Nov 162022
 
 November 16, 2022  Posted by at 9:35 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,


Rembrandt van Rijn Self portrait with Saskia 1636

 

Russia, India, China, Iran: The Quad That Really Matters (Escobar)
China Embraces Multipolar World – FM (RT)
Findings Suggest Missile That Hit Poland Was Fired By Ukrainian Forces (AP)
Biden Suggests Russia Not Behind Poland ‘Missile Strike’ (RT)
Biden Unveils $37BN More In Emergency Ukraine Aid (ZH)
Conflict In Ukraine Is Hybrid War – Lavrov (RT)
France’s Macron Urges More Chinese Pressure To End Ukraine War (AlA)
US Goal Is To Destroy Russia – Security Chief (RT)
Conflict In Ukraine Best Thing To Happen To US In 10 Years – Roger Waters (RT)
Twitter Blue Was The Most Effective Anti-Capitalist Tool Ever (Blankenship)
The Aftermath and After That (Kunstler)
Roll Back ‘Election Month’ Or Learn To Take Advantage Of It (Fed.)
‘Ballot Curing’ Might Cost Lauren Boebert Her Colorado Seat (Li)
Trump Announces 2024 Campaign: ‘We Have To Get Out Of This Ditch’ (JTN)

 

 

The original western story was that the missile found in Poland was fired by Russia. Now we find it was an S-300 fired by Ukraine, ostensibly to intercept Russian missiles. But S-300 batteries cost $120-150 million each. And: “The S-300 is a series of long range surface-to-air missile systems. Because of the production backlogs and limited fielding to date, few systems will be available for transfer to Ukraine (from Oct 2022). According to the IISS Military Balance, the Ukrainians had about 250 S-300s before the war.

Maybe it’s me, but it sounds curious. And the trajectory also looks weird. It won’t have come from the Polish side. But where then? Belarus is the only option. We’ll keep on reading. BTW: Russia fired 100 missiles into Ukraine. One dead.

 

 

Jesse Watters

 

 

Mr. Wonderful

 

 

 

 


Half of world’s GDP is in 3,6% of the land area.

 

 

“We went from “2 weeks to flatten the curve” to “we’re going to change your child’s sex, ration your food and gasoline, digitize your currency, make ballot gathering and counting a 2 month ordeal, you’ll own nothing and be happy, and if you aren’t, you’re a threat to democracy”

 

 

 

 

What happens in the real world…

Russia, India, China, Iran: The Quad That Really Matters (Escobar)

Southeast Asia is right at the center of international relations for a whole week viz a viz three consecutive summits: Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Phnom Penh, the Group of Twenty (G20) summit in Bali, and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Bangkok. Eighteen nations accounting for roughly half of the global economy represented at the first in-person ASEAN summit since the Covid-19 pandemic in Cambodia: the ASEAN 10, Japan, South Korea, China, India, US, Russia, Australia, and New Zealand. With characteristic Asian politeness, the summit chair, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen (or “Colombian”, according to the so-called “leader of the free world”), said the plenary meeting was somewhat heated, but the atmosphere was not tense: “Leaders talked in a mature way, no one left.”

It was up to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to express what was really significant at the end of the summit. While praising the “inclusive, open, equal structure of security and cooperation at ASEAN”, Lavrov stressed how Europe and NATO “want to militarize the region in order to contain Russia and China’s interests in the Indo-Pacific.” A manifestation of this policy is how “AUKUS is openly aiming at confrontation in the South China Sea,” he said. Lavrov also stressed how the West, via the NATO military alliance, is accepting ASEAN “only nominally” while promoting a completely “unclear” agenda. What’s clear though is how NATO “has moved towards Russian borders several times and now declared at the Madrid summit that they have taken global responsibility.”

This leads us to the clincher: “NATO is moving their line of defense to the South China Sea.” And, Lavrov added, Beijing holds the same assessment. Here, concisely, is the open “secret” of our current geopolitical incandescence. Washington’s number one priority is the containment of China. That implies blocking the EU from getting closer to the key Eurasia drivers – China, Russia, and Iran – engaged in building the world’s largest free trade/connectivity environment. Adding to the decades-long hybrid war against Iran, the infinite weaponizing of the Ukrainian black hole fits into the initial stages of the battle. For the Empire, Iran cannot profit from becoming a provider of cheap, quality energy to the EU. And in parallel, Russia must be cut off from the EU. The next step is to force the EU to cut itself off from China.

All that fits into the wildest, warped Straussian/neo-con wet dreams: to attack China, by emboldening Taiwan, first Russia must be weakened, via the instrumentalization (and destruction) of Ukraine. And all along the scenario, Europe simply has no agency.

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“Putin had also said that he and Xi “hold largely the same views on addressing the world’s problems.”

China Embraces Multipolar World – FM (RT)

Beijing will cooperate with Moscow to build a multipolar world, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Tuesday, after meeting his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia. “China is ready to work with Russia and other like-minded countries to promote the development of a multipolar world, firmly support the democratization of international relations, and defend the international system based on the United Nations,” he said, according to remarks posted by the Chinese Foreign Ministry. Wang’s phrasing echoes statements made by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, when they met in Beijing in early February. Putin had also said that he and Xi “hold largely the same views on addressing the world’s problems.”

In a cordial meeting with his Russian colleague on Tuesday, Wang also said Beijing would “continue to take an objective and fair stand” on the conflict in Ukraine and “play a constructive role in facilitating peace talks.” China also praised Russia’s “rational and responsible position” on the use of nuclear weapons. Moscow has repeatedly and explicitly reaffirmed its commitment to the joint statement against nuclear war by the five major atomic powers, adopted in January, that nuclear war is unacceptable and should never be fought. That hasn’t stopped Western governments from accusing Russia of making nuclear threats, as US President Joe Biden did in his meeting with Xi on Monday.


While Xi’s remarks before and after the meeting with Biden expressed a desire to improve relations with the US, the Chinese president also clearly set out Beijing’s “red lines.” He warned the US against supporting separatists on the island of Taiwan and asked Washington to live up to its written commitments. “A statesman should think about and know where to lead his country. He should also think about and know how to get along with other countries and the wider world,” Xi told Biden.

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Use article 5 against Ukraine?

Findings Suggest Missile That Hit Poland Was Fired By Ukrainian Forces (AP)

Poland said a Russian-made missile fell in the country’s east, killing two people, though US President Joe Biden said it was “unlikely” it was fired from Russia. The blast, which Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy decried as “a very significant escalation”, prompted Biden to call an emergency meeting of G-7 and Nato leaders. A deliberate, hostile attack on Nato member Poland could trigger a collective military response by the alliance. But key questions around the circumstances of the missile launch remained amid the confusion caused by a blistering series of Russian airstrikes across the nearby border in Ukraine, none larger than who fired it. Russia denied any involvement in the Poland blast.


Three US officials said preliminary assessments suggested the missile was fired by Ukrainian forces at an incoming Russian one amid the crushing salvo against Ukraine’s electrical infrastructure Tuesday. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the matter publicly. That assessment and Biden’s comments at the Group of 20 summit in Indonesia contradict information earlier Tuesday from a senior US intelligence official who told the AP that Russian missiles crossed into Poland. The Polish government said it was investigating and raising its level of military preparedness. Biden pledged support for Poland’s investigation. A statement from the Polish Foreign Ministry identified the weapon as being made in Russia. President Andrzej Duda was more cautious, saying that it was “most probably” Russian-made but that its origins were still being verified.

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“..it is unlikely, in the minds of the trajectory, that it was fired from Russia..”

Biden Suggests Russia Not Behind Poland ‘Missile Strike’ (RT)

US President Joe Biden said it is “unlikely” that Russia was behind an alleged missile strike on a Polish border town that left two people dead, noting that the trajectory of the munition was inconsistent with an attack launched by Russian forces. Speaking to reporters at the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia on Wednesday morning following early consultations with NATO members, Biden was asked whether it was “too early to say whether this missile was fired from Russia.” “There is preliminary information that contests that,” Biden answered, adding “I don’t want to say that until we completely investigate, but it is unlikely, in the minds of the trajectory, that it was fired from Russia. But we’ll see. We’ll see.”

The White House previously said Biden had convened an “emergency” roundtable among senior officials from NATO states, as well as Japan, to discuss the mysterious explosion in Przewodow, Poland on Tuesday. In a joint statement after the sit-down, the leaders said they agreed to “support Poland’s investigation” into the incident and would “remain in close touch to determine appropriate next steps.” It is unclear what action might be taken in response, as officials say that will be determined by the findings of their probe. However Warsaw previously suggested it could invoke NATO’s Article 4 provision, which requires the bloc’s 30 states to hold consultations if any member believes they are under military threat or wishes to discuss any other “issue of concern.” The measure is distinct from Article 5, a collective security guarantee that compels all NATO states to come to the defense of another member.


According to Reuters, Polish President Andrzej Duda said it is “highly probable” Poland would soon invoke Article 4, though added investigators currently lack concrete evidence pointing to any responsible party behind the blast. While Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky wasted little time before pinning the explosion on Moscow, the Russian Defense Ministry issued a statement denying any responsibility, insisting that photos circulating in Polish media purporting to show missile fragments “have nothing to do with Russian weapons.” The ministry added that such allegations are “a deliberate provocation in order to escalate the situation.” Hours after the blast on Tuesday, the US military said it could not corroborate claims of Russian involvement, apparently rebutting an earlier Associated Press report citing an unnamed US intelligence official who said a Russian missile had struck the Polish village.

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How much of the previous “aid” did Ukraine “invest” with FTX? That would all be gone now?!

Biden Unveils $37BN More In Emergency Ukraine Aid (ZH)

At the close of a wild roller-coaster of a day following the alleged “Russian missile attack” on a Polish border town, and despite little to nothing in the way of official confirmation of just what happened or whodunnit, and urgent phone calls flying between Western heads of state pledging “solidarity” – it’s perfect timing for the US to shovel out another nearly $40 billion to Ukraine… “President Joe Biden is asking Congress to provide more than $37 billion in emergency aid to Ukraine, a massive infusion of cash that could help support the nation as Russian forces suffer battlefield losses in their nine-month-old invasion,” Reuters is reporting late in the day. Biden unveiled the proposed massive aid infusion while at the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia.

It was also announced just as President Biden held a phone call with Poland’s President Andrzej Duda following the explosion in the village of Przewodów. Biden offered Poland “full U.S support for and assistance with Poland’s investigation” and “reaffirmed the United States’ ironclad commitment to NATO,” according to a call readout. The two leaders also vowed to remain in “close touch to determine appropriate next steps as the investigation proceeds.” According to a breakdown of the fresh aid proposed for Ukraine, it includes “$21.7 billion for military, intelligence and other defense support, $14.5 billion in humanitarian aid and to help keep the Ukrainian government functioning, $900 million for health care and support services for Ukrainians living in the U.S. and $626 million for nuclear security support to Ukraine and for modernizing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.”


This follows Ukraine’s President Zelensky urging more, more, more weapons and funding, especially missiles, artillery shells, and anti-air defense systems. According to more from Reuters, “Shalanda Young, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, said that more than three-fourths of the $40 billion approved by Congress earlier this year for Ukraine has already been disbursed or committed.”

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“..Russia is essentially facing Western nations, which triggered the crisis in the first place..”

Conflict In Ukraine Is Hybrid War – Lavrov (RT)

The conflict in Ukraine is a hybrid war, in which Russia is essentially facing Western nations, which triggered the crisis in the first place, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. He gave the assessment on Tuesday on the sidelines of the summit of G20 leaders in Indonesia. The minister, who heads the Russian delegation, said that the US and its allies were pushing to include the Ukraine issue in the final declaration, which participants are set to sign on Wednesday. “They wanted to add wording that would have condemned the actions of Russia on behalf of the entire G20 club, including Russia itself,” Lavrov said. Moscow’s delegation believes the issue to be irrelevant to the agenda of the gathering, but suggested reflecting the difference of opinion about it, he added.

“Sure, there is a war underway in Ukraine. A hybrid war that was unleashed by the West and which it prepared for many years, starting with the moment it supported the [2014] armed coup [in Ukraine] and the empowerment of openly racist and neo-Nazi powers” there, the diplomat added. The launch this week of an EU mission, which aims to train 15,000 Ukrainian troops over two years, is the latest example of how Western nations are taking part in the “hybrid war”, Lavrov told journalists. The arming and funding of Ukrainian troops, supply of intelligence and assistance in picking targets for military action, which Western nations do, make them participants, he explained.


Lavrov noted that Western nations resembled the USSR in the way they championed the Ukraine cause at unrelated forums. During a Communist Party gathering at some Soviet factory, which was supposed to be about some manufacturing issues, “it was considered correct to start a discussion with the obligatory condemnation of American imperialism. Western nations have used a similar approach at the G20,” he noted. By repeating the mantra about Russia’s supposedly “unprovoked aggression”against Ukraine, Western nations are convincing non-aligned countries that the conflict was actually provoked by them and was not an act of aggression by Russia, but a legitimate response to threats created by the West, Lavrov stated.

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No, you can’t drive a wedge between China and Russia.

France’s Macron Urges More Chinese Pressure To End Ukraine War (AlA)

French President Emmanuel Macron urged China’s Xi Jinping on Tuesday to bring Russia to the negotiating table over the war in Ukraine, the presidency said. The two leaders held talks just before the opening of the G20 summit in Indonesia, Bali, where Moscow is under pressure over its eight-month invasion and its disastrous consequences for global food and energy prices. Macron called on Xi to “pass messages to President Putin to avoid escalation and return seriously to the negotiating table,” the French presidency told reporters after talks that lasted nearly an hour. The pair shook hands as they opened talks, with Macron saying the nations must “unite forces to respond… to international crises like Russia’s war in Ukraine.”


Xi made no direct mention of the conflict, according to a readout on Chinese state news agency Xinhua, but described the world as being in a “period of turbulence and transformation” and called for “openness and cooperation.” The pair met a day after Xi held marathon talks with US President Joe Biden, with the leaders vowing to prevent their rivalry from spilling over into outright conflict. Xi, on his second overseas trip since the pandemic, has commanded the spotlight in Bali — with officials lining up to hold face-to-face talks with the leader of the world’s second-largest economy.

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“The US wants to weaken and destroy Russia, and is using Ukraine as a “battering ram” to achieve that goal..”

US Goal Is To Destroy Russia – Security Chief (RT)

The US wants to weaken and destroy Russia, and is using Ukraine as a “battering ram” to achieve that goal, the secretary of Russia’s national Security Council has warned. While Washington declares Russia “a source of instability”, it also fosters “anti-Russian alliances, builds up military strength, deploys NATO forces at our border,” Nikolay Patrushev said on Tuesday during a government meeting. “The puppet Kiev regime, which took power through a coup that was supported by [the US and its closest allies], is being used as a battering ram against Russia,” Patrushev added, as quoted by TASS news agency. “The US goal is to weaken, disunite and ultimately destroy our nation.” The official claimed Washington will stop at nothing to achieve its “selfish goals” aimed at global supremacy and is pushing the world “towards a global war” through policies that pit other nations against each other.


Patrushev made the remarks during a meeting on Russian domestic security, which he chaired in the city of Bryansk. He called for possible safety lapses at strategic sites to be fixed, and said Ukrainian saboteurs pose an increasing threat to Russia and its people. “Attempts to infiltrate Russian territory by members of radical and extremist structures, who seek to conduct sabotage activities and terrorist attacks, have significantly increased,” he stated. Transport and energy sites are of particular interest for would-be plotters, he stressed. Patrushev added that Russian law enforcement agencies have thwarted 28 terrorism-related crimes this year, including nine attempted acts of sabotage.

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“..because it was “really good for business.”

Conflict In Ukraine Best Thing To Happen To US In 10 Years – Roger Waters (RT)

British rock star Roger Waters has hit out against the US for profiting off of the ongoing military conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which he says Washington allowed to happen because it was beneficial to American interests. Discussing US foreign policy on the Bad Faith podcast on YouTube, the Pink Floyd co-founder stated that the conflict in Ukraine was “the best thing to happen to them in the last 10 years,” because it was “really good for business.” “Part of their business is making money from the war through making weapons and selling them to the people and taking the profits from it,” Waters explained, adding that this money never goes to ordinary people. “It’s not you or me, not ordinary people who invest in the war industry. It’s people with tons of cash, and they get very well paid when there’s war.”


Another benefit of the war for the political establishment, according to Waters, is that it allows it to convince people who struggle to make ends meet and end up homeless that their woes are the fault of the Russians and Putin, who is compared to Hitler and accused of being responsible for “destroying everyone’s lives.” Waters says he has now been banned from performing in Poland for openly criticizing the West’s military meddling and calling for peace between Russia and Ukraine. Previously, the musician had written letters personally addressed to presidents Vladimir Putin, Zelensky and Joe Biden, calling for diplomatic talks to end the conflict, stating it is “the worst possible thing that can be happening,” due to the potential of an all-out nuclear war.

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??

Twitter Blue Was The Most Effective Anti-Capitalist Tool Ever (Blankenship)

If you’re anything like me then you hate billionaires. In fact, more than that, you also really, really hate the corporations that dominate our day-to-day life. The ongoing controversy surrounding social media platform Twitter, particularly its now-defunct ‘Blue’ paid verification scheme, is embarrassing the world’s richest man and causing large multinationals to lose tens of billions in market capitalization. At the end of October, billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk completed a $44-million deal to take over Twitter. He immediately cut thousands of jobs, including many in the communications department and from high-ranking positions in charge of trust and safety. Then Twitter Blue, a service that provides official verification for an $8-per-month fee, was rolled out. Chaos ensued after that and the service was suspended.

To be specific, tons of impersonators posed as prominent public figures. We saw the fake accounts of George W. Bush and Tony Blair lament that they miss killing Iraqis; meanwhile, someone pretending to be OJ Simpson admitted to murder. But what was more consequential was the fact that large brands were impersonated. For instance, an account claiming to be pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly & Co said the company was giving away free insulin and immediately plunged its stocks. An account supposedly representing Lockheed Martin also said it was halting weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, Israel and the US pending human-rights investigations. The weapons contractor also saw its stocks crater in response to these tweets.


The list goes on. Companies like Chiquita, American Girl, Roblox, BP and Tesla, as well as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) were impersonated by Twitter users and made controversial statements. These ranged from praising apartheid in Israel to saying that a fruit company had overthrown Brazil’s government. For its part, Twitter is in hot water over this situation. That’s obviously why it suspended its verification system, and, at the same time, Elon Musk has said the company could face bankruptcy in the near future. There’s no doubt that the social media platform has lost significant value since the Tesla CEO’s takeover, probably to the tune of several billion. The roll-out of Twitter Blue was a predictable disaster that posed serious challenges to advertisers, clearly, which is why they’ve bounced from the social media platform.

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“..if she loses, she is prepared to sue the living shit out of Maricopa County election officials and Katie Hobbs – whose position as AZ Secretary of State left her in charge of an election she ran in..”

The Aftermath and After That (Kunstler)

The stalling of election results also allows for wholesale correction of results that don’t come in as desired. At a certain threshold, the Marc Elias Lawfare-sponsored ballot-harvesting machinery kicks in and, voila, ten thousand or so mail-in ballots appear courtesy of, say, the Culinary Workers Union in Nevada, and … problem solved! The correct candidates win! My guess is that this happened in other select districts all over the USA. Will it be detected and looked into? Probably not. That would be election denial, a newly-taboo toxic reservoir of “disinformation.” Which is why the Arizona governor’s race, where the dynamic Kari Lake (R) ran against the inert and corrupt Katie Hobbs (D), is so interesting. Maricopa County, the second-largest election district in the USA, has dribbled out the results all week to make sure it looked like Ms. Lake was losing, while Democratic Party activists scrambled to generate more early mail-in ballots to make sure that Ms. Lake does lose, if at all possible.

Either way, it may not go down so easily. If she wins, Ms. Lake will do everything possible to reform the sketchy Arizona election laws; if she loses, she is prepared to sue the living shit out of Maricopa County election officials and Katie Hobbs — whose position as AZ Secretary of State left her in charge of an election she ran in, and all the janky machinery behind it. The post-election mood across America is labile and incendiary. So-called Red America, the opposition to Woke Jacobin tyranny, smolders in fury facing two more years of censorship, war-mongering, FBI-DOJ-IRS persecution, “vaccine” fuckery, economic breakdown, and the WEF-inspired killing-off of Western Civilization. Blue America, personified by the smugly sclerotic “Joe Biden,” ghoulishly salivates over the dying carcass of the country it intends to devour. Between the two factions there is no space for the normal operation of politics — the contest of ideas about running human affairs — especially with the public arena of speech and ideas in Woke lockdown.


Yet, other events look like they are out-pacing whatever the mood is on any side. So many crises are already underway threatening to upend everyday life that neither Red or Blue Americans will escape hardship and damage. The on-the-ground economy has imploded. Inflation is for-real and is crushing the country’s standard-of-living. Before long, it may shift into deflation, which means instead of having a lot of money losing value, you’ll have no money at all. Rising interest rates killed off the real estate part of the Everything Bubble, and the building, selling, and remodeling of houses has been the locus of the few remaining good-paying jobs. The car industry is dying under several forms of stress: steeply rising unit prices, a strapped middle-class, growing scarcity of capital for lending, broken supply lines for vehicle inventory and parts, and the insane “green” crusade to make all motoring electric. Even fixing things of value — existing houses, cars, machinery in general — becomes increasingly impossible when nobody can get replacement parts to work with.

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“..the party’s neglect in adapting to our new jungle of an election process.”

Roll Back ‘Election Month’ Or Learn To Take Advantage Of It (Fed.)

Republicans apparently learned very little from the 2020 election which turned voting and vote counting into a chaotic multi-week affair, all to the great advantage of Democrats. After finding their party blown out of the water by early votes and mail-in ballots, both vastly expanded to accommodate the pandemic hysteria, elected GOP leaders seem to have thought to themselves, “Well, better luck next time!” And here we are. In an election year that should have seen major gains for Republicans across the board, the party failed to take the Senate, could still (a week after Election Day) fail to secure the House, and is now on life support for the governorship in Arizona. There isn’t just one reason for the shortcomings but none are more important than the party’s neglect in adapting to our new jungle of an election process.

For the past two years, every Republican should have been either attempting to beat back the flood of “no excuse” mail-in ballots saturating swing states, or building up a party network that could adapt to it. There were some efforts to manage the mail-in voting problem in Arizona and Georgia but otherwise the party said its prayers and hoped for the best heading into the midterms. We see how that strategy turned out. Democrats once again turned on the ignition and their army of activists began knocking on doors and dialing up their reliable voters to be sure that every single one of them knew the time to vote was now. Whether it was three weeks or a month before actual Election Day, it didn’t matter. Now. In response, Republicans donned a toothy smile and told their voters to keep Tuesday open. Wait in line— no matter how long it takes.


True, Republicans tend to be a lot more motivated than Democrats to vote in a non-presidential campaign year. They’re happy to drive to the booth and wait their turn. But the new reality is that elections are happening for weeks before the designated day for official in-person voting. That’s a lot of time for dedicated activists to call or visit the homes of their voters, no matter how unmotivated they are, and tell them that they don’t have to wait at all. They can cast their ballot right now. Want me to do it for you?! Where is Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel on this? Where is National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Tom Emmer? Where is National Republican Senatorial Committee Chair Rick Scott? They’re the ones responsible for leading on these things but they did nothing.

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Let’s add another week to the counting…

‘Ballot Curing’ Might Cost Lauren Boebert Her Colorado Seat (Li)

Officials will not know the results for Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District until at least Thursday because of ballot curing and military and overseas ballots. Incumbent Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert leads Democrat Adam Frisch by about 1,100 votes, which is 0.3%. If it stays that way, they’ll get an automatic recount. What is ballot curing? From Newsweek: “Every year in Colorado, thousands of ballots are reportedly rejected for issues related to signature verification, like a missing signature or a discrepancy in the signature. Local officials then alert voters of the issue, giving them a week time to fix the problem and make their vote count. The process, which is done in 23 other state besides Colorado, is called “ballot curing.”


Frisch said the district has to count between 3,000 and 6,000 votes. However, some think there won’t be much of a change once all the ballots come in: Matt Crane, executive director of the County Clerks Association in Colorado, and says don’t expect a big change. “When a recount happens our experience here in Colorado is that this reflects that the original count was accurate,” he said. Still outstanding are military voters and Coloradoans overseas ballots, many of which may have already been counted. Crane explained, “Colorado has an electronic portal that’s direct to the Secretary of State’s office that allows people to vote electronically and send their votes back that way.”

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“We want all ballots counted by election night..”

Trump Announces 2024 Campaign: ‘We Have To Get Out Of This Ditch’ (JTN)

Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday evening announced that he would again seek the presidency in 2024, vowing to reverse the policies of his successor, Democrat Joe Biden. “We have to get out of this ditch,” he declared. “I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States,” Trump also said as he spent much of his 70-minute speech lamenting the state of the nation. “This isn’t a campaign,” he contended. “It’s a quest to save our country.” “The Washington establishment wants to silence us, but we will not let them do that,” he told a cheering crowd at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. “What we have built together over the past six years is the greatest movement in history because it is not about politics. It’s about our love for this great country, America, and we’re not going to let it fail.


“We have to get out of this ditch. And once we’re out, you’ll see things that nobody imagined for any country. It’s called the United States of America. And it’s an incredible place.” Trump vowed to impose the death penalty for drug traffickers and called for the elimination of early voting and a return to paper ballots. “We want all ballots counted by election night,” he declared. Throughout the speech, Trump touted his own successes during his time in office, including negotiating the Abraham Accords between Israel and Arab nations, effectively eliminating the Islamic State terror group and achieving American energy independence. “I am running because I believe the world has not yet seen the peak of what this nation can be,” he said. “We have not reached that pinnacle.”

Trump ad
https://twitter.com/i/status/1592738013309972480

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DeSantis

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rhino
https://twitter.com/i/status/1592536293762019328

 

 


Whilst out snorkelling one afternoon in Jervis Bay, photographer Jordan Robins stumbled across this common stingaree slowly hovering above the shallow sand flats. He managed to take this amazing photo where you can see above and below the water.

 

 

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle November 16 2022

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 54 total)
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  • #121112

    Rembrandt van Rijn Self portrait with Saskia 1636   • Russia, India, China, Iran: The Quad That Really Matters (Escobar) • China Embraces Multipo
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle November 16 2022]

    #121113
    Germ
    Participant
    #121114
    Formerly T-Bear
    Participant

    A week plus and still counting? There must be a considerable fraction of the population that does not remember there was one at this point.

    #121115
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “Arizona Has Finished Counting and Calvin Coolidge Is President!” — BBee

    #121116
    Dr. D
    Participant

    So let’s trade Portland for Przewodów, who’s down? Can we get a nuke on?

    So they’ve already settled this down going to Article 4. Really? That stands out. What is Article 4? That they f-ing ask some questions and find things out? Wow. So for these guys you have to take the obvious: “Keep Breathing”, and make a whole legal chapter out of it. So Poland, instead of pushing the button first asked what happened.

    And that makes sense. The media – being illiterate, glue-sniffing pin heads – started baying at the moon in unison saying “This activates Article 5! This activates Article 5!” No. If a Russian lorry hits a Turkish housewife in Hamburg, is that an “attack”? An act of war? No? Why not? Because we say so?

    No. Article 5 has to be INVOKED. It’s not automatic. And since it is likely to mobilize war, all the OTHER countries have to AGREE and join in. That is, they have to feel it’s legitimate enough to sell it to their people. And as the case of trading Portland for Przewodów, what happens if they don’t? What happens if Poland activates Article 5 and the U.S. won’t come? Or leaves NATO? Whaddya gonna do? Make us?

    Use your head for a second. That’s what it’s there for. But journalists don’t have brains, that’s why they were hired. They just have big mouths.

    Meanwhile, in Texas: ““Invasion Clause” Triggered In Texas As Migrants Overwhelm Border”

    I say activate Article 5. We ARE being invaded, right? Make Poland come over to Lubbock and spend their jeeps and diesel helping out. No? Why not?

    Kevin O’Leary, “Crypto Bottom is in.”

    Oh boy. You want to make a bet on that? And right after you just blew some millions losing on FTX, the greatest, most transparent scam in my lifetime. Way past Enron and Madoff combined.

    “Half the world’s GDP.” Why pick these areas? You could probably pick quite similar ones. They seem to be the financial trading centers.

    Also overlay with the “Half the world’s population” maps. Not very similar.

    “Russia, India, China, Iran: The Quad that Really Matters (Escobar)”

    Maybe. But they’re not that big yet and these things take time. Since it’s their job to attack anyone out of line, after directly attacking Germany, Turkey says they’ve also been attacked by the United States of Terrorism. That’s pretty salty, unusually direct, and opens a new Overton that wasn’t there before. Also Turkey is NATO, and Turkey is Europe. So we attack ourselves now? Hail NATO! But we already did, obviously, so this is just normalizing it. “Join NATO, and we’ll attack ourselves! Free bombings on Sundays!”

    Remember: they shut down our base there that was shipping all the C-130s of heroin out of Afghanistan…and worse. We removed our nukes, but they have the evidence on us to use when they want.

    “to attack China, by emboldening Taiwan, first Russia must be weakened, via the instrumentalization (and destruction) of Ukraine.”

    Tricky tricky. By telling everyone on earth, so everyone on earth knows. Kind of like when they said “Ukraine: you look bad. Pretend you’re doing peace talks but not really!” Um, you seem to think it’s clever to say the secret part out loud? Did you forget you’re not on a video game chat? The NPCs CAN hear, you know.

    “And all along the scenario, Europe simply has no agency.”

    You are kidding, right? So Washington does exactly and only what the WEF/Davos tells them to. Down to the letter. Against 70% of their citizens. But WEF/Davos – that is Europe – has no agency and it’s the U.S. that’s in control. Suuuuuure it is. If you mistake the servant for the master.

    How about “There’s two big clubs, and you’re not in either of them”? That WEF club of “Progressives” is supra-national, both coordinating lockstep internationally as with Covid, AND being in high opposition to their own people internationally… as with Covid. So they cannot be said to be the “States”, “Countries”, “Peoples” or “Governments” at all.

    The “United States” isn’t directing it. And “Europe” in this context has no meaning. WHO in Europe? The people? They oppose all of this. You mean Russia, which is “Europe”? Obviously not. I don’t think you mean Monaco or Montenegro. So WHO?

    This sloppy thinking will kill us all and give the bad actors a free pass. For the love of God, engage thinking.

    Anyway, the Master Plan of the glue-sniffers is to cut off Russia so they can attack China at leisure who then has no allies. And then they TELL them, and expect and are surprised China won’t abandon Russia. I’ve run out of words to describe this, because my words are “logical”. Okay then: tell them you’ll nuke Beijing one minute after Russia falls, then act surprised China don’t help Russia to fall.

    “ France’s Macron Urges More Chinese Pressure to End Ukraine War (AlA)”

    He then added, “As soon as the Ukraine war ends, we will all nuke Beijing”

    “Biden Unveils $37BN More in Emergency Ukraine Aid (ZH)”.

    Doesn’t this suggest they must have an FTX II somewhere? The whole PURPOSE goes like this: Actually Biden can’t print money. Even Congress can’t print money. The money is printed by the FED to cover the national debt.

    1) There is runaway interest compounding, making each month’s number twice the previous month.
    2) The Fed is TIGHTENING, not loosening as Europe demanded. This is primarily crushing Davos banks and the WEF mafia.
    3) Biden, as a paid employee of Davos, MUST create money to stop the debt-compounding explosion that will strike Europe first.
    4) Therefore, the only debt large enough, that he can put into action soon enough, seems to be “The Latest Thing”, the Iraqi Libyan Syrian Somali Ukraine war.
    5) The Fed must and does monetize this, at least so far.
    6) Debt compounding still increases tomorrow, and the enormous pressure on Europe, and Biden’s masters, continues without end, but also without collapse.

    So notice when we started, what was the size? Well, it was $50B from March to October, let’s say 6 months. Now they need another $40B in only one month. Yup, sounds like they’re collapsing.

    Then what? $100B by January? $300B total into “Ukraine” by February? Then what? $700B, $1.4Trillion by April?

    And the U.S. is going to give $1.5 Trillion to Ukraine, while it’s losing, there’s no water in Michigan and Arizona, there’s no heating oil, all the bridges are collapsing, and there’s 2 million homeless encampments from Tijuana to Vancouver? Okay: you go with that.

    “Ukraine is a hybrid war, in which Russia is essentially facing Western nations,”

    And Russia, with a GDP of Italy, has to face off against 20 nations combined. Gee, I guess they’d have to be very slow and careful then. Damn them! I want excitement! I want my nightly news!

    “The US wants to weaken and destroy Russia, and is using Ukraine as a “battering ram” to achieve that goal, the secretary of Russia’s national Security Council has warned.”

    What? So cray-cray. Just because he’s quoting Brzezinski, and U.S. public policy statements for 30 years. Yes, but it’s not crazy when Brzezinski says it. Me = Good. You = Bad. Any questions?

    “ Conflict in Ukraine Best Thing to Happen to US in 10 Years – Roger Waters (RT)”

    So says Assange, just before he was locked up. They don’t want the war to end. They don’t want it to increase. They need it to go on forever at just the right size so they can launder money back to the United States. (Using FTX)

    Washington allowed to happen because it was beneficial to American interests.”

    So goes the “America wot dun it” theory. However, it is beneficial to WEF interests, and NOT beneficial to “American” interests, as the people are screwed whiter than ever, and are even MORE restive against their government while owning 400 million guns. That does not sound to me like “America” is winning. It sounds like an ever-smaller cadre is circling the wagons even against their own oligarchs, possibly even the ones on Wall St that own the Fed. Fairfax/Lockheed may be powerful, but they’re not THAT powerful.

    And what is this, 1954? We need Roger Waters and Bob Dylan to tell us the obvious because not a single journalist will? “Commission on Un-American Activities” “Better Dead than Red.”

    “an account claiming to be pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly & Co said the company was giving away free insulin and immediately plunged its stocks. An account supposedly representing Lockheed Martin also said it was halting weapons sales to Saudi Arabia,”

    Man, I love this. Nothing could be better. There’s no better way to pop the bubble of “Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet, people!!!” If only they could do this every day, people might kick-start into thinking for themselves.

    As far as I can tell, changing your visible name is a core programming element from way back and as part of the foundation, it’s not easily changed. Just no one had bothered to exploit it before. This is FABULOUS sales pitch for Elon’s new, ACTUAL verified accounts, and he’s certain to get perfect buy-in from all of them, Eli and Lockheed included.

    There’s no doubt that the social media platform has lost significant value since the Tesla CEO’s takeover, probably to the tune of several billion.”

    Really? Prove it. The company is de-listed and has no stock price. Have you made an offer to the board they rejected? What do you base your value on? “I’m a reporter, and never dun no finance, but ‘cause I said so and wrote it down here, in my iPhone. P R I N T !!!” …Just like USA Today’s 200 false stories, no editors, no oversight.

    No, it probably did, but my point is valid. And? That’s why he took it Private, people! Because it was going to need a lot of work that would cost in the short-term. This is the PLAN. This is foreign to glue sniffers who can’t think ahead of the next page in their coloring book.

    “Republicans apparently learned very little from the 2020 election which turned voting and vote counting into a chaotic multi-week affair,”

    Well people like Tim Pool said “Don’t talk about election fraud!” It’s not a winning sales, it sounds like sour grapes. Um, if you don’t look into election fraud, you don’t have “elections”. You have only “Fraud”. You HAVE to look into it. But they didn’t, so here we are. We just keep counting through 100% of voters, then 105%, then 110%, until the Blue wins. Then we stop counting.

    (Not kidding. There were 140M registered voters in 2020. 70M voted for Trump. And 80? Million? Then voted for Biden??? Explain? Nevermind – that’s math and we don’t do that. It’s not cheating when we do it! Least popular President of all time got the most possible votes of all time: That’s just common sense.)

    In addition, if Republicans like-kind cheated to win, the wholly-owned Davos media would report only GOP fraud, and both undercut the elections, AND possibly Federalize them. No, this is the right approach.

    “‘Ballot Curing’ Might Cost Lauren Boebert Her Colorado Seat (Li)”

    We count until all Democrats win. Then we stop counting.

    Don’t worry: this story is still ongoing, and has an end. It’s WWE. And Trump – DeSantis is the latest “Royal Rumble”. This is all a big show. It’s just a “Narrative”. And one I’m pretty sick of waking up to every morning. I was already sick of it in the 90s, when they were bombing aspirin factories and verticalizing the media into 6 companies while defying the Constitution on rapacious Student Loans and selling our Sandia Defense Labs to China and bombing the streets of Panama. Yes, pretty sick of it, but I guess that’s what it takes.

    #121117
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Pic

    #121118
    Red
    Participant

    Germ, I think they have it all figured out, it’s a new line of misinformation:

    What If COVID Reinfections Wear Down Our Immunity?

    Nearly three years into the pandemic, it’s clear early expectations about the behaviour of the coronavirus and its toll on our bodies have proven overly optimistic.

    Recall those early days when experts broadly assumed that once we’d withstood an infection our immune systems would adjust and fully resist another reinfection.

    And then hopes rose that mass vaccination would provide the path out of the pandemic. Although vaccines did reduce deaths and hospitalizations, the effort failed to produce herd immunity.

    But researchers saw further promise in what they called hybrid immunity: people who had been infected with COVID and then received mRNA vaccines would, it was assumed, develop a formidable protection through raised levels of antibodies (proteins made by the immune system to battle infection).

    However variants emerged, capable of evading those antibodies. Many people who had been vaccinated or already had endured a bout of COVID were experiencing “breakthrough infections.” What could put the brakes on this ever-evolving virus, which can kill, damage organs and linger for months?

    The answer from many scientists has been T cells — our bodies’ line of immune defence after antibodies. T cells can spot and attack viruses and even remember previous invaders. As virologist Vincent Racaniello titled one of his articles: “T cells will save us from COVID-19.”

    But what if COVID wears down T cells in people who get it, and does so increasingly with each reinfection?

    More:
    https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2022/11/07/COVID-Reinfections-And-Immunity/

    #121119
    oxymoron
    Participant

    Dr D. Thank you for yesterday. I loved what you wrote and read it aloud to a few carpenters at lunch who admittedly couldn’t sustain the attention but cracked up at the actual/story chickens and the abstraction of Christmas. People who actually own chickens and get warm animal blood on their arms when they slaughter their goats and cut their hands making things are more inclined to get your humour and insights than my old friends from Melbourne who see it as irony not tragedy.

    Meanwhile in other news the US military funded and puppeteered by ‘The Owners’ is still killing people not just in Ukraine BUT IN EVERY COUNTRY ON EARTH.

    I know we can get a little taken by the short attention span nature of a hot war but there is a very large and slow broad scale killing going down and I can’t even believe it.

    Wine and Valium tonight.

    #121120
    oxymoron
    Participant
    #121121
    John Day
    Participant

    “World-3 War” is not a typo. Picture of lovely little stalk of growing Namwah bananas at face-level.
    https://thenextwavefutures.files.wordpress.com/2021/08/img_1725.jpg

    People have various thoughts about there being so many people on earth, and exceeding the long-term carrying capacity for humans.
    Nobody wants to volunteer to die.
    Some people put the question off by claiming that it is not a real problem for one reason or another. There are support groups for these various non-problem scenario beliefs.
    Some people find group-support around picking one particular threat, such as global-warming, and working on that to the exclusion of other threats, such as running out of diesel fuel for the trains and trucks that bring us our food, or heating fuel, or electricity.

    Some people put their efforts towards global population reduction. Bill Gates advocated for that as early as the late 1990s, and liked vaccines as a means of fertility reduction in the early 2000s, along with social improvements like education for women, modern careers and good health care for children.

    A common meme is that we humans have been bad and dirty, and should be ashamed for what we have done to the earth.
    The upshot of that usually seems to be that we should buy solar-panels, a Prius or a Tesla, so I suspect such shaming is a form of niche-marketing.

    People personify Earth, Gaia, as our mother, and I like that, but then they feel like we are more powerful than Mom and are hurting her.
    I see that, but Mom has been around so much longer than we can begin to fathom, and has been through so much catastrophic destruction, yet Mom has still given rise to more and more forms of life, including us. We have not been here very long, and we just hit adolescence. We are driving sports cars, playing with guns and we keep playing with fire. Mom probably hopes that we will grow up, start gardening, and stop breaking so much stuff, but we show plenty of promise.

    It is possible that Mom/Gaia finds adult humans seeking Divine guidance to be even more useful in her grand adaptations of planetary life. I think she provides guidance to those most receptive to it. Noah presents an archetypal example of an adult human who was extremely attuned to this kind of guidance.
    Divine guidance from benevolent Gaia, or “God” could improve human survival odds against predation by our elite owners. (I’ll refer to our elite owner-class as “Homo obliterans”, if I may.) We may also read about animals fleeing to high ground when the waves suck out of the bay before a tsunami, while humans gawk. Mom could help us in those situations, too.

    Is it bad that humans have brought fossil carbon and fossil water to the planetary surface? It might be a good thing, long term. A little too early to judge yet.
    Some humans are capable of stewardship of life, as gardeners or diversified farmers. What if life-stewards preferentially survive a big cull by the owners, or a meteor strike, or a recurring micronova, ice age or flood?

    Svet sent an academic update from Gaya Herrington, which puts fresh data into the updated version of the World-3 computer model, used in the 1972 Limits To Growth projections. Those projected graphic representations of how human industrial society might hit planetary limits in time. Limits of oil were already apparent in 1972. Pollution building up was also a big and obvious problem. The most recent update of The Limits To Growth was the 30 year update.
    To compliment Gaya Harrington’s paper, a PDF, I found this article about the paper from last year, so I can copy the graphs: https://www.resilience.org/stories/2021-08-16/revisiting-the-limits-to-growth/

    BAU is the famous “Business As Usual” graph from 1972. It has tracked our unfolding reality pretty well over the years, though births and deaths were both down a bit from projections. The resulting human population has been quite close to projections. My read of that graph has always been that industrial output looked like it peaked just before 2020. I personally think industrial output peaked in late 2018, and that made for problems in the world of finance.
    BAU2 is the answer to, “What if there is really a lot more oil, gas and coal?” “Business As Usual-2” doubles the fossil fuel estimated to exist. This projection starts to diverge from BAU right around 2020, when one looks at industrial output and pollution. Pollution rises and rises in this scenario. Population rises another decade before falling, but falls harder, and is lower by 2100 than in BAU. Double the oil lets the game go for 10 more years before it crashes, but it crashes worse in a more polluted world.
    SW is “Stabilized World”, a world where people across the world, rich and poor alike, cooperate to use less energy, make less plastic and waste, reduce family sizes and harmonize human needs with the needs of our Mother Planet. This model does not track the reality, which we are living. We’re not doing that yet.
    CT is “Comprehensive Technology” scenario. This model assumes both the doubling of fossil fuels and the use of technology to decrease industrial damage to the planetary ecosphere. It is sort of like getting twice as much fuel and a bit more time to accomplish SW, a second chance, using technology, not altruism.
    World-3 projections

    #121122
    John Day
    Participant

    BAU and BAU2 start to diverge around 2020. Why? It is the decline in fossil-fuel availability, assumed in BAU, right?
    CT, the high-tech-solution world, also assumes double the resources, which is the BAU2 assumption, so those two, assuming double the oil/gas look very much alike until after 2030 when the pollution in BAU2 becomes more extreme.
    BAU2 and CT looked more like the current state of affairs than did BAU in 2020 quite possibly because fracking pushed the decline of oil and gas a little bit farther out than was projected in 1972. In 2014 the original BAU model was still tracking reality best.
    Both BAU2 and CT assume double the resources estimated in 1972 for BAU. Since oil is the rate-limiting resource, it has the most effect as it declines.
    The assumption of more-fuel wouldn’t cause divergence of BAU2 and CT projections from BAU until the oil and gas start to decline.

    I think oil+natural-gas-liquids are now in terminal-decline, and the observed measurements might well fall between BAU and BAU2 in the next few years.
    The fact that fracking technology got more oil out of some declining field quickly, and is an expensive means of extraction, may mean that a few years of future oil were pulled-forward. That would cause the decline of both industrial output and food production to be more rapid. Human population would decline sooner and more rapidly, as a result.

    “Homo obliterans” is aware of these projected trends, but has other means of modifying them, other scenarios not presented here, such as drastic-population-reduction. Drastic-Population-Reduction is the specialty of our Homo obliterans elites.
    After decades of considering why we have sociopathic elites in the world, I believe that the reduction of human population during the overshoot of environmental carrying capacity for our species is the useful worldly function of Homo obliterans. Homo obliterans is the Apex-Predator’s-Apex-Predator.
    I also postulate that there is an existing subset of humans, members of humanity who are helpfully guided by Gaia/Divinity, who I’ll call Homo sapiens(+). Perhaps Homo sapiens(+) can steward a world which will no longer require the services of Homo obliterans. Homo sapiens(+) might make Homo obliterans redundant.
    Homo obliterans is notably impervious to spiritual guidance, and might fare poorly in an unforeseen catastrophe, compared to forewarned Homo sapiens(+).
    Homo obliterans working-groups might be preferentially predated by other Homo obliterans working-groups. Homo sapiens(+) are typically non-threatening.
    The improved survival of Homo sapiens(+) might be an important factor after a Selection-Event, but there is no reason to believe that Homo sapiens(+) would breed-true. All human subtypes would still be present during and after a selection-event. Selection events might last centuries or longer, like ice-ages. The mixture of learned and inherited traits in society could change over time. Human culture adapts, not just genetically, but also through “memes”, useful patterns of thinking, living and socializing. Memes are passed down as customs, concepts and values.

    There may be a rapid reduction of the total human population in this decade. I think Homo obliterans have made arrangements for population-reduction to take place through means such as bioweapons, famine, and impairment of industrial life-support systems through war.

    The WEF has a project to control human behavior through “owning nothing” and “being happy” with smartphones, brain-implants, electronic currency and social credit scoring to tightly constrain human behavior, not leaving anything to guesswork. It looks like they are aiming for CT “comprehensive” technology world.
    Some unmodified Homo obliterans would presumably still be in place to oversee the human population and make important decisions. They would still need to fly to meetings and nature preserves in private jets. The core capabilities of industrial economy would also need to remain intact, though reductions in output would be acceptable. Industry would primarily serve the owners, their essential human functionaries and technicians.
    It looks as if the rapid reduction of population in the 2020s could compensate for the reduction of available oil. Both reductions would contribute to falls in projected pollution, compared to BAU2. The fall in human population would obviate the requirement to invest more in cleaner industrial technology, a cost-saving for the owners. It looks like CT is the WEF-preferred model.
    I personally don’t think there is enough oil to run this scenario as depicted. Making people into cyborgs is a dead-end for our species. Hello Monsanto!

    There are competing models, which we can also evaluate through The Limits To Growth. I am not sure of the Russian model. It is either a private secret, or it is what is publicized as the multipolar-world model of trade. Pollution is not much addressed, however fake plans to reduce pollution could be even worse.

    Deng Xiaopeng, the modern visionary leader of 21st Century China, who somehow survived the Cultural Revolution, was very much inspired by The Limits To Growth, as I have read more than once. He set out a course for the rapid industrialization and modernization of China within the time-envelope remaining in the BAU projections regarding industrial production output and resource availability. Deng’s goals for China appear to have been achieved.
    Xi Jinping seems similarly practical, though his task does not require as radical a change in national trajectory.
    Inside China, something like the centralized electronic control of each individual’s human economy is already in place. China also allows for an entrepreneurial business model. Some humans must take initiative to accomplish economic expansion. Outside China, a multipolar-world of trade and transit is envisioned.
    Human-rights issues will be compartmentalized locally, within nation-states, which are sovereign.

    What might be gained through the multipolar-world model is better economic efficiency of fossil fuel use. We can expect the relative decline of the most carbon intensive economies of the collective west, and the growth of poorer economies, such as India and Cambodia, where baseline use of oil per capita is lower. Coal, though dirty and polluting, will probably be used until it is no longer economically accessible. Those societies which burn coal will have an economic advantage over those which do not. Coal is used to produce concrete, steel and electricity.
    The increased fuel efficiency gained by the decline of the most fuel-intensive economies may trend towards the SW “stabilized world” projections, but with more pollution. The cost of reducing pollution must necessarily be borne by reducing the expenditures in production of food, goods and services per-capita.

    Reduction of population faster than assumed in any of these pre-COVID models, and a fuel-starvation of western European economies, seem to have begun. There is still time for negotiation, but that time is slipping away.

    North American economy is even more carbon intensive, but North America is militarily powerful, harder to control, and has substantial oil, gas and coal.
    The progressive economic destruction of North America has been foreseen by many. North American industry has long languished for lack of investment, which went to China instead. There are groups within North America which would like to restore North American industry.
    It is apparent that North America will have a lower fossil-energy budget going forward, but how low remains to be seen. A real oil shortage may occur in 2023, as has been predicted for over a year.

    One of the principal assumptions of the World-3 model has been that the availability of things like fuel, water and industrial capacity, matters more than economic models. It is as if economic models provide stories about “reality” which we tell each other, but they are far less deterministic than we imagine.
    I do not imagine that liquid-fuels which can be accessed by an economy will not be accessed. They may run a train or truck, or they may become plastic packaging or devices. Coal will be used to make concrete, steel and electricity.

    Though it is more important for effective group function to have social cohesion than truth, it is possible to have both “the truth” and social cohesion.
    It is possible to have leaders who are truthful, good leaders, and also spiritual-seekers, but these “philosopher-kings” are exceedingly rare.
    Maybe “Mom” has some in mind. One can hope.
    Meanwhile, we have lots of basic prepping for our food, water, fuel and family-group needs.

    #121125
    aspnaz
    Participant

    The US wants to weaken and destroy Russia, and is using Ukraine as a “battering ram” to achieve that goal, the secretary of Russia’s national Security Council has warned.

    Nuclear war is in the hands of the Americans. Russia will nuke America if it feels it has to to survive and it appears that the people making that decision think it is only a matter of time, as America is trying to remove Russia from the planet, something that we know will result in nuclear war. I wonder how much carbon will be emitted during that war, maybe a century of industrialisation? Yet the green activist retards and the “please vaccinate me” retards’ actions show that they want it to happen. Our fellow citizens want to die and are encouraging America to kill us. They don’t care about the people who want to keep living.

    #121126
    aspnaz
    Participant

    DESANTIS RESPONDS TO TRUMP

    I really hope that DeSantis competes with Trump, that will finally put an end to the USA. The Democrats are trying to kill the USA and neither Trump or DeSantis are prepared to prioritise their country over their own personal ambitions …. classic American. It will be the USA’s Liz Truss moment.

    #121127
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @aspnaz “They don’t care about the people who want to keep living.”

    And so the key question becomes, “Why ?”

    I do not mean that facetiously or trivially. I mean it earnestly and sincerely. WHY do so many of our fellow citizens want to die at the hands of others? And WHY are so many of those others intent upon crushing the spirit of those who want to live?

    These are not unanswerable questions. They are merely unconfrontable in the starkly tragic error which must be confronted in order to answer them.

    #121128
    Oroboros
    Participant

    There’s Bitcoin and then everything else is Shitcoin.

    Always has been from the very start.

    Bitcoin is the only real cyrpto, every other scheme is an impersonation in the service of a scamcoin or a ‘central bank digital currency’ totalitarian ‘control grid coin’ which is the wet dream of all utterly broke destitute central banks across the global.

    Bitcoin is the antithesis of centralized control.

    That’s why blood drinking satanist oligarchies world wide want to co-opt it with Shitcoin fakes, to hustle the Sheeple into central bank digital concentration campcoins.

    Sweet Dreams

    Primate of the Day©

    The handsome charismatic Javan Langur, dig those sideburns!

    And the product of yes, you guessed it, only two genders!

    .

    #121129
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    God has not forsaken us. Quite the contrary. He is honoring his promise of our true sovereignty. Rather it is us who have chosen, of our own free will, to act in ways that are destructive (even willfully evil) which might very well kill us, and certainly do cause immeasurable pain and grief in any case. Because we are truly sovereign, and because we do have real and actual free will, we can choose to be wrong and because God has granted us true sovereignty He will let us do it.

    As God is the Creator and ultimate proprietor of the Universe, for that Universe to exist for us He must willingly experiences every single bit of every intolerable agony that we inflict upon ourselves and others. So if you’ve any doubt that God loves you, consider what He voluntarily endures in order for you to have life.

    #121130
    Oroboros
    Participant

    German soldiers mistakenly issued uniforms with ‘SS’ labels

    Über Alles peeking it’s pointy little head above the parapets again!

    https://nypost.com/2022/11/15/german-soldiers-mistakenly-issued-uniforms-labeled-ss/

    .

    #121131
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    ‘ There is still time for negotiation, but that time is slipping away’

    Russian leadership repeatedly made the mistake of thinking that it was possible to negotiate a peaceful settlement to conflicts over resources. But now Russian leadership fully understands that it is not possible to negotiate anything with compulsive liars, deceitful thieves and manipulators, psychotic fascists or the fake governments of NATOstan nations.

    China ditto.

    Ditto most of the rest of the world.

    The bottles of blackcurrant juice that were $3.90 in the early months of 2020, and which went to $4.50 several months ago, were $5.80 this week. Stopped buying it of course. Ditto many other items I used to consume.

    But ‘inflation has peaked’ and we are all on track for a ‘better, brighter future’.

    Could it be that the ‘better, brighter future’ is centred on complete near=complete de-industiralisation and population reduction via toxic jabs (and hence clearer air and more sunlight reaching the habitable zone, as per the Himalayas becoming visible for the first time in decades during the height of the lockdowns in India)?

    Or maybe the ‘better, brighter future’ refers to the coalition of the non-willing destroying the centres of corruption and lies that comprise NATOstan governments and some sane economic policies being implemented.

    I know for sure that I cannot believe a single word from the Scorpion or the professional liars that comprise the local council any more than I can believe a single word uttered by the stumbling, bumbling teleprompter reader whose obvious criminal activities go back many decades to when he first entered the Amercian political scene.

    How far back do we have to go to find a US president that had any credibility?

    1963? The one that the gang killed.

    When was there a US president who had total credibility because he was not at all controlled by the international banksters?

    1842, I believe. Andrew Jackson. He described the banksters as a ‘pit of vipers’, ad did his best to destroy their power over the government and the people.

    The bansters did their best to kill him.

    Please correct me if I am wrong about any of the above.

    #121132
    Oroboros
    Participant

    “And Russia, with a GDP of Italy, has to face off against 20 nations combined…”

    The Empire of Lies Military Industrial Mafia has OPTIMIZED it’s weapons designs to MAXIMIZE profit.

    The Russian Military Real Actual Industrial Complex has OPTIMIZED it’s weapons for effectiveness to MAXIMIZE actual national security

    This begets the fact that Empire of Lies weapons are not only fragile, over designed ‘Ferraris’ that can’t stand real battlefield conditions, but they cost ten to twenty times as much as their Russian counter part.

    Example:

    One HIMAR round costs around $100,000 EACH.

    That’s 100K for a single artillery-rocket round.

    Which by the way, now gets shot down 90+ percent of the time by Russia air defenses.

    Also some utterly corrupt Ukronazi actually sold Russia a perfect intact unused HIMAR round so the clever Russkis can desect it to yield it’s secrets.

    Hahahahaha!

    In the early part of the SMO, Russia was firing 70,000 artillery-rocket rounds a day.

    With the 300K+ reserves coming on board shortly, that will go up to probably 250,000 artillery-rocket rounds A DAY.

    Granted they were not all as long distance as a HIMAR round, but quantity has it’s own unique quality.

    Russia has the INDUSTRIAL BASE to sustain that level of munitions.

    The Empire of Lies DOES NOT.

    Period.

    And the drones bombing the destroying the Ukronazi electric grid, the flying weed whackers that have no heat signature making them super hard to detect and intercept, about $20,000 each.

    So 5 suicide drones hitting your electric transformers for one 100K HIMAR that gets intercepted more often than not.

    Do the math, wars of attrition have a lot of math.

    #121133
    John Day
    Participant

    D Benton Smith said:
    “As God is the Creator and ultimate proprietor of the Universe, for that Universe to exist for us He must willingly experiences every single bit of every intolerable agony that we inflict upon ourselves and others.”

    There is not an agreed logical framework that allows this to be proven, (jb-hb and Polemos did not yet find common-ground) however this is how I sense it to be.
    When I suffer, I am bringing that suffering into the direct experience of “God”, likewise when I seek to reduce any suffering in any conscience being.

    #121134
    John Day
    Participant

    AFKTT said:
    “Russian leadership repeatedly made the mistake of thinking that it was possible to negotiate a peaceful settlement to conflicts over resources. But now Russian leadership fully understands that it is not possible to negotiate anything with compulsive liars, deceitful thieves and manipulators, psychotic fascists or the fake governments of NATOstan nations.”

    It’s completely possible that Russia is building her brand by remaining faithful to agreements despite the unfaithfulness of the collective-west. This is an expense of war, investing in a long-term goal.
    It’s bound to be an ongoing strategy, and it seems to be working.
    “Trust” is the core of any working economic/financial system, innit?

    #121135
    Oroboros
    Participant

    @ John Day

    The Russians have always played the ‘long game’ and do it very well.

    In 1812, with Napoleon at the gates of Moscow, Russian General Mikhail Kutuzov said,

    “The French will be eating horse meat soon…”

    The Grande Armée numbered about 685,000 troops at the start of the Russian Campaign, including 400,000 from France.

    It was the largest army ever known to have been assembled until that point in the history of warfare.

    Napoleon lost all but about 20,000 men in 3 months. (665,000 men lost)

    A Curious Tale: The Tin Pest

    “The bonding structure of Tin atoms begins to change when temperatures drop below ten degrees Celsius (10°C) and Tin was the major metal used to make the buttons on the French army’s uniforms. As the severe Russian temperatures approached minus 30 degrees Celsius (-30°C), the buttons have crumbled into dust.”

    As the French army’s tin buttons and uniform clips disintegrated, they couldn’t keep their coats closed in the -30 degree Russian winter. Bad idea.

    The other point to the long game is that the Russian MoD does not really lie or exaggerate stats because if they are false later on they lost vital credibility. They do ‘lie’ by omission sometimes, not saying certain things, but the stuff they do say is for the long game of street cred.

    They don’t tell you their strategy ahead of time like the dipshit Collective West does.

    Natotardistan has only one play, no reverse gear, always doubles down.

    Very predictable, a fatal flaw in warfare

    Nazilensky by Febuary

    .

    #121136
    zerosum
    Participant

    Trump forced you to look/inspect “Democracy/freedom/rule of law”
    Putin is your excuse to do a “house cleaning” and restock with a “new modern wardrobe”.
    ————
    Best story.
    Friendly Fire.

    There are cameras everywhere. There are no secrets. There are only lies.

    1. A plane over Poland fired two s-300.
    2. The s-300 misfired. One fell on a cart behind a farm tractor. The other fell on a silo on a farm and killed a man and a woman.

    • Findings Suggest Missile That Hit Poland Was Fired By Ukrainian Forces (AP)
    • Biden Suggests Russia Not Behind Poland ‘Missile Strike’ (RT)
    —————
    FTX –
    Priority Welfare Program for Ukraine poor and homeless

    ———-
    Declaring Lotto Winners – instantaneous and reliable
    Voting/Ballot counting – questionable

    ———–

    #121137
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    Remember how there was a big push in Europe to get people out of petrol-powered vehicles and into diesel-powered vehicles? The theory was, Europe was going to generate humungous quantities of ‘renewable’ diesel.
    You know, using food to power motor vehicles.

    Irrespective of that particular fairly recent lunacy, diesel is the life blood of all industrial economies.

    What happens when the price rises spectacularly, or diesel becomes unobtainable?

    Oops:

    (I know; the IEA has little credibility.) But the IEA doesn’t get everything wrong)

    #121138

    Revisionism 2022:

    “It doesn’t matter to Germany whose rocket fell in Poland, in any case, Russia is to blame, because it attacked Ukraine” – Olaf Scholz

    Sounds like an Alec Baldwin defense move.

    #121139
    kultsommer
    Participant

    @oroboros
    Kinda, McIntosh apple is the only real apple.
    For the n-th time: how crypto-anything is compatible with dire energy predicament that we are facing and already openly discussing about?
    On the other hand: observing, in amazement, how the West “discovered” Russia for what it is, in last eight months.

    #121143
    oldandtired
    Participant

    2016: Trump’s 5 billion dollar border wall too expensive. Would need cuts to be made to budget. Programs would suffer.
    Wall not in America’s best interest. Not who we are.

    2022: in just 9 months Congress authorizes 100 billion dollars of US aid to country no one had hear of in 2016. Aid vital to US security interests. Country located on another continent, thousands of miles away.

    OK. I give up. Somebody tell me just who we are then.

    #121144
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Erdoğan just gave a press conference after talking to Scholz, the sulky sausage, and said Olaf told him it was a Ukronazi S-300 that hit Poland, mums the word, keep this under your hat.

    Hahahaha

    Another Polish joke played by Ukronazi grade schoolers.

    .

    #121145
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    Always keep in mind that the so-called “foreign aid” 100 $Billion to Ukraine was actually 10 $Billion to Ukraine’s mob and 90 $Billion to our own Military Industrial complex (which is more far-flung and diverse in goods & services than you imagine). That money goes to places like Departments of Agriculture, Education and even Social Services, all of whom have 10 or 20 percent of their funding earmarked for “Defense” purposes. It’s really nothing more than a system of money funneling and has
    fuck-all to do with the Defense of anything other than the recipients personal wealth.

    But even that sort of hidden under the table carte blanche bribe pumping is not sufficient when one is tasked with sending exponentially increasing MORE money, faster, with each passing year. Eventually it drives them to transparently irremediable criminal scams like FTX and vaccines induced pandemics. Yet even those are soon not sufficient to feed the maw of exponential increase. Eventually the amount of fresh money that the pump demands hits infinity, the consequence of which suggests that even infinity has it’s limits.

    We are there. The financial endgame is now happening, so fast that I’m tempted to say “Don’t blink or you might miss it!” , except there ain’t NOBODY gonna miss the collapse over the next 6 or 8 weeks of everything that operationally depends on funny money.

    And don’t worry about missing the bottom, because the bottom is precisely zero for “pseudo dollars” which exist only as entries in accounting books/data bases. Paper and coin will last much longer, but who’s got any of those?

    #121146
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    People are being compelled to know what they already knew but don’t want to know.

    #121147
    Dr D Rich
    Participant

    Orobos: There’s Bitcoin and then everything else is Shitcoin.
    Always has been from the very start.”

    You may be right, but NSA’s The Shadow Group doesn’t agree with that assessment and acted on NSA-TSGs opinion when they released EternalBlue exploit WannaMine to hijack yours/ours/we’s computer to mine Monero

    #121148
    Dora
    Participant

    As one cannot stop a stampeding herd of cattle by running in front of it and yelling “Stop!”. and as one cannot stop an anvalanche by running in front of it and yelling “Stop”, so to one cannot stop whatever is now determined to … whatever…

    #121149
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    “Contrary to what the truth may be, blame Russia.”

    The criminal/clown puppet show continues for NATOstan nations for a while longer whilst Ukraine continues to lose more and more infrastructure and the capacity to fight as each day passes.

    Meanwhile, Dima at the Military Summary channel suggests the Russian-made missile falling on the Polish farm and the UKonazi and NATO reactions to it have strengthened Russia’s global diplomatic position immensely. Nobody in their right mind is going to believe anything the puppet actor in Kiev says. And no one is going to expect any ‘severe consequences’ whatever Russia decides to do next.

    The battle (war) between truth and lies is hotting up.

    We know which will win. But getting to that point is going to be gruesome and may well take another year or two.

    By the way, the fake festival of Christmas is cancelled for tens of millions this year. And every year from now on.

    #121150
    zerosum
    Participant

    I want to nominate Biden and Volodymyr Zelensky, president of Ukraine, for their role as acting for lead and supporting actor

    https://www.oscars.org/about/branch-requirements/actors ACTORS
    From Academy Bylaws:

    Article III, Section 1. Membership shall be by invitation of the Board of Governors. Invitations to active membership shall be limited to those persons active in the motion picture arts and sciences, or credited with screen achievements, or who have otherwise achieved distinction in the motion picture arts and sciences and who, in the opinion of the Board, are qualified for membership.

    To be considered for invitation to membership in the Actors Branch of the Academy, a candidate must:

    (a) have a minimum of three theatrical feature film credits, in all of which
    the roles played were scripted roles, one of which was released in the past
    five years, and all of which are of a caliber that reflect the high standards
    of the Academy,

    and/or

    (b) have been nominated for an Academy Award in one of the acting categories,

    or

    (c) have, in the judgment of the Actors Branch Executive Committee,
    otherwise achieved unique distinction, earned special merit or made an outstanding contribution as a motion picture actor.
    ———-

    #121151
    Redneck
    Participant

    Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking.”
    ~ Khalil Gibran

    BOSCO

    “P.S. Faith is also conceptual. Faith itself is a concept, and thoughts and discussions about faith are necessarily conceptual.”

    Gibran is saying , “words cannot capture or grasp reality”.

    The same pointer has been given by many teachers over millenia.
    How can thought , something so fleeting, so transient , lasting only a second or a fraction of a second , explain or represent or capture or grasp or outline or delineate that which is non-conceptual and infinite?

    One example of the same pointer from the third patriarch of Zen.

    “There is one Dharma, not many.
    Distinctions arise
    from the clinging needs of the ignorant.
    To seek Mind with the (discriminating) mind
    is the greatest of all mistakes. “

    Here the word “Mind” is used instead of faith.

    He then attempts to deliniate the non-conceptual state , the “Faith Oasis”.

    “All is empty, clear, self-illuminating,
    with no exertion of the mind’s power.
    Here thought, feeling,
    knowledge and imagination are of no value. “

    Trying to understand reality , that which never changes , by thinking about it , is the GREATEST OF ALL mistakes.

    So many times I sat with my mentor and listened as he gave the same instructions to seekers . Instead of acting on the instructions to recognise the non-conceptuality of their own being , to become totally silent and enter into it now , they immediately continue to conceptualise and ask questions and make statements, continuing the conceptual flow of the mind-stream. Is it any wonder that teachers get angry at their students when they claim to want to know the Truth but reject it at every moment. , even when it is offered to them freely with both hands?

    That is the ignorance I was referring to. It is not that you are stupid or dull , it means you are ignoring the teachers instruction and by doing so you are ignoring your own reality , your intrinsic naked awareness.

    Naked meaning the mind that is free of ALL thoughts and reality is shining through without the conceptual obstructions. It is only thinking that seems to veil the ever present reality.

    Anyway enough , even life long seekers cannot come to the thought free state , the state that you were born with, a state where there is absolutely no identity or diversity of any kind , a non-conceptual singularity.

    To attempt to help those here who see seeking the truth as just another idea to verbalise about is obviously a hopeless endeavour. I have mentored seekers in non-duality for some years , I have seen the mind stubbornly ckinging to it’s ideas and continuing to project the false individuality , the false multiplicity of being , the “ME”. Very few see the light.

    https://www.age-of-the-sage.org/buddhism/third_patriarch_zen.html

    #121152
    Bill7
    Participant

    The writer on music Paul Nelson has been in my mind quite a bit lately. I first read his reviews in the late 70s,
    I think, through some time in the 80s when he left Rolling Stone (good move); then saw him interviewed in the Dylan documentary (?) ‘No Direction Home’ and was again impressed and touched- more the latter- by Mr. Nelson.

    There is a book by Kevin Avery on the late, missed Paul Nelson, and the evilZon site has quite a few good reviews of it:

    #121153
    Bill7
    Participant

    A possibly working link:

    I, too think the photo chosen for the cover is a little unfortunate, and unrepresentative. I sure wish I could’ve met Paul Nelson.

    #121154
    Redneck
    Participant

    They really have no idea what to do. Atsome point they will have to relax the extremism against their citizens.
    “The Iranian judiciary said late on Sunday that an unnamed individual has been sentenced to execution for “setting fire to a government center, disturbing public order and collusion for committing crimes against national security” in addition to “moharebeh” (waging war against God) and “corruption on Earth”.

    Five more unnamed people, who authorities described as “rioters” – a word the government uses to describe the ongoing protests and those participating in them – were handed between five and 10 years in prison on national security-related charges.”
    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/iran-court-issues-first-protest-related-death-sentence

    #121155
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Great wrap up of massive Russian missile barrages dismantling Nazilensky’s electric grid.even as Ukronazi fanboys have said for six months that Russia is ‘running out of missiles’

    Hahaha

    Brian at New Atlas

    #121156
    aspnaz
    Participant

    RIM said

    “It doesn’t matter to Germany whose rocket fell in Poland, in any case, Russia is to blame, because it attacked Ukraine” – Olaf Scholz

    And Russia is to blame because if they hadn’t won WW2, there wouldn’t be any Poland.

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