This is Naked Capitalism fundraising week. 143 donors have already invested in our efforts to combat corruption and predatory conduct, particularly in the financial realm. Please join us and participate via our donation page, which shows how to give via check, credit card, debit card, PayPal. Clover, or Wise. Read about why we’re doing this fundraiser, what we’ve accomplished in the last year,, and our current goal, strengthening our IT infrastructure.
Beekeeper inspired by grandfather’s long lost hives BBC
‘Dancing’ raisins − a simple kitchen experiment reveals how objects can extract energy from their environment and come to life The Conversation. From May, still fun.
US economic activity falling in more districts, says Fed’s Beige Book Anadolu Agency
Is the “Everything Bubble” About to Pop? Charles Hugh Smith, Of Two Minds
Climate
Water Vapor Feedback Arctic News
Research for climate-resilient milch cattle takes a vast step forward Business Standard
#NatlPrep: National Preparedness Month 2024 Kicks Off Avian Flu Diary
Syndemics
Study puts understanding of long COVID and vaccination into question Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy
Incidence of diabetes after SARS-CoV-2 infection in England and the implications of COVID-19 vaccination: a retrospective cohort study of 16 million people The Lancet. From the Abstract: “Elevated incidence of type 2 diabetes after COVID-19 is greater, and persists for longer, in people who were hospitalised with COVID-19 than in those who were not, and is markedly less apparent in people who have been vaccinated against COVID-19.”
COVID shots no longer free for uninsured, could cost up to $200 ABC7
* * * When Comedy Speaks Truth About Covid The Guiness Pig. For example:
Stranger: Why you wearing a mask
Me: I’m getting into character for a film I’ll be starring in
Stranger: What character are you playing
Me: A survivor of a zombie apocalypse
Stranger: Sounds like a cool sci-fi movie
Me: It’s actually a documentary
China?
China to give Africa $50 billion over next three years, says Xi Jinping France24
China’s new back doors into western markets FT
Commentary: Can the US and China avoid a catastrophic clash? Channel News Asia
In Brief: Is the United States Preparing For War with China? War on the Rocks
Bangladesh launches drive to recover looted weapons and Bangladesh factories close after protests: Police Channel News Asia
Syraqistan
It Is Not Hamas That Is Collapsing, but Israel Haaretz. Commentary:
You can't condemn an entire country when the problem is clearly only the leader, the government, the military, the political opposition, the conscripts, the chief religious leaders, the tiktokers, the instagrammers and the podcasters https://t.co/xIUVrDqhY3
— Nate Bear (@NateB_Panic) September 4, 2024
90% of Gaza cease-fire, hostage deal has been agreed on: Senior US official Anadolu Agency
* * * At Columbia, a new academic year brings a renewed focus on protests Christian Science Monitor
Opinion: University of Colorado regents’ resolution on “intifada” undermines free speech and inclusivity Colorado Sun
European Disunion
Dear Old Blighty
Ministers STILL don’t know how many buildings are wrapped in the same cladding as Grenfell – as interactive map reveals dangerous sites in YOUR area Daily Mail. On Grenfell, see NC here, here, here, here, and here.
Hospital Inquiry hears health boss tried to stop whistleblower BBC. Infection control.
New Not-So-Cold War
A True Shock? Economist Jeffrey Sachs Reveals Secret at Heart of U.S.-Russian Relations Jeffrey Sachs and Matt Taibbi, Racket News. Important.
* * * Will Kursk be a sideshow that turns into tragedy for Ukraine? Responsible Statecraft
Ukraine’s losses outweigh Kursk gains, as Russia on cusp of taking Pokrovsk Al Jazeera
Ukraine’s gamble against Russia risks becoming blunder The Hill
Zelenskyy says Ukraine plans to indefinitely hold Russian territory it has seized NBC
* * * False text about dead Swedes in Poltava was spread in Russian media (Google Translate) SVT Nyheter (MT)
* * * Zelenskiy reshuffles the government, sacks energy boss BNE Intellinews
Zelenskyy suffers huge backlash as reshuffle triggers power-grab accusations Politico
* * * American restrictions on hitting Russia are hurting Ukraine The Economist
Ukraine’s Ban on Moscow-Linked Church Will Have Far-Reaching Consequences Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
BRICS enables Russia to displace US farmers Glenn Diesen, Glenn’s Substack (MT).
The Caribbean
Blinken to visit Haiti as US-backed mission to take on gangs struggles The Hill
2024
Kamala Harris softens Biden’s capital gains tax increase proposal
The Foreign Policy Establishment Licks Its Chops for Harris The American Conservative
Liz Cheney, a Top G.O.P. Trump Critic, Says She Will Vote for Harris NYT
Calling Harris A Communist Is An Insult To Communism Caitlin Johnstone, Caitlin’s Newsletter
* * * Trump’s not only willing to talk about his policies, but he’ll talk to anyone, everyone, at any time FOX
* * * How would eliminating taxes on tips work in practice? Philip Greenspun’s Weblog
The Supremes
Searching for the Best Opinions: Text Analyses from the 2023/2024 SCOTUS Term Empirical SCOTUS
Digital Watch
Why we need to check the gen AI hype and get back to reality Venture Beat
Admins wonder if the cloud was such a good idea after all The Register
Healthcare
‘Right to Repair for Your Body’: The Rise of DIY, Pirated Medicine 404 Media
Dangerous travel for the ‘added thrill’ is on the rise as visitors flock to high-risk countries FOX
Group Discussion: Banning Social Media Influencers From Small Towns Ordinary Times
Imperial Collapse Watch
The End of Western Pluralist Democracy Craig Murray
Class Warfare
The Wisdom of Kandiaronk David Graeber, The Anarchist Library
* * * How U.S. union leaders worked with the CIA to undermine democracy MR Online
* * * Republican Pro-Labor Cosplay On Labor
The Rise of “Pro-Labor” Conservatism Exposed by CMD
* * * A Taste of Working-Class Environmentalism with a Hospital Cook from Albert Lea Workday Magazine
Tree of Peace, Spark of War JSTOR
Antidote du jour (Mdf):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
MORE THAN HE IS OWED
(melody borrowed from The Old Man Down The Road by John Fogerty)
Our votes are always up for countin’
The crazy right wing’s on his side
He is a con man living fancy free
He’ll take the plunge and sell a lie
This man is dead inside
He is his father’s son
He simply can’t be satisfied
He takes more . . . than he is owed
He spent his whole life countin’ nickels
His parents wrecked him heart and soul
He keeps a trophy wife right by his side
And she treats him like a toad
This man is dead inside
Each moment is a power play
He simply can’t be satisfied
He takes more . . . than he is owed
(musical interlude)
There’s no one in there to discover
There’s no one in there to be found
His Daddy said he’s not a winner
And Donald can’t forget that sound
This man is dead inside
He is his father’s son again
He simply can’t be satisfied
He takes more . . . than he is owed
He takes more . . . than he is owed
(Ahhh . . . He got you, he got you, he got you)
This man is dead inside . . .
Maybe it’s me, and maybe this has been said here already. Is “not taxing tips” more neoliberal nonsense to perpetuate a system where employers don’t have to pay their employees properly?
Hey, for all I know if this was to happen, I’m going to ask my company to just give me a big “tip” at the end of the year. Side work, just a dollar for services and materials rendered and tip the rest. You KNOW this is how it’ll go for CEOs and the like.
By the way, wasn’t this Trump’s proposal first? Then Kamalala proposes it? I guess she is unable to come up with her own ideas?
Oh, don’t forget to tip NC this week if you can.
My first thought is… people will not get paid, they waived fees and chose a ‘tip’, and the shyster opts to not tip. Hmmm. Lucy, Charlie Brown, and the football.
New to me: I always assumed tip income was under/not reported. Cash in hand, smart folks saved and invested, not-as smart folks (or precariat on the margin) spent, and then come time to collect social security, which is based on reported taxed wages…. voila… mere peanuts.
Not taxing on tip income. Picking winners and losers. Where is the fourth estate, asking of Trump and/or Harris precisely what the point is of this sliver of the economy? Or is it not a sliver at all… are we a service economy, and trying to drill down on lowering taxes… the old R(tm) playbook?
The rubber long ago left the road on a, “level playing field” and unassailable fairness and equity vis a vis taxes.
Sounds to me like the lawyers/accountants will win. Devolution to complexity.
Back in the salad days when I was a waitron, a lot of tip income went unreported, but not all of it. At all the restaurants I worked at, the waiter collected all the tips from their own tables and distributed them to the rest of the staff at the end of the shift. So if you were a busperson, you got cash tips from the waiter and presumably never reported those. Waiters generally kept about 60% of tips for themselves and tipped out the rest.
But payments and tips made on a credit card are very visible, and waiters often got taxed on more income than they really made. On a night when everybody paid by card and left say $200 in tips, that all got reported under the waiter’s income, even though the waiter really only kept $120 for themself.
Been out of that business for a while now and things are different at a lot of places from what I can tell. More people pay by card which makes it harder to not report tips. And restaurants often pool tips and management distributes them – when that happens everybody is taxed. I don’t like that system much, because it makes it easier for businesses to keep tips for themselves. When waitpeople distribute tips, it has a way of working itself out – when a waiter starts stiffing their coworkers, word gets around fast and nobody will want to work with that person.
The old system is far from perfect, but if tips start being completely untaxed, I see any number of ways to game the system for non-service industry people. I hope this bad idea being espoused by both candidates now doesn’t get through, and like most campaign promises, it likely won’t. Unless it’s done to benefit tax evasion for C-suite types – then Congress will pass it tout de suite.
If you want to be nice to restaurant staff, pay everything in cash – it will make it far more likely everyone will leave their shift with the money they earned in hand. But if you can’t do that, at least leave the tip in cash.
I heard that the IRS uses a certain percentage that is added to reported taxable income to account for tips. Is this true?
I usually leave a cash tip even if use a credit card but lately I’ve been paying in cash.
Depending on the restaurant of course (small mom and pops diners excluded probably) they will take 8% of a waiters sales and declare that as income regardless if the bill was paid in cash or by credit card. This is what my daughter paid when she was waiting tables several years ago although, the percentage may have changed since then.
How would the no tax on tips affect the Social Security/Medicare employee contribution?
Significantly, I assume. Unless servers report their tips. Cannot imagine that contributions would be, as taxed tips are now, based on credit card payments and a percentage of sales in certain situations with a tipped wage – which this is tied to. Haven’t looked closely but I think the exemption is an option when filing so the cc tips reported by the burger shack would be on the form can be taxed for the. 00003% who might want to.
Might also lead to more theft by shift managers and general managers and owners.
“The End of Western Pluralist Democracy”
It’s all becoming very blatant and they are not even trying to hide it. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova was just saying that in relation to the new sanctions on Russia that it ‘testifies to the irreversible degradation of the democratic state in the United States and its transformation into a totalitarian neoliberal dictatorship.’ I would add two points to that. That it is not these sanctions causing this transformation but is a general trend and second, that it is not just the United States that this is happening in.
https://www.rt.com/news/603538-us-neoliberal-dictatorship-russia/
My contention is and has been that citizens of the West (the Empire) do not want either democracy or liberty but, rather, would prefer to be told what to think and do by “the authorities” and those authorities are glad to provide that public service. This is clear from the mainstream media’s continued survival as they present the official government (in the broadest sense of the word) line. This reality is why the Democratic Party has gone full-out totalitarian and seems to favor, as is more fully fleshed out in the UK, a policy of banning “dis-mis-information” and “hate speech” (which is the most ridiculous term I’ve heard in decades).
On the other hand, there is a growing mistrust of authority by many particularly working class people (the upper-middle NPR listening professionals love authority). What do you think? Or anybody else thinks. Will we live in a dystopia ruled by AI gauleiters and commissars?
“My contention is and has been that citizens of the West (the Empire) do not want either democracy or liberty but, rather, would prefer to be told what to think and do by “the authorities” and those authorities are glad to provide that public service.”
I think this is completely false. Westerners do with the trend for two reasons. One, because they are also told that they as people are better and “their” system is better and 2. Know in the bones that resistence is futile and any type of pusback would be harshy punished (remember the 7 years to Australia for stealing a handkercief?)
They will defend their new authoritarianism by saying it’s the other side that is doing it.
Speaking of Adolf, I was talking on the phone to my friend in AZ when she said this came up on her TV–didn’t say what “connected TV platform” she was watching.
https://forward.com/fast-forward/650550/ad-jewish-democrats-trump-hitler/
One could say it’s some off the wall outfit doing this but then Kamala’s comments about Trump–“the end of democracy”–are not much more subtle. Biden too. And they can do this because the MSM refuse to call them out on it and may even agree.
The craziness of it is that Trump was actually president for four years and mostly demonstrated his capacity for boorishness rather than a desire to invade Poland.
Same thing it is done in Germany with AfD
Re; 2024
Just posted at RT:
Putin backs Kamala Harris (VIDEO)
Moscow will support US Vice President Kamala Harris in the upcoming presidential election in November, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday while speaking at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok.
Putin told the audience that he admired the Democratic Party candidate’s “infectious laugh” and that he respected current President Joe Biden’s choice to endorse her as his successor.
https://www.rt.com/russia/603553-putin-endorses-kamala-harris/
(The Bear pokes back?)
This is called irony
I’d call it trolling, and nobody, but nobody, trolls like the Russians. -a.v.
Are the Democrats going to label that as ‘Russian interference’ in the US elections? It would be hilarious if Trump came out and said that Putin prefers Kamala because she is so weak or something and is the Kremlin’s choice.
We should start an office pool Rev! And bet how long before this happens…tick tock…I’ll give it until end of bizness tomorrow.
It was too good not to share, so I did.
In response, a Blue-No-Matter-Who writes:
This is RT a real trustable media source. Russia have invaded a country. Russia has been paying tenet media nillions to push pro russian propaganda and certainly others. This same media source unequivocally says Ukraine is an enemy to the US and Russia is innocent and good. Trump, Vance, Elon and a good chunk of maga largely say the same.
It’s right in front of your eyes so easy to see and you say the self imposed dictator tells the truth when he says he wants Kamala. Meanwhile Trump flat out denied Ukraike aid , compliments Putin and Russia can invade whoever the hell they want including Nato allies. Putin said he wants to eliminate ukraine and I can bet Trump wouldnt have lifted a finger and would have green lighted it.
I would pay good money to watch Putin, Lavrov, Medvedev, and Zakharova host a comedy-hour round-table– these guys are great!
That’s a great take by the Blue-anon person who wrote “you say the self imposed dictator tells the truth when he says he wants Kamala.” Putin was self imposed? Tell me again about the primary elections Kamala won to be on the ticket.
Sorry, I meant Blue-anon.
RT itself had their own reply to CNN about these accusations-
‘Dear CNN. We certainly have a response. Actually, we have several, but we couldn’t decide on one (we even thought of running an office poll), so here they are:
1. Ha!
2. Hahahaha!
3. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
4. 2016 called and it wants its clichés back
5. Three things are certain in life: death, taxes and RT’s interference in the US elections
6. We gotta earn our Kremlin paycheck somehow
7. Somewhere, Secretary Clinton is sad that it’s not because of her
SINCERELY,
RT Press Office’
https://www.rt.com/news/603521-biden-rt-election-disinformation/
This is my favorite example of RT’s election interference:
That’s my all time fave world class troll job. I watch it now and again just for a laugh
Hillary’ious ! Evergreen.
I’m pretty sure that Sergey Lavrov could whoop up some Number 6 level trolling if he felt like misbehaving.
He’s cleaned his shoes on Western reporters from time to time.
My favorite part is the “Secretary Clinton”. Dry, as people around here say.
The DoJ is on it!
Biden to take ‘law enforcement action’ against RT – CNN
The US president is expected to claim, yet again, that the Russian network is interfering in an American election
https://swentr.site/news/603521-biden-rt-election-disinformation/
Ken Klippenstein posted a comparison between those Russian influence posts compared to his. It reveals the spitting in the ocean difference to the overall media environment
https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/russian-influence-operations-are?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=7677&post_id=148539978&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ddvm&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
“Infectious laugh”. Of course, it’s joyful and gives a good vibe…
Sarc off
I’d rather have a beer with Trump.
I’d rather have a beer with Putin. The guy knows how to troll.
Indeed. After reading the RT response to CNN I think they would be fun too to have at the bar counter.
Somehow I think all we can do is try to keep a sense of humor about the continuing depressing state of affairs we are in.
And he seems to enjoy his job. Trump is too angry. Besides, isn’t Trump a teetotaler?
It’s so funny. Obviously Putin is saying that to undermine Harris, but the Dems cannot argue that an endorsement of Harris is election interference.
LawnDart:
I am blocked from RT, so I searched for another reliable clip.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/lm2SRUMsnTw
This doesn’t seem like an endorsement to me. He talks about Biden as his favorite, who is now incapacitated, and then he talks about Harris’s laugh. “As if all is good.” The audience laughs at that point. Putin is joking, somehow. I note the mention of sanctions.
I don’t hear an endorsement here. It’s like saying, “But Macron is easy on the eyes.”
Did you try to access RT via this other link?
I use Firefox and it blocks ALL access to RT. I get the gist of RT through NC commentariat. Too time pressed to make the switch of browser.
I can get RT on firefox, although I have noticed it loads slowly and pages are oddly formatted when they load. Not sure why, but I do get something that’s readable, if not ideal. It’s possible your issue has something to do with browser settings, unless you are in a country that completely throttles it.
In an indirect way he suggests probably supporting Harris (watch his face while he is trolling: Putin obviously having fun). He is clearly trolling the “hope and joy” campaign.
DJG, another place to get RT is via TOR. And using Brave search engine will often work.
Also, the Opera browser still comes with a free VPN as far as I know – I haven’t used that one as much recently. Being free though, I will include the caveat that you get what you pay for.
With more and more being throttled every day, VPNs are becoming more of a necessity. I’ve been thinking of purchasing a VPN through protonmail, which offers one for a reasonable cost. I’m assuming that one might be better and more secure than a free one, but I really don’t know for sure.
Proton VPN can be used for free, just fewer locations. Also l believe the speed is reduced, but I have never found that to be a problem. I mostly use Windscribe, for which I pay about $45 a year.
I am no tech person but Proton as a service is cooperating with law enforcement be it Swiss, EU or US.
So if you use Proton VPN you should browse with TOR to hide your actions from Proton.
This is my kind of super dry humour. Vladimir is a talented deadpan comic.
Made a post on r/Stupidpol but they shadow banned that RT link so I had to repost it without the link.
All Hail Harris!
The kiss of death?
Apparently here’s where some RT money went:
DOJ: Dave Rubin, Tim Pool, Took MILLIONS From Russian Cutouts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wc0Z-qktdc
But they also discuss how who is funding who is being pretty selectively applied.
My guess is the Putin did the dirty on Biden because Biden’s cognitive incapacity means that he had run out of ideas to make the Russian economy grow even faster than it has done so far.
Harris made a secret deal with Putin to place even more sanctions on Russia to intensify the impetus towards multipolarity with all it’s positive implications for increasing Russia’s economic and political influence. So Putin used his control over the useful idiots amongst the Dem oligarchy to dump the chump. That Epstein book is the Rheingold of modern politics. He did the deed, so the deal is sealed.
When Harris wins, Putin wins even more bigly than any other Tsar, Cæsar, Führer or General Secretary ever, ever, ever, ever before. What a guy!
That poor bastard Trump must be weeping because he knows that it is The End.
Hey, Putin’s got form . . . from way back in February:
Putin says a Biden Presidency would be better for Russia than a Trump one
Re COVID vaccination. I’ve always been extremely pro-vax but after the original traditional type shots, like most Brits I got migrated to the mRNA Pfizer one for subsequent ones. I had what I strongly suspected was my 2nd COVID infection immediately after. I took off the tin foil and told myself to shush.
Two days ago my dermatologist (who is the only one of 3-4 specialists who can “see and document” symptoms that are widely acknowledged to be Long COVID sequelae so I am keen not to be discharged) let something slip that I think she wasn’t meant to. When we entered the “talk shop” bit of the discussion – and she was already embarrassed because she’d had to reschedule my appt due to getting “stuck” abroad over the bank holiday weekend and couldn’t get back into UK so was more open than usual – I asked if there was any “out-of-the-box thinking in dermatology concerning treatment for COVID as opposed to the default advice of “don’t get another infection”. I’d reminded her of when she got my scalp biopsied in 2020 and the junior surgeon guy joked that all the biopsies were post-covid patients and he showed me his fresh scalp scar. She made a curious comment about re-infections with “some being vaccine related”. Then she stopped and changed the subject and I got the feeling she’d said something she shouldn’t. I wouldn’t recount an anecdote like this normally but it was so odd and accorded with some other evidence. I’m gonna stick with good masks and I’ve just had my text message asking me to book my annual flu jab, which I’ll follow up pronto. Just another curious interaction I’ve had with the covid docs at my hospital which I wouldn’t have mentioned had there not been a somewhat related link today and fact I’m generally very very pro-vax.
Well, that Cleveland Clinic study and I think a Finnish report have been hanging out there for almost two years now. Both show that the probably of additional SARS2 infections increases with more boosters. The studies weren’t done in a way that gives you insight as to why that might be. And as far as I know no one is following up on those results.
IM Doc has hinted at this for years in his comments; There’s certainly no interest in answering this question in the United States.
I’d be curious how Novavax fits into this, but there aren’t enough people getting it for even anecdotes I’d suspect.
Yeah I’m very wary of posting this kind of anecdote, particularly since people like Lambert and Yves are ahead of the curve in a way I can no longer be (because I no longer have institutional access to a load of journals).
I keep anecdotes to myself unless NC posts a piece that has strong enough evidence to suggest “my experience may in fact reflect something real” so I’ll be willing to call it anecdata. I also have 20 years of experience of watching medical consultants very very closely, seeing what they DO NOT say, just as much as what they do say. Many of them don’t realise that whilst they are watching me as the patient in all the ways the general public aren’t aware of but medics are (via watching your demeanor, gait, blah blah blah), I am also watching very closely what my doctor is saying, not saying, typing fast to get on record, ignoring etc. Plus the dumb ones allow me to see which NHS system they’re reading over their shoulder…..that’s how I learnt the GI surgeon, although initially annoyed that my GP used the “two week cancer pathway” to get me fast-tracked for endoscopy, then read what the ED consultant wrote about me and my lifetime health issues, raising red flag that there may be something serious somewhere else (even if not my stomach). I recognise NHS IT systems cause I’ve used the things!
Thus my “other” medical record – the secondary one that officially doesn’t exist but in reality all honest docs know does – definitely has warnings like “this guy was a successful whistle blower, not medic but reads the literature and tread carefully”. Fine, I can live with that.
There are theories, based in immunology. One is Original Antigenic Sin, where once the immune system is primed against an antigen, it continues to make antibodies to the original antigen, even after the antigen has changed, like with a new variant.
Another one is the documented shift in IgG production in multiply vaxxed individuals, from type IgG3 (a suppressive response) to IgG4, which is a non-responsive type.
AFAIK, it is not known why this is happening.
My personal belief is that some symptoms are caused by the immune system’s reaction to the virus, which can be suppressed by the vaccine. The linked diabetes study is interesting as it suggests that diabetes can be a symptom of the infection that the vaccine can be effective protecting against.
But some of the others, like most of the cardiovascular issues, seem to be caused by the spike protein wreaking havoc in the body. This can result from both the virus and the mRNA vaccine, such that each vaccination is tantamount to an infection and, moreover, increases the likelihood of future infections since your immune system is now weakened not just into ignoring the virus but also into catching it again. The weakened immune system can then ignore rare cancers which can grow uninhibited and so on.
I’m sure you’re more qualified than me on medical subjects and with doubtless fewer blind spots, but that’s my $0.02 based on trying to make sense of several years of studies. My training is not medical but stats related and some correlations are hard to ignore.
If you are talking about the study discussed in CIDRAP, it is complete garbage
Uses electronic health records to determine vax status.
IM Doc has found in his hospital that the EHRs are nearly always wrong. They list many people who are multi-vaxxed as unvaxxed. IM Doc has also tried with his hospital and with public health officials REPEATEDLY to correct these records. They either won’t or the corrections are soon reversed.
So any study that relies on US EHRs with respect to Covid vaccination should be ignored. Total garbage in, garbage out.
There was a theory of antibody dependent enhancement due to a vaccination actually causing some dormant covid infection in some cells somewhere to grow into a measurable infection. If this weren’t a forbidden topic, researchers might distinguish this effect by comparing the variant of the Vax-ADE reemergence candidate with the current prevalent strains.
> let something slip that I think she wasn’t meant to
I’m married to a hospital physician, and our entire social circle is comprised of physicians of all stripes and specialties.
There is no secret covid knowledge that is being withheld from you by doctors. This kind of conspiratorial thinking does nothing to help the very real problems raised by covid.
Same with my family members and neighbors, including the ER doc at a big East Coast hospital that warned us about covid very early.
There’s a big difference between the notion of an official Secret Truth of Covid among the medical Freemasonry and the things doctors think based on anecdata that they would not own up to professionally except among close colleagues in their own speciality after a bottle of wine. I imagine Terry is alluding to the latter.
I have watched enough of mother and her friends get their boosters and reactivate / trigger massive dermatological reactions to believe that mRNA boosters are not a good idea.
Remember, Moderna was unable to find an inducation for its mRNA drug technology (it flamed out in multiple cancer trials) because the mRNA needs to be encapsulated in a polyethylene glycolated (PEG) micelle (a lipid bubble) to prevent the mRNA being destroyed on administration and it turns out that the doses required in cancer therapy induce massive reactions to PEG in many patients.
Moderna ended up pitching mRNA for vaccines because there would be minimal dosing and minimal repeat challenge with PEG. That’s just not true with the great booster programme….
I’ve met a UK biotech company doing interesting work stratifying long covid patients by aspects of their Covid antibody profiles. They believe that 60% of patients have a reservoir of Covid infection in immune privileged compartments, including the brain, and can be cured of long covid by antibody sera and revaccination (with non-mRNA vaccines like Novavax). They have seen CSF antibody levels increase as symptoms, brain fog etc diminish.
Unfortunately, their data (200 odd patients) suggest that 20% have an autoimmune basis and need methotrexate etc to tamp down body’s mistaken cross-reaction to its own antigens and 20% are just refractory, basis unknown.
Thank you Revenant.
Seconded.
Then some people …. wonder how science works … but ex ante ideology worms it way … whom benefits …. lmmao … Science Mart[tm] …
If doctors are withholding no secret covid knowledge … that is far more concerning than imagining a conspiracy. Are you suggesting medical doctors know nothing about covid beyond what they tell us? If so, that is far far more frightening than imagining a conspiracy.
Could you give us your idea of what “the very real problems raised by covid” would be then? And it does not include any discussion of the so-called vaccines then, I take it?
Meanwhile I am still waiting for the nasal vaccines … 😑
Samira Mohyeddin
@SMohyeddin
This is Israel’s longest-running English podcast, Two Nice Jewish Boys. Hosts Naor Meningher and Eytan Weinstein call for wiping out every single Palestinian in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Jimmy Dore featured this story on a live Rumble podcast last night. He had two Jewish Podcasters who he frequently has on his show on to interpret what the “Two Nice Jewish Boys” said that has people stirred up. What struck me is how one of his Jewish guest contradicted himself by saying that Naor and Eytan are “broken,” that they are extreme, sick, and “abnormal” and then he goes on to say that they are able to publicly broadcast these morally depraved views because many, if not a majority, of Israeli’s shared those sentiments.
So which is it? It seems JD’s guest, being Jewish, where characterizing the sentiments of the “two nice Jewish Boys” as deviant, and on the other hand saying they were shared by Israeli society. When deviant views are shared with the wider social group, are they deviant anymore? Reminds me of often quoted saying that “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
It’s also curious that JD switches to Rumble from Ytube so he won’t get a strike. But as JD’s guest point out these “Two Jewish Boys” have a Ytube channel where they can spout off on wiping out Palestinians and inflicting torture on them.
it’s not a contradiction. He’s an ‘extreme, sick and abnormal’ human being but also a perfectly standard Israeli.
The difference between Israel and the Third Reich is that only 1/3 Germans supported the Nazis whereas in Israel 80% support genocide. Israel is way sicker and depraved than 1940s Germany. WAY.
Knowledge of the death camps was not ubiquitos in Germany in the 1940s. Likely less than 1/3 of Germans would have supported the regime if they knew.
Aldough, the Generalplan Ost, which was known to the Werhmacht, was an ethnic cleansing plan…
Yea, those naive Germans thought that all the untermenschen are being sent to holiday resort in Casablanca, just like brand new Americans thought that those savage Indians are all moving to Alaska in order to leave empty land for incoming exceptional people.
Supremacist ideologies are known for their tender loving care about those that they dehumanize first. We can even see live on TV that Germans care a lot about yet another genocide of Slavs that they are directly involved with (not to mention thieir newfound love for Israel). Likely less than 1/3 of Germans would have supported the regime if they knew, and would all take pitchforks to Berlin.
They are deviant from a Rest of the World perspective…
“BRICS enables Russia to displace US farmers”
Actually quite an interesting article with its implications of how by using trade sanctions, that the US are being crowded out of the wheat market as a result and a large part of wheat sales are now going ‘dark.’ Mexico too is seeing the folly of relying on the US for it’s wheat supplies and acting accordingly. But there is one important factor not mentioned by the author and that is that Russian wheat is not GM wheat. If there were bad side effects of consuming GM wheat, would we ever hear of it? The Russians took a look at it for planting and said ‘nyet’ so what do they know that we don’t?
Unless I am missing something there is only one GMO wheat variety and it is not yet in the US.
https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2024/aug/28/genetically-modified-wheat-approved-for-us-testing/
Allegedly drought tolerant not glyphosate tolerant. “Testing”
The notion expressed by the headline, that BRICS enable Russia to displace u.s. farmers is ‘touching’ on several levels. First — just who are these poor displaced u.s. farmers? Bill Gates? minions of Cargill? Archer-Daniels-Midland? Tom Joad or one of his children? Second — while I cry tears for Gates, Cargill, ADM, Tom Joad and others … what about all the farmers in Latin America and Africa affected and afflicted by u.s. ‘free-trade’ globalization policies promoting the destruction of domestic production of food staples to enable u.s. control of the main staple food sources of many countries. Third … Then again, the link does not seem all too unhappy with the BRICS displacing ‘u.s. farmers’:
“The benefits for Russia, China and other partners include greater food security, cheaper exchanges, less reliance on an inflated and weaponised US dollar.” …
“Thus, US farmers and investors do not get the information required to plan what to grow and how much.” …
The US weaponisation of trade will continue to encourage the rest of the world to reduce their dependence on the US and find more reliable economic partners.
I have no idea what place GMO holds in rejecting u.s. efforts to undermine staple food production but I doubt it trumps the more mundane compulsions of self-sufficiency in a world of random embargoes and what I believe is growing u.s. effort to subjugate its growingly recalcitant minions and helots in the fractured family of nations.
Rev Kev: “The Russians took a look at it for planting and said ‘nyet’ so what do they know that we don’t?”
I am not sure the Russians need know any more than that GM seeds mean dependence on GM seed patent holders and GM seed producers … u.s. Big Ag. Perhaps the u.s. Populace would be wise to consider this aspect of GM seeds in forming their opinions and food choices. However, the power of those pushing and providing GM seeds and grains and their strangle-hold on u.s. food sources suggests the practical wisdom of giving regard to the requirement to consume a certain amount of calories each day.
Re “False” (quotation marks mine) text about dead Swedes in Poltava was spread in Russian media, Sweden’s Foreign Minister just resigned without offering an explanation.
Swedish print media have not reported on the alleged deaths of Swedish advisors in Poltova, as far as I can see, scanning the main headlines. The official media ‘gossip’ reason given for the resignation of the Foreign Minister is that he was fed up of the Prime Minister encroaching on his territory, as it were. Who knows? But a strange coincidence to suddenly resign yesterday.
As for SVT, Swedish Television, it is as propagandist as the BBC when it comes to Russia, Ukraine, NATO etc.
Tobias Billström should be locked up in a dungeon and the keys thrown away for either treason or for being a foreign agent. You have a look at the pictures, even on the government website (have a look before they remove evidence), and a closer look at the pin. The man was foreign minister for Sweden, but most pictures show him wearing a pin with the Swedish and the Ukrainian flag. What kind of human garbage does that? You are there to defend the interests of Sweden abroad but you are waiving a Ukranian flag. They cannot be that stupid in the Swedish MAF that they mix the two flags up, having the same colours but different patterns, can they? How come the Swedish Security Services do not take care of him?
Pure insanity.
https://www.government.se/government-of-sweden/ministry-for-foreign-affairs/tobias-billstrom/
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22tobias+billstr%C3%B6m%22&sca_esv=6cc63e0e79611188&rlz=1C1FKPE_deDE994DE994&udm=2&biw=2133&bih=1012&ei=HqbZZq3AAdaMi-gP84KqsQY&ved=0ahUKEwitx_736KuIAxVWxgIHHXOBKmYQ4dUDCBE&uact=5&oq=%22tobias+billstr%C3%B6m%22&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiEyJ0b2JpYXMgYmlsbHN0csO2bSIyBBAAGB4yBxAAGIAEGBgyBxAAGIAEGBgyBxAAGIAEGBgyBxAAGIAEGBgyBxAAGIAEGBgyBxAAGIAEGBgyBxAAGIAEGBhItQlQowFY3QdwAXgAkAEAmAFBoAF-qgEBMrgBA8gBAPgBAZgCA6ACiAHCAgUQABiABJgDAIgGAZIHATOgB4gJ&sclient=gws-wiz-serp
Haha! I just read on SVT Nyheter that it is “Russian disinformation” that Swedish instructors were killed in Poltava. My strong suspicion is that SVT has been under the thumb of another three letter agency for decades. But that’s just me being tin foiley…
Here’s the short blurb about it on SVT Nyheter translated to English:
https://www.svt.se/nyheter/utrikes/direktrapport-forsamrat-sakerhetslage?inlagg=0d212b45c49618e2aca05a5f4dcf296a
After Billström announced his resignation on Wednesday, false information was spread on social media and in the Russian media that the reason for his resignation was that Swedish instructors, who would have been there to train the Ukrainian army, were killed in the attack in Poltava. This is stated by the fact-checking site Logically Facts , which has dismissed the information as incorrect.
EU countries do not train Ukrainian soldiers on Ukrainian territory. No Swedes were killed in the attack in Poltava and that was not the reason for Billström’s resignation either.
Already on Tuesday, information was spread that Swedes had been killed in the attack in Poltava. Among other things, it was picked up by the state-controlled news channel RT.
Billstrom gave an interview to the Financial Times last week in which he gushed over the great success of the Kursk incursion because it changed the entire narrative of the “full scale” Russian invasion. Maybe the enormity of his gaslighting was too much for even the slavish Swedes.
Actually, Russia killed thousands of Swedes in Poltava. In 1709. But I suspect that both countries still remember this.
Supposedly, this video is from Poltava & has a Swede speaking Swedish on it while taking care of someone else. Swedish speakers might be able to confirm.
(or deny)
It’s just been announced that Macron has finally asked someone to try to form a government: Michel Barnier. As expected, he’s chosen a figure from the Right, whose job will be to try to forge an alliance between Macron’s group and what remains of the traditional Right in French politics, excluding the RN. This does not mean that France has a new government (or Prime Minister), just that Barnier is the first to be entrusted with the task of putting one together. Chances are he will not succeed or that, if he does, the government will be quickly overturned. The Left will protest of course, but they’ve played this very badly from the start anyway. Interestingly, there are demonstrations planned for Saturday to try to force Macron to appoint a person from the Left to do this job (it took them two months to organise that), and it will be interesting to see whether they now cancel the demonstrations.
NC readers may recall Barnier’s name. He was the lead EU negotiator for Brexit, and showed great skill and patience in dealing with Theresa May. He’s generally respected as intelligent and experienced (he’s been a Minister) and will not be intimidated by Macron. He was also talked about as a Presidential candidate in 2022, and if he had stood he would have had a decent chance of winning.
That being the case, wouldn’t Macron get paranoid that at some point that he might be pushed out and replaced with Barnier as being a more stable leader? Barnier certainly sounds like he has a storied history-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Barnier
Macron wont be standing next time, as France has a two-term limit on presidents. However if Barnier is subsequently perceived as a threat to US interests, some scandal will be unearthed to eliminate him, as with Jupe and Strauss-Kahn.
It’s almost impossible to get rid of a French President, but even if Macron were somehow forced out, I don’t think Barnier would be interested: he’s 73 already and has had a good innings.
By American political standards, that only makes him a young whipper snapper.
As I suspected, Macron is attempting to implement solution (1) from the two somewhat feasible approaches.
With the macronists, LR, centrists, and various right wing politicians, Barnier could count on 234 votes; success will therefore depend on how many socialists (59 in total) Barnier will be able to poach.
However, I also noticed that this would be an unstable coalition, so once that government collapses because of the internal political strain, as Aurelien (most probably correctly) surmises, Macron will probably go for solution (2), i.e. an alliance with the RN. Because of the RN inexperience in governmental affairs, Macron probably hopes to circumvent or manipulate RN ministers.
In any case, I do not believe he will ever let LFI and other left-wing parties near the Hôtel Matignon.
Actually I said (also in my essay yesterday) that the RN will never be allowed in. Remember, though, that Barnier does not owe Macron anything, and is not acting as his agent. Whatever government Barnier may manage to put together, Macron will have to accept and work with. It will mean, as in eras of cohabitation, that the Matignon will acquire a lot more power, because Barnier has only to walk out to plunge the whole system into chaos.
I agree with your arithmetic, and I think that’s what Barnier will do. There is no chance of an alliance with the Left, and even if there were, it wouldn’t last long. The only real option is a centre-right government with the arithmetic you describe. After that, it’s a game of poker: Barnier will be assessing that the rest of the political system will never manage to unite to oppose him on any given issue. We’ll have to see what he can do, but one straw in the wind is that the RN have said that they won’t necessarily oppose Barnier, so all they have to do is to abstain, and he will have enough votes. The Left is having hysterics. But nothing is decided yet.
If the RN practices some kind of benevolent restraint, then this will greatly increase the chances of a Barnier government to endure.
It also makes the presence of the RN in a future government more acceptable, because Le Pen’s party will have demonstrated to be responsible, reasonable, pragmatic (insert your favourite justification qualifier). Accordingly, left-wing parties, with all the agitation about confidence motions and destitution procedures, give Macron further arguments to disqualify them.
It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Gluckmann’s PS ends supporting Barnier for some kind of bargain. If Barnier plays cleverly, and he seems capable to do it, his biggest problem might not be the opposition in Congress but Macron himself undermining him.
The problem is that Macron needs Barnier more than Barnier needs Macron (which isn’t at all, really.) Barnier doesn’t need this job, and gets to play the elder statesman. If he walks out, that plunges the country into an even deeper political crisis.
From the Sachs/Taibbi piece, a very useful roundup,
Here is not the place to revisit all of the foreign policy disasters that have resulted from US arrogance towards Russia, but it suffices here to mention a brief and partial chronology of key events. In 1999, NATO bombed Belgrade for 78 days with the goal of breaking Serbia apart and giving rise to an independent Kosovo, now home to a major NATO base in the Balkans. In 2002, the US unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty over Russia’s strenuous objections. In 2003, the US and NATO allies repudiated the UN Security Council by going to war in Iraq on false pretenses. In 2004, the US continued with NATO enlargement, this time to the Baltic States and countries in the Black Sea region (Bulgaria and Romania) and the Balkans. In 2008, over Russia’s urgent and strenuous objections, the US pledged to expand NATO to Georgia and Ukraine.
In 2011, the US tasked the CIA to overthrow Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, an ally of Russia. In 2011, NATO bombed Libya in order to overthrow Moammar Qaddafi. In 2014, the US conspired with Ukrainian nationalist forces to overthrow Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych. In 2015, the US began to place Aegis anti-ballistic missiles in Eastern Europe(Romania), a short distance from Russia. In 2016-2020, the US supported Ukraine in undermining the Minsk II agreement, despite its unanimous backing by the UN Security Council. In 2021, the new Biden Administration refused to negotiate with Russia over the question of NATO enlargement to Ukraine. In April 2022, the US called on Ukraine to withdraw from peace negotiations with Russia.
That’s quite a list.
Good article and useful roundup, as you say. Yet, missing historical context. I think to truly understand what happened in the 90’s in U.S./Russia relationship, you have to go back at least to Lord Palmerston who dominated British politics from 1830 to 1865, during the height of the British Empire. A key aspect of Palmerston strategy was to keep the U.S. from becoming a global power and supplanting the British empire, he supported the Confederate side in the U.S.’s Civil War, whereas, Russia supported the North. And most people are familiar with Mackinder’s Heartland Theory, that necessitates keeping Russia divided and weak. What is less known, and I’ve just begun educating myself on, is how the British empire morphed/infected and converted the U.S. into aligning with its, the Brit’s, global geopolitics. Control over the U.S.’s financial system, bribes, assassination, all forms of chicanery are involved. I may be wrong, but I of the many interviews and appearances that’ve I’ve listened to Professor Sachs, he doesn’t much talk about the nexus between “British Israel” and the current Ukraine/Israeli conflcts.
Webster Tarpley, before he lost his mind to TDS, did some good work on this AngloAmerican history. Anton Chaitkin is another historian that covers the topic. Sadly both these men have baggage associated with LaRouche, and his “movement” which the NYT time characterized as “cult-like” and at times they stray, in my view, off the mark.
an aside:
Look up Aaron Russo’s documentary about the Fed. It’s still on utube and probably on Rumble.
The Rhodes Scholar conspiracy theory–bring the bright young things over to Blighty where they can be turned and sent back to the US State Department to help create Anglo-American world domination (with emphasis on the Anglo). You could dismiss the whole thing as more “paranoid style” but Cecil Rhodes did endow those scholarships and did believe in just such an outcome.
However the Anglophiles among us surely go back much further since the Revolutionary War itself was partly a civil war with the Patriots fighting the Loyalists who eventually decamped to Canada. The first Gilded Age was all about marrying your daughter off to some titled Brit aristocrat and our new Gilded Age also seems obsessed with the cushiness of a class based society like Victorian England. The lowers have to be kept in their place.
The US seems to sway back and forth between the aristocrats and the egalitarians. Clearly the aristocratic impulse is always there. Many of our current politicians just want to be let into the club.
In the late 19th century in England, there was no group of women more keen to be introduced at court as American women were.
Many of the Southern Loyalists of the American War decamped to the Bahamas. Their descendants are still there; known as the “Conchy Joes.” The Bahamas is really two “countries” cohabiting in an island chain. The central island, New Providence, where the capitol, Nassau is, and the “out Islands.” As far as I can discern, Nassau is the big city, with a mainly mixed race population, and the out islands, being mainly white, the aforementioned descendants of the American Loyalists.
Of interest is that the major power brokers in the two spheres are, in Nassau, the American Mob connected casinos, and in the out islands, the Cartel connected narco traffickers.
The west tried to overthrown the Bolsheviks after the Russian revolution, even to the point of invading Russia. US foreign interference there did not start in 2011!
Lots of countries were invading Russia at the end of WW1 – which even included Australia. What the hell?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_intervention_in_the_Russian_Civil_War
And let us not forget the !999 US bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. Just another nuclear power to poke a stick at. Is there any country the US won’t try to start a war with? (apologies for ending two sentences with a preposition)
Is there any country the US won’t try to start a war with?
Africa ; )
Only because Africa is not a country. Still, there is Antarctica.
Antarctica? Never! There’s no gold reserve and I hear the penguins are well organized.
There are enormous oil and gas deposits in Antarctica.
No need to apologize. My hastily written reply below (walking downstairs and typing) should have been double checked.
I was just thinking after reading that article that if the US had not been diverted into the Middle East for the Gulf wars in the 90s and had been able to continue their run, that perhaps by now Russia would have been broken up into a coupla dozen countries and been cannibalized by western corporations for all their resources. I won’t even get into how many wars there would have been fought between these smaller countries. The west had a bite of that $75 trillion cherry and then it was snatched back from them by the Russians. And with the arrival of Putin, all chances of getting back in went away. I guess that Project Ukraine shows that they never forgot about being denied their new wealth.
They had to destroy Yugoslavia before moving onto Russia. Russians saw what’s in store for them, and that triggered a change.
Horns of a dilemma.
Does one support Damnatio Memoriae for the usual suspects like Hillary, Nuland, innumerable NeoCons, and add your faves?
Or does one preserve the memories of their names and acts for posterity as cautionary tales?
The days of a George Kennan, or a John Maynard Keynes with his Economic Consequences of the Peace, are long over.
I guessed that what was the main point of showing the Sachs article.
But all the details about Sach’s economic agenda that preceded the part about NATO encroachment…
I’ll just say, it worth seeing if Russia’s path with BRICS turns out to be better for them.
Thanks to Lambert for posting this piece. It would be worth it for the paragraphs quoted by mrsyk alone. Sachs has been an articulate voice of sanity in an increasingly insane world for a long time now. Yet he is still sometimes rejected out of hand by some on the left because of their mistaken association of Sachs with the Harvard Boys and their “shock therapy.” I have read or watched him explain his role before, but this provides more detail. I am glad to see him able to do so here in this forum. His perspective as a former insider with excellent connections is invaluable in my view. His views on the motives behind earlier US aid, whether to Poland or even back to the Marshall plan, might be a little one-sidedly rosy for me. But I believe his to be an informed and honest voice.
Yes, I used to be one of those who assumed Sachs’ role in “shock therapy” among the successor states of the Soviet Union must have been nefarious. It was a pleasant surprise only quite recently to discover otherwise.
You are surprised that he says that he did nothing wrong?
Correct link for ”
A Taste of Working-Class Environmentalism with a Hospital Cook from Albert Lea.”
https://workdaymagazine.org/a-taste-of-working-class-environmentalism-with-a-hospital-cook-from-albert-lea/
>A True Shock? Economist Jeffrey Sachs Reveals Secret at Heart of U.S.-Russian Relations Jeffrey Sachs and Matt Taibbi, Racket News. Important.
Looking back on the events around 1991-93, and to the events that followed, it is clear that the US was determined to say no to Russia’s aspirations for peaceful and mutually respectful integration of Russia and the West. The end of the Soviet period and the beginning of the Yeltsin Presidency occasioned the rise of the neoconservatives (neocons) to power in the United States. The neocons did not and do not want a mutually respectful relationship with Russia. They sought and until today seek a unipolar world led by a hegemonic US, in which Russia and other nations will be subservient.
Good article, yet missing historical context. To truly understand what happened in the 90’s in U.S./Russia relationship, you have to go back at least to Lord Palmerston who dominated British politics from 1830 to 1865, during the height of the British Empire. A key aspect of Palmerston strategy was to keep the U.S. from becoming a global power and supplanting the British empire, he supported the Confederate side in the U.S.’s Civil War, whereas, Russia supported the North. And most people are familiar with Mackinder’s Heartland Theory, that necessitates keeping Russia divided and weak. What is less known, and I’ve just begun educating myself on, is how the British empire morphed/infected and converted the U.S. into aligning with its, the Brit’s, global geopolitics. Control over the U.S.’s financial system, bribes, assassination, all forms of chicanery are involved. I may be wrong, but I of the many interviews and appearances that’ve I’ve listened to Professor Sachs, he doesn’t much talk about the nexus between “British Israel” and the current Ukraine/Israeli conflcts.
Webster Tarpley, before he lost his mind to TDS, did some good work on this AngloAmerican history. Anton Chaitkin is another historian that covers the topic. Sadly both these men have baggage associated with LaRouche, and his “movement” which the NYT time characterized as “cult-like” and are off the mark on many other subjects.
While studying Scott Ritter’s article, A Highway To Hell, mostly about the lowering of nuclear deterrence levels on all sides, it occurs to me that our neocon overlords quite match the Russian Doomsday concept.
The Russian’s Doomsday concept is one of world annihilation. “We have no interest in a world where there is no Russia.” Meaning, if Russia is threatened with extinction, Russia will see this whole world erased in nuclear fire.
The Cheney-bot neocons (currently) ruling in Europe and America do not come out and say this, but it is perfectly clear from their rhetoric, and their warmongering around the planet, that they prefer nuclear fire to losing their hegemony over the global economy. “We have no interest in a world where we aren’t in charge.”
Even as their grip and grasp is weakening daily.
Hence the BRICS policy of ‘Boil the Western frog slowly, slowly . . .’
I have no doubt that Mr. Stiglitz believes what he’s saying in this Guardian opinion piece. I just don’t understand why he expects others to believe he has any reason other than personal bias for what he says he believes will happen if Trump is re-elected.
Stiglitz goes on about fossil fuels making the US weaker, but declines to comment on Kamala’s commitment to fracking. He mentions tariffs as a Trump phenomenon but fails to mention Biden and Harris’s similar support, in addition to the massive growth of sanctions that affected the price of goods in the US during the Biden administration. But then, the whole article is a hallucinatory effort, given he admits up front that he has no details about what Kamala would do, because she hasn’t provided any. Yet he is certain Trump would be a disaster. I have no idea how someone with thinking this muddled ever earned a Nobel prize.
Mood affiliation all the way down, and Stiglitz isn’t likely even aware of it.
All he understands is what Team Blue does is fine and justified, what Team Red does is the opposite.
Link below of a Tweet from Jeff Stein of WaPo on Harris plan details.
Jeff Stein Tweet
What it says;
1)
Biggest Harris policy positions since becoming nominee.
What do you think?
– Fist-ever federal ban on price gouging in grocery & food prices
– $25K subsidy for first-time homebuyers (paired with supply side reforms)
– $6K child tax credit for newborns (along w/ call to restore Biden CTC of $3K for most kids)
– Cap out-of-pocket insulin expenses at $35 per month & annual out of pocket prescription drug spending at $2K for all Americans
– Reject Nippon Steel bid for US Steel
– Endorse (w/ changes) Trump plan to eliminate taxes on tips
– Increase from $5K to $50K tax deduction for startups (calls for occupational licensing & other changes to spur new small biz)
– Endorse Biden tax on billionaires, stock buyback tax, increasing corporate rate to 28%
– Back off extent of Biden tax plan on wealthy investors
Also called in speeches for paid leave & child care
What did I miss? What has Harris missed?
2)
Also worth noting Harris has distanced herself from a lot of her 2020 positions – fracking; endorsement of Medicare for all; some form of Green New Deal; etc
I think it is very nice of Stein to start a check list of the Harris positions that will disappear or be blocked by the big bad Republicans (even if Dems have the majority) if she is elected.
It is really sad that I give life long snake oil salesman Donald Trump better odds on achieving a few of his public focused policies and Harris a snowballs chance in the inferno of doing anything. In fact I fully expect her to trash the one thing I like of Biden’s term.
Harris missed telling the big donors behind the scenes that nothing will essentially change despite her campaign “promises” to the rubes.
What you missed is continuing war-war-war and Russia-Russia-Russia. But seriously, the ticket seems to want to limit “disinformation” (anything that they oppose) and “hate speech” (except against political enemies of the DP). They’ve been clear on that–didn’t you know that?
Gosh! Jeff Stein identified some of Kamala’s policy positions, a list of ‘Changes We Can Believe In’. OMG! I feel an old Monkey’s song grabbing me and worming into my brain. \sarc
Stiglitz is among those (Nik Hanauer is another) whose economic work I greatly respect but whose TDS (or lifelong struggle against Republican rapacity, or both) makes their political analyses practically worthless.
Re: 90% of Gaza cease-fire, hostage deal has been agreed on: Senior US official
(The link leads to a story about the Grenfell Tower fire.)
Sounds like another self-serving lie from the US. It is well known that in negotiations, unless everything is agreed upon, nothing is agreed upon. These “talks” have been stuck since June at the same sticking points, the Philadelphi corridor and Hamas not trusting that Israel won’t just continue the war as soon as the hostages are freed.
The lie serves to:
1. Run interference for the Harris campaign
2. Dissuade Iran and Hezbollah from launching attacks
Meanwhile:
With Hopes Frayed in Gaza Cease-Fire Talks, Mediators Plan a New Push
Groundhog Day!
Possible working link:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/netanyahu-denies-killing-cease-fire-deal-says-hamas-wiped-the-floor-with-it/ar-AA1pZ9LE?ocid=BingNewsSerp
Next headline will be “Cease Fire Deal 99% Agreed To”. Ha, but there’s that pesky 1% (pun intended). So close, yet so very far away.
>The End of Western Pluralist Democracy Craig Murray
Starmer has always been MI5-controlled. The fact that, while a Tory government was in power, the Crown Prosecution Service destroyed all the key documentation revealing Starmer’s involvement in the Assange, Savile and Janner cases (the last being far more important than generally appreciated), shows the extent to which Starmer is a protected Deep State asset.
Let that sink in for a moment, “MI5-controlled.” To what extent, then, is Starmer CIA controlled? I think it’s time for people to inquire into who controls these “Deep State assets.” Who are the controllers? Supertramp’s “Crime of the Century” runs through my mind…
Now they’re planning the crime of the century
Well, what will it be?
Read all about their schemes and adventuring
Yes, it’s well worth a fee
So roll up and see
How they rape the universe
How they’ve gone from bad to worse
Who are these men of lust, greed and glory?
Rip off the masks and let’s see
But that’s not right, oh, no, what’s the story?
But there’s you and there’s me
That can’t be
Murray begins by writing “No major western leader is ever again going to be able to speak about human rights or ethical values, without attracting howls of derision.”. Would that it were so simple.
With our system of electoral suffrage, each new figurehead starts with a clean slate, so that even Kamala Harris, as VP in the current regime, can claim that she would be radically different while claiming to do everything the same.
Would be lovely if you were wrong.
Do you believe in unicorns and fairy godmothers? If so, do not toss your rose-tinted glasses. You will need them after the elections … no matter who wins.
China’s military has twice America’s firepower: virtually all its weapons systems are a generation ahead of ours, its navy is much bigger and more powerfully armed. Its new carrier beats the Gerald Ford by a large margin. From Hainan, its anti-ship missiles can hit carriers in Darwin Port.
Its army has already handed us the worst defeat–a full-on rout’ in fact–in modern military history and it’s eager for another match.
China supplies half the electronics for US weapons because it has the world’s only complete manufacturing suite: every category in the UN classification has two or three competitors.
A war against a superpower like China would be hugely expensive. China has $5 trillion in foreign reserves and its economy is red hot: $1.6 trillion GDP growth this year, to our $0.3 trillion.
I could go on, but you get the drift..
US military spending is a racket. War in Washington, is,in the main, about maintaining a high and deeply corrupt military establishment. The US actually does not want to go to war it wants to invent threats and then pretend to meet those threats. This should be obvious to everyone but isn’t.
“Glorious Defeat” The u.s. could adopt that idea from the French Foreign Legion. Judging from the Viet Nam war I suspect the u.s. already has. China? Most schoolyard bulleys are smart enough not to attack other bulleys who could easily and thoroughly kick their ass. I guess the u.s. just is not that smart.
If the u.s. goes to war against China I would lock my kids in the basement [I need to get a basement] before I would allow them to enter the u.s. military.
“American restrictions on hitting Russia are hurting Ukraine”
The Economist is sure keen of widening the scope of this war and is taking up Zelensky’s talking point of removing all restrictions on the Ukrainians. And of course they would have Ben Hodges talking in favour of this as he is a neocon nut job. The problem remains that without total American involvement, those missiles cannot fly as the Ukrainians cannot do so themselves. But as it stands, the US is slowly dumping the war in the Ukraine on the Europeans and bailing out. An example of this was when Biden refused to have US personnel service those F-16s – even though it is the US which manufactures them – but said that it was up to the European to service them. The Europeans are so screwed.
The Economist should stick to the economy as their subject matter and not try to LARP as war correspondents.
Maybe they could start by explaining to their readers why Western sanctions on Russia have been a total failure.
They should dump the economy too.
The economy is their only true LARP playground.
It’s a cunning plan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACnqI1l4I9s&t=25s
Never trust any plan which includes the words “…and then a miraculous transformation occurs.”
I think he’s mistaken; most of the “Russian territory” Ukraine plans to hold indefinitely was not seized but donated by Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev and Yeltsin. Of course, some it was also Romanian, Polish and Hungarian territory (that Georgian was pretty good at rearranging borders).
The Ukrainian Kursk offensive is the Underpants Gnomes of military operations …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO5sxLapAts
Thank you to whoever recommended Ventusky for seeing storms and weather fronts. I’m fascinated watching Superstorm Yagi as it approaches:
https://www.ventusky.com/?p=17.3;112.0;4&l=temperature-2m&t=20240905/12&src=link
This is a great wind link as well. https://zoom.earth/storms/yagi-2024/#map=wind-speed/model=icon
Such interesting articles and comments this afternoon. Keep them donations flowin’
Thanks for the link
This one is neat:
https://earth.nullschool.net/
The graphics in the link you provided and enticed from other commenters are truly beautiful. Thank you.
I suspect watching the winds might help warn of future weather and climate changes.
Why we need to check the gen AI hype and get back to reality – Venture Beat
“Every time you prompt an LLM, your query is broken up into “tokens”, which are the seeds for the response you get back — also made of tokens —and you are charged a fraction of a cent for each token in both the request and the response….”
(I started laughing)
Then it comes with claim that thru this pulled out of the a – – metric that ChatGPT generates $400,000 a day.
This isn’t about tech or opinions or alleged “fears” about tech. That rhetoric is part of the self-serving hype for suckers.
The criticism is about the BEZZLE..
“Zelenskyy says Ukraine plans to indefinitely hold Russian territory it has seized’
Zelensky is taking the credit for this operation but the Russians are already taking back that land. You look at it on a map and it reminds you of one of those cauldrons that the Russians are so fond of creating. The whole thing has become a fiasco so it surprises me that Zelelnsky is still trying to get credit for it. No doubt when it all falls apart he will blame the army commander – Syrsky – for it all even though that guy was also kept out of the planning. Say, does the UK need a third Ukrainian Ambassador by any chance? :)
It’s like Krinky, but on a larger scale. From attritional warfare point of view, it makes sense to prolong it for as long as fresh troops are being sent into the fire sack.
His narrative to the home audience – becoming more and more tired of the war and destruction – is that Kursk invasion force Russia to move troops from other parts of the front. So, Ukraine can now win! Or something like that.
If you look at the Ukrainian actions like they were all designed by political spin doctors aiming to prove in social media that Russia is losing and Ukraine winning they make much more “sense”.
Well, if what you read is something like “Quora” you can very easily come to believe that Ukraine is winning, Russia is suffering huge casualties that it’s somehow covering up, etc. Whatever we here at NC think there are still a lot of people who take things like that for granted.
I think the operation has achieved its main purpose, to foreclose any further discussion about negotiations to end the war, anytime this year or early next. So the real target was the US defense and foreign policy establishment, which had a few too many people talking about a negotiated end to the conflict as spring turned to summer.
NATO (including the US and UK) looked at a plan for the Kursk invasion months beforehand but didn’t think its odds of success were high enough to proceed. The only explanation I’ve seen implied that makes any sense is that MI6 got together with the Great Z and his puppet masters and pushed them to go for it in August, just to kill off any US hopes for negotiations. If by any chance it turned out successfully for Ukraine, the idea was to camp out close enough to the Kursk nuclear power plant to threaten its destruction or capture. So, “nuclear terrorism” or blackmail, as Putin said. Being in position to threaten the gas transit point at Sudzha in order to put pressure on Slovakia and Hungary was probably a secondary goal.
The result is that all talk of negotiations has ended, the nuclear plant is still not quite within reach, Sudzha is partially occupied but with ongoing battles, and 9,000+ Ukrainian and NATO soldiers are KIA out of an invasion force about 3 times that size. Mostly a failure for Ukraine, but a success for the UK, which has been deadset against a negotiated settlement since Boris Johnson scuttled the deal that Arakhamia was ready to sign in 2022. Starmer takes over from Sunak, but the policy never changes.
“In Brief: Is the United States Preparing For War with China?” War on the Rocks is pay walled and archive didn’t work.
I’m guessing the answer is “to the extent the US still knows how to do such things (which is to spend lots and lots of money without observable results, other than the obvious super rich it thusly creates and a bellicose narrative).”
Nope. The guy in Constantinople is a western pupet. Fragmentation and westernization of Orthodox Christianity have been a very long term project. The “hope” was to merge bitesize fragments into the western world order.
Fragmentation of Orthodoxy started with Orthodox countries under Ottoman vasselage or outright occupation became autocephalic and broke ties with the Constantinopole Patriarchy. Thus it becomes understandable why Romania and bulgary prefer to have good relations with Moscow Patriarchy than the one from Istanbul, which was controlled in the past by the Ottomans and now is controlled by the West.
Helmer on Durov. don’t think this got noted here. from last night. Worth a scan
https://johnhelmer.net/pavel-durov-paul-du-rove-freedom-of-speech-to-play-fool-stock-speculator-fraudster/
Bibi delivers the knock-out punch to Biden’s jaw:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/05/middleeast/israel-netanyahu-hamas-agreement-intl/index.html
Sorry, old man. You’re a washed-up has-been and from Bibi’s PoV, irrelevant. Now slap some sun-screen on and enjoy a good read on the beach.
Heck, just stay on vacation until Nov. 5.
I find it fascinating that Netanyahu and Israel don’t even bother to hide the contempt they hold the US in. They truly want the world to know that we are a vassal state. I get the they’re crazy and would use nukes argument to a point, but they are also broke, they are writing checks they’re army can’t cash and in many ways the US and the powerless Brits are the only thing keeping them from being the entire world’s most hated country, including a couple that would happily nuke the the moment they use theirs. I know that Israel owns much of our government but they really haven’t noticed that everyone they bought can turn on a dime.
There is confidence and there is hubris. And then there is hubris on steroids, aka Israel.
It may not be coming fast enough for me, but the break is coming.
It is a very telling development. Bibi didn’t just beclown Biden – he beclowned the entire mainstream press apparatus that continues to treat these “talks” as a real thing, and not as the Kabuki Theater they are.
Netanyahu essentially shouted, “hey, look over there – naked emperor!”
You have to almost grudgingly give Bibi props for this latest act of brazen clown-shaming. He could have just quietly torpedoed the talks or played Lucy to Blinken’s Charlie Brown for the umpteenth time. But that wasn’t big enough for him. He just went ahead and dropped a big, fat turd in the punchbowl, right in front of everyone. And then dared the Biden administration to do anything about it.
“At Columbia, a new academic year brings a renewed focus on protests”
The universities are trying to make it illegal to protest about Gaza so you wonder how far they will go. What if those students just glared at the university leadership and not saying or doing anything. What will they do then? Maybe they will adopt a British Army practice from the 19th century where you can charge a person with “silent contempt.”
Here is bluest of the blue Ann Arbor Michigan….40 seconds for the UM Board to approve, and unanimous…impressive! Really draconian, too.
U-M regents changed rules for campus complaints in just 40 seconds, with no discussion
https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/contributors/2024/08/28/um-university-michigan-board-regents-students-protests-campus-hearings/74924438007/
FWIW my understanding is that “silent contempt” was also an offense in the early 20th century U.S. Navy. I read this in a novel, so I don’t know how factual it is, or about other time periods or branches of service.
I’m leaving this here as an antidote. You’ve seen Trainspotting, you’ve seen 8 Mile, hell some of you are old enough to have seen A Hard Day’s Night on first release so go see Kneecap, it’s this decade’s (Buckfast) tonic! Just don’t expect it to be like the The Commitments. :-)
https://youtu.be/FFYfp-hKxZQ
I really want this film to succeed. It’s Ireland’s foreign film Oscar entry to it may yet be a winner!
Relevant Revenant. Gonna check it out – Gracias!
I hoped to see it this week, but my local cinema is fully booked, so I guess its a hit!
I heard an interesting interview with Michael Fassbender, he said he had to partly relearn his Dingle Irish and then add in a Belfast accent to the mix.
Saddle up the bike, PK, and see it in the place over! You won’t regret it.
Though it’s probably best seen in a place like the arts centre where I saw it, with a gig and an open air DJ bar night going on beside and a “take your pints in” policy in the cinema, so you might regret the journey home….
(I was disappointed there was no Irish stout at the Arts Centre so I played my native skanky Wurzel card and drank scrumpy. Thinking about it, I suppose they might have had Bucky on the top shelf since it was invented and mixed at the local Benedictine abbey – now made in a factory under licence – but I’ve never tried it before so I didn’t think to ask. Maybe I need caffeinated wine in my life…. One bottle is apparently the same caffeine as EIGHT cans of Coke and in researching that, I learned that caffeinated alcohol is banned in the US!).
I think it has genuinely sparked people to acquire or improve their Irish. The director of the film claims that he went to Irish classes and half the people there were there because of Kneecap. Might just be marketing talk though.
Will do! Fortunately, my local cinema is quite civilised and allows alcohol inside. I’m not sure about Bucky tho’….
https://actvid.rs/movie/watch-kneecap-full-112339
Sshhhh…
Oscar is crap, but 808 rocks.
It looks like an interesting film but really, what audience can respond to calls for revolution[?] from a voice speaking an un-understood foreign language? Is not communication of ideas somehow, somewhere, important?
I am a clueless Yank … please help me.
In nationalist parts of Northern Ireland, speaking a little (even a few words) of Irish is seen as a badge of rebellion (specifically identifying yourself as Republican), although many Irish speakers resist this. IRA members in prison would teach each other the language as a means of communication, and it spread from there.
Bear in mind that in West Belfast there are people who, whatever you think of their beliefs or morality, are real revolutionaries, in the sense that they actually got guns and fired them at the security forces as opposed to just yammering about it at meetings or online.
What is particularly interesting is that its become associated with a non-racist form of nationalism. The racist right in northern Ireland waves the Union Jack, the radical side (which includes quite conservative elements as well as leftists) waves the Irish tricolour and other revolutionary flags.
You can put their songs through Google translate and they might inspire a desire for recreational drugs, a skin fade haircut, Sergio Tacchini trackie and other accoutrements of hood life but they won’t instill revolutionary fervour. The tracks are mostly about going out, getting laid, street-dealing drugs and resisting the Unionists on a day to day level. It’s cups of tea, instant noodles, ketamine, sniffer dogs and losing your mobile signal. It’s not Yeats!
The band’s twitter feed is rather more engaged. Every other post is a denunciation of Israel and solidarity with Palestine (a long Republican position). You might find some revolutionary inspiration there.
The film sails down the middle. It is just good craic in the end. It’s not an explicit manifesto and there’s not even that much of their music. If there’s something to take from the film (go and see it!), it is the attitude (find a way to live, don’t oppress others but defend yourself, love your friends and family, have fun), the signal of doing it all in Irish and the sheer energy.
Once or twice a decade, there’s a band that’s just on a roll – the early Beatles, early Elton John, early Prince, early Oasis even. Kneecap will be dead if they keep it up at this pace but right now they are having a moment and, unlike all those precedents, so is Irish.
The film’s notional theme is “breaking the dodo of Irish out if its glass case”. Irish nationalism was a serious undertaking in the Troubles. But now what? The revolutionary fight is over: what does it mean to be Irish? What does it mean to speak Irish? Can you be Irish and decolonise yourself if you only speak English?
Kneecap have said “For a language to survive, it must be alive in music”. Whatever the artistic or political merits of the film, it is crackling with life. Irish comes across as a modern, muscular language that can support a modern, muscular culture. Not a fiddle or rosary or Famine in sight.
If you know the opening of Trainspotting, the famous “Choose Life” voiceover, it sets the tone for that film, which is about surviving and living with/despite heroin and poverty in Edinburgh. Kneecap may open with a montage mocking standard Troubles images but the rest of the film is a paean to choosing to live as Irish, in Irish and what that means in Belfast/Ireland and by example what it means to reclaim – or rather refashion – an identity after colonialism.
Another way of saying what’s admirable about the film is that I grew up in very rural mainland Britain with the Troubles in the distant background – will I get blown up if I go to London? Is that a suspicious package or just some poor Irish guy has left his suitcase to nip to the loo? – whereas my spouse grew up in the middle of it all, in a non-sectarian Church of Ireland protestant small-r republican family, whitewashing the Unionists’ painted kerbstones at night as a naughty teenager. My in-laws avoided being blown up by seconds in a particularly infamous bombing and worked hard for cross community reconciliation. I’ve seen the fortress police stations in small town NI and the checkpoints, the border controls, the helicopters, the terrible Loyalist union flag bunting. Some of this has vanished (the checkpoints), some is vanishing (the police stations) and some of it is absolutely structural and very hard to confront (the way all the best land in every place is farmed by the Unionists and the dispossessed Catholics are still literally living on the margins).
If in just thirty years time, there were Israeli Arab rappers at the Oscars taking the piss in Arabic out of Hamas and the IDF and building a secular post-Nakba Palestinian identity, that would be a miracle. But, equally, that’s the logical endpoint of their struggle.
Go see the film. It won’t change the world and it won’t change your life but it will put a smile on your face.
I don’t know, maybe I am having a midlife crisis and any film with enough party drugs and swearing would look like an admirable way of living to me. :-)
PS: oh, and the film is half English (cough, like the Irish…) and has subtitles for the Irish in various amusing ways so it’s perfectly understandable.
Forgive my attachment to distractions during such dire times, but I’m as susceptible to bread and circuses as anybody.
That said, go Chiefs! They begin their historic quest for three Super Bowl championships in a row against the Baltimore Ravens, a team they beat in last year’s AFC championship game in Baltimore even though the Ravens were favored.
There has never been an NFL Three-peat in the Super Bowl era. The GB Packers won three NFL championships in a row in the mid-60s and followed up the latter two with wins over the Chiefs and Raiders in the first two Super Bowls, but they did not make the Super Bowl the following year.
Three-peats are uncommon in pro sports. The Celtics did that and more with Bill Russell and Red Auerbach. The Bulls did it twice with Jordan, Pippen and Jackson. The Lakers did it while they were still in Minneapolis and again with Kobe and Shaq. In baseball, the Dimaggio Yankees did it twice on either side of WW II and again with Jeter, Rivera and Torre. The Reggie and Catfish A’s did it in the early 70s a few years after Finley moved them from KC to Oakland.
After watching the Chiefs go 50 years with one divisional playoff win, the situation is hard to grasp for this Chiefs fan since I was 10. Injuries will probably be determinative as the season wears on along with fatigue as the Chiefs, the top draw in the league, find themselves playing on every day of the week except Tuesday. Distractions, including the Kelce-Swift romance, are likely to be even more intense than last year, but the Mahomes playoff magic (15-3 record) returned last year and reached new heights with road wins against rivals Buffalo and Baltimore.
I watched a couple of last year’s games from a hospital bed, and this year will be the same with my last surgery scheduled for October 8 with a stay of several days projected. As a bonus, the Royals look likely to be a wild card team if their bullpen doesn’t completely implode.
So off we go into a new season.
You just reminded me…I may have to get ready for the annual teasing of my boss and his Cowboy love.
Catfish…Hunter is from a small town of eastern North Carolina maybe 45 minutes drive from my native home town. As it regards to repeating as professional or college level champions, the women’s soccer teams for UNC-CH we’re incredibly dominant starting I think in the mid to late 80s ( think of the Wooden UCLA teams as a near parallel example ).
Eastern NC was the home town of Gaylord Perry too!
Here’s wishing you a win in thehospital game!
Thanks. The one upcoming probably entails that most pain and longest recovery time, but the one I had at the end of July was the riskiest because of the tumor’s impact on the production of adrenaline and other hormones. It goes particularly crazy during surgery. My blood pressure during that surgery ranged from 233/111 to 76/36, and that was after 3 weeks of taking an ever-increasing amount of an alpha blocker to prepare. The one in October should be less exciting.
There’s an old joke a pastor told me at a circuit meeting in which a doctor tells a gloomy patient that he needs an optorectomy. The Eyeore asks, “What the hell is that, Doc?”
“We sever the connection between the anus and the optic nerve so you don’t have such a sh-tty outlook on life.”
I’m going beyond severing the connection.
HMP,
Looks like you will be missing this Chiefs Fanatic for awhile:
https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdmo/pr/kc-chiefs-superfan-sentenced-17-years-bank-robberies-money-laundering
https://x.com/Kanthan2030/status/1831689636936138802
S.L. Kanthan @Kanthan2030
VP Kamala Harris landed in a China-built airport in Zambia…
… drove on a road built by China…
… went to a building built by China…
… and gave a speech on why Africa should decouple from China.
https://x.com/i/status/1831689636936138802
9:43 AM · Sep 5, 2024
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202409/1319255.shtml
September 4, 2024
MoU signed to revitalize TAZARA railway
By Liu Xin
Chinese President Xi Jinping, Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan and Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema on Wednesday jointly witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the revitalization project of the Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA) railway.
Hassan and Hichilema are in Beijing for the 2024 Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), which is taking place from Wednesday to Friday.
While meeting with Tanzania’s Hassan on Wednesday, President Xi said that China is willing to take the summit as an opportunity to push for new progress in the revitalization project of the TAZARA railway and jointly improve the rail-sea intermodal transport network in East Africa.
These efforts will help Tanzania become a demonstration zone for deepening high-quality Belt and Road cooperation between China and African countries, Xi said.
The revitalization of the TAZARA railway holds important symbolic significance – it is not only a historical testament to traditional China-Africa friendship but also a key project in promoting regional connectivity in Africa, Song Wei, a professor at the School of International Relations and Diplomacy at Beijing Foreign Studies University, told the Global Times on Wednesday.
The 1,860-km single-track railway was constructed through an interest-free loan from China and started operation in 1976. It links Dar es Salaam in Tanzania with New Kapiri Mposhi in Zambia…
I still haven’t hears anyone from the MSM ask an Israeli spokesperson “When did Palestinians stop being Semites?”.
It would also make a good sign for Student Protests although I doubt you would see any footage of it broadcast.
In happier news the Tuna are running 50 miles off of Bodega and a friend who runs the “Andiamo” out of Bodega Bay gave me a few steaks.
https://x.com/Zlatti_71/status/1831649107359789088
[image]
🇺🇦 What language do residents of Ukraine Google in?
‘Zelensky says Ukraine plans to indefinitely hold Russian territory it has seized’ – “…a large portion…” – “…conceptually we will hold it…” – my first chuckle of the day – conceptually –
That zombie Covid joke is sublime.
I added it to my jokes file.
It is a very sad joke, however fitting it me be to our times. I wear my Vader voice-yet-to-be-enabled respirator wherever I go inside. Outside … I live far far away from the madding crowd.
Taibbi’s latest. No paywall. Guest column by Matt Bivens, M.D.
How the Opiate Conspiracy Widened
Part III in a series about the sociopathic push by big pharma to cash in on opiate production
https://www.racket.news/p/how-the-opiate-conspiracy-widened
What really winds me up about Gaza is that Israel cooperated with the apartheid government in the production of nuclear weapons. The “apartheid regime” was rightly vilified at the time, while Israel snuck under the radar. And now we have it perpetrating a genocide. The “apartheid regime”, even in its worst hours, did nothing close to what Israel is now doing to Palestinians.The media equivalent of “the apartheid regime” today would be “the Zionist regime”.Yet we dare not criticise the state of Israel. Let alone express solidarity with the the inhabitants of Palestine.
Just saying.