Jan 182023
 
 January 18, 2023  Posted by at 9:21 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,


Dorothea Lange Richmond, California 1942

 

NATO Keeps On Demilitarising Itself in Ukraine (Tweedie)
Kremlin Mum On Putin’s Alleged Order To Liberate Donbass Before March (TASS)
Game-Changing Russia (Batiushka)
CNN: Ukraine Has Become a ‘Weapons Lab’ for Western Arms (Antiwar)
The West’s New Anti-Russia Sanctions Are A Total Game Changer (Timofeev)
EU Sanctions Goal Is To Crush Russian Economy – Von Der Leyen (RT)
Ursula Von Der Leyen: Russia’s Crimes Won’t Go Unpunished (Az.)
EU Leaves Back Door Open For Sanctioned Russian Oil (RT)
New Meeting With CIA Director Burns ‘Possible’ – Russian Spy Chief (RT)
Crimea’s ‘Return’ To Ukraine Is Impossible – Russian Intelligence Chief (TASS)
Destroying Monsters (Helmholtz Smith)
Kissinger Offers ‘Updated’ Ukraine Plan (RT)
Key Revelations of the ‘Twitter Files’ (ET)
Elon Musk Throws Shade on the WEF (Street)
FBI Decided Not To Monitor Biden Document Search (ZH)
Not a Coup, but a Coverup (ET)
Biden in ‘Very Big’ Mess Over Document Scandal – David Gergen (ET)
The Renewable Energy Problem That No One Talks About (ET)

 

 

 

 

Tucker Biden

 

 

Tucker tax returns
https://twitter.com/i/status/1615166116292333568

 

 


“There seem to be ever increasing suggestions that restricting people’s travel will reduce atmospheric CO2. We had an experiment on that in 2020. No flights, no work or school travel. Here’s the result of that experiment. Show me lockdown on this graph.”

 

 

Japan high temps
https://twitter.com/i/status/1615038638261141523

 

 

Kerry

 

 

 

 

“..the ultimate end of the SMO is not just to de-militarise (and de-Nazify) the Ukraine, but all of NATO too.”

NATO Keeps On Demilitarising Itself in Ukraine (Tweedie)

It has been said often over the past year, most recently by Emmanuel Todd, that the conflict in Ukraine is “existential” for Russia. Certainly, the Great Bear cannot abide a NATO ballistic missile launchpad just 300 miles from Moscow in a country run my rabidly-Russophobic Nazis — not neo-Nazi skinhead cosplayers but the literal descendants of the real deal. But others have argued that the Special Military Operation (SMO) is also a make-or-break roll of the dice for NATO and the US which dominates it. How else can we explain the latest mania for arming the regime in Kiev just as its ‘Siegfried Line’ in the Donbass starts to crumble?

How else can one explain cry-bully US National Security Spokesman John Kirby’s response to news that Russian Wagner ‘private military company’ had liberated the town of Soledar, a keystone of the Ukrainian defences? He simultaneously tried to cast doubt on the facts while claiming the town’s capture was strategically insignificant. “We don’t know how it’s gonna go, so I’m not going to predict failure or success here,” Kirby said as Wagner were mopping up stranded Ukrainian conscripts. “But even if both Bakhmut and Soledar fall to the Russians, it’s not going to have a strategic impact on the war itself, and it certainly isn’t going to stop the Ukrainians or slow them down in terms of their efforts to regain their territory.”

To the contrary, reports indicate that several Ukrainian brigades being concentrated for a southward push on Melitopol, near the narrow isthmus to the Crimea, were redeployed to Donbass in a vain attempt to hold Soledar and Bakhmut, where they suffered huge casualties. Taking Bakhmut could allow the Russian forces to ‘roll up’ the Ukrainian line to the north and south and advance on Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, the last two major cities Ukraine holds in Donetsk. Moscow has repeatedly said there can be no peace while the West keeps pumping arms into Ukraine. The most obvious interpretation of those statements is that NATO is only prolonging the suffering of the Ukrainian and Donbass peoples with its cornucopia of death. But another is, as blogger Andrei Martyanov said recently, that the ultimate end of the SMO is not just to de-militarise (and de-Nazify) the Ukraine, but all of NATO too.

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Plenty speculation about new offensives, either by Russia or Ukraine/NATO.

Kremlin Mum On Putin’s Alleged Order To Liberate Donbass Before March (TASS)

Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov refused on Tuesday to comment on the Ukrainian intelligence service’s recent speculations that Russian President Vladimir Putin allegedly ordered Chief of Russia’s General Staff and Commander of the Russian group of forces in Ukraine Valery Gerasimov to liberate the territory of Donbass before March 2023. Asked at a news conference to comment on the speculations, Peskov replied: “No, I cannot [comment on it] and have zero intention of doing it.” A number of web media outlets circulated reports earlier citing Andrey Yusov, a spokesman for the Ukrainian intelligence service, as saying that Putin issued an order to liberate Donbass by March and that the Russian Armed Forces would focus on assault operations across the entire territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR).


On January 11, Russia’s Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu made new appointments in the military command of the special military operation in Ukraine. The decision to raise the level of military command in the special military operation is related “to the broader scope of missions tackled in its course and the need to organize closer coordination among military branches and services of the armed forces and also the increased quality of all types of logistics support and efficiency in command and control of the groups of troops (forces), the Russian Defense Ministry stated earlier. On February 21, 2022, President Vladimir Putin announced that Moscow was recognizing the sovereignty of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics DPR and LPR respectively). Russia signed agreements on friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance with their leaders. Moscow recognized the Donbass republics in accordance with the DPR and LPR constitutions within the boundaries of the Donetsk and Lugansk Regions as of the beginning of 2014.

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Britain has 227 tanks. Russia has 15,000.

Game-Changing Russia (Batiushka)

While Western Europe is prepared to pay for the last Ukrainian to die for Western Europe – Germany, France, Finland, the UK and some other countries are prepared to get rid of some more of their old armoured vehicles and even tanks, palming them off on the Neo-Nazi Kiev regime. Thus, the UK is thinking of sending 14 of its 25-year old Challenger 2 tanks. How the UK will train Ukrainians to operate them, how it will supply enough ammunition for them to fire, how they will supply the mechanics and spare parts to repair them, how – and when – they will deliver them to Poland and then get them to the Kiev front, over 1,000 kilometres further away, nobody can tell us. Meanwhile, the British Army Chief of General Staff, Sir Patrick Sanders, is complaining. ‘Giving Kiev tanks means we won’t have enough for ourselves’. After all they do cost £8 million each and there are only 227 of them in the much-underfunded British Army anyway.

Nobody has told the British Army that after one Russian missile all 14 of these obsolescent ‘wonder-weapons’ will go up in smoke before they ever get to the front. £112 million gone. No wonder Ukrainian refugees are returning to Kiev to get proper medical treatment that the grossly underfunded and strikebound British Health System cannot provide them with. Nobody has told the British Army or any EU Army that Russia is fighting a war of attrition. Given Russian air superiority, far superior artillery, drones, missiles and its 15,000 tanks, the Kiev forces, their mercenaries and all their equipment are being wiped out. Worse still, none of the Western hack-journalists, presstitutes to the core, has yet explained why ‘the victorious Kiev forces’ need ever more Western armoured vehicles and tanks.

You read it here first: It is because all the other ‘game-changing’ armoured vehicles, tanks and equipment have already been destroyed. Now at least astronomers know what a black hole looks like. It looks like the Kiev regime. Yes, black holes really are game-changing because you can get sucked into one. In the face of NATO (= US) aggression, surely there is only one choice left for Russia – to liberate all 27 Ukrainian regions (and maybe even elsewhere too). I have to confess that I was never in favour of Russia taking the far-west Galicia. ‘They can go to Poland’. I was thinking of the old Russian curse: ‘Go to hell – and take Galicia with you’. But, actually, I am now thinking that Russia should take the lot, Crimea and the four partially liberated ones nearly done, 22 to go. The fact is that as long as a single piece of the Ukraine is under Nazi control, it will be a threat to the Russian Federation.

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Do his people know he’s saying this? That they’re now lab rats?

“We are interested in testing modern systems in the fight against the enemy and we are inviting arms manufacturers to test the new products here..”

BTW: a heli just crashed near Kiev. Cause as yet unkown. 16 dead, including Ukraine Interior Minister.

CNN: Ukraine Has Become a ‘Weapons Lab’ for Western Arms (Antiwar)

Ukraine has turned into a “lab” for Western arms as the war has given the US and its allies an opportunity to see how their weapons fare in a conflict with a major military power like Russia, CNN reported on Monday. A source familiar with Western intelligence on the war told CNN that Ukraine is “absolutely a weapons lab in every sense because none of this equipment has ever actually been used in a war between two industrially developed nations.” The source described it as “real-world battle testing.” Back in July, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov offered his country as a “testing ground” for Western arms makers. “We are interested in testing modern systems in the fight against the enemy and we are inviting arms manufacturers to test the new products here,” he said.

Reznikov got his wish as the US, and its allies have significantly stepped up military aid since then, and the war has escalated as Russia began large-scale strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure in October. Russia’s success in its use of cheap kamikaze drones in the infrastructure attacks has influenced plans for Western arms makers. The British arms maker BAE Systems has announced that it’s developing a new armored vehicle with added protection to defend it from kamikaze drone attacks from above. Multiple intelligence and military officials told CNN that making cheap single-use drones has become a priority of many defense contractors.

The CNN report said that for the US military, the war has become an “incredible source of data on the utility of its own systems.” For example, the US has seen that its HIMARS rocket launch system has been effective against Russian forces, while the M777 howitzer has become less effective and less accurate over time. The war in Ukraine has also created a demand for weapons that were beginning to become obsolete, such as the Stinger shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles. Raytheon stopped producing Stingers for years but now has been asked by the Pentagon to ramp up production as thousands have been shipped to Ukraine.

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“..the law says that the authorities, at their own discretion, may decide to transfer the proceeds from the confiscated property in favor of a foreign state affected by a grave breach of international peace and security..”

The West’s New Anti-Russia Sanctions Are A Total Game Changer (Timofeev)

Canada is the first country to legally implement the forfeiture mechanism. The 2022 revision of the Special Economic Measures Act gives Canadian authorities the power to seize property located in the country that is owned by a foreign state, any person or entity in that state, as well as a national of that foreign state who does not ordinarily reside in Canada. Such measures may be applied if “a grave breach of international peace and security has occurred that has resulted in or is likely to result in a serious international crisis.” The final decision is made by a judge after receiving a corresponding petition from a relevant representative of the executive authorities. Following that, the law says that the authorities, at their own discretion, may decide to transfer the proceeds from the confiscated property in favor of a foreign state affected by a grave breach of international peace and security, towards the restoration of international peace and security, and to compensate victims of a grave breach of international peace and security, gross human rights violations or acts of corruption.

The Canadian assets of tycoon Roman Abramovich’s company Granite Capital Holding Ltd. will be the first to fall prey to the new law. According to a statement by the Canadian authorities, it is valued at $26 million. Roman Abramovich is already on Canada’s blocked persons list, which means that his assets are frozen and any transactions with him are prohibited. The Russian businessman’s assets will now be seized and probably transferred towards the needs of Ukraine. The value is relatively small, but it may be used to set the mechanism in motion. The next steps may be a lot grander in scale. Other countries are likely to follow Canada’s example. The U.S. talked about implementing a similar law back in April 2022, but nothing has been done at the legislative level so far.

In the EU, the procedure hasn’t been legalized either, although Article 15 of Regulation 269/2014 obliges Member States to develop rules on the seizure of assets obtained as a result of sanction regime violations. The concept of “violations” is subject to broad interpretation. For example, Article 9 of the Regulation obliges blocked Russian individuals to provide an account of their assets to EU authorities within 6 weeks. A violation of this requirement may be seen as a circumvention of the sanction regulations. What conclusions can we draw? Presently, we may note several consequences of the Canadian authorities’ initiative.

First, it’s evident that forfeiture risks do exist, and they aren’t lying dormant. The current situation is a red flag for Russian individuals and companies that haven’t yet been sanctioned but own assets in Western countries. They need to understand that their property may be seized, not just frozen. This risk will surely be considered by foreign investors and property owners in those countries that risk becoming targets of Western sanctions in the future. This includes nationals of China, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and other states. Although it’s unlikely to cause a mass exodus of the citizens of these countries and their assets from Canada and other Western states, the warning signal will be heard.

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But instead they’re crushing the EU economy. Europe better get rid of Ursula and her ilk, fast.

EU Sanctions Goal Is To Crush Russian Economy – Von Der Leyen (RT)

EU sanctions are aimed at plunging the Russian economy into a recession for years to come and depriving the country of crucial technologies, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in an address to the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos on Tuesday. The European bloc has imposed nine rounds of sanctions against Russia since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine, targeting many sectors of the economy, including energy, high-tech, aviation, banking, mining, automotive and other industries. “We have put in place the strongest sanctions ever, which leave the Russian economy facing a decade of regression and its industry starved of any modern and critical technologies,” von der Leyen said.


The latest restrictions came into force in December and include new export controls and restrictions on dual-use goods and technology, along with products and technology that could be used in the defense and security sectors. The measures target key chemicals, nerve agents, night-vision and radio-navigation equipment, as well as electronics and IT components. Brussels is now working on the next batch of penalties, which will reportedly target Russia’s nuclear industry and diamond trade. Other penalties which the EU is rushing to symbolically implement by February 24 include cutting more Russian banks off from the SWIFT global messaging system and banning more of the country’s media outlets. Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that the country’s economy is performing “much better than what not only our opponents but even we ourselves predicted” and is on course for further stabilization.

Ursula private war
https://twitter.com/i/status/1615309858789531648

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Ha ha ha: “..severe sanctions on Russia that will plunge the Russian economy into recession for decades..”

Ursula Von Der Leyen: Russia’s Crimes Won’t Go Unpunished (Az.)

Russia’s crimes will not go unpunished, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Report informs. Von der Leyen noted that when the war in Ukraine began, everyone expected that Kyiv would be taken in a matter of days, but they were able to resist. “Many doubted whether Europe’s support would be so unwavering, but today Ukraine is a candidate for EU membership. And European countries are providing more and more weapons to Ukraine. We are also imposing severe sanctions on Russia that will plunge the Russian economy into recession for decades, and its industry will be deprived of modern and critical technologies,” she added.

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Not quite fully suicidal yet…

EU Leaves Back Door Open For Sanctioned Russian Oil (RT)

India may substantially boost its exports of diesel fuel to the EU, refined from Russian oil targeted by Western sanctions, Bloomberg reported on Monday. The scheme wouldn’t breach the EU’s regulations, but it highlights the inefficiency inherent in the sanctions policy, the report notes. The EU ban on almost all imports of Russian oil products kicks in on February 5, coinciding with the implementation of a price cap on sea-borne crude shipped from the sanctioned country. The latest Ukraine-related penalties ban Western businesses from providing services, like insurance, for Russian oil cargoes unless it’s purchased at or below $60 per barrel. The ceiling is expected to be revised depending on market conditions.

Until recently, Russia was the biggest external supplier of diesel to EU countries, which have been ramping up purchases ahead of the cutoff. Due to the sanctions, the global market is projected to see a great rerouting of diesel flows as new importers of Russian crude are sending fuel back to the former buyers. Analysts expect a growing risk of higher prices in the short term. Among the new buyers of sanctioned Russian oil products will reportedly be traders in Africa, Latin America and possibly Asia. “The loss of Russian barrels is huge and replacing them will be a huge logistical challenge,” Keshav Lohiya, founder of consultant Oilytics, told Bloomberg. “But the market is pricing in less panic as markets and trade flows have proven resilient. This will be a new rerouting of diesel.”

India’s role in supplying EU member states is reportedly significant, as the South Asian nation has turned into one of the largest importers of discounted Russian crude since last year. At the beginning of 2022, Russia’s share of India’s oil imports amounted to just 0.2%. By the end of last year, it had grown to nearly one million barrels per day, reaching more than 20% of the country’s oil import basket. India, the world’s third-biggest importer of crude oil after China and the US, remained Russia’s top importer for three months in a row as of December. India, along with the US, has recently been boosting exports of diesel, the fuel pillar of the global economy, to the EU, as production levels there currently exceed domestic consumption.

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“The Americans themselves told us ten times that this channel of communication was absolutely confidential and should not be disclosed..”

New Meeting With CIA Director Burns ‘Possible’ – Russian Spy Chief (RT)

Sergey Naryshkin, who heads Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), said he is willing to have a face-to-face with his counterpart from the CIA, Director William Burns. The two previously held a meeting in Ankara in mid-November. The top Russian spy said on Tuesday that a new engagement with Burns was “possible” provided that the parties agree to it, the news agency TASS reported. Türkiye’s National Intelligence Organization hosted the previous meeting on November 14 last year, which reportedly lasted for about two and a half hours. The senior officials discussed nuclear threats arising from the Ukraine conflict and ways to mitigate them, according to the American side. Then, Burns reportedly traveled to Kiev to meet Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky.


Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov lamented last month that the event in Türkiye became publicly known, blaming a leak in Washington. “The Americans themselves told us ten times that this channel of communication was absolutely confidential and should not be disclosed … so that it would not be tainted by some propagandistic spin,” he told journalists. “We agreed. But as soon as they landed in Ankara, [the news] got immediately leaked. I don’t know where from, whether it was the White House or the Department of State,” he added. In his interview with TASS on Tuesday, Naryshkin discussed the Ukraine crisis, and Russia’s cooperation with China and Iran.

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“..96.7% of Crimeans and 95.6% of Sevastopol voters chose to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation..”

Crimea’s ‘Return’ To Ukraine Is Impossible – Russian Intelligence Chief (TASS)

Russian Foreign Intelligence chief Sergey Naryshkin said on Tuesday that the ‘return’ of Crimea to Ukraine is impossible. “This is impossible,” Naryshkin told TASS commenting on Kiev’s recently announced intentions to launch work on ‘returning back Crimea.’ The Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol, a city with a special status on the Crimean Peninsula, where most residents are Russian, refused to recognize the legitimacy of authorities that seized power amid riots during the illegitimate coup of February 2014 in Ukraine. Crimea and Sevastopol adopted declarations of independence on March 11, 2014. They held a referendum on March 16, 2014, in which 96.7% of Crimeans and 95.6% of Sevastopol voters chose to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the reunification treaties on March 18, 2014. The documents were ratified by Russia’s Federal Assembly, or bicameral parliament, on March 21. Despite the overwhelming results of the referendum, Ukraine still refuses to recognize Crimea as part of Russia.

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“An America of war all the time everywhere, of tent cities and full jails, of open borders, disappeared manufacturing, opiates, misery, poverty, corruption.”

Destroying Monsters (Helmholtz Smith)

A lot of the people who comment on this blog seem to me to be patriotic Americans. And, it’s clear, if you read the comments, that many of them – probably the majority – want Russia to win the war. This is not because they like Putin or Russia particularly, and certainly not because they’re on the “Putin payroll”. Not at all. These people understand what is really at stake. These are people who know that the American war party (one of many names – deep state, borg, neocons, one percent, MICIMAC) is responsible for pushing Russia to the decision that it made last February. That it is the war party that expanded NATO despite the promises, that arms Ukraine, that encourages the fanatics driving that country, that blocks all routes to a peaceful settlement, that encourages Kiev to squander the lives of its people. But what really concerns these patriotic Americans is the damage the war party has done to their country.

The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force… She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit… An America of war all the time everywhere, of tent cities and full jails, of open borders, disappeared manufacturing, opiates, misery, poverty, corruption. An America with endless money to spend abroad but none to spend at home. (The hundred billion dollars dumped into Ukraine would give a $200,000 house to every one of the estimated half million homeless in the USA!) An America failing, no longer the American they loved, served and believed in. The Twitter revelations show some of the activities of this enemy embedded in the American polity. It’s very late and many fear that it is too late. How to get this leech off America’s back? Voting can’t make much difference if both parties are manipulated. Is the voting system itself corrupted? Can the judicial system be trusted?

Special counsels who report when it’s too late to matter? The managed media? Some may still believe in these things but the people I’m talking about don’t any more. They can only see one way that the power of this internal enemy can be broken – complete and utter defeat. Defeat that cannot be ignored, cannot be explained away, defeat too big and too obvious for the obedient mass media to bury. And that is why these people want Russia to win. They don’t necessarily like Russia or Putin or dislike Ukraine – it has little to do with either. It’s because they see this as the opportunity for the humiliating defeat that will shatter the power of the internal enemy. The war party assumed that Russia was weak and sanctions would crash its economy and bring down Putin. When this didn’t happen, they doubled down on their failed bet arrogantly certain they were right because everybody they allowed to speak agreed with them. If (when) Russia scores a decisive and undeniable victory, the perpetrators of the disaster will be revealed as corrupt fools wasting your money on their worthless fantasy.

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Useless drivel, and he knows it. They all do.

Kissinger Offers ‘Updated’ Ukraine Plan (RT)

Ukraine’s neutrality is “no longer meaningful” given the circumstances, Henry Kissinger told the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday. He endorsed Kiev’s eventual membership in the US-led military bloc, but continued to insist on dialogue with Russia – a stance that earned him a spot on the notorious Ukrainian “kill list.” Kissinger, now 99, was the US secretary of state (1973-1977) and national security advisor (1969-1975), playing a major role in the talks to end the Vietnam War, as well as the policy of pitting China against the Soviet Union during the Cold War. At last year’s Davos gathering, in May, he advocated an urgent end to hostilities in Ukraine, lest Russia is “driven into a permanent alliance with China.” For daring to suggest that Moscow could keep Crimea – which rejoined Russia in 2014 – he was placed on the “Peacemaker” list of Ukraine’s enemies, however.

On Tuesday, he prefaced his remarks with “admiration” for Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky and the “heroic conduct of the Ukrainian people,” before proposing essentially the same peace deal as last year. “Before this war, I was opposed to the membership of Ukraine in NATO, because I feared it would start exactly the process that we have seen,” Kissinger said. “Now that this process has reached this level, the idea of a neutral Ukraine under these conditions is no longer meaningful.” “I believe Ukrainian membership in NATO would be [an] appropriate outcome.” In Kissinger’s view, the way to prevent the conflict from escalating is to do exactly what Kiev, the US and its allies have been doing so far: demand a Russian withdrawal, while giving Ukraine military and financial aid and maintaining “sanctions and other pressures” on Moscow.

Russia should be given an “opening” to rejoin the West, “if it meets the required conditions to participate as a member in these European processes,” the elderly diplomat argued. It is important, he said, to avoid the perception that the conflict has become “against Russia itself,” which may cause Russians to re-evaluate both their historic “attraction to the culture of Europe and a fear of domination by Europe.” Kissinger also said that the US-led military alliance ought to be the guarantor of the final peace settlement “in whatever forms NATO can develop.”

While his proposal flattered the Western perception that Ukraine was winning on the battlefield with the help of NATO weapons, Kissinger chose to ignore the agency of both Kiev and Moscow. Zelensky has categorically rejected any sort of ceasefire unless Russia capitulates, while the Kremlin is on the record that any deal must concede that Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye are parts of Russia – with Crimea being off the table altogether. It was also unclear whether Moscow would accept any Western-mediated negotiations at all, after former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s admission – later echoed by French ex-president Francois Hollande – that the 2014 Minsk armistice was not arranged in good faith, but intended to “give Ukraine time” to prepare for war.

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Good overview by Petr Svab.

Key Revelations of the ‘Twitter Files’ (ET)

The journalists have only released a fraction of the documents they reviewed. They’ve also redacted the names of employees involved, aside from some high-level executives. The documents show that the FBI and other state, local, and federal agencies have been scrutinizing the political speech of Americans on a significant scale, and trying to get lawful speech suppressed or removed online. Many conservative and traditionally liberal commentators have deemed that a violation of the First Amendment. Twitter, a major hub of political speech, has been among the main targets of censorship. Many news stories have broken on Twitter in recent years, and a significant portion of the nation’s political debate takes place on the platform, as it allows an efficient way for direct and public interaction between users, from the most prominent to the least.


Twitter resisted some censorship requests, but there was little sign the company did so as a matter of principle. Rather, executives sometimes couldn’t find a policy they could use as a justification. Prior Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was under pressure from his lieutenants to expand the policies to allow more thorough censorship, the documents show. “The hypothesis underlying much of what we’ve implemented is that if exposure, e.g., misinformation directly causes harm, we should use remediations that reduce exposure, and limiting the spread/virality of content is a good way to do that (by just reducing prevalence overall),” said Yoel Roth, then Twitter’s head of trust and safety, which governs content policy, in a 2021 internal message published by Weiss. “We got Jack on board with implementing this for civic integrity in the near term, but we’re going to need to make a more robust case to get this into our repertoire of policy remediations—especially for other policy domains.”

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“The billionaire who became the most influential boss in the world explained that his decision was due to the fact that he found Davos boring. ”

Elon Musk Throws Shade on the WEF (Street)

The World Economic Forum in Davos is back to normal. The annual meeting of the world’s political and economic elites opened on January 16 in the ski resort of Davos in Switzerland. After nearly a year of war in Ukraine and in the face of the climate emergency, this year’s ambition is to find a way to “cooperate in a fragmented world” between war in Ukraine, climate change and globalization in existential crisis. “The world today is at a critical inflection point,” the World Economic Forum (WEF) said on its website. “The twin triggers of the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine rattled an already brittle global system. Economic growth in the world’s largest economies is stalling, while navigating headwinds from rising food and energy prices.” This year, the meeting “is held in the most complex geopolitical and geo-economic context for decades”, underlined the president of the WEF, Borge Brende.

The Covid-19 pandemic, trade disputes between China and the United States, and the war in Ukraine have contributed in recent years to multiplying geopolitical fault lines and fueling more protectionist policies. One of the main causes of this fragmentation is a lack of cooperation, and it results in short-term and selfish policies, regretted the founder of the WEF, Klaus Schwab. To reflect and discuss all these issues, the WEF welcomes 52 heads of state and government and nearly 600 CEOs, including JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink. One major CEO will not be there, however. Musk had revealed in December to have received an invitation but to have declined it. “I was invited to WEF, but declined,” the billionaire said on Dec. 24. The billionaire who became the most influential boss in the world explained that his decision was due to the fact that he found Davos boring.

“My reason for declining the Davos invitation was not because I thought they were engaged in diabolical scheming, but because it sounded boring,” the serial entrepreneur explained on December 31. Musk’s refusal to take part in the Davos Forum comes at a time when this circle of political leaders, business executives, cultural trend-setters and international organization chiefs is facing increasingly violent criticism. These critics challenge the power and influence of this gathering of elites, and in particular of its founder. Musk seems to share these criticisms. This is what he has just suggested in a message posted on Twitter on January 15, the day before the opening of the Forum. If the Techno King, his title at Tesla, recognizes the need to have a space or a forum where there are exchanges and a dialogue between the private sector and the governments, he seems to think that the World Economic Forum is not the good frame or is just all perfect.

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“..the DOJ’s willingness to let Biden’s lawyers conduct unsupervised searches is obviously fraught with concern..”

You cannot have two different justice systems.

FBI Decided Not To Monitor Biden Document Search (ZH)

After President Biden’s lawyers found classified documents at an office he used at a DC think tank, His Justice Department considered, and then declined, a plan to have FBI agents monitor a search for classified documents at his residences, in order to ‘avoid complicating later stages of the investigation,’ and because Biden’s attorneys ‘had quickly turned over a first batch and were cooperating,’ the Wall Street Journal reports, citing people familiar with the matter. Instead, the DOJ decided that it would be just fine for Biden’s lawyers to conduct the additional searches by themselves, and would agree to immediately notify the Justice Department if they found any other potentially classified records – after which law-enforcement authorities would take them.

The arrangement meant that FBI agents wouldn’t bear witness to things such as the volume, or contents, of whatever might turn up. This is, of course, the same FBI that participated in a plan (and fabricated evidence) in a plot to frame former President Trump as a Russian asset, and then ran cover for the Bidens during the 2020 US election – telling social media companies that Hunter Biden’s laptop, or anything like it, was likely Russian disinformation. In the week since news reports first surfaced about the documents, the incident has drawn parallels to the discovery of a much larger number of documents at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, which federal agents obtained a warrant to search in August after more than a year of negotiations between Mr. Trump’s lawyers, the National Archives and the Justice Department and after Mr. Trump’s lawyers said all documents had been returned. -WSJ

After the initial finding at the Penn-Biden Center in early November (and not disclosed until last week), classified materials were discovered on three separate occasions in Biden’s Wilmington house in December and January, in the garage and a room adjacent to it, White House lawyer Richard Sauber said last week. According to Sauber, the documents were “inadvertently placed” at the locations. Trump supporters have accused the DOJ of a double standard in the handling of the Biden situation vs. Trump’s. And of course, as President, Trump’s ability to declassify the documents obtained in the raid remains a constitutional grey area. Biden’s supporters have pointed to the president’s cooperation, however the DOJ’s willingness to let Biden’s lawyers conduct unsupervised searches is obviously fraught with concern. According to the White House, it’s no big deal.

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“..Robert Hur is a protégé of Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general under Trump who reportedly offered to wear a wire to spy on the previous president.”

Not a Coup, but a Coverup (ET)

The Nov. 14, 2022, article was evidence that the Biden circle was walking back its scorched-earth campaign against Trump on classified papers. Nearly three months later, it’s clear why—to reframe the context for when news of Biden’s own problems with classified documents went public. When the story broke last week in administration-friendly media outlets, Democratic lawmakers not only rallied around the president but also compared his response favorably to Trump’s. Unlike Trump’s team that argued with the institution tasked to keep U.S. records, Biden’s lawyers, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) intimated, “appear to have taken immediate and proper action to notify the National Archives.”

Dozens of media publications, from The New York Times to Vox, have published explainers showing why what Trump did is much worse than what Biden did. Trump had more documents, the argument runs; Biden’s lawyers were more forthright; and so forth. The fact is that no one on the Democratic side has broken with the president or even so much as hinted that he did something wrong. This isn’t what an internal coup looks like. The special counsel appointed to investigate Biden’s handling of classified documents identifies as a Republican but he appears to be a Never Trump Republican. Robert Hur is a protégé of Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general under Trump who reportedly offered to wear a wire to spy on the previous president.

Rosenstein furthered the anti-Trump cause by withholding documents from the investigation led by former Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) into alleged FBI crimes and abuses committed during the bureau’s Trump–Russia probe. He also allegedly threatened to subpoena Nunes’s staffers, including Kash Patel. A winter 2018 chain of emails between Department of Justice officials shows that Hur was part of the law enforcement team tasked to stonewall Nunes’s investigation. Former congressional investigators say that Hur’s appointment as special counsel is intended not to uncover potential crimes committed by the president but rather to give the appearance of a genuine investigation and thereby bury the issue once and for all. And thus, actions taken by the Biden administration and the responses of Democratic officials and the media show that what’s unfolding at present isn’t a coup, but a coverup.

Read more …

“There’s a temptation in every one of these kinds of crises to hunker down..”

Biden in ‘Very Big’ Mess Over Document Scandal – David Gergen (ET)

The brewing scandal of classified documents poses a very serious problem for President Joe Biden, warned David Gergen, a White House adviser-turned-political analyst. Speaking on CNN on Saturday, Gregen was asked by host Anderson Cooper how big a mess the Biden administration is in following the discoveries of classified documents at Biden’s private offices. He responded, “It’s a very, very big deal.” News broke earlier this week that classified material dating from Biden’s vice presidency had been found in the Washington office of the Penn Biden Center, a think tank affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania, in the days leading up to the 2022 midterm elections. The White House later admitted that more pages of classified documents were discovered in the president’s Delaware home.

The “Biden people” are not dealing with this political crisis properly, according to Gergen, a former adviser to Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton. “I do think that they may be making a big mistake,” he said. “I don’t think sitting there, hunkering down now, just acting like it’s not out there, is a good strategy. They’re going to get creamed doing that,” Gergen told Cooper, noting that the longer the White House remains reluctant to tell the truth, the more eager the American public will become to ask the question, “What are they hiding?” “As matters now stand, that long delay in putting it out there is going to encourage people to believe, ‘Well, what are they hiding?’” he said.

Instead of giving in to the temptation to hunker down, Biden should simply “get the facts out,” Gergen argued, pointing to the Iran-Contra affair that occurred during Reagan’s second term. When it was exposed that the CIA had secretly sold missiles and other military weapons to Iran in exchange for some Americans held hostage by Iran-backed terrorists and used the money to fund anti-communist Contra fighters in Nicaragua, the Reagan administration’s popularity took a dip, largely because of the White House’s unsuccessful damage control attempts. “There’s a temptation in every one of these kinds of crises to hunker down,” he said. “You are going all the way back to Iran-Contra and other kind of crises like that. You’ve just got to get the facts out.”

Read more …

Trojan Horse redux.

The Renewable Energy Problem That No One Talks About (ET)

Traditional generators use turbines—steam turbines, open-cycle turbines, and water turbines (hydroelectricity). This equipment is called “synchronous” because the frequency of the electricity they produce is directly linked to the speed that the shafts of the turbines rotate. Because these machines are large and heavy, it takes time and energy to speed them up or slow them down, which means that the frequency of the electricity cannot change too quickly. This is called “inertia.” As you may imagine, solar panels, having no moving parts, do not provide inertia. They match whatever frequency is already in the system; they do not help stabilise it.

Wind turbines, though they do have large spinning components, change speed all the time merely due to wind conditions. Hence they are not designed to synchronise with the AC network. So they do not provide inertia either. If a system does not have inertia, then instead of gently responding to a change in load, the frequency can flail about like a cyclist getting speed wobbles (any engine can have the same problem if it doesn’t have a sufficiently heavy flywheel). After the 2016 blackout, energy security gained its rightful place as the highest priority for a few glorious and brief weeks. A package of actions was taken by the South Australian government over the next couple of years, including the installation of a large-scale battery (following a promise by Elon Musk to construct it within 100 days or provide it for free), the building of a new diesel power station, and providing incentives for new natural gas exploration and production.

Additionally, two synchronous condensers were installed. Synchronous condensers are large, heavy rotating shafts, similar to what is contained in a turbine, but they don’t produce electricity—they just help to stabilise the frequency of the network. In the subsequent years, each of these responses was vindicated. The diesel generator has been used at several critical times. It was also found that the primary value of the large-scale battery was to stabilise the network. Though it stores comparatively little energy, the battery responds rapidly to faults originating anywhere in the east coast network, even in Queensland. It has since been programmed to provide “virtual inertia.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ducklings
https://twitter.com/i/status/1615136819959500800

 

 

The perfect geometry of Hoya flowers. five-pointed double-star shapes that bloom from a sphere called an umbel

 

 


The Indian flower mantis

 

 

YOU’RE A WONDERFUL ONE

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Home Forums Debt Rattle January 18 2023

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 73 total)
  • Author
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  • #126418

    Dorothea Lange Richmond, California 1942   • NATO Keeps On Demilitarising Itself in Ukraine (Tweedie) • Kremlin Mum On Putin’s Alleged Order To L
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle January 18 2023]

    #126419
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Why would Musk need to go to Davos? He has so much government money supporting his globalised green companies that it woul dbe a waste of time. Davos is a forum for government and corporations to meet in private, it is a facility provided by Klaus Anal, to override democracy. It is what could be described as super-lobbying, where the lobbyists line up the meetings then all the important people do the meetings at Davos. If you want a special grant to provide renewable energy from frog farts in Southern Australia, then your lobbyist lines up a meeting between your CEO and the head of renewables in Southern Australia, then they meet in Davos, share a whore, share a child whore, become mates forever, and after a few months Southern Australia starts a new innovatibe project in renewable energy from frog farts, all guaranteed by the blackmail pictures of the boys in Davos. Kind of like Epstein Island on roids. Why does Musk need to go, he has that all set up already.

    #126420
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    Here is the list of policies, indexes, statistics, fiat currencies, and ‘official’ projections for the future that are not completely fake, fraudulent or fabricated and manipulated:

    Here is a list of prominent NATOstan politicians who are not professional liars:

    #126421
    oxymoron
    Participant

    We are also imposing severe sanctions on Russia that will plunge the RussianEuropean economy into recession for decades, and its industry will be deprived of modern and critical technologies,” she added.

    There. Fixed it.

    #126422

    #126423
    Armenio Pereira
    Participant

    Low tide follows high tide follows low tide.

    The change one favours will inevitably come, but not necessarily during one’s lifetime (as a human being.)
    That’s the Universe’s nature.
    Now you go and, one monad at the time, change the Universe, will you?

    A healthy dose of equanimity towards change is what we need.

    #126424
    EoinW
    Participant

    Now we know why they’ve allowed Russians to continue playing in the NHL. These hockey players don’t realize it but they are playing for free! Eventually the government will steal all their wealth.

    #126425
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Poor Greta. She gets arrested fro what she believes in but as one commenter said: it’s not real as she will have no consequences. Like gold armor. Get out of jail, guaranteed, even as a foreign national. So is what she’s doing “real”, in a sense? If she goes along with regular Germans, isn’t she just encouraging them to go to jail, lose their jobs, and take all the consequences she won’t, like a chicken hawk? An Agent Provocateur? …Not that this is her fault, most probably; it’s more the trust-fund kid issue, where they would like to make something of themselves, but it’s always overshadowed by somebody else’s money and privilege.

    “NBCBLK: Jackson’s water crisis persists as national attention and help fades away.”

    Golly, how racist, says NBCBlack. If you’re interested I can tell you where $100 Billion of that went. Like 100x what you need to fix your water. Ukrainians are the master race; only they matter. Jackson Mississippi, nobody cares: and that’s not a race thing. Fentanyl border is wide open, with enough getting through to kill every white in America 10x over. Or at least 30,000 a year, known and approved.

    “San Fran City Panel Urges Reparations of $5 Million Per Black Adult”

    Note this is a panel, not a power. They are not SF government, that is “stakeholders” and far better as lacking elections there are no consequences for anything they say or do. Legally, they are going to give “Blacks” $5M over time. Great! What’s a “Black”? No, honestly: what is that? If you have a single drop of white blood are you excluded? What if it’s Egyptian or Tunisian Blood, gained back in 1500’s Africa? What if it’s ¼? ½? They do this to Indians all the time. So if you are actually African, came yesterday, you can get the $5 Million? Yes/no? How about if you’re 100% African, came yesterday, and are Elon Musk?

    What if you were black, have been here 150 years, are 100% (which already seems unlikely) but were never a slave? What if you were a slave in British Indies, but have always been free in America since your family landed 1800? Shouldn’t you sue Britain? What if you came from Sengal in 1900 and were never a slave? We’ll let that rest for now.

    California was never a slave state. There were never slaves. So California is paying South Carolina’s reparations for them? Or perhaps it was merely for “racism”. What is that? Is $5M enough for the lynching of your family (which did not happen in California territory) but what if someone bumped into your shopping cart with a dirty look once? Is that $5 million dollars? Why is the State responsible for any conduct of any of its citizens? If a murder is committed on California soil, should we arrest the Governor and jail the Legislature?

    Who pays? As the joke goes, if you are half black do you pay yourself? According to CA budgets, yes: Blacks pay taxes, then those taxes are repaid to themselves with additions. Do the Chinese pay the Blacks who were never slaves in California? Is this true even of Chinese and Japanese who were de facto slaves in California? What about Mexicans and other Hispanic immigrants? Do they pay reparations for a country they’ve never been to and had nothing to do with before now? Do they get reparations as well, and if so, from whom?

    Suppose we pay reparations only from “Whites”. What’s a “White”? I’m not being argumentative here: Poles and sometimes other Slavs are considered “People of Color” according to several official organizations like the ACLU. Are Italians “white”? When did that change? Was it 1960? 1940? 1900? 1880? If you came in 1880 and endured vicious racism, do you still have to pay blacks for their vicious racism, if that is indeed why? 1880 is after slavery ended. Most “White” American stock came to America after slavery had ended. Should they be excluded? Or should they be excluded only if they, as Poles, Irish, Italians, also endured racism? Since Poles were racist against Italians as late as 1960, do they get reparations? Or does the inter-group racism indemnify them against paying for out-group racism? How do you quantify how much racism? If you were shot by a Black Nationalist, as in Brooklyn and Wisconsin this year, are you excluded from paying?

    What if you were Jewish? Very clearly Jewish people endured strong racism, very universally, still experience it, and are also very clearly the group paying reparations today. Do we exclude or include them? How about Muslims? Should they excluded? What if the Muslims are Serbian? English? Californian?

    These are just some of the very specific, logical, necessary questions we must ask. Anyone have a simple answer? Can anyone even define “Black”?

    “Is New Zealand A Beta Test For Western Governments Micromanaging The Populace?”

    Question answers itself. Not sure anybody knows what to do about it yet. I don’t think going up there and shooting them is the New Zealand way, and it will have to be done according to their unique, up close, and personal system. I imagine their history can help show what that path is.

    “NY Supreme Court Strikes Down COVID Vaccine Mandate for Health Care Workers”

    After it’s far too late, you lost your house, and with no reparations for egregious and/or fatal human rights abuses.

    Trump: “I have info on everyone!” Yes. I’ll bet you do. Would you care to use it and get something done sometime?

    CO2 chart: yes, that does suggest the CO2 is largely appearing from non-human sources such as undersea volcanoes. That would mesh with the CO2 rising in Ice Ages, long before SUVs.

    “He calls the experience “extra terrestrial”

    Does he mean like personally, as during the Skull and Bones spirit channeling exercise, or genetically in the distant past, as the Nazis believed? Either is fine. I’ll wait for your answer.

    ““But even if both Bakhmut and Soledar fall to the Russians, it’s not going to have a strategic impact on the war itself, and it certainly isn’t going to stop the Ukrainians or slow them down.”

    Losing territory is gaining territory. Going backwards is the same as going forward. I remember this discussion in Kharkov where they said the #Opposite. The Russian army is in no hurry.

    “Britain has 227 tanks. Russia has 15,000.”

    Not sure what to say about that. 1) Yes, but the British tanks are really, really good. Perhaps 500:1 times better? 2) Ukraine already said 14 tanks won’t be enough, and neither will 227. They need nearer 500. 3) They’re also 2,000 miles away still, and have been for a year while Ukraine needed them for 400 days in a row. 4) Did Britain’s recalcitrance kill Ukrainians, and if so, how many? 5) Why?

    “No wonder Ukrainian refugees are returning to Kiev to get proper medical treatment”

    I am happy to say that I have no health care so that I can make sure Ukraine has free health care. And Germany, and France. It’s the least I can do.

    “the Special Economic Measures Act gives Canadian authorities the power to seize property”

    They’re broke so they steal stuff. Simple. This is a sign of their near-total power over the world, so we should be very, very afraid.

    “The value is relatively small, but it may be used to set the mechanism in motion”

    It certainly is setting a large mechanism in motion: That of all money fleeing the West for Singapore. Canada already caused a bank run under the truckers? Now they can have a bank run on foreign capital. But these people are not prone to panic and will merely have family money managers rotate out over time, and irrevocably.

    “In the EU, the procedure hasn’t been legalized either,”

    They are doing this illegally, without adjudication or understandable rule of law. As they ask, “What is a ‘violation’?” Insulting the Queen? How much is that worth? £50? £500 million? Either? Both? Money needs visibility: how can I comply with the law if no one can tell me what the rules are? Or they change from day to day as Biden’s ATF does? Any such place must be avoided. Even Turkey is an improvement as the rules are messy and dangerous, but they are at least the same as always.

    “ EU Sanctions Goal Is to Crush Russian Economy – Von Der Leyen (RT)”

    WEF says they have caused 6% decline in Russia’s GDP. Putin says 2.5%. Either is possible but neither would be adequate to accomplish anything. The U.S. is in 6% decline and has been off and on since 2001. It’s masked with a blizzard of bond paper shuffling. Ursula is so successful with this she’s holding bake sale to help Ukraine. I mean, isn’t that what “Asking for donations from private investors” means?

    “Russia’s crimes will not go unpunished, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said”

    Okay, so then you have just said you must attack, conquer, and occupy Russian territory, as that is the only way to accomplish your goal. We know.

    “Ukraine is a candidate for EU membership,” she adds. She already said in 20 years. And ahead of Turkey, which I’m sure they won’t mind.

    “ EU Leaves Back Door Open for Sanctioned Russian Oil (RT)”

    They – USuk, EU – pay “money” for sanctioned oil as “money” has no meaning. They print it for free. Generally the EU prints “Dollars” in the Eurodollar market, which causes US inflation and US bonking problems instead of EU problems. Great! And we know how the market, the crash goes on so long. One problem: Russia still gets this value and the “money” that has no meaning seems to have meaning when it’s making Russia far richer while pumping less oil than before. Are you sure it was actually “free”?

    “If (when) Russia scores a decisive and undeniable victory, the perpetrators of the disaster will be revealed as corrupt fools wasting your money on their worthless fantasy.”

    This has already been happening, from “Mission Accomplished” to Vietnam. But it doesn’t COST Americans enough in their daily lives. They didn’t get HURT. I’m sorry that’s what it takes, but our history seems to show. No information, no revelation, not even any failure will change anything, defenestrate Nuland, Cheney, Lockheed and Boeing. Only personal injury. The American people themselves have made this so. But to be fair, they’ve been protesting and resisting this all along, just not enough.

    “Ukraine’s neutrality is “no longer meaningful” given the circumstances, Henry Kissinger [said]”

    This is gravitas. Completely true, indisputable statement, forming agreement on all sides. And then Nazis putting other Nazis on the Nazi (kill) list. That’s how evil acts. This is why they lose.

    “I believe Ukrainian membership in NATO would be [an] appropriate outcome.”

    Listen carefully. By having Poland – in NATO – take the remaining Ukraine.

    “Russia should be given an “opening” to rejoin the West, “if it meets the required conditions” …of complete unconditional surrender.

    “to avoid the perception that the conflict has become “against Russia itself,” in order to avoid Russia realizing and mobilizing further…too late.

    “Kissinger also said that the US-led military alliance ought to be the guarantor” …Because of the unconditional surrender. Otherwise, Russia would never do it and never believe them. So you see he’s having trouble “Flattering” the West with victory and still salvaging something from it. He’s in a room with infants. Would moving half of Ukraine into NATO NOT be a big success? Even if it’s not the whole thing? No. They want ALL the Oompa-Loompas for their own, or nothing at all. Okay then Violet, nothing is fine with me.

    “violation of the First Amendment. Twitter, a major hub of political speech, has been among the main targets”

    And as violating all Human Rights IS the far bigger deal, eclipsing everything, we forget that it’s a violation of their core charter, Section 230. We, Congress, can pull them, or that, at any time with no trouble. They are in direct affront and violation of their agreement with Congress. Open that and they are sued for Libel as well. …As WELL as sued for human rights violations running in the hundred-million or billions of violations.

    his decision was due to the fact that he found Davos boring.”

    Apparently they have half the attendees of last year. I think that shows they’re in trouble, no one wants to be within 40 feet of their reputation. This is doubly bad as this is the annual Mafia Family Reunion. People only show up because they’re blackmailed and can’t help it. So if your BLACKMAILED people don’t show up, doesn’t that suggest they’re not afraid of you anymore? Or more afraid of the public than of Bugsy Schwab? Discuss.

    Even Schwabinator and Soros didn’t show or cut early. Okay, well you turned on the lights and scared the cockroaches out of the kitchen, but they only moved into where? The cellar?

    Again, we’re winning. And it sucks, like all wars suck. They are long, tedious, stressful, expensive, and unpleasant. But would you like to start shelling where we can level a city of 200,000 in 20 minutes?

    “You cannot have two different justice systems.”

    Sure you can. We have since the 70s. But we’re still winning. Exposing them is winning. You have to know or you won’t change. You have to know or you won’t do anything, change approaches, make arrangements. “You” being “We” the People.

    “Biden in ‘Very Big’ Mess over Document Scandal – David Gergen (ET)”

    With who? How? He’s not aware he’s President anyway. “Biden cabinet jockeying for control” Really? Since they’re the ones running things in the first place, how is “Biden” being in a mess a problem? They are equally running things under Kamala…or McCarthy, probably.

    “the Reagan administration’s popularity took a dip,”

    Wow. That must have been the stone age. Because the CIA did stuff rogue, people actually thought the President knew about it? And the CIA worked for us? And the responsibility for oversight should lie with the President? Ah, how quaint. Those were the good old days. I’m not sure you could find someone who believes the CIA is overseen by anyone these days. Not the Courts, not Congress, not the President, no one. Therefore, whatever they do is legal! De Facto at least. Ask the “Team 0” civilian and children kill teams in F-stan. They’re CIA. No oversight. All for hire. Right out of Bourne Identity and the Punisher.
    Pompeo’s still around, why don’t you ask him all about it?

    “One Fatty egg” Scienz™! Science is totally Right! Like Mr. “The Science” Fauci. If you say everything AND its opposite, you’re just certain to be right. Then you can say “Science!” “I told you so.” You know, like your wins with Eugenics.

    “The Sun”

    Actually, they worshiped the same God, an invisible, all-encompassing, all-powerful, intangible spirit God. So did the European pagans and druids before Christianity. They – modern Science and historians – try to invent trouble, but if you are generous, looking at the person’s argument and description instead of straw-manning some made-up, wrong and entirely fabricated description, you find out it’s all been more similar than different. What’s the difference? Well, Euros wear leather shoes with heels, whereas Indians wear leather shoes without heels. Euros wear a “Pair” of pants, two separate legs tied together, whereas Indians wear two separate leggings. Indian men paint their faces whereas European women paint their faces. Indians worship the invisible spirit God in a underground round church, while Euros go to a square one. I mean: Totally different, right?

    Clearly one is morally superior to the other. Before it was the Europeans who were innately superior by birth, and now it’s the non-Europeans who are innately superior by birth. Totally different! Wot a world.

    #126426
    That Bloke
    Participant

    In this Dick Emery sketch from years and years ago, let’s swap things around a bit. Emery is the EU and the wife is the Russian economy. ‘Loving’ = sanctioning.

    Enjoy!

    #126427
    anticlimactic
    Participant

    CO2

    The graph showing that for the past 800,000 years CO2 levels were between 200PPM and 250PPM is shocking. At 180PPM it is almost impossible for vegetation to grow and at this level most of the life on Earth would disappear. It was obviously a close thing.

    At 200PPM life would have struggled. One experiment used bushes grown in different levels of CO2 : 200PPM, 400PPM and 800PPM. The 200PPM bush was a stunted dwarf, the 400 PPM bush was ‘normal’ and the 800PPM bush was several times the volume of the one grown at 400PPM.

    We are lucky to be living at a time that CO2 is at 400PPM, although life would thrive more at higher levels. Here’s hoping for 800PPM and a better future!

    #126428
    anticlimactic
    Participant

    OZONE

    The holes in the ozone layer were only discovered fairly recently. In response some scientists literally sat round a desk for an afternoon to discuss it. As often seems to be the case today the starting point was that it was man made rather than natural. The conclusion was that CFCs were responsible. That was the ONLY ‘proof’ that Man and CFCs were responsible!

    Ozone [O3] is unstable and needs to be continually replaced. This is done by sunlight so less ozone will be produced at the poles where sunlight is oblique. It does not seem ridiculous that the spin of the Earth will cause the ozone at the poles to drift towards the equator. I do not think that holes at the poles are unnatural.

    One amusing story about CFCs involves a Chinese company which made an allowed CFC, but it created a byproduct CFC which wasn’t allowed. The EU agreed to pay for this CFC to be destroyed, but they paid 100 times more than it cost to create! The Chinese company then started to create lots of this CFC and asking for more money. Last I read the EU had shelled out 2.3 billion Euros!

    #126429
    jb-hb
    Participant

    I suggest we change from using expressions like “480PPM” – it sounds big and authoritative.

    Instead of Parts Per Million, shall we use Parts Per Hundred?

    Example:

    OMG CO2 has reached 0.00000048pph!

    #126430
    tboc
    Participant

    Dr. D: “You cannot have two different justice systems.”
    Sure you can. We have since the 70s

    Please allow me, a certified red clay road trailer trash southern redneck, to draw your attention to the post Civil War Reconstruction.

    #126431
    jb-hb
    Participant

    ….and we suspect humans COULD BE responsible for raising the CO2 levels by a maximum of …

    0.000000018pph! As we all know, that is a LOT.

    Because CO2 is the world’s most powerful insulator and even, being a heavier gas, and thus staying close to the surface of the earth – not up in the sky reflecting down – it nevertheless, as a trace gas, raises the entire planet’s temperature by whole percentage points.

    This is why we use it exclusively in, for instance, our double and triple pane windows everywhere. Because of how insanely effective it is, even as a trace gas, at insulation. But we have to be careful. Imagine if it were used at a 0.00001pph level! It could start FIRES.

    It’s why we switched from fiberglass insulation to CO2 insulation. To cut down on energy use so we can stop producing so much of this damn CO2!

    #126432
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    have any other of you oddball cognitive outliers noticed how much (and how swiftly now) the Overton Window has shifted here on TAE?

    And it’s not just us. It’s literally everywhere, even (dare I say it ?) the Main Stream Media.

    Now I ain’t suggesting that Bible style divine intervention is going to be made manifest in our lifetime, but I am suggesting that if current trends continue that’s what would happen if current trends continue. Because that’s definitely the current trend.

    #126433
    zerosum
    Participant

    Modernizing/updating/renewing/recycling/recasting/demilitarizing/get rid/obsolescent/antiquity/antiquation/aged/

    • NATO Keeps On Demilitarising Itself in Ukraine (Tweedie)

    • Game-Changing Russia (Batiushka)

    get rid of some more of their old armored vehicles and even tanks,…. cost £8 million each and there are only 227 of them.
    ———-
    The fact is that as long as a single piece of the Ukraine is under Nazi control, it will be a threat to the Russian Federation.
    Fix it for you …
    The fact is that as long as a single piece of the Ukraine is under Nazi control, it will be a threat to NATO Demilitarising Itself in Ukraine (Tweedie)
    ———–
    • CNN: Ukraine Has Become a ‘Weapons Lab’ for Western Arms (Antiwar)

    Ukraine has turned into a “lab” for Western arms as the war has given the US and its allies an opportunity to see how their weapons fare in a conflict.
    ———–
    Modern warfare

    • The West’s New Anti-Russia Sanctions Are A Total Game Changer (Timofeev)
    • Ursula Von Der Leyen: Russia’s Crimes Won’t Go Unpunished (Az.)
    • EU Sanctions Goal Is To Crush Russian Economy – Von Der Leyen (RT)

    Canada is the first country to legally implement the forfeiture mechanism.
    We are also imposing severe sanctions on Russia that will plunge the Russian economy into recession for decades, and its industry will be deprived of modern and critical technologies,” she added.

    Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that the country’s economy is performing “much better than what not only our opponents but even we ourselves predicted” and is on course for further stabilization.
    —————

    #126434
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    The US has vast stores of ammunition stashed in various places around the world (Israel, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Serbia, and probably other even more secretive caches as well) . . . . but here’s the deal: Bullets in Baghdad are in Baghdad. Can’t shoot them from guns in Donbass without shipping the bullets there first and THAT is a bit of a sticky wicket. Russia has unequivocally announced what they will instantaneously do to any shipment that is attempted. Kaboom. Instantly.

    #126435
    jb-hb
    Participant

    Just a personal anecdote here. Still job hunting. A few observations

    over 130 applications. ONLY interest taken in me was by 2 companies of 50 employees or less. They had hundreds of candidates for the single offered position, but they did interviews with me, at least. As compared to large companies hiring for multiple positions who have not asked for an interview. Companies with way more resources to conduct interviews.

    So some sort of blacklist for people fired over the injection that does not vaccinate still seems like a possibility to me

    I reported, previously, seeing 200 or even 1500 people listed on indeed as applying for a position.

    I am now sometimes seeing ranges of 15,000 applicants. That is not a typo nor a mistake on my part.

    When people think of Weimar Germany’s inflation, they typically think of, speak of, money printing.

    They forget – or don’t know – what was actually HAPPENING at the time. Germany was reduced to payment-in-kind for ww1 reparations. They failed to deliver some telephone poles – or maybe it was railroad ties? For France, this was the last straw. Their army moved into Germany, occupying its most industrialized region. France said if you aren’t going to pay us with your production, then we are going to hold onto your means of production.

    The response from Germany was – if you’re going to take our means of production, then we aren’t going to produce. There was a general strike. Germany went tools-down.

    Printing money and giving it to workers with no income was seen as a way to help the working class AND an additional act of defiance against France.

    The key thing was that if Germany isn’t producing, what can you GET with German currency? What products or services? I would say this was a MAJOR factor in kicking off the devaluation of German currency.

    And what did the world do in 2020? A general strike, essentially. I don’t get all this talk of a possible slow-down/recession. Isn’t stopping even slower than slowing down?

    A general strike (enforced by the rentiers, the very people a general strike was supposed to be a weapon against) is what we had. How could the effects be anything BUT drastic?

    #126436
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Big Sister is Watching

    .

    #126437
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Nothing to See

    Keep it moving Citizen Prole

    .

    #126438
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    Daily CO2
    Jan. 17, 2023 = 419.07 ppm

    Jan. 17, 2022 = 417.8 ppm

    The 2023 season peak will occur in late May and will record around 423 ppm, up 193 ppm from the long-term average of 230 ppm and up 143 ppm from the pre-industrial average of 280 ppm..

    How could a factor that is known to have a substantial effect of average temperature possibly have an effect? when it is up ‘only 51%’ in just over 200 years!

    I see that jb-hb thinks that by changing the units of measurement he can change the outcome (planetary meltdown).

    Science and the real world don’t work that way.

    #126439
    Dimitri
    Participant

    FWIW

    The Marques story was finally originally published in 1993 in Playboy.

    #126440
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Another invasion of your privacy.

    A run-of-the-mill wifi router is ‘bathing” anyone in range with a signal that is detectable and map-able just as if it were ‘light’.

    This allows the number and body language of those in range to be converted to a 3-D animation then sent back through the same router.

    Knock, knock, who’s there……

    .

    #126441
    zerosum
    Participant

    Universal coin
    censorship/propaganda
    truth/lies
    color/invisible
    dark/light
    Are the predators color blind
    ———-
    Use Polish peacekeepers, referendum, to move half of Ukraine into NATO

    #126442
    jb-hb
    Participant

    Afewknowthetruth said:

    Daily CO2
    Jan. 17, 2023 = 0.00000041907 pph

    Jan. 17, 2022 = 0.0000004178 pph

    The 2023 season peak will occur in late May and will record around 0.000000423 pph, up 0.000000193 pph from the long-term average of 0.000000230 pph and up 0.000000143 pph from the pre-industrial average of 0.000000280 pph..

    thanks for the info

    #126443
    jb-hb
    Participant

    Afewknowthetruth – “…a substantial effect…”

    show us where the cessation of human activity affected CO2.

    3

    #126444
    Oroboros
    Participant

    I have always had a ‘photographic memory’ of people’s body language ever since I could remember even as a kid. I’ve always been able to recognize friends from even a football field away by how they move. Rarely is wrong. All kinds of surveillance tech now teamed up with AI can ID anyone by body language. It’s as unique as a finger print. It can even detect your health if it has a baseline of your healthy BL.

    Something in the way she moves…

    #126445
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    More alternative universe nonsense from WEF saboteurs:

    #126446
    jb-hb
    Participant

    as usual, Afewknowthetruth, you appear to be purposely missing the point. And I TOLD YOU the point in the post you are replying to.

    “I see that jb-hb thinks that by changing the units of measurement he can change the outcome ”

    indeed I do. since a trace gas at 0.00000041907 pph raises the entire PLANET’s temperature by whole degrees, we have discovered an incredibly powerful SUPER INSULATOR.

    We can therefore beat climate change by adopting CO2 as a super-insulator, decreasing our fossil fuel use to almost nothing in a variety of areas. We have only to adopt it in a variety of applications to beat Climate Meltdown

    When will your campaign to adopt CO2 filled double and triple paned windows as the salvation of the Earth begin?

    #126447
    jb-hb
    Participant

    if 0.00000041907 pph can heat the globe by entire degrees, think what we will be able to do utilizing CO2 at 0.000041907 pph!!!

    Nuclear power plants create power by boiling water into steam and turning turbines.

    We should be able to dispense with practically all fossil power generation and switch to CO2 greenhouse based turbines

    Ships at sea equipped with a CO2 greenhouse powered boiler should be able to cruise during the day while burning zero fossil fuels

    Do we dare go to 0.00001 pph? Surely mankind is not ready to wield such power.

    #126448
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    ‘show us where the cessation of human activity affected CO2;

    There was no cessation of human industrial activity.

    Industrial agriculture continued -ploughing, sowing, fertilsing, pumping water, harvesting, transporting, processing distributing…all diesel=powered, continued.

    Mining continued.

    Metal ore reduction continued.

    Blast furnace operations continued.

    Cement manufacture continued.

    Home heating via electricity, coal, natural gas continued.

    Wars continued.

    Fracking continued and leaks of CH4 which is oxidised in the air to CO2 from fracking continued,

    Fishing using diesel continued.

    Chopping down forests using chain saws and mechanised tree harvesters continued. Global trade of crap continued -and in some product areas increased substantially.

    Consumption of electricity to watch Neflix increased.

    Resources and energy used to make masks and fake vaccines increased.

    Resources and energy utilised to install barriers, screens and fake instruction advise increased.

    Energy and resources utlised to treat sick people with ineffective medications and inappropriate procedures increased.

    Energy and resources utilised for funerals increased.

    World population increased and overall consumption of resources increased despite the fake pandemic.

    I could suggest that it is time you stopped operating at the 12-year-old level of thinking, i.e. politician and government department level of thinking. However, perhaps 12-year-old level of thinking is all you are capable of.

    I do know you seem completely impervious to facts and logical arguments, just like the morons at the local council, the regional council and in Wellington, who are engaged in continuous sabotage of everything.

    There is not long to go now, as a direct consequence of the dumbing-down and 12-year-old level of thinking, plus the massive level of squandering of energy and resources promoted by governments and bureaucrats throughout Oceania for many decades.

    #126449
    jb-hb
    Participant

    dude, you HATE ad hominem attacks. You are the white knight of defeating all ad hominem, right? It’s wrong everywhere it appears.

    Anyway, you seriously believe that fossil fuel use was not affected significantly by worldwide lockdowns and you accuse me of 12 year old thinking.

    You’re embarrassing the Climate Meltdown religion. YOU’RE the one de-pantsing it in public – I hope you realize.

    #126450
    jb-hb
    Participant

    Since the lockdowns gave us a great real-world experiment of Taking Action Now, can you Climate Meltdown people at least abandon Taking Action Now, since obviously, it increases CO2 production, the most reflective and insulative trace-gas in the universe?

    #126451
    Mr. House
    Participant

    This was very interesting:

    The CIA and the Cultural Cold War Revisited

    Not that it changed my mind on much, but further cemented the idea that all the cultural chaos we exp. comes from above.

    #126452
    Formerly T-Bear
    Participant

    @ D. Benton Smith, 17/01/2023 11:23 #126394

    @FormerlyT-Bear

    That Russia would bother to formally withdraw from treaties seems to me to be a positive signal that they take treaties seriously. Otherwise they could simply ignore them for being as worthless as the paper they’re written on

    .Appearances are that you did not read the link or appreciate the implications of the link given. It seems your expectation is that the rest of the world in all its variety must conform to the behaviour of the sewer that the U.S. has become, with full public approval by appearance. Why should Russia abandon their integrity to match the sewer (not an environmentally healthy swamp) creatures filling Washington’s government. Your position would be pathetic if it had even half a gram of pathos. How you missed the message that once this particular link between supposedly civilised nations is broken, there will be no return to status quo anti. It would be delusional to think that will happen but delusion from one shinning sea to the other is the order of the day for the best educated as well. How are you going to keep a Republic let alone an ersatz democracy?

    #126453
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @jb-hb

    You are one of the sharper minds around this joint, and have been sucked into an argument with an argument machine whose purpose is to distract you from more important business by sucking you into an argument. One way to deal with adversaries is to waste their time like AFKTT is wasting yours.

    #126455
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @Formerly T-Bear

    What the fuck are you even talking about? It’s an incomprehensible invalidative word salad doesn’t even say anything and has absolutely nothing to do with what I had said. . Are you crazy or something? Don’t answer. You and I ain’t gonna talk no more. I have better things to do, like clip my toe nails.

    #126456
    jb-hb
    Participant

    D Benton Smith thank you kindly – But he’s been making me better and better over the past 4 weeks while he has stayed the same.

    Whole new vistas of Climate Disbelief that I didn’t even realize existed have opened up to me while he still can’t even articulate why extinctions are bad, confirm if he agrees or disagrees with Jenson on what points, or even confirm or disavow the basic tenets of Climate Change.

    I had a different outlook just 4 weeks ago. Now Climate Change seems to be a flimsy wet paper tiger. I’ve discovered a variety of very basic common-sense epiphanies just by interacting with him. I honestly did engage because I didn’t know fully and wanted to find out.

    And for instance, I only came up with the CO2 greenhouse generators based on futuristic 0.00001 pph CO2 technology today. Never would have realized this is the solution to usher in a new era of human civilization if not for him.

    But maybe you’re right. I’ve traveled the distance I meant to travel, mission accomplished. move on.

    #126457
    Red
    Participant

    DBS: yes the Overton Window does seem to be moving faster than ever. It must be in a wall that is rotating! New view almost daily, not great views but different ones just the same. Variety is the spice of life, a change is as good as a rest or some such nonsense. Distraction is what it’s really about, but from what?

    #126458
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @jb-hb

    Yup. silver linings and unanticipated benefits are cool, but it is probably time to let that sleeping dog go back to sleeping and lying (double entendre intended).

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