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Links 12/27/2023

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‘White Wine in the Sun’ Thomas Neuburger

Zombie disease in deer, not humans: Chronic wasting questions answered USA Today (furzy)

Who was Duns Scotus? aeon

#COVID-19

A reader is in despair that her multi-vaxxed MD daughter got boosted during her pregnancy and then got Covid @ 7 months. Let’s hope 7 months is late enough to escape serious damage:

Climate/Environment

Meet the economist who wants the field to account for nature MIT Technology Review (David L)

Ski resorts face closures as snow declines from climate crisis and rising temperatures across Europe Daily Mail

How Electric-Vehicle Demand Is Losing Steam in the U.S., in Charts Wall Street Journal

Researchers surprised at levels of toxicity in standard plastic products PhysOrg (Chuck L)

China?

American Spies Confront a New, Formidable China Wall Street Journal. The subhead strikes me as more telling: “CIA lost network of agents a decade ago and has struggled to rebuild in the surveillance state America calls its top security priority; ‘no real insight into leadership plans’”

‘Get bolder, please’: China’s economic powerhouses go all out to lift exports amid Beijing’s urge for more responsibilities South China Morning Post

China criticizes U.S. sanctions on Russia’s Arctic LNG-2 project Reuters (Kevin W)

India

Delhi: Dense fog causes travel chaos in capital, other parts of north India BBC

India’s turnaround on Palestine has more than meets the eye Indian Punchline

European Disunion

Wolfgang Schäuble (1942-2023) Yanis Varoufakis

The waning power of Emmanuel Macron Financial Times

QE Giveth, QT Taketh Away: German Home Prices Tank as ECB’s Balance Sheet Drops by €1.85 Trillion Wolf Richter

Germany’s Bundeswehr not battleworthy beyond several hours’ fight — retired German officer TASS

Old Blighty

Protest crackdown: UK democracy faces scrutiny over rights and freedoms Christian Science Monitor

Hunt contacts Thames Water chief after outage leaves Chancellor ‘beside myself with frustration’ Telegraph

Gaza

‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 81: WHO says Gaza’s health system is being ‘decimated’ by Israeli bombardment Mondoweiss (guurst). Erm, being a stickler, “decimated” originated with the Roman military discipline practice of having the members of a company kill one of every ten of its own members. The devastation of Gaza hospitals is in excess of the one in ten level.

Gaza authorities accuse Israel of stealing organs from bodies of Palestinians Anadolu Agency

* * *

The Isreali Offer Signals A Strategic: Aid, Withdrawal, Prisoner Swaps and Guarantees. Elijah Magnier

Biden, Qatar’s Emir discuss Gaza hostages, boosting aid Middle East Online

Netanyahu Says He’s Looking for Countries to ‘Absorb’ Palestinians from Gaza Antiwar.com (Kevin W). He’s going to have to look a very very long time.

* * *

US actions blamed for Red Sea crisis China Daily (BC)

Red Sea crisis tests resilience of vehicle supplies Global Times (BC)

* * *

Houthis and Saudis Commit to New Ceasefire and Roadmap for Peace Antiwar.com (Kevin W)

* * *

US rejects Israeli request for Apache attack helicopters amid Gaza war ANews (BC)

The Problem With Israel’s Military Larry Johnson

* * *

Intel To Invest $25 Billion in Israel After Winning Incentives Bloomberg

New Not-So-Cold War

>EU readies €20bn plan B to fund Ukraine Financial Times. Remember less than half the originally planned amount.

SITREP 12/26/23: Crimean Strikes & Ukraine’s Mass Mobilization Arrives Simplicius the Thinker

Will the Russians use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine? Gilbert Doctorow

Ukrenergo calls for saving electricity, with 462 communities cut off from power supply Interfax

Ukraine’s Top Diplomat In Canberra Absurdly Claimed That “This War Is About Australia Too”Andrew Korybko. Well it is in the sense that Australia has been helping to foot the bill.

Syraqistan

Biden orders strikes on an Iranian-aligned group after 3 US troops wounded in drone attack in Iraq Associated Press

Big Brother is Watching You Watch

Google Stops Collecting Location Data from Maps Bruce Schneier. Must read comment from JonKnowsNothing, starting with:

The small print: Google no longer needs to collect and store the data from maps on their servers because they have been working with the NSA for a few years now on “how to ID any location on the planet without a geolocation reference attached to the image”.

Imperial Collapse Watch

Shrinking Cost of War Threatens Western Militaries National Interest (fk)

Trump

‘Rot in hell’ Biden – Trump Christmas greeting RT. After many years of living rent-free in many heads in the pundit, press, and political operative classes, they look by dint of application to have finally infected Trump’s brain.

Trump Calls for Eye-to-Eye Tariffs, Huge Trade War No Matter Who Wins Michael Shedlock

New Jack Smith conspiracy theory emerges on far-right fringe sites Alternet

Health Care

Serious Medical Errors Rose After Private Equity Firms Bought Hospitals New York Times (Kevin W)

Changes in Hospital Adverse Events and Patient Outcomes Associated With Private Equity Acquisition JAMA. Underlying study.

Our No Longer Free Press

As social media guardrails fade and AI deepfakes go mainstream, experts warn of impact on elections Associated Press (David L). We pointed out that the Obama Administration saw better propaganda as the solution to every problem. So why are they surprised that we are reaching end game of “one man’s disinformation is another’s PR”.

Apple Watch Ban Stands After White House Fails to Offer Reprieve Bloomberg

Why more women are picking up power tools Economist (Dr. Kevin). I did not read the entire piece, but I don’t see acknowledged that at least some power tools, particularly chain saws, are now being made in smaller sizes (so easier and safer for comparatively low upper body strength people to use). Also word may have gotten out about big improvements in the safety of table saws.

Alabama saw a surge in mass layoffs in 2023, especially in manufacturing AL.com

AI

What kind of bubble is AI? Cory Doctorow (David L)

The Bezzle

Toyota-owned automaker halts Japan production after admitting it tampered with safety tests for 30 years CNN

Guillotine Watch

Here’s why wealthy Americans say it’s getting harder for them to get richer Business Insider (Kevin W)

The Insufferable Bros Who Run Corporate America Matt Stoller (Dr. Kevin)

Small airports are magnets for the wealthy: Here are the 8 most popular for private jets Business Insider (Kevin W)

Class Warfare

How McKinsey Destroyed the Middle Class Atlantic (David L). FWIW, when I was at McKinsey and neoliberalism was only starting to take hold in policy circles and society at large, cost-cutting studies, which largely amounted to firing people since salaries are the biggest component of costs plus many costs key off headcount, were unpopular with staff and not well thought of by a considerable majority of partners either. From the worker-bee standpoint, the studies were cookie cutter (so you didn’t get career points for being a good problem solver) and dispiriting to execute. Partners similarly looked down on the mechanical nature of this work and pragmatically also believed that McKinsey firing employees would create McKinsey opponents wherever the defenestrated workers eventually landed. So the firm then only took them with some reluctance, when the economy was crappy, clients wanted them done and McKinsey needed the work. Needless to say, how times have changed.

It is key to remember that McKinsey’s business models had long been to take emerging new practices, such as going from functionally-focused organizations to product-focused one, or internationalization, finding their so-called “best practices” and using that to accelerate their uptake. So it’s not hard to see how McKinsey came to operate as a force multiplier for neoliberalism.

Where is the Party of the Working Class? Les Leopold

Antidote du jour. Tracie H: “Princess at Christmas.”

And a bonus (Chuck L):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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152 comments

  1. Antifa

    HUGE BOMBS KEEP FALLIN ON MY HEAD
    (melody borrowed from Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head as performed by B.J. Thomas)

    Huge bombs keep fallin’ overhead;
    I’m stuck here in Gaza, my entire family’s dead
    From a direct hit — those
    Huge bombs are fallin’ overhead, they keep fallin’.

    So I walked down to the southern Rafah gate,
    But they keep it locked up so I guess I’ll have to wait.
    Nothing here to eat — those
    Huge bombs are fallin’ overhead, they keep fallin’.

    Who knows how far they’ll go?
    But we are living people not a lawn to mow!
    The hospital’s a bloody mess, it’s gone completely!

    Families are dying while they sleep.
    Twelve story buildings lying in a smoking heap!
    Lots of amputees — and
    All of them screaming out in pain while they’re draining.

    It’s hard to see . . . such horrible things.

    We’re pawns in someone’s game of chess, and they are cheating!

    Huge bombs keep fallin’ overhead;
    The horrors I’ve seen have made my own eyes cold and dead;
    Dying’s all I see — when
    I get to Tel Aviv I’ll return the favor!

    Watch out for me . . .

    What a martyr I’ll be . . .

    1. ambrit

      You’re on a roll lately. I guess the Gaza situation is a “target rich environment” for snark, irony, and pure parody.
      Stay safe!

      1. caucus99percenter

        I can only try to imagine how creators like Mark Twain or Phil Ochs would have felt about the Gaza situation and how they might have expressed that in their work.

        Along with writers such as Caitlin Johnstone, Antifa’s song parodies do indeed help me a great deal in that imagining.

    1. juno mas

      Interesting photo, since Bald Eagles are territorial. They appear to be paired (they are monogamous), except for the two closest to camera. These two may be mother and juvenile offspring (eaglets don’t get a bald (white) head until 4 years of age. Winter scarcity may be what brings this group together to scavenge; typical of the crows in the background.

      Or, they are all not yet paired eagles waiting to use the WiFi ;)

  3. Alan Roxdale

    Netanyahu Says He’s Looking for Countries to ‘Absorb’ Palestinians from Gaza Antiwar.com (Kevin W). He’s going to have to look a very very long time.

    They are STILL pushing this? Neocons really do have no reverse gear. I assume Ron Dermers trip to Washington was again to sell this rotten fruit and get Blinken to wholesale it.

    To so openly plot an ethnic cleansing is surely a crime in the United States. I know for certain that even plotting genocide IS a US federal offence. When these forced transfers I. Gaza and the West Bank turn violent and get a few hundred thousand killed, Blinken and the rest will be legally guilty of aiding it, along with the department officials who supplied the arms.

    US Genocide Act

    There is some hectic urge among the western political class that is driving this naked urge for mass slaughter and ethnic purging. I think it’s the next stage of the long devolution from democracy, to technocracy, to oligarchy, and now to outright facism. The SS uniform has been traded for the 3 piece suit, The ideology is otherwise unaltered.

    2. Neutrino

      Expect to see some excitable so-called journalists and politicians pressing for US contribution to the great humanitarian offloading. How many locals will say You first?

      Our wars, whether in person or by proxy, result in the following: Invade the world, invite the world. That has happened since the Spanish American War, with notable periodic upticks. Lately, we outsource the importation.

    3. Heidi's walker

      I guess enabling and supporting Ukraine in it’s bid to ethnically cleanse citizens of Russian citizens from Ukraine was the test case for planning a genocide within the US government.

    4. ambrit

      As the Germans taught a century ago, SS uniforms and three piece suits are a natural match. They compliment each other.
      See the western business elite’s financial support for the early National Socialist German Worker’s Party.

    5. Feral Finster

      If Israel cannot exile gazans, then it will murder them wholesale, all with the conscious participation of the
      United States and its european vassals.

      1. ambrit

        The Arab Street will not forget this. I am told that memories, especially for insult and hurt, are very long in that part of the world.

          1. vidimi

            Israel and her defenders should be mighty careful that the US never gets involved in China since the fear of the US is the main thing giving Israel impunity. If China sends a couple of US fleets to the bottom of the sea, it will be game over.

  4. Michaelmas

    Philip Pilkington’s piece in the NATIONAL INTEREST, ‘The Shrinking Cost of War,’ is very much worth a read.

    About the only thing to add is that the USA itself initiated the democratization of missile technology with its customary lack of foresight back when it gave Stingers and manpads to bin Laden’s boys in Afghanistan.

    As always —

    Think no longer that you are in command here,
    But rather think how, when you were,
    You served your own destruction.

    1. Maxwell Johnston

      Agreed. It’s an excellent summary of how the economics of modern weaponry are changing. As the saying goes (from Dune, I think): he who can destroy a thing, controls a thing.

      The cost disparities are becoming so extreme that even the Pentagon is taking notice. Not everyone inside the Beltway is stupid:

      https://asiatimes.com/2023/12/behold-orca-us-navys-robotic-sub-built-for-drone-swarms/

      If the USA gets smart and begins spending its massive defense budget more cleverly on cheap drones and rockets and EW and other relatively low-cost high-return items, this can cause problems for its adversaries. RU is already struggling to fight off UKR’s missiles and drones, despite its excellent but pricey AA systems (as per Simplicius’ piece in today’s links). If UKR can increase its drone/rocket attacks twentyfold, RU will really have some issues. Ditto for Hezbollah/Israel. Ditto for Houthis/US Navy.

      None of this makes me optimistic about what 2024 has in store for us. I plan to keep my seatbelt tightly fastened.

      1. juno mas

        The reason the Houthi’s are the perfect proxy warriors for this asymmetric warfare is they have no valuable infrastructure to attack. The USA and Russia does.

    2. PlutoniumKun

      The problem with the argument he sets out is that it’s Ukraine, not Russia which has used most consumer drones and its done them little good. Russia is winning the drone war because its drones are better at blowing things up and because they have been far more successful at anti-drone warfare, mostly involving electronic jamming. The Lancet is a military grade weapon in nearly every respect, it doesn’t really fit into the category of home made or consumer grade weaponry – hence its cost is comparable with most ATGMs.

      Effective home made weaponry has been around since the beginning of the industrial era. The Stern Gang in Israel shocked the British with the quality of their home brew weaponry in the 1940’s. The British designed Sten Gun supposedly democratised warfare, as did the AK-47 and numerous other cheap and simple weapons. What has changed is the range afforded by modern cheap rocketry and drones, but very cheap systems like this only really work in very specific circumstances and I suspect that as cheap drones proliferate, so will cheap jamming systems, so the whole self licking ice cream of weaponry design and manufacture will keep going ad infinitum, or until someone develops a simple home made nuclear device and ends everything.

      The raw facts that industrial capacity and population size is the key to long term military success haven’t altered. Russia is winning because it understands this, not because of cheap consumer chips. China understands it too.

        1. PlutoniumKun

          I didn’t mean to suggest it was homemade (the sten was designed as such), but was simple enough that it could be manufactured by almost any country, officially and otherwise (the ones in Pakistan, illegally made in small local workshops have been called the Khyber Pass Kalashnikovs). The argument is that high tech weaponry is being ‘democratized’, but this is something that has gone on in cycles for centuries – George Orwell for one was convinced this was going to change warfare in the 1940’s.

          Kalashnikov themselves keep a list of all the attempts to home brew the weapon: https://en.kalashnikovgroup.ru/media/lektoriy-top-5-khudshikh-ak/lektoriy-top-5-khudshikh-ak-pakistan

      2. Thomas F Dority

        Well, I thought the the use of military equipment was to achieve some desired end term outcome.
        Long term military success, to me, suggests that having to use military weapons for a long time to achieve an objective (objective being in the eyes of the beholder and or just open ended power play etc.) is a military failure (political failure, geopolitical failure as the military ain’t the one who decided to fight) – Just because overwhelming firepower is had by one side does not mean that the cause or justifications to use that power is proper, just or humanitarian or positive. So just because made something not fit for purpose? does not mean it a military failure – maybe it’s a democratic republic acting like an imperialist failure

    3. Glen

      I don’t doubt that the introduction of new technology changes who is able to do what with weapons, but I see this whole article as a bit of a smoke screen. Russia has won in Ukraine both with new weapons, adapting quickly to changes in warfare, but also because it has demonstrated an incredible “bang for the buck” (or more correctly bang for the ruble) compared to the west. Russia is now manufacturing both small and large weapons systems at increasing rates far surpassing what the combined west is capable of doing yet it’s spending far, far less doing it. in 2020 the Russian military budget was about $60B, and since the invasion, it’s been estimated that Russia has spent an additional $82B on the invasion. I don’t doubt that these estimates are low, but doing even just apples to apples comparisons to the US DOD leaves one asking just where all the dollars go. The real question to ask is why neoliberal capitalism gets the $hit kicked out of it by any halfway straight up form of industrial capitalism when the $hit hits the fan.

      1. Morincotto

        True.

        But that is also why the US would potentially be nigh infinitely worse if it managed to ditch neoliberalism.

        You think the US with a for profit MIC is a pox on humanity?

        Imagine what a monstrosity it could be with some serious, at least semi to largely competent dirigisme and state control over the means of production.

        And the worrying thing is that there are some tentative steps in that direction.

        The US manages to increase it’s shell production (to a degree”) because the army starts building it’s own factories, while the europeans who are more ideologically committed to neoliberalism fail.

        The Neocons are NOT neoliberals, or they are only when they think it is opportune and gets them browny points they can exchange for hard power.

        They don’t care about Money OT the Economy or Profit Rates,Not even the Profit Rates of the MIC companies and billionaires whose donations they gladly Take for their think Tanks.

        But I think it completely Misses The Point to assume they are thus ultimately beholden to them.

        The Neocons are about the US government dominating the globe and all life, not about the shareholder value of arms manufacturers.

        And if they thought that nationalising all the srms manufacturers would bring them closer to that goal, they’d be all for it, even if via a gradual, sneaky process.

        By liberatarian/anarcho capitalist (and by genuine anarchist, of course) measures the neocons are hardcore stateists in their black, rotten heart of hearts.

        They are close to actual, historical fascism in the sense that they think the economy should serve the power and greater glory of the eternal US Empire and they have never previously really been interested in the economy for it’s own sake, how it is overall doing or how it even works.

        The economy is relevant only to the degree that it provides the Empire with the tools to project power and crush everyone and everything in it’s path, so they can have their Ingsoc style future where they stomp down on the collective face of humanity, forever.

        Power and money go hand in hand much of the time, but if/when their paths diverge, the Neocons and their likeminded fellow travelers go with power.

        And judging for example by how Sullivan would like to reconstruct US society and economy, the Neocons are beginning to realize that there is to a degree such a divergence.

        They realize that the neoliberal, purely for profit military industrial complex failed to deliver the bang it promised, something they had been blind to before because, yes, they are Not remotely as smart as they think and where dazzled and bamboozled by corporate promises like most people in the West, but the smarter Neocons have seen “the light”, and because their instinct for power is far stronger than any ideological attachment to market fundamentalism they react by wanting more dirigisme and direct government investment, as well as of course reinstating the draft.

        They openly talk about how the most important thing for the imperial US is to restore state capacity.

        Yes, a lot of the US’ former enormous state capacity IS gone, thanks to neoliberalisation, rebuilding it will be difficult, take a long time and may very well ultimately fail.

        But the rest of the world can’t afford to just bank in it failing in it’s own.

        Russia itself demonstrated impressively that that kind of re-building can be done, and while it IS a monumental task, it is not magic or in any way impossible.

        US megalomania and imperialism is NOT necessarily tied to neoliberalism or the predominance of finance capitalism and the Deep State is far from being merely a tool of financial interests alone.

        With drastic measures and a huge converted effort by a sufficiently committed and ruthless government in ten years or so the US might well have built up the capacity to crush Russia in a conventional conflict, even if at the price of losses at an unimaginable scale.

        Part of the price would almost certainly be a far more egregious degree of open authoritarianism than anything yet seen at home, because that would be the only way to force through putting all of society and the economy on a warfooting under right control from Washington and suppress the unavoidable dissent, but for the Neocons and every likeminded part of the US elites that would be not only be worth it but really a feature instead of a bug.

        And because that is the goal, look out for the wholesale chucking out of woke culture and the re-embracement of reactionary christofascism by the Neocons, probably their migration back to the Republican Party, that is after they have either ensured Trump’s compliance or eliminated him in some way.

        The rightwingers will be easy to bring along for this ridd, most of the active ones care more about eridicating wokeness and punishing Woke Hollywood and Disney than about ever genuinely opposing the Empire and the warmachine.

        2. Glen

          Interesting comment.

          So you embrace neoliberalism as the best way to manage America? What I’ve observed is that neocons or their equivalent have always been present in America (think General LeMay of WW2 and SAC), but neoliberalism is what “let them off the leash”. Neoliberalism and the uniparty have usurped even the small vestiges of democracy that the American public had over the direction of their country.

  5. Not Again

    So America’s idea is to move chip manufacturing from Taiwan because it’s unstable —– and relocate it to Israel?

    Is anyone running this show?

    1. Carolinian

      The articles say that Intel is expanding an existing plant and not building a new one. Maybe they are going to build a literal iron dome over the thing.

    2. PlutoniumKun

      Intel have long had a very large chip fab plant in Israel. They have a few around the world which are mostly used to leverage tax incentives from various governments. The decision to expand the Intel one was made at least a year ago (I heard from Intel people I know in Ireland that they had ‘lost’ an internal competition to the Israeli site).

    3. John k

      Imo less likely to be bombed in Arizona. Granted, either side might see advantage in bombing tsmc in Taiwan.

  6. Mikerw0

    AI link from Doctorow is awesome and a must read.

    The only question I have is when will people realize that the bubble model, repeatedly brought to us by Silicon Valley is nonsensical and only does one thing — enrich the GPs at the LPs and societies expense?

    Nothing else really needs to be said.

    1. oliverks

      I agree the pricing on chatGPT and Claude are significantly under cost, and certainly way under mega profits levels.

      I disagree with the assessment that small models will dry up. There is a unique aspect to this market that I have never seen before in tech. Namely academics have not bowed out, but remain engaged and actively working on algorithms. Typically I see academic interest drop off or cease completely, when the bubbles get going.

      This continued interest has seen training costs and compute power requirements dramatically drop, partly out of necessity, but also out of academic curiosity. For example the discovery of the low rank nature of attention heads is interesting.

      Overall this is a fascinating market, and it is super unclear how it will develop right now, but I do see useful and valuable business cases in AI that can be achieved right now. I suspect 2024 will see a number of small firms do quite well furnishing targeted models that solve specific use cases.

      1. Jason Boxman

        Indeed, there’s a CLI-based tool that came out where you can plugin in your own weights or use one of several models it ships with, and I used it to write descriptions for several thousand photos; while still a kind of toy, it’s actually not completely useless and I can now use these as full text to search rather than manually tagging. The output is more useful than Google Vision was back in 2017 with an extreme predilection to precise identification which left me with 10k keywords across the corpus, rather useless for browsing and searching. It also ran on a Macbook Pro 2023 without any real system load required. I foresee specialized models becoming available and used in a variety of spaces; what I fear is LLM output will be used as the final authority in decision making; inaccurate output is part of the design itself and I doubt that’s ever getting fixed.

        1. oliverks

          There are some techniques around where the LLMs can be heavily constrained to follow certain protocols.

          By doing this, you can insert check points that allow you to develop confidence (or lose confidence) that the model is behaving reasonably. The key thing, is you can confirm what the model is doing.

            1. oliverks

              They don’t need to be. I am not convinced that option works for the models from open AI / Anthropic. But check with your model.

  7. The Rev Kev

    “Will the Russians use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine?”

    I have no idea why this is even a serious idea. Why would the Russians irradiate parts of the Ukraine that they will be taking back? The cleanup bill would be colossal. Apart from that, the use of nukes would wreck the relationships with all those Global majority countries that they have been working on for the past two years and more. All support for Russia would evaporate overnight. Perhaps this mention of nukes is to put western agencies on notice that if they trying something funny to do with nukes, that there would be consequences – at a time and place of Russia’s choosing. But as far as nukes are concerned, let’s just drop them right now. Wait! That wasn’t what I meant.

    1. Kilgore Trout

      I agree with Doctorow that the statement was an effort to pre-empt any attempt by the US to stage some kind of nuclear “event”. Things are getting desperate in the WH. They did in Nordstream, and no one complained, what harm could a little tactical nuke do? Or so the thinking goes. Especially if it would–in their deluded Neo-con minds–snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. There seems no end to the reckless stupidity of the Biden-Blinken-Nuland-Sullivan gang.

    3. Es s Ce tera

      I view the USA as the more likely to use tactical nukes and pre-emptively too. Especially now that they’re explicitly complicit in and supportive of genocide and ethnic cleansing as a matter of official policy. Not that the US has ever cared about civilian populations…it’s history has shown a particular willingness to mass slaughter innocents and non-combatants.

      The US was the first to fit nukes to artillery shells in 1953, establishing long-standing intent to use them in this way, and to fit nukes to NATO standard 155mm shells, also establishing NATO’s intent. The Americans claim to have withdrawn all nuclear artillery shells in the 2004, so if the Ukro-Nazis acquire some it could only have been supplied by the Americans.

      But what would be the target, assuming one or a small number of shells? Zaporozhye? A 2 kiloton shell would have a radius of 4 miles and a range of 15 to 24 miles, which does suggest the nuclear plant at Zaporozhye. But I wonder if the idea is to use it defensively in retreat, although the front is quite long so would need a lot of them. If the front, have the Americans brought all 1300 shells out from storage and put them into play?

      1. Glen

        I’m not sure what the explicit policy for the use of tactical nukes is now, but NATO as a defensive military force relied on tactical nukes up to the mid sixties. This was because the estimates of combat effectiveness of NATO forces was measured in minutes or hours if the full force of the Warsaw Pact came over the border. That’s why weapons system like the M-28 Davy Crockett were developed:

        Davy Crockett (nuclear device)
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_(nuclear_device)

        My concern is similar to yours that when push comes to shove, NATO will fall back to “old habits”. But to be honest, this is a NATO that I no longer recognize. It keeps expanding, and has gone far, far past what we regarded as sensible limits back in the day for membership and deployment. I can no longer predict what NATO will do, but it also no longer seems to be focused on defending Europe. Look at how this whole Ukraine fiasco has worked out – has it made Europe more safe? It reminds me of the wars of choice America started after 9/11 – those did not make America more safe.

    4. Mollie

      Russia is downwind from Ukraine.
      This is just more Neoconartist bullshit to drain the treasury and fund the MIC.

      The greatest threat of nuclear war eminates from 1600 Pennsyvania Avenue. It’s your life, your children’s life and the future of life on earth. Is that worth getting mad versus M.A.D.?

      Something you can do everyday to help discredit and destroy any recurrance of this and yet another final everyone loses war. Buyer’s strike until the end of the Biden Regime, nothing but food, fuel and essentials.

  8. Es s Ce tera

    re: Here’s why wealthy Americans say it’s getting harder for them to get richer Business Insider

    “About two in three respondents noted that building wealth is a lot harder than it ever has been. Reasons for this include worries about inflation, a volatile stock market, fear of job loss, and the climate crisis causing damage to or hurting the values of homes.”

    They must have a very different notion of “wealth” than I do if their idea of wealthy Americans includes those with jobs. To my mind, wealth and affuence is being entirely self-sufficient via financial instruments, income from investments and properties being sole income is what distinguishes the wealthy class. If job loss is a concern, you may not be wealthy. Am I wrong?

    1. herman_sampson

      Maybe it’s not so much the income from a job that concerns the wealthy, but the loss of status, the network of connections that comes with it, the other perks that come with it. They obviously could still survive physically but it might be psychically depressing.

      1. Neutrino

        Some readers may have watched the series Inventing Anna.
        One part involved the Anthony Edwards character. Before his fall, his top status yielded play on the top ball court with top visibility. After his Anna gullibility, he was relegated to a lower ball court with the striving prole bankers and lawyers.

        Tough to keep up appearances after a public humiliation, especially in status-hungry hierarchical Manhattan. How does the ego drive, or the id, or an underdeveloped or suppressed superego, for example, play into the games and lives of those PMC exemplars?

    2. Cassandra

      While I realize that the penthouse is a very very long way up, the management/C-suite looks pretty d**n affluent from my perspective on the lower levels.

    3. Michaelmas

      Es s Ce tera: Here’s why wealthy Americans say it’s getting harder for them to get richer — fear of job loss

      No, it’s a realistic and valid fear, because it’s a whole, ricketty structure of rent extraction all the way up to the top.

      Take a sales and trading associate in a Wall Street investment bank pulling down $175,000 in salary with bonuses between $90,000 to $120,000, and exceptional performers getting a bonus as high as $130,000. That’s around $300,000 per annum.

      Sounds great to me you say? Or alright, at least.

      In the world of Real Money, though, that’s nothing. That barely covers the nut if you’re mortgaged out on a house in Westchester County and a summer place in the Hamptons; private schools for the kids to be educated about the gender fairy ($50,000-60,000 per child; plus expensive Russian maths teachers because even American private schools are worthless); loans for home improvements, like the marble counters etc. the wife demanded in the kitchen; one housekeeper, maybe a separate cook and a nanny to whom you and the wife have staffed out getting the kids around; maybe two expensive cars; eating out at good restaurants; good wines, maybe a whole well-stocked wine cellar so you can drink your troubles away every evening.

      And you can lose all of that instantly if you’re fired, just like the lowest prole. Consequently, many of these people live sad, fearful existences.

      Even vice presidents (VPs), the next step after associate and before director, only have base compensations of, like, $250,000-$300,000, with bonuses ranging from $200,000 to $400,000. (At least last time I looked; Yves can correct me if I’m wrong).

      So all-in comp for an early-stage VP comes out to around $400,000 to $700,000. Even that’s not much in the world of Real Money. This bit with Kevin Spacey’s VP character in the film MARGIN CALL knuckling down to Jeremy Irons’s is pretty realistic —
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtFyP0qy9XU

      “I’ll do it, John. But not because of your little speech. Because I need the money. It’s hard to believe after all these years, but I need the money.”

      Wall Street is arguably junior league if you want to make the Real Money, anyway. Even Jamie Dimon only has a networth of $1.2 billion, which is, yes, Real Money, but compared to a successful general partner at a successful VC firm not so much.

      Yes: as Yves has pointed out, most VC firms are not successful. Many, maybe most, VCs never will get carry, or part of the profits on their investments. VCs only get carry after first paying back their own investors on all the capital they’ve raised, which can take a decade or longer.

      But if you are one of the elect ….

      Sequoia’s Mike Moritz has a net worth of $5.4 billion, for instance, and Doug Leone (also at Sequoia) of $7.2 billion. Vinod Khosla, formerly of Kleiner-Perkins, of $15 billion, though at this point he suffers from Emeritus Syndrome.

      Like that. There are very few of these people, though, and Wall Street is almost never the route to becoming one. And even some of these people are making themselves unhappy because they’re looking at Elon Musk and resenting that he’s richer and dumber (as they see it) than them.

      In my view, the best thing to do is make your basic $10 million FO money and then get the hell out of the United States.

      1. Neutrino

        My investor contacts used to say that minimum FU Money was $50 million, but you know how inflation changes everything.

        1. Maxwell Johnston

          $50m is what my Swissie bank contacts told me about 10 years ago. Inflation has probably taken its toll since then. I think the dividing line marking the truly rich used to be ownership of a yacht. Nowadays, I would say that it’s all about private aviation. If you can afford a private jet (an actual jet, not a propellor-driven Beechcraft or Cessna), then you’re up there with the big boys (pun intended). Avoid the lines, avoid the security theater, enjoy the privacy, pay the price.

          1. Wukchumni

            When you’re in a Jet,
            You’re in a Jet all the way
            From your first $50 million
            To your last dyin’ day.

            When you’re in a Jet,
            Let them do what they can,
            You got your own airports around,
            You’re an influential man.

            You’re always alone,
            You’re never disconnected.
            You’re home with your own—
            When privacy is expected,
            You’re well protected!

            Then you are set
            With a capital J,
            Which you’ll never forget
            Till they cart you away.
            When you’re in a Jet,
            You stay
            In a Jet!

      2. Amfortas the Hippie

        Michaelmas,
        its good to have ballpark numbers for this.
        while i was reading yer post, i thought of my brother.
        some sort of vp in “re-sale” at a global “enterprise software firm” that yall all likely have heard of.
        like my dad before him*, he never ever talks about money…but the last time i had him drunk around the fire, a few years ago, he let slip that he pulled in around half a million per year, gross.
        but he’s never happy…his mortgage is too high(especially considering the ticky tacky construction,lol)…and most of his expenditures seem to be status things like you listed.
        so the neighbors and coworkers(sharks, one and all) and bosses wont look askance at him.
        and here i was, at the time, wife and i living on her 30k per year and being much, much happier…driving beaters and eating like kings and living in the house i built myself for under $30k…with no mortgage or any other debt.
        the stress of dealing with shark people 24/7(he comes up here, and plugs in the laptop to talk to malaysia,lol)…as well as all the other stressors: upscale suburban warren, traffic in houston, persnicketty gold-digging wife, etc etc…and every time i see him, he vibrates…and i think, is it really worth all that?

        1. Amfortas the Hippie

          * dad played a rich guy for as long as i can remember.
          wasnt until he died that we all learned that it was just revolving credit, with lots of insurance to pay it off when he died.
          the yacht…the fancy cars…none of it was real.

        2. Wukchumni

          Ski season starts soon and funny thing in that a fellow skier whose worth $50 million might not be as talented as a lift operator pulling down $15 an hour when intentionally hurtling down the side of a mountain at breakneck speed, and so it goes.

          They have the ski-on ski-off chalet right on the slopes that almost never gets used-as if the illionaire needs to Air BnB it?

          We have the circa 1970 rental condo 100 yards from the Eagle lift @ Mammoth, takes 5 minutes to walk to a chair. It’s $250 a night and there will be 7 Dartful Codgers splitting the bill.

    4. Michael Fior

      I’ve always drawn a distinction between the affluent, who must work for their money, and the wealthy, whose money “works” – bs, I know, but it makes for a better aphorism – for them.

      In contemporary NYC, $250-$500,000 p/y is upper middle class, nowhere near wealthy.

      1. Lambert Strether

        > I’ve always drawn a distinction between the affluent, who must work for their money, and the wealthy, whose money “works”

        Good distinction. Yes, the latter are capitalists…

      2. Reply

        A prof 50 years ago opined that it took 250K per year tax free to begin to enjoy what Manhattan had to offer. Is that number now 2.5M, or closer to 25M?

        1. Procopius

          According to the program from the Minneapolis Fed, $250,000 in 1973 is equivalent to less that $2.0M today. Of course that’s not taking hedonic counter-inflation into account, nor technological changes, so $2.5M might be closer.

    5. Jason Boxman

      You’re 100% right. Just thinking about the costs of elder care, having 500k in cash and cash equivalents is, simply, nothing. Gone in a year or less, particularly if you need memory-care services.

    6. juno mas

      Job loss would mean health insurance loss. Medical care bankruptcy is a real possibility. If the wife is pregnant and you’re not covered by health insurance, expect a $100K birthing bill in the mail.

  9. The Rev Kev

    “Gaza authorities accuse Israel of stealing organs from bodies of Palestinians”

    This accusation has been circulating for years before this war and it may very well be true. I will note one thing here. In countries where there is an illicit market in stolen organs like Kosovo and now the Ukraine, the subject comes up of where these organs are actually being shipped to. The US and the EU pop up but so does Israel. So this implies that there is an international black market for illicit organs for people who have money and are not content to sit on a hospital list. Of course this would also imply the existence of a network of friendly doctors, nurses, technicians and hospitals & clinics with international transport links to get these organs where they are most lucrative. If you think this unlikely, how many decades was Epstein providing his underage girls to the wealthy and well-connected without being caught? These organs would just be another “service”.

    1. Janie

      A British movie, “Dirty, Pretty Things,” dealt with the sale of organs; it’s about twenty years old. i have no idea how realistic it is.

    3. vidimi

      Israel has the world’s largest skin bank but one of the lowest organ donation rates in the world. you do the maths.

  10. bassmule

    After 95 years, Mickey Mouse is coming off copyright. From the story:

    “At the time, Disney was facing the expiration of rights to the earliest films featuring Mickey Mouse and the looming cutoff of the royalty spigot, so it placed its considerable political and financial weight behind the extension and got what it wanted.

    The irony of the term extension is that Disney, which pushed so hard to keep its own creations out of the public domain, is perhaps our most assiduous exploiter of, yes, the public domain.”

    Mickey Mouse and ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ enter the public domain on Jan. 1, a reminder of our crazy copyright laws (LA Times)

    1. lyman alpha blob

      Does this mean mom and pop diners will now be able to append a couple small round pancakes to the traditional flapjack to keep the customers’ kids happy without having to worry about being sued by a massive corporate entertainment conglomerate? Take the small victories where you can get them, I suppose.

      1. Carolinian

        The article says that only the version of Mickey in Steamboat Bill Jr is off copyright and so the later Mickey with the white gloves is not.

        Also any use cannot imply connection to the Disney corporation since the mouse is also a trade mark and those don’t expire.

        Disney under Iger has been busy trashing it’s own IP….doesn’t need help from others.

    2. Ranger Rick

      I look forward to the upcoming epic legal fight over their misuse of the trademark system to trademark what had only been copyrighted before (Mickey Mouse). It will finally settle what counts as being trademarked and what’s covered by copyright. At stake is the fact that trademarks last forever.

  12. timbers

    German Home Prices Tank as ECB’s Balance Sheet Drops by €1.85 Trillion.
    No similar home price declines in US. This make me suspicious if there has ever been any real change in the Fed policy of juicing funding for assets. That plus stock prices rising.

    2. PlutoniumKun

      Most European house prices are going into decline – they are very much at the Wily E Coyote stage of the cycle. The US economy is by most measures doing far better than Europe, and real interest rates are higher in Europe so this isn’t particularly surprising.

      1. Feral Finster

        Also, the fixed rate mortgage is unobtainium in most of the European housing markets that I was familiar with.

        Admittedly, it has bene a long time since I looked, and my sample size may have been small.

        1. Late Introvert

          That’s crazy. Am I to believe that there is one thing better about Amnerika? My 15-year fixed rate is 3.125% and will be paid off in 5 years. 2014 was historically a very good year to take out a mortgage (death pledge).

        2. vidimi

          my 20-year fixed rate, obtained in November ’22, is 0.9% here in France. Probably should have borrowed more.

    3. Objective Ace

      The whole SVB bailout was expansionary at the same time the Fed forces contractionary policies on the rest of us.

      That’s the real change at the Fed — they have found a way to make their handouts even more targeted. No need to subsidize the average Joe if it can be avoided

  13. The Rev Kev

    “Researchers surprised at levels of toxicity in standard plastic products”

    Going to put forth a radical idea here so I’ll go for it. Would it not be a good idea to thoroughly test any plastic before they are released into the public realm? Yeah, there would be delays but once you release them, you cannot call them back. I was reading many years ago about the number of new chemicals that are introduced annually and it said at the time that nobody knew what they were much less the effect that they have on people and the environment. And they numberd in the thousands annually.

    1. Neutrino

      Timeless saying:
      It isn’t the bullet plastic with your name on it that you have to worry about.
      It is the one marked To Whom it May Concern.

  15. DJG. Reality Czar

    Thanks to Thomas Neuburger.

    The song by Tim Minchin, White Wine in the Sun, goes directly to the mixed feelings that many of us must necessarily have about Christmas.

    [The song at the end of Neuburger’s post, the bonus, Five Poofs and Two Pianos, is a stitch.]

    In return, a great classic written by the timeless Laura Nyro, Christmas in My Soul:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqfdBU2uju8

    Buon Natale.

    1. lyman alpha blob

      I’ll second that one. That song has become my favorite holiday tune in recent years. I got to see Minchin play live several years ago and he really puts on a great show (especially if atheist humor is your thing). We also saw the musical version of Matilda, which Minchin did the music for. Not sure if he or the musical is currently on tour, but I highly recommend either one if you have the chance to go.

      A personal favorite – Thank You God: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZeWPScnolo

      Happy Festivus to the rest of us!

    2. Thomas Neuburger

      Thanks, DJG. There were so many songs I could have chosen for the second slot. This was the pure funniest. I almost did the one about “This is my body…” Next time, on one of my own Links posts it will appear.

      Happy New Year all.

      Thomas

  16. The Rev Kev

    “SITREP 12/26/23: Crimean Strikes & Ukraine’s Mass Mobilization Arrives”

    They keep on talking about forcing some 500,00 people into the army but maybe they are looking in the wrong places. How about the ski resort “Bukovel” for the rich in western Ukraine? Seems to be lots of healthy young people there just waiting their chance to become a Leopard 2 or Bradley driver-

    https://twitter.com/SenoreAmore/status/1739020180334727385

    https://twitter.com/leslibless/status/1739168963169312993

    In that long Simplicius the Thinker article, by the way, make sure to scroll to the very bottom where RT is taking the mickey out of Russian interference. It’s only a short video but worth it.

    1. ChrisFromGA

      From Telegram, @LordOfWar:

      The Ministry of Finance does not know where to get money for mobilization – Finance Minister of Ukraine Marchenko

      He added that today the internal potential for financing the military needs of the army has been exhausted.

      So, unless the blood money comes from DC or the EU they cannot pay recruiters to mobilize, recruits themselves, or trainers for those Leopards.

      It’s increasingly looking like fantasy world. Any further “aid” to Ukraine is functionally equivalent to paying hit men to kill off Ukrainian civilians.

      1. The Rev Kev

        Thanks for that Sibiriak. I knew it sounded familiar and I remember seeing it now in a RT article on new Russian music. It can be insidious this music. Saw mention of a very popular song from 10-15 years ago that made a roaring comeback on an RT article and after hearing it, took a week or two to get out of my head. :)

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn-z95ev64s (3:20 mins)

  17. Jabura Basaidai

    Who was Duns Scotus? – not the article but the name brought back some pleasant memories – in Southfield MI there was a Duns Scotus Friary – a beautiful church built early in the last century – i grew up in NW Detroit and it was a great bike-hike to the friary – over a hundred acres of rolling hills with a 9 hole golf course for the friars where we would toboggan and sled in the winter – at the very north end of property was WXYZ studios – they had a Saturday dance program, “Club 1270”, that brought in national as well as local talent – as early teen kids before we were old enough to have a driver’s license we would bike through the hills of Duns Scotus and hide our bikes and sneak into the studio and watch the show until we were caught – it was the first time i saw Chuck Berry – the property and church were sold to a non-denominational church group in 1996 –
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duns_Scotus_College
    https://www.ferndalefriends.net/from-friary-to-church-to-urban-oilfield/

  18. The Rev Kev

    “The Problem With Israel’s Military”

    Scott Ritter was talking about this exact same thing in a video several days ago. How he looked at the list of Israeli killed and noted their ranks and ages and how they were way, way younger than their US Marine counterparts. And how it seemed that the Israelis were not really trying to grow their NCOs and younger officers but were doing a shake’n’bake approach. That hasn’t worked out so well for them as shown on day one of this conflict where Hamas soldiers were in a stand-up fight with soldiers of the elite Golani brigade and defeated them decisively.

    1. Patrick Donnelly

      Judah was just one of the twelve divisions of the BRHMN. They lived in Judea, not Israel.

      Israel is a trap. It is run by Khazars, not Semites. AshkeNAZI continue what they started.

      The Dead Sea will be refilled by 2054.

      1. Alice X

        The Khazar link to the Ashkenazim has not been substantiated in my view. In any event, I believe the Mizrahim are more hard line as to exclusionist policies.

        And Semitic is now a term for a language group and not a legacy racial group, even though the term anti-semitic is hyper weaponized.

        1. Sibiriak

          Yves Smith is correct, See:

          Extremist Politics in Israel and Ukraine – Alastair Crooke, Alexander Mercouris and Glenn Diesen

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IKCo3MVW1o

          Crooke says (29:53) that the “Ashkenazi liberal left” are fighting to the bitter in to keep the Israeli Supreme court intact as the last line if defense against the Mizrahi religious extremists running the government. 14 out of 15 of the SC justices are Ashkenazi!

        2. nippersdad

          “And Semitic is now a term for a language group and not a legacy racial group,”

          So what does that actually change? Arabic is also a Semitic language, so this would still have the function of disappearing a huge swath of Semites and render the term meaningless.

          I confess to being a little anal when it comes to the law and the use of terminology, so just making shit up and enforcing the resultant mess on people really gets under my skin.

          1. Alice X

            I’m not clear on what you are saying. Was I making shit up?

            Who do you view as the Semites who would be disappeared?

            1. nippersdad

              No! I certainly did not wish to give that impression. I valued your input when the term was limited to the sphere of genetics as well. One cannot erase all of the Arab Semites in the definition of a term just because it does not meet the political needs of the moment, and that is what the present, weaponized version of the term is designed to do.

              I was only trying to nail down the moving target that you mentioned (“So what does that actually change?”). If “semitism” is a problematic word when it comes to genetics then it can be no better when it comes to linguistics, as they are both flawed in the same ways.

              The point I tried to make was that this reinterpretation of what “Semitism” is by the establishment gives me the heaves. If the point they want to make is hate speech WRT Jewish people is religious then they should say anti-Judaic. If they want to define hate speech WRT Jewish people in terms of linguistics they should say anti-Hebraic. Obviously the entire point of the exercise is to remove the political term Zionism from the calculation by conflating terms that have no relation to it. You don’t have to be Jewish to be a political Zionist as there are plenty of fundamentalist Protestants that can lay claim to political Zionism.

              If the term means nothing then it can be politicized to mean anything. And that is what appears to me to be the rationale for the entire mishegoss.

          2. Alice X

            ps – the term outside of linguistics IS meaningless, just as the term race is meaningless. Except both terms are used by the ill informed.

            The use of the term Khazar/Ashkenazi vs Semites is a discredited racialist trope, in my view.

            1. nippersdad

              I don’t disagree with you, but if the means to discredit those who are anti-Zionist are specifically framed in racialist terms (semitic) then the tropes made by the ill meaning are that much easier to manufacture. No one I have ever met appears to have the encyclopedia Brittannica of “Jewish tropes” that is clearly made available to those who decry them. One might almost think they were manufactured to order.

              You cannot have a debate without defining your terms, and no decent debater would enter one without the knowledge that to accept the oppositions’ framing is always deadly.

            2. nippersdad

              Small refinement to the above. The term “Semite” is of Biblical derivation. It specifically references the sons of Shem, and the tribes that they sired in the middle east. That has been the meaning of the word for at least two thousand years now; the word “Semite” is derived from Shem’s name, after all.

              That alterations have been made to the definition in the past hundred years means very little to a Southern guy raised in the Methodist church when talking about a group of Zionists who specifically cite chapters from Samuel to justify their existence on a small plot of land that is also claimed by other tribes of Shem but are never acknowledged.

              Southerners just don’t move with the fashions like everyone else. Some Prime Minister of a vicious tiny country in the ME with a Persian haplotype (not Semitic) who likes to spout the Old Testament to feed his agenda just doesn’t get it for me. What pisses me off is that he thinks we are so malleable by using such underhand methods, and that he has proven to be largely correct in that assumption.

              Point being that the word has had meaning for a very long time; in that I disagree with your point. That that meaning has been perverted for political purposes recently to deprive it of any meaning is something that I do agree with you about.

              The tribes of Shem make up the vast majority of the population of the Middle East. Arabs, alone, numbering 411 million and sixty percent of the population should not be ignored compared to the opinions of, at most, seven million Jews in Israel with a “democracy” that is predicated upon not giving sufferage to an equal number of Palestinian Arabs whose land they covet.

              I’ll give you the Kazar/Ashenazi bit because I assume you have investigated it far moreso that I have. I just find it strange that something that is easily quantifiable these days has not been quantified. “Semitism” was never the hill that I would have chosen to die on, and I have to wonder why anyone would. It is just a really (family blogging) stupid thing to have to go into when, in actuality, no one really cares.

              What we care about is that our country is complicit in the extermination of Palestinians, and in the process destroying what little credibility our “wars on terror” have left us with. The rest is all window dressing.

            3. vidimi

              as far as i can tell, the only reason why the Khazar hypothesis for the origin of Ashkenazi Jews is frowned upon is because it is inconvenient for justifying the ongoing settlement of Israel, not for any actual scientific reasons.

              mind you, not that the argument that you can kill a family and steal their home would be any less crazy if your ancestors lived there.

        1. vidimi

          I think you are talking about their base. Aren’t almost all the senior figures in netanyahu’s cabinet ashkenazi, though ?
          netanyahu, herzhog, bennet, gallant, ben gvir, shmotrich…

          1. Yves Smith Post author

            I am relying on Alastair Crooke who has described at some length the shift in the Knesset to the hard right after Mizrahi became the majority of representatives. Crooke also described in recent months a meeting of the cabinet under Al Aqsa (Israel has been tunneling underneath, despite considerable objections by the Palestinians and Muslim countries). Crooke said in that meeting they resolved that “This land is ours” not just Al Aqsa (for the purpose of razing it to build the Third Temple) but also to take all of Biblical Israel, which extends beyond Israel’s current boundaries.

            See:

            https://new.thecradle.co/articles/netanyahu-holds-provocative-cabinet-session-underneath-al-aqsa-mosque

            https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/opinion/netanyahu-coalition-goes-full-provocation—-as-the-us-escal

            https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/al-aqsa-flood:-the-surprise-is-that-some-are-surprised

            Note pub dates.

            FWIW, the Cradle article describes Ben Gvir as “Jewish supremacist National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir”.

  19. Alice X

    >Why more women are picking up power tools

    The piece is pay-walled so I didn’t read it. I’ve had an electric chain saw for ages, it is not too heavy and works well enough. The main problem is taking care of the chain which is so messy.

      1. Alice X

        Ha! Thanks, that’s a good one. I use mine so infrequently that I have to relearn the whole procedure each time. Then after I’ve cleaned it, store the chain in oil, which is really messy.

    2. Carolinian

      Right. Those have been around for decades. The gas versions used by the lumberjacks are still quite heavy. Indeed if anything many power tools are getting heavier since so many now run on lithium batteries and for power you need a big heavy battery.

      1. TomW

        I used to use plug in tools. But if you go to Home Depot or similar, they have large displays of battery power tools. One reason is brushless motors, which found their way into Home Depot fairly recently.:

        “The advantages of a brushless motor over brushed motors are high power-to-weight ratio, high speed, nearly instantaneous control of speed (rpm) and torque, high efficiency, and low maintenance. Brushless motors find applications in such places as computer peripherals (disk drives, printers), hand-held power tools, and vehicles ranging from model aircraft to automobiles”

        I personally use the Milwaukee 12 volt series. https://www.milwaukeetool.eu/systems/m12/?pageindex=0. These more compact versions (of the 18 volt line) deliver bursts of torque as needed, and are overall great tools. Sales of plug in versions are way down. Cordless is way handier also.

        The brushless motor probably figures in the cheap weapons phenomenon also. The motor is being controlled by a micro processor.

    3. Kevin Smith

      I take mine into the chainsaw store at the end of the season and they deal with the chain and everything else. Less than C$20.

    4. Wukchumni

      I made the move from a big 10 inch to my present 18 inch tool, er Ryobi 40v lithium chainsaw. It doesn’t weigh a great deal and is pretty easy to handle and is the perfect size for the foothills here where oak trees seldom exceed 18 inches in width.

      A good fit for the casual chainsaw enthusiast~

      1. Alice X

        Mine uses a power cord. I’m sure not going to take on any 18″ trees, about a half a foot is my limit.

        1. Late Introvert

          Chopping down an apple tree (wrong place, no apples) was one of the hardest and most dangerous things I’ve ever done, and the trunk was maybe 8 inches and the tree about 15 feet high.

  20. Enter Laughing

    RE: How Electric-Vehicle Demand Is Losing Steam in the U.S., in Charts

    At least it’s not a shortage of charging stations that’s behind the lack of EV demand. The Biden Administration is on the case. In fact, the first federally funded EV charging station just opened the other day! Only 499,000 more EV chargers to go until they hit the target of 500,000 new chargers by 2030. Go Brandon!

    1. Bsn

      Many people don’t realize that EV owners can use the chargers at auto dealers all over our state (SW) for free. I’ve never had a dealership give me the stink eye or come out saying “can’t use it”. When we go to a distant town, we’ll enjoy a nice sit down supper and/or take a nice stroll – then come back to get the car often with 100+ miles charged on it. Between stops like that and the panels on our roof, essentially free “gas”.

  21. PlutoniumKun

    The Nature Boy Tweet linked is gibberish. The missile shown is a tandem anti tank missile – the small charge on top triggers the active armour on a tank, the main charge behind follows up a micro second later into the gap. The warhead would be a standard shaped charge. They are designed for use against modern armor, but there is enough explosive power and shrapnel generated to make them perfectly good for anti-personnel or anti-structure use.

    The description attached to the link is of an anti-structure warhead, which would be far more sophisticated (the fusing would be very complicated but the warhead shape would be conventional). These use a small charge to blow a hardened charge into a structure and them blowing when it detects a void (i.e. a room). It’s hard to see any value for Hamas to have developed these as the Yasim pictured is more than capable of blowing out an ash block wall. The combat videos I’ve seen have shown them simply firing Yasims through windows. I suspect that the training videos shown are either faked (they are remarkably similar to videos on Bofors site showing their ATS warheads), or the ‘inner’ explosion is simply the result of the warhead going through the window.

    1. TimmyB

      Right. Nature Boy has zero knowledge of the topic he has chosen to tweet about. To expand on your point, “active armor” is a layer of explosives on top of a tank’s regular armor that is designed to destroy an antitank missile’s shaped charge warhead when it strikes a tank. Tandem warheads defeat explosive/active armor by having the initial small charge activate the active/explosive armor. The explosion from the active armor destroys the initial warhead but leaves the larger secondary charge intact, which penetrates the tank’s armor.

      How well tandem charges work against layered ceramic/steel “Chobham armor” is unknown. The US M-1 tank is supposedly impervious to antitank missiles with shaped charges. I have my doubts.

      1. Bsn

        Escapist Russian ra ra tank movie T-34 (here) that has slow motion effects as used often now a daze in film. The tanks (WWII T-34 vs. Panzer) shoot at each other and the shell pierces the armour, then explodes. It’s a good way to visualize the effect.

    2. rowlf

      I am not sure if it was Nicholas Moran or some other US tanker who was in Iraq in the 2000s who said there was an incident in an urban area where someone shot the side of a M-1 Abrams with something unusual and achieved a through-and-through in the hull and skirts, while luckily missing the occupants of the tank. Not sure if anyone figured out what happened or if everyone was told to shut up.

      1. Paradan

        It was a HEAT round from an ATGM. Thats what they do, no big mystery. In general, all HEAT rounds produce a pencil/fat pen sized copper rod thats going 6km/s at the tip, and 3km/s at the tail. They tend to fly right though all tanks they hit from the side. You can find video after video from this war that shows it happening.

        1. Polar Socialist

          In theory, and often in practice, that jet of molten copper loses mass when it hits a cavity, so spaced armor was the very first defense against it.

          The latest generation NERA blocks are actually special rubber-ish material squeezed between steel plates, and when hit, they move more sideways than against the projectile – unlike previous generation. So, in principle, they do diminish the penetration of both hollow charges and kinetic penetrators – the first by feeding more mass to penetrate after the tip has passed thus splitting it and the latter by introducing a sideways force to a looong penetrator already under extreme internal forces.

          The terminal ballistics for both are the same, actually. The jet from HEAT and the long rod both – for lack of a better word – eat their way trough the armor. Both create a very small pressure point in which material turns to overheated plasma that cuts it’s way trough the armor provided it’s fed with enough material (by the penetrator). Once you split the rod or the jet, there’s not enough material – and no penetration.

          Nevertheless, even if the armor is not penetrated, all that energy has to be transferred either into heat or motion, and quite often even a non-penetrating hit will disable some of the tanks systems. For the grunts opposing the tanks a mission kill (gun, sensors) or a mobility kill (engine, transmission, tracks) is totally a-ok.

  22. Neutrino

    After the Russia-Russia-Russia conspiracy theory and others got blown up, shouldn’t the half-life of subsequent theories be collapsing? That would represent a type of progress or technical improvement. /s

    1. Darthbobber

      Sadly, no matter how discredited that “theory” is, it retains credibility with a large chunk of the populace.

      Even in the media that covers the wee problems with it, the debunking is played on a Martin with no amp pickups, while the nonsense itself is played on a Telecaster with the vibrolux turned up to ten.

      This model will continue to be followed, even as it erodes such credibility as legacy media and party apparatchiks still retain

    2. Chris Cosmos

      It should if you believe propaganda is one way. It isn’t. The chumps want the merde they are fed and that is the tragedy of the entire West–it has come to this. Having said that many people are peeling themselves away from the official Narratives with the rise in alternative media of all kinds. Since truth has easier maintenance costs, eventually it is likely to triumph but it will take a lot of time.

  23. Irrational

    Re. decimation: I think John Mearsheimer said in his chat with Judge Napolitano 5 days ago (which I believe NC linked to) that 90% of hospitals in (Northern?) Gaza were inoperable, i.e. 10% are operating. That must be the worst case of using decimation incorrectly that I have seen in a while.

  24. Wukchumni

    200,001: A Space Odyssey

    I’ve noticed women sometimes name their cars, we car camped in Cardiff by the sea, next to a solo sojourner with a Subaru and she made a point of calling mister good car: ‘Frank’.

    It’s nice to be on a first name basis I suppose, but never got around to giving a nom de fume to my Tacoma, which hit its ride of passage somewhere around Barstow-the tweakingist town ever-chock full of meth odd actors, but back to the truck.

    I’d never made it to 200k on a vehicle that I purchased new, the closest was 167k before transmission seppuku fatally put paid to a previous chariot.

    In September I drove it to Yosemite NP after Burning Man, and we had lunch at the Ahwahnee Hotel (try and have a meal there if you go-its a little spendy, but the views & ambiance are worth it) and a parking guy about my age comes up to my window and says “Oh, love your Taco, how many miles?” and we start talking about his Tacoma which had 244k on the speedometer when it got totaled in an accident, and how he so enjoyed that truck, and we compared notes on reliability and all that.

    Its faithfully gotten me wherever I wanted to go, with a number of small dents, abrasions and slight alterations to various panels. If it was a passenger car it’d look a little unloved, but its a truck that occasionally goes off pavement and scrapes things (full disclosure: one of the longer panel beatings was when I almost missed that concrete filled metal pole next to the gas pumps, er whoops) and has little adventures that a sedan couldn’t relate to.

    I kinda expect another 200k out of it, long live internal spontaneous combustion!

    1. Amfortas the Hippie

      aye. my 01(?)dodge ram pickup is ugly as hell…dents and dirt and millet growing in the bed in summer.
      the speedometer and odometer randomly stop working…so theres no tellin how many miles it has on it.
      mechanic buddy who does the occasional work on it says its good for a long while, still(touch wood).
      no ac, manual trans and windows…rope holding the tailgate closed…collapsed dashboard.
      and a shoestring salvaged from a hiking boot at the dump for the parkin brake release thing.
      all of this combines into an effective anti-theft system.

    2. Michael Fiorillo

      I’ve always named my cars, but with the exception of my first (“Rusty”), a standard-shift Subaru wagon that failed inspection, they’ve always had names like The Shadow, The Silver Bullet and Blue Steel…

  26. Sub-Boreal

    Yves – Thank you for being a stickler on the correct usage of “decimated”. That one is near the top of my list of language pet peeves. After 361 days of 2023, I’ll take every little scrap of joy!

  27. ambrit

    In a related item to the pieces about Private Equity buying and then degrading medical entities, Phyllis has been having serious problems with acquiring a particular type of multi-vitamin from the Solgar Company. She used the Vegan style multi-vitamins, which have different sources for some vitamins included, plus chelated minerals. Weaseling around the Internets, I was unable to get this particular vitamin shipped. One vendor replied to my query about why the delay by e-mailing back that they were having difficulty getting the product from the manufacturer. Several online sources indicate that this formulation is “out of stock” or “unavailable at this time.”
    Being a somewhat stubborn person, Phyllis called up a contact at the remaining locally owned vitamin store. (The franchise outlets are now focusing on ‘pushing’ “House Brands.”) The contact told Phyl that the Solgar Company was bought out by Nestle two years ago. According to the contact, soon after that was when the supply issues with many of the more ‘niche’ formulations began.
    See: https://www.healthfoodbusiness.co.uk/solgar-owner-sells-to-nestle/
    Private Equity buys up one of the premier vitamin manufacturers and promptly starts to “cull the herd.”
    Where have we seen this strategy before? Everywhere!
    Stay safe, learn healthy dieting.

    1. JBird4049

      A few years back, I tried a Polish brand of razor blades for my safety razor. Best shave EVER for me. However, that manufacturer had just been bought out and the factory closed. No more razors.
      Supposedly, the remaining factories owned by the buyer in other countries would be fine. And they are, but not as good, nor as cheap, as those made by that particular factory in Poland using its original equipment.

      So, a company and its factory was closed, and the prices were jacked up for blades that were not quite as good. I would have been happy to pay more for those blades, but now I do not have them at any price, that being the easier way for the new owners to make more money.

      Interestingly, although safety razors and blades sizes are standardized, there are extremely small differences in the heads, the blades, and a person’s skin that all add up to big differences. The more manufacturers there are, the more likely a good combination can be found, but that does decrease the efficient harvesting of money even if there are enough buyers for all the product being made to be profitably sold.

    2. Steve H.

      That absolutely sucks. Solgar was good quality, back in the day. Sort of like Mars Candybars buying out Seeds of Change.

    3. Reply

      Nestlé has been on my long-term boycott list. It takes some research to keep up with all of their acquisitions. Good to know about Solgar.

  28. Jeff W

    Erm, being a stickler, “decimated” originated with the Roman military discipline practice of having the members of a company kill one of every ten of its own members.

    The Oxford University Press blog says, with reference to decimate

    …there’s no denying [author of Modern American Usage Bryan] Garner’s point that “the word might justifiably be considered a skunked term,” referring to a disputed word that has undergone a semantic shift, thus making it difficult to use it in either the older or the newer sense. Sticking to the older sense confuses those unfamiliar with it, while using the newer sense annoys traditionalists who feel that it is wrong. (Other words Garner labels as “skunked” include enormity, fulsome, and hopefully, all commonly appearing in lists of usage peeves.)

    I suppose jealous doesn’t rise to the level of “skunked” because it hasn’t yet undergone a full semantic shift but it always strikes me as wrong when people use it to mean “envious.”

    1. Yves Smith Post author

      “Sophisticated” is a better example. Originally from Sophist, connoted both shallow arguments and was also used to describe poor taste, particularly what we would now see as bling-y.

  29. playon

    American Spies Confront a New, Formidable China

    When my Chinese-born stepdaughter was in University in Seattle ten years ago she was approached by a person who was recruiting for the CIA… obviously they would love to have someone fluent in both Mandarin and English who looked the part. She was emphatically not interested.

  30. The Rev Kev

    “Ukraine’s Top Diplomat In Canberra Absurdly Claimed That “This War Is About Australia Too”’

    Ukrainian Ambassador to Australia Vasily Myroshnychenko has been a bit of a pain since the war started and have seen him on TV a coupla times. He keeps himself busy trying to tone police Aussies what they should be thinking and saying about this war. But in Canberra I would imagine that he is very popular with our politicians.

  31. ChrisRUEcon

    I absolutely love the tenor of today’s links … very much an Imperial Collapse Watch vibe.

    The article on India’s pivot on Palestine highlights the erosion of US influence, as a direct consequence of its immoral stance on Gaza.

    Keep it up, #G3noc1DeJ0e …

  33. Willow

    There has been speculation about risk of Straits of Gibraltar being closed. This all hangs on Morocco and whether public support of Palestine will force a change in government policy.

    “The war in Gaza is increasing tensions between Rabat and Tel Aviv, but this has not affected the two countries’ security partnership – much to the displeasure of public opinion.. There is considerable public pressure against this cooperation. Rallies are held every week in the country’s main cities. The protest movement is supported by numerous political parties, unions and associations, which are demanding an end to relations with Israel.“

    https://www.lemonde.fr/en/le-monde-africa/article/2023/12/24/morocco-quietly-marks-three-years-of-normalization-with-israel_6373119_124.html

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