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Fungus-controlled robots tap into the unique power of nature ScienceDaily (Kevin W)
Bird flu in cows and poultry continues to fly high Farm and Dairy (Robin K)
#COVID-19
New CDC Covid map just came out pic.twitter.com/BmWhFmu69B
— The Yeti of Kananaskis (@kananaskinyeti) September 7, 2024
They actually said he died of #LongCovid
Many others have, but because it happens outside of the acute phase of the disease, it is almost never listed as such. We need more honesty and transparency.
RIP Sérgio Mendes.https://t.co/M21k16jWhM
— Cat Herding Science Nerd 🔬 (@catladyactivist) September 7, 2024
Climate/Environment
Electrocuted Birds Are Bursting Into Flames and Starting Wildfires Gizmodo
Unbelievable #September temperatures are forecast across #Europe tomorrow, with some regions 12°C above normal for this time of year. Temperature records just keep tumbling. The #climate is warming at unprecedented rates—mitigation is urgent. 🌍🔥 #ClimateCrisis pic.twitter.com/GWwmOoq3gO
— Peter Dynes (@PGDynes) September 6, 2024
Heatwave Across US West Breaks Records For Highest Temperatures Guardian
More Intense Heatwaves Pose Long-Term Hit to Asia’s Economies Bloomberg (ma)
An unlikely line of defense during heat waves: Food banks Grist
China?
Midstream firms to exit China but Germany invests more Asia Times (Kevin W)
The US Made the Dutch an Offer They Couldn’t Refuse CounterPunch (Kevin W)
China warns students against ‘beautiful women’ and ‘handsome guys’ who might turn them into spies NBC
Is an economic crisis in China turning the population obese? First Post. Chinese also have greater propensity to diabetes than Caucasians at normal body weights.
Africa
UN chief warns Africa’s inadequate access to debt relief is recipe for social unrest Reuters
South of the Border
How a Start-Up Utopia Became a Nightmare for Honduras Foreign Policy (ma)
European Disunion
The Metsola exception: The European Parliament president and her lobbyist husband Politico (Kevin W)
In Germany, a bank blocked the accounts of an AfD politician after his election to the Thuringian state parliament Anti-Spiegel via machine translation. Micael T:
It is as if they really want to help AfD run the country. As the guys on Radio War Nerd pointed out, nothing helps fascists as much as victimhood. Also, think Hollywood underdog vs. the big bad ones. Every movie scripted as to root for the underdog through the malice of the big bad ones.
Germany’s firewall against the far right isn’t working Washington Post
Bank robbery! Berlin lets its schools and citizens be plundered Nachdenkseiten (Micael T)
Germany faces jobs crisis ‘of a thousand cuts’ Financial Times. From a couple of days ago, still germane.
Old Blighty
British life-style: 22.8 million people said they would have difficulty affording food or other essentials, such as their mortgage, rent or childcare International Affairs (Micael T)
Labour launches bid to get rid of hereditary peers BBC (Kevin W)
South of the Border
Gaza
‘Days filled with terror’: Palestinians in Jenin recount harrowing 10-day Israeli army invasion Mondoweiss
Inside the brutal siege of Jenin +972 (guurst)
‘Deeply disturbed’ White House calls for inquiry into killing of Ayşenur Eygi Guardian. Where were they for Rachel Corrie?
‘No liquidity’: Israel’s punitive measures bite in the West Bank National News
@binance's recent freeze of Palestinian crypto wallets is exacerbating #Gaza’s dire situation & aiding Israel’s financial blockade.
Weaponizing digital financial tools as oppression must cease & Binance must clarify its actions. Read our full statement:https://t.co/bDq0SwmDjt
— Skyline International for Human Rights (@skylineforhuman) September 6, 2024
Nazareth Faces Economic Collapse as War Devastates Tourism Media Line
* * * Riyadh forcing a Yemeni plane back ‘irresponsible escalation’: Sanaa AlMayadeen
* * * Wave of resignations continues in Israel as police intel chief steps down The Cradle
the post encampment climate on campuses is crazier than I imagined https://t.co/odfNSYOP12
— Yukon Cornelius 🇵🇸 (@NeeedlesEye) September 6, 2024
Banning Fascist and Zionist Activities: A Conversation with Hindu Anderi Venezuelanalysis (Robin K)
The Caucasus
Iran Tells Russia to ‘Back Off’ from Endorsing Baku’s Corridor Plan Through Armenia Asbarez
Armenia sending signals that it wants to back out of a nuclear-energy deal with Russia Eurasianet
Kosovo Citizens Urged to Avoid Serbia Amid Road Blockades Threats Prishtina Insight
New Not-So-Cold War
SITREP 9/6/24: The Grind Continues as Aftermath of Poltava Strikes Reverberates Simplicius
Ukraine SitRep: Ukrainian Army Chief Reveals Lack of Strategy Behind Kursk Incursion Moon of Alabama
FT: How the G7 leaders are tying themselves in knots over Ukraine loan International Affairs
Lies Have Consequences Tarik Cyril Amar (Micael T)
Canada publishing Nazi list would ‘help Russia’ – Ukrainian activists RT (Kevin W)
The Militarisation of Scandinavia & the Coming Wars Glenn Diesen (Robin K, Micael T)
Syraqistan
Imperial Collapse Watch
Notes on the political economy of war Wolfgang Streeck, Journal of Keynesian Economics (Anthony L). Only part way through but this is a very very good piece.
The Machine Stops Aurelien. Another important piece.
The Nibelung’s Ring: The Early Philosophy John Micael Greer (Chuck L)
Not Losing Sight of Imperialism Venezuelanalysis (Robin K)
Kamala
Former Vice President Dick Cheney says he will vote for Harris NBC
More than 90 company executives, 100 law enforcement officials back Harris Reuters (Kevin W)
2024
Republican candidate for governor Mark Robinson is losing the ad war in North Carolina North Carolina Guardian (furzy)
Immigration
Gavin Newsom kills California bill to help undocumented immigrants buy homes Politico (Kevin W)
Our No Longer Free Press
Scared of our Own Shadow Scott Ritter (Micael T)
Justice Department Disrupts Covert Russian Government-Sponsored Foreign Malign Influence Operation Targeting Audiences in the United States and Elsewhere Department of Justice. Links to affidavit. Micael T:
https://en.interaffairs.ru/article/british-life-style-22-8-million-people-said-they-would-have-difficulty-affording-food-or-other-esse/.
Gunz
California Can Ban Guns in Parks and Bars, but Not Hospitals, Court Says New York Times (Dr. Kevin)
Boeing Falling Apart Airplanes
Boeing Starliner returns to Earth without NASA astronauts Associated Press (furzy)
AI
AI worse than humans in every way at summarising information, government trial finds Crikey.com (dk)
The Bezzle
Private Equity’s Favorite Borrowing Tool Sparks Fresh Scrutiny Bloomberg
Class Warfare
Workers lose ground in the global recovery Financial Times
Pharma Charges 80K to cure Hepatitis C. The Manufacturing Cost is $78 Ian Welsh (Micael T)
Port union voices unanimous support for strike, escalating U.S. supply chain fears CNBC (Kevin W)
Antidote du jour. Ann M: “This year’s swan family. The elegant youngsters grow fast. They were quite tiny in May, now are as big as mom and dad. Roger Williams Park, Providence RI. August 25, 2024.”
A bonus (Chuck L):
It is so patient and kind!
What are the crows doing?pic.twitter.com/3Ehcrf0QBw
— Figen (@TheFigen_) September 6, 2024
And a second bonus (Chuck L). Proving that male lions are not always layabouts:
Her partner answered her call
pic.twitter.com/rR3yTm070l— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) September 5, 2024
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
172 comments
Comments are closed.
Politico: The non-entity Roberta Metsola gets into trouble.
This story, of the august chair of the Europarlament, has been circulating here for a while.
Note this: “Last week Roberta appointed her long-time personal aide and brother-in-law Matthew Tabone to be her head of cabinet. She had tried to elevate Tabone to the role once before but stepped back in the face of media coverage implying she was turning the Parliament into a family business.”
She’s all worried about her high-profile hubby, but when it comes to corruption, she knows how to engage in it.
Figuratevi: The president of the EU, Ursula van der Leyen, is up to her eyeballs in corruption. Recall the Pfizer land grab and the missing SMSs. And Ursula van der Leyen loves war (for the little people).
Metsola makes the right noises about war (for the little people).
And Kaja Kallas, foreign-policy expert, loves war. Lots of war.
And, of course, these three are the best of the best. The brightest of the brightest. (I’m detecting a theme…)
And here we are. And then one wonders why the German states of Saxony and Thuringia are having contentious elections.
“Two astronauts are left behind in space as Boeing’s troubled capsule returns to Earth empty”
A lot of people will complain that those two astronauts could have made it home on that capsule but in cases like this, Murphy’s law rules supreme. You just never know. Good news is that that ISS docking port is now clear for operational use once again and with that capsule on the ground, the engineers will be able to tear it apart and find out exactly what went wrong.
But it will be a very long time before Boeing will be allowed to mount a mission to send their capsule to the ISS again. I would be guessing years.
Musical interlude? https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=GyV_UG60dD4
Rev Kev: I would be guessing years.
I’d say never is more likely — and that the odds are at least even odds Boeing itself won’t exist in 5-10 years.
Sure, Boeing will be TBTF as far as Washington is concerned. But Washington’s options will themselves be increasingly degraded and diminished.
Money will pass hands–Boeing will be back.
Well, once Boeing faces formal declaration of bankruptcy, perhaps a governmental crash-cramdown could be effected, whereby the factories around Greater Seattle with their residual unionised workforce of thingmakers and engineers might be saved and all the other factories ” frozen in coldest storage” while the Good Mini-Boeing in Seattle decides which, if any of them, it might want to take over in order to work with. And every executive ( and perhaps every worker if necessary) hired by McDonnell-Douglas invaders from after the merger would be let go. Plus every manager at every level hired by anyone involved in moving the headquarters away from Seattle would have to be fired.
“…with that capsule on the ground, the engineers will be able to tear it apart and find out exactly what went wrong.”
According to the space nerd I live with, that won’t be able to tear it apart and find out what went wrong because the helium leaks and thruster problems were with the service module. The service module doesn’t come back — it burns up in the atmosphere.
See https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/boeing-spaceship-what-went-wrong-nasa-astronauts-rcna167163
What went wrong with Boeing’s spaceship
The Starliner capsule faced two issues: one with a set of thrusters and the other involving helium leaks in the vehicle’s propulsion system.
Look at the graphic. Under the image of the service module: “The malfunctioning thrusters and helium leaks are here.”
Rats! Well there goes that plan out the docking bay hatch. And thanks for that informative link. I’m going with the idea that the problem goes back to how that assembly was put together by the Boeing engineers and workers as they had experienced all sorts of problems putting it all together. They knew it had a problem but sent it up anyway. Maybe they should just dump the whole Boeing program and used the freed up workers to help out with their 777 production line.
Fifth Element, take off scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UENRVfdnGxs
A much under rated film but always worth re-watching.
I fired the stock/equity market in 1996. But I have to say, is Boeing one of those extreme but obvious long term contrarian moves, a no-brainer like B o A was back in the day? Too big too fail, Unca Big Bucks Sam will backstop?
I cannot fathom the money we put into the few, and how little we put into all of us, and how destructive and non-utilitarian so much of our daily life’s work seems to be.
Well, you can see why I was excited about the prospect of gazillionaires shooting themselves into space.
Agreed. Directly towards the center of the solar system ideally.
All but one of the failed thrusters were on the jettisoned service module, so lost to analysis. However, one recently failed on the crew module, so that may pin down a common fault.
Unfortunately, my colleague’s former student was bumped from her command slot on Crew 9 that flys soon with 2 empty seats to retrieve the stranded Starliner pair. Hopefully she can command her first mission next year.
Those astronauts should write a sternly worded letter to the Secretary of Transportation.
– ‘Former Vice President Dick Cheney says he will vote for Harris’ – NBC
“In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” Dick Cheney said in a statement.”
This pretty much says it all. Based on the level of death, destruction, and human suffering unleashed on the world, not to mention the vast expansion of our National Security State here at home, I would put Cheney at the top of my list of the most Evil individuals still living in the world today. And has the audacity to say this! And he’s with her! Go Democrats!
Caitlin Johnstone posted a short but effective statement on this endorsement today:
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2024/09/07/its-the-trump-party-vs-the-cheney-party/
I would say that Cheney and his daughter are both RINOs who just gravitate to whichever party has power in Washington at any particular time. Maybe Cheney is hoping that one day Michelle Obama will hug him in public too like she did with George Bush. Or maybe he could offer her a lolly at a state funeral one day. I would advise her to stay out of his windowless van however. It seems that there are two war parties in DC right now – the Democrats and the Republicans – with the bizarre result that only having Trump return to power may put a lid on the number of wars DC is starting around the planet. I don’t think that even he wants to start a war with Iran as where is the business sense with that?
‘Help us Donald Trump. You’re our only hope!’
I am going to disagree here…
Logically, this endorsement can only be the result of either a) Cheney moving to the Democrats (a la Vicky Nuland), or b) the Democrats, their mainstream version, moving to where Cheney (and Vicky Nuland) has been for a long, long time.
Unfortunately, in this instance I am more inclined towards the structuralist explanation – that the Democrats, and again, I mean the party mainstream, since the early 2010s have basically moved to where the neocons were. Syria, Libya and Ukraine Part 1 were Obama’s babies, and never even you mind the troop surge into Afghanistan back in 2009, where he basically sided with Clinton and Gates and against Biden (who’d wanted to just leave 5k special forces in Afghanistan to do raids). This is per Woodward’s first book on the Obama White House, by the way. Clinton was the party standard bearer in 2016, and we know where her inclinations have always been, her’s and Albright’s both. Then you get Joe Biden, who ratchets up Ukraine Part 2. And then Harris in her convention speech all but explicitly says, we’re going to fund the military to the gills, and we’re going after Iran – she didn’t even mention China once, and Russia was sort of a passing reference.
And then on top of that you layer on all the censorship impulses, under the cover of Russia-Russia-Russia, that have been building in the party. That’s a Cheney position also, fundamentally speaking.
So yeah, I have to conclude that the Democratic Party of today is the George W. Bush Republican Party of yesteryear. Which fits, too, with Schumer’s old “for every working class vote we lose in Philadelphia, we pick up two [affluent republicans] in the suburbs”. They wanted to go in this direction. And now they’re here.
Trump is a more interesting case, because Trump is your basic right-wing populism, which itself is a contradiction in terms. How do you do change – what populism is about – when you’re committed to preserving and strengthening the extant political economy and social order – right-wingerism? You don’t, you dangle empty words and promises, and then you, not Obama, is the guy that sends lethal weaponry to Ukraine, and starts training up the troops, and switches Zelensky after the 2019 election from pro-peace to pro-war. I mean, I guess his staff did that for him while he watched Fox News and tweeted, which, if you recall Politico stories from 2019-2020, is allegedly all he ever did in the White House. Trump may not personally like the neocons or the way they do some things, but let’s not delude ourselves into thinking he’s some kind of an anti-imperialist.
Really, another way to look at it is – the affluent Republicans back Harris, while the working people are being led around by the nosering by Trump. So of course Cheney – and I was shocked that he is still alive, frankly – picks the side that he does. It’s always been his side.
Right wing populism has an old school Royalist bent to it: in Hobbes ”Leviathan” the people form the body of the State while royalty acts as its mind and soul.
In this vision, at least the King/Queen must value the populous as its own body, as opposed to the ordo-liberal vision we now call Neoliberalism which views the populous as a feedstock for various profit generating mechanisms that exploit, cripple or destroy that feedstock.
QE2 was the only head of state who asked for an explanation from the perpetrators of the GFC.
Pelosi has been a Cheney Democrat ever since the first Cheney(bush) Administration.
“In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” Dick Cheney said in a statement.”
Has there ever been a greater example of pot calling the kettle black in the history of the planet?
If there is a universe in which cheney’s pronouncement is a beneficial thing for ANY presidential campaign, I don’t know where it is, and I’m certainly not living in it.
Imagine that, Putin and Cheney endorsing Harris.
Cats and dogs laying down together.
Hell freezes over.
Wait, is that a pig flying over there?
Honestly, if I was Trump that Putin clip endorsing Harris would be all over every media possible blocking the D’s talking point that he’s a stooge for Russia. Point out that it looks like Kamala is the puppet.
Kamala’s not a puppet of Russia. She’s inept at foreign policy, and that would be to Russia’s advantage.
I hope I’m not living in it, but I’m afraid the TDS sufferers will make Mother Theresa out of Hitler if the latter endorsed Harris…and there are a lot of TDS sufferers.
They should be told-
‘If Symptoms of TDS Persist, Consult Your Doctor’
Or maybe a shrink.
I am convinced that if the nuclear missiles were flying, many of the TDS afflicted would exclaim, “Thank God it’s not Trump!”
Hold up, how on earth is Vader still alive? His heart transplant was only supposed to last max 10 years
VTDigger:
What heart?
Surely you jest medically.
I understand that Dick Cheney has no mirrors in his house either.
How does this evil dudes transplanted heart keep beating, a curse
On his house. Responsible for more evil deeds than can even be counted. I shiver at the sight of him or his evil beyond redemption daughter.
Didn’t you hear? He had a heart transplant about a decade ago. It couldn’t take any more-
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dick-cheneys-heart/
I’ll make you a bet. After he cashes in his chips, the media will ignore all his evil deeds and only say what a nice guy he was afterwards. I would have though that they would have roasted John McCain after he karked it but instead there were only crickets so I expect Cheney will get the same kid gloves treatment.
It’s at least his third heart, literally. Look it up.
What good would all Cheney’s power have been otherwise, if it didn’t get him the wherewithal to stay on the scene? Maybe he’ll still be ticking at a hundred like Kissinger.
Who do I loathe more, Dick or Don? That’s so easy to answer. I hate the evil one, who is in fact, one of the world’s all-time dicks, to the depth of my soul.
He’s still here because even Satan doesn’t want him.
Thank you for that, now I have to wipe up the coffee I just spit up laughing.
I’m waiting for Robert Reich to write an essay urging Kamala to make Cheney her Secretary of State in the name of bipartisan unity against the Great Orange Demon and all the threats to “democracy” that we are facing in the world.
You think you’re joking.
I am being sarcastic but it honestly wouldn’t surprise me anymore. Reich has already recommended Cheney’s daughter for President for her heroic resistance to the Orange Hitler. Liberal TDS and their useful idiocy for the War Machine knows no bounds anymore.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/4854561-vice-president-harris-republican-cabinet/
A Cheney in Cabinet to balance the Marxist peaceniks that will no doubt infest Auntie Kamala’s administration… /s
The Trump threat that Cheney is worried about is the ability of the neocon regime to work in the White House, where their evil doings are protected by Presidential privilege. His disciples won’t have jobs if Trump is elected again. He obviously thinks that Kamala will keep some of them on.
I have pretty much decided not to vote for Harris. Cheney’s endorsement makes me feel more confident about that decision.
Perhaps a better way to state it is that Dick Cheney’s endorsement is basically a justification for people like me to vote for Jill Stein. I think that impact will be bigger than the number of Republican voters who will change their minds based on Cheney’s endorsement.
The party of FDR and JFK has morphed itself into a new and improved variant—the Karl Rove Democrats™! The party that creates its own reality, for themselves and for you, by continuous expansions of military spending, sanctions, proxy wars, color revolutions, and outright invasions. Combining the worst of the Ford administration and the average of the Obama administration to bring you new thrills of nuclear annihilation-teasing talk and action. Complete with an AI-resurrected Slim Pickens to ride that bomb down!
Honestly, LBJ gave Karl Rove all the instructions he might need to steal an election when he ran for his Senate seat. He was also just as vulgar as Trump (multiple mistresses, urination and defecation in public). One big difference: he grew up poor. Try Robert Caro’s multi-volume biography….
Well, the Dems are/were also the party of Jefferson Davis… Except, I guess, he wasn’t quite this evil…
Every time a Republican switches parties to Democrat, both parties move further right.
An extraordinary article, no mention of the fact that Cheney was instrumental to the lies “Iraq has WoMD’s” and “Iraq supports AlQaida”, all of the death and evil that unleashed, and he continues to be unrepentant.
There should be some ironies here about a person who supports cruel and unjust foreign wars supporting the democrat party. But nope – the article is just literally pushing the narrative of “a republican that doesn’t support Trump”.
no sunshine skies of covid here. the local public health establishment has actually awakened to the levels of COVID in my semi-rural corner of northeast US, and has remarkably given some decent advice on mitigating COVID transmission:
“Sullivan added that some “commonsense” measures, such as ensuring crowded gathering spaces have adequate ventilation, wearing masks and getting the latest version of the vaccine, are all effective strategies to avoid spreading the virus.”
of course the vaccine is there, but leading with actual measures is pretty impressive.
https://www.recorder.com/Local-COVID-levels-at-highest-point-since-January-56872617
Is an economic crisis in China turning the population obese? According to Statista, there are 141 million people suffering from diabetes in China, https://www.statista.com/topics/6556/diabetes-in-china/#topicOverview, 1 in 10 people, a truly dubious achievement considering it’s just 1.6% lower than the US.
Another victory for Chinese style socialism?
McDonald’s alone has some 5,000 restaurants in China so perhaps they and the other fast food chains are having an effect.
Then the the only thing needed for the US to defeat China would be to triple the number of McDonald’s in the country. With 30% of the population suffering from diabetes, it won’t be long before the country’s health system collapses.
Part of China’s ‘success story‘ has been in supplying its people with more of its favorite food, pork.
Towards this end the Chinese WH Group purchased Smithfield foods, the largest pork producer in the world, headquartered in Smithfield Virginia.
You want your people to eat like Americans, they’re going to have health like Americans.
Imagine that they had a war – but both the Chinese and America soldiers were too fat and obese to fight and were panting just putting their gear on? I say make pork dumplings, not war.
I think you are on to something there.
The Chinese people are apparently happier with their leadership than Americans.
Maybe that’s due to not enough consumption of pork dumplings?
So, maybe our leaders should make sure that there is never a “pork dumplings gap” to assure happiness parity?
I’ll just leave this here…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teBzetVsiQM
Well, it looks like China has its hands full with the invasion of high-fructose corn syrup and honey traps.
“China warns students against ‘beautiful women’ and ‘handsome guys’ who might turn them into spies” – NBC
RE: More than 90 company executives, 100 law enforcement officials back Harris Reuters (Kevin W)
So, when Trump is endorsed by the Fraternal Order of Police, “one of the nation’s most influential law enforcement lobbies,” kamala is touted as receiving the “endorsement” of “100 law enforcement officials” described thusly:
Some really august top cops there–Bloomington, IN????
Trump’s endorsement OTOH is described as confounding given that he is such a heinous criminal. From AP:
What to do, whom to “believe”?
Republican House member admits things aren’t looking good:
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4866671-republicans-frustration-tony-gonzales-house-prediction/
I predict that the GOP will lose the House, because:
(1) They have no message or platform to run on. It would be nice if they could take advantage of the 64% who think the country is headed in the wrong direction, but they offer no solutions. It would be nice if some candidate would point out that Harris/Biden are accessories to Genocide, but the GOP would just do the Genocide even faster. So they’re stuck in credibility traps.
(2) They have the weakest speaker in 250 years.
(3) They seem to be hoping that Trump loses. I haven’t seen a single story about a Republican supporting President Trump, campaigning with him, etc. This is truly remarkable. It’s as if they think that Trump going down to defeat will magically not translate to House GOP losses.
(4) I don’t see any evidence of the economy falling apart so fast that it influences the election. Still a possibility, but every day we get closer to early voting, and there is one more BLS report likely to influence things in October, so not much time for the wheels to fall off.
I predict we’re going to be saying “House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries” in January.
And president Harris. Go long bomb and war toy makers. Heil Democrats – the party of war – and the Russians are coming.
I was thinking about your comment and was suddenly reminded of the 2019 British general election. At the time, an outsider – Jeremy Corbyn – was head of the Labour party and they took on the Conservatives under Boris Johnson. But the hard right faction of the Labour party deliberately sabotaged their campaigning and on election night, Labour party officials were actually cheering the loss of Labour seats to the Tories. After they were able to get rid of Corbyn but the UK was stuck with Johnson as PM who soon proved his worth by totally botching the arrival of the Covid Pandemic and got the country deep into the Ukraine. So could the Republicans sabotage the November elections and let Harris become the President just so that they can get rid of Trump?
I think it’s a distinct possibility if not a probable scenario.
In every way, mushy moderates have taken over both parties and consider a populist the real threat, to the point where they will interfere with the normal workings of politics and work for the other party to prevent anyone who represents change from getting into power.
We see this already in France, as well. The left “won” a plurality of seats, but Macron is now using the right as his stooges as a way of forming a coalition to thwart the will of the people.
And there’s the problem – pretty tough to criticize the other party when yours is doing exactly the same rotten stuff, or would like to. So campaigns are increasingly policy free and personality focused instead.
Take us on out Mr. Glover and friends.
You might be right. There is a peculiar inclination, esp among the liberals, to conflate “the Repulicans” and Trump (might be more than just the Dems–the message seems to “work” fairly well) but the Republican civil war is continuing and there is no cohesive GOP agenda: just Trump woth his inchoate ideas, a bunch of hangers on withoit a head of their own above shoulders, and a decent nu.ber of openly rebellious. They are not going to “win” if the elwction were just about merits and policy.
However, mitigating that is the fact that Dems are just as confused and incoherent. The only thing they have is that they are for the status quo and that they think any opposition to it is treasonous. In an environment where 2/3 of Americams think there is something wdong wit the status quo! In a clash between two groups of confused and blind idiots, one that has an at least somewhat self aware front man has to have some advantage, I think.
“Mitigation is urgent!”
The climate Cassandras are so tiresome. Yes it is bad. What would you suggest we do sir or madam?
The entire global food system is dependent on diesel or diesel byproduct. There is no quick “Mitigation” short of mass starvation. Donating to your favorite NGO will do less than nothing as those people love their planes more than anyone on earth. The best we can do is gradually reduce the population over several generations while moving away from petro-agriculture.
What is the point of all the screeching?
I initially misread the tweet as “migration is urgent,” which is probably closer to reality.
Agriculture is a significant but far from the only contributor to the carbon problem. It comes in fourth behind electrical generation, transportation, and manufacturing and construction.
More telling, Oxfam reports that the carbon emissions from the world’s richest 1% are responsible for as much in carbon emissions as the world’s poorest two-thirds. That makes it clear that a lot of the carbon that will produce the fires, hurricanes, downpours and famine-causing droughts that will accomplish the culling of the poor comes not from anything essential, like growing food, but from conspicuous consumption like another giant yacht for Bezos or more tasty dividends on their oil and gas stocks for the billionaires.
We could cut carbon emissions substantially even without addressing our insane agricultural methods and the risk of famine that you assume. Oxfam reports in that same article that fully 50% of carbon emissions come from the world’s richest 10%. That’s a lot of giant pick-ups, Happy Motoring and George Carlin’s “stuff” consumed because that’s what we do, and that’s how we keep up with the Joneses.
That strikes me as horribly immoral.
Well, I was including transportation as part of the food system. Shipping all that ginger from China, Oranges from South Africa, etc. Not to mention the daily armada of semis to your local food distribution nodule.
We have decades not generations unfortunately.
Looks like we’re back to the “Freikorps” model of university protests for the next academic year.
Safety patrol teams show up at University of Toronto to protect Jewish students as the school year begins. The only unanswered question is whether the university administrators have hired these security teams, are turning a blind eye, or are simply sticking their heads in the curtains. Undoubtedly these scenarios will be playing out across North America once again. Might as well say goodbye to those overseas student numbers for 2026.
This thing has lawsuits written all over it. Suppose some guy says that Palestinians have a right to defend themselves whereupon some of these goons, overhearing it, decide to rearrange his face because they feel threatened or are in fear of their lives or some other bs. And then it starts. That guy sues the university for allowing a vigilante group to patrol the campus without being challenged, sues the campus cops as this is their bailiwick not some random bunch of IDF wannabees, sues the State because they have judicial control of that university, the head of the university for failing to ensure the safety of their charge, etc. Is the university really going to say in court that some random group of people have the right to come onto campus grounds and do vigilante patrols? If they are actually students, this does not protect them from charges of assault and being expelled for their troubles. Will the universities also let in Azov wannabes to make sure that the students don’t protest the war in Ukraine going on? And no, Stanford doesn’t count.
Having had encounters with young Zionists back in my youth, I can confidantly assert that these “vigilantes” don’t care a bit what the Campus Cops, School Administration, or Public Opinion thinks about what they are doing. They rest secure in their essential world view that they are the “chosen people’ and have a mandate from G– to inflict any level of violence needed to ‘eliminate’ any opposition to their goals.
The comparisons to the 1920s and 1930s Brownshirts are correct. The only major difference between the two groups that I can think of is that the Brownshirts were often World War One veterans, and thus sufferers of various forms of PTSD. If one was to consider Zionism as a psychological ‘problem,’ then the similarities between those veterans in the Brownshirts and our modern ‘vigilantes’ are closer than ever.
No good can come of this.
These ‘vigilantes’ are bringing the War to the Homeland. Does America still have a sufficiently brave and principled segment of the population left to counter this slow slide into the Pit? Time will tell.
The PTSD comes from the trauma indoctrination of the holocaust and now 10/7.
The constant replaying of 10/7 footage on my wife’s social media feed is certainly not about informing the her.
Ah, I am old enough, and Luddite enough not to be conversant with modern social media. The Commentariat here is about as “modern” as I get.
It’s a shame that ‘personalized’ ‘media’ are perfect for ‘targeted’ propaganda. From your observation, it feels like the “Big Lie” system of information ‘management’ is alive and well.
Stay safe.
And suppose some Jewish student is so intimidated by these loutish male vigilante creeps promoting antisemitism through their sense of entitlement, and who she honestly believes threaten all the freedoms that make her life tolerable, including the right to protest free from physical assault, rape and murder by Zionist fanatics, after a sleepless fear-ridden weekend knows she has to go to class that morning and decides she doesn’t like Mondays given the way things are, tools up and shoots them down like dirty dogs when they approach her menacingly as they swagger on their beat as she walks to class. Any friendly Canadian lawyer how that one might be played by the Defence?
I suspect the Magen Herut is more “free-lance” and may be Likud-connected or Kach-connected. Maybe someone will study the matter.
Freikorps is correct. I have been wondering for quite a while if the Jewish thugs have organized secret militias to spring into the open to support AIPAC and fifth columnist Schumer when they are called upon.
Probably all of whom would be ex-IDF – like those ones that pepper-sprayed those American students in their university not long ago and the uni admin looked the other way.
California Can Ban Guns in Parks and Bars, but Not Hospitals, Court Says New York Times
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That’s batshit crazy, but in the end the gun always wins in our country, but doesn’t do very well in the Olympics, where you would think Americans would sweep the shooting events.
Out of 36 potential medals up for grabs in :Paris this year, we nabbed 4.
That new angle of prosecuting parents of teenage mass murderer shooters is interesting, can we push it into adulthood, say prosecute against a 29 year old male’s mom?
Americans could sweep the shooting events at the Olympics mind you, but for some strange reason Olympic officials will not allow automatic fire on the firing ranges. Americans! :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBHNsc5EL1Q (6 secs)
Americans could sweep the shooting events, but for some strange reason Olympic officials will not allow using people as targets on the firing ranges, yet.
” Olympic officials will not allow using people as targets on the firing ranges,”
Shucks, there goes Dick Cheney’s medal in the skeet shooting competition.
Well, I think there were no AR15 weapons being used. Now there is where Americans rule.
sigh… AR stands for the manufacture’s intitials – Armalite Rifle. AR designates the manufacturere and 15 stands for the model number. It says nothing about the caliber or the firing mechanism. (No automatic rifles – as opposed to semi-automatic are sold to the public, unless the purchaser goes through masses of govt paperwork. And no, a semi-automatic is not classified as a military grade assault rifle.) When someone demonizes “AR-15” they might as well say Remington model# rifle, showing they no nothing at all about rifles. sigh….
It is a fairly straightforward job to finagle a semi-automatic firearm into an ‘automatic’ firearm. The saving grace here is that the vast majority of gun owners in America have not been properly trained in the use of their ‘boomsticks.’ The increasingly “militarized” police forces of America have been so trained.
This brings up a conundrum in the ever festering socio-political issue of mass resistance to the Government. To form an effective mass army, one must either impose maximum control from above, not a big possibility in America, or condition the ‘mass army’ to be willing to die for the “cause.” Considering the divisive and fragmenting nature of Neo-liberal society, that is not probable either.
As the solons here have mentioned before, that leaves factional infighting among the elites.
Time to start subverting your local branch of the Uniparty!
I don’t disagree with this analysis. I do think, though, that it’s a bit either-or. Which is not, imo, the current situation. B. Clinton ended the organized militia movement in the US with raids on compounds.
Adding the vast majority of gun owners are law abiding hunters, target shooters, collectors, and enthusiasts. The evening news ramps up fear of almost anything for almost any reason. “If it bleeds, it leads.” / my 2 cents
Bill Clinton did not so much end the organized militia movement in America with his “raids,’ as drive it underground. Back in the 1980s I was working as a maintenance man at an “upscale” apartment complex, several blocs of townhouses in rows. One of the tenants was an ATF agent. He always went around armed, concealed carry, everywhere. He had been involved with the bungled raid on the compound in Waco, Texas. While I was fixing something in his kitchen, he mentioned that the ATF had a national map with the locations of known militant groups indicated. He mentioned in passing that there were over a thousand locations pinned on that map. This for organized groups, not just lone nutters.
One observation and then I’ll shut up. The 17 city shut down of the Occupy movement was largely successful because no one seriously resisted. To that end, the Government maintained their exclusive right to the use of organized violence. I’ll posit that actual revolutions happen when out groups challenge and oppose that claim by the Government. Not just a change of “leaders,” but a change in how the society is run.
They showed up at my Occupy with a front loader, a small armored personnel carrier with. .30 cal mini gun and the obligatory black clad gunsels and their truncheons. They also snipers in the office buildings around the square in front of City Hall.
I don’t see any odds in our favor trying to take on a 30 cal mini gun. Not the hill I would choose to die on.
Agreed. One has to choose one’s battles wisely. For America in its present state, IEDs and targeted “liquidations” are the best option open to non-army sized units.
re:”Time to start subverting your local branch of the uniparty!”
I agree. I’ll be doing my part this coming November. Wish we had handmarked paper ballots. That would give extra meaning to the saying “the pen is mightier than the sword.”/ ;)
Well yes, but pendantics aside, you know as well as I (and everyone reading this…) that the term is universally used by *both* sides to refer to that particular *style* of rifle, vaguely military looking, important more for enabling heroic cos-play fantasies than any real world capability. That vital link to Hollywood / COD fantasy is what protects the industry from blame every week when our children lie bleeding.
So what again is the point of arguing over the exact name of what we call their killer? Would naming the brand and model change the color of the blood?
I can only assume you did not grow up around rifles, or own a rifle or a shotgun, and know nothing about them. I assume you do not know the AR style has nothing to do with cos-play, but is instead designed to accommodate a sort of, what we’d call in most engineered items, a ‘standardized’ platform on which various components can be installed. For example, a PC motherboard has a specific, unsoldiered socket so the owner can install a variety of CPU chips.
The same is true with the Armalite Rifle “platform”. A user can buy the basic model with a certain caliber barrel, and also buy a second caliber barrel without the need to buy an entire second, complete gun. So you could have a .22 for target plinking and also a 30.06 for deer hunting. Much more economical and easier to store.
Though I’m pretty sure you don’t care about the above. / ;)
adding: the designations .22 and 30.06 refer to barrel calibers. Each caliber requires a different barrel size.
Semantics is about that’s left to use as a defense against the undefensible, er in this case 4 dead innocents from an assault rifle in the hands of a 14 year old, coming after July’s assassination attempt with yet another assault rifle which left an innocent dead.
How long are we going to apologize for military weapons?
It was not an “assault rifle”, unless you think any rifle used in a felonious assault is an assault rifle by definition. I can understand your confusion here if that’s what you think. (The definition of ‘assault rifle’ is very clear.) The civilian AR-15 is not a military weapon and not an assault rifle.
Getting the terms correct is important for any meaningful discussion. All else is MSM-prompted blather, imo.
Yeah, it is an assault rifle. The AR-15 is the semiautomatic version of the M-16. The M-16, like all automatic assault rifles of this and the prior century, was specifically designed to kill as many human beings as possible in the shortest amount of time.
The fact that an AR-15 cannot fire all of the rounds in its magazine with a single pull of the trigger, but instead requires a trigger pull for each round, does not significantly change the fact it was specifically designed to kill as many human beings as possible in the shortest amount of time.
The simple truth is that all magazine loaded semiautomatic weapons were designed to kill human beings. There is no need to quibble over anything. Ban them all.
>>>Semantics is about that’s left to use as a defense against the undefensible…
Words have meanings, yes? People keep calling Democrats communist, yes? Are they communists?
Is a car a truck, a SUV a sports car, a knife a machete? Are all vehicles using an internal combustion engine the same thing?
Words do have meanings. If those meanings deliberately ignored or twisted, if it is not deceitful, dishonest or lying, what is it?
‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens – evergreen Onion headline.
Can the weapons used in US mass shootings be described by any generic name or phrase, functionality, brand name, brand name ex-like, etc. or is the assumption that they may be something different from one case to another, with (sometimes) an implication that they can’t be discussed, let alone regulated, at all because there’s no way to describe them?
(I know nothing about guns. Maybe there’s a better way at least to describe the naming problem.)
brand name X-like
Thanks, Marym. You bring up an important point, imo.
Hmm well, “AR-15” or “AR” is much more than this, I’m afraid. As someone who practices gunsmithing (actually constructs and modifies these firearms, among others), I can tell you that these terms refer to an action type, or a mechanical description of the weapon, regardless of how the term was initially intended. This is the same as referring to an “M-1” action, an “R700”, “W70”, “H&K/CETME”, or an “AK-47” or “AK” action. At one time, these terms described the original designer, manufacturer, or patent holder, but that is not the case after time elapses, especially after patent expiration.
I also take issue with saying that a semi-automatic weapons are not military grade. There are a great many semi-autos, as well as pump-action, bolt action, and so on, in military service.
I consistently see right-wing people who constantly try to imply that the AR-15 pattern rifle is not designed to do what it was in fact designed to do. This does not advance “gun rights” or “self-defense” rights. It actually waters them down. This transparent, obfuscatory, rhetorical propaganda is a poor tactic. For one, everyone knows it’s bullshit. Secondly, if you take it at face value, it is a denial that you seek access to military technology, by denying that this weapon is a piece of military technology. If you want access to military technology, simply demand it, as those of us on the left do. I don’t care about the 2A, as I see self and community defense as an inherent human right, and I demand access to any weapon that our rulers use to threaten us with.
This does not mean that I am not appalled by gun violence, but I feel that the existence of this violence is more a function of the fact that our society has deliberately been turned into a pressure cooker, rather than the presence of weapons.
And to close this comment, I will give you the actual definition of the term assault weapon/assault rifle: A compact, autoloading rifle that fires an intermediate cartridge. (Nowhere in this definition does it state that the rifle must be automatic, select-fire, or burst capable. Semi-automatics ARE in fact autoloaders), and as far as I’m concerned, the only thing that makes a rifle “military grade” is the presence of a hammer-forged barrel, but I’m really into the weeds there….I’ll stop now.
There were no events that allowed a center fire rifle. All events were pellet (10 Meter) or rimfire (25 Meter pistol, 50 Meter rifle), as this saves space. In past Olympics 300 Meter rifle was an event and an AR platform could meet the rules.
On the other hand, some US states do not allow ownership of some popular Olympic competition rimfire pistols that have the magazine in front of the trigger as this gets the pistols classified as Assault Rifles.
Correction, Assault Weapon.
I really, really want to know if that teen was on a prescription SSRI medication, or any psych med. I REALLY want to know that. So many studies around SSRIs bad mental side effects are out there, particularly in male teens, but the studies are ignored. ($) It will never be mentioned either way, I’m sure. / grrr.
I agree, Flora. Here’s an article (pdf) on it.: https://www.cchrint.org/pdfs/violence-report.pdf
Thanks for this link.
To be fair, the young lad’s father was a bit irresponsible:
“Colin Gray told investigators this week he had purchased the gun used in the killings as a holiday present for his son in December 2023, according to two law enforcement sources with direct knowledge of the investigation.
“One source told CNN the AR-15-style rifle was purchased at a local gun store as a Christmas present. The timeline the teen’s father provided to authorities would put the gun purchase months after authorities first contacted Gray and his family to investigate school shooting threats made online.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/05/us/winder-georgia-shooting-apalachee-high-school
Thanks for this link.
School is now in session in the USA. It was announced with another school mass shooting.
A not unrelated question, I think, is this: How many of our school children are on prescribed psychiatric medications? And why?
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psychiatry-through-the-looking-glass/202108/are-children-and-adolescents-overprescribed
Since USA Shooting was created to take international shooting from the NRA there has been a decline in participation in these events. NRA has put more emphasis on “tactical” style shooting.
There has also been the split where the Civilian Marksmanship Program national matches and NRA national matches are no longer held together.
My state (Hawaii) does offer air and smallbore rifle competition for high school teams but I don’t know how many high schoolers continue on after graduation.
Some continue on to college/university teams based on my observations at CMP Anniston, Fort Moore and some other regional matches. Note that some schools still have pistol/rifle/shotgun teams.
– ‘The Militarisation of Scandinavia & the Coming Wars’ – Glenn Diesen (Robin K, Micael T)
This is an important article in that it covers an aspect of the long-term NATO project that many of us neglect. Turning the Baltic states into lackeys and harnessing their Russia hatred was a pretty obvious move. Turning the Scandinavian states into lackeys has been more depressing.
The entire piece is worth reading, but I would like to highlight this crucial paragraph:
“… It is assumed that the US shares the interests of Scandinavia, and is selflessly building a military presence there to provide security. The US has a security strategy based on hegemony, which is dependent on weakening all emerging rivals. The US Security Strategy of 2002 explicitly linked national security to global dominance as the objective to “dissuade future military competition” should be achieved by advancing “the unparalleled strength of the United States armed forces, and their forward presence”.[15] While Scandinavia has an interest in maintaining peaceful borders with Russia, the US has defined its interests in destabilising Russian borders.[16] Peacetime alliances are reliant on perpetuating conflicts rather than solving them as conflict ensures loyalty from the protectorate and the containment of the adversary. In his famous work on how to advance and perpetuate US global hegemony, Brzezinski wrote the US must “prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and keep the barbarians from coming together”.[17]
I get so damn sick of reading about how all of the chaos and destabilization our policies have unleashed on the world is always a result of our “incompetence” or “short-sightedness” or some other such bulls**t line. It’s not. It’s planned. Those who shape our policy write about it, talk about it, and then do it. That doesn’t mean these policies won’t eventually bite us in the ass, but they’ll take down our lackeys first. That the entire leadership class of Europe has been turned into “pliant tributaries” of the US/NATO has been quite the achievement.
“Those who shape our policy write about it, talk about it, and then do it. That doesn’t mean these policies won’t eventually bite us in the ass, but they’ll take down our lackeys first. That the entire leadership class of Europe has been turned into “pliant tributaries” of the US/NATO has been quite the achievement.”
Brings to mind the other post in today’s links: Lies Have Consequences – Tarik Cyril Amar
“In most of the world, the politicians of the West keep losing whatever is left of their credibility. The West’s mainstream media will fare no differently.”
I want to emphasize:
This all must have tangible and lasting consequences, beyond lost credibility, for those in power. Then there can be a possibility of change. They can go on and on with lie after lie and on to the next power grab as long as no consequences are faced.
It can’t only be “suffer the pleebs” and the establishment keeps failing upward and passing on that legacy.
The thinking is to the point of “So what if you don’t believe us. What are you going to do about it?”
Even when the US “loses” wars it wins. By the “US” of course I mean Washington which thrives almost entirely due to war. It was kind of accidental in the Civil War but WWI, WWII, started the high profit margin for industry plus bribes to Congress such that there is absolutely no reason win in any war–money will be made and the US population will forget as it has forgotten Vietnam & Afghanistan and we still thank soldiers for their “service” to the oligarchs. As long as this keeps up and impoverishes the majority the mind-control specialists will refine their craft as they have done for over a century.
“the Arctic will be converted into NATO sea”.
A cursory look at a map totally refutes this assertion. No matter what, the arctic route from let’s say Murmansk to China is under Russian control, practically and legally (UNCLOS). The way Russia has only a bit of access to the Baltic Sea via Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg, same way, US and European allies have access to the arctic.
The Canadian arctic is more complex and there is little to nothing in terms of infrastructure and ability to create adequate infrastructure.
The total population of Norway, Finland, and Sweden is 16 milion, and they are highly concentrated…
Americans could sweep the shooting events at the Olympics mind you but for some strange reason, Olympic officials will not allow automatic fire on the firing ranges. Americans! :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBHNsc5EL1Q (6 secs)
Had radio on in the car this morning as I ran errands and CBS Radio news came on at top of the hour. Lead story was the arrest of a Pakistani national on a single terrorism charge for wanting to target NYC Jews (sounded like a nothingburger but the news reader made a huge deal of it as if another 9/11 had been averted), and then when it came to Aysenur Eygi they insinuated in a bunch of ways that her getting shot in the head and killed was all her fault. It was pretty disgusting but what I’ve come to expect from CBS News. I usually turn it off but thought I should probably hear what garbage they were peddling today.
BBC news is heavily pushing the fact thqt Aysenur Eygri was of ‘Turkish extraction’ i.e. not a proper American. She was also just ‘killed’.No mention of by whom. Western media sink into their own morass of disingenuity in reporting about Israeli terrorism.
Shot in the head by an Israeli soldier because she was a rock-throwing “instigator” is what I heard reported.
I’m sure Israeli security services are also instructed to shoot Jewish rock throwers in the head. /s
Hmmm… wonder if it’s this guy:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-quebec-terror-investigation-1.7315604
How did the FBI know what he was planning?
The article continues with a lengthy quotation from a former senior official from Canada’s national intelligence service warning of the continued danger from ISIS and how it can strike anywhere with online recruitment. To highlight the point, the article concludes by emphasizing the arrest was made in a small town (population 4,000) in a quiet corner of Quebec.
Saved again by our heroic security services!
That sounds about right, Will. Thanks. Sounded like another “special”, if you catch my drift.
File under dollars and cents: Big pharma pushes the high dollar semiglutide medication as a weight loss solution for non-diabetics, and no mention of the inexpensive supplement berberine. Odd. / ;)
From the Cleveland Clinic:
What To Know About Berberine: Benefits, Uses and Side Effects
The natural supplement may help with weight loss, lower blood sugar and protect your heart
https://health.clevelandclinic.org/berberine-for-insulin-resistance-weight-loss
(I am not a medico.)
In the month of August, I had the unfortunate job to deal with SEVEN new onset 20something Type 2 DM. That is now not all that unusual in my life.
More than 3 decades ago, as a young physician, this was profoundly unusual, maybe once a year. Type 2 DM in the 1980s waited for the patients until they were at least 50 the vast majority of the time. I hear all the time from my pediatrics colleagues that they can no longer call Type I “Juvenile onset” DM – because the kids now overwhelmingly have Type 2, not Type I. The level of obesity in young people is just overwhelming. On a recent trip to the big city, I visited a WalMart and a Target. I was literally overwhelmed by the number of 300+ pound people loading their carts with chips, candy and Dr. Pepper. It was difficult not to notice at the cash register that this was being paid for by Uncle Sam. It was so bad, that often the aisles were clogged with traffic because the 300 pounders were moving so slow and there were enough of them to clog up the store. They were often followed by 8 or 9 year olds who were pushing up on 200 lbs as well. As a physician, knowing what these people will face, the whole thing is just heart-breaking.
This is so common, that it is so hard to express that the human misery will be just incredible in the next generation. I do not know what else to say. And yet our media is now decrying “fat shaming” – any comment about this topic and these simple facts is racist, misogynist, ableist or whatever. I get so infuriated.
I spend much of my time every day dealing with this. Please note – I never bring up drugs for obesity or diabetes unless the patient is already at “terminal” levels or if their subsequent behavior makes it obvious that they are a processed food addict and will need meds to do what we can to protect their organs. I consider that a loss. I also realize that so much of the problem is also in the bath of chemicals forced upon us all every day…….Who would have ever dreamed that placing highly acidic substances like Pepsi or ketchup in plastic bottles was a good idea? – That is just one example of hundreds.
There is another way – it costs nothing and involves no meds – but it reverses all of these problems within months. I sit down, look them right in the eyes, and often through much tears and anguish, we go through how they must change their lives. I call it “repentance” – in the true Ancient Greek meaning of that word. More on that in a minute. They must eschew their current life and practice. Avoid all processed foods. Exercise daily multiple times even if it is nothing more than walking blocks. Learn to make all of their own food from simple staple ingredients. Focus on produce, eggs, and lean non-processed meat. And have a coach – myself/my profoundly awesome diabetic/obesity educators. People who will guide them through this harrowing experience.
I am fortunate to work where I do – I am allowed to spend the time with people to really make a difference. This would be literally impossible in a modern insurance/medical practice model – 10 minutes a visit – get ’em in get ’em out.
The very first thing that came out of Jesus mouth in his ministry was – “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand”……Modern Christians tend to think of the word “repent” in this setting as asking forgiveness of sins. That is absolutely NOT a correct translation at all. It is a complete misunderstanding of the entire context of Jesus time. He was an example of 1st century Jewish apocalyptic teaching. Those who saw the terminal problems of the day and realized that a complete change was on the way. Those who realized the current system was completely broken. The word “repent” in the Gospels is actually μετάνοια or in English Metanoia – this is a portmanteau – which was very common in the Greek during the time the New Testament was written – it basically means CHANGE YOUR MIND, CHANGE YOUR SOUL, etc. It has nothing whatever to do with forgiveness. It means – you must change your life – to get ready for what is to come.
I work with these individuals all the time – THEY MUST CHANGE THEIR LIVES, THEIR ENTIRE OUTLOOK, It is quite frankly the only way out without exiting life miserably and/or becoming a lifetime addict of Big Pharma. And unfortunately with the current financial situation of our government – I do not know how long the enormous expense of taking care of all these sick individuals will continue. The health care system may not survive too long in its current shape. I urge these patients to “change their soul” to heal themselves before their very life becomes dependent on what may not be there very soon.
I hate to be so dour – but it is what I see every day. The impending tragedies are becoming overwhelming. I am no longer able to even be shocked. It is truly reaching horrific levels.
Our entire culture is going to have to face some μετάνοια and to do so very soon – and again I do not know what else to say. We can no longer afford what we are doing financially, culturally, or spiritually.
I found your comment profoundly moving. I hope I can ‘repent’ and convince my children to ‘repent’, using the word in the meaning your comment revealed. I feel a great change coming. I am not ready and I fear I may not be ready in time. I believe the crumbling of the u.s. Empire is much further along than the crumbling of Rome was in Jesus’s times. The climate ‘change’ and nearing resource exhaustion demand that we ‘repent’ if we have any desire to survive the crucible. That may be our best ‘mitigation’. I seriously doubt that any “Kingdom of Heaven” will rise from the ruins.
Thank you for writing this and thanks to all the other voices in alternative media that are saying essentially the same thing. These constant reminders are very helpful in resisting the overwhelming power of the toxic food and pharmaceutical status quo.
Love your letters on NC.
Without much meaning in life why wouldn’t you just engage in addictive behavior? Many of these people know they are unhealthy but won’t change their habits because they don’t give a sh*t about themselves and would just as soon die early. This is, obviously, a cultural problem due to the stunningly poor nature of public “education” in the United States particularly among the non-rich. I see no way out of this other than massive cultural change and a return to the notion of virtue and meaning in life and moving away from popular “entertainments” which also seem to cause this problem of passivity and lack of agency.
IM Doc
Thank you ever so much for your “inspiring” remarks.
There was a science fiction novella written called The Last Castle. Those members of the Castle Class who rejected ” High Castle-ism” ( if you will) and lived a totally Castle-disconnected life were called the Expiationists. Their expiationism for having been members and beneficiaries of “High Castle–ism” might offer an easy science-fictiony way of understanding the Repentance being written about here if I understand IM Doc’s comment correctly.
Here is the link.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Castle_(novella)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metanoia_(theology)
I’ve read that same article, flora, and I’m taking it in addition to the amlodopine. Conflict? Don’t worry. There was a paper that said berberine supported amlodopine. It’s also supposed to lower blood glucose.
My BP this morning was 119/76. Not bad. It helps to be rid of the pheochromocytoma as well.
News I can use! Thank you for that nugget of information. Phyl takes berberine. Now I guess it’s my turn to become a “vitamin junky.”
The chemical berberine is found in barberries. ( I don’t know if “all” species of barberries (( genus Berberis)) have it or if only certain species do. Barberries as-such have been used to flavor cooking as well as in traditional medicine.
https://draxe.com/nutrition/barberry/
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/barberries
Here is information about barberries used for culinary purposes in cooking.
https://omgyummy.com/tasting-jerusalem-barberries/
https://www.linsfood.com/barberries-zereshk/
How many barberries ( or how much dried barberry spice/herb powder) would one have to eat in order to get as much berberine benefit as from one of those capsules?)
Wow, Harris endorsed by Putin, Liz Cheney, now Darth Vader:
Former Vice President Dick Cheney says he will vote for Harris
The Evil Empire has never been stronger.
The dems wanted to be the right wing party and it looks like they’ve succeeded…
At least publicly, Schumer has no worries about his party’s dwindling fortunes among working-class white voters. “For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.”
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/chuck-schumer-democrats-will-lose-blue-collar-whites-gain-suburbs/
In a truly free society, one that values human rights and life, Cheney would be in prison as a war criminal.
And in a less socially retarded society, Cheney’s endorsement of Harris would be seen as equally toxic as David Duke’s endorsement was in 2016.
Harris ought to say “I reject DIck Cheney’s endorsement because I don’t need the support of war criminals to win. And even if I did, winning that way would not be worth it.”
I suspect that these endorsements from the neocons are going to backfire. People can smell a rat.
This is perhaps the best news for Trump this week besides the sentencing being delayed until after the election.
It is more that Trump is willing to burn down the whole system just to protect his fragile ego. Outside of a right wing extremists this is not appealing. “ Goldman Sachs report: Harris would likely boost the economy while Trump would stifle growth”. I’m sure the billionaires don’t care much about specific policies as long as they don’t affect their wealth. Trump has gone entirely off the rails. Most of his unscripted talks are just jibberish. He could implode before the election leading to a complete rout.
“In Germany, a bank blocked the accounts of an AfD politician after his election to the Thuringian state parliament”
Not the first time we have seen a controversial politician have their bank accounts shut down-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Farage_Coutts_bank_scandal
That German bank came out with a statement saying ‘In principle, we do not systematically exclude anyone just because a person belongs to a certain party‘ but isn’t that what that British bank said? And just what ‘In principle’ actually mean? That they don’t normally do it but because they don’t like his politics, they decided to make an exception? Funny how stuff like this never happens to politicians in power like Annalena Baerbock, isn’t it.
re: Pharma Charges 80K to cure Hepatitis C. The Manufacturing Cost is $78 Ian Welsh (Micael T)
I just want to point out, if you’re a Canadian or Brit you’re as good as cured with your universal health care covering this ridiculous cost, this is one of the benefits of universal health care. The government deals with the predator so you don’t have to. Your doctor just signs you up for the program, there is no cost to you.
Not really. Here in Ontario (provinces differ) most adults are not covered for prescription drugs unless administered in hospital. Eg, Ontario’s drug plan.
Of course it cost a you, and me. Bankrupting a health system and enriching pharma costs us all our futures.
You can get them Hep cure (and IVM) from India for pennies on the dollar.
But it still costs somewhere. Here in Canada, Pharma tries to obtain the hospitalization costs. The cure for Hep-C is similar in price with the classical approach: year long interferon, hospitalizations, etc.
The Machine Stops Aurelien. Another important piece
Aurelien, this is a wonderful piece but is there a reason you don’t address the Swiss system of issue-based direct democracy? Or the various proposals for direct participatory democracies, especially the digital kind?
I’m cherishing this sentence: “Let’s simply say that a democracy exists when the wishes and wants of the citizens are as far as possible translated into the characteristics and functioning of the society in which they live.” However, my first thought went to the Swiss system of voting on specific issues, which seems to me to often translate into wishes and wants of the citizens, to the extent that tyranny of the majority becomes the problem.
This the reason the US Constitution incorporates a Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the Constitution. They exist to restrain the both govt and the mob from encroaching on individual rights. The First Amendment is under great attack just now by people in govt who find it inconvenient.
The Bill of Rights only restrains the government.
The “mob” in the U.S. is restrained by a government that only acts on the demands of the wealthy.
That question and worry is why the US Constitution incorporates the Bill of Rights, the restraints on what govt may do.
Indeed, flora. Direct participatory democracy + bill of rights could get us fairly close to democracy of the sort Aurelien describes as the ideal, translating wants of a population into the specifics of a desired society, while keeping certain rights intact and off limits.
I find his definition rather soft. I don’t think “wishes and wants” being “translated into characteristics” of society are what makes a democracy.
Democracy is a form of government with certain defining features. An political institution is democratic if:
A.) Most positions of power such as deliberative bodies and magistracies are peopled by sortition, not by election. Elections, classically, are for oligarchies because they ensure only the rich and rhetorically well-trained can run campaigns and get elected. This is why elites love republics. Sortition means Joe Smith who shines shoes on Friday might be a Congressman on Monday–you can see why this would make the elite nervous.
Thus the only democratic institution in the US government is the jury system.
B.) Democracies are majoritarian. The minority has no rights besides those the majority deigns to grant. The majority will of the people is absolute, which means when the people make mistakes, as they often do, they can be spectacular since the whole weight of the state is thrown behind the error (see the Sicilian Expedition). But it also means that, despite the “herding cats” nature of democratic rule, problems can be solved quite decisively. For example, in ancient Athens, you could just get rid of your political opponents via exile, which was one of the key ways Pericles concentrated authority into his network of democratic patronage to accomplish his program.
It’s not the squishy stuff of “wishes and wants,” which anyway can be manipulated and gamed via propaganda, that makes democracy. It’s the people’s *direct* rule, accomplished via random sortition, that allows the hairdresser or fishmonger or delivery driver to become statesmen standing astride Presidents and Kings on the world stage.
Since you are kind enough to ask, basically just lack of space if I am to keep these essays to a reasonable length. But I’ll try to address such questions subsequently. (As it happens I’m a great fan of sortition.)
Didn’t know that. I’ll get you three coffees then on the impulse.
That is President Xi’s almost word for word definition as well… Just saying…
Also Thomas Paine said something similar about good government as the one which administers the best (for the needs of the population)…
‘Science girl
@gunsnrosesgirl3
Her partner answered her call’
Her partner answered her call all right but if she had backed him up when he had that hyena down on the ground, there would have been meat on the menu that night. Those hyenas had forgotten the lion story-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KB2xignE6c (2:25 mins)
I’m willing to bet that those were two unrelated clips spliced together, as is common in nature documentaries. I don’t believe they’re related at all, beyond sharing lions and hyenas.
I also think it’s just over the border into anti-antidote.
Three days til the one debate and there’s quite a bit riding on it.
Up to now all we know of K’s positions are proclaimed in panel discussions on the news hour and Washington Week with the Atlantic (seriously, wtf,)
My guess is trump is getting amped up and kamala can’t sleep.
I have no idea what to expect or how it will be spun.
Edge cases…a terror event, allow bankruptcy on student loans, Iran retaliation…
The j force look an awful lot like brownshirts.
The wheels have come off and are hurtling into oncoming traffic.
The White House (I would reference the sitting pres. but for the obvious reason)
“Why did you kill an american protester now?”
Netanyahoo “They all look the same to me, kill them all and let god sort them out.”
With Netenyahu it is; “Kill them all and let their Ba’als sort them out, preferably in Gehenna.”
I never imagined that I would live long enough to see the formal return of Wars of Religion.
Well, it’s not quite a religious war–it’s clearly a Jewish supremacist war against the Palestinians or anyone in theory that doesn’t genuflect to Jerusalem. The Muslims would be happy to live peacefully with Jews as they’ve done for many centuries. The resistance axis is not fighting Israel because they are Jews but because Israel has a neo-Nazi regime fully supported by Washington.
“Those who make a populism of the Left impossible will make a populism of the Right inevitable.”
Aurelian reinforcing a message delivered by John Kennedy back in the old days of the original Cold War.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Yes, here’s a more in context quote from JFK’s speech:
The full speech is here:
Address on the First Anniversary of the Alliance for Progress
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Address_on_the_First_Anniversary_of_the_Alliance_for_Progress
Neoliberalism is destroying society and democracy. Those who possess wealth and power constantly act to do nothing but accumulate more wealth and power. I’m stating the obvious, but greed is not good. Our country has reached the point where vast wealth for individuals and corporations can only be achieved by pushing millions into poverty along with strip mining our public commons, and the power of the state can only be expanded by stripping away the basic freedoms that protect our democracy.
RE: Post encampment crisis on campus
This X video is interesting. The bravado of these men is much greater than their authority. See any weapons other than the baton? These guys are NOT ‘sworn’ officers. They are, at best, Community Safety Officers (CSO’s) and have no authority other than to observe and report. If they were to detain any student they could be both criminal and civil liable for false arrest. (The fellow with the baton could be charged with carrying a weapon.)
Colleges using these types of people on campus are simply courting enormous legal liability. There is no sovereign immunity for ‘rent-a-cop’.
Baton? What baton? The guy third from left is carrying an umbrella.
The one on the left has a coffee, though. That could be dangerous
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08-30/baby-boy-burned-in-hot-coffee-attack-brisbane-park-surgery/104289274
Good catch. However, their very presence and purpose for being on campus is the threat.
“We are the goon squad and we’re coming to town. Beep! Beep!”
I hope Georgi Markov isn’t on campus…
Newsom kills bill to let undocumented buy homes with state subsidy…
Because of his policies, the state is more than broke and could not fund the subsidies. However, the program was constantly announced for months on Spanish language media to harvest the votes of Hispanics, including the hopefuls accidentally registered by the DMV when obtaining drivers licenses.
Not one word about the veto however on the three stations we listen to.
Regarding Hep C drugs–$84,000 is a deal! My Medicare Advantage paid $120,000 in 2018, and covered all but $8.00 with no arguing. Symptoms stopped 2 weeks into treatment, and I had no side effects. It was like a miracle. I had planned to buy it in India, where it was $800, then. Or Vietnam, which provides it free to their citizens. I had no idea it was so cheap to make but it probably took around 30 years to develop, I think, being based on the protease inhibitor drugs created for HIV. Last I heard, even veterans had to pay for it. Shameful.
The Nibelung’s Ring: The Early Philosophy John Micael Greer.
I wonder if this guy has actually read any Hegel? He certainly knows sod all about The Ring. Siegfried is based on Mikhail Bakunin, Wagner’s comrade in arms during the 1849 Dresden uprising. Although he had worked on a scenario for the Ring, it evolved, firstly, into Siegfrieds Tod, a tale which in required an explanatory prequel, which in turn required a further explanatory prequel, and another prequel of a prequel hinging on the theft of gold from maidens living in the Rhine to keep the gold safe from other hands.
The result, the four operas of Der Ring des Nibelungen, describes the corrupting forces of power and gold and the motive for which Wotan breaks the laws he himself has made (eg, the United Nations Charter versus “the rules-based order”) and how gold and power each becomes the other, and The Ring effectively tells a tale which parallels Marx’s analysis of capitalism and it’s eventual collapse, leaving a world in which mankind has agency to create better and more equal, if not necessarily perfect, set of social, economic and political relationships without the interference of the Gods, et al. Neither Wagner nor Marx indicated what form those relationships might take in practice. The were both essentially concerned with the analysis of power and it’s sources, including, in both cases, debt which plays a key role in The Ring.
For me, the The Ring has always been the quintessential leftwing parable which can fruitfully be applied to the antics of the Collective West and so many of it’s loathsome cast, and Hegel, whatever conclusions others have reached, has always seemed to me to be much more a man of the left than of the liberal centre or the right. He followed his thought where it took him, changed his mind when his thoughts led him to, and was a popular teacher whose lecture rooms rang with student laughter at his sallies. And if you bear that in mind, Hegel becomes a lot easier to understand. He was a working philosopher aware that the search for knowledge will never reach completion and that any conclusions which might be reached would be, at best, provisional. As Wagner realised when he turned to Schopenhauer for what seemed to be a completion of his intellectual journey – but which hardly explains the creation of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, a celebration of community, life and humanity.
A little counterintuitive escaping the Coffee Pot Fire by going to Burning Man, but it allowed me to avoid some awful days locally in Tiny Town with near 400 AQI smoke in the air.
The fire is now 27% contained @ a bit over 13,000 acres torched, and all in all a beneficial blaze in that no buildings were lost in its path, mainly because humans seldom build domiciles on 45 degree mountain slopes.
About 15-20 feet of understory on the upside slope of Mineral King road was removed and chipped for 8 miles as a precautionary move against the fire moving towards the asphalt line of defense and doubling its effectiveness as a bulwark against a future conflagration, and this being on National Park land, could never have been accomplished under non-fire conditions, as everything is protected in our NP’s, nor is there the money in the NPS budget to do it anyway, coming on top of 6% annual cuts in the budget each of the last 3 years.
We talk about bringing back the draft, but in lieu of killing other humans and not calling it murder, why don’t we have a draft for firefighters, as the Big Heat of +1.5 C is going to cause evaporation which is going to dry things out and wildfires will be increasingly as common as Halloween in Detroit, why not prepare for something wicked this way comes?
We turned Navy Seals into the holiest of holy, but Hotshots are the real deal and thoroughly badass… have a read of today’s fire report on the Coffee Pot:
In that video of the deer and the crows . . . what are the crows doing? It looks to me as if they are pulling strips of dried velvet off the deer’s antlers. Since deer try rubbing all the velvet off their own antlers once the antlers have fully grown and the velvet is all dried up and not needed for anything any more, the crows’ velvet-pulling is helping the deer out ( whatever the motives of the crows might be).
( By the way, these crows look just big enough and their bills look just strongly arched enough as to make me wonder if they are crows or ravens. If this footage was shot in England, they might be ravens rather than crows).
( And now that I think about it, towards the end of the video one of the birds looks like a big baby demanding the other bird feed it. And the “other bird” has a very ravenish-looking arched bill).
They are Ravens and not Crows.
Oariá raiô
Obá obá obá
Oariá raiô
Obá obá obá
Mas que nada
She da miner of money
Ok, you are what passes for
Poise or semblance of animation
Or are you are clueless & a low bar
Estimation la bomb-a
Ok, you mystery of unburdened
La bomb-a the pretty giggle
Smile for the camera, you!
Mas que nada
Some la bomb-a promo its all legal
Voices never say the empress has no close
Ok, no accounting final
Oariá raiô
Obá obá obá
Oariá raiô
Obá obá obá
Mas que nada
She da miner of money
Ok, you are what passes for
Poise or semblance of animation
Or are you are clueless & a low bar
Estimation la bomb-a
Ok, you mystery of unburdened
La bomb-a the pretty giggle
Smile for the camera, you!
Mas que nada
Some la bomb-a promo its all legal
Voices never say the empress has no close
Ok, no accounting final
Oariá raiô
Obá obá obá
Oariá raiô
Obá obá obá
Obá obá obá
Obá obá obá
Obá obá obá
Obá obá obá
Mas Que Nada, by Sergio Mendes and Brasil 66
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Zu0iDvCjgk
Something for the end of the day. So a feminist reporter was interviewing a bunch of mean, armed, tough Taliban members as part of a doco by Vice and Showtime and guess how it went-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RStYQzfW5JI (1:30 mins)
Kosovo Citizens Urged to Avoid Serbia Amid Road Blockades Threats Prishtina Insight under the rubric The Caucasus.
Neither Kosovo nor Serbia are situated in the Caucasus though.