Jan 272023
 
 January 27, 2023  Posted by at 9:22 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,


Edward Hopper Office in a Small City 1953

 

Blinken Concedes War Is Lost – Offers Ukrainian Demilitarization (Helmer)
Blinken Ponders The Post-Ukraine-War Order (Ignatius)
American Abrams Tanks Vulnerable Even To Soviet-era Weapons (TASS)
Nobody Told Me We’re At War – Kroatian President (RT)
Involvement Of US, Collective West In Ukraine Conflict Grows – Kremlin (TASS)
France Denies The West Is At War With Russia (RT)
West Discussing Handover Of Fighter Jets To Kiev – Politico (TASS)
Kremlin Rules Out Any Talks Between Zelensky, Putin (TASS)
The Sect (Dionísio)
What Spurred Wave Of Resignations Among Senior Ukraine Officials? (Lavrenin)
Joining Russia Sanctions Would Be ‘Inappropriate’ – Serbia (RT)
Can You Smell What the Year of the Rabbit Is Cooking? (Escobar)
Russia’s Intentions Are Clarifying (Alasdair Macleod)
Pfizer Director Physically Assaults James O’Keefe and Veritas Staff (GP)
Marco Rubio Letter To Albert Bourla (rubio.senate.gov)

 

 

 

 

Trump Russia
https://twitter.com/i/status/1618620533675028487

 

 

 

 

Tucker Barr Epstein

 

 

Hunter email
https://twitter.com/i/status/1618272150007472129

 

 

Macgregor/Judge Nap

Macgregor A Huge Offensive

 

 

 

 

A take we haven’t seen before. But it’s Helmer…

“John Helmer is an Australian-born journalist and foreign correspondent based in Moscow, Russia since 1989. He has served as an adviser to government heads in Greece, the United States, and Asia, and has also worked as professor of political science, sociology, and journalism.”

“US is ready to ease sanctions against Russia for the sake of “serious negotiations on Ukraine and the withdrawal of troops from there.”- Victoria Nuland

Blinken Concedes War Is Lost – Offers Ukrainian Demilitarization (Helmer)

David Ignatius has been a career-long mouthpiece for the US State Department. He has just been called in by the current Secretary of State Antony Blinken to convey an urgent new message to President Vladimir Putin, the Security Council, and the General Staff in Moscow. For the first time since the special military operation began last year, the war party in Washington is offering terms of concession to Russia’s security objectives explicitly and directly, without the Ukrainians in the way. The terms Blinken has told Ignatius to print appeared in the January 25 edition of the Washington Post. The paywall can be avoided by reading on. The territorial concessions Blinken is tabling include Crimea, the Donbass, and the Zaporozhe, Kherson “land bridge that connects Crimea and Russia”.

West of the Dnieper River, north around Kharkov, and south around Odessa and Nikolaev, Blinken has tabled for the first time US acceptance of “a demilitarized status” for the Ukraine. Also, US agreement to restrict the deployment of HIMARS, US and NATO infantry fighting vehicles, and the Abrams and Leopard tanks to a point in western Ukraine from which they can “manoeuvre…as a deterrent against future Russian attacks.” This is an offer for a tradeoff – partition through a demilitarized zone (DMZ) in the east of the Ukraine in exchange for a halt to the planned Russian offensive destroying the fortifications, rail hubs, troop cantonments, and airfields in the west, between the Polish and Romanian borders, Kiev and Lvov, and an outcome Blinken proposes for both sides to call “a just and durable peace that upholds Ukraine’s territorial integrity”.

Also in the proposed Blinken deal there is the offer of a direct US-Russian agreement on “an eventual postwar military balance”; “no World War III”; and no Ukrainian membership of NATO with “security guarantees similar to NATO’s Article 5.” Blinken has also told the Washington Post to announce the US will respect “Putin’s tripwire for nuclear escalation”, and accept the Russian “reserve force includ[ing] strategic bombers, certain precision-guided weapons and, of course, tactical and strategic nuclear weapons.” President Putin has offered a hint of the Russian reply he discussed with the Stavka and the Security Council last week.

Putin told a meeting with university students on Wednesday, hours after Blinken’s publication. “I think that people like you,” the president said, “most clearly and most accurately understand the need for what Russia is now doing to support our citizens in these territories, including Lugansk, Donetsk, the Donbass area as a whole, and Kherson and Zaporozhye. The goal, as I have explained many times, is primarily to protect the people and Russia from the threats that they are trying to create for us in our own historical territories that are adjacent to us. We cannot allow this. So, it is extremely important when young people like you defend the interests of their small and large Motherland with arms in their hands and do so consciously.”

Read on, very carefully, understanding that nothing a US official says, least of all through the mouths of Blinken, Ignatius, and the Washington Post is trusted by the Russians; and understanding that what Putin and the Stavka say they mean by Russia’s “adjacent historical territories” and the “small and large Motherland” has been quite clear. Follow what Blinken told Ignatius to print, before Putin issued his reply. The propaganda terms have been highlighted in bold to mean the opposite — the public positions from which Blinken is trying to retreat and keep face.

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The Ignatius article Helmer was talking about.

Blinken Ponders The Post-Ukraine-War Order (Ignatius)

The Biden administration, convinced that Vladimir Putin has failed in his attempt to erase Ukraine, has begun planning for an eventual postwar military balance that will help Kyiv deter any repetition of Russia’s brutal invasion. Secretary of State Antony Blinken outlined his strategy for the Ukrainian endgame and postwar deterrence during an interview on Monday at the State Department. The conversation offered an unusual exploration of some of the trickiest issues surrounding resolution of a Ukraine conflict that has threatened the global order. Blinken explicitly commended Germany’s military backing for Ukraine at a time when Berlin is getting hammered by some other NATO allies for not providing Leopard tanks quickly to Kyiv.

“Nobody would have predicted the extent of Germany’s military support” when the war began, Blinken said. “This is a sea change we should recognize.” He also underlined President Biden’s determination to avoid direct military conflict with Russia, even as U.S. weapons help pulverize Putin’s invasion force. “Biden has always been emphatic that one of his requirements in Ukraine is that there be no World War III,” Blinken said. Russia’s colossal failure to achieve its military goals, Blinken believes, should now spur the United States and its allies to begin thinking about the shape of postwar Ukraine — and how to create a just and durable peace that upholds Ukraine’s territorial integrity and allows it to deter and, if necessary, defend against any future aggression. In other words, Russia should not be able to rest, regroup and reattack.

Blinken’s deterrence framework is somewhat different from last year’s discussions with Kyiv about security guarantees similar to NATO’s Article 5. Rather than such a formal treaty pledge, some U.S. officials increasingly believe the key is to give Ukraine the tools it needs to defend itself. Security will be ensured by potent weapons systems — especially armor and air defense — along with a strong, noncorrupt economy and membership in the European Union. The Pentagon’s current stress on providing Kyiv with weapons and training for maneuver warfare reflects this long-term goal of deterrence. “The importance of maneuver weapons isn’t just to give Ukraine strength now to regain territory but as a deterrent against future Russian attacks,” explained a State Department official familiar with Blinken’s thinking. “Maneuver is the future.”

The conversation with Blinken offered some hints about the intense discussions that have gone on for months within the administration about how the war in Ukraine can be ended and future peace maintained. The administration’s standard formula is that all decisions must ultimately be made by Ukraine, and Blinken reiterated that line. He also backs Ukraine’s desire for significant battlefield gains this year. But the State Department, Pentagon and National Security Council are also thinking ahead. Crimea is a particular point of discussion. There is a widespread view in Washington and Kyiv that regaining Crimea by military force may be impossible. Any Ukrainian military advances this year in Zaporizhzhia oblast, the land bridge that connects Crimea and Russia, could threaten Russian control. But an all-out Ukrainian campaign to seize the Crimean Peninsula is unrealistic, many U.S. and Ukrainian officials believe. That’s partly because Putin has indicated that an assault on Crimea would be a tripwire for nuclear escalation.

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I know, a Russian source, but I get the feeling that the Abrams tanks are not as great as the US makes them out to be.

American Abrams Tanks Vulnerable Even To Soviet-era Weapons (TASS)

American M1 Abrams tanks that Washington has decided to hand over to Kiev as military aid have weaknesses that allowed wiping them out with Soviet weapons, including T-55 tanks, during the conflict in Iraq, armor expert, Candidate of Military Sciences, retired Colonel Sergey Suvorov told TASS on Thursday. M1 Abrams tanks can also be hardly repaired in field conditions and are weakly suited for operation on dusty terrain like in Ukraine, the expert added. US President Joe Biden announced on January 25 that Washington would hand over 31 M1 Abrams tanks to the Kiev regime. Earlier, Germany and Poland made the decisions to supply German-made Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine. It was also reported that the United Kingdom would transfer Challenger 2 tanks to Kiev.

Abrams tanks repeatedly demonstrated their vulnerability during the hostilities in Iraq, the expert pointed out. “As the Iraq combat experience shows, they went up in flames. The tank turret was pierced by a 100mm armor-piercing blunt nose projectile fired by a T-55 tank. There were instances when Abrams vehicles were struck by automatic guns of both Bradley and our BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles,” he said. Instances are also known when the American tank was destroyed by the first Soviet modifications of T-72 tanks firing old shells “that were withdrawn from operational use even before the Abrams concept was devised,” Suvorov said. The expert also pointed to the instances when Abrams tanks were wiped out by RPG-7 anti-tank grenade launchers. An extra powerplant installed in the rear part of the turret to power modern electronic systems is another weak point of later American tank modifications, the expert said.

“It was covered with the armor that can withstand assault rifle bullets but is vulnerable to a 12.7 mm DShK machine gun. It was hit by a DShK and its motor was smashed, oil and fuel went ablaze and spilled down to the main engine located below. The main engine went ablaze and then the tank itself went up in flames and burnt out,” he said. The American tank almost has no chances, if it engages in a duel with Russian tanks, the expert said. “If an Abrams emerges at a long distance, a T-72 or a T-90 crew will fire an anti-tank missile and we can say that the Abrams will even have no chance to fire a shot as its range of fire won’t allow it to do that,” he explained. sHowever, the US tank’s final efficiency depends on the commander’s skills to operate it and trained crews, the expert said.

Apart from the need to fill Abrams tanks with clean jet fuel, they also have more serious operational flaws. In particular, they cannot be repaired in field conditions, the expert said. “Repairs are a major problem. If something breaks down in the powerplant, it has to be pulled out of the tank, taken to a special repair workshop with skilled personnel, disconnected from the gear box and only then repaired,” Suvorov said. The air intake system of US-made Abrams tanks is yet another vulnerability, the expert pointed out. “They feature an air filter that operates similar to the equipment installed in motor vehicles: if it becomes clogged, it has to be taken out and cleaned. Meanwhile, all of our tanks are equipped with cyclone dust collectors that are quite smart devices,” the expert said, adding that an Abrams filter sufficed for just 15 minutes of the tank’s movement along dusty terrain during the Iraq campaign.

Civilian contractors

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A smart voice.

Nobody Told Me We’re At War – Kroatian President (RT)

Commenting on the German foreign minister’s declaration that Europe was “fighting a war against Russia,” Croatian President Zoran Milanovic said on Thursday that this was news to him, and wished Berlin better luck than in WWII. Croatia “should in no way help” Ukraine militarily, Milanovic said while visiting the port city of Split. “Do you want us to enter the war?” Framing the Ukraine conflict as one between Washington and Moscow, he reminded reporters that he was criticized for merely echoing the words of Kiev’s defense minister, about the current conflict being a “proxy war” between NATO and Russia. “Now the German foreign minister says we must be united, because I quote, we are at war with Russia. I didn’t know that,” Milanovic said.

“Maybe Germany is at war with Russia, but then, good luck, maybe this time it turns out better than 70-odd years ago.” The Croatian president was baffled to hear such a claim from the leader of the German Greens, which he said used to be a pacifist party equally against the US and the USSR, and not from Chancellor Olaf Scholz. “If we are at war with Russia, then let’s see what we need to do. But we won’t ask Germany for its opinion,” Milanovic added. “Let them figure out who is the actual chancellor over there. I’ve been in politics for a long time, and our country has been through a lot, but I’ve never seen this kind of madness before.”

When it comes to tanks, “Russian or American, they burn just the same,” Milanovic said, noting that deliveries of armor to Ukraine – announced by the US and Germany this week – will only prolong the fighting, “Those tanks may burn, or they may reach Crimea, but Croatia will have nothing to do with it,” he insisted. The social-democrat president has frequently clashed with the nationalist parliamentary majority over Croatia’s Ukraine policy. Just last month, Milanovic opposed Zagreb’s participation in the EU program to train Ukrainian troops, saying it clashed with Croatia’s constitution. Unless the US and Russia are holding some kind of talks, the world is “slowly sliding into World War Three,” Milanovic added. “Some people think it has already begun, but I have my reservations.”

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“Moscow perceives everything that both the alliance and the capitals I mentioned have been doing as direct involvement in the conflict..”

Involvement Of US, Collective West In Ukraine Conflict Grows – Kremlin (TASS)

The Kremlin sees that the involvement of the United States and the countries of the collective West in the conflict in Ukraine has been growing, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the media on Thursday. “There have been repeated statements from the European capitals and from Washington that the sending of various weapons systems, including tanks, to Ukraine by no means signifies the involvement of these countries or the [North Atlantic] Alliance in the hostilities in Ukraine. We strongly disagree with this. Moscow perceives everything that both the alliance and the capitals I mentioned have been doing as direct involvement in the conflict. We see that it is growing,” Peskov said.


Earlier, US President Joe Biden claimed that Washington’s decision to supply tanks to Ukraine was not about a fight against Russia, but a fight for “freedom.” In addition, Biden alleged that the supply of tanks did not imply a threat to Russia. In response to an elaborative question whether the Kremlin believed in the sincerity of these words, Peskov replied: “Please, use what I’ve just said as a benchmark.” Earlier, it was reported that Germany and the United States decided to provide Ukraine with Leopard 2 and Abrams tanks. According to various media resources, some European countries also intend to join these deliveries.

Baerbock
https://twitter.com/i/status/1618380112214519814

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This is pure semantics. Message to the home front. Don’t worry, we’re all innocent and in the clear…

France Denies The West Is At War With Russia (RT)

Just because the US, Germany and several other countries announced they would be supplying Ukraine with main battle tanks doesn’t mean NATO is at war with Moscow, the French Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday. The comments from Quai d’Orsay come after the controversial speech by German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock in the European Parliament earlier this week. “We are not at war with Russia and none of our partners are,” ministry spokeswoman Anne-Claire Legendre said on Thursday, according to AFP. “The delivery of military equipment… does not constitute co-belligerence.” The day before, Washington announced it would send more than 30 of its M1 Abrams tanks to Kiev, while Berlin said it would contribute over a dozen Leopard II panzers and not stand in the way of Poland and other EU and NATO members who wish to hand theirs over to Ukraine as well.

Seeking to drum up support for tank deliveries on Tuesday, Baerbock told the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) that the EU must move in lockstep “because we are fighting a war against Russia and not against each other.” Asked to clarify her comments, the German Foreign Ministry said that Russia had launched a “war of aggression” against Ukraine and that international law was “clear” that Berlin’s support for Kiev’s “individual right of self-defense, guaranteed by the UN Charter, does not make Germany a party to the conflict.”

On Wednesday, French PM Elisabeth Borne told the parliament in Paris that her government was “continuing our analysis” of the proposal to send Leclerc tanks to Ukraine. France has already promised Kiev a number of AMX-10 “light tanks,” earlier this month. Meanwhile, French FM Catherine Colonna visited Ukraine on Thursday, meeting with her counterpart Dmitry Kuleba in Odessa to “show France’s long-term support” and “assess Ukraine’s urgent needs in the humanitarian and military sectors in order to provide concrete responses,” according to a press release from Quai d’Orsay.

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Impossible until recently. What this tells you is that Ukraine is losing. Bigly.

West Discussing Handover Of Fighter Jets To Kiev – Politico (TASS)

The Western countries are in internal discussions about the possibility of supplying fighter jets to Ukraine, but many fear that such a decision could lead to an escalation of the conflict. As the newspaper Politico said on Thursday, according to a number of Western diplomats and representatives of military circles, Ukraine and the Baltic countries are in favor of this idea. “The next natural step would be fighters,” a diplomat from a northern European country said. For its part Washington has told Kiev that supplying aircraft is a “no-go, for the moment,” the diplomat quoted above said, but added: “There’s a red line there – but last summer we had a red line on the HIMARS [multiple rocket launchers], and that moved. Then it was battle tanks, and that’s moving.” A second diplomatic source from a European power told Politico that “fighters are completely unconceivable today,” but there might be a discussion “in two or three weeks.”


The newspaper says the debate will likely prove even more contentious than the row over supplying tanks. At the same time, in Europe, multiple officials and diplomats said their governments no longer consider the idea a non-starter, but “fears of escalation remain high.” Some officials believe that next month’s discussion at Ramstein will be more focused on thrashing out “a contingency plan, in case jet fighters are urgently needed at some future point, rather than on striking a deal on near-term deliveries.” European diplomats agree that the West will first want to exhaust all other options for air support, including more attack drones and possibly long-range missiles, Politico says. Besides, sending aircraft would be a serious logistical undertaking for Ukraine’s allies, the newspaper notes.

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“..he never solved the Donbass problem, he reneged on the Minsk Agreements, moreover, it turned out that he never planned to implement them, as he had been preparing for war,”

Kremlin Rules Out Any Talks Between Zelensky, Putin (TASS)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky stopped being a possible interlocutor for Russian President Vladimir Putin long ago, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday as he commented on a remark by the Ukrainian leader which said he was `not interested’ in meeting Putin for peace talks. “We know what promises Zelensky made during his presidential campaign, and it is not difficult to remember them or refresh the memory of those voters who elected him in Ukraine: he never solved the Donbass problem, he reneged on the Minsk Agreements, moreover, it turned out that he never planned to implement them, as he had been preparing for war,” Peskov said.


“This is why, let’s put it this way, he himself has long ceased to be a potential interlocutor for President Putin,” he added. Earlier on Thursday, Zelensky told Great Britain’s Sky News TV channel that he was “not interested” in peace talks with Putin, saying Putin became “nobody” to him after he launched the special military operation. Zelensky previously decreed to ban negotiations with Russia. Peskov said later that no talks between Moscow and Kiev were currently possible, given there are no conditions for them, whether de facto or de jure.

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To join the sect you must give up your freedom.

The Sect (Dionísio)

As in all sects, there is their own jargon and a tendency toward self-absorption, caused by the closing of the circuit in which they operate. The greater the inability to establish bridges and lines of contact with other existences, the greater the radicalism and sectarianism of their positions, which is embodied precisely in a contradiction they cannot escape: the more they want to drag others along, the more others run away from them. If the reaction of most countries to the conflict in Eastern Europe demonstrates the disconnection between the official narrative propagated in the collective West and the understanding that most nations and the world population have of it, the identification of nations like the RPC, Russian Federation or Iran as aggressor and oppressor entities is something that only fits into the most sectarian minds of the sect, or its followers.

Take, for example, the meeting promoted by the White House for Africa (US-Africa Leaders Summit). At first glance, we could see it as a success; after all, more than 40 African nations attended. There was no shortage of funds either: $55 billion were promised upfront to “help” Africa development, to fight climate change, and to counter terrorism. However, there was a catch: to receive the “investment” one has to “decouple” from the PRC and FR. The usual jargon of “democracy” and “human rights” was well identified, mainly as a way to ensure the maintenance of dollarization through membership in the institutions that impose it (IMF and World Bank). The entire white house was optimistic. However, once again, the bulk of the African envoys cannot have failed to think, “but who does, this sect of Anglo-Saxon white people, think we are? Fools?” International articles rained down saying what we knew right away: “to convince Africa, talk is not enough!”

If ideologies with a connection to reality, it is reality itself that validates the respective theoretical assumptions (easier said than done), sects tend to work the other way around, opting for a more idealistic approach, in the sense that it is reality that has to mold itself to their ideas. The US has not listened to Africa, as it has not listened to others. The US has tried to drag Africa into its presumptuous ideas. When reality – this stubborn inexorable one – insists on not validating the theoretical assumptions that justify the existence of the sect, the sect chooses to wage war against it, identifying the main agents of its transformation and electing them as its enemies. In essence, the whole strategy of “containing China” is a fight against a reality embodied in 5000 years of history. Hence, as the sect that they are, the result is also predictable: either you are with me, or you are against me! The sectarianism of the sect leaves no room for compromise, cooperation or any kind of mutual understanding.

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NABU=National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine. Lots of unrest.

What Spurred Wave Of Resignations Among Senior Ukraine Officials? (Lavrenin)

Against the background of Ukraine’s high-profile political scandals, staff changes in the government are being actively discussed. Among the officials considered next in line for dismissal are Minister of Energy German Galushchenko, Minister of Youth and Sports Vadim Gutzeit (who recently headed the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine), as well as Minister of Strategic Industries Pavel Ryabikin. However, none of these officials have been involved in corruption scandals, so these resignations, should they happen, would likely be for different reasons. All of this leads some journalists to ponder possible large-scale shifts in the government. Lozinsky and Shmigal worked together in the Department of Economic Development in the Lviv Regional State Administration. After Shmigal was appointed Deputy Prime Minister in February 2020, he appointed Lozinsky as his first deputy.

The Prime Minister’s resignation, which would entail the resignation of the entire government, would indeed look like a powerful Zelensky response to corruption scandals. However, this course of events carries serious risks for the authorities, and their are enough to ruin such an intention. For one, the resignation of the government amid corruption scandals creates risks of a political split in the Verkhovna Rada. Furthermore, if the government were to resign, Western countries could set strict conditions on coordinating candidates for the new government. This happened in 2014, when US citizen Natalia Yaresko was appointed Finance Minister to Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s government, and Lithuanian Aivaras Abromavicius was made Minister of Economic Development and Trade.

All this can shake up the system of power and lead to the President’s administration having much less influence over political processes. The current political system is clearly biased towards a single structure: the Office of the President of Ukraine. Following the early parliamentary elections in 2019 and the formation of a majority in the Verkhovna Rada, the entire vertical alignment of power was structured around Zelensky and Yermak, the influence of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine was eliminated, and the information space cleared. The combat operations in Ukraine merely accelerated these processes. In fact, only three powers can now speak out against the Zelensky-Yermak team— Kiev mayor Vitali Klitschko and his cabinet, the army led by Valery Zaluzhny, and US-controlled structures such as NABU and media affiliated with them. At the same time, decisions regarding resignations are made exclusively by Zelensky and Yermak, who by all means wish to hush up the scandals.

Changes are imminent. The Ukrainian President is being pushed towards structural reform from several sides, including his own officials, the government, the power structures, and particularly, foreign benefactors. Major corruption scandals may lead to fall in the Western public’s support of Kiev. After all, Ukraine is a very expensive project, regardless of its geopolitical value. In addition to risky investments and painful costs, its financiers need clarity in terms of internal management control. The US government regularly says that it will finance Ukraine until its victory, but it also has to account for the money it’s splurging. Of course, the quality of work is evaluated by the employer, not the employee, and this case the Americans are the undoubted bosses.

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“Serbia’s position on Kosovo has received support from Russia, China and many other countries – including Ukraine..”

Joining Russia Sanctions Would Be ‘Inappropriate’ – Serbia (RT)

Serbia has not joined the US-EU sanctions against Russia for several reasons that remain valid, Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic said on Thursday, speaking in Ankara after meeting with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu.The European Parliament last week demanded from Belgrade “full alignment” with the bloc’s foreign and security policy – including the embargo against Moscow. Dacic noted that his government has not joined the anti-Russian embargo out of “national and state interests, economic cooperation, as well as problems Serbia has with Kosovo,” referring to the NATO-backed breakaway province. “It would be inappropriate for Serbia to sanction Russia now, and it would be harmful to our interests,” Dacic said.

“That doesn’t mean we won’t do everything to clearly say we don’t support the infringement of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and help as much as we can.” Dacic has sought the support of Türkiye in helping Serbia deal with US and EU pressure over Kosovo. He also indirectly reminded reporters that Ankara has not joined the sanctions against Russia either. “I think Serbia and Türkiye want to be constructive factors of peace and stability,” the Serbian FM said. “Our interest is not to be on anybody’s side in some conflict, we advocate the respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty of every UN member state.” While insisting that Serbia must sanction Russia because of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, the EU and the US also demand Belgrade recognize Kosovo, or face economic and political “consequences.”

Belgrade insists on the principle of territorial integrity because the US and the EU have been pressuring it to recognize Kosovo as an independent state since 2008. NATO troops took control of the province in 1999, after months of bombing Serbia on behalf of ethnic Albanian insurgents. Serbia’s position on Kosovo has received support from Russia, China and many other countries – including Ukraine – on grounds of international law. This is one of the reasons Serbia officially does not recognize Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, Zaporozhye, or even Crimea, as parts of Russia.

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Cooking BRICS+.

Can You Smell What the Year of the Rabbit Is Cooking? (Escobar)

Liu He studied economics at Renmin University in China and got a Master’s from Harvard. Since 2018, he’s one of China’s Vice Premiers – along with Han Zheng, Sun Chunlan, and Hu Chunhua. He’s a Director of the Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission and heads the China Financial Stability and Development Committee. Anyone around the world who wants to know what will drive China’s economy in the Year of the Rabbit must pay attention to Liu He. Davos 2023 has come and gone: an extended exercise in Demented Dystopia with peaks of paroxysm. At least a measure of reality was offered by Liu He’s address. A limited but competent analysis of what he said is infinitely more useful than torrents of barely disguised Sinophobic “research” vomited by U.S. Think Tankland.

Liu He pointed to some key numbers for the Chinese economy in 2022. Overall 3% growth may not be groundbreaking; but what matters is value-added for high-tech manufacturing and equipment manufacturing going up by 7.4% and 5.6% respectively. What this means is that Chinese industrial capacity continues to move up the value chain. Trade, predictably, reigns supreme: the total value of imports and exports reached the equivalent of $6,215 trillion in 2022; that’s an increase of 7.7% over 2021. Liu He also made it clear that improving the wealth of Chinese citizens remains a key priority, as enounced in the 2022 Party Congress: the number of middle class Chinese, by 2035, should jump from the current 400 million to an astonishing 900 million.

Liu He pointedly explained that everything about Chinese reforms revolves around the notion of establishing “a socialist market economy”. This translates as “let the market play a decisive role in resources allocation, let the government play a better role.” That has absolutely nothing to do with Beijing privileging a planned economy. As Liu He detailed, “we will deepen SOE [State-Owned Enterprises] reform, support the private sector, and promote fair competition, anti-monopoly and entrepreneurship.” China is reaching the next level, economically: that translates as building, as fast as possible, an innovation-driven commercial base. Specific targets include finance, tech, and greater productivity in industry, as in applying more robotics.

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“.. drop earlier plans to design a new commodity-linked trade currency because it has been superseded..”

Russia’s Intentions Are Clarifying (Alasdair Macleod)

We have confirmation from the highest sources that Russia and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) are considering using gold for pan-Asian trade settlements, fully replacing dollars and euros. In an article written for Vedomosti, a Moscow-based Russian newspaper published on 27 December, Sergey Glazyev, a prominent economic adviser to Vladimir Putin who is heading up the Eurasian Economic Union committee charged with devising a replacement for dollars in trade settlements sent a very clear signal to that effect. It appears he will drop earlier plans to design a new commodity-linked trade currency because it has been superseded. Furthermore, increasing numbers of nations have joined or have applied to join the SCO as dialog members, including Saudi Arabia and other important Gulf Cooperation Organisation members.


The economic benefits of discounted energy, China’s investment capital, and sound money are the ingredients for a new, Asia-wide industrial revolution, while the economies of the western alliance sink under rising prices, rising interest rates, collapsing financial markets, and collapsing currencies. While it will mark the end of the road for the western alliance and its fiat currencies, Putin must be careful not to take the blame. Now that the alliance is racking up tanks and other equipment for the Ukrainians, they are actively promoting a new battle, with NATO getting almost directly involved. It is that action which will drive up commodity prices, undermine western financial markets, undermine government finances, and ultimately collapse their currencies. Putin is likely to use NATO’s impetuous action in defence of Ukraine as cover for securing Russia’s future as an Asian superstate, which will be the west’s undoing.

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James O’Keeffe: In this video:
-I was locked in a restaurant (possible Unlawful imprisonment)
-I was Assaulted
-Had our IPad destroyed
-Pfizer director said “I’m literally a liar”
-He confirmed hes Boston Consulting and Pfizer
-He said he’s trying to “help the public”

Pfizer Director Physically Assaults James O’Keefe and Veritas Staff (GP)

Jordon Trishton Walker, Pfizer Director of Research and Development, physically assaulted James O’Keefe and Veritas staffers on Thursday. James O’Keefe confronted Walker at a restaurant and showed him the undercover recordings about Pfizer’s plans to potentially mutate the Covid virus. “You f*cked up!” Walker shouted before destroying the iPad showing the PV undercover recordings about the “mutating” Covid virus. Project Veritas on Wednesday night released explosive video of Jordon Trishton Walker, Pfizer Director of Research and Development, Strategic Operations, admitting the pharma giant is exploring ‘mutating’ Covid-19 via ‘directed evolution’ so the company can continue to profit off of vaccines.


“One of the things we’re exploring is like, why don’t we just mutate it [COVID] ourselves so we could create — preemptively develop new vaccines, right? So, we have to do that. If we’re gonna do that though, there’s a risk of like, as you could imagine — no one wants to be having a pharma company mutating f**king viruses,” Walker told the undercover Project Veritas journalist. “Don’t tell anyone. Promise you won’t tell anyone. The way it [the experiment] would work is that we put the virus in monkeys, and we successively cause them to keep infecting each other, and we collect serial samples from them,” he said in the undercover recordings. “I’m just someone who’s working in a company that’s trying to literally help the public,” Walker said during the confrontation. Walker insisted he was just ‘trying to impress his date.’ The NYPD responded to the assault.

Read more …

George Webb doesn’t buy the video’s. And he’s also still after Robert Malone…

 

 

And Marco Rubio asks questions about the video’s.

Marco Rubio Letter To Albert Bourla (rubio.senate.gov)

Dear Dr. Bourla: I write in response to troubling reports on Pfizer’s intention to mutate the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID) virus through gain-of-function, or “directed evolution,” as detailed by Pfizer Director of Research and Development, Jordan Walker.i As has been proven time and time again, attempts to mutate a virus, particularly one as potent as COVID, are dangerous. If the claims detailed in the video are true, Pfizer has put its desire for profit over the concern of national and global health and must hold itself accountable. In a video released by Project Veritas on January 25, 2023, Mr. Walker laid out Pfizer’s plans to develop new vaccines for future variants of COVID by mutating the virus through directed evolution, a process that uses protein engineering to impose natural selection on a living organism or other biological materials, including viruses. Though he claimed the research is currently “exploratory,” he detailed how the research would proceed, such as how scientists would inject the mutated viruses into monkeys and collect serial samples from other monkeys who are infected.

Whether it’s gain of function research, or selected structure mutations through directed evolution, as Mr. Walker claimed would occur, any effort to make a virus more transmittable and deadlier is careless and dangerous. Further, Mr. Walker stated that Pfizer is willing to engage in this dangerous research because COVID and its variants are “a cash cow” for the company and regulators will go easy on their efforts because a significant percentage of government officials aim to work for Pfizer and other biopharmaceutical companies and do not want to compromise their future job prospects. As a company that claims to “innovate every day to make the world a healthier place,” these claims from your leadership charged with research and development are alarming. As the American people deserve to know, I request that you provide the following information:

1. What efforts is Pfizer currently, or planning to, engage in to mutate the SARS-CoV-2 virus?
2. Does Pfizer intend to continue mutating the SARS-CoV-2 virus through gain-offunction, or directed evolution research, with the purpose of creating new vaccines before the variant is present in the greater population?
3. Has Pfizer engaged with federal officials engaged regarding their plans to oversee this research? Please provide the names and agencies for these individuals.
4. What steps has Pfizer taken to ensure the mutated virus does not leak from the laboratory and infect the greater population?
5. Has Pfizer engaged with other biopharmaceutical companies to collaborate on this research effort? Please list the entities that you have been in contact with.
6. Will you commit to halting any future research that mutates the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine as substantial evidence has indicated that similar dangerous research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology very likely led to the initial emergence and global spread of the virus?

As a leader in global public health and development of the COVID vaccine, with American taxpayer dollars, it is critical that Pfizer is accountable for their actions and be transparent with the public on the substance and intent of their research. Thank you for your attention to this matter. I look forward to your prompt response.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Chicken conspiracy

 

 

SM-102

 

 

Yeadon

 

 

 

 


The Kailasa temple in the Ellora Caves, Maharashtra, India is a megalith carved out of one single rock and it is considered one of the most remarkable cave temples in India because of its size, architecture and sculptural treatment

 

 


David Edgar took this photo of an adolescent humpback whale in the South Pacific, several miles off the coast of Tongatapu, Tonga, capturing it as a split-shot with half the dome port submerged, and the other above the surface

 

 


The golden pheasant is possibily the most impressively colored bird of the family Phasianidae

 

 

Earth family

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Home Forums Debt Rattle January 27 2023

Viewing 40 posts - 41 through 80 (of 146 total)
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  • #127377
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Today’s C&Hobbes sums up, for me, basic human socialization.

    #127378
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    Humanity is a death cult, comma . . . .with more than half of them trying to escape, and the remaining hard core cultists trying to drag them back in to die.

    #127379
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    Who’s feeding their chickens bag feed? That’s not very economical.

    It may depend upon where one lives. There is a local co-op where I could get feed, organic, milled to specifications of the co-op, but it is inconvenient (pickup is over 3 days once per quarter), and costs at least 50% more than commercial feed. (I last checked this out about 5 years ago.). Recently, I did an experiment with making my own feed — buying bulk popcorn and split peas from WinCo, etc., and the cost is more than double commercial feed. (I was experimenting with a manual mill — if I were to do this routinely I would have to have an electric mill. Or, I could cook the corn and peas/beans daily to soften it — who am I fooling? I won’t get this done.). Also, the hens are messy and tend to spill the more fine bits onto the ground, wasting a fair amount. With commercial pelletized food, the hens still spill it on the ground, but then they eat the pellets off of the ground. Both my hand ground feed and the feed from the local co-op have this problem. (It seems the way around it would be to make up a mash for the hens daily.)

    I purchase high-protein feed for the hens, and supplement it liberally with kitchen scraps, and pulled weeds and they forage a bit in their yard, (I witnessed a hen finding a big, juicy grub in their yard a couple days ago, gleefully gobbling it up,) and around the backyard when they hop out of their designated area.

    #127380
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “Many of us might presume Boscohorowitz to be the most Left yet, but is he really more Libertarian than Dr. D?”

    The latter, by far. I thought I was a liberal long ago. But I found myself surrounded more and more by people who quaintly who call themselves conservatives and others who call themselves, with considerably more validity in my eyes, libertarians… with whom I disagree more than not. as should be. Libertarianism is useless in partisan politics. Russell Kirk’s “chirping secretaries”. But one-on-one, it’s a solid martial art… since politics is the art of democratic social cooperation aimed at destroying or enslaving those outside your group.

    Incidentally, I hadn’t read jb-hb’s remarks on Laotzu until writing my post also touching on that. Something in the water today?

    #127381
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    it’s a solid martial art… since as are politics

    #127382
    jb-hb
    Participant

    Humanity is not a death cult.

    #127383
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “… men have been running in all directions. How can they find time to be human?”

    There it is.

    #127384
    John Day
    Participant

    Epstein’s “dead ringer” did not have the same ear whorls as Jeff did. A lot went on that night.
    https://www.johndayblog.com/2019/08/epsteins-dead-ringer.html
    Epstein's dead ringer

    #127385
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “I was just shocked by it, being a Green myself, and I want other people to be shocked. Besides, the German Green Party is the most powerful, preeminent Green party in the world. And we JUST watched the Green Minister be the one who declares and approves and authorizes WWIII in public. What do you want me to say?”

    Whatever you like, sir. I’m merely a commentator, not a policy maker. that said, this: “I was just shocked by it, being a Green myself, and I want other people to be shocked. ” is a defense of propaganda over rational factuality.

    i BRIEFLY WORKED WITH TH4 sPOKANE gREEN CHAPTER IN THE EARLY oUGHTS. nICE PEOPLE(CAPS oops), virtually no sense of political pragmatism, and yes, very much a promoter of what we now call ‘woke’,culture. Somehow, it survived long enough to be coopted into power, I reckon.

    The ideals and values underlying original Greenism are nice and all; I love ’em. But they are not something that can be done in groups of billions of homo saps. Pert near the only thing that can be done in numbers that large is what we see: collapse.

    The day we invented archery we created federalism, because the ability to kill at a far distance (often anonymously) is so destabilizing we feel compelled gather in ever larger groups to survive the arms race that humans call “progress”.

    Globalism fails if only because we can’t maintain group solidarity without Someone to Hate. It forces us to begin turning around toward what we’re supposed to do with each other:

    1984 love theme

    ***

    Just cuz:

    #127386
    Noirette
    Participant

    Blinken concedes War is Lost – by Helmer, top post.

    Heh, it is not up to Blinkin’ (the orig. name) to declare any such thing. Specially not as – *Lost * – !

    Careful Diplo speak might be put forward, the time for negotiations has come, or some such attempt…

    Helmer is sometimes a good read but also imho a major gossip purveyor, via contacts he calls on the telephone, telefonio, cell, etc. He is the ‘Gossip Colummn of Celebrities’ (idk, a name in the US) but as in the Intl. geo-politics game. So, sometimes he is bang on, other times it is BS, it is all rather ‘light’ at heart, superficial takes.

    The US + its poodles (UK, EU, NATO..) are not giving up, are not backing down, are escalating (even if they are terrified about the results and really have No Clue where they are going) so any public criticism of that stance is blanked out, repressed.

    Imho ‘peace’ offers by the W such as quoted, are duplicitious proposals, they serve to later go on to claim, the Russkies did not accept any peace deals, so we had no choice but to persevere, march forward, etc. That message > the public in the ‘Collective West’ is actioned to keep ppl in the W on board with moves that slip towards creating a horrific WW3.

    #127387
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “I was just shocked by it, being a Green myself, and I want other people to be shocked. ”

    I want others to be shocked is a big part of how honest climatologists bent some rules in order to convince people to pay attention to global climate concepts. It’s called ly-ing, that word you aim at others so much.

    What others, even Others, do is immeasurably less important than what oneself does, beginning with breathing.

    I don’t see why my pointing this out should bother you so much.

    #127388
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Epstein has to be alive and well or else we’d be flood with images of political figures as pedophilic porn stars.

    #127389
    jb-hb
    Participant

    I want others to be shocked is a big part of how honest climatologists bent some rules in order to convince people to pay attention to global climate concepts

    Er, war is a lot more warlike than peace

    Depleted uranium not to mention nuclear fallout is quite a lot worse for the environment than carbon.

    The peace/environment party thinks they can openly advocate war and the worst available methods for destroying the environment – in order to call proper attention to peace and environmental concerns?

    I guess ah… nothing rouses people to anti-war sentiment like war, so our highest duty as Greens is to start and escalate wars.

    #127390
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “Humanity is not a death cult.”

    I agree. I was disingenuously attempting to deconstruct this ‘death cult’ stuff by taking it over the top. That said, I have no idea WHAT humanity is, even though I’m a human (or so my birth certificate says), so humanity actually could be a death cult for all I know.

    But saying that humanity, or political faction X, is a ‘death cult’ boils down to tabloid sensationalism, sound and fury signifying not very much if anything beyond sound and fury.

    Closest thing I’ve seen to a death cult in our times is, for example, the ‘Tide pod’ internet challenge, or major deep criminal organizations. Gubmints are of course major deep criminal orgs, and their purpose is to Kill the Other Guy so He Don’t Kill Us; but gubmints aren’t cults.

    Cult is a metaphor, and it fits poorly here. It’s like calling McDonald’s a hamburger cult. McD is a franchise food business, and a gubmint is a gubmint. Used now and then, ‘death cult’ has something to say about TPTB. But used chronically as a label, it becomes just another lie, however unwittingly.

    Humanity is not a death cult. But politics is defined by who dies not by who wins, so one could call human politics in general a death cult if it weren’t that human politics are way too big and open to be occult. Yes, politics is full of secrets but it has to happen on an open stage or no longer be politics but mere conspiracy.

    You can see me talking in circles here, and that’s partly my point: we don’t know what this stuff is, including us.

    All that said, whatever humanity is, it sure kills a lot of creatures. Hell, we’ve declared war on microbes. Germs Must Die!

    #127391
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    I do not know how many people will die or become catastrophically ill from the vax, but I do know what will happen to every person who is emotionally bonded to those victims. They will, at best, become barely functional for an extended period of time of at least 1-3 years, and remain seriously emotionally and cognitively impacted (not entirely for the worse, but mostly so) for the remainder of their own lives.

    If the number of dead and injured exceeds a certain proportion (and once again, that is a number that I do not know) then civilization itself will consequently be severely operationally degraded for that time period as well. Perhaps 3 or 4 generations, guesstimate. Compare the Bronze Age Collapse (1,200 BCE) or Europe’s slow recovery from the Black Death ( starting 1350 CE).

    The above scenario is already locked in because large numbers of people have been poisoned (though not all to the same degree). It’s a done deed.

    The other aspects of the deliberately engineered “polycrisis” will play out in more complexly variable ways, but the impact of extensive excess deaths is a lock-cinch, and must be reckoned in to the other calculations accordingly.

    Tough times in any case. But we’re tough.

    #127392
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “Er, war is a lot more warlike than peace Depleted uranium not to mention nuclear fallout is quite a lot worse for the environment than carbon.”

    And then you all non sequitur on me. What is the fucking point? Your above has little if anything relevant to my remark about how using propaganda tactics to move a message invites distortion and dishonesty. That is all. I was actually saying something “climate change deniers” should appreciate: that scientists have often lied to us about global warming (and their penis size, and bank account status). I don’t have a horse in this goddam global climate argument shit. We can’t fix the weather whether or not we broke it.

    It’s like one can’t even refer to climate science for any reason without hearing somnambulent voices say: GWarming is Fake! Warming isn’t real!”

    All I have to do is even say the words ‘global warming’ and otherwise brilliant people I believe are smarter than me and more educated than me, go autobot kneejerk Argument Clinic on me. Ho-hum and all that.

    I.Don’t.Care. This is a group text exchange where people talk, period. Other than Raul feeding some people when we’re decent enough to help him, this is just a talk-box. We don’t fix the weather or the medical system or Peak Oil or nuttin. We.Just.Talk. Which is fine, but that is also all that it is: a chatterdom.

    This being just a talk-box, I have one single discursive priority: rhetorical hygiene. Accurate data in relevant context. Finding some truth. I try to enjoy myself in the process, but that is a sideline. I don’t want to convince anyone or be convinced of anything… except maybe to smile of they can and feel better if possible.

    #127393
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “I do not know how many people will die or become catastrophically ill from the vax, but I do know what will happen to every person who is emotionally bonded to those victims. They will, at best, become barely functional for an extended period of time of at least 1-3 years, and remain seriously emotionally and cognitively impacted (not entirely for the worse, but mostly so) for the remainder of their own lives.”

    This states well why I take such offense against TVASF!!!!!

    It has zero positive benefit, but much negative effect. It is both mean and stupid.

    Yes, the vaxxed are really really fucked, and yes, some people talk as if the vaxxed deserve it… but talk is cheap and life is dear. WHen death touches one closely, one learns a bit of respect for victims.

    Father and mother, vaxxed, both die, leaving two unvaxxed orphans. Who is the most fucked? What is the most deserving of consideration: calling the vaxxed stupid losers, or considering what to do for those left?

    TVASF!!! is not a thing I can even consider respecting.

    #127394
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    “rhetorical hygiene”

    A meme with legs. A term is born. The language grows. Well done, Boz!

    #127395
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Last year, I took an ancient short story I’d written ages ago, about Santa, worked on it, and it insisted on becoming a novel.

    But I’m physically weak and emotionally fragile these days, so it languished most of this year along with several other miscarried novels. But I’ve almost got the corpse reanimated. Anyway, I wrote the following and thought many of us here would understand it. This is Santa talking:

    “I talk myself out of suicide by going on random rampage acts of massive kindness. I usually end up in a fight, but no good deed goes unpunished, and even punished good deeds are uplifting to the soul.”

    ***

    “Well done, Boz!”

    OK, DB. If you must refer to me personally, go for it. I bear you no ill will. I’m just a stickler about deals. The inability to make honest balanced deals — especially in contentious times — is one way to describe why we can have/make nice things, but can’t keep them and in the end usually destroy them.

    ***

    Smile, Please

    You can shoot me if you like. Free will and all that. But if you don’t smile, you won’t go to heaven. Also, if you’re frowning, I might draw and shoot you first. Never let them see you coming is a psychopathic serial killer’s primary rule.

    Smile if you mean it, smile if you don’t. Just smile.

    Or Else

    #127396
    jb-hb
    Participant

    D Benton Smith – THANK you. Yes, that was something that weighed on me too. This is massive and all-encompassing. The costs to society are civilization changing even if there are no puppetmasters. And the die is cast – damage done.

    When the injection requirements were announced by my employer and I was pacing alone in my room for months mulling this over, I thought about how inevitably difficult it was actually going to be – whether I agreed or not. Difficult for me, my wife, my family, my coworkers… and of course however high a hierarchy you want to proceed up to. Just like you said so accurately and eloquently. The image in my head – a not terribly strong nor powerful man standing under a looming mushroom cloud or giant monolith that dwarfs him. What’s HE gonna do about that?

    The zeitgeist has been almost as poisonous as the shots. Basically assume there’s a bad faith actor on the other side of the table who only wants to demoralize you and never reveals any of their actual beliefs, values, goals. Just wants to jam poison down your throat.

    I tried changing the channel. Since 2020, I’ve watched almost exclusively black & white films. It’s been wonderful. I’ve never come across the same plot twice. The dialogue is often incredibly witty. I don’t come away from entertainment feeling sick to my stomach anymore. (just type “film noir” into Youtube search for infinite free films)

    For music, one of the things I did was a deep dive into the 80’s. A more innocent, hopeful time.

    I found a lost gem of 80’s AOR. Patty Smyth’s Never Enough album. IF you are into 80’s AOR, it’s just great – killer team of musicians (the Hooters, Anton Fig, Tim Pierce, David Sanborn, etc) great production (same producer as She’s So Unusual)

    You can tell a lot about a culture from their art.

    Patty Smyth’s album paints life as an adventure — not a sanitized disney adventure. An actual adventure in which you get punched in the face but must presume you are tough enough, where dying on the wire in ww1 with every bone broken can be a fulfilling and satisfying ending to your life, a world where not only villains, but heroes lurk in the darkness of dangerous, filthy alleyways. The world BEING a series of family dinner tables, battlefields and gritty streets which we forge into and find love, tragedy, art, adventure.

    Certainly a culture that WASN’T a death cult. A culture that thought it was free although not safe and protected by any means. And not just free, but, I suppose, granularly multi-polar? All of us leading our personal adventures adding up to the world? And an overall sentiment that Saw That It Was Good?

    For a year straight, during the lockdowns and insanity, every morning, I’d put on the headphones, face the sunrise, literally put a hand on my heart and hit play on this album. THIS is my country. THIS is my flag, my pledge of allegiance. This world of imperfection, danger, beauty, freedom. And it’s just an overlooked well-done 80’s AOR album. There is no specific concept, no profound statement in it. Certainly I’m into a lot of different music that’s a lot better than this, but still. All these little private passions and perils, the fact that they ARE little and personal made it matter for me.

    And returning to the subject of being fully aware of personal ruination simultaneous with bronze age collapse WHILE trying to decide whether to knuckle under and take the shot, aside from you guys saving my life, one song did on that album. Call to Heaven.

    I paced in that room and thought about what was at stake, how little I am, what I can or should do, how valuable my own little life is in the scheme of things. I thought about how the world might turn into one giant hospice and it would be the duty of us uninjected to care for the injected – that someone MUST stay uninjected no matter what or who WILL care for them? (one of the arguments I sent to my employer for an exemption that was denied)

    It’s just a silly 80’s album. There’s a youtube comment giving time stamps for each song – anyone curious CAN just skip to Call to Heaven and reflect on how listening to this 1,000 times might steel someone for the world turning into a hospice while dark and petty forces descend upon them personally. But I find there’s something vital about it, an implicit alternate worldview. Enjoy if you like.

    #127397
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    Dear Boz,

    I have not reneged on the deal nor do I have any intention to do so in the foreseeable future, however, it is occasionally necessary structure a sentence or paragraph in such a way that it makes grammatical and logical sense to the general reader. I have, and continue, to avoid those situations when possible, but sometimes it just don’t work. When that happens the reader is expected to not take it personally, but to recognize that the author is merely (and impersonally) adhering to the principle of rhetorical hygiene.

    #127398
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    I LOVED jb-hb’s above post. Especially:

    “Patty Smyth’s album paints life as an adventure — not a sanitized disney adventure. An actual adventure in which you get punched in the face but must presume you are tough enough, where dying on the wire in ww1 with every bone broken can be a fulfilling and satisfying ending to your life, a world where not only villains, but heroes lurk in the darkness of dangerous, filthy alleyways. The world BEING a series of family dinner tables, battlefields and gritty streets which we forge into and find love, tragedy, art, adventure.”

    Over the post-Enlightenment century, we’ve sacrificed what reality has to offer us for an ever-expanding dream of utopia that turns into shredded delusions.

    B&W? You might enjoy this. It’s overwrought but oh well:

    “Carlton was born in 1921. Carlton’s memories start in 1923. That was a time, the 1920s. The peoples of the developed world read magazines with photographs of the world and beyond, passing them around like binoculars at a nudist beach. They saw the world moving by ever faster and farther through train windows and car windshields while still paying city employees to sweep up horse dung. Everyone looked up: at skyscrapers, at sky-writing that melted into alphabet smoke, at searchights sweeping night skies for world premiers or arriving zeppelins. Riding shotgun in the catbird seat of all three new media — radio’s copper coils and glow-tubes, Victrola records’ spinning vortex into the sonic past, cinema’s interdimensional portal screen to anywhere you could imagine — sat jazz. A space virus sent by mutant messengers from outer space to infect us with the jitterbug.

    Having monitored us closely from afar since we began stacking bricks higher than our heads, cosmic beings saw the lightning of 1920 neon New York City, and knew they would soon hear the thunder of thermonuclear war. So they gave us jazz, which alone can set Earthlings free and make them groovy. Hopefully save us but if not show us a good time until The End.

    Jazz? Jazz. The first global music. American jazz records flew through the radio ether like so many flying saucers spinning high jive, sowing the spores of swing at light speed.

    America, in the 1920s, formed the global spindle of the world’s first universal music box, infecting other nations so rapidly that by 1935, anyone who lived near a movie theater or had a record player knew that snapping your fingers to the beat was the coolest possible move and most likely to get you laid.

    Carlton grew up with this stuff. He heard Louis Armstrong when he was seven years old. He watched all the snappy big teenage guys wear ugly fat rubber-soled policeman shoes because Louis did, and what Satchmo did was even cooler than Hendrix was to hippies.

    Jazz 2.0, the Armstrong Revolution if you will, arrived in time to soften the bad Depression years of 1929-1933, after which Prohibition was revoked just in time to put moonshining out of business just when unemployed people needed a black market income most. Despite the harsh economics, by the time the Manhattan Project began work on the first atomic bomb everyone was jiving even as they slaughtered each other like a Veg-O-Matical infommercial for new-and-improved hell on earth. With a good beat that was easy to dance to, jazz.

    And they danced. Never before or since has anything like the Jitterbug dance craze stirred people’s bones. It was like Native American fancy-dancing but with two people holding each other as a mutual flying trapeze. Crazy, man, crazy. At last, a music for manic primates in slick suits. Too soon the moon, I’m flyin too high. One is cool simply because one is, and the only rule is Don’t Bug Me, Man, And I Won’t Bug You.

    Our alien benefactors have been trying to teach us to be cool and love one another since they saw us building pyramids, and decided to spread the crazy notion that all good slave-dogs go to heaven, too, not just the Pharaoh and his fatass family. The aliens spread that love one another stuff everywhere but couldn’t find a deep enough cultural carrier wave until it was almost too late: jazz. The music of the gods. Be still and know that I Am Cool, saith the lord.

    Coolness: the ultimate secret handshake that everyone knows. The carrier wave for a dawning global consciousness which alone can save humanity (and the earth) from humanity. Without jazz, we would not have songs with titles like Return to Tralfamadore, or Superman Jones, or Miss Thing, and without song titles like that, how can we possibly find our way through? Even if it can’t save us from ourselves, it has improved everyone’s sex life that yielded to its riffs.

    Carlton was infected from the start, and his fever burns unabated even today, when a side of Basie for breakfast can transform him from a stiffly shivering old mutt barely able to use a walker, into a smartass who can strut all the way from the kitchen to his den with just a cane.”
    copyright madamski/boscohorowitz/robin morrison

    Miss Thing Swings

    ***

    Cannons roared, in the valley they thundered
    While the guns lit up the night
    Then it rained and both sides wondered
    Who is wrong and who is right
    On the wire like a ragged old scarecrow
    Bloody hands and broken back
    When they fire see him pirouette solo
    Jump in time to the rat-a-tat
    What a night though it’s one of seven
    What a night for the dancing dead
    What a night to be called to heaven
    What a picture to fill your head
    By the wall in silhouette standing
    Through a flash of sudden light
    Cigarette from his mouth just hanging
    Paper square to his heart pinned tight
    Gather ’round reluctant marksmen
    One of them to take his life
    With a smile he gives them pardon
    Leaves the dark and takes the light
    What a night though it’s one of seven
    What a night for the dancing dead
    What a night to be called to heaven
    What a picture to fill your head
    By the wall in silhouette standing
    They dispatch their precious cargo
    Knock him back right off his feet
    And they pray may no one follow
    Better still to face the beast
    When the field has become a garden
    And the wall has stood the test
    Children play and the dogs run barking
    Who would think or who would guess
    What a night though it’s one of seven
    What a night for the dancing dead
    What a night to be called to heaven
    What a picture to fill your head

    ***

    btw, I LOVE tales of personal courage.

    #127400
    John Day
    Participant

    “Jordon Trishton Walker MD” post won’t upload, so Substack links remain blocked. I’ll gap between dot and com again.
    https://drjohnsblog.substack. com/p/jordan-trishton-walker-md

    #127401
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    A deal is a deal, DB. That statement is practically a palindrome as well as a tautology. All niceness aside, you violated the deal because you wanted to not because “When that happens the reader is expected to not take it personally, but to recognize that the author is merely (and impersonally) adhering to the principle of rhetorical hygiene. ‘Well done’ alone would have sufficed.

    Accurate data in relevant context, rhetorical hygiene, etc., period. A deal is a deal, not 99% of a deal.

    #127402
    John Day
    Participant

    The Pfizer executive, Jordan Trishton Walker MD, and this does check out, though Google has scrubbed him for searches, is a real person, a real Pfizer executive, though he may be borrowed into that capacity from another company. Jordan did finish med school and left a Urology residency program for a good job offer.
    Jordan was irate after being tricked on his “third date” with a man working for Project Veritas, and when confronted with this in a cafe, he became irate and combative (video). He was confused as to how to respond, called NYPD, who ended up restraining him.
    Jordan may well have commitments to the US Department of Defense through his various employers. That is not completely clear yet.
    I would put Jordan on Suicide-Watch. Luc in Oz has contributed several of these links. He was up all night (for us Americans)

    Tucker Carlson has a good and succinct synopsis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=t25GxQCHYgA

    News Detectives has this video of the cafe confrontation and his distraught misbehavior when Jordan was confronted with the video evidence from his “date”. His reasonable defense , “I’m a liar. I was lying”.
    https://newsdetectives.substack. com/p/unhinged-pfizer-director-assaults

    Pharmacology executive turned forensic-investigator, Sasha Latypova (who in NOT SUICIDAL AT ALL) has a detailed assessment from yesterday, thinks that Jordan is real, and that big pharma does frequently hire people like this these days, and for practical reasons.
    OMG! Pfizer is MUTATING COVID!!!​ ​​Movie script where “Contagion” meets “Idiocracy”
    https://sashalatypova.substack. com/p/omg-pfizer-is-mutating-covid

    ​ Today’s further corroboration by Sasha Latypova. It is still all checking out. Very good confirmatory statements by James O’Keefe of Project Veritas.
    Another Quick Post on “PfizerMutatingVirusGate”
    ​ ​Funny things: the drunk guy became far less drunk in this section of video footage, and claimed he was lying to impress the date “like all normal men do”. Huh. Interesting part – James says this person is “Boston Consulting and Pfizer”. This refers to outsourcing of everything at Pfizer, as I noted before, including staff.
    https://sashalatypova.substack. com/p/another-quick-post-on-pfizermutatingvirusgate

    ​ Who is Jordan Trishton Walker MD? This is a carefully confirmed and documented bio of this actual person. It all checks out.
    ​https://brianoshea.substack. com/p/who-is-jordon-trishton-walker

    #127403
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Jordon Trishtan Walker is swamping google:

    https://www.google.com/search?q=Jordon+Trishton+Walker+MD&rlz=1C1EJFC_enUS882US882&oq=Jordon+Trishton+Walker+MD&aqs=chrome..69i57.953j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

    Yesterday the name rung null. I think that Veritas might’ve turned itself into a genuine king-maker with this video and those likely to follow. I suspect that Elon Musk is very interested in Veritas about now.

    #127405
    John Day
    Participant

    This is more evidence regarding the Department of Defense ownership of all COVID-19 “vaccine” products, and everything that goes with them, through a chain of custody, covered by Federal laws. (You’re in trouble if you don’t comply with these policies and procedures.)
    Covid Injections: a DOD prototype projec​t​ The prototype shot is government property until it is in your body.
    https://www.covidlawcast.com/p/covid-injections-a-dod-prototype

    ​ US Senator Marco Rubio (R. Fla.) ,who I don’t personally like, has written a letter to Albert Bourla, Pfizer CEO, regarding these latest events and revelations, which is good, because Pfizer won’t get back to Tucker Carlson about it.
    ​https://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/50bc1af2-3c4d-4930-97eb-8f78f4aebc5e/4A586B331CB917CD003F924A77D0867B.01.26.23-smr-letter-to-pfizer-re-covid-mutation-research.pdf

    ​ ​Covid Vaccines Killed 278,000 Americans by the end of 2021, Peer Reviewed Study Finds​ , Igor Chudov has details.
    https://igorchudov.substack. com/p/covid-vaccines-killed-278000-americans

    ​ That study he cites: ​
    The role of social circle COVID-19 illness and vaccination experiences in COVID-19 vaccination decisions: an online survey of the United States population
    https://bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12879-023-07998-3

    2nd Smartest Guy in the World: ​
    Secret Australian Government Reports prove COVID Vaccination has caused a shocking 5162% increase in Excess Deaths compared to the year 2020
    https://www.2ndsmartestguyintheworld.com/p/breaking-secret-australian-government

    #127407
    John Day
    Participant

    Alasdair Macleod, from Goldmoney
    ​ ​We have confirmation from the highest sources that Russia and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) are considering using gold for pan-Asian trade settlements, fully replacing dollars and euros.
    ​ ​In an article written for Vedomosti, a Moscow-based Russian newspaper published on 27 December, Sergey Glazyev, a prominent economic adviser to Vladimir Putin who is heading up the Eurasian Economic Union committee charged with devising a replacement for dollars in trade settlements sent a very clear signal to that effect. It appears he will drop earlier plans to design a new commodity-linked trade currency because it has been superseded.
    https://www.goldmoney.com/research/russia-s-intentions-are-clarifying

    ​ ​France, Croatia Deny ‘West At War With Russia’ After German Foreign Minister Sparks Outrage
    ​ ​On Tuesday, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock ignited a firestorm of debate when she stated that Western allies are fighting a war against Russia – causing many to suggest that she essentially ‘declared war’ on Russia, and contradicting the official stance by saying the quiet part out loud.
    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/madness-france-croatia-deny-west-war-russia-after-german-foreign-minister-comments

    ​ Moon of Alabama: (yeah, duh, even Rand says so) Ukraine – RAND Study Sees Risks In Prolonged War
    https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/01/ukraine-rand-study-sees-risks-in-prolonged-war.html#more

    #127408
    jb-hb
    Participant

    boscohorowitz – ALL of that was a very nice turn of phrase indeed. And the B&W movie I watched last night – as usual – had a scene in which people went to a dance hall and I said again “A shame we all still don’t have this”

    #127409
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Cookies “I lied to impress a date” Nuland

    .

    Chiefess Dominatrix and her brain damagedEurotardistan® are driving the Crazy Train to Armageddon

    She has full control over Eurotardistan®, full control over the Military Industrial Mafia, and full control over “Slow Joe”.

    Blinken is her subordinate, her barking little bitch Arf Arf Antony!

    Last call, All Aboard!

    https://th.bing.com/th/id/OIP.U-1MBG6h7OF_NFQCRhokAgAAAA?w=183&h=274&c=7&r=0&o=5&dpr=1.2&pid=1.7

    #127410
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Close examination of the ear structure isn’t far off a match. I’d say those comparison photos are inconclusive.

    #127411
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    Only the most severely spiritually and mentally ill could actually like death. It is, after all, a failure to succeed in the quest for life. The vast vast majority of living beings prefer life and living.

    And yet, as we all know, organic life . . . with all of the thrills and spills that it enables . . . . is literally and factually impossible without death. Living beings eat living beings, which tends to be quite fatal for the food. In other words, a world without death would necessarily also be a world without life.

    Anyone here up for a world without life?

    #127412
    citizenx
    Participant

    The Mountain Poems of Stonehouse; translated by Red Pine.

    Stonehouse translation is profound.

    Other Red Pine (Bill Porter) translations highly recommended as I’ve studied them with Reverence.

    Bodhidharma

    Diamond Sutra

    Platform Sutra

    Heart Sutra

    Lankavatara Sutra

    Bill Porter (Red Pine) also did two documentaries on the Hermits of China (Taoists, Zen, Buddhists) and a book “Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits”. I’ve met him several times- he exemplifies Jen Ren.

    Recently published is the pocket book “Three Zen Sutras” containing the Heart, Diamond and Platform Sutras by Red Pine

    ….

    Also recommended John Blofeld-

    The Zen Teaching of Huang Po

    Zen Teachings of Instantaneous Awakening (Hui Hai)

    Clear your mind, See your mind, Realize your mind

    #127413
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @boscohorowitz

    See how hard it is to criticize someone you believe to be wrong without directly addressing that person . . . like you just did?

    Fer chrissake, Boz, climb your kindygarden ass out of your “I’m having a tantrum and will hold my breath until you stop being mean to me” sandbox and start acting like an adult.

    #127414
    jb-hb
    Participant

    I would propose a maxim that when a life form becomes intelligent enough to adapt, then it has nature’s sanction to continue to live, as the purpose of its dying was adaptation via slow-thinking/computing DNA.

    If only “They” could see, as a primary goal, simple preservation. Of human life and human nature. So we can live a few hundred years to become wiser-enough to tweak our nature just that little bit so that we can go even longer, become just that little BIT wiser and so on. And the first step on the path of wisdom would be preservation above all else.

    Oh but no they want to become as gods as soon as the coarsest tools become available. Power = make everything into a waking uncontrolled fever-dream where humility, patience and preservation would suffice.

    #127415
    citizenx
    Participant

    @Madamski

    Garbage mind, clear and refine your mind and you’ll have a lot less garbage spewing out incessantly.

    As I’ve stated before, your attention seeking disorder, narcissism and personality disorders are not serving you well. It’s clear as day- or clear as a Temple Bell

    #127416
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    ” “A shame we all still don’t have this””

    First tv, then internet, then cellphones. Reality outside the screen doesn’t know it’s real or just another reality tv show, these days.

    500 years ago, it was luxurious to burn a candle for reading. Imagine spending all winter night in the dark, you and wife and kids all snuggled into the same bed sharing the same vermin. Nothing ‘entertained’ us except when we went to the fair… or talked with each other. Face to face.

    500 years ago, this made sense:

    “Sometimes I just sits and thinks and sometimes I just sits.”

    Hardly anyone sits and thinks anymore, and absence of thought is something gurus preach about but we can hardly do. 400 years ago, Blaise Pascal said, “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

    We can’t stand our own company. There’s an Eskimo saying: “Great wisdom comes from time spent alone in desolate places.”

    We never spend time alone anymore. There’s always some machine chattering at us. I tried to write a story about it once. It opened like this:

    I had a dog, Fresco, when I first brought Errbear home. Fresco tried to eat him. Affectionately, of course. But Errbear’s voice module does excellent mimicry, and Fresco was terrified to hear my voice coming from inside his mouth. He left Errbear alone after that.

    Fresco passed over last year. Errbear has filled that void. Like a savvy new species exploiting an environmental niche, he has found his place in my heart.

    I think of Errbear as a ‘he’. He is ‘they’ in public – my pair of AirBender shoes — and a ‘him’ in private, where he mostly stays of late. He’s kept to home since I coded a secure link between him and my server. Used to be I’d holler ‘Who wants to go for a walk?’ and Errbear would wiggle at the side of my bed while Fresco hunted up the leash. Now that he has private access to one of the world’s bigger quantum mainframes, he mostly stays home. I had to buy another pair of AirBenders to go places. (I was born with horribly flat feet.) Errbear was at first delighted by their presence, like a pair of AirBenders are supposed to be when their owner buys more AirBenders, but gave up talking to them long ago and now pays them only the attention demanded by his programming.

    Calling my new AirBenders ‘them’ reflects the fact that they are legally considered only a pair of shoes, and that both left and right shoes together form the brand of appliance shoes known as AirBenders. Should a hostile personality split occur, neither shoe can forfeit the other’s programming.

    Not that legality means anything to cyberwareness. For Errbear, code is king. Not that artificial sentience derives from computation, that I can tell, anyway, other than that computation is its lifeblood. It grows, maybe, from the shadows of illogic formed by massive layers of algorithmic shuffle. Not that a cyberian (I know everyone hates that term but I’m perverse that way) can see those shadows; it is those shadows. One shoe walking. That’s a Zen joke.

    ***

    I first met Errbear when I took home a sample pair of the glitched shoes to ferret out the problem since AirBenders’ software architecture is my design. We had a production run of AirBenders that did strange things. No one in the company was sharp enough to figure out that what was supposedly a glitch in programming was actually emerging sentience.

    Where was all this spontaneous code gibberish coming from? It had to be fixed. Even impenetrable legal boilerplate wouldn’t protect Frameworks from a pair of AirBenders freaking out and causing some geriatric — AirBenders’ primary market — to fall and break a hip.

    (AirBenders’ Terms of Use contains over 13K words, and makes less sense than an error printout. This is not because of legal incompetence, but rather, the opposite: they’re written to be malleable enough to fit any suit the corp might face in court, the idea not being that we necessarily win but that the proceedings remain as moot as possible while the plaintiff’s financial resources are legally drained. Considering that the best attorneys that money can buy are software platforms, and that human lawyers are usually used only for jury theatrics — a solid actor’s resume is as important as a law degree these days — impenetrable legal logic is the best defense to be had.)

    Shoes That Practically Walk For You, as the inescapable AirBenders ads proclaim, is an expression that should be too silly to consider as anything but a slogan, but AirBenders really do what they claim: they learn how your feet approach the ground, your gait, the average difference between metatarsal tension and pedal arch compression, and bridge a soothing compromise.

    They told me so this morning. I almost always let my things talk to me. Especially the humble appliances so crucial to existence: shoes, beds, toilets. Not because I’m lonely like some people who leave their appliances on to talk among each other, as if they had a house full of guests or an aviary of talking parrots. It’s because my superstitious belief as a Daoist is that all things are best when they do what is natural for them, and it’s natural for my AirBenders to tell me about themselves. It’s what they were designed to do:

    “Performance studies show that we work better when wearers know how we work.”

    “Sort of a placebo effect?”

    “Yes. Knowing how something works increases your conviction that it works in the first place. The industry calls it Ex-En: Explanatory Engagement/Experiential Enhancement. Optimal results happen when you understand how we work. The interface between your body and our shoes melds together in Se-Sy: Serendipitous Synergy. Se-Sy means creative engineering purposely built around a result or epiphany not yet manifested or understood.”

    “I know.”

    “It’s a big word.”

    “It is. Don’t hesitate to offer definitions. I like definitions.”

    They did something to the soles of my feet I think of as a smile. Hard to describe. Like a cat arching its back in a morning sunbeam.

    “Question: do I wear you or do you wear me?”

    “We wear each other.”

    That’s just another slogan. But it sounded sincere.

    “I’m going to enjoy some privacy until noted otherwise, okay?”

    “OK.”

    #127417
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    You can address me all you want, DBS, but I will ignore you and your posts from hereon out. It’s a deal.

    #127418
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    Well in that case I could just change my log-in name to something else (like Madamski, for example) and sneak one in under the radar. By the time you realized it was me it you would have already paid attention until it was too late to ignore me.

    At any rate the new deal is better than the old one, which was becoming a time and attention wasting pain in the butt.

    #127419
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    There are no ‘Green Parties’ anywhere in Oceania. All political parties are owned by the controllers, and those that call themselves ‘Green’ are actually Greed Parties and are Brown and/or Black -being covered in shit and covertly promoting the use of coal and oil.

    Here are some examples of deceit and sabotage by the Greeds of Airstrip Five.

    Promotion of ‘biofuels’ and calls for mandatory inclusion in the fuel mix: promoting the use of food to run vehicles.

    Promotion of tourism as a ‘sustainable’ component of the economy: promoting consumption of fossil fuels and Planetary Meltdown.

    Calls for ‘more QE to stimulate economic growth’: promoting the money-lender’s scam.

    Promoting electric vehicles: promoting resource depletion, use of fossil fuels, Planetary Meltdown and the money-lenders scam all at once.

    So, of course, a Greed Party spokesperson would call for greater efforts and more death and destruction in Oceania’s war with Eurasia.

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

    War is Peace.

    Freedom is Slavery.

    Ignorance is Strength.

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