Aug 152022
 
 August 15, 2022  Posted by at 8:39 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,


Odilon Redon Street in Samois 1888

 

The Second Coming of the Heartland (Escobar)
Ukraine To Target Russian Soldiers At Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (G.)
EU Ramps Up Exports To Russia (RT)
Sanctions Are ‘Wrong To The Core’ – Hungarian Parliament Leader (RT)
Gazprom Has Increased Gas Supply To Hungary (G.)
Ukraine To Legalize Guns Soon – Minister (RT)
US Fumes Over India’s Role In Transporting Banned Russian Oil – Reuters (RT)
A Deeper Dive Into the CDC Reversal (Tucker)
Trump And His Family Watched FBI Raid on CCTV (CB)
FBI Took Documents Protected By Attorney-Client Privilege From Mar-a-Lago (CB)
Rand Paul Calls To Repeal Espionage Act Following Mar-a-Lago Raid (JTN)
House GOP To Issue Scathing Report About Biden’s Afghanistan Withdrawal (CNN)
Atlantic Op-ed Claims Catholic Rosary Has Become ‘An Extremist Symbol’ (Fox)
South America’s ‘Lithium Fields’ And The Dark Side Of Our Electric Future (EN)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hoax

 

 

Schiff

 

 

 

 

Irish farmer
https://twitter.com/i/status/1558723257695600643

 

 

 

 

“This unelected gaggle of insufferable mediocrities – from von der Leyden and Borrell to that piece of Norwegian wood Stoltenberg..”

The Second Coming of the Heartland (Escobar)

[..] the inestimable Alastair Crooke has illustrated the death of Eurocentrism alluding to Lewis Carroll and Yeats: only through the looking glass we can see the full contours of the tawdry spectacle of narcissistic self-obsession and self-justification offered by “the worst”, still so “full of passionate intensity”, as depicted by Yeats. And yet, unlike Yeats, the best now do not “lack all conviction”. They may be few, ostracized by cancel culture, but they do see the “rough beast, its hour come out at last, slouching towards…” Brussels (not Jerusalem) “to be born”. This unelected gaggle of insufferable mediocrities – from von der Leyden and Borrell to that piece of Norwegian wood Stoltenberg – may dream they live in the pre-1914 era, when Europe was at the political center.

Yet now not only “the center cannot hold” (Yeats) but Eurocrat-infested Europe has been definitely engulfed by the maelstrom, an irrelevant political backwater seriously flirting with reversion to 12th century status. The physical aspects of the Fall – austerity, inflation, no hot showers, freezing to death to support neo-Nazis in Kiev – has been preceded, and no Christianized imagery need apply, by the fires of sulphur and brimstone of a Spiritual Fall. The transatlantic masters of those parrots posing as “elites” could never come up with any idea to sell to the Global South centered on harmony and much less “community”. What they sell, via their Unanimous Narrative, actually their take on “We Are the World”, is variations of “you will own nothing and be happy”. Worse: you will have to pay for it – dearly.

And you have no right to dream of any transcendence – irrespective if you’re a follower of Rumi, the Tao, shamanism or Prophet Muhammad. The most visible shock troops of this reductionist Western neo-nihilism – obscured by the fog of “equality”, “human rights” and “democracy” – are the thugs being swiftly denazified in Ukraine, sporting their tattoos and pentagrams. The Collective West Self-Justification Show staged to obliterate its ritualized suicide offers no hint of transcending sacrifice implied in a ceremonial seppuku. All they do is to wallow in the adamant refusal to admit they could be seriously mistaken. How would anyone dare to deride the set of “values” derived from the Enlightenment? If you don’t prostrate yourself in front of this glittering cultural altar, you’re just a barbarian set to be slandered, law-fared, canceled, persecuted, sanctioned and – HIMARS to the rescue – bombed.

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Nothing new.

Ukraine To Target Russian Soldiers At Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (G.)

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said his forces will target Russian soldiers who shoot at or from Europe’s largest nuclear power station, amid warnings that the Kremlin may falsely claim Kyiv has directly struck the critical site. Zelenskiy said anyone giving orders for attacks on the site or nearby towns and cities should face trial by an international court, as concern about the safety of the nuclear site remained high. “Every Russian soldier who either shoots at the plant, or shoots using the plant as cover, must understand that he becomes a special target for our intelligence agents, for our special services, for our army,” Zelenskiy said in a video address on Saturday night.


He called for new sanctions against Russia that would “necessarily block the Russian nuclear industry”, and he argued that “absolutely all officials of the terrorist state, as well as those who help them in this blackmail operation with the nuclear power plant, must be tried by an international court.” Russian troops captured the station – the biggest nuclear plant in Europe, responsible for up to 20% of Ukraine’s energy needs – early in the war. Two of its six reactors are currently operating and Ukraine has said Russia is trying to reconnect the power plant to occupied Crimea and shut off electricity supply to towns held by Kyiv.

German reporter

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But but sanctions?!

EU Ramps Up Exports To Russia (RT)

EU exports to Russia surged by 18% in June from the previous month, reaching €4.45 billion ($4.57 billion), foreign trade data from the statistics agency Eurostat shows. This was the second consecutive month that exports to Russia rose, following the April low of just €2.78 billion. However, the value of goods shipped to Russia remains well below the June 2021 figure of €7.21 billion, as some 28% of EU exports to Russia remain under Ukraine-related sanctions. In response to Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, Brussels banned the export to Russia from the EU of airplanes, bearings, dual-use technology, luxury goods, and other products. These restrictions delivered an instant blow to the bloc’s exports to Russia, one of its largest trading partners in previous years.

Nevertheless, industrial equipment retained its position as the largest EU export to Russia, with June having seen shipments worth €1.12 billion, up 21% from May. The supply of medicines also increased, growing by 6% to €791 million over the previous month and surpassing last year’s figures by 31.5%. Medicine is now the second-largest EU export to Russia. The bloc’s exports of perfumes and cosmetics, excluding luxury goods that exceed €300 per single item, rose in June by 38% to €108 million. Shipments of plastics and plastic products grew by 16% to €234 million, while deliveries of optical, measuring, control, medical devices and instruments and electrical equipment and components also jumped. However, exports in all of these categories remain well below last year’s levels.

Germany remains the largest EU exporter to Russia, with €1.16 billion worth of goods shipped in June, a 5.4% increase against May. Poland nearly doubled its shipments to Russia against April-May to €395 million, while exports from the Baltic states increased by 34% month-on-month, to €481 million. Due to sanctions, the export of aircraft and aircraft components from Europe to Russia, which approached €3 billion in 2021, has dropped to zero since April 2022. Deliveries of cars and auto parts fell by more than ten times in annual terms and amounted to only €62 million in June.

Russia stopped publishing trade statistics shortly after the operation in Ukraine began. However, according to a report from the Bank of Russia in late July, citing data from Russia’s trading partners, the country’s overall imports of goods and services fell 22% in the second quarter of the year from the same time in 2021. Moscow repeatedly said that it will be able to overcome the impact of sanctions on imports, and that measures will be taken to substitute any missing goods with ones produced at home or obtained from other sources, such as China, Turkey and India. In a draft of the directive on monetary policy published earlier this week, Russia’s central bank predicted that despite the political pressure, imports would gradually recover.

“The pace of this recovery will be determined by the emergence of new financing and insurance mechanisms, the construction of new logistics routes and the formation of new trade relations. The mechanism of parallel imports, launched at the end of March, will also contribute to the growth of imports,” the regulator stated, as cited by the news agency RBC.

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Hungary says it; the rest do it secretly.

Sanctions Are ‘Wrong To The Core’ – Hungarian Parliament Leader (RT)

Hungarian National Assembly Speaker Laszlo Kover has condemned the EU’s economic sanctions on Russia as “wrong to the core,”predicting economic devastation as a result. Kover, a long-time critic of the EU, added that Hungary’s success depends on cooperation with both East and West. Speaking in the Hungarian town of Bugac on Saturday, Kover used a Hungarian proverb to describe the EU’s decision to impose massive economic sanctions on Russia while still relying on its energy exports. “Brussels politicians swung their legs without a horse under them,” he told attendees of the Kurultaj festival, an annual event celebrating Eurasian and Turkic steppe-nomadic horse culture. Kover added that the sanctions – imposed in seven successive rounds since Russia launched its military operation in Ukraine in February – are “wrong to the core,” and will result in economic ruin for Europe.

Kover is a member of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party, and Orban himself has expressed a similar view on Brussels’ sanctions policy. In a speech last month, Orban bluntly assessed that “the sanctions are not destabilizing Moscow” as intended. Instead, he remarked, “Europe is in trouble.” The EU, which depends on Russia for around 40% of its gas and a third of its oil, is facing soaring energy costs and record inflation, having imposed a partial ban on Russian oil and announced a phased reduction of Russian gas imports. With multiple EU states imposing power rationing and the situation expected to worsen as winter sets in, Hungary has managed to carve out an exemption from the oil embargo, and has been in talks with Moscow to increase its gas purchases from Russia.

This stance has made Hungary an outlier in the EU, as has Orban’s insistence that NATO’s policy of arming Ukraine against Russia is a lost cause. The Hungarian premier responded to critics earlier this month by stating that “Brussels is not our boss,” and that the “independent, sovereign Hungarian nation”would work to “prevent” EU policies that aren’t in its national interest. As an EU member, Hungary is nevertheless party to most of Brussels’ sanctions on Russia. Likewise as a NATO country, Hungary would be bound to side with the US-led alliance if it became involved in open war with Russia. In his speech on Saturday, Kover described Hungary’s history and geography as making the country a “bridge” between East and West. “When the East and the West confronted each other, it only brought decline,” he said. “But if they cooperated, it brought Hungary a chance to rise.”

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“It is the only EU member state to have categorically ruled out acting on a plan to cut gas consumption by 15%..”

Gazprom Has Increased Gas Supply To Hungary (G.)

Gazprom has ramped up flows to Hungary through the TurkStream pipeline that transports gas via Bulgaria and Serbia, a Hungarian foreign ministry official has said. The Russian state-owned company started delivering more gas than it was contractually obliged to on Friday, Menczer Tamás, an official in Hungary’s ministry of foreign affairs and trade, wrote in a Facebook post on Saturday. By the end of August, Gazprom would supply Hungary with an addition 2.6m cubic metres a day, said Menczer, a member of Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party. TurkStream, which runs through the Black Sea, is called Balkan Stream in Bulgaria, where the pipeline enters EU territory. While Russia has stopped gas deliveries to Bulgaria, an EU member, Sofia continues to transit Russian gas to Serbia and Hungary.

Three weeks ago Hungary’s foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, travelled to Moscow to discuss buying an additional 700m cubic metres of gas, becoming the only top official from an EU member state to visit Russia since late February, bar the Austrian chancellor, Karl Nehammer, who made a trip in April. Hungary, which is about 85% dependent on Russian gas, has consistently opposed the idea of any EU sanctions on Russian gas imports, and Orbán, the prime minister, has also lobbied hard to secure an exemption from EU sanctions on Russian crude oil imports. It is the only EU member state to have categorically ruled out acting on a plan to cut gas consumption by 15% from August this year until March 2023.

In Germany, which is also reliant on Russian gas imports, the economic ministry announced on Saturday night that the country needed to reduce its gas consumption by 20% to help the EU meet its 15% reduction target. As a first step, the government moved to lower the mandatory minimum temperature in offices in the private and public sector by one degree to 19C. The heating of private swimming pools, as well as lighting up buildings or monuments “for purely aesthetic purposes”, will be banned. Outdoor advertising signs are to be switched off from 10pm until 6am.

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They’re going to shoot each other.

Ukraine To Legalize Guns Soon – Minister (RT)

Ukraine will adopt a law legalizing firearms in the near future, amid the nation’s ongoing armed conflict with Russia, Internal Affairs Minister Denis Monastirsky told local media on Saturday. According to Monastirsky, the Ukrainian parliament may allow citizens to buy handguns and other weapons to protect their homes. While stating that he believes people should be able to do so, he said the Internal Affairs Ministry is against granting people the right to carry guns in public. “We are opposed to carrying weapons freely in public places, because we believe that the risks to public safety outweigh the benefits,” he stated, adding that the ministry has been working with Ukrainian MPs on the issue, and that a law could be adopted soon.

“[It] has been approved in the first reading and is now being prepared for the second one. I think that it would be submitted to the Parliament for consideration in the near future.” A bill on gun control that was approved by the Ukrainian parliament in late February, shortly before Moscow launched its military operation, allows citizens to buy and store at home short-barreled firearms, as well as using them at shooting ranges. In March, Monastirsky revealed that the Ukrainian authorities had distributed “tens of thousands” of assault rifles, usually reserved for the trained personnel, among civilians, in a move to turn the public into a resistance force against Russian troops.

At the time, Kiev also announced it would set free combat-experienced felons who agree to take up arms and fight against the Russian Army. According to media reports, on February 24 alone – the day Russia began the attack – the Kiev authorities handed out at least 10,000 automatic rifles among residents. In July, Viktor Andrusov, a former adviser to Monastirsky, announced that Ukrainians could gain the right to carry pistols for self-defense as early as next year. He also claimed, citing an unspecified poll, that 70% of Ukrainians support the move. Even before full-scale hostilities between Russia and Ukraine broke out, the number of unregistered firearms in Ukraine was estimated at between 3 and 5 million.

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“..that’s the way war works, it works in strange ways..”

US Fumes Over India’s Role In Transporting Banned Russian Oil – Reuters (RT)

Washington has approached New Delhi with queries about Russian oil products that were allegedly shipped to the US from India, Reuters reported on Saturday, citing Reserve Bank of India Deputy Governor Michael Patra. According to Patra, the US Treasury informed the country’s authorities that an Indian vessel allegedly picked up oil from a Russian tanker on the high seas and delivered it to a port in the state of Gujarat on the country’s west coast, where the oil was processed and then shipped to New York. “You know that there are sanctions against people who are buying Russian oil, and this was reported to us by the US Treasury… It turns out, an Indian ship met a Russian tanker in mid-seas, picked up oil in the mid-seas, came to a port in Gujarat, it was processed in that port and converted into a distillate which actually goes into making single-use plastic.


“The refined output was put back on that ship and it set sail without a destination. In the mid-seas it received the destination so it reached its course, went to New York,” Patra said at an event in Odisha celebrating 75 years of Indian independence. The official did not reveal the name of the ship in question, nor provide any other details on the matter, but said “that’s the way war works, it works in strange ways.” The US banned Russian oil and oil products from entering the country earlier this year, as part of sanctions aimed at Russia in connection with the situation in Ukraine. India has abstained from sanctioning Moscow and, while prior to this year it rarely bought Russian oil, has stepped up purchases tenfold since March, taking advantage of the discount Moscow has offered. According to Bloomberg, Russia overtook Saudi Arabia as the South Asian nation’s second-biggest supplier in June, second only to Iraq.

https://www.rt.com/business/560800-india-us-russian-oil-products/ Read more …

“Meanwhile, as of this writing, the blasted US government still will not allow unvaccinated travelers across its borders!”

They’ll keep that up till after the US Open, just to spite Djokovic.

A Deeper Dive Into the CDC Reversal (Tucker)

It would have been fascinating to be a fly on the wall in the brainstorming sessions that led to this little treatise. The wording was chosen very carefully, not to say anything false outright, much less admit any errors of the past, but to imply that it was only possible to say these things now. “As SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, continues to circulate globally, high levels of vaccine- and infection-induced immunity and the availability of effective treatments and prevention tools have substantially reduced the risk for medically significant COVID-19 illness (severe acute illness and post–COVID-19 conditions) and associated hospitalization and death. These circumstances now allow public health efforts to minimize the individual and societal health impacts of COVID-19 by focusing on sustainable measures to further reduce medically significant illness as well as to minimize strain on the health care system, while reducing barriers to social, educational, and economic activity.“

In English: everyone can pretty much go back to normal. Focus on illness that is medically significant. Stop worrying about positive cases because nothing is going to stop them. Think about the bigger picture of overall social health. End the compulsion. Thank you. It’s only two and a half years late. What about mass testing? Forget it: “All persons should seek testing for active infection when they are symptomatic or if they have a known or suspected exposure to someone with COVID-19.” Oh. What about the magic of track and trace? “CDC now recommends case investigation and contact tracing only in health care settings and certain high-risk congregate settings.” Oh. What about the unvaccinated who were so demonized throughout the last year?

“CDC’s COVID-19 prevention recommendations no longer differentiate based on a person’s vaccination status because breakthrough infections occur, though they are generally mild, and persons who have had COVID-19 but are not vaccinated have some degree of protection against severe illness from their previous infection.” Remember when 40% of the members of the black community in New York City who refused the jab were not allowed into restaurants, bars, libraries, museums, or theaters? Now, no one wants to talk about that. Also, universities, colleges, the military, and so on – which still have mandates in place – do you hear this? Everything you have done to hate on people, dehumanize people, segregate people, humiliate others as unclean, fire people and destroy lives, now stands in disrepute.

Meanwhile, as of this writing, the blasted US government still will not allow unvaccinated travelers across its borders! Not one word of the CDC’s turgid treatise was untrue back in the Spring of 2020. There was always “infection-induced immunity,” though Fauci and Co. constantly pretended otherwise. It was always a terrible idea to introduce “barriers to social, educational, and economic activity.” The vaccines never promised in their authorization to stop infection and spread, even though all official statements of the CDC claimed otherwise, repeatedly and often. You might also wonder how the great reversal treats masking. On this subject, there is no backing off. After all, the Biden administration still has an appeal in process to reverse the court decision that the mask mandate was illegal all along. “At the high COVID-19 Community Level,” the CDC adds, “additional recommendations focus on all persons wearing masks indoors in public and further increasing protection to populations at high risk.”

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“Neither he nor any of his family have publicly said they were able to watch the raid as it unfolded.”

Trump And His Family Watched FBI Raid on CCTV (CB)

One of former President Donald Trump’s attorneys has revealed new details regarding the raid on his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., early last week. Lawyer Christina Bobb said that the former president and many family members watched the FBI during “the whole” raid, meaning that they likely would have been able to see if agents planted any evidence, as Trump suggested last week. “It’s kind of funny. I think the folks in New York, President Trump and his family, probably had a better view than I did because they had the CCTV, they were able to watch,” Bobb told the streaming network Real America’s Voice, according to the New York Post. “I was, you know, I was stuck in the parking lot there to you know, collect paper and answer questions,” she added.

“But they were actually able to see the whole thing. So they actually have a better idea of what took place inside.” Bobb said that the FBI had initially instructed Trump’s staff and his attorneys to shut off the closed circuit TV security system, but they refused to do so and allowed it to remain in operation the entire raid. Since last Monday’s raid, Trump has repeatedly said that it is possible that the FBI could have planted evidence in order to give Joe Biden’s Justice Department something to charge him with since, as others have speculated, the partisan Jan. 6 Committee hearings have yet to produce anything significant.

“The FBI and others from the Federal Government would not let anyone, including my lawyers, be anywhere near the areas that were rummaged and otherwise looked at during the raid on Mar-a-Lago,” Trump wrote on Truth Social last week, The Post noted. “Everyone was asked to leave the premises, they wanted to be left alone, without any witnesses to see what they were doing, taking or, hopefully not, ‘planting.’ Why did they STRONGLY insist on having nobody watching them, everybody out? Obama and Clinton were never ‘raided,’ despite big disputes!” he added. Trump was physically in New York City when the raid took place. Neither he nor any of his family have publicly said they were able to watch the raid as it unfolded.

DeSantis

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“I respectfully request that these documents be immediately returned to the location from which they were taken. Thank you! ”

FBI Took Documents Protected By Attorney-Client Privilege From Mar-a-Lago (CB)

The FBI grabbed documents that were protected by attorney-client privilege, and possibly executive privilege, during its raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence. The Department of Justice opposed the request of the former president’s attorneys to appoint a special master to review the records, a source said to Fox News exclusively. Sources familiar with the investigation told Fox News Saturday that the former president’s team was informed that boxes labeled A-14, A-26, A-43, A-13, A-33, and a set of documents—all seen on the final page of the FBI’s property receipt —contained information covered by attorney-client privilege.

The FBI seized classified records from Trump’s Palm Beach home during its unprecedented Monday morning raid, including some marked as top secret. But the former president is disputing the classification, saying the records have been declassified. “Sources told Fox News that some records could be covered by executive privilege, which gives the president of the United States and other officials within the executive branch the authority to withhold certain sensitive forms of advice and consultation between the president and senior advisors,” Fox News said. The former president responded to the news on his truth Social account on Sunday, saying “Oh great! It has just been learned that the FBI, in its now famous raid of Mar-a-Lago, took boxes of privileged “attorney-client” material, and also “executive” privileged material, which they knowingly should not have taken. By copy of this TRUTH, I respectfully request that these documents be immediately returned to the location from which they were taken. Thank you!

Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart unsealed the warrant on Friday after a request from both the Department of Justice and the former president. The warrant said that the search be done “on or before August 19, 2022,” and “in the daytime 6:00 am. to 10:00 p.m.” “The locations to be searched include the ‘45 Office,’ all storage rooms, and all other rooms or areas within the premises used or available to be used by FPOTUS and his staff and in which boxes or documents could be stored, including all structures or buildings on the estate,” it said. The warrant gave the FBI the authority to seize “all physical documents and records constituting evidence, contraband, fruits of crime, or other items illegally possessed” in violation of U.S. Code.

[..] Trump noted on his Truth Social platform on Friday that he, as president, had already declassified the documents that were confiscated by agents. “Number one, it was all declassified. Number two, they didn’t need to “seize” anything. They could have had it anytime they wanted without playing politics and breaking into Mar-a-Lago. It was in secured storage, with an additional lock put on as per their request,” the former president posted. “They could have had it anytime they wanted—and that includes LONG ago. ALL THEY HAD TO DO WAS ASK.” he continued.

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He doesn’t defend Trump, he attacks that stupid Act. But all of DC thinks: it might come in handy some time.

Rand Paul Calls To Repeal Espionage Act Following Mar-a-Lago Raid (JTN)

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul called for the Espionage Act to be repealed as the Department of Justice is investigating whether former President Donald Trump mishandled classified materials under the 1917 law. “The espionage act was abused from the beginning to jail dissenters of WWI. It is long past time to repeal this egregious affront to the 1st Amendment,” Paul tweeted on Saturday, including a link to a 2019 article titled, “Repeal the Espionage Act” by Jacob G. Hornberger at the Future of Freedom Foundation. The article described the Espionage Act as a “tyrannical law” that was enacted during World War I “not to punish people for spying but rather for criticizing the draft and the war.”


Hornberger specifically defended WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange, who is facing prosecution under the Espionage Act for releasing what Hornberger describes as “a mountain of evidence disclosing the inner workings and grave wrongdoing on the part of the U.S. national-security establishment.” Paul’s defense of the former president comes despite a tense relationship at times between the two. The FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida last week to try and find “physical documents with classification markings,” information about national defense, and “any government and/or Presidential Records created between January 20, 2017, and January 20, 2021,” according to a warrant from the agency.

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“The committee requested transcribed interviews with more than 30 administration officials, but the Biden administration refused to take part.”

House GOP To Issue Scathing Report About Biden’s Afghanistan Withdrawal (CNN)

At the height of the United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan there were only 36 State Department officials on the ground at the Kabul airport to process Afghans who were trying to evacuate, according to a soon-to-be released report from House Republicans, despite the department’s claims that they had surged resources to handle the crowds desperately trying to flee. This figure — which meant there was “roughly one consular officer for every 3,444 evacuees” — is one of several previously undisclosed details outlined in the highly critical report examining the chaotic US withdrawal last August.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee Republicans’ report, which is being published around one year after the country’s capital fell to the Taliban, reveals additional new details about the Biden administration’s failure to adequately plan for and execute the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. The report, a final draft of which was obtained by CNN, also says the administration did not accurately portray the nature of the events on the ground and failed to put a plan in place to prevent American-trained Afghan commandos from being recruited by America’s adversaries.

“A lot of the Biden administration’s evacuation plans were done in the spring 2021 — some even before the president announced the withdrawal. And they were never updated despite the Taliban battlefield gains, despite the deteriorating security situation, and despite the revised intelligence assessments,” said Rep. Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. President Joe Biden announced in mid-April 2021 that the US would withdraw all remaining troops from Afghanistan by September 11 of that year — the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that launched America’s war there. While Biden long wanted to end US involvement in the Afghanistan war, he attributed the decision, in part, to the deal brokered with the Taliban by the Trump administration, which had a commitment to withdraw by May 1, 2021.

The House report found that it was not until mid-June 2021 that the US Embassy in Kabul held an Operational Planning Team (OPT) meeting with members of the US military and US diplomats focused on pre-planning for non-combatant evacuation operations (NEO). The meeting was described by one US military officer involved as “the first time” that the embassy began “looking at the possibility of NEO.” Because of the “complete lack of proper planning by the Biden administration” there were consequences: evacuation flights “were taking off at only about 50% of their capacity” five days into the NEO, the report says. The report references slow processing at the gates and mayhem outside the gates — a government evacuation process so chaotic and disorderly that even staffers for Vice President Kamala Harris and first lady Jill Biden were contacting outside groups to try to get people out, representatives for the groups told the committee.

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Is there a more peaceful symbol than a rosary?

Atlantic Op-ed Claims Catholic Rosary Has Become ‘An Extremist Symbol’ (Fox)

Atlantic contributor Daniel Panneton declared that the Catholic rosary has become a “symbol” of religious radicalism. The rosary is a string of beads or knots used by Catholics as they pray a sequence of prayers, but one writer warned they have taken on a far darker meaning in modern times. “Just as the AR-15 rifle has become a sacred object for Christian nationalists in general, the rosary has acquired a militaristic meaning for radical-traditional (or ‘rad trad’) Catholics,” Panneton claimed in the Sunday piece titled, “How the Rosary Became an Extremist Symbol.” He added, “On this extremist fringe, rosary beads have been woven into a conspiratorial politics and absolutist gun culture. These armed radical traditionalists have taken up a spiritual notion that the rosary can be a weapon in the fight against evil and turned it into something dangerously literal.”

Panneton slammed an entire online ecosystem for disseminating imagery featuring Christian warriors both historical and modern, suggesting that “social-media pages are saturated with images of rosaries draped over firearms, warriors in prayer, Deus Vult (‘God wills it’) crusader memes, and exhortations for men to rise up and become Church Militants.” He observed that rosary beads “provide an aide-mémoire for a sequence of devotional prayers, are a widely recognized symbol of Catholicism and a source of strength. And many take genuine sustenance from Catholic theology’s concept of the Church Militant and the tradition of regarding the rosary as a weapon against Satan.”

The Atlantic contributor gave a wide variety of examples of how the modern association between rosaries and fighting men has become marketable to a niche audience, noting that “radical-traditional Catholics sustain their own cottage industry of goods and services,” such as one store that “sells replicas of the rosaries issued to American soldiers during the First World War as ‘combat rosaries.'” The Swiss Guard, who have been protecting the Vatican in their iconic 16th-century armor and uniforms for centuries, were also addressed, as Panneton recounted: “In 2016, the pontifical Swiss Guard accepted a donation of combat rosaries; during a ceremony at the Vatican, their commander described the gift as ‘the most powerful weapon that exists on the market.'”

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This is from Feb 2022, but I include it anyway, to show that the industry relies on not-yet existing tech to keep going. That’s always a very bad sign.

South America’s ‘Lithium Fields’ And The Dark Side Of Our Electric Future (EN)

Lithium extraction fields in South America have been captured by an aerial photographer in stunning high definition. But while the images may be breathtaking to look at, they represent the dark side of our swiftly electrifying world. Lithium represents a route out of our reliance on fossil fuel production. As the lightest known metal on the planet, it is now widely used in electric devices from mobile phones and laptops, to cars and aircraft. Lithium-ion batteries are most famous for powering electric vehicles, which are set to account for up to 60 per cent of new car sales by 2030. The battery of a Tesla Model S, for example, uses around 12 kg of lithium. These batteries are the key to lightweight, rechargeable power. As it stands, demand for lithium is unprecedented and many say it is crucial in order to transition to renewables. However, this doesn’t come without a cost – mining the chemical element can be harmful to the environment.

[..] Gleb Yushin, a professor at the School of Materials and Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology, US, argues that new battery technology needs to be developed using more common, environmentally-friendly materials. His paper is published in the journal Nature, alongside co-authors including Kostiantyn Turcheniuk. As reserves of lithium and cobalt will not meet future demand, suggested elements to focus on instead are iron and silicon. Researchers like Yushin are working on new battery alternatives that would replace lithium and cobalt (another harmful metal) with less toxic and more easily accessible materials.

As reserves of lithium and cobalt will not meet future demand, suggested elements to focus on instead are iron and silicon. Unlike lithium-ion batteries, iron flow batteries are also cheaper to manufacture, renewable energy veteran Rich Hossfeld told Bloomberg recently, in an article entitled ‘Iron battery breakthrough could eat lithium’s lunch’. “We call on materials scientists, engineers and funding agencies to prioritise the research and development of electrodes based on abundant elements,” maintains Yushin.“Otherwise, the roll-out of electric cars will stall within a decade.”

Lithium Fields’ in the Salar de Atacama salt flats in northern Chile. Tom Hegen

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Totally normal

 

 

Lucky chops
https://twitter.com/i/status/1558731194816253952

 

 

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle August 15 2022

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  • #113494

    Odilon Redon Street in Samois 1888   • The Second Coming of the Heartland (Escobar) • Ukraine To Target Russian Soldiers At Zaporizhzhia Nuclear
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle August 15 2022]

    #113495
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “Man Crashes Car into Capitol Barricade, Opens Fire and Kills Himself, Car burst into flames in early morning assault”

    I’m sorry, but whut? Did they have the same TV Producer as Jan 6? At least the bursting into flames is better footage. When this happens you have to explain to me in very tiny words what mental process you think can cause such very specific and peculiar actions.

    “Thomas Piketty Wants to Bring Back Communism in the Guise of Democratic Socialism”

    Um, those words don’t mean what you think they mean. He wants to bring back Socialism in the guise of Socialism? That’s not a secret, mystery, or diversion. That’s just Socialism, where the Insider Party members (them) and obedient apparatchiks (him) get all the jam, and the people get no jam or bread, but DO get all the work. So Piketty should have great supporters as he recommends to rob Peter to pay…themselves.

    I guess I should point out the latest antiscientific flip flop by the CDC: Don’t quarantine if you have Covid. Why antiscientific? Well since it’s the #Opposite, it’s either wrong now or wrong before. Just like all the other reversals. Note they’re not saying there’s no risk since everyone has natural immunity now, including from Omicron. But if the disease was at all, even a little contagious, then we all would. Again, they seemed to say according to science it was, and according to science, it gave natural immunity. So according to Science you would now be safe. …But they don’t, it’s the #Opposite, so they are again antiscientific with every word and deed. For two and a half years.

    Got sick of talking about it, but there it is again. And from what I see, no one is listening because it’s not-fear, and we only listen to “fear.” People still about with masks, in public parks in bright sunlight, defying and hating science.

    Also from the past, Ray Epps makes statements. Some from his official FBI statements, but none of them make any sense. He was only going to D.C. to keep his son out of trouble. …By calling for occupying the Capitol building. Tomorrow. He thought there was going to be a bomb on the side streets. Huh. So he and his son went there. And he brought some band-aids? You know, for explosions. And uh, the FBI…not at all interested in you know, the bomb and stuff. Also no idea or explanation why he was on, or yet off, the FBI list and of no further interest. Or that the media has taken up the banner of poor, persecuted…Jan 6 man? But only Epps. All the other J6 are scum-sucking traitors that deserve wot.

    So yeah. None of that makes sense. Yet.

    Salman Rushdie: And death threats for J. K. Rowling. But they were unclear: is it because she was radically PRO-gay, as clearly her books are, or radically ANTI-gay as they say she is? Quite a position she’s gotten into where both sides see her as the pinnacle enemy. I mean, she can’t ACTUALLY be both, can she? …Aaaaaaaaand no one cares. ‘Cause when you want to hate and blow people up, any reason is a good reason. They all FEEL SO GOOD!!!

    Anyway, I expected the Rushdie attacker to be 70 years old since that’s how old you’d have to be to know who he is and think he’s relevant.

    Liars:
    Yup
    https://media.gettr.com/group7/getter/2022/08/12/14/cb9e9a45-53e0-4186-5ec0-7a958e242549/13a802abcdeb61df4632de0ff2b01010_500x0.png

    Yup. Still works great. I like hate, and this gives me hate, so therefore, this is good, true, and right. QED. I think the logic is irrefutable.

    Irish solar: well at least not QUITE irreversible, unlike paving the lovely soil of New Jersey for a mall…after killing all the wolves there. But close. They will still have a mountain of toxic, unrecyclable panels in just a few years when they break and burn out. I know that seems a long time now, but with the low standards they are using now, it’s 30-60y max. Shorter than a power plant and take up much, much more space. Then what do you tell your kids when we make a pyramid of glass garbage on the edge of town? That we were oh-so “environmental”? We were “mental” all right. They’ll have to deal with all our s—t we left for them. And solar doesn’t put out any power either. Especially in Ireland.

    Escobar: “What we do have, and must endure, day after day, is the kinetic battle between their “Great Narrative”, or narratives, and pure and simple reality. Their obsession with the need for virtual reality to always “win” is pathological: after all the only activity they excel in is manufacturing fake reality.”

    The only enemy is truth. To see what kind of person that is and that makes you, look to Shiff.

    “Hungary says it; the rest do it secretly.”

    Because Hungary tells the truth. The other EU countries lie. That makes Hungary the enemy! No comment that concerning “the enemy”, exports increase TO Russia, the EU but U.S. especially have doubled their oil purchases FROM Russia, and so clearly the war has caused Russia to be far MORE integrated into the world and fabulously richer. …But if we just LIE about it, all that’s good and smart and logical. Yup.

    …Just don’t tell the truth and we can all get on famously.

    Ukraine To Legalize Guns Soon – Minister (RT)”

    Uh-huh. Sure. I’ll believe it when I see it, as they are arming a civil war internally and not just between provinces.

    “Kiev also announced it would set free combat-experienced felons who agree to take up arms and fight”

    Wow, they actually found a country as dumb as we are. So the violent criminals “Promised” they wouldn’t commit any crimes. Wow! So glad they are the sort of people who are trustworthy and follow the law now. …Just like we know a criminal would NEVER break the law and get a gun – because that would be ILLEGAL. So they won’t get the illegal gun because they’re law abiding but will violently kill strangers and violently rob stores because…they…follow? Don’t follow? The laws?

    Yup, Ukraine is clearly in the running for 51st state. Merging their corrupt, counterproductive, brain-dead Congress with ours would barely cause a ripple. Remember kids: Ukrainian Criminals obey the law! That’s just logic.

    FBI Took Documents Protected by Attorney-Client Privilege from Mar-a-Lago (CB)”

    That leads to a bunch of things. So their argument is that there is not only stuff, but super, extreme tippy-top, sooper dangerous, right-now stuff is in those boxes. So…they have agents looking at it? Whose clearance is 5 levels below the President’s? Moving it around the city? Where a box could fall off the truck into Russian hands in a perfect heist and no one would be the wiser? Explain?

    Espionage Act is a bad law, probably should have been struck down at least in part, but since it comes after the Progressive Era, the only question the court had is, “Does it give the State more power?” If so, it’s legal. If not, it’s illegal. Simple. All power rests in the Federal, and that power is to be increasingly narrowed until like Justice Roberts, it exists solely in an unchecked Executive without oversight. That’s what Roberts says the Constitution is, right? Separation of Powers? Yes, the whole rest of the government, the entire nation, and the people have all be separated from all their power, as all power nationwide rests exclusively in George Bush. That’s Democracy! When one man runs it all as King. Yup, that’s his legal foundation; look it up. Both parties approved him and his smart, smart ways.

    “ House GOP to Issue Scathing Report about Biden’s Afghanistan Withdrawal (CNN)”

    Not sure. Half of me thinks the Pentagon isn’t following orders and just said “F it, we’re leaving.” Why? 1) it embarrasses and destroys Biden, although not as much as they think it does, And 2) if withdrawal took any amount of time they would stop it. And what’s Biden supposed to say? That he’s not really in charge of anything? Because the Pentagon has seen the election dossier and thinks he’s an occupation President fronted by foreign governments? Why would they do this that goes so badly? Well, they would lose as many men or more if they stayed too. Just slowly for 20 years instead of a few in just one day. Wars are like that, it’s something they deal with every minute of every day and night.

    At the same time, I see it as removing our men and attention completely from F-Stan because the decision about Ukraine had been made. We needed to re-position in the world’s biggest hurry to focus on Russia and WWIII which was about to happen, in military terms, immediately. Could be neither, tho.

    “Just as the AR-15 rifle has become a sacred object for Christian nationalists in general,”

    Um, well that statement is completely and totally false, so clearly the corollary you are making will be similarly false. The religious extremists that kill everyone are Jacobins like you, and exactly in the same way as the French Revolution, first time ‘round. Even assuming some recent attacks we’re still on 15 out of 18 mass murders were Leftists? And it’s approved of so much the first thing the Right said about the FBI office was: “Setup”? As in “It must be a day ending in “Y”” You don’t get that kind of language if the people approve, you’d get a “F yeah! They deserve it. You go girl!” or something.

    “rosary beads have been woven into a conspiratorial politics and absolutist gun culture.”

    I read quite a lot of these people and I’ve never seen it once yet. So that’s pretty interesting. Who are you writing to? What audience are you weaving this strange fiction for? And why? There aren’t enough Catholics that if you go after them you’d get anywhere or win anything. Heck there aren’t enough CHRISTIANS left that you could fill Cowboy Stadium with them. You’re living in a fantasy, created from lies about the distant past. I suppose murder and hate are their own reward, as we see from The Atlantic daily.

    Hate? Hate of what? Hate for GOD. Hate for anyone who believes in God. Hate for anyone who prays to God instead of me, 3rd rate apparatchik of the State. “Caesar is god.” “Man is god” to these people. That’s New Age. The same progressive quasi-occult outlook that was the exact same root as Nazism the first time. The jealousy: they can’t stand it. People need to bow before ME, and MY power, fear ME grinding you under MY boot, not look to the Father of the Universe for help. Drives me crazy and I lie awake nights worrying, someone, somewhere, might be praying and not fearing and looking at ME.

    The Narcissist’s Lament. “We are the World.”

    “Lithium represents a route out of our reliance on fossil fuel production.”

    Hahahaha. No it doesn’t. And it’s far dirtier than fossil fuels. Okay, Newsflash: like Hydrogen, Lithium is an energy CARRIER, not an energy SOURCE. Let me repeat that: THERE IS ZERO ENERGY IN LITHIUM. In fact, you need near-limitless energy just to refine and manufacture it.

    Gee, Ricky-Bobby, where’s that energy actually come from then?

    C O A L. Yup, in the U.S. all your green lithium cars run on coal, with a big side of nuclear. But coal wasn’t dirty enough, poisoning enough, permanently enough for these people: they decided to add MORE irreversible pollution and waste by digging up mountains of toxic lithium too. In South America. To be refined using coal and shipped worldwide 2-3x using bunker diesel. That’s GREEEEEEEN! You see.

    If ONLY I were making this up or exaggerating. These geniuses, and their “Smarter class” of Tesla drivers are so dumb they can’t tell energy source from an energy carrier. I wonder if they go to the gas station and steal the delivery semi truck, and leave the gas. I wonder if they can’t tell fire from water. They’re really that dumb.

    THERE IS NO ENERGY IN LITHIUM. It is an energy LOSS. A giant, world-wide energy SINK. Have a nice day!

    “Physicist Brian Catt says people “do not need to panic” over man made climate change.”

    Well the environment is a very important thing, however we’ve had CO2 at what, 4x present levels? And it caused one of history’s greatest booms in ecological diversity and life. We are well within CO2 norms and nowhere near any alarm. And just like last time, like the original ice cores back when this whole thing started, CO2 LAGS the warming. Again, WARMING appears first, CO2 appears shortly after. After, after, after. Over and over, through geological history. 100,000 years before SUVs.

    I can give you the reasons for that, but why bother? Nobody listens to me, go look it up for yourself. It was the very first fact given when this whole nonsense CO2, carbon-trading, carbon digital currency, BTU rationing, austerity for poor people, food-shut-off mass-murdering plan started. …I mean AFTER they wrote about it for 20 years and said they would do it since the Club of Rome. Since Greenpeace founder said they hijcked his club and admitted in print they would lie and make up an emergency to get their way. WHILE buying sea level mansions and flying private jets every day of their environmentally-caring, emergency-critical lives.

    Then not too long after, 2010’s, we learned every other planet in the solar system is warming too. Must be all those vehicles we’ve been sending to Mars.

    Presently the narrative generally is that CO2 causes heat, heat causes seas, so we’ll have to move the harbors back a thousand yards or so. …In 2100. No joke. So far, 30 years later: no sea level rise. Still enough food. More polar bears than ever, so many they’ve become a nuisance.

    Okay then. You do all that while giving worldwide tax breaks for land development TODAY, and foreclosing farmers and shutting off food production TODAY and explain to me how much you care and it’s all about global warming. Living in a place where you can’t grow food in your lawn or hang up your laundry without being arrested. But you CAN park your lithium-poisoning, coal-burning Tesla. Because: Green.

    #113496
    Red
    Participant

    Humans, just, angry, monkeys.

    #113497
    aspnaz
    Participant

    We were in the Matsu Islands this weekend. For those unfamiliar, they are Taiwanese Islands 40 km off the Chinese coast and are considered the front line with China. They are military islands and only in the last decade have the number of resident troops been decreased, from 52000 to the current few thousand. They have since been opened for tourism. They also have the highest average income of the whole of Taiwan, not because of the tourists (hotel capacity is less than 100 per island), the reason being that the residents either work for the government or receive benefits for living in paradise, less than one hour from Taipei by plane.

    The islands are covered in tunnels built over the last 80 years, military tunnels, defences built into the hard granite rock that makes up these islands. There are lots of these islands, about 36, but we went to only a couple of them, the main reason for the visit was to party with some military folk related to one of my wife’s close friends. We visited the public tunnels, the first few were fun, the later ones got a bit boring, but these islands have been used as defences for a long time and tunnels is all they have for the tourists. Except for Nangan where they also have a rice wine factory which was very interesting to visit, but yes, they store the rice wine in some old, cool military tunnels.

    These days the islands are host to the modern weapons systems used to defend Taiwan, such as missile defences and lots of comms stuff as you would expect. Nothing particularly spectacular and there is nothing to see, even the soldiers are scarce. Every island is beautiful, but hideousy boring, a day being enough to make you decide that maybe you would not come back. Fine sand beaches, luminescent algae in the water that gives off a navy blue light visible at night, all fantastic except that the Chinese do not like the sea, so the beaches are holding a fair amount of sea garbage etc and nobody is hiring out equipment to get out on the waves. The sea is basically empty apart for fishermen.

    Interestingly, the people we spoke to – civilian and military – were not the least concerned about the recent Xi/Pelosi hissy fit. They have seen this BS before, they have seen the Chinese bomb these islands before, trying to achieve who knows what. They have also seen the footage on TV and just laugh that this is a ridiculous portrayal of what is actually happening. Even google is saying that the smuggler ships off the coast of the islands are actually Chinese military ships, but the islanders tell us that these ships have been around for decades.

    We could see the Chinese coast from the islands, clearly enough to make out individual buildings. There is no harrassment going on, it is all on TV. The people of the islands know that but they benefit from this sort of rhetoric and have done so for a long time, after all that is how they get their higher than average income.

    #113498
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Nice to see Escobar writing with his full prosodic panache. He can be poetic when he’s so inclined.

    #113499
    zerosum
    Participant

    Breaking news
    In other words
    … CDC says ….. the pandemic is over
    • A Deeper Dive Into the CDC Reversal (Tucker)

    #113500

    Lucky Chops: that was sweet of you, Ilargi. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bass sax before. It was a lot of fun.

    #113501
    John Day
    Participant

    Thanks aspnaz, for the coastal-island insights. It’s different to read about them in articles or Wikipedia, than to have this kind of perspective.

    Thanks Dr.D. It’s a power-struggle. that’s what I’m going to say today, just an overt power struggle.
    Did you look at what Phoenixvoice wrote last night?
    Really succinct, clear and accuate, about forms of decision making and profit-sharing in industry and society.

    #113502
    Polder Dweller
    Participant

    What difference, at this point, does it make?

    #113503
    tonyopmoc
    Participant

    Raúl Ilargi Meijer,

    I have been reading you for quite sometime, and I like how you do your blog, but now I understand a lot more about you cos, I saw a bit of a video interview with you from about 3 years ago. You mentioned stuff from 20 years ago – The oil drum, Jay Hanson – dieoff.org – which really scared the shit out of me for about a week, cos the logic was impeccable. I agreed with almost all of it. Unfortunately so did all the politicians, or to be more accurate, some of the richest most powerful people in the world, who are now quite blatant about their attempts at killing most of us off.

    Whilst I knew quite a lot about the energy industry (I won’t bore you with the details), my job was mainly to do with computing, and analysis. Whilst, I had done physics and maths to a fairly high level at a British University, I had forgotten a lot of it, cos I had never really used it.

    I had never even thought much if anything, about the origins of oil, so I kind of reverted back 30 years to the basic laws of physics and maths, which later came in useful, with regards to my understanding of 9/11.

    Very few people, agreed with me. I had exactly the same problem with covid. Nearly everyone thought I was mad (I have never denied it)

    I got seriously dissed, by all you Peak Oil lot, even though I had massive respect for you. I think Dmitry Orlov is possibly still the best, even if he has abandoned his Quidnon, and gone back to Russia (highly sensible).

    Actually, I thought Dave McGowan was the best (sad loss)

    You Malthusians would not take me on, when I produced, all kinds of evidence, including detailed real scientific papers, based on real physics (not the nonsense they teach in school now) that oil is not a fossil fuel, but formed deep within the earth, and highly unlikely to run out, anytime soon within the next few billion years or so, even if we try and blow the planet up with nuclear weapons, which we probably will do, if we don’t starve to death, or be jabbed to death first.

    I can’t be bothered arguing it about it now. No one believed me then, and they won’t now.

    I love some of the art you publish, and you seem to have a great sense of humour.

    Thanks,

    Tony

    #113504
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    Yesterday, I went with one of my 16-year-old sons to see the WNBA Phoenix team (The Mercury) play downtown — he had completed the library’s summer reading program and free tickets to the game were one of his prizes. Tickets to “The Footprint Center” include a free ride on the light rail to and from the game, which we took advantage of, rather than trying to find free parking downtown. Here are some observations.

    We arrived at thet rain platform and found two older African heritage women and a preschooler trying to purchase tickets from the machine. The machine was not operating. There was another machine across the tracks. I offered to try the machine on the other side of the tracks, and purchased the tickets.

    Across from my son and I on the train were a couple olf older gentlemen, one with a walker and a bag of stuff. The man with a walker struck up a conversation with me, and reminded me about Brittany Griner, sentenced to 9 years of prison for “forgetting” about the cannibis vape oil in her luggage. I agreed that it was a sad thing — but, considering the bad blood between the US and Russia right now, it was very foolish to bring into Russia something that was illegal there — it is difficult for the US State Department to extricate her from the situation. The other gentleman started spouting off about “Russian Communists,” the USSR, and the KGB. I disagreed, pointing out that the Communist Party is not in control in Russia and has not been for a long time. The man was adamant and argued…but his stop was next and he exited the train.

    The man with the walker and I chatted some more. He is homeless, staying at the CASS shelter in downtown Phoenix. He appreciated the conversation. He said that he was recently homeless, but he had foolishly allowed homeless people to shower in his apartment, subsequently his windows were broken, and his landlord kicked him out. He is working with case workers to hopefully get back into housing soon — he is on full disability and so has the means to pay for an inexpensive apartment. He said that the case workers talk a great deal, and try, but that they don’t seem to accomplish much.

    We were about 30 minutes late to the game — the tickets came by text message, and we’d had no email confirmation, so I hadn’t been sure that we’d actually receive the tickets — which led to us leaving the house late, etc. At the gate, the tickets wouldn’t load properly on my phone — fortunately, I realized that the problem was the default browser on my phone, I was able to copy/paste the URL to Chrome, the tickets loaded, etc. I wondered what would happen to someone less tech savvy? Stuck outside? (Paperless is better — how?)

    The “Footprint Center” has carried many names over the 19 years that I’ve lived here. I like the current name. It is named right now by the Native American tribe that owns and operates a large casino on the outskirts of the metropolis — I don’t know whether they own it or lease it or sponsor it.

    My son used his money to purchase very expensive cotton candy. I had to hand him my debit card because none of the vendors inside accept cash anymore, and I pocketed the cash. $7.60 for cotton candy. That left him $2.40 which was not enough to purchase a drink. Good thing I grabbed a couple of small bottles of club soda as we left the house — one of the odd things we received from the food bank this month. The only drinks that can be brought in the Footprint Center are sealed water bottles. The Center advertises that they are moving towards being “plastic free.” Yeah right, I think, surveying the seats made out of molded plastic, and the fact that water may only be brought in with factory sealed water bottles. (Although, I saw some people ahead of us that came in with unsealed, partially drunk from water bottles, so they are not completely strict about it.)

    We arrived at our seats. One had a purple washcloth on the back, emblazoned with the message “BG 42.” A lady in the row behind us rummaged and handed us the other washcloth — she said that she had been holding it for us. Interesting…but nice to see that she had some integrity. “BG42” — a reference to Brittany Griner. Are they garnering support for Brittany or just using any angle they can for marketing purposes?

    The Mercury was 14 points behind the Chicago Sky when we arrived, and they lost with a similar margin. The esprit de corps was high, and my son thoroughly enjoyed the event. I let myself be carried away with it from time to time. I looked up the details about the situation with Brittany Griner: forced to sign documents in Russian without translation in the airport — which is in violation of Russian law, sentenced 9 years for a crime that carries a maximum sentence of 5 years, that fact that she was “moonlighting” for a Russian team because WNBA athletes are, quite simply, paid a pittance when compared to NBA athletes, etc. Yes, it sucks. I think about Julian Assange — and how the US is guilty of similar injustices.

    On the train ride back, about halfway to the park and ride lot, the electric train broke down. It appears to have been a problem with a door that wouldn’t lock properly? We were halted on a bridge that is over a park, next to the central library, and the freeway passes under the park in a mile-long tunnel. They didn’t want to let us out because there was no “safe” passage from the train due to the auto traffic on the bridge. I pulled up my son’s school assignment, due Monday, on my phone, and he completed it. The AC cut out. (It was overcast, but still around 100 degrees outside.) I could sense the restlessness around me. I thought about it, and opened my mouth and began to sing “Kum Ba Ya,” slowly. There was an immediate hush, and much of the restlessness subsided. I sang three verses. I hoped someone would join in…but, of course, no one did. I then sang a verse of Dylan’s “Blowin in the Wind” — but was cut off by the man across the aisle, who asked me to stop singing, stating that it was “grating.” I thought that was an interesting comment — I’ve had many compliments over the years for my singing…most people enjoy it. I can get a little strident in my high notes if I don’t include enough “darkness” to the sound, but in my middle range — hardly! But I noticed how his toe was tapping incessently, steel-toed shoes with the leather worn away at the tip of the tapping shoes, revealing the steel beneath, and realized that he was very agitated. I sighed and stayed silent, and pulled out the book from my bag.

    The driver ventured to a door near to us, opened it, closed it, opened it, and one jumpy character hurried out and away. The driver returned to his booth at the other end of the car, not closing the door. Another agitated man hurried down the aisle after the driver, muttering his frustrations under his breath, and confronted the driver with heated tones. It was too far away to see exactly what transpired, but within a few minutes, that one, too, had managed to depart the train. The driver did manage to get the air conditioning restarted. At one point, the man who asked me to stop singing shared that he had been working at the game, and claimed that the Mercury had “thrown the game,” losing on purpose because if they’d won they’d have had to go play in Chicago and they didn’t want to do that. Interesting to share that in a car full of people who had just come from the game. Some while later, an African heritage man two seats behind me told me that I sang very well, and that he enjoyed the singing.

    The delay on the train lasted about an hour. Eventaually, the train jerkily returned to the closest platform, we exited, and waited 15 minutes or so for another train to pick us up. (If we’d been allowed out, we could have walked to the park and rde in less than an hour.) Next to me was a family with 4 young children. There was quite a rivalry among two of them — the boy was hitting the girl, first with one of the purple washcloths from the game, then slapping her with his hand. The girl was smaller and plucky, and stood up to much of it. The parents ignored the interchange completely…I was apalled.

    My son had befriended a girl near his age on the train who was there with her mother, a teacher. As we left, the mother told me that she, too, enjoyed the singing, but didn’t want to say anything earlier because of the stressed out man that had asked me to stop. I thanked her, hurrying to my car because my son hadn’t managed to get off the train in time, and I needed to drive to the next stop…fortunately he did get off at the next stop and I had him in the car a few minutes later.

    An interesting afternoon. Homelessness, international intrigue, modern technology, over-the-top commercialized sports, agitated people, breaking-down infrastructure, music, common folks: food for thought.

    #113505
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    I think it’s funny that when a farmer loudly proclaims, “No Farmers No Food” , that the Elites take it as a political statement instead of as a simply factual statement.

    #113506
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    The reason that the elite’s think it’s a good idea to dispose of all of us useless eaters is right there in the statement : the elites think the eaters in question are useless.

    So, are they right? ARE all of those eaters in question actually useless? Of course not, of course. At the very least each of them is useful to themself, individually, and it doesn’t take much brains to see that they are not just “useful” to themselves and loved ones but are also rather vitally friggin’ essential to everyone else as well.

    But nevertheless, to the elites the useless eaters are simply useless . . . end of thought. Therefore the elites will continue to act in self interest based on that obscenely stupid and false model of reality. Of course the elites don’t HAVE to think that way. They could just as easily pay some attention to their surroundings and see that the eaters in question have immeasurably enormous usefulness (both to themselves and the rest of the world as well, even to those blind stupid elites !)

    Could the elites actually do that? Could they look outward and see that the presumably “useless” people are not actually useless? Could the elites observe that simple truth that is so obvious to everybody other than the elites? Why sure they could, if they bothered to try. But that would involve thinking about someone other than themself . . . and that’s not what selfish people do. It’s why we call them “self-ish”. It’s no accident then that “selfish” people wind up wanting and taking everything for themselves, with nary a flitting thought about the fact that the only way they were able to get those goods and services was by stealing them from those “useless” people.

    How ironic, absurd and fitting at the same time, that the “elite” call OTHER people useless, when it is the elite who are factually the most useless critters who ever slithered the Earth. They cannot do much of anything on their own and thus do not contribute to the survival of hardly ANYONE other than their own sweet selves. That’s how they got to be “elite” in first place. They got rich the old fashioned way. They stole it. Jeez, talk about psychological projection.

    Anyway, getting back to the main point, the so-called “elite” can be counted on to remove themselves from the playing field without any help from the outside, by declaring that no one else is even worth paying attention to . . . at which point they won’t pay any attention to anyone else. They will find themselves in the same “Narcissist’s Hell” as Narcissus himself. Loving a reflection which is the only thing they are willing to be aware of, but which is merely a reflection and thus incapable of loving them back. What narcissist’s crave the most is validation of their wonderfulness from others. But since the narcissist will not pay attention to others they are incapable of perceiving such approval even if it were genuinely there (which it isn’t, of course.)

    If all of the above seems a bit of a feed-back loop, or “cyclically circular” in it’s nature my only comment would be that all or most of the Universe is a bit of a feed-back loop and looks rather “cyclically circular” in nature. Except the loop is not a circle . . . . it is a spiral. It does not go round and round to an exact same original position. Rather it spirals up or spirals down. [I coined a word, “spiralicity”, to perhaps better describe its operational nature.]

    So, that’s where the too-selfish are headed. It’s easy as pie to not be one of them. All ya gotta do is go on being useful and acknowledge that others are too.

    #113507
    tonyopmoc
    Participant

    Pepe Escobar, is in a class of his own. I read “Globalistan: How The Globalized World Is Dissolving Into Liquid War”, under an Olive Grove in Corfu in June 2007, when it was incredibly hot. He doesn’t get much wrong.

    #113508
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    DBS: How ironic, absurd and fitting at the same time, that the “elite” call OTHER people useless, when it is the elite who are factually the most useless critters who ever slithered the Earth.

    I emphatically agree!
    (Although…I understand that is a value judgment based upon my own experience and study…and do not wish them pysical harm…although I do wish them to lose their power and privilege. It is way past time for the pendulum to be swinging back the other way.)

    #113509
    Polder Dweller
    Participant

    John Day, do you know if atrial fibrillation is a possible side effect of the jab? I’m asking for a woman aged 55, otherwise in excellent health who’s been double Pfizered but no booster. AF has been confirmed by ECG, but she has no further symptoms.

    Thanks

    #113510
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    Dr D

    ‘CO2 LAGS the warming. Again, WARMING appears first, CO2 appears shortly after. After, after, after. Over and over, through geological history. 100,000 years before SUVs.’

    I’m not sure that you intended to tell the truth of the matter there, or if the truth came out accidentally in an act of planetary meltdown denial.

    Yes, increases in atmospheric CO2 used to follow warming. -that warming being due to variation in the amount of solar energy reaching the Earth as a consequence of variations in the Earths orbit, Milankovitch cycles.

    https://climate.nasa.gov/ask-nasa-climate/2949/why-milankovitch-orbital-cycles-cant-explain-earths-current-warming/#:~:text=Milankovitch%20cycles%20include%20the%20shape%20of%20Earth%E2%80%99s%20orbit,therefore%2C%20energy%2C%20that%20Earth%20absorbs%20from%20the%20Sun

    Everything was just fine and dandy until industrial human came along and began de-sequestering carbon that natural systems had sequestered over hundreds of millions of years.

    And once the atmospheric carbon dioxide level broke through a critical level -arguably 350 ppm – the natural systems that had determined the average temperature of the Earth became increasingly overwhelmed.

    Of course, it suits people who are addicted to the use of fossil fuels to come up with spurious arguments to ‘prove’ that anthropogenically-released carbon dioxide is not responsible for the devastation we are now witnessing.

    ‘Brian Catt, physicist and engineer.’

    But is he really a physicist? Just because there is a caption on a screen does not mean he is. And there is one group amongst many that we know we cannot trust at all: the mainstream media. They always have an agenda, and in recent times their agenda has very much centred on keeping the masses dumbed-down and consuming…advertising revenue and all that!

    I especially note that he is an engineer. And in my experience engineers are amongst the worst kinds of people on this planet because they have zero ecological perspective and think that every difficulty has an engineering solution. When in practice, we are in this diabolical predicament as a direct consequence of excessive engineering. And engineers tend to have zero understanding of the absorption and re-emission of radiation in the atmosphere unless their field of engineering is specifically linked to that field of expertise.

    Over the years I have heard as much bullshit from engineers and from politicians and economists.

    Here are a couple of other things that physicists and engineers tend to overlook, or do not even know about.

    1. Acidification of the oceans.

    Most of the carbon dioxide released by burning coal, oil and gas ends up in the oceans because carbon dioxide is highly soluble in water . The effect of excessive CO2 in the oceans is to mess up the bicarbonate cycle that shellfish utilise to form shells. The excess CO2 also affects corals and fish.

    2. Overwhelming of natural CO2 recycling systems.

    For the past 600 million years or so the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was regulated by

    a) formation of carbonate rocks in the depths of the oceans

    b) formation of carbonate rocks on the land by conversion of silicate rocks into carbonate rocks

    Both these chemical processes took place over eons. And both have been overwhelmed by the massive release of carbon dioxide, due to the burning of fossil fuels over the past couple of hundred years, but particularly in the past 50 years.

    Planetary meltdown is a very real phenomenon.

    The fake aspect is the response to the emissions predicament that the power that be -the banks, corporations, opportunists, UNIPCC, WEF etc. have come up with . Those responses are all BOLLOCKS, and will make the predicament WORSE whilst providing short term opportunities for profiting from the meltdown.

    #113511
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    tonyopmoc

    ‘oil is not a fossil fuel, but formed deep within the earth,’

    The trouble with unfounded assertion like that is that no one ever provides a plausible mechanism for the process. Indeed, no one provides ANY mechanism for the process.

    And such assertions run counter to actual evidence, such as that oil oozes out of recently formed sedimentary deposits near the surface.

    Any way, for the umpteenth time, it is not about running out, it is about the rate of extraction, and what happens to the carbon component after the oil is burned.

    I totally agree that the events of 9/11, as portrayed by the sociopaths who churned out the false narratives, defied the laws of physics, and it was clearly an inside job.

    Like you, I have found it nearly impossible to get ordinary folk to accept that 9/11 could not have occurred as portrayed by official narratives.

    This entire society operates on the basis of denial of reality. And that is why this entire society is doomed.

    But you can’t even say that without upsetting the mollycoddled masses.

    #113512
    zerosum
    Participant

    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/8/14/first-un-ship-carrying-ukraine-grain-sets-sail-for-africa
    14 Aug 2022
    A United Nations-chartered ship loaded with 23,000 metric tonnes of Ukrainian grain set sail from a Black Sea port, marking the first departure of a World Food Programme (WFP) initiative to assist countries facing famine.
    The cargo was funded with donations from WFP, the US Agency for International Development and several private donors.
    In total, 16 vessels have departed from Ukraine since the July deal, according to Kyiv.

    The WFP said a record 345 million people in 82 countries face acute food insecurity and up to 50 million people in 45 countries are on the brink of famine and risk being tipped over the edge without humanitarian support.

    #113513
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    I believe as a deduced fact that the elites are not even hearing the farmers, much less listening attentively. I know this because all farmers everywhere live and breathe the foremost rule of farming. They adhere to the rule because they must, and that breaking the rule loses the farm. They say it or demonstrate it in everything they say and every deed they do.

    The rule is : Don’t starve the mule.

    Well, the elites are deliberately starving the mule.

    This proves either that they are not listening AT ALL, or that they are with full knowledge and explicit intent deliberately putting an end to themselves. . . . and offing oneself on purpose ain’t how psychopathic narcissists are configured. They’re built to put “ME first , and also last and always”. (being unaware that such a strategy is suicidal.)

    #113514
    chettt
    Participant

    AFKTT

    “But this time it’s different!”

    Ho hum. Millions of years of ice core data made irrelevant by those insatiable humans and their evil ways.

    #113515
    Antidote
    Participant

    @Afewknowthetruth

    It’s crazy how much I agree with your *interpretation* of the scientific data and at the same time think that you are one of the biggest dickheads (fat headed gorilla same thing) on here. It seems to me that you hate what appears to YOU to be *less* informed, educated and intelligent humans than yourself, but I think you hate yourself as well. Smarter than 4.5 million inhabitants of your continent ? Hubris a little dude?

    You are not a good ambassador for science. So stop already.

    #113516
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Veggie Park

    dv

    On Nangan Island in the archipelago apnaz mentioned. Smart land use. Food is good.

    #113517
    zerosum
    Participant

    Why
    If L. Chenier, the new media, and democrats did not want Trump to come back, all that they had to do was to shun him.
    Let him ride off in the sunset. Forget him. Ignore him. Let him get lost in the crowd.

    #113518
    slimyalligator
    Participant

    Ilargi, thank you for what you do every day.

    #113519
    John Day
    Participant

    @Tonyopmoc: I am very interested in abiotic oil. I mentioned it here less than 48 hrs ago to AFewKnowTheTruth, saying that I ws in no position to judge the validity, but my perception was that it did not make a difference in a human lifetime, more in geological time.
    Am I mistaken?
    Please do tell. You will have a good audience in me, maybe other denizens.

    #113520
    willem
    Participant

    @JohnDay, @Tonyopmoc, and all: I have read about the abiotic oil theory, and my own belief (and that’s all it is) is probably closest to that of John Day. I figure that unless whatever mysterious process is at work producing this oil and depositing it in readily accessible places is doing so at least as fast as we are using it, it really doesn’t matter.

    #113521
    John Day
    Participant

    @Tonyopmoc, Willem and AFewKnowTheTruth: i did some homework, like about 10 years ago and found this 9 year old paper which gives a detailed (to me) discussion of abiotic oil theory in many specific manifestations. IfI were a geologist, particularly a hydrocarbon geologist, I would be able to form a decisive opinion. It looks good to me, but I’m out of my depth.
    Opposing theory could be well presented to me and also look good.
    Have a look!
    https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/41889

    #113523
    John Day
    Participant

    My internet was out a few hours this afternoon, so I did other useful “real economy” things.
    As I promised Dr.D, “Power Struggle” is the topic of todays hodgepodge of essay moments and lots of links. Picture of me in unfinished-floor living-dining space with a bunch of cases of oak flooring…
    https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/power-struggle

    There is a power struggle going on globally, well, a lot of power struggles in the world, because of the declining carbon-based economy, gamed by corrupt skimming, and the loss of control by the corrupt skimmers, largely the globalist faction, but the rest of them, too.
    The globalists need to take the skim from trade between nations, which is what nations used to do with taxes on imports.
    They do this to hollow out national economies and impoverish workers and industries, not beef them up like Teddy Roosevelt did.
    You can see the trajectories.
    The globalists need to put on the turbo boost as the productive economies, especially food producers speed downward into oblivion.
    Getting rid of most of the people slowly, in a controlled-cull, is the new quiet globalist imperative.
    Save the planet and their jet fuel.
    There sure is a problem with unlimited industrial growth, but turning Holland and Ireland into Sri Lanka (fertilizer-free agriculture experiment) will do what it did to Sri Lanka.
    One must assume this is intentional at this point.

    I am growing veggies, driving a 24 year old 4 cylinder Ford Ranger pick-up when I need to haul things, and we have a couple of little economy cars 13 and 14 years old that we can use.
    I’ve been a bike-commuter for 16 years.
    None of this was forced upon me.
    Your mileage may vary, but we need to openly face our problems and work on a lot of local and personal and family strategies to use less stuff.
    Everything else pertains to this. (Today’s list follows.)

    A New Pandemic 2022​ , Dr. Marian Laderoute
    ​ This fall pandemic is the pandemic of COVID-vaccine side effects, disability and immune system impairment, not just strokes, heart attacks and cardiomyopathy that we already see.​ This article calls for an exponential rise in impairment, disability and death this fall and winter, lagging the recent rounds of first and second “boosters” and going into the sicker months of winter, with low vitamin-D levels and indoor congregating.
    https://hervk102.substack.com/p/the-pandemic-is-no-longer-sars-cov

    The WHO and Bill Gates made deals with india to shut up completely about what was working so well, and they did shut up, but they mostly used ivermectin-based treatment against Delta-COVID, except for 2 provinces that did not, and had lots of hospitalizations and deaths. Pierre Kory MD
    The Miracle Not-Heard Around The World: The Success of Uttar Pradesh – Part 3
    While Uttar Pradesh was “quietly” eradicating COVID, India adopted ivermectin nationally to combat the disastrous Delta wave. The impact of that decision is the world’s 2nd biggest criminal secret.
    https://pierrekory.substack.com/p/the-miracle-not-heard-around-the-1ee?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

    This military physician has a compelling storyof the cover-up of vaccine side efects. Recall that the military is in the business of killing people to achieve stated objectives. That’s normal. Just business. Getting vaccinated was a loyalty test, an expensive, sometimes deadly loyalty test for the US military.
    ​ ​Dr. Long testified that she was contacted by high level officer the night before the hearing, and told not to discuss her findings regarding the explosive military medical data in court. The whistleblower reportedly said she felt threatened after she tried to get her superiors to address the findings, “fearing for her life and for the safety of her children.”
    https://thefirstlightreport.com/2022/07/24/military-doctor-cover-up-vaccine-injuries/

    #113524
    John Day
    Participant

    Food, Dispossession and Dependency​.​ Resisting the New World Order​ ​b​y​ Colin Todhunter​
    ​We are currently seeing an acceleration of the corporate consolidation of the entire global agri-food chain. The high-tech/big data conglomerates, including Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook and Google, have joined traditional agribusiness giants, such as Corteva, Bayer, Cargill and Syngenta, in a quest to impose their model of food and agriculture on the world…
    ​ ​Of course, the billionaire interests behind this try to portray what they are doing as some kind of humanitarian endeavour – saving the planet with ‘climate-friendly solutions’, ‘helping farmers’ or ‘feeding the world’. In the cold light of day, however, what they are really doing is repackaging and greenwashing the dispossessive strategies of imperialism…
    ​ ​Alternatives to this model are then discussed which focus on organic agriculture and specifically agroecology. However, there are barriers to implementing these solutions, not least the influence of global agri-capital in the form of agritech and agribusiness conglomerates which have captured key institutions.
    ​ ​The discussion then moves on to focus on the situation in India because that country’s ongoing agrarian crisis and the farmers’ struggle encapsulates what is at stake for the world.
    ​ ​Finally, it is argued that the COVID-19 ‘pandemic’ is being used as cover to manage a crisis of capitalism and the restructuring of much of the global economy, including food and agriculture.
    https://www.globalresearch.ca/food-dispossession-dependency-resisting-new-world-order/5770468

    ​ Just stop feeding 2/3 of the people in the world? Isn’t there some less severe way for humans to make long term agricultural adjustments?​
    U.N. War On Fertilizer Began in Sri Lanka
    UN Environment Programme launched its anti-fertilizer efforts from Sri Lanka in 2019
    But today the world is in its worst food crisis since 2008. The number of people suffering acute food insecurity increased by 25% since January 2022 to 345 million, according to the United Nations World Food Programme. Why, then, is the UNEP trying to steer nations away from fertilizers that increase food production?
    The UNEP’s Acting Director in 2019 said the reason was humankind’s “long-term interference with the Earth’s nitrogen balance.” In October of that year, the UNEP hosted a meeting in the capital of Sri Lanka, Colombo and issued a “road map” to push nations to cut nitrogen pollution in half.
    But the Netherlands proves that nations can slash nitrogen pollution from livestock by 70% while also increasing meat production. Same for crops. Since the early 1960s, the Netherlands has doubled its yields while using the same amount of fertilizer. While rich nations produce 70 percent higher yields than poor nations, they use just 54 percent more nitrogen​ (fertilizer)​.
    https://michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/un-war-on-fertilizer-began-in-sri

    ​This is just weird. I hardly knew where to place it. The Spanish government decided to copy Chinese spraying of disinfectants on the streets, but from the skies.
    ​ The Spanish government ordered [April 16, 2020, a month after March 2020 lockdown] the military to quietly spray lethal chemtrails on its citizens with UN authorization under the cover of the “state of emergency for the management of the health crisis situation caused by Covid-19.“
    The chemtrail program, which involves the spraying of biocides on the population, was authorized by Royal Decree, was quietly acknowledged by the government on April 16 2020, just one month after the World Health Organization announced that Covid-19 was a pandemic.
    https://www.globalresearch.ca/spain-admits-spraying-deadly-chemtrails-part-secret-un-program-fight-covid-19/5788746

    #113525
    John Day
    Participant

    Henry Kissinger has always spoken for Rockefeller interests, and this is what he is saying.
    ​ ​Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has told the Wall Street Journal that Washington has rejected traditional diplomacy, and in the absence of a great leader, has driven the world to the precipice of war over Ukraine and Taiwan.​..
    “We are at the edge of war with Russia and China on issues which we partly created, without any concept of how this is going to end or what it’s supposed to lead to,” Kissinger said in the interview, published on Saturday.
    ​ ​Kissinger, now 99 years old, elaborated on the West’s role in the Ukraine conflict in a recent book profiling prominent post-WWII leaders. He described Russia’s decision to send troops into the country in February as motivated by its own security, as having Ukraine join NATO would move the alliance’s weapons to within 300 miles (480km) of Moscow. Conversely, having Ukraine in its entirety fall under Russian influence would do little to “calm historic European fears of Russian domination.”​ …
    ​ Kissinger stood by his insistence that the West should have taken Russian President Vladimir Putin’s security demands seriously, and made it clear that Ukraine would not be accepted into NATO alliance…
    ​ ​Kissinger argued that the US should seek “equilibrium” between itself, Russia, and China.
    This term refers to “a kind of balance of power, with an acceptance of the legitimacy of sometimes opposing values,” Kissinger explained. “Because if you believe that the final outcome of your effort has to be the imposition of your values, then I think equilibrium is not possible.”​ …
    ​ According to Kissinger, the US is no longer in a position to side with either Russia or China against the other. “All you can do is not to accelerate the tensions and to create options, and for that you have to have some purpose,” he said.
    https://www.rt.com/news/560780-henry-kissinger-ukraine-taiwan/

    ​Caitlin Johnstone; more colorful: ​Modern US Warmongering Is Scaring Henry Kissinger

    Modern US Warmongering Is Scaring Henry Kissinger

    Sun Tzu, in the Daoist military classic, Art Of War, said, “when your enemy is defeating himself, do not interfere”. This does not mean you don’t have your own internally destructive dynamics, as China certainly does. I’ll suggest that we look at American domestic politics from a long Chinese view. There is an internal factional power struggle, which has more than two interest groups. We might look at Democrats representing Globalist interests, but there are exceptions. Republicans are more “diverse” in this regard. Romney Republicans are crypto-globalist financiers, with vested interest in the “unipolar-world” flavor of globalism, but have their bets hedged. They certainly favor big-oil global interests over nationalized oil companies. They favor big military, as long as it can be funded, because it “defends” their globalist interests in poor countries with oil and resources.
    It is weird to see Kissinger, representing Rockefeller interests of global banking and big oil, advocating for the multipolar world peace now, but it is rational”. It’s the best that can be negotiated, and it’s better than a cult of mass suicide. Henry-the-K notably spoke of the leadership vacuum in the US. He’s obviously not particular, but there has to be a national leader with the vested power to negotiate agreements and assure that they will be kept. The Cheney/Bush regime was the last to be able to do this.
    The shenanigans around Donald Trump provide a focal point for this melee. It continues to be desperate-skirmishes, which may be consolidating public-opinion contituencies. This is desperate poilitical theater. there is suddenly more talk about Trump being assassinated. He is a lightning rod for desperate political factionalism. These factions feel in their bones that things are deeply wrong, and seek simple solutions. There are none. This is global resource depletion sapping the industrial growth engine and all of the leeches which cling to it, and all the people who eat food.
    So pretend you are Chinese, and have a little distanced sense of humor when you look at the pitiful display of American political power struggles from now on.

    Trump And His Family Watched FBI Raid on CCTV, Lawyer Reveals​ ,​ ​ Worse, it’s probably all recorded, too…
    https://conservativebrief.com/trump-27-65527/

    ​The warrant basically said to take every box that might have something on the list in it, no mater what else might be in the box.​
    FBI Seized Documents Protected By Attorney-Client Privilege From Mar-A-Lago
    https://conservativebrief.com/privilege-65544/

    ​This “Espionage Act” was always used to target those who opposed war, initially WW-1, so their newsletters advising against elisting were interdicted at post offices, and they were put in jail. It’s clearly a useful act when the group in power needs to silence any dissent.​ It’s still on the books.
    Rand Paul calls to repeal Espionage Act following Mar-a-Lago raid
    https://justthenews.com/government/congress/rand-paul-calls-repeal-espionage-act

    #113526
    John Day
    Participant

    ​It’s unclear how many of the 87,000 projected new hires would have license-to-kill, but this is a potential new private army for some power group. It’s been like this before. Does the term “Revenoors” ring a bell?​ It would be fine if these folks would process tax returns, which take half a year a lot of times these days.
    Missouri AG Questions Need For Potentially Armed IRS Army
    ​ ​Schmitt, who is a Republican Senatorial Candidate, sent a letter to IRS Commissioner Charles P. Rettig on Aug. 11,questioning the agency’s massive expansion plans that include hiring 87,000 more IRS employees over the next 10 years.
    ​ ​The IRS has stockpiled 5 million rounds of ammunition and spent $750,000 this year to buy more, according to Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, who introduced a bill to block future purchases by the agency.
    ​ ​Concurrently, social media was set ablaze this week by an IRS job post for Criminal Investigation Special Agents that would require them to “carry a firearm and be willing to use deadly force.”
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/missouri-ag-questions-need-potentially-armed-irs-army

    ​ Back at the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, controlled by Russian forces since late February, and now being rewired to send power to Russian Crimea, the Ukrainian shelling of the power plant has been somewhat displaced to shelling the hydroelectric power station which supplies the 6000 volt power lines to the nuclear plant. the loss of this supportpower was what caused the Fukushima meltdown, as you may recall.​
    Kiev is flirting with disaster by shelling hydroelectric facility servicing the Zaporozhye nuclear plant
    https://www.rt.com/russia/560778-zaporozhye-kakhovskaya-nuclear-shelling/

    ​ ​“Ukrainian prisoners of war belonging to the units of the Naval infantry, National Guard, air assault and ground forces chose to stay in the territory controlled by Russia because of their reluctance to fight and fear of being sent to the frontlines again,” Russia’s Ministry of Defense wrote on its Telegram channel.
    https://www.rt.com/russia/560768-ukrainian-pows-exchange-russia/

    ​ Iran might want to buy some air-superiority fighters from Russia.​ Russia, China and Iran are aligned, nearly allied. Zbigniew Brzezinsky’s worst case scenario.
    Russia has signed a contract with Iran to buy 1,000 drones after Iran delivered a few planes and a simulator on which Russian officers trained: they successfully used the first drones in Ukraine. This move is considered unprecedented for a superpower to buy its drones from Iran…
    ​ ​According to well-informed sources in Iran, “the purchase of drones by a superpower like Russia is an important indication confirming the quality and development of Iranian industry, which has succeeded in producing the most advanced drones such as the Shahid 129 which can fly for a period exceeding 24 hours. This is what attracted Russia, especially for use in its war in Ukraine.”

    Russia buys 1,000 drones from Iran and expands the level of strategic cooperation

    It either will or won’t be signed by the US.
    Iran Signals A Restored Nuclear Deal Is Imminent, Deadline Looms For Midnight
    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/iran-signals-restored-nuclear-deal-imminent-deadline-looms-midnight

    #113527
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Dr D said:

    CO2 LAGS the warming. Again, WARMING appears first, CO2 appears shortly after. After, after, after. Over and over, through geological history. 100,000 years before SUVs.

    The environmentalist looney fringe will never adopt this truth, they need to believe in human badness so they will keep on supporting the corporate miners of the earth, the people milking governments to convert us to green energy. The loonies will support them because they think that they are united in a common goal, they think the corporates have seen the light … no they don’t.

    Poor looney fringe know that the corporates are just using them to transfer power and money into their pockets and destroy the earth at the same time, but they cannot help but support them because the cause is good and right. The loonies have a mental problem that necessitates them showing their peers that they are wise and know the truth about how bad people are and that we must gang together and stop people damaging the earth, the earth that will be home to our children.

    The need to campaign and show supperiority is built into these people, they are loonies after all. Without their campaign of moral superiority they would just be average Joes. Of course, they do not campaign for cleaning the oceans or stuff like that, stuff that they could actually do something about by getting off their asses and going and doing cleanups, but they will happily pose as earth lovers by buy a cloth bag from Waitrose to carry their shopping. Oh no, the problem has to be big enough so that they can stay on the couch and moan rather than their peers saying to them “So why don’t you go and pick up litter on the beaches”.

    Of course, most of these people come from the loony left – loony for the same reason – who despise political conservatives but are rabid conservatives when it comes to the earth …. any change in reefs, CO2, etc is wrong, bad, not managing the planet god’s way …. not that they believe in god. They choose to ignore all the real problems, such as the children working in poisonous metal mines across the globe, instead they preach to their peers, they are the vicars of global warming, they are loonies, their church is the corporate cabal. They make a difference, they are the ones helping the corporates and government steal from us, like the vaccinated who choose to hate the unvaccinated they are partially being used and partially need the therapy of self-righteous hate.

    #113528
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Abiotic oil is a weak theory that has failed to produce experimental support. For example, this:

    “Siljan Ring crater
    The Siljan Ring meteorite crater, Sweden, was proposed by Thomas Gold as the most likely place to test the hypothesis because it was one of the few places in the world where the granite basement was cracked sufficiently (by meteorite impact) to allow oil to seep up from the mantle; furthermore it is infilled with a relatively thin veneer of sediment, which was sufficient to trap any abiogenic oil, but was modelled as not having been subjected to the heat and pressure conditions (known as the “oil window”) normally required to create biogenic oil. However, some geochemists concluded by geochemical analysis that the oil in the seeps came from the organic-rich Ordovician Tretaspis shale, where it was heated by the meteorite impact.[48]

    In 1986–1990 The Gravberg-1 borehole was drilled through the deepest rock in the Siljan Ring in which proponents had hoped to find hydrocarbon reservoirs. It stopped at the depth of 6,800 metres (22,300 ft) due to drilling problems, after private investors spent $40 million.[32] Some eighty barrels of magnetite paste and hydrocarbon-bearing sludge were recovered from the well; Gold maintained that the hydrocarbons were chemically different from, and not derived from, those added to the borehole, but analyses showed that the hydrocarbons were derived from the diesel fuel-based drilling fluid used in the drilling.[32][33][34][35] This well also sampled over 13,000 feet (4,000 m) of methane-bearing inclusions.[49]

    “In 1991–1992, a second borehole, Stenberg-1, was drilled a few miles away to a depth of 6,500 metres (21,300 ft), finding similar results.”

    Just as 500 years ago few in Christendom wanted to believe that maybe earth wasn’t the center of the universe and God’s favorite rock, we moderns raised on utopian scientism simply won’t accept that we can’t continue turning the planet into a giant dipshit condominium with moving sidewalks and summer vacations on the moon. We insist there is always not only enough energy but more and MORE and MORE………..

    imn

    #113529
    zerosum
    Participant

    Today is not like yesterday
    Motivators and work ethics don’t work

    Quiet quitting is an adoption of the bare minimum.
    Staff will complete the work they’re contractually obliged to do, and nothing more.
    Quiet quitting means to do just enough to not get noticed by managers for the wrong reasons, but to never do more than is necessary.

    #113530
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Afewknowthetruth said:

    This entire society operates on the basis of denial of reality. And that is why this entire society is doomed.

    Many successful societies in the past have included a degree of “denial of reality” in their social beliefs. Western societies included many Christian beliefs at the core of their society. In fact they were more successful when Christian than when atheist, as they are now. Interestingly they became more successful by totally ignoring their society’s rules, they would travel to far off lands, steal goods and murder people, sometimes pretending to do this for God, as in the Crusades. Maybe the societies are doomed because the people will eventually abandon the core beliefs of their society, even if they did not actually believe those core beliefs, the lack of unity undermining the society. This is the dichotomy of individual versus society beliefs: the individuals were happy to murder and steal but society would find that completely unacceptable. Some say that this is why the Bible and similar texts focus on the concept of forgiveness: permission to do wrong as long as you later recognise you did wrong, the formula required to be successful.

    #113531
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Thanks boscohorowitz for that link. We didn’t see veggie park but we did end up in a discussion as to why these people don’t appear to have any vegetable gardens, why aren’t there random veggie gardens in the bush, the way you see veggies grown in most of China. You answered that question, I shall post your link to my fellow travellers. Thanks VM.

    #113532
    WES
    Participant

    Today’s art reminds me of many villages in Spain. Many roads weaving their way through these old Spanish towns are only wide enough for one way traffic. There is only enough space between the houses for the road and a small curb on either side of the road.

    This leaves barely enough room for a person walking on the road to stand up on the small curb with their back pressed tightly against the house’s wall, to avoid being hit by the on coming traffic. God help you if it is a tourist bus with mirrors sticking out on both sides of the bus!

    If you live in one of these houses, you need to be extra careful, no traffic is coming, before stepping out your front door onto the road. Do you think Spanish drivers drive slowly and carefully down these narrow roads? Are you kidding me!

    #113533
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    Antidote.

    It’s really easy.

    All that is required is for other people to stop posting unscientific (antiscientific) narratives -basically bullshit.

    And then I don’t have to spend time correcting those unscientific (antiscientific) narratives.

    But as long as people keep posting non-factual nonsense, I will continue to present the facts.
    Isn’t that what informed debate is all about.

    Or am I on the wrong forum?

    Opinions without knowledge are worthless, as far as I am concerned.

    Unfortunately, in this bizarre society, opinions are elevated to the status of facts, and facts are downgraded to the status opinions.

    And what I have repeatedly witnessed is that those who constantly lie to us and abuse us (the powers that be,, the elites, the scumbags, whatever you want to call them) are masters of mind control, and do exactly that -elevate their own opinions to the status of facts and relegate well-established facts to the status of opinions.

    i cannot recall the number of time I have heard: “That’s just your opinion.”

    No that’s what the best scientific evidence informs us.

    And if new evidence emerges that confronts established scientific beliefs, those beliefs are abandoned or modified to comply with the evidence. That is how real science operates.

    #113534
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    “Thou shall not kill [another human] except when instructed to by the government, and to the sound of trumpets.”

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