Aug 162022
 
 August 16, 2022  Posted by at 9:00 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,


Piet Mondriaan Study for Blue Apple Tree Series 1908

 

Ukraine Failed To Mount Counteroffensive – Macgregor (RT)
‘Ukraine Is Bankrupt’ – Moscow (RT)
Ukraine To Boost Military Spending (RT)
EU ‘Blatantly Lying’ About Threat To Zaporozhye Nuclear Plant – Moscow (RT)
Kiev Mayor Klitschko Claims Zelensky’s Government Threatened His Citizenship (RT)
German Officials Warn Of “Extremists” Fueling “Mass Protests And Riots” (ZH)
A Different Sort of Warrant (Kunstler)
DOJ Admits It Took Trump’s Passports, Offers To Return Them (JTN)
Garland, Wray Must Be Impeached for Unconscionable Trump Raid (NW)
Jim Jordan Says 14 FBI Whistleblowers Have Come Forward (WE)
Too Little, Too Late: Disband The CDC Now (NYP)
CBS Pushes Study Blaming Climate Change For Rising Childhood Obesity Rates (NYP)
How Your Carbon Footprint And Your Carbon Wallet Are Really Going To Work (TI)
Judge Rules Twitter Must Turn Over Hidden Documents to Elon Musk (TP)
CIA, Pompeo Sued For Spying On Attorneys, Journalists Who Met With Assange (D.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chitins

 

 

 

 

Coast guy
https://twitter.com/i/status/1558732660062556160

 

 

People tend to think things have always been as they are

 

 

 

 

“He went on to predict that the Russian military would seize the key port city of Odessa, making Ukraine a “landlocked country.”

Ukraine Failed To Mount Counteroffensive – Macgregor (RT)

The Ukrainian military has not been able to pull off its promised counteroffensive, and Russian forces are now likely to take over the whole of Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, Colonel Douglas Macgregor, a former adviser to the secretary of defense in the Trump administration, has said. Appearing on a livestream hosted by former US judge and columnist Andrew Napolitano last Tuesday, Macgregor dismissed as “utterly nonsensical” reports in some US media outlets that the Russian military has lost some 80,000 personnel in Ukraine so far. According to the decorated Gulf War veteran, “more accurate numbers are probably thirteen to fifteen thousand dead on the Russian side,” with Ukrainian forces having lost “sixty to eighty thousand.”

Commenting on these reports in late July, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov described the alleged Russian casualty figures as “fake.” He also lamented that even established media outlets are publishing misleading reports these days. The last time Russia’s Defense Ministry provided an update on the number of casualties was in late March, at which time the official death toll had reached 1,351, with 3,825 service members injured. When asked to comment on the current state of affairs on the frontline, the former Pentagon official said that the majority of Russian personnel had been given rest, “refitted, reorganized,” to renew the offensive in August. Macgregor claimed that the first signs of that happening were already evident, “particularly down in the south.”

He went on to predict that the Russian military would seize the key port city of Odessa, making Ukraine a “landlocked country.” “Ukrainians have been unable to put together any sort of counteroffensive. So, I don’t see much evidence that the Ukrainians can stop this,” the former Pentagon adviser claimed. Moreover, Macgregor said that the activities of Russian forces south of Kharkov in the east of Ukraine seemed to him like preliminary “shaping operations” meant to pave the way for a major offensive later on. He concluded that “first comes the operation in the south and then subsequently up in Kharkov,” pointing out once more that the Ukrainian army does not appear to be able to stop either one.

Macgregor added that he expected these offensives to be over by the “end of August-beginning of September.” Last month, a number of top Ukrainian officials suggested that the country’s military would launch a counteroffensive in the south of the country in August to retake the city of Kherson. However, according to Moscow, it is the Russian military along with the forces of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics that have recently made advances and taken territory.

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EU promised €9 billion in May, paid €1 billion so far. Ukraine ‘needs’ €9 billion every month.

‘Ukraine Is Bankrupt’ – Moscow (RT)

Ukraine has lost its financial independence as it cannot meet its obligations to its citizens without Western help, Russian State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin wrote on Monday. Taking to Telegram, Volodin claimed that “collected taxes form only 40% of the country’s budget,” more than 60% of which covers military spending. Ukraine’s monthly deficit amounts to $5 billion, Volodin reminded. “Ukraine is bankrupt,” he said. The same numbers were reported on Friday by the Wall Street Journal. In the speaker’s opinion, “without the help of Washington and Brussels, Kiev can no longer fulfill its obligations to citizens.” “Ukraine has lost its financial independence,” Volodin concluded.

On Monday, the Ukrainian government introduced draft legislation to abolish preferential taxation on fuel. An explanatory note on the Rada’s website says that “there is a significant shortage of funds for financing the road industry.” The legislation is poised to create “during the period of martial law” conditions “for the proper functioning of the economy” and increased budget revenue through excise duties. In a recent interview with RBC Ukraine, Finance Minister Sergey Marchenko said that next year’s budget will be “extremely tight” due to “war conditions.” “There will be no expenses that will not be reviewed,” he said. According to Oleg Ustenko, a presidential adviser on economic issues, Ukraine’s state budget deficit is expected to reach $50 billion by the end of the year.

That is about 30-35% of the country’s GDP, he said in a TV interview last month, adding that “this is a problem of war.” Kiev says it needs $5 billion a month in assistance from Western backers. However, Ustenko, quoted by the Financial Times, said in July they would need an extra $4bn a month over the next three months to cover the cost of emergency accommodation and housing repairs for millions of people, and to fund a basic minimum income for those ones who had lost their jobs. The grants and loans pledged to Ukraine by the West have been arriving much slower than expected. So far, only €1 billion out of a €9 billion ($9.3 billion) long-term loan package proposed by the European Commission in May, has arrived. Since February, the EU has provided €2.2 billion.

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What you do when you’re bankrupt.

Ukraine To Boost Military Spending (RT)

The Ukrainian parliament approved on Monday a boost to defense spending amid the ongoing military conflict with Russia. According to the bill passed by the Rada, the country’s parliament, the government will be authorized to raise an additional 270 billion hryvnias ($7.3 billion) through domestic borrowing. This will allow an extra 241 billion hryvnias ($6.5 billion) to be allocated to the Defense Ministry and for more funds to be provided to the police, security and intelligence services. The move comes after the Wall Street Journal reported that a shortage of funds risks becoming “Ukraine’s Achilles’s heel” in the conflict.


“We have to worry about winning the war. It is better to risk high inflation than not to pay soldiers’ salaries,” Finance Minister Sergey Marchenko told the WSJ last week about the National Bank of Ukraine’s strategy of printing more money. Marchenko told news agency RBC Ukraine on Monday that Kiev hopes to receive $12-16 billion from foreign lenders by the end of 2022. The exact sum will depend on negotiations with foreign partners, he said.

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“biased informational stuffing”

Kiev knows the first thing the IAEA would find is proof that it was not the Russians who shelled the plant.

EU ‘Blatantly Lying’ About Threat To Zaporozhye Nuclear Plant – Moscow (RT)

Accusations that Moscow is jeopardizing the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) contradict the facts and allow Kiev to undermine the International Atomic Energy Agency’s efforts to inspect the facility, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Monday. Russia’s response comes after the EU released a statement on Sunday condemning the “unprovoked invasion of Ukraine” and accusing the Russian military of attacking the ZNPP and preventing nuclear and radiation safety from being maintained at the facility. “Western countries are once again descending to outright lies, arguing that the threats to the ZNPP are created by Russia,” said Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova in a statement published on the ministry’s website.

“Obviously, this contradicts the facts that we have repeatedly cited, including within the walls of the Security Council. It is undeniable that the attacks on the station and Energodar are carried out by Ukrainian armed groups acting on orders from Kiev.” Zakharova went on to suggest that the EU’s statement was marked by “biased informational stuffing” and full of “blatant Russophobia and distorted facts.” She noted that the authors of the text were obsessed with the so-called “Russian threat” and were using it to cover up their own foreign policy failures by putting “Russophobic foreign policy views above objectivity and the tasks of nonproliferation and nuclear security.” The spokeswoman also pointed out that such statements were being used by EU politicians to score “imaginary political points” while giving Kiev the go-ahead to create obstacles for an IAEA inspection of the plant.

“We strongly urge Washington, Brussels and other capitals, primarily European ones, to stop the irresponsible games and intrigues around the ZNPP and immediately influence the Kyiv authorities to force them to stop shelling the plant and its adjacent territories,” Zakharova stated, adding that Moscow is in close cooperation with the IAEA and will do everything necessary to provide its specialists with access to the power plant.

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Zelensky feels 10 feet tall.

Kiev Mayor Klitschko Claims Zelensky’s Government Threatened His Citizenship (RT)

The government of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky made a veiled threat to strip the citizenship of Kiev Mayor Vitaly Klitschko, the head of the Ukrainian capital claimed in an interview published on Monday. “I had a conversation with an innuendo: ‘Since you are so proactive, we could look into your German citizenship’. I said: ‘I’d be very surprised if somebody showed me a German passport in my name and took it away,’” he said, as cited by the website Babel. The exchange allegedly happened after Klitschko signed a public call for Zelensky to reverse his decision to revoke the Ukrainian citizenship of Ukrainian official Gennady Korban, which he ordered last month. Korban, a longtime close ally of Dnepr Mayor Boris Filatov, was among several Ukrainians whose citizenship was taken away by Zelensky.

He was on a foreign trip when the move was made. Upon attempting to return to Ukraine he found himself at an impasse when the border guards would not let him cross back into his home country. Over a hundred Ukrainian public figures supported the open letter to Zelensky, which Filatov published on Facebook in late July. Klitschko declined to reveal who exactly put pressure on him, but said he supported reinstating Korban’s citizenship on principle rather than as a political favor to Filatov. “Everything must happen under universal principles, not selectively,” he explained. “In this case this is how it looks: we’ll take this one’s [citizenship] and let others keep theirs, so that they are more pliable, realizing that we can take theirs too.”

Ukraine disallows dual citizenship. Under the law, Ukrainians who also hold foreign passports are treated as regular citizens but are banned from holding public office. The president may revoke the citizenship of a Ukrainian who takes another passport. In practice, however, this principle is often ignored. For instance, billionaire Igor Kolomoysky, one of the people targeted by Zelensky’s July order, had served as a governor in Ukraine despite holding the citizenship of Cyprus and Israel at the time. The fact was widely known in Ukraine, and Kolomoysky even joked that it was OK, since the law bans dual citizenship, not triple citizenship. In the interview, Klitschko provided assurance that Ukrainian citizenship is the only one he has. The official was a world-renowned boxer before going into politics and spent much of his athletic career in Germany.

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Farmers=Extremists.

German Officials Warn Of “Extremists” Fueling “Mass Protests And Riots” (ZH)

As queries for “firewood” have exploded on Google in Germany, and Deutsche Bank predicting that “wood will be used for heating purposes where possible,” German officials are now warning of extreme energy rationing measures, along with the potential for “extremists” to fuel national unrest over the deteriorating situation. For starters, German Economy Minister and Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck – who previously called on residents to cut back on heating, visits to the sauna, and showers – announced on Friday that public buildings across the country won’t be allowed to set heating above 19 degrees Celsius (66.2F) this fall. Exceptions will be made for hospitals and ‘social facilities.’

[..] Meanwhile, German officials are preparing for civil unrest. In an interview with ZDF, Stephan Kramer – who heads the domestic intelligence service in the German state of Thuringia – warned that ‘legitimate’ protests over the energy crisis could be ‘hijacked by extremists’ (and definitely not just enraged average citizens). Kramer said that officials were bracing for protests over “gas shortages, energy problems, supply difficulties, possible recession, unemployment, but also the growing poverty right up to the middle class,” adding that “extremists” which include “lateral thinkers” who rallied against pandemic lockdowns, and ‘right-wing activists’ who have been stirring the post over social media, could be at the heart of them.

“We’re likely to be confronted with mass protests and riots,” he continued. “We’re dealing with a highly emotionalized, aggressive, future-pessimistic mood in society, whose trust in the state, its institutions and political actors is fraught with massive doubts.” “This highly emotional and explosive mood could easily escalate,” the security chief continued, adding that the Covid-19 clashes would “probably feel more like a children’s birthday party” by comparison. Kramer offers a warning to would-be participants: “think carefully about which protests and demonstrations you join, or better stay away from them altogether, so as not to support the enemies of democracy.”

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“..the country is now viciously coming apart..“

A Different Sort of Warrant (Kunstler)

Over the weekend, independent journalist Paul Sperry reported that many of the same FBI officers involved in the Mar-a-Lago raid happen to be subjects of Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation into the origins of RussiaGate. Have some of them already been hauled into grand juries? We don’t know. But, with the Mar-a-Lago caper, it looks like the law enforcement apparatus of the federal government is seeking to suppress evidence of its own long-running criminal enterprise. The parallel purpose of the raid was to find — or perhaps plant — documents that might be used in a scheme to disqualify Mr. Trump from running for office again. The January 6th show-trial in Congress has failed to galvanize the country’s attention, and may have foundered in its attempt to find grounds for a criminal referral against the former president that would take him off the playing field. So, now this.

Momentous legal quarrels that arise out of the Mar-a-Lago raid may evolve into a constitutional crisis that the captive news media can use as a smokescreen to divert the public’s attention from any balloting shenanigans going into the November election. At least it will shove any other issues off-stage in the run-up to the midterm. Is it a miscalculation? The choice of going to federal magistrate Bruce Reinhart for the Mar-a-Lago warrant sure looks crude and desperate. Only weeks ago, he was presiding over the Trump v Clinton lawsuit. How did that even happen, given Mr. Reinhart’s role defending Jeffrey Epstein’s associates — many of them Clinton-connected — in the 2007 sex-trafficking case?

And only after the spectacularly weird act of switching sides from the federal prosecution team to Epstein’s defense team. Not to mention Mr. Reinhart’s record of public statements denouncing Mr. Trump. There are twenty-five other magistrates who rotate their duties in the Southern District of Florida, why pick him? It all shapes up as a systematic effort to obstruct justice by the US Department of Justice. They’ve been doing it consistently since 2016 in all matters pertaining to Mr. Trump, and it is a big reason that the country is now viciously coming apart.

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“DOJ admission it over-collected evidence in Trump raid creates new legal drama..”

DOJ Admits It Took Trump’s Passports, Offers To Return Them (JTN)

Three passports, Privileged documents. A file on a presidential pardon. As evidence surfaces about what FBI agents seized during the raid of former President Donald Trump’s estate in Mar-O-Lago, new questions about the real focus of the investigation and new avenues for legal challenges are bubbling to the surface. The Justice Department informed Trump’s team Monday that agents gathered the former president’s passports and are obligated to return them, and that officials are also reviewing seized materials that may be covered by various privileges, multiple sources told Just the News. DOJ has designated a process for separating materials that could be covered by executive privilege or attorney client privilege and hopes to return such memos to Trump within a couple of weeks, the sources said.

“Occasionally a warrant collection can grab things outside the scope authorized by the court and the department is now following a procedure we would for any person affected this way,” one official said Monday night. Kevin Brock, who served as FBI assistant director for intelligence under former Director Robert Mueller, said the new revelations raise legitimate questions about over-collection of evidence that could lead to significant legal challenges. Trump lawyers are weighing whether to ask a federal court to name a special master to review sensitive documents and protect the president’s 4th amendment, executive and attorney-client privileges. “Trump’s attorneys could have a runway to argue the scope of the search is overly broad,” Brock told Just the News.

“Search warrants normally require a level of specificity that seems to be missing in this warrant. Specificity is important in order to protect 4th Amendment rights from exuberant government overreach designed to find whatever they can.” Brock said he was particularly troubled FBI agents felt comfortable seizing a record of Trump’s pardon of longtime friend Roger Stone, which the bureau disclosed in court documents. He said it suggested the raid may have something more to do with the Jan. 6 Capitol riot probe, where Stone has been a figure of interest, than an investigation into classified records. “The president’s authority to grant pardon and clemency is clear but what isn’t clear is why the retention of a clemency order would be considered illegal,” Brock said.

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From Newsweek no less…

Garland, Wray Must Be Impeached for Unconscionable Trump Raid (NW)

For over a year, we’ve heard Democrats wailing about existential threats to “democracy!” Curiously, this has happened while these same Democrats in Congress have worked hand-in-glove with their fellow Democrats in the Justice Department to disregard all norms to hunt down and attempt to destroy President Joe Biden’s chief political rival, former President Donald Trump, as well as Trump’s top aides and even his political supporters. Last Monday, the Biden Justice Department crossed a red line by ordering an unprecedented, unnecessary, and unlawful FBI raid of Trump’s home and offices in Mar-a-Lago. The purported purpose of the highly controversial home raid with a brigade of 30 FBI agents—a raid Attorney General Merrick Garland admitted he personally ordered after his aides initially denied it—is related to 15 to 25 boxes of presidential records, some of which bureaucrats at the National Archives claim are classified and which Trump took to Mar-a-Lago when he left the White House over 18 months ago.

All presidents take mementos and other records when they leave office. They don’t pack their own boxes. The National Archives takes the position that almost everything is a “presidential record.” And the federal government, in general, over-classifies almost everything. Even if Trump took classified records, that isn’t a crime. The president has the inherent constitutional power to declassify any record he wants, in any manner he wants, regardless of any otherwise-pertinent statute or regulation that applies to everyone else. The president does not need to obtain Congress’ or a bureaucrat’s permission—or jump through their regulatory or statutory hoops—to declassify anything. The Supreme Court reaffirmed this in the 1988 case, Department of the Navy v. Egan :

“The President, after all, is the ‘Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.’ U.S. Const., Art. II, § 2. His authority to classify and control access to information bearing on national security…flows primarily from this constitutional investment of power in the President, and exists quite apart from any explicit congressional grant.” Thus, if Trump left the White House with classified records, then those records are necessarily declassified by his very actions. He doesn’t need to label that decision for, or report that decision to, any bureaucrat who works for him. It is pretextual legal nonsense for the Biden Justice Department to pretend Trump broke any criminal statute. Indeed, it is noteworthy that Attorney General Garland apparently did not seek an opinion from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC)—the de facto general counsel for the executive branch—before ordering this home raid of his boss’s chief political enemy. Perhaps Garland knew OLC wouldn’t give him the answer he wanted.

In 2012, former President Barack Obama secretly told the Russian president he’d have “more flexibility” to negotiate with Russia after the 2012 presidential election. To convey that message is to clearly transmit highly classified information. So why not an Espionage Act violation? Well, because Obama was the president—period. All former presidents also get a federally funded office, called the Office of the Former President. They get lawyers and other staff, security clearances, Secret Service protection, and secure facilities (SCIFs) for the maintenance of classified records. Even if Trump had classified records, then, they were protected and secure.

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The GOP needs to win the midterms first…

Jim Jordan Says 14 FBI Whistleblowers Have Come Forward (WE)

More than a dozen FBI whistleblowers have come forward to Republican investigators in Congress, according to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH). The congressman, who is the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, told Fox News host Trey Gowdy the number has risen to 14 after the FBI raid at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. During a conversation about alleged politicization at the Justice Department, along with former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, Jordan made the case that the public has “figured it out” when it comes to what he characterized as the Left generating a lie, the “Big Media” reporting the lie, Big Tech amplifying the lie, and then both piling on Republicans when they catch on and say something. He said there are agents in the bureau who have realized the same.


“Fourteen FBI agents have come to our office as whistleblowers, and they are good people,” Jordan said. “There are lots of good people in the FBI. It’s the top that is the problem. Some of these good agents are coming to us, telling us what is baloney, what’s going on — the political nature now of the Justice Department — God bless them for doing it — talking about the school board issue, about a whole host of issues.” This would appear to be quite a bump from a little more than two months ago, when Jordan told Fox News host Laura Ingraham that, in total, six FBI officials have approached the committee, two related to a controversy surrounding a school boards memo and four related to Jan. 6. At the time, in early June, Jordan sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray warning that multiple former FBI officials were coming forward with information suggesting the bureau was “purging” employees with conservative viewpoints.

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“..And the CDC permits us to come within six feet of each other again. Finally! Husbands, tell your wives it’s on!”

Too Little, Too Late: Disband The CDC Now (NYP)

Dissolve the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Last week, the CDC released updated COVID-19 guidance. The agency now believes we should be taking an individual approach to mitigating our COVID risk. In layman’s terms, we are all Florida 2020 now. The new guidance suggests ending “test to stay” so kids exposed to someone with COVID-19 can remain in school. Of course, this was only related to known exposure. People are exposed to COVID all the time, but only children who were aware of that exposure were punished. Kids lost so much throughout the pandemic because of terrible, irrational CDC guidance like this. The fresh guidance also says people without symptoms no longer need to be routinely tested. And the CDC permits us to come within six feet of each other again. Finally! Husbands, tell your wives it’s on!

But most important, the agency has finally faced some truths about the vaccine that it should have long ago. “CDC’s COVID-19 prevention recommendations no longer differentiate based on a person’s vaccination status because breakthrough infections occur.” And it’s admitted that “persons who have had COVID-19 but are not vaccinated have some degree of protection against severe illness from their previous infection.” Cities across the country fired teachers, firefighters, health-care staffers, police officers, sanitation workers and so many others because they refused to get vaccinated. Many of these people had worked through the early days of the pandemic — and contracted COVID many times over — while we baked banana bread and patted ourselves on the back for ordering from Uber Eats. Now the CDC acknowledges this was the wrong thing to do. Whoopsie!

[..] But with COVID, its word became policy. In what should go down as one of the most disgusting moments in public health, the CDC allowed, with direction from the Biden White House, Randi Weingarten, American Federation of Teachers chief, to craft school-opening policies that forced classrooms across the country to remain closed in winter 2021. No one has been fired for this dereliction of duty. No one has even been openly chastised for allowing a special-interest group to control our health-care policy. This alone is why the CDC must go.

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“..scare Americans into accepting Government intervention–at any cost!!–against climate *apocalypse*“

CBS Pushes Study Blaming Climate Change For Rising Childhood Obesity Rates (NYP)

“CBS Mornings” pushed a recent study connecting climate change and hotter temperatures with childhood obesity rates in a ridiculed segment on Thursday. Co-host Nate Burleson introduced the study published in the journal “Temperature” that argued “climate change, specifically warmer temperatures is making our children more inactive and more obese.” Burleson said the study found that children were 30% less “aerobically fit” than their parents and claimed hotter temperatures were preventing kids from exercising outside. Although the segment focused primarily on climate change, Burleson acknowledged that technology was likely a factor in rising childhood obesity cases.

“Now listen, it has been a lot hotter, and the weather has been crazy, but I think it also has to do with technology, you know. It’s one thing not to go outside, but these kids don’t go outside because they can stay inside and be on their phones, play video games, and be social without having to go outside and be social,” Burleson said. Several Twitter users, however, attacked the segment for emphasizing “climate change” as a factor in childhood obesity without also recognizing coronavirus lockdowns. “Do you think it could be… nah, couldn’t be. Must be the climate change,” Deseret News contributing writer Bethany Mandel joked.

Hans Mahncke, co-host of “Truth Over News” on EpochTV, tweeted, “They made kids fat by shutting schools, playgrounds, parks and beaches. Predictably, they’re now blaming ‘climate change.’ If there aren’t severe penalties for the fraudsters who pushed lockdowns, it’ll happen again.” “Climate change? Ffs,” National Review journalist Claude Thompson wrote. Former congresswoman Nan Hayworth tweeted, “NO. NO. NO. Many factors contribute to children’s lack of fitness, but climate change is NOT one of them. This is propaganda that CBS, as with all ‘mainstream’ media, pushes to scare Americans into accepting Government intervention–at any cost!!–against climate *apocalypse*”

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“Mastercard and Doconomy Launch the Future of Sustainable Payments”

How Your Carbon Footprint And Your Carbon Wallet Are Really Going To Work (TI)

When most people think of carbon emissions and carbon footprints they think it only refers to travel, fuel, gas and electricity all under the guise of emissions. I hate to break it to you but it runs far deeper than that. Let me now introduce you to Doc Ono, a company you may never have heard of. Doconomy is a “credit card” endorsed by Klaus Schwab’s World Economic Forum. In May 2019 an article appeared on the WEF site called “This credit card has a carbon-emission spending limit” In the article it says “Swedish fintech company Doconomy has launched a new credit card that monitors the carbon footprint of its customers – and cuts off their spending when they hit their carbon max” Yikes, cuts off their spending. It continues:

“The DO card tracks the CO2 emissions linked to purchases to calculate the carbon impact of every transaction. The aim is to encourage people to actively reduce their carbon footprint and demonstrate the impact that small changes can have on the environment. The card uses the Aland Index as the basis on which it calculates the carbon footprint of each product purchased. Users can set a maximum value for their carbon spend and learn how to compensate for their carbon footprint by contributing towards schemes to reduce or remove greenhouse gas emissions” Now we are getting closer to the truth of how this is going to operate. It isn’t just travel, it will be for everything. In February 2019 Mastercard published an article called “Mastercard and Doconomy Launch the Future of Sustainable Payments” where they say “Doconomy and Mastercard announce their joint effort to combat climate change by enabling DO – a free and easy-to-use mobile banking service that lets users track, understand and reduce their CO2 footprints through carbon offsetting”

Isn’t it fascinating that they emphasise it will allow the users to track everything. It would never be used for nefarious purposes such as banks and governments tracking everything. Of course not.. [..] Here is what is probably going to happen. When you go out to a restaurant depending on what your “carbon footprint” has been, will determine what you can and cannot order off the menu. Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it ? Depending on how many points you have left for that month will determine whether you are allowed to eat “proper food” or “lab food”. If you’ve been a bold boy or girl you’ll only be allowed to eat the lab grown plant-based food so you don’t surpass your carbon quota. If you try to order beef which apparently has high CO2 levels you won’t be allowed to.

This will also be the case when you go to supermarkets to do your weekly shop. Every item you buy will be assigned a CO2 number. It gets even more ridiculous though. Within the last month Eamonn Ryan who is a WEF member and leader of the Green Party in Ireland has advocated for the reduction in the numbers of Irish cattle. Instead we will import cattle from Brazil. I like to call this the work of the “Ruminati”. How do you think the carbon footprint of importing beef from Brazil would look like on a menu now. It would be off the charts. Do you see what they are trying to achieve and where this is going ? The whole thing sounds ridiculously Dystopian, doesn’t it ? That would never happen. It’s so 1984, I hear you shout. If you have been paying attention to the last 2.5 years then you will realise it’s not remotely far-fetched at all.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1559165376939937794

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“A buyer can also walk if there’s fraud, assuming the discovery of incorrect information has a so-called ‘material adverse effect.’”

Judge Rules Twitter Must Turn Over Hidden Documents to Elon Musk (TP)

A judge on Monday ruled that Twitter must turn over documents from a former executive that would show how many ‘fake accounts’ are on the platform. “Twitter needs to give Elon Musk documents from a former Twitter executive who Musk said was a key figure in calculating the amount of fake accounts on the platform, according to a Monday court order,” Reuters reported. “Bot and spam accounts on Twitter have become a central issue in the legal fight over whether Musk, who is Tesla Inc’s chief executive, must complete his $44 billion acquisition of the social media company,” the report noted. “Twitter was ordered to collect, review and produce documents from former General Manager of Consumer Product Kayvon Beykpour, according to the order from Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick of the Delaware Court of Chancery,” the report added.

Elon Musk announced in early June that he would abandon his $44 billion Twitter offer after the company failed to provide satisfactory information about fake ‘bot’ accounts. Twitter sued the Tesla CEO to force him to uphold the deal. In a letter to Twitter’s board, Musk’s lawyer Mike Ringler complained his client had sought data to determine how many “fake or spam” accounts are on the social media platform. “Twitter has failed or refused to provide this information. Sometimes Twitter has ignored Mr. Musk’s requests, sometimes it has rejected them for reasons that appear to be unjustified, and sometimes it has claimed to comply while giving Mr. Musk incomplete or unusable information,” the letter said. Musk could be on solid legal ground to pull out of the deal if Twitter had attempted to defraud him during the takeover process.

“A reverse breakup fee paid from a buyer to a target applies when there is an outside reason a deal can’t close, such as regulatory intermediation or third-party financing concerns. A buyer can also walk if there’s fraud, assuming the discovery of incorrect information has a so-called ‘material adverse effect.’ A market dip, like the current sell-off that has caused Twitter to lose more than $9 billion in market cap, wouldn’t count as a valid reason for Musk to cut loose — breakup fee or no breakup fee — according to a senior Mergers and Acquisitions lawyer familiar with the matter,” CNBC reported.

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“The United States Constitution shields American citizens from US government overreach..”

CIA, Pompeo Sued For Spying On Attorneys, Journalists Who Met With Assange (D.)

A group of journalists and lawyers, who visited WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange while he was living under political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy, sued the CIA and former CIA director Mike Pompeo. They allege that the agency under Pompeo spied on them in violation of their privacy rights. Undercover Global S.L., a private security company in Spain, and the company’s director David Morales are also named as defendants. UC Global ramped up surveillance against Assange and shared audio and video footage from the embassy with “American intelligence.” “The United States Constitution shields American citizens from US government overreach even when the activities take place in a foreign embassy in a foreign country.

“Visitors who are lawyers, journalists and doctors frequently carry confidential information in their devices,” declared Richard Roth, who is the lead attorney representing the plaintiffs. “They had a reasonable expectation that the security guards at the Ecuadorian embassy in London would not be US government spies charged with delivering copies of their electronics to the CIA,” Roth added. Two of the plaintiffs are attorneys who have represented Assange—Margaret Rather Kunstler, a civil rights activist and human rights attorney, and Deborah Hrbek, a media lawyer. The other two plaintiffs are journalists Charles Glass and John Goetz, who worked for Der Spiegel when the German media organization first partnered with WikiLeaks to publish documents on the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

[..] According to the complaint [PDF] filed in a US court in the Southern District of New York, Glass, Goetz, Hrbek, and Kunstler, like all visitors, were required to “surrender” their electronic devices to UC Global employees hired by Ecuador to provide security for the embassy. What they did not know is that UC Global “copied the information stored on the devices” and allegedly shared the information with the CIA. Pompeo allegedly authorized and approved the action. Security required plaintiffs to leave their devices with them, which contained “confidential and privileged information about their sources or clients. This information was copied and allegedly shared with the CIA. It is estimated that “well over 100 American citizens who visited Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy” had their privacy rights violated. This includes attorneys who were there to represent Assange, journalists who traveled to interview him, and even doctors who came to the embassy to assess and treat his deteriorating health.

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Home Forums Debt Rattle August 16 2022

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 55 total)
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  • #113553

    Piet Mondriaan Study for Blue Apple Tree Series 1908   • Ukraine Failed To Mount Counteroffensive – Macgregor (RT) • ‘Ukraine Is Bankrupt’ – Mosc
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle August 16 2022]

    #113557
    those darned kids
    Participant

    you’re gonna have to change the name of this blog to “good doggitude”.

    #113559
    Red
    Participant

    ….here we go again! No surprise to those here I suppose.

    Author’s Note and Update
    The WHO Declares a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).
    In recent developments, the WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus went against the majority vote of the WHO expert committee (9 against 6 in favor): i.e. AGAINST the calling of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PEIC).

    “We have an outbreak that has spread around the world rapidly through new modes of transmission,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a press briefing in Geneva on Saturday (July 23). “I have decided that the global monkeypox outbreak represents a public health emergency of international concern.”

    The evidence is scanty, the motivation is political.

    The unspoken objective is to sustain the fear campaign.

    According to Bloomberg, “The declaration from Tedros … underscores divisions within the organization over the severity of the threat. The pathogen typically causes flu-like symptoms, followed by a rash that often starts on the face and spreads down the belly. (Bloomberg)

    Is Dr. Tedros in conflict of interest, going against a committee of medical doctors and scientists? The WHO is funded by the Gates Foundation. And Bill Gates is centrefold. He has been pushing for the monkeypox scenario since 2017. (see analysis below).

    And guess what: it’s the Real Time PCR test which the CDC declared invalid for detecting SARS-CoV-2 (effective December 31 2021) which is now being used to “detect the monkeypox pathogen”.

    https://www.globalresearch.ca/bill-gates-warns-smallpox-terror-attacks-urges-leaders-use-germ-games-prepare/5781195

    #113560
    anticlimactic
    Participant

    Zelensky is becoming a bit ‘Idi Amin’!

    #113561
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Added a lot to yesterday’s comments.

    Tedros is in direct opposition to all science on his board. Like the FDA did. And he’s not a Doctor. He’s a politician. Any questions?

    “Monsoon Rainfall Waterlogs Vegas”

    You can’t please some people. After a drought, here’s the rain and everyone complains. So how’s that Permaculture going that harbors and stores the rain? Let me guess: you didn’t do a thing because you were too busy complaining. Good thing Mr. Hoover didn’t do that or there’d be no power and no city at all.

    Canadians have no trust in the Media” Because not every Canadian is a moron? Betteridge’s law of headlines says “No”, it’s not online trolls to blame. So the editor is also unaware of normal editor rules.

    Lira: Yes, I was going to bring that up. Otherwise why the great push to Eet ze bugs! Also meat, which worked great in the middle ages to prevent (childhood) brain development which is cholesterol and disable the peasant to keep them down, also the post war 60’s, but they need far stronger sauce right now and they know it. They need real, instant death in a can. Or THEY will have instant death and we’ll put THEM in the can.

    “Neil Oliver: ‘We are no longer being treated as individuals entitled to try and make the most of our lives – but as a barn full of battery hens”

    This is what happens when you treat animals and nature this way: it becomes normal and logical. I suspect why the Native Americans didn’t take this first step. Then we do it to the enemy in wars (Civil), then the enemy after wars (Reservations) then to all of us all the time (Levittown, Red Hook Projects, Public Schools).

    So it reverses as well. If you want to not live in an inhuman hellscape of prisons, cube farms, and de facto concentration camps, graze the cows back in the pastures so they can have a good life too. That necessitates you living among them like a human animal, shading under the same trees by the same trees and being happy. How about this: there is no “them” and “us”, there is only “we”. We are the chickens, the lambs, we are the other race, gender, nationality. We are the trees and the water. There is no “somewhere else” to enslave people to manufacture your shoes and poison the water. The Enemy R Us.

    “more accurate numbers are probably thirteen to fifteen thousand”

    This is walking in intentionally outnumbered, intentionally not leveling Ukraine and Kiev, not cutting their power, and intentionally using all their obsolete equipment first. Still a 1:8 kill ratio. And a message to the West, as the West gift-wraps Kiev, and thus Western Europe for Russian taking.

    EU promised €9 billion in May,”

    The EU is broke which everybody knows. That’s why they stole Russia’s money which consequences cannot be reversed. They did this for the cause of Slavic genocide, which is going pretty well, but they are Nazis and of course prioritize this over much more practical ends.

    If everyone’s bankrupt but they all agree not to care, are they really?

    “EU ‘Blatantly Lying’ about Threat to Zaporozhye Nuclear Plant – Moscow (RT)”

    If everyone is lying, but there’s no longer an honest man on earth to care, is it really a lie anymore? Does it matter? We use “lying” as a means of discrediting, ostracizing in some small way, delivering consequences to the liar. But lying is now a social good that is expressly and exclusively rewarded.

    Show me the incentives and I’ll show you the results. We may have captured and converted all the humans who care about the truth and will have to move on to other methods.

    The government of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky made a veiled threat to strip the citizenship of Kiev Mayor Vitaly Klitschko,”

    It’s what “Beacons of Democracy” do. Outlaw speech, opposition parties, and round up, confiscate everything and kill everyone. While I eat 5-star with Sean Penn and make fashion photoshoots for Zoolander.

    German Officials Warn of “Extremists” Fueling “Mass Protests and Riots” (ZH)

    Again, the POINT is to make this “The worst time there has ever been, nor shall ever be” and to bring the world to its mass-death knees so they will acquiesce. So as Ayn said, any productive people will be identified, rounded up, and killed. On behalf of the unproductive, who always find stealing your stuff a super-good deal. Farmers are the top of the list and they’ve been after them exactly as long as Progressive Democratic Socialists have had power. Forcing the cows out of the woody pasture and the chickens into the battery farms, the kids into prison-schools, and the seas into desert.

    Occasionally a warrant collection can grab things outside the scope authorized by the court”

    The statement is true as it refers to all warrants on planet earth. However, this specific warrant was for “Every document on the premises and other stuff too” which is expressly illegal under the 4th, not that anyone cares. That’s what makes “Warrants” different from “Fishing expeditions”. First, that we can identify a specific “Crime”.

    “The president does not need to obtain Congress’ or a bureaucrat’s permission”

    Again, the only point is, “Who’s to be master?” “Who’s running things?” The standing bureaucracy, essentially equivalent to the Derp State, or is it the People’s Elected representatives? As Rand knows from being denied monetary oversight to the NIH gain-of-function, raw, open bioweapons research and human experimentation, there is no oversight whatsoever, and therefore no Democracy. Hasn’t been for 50 years since the dust-up with the Dulles brothers. If you didn’t already know that. And so as a similar Democracy as Ukraine, the most corrupt country on earth, they make illegal and arrest all opposition parties, and all their money R us.

    “But with COVID, its [CDC] word became policy.”

    This was illegal. Also = Unconstitutional. Also against all human rights since human society was created. That is to say, everyone loved it and approved heartily. Now knowing that it didn’t work, approve that much more heartily that they did.

    “CBS Pushes Study Blaming Climate Change For Rising Childhood Obesity Rates (NYP)”

    Science seems super-legitimate and not bent at all when they say these things. But the point is to make “The greatest trouble that has ever been nor shall ever be” and that requires destroying all trust and all trusted institutions. …It’s easy to break things and hard to put them together.

    How Your Carbon Footprint and Your Carbon Wallet Are Really Going to Work (TI)”

    By murdering everyone they can find. Next question?

    “Show this to anyone who still thinks this is a conspiracy theory.”

    Hahaha, you’re so cute that you think evidence and direct video footage, actual legal documents will convince anybody. They read a snappy meme on TikTok! So you’re wrong, mister! You’re in the cult, not me! I know because I don’t read things! (Experienced directly this weekend.)

    ““A buyer can also walk if there’s fraud, assuming the discovery of incorrect information has a so-called ‘material adverse effect.’”

    As we’ve said. Fraud is never waived. It vitiates all. Dunno who these journalists are who print the #Opposite but since there is no shame, there can be no embarrassment and no consequences.

    “The United States Constitution shields American citizens from US government overreach..”

    Yes but only if WE make it. Because WE are the government, not them. (Also would apply to citizens, which Julian isn’t.)

    Chinese population: “Fewer”. Available on Amazon. As science and environmentalists – and the Left – are dead wrong for the 10,000th time in a row, population is dropping worldwide. That book was 10-20 years old is how far back it was super-easy to see.

    $717/mo = $8,600/year. Average income is $35k. That’s roughly a third and there are other unavoidable standing costs. So if you want to transition from oil, you’re going to need a better path.

    #113562
    Dr. D
    Participant

    By robbing selective Peter to pay for collective Paul;
    But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
    And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: ‘If you don’t work you die.’

    There are only four things certain since Social Progress began:—
    That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her mire,
    And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wobbling back to the Fire;
    And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins

    When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,

    As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
    The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

    #113563
    Red
    Participant

    Dr. D carnage is the human way! Works till it doesn’t. Looking back through time it would seem the only thing that is learned from oppression is how to oppress. Revenge is another driving force that seems to increase with the crowd mentality. Forests precede us, desserts follow.

    #113564
    John Day
    Participant

    @Dr, D: i read your comments of late last night just now, intentlly. I did, in fact, spend an hour reading about abiotic oil, here at this link, and I admit I skimmed everything after the liquid content of diamonds in about 15 minutes. It says the things you brought up. My initial comment about it was that I don’t know, but it seems slow enough of a process to not matterin my/ourlives. I read the other stuff, too.
    It’s like it was talking-to-me, somehow. 🙂

    D Benton Smith brought up Gnghis Khan by his other name last night after I remarked at how warlike the Abrahamic religions have been, how successful at conquest and pillage and stuff. i prob’ly don’t have the Great Khan’s Y chromosome, but, hell, how would I know?
    The Khan wasa witch-doctorist, shamanist or something. What am I supposed to make of that? Oh well… Maybe Pepe Escobar will have more about the history of Samarkand.

    #113565
    jsnyder62@gmail.com
    Participant

    Red,
    Fyi, typo – should be “deserts,” not sweet, tasty treats. With that emendation, “Forests precede us, deserts follow” deserves to be immortalized.

    #113566
    zerosum
    Participant

    Did you notice?
    1. Armchair generals are retired.
    Why?
    • Ukraine Failed To Mount Counteroffensive – Macgregor (RT)

    ———
    2. Economist can’t count
    +10 million women, children, old people, have left Ukraine, left their home, left their jobs, and need to be taken care, need to be feed, need medical services, need housing, need transportation, need peace.
    Ukraine ‘needs’ €9 billion every month and has zero taxable income stream and zero income from none bankrupt sources
    • ‘Ukraine Is Bankrupt’ – Moscow (RT)
    • Ukraine To Boost Military Spending (RT)
    It is better to risk high inflation than not to pay soldiers’ salaries,” Finance Minister Sergey Marchenko told the WSJ last week
    (You can’t eat money)
    ———-
    3. Truth was the first victim of war
    • EU ‘Blatantly Lying’ About Threat To Zaporozhye Nuclear Plant – Moscow (RT)
    ————
    4. Germans will chose a source of heat for this winter. Fire wood or shivering to generate heat.
    • German Officials Warn Of “Extremists” Fueling “Mass Protests And Riots” (ZH)
    ———-

    #113567
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Cities across the country fired teachers, firefighters, health-care staffers, police officers, sanitation workers and so many others because they refused to get vaccinated.

    Hong Kong Exchange, who own LME (the people who reverse out trades that damage wealthy Chinese interests), fired people for not getting vaccinated. They also have a regimen of testing for people going into the office. At the moment, over 66% of the people on one floor of their office have Covid, yes, over two thirds on one floor have Covid. Stupid HKEx copied stupid NYC banks and now the join JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley etc who also look just as stupid and remind us why we should never let our employer get involved in our personal health care decisions.

    #113568
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Red said

    “We have an outbreak that has spread around the world rapidly through new modes of transmission,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a press briefing in Geneva on Saturday (July 23).

    Makes you wonder whether they are now trying to start a war between the straight and and LGBT. I particularly liked the “Dog of gay couple gets monkey pox story” on ZH. Aparently a males couple owned the dog, they were whoring and caught moneky pox. The dog shared the bed with the couple and ended up getting monkey pox in the ass. Makes you think what could have happened huh. Maybe the homos are branching out into unprotected bestiality, lucky Fido.

    They love us fighting each other and this looks like a very deliberate attempt to throw LGBT under the bus. After all, Pedo Gates is pulling the unvaxxed Ethiopian’s strings and we all know the moral fibre of Epstein’s mates. We shall see, there are no accidental victims in this saga, we just have to wait for the next episode. Mind you the LGBT crowd should be used to this after the AIDS games they played with Fauci.

    #113569
    Figmund Sreud
    Participant

    Price formation in oil markets is all about supply and inventories are part of supply. Old-paradigm analysts believe that oil demand must revert to ever-higher levels which supply simply cannot meet. In fact, the opposite is true. The correct oil paradigm is supply-driven and price-constrained. – art.berman

    PARADIGM SHIFT: END OF THE OIL AGE

    Paradigm Shift: End of the Oil Age

    … pretty simple,

    F.S.

    #113570
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    The Constitution of the United States does not protect anybody from anything unless the Constitution itself is protected.

    That’s pretty hard to do when the folks officially entrusted to protect it . . . . (State Dept, Defense Dept, Justic Dept, etc.) . . . .are the ones who it needs to be protected from. We’re in a sort of “Mad King” situation in which not only is the King as mad as a hatter, but so is his entire Court.

    It’s looking more and more like the people themselves are going to have to take care of this one, once again. Time to drag out those dusty old documents like Magna Carta , American Declaration of Independence, Treaty of Versailles , Nuremburg Code, etc. for fresh republication.

    Either that or somehow persuade our “Leadership” to do a careful restudy of the legend of Humpty Dumpty, with a Final Exam at the end of class.

    #113571
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    So the media (which no one trusts anymore) is telling their untrusting readership that the reason no one trusts the media anymore is because people who don’t trust the media are saying that the media is untrustworthy, which the untrusting readership is expected to trust as being true and trustable. Trust them on that.

    How droll.

    #113572
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    I find that the “trust” thing is extremely interesting, since so much of today’s trouble is based on betrayals of trust, and misplacement of trust in things that . . . really . . . would not have been trusted in the first place if folks had been taking a little bit more responsibility for their own awareness of what is or isn’t true.

    Can’t farm out something like awareness. It is profoundly true that there are some jobs that if you want them done right you’re going to have to do them yourself.

    #113574
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    Thank you for your time and attention. I’m going to shut up for awhile now.

    #113575
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    Come on folks, start talking again. Day’s awasting.

    #113576
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    Warning, warning . . . . . if somebody doesn’t post something within the NEXT thirty minutes I’m going to start up again.

    #113577
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    A quick look leads me to think that chitin is not the scary awful thing some people claim.

    We eat shrimp, and they’re just bugs. (Yes, I know, we remove the chitinous shell when eating shrimp.) But still: we’ve been eating bugs for megamillennia.

    But needing to eat is a real thing, you know, and we can’t continue depending on factory livestock protein provision paradigms for they are ecologically disastrous and economically unsustainable.

    I worked with a Viet Namese man who’d lived through the Nam war and its aftermath. He said: “Very bad time, R-r-robin.” (He rolled his r’s in a funny way.) “Very hungry. No bugs.”

    I usually share this tale to point out how totally we devastated Nam with Agent Orange, turning tropical forests ionto desert wasteland. No food for the bugs thus no bugs. But I share it here to remind us that, yes, bugs are a viable food source. I highly doubt that chitin is more toxic than oleomargarine.

    Whether we like it or not, I see insect protein becoming very important for a period in time, that period in which our environmental survival platform has been disintegrated to a hunter-gatherer basis. Coming to a hole in the ground near you soon.

    And that smug UK bloke with the Gandalf aspect warning us about chitin strikes me as someone who gets high smoking his own brain cells. Plus, I inherently mistrust info presented by someone talking while someone films him.

    Meanwhile, we clever hominids may find a way to remove the chitin issue:

    Removing Chitin

    #113578
    Figmund Sreud
    Participant

    D Benton Smith – Come on folks, start talking again. Day’s awasting.
    ——————————-

    On “trust”: … I can’t say here often much. It’s perhaps my not clearly recalling or formulating mind, … but I just happened to recall one of my teachers, … way, way back (~ 1968-9?), introducing me – my Grade 13 Class! – to the writings of Herman Hesse. A sheet he handed out to us for an assignment to comment on one day. The sheet contained a following quote. The quote that is not really dealing with just “trust”, but many, many other life elements. Here it goes, … :

    “For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfil themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farmboy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow.

    Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.

    A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.

    A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live.

    When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.

    A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one’s suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.

    So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.”

    … fwiw,

    F.S.

    #113579
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    I think the most prudent way forward regarding possible safety issues on the eating of chitinous insects is to borrow a page from our ancient ancestors’ handbook on “How To Tell If Something Is Poisonous Or Not”. They would feed the substance in question to enemies they had captured in battle and then watch to see what happened. If the enemy turned blue, choked, got real sick or dropped dead on the spot then the substance was most probably not good to eat.

    So let’s feed bugs to the rich for a while and see how it goes. If they’re still fat and sassy after a few years then sign me up for the beetle burger.

    #113580
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    And how is Doc Ono going to calculate the “carbon footprint” of my many thrift shop purchases…all made with cash and store credit from clothing returns? (My number 1 shopping source is grocery stores, #2 is thrift stores, Amazon is #3 – for when something highly specific is needed, and Home Depot #4 — 70+ year old house. The thrift store changing rooms are still all closed, hence the clothing returns.). I suppose pulling something useful out of a quarterly bulk trash pile on a late-night walk can’t be calculated either, nor can picking up free items listed with FB marketplace, Nextdoor.com, OfferUp, free cycle, and Craigslist. Good. I derive simple pleasure from thwarting WEFfer plans.

    #113581
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @FigmundSreud

    That passage from Herman Hesse was so perfectly pertinent, and beautiful into the bargain. Thank you.

    #113582
    Farmer McGregor
    Participant

    Eating Insects 101:
    Look into it and you’ll find that the people groups who have historically done this almost always eat them in their pre-pupal (larval) stage. Insect larvae are rich in both protein and good fats, without any of the chitin. Also, the larvae are generally sterile thus free of the pathogens and parasites which will infect them as adults.

    When adult bugs are consumed, it is the inner contents, not the exoskeleton (shell) that are consumed. Survival manuals will tell you that to eat grasshoppers (locusts, large crickets, etc.) you hold them by their hoppers against a hot rock; the boiling innards will burst out where they are easily consumed without having to eat the shell and have been mostly sanitized by the heat.

    Once upon a time I watched a fascinating video of some tribesmen in a tropical jungle (I don’t remember where, and my efforts to locate the vid on the webs was fruitless else I would post it here). They would capture a large wasp and tie a feather to its leg with a thread. Then they followed it through the jungle as it led them back to its nest — a grey paper blob the size of a basketball hanging in a tree. After destroying and driving away all the adult wasps with smoke and flames, they would rip the nest open and gorge on the larvae which were the size of a peanut M&M. This was a great treat to them, well worth all the hassle involved in procuring it.

    Meal worms (the larvae of the Darkling Beetle) are very commonly fed to reptile pets and are easily produced at home (I have experimented with growing them on the litter from my chicken coop because the chickens love them and this would be a great way to cycle nutrients on the farm if successful…) Before feeding them to your pet, it is strongly advised that you allow the worms to gorge on some nutrient-dense foods for the purpose of ‘gut-loading’ them; your iguana depends as much or more on the contents of the insect’s guts as on the insect’s body.

    End of lecture.

    #113583

    Taylor Budowich: “It is clear that from the seizure of picture books to passports to attorney-client privileged documents, this unprecedented and unnecessary raid has resulted in the DOJ BEING THE ONES in possession of items they have no legal authority to possess.”

    #113584
    oldandtired
    Participant

    @Dr D. “ $717/mo = $8,600/year. Average income is $35k.” Is this correct? Not that long ago I read that half(?) the average households in US could not come up with $400 cash in the event of an emergency? So where is this extra $717 coming from? Credit cards and balance transfers to other credit cards? How is this any kind of a long term solution?

    #113585
    Susmarie108
    Participant

    @FigmundSreud

    A beautiful and personal expression from Hermann Hesse. His insightful reading of trees leaves me in awe; the forest that surrounds me will not be the same. Thank you for sharing.

    On trust:
    Often trust is given/earned through experience. On rare occasion, trust is the enabler of KNOWING and or UNDERSTANDING the TRUTH of something deep within oneself, beyond words and experience.

    Trust makes it possible for us to access hidden opportunity. When we are open – still and quiet, we hear the WISDOM of the Heart! Trusting this source of insight, and translating its wisdom into plans/action in daily living is powerful.

    I love the passage below, it holds the key to LIFE.

    “A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live.”

    DBS – way to rally the team!

    LOVE to ALL.

    #113586
    Armenio Pereira
    Participant

    Humans are aware – although many enjoy themselves pretending not to be – that they’re not meant to last forever. That’s why for every new purported panacea they come up with a new threatening affliction.

    #113587

    @Figmund,
    Thank you for the HH quote on trees !

    I too revere them, and on a daily basis lay in my hammock for my afternoon siesta, surrounded by them and the wildlife they nuture. I appreciate them and the natural world they and I share. Yes trees, like the starry night serves as a contemplative springboard.

    As does the AE community (of course) serve as food for thought.

    #113588

    Concerning the “national security” items, If it was stuff only presidents can have, “Joe Biden” should have been the one to get them. 😮
    And by the way, if this stuff was looked at in June, why did they leave stuff behind? So if I were going to accuse them of planting anything, that’s when it would have happened, ’cause they knew there were now things in there Trump knew nothing about.
    I suspect he had the tokens and what-nots because Mar-a-Lago was going to become the Trump Presidential Library- and goodness, what a tourist spot it would become!

    My trees say “Oh, how I love squirrels!”

    #113589
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    Spot on, Neil Oliver.

    I started making the transition from believing in and trusting the government around 1994. The transition to not believing in and not trusting the government was fairly complete by 2004.

    I began the transition not believing in and not trusting local government in 2002 (when I commenced taking a very active interest in what they were doing) and by 2012 that transition was complete.

    Sadly, there are still many who believe the government’s lies and the local council’s lies. The portion that does is declining by the hour. I do my best to wake people to the truth of their predicament -actually our collective predicament.

    This is where the phenomenon of baseline shift is so frustrating.

    Young people always grow up believing what they see around them as being normal, even though it is far from normal, because they have no yardstick to measure by.

    We oldies, on the other hand, can remember when there were meadows full of wild flowers, oak trees and the like a hundred or more years old. When I was a child milk came in glass bottles, delivered to dwellings by horse and cart. Life for most still had a degree of natural pace because few people had motor vehicles. Walking or cycling, together with public transport systems centred on buses and trains were the norm. Not that ordinary folk went far or travelled more than 10 miles very often.

    I now fully understand that my simple childhood life -no car, no television, no phone, no refrigerator…but electric lights and radios, was actually a massive short-term aberration in the grand scheme of things, and that one would have to travel back in time to the early 1700s to find a world that was not a massive short-term aberration in the grand scheme of things.

    How one transfers that knowledge to a preset-day teenager addicted to packaged food and addicted to a smart phone is the challenge.

    It probably cannot be done.

    Thus, in addition to the surging death rates attributable to toxic jabs and the diseases of civilisation, I suspect we will witness a surge in suicides, as those who have a sense of entitlement have everything they thought they were entitled to taken away by ‘the government’.

    On the matter of eating insects, it is well to remember that we are in the midst of an ‘insect apocalypse’, with an 80% decline in insect populations since the 1970s being recorded in Germany.

    Factory farmed insects? What are they going to eat? Grains grown, harvested and processed using diesel-powered machinery?

    Just more lies from the maniacs at the top of the financial pyramid.

    #113590
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Trees: we cannot live without them, so they know by killing them, they kill us.

    Bugs, yes the chitin would be slow health decay if I can read their description right. Just what you want: slumping vigor, multiple symptoms, plausible deniability.

    Doesn’t mean it’s true though. Although I’m seeing from the devil in the details here that their tribal processes have brains, and we have every bad additive from the bugs in whole-body cricket flour.

    Phoenix: not to fear, they’ll still need cash for illegal bribes, drugs, and whores, none of which they’ll ever give up. Use whatever currency they use, even if it’s favors.

    I am indeed disturbed by the choice of MonkeyPox, choice of carrier, and choice of puff story with the dog that keeps the slow burn in the non-news. I fear you may be right this is a direct attack, and there’s a second high-explosive vector they’re hitting gays with as well: the drive by the media to merge gays and pedophiles, both legally and in the public mind. Like I said, I’d take this as a Stonewall moment and go nuclear on them: sue, sue, sue. There are a lot of defense organizations in that group, they all need a direct pivot and all open fire on this attack on all gays. Not kidding. This is bad news and it’s coming up way too fast. Lay them out cold. Thankfully, despite the press no one in America is actually after “The Gays”, or not any more than any other group. You won’t actually need that legal defense fund for anyone else.

    #113591
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    Thinking bout all this stuff, I suddenly realised that the entire propaganda narrative functions with one agenda, which can be reduced to just three words: normalising the absurd.

    Propaganda about running huge complex societies on ‘green energy: normalising the absurd.

    Propaganda about messenger-RNA jabs providing protection: normalsing the absurd.

    Propaganda about masks preventing the movement of viruses: normalising the absurd.

    Propaganda about Ukraine winning the war: normalising the absurd.

    ad infinitum

    Today’s dose of grimness (courtesy Interest.co):

    ‘In China, normally at this time of year we note excessive flooding along the big river basins like the Yangtze. But this year it is the opposite with very low flows and very high temperatures. This does not bode well for farming, nor the industry relying on hydro-electric power from their river systems. There is now talk of factories closing due to electricity shortages. Brands like Apple are having supply issues.’

    Depending on your perspective, you could look on that as excellent news, I suppose.

    #113592
    Henry
    Participant

    I think dogs are divine. Except when my dog steals “our” bean bag.

    #113593
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Kramer offers a warning to would-be participants: “think carefully about which protests and demonstrations you join, or better stay away from them altogether, so as not to support the enemies of democracy.”

    And in that one sentence he identifies himself as the primary enemy of democracy: he, as head of the security services, will take away your say rather than him doing the job that you pay him to do, which is to make the streets safe for you to protest in the way that defines a true democracy: enable the people to protest or go down in history as an enabler of authoritarianism.

    #113594
    willem
    Participant

    Speaking of normalizing the absurd: Theodore Dalrymple’s observation on how Communist propaganda was meant to work:

    In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is…in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.

    #113595
    WES
    Participant

    Communist Propaganda.

    “They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work”. Only took 70 years for Russian communism to hit a brick wall and shatter.

    The US (and Canadian) armies are having trouble recruiting new serfs. It seems the serfs don’t want to be “woke”. The US army’s recruits are scoring 9% lower than before the pandemic. So they are dumbing down while shrinking and becoming non-combat capable. I guess the people are finally doing what Congress won’t do. The woke military leaders are then ensuring their dumb serfs are not combat capable. Maybe we should be grateful. Now the banker ‘s enforcers are becoming less capable of enforcing banker’s decrees.

    The Wall Street banks, using the Fed, are raising interest rates. This lack of new free money will hit the WEF crowd hard. Crazy grand schemes can only be entertained when free money is available. Sorry Trudeau, your days are now numbered.

    We were born serfs and will die serfs. Just like trees.

    #113596
    WES
    Participant

    Yesterday we had a lawyer friend from “Ottawa” drop in and stay overnight at the cottage on his way to Toronto to catch a flight to Holland. He is going over there to house sit 2 cats while their owners go on vacation for 2 weeks.

    I think you already know where this is heading!

    I asked him if he knew about the Dutch farmers protesting? Complete surprise to him as the msm in Canada do not cover the Dutch protests at all (re-Canadian truckers protest – leaders still in jail).

    Believes in vaccines, and Putin a murderer and Russia evil. Everything is black and white. A true believer if ever there was one.

    #113597
    oxymoron
    Participant

    This one is for Dr John. I’m the guy (or was in my pre 50 days!) in the cap. Veg gardening very close to my heart and gunna be back in style. Also the bug thing – yeah I think it can be supplementary but would caution over consumption as humans have never been PRIMARY about bugs and would assume the human body knows that in some weird way.
    As a side note – sadly my good friend and business partner in this video took his own life a week or so ago and was HUGE in permaculture and taught advanced design courses with Holmgren amongst many other endeavours in earth restoration. He had gone back to NZ when my local gestapo had ramped up the police brutality but Jacinta the Hun didn’t make life any easier in NZ.

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