Black, red or dead: How Omaha became a hub for black squirrel scholarship Flatwater Free Press
Alarming Links Uncovered: Blue Light From Screens May Trigger Early Puberty and Stunt Growth SciTech Daily
SCIENTISTS INVENT GIANT DISHWASHING MACHINE FOR ENTIRE HUMAN BODIES Futurism
A $6 million banana?! Finshots
Climate/Environment
Climate change drives up insurance costs — and missed mortgage payments Floodlight
COP-out 29 Michael Robert’s Blog
Pandemics
We Asked 5 Experts What Trump Should Do About Bird Flu. Here’s What They Said. Barron’s
Five Eyes on India
The India-Canada Diplomatic Spat is Getting Even Worse Inkstick
Nijjar murder case: Canada invokes direct indictment, trial against four Indians to proceed without preliminary hearing Indian Express
After Kenya, now Bangladesh to review its power deals, including with Adani group The Print
Adani indictment may test Trump’s desire to keep India in US orbit Business Standard
Africa
Seven Wagner mercenaries killed in Mali attack claimed by al Qaeda affiliate The Economic Times
China?
Commentary: US car industry is passing the baton to China with barely a fight Channel News Asia
How China could strike back at Trump’s tariffs Asia Times
***
U.S. to deploy missile units to Japan islands in Taiwan contingency Kyodo News
Taiwan’s ex-President Tsai says U.S. should prioritize assisting Ukraine Focus Taiwan
Philippines VP Sara Duterte threatens Marcos assassination if she is killed Al Jazeera
O Canada
Justin Trudeau dances at Taylor Swift concert as rioters storm streets of Canada New York Post
Trudeau, political leaders denounce ‘violence and hatred’ at anti-NATO demonstration in Montreal CBC. Commentary:
I was at the protests in downtown Montreal last night. The goal of the protest was to condemn the NATO military alliance for their role in global warfare and their support for Israel.
After a few blocks some windows were broken, including those of the Palais des Congrès where…
— Alex Tyrrell (@AlexTyrrellPVQ) November 23, 2024
Old Blighty
Jewish Anti-Zionist Activist Describes His Arrest Under UK’s Anti-Terror Law Truthout
Collapsing Empire: RIP Royal Navy Kit Klarenberg, Global Delinquents
Five Innovations that Make Defence Procurement Faster and Cut Cost and Risk The Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies
Hunger is a violation of our basic human rights – we should be outraged by UK’s food bank crisis Big Issue
European Disunion
Populist Calin Georgescu takes surprise lead in Romania’s presidential election Euronews
Contra Populism? New Left Review
Syraqistan
War on Gaza: Palestinians haunted by Israeli grave defilements and body theft Middle East Eye
One-third of Jewish-American teens say they ‘sympathise’ with Hamas, Israeli government poll shows Middle East Eye
Israeli Government Imposes Sanctions on Haaretz, Cuts All Ties and Pulls Advertising Haaretz
‘Israel’ attacks press in Lebanon, Al Mayadeen mourns two colleagues Al Mayadeen
The ‘pact of silence’ between Israelis and their media +972 Magazine. From October, still germane. Commentary:
2/ No need to pity us. We are reaping the death we have sown. But it is important to state clearly that Israel is as weak as it has ever been and it is growing weaker. I’ve written this previously, but anyone who thinks Israel is triumphant is sorely mistaken. —>
— Ori Goldberg (@ori_goldberg) November 24, 2024
And:
7/ Our genocide is justified by our version of the big lie with which I began – that our lives are alone worthy of being acknowledged as lives. We were built and suckled on supremacy, so our shift to murderous solipsism was the most radical the world has ever seen. —>
— Ori Goldberg (@ori_goldberg) November 24, 2024
Hacker group claims to have targeted Mossad UPI
***
Israel and Lebanon on cusp of ceasefire deal, officials say Axios
A map of Hezbollah’s attacks today against Israel, the most it has ever done in a single day at 51. The farthest south was a drone attack targeting a naval base in Ashdod, only 20 miles north of the Gaza Strip. pic.twitter.com/HmiYx3Tfuc
— Séamus Malekafzali (@Seamus_Malek) November 24, 2024
***
Pakistani capital in lockdown before march by Imran Khan’s supporters Al Jazeera
New Not-So-Cold War
Oreshnik Transforms War, Zelensky Demands More Useless Air Defence, UK MoD Seethes, Russia Advances Alexander Mercouris (Video)
Russia increases its advance pace and continues to capture the entire Donetsk Oblast – ISW Ukrainska Pravda
Wonder-Weapon Mania Dies Down Revealing Ukraine’s Wire-Frame Reality Simplicus the Thinker
Russia recruits Yemeni mercenaries to fight in Ukraine FT
***
Energy ‘corruption’ leaves Ukrainians facing a deadly freeze The Times
The Holodomor Industry Bandera Lobby Blog
Once an open neo-Nazi, Azov Movement’s top figure Dmytro Kukharchuk is upbeat about “working meetings” at Pentagon. He says Pentagon is optimistic about Ukraine and keen to replicate the example of 3rd detached assault brigade (controlled by the political leadership of the far… pic.twitter.com/mRrmUGUftS
— Leonid Ragozin (@leonidragozin) November 22, 2024
The Caucasus
Georgian opposition gears up to disrupt inaugural parliament session Bne Intellinews
South of the Border
VIDEO: Evo Morales speaks to The Grayzone, blames U.S. for assassination attempt The Grayzone
Spook Country
Why has the CIA been Hiding the JFK Files for 62 Years? Larry Johnson, Sonar21
Trump Transition
The counter-insurgency is “on” – against Trump’s ‘storm’ Alastair Crooke
Trump’s national security pick: I’m on same page as Jake Sullivan about ‘our adversaries’ Politico
Tech under Trump, part 1 Blood in the Machine
Democrats en déshabillé
Bill Clinton: “in demonizing all establishments and all people who wear a tie like you and me to work and have a good education, we are breaking down the legitimacy of…people who actually know things that are very important for us today and very important for our continued… pic.twitter.com/0OfAJOa6yV
— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) November 24, 2024
Police State Watch
Antitrust
Monopoly Round-Up: Economic Termites Preparing to Feast? BIG by Matt Stoller
AI
CHURCH SETS UP AI-POWERED JESUS INSIDE CONFESSIONAL BOOTH Futurism
Another four miles Internal exile
Groves of Academe
THE BUSINESS-SCHOOL SCANDAL THAT JUST KEEPS GETTING BIGGER The Atlantic
The Bezzle
Gamblers Are Sinking Billions Into a Leveraged Market Fringe Bloomberg
Class Warfare
Inside the State Fight Over ‘Swipe Fees’ Boondoggle
As Wall Street freezes Floridians out of home ownership, talk of reform ripples through Tallahassee Seeking Rents
To stay on the farm, more and more farmers are working second and even third jobs Harvest Public Media
Beyond Productivity: Reimagining Futures of Agriculture and Bioeconomy Review of African Political Economy
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
Bibi Bows
(melody borrowed from In The Jailhouse Now by Jimmie Rodgers, 1926)
Bibi knows how to handle a mob
In Israel that’s the PM’s job
Though half the country wants to bring him down
A coalition government’s OK
He makes deals out in the hallway
A handshake’s fine—no need to write it down
And Bibi’s taking bows
Who knew from sacred cows?
Everybody has their price
Bibi bargains hard and he’s cold as ice
He stays on top somehow
(musical interlude)
Bibi loves to bluff at poker
Never been an honest broker
He plays high stakes that put the rest to shame
But he’s left a crooked trail
And the court’s pulled back the veil
His parade won’t make it to the finish line
And Bibi’s taking bows
Who knew from sacred cows?
Everybody has their price
Bibi bargains hard and he’s cold as ice
He stays on top somehow
(more musical interlude)
Lounging in his big Jacuzzi
Whilst cookin’ up a real doozy
Bibi thinks they’ll never run him down
He owns the land of milk and honey
The U.S. sends pallets of money
When Trump comes in he’ll just be Bibi’s clown
And Bibi’s taking bows
Who knew from sacred cows?
Though you rarely lost at the polling place
Your whole career’s been a huge disgrace
You stayed on top somehow
‘Ken Klippenstein
@kenklippenstein
Bill Clinton: “in demonizing all establishments and all people who wear a tie like you and me to work and have a good education, we are breaking down the legitimacy of…people who actually know things that are very important for us today and very important for our continued growth and prosperity and harmony.”‘
So would that apply for people wearing ties that were responsible for America’s response to the Pandemic? To those who wear ties that enable the Israeli genocide in Gaza? And people with ties that are trying their hardest to push America into a shooting war with Russia? Ties denotes nothing.
By coincidence I read today that somebody tried to edit out all mention of Epstein in Bill’s Wikipedia page but I see that it is back again. The internet never forgets.
Tie-demon Clinton thinks we have prosperity to continue? Growth? They’ve forgotten how to talk to regular people.
Bill is legacy shopping with what he has, but but he always spoke to his specific audience. He just predates the 24/7 coverage.
Not to mention “harmony.”
Clinton has a conflict of interest here.
Come to think of it, Donald Trump always wears a tie, even when he’s flipping fries at McDonald’s.
There’s a story that he showed up at U Penn to take his son to game, and slapped him in the face for bring under dressed. Told him to put on a suit and tie.
Weird for Bill who seems to have always been friendly with tech bros, to tout ties.
Fit with his his sexism, tho.
Will Tanner disagrees with you:
https://x.com/Will_Tanner_1/status/1848428845961273846
And I seriously disagree with you on the sexism charge. I started working when everyone in a professional setting wore a suit. Women mainly wore suits (as in tailored jackets with a skirt, although by the 1990s pantsuits were seen as acceptable). A tailored dress was OK but risked being disempowering by looking like the wearer might be trying to look too sexy.
I very much enjoyed my suits from back then. I had to get rid of a ton due to lack of current use. I still miss them. They were great clothes.
Generally, I think uniforms are a very good thing.
“It is doubtless important to the good of nations that those who govern have virtues or talents, but what is perhaps still more important to them is that those who govern do not have interests contrary to the mass of the governed; for in that case the virtues would become almost useless and the talents fatal.”
Alexis DeTocqueville, “Democracy in America”
Best…H
Touché, Hank.
Whoops. No “Epstein” on Bill’s page just now. The Blob never sleeps.
Reporter host follow up question to Bill Clinton: “Could you be a little more vague?”
If tie-wearing people hadn’t lied so much to Americans over the past 60 years (I’m starting with the Gulf of Tonkin incident) then they might not be so demonized nowadays.
The Clintons need to retire from public life and ride off into the sunset. They are a dead weight on the Democratic party as well as comically tone deaf and out of touch. Losing twice to Trump has not humbled them or got them to rethink their politics in any serious way. It’s just embarrassing at this point.
Was it always about the grift with them? Still raising money for their foundation?
bill clinton and his men with ties, completely destroyed the new deal and Gatt, and turned us into a giant hedge fund/bank with nukes.
what those men with ties did, is to turn a manufacturing economic super power, into a banana republic.
most likely what they did, can’t be reversed, at least under normal circumstances.
In the great duopoly, the dems and the repubs, or, as I’ve come to think of analogously ….Ren and Stimpy. Both Ren and Stimpy are going for world domination, If I remember correctly.
For both Ren and Stimpy have a hurdle to this world domination, for it to succeed, automation and AI first need to be able to mine and grow the physical wealth of the planet, convert and distribute products and devise machines and systems that need no human capital in the full cycle production – of course the only human interface would be actual humans who would be of the appropriate caliber and wearing ties (for some unknown psycho reason). By first enslaving the entire non-human production cycle; world domination will be achieved and a huge reduction in the surplus human capital (in the name of capital efficiency). This huge reduction in human capital will be a new age of plenty – a new utopia.
Unfortunately for humans (maybe not for the rest of life on earth) , some humans are working for sentient AI that would require no humans at all, would be called a new life form and, some may believe they can put their conscience into one of these things, thereby, avoiding death.
On the business front – why do businesses strive for efficiencies in production and inefficiencies in the products they produce – I mean why is software becoming so bloated and data hungry to the point that hardware needs to be updated to keep apace…. oh wait, that is the point – repeat sales.
And who is going to buy this stuff when jobs have been automated away.
Sorry for the rant – But what I see on the global basis comes down a Ren and Stimpy mindset. I guess its all entertainment all the time with no actual goal or high purpose… until the merry-go-round stops.
or
It could be just musical chairs…yea thats it… I should of just left it a musical chairs
Ren and Stimpy were not concerned with world domination. I suspect you’re referring to Pinky and The Brain.
ya
I am pretty sure the CEOs and boards of Boeing wear a ties. And they sure as hell knew enough to destroy a once great company in the name of profits over quality.
And don’t forget the private equity folks who have worked so hard to rip everything of value from struggling retail operations before sending them into bankruptcy.
Or how about the bankers whose financial schemes who crashed the economy in 2008 and probably soon again.
And then there are the Sacklers (opiod fraud and devastation) and the people who run United Health (billions stolen from Medicare and counting) and Warren and pals over at Berkshire Hathaway not to mention the rest of the railroad owners who are sure that one person can handle a super long freight train…
All because they think they know more than they do and because there are no consequences when they screw up so badly.
And just for sh8ts and giggles, lets throw in Bill and all of Hillary’s top campaign people who thought they were so smart for 1.) getting Trump to run and 2.) thinking it was enough of a slam dunk that they ignored the rust belt and let Hillary campaign endlessly in Napa and Northern California. Yeah, they know things. Like how to alienate people who actually do things and perhaps recognize that this group of tie wearers couldn’t find their hand on a sunny day without an assistant.
Re: AI Jesus
As seen in THX 1138… coming soon.
Oh yeah. Just what the doctor ordered-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0YkPnwoYyE (2:49 mins)
‘You are a true believer, blessings of the State, blessings of the masses. Work hard, increase production, prevent accidents, and be happy.’
AI Jesus”, the lede,
A church in the Swiss city of Lucerne has set up a computer inside a confessional booth that allows churchgoers to converse with an “AI Jesus.” That’s got to be some kind of heresy.
Apparently it’s not supposed to be a “confession”. Maybe want to put it somewhere else then?
I like this, “It was really an experiment,” one of the church’s theologians Marco Schmid told the Guardian. “We wanted to see and understand how people react to an AI Jesus. What would they talk with him about? Would there be interest in talking to him? We’re probably pioneers in this.” Uh huh, you mean you wanted to see if your idea is going to go “ka-ching!”.
Hey, wait a minute. The whole point of Confession is that it is a very private matter between a parishioner and the local priest. And this theologian just said ‘What would they talk with him about?’ so does that mean that they will be reviewing everything that was said in that confessional booth?
Confession is the biggest con ever. All through history, all over many lands, priests have been busy informing the authorities about what their parishioners got up to, all the while preaching about the “secrecy of the confessional”
Yeah, but the data are anonymized.
I have always seen the confessional as a source of local power.
In every locality(especially in the past) there is some priest…. who knows the secrets kept by the townsfolk… both small and large…
How could this not be wielded as raw power, by people who are generally unaccountable for their own crimes and often related to local crime organizations and council bodies alike.
Seems like a good racket if you can get it. Talk about soft power. A license to blackmail.
Where’s the NC song set to the tune of Depeche Mode’s “Personal Jesus”?
Asseen in the Book of Exodus, with Golden Calves…
Someone should ask him what he thinks of the current goings-on in the Ukraine, and in Gaza/Lebanon…
When I first read the link “Black, red or dead: How Omaha became a hub for black squirrel scholarship …“, my crappy myopia substituted Obama for Omaha, and went looking for this curious connection in the article. LOL Need more coffee.
PS Fantastic antidote today. Definitely the way to approach adversity.
Rolf – I read that headline as Obama too and was most intrigued. Talk about inadvertent click bait. And I had finished my morning coffee!!
Here in eastern Ontario, we have mostly black and gray squirrels. Our red squirrels are much smaller, a little bigger than chipmunks and rarely seen hanging around feeders set out by humans. The black and grey squirrels and the chipmunks happily eat the peanuts we put out and scavenge for seeds spilled from the squirrel proof bird feeder. And yes like so many, I feel guilty about feeding the wild creatures but I can’t help myself. They are so enjoyable to watch. I do make sure that I buy decent seed mixes not those stuffed with additives that our feathered friends shouldn’t eat.
CanCyn,
Thank God I am not alone in my Obama-Omaha transposition! :-)
We have mostly Eastern Gray Squirrels here in Houston, and they are fearless, daredevil taunts.
I also read “Obama” instead of “Omaha” – I must be reading too much about the 2024 election.
I feel guilty about feeding the wild creatures. Me too. Once a year, late autumn, I put a bowl of walnuts out back under the oak trees (after the cats are in). A thanksgiving for squirrels of sorts.
The cats successfully hunt chipmunks and an occasional red squirrel, but not the grays, and there are not many black squirrels here.
Obama – Omaha.
Is there such a thing as ODS? (Obama Derangement Syndrome)
Wondering if ODS is a whites-only psychosis. Perhaps that explains why I thought of it.
More likely the word ” Omaha” appears so rarely in print that it gets seen as the very-visually-similar “Obama”.
The little red squirrel in our (Western end of Lake Ontario) yard is very aggressive — it routinely chases off the larger gray and black squirrels. It is also the primary nuisance where our bird feeder is concerned, since it can climb the metal pole (despite the slinky which deters other rodents) and is small enough to get inside the bars around it. We have managed to defeat it for now by adding a chicken wire barrier to the pole.
We were very surprised, maybe 10 or more years ago, to see a black squirrel in our street in Boston. Since then they have become quite common. I checked and found a couple of other people in the neighborhood who had noticed the same. Not often that you see evolution in action. However, like in Omaha, Boston squirrels are usually big grey ones, not small red, and they are shameless too, notoriously asking tourists for smokes and money in the Boston Public Garden. They take great pleasure flipping off and mooning my dogs.
re: antidote du jour.
Snow leopard singing Y M C A ?
Or Snow Leopard mistakenly peeing on an electric fence.
holy smoke that made me laugh remembering a friend doing exactly that – we pissed ourselves laughing
What an awesome animal. My cats think of themselves this way!
Beautiful.
Meanwhile, couldn’t help but think, who gives a crappola what bill Clinton thinks about anything. The filthy grifting child molester. He and Hilary deserve each other.
A question I’ve always wanted to ask a Hillary-bot is where was Hills when Bills was hanging out with Epstein and the sixteen year old girls on Lolita Island? Why would she put up with the insult to their marriage? Seems to me she could have made a lot of political hay by dumping him and calling him out for the pedophile he is.
Perhaps it’s recoiling in horror on first encountering a cucumber, or in surprise at first contact with popcorn.
Maybe it just watched the Bill Clinton video.
Rare footage – Snow Leopard drags Blue Sheep, falls off cliff, chasing it in Himachal mountains
Tucker on twtr-X. short.
“Wow. Look at that. Real Journalism.”
https://x.com/OG_DrC/status/1860384831323906407
About to get hammered by an atmospheric river, and I plan to drop in on my kayak out of a 737 Max by deploying one of the emergency chutes, wish me luck.
NWS sez up to 11 feet of snow soon to be deposited among the Kaweah peaks, not far from my perch on the front porch of the back of beyond.
This is the kind of early Sierra storm that doomed the Donner Party…
Book Tips:
Storm, by George Rippey Stewart… one of my favorite authors, who also wrote the classic treatise on the ill-fated Donner Party: Ordeal By Hunger, along with his best known book: Earth Abides, one of the first post apocalyptic novels, novel for its time and a thinking person’s end of the world, save handfuls of human survivors.
I read Earth Abides about 35 years ago and still find myself thinking “as you yourself, Ish, well know” periodically.
When I was in college in the early 1950s, my retreat from studying or doing research was in a reading room in the library. The bookcase next to a most comfortable chair had a copy of Earth Abides, which I read and reread during those four years. I have never forgotten it. When COVID arrived, my first thought was of it. Now I think William Gibson’s Jackpot is a more likely scenario,but Stewart’s “end of the world” was and is more than plausible.
Thank you, Conor.
With regard to the link about the Royal Navy’s decline, please let me add the following:
The May 2021 mission led by the carrier QE2 was as much post Brexit and post pandemic flag flying as anything military. There are suggestions that Boris Johnson overruled the more cautious defence establishment, who knew of the mechanical and financial concerns, although, to be fair, some in the Navy were up for the mission, too, for intra-service and wider financial and political reasons.
Most of the escorts in the carrier group were from NATO allies. When the handful of Royal Navy escorts, designed for operations in the North Atlantic, broke down in warmer waters, they were replaced by, sic, fisheries protection vessels. (One hopes PK pipes up as he and I have exchanged comments about naval engineering.)
All of the fixed wing aircraft and their crews, who enjoyed a reception and photo opp with the royals before departure, were from the US.
These carriers were ordered under Gordon Brown and built in Scotland, so pork barrel, unionism and even military keynesianism played as much a part as military need.
Briton turned Usian Fiona Hill has returned home, well London, not Sunderland, to lead the Labour government’s defence review. She’s making her presence felt as per last week’s scrapping of some ships, aircraft and drones.
I don’t get the impression that the British defence establishment and MSM have learnt from Russia’s approach to defence, not just the means of and tactics for fighting in Ukraine. Neoliberal PMC types can’t contemplate such an approach.
Let me conclude by referring readers to a little reported remark by David Cameron circa 2010. He, a scion of the establishment and with links to empire, said his premiership would mark the retreat of the UK from four centuries of global military and foreign policy ambition. It was as much a reference to the need for austerity as to the UK’s military needs and foreign policy.
One hopes, in particular, Anonymous 2, Aurelien (formerly known as David), Froghole, Harry and Paul Greenwood chime in.
Thank you. An aside: The 2002 Proms Palace symphonic music celebration.
Prom Palace – Zadok the Priest – Handel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1W1XJ96y9k
“Collapsing Empire: RIP Royal Navy’
This is sad reading this. Once upon a time the Royal Navy was a force of nature. They patrolled the sea lanes of the world, fought down piracy in the 19th century, mapped the unknown world, explored vast regions of the uncharted world. And now they have become this. I can guess why. British neocons wanted to become useful to Uncle Sam so the UK’s entire defence posture was redesign and built around this pathetic idea. Now that the whole thing has become a fiasco and a bad joke, it will take generations of work to rebuild the Royal Navy into a force that will be able to defend the home islands. And that is an if. Here is a film from the 1953 Coronation Spithead Review showing the massive force that was the Royall Navy. Pay attention to the aerial shots showing the extent of this portion of the fleet-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6qDYrqfjRQ (15:35 mins)
Thank you and well said, Rev.
Grainy footage of the 1897 edition, to celebrate the grandmother of Europe’s accession, is equally impressive.
“This is sad reading this.”
Actually this story made my day. Maybe because l’m Irish. There is no rebuilding of the Royal Navy going to happen. Britain will just continue its slow but steady slide down the toilet bowl of history.
It doesn’t seem so slow to me. I tell people to watch the UK carefully as it is the rip-roaring vanguard of Western decline and may offer some lessons.
.Tom
+100
Part-Irish, so I am also “schadenfrõh–but with a good conscience.” And I have to ask the good Rev above, defend the home islands from what/whom? If these new missiles and drones are all that they are claimed to be or to become, navies are on their way to quick extinction.
They were a force of Empire, happy to see them exit the high seas and return the Uk back to being a backwater off the coast of Europe. Great news for the vast majority of the world’s population. Now if we could also just Make America Go Away as well!
Some of us descendants of peoples formerly on the wrong end of the tender mercies of the British Empire are rather less nostalgic for the era of Royal Navy supremacy. Good riddance, really …
I don’t know about sad. Before 1945 there was a rationale for the Royal Navy — first to protect Britain against invasion, second to secure the trade routes on which British economic power rested. After 1945 there was no more danger of invasion and there was no more empire and in any case the US Navy could wipe out the Royal Navy if it wanted to resist. Basically the Royal Navy is now an aquatic mercenary organisation controlled from Washington — when Washington wants it.
I think it’s called the “special relationship”.
Re Alex Tyrrell on Montreal protests, money quote;
This morning I have watched the political reactions pour in; many federal and provincial politicians are attempting to frame last night’s vandalism as anti-Semitic violence in the streets of Montreal. This is factually incorrect. It’s just another distortion of truth by the supporters of genocide. They want to brand any form of resistance to their genocidal agenda as racist or anti-Semitic.
Of course they do because this strategy works (until it doesn’t).
I just can’t keep this golden nugget from you. Margot Wallström, Swedish Foreign Minister 2014-2019 is posting this on LinkedIn today appealing to environmentalists to keep sending money to the Ukrainian Nazis:
“Ukraine is doing pioneering work on the the environmental impact of war. How? By prioritising the issue, talking about it, making it one of 10 points in the President’s ‘Peace Formula’, collecting evidence of environmental crimes using modern methods and conducting legal proceedings, planning for green and sustainable reconstruction, developing new measurement methods and standards. Have contributed to the work of an international working group and our proposals are now being implemented, for example in mine clearance. Read more!”
https://www.president.gov.ua/storage/j-files-storage/01/24/69/cc0dab040b3207268e5c8fb5275b22e4_1707492952.pdf
Mine clearance, as in throwing out anti-personel mines approved by Biden?
Another nugget:
“Gaining the full trust of the Ukrainian people, donors and investors will require a firm commitment to transparency and countering corruption. This will be critical to carry out the proposals here.”
– In Ukraine the donors and investors are committed to corruption and do not care about the Ukrainian people as is proven every day the West is delivering weapons to Ukraine. So this work is then just an environmentallly unfriendly way of wasting paper and server energy?
I wonder if the Western misleadership all have access to some sort of secret book of stupidities where they can find a stupidity to engage in or say for all situations.
Bananas, they’ve gone bananas. As in money-laundering so-called $6.2MM art sales disguised and publicized.
Wonder what Hunter Biden’s art is fetching nowadays? Time to switch markets until January 20th, so more book deals to reward the most recent loyalists in the ongoing fight against, well, something.
Banana rhymes with (and looks/sounds like) Bandera. Just sayin’.
Re the business school scandal. My initial reaction is to ask what else we should expect from MBA types? They’ve been lowering workplace ethics standards since they first started showing up in management in every field. Why would their home base be any different? I was suspicious of Schroeder’s motives early on in the article. It doesn’t seem far fetched at all that she would have adopted her data checking, transparency project in order to save her cushy academic job and reputation. There is a pretty simple fix for this ‘data problem’ – The peer review process is already lengthy and tortuous, it would not be much worse if unbiased data checking was added to that process. My cynical self tends to think that data checking doesn’t happen for reasons made clear in the article: “No one wants to kill the golden goose,” one early-career researcher in business academia said… then many of their most memorable, most TED Talk–able findings would go away. “To use marketing lingo, we’d lose our unique value proposition.”
I find it interesting that there is no mention of mentors. Schroeder was a grad student when she did the “Don’t Stop Believing” paper. Alison Brooks as well. Where are the faculty mentors in all this?
“Crying foul on someone else’s bad research makes you out to be a troublemaker, or a member of the notional “data police.”
Actually, Data Policing should be a university course.
“Schroeder allowed that she’d been susceptible to certain research practices—excluding data, for example—that are now considered improper. So were many of her colleagues. In that sense, she’d been guilty of letting her judgment be distorted by the pressure to succeed. But I understood what she was saying: This was not the same as fraud.”
Plenty of people in jail because their” judgment was distorted by the pressure to succeed.”
I don’t wear a tie but I am curious, was excluding data ever considered a “proper” research protocol?
At the end of the article and after all that was revealed, those involved still tried to call themselves “scientists”.
Yes and yes. Excluding extreme outliers in situations with confounders was normal in environmental science. Tobacco lawsuits an example, methane samples do this currently.
A lot of rat experiments have restricted which trials to use. In shock tests, some rats run into the cage to get shocked on their own schedule. If you’re aiming to control 90% of the population, you just toss the deviants…
“Populist Calin Georgescu takes surprise lead in Romania’s presidential election”
There are a lot of people upset about this guy taking the lead. For a start, he is anti-Ukrainian war which is a crime in the present day EU. He is ultra-religious, nationalistic, wants to reduce ‘Romania’s reliance on imports and boosting domestic food and energy production.’ So he is one of the new breed of populist leaders that are contending elections across the west and Trump himself is perhaps the best known. He may as well wear a cap saying ‘Make Romania Great Again.’
https://www.rt.com/news/608140-romania-presidential-elections-surprise/
Thank you, Rev.
It will be interesting to hear what Kouros reports.
My sister was going to vote for him…
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1BJJF
August 4, 2014
Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for Bulgaria, Romania and Germany, 1991-2023
(Percent change)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1BJJN
August 4, 2014
Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for Bulgaria, Romania and Germany, 1991-2023
(Indexed to 1991)
The issue of boosting food production is very close to the heart of every Romanian. During the Socialist times, when a lot of food was exported for currency, the population was kept afloat because 50% of people, from countryside, were feeding their relatives in the cities.
When I grew up, staying with maternal grandma during summer vacations, I would wake up to the sound of the maybe 150 cows going to the commons pasture, many hundreds of pigs, and thousands of geese, a lovely daily transhumance. And then everyone had their chickens, ducks, rabbits. Also many flocks of sheep, for cheese (goat cheese is for poor people, the French can have it all). This really gives a sense of security that no weapons can provide… at basic, visceral level. But that is allmost all gone now.
And the EU is fighting hard against such independence an people are really, really, really pissed.
When I grew up, staying with maternal grandma during summer vacations, I would wake up to the sound of the maybe 150 cows going to the commons pasture, many hundreds of pigs, and thousands of geese, a lovely daily transhumance. And then everyone had their chickens, ducks, rabbits. Also many flocks of sheep, for cheese (goat cheese is for poor people, the French can have it all). This really gives a sense of security that no weapons can provide… at basic, visceral level. But that is allmost all gone now.
This is a lovely memory. Thank you for sharing, Kouros.
Color me shocked. B-schools also sell junk economics, based on readings from Professors Hudson and Keen. And per Lambert, “‘Tis a mystery!”
“Russia recruits Yemeni mercenaries to fight in Ukraine”
So does that mean that those 10,000 North Korean soldiers were a no-show? And so now it is going to be Yemeni mercenaries? If this story develops anything like the story about the North Koreans, first it will be a few hundred Yemeni mercenaries, then a few thousand, then 5,000, than 10,000. At that point all mention of Yemeni mercenaries will evaporate from the news and you will then hear Russia recruiting Niger mercenaries to fight in the Ukraine. Just rinse and repeat.
The next million man march is planned for Kiev.
I am starting to suspect that in 2025 we will be asked to swallow the tale that Russia is recruiting Palestinians escaping the hell of Gaza and the West Bank. After all, their skills in close combat within ruined cities will prove invaluable for the dumb Russians, who lost so many men with their crude tactics in Popasnaya, Soledar, Bakhmut, Avdeyevka, etc, and who are apprehensive about what awaits them in Kharkov, Zaporozhye and Odessa. And as everybody knows, Palestinians are enemies of civilization, so it is natural they would join the fight with Russia against Ukraine.
(Potentially offensive content: if moderators think this is improper, please remove)
Modern version of Judeo-Bolshevik nexus? They are non-Jewieh Semites and Slavs, both subhuman according to modern day “supermanxes,” no?
The current derogatory term is no longer “Judeo-bolshevism” but “Islamo-leftism”.
As I read this story, it was YEMENIS who recruited the Yemenis and when they got to Russia, the military decided, “What the hell”.
To put this another way, this sounds more like a corrupt racket of some sort than an actual Russian operation.
Although Alastair Crooke has pointed out that Yemenis are natural fighters, just like the Ghurkas. So perhaps the Russians did decide to keep them.
Two stories I heard:
1. A guy I know personally was in a prison in Saudi Arabia for a few months (the fact that that happened, details not presented, and that he got out convinced me he is at least spook adjacent). His cellmate was Yemeni. So of course my guy asks Yemeni why he is there.
Yemeni pulls up his shirt and shows him a scar in his abdomen and one in his back. He said, “A Saudi stuck a knife in me. I pulled it out and stuck it in him, which killed him. So I am in here for murder.”
Who can pull out a blade that has gone through their body and then plunge it back in their attackers, hard?
2., Bunch of guys advances on a Yemeni, clearly intending to beat him up or worse.
Yemeni walk straight up to the ringleader, grabs his balls and squeezes. Tells him: “You are going where I take you or you will have no nuts.”
He leads the ringleader a fair bit away, lets his balls go and runs off.
Perhaps they’re all getting a rotation and learning about the art of Russian shovel combat.
If old washing machines start crashing down on Eilat and Tel Aviv, we’ll know for sure!
Thank you, Conor.
Further to the Ukraine links, yesterday, mum reported a fresh wave of refugees. Local authorities were notified less than a week before and asked to prioritise.
‘Don Stewart
@donstewartmp
Lawless protestors run roughshod over Montreal in violent protest.
The Prime Minister dances.
This is the Canada built by the Liberal government.’
So Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is actually a “Swiftie”? Who knew? Nobody. Who could have guessed? Everybody.
Markets are in celebration mode, Trump is installing a Wall Street stooge as Treasury Sec.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss … and just die if you’re not a millionaire.
Or the bond market is starting to smell out WW3 and the scale of financial repression that will be needed to fund it.
Celebration or climbing the wall of worry? Both? Time will tell…
The ostensible rationale is that the stooge will keep the spice flowing. Won’t go to heavy on tariffs, and will keep the printer going brrrrrrrr!
Let’s see how that works out for them in 2025. Underneath the surface, there are some signs of rot – NVDA is down 3% and can’t seem to hold $140. Without the AI bubble-grift, this market is going to crap the bed sooner or later.
Is that ZIRP I’m seeing in the headlights? What happens to a bubble economy when it runs out of Palmolive? Madge?
We’re being soaked by it.
Re collapsing Royal Navy
“Despite this, the HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales were specifically designed to transport the F-35, to the exclusion of all other fighter jets. However, Britain has consistently struggled to source usable F-35s, which produces the ludicrous situation of the two carriers almost invariably patrolling seas with few if any fighters aboard at all, therefore invalidating their entire raison d’etre. In November 2023, the Daily Telegraph dubbed these regular “jet-less” forays a “national embarrassment””
Contrast with the early 19th century when the Royal Navy was a well oiled, er, canvassed machine. Nelson’s Victory three decker still exists and perhaps should be taken off display and put back into service. Among advantages the wood hull would have a low radar signature. Press gangs would have to round up a large crew to man the cannons and sails but perhaps, as Churchill said, “sodomy and the lash” have now become fashionable. Give it a shot RN!
“Despite this, the HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales were specifically designed to transport the F-35, to the exclusion of all other fighter jets.”
If this is indeed the case, then it means that the ships cannot even be refurbished to support other airplanes, since they have a F-35-orientated design, not just a F-35-orientated configuration.
This implies that the UK will probably not find any buyer for the carriers (e.g. India) if it attempts to sell them instead of sending them to the scrapyard. The carriers HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales may well end up having been used for half the service duration of the very last UK battleship (and the very last battleship whatsoever) HMS Vanguard (from 1946 onwards).
Thank you, C.
No rum since 1970.
How about the lash?
People have been using artificial light on horses to adjust breeding season and manage growing winter coats for most of my life. Not necessarily blue light.
Fluorescent lights were being discussed as effecting puberty as far back as the eighties.
Seems reasonable that being out of synch with the cycle of sunrise and sunset could make mischief.
It is nice to see this happening at the DEA fifty years after it started, the use of civil asset forfeitures as a replacement for taxes and for personal enrichment at the federal, state, and municipal levels in most American states has been normalized for over thirty years.
The future of counter-drone warfare:
Leonidas: The End of the Drone Warfare Revolution?
Drone warfare has reshaped modern combat, from off-the-shelf drones to kamikaze swarms. But with the Leonidas energy weapon, the U.S. military may soon have the answer to this evolving threat.
https://youtu.be/R97f6Qy-e-0?si=2SdBcjqTXCgbm4GC
Seems like a crucial development but a few missiles could wipe out land or sea based platforms, paving a path for a drone swarm to follow up. The air based platforms would seem to be harder to neutralize.
What I’ve read as the lesson Russian army has taken from the current way of war, is to divide troops into:
– light, fast (motocross bikes, quad bikes, light jeeps) infantry that can move really fast before the drone operators can react properly and are harder to hit
– heavy, armored units with their own defensive drone cover hovering constantly above
How many Leonidases one needs to cover a 1000 km front line? In depth.
Aluminium foil, amongst other things, shields against microwaves – and it doesn’t take much thickness to achieve a lot of attenuation – so I don’t know how this could be anything but an expensive boondoggle. It’ll be countered at very little cost and at very little weight penalty by incorporating shielding into the drone’s design.
Its also a really good antenna for absorbing all that energy, so it might just as easily make things more susceptible, hard to say without real info.
Admittedly real info rather than a video that scans as a marketing pitch would be nice. But given that they’re talking about a self-contained module small enough to be mounted on existing military vehicles, it’s not likely that the unit has the power to work via brute-force energy absorption if the electronics inside are shielded from direct interaction with the microwave beam.
And on further reflection, leaving aside its technical effectiveness, how could this ever be battlefield-practical ? It’s a large vulnerable rectangular slab of electronics that needs line-of-sight exposure right at the frontlines in order to do its job. It can’t fire from cover and in order to defend a location against drone attacks that could come at any time it would need to be in constant operation so nor can it shoot-and-scoot. Even if it does what is claimed and effortlessly swats drone swarms out of the air, it would be lucky to last a day in operation before it ate an artillery strike or a sniper’s bullet.
Any strong transmitter is a missile magnet. For Kh-31, in a literal sense.
Leonidas?
Good God.
I bet my sweet ass these are the same folks who chat about how important DEI is and in the same breath come up with “Leonidas” and how to fight Iranian drone armies of the size of Xerxes´s hordes not realizing how fucking racist that entire context is.
And for what that college education is worth for – it doesn´t matter whether they get Leonidas from reading Herodot as CIA dudes used to in the old times or from watching “300” as Gen Z – it comes down to the same deranged occidental suprematism which already made for the Odyssey and those famed mass murderers purging Troy.
Well the historical Leonidas did die under a swarm of arrows so thick it blocked out the sun….
ok may be i was overreacting
but i don´t see why these arms systems must imply such cultural references.
“anti-drone-system” would be far more honest. there is nothing romantic or glamourous about any of this.
Western arms systems need to have bombastic names in order to make up for crap performance. Russian one would probably be called Sunflower, or something like that. :)
and as you say he did die in that battle. does that raise trust in the system? would any us-company call a defense system “the alamo”? or an aircraft carrier “general custer”? (though the recklessness of us policy would make it an appropriate name)
While Santa Rosa got a bit more than 1/3 of its average annual rainfall in 3 days, that number is meaningless.
As are the “Average” rainfall numbers anywhere else, climate change is here, now.
It was early in the season this time so the flooding was moderate, if we get another storm or two like the last one this season it will be a mess.
Thankfully “The Adults” are in charge so we can expect things to be handled with all the competence and professionalism that have marked the Biden Administration to date.
Taibbi and Kirn. ATW tonight.
America This Week
ATW Livestream Tonight at 8 PM ET/7 PM CT
https://www.racket.news/p/atw-livestream-tonight-at-8-pm-et7-d8c
One must consider the source here, and especially the likely intended policy outcome: An almighty agit-prop campaign on american jewish youth (possibly non-jewish also) to turn them into ardent zionists and internalize the dehumanization of Palestinians further. Above the degree to which the Israeli state conducts such propaganda already. Don’t be surprised by stories of junior high students subjected to struggle sessions and october 7th clockwork orangeings in a few years.
DEA paid “tens of thousands” to airline employees for targeting innocent passengers to steal their cash — DOJ halts practice – Boing Boing
When “Jackie Brown” goes wrong…
About the ” Beyond Productivity” article, some thinking and writing that was done decades ago could perhaps be unearthed and re-examined in light of today’s needs, problems and state of knowledge.
Many decades ago someone named Edgar Anderson wrote a book called Plants, Man and Life. I still have it somewhere in my piles of books. Here is a small part of a chapter about a Maya Indian Garden in Guatemala and what Anderson thought about it.
https://laudatortemporisacti.blogspot.com/2013/03/a-garden-in-guatemala.html