Dec 092022
 
 December 9, 2022  Posted by at 9:35 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,


Salvador Dali Back the girl 1926

 

Second Wave Of Twitter Docs Reveal ‘Blacklists’ And ‘Shadow Bans’ (JTN)
Saxo Bank Predictions Warn Of A Wild 2023 (Spears)
Merkel’s ‘Confession’ May Be Ground For Tribunal – Moscow (RT)
US Trying To Make Ukraine Conflict Last For Years – Russia (RT)
Kremlin Explains When Ukraine Conflict May End (RT)
Bandera’s ‘Insurgency-in-Waiting’ (Robeson)
ADL: Ukraine’s Azov Battalion No Longer ‘Far-right’ (GZ)
EU Lacks ‘Critical Defense Capabilities’ – Borrell (RT)
The Russian Oil Price Cap Isn’t As Simple As It Seems (OP)
“People Are Losing Faith In This Institution”: ECB Staff (ZH)
FBI Sees ‘Threat’ In Apple Encryption Move (RT)
The Coming Purge of the China-Hands (Pattberg)
The Fixed-pPice Shopping Basket: Greece’s Answer To Cost Of Living Crisis (G.)
Daniel Ellsberg: Indict Me Too (Lauria)
Disinformation Down 92% As NYT Writers Go On Strike (BBee)

 

 

In 2018, Twitter was doing fine with the same amount of people they now employ. What was the rest doing? Just censoring?

 

 

Shadow ban

 

 

Zelensky

 

 

@CelineDion reveals she has ultimately been diagnosed with Stiff Person Syndrome. This is a known vaxx side effect that Pfizer kept quiet until the court forced them release the side effects in the first Pfizer dump.

 

 

Tucker board

 

 

 

 

Christine Anderson
https://twitter.com/i/status/1599487419530629120

 

 

 

 

Interesting discussions on Twitter about Twitter. Much more to come. It’ll be hard on Elon too. For instance, he tweeted that Twitter doesn’t employ the Perkins Coie law firm. And then someone sends a Dec. 8 paper that says it does. How now?

Second Wave Of Twitter Docs Reveal ‘Blacklists’ And ‘Shadow Bans’ (JTN)

Former New York Times editor Bari Weiss on Thursday released internal documents on Twitter’s censorship efforts and detailed the creation of blacklists and use of shadow ban technique to throttle “disfavored” tweets. Last week, Musk released information on the company’s censoring of the Hunter Biden laptop story via alternative journalist Matt Taibbi. Thursday’s dump came through a team of reporters Weiss led and to whom Musk granted broad access to the company’s files to investigate on condition they first publish their findings on Twitter. “[T]eams of Twitter employees build blacklists, prevent disfavored tweets from trending, and actively limit the visibility of entire accounts or even trending topics—all in secret, without informing users,” Weiss posted in the first of a series of tweets.

Weiss subsequently outlined how conservative personalities or individuals with “disfavored” positions would end up on internal blacklists to stunt the spread of their messaging. Talk-show host Dan Bongino was featured on a “search blacklist” while Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk’s account was set to “Do Not Amplify,” Weiss detailed. COVID-19 lockdown critic Dr. Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford University wound up on a “trends blacklist” that prevented his tweets from featuring on the website’s trending section. Weiss then recalled prior comments from Twitter executives denying that the company used shadow bans to stifle traffic on accounts without their knowledge.

“We do not shadow ban. And we certainly don’t shadow ban based on political viewpoints or ideology,” said then Head of Legal Policy and Trust Vijaya Gadde and Head of Product Kayvon Beykpour in 2018. Weiss then outlined testimony from Twitter engineers detailing an identical process the company termed “Visibility Filtering” in which the platform would quietly limit the reach of specific posts. VF decisions would go through the Strategic Response Team — Global Escalation Team Weiss explained, which she said often handled up to 200 cases per day. She further asserted that a secret dubbed “Site Integrity Policy, Policy Escalation Support” included top-level officials who made the biggest decisions. Weiss asserted that former CEO Jack Dorsey participated in the group’s deliberations.

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‘If I was a strategic thinker in the non-western world I would be thinking about what to do with my US dollar reserves..’

Saxo Bank Predictions Warn Of A Wild 2023 (Spears)

From Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to a British prime minister being ousted after six weeks, it has been a year of shocking events. More volatility lies ahead if Saxo Bank — whose previous annual list of ‘outrageous predictions’ did not see those two coming — is accurate with its prophecies for 2023, which include the reversal of Brexit and the end of dollar dominance. Some of Saxo Bank’s predictions are more outrageous than others, admits Steen Jakobsen, chief investment officer, who has been overseeing the annual project for more than 20 years. He says the most likely prediction of Saxo’s 10 for 2023 could see the US dollar’s dominance assailed by concerted action among non-Western countries.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine led to the ‘US weaponising the US dollar,’ as part of the sanctions response, says Jakobsen. ‘If I was a strategic thinker in the non-western world I would be thinking about what to do with my US dollar reserves going forward.’ Oil-producing nations could agree with large consumers such as China and India to do deals in a new reserve asset, leaving the dollar behind. Saxo’s possible scenario sees non-US allied countries create an international clearing union (ICU) and a new reserve asset. Based on an idea by economist John Maynard Keynes after the Second World War, the idea would make the purchasing price for oil more stable in currency terms. ‘Why would Saudi Arabia and China do deals in dollars?’ adds Jakobsen. He believes it would be a natural move ‘at a time when the US has stepped back from being a world policeman.’

Saxo’s predictions suggest a splintering world in which national economies ‘shift into War Economy mode, where sovereign economic gains and self-reliance trump globalisation.’ But closer regional links are also foreseen, most notably in the UK, which votes to ‘un-Brexit’ and rejoin the EU in the wake of economic turmoil and political demonstrations. Jakobsen does not think Rishi Sunak’s more measured approach as prime minister will be any more effective than predecessor Liz Truss’s attempts to create a laissez-faire economy. ‘Neither is going to do anything for the debt or inflation (problems) in the UK,’ he says. ‘Maybe this leads to dissatisfaction, demonstrations and ultimately an election which will see Labour come in. Maybe the Liberal Democrats show up as a Europe-friendly party, (popular) with young people in particular.’

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Merkel made clear that the “collective west” spent years trying to create a war with Russia. It’s that simple.

A tribunal would have no effect. Because all tribunals these days listen to only one side. A “Russian war crimes tribunal” will exclude Ukraine war crimes. Useless. Or worse.

Merkel’s ‘Confession’ May Be Ground For Tribunal – Moscow (RT)

A confession by former German chancellor Angela Merkel regarding the true nature of the Minsk agreements – a roadmap for peace in Ukraine that was brokered by Berlin – could be used as evidence in a tribunal involving Western politicians responsible for provoking the ongoing conflict between Moscow and Kiev, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said. The former German leader admitted in an interview with Die Zeit on Wednesday that the actual purpose of the Minsk agreements was to give Ukraine time to prepare for a military confrontation with Russia. “They talk a lot about legal assessments of what is happening around Ukraine, certain tribunals and so on in all sorts of ways,” Zakharova said during a media briefing on Thursday. “But this is a specific reason for a tribunal.”

She claimed that Merkel’s comments were nothing short of the testimony of a person who had openly admitted that everything done between 2014 and 2015 was meant to “distract the international community from real issues, play for time, pump up the Kiev regime with weapons, and escalate the issue into a large-scale conflict,” Zakharova added. She said Merkel’s statements “horrifyingly” reveal that the West uses “forgery as a method of action,” and resorts to “machinations, manipulation and all kinds of distortions of truth, law and rights imaginable.” The spokeswoman claimed that the West had known well in 2015, when it spent hours negotiating the second part of the Minsk accords, that it would never even attempt to fulfill any part of the agreements and would instead pump weapons into Kiev.

“They did not feel sorry for anyone: women, children, the civilian population of Donbass or the whole of Ukraine. They needed a conflict and they were ready for it back then, in 2015,” Zakharova said. Earlier this month, a number of Western officials called for the creation of a special UN-backed court to investigate alleged war crimes committed by Russia during its ongoing military campaign in Ukraine. The Kremlin has said the West has no legal or moral right to set up any courts to investigate or prosecute Russia over the conflict, which Moscow claims was ultimately provoked by the US and its allies.

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“She also said that Zelensky should watch his back, considering last week’s visit to Ukraine by Victoria Nuland..”

US Trying To Make Ukraine Conflict Last For Years – Russia (RT)

US arms procurement documents show that Washington intends to fuel the conflict in Ukraine for at least three more years, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky should take notice of it when assessing the future of his country, she added. “Washington plans to fuel hostilities in Ukraine at least till the end of 2025. That’s what their plans are, judging by documents, which they don’t hide from anybody,” the Russian diplomat told journalists during a briefing on Thursday. Zakharova was referring to a contract for Raytheon’s National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS), which the Pentagon announced last week.

The US Army will buy $1.2 billion worth of hardware for Ukraine, according to the announcement, with an estimated completion date in late November 2025. The US, which pledged to provide military assistance to Kiev for “as long as it takes” to defeat Russia, previously supplied this type of anti-aircraft system to Ukrainian troops. Advisors to President Vladimir Zelensky should tell him about the procurement timeline, Zakharova suggested, so that he didn’t promise his people that the conflict would end next year, as he did this week. “Washington has different plans. There is a lot of money to be embezzled” through Ukraine aid programs, she alleged. Zakharova claimed that Western assistance was “a corruption marathon” going from the White House to Kiev and back again and profiting grifters on a global scale.

She also said that Zelensky should watch his back, considering last week’s visit to Ukraine by Victoria Nuland, a veteran US diplomat, whom Zakharova called “a harbinger of tragic shocks, caused by the Washington-orchestrated bloody putsch” of 2014. “A new palace coup may be in the making or some other reshuffle. I believe the Zelensky regime, which has repeatedly tested Washington’s patience, has some things to consider,” she remarked, adding that the US didn’t care who was in power in Kiev. Nuland, who served as US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs in 2014, was recorded discussing with then-US Ambassador to Kiev, Geoffrey Pyatt, the composition of the post-coup Ukrainian government. The private conversation was leaked online by unidentified parties. Her preferred candidate for prime minister subsequently got the job.

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“Zelensky knows when all this can end, it can end tomorrow if desired..”

Kremlin Explains When Ukraine Conflict May End (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky knows that if desired the fighting between Moscow and Kiev could end at any moment, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said during a press call on Thursday. “You can talk about when all of this will end until you are blue in the face,” Peskov said in response to the Ukrainian president’s recent prediction that the conflict could be over next year. “Zelensky knows when all this can end, it can end tomorrow if desired,” the spokesperson added. In a recent interview with Politico – which named him ‘the most powerful person in Europe’ – Zelensky stated that Ukrainians “will be the most influential next year, but already in peacetime.”


Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine could turn out to be a “lengthy process” because achieving all of Russia’s objectives could take quite some time. Earlier, the Russian leader also said that it was wrong to talk about the timing of the special operation or try to adjust it. He noted that it was impossible to set an exact date for when the conflict could end because the fighting is still intense. “We are working calmly, the troops are moving, reaching the lines that are set as tasks. Everything is going according to plan,” Putin said back in June.

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“[Zelensky] can’t go forward with full peace negotiations with Russia, with Putin, unless America has his back..”

Bandera’s ‘Insurgency-in-Waiting’ (Robeson)

In early February 2022, a couple weeks before Putin’s invasion, Ragozin observed, “While downplaying the risk of a Russian offensive and even reprimanding the West for sowing panic, the Ukrainian leadership appears preoccupied with a different threat – that of a coup.” In the same article (“What is Zelenskiy afraid of?”), he described the “Capitulation Resistance Movement” as “a radical street force dedicated to toppling Zelensky” and “a paramilitary force associated with the nationalist opposition that coalesced around former president Petro Poroshenko.” Nationalists officially launched the “Capitulation Resistance Movement” (Rukh Oporu Kapitulyatsiyi, ROK) in October 2019 to sabotage Zelensky’s peace mandate after the political newcomer crushed Poroshenko and his political party in elections held earlier that year.

“No Capitulation” became the slogan of a broader, far-right-led campaign against Zelensky and his government, with protests typically spearheaded by the neo-Nazi Azov movement and the ROK. “Zelensky ran as a peace candidate,” and the hardliners vigorously opposed him, the late Russia expert Stephen F. Cohen explained to journalist Aaron Maté that month. “He won an enormous mandate to make peace. So, that means he has to negotiate with Vladimir Putin.” But there was a major obstacle. Ukrainian fascists “have said that they will remove and kill Zelensky if he continues along this line of negotiating with Putin… His life is being threatened literally by a quasi-fascist movement in Ukraine.” Peace could only come, Cohen stressed, on one condition. “[Zelensky] can’t go forward with full peace negotiations with Russia, with Putin, unless America has his back,” he said.

“Maybe that won’t be enough, but unless the White House encourages this diplomacy, Zelensky has no chance of negotiating an end to the war. So the stakes are enormously high.” That was three years ago. After Russia invaded, the ROK became the FURM, or the Free Ukraine Resistance Movement, which has mostly flown under the radar. After interviewing a representative of the FURM in early March, a neoconservative US journalist referred to the “Resistance Movement” as an “insurgency-in-waiting, one of many, no doubt, that plans to resort to guerrilla warfare in the event that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attempted conquest of Ukraine turns into a prolonged occupation of major population centers.”

After keeping tabs on this “quasi-fascist” movement for a few years (although it mostly went dark after Russia invaded), I feel comfortable speculating that the ROK was partially responsible for making Zelensky feel that negotiating peace with Russia would be too dangerous for him. I also suspect that once Putin declared war, Zelensky as an actor felt his only choice was to become an action hero, not just to rally international support for his country, but to become so popular in Ukraine and the West to rule out a coup d’etat.

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“The New York Times has even referred to the unit as the “celebrated Azov Battalion.”

ADL: Ukraine’s Azov Battalion No Longer ‘Far-right’ (GZ)

A November 9 email from the Anti-Defamation League to The Grayzone provided a twisted defense of Ukraine’s Azov Battalion. Despite its self-proclaimed “anti-hate” mission, the ADL insisted in the email it “does not” consider Azov as the “far right group it once was.” The Azov Battalion is a neo-Nazi unit formally integrated into the US government-backed Ukrainian military. Founded by Andriy Biletsky, who has infamously vowed to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade…against Semite-led untermenschen,” Azov was once widely condemned by Western corporate media and the human rights industry for its association with Nazism. Then came the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

In the months that immediately followed, Azov led the Ukrainian military’s defense of Mariupol, the group’s longtime stronghold. As the militia assumed a frontline role in the war against Russia, Western media led a campaign to rebrand Azov as misunderstood freedom fighters while accusing its critics of echoing Kremlin talking points. The New York Times has even referred to the unit as the “celebrated Azov Battalion.” Like the Washington Post and other mainstream outlets, the ADL ignored Azov’s atrocities this April in Mariupol, where locals accused the group of using civilians as human shields and executing those who attempted to flee. One video out of Mariupol showed Azov fighters proudly declaring the Nazi collaborator and mass murderer of Jews, Stepan Bandera, to be their “father.”

The Azov Battalion has long served as a magnet for the international white nationalist movement, attracting recruits from the terrorist Atomwaffen Division to a US Army Specialist arrested on charges of distributing bomb-making instructions. Back in March 2022, just a month before the battle of Mariupol, the ADL itself issued a report acknowledging that white nationalists see Azov “as a pathway to the creation of a National Socialist state in Ukraine.” Eight months later, however, the ADL has changed its tune, asserting to this outlet that Azov has rooted the fascists from its ranks. So did Azov change its Nazi ways, or did the ADL simply shift its messaging to conform to the imperatives of a Biden administration still intent on sending billions in military aid to Ukraine?

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Does Borrell work for Raytheon? His spending demands will make Europe a lot poorer…

EU Lacks ‘Critical Defense Capabilities’ – Borrell (RT)

Europe must begin to take more responsibility for its own security, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has said, announcing that total expenditure by member states will grow by €70 billion over the next three years. Speaking at the ‘Investing in European Defence’ forum on Thursday, Borrell, who also heads the European Defence Agency (EDA), called on European nations to cooperate more on upping defense capacities in the common interest of bloc security. They should also look past the current conflict in Ukraine and anticipate “future threats.” Borrell said states’ spending on defense had surpassed the €200 billion-level in 2021 for the first time, though they’re still playing catch-up. “After the Cold War, we shrunk our forces to small-size armies without coordination … We lack critical defense capabilities,” he said.

“We have to compensate for years of underspending.” “Total defense expenditure that Member States have announced will grow by another €70 billion in the next three years,” Borrell said, adding that “people don’t fight with banknotes.” Borrell said Brussels faced a challenge to spend the money “in a coordinated manner” and that national decisions should not be focused solely on present needs, an apparent reference to the turmoil in Ukraine. If the focus remains only on current requirements, Europe will once again be faced with “a fragmented European capability landscape,” he warned. The top diplomat said a balance must be found between responding to current needs and preparing for future threats. Those threats are “close by and likely to get worse,” he said.

The EU has committed around $2.5 billion in weapons to Ukraine since Russia’s offensive began in February. Borrell’s pledge comes as European nations are running out of weapons to give Ukraine as they see their own stocks dwindling. The constant transfers of weapons to Ukraine has left most NATO nations’ stockpiles strained, according to a New York Times report last month, which said the bloc’s smaller nations had “exhausted their potential” and at least 20 of NATO’s 30 members were “pretty tapped out.” Politico reported last week that France unofficially admitted it has run out of weapons to send Kiev due to the state of its own supplies, while Germany also faces a €20-billion shortfall in ammunition.

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“..wondering how a fixed price would work in a market that trades oil on a forward floating basis against international benchmarks..”

The Russian Oil Price Cap Isn’t As Simple As It Seems (OP)

The $ 60-per-barrel price cap on Russian crude oil, which came into effect on Monday, looks pretty straightforward. Buyers paying $60 or less per barrel of Russia’s crude will have full access to all EU and G7 insurance and financing services associated with transporting Russian crude to non-EU countries. However, the physical oil market doesn’t usually see trades with fixed prices of crude – oil is being sold at a price premium or discount against the forward prices of the major international benchmarks such as Brent or the Oman/Dubai average. So, the price cap is much more complicated than a straightforward $60 per barrel ceiling. As a result, traders of physical oil cargoes are confused by the price cap on Russian crude, wondering how a fixed price would work in a market that trades oil on a forward floating basis against international benchmarks.

Physical oil traders, those who are willing to trade crude in compliance with the price cap, are also concerned that they could end up inadvertently violating the cap if, for example, the price of Russia’s flagship grade, Urals, with a discount to Brent, is higher than $60 per barrel weeks after the oil trade has been made. In such cases, traders would be stuck with above-$60 Russian crude that violates the price cap and would significantly limit access to EU/G7 tankers and maritime transportation services such as insurance and financing, oil traders tell Bloomberg. This could complicate the physical handling of Russian crude oil cargoes and hedging, they say. “Physical traders rarely trade on a fixed price,” John Driscoll, chief strategist at JTD Energy Services Pte Ltd, told Bloomberg.

“It’s a much more complex space where they trade on formulas and spot differentials to a benchmark crude for the trading of actual cargoes as well as for hedging that follows,” said Driscoll, who has more than 30 years of trading oil in Singapore. The price cap is not set in stone – it “is fixed for now but adjustable over time,” the EU said last week. A price revision would “take into account a variety of factors, which can include the effectiveness of the measure, its implementation, international adherence and alignment, the potential impact on coalition members and partners, and market developments,” the EU says. Even within the price cap, banks are generally wary of providing financing, industry officials told Global Trade Review this week.

Banks are concerned by the high compliance risk and fear they will have to increase scrutiny and due diligence to avoid being caught in a trade or deceptive shipping practices. Adding further confusion for physical oil traders is Russia’s position on the matter. Moscow says it will not trade its oil with countries that have joined the price cap. The EU says that “With the price cap, there are clear incentives for Russia, oil importing countries and market participants to maintain the flow of Russian oil. This will achieve both objectives at the same time.” But Russia says the price cap artificially limits prices—a mechanism Moscow will not accept.

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In times of plenty, incompetence tends to remain hidden. But today, almost everyone working in European institutions turns out to be incompetent. They’ve been selected not for their skills, but for loyalty to some ideology or another.

“People Are Losing Faith In This Institution”: ECB Staff (ZH)

This one is just too funny to pass by: having watched as their incompetent and clueless “leaders” sparked the biggest surge in European inflation since Weimar, crushing the purchasing power of ordinary people across the continent, it is only when their own purchases were suddenly threatened that the ECB’s rank and file decided to make some noises. According to the FT, workers at the world’s biggest hedge fund (or at least it was until the Euro hit parity), known as the European Central Bank, will discuss protest action and even potential strikes after rejecting a pay offer well below the rate of eurozone inflation, a union official has warned. The ECB’s proposal to increase pay by “only” 4.07% in January is – hilariously enough – consistent with the bank’s own opposition to deals that link wages to inflation that it believes risk fuelling a damaging wage-price spiral.

There is just one problem: its own employees think Christine Lagarde – herself a multimillionaire who barely avoided jail time despite being a convicted felon – is full of it and demand much higher pay… which if extended to all European workers will result without doubt in a wage-price spiral, as higher wages will mean higher prices, which mean even higher wages, and so on. The ECB’s latest pay offer, up from a 1.48% rise at the start of this year, is less than half what annual eurozone inflation is expected to be this year and will leave its staff with a significant pay cut in real terms (don’t tell them, but most Europeans won’t even get a 4.07% nominal wage increase: are they supposed to strike too). “People are losing faith in this institution,” said Carlos Bowles, vice-president of the Ipso union that represents ECB staff. “What the ECB leadership is telling us is ‘sorry we missed our own inflation target and now you, the staff, are going to pay the price’. “We really see an issue in the way the ECB stance is damaging the bargaining power of workers,” said Bowles.

“This is playing a role in increasing inequality.” Of course, that’s what we have been saying since 2009. But it was only when their own livelihood was on the line, did workers for Europe’s money printer figure it out too. A recent survey by the union found “the vast majority of colleagues are angry” about the ECB’s pay offer, he said. “The pay consultation is due to finish at the end of the year and we will decide in January if we protest.” The union reportedly met with the ECB’s ultra wealthy president Christine Lagarde – who doesn’t care what food costs, after all with the help of Bernard Tapie she embezzled enough to last her a lifetime – a few weeks ago and she made it clear there was no room for negotiation, he said. A strike, as happened at the ECB over pension reforms in 2009, was “not excluded” but it would only “come after an escalation curve”.

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“In this age of cybersecurity and demands for ‘security by design,’ the FBI and law enforcement partners need ‘lawful access by design.’”

FBI Sees ‘Threat’ In Apple Encryption Move (RT)

The FBI has issued a warning about upcoming security updates for Apple products, insisting the company’s plans to strengthen end-to-end encryption will interfere with efforts to track down criminals and terrorists. The agency sounded alarms soon after Apple announced several “advanced security features” set to be introduced in the coming months – including new protections for files stored in the cloud – telling the Washington Post it is “deeply concerned with the threat end-to-end and user-only-access encryption pose.” “This hinders our ability to protect the American people from criminal acts ranging from cyber-attacks and violence against children to drug trafficking, organized crime and terrorism,” an unnamed FBI spokesperson said in a statement on Wednesday.

“In this age of cybersecurity and demands for ‘security by design,’ the FBI and law enforcement partners need ‘lawful access by design.’” US and allied law enforcement officials have long demanded tech firms to provide open access to all devices, with the FBI frequently citing the aftermath of a 2015 terrorist attack in San Bernadino, California, when agents were unable to get into an Apple phone used by the shooter. Though the bureau pressed the company to help it break in, Apple refused, leading to a lengthy legal battle centered on encryption. Between 2015 and 2016 alone, Apple received at least 11 separate court orders to help police access various devices thought to be involved in criminal activity, but objected to all of them. A New York City court would later conclude that Apple could not be compelled to unlock its phones on the basis of the 1789 All Writs Act, which the FBI had repeatedly cited in prior cases.

Alongside agencies in the UK and Australia, the US Department of Justice has placed similar pressure on other tech giants in the past. In 2019, the three countries issued an open letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg which argued that “companies should not deliberately design their systems to preclude any form of access to content.” Officials suggested encryption could interfere with investigations into “the most serious crimes,” effectively asking for the ability to crack any device at any time. Privacy advocates, including famed national security whistleblower Edward Snowden, have pushed back on the drive to undermine strong encryption, saying it is impossible to create a backdoor exclusively for law enforcement, and that any such security loophole will also be open to everyone, including bad actors.

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How our impression of China is shaped. Read!

The Coming Purge of the China-Hands (Pattberg)

There comes a time during or shortly after the academic training of every “Student of China” when he frequently runs into one of the many agents of Western anti-China state security. They are adverse hostile forces, they run a complete background-check on you, and then they‘ll make you a simple offer: You either produce anti-Chinese content for the West, or they‘ll mark you as anti-democratic and enemy of freedom, a traitor. In that case, you’ll never find work in the West again. And if you make a big fuss about it and cry coercion or blackmail, they are gonna start decomposing you. Like most young students back then, I, too, was completely ignorant about the inner workings of Western world hegemony. And, like the idiot I always was, I threw myself heedlessly into “China Studies” at a respective University in the United Kingdom, Edinburgh to be exact.

Immediately, the conceited profs and lecturers, they taught us the horrors of Han chauvinism, the horrors of Qing China and the horrors of the Maoists and the horrors against the poor people of Tibet, Hong Kong and Taiwan. When I looked it up, those were all former British colonies and/or places of interest to the British Crown. We were told LIES by the very British people whose soldiers raped, looted and colonized China, and were now angry that China somehow stood its ground and survived. I do not expect you to believe at first what I am about to tell you. I would not have believed it myself, back then I mean, before I joined some of the many “Studies” invented by the Western Empire of LIES. “China Studies” is not about China. It could be, but it is not. It is warfare against China. To keep China down. To sabotage her. To control her people and her history. In this war, it is the West or you perish.

Joining the enemy, China, is a capital crime. Have you ever wondered why there are no pro-China talking heads in the books, in the papers or on telly? It is because pro-China people in “China Studies” were the enemy. They didn’t make it through graduation, they weren’t hired, etc.. Our common sense is often betrayed by what sociologists call ‘the survivor bias’: We believe that since all we hear or read about China is negative, this must be sure proof that China is a very nasty place. What we fail to see, however, is that all the negative stuff we heard and read about China was the product of just 1 “China Studies” graduate for every 1,000,000 people or so of the general Western population. Nobody who was pro-China survived the selection process or came anywhere near central power.

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“For many it was not in the increased number of homeless on the streets, or beggars huddled around tourist sites, or eye-wateringly high energy bills – although all of those existed before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. ”

The Fixed-pPice Shopping Basket: Greece’s Answer To Cost Of Living Crisis (G.)

Even before the cost of living crisis was formally pronounced, it had arrived in Greece. For many it was not in the increased number of homeless on the streets, or beggars huddled around tourist sites, or eye-wateringly high energy bills – although all of those existed before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “It was there for everyone to see on the supermarket shelves,” says Panagiota Kalapotharakou, who heads the consumer rights association Ekpizo. “Eighteen months ago there were so many products with price labels that a great number of Greeks could not afford. Costs were going up long before the war in Ukraine.” It came as little surprise for consumer groups, then, that when talk turned to the need for relief measures to counter rising inflation the government chose to focus on staple goods.

What emerged was the novel concept of the “household basket”: supermarkets agreed with the government to sell about 51 staples – from flour to fish – at fixed prices. The measure, thrashed out around a long mahogany table in the ministry of commerce, went into effect in early November. Officials in the centre-right government intend the scheme, scheduled to run to the end of the winter, as a bulwark for the most vulnerable against the inflationary storm. No government subsidies are involved. “We spent weeks sitting around this table working on it with supermarket market representatives and our competition committee,” says Sotiris Anagnostopoulos, the ministry’s fresh-faced general secretary. “In politics you have to anticipate what is coming next. The cost of living crisis is a huge challenge, maybe the biggest we have faced since the adoption of the euro.”

Nationwide chains have signed up to the programme, selling products under blue household basket labels. With the country’s annual consumer inflation rate currently at 10% – down from a high of 12% in September – the government insists the initiative has succeeded in stabilising prices at a time of uncertainty and, in some cases, driving them lower. “What was never expected was the price war that we have seen among the big supermarket chains,” says Anagnostopoulos. “It’s been a surprise and a pleasant one because in general Greeks have much lower purchasing power.” Forced to survive on some of the lowest wages in the EU – at less than €1,200 a month, the average monthly salary is about a quarter of that in Germany – Greeks have felt the impact of soaring prices perhaps more than other EU nations.

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“Anyone who has downloaded a classified document from WikiLeaks, Cryptome or any other source, or posted it online is liable to prosecution under the Act..”

Daniel Ellsberg: Indict Me Too (Lauria)

Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg has told the U.S. Justice Department and President Joe Biden that he is as indictable as WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange for having unauthorized possession of classified materials before they were published by WikiLeaks and that he would plead “not guilty” because the Espionage Act is unconstitutional. Ellsberg revealed this week to the BBC interview program Hard Talk that Assange had given him the files leaked by U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to keep as a backup before they were published by WikiLeaks in 2010. Assange has been charged with violating the Espionage Act for possession and dissemination of classified information and faces 175 years in a U.S. prison if he is extradited from Belmarsh Prison in London.

Ellsberg is the second figure this month to come forward calling on the U.S. government to indict them for the same reasons Assange has been charged. “Cryptome published the decrypted unredacted State Department Cables on September 1, 2011 prior to publication of the cables by WikiLeaks,” John Young wrote in a Justice Department submission form, which Young posted on Twitter last week. “No US official has contacted me about publishing the unredacted cables since cryptome published them,” he wrote. “I respectfully request that the Department of Justice add me as a co-defendant in the prosecution of Mr. Assange under the Espionage Act.” The 1917 Espionage Act does not exempt journalists from receiving and publishing classified information, which Ellsberg says is a clear violation of the First Amendment and should be challenged in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Anyone who has downloaded a classified document from WikiLeaks, Cryptome or any other source, or posted it online is liable to prosecution under the Act, which would include millions of people around the world. Receiving and publishing classified information is routine work for journalists at major publications. Five newspapers partnered with WikiLeaks to publish Manning’s material in 2010 but only Assange has been charged. Those five newspapers last week called on the Biden administration to drop the charges on Assange because of the threat to the First Amendment. The Obama administration declined to indict Assange in 2011 because it understood that it would also have to indict New York Times editors and reporters for having published the same materiel Assange did. That is the only material Assange was indicted for.

He was not charged for releases exposing Central Intelligence Agency hacking activities in 2016, though that so infuriated then C.I.A. Director Mike Pompeo that Pompeo later asked for plans to be drawn up to either kidnap or kill Assange while he was living under asylum in Ecuador’s London embassy. The Trump administration then had Assange arrested and charged under the Espionage Act in 2019. Despite being part of the Obama administration, Biden has refused to drop the case. When those plans were first revealed at Assange’s extradition hearing in 2020, Ellsberg said that the government was treating Assange worse than he had been treated and that it should have set Assange free.

Read more …

“..all other news outlets around the country reported feeling “lost” as they were so used to just copying and pasting from the New York Times each morning.”

Disinformation Down 92% As NYT Writers Go On Strike (BBee)

Researchers are reporting that disinformation on Twitter, Facebook, and mainstream news sources is already down by 92% in the wake of a 24-hour writer’s strike at the New York Times. “We always wondered where all this harmful disinformation was coming from,” said Darryl Ball, a researcher with the Center for Combatting Bad Things Online. “Turns out, it was all coming from those knuckleheads at the Times. Who knew?” Several studies indicate the country has seen a sharp decrease in hate speech, foreign propaganda, and shockingly dumb hot takes since the entire writing staff walked out of the building in New York City, which experts believe could lead to an outbreak of peace and harmony across the nation.


“All this time, the threat to democracy was us all along!” said NYT Union Boss Fuggs Crullers to reporters from other news organizations not on strike. “We have begun negotiations with leadership to pay us more money to never come back to work in hopes of saving America.” At publishing time, all other news outlets around the country reported feeling “lost” as they were so used to just copying and pasting from the New York Times each morning.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Paul Marik

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tucker dreamers

 

 

 

 

Referee
https://twitter.com/i/status/1600902123486470145

 

 

Polar bear cub

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Home Forums Debt Rattle December 9 2022

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 74 total)
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  • #122999

    Salvador Dali Back the girl 1926   • Second Wave Of Twitter Docs Reveal ‘Blacklists’ And ‘Shadow Bans’ (JTN) • Saxo Bank Predictions Warn Of A Wi
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle December 9 2022]

    #123000
    Dora
    Participant

    Dutch farmers battle technocratic forces driving them into oblivion
    Nash Landesman·December 8, 2022

    Dutch farmers battle technocratic forces driving them into oblivion

    #123001
    oxymoron
    Participant

    Philosophy or sommit, skip if not your bag, but KASSANDRA got me thinking…

    The hierarchy of illusions is the most difficult trick of the mind to overcome in my case.

    I still can’t help seeing all these different realities, opinions, needs, wants and life goals (or purposes) as flawed. Because I. AM. A. JUDGEY. BASTARD.

    If all is an illusion and we are effectively dreamers of the dream, here (seemingly) to learn to heal the sense of separation from Source – which is the essence of life force, love and the mind of God – then why the fuck do I see other’s dreams as lesser than mine? (BTW-this is a faith-based conceptual framework so…)

    Victoria Nuland. Adam Schiff. Hillary Rodham. Kissenger. Epstein. Gates.

    Why are their desires and goals worse than mine? Because mine are ‘nice’? Because I am empathetic to the feelings and experience of ‘others’?
    I sometimes feel as if my whole existence is a giant Shakespearean attempt at play-acting virtue.

    I mean I’m doing all the ‘signalling’.

    I live lean, love my wife and children and behave as a good friend. Hug trees and give to the needy when I have been flush. Have chickens and orchard – chop wood and carry water. (no Ukraine flag for now though)

    I ‘rage against the machine of death’ but if I am a dreamer – then the joke must be on me.
    The object is to wake up surely. Or at the very least, recognise my sleeping state.

    The world is then in many ways best seen – in it’s madness, as solid evidence of my slumber.
    What life is this that kills itself at every turn? Where virtue or venom are rewarded at random.
    Life that tortures and expresses lament and lack. Suffers but to die alone, as it entered this portal as well.

    I feel sometimes like my goals of raising healthy children and forest stewardship are pursuits a bit like putting lipstick on a pig. You can’t polish a turd, basically, and this life sometimes feels very shitty. Not that I am glum, mind you – just that I am staring into the fire like Kassandra and most, if not all others here, and saying to myself – Why the hell does it have to be like this?

    And here I go AGAIN – off with the dream. The one that sees people grow plants – that feed them and share the surplus. Who envisions a world where technological advancement is measured by who could hybridise the most delicious Cherry for 2023 or design the best, cheapest and most smoke-free rocket stove. For the ‘muscle-mary’s’ and the vain or physically-inclined – who can chop the most wood for the town.
    A dream where soil was worshipped more than the size of the flat screen.

    But scaling dreams in a virtue-ladder is to arm oneself with a dangerous trick of self-deception because behind it all it makes the illusion more ‘real’. Less able to be laughed at. More to be taken VERY SERIOUSLY.

    Where’s the joy in that? No wonder I can get myself in fits of cray-cray over the malevolence.

    Jesus sat dying bloody on the cross and Buddha walked as a beggar – they were not advertising the #influencer life of a perfect body-self. They were saying this is not whee salvation or enlightenment is to be found so be here, be normal but at the very least be mindful of what you are doing when you want to eviscerate Nuland – the arrogant bitch.
    You are saying that your dream is better than her dream when really you should look with love and charity on the sad state we are in. Life here is suffering and we really want – deep down the peace of God.
    That peace encompasses love and compassion for everyone – even the turds.

    Musing over, apologies

    #123002
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Twitter = Orwell

    Padding the payroll with censors Just In Time for the Plandemic

    Everyone stuck at home surfing the Intertubes and ‘working from home’.

    The many original Jacobins ended up with their heads on sticks.

    One can only hope history rhymes.

    The Fall of Robespierre

    .

    #123003
    Oroboros
    Participant

    In addition to the chart above on US diabetes

    .

    .

    Something is poisoning our metabolism and causing us to gain weight because Obesity rates are up 30% in the last 20 years even though total caloric consumption hasn’t changed.

    .

    #123005
    Oroboros
    Participant

    More ‘customers’ for the Medical Industrial Mafia to feast on

    #123008
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Nigeria’s totally failed CBDC brings out the stick: Refuse to allow ATM withdrawals in attempt to force Central Bank Digital money nobody wants. …I have a hunch this will go about as well as Zimbabwe’s Central Bank control.

    This is after Ukraine going all-digital in a nation with no power.

    Brilliant!

    NY Times trashes the Rail Unions and tongue-bathes Joe Biden, then walks out on their own worker’s strike. “Solidarity, Comrade!” “Workers of the World, Untie.” CNN says “Strikes Hurt People.” I guess you’re required to work even if you don’t want to! They own you. Just like CSX Rail said. Thanks, pal.

    We find out that SBF’s father was mostly setting up and running FTX as their main lawyer going way back. Wot a shock! Rich psychopaths sacrifice their kids as a show of fealty to a certain well-known god? And Ellison’s papa too?

    Biden had two sets of kids go down, and a certain John Hinckley was first son of the Vanderbilt oil fortune, close friends of VP Bush. The same Mr. Bush who is the only American who has no idea where he was on 11,22,1963. But young Hinckley is just one example among dozens. Guess it doesn’t pay to be born rich. Or into mafia families.

    Anyone want to explain about diabetes in America? Or why no one cares? We’ll shut the world down and cause hyperinflation “if it saves one life” but if 15 million people get a quite deadly disease, we like it? When that disease also causes Covid deaths by the thousands? Yeah, I’m guessing drugs, even diabetes drugs somehow, but we can be quite sure it’s food-as-drugs, with HFCS, Glyphosates and other inflammations.

    Second Wave of Twitter Docs Reveal ‘Blacklists’ and ‘Shadow Bans’ (JTN)”

    Yes, but we know that. About 2 years after Twitter was born, but clearly the minute Dorsey was sidelined. When was that? Look at the Twitter employee chart for hiring government-approved censors. And although ignoring Sec 230 as a technicality as we seem to, that would be legal. The focus needs to remain on the SPECIFIC repression of free speech by GOVERNMENT, for purely POLITICAL ends. That is, Human Rights + Election Tampering which therefore installs an illegal government. Hey, would that be Treason?

    “Saxo Bank Predictions Warn of a Wild 2023 (Spears)”

    Always predicting economies and recessions that started a year ago. So their prediction is that tomorrow will be similar to today. Like the reversal of Brexit, we clearly saw that ALREADY handled, two YEARS ago with Boris double-crossing foot dragging giving them time to organize,and May refusing years before that. Then clearly in Miss Truss vs BoE, with the City of London bankers installed. DGAF what the British people think.

    Liz Truss didn’t do jack, nor have time to. Her response was mild and boring in the extreme. Now it may not have gone far enough, given the challenges, but you can’t just lie and say “It’s her! She was more radically laissez-faire than…” Well, there are no laissez-faire politicians, it’s an oxymoron, so I can’t insert any examples here. She did NOTHING. Her platform was like “Hey, let’s make bullion with one cube distilled from everything re-done from the last 40 years.” Weak sauce. It can’t also be strong sauce. Jeebus.

    US$ dominance is coming on 2 years old as MbS pulls Saudi out of the Petrodollar, and each new decision reaffirms it. He then pushes the IMF and Bancor? I know everyone is older and more geriatric than Mr. Burns, but that’s like 100 years old? No that ain’t gonna work anymore than we’ll replace our Teslas with horses, you tom-fools.

    AutoGyro

    “Merkel’s ‘Confession’ May Be Ground for Tribunal – Moscow (RT)”

    I was going to say, if only they could prove that the plan was to launch a major war of aggression, as we all know they planned for late March 2022, but that’s difficult to prove, but… No, they DID prove it. Just that the ongoing war of aggression was a human rights catastrophe against their own people in Donbas, which is provable. And that’s who they (Germany/NATO) armed and massed to genocide. It’s just that nobody cares.

    Still, I guess it would be clearer if Russia had let Ukraine attack them first. But what good would that be? As stated, nobody cares. All Russians/Slavs killed is a GOOD thing, always approved by the UN and the Hague. Look at Clinton and Serbia. We bombed the crap out of civilians there as usual, let Sarajevo be in a year-long siege as a demented science experiment, pointing at Europe “You got a nice city there…” and occupy and are still sitting on the oil pipeline today, flying drugs in and out of that base into Eastern Europe. Not even Bush is in the Hague, to say nothing of Clinton. “A Million Iraqi Children were Worth It.”

    Leads to next question: “What is a Court?” Can I set up a court and get two Proud Boys to haul Comcast’s CEO in front of me? No? Then what makes “We’ll set up a court” have any legal standing? ‘Cause we worship all process and power regardless of who or what they are? This is the real reason for all people – Navarro and Jones for example – to refuse to testify for Jan 6. THE COMMITTEE LITERALLY IS ILLEGAL. It was not created by Congress, under standard Congressional rules.

    Suppose I’m a 2-year Representative from Delaware. I’m elected. So I “Call a committee” in my kitchen in downtown Seaford and have two State Policemen haul the IHOP waitress from this morning who served my pancakes wrong. Legal?

    F- No! That’s straight-up abuse of power. The U.S. Congress as a body “Authorizes” a “Sub-committee” on a whole-body vote, and delegates specific tasks to them. There are rules concerning this so Huey Long or Hillary’s favorite KKK Wizard Senator Byrd don’t go nuts on us. And this is exactly what the J6 Committee has NOT done. They have not been created and authorized under the standard Congressional rules. As a method and first step towards causing a nationwide Civil War.

    This is what the “UN Court” would be. Who gives the “UN” authority – called “Jurisdiction” or “Law-Speak” over them? And suppose you do: who would enforce it? Having one part of the UN declare war on the OTHER part of the UN? Then that’s a UN civil war, a World War. That’s no different than not having a court at all and just shouting stuff. Or shooting stuff.

    THE PURPOSE OF THE COURT IS BULLS—T. That is, to LIE to the people of the world with the illusion that there is a thread of power, order, or jurisdiction there. There isn’t. Then when they enforce the Court that doesn’t exist, they will be able to LIE and sell the people on a WORLD WAR because they didn’t obey a court that never existed.

    It’s all about causing, creating, selling, fighting, war.

    “ US Trying to Make Ukraine Conflict Last for Years – Russia (RT)”

    Yes, but so is Russia, so it’s a terrible plan. Never fall into the time and plan of your enemy.

    The Zelensky regime, which has repeatedly tested Washington’s patience,”

    Yes, but Ze isn’t running anything and never was. He will be swapped and the real oligarchs remain. Both in D.C. and Kiev. (And London)

    “Russian leader also said that it was wrong to talk about the timing of the special operation or try to adjust it.”

    They couldn’t predict how deep the West would get in or how much support they could sustain for $100B/year. Clearly the Western citizens love to be f….but this is a family blog. Now Russia can see the West really, honestly wants world-wide nuclear annihilation or bust, so, there we are.

    “[Zelensky] can’t go forward with full peace negotiations with Russia,”

    Why would he go forward? From a coke-snorting actor in a country nobody watches, he’s now the richest most powerful man in Europe. Most celebrated leader of all time. Owns multi-million dollar houses in Miami, has an Oscar.

    “total expenditure by member states will grow by €70 billion over the next three years.”

    1) that’s near-zero 2) It’s not “money” that they need, but the raw materials the money buys. Those materials are in China and Russia. $70B ÷ 3 = $23B/yr, over a $17,000B economy = 0.14% GDP. Or another way, $23B/27 = $850M per country. So one non-flying jet?

    ““After the Cold War, we shrunk our forces to small-size armies without coordination …”

    Yes, they made the United States pay for it so they could have free health care. So Davos > NATO > Pentagon. The U.S. is a colony of Europe, that’s why “America First” is a declaration of war.

    “FBI Sees ‘Threat’ in Apple Encryption Move (RT)”

    They are kidding, right? This is all eyewash. Lies, like all Apple “Security”. Not only is their stuff garbage, but unless very carefully constructed, anyone with access to the server core can un-crack any encryption. What “threat” is that then? That they need a legal subpoena and search warrant and can’t read everything out on the curb like Clapper does?

    BTW the refusal of BlackBerry (a Canadian company) to give the FBI (A foreign government) every back door caused them to run BB out of the cell phone business. With help from Verizon, Google, etc, in a merger of Corporation and State. Worldwide merger.

    “Nobody who was pro-China survived the selection process or came anywhere near central power.”

    A perfect microcosm how the whole Leviathan works. Not with some KGB agent visiting your house. That’s too hard and too expensive, it causes resistance. It’s just “WE” do not think that. All other ideas, histories, medicines, opportunities are un-discussible. This is technically Overton Window, but its meaning is very deep.

    Look at ecology and farming for example. Shutting down 3,000 farms in a food crisis, while also not mobilizing for food and permaculture in a Biden-declared world war. “We” do not think that. We just sit and starve and get mad at desperate people robbing our condos. Wars mean we un-mobilize food and un-Victory Garden.

    “Receiving and publishing classified information is routine work for journalists at major publications.”

    But now journalists don’t do that – journalism, I mean – so they have nothing to worry about.

    “The Obama administration declined to indict Assange in 2011 because it understood that it would also have to indict New York Times editors”

    Ditto. But note that only 10 years ago we apparently had remnants of logic and law. Mild attempts to avoid being attack-enemies/help-friends hypocrites. Not no more! We don’t even notice. Mad as hens at anyone who points it out.

    “Everyone Is Sick Right Now” –Wired.
    Amanda Hoover, “Science”, or lack thereof.

    #123009
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @oxymoron

    Thankyou for the carefully expressed thoughts and observations. Not very cheery, but worthy of deep reflection. I’m going to be rereading it many times today.

    #123010
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Merkel Confession

    Another secret Blood Drinking Satanist.

    I feel vindicated in using the term ‘satanist’ to describe ‘leaders’ in the Collective West because Putin himself uses it referring to them.

    Russia will NEVER negotiate with Eurotardistan until the entire generation of western Satanist are dead and buried, preferably with oak stakes driven through their hearts.

    Boris Johnson asked if Angela Merkel was part of Stasi before G7 Summit (2021)

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1449672/boris-johnson-news-angela-merkel-stasi-g7-summit-spt

    .

    #123011
    chooch
    Participant

    Oxy thanks for that. I need to chop more wood and carry some water.

    #123012
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @oroboros

    Starting in 1974 High Fructose Corn Syrup started replacing Cane Sugar and Beet sugar in the production of processed foods, and now accounts for just over half of the sugars consumed by humans (it started at virtually zero, percentage wise).

    It is marketed and described as virtually identical ( both chemically and nutritionally) to the other two sugars but there are two little things about it that make it different.

    The first thing is that for not-yet-understood reasons Fructose does not trigger the hormonal response that tells the brain “That’s enough sugar for now, boyo. You can stop craving the sweets for now.”

    And the second little difference is that it’s WAY cheaper, both to make and to use in the industrial food process.

    #123013
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Here is Merkel with her fellow communist soldiers where she had the role of propaganda officer.

    She denies that she was close to the communist rulers of East Germany even though this photo shows her at the age of 17, happily involved in a civil defense exercise under the gaze of an East German officer.

    Obviously, she would have felt much less “happy” if she had refused an order by the communist dictators running the country.

    .

    #123014
    Oroboros
    Participant

    And from the other end of the Neverland spectrum

    (Conspiracy) Theory 1 – Stasi’s documents reveal that German Chancellor Angela Merkel is Hitler’s daughter. Born on July 17, 1954, according to the Russian KGB, she is one of Dr. Karl Clauberg’s experiments. Secret documents by Stasi show that Dr. Clauberg brought Eva Braun from Western to Eastern Germany to use her as a surrogate mother for Hitler’s child. He completed the artificial insemination once he was released by the Soviets and finally, Angela Merkel was …born.

    Dr. Clauberg is recognized as the father of artificial insemination…..

    The tale may be truth or fiction, but nobody can deny that Merkel has a resemblance to her alleged …paternal grandmother:

    Mommie Dearest…..

    .

    #123015
    Dr. D
    Participant

    I don’t enough about Oz, but cannibalism was here in N.A. The Aztecs (Mexico) and the Iroquois (NY) who are probably the same ethnic peoples, the colony of mound builders come up the Mississippi and round trip through Huron Canada and back south again. They gave up cannibalism in a big story of “The Peacemaker” maybe as recently as 1300. But if memory serves, it was ritual off and on with many tribes coast to coast. And of course slavery was a huge business for them. Different than ours, but: slavery. And if you ran, bash your head in.

    Trade that? Or the ecological misery the competing culture brought from Europe? Meh: who knows? But the problem is they’re human. And Euro-humans are no better or worse than the others.

    Murphy can’t probably be a shill, as by definition: shills know they are part of the scam. The general run are morons, because they can’t seem to see the next logical step that’s the size of a woolly mammoth in front of them. There may be a reason for that as that oliphaunt says “No technology” “No standard of living” and “prepping for war and mass-murder” like their social enemy: Christian Conservatives do. (Or so they think.) They can’t make that turn, and so just freeze like morons in the headlights.

    Sad part is, if they went through it completely, they’d pick up the thread past the Spam-n-guns line. That is, there’s a whole bunch of community, food producing, energy-saving, life-changing patterns that are not being used at all and nobody is aware of yet. But you have to have the courage and bravery to face the scary thing and just tell the truth. To yourself first, then others.

    There’s a steady trickle of Greenies who get there – and from the other side too – but nowhere near what we need. As Benton says that requires all the effort of understanding how all the technical things function from the ground up.

    To be brighter, here’s a Huron Carol, in original Iroquois, Canadian standard:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDWFIkndKxc And unlike many, Iroquois is still a spoke language with a (successful) going people.

    #123016
    Mister Roboto
    Participant
    #123017
    Oroboros
    Participant

    All human ‘cultures’ pass through the Dark Glass of cannibalism and ritual human sacrifice.

    Like the hormonal confusion and rage of adolescence, all things pass.

    But by not coming to terms with it, cultures then develop various forms of collective mental illness.

    Woketards are still denying this phase in various Native American cultures.

    no,no,No, there couldn’t be the remains of butchered human bones in Anasazi ruins.

    Ecological collapse teaming up with remanent Aztecs insinuating up from Mexico could never have happened. White racism!

    #123018
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Educate yourselves a little bit about how Jane Goodal finally had to come to terms that her beloved Chimps she had spend a half a life time studying had indeed a very deep Heart of Darkness.

    Humanity came from those Chimps.

    They had some ‘baggage’

    #123019
    Kassandra
    Participant

    Thank you oxymoron for your reply. That’s very much how I feel. I’m starting a project to convert a room in my basement to a bedroom. It stays warmer in the winter, and very cool in summer. It even has a fireplace. Another project to use less energy and finish this old house. But it’s hard to keep moving forward towards the future when it all feels so hopeless.

    I don’t know if anyone is familiar with the Front Porch Republic, maybe I saw an article on here and don’t remember. That’s where I go to feel hopeful after reading the morning rattle. https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/

    #123020
    Just Some Randomer
    Participant

    Regarding the Diabetes epidemic in the US and possible causes – one thing that seems clear to me, based on extensive international work and travel is that overweight Americans are a very different shape from other nationalities. There is an identifiable ‘Fat American’ silhouette recognisable immediately from a hundred yards away – something about how the weight is unevenly distributed, mostly carried low around the torso

    I suspect that there is something common in the US diet, not present elsewhere, that is behind this. The leading contender, to my mind, would be HFCS – a substance widely banned outside the US but which seems to be on the ingredient list of just about any damn thing you can buy in a US supermarket.

    Normal old refined sugar is pretty much a toxin in its own right as far as I am concerned but this HFCS stuff is likely doing a whole nother level of damage to the body’s ability to regulate insulin levels and manage energy usage/storage.

    #123021
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    Oroboros
    Something is poisoning our metabolism and causing us to gain weight because Obesity rates are up 30% in the last 20 years even though total caloric consumption hasn’t changed.

    Now, that is an interesting observation. I had assumed caloric consumption was also up, considering how cheap calorie rich, nutritionally lacking food is all around us.

    #123022
    zerosum
    Participant

    🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 Zelensky is riches man on earth 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
    ————
    There is a lot of money to be embezzled” through Ukraine aid programs, she alleged. Zakharova claimed that Western assistance was “a corruption marathon” going from the White House to Kiev and back again and profiting grifters on a global scale.
    • US Trying To Make Ukraine Conflict Last For Years – Russia (RT)

    ————
    Propaganda is just copying and pasting
    (Get the vaccine. It doesn’t prevent getting sick, or doesn’t prevent you spreading the virus, and it will compromise your immune system so that it will be easier to getting other illnesses )
    ————
    oxymoron
    YEP!
    Zelensky is riches man on earth

    ———–

    #123023
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    I wish people would stop referring to the “Intelligence Agencies” or the so-called “Intelligence Community” as though those things were somehow “contained” entities that could be encapsulated or identified in terms of name, address, administrative structure that could be given an official title, abbreviated with a three letter acronym and stuffed into a cubby hole.

    That’s just not how covert intelligence works.

    It works on the principle that THERE ARE NO PRINCIPLES , other than power and expediency, and that maintenance of such power and expediency requires secrecy and the complete absence of external control. Period.

    The “intelligence community” answers to superiors.

    The hand that holds the secrets is the hand that rules that rules the world.

    #123024
    John Day
    Participant

    Last night DBS asked about my reply, “Sawatdi krap”, to V.Arnold, who wrote “testing” just before comments flipped to a new page:
    “@JohnDay Hello to you, too, but who are you specifically addressing? (my son-in-law is Thai)”


    @aspnaz
    : Try simply disagreeing, rather than casting aspersions and calling names.
    There is disagreement about climate science in society, but what I presented about the effects of India hitting Asia and driving the Himalayas up to where they sequester CO2 into calcium carbonate is a thing that clearly happens. There is a whole lot of calcium carbonate at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, and it is measurable in the Ganges, and so on.

    #123025
    John Day
    Participant

    Weight Gain:
    Both high fructose corn syrup and artificial (“diet”) sodas cause weight gain in humans.
    The artificial sweeteners taste sweet, so the brain signals the pancreas to make insulin, which lowers the blood-sugar, so then the brain says “EAT!”, because the expected sugar-dose never arrived.

    #123026
    Dr D Rich
    Participant

    @Dr. D

    Semaglutide

    Type 2 not generally Type 1

    Lose weight cure type 2

    Some treatments, bariatric surgery and semaglutide and tight control, lead to complications such as Early Worsening of Diabetic Retinopathy.

    Personal observations from the past 38 years in medicine
    -most type 2s don’t take in excess calories. So why do they gain weight? Dishonesty?
    -exercise calorie consumption doesn’t reduce weight calorie per calorie. Is ‘exercise resistance’ similar to insulin resistance? Tachyphylaxis?
    -semaglutide works. Why? It reduces appetite, reducing calorie intake, causing weight loss.
    Does stress+appetite cause weight gain even without corresponding increase in calorie consumption?
    Does the gut become more efficient under stress to extract ‘more’ calories from food than what is predicted?

    Semaglutide

    Author’s disclosure: sadly owns No Novo Nordisk stock NoNoNo

    #123027
    ezlxa1949
    Participant

    A few comments about the Australian aborigines.

    Scholarshp in recent years has greatly expanded our knowledge of their societies and cultures.

    No, they weren’t perfect. They had their squabbles and fights. They’re human beings after all, just like the rest of us.

    No record of cannibalism, ritual or otherwise.

    At the time of the European invasion, they were managing the entire continent almost as one huge estate, and managing it very well.

    Little starvation, even in central Australian areas. Early British explorers starved to death in country that was supplying the aborigines with an ample, healthy diet.

    In south-eastern regions, the Aborigines were harvesting and storing food surpluses in purpose-built granaries. The British burned them down upon discovery.

    The country has been “sheep-wrecked”. Sheep and cattle have hard, chisel-like hooves which cut into the ground, destroy plants and damage the soil. (Same sort of thing is going on in contemporary Scotland.) Sheep feed by pulling plants out of the ground. The flat-footed marsupials feed by cutting the plants off above ground, letting them regrow. Cattle have been similarly destructive, especially in view of the deliberate over-stocking.

    Many European photographs of Aboriginals sitting under primitive shelters depict not a primitive, unmeritable culture but rather a defeated, dispossessed people. Their means of livelihood have been denied them, their food supply decimated. (Reminiscent of parts of modern Europe.)

    In some areas the British gave the Aborigines blankets infected with smallpox. Reasons obvious.

    There is much, much more. I can provide references if anyone is interested. Otherwise I shall say no more.

    #123028
    ezlxa1949
    Participant

    A few comments about chimpanzees.

    Chimps are nasty. I was told by a keeper of primates at the Wellington Zoo (NZ) that a fully-grown chimp has the strength of 10 adult men. TEN. The zoo has elaborate security and safety procedures and facilities in place. (For the record, a fully-grown orangutan has the strength of 7 adult men. SEVEN. No wonder orangs are routinely killed in Borneo when their forest is destroyed for palm oil plantations.) If a chimp manages to get hold of you the monkey can easily hold you in place, tear off your limbs, poke out your eyes, and you can do nothing about it except pray and scream for quick rescue.

    The chimps one sees in the movies are all juveniles, as they are still weak enough to control easily. Chimps are nasty: they are unpredictable and can be very destructive.

    In Africa there is a very similar-looking species, the Bonobo, whose territories tend to be adjacent to those of chimps. Bonobos are gentle and good-natured, and predated upon by chimps.

    Why on earth the human race has gravitated to the vicious chimp instead of the gentle bonobo is a mystery. Or is it?

    #123029
    oldandtired
    Participant

    US to collect $2.6 trillion dollars in Income taxes for 2022. Record set due to raises in pay throughout workforce.
    Excise tax. Federal and state. Taxes virtually every good and service.
    Don’t take your inherited distribution on time? 50% penalty.
    Food? Taxed.
    Sell a piece of real estate? Taxed.
    Clothes on your back? Taxed.
    Die (from Covid) taxed.
    Drive a car? Fuel, oil, tires, spare parts all taxed.- both excise tax and sales tax.
    Glad everyone is paying their fair share.
    People, this is your money they are taking! You worked hard for it, spent time away from your home, put up with difficult or dangerous circumstances, lost opportunities to do other things you would have preferred.

    Blew holes in the sand all over the world with your money. Rockets that you pay $1500 a pound for- they weigh over 500 pounds-do the math. Blowing up infrastructure all over the world. Trillions of dollars of your hard earned money. With no end of spending in sight. Not moving your country ahead one inch. What is the most expensive thing you have in your home right now? That little Ukrainian flag you have hanging in your front window!

    #123030
    Oroboros
    Participant

    @phoenixvoice

    I had assumed that the USer’s epidemic of obesity was the Sheeple just becoming ‘fat, dumb and lazy’ and eating way too much crap ‘food’ but with the chart showing level caloric intake over decades the focus should shift to HFCS.

    HFCS being a by-product of the GMO Ethanol Corn Industrial Mafia

    The health effects, diabetes and obesity, then feed into the Medical Industrial Mafia’s business model of, treat symptoms, not causes, with products from the Big Pharma Mafia

    Then the Media Industrial Mafia completes the Circle of the interlocking Directorate of Mafias by not reporting on the situation and providing misdirection services for The Empire of Lies.

    Will the Circle Be Unbroken

    Gregg Allman

    #123031
    John Day
    Participant

    @Oxymoron: Thanks for the musings…

    #123033
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    The eyes of compassion create a searchlight that makes the wounded want to hide the qway a child with a scraped knee avoids having it cleaned.

    ***

    Line from an imaginary near-future crash dystopian novel: Gated communities were the best. You just crashed in and rounded ‘em up in their prefab pen.

    ***

    sinnycool, I admire your style. I am not quite yet prepared to emulate your positively-oriented active restraint. I have not yet exhausted learning what good might be done with the aid of a baseball bat, but other than that, I find that you and Polemos walk the talk-talk in a way I rather fancy.

    ***

    afewknowthetruth: I admire very much your overall understanding of The Big Picture and command of data relevant thereto. Summations like these:

    “Since the future welfare of most people will be largely determined by the average ambient temperature and the ability to stay warm in the winter, the availability of locally-grown food and the number of people competing for locally-grown food there really can only be one answer.
    “Bear in mind that resistance to the Scorpion is building by the day, and every move she/it makes to crush resistance increasingly exposes her/it for the tyrant she/it is, and increases the resistance.”
    <>
    “The crime of being poor but also of having a useful trade and being ambitious and wanting to get out of the cold concentration camp. “Or already being extremely wealthy via criminal activity and willing to help loot the place.”

    Very much work for me. Not that it need be any concern of yours, but I do find your style off-putting. One wearies of forever being preached to. But that’s just my style of tea, and your agenda knows itself better than I do.

    ***

    “It’ll be hard on Elon too. For instance, he tweeted that Twitter doesn’t employ the Perkins Coie law firm. And then someone sends a Dec. 8 paper that says it does. How now?”

    Probably not much of a problem. At this stage of the game, Elon can use Claude Rains’ “Apparently, I was misinformed” clause and get out with a little skin abrasion. In the long run, though…

    Where You Gonna Run To?

    #123035
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    I adored oxymoron’s heartfelt post pondering why it all seems so dirty and futile at times. Every word except these: “Musing over, apologies”

    If I read one more person apologize for expressing genuine, deep, well thought, powerfully felt ideas and emotions, I will… (gimme a minute, I’m thinking…) I will dress up like Madamski Santa Claus and show yez my mangina. I swear it. I mean it. I’m quite capable of doing such a thing… as soon as I find a mangina I can borrow.

    Fucking criminy! How can we rail against the outrages and devastations and mindfuckeries and arrogant stupidities and not feel permission to be and express whatever the fuck it is that we are, too often suffering deep depression as we see the world darken on a global scale? How can we tilt at a 1,000 windmills, most of them genuine dragons, and not feel encouraged to share our asouls with one another.

    What worth is it to care so much about the countless horrors that we exhaustively catalog their rapine and carnage but not hold up our hearts to each other as proof that it just might be worth keeping on to keep on keeping on?

    You don’t want to see what he saw:

    Old Gregg

    So start acting human awreddy (as oxymoron so wonderfully did) or be genderifically blinded for life. Ye bin warned. I keep all options on the table. I may even log in under a new pseudonym. Stop.acting.like.political.chatbots! Please??????????????

    And, well done, oxy, well done. Well, you made me cry, and I kinda like crying. Beats hell outta depression.

    Beating the Heart Like a Red-Headed Stepchild

    ***

    Today’s Yogi tea tag message: Inner peace creates peace in the world.

    Relevant song: Prince of Peace

    ***

    Xmas music would rather kill you than stop: We Three Kings

    #123036
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    In 2018, Twitter was doing fine with the same amount of people they now employ.

    In 2018, Twitter was doing fine with the same number of people they now employ.

    I know we cannot stop the destruction of the meaning of words. But we can die trying to stop the destruction of the meaning of words.

    Amount is for stuff that cannot be counted. Like sand.

    Number for objects or living organisms that can be counted. Like people.

    #123037
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “‘If I was a strategic thinker in the non-western world I would be thinking about what to do with my US dollar reserves..’”

    I’m trying to figure out how to convince my wife that she needs to cash out her retirement chits, and that we need to go on a cash basis where possible. If I thought keeping her unvaxxed was hard, I’m in for some toughening up. ‘Retirement account’ is a Holy Term.
    The Big W

    ***

    please stand 5789ffgg by; technical difficulties as we dodge erratic spambots,.nn

    Poor little Zelensky. He’s hardly an Uncle Stalin helping us fight the Axis. More like Joel Cairo in The Maltese Falcon sucking up to Sam Gutman, the Fat Man.

    The Russian’s Hand

    I think that sometimes we forget the obvious factor in the Ukraine conflict: The western nations are trying to steal Russia’s oil by coercive means including martial. Unwilling to admit that they’re too weak to take it from the Big Bear, they throw every straw dog its way that they can dig up. Meanwhile, the Bear grows increasingly impatient. I doubt its patience will hold when the petrodollar finally vaporizes, a process already well underway.

    ***

    I heartily endorse the happy animal videos.

    #123038
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “Personal observations from the past 38 years in medicine
    -most type 2s don’t take in excess calories. So why do they gain weight? Dishonesty?”

    More likely it’s the type/quality of calories, factored with type/amount/quality of exercise and that odd thing: quality of life: happiness.

    #123039
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “Why on earth the human race has gravitated to the vicious chimp instead of the gentle bonobo is a mystery. Or is it?”

    Genetic lineage, I would think. Bonobos would rather fight than fuck but chimps like to fuck AND fight.

    #123040
    jb-hb
    Participant

    Aside from sugar and HFCS, one should consider all the various drugs and things entering the water supply. And the unknown quantity of endocrine disruptors, hormone mimicers, etc surrounding people all day.

    Remember that 80’s Batman movie? People were mysteriously dying all over Gotham. They suspected poison, but couldn’t find any.

    Then it was discovered the constituent components of poison had been added to a variety of personal care products. When combined on/in a person, it created poison, but no poison was in any of the products.

    Aside from HCFS, drugs in the water supply, disruptors and mimicers in products, it would be difficult to tell if it is a combination of these things that causes a problem. Certainly we know combinations of prescription drugs cause reactions not found when taking each one individually.

    #123041
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    Afktt: thank you for the grammar lesson! Most of my grammar know how comes from avid reading, with little formal instruction…I had never thought that one through before! :). (I secretly have enjoyed helping one of my sons with his English grammar worksheets this year for the same reason.)

    #123042
    Germ
    Participant

    The US has finally jumped the shark – Idiocracy !

    #123043
    teri
    Participant

    So Sinema is not a Democrat any more.

    I gather that the people you “elect” can just switch parties part-way through their term in office, because no-one in either party is calling her out on it as a verboten move. If this is the case, why should any of them claim to be members of one party or the other in the first place? Sounds kind of like it ought to make them unfit for office because they are being deliberately deceptive in their nominal party affiliation – and that’s the most basic item on their curriculum vitae. It sounds shiesty.

    What a bunch of assholes they all are.

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