Links 8/28/2024

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1. Antifa August 28, 2024 at 7:00 am

   WHEN WE WERE KIND
   (melody borrowed from Gentle On My Mind  by John Hartford, as performed by Glen Campbell)

   Our problem is the questions we can ask go way beyond the words we talk
   We each look at the stars and wonder how and why a me can come about
   Inner questions humans tackle gazing upward through the fronds
   As the seasons flow we watch the stars align
   We seek answers down some long roads and we seek them so intently
   Till we realize truth waits beyond our lies

   We build temples out of stone blocks and we hope to find a God there gazing kindly
   With a heaven when we’re dead where we can dance among the clouds instead of walking
   When we hear the afterlife is endless happiness and giving
   We can toss these endless questions from our mind
   Or do scriptures and these legends only serve as a placebo?
   Seeking your own answers makes a human wise

   In the timber and the tall pines there the diehards on their best days think God sees us
   In the wild you’re human just like every other in the quiet before dawn
   When our wizardry and science all the crazy things we chase
   In our fourscore lifelong journey come to mind
   All the mad things we agree to while we’re carrying some big loads
   Consequences coming to the undersigned

   You are born to pass away there is no turnin’ back no pardon from the graveyard
   When life means struggling we howl and we curse the day we landed in this place
   In a lifespan full of grand plans as we walk our path to happiness we find
   When we look back at our own road
   From the moment of our entry
   We were at our very best when we were kind
   1. cousinAdam August 28, 2024 at 12:29 pm

      Just Wow. A real keeper! Please don’t stop!
   2. Bob Tetrault August 28, 2024 at 12:37 pm

      Oh! So good!
   3. Synapsid August 28, 2024 at 3:18 pm

      Antifa,

      This is sublime. Thank you for giving us this song.
2. Ben Panga August 28, 2024 at 7:15 am

   The US is changing the logistics of its bioweapons research in Ukraine (Anti-Spiegel)

   “According to reports, the United States is continuing to develop biological warfare agents that can specifically target different ethnic populations.”

   A Nazi’s wet dream. Or a Zionist’s.
   1. Zagonostra August 28, 2024 at 7:34 am

      It’s ok, Senator Rubio, with some prompting, made sure that Undersecretary Nuland inform us those bioweapons research facilities in Ukraine were strictly for peaceful purposes. I’m sure the change in logistics will not affect their intended use.

      https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5005520/senator-rubio-questions-undersecretary-nuland-biolabs-ukraine
   2. The Rev Kev August 28, 2024 at 7:52 am

      On one of those charts there is a marking for a lab here in Oz involved with this program. When I took a closer look, I saw that it is the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity. Most people won’t recognize that name but I as sure as hell do. This was the mob that was giving the previous government their advice on how to deal with Covid and it amounted to open up the country and ‘let ‘er rip.’ For the good of the economy of course. I should not be surprised at all that they are involved with bioweapons but now I wonder if there might not be some secret biolab here in Oz. You would hope, if so, that it would be in the middle of the desert but more likely it is in the middle of one of our larger cities – just like in China.
   3. Michaelmas August 28, 2024 at 8:28 am

      “According to reports, the United States is continuing to develop biological warfare agents that can specifically target different ethnic populations.”

      Par for the course.

      [1] All actors — state or non-state — that have ‘biodefense’ programs (per V. Nuland’s comments, biodefense equals bioweapons, because to beat the bad bug you must understand the bad bug, mustn’t you?) are doing this. The Russians included.

      [2] Targeting specificity — not only of specific populations, but of specific physiological/mental functions — enables unprecedented possibilities thanks to advancing biogenetic technology. Moreover, no reliable attribution regarding who released a biological agent, as there would be with a nuclear or conventional attack, is usually possible. We’re still having discussions about COVID’s origins, aren’t we?

      [3] The fact that 16 percent of global deaths from COVID were US persons even while the US is only 4 percent of global population has confirmed to interested parties that the US is uniquely vulnerable to biological attack. Simultaneously, the US is uniquely committed to displays of global military aggression.

      Out of the global field of enemies the US has created for itself, expect someone to solve the problem of US belligerence in the obvious way. The US will see progressively increasing outbreaks of hitherto novel biological agents. It already is, isn’t it?
      1. Neutrino August 28, 2024 at 10:02 am

         How many are now questioning the propriety of those DNA testing companies?
         Their ubiquitous ads and feel-good group identification belonging stories were all the rage just a few years ago. Sortition initiation successful.

         Handing over helical hopes, following the same business model as the free internet services, where you, at the most profound level, are the product.

         In the FAQs, End Usee Agreement? There ain’t none. We own you.
      2. Polar Socialist August 28, 2024 at 10:30 am

         Sorry to bring some hope, but anyone with basic understanding of human Major Histocompatibility Complex (in chromosome 6) and it’s extreme variability would not bother to try and find pathogens for certain population, because they would know it’s basically impossible. While individuals are in danger, populations tend to be resistant.
         1. Michaelmas August 28, 2024 at 11:17 am

            Polar Socialist: While individuals are in danger, populations tend to be resistant.

            ‘Tend’ — and ‘specific’ populations — are the operative terms here. Sure, forex, Israeli bioweaponeering research to target Arabs in the 1980s failed because Arabs and Jews are essentially one population. But there are certain populations with traits that don’t exist in the global population. They are targetable.

            The β-globin gene (HBB) in chromosome 11 that makes haemoglobin and is responsible for sickle-cell disease is an obvious example. That would be targetable.

            Targeting specificity as regards specific physiological and mental functions, however, are where the ‘military’ payoffs would be. In that sense, yes, you are right: targeting ethnic groups wouldn’t be that effective.
      3. ChatET August 28, 2024 at 11:56 am

         Citing that the country with some of the world’s worst healthcare systems had the worst mortality rates in the world does not prove the US is a target for bio warfare. That’s why the US funds this research in private labs in and around its supposed enemies. Funny thing though, a Chinese bio research facility just opened up next to the Russian one down the street. lol, hasn’t happened yet.
   4. no one August 28, 2024 at 10:30 am

      In the context of Alison Young’s superb book on the reality of lab leaks, “Pandora’s Gamble,” this research is absolutely terrifying. Young’s documentation of domestic lab leaks — and the intransigence of US officials whose primary job is to protect the public & the environment — reveals the vast extent of lax protocols and motivated (by grant $$, of course) under-estimation of risk.

      I read Young’s book in light of COVID, but the utter carelessness and guile at the heart of the regulatory system regarding this type of research means that bioweapons rank second only to nuclear holocaust in terms of apocalyptic threats to civilization, not to mention life on Earth as we know it.

      Young demonstrates how deeply droplet dogma has penetrated safety requirements in the lab. We all know how well that thinking worked for COVID transmission.

      Given the state of regulatory oversight, the accidental release of ethnically-specific bioweapons is just as scary as their intentional use, and much more likely.
   5. TomDority August 28, 2024 at 10:31 am

      “According to reports, the United States is continuing to develop biological warfare agents that can specifically target different ethnic populations.”
      What reports from whom and for what reason –
      Sounds like a boatload of BS – to whip up fear – which politically has been the operating method since before Bush the Junior. Fear, endless wars and
      The sky is falling
      Need some actual folks with actual knowledge about biological warfare agents and sourcing.
      “It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.” -James Madison
      IMHO
      1. The Rev Kev August 28, 2024 at 10:41 am

         Well for a source, there is that article in today’s Links-

         https://anti–spiegel-ru.translate.goog/2024/die-usa-veraendern-die-logistik-ihrer-forschung-an-biowaffen-in-der-ukraine/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=de&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp

         To get a translation, click on that blue ‘Deutsch’ at the top and select the ‘Englisch’ word from the drop down list. I was just reading somewhere today how it was a CIA Director that got the ball rolling when he heard that Slavs could perhaps be specifically targeted using biowarfare.
      2. TomDority August 28, 2024 at 12:06 pm

         Pardon my back-of-napkin remarks below
         I could, for example make up a headline out of thin air as follows (Purely BS but plausible to someone who wants to be a , I hate to use the symbolic, Hero, or, make a positive difference somehow – ‘the motivation to’- make a difference is not a negative thing- it is the manipulation of these ‘want to make a difference people – I think most including myself’ by some private for profit cause oblique that makes it pernicious and perverts it negative ) – So for instance;
         According to reports, the global medical and pharmaceutical industries in coordination with the global industrial food industries have conspired to create an artificial co-dependence upon genetic, synthetic and pharmaceutical interventions in both sectors. This conspiracy, and its widespread negative health impacts have induced this highly profitable dependence.
         Many negative impacts have be born by targeted ethnic populations.
         The evolution of the control of these large industry sectors by fewer and fewer persons of power and these same players using the large fortunes to effectively control legislation and direct governments to ensure their mastery is in direct threat to the advancement and defense of democracy around the globe and it’s citizens voice and basic human rights within them. It is also a direct threat to the habitability of the planet either through War or environmental destruction.
         Certainly I could of shortened it for more impact, more shock and awe.
         1. GF August 28, 2024 at 4:20 pm

            Here’s Pravda-EN article on same subject:
            https://vk.com/wall-221265170_32943
   6. hk August 28, 2024 at 10:47 am

      Or, an identarian’s I guess. Like many people have said, these people believe that something that has much more biological basis (sex) is fungible, but something that does not (race/ethnicity) has real biological differences, enough for a weapon to distinguish between them.
   7. Ignacio August 28, 2024 at 11:06 am

      “According to reports, the United States is continuing to develop biological warfare agents that can specifically target different ethnic populations.”

      A Nazi’s wet dream. Or a Zionist’s.

      Well, a “Nazy/Zionist” very much impossible dream. Such “ethnic populations” aren’t as detached from other “ethnic populations” genetically speaking as those supposed dreamers might believe, very much on the contrary. IMO, you can try that research or throw the money into a lavatory with similar results. But if some are “exceptionalists” as per defined by Helmer in his article linked today it is possible to believe such dreamers keep trying it.
      1. Aurelien August 28, 2024 at 12:15 pm

         The “article” says “there’s a report.” That’s it. No details. The “author” was a financial services professional, which is clearly an excellent preparation for writing a report on a complex and technical subject like this. In spite of the title, the article scarcely mentions biological weapons, except for vaccines, which the author seems to think are BW (Covid/MMR conspiracy theories anyone?), and clinical trials. He seems to confuse CW and BW, confuses the CWC with the BWTC (the former has a verification regime the other doesn’t) and rambles on about things (like riot control agents) which aren’t of course bioweapons nor are they illegal. I hope the advice he gave to his clients was based on better analysis than this.

         All advanced nations do, of course, have BW research programmes, because, although BW proved to be a militarily useless technology, it remains an option for small-scale use by non-state actors. Offensive BW was abandoned years ago because it could never really be weaponised. From the beginning, the idea that the US would decide to abandon the BTWC, and embark on an offensive BW programme, in Ukraine of all places, just seemed surreal. After a while I noticed that even the Russians stopped suggesting this, and limited themselves to grumbling about dangerous laboratory practices. In any event (as I hope Ignacio will confirm) a BW weapon is essentially just a disease, or a bacterium like anthrax. The trick is to find a way of delivering BW agents in militarily useful quantities, and that is something that nobody has ever been able to do. For that, you need not laboratories but testing grounds where you can practice deploying weapons, and it’s hard to hide that.

         As for ethnic targeting, that’s hilarious. I mean, would someone with one Russian and one Ukrainian parent only be half-dead?
         1. Yves Smith Post authorAugust 28, 2024 at 12:23 pm

            Your claim about offensive bioweapons is inaccurate with respect to Ukraine. Russia captured one of the Ukraine biolabs and presented some documents they were able to seize that did in fact show Ukraine trying to develop pathogens that would target Russians, even though genetically that is a ridiculous idea, Russians are both polyglot and not genetically distinguishable from Ukrainians. But they nevertheless tried. And Russia presented those documents to the UN and was blown off, with among the excuses that the UN lacked the expertise to investigate.

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_EHI2syUbs

            The US admitted to it after trying to depict the Russian charges as propaganda:

            https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/after-months-of-denial-u-s-admits-to-running-ukraine-biolabs/

            Our GM. who is a bioscientist and originally comes from that part of the world, thought it was absolutely insane to have that sort of research conducted in a fabulously corrupt country like Ukraine, and on top of that, with at least one of the labs close to Kiev. You do not want to do this sort of work near a large population center.
            1. Aurelien August 28, 2024 at 3:06 pm

               Not really. If you listen carefully to the Russian Ambassador, it’s clear that, whilst his accusations are very professionally constructed and presented, they amount mostly to innuendo. There are accusations of violations of the BTWC but no details. The main accusation in fact is that dangerous experiments were being carried out in Ukraine (too dangerous to be carried out in the US presumably) which put lives in danger. This may well be true, but has nothing to do with biological weapons. For the rest the argument amounts to saying that if research was being carried out into diseases of the region, then this research could have been turned to offensive purposes, although no evidence is presented that it was. This is trivially true, in the sense that, just as any nation with a chemical industry can theoretically develop chemical weapons, so any nation which does research into dangerous diseases (most of them) could theoretically develop an offensive BW capability. But the BTWC contains no verification provisions, so the UN cannot intervene.

               The confusion arises, I think from people not realising that many countries conduct research into potential BW threats and protection against them, and in all the cases I know of (including Russia) this research comes under the Defence Ministry for historical reasons.
               1. jrkrideau August 28, 2024 at 7:25 pm

                  All countries are conducting research into the potential threats of biological weapons and protection against them.

                  I think there are at least two problems here.

                  First: How many countries commission biological research into biological weapons threats in a foreign country that shares a border with a major rival? Second: how to explain Victoria Nuland’s testimony? https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5005520/senator-rubio-questions-undersecretary-nuland-biolabs-ukraine.

                  There is also at least one credible report of a US “funded” biological research laboratory just outside Tiblisi
               2. Michaelmas August 28, 2024 at 9:36 pm

                  Aurelien: The confusion arises, I think from people not realising that many countries conduct research into potential BW threats

                  It’s all dual use, for heaven’s sake. It’s all dual use. If I have a therapy that can target a specific cancer to turn it off, for example, I potentially have a weapon to target that cancer to turn it on, don’t I?

                  Let’s talk about vectors — delivery systems, which enable targeting. Let’s do it in the context of Ukraine.

                  [1] Here’s a 2016 DARPA document describing a DARPA project called Insect Allies.

                  DARPA Enlists Insects to Protect Agricultural Food Supply: New program aims for insect delivery of protective genes to modify mature plants within a single growing season
                  https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2016-10-19

                  The program, sited at labs in Ukraine and Georgia, aimed at “insect vector optimization, and selective gene therapy in mature plants … to support the goal of rapidly transforming mature plants … without the need for extensive infrastructure.”

                  Italics mine. Why the hell would spraying be an “extensive infrastructure,” but insects spreading CRISPR-edited pathogens designed to edit plant chromosomes not be???? Because that’s what Insect Allies was doing and this chromosomal editing could be on either a somatic or germline basis.

                  [2] Another DARPA document describing it in slightly more detail —
                  https://www.darpa.mil/program/insect-allies

                  “Insect Allies performer teams are leveraging a natural and efficient two-step delivery system to transfer modified genes to plants: insect vectors and the plant viruses they transmit. The program’s three technical areas—viral manipulation, insect vector optimization, and selective gene therapy in mature plants—layer together to support the goal of rapidly modifying plant traits ….”

                  [3] Here’s a 2018 paper from scientists at the Max Planck Institute digging in a little into the bioweaponeering possibilities —

                  Agricultural research, or a new bioweapon system?
                  https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aat7664

                  A link to the full PDF at the Max Planck Institute —
                  http://web.evolbio.mpg.de/HEGAAs/files/reeves_etal.pdf

                  In essence, the paper argues that (a) DARPA provided absolutely no persuasive reasons for the use of insects as an uncontrolled means of dispersing synthetic viruses into the environment and (b) it could be more easily used for biological warfare than for routine agricultural use. “It is very much easier to kill or sterilize a plant using gene editing than it is to make it herbicide or insect-resistant.” True enough.

                  [4] Merely as a bioweapon aimed at causing crop failures, then, the Insect Allies program is part of a long lineage of programs that both the US and the erstwhile USSR carried out during the Cold War. The release of classical agents — as opposed to designer pathogens — to cause crop failures or, alternatively, flu or some such ailment in human populations (and so degrade the other side’s industrial production) was done by both sides, according to accounts I got from former DIA (the United States DIA, not the UK’s) and USAMRIID employees, as well as former members of Biopreparat, the Soviet-era bioweapons program, whom I also talked to.

                  [5] It’s 2025. A lot more is possible. In principle, insects could carry designer pathogens that chromosomally edit crop plants to produce substances which are toxic or intoxicating to humans in contact with them.

                  One sees why former spy chief James Clapper might call gene editing a WMD. After all, he would know, wouldn’t he?
                  Top U.S. Intelligence Official Calls Gene Editing a WMD Threat
                  https://www.technologyreview.com/2016/02/09/71575/top-us-intelligence-official-calls-gene-editing-a-wmd-threat/

                  [6] Again, too, it’s dual use technology. I know for a fact that DARPA went to Flagship Pioneering, the biotech VC group that created Moderna and its RNA vaccine, and said: ‘can you do something with this technology?’ The result is this company Inari —
                  https://inari.com/

                  And I know this for a fact because I did some freelance work for Flagship writing peripheral copy for Inari, noted the resemblance to the Insect Allies technology, and a Flagship partner confirmed that, indeed, it had come from DARPA.

                  [7] Moving on: alongside accusing US biolabs in Ukraine and Georgia of developing the use of insects as BW vectors, Russia has also charged the US with working with hantaviruses. Forex —
                  
                  Russian inquiry has evidence US biolabs in Ukraine worked with hantaviruses
                  https://tass.com/politics/1447467

                  True goals behind US biological research revealed in Ukraine — Russian Defense Ministry

                  Hataviruses are RNA viruses causing chronic asymptomatic infection in rodents. Humans become infected through contact with rodent urine, saliva, or feces, resulting in hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS), or hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. Rodents are the vector.

                  Lo and behold —

                  What is ‘mouse fever’, the illness causing Russian soldiers to bleed from their eyes?
                  https://www.firstpost.com/explainers/what-is-mouse-fever-the-illness-causing-russian-soldiers-to-bleed-from-their-eyes-13531222.html

                  Russian soldiers are facing a ‘mouse fever’ outbreak on the frontlines, Ukrainian intel says
                  https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-soldiers-mouse-fever-outbreak-frontlines-ukraine-inteligence-2023-12

                  And so on.
         2. Ignacio August 28, 2024 at 3:29 pm

            Bioweapons can be of three let’s say theoretical classes and some weapons might belong to all these classes:

            1. Cellular microorganisms, non-microscopic parasites and viruses with the ability to cause disease and at the same time multiply or grow by themselves and/or exclusively in their targets (humane targets, livestock, vegetables…) when they are obligate parasites.
            2. Toxins venoms and other bioproducts which have to be obtained by biological means (culturing something and then processing it) and cause disease but won’t multiply in the target.
            3. Any other living thing that can cause environmental disruption or any damage other than infectious disease or used as a vector to spread a disease.

            As you have said the use of bioweapons is impractical from a military point of view and risky from any other point of view.
         3. Lefty Godot August 28, 2024 at 4:34 pm

            I think that dream of an ethnic-targeting bioweapon was proposed as a policy goal in one of the white papers from PNAC back around the turn of the century (21st century, I mean). It sounds like a fantasy on the part of someone in Neoconland that may still be being pursued, because with the kind of money they can siphon off the government, why not? I can’t imagine anyone sane wanting this.
   8. John k August 28, 2024 at 1:30 pm

      Would an Israeli Zionist target semites?
      1. CSH33 August 28, 2024 at 4:03 pm

         The current Israeli government is despicable, but I wonder how all the far left progressives who claim that Israel is a totally racist apartheid society react to the Israeli Army’s rescue of an Israeli Bedouin Arab hostage in Gaza, who was working as a security guard on a kibbutz on Oct 7 when he was kidnapped by Hamas. I imagine they will ignore it, since they are basically a brain washed cult that disregards any inconvenient realities that don’t conform to their worldview. https://apnews.com/video/israel-hamas-war-hostage-situations-israel-benjamin-netanyahu-gaza-strip-2d8c5a39030946969752511ee021ef3a
         1. Yves Smith Post authorAugust 29, 2024 at 12:49 am

            Help me. As Scott Ritter put it, the IDF has gotten good at breaking the arms of Israeli teenagers so they are permanently crippled. Go read the 253 page UN report of the IDF atrocities at the Great March of Return. They included snipers shooting out kneecaps and inflicting other permanently disabling injuries on people, mainly children the elderly and already crippled, standing at 300 meter distance from the main event. Don’t hoist one example to tell me the IDF is some kindly organization. It is true that they are the least hostile of all of official Israel to the Palestinians, but I have not once read of a solder or unit refusing an order to inflict harm on Palestinian civilians.

            See for some detail: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2018/10/gaza-great-march-of-return/. I wish I could find the Norman Finkelstein clip where he summarized the UN report. It’s brutal.
      2. bertl August 28, 2024 at 5:39 pm

         Of Khazar they would!
3. .human August 28, 2024 at 7:19 am

   They say traditional chocolate production, using only the beans, involves leaving the rest of the cocoa fruit – the size of a pumpkin and full of nutritious value – to rot in the fields.

   Bio-mass rot is the natural fertilizer of an eco-system. I am not ready to accept this as “sustainable.” The use of the processed sugars may be a step in a good direction. Time, and product, will tell.
   1. vao August 28, 2024 at 9:13 am

      I do not understand why the article talks about “scientists” investigating how to make chocolate out of whole cocoa pods in “laboratories”. This is not some kind of R&D going on; the products are ready and have been on sale for a couple of years already (yes, that sort of chocolate is expensive).
4. The Rev Kev August 28, 2024 at 7:27 am

   “The Greek Tanker Struck by a Houthi Missile Is Now Leaking Oil”

   Maybe people should be asking just why that shipping company sent an oil tanker through a shooting gallery after seeing all those other ships hit by missiles, drones and rockets. Who chartered it? That ship was traveling from Iraq to Cyprus. So was Cyprus the final delivery point or was it going to go to Israel first? Who picked up the insurance on that ship? It would have been hefty you can be sure. So many questions that the media will never ask.
   1. ChrisFromGA August 28, 2024 at 7:49 am

      I would love to know if some insurers are starting to wise up by putting clauses in their policies for shippers such as:

      “If you travel through the Red Sea within range of Ansar Allah’s navy, you waive your right to be insured and assume all risk”

      That ship will be a total loss.
      1. John k August 28, 2024 at 1:35 pm

         Major oil leak might cause owner/insurer to get sued.
   2. shleep August 28, 2024 at 8:04 pm

      Heh: Cypriot oil refining. No stats for 2021, and it seems to have fallen off precipitously circa 2004,

      https://www.iea.org/countries/cyprus/oil“>

      but it appears there are plans to dust off an old refinery

      https://cyprus-mail.com/2021/08/17/big-plans-for-reclamation-of-old-refineries-area-in-larnaca/
5. Zagonostra August 28, 2024 at 7:29 am

   >Leaked – CIA backed color revolution in Indonesia Mint Press

   Sukarno’s bold refusal to bow to imperial interests made him a thoroughly marked man. In 1965, he was ousted in a blood-spattered military coup sponsored by the CIA and MI6, ushering in 30 years of an iron-fisted military dictatorship led by General Suharto. Over one million people were killed through politically motivated massacres, executions, arbitrary imprisonment, and savage repression. Even the CIA describes his purge of leftists as “one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century.”

   One of the best movies I ever watched was The Year of Living Dangerously starring Mel Gibson, Sigourney Weaver and Linda Hunt with the sound track produced by Vangelis, it was set int the political context of above quote.

   I’m surprised it’s available on Ytube for free.

   https://youtu.be/3x5Pd66YfRE?si=jJ–Ov9gSSiFQfp7
   1. Pat August 28, 2024 at 10:11 pm

      Can anyone here imagine a film like that or like Missing with Jack Lemmon getting made and distributed in America today?
      I say distributed because somewhere there are probably film makers willing to spend every cent they have on a passion project that criticizes America and it’s deadly foreign policy, but getting into festivals, then getting a distribution deal is a gargantuan task.
6. ChrisFromGA August 28, 2024 at 7:41 am

   Re: Gaza

   Ethnic cleansing by Israel spreads to the West Bank:

   https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/08/israel-starts-ethnical-cleansing-in-west-bank.html#more

   In legal terms, “bad faith” refers to a situation where one party intentionally deceives or acts dishonestly towards another party, typically during negotiations or contractual obligations. This can include lying, withholding important information, or making promises with no intention of keeping them.

   Every day I keep wondering why the media do not take a more critical view of Israel, and by extension, the Biden Administration’s bad faith behavior in fraudulently pretending to be interested in a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel. I believe the word “perfidious” comes close to capturing the essence, but I am still somewhat unsatisfied and maybe we need to invent a new word in the English language to describe Netanyahu, Blinken, and Biden.

   1.) Hamas has clearly stated that they will no longer negotiate with Israel, and will only accept the July 2 Biden “framework.”

   2.) Israel has continuously acted in bad faith, using various forms of deception such as sending low-level representatives to talks who lack the authority to sign off on any agreement. Or, perhaps they have some authority, but Netanyahu can easily repudiate any putative deal. Which he has done.

   3.) Hamas has essentially said they no longer trust the United States as a mediator, by refusing to join talks.

   4.) Israel killed Hamas lead negotiator during one of the talks. This is perfidious. No real world actor would ever do such a thing if interested in a true negotiation. Israel should just come out and tell the truth, that they aren’t interested in negotiations, only the complete extermination of the Palestinians and turning Gaza into a parking lot.

   5.) Feigning an interest in a peace process to allow one of the adversaries to continue to prosecute war crimes ought to be a war crime, in and of itself.

   6.) The United States State Department resorted to fraud back in June because they surreptitiously took a draft Israeli proposal that had not been approved by the Netanyahu government and presented it as an official proposal with Netanyahu’s backing to Hamas. This was essentially “Fraud in the Factum” where a party takes a document that they know does not represent the true position of another party, and presents it to another third party as a legitimate offer. Imagine if my realtor dug up an old offer I made for your house 10 years ago, with no signature. Then, the realtor gets me to sign it under false pretenses (“hey, can you sign this form, it just means you agree to keep me as your realtor”)

   7) Viewed in totality, all the actors in this fraudulent “ceasefire” talks that never end, as in the movie “Groundhog Day” are engaging in bad faith. Not only the US and Israel, but Egypt, Qatar, and the media too.
   1. Chris Cosmos August 28, 2024 at 11:06 am

      It may appear to be Groundhog Day but it is not. The problem with America as a culture is that we do not believe in history particularly our “intellectuals” in the professional class who should know something of history but seem to forget it easily. First, the last “peace process” was the Oslo Accords which I though promising at the time (90s)–this process was deliberately undercut by the Israeli right-wing and President Clinton. This process could have worked had Clinton not dropped the ball deliberately though he pretended otherwise. For the past quarter century there has been a completely phony “peace process” used as cosmetics to mask the brutal Israeli project of ethnic-cleansing without being too overt to upset the American and European populations–easy to do since morality, in whatever form you wish to imagine, is gone as a practical matter though it thrives as a machine of hypocrisy. .
   2. Kouros August 28, 2024 at 2:58 pm

      I am trying to put myself mentally into amedium term future where Israel has killed/clensed all Arabs from Gaza and West Bank. And all will be memory holed in the west. Steeling myself for it, because I can see that my country’s leadership will do nothing that would put ANY pressure on Israel. In fact was one of the few countries that submitted a seald argument (so that there will not be youtube videos available displaying said country’s deep hipocrisy) to the ICJ defending Israel’s occupation and apartheid regime since 1967 onwards…
7. Zagonostra August 28, 2024 at 7:45 am

   >The Ukrainian endgame New Statesman

   I struggle to see how Russia can occupy more Ukrainian territories beyond a few villages…

   From a military perspective, both sides’ stated goals appear unrealistic. My baseline scenario is that they will agree somewhere in the middle, maybe next year. There is still a lot to play for, but nobody will get everything they want. It will be a deal that will have no winners, yet one that allows both sides to claim victory. It will be a dirty deal, full of compromises

   Ignacio’s take on this is correct in my view, that, this represents a “centrist-liberal globalists” viewpoint. As far as capacity, it’s no struggle at all to see how Russia can indeed occupy more Ukrainian territories. It’s the intention of Putin/Russia in not taking more territory that I struggle with, of not putting an end to the conflict quicker.

   If Scott Ritter and the other eminent guest on Judge Napolitano’s channel are to be believed, the “dirty deal” will be dictated by the Russia when their grinding of Ukraine is finished. Of course, if NATO enters the fray in a move overt way, then we all are heading for scenario where there are “no winners.”
   1. Ignacio August 28, 2024 at 11:38 am

      “My baseline scenario is that they will agree somewhere in the middle, maybe next year” because there is stalemate. He is suggesting that Russia is in a hurry to end this conflict since they cannot advance and that the West is in the same page and that looks incorrect on both sides. The West considers they are in no need for an agreement for as long as others are fighting for them while Russia is just trying to destroy the fighting capacity of an opponent which might or might not be KO before the middle of the next year but is showing clear signs of exhaustion. Munchau has not been paying enough attention to the military developments to provide such military perspective. The forest prevents watching the trees. This is tragic for Ukraine.
      1. Procopius August 29, 2024 at 7:59 am

         He is suggesting that Russia is in a hurry to end this conflict since they cannot advance …

         Hello? They seem to be advancing every day, especially in Donetsk oblast. I admit they are being very patient and advancing slowly and cautiously, trying to save the lives of their soldiers. I don’t see any reason why Russia could not continue at this pace for another couple of years. Granted, it would be better for the whole world if the war ended, but Russia is pursuing their best interests.
   2. Detroit Dan August 28, 2024 at 2:57 pm

      Now that Russia has been engaging in attrition warfare for a couple of years, it is beginning to pay off in territory. This took more patience than the big arrow approach, but seems to be working. The West is now coming to terms with the fact that they were deluded all along, while Russia was fighting a real war.

      I can imagine an alternative where Russia nuked Ukraine or declared all out war and destroyed Ukraine from west to east. This perhaps would have galvanized western opposition to more effective military and, especially, diplomatic action. Better to have drained western enthusiasm for conflict through this war of attrition, in my view.

      Biden may angrily assert that Ukraine is still free, but this has a hollow, loserish, ring to it. Free to die in huge numbers. Free to have no electricity. Free to be trapped in the country (while millions have fled). Free to have had opposition parties and media shuttered. Free to have had elections cancelled. I don’t see Kamala running on this record.
      1. Revenant August 28, 2024 at 8:10 pm

         Wolfgang Munschau is reliably wrong about almost everything. He is the FT’s tame German. He used to be trotted out on the EU gig then the Euro crisis and then Brexit. He wouldn’t recognise an inconvenient truth if it bit him.

         He’s not exactly Clausewitz. The idea that Russia cannot hold more than a few villages is laughable. Pokrovsk and its adjacent town are about to fall and deliver 100,000 people into Novorossiya.
8. VTDigger August 28, 2024 at 7:51 am

   If only that lady in the (Tel Aviv) bat video cared for Palestinian children the way she cared about a random bat…
   1. BTetrault August 28, 2024 at 12:54 pm

      That was a fruit bat, you know. More like SE Asia?
      1. Yves Smith Post authorAugust 28, 2024 at 1:18 pm

         Why do you make me use a search engine for you? Can’t you do your own work???

         There is a fruit bat is Israel, FFS, the Egyptian fruit bat.
   2. Milton August 28, 2024 at 1:19 pm

      I can never shame a person for helping an animal or creature in need. The fact they show empathy for another species doesn’t negate the ability for human compassion. In fact, I would bet they are more likely to care about Palestinian suffering.
9. rob August 28, 2024 at 8:00 am

   I wish I could tell if the Babylon Bee story about a reporter getting arrested was real or not. Hmmm?
   1. Jeff V August 28, 2024 at 9:59 am

      It’s not real.

      It’s not as if he’d been put on the flight watch list, had the IRS turn up at his house, had his various social media / youtube etc. accounts suspended and maybe even been accused of antisemitism.
   2. Mikel August 28, 2024 at 12:32 pm

      While it may not yet be as outrageous as that, it is as disturbing as this:
      Kamala Harris versus the media – FT
      https://archive.ph/V71zY#selection-1665.0-1665.31/

      The article contains this gem:
      “The second reason for Harris’s relative scarcity is that “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”. Things have been going so well for her campaign without much media exposure, why take the risk? It would be easier to stick to her exuberant rallies and the occasional TikTok encounter. Social media influencers do not pose awkward questions about price gouging, or border controls.”

      The framing of what are serious issues to those affected as “awkward questions.”
      Get that…people concerned with issues that affect their lives are just “awkward questions” to those living in that bubble.
10. Mikel August 28, 2024 at 8:03 am

    Ukraine to present ‘victory plan’ to US next month, Zelensky says – BBC

    “Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said his troops’ incursion into Russia’s Kursk region is part of a “victory plan” that he will present to US President Joe Biden next month.”

    The guy who called off his Presidential election is meeting with the guy not fit for election about “a victory plan.”

    Somebody else will have to fill me in on the remainder of the article. I can’t…
    1. The Rev Kev August 28, 2024 at 8:23 am

       Zelensky knows that after November, that both parties will likely dump him. So my guess is that is why he is going now – while Biden is still technically President. He knows that Biden is probably raging that Putin will win this war and not be regime-changed. That Project Ukraine is going down in flames. So Zelensky will likely try to convince Biden to do something both radical and stupid. Long range missiles to hit Moscow with? Maybe. US troops in Odessa? Sure as hell hope not.
       1. Mikel August 28, 2024 at 8:56 am

          Technically…I doubt the two of them personally control anything. At the end of this show, they will read statements prepared by whoever is running things.
       2. CA August 28, 2024 at 10:00 am

          “Zelensky knows that after November, that both parties will likely dump him.”

          President Eisenhower ran for election with a promise to end the war in Korea, even to travel to Korea if necessary. I find no such promise by Kamala Harris to end the war in Ukraine. Actually, Harris in her tough general stance appears to be promising ever more military assistance.

          The New York Times pointed to the “martial” stance of Michelle Obama at the Democratic convention, * and Harris echoed that stance.

          https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/21/style/michelle-obama-dnc-fashion.html

          August 21, 2024

          Michelle Obama Suits the Moment
          1. The Rev Kev August 28, 2024 at 10:16 am

             Hmm. Sort of like a paramilitary-look cross Hillary pantsuit plus dominatrix stilettos. Got the perfect background for that outfit-

             https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-62761332
    2. sarmaT August 28, 2024 at 8:44 am

       They are meeting to discuss retirement plans, which counts as victory for both.
    3. Neutrino August 28, 2024 at 10:04 am

       Will there be standing ovations? That is the key marker of foreign policy success, after all.
       /s
11. Zagonostra August 28, 2024 at 8:04 am

    >All US Military Bases Are Your Enemy Orinoco Tribune (Robin K)

    Bradley considers that part of the success of US hegemony in the world is what could be described as a policy of “obfuscation” or creating a “mirage” in how it spreads its military bases around the world

    What is lacking in this account is an historical context. How is it that the U.S. became the hegemon? I think that LaRouche organization, for all their political baggage of the founder, has it right when they trace it origins to the British empire morphing into and absorbing the U.S. Not so much capitulating it’s role in global dominance, but in some ways, still acting as controlling partner. The fiction of the reluctant world policeman, is just that a fiction. To trace this global geopolitical transformation of British empire, who historically has done all it could to tamp down/weaken Russia, you encounter some strange familial relationship of the respective heads of both England/Great Britain and Russia.
    1. Dalepues August 28, 2024 at 10:16 am

       Barbara Tuchman writes on the history of American expansion in The Proud Tower, chapter three, End of A Dream.
12. Mikel August 28, 2024 at 8:09 am

    Harris Promises “Most Lethal” Military on Earth – Ken Klipperstein

    She’ll even have the military shoot parents of truant children.
    1. Ben Panga August 28, 2024 at 8:19 am

       “Slay, Queen!”
13. Mikel August 28, 2024 at 8:26 am

    Big Tech: Malaysia won’t let us set our own rules and that’s not fair and makes us grumpy – The Register

    The AIC warns that the proposed policy will “hinder ongoing investments and deter future ones due to the complexity and cost of compliance” and its introduction “risks destabilizing” the industry ecosystem.

    “Complexity and cost of compliance”
    So no faith that “AI” could handle the paperwork?
    That’s what the Malaysian govt should quip.

    But it’s really about these monopolistic, ideological loonies wanting to be above everyone else.
    1. Neutrino August 28, 2024 at 10:18 am

       Foily take, how about some currency manipulation repeat from the late 1990s?
       Thai bahtulism is the more memorable or catchy one.
       As some foreign policy, uh, genius said: Throw some little country, or its currency, up against the wall to show who is boss.
14. sarmaT August 28, 2024 at 8:28 am

    Ukraine Develops ‘Its Own’ Cruise Missile Moon of Alabama

    One can tell that the drawing is made by a graphical designer and not an engineer, just by looking at those wings/stabilizers.

    The Hollywood-style ending of the video calling them rocket drones, right after saying that they are turbojet powered, is on AI-generated-level ridiculous. Now that I think of it, replacing Zelensky with AI would be an improvement.
    1. PlutoniumKun August 28, 2024 at 11:03 am

       Its an oddly confused article, especially as MoA should know better.

       Ukraine has had its own indigenous (and quite advanced) cruise missiles since before the war, some seemingly based on the Russian Kh-35 – before the invasion they had some orders I believe from countries like Indonesia. The R-360 uses a domestic (Motor Sich) manufactured turbofan. Its mostly used for anti-ship, but its likely it wouldn’t be difficult to turn it into a land attack weapon. Its often forgotten that Ukraine had quite an advanced missile and aerospace industry before the war, and they seemed to have been able to manufacture most of the key parts domestically. No doubt a lot of productive capacity was destroyed early in the war but I’d be surprised if they hadn’t managed to keep at least some key plant and personnel.

       I’ve read some rumours of a much cheaper and simpler stripped down missile that could operate somewhere between the operational capacity of the lawnmower drones and a proper cruise missile. One source even speculated it uses a pulse jet (the engine used on the V-1), which could make sense as its much faster than a prop, but far cheaper to make than turbine engine missiles.

       So far as I’ve read, most of the cheaper drones and missiles used by Ukraine actually use Chinese engines and electronics, presumably bought on the open market. There is a massive hobbyist market for mini engines (including mini turbojets) and various other parts for flying toys which are frequently used in weaponry – Chinese online shops are full of this stuff.
       1. Polar Socialist August 28, 2024 at 11:51 am

          Ukraine had quite an advanced aerospace industry in 1990, mostly funded by Russian federation. Until 2014 it was mostly building engines and airframes for Russian companies, after that it barely survived by making spares to the old Soviet equipment around the world.

          The way the Ukrainian oligarchs played their version of survival of the fittest did not allow for much investment in anything like R&D.
          1. PlutoniumKun August 29, 2024 at 6:02 am

             Indeed – the industry was a shell of its former self a decade after the fall of the USSR.

             But from what I’ve read, there had been new investment from around a decade ago – by 2015 Ukraine had advanced up to the top 10 arms exporters in the world, although I don’t know how much of this was at the higher tech end of the market. Ukrainian manufacturers were quite active in international arms and aerospace conventions around that period (2015) and had some (at least superficially) impressive looking missiles. They seemed to have been trying to position themselves as offering cheaper but still effective versions of Russian/Chinese weaponry.
15. flora August 28, 2024 at 8:33 am

    re: A neural network for religious fundamentalism derived from patients with brain lesions PNAS (Steve K). “Sigh. I am not a fan of fundamentalists given their view of the role of women. However, studies like this take the premise that religious fundamentalism is a pathology.”

    This study, such as it is, and the warnings about Christian nationalists and about Christians and religious people in general, what is this?
    Is it the assertion of belief by the Dem estab’s state there is no higher power than the state?
    1. Chris Cosmos August 28, 2024 at 9:39 am

       Fundamentalism really is a misnomer–it’s not fundamental to Christianity (in the Christian community) but often dwells on matters Jesus would not recognize. Fundamentally Christianity is focused on the soul, that is, do we have eyes to see and ears to hear? Not the petty paranoid fantasies featured in many “fundamentalist” churches.
       1. Lefty Godot August 28, 2024 at 4:57 pm

          The term “fundamentalism” comes from The Fundamentals, a book series curated by a couple of oil company owners promoting their version of Christianity (Protestant, of course). The Scofield Reference Bible was also another source for this line of thought also. Both were promoted in the years right around World War I to combat the “higher criticism” of the Tübingen School as well as the Roman Catholicism of ongoing waves of undesirable immigrants. What it amounts to now is more of a heretical offshoot of Christianity with lots of dodgy beliefs grafted on.
    2. JP August 28, 2024 at 10:09 am

       So religious belief provides social cohesiveness ergo group survival. Yes we all think the same. That is called tribalism. Like alcoholism it tends to park the personal development as belief is usually not something people develop on their own. It is most often imposed to be conformed to and original thinking is frowned on. I’m not a fan of fundamentalists given their general repression of free thinking and air of righteousness.
    3. Jeff W August 28, 2024 at 12:29 pm

       The study—or what I can read of it (the abstract)—is really unclear.

       We found a network of brain regions that, when damaged, are linked to higher religious fundamentalism…Moreover, lesions associated with poststroke pain showed a similar connectivity pattern as lesions associated with lower fundamentalism.

       [emphasis added]

       Does “lower” fundamentalism fall below some threshold for “rigid adherence to a set of beliefs putatively revealing inerrant truths” or above it? (Like if you score low on some scale measuring x, you’re considered as not exhibiting x.)

       The study’s findings seem to say, “If there is this focal damage, then we find ‘higher’ or ‘lower’ fundamentalism” (whatever that is), not necessarily “If there is fundamentalism, that’s an indication of some sort of brain damage,” although they’re not ruling out that converse.

       The last sentence refers to “previously observed epidemiological associations with fundamentalism, such as cognitive rigidity and outgroup hostility.” Cognitive rigidity and outgroup hostility are “epidemiological associations”? What does that even mean?
16. DJG, Reality Czar August 28, 2024 at 8:38 am

    Ken Klipperstein’s piece is certainly worth your while, just for the gallery of ghouls

    And then there’s this paragraph: “[Kamala, Kali-Goddess of Death, Harris] obviously stood by a muscular US presence in the world,” Brookings Institution senior fellow in governance studies, Elaine Kamarck, says. Saying that Harris’ speech conveyed that she “understood the stakes in Ukraine” as well as “the need for continued support and security for Israel,” Kamarck opines that she was “pleasantly surprised at just how strong her words and tone were when she got to foreign policy.”

    Oh. “Muscular.” As in sending someone else’s son to end up as a box of ground meat. Kamarck is another white-feather patriot, pleasantly surprised at the politics of slaughtering other people.

    I am also reminded that Michael Moore wrote a book called Stupid White Men. I see an opportunity for a companion piece…
    1. The Rev Kev August 28, 2024 at 8:47 am

       Michael Moore wrote that book back in about 2001 and it was a good read. But would the Michael Moore of 2024 even go near writing a book called “Stupid White Women?” With jokes about how Kamala is receiving the support of whine moms? I am afraid that he tends to flip flop. One time he tells people “shame on you” for supporting Hillary Clinton and then a few months later he is supporting her.
    2. Cassandra August 28, 2024 at 8:51 am

       …a muscular US presence in the world…how strong her words and tone were when she got to foreign policy

       Can anyone explain the functional difference between Kamala and Nikki Haley?

       *Rhetorical question, not an assignment.
       1. ChrisFromGA August 28, 2024 at 9:49 am

          Kamala giggles while she kills, while Nikki has a murderous look on her wizened face?
       2. Chris Cosmos August 28, 2024 at 9:55 am

          Neoconservative philosophy in foreign policy circles is a cult and all people who wish to swim in FP waters must be part of the cult or they will be cut to pieces (figuratively) if they stray from the cultish ideas which neocons hold. The two essential ideas are that the the USA must dominate and rule the world or the Chinese will, and that if the US population has no purpose it will degenerate into hedonism, tribalism, and regionalism. World conquest through war is the common purpose we need to pursue. They honestly believe that if people were left to be “free” they would all want to be like Americans
          1. ChrisFromGA August 28, 2024 at 10:09 am

             “Manifest destiny” runs deep in the soul of America, and the neocons gift to the world was spreading it beyond our shores so that they can exterminate “others” all over the planet, not just limited to the borders of the US.
       3. Neutrino August 28, 2024 at 10:22 am

          Musical interlude, from John Fogerty.
          1. Randall Flagg August 28, 2024 at 12:23 pm

             3:08 seconds of truth.
             The warmongers in DC want me and my kids to believe in their BS, well let’s see THIER kids in uniform first and then I’ll listen.
17. The Rev Kev August 28, 2024 at 8:39 am

    ‘David Sheen
    @davidsheen
    After State TV interviewed families where one partner’s Jewish and the other one isn’t, Israeli Minister of Communications @shlomo_karhi
    says the station’s board will be replaced with one that’s “zionist” and which won’t feature the voices of miscegenators’

    No surprises there. The subjects of marriage in Israel is nuts as they want religiously pure couples and there are all sorts of hoops to jump through. So this is why-

    ‘According to a 2016 Pew Research Center survey, more than 98% of Israelis are married to a partner of the same religion. 97% of Israeli Jews would be uncomfortable if their child married a Muslim and 89% would be uncomfortable if their child married a Christian. The vast majority of secular Israeli Jews oppose interfaith marriage’

    So it is not just the religious nuts but the majority of secular Israelis that do not want interfaith marriages and inter-faith marriages performed within the country are not legally recognized. So are they still the only democracy in the Middle East?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_in_Israel
18. mrsyk August 28, 2024 at 8:41 am

    That fella seems to be aiming for a “Darwin Award” via ostrich. I guess common sense and spelling skills are short in supply around Sioux Falls.
    1. The Rev Kev August 28, 2024 at 8:49 am

       And that guy’s reply would have probably been ‘So Sioux me!’

       But no way would I ever approach something that reminds me of a Velociraptor.
    2. sarmaT August 28, 2024 at 8:52 am

       He seems mesmerised by the size of those chicken wings.
    3. diptherio August 28, 2024 at 10:59 am

       That’s what I thought too. Ostriches can be pretty nasty critters. Mom used to work for a guy who had an ostrich ranch in Central MT back in the 90s, during the ostrich fad. They are scary (cute when they are chicks, though).
       1. hk August 28, 2024 at 5:28 pm

          Reconstructions of velociraptors have been trending towards making them ostrichlike….
19. .Tom August 28, 2024 at 8:44 am

    Helmer’s must-read is full of detail on how the story about the Ukrainian invasion of Russia evolved in media. In the middle he gives this definition that I thought worth singling out for us here.

    Exceptionalism is an ideology of superiority based on fabricated racial, ethnic, religious, financial, or other characteristics, employing fascist methods extending to genocide in the Turkish-Armenian, British-Indian, German-Jewish, and Israeli-Palestinian cases. In the US there is no exception to American exceptionaliasm – not in the pro-war parties, nor in the anti-war opposition, nor in the professoriat.

    He goes on to describe Martyanov’s Russian exceptionalism.
    1. PlutoniumKun August 28, 2024 at 11:06 am

       Yes, I’m glad he has taken on Martynanov. I never liked the tone of his writing, but he certainly knows his stuff (at least in some topics. But his slant has gone from ideologically pro-Russian to seeing everything Russian as perfect and pure and everyone else as an idiot. As a military expert, he should surely be aware that the number one error in military planning is to assume your enemy is stupid.
       1. rudi from butte August 28, 2024 at 12:10 pm

          “As a military expert, he should surely be aware that the number one error in military planning is to assume your enemy is stupid.”

          And all we hear daily in the good ole USA is the Russians are just a bunch of “Cabbage Heads.”
          1. hk August 28, 2024 at 5:33 pm

             I belie e PK is an Irishman. He has no dog in that fight.
       2. divadab August 28, 2024 at 2:10 pm

          Yes Martyanov’s Rah Rah Russia-ism is a thing. And his analysis contains much insult, however deserved. Nonetheless, his critique of NATO’s fomenting of the Russo-Ukrainian war and its progress is interesting and certainly more accurate than the fairy stories propagated on the likes of CNN, the NYT, and the Guardian.
       3. bertl August 28, 2024 at 6:24 pm

          I think it reasonable to give an enemy the opportunity to demonstrate whether or not he is going to repeat previous mistakes. The Russian military leadership provided information to the political leadership, and the political leadership saw a potential opportunity and made a decision to leave the bait in the river. If small groups of Yukkie forces crossed the border without encountering any great difficulty, their leadership would be inclined to move a significant number of experienced troops over the border to take land to Russia’s ultimate advantage.

          Civilian evacuation plans had been drawn up and were effectively executed.

          The Yukkies did as expected and more troops and armour followed the “expeditionary” forces and began to take control of Russian land. This nullified the extremely generous offer made by President Putin to consider an Instanbul 2 if President Trump regained office in the November election. The fact that the offer had been made demonstrates President Putin’s moderation and desire to get back to serious business with the USA in 2025.

          An unknown number of foreign mercenaries are amongst the surviving Yukkie troops and will be treated as spies as might those on Ukrainian territory, and it may be that many of the Yukkies on Russian land will be treated as terrorists under Russian law. Retaliation against the Kiev regime will be heavy and well understood by the Rest if not by the West.

          Medvedev’s Telegram statement is on point and the only option for the Ukraine is ultimately total surrender and it will be left to Russia, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania to negotiate their future borders and any buffer zone(s) separating Russia from the NATO states.
20. Ian August 28, 2024 at 8:51 am

    There’s a difference between religiosity and religious fundamentalism. Religious behavior in general does usually promote group cohesion. The pursuit of religious experience is what monks do. Religious fundamentalism, however appears to me to be very clearly pathological in most contexts in that it causes reality denial in most of the people who experience it. If it wasn’t placed in a religious context, we would unambiguously call this “psychosis.”
    1. KD August 28, 2024 at 9:10 am

       If beliefs are socially mediated, then the reasonableness of holding belief X or Y is socially mediated. If you beliefs correspond to those of other members of your social group, irrespective of the fact of whether those belief are well grounded in evidence or elite consensus, that is entirely different from an individual just believing completely eccentric things. (In addition, if you really deal with a psychotic you will find their web of beliefs is incoherent and inconsistent to a degree you generally don’t find in groups or even drunks.)

       A majority of Democrats believe that Russia and Trump colluded to win the 2016 election. Are they psychotic? Are they cranks? Do we need to do brain studies to discover the origin of TDS? Or is it about power and social control and legitimacy?
       1. Chris Cosmos August 28, 2024 at 11:41 am

          Are they psychotic?

          Not clinically but they are “virtually” psychotic in a way. One of the chief features of psychological dysfunction is a closed mind to views that differ from a person’s world-view. I don’t think there is a cure for the delusion you describe other than a return to the Western tradition of rationalism but that is not going to happen because we are in a “post-modern” era that features valorizing emotions over reason and a hodge-podge of memes that make up our current mythological frameworks.
          1. KD August 28, 2024 at 3:51 pm

             I believe that there is an inherent conflict between truth-seeking and conformity to social norms. I believe most people are more comfortable conforming, and frankly, it probably makes it less likely that you get burned at the stake, so there is probably some evolutionary pressure against truth seeking. Since group belonging can mean the difference between life or death in many places at most times in history, probably some pretty intense pressure against truth seeking.
    2. hk August 28, 2024 at 11:01 am

       There are plenty of things that lead to fundamentalist behavior other than “religion,” though. An example: the DNC that we just saw.
    3. Daniil Adamov August 28, 2024 at 1:22 pm

       It really depends on your definition of fundamentalism. I think of it as an attempt to return to the perceived fundamentals of a religion, i.e. religious radicalism. I don’t see how that’s necessarily exceptional in terms of “reality denial” compared to either the religious or the irreligious mainstream, though. It can, I suppose, inspire some very unrealistic ambitions, but that’s by no means unique to religious fundamentalists. And it absolutely does promote group cohesion, unless it’s a religion of one.
21. KD August 28, 2024 at 8:55 am

    re: A neural network for religious fundamentalism derived from patients with brain lesions PNAS (Steve K). “Sigh. I am not a fan of fundamentalists given their view of the role of women. However, studies like this take the premise that religious fundamentalism is a pathology.”

    Yes, religious people believe “irrational things” that are contradicted by “science” as if there wasn’t some benefit by virtue of belonging to a collective which bases identity around adherence to a set of collective beliefs/practices. Further, in order to show commitment to the group, subscribing to those beliefs/practices should involve some level of sacrifice to demonstrate loyalty to the group. Hence, if you believe in Creationism, you subject yourself to scorn by elites, and if you subscribe to ritual circumcision, well that one is obvious.

    What is more irrational-believing things that demonstrate your belonging and commitment to a mutual aid society that are scorned by social elites or analyzing collective beliefs divorced from understanding the behaviors and functions of collectives?

    It should also be noted that the so-called “irrational beliefs” generally have little cash value in the lives of ordinary people. Why would it matter to a car salesman or a gas station attendant if humans evolved or were created by Almighty God 6,028 years ago? Why is Creationism more popular in America than traditional ethical teachings against usury?
    1. Neutrino August 28, 2024 at 10:25 am

       NC columnist Michael Hudson has written books that provide much discussion about that usury topic.
22. Wukchumni August 28, 2024 at 9:02 am

    Its almost all billionaires here at Burning Man, don’t come unless you’ve got 10 figures of wealth or hopefully more.

    Our camp of about 35 people includes families and there are 8 kids aged 6 to 16 included, none of them unfortunately being Silicon Valley moguls, but who can know the future, the 6 year old is pretty darn sharp.

    Perfect weather and amazing art this year-
    1. The Rev Kev August 28, 2024 at 9:12 am

       Air Traffic Control sounds busy at Burning man-

       https://www.businessinsider.com/burning-man-private-planes-landing-billionaire-tech-black-rock-city-2024-8

       Before I forget, came across an article that might spark your interest-

       https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/26/style/denmark-le-bruun-coin-collection-auction/index.html
       1. Wukchumni August 28, 2024 at 9:28 am

          I’ll ride out to the airport to give you an idea of the planes involved, which last year were primarily Cesna 172’s, and no jets of the 40 or so aircraft we glimpsed.

          I stopped collecting coins when I was like 14, but can still appreciate amazing stuff-I just don’t need to own any.
          1. Wukchumni August 28, 2024 at 11:58 am

             p.s.

             One art piece was a series of 40 wood steps in a double helix, consisting of say a dozen of them suspended by wire, with each of the steps having the name of somebody with an RIP below it, and a couple three Israeli burners lurking around. We asked what it was all about, and the names were the 406 killed at the trance rave on October 7.

             My buddy and I both felt as if it was out of place, and the Israelis kind of gave us the willies, as politics doesn’t really enter the fray hardly at the burn.

             I remarked to him that I’d only seen 1 American flag aloft in our 3 days-old glory being uncommonly scarce.

             When I first attended we were cut off from communication in entirety pretty much, not unlike a backpack trip, but now there’s wi-fi throughout Black Rock City-not hard to find.

             But hanging out on the internet isn’t why I’m here, and time for the Tour de Burn on my trusty e-Sting Ray, its a chopper baby.
             1. The Rev Kev August 28, 2024 at 7:06 pm

                You should have told them that at least Burning Man isn’t held outside a concentration camp.
    2. Trees&Trunks August 28, 2024 at 9:22 am

       You can have the kids to run around kicking billionaires in their groins as a thank you for their theft and the silicon valley-driven entshittification. That would be a good use of time and opportunity.
       1. Mikel August 28, 2024 at 9:57 am

          However, don’t send those children anywhere near where Peter Thiel may be!
23. Another Scott August 28, 2024 at 9:05 am

    I’d like to share an anecdote from my commute home yesterday.

    I take the T (Boston’s public transportation system), and a man in his sixties got on. He was wearing a Trump tee-shirt (I believe the one from the assassination attempt) and had a little trouble walking so someone got up and let him sit. Then he started to complain, and I heard him mention Labor Day and how government workers get it off. But it got interesting when he was mentioning how unfair it was to supermarket workers who don’t get the day off, listed the other [low-wage] workers who have to work on Labor Day, and concluded that either everyone should get the day off or no one should. I’ve made the same argument many times before but didn’t expect to hear it from someone in a Trump tee-shirt.

    Full disclosure: he also made some immigrant comments that I didn’t agree with and made some rather extreme jingoistic comments but the comments about everyone getting the same holiday surprised me from a follower of the Republican nominee. And I can’t imagine a Romney or Bush supporter saying the same thing.
    1. jefemt August 28, 2024 at 10:01 am

       Summarizing a worker bee’s reaction to this line of thought:
       -not everyone ‘celebrates’ Christmas, or Labor Day, or Easter, Holidays—and many need or desire the work and pay;
       -many folks need to shop on those days- the demand exists.

       How many of us treat any given holiday or weekend or sabbath eschew activity, eschew spending? Seems to me many of us are driving the demand bus…
       1. Neutrino August 28, 2024 at 10:30 am

          Youngsters in antediluvian times used to have a rite of passage involving holidays.

          Mum, why is xyz store open on insert holiday name here? The people should be home with family!

          Just one step in that desensitization ritual.
    2. Chris Cosmos August 28, 2024 at 1:00 pm

       Leftists (of the anti-war, pro-worker, anti-oligarchy persuasion) like me only have one place that welcomes us, politically, and that’s the New Republican Party under Trump that will be a new party. Why? Because it is the only opposition party in the country with any hope of winning.
       1. 123 August 28, 2024 at 2:47 pm

          Winning what?
24. GramSci August 28, 2024 at 9:11 am

    Ahh, the Jacobin again. “Supporting workers as if we knew one.”

    More about ‘those stupid workers’, but not a mention of the TPP. That, above all, is the reason the MSM hates him.
25. Mikel August 28, 2024 at 9:14 am

    Ukraine Develops ‘Its Own’ Cruise Missile – Moon of Alabama

    Basically, Ukraine develops “its own” cruise missile like Israel “defends itself”.
    1. The Rev Kev August 28, 2024 at 9:23 am

       So if there was a factory fire in say, Poland, would all production of this Ukrainian cruise missile come to a stop? I am more likely to believe that these things are powered by twisted rubber bands.
    2. mrsyk August 28, 2024 at 9:52 am

       Ukraine Develops ‘Its Own’ Cruise Missile Heh heh heh, maybe by spray-painting Storm Shadows?
26. MicaT August 28, 2024 at 9:29 am

    Tom’s and solar.
    In the article I didn’t find any references to solar.
    Google found me this
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_indium_gallium_selenide_solar_cell#:~:text=The%20use%20of%20gallium%20increases,increasing%20the%20open%2Dcircuit%20voltage.

    As best I could find CIGS is all but gone as a solar panel technology.
27. Mikel August 28, 2024 at 9:31 am

    https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-08-28/disneys-new-mega-neighborhood-is-taking-shape-in-the-california-desert-locals-are-dubious/
    Disney’s new mega-neighborhood is taking shape in the California desert. Some locals are dubious

    “Storyliving projects” designed for home buyers who want to bring Disney deeper into their everyday lives.
    —-
    And questions abound about the water usage as well…

    They will probably have direct flights to Burning Man.
    1. The Rev Kev August 28, 2024 at 9:42 am

       That was my first thought. Where was the water coming from to support this brand-new wealthy suburb in the middle of a desert. Having a 24-acre lagoon included is gunna require a lot of foot-acres of water to fill. Locals ask too where will the workers live? The housekeepers, landscapers, bartenders and hospitality employees. I would guess that there would be a bus line established to the nearest community for them to live in which might price out members of that local community that are there right now. The Mouse is not a good neighbour.
       1. Mikel August 28, 2024 at 9:48 am

          The rest of California (outside the squillionaire complexes in Northern Cali) with also get “Storyliving Projects”. They will have the choices of Mad Max -Thunderdome or Mad Max – Fury Road.
    2. Neutrino August 28, 2024 at 10:37 am

       Will that be anything like Seaside, Florida, the filming location of The Truman Show?
       Moving on up from New Urbanism to New Exurbanism?
28. ChrisFromGA August 28, 2024 at 9:45 am

    Edifice Wrecks update:

    A $557 Billion Drop in Office Values Eclipses a Revival of Cities

    https://archive.ph/koLvL

    The aptly named Avenue of the Stars teems with traffic to the headquarters of Creative Artists Agency, talent manager for celebrities such as Brad Pitt, Steven Spielberg and Zendaya. LA’s wealthiest discreetly hand their cars off to valets at the offices of UBS Private Wealth Management and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Cranes are hoisting I-beams for a new 37-story tower that will be the future home of CAA, law firm Sidley Austin and private equity manager Clearlake Capital Group.

    It’s a starkly different scene 10 miles to the east, in LA’s downtown core. Buildings are losing tenants and going into foreclosure, with the area’s biggest commercial landlord — an affiliate of Brookfield Corp. — defaulting on $2.2 billion of mortgages since last year. Tent camps dot the streets in the epicenter of the city’s homelessness crisis. Oceanwide Plaza, a graffiti-covered project abandoned by a Chinese developer, is headed for a bankruptcy auction in September.

    This strikes me as deeply wasteful. Rather than taking advantage of lower rents and investing in downtowns, corporations are overpaying for pricey “trophy” offices in cities’ borderlands and edge regions.

    This will leave urban cores to rot. Already visible here in Atlanta – much construction around the Braves stadium near where I live, yet downtown you see empty towers and rising crime, decay, and homelessness.

    Think of the waste of material, energy, and other resources in continuing to build white elephants in the ‘burbs while perfectly good albeit older buildings sit empty. We suck!

    Bulldozing or imploding downtown towers may be next. However, I suspect civic pride may get in the way.
    1. Neutrino August 28, 2024 at 10:42 am

       In California style, the solution would be to promote a great new scheme with splashy ads to drive voters to approve another white elephant. See that train to nowhere in the central valley. Line up the right politicians and then watch the costs spiral.
       Fees galore, speeches, columns, rewards for the non-participants, studious ignorance of impacts on locals.
    2. caucus99percenter August 28, 2024 at 10:55 am

       A spectre haunts commercial real estate: the spectre of the fate of Pruitt–Igoe.

       https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruitt%E2%80%93Igoe
    3. Jason Boxman August 28, 2024 at 12:23 pm

       What’s weird is transit to Sea Port is garbage:

       The divides of old versus new are apparent in Boston, where the Seaport — a glittering waterfront district of towers that have largely been built over the past 15 years — is in high demand. At the end of the second quarter, less than 10% of the top-quality Class A office space in the Seaport was available, according to Colliers, while more than 25% of comparable-caliber space in the financial district was available.

       On a summer Friday, tourists, residents and office workers flocked in and out of the Seaport’s Warby Parker and Lululemon stores and grabbed lunch at one of the many restaurants filling new retail real estate. The neighborhood is home to Boston Consulting Group, industrial software company PTC Inc. and the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. It also reflects Boston’s growing stature as a biotech hub: Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. is based there, while Eli Lilly & Co. recently opened its Lilly Seaport Innovation Center in the district.

       There’s no subway. You can take the Silver Line bus, but that is a hassle. Or you can walk the bridge from South Station all the way into Sea Port, but that can be a long walk. I always hated having to commute into Sea Port, really Fort Point, from Somerville by subway. Although by bus or Uber/Lyft is a dumpster fire as well.

       If you don’t live in Sea Port, ugh.

       In Boston’s financial district, home to the regional Federal Reserve bank and old-line firms such as Fidelity Investments, just about every block has a sign advertising retail or office space. Bank branches have closed, as did a flower store, an Italian restaurant, a card and tobacco shop and Hyde Leather & Shoe Repair. Sweetgreen and Cava have lunchtime lines, but that’s partly because many of their would-be competitors have shuttered.

       The financial district is actually great. What a shame. You have easy subway access from Boston Common, Downtown Crossing, Aquarium. (Red, Orange, and Blue lines.) At the time there were plenty of lunch spots if extra spend was your thing. Tons of bars for after hours, if that’s your thing. There’s the converted walking park where they buried the interstate, there’s Boston Common. It’s all within easy walking distance. Fanueil Hall shops and food court. Haymarket indoor farmer’s market. I could go on and on. Sal’s Pizza! Haymarket Pizza on that almost shady side street behind Fanueil, best slices for like $2.

       Sea Port. No, thanks.
       1. ChrisFromGA August 28, 2024 at 2:39 pm

          This sounds like unrestrained capitalism’s failure to understand (or, getting paid not to understand) that building more shiny palaces would only cannibalize the existing stock of office space. Not a hard thing to imagine nor predict, especially as the writing has been on the wall for offices ever since Zoom came out before COVID. COVID merely delivered the “coup de grace.”

          As long as the Wall Street financial gang keep on lending, the music never stops.
    4. lyman alpha blob August 28, 2024 at 2:10 pm

       Another side effect of cratering commercial property values turns out to be [family blog]ing homeowners to make up the tax shortfalls.

       Residential property owners in my town just got hit with about a 25% property tax increase pretty much across the board. This was the result of a state mandated revaluation. That does make sense in theory – city assessments were far lower than the current market rate for residential homes, which have skyrocketed in recent years. So you raise the assessment and lower the mil rate, and everything’s more or less the same. That was what happened after the last revaluation.

       Different story this time though. After we were informed of the increase, I wondered where the extra 25% in expenditures year over year came from to justify this, since they also told us the new mil rate was the lowest it had been in decades. But it wasn’t due to a drastic budget increase. Turns out the values of commercial properties went way down and the city is not allowed to set different mil rates for commercial vs. residential property. So commercial property used to account for about 60% of the total valuation, and it went down to about 30%, sticking homeowners with 70% of the tax burden now.

       There is small one silver lining to this. For years city officials here (and pretty much everywhere) have told us how encouraging moar businesses and allowing them to do whatever they want, zoning be damned, would be a great boon to all, increasing the tax base and lowering the tax burden on individuals. Those paying attention have known for a long time that that wasn’t true, but that didn’t stop officials from saying it. Now we have extremely definitive proof it’s not true, and the next time I hear some official tout the neverending benefits of moar business, I’ll be sure to wave a copy of my current tax bill in their face.
       1. Jason Boxman August 28, 2024 at 5:25 pm

          Sounds like Philadelphia, where last I looked they couldn’t set different income tax rates for people and companies. Had to be resolved at the state level, not sure if it ever was, this was back in 2019 or 2020 I looked.
          1. ChrisFromGA August 29, 2024 at 7:20 am

             That’s an interesting legal angle. if corporations are people, setting tax rates differently for corporations vs. persons may violate the equal protection clause under the 14th Amendment.

             I bet the courts would find a technicality or procedural reason to not move such a suit forward. Kind of like how Amy Coney Barrett gutlessly used standing to avoid having to rule on the merits of the issue in Biden v. Missouri.
29. Wukchumni August 28, 2024 at 9:48 am

    The Coffee Pot Fire back home is approaching 4,000 acres with 0% containment, but really doesn’t threaten any structures.

    A friend e-mailed to relate that the AQI is 343 in Tiny Town, which is downright awful.

    No smoke to speak of here, as you can only have burn barrel fires and they tend to be few and far between.
    1. JP August 28, 2024 at 1:32 pm

       The majority of the coffee pot smoke has been blowing south over Dennison ridge for days. The sun was blood red last evening and this morning was a choker. Could you please keep the products of combustion in your own watershed. I was at my optometrist’s in Exeter yesterday. He said he was on the Mineral King road two weeks ago and saw the lightening strike that started the fire
30. CA August 28, 2024 at 9:50 am

    https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1828779745393123633

    Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand

    The very definition of the military-industrial complex: a venture capital fund whose CEO Gilman Louie sits on Biden’s Intelligence Advisory Board brags: “if the China-Taiwan situation happens, some of our investments will 10x, like overnight.”

    https://theintercept.com/2023/02/03/china-americas-frontier-fund/ *

    Gilman Louie is also the former co-founder and CEO of the CIA venture capital fund In-Q-Tel, and he’s the recipient of the CIA Agency Seal Medallion (2004), CIA Director’s Award (2006), Agency Seal Medallion (2006), and Director of National Intelligence Medallion (2008)

    ( https://americasfrontier.com/team/gilman-louie ).

    The fund – American Frontier Fund – was founded last year with support from former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who’s also very close to Biden’s government, as well as Peter Thiel.

    * White House-Linked Venture Capital Fund Boasts China War Would Be Great for Business

    9:00 AM · Aug 28, 2024
31. Mark Gisleson August 28, 2024 at 9:51 am

    ABC killed the superceding indictment link, story is now headlined How the Trump election subversion indictment changed after Supreme Court ruling.

    Not sure if this is a new video, but it starts out with a high pressure excusification set up and then goes into a high-pitched whine of innuendo and (gasp!) lots of lies followed by deceitful analysis that sounds a lot like the end chapter digressions of The Mueller Report.

    I don’t watch news other than brief clips. Seeing talking heads now freaks me out. Those little jerky movements they make to hold your eye? Now strike me as bizarre and twitchy. If it’s worth knowing, it’s worth reading about.
    1. Neutrino August 28, 2024 at 10:44 am

       Jack Smith needing yet another loss in the late stage lawfare gambit?
32. Hastalavictoria August 28, 2024 at 9:58 am

    Re: Munchau article.

    Is Munchau really up to date on the Donbass military situation?

    Serious pressure is on Ugledar, Konstantinova has fallen in the east.While Memryk was taken yesterday, Novhrodivka fell in 4 days leaving the town/village almost fully intact.i.e a complete contrast to the usual attritional slugfest of the last 2 years.Pokrovsk the last stronghold short of the Dnieper will shortly become the focus.

    Ukraine’s ability to resist clearly seems to be diminishing at a increasing rate.

    The old saw ‘Stick to the knitting’ may be appropriate here.
    1. The Rev Kev August 28, 2024 at 10:05 am

       Russian forces are only a few kilometers away from Pokrovsk which just happens to be the supply hub for the Ukrainian forces in the east. When it falls, it will be crunch time for the Ukrainians there. Meanwhile in Kursk, ‘The Russian Defense Ministry says Ukrainian losses in Kursk since August 6 include over 70 tanks, over 30 IFVs, 58 APCs, 380+ ACVs, nearly 180 other vehicles, 37 pieces of artillery, five SAMs, 11 MLRS installations, nine EW and counterbattery systems, and five pieces of engineering equipment.’ You can add on another HIMARS system to that list plus about 7,000 soldiers as well-

       https://sputnikglobe.com/20240826/graveyard-for-nato-armor-western-heavy-weapons-destroyed-during-kievs-kursk-gambit-1119912825.html
       1. Anonymous 2 August 28, 2024 at 4:37 pm

          Call me a cynic but I do not believe a word the Russian Defence Ministry says, just as I do not believe a word the Ukrainian Government says either. As someone wise said, truth is the first casualty of war.
          1. jrkrideau August 28, 2024 at 7:54 pm

             From what I have seen and much more informed commentators say, the Russian Ministry of Defence figures seem fairly accurate. They get things wrong sometimes and occasionally may be less than truthful but they are likely fairly accurate, at least on front line figures.

             Ukraine has been lying since Snake Island and the Ghost of Kiev. If Ukraine claims it is fighting Russia, don’t believe them: It is really a war against Turkey.
    2. Samuel Conner August 28, 2024 at 10:50 am

       > Novhrodivka fell in 4 days leaving the town/village almost fully intact.i.e a complete contrast to the usual attritional slugfest of the last 2 years

       This is noteworthy. Alexander Mercouris emphasized the unprecedented character of this development in his Ukraine situation summary yesterday.

       The town was evidently so thinly defended that the RF army did not find it necessary to employ its abundant artillery and ground-attack air resources to seriously degrade the defenses before sending in the infantry to storm the town.

       If this is the shape of the future of UAF defenses along that axis, it’s hard for me to believe that the Rs will not have reached the Dniepr River before the November election. That would be, IMO, a huge black eye for JRB, and I imagine that there would be some negative reflection on KDH as well.
       1. PlutoniumKun August 28, 2024 at 11:46 am

          You can read that in more than one way. In a chaotic collapse, there is usually a lot more damage inflicted as the winning side will try to keep the collapse going through harassment fire, and the retreating side set fires and explosions to cover the withdrawal.

          When a town falls without too much damage, it usually indicates either a controlled withdrawal of some degree or some sort of local ‘agreement’ between commanders (with or without the approval of HQ). My guess is the latter.
          1. Daniil Adamov August 28, 2024 at 1:17 pm

             Yeah, I really doubt it’s a complete rout. Though I might call it an orderly and localised collapse. The Ukrainians wouldn’t agree to this if they had the resources with which to hold out; and by all accounts their resources there are increasingly strained. Still, they are probably just doing this with an eye to consolidating a more tenable defensive line further west.
33. The Rev Kev August 28, 2024 at 9:58 am

    “UK PM warns of ‘deep rot’ at heart of country”

    ‘With his own approval rating faltering, Keir Starmer is set to blame the Conservatives for Britain’s dire economic straits’

    Is Starmer right to blame the Tories of doing a demolition job on the British economy? Yes he is which is why they were savaged in the last election. And why is Starmer’s approval rating faltering? Because he wants to do the same damn thing that the Tories were doing, including their blind support of the Ukraine & Israel at the expense of the UK. So before the election, did Starmer promise his donors that nothing will fundamentally change?
    1. Revenant August 28, 2024 at 8:28 pm

       As the Reverend Mother (not yours, Rev!) Mandy Rice Davis said, “Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?”.

       No doubt he’ll also be shocked, shocked to find gambling going on in the bar, just as soon as he gets back from taking a shit with the Pope/chief Rabbi in the woods.
34. lyman alpha blob August 28, 2024 at 10:13 am

    RE: Leaked – CIA backed color revolution in Indonesia

    I don’t think NC readers will be at all surprised to see the NED and USAID angling to install a compliant government in a foreign country. But this bit stood out –

    “Meinhover [political officer at the US Embassy in Jakarta] lamented how Indonesian law restricts parties with less than 20% of seats in parliament from fielding Presidential candidates. If that “threshold” were removed, “there will be more candidates in the election, and the U.S. will have more options,” he declared. ”

    Very ironic, considering that in the US, these same types of people do everything they can to remove candidates from the ballot. Just another example of the “rules based order”.
    1. Daniil Adamov August 28, 2024 at 10:21 am

       This in turn suggests an interesting consistency of apparent underlying views: a political system in which more parties have a shot at power is more susceptible to foreign interference; a political system in which fewer parties have a shot at power is easier for national elites to control in their own interest (whether that interest aligns with that of anyone else in the country is a different matter entirely).
       1. PlutoniumKun August 28, 2024 at 11:39 am

          I found the article very confusing and self contradictory – it seemed to base its theory of a future color revolution on a lot of random anecdotes and factoids with little basis in solid evidence. There is no real basis for thinking that Joko is in any way anti-western, or that any of his opponents are more favoured by the US, either in reality or in theory. Its hardly news that US embassies or other foreign agencies are full of individuals who have little idea of what they are talking about and aren’t afraid to let everyone know it. Things haven’t changed much since the days when Graham Greene wrote The Quiet American.

          But you do raise an interesting point about a ‘preferred’ system for foreign interference. Conventional thinking would suggest that a strongman open to ‘persuasion’ one way or another is always favoured as its simply easier to maintain control over one individual than try to herd a lot of greedy parliamentarians one way or another. Especially as local politicians are often very skilled at playing one foreign power against another (Joko has proven very skillful at this, especially in playing the Chinese off against the Japanese and others for construction contracts). The Central Asian autocracies are particularly skilled at playing off all the big players, either in terms of leaders steering their country, or domestic politicians using external players for their own ends. You can see this in Georgia, where a bunch of domestic oligarchs at war are hitching their fortunes to either Russia or the West, depending on who seems the most promising at any one given time.

          Its probably easier to see this process going on in the US, where its pretty simple to trace how, for example, Israel and KSA have managed to grab an outsized amount of influence over the media and governmental system, such that its hard to see who is actually calling the shots or who is whose poodle. To do it successfully, you need to have a very deep knowledge of internal power levers, and how to maintain influence at multiple levels of decision making. KSA and the Gulf States have near bottomless resources of course, but it still takes some skill. In general, you will usually find that smaller, ‘weaker’ states, albeit ones with some resources, are far more skilled at this game than the big players, as getting it right is an existential matter for them. Many a State has disappeared (or done a Paraguay) by getting this wrong.
          1. Daniil Adamov August 28, 2024 at 1:10 pm

             “In general, you will usually find that smaller, ‘weaker’ states, albeit ones with some resources, are far more skilled at this game than the big players, as getting it right is an existential matter for them.”

             I had a similar thought a while back when reading about diplomacy during the Imjin War: the Koreans seemed much more competent at it than the Chinese or the Japanese, because they had to be. Chinese and Japanese diplomats seemed much more focused on selling something that looked like success to their respective superiors than with substantial accomplishments, and resorted to much self-defeating chicanery. The Koreans could not afford such luxuries, or at least not to any comparable extent. They desperately needed to get actual results.

             As for foreign interference… I think a single strongman might be easier if you can rely on him, but the US establishment had ran into a lot of trouble with disobedient strongmen in recent years, even if said strongmen are merely independent rather than outright anti-West. I think from their perspective (and the perspective of anyone else in their position) a weaker, fractured elite is preferable to one that is consolidated and opposed to them, even if the long-term ideal might be consolidated and controlled.

             But isn’t a consolidated elite (whether consolidated around a strongman or otherwise) also harder to manipulate from the outside, all other things being equal? You can play divide and conquer with it much more reliably, at least. The Central Asian autocracies are indeed very deft; I might be wrong about this, but I think their rulers would be much harder for any outsiders to manipulate than the rather less consolidated elites in European democracies seem to be for Americans. Not to say that the latter are being puppeted by the Americans, of course; simply that it’d be hard for almost any European government or would-be government to embrace a non-pro-American foreign policy course now, in part, I’d guess, because that would inevitably leave it exposed to a strong, American-supported attack from its opposition. The autocrats don’t really have that fear.

             I also remember a lot of “geopolitics”-inclined people here in Russia suggesting that we should let Lukashenko sink back during the last major protests against him. After all, he is way too good at playing us against the West; meanwhile, a democratic Belarus would be more reliably pro-Russian, since actual pro-Western opinion there is tenacious but politically marginal, just like here. Of course since then his situation became more constrained, though I wouldn’t write him off for the future.
             1. Bazarov August 28, 2024 at 2:00 pm

                Every time I see Luka, I’m struck by how unhealthy he looks. Like he’s ten years older than Putin, though he’s two years younger!

                I have a feeling he won’t be around for the long term. Didn’t he hint recently about maybe stepping aside soon?
                1. Daniil Adamov August 28, 2024 at 4:24 pm

                   “though he’s two years younger! ”

                   That’s difficult to believe, though true. He always seemed older to me.

                   Anyway, he surely will go eventually, but until then he remains a wild card. I’m pretty sure I’ve heard about him maybe stepping aside soon years ago.
             2. hk August 28, 2024 at 7:34 pm

                Even better Korean example is Korea at the beginning of 20th century. Essentially, Korean policymakers managed to get Russia involved enough in Korean affairs more than what saner Russian statesmen wanted to be, usually by stroking ego of some aristocrats who had exaggerated sense of Russian power (and disregard for how far Japan came as a modern power) who had more influence over Nicholas II than they should have (plus, Nicholas II did have an aversion for Japan, thanks to being attacked with a sword while visiting Japan) that they effectively caused the Russo-Japanese War (and, indirectly, World War I).

                The infamous story from the Imjin War involves the top Japanese and Chinese negotiators conspiring to lie to their respective sovereigns, ultimately almost succeeding by taking advantage of the fact that the Japanese dictator (I don’t think Toyotomi ever had the title Shogun–b/c he was not of noble birth, iirc) was illiterate so he couldn’t read the edict from the Chinese emperor himself. So instead of territorial and other demands he made, he was appointed “king of Japan” by the Chinese emperor and sent accompanying regalia. Only when the retainer who was brought into the conspiracy originally lost his nerve at the last minute and read the actual content of the edict did the conspiracy get blown. Interestingly, though, I never thought about the Koreans playing the Chinese and Japanese skillfully in this era. (Admittedly, if I stayed being a Korean, I’d never have thought much about Korean diplomacy in 1890-1910 era either…)
                1. Daniil Adamov August 29, 2024 at 9:40 am

                   Toyotomi never became Shogun but I think he did become Regent (Kampaku), through the common expedient of being adopted by a Fujiwara. If he wanted to become Shogun, it surely could’ve been arranged in the same way.

                   And yeah, that story is part of what I had in mind, though there were many other deceptions at the time. Probably because deception was the only way to circumvent Toyotomi’s megalomania on the one hand and the official Ming Sinocentric worldview on the other.
             3. hk August 28, 2024 at 7:43 pm

                I’d say that a consolidated elite that is oriented inward will be difficult to crack, but not an elite with internationalist pretensions. This is an intresting contrast between Taiwan and Korea: for all the talk about “Taiwanese independence,” the Taiwanese never really had a clear national identity, nothing to orient inward towards. During the early half of 20th century, my understanding is that the Japanese found the Taiwanese easier to deal with because they wanted to be modern and thus Japanese, while the Koreans wanted to be modern, but not as Japanese. Even Korean collaborators with the Japense rule didn’t submit to Japan that way: a Korean general in the Japanese Army during World War II described himself as a Korean subject of Japanese empire serving in the Japanese Army, not a Japanese–and he likened himself to Scottish soldiers in British service. There are stories (probably made up, but it fits what I know about the era) about Korean volunteers to the Kamikaze corps singing banned Korean nationalist songs before going to their deaths. Not surprisingly, from 1943-4 onwards, Japan were looking to reorient their policy (granted, they never stayed on one path more than 4-5 years anyways–and they only went so far as to create draft plans for how they’d go about doing this.) in Korea so that Japanese Empire of the future would become a multiethnic empire where Koreans would be partners of the Japanese, not subjects, on recommendation of General Koiso, I think (Koiso was the governor general of Korea at this time). Hardly new, I suppose–they had an example in the form of the Dual Monarchy.
                1. PlutoniumKun August 29, 2024 at 5:07 am

                   I think you are quite right about consolidated elites although externally its quite hard to identify when an elite is ‘consolidated’ or not.

                   I think both Korean and Taiwanese sense of nationality is fascinating and probably worthy of a few PhDs. Korea has both had a fairly strong and distinct national sense (helped by having a language isolate, so there was never any particular ambiguity about identity),and having very large neighbours tends to heighten this sense of otherness. The centuries of war with Japan of course was very important, made worse by the pretty appalling behaviour (even by the standards of the time) of the Japanese through most of that period.

                   The Japanese occupation of Taiwan was far more gentle, almost paternal. I think a lot of this simply came down to pre-WWII Taiwan being quite linguistically mixed and lacking much in the way of industry (or a strong domestic elite), so they were more content to pick and choose their coloniser. Previous occupiers, including the Dutch and Portuguese, seemed content to rule with a light hand. The post war invasion and influx of Han Chinese – the KMT were far more brutal than the Japanese had been – changed everything of course and the country is still dealing with the fallout.
                2. SocalJimObjects August 29, 2024 at 5:50 am

                   In order to have a better understanding of how people who grew up under Japanese occupation of Taiwan think about their former colonial masters, I think the following is worth a read: https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-topics/g00722/hating-and-loving-japan-memories-of-growing-up-taiwanese.html.

                   Many Japanese people and outsiders (including myself when I first arrived in Taiwan) seem to have a rose colored view of how things had been during the occupation, but the fact of the matter is there was plenty of armed resistance against the Japanese as outlined in the following : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_under_Japanese_rule.

                   I was sent the non Wikipedia article by a Taiwanese friend after I made an “uninformed” remark during a dinner, and I would like to think that nowadays I have a more nuanced view of the matter.
             4. PlutoniumKun August 29, 2024 at 4:51 am

                I think your points about China and Japan are very astute still apply today. Both are still noticeably very clumsy when dealing with other smaller Asian nations. The Indonesians and Malaysians in particular have been very skillful at playing them off against each other. I think there are many reasons for this – one is straightforward elite nationalist arrogance which seems a feature of pretty much all large countries that are either regionally powerful, or have a self perception of power. They find it hard to put themselves in the shoes of smaller countries and alternatively either patronise them or try to bully them. This rarely works. More often than not, the ‘weaker’ nations can then merrily rip them off. I think one sign of a poorly led smaller nation in that region is one that allies itself too closely to one major power or another, even if it means occasionally playing the poodle or Uncle Tom if deemed necessary. Strategic ambiguity is a very powerful weapon that should never be given up easily. As you suggest, the Koreans are masters at this (they had to be, given their three bigger and potentially nastier neighbours). Anyone who thinks South Korea is anyone’s poodle is not paying attention.

                As for Central Asia, most of those strongmen are very astute when playing this game. Azerbaijan in particular has been particularly good at making nearly everyone think they are on their side. It took some skill for them to invade a formal ally of Russia (using mostly Israeli weaponry) and then persuade even the Russians that they were doing them a favour. Of course, the problem comes when elites split and play that game against each other in internal wars, as we are seeing now in Georgia.
                1. Daniil Adamov August 29, 2024 at 9:42 am

                   You’d think the Japanese would get better at this given their post-1945 situation. But I suppose being an economic superpower on the one hand and counting on American protection on the other made it seem like they don’t really have to worry about diplomacy that much.
       2. Michaelmas August 28, 2024 at 11:42 am

          To protect democracy, we need less democracy.

          It’s all meaningless. The reality is, of course, the US never has actually given a hoot about having a figleaf of democratic legitimacy if it can install a fascist dictator like Pinochet, Franco or whoever that serve its interests.
          1. Daniil Adamov August 28, 2024 at 1:12 pm

             Assuming it can count on Pinochet, Franco, etc. Again, I distinctly recall Western and liberal journalists marketing Putin as the Russian Pinochet circa 2000; he was to make Russia safe for the market and Western influence.
             1. hk August 28, 2024 at 8:50 pm

                I’m not so sure if Franco (can’t say too much about Pinochet) was much of a puppet to any Western leader. He had a certain set of visions about Spain, he was ruthless towards his enemies (even during the Civil War–he was hardly the most likely leader among the Nationalists early on), and was willing to bargain ruthlessly with the stronger powers around him to gain advantage, whether with Hitler’s Germany or United States. I suspect even PInochet was really like the “modern” dictators like Mobotu or Zelinsky, with tons of money hidden away in overseas banks and without much connection to their alleged home countries. FWIW, Pinochet was also an inwardly motivated leader who couldn’t be expected to do outsiders’ bidding unless he was paid in good money to advance his agendas at home–like Franco, really.

                The “ideal” result of color revolutions, I should think, is the replacement of “inwardly” oriented leadership with “outwardly” oriented ones, without interest in really picking up guns, literal or figurative, to defend their homes. “Inwardly” oriented dictators are probably easier to topple by “democratic” rebels, I’d imagine, though, than a group of “inwardly” oriented elites, who, in turn, will be easier to subvert than a mass of “inwardly” oriented “citizens.”
                1. Daniil Adamov August 29, 2024 at 9:29 am

                   Pretty much my point re: Franco and Pinochet (and, of course, one really can’t say that the US installed Franco…). The US can try to use strongmen to advance its goals sometimes, but they’re seldom that easy to control unless there is some extra leverage.
    2. Kouros August 28, 2024 at 4:23 pm

       Wouldn’t they like to re-enact the Jakarta method in the original place? Oh, The Art of Killing…

       With memories like these and a history like this both Indonesia and US (of Amnesia) should be very cautious.
35. JB August 28, 2024 at 11:18 am

    Guardian Editoral hat-tipping MMT’s Bill Mitchell!

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/aug/27/the-guardian-view-on-labours-gloomy-politics-it-is-bad-economics

    I’ve only read just the first few lines, mind – but that’s a stand-out sign of MMT mainstreaming – albeit Slowly.
    1. PlutoniumKun August 28, 2024 at 11:41 am

       That is interesting – I wonder who wrote the editorial – the Guardian in the past has been very hostile to MMT ideas.
       1. JB August 28, 2024 at 12:06 pm

          Ya I notice as well, that even where we are – Ireland – Stephen Kinsella from UCL (Post Keynesian) is actually an advisor to Taoiseach (Prime Minister for non-Irish) Simon Harris, too:

          https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/politics/arid-41432368.html

          https://archive.is/EOhgI

          Stephen is one of the non-MMT-focused Post Keynesians – though he is certainly aware of, but not sure if he has advocated, the Job Guarantee.

          http://www.irisheconomy.ie/index.php/2012/03/13/wray-jobs-guarantees-and-a-proposal-for-ireland/
          1. PlutoniumKun August 29, 2024 at 4:37 am

             Interesting – a few years back I had some correspondence with Kinsella, he seems quite a bright and open minded guy. If I recall correctly, he did write a few articles for the Guardian a few years back.

             Thanks for reminding me about that blog – (Irisheconomy). I used to follow it diligently, but it fell out of my list of reading over time .

             The problem with any MMT application with Ireland is, unfortunately, quite obvious. The Euro, not to mention the basic difficulty of maintaining a stable currency in a small open economy. It reminds me of my economics undergrad days in UCD where nearly every lecture on macro theory ended with a statement along the line of ‘...the more astute of you will have noticed that none of this can apply to a small open economy...’. Sadly, none of them ever got around to explaining what did apply.
             1. Polar Socialist August 29, 2024 at 4:43 am

                This is above my paygrade, but if Euro is money, then MMT applies to it – not the other way around :-)

                In the case of Ireland, the problem is ordolibaral control of ECB, I would say.
36. Ben Panga August 28, 2024 at 11:33 am

    The Haditha Massacre Photos That the Military Didn’t Want the World to See (New Yorker)

    When U.S. Marines killed twenty-four people in an Iraqi town, they also recorded the aftermath of their actions. For years, the military tried to keep these photos from the public. [graphic]
37. Ben Panga August 28, 2024 at 11:38 am

    Channel 4 (UK) report from The West Bank. The blond settler woman from Texas at 7:15 is quite something.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMFeQeQ4S88
    1. Kouros August 28, 2024 at 4:43 pm

       So her “grandparents” were kicked out of Gaza by Arabs.

       There is no mediteraneean gene in her body. Her entire body is evidence against the lies and stupidity her mouth and her brain spouts… Oh, the white race’s burden…
       1. Ben Panga August 28, 2024 at 5:59 pm

          Agreed!

          What struck me is the empathy-deficit. The interviewer tries to elicit empathy for those being ethnically cleansed, but her responses have the vibe only of “happiness of a kid who knows the answer to teacher’s question”. It’s odd and disturbing to see.
38. Jabura Basaidai August 28, 2024 at 11:48 am

    “France To Trial Ban on Mobile Phones At School For Children Under 15”
    i’m sure many of us made it all the way through school, including high school, without a phone – they hadn’t been invented – in fact when i went to high school you were not allowed to have a car and busing was minimal and hadn’t begun to desegregate the gerrymandered school districts in Detroit which occurred after 1970 – maybe i’m yelling at clouds, but mobile phones do not belong in school classrooms at any level –
39. Stephen Taylor August 28, 2024 at 11:48 am

    A further note on that banana slug: it was on the very edge of the highway, perilously close to traffic and probably in peril of getting squashed if it tried to cross the road. I did not, however, try to send it off into the woods with my walking stick—because I do believe every being should have the liberty of choice, unlike some of the political creatures roaming the landscape these days. I hope it made the choice to avoid the traffic.
40. Jabura Basaidai August 28, 2024 at 12:09 pm

    Climate Change Contributing to Shift in Lake Erie’s Harmful Algal Blooms Cleveland SCENE. Carla R: “…….there should never be a mention of the 2014 algal bloom without a reference to the Lake Erie Bill of Rights (LEBOR) !”

    it is very unfortunate that LEBOR was struck down by a Federal judge –
    https://aldf.org/article/federal-judge-strikes-down-lake-erie-bill-of-rights/

    personally aware of this situation for well over a decade for numerous converging reasons – sad….very sad….
41. Mikel August 28, 2024 at 12:51 pm

    How Telegram chief Pavel Durov miscalculated on moderation – Financial Times

    It’s been reported that he has French, Russia, and UAE citizenship.

    So he couldn’t ply his trade in Russia, mistakenly thought neoliberalism trumps Russophobia in France, and so his other option to flee to is that bastion of free speech the UAE.
    Dude…
    1. Zagonostra August 28, 2024 at 1:41 pm

       Reports on TwitterX indicate he has been released from custody.
       1. Yves Smith Post authorAugust 28, 2024 at 1:52 pm

          Yes but he is having to appear in court. He could arraigned and thrown into the slammer.
          1. divadab August 28, 2024 at 2:17 pm

             From the Toronto Globe & Mail: “Telegram CEO’s arrest in France marks escalation of governments’ struggles to curb illegal activity online”

             This is the line the MSM is taking. Advancing the cover story for more censorship and restrictions on freedom of expression.
             1. Kouros August 28, 2024 at 4:45 pm

                Checking the pulse of the zombie media in Canada, I see… There isn’t one to find…
42. bobert August 28, 2024 at 1:36 pm

    Woke Watch Special Edition

    The Hill reports on a complaint leveled against race hustler Robin D’Angelo for her blatant plagiarism of other scholars, including two BIPOC scholars, in her best-selling book White Fragility:

    https://youtu.be/fYFCGNBh6lM?si=iL8O4jph0NnQwUil
    1. Mikel August 28, 2024 at 1:59 pm

       Oh, so plagiarism matters…
       Let’s see if the denizens of and on The Hill are as vigilant about “AI” plagiarism.
43. Skip Intro August 28, 2024 at 1:38 pm

    “Biden pushes Gaza pier…”
    Was it despite warnings of undercutting aid routes or because of them that Biden supported a Gaza pier which was used once, and for an attack.
    1. Reply August 28, 2024 at 8:18 pm

       He needed a news-cycle win, regardless of eventual problems. Gotta be tough, don’t show weakness to Cornpop or anyone else.
44. JonnyJames August 28, 2024 at 1:49 pm

    A banana slug! Even they can be cute. I’m red/green colorblind, so they all look like some shade of yellow to me. I see them every day here in the coastal redwood belt of Northern California.
45. NN Cassandra August 28, 2024 at 3:07 pm

    “UK PM warns of ‘deep rot’ at heart of country”

    Fish rots from the head
    — Old proverb
46. Itsawonderfullife August 28, 2024 at 5:06 pm

    Influencer??? I would say “honey pot” is closer to the truth
47. Revenant August 29, 2024 at 4:20 am

    Labour is depressingbig because their idea of soaking the rich is to devastate the bourgeoisie and continue to pamper the international rentier donor class.

    So far we have had had many trial balloons (many of which arrived in the last week, in what seems like an air of desperate infighting between cliques with pet projects) of:

    – abolishing capital gains exemption on housing

    – reforming council tax, an annual tax paid to local government scaled by the relative rateable value of a house (not updated since 1990’s) and set by local authorities, with the result that poor places with cheap houses and structurally higher costs like depressed former mining towns have high charges than central London boroughs with house prices ten times the cost but lavish national government subsidies.

    – charging a significant annual property tax of 2% or more on total house value for more expensive houses (this is some screwed up land tax idea by a think tank who imagine its “simplicity” is political gold despite it economically missing every point of a land tax. Ironically, the proposal appears to be simultaneously a central government grab for land tax, so the tax would be set nationally and would clobber the SE and spare me in Devon!).

    – charging a genuine land tax. I’d be all for this, rationally, provided my other taxes came down!

    – unifying CGT rates with income tax rates

    – abolishing CGT reliefs, including on selling an owner-managed business rather than property or investments.

    – abolishing CGT step up on death (I.e. your gains pass to beneficiaries tax free from CGT, but the whole value, base cost and gains, us already subject to 40% inheritance tax so that is hardly a gift from HMRC)

    – abolishing inheritance tax relief in various ways, including potentially applying it to farms (would kill the family farm for good) and businesses (will kill SME’s). Who can afford to liquidate 40% of the capital in a business overnight? Or pay the interest on the borrowing?

    All of these measures attack people who have done what they are exhorted to do by Labour and Tories: get on their bike, start a business, buy a house, save for retirement etc. None of these measures attack Rupert Murdoch. Anybody with a billion offshore will not be touched by any of these!

    Labour plan to soak the 1% and let the 0.01% get away Scot free.

    The one interesting thing is that Hunt’s last actions as Chancellor was to announce abrupt reforms out of nowhere on residence and domicile. Domicile governs inheritance tax and worldwide vs remitttance-based income and capital gains. Nondoms don’t pay inheritance or income or capital gains taxes on non-UK arising or remitted amounts. It’s a nice deal, to live in London like you are living in boring Switzerland or Monaco instead.

    Hunt tore up three hundred years of taxation by domicile (inherited, very hard to shift: one lady’s will requested “scattering her ashes in Cumbria where her heart remained” and HMRC successfully argued she had not shed her UK domicile despite years of living with her children in North America!) and replaced it with taxation by residence. After a tail period (already no tail for income and 5 years for capital gains, possibly ten for inheritance tax to replace domicile), you can escape UK tax entirely. But the world has changed since the 1950’s when the controls on tax havens were first tightened: with the common travel area in Ireland and Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man short and cheap flights and ferry rides away, a new residence-based system suddenly puts moving offshore within reach of the £1m+ local gentry, not just the £10m+ super rich.

    It will be very interesting to see if Labour continue the reforms. It is political suicide to be seen perpetuating the non-dom racket after even the Tories have said it is unsustainable. Labour policymakers seem pretty stupid and focused on ideological things (idpol, Ukraine, EU, faje “austerity” as cover for VAT on education and all the other union and plutocrat-pleasing taxes on the middle classes listed above) so I think they will continue the policy but the current proposals in my opinion are a subtle poison pill by the Tories, to create a liferaft for capital from Labour.

    Anybody with a job amenable to remote working and a couple of million in assets (sale of a London house) will be moving to Guernsey or Cork and living off their interest rather than paying a fortune for the promise of continued austerity.

    This is directly of relevance. We have a family farm. It just about breaks even because much of it has a sitting tenancy coming to an end next year. We have been following a multi-year plan to invest in it (not a modern building!) and create an agri-environmental centre but it becomes subject to inheritance tax, we shall be selling up and getting the brochures for living abroad. There’s too much at stake for my children.

    PS in a similar but related debacle of policies of incestuous cheapskate authoritarianism, Labour also propose forcing the sale of and taxing 100% of the development value of Green Belt land (they want local authorities to permit development in the green belt and to pay only the agricultural value of the land, as if it were still green belt). This forces the landowner to subsidise the house project, which is likely to be built by the private sector, rather than the local authority or nation as a whole buying the land in the market and absorbing the cost on the public accounts for the common good. This is the worst possible set of incentives – the cheapest place to build becomes green belt land, supposedly the most protected, and only councils or large developers in their pocket can access this. There should instead be a subsidy for landowners who create plots for individual self builders and a proper land value tax (see above) to break the landbanking stranglehold of the oligopoly of big UK developers).
48. Jorge August 30, 2024 at 6:13 am

    Ooooh banana slug! I went to UC Santa Cruz and heard about them, but had not seen one yet.

    One rainy evening I was walking past the science center tapping my umbrella on the sidewalk. “Tap” “tap” “splut” “tap” wait what?

    I had, indeed, accidentally murdered a banana slug. Sorry little guy.

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