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.

Read more …

‘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.’

Read more …

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.

Read more …

“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.

Read more …

“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.

Read more …

“[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.

Read more …

“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?

Read more …

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.

Read more …

“..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.

Read more …

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”.

Read more …

“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.

Read more …

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.

Read more …

“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.

Read more …

“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 34 posts - 41 through 74 (of 74 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #123045
    Germ
    Participant

    It’s somewhat deep, yet simultaneously abstract discussion: Rixey/McCairn

    SARS Biowarfare With Charles Rixey

    What’s coming next.

    https://rumble.com/v1zphtk-sars-biowarfare-with-charles-rixey.html

    Rixey did a 3-way discussion with Hoff and KimdotCom earlier this week.
    Start at 19 min 22 sec mark.
    Quite the rabbit hole.

    TVASF

    #123046
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    ‘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’

    Maybe there was some hyperbole there. A keeper of primates might like to bolster his/her standing in the community by exaggerating the threat of the captives.

    The other aspect is this. Are what we call men actually men anymore?

    Five hundred years ago a man spent his time working in fields all day, or hammering in a place of manufacture all day, or chasing and capturing animals all day. Or if in an army, marching long distances carrying weapons and supplies, and then fighting (perhaps for several hours and often to the death) with other men who were fighting for a different exploiter of men. If on ships, men spent much of their time hauling on ropes attached to sails or anchors. And when not doing that, scrubbing decks or carrying out repairs.

    It is said that the runners who provided communications services for the Inca Empire ran for 10 hours. Every day. The Zulus who defeated the British invaders in the early skirmishes ran over hundred kilometres in three days, carrying spears and shields, in order to meet the invaders.

    Darwin reported that the inhabitants of the islands off the coast of Chile-Argentina wore no clothes and swam in the cold water to collect various sea foods.

    Many tribal societies required adolescent boys to undergo a ritual or ordeal in order to make the transition from child to man -like “Go into the wilderness and don’t come back unless you are carrying the skin or a substantial chunk of a large beast you have killed.”

    I know that man is a useful label to describe a hominid that hardly generate sufficient sperm to inseminate a female of the species, cannot run 2 kilometres at the peak of fitness, cannot construct or use hand tools, and is dependent on a constant supply of medication and 100 constantly-active energy slaves for survival, but when this thing goes down, how many real men will be around? -especially in the bloated NATOstan countries.

    phoenixvoice. I spent several years teaching Asian students to speak and write English. It’s difficult to not be a teacher when it is in you.

    Though glucose and fructose are both sugars, the human body has evolved to run on low levels of glucose. A high level of glucose in the diet throws serious a spanner in the works. A high level of fructose is deadly.

    American industrial agriculture has been set up to convert oil extracted from under the ground and from under shallow seas into glucose and fructose via the substrate that used to be soil. Huge subsidies have been provided by the corporation that controls American society to facilitate this process.

    #123047
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    ‘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.’

    Airstrip Five went through a period of turmoil in the 1990s, when politicians decided the infighting within a political aprty was too much to bear and switched to another party midstream.

    The controllers could not care less because they controlled all the parties, and the controllers’ agenda was followed whichever party was ‘in power’.

    However, it was a bad look as far as the debt-slaves/wage-slaves were concerned, so the bought-and-paid-for politicians passed legislation banning ‘waka-jumping’.

    ‘What a bunch of assholes they all are’

    Yes. All of them. That’s why they were selected for office.

    #123048
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Today earns a double Yogi tea tag inspiration: Without the darkness, you would nev er know the light.

    #123049
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    What a bunch of assholes we all are. Every one of us will, I guarantee, hurt someone quite soon. (Trust me; I’m not an expert on anything). All of us have, will, and are now doing something that required another sentient being to suffer:

    Hurt

    I suggest that, rather than cursing the darkness inside another person’s butthole, we pull our heads out of that place and light a match. (The sulfur removes that stanky butt smell.)

    Everybody hurts, as another song sings more comfortingly than the above.

    Why? Mostly because we’re always hurting each other.

    #123050
    jb-hb
    Participant

    The Jobs “Boom” Isn’t So Hot When We Remember Nearly Six Million Men Are Missing From The Workforce
    Zerohedge Article

    How Many Men Are Out of the Work Force?
    graph

    I’m aaaalmost to 100 job applications with just 1 interview at a 50 employee company.

    I’m beginning to think I need to declare myself to be a trans lesbian, stay married to my wife, keep wearing jeans, tshirt, flannel, baseball cap, and combat boots, and I’ll at least get another interview somewhere. Wife already accuses me daily of wearing “lesbian chique” how much difference could it make at this point?

    Wife works at a small company, so probably can’t benefit her career from saying she is lesbian, although we could join some book clubs or something so we can be “that brave married lesbian couple.” (who gives a f what the BOOK is…) D&D went woke, maybe we can start one of those groups. Not sure I can put up with clerics using swords or “wizards,” whatever they are. Maybe they are trying to say magic users.

    But anyway, the main thing would be that we would be Brave And Stunning and, judging from the current Youtubes of people playing 5e D&D, using our own bodyweight in hair gel daily. That is SO old school D&D. Possibly. I don’t know THACO not because I started too late, but because I started too early. I missed the super-gelled green hair. Must have been a thing though. Surely. Now pardon me I am off to be that unemployed guy playing Gauntlet at the local hobby store.

    #123051
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    Regarding the green map, I have a useless piece of information as far as the global predicament is concerned.

    The Wallops are in Hampshire, and as child and adolescent I went to Nether Wallop in the family Morris Minor.

    Just north of Nether Wallop is Over Wallop. And between them is Middle Wallop, an RAF base. I remember it quite well.

    Near there is the biggest manmade hill in Europe, constructed around 4000 years ago. And to the west the great stone circles at Avebury and Stonehenge.

    https://mapcarta.com/17629220

    If everything that was constructed after 1960 were removed, it would be a delightful region. The 1960s saw some of the ghastliest ‘developments’ in the history of Britain -completely characterless concrete and steel tower-blocks plonked in the middle of towns with medieval castles and walls. And then it got worse.

    The last time I was in Nether Wallop it still had an eighteenth century feel…stone thatched cottages and an open stream with stone bridges. Tar sealed road surface, though.

    #123052
    zerosum
    Participant

    Did you hear???? No?…. Then …. You should watch FOX News
    Twitter Files Part-II: Select users put on secret blacklist for being ‘right-wingers’

    #123053
    oxymoron
    Participant

    AFKTT – your post on the activities of men from the past really got me. My broken wrist from garden/landscaping in January means although I can do most of what I once could do it is with some pain and a different approach. I have picked up quite a few of these minor and sometimes major hurts and I feel these invisible ghosts all around me at times. The men (and women) of times past that were not blubber born of Haber-Bosch. It has costs but it has benefits too.
    I think the demand destruction going on will give rise to more of these men. People will HAVE to work their bodies to get the heating and the calories etc.

    I’m glad the offered thinking was of some use. It means a lot to be amongst this group.
    And Bosco can I apologise for apologising?
    Good to have you here you big-hearted maniac.

    #123054
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Thinking for Oxy, “What makes us judgey?” Stuff I’ve thought so long ago I have to rework up first principles to answer it. Do we think we’re better or smarter? Yes, but that can’t be helped. And we may be, or probably are also wrong about it, but that can’t be helped either.

    The existence of having an ego means you’re individuated, you’re closed off and separated in a way from others, and from the All. That also cannot seem to be helped, as all animals appear to have it, and go through it, and even our highest sages seem to begin there, only to move further later over time.

    As we all are cut off, all have different perceptions or opinions, we have no choice but to believe ours is sensible and better, and the other guy is foolish. We also generally have no choice but to express ourselves for some personal reason, and therefore reveal our opinion and belief, either accidentally or on purpose. Since we think ours make sense, and others don’t, we are confused and likely to ask, discuss, respond, and change according to our new understandings from those interactions. We then tend to ally and associate with others who are similar to us, and get to expressing ourselves generally, even to people who don’t want to hear it, when necessary and from time to time.

    This is the 1st Amendment.

    “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

    We break all of them every day. We are told to believe a THEIR way, or punishment, to not believe what we think is true, to not tell anyone, to not write down and share what we believe is happening and true, not to associate with others, and to be forced to like, hire and associate with people we don’t wish to, and are punished for telling the government this plan is stupid and counterproductive.

    Entertaining, but not really the point. ARE we right? No one knows. Or at least the people who seem to know have minds so different from ours that their explanations make little sense. Here’s a guy says, “Turn the other cheek” and “Carry a soldier’s armor, for no reason, twice as far as he asks you to” and then says “Buy an assault weapon.” We attack at dawn.

    A guy says “Which way to the monastery up here?”
    Nanquan said, “I bought this sickle for thirty pence.”
    “I’m not asking about the sickle. Which Way?”
    Nanquan said, “It feels good when I use it.”

    Other enlightened masters pick up a rock and nonsensically try to polish it when asked basic questions.

    My guess is they are saying something sensible and coherent, but I can’t understand where they’re coming from as our minds – or egos – are in different places.

    How much more the rest of us wandering around lost, tired, unenlightened, and not likely to be as we’re not looking and don’t care? Maybe the One Light is all the same, but the many darknesses are all different. So do I think I am right? Of Course! …Generally speaking. But I might also be wrong, so therefore I have to follow a certain logical code about it.

    That code is, I’m not going to MAKE somebody do something. That’s violence. I’m not going to MAKE them believe something. That’s violence. I’m not going to MAKE them agree with me or even listen to me. That’s violence. They may even be doing violence themselves, or walking off a cliff, but if I have to intervene to prevent it, then because I may be wrong and probably am, I am going to do a minimum, show restraint, introduce and explain myself, ask them, and only going to interfere under very specific and mostly legally-defined rules.

    This covers just about everything, because we all know Part I: what is; and Part II: what those rules of process are.

    We have a Third Part: what if other people misuse Part II and won’t leave YOU alone? Interfere, express violence to ourselves or our land? And yes, there’s a whole series of moral rules regarding this was well.

    One thing with these: on the whole they are universally-agreed on among all humans. That this exists, and the means of addressing them. Those people may themselves be unenlightened, and enlightened ones certainly respond far more cleverly, but on the whole humans have a similar expression everywhere. This confirms that our first principles are relatively accurate and we are generally correct.

    And then we say so, and try to convince others, without violence, as in Part I, 1A. So are we the Baddies? No. But we’re not perfect either, and the question certainly bears checking back to from time to time.

    What makes our goals good and theirs bad then? Exactly this. It’s the Implicate Order, the truth or reality that arises out of the existence and experience of the universe that no one needs to believe in since everyone can check for themselves. They are expressing violence, every day, in every way, more and more. And we can predict, and see, and will see a lot more, that will backfire on them and their adherents. We warn them, but NOT being essentially violent ourselves, must generally use persuasion and not blasting powder except in special cases. Which also follow the rules of introduction, discussion, and process. Just that I’m not in that line of work, although many of our White Hats are right now.

    If this weren’t so, if it wasn’t conflicting, dividing, self-defeating, it wouldn’t be “evil” in the first place. It would just be “motion.”

    So is the world eating itself? In a way, certainly. But energy transforms into more energy, shapes into shapes. Chicken eats bug, man eats chicken, bug eats man. And these are only physicalities. Underneath the energy body and consciousness moves on regardless.

    So what’s your Virtue or your Virtue-ladder? “Virtue” as a word is expressible, like “Tao”, in the Roman ethos we get the word from, it means everything, from “Manliness” to “Value” to “Character” it’s an ethical ideal. We can follow it 2,000 years through it’s Christianizing of “Cardinal Virtues” prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance as opposed to cardinal sins. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_virtues

    What does it probably mean for you, though? Probably something like “Dat’s good”. ” ט֑וֹב” “The Lord saw, and it was good.” What is that though?

    Same thing as above: Unity, not division. Coherence, not strife. Smoothness, not conflict. Order, not chaos. This is the Implicate Order that makes the universe, and we are in alignment with it and not against it. As the “Natural Law” of 1A, or the agreement of human principles worldwide.

    This is in Cardinal Virtues, on the list, although abstracted:

    Prudence (φρόνησις, phrónēsis; Latin: prudentia; also Wisdom, Sophia, sapientia), the ability to discern the appropriate course of action to be taken in a given situation at the appropriate time, with consideration of potential consequences. Knowledge, Wisdom, and timing. Being in the Tao, the right Way.

    Justice (δικαιοσύνη, dikaiosýnē; Latin: iustitia): also considered as fairness;[3] the Greek word also having the meaning righteousness. Having balance between sides, and taking action between alternatives.

    Fortitude (ἀνδρεία, andreía; Latin: fortitudo): also termed courage: forbearance, strength, endurance, and the ability to confront fear, uncertainty, and intimidation. Endurance in things that always exist and are eternal, with the knowledge (Sophia) of being in the correct way (Prudentia).

    Temperance (σωφροσύνη, sōphrosýnē; Latin: temperantia): also known as restraint, the practice of self-control, abstention, discretion, and moderation tempering the appetition. Plato considered sōphrosynē, which may also be translated as sound-mindedness, to be the most important virtue. That these laws are Order, Logos, and we stay within Order to stay on the “Way”.

    Or elsewhere, other cultures can make it clearer:

    Noble Eightfold Path, the way that leads to the extinction of suffering:

    Wisdom (Panna)

    1. Right Understanding (Samma-ditthi)
    2. Right Thought (Samma–sankappa)

    Morality (Sila)

    3. Right Speech (Samma-vaca)
    4. Right Action (Samma-kammanta)
    5. Right Livelihood (Samma-ajiva)

    Concentration (Samadhi)

    6. Right Effort (Samma-vayama)
    7. Right Mindfulness (Samma-sati)
    8. Right Concentration (Samma-samadhi)

    All arise from the same Implicate Order. The Same #Logos.

    So you see although it’s hard to know EXACTLY where we are, or where they are, it’s not that hard to tell if you’re pointed in the right direction, towards the Son, the #Logos, or away from it. Whether you’re in the Tao and the Way, or are conflicting with it.

    Is there conflict? Then you’re conflicting with it. Problem solved.

    Surely, if words have any meaning, if you’re against the whole universe, the way it moves, and are opposing and conflicting with it, then you are on the Wrong, correct? Evil, perhaps? The “Baddies”?

    They are, and they are. We are less so, although somewhat, so it’s easy to tell.

    Even easier than to be judgey.

    Now, what to DO about it? I have a thought that whatever we pay attention to expands. And also they know this. Same principle that THEY give Trump his power by paying attention, following, and responding to him. Sure, but WE follow THEM, the evil, ill-behaved ones. WE give them power. Don’t we?

    If we all ignored them, surely no one would follow their orders and they’d fade away, having to go mop floors or something useful.

    I haven’t got a solution for this yet, but I can certainly see that focusing on THEM and on crimes all day doesn’t seem to be helping. Yet discussing the sheltering of beehives is very specific and not terribly helpful against them either.

    I’m just being aware I have to change. If I want less conflict, then I must conflict less, and that means dropping them to some extent. It isn’t always time, but they and the dangers they create have been well pointed out and most are aware of it now. So maybe I can morally go do other things and not stand in front of this cliff yelling “Bridge out!” all day.

    It would be a better retirement. Have you seen this sickle I bought?

    #123055
    zerosum
    Participant

    Did you hear???
    “Merchant of death” traded in a prisoner exchange, for a basketball player??
    He bought gun from

      ???

    Sold guns to enemies of

      ????

    Got caught by USA, Went to USA jail.

    #123056
    jb-hb
    Participant

    It is in the nature of Cluster-B, Narcissistic personality disorder types, to, having pretended to adopt “the mantle of _____” to assert that “I have as much dirt on YOU as you have on me!”

    This is because Narcs have trouble with apprehending context. Meaning, being an emergent property of context, they have problem with meaning. Which is why, despite tending to test a little bit higher on IQ tests, they are evaluated by psychologists as “cognitively challenged” or similar. Stupid if cunning. Cannot apprehend meaning.

    If Narcs go around proclaiming morality while DOING evil, then an observer COULD say oh em gee. People who do evil proclaim morality. (what we do is equivalent. I proclaim good and act evil. Now you proclaim good, therefore I have as much dirt on you as you have on me from my perspective, it’s the Jedi who are evil, etc)

    This isn’t all that hard. Entities, groups etc who openly go “Moo haa haa haa we shall be evil” are incredibly, INCREDIBLY rare.

    The recent Kanye/Ye thing, case in point. A certain toothbrush faced fellow grabbed onto a bunch of ongoing concerns. Crony capitalists looting the country. Weirdos doing objectionable weird things in the culture – film, books, theatre, music.

    So Kanye notices this. Er, that is a regular thing I see on the internets. People that read toothbrush faced fellow’s stuff and say holy cow wait, these are real things, was he trying to be a Good Guy? Uh, OF COURSE he cited real concerns. Of course. How else could he get any traction??!?!? You jump on and ride the horse that is standing there, conveniently, as an opportunist. Obviously. Obviously you don’t purely try to base your grift on imaginary shit. How could that succeed?

    So a typical Cluster-B/Narc will claim sanctity, goodness, righteousness, ALWAYS. And THEN if you stand up for Good, will say, hey I am saying THE SAME THINGS, therefore I have the same dirt on you as you have on me and we are at least at an impasse, checkmate.

    But they actually aren’t.

    I want Free Play. And I sure as fuck want to impose it on everyone.

    In High School, I became INFINITELY happier when I decided life was NOT a John Hughes movie

    When I pictured the school and the world as a place where everyone was freely doing their own thing, saying and doing whatever they liked, with no “popular crowd,” everything was cool. If a “popular kid” has 20 friends who attend keggers at houses while parents are at their 2nd or 3rd homes and a band geek has 80 friends, who is the popular one? And who cares? Maybe popular isn’t important.

    I pictured a world in which everyone was responsible for, to the extent that they could, for doing their best to perceive reality correctly and then make their OWN decisions, recognize their own mistakes, and make their own corrections while engaging in FREE association, hanging with who they wanted and avoiding who they didn’t.

    I figured the whole thing, taken together, was kind of a huge problem-solving engine. Everyone doing their own thing, accepting the responsibilities involved, correcting, and ultimately, pragmatic solutions being the result. People who screwed up could re-evaluate the actions of the winners and recalibrate, act again, and win too. A huge game with the goal that EVERYONE wins.

    But of course that would involve free speech, free association, free action. The problem solving machine doesn’t work otherwise. Would I “impose” free play on everyone else? Yep. Would I laugh at cluster-B’s/Narcs saying “From my perspective, it’s the Jedi who are evil!!!!” Yep.

    #123059
    WES
    Participant

    After reading the deep wisdom expressed in today’s TAE comments, I have concluded that Russia is waging a war in the Ukraine to free all of the Ukrainian’s electricity slaves!

    Indirectly, this will force the Ukrainians to get more exercise, thus reducing their glucose and fructose intake, while saving them from dying of diabetes!

    If the hollywood chimp running the Ukraine has less HFCS in his system, then peace is possible.

    It is OK.
    I am returning to my cave to resume hibernating!
    My next scheduled outing is mid-February to tap my maple syrup tree.
    Until then, sweet dreams!

    #123060
    zerosum
    Participant

    “Merchant of death”

    https://t.me/boris_rozhin/72423
    Germany will transfer to Ukraine:
    – 18 wheeled self-propelled guns RCH-155;
    — 80 pickups;
    – 2 hangar tents;
    – 7 trucks;
    – 90 units of anti-drone equipment.

    Also, the German Embassy reported that over the past week, 20 Dingo armored cars and 2 M1070 Oshkosh armored tractors were transferred to Ukraine.

    #123061
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    oxymoron

    It’s tough getting old and having a body that does not perform as well as it used to.

    I was just 22 when my back ‘went out’. I spent three days off work.

    When I was 26 I got infected with hepatitis from badly-prepared food served at a meal I was required to attend. Feeling Ill, I went to the locum doctor. he told me to have a dose of whiskey and a couple of Aspirin. The next day I was vomiting and brown liquid was coming from both lower exits. The real GP came to the house and told me I would be ill for 6 weeks. I was. Too week to stand up, I crawled to the toilet.

    At 57 I injured a finger joint by doing too much work with an axe. It swelled and locked up. The right index finger became so sensitive I could not hold a pen. I’m right-handed.

    Over a period of 5 years it gradually came reasonably right, though I normally use the second finger for the trigger of electric tools -yes etc. -I do use electric tools to save further wear and tear on my body and get essential work done quickly.

    The next attack was when I was 65. Misdiagnosed by the medical ‘experts’ on Friday evening. I went through hell that weekend. Pain at the level of 3 or 4 gradually rose to a level of 10 on a scale to 10 -because the virus travels along nerves. A bath reduced the level of pain from 10 to 9.5. A total of about 30 minutes sleep the night before I drove to the medical centre and walked in as soon as they unlocked the door.

    ‘Have you got an appointment.’

    “No. I need to see someone right now.”

    “But you need an appointment.”

    At which point I collapsed on the seating and demanded someone see me straight away.

    “I’ll see if someone is available.”

    [Doctor] “You’ve got shingles. It’ll take about six weeks to recover.”

    I mentioned the pain level. He told me that shingles pain can be much worse than having a bullet blow a hole in your shoulder in battle. Nice to know that.

    The pain was worse than having half your shoulder blown off. But the medication lowered the pain level from 10 to about 4 as the rash crept down my arm from neck to wrist, and then erupted.

    The arm became so weak I could not lift anything. And when I returned to playing bridge I used my left had to write on the bidding pad.

    A year later the pain level had dropped to about 3 without use of painkillers, and I could use my hand again to do normal things. 4 years later the strength in my arm had returned.

    7 years later the pain level has dropped to a fairly constant 2. But if I do too much physical work it goes back up to 3 or 4.

    My adult teeth came under attack by industrially-produced ‘food’ as soon as they emerged. Emulating the incorrect brushing technique promoted by toothpaste advertisers cause severe grooving -which was identified and corrected many decades later when I visited a real dentist. It’s a wonder I still have so many teeth left.

    A few months ago a pain emerged in one leg. It doesn’t go away. But when I am engrossed in projects I don’t notice it.

    I do what I have to do. And now that time for preparing is so short, I appreciate the long hours of daylight and good that ‘Mother Earth is currently delivering.

    By the way, Jupiter is spectacular in the night sky again. no wonder he was ‘a top god’.

    #123062
    zerosum
    Participant

    “Merchant of death”
    US sanctions Russia over Iranian drones
    The Biden administration has accused Russian aerospace forces and the defense ministry of purchasing UAVs from Tehran

    #123063
    zerosum
    Participant

    Fun reading for the weekend
    https://www.rt.com/news/567990-twitter-files-trump-ban/
    Twitter reveals how it banned Trump
    Framework for removal of US president was set long before Capitol riot

    #123065
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    (aforementioned indulgent sophomorism)

    Some Groundwork is necessary. Down below, there are these things called holograms. Holograms are formed when a coherent beam of light, usually supplied by a laser, is split smoothly and equally into two distinct beams and then reunited. One beam, called the reference beam, is allowed to continue unimpeded to a target plate, usually a photographic film. The other beam, called the interference beam, is aimed first at another object (let’s envision a rose), and from there is reflected to the target plate. The two beams are aimed to converge at a right angle upon the target plate. Here an intricate simplicity, perhaps even a relative singularity, occurs as the reference beam of pure coherent light interacts with the interference beam of adulterated (from being reflected by the rose) but still coherent light.
    Purity, in the form of symmetrical coherence, is the key to what happens next. The interference beam has reflectively acquired the surface visual information of the object – the rose – it encountered along its path to the target plate. This information merges with and through the purely coherent reference beam. In passing through the other, the rigidly symmetrical (Soothic) Reference beam translates the information of the adulterated (Whimsic) Interference beam into a phototopology of the Original Thing (the Rose).

    The two beams, striving to be what they are and to continue as such, together form an informational entity which neither beam could have created individually.

    Imagine God taking a holographic snapshot (picture God taking a picture) of Mount Rainier using a companion lake at its base as a target plate. God, say, Apollo, fires a beam of coherent sunlight through the mirrored lens of an approaching comet which diverges the solar laser beam into two, one heading straight for the lake and the other for the mountain, aimed in such a way as to reflect off the mountain and join its sibling reference beam in a transformative embrace on the lake’s surface. To tourists viewing Lake Holograph from the shore opposite the mountain, the mountain’s reflected image would not appear shimmering upside-down as it would in the conventional postcard vista, but would instead maintain its stern pose as seen from God’s view at high noon, with its volcanic crater squinting into the photoflashic sun. Since God’s point of view is presumably so removed from ours that our vantages of perspective would reveal no discernable change in our view of the holograph, it would present the same frozen facade from all points of view including that of the montanist at the summit who could enjoy the thrill of looking down over his own shoulder at himself looking down over his own shoulder at himself looking down over his own shoulder…(provided he’d closed his eyes during the solar shutterflash)…and while infinite regressions are not a necessary attribute of holography (picture God taking a picture of you picturing God taking a picture of you picturing God), they do provide a nice interferic beam of comparison that helps elucidate holography’s infinite perspective of the same view. Jeepers creepers. I think we’re now prepared to wrestle with the notion of holographic thought itself.

    #123066
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Oops. Prefatory post god sidewaysed. Let me try smaller chuck:

    Lucky me. Because I registered as a Dem back when the GOP was pushing scfatter-brained war dolts like Dubya and Dick “Dick” Cheney, I get stuff like this every day in my email:

    ***

    “And Bosco can I apologise for apologising?”

    Oh shit. I walked right into that one. Lol!

    ***

    “So is the world eating itself? In a way, certainly. But energy transforms into more energy, shapes into shapes. Chicken eats bug, man eats chicken, bug eats man. And these are only physicalities. Underneath the energy body and consciousness moves on regardless.”

    A replenishing banquet provided by an obliging sun, which object seems as logical a god-object to worship as anything, and better than most. I mean: phallic symbols? Big-boobied babyback big-buttocked fertility goddesses? Great fetishes they are, but Sol up there rules the local show from original accretion through planetary disc through primogenesis to our busy busy now.

    Science didn’t kill God although most of us believed so. It just pointed out the locality of our sun-god and the prospect of there being other sun-gods to worship and probably other worshippers thereof. Said divine multiplex has been theorized millennia ago in a vast numbers of religions, but science showed us pitchers*, by gum, and we somehow decided that concrete evidence of a bazilllion sun-gods proved that no god could or need ever exist.
    *see next post. indulgent sophomorism alert

    Science, man’s best/worst toy, but has the boy got the toy or the toy got the boy?

    Nice to see you cut loose on things, Dr. D. Much better than the daily kvetch (it’s a Yiddish sailor joke, yo?). The scurrying water beetles have their toxic septic beauty but I’d rather look at the dragonflies, if only because most of what I see in doing so is sky.

    Captain Yid

    “It would be a better retirement. Have you seen this sickle I bought?”

    I concur. Nice scythian steelware. That was a nice piece of moral/natural/super-natural philosophy, and the only thing I enjoy and value more than that as both pastime and guide is love with my wife, the slightly less intimate love I have with a dog and a bird, and singing, especially if my hand/minds will grind out a tolerable piano accompaniment and my ears are working enough to make it bearable for the neighbors. Smokes good, nice aroma, swell head buzz.

    I’ll disagree with this:

    “That code is, I’m not going to MAKE somebody do something. That’s violence.”

    You will always have to make somebody do something. That violence is called staying alive even if it’s done via lawsuit to enforce a contract that they signed. I think the avoidable violence is the violence to one’s soul (or psyche if one prefers) done by pretending one isn’t chronically indebted to violence all around and from you in order for you to contemplate a way to find some peace.

    So there. Now you know I read it all .;)

    P.S. Only reason I ever called you a bot was cuz a) all that denunciative stuff is violent: it’s very divisive even when you’re preaching to the choir, and b) you’re a goddam genius and it frosts my cute little booty when you just phone it in. I’m gentle and kind and encouraging to people I respect, but to people I seriously admire, I’m as ruthless as an editor granting a 6-figure publisher’s advance on a first time author.

    Thanx for sharing.

    #123067
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “But of course that would involve free speech, free association, free action. The problem solving machine doesn’t work otherwise. Would I “impose” free play on everyone else? Yep. Would I laugh at cluster-B’s/Narcs saying “From my perspective, it’s the Jedi who are evil!!!!” Yep.”

    Raised a Mormon, and conversant with natural history including cosmogenesis, I’d say that since apparently God declined that gambit, you should by all means give it a shot if you ever get the cheat codes to do so. God has to be cautious. Relative omnipotence breeds caution. But I’m sure God adores it in individual sentiences.

    ***

    “After reading the deep wisdom expressed in today’s TAE comments, I have concluded that Russia is waging a war in the Ukraine to free all of the Ukrainian’s electricity slaves!

    Indirectly, this will force the Ukrainians to get more exercise, thus reducing their glucose and fructose intake, while saving them from dying of diabetes!

    “If the hollywood chimp running the Ukraine has less HFCS in his system, then peace is possible.

    “It is OK.
    I am returning to my cave to resume hibernating!
    My next scheduled outing is mid-February to tap my maple syrup tree.
    Until then, sweet dreams!”

    Oh, Christ on a drunk moose, WES: why on earth would you try to make sense of what we say here? Are you mad? Have you no religion?

    #123068
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    The variety of Wallops in England provided my evening chuckle. Being mostly English/Scotch in my lineage, I <3 stuff like this: “The last time I was in Nether Wallop it still had an eighteenth century feel…stone thatched cottages and an open stream with stone bridges.”

    Old Slow Air

    I turn 67 early January. I invite a roll call of ages. How old are yez? Bill7 needn’t answer, for obvious security reasons, but perhaps flora can?

    ***

    Looking good, jb-hb. Notice how they airbrush out what is obviously an impressive man bulge.

    ***

    P.S. This is hambone, not even parlor-grade but basement booze amateur doctoring from me, but I cannot recommend enough just simple.deep.breathing,using the diaphragm, tightening the core muscles (a Grand Kegel, if you will), clearing the mind (impossible but necessary to attempt),j focusing on What You Really Want Right Now/What You Really Appreciate Right Now… etc.

    Big athletic breaths that frickin exhaust you. Smooth deep breaths that put you to sleep. Singing an easy note from full-breath to complete lung squish.

    We all know hard it is to slow down by will. Man, it’s hard, and man, is it rewarding to a hammered old body, if ye ask bosco horowitz, N.D. (Not a Doctor)

    <a href=”https://youtu.be/J8wNZ5QWnWk

    #123069
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    And two flavors of jazz. Good flavors:

    Best Version

    Music for Five Monkeys

    #123070
    Redneck
    Participant

    Putin’s fake meeting with the fake war mothers.

    “Friday Vladimir Putin held the highly anticipated meeting with the mothers of the mobilized. Kind of.
    In fact, the mothers in question were carefully selected and mostly turned out to be United Russia officials. Also, their sons are mostly professional soldiers rather than mobilized Joe Blows.
    The mothers’ of the mobilized organization that originally sought the meeting ahead of Mother’s Day on the 27th reported that not a single representative of theirs was invited.
    Russian media was able to identify seven participants, most have government ties:
    Olga Beltseva is a United Russia deputy in Moscow City.
    Yulia Belekhova ran on the United Russia list for the federal Duma in 2016, but was not elected. She heads the Association of Chairmen of Councils of Apartment Buildings of the Moscow Region.
    Nadezhda Uzunova is a former adviser to the head of Khakassia. In 2018, she worked for ex-governor Viktor Zimin and United Russia. Now she is in charge of collecting humanitarian aid in the Combat Brotherhood.
    Irina Tas-Ool, an official from Tyva, the head of the department for family, youth and sports in the administration of the Kaa-Khemsky district.
    Olesya Shigina shoots Orthodox patriotic films.
    Zharadat Agueva, is the mother to high-ranking Chechen security officials, the commander of the West-Akhmat battalion, Ismail Aguev, and the head of the Kurchaloy District Department of Interior Affairs, Rustam Aguev. Kadyrov has repeatedly called Rustam Aguev his “brother” and regularly talks about the “exploits” of Ismail Aguev in his telegram channel.
    Marina Migunova, a member of the Public Chamber of Orekhovo-Zuyeva, also collects humanitarian aid for the front.
    Putin must have felt very relaxed in the presence of these United Russia cadres for what he told them was truly horrific:”
    https://antiempire.substack.com/p/vladimir-putin-jumps-the-shark-compares?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2

    #123071
    oxymoron
    Participant

    So much now to ponder. Good to hear the humanity. Good to reflect. I really appreciate the time taken to respond as I have been in Kassandra’s boat.

    I think Dr D, your perspectives address in a deep way my thinking about being normal. We have to follow that human impulse on what feels right because if we listen it does guide us and there are a bunch of individuals out there not listening and up to no good. I agree with you but I also feel a compulsion or impetus brewing toward a surrender of some type. Dunno. Maybe meditation, maybe a few tears but by golly gosh I am sure as hell glad we get to hash it out here and hopefully share a few of the alternative views Raul and others are able to scrape together because it is turning out to be quite the Totalitarian thought-crime unit out on the net these days.

    #123072
    Redneck
    Participant

    This is not from Ritter or Pepe , or some former US general who are all writing from their desks in the US or Hong Kong , this is from a fluent Russian speaking American who lives in Russia and has one of the most popular Russian language blogs in the country.

    “Actually, this gradual shift from cheerleading to becoming sharply critical of how the kremlins are running the war effort has marked the entire Russian military blogosphere (including the Telegram microblogs). The only exceptions are the very few who were realists from the very start. (Only in the English language can you still find Kremlin apologists.)”

    “It was interesting to observe that Yaplakal posters when the war broke out switched from anti-Covidianism and government-hating typical of ordinary Russians, to uncritical hurrah patriotism, but which lasted only weeks. The “normie” Russian internet users actually came down to earth much faster than did the military blogosphere like Rybar.
    In Russia it was the “normies” who instinctively recognized something was going terribly wrong and that Shoigu was full of shit before the specialists did. (Or at least before the specialists spoke up.)
    Check it out. Maybe you’ll be surprised by the level of cynicism and realism on the ground in Russia. You think I’m too critical of Putin/Kremlin? Every Russian I have ever spoken to got annoyed with me within 10 minutes for being too pro-Putin and sounding too much like their boomer TV for their taste. And that’s just the gopniks I was drinking 2-liter plastic beers with on a Moscow Khrushchyovka rooftop at 3 am. (There was a 9-pm liquor ban but they knew an Uzbek shop that would sell it anyway.)

    https://antiempire.substack.com/p/red-pilled-war-realists-that-ae-reads?utm_source=

    #123073
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    ‘hand/minds’

    Oops.

    #123074
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Pubic war morale mood swings are as old as war and newspapers:

    https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/06/06/how-world-war-ii-almost-broke-american-politics-227090/

    Redneck is a fine example of this mental meat-grinding process. Here is another:

    Those Dirty Cannibal Japs

    It’s one thing to be an asshole. Dime a dozen at the dirty disco dollar store.

    But to be a smug white supremacist shitface assole, and wrong about pert near everything it touches, that’s another. What do we have to do, kill it with kindness?

    Make it stop, Mommy?

    #123075
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @Redneck

    That’s sure one peculiar game you’re playing. I’m sure it’s quite amusing (to your at least) but better be careful. If you keep twisting your mind around too long it might stick in that position and THEN what are ya gonna do?

    #123076
    zerosum
    Participant

    Read the tweets and decide.
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/twitter-files-removal-donald-trump-part-1
    THE TWITTER FILES: The Removal Of Donald Trump, Part 1

    #123077
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Closing thought: a devastation as great as is happening to us/our civilization and the majority of the planet’s surface, could not be wrought by great powerful bad men alone. It would take minions. Many many minions. Billions and billions of minions. Homo minionus is a good a name for civilized humanity.

    Why are we so angry at the Bohemian Grove creepsters?

    Because we do their bidding.

    God loves a fool. God is often cruel to those He loves. Look how He did His son. But nobody’s perfect.

    #123078
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    This assumes that Redneck has a mind (of its own, anyway) to twist. Rather like imagining an NYT columnist having opinions of its own.

    #123079

    Sweet dreams, WES. Sweet dreams, everyone.

    #123080
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Salvador Dali Back the girl 1926

    Love that painting; the hair is just awesome…couldn’t let that one go without a comment…

    #123081
    Sweet Kenny
    Participant

    The irony about having a large bank account balance is that you are merely an unsecured creditor of the bank and if the bank fails you “bail in” the bank so the taxpayer doesn’t have to bail it out – thank you to people with lots of money in the bank.

Viewing 34 posts - 41 through 74 (of 74 total)
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.