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Links 11/30/2024

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Orcas start wearing dead salmon hats again after ditching the trend for 37 years Live Science

Macron unveils ‘sublime’ Notre-Dame Cathedral after ‘impossible’ restoration Le Monde

Many worlds, many selves aeon

What Food Was Served at the First Thanksgiving in 1621? Smithsonian (Anthony L). As you are still working on your leftovers…

Why are People Still Dying Needlessly of AIDS? Politics – not Science – is to Blame Health Policy Watch

Nietzsche’s Eternal Return in America American Affairs (Anthony L)

#COVID-19

Climate/Environment

Human-caused ocean warming has intensified recent hurricanes IOPScience

Thawing permafrost threatens dozens of mountain huts in Switzerland SwissInfo

Heavy rains and flash floods in parts of Southeast Asia have hampered work at palm and rubber plantations, interrupted power supply and forced the evacuation of thousands of people Bloomberg

Seoul has recorded its heaviest November snowfall since records began over a century ago in 1907 BBC

As the Great Lakes basin hits record-warm temperatures, it reminds us of what’s coming: Intense, lake-effect snow Weather Network

China?

Chinese Ship’s Crew Suspected of Deliberately Dragging Anchor for 100 Miles to Cut Baltic Cables Wall Street Journal. Recall we linked to Reuters yesterday, and its second sentence said US intel didn’t think the Chinese intended sabotage.

Taiwan’s president set to visit Hawaii and Guam, drawing Beijing’s ire CNN

China’s Global Civilization Initiative & Restoring the Westphalian World Order Glenn Diesen

Chinese bond market grapples with ‘Japanification’ Financial Times

Beijing vows retaliation if Biden curbs Chinese chip firms again Asia Times (Kevin W)

Questions & answers on China as a major creditor power CADTM (Robin K). A great piece which I should write up a bit.

Africa

Starmer attempting to rush through Chagos handover before Trump enters White House Telegraph (Li)

Chad ends defence cooperation agreement with France Reuters

Do click through to read the full tweet (Chuck L):

South of the Border

Cuba decrees contingency plan, new restrictions as energy crisis deepens Reuters

Everything is expensive!’ Bolivia faces a shocking economic collapse Associated Press

European Disunion

“D-Day” paper puts FDP leadership in need of explanation BlueWin (Micael T)

Germany has a plan for a possible World War III The Diplomat in Spain

Le Pen slams France’s ‘unjust’ budget as markets brace for government collapse Politico

Denmark paralyzed: nationwide mobile network failure halts trains and emergency services The Insider

Romania orders election recount after shock far-right win DW

Georgia: Violent clashes break out in Tbilisi as government suspends talks on joining EU Guardian

Old Blighty

MPs vote in favour of historic bill to allow assisted dying after emotional debate BBC

Israel v. The Resistance

* * *

Live: Israeli tanks enter Lebanese border village, Macron calls for ‘immediate’ end to ceasefire violations France24

Two days into Lebanon ceasefire, Yemen’s Houthis say will continue attacks on Israel AlArabiya

* * *

The ‘Ceasefire’ in Lebanon is a Ticking Bomb Drop Site (guurst). Still germane

New Not-So-Cold War

Russia’s hybrid warfare may trigger NATO defence clause, Germany says EuroNews. Getting crazier with every passing day: “…the frontline of Russia’s war in Ukraine had extended to the Baltic region and across Europe.”

Donald Tusk calls for naval patrols in Baltic Sea to counter Russian sabotage Financial Times

Putin says Russia would use all weapons at its disposal if Ukraine got nuclear weapons Reuters

Putin orders Satan II to be ready to deploy for nuclear war WION

Fahrenheit 7232 Scott Ritter

NATO wants a punch in the face. They’re running into trouble again... Marat Khairullin

Zelenskyy says Ukrainian territory should be under ‘Nato umbrella’ to stop war Guardian (Kevin W)

Zelensky Finally Breaks: Willing to Accept NATO Membership for Territory Swap Simplicius. This is hardly a concession. Zelensky agreed to no NATO in the Istanbul talks and Putin has maintained that any deal has to return to those terms + recognize realities on the ground.

Trump’s Ukraine envoy pick proposed forcing peace talks by withdrawing US weapons Guradian

Syraqistan

Rebel groups launch attacks on Syria’s Aleppo city Al Jazeera (Kevin W). Note that Dmitry Orlov (admittedly partisan but that does not make him wrong) depicted Syria and Russia as caught by surprise but contends that the mobilized Russia can handily contend with Syria, albeit possibly at the cost of slowing operations in Ukraine a tad.

Trump 2.0

Exquisite Americana London Review of Books (Anthony L)

2024 Aftermath

The Consultant Con The Baffler (Anthony L)

Antitrust

Canada’s Antitrust Watchdog Sues Google Alleging Anti-Competitive Conduct in Advertising Reuters

AI

Core copyright violation claim moves ahead in The Intercept’s lawsuit against OpenAI Nieman Journalism Lab. Paul R: “A couple of similar cases have been tossed but this one is still alive.”

Canada’s Major News Organizations Band Together To Sue OpenAI toronto.com

Class Warfare

Amazon workers across the globe are on strike for Black Friday Endgadget (Kevin W)

The Renters’ Republic Charlie Dulik (ma)

Antidote du jour (via);

And a bonus (Chuck L):

A second bonus (guurst):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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152 comments

  1. The Rev Kev

    ‘Arnaud Bertrand
    @RnaudBertrand
    This is quite funny: many people on Chinese social media (like in this video 👇) are talking about how Chinese 3-wheelers electric vehicles (called 三蹦子, San Beng Zi) are becoming really popular in the U.S. and how it’s becoming such a trend that the U.S. has launched an anti-dumping investigation. Apparently, 200,000 of these vehicles were sold in the U.S. in 2023!’

    Has anybody seen one of these things on the roads at all? They do look like fun and I can see a lot of people using them for local travel. Maybe even farmers to carry light loads as well. Not a fan of how it looks like that kids just sit in the back unsecured though. In a car accident on the road, they would go flying.

    Reply ↓
      2. PlutoniumKun

        Years ago an American friend showed me his beloved ex US postal Jeep DJ, they were super cheap surplus, and apparently a kind of cool thing to use for students back in the 80’s in California. She told me it cost her $100 by mail order (presumably, it delivered itself).

        It’s largely a regulatory thing that these sort of low power mini vehicles are making a comeback as they can sneak in under regulations for cars – from the Citroen Ami quadracycle (essentially, a car that falls below the legal power and weight definition of a car) to all sorts of EV bikes used for delivery. They make a lot of sense in urban areas. It’s noticeable that they’ve wiped out the classic fixie riding cycle messenger due to their higher capacity – its a big pity, as I’m sick of nearly getting wiped out in cycle lanes by delivery guys in souped up EV vehicles of one sort or another. I live near an area of dense 19th century terraced housing, and a lot of people have opted for these over a car, especially for moving kids around.

        Eventually, regulation will catch up with the multiplicity of these vehicles, but there is always a lag time.

        Reply ↓
        1. The Rev Kev

          I am not so sure of that to be honest. Think back when SUVs came in and how they escaped a lot of regulatory oversight because they were classified as light trucks and not cars. Their classification still remains fuzzy after what, forty years? The same could happen with these light vehicles-

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SUV

          Reply ↓
        2. Yves Smith Post author

          Here they are effectively illegal for farangs. The Thai police pull you over and harass users because they assume they operate them in competition with Thai business, like passenger transport or operating a food cart.

          Reply ↓
        3. Mo

          In California the electric bikes can be dangerous. I almost got hit by one in the bike lane, a whisper silent killer. They go 28 mph and no age limits or license.

          If they were a slightly faster 30 mph the law says you’d need to be 16 and get a motorcycle license to ride one. go figure

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          1. PeterfromGeorgia

            The “whisper quiet” killer aspect is under appreciated. I spent about 5 years tear assing around Shanghai on an electric moped – generally in dedicated, 2 meter wide bike lanes. People are conditioned to listening before they step on to the road (whether looking at their phone or not) and so I regularly saw avoidable accidents where pedestrians literally stepped right in front of a fast moving, multi hundred pound vehicle – with predictable results. You literally cannot hear them at all prior to impact.

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                2. juno mas

                  Many of the e-bikes moving at night without lights are imperceptible at even close distance. Looking both ways is useless. Speed (@29 mph) kills pedestrians.

                  The California e-bike legislation was intended for e-bikes to be in roadside bike lanes (max speed 18mph) where they are the prey of automobiles (that are mandated to have headlights bright enough to see unlit vehicles).

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            2. flora

              I think electric vehicles, either auto or bicycle, should have an electric noise generator to make some sound when in motion. Some kind of hum. Maybe require a user activated horn or bell on e-bikes. A safety feature. Something louder than the sound of tires on pavement, which is often whisper quiet.

              Reply ↓
              1. Acacia

                Many EVs have speakers to generate the sound of an engine. Apparently, it’s called the Acoustic Vehicle Alerting Systems (AVAS).

                I heard about this from a friend that owns an EV, and when I asked which engine sound he would choose, the answer was: “the one from The Jetsons — of course !”

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          2. Skk

            No lights ! When driving a car I take extra care around two wheelers since as a motorbike rider I appreciate how vulnerable and relatively invisible one is.
            But the ebikes and powered children’s scooters really worry me. They have no lights. Add on alternating shade and sunlight on a road reduces drivers vision , especially when wearing sunglasses, narrowed pupils. Finally their speed All adds a great deal to their reduced visibility.
            High vis jackets would help. That’s what I’d tell my grand nephews and nieces.

            Reply ↓
          3. John k

            Bikers and pedestrians share space around here. I was almost knocked over once, and narrowed missed me a couple times. Seems as fast as cars adjacent on what is a highway.

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          4. Michael Fiorillo

            Here in Lower Manhattan the “freedom of the city,” (or at least the freedom to walk between corners without constantly being on guard), long under siege, is being ruined by piecework-driven delivery workers and all manner of recreational users: riding against traffic, on sidewalks, etc. It’s made being a pedestrian even more precarious.

            And the icing on the gravy is that these are electric-powered “green” vehicles – though they are anything but in regard to their production or disposal – and have largely supplanted human-powered bicycles and scooters…

            Reply ↓
        4. jefemt

          Not with Elon and Vivek at the Helm!! Other than the pesky tariffs… The video was hilarious- must-see tee-vee. The cost of the UPS brown e-bike delivery van was absurd! I guess if the builders are trying to live in Seattle, it’s gonna be e-spensive!

          In terms of potential and possible positive impact on society, I maintain the e-bike is the far superior notion, over A I.

          Despite Bucky Fuller’s insistence in the inherent stability of the triangle, those trikes can topple. What was a popular ORV ATV design in the 80’s and 90’s went away due to the number of fatalities and serious injuries.

          Still and all, the simple golf-cart has appeal. Look at any golden- age retirement village in the sunbelt— golf carts rule. Makes perfect sense.

          Circling back to the optimism/pessimism on climate change, perhaps the biggest positive effect of e-bikes and e-tuktuks is the paradigm shift to appropriate technology for the transportation need, and folks acceptance that it does not need to be a four-door one tone 4WD pickup with 500 horse-power.
          Individual analysis, personal finance and means-analysis, then purchasing decision and action are driving the bus- consumer demand. It may be nibbling at the margins, but it may be a glimmer of a possibility.

          Now , if we can get folks to realize that having a motor of any sort is silly— the motor is the body, the most efficient use of calories input, for consequent output (EROI)– behold the multi-speed bicycle. Elegant.

          When the Revolution Comes, Will Your Bicycle be Ready?

          Reply ↓
          1. steppenwolf fetchit

            Wasn’t Fuller’s claim about the triangle’s stability referring to its resistance-to-deformation as a shape?

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        5. Ignacio

          Yesterday one of those vehicles, the one that is a mere big wheel, passed me (biking) at >30km/h in a bike lane. No helmet, no protections, the slightest mistake and… someone will have to bring those regulations. I believe many trick the batteries for higher speed (and higher fire risk too) so these artefacts have been forbidden in trains, metro, buses because one exploded.

          Reply ↓
      3. JustAnotherVolunteer

        In my rainy home town there has been a multi-year effort to build and sell the Arcimoto at a price point over 18k at base. Electric, three wheeled, not much protection from the weather. Cute but I think they are sinking for the third time with no more bail outs in store.

        Reply ↓
    3. FreeMarketApologist

      Never seen any of these, though in NYC there are a lot of electric bikes with long attached trailers used for package deliveries (appear to be principally Amazon). Are they Chinese-made? Probably, as I don’t think any US company is making service-oriented e-bikes or trailers. I’ve never seen an UPS-branded cart like that shown in the video, though UPS was experimenting with them in Europe some time ago.

      It would be nice if the US had a domestic economy powered by actual physical engineering expertise and manufacturing excellence, rather than restraint of trade.

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    4. albrt

      I live in Phoenix. Tons of Chinese ebikes, but not a single one of these three-wheelers. I think people would buy them if available for $5,000.

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    6. jhallc

      Coming to a retirement community near you soon!
      Just don’t take a corner too sharp, as with any tricycle they will go over much easier than a four wheel vehicle.

      Reply ↓
      1. doug

        Yes, I worked briefly as a youth at golf course on carts. They had both 4 wheel and 3 wheel. The 3 wheelers turned over easily, and were phased out. These tuk tuks have a bit longer wheelbase, so maybe that steadies them a bit.

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      2. JP

        Made an articulated trike about 40 years ago for a friend. The front (steering) wheel swung out with a lean. That is, it leaned to turn but also shifted the center of gravity in board relative to the rear wheels. It took a couple of tries to get the camber and caster correct but it was impossible to turn over. It would simply brodie but we finally bent the rear wheels on a street surface that wouldn’t let it slip. After we got the angles worked out it would turn no hands just by leaning.

        A year or two ago I saw a video of another trike with leaning wheels but they hadn’t got it figured out yet and the action was not as effective.

        Reply ↓
      3. Acacia

        I believe this problem was sorted out years ago, first in the U.K., and then it was mass-marketed Honda from 1982.

        Look at the Honda Gyro, which is today widely used for delivery services in Japan.

        The engine and rear wheels are a separate unit attached to the main body with some kind of spring steel, so they stay on the ground while the body and front wheel can tilt.

        Idk if there’s an electric model, as Japan hasn’t really transitioned in the way that China has. E.g., visiting Shanghai in 2019, it struck me that 99% of all the zillions of scooters I saw were electric. Impressive.

        Reply ↓
    8. Victor Sciamarelli

      The Italian company Piaggio (think Vespa) has been making these types of 3-wheel vehicles since 1948. The model is refered to as APE (Bee). You see them across small towns and cities, especially with narrow streets, because they’re perfect for all sorts of light work and deliveries. And they are inexpensive to buy and cheap to operate.

      Reply ↓
      1. earthling

        Yes, I thought this reminded me of an APE. Used a lot in hillside and mountainside areas, in vineyards and farms. I wonder if the APE is higher clearance and more sturdy.

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      2. gk

        I saw a lot of them in San Erasmo (Venice). I wonder whether one advantage they have is that they are easy to maintain by yourself? Taking a car to a garage involves hiring a boat.

        Reply ↓
      3. gk

        I saw a lot of them in San Erasmo (Venice). I wonder whether one advantage they have is that they are easy to maintain by yourself? Taking a car to a garage involves hiring a boat…

        Reply ↓
  3. Janal

    Is it possible for Naked Capitalism to reduce its reliance on Twitter, aka “x”? I left Twitter about a year and a half ago and will never go back.

    Reply ↓
    1. The Rev Kev

      I have never been been on Twitter but those links show up fine – without all the clutter of comments and the like. For better or worse, Twitter is where a lot of information gets spread these days. It is what it is.

      Reply ↓
      1. Steve H.

        John Robb: A good rule of thumb is that the value of a social network is a square of the number of participants (Metcalfe’s law).

        : This means that the difference in the *value* between two similar networks of different sizes is wildly disproportionate to the difference between the number of participants.

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    3. Yves Smith Post author

      Not unless you are willing to put together 55 links for us every day for no pay.

      Even though you attempted to be polite by posing a question, this amounts to an effort to censor our content.

      Your issues with Twitter are YOUR issues. The tweets are readable without having a Twitter account. I can view them in Safari with no log-in, meaning you don’t need to have an account.

      Your comment is an ad hominem attack, whether intentional or not, as in trying to depict Twitter as not a reasonable information source when it is regularly used by prominent government officials (and here I mean in the EU) for short statements and even publishing press releases. That is a violation or our written site Policies. I notice that you voice no objection whatsoever to the content of the tweets we choose, but the fact of Twitter.

      I am prickly about this because we have been on the receiving end of a campaign to drop Twitter, which seems to have been kicked off by a Lambert discussion in Water Cooler about being locked out of Twitter for a bit, and trying BlueSky (and earlier Mastodon) and finding neither as good for keeping on top of his beats as Twitter.

      Reply ↓
    4. Don

      I was never on Twitter — not a political statement, just a lack of interest — have no problem with X, just, ditto, but am grateful for the ones used here

      Reply ↓
    5. Rick

      I hope not! There’s too many good sources there. BlueSky is nowhere near being as vibrant a place, especially for biomedical pandemic information as well as political.

      Reply ↓
    6. Acacia

      Agree that BlueSky holds no candle to X. My beef with X is just purely technical: embedded tweets load very slowly, causing the NC web page to jump around wildly in the browser until the X servers finally finish responding.

      This seems to be another dimension of the crapification of Twitter that accelerated under Musk. Sigh.

      Reply ↓
  5. Carolinian

    Re Trump and Ukraine–this Seymour Hersh from a few days ago seems important.

    “Trump’s casualty numbers might have been off, but his consistency, especially when pressed, adds to the credibility of what I have been learning in recent weeks: that an understanding about the mechanisms for ending the war has been debated and discussed and even tentatively outlined between informal advisors to Trump and Putin and their teams. I was told by one American that ‘the lines are open” between those representing the two men, with some vague “assurances sent and received.'”

    https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/bidens-last-hurrah-against-russia

    This sounds credible to me. What possible motive could Trump have for continuing Biden’s war of choice? If there’s one message so far from the transition it is that this time Trump does have a more disciplined desire to act on his ideas and not merely hand a “so there” to those who laugh at the “short fingered vulgarian.” That doesn’t mean it will happen, but if Hersh has it right then that’s good news.

    Reply ↓
    1. jefemt

      Seems to me America’s MIC, the Blob, the Deep State, Congress and it’s funders, NATO, Europe, and Zelensky may be persistent flies in Trump and Putin’s cocktails?

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      1. juno mas

        Yes, the war in Ukraine will end when American proletariat begin to “feel the pain” and a General Strike ensues and scares the piss out the elites.

        Reply ↓
  6. GramSci

    From Covert Action, on the Uhuru 3 who are to be sentenced in Tampa on Dec 16. Longish recap of COINTELPRO etc, but with some tidbits that were new to me.

    «Unsurprisingly, liberals who support BLM are nowhere to be found during the Biden administration’s inquisition of the Uhuru Three. As one of the last vestiges of the authentic Black left among an ever smaller few that assess the Russia-Ukraine conflict accurately, the APSP inevitably became casualties of the neo-McCarthyite atmosphere. Thankfully, the jury was mostly able to see through the obvious political motivation behind the government’s case.

    Omali Yeshitela, Penny Hess, and Jesse Nevel still face up to five years in prison and are scheduled to be sentenced in mid December, after which they immediately plan to appeal. See https://handsoffuhuru.org/.»

    Reply ↓
    1. The Rev Kev

      Trump, if he was so inclined, could get a lot of kudos by giving those three pardons. Not only would it be the right thing to do but it would also highlight how the Biden regime railroaded those three into prison. Or will Trump side with the US Justice Department – who have been on his case for years now trying to throw him in the slammer. You know, if Trump had lost the election, there would have been a solid chance that he would have been in a prison cell too.

      Reply ↓
  7. The Rev Kev

    ‘Hadi
    @HadiNasrallah
    It’s so funny to see all those zionists who claimed that Hamas are “terrorist jihadists who behead babies” are now cheering for actual terrorist jihadists who behead babies in Syria just because they are fighting Assad’

    Everything old is new again. I see that they brought the White Helmets out of retirement. And once more you have columns of Jihadists driving down a road out in the open – which kinda sucks when the Syrian or Russian air forces spot you as some of them have discovered. But this offensive seems to be a multinational effort. The Israelis are involved as you will note that this offensive occurred as soon as that truce with Hezbollah took place. Almost certainly the US was giving those Jihadists intelligence based on satellite data about the dispositions of the Syrian army. The Ukrainians are there with their drone training. Turkiye is very heavily involved here and this will cause some friction between Erdogan and Putin as once again Erdogan proves that you can only trust him as far as the door. Of course as has been shown in the great Ukrainian offensive, when you go on the offensive it also means that you are right out in the open. Articles say that the Jihadists have captured 400 square kilometers but my maths say that is an area about 20 by 20 kilometers so about 12 miles by 12 miles. That sounds more like a kill box that. It may be that this is an attempt to restart the war in Syria all over again and bring down the government but I don’t think that the Syrians will allow that. There has been talk of the US being slowly forced out of Syria, especially if Syria and Turkiye come to an agreement so ultimately this may be an attempt by the US to remain in Syria through proxies and spiking any Syrian-Turkish agreements.

    Reply ↓
    1. mrsyk

      The war restart on Syria, why? The timing is suspicious, keeping Putin busy maybe, or are we trying to tease out a mis-step by Erdogen? Or maybe team Zion just needs to bomb sh*t every day, really doesn’t matter who.

      Difficult this morning to comment on anything under the Israel v. The Resistance heading without cursing. Is this M Schneerson influential at scale? Dude’s trippin.…completely different species… Lol, paging Joseph Goebbels.

      Reply ↓
    2. Milton

      Everything old is new again. I see that they brought the White Helmets out of retirement.

      In US NFL parlance, that is akin to wearing throwback uniforms.
      I wonder if the playbook will be similar as well.

      Reply ↓
  8. PlutoniumKun

    Questions & answers on China as a major creditor power CADTM (Robin K). A great piece which I should write up a bit.

    Great article, although it doesn’t really grip with the core question – whether the loans are distorting internal investment in a way beneficial or detrimental to the borrower. An example would be the much hyped Chancay Port in Peru. This may make sense from the point of view of the Chinese investor, but makes little sense for the Peruvians – they already have a port with capacity in Lima, and the strategic need for a new port is in the south, on the Chilean border, not north of Lima where Chancay is located. Ultimately, these loans have to be repaid, and if the investment doesn’t generate sufficient money, they will be a drag on the countries economy.

    Historically few if any developing countries have prospered on the basis of large scale lending in foreign currencies. Successful high growth countries either have generated capital internally or through windfalls (Japan, for example, benefited enormously from indirect US investment during the Korean War), or by direct foreign investment, in which the investor, not the host country, takes on the risk. Borrowing in a foreign currency simply leaves a developing country highly vulnerable to economic ebbs and flows over which it has little to know control, and this is particularly so when the borrowing is tied to resource extraction. It is usually only sensible in very specific circumstances. Foreign lenders, whether western or Chinese, never do this out of the kindness of their hearts.

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    1. Mikel

      This summed it all up…for me:

      “And what is true for Africa is also true of the countries of Latin America and Asia. Those who direct Chinese policy see Sub-Saharan Africa as a territory from which raw materials are extracted to be sent to China or to other consumer countries without further processing. This perpetuates the role that has been imposed on Africa in the world economy by the traditional imperialist powers: that of being a source of cheap raw materials produced by low-paid labour. China is reproducing the same policies used by the Western capitalist powers and institutions like the World Bank and the IMF.”

      Reply ↓
      1. PlutoniumKun

        Yes, exactly. Expensive infrastructure with the sole purpose of extracting natural resources (unless it’s something super valuable like oil) is almost invariably a bad investment by a country. Whether its a road system based on extracting rubber (Malaysia), or a rail system based on extracting beef (Argentina, Ireland in the 19th Century), it can do more harm than good to an economy. In older textbooks it used to be called the Appalachian effect, after the impact of highways built there in the mid 20th Century. It’s all the worse if the resource supplying country has to pay for it in foreign currency.

        Roads and railways and ports do not of necessity result in economic development. Sometimes it can be quite the opposite. Countries need to be very strategic in where they borrow to spend, mistakes are far too expensive. Arguably, Argentina, to take one example, is still suffering from poor infrastructural investment decisions made 150 years ago.

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        1. Mikel

          Yes. It all still has the ingredients for underdevelopment – which the optimism around BRICS + hasn’t yet addressed.

          Reply ↓
  9. Acacia

    Re: NATO wants a punch in the face

    And as Mike Tyson famously said: “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face”.

    Reply ↓
  10. The Rev Kev

    “Germany has a plan for a possible World War III’

    A lot of NATO countries are trying to spook their people and make them frantic with worry about WW3 and get them in a panic and to have them stock their cupboards full of food for when the Russian invasion heads their way. Sounds like that at one of the last NATO summits that this was agreed upon general strategy so that people would be willing to spend more on the military aka the MIC, to give up more of their personal freedoms and to maybe accept that censorship is good for them while cracking down on any group or political party that dissents from this view. This is what I am seeing across Europe. But when you boil it all down, it is all about creating conditions so that some groups make a lot of money. Same with Project Ukraine which even Lindsey Graham came out and said that it was all about money.

    Reply ↓
    1. Joker

      Germany has a plan for a possible World War III The Diplomat in Spain

      In Zelensky’s voice:
      I also have a plan. I have many plans. Podolyak. Podolyak. How many plans we have? Many plans. Many plans.

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    2. Polar Socialist

      If you think about it, the other option is to allow the peace to break out with Ukraine agreeing to stay out of NATO for ever, Europeans may start to ask why there had to be a devastating war to reach an agreement that was on offer for 33 years…

      Even worse would be some kind of pan-European security arrangement raising from the ashes of Donbass – what would NATO do if there was no threat to it’s member?

      Pick a fight with China?

      Reply ↓
      1. Ignacio

        That would be the logic thing to do. No?

        New addenda to the Hu-hu-human rights chart:

        Article 31.
        Everyone has the right and freedom to join any military alliance of choice as an individual, as a collective, or dragged by the inept of turn in charge, and always within the purposes and principles of the US United Nations.

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    3. Mikel

      So far, in all phases of the World War of the last 110 years, having a strong industrial base has mattered – especially when the big time fighting started.

      Reply ↓
    4. Aurelien

      This is what used to be called Transition-to-War (TTW) planning in the Cold War. The Germans have just dug out the manuals from the 1990s. Most of it’s pretty mundane. the British War Book was a lot shorter than 1000 pages, but this is Germany ….

      Reply ↓
  11. Bugs

    There’s an interesting review by Thomas Fazi of Angela Merkel’s new book “Freedom”, where he questions the book’s vagueness on the period between 2014 and 2022 and Merkel’s apparent inattention to it. He gives her the benefit of the doubt regarding her comments that Ukraine used Minsk II to strengthen its military for the eventual confrontation, interpreting it to mean that she was stating a fact in retrospect, but was not complicit, which I think is believable.

    Worth a read in the context of the current slow rolling disaster here in Europe, which imho mostly all of which is directly due to the arrogance, laziness and general stupidity of the administration of Joseph Robinette Biden.

    https://unherd.com/2024/11/angela-merkel-architect-of-german-decline/

    Reply ↓
    1. Polar Socialist

      For me more context, here’s an interview of A. Arestovych (rumble.com) during the Ukrainian presidential campaign in 2019.

      He spells out the plan and the likely consequences with great clarity. At the time he was an officer in the Ukrainian Ground Forces Intelligence Office and shortly after former president Kravchuk positioned Arectovych as his spokesman in the Trilateral Contact Group due to his vision and understanding of the issues related to the TCG.

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      2. Maxwell Johnston

        That Arestovych interview is a classic (not that it ever received much coverage in the west’s MSM). I long ago saved it on my computer and have occasionally forwarded it to various contacts who question the idea that this conflict was planned out long in advance of 24.2.22.

        Note that he’s speaking perfect Russian! Like most Ukrainians, actually.

        Supposedly, he now lives in the USA (or Estonia, I’ve read different versions). Perhaps the Yankees are keeping him on the back burner as a potential future leader of rump UKR. And as he was spotted visiting Monaco, I’m guessing he’s not hurting for money.

        https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/02/13/7441612/

        Reply ↓
  12. jhallc

    Re: Romania election-
    The winner of round 1 elections, Calin Georgescu, is labeled by every western media I see as a “far right radical”.
    From what I can see, He left the far right party to be an independent and is not a big fan of the West/NATO, much like Orban in Hungary. Here’s a bit from an Aljezeera article – https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/25/who-is-calin-georgescu-romanian-right-wing-candidate-leading-the-election

    “According to his website, he holds a doctorate in soil science and has worked for Romania’s Ministry of Environment. A university professor, he also worked with the United Nations as a special rapporteur in the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights between 2010 and 2012, and as the executive director of the Global Sustainable Index Institute between 2015 and 2016.”

    Sounds dangerous as hell to me! Apparently he also fails to check the “Putin is Satin” box.

    Reply ↓
    1. CA

      https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/28/opinion/wolfgang-streeck-populism.html

      November 28, 2024

      This Maverick Thinker Is the Karl Marx of Our Time
      By Christopher Caldwell

      Who could have seen Donald Trump’s resounding victory coming? Ask the question of an American intellectual these days and you may meet with embittered silence. Ask a European intellectual and you will likely hear the name of Wolfgang Streeck, a German sociologist and theorist of capitalism.

      In recent decades, Mr. Streeck has described the complaints of populist movements with unequaled power. That is because he has a convincing theory of what has gone wrong in the complex gearworks of American-driven globalization, and he has been able to lay it out with clarity. Mr. Streeck may be best known for his essays in New Left Review, including a dazzling series on the cascade of financial crises that followed the crash of 2008. He resembles Karl Marx in his conviction that capitalism has certain internal contradictions that make it unsustainable — the more so in its present “neoliberal” form. His latest book, “Taking Back Control? States and State Systems After Globalism,” published this month, asks whether the global economy as it is now set up is compatible with democracy. He has his doubts.

      Understand Mr. Streeck and you will understand a lot about the left-wing movements that share his worldview — Syriza in Greece, Podemos in Spain and the new Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance in Germany. But you will also understand Viktor Orban, Brexit and Mr. Trump.

      Mr. Streeck (whose name rhymes with “cake”) argues that today’s contradictions of capitalism have been building for half a century. Between the end of World War II and the 1970s, he reminds us, working classes in Western countries won robust incomes and extensive protections. Profit margins suffered, of course, but that was in the nature of what Mr. Streeck calls the “postwar settlement.” What economies lost in dynamism, they gained in social stability.

      But starting in the 1970s, things began to change. Sometime after the Arab oil embargo of 1973, investors got nervous. The economy began to stall. This placed politicians in a bind. Workers had the votes to demand more services. But that required making demands on business, and business was having none of it. States finessed the matter by permitting the money supply to expand. For a brief while, this maneuver allowed them to offer more to workers without demanding more of bosses. Essentially, governments had begun borrowing from the next generation…

      Reply ↓
      1. JP

        Excellent article, worth reading to the end where he discusses the rise of resistance to the democracy of populism. I think it was wrong to cite Trump’s conviction in the fraud trial as a major example of that resistance, which I believe was a hail mary play because the real cases concerning election interference and “insurrection” efforts were completely stalled. Bolsonaro pulled the same thing in Brazil but is being successfully prosecuted there. It is important to remember the resistance to the popular vote has been resisted from both left and right not as a function of populism but from a position of power.

        Reply ↓
    2. Mikel

      Nothing I haven’t heard before from people like David Graeber, Yannis Varoufakis, Michael Hudson, or NC commenters (to name a few).

      Reply ↓
      1. .human

        Ditto. Many here understand that democracy and capitalism are mutually exclusive going back at least centuries, and some pointing out that there are problems that go back millenia.

        Reply ↓
    3. Lee

      Thanks for the link, in the NYT no less. Might this be an ever so faint glimmer of an indication that the liberals are at long last listening? Ever the giddy optimist, me.

      Reply ↓
      1. The Rev Kev

        The Russian contingent could always go home and take their part of the ISS with them – which is kinda the guts of it.

        Reply ↓
  15. CA

    https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202411/1323166.shtml

    November 15, 2024

    ‘From Chancay to Shanghai’: New China-Peru BRI project to become hub, gateway port of Latin America

    China and Peru are located on opposite sides of the world, separated by the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean. In the past, this distance seemed unimaginable.

    However, a new port project is making such a distant journey less difficult.

    The Chancay Port project is a collaborative project between China and Peru under the Belt and Road Initiative. Located in the Chancay district of the province of Huaral, Peru, the port is approximately 80 kilometers from the capital, Lima.

    Chancay Port is positioned as Peru’s gateway port and regional hub, connected by a tunnel to the Pan-American Highway, directly linking it to the capital Lima. This enables goods to conveniently reach Peru and other Latin American countries, significantly enhancing trade efficiency, according to the People’s Daily.

    On Thursday, this significant project, symbolizing the friendship between China and Peru, finally opened for operations.

    The first phase of the Chancay Port project began in 2021 and includes four dock berths. The port’s maximum depth is 17.8 meters, allowing it to accommodate ultra-large container ships with a capacity of up to 18,000 TEUs.

    The design throughput capacity is 1 million TEUs annually in the short term, and 1.5 million TEUs in the long term. With over 80 percent of the project completed, the main structures of the docks were finished earlier this year, according to the People’s Daily.

    He Bo, deputy general manager at COSCO SHIPPING Ports Chancay Peru, has witnessed the significant progress of the port over the past three years.

    “Hills have been leveled, beaches turned into storage yards, breakwaters and docks stand tall in the water, port cranes are on land, and buildings for production and office purposes have sprung up,” He told the People’s Daily.

    “From Chancay to Shanghai” is a phrase well-known among locals…

    Reply ↓
  17. Mikel

    “The precedent set in Gaza is going to spread everywhere… it signals the demise of the rule of law. When I was in #Gaza, I felt like it was the prelude to the end of humanity.”

    – Dr. Tanya Hassan, a witness to Israel’s genocide of civilians

    It could be argued that this was a precedent set in the Americas…
    Now it can watched almost in real time on media.

    Reply ↓
  18. more news

    https://x.com/SputnikInt/status/1862546158381670875
    CANADIAN JOURNALIST FACES PERSECUTION FOR BRANDING NAZIS AS NAZIS, DENIES ALLEGATIONS
    A journalist in Canada has been charged with vandalizing a war memorial in Edmonton, after allegedly spraying “Nazi Monument 14th Waffen SS” on a monument that honors members of the 14th Waffen SS Division.
    The journalist, Duncan Kinney, is being charged with “mischief relating to war memorials” and may face up to 10 years in prison as a result, The Maple reports.
    The alleged act of vandalism took place in August 2021.

    https://www.readthemaple.com/police-treat-nazi-monument-as-war-memorial-in-alleged-vandalism-case/

    Reply ↓
  19. Mikel

    Live: Israeli tanks enter Lebanese border village, Macron calls for ‘immediate’ end to ceasefire violations – France24

    From the article:

    “Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi has denounced recent rebel attacks in Syria as “a US-Zionist plan following the Zionist regime’s defeat in Lebanon and Palestine”, Iran’s state media reported.”

    Then:

    “Two children and a woman were crushed to death Friday as a crowd of Palestinians pushed to get bread at a bakery in the Gaza Strip amid a worsening food crisis in the war-ravaged territory, medical officials said.”

    “The Gaza Strip has descended into anarchy, with hunger soaring, looting rampant and rising numbers of rapes in shelters as public order falls apart, the United Nations said on Friday.

    Palestinians are suffering “on a scale that has to be seen to be truly grasped”, Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN Human Rights Office in the Palestinian territories, said after concluding his latest visit to the devastated Palestinian territory.”

    “Israeli military strikes killed at least 40 Palestinians overnight and on Friday in the Gaza Strip, many of them in the Nuseirat refugee camp at the centre of the enclave, medics said, after Israeli tanks pulled back from parts of the camp.”

    “The head of Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, Naim Qassem, said in a televised address on Friday that the group had scored a “great victory” against Israel even greater than that declared after the two foes last fought in 2006.

    It was Qassem’s first address since a ceasefire deal this week ended more than a year of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. The conflict left much of Lebanon’s south, east and the suburbs of its capital in ruins, and Israeli strikes eliminated much of Hezbollah’s military leadership.”

    What parts of main Israel fit the description of being “in ruins”?

    Reply ↓
    1. The Rev Kev

      The north where some 10,000 homes and 7,000 vehicles have been damaged and destroyed for a start. Then there were those raids on places like Haifa and Tel Aviv itself. But it is a matter of metrics. Israelis measure their success by the number of civilians that they kill and the number of buildings that they destroy. Hezbollah measure their success by the number of IDF troops that they kill or wound and the number of tanks and vehicles that they can damage or destroy. And you will recall that no matter how many times the Luftwaffe bombed the British during the Blitz, it did not weaken British resolve to continue the war.

      Reply ↓
      1. anahuna

        And thanks both for the original link and the seconding recommendations. I might not otherwise have bothered and so missed a series of remarkable and provocative observations.

        Reply ↓
    2. Henry Moon Pie

      Enjoyable and provided background on the line of thought running from Girard to Thiel to Vance that I hadn’t read elsewhere.

      These Rand types who grouse about slave mentality have a hatred for harmony among human beings or between humans and Nature that makes it very dangerous for them to hold power.

      Reply ↓
  22. AG

    re: post 2024-election (in case this is still a thing)

    Dissent Magazine had a panel up with unsatisfying results I find:

    A Fractured Coalition
    A roundtable on the 2024 election.
    Alyssa Battistoni, Tressie McMillan Cottom, Aziz Rana, Timothy Shenk and Patrick Iber
    November 26, 2024
    https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/a-fractured-coalition/

    One of my points of criticism – they do not mention the media and media ownership ONCE.

    In the past the left always used to address explicitely the US mass media´s right-wing bias.
    You cannot discuss elections and party politics without discussing how owners and staff of media play into this.

    In general I have the impression this talking point has in fact mostly disappeared.

    They might mean to include media when they address “donors” in this discussion. But that´s totally inadequate an analysis if true.

    So it happens that they e.g. criticize Corbyn for weak messaging – a usual accusation in his case – without even mentioning that he was sabotaged not only by the media but by his own party and the nat.sec. apparatus – did they ever read Al Jazeera´s “Labour Files”?! Or consider Mike Pompeo´s charming visit and interference with the elections?

    see:
    “(…)
    Shenk: There are limits to comparative analysis, but it’s useful to consider other countries. Bernie didn’t win the Democratic nomination in the United States, but Jeremy Corbyn did have two shots in the United Kingdom. Labour did surprisingly well in 2017, and then got absolutely walloped in 2019 by Boris Johnson running on a very Trumpian platform, where he promised both that he would get Brexit done and that the National Health Service would be better than ever. And the Conservatives didn’t just beat Labour. They made huge inroads with the kinds of working-class voters Democrats have been struggling with in the United States. If we think that one of the major advantages of the left over the center is that only we have a coherent vision to run against the right, I think we have to ask why Corbyn—who had a coherent vision too, whatever his faults—lost both the election and the voters we want on our side.

    McMillan Cottom: Corbyn had his own structural issues. One of my takeaways from his leadership is that you cannot just win on populist messaging; you have to build populist electoral politics. Corbyn was a much better messaging candidate than he was a political candidate. The left wing of the Democratic Party probably has that in common with him. It has a good message, but is not very good at the politics of the message.
    (…)”

    A question – how do you assess this on Biden?

    “(…)
    Certainly, if Sanders had won the presidency in either 2016 or 2020, he would have faced massive headwinds—from entrenched economic interests, the national security apparatus, the sclerotic nature of the constitutional system—and this is even before thinking about global dynamics. It would have been incredibly difficult to implement a populist, social democratic agenda. On the economic front, Biden was undone by many of these headwinds. In his first two years, he tried to accomplish through legislation and then through executive action much of what both Elizabeth Warren and Sanders wanted. Yet even with unified control, there were limitations on what Democrats could achieve. Once they lost control of Congress, the party leadership retreated into a defensive crouch, and by 2024 Biden and then Harris embraced a campaign built around institutional preservation and centrist nostalgia.
    (…)”.

    It has an ineresting final comment, at least:

    “(…)
    McMillan Cottom: There will be a lot of structural violence, and a lot of symbolic violence. It’s certainly going to come for communities of which I’m either a member or care about deeply. But Trump is not ideologically driven or committed to the GOP; he is only committed to himself and his political fortunes. You can make a deal with someone who is not ideologically driven.

    One reason why no one would primary either Clinton or Biden is that the Democratic Party is extremely brutal in its retaliation against those who deviate from the party’s line. Republicans can be that way in a general election, but they aren’t in primaries because they want to win. That ideological purity that the Democrats demand if a candidate wants financial support really harms people who run to the left, because they need that infrastructure more than the typical candidate. That happens to a lot of Black women and women more broadly in down-ballot elections. But this is a deal-making environment for people who have a political base, who can turn people out, and who are responsive to their base’s interests. I think this election result could scare the Democrats, and that would be helpful.
    (…)”

    Reply ↓
    1. CA

      Jeremy Corbyn had no chance to become Prime Minister. From the time Corbyn was elected to head Labour, Corbyn was attacked all through the press as a communist and anti-Semite. The attacks extended to Australia, Canada, the United States and Israel. The BBC literally faked a photograph of Corbyn in front of the Kremlin with Russian clothing. Remember, the BBC is the state news service. Attacks on Corbyn as anti-Semitic were relentless, encompassing and impossible to counter. The problem was Corbyn gently supported Palestinian rights, and that was considered intolerable.

      Corbyn had no chance, ever, and at least that should be understood.

      Reply ↓
      1. Chris Cosmos

        Anything other than support of Israel and its genocidal, suprematist, and (obviously) fascist policies in the “West” (really “the Empire) is not allowed in the official media space. What is important is not that this is the case and cannot be reversed but the fact it is the case and how it got that way–it is something to do with political power and who has it and who doesn’t have it.

        Reply ↓
    2. CA

      https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/bill-clinton-jeremy-corbyn-maddest-person-speech-wikileaks-hack-a7404641.html

      November 8, 2016

      Bill Clinton branded Jeremy Corbyn ‘maddest person in the room’, leaked speech reveals
      By Joe Watts

      Bill Clinton branded Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn the “maddest person in the room” in a speech he gave explaining the resurgence of left-wing politics in Europe and America.

      Documents released by Wikileaks show the former President joked that when Mr Corbyn won his leadership contest, it appeared Labour had just “got a guy off the street” to run the party…

      Reply ↓
      2. Carolinian

        Didn’t not so slick Willie once boast about being “a guy off the street” of a “place called Hope [Ark}”?

        Maybe he didn’t deserve to be impeached for exercising his droit du seigneur with Monica but surely we earned the right never to hear from him again. Going by my library list he has a new book out.

        Reply ↓
        1. Michael Fiorillo

          Yes, the folks over in marketing did a fine job with that “Man From Hope” bit, when in fact Bill’s formative years were spent in Hot Springs, which has a venerable (and venereal) history as a literal hot bed of Corruption and Sin in the region.

          Reply ↓
      3. CA

        “Labour had just ‘got a guy off the street’ to run the party.” – Bill Clinton

        Jeremy Corbyn has continuously been a Member of Parliament since June 9, 1983. I suppose that means “a guy off the street” to Bill Clinton, when the point is to destroy the Labour leader, but to me I consider the words of Clinton shameful.

        Reply ↓
        1. JohnnyGL

          Agreed, the key tell-tale sign is that no one in party leadership lost their job. Schumer, Kathy Clark, Durbin, Pelosi, Jefferies, Hoyer, Clyburn are all still firmly in place.

          Reply ↓
          1. jobs

            Exactly this.
            Why on earth would they change their behavior when there are zero negative personal consequences for their current behavior? They all remain wealthy and powerful. And tens of millions of USians will continue to support them and vote for them. It really doesn’t matter how much they grift, lie and screw over us regular people, simply not enough people care enough to be genuinely angry about it.

            As Jonny James has pointed out, it’s really Stockholm Syndrome on a massive scale.

            Reply ↓
    4. JP

      Interesting point about if Sanders had won the presidency he would have faced massive headwinds. But, I think, not just from entrenched economic interests but ideological as well. It would have all been blamed on Sanders, not the entrenched interests, who would have then prevailed in the next election and erased all the progressive gains. Then all the serial commenters on NC would have excoriated the Sanders presidency for its failures.

      Reply ↓
  23. Jason Boxman

    Trump is the fault of dating culture:

    How Our Messed-Up Dating Culture Leads to Loneliness, Anger and Donald Trump (NY Times op ed)

    Completely leaves out Tinder, and online dating in general, mysteriously. Literally does not show up in the piece at all. Instead it is the usual trope that men, no longer necessary as providers, are still taught that this is what must be, and unable to compete with women on economics anymore, are experiencing a rage sad.

    When we think of Prince Charming, most of us probably picture a Disney figure with golden epaulets and great hair. In the Brothers Grimm version of “Cinderella,” he is called simply “the prince,” and neither his looks nor his personality receive even a passing mention. In fact, we learn nothing about him except for the only thing that matters: He has the resources to give Cinderella a far better life than the one she is currently living. Throughout much of Western literature, this alone qualified as a happy ending, given that a woman’s security and sometimes her survival were dependent on marrying a man who could materially support her.

    Recently, men’s and women’s fortunes have been trending in opposite directions. Women’s college enrollment first eclipsed men’s around 1980, but in the past two decades or so this gap has become a chasm. In 2022, men made up only 42 percent of 18-to-24-year-olds at four-year schools, and their graduation rates were lower than women’s as well. Since 2019, there have been more college-educated women in the work force than men.

    So, thus

    In 2014, I had a brief stint working for a men’s dating coach, an experience that would eventually inspire me to write a play. At the time, it seemed like certain gender norms in romance might be changing. For the clients who sought out this coach, a central concern was how to act like a “real man” without offending modern women. Should they make the first move? Should they pay for a date? Ten years and multiple feminist movements later, members of Gen Z still expect men to pick up the check.

    Everything she knows about the male dating experience, she learned from that one time she briefly worked for a pickup artist.

    LOL, yep.

    Spend some time on the Apps, instead, and you’ll see what every other straight male sees. If you aren’t in the top 10% of attractiveness, women won’t talk to you. And if you try to talk to women in real life, you’re a creeper. Thus Pickup Artistry coaches, so men can develop the confidence to do what shouldn’t be weird, or creepy, or socially unacceptable: talking to women in public. Insert Shrug Man emoji.

    Yep, that’s the understandable source of male rage, in a nutshell.

    But naturally she didn’t bother to, well, ask one. Bet she’s gonna sell a lot of her play tickets though.

    Reply ↓
  24. Jason Boxman

    As Cash Fades, Small Retailers Embrace Efforts to Rein In Swipe Fees

    Sadly, no one ever asks why we pay any fees at all. We’re paying with digital dollars. The Federal Reserve should provide swipe service, free at the point of sale. This is a utility and it should be nationalized, period. This is no different than paying Visa or Mastercard every time you use cash somewhere. That would be seen as abhorrent, which it would be. Swipe fees are exactly the same. It’s remitting a sales tax to a duopoly.

    Reply ↓
    1. marieann

      My chiropractor asked me if I could pay by credit card as the debit fees were getting too high, I started paying in cash.
      Another store gives a 5% discount for cash…so in my little world I am fighting back

      Reply ↓
      1. steppenwolf fetchit

        It sounds like that “another store” is fighting back too. And other stores might start joining the fight.

        It might lead to a new dawn for the cashful society.

        Of course individual thing-buyers can fight back now by paying cash instead of credit, at least for small-scale non-blackhat non-perpetrator businesses.

        Reply ↓
  25. Kevin Smith

    With regard to mRNA spike protein vs natural spike protein from Covid infection:
    from Perplexity.ai

    The effects of spike protein from COVID-19 vaccines on the brain appear to differ from those of natural infection, though research is still ongoing:

    1. Vaccine-induced spike proteins are mostly bound to cell membranes:
    – The vast majority of spike proteins produced by vaccinated cells remain attached to the cell membrane due to their transmembrane domain[3].
    – This limits their ability to circulate freely throughout the body and brain[3].

    2. Natural infection leads to more widespread spike protein distribution:
    – SARS-CoV-2 infection results in spike proteins incorporated into viral particles that can spread more easily[3].
    – Studies have found spike protein accumulation in the skull marrow, brain meninges, and brain parenchyma of infected individuals[1].

    3. Potential neurological effects:
    – Some researchers hypothesize that vaccine-induced spike proteins could potentially contribute to neuroinflammation or neurodegenerative processes, but evidence is limited and largely theoretical[2][4].
    – Natural infection has been associated with more severe neurological complications compared to vaccination, though both carry some risk[4].

    4. Blood-brain barrier considerations:
    – Vaccine-induced spike proteins are less likely to cross the blood-brain barrier in significant quantities[3].
    – SARS-CoV-2 infection may disrupt the blood-brain barrier, potentially allowing more spike protein to enter the brain[2].

    5. Duration of exposure:
    – Vaccine-induced spike protein production is generally short-lived[5].
    – Natural infection can lead to prolonged spike protein presence, with some studies detecting it in recovered patients’ tissues months after infection[1].

    While concerns about vaccine-induced spike proteins have been raised, current evidence suggests that the risk of neurological complications is significantly lower with vaccination compared to natural infection. However, more research is needed to fully understand the long-term effects of both scenarios on the brain.

    Citations:
    [1] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.04.535604v1.full
    [2] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9922164/
    [3] https://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2023/07/31/mrna-vaccine-spike-protein-differs-from-viral-version/
    [4] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9021367/
    [5] https://www.cdc.gov/covid/vaccines/how-they-work.html
    [6] https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.122.061025
    [7] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36597886/
    [8] https://www.science.org/content/article/mrna-vaccines-may-make-unintended-proteins-there-s-no-evidence-harm

    Reply ↓
  27. AG

    Is there a covert operation to abandon cash in Germany?

    More and more supermarkets and places for daily needs are pushing out cash.

    First they introduced self-service cashing machines to reduce personnel in 2023 and 2024.
    Now they demolish those same expensive machines by literally ripping out the cash-processor part so that only card-payment remains. That is not normal behaviour. And its happening in one of Germany´s biggest, EDEKA, which is like Walmart.

    Something is going on. This is no coincidence or single-company action.
    Who are they to decide to abolish cash?

    They know that poor and average income people want cash to stay.
    But for corporations and the secret services it opens new opportunities to ignore that.
    So they simply usurp the matter.
    I don´t like this a bit. And nobody seems to speak about this.

    Reply ↓
  28. Louiedog14

    Pfffft. Any duffer can play Chopin with a chicken on their head.

    Want a real challenge? Try Prokofiev with a pig.

    Reply ↓
  29. Rolf

    Max Kiefel’s Baffler piece is good. His assessment of the Democratic Party seems accurate to me, and suggests that the Party’s very construction precludes representation of the interests of average Americans. Obsessed with data and messaging, it no no longer has any foundational convictions, no core philosophy beyond self-interest (“saving our democracy” = saving our grift), and certainly no idea of how to help ordinary people (tie-wearing or not), or understand the problems they face:
    “Constructing an ideology is hard, but it is, quite specifically, the purpose of a political party. The Democrats, however, are a business masquerading as a party.”

    There is an enormous political vacuum in this country, and it seems to me the Democratic Party has but little chance of filling it, because as Kiefel points out above, they’re not a real political party (to be fair, the GOP ain’t one either, but Republicans likely lose little sleep over this). They’re more like a brand that diversified and lost its way, or traded hands too many times. They might as well be Apple Computer, or LEGO. But at least those companies have a useful product to sell.

    Reply ↓
    1. Chris Cosmos

      From my point of view, the Democratic Party is like many elements within the federal government, an organized crime entity and And I have seen these people up-close as well as their Republican equivalents. Democrats were once a normal semi-corrupt “normal” political party. Today they are hopelessly both nasty and corrupt with almost no redeeming features because it has rewarded cycle after cycle the worst and penalized and cancelled the best for the past three decades.

      Reply ↓
    2. Old Jake

      A vacuum is a zone where there is less of something than there is nearby. Is there really a political vacuum? Vacuums do not persist but the Dems have continued in their current state through at least three administrations now. Perhaps there is not really a space to be filled. I say that because there seems to be little in the way of response when something purports to be trying to supplant the party or fill the perceived empty space. Yes, there is suppression, but it takes a lot of suppression to eliminate all leaks.

      Or maybe I’m just pessimistic, cynical, and depressed.

      Reply ↓
    3. Acacia

      Indeed, a good take on the Democrat Party…. which also rather recalls the last episode of Adam Curtis’ The Century of the Self, it which “the party” has morphed into a very complex business organization that is all about responding to data, and wholly focused on “messaging” to achieve results.

      This, because at the end of the day, the party leadership sees no real difference between politics and corporate marketing.

      Reply ↓
      1. Rolf

        This, because at the end of the day, the party leadership sees no real difference between politics and corporate marketing.

        None. This is what struck me in reading the article. What or who they market in terms of policy or candidate, is, to the Party, fairly irrelevant, provided this or that or he or she can be distinguished from what’s on the GOP’s menu. The party seems to have no intention of providing anything demanded by and promised to voters anyway, once they have the majority and the power to do so. This seems to be their chief difference to the GOP, who do keep promises. I’m not sure the Democrat leadership really want to stay in power anyway, as they likely feel it’s easier to fundraise against the reliable excesses of the GOP once they’ve lost. After the requisite humiliation and soul-searching, they can resume their standard “fighting for your freedom and democracy” blather-donor-grift.

        Will this be the cycle that voters finally call the Democratic party out for the con it clearly is? Whether they spend $1.5B or 15B, the result is the same: all hope, and no change.

        Thanks for the link to the Century of the Self series.

        Reply ↓
  30. zach

    From Nietzsche’s Eternal Return in America, American Affairs

    All these interpretations of Nietzsche—from the anti-Christian and antidemocratic jottings of radicals in America’s Progressive Era, to the praise of liberal Christian theologians against evangelical fundamentalists, to the anti-proletarian leftists allegedly promoting moral relativism, to the online “vitalists” fantasizing about toppling the government, to the Silicon Valley Girardians with their plans for digitally harnessing mimetic desire, and countless others—show the sheer versatility and breadth of Nietzschean thought in America.

    No disrespect to Nietzsche or any of the other people cited, but it might also expose our (not uniquely) American propensity to groupthink (fad mentality), and intellectual laziness (philosophy didn’t end with or at Nietzsche).

    I remember the first time I had an idea, it was exciting, but there’s more ideas in/out there.

    Maybe try reading something, or someone, other than Nietzsche? Might could help work past the dualistic paradigm?

    Reply ↓
  31. LawnDart

    Re; China?

    Big, if true:

    China has developed a surgical cure for alzheimers

    China successfully invented a surgery for curing Alzheimer’s disease. Known as LVA surgery, it is performed on neck lymphatics. So far, there have been 42 clinical trials, all have been successes.

    https://x.com/ChenKojira/status/1859658593588613336

    Also see:

    Chinese Scientists Report ‘Promising Results’ From Novel Alzheimer’s Surgery; Here’s How

    https://www.timesnownews.com/health/chinese-scientists-report-promising-results-from-novel-alzheimers-surgery-heres-how-article-115585873

    Reply ↓
  32. Mikel

    Trump sending family to France.
    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/30/us/politics/trump-charles-kushner-france-ambassador.html/
    Trump Names Charles Kushner as Pick for Ambassador to France
    The announcement elevated Mr. Kushner, the father of President Donald J. Trump’s son-in-law and the recipient of a presidential pardon at the end of Mr. Trump’s first term.

    “…While widely seen as one of the most prized ambassador positions, the role Mr. Kushner will be nominated for could be complicated by the at times standoffish position Mr. Trump took toward President Emmanuel Macron of France during his first term….”

    Reply ↓
    2. steppenwolf fetchit

      Wasn’t Kushner some kind of real estate hustler? How would France feel about that?

      I guess Trumpie-doo would say: ” they’ll take it and like it.”

      Reply ↓
      1. Pat

        Funnily enough my first thought was that Trump was keeping the Kushners happy without really giving dad anything to do. The elder Kushner gets a nice job title, a well liked and cushy place for the posting, all in a country where while the leader doesn’t want anything to do with you he won’t insult Kushner or lock him up in the embassy. That’s winning the in-law wars.

        Reply ↓
  33. Mikel

    https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-11-30/usc-student-among-three-young-adults-killed-in-tesla-crash-in-piedmont/
    Cybertruck…

    “…USC provided no additional details about the student, Soren Dixon, who was in the vehicle with three others that crashed into a tree and was engulfed in flames.

    Piedmont Police Captain Chris Monahan said that the Tesla “jumped the curb, struck a cement wall, and then wedged in between the wall and a tree.” Police said speed was likely a factor in the single-vehicle crash but that their investigation is continuing…”

    Reply ↓
  36. The Rev Kev

    Clown World material here-

    ‘Starbucks has opened a cafe atop a lookout point on the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), allowing curious patrons to sip pumpkin spice lattes while gazing into the nuclear-armed North.

    The cafe, which opened on Friday, is located in the Aegibong Peace Ecopark in Gimpo city, about 32km north of Seoul, South Korea. From its terrace, visitors can look across a section of the Han River that is considered neutral waters and into the North Korean town of Kaephung, just over a kilometer away.’

    https://www.rt.com/news/608461-starbucks-dmz-north-korea/

    Reply ↓
    1. steppenwolf fetchit

      What if the North Korean side were to erect ultra super-blinding searchlights shining into every window of that Starbucks? Or maybe, given the distances involved, just hit them with occasional blasts of eye-burning laser pointer light?

      Word would spread and customers would stop coming. All that starbucks could do in response would be to brick up all the windows.

      Reply ↓

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