Hundreds of invaders have taken over the Isle of Man. They’re wallabies Adventure.com
Investment companies running RV parks ‘into the ground’ RV Travel
Climate
Hazmat cleanup of fiery wreck with ion batteries closes the 15 to Las Vegas, jamming freeways LA Times
South Africa’s power utility Eskom advances plans for small modular nuclear reactors BNE Intellinews
Capitalism’s New Age of Plagues, Part 8: Deadly Heat Climate & Capitalism
US carbon capture tax credits to persist no matter who wins elections: experts S&P Global
The evidence is mounting: Humans were responsible for the extinction of large mammals Phys.org
Biology Lessons In Degrowth George Tsakraklides
How Pennsylvania’s oil industry quietly dumped waste across the state Grist
Syndemics
US State Restrictions and Excess COVID-19 Pandemic Deaths JAMA. From the Abstract: “If all states had imposed restrictions similar to those used in the 10 most restrictive states, excess deaths would have been an estimated 10% to 21% lower than the 1.18 million that actually occurred during the 2-year analysis period; conversely, the estimates suggest counterfactual increases of 13% to 17% if all states had restrictions similar to those in the 10 least-restrictive states. The estimated strong vs weak state restriction difference was 271 000 to 447 000 deaths, with behavior changes associated with 49% to 79% of the overall disparity.”
* * * San Francisco health officials advise indoor masking amid summer COVID wave San Francisco Chronicle
The latest wave of COVID-19 and Biden’s destruction of public health WSWS
* * * How to read the Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative models (part 1) Closed Form
SARS-CoV-2 dynamics in New York City during March 2020–August 2023 (preprint) medRxiv. From the Abstract: “Here, we leverage extensive surveillance data available in New York City (NYC) and a comprehensive model-inference system to reconstruct SARS-CoV-2 dynamics therein from the pandemic onset in March 2020 to August 2023, and further validate the estimates using independent wastewater surveillance data.”
* * * Identification of SARS-CoV-2 Persistent Infectious Epithelial Syndrome (SPIES) as a Novel Disease Entity using Clinical, Histologic, and RNA Programmatic Data (preprint) medRxiv. From the Abstract: “Our findings establish a syndrome mediated by persistent viral infection (SARS-CoV2 Persistent Intestinal Epithelial Syndrome (SPIES)). We hypothesize that persistent sparse infection drives ongoing immune signaling altering movement and function, creating epithelial and movement effects overlapping with [Disorder of Gut-Brain Interaction (DGBI)] and [Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)].”
China?
China’s crippling debt levels seen worsening as government measures focus on ‘buying time’ South Cnina Morning Post. Commentary:
3/6
In fact there is no way Beijing can rein in the surge in debt as long as it insists on GDP growth targets that are higher than the real economy can sustainably deliver (perhaps 2-3% at best).— Michael Pettis (@michaelxpettis) July 28, 2024
The Intensifying Impacts of Upstream Dams on the Mekong The Diplomat
US Secretary of State warns China about consequences of supporting Russian military industrial complex Ukrainska Pravda
China’s Malaise Spreads to Luxury Industry WSJ
Commentary: Chinese e-commerce platforms are poised to rival Amazon’s empire Channel News Asia
Bangladesh protest leaders taken from hospital by police Channel News Asia
Syraqistan
Israel army says readying ‘decisive offensive’ against Lebanon’s Hezbollah France24
Has Houthi-orchestrated chaos become the new normal in the Red Sea? The New Arab
Olympics
Bernard Arnault has been dubbed the Olympics’ godfather. Here’s how he built LVMH’s fortune AP
European Disunion
Barcelona wants to get rid of short-term rental units. Will other tourist destinations do the same? AP
New Not-So-Cold War
‘I know we will win – and how’: Ukraine’s top general on turning the tables against Russia Luke Harding, Guardian
SITREP 7/24/24: General Syrsky Shocks With News of Russian Armor and Troop Surges Simplicius the Thinker
Confused Ukrainian Troops Jam Their Own Drones—And Russian Forces Advance Toward Pokrovsk Forbes
Russia, adapting tactics, advances in Donetsk and takes more Ukrainian land WaPo
* * * Putin is convinced he can outlast the West and win in Ukraine The Atlantic Council
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister says there is clear sign that China is working to end war in Ukraine Ukrainska Pravda
Is Ukraine ready for negotiations with Russia? A view from Baku JAM News
How the full-scale war has changed Ukrainians and what Ukraine’s “new normal” is like Ukrainska Pravda
* * * Ill-Suited to Reality London Review of Books. NATO.
A Mysterious Plot Prompts a Rare Call From Russia to the Pentagon NYT
Pentagon Again Applies Budget Lies To Deliver More Weapons To Ukraine Moon of Alabama
2024
Harris signs forms to officially declare candidacy The Hill
Bill Gates on Kamala Harris’s US presidential bid: ‘It’s great to have somebody younger’ France24
Trump to hold rally in Butler where he was shot Anadolu Agency
RFK Jr. certified for Nebraska’s fall ballot, overcoming challenge from state Democratic Party Nebraska Examiner
Americans Deserve More Debates and Transparency in This Election Editorial Board, NYT
Healthcare
Structural Determinants of Health: Hospitals’ Unequal Capital Investments Drive Health Inequities Center for Economic and Policy Research
Digital Watch
Regulations Targeting Large Language Models Warrant Strict Scrutiny Under the First Amendment Lawfare
Zeitgeist Watch
Never never never never never:
These are “ad walkers”
That’s right, they move around with a screen above their head, with ads
Never cease to innovate pic.twitter.com/0k1LiqSYzg
— gaut (@0xgaut) July 27, 2024
Imperial Collapse Watch
The history of the West is not quite what you learned in school The Economist
Love Me or I Shoot You London Review of Books
Housing
COVID outbreak at Charlottesville’s only overnight homeless shelter Daily Progress
Can tech help solve the Los Angeles homeless crisis? Finding shelter may someday be a click away APs
End Single Family Zoning by Overturning Euclid V Ambler Maximum Progress
Class Warfare
Uber, Lyft and Others Win California Ruling to Treat Drivers as Contractors WSJ
Apple reaches its first contract agreement with a US retail union TechCrunch
Why we might never know the truth about ultra-processed foods BBC
Ohio Supreme Court says boneless chicken wings can have bones Columbus Dispatch
Antidote du jour (Marek Szczepanek):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
315 comments
Comments are closed.
ANIMAL HOUSE
Our Dachsund is like most weiners
His rap sheet’s all small misdemeanors
We bathe and we rinse him
But cannot convince him
To not murder all vacuum cleaners
Our parrots are happy to chew
Their cage and our cupboards clean through
There’ll be damage to find
Of the very worst kind
When we find wood chips mixed in their poo
A Siamese cat isn’t feline
They’re born and bred different by design
In Thailand it’s said
That a Seal Point’s head
Is so beautiful it’s simply divine
Our other dog’s pure Boston Terror
Our adoption of him was an error
When he panics he bites
And starts stupid fights
To find him at peace is much rarer
Five feral cats live in our shed
Twice a day they demand to be fed
We got them all spayed
Because we’re afraid
Of where breeding close cousins has led
We’re nursing a wild horny toad
Who was cooking herself in the road
Some regular meals
Has improved how she feels
Would be nice if her gratitude showed
Nicely done. So one presumes all the above are being housed or sheltered…sounds like a big daily operation to care for critters and furry friends!
On the line for we’re afraid… breeding close cousins…as it so happens I was a mood to watch some older episodes of the X-Files last evening…Season 4 has a few entertaining episodes but there is an episode that features a theme of family breeding practices. The episode was rather controversial and unlikely to appeal to anyone not familiar with the series.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_(The_X-Files)
Taibbi is on fire this morning:
https://www.racket.news/p/meet-the-new-lies-same-as-the-old
Another way that the press are covering up Kamala’s failed history is to deny that she was ever the Border Czar, even though that was exactly what she was called about two years ago by the press themselves. They are beyond redemption.
Trying to interpret from the point of view of the subjects of discussion, KDH is “not Trump” and she’s “not Biden”. (Of course, RFK Jr was also both of these things, but it didn’t do him much good; funny that).
It’s sort of a kind of “apophatic political hagiography.”
I think this accounts for a considerable amount of the current giddiness. Perhaps a lot of the political class are currently in a kind of mystical trance state. One suspects that it will eventually wear off.
Maybe after the election but I doubt it. Whether or not KDH is a great candidate is not so important at tis time…we have to remember that the DNC is deeply embedded in the power structure and control the mainstream media almost completely. Also, their candidate is a woman (and “black”) which is a big deal to traditional Democratic Party oriented voters. For them liberal society itself is on the line. I have friends who are hysterical at the idea that Trump could win and would support an onion as President if that’s what chose to run. I’ve never seen anything like it–university educated people, old hipsters, Karens, LGBTQ (the worry their right to be who they are will be threatened by religious zealots) and the lot are spinning like dervishes so to speak to get in that ecstatic state. What a world!
I still cannot understand how Harris can be Black. How did that happen?
It has not been my experience that South Asians regard themselves as Black or that Black people regard themselves as South Asian. What kind of political alchemy is this?
Do the white elite have sole authority over this designation? Can they drop it when it is no longer convenient?
Her Dad is a Jamaican, not exactly Black. But why worry about details? Barack’s father was Kenyan, far from Black America and his mother is white but he successfully masqueraded as a Black-American and let down those people the most. The laughing VP will do the same.
Not just Jamaican, but descended from worse than slave owners, slave traders.
To be fair, anyone half, quarter black etc was/is regarded as a black person. Historically there were names for mixed race people such as quadroon, octaroon, quintroon, etc.
Her father is Jamaican. In segregation days anyone with more than one eighth African was considered a “negro” and it’s still the same more or less.
That varied from state to state: could be as much as 1/4 or as lottle as 1/16. One of the points of contention in Plwssy vs Fergusson was that Mr Plessy, I believe, was only 1/16 black and as such, would not have been considered legally black almost anywhere other than Louisiana (and could only be identified even thefe because he said he was). So called “one-drop” rule came later–mostly early 20th century product.
When India was under British control, some colonialists would pull out the N word on people in India.
Harris being bad doesn’t make Trump good (or vice-versa). It’s entirely possible that each side is right about the other side’s candidate, just wrong about their own.
I fall back on my parents’ 3-C’s: character, competence, capacity. / ;)
Well, I myself would consider backing the onion as long as I felt confident that it did not seek the ” drill baby drill”, frack everything everywhere, and ” from energy independence to energy dominance” that Trump promised us at the end of his nomination acceptance speech.
Of course, if you think that runaway global warming to outcome Condition Venus is already baked into the cake regardless of whether we mine, drill, pump and frack more coal , gas and oil under a President Trump or only as much as before under a President Onion; then that reason to vote for President Onion disappears.
Unfortunately, Kamala Harris’ accession to the role allows the Democratic Party to continue comfortably with its usual campaign slogan, “Consider the opposition!” rather than fight for specific issues. She is certainly better than Trump and Vance, but it’s very likely that no major issue (like a woman’s absolute right to bear as many children as she wants) will get a Federal shield.
I suspect that if she ever became President, she would have the exact same policy as Biden-
‘Nothing will fundamentally change.’
Antitrust enforcement is one of the few things I’ll give Biden credit for. Iiuc the donors who reopened their check books for Harris or previously made a show of switching to Trump are planning on a return to normal with Harris.
Wealthy tech bro donors are pressuring Harris to get rid of Khan.
This would be a fine time for tens of millions of non-rich potential-Harris-voters to tell the Harris Campaign . . . ” No Khan? No vote. Not unless you announce right now that you will keep Khan if elected.”
Can tens of millions of people act that fast? Could the Bernie Small Donors Club get themselves back together to try organizing and waging such a campaign?
Is this what liberals have come to? Dreaming of organizing a campaign to demand what amounts to literally crumbs? Do Bernie supporters even have money left to donate after Bernie drained them for two separate fake campaigns?
I see absolutely no evidence that Harris is better than Trump/Vance. Ignoring that she was part of an administration that already was worse than Trump, her record as SF DA and California’s AG is incredibly bad.
I get that a significant portion of the country would like all things Trump banned from DC, but I would bet that just as many are like me who would ban all things Clinton, Bush, Obama and Biden from DC as well. And I can make a very good case that everything Trump has been accused of have been SOP or perfected by the admins I just listed.
Harris is the neocon, neolib, MIC, permanent war profiteer’s ideal: a figurehead.
Who does not appear to be 25th amendment subject.
Testify!
Would either Harris or Trump be equally committed to drill baby drill, frack everything everywhere, move from energy independence to energy dominance? If you have convincing evidence that either one would be equally committed to the Hard Fossil Path promised by Trump at the end of his nomination acceptance speech, then you have a very good case for no-survival-critical difference-between-them.
Of course there may still be particular issue-differences of interest to particular constituencies. Perhaps you can convince those particular constituencies that their particular issues don’t matter.
“certainly better than Trump and Vance”
How so? I am not seeing it.
Certainly not, just try out the Kamala Harris Oddly Specific Policy Generator to learn where she stands!
I very much disagree that Harris is a better choice than Trump and Vance.
I have watched her career since she first ran against Hallinan and IMO she is both a greater Evil that Trump and a MUCH more effective Evil.
She is not a lightweight, she is a very high functioning Sociopath, totally ruthless and entirely devoid of any Morals, Scruples or Ethics.
Tom Stone
Just curious, who would you like to see as US president and vice president?
GF, None of the above.
I’ll vote for Stein because she is anti war and opposes genocide, however the System is broken.
By that I mean that there is no possibility of positive change no matter who is elected President or VP.
This is a controlled flight into terrain and “There Is No Alternative”.
If, and it is a big if, the Human race can avoid Nuclear Armageddon over the next few years there will be a possibility of a better future for the survivors.
when i see your moniker it reminds me of the Prine song Sam Stone –
voting for Stein for the same reasons……..if i vote, since given the truth in your follow-up what’s the point? – besides the nuclear nonsense the children that rule the western governments keep pushing toward, you neglect to also point out the gaslighting of the disastrous interconnected destruction we have wrought upon the environment we require to live – once again proof that Carlin was correct labeling humans an evolutionary cul-de-sac – here today…..gone tomorrow – best you can do is follow the golden rule as much as possible without being a fool – or as Zappa said in his last stanza of
“The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2c9EfRZXglg
Just don’t mess up
Your neighbor’s thrill
‘N when you pay the bill
Kindly leave a little tip
And help the next poor sucker
On his one way trip
and one more Zappa for y’all – appropriate for a Sunday –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-pL3SFDg5E
I see this sentiment over and over – people declaring they’d vote for Stein if she was in with a chance but as she hasn’t, what’s the point? You have here the classic American attitude that winning is all that matters, losing is for losers so if you think you can’t win, you won’t risk playing.
Well you’re right. She won’t win… this time. But if you and everyone who shares your views voted for her this time she’ll have a bit more of an impact, and next time a few more ‘what’s the point’ people might see there is a point, and she makes a bit more ground, and the time after that — that’s how avalanches start.
Listen to your very own Frank Sinatra:-
Once there was a silly old ram
Thought he’d punch a hole in a dam
No one could make that ram, scram
He kept buttin’ that dam
‘Cause he had high hopes, he had high hopes
He had high apple pie, in the sky hopes
So any time you’re feelin’ bad
‘Stead of feelin’ sad
Just remember that ram
Oops, there goes a billion kilowatt dam
Oops, there goes a billion kilowatt dam
Oops, there goes a billion kilowatt dam
Would either administration offer a difference chance of Climate Armageddon baked-in-beyond-reversing over the next 4 years of their different fossil carbon approaches? If neither would, then you have a point.
I’m voting for Stein as well, for her opposition to our wars, and for her climate stance. Alternatively, since 3rd party politics is admittedly ineffective, a movement that promoted non-voting, because voting is meaningless and purely performative, for the avowed purpose of with-holding the consent of the governed in our sham democracy. If 75% of the electorate withholds consent by refusing to vote, the PtB cannot claim seriously to be a democracy/ democratic republic any longer.
In 2000 Aristide won the presidential election with over 2,6 million votes. After he was deposed by US in 2004 his movement was denied running a candidate and election participation fell below 1 million votes in total.
Last election had about 20% participation rate. US state department welcomed the democratic election. There is no level where they can’t claim democracy if the right candidate wins.
I agree with you about the puppet states but getting people to understand that voting (here in the current system in the US at least) is a counterproductive strategy designed by the ruling class to waste the time and energy of the working class (see the Bernie Sanders campaigns for recent example) is important.
Trump is the devil people know. Harris is the devil people don’t know. Advantage Trump
“Another way that the press are covering up Kamala’s failed history is to deny that she was ever the Border Czar, even though that was exactly what she was called about two years ago by the press themselves.”
Well, it might be that the press itself was incorrect at the time (not that I want to defend either the press or Vice-President Harris). That’s what Axios says:
[Italics in original, bold added]
I suggest you read the Taibbi piece. He goes through in great detail how Biden did indeed assign her the duties of BOTH negotiating with relevant countries over immigration to the US and address US border security.
Separately, it is unheard of for a correction to be made so long after the fact.
If the designation was inaccurate, the Administration and/or Harris should have told Axios and other news outlets to issue corrections OR EVEN RETRACTIONS at the time.
This is utterly lame.
Taibbi additionally makes clear that Biden fully intended to dump this lousy portfolio on her and she was trying to wriggle out. Taibbi actually misses an opportunity to twist the knife harder: it is insubordinate and as far I can tell, unheard of for a VP to visibly try to shirk an assigned duty.
Re write history? Looks like a Communist Government.I seem to recall t they practiced that art. /s
This is slander. Rewriting of history has started way before the first “communist” country was established.
Egyptians defaced statues and temples celebrating pharaohs deemed after death problematic (either due to religious stance or sex).
Being an anything Czar (Drug, Covid, Border…) is that really an agreed-upon moniker? or is it it more of an unofficial designation given to a person that will oversee all aspects of said crisis that demands immediate attention. Does having the designation of Czar, give that person greater access and powers as acknowledged by Congress?
It’s not an official job title. These are jobs – some subject to senate confirmation – with regular bureaucratic titles like deputy director, assistant secretary, or special advisor. Obama made a lot of these appointments in his first year. That led to criticism that he had made too many, and the term czar got tossed around frequently. Giving some new responsibility to someone who already has a job title (like the VP) seems to stretch the czar terminology even more, but I don’t know if that’s a common usage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._executive_branch_czars
T’s person in charge of the border issue was also referred to by media as the ‘border czar’, an understood colloquial expression. She resigned in I believe April 2021 when the B admin came in, giving the new admin scope to appoint its own person to the position, as was common deference back then when a change of admin took place. Since the designation was in common use for that portfolio at the time it carried on to the next person put in charge of the border portfolio. / my 2 cents.
Some historical stuff.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._executive_branch_czars
The term has even filtered down to academia where a dean or an assistant dean might be locally termed a czar of something or other in the uni. / ;)
Gaslight extravaganza.
I got that in an email last night, I tried to post a link to that picture (my eyes, my eyes, they burn…) but the link wouldn’t fly.
As I am wont to say, never underestimate the Bernay’s sauce.
Now there is Kamalove! Oh Fer Chrissake, we are so !@#$ed.
It’s a wonder that they have not gone with Kamelot to describe a Kamala Harris White House.
Kamelot: a used Camel dealer’s camel lot? Low low prices! Today’s special! / ;)
there was a song about that,long ago…but its a real earworm so i wont link it(“sing yer camel to bed…”)
but camel remains a kind of cigarette, too…so maybe not go there, either(and they spit as a defense mechanism/when theyre upset with you)
and ill repeat m7yself…the only named Ringwraith/Nazgul was the Witch King’s right hand: Kamal.
just sayin…
Mission accomplished. I will be humming along all day, heh heh. (I have that record somewhere)
And piles of Kamel sh!t everywhere you step.
I keep hoping for someone or something to drop a seed crystal into the supersaturated cauldron of disinformation, disaffection and despair us mopes are stewing in. What strange new lattices might precipitate? Or maybe it will catalyze a huge mass of fulminate, to detonate in a violent catharsis with unknowable reconfigurations…
Thank you Flora. I told friends last night someone would discover this soon. I had just watched V Redgrave (What an activist!l & R Harris version this week!
They’ll get to it.
Curse you Rev Baron! You gave them the idea. You should have trademarked it first.
7.14.24. Dmitry Orlov. “Camelot Harris for Presidentress”
“It would seem that the path to his second term is now open for Trump, with Biden begged to bow out by every oxygen-breathing being out there. Not so fast! There is his vice-presidentress Kamala, who can step into the breach and run against Trump. For this purpose, she should rebrand herself as “Camelot Harris” and position herself as the Philosopher Queen, ready to pose as a national figurehead for the next eight years. Some of the philosophical aphorisms she has already produced are absolute gems. “Today’s tomorrow will become yesterday the day after tomorrow.” “
And:
“Some may say that not enough people would want to vote for Camelot Harris, but that’s a purely technical issue and easily fixed.”
So true
How about Kamelhot, with the “hot” signifying:
Hot mess
Hottie = Willie Brown reference
Hottie = being well endowed yet going bra-less AND having the habit of wriggling a lot in her suits so one wind up noticing her endowments. Trust me, once you start seeing that, it is hard to unsee.
So, per our sharing the other day, the National Review piece (slanted) I linked below has a photo of her aging self as you described (but isn’t generally shown).
Wait wait wait….Really?
F I know I must despise Kamelhot because I usually notice that right away!!!
Lol
On further investigation, she does that wiggling only when seated. I have yet to observe it when she is standing at a podium. So you might not yet have encountered it.
So you are saying that KH communicates primarily through body language?
Inquiring mimes want to know.
One should go with Sir Mix-A-Lot, in order to describe a Kamala Harris White House (also, Kamaltoe).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X53ZSxkQ3Ho
Avert your eyes for all the details while keeping an ear to the direction of the current. If it has a direction, if that direction can be discerned, if it matters and why do I say that? Joe Biden, president emeritus, said that during his tenure, “nothing will fundamentally change.” And indeed, it has not. The economy is flying, if you part of the high flying cohort.Not so much for the majority, the deplorables. War in Ukraine continues? Check. Support for genocide by Israel in Gaza? Check. China an evil empire to be dealt with as soon as we can figure out how to do that? Check. DJT blustering and thundering? Check. KDH? Now there is a puzzlement. A puzzlement in the immediate, but a lacuna in fact. I remember her “border czar or tsar” phrase, a least according to the media, which now denies the evidence. They are oh so clever and coy. JRB never used the term so she was never named the border czar or tsar and it doesn’t count if the media, looking for some sloppy off-hand sniggering way to say that KDH has been handed a political hand grenade so designated her. But I digress. I submit that there is no political current here in the waning days of July. KDH is rushing about shoring up the dikes, building bridges,laying the foundation …choose your construction metaphor … for the months to come. She must choose the “running mate.” Get the funding in order. Not fire all her staff in a fit of pique. DJT bull shits his way onward, as was and is and will ever be the only way he knows to go. It is effective with the right audience, that would be an adoring one who believe, to steal a song title, “76 trombones will lead the big parade.” DJT will give them tin whistles. His adoring followers will not notice. But KDH? My sight of her is in snappy little appearances at the opening of ever so many YouTube videos asking for money and I suppose in ad-speak going for recognition. So far I see no reason to become at all “energized” or “involved” beyond hitting “unsubscribe” to any and all appeals to my wallet, my patriotism, my desire to belong, to return to the fold of whichever party is shocked, shocked to find that I am on the outside. Well, that’s the way it’s going to be. I have faithfully voted in election after election at all levels of government. This time I vote for a clear conscience. Maybe next time.
‘Not fire all her staff in a fit of pique.’
She’s had lots of practice at that. ‘Only four of the initial 47 staffers Harris brought in with her in 2021 are still employed in her office, as of March 31, 2024’–
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/harriss-personnel-problem-over-90-percent-of-vps-staff-left-in-last-three-years/
She must be pretty bad to work for.
This is a dark, violent mashup of a Game of Thrones scene and an imagined DNC gathering. twtr. 2 minutes. warning: violent imagery.
DNC x GoT: “For Democracy” – starring Joe Biden as Jon Snow
*sound up at end
https://x.com/yuribezmenov22/status/1816102992396816687
Surely, it should be Joffrey Lannister. Oh, wait, that’s misinformation, right…?
chilling…and I just have to wonder why, after a mostly do-nothing presidency and failing to support the ticket down ballot, the upstart Obama wields such influence in the party.
I get that he snookered the people, but the seasoned, back-room pols?
Skamalot!
On Facebook the outpouring of love from Democrat boomers (and a few younger folks) is really something, most Dems seem all-in. Pointing out her failings and her career path is a non-starter.
I am myself an erstwhile Dem boomer for most of my life. However, at some point things reach a nonsensical point. etc. /;)
For people who can’t read the full paywalled article there’s this Main Stream Memoryhole compilation: / heh
The media did this in 2016 and 2020 and they’re doing it now in 2024 for Kamala Harris.
– Report on a true story that is bad for the Democrat candidate & say it’s false.
https://x.com/CollinRugg/status/1816452521059303553
adding, this one para is too good. / ;)
This tiny moment launched a psychedlic propaganda trip. Teetering then, Biden was soon a vegetable the DC press strained to sell as “sharp as a tack” and “beyond cogent.” When the public wouldn’t buy, insiders pivoted, declared themselves “bamboozled” victims of a cover-up, demanded the vegetable step down (but only as a candidate, not the lesser post of president), then denounced him as Trumpian menace when he hesitated, especially after dingbat actor George Clooney’s “We need a new nominee” pronoucement, which was covered as a second appearance of the Burning Bush. When the vegetable tweeted its exit, they declared a triumph of democracy and the end of popular “disillusionment.” Attention shifted to the real candidate, Kamala Harris, who was not only MLK, Gandhi, and Captain America but a woman of color with a Jewish husband and hologram Chadwick Boseman’s endorsement: pure awesome, and definitely not a “border czar.”
Life is a terminal condition, and in the end I hope to laugh myself to death. That’s a start but for me personally, it’s still a bit early. I will save it for later, though, just in case.
And still, referencing George Clooney in the same way Rosanne referenced his character on her show as ‘Booker’ is pretty darn hilarious. I can only wonder what his aunt Rosemary Clooney must be thinking. I’m still laughing. Except, we aren’t supposed to notice that. / ;)
Thanks for the excellent link. The media blitz painting KH as some kind of messiah is so beyond reason as to expose it as the bs narrative manufacture that it so obviously is. My question is “What’s so bad with having been the Border Czar?”. Is it that, by no longer having been Border Czar, KH is no longer in any way responsible for the past three and a half years of border management? I for one would like to vote for someone who takes responsibility rather than ducks it. Also, pretty sure that the public conceptions/misconceptions about border/immigration vis a vis teams blue and red is baked in. So, why all the noise? I guess it’s better to talk about what one hasn’t done than what one hasn’t accomplished.
VPs generally just sit in a bucket of warm pˆßß, well, except for Dick Chaney, and that was because W didn’t have a brain. Oh wait…
…everybody needs a hunting pal…
Just as Joe Biden was “The NEW FDR!” Kamala Harris is “THE NEW ELEANOR ROOSEVELT!”.
Only prettier and straight.
As to the wiggly boobs, Kamala is a gal willing to use everything she has to get what she wants, unburdened by inhibitions.
Which I find extremely offensive.
I never saw Black Panther but I found Armond White’s review worth reading, and rereading.
Black Panther’s Circle of Hype – Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa
There’s much, much more.
And rereading Armond White I came across this National Review piece by Noah Rothman which is worthwhile. July 26, 2024 1:52 PM
Kamala Harris’s Stock Is Overvalued
With an un-retouched photo. Or what?
I’ve seen this movement to portray black people as heroes and as not just a part of America after being excluded for centuries but superior by nature as in CRT which was inherent way back in the sixties in the Black Power movement of which I know something about, i.e., its shadow side at least at the local level of left-wing politics back then.
In the 1960s and 70s there was was a trend on the left, mainly among young, white, and often privileged, to idealize members of the black lumpen proletariat as the revolutionary vanguard that on a number of occasions enabled that descent into darkness, which in the case of some of my friends, lead to the tragic loss of life due homicidal internecine conflict. This is not to obviate much good that came from this same milieu.
The only “good” that came from it is identity politics (in many cases a good thing) which was one part of the destruction of the left such that a left some of us envisioned or knew back in the day is today almost completely dead at least in the USA. Today the “left” is pro-war/imperialism (globalism in other words), anti-working class (hatred of religion, family, and tradition), and radically pro-billionaire (the modern Dukes of this time).
As Armond White reminds, it was Malcolm X who coined the term politricks.
On the pages of the Fidelity investment website there are always photos of black people at their computers or phones, presumably getting ready to invest their money. (I wonder what percentage of black folks are in the stock market?) Also I see black people in ads everywhere online, and in some films I now see black people in roles that historically could never have happened. I call it “blackwashing”. Although it’s great that black models and actors are getting some work, I wonder how black people feel about this kind of mostly inaccurate stuff…
And they never, ever, reference the ancient (middle ages) African empires of of the Mali or the Songhai or the Oyo empires.
Because of course not. / ;)
And that many of them prospered via slave trade with the New World (I guess the Kingdom of Kongo comes after those…)
Here is a bunch of images of author Armond White with urls to go diving in, in case one wants to read more by or about Armond White.
https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=Awrir0dlvqZmbZ8QxN5XNyoA;_ylu=Y29sbwNiZjEEcG9zAzEEdnRpZAMEc2VjA3Nj?p=Armond+White&fr=sfp#id=0&iurl=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic01.nyt.com%2Fimages%2F2014%2F01%2F18%2Farts%2F18WHITE%2F18WHITE-articleLarge.jpg%3Fquality%3D75%26auto%3Dwebp%26disable%3Dupscale&action=click
OK, OK, Harris is a deeply imperfect candidate. Here is the thing: Harris actually IS the lesser of two evils. I’d like to believe her history of mis-steps and being a “poor communicator” can be overcome. But even if they can’t, I’d say she’s still a significant improvement over the Blustering Old Guys.
Back in 2020 when they threw Kamala a lifeline after she flamed out so bad in her Presidential run and made her the VP I thought that was a smart move. It was a poison pill move as nobody would seek to get rid of old Joe as that would mean that Kamala would become the Prez. Doesn’t look like such a smart move now and it would have been better to pick a successor who could have stood on their own merits in 2024 like Trump did with Vance for the 2028 elections.
Who threw her the lifeline? The donors? The spooks? It wasn’t the voters. She didn’t win a single primary. She never polled above 2-3 % in the primary. Enquiring minds…. / ;)
If her allegiance to her sponsors had proven to be of any value to the general public or at least not malevolent I might be willing to consider that your hope was not baseless. But her entire history says otherwise. Her sponsors are malevolent and her allegiance total And as I consider the Trump years to be slightly better than the Biden years not even that bodes well.
She is as much a marionette for America’s worst as Biden was. Her age, rage , gender, nothing makes her an improvement because the string pullers aren’t going to change.
Harris is the new stand-in front for the money raking, imo. B was suddenly costing Dems the donor moolah. / my 2 cents.
Seymour Hersh’s latest, paywalled but the public excerpt is enough.
LEAVING LAS VEGAS
Inside the last tortured days of the Biden campaign
https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/leaving-las-vegas
Lesser of two evils? The Democratic Party is now the party of neoconservatives–is that where you stand? Wonderful, beautiful wars everywhere, the erosion of free-speech and thought–this is what is the lesser of two evils? Trump, at least, goes through a bit more of the motions to end the war in Ukraine which is as absurd as Vietnam was in my youth. As a veteran of the anti-war movement back in the day, I don’t understand your POV. I prefer “America first” because I have always fundamentally opposed imperialism and Trump is the first politician to address that issue to even a slight degree.
My POV is that the U.S. is hopelessly family-blogged. It would have been nice to have an open convention rather than this instant coronation. But that’s not what we’re getting. We’re getting Trump v. Harris. Trump is a truly miserable person. Harris, I speculate, is not. That will have to do. Neither will have any effect on the climate, or on–how do we call it?–Late Stage Capitalism.
“The US is hopelessly .” “That will have to do.” Me thinks not so, even if the alternative isn’t one’s learned welcome.
It’s taken me a long time to accept this idea.
Who cares if Harris is a less of a “miserable person” than Trump?
As native New Yorker of a certain age, I’ve hated the guy for four + decades, and have no positive expectations whatsoever of a Trump-Vance administration. However, that doesn’t eliminate the fact that Harris is an ambitious non-entity who represents the same people giving us proxy war with Russia, ethnic cleansing in Gaza and attacks on the First Amendment here at home.
An old friend of mine who has the worst case of Trump Derangement Syndrome I’ve encountered – I’ve literally thought he might drop dead in front of me when getting worked up about Trump – recently sent around a photo of Harris holding up an old Charles Mingus LP, as if her ostensibly “cool” taste in music is a substitute for courage and actual policies that might help people… politics as lifestyle choices, sophisticated personal taste and whole lotta Aghastitude: no thanks.
She’s a screen on which the PTB project bullsh*t.
She’s an uber, AI, and Airbnb commercial.
I noted the change in her accent (chameleon?), before the defenestration it was smarmy and slow paced fake southern drawl, now she is strident and trying to channel the authoritarianism her party represents…joe is/was an angry old man saying the my way or the highway crap that got him where he is. Kamala is a prosecutor/cop/lawyer.
The hagiographies and the assumption that people will believe this bs disgusts me.
Ukraine is the dems war and you’re losing. Gaza is a dem/zionist genocide and it isn’t stopping no matter who gets to handle the scepter.
As aptly noted above by John, I’m voting for a clear conscience…
The institutional corruption of the democrat party is imo worse that even DJT, and thats saying something.
As attorney general, she kept people imprisoned after their release date because the state of California wanted the cheap labor ($0.08 per hour). How is being objectively pro-slavery the lesser of two evils?
Sources needed for this claim. Harris is just the blustering old guys policies in a idpol pantsuit.
What I could find. From 2019:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/kamala-harris-ag-office-tried-to-keep-inmates-locked-up-for-cheap-labor
To be clear, I knew that. I mean sources needed that Kamala is better than the Trump/Vance tix.That’s the one where the evidence is lacking.
As Glenn Ford would have it, the more effective evil.
I wonder whether and/or when the phrase “lesser of two evils” actually means the ” lesser of two awfuls”. If it ever does, then we may be falling into a “category error crevasse” between ‘evil’ and ‘awful’.
Because if we are indeed talking about ‘Evil’ in the moral sense, then voting for the “lesser of two Evils ” does indeed amount voting for Evil. But if we are voting about the “lesser of two awfuls”, then the question of EVIL doesn’t come into it, and we might well prefer the lesser awful if we think the greater awful is not even survivable in the long term.
But we have to use correct language correctly to be able to think with accuracy and precision. As Confucius once said, ” first we need a Rectification of the Language”.
Currently reading this, and it’s pretty good so far.
Kamala Harris & The Future of America – An Essay in 3 Parts
https://calebmaupin.gumroad.com/l/ndblg
He writes “It’s okay for politicians to go full fangirl like this, but journalists instantly announced 100% buy-in.”
What did he expect? Journalists have been like this for years. I am relatively young and was even more naive in 2007 than I am now but even as such I noticed the striking effect of Obama’s campaigning statements, plainly devoid of meaning, that produced swooning, almost erotic adoration from the media. It was so weird I blogged about it. Journalists were political surrogates then and they are now.
Hunter S. Thompson wrote about this feature of journalists here and there in Fear And Loathing on the Campaign Trail.
And Timothy Crouse wrote about this central defining feature of journalists in The Boys On The Bus.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/149035.The_Boys_on_the_Bus
Paris 2024 organisers apologised on Sunday to Catholics and other Christian groups angered by a kitsch tableau in the Olympic Games opening ceremony that parodied Leonardo Da Vinci’s famous ‘The Last Supper’ painting.
The segment, which recreated the biblical scene of Jesus Christ and his apostles sharing a last meal before crucifixion, featured drag queens, a transgender model and a naked singer made up as the Greek god of wine Dionysus, and drew dismay from the Catholic Church.
https://www.reuters.com/sports/olympics/paris-2024-apologises-any-offence-caused-by-last-supper-sketch-2024-07-28/?
Yeah, I am not buying their apology. They must have went with ‘better to ask forgiveness than permission.’ Their brief would have been simple. Create a spectacular show for the world which is not only family-friendly but also reflects France’s rich culture and heritage. So they went with a drag show which also insulted one of the world’s largest religions using obscure references in it. They did not do that show for the world – they did it to show off to other members of their own community. Reminds me of Hollywood which does not make films for the greater public but only to impress other people – that also live in Hollywood. I wonder if the closing show is also going to be along the same lines.
I’m hoping for a Blazing Saddles ending.
You mean ‘Blazing Saddles- The French Mistake?’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMK6lzmSk2o (2:28 mins)
It certainly would have been an improvement on the opening show.
I vote for the eating beans around the campfire scene.
Damn it, we’re gonna need a sh*tload of dimes!
We need a Hedley Lamar in today’s America now more than ever perhaps. Recall his classic speech…Now go do, that voo doo, that you do, so well!
Here in America NBC must have known what was coming and recruited the improbable Peyton Manning and Kelly Clarkson as the opener color commentators. Usually during these things the NBC announcers give detailed explanation of all the symbolic visual effects–in fact you wish they’d just shut up–but in this case, while admittedly I wasn’t following the four hours very closely, the comments seemed confined to cliched oohs and ahhs. In the spirit of openness we need some kind of ceremony summary with a blow by blow explanation of the subtle digs and satirical swipes. After all if the Olympic organizers are going to take on the billions of the world’s religious believers they need to own it.
They had no idea who the performers were or where the torch bearer was in the city most of the time. Or rather if they did they didn’t bother to announce it. On another level they also hardly added what sport the flag bearers weee competing in the few times they acknowledged the athletes.
I am as religious as a potato….but when you say “respect diversity” but then pee in the face of one particular group, don’t be suprised for blowback.
Same people will be screeching “how can this happen again” if/when Trump wins 320 electoral votes
As some of us keep saying the elites merely replace the religion of the peasants with their own secular faith dogma that is both convenient to their privileges and symbol of their status–sort of like a $3000 Louis Vuitton handbag. At least during the absolute monarch era the kings would share the same faith views as their subjects and indeed use that to promote their legitimacy. They also fought in their various wars and didn’t command them from an Oval Office.
So turn up the decadence and turn down the competence. The practical level disaster of Friday’s ceremony is also a kind of symbol.
It occurs to me that the trans community should be pretty pissed as well. Talk about reinforcing stereotypes.
The artistic director now says the tableau wasn’t supposed to be The Last Supper at all–crazy talk to say it was.
https://deadline.com/2024/07/olympics-opening-ceremony-artistic-director-intention-mock-or-shock-1236024601/
Instead it’s the much better known gathering of the gods at Olympus and any resemblance to Leonardo painting just an accident. Also the inclusion of drag queens and genitalia all part of the vast panoply of France and he wanted to make sure we didn’t miss that.
funny thing is that the parody can literally be a scene straight from Panem Capitol District, in the “Hunger Games” books.
Manhattan – DC – London – Paris = Panem Capitol District. All of the bottom 99.5% are living in District 12
I confess to not seeing the opening ceremony. I have not bothered to see one for many Olympics past. I have seen pictures. To me, it look decadent and vulgar. Yes, I saw the “Last Supper” motif. It bespoke detachment from us “deplorables” or as Obama said, the “Bibles and guns ” crowd or some such formulation. I call it contempt for the “poor savages” who are unable and unwilling to join the hip post-modernism of us high-flyers. I am at least semi-deplorable. I see post-modernism with its off-spring, rampant individualism and neo-liberal capitalism as blindly destructive sending the world galloping toward William Gibson’s Jackpot. I had not expected to spend my final years wondering which would come first, nuclear war or climate catastrophe.
That kind of thing is a provocation. It’s purpose is to push a social schism over social liberalism issues. The schism divides the population into those who support the “rights” the activists advocate for, the reactionaries who explicitly oppose, and everyone else who tries to keep quiet and stay out of it. The game escalates because the more extreme attracts the greater attention. The activists and reactionaries both profit from this arms race in rather obvious ways, as does the media which helps fuel it further.
I’m skeptical about how effective it all is in improving the lives of those who are supposedly being advocated for. For example, I’ve had 5 transsexual friends and colleges over the last 30 years, all of them wanted to pass as man or woman and not to be overtly transsexual as their identity. Only two confided in me or anyone else I knew about being transsexual. It seemed to me the compassionate thing was to support them in the way they prefer. I’m not sure how drag queens as the public face of trans or their critics help them.
I’ve been watching them, both with keen interest and with an half eye open, depending on the situation. With this one, I switched channels way before it got into the offending part under discussion here – the production was so unbearably amateurish and replacing the always festive and uniting “march of the nations” with this miserable flotilla of river boats separating teams from each other and from the spectators just turned me off.
And by amateurish I don’t mean the performers (albeit I wonder if the “can-can” performers didn’t actually hear the music or if they have never seen the dance before, but something was very wrong with that) but the stream jumping hectically from this to that, half the screen covered by raindrops, so that I had barely time to comprehend what I was watching before the director moved on to the next chaotic scene.
If the can can dancers were wearing dance shoes, the wet surface would mean they might as well be dancing on ice. The fact that the one thing they all did -the split – said to mean that most were making sure they were as steady as possible and not asking for a massive fall. They didn’t really leap up for that split it was a mini lift and slide. Not having measures for rain was not just a problem for the cameras.
The video (now down) is way worse than the stills. The purple scantily clad Dionysus smurf with the conical cock dancing on his knees in front of the drag queen Christ is more grotesque than single shots can capture.
I have nothing against drag queens. If their intentions were to include them why not have them accompany Lady Gaga? Why did they have to use them in a parody of a religion icon? I believe there is an agenda here and that agenda is not the inclusion of trans ppl.
Yves Smith: Heck, now I have to get out my petasus from Hermes and go pagan, too. Dionysos is not portrayed in Greek culture as a blobby blue obesity. This is absurd characterization.
What we are seeing is kitsch, kitsch, and more kitsch. Which is likely another side effect of neoliberalism. Vulgarity sells and doesn’t harm the powerful. The emotions are all thoroughly faked, too.
At issue more deeply is what opening ceremonies mean and what Olympic games mean to a city: Especially economically.
Robert Hughes insisted that the Barcelona summer games reintroduced Barcelona to the world after being locked up in Francoist Spain. The mayor was savvy and demanded all kinds of improvements. Likewise, here in Torino, there are those who say that the winter Olympics forced the building of more infrastructure (subway) and detached the city further from the Agnelli and FIAT (which they were monetizing / making off with, anyway).
The Athens summer Olympics supposedly were successful for Athens.
Demetrios Papaioannou, a remarkable choreographer and director, did the famous tableaux vivants:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bh91qDz4xQU
There’s plenty to offend even in this very classic concept if one is eager to take offense. I find his work (and there are archives on the WWW of his shows) to be excellent, though.
But Paris as scam city (AirBnBganza), surveillance state, and wrecking ball of poor neighborhoods: Not much of a “legacy,” eh.
Dionysus as a blue Jabba the Hut is a major, errrrr, lapse in taste.
No wonder the gods shut off the train system!
The Olympics in Athens left some important infrastructure works. They also left some empty venues that with the passage of time became expensive wrecks. I wonder what the Olympics in Paris will leave to Paris or France.
I wish the fiasco would cause LA to give up the next olympics. (I live there and I really don’t want to see it gome back, especially after all the nonsense that accumulated over the past 40 years.)
Strange to me that several of the entertainers identify as non-binary, and they were opening up for a series of events that strictly uphold the gender binary (many events are broken into “men’s” or “women’s” competitions)
I don’t have any interest in the Olympics–it has become a kind of political theater promoting the political agenda of globalism which is to create a society that reflects the values of Manhattan/Brooklyn and Hollywood to extend globally. Obviously, we must all be a fake hipsters Real hipsters and laugh at religion, family, community, morality and so on. Personally, I like a certain amount of moral degeneracy to extend what it is to be human and …” to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before.” That is the motto of Star Trek and that of the generation of hipsters and hippies of the sixties. But the culture of transgression is only useful as a remedy for the rigidity of the former era–no need to beat it to death and force it on the world.
The sports aspect of the Olympics has also traditionally been somewhat elitist since not many coal miners or factory workers have the time and leisure to devote to the intense training. A recent biography of Eton boy and jock Ian Fleming talks about how he wanted to be an Olympian and there are a handful of movies that play up the class aspect that may have been greater in the past. I, Tonya, the film about Tonya Harding, especially comes to mind.
Good point! I think the movement kind of organically evolved into a globalist spectacle whereas when it started it really was a good attempt at bringing the world together to some degree. I think it had a slight salutary effect during the Cold War.
I shall be a very avid fan/viewer of Olympic Sack Race Backwards combined with AdWalking¹. Such a cool sport! Only flaw’s that about every 5 minutes one participant gets carried away on a stretcher, most of them with a broken neck. But the advertising screens need heavy lead weights for reason of balance – That’s how it hops…
¹See picture above “ad walkers”. Their newly founded union has the motto: Which screen is on top of you? ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Which_Side_Are_You_On%3F )
It was maybe 3 minutes of a 4 hour spectacle that included everything from Lady Gaga to Bizet to Gojira rocking out in the windows of the Concièrgerie to Céline Dion singing on the Eiffel Tower. It was literate, fun, wild and beautiful. I was firmly against the Olympics coming here but that was a blast to watch. Mrs. Bugs and I drank champagne, gasped, laughed and grooved along. The “big ideas” that French people are known for were there by the ladleful. A Montgolfier Olympic flame floating in the sky is genius!
The bigots are always going to find something to complain about, lest it be an imaginary Satan on soda cans or a trans woman pitching light beer. Whatever.
Paris est une fête. Vive la France.
You are entitled too enjoy. Calling those who disagree bigots seems to be making the above points.
Personally I winced at much of it and am no fan of Gaga who has since complained about the sound problems. One of her dancers fell off the precarious stage.
Carolinian and Bugs: Yes, bigots.
I don’t watch the Olympics or the opening / closing ceremonies because the Olympics have been kitsch and patriotic gore for years, with plenty of young athletes being exploited as public spectacle.
I congratulate Bugs and Madame Bugs for watching a ceremony that I wouldn’t. As Bugs wrote, the ceremony is an expression of a certain French mentality — that Americans don’t share and can’t share because of U.S. cultural limitations.
As to bigotry: Just as I have written about how I, a lapsed(cubed) cradle Catholic am thoroughly leery of adult converts to Catholicism who seek mainly authoritarianism (J.D. Vance being the current poster boy for such moral mixups), I also object to U.S. evangelicals and protestants suddenly swooping in to defend Catholic iconography.
These are the same people who believe that the pope is the antichrist and that the current pope is crazy for supporting negotiatons toward peace in Ukraine and Palestine.
With “co-religionists” like these, one does not need enemies.
There is a long, long tradition of satirical use of religious iconography in Catholicism and in Catholic countries. There is a long, long use of eroticism in Catholic art.
There are whole churches in Italy decorated with frescoes of gym-toned saints flying about in gauzy undershorts.
There are plenty of Saint Sebastians with tactically placed arrows.
If you think that some kitschy drag queens and ludicrous / cartoonish portrayal of Dionysos are sacrilegious, don’t go near postcard stands in Florence or Rome with their various images of the family jewels and booty of Michelangelo’s David.
From the pictures and video I saw it was less about Roman Catholic satire and all about American culture war.
.Tom
In France?
Were the French involved? It’s only their country… or is France now just a colony and suburb of Washington DC?
The second one. Do you watch many French movies? Most of them these days tend to be inane with a lean toward bourgeois twittery The only good ones I’ve seen lately are tales of the Muslim minority and life in the housing projects. So yes the ceremony did reflect the former while ignoring the latter much less the great tradition of lower class poetry that is reflected in, not just early Truffaut, but Jean Renoir and Jean Gabin.
Plus the ridiculous weather conditions tended to damp whatever point the show’s creator was trying to get across.
But, just to repeat, thinking something is bad, creatively, is not bigotry although it may comfort the creators to think so.
Yes, in France. Various parts of Europe have imported and adopted American political BS (culture war topics) for a while and is very odd. I assume, without any evidence, that it is convenient for the kind of divisive political discourse that keeps class politics off the neoliberal policy agenda. Politics in my own home country of Scotland, for example, has gone all in on American race, sex and gender issues that don’t have much to do with Scotland.
Idk about the colony and suburb. I don’t think State or the CIA need to be involved, although I guess that’s possible. I assumed the cultural flow is demand driven.
Another very famous case of a “Last Supper” that wasn’t polite enough that became another kind of banquet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feast_in_the_House_of_Levi
Worth reading the entry.
The quality of the work by Veronese on the design, painting, and visual field of this painting is extraordinary. I was lucky enough to be in Venice for Easter and saw his Banquet in the House of Levi one more time. It emanates grandeur.
And wit.
And note how it got Veronese into trouble.
With the narrow-minded among us.
Thank you, DJG, for what seems to me an admirably balanced response (I’ll reserve one quibble for the end of this).
I recall, by the way, seeing a number of postcards of Jesus with an enormous phallus. These were not contemporary “naughty pictures,” they were works belonging to museums and usually kept out of sight. A number of them were Greek, if memory serves
As .Tom suggests, the transgressive impulse is inescapable and omnipresent. Wherever a belief or an image is declared sacrosanct, the urge to defy or deface it will arise.
I didn’t see those few Olympic moments in question, though I did enjoy the panache of the bearded fellow in a skirt on the runway. (Aren’t all fashion shows an exercise in extremism?) I did, however, see the Charlie Hebdo cartoons, which seem to me to have arisen from the same spirit as the Last Supper caricature, as I believe another comment suggested. I found them gross and puerile, qualities that come easily to the transgressive spirit. But for me the response to them and to the Olympic portrayal raises a different question. If Muhammad is a living reality (as he is to some I know), and if Jesus Christ is a living reality (as he is to some I know), then where does this great outcry come from? A transcendent reality is surely beyond the reach of mockery. No attempt to drag it into the realm of the political will succeed — it will succeed only in the minds and hearts who have no real experience of it to begin with
So, to get to the quibble, I’m not sure that.those who are loudly offended are bigots, so much as that they are fearful. That they see their particular definition of faith as threatened — which, to me, suggests a lack of faith
I thought the whole point was to be “tolerant” and show diversity.
Calling people bigots who are deeply offended is just going to keep digging the hole deeper. This is exactly why I get so concerned. There is no tolerance at all shown to anyone who is outside the group.
I really am deeply concerned where this is all going. What was seen 2 nights ago was most certainly not imaginary. The excuses coming forth to explain it all away are just deeply hilarious.
I too thought much of it was just amazing. But there were parts that were deeply offensive. Especially pedophilia. I am just not OK with that. It is like sitting down to a meal in a 5 star restaurant and getting to the last bits and finding a cockroach.
Calling those who complain bigots doesn’t strike me as very tolerant.
It was really poor with terrible dancing and meaningless symbolism from the 15 or 20 minutes I saw at a relatives house.
I wish every American could have been there when the Orthodox father opened our Divine Liturgy this AM. I have spent the past day wondering why I am so upset. I began to think I was just alone and need to examine my own self. I could quickly tell this AM that my reaction is a bit mild compared to my peers. This “expression of diversity” did not go over well. What surprised me the most – the political tone of it all. Multiple people in the pre Liturgy classes talking about how ashamed they were for the Democratic Party – and these were Dem leaning voters. I seem to not be able to escape politics wherever I go. I remember in The Screwtape Letters – that was one of the most pushed directives by Uncle Screwtape – keep the people focused on politics at all times – most importantly in places it does not belong. Paraphrase – “You do that, my dear Wormwood, and they will all be ours.”
For those who think this is no big deal, what I witnessed this AM was fire raining down from Heaven from the altar and that would be an understatement. And we are by no means in the conservative wing of this denomination……more on the very permissive side. Just wow. I can hardly wait to read the emails which are surely coming from my wing of the family that is very very Protestant.
I have also been thinking hard the past day about my time as a grad student in Art and Literary Criticism course. The professor had a mantra – Good art always shines outward. Bad art always shines inward. IOW, art always has a mission to reveal and educate. Good art points the spotlight away from the artist and toward the work, the work says it all. Bad art, which we seem to be flooded with these days, is pointed toward the artist and their feelings and motivations, and not so much the work.
This distinction is often very subtle and can be missed. What happened this weekend was in no way subtle.
One has only to listen to the interviews of these producers of this show to realize this is all about them. The artwork was secondary. It is a plague of modern cultural warriors.
A feeling I share when some people want to compare trump to the Savior, the Son of God. (sigh)
I hear that a lot. Unfortunately, I do believe that is a very wrong-headed way to look at it. I spend time with these people. Many of my family are these people. This is likely how people who do not spend time with them feel.
I do not think this is religious at all. I think it is far more congruent with how the peasants felt about Robin Hood. He too in the legends and myths was held up as god-like.
I grew up, and worked, in a town that lies now in the heart of the rust belt, and I think that I have a good grasp of how these people think. If your reference to Robin Hood concerns Trump, then you’re probably right. These are the people in my hometown, and they are many, who think with their prejudices, and who like to fall back on that most comfortable of beds, Common Sense. Trump’s their man. But I would add that others, probably a smaller number, would consider Trump more like the Pied Piper. But instead of rats, it’s all the illegals, and it’s only them, who are killing the country. And Trump will fix that, and Mexico, if Trump doesn’t bomb them, will pay for their eradication.
And please, IM Doc, don’t say it. (I ‘m just kidding in a way.) I intend to vote for Jill Stein (no kidding.) I hope that it’s my vote that carries her over the top, (kidding again.) She’s the best candidate for my hometown, and it would be people like her who could best begin to effectively represent our hometown neighbors.
And speaking of religion, and why not, all the people at my old church would be certain to positively revile any degradation of artwork that purports to illustrate biblical events. I think you’ve addressed that in several comments. It would be considered blasphemy, and sacrilegious. Some would wonder if any laws had been broken. But if the priest would choose instead, to speak about some other topic than the Olympics, say the genocide in Gaza, and the western churches seeming silence on that, the parishioners would grow uneasy in their pews. And if, for the sake of argument, he would tell the congregation that their government was involved in the highest levels of participation in that genocide, a grievous, mortal sin, what would the churchgoers think? And God forbid, should the priest bring up Ukraine, and our government’s role in bringing the world, God’s gift to ALL men, to the brink of a nuclear confrontation, what then? Better for the priest never to have been ordained. Better to stick with the Olympics from France, and with the personal grievances some kooks over there are able to create over here. And to think, as my townspeople would, that this is the gratitude we get for saving Frenchie not once, but twice; no, there won’t be a third time.
well said. divide and conquer/ not just a slogan
Dear 123, When’st I was young I also dismissed the old folks reference to common sense, and all that. What could those old folks possibly know compared to my/our then knowledge gained at the uni level?
My grandma had one of those old homily plaques on her kitchen wall that said, “We are too soon old, and too late smart.” I think of that often now, with humility, thinking of my arrogance in my younger years.
Hi, I think that common sense is too often a term used without thought. It’s ’common sense’ that owning a gun makes you and your family safe, but statistics show that gun-ownership leads to a higher risk of gun related shootings, and fatalities. Additionally, statistics show that a very small number of gun owners will ever use their gun to successfully defend themselves or their families. Chalk one up for ‘common sense.’ But too often that same sense only acts to reinforce the most banal prejudices: this group is lazy, this group is greedy, that group is dumber than us. And the justification for that is to ignore the whole of American history, and to blame its victims for their plight, and not the entire corrupt system that created, and endorsed, those courts and laws designed for class and racial suppression. Getting back to life in my old hometown, there was good and bad, but even a large number of the good would have to admit ‘blacks are just too lazy to work, and why should we support them on welfare?’ It was this appeal to ‘common sense’ that a con man like Ronald Reagan would use when he ran for President. And white people bought it. Chalk up another win for ‘common sense.’
BTW, that plaque on your grandma’s wall illustrates another example of ‘common sense,’ that age invariably brings wisdom. Not always true, but a reassuring sentiment nonetheless. Trump and Biden illustrate my point that there’s no fool like an old fool. If this 72 yo man were to ever hang up a plaque concerning age, it might be this:
Everyone wants to live a long time, but no one wants to grow old.
Film critic Pauline Kael once talked about “running for office in the arts” by which she meant those who substitute political advocacy for creative inspiration. So I’d say the measure of the ceremony was whether it was creatively inspired or merely “being different” inspired with he expectation that only those who share the taste not to mention the insider references of the creators would find it pleasing. And of course these ceremonies are also supposed to promote both the theoretical Olympic spirit of peace and goodwill and burnish the image of the host country.
The Olympics are an often somewhat corny exercise in search of athletic heroes. While there were plenty of attempts at France burnishing or Paris burnishing one might well ask what Lady Gaga or hip hop routines have to do with the Olympics much less France. Yes, perhaps we are going overboard with the objections but DEI versus common sense seems to have reached its limits with this mess of an opening ceremony.
I found this somewhere, can’t remember where, and copied it out; the quote
seems apt to your comment.
~~~
there’s a very VERY significant element of constant demoralization. Civilization-wide. Actively applied and reinforced, not just an organic trend.
… I’m concerned with THE major trend that stops us from addressing all this – and in 2009 I’d never have thought I could refer to them this way – lesser issues. How do I define it exactly? That which blocks, disorganizes, misleads, and demoralizes continually, actively?
~~~
/ my 2 cents
Although I’m sure many will respond with ‘don’t be so serious. what’s a matter, can’t ya take a joke?’ Thanks for the reference to The Screwtape Letters.
Thanks for referencing C.S.Lewis’s book The Screwtape Letters.
adding: Virginia Woolf made the same point about artists. Christina Rossetti, Jane Austin, and the Bronte sisters vanished as important persona in their works. Their works were all.
Plenty of Olympics opening ceremonies have been cringe or schmaltzy etc. This one was notably puerile and ugly looking. It’s as though “France” were saying We’re not Catholic anymore WHEEE! To me it had very little to do with what I thought was the spirit of these games.
I was in Sydney during the 2000 Olympics. It was a big happy party.
I can’t remember where they were (opening or closing ceremony) but the parade had two items making light of Aussie culture. One was a float of a flip flop. The other was a Hills Hoist, the pervasive outdoor drying rack: https://hillshome.com.au/collections/hills-hoist-clotheslines
re: Purile and ugly. So… juvenile imaginings, in the worst possible juvenile imaginings way? Yeah, I’ll go with that. / ;)
adding: I watched the amazing men’s gymnastics pommel horse competiton late last night ( US time) and it was amazing. Whoa doggies!, as we say. What strength, balance, beautiful expression of balance and physical bodily control, and all. Beautiful, amazing, and inspiring.
I have not watched any of the Olympics so far, but I did see a clip on the news that Snoop Dogg was carrying the Olympic torch? Because it resembles the world’s biggest blunt?
Seriously, what does he have to do with athletics? I’m confused.
Actually Snoop ran in the USA 2024 Olympic trials.
OK, it was an exhibition 200 meters and his time was 34.+
He thought it was good for a 52 year old.
I also remember Eddie the Eagle of British ski jump fame.
Poking fun at the Olympics should be an event
Snoop weighs in, giving a shout out to a truly great moment from the 1996 opening ceremony when The Greatest of All Time, Muhammad Ali lit the flame.
https://people.com/snoop-dogg-does-grandpas-duties-with-granddaughter-at-2024-olympics-8684855
Also, Calvin hails I believe from Long Beach, CA. So there is a semblance of connection to the 2028 LA Olympics. Yeah it appears an odd pairing at this year’s events but in actual terms, is this any different really from his varied ad cameos with Martha Stewart?
Another time when I am grateful my ancient TV is awakened only for the very occasional sporting event. The Olympic Opening Ceremony did not even register.
I was born and raised Christian, and have no problem with people making fun of Christianity.
Week 1 at my Christian secondary school, the chaplain (and religious studies teacher) showed us The Life of Brian in class. He felt Christianity was unthreatened.
One of my favourite British comedy sketches takes the parody a step further:
https://youtu.be/asUyK6JWt9U?si=Xo6jot8x-Jjrukta
Perhaps its a good thing my TV is not hooked up to anything so that I am not able to watch it.
( Technically speaking, I could sit there and watch it all day. What I can’t watch is any programming on it because it isn’t hooked up to anything.)
“Why we might never know the truth about ultra-processed foods.”
Classic Big Tobacco stratagem to sow doubts about the detrimental health effects of their products.
While the BBC article does refer to the outstanding scientist from Brazil (Professor Carlos Monteiro) who developed the classification of UPF, it left unmentioned the ur-text about UPF, which was written by the British physician, scientist, and very public advocate Chris van Tulleken and published last year by the final(?) remaining independent publishing house (Norton).
And the “press” wonders why they are circling the drain…
Yes, fascinating book, BTW. thanks for the recommendation. Now I’m finding emulsifiers and “modifiers” in all sorts of things I used to eat.
That’s what I thought. Clever FUD-fogging the issue and the danger.
As Colonel ( Retired) Pat Lang once said, in another context . . . ” That’s very clever. I don’t like clever.”
Bill Gates, an Epstein-paedophile, says it is nice to have somebody younger as a candidate. A paedophile would say so, wouldn’t they?
Also, if Harris’ knowledge about AI is enough we could all be presidents of the USA
Kamala Harris digs deep into the epistemology and ontology of AI:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PHjXf0y-VRw&pp=ygUPSGFycmlzIGFib3V0IGFp
Makes me feel good that 60 is considered youthful.
innovative ad-walkers??
They’re just hi-tech sandwich board folks:
https://www.mediastorehouse.com/p/767/sandwich-board-men-oxford-street-21662415.jpg.webp
True that. I guess the sign spinners (youtube) could be called innovative, though.
Wikipedia says that the proper woke term is bumvertising:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bumvertising
Something right out of a PK Dick work of futuristic science fiction…What can Ubik bring to your life today, consumer – citizen? Or as an alternate idea a “simple plan” to gather commerce to them and only to them from an evil, fictional corporation from the Alien film series, aka Weyland Corporation.
We can recall it for you wholesale. One step closer to Blade Runner even ?
That dystopian scene in Blade Runner took place in Downtown Los Angeles on Broadway between Third Street and Fourth Street. Capitalism is so demeaning to the proletariat that workers are not even allowed the pleasure of making money for the capitalists. A worker with a sandwich board standing in front of the T Mobile store on Third and Broadway would be more effective than workers walking with computer screens above their heads. People walking down Broadway wouldn’t look up from their phones long enough to read the screen.
Do they use Bluetooth to personalize ads for the people they encounter? That would be innovative.
That where it’s headed–its like my youtube feed. I’ve been feeling a strong need to get away from screens though here I am.
There’s “screens,” and then there are substantive screens like NC, where the dross gets filtered from the substance.
Though those insistent ads, in orange type, tend to derail thoughtfulness — one motors on from substance into the “substance” of an ad for some financialism scam or another, and for me, for some reason, a constant display in the sidebar of ads for Chinese fast-fashion beachware…
“Israel army says readying ‘decisive offensive’ against Lebanon’s Hezbollah”
They’ll want to hurry up and get a move on them. So far, Hamas has destroyed or damaged some 500 armoured Israeli vehicles. That is going to thin out the number of vehicles which could be used against Hezbollah. And that is not eve going int the number of crew that have been killed or wounded. The IDF saying ‘Tis but a scratch!’ is not going to help things either-
https://defencesecurityasia.com/en/500-israeli-armored-vehicles-damaged-by-palestinian-fighters-reports-israeli-media/
If they have not invaded Lebanon yet, the only real reason is that they have not been able to get the US to joining them in the fighting. Netanyahu may have been ranting about an Abraham Alliance but the only two countries that would join would be Israel and the US. No one else is interested.
The soccer field deaths smell like Israel “atrocities propaganda.” It doesn’t make sense.
It sounds like the dead are Druze Arabs. There is an allegation that the explosion is from a failed Iron Dome missile launch (which should mean the deaths were mostly caused a fragments). Supposedly an Iron Dome facility is on the other side of the mountain next to the field.
Not only my breath from the real story to come out.
Middle East Eye is making that point in their broadcast news, but can get no one to confirm the sightings because they are afraid of Israeli repercussions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUQy6epd1_Q
The most interesting part is that they are not allowing anyone in to see what the bomb looks like. It may not have been a false flag, but the press here is certainly playing this up to the point where it looks like one.
Saw a Telegram post days in advance, which said Netanyahu would launch a major escalation w Hezbollah when he returned from the US. Then Bibi appeared in his counter-terrorist garb squealing about this particular affront to Israeli sovereignty (in the Golan Heights, no less). Other posts imparted that Druze Arabs consider themselves Syrian, with a current of hostility to the Israeli gov.
Even if a Hezbollah missile strayed to hit them, I fail to see their value as a target. On the other hand, Smotrich attending a funeral for Arab children seems a bit campy. Curious though, that the Israelis would feel the need to arrange casus belli; at this point, Netanyahu could lay an egg and no one would flinch.
From X about an hour ago
Brics News (@Brics info):
“Turkish President Erdogan threatens to invade Israel”
“JUST IN: United States, France, Saudi Arabia, Norway, Belgium and Sweden call on their citizens to leave Lebanon immediately”
@Brics info (wrong)
@BRICSinfo
US, France issue travel advisories for Lebanon amid regional tensions
Erdogan Says Turkey Might Enter Israel to Help Palestinians
There is also the allegation that it is from a Hezbollah missile meant for a very nearby Israeli military facility.
It would be good to have an impartial missile-ologist team sent in real quick to study everything and make a reality-based report. But how likely is that to ever happen?
Wallabies take over IOM, its like home, says the ‘expert’ except maybe colder and wetter, you think?
Not really – Isle of Man and Tasmania are pretty similar, climate-wise:
https://weatherspark.com/compare/y/147738~149450/Comparison-of-the-Average-Weather-at-Isle-Of-Man-Ronaldsway-Airport-and-Launceston-Airport
If that is so, could Tasmanian Devils live on the Isle of Man if they were to be introduced there?
End Single Family Zoning by Overturning Euclid V Ambler Maximum Progress
First comment in the comments section: “This is probably the easiest, and cleanest, pathway to solving the housing crisis. Not only will this alleviate, to some degree, the high cost of housing (and the wealth disparity that emanates from it), but it would allow our cities to become denser.”
Personally I would love to see Trump buy up the old Victorian row house on Boston’s Beacon Hill’s Louisburg Square, opposite the Heinze-Kerry row house, and transform it into an RV vacation destination by slicing up the many rooms within the buildings to accommodate overnight rentals. Maybe Elon Musk can lend Trump the funds to do this?
In order to go along with the times, all new Hollywood action movies will use big rigs carrying batteries instead of the old school petrol filled ones.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9GGDOUDLhc
Trump slides back into crypto pumping:
The former president also pledged to create a “bitcoin and crypto presidential advisory council.”
During those “10 days in July”, I really thought he was going to put this sort of stuff aside. But he’s back in full heel mode, back to covering his crytpo flank from RFK Jr. This is loser-talk from Trump, IMO. If he’s wasting time back in the dirt with the other grifters, he’s toast*.
* 100 days is a long time, so I acknowledge he could still switch to face!
Sounds like Mayor Adams. There’s way, way too much money sloshing around at the top.
Speaking of RFK Jr, here is a link to his most recent Substack. He has ideas about Bitcoin and how to incorporate it into world economies. I am not a Bitcoin expert and would like to hear from NCers about what RFK Jr presents in his post:
https://robertfkennedyjr.substack.com/p/my-bitcoin-2024-keynote-speech
Crypto is killing the planet, so eff him?
That is a good read re “loser talk.”
GOP positions don’t poll well, so there isn’t much for him to say. Going for crypto puts him in the loser camp.
At last our own South Sea Scheme. I have been watching for what might end the worlds longest credit bubble and thought crypto might do it but it was always too small. Getting the US Treasury involved might just be what is needed.
He doesn’t consider himself a heel. He considers himself to be a Savior, Annointed by God, to be our elected God-Emperor. I don’t think face or heel has anything to do with it.
Drill baby drill, frack everything everywhere, and the achievement of Energy Dominance will give us all the Energy we need to become Crypto Dominant as well.
Here are some images of God Emperor Trump.
https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=AwrhbodTw6ZmdJARq2VXNyoA;_ylu=Y29sbwNiZjEEcG9zAzEEdnRpZAMEc2VjA3Nj?p=god+emperor+Trump+image&fr=sfp
Well, if the god-emperor as you put it is deciding to spend his valuable campaign time at a crypto conference, then he knows he has no clothes.
Wow, this sounds doomed, but that it wasn’t immediately shot down is surprising.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/28/brazil-radical-plan-tax-global-super-rich-tackle-climate-crisis
Wow, this must be doomed, but it’s surprising that it wasn’t shot down immediately.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/28/brazil-radical-plan-tax-global-super-rich-tackle-climate-crisis
Oy! Don’t give them ideas.
Blinken gave Chinese a good laugh, and he did not even have to bring a guitar for that.
“US Secretary of State warns China about consequences of supporting Russian military industrial complex”
Not the first time that Blinken has threatened the Chinese like this. Like I said in a previous comment, when the Ukraine collapses the west will blame China for this by saying it was caused by them supplying all that stuff to the Russians. And then they will use this accusation to sanction China in a big way.
I wait patiently for the wisdom of Treasury Secretary Yellen to opine once again, and this time with definite feeling. Warn the Chinese about their investment, manufacturing capacity and likewise production capacity…which she did on her last visit to the country just a few short months back.
Don’t make those attractive, affordable EV that are so much lower in price! You were warned before…heavy on the sarcasm. Blinken and Yellen alike, are actually supposed to be the more “competent members” at the top levels of this Administration.
Add to those sins the one of overstocking with raw materials and foodstuff (all that money could have gone to buy US Treasury Bonds, no?).
Sanctioning China in a big way will end up becoming ” Reverse Protectionism” benefitting China in a big way, just as it was for Russia. it will speed up the consolidation of Great Mackinderstan.
If America “has” an Empire, most Americans will be emotionally better off after adjusting to the sudden lack of pressure to defend the empire America no longer “has”.
If America ” is” an Empire, then losing the Empre will mean losing itself, which will mean the delamination of America into many separate parts and pieces. The process could be strange and nasty, perhaps like 10 or 15 breakup-of-Yugoslavias going on all at once.
I hope America merely “has” an empire which it can shed the way certain lizards can shed their tail in order to save themselves.
Europe still wriggling?
I used to find it slightly confusing when the US said that, in the event of any Chinese attempt to exercise it’s sovereignty over Taiwan, America’s first move would be to ensure that TSMC did not fall into the hands of the Peoples Republic. Now I consider it absolutely fascinating that this still seems to be the basis of US foreign policy given the speed at which China’s chip sector is developing and leaving it capable of retaliating by treating sanctions as an act of war and blocking access to, or simply tossing a rocket or two or three across the Strait on all TSMC’s facilities, and there goes the US technology sector’s future.
If that were to be the case, will the US be stupid enough to risk a nuclear exchange because China has demolished a few buildings on it’s own territory, or will the US have politicians intelligent enough to avoid this problem in the first place and begin a sensible withdrawal from Taiwan, if not from any other country with interests in the South China Sea? It seems to me that the concept of managed trade and general tariffs makes economic sense and can create positive economic possibilities for all parties, whereas politically directed sanctions do not make any sense whatsoever once an economy achieves the potential for endogenous growth and/or alternative trading partners.
I did A level economics 60 years ago, and it struck me then, , as it does now contra Paul Samuelson, that comparative advantage is the single most stupid idea in the social sciences once you get beyond the static frictionless two countries, two commodities model and start moving towards a dynamic model with n countries and n commodities, and that some forms of mutually accepted government directed trade provide the rational basis of both sound economies and relatively cohesive societies to the benefit of all. Or am I just an unreconstructed Keynesian incapable of comprehending the underlying subtleties of the collective mind of the West’s political élite and it’s passion for IPR, branding and restricted distribution channels?
RE: How Pennsylvania’s Oil Industry Quietly Dumped Wastewater Across the State
The article mentions a couple living in Warren County, in the northwest portion of Pennsylvania. My spouse’s cousin (deceased in 2019,) farmed, as had his parents and grandparents and great-grandparents, in Farmington Township, nestled against the New York State line. As a township supervisor, he proudly pointed out that all 45 miles of the township roads were gravel (or, dirt, as an outsider would call them). He became very upset when he discovered that the ‘water’ used to keep the dust down in summer, was fracking waste water.
The roads wind among the farms producing veggies, hay, oats, corn, for human and animal consumption. Dairy and beef cattle graze on adjacent fields all summer. Residents get their drinking water from wells; the Amish use springs.
We live just ‘over the border’ in New York State. In our rural neighborhood, there are about a dozen gas wells, dug in the 1990’s, plus a compressor station. And, of course, pipelines run along every road. Governor Cuomo, bless his heart, banned fracking in NY State. But I am sure there are natural gas (methane, really) industry lobbyists working feverishly in Albany.
The land we steward has a gas well, plus three gas company rights of way to wells on adjoining parcels. Again, all ‘developed’ in the 1990’s. Mostly with the promise of ‘free gas for life’ to the people who signed away the mineral rights as well as surface rights for access. These wells, and most others in the area, have been bought up by a company called PPP Future Development, owned, according to the internet, by a Charles Bugman. It’s the ‘Future’ in the name that gives me the chills. Historically, the methane wells in this area are neither deep nor large, and are mostly played out using the current drilling methods. However, if the New York State fracking ban were lifted. …..?
Does anyone know what is actually in the fracking water? Except for the chief perps of course. Well, if history is a guide, it is the worst sh¡t that they can’t dump anywhere else.
Speaking of dumping of toxic poison excessively into the local and nearby population sources for drinking and bathing water…I’ll keep giving the film Dark Waters it’s deserving praise for the tackling of a serious subject.
Large chemical company operations aren’t a problem for their executive leadership or many of our nation’s wealthy…it’s a Nimby problem and easily shifts the burden onto the poorer citizens where those operations exist. From the film above, Dupont just managed to shift their operations from West Virginia down to Fayetteville NC. The corporation will poison a population, that is unknowing or unwilling to accept the magnificent local plant employing thousands also poses a risk their livestock or children.
https://www.focusfeatures.com/dark-waters
That’s the greatest aspect of our age of capitalist mega-overlords. They don’t live and work in the communities that they destroy, so it isn’t relevant to them. Another reason for aggressive antitrust enforcement to knock companies down to size, so that perhaps wealthy owners at least live in the same region as where their malfeasance happens.
A great film.
Alice X,
Try FracFocus Chemical Disclosure Registry.
Ms X there was a rumor that frack waste water was used for irrigation in california, which turned out to be not true but what was found out is that oil pumping wastewater has been used for decades for irrigation –
https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/07/oil-wastewater-fruits-vegetables-farms/
And what about the natural contaminants which are in the natural deep-layer water which comes up out of the wells along with the natural gas? I have read that some of that deep brine-water is naturally rich in natural organic radionuclides.
( I believe Dickie-poo Cheney secured a special exemption against chemical disclosure of the ingredients used in the frack-water used to do the fracking to begin with. It may be that the only way to be safe from fracking is to live upstream and/or up-plume from any possible conceivable gassy shale formation. Parts of America will stay safe from fracking because parts of America really truly have nothing to frack for.)
Ten years ago or so, fracking companies were contracting with municipal treatment plants in the New York southern tier to get rid of the toxic waste, which of course didn’t have the facilities to remove chemicals. Fortunately the practice was banned.
Cuomo did ban the directional horizontal hydraulic fracturing used elsewhere, but conventional gas wells in NYS are also “fracked” to fracture strata to release gas, likely with the same toxic brew.
It is important to note that New York State did not have the long history and body of law benefitting extractive industries as is the case in PA, OH, WV, etc. Further the NYS constitution gives considerable power to municipalities and counties in land use regulations and restrictions. Legally it isn’t as friendly to frackers as elsewhere.
In Central NY we are looking forward to the Micron chip fab that promises to use as much electricity and water as the county of 750,000. A $625M, 45 mile water pipeline from Lake Ontario is part of the project to draw 48M gallons a day and generate 42M gallons of witch’s brew waste for the county to process. The chemicals used are “trade secrets”… this is a place that had the “most polluted Lake on earth” (Onondaga Lake) thanks to Allied Chemical. That waste includes thousands of tons of mercury in the Lake bottom that was “remediated” by covering it with sand.
History doesn’t repeat, but it sure rhymes!
Shades of Love Canal.
Here in Iowa they dump the industrial waste on the ground and it ends up in the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers.
Yah, get rid of City of Euclid, Ohio v. Ambler Realty Company. Another step on the path to the death of regulation of corporate maleficence.
Granted, zoning has become a labyrinth of corrupt practices designed to destroy the often carefully and even semi-democratically developed Master Plans of municipalities all over the US. I took a course in law school titled “Land Use Law,” which was essentially a primer for budding “developers” (one pernicious species of vampire squid) on how to defeat zoning efforts that in small ways impeded “free use of capital” in search of profit. One section of the course was on the offensive use of zoning — how to steal land, particularly farm land, by bribing or persuading zoning authorities to recast “highest and best use” tests to force-fit high-density residential and commercial uses onto property owned by (back then) largely small farmers with no resources to defend against what essentially was condemnation and theft of their land. That was accomplished by imposing property taxes based on millage percentages of presumed “highest and best use value” of land, which small farmers and owners of modest means could never pay. The idea was to force “sale” of the land to developers, at the “unimproved stage,” where the sale price was largely dependent on “assessed value” as “unimproved land.” The parcels would then be subdivided and either built up or sold for “developed land” prices.
And if R1 residential zoning, per Master Plans that often started out with good intentions, but pretty inevitably succumbed to corrupt practices, was “inconvenient” for the developer, why, a few well placed bribes for sneak re-zoning, with overwhelming lawfare weaponry in the hands of the “developers” and zoning cronies to beat down complaints by affected owners.
That zoning has become corrupt and destructive of communal, commensal tendencies is pretty clear. But a ruling by the also corrupt Supremes that does away completely with the “police powers” of communities (not the Thin Blue Line but the power to promote general welfare by protecting public health and safety) will effectively declare open-season for corporate looting.
A nice exercise of throwing the baby of homeostatic police-powers regulation out with the dirty bath water of zoning-in-practice.
Which of course is the aim of the whole exercise: rendering the race to the bottom fully “legitimate” by corrupted means, by each of the three “legitimizing” parts of the government.
Sez the ascendant Chamber of Commerce: “Yeah? You got a complaint? So what you gonna do about it? SUE us?”
Generally, use-based zoning is a scam. Typically a bunch of oldsters sit around a table debating about whether a particular parcel shall be residential, or commercial, or offices, etc…. often a decade or so in advance of any building. So…is the market there for residences, or is it there for commercial, etc. when time to build it out comes? Who knows?
A far better scheme is to zone by intensity (small buildings here, medium buildings there, big buildings yonder) and let the uses sort themselves out (within limits). This is called “form-based zoning.”
The biggest zoning scam is upzoning agricultural land. The speculators can buy the ag land for a few thousand dollars an acre, then, once they get the entitlements to split it and build, sell it to the builders for 50 to 100 times more than they paid for it. This is the foundation of several large fortunes in California’s Central Valley.
In Germany, the developers have to sell the land to the local government at the ag land price, then re-purchase it at the upzoned price. All the profit (the “unearned increment”) accrues to the benefit of the public. And Germany’s public amenities, despite their current difficulties, are very nice indeed. University tuition is free, single-payer healthcare, and the arts budget for just the City of Berlin exceeds the National Endowment for the Arts for the entire U.S. of A.
RE: ‘Olympics sabotaged’ and ‘La Farce!’ BBC
“The Daily Mirror says a malicious state is a likely culprit. The paper’s defence editor, Chris Hughes, says the attacks are “straight out of the playbook” of Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.”
They consulted the infamous “Russian playbook” again so it must be true – just like with Hunter’s laptop!
What I want to know is when are the spooks going to let the rest of us have a look at that authoritative tome? And was it written by Boris and Natasha?
This is an interesting one, because the attacks were sophisticated and well coordinated. If you look at a map of the TGV network, you can see that the attacks were targeted so as to cause the maximum disruption with the fewest resources. What they did was to cut and set fire to the fibre-optic cables that transmit safety and other information to the conductors, effectively bringing much of the network to a halt. They must have had inside help or information of some kind. As for who did it, it’s impossible to say, although it would have required considerable planning and organisation, which rules out a lot of the fringe anarchist groups who would normally be the first suspects. There has been some muttering on the intertubes, but no-one has claimed responsibility yet.
Like Nordstream?
Great minds,…
It is rather reminiscent of the double sabotage that, on 2022-10-08, had the cables for the communication network GSM-R cut near Berlin and near Herne (two large agglomerations quite distant from each other), thus causing massive disruptions in the railway traffic in Northern Germany.
At that time, there were speculations that the ease with which one could sever the cabling required to make trains operate would enable the perfect terrorist action for paralysing transportation in a country.
We now have further proof of the fragility of the essential infrastructure in our societies. But I am certain that more money for Ukraine will make us much safer…
Gosh I wonder if the group that managed to shut down Nordstrom 2 by blowing it up from a “small sail boat” might have helped. They have had a couple of years to get bored and need a new project.
Any serious railfan anywhere in the world knows “weak points” in lineside signals and switches. They are obvious. Further, many such signal cabinets and structures get tagged with graffiti. Or look at railroad freight cars; even ones carrying toixic chemicals get tagged.
The TGV sabotage wasn’t like Nordstream. Special skills or training is helpful but not required. A few weeks ago a 17 yo sabotaged a switch in Nebraska and was caught doing a video of the derailment.
I think the interesting thing is the organisation and coordination. Four attacks were carried out more or less simultaneously, at distances of several hundred kilometres from each other (in one case the explosive device was found and neutralised). They were placed at strategic junctions, and the one that was made safe was on the main TGV line to Marseille. This wasn’t kids fooling around.
For its part the French government hasn’t made any public statements holding anyone responsible: the Russian thing, I suspect, is just the UK media being silly. In any case, given the nature of the attack, the objective was almost certainly to disrupt train services over one of the busiest weekends of the year, rather than to target the Olympics, which were virtually unaffected. We’ll see.
Mercouris justifiably ridiculed the “six guys in a sailboat” theory of destroying 3 or 4 Nordstream pipes in 70 meters of water.
Let it suffice to say that “4 guys with gasoline cans” (or whatever was used) surely could have pulled this off. Railroads are perhaps the softest targets of critical infrastructure out there. Look no further than the ubiquitous tagging of railcars and facilities.
As I understand it, it seems that most resistance groups have at least one spook member. So whoever did this was very fortunate to fly under the radar. Or…
And the tactic these days seems to be to set things up to fail, rather than blow things/people up (Nordstream excepted). So for example the Trump attempted assassination where that building roof was left clearly unprotected with not even drones because the US SS had rejected the use of drones.
And has anyone considered that this is the work of people from the Middle East not thrilled about Israel? For some reason, that theory doesn’t seem to be getting a run. In a country riven by racial tensions, if I understand correctly.
Maybe they will catch the perps, but then you have to wonder if the people caught are the real perps or patsies.
The hall of mirrors exists in a hall of mirrors.
Acting at four points simultaneously is not that hard to do with modern comms technology (Discord has everything you need). Players in AR games like Ingress do it all the time, and they’re hobbyists.
Some knowledge of rail networks and how they work is implied, but I wouldn’t rule that out for amateurs either. There are a lot of rail enthusiasts out there and probably a wealth of information on the subject if you know where to look.
Was just online earlier today on the Faceborg and saw some different media channels advertising this series or that next film and so forth. Needless to say that the master plans at Disney are continuing their headlong pursuit at 100 mph…more offerings from the MCU. No plan B I suppose.
Robert Downey Jr…now to be playing the Dr. Doom character in upcoming Avengers films. I sorta lose track and don’t much care to ever catch up fully with the last 2 entries (Infinity War, Endgame). I heard the anecdotes from others that the last Thor movie, Love and Thunder, was not very good.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2024/07/27/comic-con-2024-live-marvel-announcements/74571304007/
Added if I had guts I’d sell the Disney stock short because of this idiocy on offer.
And speaking of the Borg (and our recent sharing on the same), today I actually managed a political post there vis-à-vis Palestine on a Kamelot (see above) endorsement, but I was exceeding cautious using carefully veiled language. And it flew. For now. That’s what we have come to.
Well, anything I manage to post is highly neutral and often dull or even dated pop culture references …like cousin Eddie from the Vacation movies. “Shitters Full” is just classic and funny!
It’s not just Disney and their approach to film. Scanning through channels today, there is a trailer for a movie release in middle August. Another entry in the Alien film franchise. I’m hoping it’s an improvement from the last effort, Covenant. Idiots on a foreign planet sans a helmet deserve getting wrecked on arrival… They might well have exhausted that series unless the Alien or the species somehow makes its way to a space station in, or near Earth’s orbit. Now I’m not including those AVP films from the mid 2000s…which I consider an aberration.
MCU has been sort of losing its way for some time…not knowing what stories it wants to tell etc. Just from plot perspective, if they introduce a plot twist as to how Dr Doom amf Tony Stark are sort of same people, that would, at least, be interesting.
“Can tech help solve the Los Angeles homeless crisis? Finding shelter may someday be a click away”
The good news for them is that they have four years to perfect this app. If they want to make sure that there are no homeless on the streets of LA when the Summer Olympics kick off there in 2028, this is one way to go. But since they have thrown billions at this problem and it has not gone away, I tend to think that this is just big tech doing a scam by shouting ‘We have an app for that!’
RE: The history of the West is not quite what you learned in school
Turns out this is a review of Josephine Quinn’s new book “How the World Made the West” where according to the article she argues that the notion of “the West” was something created by later cultures who fancied themselves the descendants of the ancients.
This is very similar to her argument in her previous book In Search of the Phoenicians. In that one she makes a very good case that there was no ancient people from a particular place who considered themselves “Phoenicians”. The word “Phoenician” doesn’t appear in classical literature until hundreds of years after the height of the supposed Phoenician civilization and it was sort of a catch-all term for ancient Mediterranean maritime traders. Quite a bit of the notion of a Phoenicia can be traced to 20th century Lebanon trying to create a history for itself when it became a modern state.
The Economist review doesn’t get into great detail, perhaps because doing so might derail some notions of an inherent British Western superiority. That makes me think this new book is well worth reading – one more for the list!
Thank you for that. And crikey, another book (or two) for my impossibly long list.
Thanks for the summary. I couldn’t check the link, as the Italian government has classified it as child pornography.
What!?…
Use a VPN?
So, it’s day seven of the summer of Kamalove, and my curiosity is demanding some answers, such as who is running the country?
Kammie is free to roam about the campaign trail unencumbered by the demands of executive functions. Meanwhile, has anyone seen Joe since the address to the nation? Are they preparing a death bed for him in the West Wing? Or has he quietly been shipped off to Tucumcari?
There are six months left here … candidates for unofficial wizard behind the curtains? Jake Sullivan? Antony “Fraud in the Factum” Blinken?
Also, does anyone else think that six day delay between Kamala’s launch date and the Obamas endorsement sticks out like a sore thumb? What sort of plans were they hatching that got aborted?
(Slinks away into the bushes)
Good question; where is Biden? I can’t recall him doing much if anything since the famous Tweet. Harris is getting all the ink now so maybe Joe is just laying low, enjoying his time away. I think I did read he was spending the weekend somewhere.
As far as St. O, I have read in a few places (Hersh was one) that St.O wanted Mark Kelly, but Joe screwed that up by endorsing Harris. He was mad at Obama and Pelosi for forcing him out so he did that out of spite. That makes sense, IMO, from all the other things I have read. See Clooney, Obama, fundraiser, and op-ed calling for Biden to drop out.
I am also very cynical, so I’m not convinced this is over. The push is on to elevate and crown Harris as the greatest candidate ever – but what if the dogs don’t eat the dog food? Trump cannot win – can she beat him? If they think she can’t – what’s next becomes the question. Or, maybe I should say who’s next?
Shouldn’t that be: “Slinks his way into the Bushes?” After all, Poppy Bush was Chief Spook and Bottle Washer at one time.
Come on, man Joe Biden is fully alive, taking names and kicking the ass of bad dudes all over! Strong as he has ever been, sharp as a tack. Who you calling weak, pal? \ Sarc
Jill and Hunter running domestic policy is a worthy thought of the most cringe. I’d presume the Blob* is capable of self motivated, not selfish at all, direction on foreign policy.
Who would trade places with Xi Jinping?
(Shouted in an angry tone)
Certainly, nobody would want to trade places with JRB. Thats for sure.
But has Biden really been around that much anyway? He’s given fewer press conferences than any recent president, and campaigned in 2020 from his basement. So I’m not sure if this is really all that different?
He’s long been reduced to the role of ceremonial president. He has no more cerebellum but muscle memory may be enough to make it until November.
Or, he could thud.
Who ” ran the country” when Woodrow Wilson was too incapacitated by stroke to run much of anything?
We’ve been here before.
“The Secret Russians at the Paris Olympics”
I’ve got an idea. How about holding an Olympics where the athletes can only represent the actual country that they were born in? Can you imagine? Tiny nations would get their athletes back to represent them going on to becoming winners and former medal winner power houses of countries in the west would drop right down the medal tally. You read of cases where athletes shop themselves around to different countries to who can pay them the most meaning they accumulate multiple passports. This would put an end to it.
Meanwhile – what is really happening on Russian TV regarding the Olympics……
https://x.com/MichaelAshura/status/1817139460691378212
It’s rubbing a lot of people the wrong way how Russia attacks the Ukraine and is banned from the Olympics but Israel, who is committing an active genocide and ethnic cleansing, gets a free pass. This sort of thing tends to get noticed.
Technically Russia is banned because that one dude said Russia had an extensive doping program, but had no proof and all cases were overturned in The Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Regardless, the International Olympic Committee has demanded Russia to come clean about this doping program, and since Russia can’t prove the negative, it remains banned. Sort of “have you stopped beating your wife” situation with the full support of the western media and sports organizations.
The war just added a new layer of cancel culture on top of that, but it really doesn’t have any legs to stand on regarding the rules of any and all sports.
The Western media has been making snide comments about China and drugs for a while, too.
The reason I no longer watch the Olympics is that during the 80’s and 90’s when I really liked athletics, there were enormous drug scandals involving atheletes from all sorts of different countries. In the end cynicism won out. In fact the other day a UK athlete made a remark implying the Chinese athletes were doping which was insulting considering the large number of UK athletes caught doping over the years – and often readmitted after a couple of years off.
I’ve a better idea. How about holding an Olympics where the athletes represent themselves? What, after all, does an athlete’s nationality have to do with their abilities?
According to Wikipedia the original Games “became a political tool used by city-states to assert dominance over their rival city states.” Now read ‘nation-states’ for ‘city states’ and you have the modern Games with the repulsive use of medal table being ‘evidence’ of some superiority of a nation’s ethos over others.
Much as I’d like to ignore it my own (small) nation’s media goes ga-ga over ‘my’ athletes and expects me to rejoice if one of them wins a Bronze and thus coats me with reflected glory. Well good for them, but it’s nothing to do with me.
Meanwhile in Germany they are still burning books by refusing to print them.
https://jonathanturley.org/2024/07/28/german-publisher-stops-all-printing-of-vance-book/
Not that there’s any exclusionary about book banning of course. The link does not get into whether the German rights holder will surrender the license of the book it no longer wants to print.
Unfortunately the same happens in the US where independent thinkers have to publish their books and articles in overseas publications as they cannot find US publishers willing to do so. Not sure but I think that this may have happened to Thomas Frank.
Germany has been drifting into totalitarianism for some time where its cultural soil is still rich for that kind of thing. In the US, we are facing the same forces, e.g., the banning of Caleb Maupin’s book on St. Kamala on Amazon and much, much more. There are very powerful forces moving us into some version of totalitarianism with feudal features in order to keep the streets of power from the riff-raff. Democracy, in the West, is dying or dead for structural reasons–post-modernist culture simply can’t tolerate power being shared by the proletariat–it’s all about “stars” and nobility now.
Meanwhile in Germany they are still burning books by refusing to print them…
[ This is the Germany that began the last century with a Genocide in what is now Namibia. Then the Germany that went on to begin the First World War, the Germany that went on to the Holocaust, went on to starting the Second World War, now the Germany that is supporting Genocide in Gaza.
The Germany that stuck copies of Nietzsche in pockets of soldiers marching off to war.
Yes, this Germany needs to burn the wrong books. ]
This is the Germany that began the last century with a Genocide in what is now Namibia.
At exactly the same time the Germans were exterminating the Namas and Hereros in Namibia, they were also going full genocidal in what is nowadays Tanzania during the great Maji-Maji revolt. And also, in the same manner, at the same time, against the Makaa in Cameroon.
The Germans had indeed form. As Hannah Arendt remarked, during WWII the Germans operated against “civilized” Europeans in exactly the same way they — and the other colonial powers — had operated against “savages” in the colonies. The former shocked Western sensitivities, the latter did not.
I’m not sure Germany started WW1. And the whole of Western Europe has been committing war crimes since the Middle Ages, with the exception of Ireland and maybe some Nordic countries.
“This is the Germany that began the last century with a Genocide in what is now Namibia.”
“At exactly the same time the Germans were exterminating the Namas and Hereros in Namibia, they were also going full genocidal in what is nowadays Tanzania during the great Maji-Maji revolt. And also, in the same manner, at the same time, against the Makaa in Cameroon.
“The Germans had indeed form.”
Thank you for this additional historical outline. What a methodically frightening people, for reasons that are beyond my understanding. Not that other peoples cannot be called frightening, this outline is assuredly intimidating.
The 30 Years War that brought the Westphalian Treaty wiped 30% of Germanic States population. They did it to themselves first…
Well the Swedes and all the mercenaries (Scots, Croats, etc.) Helped back then.
One presumes the Nietzche books given to the troops left out all the bits where he mercilessly mocks German-ness. Walter Kaufmann’s editions and translations of Nietzche point out that the “blonde beast” includes the Japanese and Arabs. (Granted because he approves of their aggressiveness and “mastery.). Nietzsche also boasts of his (presumed faux) Polishness and calls the Germans “die Tausche Volk” (deceiver people). And he says that all that sausage makes them slow thinkers. Anyway–to read Nietzche is not to agree with him or “I read Nietzche and I turned out ok.” :)
Re: Can tech help solve the Los Angeles homeless crisis? Finding shelter may someday be a click away
I have to admit, I hope something like this can be done, but I expect that CONTROL of information will happen rather than solving the problem.
For example, we keep reading that I-15 is blocked around Baker going to Los Wages, but I have looked on Google Maps with traffic turned on, looked on the CalTrans maps, looked at all the real time traffic data I can get my hands on and CANNOT see that the freeway is blocked. Has it been openned?
Hazmat cleanup of fiery wreck with ion batteries closes the 15 to Las Vegas, jamming freeways
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-07-27/hazmat-situation-closes-northbound-i-15-closed-between-los-angeles-and-las-vegas
LA Times is still reporting this as a current story.
All I need at this point is Paul Krugman writing a NYT article telling me freeway problems are all in my head.
All Northbound lanes were re-Opened very early Sunday morning local time after being closed for almost 48 hours.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/15-freeway-reopens-between-barstow-and-baker-after-fiery-crash-involving-semi-truck/ar-BB1qKnWO
Thank you! Yes, I saw that, and perhaps when I was looking at the traffic maps, it reflected that (although I was looking at it yesterday too, but no screen caps to share) – pretty dynamic data.
I found it interesting that this site features multiple articles from the main Ukraine propaganda organ. At any rate, I found the Syrskyi article interesting. He claims he has a secret plan to take back Crimea. Ukraine’s only chance of doing that is to start a nuclear war, i.e., a first strike against Russia with no response from Russia–theoretically possible if US/UK agents can get into the Kremlin and overthrow the government and so on. However, we live in a globalist culture that is rich with fantasy and superheroes.
Ukraine lost this war from the beginning. NATO has few chances to defeat Russia even if it goes all-out and time is not on the side of the US/EU which has not only lost much of its industry but nearly all of its war-fighting spirit (the US tends to lose wars against peasants in flip-flops) despite the hopes of using propaganda to arouse the public to fight that’s going to be hard in a Western culture that feature hedonism as the meaning of life.
Sometimes it reports important events, like damage to the power system and it’s not too hard to discount for the spin. Other times the spin is of interest.
Totally agree about the spin being interesting. The selected sample at NC of the Ukrainian version of things and its associated propaganda allows me to discuss Ukraine with people who read only that.
What sort of took me by surprise in 2022 (even though it probably shouldn’t) was how I was many times able to “track” a news from Telegram channels to Ukrainska Pravda to US media to the local media in my corner of the Globe.
It has led to a few confusing moments in the Socialist household, when Mrs has talked about some event in the war that for me was already 3-4 days earlier. And usually I had seen 3-4 versions of the event, with half already also debunked…
“China’s crippling debt levels seen worsening as government measures focus on ‘buying time’ ”
https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/weo-database/2024/April/weo-report?c=223,924,132,134,534,536,158,922,112,111,&s=GGXWDG_NGDP,&sy=2007&ey=2023&ssm=0&scsm=1&scc=0&ssd=1&ssc=0&sic=0&sort=country&ds=.&br=1
April 15, 2024
General government gross debt as a percent of Gross Domestic Product for Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Russia, United Kingdom and United States, 2007-2023
2023
Brazil ( 85)
China ( 84)
France ( 111)
Germany ( 64)
India ( 83)
Indonesia ( 40)
Japan ( 252)
Russia ( 20)
United Kingdom ( 101)
United States ( 122)
“China’s crippling debt levels seen worsening as government measures focus on ‘buying time’ ”
This is the China with no meaningful foreign debt and $3.3 trillion in foreign currency reserves, a $2 trillion sovereign wealth fund, large gold reserves and newly discovered gold deposits, a China that is far larger in GDP than the European Union or the United States, a China that grew at a 5% rate these last 6 months…
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1pMR0
August 4, 2014
Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for China, United States, India, Japan and Germany, 1977-2023
(Indexed to 1977)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1pNpu
August 4, 2014
Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for China, European Union, India, Japan and United States, 1977-2023
(Indexed to 1977)
These figures do not capture the debt Pettis is talking about, local government debt. So your figures are not germane. Nor are foreign currency reserves.
Please get up to speed. We have given you the chance to do so with these posts in April”
“On a Relative Scale, There’s a Strong Case that Financialization Is Worse in the PRC than the US”
China’s Local Government Financing Vehicles (LGFVs): Ponzi Finance on Steroids
All this is way out my comfort zone, but from the few papers I’ve read about the local government debt in China I’ve understood that most/a lot of the debt is owed by the Chinese version of the public-private partnership which a backed by the land-lease rights provided by the local government as equity.
As any infrastructure of land-development project in China is impossible without these land-lease rights, this has been used as a mean to get market information about the viability of the planned infrastructure projects for the banks to fund them.
Also noteworthy may be the fact that first land-lease rights were issued in 1980, and as the length of those are 40 years for commercial projects, 50 years for industrial development and 70 years for housing, China is entering the phase when each year more and more old leases are up for a renewal, so the market signal from these public-private partnerships can also be used to come up with “a fair price” for the renewal. There are still several decades to go, before the re-leasing cycle really kicks off as a form of local government funding.
I’ve also understood that during the last decade the Ministry of Finance has initiated a large scale debt swap program under which large amounts of these “PPP” debts can be swapped for central government bonds so the risks to lenders are reduced.
Wouldn’t surprise me to learn that I’ve misunderstood a lot, though.
“Please get up to speed. We have given you the chance to do so with these posts in April”
I read every single post entirely and carefully, and am always frightened of your possible disapproval, but I am very highly educated and credentialed and disagree with some posts on China. I am always polite and and only wish to fit in but do not know how to agree with ideas by Mr. Pettis that for years have seemed incorrect. So, I respond to such posts as best I can.
I never mean offense, and may be foolish no matter my education, but I disagree at times. Brad DeLong is definitive as an economist who has been entirely wrong about the Chinese economy since 1980, predicting collapse over and over and over. So I politely disagree.
I never wish to be a problem, and am always polite, and am always afraid of your disapproval. But, I think Chinese development has been remarkable and should help as a model for countries from Ethiopia to Indonesia. I know of no country that has developed for more than 45 years more successfully than China.
I am so sorry to have angered anyone, and I make mistakes, but I only write what I think to be correct and hope that can be permitted.
Please forgive me, for simply trying in an obviously stumbling way to be helpful.
On CA’s defence, does Chinese local government debt matter? It is owed internally to Chinese. There is a lot of leverage on it (wealth management products – hah, Mao might have approved of how they are managing the wealth!) but is it really a threat? The CNY is not a convertible currency and the debts can be equitised in extremis.
To be clear though, I do not think that worrying less about the debt should distract from the question, is a private / public credit fuelled development strategy using the right channels to deliver the right growth?
Japan’s solution to this development issue was Shimomuran economics and writing the “savings of the people” in as the balanxcing item for a lot of money creation by the BoJ for investment. Why cannot Chinese central bank do this?
A thread on a long study that looked at people followed in SA with blood draws over the years. Mostly unvaccinated. Looks like value of ‘natural’ immunity, if indeed there is any. The short is, not really, not anymore.
https://x.com/nickanderegg/status/1817408324133904460?s=46
The only thing is, the article did NOT argue at all what he is saying it did.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-024-03131-2
The Houthis claim that they will reopen the sea lanes when Israel stops the genocide. But it looks very much like the genocide will complete before Israel stops. So does this mean that the sea lanes will not reopen for Israel and perhaps not for the US or the UK?
Perhaps the possibilities should be analyzed of the houthi blockade as a mid- to long-term limitation where trade between China and the US plus Europe has to take the long way around Africa. Is anybody really thinking about that, and what other things will Domino off of this?
Houthi futures, anyone?
Port infrastructure futures in Africa?
ill suited to reality
“In 1948 the US Army General Staff prepared a memorandum for Eisenhower making clear that ‘the US government position’ was ‘We are in Berlin by right of conquest.’”
As far as I know, the entirety of Berlin wastaken by the Red army at great cost of lives… The Russians must know by know that if you give a finger to the Anglo-Saxons, thy will take your whole arm…Same with the Arabs and Israelis…
“The evidence is mounting: Humans were responsible for the extinction of large mammals” got me wondering, what was the total prehistoric human population? Naturally it’s impossible to determine exact numbers, especially over large time periods, but paleodemographers estimate at most, 8-10 million knuckledraggers world wide before the modern era. So I’m skeptical of the articles claims.
Off the top of my head I recall the number of one million in 10,000 BCE being asserted, but I have no certainty.
The number of humans in the New World circa 10,000 BCE couldn’t have been very large, yet that was enough to wipe out a lot of large mammals in North America….
When you stampede them over a cliff you tend to kill a lot at once. But they are less likely to kill you. Brother Cromag didnt have 45-70 rifles like Buffalo Bill.
Brother Cromag also knew that if you killed too many, that there would be not enough for next year so only killed what he needed. This was before the invention of Capitalism of course.
That’s yet another case of ignoring the Mammoth in the room. The Younger Dryas catastrophe.
As I’ve mentioned ad infinitum, (ad nauseum for many,) this is another ’round’ in the Catastrophist versus Incrementalist controversy.
It’s really pretty simple and straightforward. The solution is to not use social media. I cancelled my Bookface account over a decade ago, and I assure you I have not missed out on a damn thing.
“South Africa’s power utility Eskom advances plans for small modular nuclear reactors”
Ahh, small modular reactors, the energy salvation not quite ready for prime time, rather like how “golden rice” will save the multitudes from malnutrition – eventually.
South Africa has major energy problems so they definitely need some new power stations. Regardless of what type they are.
. . . ” Commentary: Chinese e-commerce platforms are poised to rival Amazon’s empire ” . . .
So, it’s Chinazon versus Amazon . . . or Chinazilla versus Mothrazon . . . or however one wants to put that?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puwoUKhZQbg
( By the way, those who condemn Western and esPECially American conspicuous waste-based consumption patterns can try lecturing us about how if the consumption-based waste is supplied by China, that’s different and that makes it all better.)
In The three days of the Condor, the Americans were hell bent to not allow the Chinese to develop and consume as much as the US because finite resources…
Another grim utube short from Middle East Eye
Israeli soldier shares footage of him blowing up Rafah’s water reservoir ‘in honour of Shabbat’
A wonderful backpack trip to the amazing Gem Lakes in the eastern Sierra with a feast of friends, almost instant Backcountry with lakes, peaks and creeks around every turn it seemed…
We parked at the trailhead next to an older couple who were going day hiking and had a nice conversation, and frankly I never noticed that she was missing her arms, until she volunteered the info that a black bear in Alaska had ripped them off 47 years ago!
They were both retired geologists for USGS and we played hopscotch on the trail, and they reached their turnaround point and I wanted to know more, so the skinny was that they’d been married only 5 months when the bear attack happened, and he had been there for her 46 years and 7 months, as I watched him feed her, an amazing Venus de Milo of sorts, an inspiration!
https://gokhalemethod.com/blog/i_ve_been_as_lucky_as_i_ve_been_unlucky_cynthia_s_story
For anyone still paying attention at this late hour:
Erdogan warns that Turkey may enter Israel
I place the odds of this actually happening at around nil. Naval assault? Land in Lebanon? Coordination with Damascus following a reconciliation which doesn’t seem to be a near-term prospect?
What is Erdogan trying to accomplish with this statement? My first impression is that it is for placation of that not insubstantial portion of the Turkish public which is none too pleased with the events in Gaza/Palestine. What do Ankara’s Israelo-maniac partners think of this? If Israel were to attack Turkish forces, would Erdogan invoke Article 5? Is he possibly looking to eventually pull anchors from NATO and seek harbor with SCO? That may be a remote interpretation, but with Ergogan you just never know.
The NATO-ditching theory makes sense.
After the June NATO meeting with genocide Joe, it seems absurd that arming Israel would roll with Turkey. And for some reason, Erdogan (allegedly) believes Israel wants to take his Anatolian territory.
Erdogan recently bought some kind of defense system from Russia, that’s also incompatible with NATO.
Turkey may have long-range plans to re-position geopolitical relations. I think Golan H’s situation will escalate .. Hamas plus Turkish military? What then . Too many moving parts for me to fathom.
Turkey joining BRICS would be quite the catch for Russia. But who knows when/how that would happen.
I wonder if Erdogan still wants into the European Union after
Paris 2024 (kidding. . sort of).
Turkish public opinion is overwhelmingly opposed to Israel actions, and increasingly so towards US/EU NATO. Erdogan’s party took a beating in recent elections, at least in part due his perceived inaction on Israel, which probably explains his comments like this.
Outside of the Israel issue, however, Turkish economic interests are heavily intertwined with both the EU (imports/exports), Russia (energy), and they’re trying to get more Chinese investment for which Turkiye’s customs agreement with the EU is a strong selling point for now.
On defense, Turkiye purchased the superior Russian s-400 air defense 7 years ago after years after asking for Patriot systems with technology transfer. These requests were ignored. The s-400 is one of many issues between Ankara and Washington, but is a sign of how Turkiye’s interests are increasingly unaligned with whatever the US is doing.
While Turkiye joining the EU is dead, it will almost certainly try to continue its balancing act between east and west due to the economic advantages of such a position until the US’ with-us-or-against attitude exemplified by the increasing amount of sanctions on Turkish entities (and threats of more) reaches a breaking point. If Turkiye tries to join BRICS or especially the SCO (although there are hurdles there that would have to be overcome in both cases) the West would almost certainly lose its mind and things would get very interesting. Not in a good way.
Conor Gallagher. Thank you for invaluable analysis/insight.
Especially interesting to me – The courting of Chinese investment. The Balancing Act involving sanctions on Turkish entities, and the background on the Russian s-400 air defense.
Turkey has deployed air-defense systems to Libya and provided Azerbaijan with capable attack drones – either located in southern Lebanon would change the situation.
That said, to me it’s more likely that Erdogan would operate trough Syria than Lebanon. As unlikely that seems, I doubt nobody either in Lebanon or Turkiye thinks it’s good idea to mess with the delicate chaos know as “Lebanese politics”.
At least in Syria Erdogan has groups that are more or less in his pocket – or at least depend on his good will to continue existing – and basically just Assad on the government side to forge a deal with. I’m sure it would be tempting for Assad to allow Erdogan to turn the “moderate opposition” Israel has nurtured in southern Syria against Israel. Yet I doubt Assad is too keen to have a war with Israel on Syrian soil, even if it was waged mostly by the armed opposition.
Here’s my two cents, broken up into smaller denominations.
With this statement, Sultan is trying to make himself look important. Iran is becoming the Top Dog of the neighbourhood, and that does not go well with his Ottoman dreams.
Him trying to invoke magic Article 5, won’t do any magic at all. He already tried to involve NATO in his adventures in Syria, years ago. No one was interested, though they gave him lip service.
Turkey won’t leave NATO as long as Greece is there, or as long as they are not sure that NATO would abandon Greece in case of a conflict.
With Ergogan you always know that he is haggling, and trying to sit on n+1 chairs. I wonder if US delivered on the F-16 deal, that he released Azovites for, or he got played there.
What I find interesting about the “Last Supper” performance during the opening ceremony is who approved it.
It’s the Olympics, every aspect of the opening ceremony was approved by a group of people who consider themselves a cultural and intellectual elite by virtue of their birth and “education”.
This crude and vulgar display of contempt is quite revealing, it is a “Dominance Display” by the clueless idiots “leading” the West.
The people who thought this was a good idea feel no need to mask their contempt, they feel entitled to it.
When people tell you who they are, believe them.
I check Stamford, CT’s covid data on data.wastewaterscan because my mom lives on the opposite end of the state. While I’m at it I check other ailments that are tested for in the water. Here’s a funny spike:
https://data.wastewaterscan.org/tracker?charts=&selectedChartId=28451b
I thought EVD68 sounded familiar, so I looked, and it is the enterovirus that is “suspected of causing a polio-like disorder called acute flaccid myelitis.” That disorder was much in the news several years ago; it is pretty awful. Right now the levels are medium, but it looks like it is going up fast.
Covid
From today’s links: “San Francisco health officials advise indoor masking amid summer COVID wave San Francisco Chronicle”
In other masking news: Masks are going from mandated to criminalized in some states WaPo (archive.ph link)
So, it’s the fault of pro-Palestinian protestors and street criminals to blame for the mask ban in some jurisdictions. We do indeed live in the “stupidest timeline.”
If the country is dumb enough to elect Kamala then I guess they will get what’s coming to them good and hard. As for Trump, he already accomplished his goal with the ejection of Biden. It’s not as though he can claim he is presidential material either.
However I suspect Harris’s shtick will wear off fast and her essential empty suit-ness will become ever more obvious. Trump, if he’s smart, will keep his powder dry until it counts. As we already know an unscripted Kamala is an own goal machine.
Let the surrogates take her on and turn over all the rocks.
Thought for the Day – from Prof. John Mearsheimer in an email to subscribers.
This quote from Hannah Arendt, German historian and philosopher:
“This constant lying is not made to make people believe a lie, but at ensuring that no one believes anything anymore.
A people that can no longer distinguish between truth and lies cannot distinguish between right and wrong.
And such a people, deprived of the power to think and judge, is, without knowing it and willing it, completely subjected to the rule of lies. With such a people you can do anything you want.”