Dec 172022
 
 December 17, 2022  Posted by at 9:30 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,


Saul Leiter Phone call c1957

 

Moscow Reveals Capabilities Of Forthcoming ICBM Mobile Launcher (RT)
US Considers Providing Ukraine With More Weapons – Politico (RT)
Kissinger Outlines Ukraine Peace Proposal (RT)
Time For Ukraine Talks ‘Not Right Now’ – White House (RT)
Carthage Must Be Destroyed! (David Sant)
Approval of EU Support For Ukraine Lags Among Greeks (K.)
THE TWITTER FILES: Twitter… The FBI Subsidiary (ZH)
Twitter Docs Reveal FBI Pressure To Control Speech (RT)
EU Threatens Elon Musk With Sanctions (RT)
AOC Accuses Musk Of ‘Proto-fascism’ (RT)
What I Discovered At Twitter HQ (Jay Bhattacharya)
Truth And Consequences (Jim Kunstler)
Has ‘The End Of History’ Arrived In The Balkans? (Lukyanov)
Is Europe’s Energy Crisis Actually A Boon? (OP)
German MP Blasts ‘Absurd’ Price Cap On Russian Oil (RT)
The Petrodollar’s Long Goodbye (Prashad)

 

 

 

 

FTX O’Leary This is good.

 

 


Germany died suddenly

 

 

Dutch farmers nitrogen

 

 

Trump

 

 

 

 

Tucker vaccine risks

 

 

 

 

“..capable of evading any anti-ballistic missile system that could be fielded in the foreseeable future..”

Moscow Reveals Capabilities Of Forthcoming ICBM Mobile Launcher (RT)

Russia will commence the development of a road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) system next year, which will be a significant upgrade on the existing Yars system, Strategic Missile Forces (SMF) Commander Sergey Karakaev has said. The new platform will have increased mobility to facilitate “swift redeployment and launch from any region anywhere in the Russian Federation,” he told Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star), the official newspaper of the country’s military. Karakaev offered no further details about the new project. The interview was published on Friday, ahead of SMF Day, which will be celebrated on Saturday. The SMF is the arm of the Russian military responsible for the country’s ground-based nuclear deterrence. It is currently “on the lookout for new technologies… which could be used to improve strategic weapon systems or create new ones,” Karakaev stated.


The silo-based Sarmat ICBM, as well as the Avangard and Yars systems, are examples of what is possible through such research, he added. The general praised the Sarmat missile in particular, which he said was capable of evading any anti-ballistic missile system that could be fielded in the foreseeable future. Russia approved production of the rocket following a successful test launch in April. Earlier this week, the Defense Ministry showcased the rearmament of an SMF site in central Russia by releasing footage, which showed two Yars missiles being loaded into silos. The ICBM has silo-launched and road-mobile variants.

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“..an additional 300 tanks, up to 700 infantry fighting vehicles, and 500 Howitzers would be needed to repel the Russian forces..”

US Considers Providing Ukraine With More Weapons – Politico (RT)

The US is planning to provide Ukraine with more weapons in the near future, extending the strike range of its military, Politico has reported. The media outlet, citing “six people with knowledge of the discussions,” claimed the move to provide additional supplies was prompted by concerns among top Ukrainian officials that Russia is amassing forces ahead of a major winter offensive. In its report on Thursday, Politico alleged that the Biden administration is currently entertaining the possibility of providing Kiev with, among other things, ground-launched small diameter bombs – high-precision munitions with a range of 150km (94 miles). Also under consideration, according to the article, is the delivery of joint direct attack munition kits, which are used to convert unguided aerial munitions into smart bombs.

These deliveries would be in addition to existing plans for the shipment of Patriot air-defense systems, Politico reported. Several US media outlets have indicated that those plans are in the final stages. Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday that Russia would certainly target these missile systems in Ukraine, should they be deployed there. On Thursday, Pentagon Press Secretary Brigadier General Patrick Ryder announced the expansion of a training program for Ukrainian military personnel at a US base on German soil. The number of troops attending there each month is reportedly expected to rise to around 500. In recent days, top Ukrainian officials – including the country’s top military commander, General Valery Zaluzhny, and Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba – have expressed concerns that Russia could launch a massive offensive as early as next month.

Zaluzhny did not rule out a new attempt by Moscow’s forces to take the Ukrainian capital Kiev. He also called on the West to provide Ukraine with more weaponry, saying that an additional 300 tanks, up to 700 infantry fighting vehicles, and 500 Howitzers would be needed to repel the Russian forces. While the US has already supplied Ukraine with short-range NASAMS air-defense systems, Kiev has been specifically requesting Patriot batteries since October, when Russia began massive missile and drone strikes on the country’s critical infrastructure. Moscow said the new strategy came in response to Ukraine’s attacks on Russian infrastructure, including the Crimean Bridge. Back in September, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned Washington that “it would cross the red line and become an actual party to the conflict,” should it provide Ukraine with longer-range missiles.

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“..the other territories Ukraine claims – Donetsk, Lugansk and Crimea – “could be the subject of a negotiation after a ceasefire.”

Kissinger Outlines Ukraine Peace Proposal (RT)

Urgently negotiating an end to hostilities in Ukraine would prevent another world war, former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger argued in an essay published on Friday. The 99-year-old statesman noted that, in 1916, the US government had the chance to end the First World War through diplomacy, but missed it for reasons of domestic politics. Kissinger laid out his reasoning in the December 17 issue of The Spectator, describing the current conflict as a “war in which two nuclear powers contest a conventionally armed country,” a clear reference to Ukraine being a proxy war between the US and Russia. The “peace process” Kissinger proposes would “link Ukraine to NATO, however expressed,” as he believes neutrality for Kiev is no longer an option.

He also wants Russia to withdraw to the lines before February 24, while the other territories Ukraine claims – Donetsk, Lugansk and Crimea – “could be the subject of a negotiation after a ceasefire.” In addition to “confirming the freedom of Ukraine,” the arrangement would strive to “define a new international structure, especially for Central and Eastern Europe,” in which Russia should “eventually” find a place, he explained. While some would prefer “a Russia rendered impotent by the war,” Kissinger disagrees, arguing that Moscow’s “historical role should not be degraded.” Dismantling Russia could turn its vast territory into a “contested vacuum,” where “competing societies might decide to settle their disputes by violence” and neighbors could seek to claim territory by force, all in the presence of “thousands of nuclear weapons.”

In substance, this is the same proposal Kissinger had first floated in May, for which he was labeled an enemy of Ukraine and added to the notorious ‘Peacemaker’ kill list. In an interview earlier this month, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky categorically rejected any sort of ceasefire that did not take Kiev’s claimed 1991 borders as the starting point. It was also unclear whether Moscow would accept any Western-mediated ceasefire at all, after former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s admission that the 2014 Minsk armistice was intended to “give Ukraine time” to prepare for war. What’s fresh in Kissinger’s Spectator essay is his reasoning. He points to August 1916, at the height of the First World War, when the warring powers sought US mediation to end the unprecedented bloodshed.

Though “a peace based on the modified status quo ante was within reach,” President Woodrow Wilson delayed the talks until after he could get re-elected in November. By then it was too late, and the war would go on for two more years, “irretrievably damaging Europe’s established equilibrium.” Asked about Kissinger’s proposal, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russian President Vladimir Putin was “eager to give the article a thorough reading,” but “hasn’t had a chance to do so yet, unfortunately.” Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, citing Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk agreements, designed to give the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk special status within the Ukrainian state. The Kremlin demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that would never join any Western military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked.

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“..if and when the diplomacy is ripe, they will be in the best possible position at the negotiating table.”

Time For Ukraine Talks ‘Not Right Now’ – White House (RT)

It is not yet time for Ukraine to negotiate with Russia, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan argued in an interview on Friday. Meanwhile, Henry Kissinger – who held the same post in the early 1970s – has said talks should happen sooner rather than later. “We don’t know where this is going to end up,” Sullivan said of the conflict, speaking at the Carnegie Endowment think tank in Washington. “What we do know is that it’s our job to continue to sustain our military support to Ukraine, so they are in the best possible position on the battlefield, so that if and when the diplomacy is ripe, they will be in the best possible position at the negotiating table.” “That moment is not right now,” he added. According to Sullivan, Ukraine has won a series of battles, “repelled the Russian invaders from most of the country,” and is now “fighting to reclaim the remaining land.”

He called it “a remarkable thing” and said the Biden administration is asking Congress for “a substantial amount of further resources” to ensure “Ukraine has the means to fight this war.” Meanwhile, Americans training Ukrainian troops on the ground have spoken of mounting casualties and Ukraine’s chief of general staff, Valery Zaluzhny, is asking for more tanks, armored vehicles and artillery than most NATO members have in their arsenal, much less to spare. The US and its allies have supplied Ukraine with tube and rocket artillery, air defense systems, small arms, vehicles and ammunition, allowing Kiev to fight long after its domestic capabilities had been degraded. Russia has condemned the shipments as needlessly prolonging the conflict and increasing casualties, repeatedly warning the West that it risks becoming an open party to the conflict.

Earlier in the day, Sullivan applauded Japan’s new national security strategy, which will see Tokyo embark on massive military expansion citing the “strategic challenge posed by China.” The Japanese constitution – drafted mainly by the US occupation authorities after the Second World War – had renounced war and limited the country to a “self-defense” force. There was no indication that 46-year-old Sullivan was aware of his predecessor’s essay in The Spectator, in which the 99-year-old Kissinger called for an armistice in Ukraine before the conflict spins out of control. He pointed to the missed US opportunity to negotiate an end to the First World War in 1916, which led to millions more deaths and a far less stable post-war world that eventually collapsed into another global conflict.

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“One might say that the West forgot the art of diplomacy..”

Carthage Must Be Destroyed! (David Sant)

The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 was not the result of losing a war. It was caused by the failed policies of a centralized economy, exacerbated by American manipulation of the oil markets, and a costly American-backed guerilla war in Afghanistan. The United States moved in with “shock therapy” economic advisors and took the opportunity to restructure a confused and gullible Russia, including writing a new constitution. For Russia the collapse of the Soviet Union had many similarities to the loss of Carthage in the Second Punic War. Despite making peace with their former adversary, and honoring their treaties, Russia found that she could never be accepted as a friend on equal terms by the Western world order. And this was for the very same reason that Carthage could never be tolerated by Rome.

Russia was and is in every way an equal to the Anglo-American Empire. Ever since Vladimir Putin became President of Russia, the chorus of the West has become louder and louder that Putin must go. While they cannot say it aloud yet, what they really mean is “Russia must be destroyed!” If Russia had continued the policy of submission to Western control that was begun by Boris Yeltsin, we can be assured that Moscow would have eventually met the same fate as Carthage from the Anglo-American Empire. However, the appointment of Vladimir Putin as President of Russia derailed their plans. Under his rule Russia has steadily reasserted her former leadership and strength against the machinations of the Anglo-American Empire.

While at first Mr. Putin made a genuine effort to be a “partner” with the West, by the year 2011 it was clear that the West would never accept Russia as a friend or an equal. The West had enjoyed two decades of bossing everyone else around and had learned to enjoy giving orders rather than negotiating. One might say that the West forgot the art of diplomacy. After watching in horror the NATO-led destructions of Serbia, Libya, and Syria, the Kremlin began asserting itself with foreign policy problems that directly affected Russian security interests starting in 2013.

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Harder to brainwash.

Approval of EU Support For Ukraine Lags Among Greeks (K.)

Deviating from the general mood in Europe, a large number of Greeks hesitate to declare their approval of the European Union’s backing for Ukraine following the Russian invasion. In the relevant question of the Parliament’s Eurobarometer for autumn 2022, a majority of citizens in the 24 member-states approve of the position taken by the EU, with the exception of Slovakia, Bulgaria and Greece, which have the lowest percentages (49%, 48% and 48% respectively). The highest levels are recorded in Sweden (97%), Finland (95%), the Netherlands (93%), Portugal (92%) and Denmark (92%). The same survey showed that three quarters of European citizens (73%) agree with the specific measures taken by the EU, namely sanctions against the Russian government, as well as economic, military and humanitarian support to Ukraine. Again, Greece is at the bottom of the ranking, with only 46%.

Loffredo

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And the FBI works for the DNC, Pfizer and Raytheon..

THE TWITTER FILES: Twitter… The FBI Subsidiary (ZH)

Twitter’s contact with the FBI was constant and pervasive, as if it were a subsidiary. Between January 2020 and November 2022, there were over 150 emails between the FBI and former Twitter Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth. Some are mundane, like San Francisco agent Elvis Chan wishing Roth a Happy New Year along with a reminder to attend “our quarterly call next week.” Others are requests for information into Twitter users related to active investigations. But a surprisingly high number are requests by the FBI for Twitter to take action on election misinformation, even involving joke tweets from low-follower accounts.


The FBI’s social media-focused task force, known as FTIF, created in the wake of the 2016 election, swelled to 80 agents and corresponded with Twitter to identify alleged foreign influence and election tampering of all kinds. Federal intelligence and law enforcement reach into Twitter included the Department of Homeland Security, which partnered with security contractors and think tanks to pressure Twitter to moderate content. It’s no secret the government analyzes bulk data for all sorts of purposes, everything from tracking terror suspects to making economic forecasts. The #TwitterFiles show something new: agencies like the FBI and DHS regularly sending social media content to Twitter through multiple entry points, pre-flagged for moderation.

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“..she asked whether there would be “impediments” to passing along classified information to industry partners. In response, the FBI was “adamant” that there were “no impediments to sharing.”

Twitter Docs Reveal FBI Pressure To Control Speech (RT)

Twitter has maintained “constant and pervasive” contacts with the FBI and other US intelligence agencies for several years, according to internal company documents leaked to reporters. The files appear to show a concerted government campaign to blacklist content labeled as “misinformation.” Published by journalist Matt Taibbi on Friday, the sixth installment of the ‘Twitter Files’ revealed additional pressure placed on the website by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) between January 2020 and as recently as last month, largely focused on moderating particular posts and accounts discussing American elections. While earlier documents indicated high-level coordination between intelligence agencies and Twitter, the latest files suggest such collusion took place on a larger scale than was previously known.

In a period of less than three years, the site’s former Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth alone exchanged more than 150 emails with the FBI. Prior to Friday, Roth was the only executive said to have had regular, direct contacts with the bureau, however the new files show that legal exec Stacia Cardille also held weekly meetings with not only the FBI, but the DHS, Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) beginning in September. In a letter addressed to Twitter’s former Deputy General Counsel Jim Baker – himself an ex-lawyer for the FBI – Cardille noted that she asked whether there would be “impediments” to passing along classified information to industry partners. In response, the FBI was “adamant” that there were “no impediments to sharing.”

“This passage underscores the unique one-big-happy-family vibe between Twitter and the FBI. With what other firm would the FBI blithely agree to ‘no impediments’ to classified information?” Taibbi asked. A number of messages sent to Twitter by the FBI contain explicit requests to take down certain posts, or even ban accounts altogether. In one case, the agency flagged so much “possible violative content” that Twitter staffers were later seen congratulating each other in an internal company chat for the “monumental undertaking” of reviewing it. Another missive sent on November 5, 2022 from the FBI’s ‘National Election Command Post’ provided a list of 25 accounts that “may warrant additional action.” Twitter was quick to permanently ban seven of those handles, while it temporarily suspended another and deleted eight tweets for alleged “civil misinformation policy violations.”

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EU=hot air.

EU Threatens Elon Musk With Sanctions (RT)

The EU has warned Elon Musk that Twitter could be targeted by sanctions after the platform owned by the entrepreneur suspended several journalists for allegedly sharing real-time location data about the billionaire and his family. “News about arbitrary suspension of journalists on Twitter is worrying,” wrote EU Commissioner for Values and Transparency Vera Jourova in a tweet on Friday. “EU’s Digital Services Act requires respect of media freedom and fundamental rights,” she said, adding that these rights are reinforced under the recently adopted European Media Freedom Act.= “[Elon Musk] should be aware of that. There are red lines.

And sanctions, soon,” Jourova warned, as the Digital Services Act is set to start coming into force next summer and will be fully implemented by 2024. Her threats come after Twitter suspended around half-a-dozen journalists on Thursday who reported and shared links to ElonJet, which provides real-time tracking of Musk’s personal flights. Musk has explained the decision by stating that the information being shared was “basically assassination coordinates” and pointed to Twitter’s terms of service, which prohibit doxxing – the illegal publishing of personal information – of anyone by anyone. “Same doxxing rules apply to ‘journalists’ as to everyone else,” the billionaire wrote on Thursday.

Twitter has previously suspended the original @elonjet account, as well as other similar flight-tracking channels owned by Florida student Jack Sweeney, who had been posting real-time data on private flights of the world’s wealthiest men, including Musk, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Musk – a self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” – purchased Twitter for $44 billion in late October. Back then he initially promised not to suspend any accounts that were exercising free speech, noting that that extended “even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk.”

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“Take a beat and lay off the proto-fascism. Maybe try putting down your phone,” the New York congresswoman suggested. Musk brushed off AOC’s criticism by simply replying: “You first.”

AOC Accuses Musk Of ‘Proto-fascism’ (RT)

Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, commonly referred to as AOC, has joined the backlash against Elon Musk after Twitter suspended several journalists for allegedly violating the platform’s anti-doxxing policies while reporting on the ElonJet flight tracker. AOC accused Musk of abusing his power as the new owner of Twitter and told him to “lay off the proto-fascism.” That was after he temporarily suspended half-a-dozen journalists from CNN, the New York Times, and The Washington Post, among others, for reporting on and providing the links to ElonJet – a flight tracker that posted real-time flight data about Musk’s private jet.

Musk had accused the journalists of sharing information that was “basically assassination coordinates” and cited Twitter’s terms of service, which prohibit doxxing – publishing the personal information and real-time coordinates of other people. In a series of Twitter posts on Friday, Cortez insisted that Musk should not have suspended the reporters because he was “a public figure,” suggesting that being the victim of such location information-sharing comes with the territory. “You’re a public figure. An extremely controversial and powerful one,” AOC wrote. “I get feeling unsafe, but descending into abuse of power + erratically banning journalists only increases the intensity around you.”

“Take a beat and lay off the proto-fascism. Maybe try putting down your phone,” the New York congresswoman suggested. Musk brushed off AOC’s criticism by simply replying: “You first.” The billionaire had previously stated that he was fine with any criticism coming his way over his handling of Twitter, which he purchased in late October for $44 billion, but insisted that threatening the safety of his family was over the line. “Criticizing me all day long is totally fine, but doxxing my real-time location and endangering my family is not,” he wrote.

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“I could have bought an island with the $44 billion, but this was a much better use of the money.”

What I Discovered At Twitter HQ (Jay Bhattacharya)

You spoke with Elon for almost an hour. How was your conversation? The topic, of course, was censorship. My sense is that he bought Twitter in part because he is deeply offended by the idea that something like Twitter, which is so important for public communication… had put their thumb on the scale. It wasn’t specifically about Covid. Generally, his sense was that one side of the conversation wasn’t being heard on many, many issues… I think he views this as: he’s in a very privileged position that allows him to restore free speech, allow for free discussion of ideas. And he wants to use what gifts he’s had for that purpose. He even made a joke: I could have bought an island with the $44 billion, but this was a much better use of the money.

Was he a lockdown sceptic during the pandemic? I think he generally was a lockdown sceptic… He famously, early in the pandemic, protested against being locked down when the shutdown orders came, and then moved Tesla’s headquarters to Texas… He was very clear that he was aware of the harms of lockdowns. He mentioned the early days of the pandemic — that he had a number of plants in China, with tens of thousands of employees. He said: “Look, if somebody dies in amongst my employees, I find out immediately, because we stop paying them.” But he noticed that there were very, very few deaths on that metric early on. So his view was that it wasn’t clear that the case fatality rate numbers that were coming out matched reality in China itself, even from the earliest days of the pandemic… Certainly at this point, he was very sympathetic to my message about the harms to the poor of the world threatened by the economic dislocation caused by lockdowns, the closing of schools — all of that I think he opposed.

So then an engineer shows you your files. What did you find out? An engineer comes to me, we talk in this little cubicle. And so it turns out that there are two major sources of information for the journalists that are looking at this. First, there’s this tool, which Bari Weiss made famous: for each person, they’ll have the status of the person and history of the status of that person… That includes some personal identifying information, which is why you’re not seeing a dump of those files for everybody, because they’re not supposed to share that… I had got permission to look at myself of course. And I asked for permission to look at Martin Kulldorff.

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“The Big News Media may not be able to avoid reporting on it, especially with Twitter loosened up, and their lying attempts to spin events is going to look pathetic..”

Truth And Consequences (Jim Kunstler)

Even if NBC, CBS, CNN, The New York Times, The WashPo, and the rest of the Big News Media mafia ignore the Twitter Files story, the revolution at Twitter is going to shake their windows and rattle their walls. There will be free debate in 2023 on this social media platform. News and ideas will be set loose across the landscape, and, for the first time in years, reality will have a chance to compete with the bad faith narratives of a regime at war against its own people. We’ll have to see how long this lasts before the Intel Community tries to shut Twitter down, ramp up a campaign to defame it, or blow it up as a viable business. Or make a move to, shall we say, neutralize the person behind the revolution there.

The more that free speech is actually permitted on Twitter, the more every other platform will look like a lame organ of propaganda, especially when it comes to issues that really matter such as the deadly consequences of the mRNA “vaccines,” the shady doings around recent US elections, the actual condition of the US economy, the perilous folly of “Joe Biden’s” war in Ukraine (and the family grifting operation that prompted it), and the evil machinations of the Intel Community itself. In about three weeks, the Party of Chaos will be swept out of power in the US House of Representatives. Their opponents will take control of all the House committee chairs, with subpoena power to compel the testimony of public figures who have managed to avoid answering questions for years. The Big News Media may not be able to avoid reporting on it, especially with Twitter loosened up, and their lying attempts to spin events is going to look pathetic when it is instantly contrasted with free analysis and informed debate in the public arena.

You can’t overstate what an advantage the insidious takeover of social media gave to forces seeking to wreck the country, though the effects have not been adequately explored yet. The people remain bamboozled over the Covid-19 operation especially. It certainly wasn’t some random act by Mother Nature, not with US public health agencies supporting gain-of-function research on coronaviruses from Ukraine to North Carolina to Wuhan, China. And the subsequent damage caused by the government’s response to the outbreak was either an epic fiasco of inept officialdom, or something that smells like mass murder. Dr. Anthony Fauci’s little trick to so far avoid answering questions about these matters was simply to not use the term “gain-of-function” in his correspondence arranging grants for it — especially after President Barack Obama banned that type of research by its name in 2014. So when asked about gain-of-function, he could just lie with abandon. After that simple ruse is exposed, the patent and royalty benefits enjoyed by Dr. Fauci — who doubled his net worth after 2019 — will be dragged into the light of day.

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“Current events in northern Kosovo resemble an attempt to bring about the “end of history” in the Balkan context..”

Has ‘The End Of History’ Arrived In The Balkans? (Lukyanov)

Current events in northern Kosovo resemble an attempt to bring about the “end of history” in the Balkan context. Of course, the same one that was promised 30-odd years ago, on a global scale, hasn’t happened, but the idea behind it has remained in people’s minds. Francis Fukuyama, the author of the concept, later admitted that he had been hasty and had failed to take into account important circumstances in the development of societies. However, he hasn’tabandoned it, and continues to believe that the predicted triumph of Western liberal ideology, and the corresponding way of life, will still take place, just later than expected. What has Kosovo got to do with this? The disintegration of Yugoslavia has taken as long as the concept of “the end of history” has existed.

And it has been, perhaps, the clearest example of what it meant in practice. The nature of that state – a socialist federal republic – was diametrically opposed to what was thought to be right after the Cold War. Firstly, socialism as a socio-political construct was simply written off as having failed. Secondly, it was a complex federation dominated by the largest ethnic group. This, to be fair,could be described as being in the spirit of multiculturalism, which has become popular in developed countries over the past couple of decades. But no, because multicultural communities have only been welcomed if they were part of a process that develops from homogeneous to heterogeneous through immigration and the influx of new citizens of different origins.

Thus, multinational states like Yugoslavia or the USSR (or even Czechoslovakia) have instead been perceived through the prism of self-determination. In other words, national aspirations were worthy of support but the desire to maintain (con)federative unions was equated with imperial ambitions.

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“..now that winter proper has begun and the cold is settling in, consumption will increase, whatever the price of gas.”

Is Europe’s Energy Crisis Actually A Boon? (OP)

The energy crisis that began last year in Europe and dramatically escalated following the EU response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has seen many in government worry about the survival of the continent during the winter. Yet not all see such a bleak picture. In fact, some believe that not only is the worst over for Europe but that the crisis actually did the EU a favor. That favor took the form of accelerating the buildout in renewables and the restart of hydrocarbon-fueled power plants. This take, which is certainly not very common right now, came from one investment manager, Per Lekander, who is managing partner at a firm called Clean Energy Transition LLP. Speaking to CNBC this week, Lekander said that Russia had, in fact, very little to do with Europe’s crisis, and it could even be said Vladimir Putin did Europe a favor.

“This [the crisis] is the consequence of long term under-investments in conventional, long term red tape in renewables and then these political closures of nuclear, coal, lignite, etcetera,” Lekander told CNBC. He then went on to add that the measures that European countries took after Russia began responding to EU sanctions by reducing gas flows went a long way toward ensuring that the continent would survive this winter. Energy demand reduction was one of these measures, according to the financier, and returning to hydrocarbons for power generation was another. A third one was the planned reduction in red tape in wind and solar power system construction—obstacles that these two industries have been complaining about for years.

It could be argued that this energy demand reduction that has allowed Europe to save on gas was a result of exorbitant prices rather than any voluntary change in energy consumption behavior patterns. Indeed, millions of people across the continent are being hit with electricity bills that are substantially higher than last year’s bills because of the international gas price inflation caused by the tightening of supply following the EU sanctions on Russia and Russia’s easy to predict response. The sabotage of Nord Stream added to this tightening and pushed prices higher. Another reason for the lower demand was the warm European autumn, as many noted at the time. As the weather was warmer than usual, people’s heating needs were lower. Yet now that winter proper has begun and the cold is settling in, consumption will increase, whatever the price of gas.

Indeed, the worst might not be over. The Guardian reported this week that Germany was at risk of gas shortages because it had failed to hit its consumption reduction target. The reason it had missed it—the target is 20 percent of consumption—was the colder weather last week, the head of the country’s energy regulator said. The European Union last month approved a gas consumption reduction target of 15 percent, but Germany was more ambitious because of its high reliance on the commodity. Whether the rest of Europe would be able to hit the 15-percent target is yet to be seen because, as Klaus Mueller said, “With temperatures of -10C [14F], gas consumption shoots up dramatically.”

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“..such policies are “leveled against” ordinary consumers across the bloc.”

German MP Blasts ‘Absurd’ Price Cap On Russian Oil (RT)

Imposing an artificial ceiling on the price paid for Russian oil will provoke an increase in prices for the commodity, the chairman of the Bundestag committee on energy, Klaus Ernst, said in an interview with TASS, calling the measure “absurd.” Berlin is planning to entirely abandon energy imports from Russia, according to Ernst, who stressed that the operations at an oil refinery in the German city of Schwedt are critically dependent on Russian supplies. “It is absolutely clear that when a ceiling is introduced on energy prices, the object targeted by the measure will inevitably reduce the supply. It is clear that this will be counterproductive, because the price will rise,” Ernst argued. “In this regard, I think that such a restriction is absurd.”


The price limit on Russian seaborne oil, set at $60 per barrel, was introduced earlier this month by the EU, the G7 countries, Australia and Norway. The measure bans Western companies from providing insurance and other services to vessels loaded with Russian oil, unless the cargo is bought at or below the price indicated. The EU is currently debating a similar step targeting Russian gas supplies. According to Ernst, the policies pursued by Brussels are “self-destructive.” “The EU deliberately excluded pipeline oil supplies from sanctions. The government rejects them, although there is no need for this,” he said, adding that such policies are “leveled against” ordinary consumers across the bloc.

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“..they will do so slowly, as they both remain exposed to the U.S. economy..”

The Petrodollar’s Long Goodbye (Prashad)

At this first China-GCC summit, Xi urged the Gulf monarchs to “make full use of the Shanghai Petrol and Gas Exchange as a platform to conduct oil and gas sales using Chinese currency.” Earlier this year, Saudi Arabia suggested that it might accept Chinese yuan rather than U.S. dollars for the oil it sells to China. While no formal announcement was made at the GCC summit nor in the joint statement issued by China and Saudi Arabia, indications abound that these two countries will move closer toward using the Chinese yuan to denominate their trade. However, they will do so slowly, as they both remain exposed to the U.S. economy. (China holds just under $1 trillion in U.S. Treasury bonds).

Talk of conducting China-Saudi trade in yuan has raised eyebrows in the United States, which for 50 years has relied on the Saudis to stabilise the dollar. In 1971, the U.S. government withdrew the dollar from the gold standard and began to rely on central banks around the world to hold monetary reserves in U.S. Treasury securities and other U.S. financial assets. When oil prices skyrocketed in 1973, the U.S. government decided to create a system of dollar seigniorage through Saudi oil profits. In 1974, U.S. Treasury Secretary William Simon — fresh off the trading desk at the investment bank Salomon Brothers — arrived in Riyadh with instructions from U.S. President Richard Nixon to have a serious conversation with the Saudi oil minister, Ahmed Zaki Yamani.

Simon proposed that the U.S. purchase large amounts of Saudi oil in dollars and that the Saudis use these dollars to buy U.S. Treasury bonds and weaponry and invest in U.S. banks as a way to recycle vast Saudi oil profits. And so, the petrodollar was born, which anchored the new dollar-denominated world trade and investment system. If the Saudis even hinted towards withdrawing this arrangement, which would take at least a decade to implement, it would seriously challenge the monetary privilege afforded to the U.S. As Gal Luft, co-director of the Institute for Analysis of Global Security, told The Wall Street Journal, “The oil market, and by extension the entire global commodities market, is the insurance policy of the status of the dollar as reserve currency. If that block is taken out of the wall, the wall will begin to collapse.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Play
https://twitter.com/i/status/1603760623858376704

 

 

 

 

Wood art
https://twitter.com/i/status/1603925323166646272

 

 


Wat Samphran is a Buddhist temple in Amphoe Sam Phran, Nakhon Pathom province, around 40 km west of Bangkok. The temple is notable for its 17-story tall pink cylindrical building with a gigantic dragon sculpture curling around the entire height

 

 

Goose
https://twitter.com/i/status/1603508898421673985

 

 

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle December 17 2022

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 73 total)
  • Author
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  • #123645

    Saul Leiter Phone call c1957   • Moscow Reveals Capabilities Of Forthcoming ICBM Mobile Launcher (RT) • US Considers Providing Ukraine With More
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle December 17 2022]

    #123646
    Germ
    Participant

    France camp in chaos as virus hits more players ahead of World Cup final

    VAIDS!

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/world-cup/300767729/france-camp-in-chaos-as-virus-hits-more-players-ahead-of-world-cup-final

    I cannot recall ever hearing about multiple players on a team being too sick to play in an important match… I can’t even recall a single player missing a key game..

    These athletes are fitness machines — and they are young … they would have fine tuned immune systems — they would be able to fight off infections better than most people…

    But when your immune system is damaged… that’s a different ball game

    🤣☠️☠️🤣

    TVASF

    #123647
    Germ
    Participant

    Tom Daley’s diving coach died of sudden adult death syndrome in Turkish pool

    https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/sport/uk-sport-news/tom-daleys-diving-coach-died-7937502

    “sudden adult death syndrome” – what a hoot!

    TVASF

    #123648
    Germ
    Participant

    Try to hold your sick down.

    Covid vaccine concerns were overblown, says AstraZeneca boss as he is knighted

    https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/uk-news/2022/12/14/covid-vaccine-concerns-were-overblown-says-astrazeneca-boss-as-he-is-knighted/

    TVASF

    ☠️☠️☠️

    #123649
    Germ
    Participant

    They’re totally clueless and just grasping at straws now.

    Flu nasal spray vaccine for children may reduce strep A risk

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-64002174

    TVASF

    ☠️☠️☠️

    #123650
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Saul Leiter Phone call c1957

    I’ve really taken a shine to Leiter’s photos; they’re really quite remarkable…
    Thanks Ilatgi…

    #123651
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Oh shit! Missed the typo above…sorry…

    #123652
    Germ
    Participant

    Former UCF football player Jake Hescock dies suddenly: ‘We’re heartbroken’

    25yo- Totally Fuckin’ Normal !

    https://www.foxnews.com/sports/former-ucf-football-player-jake-hescock-dies-suddenly-heartbroken

    TVASF

    #123653
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Russia Is Developing Mobile System That Can Detect, Locate Starlink Internet Terminals

    https://southfront.org/russia-is-developing-mobile-system-that-can-detect-locate-starlink-internet-terminals/

    Interesting, as the Ukronazi electric grid approaches collapse, the internet is the next big bullseyes.

    Will Elon notice, or is he preoccupied with Twitler operating as a Stasi wannabe?

    Russia’s Sestroretsk Arms Plant is developing a mobile system that can detect and locate Starlink internet terminals…

    The new system, dubbed “Borshchevik,” can reportedly detect Starlink terminals with a range of 10 kilometers and located them with an accuracy down to 60 meters only. The system can be mounted on several types of vehicles, which makes it suitable for operations near hot frontlines.

    #123654
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    I scoff derisively whenever I hear of a thing, or a system, or a “solution” of some brilliant new product or weapon or strategy envisioned for the future that “WILL have” fantasmagorically wonderful properties , or benefits that “WILL be” far far far more effective than anything currently achievable with the OLD stuff being used in the tacitly inferior PRESENT (dismissively ignored as mere REALITY.)

    You see the point, right? You do see the difference between the not yet existent future and the reality of the present, correct?

    In all things, but especially on the battlefield, what matters is what IS brought to bear NOW. Tomorrow is too late because it’s always a day away.

    The future is a murky messy iffy mess of probabilities. MAYBE one can bluff the competition into believing that a wonder weapon or vast reinforcement are on the way and will turn the tide overwhelming in one’s favor. And MAYBE the bluff is even based on actual things that PROBABLY will become reality in time to win the day. But that’s a gamble, and the stakes are your life, so bet carefully.

    The questions I pose to myself when trying to sort the mendacity from the veracity are:

    Who’s lying? Who’s lying more?, And, who’s lying the most?

    #123655
    Oroboros
    Participant

    FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried triggered downfall by badmouthing crypto rival: sources

    Bankman-Fried, known as “SBF” in crypto circles, raised eyebrows as he “trashed” ChangPeng Zhao — the China-born CEO of Binance who, in addition to being one of Bankman-Fried’s early backers, is a highly respected tech founder in the region.

    ChangPeng Zhao and Sam Bankman-Fried had gotten in spats on Twitter.

    “He pulled the pin out of the grenade on this trip,” a source said of Bankman-Fried’s trash-talking of Zhao.

    Zhao had bought 20% of the exchange for $100 million in 2019 with the plan “to grow the crypto economy together.”

    But Binance quickly came to see FTX as a competitor and Bankman-Fried decided to buy back his stake from Zhao for $2 billion in 2021.

    Bankman-Fried paid Zhao partly in FTT, which gave Zhao a roughly $580 million stake in FTX.

    Zhao tweeted on Nov. 6 that he had decided to liquidate his position, “due to recent revelations.” The price of FTT crashed, creating a run on FTX’s holdings that quickly forced it into bankruptcy.

    Sam Bankman-Epstein

    What a little bitch

    Zhao nuked him some mega-butthurt.

    .

    #123656
    Oroboros
    Participant
    #123657
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    To individuals with NO immune system ALL pathogens are deadly. Think AIDS, “The Boy In A Bubble” , Democrats.

    #123658
    Oroboros
    Participant

    #123659
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    Teaching is impossible. All that can be done in that regard is to place truths in front of folks in hopes that they might trip over them and learn something for themselves.

    #123660
    Germ
    Participant

    @ D Benton S – re. “teaching is impossible”

    “It’s easier to fool people, than to convince them that they have been fooled.”
    M Twain (perhaps)

    #123661
    EoinW
    Participant

    I believe I made this point here before: that Germany is the New Carthage. This is the 3rd Punic War and Germany is being destroyed for good. Just because they are so much weaker than Carthage was and can’t even put up a fight doesn’t matter. They’re still being destroyed for keeps.

    I don’t see how the analogy applies to Russia. It was our ally thru the first two wars. It’s now stronger militarily than it’s ever been. This was not the case of Carthage by the time of the 3rd Punic War.

    #123662
    Oroboros
    Participant

    In the youtube above with ChangPeng Zhao, he says an interesting thing towards the end.

    Confronted about the stability of his crypto exchange’s health, he says that Binance holds customer assets 1:1

    He says tradition banking only holds customer assets at 10:1 fractional reserve banking standards because they have a central bank to bail them out all the time if they over speculate.

    Crypto does not have a ‘central bank’

    One of it’s strong points.

    Hence, Crypto should always run at 1:1 says ChangPeng Zhao

    And never co-mingle customer assets with company speculative assets.

    Isn’t this why the Banking Mafias are so phucked up and crooked???

    The line between commercial and speculative banking having been dissolved by Slick Willy deregulating Depression Era safeguards???

    ChangPeng Zhao makes the claim, on record, that even if 100% of his customers withdraw 100% of their assets that Binance is good and could handle that because they run the place 1:1

    The entire Banking Mafia Edifice would crumble instantly, like FTX, if it had to run like Binance and ChangPeng Zhao.

    #123663
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “Desperate migrants are met with cold, no room at shelters after crossing the border” –MSNBC

    Um, wow? Maybe there was more food, more shelter, and more warm back in Central America?

    Kevin O’Leary: note how every accounting fraud and corporate failure is met with HUGE paychecks and industry accolades. As in Mattel, which nearly ceased to exist thanks to Leary due to straight-up fraud.

    And then, with all this front page news, the MEDIA (of course) also did no research and LIED (or even knew) about this newly fabricated fantasy backstory for him. Well, I guess never doing diligence or research, looking in any books, is just a day at work for O’Leary. Too bad it was only a couple million for him.

    This is extremely common. So my question is: why? Do shareholders not like money? Do Board of Directors love being embarrassed and ruined in the news? Easy money, yes, but this goes so far beyond that it’s inexplicable.

    Sounds like Trump is campaigning. For what? The election is two years away, isn’t it? He also looks like a Donald body double. I wonder why.

    “unvaxxed drivers get into more accidents.”

    I haven’t commented since I write too much anyway, and it’s clearly a data artifact. In the age of computers, they just take the stats from any drug, event, etc, and can ask the computer what is the closest correlations in the data set. Then you discover that in fact the largest reason you eat tacos is because you’re left handed, or that having a history of scoliosis makes you more likely to celebrate Christmas: easily visible, garbage coincidences. Or…not? Many of these are more correlated, and more repeatable than the actual effects of actual drugs – the placebo effect is one, which works better than hundreds of drugs out there, works decade after decade, and for real could change lives…but embarrassingly, so we can’t have that.

    Because of this, the Scientist just takes a big marker and says “Real”, “Not Real” beforehand, on “Common Sense”, i.e. with no science, data, or evidence, just feelz. Then on stats that are halfway down, weak and barely correlated, he says “Real!” “Bigly!” “Huuuuge!” on the 3% shift from his Pfizer, and not the 18% shift from daily exercise.

    In other words: it’s often as close to “Just made it up” as it’s possible to be. Not looking into it (Exactly as I tell others not to do) certainly this is one of those examples of coincidental correlation. How it got into the news is what’s interesting to me, as all studies have dozens of these connections no one cares about. Is it merely to divide us and make us fight? Or more than that?

    I was thinking: when your only goal like “Utopia” is to kill everyone, your job as the 3rd party is far easier. It’s not the Chinese have to win in SE Asia, or Mexico has to win in their Central American policy. It’s “Can I make ANYONE fight today?” We have the three-way nuke-fest with Russia, China, and U.S. each trying to trick the other two into nuking each other, but this 3rd party group doesn’t care if they can make Chile fight Uruguay too so long as humans die. Doesn’t that seem easier?

    Worst part is, if you don’t know they’re out there, this weird religious death cult, the world, history, politics, geopolitics, doesn’t make any sense. Why is everyone fighting? It’s illogical. Are they each and all crazy? Humans “R” bad m’kay. Although for some reason behave fine in any culture where this 3rd party hasn’t bothered. Like !Kung, or Amazonians.

    “[Sarmat] was capable of evading any anti-ballistic missile system that could be fielded in the foreseeable future.”

    This is fine if you wish countries to nuke each other while we stay in bunkers in Switzerland and Zealand until the population is low enough for us to safely control again. Exactly as written. I don’t need the missiles: they’re expensive. I make YOU make them, then I make YOU shoot them. Then it’s all YOUR fault. Right? I did nothing but whisper in your ear and whaddya listening to me for? You knew I was a liar. So easy. Stop being a golden retriever and believing everyone.

    “..an additional 300 tanks, up to 700 infantry fighting vehicles, and 500 Howitzers would be needed to repel the Russian forces..”

    Hahahahahaha! That’s a joke. And 10,000 miles away with no support? Did they choose those numbers because those are the exact numbers of weapons we don’t have? Or because it will leave us defenseless in the Pacific theatre to face China?

    “The number of troops attending there each month is reportedly expected to rise to around 500.”

    Isn’t that the same number Russia kills each day? So 30:1 outmatch?

    Speaking of, isn’t Russia supposed to be out of equipment, reported, oh, 9 ½ months ago?

    Urgently negotiating an end to hostilities in Ukraine would prevent another world war, former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger argued in an essay published on Friday.”

    Except for like 5 people, nobody wants this. No one in Congress WANTS to prevent a world war. Note Kissinger when someone who has a lick of common sense and experience appears: “the other territories Ukraine claims – Donetsk, Lugansk and Crimea – “could be the subject of a negotiation after a ceasefire.”

    Much as he’s the villain of the century, everything Henry says here is true and possible and credible and relevant. That is: Gravitas. Not like crayon-muncher Blinken. Are they merely “claims”? At this point, yes. Are they “Territories” not nations or Oblasts? Yes. Would they or their borders be “negotiated”? Yes, of course. Would the final position of Crimea be made official at that time? Probably yes. Would the borders be subject to adjustment? Yes. Do any of those points waste your time? No.

    RealPolitik. Not FakePolitik. You can be sure as the last few go-rounds with the new guard vs the old guard, the new guard hasn’t the brains of a sea sponge and will discard it all – anything that might work – and blow it all up like Wily E. Coyote x Elmer Fudd. Thank God we don’t have 20 Kissingers running around anymore or the U.S. and West might have successful villainy instead of only embarrassing failures.

    Pointing it out for the stunning contrast between teams, between now and then, and between say Lavrov and Harris.

    “Time for Ukraine Talks ‘Not Right Now’ – White House (RT)”

    Sad as this is, I’m happy about it. When our claim to Ukraine collapses, the loss of hypothecation should collapse our system and clear the mechanism of much fraud. This is the greater priority and long overdue. Like back when Greenspan printed money to get Clinton re-elected instead of allowing the minor recession back then that would have stabilized the books of Wall Street. We all know what happened next: double-fraud for Nasdaq. Triple fraud for ‘01 housing. Quadruple fraud for ‘08 Crash. Quintiple fraud in everything after. Now $30 Trillion in fraud spread widely and $2 Quadrillion in fraud minimum for unpayable derivatives, encompassing the entire Western world. …All because they didn’t want to get off the coke and sober up for a few months in 1996. (And earlier too)

    “The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 was not the result of losing a war. It was caused by the failed policies of a centralized economy, exacerbated by American manipulation of the oil markets, and a costly American-backed guerrilla war in Afghanistan.”

    The Reagan team was installed to END the Cold War, not to win it. The Deep State would never forgive them for that, starting with H Bush and Cheney. The weird, inexplicable actions of Reagan – Grenada, the debt, all that – are artifacts of the REAL war they were fighting, one without bombs. Naturally, they expected with Detente, the whole thing with military, Derp State, CIA, would have to shrink and calm down after, but with H Bush the Derpsters came out with a counterattack that “worked”. As they are always “The Plan”, they finally got the Plan in motion after much Planning with W. and a small office fire. Three actually. That just happened to take out all SEC records, all Wall St fraud records, all the bonds, diamonds, and gold in the vault. The real meaning of Christmas with “Die Hard.”

    But they suck at this, so here we are today, with their winning Plan losing, worldwide. Did you THINK W., Klaus, Turdeau, would be the force the people would rally behind? Wow. And you think you can run all these nations in direct opposition to all the people in them? Wowwow.

    “THE TWITTER FILES: Twitter… The FBI Subsidiary (ZH)”

    20 years, but we’re finally discussing this in a real way. Thank God. Maybe I can go do real work now, like Cincinnatus.

    “FTIF, created in the wake of the 2016 election, swelled to 80 agents”

    Gee, I wonder what happened in 2016 that spooked them so much? Mueller said officially it was not election tampering nor election interference, just as Obama had said before. Can’t be that. Huh.

    Since every act of every agent was a #HumanRightsViolation, are we going to arrest them publicly and sue them privately, just as we would the segregation of buses and dog-attacks on black protestors? No, because the Left loves Civil Rights Violations: It’s their purpose in life and in government. The GOP’s purpose is to roll over and let them, to make sure it doesn’t happen so fast that the people shoot back. Both sides are playing their parts wonderfully.

    “In a period of less than three years, the site’s former Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth alone exchanged more than 150 emails with the FBI.”

    Seems like a small number but let’s break it down. 3 years, 50 a year, the FBI ordered the Director at least once a week. That is, almost like being in his office. ONE guy. They had thousands more emails with the minions.

    Back up: WHO is the FBI working for? Most of this was during the Trump administration, they were censoring, banning, and trampling Human Rights for the personal gain of Trump, right? No? Huh. Then WHO WERE THEY WORKING FOR?

    So we have a major department, tirelessly active in breaking every law, even and especially Laws #1 and #2, and they’re breaking these laws IN OPPOSITION TO THE GOVERNMENT? In Opposition to the Executive? OUTSIDE ANY CHAIN OF COMMAND?

    WHO are they reporting to? China? Like Apple does? To Klaus? WHO? Are they PAID? Blackmailed? Part of the local Sedition Club? Because I don’t think 500 agents all made it up on their own, were all placed on their own, despite the raging opposition of their boss on their own, while a different half of their own organization – local field agents – protested.

    WTF are these people?

    We need to ask the right questions. And you see why Musk has to trickle it all about to give us time to take in the crime scene. Next question: if it’s under so much control, why was Musk able/allowed to buy it? Able/allowed to “leak” it? As Antifa tries to murder his kids, who has his security? Why is he even willing to sit there? Clearly exposed and against the entire FBI and Congress combined. That’s power. And somebody has enough to protect him.

    Speaking of, we found out that the lying liars of lying — the media — lied again about their lies. Obviously not banned about the flight tracker. Elon kept the guy up for months DESPITE his personal safety, only now taking action. The journalists say “they’ve been banned for free speech” while on second thought, “maybe sorta mighta been” because they posted direct links to the jet tracker. …But they didn’t call anybody to find out. They have phoneaphobia. Same Doxxing story as “Libs of Tiktok”? – I – didn”t doxx them, poor little me, Editor of the NY Times, and poor little unpriviledged victim from Swiss boarding school. No: I just gave direct links to the people who WERE doxxing. – I – didn’t commit the crime, I just paid someone to do it for me, covered for them, then shared the loot. You can’t touch me, copper! What are we, 5 years old? GTFO.

    No, worse than that, JetTracker account said, “Hey, it’s all public information.” Yeah, well so is the phone book but putting Justice Alito’s home address on the front page is still “Doxxing”. It’s the definition of doxxing.

    But this is worse. “Public Information” to this guy was: Elon has already had to buy a layer of security for his jet that makes the numbers/transponders private. Dafuq? Yes, and every 30 days he gets a new one because the FAA still needs SOMETHING for planes in the air. So “jet tracker” laboriously sleuths out Musk’s, Kardashian’s, other famous at-risk minority people’s planes, then cross-references their model to the flight locations, then matches back to the private transponder, and figures out which plane it is…then posts his real-time assassination location…for Antifa to jump on his car hood and use.

    But this is “Public” information, mind you. Same as if I hired a Private Eye to follow you around, track you back to your house, publish locations and schedules of all your children n’ stuff. “Public,” you see.

    NO THIS IS NOT PUBLIC under any normal definition of “Public.” Any nearness to the line of this “Public” is stalking and harassment.

    So after tolerating this for a month, Musk finally pulls it and the reporters who publicly link to it. Because yes, reporters, private eyes, police, private security do probably know, probably have on tap paid services to find out where someone is. But that’s not called “public”. And are now all decrying “Free Speech” after approving of this behavior or 10+ years.

    And only YESTERDAY, as they decried THEIR doxxing, of Yoel Roth, who had to move. I still see no police report on any specific threat to him.

    So as usual: doxxing for thee and not for me! I am a good person, therefore ANY action I do, even murder, is by definition ‘good’. You are a bad person, therefore by definition, your eating tacos is ‘bad’ and must be stopped. With murder if necessary.” “Give them no rest anywhere, harass them constantly” as Maxine Waters advised…and other officials in front of Congress only yesterday. And Supreme Court justices. Who now have court cases in front of them that can b—h slap all this.

    “EU Threatens Elon Musk with Sanctions (RT)”

    …Leading to this. The EU says, “Sorry Elon, you have to allow your kids to be killed. That’s the law!”

    Clown World is now over the horizon BEHIND US. To Infinity and Beyond.

    ““Take a beat and lay off the proto-fascism.”

    Because it was said: it’s a lie. Because it was the Left: it’s a lie.

    Which of these two is fascism: #1) Merging the Secret Police and private communications corporations. #2) REMOVING the merger of the Secret Police and Communication Corporations?

    Yes. AOC is firmly, lavishly on the side of #Fascism. It’s not “Proto” anything, it’s just plain fascism. Even more because not like Comcast, not like bank bailouts but like literal Control, propaganda, and secret police.

    he’s in a very privileged position that allows him to restore free speech, allow for free discussion of ideas.”

    Musk understands that MONEY MEANS NOTHING. If this is allowed to exist NO ONE IS SAFE. Not even Billionaires. I don’t know how all the others are so O’Leary-stupid they can’t understand this, but maybe because Elon is African-American and saw how little money buys in a continent of violent corruption. Hitler “hosts” the children of Mr. Bosch so he keeps making jeeps. Stalin “vanishes” court favorites, formerly “billionaires” in charge of whole industries. Jack Ma “gets a vacation” courtesy of Chairman Xi. YOUR MONEY MEANS NOTHING TO ME.

    Musk can’t spend it, use it, safely, it doesn’t protect his kids, UNLESS FASCISM IS DESTROYED.

    Which is why I want it gone too. And the rest of it, and its Siamese Twin, Socialism.

    “He was very clear that he was aware of the harms of lockdowns.”

    Would printing $3 Trillion dollars and having raging inflation destroy the working class be one of those harms? Instead I hear: “Kill all landlords” and “Kill all police” (who are enforcing like, shoplifting, rioting laws) ACAB when it comes to stopping violence and my stealing spree!

    “…such policies are “leveled against” ordinary consumers across the bloc.”

    Just like the Carbon Credits. Literally they were meant to cause UNNATURALLY HIGH PRICES on the poorest people. Where did these credits flow? To Goldman Sach’s trading floor. That’s it. The whole enchilada: FROM the poor, TO the rich. Benefits? None. If you protest it in France we’ll shoot your eyes out.

    The tree carving points out that it’s not the raw material, it’s the human time.

    TreeShrine

    #123664
    Dr. D
    Participant

    The Binance 1:1 is not true (I believe) and their auditors wouldn’t sign off. If you’re 1:1 what’s the business model? You give very expensive storage away for free for no reason?

    This is making me feel they may be mad they couldn’t get CZ to bite and crash it, so they’re after him by other means right now. Watching…

    #123666
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Kissinger is a dinosaur war criminal and he does not Grok that Russia is finished ‘negotiating’ with the Collective West, they are NOT agreement capable.

    Dickheads like Kissinger live in the past with their heads up their ass and think that Putin doesn’t actually mean what he said about the core treachery of the Collective West.

    He thinks that is just a ‘gambit’ on Putin’s part.

    No Henry you old Satanist, he means it, you are incapable of honesty as is your ilk.

    The only language the Empire of Lies, the Murder of Mafias, understands, comes from the barrel of a gun.

    Peace will be dictated by the unconditional surrender of Ukronaziland on Russia’s terms.

    Period.


    #123667
    Oroboros
    Participant

    I believe ChangPeng Zhao mentioned they charge storage fees earlier in the interview

    #123668
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    Henry Kissinger’s remarkably delusional peace proposal, aside from being ludicrous, actually provides us with something unexpectedly useful. It serves as pretty good proof that the West does (or attempts) whatever he tells it to. That’s a lot of clout for a 99 year old “Dark Triad” psychopath.

    The key missing ingredient from his wish list is the complete absence of suggestions about WHY Russia would choose to do ANY of the things that Old Henry wants them to do. In other words, “What’s in it for them?” Is there ANYTHING?

    Well, no, actually, there isn’t. There is simply no reason given for why Russia would volitionally choose to do any of the things that Henry’s “peace” proposal would have them do before they even sits down to the table, such as : withdraw it’s army, give up it’s reclaimed territory, allow Ukraine to resume genociding ethnic Russian civilians, invite a nuclear armed NATO to camp on his doorstep, forgive the 300 billion dollars previously stolen from Russia’s coffers to remain stolen without compensation, and allow his defeated enemy to rearm and resume its incessant assault on all things Russian throughout the world by restoring the hegemony of the now fallen US Dollar as world reserve currency.

    Nor is there any explanation whatever for those absolutely astounding omissions.

    One more thing that gets left out of the narrative is why anybody anywhere would or should give a flying fuck about what Henry Kissinger thinks is a good plan. Not only does the old bastard’s track record look worse than Caligula, but he himself is literally NOTHING, officially, but a professional adviser jillions of bogus trophies and a long long trail of blood.

    And yet the West continues to do exactly what the decrepit degenerate reprobate “suggests” that they do, regardless of how obviously suicidal that taking that advice would be.

    Why would they DO that?

    Well, duh!, because Henry’s boss is also THEIR boss.

    I would give a nickel to know who that is. Who (name and address , please) gives Henry Kissinger his marching orders?

    #123669
    Oroboros
    Participant

    ChangPeng Zhao really put his head on the chopping block in that interview.

    Virtually daring anyone to pull a run on Binance like he pulled on FTX

    Time will tell

    But ChangPeng Zhao just laid it out there.

    If the crooks in Congress who can ‘legally’ insider trade want to, they can call him to testify.

    Congress is Chickenshit to the core

    Anyone nervous about their assets in Binance can yank them.

    We saw what happened when one big player yanked their assets out of FTX

    House of Cards, Game of Thrones

    #123671
    zerosum
    Participant

    Ignoring the Twitter Files story
    • Truth And Consequences (Jim Kunstler)

    Truth And Consequences


    432 RESPONSES TO “TRUTH AND CONSEQUENCES”
    We cannot rely on the guilty to investigate themselves.
    Majority rules, therefore, NO CONSEQUENCES
    ———-
    Some words that rang my bell.
    Have peace,
    end the war.
    coincidental correlation.
    Available energy, Energy needs, energy waste, discomfort, change of environment
    the media — lied again about their lies.
    who’s lying the most?

    #123672
    Germ
    Participant

    Strep A: new UK protocols issued as pharmacists cope with penicillin supply

    “Five new serious shortage protocols (SSPs) have been issued to pharmacists in an attempt to offset penicillin supply issues ,,,”

    “The number of scarlet fever cases are three times the usual ,,, ”

    “The latest with scarlet fever and strep A infections are that we’ve seen just over 7,500 notifications of scarlet fever, and that’s probably an underestimate. … We have a lot of reports in the past few days so we expect it to be even higher. That’s about three times higher than the same time in a normal season.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/dec/17/strep-a-new-uk-protocols-issued-as-pharmacists-cope-with-penicillin-supply

    This is what a society with a wrecked immune system looks like after lockdowns and death vaxxs

    Winter has only just begun,
    What a hoot!.

    #123673
    Red
    Participant

    On 12 December, the AFD hosted a press conference to unveil the data on 72 million patients (the 90% of Germans with statutory health insurance) they had obtained from KBV, the association which represents all physicians who receive insurance in Germany. This data summarises the number of times all ICD-10 (an international standard) diagnostic codes were used by German healthcare providers for these patients (outside of hospitals) from the first quarter of 2016 to the first quarter of 2022.

    Tom Lausen is a data activist who had previously revealed the PEI and the RKI (the German equivalent of the CDC) were concealing concerning vaccine safety data and was allowed to analyse both BKK and AOK’s data. For this presentation, Lausen was able to provide a preliminary summary of the KBV data a few days after it was released:

    In the coming days, I know many will use this data to verify our work identifying which codes in 2021-2022 had the greatest increase (you can also do that piece by piece with the already available tool), and then cross reference those to the increases reported in VAERS or other datasets. There is an immense amount to be ascertained here, and I believe it represents the credible evidence we have been looking for since the start of the pandemic to have an objective metric for quantifying the impact of vaccine injury.

    Germany: Response to FOI provides data to quantify the cost to human lives due to the experimental Covid injection program

    #123674
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Russian Missile/Drone Strikes Ukraine’s Power Grid – Ukraine’s Top Brass Admits Resource Shortage

    Brian flays the Empire of Liess and their deflating Ukronazi Blowup Pleasure Doll

    #123675
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    Q. How can a federation with a total population of around 140 million take on a federation with a total population of around 800 million and win quite decisively in a fairly short time?

    A. By having people in charge who know what they are talking about and who know how to organise things.

    Having equipment that works and an energy supply to operate that equipment are also key components for success.

    All NATOstan has going for it these days is a well-established propaganda system that is still able to fool a significant, but rapidly declining, portion of the homeland population, along with a massive censorship system geared to preventing the proles discovering how much they have been lied to.

    My guess is that the Russians will let their equipment-that-works give the fascists of Kiev and NATO a bit more of a hiding before proceeding with the next phase of denazification.

    The Russians are wise to not be in a hurry because each day that passes see the ‘leadership’ of NATOstan do a bit more damage to the energetic, economic, financial, social and military potential of the NATOstan collective.

    Only another 3 days till the solstice. And only another week till the fake festival imposed on the minds of NATOstanis is over.

    Only a couple of weeks till the fake New Year extravaganza is over and done with.

    I cannot say I am exactly looking forward to the biggest collapse of the fake ‘markets’ in all of history and the social carnage that will follow that financial collapse, but fraud and fakery have been so endemic for such a long time in ‘advanced nations’ that there is no other way out of the monstrous predicament the fake leaders of ‘the West’ and all their fake institutions have created.

    Professor Albert Bartlett put it succinctly decades ago: “That which is unsustainable cannot be sustained.”

    The fake ‘leaders of the West’ have poured so much treasure into futile attempts to sustain the unsustainable there is very little treasure left -just an awful lot of toxic shit, everywhere.

    Just think, if anyone is still alive in this district a few years from now, the Earth will have begun to repair itself and those survivors will probably be able to swim in the local rivers, as people did before the great toxicity machine run by the fake money-lender government messed everything up.

    #123676
    Noirette
    Participant

    Today I listened to a talk by Sasha Latypova. (New to me.)

    INTENT TO HARM – EVIDENCE OF THE CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT MASS MURDER BY THE US DOD, HHS, PHARMA CARTEL.

    She outlines the structures and functioning of the covid vax response, via an analysis of open source Gvmt. docs and data, in the US.

    https://bit.ly/3FBVkKx Bitchute, 1h 18 mins.

    She also has a substack. https://bit.ly/3Ytn7p7

    Here she is in an interview at Rounding the Earth.

    https://bit.ly/3uVZiJ2 Rumble

    This cleared up some questions I have been vaguely wondering about for some time, re. Emergency Use of X, Y, in the US.

    It also fits in w. my pov that one subsiduary aim of the Plandemic is to eliminate medical doctors as independent agents.
    AI + tele-medecine (control from the top) will take care of diagnosis and remedies (or not, ex. remdesivir), only tech staff is needed for on-body work, such as setting bones, logging a MRI, or at a high level, e.g. a liver transplant, yes surgeons and all the support staff (intensive care…) are needed, specially in ‘private’ health care for the rich, so some training / serious qualification has to continue, but at a far lower level than at present. (OK, hospitals fulfill many functions, it gets complicated.)

    How this played out in different W countries should really be studied.

    #123677
    Oroboros
    Participant

    @Noirette

    I had several good friends who happened to be doctors before the Plandemic.

    The Quackcine was the last straw for them and they retired a bit earily for their game plans.

    One of them could not even find another doctor to take over their thriving practice. Looked for two years and finally had to sell the practice at a steep discount to two Nurse Practitioners who were ‘aligned’ with a ‘supervising physician’

    The ‘supervising physician’ was ‘aligned’ with a dozen other Nurse Practitioners in former practices owned by doctors working for themselves who also could not find buyers.

    My doctor friend showed me one day the diagnostic AI service he subscribed to over the Intertubes that beat most doctors 98% of the time in speed and accuracy of diagnosis.

    The AI had enormous data sets of every medical condition, the records, the diagnosis’s applied, and the follow up outcomes, all harvested, regardless of privacy concerns, by the Big Data Industrial Mafia®

    He put the test results in for say, a kidney problem, and minutes later out popped an answer.

    He had already decided the answer for himself, playing a private game to beat the AI to the punch, and he said the vast majority of the time, the AI and himself agreed.

    However, he was a very, very experienced doctor, with decades of practice and teaching medicine.

    The newer interns he would host at his practice (as a medical school teacher) would not be able to match the AI for a long, long time.

    Looks like they we be phased out before they have that chance to gain that skill set experience.
    The Medical Industrial Mafia® wants to pocket doctors income.

    There greed knows no bounds.

    .

    #123678
    Noirette
    Participant

    Farm expropriation in NL.

    Agricultural statistics are very dodgy.

    Agri. / land use is highly dependent on natural geography (soil, climate, etc.), as opposed to political geo. and almost all measures use ‘countries’ as categories.

    The path from Agri. land use (production) to the foodstuffs that are sold / consumed at end point is +++ complex and involves processing — harvesting, combining foods, chem. agents, etc. using mostly heat — transport, packaging, and more, such as fin. matters, tariffs / VAT, contracts with supermarkets, Gvmt. regs, etc.

    A last caveat: energy use. The energy innput (all kinds) has to be taken into account, which it isn’t on the whole.

    So it is hyper! complex.

    Still, all over the EU, land use for agri has been sinking, in favor of cheap food imports, and some ‘intesive agri’ efforts.

    Netherlands agri land use, 2020: 53% (1961: 68%) Note the sharp downtrend, set to continue.

    Chart, some similar in % EU countries. For NL is is just one more ‘down-step.’

    https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.LND.AGRI.ZS?locations=NL-FR-DK-DE&most_recent_value_desc=false

    #123679
    Noirette
    Participant

    Oroboros, thx for that post, info.

    Making services cheaper while charging as much as poss. is part of the pic.
    The other is aggregating data (AI) to decide and endorse, some plan of action. The main negative point (imho) is that trust is destroyed, the doc who liked you and did his best for you, and was accountable in a way amongst his patients and his peers, becomes a servant of an algo. ghetto, where he is just a front man, or woman, obeying orders from some Central powers, sent day by day via the internets. (Already visible in some areas.)

    #123680
    Oroboros
    Participant

    @Noirette

    My doctor friend already verbalized that very sentiment years ago. He could see the trend. He despised the local centralized hospital medical corporation for gobbling up all the patients into their medical plantation vortex and held out as long as he could without being vacuumed up into the Medical Matrix.

    He pitied the young medical students trying to be ‘doctors’ in this growing corporate medical ghetto.

    He said they didn’t even understand the phrase ‘Shuck n’ Jive Step’in Fetch-its’ that they were walking into.

    .

    #123681
    Germ
    Participant
    #123683
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Today’s Yogi tea tag tells us: Compassion is the constant act of giving oneself to others.

    I Feel For You

    ***
    Goddam Xmas music never stops!

    Joy

    ***

    GODZILLIONS

    Roman culture was a kind of Ellis Island of the Gods, immigrating the ancient gods of their neighbors into the modern ken, often corrupting the good name of a perfectly good theos into a “Theo’’. Thus Zeus became Jove, and Zrvan Akarana became Saturn, as theogony gave way to neology.

    There is more here than scholastic word games. The neologisms of divine nomenclature have served the politics of empire handily, from ancient tribal theocracy on through the divine right of kings (a right usually expressed as the power of kings to be right even or especially when they were wrong), to the modern American’s pledge of allegiance to “One nation under God”. This may help to explain how, for example, the old Grecian name, Theodore, meaning ‘gift of God’, became the Teutonic name, Theodoric, meaning ‘ruler of the people’, eventually becoming today’s Theodore as in Roosevelt.

    Anyway, it is quite clear that, originally, December 25th had nothing to do with Christ’s actual birthdate, which is unknown to current history. December 25th as J.C.’s birthdate is strictly a mythopolitical borrowing. For that matter, Saturnalia was not entirely nor originally Saturn’s festival. The earlier Greeks paid tribute during solstice to Cronus, big daddy of all their earthly deities and father, in fact, of Zeus (or Jove or Jupiter or, perhaps, Theodore, Simon, and Alvin, the ancient Monks of Chip). Cross-culturally associated with Saturn, Cronus was falsely identified by mythologians as the father of time. “Falsely identified”, says my copy of the 1947 Encyclopaedia Britannica. A teste paternity suit which, we shall see, was resolved only by the removal of its two key witnesses.

    Associated with agriculture, Cronus was known for swallowing His children and, for some reason, not much worshipped. Go figure. Cronus was represented by the image of an old man carrying a sickle and still seems to hang on in our winter festivities as Father Time (apparently He wasn’t totally successful in contesting that temporal paternity suit). He has become the Grim Reaper, traditional New Year’s master of ceremonies, carrying the sickle which represents not only the hoped-for harvest and ultimate triumph of Death but also the curved sword with which He removed His father’s testicles at the request of His mother, Ge or Gaea (Earth), who was titanically tired of being kept barefoot and pregnant. (Thus resolving the paternity suit; “testicles” is a Latin word meaning “little witnesses”.) EB’47 states that “among Her offspring by Uranus”(Her now-neutered husband) “were the Cyclopes, the Hundred-Handed Ones[the Hecatoncheires] and the Titans, along with five sea-deities by Her other husband, Pontus, the sea-god”… she’d had enough.

    To clarify this trailer park mytholineage: Cronus was the avenging son who sliced the family jewels; Uranus was His daddy; Gaea was Cronus’s overbred mother. Ancient mythology degenerates into a senile genealogy, like an antebellum Mississippi plantationer’s family tree. Modern Christianity has clarified divine lineage for the most part, shuffling the whole mess into poor Mary’s lap with the Immaculate Conception (or, as the Babylonians termed it: ‘Kindasorta Didbutdidn’t’).

    Uranus was dethroned by the very same avenging son who detesticalized Him, and currently lives out of state, about 1,800,000,000 miles from Sol. Having let Himself grow soft, He is now an immense gasbag some 32,00 miles wide, a planetary couch potato whose rotational axis lounges horizontally (as opposed to all the other planets’ ‘upright’ position of a north /south rotational axis).

    Cronus’s daddy Uranus may have been an old hillbilly peckerwood but Cronus was even worse than His old man. Attempting to evade a prophecy stating that one of His offspring would dethrone Him, Cronus ate His offspring at birth. I remind you here that, to Cronus, dethronement was synonymous with visceral demasculation. Of course, if He had only applied His sickle to His own ‘little witnesses’, He could have circumvented the prophecy altogether. Apparently the gods too have difficulty seeing past the ends of their totem poles. Either way, Cronus was more than a little insecure about His masculinity. His wife, Rhea, was His sister before Their marriage. (One begins to see the difficulty of establishing paternity short of eliminating witnesses.) Rhea tricked Him at last by substituting a stone in a blanket in place of Their newborn, Zeus. A palate accustomed to the tender flesh of one’s children would not, of course, be fooled by this. Suffering indigestion, Cronus hurled and spewed mighty chunks. Gods do not merely vomit. They hurl, titanically, upchucking great volcanic cuds of primaeval nausea. In so doing, old Cronus inadvertently disgorged his previously cannibalized children. And you think you have a hard time raising your kids, or explaining why Mom’s third husband is younger than your big sister…
    <to be continued>

    #123684
    boscohorowitz
    Participant
    #123685
    boscohorowitz
    Participant
    #123686
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    If an AI must provide diagnosis, I want an inspiring presentation, like this:

    #123687
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    Dr D:
    In the age of computers, they just take the stats from any drug, event, etc, and can ask the computer what is the closest correlations in the data set.

    Which explains perfectly what I discovered in this NYT article yesterday: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/15/opinion/how-reduce-carbon-footprint-climate-change.html?unlocked_article_code=sEcTfb1jGkDNyqSTdn4S4t259XEBi7zms8Nb3pULMn6_rZJOVTRzIcPiNG1knFdpMY9iyQOp_rjNM7285VJx2k4e7nMajirrselSgyVJtsHVLdYAyGYiQckRQYguC3siCpiiCVlWK0K8nql9HXxJfnsirL4srK1Sm3GOcB8GYUbTP0r86oitWbKTdLHS66xbSHs80k_UKj-_PlvfLpdkB68NArRgsQs_yD6SNdP9MV1rubcqimU5JzAQjNzyIqdkNXxP_Mh-K5IepLRhA2CrSwNamzyEdOxAmtf2Uyz-go-5rqp5wns5Q7PQ5RcasR8LnTU_tOJyMNwn3hfRWgfjNHVTXOgS6ULjBxztxqdJ0anmqU8lWVLOM6eTlma4HqyhBYUJ7w&smid=em-share

    When the quiz is taken it is discovered that the “preferred” actions to reduce the carbon footprint are
    – no air travel
    – no car travel
    – vegan diet
    – renewable energy

    If you struggle with those, perhaps you can at least
    – be vegetarian
    – eat organic
    – install a heat pump

    And the following are not worth the effort — they’ve been deprecated:
    – carpooling (if no one has a car, this is irrelevant)
    – recycling (cities that manage waste might find this frustrating)
    – energy efficient appliances (they break so easily now that you replace them every few years anyhow)
    – lowering the temperature (sorry, Europe)
    – buying fewer things (go, capitalism! Buy more!)

    Interestingly, the article is devoid of any information about the methodology used to arrive at these “carbon footprint truths” (TM). It reads like a religious sermon, naming virtues and vices, exhorting the faithful to be virtuous.

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