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Links 12/26/2023

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Yves here. A lot of catch up here. An awfully busy run-up to the holiday season.

Songs of beauty amid war Christian Science Monitor

Winners of the 2023 International Landscape Photographer of the Year Atlantic (David L)

The Church, Living in Christmas Past Maureen Dowd, New York Times (furzy)

Barbie: 5 ways to be more like Allan than Ken The Conversation (Dr. Kevin). Kill me now.

Lagrange Points Could Become Battlegrounds in a New Space Race ScienceAlert (Chuck L)

Why the universe might be a hologram Universe Today

Discovering Abandoned Cruise Ships and Ocean Liners CruiseHive (Kevin W)

Tech Billionaires Need to Stop Trying to Make the Science Fiction They Grew Up on Real Scientific American (Kevin W)

Genetic engineering was meant to save chestnut trees. Then there was a mistake. Washington Post (Dr. Kevin)

Sickle cell patient’s journey leads to landmark approval of gene-editing treatment MPR News (Chuck L)

Could taking cod liver oil every day actually make me a happier person? Salon

#COVID-19

Digital measurement of SARS-CoV-2 transmission risk from 7 million contacts Nature (Dr. Kevin)

Climate/Environment

Beijing shivers through coldest December on record BBC

The link between climate change and a spate of rare disease outbreaks in 2023 Grist

Unusual boxes and 7,000-year-old trove found locked in ice Big Think (David L)

Researchers develop ‘electronic soil’ that enhances crop growth PhysOrg (Chuck L)

China?

Think China has a demographic problem? Check out Taiwan Asia Times

China’s Local Gov’t Debt in 2020 was 50% Higher Than WB, IMF Estimates Michael Shedlock

China-Australia quietly reset troubled ties Asia Times (Kevin W)

Gaza

‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 80: Israel kills at least 100 Palestinians in Christmas Eve attacks Mondoweiss

Israel-Gaza war: Netanyahu vows to intensify campaign BBC

In unprecedented slaughter of Gaza civilians, US claims Israel is the “victim” Aaron Mate

* * *

Benjamin Netanyahu: Our Three Prerequisites for Peace Wall Street Journal (David L). Non-paywalled version here.

Netanyahu Outsmarted by ‘Wily’ Biden? No, Biden Is the One Being Played Alastair Crooke (Chuck L)

* * *

Flooding Hamas tunnels with seawater risks ‘ruining basic life in Gaza’, says expert Guardian (Dr. Kevin). This would be a feature, not a bug.

Qatar, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and Israel Thierry Meyssan (Chuck L)

Iran rejects US claims on Tehran targeting tanker off India Arab News

Revealed: how US residents are funding illegal settlements in the West Bank Guardian (Dr. Kevin)

New Not-So-Cold War

Breaking Down Thinktank-land’s Latest: Estonian MoD & ISW Analysis Simplicius the Thinker (PDB). Important.

Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov makes news Gilbert Doctorow (guurst). Underlying interview worth a read.

Russia Lambasts ‘Unacceptable’ US Claims to Arctic Shelf Sputnik (Kevin W)

Ukraine announces smartphone conscription notices RT (Kevin W)

Reporters Without Borders ignores the deaths of Russian journalists Anti-Spiegel (Micael)

Syraqistan

Israeli airstrike kills senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards general in Syria Sydney Morning Herald (Kevin W)

Imperial Collapse Watch

Is The United States A Supernova? Andrei Martyanov

What a third world war would mean for investors Economist (Dr. Kevin)

THE STANDARD OF CIVILIZATION New Left Review (Anthony L)

Post-apocalyptic life in American health care Meta-rationality (Paul R)

Our No Longer Free Press

Tucker Carlson Visits Julian Assange Rumble (flora)

Gonzalo Lira. US Red Sea operation crumbles. UK MSM: Ukraine can win, if Russians remove The Putin Alex Christoforu, See update on Gonzalo at the top.

Can ticket-splitting governor races survive a Trump-Biden rematch in 2024? Politico

Police State Watch

Elijah McClain death: Paramedics who injected Colorado Black man with ketamine found guilty CBS (Kevin W)

Antitrust

Google Rejected Play Store Fee Changes Due To Impact on Revenue, Epic Lawsuit Shows Bloomberg

AI

Will AI Be a Disaster for the Climate? Guardian

The City That’s Trying to Replace Politicians With Computers (It’s Working) Wall Street Journal (David L). By some definition of “working”. Note the rebranding of “elected officials” to “politicians”.

Apple’s reportedly reaches out to major publishers to train its AI for ‘at least $50 million’ each — including Condé Nast, NBC News and more Tom’s Guide (Paul R)

Meet ‘Coscientist,’ your AI lab partner National Science Foundation (David L)

Allen & Overy rolls out AI contract negotiation tool in challenge to legal industry Financial Times (David L)

The Hollywood Strikes Stopped AI From Taking Your Job. But for How Long? Wired (Kevin W)

Economists had a dreadful 2023 Economist (David L)

The Bezzle

‘A fiction’: the fall of a fintech star accused of ‘massive fraud’ Financial Times (BC)

Sam Altman’s Knack for Dodging Bullets—With a Little Help From Bigshot Friends Wall Street Journal (Paul R)

Class Warfare

Gen Xers should be thriving. Instead, they’re drowning in debt. Business Insider

Antidote du jour. Tracie H:

“Got sugar cubes?”

Since I had some time to kill before work, and this training center was on my way, I stopped to photograph an equestrian class as they trotted around the ring and made some jumps, when this horse seemed to take an interest in me.

And a bonus from guurst:

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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129 comments

  1. Antifa

    STRAIT OF HORMUZ
    (melody borrowed from Stackerlee by Dave Von Ronk)

    A good chunk of the oil we burn must sail on the open sea
    If those tankers don’t sail daily it means Hell for you and me
    Through the Suez and the Strait of Hormuz

    Our Saudi pals bombed Yemen we put sanctions on Iran
    If the Arabs block those waterways our economy is gone
    Through the Suez and the Strait of Hormuz

    Some missiles from the shoreline will bring the sitrep to a boil
    Those tankers stop when no one can insure that precious oil
    When oil is your money

    (musical interlude)

    These bottlenecks are a problem our Navy cannot fix
    O, they can shoot off their fireworks but back home we’ll take our licks
    The Suez and the Strait of Hormuz

    Every business in this world needs oil to make and earn
    If we keep on bombing Gaza we’ll hit a point of no return
    When oil is your money

    Palestine has lots of friends while Israel has few
    Only Britain, Micronesia, and they think there’s me and you
    When oil is your money

    Oh, you might have gold and silver, your good looks and your health
    But if you don’t have some oil to burn those other things aren’t wealth
    When oil is your money

    Iran won’t sink our warships or sink anybody’s boat
    But they’ll jack up oil insurance rates when they make Hormuz a moat
    The Suez and the Strait of Hormuz

    The neocons in Washington and in Brussels north of France
    Think bullets, bombs, and bombast are the art of high finance
    The Suez and the Strait of Hormuz

    They’re prepared to use atomics of the kiloton-ish size
    To dignify and to defend the Empire of Lies
    When oil is your money

    If you don’t have oil underground you must buy it overseas
    If folks object to the sale you can go live on your knees
    The Suez and the Strait of Hormuz

    Other nations are not colonies they are each a sovereign state
    You can sanction them and kill their kids but they won’t capitulate
    The Suez and the Strait of Hormuz

    In a showdown they’ll slow down trade in oil that you need
    That’s all you’ll ever get for all your bullying and greed
    The Suez and the Strait of Hormuz

  2. The Rev Kev

    “Lagrange Points Could Become Battlegrounds in a New Space Race’

    The problem start if the US Space Force seeks to occupy the Lagrange Points and establish a ‘security zone’ surrounding it and forbidding other spacecraft from entering them. There is a line of thought in some military circles about dominating space, ignoring the 1967 Outer Space Treaty while making up other treaties like the Artemis Accords to take it’s place-

    https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/English-Edition-Archives/May-June-2019/Deschenes-Space-Domain/

    1. Digi_owl

      Headline got this nerd thinking about Gundam, where habitats in those locations are frequent targets.

  3. Wukchumni

    Should Epstein Island acquaintance be forgot
    And never brought to mind?
    Should Epstein Island acquaintance be forgot
    And the days of auld laid side?

    For auld laid side, my dear
    For auld laid side
    We’ll drink of discovery yet
    For the take down of auld laid side

    And surely they will plead ignorance
    And surely It’ll buy time
    They’ll make a mea culpa yet
    For the take down of auld laid side

    When two have partied on the island
    From morning sun till night
    The age between them tends to swell
    Back in the days of auld laid side

    For old Epstein Island acquaintance be forgot
    And never brought to mind
    Should old Epstein Island acquaintance be forgot
    For the sake of auld laid side?

    For old Epstein Island acquaintance be forgot
    And never brought to mind
    Should old Epstein Island acquaintance be forgot
    In the days of auld laid side?

    And surely they will plead ignorance
    And surely It’ll buy time
    They’ll make a mea culpa yet
    For the take down of auld laid side

  4. Joe

    To Yves and other international finance experts:

    Do you have any analysis or comments on David Rogers Webb’s treatise “The Great Taking?” I don’t have the financial chops to analyze. A search for it will get you to his website where you can download a pdf. You can also watch the video from the link below. It’s over an hour long. Thanks

    https://rumble.com/v3yptkd-the-great-taking-documentary.html

    2. Martin Oline

      This reminds me of a program on The Duran with a man named Alex at Reporterfy about derivatives. If you haven’t seen it here is a link: Link

  5. The Rev Kev

    ‘Dan Luu
    @danluu
    “Unfortunately, a recent software update was not successful. Your vehicle cannot be driven. Please call customer support:”

    Yeah, umm. Radical idea here. Maybe, just maybe like they have with other computer software, maybe there should be an option that you could tap on that screen to roll back that software to the last point where it worked. At that point you could contact that car/software company and have them through telemetry work out what the problem is. But in the meantime you could still drive your car if nowhere else to get it home before something else happens.

    1. Milton

      Gotta love that huge camera at the bottom of the screen. I imagine the vehicle owner is a regular customer with the service dept and needs to look their best–that, and the uploading of eye-movement data to Ford’s quality assurance division.

    3. Jen

      I know I’m talking crazy here, but maybe you should just be able to start your car with a [family blogging] key.

      1. steppenwolf fetchit

        There could become an emerging market for mostly analog cars with the fewest possible digital cooties infecting them and the fewest possible digital lampreys attached to them.

        Strictly analog key-based ignition, for example.

        Maybe some foreign country will capture this market.

        1. juno mas

          Pure analog is mine. Does have a computerized engine control unit, but I’m the only one that can connect to it. Now and again I misplace the door/ignition key, but I have access to a readily available backup. Even has a second battery in case I leave the lights on.

    4. Daryl

      Would be extra fun if it takes the Apple/MSFT/etc philosophy of updating software whether you want it or not at inopportune times. Like say merging on the interstate.

  6. Carolinian

    Maureen Dowd:

    It’s hard to beat Ingrid Bergman’s luminous nun coaching a bullied kid in “the manly art of self-defense” — i.e., boxing — as Bing Crosby’s bemused Father O’Malley looks on.

    Yes it is and

    It’s passing strange that a church with Mary at the center of its founding story could suffocate women’s voices for centuries. The cloistered club of men running the church grew warped. They were more concerned with shielding the church from scandal than ensuring the safety of boys and girls being preyed upon by criminal priests.

    But surely the cult of Mary is more about motherhood than liberation. Maureen seems to want to project her own surfing of the zeitgeist onto an institution that is based on worshipping the past. Yes there once was a no longer thriving “liberation theology” movement among some Catholics but it’s dubious that Dowd and her colleagues at the NYT are in favor of that. Better to talk about how pretty Ingrid Bergman is.

    One might also add that one of the beefs the imperialists have against Putin is his religiosity. So many contradictions, so little time.

    1. scott s.

      She starts by establishing her bona fides — surprised no mention of nuns rapping knuckles — then admits she has no real interest in Christianity, except as it relates to her cultural demands. But then I’m just a bitter clinger so can safely be ignored or re-educated.

  7. Carolinian

    Re the Guardian and non profits funding illegal activity in Israel.–sounds like founder Ben-Dor is merely following the fundamental tenet of lawfare: it’s ok when we do it. This sort of thing will be dialed back about the same time we have a two state solution.

    1. ambrit

      “This sort of thing will be dialed back about the same time we have a two state solution.”
      Or a no state solution.

      1. Carolinian

        Bibi’s working on it and according to the above Alastair Crooke link the Israel public is down with his policies if not him personally.

        Crooke says Bibi’s scheme is to get the American military and American lives directly involved in the war of the 7 million against the Middle Eastern world and here’s suggesting that is when the frog finally jumps out of the boiling pot and says no. I think a healthy revival of American isolationalism is on the horizon.,

  8. Bugs

    “Tucker Carlson Visits Julian Assange” – highly recommend watching this. Stella Assange is an incredible picture of human dignity. Carlson is himself of course, but this is very moving.

    Additional irony – I had to point my VPN at the USA to watch it since France bans certain unwanted opinions on Rumble and Rumble won’t play the censorship game with the Macroniens.

    Thanks Flora.

  9. The Rev Kev

    “Drones vs. Carriers”

    Something has got to change. Back in WW2 due to the threat of enemy aircraft, ships were packed to the gills with guns to deal with them so an Iowa-class batleship for example not only had their 9 x 16″ guns but 20 x 5″guns, 76 x 40mm guns and 52 x 20mm guns. Here is a short video of ships fighting off kamikaze attacks and you will note the amount of firepower used-

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQiH_QwTLkI (4:02 mins)

    But after WW2 more and more guns were removed until you see modern warships built with only one pop-gun on the main deck. So maybe there should be a reverse trend where you start packing more and more guns on the decks to deal with drone attacks. Just sayin’. But it won’t happen as they are short of sailors and the trend has been to reduce the number of them to the bare minimum and make the remainder do the work of all those that should be on those ship.

    1. Digi_owl

      That would be CIWS, or Close-In Weapon System.

      They come in both gun and missile form, and act as last line defense against missiles primarily.

      And those “pop-gun” can often these days fire multiple types of rounds against both air and surface targets.

          1. Jason Boxman

            Heh. Just watched ID4 again last night, and if aliens invaded today, the response to Whitman’s worldwide counter-attack wouldn’t be excited and dutiful coordination with Americans on a counterattack, but probably a pact with the aliens to finish off America! The whole scene definitely reeks of America as the indispensable nation.

          2. digi_owl

            On a more serious note, now that i am not distracted by various things, it seems like the problem of the Zumwalt gun was that they tried to do too much (heard that one before?).

            Basically they wanted a modern ship that could do Gulf War style shore bombardment, and thus they went with a 155mm shell like those used in army artillery. But then they also wanted the programmable fuse capability found in modern naval guns. End result was a one of a kind shell that was only useful for the few ships of the Zumwalt class as nobody else in the world used them.

            By contrast the navies of Europe and elsewhere seem to have standardized on either a Bofors 57mm or OTO Melara 76mm.

            Meaning that ammo is readily available from multiple suppliers.

        2. Polar Socialist

          I’ve seen articles pointing out that Russian navy vessel usually have much more air-defense capability than corresponding US navy vessels. Not just naval versions of Pantsir, Tor or S-300, but at least two CIWS systems located at some distance of each other and likely with their own target acquiring and fire control systems, so that one hit can’t disable both of them.

          There was also recently a video of 2S38 Derivatsiya system operating in Crimea – ever since those drone attack waves against Khelmin airbase in Syria, Russian engineers have been working on returning 57mm AA-gun to the inventory. Apparently 57mm is in the sweet spot of having high rate of fire and extremely destructive payload for defending against UAVs.

          It takes only 1-2 shots to disable any UAV with that caliber, so it can actually destroy more targets per any unit of time than the smaller calibers with higher ROF. And Burevetnik also has a naval version on production.

          1. digi_owl

            57mm is also the caliber of the Bofors gun you find on many a naval ship these days. Latest model even fire a round with a programmable fuse. So it can shift from airburst to penetration as it fires.

    2. LY

      Probably a few more guns for coverage, but not much more. The rate of fire is at the point where the limiting factor is how much ammo can be a carried. For something like an aircraft carrier, it will have multiple escort ships with their own guns.

      Missiles replaced guns because they can engage well before the attacking drone or missile comes within range of the guns. Naval surface air defense systems are layered, so the US has Standard Missiles for long range aircraft and missiles, then RAM (Rolling Airframe Missile), then Phalanx cannons.

      Note that these systems aren’t expected to work well against anti-ship missiles from a peer nation because they’re too fast. The propulsion, guidance, and airframes needed will limit the distribution of those weapons.

      I also don’t think the systems are designed with the scenario where the ship is within tens of miles of a hostile land.

    3. scott s.

      The scenario implies the air wing provides zero defensive capability. That may well have to change if massive wave attacks prove feasible. For example, I don’t see why SH-60 aircraft couldn’t be fitted with counter-drone systems. It isn’t clear from the scenario what the offensive potential of the 500 drones is. But I imagine like how we started installing 50 cal machine gun mounts to counter the speedboat threat we will develop a lead-based solution to the 60 kt drone problem. The scenario also suggests a multi-axis attack, I don’t see how you do that with ballistic missiles unless you have widely-dispersed launch sites, seems to imply sea-launched.

      Not sure about the sea-skimming ballistic missile depicted, but assume that was for artistic purposes.

  10. Alice X

    Ralph Nader

    “Nothing Will Stop Us”

    The unstoppable Israeli U.S. armed military juggernaut continues its genocidal destruction of Gaza’s Palestinians. The onslaught includes blocking the provision of “food, water, medicine, electricity and fuel,” openly genocidal orders decreed by Netanyahu and his extreme, blood-thirsty ministers.

    In the piece I learned of a telling David Ben-Gurion quote and the source it was taken from, which I’ve started in on:

    Nahumm Goldman: The Jewish Paradox 1978.

    *****

    Also a piece from the NYT, useful for some graphics:


    Nearly Two Million Crowd Into Gaza’s South as Fighting Intensifies

  11. The Rev Kev

    ‘Tracie H: Since I had some time to kill before work, and this training center was on my way, I stopped to photograph an equestrian class as they trotted around the ring and made some jumps, when this horse seemed to take an interest in me.’

    Said in a comment a few days ago that horses are great sticky beaks and here we see yet another one. :)

      1. The Rev Kev

        To keep them calm and not distracted by other noises so that they don’t get stressed. My daughter does equestrian dressage and used what looked like black, soft rubber golf balls but as the horse got older, they were no longer needed.

  12. Amfortas the Hippie

    agree that the simplicius is important.
    the Kagans are crazy.
    and that theyve been running the FP show for so long…and in a so obviously disasterous manner…is even crazier.
    one of my main beefs with such creatures is: how come you all get to decide what America is?
    i dont get a say in it?
    staggering joe texted me yesterday again(rolls eyes)…and wanted money.
    i replied…fwiw…with my usual: end the american empire, restore the republic, and then we can talk.
    prolly gets me on a list, since such antiimperialist sentiment is not to be tolerated in the land of the free.
    and their projection!…putin wants to take over the world!
    lol….and yet ive seen zero evidence for that…and abundant evidence from these same Kaganist idiots that thats exactly what they want…the USA, inc empire rightfully ruling the whole world.
    i vote no on the entire endeavor.

    1. Waesfjord

      Tell me this: Why are the so-called amateur analysts running rings around the professionals? I don’t get it, how a professor like Michael Clarke is able to say things like “the Patriot system is very good and never misses” or Phillips O’Brien who says that Ukraine can win with a a bit more equipment. How are these guys not concerned about their reputation? Are they true believers? Someone help me to understand the mindset because I’m flabbergasted.

      1. Benny Profane

        Easy. Because there is no real downside. Look at all the Iraq hawks in power today, and all the pundits who fellated them have good jobs and comfortable salaries.

      2. ambrit

        From my admittedly cynical perspective, the examples you highlighted show the basic and inexorable power of Institutional Thinking.
        Roughly, to succeed and advance within any system, one must adopt the rules and, increasingly, ideologies that define and manage said system. To reap the advantages restricted to “insiders,” one needs to become an “insider.” As with any system, becoming an “insider” requires one to abandon individuality in thought, speech, and action and follow the “Party Line.”
        To insure the dominance of the System, alternative systems are suppressed and or destroyed. This goes to the heart of the conflict. “True Believers” have a distinct advantage over thoughtful people. “True Believers” are not constrained by external influences such as logic and empathy for others. They hew to their chosen belief system, and not only act from out of their belief system blindly, but actively attack and suppress “non-compliant” belief systems. Power is deployed to defend and increase Power. The End is the Means.
        To answer your question; these “academics” et. al. may not be actual “True Believers,” but are required to act as if they were in order to function, even, survive in their chosen fields of endeavour. “Go along to get along,” may be a trite saying, but it expresses a basic fact of life. Compromise is a necessary act to allow society to continue functioning. However, the trick is in how much compromise is engaged in.
        Anyway, stay safe into the New Year.

      3. Art_DogCT

        “How are these guys not concerned about their reputation? Are they true believers?”

        Such folk as you cite are of the class who typically never have to answer for their errors of analysis and judgement, but are instead promoted and/or protected. Many are true believers, marinated in all the flavors of the Kool-Aid™, but such belief is optional. One only needs to make the right mouth noises and express the right thoughts in public, and be prepared to be highly flexible as to what constitutes “right” in this context.

        1. Bsn

          The same thinking is evident in many aspects of American society. The Covid response is another perfect example. I had to explain to my (NYT reading) brother what the term shitification referred to.

        2. Thomas F Dority

          “True Believers”
          Are you maybe making a reference to
          The True Believer by Eric Hoffer Copyright 1951
          a quote caught my brain.
          “The game of history is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of the majority in the middle” sums up a lot in my mind
          The book is a definite must read in my shabby opinion of things

          2. Sibiriak

            It’s worth noting that Eric Hoffer himself was a “True Believer”– in his case, regarding Israel and Zionism:

            “Israel’s Peculiar Position” by Eric Hoffer – Los Angeles Times 26/5/1968.

            The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews. Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people and there is no refugee problem. Russia did it, Poland and Czechoslovakia did it. Turkey threw out a million Greeks and Algeria a million Frenchman. Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese and no one says a word about refugees.

            But in the case of Israel , the displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees.
            Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single one. Arnold Toynbee calls the displacement of the Arabs an atrocity greater than any committed by the Nazis.

            Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious, it must sue for peace. Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world.

            Other nations, when they are defeated, survive and recover but should Israel be defeated it would be destroyed. Had Nasser triumphed last June [1967], he would have wiped Israel off the map, and no one would have lifted a finger to save the Jews.
            No commitment to the Jews by any government, including our own, is worth the paper it is written on.

            There is a cry of outrage all over the world when people die in Vietnam or when two Blacks are executed in Rhodesia . But, when Hitler slaughtered Jews no one demonstrated against him. The Swedes, who were ready to break off diplomatic relations with America because of what we did in Vietnam , did not let out a peep when Hitler was slaughtering Jews. They sent Hitler choice iron ore, and ball bearings, and serviced his troops in Norway .

            The Jews are alone in the world. If Israel survives, it will be solely because of Jewish efforts. And Jewish resources.

            Yet at this moment, Israel is our only reliable and unconditional ally. We can rely more on Israel than Israel can rely on us. And one has only to imagine what would have happened last summer [1967] had the Arabs and their Russian backers won the war, to realize how vital the survival of Israel is to America and the West in general.

            I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the Holocaust will be upon us all.

            1. Alice X

              Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single one.

              The Arabs have insisted that the Occupiers give back the land they have stolen. Which is almost all of it. But again not everyone, the rest of the world paid little attention.

              Arnold Toynbee calls the displacement of the Arabs an atrocity greater than any committed by the Nazis.

              Rather hyperbolic, to say the least.

            2. caucus99percenter

              Good catch, mahalo / thanks. The age-old refrain: “It’s O.K. when we do it; we’re not like anyone else, we’re different; when we do it, it’s because it’s necessary; we’re exceptional, we’re better.”

      4. Michaelmas

        How are these guys not concerned about their reputation? …Someone help me to understand the mindset because I’m flabbergasted.

        It’s really not a mystery. Who pays them, that’s what they believe.

        And there are significant repercussions when they dissent. I once talked to Theodore Postol two years after three large men came to his MIT office, threw him physically around, and broke stuff up there, and his voice was still shaking. This would have been done with the MIT administration’s consent for his criticism of, yes, the Patriot system.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Postol#Patriot_missiles_in_Operation_Desert_Storm

      5. Lefty Godot

        The trouble with amateur analysts is that they may be eminently reasonable about some subjects, more so than the supposed professionals or mainstream news-promoted experts. But then a lot of them veer off into the worst of Fox News/OANN agitprop when other subjects get mentioned: COVID is a hoax, climate change is a hoax, Trump was absolutely defrauded out of re-relection, George Floyd’s death had nothing to do with police kneeling on his neck, Great Replacement, Elders of Zion, etc. It’s kind of like some of what Lyndon LaRouche said made sense while a lot of it was totally wacko. So you have to reserve your respect for a particular argument that’s being presented reasonably, but still be wary about trusting everything that the source comes out with, even in passing.

        1. Amfortas the Hippie

          yeah…ya hafta be like a cafeteria catholic,lol.
          and to your point, i got my intro to economics from larouchites handing out inky tracts on montrose in houston in the 80’s.
          capital controls, etc.
          basically what worked with fdr putting the ubercapitalists in a box, for a time.

          some of the chicks were hot…and obviously there was a flirty fishing aspect in play there…but man, they were otherwise batshit,lol.

        1. Lefty Godot

          “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” – Philip K. Dick

          A point that was apparently lost on Karl Rove.

    2. ex-PFC Chuck

      The Kaganites wouldn’t have their hands on the foreign policy controls without the enthusiastic support of Wall Street.

    3. nippersdad

      “one of my main beefs with such creatures is: how come you all get to decide what America is?
      i dont get a say in it?…i vote no on the entire endeavor.”

      Well put, and I second the sentiment. Someone asked me the other day why I appear to be rooting for Putin, Houthis and Hamas. I told them that someone needed to bloody the bullies nose, and it didn’t appear that anyone here in the “Home of the Brave” was up to the challenge. The sooner the Kagans and their coterie get their butts kicked and can no longer show their faces in public the better it will be for all of us.

  13. The Rev Kev

    “Reporters Without Borders ignores the deaths of Russian journalists”

    Will Reporters Without Borders also deliberately ignore those journalists that the Israelis have been targeting and murdering, even in neighbouring countries? Asking for a journalist friend.

  14. Waesfjord

    Re Ukraine-Russia Conflict & Simplicius

    Tell me this: Why are the so-called amateur analysts running rings around the professionals? I don’t get it, how a professor like Michael Clarke is able to say things like “the Patriot system is very good and never misses” or Phillips O’Brien who says that Ukraine can win with a a bit more equipment. How are these guys not concerned about their reputation? Are they true believers? Someone help me to understand the mindset because I’m flabbergasted.

    1. DavidZ

      no cost to the people who are wrong. They fail upwards.

      So I have some British Examples:
      Tony Blair – lied about iraq, got rewarded by US with millions for his Tony Blair Institute and plum jobs (which I have no clue about what he was doing).
      Boris Johnson – totally sh*t response to covid, didn’t care if millions died – gets a plum directorship at some US institute. (All those PPE contracts to Conservative party members. – corruption much?)
      Matt Hancock – again totally useless at his job, got some plum job after getting pushed out.
      Liz Truss – wanted to start nuclear war, lost to a lettuce – doing very well with whatever she is doing.

      That covid statistician in Florida – whistleblew on the Ron DeSantis govt about messing with stats etc – lost job.

      We get the public institutions and government that we vote for.

    2. CA

      “Tell me this: Why are the so-called amateur analysts running rings around the professionals?”

      A scholar whose ideas were dismissed by New York Times analysts in 2014, may have best explained why:

      https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/11/opinion/a-russia-scholars-views.html

      A Russia Scholar’s Views

      To the Editor:

      “Russia Experts See Ranks Thin, and an Effect on U.S. Policy”: I protest the way my views and I were characterized in your article. I am called the “dissenting villain” in today’s media commentary on Ukraine who presents a “perspective closer to that of Mr. Putin.” This may have the effect (intended or not) of stigmatizing me and discrediting my views.

      For more than 40 years, I have taught thousands of undergraduates and trained scores of future Russia specialists at Princeton University and New York University. My many scholarly books, articles and media commentaries have been published in diverse mainstream places, including The New York Times many years ago. And my views are based on my years of study, not on what President Vladimir V. Putin or anyone else thinks.

      Indeed, my current perspective is similar to what Henry A. Kissinger wrote in The Washington Post this month: “The demonization of Vladimir Putin is not a policy; it is an alibi for the absence of one.”

      I would go farther: The Ukrainian crisis, the worst and most fateful of the 21st century, is the outcome of Washington’s 20-year bipartisan policy toward post-Soviet Russia, spearheaded by NATO’s eastward expansion. I have been arguing this since the early 1990s, long before Mr. Putin appeared on the scene.

      In this regard, I am a true patriot of American national security — perhaps a heretic, but certainly not the “villain.”

      STEPHEN F. COHEN
      New York, March 7, 2014

      1. cousinAdam

        This dates back to when when “Vicki Noodles” Kagan was handing out cookies on the Maidan and telling an ‘associate’ on the phone to “f*ck the EU” while plotting the blueprint for the new NATO- friendly government in Ukraine. After ten years of additional crapification ya gotta wonder who ( or what) is left at the US Dept. of State. Besides the Kagans.

    3. Skip Intro

      The only professionals who aren’t silenced are regurgitating the party line. Only outsiders are allowed to state the relatively obvious. This definitely systemic, and applies across issues.

  15. DavidZ

    US Army not getting enough recruits
    ————————————————-

    There have been stories going around that the US army is not able to get enough recruits and the reasons given are:
    – woke policies
    – poor fitness levels
    – no respect for the army

    IMO
    – Woke policies is a red herring. The armed forces have standards, and anyone who passes that standard should be able to serve the country.
    – Poor Fitness levels are part of generally bad policies: subsidies for cash crops (soy, corn) instead of food crops (fruits, vegetables) + life is generally a lot more sedentary because kids can’t walk to school (no footpaths), many areas don’t have decent playgrounds/parks (we don’t want to pay for them, except in rich neighborhoods) etc.
    – No Respect – is another red herring.

    I think the real reasons are:
    – poor pay & benefits are piss poor.
    – war making for bad reasons (Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya etc). When your country is going out to make war for bad reasons (Bush-Cheney Lies), people cotton on eventually and the repercussions show up a while later.
    – No support for veterans. Tax Cuts lead to no money for veterans and support for army families. Why go to war; get injured (mental & physical), become homeless, get no or poor health care? Better to stay home, stay safe, not die, get a decent paying job with little or no risks. You might still be homeless, have poor healthcare, be homeless; you haven’t gotten brain injuries, lost a limb or worse poisoned by the job.

    For people who moan about how the US Army isn’t getting enough bodies, you can blame the policies of the US Government.

    1. Daniil Adamov

      “Woke policies” may have played a role in that they make it harder for the usual recruitment base to overlook the real reasons you cite. Ideology is used to paper over material problems; replacing the older ideology with a less effective/well-calibrated ideology, signalled by the policies in question, would weaken the effect.

      1. Duke of Prunes

        To me, it’s kind of like the Bud Lite fiasco… Within my own extended family, I’ve observed that joining “the service” has long been the fallback career of the lower classes trying to get their piece of the American dream. Especially in the more rural areas where jobs are scarce. If you make it through without getting killed or seriously injured, Uncle Sam will pay for college and off you go to the good life. Now, these same rural folks don’t much care for “woke” politics, and when “woke” overshadows God and Country, joining the service is that much less desirable. I’m sure the “woke” posturing is repelling far more of these people than it attracts from the urban folks. Similar to Bud Lite, the trendy urban woke folks weren’t going to drink it (or join the military) regardless of who is on the can, and now you’ve upset those who do actually drink it (or join the military).

    2. Mikel

      Consider this:
      It’s a combination of all the reasons they say and all the reasons you say – an all around disaster.

    4. Es s Ce tera

      Agree “woke policies” is a red herring but it’s also an interesting one because the number of women in the US military has increased, likewise the military is more ethnically and racially diverse than ever, even while recruitment has been declining since the 1980’s before so-called wokeness was even a thing.

      Are the anti-woke folks arguing that more women and Blacks is the cause of declining recruitment? That the acceptance of gays in the military is the reason? That anti-rape, anti-sexual harassment and anti-racism policies are the reason?

      Because, I guess, if your ideal military is pro-rape, pro-sexual harassment, pro-racism and mostly white….I think maybe the closest you can get to that is to join Azov.

    5. c_heale

      The forever wars have been going on so long, that soldiers coming back have been able to tell potential recruits about bad aspects of service.

      And the US in’t doing well economically, if you are poor or working class, and it appears to be the fault of US politicians, not other countries – so why would someone go and fight to defend a system which isn’t rewarding them or their families.

  16. Maryland

    Sorry if this has been posted here before. Could explain how people still get Covid after being vaxxed with current vaccines that target only the ACE2 receptor. Mask up! Ventilate! Avoid crowds and indoor spaces with groups of people.

    New route for COVID-19 into human cells found by scientists
    In addition to the known ACE2 receptor, the SARS-CoV-2 virus can also bind to the RAGE receptor found in white blood cells

    https://www.nature.com/articles/d43978-023-00179-5

    1. Old Sarum

      As far as I know the vaccines were not intended to stop you catching Covid but rather to attenuate your immune system’s possible response to the virus. So being vaxxed you might not die due to the violent response of your immune system’s reaction to initial exposure and infection but as to the long term effects of an infection…?

      I liken the military to our immune system. The military may save the country from invasion, but when militarism is out of sensible control the whole nation is at risk of total destruction and systemic collapse, eg Nazi Germany.

      1. Yves Smith Post author

        No, they were sold as reducing severity and even preventing infection. The time windows used for measurement showed a much smaller # of deaths and severe cases. This is not attenuation, particularly with wild type, where if you got really sick, your lungs would fill with goo.

  17. CA

    Brad DeLong, the prominent Berkeley economist, repeatedly explains that since 1980 he has been predicting the collapse of the Chinese economy. DeLong is continuing to predict the collapse, while never trying to explain at least to himself why he has been so wrong for 40 and more years:

    https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=16TkM

    August 4, 2014

    Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for China, United States, India, Japan and Germany, 1977-2022

    (Indexed to 1977)

    Since 2011, the Chinese have been confronted by American policy that is attempting ever more furiously to undermine and stop China’s technology advance and in turn economic growth. The point is that Chinese economic policy is designed to continue infrastructure and technology development and sustain general growth as absolutely necessary, and the results have been splendid however disgruntled selected American economists may be:

    http://www.bradford-delong.com/2016/04/must-read-i-do-not-understand-china-but-it-now-looks-more-likely-than-not-to-me-that-xi-jinpings-rule-will-lose-china.html

    April 5, 2016

    I do not understand China. But it now looks more likely than not to me that Xi Jinping’s rule will lose China a decade, if not half a century… *

    * http://www.economist.com/news/china/21695923-his-exercise-power-home-xi-jinping-often-ruthless-there-are-limits-his

      1. CA

        The broken clock theory of time telling.

        [ Yes, but there is a serious question to be answered, which is why China has been so remarkably successful at developing; developing remarkably now for all the limiting attempts by the US. The answers can serve other emerging countries, and I would argue the answers are just those that Robert Solow would agree with, which would be a high national investment level, stressing infrastructure building and technology advance.

        Paul Krugman writes otherwise, but Krugman also has been wrong about China year after year after year. ]

        1. Polar Socialist

          There’s a nice little book, Why the West Can’t Win: From Bretton Woods to a Multipolar World (claritypress.com) by Fadi Lama – an engineer working as an adviser for the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development, among other things – that tries to dig deep into this question.

          It seems that his answer is simply that China won her independence and as a “punishement” was never properly integrated into the international (read: western) rule-by-debt system. So, The West really has no way to keep her down.

          1. CA

            “Why the West Can’t Win: From Bretton Woods to a Multipolar World”

            Thank you for the recommendation. I will read the book and carefully consider this overview in doing so.

      2. CA

        A critical insight of Solow was that economic growth is significantly driven by technology advance, and the technology advance in China is repeatedly remarkable:

        https://english.news.cn/20231219/bbeb604197964e13ba016a83217924e3/c.html

        December 19, 2023

        Chinese scientists invent ultrathin optical crystal for next-generation laser tech

        BEIJING — A team of Chinese researchers used a novel theory to invent a new type of ultrathin optical crystal with high energy efficiency, laying the foundation for next-generation laser technology.

        Prof. Wang Enge from the School of Physics, Peking University, recently told Xinhua that the Twist Boron Nitride (TBN) made by the team, with a micron-level thickness, is the thinnest optical crystal currently known in the world. Compared with traditional crystals of the same thickness, its energy efficiency is raised by 100 to 10,000 times.

        Wang, also an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said this achievement is an original innovation by China in the theory of optical crystals, and has created a new field of making optical crystals with two-dimensional thin-film materials of light elements.

        The research findings * were recently published in the journal Physical Review Letters….

        * https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.131.233801

  18. Feral Finster

    Concerning Feodosia and the recent losses of Russian aircraft – whether these are significant is beside the point.

    Russian sloppiness letting Ukraine score PR victories gives the hawks a rationalization to keep lavishing support on Ukraine, to keep doubling down and ignoring red line after Russian red line.

    1. Kouros

      One cannot defend everything, all the time. While US satelites likely comb the ground for every crack in the wall. If Odessa is to be taken, it will happen mainly from the land and not from the sea…

      1. hk

        Indeed, the stories that have been coming out recently that Western leaders, including Blinken, Sullivan, Austin, and Milley (and the latter two are supposedly professional soldiers!) really believed the ridiculous Ukrainian propaganda and so pressed the Kiev regime to attack against what should have been clearly insane odds. If the Ukrainians didn’t exaggerate their “successes” so much, maybe that wouldn’t have happened. (I will confess that I kept wondering if people knew something I didn’t until the Ukrainian “offensive” turned into a shooting gallery.)

  19. Wukchumni

    My then 15 year old nephew did 9 pull-ups at a soccer game where USMC was around, and my sister related that some recruiter wouldn’t stop calling, so she put the kibosh to that via a pilot friend in the Marines….

    Fast forward to this summer and my now 19 year old nephew who can’t hardly read, flunks out of community college, and dad who is a USN vet, marches him down to the USMC recruiting station, and they don’t want him because of his 5th grade reading ability.

  20. Tom Stone

    I am 70 years old and I have been paying attention to American politics and Foreign Policy since the 1960’s.
    The US Goverment’s complicity the slaughter of Palestinians is the most brutal, depraved and the stupidest action My Government has taken during those nearly 60 years.
    And it will come home, the 2024 NDAA is another step on the road, replacing the velvet glove with a calving glove will be necessary to preserve American values.

    60

    1. CA

      https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1739322142582612193

      Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand

      An argument I hear all the time from supporters of the Israeli government is “many German civilians were killed in the process of defeating the Nazis, it’s double standards when the world now blames us for killing civilians whilst we try to defeat Hamas”.

      Here’s why this argument is 100% wrong.

      1) OBVIOUSLY killing civilians is ALWAYS wrong. It was wrong to kill German civilians (and most WW2 historians would agree it did very little to help allied war objectives, in fact it probably hindered them) and it is wrong to kill Palestinian civilians today.

      2) The ratio of civilians killed to combattants is infinitely worse in Gaza today than the ratio allies inflicted on Nazi Germany back then. Even if we assume that ALL men and boys over 14 killed by Israel were Hamas combattants (which is obviously not true, a huge share of them, probably even the majority, were civilians) we’re speaking about 65% of deaths in Gaza being civilian deaths:

      ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_2023_Israel%E2%80%93Hamas_war… ).

      This means that for every “combattant” killed, AT LEAST between 2 and 3 civilians are also killed. This ratio in Nazi Germany was 0.1, meaning that for every military deaths, the allies killed 0.1 civilian (roughly 4 million military deaths compared with 400k civilian deaths due to allied strategic bombing:

      ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties… ).

      This means that Israel kills proportionally roughly 20 to 30 times more civilians than the allies did in Germany, which is an IMMENSE difference….

      11:28 AM · Dec 25, 2023

      1. Feral Finster

        This is because Israel intentionally seeks to kill civilians or force them to leave. Israel’s goal is not to force a more compliant government on Gaza, but to depopulate it.

        The United States and its puppets, satraps, vassals and flunkies are all conscious participants in this crime.

          1. The Rev Kev

            It wasn’t a joke. That Israeli estate developer is heavily involved with helping build illegal settlements so this is them wanting to get ahead of the pack. It will be a bit of a bummer when those settler’s go to create gardens in their back and front yards only to discover broken skeletons just under the surface.

            1. Amfortas the Hippie

              and unexploded ordinance…or subsidence from flooding the tunnels with seawater…or a million other things they havent considered.
              from what ive seen, the folks who would lap up such properties will consider the skeletal remains akin to the bone meal us gardeners use.

      2. Aurelien

        I don’t have Richard Overy’s The Bombing War to hand, but I think he argues convincingly that figures for German civilian deaths were somewhat lower than that, because earlier estimates often included people who had fled the cities or just disappeared, so the ratio is even more one-sided. Conversely, your figure of four million military deaths is at the low end of the various estimates. But the real difference is that the allies’ strategy was to target German morale (this is in the official Directive) by destroying homes and buildings and terrorising the population such that at worst they would refuse to go to work (the reason industrial targets were attacked), and at best there would b enough resistance to bring the Nazi regime down, without the need for a bloody land campaign. It didn’t work, but the objective was essentially regime change, not extermination.

        1. Lefty Godot

          I believe that either Carl Spaatz or Curtis LeMay (the two men in charge of the bombing campaigns) said something to the effect that if the US had lost the war they would definitely have been brought up on war crimes charges.

          Have also heard it said that in the very early days of the war, both the British and Germans tried to avoid bombing civilian targets. But that only lasted till the first mistaken hit that took out civilians. Aerial bombing anywhere near civilian populations, even so-called “precision bombing”, should be declared by the UN as an act of terrorism during undeclared hostilities and a war crime in times of declared war.

        2. The Rev Kev

          I briefly met a guy once that was in Bomber Command in WW2 and he was present at a briefing when “Bomber” Harris came in. Harris made it clear that he wanted the cottages where the German workers lived to be bombed as that would put a crimp on the German war effort. Not so much the factories but where those workers and their families lived. When a statue went up to him in the 90s, the Germans were still bitter about him as they knew what he was all about as was the bombing campaign. Just ask the people of Dresden. They remember.

          1. ambrit

            Similarly, ask any older Japanese person about Curtis LeMay. The firebombing raid of Tokyo on March 9-10 1945 killed about 100,000 people. More than at Hiroshima or Nagasaki. (Radiation sickness killed many more in those two places in the months after, but the Tokyo raid holds the record for one day casualties.)
            See: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/firebombing-of-tokyo
            For Hiroshima and Nagasaki post bombing: https://www.atomicarchive.com/resources/documents/med/med_chp22.html

            1. PlutoniumKun

              The USAF bombing of Japan was very different from Germany – in Germany they at least attempted to attack tactical targets. It was mostly the RAF which targeted workers homes. Arguably, Dresden was the only deliberate attempt to massacre civilians, although there were plenty of other questionable mass casualty events, including in France.

              One justification, if it can be called that, for the USAF policy was that Japanese industry did not provide nice juicy tactical targets because so much industry was scattered in workshops through urban areas. The few attempts at tactical bombing (such as multiple attacks on the Navy facilities at Kure) didn’t do much damage. To a large degree militaries act like the man with a hammer – they use what is to hand. Once the decision was made to build giant strategic bombers, they were going to be used, even if there was little real military justification. By mid war, it was already clear that mass urban bombing didn’t achieve the goals promised by the advocates in the 1930’s. But nobody was going to make the decision to melt down the B-29’s into something more useful.

              It should be said that the huge Tokyo death toll was to a large degree on the Japanese authorities – for whatever reason (probably a badly thought through policy of persuading the civilian population that the war would not impact their daily lives) they did not take even the most basic precautions to save civilians, despite knowing full well what was coming (although they may not have anticipated that the US would use mostly incendiaries, not HE). The death tolls in subsequent bombings by the USAF were far lower once they’d put in place basic fire precautions like evacuating the young and old and building fire breaks. That said, there were examples of countless deaths in smaller Japanese towns and cities with no industry that were bombed simply because they were flammable and by the war end the USAF had more bombs than viable targets.

              You could argue though that the mining of Japanese ports and the Inland Sea was by far the most effective strategy militarily, but also the cruelest. It crippled the Japanese economy, but also caused large scale starvation. As the Ghibli film Grave of the Fireflies portrays, countless Japanese children died of starvation and disease in the final year of the war and in subsequent months and years. The US of course did the bombing, but its hard not to take a close look at the callousness of the Japanese authorities when it came to looking after their own people.

  21. Roger Blakely

    Barbie: 5 ways to be more like Allan than Ken The Conversation (Dr. Kevin)

    The author of this article, Jeff Halvorsen, is a post-doctoral associate at the University of Calgary. He is also a member of the Alberta Men’s Network. What he writes in this article is the kind of stuff that you can anticipate is being fed to young men in polite society.

    Halvorsen writes, “Like Ken at the end of the movie, can you become “Kenough” and be open to what women have to say? Can you critique masculinity, and what it means for injustice in the world? Can you support the goal of equality?”

    I agree. Listen to women. They will quickly tell on themselves.

    The director of the Barbie movie, Greta Gerwig, tells on herself, and by extension, tells on all women. The movie is about a nuclear family among other things. There is a mother, Gloria, played by America Ferrera, and a daughter, Sasha, played by Ariana Greenblatt. There is also a husband and father, but he doesn’t warrant a name. Gloria acts like a single mother. It is a surprise to find out that she is actually happily married. The actor playing the husband and father, Ryan Piers Williams, is actually America Ferrera’s husband in real life. The character of the husband behaves in the way that the authors of the Barbie screenplay and Halvorsen would say that a husband should behave. For his compliance the husband is rewarded with humiliation.

    There is a scene where Gloria (in the real world as opposed to Barbieland) is driving her SUV with Sasha in the front seat and Barbie in the back seat. Gloria says to Barbie, “There was this one guy.”

    Sasha says, “You mean Dad?”

    Gloria responds, “Yeah, I mean Dad.” Barbie smiles knowingly.

    What is the point of that exchange? The point is that women are viscerally attracted alpha-male bad boys. Gloria settled for her husband, but he was not the guy who she wanted.

    If a young man wants to get anywhere with women, he needs to do the opposite of whatever he hears from the likes of Greta Gerwig and Jeff Halvorsen.

    1. Yves Smith Post author

      I don’t know why you dignify this movie or worse say on not actual data this represents “all women”. I hate go to New Agey on you, but this is the sort of thing that if you believe it, you will create it, as in you will interpret any ambiguous signal in your frameworks, which then will lead to you creating or even seeking rejection to confirm your deep priors.

      The research is that women for the most part do NOT marry the man they most loved (as in a passionate attraction) but a man they see as a good provider and stable partner.

      1. anahuna

        Thanks, Yves. Once again, you have saved me time and effort with your incisive comment.

        Speaking for myself, I distrust any one who talks about “all women” — or “all men,” for that matter.

  22. nippersdad

    Apparently the US is trying to stop a war crimes conference over Gaza in Geneva because it would be anti-semitic:

    “U.S. representatives should say holding a conference would mean politicizing the Geneva Conventions by creating the impression they are being primarily cited to target Israel, the documents suggest. The materials advise American officials to say that impression would hurt the credibility of both Switzerland and the Conventions themselves.”

    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/un-security-council-us-block-accountability-international-gaza_n_6583338ce4b04da984257b9c

    That is just embarrassing.

  23. Jason Boxman

    A Natural Gas Project Is Biden’s Next Big Climate Test

    A proposed export terminal on the Louisiana coast highlights the tension between economic growth, geopolitics and the environment.

    Well, I guess so, after Biden committed an act of international terrorism and blew up Nordstream.

    Supporters of the project, known as CP2, say the export terminal would be a boon for the United States economy and help Europe decrease its reliance on gas imported from Russia. They also claim that because burning natural gas produces fewer planet-warming emissions than burning coal, the project is a good thing for the climate.

    But a nationwide movement is working to stop the export terminal from ever being built.

    …

    It will be up to the Biden administration to decide whether or not the project moves forward.

    You better believe this project gets approved!

    1. ambrit

      Alas, the area where this offshore terminal is planned for is a regular place where hurricanes ‘visit,’ and often ‘tear up the joint.’
      The facility is planned to last twenty years. (Fairly standard for industrial planning.) It will make it’s own power to run itself. “A 1.47GW combined-cycle gas turbine power plant will also be developed as part of the project…”
      See: https://www.offshore-technology.com/projects/cp2-lng-export-terminal-louisiana-usa/?cf-view&cf-closed

      1. Amfortas the Hippie

        i see plans like that and remember that many of the places down there that i hung around in, 35 years ago during my Wild Years, are now part of the gulf of mexico,lol.
        whole communities, washed away.
        and even back then it was obvious where things were going…the Pilot Camp, down at the extreme end of the actual delta…used to have a road to it.
        when i ventured that way, it was boat/helicopter only.

        i “went there” virtually with wife on google earth, some years ago…retracing my steps, as it were.
        remarkable how all that has changed.

        1. The Rev Kev

          That must be a weird feeling that. Knowing that places that you lived your life no longer exist and are now part of the gulf. But usually stuff like that happens over many decades if not centuries. No within one person’s lifetime. Stuff like that happens only due to a disaster but from what you say, that region must be, ahem, of a very “dynamic” character.

          1. ambrit

            The Mississippi River Delta indeed is a “dynamic” system. I personally remember fishing off of the banks of little bayous that one could drive near to and then easily hike the last bit, that are now under water.
            Members of the extended family regularly go to Grand Isle, on the Gulf southwest of N’Awlins. They remark on land being constantly lost now.
            For the locals, the real culprit is the Corps of Engineers. Prior to the channelization and ‘control’ of the river, the Mississippi would overflow it’s banks most years and add fresh topsoil to the surrounding territory. After that was stopped by the levee system, the surrounding lands began to ‘naturally’ re-enter the watery realms. The further ‘draining’ of the wetlands of South Louisiana by the oil and gas company canals, (how else to bring in and carry out the oil drilling rigs and pipelines,) added to the rate of subsidence. Now that the sea level is noticeably rising, it’s a one, two, three punch perfecta.
            Many locals expect South Louisiana to mainly be tidal wetlands at best within this century.
            Something similar will be happening in all of the river estuaries world wide this century. The displaced population flows will be massive. Nations will fall, indeed, fully disappear.
            The Jackpot has many mothers and fathers.

            1. The Rev Kev

              I read Mark Twain’s book about his early life on the Mississippi and even then that river would meander across the countryside. One time he was called to the wheel house as they were approaching a town that the river was claiming back again. It had been a thriving large town but when Old Man Mississippi went on the move, nothing could save that town.

              1. hk

                The Yellow River regularly changed its course throughout history, including some huge movements. Supposedly, the major changes usually coincided with dynastic changes, or, at least large scale social upheavals… (Not all changes were natural: one in 1938 was caused by Chiang Kai Shek’s army blowing up levees and dams to slow down the Japanese Army, killing up to a milion people–mostly not Japanes–and displacing many more.)

  25. flora

    re: Post-apocalyptic life in American health care.

    Thanks for the link. I went through something similar with parent… 15 years ago. This isn’t new, it’s worse. I think the author makes 2 fundamental mistakes:

    1.Insurance vs hospital is a game of hot potato – who will pay the tab – so not at all like Fed Ex or Amazon. You’ve already paid Fed Ex and Amazon, they have their profit in hand and so deliver your package as quickly as possible to keep the customer happy.

    2. Health insurance companies from the advent of HMOs at least have always been known as trying to find ways NOT to pay claims, or delay paying claims or authorizing tests and treatments in order to increase their profits. If there are a zillion fed, state, local rules insurance cos must follow you can bet they and combing all those rules looking for the loopholes that let them delay or deny payment. (As for Anthem, they were particularly notorious 20 years ago.)

    I’m thinking of this scene from the Disney-Pixar movie The Incredibles.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_VMXa9k5KU

    Now imagine adding AI to cut out the few remaining people who understand the system and will say ‘yes’ instead of ‘no.’ / ;)

    2. Bazarov

      I was going to write a comment making the same points! I thought the essay was oddly blinkered—as if actively trying not to see the root socioeconomic cause and instead proposing an eccentric cultural cause in “primitive tribalism” or whatever. It’s a common bourgeois tendency.

      1. Amfortas the Hippie

        i got lost wandering around that guys site, and found his human development stuff rather compelling, though.
        and i cannot argue with the general chaoticism of american healthcare…although medicaid and then medicare did pretty well by my wife.
        but then again, Cancer puts one in a different category, it seems.
        he considers himself “neuroatypical”…ie: on the autism spectrum…so theres that.

  26. Kouros

    First, thank you for that beutiful series of nature photos.

    Second, the speech by the former Singapore Foriegn Minister was very, very good. In some ways it reminded me of the two Davids’ book: The Dawn of Everything – An New History of Humanity and its message that humanity has in fact experimented with so many forms of self organizing that is mind numbing to accept the present TINA offered by the Anglosphere Combine.

    And then this: “Palestinian society must be deradicalized.”

    While Bibi’s three goals are trying to emulate Russia’s war goals, the way Israel is intentionally aggravating the deaths of civilians in Gaza (and West Bank), compared to Russia that is doing its utmost to minimize civilian suffering, will not succeed. Israel cannot “deradicalize” the Palestinians by beating them to a pulp.

    The good news on that front was the mention of the over 50,000 Palestinian women pregnant, but needing assistance. However, that also reminded me about those T-shirts donned by some sharshooter Israeli units, with the image of a pregnant Arab woman, with a target on her distended pregnant midsection, and with the message: “One bullet, two kills…”

    1. c_heale

      I think Russia and Israel’s war goals are completely different. Russia wants a long term stable solution to the threats it faces. Putin is a pragmatist.

      Israel is being governed by a group of fanatics, and Netanyahu is also concerned with staying out of jail. They are not thinking about the long term.

  27. Ignacio

    To the Dept of anecdotes. (and an experience that might be useful for someone).

    Today I was working with a commercial PV proyect now in a USB memory unit in word format that including all the engineering, legal and economic formalities is now about 58 pages long. It is a commercial project for a 207 kWp installation. I inadvertently replaced the working document with one of the initial versions with 4 pages in length that was stored in other USB unit. Project to be delivered next week and most of the work trashed in a second.

    Tried to find .temp and .wbk files to recover the full version but no way of finding.

    Asked my son (informatics engineer). What did he do? He asked ChatGPT that came with various solutions one of them being an extremely useful recovery program named TestDisk.

    Run it and in 45 min it had recovered some thousands of files from the USB unit and stored in the computer in several folders. Browsing amongst them there it was! with some name provided by Test disk but identifiable by the type of file, the size and the time and date of the file.

    Last week of the year saved by my son and ChatGPT combined!

    1. The Rev Kev

      That was some bullet dodge that you did there and it looks like you owe your son big time. Had something similar happen to me so have learned that whenever I think about whether I should do a backup, I do one. At least you finished the year on a high note so happy new year.

    2. CA

      Tried to find .temp and .wbk files to recover the full version but no way of finding.

      Asked my son (informatics engineer). What did he do? He asked ChatGPT that came with various solutions one of them being an extremely useful recovery program named TestDisk….

      [ Superbly helpful anecdote. ]

    3. c_heale

      Test disk has been around for years and can be found be any normal (non AI) search, that’s how I first encountered it. AI was not necessary in this case.

  28. ambrit

    Yay! Make those “byte sized dictators” know who is the boss! Glad it worked out for you. That link to the program is also “News You Can Use.” Thanks for the information.

  29. The Rev Kev

    “Unusual boxes and 7,000-year-old trove found locked in ice”

    This is really great stuff this. Normally on an archaeological site, only the obsidian would survive. But here you are seeing organic material survive that helps give context to those sites and some of them were actually fashioned by that obsidian. The finds that they are making such as a walking stick, a stitched boot and tools carved from bone teach us what their technological skill was and what items that they fashioned for everyday use. They really should send other teams up there to see what else can be retrieved.

  31. The Rev Kev

    “Meet ‘Coscientist,’ your AI lab partner”

    It’s an interesting idea. But I would never allow it to have access to the internet as you would be never sure who it would be talking to. And you may find your work being patented by another company by coincidence.

  32. Kouros

    The link to the New Left Review is excellent and should be bookmarked for future reference.

    Some key conclusion about the present status of international law (after a very nice trip through the past):

    “Koskenniemi began his career with a brilliant demonstration of the two poles between which the structure of international legal argument had historically moved, entitled From Apology to Utopia: either international law supplied servile pretexts for whatever actions states wished to take, or it purveyed a lofty moral vision of itself as, in Hooker’s words, ‘her voice the harmony of the world’, with no relation to any empirical reality. What Koskenniemi failed to see was the interlocking of the two: not utopia or apology, but utopia as apology: responsibility to protect as charter for the destruction of Libya, preservation of peace for the strangulation of Iran, and the rest.”

  33. steppenwolf fetchit

    Ran Prieur recently ran an interesting article about some of the handed-down belief systems motivating the tech billionaires. It is called ” Of Memes and Magick”. He calls it . . . ” a fascinating essay about the occult origins of tech culture. “I’m suggesting that the once-transgressive ideology underpinning the Western esoteric tradition — that our purpose as humans is to become as close to divine as possible — has become an implicit assumption of modern life.” ”

    Here is the link.
    https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-internet-became-the-modern-purveyor-of-ancient-magic

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