Aug 172023
 
 August 17, 2023  Posted by at 8:54 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,


Giambologna Colossus of the Apennines 1579-80 (35ft tall)

 

Georgia DA Seeks ‘Hour of Fame’ With 4th Trump Indictment (Tweedie)
Searching for Light in the Darkness of Insanity (Pepe Escobar)
RFK Jr. Poses ‘Very Credible Threat’ to Biden’s Presidency – CIA Vet (Sp.)
US Military Could Create ‘Global Biological Crisis’ – Russian MOD (RT)
West Makes Money On Ukrainian Conflict, Does Not Need Peace – Medvedev (TASS)
Ukraine Admits F-16 Upset (RT)
West Alarmed As Putin Has Begun To Mediate Niger Coup Crisis (ZH)
African Union Rejects Military Intervention In Niger (RT)
White House Refuses To Rule Out Support For Niger Invasion (RT)
Niger and the ‘New World Order’ (Patrick Lawrence)
The Unforgivable Ivermectin Swindle (QTR)
New BRICS Currency Bad for Dollar – John Rubino (USAW)
Killing Gaddafi Was A ‘Serious Mistake’ – Italian FM (RT)

 

 

 

 

“They are willing to destroy the law to destroy Trump.”

 

 

Remember Fulton County?

 

 

Trump & Hunter

 

 

lf you want peace, you
don’t talk to your friends.
You talk to your enemies.

-Desmond Tutu

 

 

 

 

‘I’m one of those famous district attorneys that went after Trump’..”

Georgia DA Seeks ‘Hour of Fame’ With 4th Trump Indictment (Tweedie)

The fourth indictment against former US president Donald Trump has no legal basis, says a US pundit. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis announced charges against Trump and 18 others on Monday, including his lawyer and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani. They include catch-all “RICO” or racketeering charges which criminalise association with others allegedly engaged in a “criminal enterprise.” Political commentator Ted Harvey said Willis was just “another district attorney trying to get her hour of fame.” “She’s going to be able to go to all of the Democrat cocktail parties around the country and say: ‘I’m one of those famous district attorneys that went after Trump’,” Harvey said.

The former president is accused of trying to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election — before it was certified — by asking state election officials to scrutinise ballots in certain counties. The pundit said Trump was justified to make such requests under the circumstances. “You have to remember that Georgia… Trump only lost Georgia by 10,000 votes, and that is a razor thin margin in a state the size of Georgia, and there certainly was a great deal of problems with the Georgia election,” Harvey said. “There was a lot of skulduggery going on, and could it have been 10,000 votes? I think there definitely could have been 10,000 votes, and I think that anybody who says otherwise is not actually looking at the facts on the ground.” The commentator argued that Trump’s actions as described in the indictment did not constitute a crime.

“Trump can talk to anybody he wants and say, have you looked here? Have you looked there? And they had the right of any citizen in the United States to have those kind of questions,” Harvey stressed. “It’s not illegal.”
The former state legislator said Trump faced hostile kangaroo courts both in Atlanta and the national capital. “It’s very similar to the January 6 indictment,” which would be “heard in front of a jury in Washington, DC, where 95 percent of the jurors probably voted for Biden. And I think in Atlanta, they’re pretty close to that number as well,” Harvey said. “You’re going to have a situation where Trump will not be getting a fair trial and he’s going to be fighting for his legal life in both of those situations.”

He linked the trials to Trump’s bid for a second term of office in the White House, saying the Republican frontrunner’s enemies were seeking “a conviction before the November election in a biased jury with a biased judge and a biased district attorney.” However, “that doesn’t mean he won’t get elected,” Harvey said. “But they want to have that one more thing to throw against the wall in a desperate effort to try to take down Trump and save Biden. But I think in the end, Biden’s legal problems are going to be far worse than Trump’s.”

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BRICS+.

Searching for Light in the Darkness of Insanity (Pepe Escobar)

We are still far away from the transition towards a new “world system” – to quote Wallerstein – but without BRICS even baby steps would be impossible. South Africa will seal the first coordinates for the BRICS+ expansion – which may go on indefinitely. After all, large swathes of the “Global Globe” already have stated, formally (23 nations) and informally (countless “expressions of interest”, according to the South African Foreign Ministry) they want in. The official list – subject to change – of those nations who want to be part of BRICS+ as soon as possible is a Global South’s who’s who: Algeria, Argentina, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Egypt, Ethiopia, Honduras, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Morocco, Nigeria, the State of Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Thailand, UAE, Venezuela and Vietnam.

Then there’s Africa: the “five fingers”, via South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, invited no less than 67 leaders from Africa and the Global South to follow the BRICS-Africa Outreach and BRICS+ Dialogues. This all spells out what would be the key BRICS rasha, to evoke Naqshbandi: total Africa and Global South inclusion – all nations engaged in profitable conversations and equally respected in affirming their sovereignty. A case can be made that Iran is in a privileged position to become one of the first BRICS+ members. It helps that Tehran already enjoys strategic partnership status with both Russia and China and also is a key partner of India in the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC).

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has already stated, on the record that, “the partnership between Iran and BRICS has in fact already started in some areas. In the field of transport, the North-South transport corridor connecting India to Russia via Iran is actually part of BRICS’ transport project.” In parallel to breakthroughs on BRICS+, the “five fingers” will be relatively cautious on the de-dollarization front. Sherpas have already confirmed, off the record, there will be no official announcement of a new currency, but of more bilateral trade and multilateral trade using the members’ own currencies: for the moment the notorious R5 (renminbi, ruble, real, rupee and rand).

Belarussian leader Lukashenko, who coined “Global Globe” as a motto as strong, if not even more seductive than Global South, was the first to evoke a crucial policy coup that may take place further on down the road, with BRICS+ in effect: the merger of BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Now Lukashenko is being echoed in public by former South African ambassador Kingsley Makhubela – as well as scores of “Global Globe” diplomats and analysts off the record: “In the future, BRICS and the SCO would match to form one entity (…) Because having the BRICS and the SCO running in parallel with the same members would not make sense.”

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Larry Johnson.

RFK Jr. Poses ‘Very Credible Threat’ to Biden’s Presidency – CIA Vet (Sp.)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s message and policies make him “a very credible threat” to the American establishment, Larry Johnson, a retired CIA intelligence officer, told Sputnik. Furthermore, the 2024 Democratic presidential hopeful “is not posturing,” and appears to really believe what he’s saying, according to the ex-intel-agent-turned-blogger. The politician also known by his initials RFK Jr. spoke to former Fox News host Tucker Carlson in a video interview posted on the X social network (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday. He hauled the Biden administration over the coals for everything from the aid being continuously funneled to the Kiev regime to fight NATO’s proxy war against Russia, to the controversial issue of the Pentagon’s biological laboratories in Ukraine.

“We have bio-labs in Ukraine because we are developing bioweapons… Those bioweapons are using all kinds of new synthetic biology and CRISPR [an acronym for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats in DNA] technology and genetic engineering techniques that were not available to a previous generation,” RFK Jr. said in the interview. About 30 biological laboratories funded by the US Defense Department have been discovered in Ukraine during Moscow’s ongoing special military operation in the country, the Russian Defense Ministry revealed last year. The Pentagon has been running these clandestine biolabs for years, researching highly dangerous pathogens and exporting biological samples in breach of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC).

According to information cited by Russia’s MoD, the United States funneled over $200 million into its biolabs on Ukrainian soil, allegedly using them as an inherent part of the American military biological program. In his interview with Tucker Carlson, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. noted that in 2001, the US began investing heavily in bioweapons again when “the Patriot Act reopened the biolabs arms race.” Kennedy added that the development of any biological weapon requires a vaccine, since there is a “100 percent chance” of blowback when bioweapons are used. RFK Jr. in his Tuesday interview had proceeded to castigate the Biden administration for continuously pumping financial aid to Ukraine instead of using the resources domestically to help struggling Americans.

“Ukraine aid will not exist under Bobby Kennedy,” opined Larry Johnson. “I think anybody who will take the time to listen to Tucker’s discussion with Bobby Kennedy Jr., I think what they’ll find it very appealing and hopeful. He presents a vision that is [a] complete contradiction of what is being presented by the Biden administration. And he correctly notes that the United States has severe economic problems at home: the flood of illegal immigrants, the drug use that is savaging Democrat cities in particular, like San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, – that there are real, genuine needs that should be addressed here in the United States instead of sending the money to Ukraine,” stated Larry Johnson.

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Russia warning US.

US Military Could Create ‘Global Biological Crisis’ – Russian MOD (RT)

The US military is studying pathogens that could be used as biological weapons as the nation prepares for a potential new pandemic, the commander of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Defense Forces, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, said on Wednesday. The list of diseases that have attracted the attention of US specialists includes anthrax, tularemia, and various coronaviruses, Kirillov told a media briefing. Some of these pathogens are listed by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as “high-priority” threats that can be used as “bioterrorism agents.” “There is a clear trend: pathogens that fall within the Pentagon’s area of interest, such as Covid-19, avian influenza, African swine fever, subsequently become a pandemic, and American pharmaceutical companies become the beneficiaries,” the general claimed, without elaborating.

According to Kirillov, the US was extensively studying coronaviruses shortly before the Covid-19 pandemic struck. Last month, the White House announced the creation of the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy (OPPR), tasked with “leading, coordinating, and implementing actions related to preparedness for, and response to, known and unknown biological threats.” The Russian military believes that may be another step in Washington’s plans to gain control over the global biological and epidemical situation. “As in 2019, the US has begun preparing for a new pandemic by searching for virus mutations,” Kirillov said. Moscow does “not rule out that the United States will use so-called defensive technologies for offensive purposes, as well as for global governance by creating crisis situations of a biological nature,” the general added.

Russia has repeatedly raised the issue of global biological activities that involve the US military. Soon after the conflict between Moscow and Kiev broke out, Russia shared allegations of a sprawling network of secretive US-funded biological laboratories in Ukraine. It has since published troves of documents it claims were linked to the work of the laboratories. In April, the Russian Defense Ministry stated that the US had been constructing new laboratories in Ukraine and training their personnel. Moscow also took the issue of biolabs to the UN last October, requesting an international probe. The motion, however, was turned down by the UN Security Council, with the US, UK, and France voting against it. Earlier this week, Democrat presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed that the US had outsourced some of its biological weapons research to the Ukrainian authorities after the 2014 Maidan coup. According to Kennedy, the bioweapons program operates under the guise of “life sciences” studies.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1691876341665157522

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Big money.

West Makes Money On Ukrainian Conflict, Does Not Need Peace – Medvedev (TASS)

The West is not interested in negotiations on a peace settlement in Ukraine, because it is keen to make as much money as possible for its military-industrial complex, Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Security Council Dmitry Medvedev told the media. “Their speculations to the effect time is ripe to come to the negotiating table and start peace talks merely show how sly they are. They don’t want this at all. They want to keep the military flywheel going in order to make money for their budgets,” Medvedev said during a visit to the Army-2023 forum.

He recalled that Russian soldiers were “very successful” in burning Western-supplied equipment and would continue to do so. Against the backdrop of losses, the West periodically resumes “speculations that it is necessary to return to the negotiating table to find some compromises,” Medvedev said. “But we need to bear in mind that this is only part of the story, while the other part is the US military-industrial complex, and the European one as well, are making money on this. And this is a way for them to make mammoth profits by supplying their equipment to Ukraine. They are making money on this war,” Medvedev explained.

During his visit to the exhibition of weapons seized by Russian forces during the special operation he took a look at many Western-made grenade launchers, anti-tank systems and small arms. He was also shown a US-made M777 artillery system, Hummer armored vehicles and Western communication equipment. At the open exposition where captured armored vehicles are on display Medvedev was shown Ukrainian T-64BV and T-72AG tanks, a Swedish CV90-40 combat vehicle, as well as a Triton armored vehicle and a US M113 APC upgraded in the Netherlands. At the same exposition, Medvedev saw a burned Australian Bushmaster armored vehicle, a French AMX-10RCR wheeled tank, as well as British combat vehicles Husky, Mastiff and AT105 Saxon.

Medvedev

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Mirage. Fata morgana.

Ukraine Admits F-16 Upset (RT)

Ukraine should not expect to receive American F-16 fighter jets until sometime in 2024, a Ukrainian Air Force spokesman has said, noting that Kiev’s “high hopes” for the system were unlikely to be met anytime soon. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Air Force Command representative Yury Ignat suggested the timeline for the arms transfer was still to be decided, but said Kiev would have to make do through the end of the year. “Unfortunately, it is already clear that we will not be able to protect Ukraine with F-16s throughout the fall and this winter,” he said. “There were high hopes for these aircraft, that these could really become part of the air defense.”

Officials in Kiev have repeatedly requested the F-16 by name, and while some NATO states have agreed to instruct Ukrainian airmen on the system, it remains unclear when the first transfer could occur. To date, no country has made any concrete proposal, and US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley said last month that it could take years to provide Ukraine with a meaningful capability.“Just do a quick math drill here. Ten F-16s are $2 billion,” Milley told reporters at the time, attempting to explain the delay. “The Russians have hundreds of fourth- and fifth-generation airframes, so if they’re going to try to match the Russians one for one – or even, you know, two-to-one – you’re talking about a large number of aircraft.”

According to a recent report in the Washington Post, the initial batch of Ukrainian pilots trained on the F-16 will not be ready until after the summer of 2024, with only six airmen set to complete the first round of instruction. Officials cited by the outlet said each pilot will have to take four months in English courses before they can even begin flight training. Moscow has repeatedly warned against foreign arms shipments to Kiev, arguing the military aid would only extend the conflict and do little to deter its objectives. Earlier this year, the Kremlin said Western powers would run “colossal risks” if they decided to supply the F-16, while Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia would consider the aircraft a nuclear threat due to its ability to carry atomic weapons. “We will regard the very fact that the Ukrainian armed forces have such systems as a threat from the West in the nuclear sphere,” the diplomat said.

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Putin closes the door (window?) for France and US.

“The countries of the Sahara-Sahel region [..] were under direct attack from numerous terrorist groups after the US and its allies unleashed aggression against Libya..”

West Alarmed As Putin Has Begun To Mediate Niger Coup Crisis (ZH)

Western nations are alarmed at the prospect of Russia deepening its presence and influence in West and Central Africa, particularly following the tumult in Niger late last month, which culminated in the July 26 coup against democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum. The West-friendly group of surrounding nations, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), has since threatened military intervention towards restoring Bazoum, and there have been persistent rumors that France is encouraging concrete action. Mali has played a key role in all of this given it stands on the other side, and is dead set against any interference in Niger, with fresh reports that Mali’s military leader Assimi Goita has spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone.

Goita announced that in the Tuesday call Putin “stressed the importance of a peaceful resolution of the situation for a more stable Sahel” – and the sides confirmed it was initiated by Mali. According to a Kremlin statement, “The parties specifically focused on the current situation in the Sahara-Sahel region and emphasised, in particular, the importance of settling the situation in the Republic of Niger solely through peaceful political and diplomatic means.” Putin separately told Tuesday’s Moscow Conference on International Security (MCIS) that “The countries of the Sahara-Sahel region, such as the Central African Republic and Mali, were under direct attack from numerous terrorist groups after the US and its allies unleashed aggression against Libya, which led to the collapse of the Libyan state.” The handful of regional supporters of the Niger junta have emphasized the same point of late…Niger is known for having uranium, but it is the significant gold and oil resources which likely of greater interest to the large powers of Russia, China, the US, and Europe.

The West’s concern is likely to grow given Putin’s mediation with Mali’s leadership. Russia’s Wagner Group also has an extensive presence across the African continent, having long had security and counterterrorism contracts with multiple governments. So far, there’s still not been openness to negotiations on the part of the Niger coup leaders and Bazoum remains under hose arrest. Per the latest update in Reuters, “West African army chiefs will meet on Thursday and Friday in Ghana to prepare for a possible military intervention, which the main regional bloc, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has threatened to launch if diplomacy fails.” Any external military intervention could spark a broader war across the Sahel, and would also be seized upon by regional terrorist groups. In this scenario Wagner fighters would likely enter the fray.

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“..ECOWAS will find it difficult to launch a military offensive in Niamey without the approval of the African Union..”

African Union Rejects Military Intervention In Niger (RT)

The Peace and Security Council (PSC) of the African Union has come out against the deployment of armed troops in Niger to free ousted President Mohamed Bazoum and restore constitutional order, the French outlet Le Monde reported on Wednesday. This comes after the PSC met in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa on Monday to discuss the situation in Niamey and efforts to address it. Bazoum was toppled on July 26 by members of his own presidential guard, provoking outrage from Western nations and regional democratic governments, which called for the coup to be overturned. The West African regional bloc, ECOWAS, said the Niger’s coup leaders had rebuffed attempts at negotiation. The regional authority threatened to use force to reinstate the ousted Bazoum, whom the new military rulers have detained since July 26.

Last week, ECOWAS authorized the activation of a stand-by force for potential use against the putsch leaders, with the bloc’s army chiefs meeting on Thursday and Friday to prepare for a military intervention if negotiations fail. On Friday, African Union Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat expressed “strong support” for the ECOWAS’ decision and called on the junta to “urgently halt the escalation with the regional organization.” However, the PSC, the body responsible for deciding on issues of conflict resolution in Africa, decided to disassociate itself from the use of force in Niamey, according to diplomatic sources cited by Le Monde. The decision, which will be formalized on Wednesday, was reached after a “tense” meeting on Monday that lasted “more than ten hours,” according to the outlet.

Paul-Simon Handy, senior policy advisor at the Institute for Security Studies, told Le Monde that ECOWAS will find it difficult to launch a military offensive in Niamey without the approval of the African Union. Without the union’s backing, such an operation “would be an unprecedented contradiction,” Handy is quoted as saying. Earlier this month, the Nigerian Senate also declined to give approval to ECOWAS Chairman Bola Tinubu to send soldiers against the coup leaders in neighboring Niger. The Senate urged Tinubu and other West African regional leaders to explore diplomatic means to resolve the crisis.

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Too late.

White House Refuses To Rule Out Support For Niger Invasion (RT)

The US will not commit to backing or opposing a potential invasion of Niger by its West African neighbors, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Wednesday. Speaking at a State Department briefing, Kirby declared that the US wants detained Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum released from captivity and brought back into power, after his pro-Western government was overthrown by senior military leaders last month. Asked whether Washington would support military intervention by the Nigeria-led Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to restore Bazoum’s government, Kirby was ambiguous.

“I’m not going to speculate about intervention one way or another from ECOWAS or anybody else,” he said. “We still believe that there’s time and space for diplomacy to get us to a resolution here which respects the will of the Nigerien people.” ECOWAS activated a standby force last week after Niger’s new military government ignored an ultimatum to free Bazoum and relinquish power. Negotiations between the coup leaders and the regional bloc are ongoing, while ECOWAS officials meet in Ghana this week to make a final decision on military action, with a decision expected on Friday. However, foreign support for an ECOWAS invasion is still lacking. France, Niger’s former colonial master, has pledged its backing to “the efforts of ECOWAS to defeat this coup attempt,” without specifying whether it supports a diplomatic or military solution, or both.

Meanwhile the 55-member African Union refused to condone military action following a meeting on Wednesday, according to French media reports. Without the African Union’s support, an ECOWAS intervention is unlikely to go ahead, policy experts told Le Monde on Wednesday. France and the US maintain military bases in Niger, with around 1,000 American and 1,500 French troops currently in the country. The coup leaders are adamant that this Western presence must end, and have suspended military and trade agreements with France. Paris has imposed sanctions on Niamey in response, while Washington has cut off foreign aid.

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“The past is another country, Nigeriens, Malians, and others seem to say: This is the 21st century, not the 19th.”

Niger and the ‘New World Order’ (Patrick Lawrence)

How shall we understand the July 26th coup in Niger, in which military officers ousted Mohamed Bazoum, the nation’s Western-tilted president? It is the sixth putsch of this kind in or next to the Sahel in the past four years. Shall we write off this band across sub–Saharan Africa as coup country and trouble no more about it? The thought is implicit in a lot of the media coverage, but how often do our media dedicate themselves to enhancing our understanding of global events and how often to cultivating our ignorance of them? Do not take this latest development in Africa as an isolated event, if I may offer a suggestion. Its significance lies in the larger context in which it has occurred—its global surround, so to say. The West is besieged by the accumulating coherence and influence of the non–West and its version of the 21st century. Our media cannot bear writing or broadcasting about this.

Niger, in my read, has just declared itself part of this historic phenomenon. And mainstream media can’t bear mentioning this, either. Those who deposed Bazoum are led by Abdourahamane Tchiani, former head of the Presidential Guard, and plainly nurse a deep resentment of the postcolonial presence of the French. There are also reports—in the media, those coming out of the think tanks—that Bazoum was about to give Tchiani the sack, and the events of late July were driven, mostly or primarily, by personal rivalries, resentments, or both. Everyone has reported, one way or another and more or less well, on the animosities toward the French abroad among Nigeriens. Such sentiments are evident in many parts of Francophone Africa. The past is another country, Nigeriens, Malians, and others seem to say: This is the 21st century, not the 19th.

But history is only part of the story, and I would say not the largest part. We ought not make too much of either history or memory in this case: Those who led the coup are facing forward, not back. And to suggest the coup deposing Bazoum was a question of palace politics, whatever these may be, amounts to serving the salad as the main course. No, we have to think larger if we are to grasp the new reality taking shape in Niger and elsewhere in its neighborhood. Tchiani and his supporters, who appear to be many in the military and on the streets of Niamey, the capital, have the West as it is now uppermost in their minds, in my read. If they are fed up with the French, they are at this point impudently clear that they equally want no more of what the U.S. has had on offer for the past two decades and some: a klutzy, ineffective military presence and neoliberal economic orthodoxies. As in Mali and elsewhere in the region, Niger now looks set to lean in a distinctly non–Western direction.

Last month’s coup, in other words, reads to me like an announcement that Niger is ready to enlist in the cause of the “new world order” the Chinese have been talking about ever more publicly over the past couple of years—since, indeed, the Biden regime alienated Beijing within months of taking office in 2021. This puts the putsch taking down Bazoum in a larger context, where I think it should be. This means the U.S. will now find itself in increasing competition with China and Russia for influence across the African continent. Unless it alters course very majorly—and the policy cliques in Washington have no gift for altering course, if you have not noticed—America is almost certain to prove the loser in this rivalry, if that is what we have to call it. The U.S., and in this case the French, are simply ill-equipped. It is a question of appropriate technologies: Americans arrive in Africa with weapons, military assistance, and geopolitical interests; the Chinese and Russians arrive with interests of their own, yes, but also with economic aid, trade flows, and industrial development projects.

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How many lives? Murder is murder.

The Unforgivable Ivermectin Swindle (QTR)

For those who haven’t followed the story, during the course of the Covid pandemic, it was revealed that ivermectin – a drug that has been administered billions of times to humans and is on the World Health Organization’s list of Essential Medicines – was found in numerous clinical trials to have efficacy in early treatment of Covid-19. If you’re looking for a primer on this, here is a website that aggregates all of the clinical trials and here is a discussion with Bret Weinstein and Dr. Pierre Kory that serves as a great introduction to the topic.

If you’ve been at least semiconscious over the last two years, you’ve noticed that early means of treating Covid outside of the vaccines (like Vitamin D, hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin) were routinely shunned by “the science” and then, by proxy, the useful idiots in the mainstream media. Out of all of the early treatments, ivermectin got the shortest end of the stick. Not only was it likely the most efficacious of all the early treatments, it was also routinely subject to bastardization and a berating by the media. The disinformation campaign about ivermectin, spearheaded by mainstream media (“brought to you by Pfizer!”) reached its fever pitch when the media and government agencies alike appeared to knowingly and maliciously juxtapose the human dosage of the drug with the coincidental and mostly unrelated fact that it was also used in a veterinary dosage to deworm horses.

Rather than distinguish one ivermectin use from the other clearly, these bad actors instead willingly chose to perpetuate the brazen lie that ivermectin was only horse medicine. The media fostered this lie because their sponsorship and advertising revenue depended on it. The lie was then used as a weapon against anyone who discussed the legitimate usage of the human drug and its storied history of success. But the most noxious example of media dishonesty came from coverage of Joe Rogan, who took ivermectin after getting Covid. CNN took footage that Rogan posted on his personal Instagram, edited the color scheme to make Rogan look worse than he originally appeared, and then proclaimed that Rogan was taking “horse dewormer”.

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“..you always come down on the side of a gold-backed currency once you understand it..”

New BRICS Currency Bad for Dollar – John Rubino (USAW)

Analyst and financial writer John Rubino has a new warning about the fate of the U.S. dollar with the announcement next week (Aug 22–24) of the new BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) currency. There has been lots of speculation about it. Will it work? Is it gold backed? Will it immediately replace the U.S. dollar? 30 countries in all have signed onto the BRICS currency experiment. Rubino contends, “No matter what shape it takes, the new BRICS currency is bad for the dollar. . . . You don’t want to be an enemy of the U.S., but neither do you want to be a target just because you are doing what you think is right in the world. . . then the U.S. comes in and destroys your banking system. That is now a real possibility for a lot of countries. If you take the BRICS countries . . . and you add in all the other countries who want to join the BRICS coalition, and that includes Saudi Arabia and Mexico, you take all those countries together and, basically, you have half the world’s population and half the world’s GDP. So, this is not trivial.

This is a major potential currency block, or trading block that is a real threat to U.S. dominance in the world. The sad fact is it’s our fault. The U.S. made this bed, and now we have to lie in it. We blundered around the world starting wars, overthrowing governments and bombing anybody that gets in our way. The world is just about at the point where it’s done. Regardless of what is going to happen at the BRICS meeting next week, it’s part of a trend of countries looking for ways to avoid dependence on the dollar and the dollar centric financial system. We could be seeing the end of U.S. dominance . . . dollars will still be used for trade, but the peak of the dollar could be happening before our eyes right this minute.”

The other thing you cannot shrug off is the inflation the Fed has been trying to snuff out with interest rate increases without pushing it back down. According to Rubino, this is also bad news for the dollar, and he goes on to say, “Even if they don’t do anything (next week) and they just planted this seed, it still started a conversation where people have to learn the difference between a fiat currency and a gold-backed currency. The more people that know that, the better it is for gold because you always come down on the side of a gold-backed currency once you understand it. So, none of this is good for the dollar. Also, when people realize the reason why the BRICS are considering a gold-backed currency, and it is because we weaponized the dollar.

So, we are inflating the dollar away, and we are using it as a weapon at the same time against the rest of the world. . . . We pushed Russia into this war, and then we froze foreign exchange assets in western banks. The rest of the world is looking at this and thinking, wow, am I next? Is the U.S. going to do this to me? Maybe we should have this other currency?” Rubino was one of the first to sound the alarm on the extreme problems in the commercial real estate market. Fitch is threatening to downgrade the credit ratings of some very big U.S. banks. Rubino says, “This, too, is negative for the dollar.” Rubino also talks about the possibility of a world war, a civil war and a financial crash that is coming sooner than later.

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Obama, Hillary, Nuland.

Direct link to Niger today.

Killing Gaddafi Was A ‘Serious Mistake’ – Italian FM (RT)

Western powers committed a major blunder by helping to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in a 2011 regime change operation, Italy’s top diplomat said, admitting his death unleashed years of chaos and conflict in the African country. Speaking on the sidelines of an event in Tuscany on Wednesday, Italian Foreign Minister and deputy premier Antonio Tajani described Libya’s troubles since Gaddafi was overthrown and murdered, saying he was “certainly better than those who arrived later.” “It was a very serious mistake to let Gaddafi be killed. He may not have been the champion of democracy, but once he was finished, political instability arrived in Libya and Africa,” he said. The official noted that Rome had kept an agreement with the leader which “blocked the migratory flows and the situation was much more stable.”

Gaddafi was brutally executed by rebel fighters amid a NATO bombing campaign, conducted under the pretext of imposing a “no-fly zone” during Libya’s 2011 civil war. Though Washington and its allies described the mission as a “humanitarian” effort to end government attacks on civilians, a probe by the UK House of Commons later found that the “threat to civilians was overstated,” and that Western powers had ignored a “significant Islamist element” among the anti-Gaddafi militants. In the aftermath of the regime change operation, Libya was divided between several competing governments, each claiming legitimacy to rule. The factions have continued to fight in the years since, eventually consolidating under two camps led by the UN-backed Government of National Accord, and forces loyal to General Khalifa Haftar and the Libyan House of Representatives.

Terrorism also saw a resurgence across North Africa following Gaddafi’s death, with Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) and groups linked to al-Qaeda establishing strongholds in Libya and beyond. By July 2014, an estimated 1,600 militant factions were active in the country, a major increase from the 300 tallied in 2011, according to the US Institute of Peace. Though the two warring governments have been locked in a stalemate in recent years, Libya continues to face periodic bouts of violence, with clashes between rival armed groups leaving 27 dead and over 100 injured earlier this week. Echoing previous statements, the United Nations voiced concern over the “security incidents and developments” in Libya, while Washington called for “de-escalation” to “sustain recent Libyan gains toward stability.”

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Sagan
https://twitter.com/i/status/1691195526077911041

 

 

Chameleon
https://twitter.com/i/status/1691722851131265440

 

 

Turtle

 

 

 

 

Snow leopard

 

 

Elephant seal
https://twitter.com/i/status/1691746238843040070

 

 

Phone
https://twitter.com/i/status/1691904765007970697

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle August 17 2023

Viewing 37 posts - 1 through 37 (of 37 total)
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  • #141436

    Giambologna Colossus of the Apennines 1579-80 (35ft tall)   • Georgia DA Seeks ‘Hour of Fame’ With 4th Trump Indictment (Tweedie) • Searching for
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle August 17 2023]

    #141437
    Dr. D
    Participant

    I was disappointed to find out that although the GARDEN had been there since Rome, those sculptures are very much newer. Still some of the best work ever done in my opinion, because it seems like it could be there 1,000 years and be just as relevant. That other period was the Italian marbles of c1830. Blows even the Renaissance masters away.

    “Retraction Watch, the most widely respected organization tracking scientific fakery these days, estimates that more than 100,000 papers should be retracted each year; the actual number in 2022 was less than 5500. Of retracted papers, four-fifths on average are withdrawn due to scientific fraud.”

    But not the Climate or Medical ones. All the OTHER scientists are 4/5 total fraud-for-hire and not well-meaning mistakes.

    Why? Because there is no shame, no embarrassment, no consequences. Everyone approves of lying, so whoever you ask, they want more scientific fabrications. So…you think none of these guys work for major University Departments? And every one of them was summarily fired for not just complete fabrication to a mere paper, not just economic fraud, but for being against every principle of Science-as-a-study? Uh-huh, how about no? Every University helped cover it up as they don’t want to be seen as fraudsters themselves…which is why they, um, helped and promoted open embarrassing fraud.

    And I bet China and Russia, they’re all 90% fraudulent Science and no one gets fired for making up papers about that net rocket technology? No. They are taken out and shot. Their careers are over. #Logos. That’s two parts: Mercy AND Justice. That’s the Justice part. You can’t BE Merciful without Justice, because you’d just be a sap.

    “Retraction Watch lists some researchers who have had more than a hundred papers retracted, and are still happily employed in their laboratories turning out junk science.”

    I’d like to sic these guys on a sample of other nations to see. “The SCIENCE! Trust The Science!!!”

    “They are willing to destroy the law to destroy Trump.”

    They destroyed the law a century ago, but at least since 2001. They’re just finishing the mop-up; the planet it a big place and getting EVERYONE either corrupt or dead takes time.

    “According to Kirillov, the US was extensively studying coronaviruses shortly before the Covid-19 pandemic struck.”

    Always doing their work for them. Not “according to Kirillov“: we know this from non-stop emails and childish elation between Wuhan, Chapel Hill, and Canada about their beautiful new invention that was finally super-deadly. This then went through a ton of NGO White Papers, ultimately to Event 201. It’s g– d— everywhere. So that’s like saying “Pastor Blowalot claims the Bible is widely read, but who can believe just some random guy like that?”

    It does explain why they wanted not just mRNA, but were sold on it for all purposes, always, the answer to everything. Even though – like 100% of all PMC things – it totally didn’t work at all and killed everyone it touches, The Plan was WHEN we inevitably “nuke” Russia and indeed the whole planet with Eugenic Bioweapons like we’ve always creamed ourselves dreaming about, we’re going to HAVE to have a cure for ourselves. …And by “ourselves” we mean PMCs, not working people. And since the other guys will immediately create something new, we need a vaccine process we can create, produce, and get on the street in just a few days.

    Thus the dry-run of mRNA, and the ludicrous numbers of doses. Like WTF are all these factories? You tell us we can’t make 10 epipens, but we can make 1 BILLION doses in 4 weeks for a mere 300 MILLION people? All enforced by the highest level right down to Juan the carpet-cleaner? …And it was all done under Pentagon bioweapons designation? You see how this begins to make sense if they want – can’t even say “believe” as they’re incapable of rational thought – to have a world-wide biowar and need a rapid, automatic, foolproof cure on our side to win that war.

    I had the pieces, but I guess I didn’t recognize the gravity of the moving parts which indicate the core emphasis is really in this location.

    Well I hope utter and complete failure – due to bullsh-t sales as is usual with Americans – plus a now-widespread disgust and pushback by the culture who won’t do it a second time, have convinced them this plan isn’t working smoothly. Anyone seen “Kingsmen”? Yeah, like that.

    “Ten F-16s are $2 billion,” Milley told reporters”

    Whut? You just gave them $150B without even asking. But suddenly money means something? Why are they asking for a 50 year old Sopwith Camel by name? Do they not know how to spell planes with higher numbers, like F18? The F16 is ACUTELY unsuited to Ukraine’s needs. It needs great airfields, it’s a dogfighter (that time has passed) and they need, I dunno, A10 Warthogs instead.

    The only thing I can come up with is that it’s nuclear-capable and will start WWIII with a minimum threshold. Like planting our biggest, most recent missiles (1950??) in Kiev would show we started it. But one itty-bitty 50 year old jet? One? C’mon guys, have a sense of humor – they’ll tell the Global South who is the real audience for this pitch.

    P.S. the Warthogs worked and were beloved by all, so we canceled them. Warthogs fly in light rain and that is unacceptable to the Army.

    “African Union Rejects Military Intervention In Niger (RT)

    I wonder if behind the scenes this is considered South Africa brokering peace for the BRICS as a sales pitch for the continent. I haven’t heard so, but I don’t see how it wouldn’t.

    • White House Refuses To Rule Out Support For Niger Invasion (RT)

    That’s because they can’t. Or the men they send would be a joke. This is a type of bluffing. Here’s a thought: WHO CARES if they do or don’t? They’re no longer relevant at all, they’re not in control. Ignore them. That’s the change everyone can’t adjust to.

    “New BRICS Currency Bad for Dollar – John Rubino (USAW)

    Rubino has a good standard take, he’s not stuck in a loop like Peter Schiff, but it’s still the old take from 30 years ago. That’s not helpful, there’s a lot going on and these details will mean it goes in directions you’re not paying attention to. For example: it’s neither a gold-backed currency nor not one. That it isn’t a one-stop, 19th c type British Sterling is pretty relevant. It’s like mainframe vs smartphone different.

    “Killing Gaddafi Was a ‘Serious Mistake’ – Italian FM (RT)

    What? No! So Italy is going to put Hillary and France up on war crimes, right? Since 100% of every minute of every day of that was a war crime? UN? No? We’ll leave it to beacons of democracy like Sudan and China to start the process?

    “Though Washington and its allies described the mission as a “humanitarian” effort”

    RT, always doing the West’s work for them. Do they hire only writers from NPR? Governments say a lot of things. They never believe the things they say, and are always lying. Government, and Journalism, 101.

    African presidents on an African mission over African soil were ordered by NATO to go back.”

    They might have missed the headline here: NATO didn’t just SAY to go back. NATO said WE WILL BLOW UP YOUR PLANE AND KILL EVERY LEADER IN AFRICA if you don’t STFU and sit down in the back of that bus.

    …And then did, btw, a bunch more leaders were killed after this.

    Sagan: “there is a delicate balance of the Greenhouse effect”

    Or not so delicate: the earth has been wildly warmer, wildly colder, with wildly higher CO2, and we’re almost at the dead-bottom of the CO2 range and nothing’s happened. It seems pretty robust in that case and not delicate at all or we’d all long have been dead. …Plus Al Gore bored to tears, dreaming about how to sell more of his taxpayer-firehose graft so he can buy that 5th 4,000 sq ft house at sea level. Which, like Obama, they’re all still buying, non-stop, in Miami and everywhere. Insurers, knowing all of AGW, still have no problem insuring them all. At a certain dead-loss, apparently, out of the greatness of their hearts and because they all hate money. Yup! That’s what insurers do!

    “NATO Suggests for First Time Ukraine Could Cede Territory

    Reality: they got none. They’ve ONLY NOW come to the realization that they might not have an immediate and unconditional surrender from Russia. That’s as far as they’ve got. But AFTER ADMITTING the playbook, they’re only now going to run the playbook of splitting it, taking 80% of Ukraine and putting them in Nuclear-NATO, then re-arming Ukraine to do it all again tomorrow, or 20 years from now, after they make some Ukrainians, and attack Russia much closer from a more fully-armed state. That’s “Compromise”. The compromise was, after 30 years of broken treaties putting nuclear-armed states on the border to attack Russia, then ATTACKING RUSSIA, directly, on her soil in Moscow and not just the Oblasts, Russia is going to allow them to get 500 miles closer anyway, and re-populate and re-arm Ukraine anyway, in the middle of a war, while NATO is losing and it’s all about to break into a Russian victory.

    Now you see why Kissinger said to do this a year ago. THEN that might have happened. Because Harry has the brains of a normal human, but these guys don’t. Okay, I’ll watch.

    Mercouris says this is the 50-year habit of the West. Because they’re all fractured, they have to negotiate all motions through London, NY, DC, NATO, the EU, and all the rest of Europe. Even in DC that means 5 negotiations between arms manufacturers, Congressmen, all of whom have challenges and need horse trading to get on board. That’s like 55 negotiations to get signed on, and that takes months, years even, and barely works then. So the Western diplomats have to start all this, get a package together months later, then say, “Welp: here we are, here’s the deal.”

    Russia (and the RoW) looks at them in credulity and says, “Sirs? There is one person you did NOT negotiate this deal with. Merely one: Us.” Or the addition of Syria, Libya, whoever 3rd party is. The West looks baffled and can’t understand why Russia is so recalcitrant and high-handed as to not accept this deal it took them a really, really long time and a herculean effort to make. …Because they didn’t ASK anyone. They didn’t TALK to anyone. They only talk to themselves. You know, like crazy people do. As they say, “I don’t listen, bucko: I TELL YOU how it’s going to be.” I don’t TAKE orders, I MAKE them. Don’t you know who I am?

    A second part they might want to watch is that they always and only negotiate (without the other side being present ever at all) from the basis of maximum cynicism. Here’s the odd part of the Anglos though: Cynicism of the RUSSIAN side. They’re like, “We know Ukraine is only a land grab, Syria is only a chess piece to you plotting Asiaitics who-are-violent-by-nature. So give us all Syria and we’ll trade you some military bases and stuff for it.”

    Russia looks at them like they have two heads and says, “Do I stutter? The PRINCIPLE is that you can’t just come in and topple governments. The PRINCIPLE is you guys can’t just insert any head of state you feel like. And ESPECIALLY as a Russian ally or protectorate.” The West says, “Fine, fine, but we’re adults and alone here, you don’t have to use all that PR nonsense on me. We know you only want naval ports…” And the discussion goes nowhere.

    It must be pure insanity for the Russians to only and always say, VERY CLEARLY, only and exactly what they’re doing and why, in VERY TINY WORDS, even putting cards into view they don’t have to, to be met with this response as if they’re not there, the West is seeing fantasies and delusions in their head, and never once Russia, or the actual cards at all.

    And I realized why. It’s not that we can’t understand, or that we think Russia is up to something. That would be far too easy and be solved by now, in a Kissinger-like way. The real illusion, delusion, is much more basic and primary than that. It’s that, like Star Wars, American TV, Saturday cartoon reality,

    THEY THINK THEY’RE THE GOOD GUYS.

    And if THEY are the good guys, well, then obviously the other side is ipso facto, QED, the BAD Guys. And Baddie-bad super bad Bad Guys, THINK like Bad Guys. Duh. That means they all have the motives of Darth Vader x Dr. No x Despicable Me. I mean, duh. So therefore Putin’s ONLY POSSIBLE motive is he wants to kill gay people and steal land, because that’s what evilly-evil people do, and this is how Goodily-Gooder people stop them who are practically perfect in every way. You know, singing Mary Poppins songs about the joys of book-burning n stuff.

    Follow it and you’ll see exactly and only this on TV, News, among the people in the street, the entire State Department, all the Generals, and especially and exclusively with the most child-minded among us, our politicians.

    So I guess this is why a completely insane, delusional and fabricated reality has such perfect hold on a whole generation. They’re all toddlers, and this is their Teletubbies. Or Power Rangers in this case. Putin is Megazord.

    Simple! Even a coked-out crackhead buying child hookers in Moscow could understand it. WE take the money, because WE’RE THE GOOD GUYS. Duh. It’s taking bribes that PROVES you’re good. Why else would they give money to us?

    This is not a great sign as nothing can possibly dissuade a people this lost in fantasy and the wonder of sniffing their own farts. What do you do, kill all 500 million of them to make the planet safe again?

    Adding #Helping. We the “Good Guys™” are #Helping the planet so much, and Hunter to some crack along the way. #Helping so very much I hope any of us can survive it, particularly in Africa right now.

    Comic
    https://sinfest.xyz/btphp/comics/2023-08-17.jpg

    This is what you do when you’re the Gooder-Good people and therefore they’re all the Baddie-bads. They’re Bad, so they do what Bad people do: they get violent, and the violence they get PROVES my case that they were bad all along! And what do Good people Do? Why, they have to crush them ruthlessly to make the world safe! That’s what #GoodPeople do.

    So the act of them NOT being violent is and remains incomprehensible to the simple and feeble-minded from Yale. THEY JUST KNOW they’re all racist, violent, hateful, bigots who would attack anyone who got in their way. How do they know? Because that’s what THEY would do in a similar situation.

    Since they’re complete childish morons who are out of their gourds, this is going to have a very hard time being settled. People who are logical – even evil ones, like the mafia – you can reason with. They have rules. People who think spider people are living in their purse and you put listening devices in their shoes because you’re out to get them are much harder to fathom. That’s what we’re up against in Yale, NPR, and the NY Times. Power Rangers mentality of mega-zoid robots. Trapped in the mind of a 5-year-old.

    Posting suddenly worked better than ever, took immediately wo logging back in which hasn’t been true in years.

    #141438
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “Who Wants to Be a Warmonger,” UK edition.

    #141443
    Kassandra
    Participant

    One of the things that happened that convinced me the plandemic was indeed total bullshit and whoever was behind it all was truly evil was the demonization and ridicule of anyone taking ivermectin. I have been around horses my entire life and was well aware of what it was.

    On another note, I just got 100 12mg capsules from my doctor through a local compounding pharmacy. Now that I live in a more isolated, conservative area I found a small private direct family care practice of doctors that refused to follow the narrative. They don’t take insurance, so of course everything is way cheaper, and the care much better.

    #141444
    anticlimactic
    Participant

    The West promised Gaddafi he would never be overthrown if he agreed not to build nuclear weapons.

    However he went on to commit various ‘sins’ : He sold Libya’s gas rights to Gazprom; he threatened to sell oil in Euros instead of dollars; finally, the worst, he promised to create a gold-backed currency for MENA.

    The end!

    One promise he kept was to ensure that Libya was not used for refugees and migrants to travel to Europe. I suppose this is the Karma as they are now destabilising many European countries.

    #141445
    zerosum
    Participant

    Survival
    Motive for Evacuation
    Motive for being a Mercenary
    Feed up with the past, looking forward to a better future.
    ———–
    Joining together, spread the news, to make change/improve the odds for a better future
    • The Unforgivable Ivermectin Swindle (QTR)

    https://quoththeraven.substack.com/p/the-unforgivable-ivermectin-swindle

    If you’re looking for a primer on this, here is a website, ( https://c19ivm.org/ 99 studies from 1,089 scientists
    137,255 patients in 28 countries) that aggregates all of the clinical trials, and here is a discussion with Bret Weinstein and Dr. Pierre Kory that serves as a great introduction to the topic. ( https://open.spotify.com/episode/7uVXKgE6eLJKMXkETwcw0D )

    If you’ve been at least semiconscious over the last two years, you’ve noticed that early means of treating Covid outside of the vaccines (like Vitamin D, hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin) were routinely shunned by “the science” and then, by proxy, the useful idiots in the mainstream media.

    Out of all of the early treatments, ivermectin got the shortest end of the stick. Not only was it likely the most efficacious of all the early treatments, it was also routinely subject to bastardization and a berating by the media.

    The disinformation campaign about ivermectin, spearheaded by mainstream media (“brought to you by Pfizer!”) reached its fever pitch when the media and government agencies alike appeared to knowingly and maliciously juxtapose the human dosage of the drug with the coincidental and mostly unrelated fact that it was also used in a veterinary dosage to deworm horses.
    ———–

    Yelllowknife, 22,000 people, is evacuating.
    ———–

    #141446
    tboc
    Participant

    a short note to those advocating for the existence of a hidden or unkown body in control of the West. The first point is the nature of the internet, open communication. The information age has not only revolutionized communication between private citizens it has also had the same effect on all communications, public and private.

    The Treaty of Dunkirk, 1947, and the first stirrings of the origins of the European Union in 1948 are the base of the timelines of NATO and The European Union as presently constituted. The colonial powers of western Europe all managed their colonies with differing methods, some more brutal others less brutal. The fact remains the western European colonization process was brutal and inhumane. NATO and the European Union were created to formalize and integrate the relations between the colonial powers. The press release for the creators of the Union was to “make war unthinkable and materially impossible”. The actual purpose was to make war unthinkable and materially impossible against the colonial powers. The evolution of NATO and the integration of the United States into the European colonial powers is not hidden from anyone. That the true purpose of these bodies was the continuation of the colonial purpose is not hidden.

    The seventy three years between The Treaty of Dunkirk and the advent of the Pandemic of 2020 is an open book for all to see and the history is written. I know that the seeds of the Viet Nam conflict were sown before the Armistice of the Korean Conflict came into being. I know the citizens of my home, the United States of America, have openly supported the colonialist aspirations of our nation over the course of my life. My nation has engaged with the European colonial powers to enslave the balance of humanity.

    The phantasy that the purpose of NATO and the European Union is noble is just that, a phantasy. The citizens of the western nations to a large degree coalesced around the notion “might makes right”. Time after time, year after year, election after election citizens of the west voted into place those who expounded this position most clearly. In essence the most callous adherants to this philosophy were placed into positions of authority. The rapine of the lesser nations was celebrated openly.

    Year after year organizations of control were created to further the ambitions of each nation singulary and in concert with the formal international bodies. When the information age blossomed all of these existing organizations had the advantages of instant communication that private citizens acquired.

    There seems to be a feeling that, “My view has changed and there is suddenly a new phenomena emerging”. Let it be suggested, guess again. Buyers remorse is part of the human experience.

    #141448
    Dora
    Participant

    A MidwesternDoctor explains the stasis in medical research and scientific research in general over the past 40-50 years. The TL;DR main point :

    “•Our current grant system incentivizes performing research that does not advance science and medicine. Because of this, there are many barriers to those seeking to advance those fields. Addressing those barriers is vital for the health of every person in America. ”

    https://www.midwesterndoctor.com/p/why-has-innovation-disappeared-from

    What we end up with is “The Science” ™ and scientism.

    #141449
    Dora
    Participant

    Here’s a longer quote from MidwesternDoctor’s article.

    “Pollack was the one who first introduced me to the idea the grant system had removed the innovation within our scientific apparatus. Since I greatly respect his integrity and he has a significant degree of firsthand experience with this issue, I asked him to provide a hypothetical story to illustrate the problem:

    Suppose you’re inclined to believe the earth is round, while everyone around you knows it’s flat. You’ve seen satellite photos showing curvature. You’ve flown westward, eventually returning to the same point where you started. With such “preliminary data” you’re convinced that flat-earth paradigm may be erroneous, and because of the subject’s importance, you’re compelled to explore further.

    To do so, you need funding. So you prepare a grant proposal to a national funding organization. The organization’s gate-keeper receives your proposal. Noting its revolutionary character, the official recruits the shape-of-the-earth field’s top experts, in order to determine whether the proposal is flaky or serious.

    Who are those experts? Inevitably, they’re the major proponents of the prevailing view: the flat-earth theory. Your proposal gets evaluated by the very people you’re challenging. Their response can be imagined. Who likes to get dethroned?

    By inviting evaluation by the very people under challenge, the grant system ensures that revolutionary proposals will rarely receive funding. It’s effectively a dead end.

    The upshot?

    Few revolutions. The status quo prevails — endlessly. Public-relations folks may create the impression that science is moving at a rapid clip, but it’s mainly incremental. The truly major scientific advances come from the giant steps that we call scientific revolutions.

    To illustrate the dearth of revolutions, let me ask: How many scientific revolutions can you name that have taken place, say, during the past 50 years? I don’t mean technological revolutions like the iphone. I mean scientific revolutions that have seriously impacted your life — like the discovery of the genetic code (70 years ago) or the splitting of the atom (85 years ago). How many can you name?

    The scientific enterprise is assuredly active. But the dearth of modern scientific revolutions implies that something has gone seriously awry. Science should be producing major revolutions, as was the case in the early 20th century when physics revolutions were coming practically annually. Think Einstein, Planck, Bohr, etc. That kind of progress has all but vanished, and I argue that a significant culprit is the very system supposedly designed to foster revolutions — the granting system.

    The problems facing our world today are immense. Overcoming those problems will require never-before-conceived technologies. Inevitably, scientific revolutions produce those technologies: Who would have thought the discovery of semi-conduction would produce today’s laptops? Some attempts to spawn revolutionary science have surfaced, but it may be time to consider the major culprits in the crime: the federal granting agencies. By (inadvertent) design, those agencies are inhibiting scientific revolutions. That design needs to change.

    #141450
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    Belief is a weird and wonderful thing. We all do it, because we have to. There’s no alternative other than believing something else, and then Bam! there you are believing. In other words, we MUST believe certain things in order to even exist.

    You must, for example, believe that there’s going to be solid ground under your feet before you can take a step in any direction. If you don’t BELIEVE that there is, then you won’t stake that step. Blindfold some poor sucker, stand him on the edge of the Grand Canyon, and invite him to take a nice long step in the direction of his choice. Do ya think he’ll do it?

    If a biologist did not believe what his eyes showed him, would there be any point in his peering into the microscope? How about walking through a doorway? Could you do it if you could not believe the door was there?

    So, yeah. We believe stuff. The only other option would be the total paralysis brought about by total indecision.

    If you’re not quite sure what it is that you believe then there is an easy way to TEST for its existence. The test consists of observing activity. The TEST of belief is ACTION. Examination of what was actually done will instantly reveal what was actually believed at the time that it was.

    A lot of people however (most or all of them, I reckon) say that they believe or disbelieve (same action, opposite polarity) in all sorts of various but certain things, all the time, when in fact they don’t REALLY believe any of those things at all. And the opposite is equally true. For a variety of reasons people FREQUENTLY pretend (by word and deed) to DISBELIEVE things that they know damned well are perfectly true. Yup, they do it all the time, as automatically as breathing.

    For this reason, when dealing with humans it is highly advisable to be constantly alert to the possibility that they are LYING. People lie A LOT, both to themselves and to others. And that is PRECISELY what is doing them in. I don’t mean to be harsh, but that’s just the fact Jack. The world is awash in lies, and all of those lies have two things in common. They’re all untrue and they will all fail.

    Each and every lie shares those two characteristics with all other lies: It is contrary to what is true (and thereby contrary to how the world causally works,) and will therefore fail when put into practice. Always. Not “some of the time” fail. ALWAYS fail.

    I’m sure can see the problem here. There is a very distinct and highly destructive SINCERITY problem at the bottom of all this failure. There is a enormous FUBAR going on when it comes to what people say they believe, in comparison to what they demonstrate they believe. In short, there is a whole lot of lyin’ going on. Too much.

    The sincerity of beliefs is revealed in actions. Period. Actions don’t merely speak louder than words. They’re the only voice in the room. Words can at best only represent actions abstractly. That statement is very, very, very, very, VERY true. It is true for me, for thee, and for everybody else, too. No escape hatch for anybody. Of course communicating is, in itself, a type of action, and a crucially important action at that. The action of speaking truth, and likewise the speaking of lies, makes a world of difference in the production of results.

    Which brings us around to the subject of VALIDITY, which is to say is the believed fact a TRUE fact? Distinguishing the truthfulness of a fact (or belief in it) is also straightforward. Veracity is automatically tested by the most impartial, implacable and dependable of all possible judges: results. You get what you get and no matter what anybody SAYS about it, it’s still what you got.

    The VALIDITY of belief is revealed by effect. In other words, when a belief is acted upon, does it produce the expected, desired and predictable result that the operator believed it would. ….. or not? A valid action produces a valid result. Always. This factual statement about fact is ALSO very very (etc) true.

    Of course, and as we all know and experience on a regular basis, there are a LOT of people stumbling around in a disabled mental state of NOT KNOWING what the Hell they believe. They think and they act exactly as if they did not know or believe anything about what was true and what wasn’t.

    Nowhere is this more apparent and consequential than in the matter of the existence of a spiritual (non material) Aware and Interactively Purposeful Creator of Reality.

    It’s kinda the most important thing that that there is, because you ARE consciously aware, buddy, and so that question IS being answered…… by he individual…… at all times and it simply CAN NOT be avoided. You and I ARE answering, as we speak, and whether we deliberately want to or not. That revelation of personal belief (one way or the other) is literally unavoidable (although many people try mightily to do so.)

    Belief (or disbelief) in the reality of an omnipotent creator of the world is a test that is determined solely and only by ACTION. Does one BEHAVE and DO in a manner that is consistent with actually knowing and believing in the existence of an omnipotent spiritual Creator? Yes or no?

    No need to answer. Your actions have already done so for you. They constantly give mute testimony to what you ACTUALLY believed at the time of that you acted. No excuse or exculpatory explanation possible can roll back the clock or change the now immutable fact that the deed is done.

    In other words, we can ONLY move forward, and we MUST move forward, and we DO only move forward, BUT (that being the case) it would probably be a good idea, in future, to stick to the truth and avoid lies (including one’s own, both known and side-stepped).

    All actions produce results (we call them consequences when the stupid action turns out badly), which can be observed in either case.

    Action based on truth produces the expected, desired and predicted result, whereas actions based on lies don’t. They produce failure instead, in fact that’s one of the main ways that we determine whether something is true or false in the first place. We see (or not) and believe (or not) whether it works (or not.)

    Now obviously (and it does seem like a complete no-brainer to me) the sensible course of action would be to at least make an earnest effort to proceed in the direction of true stuff rather than false stuff.

    If you do that, if you insist upon truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth then you are at least giving yourself a fighting chance at being right often enough to do get the right things right (enough) to succeed and survive to acceptable standards. And you will also discover, sooner or later, that such a path, the way to truth, is also the pathway to God. It can be quite an astonishingly pleasant realization when that realization dawns.

    #141451
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    Some videos are best served with no introduction, other than to say that this 13 minute 25 second piece of straight-up factual history is entertaining, uplifting, and spot-on-the-mark relevant to our recent conversations.
    link: https://youtu.be/_M89HC9er74

    #141452
    zerosum
    Participant

    @ D Benton Smith

    In the real/perfect world, It’s easier to see/detect/recognize/realize/critical thinking/ truth if there is no Manipulation
    https://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/another-word-for/manipulation.html

    #141453
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @zerosum

    In the real/perfect world, It’s easier to see/detect/recognize/realize/critical thinking/ truth if there is no Manipulation”

    Man, you can sure say that again! And if there are tickets to such a place please sign me up.
    Meanwhile I think we’re stuck with hiking there the hard way, one step at a time, by learning and practicing (as best we can mange with study and practice) how to de-manipulate this marketplace of manipulation one pack of lies at a time, replacing lies with truths every place we find them them and every chance we get.

    #141454
    Rototillerman
    Participant

    @Dora: I believe it was Max Planck who quipped, “Science advances one funeral at a time.”

    @DBS: please excuse my pedantism, but once one starts a block quote the icon in that position changes to a slash-b-quote for you to use at the end of the quoted text. This will avoid a problem with many of your otherwise excellent postings, in which it can be difficult to skip down to where the quote ends and your voice begins.

    #141455
    zerosum
    Participant

    Canada’s boreal forests/towns are burning and being evacuated.
    Can the grain fields/towns/forest edges of Ukraine be set afire with incendiary bombs easier before the rainy season starts? We are not talking about cluster bombs. Which side will set Ukraine ablaze first and get the advantage?

    #141456
    Red
    Participant

    Dora: “The scientific enterprise is assuredly active. But the dearth of modern scientific revolutions implies that something has gone seriously awry. Science should be producing major revolutions, as was the case in the early 20th century when physics revolutions were coming practically annually. Think Einstein, Planck, Bohr, etc. That kind of progress has all but vanished, and I argue that a significant culprit is the very system supposedly designed to foster revolutions — the granting system.”

    Jordan Peterson talking with his daughter, start at the 52 minute mark and think about what he says over the next few minutes about getting certification from these “higher learning” paces in the near future. Who you gonna trust now.

    #141457
    Celticbiker
    Participant

    Everything going on now was planned at least 50 years ago. All of our lives we were pre-programmed to accept it. Money rules this fake and gay world, They decide who lives, who dies. They decide which countries rise and which fall. They are done with America, now they are going to destroy it. They have already bankrupted it and stolen everything. Now their eyes, gold and money turn to the East.. As you watch your family and friends die from these injections, and no 1, no 1 is held to account, you better understand how dangerous a position you are in. They see us as cattle, don’t ever forget that.

    #141459
    John Day
    Participant

    Government Here To Help https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/government-here-to-help

    Simplicius has this Ukraine War update, which is extensive and far broader geopolitically than the title suggests:
    Ukraine Commits Last Remaining Elite Brigade For Final Attempt
    [I have seen the opinion that US/NATO expects Ukraine to expend ALL of the military hardware against Russia ASAP, for maximal “gains” and damage to Russia before terminal negotiations for a settlement are undertaken. There are few Ukrainian men remaining to catch in another round of conscription.]
    The 82nd Air Assault brigade is an elite force which was entrusted with the British Challenger 2 tanks, American Stryker AFVs, and even German Marder IFVs. In fact, they were even rounded out with the British M119 light howitzer which makes them the only brigade out of the entire offensive supergroup to be armed entirely with modern Western/NATO arms and not a single legacy Soviet system…
    ..On June 22, Forbes assessed that the 82nd, and the 117th Mechanized Brigade where being held in reserve waiting for a significant breach in Russian lines to allow them to storm Melitopol.
    The Forbes article says the deployment of the brigade is both “good and bad” news. Good because it’s a fresh brigade, bad because they have nothing left after it…
    ..One thing to note is that, the 82nd is structured in a peculiar way compared to the other brigades. They appear to be the lightest and most mobile. This is due to every other brigade of the 9th Corps being distributed with the equivalent of two tank companies or perhaps a light tank battalion of about 30 tanks with 90 armored vehicles (AFV, IFV, ICV, AMV, APC, etc.). But the 82nd has a measly 14 x Challenger 2s but 90 Strykers + 40 Marders for a total of 130 capable lightly armored combat vehicles. Even their M119 light howitzers specialize in fast setup and mobility.
    If you ask me, this is more dangerous as tanks have typically proven useless in the hands of the AFU as they’re merely sitting ducks. Ukraine does better with IFVs and MRAPs when they’re able to just race down field and overwhelm Russian defenses as they did in the Kharkov offensive last year. Also, the quick-moving IFVs/AFVs typically scatter Russian artillery defenses, making them less effective and depleting their ammo. In short, I see this brigade as more of a threat than the Leopard 2 heavy 47th, which was meant to be the other big ‘elite’ unit. Sure, 2 of the Strykers are already kaput but they’ve got 88 more and another 39 or so German Marders which were always touted as the best available IFVs in the world next to the Swedish CV-90.
    With that said, tanks are a requisite for certain things. Against hastily prepared or ad hoc defenses, lighter vehicles can be fine. But against something like Russia’s main Zaporozhye line, which likely has concrete-fortified structures and strong points, caponiers, etc., the lighter vehicles simply don’t have the firepower to blast through such reinforced assemblages. Only a tank firing HE rounds can get the job done…
    ..[A Russian soldier comments on the losses of Ukrainian men for the minimal gain of a small village.] Sympathy does not come to visit on the battlefield, but seeing how much damage the enemy is taking in Harvest, we experienced feelings that are difficult to describe. We lacked infantry and equipment, but we had enough means of destruction to grind up a significant part of what the enemy threw at the capture of the village. Harvest resembled a meat grinder, which included living people, and minced meat came out. The number of destroyed and damaged equipment was not calculated in units. A very specific residue remained: We lost Urozhayne, and at the same time caused such damage that part of our consciousness refuses to understand the motives of the Ukrainian command. So only those who hate them more than ours can drive their own to slaughter…
    ..Western Media goes into “hard truths” mode…
    ..An American West Point officer who apparently served as “special advisor” to Zaluzhny and now works in Kiev is quoted in the article:
    “If General Zaluzhnyi was a NATO general, he would have to refuse the order to take the counter,” Dan Rice—a West Point graduate who served as a former special adviser to Zaluzhnyi before taking up the post of president of the American University Kyiv—told Newsweek.
    Rice pointed to, in particular, Ukraine’s lack of air support, the continued U.S, refusal to supply MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), and the absence of longer-range cluster munitions for use with the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS).
    “You can’t win this without superior artillery and superior airpower to go on the offensive,” Rice added. “Nobody should really be shocked by this.” …
    ..[They are talking about a spring 2024 Ukrainian offensive, but I will ignore that pie-in-the-sky talk.] …
    ..NATO’s chief of staff Jenssen made the suggestion—long predicted by yours truly—that NATO could offer membership to Ukraine in exchange for Ukraine completely giving up claims to all the territories Russia controls, as a last act of desperation toward freezing the conflict. Ukrainian officials were apoplectic with rage. [See story below that NATO has retracted this “out of context” statement now.] …
    ..Dmitry Medvedev assessed the NATO secretary’s statement:
    “A new idea for Ukraine from the North Atlantic Alliance office: Ukraine can join NATO if it gives up disputed territories.
    Why? The idea is a curious one. The only question is that all of their alleged territories are highly disputed.
    And in order to enter the bloc, the Kiev authorities would have to give up even Kiev itself, the capital of Ancient Rus.” …
    ..[ I have been reading about the thoughts, actions and battle plans of Hitler and the German high command in the period from late 1943 to the end of the German war in 1945. They persisted in the hopeless task of defensive battles, taking a great toll of German, Russian and allied lives, while maintaining the command structure of the Wehrmacht and the obedience of the German soldiers dying in the trenches.] …
    ..Alarms inside NATO are beginning to ring as it’s now become a realization that this Ukrainian ‘project’ could take them all down with it. Why ride a dying horse into a burning field when you can jump off now and save your skin? Jettison the poor beast for your own good.
    In the meantime, Russian ex-general and Duma deputy Kartapolov says that Russia is preparing the conditions for its own big offensive…
    [There is detailed discussion of the Russian economy, growing robustly, looking for more workers, and the falling foreign-exchange value of the Ruble, which is largely separated from “unfriendly” currency trade this year. The isolation of Russia from the global financial regime since early 2022 is unprecedented. The falling global-ruble is not apparently harming the Russian real economy at all.]
    ..Not only is Russia now using $110B more in ruble terms but 40% of all Russian exports for the current quarter are in rubles compared to 14% for the same quarter in 2021. In other words: last year, in all its trades, Russia used the ruble only 14% of the time to settle those trades. Now it’s using it 40% of the time.
    Likewise, last year Russia used foreign currencies of unfriendly countries (presumably dollar and euro) in trade settlements a whopping 85% of the time and now uses them only 34%. The currency of friendly countries (presumably yuan, rupee, etc.) was used only 1% of the time and is now used 27%.
    Putting the numbers together, this means that currently 67% of all trades are done in either the ruble or friendly currencies (yuan, rupee, etc.), while the remainder of trade—33-34%—is done in unfriendly currencies like dollar and euro…
    ..Long story short: once the current dollar-denominated bonds are paid off eventually, the problem could be resolved as in the future Russia could choose to not issue such bonds anymore. But for the time being it has to pay them off via foreign currencies…
    ..Russia added $600 billion of total wealth, the Swiss bank found in its annual Global Wealth Report, published Tuesday.
    The number of Russian millionaires also rose by about 56,000 to 408,000 in 2022, while the number of ultra-high-net-worth individuals — people worth over $50 million — jumped by nearly 4,500.
    But the US lost more wealth than any other country last year, shedding $5.9 trillion, while North America and Europe combined got $10.9 trillion poorer, UBS reported…
    [Perceptions are tipping over.]
    ..A sampling of polls of citizens in France and Germany, which shows a small majority actually favoring Russia and Putin….
    ..We now have the subtitled and first person version of the Russian marine boarding of a non-complying ship near the Odessa corridor. Recall that Ukraine’s official declaration was that no such inspection took place and is merely “Kremlin lies”. [Complete video of boarding and Russian commander talking with captain of ship in English.] …
    ..Ukraine has released footage of their naval terror strike on the Kerch bridge last month. [provided videos.] …
    ..Depending on the orientation of the cameras on the roadway, some have suggested it appears that the naval drones actually approach the roadway section of the bridge from the Sea of Azov side. This would point to the drones somehow being launched from the Sea of Azov rather than the Black Sea…
    ..Ukraine used a new prototype drone they’re calling the “Sea Baby”. They’ve now released footage of it—this is what was used on the Kerch Bridge… [video]
    https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/ukraine-commits-last-remaining-elite

    NATO official retracts Russian land grab suggestion as means to broker peace in Ukraine
    Official says the quoted fragment was taken out of context

    NATO official retracts Russian land grab suggestion as means to broker peace in Ukraine

    Gilbert Doctorow,
    Russia’s asymmetric response to latest announced plans of U.S. and NATO for sending more devastating military hardware to Ukraine
    Did the Ukrainian counter-offensive which began on 4 June fail? An increasing number of Western mainstream media including CNN have published reports acknowledging it is a failure…
    ..Europe is a backwater in more than one dimension. Not everyone here has gotten the word about Ukraine’s losses in two months of desperate attacks on Russian defensive positions across the entire 1,000 km front. Last night I watched a round-table discussion of the war on French television in which not a single panelist had been told that the game is up in Ukraine…
    ..In the German media, mainstream journalists have been seeding the discussion of the war with news about Ukraine’s setbacks and the improbability of their accomplishing anything other than self-destruction as the fighting continues…
    ..Biden in the past week inserted authorization for another 14 billion dollars in military supplies into a bill for provision of aid to victims of natural disasters, meaning the present disaster in Hawaii and elsewhere in the States. The tactic was meant to overcome rising Republican opposition to giving Ukraine one more cent of aid should the aid have been in a separate bill dedicated to the war effort…
    ..So what are the Russians doing about the new arms on the way to Ukraine? …
    ..First, those air raid sirens across the whole of Ukraine were related to the systematic Russian bombardment of all still functional Ukrainian airports from which their air force’s SU-24 and SU-27 can operate. These are the aircraft that are capable of carrying and firing the Storm Shadow and other long range missiles…
    ..Second, we are told that the Russians have just used Kinzhal hypersonic missiles to destroy the railway tunnels passing under the Carpathians which have been the main supply route of Western military hardware arriving from Poland and Romania…
    ..By Russian calculations, they have now nullified the latest Western plans to prolong the war.

    Russia’s asymmetric response

    #141460
    zerosum
    Participant

    @ Celticbiker
    Do you read comment that are addressed at your comment?
    “They see us as cattle,”
    No. We are paid mercenaries

    #141461
    John Day
    Participant

    Gilbert Doctorow, “Army 2023”: More news from Russia that you will not find in Western mainstream
    Two parallel military-related events in Russia this week have attracted delegations from many ‘friendly’ foreign countries. These are the 11th annual Moscow International Security Conference, said to have guests from 60 countries, and “Army 2023” which, from what I caught ‘on the fly,’ appears to have participants from 30 countries.
    The most important of the foreign delegations, judging by the attention it is receiving on Russian television, is the one headed by Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu. We have heard so far that he was in side meetings with his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu. Russian commentators see as the main purpose of the talks alignment of Russian-Chinese countermeasures to the latest U.S. and NATO activities in and around Ukraine, as well as Belarus, and in Taiwan and the Far East more generally. It has been pointed out that, exceptionally, this is the second visit of Li Shangfu to Russia this year…..The conference on security heard an in-person speech by Defense Minister Shoigu which was notable for several sound bites carried by Russian state television. He said flatly that Ukraine has ‘exhausted its military reserve.’ This suggests that the Russians will be initiating their own strategic offensive in the coming weeks. He also said that the experience of the Ukrainian attacks over the past two months show that the supposed superiority of U.S. and NATO doctrine and practice, the superiority of their military hardware, is all a myth… Surely his most damaging remark for the Pentagon was his stated readiness to share with ‘friendly countries’ what Russia has learned on the battlefield about the vulnerabilities of U.S and NATO equipment and combat methods…..For his part, Vladimir Putin delivered a speech to the conference by video from off-site. He denounced the Collective West for its ‘geopolitical adventurism and egoistical, neocolonial actions.’…Putin has picked the raisins from the cake of the Marxist critique of the West that the Kremlin leadership promoted on the world stage for three generations…
    ..But there is another aspect of “Army 2023” which will probably evoke more enthusiasm from the general public when the exhibition opens to them on Friday: the display of several thousand ‘war trophies’ from the battlefield in Ukraine. In particular that relates to the French wheeled tank, to the British armored personnel carriers, to American artillery pieces, to special battlefield vehicles made in Sweden and much more that was brought back from the battlefield in near mint condition after being abandoned by their Ukrainian crews who ran for their lives. This may well be the best piece of outdoor advertising for the strength of Russian arms. It is surely going to be a bone in the throat of U.S. and European arms vendors.

    “Army 2023”: More news from Russia that you will not find in Western mainstream

    Why US Drones Prove Useless in Ukraine [Not Approved for Off Road Use!]
    On one hand, US defense-tech firms produce drones with a price tag starting from $16,000, well above China’s DJI Mavic UAVs that cost around $2,000 or even less.
    What’s more, according to the US mainstream press, some US defense contractors who have spent months testing their drones in Ukraine have now decided to leave their drones in storage. The crux of the matter is that despite “outstanding performance characteristics” their highly-sophisticated equipment couldn’t perform appropriately in Ukraine’s tough battlefield conditions.
    https://sputnikglobe.com/20230815/why-us-drones-prove-useless-in-ukraine-1112615946.html

    #141462
    John Day
    Participant

    Thanks to Government, Maui’s Lahaina Fire Became a Deadly Conflagration , Conner O’Keeffe
    The city of Lahaina sits on the west coast of Maui, Hawaii’s second-largest island. It is surrounded by grassland, much of which the state owns.
    Nearly a decade ago the Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization, a research nonprofit, warned the Hawaiian government that the area around Lahaina was extremely fire-prone due to frequent downslope winds, steep terrain, and dry grass. Little was done to address these risks. A subsequent report in 2020 added that an invasive species of exceptionally flammable grass was prevalent in the surrounding fields and that passing hurricanes created strong winds known to fuel wildfires on the islands.
    Early last week, Hurricane Dora crossed the ocean south of Hawaii. By early Tuesday morning, August 8, winds as fast as sixty miles per hour were blowing down the slopes of the West Maui Mountains into Lahaina. Around sunrise, a large fault was detected in the power grid, indicating a downed power line. Twenty minutes later, the first reports of fire came in from the area around Lahainaluna Road, uphill and upwind from the city.
    The area where flames were first spotted is full of electrical infrastructure, mostly operated by Hawaiian Electric, the state’s monopoly electricity supplier. This included a substation and a multitude of power lines. Most of the land in the area is owned by the State of Hawaii except for a parcel belonging to the estate of one of Hawaii’s last princesses. This parcel housed a solar farm supplying electricity to the Hawaiian Electric substation. Early last year, NPR published a glowing article about the solar project, praising it the direct result of government regulation crafted to help transition Hawaii to 100 percent renewable power by 2045.
    But on the morning of August 8, as winds hammered the old wooden utility poles, this highly electrified area in the dry grasses above Lahaina was quickly becoming dangerous. Yet no formal procedure was in place to shut off sections of the grid in the face of severe fire risks. As a result, twenty-nine fully energized poles fell across West Maui that day.
    But even with downed poles in the way, the first firefighters on the scene met with some early success. Around 9 a.m., the county fire department declared the fire “100 percent contained.” But the message to residents included an ominous request. The county’s water pumps were powered by electricity, much of which was frantically being turned off to deactivate the downed lines. Officials asked the public to conserve water to preserve water pressure.
    But by midafternoon, a flare-up brought the fire back to life on the Lahaina Bypass, a major road that heads straight into town. The flames moved swiftly into Lahaina at 4:46 p.m., one minute after the county government finally sent out an alert to warn the city’s population, largely without power, about the flare-up that had occurred over an hour before.
    To make matters worse, county officials failed to activate emergency sirens, leaving residents unaware of the danger bearing down on them. And as firefighters heroically rushed toward the flames to try and save their community, they found that there was little to no water pressure in the fire hydrants, which quickly ran dry.
    With a single backed-up highway leading out of the city, many residents of Lahaina had nowhere to go. Some scrambled into the ocean to escape the smoke and flames. But in the end, many couldn’t get out. [School was called off for high winds, so children were home alone across the island.]….
    ..To review, a power company shielded from competition by the state placed electrical infrastructure among highly flammable state-owned grass fields above the historic city of Lahaina, which the government was twice warned were highly susceptible to fire. And once a fire broke out, a combination of defective water infrastructure, terrible communication by government officials, and only one escape route doomed the people of Lahaina to the worst wildfire experienced in this country in over a hundred years.
    https://mises.org/wire/thanks-government-mauis-lahaina-fire-became-deadly-conflagration

    With wildfires ripping across West Maui on Aug. 8, a state water official delayed the release of water that landowners requested to help protect their property from damage and stop the spread. The water standoff played out over much of the day and the water didn’t come until too late. The dispute involved the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ water resource management division and West Maui Land Co., which manages agricultural and residential subdivisions in West Maui… According to accounts of four people with knowledge of the situation, M. Kaleo Manuel, a Native Hawaiian cultural practitioner and DLNR’s deputy director for water resource management, initially refused West Maui Land Co.’s requests for additional water to help prevent fires from spreading to properties managed by the company. Manuel eventually released water but not until after the fire had run its course.[This was irrigation-ditch water from an uphill reservoir, not city water.]
    His office has not yet commented on the delay of water resources. [The brief archival video of M. Kaleo Manuel discussing his reverence for water is instructive.]. ..Hawaii’s Democrat Governor, Josh Green, says there are people “fighting against the release of water to fight fires” & that it needs to be explored further. [Josh Green MD was an ER Doc, sometimes working in North Kohala from 2008-2013 when I worked there. We talked about various things at various times. He is a decent person who likes politics and was in the Hawaii House, then Senate when I knew him. There were never any bad stories about Dr. Green, though I heard unfavorable reports about a couple of other doctors. Josh is well thought of in Hawaii.]
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/woke-hawaiian-official-stalled-release-revered-water-until-it-was-too-late-save-maui

    FEMA Money For Maui Disaster Relief May Get Caught Up In A Partisan Fight Over Ukraine
    The Biden administration sought $12 billion in emergency funding that would extend disaster relief programs while simultaneously requesting some $24.1 billion in military spending for Ukraine in the same package.
    That means that funding Hawaii’s needs for Maui’s recovery has been tied to funding to back Ukraine’s military, an increasingly unpopular topic in some Republican circles.

    FEMA Money For Maui Disaster Relief May Get Caught Up In A Partisan Fight Over Ukraine

    New Ed Dowd & Steve Bannon: Ed Lives There! Maui Hawaii Urgent Update August 2023
    Most of the information is presented between 2:50 to 11:50 in this video. FEMA is shutting everybody out, especially reporters. Residents are provided tents.
    https://beforeitsnews.com/prophecy/2023/08/new-ed-dowd-steve-bannon-ed-lives-there-maui-hawaii-urgent-update-august-2023-2544231.html

    #141463
    John Day
    Participant

    Thanks to Government, Maui’s Lahaina Fire Became a Deadly Conflagration , Conner O’Keeffe
    The city of Lahaina sits on the west coast of Maui, Hawaii’s second-largest island. It is surrounded by grassland, much of which the state owns.
    Nearly a decade ago the Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization, a research nonprofit, warned the Hawaiian government that the area around Lahaina was extremely fire-prone due to frequent downslope winds, steep terrain, and dry grass. Little was done to address these risks. A subsequent report in 2020 added that an invasive species of exceptionally flammable grass was prevalent in the surrounding fields and that passing hurricanes created strong winds known to fuel wildfires on the islands.
    Early last week, Hurricane Dora crossed the ocean south of Hawaii. By early Tuesday morning, August 8, winds as fast as sixty miles per hour were blowing down the slopes of the West Maui Mountains into Lahaina. Around sunrise, a large fault was detected in the power grid, indicating a downed power line. Twenty minutes later, the first reports of fire came in from the area around Lahainaluna Road, uphill and upwind from the city.
    The area where flames were first spotted is full of electrical infrastructure, mostly operated by Hawaiian Electric, the state’s monopoly electricity supplier. This included a substation and a multitude of power lines. Most of the land in the area is owned by the State of Hawaii except for a parcel belonging to the estate of one of Hawaii’s last princesses. This parcel housed a solar farm supplying electricity to the Hawaiian Electric substation. Early last year, NPR published a glowing article about the solar project, praising it the direct result of government regulation crafted to help transition Hawaii to 100 percent renewable power by 2045.
    But on the morning of August 8, as winds hammered the old wooden utility poles, this highly electrified area in the dry grasses above Lahaina was quickly becoming dangerous. Yet no formal procedure was in place to shut off sections of the grid in the face of severe fire risks. As a result, twenty-nine fully energized poles fell across West Maui that day.
    But even with downed poles in the way, the first firefighters on the scene met with some early success. Around 9 a.m., the county fire department declared the fire “100 percent contained.” But the message to residents included an ominous request. The county’s water pumps were powered by electricity, much of which was frantically being turned off to deactivate the downed lines. Officials asked the public to conserve water to preserve water pressure.
    But by midafternoon, a flare-up brought the fire back to life on the Lahaina Bypass, a major road that heads straight into town. The flames moved swiftly into Lahaina at 4:46 p.m., one minute after the county government finally sent out an alert to warn the city’s population, largely without power, about the flare-up that had occurred over an hour before.
    To make matters worse, county officials failed to activate emergency sirens, leaving residents unaware of the danger bearing down on them. And as firefighters heroically rushed toward the flames to try and save their community, they found that there was little to no water pressure in the fire hydrants, which quickly ran dry.
    With a single backed-up highway leading out of the city, many residents of Lahaina had nowhere to go. Some scrambled into the ocean to escape the smoke and flames. But in the end, many couldn’t get out. [School was called off for high winds, so children were home alone across the island.]….
    ..To review, a power company shielded from competition by the state placed electrical infrastructure among highly flammable state-owned grass fields above the historic city of Lahaina, which the government was twice warned were highly susceptible to fire. And once a fire broke out, a combination of defective water infrastructure, terrible communication by government officials, and only one escape route doomed the people of Lahaina to the worst wildfire experienced in this country in over a hundred years.
    https://mises.org/wire/thanks-government-mauis-lahaina-fire-became-deadly-conflagration

    With wildfires ripping across West Maui on Aug. 8, a state water official delayed the release of water that landowners requested to help protect their property from damage and stop the spread. The water standoff played out over much of the day and the water didn’t come until too late. The dispute involved the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ water resource management division and West Maui Land Co., which manages agricultural and residential subdivisions in West Maui… According to accounts of four people with knowledge of the situation, M. Kaleo Manuel, a Native Hawaiian cultural practitioner and DLNR’s deputy director for water resource management, initially refused West Maui Land Co.’s requests for additional water to help prevent fires from spreading to properties managed by the company. Manuel eventually released water but not until after the fire had run its course.[This was irrigation-ditch water from an uphill reservoir, not city water.]
    His office has not yet commented on the delay of water resources. [The brief archival video of M. Kaleo Manuel discussing his reverence for water is instructive.]. ..Hawaii’s Democrat Governor, Josh Green, says there are people “fighting against the release of water to fight fires” & that it needs to be explored further. [Josh Green MD was an ER Doc, sometimes working in North Kohala from 2008-2013 when I worked there. We talked about various things at various times. He is a decent person who likes politics and was in the Hawaii House, then Senate when I knew him. There were never any bad stories about Dr. Green, though I heard unfavorable reports about a couple of other doctors. Josh is well thought of in Hawaii.]
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/woke-hawaiian-official-stalled-release-revered-water-until-it-was-too-late-save-maui

    FEMA Money For Maui Disaster Relief May Get Caught Up In A Partisan Fight Over Ukraine
    The Biden administration sought $12 billion in emergency funding that would extend disaster relief programs while simultaneously requesting some $24.1 billion in military spending for Ukraine in the same package.
    That means that funding Hawaii’s needs for Maui’s recovery has been tied to funding to back Ukraine’s military, an increasingly unpopular topic in some Republican circles.

    FEMA Money For Maui Disaster Relief May Get Caught Up In A Partisan Fight Over Ukraine

    New Ed Dowd & Steve Bannon: Ed Lives There! Maui Hawaii Urgent Update August 2023
    Most of the information is presented between 2:50 to 11:50 in this video. FEMA is shutting everybody out, especially reporters. Residents are provided tents.
    https://beforeitsnews.com/prophecy/2023/08/new-ed-dowd-steve-bannon-ed-lives-there-maui-hawaii-urgent-update-august-2023-2544231.html

    #141464
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Why do I take such comfort in seeing NATO=NAZIS and the Empire of Lies military equipment getting the shit kicked out of by the Russians in Ukronaziland?

    Cause it’s the only place on earth that the DeepDipShit© State is losing Big Time and the museum of captured NATO=NAZIS shit in Moscow is there for all the world to see what a bunch of ass-wipes the Empire of Lies Military Industrial Mafia© is.

    NATO=NAZIS equipment is crap

    Here’s a Ukronazi tank getting sent to ‘Bandera’ and the video POV inside of Ukronazi-Empire of Lies Humvee as it gets hit by a Russia round.

    Like shooting fish in a barrel

    I literally can’t wait to see Challenger and Abrams blown to bits

    I sure hope there’s UKtard and Empire of Lies mercenaries inside those crap tanks but they don’t have the balls to be there, they’ll let the Ukronazis die in their place.

    #141465
    John Day
    Participant

    Largely deplatformed USMC (Ret.) weapons inspector, Scott Ritter, The US is caught in a dilemma with Niger
    Washington can’t sever relations with the post-coup government lest it lose the basis for its military presence in the African country
    (Deputy Secretary of State, Victoria) Nuland had sought a meeting with the ousted president, Bazoum, as well as the leader of the new military government, General Tchiani. She was denied both, and instead held a very strained dialogue with Tchiani’s military chief, General Moussa Salaou Barmou, who headed a delegation of lesser officers. Nuland called the talks with Barmou “frank” and “difficult.” What she did not do, however, was call a spade a spade, refusing to label the Nigerien coup a coup, but rather treating it as temporary domestic political mishap which, with a little bit of US-applied pressure from the right source, could be overcome.
    The reasoning behind the American game of semantics is that, by law, if the US recognizes the Nigerien coup as a coup, then it must cease all military-to-military interactions between a force of some 1,100 US military personnel currently stationed in Niger, and their Nigerien military counterparts, as well as all other forms of US-funded aid. The law in question, known as Section 7008 (of Public Law 117-328, Division K), specifically states that no funds appropriated by Congress in support of State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs (SFOPS) “shall be obligated or expended to finance directly any assistance to the government of any country whose duly elected head of government is deposed by military coup d’état or decree.”
    https://www.rt.com/news/581312-us-niger-nuland-dilemma/

    Simplicius has extensive insights regarding anti-colonial sentiments and actions in the Sahel.
    Change is in the air.
    Under cover of the Ukrainian war, vast sweeping changes are in order for the global architecture which has secured Western hegemony for the past century and a half.
    The events currently playing out in Africa and the ‘global south’ dare to eclipse the significance of the Ukrainian war, which acts merely as the frosting to the revolutionary layer cake of anti-imperialist sentiment bursting forth around the world.
    Africa has had enough, and is self-assembling along geopolitical lines. The U.S. stooges of ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) seek to keep the status quo going while rival blocs are ready to strip the Western powers of their self-proclaimed birthright to the African land—and its resources—once and for all…
    ..This new revolt of the global south follows in the footsteps of previous movements, notably that of Gaddafi, who pushed for pan-Africanism and sought to replace the French Franc with an African currency based on the classical Libyan gold Dinar.
    This was revealed in hacked Clinton emails from 2011 (released in 2015). One of them featured Clinton Foundation employee Sydney Blumenthal (a proxy for a CIA agent, it was later learned) telling Hillary the following:
    The vaults of the Libyan Central Bank in Tripoli. This gold was accumulated prior to the current rebellion and was intended to be used to establish a pan-African currency based on the Libyan golden Dinar. This plan was designed to provide the Francophone African Countries with an alternative to the French.franc (CFA).
    Blumenthal goes on to intimate that:
    “French intelligence officers discovered this plan shortly after the current rebellion began”, and that this “influenced President Nicolas Sarkozy’s decision to commit France to the attack on Libya”…
    ..It’s clear that Russia’s David vs. Goliath performance in the Ukrainian war against the combined powers of the West is seen by the world as a reinvigorating and animating inspiration. When African countries see Russia leading the charge with its opening salvo against the West, they feel secure in marching behind their ‘big brother’.
    The true war has always been about Europe’s main hegemonic weapon: its currency and banking system, which it uses to enslave lesser countries and control other ‘great powers’. But things are now converging with remarkable synchronicity to wrest back control from the West. In only a little over a week, a historic BRICS summit will take place and is set to become a linchpin in upturning the world order.
    https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/change-is-in-the-air-in-africa

    UK intelligence service MI-6 has prepared a sabotage squad comprising 100 militants from Ukrainian nationalist groups for operations on the African soil, a military-diplomatic source has told TASS.
    “According to information, confirmed by several sources, UK special service MI-6 has formed and prepared for deployment on the southern continent a sabotage and assassination squad, comprising members of Ukrainian nationalist and neo-Nazi groups, in an attempt to prevent cooperation between African countries and Russia,” the source said.
    According to the source, the Kiev government tasked the country’s national security service SBU, military intelligence service GUR and the Defense Ministry in July with helping MI-6 and SAS to select 100 militants from Ukrainian nationalist groups with vast combat experience “on the eastern front.” The instructions were given on a request from London.
    “The task of the Ukrainian squad, formed by the British special services, will be to carry out sabotage attacks at infrastructure facilities in Africa and to assassinate African leaders eyeing cooperation with Russia,” the source said.
    https://tass.com/russia/1661071

    Wednesday was yesterday, but I see no update on this hearing.
    Judge schedules emergency hearing in RFK Jr.’s lawsuit over YouTube allegedly censoring his campaign
    Robert F. Kennedy Jr. alleges Google is censoring his campaign based on statements from the Biden administration
    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/judge-schedules-emergency-hearing-rfk-jr-lawsuit-youtube-allegedly-censoring-campaign

    #141466
    John Day
    Participant

    Sasha Latypova posted this interesting twist. Some wondered about arson, but it does not look like that kind of conspiracy now.
    The government of Hawaii states goal for rebuild is to make the entire island of Maui the first Smart ISLAND. They want the entire island governed by AI as outlined in the Hawaii Digital government summit of 2023 that they have planned to host next month Monday, September 25, 2023 on Maui.
    Plans to implement a Digital AI government over Hawaii: https://events.govtech.com/Hawaii-Digital-Government
    [There is also information and links about the smart cities Hawaii.]
    https://sashalatypova.substack.com/p/maui-plans-for-a-high-tech-prison

    I personally think that the “smart-island” plans will be viewed with an extremely jaundiced and suspicious eye by Hawaiians going forward.
    Lahaina Fire Victims Being Pressured to Sell Land, Governor Warns:
    ‘You would be pretty poorly informed if you try to steal land from our people and then build here’ https://themessenger.com/news/lahaina-fire-victims-being-pressured-to-sell-land-governor-warns

    #141467
    John Day
    Participant

    Yay, all eventually uploaded.
    Human-not-spam-boy

    #141468
    zerosum
    Participant

    You convinced me, incendiary bomb will make Ukraine burn and make the front evacuate.

    #141469
    Oroboros
    Participant

    I hope Niger gets Wagner ‘musicians’ with their loads of manpads and ATGM kornets and blasts the fuck out of the French and Empire of Lies shit equipment and helicopters and ancient aircraft.

    During the Wagner incident heading towards Moscow, Wagner forces shot down 6 Russian Air Force helicopters and a fighter plane.

    They are very good at war

    Africa can use them to kill Colonialists and their backers

    Hurrah


    The Empire of Lies
    is made of Cowards who have lost every fighting episode since WWII and can only temporarily ‘win’ when they are doing the equivalent of kicking kids in wheelchairs.

    Wagner could also be fabulous with Lancet 3’s

    Russian drones are now so cheap, they can go after any target no matter how small and STILL be cost effective!

    See How $400 Russian FPV Drone Hunts Down a Ukronazi SUV

    Just as a reality check, ONE Empire of Lies 155mm shell gouges tax payers $3000 each, one fucking shell.

    A $400 Russian drone does far more for far less

    Performance, not profit is the Russian mantra.

    #141470
    Oroboros
    Participant

    $400 Russian Drone Wanted To Hit Ukrainian Communications Satellite Dish – But Got An Extra Bonus!

    #141471
    Oroboros
    Participant

    According to the FY2021 US Army Justification, the average cost of a single M67 grenade is around 45 US dollars.

    Maybe Russian drones when perfected further and put into really mass production will be $45 bucks each and then can be used in swarms of 10 making $400 go much further

    Also, Russian FPV drones are cheap enough to hunt down all the individual Ukronazi Starlink terminals

    Yah Baby, go Elon!

    #141472
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Inventing and evolving modern warfare in real time.

    Russian Kornet ATGM units use four wheelers to ‘shoot & scoot’

    Clever

    THey can fired outside sniper range and put a Kornet ATGM missile through a specific house window at 4 miles out.

    Threading the Needle

    Cheap, fast, effective

    Destroys a Leopard-tard 2 tank at $6 million each for pennies on the dollar.

    Sweet

    #141473
    Oroboros
    Participant

    The Empire of Lies Ass Wipe Military Mafia have nothing even close to this and certainly nothing close to this price.

    The new Kornet-D mobile unit works at 6 miles away.

    Designed spefically as Bradley-Leopard wholesale killers.

    Hahahaha

    Take that NATO=NAZIS

    !6 missiles per vehicle, can launch per pairs for the fatal ‘Double Tap’ on big tanks like the Abrams and Challenger.

    The Russians have form specialized anti Leopard, anti Bradley units and are incorporating infomation about how to better kill Bradley-Leopards by annalizing captured Bradley-Leopards and finding their weal spot.

    Hahahaha

    Again, how clever and logical

    The Empire of Lies Gangster Nation Military Mafia could never do this in a thousand years cause where their brains are supposed to be, there’s only GREED, not proficiency.

    Hahahahaha

    Eat dirt and die Empire of Lies Gangster Nation®

    #141474
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @Rototillerman

    Ah Ha! So THAT’s how to invoke the big close-quote character. Thank you.

    #141475
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    I must say; I find the gloating here over death and destruction very disturbing…
    The arm chair warriors here display a level of hubris and hypocracy I find unsettling even in these trying times…
    Not a very encouraging attitude on a path to the future…

    #141506
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @V.Arnold

    I share the dismay. The violence may be necessary to forestall defeat, but it will not bring victory. The people harmed are PEOPLE, who we will need to live with when this war is over.

    #141507
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    A standard practice in organized crime is the practice of keeping two sets of accounting books. One set with falsified numbers for public review and legal encounters with the authorities, and a second (secret and hidden) set of books containing the REAL numbers and documents necessary to
    operate the criminal enterprise profitably.

    I think it highly likely (actionably certain, actually) that the current Cabalistic enemy has at least THREE sets of books and records.

    The THIRD set would be necessary for tracking and COORDINATING the complex and continually evolving and adaptive relationship between the first two sets of books, records and task assignments.

    This hypothetical third set of accounts and other documentation would thus be a sort of Rosetta Stone which would expose the CONNECTIONS between the faked records, the accurate records, and the actions taken to keep those two “stories” working smoothly together in a fashion that was both a pack of lies and yet completely “legal” in the ostensible sense of the word. It would also reveal and document not only who was doing what, but also WHY they were doing it and what the larger and clearly ILLEGAL evil objectives were.

    As such, this postulated “Third Set of Books” would be the most sensitive and thus the most carefully hidden and guarded . . . but it would still have to be in some sort of physically tangible form because otherwise it would be impossible to run such a large, complex, and regimented globe spanning operation that has to be frequently and swiftly communicated between conspirators. I would compare such a program to “Above-Top-Secret War Plans”, because at some point even the most secret of top secrets have to be known and shared with an extensive group of people in order to keep such an enormous lock step operation all on the same page. Without writing the details down somewhere the plan would drift and generate inner conflicts between top players.

    Finding such written plans, and recognizing them for what they were, might well be a nearly impossible task, but still, it would be lovely to find them. Lovely enough that it is worth a try to suss them out and lay hands on.

    The technology to do so is not as esoteric as one might think. Basically, all that such a task would require is MASSIVE cross-filing (to establish “fat files” on highly linked individuals) combined with a bit of AI to figure out the character and personal relationships between those individuals, and finally a speculative analysis of HOW those particular individuals like them would have to write and keep the written materials safe for extended periods of time. Very difficult and labor-intensive, but not that different (in kind) from what all of us are doing on an inadequately tiny scale already, in our personal efforts to figure out “who dunnit”. Monumentally difficult, but not impossible. Some of the work has been done already (albeit in hurried, harried and slap-dash fashion.)

    I can’t help but wonder if any White Hats are working on such a project.

    #141520
    zerosum
    Participant

    Since I have been talking about Ukraine/Russia/USA I found myself alone on the side of “PEACE”.
    Only recently, are bloggers, finally, getting sick of the horrors of war.
    Right now, people, are distracted/focused by fires burning their environment.

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