Dec 232022
 
 December 23, 2022  Posted by at 10:00 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,


Saul Leiter Man with flowers, NY 1950s

 

Washington Is Prolonging Ukraine’s Suffering (Macgregor)
German Press Is Pushing For Confrontation With Moscow (Livschitz)
Hungary Wants European Parliament Dissolved (Az.)
EU Leaders Dread a Ukraine Peace Process (Varoufakis)
US Admits Afghan Pullout Helped Arm Ukraine (RT)
US Space Force Practices For War In Europe (RT)
The Mushroom Principle (Blair)
A Well-Deserved Prize! (Dionisio)
US Life Expectancy Fell Again In 2021 – Covid And Drug Overdoses (Hill)
Winter Storm: Energy Demand To Stress Electrical, Natural Gas Systems (Fox)
Maricopa County Elections Director Confirms ‘Bombshell’ Error (BN)
Who Will Pay Sam Bankman-Fried’s $250 Million Bond? (Decrypt)
Rand Paul Exposes Corruption Behind $1.7 Trillion Omnibus Spending Bill (BR)
DeSantis’ Grand Jury Impaneled to Investigate mRNA Vaccine Manufacturers (FlV)
2022 Year in Review: All Roads Lead to Ukraine (Collum)
2022 The Year in Review: The War in Ukraine (Collum)

 

 

 

 

McCullough

 

 

DARPA. Read the first paragraph.

 

 

 

 

Marangoli flow
https://twitter.com/i/status/1605893374409670656

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Like South Vietnam in the 1960s, Ukraine is losing its war with Russia. Ukraine’s hospitals and morgues are filled to capacity with wounded and dying Ukrainian soldiers.”

Washington Is Prolonging Ukraine’s Suffering (Macgregor)

During a speech given on November 29, Polish Vice-Minister of National Defense (MON) Marcin Ociepa said: “The probability of a war in which we will be involved is very high. Too high for us to treat this scenario only hypothetically.” The Polish MON is allegedly planning to call up 200,000 reservists in 2023 for a few weeks’ training, but observers in Warsaw suspect this action could easily lead to a national mobilization.Meanwhile, inside the Biden administration, there is growing concern that the Ukrainian war effort will collapse under the weight of a Russian offensive. And as the ground in Southern Ukraine finally freezes, the administration’s fears are justified. In an interview published in the Economist, head of Ukraine’s armed forces General Valery Zaluzhny admitted that Russian mobilization and tactics are working. He even hinted that Ukrainian forces might be unable to withstand the coming Russian onslaught.

Yet, Zaluzhny rejected any notion of a negotiated settlement and instead pleaded for more equipment and support. He went on to insist that with 300 new tanks, 600 to 700 new infantry fighting vehicles, and 500 new Howitzers, he could still win the war with Russia. Truthfully, General Zaluzhny is not asking for assistance, he’s asking for a new army. Therein lies the greatest danger for Washington and its NATO allies. When things go badly for Washington’s foreign policy, the true believers in the great cause always draw deeply from the well of ideological self-delusion to steel themselves for the final battle. Blinken, Klain, Austin, and the rest of the war party continue to pledge eternal support for Kiev regardless of the cost. Like the “best and the brightest” of the 1960s they are eager to sacrifice realism to wishful thinking, to wallow in the splash of publicity and self-promotion in one public visit to Ukraine after another.

[..] The Biden administration’s unconditional support for the Zelensky regime in Kiev is reaching a strategic inflection point not unlike the one LBJ reached in 1965. Just as LBJ suddenly determined in 1964 that peace and security in Southeast Asia was a vital U.S. strategic interest, the Biden administration is making a similar argument now for Ukraine. Like South Vietnam in the 1960s, Ukraine is losing its war with Russia. Ukraine’s hospitals and morgues are filled to capacity with wounded and dying Ukrainian soldiers. Washington’s proxy in Kiev has squandered its human capital and considerable Western aid in a series of self-defeating counter-offensives. Ukrainian soldiers manning the defensive lines facing Russian soldiers in Southern Ukraine are brave men, but they are not fools. The Spartans at Thermopylae were brave, and they still died.

Maajid Zel

Read more …

“Less than half – 43% – gave the impression that diplomatic negotiations would be useful, and this was largely due to Der Spiegel’s reporting..”

German Press Is Pushing For Confrontation With Moscow (Livschitz)

Last week, the University of Mainz published a study of German news coverage of events in Ukraine, and Berlin’s official response to the crisis. The conclusions confirm that since February 24, the media has played a major role in keeping the conflict going, and making a negotiated settlement less likely, due to almost universally biased, pro-war, anti-Russia content being published at all stages. Researchers at the university analyzed German-language reporting on the Ukraine conflict between February 24 and May 31, assessing the content of around 4,300 separate articles published by the country’s eight leading newspapers and TV stations: FAZ, Suddeutsche Zeitung, Bild, Spiegel, Zeit, ARD Tagesschau, ZDF Today, and RTL Aktuell.

During this time, Ukraine was portrayed positively in 64% of all coverage, and President Vladimir Zelensky in 67%. By contrast, Russia was portrayed “almost exclusively negatively” 88% of the time, and President Vladimir Putin in 96% of cases. Almost all reports – 93% in total – attributed sole blame for the war to Putin and/or Russia. The West was named as “jointly responsible” in only 4% of instances, Ukraine even less so at 2%. The perspectives of Russia on the conflict were only considered or mentioned in 10% of news reports, less than the viewpoint of any other country, including Moscow’s neighbors. Alternative for Germany and the Left Party, which both oppose arming Ukraine and prolonging the fighting, “had practically no media presence in reporting on the war.”

Government messaging and statements from ministers were completely dominant, being the focus in 80% of news coverage, more than four times above the figure for opposition parties. In media discussions of “measures most likely to end the war,” economic sanctions against Russia were “by far the most frequently reported,” and approved of in 66% of cases. Diplomatic measures were mentioned “much less frequently,” while “humanitarian measures” were even less regularly featured. In all, 74% of the reports surveyed portrayed military support to Ukraine “extremely positively.” Delivery of heavy weapons was endorsed “a little less clearly, but still considered to be largely sensible,” with 66% “overwhelmingly in favor.”

Less than half – 43% – gave the impression that diplomatic negotiations would be useful, and this was largely due to Der Spiegel’s reporting that clearly marked diplomacy as the most sensible option for Berlin “by far.” “Der Spiegel was the only media examined to rate diplomatic negotiations more positively than the delivery of heavy weapons,” the academics conclude. The report did identify one area where media coverage was “certainly not pro-government.” On certain rare occasions, Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his coalition were strongly criticized “for hesitating to flood Ukraine with heavy weapons” by all outlets apart from Der Spiegel.

Read more …

“..legislators from the parliaments of member states should be delegated to the European Parliament..”

Hungary Wants European Parliament Dissolved (Az.)

The recent corruption scandal in the European Parliament (EP) is a sign that the EU institution should be abolished in its current form, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Wednesday. He added that the EP already had an abysmal reputation. Orban’s remarks came after Eva Kaili, a Greek politician who served as one of the European Parliament’s vice presidents, was arrested and charged this month with corruption for receiving bribes from Qatar. “The Hungarians would like for the European Parliament to be dissolved in its current form,” he said at a press conference in Budapest. Orban argued that the scandal “draws attention to the fact that national parliaments have a stronger control system in place,” adding that legislators from the parliaments of member states should be delegated to the European Parliament, as opposed to being elected separately.


“And they obviously know our political position: the swamp must be drained,” the prime minister said. Budapest has repeatedly clashed with the European Parliament and other EU institutions over a number of issues, including migration and LGBTQ rights. Brussels, in turn, accused Orban’s conservative government of eroding the rule of law at home. Hungary, whose economy heavily depends on Russian energy imports, has also criticized the EU sanctions imposed on Moscow in response to the military operation in Ukraine, which was launched in late February. Unlike many of the bloc’s member states, Orban has refused to send weapons to Kiev. “If it were up to us, there would not be a sanctions policy,” Orban said on Wednesday. “It is not in our interest to permanently divide the European and Russian economies into two, so we are trying to save what can be saved from our economic cooperation with the Russians.”

Read more …

Too much division in Europe. “Who will represent the EU in any future peace process?”

EU Leaders Dread a Ukraine Peace Process (Varoufakis)

While peace in Ukraine would help stem Europe’s economic hemorrhaging, the moment any peace process begins, the European Union will be divided by an internal East-West fault line, which is bound to reawaken the EU’s earlier North-South conflict. A credible peace process will require difficult negotiations involving the world’s great powers. Who will represent Europe at that high table? It is hard to imagine Polish, Scandinavian, and Baltic leaders ceding that role to their French or German counterparts. In the EU’s eastern and northeastern flanks, French President Emmanuel Macron is considered a Putin appeaser ready to impose on Ukrainians a reprehensible (to them) land-for-peace agenda.


Likewise, setting aside Germany’s long-term reliance on Russian energy, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s standing as a torchbearer of Europe’s collective interest has been damaged further by his €200 billion ($212 billion) fiscal defense of German industry – the type of tax-funded protective shield which Germany vetoed at the EU level. Meanwhile, French and German elites pour scorn on the idea that the EU might be represented in any peace process by the likes of Kaja Kallas, Estonia’s Prime Minister, or Sanna Marin, her Finnish counterpart. “The moral crusades of the Ukraine war maximalists are fashionable now but they will hinder, not help, any peace process,” was how a German official put it to me.So, the question remains: Who will represent the EU in any future peace process?

Read more …

“Zelensky also addressed a special joint session of Congress, with a plea to approve another $45 billion in aid for 2023. The Senate did so the following day.”

US Admits Afghan Pullout Helped Arm Ukraine (RT)

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken admitted on Thursday that the much-criticized withdrawal from Afghanistan, which he called “America’s longest war,” helped Washington redirect resources to Ukraine just months later Appearing at the State Department for a year-end press conference, Blinken painted a rosy picture of Washington’s diplomatic accomplishments. The exit from Afghanistan, which happened in August 2021, came up because one reporter took issue with Blinken’s claim of strong relationships with US “allies and partners,” some of whom she said were critical of how that US handled that operation. Consultations were “sustained, they were intense, and we strongly took note of everything that we heard from allies and partners in advance of the decisions that President [Joe] Biden made and that we made,” Bliken insisted, arguing that claims otherwise are “not born out by the facts.”

Though the reporter had asked about lessons of that withdrawal in “dealing with Russia and China,” Blinken proceeded to argue that “if we were still in Afghanistan, it would have, I think, made much more complicated the support that we’ve been able to give and that others have been able to give Ukraine” against Russia. The last US soldier departed from the Kabul airport on August 31, 2021. The US-backed Afghan government had collapsed without much of a fight two weeks earlier, leaving the Taliban in control of the country – as they had been in 2001. While the cost of the 20-year conflict has been estimated at over $2 trillion, the US spent almost $73 billion in 2021 dollars on training, equipping, maintaining and supplying the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF), most of it from the Pentagon budget. The bulk of ANDSF weaponry and equipment ended up in Taliban hands.

By comparison, the Russian Defense Ministry estimated earlier this week that total Western aid to Ukraine this year amounted to over $97 billion. The Pentagon alone has spent at least $20 billion in direct “security assistance” to Ukraine since February 2022, by its own admission. Other US government departments, NATO and EU members accounted for the rest. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky visited Washington in person on Wednesday, receiving a pledge from Biden to fund Kiev for “as long as it takes” and a $1.85 billion packet of weapons and ammunition, including a battery of Patriot air defense missiles. Zelensky also addressed a special joint session of Congress, with a plea to approve another $45 billion in aid for 2023. The Senate did so the following day.

Read more …

“We will fight in space as a coalition, and these opportunities are invaluable to building the team that will fight together should the need arise.”

US Space Force Practices For War In Europe (RT)

The US Space Force has conducted joint drills with UK, Canada and Australia – the largest such exercises in its history – to hone its readiness for a hypothetical war in Europe, according to a statement by the Space Training and Readiness Command (STAR). Three so-called Space Flag 23-1 drills, each lasting two days, were conducted earlier this month at Schriever Space Force Base in Colorado. The exercises enabled participants to practice “orbital warfare techniques, our electronic warfare techniques, our space-domain-awareness techniques and intelligence command,” Space Force Lieutenant Colonel Albert Harris said.“This Space Flag focused on a US European Command scenario, so we wanted to present the problem in that theater and exercise our ability to win it based off of various problems that we presented to the team,” Harris added.

Troops were given Europe-specific problems to solve during mission planning and practiced procedures to increase their readiness to win a conflict on the continent, but the exact scenarios remain a mystery. The event marked the first Space Force drills that practiced for European war and just happened to come amid escalating tensions between Washington and Moscow over the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Harris said planning for the exercises began in February, the same month in which Russia began its military operation in Ukraine. Colonel Jason Schramm said the drills enabled US forces and coalition partners to practice their space combat tactics. “Winning in space underpins coalition lethality in other warfighting domains,” he said. “We will fight in space as a coalition, and these opportunities are invaluable to building the team that will fight together should the need arise.”

The US has been supporting Ukraine in its fight against Russia with weapons, supplies and other forms of military aid, such as intelligence, while claiming not to be directly involved in the conflict. General John Raymond, the head of US space operations, said in July that “commercial space has been very important in providing capabilities that have been helpful to Ukraine.” One well-known case is the supply of Starlink ground equipment to Ukraine. Elon Musk’s SpaceX has provided access to satellite broadband internet service to Kiev’s troops. Speaking at a space event at the UN in October, Russian representative Konstantin Vorontsov expressed concern over the US and its allies using “elements of the civilian space infrastructure, including commercial, for military purposes,” and warned that “quasi-civilian infrastructure may be considered a legitimate target for a retaliatory strike.”

The US launched its Space Force as a separate military branch in 2019, more than 50 years after joining with the Soviet Union and the UK in signing a treaty that pledged to set aside space for “peaceful purposes.” The Pentagon has claimed that it must treat space as a “war-fighting domain” because of alleged threats from Russia and China.

Read more …

“The mechanisms of “narrative control” have been tightened exponentially.“

The Mushroom Principle (Blair)

The mechanisms of “narrative control” have been tightened exponentially. Back in 2003 it was still possible to read occasional pieces in the “respectable” press such as the BBC, NY Times, Washington Post or The Guardian that questioned the official narrative, particularly the fabricated justifications put forward by the Deep State for their invasion of Iraq. Ever since then, there has been a systematic purge of any and all honest investigative journalists who dare to challenge the Deep State narrative. Most notable was Chris Hedges, Pulitzer prize winning head of the Middle East Bureau of the NY Times, who was forced out of his job for his righteous opposition to the US invasion of Iraq. Another luminary, summarily removed from The Guardian (despite contributing to their Pulitzer Prize win in 2014), was Glenn Greenwald.

Voices of reason such as that of Noam Chomsky have long been sidelined and shunned. The legendary John Pilger, former icon of Fleet Street, has been denied any mainstream platform that could earn him a living wage. There are many others too numerous to mention. Now the Deep State is slowly murdering the greatest journalist of our modern times, Julian Assange, using bogus charges that were trumped-up by the Trump regime. Assange’s greatest crime? Exposing the war crimes of the USA. The US Establishment can now effectively block or stifle any public dissent opposing their War Agenda, while simultaneously instructing the stupid sheeple who they must direct their daily two minutes of hatred against. The Western media have truly turned Orwellian.

They have learned how to do this step-by-step over the years since the Vietnam and Afghan and Iraq debacles, now achieving total control over the mainstream media. Hence when Russia was provoked by the USA into invading Ukraine in February this year, it was falsely and repeatedly and uniformly described as an “unprovoked invasion” by those MSM sewer outlets, completely ignoring the genocide the Ukronazi proxies of the US had been committing against Russophone civilians in Donbass over the previous 8 years. The war criminal Condoleezza Rice condemned Russia for their “criminal invasion” without the slightest hint of irony, while the stenographers “reporting” her words failed to point out the bleeding obvious.

Read more …

“It’s not even worth to throw any argument, because classification in these terms is mainly aimed at not discussing anything.”

A Well-Deserved Prize! (Dionisio)

A feeling of complete justice is what I felt when I attended the presentation of the Sakharov prize to comedian Zelinsky. Rarely does an award embody, so substantially, the deep connection between the institution that promotes it, the great European political families that approved it, and the recipient himself. I give a standing ovation! Yes, sir! I fully approve! The bank account that inexplicably appeared in Switzerland, disclosed through the Pandora papers, stuffed with almost a billion Euros, in the name of the prize winner, explains more than one can imagine. It explains everything! Take Eva Kaili, for example. A rising star in international politics, transformed into a runway that shows, on the outside, what she is not on the inside.

To assume that Eva and her cronies are an exception, who, for the money, fame, and glamour it provides, have agreed to publicly defend what they previously claimed to despise…. It is not paying attention to 21st century European politics. In the 21st century, being of the centrist political parties (mainly the social democrats and popular, liberal and moderate conservatives) means a lot…it means everything! It means not being an “extremist”, of course, “left-wing” or “right-wing”, reducing the whole spectrum to two camps – the acceptable, the “mainstream”, the “balanced”; and, the “unacceptable”, the “radical” and “sectarian”; belonging to an “extreme” is the same, whatever side you are on. Being in the middle, that’s all, and that’s not up for discussion anymore. It’s not even worth to throw any argument, because classification in these terms is mainly aimed at not discussing anything.

Not that one can generalize and run everything by the same measure; that is neither serious nor even advisable, and it is precisely what wants the ones that determines that any analysis should be done in the terms I have mentioned. But this is, above all, the story of the political mainstream. Saying one thing… and doing the other. Take the sakharov prize itself: awarding this prize to a guy whose government has outlawed more than a dozen political parties, confiscating their property; to the leader of a government that confiscates property of the Orthodox Church and persecutes its clerics for defending the “Holy Russ” composed of the three sister countries of the Slavic East, of which Kiev is the mother city; who has banned the use of the native language of nearly half of the country’s population, burning books, destroying statues and films depicting the culture in that language; persecutes journalists for reporting what he does not intend; detains political activists who oppose him, and lied in the elections he won, promising what he did not intend to do…

Read more …

“Every age group in the nation— from 1 year olds to people age 85 and older— saw a decrease in life expectancy.”

Hmmm. 1 year olds don’t die from Covid or fentanyl. So what is going on there?

US Life Expectancy Fell Again In 2021 – Covid And Drug Overdoses (Hill)

The average U.S. life expectancy shortened by seven months in 2021, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), driven mainly by COVID-19 and drug overdoses from synthetic opioids. According to a pair of CDC reports, life expectancy dropped for the second consecutive year, from 77 years to 76.4 years. This follows a major drop of 1.8 years in 2020, putting life expectancy from birth at about the same level it was in 1996. Every age group in the nation— from 1 year olds to people age 85 and older— saw a decrease in life expectancy. Life expectancy for women is 79.9 years, about six years longer than men, but they both experienced the same decline.

Almost all racial groups also saw an increase in death rates, except for non-Hispanic Asian males and non-Hispanic Black males, which saw a slight decrease, Nine of the 10 leading causes of death in 2020 were the same in 2021. Heart disease was the main cause of death, followed by cancer and COVID-19, which took nearly 417,000 lives last year, an increase of 18.8 percent from 2020, despite the release of new vaccines. About 3.46 million people died in the U.S. last year, according to CDC, an increase of 80,502 more deaths than in 2020. Deaths by suicide and from liver disease caused by alcohol also increased, contributing to the shorter American lifespan.

Flu and pneumonia rates decreased, as parts of the U.S. population took precautions against the coronavirus and wore masks. Drug overdose deaths have been rising over the past two decades in the United States, CDC said. In 2021, overdoses were responsible for 106,699 deaths. Drug overdose death rates increased for each race and Hispanic-origin group except non-Hispanic Asian people between 2020 and 2021. They rose by 14 percent in 2021 compared to 2020, driven mainly by the illegal synthetic opioid fentanyl. According to the report, there was a 22 percent increase in overdose deaths from synthetic opioids in 2021.

Read more …

Keep warm guys.

Winter Storm: Energy Demand To Stress Electrical, Natural Gas Systems (Fox)

America’s natural gas and electrical system will be put to the test in the next few days as a winter storm that’s expected to cascade across the country brings heavy snowfall, ice, flooding and powerful winds. The National Weather Service says a tremendously impactful winter storm will continue to affect large portions of the nation late this week and going into the holiday weekend. Winter weather hazards will stretch from border to border across the central and eastern U.S. and from coast to coast from the east coast to the Pacific Northwest. “I think you’re going to see the demand for energy in the next couple of days be the highest it’s ever been in our country’s history,” American Gas Association CEO Karen Harbert told FOX Business. “This is a storm of consequence, and it’s not isolated. If you look at the storm … it’s going to affect almost the entire lower 48.”


Temperatures in parts of the country have already plummeted Thursday and millions of people are already under some typ of winter weather advisory. “As of Thursday afternoon, nearly 280 million people in the U.S. are under some form of winter weather warning or advisory,” the NWS said. The total includes nearly 150 million for wind chill warnings or advisories, 114 million for blizzard warning, 56 million for winter storm warnings and 500 thousand for ice storm warnings. Although the system is going to be stressed like never before, Harbert said utility companies have been preparing all year for this. “Demand is going to be unprecedented. And they’re going to try and manage that load demand very carefully,” she added.

Read more …

Not an error, but a trick. Just use the wrong size of paper and you guarantee tons of ballots are rejected.

Maricopa County Elections Director Confirms ‘Bombshell’ Error (BN)

There was a ‘bombshell’ revelation divulged in court on Thursday in a lawsuit brought by Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake against Secretary of State and Governor-Elect Katie Hobbs. It leads to the inescapable conclusion that fraud was committed in the Arizona election. Maricopa County Elections Director Scott Jarrett confirmed in court that the ballot printer and tabulation errors that sowed widespread chaos in the Arizona election was caused on Election Day. “Is it your testimony that the printer set changes that led to the so-called ‘shrink to fit’ issue was that done on Election Day?” Kari Lake’s attorney Kurt Olson asked. “That’s correct,” Scott Jarrett replied. “Elections director Scott Jarrett confirms that the printer setting change that led to the mass disenfranchisement of Arizona voters DID occur the morning of election day,” the Kari Lake War Room reported.


Also in Thursday testimony, election modeling expert Richard Baris said that his projections showed as many as 40,000 voters were disenfranchised over Election Day chaos in Arizona’s Maricopa County. Baris said he would “have no doubt” that she would’ve won the election had there been no issues at polling centers. Baris testified that 25,000 to 40,000 voters were disenfranchised in the county due to his estimation that roughly one in five vote centers had problems ballot tabulator machines in the first hours of Election Day. “We’ve got about 20% of the locations out there where there’s an issue with the tabulator,” Maricopa Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates said on election night. Election officials, however, told voters their ballots would still be counted as a result of redundancy protocols. The vote margin between Lake and Hobbs is 17,117 votes. Baris is the last witness that Lake is calling in the scheduled two-day trial for her election lawsuit.

[..] Kari Lake’s legal team attained a legal victory by given authority to randomly inspect ballots from Maricopa County’s election as part of her 70-page lawsuit that Lake filed against top state election officials. The ruling authorized Lake‘s team’s to inspect 50 random ballots cast on Election Day from six polling stations in Maricopa County. During ballot inspection, it was revealed that 48 of 113 ballots reviewed were 19-inch ballots produced on 20-inch paper. This one-inch discrepancy caused ballot tabulators to reject thousands of votes and sowed chaos on Election Day in Maricopa County. An expert witness testified there are only two ways for the 19-inch image to have been projected onto the 20 in ballot, which would cause tabulator errors. The witness verified that both methods required an administrator to change and it could not have happened by chance or error. Thus, it is a form of fraud.

Read more …

The appearance bond..

Who Will Pay Sam Bankman-Fried’s $250 Million Bond? (Decrypt)

Disgraced crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried today was released from custody by a New York judge under a $250 million bond agreement. That led to one big question across Crypto Twitter: Where did the money come from? Didn’t SBF lose billions of dollars? Is he tapping into FTX funds to pay his own bail? The short answer is this: no one had to pay anything for his release, nor is any cash owed—not yet, anyway. Bankman-Fried’s release agreement is an “appearance bond,” a promise to comply with specific restrictions while awaiting trial, and to show up when the time comes. He had to put up 10% of the bail amount as collateral for the bond, but no actual payment was required.

The appearance bond, as filed with the court, establishes a $250,000,000 “personal recognizance bond” guaranteed by four people, at least one of them not a member of Bankman-Fried’s family. For now, though, the only two signatures are those of Allan Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, SBF’s father and mother. At Thursday’s hearing in New York, federal prosecutors said that Bankman-Fried’s bond was “the highest ever pre-trial bond.” Under U.S. law, “recognizance” means a release in which no upfront payment nor bail bond arrangement is required, and that is based solely on a written promise by the defendant to appear in court when required to do so.

“When a loved one or family member co-signs a recognizance bond, the offender’s failure to appear in court impacts additional people—namely the co-signers who are also on the bond,” explained Miriam Baer, vice dean and centennial professor of law at Brooklyn Law School. A court could also require an up front security payment,” Baer adds. “But in some ways requiring family members to co-sign the recognizance bond—especially one with a very high dollar number—is a more powerful way to ensure a wealthy person’s return to court.”

Read more …

“It’s a no-good rotten way to run your government,,”

Rand Paul Exposes Corruption Behind $1.7 Trillion Omnibus Spending Bill (BR)

Republican Senator Rand Paul dropped the hammer on Democrats in Congress for corruption hidden inside their $1.7 trillion spending bill. The 4,000 page bill was produced in the middle of the night and released at 1:30 in the morning. Despite having 10 months to work on it, Congress released it at the 11th hour, right before Christmas. This strategy attempts to pressure lawmakers into making an impulsive decision in order to get home for Christmas break. Senator Paul said, “Whose job is it to produce this? The people in charge of spending.” He continued, “When did they know this would be necessary? Well, it’s in the law, September 30th. You got nine months, almost ten months to produce a plan.”


“They weren’t ready on September 30th so they voted themselves 90 more days. They weren’t ready last week either, so they voted themselves another week.” “So now we have it at 1:30 this morning,” Senator Paul said. “I think the greatest risk to our national security is our debt. The process stinks. It’s an abomination.” “It’s a no-good rotten way to run your government. Six trillion dollar entity and they want 24 hours to process this, and then they want to go forward.” Many lawmakers won’t be able to read and process the impact of the 4,000 page spending bill within 24 hours.

Trump omnibus
https://twitter.com/i/status/1605985062603866116

Read more …

Let’s hope he dares take it far and deep enough.

DeSantis’ Grand Jury Impaneled to Investigate mRNA Vaccine Manufacturers (FlV)

The Florida Supreme Court granted Gov. Ron DeSantis’ request to impanel a statewide grand jury to investigate mRNA vaccine manufacturers. DeSantis announced earlier in December his petition for a statewide grand jury to investigate “any and all wrongdoing” in Florida with respect to the COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers. “It is against the law to mislead and to misrepresent, particularly when you’re talking about the efficacy of a drug,” DeSantis said.The statewide grand jury will be allowed to investigate groups involved in the design, development, clinical testing, marketing, and distribution of vaccines said to prevent COVID-19 infection, symptoms, and transmission. It will be impaneled for one year.

DeSantis’ petition argued that there was widespread belief that the COVID-19 vaccine prevented the disease from spreading, which led to vaccine mandates on citizens, health care workers, and military members. “It is impossible to imagine that so many influential individuals came to this view on their own. Rather, it is likely that individuals and companies with an incentive to do so created these perceptions for financial gain,” the petition said. The petition specifically points out Moderna and Pfizer’s claims about preventing the COVID-19 disease with “94.1% efficacy” and “91.3% vaccine efficacy.” Earlier in December, DeSantis also announced that a public health integrity committee will be established. The board will advise the public and provide oversight moving forward of the public health establishment.

Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo has previously spoken out against the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, saying they are “far less safe” than other vaccines based on an autopsy-based clinical research in a cardiology study. In October, Lapado announced new mRNA COVID-19 vaccine guidance, advising against males aged 18-39 years old from taking those vaccines due to a reported 84% increase in the relative incidence of heart-related deaths.

Read more …

Dave Collum’s review is out again. Actually, ARE out again. It will take you all of 2023 to read 2022. Dave sent me a message saying:

“Passing along my annual tome. I cannot fathom how you put out the content that you put out. It takes the hide off me. (The Ukraine section is the core and the source of pain and suffering by the woke.)”

2022 Year in Review: All Roads Lead to Ukraine (Collum)

A Year in Transition. This was my runner up for the title. Aren’t we always stuck on the “Mobius Strip from Hell” that never ends? Francis Fukuyama and Tom Friedman were wrong: history did not end, and the world is going spherical again rather quickly. Of course, we never know the future, but each year seems to have themes that play out with a quantized feel to it. By contrast, 2022 has left world economies heading south but with no bottom in sight. Neither the Fed nor the markets are done inflicting pain. The risk of global famine is real but with inestimable consequences. The futures of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies hang in the balance with more than just price corrections now in play.


The war in Ukraine could end with a whimper (but only if Russia wins) or with a thermonuclear conflagration (nobody wins). Europeans are pondering the relative merits of freezing to death owing to lack of energy or starving to death owing to lack of food, but maybe those potentially biblical events are just clickbait. The WEF has reared its ugly head—the WEF’s Great Reset is not just a theory—yet we still haven’t a clue what those diabolical authoritarian meat puppets are up to. Why do we have to start eating bugs and forfeiting all earthly belongings and to whom. It is hard to see how we smoothly get to 2023 from 2022.

Read more …

“If you think Putin is, by definition, wrong because he attacked first, you have neither read much nor thought very deeply about the Ukraine conflict or the origins of wars.”

2022 The Year in Review: The War in Ukraine (Collum)

We are on the cusp of WWIII, what could become the most inclusive war in history, with world leaders who seem incapable of orchestrating a decisive paintball attack. Like so many, I rely on geopolitical events to learn about politics and geography. Task #1: figure out where Ukraine is located on a map. I stumbled upon this top-secret Pentagon strategy map:

Oh my God. They have already removed Russia! Task #2: resolve spelling and grammar issues. Is it Ukraine or The Ukraine; Odesa or Odessa; Kiev or Kyiv; Zelensky, Zelenskiy, or Zelenskyy; Donbas or Donbass; and Dumbass or Biden? First disclaimer: there is no chance that I can understand a border war in or near the Baltics. I take solace in that y’all are in the same boat. I am grand theorizing—creating big narratives for a hopelessly complex topic—describing the World According to Dave. I am layers into the onion but doubtlessly layers away from truths because I am fishing shit off the internet about a war said by the legendary journalist John Pilger and filmmaker Oliver Stone to be the most propaganda-slathered war in their lifetimes. My immutable rule of thumb: if their lips are moving they are lying.


We can all agree that the list of victims in this war is non-statistically populated by Ukrainians. They are dying, and their world is being upended. If, however, you think that this is a simple story about good versus evil, you need a CT scan. I am especially talking to the devout members of the Sanctimony-Industrial Complex—Eric Hoffer’s fanatical True Believers—who will take any opportunity to be part of a grand movement to elevate their lives by signaling their virtue. I was on a Zoom call with a member of the clergy in which he stated that “it is Putin’s fault because Putin attacked.” I curtly told that punk-ass zealot—quite an impressive one actually— “If I have some guy in my face, and it is clear that this is not going to resolve well, my immediate goal becomes finding a way to land the first punch to ensure there is no second punch.” (I did say that.) Months later I discovered that I had inadvertently paraphrased Putin. If you think Putin is, by definition, wrong because he attacked first, you have neither read much nor thought very deeply about the Ukraine conflict or the origins of wars.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Shoebill stork

 

 

How to enjoy a shower

 

 


The Etruscan shrew. Smallest mammal in the world by weight at 1.8grams on average. For perspective a paper clip is 1 gram

 

 

Cocker

 

 

Prince

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Home Forums Debt Rattle December 23 2022

Viewing 35 posts - 1 through 35 (of 35 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #124143

    Saul Leiter Man with flowers, NY 1950s   • Washington Is Prolonging Ukraine’s Suffering (Macgregor) • German Press Is Pushing For Confrontation W
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle December 23 2022]

    #124144
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    “Passing along my annual tome. I cannot fathom how you put out the content that you put out. It takes the hide off me.

    …and there you go!
    Thanks so much Ilargi for what you do…

    #124145
    Red
    Participant

    Thanks to you Ilargi and all the commenters here. May you have a fine and pleasant holiday season, all the best in the coming year of, hmm, interesting unfolding’s! Eyes open and ears to the ground, all is not well. Something wicked this way comes.

    #124146
    Red
    Participant

    “Now the Deep State is slowly murdering the greatest journalist of our modern times, Julian Assange, using bogus charges that were trumped-up by the Trump regime.”

    I thought those charges were brought to bear during the Obama years? Seven years in the Ecuadorian embassy.

    #124147
    oxymoron
    Participant

    Seeing Prince again Raul reminds me of the terrible assault on American art and culture Fentanyl has had

    #124148
    Germ
    Participant

    Pure Evil – that’s all.

    #124149
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “Bankman Freed: “Broke” SBF Released no $250 Million Bond, Agrees to House Arrest in Parents’ House Palatial Mansion.”

    Gosh, must be nice to steal $60 Billion and get house arrest. I’ll go down to the ghetto immediately and tell them about it. Like I said, serve 10 years, $6 Billion dollars per year, oh yeah that’d probably be worth it. Even at $60M/year more than any of us could dream of. Appears everyone rolled on him. Oh noes! But why? …Because like the Hillary, Comey, Smollet case, Ellison “turns state’s evidence” for a crime they don’t need her for at all, could prosecute with no problem, but let her go completely scot-free and keep 100% of all other people out of jail. …And Case closed! Nothing is investigated, not Ukraine, not DNC. DoJ protects Gensler in the SEC from fraud, graft and crime he committed. They “Pled Guilty” doncha know? Pled so guilty, super-duper bad, they went home without supper.

    Like all headlines these days, every word goes on and on, layers and layers of crime. In this case, “Quarter of a BILLION dollars in bail”? And he paid it? I didn’t realize being a Stanford Professor was so lucrative.

    “He had to put up 10% of the bail amount as collateral for the bond, but no actual payment was required.” Sure, so they had $25 Million hanging around instead. And I thought the article said he needed 4 signatures but only got two. He got out anyway?

    “Greece Under US Pressure to Send S-300 Missiles to Ukraine”

    U.S. would love Greece to be defenseless against an openly aggressive Turkey. That specifically flies jets over into Greece 200x a year. Greece has all kinds of money to buy more, I’m sure it’ll be fine! …So Biden and McConnell don’t send Greece $100M in 10 months to fix this? Why not? So many questions. Some Ukrainians are more equal than others.

    “US Life Expectancy Reaches 25-Year Low: CDC”

    Closing the Collapse Gap with the Soviet Union. As Orlov would say.

    “Alan Dershowitz: Jan. 6 Panel’s Criminal Referral of Trump ‘Clearly Unconstitutional’”

    As all Americans are literary and historical illiterates, IMPEACHMENT is the referral of official charges of Presidents. Which are referred to the SENATE for trial. Whatever.

    “Philadelphia Hits 500 Homicides for Second Year in a Row”

    Goooo Blue! We care, care so much! Helping, helping, helping. Helping all Blue cities be the worst in America by every metric. Look: you don’t have to go Scrooge to stop pushing programs that don’t work. And what happened to the “highest minority employment in decades” only last year?

    “The Polish MON is allegedly planning to call up 200,000 reservists in 2023 for a few weeks’ training, but observers in Warsaw suspect this action could easily lead to a national mobilization”

    They are taking Lviv. Wait: I thought that was an “Invasion”. Illegal action and occupation. Not when WE do it! (Okay, okay, if you’re invited in like happened in Syria, but point made, right?)

    “[Zaluzhny] went on to insist that with 300 new tanks, 600 to 700 new infantry fighting vehicles, and 500 new Howitzers, he could still win the war with Russia. Truthfully, General Zaluzhny is not asking for assistance, he’s asking for a new army.”

    Again, WHO will drive the tanks, shoot the Howitzers? Boston Dynamics Bots? We don’t have any of those either.

    You are all being conned by a globalist cartel who use war to fund [themselves]”

    I’ve never felt more than with Ze in Congress, that this cartel really IS Ukraine. There really IS a Kazhar. They really DO have a plan to take their homeland by destroying Russia. And they really do run the American government far more than IAPAC does. We’re at the horizon: $150 Billion for them instantly, ZERO for the American people. Then all the glad-handing congratulations and so on there. Overwhelming approval for this place we never heard of and never cared about. Ukrainian flags everywhere in DC, replacing the American ones, flying on top of them as symbolism.

    Glorious. Never happier. Because this is what happens before a fall. So clueless, so wasteful, so inapplicable to the task. So indefensible to the American people. So impossible to hide when Congress gets in and investigates $150B to “Ukraine” boomeranging back via FTX to the Big Guy. Keeping off WEF/EU bankruptcy bank runs. What are they going to say then? “We never supported Ukraine at the expense of national health care”? “We werent’ distracted by Ukraine at all when we solved Philly’s “City of Love” problems, we didn’t have any national emergency in 10 major cities from the border crisis”? “U.S. standard of living, age of death has never been higher”? No, you can’t hide this.

    Free Speech: never stop talking, Congress. We’re recording every word.

    P.S. Zelenski’s wife just finished a $10,000 Paris shopping spree and all Ze got was a lousy T-shirt. Hey, we just gave you $150 Billion dollars! Least you could do is wear a tie.

    “German Press Is Pushing for Confrontation with Moscow (Livschitz)”

    Great! Did anyone tell them they have whole divisions where not one Puma tank is functional? That is, Germany has no military at all?

    “Who will represent the EU in any future peace process?”

    Who cares? They are “Not agreement capable” anyway. The only peace will be when Russia tells them how it is going to be. Or else what? Didn’t you just read Germany has no functional army? Well the U.S. Army sure ain’t there.

    US Secretary of State Antony Blinken admitted on Thursday that the much-criticized withdrawal from Afghanistan, which he called “America’s longest war,” helped Washington redirect resources to Ukraine just months later”

    Ha! Just as Herr Docktor said. Finally score one for the several cream-pies I’ve taken this year. Note Blinken “wins wars” by leaving billions of hardware stranded on the field with our enemies. The French plan! Just kidding. Even the French win more wars than we do.

    Serge’s American flag is composed entirely of yellow stripes. Classy!

    Not an error, but a trick. Just use the wrong size of paper and you guarantee tons of ballots are rejected.”

    PLUS the other 59 ways of cheating. But it’s more than that if you didn’t go through the whole article: the printers worked an hour ago, then shrank in size the minute voting started, where the only POSSIBLE explanation is an active computer hack. A very unusual, specific, unique one. That is, intentional tampering. There is zero chance this could be a mistake. The 59th open, visible means of election tampering, a Federal (in this case State) Crime.

    There were so many, many more. The voting company? Yeah, they have a special pass to “Bring in as many votes as they want.” You know, legit ones they forward from their mother or father. …Except no one is looking, so why not wheel in a paper-tote-bin of votes?

    There are like 50,000 votes with no chain of custody. At all. They cannot be put back together with the originals. That alone is an election crime issue needing a re-vote. In the trial, the Prosecution admitted it. Let’s just stick with these for now. Will it matter? Never has before. They’ve been doing this since Kennedy v Nixon, or at least Bush v Gore. In our fantasy world, we identify as a nation with clean and sound elections.

    “$1.7 trillion spending bill. The 4,000 page bill was produced in the middle of the night and released at 1:30 in the morning.”

    I know they read every line and know where every dollar went. They are your elected officials after all, not waitressing actresses signed up from open auditions by billionaire-funded PACs. If they were, it’d be on the news right? It was on the news? Then it would be MORE on the news than it already was on the news, if it were true, and i was refusing to look or listen at all.

    “DeSantis’ Grand Jury Impaneled to Investigate mRNA Vaccine Manufacturers (FlV)”

    He has protection, as does Kari Lake. Why? Do they only have enough protection for 2-5 people? Do they not care about the other 48 states?

    Thank goodness for Global Warming or it wouldn’t be 20 below zero in December right now. I guess it would be 50 below?

    …Actually, they’re trying to say it’s 50 below (that’s wind chill) so maybe it would be 100 below zero. Thanks to global warming. All good, nothing to see here! It’s always 30 degrees below the norm on Christmas.

    And the stories are all so poorly written I can’t tell in the slightest what’s going on. Apparently cold? Somewhere? Stories say -12 but maps say -30? So that’s a “below the norm” vs “actual temperature”? And the “actual temperature” of something that hasn’t actually happened yet? But is pre-reported as fact before it happens? With an inset picture of a storm that ALREADY happened, last month in November? I’m confused.

    And this super storm has THREE inches of snow? That’s the panic? In South Dakota? Am I for serious reading this right? Yet this story of Pine Ridge – in the Dakota – has snow “Over houses” or 30 FEET of snow at the same time? …With a jack knife pic of less than two inches. Do we have 3 inches, three feet, or three meters? I’m sorry: does ANYBODY know what’s going on?

    Nope, because they’re all in Brooklyn tweeting it to each other, having never been north of Boston or West of Ellis Island. Fellows: THREE FEET is NORMAL snow for these parts. Ask Buffalo which is famous for it, but Chicago and others too.

    So did you cancel 2,000 flights because you felt like it? Or because there was three inches at O’Hare, or because there’s actually weather out there? The world may never know. …Or not from these reporters anyway.

    They actually had an article on it: Why all your stupid uncles come out of the woodwork when it snows saying global warming isn’t true. – USA Today. “It’s only WEATHER, people, Climate is something longer. Weather does not disprove climate.” Wow, for a change that’s totally true. However, that’s not what you say the other 200 days of the year when it’s HOT. When it’s hot, weather DOES prove climate sez USA Today. So you can see why I get salty about it, don’t believe you, know you’re in bad faith, then make fun of you using your same tactics later.

    ‘Nuff said, it’s just winter, but this illustrates nicely several ongoing problems, including universal IYI illiteracy.

    #124150
    Dr. D
    Participant

    In the new panic-panic all the time, you see they are now naming a pandemic RSV? It’s killing thousands! You’re probably dying of it right now!

    Yes, and IYI journalists, zero definition, explanation, just “I made up some words.” They mean: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respiratory_syncytial_virus

    Yes, just like this storm is “just winter”, that RSV is “Just the common cold.” You know, like “Coronavirus”. Yes, it does kill people because it’s the common cold which does kill some people every year. Just very, very few.

    So brace yourself for a new round of lies and fear, unsubstantiated by former Science and former Medicine. The “Fields of study formerly known as Science”.
    TAFKAP

    #124151
    Oroboros
    Participant

    All I what for Christmas is to drink the tears of my enemies.

    .

    #124152
    Oroboros
    Participant

    #124153
    Oroboros
    Participant

    .

    #124154
    boilingfrog
    Participant

    Thanks RIM (and all the commenters here), my safety rope to bare-feet-on-the-earth sanity these days.

    Yesterday was thinking about how people seem to rationalize their (self-serving) beliefs and actions by somehow appealing to a ‘higher good’.

    At the university it’s an appeal to “knowledge” that makes every action and behavior appropriate
    and acceptable. We must ‘save and expand’ this amorphous thing called ‘knowledge’.

    In healthcare (term used loosely) it’s the faith in institutions working for the health of all.

    At the Federal Reserve it’s ‘saving the system’.

    As Z presents to our national leaders, it’s ‘saving freedom and democracy’.

    And in every church, as through all history, all actions are tolerated in the name of saving your soul.

    Thoreau, for one, wrote of being wary (actually, running from!) the person coming to “help” you…

    Stay safe. Thanks to all for your thoughtful contributions (and Dr D, you DON’T ‘write too much’)

    #124155
    boilingfrog
    Participant

    Dr Jessica Rose: Has VAERS Data Been Manipulated?

    For the “statistically-impaired” (certainly not mRNA-induced in this case) like myself, Jessica Rose presents what appears to me to be pretty good data analysis.

    Anyone care to offer thoughts? Not that there is necessarily anything wrong with anecdotal evidence, but it sure is affirming when such evidence is backed up with data (not PR campaigns)

    #124156
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Suitable for gifting. Unseeable after seeing: Way Up in the Sky

    A Nationally Lowering Xmas IQ: All I Really Want

    Magic Picture Box

    #124157
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Caroling

    So many reflections of reflections in this magic medium of being online.

    Really Dreamlike

    #124158
    zerosum
    Participant

    Because the WEB exist, TAE is telling you. Life is not Hollywood.
    “narrative control” Unbelievable challenge to the senses
    super-photoshop
    10% for the big guy

    • Rand Paul Exposes Corruption Behind $1.7 Trillion Omnibus Spending Bill (BR)

    Ukraine getting a new army of mercenary regardless of the cost

    The media has played a major role in keeping the conflict going, and making a negotiated settlement less likely, due to almost universally biased, pro-war, anti-Russia content being published at all stages

    The votes from the Ukrainian expats can make or destroy a politician.

    • German Press Is Pushing For Confrontation With Moscow (Livschitz)
    • A Well-Deserved Prize! (Dionisio)

    ————-
    • The Mushroom Principle (Blair)
    Voices of reason have long been sidelined and shunned.
    Deep State now achieving total control over the mainstream media.
    ———-
    World wide # 1 concern for Xmas 2022.
    It’s snowing and it’s cold but I’ve got a credit card.
    • Winter Storm: Energy Demand To Stress Electrical, Natural Gas Systems (Fox)

    ————

    • 2022 Year in Review: All Roads Lead to Ukraine (Collum)
    • 2022 The Year in Review: The War in Ukraine (Collum)

    ————

    #124159
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Canadian Government Tells Kids They’ll Be On Santa’s ‘Naughty List’ Without COVID Vaccine, Masks

    https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/canadian-government-tells-kids-theyll-be-santas-naughty-list-without-covid-vaccine-masks

    Turdeau mass murders more children for Christmas

    Same old same old

    .

    #124160

    -25c, 27km winds. The birds are as fluffy as they can be, and after taking the day off yesterday, they are voracious. If you feed birds, get a small tank heater for the birdbath, but don’t fill it too full- we had an insane cardinal take a bath in this kind of weather a few years back, and we could only hope he survived.
    Remember ventusky shows you the real time temps and winds around the world!

    Thanks for the Joe Cocker clip- he made everyone a good enough dancer.
    Ilargi gets by with a little help from his friends!

    #124161

    A very Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year, too!
    May blessings shower down on you in everything you do.

    Thanks, TAE folks.
    Thank-you, Ilargi.

    #124162
    Red
    Participant

    The bull shit doesn’t take a day off.

    On Saturday Irreverend interviewed Mr. Bridgen about the emerging evidence that calls into question the safety of mRNA injections.

    The scientific evidence does not support the further use of the mRNA vaccines, Mr. Bridgen said. “If you look at the original data from [Pfizer’s trials] it never supported the use of the vaccines in the population … So I called for the government for the immediate cessation of all mRNA vaccines and certainly not to approve their use for children at six months.”

    Mr. Bridgen had read biological sciences at Nottingham University. He specialised, mostly, in genetics and behaviour. His dissertation in his final year was on viruses and viroids.

    He was uncomfortable with the Government’s lockdown policies and approach to the so-called Covid pandemic. (Yes Mr. Bridgen used the term “so-called Covid pandemic”!) “I was very reluctant to vote for the lockdowns,” he said.

    “I didn’t vote for the last two lockdowns. I voted against ‘Plan B’. I’m sceptical about the mask-wearing.” However, to begin with, Mr. Bridgen wasn’t sceptical about the Covid injection. He has had two doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca. But “the data that’s coming in from harms – the Yellow Card data – and then when you actually speak to sceptical professionals but they take you through the scientific papers and the evidence … [its] deeply worrying,” he said. “[The vaccines] are not safe, they’re not effective and they’re not necessary.”

    MP is suspended from Parliament a week after “vaccine harms speech” but he has not been silenced

    #124163
    Noirette
    Participant

    To all, Merry Christmas – enjoy Great Holidays – Happy New Year – Celebrate whatever festivities that welcome the Dark turning into Spring.. 🙂

    #124164
    ezlxa1949
    Participant

    The Antipodes experienced the Longest Day yesterday. Still warming up (32 predicted for Thursday). Harvested the rest of our broadbeans. New lots of silver beet growing nicely. People are in holiday mode.

    Gets my mind of feeling like a tiny proto-mammal dodging the clumping feet of the dinosaurs.

    #124165
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    ‘The US Space Force has conducted joint drills with UK, Canada and Australia’

    Airstrip Two has conducted joint drills with Airstrip One, Airstrip Three and Airstrip Four. Airstrip Five wasn’t invited because it had nothing much to offer.

    I see that the more recently acquired airstrip -let’s call Japan Airstrip Nine- is being brought up to full operational strength after several decades of being little more than a landing platform for forces from Airstrip Two and a money-laundering centre.

    It all makes perfect sense, of course -the opening up of Japan in the nineteenth century and the training in how to be proper party members, attacking Russia and China in succession. The Japanese just got too zealous, overconfident and independent-minded for a while and had to be taught a severe lesson in obedience. But that lesson has been well-learned, and Airstrip Nine is ready to fully participate in Oceania’s wars-without-end against Eurasia and Eastasia under the direction of Big Brother himself.

    Oceania is at war with Eurasia. Oceania has always* been at war with Eurasia.

    Oceania is at war with Eastasia. Oceania has always* been at war with Eastasia.

    *Yes, there was a brief period, during which Airstrip Six and Airstrip Nine got frightfully independent and uppity, and for a while it looked as though they might take over Airstrip One and Airstrip Four, so a brief respite in the war on Eurasia and Eastasia was necessary. But all inconsistencies can be dealt with via the memory hole.

    One advantage of living on Airtrip Five is that it is likely to be preserved as a bolt hole for faithful Party Members living on other Airstrips, now that the war with Eurasia and Eastasia.is almost lost.

    Presumably, The Scorpion will renew its efforts to kill off non-party inhabitants of Airstrip Five.

    I am so glad that I now have most of it worked out, and that I can see the so-called ‘leaders of the western world’ for what they are: well-paid actors.

    The performance in at the theatre on Airstrip Two called the House of Representatives (or Congress) was certainly one of the finest pieces of acting delivered to the Proles in many years. Whether it was better than Mister O’Bomber’s “Hope and Change You Can Believe In” is arguable. But I believe The Clown’s performance in The House was much better than The Shrub’s “Mission Accomplished” on one of the mobile airstrips.

    Of course, we can see why The Clown of Kiev was selected for the role of fake President of Ukraine: he already had had experience as both a comedian and actor, and so he just needed a bit more training in keeping a straight face and speaking solemnly whilst delivering nonsense.

    It’s much the same with The Scorpion: it came from a dysfunctional family with a known known sociopath as the father figure (responsible for dawn raids on migrants in the 1970s); it had only to be trained in the delivery of lies under the guidance of Tony B Liar and the evil dyke H.C before it could be launched onto the unsuspecting Party Members and proles.

    The problem for all of the actors who pretend to be leaders of the ‘free world’ is that none of their narratives make any sense and they are up against real leaders whose narratives do make sense. And Eurasia and Eastasia have better weapons.

    #124166
    Susmarie108
    Participant

    Still weeping…the losses add up.

    Weeping is good for the Soul. Weeping is Soul. The Weeping Women and VIncent van Gogh KNOW.

    GENTLY weeping. The kind you do in secret?

    Appreciate the Prince translation, it has wings – and is beautiful in flight. Thanks for the gift, Ilargi.

    My Guitar Gently Weeps, a LOVE song – written and performed with LOVE by George Harrison in studio/this acoustic version/take:

    Since I am eternally in LOVE with John Lennon, the addition of the band makes this 2018 mix perfection.

    LOVE to All.

    #124167
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    Presumably the reign of the electric guitar -approximately 1950 to present- comes to an end fairly soon. It was good while it lasted. Sold my piano, bass guitar, lead guitar, P.A system, drum set etc. prior to moving but kept an acoustic guitar, a mandolin, a recorder, a harmonica and a clarinet.

    Since relocating have acquired two acoustic guitars, one violin and an electric keyboard, and have access to a grand piano, a mini-grand, a cello and a drum set.

    Went to a barn dance recently: music provided by violin, accordion, and acoustic guitar

    I’m not looking forward to the closure of music shops and replacement strings for various instruments becoming unavailable.

    Theoretically it would be possible to make strings from sheep intestines, as done in the past. And there are plenty of sheep around here (human ones too). 🙂

    #124168
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    Climate chaos. Messed up Jet Steam leading to both Arctic Vortexes with freezing conditions and record heatwaves in The Age of Consequences.

    Plus, preparations for major military confrontations:

    #124169
    TAE Summary
    Participant

    Yes, it actually says “States” but even so…
    null

    #124171
    ezlxa1949
    Participant

    Existing weaponry has no economic value. Our addicted structures require new production.

    John Ralston Saul, Voltaire’s Bastards, 1992, p580.

    He got that right!

    #124172
    Bishko
    Participant

    The four gas giant planets are relatively slow moving in their orbits. 12, 29, 84 and 165 years. Currently all four of them are on one side of the Solar System. A fairly rare event. Apparently, their gravity pulls the Earth’s orbit into a bit longer ellipse than normal, up to 14% IIRC, which makes it a bit colder an Earth for 20 to 30 years. Get ready. These are the first harbingers of what is to come. The Dance of the Planets has it’s effects. It’s a good thing that potatoes like cool weather.

    One of my favorite quotes: “The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.” –Galileo

    #124173
    SeaBirds
    Participant

    “I cannot fathom how you put out the content that you put out.”

    That hits the nail on the head.
    Many thanks, Raúl for your tireless efforts to keep us informed.

    Thanks also to all who comment.
    We get by with a lttle help from friends.
    All the best for 2023.

    #124174
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    ‘The four gas giant planets are relatively slow moving in their orbits. 12, 29, 84 and 165 years. Currently all four of them are on one side of the Solar System. A fairly rare event.’

    How interesting. The physical determinators of the Earth’s average temperature just keep doing what they have done for 3 billion plus years (Earth years, that is, not always 365 1/4 days: more in the not-so-distant past)

    We can speculate how that 14% distortion operating on an inverse square law will stack up against the 42% increase in atmospheric CO2 and the tripling of atmospheric CH4 that have occurred in recent times

    Incidentally, six of the ancient gods were all visible in the sky at the same time a few months ago -Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and the Moon. That was a very rare convergence of positions I will never see again.

    I’ll never seen Neptune either.

    #124175
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Presidementia Pedo Joe ups his game with a Nazilensky hair sniffing back rub.

    Dr Jill must be envious.

    Yum, smells like success


    #124176
    WES
    Participant

    The msm says we are being hit by a massive winter cyclone vortex.
    So I stick my head out of my cave to check the narrative.
    I am with Dr. D on this one.
    Dr. D uses inches but I will be more diplomatic and use meteric!
    Since cm is too large a metric unit, I will use a smaller unit mm.
    We have at least 3 mm of snow!
    Calvin won’t be able to snowball Suzie!

    #124177

    No matter what the narrative, I will revel in odd weather, and look forward to being able to say- bent over my staff, in a raspy, aged voice- “waaay back in ’22…”

    #124178
    Polemos
    Participant

    https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/scientists-develop-gelatinous-robots-crawl-through-human-body-deliver-medical-payloads

    Things to notice:

    ¿You might not feel one or two of them inside you, anymore than you do feel the bacteria and amoebae crawling and sliming and rotoring their ways through you now, but if placed in the right spot near any of your architecture for nociception or proprioception, you just might, especially when this tech comes responsive to wireless electromagnetism (WiFi, microwaves [distribute these networks within to transfer surface capture deeper into your body, specific phased patterns of optical light [photoresponsive tattoos, photokinetics], infrared, &c). And the goal is to have a two-way interaction, a cybernetic organism oozing out your biometry while also tapping into your physiology to open or close your old valves and tubules and fibers —reading and writing as an interface.

    (And not just you: all the biological organisms, colonized and gently spelunked by gel bots following broader evolutionary —and corporate— selection. The domestication of any herds, no more wild life)

    ¿Technology for computational machines does not have to have “microchips” on circuit boards or ICs of doped transistors or tiny metal robots interfacing with MAC enabled Bluetooth receivers. Computation is universal across substrates; it’s genuinely trans with respect to the material, because algorithms are formal, can piggyback on any thing inhabitable by a grammar, a logic, which the bio-logoi certainly are. So, when people dismiss “injectable machines” by saying you can’t fit a microchip down the gauge of even the tiniest needles used, it’s because they have been (mis)educated to think a robot, a machine, can only have a distinct appearance they’ve come to see dominate their understanding, their comics, their superficial Wikiworld of easy explanations.

    ¿Immune responses have to undergo training —or prior selection— to enable the terrain best enabling this kind of colonizing of a human body (and bodies beyond, as parenthetically above). Otherwise, you get allergic reactions, inflammation, noticeable illnesses, &c. By paving a way into human bodies through altering immune responses to tolerate this technology, you also facilitate other colonizing (open the door for the cute person behind you lets in the rat or the gnat or the ugly friend following). Likewise, prior colonizing of the masses of people creates opportunities for exploitation —but you already drive on the highways and post on the webways they built for others so you know this.. Say, do you know of any recent efforts to jury rig and tinker with immune responses, especially with any selecting for tolerance of allergens?

    ¿’Payload’ is an interesting word, right? Put ‘medical’ in front, and people clamor for safer and better targeted medicines, painless fantasies await! But put ‘weapon’ in front, and perspectives shift on what you want inside your body —or theirs. People of conservative bent have finally caught on to what Derrida thirty years ago was on about, specifically regarding the active paradox in that deconstructing word ‘pharmakon’: your experience of the pharmakon as cure or as poison doesn’t just depend on the reality of poisons or cures, but your use of the word alters whether it is one or the other, and so it is not a passive description of underlying or grounding reality, but you actively change your experience through choosing which it is. So, whether the payload is a good thing or a worse thing depends on whether or not you as the site of deployment are a medical theater or a theater of war. As many already noticed: some want us to fight a war inside and surrounding ourselves, now against viruses. (You were already at war against drugs, poverty, and the devil, always at war)

    A War cannot be Total unless you are totally included, but having been totaled, you are already at a loss. You cannot win a Total War by keeping some piece or place of your own self out of the war, but instead you must renounce all war —and victory over that War with it. Peace is not the end of the War, but renunciation of War reveals Life as its end. But because the ones/One who wants Total War have convinced so many that Life is fundamentally a war of all against all —survival of the fittest as endless hostility and aggressive competition— it is that much easier to enable people (and minds) to believe war is inescapable, inevitable, so that they cannot even think of living without dreading the pervasiveness of hostile threats, aggressive actions, mass destruction. They yearn to hate Life because they they learned to despise War, staying caught in a dream, our trauma, that Life is War.

    So, you cannot win a war by refusing to fight it, much less a Total War by limiting where you exchange fire. You must unthink that the goal of living is to win wars. The Dream Machine stays on because we’re not yet through with the War Machine, because we’re not not yet through with Power. And he’s not yet through with us.

Viewing 35 posts - 1 through 35 (of 35 total)
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.