Aurora Watch in Effect as Severe Solar Storm Slams Into Earth Science Alert
No, Earth Won’t Lose Gravity for 7 Seconds on August 12, NASA Says Gizmodo
Questions about Toilets at The End of The World Sentinel Intelligence
Climate/Environment
Gambling the Biosphere Tribune
Pandemics
At least 88 new measles cases confirmed in South Carolina, bringing total to 646: Health officials ABC News
Davos
Trump’s plane returning to US amid ‘electrical issue’ en route to Davos Anadolu Agency
Chartbook 428 To matter or not to matter: Two theories of Davos 2026. Adam Tooze
Larry Fink Ponders Moving WEF Meetings From Davos to Dublin or Detroit Bloomberg
China?
Chinese drill sparks talk of ‘decapitation’ strike on Taipei Straits Times
China’s Arctic Leverage ChinaTalk
Syraqistan
Israel Is Preparing Land in Rafah to Corral Palestinians into an Area Under Full Military Occupation Drop Site
Ben Gvir leads demolition of UNRWA headquarters in occupied Jerusalem The Cradle
Exclusive: Some European states rethink presence at US-backed Gaza base, diplomats say Reuters
Germany never stopped arming Israel’s genocide +972 Magazine
Extortionate rent, landlords, add another layer of misery and fear to Gaza’s displaced New Arab
***
US signals end of military support for Syria’s Kurdish forces, urges integration Al Arabiya
Kurdish forces withdraw from IS detention camp in north-east Syria The Guardian. Houses an estimated 24,000.
***
The Outlaw US Empire withdraws from Iraq, as the latter establishes closer ties with Iran GeoPolitiQ
Iran says internet to return ‘gradually’ after 11-day blackout Dawn
Trump Seeks ‘Decisive’ Options for Iran as Assets Move Into Middle East WSJ
At The WEF, Scott Bessent Says The Quiet Part Out Loud About Sanctions On Iran. The Dissident
Africa
Sudan Paramilitary Forces Say Regret Deadly Chad Border Clash AFP
Old Blighty
UK greenlights China’s largest embassy in Europe at London site Al Mayadeen
O Canada
Imperialist banker leads the charge against…imperialism?
WOW!!!
Never thought we would hear this level of honesty from a Western leader, and certainly not Canada, given the direction of Canada in the past 25 years. Canada’s shift towards multialignment is quite clear – and this level of honesty from Carney on Western “fiction” about… pic.twitter.com/f18T84HFac
— Trita Parsi (@tparsi) January 20, 2026
The Standing Ovation Trap The Quiet Conquest
The US’ Acquisition Of Greenland Could Lead To A Deal Over Canada’s Arctic Islands Andrew Korybko
European Disunion
As Greenland crisis escalates, US, UK and Danish spy chiefs gather in Davos Intelligence Online
Trump says US and NATO will come to an agreement on Greenland Reuters
Pentagon moves to cut U.S. participation in some NATO groups WaPo
Operation Northern Sentinel: A Hypothetical U.S. Invasion of Greenland Amid Escalating Tensions Frame The Globe News
Liberals Discover International Law Nate Bear
In all seriousness, this is quite a revealing conversation from the perspective of world-systems theory. Macron is appealing to Trump by saying “hey were are both part of the imperial core, let’s focus on our shared objective of subordinating the periphery”. What he fails to…
— Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) January 20, 2026
Macron wears aviators during Davos speech pushing back on Trump The Hill
Trump has growing stranglehold over EU and UK energy supply, study shows The Guardian
Blackout in Berlin: Pretext for erection of a police state WSWS
New Not-So-Cold War
Situation Goes Critical as Kiev Begins Emptying Out Simplicius
IN RUSSIA’S WAR OF CAPITAL WITH THE WEST, KIRILL DMITRIEV’S ROLE IS TO NEGOTIATE TERMS OF SURRENDER John Helmer
PUTIN’S LONG WAR Seymour Hersh
The CIA’s Blatant Lies About Ukraine and Russia… Intentional or Just Trolling Sy Hersh? Larry Johnson
False flags Events in Ukraine
South of the Border
US Seizes Seventh Tanker Carrying Venezuelan Oil Antiwar
Yes, America has classified directed energy weapons. No, they were not used on the Maduro raid. The High Side
Is Venezuela a victim of the Trump-Epstein labyrinth? Vanessa Beeley
EU locks in access to South American lithium and critical minerals Intellinews
L’affaire Epstein
‘No longer in my hands’: How Hill Republicans stopped caring about DOJ releasing the Epstein files Politico
Trump 2.0
Trump’s USDA Is Hiding the Data on Food Stamp Cuts Mother Jones
Doctor who treated Dick Cheney calls for congressional inquiry into Trump’s presidential fitness The Hill
DOGE
Trump administration concedes DOGE team may have misused Social Security data Politico
The Economic Legacy of DOGE Apricitas Economics
Democrats en déshabillé
Senate Republicans Steamroll Democrats on Another ICE Funding Increase Migrant Insider
A “tough” vote to fund DHS and ICE gives Democrats heartburn Axios
Police State Watch
Third immigrant detainee at facility in El Paso has died, ICE says NBC News
ICE Details a New Minnesota-Based Detention Network That Spans 5 States Wired
Inside Minnesota Hospitals, ICE Agents Unnerve Staff New York Times
ICE is using Medicaid data to find out where immigrants live Minnesota Reformer
ICE may be tracking you via your cell phone. A Minnesota law can help. Minnesota Reformer
If you’re wondering why Trump’s ICE is using Israeli spyware (that was tested on Palestinians) to spy on us US citizens, it’s because Biden/Harris signed the deal before handing it over to him 👍 pic.twitter.com/Z3XxZMRdRy
— A Left-Wing Account ™️ (@PushDemsLeft) January 19, 2026
Judge upholds DHS policy requiring notice for lawmaker visits to immigration facilities Government Executive
Incredible and inevitable—
Police chief says ICE agents violated his own officers’ civil rights while off-duty.
A female officer was boxed in by ICE agents who demanded her papers, pulled their guns on her, and knocked her phone down as she tried to film.pic.twitter.com/o4rTWDxC6y
— Prem Thakker (@prem_thakker) January 20, 2026
AI
Palantir CEO says AI to make large-scale immigration obsolete East Bay Times
Majority of CEOs report zero payoff from AI splurge The Register
Anthropic CEO says government should help ensure AI’s economic upside is shared WSJ
Mamdani
New York pension fund may invest in Israel despite Gaza genocide, defying Mamdani Middle East Eye
The Supremes
Supreme Court to hear arguments over Lisa Cook firing in case that tests Fed independence Yahoo! Finance
Meta’s Oversight Board takes up permanent bans in landmark case TechCrunch
Healthcare?
Drugmakers hike medicine prices in 2026. How much more will you spend? USA Today
Abortion
Kansas Satanic Grotto files complaint about abortion rally permit approval, plans counterprotest Kansas Reflector
Our Famously Free Press
Bluesky Brain, X Brain: Two Viral Stories From Minnesota Racket News
Mr. Market Seeks Shelter
Investors flee from the U.S. as Trump doubles down on Greenland CNBC
Class Warfare
Trump Delivered 22% Boost to Billionaire Wealth in 2025, But Catastrophe for Working Class Common Dreams
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
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Rupert Read 🌍 🔥
@GreenRupertRead
·18h
BREAKING!: Huge news: The Government has quietly published [link below] on its website, without any fanfare, the Joint Intelligence Committee / Defra report on
‘GLOBAL BIODIVERSITY LOSS, ECOSYSTEM COLLAPSE AND NATIONAL SECURITY’
that it suppressed last October. It has presumably
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/696e0eae719d837d69afc7de/National_security_assessment_-_global_biodiversity_loss__ecosystem_collapse_and_national_security.pdf
Frankly I am glad that you are on top of stuff like this. I wonder though how many farmers will hear of this? The reason I say this is a video I watched a little while ago of a Georgia farmer unable to understand why China won’t buy his soybeans. No idea what news sources he is watching but it is kinda amazing how he misses the obvious answer-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9woU8NrpDA (3:11 mins)
So with that I wonder how many farmers will know of that report that you linked to.
That man is the prototypical American, but he is not a farmer. He is a cog in an industrial machine who is at the mercy of the machine. Georgia and the US are full of such “farmers” who live by the grace of the Farm Bill that subsidizes industrial commodity “crops” instead of food crops. The Georgia state legislature is in the thrall of these “farmers” and their business. Some of them might understand what is happening. Maybe. Anyway, when ICE decides to run rampant in Georgia, that dawn will come up like thunder when businesses from hospitality to industrial farms grind to a halt.
I think you are correct. I grew up in very rural and unacculturated northeast Georgia. Like Otis Redding, I left my home in Georgia in the early 60’s.
When I left there was a few folks who became baby sitters for chickens. The company ( I think it was called Gold Kist at the time) provided feed and chickens under a contract with a land owner. It looked like a good deal for the land owner. Maybe it was at the time, but over time the hand hold evolved into a choke hold and you can find heaps of stories like this one:
https://sentientmedia.org/contract-farming-makes-corporations-rich-and-family-farmers-broke/
Poultry producers or growers look very much like those businesses that depend on a platform. So, they do not really own a business. 16 tons applies? Another day older and deeper in debt… and growers owe their soul to the agribusiness “integrators”. Thanks for the link.
I object to the notion that soybeans are not a food crop! (In early 1940s, soybeans were about the only thing to eat in Manchuria, or so I’d been told)
The summary for this dissertation on manchuria and soybeans, something up to now unknown to me and subject to my ignorance, claims fertilizer as first use, industrial applications and only later as high protein foodstuff. I had heard the “it’s not real food” argument before but never looked into it, and it should be emphasized that this paper was what google search offered and I have not yet read the pdf of the dissertation itself.
https://search.library.wisc.edu/digital/AIK7Y2EYOXNWHY9D
Soy pulp (apparently, it’s on wikipefia as “Okara”) used to be very common food product in East Asia for much of 20th century (and presumably earlier). Certainly, most Koreans above certain age has very fond memories of it and my mother’s side of family (who were ethnic Koreans in Manchuria until 1946) pretty much ate the stuff as basic staple (rice was rare and expensive) while they lived there. One thing that I notice is that, compared to barley, the other historical “poor people food” which every one of my relatives on that side of family (above certain age) despise, every one of them still enjoys soybean pulp.
Unless I’ve been misinformed. tofu, miso, and soy sauce are dietary staples in the far east. Miso provides essential aminos that are especially important for veggie and low meat diets. Finding non-GMO soy ain’t easy though.
About the same semantic meaning as saying ‘corn is not a food crop’.
Some corn is food. Eaten on the cob, or sliced off and frozen, or ground up and made into tortillas.
Most corn is turned into animal feed, biofuels, or disolved and turned into dextrose, alcohol, and all those indecipherable mystery ingredients on ‘food’ labels. It’s even replacing fossil fuels as a plastic feedstock. Definitely NOT food.
Corn has become staple food crop in sizable part of the world–Sub Saharan Africa, for example. I honestly wonder who defines these things. At any rate, my contention was not completely “serious.”
Oh yeah…. it was more in line with KLG’s distinction between industrial commodity “crops” vs food crops that are worth eating. Just got through ‘Ultra Processed People’, so the distinction is top of mind lately.
Definitely NOT food.
Do the people in Mexico and Central America know this?
I kinda doubt ICE is coming to rural Georgia or rural anywhere for that matter. I live in California’s central valley. The bread basket of the US. It probably has the largest Spanish speaking population outside of Mexico. If the object of ICE was to expel illegal immigrants they would have come here first instead of Los Angles. This area of the state is a right wing stronghold as are most rural areas. It is possibly more importantly an essential center for feeding the US, not China. Most importantly it would economically devastate an area full of the radical right.
Tons of guns here. When Obama was elected the central valley gunned up. The local Walmart and sports outlets ammunition shelves were cleaned out. I was a fly on the wall for group conversations with people ready for insurrection. This is your prototypical rural American. The purpose of ICE is to intimidate urban left populations using a convenient scapegoat.
Hear, here.
I’ve never seen anything but Mexican-Americans working the many thousands of mega orchards around these parts, and no ICE.
It appears the purpose of ICE will be to shut down enough polling stations in Team Blue districts to maintain a Team Red hold on the House to prevent impeachment.
The Chuckie-Ds appear to be on board as they appear to be funding DHS & ICE with a scolding letter, which everyone understands will change everything (nothing).
Yes, but doesn’t the fact ICE has focused primarily on cities support its claim to prioritize deporting gang members, traffickers and so on
Well, 70% of ICE detainees nationwide have no known affiliation with gang activity or drug traffickers.
Hispanics (legal citizens) in my location do ALL of the tough jobs from trash pickup to hotel cleaning. They are also a predominate percentage of City employees (and the population in general).
ICE is about intimidation and Show for the Grump!
convenient scapgoat
If Trump was serious about expelling illegal immigrants the government could simply make it a felony to hire or rent but that would inconvenience el-presidente’s funders
You can always find someone who has a view you want to promote. In his case maybe he didn’t want to name Trump, who knows.
But I find farmers to be some of the most informed groups. With lots of up to date information. They have to plant and ranch based on weather, futures and geopolitics.
But I’d say the 99% all know what’s going on, and why. Because their livelihood depends on it.
Gosh! I am glad to hear that where you live you “find farmers to be some of the most informed groups”. I live in farm country and I would have to search far, wide, and deep to find farmers like there are in your area. I am not sure the farmers around me are anywhere near as clueless as the guy in the video, but perhaps more ‘artistic’ as F. Scott Fitzgerald might classify them. Are there enough of the well informed farmers in your area to help shift the 2026 election outcome away from the Republicans?
Isaac Newton figured the end of the world would occur in 2060, kinda prescient, that.
That’s quite an alarming read even if you’re already informed about our breach of 7 of 9 planetary boundaries. I wonder why they released it now.
I think we’re already hearing more and more about some desperate geoengineering attempts, and that that will accelerate. I’m interested to see how much discussion of geoengineering there’s going to be at Davos, on and off the record. All those efforts concentrate solely on temperature, partly a fault of the way this crisis was framed on the “green” side. This UK assessment, however, makes it clear that temperature is a symptom, and that things like deforestation are the cause along with our spewing carbon and methane into the atmosphere.
It shouldn’t be surprising if we end up with a “solution” to planetary collapse that only treats symptoms and drags out the suffering. That’s how Big Pharma, with the help of Big Medicine, has approached things for decades. Milk it for money somehow. Profit uber alles.
Ok let’s look at one of the risks cited and labelled as “High”:
Critical ecosystems that support major global food production areas and impact global climate, water and weather cycles are the most important for UK national security. Severe degradation or collapse of these would highly likely result in water insecurity, severely reduced crop yields, a global reduction in arable land, fisheries collapse, changes to global weather patterns, release of trapped carbon exacerbating climate change, novel zoonotic diseases and loss of pharmaceutical resources. The Amazon rainforest, Congo rainforest, boreal forests, the Himalayas and South East Asia’s coral reefs and mangroves are particularly significant for the UK .
An ya nou wha’? Mr Paulson (former US Treasure Secretary) and others are now lobbying to convert these ecosystems into “Nature Infrastructure” which, once properly valued, will be used to “unlock private financing” which will “conserve” all these ecosystems via Public Private Partnerships. What could go wrong?
“The US’ Acquisition Of Greenland Could Lead To A Deal Over Canada’s Arctic Islands”
Well that’s it then. Trump will be going after Canada when Greenland is finished. Probably explains why the Canadian PM was just in China seeking agreements. This certainly fits in with Trump’s recent demands that Canada fortify their north. So what will Trump want? Maybe he will want to “lease” those Canadian islands for 99 years with a “promise” that the US will return them when it comes due. Or perhaps he will declare a sort of American protectorate for those islands as Canada can’t defend them or something. Either way, the US will take control of all those shipping lanes in this region and administer it for its own benefit with Canada pushed out. And with Canada completely boxed in from the north, south, east and west it will only be a matter of time until you have an Anschluss with what’s left of Canada.
Re Canada’s arctic islands, the post in Links of John Helmer’s blog Dancing with Bears, “Two Fronts Collapsing One Collapsing EU? Greenland’s Choice ….” is very relevant. The post which has a link to Helmer’s Dialogue Works interview makes it clear that Greenland acquisition and by implication that control of Canada’s arctic islands is not a result of Trump’s megalomania but is rather the intention of the U.S. to aggressively contest the developing arctic shipping lanes with Russia. The Russian arctic spans ten time zones. The goal is for the U.S. to control every important maritime trade choke point as necessary to subdue Russia and frustrate the economic progress of a multipolar world. The Venezuela blockade and tanker seizures is part of the program to deny maritime commerce to Russia and China. Helmer’s argument appears in his post under heading “GREENLAND AS US BASE FOR ATTACKING THE ARCTIC SEA LANES FOR RUSSIAN TRADE.” This is included in the Dialogue Works video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uV3p9nD8D8
Taking Canada would definitely put Trump into American history books, given how previous American attempts to do so have failed miserably!
It’s possible, even, that some of Western Canada may decide to come over voluntarily, and BC would definitely fit in well with the parts of Washington and Oregon west of the Cascades.
I will admit that being able to go to Bard on the Beach in Vancouver without crossing an international border would be pleasant…and Victoria. Oh yes, Victoria….
BC will never willingly join the US, not even the right-wing resource extraction parts of it.
I could see a new nation forming from Oregon to the Yukon and Alaska panhandle after the collapse and break-up of historic US and Canada. Good boundaries are based around watersheds. We already have a distinct culture and accent, and we could revive the Chinook trade language that used to hold us together before the whole nation-state thing was imposed on us.
Or, join Ecotopia! Because once these dismemberment events start, people get surprised how very quickly they can show up at home!
“…a new nation forming from Oregon to the Yukon and Alaska panhandle…”
Back in 1975, Ernest Callenbach wrote a version of that scenario in “Ecotopia.” There are a lot of folks who refer to the region as “Cascadia” still. And I’m amused…
“…we could revive the Chinook trade language…”
Hayash mercy! Wawa Chinuk wawa! They still speak it across the region, ain’t no “revive” about it.
I would vote for New York, New England, New Brunswick, PEI, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador as a new nation. Then we could make our own play for Greenland. ;-)
So what, next will be Antarctica, because it is not protected and Russians can shoot those new missiles that can go south, fly over the south pole and attack US from Mexico? And then want Mexico becaus eit cannot protect itself?
A US Canada war will be over in a matter of days and will end with military and civilian casualties, and even if some people will die, and US occupies it might be worth it. The in the face invasion and blatant occupation on reasons more spurious than Iraq war should make Americans see who they are and what their country is. A most horrible mask/ That would be a sort of psychological war. And who knows what impact the + 1 million Canadians living and working in the US will have…
Would the Congress approve such war? Would the Pentagon execute such an unlawful and unconstitutional and glaringly wrong order? I think we would only find if Canadians will be willing to put up a fight. I would volunteer for a militia with sharpshooters. Have US military issue dippers as well, in fear that a bullet might hit from wherever and whenever. I would be willing to defend Canadian oligarchy from the US oligarchy… the US oligarchy looks like the aliens from Independence Day 1 & 2
Next will be Antarctica because…water.
https://thefactbase.com/90-of-the-world-s-fresh-water-is-in-antarctica/
Canada and the USA have a disputed international boundary in the Arctic islands. Canada claims these are inland waters. The USA claims they are international waters.
If the USA were to seize the Arctic islands, it would be like Princess Margaret trying on Elizabeth Taylor’s diamond ring: doesn’t look so “tacky” now, does it, Ma’am? Those would soon be inland US waters.
Canada’s future is to be a Great White Liberal Lesotho, a Boreal Bantustan. Surrounded by the USA and full of its rejected troublemakers. A Concentration Canada.
I don’t think that a resentful and vocal and English speaking neighbour in the north will be a good news for the US. Likely the tens and hundreds of billions of private dollars will not go to the US any longer. And every time the mention of Canada will remind the Americans what a shit country they have, a fascist country towards outsiders and their own population.
Not to mention the “Van Doos” …
The USA has never recognized Canada’s territorial claims in the high Arctic. Nor has Russia. With Denmark we’ve reached a partial agreement. I’m not sure about Norway.
For as long as the region was inaccessible, we could all just “agree to disagree.” But now things are getting real.
I just hope we don’t fight stupid wars over dotted lines in places where nobody lives.
Goooooooood Mooooooorning Fiatnam!
Grunts in the platoon weren’t excited about doing ice duty until I mentioned it would be in Qaqortoq-not Minneapolis, and they seemed to warm up to the idea, especially Pfc Jones-a big proper word Scrabble player.
I dared not mention the possibility of their role in Canschluss up over in the Gulag Hockeypelago, and provincial Cannexation~
Cannexation!
Uninterrupted access to good poutine! What an empire!
Trump grab one of those Canuck islands, he can put Boeing’s inoperative ground-based missile defense silos. Filled with three stage rockets that have useless kill vehicles.
What an empire!
‘Yes We Cannex!’
Gulag Hockeypelago indeed. :-)
“US signals end of military support for Syria’s Kurdish forces, urges integration ‘
How many times must Charlie Brown trust Lucy to hold the ball while he goes to kick it? That is at least three times that the US has thrown the Kurds under the bus after promising them everything. And yet in a decade or so from now, I would not be surprised to hear that the Kurds are listening to DC’s promises again.
Agree. It is beyond frustrating to see other humans fall into the same trap, time after time.
The Kurds even had a year after the rent-a-thug mob took over in Damascus to prepare for this outcome. They could have built fortifications, gotten weapons from Iran, or made an alliance with some other tribal leaders. The current Syrian government is very weak and could have been defeated by any competent army.
They did have allies among tribes, didn’t they? But those allies flipped, presumably at least partly because they did not want to go down with someone else’s ship. I’m not sure they could’ve found more either, under those circumstances – the neighbouring Arabs do not seem to like them much, “Kurdish anti-nationalism” notwithstanding.
Generally, I’m not sure that the Kurds were naive so much as desperate. Kurdish separatists are inherently the enemies of any halfway serious central government in Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. They have to seek interested allies farther afield or else just give up on their pursuit of national independence and perhaps other ideological goals as well. Giving up may be best – better than trusting the US government – but is psychologically and often politically difficult to do, especially in an age that embraces total war for ideological aims (in this case “national independence” but also “social revolution”, etc.).
Perhaps they could have prepared for this better, though – I don’t know. I suspect they are screwed regardless (maybe not this year, but in the longer run) and know it, which can be somewhat paralysing.
I think your second paragraph is spot on. If your nation-building project depends on taking bits of other peoples’ nations, and if those contains minorities in turn, then you are going to make yourself unpopular with a whole host of other states. I’m not sure the Kurds actually trust anybody: in that part of the world it’s usually better tactics to try to manipulate them. In the event, the Kurds have thus been reduced to opportunistically taking advantage of the weakness or non-existence of central governments to enable them to take temporary control or regions where they dominate. But these weaknesses may not last long, and may suddenly be reversed, as here.
I haven’t been to Kurdistan, but people who have tell me that there are major political differences between factions and tribes, with some seeking independence, some seeking autonomy, and everybody struggling for power and influence. This is fatal for any political movement of their type, and the divisions will become more important as the pressure increases.
In which context, there are accusations that the SDF have been opening the prisons where ISIS fighters and their families were held, and letting them go. Around 10,000 of these fighters are believed to be from outside the region, and nobody wants them back. The future of these people could yet be a bargaining chip for the SDF if it’s played carefully. The problem is that there are few Americans, so there is little leverage with Washington.
And what exactly have the Kurds done as a people with the billions of oil revenues in Iraqi Kurdistan since 1990’s and in Syria since 2000’s?
If they had had Maoist rigour, they would have a nation by now. Instead they seems to have perpetually Chiang Kai-Shek’d….
A big problem for the Kurds in Syria is that most of them are descendants of people who migrated (fled) from Turkiyet during the last 100 years or so. Even in the areas where they are the biggest ethnic group, they usually remain under 50% of the population.
And the rest don’t really want to be ruled by the Kurds and oppose any autonomy for them. It doesn’t help that it was the French rulers who encouraged the Kurdish migration to areas already populated by Arabs and Armenians. Something about colonialism and it’s legacy, I think.
“It doesn’t help that it was the French rulers who encouraged the Kurdish migration to areas already populated by Arabs and Armenians.”
Tragically, the Kurds eagerly participated in the pogroms against the Armenians in 1894-1896, then in their genocide in 1915-1918.
Then, in the 1920s, just after the Armenians had been finished, the Turks started deporting Kurds and massacring those who revolted. In 1924, the new Turkish constitution relegated the Kurds and their language to a legal non-existence.
I suspect Kurds have always been dreading meeting the same fate as the Armenians, and, just like them, have clung to every alliance, any alliance, that has the faintest chance of granting them a reprieve; they ended up being repeatedly betrayed or abandoned ever since.
The more I’d learned about the history of the Kurds, the harder I found to have sympathy for them. I understand that the weak and desperate people have little incentive to be “moral,” but, we, as outsiders, shouldn’t engage in stupid moralizing when it comes to ethnic minority affairs in complicated places.
The Kurds remind me of the Poles–who are also rather hard to sympathize with–except unluckier, never having had more than brief glimmers of a state to get dismantled and trampled upon.
Unless you count ancient Media (and perhaps one shouldn’t, but it is apparently a common notion among the Kurds that they descend from Medes).
But either “national self-determination” applies to sympathetic and unsympathetic peoples alike, or it applies to neither. I prefer the latter, seeing as it as impossible to implement justly in the real world. However, the idea is well entrenched.
National self determination for the weak means: “It’s more annoying for the stronger states to fight you people than it is to let you have your way…for awhile.”
So until the Kurds can make it too annoying for the Turks and the other players to go on fighting them, they’ll never get a state. At the current historical conjecture, it seems hopeless for them. But it also seems hopeless, from the Turkish perspective, that the Kurds will give up.
They’re as persistent as the Poles–and the Jews. To get that state, you’ve got to be ready when the opportunity comes. And you’ve got to be ruthless.
Well, my Jewish relatives in Israel certainly proved they can be ruthless…
As a practical matter, yes, that is how it is, and I suspect the best Kurdish separatists can do now is find some way to wind things down with an eye to another attempt later, when whoever the current round of Middle Eastern struggles resolves and new opportunities appear. Given their apparent divisions, coordinating any such strategy would be hard. Though Ocalan and the PKK may have reached this conclusion at least.
I’m definitely in the neither camp. 90-99% of “national self-determination” stuff, at least the version that’s bandied about publicly, I’m now convinced, is fraudulent.
I was thinking that the Kurds remind me of the Ukrainians (rather than the Poles), though who am I to judge events and peoples in the (as I see it) Far East.
“…colonialism and it’s legacy, I think”
Yeah, but whose? Just about every place in the “Middle East” has been somebody or other’s colony in the last 6000-odd years. Who gets blamed for the area’s problems today depends more on current ideologies than on its actual history, which is a little complicated, to say the least.
Maybe the Kurds wake up and make peace with the Shi’a in Iran and Iraq. It was Shi’a formations that ended ISIS occupation, not US or Iraqi government forces!
But, Kurds were brought into Iran to shoot each other in the recent US coup attempt.
Meh. CIA proxy on CIA proxy violence. Really hard to feel bad for Kurds after what they did to destroy Syria and sellout the Yezadis to ISIS headchoppers. Schadenfreude, even.
Isn’t that almost basic human nature, though, to fall into the same trap, time after time?
For instance, people will believe politicians’ promises and vote for them, despite demonstrated levels of breakage… ;-)
I tend to think we have the least chipped dish in terms of leadership, not that there aren’t some serious cracks.
I suppose so. It is rare for a person to have the self-awareness to stop a cycle of stupid.
BTW I appreciate all the comments from others here who have much more knowledge and understanding of the ME than I do. I guess I was expressing my own frustration that the CIA is so good at playing divide and conquer. The proxy on proxy violence comment from Emma is spot on.
I keep hoping for one of these proxy groups to wake up and realize that they’re the sucker, and take some action to not end up the way the Kurds always seem to. Ukraine is a good example – are they going to have the self-awareness as a group to understand that Brussels and DC do not care if they are all killed?
Well, IIRC at various times the “suckers” included Osama bin Laden and (ranging a little further afield) Ho Chi Minh, which makes me wonder who the real suckers are. Those guys knew the games they were in, as do their current counterparts, much better than anyone from the U.S. ever could.
Lenin, in a sealed train heading east. Funny how that turned out for the Germans.
Or, Temujin, for Togrul Khan, himself a proxy of China’s Jin Empire, or the Jin Empire, for the Song, vis a vis the Liao. We don’t know who the suckers are until the dust settles. Personally, I think that’s all the better reason for established powers to avoid playing proxy games for dubious short term gains.
Plenty of Ukrainians seem to have realised this by now. If Events in Ukraine is to be trusted about this, then that includes both liberals and nationalists – the former are embittered by disappointment, the latter, tending towards Social Darwinism and contempt for “the modern West”, always saw this alignment as a temporary pragmatic arrangement (not unlike the Kurds, I think). The few remaining leftists or ordinary people without strong ideological commitments should not find it very hard to see the obvious either, at least by this point.
“As a group” is the sticking point. The people of a full-sized modern country are not a very cohesive and coordinated group, and post-Soviet populations are even more atomised than most due to the breakdown of most unifying institutions and the discrediting of collective values (not total, and gradually recovering, but the damage has been vast). The closest Ukraine has to a “collective intelligence” is its government – which probably understands this better than anyone but has its own interests e.g. self-preservation and self-enrichment. The rest may know, but would find it hard to do anything about it as a group. Individually, they can run or hide or help others do the same.
Mother, Father, I’m here in the ICE zoo
I can’t come home ’cause I’ve grown up too soon
I got my sentence
I got my command
They said they’d make me $100 grand if I met all their demands
I could be a corp’ral into corp’ral punishment
Or another law enforcement lackey of a large establishment
They pat some good boys on the back and put some brown person to the rod
But I never thought they’d put me in the
Goon squad
They’ve come to look you over and they’re giving you the eye
Goon squad
They want you to mask up to come out to play
You’d better say goodbye
Some grow just like their dads
And some grow up too tall
Some go drinking with the lads
Some don’t grow up at all
And you must find the proper place
For everything you see
But you’ll never get to make a lampshade out of me
I could join a chain of males or be the missing link
Looking for a customs job to put me in the pink
They pat some good boys on the back and put some yellow person to the rod
But I never thought they’d put me in the
Good squad ….
Mother, Father, I’m doing so well
I’m making such progress now that you can hardly tell
I fit in a little dedication
With one eye on the Glock
They caught me on video at a demonstration
You could be in for a shock
Thinking up the alibis that ev’ryone’s forgotten
Just another mummy’s boy gone to rotten
They pat some good boys on the back and put some resister to the rod
But I never thought they’d put me in the
Goon squad….
Goon Squad, by Elvis Costello
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=382Vu09DZNk&list=RD382Vu09DZNk
Excellent.
The more things change, the more they remain the same.
About the phone tracking in Minnesota, it’s slow and latent.
However, instantaneous tracking is provided by migrants who just used their their phone to pay for purchases instead of cash.
They give up their liberty for a free cup of coffee now and then?
“The 7-Eleven rewards program, known as 7Rewards, allows customers to earn points on purchases, which can be redeemed for free snacks and drinks. Members can also access exclusive deals and offers through the 7-Eleven app.”
“No, Earth Won’t Lose Gravity for 7 Seconds on August 12, NASA Says’
Gee, I guess that I had better tie myself to an anchor come August 12th. You get all sorts of this idiot thinking throughout history like this hoax. One was when he UK switched over from the Roman Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar in 1752. This meant skipping over 11 days and it seems that lots of people were concerned over losing 11 days from their lives-
https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Give-us-our-eleven-days/
For those in the UK, this article explains why too the tax year starts April 6th of all dates. News you can use!
Well, no mention of how many of their landlords pro-rated the monthly and yearly rent payments. What do you guess?
Amazingly delusional article from Sy Hersh. I live in Russia the majority of the year and Larry Johnson is accurate in every detail. But the reality distortion field in the US is very, very strong. I see the confusion in the eyes of people I’ve known for decades, who know well I do not lie. But what they hear from me contradicts every single thing they see, read, or hear. What to believe; what to believe.
Portrayal of Iran is likely as delusional.
What effect from sanctions, Iran has numerous missile the envy of anything the west can show!
Trump’s next conquest will be Greenland where US has all the “defense” it could ever build or maintain already!
In 2047 a US president will ignominiously retreat from Nu’uk!
With “tell the naked emperor what he wants to hear”….. how can US win?
I share Larry’s gobsmacked reaction to Hersh’s ridiculous article, but not his surprise. That Hersh is capable of regurgitating CIA propaganda is not some effect of old age. He has a history of this; his book on Kennedy published in the 1990s was a complete CIA smear job. Though Hersh has a reputation as an incomparable investigative journalist, he has always been only as good as his sources. Sometimes these sources were on the right side of history and opposed certain actions by the US government, e.g. My Lai, or Operation Chaos. His 1980s book on Kissinger was also very good, and accurate (in my opinion). But these sources always have an agenda.
Still, would be startling if Hersh actually believed the bulls**t he writes in this latest piece. It would not take much for a star “investigative journalist” to discover how ridiculous some of these “facts” are. Russia is not North Korea. Westerners can go in and out and see things for themselves, as Johnson has done, and there are numerous sources by which one can triangulate information and check facts (this goes for Iran as well). Hersh is one of three things: senile in his old age, lazy, or lying. I just hope Aaron Mate doesn’t defend him on this as he did his other idol Chomsky.
I assume some of this is part of what he really believes simply because it´s the way he has grown up and grown old: A truism of geopolitics, a fact of political realities.
Even Chomsky, since you mention him, was using the comparison of Spain or Italy to describe the size or lack thereof of the Russian economy.
Both of those men do have – you may well contradict me here – a high level of private integrity nonetheless.
The CIA is a huge beast and there are different factions and views and so by some of those he was threatened and they tried to intimidate him or his family.
In how far those moves were real is a different matter. Also how seriously he would take them personally.
Media work environment has the feature of boxing staff in and cause a confirmation bias inside such a bubble of work ethics and cohesion. Thus threats or alleged threats are exaggerated and maybe even the true significance of one´s job.
You do need the fiction that what you do matters. It´s almost like with an artist. There are no independent, scientific parameters to judge what it´s worth.
And most often than not you will never really know if your report or scoop has really had an impact or not because some CIA operation eventually does not take place.
e.g.: Did Hersh´s pieces around 2007 in the NEW YORKER about a US planned attack on Iran stop the government to carry it out, along other factors? We don´t know. And that´s a definitive part of the work by the CIA in these twisted relationships with reporters: to “neither confirm nor deny” and make any verification impossible. In a sense it´s schizophrenic.
Falsification of a negative isn´t possible. In a line of work where proof or evidence for assumptions is everything that is a structural problem your psyche has to cope with in the long run
This is of course also true for the CIA itself: When I am trying to tell people that in my humble opinion neither the NYT nor CNN offered a shred of evidence that the Russians pondered to use nukes in the fall of 2022 they are looking at me gobsmacked – “Of course they did!”.
Well, if you read the reports closely the opposite is the case. But so far I haven´t found a single peace activist, warmonger or reporter who would agree with me. And I guess the CIA analysts would disagree with me too. Simply because if they did confirm my doubts their very jobs would make no sense. You don´t need a CIA that tells you constantly: “no threat”. And that is also true for investigative reporters.
Eventually it´s a question of religion – either you are a believer or not.
Old age filter failure.
It’s why the elderly are targets of so many cons.
Sadly Sy is making himself the Bagdad Bob of the Smilyface Empire.
For what it’s worth, another cogent rebuttal of Hersh’s new piece is Scott Ritter’s latest Substack, ‘Getting It Wrong on Russia’.
Yes, it’s ridiculous. A few shops I’m vaguely aware of closed over the last year, but I’m not even sure it’s any worse than before the war. Businesses complain about lacking qualified employees, and that does seem to be a real problem, but it’s hardly devastating. Mobile internet occasionally disappears in one region or another, but not for long. Since I need to use one daily for a variety of things, I think I would’ve noticed if all cell phones had stopped working for any appreciable amount of time (that has got to be the most ridiculous and easily disproved claim Johnson cites – I don’t have access to Hersh’s full article, so don’t know if there’s worse). The WhatsApp situation is weird – it works for me but not for some people in the same city anymore. But Max and Telegram work fine. An increasing number of seemingly arbitrarily selected foreign sites cannot be accessed without VPN (which the average Internet user either has or can get without much trouble). There are issues, but I’m still not seeing that revolution we’ve been promised.
WhatsApp has video and voice messaging blocked, because they want people to use Max. (It works with a VPN though.) It has nothing to do with the internet going out.
These “mystifications” are already starting with expat Russians who I know. For them Putin is Hitler and so on and so forth. This was much better before SMO started. But confirmation bias has totally kicked in since. They cannot distinguish between their own anecdotal insight and maybe even genuine family experience (male relatives leaving Russia in order to not get drafted) and a bigger picture and millions of Russians with a totally different view.
Another aspect: They do not compare with other countries.
Not once has anybody pointed out that Russia still has no capital punishment when the horrors of Russia are addressed. Or that Japan and the US both do apply it.
The double standard is insane.
Putin has been Hitler for a while now. What really amazed me was when (perhaps a decade ago or more?) some liberal pundit all but directly called Putin Hitler and then in the same interview said that of course Putin is preferable to the likes of Oksana Dmitrieva (a fairly mild patriotic social democrat with some pro-labour credentials). I wonder if that changed now, by the way – I suppose good anti-war liberals still wouldn’t prefer Dmitrieva, who was pro-war last I checked, but the hilariously crooked Ilya Ponomaryov is an anti-war social democrat in exile, and maybe he is now marginally better than Actual Hitler.
Comparing with other countries has also always been a weak point. I think that Russians are generally exceptionalist, it’s just that for some of us it’s a negative rather than positive exceptionalism (everything here is the very worst or compares only to Africa, while in the West there is a “world culture” where everything is better by definition). It’s also psychologically difficult to let go of an idealised West – moreso when you’ve bet on it by moving there.
Still, unsurprising that expats would be radicalised further by those events. I do understand that in the near abroad, e.g. Armenia, the expat community is more divided between pro- and anti-Putin sides.
I am also in Russia, and found his comments about the economy to be strange as well. I don’t know the figures, but I don’t see any economic hardshop going on around me.
He might want to visit Wichita sometime; closed businesses indeed!
Hersch should visit rural France. He’d have a great post on how it’s in a state of fermenting revolution. It’s truly devastating to see what’s happened to the villages.
Please expand. This is quite probably a thing that goes well beyond France and IMO very important.
I live in a village in Hérault, nothing revolutionary as such in my village, but the nearby motorways – one going to/from Spain, another to Toulouse, are regularly blocked by farmers protesting against the EU.
Yes I too would be interested in hearing about this in detail
One misconception that Hersh and Johnson both labor under is the spurious claim that Russia needs export income (from the west) to fund the war. It is amusing that the 800-pound embodiment of MMT in the room, the US war establishment, is invisible to the same people who think Russia needs dollars to make guns or butter. I expect Russia is really only dependent on electronics from China. Otherwise, they can print all the rubles they need to develop what they need.
Precisely — they’re set up for near autarky as well as any nation going. The premise that oil revenue “pays for” their war effort is always suspiciously absent any analysis to which imports make up the materials necessary for them to prosecute the war.
It’s why the sanctions have been an epic failure.
Listening to all grown up now Anthony Fremont in Davos, he’s talked of vengeance weapons, WW2 occupation of Greenland by Americans, a clear and present disses to Mark Carney & Emmanuel (aviator glasses wearing-gasp) Macron, and perfectly executed assassinations he performed, not to mention not much adieu in regards to the rigged 2020 election-nor it not being all Biden’s fault and the worst President ever, gawd he’s rambling hard calling himself Daddy-calling for a doubling of the Dow and practically begging any holders of greenbacks to get out now!
‘We have the best equipment!’
Trump at Davos.
I usually can’t bear the sight of his lined and leering face or the sound of that breathy voice for more than a few minutes at a time, but this morning as I was making breakfast, I left the broadcast on.
While listening, I started to entertain myself by imagining members of the audience struggling to keep a straight face, while facing the prospect of applauding politely at the end — even as they repressed the urgent desire to have him hauled off in chains and consigned to the nearest dungeon.
I was distracted, though, when he started to recount the by now familiar litany of pretty-please pleas he always claims to be besieged with, as world leaders line up to beg for his favor and ask him to relent. Suddenly, an image rose before my inner eye: one of those ancient stone monuments in which a fabled ruler stands stern and impossibly tall before a line of kneeling captives.
Who says time isn’t circular?
‘All we ask for is the Ice Skating Sudetenland, and there will be no more demands…’
It would be great if one of his ramoral associates could be convinced that there is this little place in the arctic called Sudeten, and it has all these rare earths, and their president has been saying mean things about Trump’s intellect. I’d pay to hear Trump’s speech to the U. N. about that.
“At The WEF, Scott Bessent Says The Quiet Part Out Loud About Sanctions On Iran.”
Scott Bessent laying it all out. I heard that when the US engineered the crash of Iran’s currency,that the UAE was heavily involved here but don’t have a link for it. The trouble is that the Iranian leadership want to solve all there crisis by themselves and are reluctant to ask for foreign help. As the guys at THE Duran pointed out, Iran is part of BRICS now so could have gone to the Chinese to ask for a billion or two in loans. This would have stabilized the currency and for China, one or two billion is pocket lint and they would have been glad to help. It’s all they had to do but didn’t. Things may be changing though. They accepted help from Russia and China to suppress Starlink communications which meant that those Mossad groups had no way to communicate anymore. So maybe now Iran will be more open to getting help which will improve their defenses enormously.
The Persian empire, existing since well before Xerxes has been target since Alexander, Caesar’s triumvir Crassus tried and ended up with a head full of molten Parthian gold! Trajan got to the Persian Gulf but retreated!
Mossad/CIA think they can put a few socialist Arabs in charge…. or the Baluch tribe!
Is Mossad believing what the CIA selling?
Or are they just being nice going along for the body bags.
Perhaps the Old Testament Jews should have stayed in Babylon…
It was the practice of the Babylonians to take the political and religious leaders of a conquered nation into exile. Ezekiel and Second Isaiah are first generation examples of the latter. Ezra was a descendant of exiles.
The ones whose writings have survived were apparently quite unhappy there, having gone from the top of the heap to the bottom.
Psalm 137
I meant how Cyrus the Great allowed the Jewish captives in Babylon to return to Palestine and in so doing earned the sobriquet Messiah. Those silly Persians and all that.
Persians seem to have the same weakness since Cyrus.
I predict that after this Davos meeting the WEF will change their slogan for the riff-raff from “you will own nothing, and be happy” to the much simpler and more accurate “you will own nothing”.
Iran has been getting loans from China.
https://solarbytes.info/business-bytes/china-finances-1-758-mw-solar-project-iran-with-3-897-billion-yuan-8733467/
And may need to double check what reserves Iran needs to stabilize their currency.
“Operation Northern Sentinel: A Hypothetical U.S. Invasion of Greenland Amid Escalating Tensions”
‘For the 57,000 mostly Inuit residents scattered across remote settlements, this means temporary martial law: curfews enforced by military police (MPs) to prevent sabotage, with checkpoints using biometric scanners for ID verification.’
it will be there welcome to America. Wouldn’t be surprised to see ICE troops appear, round them up and ship them off to Alaska as holding Danish passports, they count as illegal aliens. Meanwhile Trump is giving his speech at Davos which includes the following on Greenland-
’14:18 GMT
Trump says Greenland is “our territory.”
“This enormous unsecured island is actually part of North America. on the northern frontier of the Western Hemisphere,” he continues, adding that the US is “seeking immediate negotiations” to bring it under American ownership.
14:13 GMT
“Would you like me to say a few words on Greenland?”
Trump says he has “tremendous respect for the people of Greenland,” but adds the US should never have let Denmark keep control of the territory after World War II.
“How stupid were we to do that?…How ungrateful are they now?”
Trump says control of Greenland is a “core national security interest of the United States.” ‘
https://www.rt.com/news/631264-trump-davos-speech-live/
We could always give the US Virgin Islands back to Denmark in exchange for Greenland. The trade originally went the other way. USVI is a much nicer spot to visit.
…wouldn’t it just be ‘US Islands’ now?
But then they would lose Epstein Island. The elites who previously frequented the place would not enjoy the climate of Greenland which is entirely unlike USVI
Not Alaska – they’d have rights under US law, and could bring lawsuits (see e.g. Marshall Islanders). Somewhere that’s run by a fervent Trump admirer and would take them in exchange for a big enough bribe, like limited tariff relief (to be reversed a week later, naturally).
And I think ‘Operation Orange Legacy’ would be a better name.
Situation Goes Critical as Kiev Begins Emptying Out – Simplicius
Most of the people are pre-occupied with basic survival. Just wait until they get relocated or a break to absorb more info.
They’ll see that at this critical moment, NATO was on high alert…about Greenland.
Trump’s E.P.A. Has Put a Value on Human Life: Zero Dollars (NY Times)
Sort of like Public Health put a value on human life in regards to COVID. Zero.
What of the dollar value of parents and grandparents being not-death?
(bold mine)
Not when it comes to COVID, though. LOL. The “costs” of mitigation are so high, we just pretend it isn’t happening.
It isn’t working with COVID; it isn’t working with Climate.
And denialism continues apace.
Besides measles in South Carolina, we’re now exporting it to neighbor nations.
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/us-measles-outbreak-every-state-mexico/
Palantir CEO says AI to make large-scale immigration obsolete – East Bay Times
Notice how the “future” is always about what the tech bros want in the present.
They want cheaper electricians and plumbers, so there is a “shortage”.
Remember when they needed more coders? It was “everybody” needs to learn to code.
Highly recommend Turchin’s analysis:
“periods of high immigration coincided with the periods of stagnating wages. The Great Compression, [[High wages for working people]]
meanwhile, unfolded under a low-immigration regime. This tallies with work by the Harvard economist George Borjas, who argues that immigration plays an important role in depressing wages, especially for those unskilled workers who compete most directly with new arrivals.”
https://aeon.co/essays/history-tells-us-where-the-wealth-gap-leads
And, with that, take a look at the following from links today:
Anthropic, Google and Microsoft fight to win teachers – Axios
So… the CEO is talking about trade skills (often requiring work with hands and other types of skills that require brain and body coordination – one has to know what is like to have a BODY). Yet, they are saying dumping LLMs into USA schools what is needed.
Trump Delivered 22% Boost to Billionaire Wealth in 2025, But Catastrophe for Working Class Common Dreams
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Benedict Donald really delivered for his evang constituents who always do everything in lockstep, and are likely the only cohesive bloc of precious metal owners* in the country-just like they were the only cohesive voting bloc.
Old yeller has doubled while the grey mare has more than tripled from this date last year~
*if you think the evang menace is quite something now, imagine a country blindsided by hyperinflation brought on by a mountebank, and they’re all 1-eyed-kings calling the economic shots for the Book of Donald…
>Bluesky Brain, X Brain: Two Viral Stories From Minnesota
It’s unfair to compare anti-ICE activists storming a church with ICE agents abducting an innocent American.
Is Venezuela a victim of the Trump-Epstein labyrinth? – Vanessa Beeley
“a short article written by the Venezuelan Ambassador to Lebanon and Syria, Jose Biomorgi”
——-
IN RUSSIA’S WAR OF CAPITAL WITH THE WEST, KIRILL DMITRIEV’S ROLE IS TO NEGOTIATE TERMS OF SURRENDER – John Helmer
A couple of nitty-gritty assessments of situations.
Helmer needs to take a class in structured writing. His blog strikes me as obtuse. His thoughts are interesting, but scattered. I re-read the piece several times and don’t see the point he is trying to make in the headline. How is Dmitriev “surrendering?” He managed to get a bunch of Arab countries to invest in Russia. It’s only $10B, but that doesn’t sound like surrender, it sounds like a big fat slap to the face of the Lindsey Grahams of the world.
Watch him talk about it on the video with Nima.
The blog assumes readers have been keeping up with the other coverage about the various factions in Russia.
– ‘Liberals Discover International Law’ – Nate Bear
Bear nicely expresses my own outrage at the absurd hypocrisy of “liberal” elites here. His opening paragraph says it all:
“After sponsoring the genocide of Gaza, welcoming the kidnapping of Nicholas Maduro, cheering the bombing of Iran, backing murderous assaults on Beirut and Iraq and applauding the assassination of Yemen’s government, liberal leaders across the west have discovered international law just in time for the US invasion of Greenland.”
But he makes a number of other excellent observations later on, including this one:
“To talk about Greenland as the inflexion point for international law after everything the west has supported in the last two years is grotesque. It also takes a frightening level of cognitive dissonance, and racism.”
It’s like they don’t even bother trying anymore.
Larry Fink Ponders Moving WEF Meetings From Davos to Dublin or Detroit Bloomberg
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A walk-up lift ticket for the day at Davos costs around $110, versus $239 last week at Mammoth, edge to Cali.
Maybe you could find a bowling rink in Detroit or a larger bar in Dublin, but we have overpriced right here, WEF.
Its weirdly atypical of American skid rows to be that much more expensive than their European counterparts, as some real or imagined insurance contingency certainly pads the price, or maybe they’re just greedy.
Been the worst snowfall year in the Rockies in about half a century.
All of the tributaries for the Colorado River aren’t doing so well and while there is still a lot of winter to come, foreigners aren’t coming to Colorado ski resorts as much, for you can lead them to frozen water-but you can’t make them drink in our drama.
Ultimate Fealty Championship 86
Leader & Defender of the Free World Donald (Teetotalitarian) Trump versus Something rotten in the state of Denmark
…lets get ready to ruuuuuuumble!
PPV HD $49.95/DK 309
It is obvious that Trump is not firing on all cylinders, that letter to Denmark was over the top, something I’d expect to see from a petulant child “YOU MADE ME DO BAD THINGS when you did not immediately give me what I wanted and I’m gonna do worse things if you don’t say you are sorry and do what I want RIGHT NOW”.
If you aren’t scared, you aren’t paying attention.
Presumably from the context, the letter complaining that because he didn’t get the Nobel, he can do whatever he wants? It wasn’t to Denmark, it was addressed to Norway’s PM. Which makes it all the more stupid and petulant.
Norway has one the world’s largest rare earth deposits, recently discovered, just off shore.
Was T’s letter a warning? I mean, if he’s going after Greenland supposedly to “protect” Greenland, what might he do about small Norway? ‘We have to have Norway to protect it. And to protect its resources, which they aren’t protecting.’ ? Norway is a founding member of NATO, but apparently being in NATO doesn’t matter anymore where mineral wealth is concerned. I imagine Norwegian politicians are a little nervous right now.
From CNBC:
Norway discovers Europe’s largest deposit of rare earth metals
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/11/norway-discovers-europes-largest-deposit-of-rare-earth-metals.html
Nobel Peace Prize is handed out by Norway.
Trump’s presser yesterday and Davos today reminded me of two previous public addresses I’ve witnessed live, one on TV and one from the front row.
The one a lot of us remember is Nixon’s farewell address in the East Room just before departing by ‘copter from the South Lawn. “Nobody will ever write a book about my mother.” So Nixonian to drag his poor, dead mother into this mess of his own making.
The second was my high school graduation. I’d describe the school’s headmaster and me as political opponents, and during my senior year, a group of us went to the top of one of the tall buildings downtown to talk to one of the city’s movers and shakers about what could be done about this fellow who liked to hold college admissions recommendations over the head of “dissidents.” The board member”s response was along the lines of, “All in good time.”
The night of graduation, the headmaster rose and attacked the previous two speakers, one of whom was me. He returned again and again to the refrain, “I am that old dog,” a line he delivered with increasing intensity as the speech progressed.
A week later, it was announced he had resigned. Was it student pressure that drove him out? LOL. Not quite. It was drinking on the job topped by having an affair with a kindergartner’s mother.
That’s what I’m seeing with Trump. His world is crumbling. Everything is going to sh*t.
Paradoxically, what struck me about Davos was the way people seemed like they’re walking on eggs around this guy. Well, I guess the USA is basically a rabid dog with nukes led by a guy who’s clearly losing it.
I salute all those brave people up in Minnesota putting ICE and Trump to shame, but I can understand the inclination to keep one’s head down now until Trump finishes imploding.
It’s a good time to follow ambrit’s advice.
Dear Norway,
please give Donald Trump a Nobel Peace Prize.
I know you normally do this on an established schedule and using an established process but please make an exception and make an extra special Nobel Peace Prize for Donald Trump. If you could make the medal noticeably larger that all the others this should help too. (We should want him to be in a position to brag that his is bigger than Obama’s.) And please consider naming it The Greatest Nobel Peace Prize and make the award party more fancy than usual.
Considering the likely consequences of the alternative and that Mr. T’s neurodegeneration isn’t likely to reverse, I would urge you to consider this urgent and truly a small price to pay.
Thank you and best regards,
.Tom
Once you pay the Don, you never get rid of the Don.
Ok with me. Give him a another one next year and one for economics and another for literature on account of his awesome Truth stylings. It’s worth a shot. Make him the most Nobel laureated (to coin a verb) person ever. Give him Grammys and Oscars and Golden Globes for all I care. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on account of his awesome dancing. Just distract him with shiny things.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNiNosNZPgM/
Glen Diesen post today with Professor Marandi.
Note the professor mentions British and French aid in the most recent operations against Iran. Around 11:30 mark.
Just something to consider with all the hair on fire about a US and Europe feud.
Also, they discuss possibilities about what’s being gathered in Syria.
Next week a good chunk of the south is going to have 10-20 inches of snow on the ground, our very own ‘Greenland’ or at least a beginning.
Anti-global warming types will rejoice~
From Due Dissidence guys, utube, ~24+ minutes.
Florida Resident VISITED BY POLICE For Anti-Israel Facebook Post
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSYjVQ6Ozf4
VD seems to be a man of…uh…changeable ‘Constitutional affections.’ / ;)
typo: make that JD, not VD. /;)
Lutnick at Davos praises coal, slams the EU, Al Gore boos: free FT article:
https://giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/actions/redeem/99d29ea5-db1b-4878-a035-1f3ae6311432
social murder
Fighting for Breath (Pro Publica)
The things that they can do to people, I don’t know if it should be possible. They had some kind of assistance pump, helping circulate blood for my dad, who was almost certainly already brain dead long before then. It had this crimson liquid in it. I didn’t really ask. Having a tech explain the equipment to me, seemed pretty pointless. It was pointed out how vital that machine was, though
LOL, generics are a kind of best effort.
Naturally
Our vaunted FDA in action
What this story is not is one about how liberal Democrats happily put people with lung transplants at risk from COVID
(bold mine)
What we’ll never know is if getting COVID, which we’ll never know either, could have also had an effect
this is pretty terrible, but I think I’ll be conflicted in sympathy the rest of my life. Would these people have thought twice about giving my dad COVID? He didn’t get to write anything. He died with a few strangers on I40. I think my capacity for empathy might be vastly diminished.
ive been super busy cuttin wood and layin it in, and other assorted tasks, preparing for the arctic airmass descending upon central texas, etc, friday.
so i do not know if its been linked…but Carney’s speech at davos feels like a watershed moment.
https://www.policymagazine.ca/the-old-order-is-not-coming-back-mark-carneys-speech-to-the-world-economic-forum/
like he’s been smokin that bandung variety of kush.
Carney at Davos: When the Walls Fell
It was a pretty dramatic admission that the ‘rules based order’ was always more aspirational fig leaf than bound on the powerful. Claiming a discontinuous ‘rupture’ in the global system as a reason to drop pretense has a noble ring, but it would have been more impressive if Davos-man had recognized the failure of the pretense around 2008, or at Brexit/Trump v1.0, or even Trump 2.0.
But, better late than never! As long as we can all get back to cutting taxes and increasing defense spending, we can make it through this Gramscian interregnum.
I’m glad he said it, but I reserve judgement on whether it’s actually going to happen. Is he going to admit that Russia has a right to security as well, or that there might be some substance to their complaints about NATO? I feel like the sign might stay in the window for a while longer.
Still nice to see a bit more honesty than usual.
Damn. A couple hits of that stuff numbs me to the cold of stocking the indoor rack and then, hopefully, leaving me with the wherewithal to fill the firebox. I hope he’s pacing himself ;-)
So Carney finally admits the rules-based-order was created by the economically powerful Western nations for their own benefit. Now that T has come along and started bullying the less strong nations in the West, why Carney thinks the rules-based-order must be tossed out. Carney even quoted from Vaclav Havel’s famous essay The Power of the Powerless. (Carney quoting Havel is pretty rich.)
From Carney’s speech referencing Havel:
“In 1978, the Czech dissident Václav Havel wrote an essay called The Power of the Powerless. In it, he asked a simple question: how did the communist system sustain itself?
His answer began with a greengrocer. Every morning, this shopkeeper places a sign in his window: “Workers of the world, unite!” He does not believe it. No one believes it. But he places the sign anyway — to avoid trouble, to signal compliance, to get along. And because every shopkeeper on every street does the same, the system persists.
Not through violence alone, but through the participation of ordinary people in rituals they privately know to be false.”
—
So, Carney always knew the global rules-based-order was a lie or illusion but went along with it while it was profitable? I imagine he also know neoliberalism is an illusion as well.
I really can’t get over Carney quoting Havel at Davos. / ;)
I thought Carney using Havel to blame the oppressed for their oppression was a great way to woo the Davos audience.
Carney’s speech was masterful. Decades of global liberal (neoliberal?) hypocrisy summarily dispensed with.
We are very fortunate to have him at this critical juncture.
Good luck getting a job
From Job Applicants Sue to Open ‘Black Box’ of A.I. Hiring Decisions (NY Times)
re: JOHN HELMER with NIMA
highly recommended
As this conversation has been mentioned here earlier –
I found it to be the first outstanding podcast on this topic of 2026.
But maybe some who have more expertise of their own could weigh in.
The particularities of the conflicting capitalist parties within Russia which Putin is bascially trying to balance since he has been elected aka “Jewish capital vs. Islamic capital” (as Helmer puts it quoting Putin) remain too obscure in Helmer´s abstractions, I find.
Another critique would be: He questions that Putin has truly understood that the US cannot be trusted, among others based on Putin´s private comments made 25 years ago(!) to Bush (I guess this is the recently released FOIA transcripts?).
As far as I can judge it it has been repeated endlessly that the Russians have understood. Not only the elites but the population at large too.
So whatever Russians are doing behind the scenes where Helmer – who points this out himself – cannot see – it will have the goal to safeguard Russian interests and Russia herself.
But to quote Andrei Martyanov: Will Russians deal with the devil if it helps? They will.
So RU military supremacy has this one particular purpose: To guarantee the state´s vital interests against the devil whoever it may be.
In how far Helmer´s fears of regime change operations in Russia are realistic or not is another question.
Anyhow a must I find:
Two Fronts, One Collapsing EU? Greenland’s Choice & Ukraine’s War
60 min.
https://rumble.com/v74mh9q-john-helmer-two-fronts-one-collapsing-eu-greenlands-choice-and-ukraines-war.html?e9s=src_v1_cbl%2Csrc_v1_ucp_a
The Outlaw US Empire withdraws from Iraq, as the latter establishes closer ties with Iran – GeoPolitiQ
“However, it must be said that, although the international coalition will no longer be stationed in federal Iraq, coordination will continue from the airbase in Erbil, in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, to ensure that remaining ISIS elements in Syria do not endanger Iraq’s national security, while joint operations with the Outlaw US Empire “will still be launched from Ain al-Assad Airbase when necessary, in alignment with regional objectives”.
Well, then…I guess current events in Syria are supposed to be a coincidence?
“Withdrawal” or recalibration?
NoahOpinion on collapsing fertility worldwide, sees no viable solutions, but recommends studies.
worldwide phenomena is perplexing, is humanity getting an unconcsious signal, if so what is it?
37k for a Chinese EV hotrod, we are missing out