Aug 222023
 
 August 22, 2023  Posted by at 8:45 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , ,


Titian Venus of Urbino 1534

 

Col. Macgregor Tells Tucker Why The Ukraine War Must End Now (ZH)
F-16 Transfers to Ukraine Will Take Years to Produce Results (Sp.)
Democrats Aren’t Laughing About The Hunter Biden Debacle Anymore (Turley)
The Disqualification of Donald Trump and Other Legal Urban Legends (Turley)
We Won’t Be Fooled Again (Jim Kunstler)
‘BRICS Is Now The Hottest Club In The World’ – Senior Diplomat (RT)
BRICS 2023: Who are Participants & Guests of the Summit? (Sp.)
BRICS Plus-SCO Super Bloc vs. US Empire (Pepe Escobar)
The Founder Members Of BRICS Face A Historic Decision (RT)
China Wants BRICS to Rival G7 – FT (RT)
‘Fallen Angels From Hell’ – Scholz On Critics Of His Ukraine Policies (RT)
Nuclear Fusion Still Long Way From Becoming Viable Energy Source (Sp.)
The Crucifixion of Julian Assange (Chris Hedges)

 

 

 

 

RFK Dore

 

 

Trump BRICS

 

 

Mask
https://twitter.com/i/status/1691137859485573120

 

 

 

 

Worth every minute of your time.

”President Biden has enabled ‘combat pay’ which implies there are American forces on the ground in Ukraine.”

Col. Macgregor Tells Tucker Why The Ukraine War Must End Now (ZH)

Tucker Carlson on Monday published an interview with former Trump administration official Col. Douglas Macgregor (Ret.), who explained why the war in Ukraine has put the United States on the brink of a ‘catastrophic war that could easily destroy us.’ Carlson begins with a bold statement: “pretty much everything that NBC and The NYTimes have told you about the war in Ukraine is a lie.” “‘The Russian army is incompetent’ – they claim. ‘Ukraine is a Democracy!’ ‘Vladimir Putin is Hitler and he’s trying to take over the world!’ ‘Thankfully, the Ukrainians are winning.’ “Every claim is false, the last one especially,” said Carlson, adding “the Ukrainian army is not winning – in fact, it’s losing badly. Ukraine is being destroyed. Its population is being slaughtered.”

“Most American know nothing about Ukraine,” Macgregor continued, adding that “if they knew anything about the history of Eastern Europe, they would all say ‘get out!’… because the wars and the blood and the hatred that’s been fought over for centuries is something we can’t sort out.” Macgregor’s comments grow more ominous in their tone as the discussion continues. He notes that President Biden has enabled ‘combat pay’ which implies there are American forces on the ground in Ukraine. “It would be a mistake to think that the Russian forces do not know where they are,” the retired colonel explains, pointing out that the Russians are sending a message with recent precision missile strikes near the borders of Poland and Moldova: “if you think you can hide from us, if you come in here, if you cross these borders, we will annihilate you.”

We need to come to terms with these realities because we can’t defeat it,” he remarked reflecting on the fact that people have called him ‘unpatriotic’ for his comments. He summed the situation in Ukraine up rather succinctly: “if we press this war with Russia in Central East Europe, it will reach us here in the United States.” According to Macgregor, “The smartest thing we can do is end this war now,” adding “The Russians will never tolerate NATO forces on Ukrainian soil.” “Ukrainian forces are in piecemeal fashion, surrendering to the Russians, not because they don’t want to fight; it’s because they can’t fight anymore, they have so many wounded they can’t evacuate them … we’re going to see this army that we have spent so heavily on, melt away.”

When it comes to the equipment being used to fight, MacGregor said that “a lot of the equipment we sent over there is quite frankly, obsolete… its very old, it’s not new.” “Integrated air defenses will knock virtually everything that flies out of the sky,” he said, adding “We will then fall back on a nuclear deterrent – a tactical nuclear weapon that says ‘if you keep advancing, we’ll have to use a nuclear weapon.’ We don’t want to go there, because the notion that there are so-called tactical nukes ‘oh, it’s just a little nuke, so that won’t precipitate a nuclear war’ – the use of any nuclear weapon is going to precipitate an escalation very rapidly,” he said.

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Medvedev on Telegram: “This is a good day for Ukraine, and consequently, a good day for Europe,” said the foreign minister with an incomplete secondary education, Annalena Berbock, regarding the decision to supply F-16 aircraft to the Bandera brothers of German Nazis. Oh, don’t play with toy planes in your sandbox, kids. Let’s hope one of these future ‘good days’ for Europe doesn’t turn out to be its last day…”

“Since Russian intelligence has certain capabilities to track such cargoes, it is possible to detect their location and eliminate them even before the start of their operation..”

F-16 Transfers to Ukraine Will Take Years to Produce Results (Sp.)

While Ukraine is now set to receive F-16 Falcon fighter jets from NATO, they won’t be on the battlefield for at least six months, and they stand little chance of being effective for at least two years, meaning the program won’t affect the course of Russia’s special operation in Ukraine for a while, experts told Sputnik. According to the latest deal hammered out between the NATO powers and Ukraine, the Netherlands and Denmark will together supply Kiev with 61 F-16 Falcon fighter jets of the older A/B variants – with updated equipment – in exchange for being permitted to buy newer versions of the jet from the United States. Kiev has long sought Falcons, which were introduced as an interceptor in the 1970s to counter Soviet fighters and bombers, as a year and a half of combat has severely attrited its air forces.

While Western powers that are former Soviet allies have until this point supplied Ukraine with Soviet-made aircraft from their own inventories, shipping Western-made fighters presents a new challenge since both Ukrainian pilots and Ukrainian technology will have to be adapted to use them. Boris Rozhin, a military expert with the Center for Military-Political Journalism, an independent Russian military affairs think tank, said that the transfer of fighters would likely be slow and it would present few problems for Russian forces.“It was promised that Denmark and Holland should receive 61 F-16 fighters according to their plans within three years. That is, some quantity will be delivered possibly before the end of the year, some parts will arrive in 2024-25 and even possibly in 2026.

This is a rather lengthy process, at each stage of which geopolitical and technical problems may arise. Maybe the conflict will come to naught by then. Various things can happen. But there is no particular doubt that these aircraft will be provided in principle, the process is underway, approved by the United States,” he told Sputnik. “It has already passed into the stage of practical implementation, so the planes will take part in the fighting. It depends on the quantity of the first delivery. In addition, how many aircraft will be delivered as part of the first batch is also unclear, as is the final number of aircraft that will be provided to Ukrainian troops,” Rozhin said. “If the planes are nevertheless handed over, the pilots have time to master these machines and learn how to handle them correctly and efficiently, then they will be used to launch missiles.

That is, they will also seek to carry out missile strikes against our facilities, because they fly at low altitudes,” Rozhin said. “In response, we can attack the airfields where they are based and warehouses with missiles that are transmitted from the West. Since Russian intelligence has certain capabilities to track such cargoes, it is possible to detect their location and eliminate them even before the start of their operation,” Rozhin continued. “We will probably also see strikes on military targets, personnel accommodation facilities and guarding the parking lot or repairing such vehicles. They will need to hide them well to avoid such blows.”

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“..those two mocked whistleblowers prompted the Justice Department to prosecute..”

Democrats Aren’t Laughing About The Hunter Biden Debacle Anymore (Turley)

“There is a time to laugh and a time not to laugh, and this is not one of them.” Those words from Inspector Jacques Clouseau may have to be emblazoned across the hearing room of the House Oversight Committee. It was a month ago that House Democratic members mocked the testimony of two whistleblowers who testified about the rigged investigation to protect Hunter Biden, the son of President Biden. Now it appears that the controversial “sweetheart deal” was not the first choice of US Attorney David Weiss. He actually was planning to let Hunter walk without even a misdemeanor charge despite massive unpaid taxes, gun violations, and work as an unregistered foreign agent, among other alleged crimes. The reason for his change at Justice, according to the New York Times? Those pesky whistleblowers.

One of the most insulting moments for the respected IRS agents came from ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who mocked the allegations as part of “this Inspector Clouseau-style quest for something that doesn’t exist [that] has turned our committee into a theater of the absurd, an exercise in futility and embarrassment.” Raskin assured the public that these “disagreements” are “routine” matters in investigations (a position echoed by his junior colleague, Rep. Dan Goldman of New York). The IRS agents tried to object that they had never seen anything like what happened in this case. Then the case became anything but a laughing matter for Democrats. The plea agreement with Hunter Biden collapsed within minutes of a federal judge asking a few basic questions.

When District Judge Maryellen Noreika balked at sweeping language on immunity, she asked the prosecutor if he had ever seen any agreement like this one. He answered “no” and the deal quickly fell apart, with Hunter Biden’s lawyer finally saying exasperatedly, “Just rip it up.” The language was anything but routine. Then an FBI agent spoke to Congress and confirmed testimony of the IRS agents, including that Hunter Biden was tipped off on an attempt to interview him. The agent said they were forced to sit a block away and told not to approach the house. The interview was then cut off. He described being “upset” and how this was not routine. The New York Times, which has spent years downplaying the Hunter Biden scandal, has published an internal account of the investigation. The Times reported that US Attorney David Weiss was actually preparing to let Hunter walk “without requiring a guilty plea on any charges.”

However, that “changed in the spring, around the time a pair of IRS officials on the case accused the Justice Department of hamstringing the investigation. Mr. Weiss suddenly demanded that Mr. Biden plead guilty to committing tax offenses.” In other words, according to the Times, those two mocked whistleblowers prompted the Justice Department to prosecute. Why would that be? Attorney General Merrick Garland insisted that no political pressure or political considerations would affect the investigation. Yet it appears that the Biden team did raise the potential embarrassment for the president and the Justice Department if Hunter faced serious charges. New emails reveal that Hunter Biden’s lawyers told the prosecutors that, if there were serious charges, it would be President Biden in the spotlight.

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Gavin Newsom is trying to get him off the ballot in California..

The Disqualification of Donald Trump and Other Legal Urban Legends (Turley)

The popularity of urban legends is a testament to the will to believe. The desire of people to keep Elvis alive or prove that a Sasquatch could exist furtively in our backyards shows the resilience of fables. Constitutional urban legends often have an even more immediate appeal and tend to arise out of the desperation of divided times. One of the most popular today is that former President Donald Trump can be barred from office, even if he is not convicted in any of the four indictments he faces, under a long-dormant clause of the 14th Amendment. This 14th Amendment theory is something that good liberals will read to their children at night. It goes something like this: Donald Trump can never be president again, because the 14th Amendment bars those who previously took federal oaths from assuming office if they engaged in insurrection or rebellion.

With that, and a kiss on the forehead, a progressive’s child can sleep peacefully through the night. But don’t look under the bed. For as scary as it might sound to some, Trump can indeed take office if he is elected…even if he is convicted. Indeed, he can serve as president even in the unlikely scenario that he is sentenced to jail. Democrats have long pushed this theory about the 14th Amendment as a way of disqualifying not only Trump but also dozens of Republican members of Congress. For some, it is the ultimate Hail Mary pass if four indictments, roughly 100 criminal charges and more than a dozen opposing candidates fail to get the job done. I have strongly rejected this interpretation for years, so it is too late to pretend that I view this as a plausible argument.

However, some serious and smart people take an equally strong position in support of the theory. Indeed, conservative scholars William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen have argued for the interpretation and insist in a recent law review article that “the case is not even close. All who are committed to the Constitution should take note and say so.” But some of us like to believe that we are committed to the Constitution and, for that same reason, we say no. While I have great respect for these academics, I simply fail to see how the text, history or purpose of the 14th Amendment even remotely favors this view. Despite the extensive research of Baude and Paulsen, their analysis ends where it began: Was January 6 an insurrection or rebellion? I have previously addressed the constitutional basis for this claim. It is, in my view, wildly out of sync with the purpose of the amendment, which followed an actual rebellion, the Civil War.

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“..yet a new, fresh Covid-19 scare for the fall, in order to reenforce the special mail-in voting scheme that’s working so nicely (for them)..”

We Won’t Be Fooled Again (Jim Kunstler)

If you are among that segment of the population that has not lost its mind, you might realize that the public health authorities have no authority. They lied outrageously about everything connected with Covid-19. And when they were caught lying, they just lied some more in the vain attempt to cover up their previous lies. And so, it would be foolish to regard anything they say from now on — without a complete house-cleaning of agency personnel, plus some earnest prosecutions — as worth listening to and following. Authority, you see, is granted only to those who are trustworthy. Yes, it’s really that simple. If an authority lies about everything, and is caught doing it, then it is rendered invalid.

Now, it happens that the US public health agencies, huge and costly as they are, make up only one part of the even larger and costlier US government, which has been busy surrendering the authority of all its other parts for years now, to the point that the whole enterprise is untrustworthy and in need of a severe housecleaning. Traditionally, elections are the mechanism for cleaning that house, but our elections have lost their authority, too? Really? How so? Because the untrustworthy officials in charge of them employ dubious systems for gathering the vote: mail-in balloting that invites fraud and hackable vote-counting machines that are connected to the Internet. The defects of these things are so obvious they can hardly be ignored. And the remedy is obvious and simple, too: paper ballots hand-counted in small precincts of manageable size, all done on one day, which we call Election Day (and which should be a national holiday, so more working people can get to the polls).

Somehow, though, we are unable to avail that remedy, probably because the untrustworthy people in charge would lose their jobs and the power they enjoy in a truly fair election. So, they conclude, let’s not have that. It’s even looking like the untrustworthy public health authorities are ramping up yet a new, fresh Covid-19 scare for the fall, in order to reenforce the special mail-in voting scheme that’s working so nicely (for them), and to disorder the minds of the public so they’ll be too frightened to notice that all the other parts of the government are failing in virtually all their duties to the people of this land. Bring on some new Covid variants and the lovely new booster vax that’ll work so well (not). Go ahead, we should say, I dare you. We won’t be fooled again.

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BRICS Summit in Johannesburg from August 22 to 24.

‘BRICS Is Now The Hottest Club In The World’ – Senior Diplomat (RT)

African nations can establish new trade alliances by working with the BRICS group of emerging economies, Tanzania’s high commissioner to South Africa told RT in an exclusive interview on Sunday. Maj Gen Gaudence Salim Milanzi said BRICS is “the hottest club in the world” and although Tanzania has not yet applied for membership, it sees opportunities in working with the bloc. A Tanzanian delegation will be attending the BRICS Summit in Johannesburg from August 22 to 24. Milanzi explained that “BRICS offers an alternative to many other systems which we have now.” African nations have traditionally traded with Western countries, but “we always look for other trading partners,” and that is what BRICS can offer as well “as a huge economic bloc.”


According to the high commissioner, the economic objectives of BRICS – currently comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – are “aligned to what Tanzania aspires to” and “there is common ground.” Milanzi noted “a welcome change” in recent years in how Western and Eastern countries have turned their focus to Africa and poured investment into the continent. “Many countries are realizing the potential of Africa as an economic partner,” he added. Gaudence Salim Milanzi also pointed to the long-running exploitation of Africa, saying that with its vast resources the continent “should not be poor as it is now” and that it needs “the development to be actually in Africa itself.”

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“..Over 40 countries have expressed their desire to join BRICS, with 23 of them doing so officially..”

BRICS 2023: Who are Participants & Guests of the Summit? (Sp.)

The heads of state or heads of government of the five member states – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa – will be attending the BRICS 2023 Summit this year. Accordingly, on the list are President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, which took up the rotating chairship of the group in January, China’s President Xi Jinping, Brazil’s President Lula da Silva, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Russian President Vladimir Putin will not be attending the gathering in person, but is expected to participate in the summit via video link. The online speech of Russian President Vladimir Putin at the BRICS summit in South Africa is expected to take place on August 23, according to Anil Sooklal, South Africa’s BRICS envoy. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will be heading the country’s delegation at the BRICS 2023 Summit.

The South African president has “invited (with consensus support from his fellow BRICS Leaders) sixty-seven (67) Leaders from Africa and the global South to attend the BRICS-Africa Outreach and BRICS Plus Dialogues. The Leaders cover all the continents and regions of the global South,” South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor said earlier in August. Another 20 representatives of international organizations have also been invited, the minister said. “The President has also invited twenty (20) dignitaries that include the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, the President of the New Development Bank, the Chairs and Executive Heads of African Regional Economic Communities, African financial institutions, and the Secretary General of the African Continental Free Trade Area Secretariat and CEO of the African Union Development Agency,” the statement said.

Currently, 41 countries have confirmed their participation, with more expected, according to Anil Sooklal. Belarusian Foreign Minister Sergey Aleinik will participate in the BRICS Summit, Belarusian Foreign Ministry spokesman Anatoly Glaz told Sputnik. “On the instructions of the head of state, our delegation [to BRICS] will be headed by Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Aleinik,” Glaz said. He added that the country will participate in the BRICS-AFRICA Outreach and BRICS+ dialogues. This will be the first time Belarus takes part in BRICS Summit events, Glaz noted. No Western leaders have been invited.

[..] Over 40 countries have expressed their desire to join BRICS, with 23 of them doing so officially, according to South African top diplomat Naledi Pandor. “We have had formal expressions of interest from the Leaders of 23 countries in joining BRICS, and many more informal approaches about the possibilities of BRICS membership,” Pandor said. Among those who have officially applied are Argentina, Turkiye, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Senegal, Algeria, Ethiopia, Iran, and Indonesia. “The list of countries is large,” Anil Sooklal said..

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“In terms of a game-changing geopolitical moment, this is it..”

BRICS Plus-SCO Super Bloc vs. US Empire (Pepe Escobar)

Johannesburg is gearing up for the 15th BRICS Summit, which will kick off on Tuesday and run through Thursday, with this year’s theme entitled “|BRICS and Africa: Partnership for Mutually Accelerated Growth, Sustainable Development, and Inclusive Multilateralism.” “Multilateralism” is perhaps the most significant word to describe the gathering nations’ intentions, with the BRICS’ combined economic might already outweighing that of the G7, and, when accounting for the human, geographic, economic and resource potential of countries that have expressed interest in joining, pose a serious challenge to the US-led international order. “The great potential for creating a fair and democratic architecture of international relations lies in structures like BRICS,” Russian foreign intelligence chief Sergei Naryshkin said last week on the eve of the summit.

Pointing to the bloc name’s similarity to the English word “bricks”, Naryshkin indicated that BRICS is a subtle nod to the US and its allies that the so-called “rules based international order” is on its way out. “These are indeed the building blocks in the foundation of a truly free and equal world. In the near future, new bricks or poles will be added. The structure of multipolarity will continue to grow and strengthen, protecting the rights of nations to sovereignty and identity will promoting real economic development. No beast on Earth will succeed in dismantling this structure.” “In terms of a game-changing geopolitical moment, this is it,” Pepe Escobar told Sputnik, when asked about the special significance of this year’s BRICS summit.

“Much more than previous summits, much more than the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, much more than all previous BRICS summits. And the fact that it takes place in Africa, which, as we all know now, is at the center of everything once again, especially because of, let’s put it concisely, the ‘African revolt against French neocolonialism,'” only adds to the gathering’s significance, Escobar said. There’s also “the fact that the organizing committee invited 67 heads of state of powerful representatives from all over Africa and many other places in the Global South to be part of discussions involving the collaboration between BRICS and Africa and also ‘BRICS+,” Escobar added, referring to the exciting prospect of new members joining the bloc for the first time since South Africa itself did so in 2010.

“One thing we already know for sure coming from [leaders’ representatives] is that they already decided on a mechanism for the absorption of new members. Of course, this is a very complex endeavor because it involves, at the last count, over 30 nations, 23 that that have already expressed their formal desire to be part of BRICS+,” the observer noted. “Of course, these are baby steps, Escobar clarified. “We should not expect BRICS in two days in South Africa [to turn] the ‘rules-based international order’ upside down. No, this is going to be a gradual, slow moving, very challenging process. But what’s happening in South Africa and immediately after South Africa is, let’s say, a sort of Rosetta Stone for what’s going to happen ahead.”

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Iran, Indonesia, Argentina, Saudi Arabia. Who else in round 1?

The Founder Members Of BRICS Face A Historic Decision (RT)

About 20 countries are reportedly seeking admission to the five-member organization and the list of countries that will be represented at the meeting in South Africa is three times as long. This is a sign of the times and points to two things: the yearning of many non-Western nations to become more consequential to how the world is run, and the growing pushback against self-serving Western dominance in global politics, economics, finance, and the media. This does not mean, however, that BRICS (an acronym made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) will have an easy run in reshaping the world order. Ahead of the Johannesburg summit, two issues emerged as the main challenges to the group’s further evolution.

One is expanding membership. A number of countries from all over the globe have lined up at BRICS’ door, ready to walk in. These include Algeria, Argentina, Bangladesh, Belarus, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cuba, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Going for a big-bang enlargement would be a loud statement, to the effect that an alternative to the US-led system of alliances and partnerships is being built. However, the question is would such an expansion make a much more diversified BRICS immediately stronger or not?

[..] Within BRICS itself, views on enlargement differ. Yet, there is a model that can prove useful. Another non-Western group, with some of the same participant states, did manage the enlargement issue without diluting effectiveness. This was the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which started with Russia, China, and three Central Asian states. Over time, the SCO has found a formula for categories of participating countries and criteria-cum-processes for admitting new full members. The organization was able to extend its full membership to India and Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Iran, with a number of others in line for admission. If the SCO approach is adopted by BRICS, this could be a solution.

The other challenge for the bloc is coming up with new financial instruments to reduce the non-Western economies’ dependence on the dollar. Washington’s weaponization of its currency in its Hybrid War against Russia and its concurrent manipulation of trade and technology against China have made the issue urgent. Western restrictions have hampered the activities of the BRICS’ New Development Bank. Calls have been made for the group to create a common currency, to break the dollar’s monopoly in world finance. Yet, it is self-evident that creating a reserve currency for five very different economies, of which China accounts for two-thirds of the combined nominal GDP of the group, will run up against the jealously guarded principle of national sovereignty. The original goal of achieving financial independence will not be met.

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“What we do seek is to advance the agenda of the Global South and to build a more inclusive, representative, just, fair global architecture..”

China Wants BRICS to Rival G7 – FT (RT)

China plans to push for BRICS to become a full-fledged rival of the G7 during the bloc’s upcoming summit in South Africa, officials told the Financial Times. The Chinese government has “clashed” with India over the prospect of expanding the bloc in the run-up to the event, which is scheduled to take place in Johannesburg between August 22 and 24, the British paper reported on Sunday. According to FT’s sources, there’s no agreement between Beijing and New Delhi on whether BRICS, which currently comprises Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, should be a non-aligned economic club or a political force that openly challenges the West. South African officials told the paper that 23 countries had expressed interest in joining BRICS and some of these could receive invitations to join in Johannesburg.

The report singled out Argentina, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia as the favorites to become the first new members of the bloc since the inclusion of South Africa in 2010. “If we expand BRICS to account for a similar portion of world GDP as the G7, then our collective voice in the world will grow stronger,” an unnamed Chinese official told the FT. Earlier this month, New Delhi dismissed media reports that it opposed the expansion of the bloc, with Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi describing them as “baseless speculation.” “As mandated by the leaders last year, BRICS members are internally discussing the guiding principles, standards, criteria and procedures for the BRICS expansion process on the basis of full consultation and consensus,” Bagchi pointed out.

A senior Brazilian diplomat told the FT that the country supported the expansion of BRICS, but noted that “it’s important that criteria are defined for the entrance of these new members.” Last week, South Africa’s ambassador to BRICS, Anil Sooklal, dismissed claims that the bloc is “anti-West” and looking to compete with the G7. “What we do seek is to advance the agenda of the Global South and to build a more inclusive, representative, just, fair global architecture,” he explained. In early August, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said Russia believes that “in one form or another, the expansion of BRICS will contribute to the further development and strengthening of this organization.” He noted that “the format and size” of this expansion would be discussed by BRICS leaders during the summit in Johannesburg, in which Russian President Vladimir Putin will participate via video link.

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2/3 of people want him gone. That can’t of course be his fault…

‘Fallen Angels From Hell’ – Scholz On Critics Of His Ukraine Policies (RT)

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz received a frosty welcome during a campaign speech in Munich’s iconic Marienplatz square on Friday evening. Critics of the country’s military aid to Ukraine booed the official, who then questioned the true intentions of his detractors and accused them of playing right into Russia’s hands. Scholz was confronted by a crowd that was calling the chancellor a “warmonger,” “loser,” and “liar,” among other things. The chancellor parried, insisting that the “right-wing populists” stand for a “gloomy future.” Scholz went on to argue that those demanding an end to German weapon deliveries to Ukraine were not peace doves, but rather “fallen angels, that come from hell, because at the end of the day they make the case for a warmonger,” – an apparent reference to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The official went on to defend his decision to provide Kiev with weapons to fend off “imperialist aggression,” assuring the public that such steps were taken only after careful consideration. Similar scenes occurred during events attended by Scholz in Frankfurt and Neuruppin last week, with critics also taking aim at his climate policies. Meanwhile, the results of a new opinion poll released by Bild on Saturday indicated that some 64% of respondents would want to see the incumbent “traffic light” coalition government made up of Scholz’s Social Democrats, the Free Democrats, and the Greens replaced. Only 22% are content with the way the country is being governed at present, the media outlet revealed, with 70% of the Germans polled dissatisfied with Scholz personally.

Back in June, Scholz was booed at a ‘European Festival’ in the town of Falkensee, organized by his own SPD party.As captured by a Ruptly video agency cameramen, some of the attendees denounced the chancellor as a “people’s traitor” and a “warmonger,” while calling for “peace without weapons.” According to Bild, some of those people were members of right-wing groups and were sporting pro-Russia symbols.Scholz’s government has consistently supported Ukraine since the start of its conflict with Russia last February, with the chancellor predicting that Berlin would have to provide weapons to Kiev for years to come.

However, in addition to those opposing such deliveries, the official has also caught flak from top Ukrainian officials and some politicians at home for his apparent hesitancy when it has come to certain types of hardware, such as Leopard tanks.Speaking at another event on Friday, the official insisted that all efforts to shore up Ukraine were being undertaken only after careful consideration and in close coordination with allies to minimize the risk of the conflict merging into a “war between Russia and NATO.”

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Is limitless energy a good idea for mankind? Look at what we did with our newfound energy the past 200 years…

Nuclear Fusion Still Long Way From Becoming Viable Energy Source (Sp.)

Earlier in August, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California said it had repeated its controlled nuclear fusion reaction experiment, achieving higher energy yield than during the laboratory’s original feat last December. Back then, the US scientists became the first to conduct a controlled fusion experiment that produced more energy from fusion than the laser energy used to drive it. Such developments have excited proponents of fusion who hope to one day produce nearly limitless, carbon-free energy and displace fossil fuels as well as other traditional energy sources. However, this remains an elusive goal at the moment since fusion happens at inordinately high temperatures and pressures that are extremely hard to control.

“In the recent experiment, the fusion energy is very small. It can heat roughly a cup of water. To produce a power plant (i.e. to produce hundreds of megawatts of power per hour) one would need to have many fusion explosions per second. Now, one has no idea how to produce laser pulses at the required rate. My conclusion is that one would need at least 30 years of research to approach the necessary performance and it is not clear at all if it is possible,” Jean Barrette, professor emeritus with McGill University’s Department of Physics, said. When asked which of the main approaches to controlled-fusion energy — inertial confinement or magnetic confinement — is more viable from a technical and economic standpoint, the expert replied that there was no way to determine this as both methods have a long way to go before reaching a final positive result.

The magnetic confinement approach is embodied in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project, which has been in development since the late 1980s, with actual construction launched in 2010. Nevertheless, while ITER is closer to being a working power plant, it is still unclear whether the project will be economically viable, Barrette said. At the same time, the inertial confinement model used by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is “further away but may be progressing faster at least for a while,” the expert added. “Note [that] today one only talks about the Livermore Inertial Confinement Result and ITER as the only two options. This is not quite the total picture,” Barrette said, citing reports about other approaches, some of which are quite old.

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“Tyrannies, from Biblical times to the present, invert the rule of law. They turn the law into an instrument of injustice. They cloak their crimes in a faux legality. They use the decorum of the courts and trials, to mask their criminality. ”

The Crucifixion of Julian Assange (Chris Hedges)

Bearing the cross, living in truth, is not about the pursuit of happiness. It does not embrace the illusion of inevitable human progress. It is not about achieving wealth, celebrity or power. It entails sacrifice. It is about our neighbor. The organs of state security monitor and harass you. They amass huge files on your activities. They disrupt your life. They throw you in prison, even when, like Julian, you did not commit a crime. It is not a new story. Nor is our indifference to evil; palpable evil we can see in front of us, new. In the reading from the Hebrew Bible we hear the story of the prophet Jeremiah. He, like Julian, exposed the corruption and lust for war by the powerful. He warned of the catastrophe that inevitably comes when the covenant with God is broken.

He condemned idolatry, the corruption of kings, priests and false prophets. Jeremiah was arrested, beaten and put in stocks. He was forbidden from preaching. An attempt was made on his life. After Egypt was conquered by Babylon, and Judea began to prepare for war, Jeremiah delivered an oracle warning the king to maintain peace. King Zedekiah ignored him. Babylon besieged Jerusalem. Jeremiah was arrested and imprisoned. He was freed by the Babylonians after Jerusalem’s conquest, but was exiled to Egypt, where, according to the Biblical tradition, he was stoned to death. Jeremiah, like Julian, understood that a society that prohibits the capacity to speak in truth extinguishes the capacity to live in justice.

Yes, all of us who know and admire Julian decry his prolonged suffering and the suffering of his family. Yes, we demand that the many wrongs and injustices that have been visited upon him end. Yes, we honor him for his courage and his integrity. But the battle for Julian’s liberty has always been much more than the persecution of a publisher. It is the most important battle for press freedom, and truth, of our era. And if we lose this battle, it will be devastating, not only for Julian and his family, but for us. Tyrannies, from Biblical times to the present, invert the rule of law. They turn the law into an instrument of injustice. They cloak their crimes in a faux legality. They use the decorum of the courts and trials, to mask their criminality.

Those, such as Julian, who expose that criminality to the public are dangerous, for without the pretext of legitimacy the tyranny loses credibility and has nothing left in its arsenal but fear, coercion and violence. The long campaign against Julian and WikiLeaks is a window into the collapse of the rule of law, the rise of what the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin calls our system of “inverted totalitarianism,” a form of totalitarianism that maintains the fictions of the old capitalist democracy, including its institutions, iconography, patriotic symbols and rhetoric, but internally has surrendered total control to the dictates of global corporations.

I was in the London courtroom during Julian’s extradition hearing overseen by Judge Vanessa Baraitser, an updated version of the Queen of Hearts in “Alice in Wonderland”, demanding the sentence before pronouncing the verdict. It was a judicial farce. There was no legal basis to hold Julian in prison. There was no legal basis to try him, an Australian citizen, under the U.S. Espionage Act. The CIA spied on Julian in the embassy through the Spanish company, UC Global, contracted to provide embassy security. This spying included recording the privileged conversations between Julian and his lawyers as they discussed his defense. This fact alone invalidated the hearing. Julian is being held in a high security prison so the state can, as Nils Melzer, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture, has testified, continue the degrading abuse and torture it hopes will lead to his psychological, if not physical disintegration.

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This deceiving grid tricks you into thinking there’s a curved line somewhere, but you can’t find it. The purposefully placed gray lines will induce your peripheral vision to interpolate curved lines [image by Lesha Porche. Explanation: https://buff.ly/3b79VC8]

 

 

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle August 22 2023

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  • #141751

    Titian Venus of Urbino 1534   • Col. Macgregor Tells Tucker Why The Ukraine War Must End Now (ZH) • F-16 Transfers to Ukraine Will Take Years to
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle August 22 2023]

    #141752
    Dr. D
    Participant

    I do not understand that painting at all. Except that she’s pretty thin.

    Covid ‘Eris’ (Goddess of Dischord) is back in several places and it has Alllllll the features. One: has no physical symptoms or effects at all. It’s been “Spreading invisibly” in England. Invisibly? You mean no one was made sick by it, no symptoms? Why would I care then? Oh nevermind.

    Then it’s all on for masks again, and in Syracuse among other places they are re-instating their hospital mask rules against all research and all experience with Covid so far, NY being one of the high mask-compliant states, which was multiples worse than anywhere, including Sweden and the Congo. Just a rampage of #AntiScience. But whenever I hear the words “Science” now, I think “Wow, that means these guys are harmful shills who must really not know what they’re talking about.”

    Thanks Science. By not speaking up, having no spine, now you’ve put the world back into the Dark Ages. They’re super butt-hurt when the rest of us point it out to them in a futile attempt to save their institution and their lives. Just like the Catholic Church back when but way worse.

    Inflation Labeled a “Right-Wing Talking Point” in Response to Hit Working-Class Song

    Does it work to make you obey? Then I say it. I don’t care if it’s true, false, left, right….

    “’Rich Men North Of Richmond’ Artist Warns America Will Be Lost In A Generation Unless Country Changes Course
    “I just wanna go back to the woods, honestly.”

    He’s certainly been airdropped into the hot seat. Leftists will probably start death threats already.

    Speaking of, where’s our mass shooting count? Have they just stopped reporting them? I think I was on 28 of 34 were Leftists last I remember? If this is real then there are seasons of these things? Like seems to run on a predictable 4 year cycle? Whatever could that be?

    “Atlantic Comes Alive: NHC Tracks Not One, Not Two, But Five Tropical Systems

    That’s right! It’s August, where the heck are all the storms? I guess Global Warming makes storms stop now too. Oh well, statistically this may make up for it.

    “Watch: MSNBC Talking Head Delights At Thought Of Trump In A “Really Dirty, Dangerous, Scary” Jail
    Imagines that Trump might be “really freaked out”…

    Trump ASMR fantasies. A guy like Trump always thinks he’s awesome and should run the jail whether he should or shouldn’t. He wouldn’t even notice. See “The Punisher” on TV? He’d be more along the lines of the Kingpin in jail.

    So that shows it’s just childish emotion, devoid of reality, much less justice. I’d put people in jail too, but it doesn’t make be HAPPY to do so. It’s stupid, boring, and expensive; a huge responsibility. They just get the Feelz and get their rocks off like any Jr. High School girl. I’d say it’s bizarre but it’s just pathetic and small.

    And like THIS is our priority now? Looking across the nation and the non-stop crimes committed? This is the most violent crime, the one that we most need to eliminate to restore safety and order? Uh, yeah, The Idea Never Arose. Never considered it for a instant. We have whole cities lost to crime, weekly flash-riots but this is our law enforcement priority. Right.

    Oh and Ted Cruz demanding Dylan’s records from Bud Light, demonstrating how useless he is, as the poster child to all Republicans. I guess it’s not baseball season so we can look into steroids? Yeah, I remember the section in the Constitution giving authority over that. “Congress shall make no law concerning Dylan Mulvany nor regulating games such as baseball”

    “MacGregor said that “a lot of the equipment we sent over there is quite frankly, obsolete… its very old, it’s not new.”

    What as Aspnaz says, Why? Why was Ukraine the designated loser, from the get-go? If so, why spend $200B on making sure they lose and every Ukrainian is killed? You know my answer: As concession to Russia from the United States, the Pentagon has handed Ukraine back to Russia for reunification. But to do that, Russia needs to purge 300 years of British or Western (Papist) meddling to incite hatred and division there. Well, Ukraine no longer exists: problem solved, and the Russians are willing to do it, that is, have rivers of blood so long as they feel like being cheeky and still fight. They told them to surrender, take on their leaders, if they don’t, don’t care, Bang! you make the wrong choice and we’ll forget all about you and sleep like a baby.

    That goes to the next level, U.S.-Russian alliance against the REAL enemy, which is the same enemy as the Civil War and WWII when we were also allies. The enemy lives in, and has taken over the levers in Europe right now. So we and them are knocking that power base out of Europe, which is going to sting real bad over there, and I don’t see how they can avoid their 200 years of backwater.

    That’s what I got, if you have a better theory to explain how else this can possibly be, I’d love to consider it. I mean, thank God the people in charge like Davos and the NeoCons are so impossibly thick-headed and stupid, so astonishingly arrogant they don’t notice, see, or believe what is right in front of them and think it’s an accident or something. Seems super-clear to me.

    And we’re still fighting the battle here in America. Davos and this mafia are still everywhere and still run an awful lot of our system including what is it? 20 Soros cities and half the population? If we can’t clear them, Russia and China will do it for us by leveling the country. As villain as Dimon is, he goes to China and says, “Hey, we’re working on this, you can see we are, but we need more time so a Civil/World war doesn’t break out that’s bad for everybody.” China says “You’re on a short leash: get some results or else.” But you see a steady march to purge the Biden and with it many other people and the permissibility of this level of corruption and violence altogether. We’re moving as fast as the people can tolerate in this war of Ideas, as said yesterday. That’s all it is. Because you can see if it’s a war that goes back to physical, no one will survive. Last time we got going we nuked two cities and all their kids for nothing, just ‘cause. Time before that, we ran 10,000 men into a charge, the world had never seen anything like it (but also learned nothing in prep for WWI), and did that for 3 years, leveling half the nation. Now you think, seeing what you see in Ukraine, that even China would want that to light off? They’re happy to see the U.S. destroyed, but once you open the box, no one can control Pandora. It’s impossible to predict what we’d create or who would control it, but you can be perfectly certain the Americans would use it.

    …And that’s just like the natives here, who were also extremely warlike. Something about the land…

    However, if we fail we fail, and that IS an option. If the people cannot be brought back to order and justice I’d nuke them myself, it can’t be tolerated. However, like Abraham, “If there are 12 good men left…” And you can see more than 12, more than 12 Million, like 100 million, and probably 200 million that just want to be left alone, and that’s good enough. We just need to get in the nuclear control room and get the crazies out. We’ve got as far as demonstrating to the population there IS a control room and Nuland and the NeoCon, NeoLib, NeoNazis ARE crazy. But that still precedes evicting and arresting them.

    “Democrats Aren’t Laughing about ahe Hunter Biden Debacle Anymore (Turley) “

    And there you go. We have to prove we’re making progress we’re getting the country back. Or else.

    “With that, and a kiss on the forehead, a progressive’s child can sleep peacefully through the night.”

    Trump ASMR. If you’ve looked into it, the 14th is very different meaning than presented now. They really mean, Confederates, one-time, not everybody ever. But since we don’t follow the law but lawfare, it’s hardly worth mentioning. The 14th could apply to apple imports in the Haarlem River and they’d interpret it to mean this.

    “Was January 6 an insurrection or rebellion?” Neither. How do you “insurrect” with neither weapons nor a plan, both confirmed by the FBI themselves? How? “The Law Is in My Mouth Mind”

    “BRICS 2023: Who are Participants & Guests of the Summit? (Sp.)

    Reminds me, I guess your competing Agenda2030 is dead now, irrelevant. Reality caught up with you. Why is that? Just as they went nuclear about, it was TIME. They got bogged down, particularly for a critical 4 years when HRC promised to start WWIII against Russia before they were ready with their central bank and new weapons, and now Davos can’t catch up and capture the initiative again. They’re dead. America held the stalling action. We held the line and killed their dreams. THEY’LL own nothing now, and be VERY unhappy.

    Anyway, since it’s time for Africa now, how is Biden going to kill and impoverish all the Black people now? His life’s work and legacy? So sad.

    “• Nuclear Fusion Still Long Way From Becoming Viable Energy Source (Sp.)

    Apparently they could run all the light bulbs in the lab room if you don’t count the energy of the lasers or the building of the whole lab complex. The “Energy of the future and always will be.

    Speaking of new technologies, apparently XRP is slowly commanding common use. Say for transactions under $10k in Saudi Arabia, e.g. They can shove the prices around with low volumes and having captured and rigged all markets, but that will soon be difficult. (with higher volumes) The only question is, will XRP continue to be used, or will it vanish? If it continues in use and expands the price goes up. Period. As Jim Rogers says, “I’m the worst market timer.” He only knows reality re-appears someday. XRP appears also to be the basis of many CBDCs worldwide.

    #141753
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Oh yeah, since the Gulf and Atlantic is 100f now according to them hottest in 10,000 years (I mean, except for all those other times it was hotter, from 1930 straight thru the Middle Ages) then where’s their theory of the lack of hurricanes? Wasn’t it the hot water that make storms become hurricanes? And nothing?

    Huh. Sounds like you guys don’t know what you’re talking about. And even a 5th grader can tell. Or else you’re all L Y I N G for M O N E Y again and the temps really aren’t any different than usual.

    Hey, if the wind speed in Taiwan is 12mph, then 80mph for 1 minute each day at 9:05 is that weather or a data anomaly?

    A: “Which answer will make you obey us and shoot your kids in the head?” Whichever answer that is, that’s the answer.

    #141754

    Saw some comments late in yesterday’s thread about people’s comments disappearing, or the whole site disappearing, but I didn’t catch where that idea came from. Why would that happen?

    #141755
    WES
    Participant

    That “deceiving grid tricks you into thinking there is a curve line in there somewhere” doesn’t work for me, because with RP, I don’t have any peripheral vision! I only have a tiny tunnel of vision in the center of my eyes.

    #141756
    WES
    Participant

    Hunter Biden will never be prosecuted for anything!
    That is the whole purpose of appointing a special prosecutor!

    Notice a judge just dismissed Hunter’s tax charges in a way that he can no longer be re-charged at a later date by the DoJ.

    Justice is being served!
    Aren’t you being entertained?

    #141757
    Formerly T-Bear
    Participant

    Dear John Day,
    This is not the forum for this but it is available. Your last comment said there was plenty of water to fight the tragic Maui fire. Well, you are the brightest one, please find a way to teleport that water to the place it is needed, when it is needed in a quantity required and a form it can be used to fight the fire. Appearances are you have these answers if not all answers to everything. I have made my comments apparently disregarded, no problem. I am removed from your world for some decades and have do desire to return – it’s yours. You have, again, all the answers, the problems are yours to solve. My appreciation for your medical contributions remains sterling, everything else, well you don’t seem able to walk on water, yet. Thank you for the discussion.

    Regards,
    FT-B

    #141758
    WES
    Participant

    Regarding electronic components. If my memory is correct, there are four different categories or grades for electronic components, commercial, industrial, military, and space.

    Space grade need to protect from cosmic radiation plus wider temperature ranges, etc.

    Military grade electronic components need to be able to physically withstand high “g”” forces and maybe a wider temperature range too. Maybe EW interference? Examples, laser guided artillery shells, missiles, radars, etc.

    Industrial electronic components might just be commercial grade but having to pass some levels of testing? Maybe a wider range of temperatures? Vibration? Noise?

    Russia still makes some older less advance electronic components which are sometimes more rugged than more advance stuff. Also older stuff also means having to use leaner and cleaner software too.

    #141759
    WES
    Participant

    Regarding the tragic fire in Maui.

    I noticed that none of the estates of the wealthy had a single blade of grass burnt.
    They had plenty of water to fight the fires!
    Not turning off power in the dry grass areas, says a lot.
    Putting critical parts of the electrical grid in the dry grassey areas was government helping the people.

    #141760
    John Day
    Participant

    @Dr. D: That reclining Venus has LOTS of body fat and I don’t see any muscle.
    She has lived a life of ease and is young.
    She did not look so good 30 years later. (No paintings of that..)

    #141761
    John Day
    Participant

    Mandatory Conspiracy https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/mandatory-conspiracy

    Meryl Nass MD has done a lot of investigation. “Gain of Function” research and international sharing of pathogens seem to be “required” in this proposed treaty.
    Here is her brief summary:
    The WHO’s Pandemic Treaty Will Increase Man-Made Pandemics
    Conclusions
    As long predicted by science fiction, our biotech, cyber and surveillance achievements have finally gotten away from us. We can produce vaccines in 100 days and manufacture them in 130 days–but there will be no guarantees that the products will be safe, effective, or adequately manufactured. And we can expect large profits, but no consequences for the legally shielded manufacturers and government officials from any injuries to the public.
    If we do face another pandemic, being able to access repurposed drugs will be the only rapid and safe solution. Yet existing drugs have been deliberately excluded by the WHO’s IHR amendments and treaty draft, presumably because no one gets rich off non-patentable and available old drugs.
    Our genes can be decoded by genomic sequencing, and the fruits of personalized medicine made available to us. Or perhaps our genes will be patented and sold to the highest bidder. We might be able to select for special characteristics in our children, but at the same time, a human underclass of test-tube babies could be created. [Genomic sequencing labs in every country are specified in the treaty. JD]
    Our electronic communications can be completely monitored and censored, and uniform messaging can be imposed on everyone. But for whom would this be good?
    New biological weapons will be discovered or engineered. They will be shared. We can hope the GOF research that studied and created them will speed up the development of vaccines and therapeutics for the public, but it never has so far.
    Who really benefits from the gain-of-function scam? Those who seek to control us. It is the public who pays the cost of the research, then pays again for the accidents and deliberate leaks. Wouldn’t it be better to end gain-of-function research entirely, by restricting funding or closing the laboratories, rather than encouraging the distribution of biological weapons? If we want a decent future, it is crucial that we control these weapons instead of proliferating them.
    These are important issues for all of humanity, and I encourage everyone to pay attention to them, think about them, and become part of this very important conversation.
    https://merylnass.substack.com/p/dont-read-this-if-you-already-read

    Fox investigating what happened at the henhouse…
    Hawaii State Government Attempts Information Blackout On Maui Fire – Refuses Media Access
    The West Maui disaster is becoming less about the fire and more about the government’s bizarre response to the aftermath. Independent media sources and some mainstream media sources have confirmed multiple instances of the Democrat controlled government’s mismanagement that led to the escalation of the tragedy…
    ..The Governor of Hawaii, Josh Green (MD), took a wild swing at independent reporting, telling people not to listen to information from social media and “influencers.” … Green’s disapproval of media reporting is not limited to alternative journalists, however. It appears that there is now an information blackout being instituted by the state. Corporate journalists are also being denied access to the area of the fire damage path as well as access to any details surrounding the investigation into how the fires may have started…
    ..The lockdown is reminiscent of the state’s recent draconian covid response and has undertones similar to the Hurricane Katrina calamity in 2005. It is possible that the Hawaiian government got a taste of ultimate power over the past few years and now they think that 1st Amendment rights no longer apply. The editor of the Maui Times reiterates that the government is shutting out all media inquiries and they are not to blame for the lack of confirmed updates on the situation.
    First, it’s clear that independent reporting is having an effect in exposing state mismanagement, which is why they are attacking “influencers” and putting access on ice. Second, public pressure must be immense, because even the local media is trying to stave off the torches and pitchforks by reiterating that they have no access… Third, there is something going on in Maui beyond bureaucratic hubris.
    Why block the media from going to the site of the fire? Why try to inoculate the public to any information outside of government sources? Is there something they are trying to hide beyond incompetence? There is evidence to suggest that a major land grab is already in progress, with wealthy interests as well as state interests circling the charred Maui carcass ready to feed. There are also questions as to the true source of the fires.
    Frankly, if government policy decisions led to the deaths of hundreds of people then they should pay the price for their blunders. If other shady activities are afoot, then the public has a right to know. The state is not given license to deny media examination of the event… These people deserve to be placed under a very large and uncomfortable microscope.
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/hawaii-state-government-attempts-information-blackout-maui-fire-refuses-media-access

    #141762
    John Day
    Participant

    Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said:
    “Kremlin strongman Vladimir Putin is not seeking to push Belarus into an involvement in the Ukraine war.
    If you Ukrainians do not violate our borders, we will never participate in this war…
    But we will always offer our help to Russia. He is our ally,” Lukashenko emphasized in an interview he gave to Ukrainian journalist Diana Panchenko…
    ..”The only threat is an attack against our country.
    If such an attack against our country is launched from Poland, Lithuania or Latvia, then we will immediately respond with everything (means) at our disposal,” he warned…
    ..The counterattack has cost you 45,000 dead soldiers in the last two months alone. Western weapons and men sent by the Ukrainians to the front are being destroyed. They are now on the defensive and your losses are 1 to 8 on the front line.
    And 250,000 Russians are in reserve with modern weapons.
    You will crash. …
    And then they will do what you and your leadership fear most.
    They will advance as far as Moldova and Transnistria.
    The Russians will occupy Nikolaev, Odessa and Transnistria blocking Ukraine from the Black Sea.
    What will you do after that?
    And the Poles are rubbing their hands with satisfaction..
    They are pushed by the Americans to take the western territories.
    This here will stay with you. And that will happen. The state of Ukraine will cease to exist.
    If you don’t stop now, this will happen. Sit down to negotiate. If you don’t want, Russia has no need.

    Α.Λουκασένκο: “Ο Πούτιν αποφάσισε να τελειώσει την Ουκρανία – H Ρωσία θα πάρει Νικολάεφ-Οδησσό και θα φτάσει Υπερδνειστερία”!

    Simplicius has Ukraine War update: F-16s Paper Over 500k Losses Report
    The biggest news of the day is the Dutch/Danish decision to supply F-16s to Ukraine:
    Points he makes:
    There are protocols to follow. These 42(?) planes cannot arrive before next year, if things have not been settled by war or treaty, that is. They are poorly suited to rough Ukrainian runways, because F-16s have a big jet intake just above the ground, and suck in debris on take-off. Runways need to be immaculate, like in Poland and Germany, not like Ukraine.
    Russian air defense systems and pilots will become familiar with F-16s in combat situations. Good for Russia, bad for NATO. These jets can carry nuclear warheads, so there will be every attempt to shoot them down as soon as they pop up in Ukrainian airspace, as Russia keeps saying. (What will the shoot-down bonuses be?)
    US media has let the cat out of the bag that Ukraine just dispatched it’s last ready-reserve, the NATO trained/equipped 82nd Air Assault Brigade, which is getting chewed up as horribly against Russian defenses as the other brigades have been.
    ..The elite AFU 82nd, as part of the ‘Maroon’ group, continues trying to storm Rabotino with its Strykers. They’ve managed to knock Russian troops out of several positions but so far rumors of their taking Rabotino have proven false…
    ..A new “leaked intelligence report” has made this determination:
    The U.S. intelligence community assesses that Ukraine’s counteroffensive will fail to reach the key southeastern city of Melitopol, people familiar with the classified forecast told The Washington Post, a finding that, should it prove correct, would mean Kyiv won’t fulfill its principal objective of severing Russia’s land bridge to Crimea in this year’s push.
    The grim assessment is based on Russia’s brutal proficiency in defending occupied territory through a phalanx of minefields and trenches, and is likely to prompt finger pointing inside Kyiv and Western capitals about why a counteroffensive that saw tens of billions of dollars of Western weapons and military equipment fell short of its goals.
    The Ukraine is said to be “paying for western weapons with Ukrainian lives”.
    A plan is discussed to fund the Ukraine for another year of war, then negotiate a settlement and let Ukraine join NATO as something smaller than it is now. Ukraine hates that talk, and it has been officially unsaid with apologies. Russia, having accomplished enough land-repatriation, will not back down on the red line of Ukrainian military neutrality. Russia doesn’t have to take that.
    The other intriguing thing is how it dovetails with Lukashenko’s new theory, which he gave during a recent interview, that Ukraine will be inducted into NATO on the basis of Poland occupying its Western territories. He doesn’t spell out the exact mechanisms by which he envisions this to happen, but merely the inference that NATO will have little room to reject Ukraine once a full-fledged NATO member has already politically merged with them. [or the Galician part of “Ukraine”]…
    ..Edward Luttwak in a new Die Welt article, says that the only way Ukraine can win is by going “total war” mode, a complete societal mobilization of 3 million bayonets.
    “There is only one way forward: to wage the war with the seriousness befitting a national liberation struggle. Ukraine’s population has shrunk, it is true, but it is still more than 30 million people, so the total number of armed forces could be as high as 3 million. With such a military force, Ukraine could win battles and liberate its territory the old-fashioned way – in a war of attrition, like most European wars of independence,” the author believes…
    ..And it seems, ironically enough, that Zelensky has recently signaled interest more in this plan rather than the opposing one. Twice now in the past week or two alone, Zelensky has eerily posted videos chastising Ukrainian society for ignoring the war and imploring that “everyone” should be assisting in the war effort in one way or another….
    ..The other ‘well-timed’ release making the rounds was the new NYTimes article with the “bombshell” revelation that over 500k casualties have been suffered in the war thus far…
    Of course, as usual they couch these figures with the fact that it’s Russia still taking the lion’s share of the losses:
    Russia’s military casualties are approaching 300,000, including as many as 120,000 deaths and 170,000 to 180,000 injuries, the newspaper reported. Ukrainian deaths were close to 70,000, with 100,000 to 120,000 wounded, it added.
    But we know in reality this is their way of signaling Ukraine’s losses without causing too much of a panic. If they had merely come out and said that Ukraine has 200k total casualties, it could overturn the apple cart…
    Simplicius then expounds on the point ths this war is not stalemated, but only looks that way, because Ukraine is using up all of it’s manpower and war supplies as commanded by the west/US, and Russia is cooperating by killing Ukrainian men and destroying NATO weaponry as long as it keeps coming to their defensive lines to be destroyed. Russia plans to finish exhausting Ukrainian war-fighting capacity this way, and is getting very close to that point. Russia’s options for subsequequent offensive action which are extensive, and include Wagner in Belarus, are discussed.
    Belarusian President Lukashenko states that Russia has a new 250,000 man army completely trained and prepared, which is far more than the forces they currently have fighting in Ukraine, completely additional to those forces. These forces comprise a deterrent to NATO, but could militarily take the parts of Ukraine which are strategic to Russian interests, and ethnically Russian…
    ..Interestingly, there was even rumor that Ukraine’s general staff wants Zelensky to begin mining Odessa and Nikolayev regions, but he’s afraid as doing so would signal that Ukraine is failing…
    ..Another development vis a vis the new narrative of preparation for Russia’s spring 2024 offensive is that U.S. and the West are in worse shape than ever ammunition-wise, and want to use the winter as a recouping period, where conflict intensity, and therefore ammo expenditures, will be low…
    ..A shortage of raw materials – particularly the explosive TNT, which the US no longer produces – has hampered the Pentagon’s efforts to restock its own arsenal, which has been severely depleted by its support for Ukraine. Washington currently obtains much of its TNT from Poland but has been searching for new suppliers, including in Japan, after losing production partner Zarya when the region where the factory was located voted to become part of Russia in last year’s referendum.
    Meanwhile, workers at the Storm Shadow factory in Britain are going on strike over low pay…
    ..Russian forces are advancing in several areas, apparently to re-take positions they held at this time last year, and to consolidate control of the 4 oblasts which have been accepted into Russia by local referenda…
    ..Negotiation stances appear hardened in Russia and Ukraine, and Russians say that the US must actually negotiate, as they are the master of Ukraine. Next steps are not clear yet.
    https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sitrep-82023-f-16s-paper-over-500k

    How the US and France created a Niger mess for themselves​ , By M. K. Bhadrakumar, a retired Indian diplomat
    ​ The military coup in Niger is over ​(one month) old. The military government is cementing its rule, having gained the upper hand in the shadow play with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) backed by ex-colonial powers ravaging that desperately poor West African state rich in mineral wealth – France, Germany, and Italy – and the United States.
    ​ The prospects of Niger’s pro-Western President Mohamed Bazoum being reinstated look dim. He is an ethnic Arab with a small power base in a predominantly African country, hailing from the migrant Ouled Slimane tribe, which has a history of being France’s fifth column in the Sahel region locked in a struggle with the ancient Tuareg people, the large Berber group that principally inhabits the Sahara in a vast area stretching from Libya to Algeria, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, and northern Nigeria…
    ..For Macron personally, this has been a terrible occurrence, as he has lost his best supporter in Africa for France’s neo-colonial policies. He misread the groundswell behind the coup and gambled that Niger’s military would splinter. To be sure, his overreaction boomeranged as the coup leaders overnight abrogated the military pacts with Paris. And the latent animosity toward France has surged on account of its predatory policies in Niger…
    ..Not only France, but Western powers on the whole do not understand that the African people have a highly politicized mindset, thanks to the violent, bitterly fought national liberation movements. Unsurprisingly, Africa has been quick to adapt to the space opening up for them in the multipolar setting to negotiate with the ex-colonial masters. The savviness with which the coup leaders in Niamey are acting takes the breath away…
    ..The US faces a messy situation in Niger. The plain truth is, if the Biden administration has not formally labeled the military takeover a coup, it is because such a designation will not permit further security assistance to Niger. The US has a 1,100-strong military presence in the country and, more importantly, a drone base, known as airbase 201, near Agadez in central Niger built at a cost of more than $100 million, which has been used since 2018 for operations in the Sahel.
    ​ The US is so much on the back foot that a Reuters report stated that “one of the US officials said if [Russian private military contractor] Wagner fighters turn up in Niger it would not automatically mean US forces would have to leave. [Now announced that they will be evacuated.]​ …
    ​ The good part is that in this bizarre state of play, the US also cannot afford a military intervention in Niger by ECOWAS, lest its military presence become untenable in such a chaotic atmosphere. Of course, the coup leaders in Niamey have been smart enough not to make any demand so far to remove American troops from Niger.
    ​ As regards the drone base, the leading Africa specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC, Cameron Hudson, also a former US official, estimates it is likely that Washington will try to keep using the facility irrespective of who is in charge of Niger.
    https://www.azerbaycan24.com/en/how-the-us-and-france-created-a-niger-mess-for-themselves/

    New US envoy arrives in Niger, no policy change yet: State Dept
    Attempts to address Niger’s political situation following last month’s military coup continue.
    https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/new-us-envoy-arrives-in-niger-no-policy-change-yet:-state-de

    ​ China Rapidly Building Airstrip On Disputed Island Close To Vietnam
    ​ China is continuing to militarize disputed islands it has long exercised effective control over in the South China Sea, according to new satellite images.
    ​The images, taken by Planet Labs PBC in early August, show fresh construction on the westernmost island of the Paracel Islands close to Vietnam (and which are claimed by both Vietnam and Taiwan). What has regional and US officials alarmed is the large airstrip which appears to be progressing at rapid pace.
    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/china-rapidly-building-airstrip-disputed-island-close-vietnam

    #141763
    John Day
    Participant

    ​ An oil tanker that is suspected of carrying Iranian oil has begun to offload oil near Texas, a development that is sure to lead to an escalation in tensions between the U.S. and Iran.
    Iran’s Revolutionary Guard had warned that those involved in the offloading of the cargo from the Suez Rajan “should expect to be struck back.”
    https://oilprice.com/Geopolitics/International/Tanker-Suspected-Of-Carrying-Iranian-Oil-Offloads-Near-Texas.html

    Drink bottled ​R.O. w​ater unless you can get data that your water supply is one of the good ones.
    EPA Finds Toxic ‘Forever Chemicals’ In Water Systems Across The US
    https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/epa-finds-toxic-forever-chemicals-water-systems-across-us

    ​Professor Anthony Hall, The Death Cult is Gaining Momentum [Well, I hope it is losing momentum and people are not getting more shots.]
    Where is Humanity Headed as We Try to Absorb the Impact of the Bioweapon Disguised as a Medical Cure?
    https://anthonyjhall.substack.com/p/the-death-cult-is-gaining-momentum

    Steve Kirsch says “The Mandates Are Back”, which is a rumor I have been seeing lately, that we will “all be masking again this fall” for a new, scary COVID variant.
    “This time however, we are ready for them. It is vital that VSRF (Vaccine Safety Research Foundation) continues our work in defeating the mandates before they once again spread across the country- destroying millions of lives and tens of millions of jobs, small businesses, and educational dreams.”
    https://kirschsubstack.com/p/the-mandates-are-back

    #141764
    John Day
    Participant

    I was celebrating too soon after successfully posting the above links/excerpts. I sought to reply to FT-B, but was identified as “spam”. Trying again after logging out, back in, and adding this preface…

    @Formerly T-Bear: The request for Ag. water to flood the dry fields (at least some of them) would probably have reduced the rapid spread of fire across that tinder. The local firefighters thought they had the fire put out early in the day. I nly meant to point out that this was one piece of what went down.

    #141765
    John Day
    Participant

    @WES: That space-rated-electronics comment was also on MoA somewhere.
    Cosmic rays blow things apart, the smaller, the more thoroughly.
    Thin lead doesn’t stop them. 2 footthickness of lead is almost as good as a 2 foot thickness of water,and either is of modest (only) shielding benefit.
    Big, robust vvacuum-tubes are much more tolernt of cosmic-ray damage, as are larger resistors, capacitors and circuit traces. They used to use big, robust germanium transistors in the space program, when cost was no issue, 1960s. Those were almost tubelike in transfer-characteristics, and were heavy with gold inside. I got some at a surplus store before Y2k, and later sold them on to another Hi-Fi hobbyist. Of course one can fit 10,000 – 100,000 times as many components on microcircuits as one can do with discrete components of much larger size. Some functionalities can only be done with microcircuits, especially these days. Old engineering techniques have been lost with old engineers.

    #141766
    zerosum
    Participant

    Control

    Apathy is a lack of feeling, emotion, interest, or concern about something. It is a state of indifference, or the suppression of emotions such as concern, excitement, motivation, or passion. An apathetic individual has an absence of interest in or concern about emotional, social, spiritual, philosophical, virtual, or physical life and the world.

    Tarot Cards. Find out what the future holds. Chose a word/card
    Snob … arrogant … Ignorance … lies … uncaring … self interest … secrecy … delusional … avoidance
    No one notices … Who cares … No one would believe it.

    Genocide … Eugenics … Depopulation … War … Fentanyl … Covid 19 … Bioweapon Disguised as a Medical Cure … Starvation … Poverty … Energy Shortfall … Systemic inflation … Contraction in discretionary sectors …

    ——
    • F-16 Transfers to Ukraine Will Take Years to Produce Results (Sp.) – Boris Rozhin

    Rozhin said. “In response, we can attack the airfields where they are based and warehouses with missiles that are transmitted from the West. Since Russian intelligence has certain capabilities to track such cargoes, it is possible to detect their location and eliminate them even before the start of their operation,” Rozhin continued. “We will probably also see strikes on military targets, personnel accommodation facilities and guarding the parking lot or repairing such vehicles. They will need to hide them well to avoid such blows.”

    ———–
    A sick joke from Dr. D. 😉

    Covid ‘Eris’ (Goddess of Dischord) is back in several places and it has Alllllll the features. One: has no physical symptoms or effects at all. It’s been “Spreading invisibly” in England. Invisibly? You mean no one was made sick by it, no symptoms? Why would I care then? Oh nevermind.
    ———–

    #141767
    Valiant Johnson
    Participant

    Has anyone else noticed that both SouthFront and Strategic-culture.org have been taken offline ?

    #141768
    jb-hb
    Participant

    Yes, all those science professionals – the academics, the research scientists, the regulators of sciency things, practically the entire medical establishment, lied and have killed millions – we are waiting to see if that turns into billions

    Turns out science is not the bedrock underlying thing for understanding our world. Science is wholly abjectly dependent on TELLING THE TRUTH and that depends on morality.

    You cannot GET actual real science out of a population that has decided that nothing is better than anything else and denies causality.

    We see these values playing out in our 50 largest cities

    Underlying, obligatory principles in their administration for over half a century?

    –making distinctions between things = bad
    –saying a thing is better or worse than another = bad
    –acting on the basis of consequences – expected or already-occurred = bad

    You start talking about things in these terms to a current year lifelong Democrat and you get a particular sort of frown-sneer. Have they made it to giving up on Object Permanence yet or are they still working on it?

    On a fairly recent visit, lifelong democrat mother in law spontaneously started preaching the good news that We Need To Eliminate Battlefield Weapons From America – must have been on heavy rotation on TV at the time. I asked if she is for open borders. She said fervently yes.

    Ok, I asked, how do you maintain open borders in which we refuse to document anyone or anything coming across our border while ALSO preventing anyone from having machine guns and stuff? You do realize you can’t purchase battlefield weapons legally here? Would you like to go with me to the store tomorrow, you can ask for a machine gun and see what happens? Cmon, we’ll go together it will be a fun outing.

    How do you get to have open borders AND eliminate “Battlefield Weapons”? Honest question. Dems have a particular kind of silent stare these days in these situations. I love her, but it’s disturbing to see family members end up in this mental state. How do people allow this to be done to themselves?

    Like, sure Republicans are silent useless assholes, absolutely, but they are, apparently, still NORMAL assholes not weird deranged pod people. Please I beg of you, stop making Ayn Rand right. It’s the absolute worst when that happens. A huge downer for everybody.

    #141769
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    I have found a good use for the stupid masks…the well-fitting cotton masks are very good for spending an hour in the attic. They lower the number of dust particles that I breathe in, which makes a noticeable improvement. Amazing…a dust mask is somewhat effective at preventing one from breathing dust — but all that other, tinier stuff, just forget it.

    #141770
    jb-hb
    Participant

    I think the Losing Posts thing yesterday was part of a discussion about the merits of moving TAE to some other webhost

    #141771
    zerosum
    Participant

    Too much Apathy
    Don’t sweat it. Relax. Here are some lists.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_global_issues

    Global catastrophic risks
    United Nations list
    the UN Sustainable Development Goals
    World Economic Forum List
    Global environmental issues

    #141772
    thomasjkenney
    Participant

    @WES re: some had enough water

    In Jakarta, I noticed that almost every building had a rooftop cistern for rain catchment.

    @T-Bear & John Day re: enough water but wrong place

    The helos used here in SoCal for firefighting have (at least?) 2 types of water apparatus: snorkel or bag. The snorkel hoovers water from an open source into some tanks, thus used with a purpose-built helo. The bag is a vinyl ‘kiddie pool’ that’s about 2m on a side, weighted a bit to sink, lowered into open source, and used with any helo with good capacity. Open source can be ocean, lake, tank, swimming pool, etc. I went past a controlled burn recently, and saw that they had set up the ‘kiddie pools’ by the roadside, filled, and were pumping continuously to keep the burn corralled.

    69bravo helo base in Malibu/Topanga Canyon area

    Hard to see in the above pic (lens smeared), but the tanks lined on the ridge are spaced for servicing multiple helos, and are hooked to a much larger storage tank uphill.

    So…anywhere you have open water, you have a source. Did they have this equipment on-site? Some of it is very expensive, and hard to justify for a state that doesn’t see much wildfire.

    #141773
    Dr D Rich
    Participant

    Dr. D says a lot today:
    “XRP appears also to be the basis of many CBDCs worldwide.”

    Yet, NSA, William Luther PhD and Crowdstrike “say/said/do” Monero:XMR is the backbone for “WannaMine to leverage WannaCry’s exploitation code, EternalBlue” (courtesy NSA). Monero mining software is surreptitiously installed and cryptojacking, cryptomining begins.

    So, is it Monero:XRM or XRP:Ripple or a crypto pump n dump?

    I notice your allusion to the Catholic Church, China and (Papists) Western in today’s post. No doubt deservedly, right?

    So let’s hear it for:
    1. 1/10th-ers here in the United States, Catholics 21% vs 2% Jews (interchangeable with Leftists, right?),
    2. Kabbalists vs Papists (derogatory, usually?)
    3. Israel vs China in the disproportionate misrepresentation

    #141774
    anticlimactic
    Participant

    F16s

    If they are the property of the Ukrainian military is it valid to destroy them while they are still in Denmark and Holland?

    If they are located in Ukraine the Russians will take strenuous measures to destroy them on the ground. I think there was a suggestion that they be based in Poland and flown in to Ukraine! Anything wrong with that?

    An airforce base must have large amounts of fuel, either in tanks or underground. I was wondering whether a Kinzhal missile hitting such storage would vapourise the fuel so quickly it had no time to immediately atch fire, creating an air-fuel mix. This would create an incredibly large thermobaric bomb possibly large enough to destroy the whole base!

    #141775
    anticlimactic
    Participant

    Russian electronics

    Many years ago a Russian pilot defected to Japan in his fighter plane. Western experts sniggered when they found the aircraft used vacuum tubes. Then they realised it made the aircraft proof against EMP!

    #141776

    I think the Losing Posts thing yesterday was part of a discussion about the merits of moving TAE to some other webhost

    What losing posts “thing”? And why would we discuss a webhost? Does anyone know what the present host is?

    #141777
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    This is going to start out sounding like an over-the-top ego rant wherein I disdainfully explain to my inferiors how immeasurably superior I am.

    It’s not that kind of rant. Just keep on reading and you’ll understand (and why) I have a very very low opinion of IQ in general, and “superiority” in particular.

    The only reason I spout my credentials is to establish the fact that I know of what I speak when I criticize “superior” people for their misplaced arrogance. I can speak with the authority of personal direct observation, because I was long one of them and am only recently starting to actually wake up.

    Here’s the rant. Please don’t jump to derogatory conclusions too quickly:

    I’m a “genius” by measurement (for whatever that’s worth …. not much), and many of my family are similar, as were the majority of my ancestors, going back as far as I bothered to find out (circa 1776) No fewer than 12 of my kin were officers in the American Revolutionary war. My great great great Grandfather practiced law with Abraham Lincoln and (along with their wives and children) shared the same house (a brick duplex structure in Springfield, IL) My great great Grandfather was Ulysses Grant’s wartime Adjutant, and my Grandfather was law school room mates (and later law partner) and life long close friend of Adlai Stevenson. Dad was a sweet tempered incomparably competent street fighter (fists, knives, and guns) who could fly an airplane the way Tiger Woods could hit a golf ball. Toward the end of WW2 (after amazing feats of heroism and success in combat) he became pilot to the TOP top brass, and spent the the spring of 1945 as Robert Oppenheimer’s personal driver, body guard, and virtual babysitter (Oppy often became so lost in thought that he lost awareness and concern for his immediate surroundings, and had to have someone nearby to look out for him and prevent injury or interruptions).

    My own story is less dramatic, but no less peculiar, not just because I was a brainiac, but because of the types of people around me, who by their very existence could not help but shape my upbringing just by being who and what they were. So who and what were they? Well, for the most part they were “superior”.

    I’ll give you an anecdote as illustration of what a smart little boy I was, and by extension what the rest of my life has been like since then.

    At age four I was watching workmen repair our floor in St. Johns, Newfoundland where my Dad was stationed at the time. Along with their main tools of hammer, chisel and saw, the two men also had a one-burner fuel stove with a tin can full of slender square-cut wooden pegs, a jar of water, and a bag with more pegs to replace those in the the tin can as they got used up. A peg from the bag was put into the tin can to get maximally dried out. When the peg was hot, dry (and shrunken) they wood drive it into a round down through the floorboard and into the floor joist below, securing the board firmly. They then sawed off the peg even with the floor, poured a little water onto the spot and then move on to the next hole. It fascinated me how the square-cut peg completely filled the round hole JUST as it jammed tight and could be driven no further. They were really good at it, and I immediately knew how it all worked. They didn’t even think to explain it it to me, I was just a cute little four year old kind watching grownups. I just observed, and got it in an instant. The peg would expand when wet, and shrink when dry, so a CAREFULLY sized hole, and peg, would enable a DRY SHRUNKEN peg to just barely fit when driven into the hole, and because both the peg and the hole were wooden they deformed enough to fill the hole and make solid contact over their entire surface of shred contact. When dampened the peg expanded to fill the hole even tighter and increase the friction fit by an order of magnitude. Slick!

    The point is this: that kind of cognitive edge can EASILY lead to the notion that because one is “superior” at one thing that one is, for that reason, automatically “superior” regarding some other thing as well. In point of fact, such a conclusion is false. It’s just not true at all. It’s not even logical. Being superior at abstract reasoning, for example, does not confer superiority in regard to ANY other thing. None at all.

    But if one is self-deluded into thinking that it does then there will be HELL to pay. It can get so bad and become so automatic, unconscious and ASSUMED that the sufferer of the malady can actually think and BELIEVE that they are BETTER than their fellow creatures just because they can think faster (or bigger). This leads to actually believing (delusionally) that others are inferior in ALL ways, including value, worth, the right to fair treatment and even the right to self-managed life itself.

    In evidence, consider the loading of the life boats as the Titanic was going down. A fascinating demonstration of human morality, and the assumed-to-be-valid criteria for who got a seat. How would you have called it if you were the Load Master? Would it be smart rich men first or women and children first?

    Unfortunately, those with quick wits or some other singular advantage (like material wealth or highborn position) are the ones most easily infected. The elite and erudite often do subconsciously believe that they are “better” in some inscrutable, indefinable and yet absolutely unchangeable way.

    Accurately determining what (or who) is “better” is, as I hope you now see, an incomprehensibly complex decision. No human being has that kind of chops. They should try as the best they can (and earnestly) but without guidance from the only one who can, truthfully, do it then they haven’t got a prayer.

    #141778
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Celebrating Russian Flag Day in the Land of the Depraved

    Hahahahahaahahaahahaa!

    #141779
    Oroboros
    Participant

    My pronouns are Awe/Some

    .

    #141780
    zerosum
    Participant

    Good description of a snob

    (a person with an exaggerated respect for high social position or wealth who seeks to associate with social superiors and looks down on those regarded as socially inferior:)

    #141781
    Figmund Sreud
    Participant

    Following is worth hearing out. It’s very long, … but there is interesting ‘friction’ – disagreement – between the interviewer and interviewee that is of most intriguing. A summary first, tho, …

    … Nate is joined by Doomberg – the anonymous energy/finance analyst team (visually presenting as a talking chicken icon) who uses an energy lens to analyze global trends in the economy, with so far some remarkable accuracy. In this wide ranging discussion, Doomberg and Nate cover the interactions between geopolitics, debt, climate policy, and – of course – energy. How have the narratives created around different types of energy – from renewables to nuclear – affected current policy making around the world? Will the increasingly precarious state of the global debt and monetary system shift the geopolitical landscape? How have increasing global tensions combined with a rise in green energy policy affected nations’ desire for energy security – and what does it mean for future policy as we enter a period of decreasing energy availability?

    https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/83-doomberg

    … fwiw,

    F.S.

    #141782
    citizenx
    Participant

    Hi Raul,

    Saw some comments late in yesterday’s thread about people’s comments disappearing, or the whole site disappearing, but I didn’t catch where that idea came from.


    August 21, 2023 at 4:59 pm#141707
    Alexander Carpenter

    This website is cursed these days with some combination of buggy software, hacking, censorship, harassment, snooping, inertia, complexity, involuting reflexiveness, … whatever. One way to clean it up would be to reboot it from scratch on a different platform with different technical personnel.

    followed by-

    August 21, 2023 at 7:36 pm#141715
    my parents said know

    An archive of my little life for the past 3 years exists on this website. I’d sure like to know ahead of time if it was going to be disappeared.

    and then-

    August 21, 2023 at 9:25 pm#141717
    zerosum

    An archive of my little life for the past 3 years exists on this website. I’d sure like to know ahead of time if it was going to be disappeared.

    RIM,
    Should we have this discussion?
    Is there a secure backup???
    Is there an interest by commentators to buy/have a copy of their wisdom?

    ….

    A fine example of internet misinformation panic spreading down the line of mindless fuckwits syndrome so common today.

    Guess they’ve never heard of a personal journal where you write things down, or a “dear fucking diary”, or gasp….copy and paste notes into a folder on your f’n precious computer?

    Peoples brains seem to be seriously scrambled and f’d up these daze.

    Is there an interest by commentators to buy/have a copy of their wisdom?

    Buy “wisdom” ? For fucks sake. You have it in your mind or you don’t. How the fuck do you buy wisdom?

    Reminds me of the mentally ill world of selfies… how often do you go back and look at yourself in all your selfies? I observe people taking photos of their meals right in front of them, a picture of their food. How often do they go back and look at the food pics?

    Better yet, why not pair your selfie food pic with the dump of it in the toilet next day?
    Garbage in- garbage out. This is what society considers “wisdom” these days?

    #141783
    zerosum
    Participant

    @ citizenx

    I gather, from your comment, your opinion, that you have no interest in such a discussion and that there is no worthwhile wisdom to be found at TAE.

    #141784
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    The reasons that the Cabal is pelting us with lies is that by doing so we are distracted from what we were looking at just before we got distracted by having to deal with some lie. It doesn’t matter how stupid or outrageously false that the lie is (in fact the loonier the better) because the objective is not to convince us that the lie is true (and thereby impel us to lay off our investigation). The objective is to DISTRACT us from what we were looking at right before we got distracted by having to deal with the lie. So the closer we look the harder they have to throw lies. They have to throw big enough and hard enough to compel us to deal with the new lie, and NOT with the preceding item of interest.

    Basing my opinion on how hard they’re throwing shit at us I would say that it has to be about something that is a REALLY big deal.

    So what were we (and by we I mean the common peoples of Earth) looking at that got them so nervous and trigger happy?

    I believe that if you care to examine the record, what you will find is that we were looking at increasing evidence, widening public discussion and growing acceptance as fact, that the world actually is run by a Satanic Cabal. Its existence is not delusional, it is a material fact backed by incontrovertible evidence, and as such it is dead serious.

    Don’t take my crazy-head word for it. Go look at the record. Alex Jones sure wasn’t the earliest one or even the biggest one to start blowing the whistle early, but he serves as a good starting point for any serious investigation into “conspiracy theory” and its related topics.

    How hard are the powers that be hammering on Jones? And remember, he’s still alive. There are bunch of others who got hammered a lot harder than he has been. They’re all dead or in prison.

    I think the Cabal REALLY doesn’t want us looking too closely at the fact that it is as real as a bullet to the back of the head.

    #141785
    jb-hb
    Participant

    I believe that if you care to examine the record, what you will find is that we were looking at increasing evidence, widening public discussion and growing acceptance as fact, that the world actually is run by a Satanic Cabal.

    People in every walk of life, in every area of interest, seem to be at the point of reverse-engineering the problem enough to conclude something along those lines. “Satanic” can certainly act as a placeholder, a quick one word way of making reference.

    Or not even reaching the point of reverse engineering NOW, but now is the time the reverse-engineered gut reaction conclusions from 2020-2021 are starting to feel emphatically confirmed. I don’t think climate lockdowns or a new covid panic are going to meet reactions identical to 2020.

    from a recent Zerohedge article:

    Promoting ugliness and garishness is their MO, folks. Normalizing the absurd and the deviant is their obsession.

    They lie all the time so they can blame it on the excesses of ‘capitalism’ or ‘greed.’

    Then they scold us like children for our simply breathing in oxygen and out carbon dioxide while turning our children against us and into literal zombies.

    Their sickness is so staggeringly vast that they have weaponized our very existence against us, taking Catholic Original Sin doctrine and turning it into yet another form of psychological torture over plant food.

    There can be nothing beautiful in the world again until we submit to their truly inhuman schemes.

    They’ve stepped up their assault on us this summer; setting wild fires, terrorizing farmers, blowing up grain silos, killing dissidents and blaming all of it on Climate Change.

    And now rumblings of another new deadly Canadian COVID variant is out there.

    Until we submit to them, they will parade an endless series of Skinner Box buttons to take our fear and anxiety out on each other in acts of impotent rage rather than turn our eyes North of Richmond and East of Calais.

    #141786
    Dora
    Participant
    #141787
    John Day
    Participant

    A Midwestern Doctor looks at what happened in Maui, and does a good job, and they did not have fire-fighting planes or choppers. They might not have been able to fly in the high winds,either.
    https://www.midwesterndoctor.com/p/what-really-happened-in-maui

    ‘Children Were Incinerated To Ash’: Livid Hawaiians Slam Biden For Cracking Jokes, Lying About Wife
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/children-were-incinerated-ash-livid-hawaiians-slam-biden-cracking-jokes-lying-about-wife

    #141788
    Oroboros
    Participant

    .

    #141789
    Oroboros
    Participant

    .

    #141790
    Oroboros
    Participant

    He didn’t get to hanging ‘TRANSGENDER’ under “Barbie”

    Oppenheimer is Ken with a nuclear bomb

    .

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