The Hidden Butterfly Trade Nautilus (Micael T)
Gothic architecture made infinity imaginable.
10 marvels of Gothic design, from medieval cathedrals to modern skyscrapers (thread) 🧵 pic.twitter.com/Oded0ZlayX
— Culture Critic (@Culture_Crit) February 12, 2024
US ‘secretly’ seizes Venezuelan jumbo jet RT (Robin K)
Ebola vaccine can save some who are already sick, per new study STAT (furzy)
Does Your Community Have a Personality Type? FAU. Paul R: “Distribution of personality types varies by city. Actual study is https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666622724000017”
#COVID-19
‘Robodebt of medicine’: Patients are catching COVID and dying in hospitals, doctors say ABC Australia (ma)
Hospitals Deny Immunocompromised Patients’ ADA Requests For Masks Forbes. We are surrounded by monsters.
Millions of people have long Covid, including children and pregnant people, studies show CNN (Paul R)
Climate/Environment
The Six Months That Short-Circuited the Electric-Vehicle Revolution Wall Street Journal
Revealed: the 1,200 big methane leaks from waste dumps trashing the planet Guardian (Kevin W)
Does recycling actually help the climate? Yale Climate Connections
China?
Trump’s China trade war threat already roiling markets Asia Times
China’s graduates pursue vocational training as firms eye practical, technical skills from problem solvers over academics South China Morning Post
India
India farmers march: What are their demands? Why is gov’t blocking roads? Aljazeera
Modi government unleashes massive police-military crackdown against farmers’ protest WSWS
Old Blighty
Labour suspends second parliamentary candidate after recording emerges BBC
Three guilty of terror offence over paraglider images at UK Palestine march Guardian (Kevin W)
European Disunion
Growing up in France I was always surrounded with people of North African or Levant origins but it took me living in other countries during my adulthood – countries actually respectful of the diversity of cultures in their midst – to realize just how uniquely intolerant France… https://t.co/dxRo8h4gMS
— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) February 13, 2024
Calls Grow in Europe For Continental Nuclear Arsenals Aimed at Russia Military Watch
Tractor blockade disrupts operations at Belgian port of Antwerp Guardian
Former general Prabowo Subianto takes early lead in Indonesia election Financial Times
South of the Border
Washington Promotes Venezuelan Opposition Candidate Antiwar.com (Kevin W)
Gaza
Gaza | Burning & destroying food warehouses
Israeli soldiers post a video on social media showing the destruction & burning of food warehouses in western Gaza City 3 days ago. This comes after a severe famine affecting North Gaza, where people are struggling for survival 1/2 pic.twitter.com/x5FSO61pW1
— Younis Tirawi | يونس (@ytirawi) February 13, 2024
A substantial crowd of extremist Israelis are heading to the Nitzana Border Crossing with Egypt to prevent aid trucks from entering Gaza. I don't know the extent of evil and sickness in a person who tries to starve another human being and finds joy in watching them die. pic.twitter.com/hJELiQoDc2
— Ihab Hassan (@IhabHassane) February 12, 2024
Risk of famine in Gaza ‘alarming’: Türkiye’s UN envoy Anadolu Agency
UN warns Israel: Rafah invasion could ‘lead to slaughter’ Arab News
ZOMG not only the substance but King Abdullah’s English. He is way better spoken than Biden and pretty much everyone in American public life:
The King of Jordan really pulled something out of the bag on pathetic Biden.
Absolutely bloody brilliant 👏🏽 pic.twitter.com/USLMG532co
— 💐🍂🍁Socialist🍁🍂💐 (@SocialistBella) February 13, 2024
The situation in Middle East is yeasty! Egypt will suspend the peace treaty with Israel if it launches an operation in Rafah Πενταπόσταγμα (BC)
South Africa Tries to Stop Israeli Assault on Rafah; Nicaragua Warns Britain and Germany Institute for Public Accuracy
Syraqistan
🇮🇷 BREAKING: Huge explosion of a gas pipeline between the cities of Shahrekord and Borujen in Iran
The explosion and its aftermath are so large that they could be seen from a distance as far away as 60km.
Firefighters and local media confirm that a section of pipeline 65, the… pic.twitter.com/gXeUbrWseJ
— DD Geopolitics (@DD_Geopolitics) February 13, 2024
Iran Says Attacks Hit Part of Gas Pipeline Network Bloomberg
Polls close in Indonesia’s high stakes election BBC
US seizes plane that Iran sold to Venezuela Al Jazeera (Kevin W)
New Not-So-Cold War
SITREP 2/13/24: Avdeevka Turns Critical as Iskander Strike Devastates AFU Staging Area Simplicius the Thinker. This is major. A reader pointed it out in comments yesterday based on a report from Telegram in Moon of Alabama’s comment section, soon confirmed by another reader via Big Serge. A big practical and psychological blow.
SnowStorm | Iskander Strike At Selydove | Chasiv Yar Is Collapsing | Military Summary For 2024.02.13 Military Summary. Dima spends a lot of time trying to sort through the info on the attack. Dima speculates that the unit destroyed was Azovite and key to Zaluzhny’s and Poroshenko’s plans to remove Zelensky. Thus Dima contends that this was a betrayal designed to short up Zelensky’s and Syrsky’s position versus the Banderites. Supporting Dima’s theory (Dima can get out over his skis) is a point Scott Ritter called out on his new Danny Hapiphong show (BTW before this strike). While Zelensky was trying to get Zaluzhny to leave, Zaluzhny gave an award to an Azovite, in Zaluznhy’s office, with all the Nazi paraphernalia prominent in the press photos. Ritter said that was a deliberate reminder that Zaluzhny has Banderite muscle behind him. Not so much any more, it seems.
Things Are Going Badly for Ukraine — Really Badly Business Insider (furzy)
Take with a fistful of salt. The one thing making this report plausible is Macron was to go to Odessa, not Kiev, which seemed pretty odd:
🚨 BREAKING
According to French media, the Kiev regime tried to lure French President Emmanuel Macron to Ukraine in order to murder him and then blame his death on Russia in order to bring media attention back to Ukraine and increase financial and military aid from the west.… pic.twitter.com/VqrH3Uph2w
— Gabe (@GabeZZOZZ) February 13, 2024
Ukraine SitRep: A Collapse Is Coming – And Then? Moon of Alabama. Several shout outs.
Western Values
Canada refuses to extradite wanted Nazi RT (Kevin W)
Imperial Collapse Watch
The Age of Zugzwang Big Serge (Don D)
The new B-52: How the Air Force is prepping to fly century-old bombers Defense News
Trump
CIA Had Foreign Allies Spy On Trump Team, Triggering Russia Collusion Hoax, Sources Say Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi, and Alex Gutentag (Chuck L)
John Bolton: Trump’s Just Totally Making Stuff Up Now New Republic (furzy)
GOP Clown Car
The Santos stench: 6 takeaways from the New York special election Politico
Democrats flip George Santos’s New York House seat in high-stakes special election The Hill
Democrats en déshabillé
US House votes to impeach Biden’s immigration chief DW
This effort to depict political opponents as inferior or defective is only different in degree from what we are seeing from Zionists:
Why are Republicans more likely to suffer hearing loss? Washington Post (Dr. Kevin)
Drowning in code: The ever-growing problem of ever-growing codebases The Register (Kevin W)
FTC Chair Khan: Stop Monopolies Before They Happen Axios
The Bezzle
Bitcoin trades above $50K again — but it’s very different this time CoinTelegraph (furzy)
Sam Altman’s $7 Trillion Chip Dreams Are Way Off the Mark, Says Nvidia CEO Business Insider
Major new study to identify Kleptocratic “red flags” and craft new anti-corruption rules University of Exeter. Paul R:
Professor Heathershaw said: “Lawyers, accountants, company service providers and other professionals often play essential roles in the movement of illicit wealth. They can be enormously powerful and effective at resisting both scrutiny and regulation. This influence, along with the complexity of this terrain, has led to a lack of consensus around what counts as “enabling” activity and what consequences should follow.
Good luck with that but it does sound interesting.
Waymo Recalls and Updates Robotaxi Software After Two Cars Crashed TechCrunch
CalPERS’ 787 Seventh loses $120M of pre-Covid value California Closets (Joseph R)
Guillotine Watch
The Tech Plutocrats Dreaming of a Right-Wing San Francisco New Republic. Paul R: “It begins to feel like a hostile takeover of a distressed company.”
Class Warfare
Men Used to Have Wives. Now They Have Stylists. Wall Street Journal
Antidote du jour:
A bonus:
Valentine's Day Cow Artpic.twitter.com/WwfrsUapWy
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) February 14, 2024
And a different sort of bonus (Dr. Kevin):
— ﮼سعود ﮼الحربي🇸🇦 (@saud5040) October 18, 2023
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here
198 comments
Comments are closed.
‘Ihab Hassan
@IhabHassane
A substantial crowd of extremist Israelis are heading to the Nitzana Border Crossing with Egypt to prevent aid trucks from entering Gaza. I don’t know the extent of evil and sickness in a person who tries to starve another human being and finds joy in watching them die.’
I don’t know if they are still there or not but not that long ago a large group of people that had family members held in Gaza went to the border. Their idea was to starve the people of Gaza until those hostages were released. And Axios reported that the ‘Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is blocking a US-funded flour shipment into Gaza that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu previously vowed would be allowed into the Strip’
https://news.antiwar.com/2024/02/13/israeli-minister-blocks-us-flour-shipments-into-gaza/
Maybe people in Egypt and Jordon could fly drones over Gaza dropping food and medical packages to the people there though Israel would claim that these were actually illegal Hamas resupply drops.
Ryan Grim on Counterpoints commented that seeing people dancing to electronic music celebrating their blocking of the food aid was (paraphrasing here) the most sickening or disturbing thing for him to have seen.
It has finally emotionally become real to me that Israel has become a state controlled by a population of génocidaires.
The antidote du jour, that Zebra…
Zebras, are they white with black stripes or black with white stripes?
Yes.
I thought so, thanks for confirming. Another one of life’s mysteries solved…
That gave me a good laugh. Reminds of the below quote from the comedy classic, Caddyshack, when the Chevy Chase character Ty Webb is doing some practice on the putting green at Bushwood.
Danny Noonan. “That was amazing”
Ty Webb. “Thank you very little”
I saw my first zebras while on safari on Avenida Revolución, the black came first, white stripes later.
They operate a binary camouflage in which both white and black are critical: “A new study finds that zebra stripes disrupt light patterns that tsetse flies and horseflies use to find food and water. The discovery, experts say, is an exciting step forward in solving the riddle of why zebras sport such unique patterns”
Not a lot of people know that…
https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1757672152835522763
Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand
The US war machine is apparently not contented with a major war in Europe AND the Middle-East, it’s also prepping for one in Asia against China.
Call me conspiracist but if there’s one “Great Reset” currently undergoing it’s the U.S. fanning the flames of conflict everywhere. What would happen in case of global conflict? Look to WW2: the whole world was on fire, except America safe in the middle of both its oceans, reaping the benefits of its relative safety. This was a proper great reset, in the U.S.’s favor. It wouldn’t be that crazy from a strategic standpoint for them to want a remake…
Src: https://defenseone.com/policy/2024/02/air-force-announces-major-shakeup-prep-war-china/394125/
Air Force announces major shakeup to prep for war with China
2:44 AM · Feb 14, 2024
But then we were the world’s industrial power. Now, we hardly make anything, and, what we do, hardly functions, especially under a sustained period of conflict. And something tells me the kids won’t put the video game controllers to fight another losing war.
SecAF Kendall has been in the pentagon a very long time, maybe he did a stint or two on some MIC board over the years.
The change is “rearranging the deck chairs”.
If he means to deploy whole fighter wings in one forward operating base he is putting a lot of eggs in one big basket, Baskets that large are rare where USAF would be in range of objectives!
Motion is progress and it spends a lot of resources that do not pay back!
I do not go to sites such as defenseone, too depressing.
The USA cannot win a conventional war with China. The USA cannot win a conventional war with Russia. The USA cannot win a conventional war with Iran.
If the USA is preparing for war with China, Russia, and Iran and it cannot win a conventional war with even one of these countries then the only logical inference is that the USA is preparing for a NUCLEAR WAR with these countries. Hit them all at the same time hoping for a decapitating first strike and take the reputational damage and fallout.
Time to stock up those fallout shelters!
The ICBM and nuclear warheads make both the Atlantic and Pacific to appear as small ponds of deterence. And with porous land borders the US infantry is useless. Projecting war to China via Carrier Units is to make for “shooting fish in a barrel”. Kiss your EV goodbye!
“Calls Grow in Europe For Continental Nuclear Arsenals Aimed at Russia”
They’ve already got one and it is called the ‘Force de dissuasion’ and is the fourth largest nuclear weapons force in the world. I am of course talking about France’s nuclear stockpile. They don’t need those US nukes which only make the nations hosting them nuclear targets which I guess is the whole point. Will the French give over control to their fellow Europeans? Hell, no. If they did that then somebody like Ursula von der Leyen or Olaf Scholz would get their hands on a nuclear football without even paying for it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_de_dissuasion
So Russia, which has no desire or need to invade Europe, knows that if they did that then France would go nuclear causing them to go nuclear. That being the case, it is a MAD situation causing a nasty case of peace breaking out.
They’re nuts. Trump’s idea of making NATO countries pay more into NATO or forget US backing may have some merit. It might sober up the nutters or enough people around them.
When choosing the leader of a country, it is preferable that their IQ should be larger than their shoe size. People say that those NATO countries are free-loading off the US but it is not so simple. The US is able to set up strategic bases throughout the European mainland which increases the number of targets that Russia would have to hit with nukes rather than just going after the US. Using these bases and offices, the US is able to influence the politics of most countries to the point that many are US subservient. They benefit from selling US military gear to those NATO countries and lock them into using US military doctrine which makes them the modern version of Rome’s Auxiliary forces. If the US forces goes then most of that influence would soon disappear causing the Europeans to eventually have a more European-focused foreign policy. That cannot be tolerated which is why those US forces are going nowhere.
Indeed, in Empire of Sorrows, it is recounted at length how the US has more bases, hundreds, than any other country in the world, and this was written back in the early 2000s. How this is sustainable when the US can’t even build munitions anymore is a mystery to me, and likely a point of amusement in China and Russia.
I find none of this amusing, and I doubt whether the Russians, Chinese, or you for that matter really find it amusing either.
Yes, you are probably right. It’s making the US and the UK and the EU domestic economies much poorer, though. This cartoon is from the 1930’s. Not much has changed.
https://i.redd.it/2jz8vex6re461.jpg
Except that NATO use very little US made hardware. Mostly it is US planes, but even then it is largely limited to the smaller member nations. Ships, tanks, even the rifles are of European origin.
That said, the internals may be of US origin, or made in Europe on license. Things like radars and jet engines. This then allowing USA to have a say in when and where the finished product can be exported.
That appears to be changing now. Countries like Poland are going on a buying spree with a lot of that gear being US military gear. As countries like Germany are being de-industrialized, they will not be able to manufacture some major weapons themselves forcing them to turn to countries like the US and South Korea instead.
“As countries like Germany are being de-industrialized,…”
It’s too bad their source of cheap energy blew itself up, or maybe it was two Ukr guys in a sailboat that did it. / ;)
“As countries like Germany are being de-industrialized…”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/13/business/economy/norway-inflation-reduction-act.html
February 13, 2024
Generous subsidies are helping the United States steal green industries from Europe, as countries race to secure the energy supplies of the future.
[ This seems incomprehensible. How could a Germany or France allow its economy to be taken apart by US policy? ]
Keep in mind these are the same people who decided, after the Nordstream started blowing bubbles, to rather reactivate coal fired power stations instead of halting the shutdown of the remaining nuclear power plants.
Because environment, obviously.
Because the people in charge in the EU and its countries are making their money from sources that do not depend on the prosperity of the EU or the health of its inhabitants?
I have heard Michael Hudson opine that the European “leadership” class is deeply compromised and in no way represents the interests of the general citizenry.
The nukes still work, apparently. Though maybe not against Russia’s S-400 and S-500 air defense systems. Well, we can hope that radiation from the eastward jet stream flow of ash from incinerated America and the West ( which in fables always seems where elves and oldsters go to decline and die) will sicken the damn Rooskies, if our ICBMs and SLBMs don’t get through to do the job
The more EU/US conventional forces in central Europe the more the Russians have to kill off before the tryst goes nuclear.
From the days of atomic cannon, no one thought a major “push” by either side would stay conventional. US chemical biological and radiologic combat gear is designed to enter nuclear contamination as well as bio-war areas!
Whether the EU buys F-35’s that cannot do real war, more artillery where no one is making a lot of low profit margin shells, or 50 year old tech mechanized armies the default to nukes is always there!
Maybe the European crazies do not trust the US across the ocean to go Armageddon for their “sacred boundaries” kluged together by guys like Churchill and Stalin every 50 years or so.
George Washington was supremely correct in urging the US to stay away from the crazies in Europe!
US should cut the 40% of the MIC top line devoted to ignoring George Washington!
A frightening but all too instructive comment. Imagine the likes of, say, Lithuania settling centuries old scores determining American foreign policy.
“Imagine the likes of, say, Lithuania settling centuries old scores determining American foreign policy.”
It may not be Lithuanians per se, but I get the feeling this happens entirely too much.
Look at the family histories of the people in the Blob or influencing it.
George Washington apparently didn’t foresee that “the crazies in Europe” would emigrate to America and mutate into the neocons infesting his White House …
Most of the crazies were imported by the likes of those that started FEE et al, rolling back all of FDRs social programs and social narrative. The Austrian econ sort first as they are completely rabid about natural order[tm] and will write anything for a buck because self interest demands it.
Neo Classical has synergies with them, albeit they mask it with bad maths and physics too hide the ex ante axioms with pseudo science. Neo/new Keynesian is bastardized Keynes that shares more with the aforementioned than not and is slavish to models based on the rational agent model et al, all based on the miss applied theory IS-LM, Taylor Rule, and let the fur fly and the CB will always be there as lender of last resort …
Fun Fact … good luck fighting in MOP4 gear, head/facial sweating creates a pond in the lower mask and ultimately compromises the mask filters, gear is like being Michelin man goes to war with blinkers on … Oh and on tear in the suit and that is fked … have fun swapping that out in the field …
BTW the Nuke Fear thingy is way over blown, sure one day one might go off, but the idea that global thermal nuclear is upon us is just more fear spewing to get the mopes in line.
>>>BTW the Nuke Fear thingy is way over blown, sure one day one might go off, but the idea that global thermal nuclear is upon us is just more fear spewing to get the mopes in line.
I seem to recall that various scenarios involving nuclear weapons were wargamed during the Cold War and all of them ended with the escalation to full scale exchanges probably involving the end of the planetary civilization. Even a full exchange limited to just between Pakistan and India would cause a nuclear winter albeit of only a few years.
And while the numbers of warheads and their sizes are greatly reduced, we are still talking about thousands of bombs of which the smallest would obliterate the whole the area from San Francisco’s Financial District to city hall with areas like North Beach and Chinatown heavily damaged. Or there is Manhattan, which if a explosion was centered on Wall Street, would lose most everything up to Central Park
It is not likely that someone will use nuclear weapons. It is merely very plausible with a near guarantee of massive destruction, deaths in the hundreds of millions, and the destruction of the participating countries. The plausibility increases with the bellicose words and postering.
Models are rubbish mate, look at economics and now how things are going in Ukraine … path dependency is a hell of a drug …
Its just so Hayek in the notion that all governments end in totalitarianism and then slavery, aka loss of personal freedoms, hence the Market is a better framework to organize everything as profit and loss would make people rational via self interest.
Yet todate we see the opposite effect …
I have always considered “self interest” to be the epitome of irrationality, at the societal level. “Self interests” will always end in ‘oppositions’ which is was supposedly the function of politics to ameliorate.
“Society” may be considered as an abstract formulation, but the effects of it’s workings are most concrete.
Stay safe.
In the context of a market place, examined via natural order and cut from whole cloth it seems to make sense in the notion that humans are all guided by price or its power and nothing else. Yet all of human history is just the opposite, sure elites will play games till they are gone and then it starts all over again …
Am safe Ta mate …
All European countries are signatories of the NPT. N korea is a pariah for getting nukes and same Iran for being suspected to get nukes. Not Israel, not Pakistan. Likely no Germany or Japan if they acquire nukes.
Then, as with what we are seing with West’s position with respect to Gaza/Israel, the values promoted by the west will appear even more hypocritical. WHat will be the moral high horse then for the west to climb on? Democracy? The EU comission is a thoroughly anti-democratic outfit while the US is a plutocracy through and through.
So we are in the might makes right territory and the West will become more and more isolated, and without actual resources. Their know how can be ultimately reproduced.
Millions of people have long Covid, including children and pregnant people, studies show
contrast with:
Can America Turn a Productivity Boomlet Into a Boom? (NY Times)
On the other hand:
Stopping monopolies before they start, yeah about that. How about climb into your Delorean with Doc Brown and go back about oh 20 to 25 years ago ? Good luck with that, FTC Chair.
A lot of this happened during Republican administrations and Democrat administrations. Let’s say, my math says # 42 Clinton was in office 1992 to 2000. Next we get # 43 Dubya or “Little George” in office from 2000 to 2008. Lastly we get # 44 Obama for the period of 2008 to 2016. I’m not going into the weeds or the many details, but good grief mergers and consolidation really started to cook in the middle 1990s, especially with a soaring equity market, expanding markets for debt, and highly aspirational firms in private equity and venture capital.
Horse going back in the barn, more like you are trying to circle a herd of them on open prairie land. Something this site has touched on in recent times, with the focus on inflationary trends, is the consolidation in CAFO / livestock protein and meat packaging industries, respectively.
Very much a ‘must read’ today. I’ve no idea who Big Serge is in reality, but he is consistently producing the most clear eyed and objective political/military assessments of the world we are in right now.
First time I have seen it put so clearly.
‘Ultimately, I have always believed that there is no durable solution to the Israeli-Arab conflict short of military victory for one side or the other. Neither a two-state nor a one-state solution is viable given the current construction of the Israeli state and its ideological content. A one-state solution (which gives citizenship to Palestinians within the Israeli polity) is unlikely to satisfy anyone, but would be particularly abhorrent to the Israelis who would correctly perceive it as the de-facto surrender of their state via demographic overwhelming. A two-state solution would require an Israeli strategic retreat from its settlements. In short, any of the potential diplomatic arrangements constitute Israeli strategic defeat, and can only come about once Israel has actually suffered such a strategic defeat on the battlefield’
Historically, all colonial endeavour ended in one of three ways:
1) The settlers exterminate the local population, and keep survivors destitute, in reservations.
2) The natives revolt and win the war against the settlers — who have to depart.
3) The settlers give up their claims to dominance and merge with the native population.
For Israelis, (3) is anathema, and (2) is inconceivable. They are resolutely going for (1). Fundamentally, the Israel-Palestina conflict is no different from other colonial conflicts.
The Israelis could have had a two state solution or a peaceful Palestine that was heavily populated by and friendly to Jews. There had been a movement for latter before 1947 and efforts for the former past the turn of the century. Their ancestors decided to poison the water using violence, theft, and murder. Today, they added nonstop lying in addition to the current version full scale ethnic cleansing or genocide.
It is a tragedy that should not have happened, but here we are.
(1) is the US.
Yes, but…
There is no explanation of the ‘WHY”.
Big Serge explains that the US wants to prevent Iran becoming the regional hegemon, but doesn’t go to the next logical step?
Why does the US insist that it maintain its control of the ME region?
It is because of the regions oil resources.
The Anglo Persian Oil Co. was founded in 1909 and the Anglo-American empire has been conniving ever since to retain control over the region that provides the fuel that runs both their economies, and their imperial navies.
It is no coincidence that it was at this exact time that Britain and the US decided to fuel all future naval vessels with oil rather than coal.
The US dominates the world’s supply of petroleum, and they can’t let go.
Britain installed the Israeli garrison trip wire, it’s evolved to be primarily America’s responsibility to maintain it, and the situation has come to point where the wire is being tripped, and now we find ourselves with no good moves.
Big Serge’s exposition, without explaining ‘why‘ we don’t want Iran becoming the region’s hegemon is sort of strange.
Right. I was not impressed by his venture into history as opposed to military history–his usual beat. They are not the same. If war is diplomacy by other means that says there are other means and they are being ignored by our brain dead swamp in DC. They too love inappropriate historical analogies.
The incubation of Israel began back in the colonial fever swamps of WW1, not because of Auschwitz, and the result has become a kind of self imposed “eschatological” redoubt that never needed to be and that Jewish people worldwide would arguably be better off without. The way forward in all these situations is for the powerful and deluded who created them to stop playing chess.
I would dispute that the incubation of Israel started back in the “colonial fever swamps of WWI,” and in fairness “Big Serge’s” pairing to Auschwitz. There was a kingdom of Israel back in the day, kinda in roughly the same area that the modern Israel is on the map. I hear tell someone wrote a book about it even.
Then the Assyrians, apparently, and some time later the Romans, then some different type of Western Europeans, Arabs, the Ottomans, Napoleon made a cameo, the Ottomans again, the British, and now the US and Israeli bromance. But irredentism is a pattern that clashes no matter what you wear it with.
Not insignificantly, Persia, or what we might call Iran today, has been understood as a “regional hegemon” for some… time, throughout that process, and oil wasn’t the big deal then that it is now. So what for all the fighting back to antiquity? “Big Serge” does good work, but he/she/it is still only an internet bloggist – perhaps temper your expectations?
Israel, like Ukraine, is a liminal space, an area historically prone to conflict because it is an area at a confluence of different cultures, religions, and geographies, as well having a nice climate (or so i’m told never been there don’t plan to go). Also, seems, easy to capture, hard to hold.
So like, back at you, Carolinian.
No, there does not need to be a why beyond the one Big Serge provided.
US foreign policy is to prevent the development of regional hegemons.
The US is now a net petroleum exporter.
In 1950 coal was a more important energy source than oil. Today coal is not that far behind oil and nat gas has grown a ton:
https://ourworldindata.org/global-energy-200-years
And Iran’s crude is heavy sour, not very valuable. We like light sweet crude, the sort that the US, Saudis and Iraq produce.
Why would that be?
What danger would a regional hegemon present?
Do you believe that all the oil the US exports is derived from wells in the US?
From The U.S. Energy Information Administration;
IIRC (others could explain it better than I), the light sweet crude oil is very inefficient for making the diesel fuels that run most of the maritime, locomotive and truck fleets here. As we do not produce heavy crude ourselves we have to import it, thus the refining capabilities mentioned in your article. The export of light fracked crude oil balances the forex equation.
Most imported heavy crudes to the US come from Canada and Mexico. There is significant integration of the three countries oil and gas production systems. The amount of oil the US directly imports from the Middle East is pretty marginal and is not in any way important to the US domestic economy (it is, however, absolutely vital to both Europe and China).
Arguably, the US moved into the Middle East post war solely as a favor to the UK to maintain western control of the oil resources there, although US private companies were major players in the early days of Saudi oil, in contrast to Iran and Iraq where Britain dominated. At one time, oil services company Bechtel had almost as a right to have one of their VP’s as a SoS, with Halliburton displacing them in later years. But the US oil majors have never managed to have their own way in the Middle East, they’ve mostly been displaced to one degree or other by either local companies such as Aramco or by European companies.
But the Middle East is also equally crucial as a transport crossroads between the Europe and Asia and other regions. So there are plenty of reasons for all the major global players to want to prevent any one country dominating the region. And of course the Gulf States in particular have spent billions on ensuring that the US is available as their stick if they need one against Iran or whoever. These things are almost never one way – global powers get manipulated by local players almost as much as vice versa. I don’t think US interest in the Middle East has ever had a particularly clear strategic objective along the lines of the Munroe Doctrine.
What is a “SoS”?
Secretary of State?
This is what Noam Chomsky described as the main motivator for US dominance in the Middle East, incl. the 2003 invasion of Iraq: the ability to deprive China of oil when needed as a source of power over China. No need to own the oil companies or steal the actual oil.
Exactly. Canada alone exports to the US well over 2 million barrels of dilbit (diluted bitumen heavy oil from the tarsands of Alberta) per day. It is refined at the Koch refinery in Detroit, two US West Coast small refineries fed by the Trans Mountain pipeline, and the rest makes it to compatible refineries on the Gulf Coast. It requires special equipment, and produces mountains of carbon granules as waste, that funnily enough, can be burnt at certain thermal-electric power stations like ours in Nova Scotia.
Now, is this Canadian “heavy oil” flogged off at $25 per barrel discount because we’re such great people, counted as part of US production, disguised in name by some sleight-of-hand US bureaucratic manner? I don’t know, but nothing would surprise me. Saudi exports to the US apparently amount to only 300,000 bpd. Plus, the huge former export from Russia of low sulphur diesel made from natgas presumably no longer exists. But does it still enter by the back door, wink wink, nod, nod?
I don’t know, but simply saying the US is self-sufficient in oil seems likely to not be completely truthful. Has dear Dementia Joe refilled the US strategic reserve yet? You know, with all the supposed extra oil the US produces? I don’t know.
What I do know is that the sickos who run the US and their Israeli counterparts have balls of steel, being so bizarrely brazen, yet really without the slightest backup of a decent military these days. So, go after China as well? Why the hell not? Should be a cakewalk to give China a damn’ good thrashing! How’s the DPRK’s immediate ruination of South Korea and Japan going to be looked at? Because sure as eggs is eggs, if the US lunatics go swaggeringly after China, North Korea will unload all it’s got at the slightest provocation. But still the US presses on! Lunacy and greed and killing are the hallmarks of the US elite. Pure filth to my way of thinking. YMMV.
Yes, Devastation and Debasement is the essence of US history.
Rob Urie is good on this today.
In the same way Israel’s Eschatological Garrison / Settler Colonial State (in Big Serge terms) explains its motives, the US NeoLiberal Capitalist endgame of financialized monopoly control (in Urie’s terms) requires the US to continuously assault those geographies of the world not yet subject to financialized monopoly control.
Its not the oil, its who we’ve become.
More to the point!
Thank you for the link. Rob Urie makes a lot of sense.
“Why does the US insist that it maintain its control of the ME region?
It is because of the regions oil resources.”
Saddam Hussein and Iran both would be happy to have been able to sell oil freely on world markets for US dollars.
Yes. When it comes to the geostrategic stuff in the ME then IMO it’s a smoke screen. There once was a Cold War with Soviets favoring the Arabs and that was the excuse.
But the Cold War is over and now the Israelis are threatening Iran and therefore the world’s access to oil. For that matter our Ukraine adventure has done the same to Europe.
And even as we flirt with nuclear destruction to maintain access to oil the Green New Dealers claim they want to get off of it. It’s all a muddle led by mediocre politicians going through the motions.
If that were the case, then it would make sense to restrain Israel.
It’s not about resources or even money.
It’s about power for power’s sake, pure and simple.
The neocons certainly don’t care much about money or the economy at all.
Rome didn’t build it’s empire for economic reasons either, definitely not consciously so.
Plunder became an important part of that economy, but pecuniary interests were not the driving force.
Even the value of the enormous treasures that conquering roman generals stole consisted first and foremost of the bragging rights.
The roman power elite were principaly Homo Politicus, not Homo Economicus.
And so are the Neocons and plenty of not officially neocon Blob/deep state functionaries as well, it is at the same time overcomplicating and oversimplifying things to try and reduce everything to greed.
The Neocons and a significant part of the Blob don’t think about the economy and neither know nor care about how it works.
The only value of the economy in in the tools for the projection of hard power it is supposed to provide.
And they were no doubt quite shocked to realize that said economy could NOT on demand provide them with the tools of destruction of their wet dreams.
They think of themselves as machiavellian masterminds but because they aren’t really that smart and have complete one track minds, they too were bamboozled by all the nonsense hype of Mr. Market.
Large parts of non MIC Corporate America would prefer good relations and thriving business with China.
Which of course goes even more for their drain circling european counterparts.
Yes, there are some, in particular the financial sector who would quite like taking China’s and Russia’s economy by force and drain it dry.
But they are far from being the sole and at least currently probably not even the most important driving force of the US’ hyperaggressive foreign policy.
Many of the most powerful, influential drivers really are in the state, not the private sector.
And even when some of them spend time other other side of the revolving door, they see financial institutions and arms manufacturers as tools of the Empire, not the other way round.
Ayn Rand would define them as hardcore stateists (not that she was an authority in anything but if the shoe fits).
The ultimate goal of the neocons is not momentary, not economic, it is the omnipotence and eternal, total, global domination of the United States Government.
That is why the somewhat smarter neocons like Sullivan (who are also the most dangerous ones) would very much like to re-configure the whole US economy to have more dirigisme and planning by the government, at the very least were arms procurement is concerned, they have seen it work brilliantly in Russia.
Some others are likely interested in trying to test the potential of Eric Schmidt’s defense startup ecosystem concept, have Silicon Valley take over from the entrenched giant “defense” contractors.
They really aren’t married to any particular model of how they get their weapons of mass destruction.
They aren’t necessarily married
to neoliberalism even if it played an important role in paving the way for their rise to power.
But if a complete re-vamp of the entire economy IS necessary to get the tools to annihilate China and Russia, they are fully on board (and indeed the only group to even potentially have the power, the drive and the ruthlessness to pull it of, the neocons as America’s only potential revolutionaries, the ones who might end up burrying neoliberalism for the sake of world domination).
Re-instating the draft would be only a first step.
If building a system more similar to, say, classic fascism or general totalitarianism turns out to be more effective than the inverted totalitarianism already in place, if massive amounts of government planning and control is the only way to mobilize sufficient resources and people for total war against their geoplitical rivals (and very likely it IS the only way) than by Jove that is what they will work towards tirelessly.
And if they think that wokeness is a hindrance and some kind of fundagelical theocracy works better to produce the sort of society that will provide them with the armies they need, that’s completely okay with them as well.
These are just examples of possibilities.
But the point is, on danger of being repetitive, the neocons and their fellow travelers are not ultimately wedded to any particular economic or political system, they aren’t at all dogmatic or pickish where the means are concerned, they care only about outcomes, and their ideal outcomes are not primarily defined in economic terms.
The economy is a tool and a source of tools, a weapon and a source of weapons.
But some billionaires becoming even richer in the process is incidental.
Even if those billionaires pay for their think tanks, for the neocons THEY are the useful rich idiots.
…but the US is a democracy!
Atlas Shrugged was a warning…
Francisco d’Anconia
“But if a complete re-vamp of the entire economy IS necessary to get the tools to annihilate China and Russia”
but not sufficient. SOOO many other things would be required for the US to be able to defeat Russia & China (add in for good measure Iran & North Korea)
+1!
The electric car debacle is hilarious. If this is “the way” liberal Democrats intend to save the world, where is the huge public relations campaign to entice adoption? Other than offering tax credits, the favorite behavior changing device of liberals, what’s on offer to convince people that concerns over being left on the side of the road are overblown, that range issues aren’t a problem, that the premium price comes with benefits, that this is going to save the entire world, whatever, and so forth?
These people are useless, truly.
To a large extent, American culture is built around personal cars and has been for the past century. You have your ‘driving season’, the extensive highway systems, pedestrian-hostile cities, you have what sort of car you drive as a personal statement of who you are and for some, the bigger the better. But to properly deal with climate change, a lot of that would have to go away with smaller and fewer vehicles for example. So I suspect that the whole EV movement is just a way to keep ‘car culture’ going while trying to look like you are doing ‘something’ about climate change-
https://e360.yale.edu/features/wrong-turn-americas-car-culture-and-the-road-not-taken
I’m tempted to say that the car culture is a continuation of the “cowboy into the sunset” idea of freedom. If you disagree with the local zeitgeist you hop on your horse/motorcycle/car and head of towards the horizon and a new start. And if you do not own any of that, there is always the stagecoach/bus.
I live in rural upstate NY. There is very limited public transportation. Without a car you have to depend on others to do necessary things like grocery shopping or going to the doctors.That can be difficult or even impossible. It is amazing to watch people going to and from work.A lightly used road becomes clogged with vehicles. The only way to reduce dependance on cars is through good public transportation. I don’t see that happening. At one time years ago we had a good public bus system. As more people got cars the public transportation went out of business.I don’t see it being revitalized soon.
Rural living absolutely requires cars. Suburban sprawl does too. Without the population densities (a little higher than duplexes) and comfortable walks to the transit stops, transit *will* suck.
Land use is key to working transit. The US has adopted the “designed to fail” algorithm.
Costa Rica used to(I have not been in a decade) have a rural poplulation and a working mass transit. Buses everywhere. It really opened my eyes to the ‘must have density’ argument.
“Rural living absolutely requires cars.”
Not really, Adam. Farmers and peasants lived in rural areas for millennia without cars. The Amish today live in rural areas and travel with horse and buggy. Or, they use pony carts and bicycles. They also own and run a network of small local stores.
Amend that statement to : today’s rural living, with large shopping centers, consolidated schools, and no public support for local rail, trolley, or bus lines, requires that one own a car. Or, pickup truck.
If you want to get Americans to riot in the streets from coast to coast, take away their cars.
Truly useless would be continuing to drive bigger gas guzzling vehicles like suv’s and trucks, all the while claiming that we can’t change, that ‘folks’ have been driving combustion engines for thousands of years. Really. Truly useless is pretending that common sense is at the wheel, and common sense says that climate change is a hoax.
I got two cents, now fill ‘er up.
Stayed at frankly one of the nicest Comfort Inns ever in Mojave, Ca. where most every other motel around is so ancient some offer ‘direct-dial phones’ or ‘Color TV’ as persuasion to spend the night.
Maybe I don’t get out much, but this particular Comfort Inn had 4 stalls to charge your EV from 100 to 350 kW, off to the side from where you park your car. It was well lit and almost struck me as a service station-which i’m sure was the intent.
Is this commonplace in motels now?
Can’t speak too much about motels, but the typical business traveler cheap-ish hotels I tend to frequent on US road trips seem to have been adding chargers over the last couple of years. Not everywhere, but if even seem them in the slightly more touristy places in WV (which doesn’t have good infrastructure for EVs otherwise),
I rented an EV while on a trip last year, and I would argue the biggest bonus was to be able to plug it in at the hotel and have a fully charged car the next morning.
Take a trip to Harris Ranch – both Tesla and Charge America infrastructure. They were early adopters – goes along with the airstrip I suppose.
US seizes plane that Iran sold to Venezuela
Boeing called. They need a few bits and bobs (read: doors) to finish the new VC-25Bs before Trump’s return.
The above is snark. Forgot the /s.
This seems like a back-door way to bully Venezuela. The geniuses who did this do not understand that Iran already banked the money when the deal was consummated. So it has zero effect on Iran, but kicks Venezuela just for grins and giggles.
This habit of just stealing other people’s stuff and daring them to do anything about it is a bad look. It is so petty and vindictive; not a sign of strength at all. The US playing the thug at the corner mugging people for their wallets is not something that will age well.
USA do seem to have a love hate relationship with gangsterism…
I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.
Smedley D. Butler, War is a Racket
Strange times make for strange partnerships, perhaps; John Bolton being quoted and covered in the New Republic article. Seems like on that platform and their writers, it is frequently the plan to throw all things Trump out the window and that includes anyone who served in that administration.
I find some things Trump says to be alarming, and maybe a little “WWE self promoting” on the more alarming statements. Like I suggested yesterday…not a real fan of Trump. Frankly, leaving NATO in the dust just does not seem like a well thought plan; all those empire bases of operation employ an awful lot of military and civilian staff. And frankly to add onto it, someone like John Bolton I also find alarming since he is a hardened veteran of all manner of neocon war hawking and scare tactics.
Now I’m curious to know if Bolton still travels with security detail. Or possibly he takes care in planning his travel by air.
Apparently someone is on the case. The DOJ charged a guy for trying to hire someone to assassinate him a couple of years ago, and he didn’t hear about it until the charges came out.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/11/bolton-iran-assassination-plot-tehran-government-00051083
What is funny, though, is that one of the people who came up with the idea of assassinating Soleimani is now whining about Iranian state sponsored terrorism. No sense of self awareness there.
From Hospitals Deny Immunocompromised Patients’ ADA Requests For Masks
This is also fallout from the Biden CDC’s active casual eugenics program. Back when the COVID shots were first available under Biden, the CDC directory, Walensky, of Newton (where the schools upgraded their air ventilation systems district wide by the end of 2020), in flowery language equated respirators with adultery.
It’s hardly a surprise that most of the medical establishment believes that respirator use is unnecessary.
This is what failed public health messaging does.
At this point, it’s malicious. Public health in America is run by malevolent actors. This is only shocking in so far as, given the extreme peril of public health degradation, it seemed sacrosanct, even in neoliberal America. But because markets, go die, is preeminent.
The attempted assassination of Macron by Kiev, if true, is very serious news. However, the source is France 24 according to the video, but that page is nowhere to be found within the official website, so it is still most likely fake news.
Hindustan Times, which likes to paint in bright colors but does not make things up, cites as others do a report in an French magazine, Challenges. And the trip was apparently cancelled due to security concerns:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVXyfqpNY6Y
It was to ink a big defense deal, so the cancellation, the lack of an official explanation, and the failure to reschedule look mighty odd.
This must also be tied to the earlier episodes where a large number of French ‘mercenaries’ were reportedly hit by a Russian missile attack, then the French representatives who came to claim some of the bodies were also hit. At the time there were suggestions that France was angry at some faction of Ukrainian services for the ‘lapses’.
This may echo the recent Selidovo attack dynamic, where internecine political battles are won by helping Russian missiles find your opponent. Like Afghani feuds settled by reporting a neighbor to the US base.
Nothing quite like getting the whole rival clan wiped via AGM-114 Hellfire to a wedding reception.
Absolutely nothing on the Challenges.fr website. I’d also note that it’s not really the kind of scoop they would go after, as a centrist-bourgeois news weekly.
I’m waiting to be wrong but for now, I’m calling bs on this one.
Wellie Hindustan Times may have been snookered, but something is very very wrong when France and Ukraine announce a defense deal, Macron is to go to Ukraine to sign it, and very oddly Odessa, not Kiev, and then the whole thing is cancelled with no explanation and no rescheduling or talk of rescheduling.
There is an article on Challenges.fr from 3 days ago but it focuses on the stunned surprise of the VIP business execs (this is Challenges.fr…), who were supposed to go with Macron, when they learned of the cancellation. It does however, say that it was linked to security concerns. The stated reason for going to Odessa was that “France built much of it” (yeah, well…)
https://www.challenges.fr/politique/emmanuel-macron-reporte-son-voyage-en-ukraine_883270
A different explanation. Presented for comment and not necessarily for truth:
https://t.me/sonar_21/9635
Why did Macron refuse to visit Ukraine?
Interesting details emerge regarding the death of two “volunteers” from France in Ukraine – winemaker Adrien Baudon de Mony-Pajol and technical specialist Gennady Germanovich. Let me remind you that on February 1, the head of the Kherson administration Prokudin announced the death of two Frenchmen as a result of a strike by the Russian Armed Forces, and later Macron himself spoke about their death. But according to my information, the situations are much more interesting.
First of all, they are not volunteers. This myth was quickly debunked, proving that Germanovich was a highly qualified specialist in the field of security. He was a former soldier of the French Foreign Legion and had close ties not only with representatives of the neo-Nazi movements of France, but also with the Belarusian regiment of Kastus Kalinouski.
Secondly, according to my information, the French were shot on the Odessa-Kyiv highway in the area of the Razdelnyanskaya community in the Odessa region, and not as a result of a Russian drone strike on a car in Berislav, as Prokudin said.
As I learned from my sources in the SBU, those killed as consultants were involved in organizing the visit of a high-ranking delegation from France, and their work included assisting the Ukrainian special services in carrying out some kind of provocation, probably for the subsequent accusation of Russia. However, having found out the details of the Ukrainian special operation, the French refused further “cooperation” and hurried to Kyiv to urgently leave Ukraine. This refusal cost them their lives.
By a completely non-random coincidence, a few days after their deaths, the French President canceled his visit to Ukraine for security reasons.
I do not rule out that the Ukrainian security forces may soon return to the idea of carrying out a similar provocation, but with the participation of a delegation from another country. Conclusions are drawn and errors are analyzed.
@ukr_leaks_eng
Re Ebola vaccine helping someone with Ebola… I believe the diphtheria vaccine worked the same way – they would give kids who were sick a shot or booster that often saved their lives.
Am I the only one now confused about the meaning of the word vaccine? Perhaps we could have two words – one for a shot that is truly sterilizing and another for a shot that is somewhat preventative re infection and more serious illness.
You’re not alone. I can only conclude the confusion has been deliberate.
The two words are already in use: “vaccine”, and “shots”.
There may be some quirky historic reasons having to do with how it works. I first heard about a cancer vaccine from a friend in my salad days and had a hard time grasping why the research was for a “vaccine” that would only be useful for someone who had that cancer – not a shot I could go get for preventio, like a DTAP. (Nothing came of that project, that I know of.)
CDC and NIH re-defined vaccine when mRNA Covid 19 shots were introduced by Moderna and Pffffizer.
Truly Orwellian times since WW2.
Anyone who ass-umes a vaccine is sterilizing is a walking anachronism. I personally am a walking anachronism with a forward chest-tilt and knuckle-drag- Trogluddite.
It seems the methane map missed one of the more recently created piles of trash to emit methane. I assume this would dwarf most of what is recorded. The CIA’s baltic nordstream mess.
I couldn’t read the Bloomberg report on the Iranian gas pipeline because it was behind a paywall, but I wonder if the people who did the Nordstream bombing were getting a little bored. At least that one burned off, but still, it will be a huge carbon release as well.
Don’t forget the war in Ukraine, and now Gaza. I did note that in my letter to Genocide Joe.
Remember when King Abdullah’s father went to war against the Palestinians in ’70-’71? Jordan, not Israel, had annexed the West Bank for 17 years, until ’67. Then Jordan invaded the West Bank again in ’73. King Hussein made the Palestinians stateless by taking away their Jordanian citizenship in ’88. King Abdullah’s memory is a bit foggy here. Granted the PLO tried to assassinate King Hussein, blaming him for their plight.
King Abdullah also forgot to mention his father and he hosted Hamas leadership as residents in Jordan during the 90’s and 00’s. (Side bar: King Abdullah’s English should be good given he was educated in England and the US.) I guess being King means never having to say you’re sorry.
His father WAS assassinated by a Palestinian.
Admittedly I am told there were something like nine other attempts.
His grandfather (King Hussein’s father), I believe.
Oh, duh, correct.
Hmmm…. A bit simplistic view.
See: https://www.edmaps.com/html/palestine_in_ten_maps.html
May as well go all the way back and give the Palestine, entire, back to it’s original inhabitants, the Neanderthals? (This question is just as convoluted as everything else in the region.)
See: https://www.science.org/content/article/new-fossils-reveal-strange-looking-neanderthal-israel
The Palestinians have been ‘footballs’ for all sides in this power struggle for decades.
Nuke Jerusalem and have done with it.
I rec the book “We Could Have Been Friends” by Raja Shehadeh for post WW1 history and a great story.
His father Aziz, was an accomplished attorney, as is he, who tried to hold back the tide of Zionism while fighting for the property rights of the displaced owners. He believed no Palestinian state, no peace.
Complicated politics and nasty Brits slowed but didn’t stop his successes. He died in 1985, being stabbed to death outside his home. Case was memory holed by the Izzies, not that Raja didn’t try. Sad.
Boarding schools–Eaglebrook (through Grade 8), Deerfield Academy, Oxford. Also flew military attack choppers. Thoughtful educated Mensch living in a very very tough part of the world.
Imagine what he has seen heard and done!
The problem, dear Brutus, is not in the stars, but in ourselves….
How do we get leaders and citizens, or citizens without leaders, to perceive and realize that we are all on the same small fragile boat and we better figger it out pronto and start pulling in synch with a common goal, Or Else!
Seems intractable…
His country has no petrowealth and is landlocked between far wealthier and more powerful neighbors. His family was imposed on the indigenous Palestinian population as a consolation prize for losing Mecca and Medina to the Sauds. He saw what happened when the far more powerful Syrian, Iraqi, and Egyptian states tried to act on behalf of the Palestinians. They were invaded repeatedly, coups plotted and more pliable compradors installed.
He’s not going to lift a finger and will keep doing everything that Americans and Israelis tell him to do.
That’s quite a slanted retelling of history.
Britain left Mandatory Palestine without making any formal preparations for either of the two UN-approved successor states, of Israel and Palestine. Various Jewish settler groups established “facts on the ground” of Israel – including the Socialist Zionists of Ben-Gurion, who were marginally more peaceble, and an attempt by Menachem Begin and the Revisionist Zionists to import weapons and establish a militia successor of Irgun and the Stern Gang. The adjacent Arab states of Iraq and Jordan and the Hejaz (whose heads of state had been installed from the various Hashemite princes by the British) moved in to annexe the territory set aside for Palestinians.
The various Arab-Israeli wars put any Palestinian state on hold – quite why is not really clear strategically rather than tactically. I suspect the Arab-Soviet alignment and US global manoeuvering meant the Israeli-dominated status quo was preferred.
All these attacks on pipelines brings into focus the futility of trying to do reduce my carbon footprint. And they want me to eat insects.
‘Gabe
@GabeZZOZZ
🚨 BREAKING
According to French media, the Kiev regime tried to lure French President Emmanuel Macron to Ukraine in order to murder him and then blame his death on Russia in order to bring media attention back to Ukraine and increase financial and military aid from the west.’
When I heard that Macron was cancelling his visit, I figured that it was the Russians refusing him permission to visit the Ukraine out of spite and I think that Macron wanted to originally go down to Odessa. But for the Ukes to go after Macron is a real big deal. This was the same guy who was emptying France’s military stores after the Russians killed all those French “mercs.” And a few short weeks later they want to kill him for a publicity blip to get more money and weapons? So here is the thing. How many western politicians like Scholz or Sunak will want to go visit the Ukraine now knowing that it is not the Russians that they have to fear but Ukrainian radicals? The country is in the middle of a leadership purge so it is even more unstable than usual. The place is a viper’s den.
Not a word about it on any French news sites. So far just reddit and twitter with a dodgy video supposedly from a French channel but it doesn’t sound like one to me.
As a french, this looks a bit fake to me. The voice do not match the lipsynch very well and sounds not natural for a real anchor on a french TV channel (France 24, according to the logo on the down right corner). All you can find in french speaking news is the fact that Macron have cancelled or postponed the visit for non better precized ‘security reasons’. For sure, if this is true the french MSM would prefer not to develop further, but I think it is better to wait some other more trustworthy source before claiming it loudly.
Yeah, when the announcer said “le président français”, I thought it was a foreign news channel broadcasting in French.
See the Hindustan Times clip. Cites a French magazine, not a broadcast.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVXyfqpNY6Y
When I looked at that tweet (and I pulled up the whole thing) I did not see a video. Maybe added later?
The magazine is “Challenges”, a right-wing “business” publication which as far as I’m aware doesn’t have much of a record in political reporting.
The (paywalled) story is herehttps://www.challenges.fr/politique/emmanuel-macron-reporte-son-voyage-en-ukraine_883270.amp
And it just cites “security reasons” as the cause of the cancellation of the trip. There is some amusement to be had from the fact that the Ukraine committee of the French employers association, the Medef, has cancelled its proposed visit as well. The two were clearly connected.
Not only fake, but also playing into the hands of the messaging behind imperial population control:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/feb/12/french-security-experts-identify-moscow-based-disinformation-network
Disinformation provides a ready made pretext for the academics involved in the French version of the MICIMATT (those involved with or in conversation with IRSEM, the Strategic Research Institute of the French Military, for example https://www.irsem.fr/) to abandon the unfinished task of epistemic decolonization.They are predominantly area specialists primarily in Slavophone, African, Middle Eastern, and Sinophone studies, i.e., those that were most heavily invested in the Orientalism of the Cold War and the Global War on Terror, hence involved in those fields most in need of deep decolonization. Disinformation gives them a way to avoid the demands of decolonization in their field — or to deflect decolonization into a call directed unilaterally at US “peer competitors.” As has been widely observed, the recent call for “decolonization” of Slavophone studies (https://deliberatio.eu/en/analyses/on-decolonizing-slavic-studies-in-europe-and-america) is a thinly veiled cover for the Balkanization of Russia (https://european-resilience.org/analytics/what-will-russias-dissolution-look-and-should-one-expect) without any corresponding adjustment in the geopolitical organization of US-led geopolitical hegemony.
As the contributors here well understand, counter-disinformation operations are a crucial technique of imperial population control in the age of imperial decline.
So, with Jon Stewart back, is Monday pin a medal on a Nazi night?
Simplicius had a clip of Zanny Minton Beddoes of The Economist talking to Jon Stewart. The whole thing is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cmWbSv-GOE I watched some of it and it’s stomach churning. It’s something else to see that Stewart came back to the Daily Show in order to be a hardcore neocon and culture warrior. Listen between 9:00 and 10:00 to hear her talk about the value proposition of getting more Ukrainians killed. Stewart responds with how dreadful it is that some right wingers don’t want to do that.
She really is a vile creature and almost makes Jon Stewart look good – almost.
Dancing frog. utube. 20 seconds.
Everybody do the
ZionistMichigan Rag.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIIomB3b_dw
was excited Jon was back – still am – but started listening to Zanny (good term for her views) and felt uncomfortable when she started talking about “good classical British liberalism” which made me go huh? – and in the same breath gave examples of classical liberalism; Reaganism, Thatcherism even Clintonism – oh yeah, she is championing classical liberalism /s – then smearing Orban with Meloni and Le Pen – couldn’t watch anymore, but persevered – Jon didn’t push back – it became a pile on of Putin/Drumpf – then her voice became grating with the support for the proxy war being worth the price – i’ll tune in again hoping……
This is an epic role reversal… remember when Stewart attacked the bowtied Tucker Carlson for his role in the divisive disinfotainment industry. Now Carlson is doing daring hard news interviews, and Stewart is reduced to retred polemicist.
Well, he did do that interview with Hillary and Condolizza which was quite the warmonger fest. Seemed to be very comfortable to do that.
The first ten minutes or so of monologue with the jokes about Biden and Trump were amusing. Maybe I’m just a sentimental sop but I still like the guy.
He always disappointed in the interview portion of the show. Same with Colbert, who’s now gone on to achieve levels of banality that are quite beyond the pale.
Stewart’s got comedy chops, for sure. It was easy to be a Jon Stewart fan during the Bush/Cheyney admin. It’s just really disappointing to see what’s underneath when the liberal masks come off. Colbert’s case is more pathetic. He turned out to be not merely apolitical, he’ll do almost anything for attention.
Colbert was an enthusiastic adopter of the “Trump is gay for Putin” meme, and often expressed it in remarkably crude terms.
One of those unintentionally revealing viewpoints, like the one about Ukrainians being “people just like us”.
I’m glad he’s back and it feels like a really comfortable old pair of shoes you put on after a long time in the shoebox.
I predict a banner year for him, rich in whimsy.
I saw some of the commercials during a Monday evening scan of some affiliated channel, I forget where but I had tuned into a Jeff Dunham comedy special…speaking of puppets…heh heh…
Aaron Maté
@AOC
campaigns for a Genocide Joe re-election “ideally… on progressive values.”
At minimum, progressive values would mean withholding your vote from Joe — and certainly not campaigning for him — until he stops the Genocide.
From promise to com-promise. Was her campaign rhetoric an act? Did she change once they showed her the missing Zapruder frames? Is politics in the U.S. nothing but the theater, shadows and smoke, a diabolical and masterful legerdemain on the compliant masses so that they come out ever couple of years to give an allusion of consent by the majority? It’s a sick joke what happened to her, and Obama and even JFK jr. It’s all so disgusting when I see the images of children, women, old men, journalist, doctors, nurses, innocent civilians getting blown to smithereens in Gaza and a generation of young men in the Ukraine killing fields.
https://x.com/aaronjmate/status/1757630436535075015?s=20
The power of Capital turns the aspirations of the many into commodities and co-opts anyone who rises to express them in other terms.
The Masters of the Universe have a master plan. There can be no life outside the Capitalist society.
absolutely – capitalism is a cancer – thanks again for your suggestion about the Party for Socialism and Liberation –
> Was her campaign rhetoric an act?
A simple bartendress?
> Ocasio-Cortez attended Boston University, where she double-majored in international relations and economics, graduating cum laude.
Those particular double-majors are preparatory for Careers in Intelligence Agencies at the Frederick S Pardee School of Global Studies. For example, Joseph Wippl is Professor of the Practice of International Relations: “Prior to his arrival at Boston University, he occupied the Richard Helms Chair for Intelligence Collection in the NCS training program.”
Bartendress?
From Taibbi, no paywall. Looks like additional information about the article in today’s NC links. From yesterday, so the stream is done and online now on utube and rumble.
Livestream Tonight 6:30 pm ET: Explaining Russiagate Exposé
Explaining the first of a multipart series cowritten with Michael Shellenberger and Alex Gutentag about the corrupt origins of the Trump-Russia investigation
https://www.racket.news/p/livestream-tonight-630-pm-et-explaining
It’s really hard to follow his presentations. If anyone can summarize, I’d be very grateful.
Shellenberger was on Watters’ show. Shorter and more direct, fewer details. Here’s a 4 minute twtr.
https://twitter.com/JesseBWatters/status/1757590814719443014
https://twitter.com/Kanthan2030/status/1757670292292571235
S.L. Kanthan @Kanthan2030
How the US has changed In 1953, Israel invaded Jordan and massacred 69 Palestinians (in a town called Qibya).
Americans were shocked. In response, President Eisenhower suspended aid to Israel.
Compare that to what’s happening in Gaza now and the American reaction.
2:37 AM · Feb 14, 2024
Maybe start your own blog?
“The new B-52: How the Air Force is prepping to fly century-old bombers”
That article says that the last B-52 was manufactured way back in 1962. That is 62 years ago by my count. Just for a bit of context to show how old this plane is, 62 years before 1962 when the last B-52 rolled off the production line was 1900 and in 1900 there were no real airplanes worth the name existing, only experiments.
At this point our using B-52s to bomb people is just pure nostalgia.
They dont use them to drop bombs anymore. There main use is to launch cruise missiles.
Well that’s different then (?). Hope they still carry the Dr. Strangelove post ejection survival pack even if in “stand off” mode.
I haven’t read the article but I’ve both worked on the B-52 (in the 60’s and 70’s) and followed it’s service life since. The USAF is not flying 100 yr old planes but they are planning on keeping the B-52’s flying until they are 100 yr old. I worked on the B-1B assembly line and, in my personal opinion, it can’t compare in terms of quality and reliability. Like the F-35 and modern cars the more high-tech gadgets you stuff into them the more there is to fail and the harder they are to work on and more expensive to own.
By way of example, I have two 2006 Honda Odyssey’s, one bare bones and one with all the fancy stuff. The fancy one has been sitting for weeks while I trouble shoot a wiring problem and the other one just keeps on going. With a good machine shop any good mechanic should be able to keep a Model A going for 100 years. Try that with a Tesla or 2024 Cadillac or F-35.
As long as the USAF doesn’t try to modernize the B-52 too much it should easily make the 100 year mark. Its basic design is very simple and it’s essential components, like flight controls, are easily inspected and maintained. And with hundreds in the boneyard for parts there’s no reason some of them can’t be kept going for 150 years or more. They’re not called venerable for nothing.
So you are saying we will still be bombing people (and I believe they did do some bombing in Afghanistan) in the year 3000? Great.
And my local airport has some private planes older than any B-52. Aluminum airframes can last a long time. Perhaps the reason the old B-52s still serve a function is that the concept of strategic bombing itself is circa 1952 but our crack Air Force can’t let go of their glory days. Ya never know when Tom Cruise might want to make a movie about them.
Men Used to Have Wives. Now They Have Stylists.
No, men used to have tailors. In the 1980s and ’90s, I had a tailor, much like the stylists of the article except my tailor would make clothes instead of pushing over-priced brands.
From said tailor, I learned that if I wore well-maintained clothes that fit, it was amazing what I could get away with.
I did not read the article. I looked at the Wall Street Journal’s post on Facebook to get what information I could. I have some thoughts about the crisis of masculinity.
A woman commenting on Facebook posted, “Men used to have fathers who would teach them how to dress.” Why do so many men dress like children? Why do we see so few confident, well-put-together men, i.e., the kind of men to which women are attracted? The answer is that in the gynocentric social order in which we live (a social order where women are more important than men), males feel most loved and respected as children. It is analogous to a hyena clan where the highlight of a male hyena’s life is as a cub enjoying the protection and esteem of its mother.
Another issue is the high level of competition in the dating market for men. Average women are no longer interested in average men. A saying heard among men these days is that men need to be ten times more than their grandfathers to attract a woman who is ten times less than their grandmothers. Dating coaches for men tell men that they have to have photos taken by professional photographers that make them look like James Bond in Casino Royale.
Come on, man. Women want a dude with status and not dressed like a poor schlub…taller is better and richer (more income, better car) yeah that’s a good target…Think a Charlie Harper type of lovable scoundrel from that comedy series ( at least, until the actor thought he was now bigger than CBS or whoever he ticked off )….I don’t have a stylist. More a jeans and polo shirt until said attire becoming a few pieces of thread…
Some of these comments I leave alone, since I’m not going there and second, I never had much success on the Tinder or whichever app…And I am not hideous ( my nieces tell me this, yeah LOL ) but I am not over six feet tall.
Average women are no longer interested in average men.
A large percentage of average men haven’t been interested in average women for decades, so perhaps turnabout is fair play.
Once every six months or so, I wish I could up-vote a comment on NC by ticking a box rather than just doing it in my head.
What has struck me from the beginning of this administration, is that in regard to foreign affairs Joe Biden is the most aggressively threatening and belligerent president America has ever had. My background in American history may be too lacking, but this president is really frightening to me.
The national leader who has from the beginning struck me as deliberate, moderate, always looking to diplomacy for problem solving is Xi Jinping. President Xi however has been continually fiercely vilified in the American and British media and by the respective leaderships from the beginning.
Joe has sat down at the tables again with foreign leaders, and in 2021 pronounced to the world America is back and that adults were back in the room. Just who the adults that he was speaking of, I think that personally I can’t figure who these adults are.
I mean, Blinken or Nuland or Sullivan – are these the aforementioned adults? At least Larry Summers hasn’t been appointed to any official post at the Federal Reserve but that’s a small bit of hope I’d suggest.
“Joe has sat down at the tables again with foreign leaders, and in 2021 pronounced to the world America is back and that adults were back in the room…
“Blinken or Nuland or Sullivan – are these the aforementioned adults?”
Importantly, these foreign policy leaders were groomed for policy-making positions all through the Obama years. The intent from the beginning seems to have been sheer policy toughness. I was startled at the opening toughness, but the group knew what they wanted to achieve.
oh Cookies Nuland was trained by the best – Nuland was principal foreign policy advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney – her and her monkey wrench logic goes back over red and blue administrations –
https://geopolitics.co/2021/02/18/victoria-nuland-had-a-hand-in-every-us-intervention-in-the-past-30-years/
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-03-19/First-session-of-China-U-S-talks-in-Alaska-concludes-YKnP3QNxEQ/index.html
March 19, 2021
China reiterates ‘mutual respect’ as foundation for Alaska talks
Senior Chinese diplomats reiterated mutual respect, sincerity and frankness in addressing relations with the U.S. as the two-day high-level strategic dialogue started in Anchorage, Alaska on Thursday.
China’s stance, “opposition to interference in internal affairs,” was also stressed by Chinese diplomats Yang Jiechi and Wang Yi during talks with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.
The sit-down marks the first face-to-face meeting between high-level officials of the two sides after the new U.S. administration took office. It also follows the first telephone conversation between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his U.S. counterpart, Joe Biden, after the American leader assumed office in January.
Unreasonable accusations from U.S. rejected
China firmly opposes the U.S. interference in China’s internal affairs and will continue to respond firmly, said Yang Jiechi, referring to issues related with China’s Taiwan, Hong Kong and Xinjiang.
Meanwhile, the U.S. side should mind its own business as the human rights situation in the U.S. has many problems, he criticized.
He urged the U.S. to change its zero-sum mentality, abandon such wrong practices as “long-arm jurisdiction,” and stop abusing the concept of national security to interfere with normal trade between the two countries.
“Let me be clear that in front of the Chinese side, the United States does not have the qualification to say that it wants to speak to China from a position of strength,” Yang emphasized.
Wang Yi echoed that China will not accept unreasonable accusations from Washington, urging the U.S. side to completely abandon its tyrannical acts of interference….
Putin? Xi?
“What has struck me from the beginning of this administration, is that in regard to foreign affairs Joe Biden is the most aggressively threatening and belligerent president America has ever had.”
Because he can.
If you want to see who anyone really is, give them unfettered power.
Yes, the measure of a person is how they treat people who are smaller, poorer or have less power than them.
The other saying that springs to mind is “be careful who you whack on the way up, because you might meet them on the way down”. So the US is in a world of trouble then.
I recently watched an examination of Philip K Dick’s life where many people who knew him were interviewed. His third wife said he wrestled with the question of what makes a person a human compared to an artificial construct when he wrote his book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? He decided that the crucial difference between them was that human beings have empathy for others. What do they say about Washington DC? If you want a friend get a dog.
UNDER-ASSISTANT-RULES-BASED-ORDER-MAN
(melody borrowed from The Under Assistant West Coast Promo Man by The Rolling Stones)
Well Bibi Netanyahu wants the Arabs to go away
Well he figures he’ll harass ’em and they’ll give up some fine day
About a thousand million Arabs calculate the other way
Bibi gets our bombs and he drops them where he can
We ship ’em air freight and he lets those big planes land
He’s our Under-Assistant-Rules-Based-Order-Man!
If we can’t control the oil trade our empire will fall down
Israel is there to help us push Ayy-rabs around
If they sell their oil with dollars we get to paint the town!
Bibi owns our Congress they run Uncle Sam
If they don’t back Israelis AIPAC puts ’em in a jam
Like everything in Congress it’s a vote-for-money scam
Bibi’s sharp, he’s really, really sharp
He sure does earn his pay, threatening his neighbors every day, yeah!
It may be hard but he finds a way
Yeah, he’s real, real sharp, yes he is
In Tel Aviv, in a seersucker suit, there he goes
Here comes the plane, uh-oh
It’s murder time, murder time
It’s murder time somewhere here
Pretty sure . . .
Now look here Genocide Joe, quit acting smart
Stop being that old let God sort em’ out sort
Don’t you go sellin’ this country’s ammo short
No, no Joe
Just because you think you’ve recently found
The Israeli system that we know ain’t sound
Don’t you go throwin’ your weight around
No, no Joe
‘Cause the Ottomans tried it and Hitler tried it
Pol Pot tried it too
Now they’re all sittin’ around a fire and did you know something?
They mentioned recently seeing you
Now Joe you ought to get it clear
You can push alms & ammo around with no fear
‘Cause we don’t have a voice over here
No, no Joe
What makes you do the things you do?
You gettin’ folks mad at you
Don’t kill off more ‘n you can chew
No, no Joe
‘Cause you want a scrap that you can’t win
You don’t know what you’re gettin’ in
Don’t go around leadin’ with a clean slate win
No, no Joe
Now you got AIPAC think tanks, some fair size think tanks
But you’re acting like a clown
‘Cause man we’ve got a lot of dead Gazans, a mess of dead Gazans
And you might get caught with your think tanks taking us down
Don’t go throwin’ out your chest
You’ll pop the ‘Re-elect Joe 2024′ buttons off your vest
You’re playing with a hornets’ nest
No, no Joe
You know, you think we’re somebody who thinks you’ve gone soft in the head
Just because you’re seein’ red
You better get that foolishness out and install Kamala instead
No, no Joe
And you might be itchin’ for a fight
Quit braggin’ about how your military can bite
‘Cause you’re sitting on a lack of dynamite
No, no Joe
No, No Joe, performed by Hank Williams
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_m3GVys3s4
“Hospitals Deny Immunocompromised Patients’ ADA Requests For Masks”
Not immunocompromised, just trying not to get sick.
Had to go to yet another doctor’s office yesterday. I took my Aranet. The reading in the waiting area was 1414, and in the examination room it was 1376. Not great. Of course, I was the only one masking.
I have not gotten an Aranet. Ignorance is not bliss, but I can kid myself things I cannot control aren’t as bad as they probably are when I don’t have evidence to the contrary right in front of me.
I also bring a portable HEPA filter with me (thanks to NC for the recommendations.)
If the Aranet readings are bad, I make sure i have the portable HEPA filter on.
I can’t control the reading in the room, but I try my best to protect myself.
Of course, the best way to protect myself is just not go.
That wasn’t really an option. I injured my knee and needed to have it looked at.
That I do have and I even learned to tape over a small hole on the side from a post on NC.
Naked Capitalism, an invaluable resource!
Brand? And which hole?
Thanks!
What brand do you use? So many bad reviews on Amazon for many of them.
https://www.target.com/p/westinghouse-portable-medical-grade-air-purifier/-/A-79707947
Thanks!!!
Sorry, wrong brand.
Pure enrichment.
Ok, TVM!
Same one for me. Covers around 50 square feet. You want to cover the charging port when you are using it as air can escape from it rather than going through the filter. Not really a problem except on a very long journey, but as they have been banned from airplanes(!?!) that probably won’t happen often.
The Mini?
Re: The Hill on NY special election to replace George Santos, and Politico’s ‘takeaways’:
Yep! In every district where-
Dems can run a former congressman who used to rep part of the current district, against-
An immigrant from Ethiopa via Israel who-
Has held elective office less than three years-
And was selected by local GOP officials rather than gaining and proving support in a primary-
https://ballotpedia.org/Mazi_Pilip
— they’ll kick ass! Should flip the House, easy! Fahgeddabout it!
There’s a reason they’re called “special” elections, folks.
Both state party selected candidates promised to run again in November. Not sure if anyone will run against the IDF paratrooper, Republicans have more primaries than Dems so it is possible, they can do it again then. Could be almost as much fun as the Trump/Biden rerun.
Unfortunately, the King of Jordan and other “Arab leaders” like their Yankee dollars, they like being able to go to Paris for shopping sprees, they like their London trophy properties and their shiny western jets and other toys.
So far, all we’re heard from them is talk. Talk is cheap.
By contrast, the Houthi leaders have no significant western assets to seize, no western bank accounts to freeze, no toys on delivery, and consequently, no [FAMILYBLOGS] to give.
“CIA Had Foreign Allies Spy On Trump Team, Triggering Russia Collusion Hoax, Sources Say Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi, and Alex Gutentag (Chuck L)”
The CIA and FBI have long used foreign cutouts to get around that pesky Fourth Amendment.
!0,000 dead from Covid in January is not newsworthy, imagine for a moment that the USA invaded New Mexico in an effort to depose President Al Sisi and suffered 10,000 dead and 20,000 wounded in the first Month.
Would that be Newsworthy?
And why are people assuming that 10K dead per Month is going to be the steady state?
Between immune dysregulation and a virus that continues to mutate rapidly isn’t that a tad unrealistic?
My expectation is that we will, at some point, be looking at 1MM plus deaths in a Month from Covid and its consequences.
Am I missing something?
>>>Am I missing something?
Only the decades of extensive propaganda to make us stupid with fear as well as the lies told to make us not think about Covid intelligently.
When her daughter was about to lose her first baby tooth, Kokoa Lawson went to work researching ideas. She wanted to make the tooth fairy experience magical and extra special for her only child.
She gave her daughter a $100 bill decorated with glitter and tiny removable rhinestones. “She kind of lost her mind when she found it,” says Lawson, who lives in Temecula, Calif.
“I simply said, ‘This is just what our tooth fairy does,’ and suggested they make it special in their own way for their kiddos,” says Lawson, 40, who works as a model and actress. Her outlay dropped to $20 for subsequent teeth.(WSJ)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I’d sometimes work a molar free a few days before it would have fallen out on its own accord in order to get 2 bits from the tooth fairy to spend on candy investments-which at the going rate allotted me 5 candy bars in which to rot other mining interests in my mouth.
A Benjamin for a bicuspid is simply outrageous, I would have found my dad’s vise-grip and done the deed for that kind of wampum.
$20 seems only merely wildly extravagant for tooth fairy rates of pay.
Sounds to me like the mother is the one who lost her mind. A blinged out $100 bill for a baby tooth?
5¢ candy bars – man i remember that – going to get my newspapers to deliver which was next door to a party store and would load up for the ‘energy’ – 10¢ for a soda in a glass bottle, cans weren’t the thing then –
Party store. American regional slang ftw.
>>>The Tech Plutocrats Dreaming of a Right-Wing San Francisco New Republic. Paul R: “It begins to feel like a hostile takeover of a distressed company.”
Whatever its many, many problems, San Francisco has been a liberal bastion for over a century and I not see some wealthy egotistical pinheads being successful in the long term. Also, their solution of making the city more of a police state than it already is with new, harsh drug laws ain’t a solution at all.
Somehow, the very important people of this country have forgotten the single most important part of government, which is not whatever ideology baloney they are pushing like a drug dealer, but having everything working for the community. Clean streets and buildings, no potholes, enough (affordable) housing, public transportation, enough clean, functional public toilets (the single small building with two toilets for the entire Golden Gate Park for example), competent and helpful public bureaucracy, law abiding police officers, and so on. What about a public hospital that is not an overcharging debt collection machine like San Francisco General?
None of this is new and none of it is restricted to any part of the Bay Area or Los Angeles or the rest of the state. The state and all of its major cities have the money, but they blame everyone else for their failures. I suspect that the rest of the country has similar issues.
Tucker Carlson has just posted what looks to be like the first in a series on his Russia trip. Here he is talking about and showing one of Moscow’s metro stations. I really do think that what he saw rattled him and made him wonder about where he lives. And I have the impression that he was never expecting this-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nIOsWHyUVI (3:04 mins)
Having used both BART and the San Francisco Muni, I am embarrassed. But forty years ago San Francisco was a much cleaner city. We really are a s—-hole country are we not?
Tell that to a PMC in the Bay Area, and here’s the standard answer:
1. Income levels in the SF Bay Area are so much higher than Moscow’s.
2. People from all over the world want to come to SF because of no 1.
This Tucker guy clearly has not traveled that much despite his millions. Clean metro stops are a dime a dozen in Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Heck, I wonder what he’s going to say if he ever sees the inside of a public restroom in a major train station in Japan? Most civilized country on Earth?!!
In an interview that I saw him do in Dubai yesterday, he was making that same precise point about places like that. That it was not just Moscow but other cities around the world that he has visited where everything works and it is clean. Alex Christoforou also makes this point that you have modern, clean cities like in Russia and Hungary but when he goes back to Greece and Cyprus, the cities are grotty and there is graffiti everywhere.
Harks on an old NC post about the really stoopid[tm] thing about public infrastructure in Russia. World class artisans and manual arts thingy, reminiscent of the old tom hanks movie where he showed up everyone else due to his education in the east, 6 yrs years before getting on a job site.
Best chippy I ever knew was from Poland in the 80s … watching him hang a door with only an measuring tape and chisel was to behold … faster than everyone else too … d
Sadly everyone fked him over and he had a wife and kids looking for the American dream …
Not that it matters much, but it’s worth pointing out that all the buses parked and rolling behind him advertise in big, white letters that they are electric buses. Trains, metros, trams, busses and river boats (a.k.a. public transport) are running more and more on nuclear power in Russia.
Just on that point – most electricity in Russia is fossil fuel generated – around 45-50% natural gas. Nuclear is around 18%, around the same as renewables (mostly hydro). The rest is mostly coal.
The Russian nuclear industry fell far behind in the 1990’s and seems to have lost a lot of its human capital on that time, and so is now working hard to catch up, but it is mostly focused on external markets, primarily for cost reasons – plentiful natural gas in Russia has undermined the economic case for nuclear or other renewables. I suspect that for strategic reasons Russia will turn back to nuclear (if that decision hasn’t already been made), but right now there are more plants close to mothballing than there are under construction.
The official target is 25% by 2045, and Rosatom reports being ahead of the schedule.
I believe most of the reactors in 2023 in Russia were build for the icebreakers, since the plan is to keep the Northern Route open throughout the year since starting this year. Small reactors seem to be the thing there now, I think three low-power reactors in different regions (Ust-Yansky, Norilsk, Chukotka) have been approved already.
Regarding “normal” NPPs, both Kursk and Leningrad are in process of expanding by two new reactors. Add the 9 already operating since 2014 and that makes it two times more new reactors in Russia than Europe and USA put together during the last decade.
And Rosatom is working on MOX fuel rods for the existing VVER reactors. They are also testing silicon-carbide clad fuel rods for better safety. You could say they are catching up.