Sep 262022
 
 September 26, 2022  Posted by at 8:21 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,


Henri Matisse Cap d’Antibes 1922

 

Meloni’s Right-Wing Alliance Wins Clear Majority In Italian Elections (ZH)
Thousands Of Firms In Italy On Brink Of Closure (RT)
The Return of Fascism (Chris Hedges)
Russia Says US “Wrecked” Ukraine Talks, But Peace Is Still Possible (Maté)
Early Turnout Numbers For Referendums On Joining Russia (RT)
Russia Says It’s Not Threatening Anyone With Nukes (Antiwar)
We Might Be Spared Nuclear War But Threat of Home Grown Tyranny Remains (PCR)
Pound Slumps To All-time Low Against Dollar (BBC)
UK To Double Military Spending Amid Cost-of-living Crisis (RT)
The Tories Declare Class War (Craig Murray)
US Facing Natural Gas Shortage – Reuters (RT)
New Zealand Prime Minister Calls for a Global Censorship System (Turley)
Psaki : If Midterms Are A ‘Referendum’ On Biden, Democrats Are Doomed (NYP)
Roger Waters Cancels Poland Concerts After Ukraine War Remarks (RFE)

 

 

Giorgia Meloni has won the Italian elections and is the next PM. The MSM has been loaded full of terms like Mussolini, ultra right wing and fascist. While she speaks of God, country and family. I don’t know exactly who is behind her, and I don’t need to. I have only to look at the mess Mario Draghi has made of Italy.

And more importantly, I look at the lockdowns and vaccine mandates, the unlimited support for the Ukraine nazis, and the cold and hungry winter many people in Europe, not least Italy, will face because of it.

Want to talk fascism? First learn to identify it.

 

 

 

 

Second largest food distribution centre in the world
https://twitter.com/i/status/1574124957377777664

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Meloni’s alliance which includes Salvini’s League and Berlusconi’s Forza Italia will win around 43% of the vote..”

Meloni’s Right-Wing Alliance Wins Clear Majority In Italian Elections (ZH)

Europe’s unelected authoritarian ruler, Ursula von der Leyen, is not going to be happy: according to early exit polls out of Italy’s national election, the right-wing bloc of Giorgia Meloni – which the ultra-left wing press just can’t stop comparing to Mussolini – is set for a historic, if largely expected, victory and a clear majority (if, however, not a super-majority) which will propel Meloni to the top of the Italian government as the country’s next prime minister, ushering in a historic right-wing shift for a country that – like Sweden until two weeks ago – has traditionally been very left-wing. Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, which won just 4% of the vote during the last national election in 2018, won the biggest share of the vote in Sunday’s parliamentary elections with around 22.5%-26.5% of the vote according to an exit poll released by Italian national broadcaster Rai.

She is now set to become prime minister but would require approval from junior partners in her coalition to assume the role. According to an exit poll from Rai, Meloni’s alliance which includes Salvini’s League and Berlusconi’s Forza Italia will win around 43% of the vote. The Center-Left alliance will have just 25.5%-29.5% of the vote, while the 5 Star movement has 13.5%-17.5% of the final vote. Italy’s electoral system, which strongly favors parties that run as part of a coalition, is expected to help the right to an ample majority in both houses of Parliament: with 228 votes in the Lower House and 115 seats in the Senate (according to SkyTG24), Meloni will have a majority as just 104 votes are required. As the WSJ notes, the Italian election is “the first big test of the European Union’s political cohesion as it confronts Russia’s attempt to redraw the continent’s post-Cold War order.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s restriction of natural-gas deliveries has sparked an energy-price crunch that, combined with other inflationary pressures, is expected to push much of Europe into a recession this winter.” Meloni replaces former Goldman Sachs partner and ECB technocrat and globalist, Mario Draghi, and will be the country’s first female prime minister. The likely right-wing government will face difficult decisions over how to protect Italian households and businesses from sky-high prices for natural gas and electricity. While Italy’s parlous public finances allow limited scope for fiscal largess, if the UK is any example – and it is – Italy will engage in a similar strategy of targeted and debt-funded fiscal stimulus which will lead to a blowout in Italian debt, a further plunge in the euro and much chaos everywhere.

[..] During the election campaign, Meloni tried to reassure voters and investors that she will keep Italy’s mammoth debt under control and won’t question the country’s foreign alliances or support for Ukraine. Expect all of that to change tomorrow.

Meloni

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Where Meloni comes from.

Thousands Of Firms In Italy On Brink Of Closure (RT)

Over 100,000 businesses in Italy are in danger of closing down due to soaring energy bills, the news outlet Corriere della Sera reported on Saturday, citing Carlo Sangalli, head of the Italian business association Confcommercio. “Already today many companies are reorganizing or reducing services… Between now and the first half of 2023, at least 120,000 small businesses in the service sector are at risk… This is a cautious estimate that does not take into account the largest companies,” Sangalli told the news outlet. According to the official, the situation could lead to the loss of more than 370,000 jobs. Sangalli noted that energy prices in Italy are much higher than in other countries, which puts a strain on small and medium-sized businesses.


“In terms of energy costs, our hotels, bars, restaurants and stores will pay 40-60% more on their bills this year than in Germany, and three times that than in France,” Sangalli said. He noted that the energy crisis may deal the final blow to many businesses that have already been made vulnerable by the Covid-19 pandemic. The official said the country needed “good reforms and good investments” that will “make our country work better and in a simpler way,” and called for some of the support measures introduced during the pandemic to be reinstated. Italy, along with other EU countries, has been battling a record-high inflation. Annual inflation in the country reached 8.4% in August, driven largely by energy costs. Italy relies on imports for nearly 75% of its energy. At the start of this year, it was importing 40% of its gas from Russia, but in July its Russian purchases dropped to 25% due to sanctions.

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Chris is getting too old. He’s glued to the rear view mirror.

The Return of Fascism (Chris Hedges)

Meloni got her start in politics as a 15-year-old activist for the youth wing of the Italian Social Movement, founded after the World War II by supporters of Benito Mussolini. She calls EU bureaucrats agents of “nihilistic global elites driven by international finance.” She peddles the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory that non-white immigrants are being permitted to enter Western nations as part of a plot to undermine or “replace” the political power and culture of white people. She has called on the Italian navy to turn back boats with immigrants, which the far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini did in 2018. Her Fratelli d’Italia, Brothers of Italy, party is a close ally of Hungary’s President, Viktor Orban. A European Parliament resolution recently declared that Hungary can no longer be defined as a democracy.

Meloni and Orban are not alone. Sweden Democrats, which took over 20 percent of the vote in Sweden’s general election last week to become the country’s second largest political party, was formed in 1988 from a neo-Nazi group called B.S.S., or Keep Sweden Swedish. It has deep fascist roots. Of the party’s 30 founders, 18 had Nazi affiliations, including several who served in the Waffen SS, according to Tony Gustaffson a historian and former Sweden Democrat member. France’s Marine Le Pen took over 41 percent of the vote in April against Emmanuel Macron. In Spain, the hard-right Vox party is the third largest party in Spain’s Parliament. The far-right German AfD or Alternative for Germany party took over 12 percent in federal elections in 2017, making it the third largest party, though it lost a couple percentage points in the 2021 elections. The U.S. has its own version of fascism embodied in a Republican party that coalesces in cult-like fashion around Donald Trump, embraces the magical thinking, misogyny, homophobia and white supremacy of the Christian Right and actively subverts the election process.

Economic collapse was indispensable to the Nazis’ rise to power. In the 1928 elections in Germany, the Nazi party received less than 3 percent of the vote. Then came the global financial crash of 1929. By early 1932, 40 percent of the German insured workforce, six million people, were unemployed. That same year, the Nazis became the largest political party in the German parliament. The Weimar government, tone deaf and hostage to the big industrialists, prioritized paying bank loans and austerity rather than feeding and employing a desperate population. It foolishly imposed severe restrictions on who was eligible for unemployment insurance. Millions of Germans went hungry. Desperation and rage rippled through the population. Mass rallies, led by a collection of buffoonish Nazis in brown uniforms who would have felt at home at Mar-a-Lago, denounced Jews, Communists, intellectuals, artists and the ruling class, as internal enemies. Hate was their main currency. It sold well.

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“..talks between Ukraine and Russia collapsed after then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited Kiev in April and informed Zelensky that Putin “should be pressured, not negotiated with.”

Russia Says US “Wrecked” Ukraine Talks, But Peace Is Still Possible (Maté)

In his Sept. 21 speech announcing an escalation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused NATO states of sabotaging a peace deal that could have ended it months ago. At talks brokered by Turkey in March, Putin said, “Kiev representatives voiced quite a positive response to our proposals… But a peaceful settlement obviously did not suit the West, which is why, after certain compromises were coordinated, Kiev was actually ordered to wreck all these agreements.” Speaking at the United Nations hours later, President Joe Biden criticized the Russian leader but did not address his claim that the US thwarted negotiations. Asked about Putin’s remarks, officials from the White House’s National Security Council (NSC) and the State Department offered differing responses.

An NSC official referred me to the Ukrainian government for comment about “their peace negotiations in the spring.” But overall, the official added, “it is inaccurate that the U.S. discouraged Ukraine from seeking a peace agreement. Throughout this conflict, we have said that it is up to Ukraine to make their own sovereign decisions.” A State Department spokesperson did not address Putin’s rendering of the March-April negotiations, and instead focused on the period before the invasion. “As part of our efforts to deter President Putin from launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine’s sovereign territory on February 24, 2022, the United States consistently spoke of the two paths Russia could choose: dialogue and diplomacy, or escalation and massive consequences,” the State Department wrote. “We made genuine and sincere efforts to pursue the former, which we vastly preferred, but Putin chose war.”

Asked if it had any response to Putin’s account of the peace talks that occurred after the invasion, the State spokesperson did not respond. The Russian government has not offered any additional detail or evidence for Putin’s claim that Ukraine and Russia were close to a “settlement,” and that Kiev’s NATO backers intervened to “wreck” it. But the Kremlin is also not the first to assert it. The claim originated with sources to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who described the episode to Ukrainian media outlet Ukrayinska Pravda. According to their account, talks between Ukraine and Russia collapsed after then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited Kiev in April and informed Zelensky that Putin “should be pressured, not negotiated with.”

Johnson also relayed that “even if Ukraine is ready to sign some agreements on [security] guarantees with Putin,” Western nations “are not.” That report was followed this month by an overlooked disclosure from former White House Russia expert Fiona Hill. Citing “multiple former senior U.S. officials,” Hill wrote that “Russian and Ukrainian negotiators appeared to have tentatively agreed on the outlines of a negotiated interim settlement” in April. Russia would withdraw to its pre-invasion position, while Ukraine would pledge not to join NATO “and instead receive security guarantees from a number of countries.”

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I see videos of people ostensibly being forced to vote Russia. Not exactly subtle. But who needs subtlety in an echo chamber?

Early Turnout Numbers For Referendums On Joining Russia (RT)

The referendums on joining Russia are continuing in the Donbass republics and Russian-controlled regions of southern Ukraine. On Sunday, the turnout already reached the required 50% threshold in the Donetsk and Lugansk republics and Zaporozhye Region, with only Kherson lagging behind. In the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR), more than 76% of eligible voters have already cast their votes, according to official figures. The referendum in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) is proceeding at a similar pace, with some 77% of voters having shown up at the polling stations. Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, which were largely seized by Russian forces amid the ongoing conflict, have demonstrated a lower turnout.


Still, the latter region has already met the required legal threshold, with some 51.55% of registered voters already casting their ballots, according to the head of the Zaporozhye electoral committee, Galina Katyshenko. Kherson has so far demonstrated lower turnout, with nearly 49% of voters showing up for the referendum. Polls across the two regions and in the Donbass republics are set to stay open for the next two days. Ukraine and its Western backers have rejected the referendums on joining Russia as illegal and have vowed to not recognize them regardless of their outcome. Speaking to US broadcaster CBS on Sunday, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky warned that should Russia complete the referendums, it would “make it impossible, in any case, to continue any diplomatic negotiations” with Moscow.

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It isn’t.

Russia Says It’s Not Threatening Anyone With Nukes (Antiwar)

On Friday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that Russia wasn’t threatening anyone with nuclear weapons and said Moscow doesn’t want a direct conflict with the US and NATO. “We are not threatening anyone with nuclear weapons,” Ryabkov said. “The criteria for their use are outlined in Russia’s military doctrine.” Russia’s doctrine is that it could use nuclear weapons if it is facing an “existential threat,” and Russian officials have made clear throughout the current war in Ukraine that this is still the policy. Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week that Moscow could use nuclear weapons to defend its “territorial integrity.” While his comments were a more explicit warning, it still falls in line with the doctrine. But Russian territory is set to expand into Ukraine after referendums that are being held in the Donbas, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia.


Ukraine is planning to launch more counter-offensives against these territories using weapons and intelligence provided by the US and other NATO countries. Ryabkov said that it’s not in Russia’s interest to be in a direct conflict with the US and NATO. “A face-off with the United States and NATO, which is fraught with an open armed conflict, is not in our interests,” he said. “We hope that the Biden administration understands the risks of uncontrolled escalation of the conflict in Ukraine, given the repeated statements by their officials that they don’t plan to send American servicemen to Ukraine,” Ryabkov added. President Biden has repeatedly stated that he won’t send US troops into Ukraine to fight Russia, although there is a CIA presence on the ground, according to a report from The New York Times that was published in June. The report also said special operations forces from Britain, France, Canada, and Lithuania are on the ground in Ukraine.

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“..the referendums that begin today in the liberated areas of Ukraine, which without question will succeed, promise to reduce the threat of Armageddon..”

We Might Be Spared Nuclear War But Threat of Home Grown Tyranny Remains (PCR)

As readers know, I am convinced that Putin’s toleration of insults and provocations has had the effect of encouraging more and worse provocations and not, as he intended, to downplay conflict. As you also know, I am convinced that his “limited military operation” in Donbass designed to protect the Donbass Russians, formerly a part of Russia, from horrible abuse by Ukrainian forces and the neo-Nazi militias, was a mistake. It is a mistake because the West characterized a limited operation as an “invasion of Ukraine,” and used its slow progress as evidence of Russian failure. It is a mistake because the go-slow nature of the Russian offensive in order to minimize the impact on civilian lives and infrastructure gave the West plenty of time to convince itself to get more and more involved with diplomatic support, money, armaments and ammunition, training, and now with satellite information for targeting the Russian forces.

As I see it, Putin has been behaving as British Prime Minister Chamberlain is alleged to have behaved, thus encouraging more aggressive actions. Wanting peace at all costs brings war. As it is no longer possible for the Kremlin to speak of “our Western partners” or to deny that the West is at war with Russia, the Kremlin, trying to avoid a war that it knows would be nuclear, has reached my conclusion of eight years ago that if the areas in today’s artificial borders of Ukraine that require Russian protection were reincorporated into Russia, the conflict would have to cease or become direct Western military aggression against Russia. As Biden says he has no stomach for a war with Russia and will not permit one, and as NATO is incapable of such war, the referendums that begin today in the liberated areas of Ukraine, which without question will succeed, promise to reduce the threat of Armageddon.

Although in my opinion the leadership everywhere in the Western world is Satanic and insane, I do not think the Western governing elites are ready to commit suicide by attacking Russian territory. The West can say it doesn’t recognize the rights of people to self-determination, but if Russia says it is Russian territory, it is. So that you understand, the referendums are Putin’s way of ending the conflict before it widens into nuclear war. Putin’s rescue of the world from nuclear war will not be acknowledged by the Western presstitutes, Washington’s puppet EU and UK governments, or by the puppet who serves as NATO secretary general. But what they think does not matter. Putin, belatedly, is doing his best to save us all from nuclear war. Pray that he succeeds.

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“..historic tax cuts funded by huge increases in borrowing..”

Pound Slumps To All-time Low Against Dollar (BBC)

The pound has fallen to its lowest level against the US dollar since decimalisation in 1971. In early Asia trade, sterling fell by more than 4% to $1.0327 before regaining some ground to around $1.05. That came after UK Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng unveiled historic tax cuts funded by huge increases in borrowing. The pound has also been under pressure as the dollar has been boosted by the US central bank continuing to raise interest rates. The euro also touched a fresh 20-year-low against the dollar in morning Asia trade amid investor concerns about the risk of recession as winter approaches with no sign of an end to the energy crisis or the war in Ukraine.


Peter Escho, the co-founder of investment firm Wealthi, said: “All currencies are getting sold off against the US dollar, so there is a large element of US dollar strength. But with the pound, it has really been exacerbated by news that the new government will be cutting taxes, which is inflationary. “Add to that recent energy subsidies and news that the Bank of England might need to have an emergency rate-hike meeting, this all results in a sense of panic,” he added. Some investors think the Bank of England will be forced to take emergency action to halt the pound’s slide. “To stop the bleeding even temporarily, the BOE may well enter ‘whatever it takes’ territory to bring inflation down. An emergency meeting rate hike could happen as soon as this week to regain credibility in the market. We could even see a hike today,” Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management told the BBC.

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Add Chucky the Third and you have a crazy winter.

UK To Double Military Spending Amid Cost-of-living Crisis (RT)

Britain will boost its military spending considerably in the coming years, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has revealed, despite the fact the nation is facing an economic crisis stemming from Covid-19 measures and London’s sanctions on Moscow. In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph published on Sunday, Wallace said the British government will shell out at least £52 billion ($56.5 billion) to shore up the military, which is “actually going to grow.” The plans are in keeping with Prime Minister Liz Truss’ campaign promise to boost defense spending. According to the official, Britain’s annual defense budget will amount to £100 billion by 2030. Wallace also took aim at former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak and the Treasury for what he described as a “corporate raid” of the armed forces which started back in the 1990s.

He claimed that the Treasury had even tried to “stipulate the size of the Army.” “My department has been so used to 30 or 40 years of defending against cuts or reconciling cuts with modern fighting, they’re going to have to get used to a completely different culture,” the defence secretary noted. Wallace expressed confidence, however, that Sunak’s successor in the office, Kwasi Kwarteng, would show more understanding toward the military’s needs. The defence secretary, who retained his post after Liz Truss defeated Sunak in the race to become prime minister in early September, told journalists that the new leader’s willingness to spend more on the military was one of the key factors for him in deciding which candidate to back for prime minister. “The reason I supported Liz Truss was that the risks we were prepared to tolerate in the middle of the decade are not risks I want to tolerate any more in light of Russian aggression,” Wallace said.

Addressing world leaders at the UN General Assembly in New York, Truss reiterated her campaign pledge to spend 3% of GDP on defense by 2030. According to Bloomberg, the new prime minister reversed former PM Boris Johnson’s plans to slash the military by 9,500 personnel. Commenting on the changes, which are expected to be unveiled by the end of 2022, Downing Street clarified that they were needed to “stand firm against coercion from authoritarian powers like Russia and China.” The decision comes despite the UK government’s interest payable on debt hitting the highest level on record, as reported by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) earlier this week. Inflation, food, and energy prices have also soared, while the British pound and consumer confidence have hit the lowest levelsin decades.

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“The idea of the cap on bankers’ bonuses was to remove the perverse incentive whereby a banker got a bonus of ten years salary by creating “assets” of bad loans..”

The Tories Declare Class War (Craig Murray)

The “cap” on bankers bonuses that the Tories have just removed had been set at double their annual salary. Yes, double ptheir annual salary. So a banker on £320,000 a year could only get an annual bonus of £640,000. That has now been lifted so they will be able to get annual bonuses of millions again. On each million of which they will also benefit from a new £55,000 tax cut. The greatest irony of this is that the first multimillion pound bankers’ bonuses will be going this Christmas to bankers who shorted the pound before Kwasi Kwarteng’s “mini-budget”. The cap on bankers’ bonuses was largely a sop to the public who had bailed out the bankers with public money borrowed – with trillions in interest – from the very bankers we were bailing out.

In effect Gordon Brown created sterling and gave it free to the bankers who caused the collapse, so they could lend it to the public purse and we could pay it back over two decades of public austerity. The idea of the cap on bankers’ bonuses was to remove the perverse incentive whereby a banker got a bonus of ten years salary by creating “assets” of bad loans, with no care whether those loans collapsed or not two years later, as he already had his ten years’ bonus. The Tories have just brought back that perverse incentive. Krug all round in the City!! It’s a bonanza for lap dance club owners and cocaine dealers. It’s a disaster for us. This perverse incentive will be needed to keep any money flowing into UK mortgages.

With the Bank rate sure to exceed 5% in the next few months and inflation continuing, mortgage rates will be in double digits by this time next year, and we are only a couple of years away from mass default and repossession. The wealthy will of course be able to use some of their tax cut money to take advantage of the stamp duty cut and snap up the repossessed properties as buy to let. That is what the Tories call growing the economy. Over 50% of the money from the tax cuts will benefit the top 5% of earners. If wealth inequality were the primary driver of economic growth – and that is the basis of Kwarteng’s economic theory – then how do you explain that the UK already has the second highest wealth inequality in the G7, behind only the USA, yet the lowest economic growth?

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“.. they are up by a whopping 300% from a few years ago..”

US Facing Natural Gas Shortage – Reuters (RT)

Shale producers in the United States are struggling to meet growing domestic and international natural gas demand, according to an analysis by Reuters. The report concluded that a hotter-than-expected summer and a lack of alternative energy sources have left the nation’s inventories below the seasonal average. It added that there were no signs of improvement in the level of inventories, despite the rise in gas prices. The latest data showed that the Permian Shale Basin, which contributes some 12% of US total gas output, and the rig count in the Permian, has been down for two weeks in a row. “Less drilling means less associated gas to add to the national total,” the news outlet reported.


While American energy companies have been exporting liquified natural gas (LNG) to Europe at record rates, calls have emerged lately to reduce those supplies to make sure there is enough for the US market. “With heating season around the corner in both Europe and the United States and with a lot of people in both places using gas for heating, the price outlook for gas does not look good from a consumer’s perspective,” Reuters wrote. The report noted that it is unlikely US gas prices will climb anywhere near European levels, “but they are up by a whopping 300% from a few years ago when gas was cheap because it was abundant.”

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WEF needs to go.

New Zealand Prime Minister Calls for a Global Censorship System (Turley)

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is the latest liberal leader to call for an international alliance to censor speech. Unsatisfied with the unprecedented corporate censorship of social media companies, leaders like Hillary Clinton have turned from private censorship to good old-fashioned state censorship. Speech regulation has become an article of faith on the left. Ardern used her speech this week to the United Nations General Assembly to call for censorship on a global scale. Ardern lashed out at “disinformation” and called for a global coalition to control speech. After nodding toward free speech, she proceeded to lay out a plan for its demise through government regulation:

But what if that lie, told repeatedly, and across many platforms, prompts, inspires, or motivates others to take up arms. To threaten the security of others. To turn a blind eye to atrocities, or worse, to become complicit in them. What then? This is no longer a hypothetical. The weapons of war have changed, they are upon us and require the same level of action and activity that we put into the weapons of old. We recognized the threats that the old weapons created. We came together as communities to minimize these threats. We created international rules, norms and expectations. We never saw that as a threat to our individual liberties – rather, it was a preservation of them. The same must apply now as we take on these new challenges.

Ardern noted how extremists use speech to spread lies without noting that non-extremists use the same free speech to counter such views. To answer her question on “how do you tackle climate change if people do not believe it exists” is that you convince people using the same free speech. Instead, Ardern appears to want to silence those who have doubts. While referring to a global censorship coalition as a “light-touch approach to disinformation,” Ardern revealed how sweeping such a system would likely be. She defended the need for such global censorship on having to combat those who question climate change and the need to stop “hateful and dangerous rhetoric and ideology.”

“After all, how do you successfully end a war if people are led to believe the reason for its existence is not only legal but noble? How do you tackle climate change if people do not believe it exists? How do you ensure the human rights of others are upheld, when they are subjected to hateful and dangerous rhetoric and ideology?” That is the same rationale used by authoritarian countries like China, Iran, and Russia to censor dissidents, minority groups, and political rivals. What is “hateful” and “dangerous” is a fluid concept that government have historically used to silence critics or dissenters. Ardern is the smiling face of the new generation of censors. At least the old generation of censors like the Iranians do not pretend to support free speech and openly admit that they are crushing dissent. The point is that we need to be equally on guard when censorship is pushed from the left with the best of motivations and the worst of means.

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Oh, right, MSNBC.

Psaki : If Midterms Are A ‘Referendum’ On Biden, Democrats Are Doomed (NYP)

Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki bluntly admitted that if the November midterm elections are a “referendum” on President Biden, the Democrats will lose. Psaki, who left the White House in May to take a job at MSNBC, said if the midterms focus on the “most extreme” party, mentioning Republican Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene by name, then Democrats will be celebrating on election day. “If it is a referendum on the president, they will lose. And they know that. They also know that crime is a huge vulnerability for Democrats, I would say one of the biggest vulnerabilities,” Psaki said Sunday on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”


She said she has been watching the US Senate race play out in Pennsylvania between Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the Democratic candidate, and GOP celebrity heart surgeon Dr. Mehmet Oz, and noted that Republicans are running ads painting Fetterman as soft on crime. What’s been interesting to me is it’s always you follow the money, and where are people spending money. And in Pennsylvania, the Republicans have been spending millions of dollars on the air on crime ads against Fetterman because that’s where they see his vulnerability , Biden’s one-time chief spokeswoman said. So yes, the economy is hanging over everything. But you do have to look at state-by-state factors, and crime is a huge issue in the Pennsylvania race, she said. While Biden’s approval ratings have recently climbed into the mid-40s from the dregs in recent polls, a Washington Post/ABC News survey released Sunday found it remains below that at 39%. The president’s disapproval rating is at 53%, the poll found.

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Peace is not welcome in Krakow.

Roger Waters Cancels Poland Concerts After Ukraine War Remarks (RFE)

Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters has canceled concerts planned in Poland amid anger over his stance on Russia’s unprovoked war against Ukraine, Polish media reported. An official with the Tauron Arena in Krakow, where Waters was scheduled to perform two concerts in April, said they would no longer take place. “Roger Waters’ manager decided to withdraw…without giving any reason,” Lukasz Pytko from Tauron Arena Krakow said on September 24 in comments carried by Polish media outlets. The website for Waters’ This Is Not a Drill concert tour did not list the Krakow concerts previously scheduled for April 21 and 22.


City councilors in Krakow were expected to vote next week on a proposal to name Waters as a persona non grata, expressing “indignation” over the musician’s stance on the war in Ukraine. Allowing “Roger Waters, an open supporter of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, to play in Krakow…would be shameful for our city,” city councilor Lukasz Wantuch said last week on social media. “Let him sing in Moscow.” Waters wrote an open letter to Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska earlier this month in which he blamed “extreme nationalists” in Ukraine for having “set your country on the path to this disastrous war.” Waters has also criticized NATO, accusing it of provoking Russia.

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Malhotra

 

 


This is not stained glass. It’s a dragonfly’s wing seen up close. Dragonfly wings kill bacteria on contact by ripping apart their cell membranes with sharp nanopillars.

 

 

Bolt

 

 


Hydrosaurus, aka the Sailfin Dragon, is found in the rainforests of the Philippines

 

 

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle September 26 2022

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 79 total)
  • Author
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  • #116880

    Henri Matisse Cap d’Antibes 1922   • Meloni’s Right-Wing Alliance Wins Clear Majority In Italian Elections (ZH) • Thousands Of Firms In Italy On
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle September 26 2022]

    #116881
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Giorgia Meloni has won the Italian elections and is the next PM.

    She’s a real fire brand; we need more like her…
    The woke movement (unlike a bowel movement) will kill us sure!

    #116882
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Always enjoy your art du jour; just not much inclined to comment/critique your daily offerings…
    Thanks Ilargi as always………….

    #116884
    chris_gee
    Participant

    The trouble is Ardern as a source of disinformation. Well perhaps less the originator than an uncritical perpetuator.

    #116885
    upstateNYer
    Participant

    “Giorgia Meloni has won the Italian elections and is the next PM. The MSM has been loaded full of terms like Mussolini, ultra right wing and fascist. While she speaks of God, country and family.”

    Change her name and a couple words and you’ve got exactly how the left talks about the US “maga”. Not very original, are they? 😉

    #116886
    Red
    Participant

    Just trying a link from rumble to see if it goes through. The link is for Russel Brand if curious. Really just a test.

    https://rumble.com/v1l4ig7-big-announcement.html

    #116887
    Dr. D
    Participant

    It’s amazing how cross and aggressive everybody is here. At this rate I’ll have to become the group optimist and Pollyanna. Good morning children! It’s another wonderful day filled with hope, promise, and options!

    Pound flash crashes (a little), however this means things, markets, control, is coming apart.

    Remember US$ crashes LAST. That is exactly what’s happening. Rising against everything for now, however US$ is ALSO crashing. …Against reality: bacon, wheat, paper, oil… The only currency rising? Russian Ruble. So when you’re crashing against your own war enemy, that can’t be good, and shows the bets the market is making on who won.

    Here’s the other motion: as Europe collapses past the Congo and Sudan, the global money flows will start to safe haven back in the US S&P. As we arranged. So although we can still be in a lot of trouble our trouble may be a lot, lot less. But since Davos is the center of our problem, maybe that’s appropriate. Since in Europe it’s gawd-help-us to prepare, I don’t know what to say. Collectivize with any like minded people? GTFO?

    “GOP Leader McCarthy Unveils ‘Commitment to America’ Plan”

    Sure you will. Just like Newt Gingrich before double-crossing all America for 6 years. Suck an egg.
    I’ll believe you when you do something which is never.

    How politics works: and have no hard work and no merit, only names. What is that borrowing of names? Appeal to Authority.

    “Scientists urgently studying the temperature at which humans die”

    Well that’s incredibly true! They need to make it higher!

    “Meloni …as the country’s next prime minister,”

    Following the norm of reporting here, she is going to erase womens’ rights and probably load them all on cattle cars to the Handmaid’s Tale camps. She is “Right Wing”. That’s what I hear! And when have CNN and the BBC ever been wrong?

    Meloni isn’t kidding in her clip: this is the exact dead heart of the matter, the new “Plan”. And they love their Plans. This is straight up critical theory. To confuse and erase all boundaries, all self, make confusion, uncertainty, pain, about who you are, male, female, etc, what you like, what you do. Where you’re from. To cut you off from your family, your roots, your country, your history. This was the reason Communism never took in middle-class countries, but only with peasants. Of course, since this didn’t work, never worked in history, they need to find a way to make it work where it worked even less. Lira had a guest yesterday although tedious and long, knew and understood to describe the whole thing.

    So, since for some God-unknown reason this CRT stuff seems to be working, we need to understand and stop the spread of raw insanity. So, sadly, I have to follow up and start on that. Yuck. It’s like classes in “Best tactics for judo battles in a pigsty.”

    For reasons given there: that breaking all connection to God, family, culture, history, is the best way to have a broken and vacant vessel to be filled with the one true religion: Communism. The answer to poverty? Communism. The answer to government? Communism. The answer to racism? Communism. Need a raise at work? Communism. Ran out of bacon? Communism. The answer to energy? Communism. The answer to Global warming, people being mean to you, to your fries being cold at IHOP? Communism.

    Doesn’t it seem strange that no matter what happens – say the banks are stealing too much and collapse, or there’s a major flood in Kentucky – the answer is always communism? I am very, very tired of it, but much more tired of people believing it. …Since it hasn’t worked once in all our collective lifetimes but costs at shed-ton of dough direct to billionaires.

    “She peddles the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory that non-white immigrants are being permitted to enter Western nations as part of a plot to undermine or “replace” the political power and culture of white people.”

    Yet as so often, this is exactly what the WEF and other organizations themselves say. They are extremely clear on their desire for there to BE no Italy. No Italians. No borders. No culture. So when Meloni says it, it’s crazy, but when Schwabinator says it, it’s ice cream and candy. That’s called “Appeal to Authority”. We do what Daddy says so he stops beating us. …Except for one thing: he NEVER stops beating us. If you didn’t notice.

    “The U.S. has its own version of fascism” in a party that wants a government too small to enforce it, too small to enforce the will of corporations, where the minorities all have 20 guns, all the books, and free speech. Who all disagree with each other on everything. Wow, DEFINITELY fascism. You’re right: you should learn to define it.

    “Russia Says US “Wrecked” Ukraine Talks, But Peace Is Still Possible (Maté)”

    The war will end whenever and however Russia feels like it. I mean, unless you want to raise 300,000 troops this week and can get the required tanks and shells from Venus. Didn’t Kissinger, the planet’s greatest warhawk, tell you this two months ago? Now we are never going back to pre-2/22 borders. If they keep it up (which they will) they will take to the Dneipr and over to Odessa. After that, everything but Kiev.

    “We Might Be Spared Nuclear War But Threat of Home Grown Tyranny Remains (PCR)

    The THREAT? Talk about being behind the times, living in the rear-view mirror! We crossed that with the Patriot Act and WoT 21 years ago. Just as we all said at the time.

    And the insults? The West is “Not Agreement Capable.” Putin doesn’t care what we do or think. It seems impossible for anyone in the West, any writer or observer, to imagine they are not the center of the universe, the focus of all Putin’s thoughts. Raw chutzpah. Sheer ego. Cheek. He’s doing this for history, so later on when the wave of universal Nazism that has captured the West, generally all Europe and only half of the U.S. washes over like the stark raving madness it is, he can say “Look. Look what we did, all the chances, all the actions. It was a bad time, no hard feelings.” and sell oil for perfume again. Like France and Britain have had to from time to time. If he just hardened up, that would be harder to do, and the present engineers of war and death would like to make that division permanent. He is not accommodating them.

    “Putin, belatedly, is doing his best to save us all from nuclear war.”

    As PCR says, he is doing this for history, not the present.

    “the BOE may well enter ‘whatever it takes’ territory to bring inflation down.”

    This is essentially impossible. They are using a Keynsian model which didn’t work in 1971 and still doesn’t work now. Bank Rates and inflation are not related. Or not in a supply-side shortage. As they have killed all other models, ideas, parties, and members in a monoculture of centralized power, they have no alternatives either. So they will fail and flail endlessly.

    Pro tip: brush up on your Von Mises and prepare to plant your allotment. You’re back to the joys of 1949 or even Dickens. What the bank is trying to do is AVOID REALITY. STOP PRICE DISCOVERY. #AntiLogos, which is truth, reality, facts, physics.

    Britain is a useless, hollow shell that shuffles poker chits for a living. Its rates should rival that of Greece or Venezuela: 25% (as should ours)

    “UK to Double Military Spending Amid Cost-of-living Crisis (RT)”

    Well there’s something that will DEFINITELY not work. So of course they did it. Why bother? No one will invade you. In 3 months you won’t have anything to steal. But they did do that to Greece, so I guess it’s an equal opportunity ruination.

    “So a banker on £320,000 a year could only get an annual bonus of £640,000. That has now been lifted”

    Wow, makes sense to me! Go LessTrust! Living the dream and up to her name. Back in the real world, the best thing they could do is export bankers as fast as they can.

    Shale producers in the United States are struggling to meet growing domestic and international natural gas demand,”

    Yes, they shut everything else down, but of course conservation is illegal. That means you will run short of gas since you doubled the demand for no practical reason. Duh. And TINA, you will not be driving electric cars. It all fails and the solution is????

    As every other problem in the universe, the answer is: Communism. It will cause shortages: communism. Social disparity: communism. Need a new social and technical direction: communism.

    Is it just me, or when the answer to every question is to give you more money, power, and my girl-children, that maybe it’s a set-up and a scam? Maybe their private jets and palatial estates are a clue?

    “New Zealand Prime Minister Calls for a Global Censorship System (Turley)”

    As did the NY Times and Washington Post yesterday. They said they can only DREAM of being North Korea. That wonderland of…”communism.” Creating equity and abundance since 1867. Hasn’t failed yet!

    “Roger Waters’ manager decided to withdraw…without giving any reason,”

    Reason? He’s on a Ukrainian death list. And Poland and Germany approve. How can you get security in that situation.

    There’s also a kerfuffle with Harry and Chuck. He’s not allowed back in the UK and bad words are said. Let’s add that he’s most likely, almost certainly not Charles’ son. Not with that hair. If I remember, he’s the son of an air force officer I forget the name of, and therefore not super-happy for Chuck to look at every day, and think of old Diana. You know, about the time they had their falling out. But when Meg is President, they can talk over state dinner.

    #116889
    Red
    Participant

    Perhaps this is a better selection for a rumble test.

    My friends who believe the vaccine are safe have told me they would reconsider their position if any of their doctors came out against the vaccine.

    I told them that doctors are afraid to speak out because they will lose their ability to practice medicine if they challenge the mainstream narrative.

    They find that too hard to believe.

    So I wanted to interview a doctor who is very highly respected and who is not an “anti-vaxxer” to explain it to them.

    The medical community had to fabricate patients, not reveal their names to Dr. Marik, in order to strip him of his ability to practice medicine.

    In this video, Paul describes the methods used to silence doctors who choose to speak out.

    This is why few doctors challenge the status quo. That’s wrong. That’s why they created tenure in universities to prevent abuses like this.

    https://rumble.com/v1lg05d-paul-marik-speaks-about-the-silencing-doctors-who-want-to-speak-out-about-t.html

    Upstater I always copiy my post before I hit submit.That way when the damn thing eats it I can just try again by hitting paste.

    #116890
    Red
    Participant

    For yet another angle on the climate issue(s).

    #116891
    oxymoron
    Participant

    Hey Doc, I’m not cross.
    I think the trouble is the brewing storm of difficult times, or at least unstable times can make some feel stuck in a state of flight or fright. Those of us here are mostly critical thinkers and have resisted the vax through the fight mode (with exceptions due to life circumstance or opinion).
    The down side is remaining in a hyper-vigilant state after it’s used-by date. I believe it can make us a bit tense and lead to less than cordial behaviour.
    We should, where possible endeavour to remain up beat and cordial. It is the most productive state for discourse but not always easy.

    #116892
    oxymoron
    Participant

    Chris Hedges may not have been to Sicily where the notion of white people is something they would consider to be closer to the Swiss border. Italy is not white, it’s kinda machiatto and I think using skin tone as an argument is gettin lazy and tired. He is a legend but needs to think this stuff through a little – The new Italian PM is more concerned with Italian-ness than the creamy or browny-ness of the dermal hue IMO

    #116893
    Red
    Participant

    When historians reflect on this crisis, they will see that the warning signs in global energy policies were flashing red for almost a decade. Many of us have been insisting for years that if investments in oil and gas continued to fall, global supply growth would lag behind demand, impacting markets, the global economy, and people’s lives.

    In fact, oil and gas investments crashed by more than 50% between 2014 and last year, from $700 billion to a little over $300 billion. The increases this year are too little, too late, too short-term.

    Meanwhile, the energy transition plan has been undermined by unrealistic scenarios and flawed assumptions because they have been mistakenly perceived as facts. For example, one scenario led many to assume that major oil use sectors would switch to alternatives almost overnight, and therefore oil demand would never return to pre-Covid levels.

    In reality, once the global economy started to emerge from lockdowns, oil demand came surging back, and so did gas.

    By contrast, solar and wind still only account for 10% of global power generation, and less than 2% of global primary energy supply. Even electric vehicles comprise less than 2% of the total vehicle population and now face high electricity prices.

    Perhaps most damaging of all was the idea that contingency planning could be safely ignored.

    Because when you shame oil and gas investors, dismantle oil- and coal-fired power plants, fail to diversify energy supplies (especially gas), oppose LNG receiving terminals, and reject nuclear power, your transition plan had better be right.

    Instead, as this crisis has shown, the plan was just a chain of sandcastles that waves of reality have washed away. And billions around the world now face the energy access and cost of living consequences that are likely to be severe and prolonged.

    These are the real causes of this state of energy insecurity: under-investment in oil and gas; alternatives not ready; and no back-up plan. But you would not know that from the response so far.

    More:
    https://www.aramco.com/en/news-media/speeches/2022/remarks-by-amin-h-nasser-at-schlumberger-digital-forum#

    #116894
    upstateNYer
    Participant

    Veracious, from yesterday. If you’re interested in further discussion on Midazolam and morphine, check out Maajid Nawaz’s “Radical” show found on Odysee. Episode: 17 – On Midazolam & End of Life “Care” Pathways.

    #116895
    upstateNYer
    Participant

    Oxy: “I think using skin tone as an argument is gettin lazy and tired.”

    Understatement. 😉 I used to read/listen to Chris Hedges (long time ago). After awhile I felt he was essentially applying the same theory/perspective/whateveristherightword to describe every situation, no matter the people, history and culture involved.

    #116896
    oxymoron
    Participant

    Hey upstateNYer – I watched the Episode: 17 – On Midazolam & End of Life “Care” Pathways.
    Holy dooley the malfeasance and bad vibes some dudes get into is really shitty. Dunno how they put their heads on the pillow at night without the sound of death metal in their ear buds to drown out the sound of conscience.

    #116897
    John Day
    Participant

    @RED: Germ posted this a couple of days ago, and I think it made the rounds in April/May. I know I saw it then, and maybe posted it:
    Russell Blaylock MD: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9062939/
    Neither Anthony Fauci, the CDC, WHO nor any medical governmental establishment has ever offered any early treatment other than Tylenol, hydration and call an ambulance once you have difficulty breathing. This is unprecedented in the entire history of medical care as early treatment of infections is critical to saving lives and preventing severe complications. Not only have these medical organizations and federal lapdogs not even suggested early treatment, they attacked anyone who attempted to initiate such treatment with all the weapons at their disposal—loss of license, removal of hospital privileges, shaming, destruction of reputations and even arrest.[2]

    A good example of this outrage against freedom of speech and providing informed consent information is the recent suspension by the medical board in Maine of Dr. Meryl Nass’ medical license and the ordering of her to undergo a psychiatric evaluation for prescribing Ivermectin and sharing her expertise in this field.[9,65] I know Dr, Nass personally and can vouch for her integrity, brilliance and dedication to truth. Her scientific credentials are impeccable. This behavior by a medical licensing board is reminiscent of the methodology of the Soviet KGB during the period when dissidents were incarcerated in psychiatric gulags to silence their dissent.

    #116898
    Dr D Rich
    Participant

    “At Will” work statutes in just about every state,
    AND
    Character Assassination (ritual defamation of character, gaslighting, crazy-making)
    ARE far stronger tools than tenure systems.

    Plus haven’t the doctors and patients (er ah i meant customers) on this blog noticed that around 99.9999451% of physicians fancy themselves businessmen/businesswomen/owner or entrepreneur first and foremost?

    That there exists only one legal defense for refusing care to a patient and that is citing the patient’s inability to pay.

    Washington state’s Department of Health requires physicians to prevent the hired help from harming Customers. I bet very few Washington physicians know WA statutes label as Unprofessional (kiss of death) a physician who fails to prevent some anonymous hospital employee from harming a customer/patient. I say “what of the Director of Nursing’s or General Counsel’s duty to manage their employee, nurses, technicians etc.” Who knew physicians were saddled by WA with the duty to prevent third party crime….without the attendant policing authority that is.

    That’s right, we’re all customers and not fearful ill-informed humans before the intimidating facade of each medical center. Yet WA state Public Health Hospital No.1’s CEO made $8 million and the General Counsel made $650,000 during Pandemic Year 2020. I mean they were stressed, right?

    #116899
    upstateNYer
    Participant

    Hey, oxy, “Dunno how they put their heads on the pillow at night …” I think Veracious’ recent uploads about ego play into their lack of caring. Their egos have convinced them they are God-like and what they’re doing is “right and good.” No self awareness or questioning of one’s self.

    #116900
    The Markster
    Participant

    Hedges is not too old, he is just still oriented to US political establishment, and has a blind spot when it comes to leftist political violence and weaponizing the police state against dissent. Watching fascistic thugs and their DNC sponsors loot and burn and vandalize my hometown of Portland up close for the last six years, and then watching Hedges demonize Aaron Danielson for daring to walk downtown with a US flag t-shirt, while celebrating his tattooed, street-racing “100% Antifa” cold-blooded murderer and criminal Michael Reinoehl as some kind of freedom fighter, I stopped reading his articles altogether.

    The real “Christian” fascists run the Pentagon, the US Air Force Academy, and both the evangelical and mainline Protestant churches in the USA, who join hands with Hedges in pointing fingers at poor people on behalf of the global rich.

    #116901
    upstateNYer
    Participant

    Markster: “… watching Hedges demonize Aaron Danielson for daring to walk downtown with a US flag t-shirt, while celebrating his tattooed, street-racing “100% Antifa” cold-blooded murderer and criminal Michael Reinoehl as some kind of freedom fighter, I stopped reading his articles altogether.”

    I stopped reading/listening long before that happened. Didn’t realize Hedges said that. Confirms my feelings about his work. Thank you for your thoughts.

    #116902
    kultsommer
    Participant

    @ oxy
    “…have resisted the vax through the fight mode…”
    Putting most, or everything on the line in support of one’s conviction is “Fight”.
    Getting away without the jab and squeezing through with minor inconveniences is plain “opportunism”.
    As long as distinction is understood I am with you.
    On Kunsler’s site there are “brave” posters, warming up the chair whole fu**ing day (based on frequency of the posts),
    “scolding a father of 3 or 4” (as we do not have enough of division) who took the jab in order to keep the job. Some of them even see themselves as “pure bloods”. In anger and very quickly, what I’ve just written would earn me a “quitter” or “French” title. I just like to define the things the way they are.

    #116903
    John Day
    Participant

    2 days ago, on 9/24/22 (when we were having our garden party at the homestead, and a big false-flag event did not take place) AFKTT did post extensive rational and factual data, theory and process regarding the near-term (our lifetimes) anthropogenic global warming, with comparison to documented human history, as well as to some geological history.
    It is worth a careful review.
    “Reality” is much more complicated than religion, which is a big-draw towards religious doctrines, because all of us just become apoplectic at some level of complexity, as we try to comprehend “reality”. Simpler explanations are always beguiling…

    What we keep coming-to here in TAE Commentariat debate is different models being useful in different contexts and no model being universally applicable with useful results.

    My personal synthesis is to use a global-warming overlay, and other overlays, as they become available, like different colors of cellophane over some big picture. We do need to understand all of the complex processes changing our air, water, climate and availability of feedstocks for our massive life-support-system, which is, itself, so complex as to be generally baffling, misrepresented and misunderstood by “Experts”, especially economic-experts, “economists”, who ignore energy-inputs.

    Let’s (please for the sake of argument) accept that things will change a lot, with the jet-streams changing weather patterns, rainfall, and the areas that can be farmed without irrigation, and what can be grown there. Lets consider a 20 foot ocean rise, even if that might be excessive, or too little, or not happen evenly. Let’s flip these overlays down and up on our world models.
    Let’s flip down super-volcano, and giant-asteroid, and polar-reversal-with-loss-of-radiation-shields.
    Let’s just keep flipping those colored-cellophane overlays down and back up again.

    Where does natural-gas come from? Where are there pipelines? Where are their nuclear-war targets? Where is the soil good? What is the water-supply there? Where will the weather probably not kill you when various overlays happen? How many good overlays can you find at a spot? Can you afford to live near there? Can you make such an investment in the future? Most people cannot.

    Please see that AFKTT is one of the people who is acting in his life to deal with all those overlays, taking action, not merely talking, getting life-experience with reality. It is not all abstract, as I am learning with oak-flooring, as I learned with installing insulation, as I learn with vegetable-gardening, and attempting to grow cold-tolerant avocados.

    Doctrine is at the end of it’s road now, a lot of dead-end-doctrines are.
    Let’s try and then share our actual findings, meager though they may be.

    Thank You for Your Consideration.

    #116904
    zerosum
    Participant

    Variations of “White Supremacy” exist under many names including Fascism and Nazism, and are being used as tools to “win”.

    https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-return-of-fascism
    • The Return of Fascism (Chris Hedges)
    the “Great Replacement” non-white immigrants are being permitted to enter Western nations as part of a plot to undermine or “replace” the political power and culture of white people.

    Meloni and Orban, (Italy, Hungary), are not alone. Sweden Democrats, which took over 20 percent of the vote in Sweden’s general election last week to become the country’s second largest political party, was formed in 1988 from a neo-Nazi group called B.S.S., or Keep Sweden Swedish. It has deep fascist roots. Of the party’s 30 founders, 18 had Nazi affiliations, including several who served in the Waffen SS, according to Tony Gustaffson a historian and former Sweden Democrat member. France’s Marine Le Pen took over 41 percent of the vote in April against Emmanuel Macron. In Spain, the hard-right Vox party is the third largest party in Spain’s Parliament. The far-right German AfD or Alternative for Germany party took over 12 percent in federal elections in 2017, making it the third largest party, though it lost a couple percentage points in the 2021 elections. The U.S. has its own version of fascism embodied in a Republican party that coalesces in cult-like fashion around Donald Trump, embraces the magical thinking, misogyny, homophobia and white supremacy of the Christian Right and actively subverts the election process.
    ———–

    We Might Be Spared Nuclear War for Now But the Threat of Home Grown Tyranny Remains


    We Might Be Spared Nuclear War for Now But the Threat of Home Grown Tyranny Remains

    Paul Craig Roberts
    Although in my opinion the leadership everywhere in the Western world is Satanic and insane, I do not think the Western governing elites are ready to commit suicide by attacking Russian territory. The West can say it doesn’t recognize the rights of people to self-determination, but if Russia says it is Russian territory, it is. So that you understand, the referendums are Putin’s way of ending the conflict before it widens into nuclear war. Putin’s rescue of the world from nuclear war will not be acknowledged by the Western presstitutes, Washington’s puppet EU and UK governments, or by the puppet who serves as NATO secretary general. But what they think does not matter. Putin, belatedly, is doing his best to save us all from nuclear war. Pray that he succeeds.

    Read more …
    ———–
    Employment opportunities exist in the Ukraine conflict.

    Goes to the borders of Greece "Convoy of light"


    Goes to the borders of Greece “Convoy of light”
    September 12, 2022

    The “convoy of light”, consisting of 40,000 Syrian refugees who were in Turkey, began its march towards Germany.

    The news of this evening and probably in the coming weeks in Germany will be tracking the route of the Convoy, which Turkey promised to release to Europe. The number of convoys of light may already be about a dozen this autumn. The main question is whether the Greek authorities will interfere with the passage of the “Convoy of Light”, to the borders of which the refugees will approach by the end of next week.

    Tens of Thousands Joined the Syrian Convoy of Light Bound for Europe

    The “Caravan of Light” campaign was launched by Syrian refugees in Turkey to migrate towards Europe, according to Athr Press.
    After announcing the “Caravan of Light” campaign launched by Syrian refugees in Turkey to migrate towards Europe, organizers began to reveal the campaign’s details and the purpose of announcing it in this way.

    The convoy’s plans are being worked out via a Telegram channel, which was set up six days ago and is followed by nearly 70,000 people. The organizers are calling on people to bring sleeping bags, tents, life jackets, water, canned food, and first aid kits.

    The French news agency AFP quoted the organizers as saying: “The convoy will be divided into groups of 50 people, each led by a supervisor.”

    ————

    #116905
    John Day
    Participant

    “Taking into account the preliminary results of the referendums and Russia’s readiness to acknowledge them, the accession of the territories is likely to take place as early as on September 30,” the unnamed member of Russia’s State Duma said to TASS.
    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/kremlin-indicates-ukrainian-territories-be-absorbed-russia-weeks-end

    #116906
    zerosum
    Participant

    Who is doing the “recruitment”?
    The French news agency AFP quoted the organizers as saying: “The convoy will be divided into groups of 50 people, each led by a supervisor.”

    That sound like “recruitment”

    #116907
    Mr. House
    Participant

    Who here remembers Enron? What are the odds that manipulation of that kind is going on with gas and electric markets currently?

    #116908
    Alexander Carpenter
    Participant

    Here is an excellent resource for those able (and willing) to learn about something more complicated than most minds limited by the reductionist linearizing science we have all been indoctrinated-with can encompass.

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/09/26/weekly-climate-and-energy-news-roundup-521/

    These folks are working hard to explore how all those “obfuscations” the Carbon Cultists whine about are the actual determinants of the changes we are seeing in our present climate (and have seen in past climates).

    Since the Cult’s errors have been extensively falsified (or “debunked”), the Cult now frantically works to debunk that debunking. That seems rather an imploding spiral of abstraction-mentation and political posturing than any experiencing of the real world. And it is corrupted by sleazy ad hominem rhetoric and reasonableness-cowering within their fortress/prison of belief.

    And yes, we all have far more important human activities to concern ourselves with: our industrial toxicity and mechanical disruption of the biosphere are causing real damage, while the trivial quantities of CO2 we are adding to the ocean-atmosphere system are contributing benefit to humanity (as a trim-tab on a natural process) while causing no demonstrable harm.

    #116909

    “Who here remembers Enron?”
    I tend to look at “scandals” like that as teaching moments for bad guys- crooks testing the system, looking for better ways to game it next time. In other words, yeah, I think the odds are good.

    There has been a push for “mental health” screening when someone visits their “primary caregiver” [what a phrase!]. CSPAN covered it this morning, and interestingly, the callers used the words “gaslighting”, “doctors don’t see you they see a diagnosis”, and “It’s going to be on my record forever”.
    I thought- aha! It’s about gun control! Can you buy a gun if you take Prozac? Xanax? If your doctor wrote down that you’re depressed or anxious?

    #116910
    Alexander Carpenter
    Participant

    Where the Carbon Cultists get lost… in that “Step Two.”

    Somehow, the simple fact that there is no due-cause connection between their fundamentals and their conclusions seems to escape them. As just one small example, they quote Svante Arrhenius from 1896 but never from 1906.

    As my mother used to say, “Watch that second step; it’s a doosey.”

    #116911

    Here is an interesting graphic from today’s APOD: the earth’s water in spheres compared to the sphere of the earth.
    We are in the age of the water bearer now. If you think we fought over oil, wait ’til the wars are about water.

    #116912
    zerosum
    Participant

    AWWWW! There goes the emergency gas reserve.
    https://www.rt.com/business/563542-nord-stream-pressure-drop/
    Pressure in the Nord Stream 2 undersea gas pipeline, which was intended to pump gas from Russia to Germany, dropped from 300 to 7 bars overnight, a spokesperson for the pipeline’s operator said on Monday, as cited by Reuters. The company reportedly does not know the cause of the drop.

    #116913
    John Day
    Participant

    Nordstream-2 got sabotaged, huh?

    #116914
    zerosum
    Participant

    Are the observers “Sham ovservers”?
    https://ria.ru/20220925/nablyudatel-1819315907.html
    International observer from the Netherlands fears persecution at home
    Dutch observer van den Jende said she feared persecution in her homeland

    #116915
    Bishko
    Participant

    Food processing plants burning down.

    These plants are filled with cameras, they record everything since the concern of food contamination is so high. Where are the arson investigators? Years ago arson was one of the most aggressively pursued investigations since the insurance companies have so much at risk. –crickets– This smacks of collusion again. The investigators and insurance companies have to be getting paid off behind the scenes. No one who works in these plants, nor any “investigators” want to end up in Assangeville.

    #116916
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    What is playing out on the grand stage of Earth is nothing less than the final death throes of of the institution of Monarchy as an accepted (or acceptable) means of ordering the affairs of human beings. Perhaps it is even the first highly visible stage of the end of hierarchy itself (let’s hope so) but that would be in a distant future. Today we are observing (and participating in) the inevitable self-immolation of Kings and Emperors. Thank God. And I do not say that facetiously. We literally have God to thank.

    Here is my evidence.

    Definitions: (from the Oxford Dictionary)
    noun: evidence
    1)The available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid.
    Etymology : Middle English: via Old French from Latin evidentia, from Latin evident- ‘obvious to the eye or mind’, seen.

    To the dictionary definition I will add my own observation and comment.
    2) There are certain “First Principles” of this Universe, which require no further evidence of their truthful factuality other than their existence. Primary of these is that there is existence, itself. There are other First Principles as well, whose factuality cannot be challenged without negating the reality of the challenger. For example, the claim that you, or me, or someone else is “aware”. That claim requires no further evidence, and yet is literally impossible to logically dismiss. In fact, the word “evidence” itself falls into that same First Principles category. It literally means “that which can be seen”, but seen by whom? Seen by a sentient entity that is aware that it is seeing, that’s who. And that’s that.

    There are two ways that this subject must be addressed. The first is a specific and broadly observed event that is undeniably transpiring in full view of billions of people who all concur that something distinct and important is taking place. This approach is very “current events news” and mundane in its nature.

    The second approach is a generalized explanation of that event in terms of First Principles, so that all can see that the specific event is mere evidence, of the more important First Principle which resulted in the event happening in the first place. This approach is quite Logical, Scientific, Philosophical and Spiritual in nature. It’s not weird in the least but it is quite foreign territory for most people (who prefer mundane) , so people are prone to skipping that part.

    This time, don’t skip that part, but don’t worry! The philosophizen’ part is VERY short and VERY painless. You’ll get through it.

    Now down to business.

    Legal claim (literally provable in Courts of Law) to just slightly less than half of ownable things in the world are “owned” by Monarchs (or by their myriad witting and unwitting vassals) whose justification is nothing more than the Monarch’s claim of ownership in the first place. There is no other basis to that claim than the claimants mental and physical ability to defend that claim, so to accomplish this huge feat of defending such a huge claim Kings gather around them various persons to help acquire and then defend their assertion, by force of arms if necessary, which is ALWAYS necessary because earnest and legitimate counter-claims arise from those who must DEFEND THEMSELVES from the King’s crime of thievery.

    Fundamentally, Monarchical claims are only as “valid” as they can be successfully defended by intellect, wealth and force of arms. When the Monarch can no longer successfully defend the claim of ownership then the claim has no meaning. In a sense it is “voided” by the simple REALITY of folks taking their stuff back when the Monarch is no longer able to stop them. Like Russia just took back Crimea and Ukraine. Like China is taking back Taiwan, and how Italy just told that Imperial Prussian Junker von der Leyen that Italy belongs to Italy and does NOT belong to her Nazified “Union”.

    Legally speaking this causes a real mess, because within all monarchy based systems ALL validity under the law depends for it’s judicially decisive force upon the keystone notion that the Monarchy’s claim of ownership and control is valid. If that claim is not valid then all claims that depend upon his claim are not valid either. And that fact extends all the way down to the shoe-shine boy who owns a brush! “If he is not a King who owns the kingdom, then that other guy is not a Duke who owns the duchy, and so on down the line.”

    To be very VERY specific, the British Crown directly (and it’s vassal monarchic system) claims ownership (in an extremely messy but entirely provable legal way) to something like a fourth to a third of everything that can be owned. A different way of saying that would be that the “legal” claims of ownership of nearly half of everything are in one way or another DEPENDANT upon the validity of the English Crown’s CLAIM of monarchical authority.

    That claim has always and only been the British Monarchy’s ability to defend that claim against counterclaims, by force of arms if necessary, which it has resorted to every single day since it came into being. Well, folks, it is obviously and measurably LOSING ITS ABILITY TO DEFEND ITS CLAIM.

    In other words its assertion that “The Crown” owns a bunch of places and things, is being PROVEN falser and falser with every day that passes. Soon it will be proved ENTIRELY false, and all claims based on THAT claim will become unenforceable malarkey right along with it. When grandeur is demonstrated in reality to be delusory, then folks who still believe it are said to have “delusions of grandeur” , which is symptomatic of serious mental illness.

    If you can cold bloodedly contemplate the ramifications around the TANGIBLE fact that the British Crown and Empire are losing their power, wealth, holdings (and grip!) you will see that the entire Western Empire is inextricably dependent in almost every legal, financial and physical way, upon that SPECIFIC ‘now-demonstrated-as-false’ claim of Monarchical sovereignty over half of the Earth and all who walk upon it. Arguments over true ownership and who’s the boss are currently, and will continue indefinitely, to increase hyper-ballistically at an accelerating rate until the readjustment of sovereign power has run its course. And the end state will NOT be a monarchy.

    Hell is out for breakfast, and it’s a feast.

    Oh, yeah, the philosophy stuff, right? Well I told you it would be short and painless, so here it is:

    It is not possible, in reality, for a free will to impose itself upon the free will of another against that other’s free will, so the very idea of a national or imperial monarch (other than God himself) is just ludicrous nonsense, and therefore never stands for long.

    #116917
    anticlimactic
    Participant

    Who ya gonna vote for?

    Most people vote AGAINST parties rather than FOR parties. People in Europe have seen their current leaders sacrifice them to support a failed policy against Russia [and Climate Change].

    The main parties seem to be aligned so if you are worried about your life being destroyed for no good reason then you can only look to fringe parties who are willing to be different. In this case it is right wing parties.

    While the pain to come has been widely advertised the real pain has yet to start.

    I read that temperatures in Europe are set to plunge in two days time to 5 centigrade. [fridge!] In six months time who knows how desperate voters will be escape their hell.

    #116918
    ezlxa1949
    Participant

    So, the IPA opines that “Australia’s Covd response cost $934.8 billion and resulted in 31 x more life years lost than were saved”.

    Intriguing. What might this signal? The Institute of Public Affairs is a neoliberal, right-wing think tank. Australia had a neoliberal government in power when The Plague struck, a government that has been sternly criticised for its inept response.

    #116919
    ezlxa1949
    Participant

    @D Benton Smith
    Maybe I can summarise some of your points thus:
    1. “Cogito ergo sum.”
    2. Colonialism.
    3. Extractivism.

    #116920
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Not entirely happy with this, or the issue at all, but:

    ‘100% CO2 absorbs heat. 0% does not.’

    I don’t know how as a chemist or scientist you don’t understand threshold events. E.g. Supersaturation, steam, valence shells, or “chaos theory postulates sensitive dependence (on initial conditions) within a system that is deterministic and nonlinear.” In most functions –and universally in chemistry – there is a point at which things happen. There is a point under which things do not happen. Where is that point in CO2? But since you won’t answer, let me make the argument for you.

    What is the relevant threshold for CO2, the point at which it becomes relevant, starts warming? Zero. That is, according to your chemistry, the very first molecule starts the very first heating. Okay, great, then we know the target level for atmospheric CO2: Zero. 0 PPM. Great! Tell the BBC, our goal is not only zero carbon EMISSIONS, it’s zero atmospheric CO2.

    …Except one thing: every plant on earth would immediately die. Okay, so we don’t want plants gasping for air, we pick a level where they’re not choking to death and can most prosper. If plants prosper, animals prosper, and we can have maximum environment, maximum carbon sequestering. Agreed? What is the level suited for most plants?

    Oh, between 1,000 and 1,500 ppm, like it was when green plants first were born. At 200ppm plants are choking and nearly dead, showing reduced vigor, reduced growth, reduced pest resistance, all that stuff. Worse, according to AGW theory, CO2 is the primary cause of warming, all other causes don’t even matter. So clearly if we reduced under 200 we would have NO greenhouse, TOO LITTLE heat and a runaway, eternal Ice Age, another thing that has never happened. Okay, for practical reasons, we now have a “relevant threshold” I requested, that is, above zero – let’s say ~180ppm as the usual 400,000 year low – and an upper threshold: plants improve until 1,500ppm after which it makes no difference. Presumably the health of animals is not impacted by such small changes, but the improvement in diet and luxury will.

    (* Let’s not ask the question “If it’s 180 and lowest, it’s been trending down for 40,000 years, and the earth is therefore the coldest, what happens that it begins to rise and warm again?” It’s not humans, and it should just keep going to 150, 100, 80, 40ppm and turn us into Pluto. But it never does. Why not?)

    So 180-1,500ppm. Which is the best number? You say 280. Why 280? The level has been 7,000 down to 180, and indeed never stays still for a minute, constantly moving. So why pick this PARTICULAR number?

    How can the number be a single number? Why do you get to decide? Because of anchoring, the world must remain as it was when you were born? We must go back: unsail the ships, remove the sparrows and the apples from the New World, return it to its former state. Throw away those potatoes and tomatoes in Ireland and Italy, unring the bell. Pristine. …Except that state was ALSO changing, and those pristine animals were also new and different at some further point back when. So why is 280 the “prefect” state? Or the last 1,000 years? Or 100,000 years? 280PPM is not perfect for “nature”, do you hate plants and carbon sequestering so much you want to strangle them? Give them at least 1,000ppm, let them breathe a little.

    …Things that are good for one thing are bad for another. There is no perfect number, nor is there a perfect time we can go back to. …Even if we could, which we also both can’t and won’t.

    Let me continue your argument for you: Since we already know super-7,000ppm does not lead to a runaway greenhouse effect since we just came from there, let’s say that the 400ppm causes…let’s say the much-discussed runaway glacier melt. THAT’S why 400ppm is the threshold. Setting aside the newspaper prints predicting this since 1940, AND the same scientists who said that coal would cause runaway heating from CO2 (your Swedish scientist) ALSO predicted runaway cooling from the smoke and dust (this was true as per 1890 London), that is to say, even assuming scientists could actually know what they’ve already proven for 100 years they have no accurate predictions about, let’s suppose 400ppm happens, the glaciers melt, and the seas did rise. Why would I care?

    Plants are fine, animals are fine. It causes far less trouble than Chestnut blight in the big scheme of things. Fish swim, grasslands wave, buffalo roam. And?

    Here’s where we’ve discussed before. So it’s the HUMANS you are worried about? Why? They were fine when the sea was +80 feet lower, and we’re still fine with them 80 feet higher; in fact, there’s more of us than ever. Maybe we’d double again with another 80 feet. Is it because our numbers will be disrupted, reduced? You seemed to be advocating for the earth and implied that there were already too many of us. Overshoot. Congratulations, everything’s going perfectly, glaciers rose, we are reduced. There will be fewer of us. And you didn’t have to do a thing or worry at all.

    So if it’s not the Earth and not the Humans, who are both fine, then it has to be the CITIES you’re worried about. Why? Central predictions are I dunno, 3 feet over 100-200 years. I’ll sell my house and move back a mile. Heck, a sand blow can move more shoreline than that and often has. Suppose it came in a big “One Day Before the Day After Tomorrow” tsunami: so? I hate cities. They are the most consumptive, unenvironmental places on earth and I’d love it if they all died. …The cities I mean, not the people. Let the cars and street vanish, it would be the greatest Earth Day ever. Green abound.

    I was thinking you’d agree, as this is clearly the answer to both consumption AND overshoot. So 400ppm = glacial melt = solution. Fewer humans, less consumption. But you don’t seem to feel this way.

    So if it’s not the People, not the Earth, not the Cities, not the plants and animals, not the cars, not the malls, not the museums you are protecting, then…what? The way things used to be? Why would you or I care if the sea rises an inch every 10 years? Some rich guys loses his 3rd mansion. And the sea plovers nest 30 meters back from last year? The buffalo roam, so I knap an arrow and go chase it.

    Surely there is a reason you are nearly frantic about it. But what reason hasn’t been presented yet.

    My point is merely that 280 – or 200, or 750 – is a geologically arbitrary number. Humans, earths, cities, shores, all exist above and below that number. It’s just the number YOU know. Your childhood, you personally. But none of us humans amount to a hill of beans what we were, or what we want or don’t want. We’re without any value or status in the vastness of time, such that the Planet should make account of when we were born or died, or what the weather was like that day for us.

    So that’s the other part of the “Threshold” question. There IS no threshold, that is unless you want the world to stop for you. But it won’t. The earth is our master and not our servant.

    Back to you.

    #116921
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @DrD

    That treatise was not just masterfully logical (and scientifically true) but entertaining and soul satisfying into the bargain. No wonder they call you the Doctor.

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