Flowers Are Evolving to Have Less Sex NYT
The Accidental Origin of Capybara Open Air Hot Baths Laughing Squid
Should Endangered Turtles Have Legal Rights? Smithsonian
Is the west talking itself into decline? FT
Might as Well Throw Jobs Data Against the Wall John Authers, Bloomberg. Just like Covid data, funny thing. Handy chart:
Does make you wonder how many other statistics are like that. Tinfoil hat time: Was Biobot staff really out for the holidays? Or for… some other reason?
Climate
Corporate Media Fed COP 28 Carbon Capture Confusion FAIR
Sail renaissance takes to the seas but reaches for the skies Seatrade Maritime
Wind farms and carbon capture want the same turf off Louisiana’s coast. Who gets it? Times-Picayune
In the scar of New Mexico’s largest wildfire, a legal battle is brewing over the cost of suffering Source New Mexico
#COVID19
Virological characteristics of the SARS-CoV-2 JN.1 variant (correspondence) The Lancet. “Taken together, these results suggest that JN.1 is one of the most immune-evading variants to date.”
‘Pirola’ JN.1 is the probable future of the COVID pandemic, experts warn—but you didn’t hear it from the WHO Fortune. Time for a new Greek letter?
Opinion: The U.S. is facing the biggest COVID wave since Omicron. Why are we still playing make-believe? Eric Topol, LA Times
* * * Do You Have the Flu, RSV, COVID, or a Cold? WebMD. Who knows? There’s no testing.
Sick with COVID and the flu: Double infections hit California hard LA Times. “When a county enters the ‘medium’ COVID-19 hospitalization level, those at high risk of getting very sick should wear a high-quality mask — such as a KF94, KN95, or N95 mask — when indoors in public, the CDC says.” The absurdity: “When a county enters the ‘medium’ auto-accident hospitalization level, those at high risk of crashing should wear their seatbelts” [pounds head on desk].
* * * Study describes clinical features that may lead to long COVID Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. Nature here and here.
Long COVID is a double curse in low-income nations — here’s why Nature
China?
China’s propaganda chiefs told to ‘sing loudly about bright economic prospects’ South China Morning Post
China and US hold rival military drills in disputed South China Sea France24
Health officials expect peak winter flu season to hit Hong Kong next week as infections show upwards trend South China Morning Post. Note the deck: “Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan urges public to get vaccinated against flu, coronavirus to maximise protection against respiratory illnesses.” “Respiratory illness” is a misnomer for Covid, given its vascular and neurological effects, let alone Long Covid. These tropes are as global as the PMC is global.
Malaysia gripped in wave of denials, accusations over alleged ‘Dubai Move’ plot to topple Anwar govt Channel News Asia
The Koreas
North Korea fires over 200 rounds of artillery shells near South Korean islands Straits Times
South Korea’s Two Border Islands: Five Things To Know Agence France Presse
Japan
Haneda accident outcome the sum of decades of integrated air safety lessons The Air Current (PI).
Syraqistan
Genocide in Gaza John J. Mearsheimer, John’s Substack. On South Africa’s filing at the International Court of Justice.
Turkey, Malaysia Back South Africa’s ICJ Genocide Case Against Israel Common Dreams
US hasn’t formally assessed if Israel violating human rights Politico
Gaza: ‘Disease spreading’ in Jabalia as garbage piles up France24. Everything’s going according to plan.
* * * Israeli defence minister outlines new phase in Gaza war Al Jazeera
Israel trying to ‘export its crisis’ by assassinating deputy Hamas leader: Senior official Anadolu Agency
* * * War on Gaza: Israeli police having difficulty finding sexual assault victims from 7 October attack, says report Middle East Eye
CNN Runs Gaza Coverage Past Jerusalem Team Operating Under Shadow of IDF Censor The Intercept
* * * The Charge Sheet Against Netanyahu The Globalist
Israel Supreme Court Delivers Setback to Campaign to Remove Checks on Netanyahu NYT
* * * Turkish Government Green Lights Aircraft Carrier And 4 Additional I-Class Frigates Naval News
European Disunion
UK foreign secretary meets with Kosovo’s president, British troops in Pristina Anadolu Agency. Hmm.
New Not-So-Cold War
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister explains why it is now easier to defeat Russia than in times of Cold War Ukrainska Pravda
‘We’re out of money’: US exhausts security funds for Ukraine Defense News
White House says Russia used missiles from North Korea to strike Ukraine Channel News Asia
Russia moves forward with Iran deal to purchase ballistic missiles, report says FOX
Explainer: Ukraine considers changing mobilisation rules as war with Russia drags on Reuters
NATO’s War Problem: Weak Armor Weapons and Strategy
Healthcare
My Unraveling. I had my health. I had a job. And then, abruptly, I didn’t. New York Magazine. A must-read.
Insurance companies are forcing psychiatrists like me to stop accepting their coverage STAT. “This is the business model — customers pay for the right to be deprived of the product they’re purchasing.” Worth reading in full.
The Bezzle
Real Estate ‘Visionary’ Allegedly Behind Massive, Viral Airbnb Fraud Charged Court Watch
Digital Watch
Google Just Disabled Cookies for 30 Million Chrome Users. Here’s How to Tell If You’re One of Them. Gizmodo
California senator files bill prohibiting agencies from working with unethical AI companies The Verge. That’s gonna stifle innovation….
More AI hullabaloocinations:
Police State Watch
New Jersey Used COVID Relief Funds to Buy Banned Chinese Surveillance Cameras 404 Media. Because of course they did.
Supply Chain
Argentina’s Grain Exports Could Jump 40% Due to Favourable Weather Bimco
Global Trade Braces for Unprecedented Geopolitical Challenges in 2024 Hellenic Shipping News
Realignment and Legitimacy
The Great Clarification James Howard Kunstler, Clusterf*ck Nation
Guillotine Watch
As workers ate lunch today, CEOs had already earned the equivalent of their annual salary The Canary
Class Warfare
Tesla strike in Sweden is biggest test yet of Elon Musk’s anti-union stance WaPo
SpaceX sues US agency that accused it of firing workers critical of Elon Musk Reuters
The Magnificent Seven is not the only concentration America should worry about Gillian Tett, FT. The deck: “Ownership of equities suggests that US democratic shareholder capitalism is more myth than reality.”
The New Geography of American Growth Apricitas Economics. Handy chart:
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
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PAST THE DNIEPER
(melody borrowed from Lovely Rita by the Beatles)
(Past the Dnieper, in the shade
Past the Dnieper, in the shade)
Past the Dnieper, unafraid
Trenches and trees and bushes
When it gets dark our troops will melt away . . .
Once across the lovely Dnieper
Fighting hard for every meter
Thinking of the country that the Russians retook
Every day it’s getting colder
We get kids and call ’em soldiers
Kids can stop the bullets just as well as we can . . .
Past the Dnieper, in the shade
Out of our league completely
When will Zelensky face reality? (We have not been paid!)
(Aaaahhhhh)
Dnieper!
All our lines are getting thinner
It’s clear the orcs will be the winners
All of us would like to see our mothers again
As it is, we’re really jaded
Every shred of hope has faded
Shitting without dying is the best we can do . . .
Ohhhh! Past the Dnieper, in the shade
That’s where we’ll give a shout to
Too much to drink and a white flag or two
(Past the Dnieper, in the shade) Lovely lovely shade
(Past the Dnieper, in the shade) Eff this whole crusade
(Past the Dnieper, in the shade) Ohhh, we’re the very very last brigade
(Past the Dnieper, in the shade)
(sound of grunts advancing to the rear)
Excellent!
Brilliant, as usual…
“North Korea fires over 200 rounds of artillery shells near South Korean islands”
This is just North Korea yanking people’s chains. They lobbed some 200 rounds into a maritime version of a DMZ and killed a bunch of fish causing the South Koreans to evacuate two islands. This may have been a message though to the South Koreans to tell them that it does not matter if the US brings in nuke-powered subs or B-52 bombers like they have been, that they have escalatory dominance. Or maybe this was a reaction to the US and South Korea practicing decapitation drills – practicing how to kill Kim Jong Un – not long ago. So Kim decided to twist their tails for this in a way that nobody gets hurt. Well, except for the fish-
https://nypost.com/2023/12/31/news/south-korea-training-for-assassination-of-kim-jong-un/
https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1743126499929260063
Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand
Very interesting Washington Post article by Princeton professor Rory Truex that explains that, at a time when the US has never needed to understand China more, American China experts have virtually disappeared:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/01/03/us-shortage-china-experts/
As he explains it, causes include:
1) “The State Department maintains a Level 3 travel advisory for the country”, meaning it advises Americans to “reconsider travel” to China, which is beyond ridiculous… And obviously there’s just no way you’ll learn about China without going there…
2) “Any American scholar with a research agenda that touches China risks coming under investigation by the U.S. government or being chastised by our officials on social media for aiding China’s rise.” He’s referring here to the infamous “China initiative” and similar US government programs that literally criminalize research collaboration with Chinese universities. That’s legit hilarious: OBVIOUSLY it’s quite a deterrent to aspiring students of China if doing so will result in having the FBI on your back
3) “Confucius Institutes, which provided Chinese language education on many U.S. campuses, have largely been shuttered because of their ties to the Chinese government”. Confucius institutes are the equivalent of France’s Alliances Françaises or Germany’s Goethe Institutes (which, by the way, you can find aplenty in mainland China). These initiatives are always tied to governments… And in any case if you want to learn about China, just like if you want to learn about France or Germany, you’ll need to become familiar with their system of government. How insecure can the US be about their own system to think that merely learning about the Chinese government will convert Americans into communists?
4) US government funding for language and area studies is at a historical low: “in 2022, the total amount of funding was $71.9 million, of which only about 15 percent goes to East Asia-related programming”, meaning a paltry $11 million for East Asia overall (and I guess the majority must go to Japan and South Korea studies)
So to sum up, why are there no China experts in the US anymore? The US literally tells people not to travel there, criminalizes research with China, shuts down the main network of institutes to study Chinese and attributes almost no funding to the study of Chinese or China. OBVIOUSLY not an environment conducive to study China, and that’s an understatement.
I’d also add that the study of any subject is, first and foremost, a matter of interest and love. You need to love a country, or at least be deeply interested in it, in order to dedicate your professional life to studying it. And the fact is, the way China is portrayed in the US is “the bad place, the place we should hate”. To me that’s probably the most important issue here: how can you encourage people to study a country when they’ve been told their whole life to hate and despise it?
So the end result is what we have: a vicious spiral where hatred fuels lack of knowledge, which itself then fuels more hatred. And in the end it’s not China losing out, they know themselves and the US extremely well, but very much the US.
11:25 PM · Jan 4, 2024
So basically the same kind of willful ignorance that was used to justify nuking Japan…
It’s another version of why there are no Russia experts in the State Department, why there is no one who knows enough about Russia to make an intelligent decision, why they soooooo… badly miscalculated the effect of the sanctions. If I knew there were gas pipelines running from Siberia to China, why didn’t they?
“It’s another version of why there are no Russia experts in the State Department…”
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….
Stephen F. Cohen
New York, March 7, 2014
The United States does not want to understand China.
I wants to dominate China, and “understanding China” beyond simple tropes is feared to be the first step in seeing the Chinese as human beings, aka “going native”.
typical nafta type blowback from idiots that are outraged at the results of their own arrogant stupid policies, or idiotology.
just look at page after page of the promises and wild assumptions about what china will become once they joined what bill black called the W.T.O., a kangaroo court.
https://world101.cfr.org/global-era-issues/trade/what-happened-when-china-joined-wto
https://duckduckgo.com/?va=p&t=hc&q=bill+clintons+promises+china&ia=web
i do not fault the chinese at all. would you turn down the offer from a traitor that said here, take all of our wealth, its yours, free of charge, just let wall street in to exploit your workers and environment for some quick unsustainable profits.
Deng must have been stunned, Lenin was right.
Re: “To me that’s probably the most important issue here: how can you encourage people to study a country when they’ve been told their whole life to hate and despise it?”
In trying to learn a little bit about “normal” life in China, I’ve been watching youtube videos of Westerners who live there. The one’s that impress me most have learned enough of the language (and culture) to comfortably move around. This woman, Katherine, shares her experiences of rural China.
“In trying to learn a little bit about “normal” life in China, I’ve been watching youtube videos of Westerners who live there…”
Thank you for the fine reference, and for a way to get to know steadily more of China.
And it seems like only yesteryear when Faucci made SARS-CoV-2 and its vaccines with Chinese help. (Too dark? Too soon?)
“And it seems like only yesteryear when…”
On January 8, 2000, Chinese scientists genetically decoded novel coronavirus strains that had been detected on December 29, 2019. * Chinese scientists then supplied the genetic code to several scientists internationally, and to the WHO. From the genetic code, a series of different vaccines were made by scientists, and are still being made.
* https://www.nejm.org/na101/home/literatum/publisher/mms/journals/content/nejm/2020/nejm_2020.382.issue-13/nejmoa2001316/20200320/images/img_xlarge/nejmoa2001316_f1.jpeg
One great irony is that much of the semiconductor technology that the US wishes to deprive China was developed to a large degree with Chinese chip designers and Chinese chip engineers working in the United States and elsewhere.
One great irony is that much of the semiconductor technology that the US wishes to deprive China…
[ Interesting irony and critically important since the US effort. as shown by the breadth of sanctions which are continually being added to, is to undermine Chinese development entirely. The US effort however appears to have failed on every level. The recovery of Huawei shows Chinese resilience, as does the entire space program including space station and advanced GPS, as does food and energy self-sufficiency… ]
I don’t think it’s about China being a bad place, I think it’s about dehumanizing the Chinese, and this is the standard playbook.
A friend of mine who lived through South African apartheid would recount how a white person even smiling or talking to a Black person would result in visits from the police, followed by losing ones job, losing friends, etc. This is how that starts. Deprive the target group of rights and freedoms, then increase the risks for everyone else for having any association with that group, clamp down on any cultural exchange which might result in understanding or knowledge.
The racist incidents with former National Security Advisor Stuart Seldowitz at the food truck were, to me, a brief window into the true soul of the American state, right behind the apartheid Israeli state.
I guess Katherine is going against the current here: https://www.youtube.com/@kats_journey_east
In general, humans have evolved to communicate and work together. They don’t generally like killing other humans but they’ll gladly kill monsters and demons. So if a village chieftain wants to go to war with another village he must first demonize them. This can take some time so a government that is even considering going to war with another country they must start the demonizing process early. This gives the government the opportunity to attack when the time is right (ex. Palestine) or wait until a better opportunity (ex. China). The US has started the process with Russia, China, North Korea, and other countries just in case it decides the conditions are right to attack.
Geography of growth article, and the accompanying charts, makes interesting reading for finance nerds or market nerds or policy nerds. Basically, nerds of most stripes. Also features interesting data nuggets on how growth has shifted since 2019; near where I live is a major interstate I 85, connecting millions and millions about 75 miles north in Charlotte and about 160ish miles south in Atlanta. This region in South Carolina, Greenville Anderson Spartanburg MSA, continues growing but it doesn’t appear wholly unconstrained.
Fully noted, Boeing is located in South Carolina but that is Charleston adjacent. Automotive and automotive suppliers feature strongly in the above mentioned MSA.
Geography is a underappreciated science. Likely because for school kids it is mostly about memorizing the names of mountains, rivers and lakes.
It brings the physical world into many a debate that otherwise descends into abstract number massaging.
I used to live in Atlanta. Now Atlanta is coming to me. What joy.
But if it gives young people jobs who am I to complain?
Me too, but I am going to complain anyway.
I have to go into Atlanta tomorrow, and I am dreading it. Seems like there is a perfectly good Rust Belt going begging for our famously entrepreneurial youth to fix up.
And, that said, I am going to go out and shout at the clouds over my yard.
As long as the maelstrom of I-285 and the various interstate junctions stay “firmly in place”, I still see a good upside to the future. Speaking to a long time resident of Atlanta on New Year Day, and he’s finally getting around to the idea of leaving it for good.
Road construction and infrastructure improvements notwithstanding, of course.
there’s a noticeable red dot where boeing used to be in the PNW so I looked over at south carolina and yeah growth seemed ok but not great. Probably a nice vigorish in there somewhere…
Boeing moved their headquarters to Chicago, but there are still factories in WA state — Renton, Everett and Boeing field.
I would guess James Clyburn got the Boeing plant moved to Charleston. He made sure Joe threw some business Boeing’s way…a lot of business. Obviously the commercial side of Boeing is on the skids but war is always profitable.
As long as no distinction continues to be made between earned and unearned income, GDP maps like this tell us very little about actual productive capacity nor its distribution.
This year’s Davos WEF forum them is “Rebuilding Trust”.
hahahahahah.
The first item listed is “Rebuilding Trust in AI.”
hahahahahahaha.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/world-economic-forum-2024-rebuilding-trust-in-focus/ar-AA1mlOpD
They should rename themselves the World Economic Cluster F*ck. The WECF. I can name quite a few WECFord politicians. / ;)
Putting your trust in AI – a system that makes up references, computer settings, legal precedents and anything else it wants. Let me know how that works out. Pro tip. Never let an AI fill out you taxes for you down the road. It will end in tears.
What trust in AI? Has someone actually trusted AI? Keep them away from the family silver.
In this one case though, AI is not doing too badly. Live human support has been rushed under-trained wage slaves struggling to answer questions in less than X minutes by scrolling through out-dated and just plain wrong scripts.
What a trust we have in A. I.
All our questions it will bear.
What a privilege to off load
Our minds to it without a care. / ;)
It’s quite acceptable to have AI generated sports journalism….as Sports Illustrated was found out for doing so quite recently! ( SARC )…
Future article projection for next Tuesday…the Bills of Buffalo circled their wagons and conquered the Miami Porpoises in an NFL contest on Sunday evening. The reported fanatic base known as the Bills mafia was seen breaking tables in the cold climate of Buffalo, New York and also reports of vast consumption of beverages.
Economics in their view is all about creating a neo-aristocratic order.
A return to the world before WW1 if you will.
That makes some sense. The commons overthrow of aristocratic rule in the UK and Europe really began only 250 years ago with US and French revolutions. Refinements and further empowerment of the commons continued through the 19th and 20th centuries – expansion of the voting right to propertyless men, then to those once “owned” as slaves, then to women, etc. The power of the vote increased after WWI after the old EU colonial empires blew themselves apart, discrediting the remaining aristocratic rulers as incompetents or feckless.
The entire Mont Peleran Society/World Economic Forum program, (neoliberal economics, democratic govt must be subordinate to Markets and money),does seem like an organized push back against the commons by the old aristocracy (Hi, King Chuck. (waves) and the new aristocracy of huge fortunes.
In the US, any pol not in line with the WEF ideas is declared a danger to democracy. They must be stricken from the ballot… accord to members of the party/bolb-group most aligned with the WEF ideas. That party/blob-group also seems the most eager to erase the bill of rights,imo. Call it the duopoly. / my 2 cents.
Yes, yes and yes. The WECF is the correct acronym. I was happy to be reminded by today’s Links that James Howard K. Is alive and well. Mincing no words as usual, “The blob will die of irrelevance” because we are facing our own “great clarification.” And speaking of regeneration (definitely something in the air today) there was a segment on NPR on “Regenerative Ocean Farming” that sounded so sensible it was more like resurrection than insurrection.
The thing to keep in mind is that the US revolution was about taxation of luxuries for the richer colonists. Why they targeted a tea shipment, an expensive import from Asia (the English addiction to tea is also why the Opium wars happened in China BTW).
While the French one came about thanks to France helping to bankroll the US one, wrecking their own economy in the process. Resulting in prices on everyday goods like bread going haywire.
The “average American” in 1775 was a farm hand someplace who’d probably never seen a British soldier and to whom the Stamp Act was completely irrelevant, even if they’d heard of it. I wonder what someone like that thought they would get out of the Revolution. Like Goring (of all people) said, the best possible outcome for most would be getting back in one piece to their old life.
Not quite. Do not forget that mainstream economics back then included “mercantilism.” Anything that a colony needed that required manufacturing like nails, paper, and cloth was supposed to be imported only from the mother country with all the extracted resources like cotton and wood to be exported only to the mother country. The British also put import duties on those American resources especially rum to protect their British producers. Having the local blacksmith making those nails was a no-no. One was supposed to import them from England using only English ships with a shipping time of no less than a month each way.
While the colonial elites benefited the most from the revolution everyone in the American colonies were economically squeezed with smuggling often the only way to make a profit. There was a shortage of currency in the colonies which required substitutions with rum being preferred. One of the problems with that was the French colonies having cheaper and better quality molasses than the British Caribbean colonies, which required smuggling.
The British crackdown, while understandable, even fair, still put economic pain on the whole population especially as it meant enforcing laws that had been ignored for over a century or longer than anyone then had been alive. The Thirteen Colonies were colonies meant to be exploited for the economic gain of the home kingdom, not for the economic benefit of the colonists.
Interesting about rum as currency, but not surprising. Booze was frequently used to entice people to vote! We’ve been practicing unnatural economics since the Hansa fleet took sail from Northern Europe. Slaves and rum were their staples. Can’t help speculating what would have evolved if economies had been ecologically stable niche economies with no long-distance trade; self sufficient. My Connecticut Yankee ancestors made lots of apple brandy as well as nails and needles and various little things which they packed up in a hand cart and travelled a winter circuit,, walking, down through the Carolinas – the colonial traveling salesman. And back home for spring planting. It could be something as sensible as a natural pace and seasonal living. Time to both produce and repair.
For anyone interested, the Liz Cheney @Dartmouth talk entitled “Liz Cheney: An Oath to Defend Democracy” is today. “The Rockefeller Center Class of 1930 Fellow and former U.S. Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) delivers the Democracy Summit keynote address.” It will be livestreamed here . It starts at 4pm (EST US time) today.
And Jamie Raskin(D-MD, 8th district) will be speaking on Monday, Jan. 8th, 5-6:15pm EST US time. That one is entitled “Democracy vs. Autocracy in 2024”. It will be livestreamed here .
Looks like both links will divert you to YT. I’m sure both would make for great drinking games. My apologies, but I will not be attending either talk. Don’t have the stomach for it and my BP has already been running high due to life circumstances. Enjoy!
You don’t think that perhaps Liz Cheney is trying to burnish her resume so that other Republicans will select her as this year’s Presidential candidate, do you? Hmmm. Madame President Elizabeth Lynne Cheney. Yeah, I can just imagine what that would be like.
My current best case scenario is President Mike Johnson. Light years short of who we need but light years closer than who we’ve got.
I’ll see your President Mike Johnson and raise you President Mike Tyson. Bonus points because he is not a God botherer.
President Mike Tyson? Tempting.
Well, the heading for a description of US military support of Ukraine should be
“Everyone’s got a plan until they get punched in the face.”
That could be a good campaign slogan to run on.
excellent MH – that philosophy of Mr Tyson is appropriate and insightful – i’d vote for Mike immediately
Good one.
Hear, hear! Right up there with “debts that can’t be repaid, won’t be repaid” ;^)
If we could get Tyson to be President of US, and Klitschko to be President of Ukraine then at least we would have a shot at some diplomacy? I believe Vitali Klitschko is currently mayor of Kiev. Will be one of the possibilities when the inevitable coup happens.
re: Is the west talking itself into decline? FT
I left this link yesterday. It seems pertinent in reply to the FT question so I’ll re-post it here. Napolitano and Alastair Crooke. utube, ~ 27 minutes.
Alastair Crooke: America’s Fatal Hunger for Honor and Glory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=od5lipBQhe0
Shorter: it’s less about “talking itself into decline”, as the FT question suggests, than having forgotten or abandoned the very ideas and principles that makes or made the west the west. (Imo, the last 45 years of the west worshiping Markets and profits over every other consideration is the west’s great downfall.)
>My Unraveling. I had my health. I had a job. And then, abruptly, I didn’t. New York Magazine.
On the online job forms, there was usually a question about whether I, the applicant, identified as disabled. I paused longer and longer each time. Disabled? I was … less able. To do things. Than I’d been. For now? I clicked “no,” uncertainly.
Now imagine someone who has to click “yes,” imagine someone who isn’t a well educated writer like the author of this article, but someone with maybe 2 years of college in “business administration” or sociology. This country is not for old men/women, disabled people, uneducated, awkward, lacking connections, you know all the deplorables who have to wait till the next life to leave let alone receive any inheritance.
That story was terrifying. I remembered reading various curated blogs and opinion columns with Mr. Scocca’s imprint on them but I hadn’t heard from him in years. His story reminds me of other chronically ill people I’ve known but his talent for story telling makes it seem so much worse. That article in combination with others this morning makes for a despair filled read. Happy friday everyone! Eat, drink, and be merry while you can! Because sooner or later a disease will smash your life apart like a hammer hitting cheap porcelain.
The lesson here is don’t have a plan. Live in the moment while you are able to. Because as we all know, plans are useless when one is punched in the face as we all inevitably will experience.
Going there since you mentioned…No Country for Old Men. Paraphrasing from the film, where the Old man talks to the Tommy Lee Jones sheriff, sharing a cup of week old coffee. “This country is tough on people…the more you try to fix what’s lost the more is going out the door…”
I didn’t notice key words such as access to care or health insurance concerns, which for the author I kindly suggest is a key benefit. All those labs are going to add up, somewhere. And then there is, most likely, excellent services available in a central city such as NYC compared to a rural outpost. Best healthcare ever, perhaps not so much.
I used to walk with a cane and, naively and in good faith, I would check “disabled”. I was and it was difficult to hide. As an experiment, I stopped checking the box and the amount of responses I got to applications increased dramatically. FWIW, I kept up the appearance when I interviewed, hiding my handicap hangtag and leaving the cane hidden in the car. I can’t say for sure the impact or not, but it sure seemed to help.
Yeah, this article slaps hard.
Having gone thru the medical industry grinder trying to get a diagnosis of and proper treatment for Lyme disease was absolute hell.
Not nearly as bad as what this writer is going thru, but bad enough to result in over a year of being unable to work. Self employed with a small millwork business leaves you with no unemployment while also having no chance at disability while trying to figure out, on your own, why you can’t hardly dress yourself in the morning is an enlightening experience to the nature of our society, as many others discover, with a chronic illness.
I think the most startling thing for me was how much people avoid you when your sick. Having no visible manifestation of illness often leads to a finger pointed at your back with ‘lazy’ or ‘hypochondriac’ being spoken.
Better now and back to work. Covid has been a boon to millwork for some odd reason. Never been busier with projects. I’ll never forget that recovery period or the thousands spent (and fortunately had it to spend) getting out of network help to recover enough to work again.
The dread I felt, as we all did, when covid appeared in the country was personally accompanied with the knowledge of the incompetence and shakedown our medical Industry has become.
Ok, end rant.
This country is brutal when it comes to helping those who temporarily are in need, the medical Industrial complex is truly a “shakedown” industry – along with college cost and crumbling infrastructure it makes me look forward to a non-violent dissolution of it.
If it delaminates into separate countries and regions, which ones would remain committed to brutality against those temporarily in need? Which ones ( if any) would be non-brutal to those temporarily in need?
Glad you got over LD. I know several people here in CA that have had it or currently dealing with it. So debilitating. Here’s to a healthy 2024.
That has been the basis for US growth from the outset, suck in the young and healthy from the rest of the world and grind them to dust so a few can become old and rich.
The truth behind the American Dream…
“It’s called ‘the American Dream’ ’cause you have to be asleep to believe it.”
George Carlin
“Life is uncertain, eat your desert first.” – George Carlin
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1ads0
January 4, 2020
Labor Force and Population with a disability, * 2017-2023
* Age 16 and over
(Indexed to 2017)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=16TO1
January 4, 2020
Labor Force men and women with a disability, * 2017-2023
* Age 16 to 64
(Indexed to 2017)
Thanks for this, wow – and I assume that is under-reported as well.
The following link is credited to CNN, but it’s actually The Intercept. Would be pretty weird if CNN ran this.
CNN Runs Gaza Coverage Past Jerusalem Team Operating Under Shadow of IDF Censor
Fixed, thanks.
“Explainer: Ukraine considers changing mobilisation rules as war with Russia drags on”
I heard that they were considering a lottery to decide who gets called up. They did the same during the Vietnam era but the Ukrainian variety would be more like “Russian roulette”. Of course they are also considering exemptions for all those who make over $875 a month which makes it a poor man’s war. Saying the quiet bit out loud. I would assume that if they used a lottery, that a computer would pick the numbers which would make it totally legit. And yes, they can do dodgy stuff with computer lottery but the same is true of manual lotteries as well. During the Vietnam war Australia used a lottery system and if I recall correctly, your chances of getting called up were about one in seven. But anomalies kept turning up. As an example, the Army wanted recruits from the country areas as they could take care of themselves already. This guy said that out of a school country class of 27 guys, every single one of them was called up when it should have been three or four. So maybe the Ukrainian could adopt the old Vietnam-era lottery that Oz used.
https://www.rt.com/news/590066-ukraine-forbes-draft-taxes/
Not to mention the fact computers can’t do random numbers! They use pseudo-random numbers……and a seed value (which admittedly might be based on something over which we have no control like an external event timing)…..but this property, with the known seed value, is how all of us who did computer simulations (like me in my PhD) ensured our results could be checked.
(NB I’m aware that new quantum-like procedures claim to give “real” random numbers but these are not exactly run of the mill stuff for the applications mentioned)
Russia-friendly Telegram channels state that the new rules will delete exemptions for, among other issues, Parkinsons and Downs Syndrome. If accurate, the war is being used as a thinly disguised euthanasia program. – somewhat supporting Putin’s Nazi claims. In addition to the war being used to eliminate males from the Russian-speaking eastern territories under Kiev’s control.
There already was at least one documented case of a person with mental retardation being mobilized and sent to the front.
“…Putin’s Nazi claims…”
Think whatever you will about Putin and the Russian invasion, but those claims are already rock solid, and have been for years; it’s just the euthanasia box the Ukes are checking now.
“somewhat supporting”?
Please. That’s like saying that flying the Hammer And Sickle whilst singing The Internationale means you might be a Communist.
Ukraine already has long been prioritizing recruiting from the country, mainly because such people don’t have any political pull. Nobody who matters cares about them.
Same as why college students are so far exempt, because their fathers are typically people of influence and authority.
Not sure the Vietnam lottery here in the wonderful world of Oz was that easy to fake, Rev. As I recall, the selection was a public, publicised event, with a nerdy guy in a suit and tie lifting lotto balls out of a wire cage. Each ball was labelled with a day of the year, and if you were in the birth cohort age wise, and your number came up, you were in. Mine didn’t.
Sounds like the US system. My birthday got pulled as “24” but I had a 1-D deferment (member of reserve component) so didn’t directly bother me.
scott s.
.
Lots of muttering how Normie Rowe got selected. The same way that in the US that Elvis got selected. I remember those lotto balls in a wire cage well and was glad when Whitlam came in and pulled us out of ‘Nam before I came of military age.
Genocide in Gaza John J. Mearsheimer
…the United States is a liberal democracy that is filled with intellectuals, newspaper editors, policymakers, pundits, and scholars who routinely proclaim their deep commitment to protecting human rights around the world.,,In the case of Israel’s genocide, however, most of the human rights mavens in the liberal mainstream have said little about Israel’s savage actions in Gaza or the genocidal rhetoric of its leaders. Hopefully, they will explain their disturbing silence at some point.
Mearsheimer skirts around the obvious, those “newspaper editors, policymakers, pundits, and scholars” are typically Jewish. And, although there are many Jews like Max Blumenthal and Katie Halper that have been fierce critics of Israel’s Genocide in Gaza, those running these large institutions in almost all the MSM are not likely to risk their jobs/positions. The ADL and other Israeli lobbyist are just too damn powerful, and I’m not even going to touch the Epstein connection and blackmailing of politicians and other influential persons.
Phil Weiss, who for years has maintained his Mondoweiss site and who once was a journalist in NYC, estimates that roughly half of the reporters and editors in NY are Jewish and of course ownership is likely much higher than that. So this is simply a matter of statistics and not some conspiracy theory.
Meanwhile Weiss and many others show that Jewish opinion re Israel is hardly lockstep but the problem is that those with the real power tend to be Israel boosters with very few reservations. Some of us would contend that is because Zionism was always about power rather than rescue. Indeed the claimed “lifeboat” in the Middle East is looking increasingly like the Titanic instead. But who among the MSM will tell us that?
So, it’s much more about power than it is being Jewish, then? An important distinction to make, given the circumstances…
Caitlin Johnstone clarifies it
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2024/01/05/its-insane-that-anyone-is-still-supporting-israel/
Mearsheimer says this about Biden:
I can think of some campaign slogans for the coming year:
We get the politicians we deserve. George Carlin made this point quite eloquently many years ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07w9K2XR3f0
The British media are forced to talk about the consequences of Long Covid because the well-known Labour crony Derek Draper died from it:
https://news.sky.com/story/derek-draper-husband-of-kate-garraway-and-former-political-adviser-dies-13033929
Draper got a eulogy in The Guardian today, and on reading it I could see no evidence that he deserved one. It was a complete contrast to the offensive obituary on the death of Shane MacGowan, in the same paper in December.
“Haneda accident outcome the sum of decades of integrated air safety lessons”
Maybe they need to make an upgrade to aircraft safety. So imagine this. Airports would have sensors stations along the runways, aprons and taxiways that would be constantly interrogating all nearby aircraft and then plot them on a digital map in the Control Tower where the air traffic controllers could see where the aircraft actually are. But if an aircraft wandered out onto an active runway while another plane was taking off or landing the software would instantly see and bring up a loud alert onto the screen. In this case the air traffic controller could see in real time what was happening and could have told the JAL flight to immediately abort their landing and to pull up while other airport staff could go out interview the crew of the Japan Coast Guard plane – preferably with heavy metal wrenches.
As best i recall, many larger airports these days already have a separate radar tracking movement on the ground.
It must be for only general movements or else it would have picked up on the fact that an aircraft was parked on an active runway.
US airports with an FAA tower, with certain “automation”, do monitor and control aircraft movement on the ground. I do not know if it is a radar/sensor system or an aircraft position reporting system.
IIRC the Japan Coast Guard aircraft was in landing mode. Control of landing/aircraft in the ‘pattern’ is a separate automation solution and maybe the Japan system did not pick up on the conflict in “predicted spatial occupation”. One aspect to investigate.
Also, military aircraft may not have the same “flight management/navigation” capacity as large commercial aircraft.
According to Avherald, the runway warning system was working, it would have indicated the airplane on the runway.
A lot of holes in the Swiss cheese lined up, the final report in a year or so will be interesting.
One provision is the “stop bar” lighting system as defined in ICAO Annex 14 and FAA AC 150. Basically a series of red lights along the rwy hold short line, and centerline lights from the hold short to the rwy centerline. ATC turns them on/off to augment voice procedures. A Q at Haneda was a local NOTAM that described stop bars as unserviceable.
Re: As workers ate lunch today, CEOs had already earned the equivalent of their annual salary The Canary
This was trending on Mastodon yesterday: The Minimum Wage Clock
It is a neat way to visualize wages, imo (though indeed rather sobering).
Sobering is too mild a word…
It’s missing a key component. It only shows minimum wage and contrasts with selected CEOs. Eye-opening for sure, but too easy to dismiss as “but I’m not minimum wage”. Having another clock with an edit box to enter each user’s salary or hourly wage would bring it home a bit more personally….
meh. Just seeing how much a few individuals rake in vs the masses, in particular as said masses work for them, and buy goods and services from them, should be enough to infuriate anyone with any sense of decency.
It actually has that feature, right in the middle. But you must decide for yourself if you want to enter your own wage, knowing that data will immediately be recorded and distributed.
It has a box for you to enter your hourly pay when I just checked it now (2pm Pacific).
RE: The Great Clarification James Howard Kunstler, Clusterf*ck Nation
Best paragraph Kunstler’s written in a long time:
I can remember when many thought that putting the ladies in charge would make for a kinder, gentler nation. Instead we’re all stuck living in some sort of vengeful, deranged sorority house of horrors.
I doubt Jefferson, John Adams, and Daniel Webster see “our democracy” the way many “democrats” do.
Maybe the demos of Athens during the Peloponnesian war might vote with Bellows.
My view of their “our democracy” is consistently negative
Everytime I read “to save our democracy” automatically the My Lai massacre and William Calley testifying that they had to destroy the village to save it comes to mind.
Calley never said those words in trial or anywhere else. It was a nameless military officer who said that, and he wasn’t referring to Pinkville. Those words (or words to that effect), allegedly, were said in response to a massacre that occurred in Ben Tre (Mekong Delta region) in January 1968 during the Tet Offensive.
While it was still accessible on sat around here, i managed to catch the Hallmark rendition of Dune as a mini series.
One scene, based on the second book, involved a conversation between mother and daughter. While they kept talking about platitudes verbally, they used sign language to plot far darker dealings.
Also ages ago i read what i believe was the anecdote of a British prison warden, claiming he far preferred working at a men’s prison. If there was a problem between two of them, the fight would start right there. At a woman’s prison there would instead be a period of deal making and plotting before the whole place turned into a riot. And during that whole time one could feel the tension building.
Also a fictional character, but Madame DeFarge comes to mind, silently knitting the names of those about to die.
heh heh — that old sweetie, Thérèse.
I always name my computers, with some sort of free association moniker that I for one find amusing. The CPU in my 2021 MacBook Pro is the M1 ‘Max’ so I riffed on that until I got to Robespierre and then dubbed the machine ‘The Incorruptible’, perhaps as a projection of electromechanical hope. (And two years on, it’s been trouble-free so far.) But with that theme established, the internal SSD of course had to be named … Thérèse. :-)
Plenty of male crockery throwers too though. I’ve taken advice from some other commenters here and given up on Kunstler. Seems to me he just likes to push certain buttons.
I remember years ago riding on a train to St. Louis for an Acres USA conference. I talked some with a fellow passenger from Vermont also going to that conference. ( He was a contract seed multiplier which was a very interesting thing in itself).
I remember him telling me about how he once talked to two hitchhikers who claimed to have visited the great Howard Kunstler not too long before. He says that they reported him as having all kinds of fancy wine and wonderful food and living real nice. He says they called him a ” fabulous fake”.
I think he could be described as a ” one-shtick phony” at least part of the time.
As the father of an eleven year old daughter, I can say the Tina Fey’s movie ‘Mean Girls’ is a documentary.
The difference in male and female society starts early.
A son just started senior school (11+). We looked at a school that was free but selective and was still single sex (but located next-door to its girls’ equivalent on a large campus). We also looked at my old school, which is fee-paying and had been single sex but went coed nearly twenty years ago.
The atmosphere in the boys’ school that I never attended was instantly familiar. There was a general air of friendly scruffy hijinks and largely male teachers with a no nonsense attitude. However, it would mean 45-60 minutes each way on a bus and no after school clubs (everything in lunchtime).
The atmosphere in my old school was alien. On a Friday evening, when lessons finish early and the cadet force training takes place, what would have been corridors of joshing testosterone were meek and silent. On further enquiry, a lot of parents of boys were complaining about of a disproportionate number of detentions being handed out by the female teaching staff to boys for minor infractions of dress code and the kind of teenage boy mischief that male teachers pretended not to have seen, to pick their battles, because rather than rib and wrestle and shoulder-punch other, the girls would all sit quietly… neatly colouring in poison-pen letters about each other!
We much preferred the single sex school’s atmosphere but our son had more friends moving to my old school and preferred to go there. We worry somewhat what will come out of the psychic pressure cooker, now they can no longer let off steam like boys of yore….
I attended public schools (US, not UK) through the 6th grade and was a C student. All the A students were girls.I went to a boys’ private school in the 7th and 8th grade and transformed into an A student. I always attributed the improvement to the more challenging and interesting curriculum but having only male teachers may have been as much of a factor.
When my daughter was a little older than yours I used to wryly inform coworkers who inquired about my family with, “I have a 14 year old daughter — I don’t recommend it …”
RE: Derek Draper:
Sending our love, thoughts and prayers, because you can’t have the truth about what this virus really is, what it was designed to do and the damage it will cause.
Thank you notabanker, I don’t understand why there is not more conversation about the fact that the virus came from a lab and therefore there was intention in its design. Why is there no discussion as to the intent of the experiment itself? There must be records as to exactly what the researchers were trying to do, which informs the rest of us as to exactly what we’re experiencing.
This is a long read and there is more at this site.
https://unlimitedhangout.com/2020/04/investigative-series/all-roads-lead-to-dark-winter/
Why to make an adjustment in population pressures of course! It’s the easiest way to improve the environment you know.
“US hasn’t formally assessed if Israel violating human rights”
The US State Department are doing this at lightning speed and have brought in a British consultant to facilitate this. To put it simply, certain informal discussions will take place involving a full and frank exchange of views out of which there will arise a series of proposals, which on examination will prove to indicate certain promising lines of inquiry, which, when pursued, lead to the realization that the alternative courses of action might, in fact, in certain circumstances, be susceptible of discreet modification, leading to a reappraisal of the original areas of difference and pointing the way to encouraging possibilities of compromise and cooperation, which, if bilaterally implemented with appropriate give and take on both sides might, if the climate were right, have a reasonable probability at the end of the day of leading, rightly or wrongly, to a mutually satisfactory resolution. Unfortunately, although the answer may indeed be clear, simple, and straightforward, there is some difficulty in justifiably assigning to it the fourth of the epithets when applied to any statement, inasmuch as the precise correlation between the information communicated and the facts, insofar as they can be determined and demonstrated, is such as to cause epistemological problems, of sufficient magnitude as to lay upon the logical and semantic resources of the English language a heavier burden than they can reasonably be expected to bear.
So don’t hold your breath.
Delicious. What a seemingly coherent babble of big, important sounding words. You should be a diplomat!
Alas, Sir Humphrey Appleby must take credit here who is a true master.
Not sure where to put this, but this brilliant paragraph brings to mind an Australian TV show that has run for a few seasons down under, and is sadly not yet available for viewing in the US except for many short You Tube Clips – Utopia, a hysterical show about a new agency, the National Building Authority, overseen by a seasoned project manager who has been brought in to government with the promise of free action, and is then faced with the gobbledygook and bafflegab of bureaucratic, politically correct, “framing” and PR realities. If anyone reading this knows how to watch this full show here in the US tell me, because it is brilliant…
Shhhh.
https://actvid.rs/tv/watch-utopia-full-37137
The British consultant is important. Nothing like that accent to make midwit Americans think that the speaker must be Serious And Competent.
But what about committees? You forgot, there must be several committees, discussion groups and, of course, Blue Ribbon Panels.
And an ombudsman or two.
Ani;t it funny how none of this is needed when the United States decides that it wants to spank someone.
Whereas self-styled Intellectual Americans are impressed by an ” International Man of Danger” accent and Very Serious Glasses. Henry Kissinger went far with those two things.
Is the consultant Christopher Steele?
Is this false equivalence or straw-manning as his self-defense? He’s claiming he’s the victim? And it’s the fault of women? / ;)
Response by Dershowitz is INSANE!
It’s alleged Epstein “forced then-minor Jane Doe #3 to have sexual relations with..former Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz..”
https://twitter.com/MaajidNawaz/status/1742964727196656019
Pretty sure that Dershowitz will next argue that if you add up all the ages of the minors on that island, that they will add up to a few consenting-age adults.
LOL
There is a viral clip of an old Kim Iversen interview with Dershowitz on Epstein and Mossad that is making its rounds on Twitter/X that is very revealing. In it he claims that Kim “sandbagged” him because she asked some penetrating questions. As Margaret Kimberley over of the BlackAgendaReport tweeted, she is not interested in any coverage of Epstein that doesn’t examine his connection with Mossad.
https://x.com/Partisangirl/status/1743198294510281004?s=20
I was watching an interview of Dershowitz last night with Briahna Joy Gray wherein he complained about a previous discussion with Norman Finkelstein being unfair, that he only got about four minutes while Finkelstein filibustered. So, I toddle over to check out the discussion moderated by Piers Morgan, and they looked, timewise, the be pretty evenly matched. Otherwise Dershowitz got creamed.
If he is the best hope for Israel at the ICJ we can soon look forward to peace in the ME for the first time in my life. That guy is just a joke. How that guy managed to become a legal scholar at Harvard is beyond me. I saw nothing but whining and complaints from him.
That’s very funny and completely not believable: a noted high-stakes criminal trial lawyer and law professor was sandbagged by a question from a general issues media interviewer? A question a lot of people were and are asking? ‘Sandbagged?’. I don’t think so. / ;)
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alan-Dershowitz
To echo the others, if I was just going by his defense of himself, I’d never believed the guy was a big time criminal lawyer. I think the “but have they denounced Hamas” card has long past its sell by date and in the context of this conversation seems bizarrely non-sequitor anyway. And to answer the initial question, I think he’s invoking the Chewbacca Defense.
Dershowitz and Epstein were real close. How close?
‘Rudy Havenstein, Senior Markets Commentator.
@RudyHavenstein
10 Dec 2019
“Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz says, “I’m on my 20th book…. The only person outside of my immediate family that I send drafts to is Jeffrey.”” – March 2003’
https://nitter.net/RudyHavenstein/status/1204430109647745024#m
If you are wondering about those weird lookin’ giant citrus floating in the capybara hot tub, I believe they are called “oni yuzu” [demon yuzu]. Like a yuzu and with the same lovely fragrance, but about 4x larger and with a thick rind closer to a pomelo.
– ‘US hasn’t formally assessed if Israel violating human rights’ – Politico
That’s funny, because John Kirby sure sounded certain the other day when he declared that South Africa’s ICJ genocide petition was “meritless, counterproductive, and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever.” Surely he must be thoroughly familiar with the “facts” to make such a statement, right?
That press conference is going to come back to bite him in the butt, sooner rather than later. Every analysis that I have seen of the South African case being put before the ICJ makes it look like an open and shut case; the thing is just iron clad.
It will be fun to see him on the stand at a war crimes tribunal some day. He will be like a deer in the headlights.
the gobbledygook and bureaucratic bafflegab spewed by the gaslighting experts and dynamic duo denying reality; Jake Sullivan & John Kirby, are definitely accomplices in the crimes against humanity waged upon Gaza – these two are rabid dogs for The Husk and ya know what should be done with rabid dogs –
I just saw Aaron Mate’s latest on this. He strongly agrees with you.
https://www.aaronmate.net/p/in-gaza-genocide-the-us-defends-israels
“My Unraveling”
I am continually dumbfounded that with access to information like never before in history, people do not take their health/healing into their own hands, at least to some degree.
Alternatively: Can you say Accupuncture? (Osteopathy, Chiropractic, etc.) Which interestingly, Accupuncture, just now, did not get predicted by spell check either time. Go figure…
Follow up question: (As I’m ignorant of such) Is the health juggernaut, Medical Industry/Insurance/Big Pharma a money laundering scheme cum reality?
> Accupuncture, just now, did not get predicted by spell check either time
It’s “acupuncture” — “acu” as in “acute,” not “accu” as in “accurate.” Spell check was probably thrown off by there being one “c” too many?
“Pirola JN 1…Time for a new Greek letter?”
Can I propose 3 Greek consonants Mu, Lambda and Kappa, current shorthand for the word Malakas (plural malakes). Translates to wankers and dedicated to our leaders in the west?
“NATO’S WAR PROBLEM: WEAK ARMOR”
It is more than weak armour. We are watching in real time a military revolution that is constantly evolving. As an example, tanks were the big weapons in WW2 and the US was rightly proud of the Battle of of 73 Easting in the First Gulf War. But that was then and this is now. That Ukrainians armoured assault last June. That may be the last time that we will ever see such an event and future historians will regard it like we regard cavalry charges. That loud, continuous thumping noise that you can hear is all the military textbooks being chucked into a skip outside places like West Point as now being hilariously out of date.
People were debating whether lance or sabre made for superior melee arm for the cavalry even after Umdurman. Surely, what happened to the Sudanese couldn’t possibly happen to the Europeans? /S
It’s a good article and a fascinating summary of the current state of armored vehicle technology. The comments section is worth a visit; the author (Bryen) responds to many of them himself and is clearly knowledgeable on the subject of tanks. One commenter cuts to the heart of the matter: “Alas, the drones kill everything now.” Which begs the question: what is to be done? Because at least tanks (and the other smaller armored vehicles) provide some degree of protection from drones and artillery and airstrikes and bullets and mines. Without tanks, casualties will skyrocket. Bryen is correct: NATO doesn’t have enough tanks. But I don’t see that building thousands of modern tanks (not that the collective west is capable of doing this) will solve the drone problem, and anyway Russian tanks are also pretty good and they seem to be producing quite a few of them.
I think NATO has a serious problem. And I think the usage of drones in warfare is just getting started.
I’m no expert, but I would imagine that cheap smart torpedoes are probably an emerging threat as well for surface ships and even submarines. Probably cheaper still are guided surface drones such as those used by Ukraine in the Black Sea. These seem to have been pretty effective and can carry quite a punch.
Anti-drone technology will need to address not just swarms of cheap drones attacking pre-programmed targets, but swarms of smart drones programmed to work together and adjust tactics in real time. Some may perform as decoys or other roles to confuse the defender. They’ll be so cheap they’ll be massed in wave attacks. Only a few need to get through for the attack to succeed, so my guess is that the attacker will always have the technical and cost advantage even against a very technologically advanced defender. Attack drones will be used to the U.S.’s advantage in specific situations, but launching them from expensive and vulnerable assets like ships will be foolhardy.
If true, my guess is DOD naval and commercial doctrines, when confronted by drones and missiles, will emphasize “get the hell out of there” as recently shown in the Red Sea. Our Navy has traditionally existed to protect commercial shipping; if the above is true, it won’t be able to do that. This may mean that in the 21st century, aircraft carriers and submarines will eventually be mothballed just as the big battleships of the 20th were. Big expensive ships for “power projection” will become obsolete.
What will take their place?
That article was an incoherent, superficial prattle, me thinks. As I write this, Russian production lines are pushing out a new or modernized tank every five and a half hours, day after day, week after week, month after month.
Tanks have always been vulnerable to anti-tank weapons – that’s why armies have anti-tank weapons, duh! And that’s why Russians and Israelis have always though of tanks as consumables. In the Soviet military thinking during the Cold War the idea was that when the British I Corps attacks, the 1st Guards Tanks Army will stop it – and since both formations will be destroyed in the battle, the 2nd Guards Tank Army will roll forward unopposed and force West Germany to sue for peace.
Wehrmacht had a pretty good idea on how to use armor in tactical and operational level, yet (even when using their own somewhat arguable numbers) in 1941 they lost 84% of the yearly production and in 1942 still 62% of the years production. Real ratios are probably a bit higher. The point being that these were The Panzer Armees whose exploits and feats tank nerds everywhere appraise, an yet they lost over half of their tanks in battles.
I just read that Kiev is expecting a major Russian attack towards Kharkov within the next ten days, so we may soon find out if tank still has a role on the modern battle field.
Tanks and armored vehicles still have an important role to play; the problem is that one needs a lot of them, and cheap drones worsen this problem.
During the Nazi invasion of France in 1940–widely seen as one of the most successful military attacks ever–the Germans lost about 800 tanks in 6 weeks. The British/French losses were even higher. And anti-tank weaponry and battlefield surveillance have improved considerably since then.
I’m a bit skeptical that the Russians will try any big arrow tank offensives anytime soon, but let’s see what happens.
We agree very much here. Although I’d probably say that if the Russians do any kind of an arrow offensive, big or small, it will be a tank offensive. With a very, very heavy support of tube and rocket artillery, air force, drones, combat engineers and infantry.
The thing with the FPV drones is that if and when the front line starts to move, they just can’t keep up with their short (loaded) range. There really weren’t that many drone videos during the “mad dash to East” in the Kharkov region in 2022. When the situation is very volatile, very few are willing to set up the equipment in the middle of a field and then stay there exposed for 40 minutes looking for the enemy and hoping their BMP-2 or sniper won’t find you first.
Big Serge relates to a more balanced consideration.
Tanks have several assets to complete mission and survive.
In Ukraine they lost mobility due to failed engineer support, no mine clearing and lack of air cover to prevent Helios and man port ATGM.
A swell as suppression of long range fires.
Air land battle process been around for decades NATO sent Ukraine forward with a one dimension wunderwaffen and nothing else.
Cuddly snow leopards
#COVID19
This short X/Twitter thread is brutal in its indictment of Biden, his administration, the CDC et al. It aligns very closely with what NC has been covering – from Biden-as-executor of Trump’s “if we stopped testing” musings to the lies about vaccines being sterile to the refusal to continue masking.
I hope today’s NC readers are connecting the article “Insurance companies are forcing psychiatrists like me to stop accepting their coverage” with the topic of gender dysphoria. Why are we treating a psychological disorder with drugs and surgery instead of therapy, especially in the case of minors? I think the answer is because it is difficult to profit from individual therapists. However, getting patients into hospital and on pharmaceutical drugs is the profit model of corporate health care.
New Mexico wildfires–
I’m not surprised that residents of Mora and San Miguel counties are having trouble getting compensated by the Feds who caused the fire. Since Reagan, the gringo government officials have been trying to starve these people out so they leave and open up all that beautiful Sangre de Cristo scenery for rich Anglos to enjoy. That’s why many locals thought the fire and the unsuccessful efforts to stop it were not accidental.
The “subdivision with a golf course” that has had better luck with getting money is a former employer of my spouse back when we lived there. Meanwhile, the people with roots going back to the 1830s have deeds that describe their land as “40 varas wide running from the creek to the top of the ridge”–not the kind of description that passes muster with bureaucrats, but surveys and quiet title actions are expensive.
And that’s if they have deeds at all. Most estates are never probated since the typical Mora resident lives off the beef and mutton they can raise and the venison they can hunt successfully. Cash needs are met by selling a few Christmas trees for cash every fall or doing some cowboying up in Wyoming for a gringo rancher.
Our country is not made for such people as these. They’re not hamster wheelers, so they don’t really count as human in our society.
Thank you, Henry Moon Pie. ” …. the people with roots going back to the 1830s have deeds that describe their land as “40 varas wide running from the creek to the top of the ridge”–not the kind of description that passes muster with bureaucrats, but surveys and quiet title actions are expensive.”
They may be the Palestinians of New Mexico. And, there are the ‘land claims’ that pre-date even these Hispanic settler-colonialists, those of the many nations of Pueblos, Apaches and others. Geronimo, the Apache leader, called a ‘savage’ for resisting the might of the US Army, much like the leaders, termed ‘terrorists,’ of Hamas and Hezbollah.
This history of ethnic cleansing is embedded in our nation’s DNA; we cleanse the land of the brown and red ‘vermin’ who originally inhabit it, to make it ‘safe’ for its white saviors who will use it to generate profits and increase GDP. Asking the US government to stop Israel’s genocidal actions is to ask the scorpion to change its nature.
That Gizmodo headline about Google and cookies is mostly a nonstory as most browsers have already provided a way to disable “third party cookies” and send a toothless “do not track” notification. The real story is somewhat down page
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“Google calls this project the “Privacy Sandbox.” It involves several stupendously complicated tools and technologies. In general, the Chrome browser itself will track what you’re doing online, but it stores that data on your device instead of sending it off to Google or anyone else. Chrome then sorts you into different groups based on what kind of person you are. Websites and advertising companies can ask Chrome what cohort you’re in (e.g. people who like high-performance auto parts or hair removal products). However, there’s no way for a company to learn about your individual browsing behavior without breaking Google’s rules.
This is better than the status quo, which involves billions of pieces of incredibly sensitive information about you flying all over the internet. It’s not exactly privacy, either, because you’re being tracked. Other browsers, such as Firefox, DuckDuckGo, and Apple’s Safari blocked third-party cookies a while ago, and they haven’t replaced them with new tracking tools, more private or otherwise.”
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In other words Google wants to take over the tracking business at least if you use Chrome (which I don’t). On other browsers sites track by recording IP addresses but those more expert than yours truly could comment on this. It’s possible this method can be defeated by “mac spoofing” or a VPN.
ISPs are getting in on the business of selling you browser history, too.
https://cybernews.com/privacy/isp-selling-data-why-you-should-actually-care/
Hello, the BLS job data link from John Authers is not working properly. Can you repost the link? I’d like to use that.
Thank you,
Aaron
more demoncrat skulduggery afoot to benefit The Husk
https://www.axios.com/2023/10/06/iowa-caucuses-democrats-biden-super-tuesday
Ah yes, “Real” GDP Growth. Please, spare me the Orthodox Economic recitations. All I see is a map of property price increases.
And likely targetting with Russian, Chinese or North Korean nuclear weapons if Joe Biden is reelected and gets his dying old man wish to take us all with him.
Happy 11th day of Christmas!
On the 11th day of Christmas, the Congress gave to Zee … no more money.
Things are looking extra bleak for the neocon efforts; the Dnipr is freezing over, Zaluzhny says they’re running out of bullet catchers, and the “grand bargain” of trading border security for Ukraine money looks to be shipwrecked on the rocks of 2024 electoral politics. No mention of stalled negotiations on the Senate side. Both sides are now pointing fingers, as seen in this article:
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4389021-texas-democrat-crockett-blasts-johnson-border-funds/
Meanwhile, the GOP Iowa caucuses are now less than two weeks away. Can they pump up Darling Nikki in time to stop the Orangeman?
Flaco the owl’s advice for today:
Stretch like no one’s watching
https://nitter.net/BirdCentralPark/status/1742943832361087212#m
Re. there is no testing
Well, in my boutique European country my better half and I have both come down with who knows what with classic ENT symptoms. GP prescribed a test for flu, COVID, RSV and two pneumonia -causing bacteria. All negative.
Whatever it is it has now given me conjunctivitis, so I am a very unhappy cookie right now.. but we are testing!
For me the section on – Supply Chain – is intriguing and I want to learn more.
Global Trade Braces for Unprecedented Geopolitical Challenges in 2024 Hellenic Shipping News
It talks about Brics+, the Red Sea etc. But what I find most interesting is this part:
“Fluctuating Freight Rates: freight rates will increase in the short to midterm, but not in the long run as demand and supply is still highly imbalanced with no clear signs of a strong revival.”
Note especially that freight rates are not increasing in the long term because — demand and supply is still highly imbalanced with no clear signs of a strong revival.
I’m thinking that with both the EU and China facing decline in their economies, that what is NOT being discussed is that the there is a Global Depression since covid that is the start of that Long Decline after peak oil. Can anyone direct me to some discussions on that and perhaps how BRICS+ may be the planning for it by those countries? The Endless Wars seem to be the hand waving to distract people. I’m seeking to read and understand where the “supply and demand” part is analyzed.
This. I’m too depressed to go looking for links, but you have the big picture.
An index to follow is Baltic Exchange Dry Index, google gives some other meters of shipping activity.
America’s iconic Woodstock festival was more Jewish than you’d think (the Times of Israel, from 2019)
From Woodstock, 1969, to Gaza, 2023? That’s some serious spiritual degeneration.
I wonder what Arlo Guthrie thinks of our current wars and the people cheerleading and supplying arms for them.
Unravelling. Another disability is age.Anyone over 65 has an immediate disability and in the eyes of some doctors on track for Parkinsons and dementia.
A family member started sleeping excessively in June, and cognition started to decline. In August they had a possibly 24 hour episode of confusion and delirium (they were on their own so hard to say). Trip to Emergency got a 2 night stay and then discharge with a bunch of tests recommended. The neurologist thought it was Parkinsons and when I said this was sudden onset he told me that I probably missed all the other signs in the preceding months (with metaphorical pat on head).
Still oversleeping and cognitively impaired. Had a minor transient ischaemic attack/stroke mimicking episode 14 days later. Two more days in hospital, another discharge with a recommendation to have tests. And to do some Occupational Therapy for the new lack of cooking skills.
Still oversleeping and cognitively impaired. Could no longer work out how to use the microwave. Could no longer understand electronic equipment. Having trouble with the iPhone.
Then 10 days later a massive seizure or stroke got some attention. Could have been fatal but wasn’t. Fell through shower glass. Glass everywhere! And only at that point did the doctors look past , ‘old person must be dementia or Parkinsons’, and start to actually investigate properly.
Well, blow me down, it’s autoimmune encephalitis.
Would have been picked up much sooner in a younger person. But there you go.