Jan 312023
 
 January 31, 2023  Posted by at 9:56 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,


John M. Fox WCBS studios, 49 East 52nd Street, NYC 1948

 

The War Against Us (Jim Kunstler)
Ukraine Will Never Retake Crimea – Croatian President (RT)
Is NATO Helping Ukraine Fight Russia Or Using Ukraine To Fight Russia? (Diesen)
Ukrainian PM States Timeline For EU Membership Hopes (RT)
Beijing Explains US Role In Ukraine Conflict (RT)
US Skeptical Of UK Military – Sky News (RT)
Erdogan Questions Macron’s Competence (RT)
Russian Company Offers $70,000 Reward For Destroying NATO Tanks (RT)
If You’re Expecting Redemption… (Denninger)
Why Hasn’t Antarctica Warmed for Over 70 Years Despite Rise in CO2? (DS)
Why Environmentalists May Make This Whale Species Extinct (Public)
Growing Number of Doctors Say They Won’t Get COVID-19 Booster Shots (ET)
Putin Talks Cooperation With Saudi Arabia (RT)
Moscow Provides More Evidence Of US Biolabs In Ukraine (RT)
Does the “Word of a Biden” Extend to the Biden Documents? (Turley)
Elon Musk Mocks Left-wing Think Tank Over Russiagate Claims (RT)
The Press Versus The President, Part One (CJR)

 

 

 

 

Tucker Pfizer

 

 

 

 

Fourth Reich
https://twitter.com/i/status/1619821761239085057

 

 

Joe Rogan cobalt

Rogan diver
https://twitter.com/i/status/1619856341904035840

 

 

Trump Star Wars
https://twitter.com/i/status/1620248325546209280

 

 

 

 

 

 

“..who can tell whether accountability might restore our institutions at this point. We may be too far gone.”

The War Against Us (Jim Kunstler)

All this criminal misconduct is connected in a foul matrix of lawbreaking. The fact-patterns are well-established. Dozens of excellent books have catalogued the misdeed of RussiaGate and scores of websites daily dissect the shady intrigues around the “vaccine” crusade. The infamies of gross election interference have been systematically laid-out in the Twitter Files of the past two months. Many books, published essays, and videos substantiate the reality of massive ballot fraud in 2020 and 2022, including the felonious role of Mark Zuckerberg’s front org, the Center for Tech and Civic Life, and the election law manipulations or Lawfare goblin Marc Elias. There’s an understandable wish that upcoming hearings in Congress will lead to a reckoning for all of this. To banish consequence from public life, as we have done, is a pretty grave insult to nature, but who can tell whether accountability might restore our institutions at this point. We may be too far gone.


The US is visibly collapsing now: our economy, our financial arrangements, our culture, our influence in world affairs, and our basic consensus about reality. We’re entering a phase of disorder and hardship that is likely to moot the further depredations of a government at war with its people. For one thing, it’s becoming impossible to pretend that this vicious leviathan has the money to carry on because the money is only pretending to be money. It’s no wonder that the collective ability for sense-making has failed. It will be quickly restored by each of us in the scramble to survive these disorders and hardships. The bewildering hypotheticals of recent years begin to dissolve like mist on the mountain and things come back into focus: your health, your daily bread, your shelter, your associations with other people close to you, your values, and most of all the power of your own choices. Nature, much insulted and maligned, will sort out the rest.

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Why are the voices of reason always the smaller, less powerful EU nations?

Ukraine Will Never Retake Crimea – Croatian President (RT)

Increasingly lethal military aid to Ukraine from NATO powers is “deeply immoral” and will only extend Kiev’s bloody conflict with Russia, causing more casualties and heightening the risk of nuclear war in a pointless pursuit of absurd goals, Croatian President Zoran Milanovic has claimed. “I am against sending any lethal weapons there,” Milanovic told reporters at a briefing in Petrinja, south of Zagreb. “It’s only prolonging the war. What’s the goal? Carving up Russia? Regime change? They’re talking about partitioning Russia. This is madness.” Milanovic made his comments after the governments of Germany and the US last week announced that they had decided to send battle tanks to Ukraine.

Moscow has warned that such aid creates a greater risk of escalation, especially if Western weapons are used to strike Russian cities or try to seize Russian territory. Nevertheless, Washington and its top NATO allies have pledged to continue arming Ukraine for as long as it takes to win the conflict – however Kiev defines victory. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has vowed to retake all lost territories, including Crimea, which became part of Russia following the overthrow of Kiev’s elected government in 2014. Milanovic argued that Crimea “will never be Ukraine” – a point on which even Germany’s generals agree. “This is deeply immoral, what we’re doing, the collective West,” the Croatian president said. “German tanks will just unite the Russians, and China. My goal is to distance ourselves [Croatia] from it, to not be circus dogs. Any kind of participation in this is deadly dangerous.”

Milanovic said efforts to provoke conflict with Russia had been ongoing since 2014, “and a war broke out.” He warned that NATO leaders shouldn’t assume that they can treat Russia like Serbia, which the Western bloc bombed in 1999 amid violence in Kosovo. The breakaway province later declared its independence from Serbia. “Please understand Russia is not the same as Serbia,” Milanovic said. “That’s a painful fact, and dangerous. We annexed Kosovo, us and the international community. It was taken from Serbia. Did we not do it? Did we not recognize Kosovo? Oh it’s not an annexation, it’s a seizure? Whatever. This isn’t about Kosovo, but about the concept.”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1620116326101712896

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Recommended.

Is NATO Helping Ukraine Fight Russia Or Using Ukraine To Fight Russia? (Diesen)

The Western public, like others, are justly appalled by the human suffering and the horrors of the Ukrainian war. Empathy is one of the great virtues of humanity, which in this instance translates into the demand for helping Ukrainians. Yet, propaganda commonly weaponizes the best in human nature, such as compassion, to bring out the worst. As sympathy and the desire to assist the displaced are used to mobilize public support for confrontation and war with Russia, it is necessary to ask if the Western public and Ukrainians are being manipulated to support a proxy war. The US-led military bloc commonly depicts itself as an innocent third party that merely responds to the overwhelming desire of the Ukrainian people to join its ranks.

Yet, for years NATO has attempted to absorb a reluctant Ukraine into its orbit. A NATO publication from 2011 acknowledged that “The greatest challenge for Ukrainian-NATO relations lies in the perception of NATO among the Ukrainian people. NATO membership is not widely supported in the country, with some polls suggesting that popular support for it at is less than 20%”. In 2014, this problem was resolved by supporting what Statfor’s George Friedman labelled “the most blatant coup in history” as there were no efforts to conceal Western meddling. Regime change was justified as helping Ukrainians with their “democratic revolution”. Yet, it involved the unconstitutional removal of the elected government as a result of an uprising that even the BBC acknowledged did not have majority support amongst the general public.

The authorities elected by the Ukrainian people were replaced by individuals handpicked by Washington. An infamous leaked phone call between State Department apparatchik Victoria Nuland and Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt revealed that Washington had chosen exactly who would be in the new government several weeks before they had even removed president Yanukovich from power. Donbass predictably rejected and resisted the legitimacy of the new regime in Kiev with the support of Russia. Instead of calling for a “unity government”, a plan for which Western European states had signed as guarantors, NATO countries quietly supported an “anti-terrorist operation” against eastern Ukrainians, resulting in at least 14,000 deaths. The Minsk-2 peace agreement of February 2015 produced a path for peace, yet the US and UK sabotaged it for the next 7 years.

Furthermore, Germany’s Angela Merkel and France’s Francois Hollande recently admitted that both Germany and France considered the deal an opportunity to buy time for Ukraine to arm itself and prepare for war. In the 2019 election, millions of Ukrainians were disenfranchised, including those living in Russia. Nevertheless, the result was a landslide with 73% of Ukrainians voting for Vladimir Zelensky’s peace platform based on implementing the Minsk-2 agreement, negotiating with Donbass, protecting the Russian language, and restoring peace with Moscow. However, the far-right militias that were armed and trained by the US effectively laid down a veto by threatening Zelensky and defying him on the front line when he demanded to pull back heavy weapons.

Pressured also by the US, Zelensky eventually reversed the entire peace platform the Ukrainians had voted for. Instead, opposition media and political parties were purged, and the main opposition leader, Viktor Medvedchuk was arrested. Subverting the wishes of Ukrainians in order to steer the country towards confrontation with Russia was yet again referred to as “helping” Ukraine. [..] Following NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s recent Orwellian statement that “weapons are the way to peace”, it is worth assessing if NATO is helping Ukraine or using Ukraine. NATO powers have stated that they are supplying Ukraine with weapons to have a stronger position at the negotiating table, yet one year into the war, no major Western leaders have called for peace talks. NATO has a powerful bargaining chip that would actually help Ukraine, which would be an agreement to end NATO expansion toward Russian borders. However, whitewashing the bloc’s direct contribution to the war prevents a negotiated settlement.

US munitions

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The EU will not survive this.

Ukrainian PM States Timeline For EU Membership Hopes (RT)

Ukraine sees itself as part of the EU in two years, but even its most ardent supporters in the bloc believe that target to be overambitious, Politico reported on Monday. The deadline was set by Prime Minister Denis Shmigal ahead of an EU-Ukraine meeting in Kiev next Friday. “We expect that this year, in 2023, we can already have this pre-entry stage of negotiations,” Shmigal told the news outlet. Ukraine applied for EU candidate status last February, after Russia launched its military operation. Brussels granted Kiev that status in June, though the timing for accession remains a matter of debate. Kiev and its biggest backers, such as Poland, claim Ukraine deserves to be fast-tracked to full membership. More skeptical nations have argued that it may take considerable time before the country meets the criteria.

French President Emmanuel Macron warned in May that the accession process “would probably take several decades,” unless the EU lowers its requirements “and also partially the principles that we hold.” Türkiye has been kept waiting on the EU’s doorstep since 1999, while Ankara’s request to join the European Economic Community, the EU’s predecessor, was filed in 1987. European Council President Charles Michel, who traveled to Kiev earlier this month to offer reassurances that Ukraine will eventually become part of the EU, indicated that the bloc’s leadership has no intention of bending the rules. “If it means changing the rules and procedures, no, because we believe in and defend the rule of law,” Michel said in an interview last week when discussing what fast-tracking Ukraine could mean.

Politico described Shmigal’s deadline as “throwing down a gauntlet to the EU establishment.” The head of the Ukrainian cabinet said he expects progress in specific areas, including the continued suspension of tariffs and quotas for Ukrainian goods, and inclusion into the EU’s mobile roaming area. Kiev could take certain steps to allay any criticism from the EU, such as rolling back controversial legislation which regulates how justices of the Constitutional Court are appointed, according to Politico. The reform was passed in December, with Kiev ignoring recommendations from the Venice Commission to modify the draft to prevent political influence on a special body tasked with screening candidates. President Vladimir Zelensky has been at loggerheads with the Constitutional Court since 2020, when he launched a campaign to remove the chief justice after the court struck down a bill that the presidential office wanted passed into law.

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“..the stage for the conflict was set by NATO’s expansion in Europe and its refusal to acknowledge Russia’s security concerns.”

Beijing Explains US Role In Ukraine Conflict (RT)

The US is the “initiator and biggest promoter” of the crisis in Ukraine, Beijing has said, commenting on Washington’s reported claims that state-run Chinese companies were providing non-lethal aid to Russia. If the US government actually wants to help the Ukrainian people and see the crisis end as soon as possible, it should “stop sending weapons and reaping the benefits of war,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said on Monday during a news briefing. She dismissed the claims of assistance to Moscow, which were reported in the Western media last week, as “unfounded suspicion and accusations” and said Beijing would not accept “groundless blackmail” or discrimination against Chinese companies by Washington.

The reports were based on an anonymous source described by Reuters as “familiar with the situation.” “What we’re seeing is non-lethal military assistance and economic support that stops short of wholesale sanctions evasion,” the source was quoted as saying. The person added that Washington was not sure if the Chinese government was aware of the “activity” and that it had communicated its concerns to Beijing. The US government publicly threatened China with consequences for any assistance to Russia in circumvention of the economic sanctions imposed by Washington and its allies.

When asked about the alleged assistance last Tuesday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the US was “monitoring the situation” and would “continue to communicate to China the implications of providing material support” to Russia. She pledged that the US would support Ukraine for “as long as needed.” The US has already allocated over $100 billion related to propping up Kiev in its fight against Moscow. Beijing has criticized Russia for sending troops against its neighbor but has said that the stage for the conflict was set by NATO’s expansion in Europe and its refusal to acknowledge Russia’s security concerns.

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“..leaving the British army with hardware that is at least 30 years old and in dire need of replacement.”

US Skeptical Of UK Military – Sky News (RT)

A senior US military official confidentially told British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace that the UK’s armed forces are no longer on par with those of the leading world powers, Sky News claims. The broadcaster, citing anonymous defense sources, said that years of cost-cutting measures by successive governments have made the country’s military a “hollow force.” The report, which came out on Monday, alleges that the unnamed American general had a frank conversation with Wallace and several other British officials last fall. The conclusion of the US general regarding the UK’s fighting capabilities was unsettling for London: “You haven’t got a tier one. It’s barely tier two.” According to Sky News, the general classed the armed forces of the US, China, Russia, and France as tier-one powers, with Germany and Italy representing tier-two armies.

Several unnamed British defense sources confirmed to the broadcaster that the nation’s military is currently in a sorry state. One official was quoted as saying: “It’s an entire service unable to protect the UK and our allies for a decade.” The UK military would reportedly run out of ammunition “in a few days” if a conflict broke out. Moreover, the armed forces would likely be unable to defend the skies against the level of missile and drone strikes currently seen in Ukraine, the broadcaster claimed. The report said that 10 Downing Street has repeatedly cut the defense budget following the end of the Cold War, leaving the British army with hardware that is at least 30 years old and in dire need of replacement.

London’s active role in supplying Ukraine with weapons over the past 11 months has further diluted its own fighting capabilities, the news outlet said. Another major issue highlighted by anonymous defense sources is chronic staffing shortages. With only 76,000 personnel, the British armed forces are less than half the size they were in 1990, Sky News claims. However, according to the government’s plans, the military will shed 3,000 more troops down the road, while new weaponry is not expected to be procured for a few years, the report notes.

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Erdogan plays the muslim card. For domestic purposes.

Erdogan Questions Macron’s Competence (RT)

Emmanuel Macron is unfit to be French president and has overseen a significant deterioration in relations with Africa, his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan has suggested. Erdogan claimed that with Macron at the helm, Paris is losing influence globally. Speaking at a youth gathering in Bilecik province in western Türkiye on Sunday, Erdogan said that “the person at the head of France does not have the experience to be at the head of that state.” The Turkish leader pointed to recent developments in Paris’ relations with African nations to support his case. “Look, they are exploiting African countries right now. Mali is in a complete break with France right now,” Erdogan argued. The Turkish president also noted that Burkina Faso has given French troops one month to leave the country.

Earlier in January, the West African nation suspended a 2018 agreement on the deployment of French service members on its territory. Relations between Paris and its former colony have been on a downward spiral, with the local population blaming France for its perceived inability to combat Islamic extremists. “And I think that Togo, they will send [the troops out] too,” Erdogan added. According to the Turkish leader, France “is rapidly losing its reputation” in Africa. “We have had many meetings with them, at international meetings and so on, but they are not honest,” Erdogan claimed. Macron has also “lost his credibility in parliament,” the Turkish president stated. “France is constantly losing credibility, and it is losing credibility in the international community.”

“Of course, there are many leaders like this in the world,” Erdogan continued, without elaborating. Unfortunately, “in the relations with Greece in the Mediterranean, they ignore Türkiye and enter into different relations with them.” Macron and Erdogan have frequently engaged in verbal clashes. One of the most notorious incidents took place in 2020, when the Turkish president suggested that his French counterpart “needs mental treatment” while criticizing Macron’s attitude toward Islam and Muslims. At the time, Macron said that radical Muslims in France were guilty of “Islamist separatism.” In response to Erdogan’s comments, Paris recalled its ambassador to Türkiye for consultations.

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“Politico reported last week that it could take “many months, or potentially years” before they roll onto the battlefield.”

Russian Company Offers $70,000 Reward For Destroying NATO Tanks (RT)

Fores, a Russian chemical manufacturer, is offering bounties to soldiers for destroying M1 Abrams and Leopard 2 tanks in Ukraine. The news comes after Washington and Berlin approved the deliveries to Kiev last week. “Russian servicemen that destroy or capture a German Leopard 2 battle tank or an American Abrams will receive a monetary reward,” the company said in a statement on its website on Friday. “Fores will pay 5 million rubles [$70,700] for the first trophy. The payment for every next one … will be 500,000 rubles [$7,070].” The company added that if Ukraine ever acquires F-15 and F-16 jet fighters, Fores would hand out a 15-million-ruble ($212,100) prize for the first downed aircraft.

“The decision to transfer Western tanks to Kiev shows that NATO is not only delivering defensive weapons to Ukraine, which highlights the need for consolidation and support for our army. We have been doing this since the first days of [Russia’s] special military operation and will continue to support our servicemen”. Founded in 2000, Fores makes and sells proppant, a grainy substance used by oil and gas companies for fracking, according to its website. The company’s office is in Ekaterinburg, Russia. On Sunday, Russian actor Ivan Okhlobystin, who is known for having hawkish views, announced a similar bounty on his blog. “Certain members of the big business community have authorized me to inform you that they are setting a 10-million-ruble ($143,900) prize for every destroyed Abrams,” he wrote.

Berlin said last week that it would supply Kiev with 14 Leopard 2s and has greenlighted deliveries of the German-made tanks from other European countries. Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that Germany and its partners were looking to supply 112 tanks in total. Meanwhile, the 31 Abrams tanks pledged by the US must be assembled first. Politico reported last week that it could take “many months, or potentially years” before they roll onto the battlefield. Russia has maintained that foreign weapons would lead to escalation, but will not change the course of the conflict. The Kremlin says that Western tanks in Ukraine will be treated as legitimate targets.

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“The mechanism that led Congress and the White House to believe they could get away with this – trade sequestration – is gone. We destroyed it with the Russian sanctions..”

If You’re Expecting Redemption… (Denninger)

… from The Fed, or from Biden, you’re certifiable. The Fed meeting is coming. PPI and CPI have relaxed somewhat, but the key is — somewhat. Problem: The Omnibus spending isn’t in the system yet, and thus its impact isn’t in there either. But it will be because there’s no effective means to stop it other than a refusal to raise the debt ceiling. Biden has said he will veto any attempt to roll back the spending bill, and there’s no chance of an override given Congressional makeup. Therefore, what’s done is done. But – and this is important – Biden also, in the last couple of days, has reiterated that he intends to “strengthen” Medicare and has said nothing, of course, about using the 100 year old laws that make virtually all of the pricing systems in the medical area of our economy felonious. The issue is that without fixing that specific area — CMS in the Federal Budget, which is Medicare and Medicaid — the government cannot resolve the spiral of deficits and inflation.

Let me be absolutely clear in that Social Security, while it has a cash-flow funding deficit, is fixable without a large and nasty set of changes. For example increasing the OASDI tax rate (the Social Security portion of FICA) from 12.4% (today) to 14%, still split as it is today, would increase the rate you “see” in your check by 0.8% and account for more than half of the cash-flow deficit. Partially lifting the cap to, for example, $250,000 (from the 2023 $160,200) and indexing it to wage increases rather than CPI or other indications of inflation would likely close the gap entirely — and permanently. Indeed within the next 15-20 years the “hump” of boomers retiring and ultimately dying will crest and with it the draw on the retirement side of that fund.

(As an aside let me point out that Social Security’s retirement fund is already wildly progressive. That is, you get much more back for each dollar you put in as a lower-income earner than a higher-income earner, so the often-repeated screeching about denying wealthier people funds from it is fundamentally stupid. You want people to earn a lot of money and pay into the fund because they get less back than the less-well-paid do already; anything you do that disincentivizes that higher earning person from earning that higher wage and thus contributing more on a per-paid-out dollar basis will do even more damage to the fund’s stability.) Medicare’s portion of the FICA tax, however, cannot be fixed. CMS, which is the department that funds Medicare and the federal portion of Medicaid, took in about $339 billion dollars last fiscal year but spent $2,067 billion — over two trillion dollars and thus only one dollar in six or 16% of its spending is funded by tax receipts. This cannot be fixed with tax increases as you’d have to multiply the tax rate by six in order to do so. The only way to fix this is to destroy every single medical monopolist and thus collapse costs.

This has been going on for the last three decades and I’ve been raising Hell about it since my time running MCSNet because what it was going to do was obvious if it was not stopped. It has not only not been stopped it has accelerated; about ten years ago that funding percentage was about 20% and today is is 16% — materially worse. The mechanism that led Congress and the White House to believe they could get away with this – trade sequestration – is gone. We destroyed it with the Russian sanctions; it was not imposed on us, so that was a choice and we made it. I doubt anyone in the Executive considered this, but that’s irrelevant now because what’s done is done.

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The whole discussion needs to restart. No such thing as settled science.

Why Hasn’t Antarctica Warmed for Over 70 Years Despite Rise in CO2? (DS)

Scientists are scrambling to explain why the continent of Antarctica has shown Net Zero warming for the last seven decades and almost certainly much longer. The lack of warming over a significant portion of the Earth undermines the unproven hypothesis that the carbon dioxide humans add to the atmosphere is the main determinant of global climate. Under ‘settled’ science requirements, the significant debate over the inconvenient Antarctica data is of necessity being conducted well away from prying eyes in the mainstream media. Promoting the Net Zero political agenda, the Guardian recently topped up readers’ alarm levels with the notion that “unimaginable amounts of water will flow into oceans”, if temperatures in the region rise and ice buffers vanish.

The BBC green activist-in-chief Justin Rowlatt flew over parts of the region and witnessed “an epic vision of shattered ice”. He described Antarctica as the “frontline of climate change”. In 2021, the South Pole had its coldest six-month winter since records began in 1957, a fact largely ignored in the mainstream. One-off bad weather promoter Reuters subsequently ‘fact checked’ commentary on the event in social media. It noted that a “six-month period is not long enough to validate a climate trend”.

A recent paper from two climate scientists (Singh and Polvani) accepts that Antarctica has not warmed in the last seven decades, despite an increase in the atmospheric greenhouse gases. It is noted that the two polar regions present a “conundrum” for understanding present day climate change, as recent warming differs markedly between the Arctic and Antarctic. The graph below shows average Antarctica surface temperatures from 1984-2014, compared to a base period 1950-1980.

The scientists note that over the last seven decades, the Antarctica sea ice area has “modestly expanded” and warming has been “nearly non-existent” over much of the ice sheet. NASA estimates current Antarctica ice loss at 147 gigatons a year, but with 26,500,000 gigatons still to go, this works out at annual loss of 0.0005%. At current NASA ice loss melt, it will all be gone in about 200,000 years, although the Earth may well have gone through another ice age, or two, before then. Most alarmist commentary centres around the cyclical loss of sea ice around the coast and some warming on parts of the west of the continent. But sea ice cover is running at levels seen around 50 years ago, as the graph below shows. Small rises and falls in the early 2010s have been followed by a reversion to the mean.

 

 

Climate denier

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“Their average life expectancy has declined from a century to 45 years..”

Why Environmentalists May Make This Whale Species Extinct (Public)

Since the passage of the 1973 Endangered Species Act, environmentalists have fought for strict protections for endangered species. They have demanded that the government apply what is known as the “precautionary principle,” which states that if there is any risk that a human activity will make a species extinct, it should be illegal. And yet here we are, on the 50th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act, watching the whole of the environmental movement — from the Audubon Society and the National Wildlife Federation to scientific groups like the Woods Hole Institute, New England Aquarium, and Mystic Aquarium — betray the precautionary principle by risking the extinction of the North Atlantic right whale.


The cause of this environmental betrayal is massive industrial wind energy projects off the East Coast of the U.S. The wind turbine blades are the length of a football field. Sitting atop giant poles they will reach three times higher than the Statue of Liberty. The towers will be directly inside critical ocean habitat for the North Atlantic right whale. There are only 340 of the whales left, down from 348 just one year earlier. So many North Atlantic right whales are killed by man-made factors that there have been no documented cases of any of them dying of natural causes in decades. Their average life expectancy has declined from a century to 45 years. A single additional unnatural and unnecessary death could risk the loss of the entire species.

Surveying for, building, and operating industrial wind projects could harm or kill whales, according to the U.S. government’s own science. The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has given the wind industry 11 “incidental harassment authorizations,” or permits to harass hundreds of whales, including 169 critically endangered right whales. The industry will bring more ships into the areas that could strike and kill whales. Submarine noise pollution from the wind farm’s construction and operation, and entanglements in equipment, also add to the risk. So too could air turbulence generated by the turbines harm or destroy zooplakton feeding grounds. And, now, wind developers are demanding higher speed limits for their boats. If they don’t get them, the industry claims, it will need to build hotels for the workers at the sites, right in the middle of right whale habitat.


Defenders of the wind projects say they can reduce and mitigate the noise and ship traffic from the wind farm construction, but a senior scientist with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) contradicted that claim last spring when he wrote in a letter that “oceanographic impacts from installed and operating [wind] turbines cannot be mitigated for the 30-year lifespan of the project unless they are decommissioned.” Scientists representing many of the same environmental groups supporting the industrial wind energy projects wrote in a 2021 letter that “the North Atlantic right whale population cannot withstand any additional stressors; any potential interruption of foraging behavior may lead to population-level effects and is of critical concern.” Industrial wind projects “could have population-level effects on an already endangered and stressed species,” concluded the NOAA scientist, Sean Hayes. What are “population-level effects?” In a word: extinction.

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Just stop it.

Growing Number of Doctors Say They Won’t Get COVID-19 Booster Shots (ET)

A growing number of doctors say that they will not get COVID-19 vaccine boosters, citing a lack of clinical trial evidence. “I have taken my last COVID vaccine without RCT level evidence it will reduce my risk of severe disease,” Dr. Todd Lee, an infectious disease expert at McGill University, wrote on Twitter. Lee was pointing to the lack of randomized clinical trial (RCT) results for the updated boosters, which were cleared in the United States and Canada in the fall of 2022 primarily based on data from experiments with mice. Lee, who has received three vaccine doses, noted that he was infected with the Omicron virus variant—the vaccines provide little protection against infection—and described himself as a healthy male in his 40s.

Dr. Vinay Prasad, a professor of epidemiology and biostatics at the University of California, San Francisco, also said he wouldn’t take any additional shots until clinical trial data become available. “I took at least 1 dose against my will. It was unethical and scientifically bankrupt,” he said. Allison Krug, an epidemiologist who co-authored a study that found teenage boys were more likely to suffer heart inflammation after COVID-19 vaccination than COVID-19 infection, recounted explaining to her doctor why she was refusing a booster and said her doctor agreed with her position. She called on people to “join the movement to demand appropriate evidence,” pointing to a blog post from Prasad. “Pay close attention to note this isn’t anti-vaccine sentiment. This is ‘provide [hard] evidence of benefit to justify ongoing use’ which is very different. It is only fair for a 30 billion dollar a year product given to hundreds of millions,” Lee said.

Dr. Mark Silverberg, who founded the Toronto Immune and Digestive Health Institute; Kevin Bass, a medical student; and Dr. Tracy Høeg, an epidemiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, joined Lee and Prasad in stating their opposition to more boosters, at least for now. Høeg said she did not need clinical trials to know she’s not getting any boosters after receiving a two-dose primary series, adding that she took the second dose “against my will.” “I also had an adverse reaction to dose 1 moderna and, if I could do it again, I would not have had any covid vaccines,” she said on Twitter. “I was glad my parents in their 70s could get covid vaccinated but have yet to see non-confounded data to advise them about the bivalent booster. I would have liked to see an RCT for the bivalent for people their age and for adults with health conditions that put them at risk.”

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Welcome to the BRICS+.

Putin Talks Cooperation With Saudi Arabia (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman have discussed bilateral cooperation and measures to stabilize the global oil market in a phone call, the Kremlin stated on Monday. “Issues of further development of bilateral cooperation in the political, trade, economic and energy fields” were discussed, according to the Kremlin. Furthermore, the two leaders spoke of “cooperation within the framework of OPEC Plus to ensure the stability of the world oil market.” Putin and Prince Mohammed have spoken several times since Russia launched its military operation in Ukraine last February, with these calls taking place amid a growing rift between Saudi Arabia and the US, the Kingdom’s closest international partner.

Over the last year, Riyadh has deepened its ties with Beijing and declared its readiness to trade oil for Chinese yuan, a move that would threaten the US dollar’s standing as the world’s dominant petrocurrency. As the de-facto leader of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Saudi Arabia further snubbed the US last July when it refused to increase oil production following a meeting between Prince Mohammed and US President Joe Biden. An increase would have simultaneously benefited Biden by lowering gas prices in the US ahead of November’s midterm elections, and weakened the Russian economy by reducing its oil revenue. Instead, OPEC and its allies (a group of nations including Russia that make up the ‘Plus’ in the organization’s title) agreed in October to cut production by two million barrels per day, a move that kept prices steady for the benefit of producers.

With Moscow and Riyadh both interested in maintaining their petroleum profits, the US-backed price cap on Russian oil is viewed in both capitals as a potential threat to revenue. Furthermore, OPEC’s members worry that the measure could become “a global price cap” in the future, potentially ruining their economies. Washington responded to Saudi Arabia’s refusal to boost production by threatening to re-evaluate its relationship with Riyadh “in a very deliberate fashion.” Democratic lawmakers pressed Biden to halt arms sales to the Kingdom unless it would reverse OPEC’s production cut, accusing the Saudis of “colluding” with Russia.

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“The evidence “confirms the focus of the Pentagon on creating biological weapons components and testing them on the population of Ukraine and other states along [Russia’s] borders..”

Moscow Provides More Evidence Of US Biolabs In Ukraine (RT)

Russia’s Defense Ministry on Monday laid out more evidence that US-funded laboratories were working in Ukraine. Documents and materials recovered by Russian troops showed that Western pharmaceutical companies operating in territory under Kiev’s control conducted HIV/AIDS research on Ukrainian military personnel. The commander of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Defense Forces, Lieutenant-General Igor Kirillov, presented Ukrainian-language documents referring to HIV infection studies that began in 2019. The list of targeted groups shows service members alongside prisoners, drug addicts and other “patients at high risk of infection.” According to Kirillov, the Russian military has recovered more than 20,000 documents and other materials related to the biological programs in Ukraine, while interviewing eyewitnesses and participants.

The evidence “confirms the focus of the Pentagon on creating biological weapons components and testing them on the population of Ukraine and other states along [Russia’s] borders,” the general told reporters. Based on documents originating with the Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), the Russian military identified eight more individuals involved in the US-funded research in Ukraine. Among the names Kirillov singled out was Karen Saylors of Labyrinth Global Health, previously of Metabiota, a company linked to US President Joe Biden’s son Hunter. The latest trove of documents, belonging to the company Pharmbiotest, was unearthed in Lisichansk in the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) early in January, Kirillov noted.

“Clinical samples and patient records with their personal data were buried, and not cremated or destroyed in a proper fashion. This suggests that the destruction of this evidence was carried out in extreme haste,” the lieutenant general said. In October 2022, Russia filed an official complaint over alleged US-backed biological activities in Ukraine and requested a UN probe into the matter. The UN Security Council rejected Moscow’s proposal after the US, UK, and France voted against it. The US opposition “once again confirms that Washington has something to hide, and that ensuring the transparency of biological research is contrary to US interests,” Kirillov said.

As evidence of the widespread threat posed by the Pentagon’s biological research conducted beyond America’s borders, Kirillov referred to the previously mentioned US involvement in coronavirus studies, including by funding the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance that contracted with the laboratory in Wuhan, China. Kirillov also brought up the 1977 outbreak of Rift Valley Fever in Egypt, near a biological laboratory run by the US Navy. The disease previously known only south of the Sahara made a surprise appearance in Cairo a few months after the lab employees were vaccinated against it, the general said. Moreover, the Cairo strain was “highly pathogenic” compared to the disease’s normal flu-like symptoms, suggesting the involvement of gain-of-function experiments.

Read more …

“..the status of the University of Delaware documents is becoming more and more untenable for the White House..”

Does the “Word of a Biden” Extend to the Biden Documents? (Turley)

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has repeatedly assured the public that President Biden is committed in the classified-document scandal to move forward in “a very transparent way.” Putting aside the refusal to share any information beyond a desire to be fully transparent, Biden has one major test awaiting him on his pledge: his senatorial records. There has been much discussion of a classified document being found in his personal library in Wilmington, but there is a huge library of Biden documents sitting in the University of Delaware. The university is sitting on Biden documents due to a cynical 2012 arrangement made by Biden when he was vice president and contemplating a run for the presidency. The president effectively locked away his records by giving them to the university, which has claimed for a decade that it is still working to organize and catalog the documents.

He has refused to allow the public or the press to see the documents. With the recent reports that Biden may have included classified information in notebooks found at his residence, the status of the University of Delaware documents is becoming more and more untenable for the White House. The University of Delaware has been used for years to shield potentially embarrassing documents from public review for the Biden family, including allegations that the president engaged in sexual harassment or assault as a member of the Senate. The university effectively agreed to serve as a type of lock box for the Bidens to prevent a review of his senatorial records as he ran for higher office.At great public cost, the university has fought efforts by the media and the public to allow access to the documents. It is a troubling position for any institution of higher education to fight access to historical materials . . . for years.

Now, however, there is growing concern that the files may not only include incriminating information on past sexual-assault allegations but actual classified information. There is already confirmation that Biden removed classified information from the Senate more than 14 years ago. It now appears he also may have transferred classified information from briefings and documents to his notebooks. That raises the question of whether such information is contained in the notebooks and papers housed at the university. If President Biden is ready to embrace transparency, he can start by finally dropping his opposition to any review of his senatorial documents. At a minimum, the FBI should request access to determine if his violation of classified rules extends to this mountain of material given to the university.

Read more …

“This is the biggest journalism scam in a very long time,” replied Musk..”

Elon Musk Mocks Left-wing Think Tank Over Russiagate Claims (RT)

Elon Musk has hit out at the Alliance for Security Democracy (ASD) and its so-called “Russian bot dashboard” Hamilton68 for labeling Twitter accounts that it disagreed with as assets supposedly linked to the Kremlin. The billionaire illustrated his point with a mockup of a children’s book on justifying political failures in the media and government, titled ‘Everyone I don’t agree with is a Russian Bot’. His response comes after internal Twitter messages published by journalist Matt Taibbi on Friday revealed that the Hamilton68 dashboard knowingly mislabeled the accounts of real Americans as “Russian Bots.” The creators of the tool at one point claimed to be tracking over 600 accounts with alleged ties to the Kremlin to provide the West with an authentic view on Russian “influence operations.”

Hamilton68 was later used as a source by numerous major Western media outlets and even academic publications to claim that Russian bots were pushing conspiracy theories and promoting terms like “deep state” as well as hashtags such as #ReleaseTheMemo, #SchumerShutdown, #AlabamaSenateRace, and #ParklandShooting. However, the latest Twitter Files have revealed that the social media platform’s employees analyzed Hamilton68’s list of supposed “Russian bots,” only to find that these accounts were “neither strongly Russian nor strongly bots” and primarily consisted of real people living in the US, Canada, and the UK. “It was a scam. Instead of tracking how ‘Russia’ influenced American attitudes, Hamilton 68 simply collected a handful of mostly real, mostly American accounts, and described their organic conversations as Russian scheming,” wrote Taibbi.

The ASD has since attempted to defend its dashboard, claiming it was not meant as a list of Moscow-backed opinion leaders, but was a “nuanced” tool that was misunderstood by journalists. However, the committee’s own members have previously been on record as claiming that the Hamilton68 list included accounts used by Moscow to “discredit the FBI… attack ABC news… critique the Obama administration… and warn about violence by immigrants.” “This is the biggest journalism scam in a very long time,” replied Musk, who criticized the ASD’s attempts to shrug off any responsibility as a “disingenuous response.”

Read more …

“In fact, Baquet added, “I think we covered that story better than anyone else..”

The Press Versus The President, Part One (CJR)

The end of the long inquiry into whether Donald Trump was colluding with Russia came in July 2019, when Robert Mueller III, the special counsel, took seven, sometimes painful, hours to essentially say no. “Holy shit, Bob Mueller is not going to do it,” is how Dean Baquet, then the executive editor of the New York Times, described the moment his paper’s readers realized Mueller was not going to pursue Trump’s ouster. Baquet, speaking to his colleagues in a town hall meeting soon after the testimony concluded, acknowledged the Times had been caught “a little tiny bit flat-footed” by the outcome of Mueller’s investigation.

That would prove to be more than an understatement. But neither Baquet nor his successor, nor any of the paper’s reporters, would offer anything like a postmortem of the paper’s Trump-Russia saga, unlike the examination the Times did of its coverage before the Iraq War. In fact, Baquet added, “I think we covered that story better than anyone else” and had the prizes to prove it, according to a tape of the event published by Slate. In a statement to CJR, the Times continued to stand by its reporting, noting not only the prizes it had won but substantiation of the paper’s reporting by various investigations. The paper “thoroughly pursued credible claims, fact-checked, edited, and ultimately produced ground-breaking journalism that has proven true time and again,” the statement said.

But outside of the Times’ own bubble, the damage to the credibility of the Times and its peers persists, three years on, and is likely to take on new energy as the nation faces yet another election season animated by antagonism toward the press. At its root was an undeclared war between an entrenched media, and a new kind of disruptive presidency, with its own hyperbolic version of the truth. (The Washington Post has tracked thousands of Trump’s false or misleading statements.) At times, Trump seemed almost to be toying with the press, offering spontaneous answers to questions about Russia that seemed to point to darker narratives. When those storylines were authoritatively undercut, the follow-ups were downplayed or ignored.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Smart art
https://twitter.com/i/status/1619676345583439872

 

 

 

 

Baby polar bear

 

 

Waterfall elephant

 

 

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle January 31 2023

Viewing 39 posts - 41 through 79 (of 79 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #127828
    zerosum
    Participant

    perpetual motion:
    The action of a device that, once set in motion, would continue in motion forever, with no additional energy required to maintain it.
    (Can you name a system: political, financial, economic, social)

    #127829
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    ‘The Mongols weren’t European and weren’t civilized. They had no agriculture.

    Nevertheless, they are still the #1 single-cause perpetrator of theft, slavery, and murder in all of history.’

    A mere trifle compared to the activities of the East India Company, which, under ‘Clive of India’, extracted the greatest single haul of treasure from one location to another in the shortest time ever…something like $5 trillion in modern money just 3 years. And then managed to keep extracting wealth at a slightly lower rate for the following two hundred years.

    It was the activities of the East India Company that triggered open rebellion in the British colonies of North America.

    But [British] The East India Company had the last laugh, despite the fake rebellion and fake Revolutionary War: The flag of the US is a slightly modified version of the [British] East India Company flag.

    Never let the facts get in the way of a good [faux] argument.

    #127830
    jb-hb
    Participant

    And as an aside on this systemic oppression business, I must say I was quite overjoyed to learn that BLM was proud of being Trained Marxists – finally someone to bring my grievances to.

    I’d like to say to them – you people (marxists) stole MY people’s land, murdered them, and enslaved them and sent them to concentration camps. Now that I have some Marxists here available in front of me, I’ll be happy for you to pay me reparations for all the extraction, murder, theft and slavery the Marxists perpetrated on my people.

    After all, the marxists moved into the area, took the land, murdered the people, enslaved them. Marxism = murder/extraction/slavery/exploitation. All this tear down the oppressive systems totally oppressed my people (simple farmers not bourgeoise btw) more than anything else could have (it’s a good trick, isn’t it?t)

    #127831
    jb-hb
    Participant

    A mere trifle compared to the activities of the East India Company,

    Oh the East India Company genocided more than 80 million?

    Citations please

    #127832
    Dr. D
    Participant

    As technically correct, I never know how to answer all the “United States did this” stories. Like everything modern Western people say they are technically correct, yet also lies. That’s most often not intentional. First, history of one town of 200 would be too complicated to put in a book much less a nation of 350M ppl, 4M sq miles and 400 (not 200) years. So we have to cut almost everything out. We start with a story, a ‘narrative’ back when and keep drifting and drifting it until we reach “Rome fell when sacked by the Vandals” instead of the Vandals WERE Romans, and the Roman people welcomed them in bc the Roman-area Senators were so corrupt. I.e. the #Opposite of what happened.

    Try this: Peak population in U.S. borders 1400AD, maybe 30M. Minimum at colonization, possibly the equivalent of 5 Million. That is, 1/10th of today, then 1/10th of that. How were they killed? On accident, almost completely. No one really knew germ theory, and it took wave after wave of smallpox and others for immunity to build. No smallpox blankets in 1500, 1600, or 1700. So the colonists “killed them off”? They were already gone. Plymouth landed, Squanto came out? Already every human he ever knew was dead. No White Man ever killed them, or at least not knowingly. Let’s follow that.

    Number of Colonists in 300,000 sq miles in 1700? 250k. One man per mile. Somehow the natives couldn’t manage to kill 1 man/mile with the homefield advantage? No. They didn’t WANT to. To them they were just another tribe, although a poor one. Plymouth again, they had a mutual defense treaty with the locals for almost 100 years.Like as far back as when you were riding horses. Even in 1775 ONE tribe alone, the Seneca, had the largest standing army in North America. They could probably have wiped out Massachusetts if they wanted. That’s why the colonists were so edgy about it, they were completely outnumbered and outfought, since the Natives were better soldiers as well.

    So again, HOW did they wipe them out?

    Colonists by 1776: 3 Million. But again, that’s now 10 men/mile, but with everyone in NY and Boston and CENTRAL PARK was a barnyard. (It wasn’t built until almost 1850, 100 years later.) The show “Hello Dolly” is based on Yonkers, in NYC being a rural hick town and feed store in almost 1900. It’s hard to express how few people were there. (or now, actually)

    Next? 25% or more were immigrants, that is, foreign born. Not “Americans”. Nor were they at all English. Despite dreadful textbooks, by 1900 half were German, and in 1800 they were still only somewhat English, but also everything else: Swedish, German, Spanish, Irish, Scottish, Dominican, French, Dutch. The GOVERNMENT was English, not the people, and barely. At any time the Dutch or French could have won it back.

    About that: when we say “America did this” then, we are saying “The British King and Empire did this.” There was no “America.” So the BRITISH wanted slavery. The BRITISH “killed the Indians” (e.g. King Philip’s War”) and that was 100 YEARS before Ben Franklin. What’s more, they weren’t killing the “Indians” for example, in the French and Indian War, they were killing the FRENCH. Who, like the Anglos, used this other race for cannon fodder (or tried to). They could care less if they were Indians, as they were the soldiers of General Montcalm and also committing that era’s war crimes. This was the same in 1776. How did the French get kicked out? They lost the war. How did the Dutch get kicked out? They lost the war. How did the Tories get kicked out? They lost the war. How did the Iroquois get kicked out? They lost the war. And in fact got land to settle on which was BETTER than the Tories fared. How were your country and your borders get established? Any wars there?

    With the Caveat that although everything that happened was British, the clock for the U.S. starts in 1800, and a lot of pages aren’t good. I mean, unlike France, Germany, England, and Belgium, who were of course notorious saints through the whole 19th century, as progressive and caring as they are even today.

    Speaking of the Belgian Congo, how was slavery established? Aw heck man, they were slaving Scots by the shipful, but they just wouldn’t live. Remember, nobody gave a s–t about dark, frozen, backward New England , it was just a refueling station. The money and attention, the wars were all about SUGAR, the new drug trade, in the Caribbean. They tried some farming in Virginia, but there wasn’t anything there even after 100 years. No, the real purpose of America was to chase gold from Spain, which they couldn’t get, but sugar from the tropics, which they could. However, any Scot or other slave died of malaria at like 90% rates. Just couldn’t keep it up. And slavery was perfectly legal in England, It had just become really uncommon. So enslaving, or their personal favorite, Indenture, was the way Britain transported all their people into the New World where they were generally killed. Just like Australia later., claiming they weren’t “Slaves” they were just people who weren’t free and had to work all day. Nothing like slaves at all! But we forget that.

    We forget because in 1700-ish they discovered that Africans were far more immune to malaria, a fact still true today. So death rates were far less. So they landed British ships on the Black Ashanti Empire, whose Black kings and Black Captains sold their prisoners-of-war off to these backward Northern hicks, just like Britain was doing already with their own prisoners (and of war). Heck, the British NAVY was made of slaves. Ever hear of being “Shanghai’d”? Yeah, you woke up one day on a boat. But grabbing someone, throwing them in a sack, and selling them to hard labor until they could figure out how to get home wasn’t “Slavery” at all, right Queen Victoria? Get a grip.

    So these now entirely BRITISH colonies were following BRITISH law, by buying African slaves where were legally purchased under AFRICAN and Islamic law. Kind of puts a different color on it, doesn’t it? This is essentially identical to other British holdings in India, SE Asia, and later S. Africa.

    So when did Britain abolish slavery since they were so far ahead of the United States? (although BEING the United States, as reminded) 1807. Except they didn’t. It remained legal and only stopped the TRADE of slaves, expecting that the practice would die out because of it. In fact, they had only JUST outlawed the slavery of French and Dutch men in 1805. Huh. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_Trade_Act_1807

    When did the U.S. do the same and outlaw the slave trade? 1807. Same time.

    Wait a minute! How could the U.S. and Britain outlaw slaves at the same time???

    Well, it took another generation, but Britain finally outlawed slaves OUTSIDE OF UK, in 1833. So from the Birth of the colonies to Britain outlawing slavery for real was 50 years. Fifty years of de facto legacy slavery.

    Remember they thought Slavery would just die out? That’s EXACTLY what the U.S. thought and believed, as they were British, remember? And it was. This is for all the pillorying Jefferson over this, and the 2/3rds compromise. But America was a BRITISH COLONY. Unlike our perception today, the whole South was really a CARIBBEAN-style plantation. Prison labor and all that, but, as I said, tuned for 90% deadly malaria. If they had outlawed slavery as everyone – Including most from the South – wanted, the southern economy would have collapsed and Britain would have re-invaded and recaptured the United States. They could not win both fronts at the same time. Remember some of the slaves, as we just said were FRENCH AND DUTCH from the wars. Other “Slaves” were extremely common as indentured servants, who died at far higher rates. Last, “slavery” was still somewhat different than it became later. more like indenture and less like 20th century labor camps. (I thought we were super modern and outlawed…oh nevermind)

    Still, Jefferson was pushing hard for slavery to be phased out, just like Britain. And it was working mostly okay, just like Britain. Except a Black man, Eli Whitney, had invented the cotton gin. When? 1807, same year. Slowly slavery crept up and expanded again, on cotton instead of sugar, hardening and taking over the economies and governments of the southern economies until again, it could not be removed without a total economic collapse. (Due to restructuring)

    Again, that’s way way past the story you were telling about “The United States” “Killing all the Indians” and “Taking all the resources” and doing it with Immigrant/slave labor.

    And everything in U.S. history is like this. Not quite right. We omit this little thing about England, Europe, Africa. We emphasize this little thing that’s only hindsight shows was important. We attribute malice where it isn’t, and love and uniformity were it wasn’t. We forget the race rivalries between Brits and Irish, or heck, Poles and Russians, two Slavs were every bit and far more contentious in 1800 as black/white marriages today. Religious differences, far greater: vanish. The power of banks and governments, who could barely project power 20 miles into the hillsides, become listed as all-powerful. Indians who had cities of 1M centuries before London, forgotten. 300 years of contact – closer to them than the Revolution is to us today – smashed into “Those skin-wearing, flint-knapping savages” of “Dances with Wolves” instead of a calico-wearing, gun-toting, glasses-wearing, cabin-building people with saw mills and an army larger than Washington’s.

    What can I say? You, and the historian you quote, are correct. …But also almost completely wrong. And because the two stories are so devilishly similar, I don’t know how to correct it. Just as you see in our Russia/Vax information today.

    #127833
    jb-hb
    Participant

    Interesting how we went from “it’s the CO2, it’s the heat” to “hey, are you a Jensenite?” <silence>

    Oh, ok then I will do a critique of Jensinitism without opposition <suddenly, defense of core Jensenite values>

    But look at it, isn’t this a horribly depressing not completely accurate, destructive to humans worldview?

    <it’s the inherent systemic oppression>

    It’s as if we’re moving forward over a set progression of ideas, isn’t it?

    John Day asked “Did you ever get close to “the secret” of the Jensenite organization, or is it like the lines at Disneyland, always just around the next corner?”

    Well, we’re in line right now, continuing to make progress towards the end of the line. We’re getting there. Keep going with the systemic oppression- let’s keep that progress going It’s all about human progress.

    #127834
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @zerosum

    In regard to perpetual motion:

    Not intending to be facetious or “wise guy” in any way, I actually do have an example of such a perpetual motion device: The cosmological physical Universe itself was set in motion and will apparently run forever (Some theoretical physicists have alternative theories to suggest eventual motionlessness, but they are in a minority, and do not include the historically acknowledged greatest of physicists)

    #127835
    zerosum
    Participant

    @ Dr. D
    Where did they teach you “history”?

    #127836
    zerosum
    Participant

    @ D Benton Smith
    Me too.
    As long as life is created the universe will expand.

    #127837
    Farmer McGregor
    Participant

    @phoenixvoice…articles multiplying on the ‘net about how raising hens is SO COSTLY that ya’ll are better off financially buying eggs from the supermarket.”

    Having raised countless chickens, and consumed/sold countless dozens of eggs while carefully tracking the real-world costs, I can tell you with certainty that, in temperate climates, you absolutely cannot produce eggs as cheaply as those from the ‘food-industrial-complex’. In a sub-tropical climate where natural foods (bugs) are continually abundant so purchased feed is not needed, eggs can be pretty cheap. Not so here in Colorado.

    The industrial egg producers have not only economies of scale to their advantage, but very importantly, their feed costs are a fraction of what we pay for retail chicken ration. Roughly half of the cost of the primary feed grains (corn and soy) is paid by the govt via the ‘farm bill’ subsidies. Backyard chicken owners pay substantially more — multiples more — for feed.

    Regarding the Tractor Supply branded chicken feed: this is some of the worst, bottom-of-the-barrel cheapo crap you can buy. It is made mostly from the waste byproducts of the grain processing industry. I would be surprised if it came close to meeting the crude protein levels indicated on their label, or that the protein-bearing ingredients are of good quality or digestibility. IIRC their label even has a disclaimer saying something to the effect that what is stated thereon “may not reflect the actual contents of the bag” and you should go to their website for more info. The idea that they would deliberately incorporate something to prevent egg production into their product is pretty ludicrous. As previously stated, we’re talking about really crummy feed.

    Inadequate protein will always hamper egg production, especially in hens over a year old; especially especially in winter when the photoperiod is short since the hormone that drives egg laying is stimulated by the optic nerve. Birds in nature do not produce offspring when there is no food out there.

    Be aware that the industrial producers figured out a long time ago that the ‘optimal’ protein level for egg layer ration is somewhere around 16 to 18 percent. Meaning that if you feed more protein (the most expensive ingredient in the ration) you may get more eggs, but not enough more to pay for the added protein. 16% is the point of diminishing returns. Given the option, chickens will consume as much protein as possible, say 80 or 90 percent, primarily animal foods. So it stands to reason that a low quality ration will simply not provide enough nourishment to sustain egg production.

    ‘Feed Ze Bugs’ to your hens, and eat wonderful eggs.

    #127838
    zerosum
    Participant

    Who is listening to what?
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/biden-family-corruption-covid-origins-weaponized-government-and-border-crisis-house-gop
    Biden Family Corruption, COVID Origins, Weaponized Government, And Border Crisis: House GOP Kicks Off Investigations

    OR

    https://www.zerohedge.com/weather/pipe-bursting-cold-blast-headed-northeast
    ‘Pipe-Bursting’ Cold Blast Headed For Northeast
    (snowing in Tx)

    OR

    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/france-open-sending-fighter-jets-ukraine-while-uk-says-its-not-practical
    France ‘Open’ To Sending Fighter Jets To Ukraine While UK Says “Not Practical”

    #127839

    This is from the Dailybeagle: “Healthcare Union Admits Oz Gov Never Gave Shot Indemnity”.
    For any of you in Oz who know someone who might be interested.

    #127840
    WES
    Participant

    Bug Fed Chickens:

    While working in the Congo, bug fed free range chickens were daily staple.

    Our waiter would ask us if we wanted a half or whole chicken for supper?
    We used to joke it didn’t really matter, as there was no meat on either half!

    And the chickens had a barnyard flavor!

    P.S. The frog leg entre really did taste like chicken!

    #127841
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Ukraine sees itself as part of the EU in two years, but even its most ardent supporters in the bloc believe that target to be overambitious, Politico reported on Monday.

    Not surprising given that the Ukraine operation is about massive theft and the EU can feed a ton of cash to Ukraine to “rebuild” Ukraine, most of which will be fed back to the western oligarchs with a pitance spent on a lick of paint so that the EU crooks can justify more aid. Let the crimes continue until the system collapses.

    #127842
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Where is history? Nowhere. They teach it literally no where I can find. It takes a lifetime to read something and say “Huh. That fact does not fit. Is it true? I’ll put in a binder and see if anything comes up with it later.” Each history book might have 10 such facts. Follow the facts and you begin to see a different outline.

    But a good introduction was this one: Bound Over: Indentured Servitude and American Conscience, 1985 https://www.amazon.com/Bound-over-Indentured-servitude-conscience/dp/0671541188

    Another might be https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Distant_Mirror the Calamitous 14th Century. Genocides? Ethnic cleansing? As the Pretty run-of-the-mill Euro on Euro action as the Little Ice Age took hold. They don’t play favorites when they meet other races and think they’re better than us; they treat them the same. Not different. As did the Mongols, Huns, Japanese, Maori, etc. to us.

    The key element missing from all the stories is time. So very, very much time. Remember Tisquanto himself was born 1585 when Francis Drake made the first trip to America 100 years after Columbus. He lived under Queen Elizabeth I when the Black Plague was not yet over. 50% of at least the cities like London died. How different was that from the Indian plagues? He met the Pilgrims in 1621, just after Shakespeare’s death. Now to remind of the “other” side of history, Tisquanto was kidnapped and sold into slavery by an ENGLISH ship in 1614. That’s why he knew English. He was sold at the slave market in Gibraltar. Back to the other “other” side, his crew were firmly opposed, thinking it would at a minimum cause a war/attack at the next landing, and felt he got his just desserts when he was essentially blacklisted for it.

    Don’t worry: a while later Squanto’s people will be kidnapping and enslaving the whites during wars! Just like they did back home in Europe! Speaking of, the Patuxets were in a constant deadly war with their neighbors, who were entirely different people, the Micmac, with a different, unintelligible language group. That is, they were more different and unique than France and Spain, more like Ireland and Russia. And speaking of war, just as his crew predicted, when they dropped him off at his old, and now completely 100% wiped out village, the Wampanoags would kill any white guy on sight, since they got ambushed the year before. Savage? Yes, and the White captains would have no idea on landing, just as the Narraganssets had no warning of bad captains like Tisquanto’s. You see how reputations are made.

    Speaking of, remember when they landed in Ashanti in West Africa? Well at that time the Ashanti were more powerful than England, Denmark, etc, who were pathetic backwater hicks in a rowboat. No joke: have you SEEN the Golden Hind? In fact, they beat the English even hundreds of years later in 1824. So…more powerful than the early English Empire. Aw those poor Euros always beating up…people stronger than they were.

    What is the history here? Tisquanto, Will Bradford, they basically lived in the Middle Ages. It was technically the Renaissance, but we don’t see much of that in England, and hardly anything of the Enlightenment which was hundreds of years away. He was closer to King John and Robin Hood than to Madison and Adams. How long ago? Plymouth Colony was as far away from the American Revolution as we are: about 200 years. The Indians were their allies, trading guns and pots and cloth for that whole time. Wait: I thought they flint knapped until General Grant. Nope, they had the same knives from Solingen and Sheffield as King George’s grandpappy. Does that give you an idea how long time was and how big history?

    And we look at that through a porthole. The Scots lived as crofters in a medieval sort for hundreds of years yet. They left the last Iron-Age Blackhouses – stone sod with no chimneys – in the 1960s. So when you say “Modern” or “Primitive” maybe you should ask “Where?” Upper Norway? Alaska? Central Amazon? Grand Tetons?

    Yet we have it like this: Columbus landed, next year Pilgrims. Then their kids put up a cabin John Hancock was born in. Next year, Lincoln met Sitting Bull in Appomattox with Tesla and Twain. No. 1600 -1800 is 10 GENERATIONS. (20y). 1800 – 2000 is 10 generations. 25 generations since Columbus? And ours is the shorter side of that? Yes. James Madison was closer to Queen Elizabeth than we are to him.

    How can I put this? When Squanto was born, France was ruled by Henry III. Henry was the king of Poland and Lithuania as well. Yeah, we all remember when France ruled Poland, right? His mother was Catherine de’Medici. He was contemporaries with Jacques Cartier. He could have met Michelangelo.

    20 Generations from now is the year 2,461, the midpoint from Tisquanto. Any idea what we’ll be doing then?
    We’ll probably be using the Nostromo to land on LV-426 with warrant officer Ripley.

    #127843
    John Day
    Participant

    @Susmarie 108: Thanks for the Susanna Hoffs “And Your Bird Can Sing”, lovely, lovely… I realize that it makes more sense when sung by a woman, as does Hound Dog, here by Big Mama Thornton:


    @Farmer
    McGregor: Thanks for the chicken-feed primer. I’ve been wondering.

    @Dr.D and Noirette: Thanks for opening the can of worms about imperialism and genocide, and the ancient history of money for that matter. Here is an essay which ties all that together, a simplification of these models in a way, but not a dumbing down. Convert greed and slavery to money…
    How Debt Conquered America, Jada Thacker (RIP Jada. I miss you.)

    How Debt Conquered America


    @jb-hb
    : So the Jensenite secret around the very final corner is… “you are dead, and you recall your essential nature again, but you are no longer able to act in the physical world”.

    Q: Did the British East India Company have a Y-chromosome?
    East India Company flag had the English flag in upper left, then the Union Jack, later.
    East India Co flag

    #127844
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Is plankton controlling the climate? https://joannenova.com.au/2023/02/ocean-life-is-seeding-the-clouds-above-it-and-the-modellers-didnt-know/. Humans are in over their heads when it comes to climate science.

    #127845
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Fully Vaccinated Yasmin Vossoughian Develops Pericarditis & Then Myocarditis

    Maybe God does exist. Is he punishing those who helped to kill millions? No sympathy, these people chose their side, the easy side, the lazy side, but their side did not care about them, so they pay the price. Karma.

    #127846
    John Day
    Participant

    Wha, Aspnaz, that is a really interesting article. There is a map of chloraphyl in the southern hemisphere, from a polar view, which really disorients my preconceptions about where phytoplankton would be. Sure they are off the coast of Israel, and India, and so on, but there are high concentrations at the south pole, and they are releasing a LOT of benzene and toluene into the air, which drive cloud formation, affecting weather/climate.

    Ocean life is seeding the clouds above it, and the modellers didn’t know


    southern ocean plankton

    #127847
    zerosum
    Participant

    Is that you??
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_revisionism
    Revisionist historians contest the mainstream or traditional view of historical events and raise views at odds with traditionalists, which must be freshly judged. Revisionist history is often practiced by those who are in the minority, such as feminist historians, ethnic minority historians, those working outside of mainstream academia in smaller and less known universities, or the youngest scholars, essentially historians who have the most to gain and the least to lose in challenging the status quo.

    #127848
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    ‘Oh the East India Company genocided more than 80 million?’

    Yep. An estimated 100 million in North America alone. But could have been as high as 200 million. World total 500 million to 1,000 million.

    Look it up.

    #127849
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    ‘Do not eat’: Kiwis warned about homegrown veggies if garden has flooded’

    Representative from United Fresh, the organisation that helps advise the industry on food safety, Anne-Marie Arts told AM on Wednesday some vegetables will be significantly affected because of the flooding.

    https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/national/do-not-eat-kiwis-warned-about-homegrown-veggies-if-garden-has-flooded/ar-AA16XGFm?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=56af2ec5c4984a209c54531999dff8e9

    At one stage the fascists who run Airstrip Five tried to eliminate the sale of homegrown food via draconian ‘Food Safety’ regulations, written by a fascist on Airstrip Two, using Airstrip Two spellings and meanings (somewhat different from those of Airstrip One, which Airstrip Five normally follows).

    #127850
    Oroboros
    Participant

    This Bakhmut Wagner Unit Is Made Up Entirely Of Scandinavian Mercenaries Called NíðhǫGgr

    The unit in the “Wagner Group”, which consists of citizens of Scandinavian countries, in particular, from Norway, also participate in the battles on the Bakhmut front.

    It is called Nidhegg (NíðhǫGgr), which means one of the great serpents (dragons) in Scandinavian mythology.

    #127851
    John Day
    Participant

    “It’s Time For The Scientific Community To Admit We Were Wrong About COVID & It Cost Lives”
    https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/its-time-scientific-community-admit-we-were-wrong-about-covid-it-cost-lives

    “Scientific community”, my ass. I was right and honest and I got fired for it.

    #127852
    Oroboros
    Participant

    .

    #127853
    John Day
    Participant

    Oroboros posted:
    “This Bakhmut Wagner Unit Is Made Up Entirely Of Scandinavian Mercenaries Called NíðhǫGgr
    The unit in the “Wagner Group”, which consists of citizens of Scandinavian countries, in particular, from Norway, also participate in the battles on the Bakhmut front.”

    “Roland was a warrior, from the land of the midnight sun, with his Thompson gun for hire, fighting to be done”

    #127854
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Real Disposable Income

    Never saw a chart like this

    #127855
    Oroboros
    Participant

    I miss Warren, saw his last performance on Letterman

    #127856
    WES
    Participant

    Climate Modeling :

    With all due respect to AFKTT and his CO2 focus, trying to set up a climate model that accurately reflects the real world is pretty much impossible.

    As soon as you think you have set up the perfect model, someone will say did you include the effects ants have on the environment? Then someone will mention the currently changing alignment of the Milky Way?

    So as a modeler, you will be forever trying to add in these new constantly changing effects into your model, never mind all the changes going on to what is already in your existing model!

    You can not ever hope to get there!

    The best you can do is to “assume” everything not already in your model doesn’t matter!

    Then you will find that you just made an “ass_u_me”.

    Assume is the most dangerous word in engineering!

    #127857
    John Day
    Participant

    I can sort of channel Dr. D’s response to this headline, already.

    ‘We Found No Misuse Of US Funds In Ukraine’, US Treasury Says
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/we-found-no-misuse-us-funds-ukraine-us-treasury-says-straight-face

    #127858
    John Day
    Participant

    Iran and Russia integrate banking systems. Really. Done.
    https://thecradle.co/article-view/20904/iran-russia-integrate-banking-systems
    A top Iranian official announced on 30 January that Iran and Russia had integrated their interbank communication and transfer systems to help enhance trade and financial operations in an effort to bypass strict economic sanctions on their financial infrastructure.

    With the signing of the agreement, 52 Iranian and 106 Russian banks are connected through the Russian Financial Message Transfer System.

    #127859
    John Day
    Participant

    It’s ok, they are so much more convenient and go so much farther, and recharge faster than the hours it takes to tank up with gasoline or diesel.

    “Fuel Costs Of Electric Vehicles Overtake Gas-Powered Cars: Study”
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/fuel-costs-electric-vehicles-overtake-gas-powered-cars-study

    #127860
    wdt
    Participant

    Thanks Raul and Dr D
    Just to give another perspective….how many ancestors have you had?
    (homo sapiens only, hard to guess for before)
    120K years of homo sapiens, so 5000-6000 generations
    So, 2^6000 or 2^5000 (2E6000) = 10^1500 or 10^1800
    Put a 1 (one) in upper left corner, fill 1/3-1/2 page with zeros
    can you see past your nose? maybe to navel?
    That’s a lot of lives and dreams in the distant past
    All those people made it to breeding age,
    the mother at least 6 months more…..
    or you wouldn’t be here

    #127861
    WES
    Participant

    Dr. D:

    I love your history lessons!
    It kind of reminds me of my Father.
    It was a big mistake to mention the “good old days”.
    My Father would quickly say things weren’t so good back then, listing practical examples.

    One morning during breakfast, I was reading a book on Egypt.
    There was an illustration of a Pharroll being fan cooled with palm leaves by a servant.
    I said to my Father. “It must have been wonderfull to have lived in Egypt back then”.
    My Father quickly replied. “Son, you would have been born a slave!
    That forever changed my view of history!

    #127862
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    The only thing that makes humans feel worse than thinking they know what’s going to happen next is the realization that they don’t really know, so it’s pretty pointless to think it. Historians and other reporters tell us that it was even worse back in the days that they tell us to think those days actually were, but thankfully now we have computers and AI and networks to help us think about what it might have been back then. Great. Computer assisted second-hand guess work. That should help.

    #127863
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    ‘So as a modeler, you will be forever trying to add in these new constantly changing effects into your model,’

    What a weird thing to say.

    I am not a modeler. I just report the facts.

    You have to go to fake organisations like UNIPCC -which I have torn to shreds- if you are looking for models or modelers.

    #127864
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    The puppet-clown-criminal-actors who pretend to be the government of Airstrip Five (or rather their bosses) are clearly in panic mode.

    ”TEMPORARY’ TAX CUT EXTENDED
    The Government has extended its earlier 25c/litre fuel tax cut for yet another three months, saying it wants to focus first on ‘bread and butter’ ‘cost of living’ issues. It is hard to see them reversing these cuts before October 14 (election day). More than just fuel and RUC extensions, half price public transport is to be made permanent to around one million Community Service Card holders, including tertiary students, from 1 July 2023. We are in full election campaign mode now.’.

    https://www.interest.co.nz/business/119482/review-things-you-need-know-you-sign-wednesday-markets-react-softer-labour-market

    #127865
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    @dr-d

    Speaking of, VP, I doubt the world has more than 3% actual psychos…

    Who made that number up?

    Hmmm, could it be…A Psychopath?

    Perhaps I’m throwing in a bunch of blood lust, greedy Class B personality disorders in that count, never seems to be a shortage of them either 😕

    Then there are the wannabe Psychopaths that try to emulate the rich & powerful, never a shortage of those cock-ups…

    Anyways, Victor Davis Hanson has written a piece about what is *actually* happening, specifically *who* the “American” sheeple *really* surrendered to, *who* is holding a knife to the throat of *all* living beings on planet Earth:

    Anarchy, American-Style: The Left runs Oceania, and we work for their various bureaus.

    The Establishment Is the Revolution

    The current Left has no intention of “dropping out.” Why would it?

    It now controls the very institutions of America that it once mocked and attacked—corporate boardrooms, Wall Street, state and local prosecuting attorneys, most big-city governments, the media, the Pentagon, network and most of cable news, professional sports, Hollywood, music, television, K-12 education, and academia…

    The current generation of techies is effectively Stalinist. Big Tech now colludes with the FBI, the Democratic Party, and the bureaucratic state to suppress free expression, warp balloting, and serve as contractors of government surveillance. Currently, the most totalitarian people in America are likely to wear flip flops, have a nose ring or pink hair, and disguise their fascism with ’60s-retread costumes…

    The Left does not despise the FBI. It lauds it. And the bureau is no longer consumed with tracking down violent criminals and terrorists. Instead, it has become an enemy of parents worried about school indoctrination, or a retrieval service for lost first-family classified papers, laptops and diaries, or a Washington, D.C., cadre knee-deep in big money politics…

    The new legal establishment has replaced the old by simply nuking centuries of jurisprudence. Violent repeat criminal offenders injure and maim innocents in the morning and are released by noon to prey again—themselves baffled that the state is even crazier than they are…

    In sum, we are living in anarchy, as institutions themselves have become nihilistic and weapons of the revolution. The Left, in viral fashion, took over the DNA of America’s institutions, and used them to help destroy their creators…

    The second contribution to the present anarchy is big tech, which speeds up the revolution and spreads it broadly. Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four was predicated not just on the Sovietization of the state, but the electronically ubiquitous and near instantaneous means by which the apparat ensures its dominance. One of the strangest things about the Left is that it no longer warns of 1984 but emulates it…

    The corporations are the Left and in service to it. Disney, American Airlines, and Nike are revolutionary icons, always ready to divest, cancel, fire, hire, and propagandize in service to woke commissars. That they are terrified by tiny bullies who have no constituencies is true, but then a Robespierre, Lenin, and Mao had initially no broad support either—at least before each mastered the use of terror and fright…

    What anarchy we live in when the richest among us are the most radical and wish to destroy for all others what they enjoy…

    So, the current revolution is anarchy, utter confusion, pure chaos ~ No wonder we are confused by the establishment anarchists and the anarchy they produce.

    (Read the whole nightmare here) https://amgreatness.com/2023/01/29/anarchy-american-style/

    That’s it Ma! Put a pin in Amerika & Eurup, it’s officially a death cult that rejected any & all honest, steadfast & *sane* leadership, choosing enmasse to swill Anarcho-Liberal-Greeniesewer water Kool-Aid instead…

    Welp, I’m done. I mean it this time…

    Tired of reading the same ol’ tired rants, screeds, self-stroking ANALysis & know-it-all EG0ic blather…

    Too little, too late…A total waste of time, energy & squandering the Miracle of Life itself.

    All blessings & good luck,

    Gary

    #127884
    jb-hb
    Participant

    ‘Oh the East India Company genocided more than 80 million?’

    Yep. An estimated 100 million in North America alone. But could have been as high as 200 million. World total 500 million to 1,000 million.

    Look it up.

    All you ever seem to do are repeat talking points. As if you were drawing from a laminate binder or something.

    Based on the past month of interactions in which what you ACTUALLY cared about was secret, despite being repeatedly asked to say what you were ACTUALLY arguing about, no, I don’t believe you at your word that the East India Company killed a BILLION people.

    Your talking points only work for people who have no concept of time, space, matter… logistics. You’re telling, essentially, a quasi-religious story, an anecdote that is supposed to then be taken as “truth” extrapolated across the board.

    You asserted that agriculture and everything that came from it was bad, that humans’ MOST NATURAL state was naked in the jungle.

    “okay. do it then”

    was followed by complaining that living in civilization an using the fruits of civilization are useful, how dare someone else begrudge you this and be big meanies wanting to take it away from you

    Dude, that’s YOU. YOU are saying nobody should have any of this #%#^&. You just negated your own argument.

    And then you assert East India Company killed a BILLION and tell me to look it up.

    Dude, that’s YOU. YOU are saying that happened. YOU were asked for citations. YOU are the one making a rather wild extreme claim. And you wish I would do do the work for you.

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