Aug 292022
 
 August 29, 2022  Posted by at 8:38 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,


Samuel Peploe Beach scene 1907

 

Wave Of European Ammonia Plant Closures To Exacerbate Food Crisis (ZH)
Russia Can Afford Complete Halt In Gas Supplies To Europe – Bloomberg (RT)
Hungary Says It ‘Won’t Even Negotiate’ Energy Sanctions On Russia (RT)
The Real World Consequences Of Europe’s Coming Energy Crisis (ZH)
You Have No Idea How Bad Europe’s Energy Crisis Is (FP)
Germany Vows To Support Ukraine ‘For Years’ (RT)
Britain’s Financial Support For Ukraine To Run Out By New Year – Times (RT)
50,000 Ukrainian Refugees Face Homelessness In UK (RT)
Putin Is Trapped And Desperate. Will His Friends In The West Rescue Him? (G.)
IAEA Assembles Team For Zaporozhye Nuclear Plant (RT)
Ukraine Relying On US-developed Blueprint To Fight Russia – CNN (RT)
EU To Suspend Visa Deal With Russia – FT (RT)
New York Times Calls For Merrick Garland To Indict Donald Trump (PM)
Mar-a-Lago Affidavit Reveals The Government Has No Case Against Trump (Brock)
The Truth About Lockdown (Lord Sumption)
Latest Covid Booster Shots To Be Released Without Human Testing (NYP)

 

 

 

 

Covid theater

 

 

 

 

Dark Brandon
https://twitter.com/i/status/1563414040897998848

 

 


Situation under control

 

 

Ages of companies:

Twitter: 16 years
Facebook: 18 years
Tesla: 19 years
Google: 24 years
Netflix: 25 years
Amazon: 28 years
Apple: 46 years
Microsoft: 47 years
Sony: 76 years
Samsung: 84 years
Boeing: 106 years
IBM: 111 years
Nintendo: 133 years
Nokia: 157 years

 

 

 

 

If you were doubting they are creating a “you have nothing” society that needs to be built back better, then ask yourself why Europe doesn’t support its fertilizer industry. The consequences are clear enough. And sure, there’s the nitrogen narrative. But closing down both farmers and ammonia plants will lead to a civil war of sorts. Your leaders think they can win that. I’m not so sure.

Wave Of European Ammonia Plant Closures To Exacerbate Food Crisis (ZH)

A wave of European ammonia-plant shutdowns due to soaring natural gas prices has resulted in a devastating fertilizer crunch, worsening by the week, with as much as 70% of production offline. “Ammonia prices, though volatile, rose 15% in 3Q and could climb higher as Europe’s record gas prices curtail output and send ammonia producers to the global market in search of replacement supplies to run upgrade facilities — with winter still around the corner,” Bloomberg Intelligence’s Alexis Maxwell wrote in a note. As of Friday, 70% of capacity is offline across the continent, according to Fertilizers Europe, representing top regional producers.

“The current crisis begs for a swift and decisive action from EU and national policymakers for both energy and fertilizer market,” Jacob Hansen, director general of Fertilizers Europe, said in a statement.” Producers from Norway’s Yara International ASA to CF Industries to Borealis AG recently reduced or halted production because European NatGas prices hit a record high of 343 euros per megawatt hour, making it uneconomical to operate. “We confirm we are reducing and stopping production of some fertilizer plants in the different EU sites and this for economic reasons,” a spokesperson for Borealis AG said.”

Europe’s benchmark NatGas price soared nearly a third this week as Russian supplies to Europe via Nord Stream 1 pipeline have been reduced to 20% over the summer and face a temporary halt on Aug. 31 for three days. The region’s fertilizer industry association warned the energy crisis is rippling across many industries and could heavily impact the food industry. “We are extremely concerned that as prices of natural gas keep increasing, more plants in Europe will be forced to close. “This will switch the EU from being a key exporter to an importer, putting more pressure on fertilizer prices and consequently affecting the next planting season,” said Maximo Torero, chief economist at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.

Read more …

Stop the sanctions, negotiate for peace, and you can have all the oil you want. Blaming this on Russia is just a stupid story.

Russia Can Afford Complete Halt In Gas Supplies To Europe – Bloomberg (RT)

Russia can shut down its natural gas exports to Europe entirely for more than a year, without inflicting significant damage on the national economy, Bloomberg has reported, citing strategists at Capital Economics. In light of the current price situation, Russia’s “balance of payments is in such a strong position that, if oil prices and oil exports remain at current levels, Russia could keep gas exports to Europe at 20% of normal levels for at least three years,” analysts at the consultancy said in a note seen by the agency. A year-long supply cut-off by Russia could happen “without adverse consequences for its economy,” Liam Peach, one of the economists at Capital Economic said. sAccording to Peach, despite reduced volumes, Russia’s quarterly earnings generated by gas exports could amount to $20 billion.


“Whether or not Russia turns off the taps completely will be a political decision and the length of any cut-off would depend on the size of offsetting oil revenues,” Peach said. Several European leaders have repeatedly accused Moscow of using gas as a weapon of political pressure, with the Kremlin rejecting the allegation. The latest technical problems with Nord Stream 1 pipeline, a key gas route from Russia to Europe, prompted Gazprom to slash deliveries, sending prices skyrocketing. Another major test for the market is expected to arise next week, when the energy giant halts gas flows through Nord Stream 1 for three days due for maintenance work, starting on August 31.

Chomsky Unprovoked

Read more …

Waiting for the next country to “fall out of line”. Not much time left.

Hungary Says It ‘Won’t Even Negotiate’ Energy Sanctions On Russia (RT)

Budapest refuses to negotiate any further EU restrictions targeting Russian energy because there is no current alternative to supplies from Moscow, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Saturday. The EU has slapped several rounds of sanctions on Moscow in response to the conflict in Ukraine, and is pushing for a complete phasing-out of energy supplies from Russia. “We’re not even willing to negotiate any sanctions on energy, be it oil or gas,” Szijjarto said at an economic forum in Tihany, adding that “the courage of the Hungarian government” has helped Budapest to withstand pressure from Brussels.


“There is no security of energy supply to Europe without using Russian sources,” Szijjarto stated, arguing that Russian gas cannot be replaced in the foreseeable future. The foreign minister added that the “largely misguided sanctions response” to Russia’s military campaign is one of the factors driving up inflation and contributing to a global recession.Hungary, whose economy is heavily dependent on oil and gas from Russia, was exempted from an EU-wide ban on Russian crude in May. The bloc banned the import of oil by sea, but Hungary continues to receive the commodity via a pipeline. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said last month that Europe has “shot itself in the lungs”with its ill-considered sanctions against Russia.

Read more …

“..the European people are being positioned to face the consequences while being told there will be no consequences..”

The Real World Consequences Of Europe’s Coming Energy Crisis (ZH)

The IEA is an institution that is hostile to carbon based energy and industries and calls for the end of all carbon emissions by 2050. This is why none of their bullet points from March that have been attempted have worked; because they aren’t designed to work, only promote further carbon controls while harming global power generation in the process. There are currently no practical replacements for oil, coal and natural gas; none. Especially not in a reasonable time frame that would spare Europeans from a full blown disaster. The only way green technology would be able to provide enough energy for the world’s populations would be if the human population was greatly reduced. Europe’s energy crisis actually helps the IEA agenda, just as it helps the UN and WEF climate agendas. But what about all the people that will suffer in the meantime?

Expect to see extensive energy rationing this winter in the EU. Around 80% of all EU natural gas is imported and Russia’s natural gas exports make up around 40% of Europe’s heating and electricity. With Russia now reducing exports down to 20% of their original levels, there is zero chance that the EU will be able to maintain their normal energy usage. Supply-side shortages will mean a price explosion going into winter as demand increases. Prices have the potential to double (or more) by the beginning of 2023. European governments will likely prioritize heating for public homes over energy for industry; they will do this to prevent civil unrest, as some government officials are already warning about. There is a chance that EU industry will be hobbled as energy supplies are rerouted for public consumption. We have seen something similar to this in China this year as their drought conditions worsen.

Civil unrest will probably happen anyway. Climate restrictions, green energy rules on carbon emissions and other ludicrous measures are making it impossible for Europeans to adapt to crisis events. Prices will be high, and price caps won’t help with supply shortages. When people start to freeze, there will be anger and desperation. The only legitimate short term solution to prevent a historic energy calamity in the EU this winter would be to remove sanctions on Russia. But, NATO has made it clear that this will not happen. So, the European people are being positioned to face the consequences while being told there will be no consequences. And, when the pain starts to hit, they will be told that it’s all for the “greater good.”

Read more …

Actually, we do.

You Have No Idea How Bad Europe’s Energy Crisis Is (FP)

Normally, Europe can refill its gas storage during the summer and coast in the winter, when usage is higher. Now, with colder months looming and Russia’s tightening chokehold on natural gas flows, Europe has been locked in a race against time to fill its tanks, which leaders have stocked by paying eye-watering prices. So far, experts said, European nations have been largely on track with their plans—but that doesn’t mean that they will be out of the woods come winter. In the winter, Europe typically “uses a lot of what it has in storage while, at the same time, importing lots of gas from other sources,” Munton said. “It needs both. But as we think about this winter, there is a very real threat that there won’t be any Russian gas at all.” In normal times, Russian gas supplies about 40 percent of European imports.

Without Russia’s supply in the winter, Munton added, European nations will be forced to rely on imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) even more from suppliers such as the United States. The problem is that Asia—a larger LNG market—is also vying for the same supplies, which means prices are always going to be higher than old piped gas from the East. “That’s really the crisis that Europe and the world confronts,” he added. As Europe abandons Moscow’s energy supply, many leaders have rushed to secure alternative deals and supplies with other countries. Italy has secured more gas from Algeria while other nations have turned to Azerbaijan, Norway, and Qatar.

Germany has also expressed its hopes for a new LNG deal with Canada, which in turn has been considerably less optimistic. Others have invested considerably more into LNG infrastructure, with Germany racing to build five floating LNG terminals and the Netherlands, Finland, and Italy all preparing for more floating units to import gas. But in the immediate future, energy experts said there is only so much that countries can do to shore up their supplies. “There’s a limit to what you can do in the near term to bring additional supplies into Europe because there’s only so much LNG in the world,” said Jason Bordoff, founding director of Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy and a former special assistant to former U.S. President Barack Obama.

Read more …

The 10-year war scenario. Question: will Putin tolerate that? I don’t see it.

Germany Vows To Support Ukraine ‘For Years’ (RT)

The conflict between Ukraine and Russia could “could go on for years”, but Berlin will keep supporting Kiev all the way, Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has said. “Unfortunately, we have to assume that Ukraine will still need new heavy weapons from its friends next summer,” Baerbock told the Bild tabloid on Sunday. “Ukraine is also defending our freedom, our peace,” the minister said, adding that Berlin will support Kiev “financially and militarily — and for as long as it is necessary, full stop!” Baerbock’s pledge comes despite her admission earlier this week that Germany’s military is facing an “absolute deficit” of hardware, due to arms shipments to Ukraine. Berlin has so far supplied artillery pieces, shoulder-fired rockets and anti-aircraft self-propelled guns to Ukraine.


Nevertheless, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has faced criticism throughout the six months of the conflict, for his apparent reluctance to send more sophisticated weaponry to Kiev. Baerbock said on Wednesday that Germany’s Iris-T anti-aircraft missile system will be sent to Ukraine in the coming weeks, and that more deliveries should be expected by the end of the year. In her interview with Bild, the diplomat pledged to “cushion the social imbalances resulting from high energy prices” in Germany, caused by a drop in deliveries of Russian gas to Europe, amid sanctions against Moscow. Baerbock also defended Ukraine’s claim to Crimea, which overwhelmingly voted to reunite with Russia in a referendum in 2014. “Crimea also belongs to Ukraine. The world has never recognized the annexation of 2014, which was against international law,” the Green party politician claimed.

Lord Dannatt

Read more …

Oh-oh.

Britain’s Financial Support For Ukraine To Run Out By New Year – Times (RT)

The UK’s financial support for Ukraine’s military will run dry by the end of the year, a Defense Ministry source has told the Sunday Times. London has already given Kiev more than £2.3 billion ($2.7 billion) in military aid, but whoever leads the country next will have to deal with strained public finances and declining public enthusiasm for a protracted conflict. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited Kiev last week, where he announced a new package of military aid to Ukraine worth £54 million ($63 million), on top of the £2.3 billion committed by the UK since Russia’s military operation began in February. Johnson promised to support Kiev’s military for “however long it takes,” and his likely successor, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, is known for her even more hawkish stance toward Russia.


“The reality, as one Ministry of Defence source acknowledged, is that the UK’s financial contribution to the war effort will have dried up by the end of the year,” the Sunday Times article noted. “This means that the new prime minister will very soon face the question of whether to commit billions of pounds of additional support at a time when the public finances are under intense strain.” Britain is currently grappling with soaring inflation – predicted to hit 18% in early 2023 – and record fuel prices. Driven by market forces, supply disruption due to the conflict in Ukraine, and Britain’s decision to cut off its energy imports from Russia, much of this price hike is being passed on to consumers, with energy regulator Ofgem raising the energy price cap on Friday by 80%. This move will see the average household pay more than £3,500 per year in energy bills.

Read more …

Victims of failed western policies.

50,000 Ukrainian Refugees Face Homelessness In UK (RT)

Some 50,000 Ukrainians could be homeless in the UK next year, as the government’s scheme to match refugees with British families breaks down, The Guardian reported on Sunday. With the cost of living spiraling, the opposition wants the government to boost payments to host families. Analysis by the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats and children’s charity Barnardos found that, based on feedback from British hosts, between 15,000 and 21,000 Ukrainians could be homeless by the winter, rising to more than 50,000 by mid-2023, the newspaper reported. To date, 83,900 refugees have arrived in the UK since March under the government’s Homes for Ukraine scheme, under which British households are paid £350 ($411) per month to house refugees for six months.

However, as of earlier this month, 1,330 Ukrainian households in England – 385 single refugees and 945 families with children – have left the scheme and are now homeless. It is unclear why these matches did not work out, but campaigners told The Guardian that some hosts signed up enthusiastically without understanding “the implications and consequences of this sort of responsibility,”while others are finding that due to the rising cost of living in the UK, £350 per month is no longer sufficient to support new additions to the household. A further wave of homelessness is expected from September onwards, when most of the six-month sponsorship agreements expire.

Minister of State for Refugees Lord Harrington has lobbied the Treasury to double monthly payments for those who can host refugees for more than six months, but the government has given no indication that it will act on his recommendations, and Harrington has taken to pleading with British households to join the scheme. However, while some of the activists who spoke to The Guardian said the impending crisis could be averted with more financial support from the government, a majority of sponsors aren’t motivated by money. According to a recent government survey, only a quarter of those quitting the scheme after six months said they were doing so because they could no longer afford to take part, and just four in ten said that more money would encourage them to extend their participation. A majority (58%) said they only ever intended to provide short-term accommodation. sYet Ukrainian refugees arriving in Britain under the scheme have been given visas for three years.

Read more …

Simon Tisdall in the Guardian. Does he really see things this way?

Putin Is Trapped And Desperate. Will His Friends In The West Rescue Him? (G.)

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” So wrote American author Henry David Thoreau in 1854. It’s a fate that is rapidly overtaking Vladimir Putin as he struggles to escape the disastrous trap he set for himself in Ukraine. Russia’s president keeps understandably schtum about his “special military operation”. But indefinite stalemate is not what he expected. He didn’t expect car bombs in Moscow and humiliating attacks on fortress Crimea, either. Least of all did Putin anticipate 80,000 Russian soldiers dead or wounded. Dying with them is his Peter the Great pipe dream of a “greater Russia”. Extinct already is his reputation as anything other than a killer and a crook. An endless military quagmire is not a scenario Putin can afford as slow-burn western sanctions corrode his economy and his military’s manpower and materiel are steadily depleted.

So what are his options? He could declare a specious victory, claim the Nato “threat” is neutralised and propose a settlement recognising Russia’s annexation of occupied areas. But he surely knows Kyiv will never willingly accept such terms. He could gamble on a huge battlefield escalation, for example, using Belarus to open a second front north of Kyiv – the region he failed to overrun in February. But it’s uncertain his generals have the capability or the stomach. He certainly dare not retreat. So as pressure on him grows to produce a breakthrough, Putin may well decide his best option is to raise the cost of the war to Ukraine’s backers – and undermine Kyiv’s resistance that way. In fact, he has already begun. It’s telling that British, French and German leaders all proclaimed long-term support for Ukraine last week. They know Putin is betting they will buckle.

The context is rising anxiety over Europe’s energy and cost of living crises, largely caused by the invasion and Kremlin cuts to gas supplies. The winter fallout from this coldest of cold wars could prove paralysing. Yet Putin may just be getting started. He has many means by which to undermine western unity and staying power. Europe is littered with easily exploited potential flashpoints and geopolitical faultlines bequeathed from Soviet times. Likewise, Russia has surprising numbers of allies and sympathisers scattered across a politically fractured European landscape. So will Putin’s friends in the west help rescue the beast from the east? Belarus’s Alexander Lukashenko is already in Putin’s pocket. Moscow ensured the dictator survived after his theft of the 2020 presidential election provoked nationwide protests. Lukashenko will do as he’s told.

Inside the EU, Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s prime minister, is seen as Putin’s Trojan horse. Like many on Europe’s far right, Orbán admires his intolerant nationalist ideology and shares his racist, homophobic outlook. He has repeatedly obstructed EU sanctions. Last month he cut a unilateral gas deal with the Kremlin. Orbán plainly cannot be trusted.

Read more …

Imagine the pressure on these people.

IAEA Assembles Team For Zaporozhye Nuclear Plant (RT)

The UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has cobbled together a team of independent experts to visit Ukraine’s Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, which is now under Russia’s control, the New York Times reported on Saturday. The plant and the nearby city of Energodar have been repeatedly shelled by Kiev’s forces in recent weeks. According to the outlet, the members of the delegation include Rafael Mariano Grossi, the IAEA chief, and 13 other experts from “mostly neutral countries.” The report also reveals that neither the US nor Britain have any representatives on the team, given that Russia had dismissed those countries as “unfairly biased” over their support for the government in Kiev.

The NYT report says the IAEA mission includes experts from Poland and Lithuania, countries that support Ukraine, but also others from Serbia and China, which have much warmer relations with Russia. A number of delegation members also come from Albania, France, Italy, Jordan, Mexico, and North Macedonia. The goal of the mission, according to Grossi, is to see what exactly is happening at the plant, inspect its integrity, speak to both Russian and Ukrainian staff there, and establish a permanent presence on the ground. The move follows a phone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron last week, during which the two leaders agreed on dispatching an international mission to the area “as soon as possible.”

The team will apparently travel on terms arranged by Ukraine and the United Nations, which means the experts will arrive at Zaporozhye via territory currently controlled by Kiev’s forces. Moscow had previously insisted that such a mission should arrive only via Russian-controlled territory. Moscow has repeatedly accused Ukrainian forces of attacking the nuclear plant, while warning that the shelling could trigger a disaster that would eclipse the 1986 Chernobyl incident. At the same time, Kiev insists that it is Russian forces who are shelling the site while stationing military hardware there.

Read more …

When will Russia take out the offices of Ukraine intelligence?

Ukraine Relying On US-developed Blueprint To Fight Russia – CNN (RT)

During its conflict with Russia, Ukraine has been relying on a US-developed doctrine that involves both the military and civilians taking part in defensive activities, CNN reported on Saturday. The Resistance Operating Concept (ROC), which is said to provide a blueprint for smaller states to counter larger powers, was developed in 2013 in response to Russia’s conflict with Georgia in 2008. It was further enhanced after Crimea’s “nearly bloodless” reunification with Moscow in 2014, which “stunned Ukraine and the West,” CNN said. The ROC represents “an innovative and unconventional approach to warfare and total defense,” and guides the actions not only of the Ukrainian military, but also the civilian population.

“It’s all hands on deck in terms of the comprehensive defense for the government of Ukraine,” explained retired Lt. Gen. Mark Schwartz, who was in charge of Special Operations Command Europe during the development of the concept. “They’re using every resource and they’re also using some highly unconventional means by which to disrupt the Russian Federation military.” Schwartz said it was “just incredible to watch… despite the unbelievable loss of life and sacrifice, what the will to resist and the resolve to resist can do.” Explosions at Russia’s military facilities in Crimea – far from the front line in Donbass – earlier in August were signs that the ROC had been in play, claimed Kevin D. Stringer, a retired army colonel who led the development team for the concept.

Kiev never officially confirmed its involvement in the incidents, but CNN said it saw a Ukrainian government report confirming that it was behind them. Russia said the blasts at its Saki airfield in western Crimea were the result of an accident, while an ammunition depot in the north of the peninsula had been targeted in an “act of sabotage.” “Since you can’t do it conventionally, you would use special operations forces, and those [forces] would need resistance support – intelligence, resources, logistics – in order to access these regions,” Stringer said, explaining the alleged actions by Kiev. Civilian resistance under the ROC includes nonviolent actions such as boycotting public events, labor strikes, and even using satire and jokes as means of resistance. Violent actions, like using Molotov cocktails, arson and putting chemicals in gas tanks to sabotage enemy vehicles, are also part of the concept.

Generally, the doctrine calls for a major PR campaign to control the narrative of the conflict, preventing the dissemination of the other side’s message, and keeping the population united. Video footage showing destroyed Russian hardware and edited to catchy tunes forms part of the strategy, along with clips of Ukrainian troops rescuing stray animals, and daily addresses by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky – “whether intentional or not,” CNN claimed. At least 15 countries have taken part in some form of training on the Pentagon’s resistance doctrine over the past decade, Nicole Kirschmann, a spokeswoman for Special Operations Command Europe, revealed. The program isn’t universal. It’s being tailored in accordance with each country’s population, resources and terrain. CNN’s report mentioned Estonia, Lithuania and Poland as nations that have expressed enthusiasm for the ROC.

Read more …

“The Kremlin also expressed hope at the time that “common sense” would eventually prevail.”

EU To Suspend Visa Deal With Russia – FT (RT)

EU foreign ministers plan to back a suspension of the 2007 EU-Russia visa facilitation deal at a two-day meeting in Prague, next week, the Financial Times reported on Sunday, citing three officials familiar with the matter. In response to Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine, several member states have actively been lobbying for either a ban or heavy restrictions on the number of Russian citizens entering the bloc. “It is inappropriate for Russian tourists to stroll in our cities, on our marinas,” a senior EU official told the newspaper. “We have to send a signal to the Russian population that this war is not OK, it is not acceptable.” The suspension of the agreement would make the process of applying for all EU visas more complicated and expensive, as well as increasing waiting times.


“We are in an exceptional situation and it requires exceptional steps. We want to go beyond suspending the visa facilitation,” an EU official was quoted as saying. The official stated that additional restrictions could be adopted by the end of the year, according to the FT. Countries such as Poland, the Czech Republic, Estonia and Latvia have already stopped issuing visas to Russian citizens. Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said this week that Russian tourists pose a security threat to the country, and that a travel ban could incentivize some Russians to “pressure” the Kremlin. Others, including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell, spoke out against a full ban on Russian travelers. They argued that the bloc should not punish ordinary Russians for the actions of their government. Moscow blasted the proposed measures as “flagrant nationalism” and xenophobia. The Kremlin also expressed hope at the time that “common sense” would eventually prevail.

Read more …

“..January 6 Committee, which hauled witnesses before the cameras to give hearsay testimony.”

New York Times Calls For Merrick Garland To Indict Donald Trump (PM)

The New York Times Editorial Board has called for the Biden administration’s Department of Justice to prosecute former President Donald Trump. The crimes of which he’s accused have not yet been fully elucidated, due to a heavily redacted affidavit, provided under duress by the DOJ to explain why a search warrant was approved for an FBI raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence. The Times asserts that the “nation has been transfixed” by the overly produced, prime time hearings of the essentially partisan, Democrat-run January 6 Committee, which hauled witnesses before the cameras to give hearsay testimony.

The DOJ’s seeking of a search warrant to raid Trump’s home was not connected to any charges that may be brought by that Committee. The DOJ is seeking criminal charges against the former president for how he handled documents, while the January 6 Committee is searching for evidence that Trump was involved in planning the riot at the Capitol that occurred on that day in 2021 The Times asserts that there is no question as whether or not Trump spurred on an angry mob to enter the Capitol, saying that “When all else failed,” in his political redress to seek potential election improprieties, “he roused an armed mob that stormed the Capitol and threatened lawmakers.”

The results of the January 6 Committee, they say, is that “Mr. Trump must have known he was at the center of a frantic, sprawling and knowingly fraudulent effort that led directly to the Capitol siege. For hours, Mr. Trump refused to call off the mob.” They further encourage Attorney General Merrick Garland to seek an indictment against Trump, saying “If Attorney General Merrick Garland and his staff conclude that there is sufficient evidence to establish Mr. Trump’s guilt on a serious charge in a court of law, then they must seek an indictment too.” What the Times asserts is that “If Mr. Garland decides to pursue prosecution, a message that the Justice Department must send early and often is that even if Mr. Trump genuinely believed, as he claimed, that the election had been marred by fraud, his schemes to interfere in the certification of the vote would still be crimes.

Read more …

Kevin R. Brock is a former assistant director of intelligence for the FBI and principal deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC).

Mar-a-Lago Affidavit Reveals The Government Has No Case Against Trump (Brock)

When two dozen or more FBI agents searched former President Trump’s residence three weeks ago, most Americans initially were left wondering what in the world must Trump have done. After all, a prodigious FBI search logically indicates an equally prodigious violation of some federal statute; therefore, it must be really serious. One former Department of Justice (DOJ) official told Politico that the evidence sought “was likely so pulverizing in its force” that it would “eviscerate” the possibility of the optics for such an invasive law enforcement action not being good. Well, it’s now pretty official: The optics aren’t good. Everyone in America, from plumber to president, is constitutionally protected from a government search that lacks adequate cause.

We now know why the DOJ wanted the affidavit — which is supposed to articulate the probable cause needed for a legitimate search — to be kept under seal. After the magistrate who authorized the search forced the DOJ to unseal a redacted version, two realities came into better focus. First, the affidavit confirmed that the FBI’s investigation was triggered in January 2022 at the request of the National Archives, which wanted certain documents, especially classified documents, that it considered to be presidential records to be turned over to it by Trump. Second, from what I have seen, I don’t believe the affidavit articulates how a federal law was or is being broken. For those who hold out hope that the affidavit’s redacted sections fill that gap, there is almost no chance that they do.

As to the first point, this matter is, as suspected, nothing more than a document dispute that was chugging along, appropriately, as a negotiation behind the scenes and apparently making some progress. I don’t see anything in the affidavit asserting a refusal by Trump to cooperate. Any clinging hope — in certain quarters — that the affidavit possessed “pulverizing” cause to believe Trump was engaged in a truly serious federal violation can — I think — be considered dashed. The pipe dream that Trump was engaged in espionage, actively providing secrets to an enemy I think is as fanciful as the Steele dossier’s Moscow hotel bed reverie. And, no, I don’t believe a smoking gun of espionage or something equally shocking will be in the redacted sections. If the FBI had that, it would have fronted that in the unredacted portions.

But that’s not all that’s needed — in this case in particular. A criminal violation of those statutes only exists if it can be established that the person being investigated was not authorized to possess, store, transfer or copy those documents. This is an easy element to establish against anyone in America. Except one person. The unredacted parts of the affidavit make no attempt to articulate cause that Trump was not authorized to have these documents in his home. The reason is that, as president, he had broad, legally intimidating authority, established by law and court determinations, to declassify any and all documents and to determine what is and is not a presidential record. Trump and his legal team have asserted that this authority was exercised while he was still president. Therefore, a violation of these fairly low-level and seldom-prosecuted document-oriented statutes cannot be proven.

Read more …

“..our children and grandchildren will be paying for it for decades to come..”

The Truth About Lockdown (Lord Sumption)

It was always obvious that you could not close down a country for months on end without serious consequences. The shocking thing that emerges from Sunak’s interview is that the government refused to take them into account. There was no assessment of the likely collateral costs of lockdown. There was no cost-benefit analysis. There was no planning. In government the issues were not even discussed. Sunak’s own attempts to raise them hit a brick wall. Ministers took refuge in evasive buck-passing, claiming to be “following the science”. Yet the critical question was never a scientific one. It was a political question, in which the likely hospital admissions and deaths from Covid were just one element.

The scientists said it was not their job to think about the social or economic implications of their advice. They were right about that. The problem was it turned out to be no one else’s job. We are still paying for this negligence, and our children and grandchildren will be paying for it for decades to come. In 2020, U.K. GDP fell by nearly a tenth, the biggest hit to the economy for at least a century. According to Treasury estimates, 460,000 people left the workforce never to return. The policy took a wrecking ball to the public finances. The IMF estimates that government spending rose by more than £400 billion, or about £6,000 for every man, woman and child. Most of this was unproductive spending. It went on paying people for not working and supporting businesses forced to cease operations.

At one point, in the spring of 2020, the government was spending about twice as much on compensating for the lockdown as it was on the NHS. Borrowing rose to £330 billion, a peacetime record. Then there are the non-financial costs. Other mortal conditions went undiagnosed and untreated. In October 2020, after four months of lockdown, the Office for National Statistics reported more than 25,000 excess deaths at home from conditions such as cancer, heart disease and dementia. A year after the last lockdown ended, the NHS still has a vast backlog. Excess deaths, 95% of them due to conditions other than Covid, are running at about 1,000 a week. There has been a huge impact on mental health, with children and the poor worst affected.

Read more …

Tell them to fuck off.

Latest Covid Booster Shots To Be Released Without Human Testing (NYP)

The Food and Drug Administration is expected to approve new COVID-19 booster shots this week — before the vaccines are tested on humans, according to a new report by the Wall Street Journal. The new boosters are similar to the COVID vaccines currently available in the US with minor modifications that protect recipients from the latest version of the Omicron variant. Instead of waiting on data from testing in humans, the agency will use data from trials in mice — as well as the real world evidence of the safety of currently available COVID vaccines and test results from earlier iterations of boosters targeting older strains to evaluate the newest boosters, FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf said.

“Real world evidence from the current mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, which have been administered to millions of individuals, show us that the vaccines are safe,” Califf said on Twitter. “As we know from prior experience, strain changes can be made without affecting safety.” He added that modifying existing vaccines to include protection against different viral strains doesn’t require a change in ingredient and is a common practice the FDA does with flu vaccines. “FDA has extensive experience with reviewing strain changes in vaccines, as is done with the annual flu vaccine,” Califf said. Both Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech have submitted new COVID vaccine boosters to the agency for approval and the FDA hopes to roll out a booster campaign this fall.

However, some health experts are wary of the decision to release the shots without completed human trials. In June, two experts penned an op-ed demanding that the FDA not rush through the roll-out of the newest shots. “I’m uncomfortable that we would move forward — that we would give millions or tens of millions of doses to people — based on mouse data,” one of the authors, Paul Offit, told the Journal. Offit, an FDA adviser and director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, believes the comparison between flu shots and COVID-19 shots is not well grounded due to the differences in mutations and protection levels.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

Walker Wheeler

 

 

McDonalds 1953

 

 

KFC 1970s

 

 

 

 

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in virustime with Paypal, Bitcoin and Patreon.

 

 

 

Home Forums Debt Rattle August 29 2022

Viewing 33 posts - 41 through 73 (of 73 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #114581
    John Day
    Participant

    @VP Gary: That video clip of the frightened toddler in the water, and the cheery, helpful big sister, looks like it’s Thai people. He had no footing, and his clinging position did not allow him to gain footing.
    He loves his big sister, I am sure.

    #114582
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Russia can shut down its natural gas exports to Europe entirely for more than a year, without inflicting significant damage on the national economy, Bloomberg has reported, citing strategists at Capital Economics.

    Everybody knows that this is only damaging Europe while the rest of the world continues on its merry way. Why would Europe’s leaders do this? Even if you believe in AGW you can surely see that this is not going to save the planet as the worst CO2 emitters are still operating. So what is the point and why aren’t the European people asking this question?

    #114583
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Imagine the pressure on these people.

    Reminds me of the murder of David Kelly.

    #114584
    aspnaz
    Participant

    “We have to send a signal to the Russian population that this war is not OK, it is not acceptable.”

    Ha ha, better do this now because come winter the Russians ain’t going to want to visit Europe to live in cold hotel rooms in the dark with huge crowds in the streets burning whatever they can find to keep warm.

    #114585
    aspnaz
    Participant

    The Food and Drug Administration is expected to approve new COVID-19 booster shots this week — before the vaccines are tested on humans, according to a new report by the Wall Street Journal.

    Anyone who takes these boosters, as with the last round, gets no sympathy from me, in fact I see them as the enemy, helping the governments and corporations to fight the people. Tennis players and others can drop dead and although I do not wish to see this, there is only one person they have to blame. The law of the jungle has come to the streets of the cities: kill or be killed.

    #114586
    zerosum
    Participant

    https://www.rt.com/russia/561758-ukraine-counter-offensive-fails/
    Ukraine’s counter-offensive attempt has failed – Russia
    Kiev’s troops suffered great losses in a failed attack ordered by president Zelensky towards Kherson, Moscow says
    Moscow explained.
    Ukraine’s much-heralded “counter-offensive” in Kherson has “failed miserably,” the Russian Defense Ministry insisted on Monday, listing estimated losses suffered by Kiev during the operation.

    Ukrainian forces had attempted to attack in three directions on orders of President Vladimir Zelensky but made no gains, Moscow explained.
    Russian troops caused “great losses” to the Ukrainian attackers during the day’s battles, a statement read. Kiev saw 26 tanks, 23 armored fighting vehicles, nine more armored vehicles, and two SU-25 ground-attack jets destroyed, while more than 560 troops were lost, according to the summary.

    Ukraine SITREP: the promised “major Ukrainian counter-attack” ends in disaster


    Ukraine SITREP: the promised “major Ukrainian counter-attack” ends in disaster
    3580 Views August 29, 2022 2 Comments
    “Today, during the day, on the direct instructions of Zelensky, Ukrainian troops attempted an offensive in the Mykolaiv and Kherson regions in three directions. As a result of the active defense of the grouping of Russian troops, the AFU units suffered heavy losses,” TASS reports.

    The ministry added that “the enemy’s losses in manpower amounted to more than 560 servicemen, another attempt at offensive actions of the enemy failed miserably.”
    According to the Defense Ministry, the Russian Armed Forces destroyed 26 Ukrainian tanks, 23 infantry fighting vehicles, nine other armored combat vehicles, shot down two Su-25 attack aircraft.

    Addendum 1: here is how CNN reported about this latest disaster “Ukrainian troops took back 4 villages in the south from Russian occupation, military source tells CNN“.
    https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-08-29-22#h_52d9a059a8e55bb86fdb120a2c2b068b
    No, this is no joke, click on the link above and see for yourself.

    #114587
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    On yesterday’s comment thread Dr D added a link which verifies exactly what I have been saying for twenty years!

    Thank you Dr D!

    https://notrickszone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/CO2-600-million-years.png

    Prior to the Carboniferous, atmospheric CO2 was above 2,000 ppm. (we might note that this was determined not by direct measurement but by proxies and models that climate change mechanism deniers are so keen on ridiculing).

    Anyway, back to the graph.

    We note that the 2,000+ ppm atmospheric CO2 was drawn down over a period of around 80 million years, as the great surge in plant life converted CO2 into carbohydrate, and then that carbohydrate got buried and eventually got converted into coal; the great sequestration I have referred to several times.

    The graph also reveals the Great Permian Extinction Event I recently referred to, whereby a surge in volcanic activity -the Siberian Trapps- de-sequestered sufficient of the sequestered carbon to drastically alter the average temperature relatively quickly – a few hundred thousand years for the die-off and another 10 million years of extreme volcanism and de-sequestering. The Permian Extinction Event killed off around 90% of life on Earth.

    So now we examine what industrial humans have been doing since Newcomen installed a coal-powered steam pump to get water out of a flooded mine: extracting ever-greater quantities of sequestered carbon (coal, oil, natural gas) and putting the products of combustion -primarily CO2 and H2O- into the atmosphere, recreating the Great Permian Extinction Event, but on a very, very, very, very much faster time scale. Just 300 years or so.

    There has been discussion about ice core measurements. Well, they verify exactly what I have been saying since the 1990s.

    https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/wp-content/plugins/sio-bluemoon/graphs/co2_800k.png

    Anyone interested in actual science (as opposed to climate change denial) will note that the average atmospheric CO2 level was around 230 ppm for 800,000 years (the period of recent evolution of humans and many other extant life forms) with occasional blips towards 300 ppm that were caused by the previously referred to Milankovitch Cycles. Most of those blips never exceeded 280 ppm.

    There is evidence that the so-called baseline pre-industrial atmospheric level of 280 ppm was actually higher than it would have been without humans because humans had already started to mess things up via the activities of ancient civiliations….. chopping down trees to build navies and temples etc. and modifying land use; that caused and increase of maybe 20 ppm over a period of 20,000 years. 1 ppm per 1,000years.

    That’s ‘rather pathetic really’, compared to what modern industrial humans can do! Modern industrial humans can raise the atmospheric CO2 by 20 ppm in just 8 years!!!!

    https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/wp-content/plugins/sio-bluemoon/graphs/mlo_full_record.png

    The Scripps Institute have not updated the graph since December 2020. Maybe lack of funding. Or illness induced by jabs. Who knows.

    A new seasonal peak [due to the reduced winter photosynthetic activity of Northern Hemisphere forests] of around 421 ppm was reached in May-June of 2022.

    “So what,” say climate change deniers. Or even worse, “That’s great because CO2 is a plant nutrient,” -another lie!!!

    CO2 is not a plant nutrient: it is a building block for carbohydrate manufacture in plant cells.

    One thing is certain: the maniacs who are in control of industrial societies and who churn out endless propaganda consisting of blatant lies have no intention of addressing any of this fundamental issues, and will keep industrial societies locked into use of fossil fuels -even as fossil fuel extraction rates go in to terminal decline- and will continue to promote completely fake narratives that supposedly address the issues but in fact only enrich insiders and make the overall predicament far worse a lot faster.

    That’s what the science says.

    John Day.

    Thanks for your support.

    In case anyone has any doubts, I alternate between collection of information and comment here (I don’t bother anywhere else), and personal preparation for the rapidly approaching economic-financial meltdown and energy-supply meltdown. There are few things any individual can do to prevent environmental meltdown in the face of semi-global fascism.

    It’s a horrible job -telling people the truth they don’t want to hear, in the face of ignorance and denial- but someone has to do it.

    AFKTT

    #114588
    John Day
    Participant

    Thanks zerosum, for kherson battle-news. You also contribute to the useful information at TAE.

    #114589
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Dr D said

    They need the people to rise up and demand it.

    Looks like that won’t happen until an empty plate is served to them at dinner time. They will then beat the wife, then go out and beat the police in an attempt to get to the politicians: where’s my dinner!

    #114590
    John Day
    Participant

    I wonder when there will be a departure from the NATO-narrative that Europe must embargo Russian oil and gas to support Ukraine, until Ukraine wins, for her cause is just…

    There is bound to be tension in the bribed European politicians, as it becomes more and more clear that they are harming and killing their neighbors going forward.
    Is there some other “secret” lie, just for them, something only they know, which “will prove their wisdom soon”?

    #114591
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    AGW Marks/Fools:

    #114592
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    #114593
    aspnaz
    Participant

    willem said

    However, this does not necessarily mean, (nor is it likely, @aspnaz) that “the billionaires are saving us.

    It means that you are colluding with the billionaires to further their green agenda. The climate crisis is a billionaire project, it has created a “problem” called “AGW” and has recruited eco-warriors as its troops. Once you adopt that “problem”, you are helping the billionaires so the only conclusion that an outsider like myself can come to is that you are helping the billionaires because you believe in the “problem”, a problem that they created and own as a narrative, without any neutral science behind it, in fact with plenty of neutral science disproving it. Why would warriors join a team if they do not believe in the narrative and the goals? I believe this to be a great example of how humans can be manipulated, how their good intentions can be guided to support issues owned by the billionaires, this is the flock being shepharded. I put this on a similar grounding as the woke movement, again driven by manipulating people’s good intentions to gain the outcomes that are good for the owners, not the sheep.

    #114594
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    For WES:

    #114595
    Bill7
    Participant

    The question I keep asking myself these days is “what am sure of?”. Not much really, just that 1) there is less readily-available energy; and 2) lowering and better-controlling populations would sure make sense now from a ruling class’s (I won’t talk of its legitimacy) point of view.

    Making the many proles less sure of anything seems like a good ruling-class strategy; and I think the replacement of family, community, and such by corporate-approved “wokeness” was quite well-planned and executed, at least for the short and medium term. I expect more of that and other kinds kinds of destabilization in the future, but at some point it will break down; esp when people do not have enough to eat, for example.

    The doom-porn is really being ratcheted up again at the moment (notice how many links to it on the various sites?), but at this time I thing that’s more a tool of control via induced helpnessness than
    a reflection of acute issues.

    #114596
    Bill7
    Participant

    As an aside, I thought that thing by Simon Tisdall in The Guardian was an unintended hoot.

    #114597
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Bill7 said

    The doom-porn is really being ratcheted up again at the moment (notice how many links to it on the various sites?), but at this time I thing that’s more a tool of control via induced helpnessness than a reflection of acute issues.

    Interesting point, also implied by Dr D, that the gas shortage in Europe can still be averted should the Germans decide to open all the spigots on all the Russian pipelines. They are starting to see real damage in the fertiliser industry and I am sure more real damage will occur, but the Germans can still keep their industry alive by opening those pipelines. Remember that in the past they relied on storage but now they have extra pipeline capacity, so probably do not need the storage at all. My guess is that at some stage the Germans will turn away from the USA and go with Russia, probably – as Dr D stated – when the people finally decide to rise up and the politicians have a genuine reason and popular support to tell the USA to fuck off out of Germany and take their troops with them.

    #114598
    willem
    Participant

    @aspnaz: We must have crossed wires somehow. I don’t see anything in your most recent post that I disagree with…(the one addressed to me, that is).

    #114599
    willem
    Participant

    @Bill7: The Guardian is full establishment in its worst sense, but Simon Tisdall is unbelievable. This is the second article of his in recent days that I have been exposed to, and he’s either flogging it for The Man or is totally delusional…

    #114600
    Bill7
    Participant

    ..Or maybe there are some false dichotomies being put to use at the moment.

    One useful clue, to my mind, is that
    the “vaccines” and related social controls were put into place- with substantial coordination- worldwide.

    Who shall one trust?

    #114601
    Dr. D
    Participant

    For Marx and removing Feudalism, as usual, everything said is a lie. Yes, Feudalism was what we know, but it ALSO had unbreakable responsibilities from the Lord to the Serf. Two-way. Like, what happened to elderly farm workers? What happened with the village? Yes, that was all the Lord and Manor’s problem. Which they shirked as all men would, but they did and must for fealty or their name would be mud.

    Compare to our Progress, our better system: under Capitalism, paycheck, the owner has NO responsibility for you the worker. This also changed slowly, but at this point it is essentially universal. Zero two-way. All one-way.

    Although the movie/book is about other things, you may see this in Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy. “economic” changes (that were put in motion for some people’s profit) toss everybody off the land, and also therefore into deadly economic straits, most of which fall into Dickensian London.

    So you could say both systems have problems, but is either worse? Or is it just better P.R.? I tend to feel the present is worse, although more materially abundant, but would not pick either of them by choice.

    From Dr. Day’s list I have no complaint but it makes you realize how complex the world is when we list only one aspect, and that in brief. No spirit, no ecology, no art and expression, simply limited to economics system dynamics. And my very idea for the system is to decentralize, like ermigerd, why do people trust it? As Sri Lanka so recently found out? How they will control it, using centralized food, electric, as in Britain. If nobody trusted it, they’d already have a million pinhole leaks in the system. The whole nation would caravan on dachas, as the Russians do. If the bobbies came down, no one would turn them in, as the Scots do, saying get lost. Unfortunately, the very opposite is true: anyone in the West would turn you in for any reason, to certain death, with a tear of pure joy in their eye as we saw with Covid.

    Unfortunately food is very bulky and comes from land which is extremely visible. That’s not a great setup for our next challenge.

    The CO2 chart is quite the opposite. We had bigger, better fauna, and bigger, better plants in the distant past, 6000 CO2 regions. We are clearly the decedents of that era, also breathing, eating animals, and as I said, greenhouses specifically raise CO2 at great expense because plants are nearly suffocating at this level and grow unbelievably, almost magically at higher levels. Like 5x CO2 can equal +20% increase in light? Can bring crops in 30% earlier? I mean like, answers that show plants are barely surviving now in comparison.

    PPM is crazy. 150ppm? Vs 8000? That’s like one gallon of water and 50 gallons of water, then claiming water is poison. Or 150ppm lead vs 8000ppm. Where’s the actual level that become relevant? Your tube (and climate model) was 1,000,000 parts per million: 100%. Yeah, I bet it DOES have an effect! But does 150? In a system that they are putting in thousands upon thousands of variables and still coming out dead wrong? Anyway:

    So what do we have? As far as we can tell, at 150-8000ppm HUUUUGE range, a better, more diverse ecosystem, better, more luxurious plants, and clearly essentially no problems with runaway heat, cold, oceans, pH, storms, or anything else. So given some moving away from the coasts, even if the CO2 theory was real, it would STILL be a better world, more capable of producing food. That’s even if we didn’t definitively, absolutely know that war and mass death occurs on the COLD, not the heat cycles of written historical record. That’s what that chart tells me.

    And like the CO2 LAGGING heat, which happened again this time, all planets in our solar system warming just like us, and the long-missing hockey stick chart, that chart is the 300,000 foot view. The very simplest chart, the very first one they put on your desk at school. Thoughts? Why didn’t the dinosaurs die of heat? The earth turn into Venus? The oceans go blank? If heat is so bad, if CO2 is so bad, why does mass death happen in the Maunder minimums and Ice Ages instead?

    How about this: Imagine, Sci-Fi, a world where there is more CO2 AND you’re actually right. These things, effects, happen. So? What would the world look like? It would simply be more earth ships, more caution, more careful water, less ocean and land travel. And? So? Why would I care? It sounds better than now. I can live on Dune, I can live on Caladan, I can live on Trantor. Since this is the worst of all possible worlds, I can easily live in the Pleistocene, or the golden era of Crete, where you could be outside, in houses of pillars and open windows 360 days of the year.

    The only thing I’m certain I don’t want, is this. Certainly I very much hope the climate is changing because it would bring circus malls, nail salons, strip clubs, big box stores, dead oceans, poisoned shores, leveled forests, slackjawed, nearly dead people, and their murdering, endless desert of cars to an end. Why would I fight that? What, am I fighting to SAVE the world for shopping malls? Trying to KEEP New Jersey neatly paved and smoggy? 12 million lawns with 12 million tiny lawn mowers? Why is what’s happening have to be the worst thing ever and not the best?

    So what happens if CO2 wins, even if you are right? And what happens if it ISN’T – which I’m quite sure of – is far better.

    So again: Life was abundant through most of that time with 50x higher CO2. No runaway. Plenty of animals, lots of vegetation. Land of the Lost x The Land That Time Forgot, worldwide. You seem to think this is bad for the ecology, but the “ecology” loved it. What’s not to like? The Ecology likes it but you don’t? Why?

    #114602
    Bill7
    Participant

    Dr. D’s fine paragraph is worth requoting:

    “The only thing I’m certain I don’t want, is this. Certainly I very much hope the climate is changing because it would bring circus malls, nail salons, strip clubs, big box stores, dead oceans, poisoned shores, leveled forests, slackjawed, nearly dead people, and their murdering, endless desert of cars to an end. Why would I fight that? What, am I fighting to SAVE the world for shopping malls? Trying to KEEP New Jersey neatly paved and smoggy? 12 million lawns with 12 million tiny lawn mowers? Why is what’s happening have to be the worst thing ever and not the best?..”

    My thought at around seven years old,
    really was “this is Hell on Earth.. and we’re supposed to save it?” I lived in Taft, CA at the time, so maybe not the best example.

    But then I’ve always had an issue with human sordidness (and not just that of others).

    #114603
    Figmund Sreud
    Participant

    It’s the law! (Sci-Fi short film)

    F.S.

    #114604
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    ‘We had bigger, better fauna, and bigger, better plants in the distant past,’

    ‘We’ who or what is we?

    ‘bigger, better fauna’

    ;bigger, better plants’

    How silly!!!

    By what measure were plants better then than than now?

    The plants that evolved in the distant plants just survived and thrived because they had evolved to fit the ecological niche of the time!

    They were certainly much less diverse in form and adaptation than the range of plants existing at present.

    The fauna that existed in the Jurassic were bigger because the supply of food was greater. Much greater, because the atmospheric CO2 was much higher, and the average temperature was much higher. (No huge vertebrate fauna in the carboniferous, just giant dragonflies.)

    Olay, so humanity has been in the process of greatly reducing biodiversity via chain saws, bulldozers, monoculture plantations and planetary overheating. And of course, exacerbating overheating-induced droughts that lead to uncontrollable fires that wipe out practically everything. Ask the Aussies; they are experts on that matter.

    But the diversity is still greater than in the Carboniferous.

    Ah! I think I get it. Better at producing coal.

    Yes.

    Coal formation will never happen again because after humans have exterminated themselves some time around mid-century, if not before, the Earth will do what it has always done. remove atmospheric CO2 via photosynthesis and CO2 weathering of silicate rock and deposition of carbonates onto the ocean floors.

    By the way, an often-overlooked aspect is that heat s generated within the Earth -a tremendous amount in fact- via the radioactive decay of numerous semi-stable isotopes.

    As semi-stable isotopes decay into stable isotopes the amount of heat generated slowly declines. When we -greedy apes with enough intelligence to pillage the planet but not enough to sense to stop pillaging the planet – are gone, things will return to normal. Sadly, we will have taken down the bulk of the extant species with us.

    We should note (but most won’t) that the life forms, flora and fauna, that existed before industrial humans took to mass extermination via actual spearing, harpooning, trapping, shooting etc. and massive overheating via CO2 emissions were adapted to an average of 230 ppm atmospheric CO2 and the temperature ranges that average CO2 level generated in conjunction with much reduced vulcanism compared to distant geological ages and Milankovitch Cycles..

    By the way, the fascist/money-lender/WEF/corporate-overlord shill, The Guadian, had a headline about unstoppable melting of Greenland icesheets raising sea levels by several tens of centimetres.

    The actual figure is 7 metres.

    #114605
    DarkMatter
    Participant

    The Food and Drug Administration is expected to approve new COVID-19 booster shots this week — before the vaccines are tested on humans, according to a new report by the Wall Street Journal.

    There is a well known trope among software developers: “I only changed one line of code. It won’t have any unintended side effects.” Except it almost always does. Best practice is that if you change a single character you have to run the entire regression suite before merging in your code. Surely the complexity of mRNA should require even greater caution.

    #114606
    John Day
    Participant

    @Dimitri: I read parts 1 & 7 of The Eighteenth Brumaire of Luis Bonaparte, which is what is included in my selected-writings book. Marx seems to be a smug insider, writing to other smug insiders in the club about the real life failings to enact Communist theory in the interest of proletarian revolution. What comes after revolution is never in concordance with theories espoused, is it.
    Still, Marx needed to sell books, and he had a very limited and specific market among educated intellectuals of means who supported revolutionary ideals.
    Michael Hudson is for most of us, in our current epoch, and was raised Marxian. He seems a lot more interested in serving his reading audience, also.

    #114607
    John Day
    Participant

    I thought I wrote that “Michael Hudson is for most of us, in our current epoch, a much more useful economist…
    POOF! went some words.

    #114608
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    Controlled demolition of Building Seven.

    https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Building+7&&view=detail&mid=DCB634A3DEBB326EA888DCB634A3DEBB326EA888&&FORM=VRDGAR&ru=%2Fvideos%2Fsearch%3Fq%3DBuilding%2B7%26FORM%3DVDMHRS

    In the Matrix: “They would never do that!”

    Escaped from the Matrix: ” Of course. That’s what they [the scumbags at the top of the power pyramid] do when something, some person, some country, has fulfilled its purpose and there is greater gain for them in destroying
    it.”

    Demolition of Europe.

    Demolition of national economies (almost everywhere).

    #114609
    John Day
    Participant

    @Dr.D: Yes, I probably unfairly dissed some feudal lords who bore their nobles-oblige’ to their serfs with honor.
    (I didn’t mention the Marquis de Sade, either, though.)

    Thanks everybody who is engaging in civil discussion from disparate viewpoints.
    I’m thankful when people can do this anywhere…

    #114610
    Bill7
    Participant

    It seems to me that a few of the watershed events for the West were:

    -Enclosures Acts in England

    -The darpaNet in the 90s: “it’s because We Love You, Proles!”

    Introduction of the Smartphone, 2006: self-funded self-surveillance, with a big ol’smile..

    There are more, but that’s a start.

    #114611
    Bill7
    Participant

    My post above was not clear: I think the darpanet and the introduction of
    the smartphone were new, digital forms of the Enclosures Acts. That might be a stretch, but we’ll see.

    #114612
    aspnaz
    Participant

    willem said

    @aspnaz: We must have crossed wires somehow. I don’t see anything in your most recent post that I disagree with…(the one addressed to me, that is).

    Apologies, I was not accusing you of anything, I have a bad tendency to use “you” when I should use “one”.

    #114613
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Dr D said

    We had bigger, better fauna, and bigger, better plants in the distant past, 6000 CO2 regions. We are clearly the decedents of that era, also breathing, eating animals, and as I said, greenhouses specifically raise CO2 at great expense because plants are nearly suffocating at this level and grow unbelievably, almost magically at higher levels. Like 5x CO2 can equal +20% increase in light? Can bring crops in 30% earlier? I mean like, answers that show plants are barely surviving now in comparison.

    Which is why people spend so much money on their Co2 setups for their aquatic plants. The biggest retail users of CO2 cylinders are aquarium owners, not home brewers. The aquarium owners feed CO2 into their aquariums to create quite magnificent aquascapes of fresh water plants. They control the CO2 input to coincide with the aquarium lighting, they use automated equipment to turn off the CO2 and lighting at night as nightime CO2, when the plants are not consuming, can create an excess that kills the fish. As a result I get my home brew CO2 refills at the local pet shop, not at the home brew shop or welding shop.

Viewing 33 posts - 41 through 73 (of 73 total)
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.