Short Notice: Hwasong-18 Brings ICBM Program Into New Phase
https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/nkorea-strike-mainland-hwasong18
On December 19 the North Korean state run Korean Central Television aired footage of an intercontinental range ballistic missile (ICBM) launch … a Hwasong-18 missile …All three tests having been successful and demonstrated that the Hwasong-18 has the range needed to strike targets across the continental United States ….
What a world.
There is really no need militarily for land based ICBMs. I think Scott Ritter may have covered this a while back. ICBM fields are vulnerable to first strikes. In contrast, submarine launched ballistic missiles are unassailable. The US Navy alone has enough nuclear striking power to obliterate most of the planet. So it would be wise to de-commission the entire land based ICBM force. That very likely won’t happen due to political considerations.
Don’t know about USA but most of Russian land based missiles are on mobile platforms. For the price of one submarine they can get about 1,300 MZKT-79221 16-wheel TELARs.
It also seems that land based missiles have bigger payload, longer range and better accuracy. Go figure.
But yeah, silos indeed are so 1960’s. Even if China is building a huge launch field today.
Well, there’s a big effort by all of the major powers to develop technologies to track and hunt SSBNs. During the Cold War, British and US (and probably French) attack submarines used to sit off Murmansk, and track Russian SSBNs as they came out. I was told by a British submariner that in those days Soviet SSBNs were so noisy that they could be tracked all the way through their patrols. Now acoustic protection has improved enormously since then, but so have methods of detection. In addition it takes some time to launch a complete salvo, and the submarine has to rise to a depth of no more than 50 metres to fire. The general assumption is that in war few SSBNs would survive long enough to fire their full complement of missiles.
The big problem is communication and what’s known as the “firing chain.” Nuclear powers keep this a very closely guarded secret, but it’s obvious that no communication with an SSBN could be as rapid and reliable as communication with a land-based installation. In the event of a surprise attack, there would be no time to alert the submarine and have it fire, and in the more probable scenario of increasing tension and dispersal of government services, you have to be confident that there’s enough redundancy in the system to actually make it possible to issue orders, or you have no deterrent capability. In general, SSBNs are seen as a better deterrent because of their second-strike capability, but I don’t think anyone knows, or can even really guess, how effective they would be. This – apart from the cost- is one reason why so many nuclear powers are investing in road-mobile systems, which to a degree have the advantages of both land-based and maritime systems.
NYTMutza: There is really no need militarily for land based ICBMs.
Sure, that’s certainly an argument. Though Polar Socialist and Aurelien provide some counter-arguments. Of course, another argument against land-based ICBMs might be simply that if the US — or anybody — possessed lessened means to threaten millions of innocents across the globe with thermonuclear ordnance that would probably be on balance a good thing.
Whatever. I want to make an entirely different point aside from all that.
Very simply, the US’s ICBM development program under USAF General Bernard Schriever from 1953 to 1965 was a technological, industrial, and scientific achievement of immense proportions merely on its own — a civilizational high-water mark historically comparable, say, to Egypt’s building of the Pyramids, or the construction of Chartres cathedral, or to the Apollo project immediately afterwards.
Additionally, it underwrote the creation of both NASA and Silicon Valley.
NASA, because its launchers pre-Apollo were modifications of Schriever’s rockets —
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bernard_Schriever_with_models_of_his_missiles.jpg
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_(rocket_family)
Silicon Valley, because in 1960 every single microprocessor chip it manufactured — 100 percent of its product — was bought by the Pentagon, primarily for Schriever’s rockets’ guidance systems, radars, detonation systems, etc. (though they also got used in early warning radar networks like NORAD). Even as late as 1967, 75 percent of all Silicon Valley’s chips were still going to the Pentagon.
Schriever himself represents the kind of American story that you won’t hear today. He was a combat pilot in the Pacific theater during WWII who, post-war, was made chief of the USAF’s Scientific Liaison Branch, in which position he talked to John von Neumann and Edward Teller in 1952-53, and was intelligent enough to grasp which way the technological wind was blowing. As a mere USAF colonel, he then went up against Curtis LeMay, head of SAC and almost as powerful as the President, to push for the creation of an ICBM program, and beat LeMay. He then proved as a project manager at least the equal of Leslie Groves.
In 2023, conversely, the United States is probably no longer capable of carrying out any such program. Yes, for political considerations, as you say, a land-based ICBM program may be embarked upon — and then will almost certainly be cancelled partway through as the cost overruns and technical failures mount.
The distance between the United States of 2023 that’s now incapable of an ICBM program and the America of the 1950s-60s, capable of vast projects of the advanced technological and industrial scope of its ICBM project then and of producing leaders like Schriever….
That distance, I’d submit, is a metric of the collapse in capability of the United States under neoliberalism.
That is a superb bonus antidote. Thank you.
very cool indeed – didn’t know there were so many different types of mantis – here in Michigan i’ve only seen the usual green stick ones – orchid one was beautiful
we have the green and the brown sticklike, “classic”, mantii.
they might even be the same species, idk.
i capture a few every fall and put them in the greenhouse.
smart move AtH –
i’m pretty OCD about saving jars.
wife was always laughing at me about it.
but having a few jars within reach most of the time comes in handy.
like for capturing beneficial insects, and pressing them into service towards my ends.
(i reckon its symbiotic…or at least mutually beneficial,they get to stay in warmish greenhouse all winter, feasting: i get bad bug control)
i save glass jars too – if at all possible stay away from plastic and if have to make sure it’s #1 or #2 – in today’s world the ubiquitousness of single use plastic is everywhere – go to farm auctions looking for any type of mason jar – we compost – recycle as much as we can – in the larger picture it may be pissing in the wind but i feel good leaving as little of a mess as possible – my daughter just got certified in permaculture – going to try four season growing with hoop greenhouses next year – a couple of the CSA’s around here do it and reading up on it from an author, Elliot Coleman –
Elliot Coleman has good advice about four season gardening, too.
Daniella Weiss is a fringe of a fringe. Not to say she should be ignored – in the history there were cases of marginal figures coming to power – but it’s important to understand the context. The whole religious zionist party got about 11% of votes in the latest elections, and a lot of people in the movement are much less radical (cf. Naftali Bennett).
There is a guy called Sergey Karaganov, a political scientist and an advisor to Putin, who recently called for nuclear strikes on European cities. You need to distinguish between rhetoric and reality.
Thank you, Alex.
Please see my comment when it comes out of moderation.
I beg to differ that Weiss is on the fringe and Bennett is much less radical. It’s a matter of tactics. The so-called Israeli left shares their views, but differs over tactics.
A minority that is aggressive can succeed over a majority that is passive. The Israeli Zionists are very aggressive, and though their numbers may seem small relative to the whole of Israel they wield significant influence over government policy.
That would pretty much eliminate the entirety of the western media.
So the other side of the coin is rhetoric can become reality.
In 1928 Hitler’s party had only 3% of the vote. Two years later, 29%. With the Reichstag fire a few years later, 44%, and then he passed the Enabling Act and Reichstag Fire Decree effectively making opposition parties and majority irrelevant.
Of course, if we removed power-based superstructures altogether, created a true democracy, this will never be a problem. But alas…
In the July 1932 election the NSDAP (nazis) got 37%, then in November of that year they got 33%. The German elite (bourgeoisie and Junkers) than panicked and made him Chancellor in January 1933 before the Nazis waned anymore (and the communists gained ground any more), which made no electoral sense as his vote had gone down.
In March 1933 the election was marred by widespread SA, SS and other widespread intimidation, thats how he got 44% in an election that was held just 6 days after the Reichstag Fire. Hitler was never elected, he was appointed by the German upper classes.
And we see some of those same intimidation tactics in full force with these Zionists. Not even limited to Israel, even.
Well, duh – it was a parliamentary system. The chancellor was not elected directly. The normal practice was to appoint the leader of the most popular party, even if it did not command a majority (and IIRC one seldom did). Appointing Hitler did make sense in those terms. Which is not to say that you are wrong – it was a happy confluence of standard practice and perceived elite self-interest.
Daniella is not fringe. There are 800000 settlers like her in the West Bank and one of her neighbours is a proeminent minister in the present government…promoting similar things…
Thank you, Lambert.
Further to the Glenn Greenwald link, investors, including a client of my employer, have been approached to open in Gaza after Israel has annexed the territory. The presentation details the opportunities and implies ethnic cleansing, annexation and the building of communities and resorts.
This particular client operates chains of sandwich (with a French name based on the concept of ready to wear) shops, restaurants and bakeries, and grows, trades and roasts coffee (Dutch name) etc. The brands are well known in Europe and the US. Ironically, the firm / German family holding company was associated with Nazis, but that does not put off zionists.
As legacy media declines, journalists become more biddable. Some, if not many, are likely to end up working at these investors, so none will be even handed.
That can only be “Prêt à manger”, (and following the German wikipedia) belonging to JAB Holding, from the Reimann and Benckiser families.
went to one of those in the Chicago pedway – never went back –
It was not the worst food I had when visiting London, but I remember them more for the mandatory smiling policy they impose upon their workers. The effect is unnerving if you pay any attention to it.
I stopped taking Pret a Manger seriously when they piously announced, while patting themselves meritoriously on the back, that the prawns in their sandwiches were never from Norway, because the nasty Norwegians insisted on whale hunting, but from Iceland.
Clearly nobody at wherever their head office is based, was aware that Iceland also engages in whale fishing.
Thank you, Colonel. Well before they do all that they will have to take the whole lot over first. Only thing is that Hamas is not being very cooperative and insists on taking it to the Israeli soldiers. I really do wonder which of those corporations will wake up to the fact that even if they could set up their businesses there, that they would be regarded as being part of a genocide and thus subject to a boycott of their customers. I can see it now. The protestors would hold up a cartoons of one of those Gaza sandwich shops and below the ground you could see the skeletons. And are governments going to try to punish people not buying sandwiches from a particular chain?
RK you’re too nice – if the ethnicity ever gets cleansed from Gaza (hope it fails) and becomes a settlers’ paradise of colonial development i think some of those folks with the special vests may become customers – a one-time sale you might say – sarcasm aside i hope this all comes back to bite all complicit parties hard on their asses – my heart is heavy with the lack of optimism, but one can hope & dream –
Anyone who objects to the mass murder and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians ( Who are a semitic people) is Anti Semitic.
And anyone who criticises NAZI’s in Ukraine is anti democratic.
Eating Apple pie is still patriotic, so there’s that.
Reading about the backgrounds of Fukuyama, Starbird, and DiResta. DiResta was a CIA intern, and people probably already are familiar with the other two. The First Amendment is the most important one we have. Without that, everything falls apart. I’d suggest they go back and educate themselves about why we have the Bill of Rights, and why that is so important-however, I know it wouldn’t make any difference with that lot. They are on a mission. You’d think Fukuyama, whose grandfather was interned during WW2, would be more sensitive to this issue, but he isn’t. Being comfortable members of the PMC, if they don’t like the Bill of Rights, there are plenty of places they can afford to move to where they might be happier. It would be a win-win. So many made sacrifices for the Bill of Rights and especially the First Amendment to come into being, and it started long before 1776.
Don’t forget that Fukuyama helped host Azov Nazis at Stanford not long ago and said that he was proud to support them. Even had a few pictures taken with the Azov wives in a spare room-
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/07/22/mvxy-j22.html
Just what the hell is going on at Stanford anyway? That article mentions that-
‘The university’s Board of Trustees is largely composed of hedge fund managers and Wall Street executives, including Gene T. Sykes, the managing director of Goldman Sachs. The university has also long been notorious for the right-wing Hoover Institution, which is currently led by war criminal Condoleezza Rice, a key figure in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.’
But this is having an international effect. When the Russian put forward a motion combating the glorification of Nazism back in 2021 only two countries voted against it – the US and the Ukraine. When that same resolution was put forward at the UN a day or so ago, about 50 nations voted against it so I assume that all those countries now think that Nazis are not so bad after all-
https://thepressunited.com/updates/almost-50-countries-vote-against-un-anti-nazism-resolution/
The End of History and The Last Man.
What would Hegel be telling Fukuyama and friends now?
“…it is hard to see why we should not turn around and mistrust this very mistrust. Should we not be concerned as to whether this fear of error is not just the error itself? Indeed, this fear takes something — a great deal in fact — for granted as truth, supporting its scruples and inferences on what is itself in need of prior scrutiny to see if it is true….an assumption whereby what calls itself fear of error reveals itself rather as fear of the truth.” — from the introduction to the Phenomenology Of Spirit
I bet Fukuyama just skimmed the Philosophy of Right .
Elite failures never ever blame themselves for their failures. ( And boy have they been failing.) They cannot fail; they can only be failed by some dastardly outside force… like the law or the Constitution. The more they fail, the more they flail about trying to change the rules. Self reflection is not their strong suit. (I’m a bit grumpy this morning.) / ;)
No worries. Lots to be grumpy about. Another cup of coffee might cheer you up. :)
When Biden was elected back in 2020, weren’t they saying that at last the adults were back in charge again? Still waiting to see that happen.
will be a long wait i fear RK – better get a lot more coffee –
petal i would put the 4th Amendment shoulder to shoulder with the 1st in importance – there is a reason it has been under attack and continues to be subverted in the recent NDAA that includes the four-month extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) –
Remember when, not so long ago during the Bush and even early Obama days, we heard this exact same argument? They framed free speech as an outdated trifle so they could justify controlling discourse online via anti-terrorism laws. Don’t worry, it’s just for the terrorists.
Punching holes of convenience in universal rights remains as malignant and idiotic as it was in 2004.
Don’t you love how they sneer at the 18th century?
They dismiss the people living back then as dweebs in powdered wigs whose quaint philosophy cannot contend with a world of Social Injustice and Dangerous People. Right. I really doubt that these preening, privileged talking heads on zoom calls have any concept of what it took to fight for human dignity in the 18th century. What utter clowns.
The Herald of the End Of History calls for the destruction of the philosophy that accomplished this great feat.
How appropriate that Mr. End Of History jacked his signature idea from a thinker born in the 18th Century! Now we know how the educator educated himself.
Ronald Reagan taught me what the First Amendment means, I’ll never forget watching National Guard helicopters spraying military grade (CS) tear gas up and down Telegraph and University Avenues in Berkeley.
That stuff is persistent, more than a week later I tried to shop at Shakesspeare and Co bookstore and between the irritation to my eyes and constant sneezing I couldn’t see well enough to read the book titles.
yeah i know what you mean – i remember being in Chicago ’68 the demoncrat convention – back in the days of real tooth and nail protests – the 1st does take precedent over the 4th but it’s in 2nd place and almost tied as a front runner –
What worries me is that democracy itself is dependent on free speech, which is why the First Amendment, even today, has been the most heavily supported by the courts themselves. It is probably why the United States has been able to successfully avoid a complete takeover by any political or social faction.
The casualness of the ignoramuses advocating its gutting shows how unwise, incompetent, and cowardly our governing elites are. If someone merely speaking something you dislike or don’t agree with is enough to make you want to muzzle them, you are a coward. The First Amendment also protects the wisdom of the crowd, which is the combined knowledge, understanding, and wisdom of the group ultimately is better than that of the individual or a smaller group. Not always, but it does exist, and stopping free speech merely makes us all dumber.
AMEN!
You said it better than I could, JBird.
“Inhaled COVID vaccines stop infection in its tracks in monkey trials.” Of course, they do! And if they work in non-human primates the likelihood they will work in humans is high. Such a conventional approach…
And “(the mRNA) jabs fall short.” Uh huh. Ask Albert Bourla and the thousands of Pfizer employees who are likely to be out of work soon.
Unfortunately I don’t think Bourla would be in any bread lines soon after losing his employment, though one could hope.
“Living Root Bridges of Meghalaya: A Stellar Example Of Regenerative Architecture”
Those trees are amazing and there are plenty of videos about them on YouTube. Here is one-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H0qTm7wNjk (3:30 mins)
Can you imagine trying to persuade a bunch of beancounters to help finance such a bridge and having to admit that it cannot be used for about the first thirty years? You’d have no chance as there would be no income showing on the next financial quarter. Told the story before about how Napoleon ordered trees planted alongside the main roads of France so that in future the soldiers could march in the shade and not get exhausted while marching. When a General objected saying that it would take thirty years to come to fruition, Napoleon replied that they had better get started then.
I love that Napoleon anecdote! Thanks for sharing.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/oak-beams-new-college-oxford
Nice story — no wonder Gregory Bateson liked it. Caring for a future even more distant than Native Americans’ proverbial planning horizon of seven generations.
“Impossible n’est pas français”
not bridges, but sprawling canopy and future firewood…ive been traing my mesquites for almost 30 years to send big branches out over the cart paths, etc.
steel pipe support from dump, where necessary(to save my head)
Hannan of the Telegraph was until recently convinced that Ukraine was winning the war? He talked to Ukrainian and British sources? Had he not eyes to see for himself? Did he not notice that Russia was vastly larger than Ukraine? Was reality somehow invisible to him?
How do supposedly intelligent people assume that they cannot be wrong, that their”narrative” is reality, and persist in acting as if it were so in the face of an obvious reality?
These people grew up watching Disneyland as kids and were embedded with that old song. You know the one-
‘When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you
If your heart is in your dream
No request is too extreme
When you wish upon a star
As dreamers do
Fate is kind
She brings to those who love
The sweet fulfillment of
Their secret longing
Like a bolt out of the blue
Fate steps in and sees you through
When you wish upon a star
Your dreams come true’
This belief of theirs still manifests itself from time to time. Like back in 2006 with that self-help book by Rhonda Byrne called “The Secret.” You just wish for something and it will come true. These days it is known as “magical thinking.”
RK you seem to be asking in a left-handed way for one of our song-smiths to use that Disney tune for some re-wording – it certainly lends itself quite easily –
The hucksters now call it “manifesting.’ (Whether or not this is a subtle joke on their part, I leave it to the reader to decide.)
Here it is as presented by Mississippi’s own Oprah: https://www.oprahdaily.com/life/a30244004/how-to-manifest-anything/
Going back, there was a similar ‘movement’ back in the 1920s called the Coue Method.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89mile_Cou%C3%A9
At the root, these are forms of auto-suggestion.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autosuggestion
Clap real hard kids!
It has a theological history: Gnosticism. As Maryanne Williamson puts it, “Thought is cause. Matter is effect.”
If I was going to believe in God(s) at all I’d probably be a Gnostic of some sort. Whoever/Whatever created this place sure wasn’t perfect. And however true it is that consciousness can’t exist without matter, the world of matter is more often a hell than a heaven.
“The Technology and Ethics of Wishing”, William S. Burroughs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9kwcJpX_Zg&ab_channel=NewThinkable
thank you for interjecting old Billy – he stripped the BS down to the bare bones with a caustic humor that has yet to be repeated – Hunter tried and came pretty close but Mr Burroughs has no equal – calling Dr Benway
I finally broke down and read the article because of the rare and enticing promise of a journalist of that sort admitting a mistake. He does not really analyse it, of course. His plaintive “Why did I get it wrong?” reads almost as though it is a real rather than a rhetorical question.
My favourite part, though, was this: “The long-term costs to the Russian people of this shift to a wartime economy are dreadful. Vladimir Putin has condemned his long-suffering muzhiks to years of penury and hunger.”
Muzhik was the word for peasant around a century ago, and often a serf before serfdom was abolished of course. Today it just means a man, “a bloke”. I suppose the women will be doing just fine, then. In all seriousness, of course there has been some harm to the populace from the war, as well as some benefits. One might argue that the good does not outweigh the bad. The idea that the vast majority of our indeed long-suffering population is significantly poorer and worse-fed now than it was earlier is, however, ridiculous. I suppose this is what people mean by “cope”.
I think he is really wondering what he got wrong: that he was sold a bill of goods with a few bridges thrown in by his “friends” doesn’t seem to have occurred to him.
Skepticism is hard if you are in public performance business to glorify the Truth (r).
ASITREP 12/20/23: Putin and Zelensky Crossfire, MidEast Heats Up Simplicius the Thinker(s)
As Lambert would say…”Oh” “German Bundestag member Roderich Kiesewetter announced that Europe desperately needs the lithium fields in Donetsk and Lugansk, which are the richest in all of Europe” …………… Guess trading with Russia would be too hard, so we have do the Western Imperialist Colonialist thing to get lithium for our EV’s. Paraphrasing Clint Eastwood’s line “That’s mighty white of you” – That’s mighty Imperial Colonialist of you.
Which reminds me of Elon Musk saying that “We can coup anyone we want” WRT Bolivia. Makes one wonder if his provision of Starlink to Ukraine wasn’t actually a quid pro quo.
You might be a bit too generous, considering that strategic materials from the same region came up in arguments by a certain other German politician some years ago, almost verbatim, when USSR was still eager to trade with the Germans, at least for the moment.
warren butffet treat small charters airline like he does his train company. Who in their right mind would fly on one of these planes.
https://simpleflying.com/netjets-40-percent-pilots-leave/
Maybe Buffett can get some of those train drivers to retrain as airplane drivers. I mean it is almost the same thing, right?
Napolitano and Mearsheimer.
Professor John Mearsheimer: 2023: Lessons for Biden, Zelenskyy, and Netanyahu
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4yt3r3Gsbk
Don’t think for a second that the 1st Amendment is sacrosanct. It all depends on who’s saying something, and what they’ve saying. At the time of the American invasion of Iraq, I was the only person in my post office who vocally opposed that American war crime. I was berated by everyone else, was called a communist, and in one case was told to leave the country. That last remark led to me challenging the speaker to meet me after work. He backed down when I approached him, before going home. BTW, he would go on to be an early, and ardent, Trump supporter, and for the most part, not a single, blessed one of my co-workers would ever be considered PMC, myself included. I’m long retired, but I’d be willing to bet that the current group of postal workers would be all in on the Gazan genocide, and that those in opposition would be cowed into silence.
Which only goes to prove a point made by Mark Tway, I believe. The American people have been blessed three ways: free thought, free speech, and the good sense not to use the first two.
aye.
and kudos.
its no small thing to be the only one, and standing up any way.
i was the only one in my county to oppose the second iraq war, the afghan war, and everything lil george and then obama did post-911.
i was actually strangled in a speakeasy for my outspokenness.
by a drunken vietnam era superpatriot.
Re; Keith Richards turns 80. Good God. I saw the Rolling Stones twice in person, once in the fall of 1965 at the New Haven Arena and then again at the Seattle Kingdome in around 1996. The Arena was demolished in 1974. The Kingdome was torn down in 2000. Here we are in nearly 2024 and the Stones are still at it, still touring, 60 years after they hit the big time just after the Beatles. A testament to persistence, love of craft, and the undeniable longevity impact to those who find that sweet spot of flow, or zone, or creative bliss, producing riffs and melodies that are timeless…..
When I was younger the thought of these 60’s bands lasting past 1983 seemed ridiculous. Remember the classic Who lyric “hope I die before I get old?”
For the most part I feel like the sentiment was correct, rock-n-roll was a young man’s game. However, the Stones are the exception – they certainly did find a sweet spot, the ageless Richards helps; who else but Keef could still seem cool at 80, holding a guitar slung low with his pirate look & wrinkled face somehow the epitome of rock?
Perhaps some karma helped as well, it seems Keith and Mick did try to pay homage to the early rock, rhythm and blues artists from the 50s who inspired them, like Muddy Waters and also Chuck Berry, even if it did get Keith a punch in the face.
My brother and I saw the Stones even earlier, in Honolulu in 1963 in the HIC arena, now called Blaisdell Center. Same year / same venue we also saw the Beach Boys.
The Beatles, alas, never made it to Hawai‘i.
was still in high school when they first came through Detroit and played at Olympia in ’64 and didn’t see them with Brian Jones but saw them when they came through again when i was in college in ’69 again at Olympia when Mick Taylor had replaced Brian – you must have caught the last of that ’64 tour – never went and saw them live again but certainly have enjoyed their music over the years – started catching any Dylan concert that came through the tri-state area – don’t have enough fingers and toes to count the number of times i saw Dylan – btw a friend of friend was the goto guy in Detroit to supply Keith when he was in his downtown on the nod drug daze – truly amazing he is still with us cranking out great riffs to turn a song on – Olympia was torn down in’87 but started following the Motor City Hit Man Tommy Hearns at Olympia in ’77 – saw all of his fights right up to the showdown in vegas with Marvin Hagler which was the best toe to toe fighting i’ve ever seen –
By far, the second best rock band ever! Saw them in the early 70s and Stevie Wonder opened up for them. I thought, “This Stevie Wonder guy sure is good”.
Saw the Stones in ’75, I think it was. Wish I hadn’t been so stoned. Mick Tarzaned in on a star-shaped stage. With Billy Preston and a second drummer on tom-toms.
Hearns-Hagler, the greatest first round in boxing (3:41) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL2a2-8OHdg
Saw them together in 1976 in Paris at The Abbatoirs. Great show. Security by short French bikers. The band cleared the hall at the end with some loud British music and bright lights.
I believe I saw the Stones twice, both at the Spectrum in Philadelphia. Both times would have been between ’70 and ’75. I remember that several people passed out in the crowd jamming into the ticket windows to get advance tickets – which sold out in about an hour. They were passed back to medical people outside of the crush, in the manner that people surf crowds now, overhead, many hands holding them up. But I don’t remember anything about the shows except that the Commodores led off the second time. Hhmmm, almost like the ’60s, eh?
Big, if true?
WSJ: Israel Signals It Could Agree to Palestinian Authority Governing Gaza After the War
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/israel-signals-it-could-agree-to-palestinian-authority-governing-gaza-after-the-war/ar-AA1lQtTz?ocid=spartan-dhp-feeds
Not really. They have been telegraphing this for a while, but the PA is now notoriously an Israeli front and has no credibility even in the West Bank. In Gaza they would be treated in the same way as IDF troops.
This has about as much chance of becoming reality as Juan Guaido winning the next Venezuelan election.
Yeah, and I guess “the day after Hamas” is a monumental assumption, anyway, at this point.
Basically they have become kapos?
That was generous. I would call them Vichy French.
Just so we are on the same page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kapo
Not to be confused with:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caporegime
If there is nothing left of Gaza then what harm to let the Palestinian authority govern nothing
The destroyed infrastructure in Gaza will always amount to much, much more than the Sinai Desert facilities. Plus, all that rubble, pushed into Mediteranean Sea will create more square kilometers of building space, and maybe an airport, or some nice deep water port, etc…
re: China’s space plane blablabla mysterious objects
*phearuncertaintydoubt I’msoscared, still traumatized by the balloons that almost killed us*
But seriously, that photo of Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman, the senior uniformed officer heading the US Space Force! He looks like he walked off the set of Spaceballs. It doesn’t look like the uniform even fits? And that hat?!!! How did anyone let this guy in front of a camera, but more importantly doesn’t HE realize how ridiculous he looks? What is going on here?
The weaker the military the flashier the uniforms?
And the bigger the hats? But take a look at the hats the North Korean generals wear!
“L.A. Restaurants closing.”
More of the Newsom Depression…
Thanks to his overreacting and shutting down the economy during the covid hysteria, at least 1/3 to half the small businesses in this state are gone. Northern California rural areas are in a depression with the most popular establishment being “For Lease.”
Homeless absolutely everywhere in areas never seen before. 68 Billion Dollar deficit. What happened to the alleged and loudly proclaimed 98 Billion Dollar surplus he announced just before the recall?
Laughable how oligarch owned media tries to burnish the reality turd:
“The state partially offset its domestic loss via international migration, with a net of 151,000 people moving to California from outside the United States.”
https://www.sfchronicle.com/california/article/population-exodus-2023-18566180.php
Highly educated and middle class people fleeing the Newsom Taxafornia regime to be replaced with Central American ditch diggers with large families. Gee, wonder how that will turn out?
His oligarch friends are doing just fine. PG&E rates going up yet again. Soon it’ll be too expensive to heat homes. Blankets and hats all night. Charging electric cars? Ha!
Now this greasy slimeball is running for president?
Governor Gavin Newsom is the apparent leader of the corrupt Democratic Party’s incompetent Professional Managerial Class in California as well as a member of the four or so ruling families of the state. However, to be fair to his Lizardness, and I really do not want to be, most of this started long before he was elected. Just the housing crisis has been building for over forty years or since the 1980s.
So, while he is a political grifter, he is no worse than any other state level politician that I know of. There is also the problem that the California Republican Party is even worse than the Democratic Party due to it sheer batty ideology and general craziness.
Really, the problem for Californians is not Red or Blue, Liberal or Conservative, Democratic or Republican, but finding sane, competent, uncorrupt politicians. It is akin to the ancient philosopher Diogenes looking for an honest man with his lamp.
I didn’t see any other comments on the Fat Leonard story. I think the bigger part of the story is that Venezuela got a hero back in the exchange. “merica got a scoundrel, VZ got a hero.
https://fightbacknews.org/articles/alex-saab-is-free-victory-for-venezuela
Why does it feel like Venezuela keep playing USA for chumps?
Not sure if this has been over the transom yet, but CNN put out a story quoting Sal Mercogliano and others which pulls together the cost and range of potential US fleet assets vs Houthi (which I was doing a crappy amateur job at trying to understand in comments yesterday).
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/20/middleeast/us-destroyers-houthi-drones-red-sea-intl-hnk-ml/index.html
I loved this sentence: They have staged several drone and missile attacks on commercial shipping, and even tried landing commandos by helicopter on one vessel to hijack it.
Nobody told them that Galaxy Leader is now anchored off a Yemeni port?
The History of Depleted Uranium Weapons and Their Use in Ukraine.
https://sputnikglobe.com/20231220/we-prepared-to-use-them-in-vietnam-untold-story-of-us-toxic-romance-with-depleted-uranium-1114200068.html
Japan’s Kishida is in a lot of trouble. Part of this comes from voter perceptions of too much focus on international politics and not enough focus on domestic cost of living pressures caused by Russia boycotts and increases in taxes to pay for $billions given to Ukraine & other countries to curry US favour. Add to this Kishida’s general poor standing with voters, usual standard fair of political scandals, and the LDP is in a lot of trouble. Losing Kishida & LDP as a key US political allies will be a big blow to West’s attempts to constrain China.
“That the affair will, sooner or later, be the end of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida seems increasingly probable. His unpopularity is staggering. A Mainichi poll this week gave his Cabinet a nearly 80% disapproval rate, the worst result since the newspaper began surveying in 1947. Given the many inept leaders who have presided since then, that’s saying something.” https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-12-20/japan-s-ldp-slush-fund-scandal-could-redefine-governance
In my opinion the Colorado decision is a minor symptom of a much broader problem. By tampering with selection of the supreme court justices the Democrats (McConnell in particular) broke the Supreme Court of the US (SCOTUS) in order to void Roe v. Wade. Not that it was very strong to begin with. The SCOTUS dutifully went on to reverse Roe v. Wade and announce that all prior decisions were up for grabs, in other words the law of the land was ephemeral and the states could do as they pleased. While the states were playing around with bypassing SCOTUS rulings before now they’re on a roll and blatantly ignoring the law and the constitution, and not just on the Trump issue. Some states want to make it illegal for a woman to travel across state lines to get an abortion (if they haven’t already) which violates a number of laws. New York, Washington, and other states are basically throwing out the second amendment. The states are finding they can pass laws faster than the courts can knock them down and the SCOTUS, even when they do make rulings, they’re too narrow and there’s no one to enforce them.
In summary, the Republicans got rid of Roe v. Wade by destroying the constitution and possibly condemning Trump while they were at it. “Be careful what you ask for.”