Jan 172024
 
 January 17, 2024  Posted by at 9:40 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,


Salvador Dalí The persistence of memory 1931

 

The US, Israel Have Lost Battlefield Control (Helmer)
The West Bank is a Ticking Time Bomb (Cradle)
Netanyahu Wants To Wipe Out All Palestinians – Former Nigerian FM (RT)
South Africa to Sue US and UK as Complicit in Gaza Genocide (Telesur)
War On Gaza – Iran Demonstrates Its Means Of Self-Defense (MoA)
Congress Asleep as Biden Makes War on Yemen (Ron Paul)
Biden Admin Wants Ukraine to Switch Proxy War Strategy ‘to Defense’ (Sp.)
Zelensky Threatens Putin’s Grandchildren (RT)
West’s Lunatic Woke Agenda Spills Over Into Bystander Serbia (Karganovic)
How Davos Locals Gouge The Global Elite (RT)
US Scrambling To Check China’s ‘Charm Offensive’ In Davos (RT)
German Government Seeks To Downplay Protesting Workers’ Plight (Marsden)
MSNBC Host: Iowa Proves White Christians are Racists (Turley)
Art Dealer Testifies that Hunter Expressly Asked for Buyer Information (Turley)
An Anniversary West Would Rather Forget (Bhadrakumar)

 

 

 

 

Tucker Iowa Excellent

 

 

Derkach
https://twitter.com/i/status/1745239534332440966

 

 

 

 

Zel Davos

 

 

Lazarus

 

 

 

 

“..for success two major problems must be solved — dislocation and exploitation. One precedes and one follows the actual blow — which in comparison is a simple act.”

The US, Israel Have Lost Battlefield Control (Helmer)

When your enemy dupes you into compounding your mistakes, without achieving your military objectives, he is leading you into an escalation of force which will defeat you, sooner or later. Later is more costly, defeat more ruinous, so the Arab-Iranian alliance against Israel and the US is waging the long war they were never before believed capable to fight. No matter how much force you use, every US Army manual on winning battles and wars says the same thing. Captain B.H. Liddell Hart, the British Army strategist of a generation ago, advised that “for success two major problems must be solved — dislocation and exploitation. One precedes and one follows the actual blow — which in comparison is a simple act.” Today is Tuesday morning — and it is already plain on the Middle Eastern battlefield that the Anglo-American air attacks against Yemeni targets of Friday and Saturday have “dislocated” none of the capabilities of the Ansarallah government in Sanaa and the Houthi military units.

For exploitation after the air strikes, the initiative has remained instead with the Houthis: they are continuing their attacks on the US Navy fleet in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, keeping them on guard, but demonstrating they are ineffectual to protect US and Israel-connected shipping now diverting from the area. “War is a two-party affair,” old Liddell Hart had said, “in order to hit with effect, the enemy must be taken off his guard.” In the Middle East the enemy has been taken off his guard. That’s to say, the Israelis, the Americans, and the British. Minutes after midnight on Tuesday, Moscow time, Russian military bloggers began relaying the news from Iran and Yemen of new missile attacks against a Greek-American owned bulker in the Gulf of Aden during the afternoon, and hours later at night, a US mercenary forces unit, a US consulate building, an Israeli base, and the home of a leading oil trader in the Kurdish city of Erbil in northern Iraq.

According to Boris Rozhin’s Colonel Cassad Telegram platform, “the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has officially announced that the ballistic missile attack on US and Mossad bases in Iraq was carried out in response to the bloody terrorist attack in Kerman during commemorative events dedicated to Qassem Soleimani. Local sources in Erbil report at least 8 rocket strikes… At the moment, what is known is that there have been strikes against of the following targets by IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] missiles: 1. The American base at Erbil airport. 2. The U.S. Consulate in Erbil. 3. The local headquarters of the Kurdish security service. 4. The private residence of a local businessman [Peshraw Dizayee] associated with the Mossad. There is a high activity of ambulances in Erbil. There is no clarity about the victims, but it is obvious that there will be numbers of them.”

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“..the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements and the forced displacement of Palestinians undermine security in the occupied West Bank, and will not make Israel safer..”

The West Bank is a Ticking Time Bomb (Cradle)

Alongside the military assault on Gaza, extremist religious parties in Israel’s government coalition seized a strategic opportunity after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood to launch a systematic displacement agenda in the occupied West Bank. This stealthy policy was facilitated by several factors, notably, the escalation of settler violence post-7 October, increased political pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the vise-like leverage that settler-extremists enjoy over Israel’s ruling coalition and key governmental institutions, particularly the Ministry of Finance As an example, nearly $250 million of the national budget earmarked for war expenses in December 2023 was directed by Israel’s radical Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich toward settlement projects in the West Bank.

Immediately after its announcement, the EU criticized the settlement-funding provisions of the revised budget, rightly arguing that the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements and the forced displacement of Palestinians undermine security in the occupied West Bank, and will not make Israel safer. In response, Tel Aviv significantly tightened its grip on West Bank Palestinians. This involved obstructing Palestinian workers from employment in Israel and the finance minister’s refusal to transfer Palestinian clearance funds to the Palestinian Authority (PA) to pay Gaza’s worker salaries. On the military front, Israeli has launched a frenzied campaign on the West Bank since 7 October, resulting in the death of hundreds and arrest of over 6,000 Palestinians. Acts of violence, forced displacement of civilians, and armed settler attacks – enabled by weapon transfers from Israel’s extremist National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir – escalated dramatically across the occupied territory.

Ben Gvir, who fronts the hidden agenda of nationalist and religious parties in the coalition government, used the Al-Aqsa Flood events to displace 25 Palestinian Bedouin communities, including 266 families in the eastern foothills near Ramallah and the Jordan Valley. Already this year, under pressure from his extremist allies, Netanyahu has halted demolitions of illegal Jewish outposts in the West Bank, going against the recommendation of Defense Minister Yoav Galant who is trying to ease tensions in the West Bank while conflict rages on Israel’s northern and southern fronts. In early January, Smotrich and Ben Gvir publicly called for the displacement of Gazans to make way for the return of Zionist settlers to the Gaza Strip for the first time since their 2005 expulsion. Their belligerent comments sparked a new rift with the US administration of Joe Biden, which has sharply criticized “inflammatory and irresponsible” rhetoric from Tel Aviv.

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“South Africa’s role in the world is a ‘mandalisation..’”

Netanyahu Wants To Wipe Out All Palestinians – Former Nigerian FM (RT)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to eliminate all Palestinians and move them to Sinai, former Nigerian foreign minister Bolaji Akinyemi told RT in an exclusive interview as Pretoria’s genocide case against Israel continues before the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Akinyemi, who served as external affairs minister from 1985 to 1987, said South Africa was carrying “a heavy load” because Pretoria “will not expect material reward” in taking Israel to the ICJ, accusing it of genocide against Palestinians. “South Africa’s role in the world is a ‘mandalisation,’” he added. The term ‘mandalisation’ is associated with Nelson Mandela, who repeatedly refused deals for his release from prison until the world saw the country’s problems. “[Nelson Mandela] was stubborn,” Akinyemi added.

The former minister believes that “Netanyahu wants to wipe out all the Palestinians, not just Hamas, [and what] he really wants to do is to drive them into Sinai.” He argued that Hamas is a product of “Israeli aggression and occupation.” Akinyemi suggested that the main decision of the ICJ won’t be delivered for a few years, “by which time the war is over, the Palestinians will have been wiped out, or Israel will have done whatever it is that it needs to do.” For this reason, it is “important that the ICJ [delivers] an interim ruling within weeks,” Akinyemi stated.

“If you want to stop the Hamas resistance, Israel has to recognize the fact that the Palestinians must have a home of their own. The two-state solution is the solution,” the former Nigerian minister concluded. On Thursday, the ICJ began hearing South Africa’s case in The Hague, which claims that Israel has committed genocide against the Palestinians. South African lawyers at the ICJ stated that the latest Gaza war is a result of Israeli oppression of Palestinians for decades. However, the allegations have been vehemently denied by Israel. South Africa is asking for a preliminary ruling to compel Israel to stop its military campaign in Gaza.

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A 47-lawyers team..

South Africa to Sue US and UK as Complicit in Gaza Genocide (Telesur)

On Monday, South African lawyers handling the Genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) announced that they are preparing a separate lawsuit against the United States and the United Kingdom for complicity in Zionist war crimes. The new legal action would aim to bring those complicit in the genocide before civil courts, said Wikus Van Rensburg, who said that the team of South African lawyers has maintained contact with American and British lawyers to finalize the new judicial action. Even if the U.S. does not accept the ICJ ruling, it should at least receive sanctions as happened with Germany, a country that is still paying compensation for the Holocaust. The United States must now be held accountable for the crimes it committed,’ says Van Rensburg, who is leading the 47-lawyers team.

“We intend to bring legal proceedings against the U.S. Government based on overwhelming evidence that the U.S. Government has, and is, aiding, abetting and supporting, encouraging or providing material assistance and means to Israel and the Israeli Defense Forces. This conduct by the U.S. Government has enabled and continues to enable Israel to engage in international crimes against the Palestinian people,” the South African lawyers said in a letter sent to US President Joe Biden on January 2. “These crimes resulted in, among others, the displacement of the Palestinian people from their homes and property, destruction of Palestinian property, theft of Palestinian land and which facilitate and assist Israel in committing the ongoing and current war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and intentional killing of innocent civilians, including men, women, children and babies as well as the elderly and disabled.”

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“..Iran has shown that it can hit all of Israel with well targeted attacks without having to deploy any soldiers abroad..”

War On Gaza – Iran Demonstrates Its Means Of Self-Defense (MoA)

During the one hundred days of war by Israel on all people in Gaza the members of the ‘resistance axis’ responded to the onslaught. Hamas in Gaza successfully attacked invading Israeli forces. Even yesterday it still launched missiles from north Gaza towards Israel. Hizbullah in Lebanon attacked Israel on its border. Iraqi resistance groups attacked U.S. bases in Syria and Iraq. The Houthi in Yemen attacked ships related to Israel. The U.S./Israel axis escalated from there. Israel killed Hamas officials who openly lived in Beirut. It also killed an IRGC official in Syria and a Hizbullah official in Lebanon. The U.S. bombed the Houthi as well as resistance groups in Iraq and Syria. An ISIS attack, likely instigated by the U.S., killed some 100 people in Kerman, Iran.

After the U.S. attacked Iraqi resistance groups in Syria and Iraq these intensified their attacks on U.S. bases. Hizbullah slowly incremented its responses to Israeli attacks on Lebanon. After the U.S. bombing in Yemen the Houthi responded by adding U.S. and UK related ships to their target list. Yesterday a U.S. owned ship was hit by a Houthi missile. The resistance axis is a collection of groups loosely connected to Iran. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp has trained these groups. But it did much more than the usual U.S. military training would do. The IRGC encouraged the groups to contact each other and to exchange knowledge. They now cooperate on all levels. Iran brought in new technologies and weapons and taught each group on how to make their own copies. Today Hizbullah intelligence people teach Houthi how to systematically interpret U.S. actions. Houthi and Iraqis exchange missile and drone building plans.

The axis of resistance has become an assembly of quite autonomous entities who no longer depend on deliveries or orders from Iran. But they all follow the same anti-colonial ideology. The U.S. tried to interrupt the resistance development by, in 2020, killing Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the IRGC and founder of the resistance axis. It was in vain. The resistance was already too developed. It continued to grew on its own despite U.S. attempts of interference. After Soleimani’s death Iranian support for its resistance partners increased: “When President Donald J. Trump ordered the killing of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the leader of the Quds Force, in 2020, “Iran’s response to the assassination of its national hero was very measured,” noted Adnan Tabatabai, an expert on Middle East politics who focuses on Iran-Saudi relations. What followed, Mr. Tabatabai said, was “what I would refer to as a severe deterrence crisis for Iran, because in the following two years in particular, Israel carried out the most humiliating operations on Iranian soil.” They included sabotage around the Natanz nuclear enrichment site and the remote-control assassination of the scientist at the heart of the nuclear program.”

But in the four years since, Iran has deepened and sharply improved its proxy forces, supplying them with new generations of weapons, the capability to assemble their own arms and more training. Until yesterday all but one member of the resistance axis had responded to the Israeli attack. Last night Iran itself finally joined in. It fired ballistic missiles from Iran on two far away targets. The headquarter of the ISIS related Turkestan Islamic Party in Idleb, Syria, was destroyed. A headquarter of al-Qaeda aligned Hayad Tahrir al-Sham was also hit.

Another barrage of missiles came down (vid) in the city of Erbil in the Kurdish north of Iraq. The house of Peshraw Dizayee, a rich Kurdish businessman, was hit and destroyed. Dizayee did a lot of business with the U.S. and was involved in selling oil from the Kurdish region of Iraq through Turkey to Israel. Iran claims that his house was used as a base for the Israeli Mossad. That is at least plausible. The shortest trajectory from Iran to Idleb in Syria is at least 1,200 kilometers. Iran thus demonstrated that it can reliably hit targets at that distance. The missiles used, named Khaybar Shekan, have a top reach of 1,450 kilometers. These attacks are a warning to Israel and the U.S. Iran has shown that it can hit all of Israel with well targeted attacks without having to deploy any soldiers abroad. Should Iran be attacked, it has the will and the means to respond in kind.

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“Far from taking action against this illegal move by an out-of-control president, Congress as a body couldn’t even see fit to criticize the Administration..”

Congress Asleep as Biden Makes War on Yemen (Ron Paul)

Late last week President Biden started a new US war on the tiny country of Yemen. US warships and fighter jets launched more than a hundred missiles at the country in a massive escalation that the Administration bizarrely claimed would “de-escalate” tensions in the Red Sea. Taking the US to war without a Congressional declaration of war is a grave crime against the Constitution. Not only did Biden show no interest in coming to Congress for a war declaration, he didn’t even ask for authorization. Together with Washington’s reliable junior partner in war, the UK, Biden attacked Yemen. It seems the US Administration consulted more with the UK government than with the US Congress on the attacks. But that’s not really the worst part. Far from taking action against this illegal move by an out-of-control president, Congress as a body couldn’t even see fit to criticize the Administration.

On the contrary, Congressional leadership in both bodies actually applauded President Biden for brazenly violating US law! House Speaker Mike Johnson not only praised the illegal move, he urged the President to go further and confront Iran. He said, “This action by U.S. and British forces is long overdue, and we must hope these operations indicate a true shift in the Biden Administration’s approach to Iran and its proxies that are engaging in such evil and wreaking such havoc.” To their credit, several Members of Biden’s own party joined with a handful of Republican colleagues to denounce a US president taking the country to war without the authority to do so. California Rep. Ro Khanna was one of the first Democrats to criticize Biden’s warmaking, stating, “The President’s strikes in Yemen are unconstitutional.

For over a month, he consulted an international coalition to plan them, but never came to Congress to seek authorization as required by Article I of the Constitution.” The Framers of the Constitution gave war-making power to Congress because they understood that leaving such power in the hands of one person was a recipe for disaster. The role of the president is to make the case for a war declaration. Congress deliberates and either authorizes or refuses the proposed action. Washington has obviously not learned the lessons of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and all the other failed US interventions over the past 20 years. Why do we keep losing wars? Because we do not go into wars according to the US Constitution. This war will be no different.

The Houthis in Yemen withstood years of attacks from the Saudis using the latest US weaponry and came out on top. To this point they have not been targeting US vessels in the Red Sea, but only ships heading to or from Israeli ports. They are doing so in opposition to Israel’s destruction of Gaza. In short, it was never our war. But now, with this attack, Biden has made it our war. So we are left with the strange and sad spectacle of Congress asleep at the wheel as a Defense Secretary launches military strikes from his hospital bed in the service of a president clearly not in his prime. All this in pursuit of a policy that makes no sense and is leading us closer to a major war in the Middle East that will only harm, not serve, the US national interest.

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“..a fundamental question — where is their money, the money of American taxpayers, spent, and whether the astronomical sums that were spent for last year were allocated to the Kiev regime. Did these amounts help achieve any results?”

Biden Admin Wants Ukraine to Switch Proxy War Strategy ‘to Defense’ (Sp.)

The Biden administration wants Ukraine to switch its strategy in the ongoing proxy war against Russia “from offense to defense,” Andreas Kluth, a columnist for Bloomberg, has written. Ukraine botched the counteroffensive launched last summer despite the billions’ worth of NATO military aid, “frustrating Washington.” Hence, the regime in Kiev is to get new instructions from its “puppet-masters.” The new “assignment” from the White House is reportedly to be delivered by US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan as he meets with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos. Russia’s forces are “too well dug in, and the Ukrainians have lost too many soldiers and used up too much ammo,” the columnist admitted. “Offense is always harder than defense, but for Ukraine it may now be out of the question,” he noted succinctly.

But even the defense tactic will only work if the US, Europe “keep sending drones, missiles and bullets,” Kluth noted, as enthusiasm for propping up Kiev wanes. “There can be no optimism in Davos” on Ukraine this year, the columnist summed up. Zelensky, who continues to be in denial over Ukraine’s battlefield results (or rather, lack thereof) will not like what he hears from Sullivan, the author surmised. However, he can be expected to slug down that bitter-tasting edict and continue what he does best: harangue Western allies over insufficient aid. US President Joe Biden has requested $106 billion in supplemental funds, of which more than $60 billion would be intended for Ukraine. However, the request prompted deadlock on Capitol Hill as Congressional Republicans have been demanding stricter immigration policies and strengthening border security in exchange for approving the additional aid for Ukraine.

More and more officials in the United States are questioning the efficacy of spending astronomical sums of money to support Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. “We see that internal debates and internal processes continue in the United States, more and more representatives of the political establishment are interested in, well, probably such a fundamental question — where is their money, the money of American taxpayers, spent, and whether the astronomical sums that were spent for last year were allocated to the Kiev regime. Did these amounts help achieve any results?” Peskov told reporters.

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“..Putin will not “rest in peace, both in this world and in the next,” said Zelensky. “Neither his children, nor his grandchildren.”

Zelensky Threatens Putin’s Grandchildren (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has threatened Russian President Vladimir Putin’s entire family with “criminal trials” and long prison sentences, during a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday. Zelensky’s address to the gathering of aspiring global leaders focused on asking for more weapons, money, and ammunition so he could continue to fight Russia. At one point, however, he made a reference to the Russian leader’s family. Putin will not “rest in peace, both in this world and in the next,” said Zelensky. “Neither his children, nor his grandchildren.” The Russian leader is “the sole reason why various wars and conflicts persist” and he must be held accountable so his “aggression” doesn’t embolden other “autocracies,” Zelensky insisted.

“Yes, we are not terrorists, and therefore these will be criminal trials,” after which Putin and his entire family would spend “a long, multi-year vacation” behind bars, he added. Zelensky has repeatedly insisted that Ukraine does not engage in terrorism, while admitting he would have Putin assassinated if the opportunity arose. The Ukrainian security service, the SBU, has operated a dedicated assassination unit since 2015, according to its former chief. The Washington Post recently highlighted the SBU’s campaign of assassinations while attempting to deflect any blame from the CIA, which is deeply embedded in Ukrainian intelligence. Ukraine has targeted local Russian officials, as well as journalists such as Darya Dugina and Vladlen Tatarsky.

Writer Zakhar Prilepin survived an assassination attempt, while Russian security services thwarted a SBU hit on RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan in November. Zelensky’s mention of Putin’s grandchildren came just a day after Anne Applebaum – an American journalist and wife of Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski – claimed that the Russian president “has a grandson with Dutch citizenship.” Her source was an associate of Alexey Navalny, a Russian blogger imprisoned for embezzlement. The Russian president was married from 1983 to 2013 and has two daughters, who have stayed out of the media spotlight. His ex-wife, Lyudmila Ocheretnaya, was sanctioned by the UK in 2022.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1747285549201649818

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“Let Serbia serve as an instructive case study, foreshadowing the contours of the coming dystopia.”

West’s Lunatic Woke Agenda Spills Over Into Bystander Serbia (Karganovic)

Not one of the items that follow will strike a typical resident of the “collective West,” aka the 14 percent of the world that styles itself the “international community,” as inherently improbable or even odd in many instances. They have grown accustomed to it; it is part of their everyday landscape. Here, for illustrative purposes, is a select but representative sample of policies and prescribed behaviours that in that bizarre but thankfully shrinking part of the world have come to constitute the new normal.

1/ In order to maintain the fiction that in their attributes men and women are physiologically indistinguishable, the Canadian government has mandated the installation of tampon dispensers in men’s bathrooms. The empirical fact that men have no use for tampons is trumped by ideology, which dictates categorically that they do because it is dogmatically prescribed that men do menstruate and are furthermore able to give birth to babies. People who believe themselves to be something they are not, and claim that their subjective self-perception overrides reality, are politically empowered to cancel empirical observation and the conclusions reached by scientists who perform accurate, verifiable research.

2/ Also on the ideological reality chopping block is terminology that points to pre-woke, common sense notions about natural relations between human beings. “Mother” and “father, “expressions that allude to the manifestly different roles of parents in the process of conception and nurture of offspring, in the woke-controlled universe have been forcibly replaced by designations “parent no. 1” and “parent no. 2,” invented to hide those facts. Now the Methodist Church of Great Britain has gone a step farther, to label terms “husband” and “wife” offensive. Inspired by inclusivity, the technical rationale for this departure from normalcy is “to avoid making assumptions” that are not “the reality for many people.”

3/ The avant-garde state of California has passed a law that takes effect this year, AB 1084, requiring large retail stores to include gender neutral toy sections or face fines and other punishments. The new law will place an additional undue burden on retailers and will have the foreseeable economic impact of raising the price of toys generally for normal families and their children. Incidentally, it is anybody’s guess what the definition of gender neutral toys is and whether there is a market for such items. But in a parallel universe governed by ideological delusions these are inconsequential details.

4/ In Britain, the country where the novel 1984, which introduced the notion of thought crime, had been written, the first literal thought crime prosecutions have recently been instituted. Isabel Vaughan Spruce, Director of UK March for Life, so far has been cited by the police three times and taken to court for silently praying in front of abortion clinics. Readers should note that her arrests were triggered not by speech or conduct but for an “objectionable” activity that was purely mental. British authorities did not contest her right as a citizen (or royal subject, if you wish) to be in the public space where she was detained. Detention and prosecution were based entirely on their perception of what allegedly was going on in her mind, in the proximity of an abortion clinic, which the authorities considered might be provocative and perturbing to the consumers of the clinic’s services.

Readers should be aware that in common law the concept of thought transgression does not exist and that so far the British Parliament has not given statutory expression to such an offence. Nevertheless, an actual person presumably endowed with human rights has been subjected to persecution for objectively unprovable thoughts in order to enforce a legally non-existent norm. But that is the new normal, the rules based order of woke jurisprudence now taking shape in the land that once prided itself on upholding the “rights of Englishmen,” no matter how eccentric. Even the KGB in the old days could not have made this up.

5/ Returning to avant-garde California, award-winning Glendale fifth-grade teacher Ray Shelton was suspended for refusing to acquiesce to male students who “identify” as girls stripping naked in front of female students in the girls’ changing room. For opposing the transgender agenda in his school Shelton lost his job. It made no difference that female students and their parents fully supported him and also vehemently objected to these aggressive displays of opposite sex nudity. Glendale happens to be a heavily Armenian suburb of Los Angeles and its overwhelmingly normal residents are unacculturated to progressive Western values. They reacted with consternation to the state-orchestrated sexualisation of their children. Their protests, however, were to no avail. Shelton is now suing the state for damages. Good luck, in the judicial system of the deranged state of California.

These morsels of lunacy might be regarded as the tragicomical final stage in the collapse of a suicidal civilisation except for the fact that by means of highhanded political manipulation and arrogant agenda imposition even nations and cultures which still retain a residue of sanity are being cowed into submission and drawn into the abyss. Let Serbia serve as an instructive case study, foreshadowing the contours of the coming dystopia.

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All tax deductible. Including the escorts.

How Davos Locals Gouge The Global Elite (RT)

Rental prices in Davos, Switzerland during the World Economic Forum (WEF) have become a spectacle of the absurd. However, for local landlords this is not something outrageous but merely business as usual — a prime opportunity to capitalize on the presence of the global elite to generate substantial income. With only around 50 fully booked hotels and a limited number of vacation homes providing about 25,000 beds for visitors, Davos is pushing its capacity limits. This falls far short of what’s needed for a globally significant event such as the WEF. Even participants staying in nearby Klosters, Bad Ragaz, or even Zurich contribute to a veritable revenue boom typically only seen in the summer. Some shop owners rent out their establishments for exorbitant prices of $200,000 or $300,000 per week.

Accommodations are typically fully booked months in advance, with even the most affordable available room on Airbnb coming at a hefty price of $1,614 per night – and this is for a shared bathroom in a residential apartment. For those looking to book an entire place for the week of January 15th, the cost is at least $2,386 per night. While hoteliers still exercise restraint, individual property owners are going all out this year. Rentals of up to $18,387 per week are not uncommon. Some listings even surpass this. One private landlord is asking an unbelievable $86,197 for a 4.5-room apartment during the WEF week – equivalent to $14,366 per day! Shamelessly leveraging the economic summit as a selling point, this provider advertises on popular booking websites under the name “WEF 2024 Davos.”

Numerous houses are exclusively offered for the duration of the WEF. For instance, this year, the Tivoli Lodge was rented for $456,265, whereas normally it costs between $54,958 and $73,277 per week. But it doesn’t stop there: the Bortji Estate, featuring three chalets accommodating up to 42 people, was leased for $1,460,000. This stands out as the pinnacle during the WEF and makes this year’s event the most expensive ever in terms of rental prices. [..] Luxury property prices in Davos are witnessing a substantial surge, driven by the basic principles of supply and demand. The prevailing formula is straightforward: as demand for accommodation in Davos rises and supply remains constant, prices soar.

This surge is accompanied by a hefty price tag. While attendance at the Davos event is complementary for WEF members – although a membership reportedly costs approximately $65,000 – the associated expenses can add up. Tickets for non-members, meanwhile, come with a price tag of approximately $25,000, and attendance is strictly by invitation-only. Total expenses for the week can easily surpass $350,000. Additionally, attendees face steep prices for food, drinks, and events, exemplified by 2015 reports of a hot dog costing a staggering $43.

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“..Beijing “will have 10 state ministers in attendance,” with Scott Miller, the US ambassador in Bern, suggesting the delegation had all the hallmarks of a “pseudo state visit.”

US Scrambling To Check China’s ‘Charm Offensive’ In Davos (RT)

US diplomats are scrambling to hold on to their influence in Switzerland, as their Chinese counterparts attempt to woo the country’s top officials during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Politico reported on Monday, citing sources. The outlet said American officials were so alarmed by the size of the Chinese delegation at the event that they rushed to arrange a meeting between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Swiss President Viola Amherd to ensure Washington does not lose influence in the Alpine country, famed for its neutrality and status as a mediation powerhouse. Politico cited an internal State Department memo dated January 12 as outlining US strategy in this regard. It reportedly warns that Beijing “will have 10 state ministers in attendance,” with Scott Miller, the US ambassador in Bern, suggesting the delegation had all the hallmarks of a “pseudo state visit.”

The document reportedly further underscores the importance China attaches to the trip, noting that the delegation was to be headed by Premier Li Qiang, described in the memo as the “No. 2” to Chinese leader Xi Jinping. “Miller believes it would be bad optics if S[ecretary] doesn’t at least have a handshake with new Pres of Swiss Confederation,” the paper is said to note, adding that Amherd “has made herself completely available” for a sit down. Meanwhile, Li and Amherd held talks on Monday, bolstering an already existing free trade agreement and discussing cooperation and mediation issues. China has also agreed to grant Swiss citizens visa-free entry. At the same time, a spokesperson for the State Department told Politico that Blinken was also expected to meet with Swiss officials, although the exact timing remains unclear.

The top US diplomat will be in Davos on Tuesday and Wednesday and is likely to meet Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, as well as a number of Western leaders, according to the article. Washington’s apparent effort to step up its diplomatic game comes just as it has once again locked horns with Beijing in the aftermath of the presidential election in Taiwan, which China considers part of its sovereign territory. After the US congratulated Taiwanese President-elect William Lai, who is a supporter of a pro-independence course, China stated that this message sent a “gravely wrong signal,” and protested the US having “any form of official interaction with Taiwan and interfering in Taiwan affairs.”

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“..German farmers are not only told to eat cake, Marie Antoinette style, but also to pay up for the government’s screw-ups..”

German Government Seeks To Downplay Protesting Workers’ Plight (Marsden)

I spent a week with farmers protesting near the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. Too bad Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government didn’t get down off its high horse and do the same. It was a missed opportunity to benefit from a much-needed mugging by reality. Instead, the Interior Ministry contented itself by preemptively framing the protesters as susceptible to far-right infiltration. Scholz said that “rage is being stoked deliberately” by “extremists”. When asked about this concept, the unanimous response among the farmers was laughter, eye rolling, or one-line jokes. If you want to put down a dog, just say it has rabies – or has been hanging out with the far-right. Despite the protest taking place right across the street from the German parliament, farmers said the only officials whose presence was noticed, as they inquired about the protesters’ concerns, were from the right-wing Alternative for Deutschland.

Oh no, looks they’re co-opting already! Or maybe they’re just doing their jobs in trying to actually grasp the “ground truth” of the situation rather than framing it up with a convenient narrative in an effort to dismiss it. When a government official finally graced the protest with his presence on January 15, at the apex of the week-long protest, it was Finance Minister Christian Lindner, who took to the stage and loudly proclaimed that the government basically had no money. “I can’t promise you more state aid from the federal budget. But we can fight together for you to enjoy more freedom and respect for your work,” he said. I’m not even a farmer – although I was raised on a farm in Canada – and still I find this infuriating. Mostly just as a woman, though. Because Lindner sounds like a guy on a date who says that he’s broke, but instead of just splitting the check, he wants you to pay for the whole thing.

The farmers aren’t asking Berlin to pay their bills. What they want is for Team Scholz to refrain from taking even more of their hard-earned money in the form of taxes on diesel fuel for their farm vehicles, particularly at a time when government efforts to stick it to Russia and to the climate-change bogeyman, by making fossil fuel energy less available and affordable, is making it increasingly harder for them to do the job of feeding the country. As if farmers aren’t already paying this government enough. One farmhand told me that his boss has a budget of €3,300 a month for his job, and that by the time all the taxes are paid to the German government, the final salary paid to the worker tops out at €1,400. Where’s all that cash going?

Here’s a clue. Scholz said last fall that Germany had to “be able to help Ukraine on the basis of solidarity. We support Ukraine in its defense struggle, with financial resources and weapons.” Yet German farmers are not only told to eat cake, Marie Antoinette style, but also to pay up for the government’s screw-ups. Team Scholz blasted a hole in its own budget when it transferred cash from a Covid fund into a “climate and transformation fund,” but then couldn’t pay it all back, leaving a €17 billion ($18.5 billion) deficit and a scramble to somehow recoup the funds through austerity measures. So Scholz wants the farmers to pay his bills, but also to pay for his mistakes. And if they refuse, they must have been infiltrated by far-right extremists.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1747346361865896118

Read more …

The hatred is deep. And deeply unhealthy.

MSNBC Host: Iowa Proves White Christians are Racists (Turley)

In an early glimpse of what to expect from coverage of this election, MSNBC and CNN hosts went into full rage mode with the Iowa caucus results. MSNBC host Joy Reid led this effort by declaring that “White Christians” are racists who want minorities to “bow down” to them. Reid asked about this manifest racism of white Christians in a conversation with Robert “Robbie” Jones, the president and founder of Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and author of “The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy.” Reid explained to anyone who was confused about their white Christian neighbors: “All the things that we think about, about electability, about what are people gaming out, but none of that matters when you believe that God has given you this country, that it is yours, and that everyone who is not a White, conservative Christian is a fraudulent American, is a less real American. Then you don’t care about electability. You care about what God has given you.”

She later added “It is religion And I think what we have to actually confront – and this is what the Democrats are going to face – is this is now what White evangelicalism is. It is Christian nationalism. That’s the name of it, right?” It is all part of “White evangelical Christians of a certain mindset … that they own this country, that immigrants, that Brown people, that Hindus like Vivek Ramaswamy and his wife are illegitimate Americans. They are less legitimate Americans than they are…They’re not trying to convince people and win people over through politics. What they’re saying is, ‘We own this country, and everyone will bow down to us.’”

As we look at the rising anger in this country, this is a good part of it. In our echo chambered coverage, viewers hear of the effort to suppress all minorities (including apparently minority GOP presidential candidates) and how this “may be our last election.” Yet, these same hosts will denounce others for their reckless language as they fuel racist and rage rhetoric. Reid’s colleague MSNBC Host Rachel Maddow censored Trump’s victory speech and said that the network would not allow viewers to hear him because he said “untrue things.” MSNBC would allow viewers to hear the victory speeches of anyone it deems as speaking truthfully about political issues. Much like our politics, our media often seems captured by the most extreme elements of our society. It explains why the media is now at an all-time low in terms of trust. However, the most concerning aspect is that this is just the beginning of January. We have to make it to November.

Read more …

The White House made this up. All of it:

““the President has established the highest ethical standards of any administration in American history, and his family’s commitment to rigorous processes like this is a prime example.”

Art Dealer Testifies that Hunter Expressly Asked for Buyer Information (Turley)

More details are emerging from the recent testimony of Hunter Biden’s art dealer, George Bergès. We previously discussed how Bergès confirmed that the accounts of buyers flocking to buy Hunter’s art was false and that most of the art was purchased by his Democratic donor patron, Kevin Morris. Not only did Bergès shatter White House claims of a carefully constructed ethical system to keep Hunter from knowing the identity of purchasers, Bergès testified that Hunter expressly demanded to know the identity. Various experts objected to the sales as a serious ethical problem of donors using the purchases to assist President Biden and his family. The media dutifully reported at the time how the White House was grappling with the ethical questions and, according to the Washington Post, “the White House officials have helped craft an agreement.” It was portrayed as unprecedented and unyielding.

The White House continued to swat down questions by citing an ethical plan created for the sales. Andrew Bates, a spokesperson for the White House, said in a statement that “the President has established the highest ethical standards of any administration in American history, and his family’s commitment to rigorous processes like this is a prime example.” Then White House spokesperson (and now MSNBC host) Jennifer Psaki stated: “Well, I can tell you that after careful consideration, a system has been established that allows for Hunter Biden to work in his profession within reasonable safeguards […] But all interactions regarding the selling of art and the setting of prices will be handled by a professional gallerist, adhering to the highest industry standards. And any offer out of the normal course would be rejected out of hand. And the gallerist will not share information about buyers or prospective buyers, including their identities, with Hunter Biden or the administration, which provides quite a level of protection and transparency.”

Yet, Bergès reportedly testified that he had no contacts with the White House and Hunter knew the identity of the purchasers of most of the art. Notably, Bergès was reading these same reports in the news but never objected to the alleged misrepresentation. He admitted that he read of those reports and was confused. A staffer asked: “When you’re seeing in the press that the White House is putting in certain safeguards regarding an ethics agreement but you’ve had no conversations with [the] White House, I mean, did you ever say to Hunter Biden, ‘Hey, where’s this coming from?’” Bergès responded: “I might have. I probably did, yeah.” He admitted that he was surprised by the coverage “[b]ecause I hadn’t had any communication with the White House about an agreement.” That, of course, was never reported. Instead, the media dutifully reported how there was this comprehensive ethical plan in place.

What was particularly notable is that, despite the false White House claims and extensive coverage, Hunter appears to have discarded any such limits. Berges testified that artists usually do not know who buys their art. So not only did Hunter not comply with the agreement with the first, this was a departure from standard operating procedure to let him know about the purchasers: “…I don’t know how it was phrased or—but I remember that there—that that was the difference…That part was different. Normally, the gallerist does not let the artist know who the collectors are…The first one was that I was required to disclose who the buyers were. In the second one, I was required to not disclose the buyers.”

The most important testimony, in my view, is still the massive purchase by Morris. This Democratic donor was introduced to Hunter at a Democratic fundraiser for the first time not long before reportedly giving him millions to pay off his taxes and support his lavish lifestyle. He then reportedly purchased most of the art as the media was reporting how hot Hunter was as a new emerging artist. The claims of walling off the identity of purchasers and the high demand for his art proved to be false.

Read more …

“..citizens became heroes — artists, musicians, writers, soldiers and sailors who stubbornly resisted the iron from entering their souls.”

An Anniversary West Would Rather Forget (Bhadrakumar)

An epochal anniversary from the annals of modern history is coming up in another ten days that remains a living memory for the Russian people. The Siege of Leningrad, arguably the most gruesome episode of the Second World War, which lasted for 900 days, was finally broken by the Soviet Red Army on 27th January 1944, eighty years ago to be exact. The siege endured by more than three million people, of whom nearly one half died, most of them in the first six months when the temperature fell to 30° below zero. It was an apocalyptic event. Civilians died from starvation, disease and cold. Yet it was a heroic victory. Leningraders never tried to surrender even though food rations were reduced to a few slices of bread mixed with sawdust, and the inhabitants ate glue, rats — and even each other — while the city went without water, electricity, fuel or transportation and was being shelled daily.

It was on the 22nd of June, 1941 that the German armies crossed the Russian frontiers. Within six weeks, the Army Group North of the Wehrmacht, armed forces of the Third Reich, was within fifty kms of Leningrad in a fantastic blitzkrieg and had advanced 650 kms deep into Soviet territory. A month later, the Germans had all but completed the city’s encirclement, only a perilous route across Lake Ladoga to the east connected Leningrad with the rest of Russia. But the Germans got no further. And 900 days later their retreat began. The epic siege of Leningrad was the longest endured by any city since Biblical times, and, equally, citizens became heroes — artists, musicians, writers, soldiers and sailors who stubbornly resisted the iron from entering their souls.

Petrified by the prospect of surrender to the Soviet Union, the Nazis preferred to lay down arms before the western allied forces, but Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe, ordered that the honour of victory should go to the Red Army. Herein lies one of the greatest paradoxes of war and peace in modern times. Today, the anniversary of the siege of Leningrad has become, most certainly, an occasion that the US and many of its European allies would rather not remember. Yet, its contemporary relevance is not to be glossed over, either. The Nazi leadership aimed to exterminate Leningrad’s entire population by enforced starvation. Death by starvation was a deliberate act on the part of the German Reich.

In the words of Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler “intended to have cities like Moscow and St Petersburg wiped out.” This was “necessary”, he wrote in July 1941, “because if we want to divide Russia into its individual parts,” it should “no longer have a spiritual, political or economic centre.” Hitler himself declared in September 1941, “We have no interest in maintaining even a part of the metropolitan population in this existential war.” Any talk of the city surrendering had to be “rejected, as the problem of keeping and feeding the population cannot be solved by us.” Simply put, the population of Leningrad was left to starve to death – much like the millions of Soviet prisoners of war held by the Wehrmacht. The historian Jörg Ganzenmüller later wrote that this form of mass murder was cost-effective for Berlin, for, it was “genocide by simply doing nothing”.

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Giraf

 

 


The pterosaur Quetzalcoatlus, the largest known flying animal that ever lived, with a 40-foot (12-meter) wingspan. It existed about 65 to 72million years ago.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle January 17 2024

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  • #150586

    Salvador Dalí The persistence of memory 1931   • The US, Israel Have Lost Battlefield Control (Helmer) • The West Bank is a Ticking Time Bomb (Cr
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle January 17 2024]

    #150587
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “Collusion!? Jan. 6 Committee Inserted Itself Into Fani Willis’ Georgia Case Against Trump
    Someone needs to get to the bottom of this…

    Anyone but the Republicans… That would be mean and Mommy Democrat wouldn’t like it.

    “When Congress voted to spend hundreds of billions to switch electricity production to solar and wind, it forgot something: transmission lines”

    They didn’t forget: we told them 10,000 times… But they also didn’t want to print and spend money on their pals? Huh, that’s odd. The only reason all that would work is if half the population died for some reason. Reason “X”. Luckily no geopolitical-military websites associated with the CIA never reported such a thing. And certainly not by 2024.

    “Train Crash Leaves South Africa’s Coal Exports Throttled “

    Unlucky things happen when you bring court cases.

    “Judge Blocks JetBlue-Spirit Merger”

    Omg, a judge did NOT approve of a monopoly? That’s the first time in my lifetime. Did they not bribe him properly or something?

    “Iowa Caucus: Trump’s Landslide Victory Cements Position
    …it would seem to be very difficult to stop him unless some extraneous event shakes up the race…

    Time for a small plane crash… NBC already said to save Democracy we need a one-candidate, one-party election.

    “Over 100 Ships Transit Red Sea Route Despite Calls To Stay Away”

    Nobody told them to stay away. All the ships are fine. …Except the British, American, and Israeli ones. Because they’ve been bombing the s—t out of Yemen since 2014 and Israel is now bombing the s—t out of every child in Gaza.

    BBC is literally reporting, “We have no idea why that ship we pirated and stole from Iran they stole back. Doesn’t make any sense to us.”

    Stop lying your -sses off and maybe things will get better around here. Every Chinese, every Russian ship: perfectly safe. Ireland, BBC, EU’s plan: outlaw saying anything else. On X, or even in a Dublin Pub in person. Outlaw humor, theatre, and Christmas, worse than any Cromwell. These lemon-sucking uber-religious nags and shills.

    “On January 13, Poland passed a completely radical new form of conscription card intended in the event of mobilization and during a war. The changes in this formula are significant, with the 6-hour notice and the drastic penalties for failing to report to the army” – Armstrong

    What a coinkiny-dinky, the day after London said so? Gosh, I said that only Friday 12Jan or something?

    pic

    Macron is backing up London, and their goal to sacrifice and erase Poland and all the other Slavs on the West side of the line, but also signing up with Ze? #Winning.

    “The US appears to have entered the middle stages of such a collapse with many sociopaths and psychopaths beginning to feel that they might be able to act out their worst impulses without consequences.  They are beginning to test the waters to see what they can get away with.”

    Yes, all as long tested and practiced over many revolutions before. Raz Al-Gaul, League of Shadows. As Honkey forwarded: https://cluelesshonky.substack.com/p/that-ball-has-no-sides Which links to the original, some people study history, while others, who are violent, demented psychopaths, study history to see how best to control, upset, and kill people. We’ve probably already put up with more than usually takes a country down, but it’s slowly and eventually working. Inject racism where there was none (it was about malaria) then puff it up when its slowly fading out, then pay to own the media and lie (“Remember the Maine!”) and then make up divisions that aren’t there. Pay rebels to shoot presidents (Booth, “Anarchists” who shot McKinley, now transferred to “crazy people”, Hinkley, Sirhan) or do it directly (Aaron Burr, Andrew Jackson).

    In this case, after running the race war which didn’t work for 40 years (Helter Skelter) then the Communist Revolution which isn’t working any better, they are now openly installing and running the D.A.s of most major cities, to openly and feloniously operate in opposition of the law and dereliction of duty, do no work, pay their lovers a million dollars, scuba in St. James, who are then NOT removed for other payouts and legal/media protection.

    <— You are Here.

    All paid, so the main way to stop it is to cut off their money system, which is now more difficult, as it’s no long JUST the money system, but the drug and human trafficking system, which is also the gang and gun-trafficking system, and has taken over most of the legal system. Where Pappa Bush can direct 20 cartels, all the guns and gangs under them, through every city and county in America.

    The good part – and as seems impossible, people call me an optimist – is that by having to go this far everyone knows it’s all voluntary, run from the top, and a scam. It’s not “Us” misbehaving, and it would all go back to normal if someone would uphold the law and do their jobs, as in public schools. Big things like not having sex with the students or running drugs there, not talking about learning differential equations and mandarin.

    “Imagine a spoiled toddler is kept in check by his parents in the pristine halls of a delicate museum.  The toddler might throw fits, screaming and shouting because he wants to touch the many fragile items around him, but at least his parents are there to hold him back.  He has not yet learned the responsibility and maturity necessary to have access to these treasures.  Now imagine removing the parents entirely and telling the toddler there are no rules anymore?

    The rush of joy he experiences is exhilarating; it is the feeling of sudden and unearned power.  No one is around to stop him, therefore, he is going to test his own limits.  He sees the ordered environment around him and he becomes frustrated.  How dare this place restrict him with boundaries and structure.  His first inclination is to destroy anything that he can get his hands on.”

    This is the same about binge drinking with Christians and Whites, as opposed to say, Italians. Drinking was forbidden at home as they are “following the law” which is “Helping” them…helping them right into acting out irresponsibly, blowing 1-2 critical college years and/or possibly killing them, causing pregnancy/abortion/marriage with someone unsuitable, etc. Helping! Thanks! …Instead of just behaving normally and introducing drugs – and sex actually – as just a thing that’s common that has effects, responsibilities, order that we all balance as adults, and is actually not too hard.

    This is the POINT of crushing children, making them feel worthless, powerless, have no life-experience with anything and especially not with limits, to say nothing of self-control: it ensures the maximum violence and acting out at ages where we learn very slowly if at all. So instead of a month to learn this is stupid and counterproductive it takes 5 years or never if you’re over 30 like Millennials are. THEY gave the participation trophies to make sure this would happen, the Millennials didn’t give it to themselves. Not everyone is born smart and self-aware with mountains of self-control, you know. Many aren’t and you have to help and channel them into their best situation, even if you don’t want to. Or they’ll rob your house. If Billy-Jack is dirt poor and idle all day he’ll come up with something. If you help him get a job where they try to have him show up, a wife who wants a better car, he’ll just do that instead as the trajectory he’s focused on.

    Breaking this is critical to foment revolutions, and they’ve done everything, EVERYTHING to destroy all limits, helps, families, attachments, employments. reason, communication, religion, sexuality, everything. It’s going okay, but taking Waaaaaaaay longer than they have to work with. Like I said, they were trying to get Billy Jack to come shoot them out of a 13-of-15-are-FBI-informants Militia in the 90s. Still not happening 30 years later.

    It’s so bad, they had to get suburban white college kids who will believe anything! Then find the most impressionable of them, who are Trans, and subset them. Great! You win! Now you have like 1% of 1% of 1% as your Trans army, who are too screwy in the head to take orders. #Winning.

    And again, this is right out of history, as they can’t invent nothin’. Mao did this when they squeezed him out and he needed a 3rd side so he started the Cultural Revolution to purge his enemies. …Unfortunately his “enemies” were most “normal” people, and communist party members. But he ran the Trans army then. It didn’t come out of nowhere for us, it’s just boring, mindless textbook creation, they print money, pay social engineers (and probably chemical engineers too) to fabricate this. “I Kissed a Girl and I Liked It” what like 10 years ago that was saucy? What happened? I PAID A F’ING GUY TO DO IT, that’s what happened, you credulous morons. The editors and record execs who didn’t HARD ENOUGH, I fired and destroyed their careers to send a message. Actually Tim Pool is doing this, just as a lark: he releases records, and the industry REFUSES TO TRACK THEM. Oops! They keep having “Accidents” that mean he can’t chart! 100% of the time! Because everyone hates MSM so much there is zero competition and anything real jumps to the top automatically, out in Richmond. These levels of pressure defeat themselves, you dummies. Bernays told you so and wrote it in his book so you wouldn’t forget.

    “Now understand that there is a portion of any given adult population that has these same tendencies.  They never grew up.  They want to take or destroy what they cannot have”

    Envy, that deadly sin, and what “Socialism” is entirely based on. Now why it go bad? He then says “the Police fold”. No they don’t. The Police would do what they did yesterday, it would take decades to roll the institutional memory. And they have, and still hasn’t worked: they militarized them under Bush with more money than God. And THIS is all you have to show for it? Now they’re saying the reverse, we militarized you against a Redneck Army that doesn’t exist, so please DO NOT do anything or arrest anybody – that’s what we pay you for. Huh? That makes even less sense and has less traction.

    So all of this clearly can only come FROM THE TOP, and ON PURPOSE as it makes no logical or historical or practical sense. Not even as a “I’m lazy, I want to self-interest”. The police would about do the #Opposite if that were the case. They’d get out of hand, but in a totally different expression. So again, as it’s THIS obvious, remove the top and it more or less vanishes. They’re exposed.

    Sure a generation has been left feral and infantile, but if controlled by…teacher, let’s say, and applied to good use, they would come up to adulthood and best potential in no time. Like, say, re-importing all those manufacturing jobs? Raising interest rates? Cutting all the regulation and overhead collapsing small business, the only job creators?

    “”fiery but mostly peaceful.”

    The double standard is absurd, but then again, it’s meant to be.  Why?  Because the psychopaths among the political left were being rewarded and encouraged.  Conservatives and moderates are supposed to feel defeated, making them unwilling to fight…total upheaval quickly follows.”

    He regularly says this and is always wrong. Or for 20 years by now. Instead everyone is pivoting toward some new approach. They went for Trump (mixed bag, but exists), they went for exposure. They decided to bear it and the madness is exhausting and revealing itself. At the same time, Millennials are trying to homestead and grow chickens, becoming de facto Conservatives as they attempt “work”. Zoomers follow. They are hustlers who grew up in a crazed, mixed street environment who are aware of these things and how to navigate them. And Millennials try to absorb and collectivize their troubled members which is confusing and fails but also disarms a lot of the explosives, like turning TNT into neighborhood toxic waste. Okay toxic waste everywhere as it was misunderstood and mishandled, but far less actual TNT at the same time.

    These beta-tests probably work at certain scales they were tested for: Nicaragua, Argentina, France. But not mega-massive organisms like Russia, U.S. You see how they can run the cities, but they expect the cities to just automatically flip the region like they would in Austria, Germany, Sweden. Like in their stupid models and board games like “Risk”. They don’t. We’re too large and even now, socio-cultural influence travels too slow. By the time THAT you should behave like a Woke “Summer of Love” message hits the School District, they turn around and check and that behavior is already crossed and being discredited ’cause it’s 2 years old. So they were gonna, but now aren’t sure, and never get off the ground, getting sniped as they can’t even implement dumb policies. You won’t find that in Denmark. If Copenhagen does something, the “country” ends up doing it too. But if even Pittsburgh, to say nothing of Philly, does something, central PA won’t even hear about it. And the Amish won’t participate.

    Same thing happened in Russia. Too many people, too many cultures, interests, areas. They could kinda control Moscow and St. Pete but there were too many moving parts and nobody cared. They couldn’t get anything to stick and instead of controlling, Russia self-organized their own self-interest and slowly squeezed them out. Even today as just two years ago it seemed the central bank was under control, but it wasn’t. The West still has the Russian media still mostly controlled, but it doesn’t seem to matter or help.

    Too vast, too diverse. “Diversity is our strength”.

    “Fire Federal Employees Who Walk Out Over Gaza Policies: Speaker Johnson

    Johnson says employees who don’t do their job should be fired. Novel approach! they should expand it.

    J6: The “Bombshell” would be if the FBI didn’t perjure themselves, openly, and not even hiding it as he knows there are cameras. I don’t remember the last time the FBI didn’t fabricate, entrap, railroad, and lie. Generally to protect insiders and oligarchs, as we see with Hunter daily. His Federal Gun Charges?

    What does he need a gun for? I’m paying two guys $80k/year to watch him although I shouldn’t and I can’t afford it. Darn Rich Men of Richmond.

    “ Congress Asleep as Biden Makes War on Yemen (Ron Paul)

    Shouldn’t President Biden arrest President Biden? President Biden said if President Biden were to start a war without Congress or open the border, President Biden would be in treasonous dereliction of duty in the service of corporate oligarchs.

    “All this in pursuit of a policy that makes no sense and is leading us closer to a major war in the Middle East that will only harm the US national interest.”

    And he said the same thing 25 years ago, in 912, and the same thing for the 25 years before that as the pieces were assembled and put in place.

    “• Biden Admin Wants Ukraine to Switch Proxy War Strategy ‘to Defense’ (Sp.)

    As they’re not just retards, but glue-sniffing retards, that ship sailed 2 years ago. About after the Kiev break for talks, possibly when Russia first asked to activate their reserves but absolutely the minute that was successful and in motion. Now not only is that true, not only fully, luxuriously trained, not only fully arranged and armed, not only were all the arms factories given years to develop and succeed, but there are whole new divisions being formed monthly. That’s effectively 2-3x the army they were originally fighting.
    On the Ukr side, they blew up NATO’s army in the first 60 days, then their second army within a year. They’re now leveled the third army, plus all the arms anywhere in NATO that we are officially aware of. You can no longer “Defend”, because “Time Exists”. And War runs on it. It doesn’t matter if you can get more soldiers to Waterloo EVENTUALLY; it only matters if they’re there TODAY.

    ““…Putin will not “rest in peace, both in this world and in the next,” said Zelensky.”

    Not satisfied with being unable to control THIS reality and dimension, he is now chasing Putin through all the hypothetical realities and dimensions and having about the same success. Look: injure Putin or Russia ONCE. Then build on that. The recent bombing of Russian mainland with NATO weapons was entirely pointless and has only succeeded in pissing them off. He’s now going to get a time machine and chase Putin’s grandkids through time like in “Loopers”.

    Alrightie then! You can be sure We’re insane because we don’t treat him as if he’s insane.

    “Scholz said that “rage is being stoked deliberately” by “extremists”.

    He’s right! The Extremism of Scholz and Davos. Or is eating bugs and making cows extinct not extreme enough for you? They proudly proclaim they are “Extreme”: Ask Greta. Extreme is necessary and good. If you’re not extreme you’re not paying attention, they say. But that’s the GOOD extreme, where we install global communism and I get jam. If it’s YOUR global extremism, that’s the the BAD one, because I only get jam with WORK.

    “MSNBC host Joy Reid led this effort by declaring that “White Christians”

    Ah, if only you could find a white Christian in America. They think it’s 1979. Or 1989 for that matter. If there were any Christians in America would we have transgender bathrooms and gay marriage? To say nothing of, you know, poverty and homelessness and war.

    Schrodinger’s Christians: Both! Neither! Aiii!!! Like Russaphrenia, American Christians both exist and are everywhere, and don’t exist, and are nowhere, so last century. Depends on which argument I’m trying to win this sentence, which reverses a minute from now.

    P.S. she also has never met a Black Christian Churchgoer. They’re way more serious and make the white Methodists look pretty lightweight.

    And yes, Republicans rocketed Ramaswamy out of nowhere 2x ahead of Desantis because they’re all racists.

    Speaking of, Ramaswamy saw the numbers, came in fourth and apparently was shocked. I didn’t see that either. But within 6 hours had come together, made decisions, repositioned, and dropped out to support Trump. I don’t know what more you can ask: that’s immediate, real, professional, and decisive. He didn’t equivocate or blame like Desantis calling…election rigging???? Da fuq? Because all the legacy institutions and especially the media are notoriously pro-Trump? This was literally their argument. Or Nikki Hillary who was so psychotically detached from reality she said she won, (she didn’t) and that it was now actually a “Race”. She’s a-gonna catch up to Cheeto! Any time now!!! With a straight face, no one correcting her, AFTER only getting that bad as Hillary and the DNC got out the DEMOCRATS vote to even get her to the abysmal level of only beating unknown Ramaswamy. Go girl. No, really: go away.

    They are each BIZARRE and should not be allowed anywhere near a hardware store much less levers of power. Ramaswamy may or may not be real and trustworthy, I can’t decide, but he behaved like an intelligent human being. That’s where the bar is these days: too high for two governors to get over.

    LizardPpl
    https://sinfest.xyz/btphp/comics/2022-09-08.jpg

    “Armed forces of the Third Reich, was within fifty kms of Leningrad in a fantastic blitzkrieg and had advanced 650 kms deep into Soviet territory.

    …Apparently Germany never read history? 650Kms means THEY HAVE YOU SURROUNDED. And cut off your supply lines. The lesson here is, why did it take so long?

    Something’s gone very wrong with Quetzalcoatlus. Just logic the proportions: it’s too big to float on those wings unless something is very, very different.

    No one will want to hear this, but it’s obvious: there were 6 foot dragonflies then and not today. If there could be, there would be because insects are like that. That means oxygen and/or gravity itself must have been substantially different. Which would make those Brontosaurs possible too.

    #150588
    Just Some Randomer
    Participant

    @ Dr. D “No one will want to hear this, but it’s obvious: there were 6 foot dragonflies then and not today. If there could be, there would be because insects are like that. That means oxygen and/or gravity itself must have been substantially different. Which would make those Brontosaurs possible too.”

    There was a lot more oxygen in the atmosphere in the carboniferous and permian periods than now (31% of the atmosphere vs 21% now). Insects don’t have lungs, they breath through tubes in their bodies called spiracles – this ‘Passive’ intake of oxygen, as opposed to actively breathing using lungs with associated muscles, makes them very sensitive to oxygen levels.

    Higher atmospheric oxygen levels make it possible to absorb more, even passively, and thus built larger bodies. If oxygen levels fall, mammals can just breathe harder and add red blood cells, insects can’t do that. Their only response is to get smaller and lower their oxygen requirements.

    Long story short – the makeup of our atmosphere can change very significantly over time. With or without human involvement.

    #150589
    Red
    Participant

    ” The “Bombshell” would be if the FBI didn’t perjure themselves, openly, and not even hiding it as he knows there are cameras. I don’t remember the last time the FBI didn’t fabricate, entrap, railroad, and lie. Generally to protect insiders and oligarchs, as we see with Hunter daily. His Federal Gun Charges?”

    Hmmm…

    Why the U.S. National Security State Assassinated MLK, Jr.

    #150590
    tboc
    Participant

    #1 – The first and most successful press psyop within the United States is the Federalist Papers
    #2 – The War Between the States, The United States Civil War, NEVER ended.
    #3 – The majority of information contained within the elementary school history
    during my youth is a half truth, the most damnable of lies.
    #4 – There is NO such thing as Neo-Nazism, there is Nazism. The scourge of Nazism
    has it’s roots in and has been fueled and nurtured by Western “Capitalism”
    to this very moment.
    The “Space Race” was the extremely thin veneer used to obfuscate the race for accurate intercontinental ballistic missiles. As the director of the Marshall Space Flight Center Mr. V2’s history is not a mystery. One might have thought Ole Blighty might have raised some objections to the elevation of Mr. V2 to the pinnacle of United States rocketry. Crickets. The common man is under the impression that Mohammed Ali invented “Rope a Dope”. The common man may have been knocked down as Western “Capitalism” leaned against the ropes, covered up and sporadically lashed out. The outcome will be, just as in the case of Mohammed Ali, nazism and it’s promoter headed for a death from septic shock.

    I am asking as a states rights populist. When will the preaching against bureaucratically managed Federalism appear in the daily discourse? That “ism”. (surely a rhetorical question) Although many confuse The Jungle Book with The Jungle, some have actually read The Jungle and are familiar with the Muckrackers and the history of the Noble “ism”.

    and for the Trump aficionados, The Murder of Qasem Soleimani, should history be written, will be noted as the Supreme Blunder, and the harbinger of the complete demise of western colonialism.

    #150591
    zerosum
    Participant

    A point of View/A Slice of Your Time

    Timeline, (Complexity)

    Action,-> Reaction, -> ,Result, -> Judgement, Right/Wrong, Expected/Unexpected -> Entanglement -> Interpretation, subjective self-perception overrides reality,
    ———

    https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/South-Africa-to-Sue-US-and-UK-as-Complicit-in-Gaza-Genocide-20240115-0009.html
    Complicity

    South Africa to Sue US and UK as Complicit in Gaza Genocide

    Accountablility/be held accountable/responsible

    ->Peace
    ——–
    Remote-control
    Action at a distance ( entanglement)
    Proxy forces
    ———–
    Interpretation
    Escalation would “de-escalate”

    https://ronpaulinstitute.org/congress-asleep-as-biden-makes-war-on-yemen/

    Congress Asleep as Biden Makes War on Yemen
    by Ron Paul | Jan 15, 2024

    Taking the US to war without a Congressional declaration of war is a grave crime against the Constitution.
    Not only did Biden show no interest in coming to Congress for a war declaration, he didn’t even ask for authorization.
    Together with Washington’s reliable junior partner in war, the UK, Biden attacked Yemen.
    It seems the US Administration consulted more with the UK government than with the US Congress on the attacks.

    But that’s not really the worst part.
    Far from taking action against this illegal move by an out-of-control president, Congress as a body couldn’t even see fit to criticize the Administration.
    On the contrary, Congressional leadership in both bodies actually applauded President Biden for brazenly violating US law!

    “The President’s strikes in Yemen are unconstitutional. For over a month, he consulted an international coalition to plan them, but never came to Congress to seek authorization as required by Article I of the Constitution.”

    The Houthis in Yemen withstood years of attacks from the Saudis using the latest US weaponry and came out on top.
    To this point they have not been targeting US vessels in the Red Sea, but only ships heading to or from Israeli ports.
    They are doing so in opposition to Israel’s destruction of Gaza.
    In short, it was never our war.
    But now, with this attack, Biden has made it our war.

    ———-
    subjective self-perception overrides reality,

    West’s Lunatic Woke Agenda Spills Over Into Bystander Serbia

    West’s Lunatic Woke Agenda Spills Over Into Bystander Serbia

    Stephen Karganovic
    Compulsory denial of the evidence of one’s senses and obligatory surrender to repugnant nonsense constitutes the initial step in that direction. That most certainly is not a scheme for the betterment of society. It is a blueprint for the crushing of the human spirit, leading ultimately to its total subjugation.
    —————–

    #150592
    zerosum
    Participant

    ZELENSKY BLINDED BY RAGE, WAS AT DAVOS
    All tax deductible. Including the escorts.

    https://swentr.site/business/590680-davos-world-economic-forum-expensive/
    • How Davos Locals Gouge The Global Elite (RT)

    #150593
    Dora
    Participant

    Matt Taibbi on the campaign trail reporting from a Cornel West event.
    Excerpt from the longer article:

    Back to the stage. West is still talking about Gaza.

    “What kind of world are we living in, America? What kind of country? What kind of empire? All of that barbarity, all of that bestiality?” (He pronounces barbarity with the last syllables stretched out, like King’s “long night of captivity.”) “When I think of Biden and Harris and Austin and Blinken, and Sullivan and Kirby” — booo! comes the rising sentiment from the crowd — “I say personally to Biden and company… You oughtta be shamed!”

    The crowd roars again. Standing to the side of the stage, I can’t see its end. It was hard also to avoid seeing the awesome quantity of anti-Biden signage in the crowd. A Code Pink group was toting a BIDEN BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS canvas, while GENOCIDE JOE was heavily represented in chants and in at least one fat red sign periodically seen in the crowd’s dead center. A campaign reportedly begun by the National Conference of Swing State Muslim Leaders last month created an impressively ubiquitous call to ABANDON BIDEN, with holders of such signs scattered all over, departing from the modern American-left strategy of toothless protest, i.e. making noise without electoral punishment. This crowd isn’t trying to send a message. It wants Biden ridden from office.

    There are so many demographics recoiling from traditional politics now that in a fair electoral fight, Washington consensus would surely lose. This is why, after decades in which third parties were mostly irrelevant at the presidential level (with the exception of Ross Perot’s brief surge in the 1992 cycle), ballot access is suddenly a commodity more prized than gold. Anyone with a pulse who can order a cheeseburger without help will be a serious option for millions, once voters disappear into booths in November. The problem is getting names on ballots.


    https://www.racket.news/p/an-american-iconoclast-cornel-west

    #150594

    “Take7” over at ZH directed me to this video on nanoparticles and the “vaccines”- how nanoparticles work and what could have been done with them with regards to the injections.
    47 minutes- some stomach-turning images.

    #150595
    Dr D Rich
    Participant
      ..Putin will not “rest in peace, both in this world and in the next,” said Zelensky. “Neither his children, nor his grandchildren.”

    Nah, Dr. D those Zelensky words don’t deserve your cute deconstruction. Loopers analogy? Zelensky didn’t mean that at all.

    Zelensky, in his all too predictable pants-shitting panic, threw off His Mask of Sanity and revealed the Antisocial Personality beneath.
    Those words should be carved on his forehead before his deserved annihilation.

    What’s strange to me is UW appears to be choosing that same path with one of my kids as, I suppose, a maximalist diversion from my pursuit of justice.

    As for Volodymyr Zelensky, the best he can hope for is to never see it coming. He clearly asked for it. Perhaps, Helmers, Ritter or Franchetti can opine “what it be”.

    #150596
    WES
    Participant

    Notice nobody at Davos is offering Ukraine any of their own money, only other (taxpayer’s) people’s money. Like $300 billion in Ukrainian Rebuilding bonds (Russia’s money). A rather nice way of seizing Russian money (putting lip stick on a pig). So the US is indeed going to do this.

    I am becoming more and more convinced that Russia is simply going to sit tight right where it is, and wait until the Ukraine collapses. In severe delusional cases, people in the crowd only come to their senses, one by one. Meanwhile, until then, western taxpayers will be bled dry.

    #150597
    zerosum
    Participant

    Words/Insults hurt/cost more that missiles/guns.
    USA Designated the houthis in yemen to be a Terrorist Organization.

    #150598
    Oroboros
    Participant

    .

    #150599
    Red
    Participant

    Taking up on my electricity collection from yesterday, for any who may be interested. Today started out mostly cloudy with sunrise at 7:48 am. The bank started out at 48 vdc and with the cloud cover giving way to mostly cloudy by noon. Checking on it just now 2:47 pm I am running at absorption 58.8 vdc. I have achieved 87 amp hrs so far and still running at 58.8. This voltage is set to run for 30 minutes and then will drop back to float voltage of 54.4 vdc for the remainder of the day, sunset is 5:03 pm. Incoming voltage is approx. 110 vdc with the amperage approx. 18.1 amps. Due to the size of my panel array, it’s split between two charge controllers to maximize the amount of incoming power. Both producing the same voltage and amperage at the time of reading, so a total of 36 amps flowing to the bank. With an hour or so of good sun time left in the day I should have no problem making my desired amounts. The controllers won’t recognize wattage above 3500 so as to maximize collection for this time of year it made sense to split it. In a sense I have two arrays one of 12 panels and one of 9. Just checking for today I have had a high of 5470 watts coming in, not bad for a 5400w rated system at the wrong angle for this time of year.

    #150600
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Dedicated to Pedo Joe, the Empire of Lies malevolent Mr Magoo

    Blind Faith – “Can’t Find My Way Home”

    Come down off your throne and leave your body alone
    Somebody must change
    You are the reason I’ve been waiting so long
    Somebody holds the key

    But I’m near the end and I just ain’t got the time
    And I’m wasted and I can’t find my way home

    Come down on your own and leave your body alone
    Somebody must change
    You are the reason I’ve been waiting all these years
    Somebody holds the key

    But I’m near the end and I just ain’t got the time
    And I’m wasted and I can’t find my way home

    #150601
    Oroboros
    Participant

    I remember a hardcore biker gang guy I knew in my wasted young who was one tough character but he loved his cat and took no guff about doing so.

    This wanted poster reminded me of him.

    He’d do anything for his cat and took no grief about it from anyone. He could be tough as nails and soft as smoke……

    .

    #150602
    Oroboros
    Participant

    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .

    #150603
    WES
    Participant

    Water Pump Windmills:

    My Grandfather had one of these big water pump windmills on his farm to pump water from a well to keep a cattle water trough full of water. The well wasn’t a particu deep well as the water table was pretty close to the surface. The windmill was installed because the farm had no electrical power until into the 1950s.

    The thing about these stately looking windmills ìs they had big wide curved blades to produce the necessary torque required to operate the water pump, which was just a version of the well hand water pumps everybody used at the time.

    The water pump was a long steel rod with multiple plates spaced to lift water out of the well. These water pumps where not particularly efficient but were simple and they worked.

    When using the hand pump version, one had to vigerously pump the water pump’s lever handle, up and down, a number of times before any water started to flow. The deeper the well, the more you had to pump the handle before water flowed. After a few minutes sitting idle the water pump had to be reprimed again to get the water flowing again.

    The main thing about the design of these water pump windmills was the big blades could not rotate faster than the speed of the blowing wind. They were designed not for speed but to provide the necessary torque required to lift the water out of the well to about 2 to 3 feet above ground level. As such these windmills produced very little power despite their impressive visual impressions of power.

    The new wind turbine’s blades are however designed for speed not torque. Wind turbine blades can go faster than the speed of the blowing wind! They are shaped to “cut” into the wind.

    Wind turbine blades are similar in design to propeller aircraft blades, in that they are designed to provide “ĺift” while rotating, similar to the “lift” provided by an airplane’s wings. It is this “lift” which allows the wind turbine’s blades to rotate faster than the speed of the wind, thus more efficiently generating power than a windmill ever could.

    “Lift” is the reason you sometimes see wind turbine blades turning even in relatively low wind conditions. Wind turbine blades will start turning as soon as there is enough “lift” generated to move the blades. In contrast, in such low wind conditions the windmill would not rotate because it can’t generate enough torque to start moving it’s always attached water pump load.

    #150604
    zerosum
    Participant

    https://t.me/ZandVchannel/96516
    BREAKING

    On the evening of 16 January 2024, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation delivered a precise strike at a temporary deployment area of foreign mercenaries, most of whom were citizens of France, near Kharkov.

    As a result of the strike, the building, where the mercenaries were deployed, was completely destroyed. More than 60 militants were eliminated, more than 20 were transported to medical facilities.

    #150605
    WES
    Participant

    Visualizing the difference between windmills and wind turbines:

    Another way of comparing the power output differences, between a windmill and a wind turbine is to compare their respective power output curves verses wind speed.

    A windmill’s power output is pretty much linear to the speed of the wind. As the wind blows faster the windmill’s power output will increase too.

    However, for a wind turbine, it’s power output increases more exponentially as the wind speed increases, compared to a windmill.

    So visualize a windmill’s power output as a linear graph.
    For a wind turbine’s power output graph, visualize an exponential graph.

    So a wind turbine’s power output, at a given wind speed. will be exponentially greater than a windmill’s power output, at the same wind speed.

    #150606
    zerosum
    Participant

    Was money involved?
    https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/ukraines-zelenskyy-meets-jpmorgans-dimon-davos-country-seeks-big-bank-investment
    Ukraine’s Zelenskyy meets with JPMorgan’s Dimon in Davos in another pitch for economic aid
    Tuesday’s sit down in Davos is the first time Dimon met face-to-face with Zelenskyy
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Comments
    Print
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    By Charlie Gasparino , Eleanor Terrett

    #150607
    WES
    Participant

    Windmills Verses Wind Trubines Leverage:

    Yet another way to visualize windmills, is they provide “no power leverage” to the wind speed.

    A wind turbine provides “power leverage” to the wind speed.

    #150608
    WES
    Participant

    Wind Power:

    When it comes to using the power of the wind, our ancestors failed to fully understand the next dimension of how the “lift” power of winds could be harnessed, until just over a 100 years ago when humans learned to fly airplanes.

    Our ancestors certainly understood how to use the power of the wind. They used wind powered sail boats, windmills, and kites. They certainly knew when the wind “lifted” things, it often spelled sudden trouble! They just missed the dimension of how to harness the “lifting” power of the wind.

    #150609
    WES
    Participant

    Just before Christmas, in December of 2023, the Fed suddenly announced they would be cutting interest rates 3 times in 2024.

    Everyone said the Fed was just cutting interest rates to help Joe Binden’s re-election campaign.

    Then shortly afterwards, Fed governors began, one by one, quietly walking back the “talk” of interest rates cuts.

    Now, in mid January 2024, the Fed governors, one by one, are now aggressively talking back the prospects of interest rate cuts.

    You want to know what I think?

    I think the Fed was out to “burn” anybody who was shorting US bonds, big time.

    Manipulating the markets isn’t a crime, if you are the government.

    #150610
    zerosum
    Participant

    https://www.aljazeera.com/program/inside-story/2024/1/17/whats-behind-north-koreas-shock-change-of-policy-towards-the-south

    What’s behind North Korea’s shock change of policy towards the South?
    Pyongyang announces it is scrapping its long-term aim of reunification with South?

    (The USA will go home?)

    #150611
    WES
    Participant

    Red:

    May the “power” be with you!

    #150612
    jb-hb
    Participant

    Thanks for everyone’s stuff about the windmills. I am clearly NOT an expert

    I was thinking specifically about how to maintain power generation without batteries and with intermittent power source. And how a dumber, simpler system could be made to do this, one that can be maintained with local work and salvage. So doomer stuff rather than thriving oil based economy stuff.

    Yes, a DIY kluge solution only does almost 1 watt and this is not good enough but that is the point! If this hobby experiment can do that, what could a well-engineered micro turbine do in the context of a larger constant flow of water? And if you had say 20-30 of them inline? Not going for 3 hours but 24/7? And how much energy is lost charging and discharging batteries?

    Or a higher flow could be achieved by turning off everything at night – freezers with ridiculous insulation and thermal mass don’t need overnight energy nor do the lights. So you close the valve, the water level rises all night, allowing higher flow during the day.

    I definitely definitely bow to the experience and knowledge of people who have been doing this for decades – I’m curious what would you do if your batteries wore out and no new ones were available?

    #150613
    WES
    Participant

    Dr. John Day:

    I see you are a proud “Grandpa” again!

    #150614
    jb-hb
    Participant

    “Armed forces of the Third Reich, was within fifty kms of Leningrad in a fantastic blitzkrieg and had advanced 650 kms deep into Soviet territory.”

    …Apparently Germany never read history? 650Kms means THEY HAVE YOU SURROUNDED. And cut off your supply lines. The lesson here is, why did it take so long?

    While the Germans advanced through Russia, they also travelled through time. Backwards. They started out with a partially mechanized army. A WW1 horse-drawn army arrived at Moscow and Leningrad. Their machines ground down and broke over that distance. And they sent 750,000 horses as reinforcements.

    Even without cutting their supply lines, they were in a bad spot. They simply couldn’t push enough stuff down such a narrow long pipe. They needed more men at Stalingrad, but more men would have starved and had nothing to shoot. That’s the math. (which apparently nobody did until they were in that situation) More reinforcements would have been worse than futile. Also they desperately needed reinforcements.

    #150615
    thomasjkenney
    Participant

    @jb-hb: Yeah, it’s kinda a Fahrenheit 451 situation. All it takes is some leftover thoughts, a little idle speculation, and you’ve invented something practical…again. 🙂

    ———————————————————————————————————–

    Thanks, all, for not dropping this. I can admit to being ‘armchair’ but somewhat more experienced than John Q CubicleRat. I guess my perspective is that we’ve tried all the really big things, and are walking many back. What happens if we start at the small things and walk that forward? Sure, it’s damn hard to run a Whirlpool on 1 watt. But what then if you start chipping at those problems? Out of necessity? If you have run out of blueberries, step back and walk around that bush a bit.

    What kind of food do you eat that you require it to be frozen through a winter?

    #150616
    Dr D Rich
    Participant

    I’m almost convinced:

      “Haaretz reports that Israel’s Education Ministry withdrew funding for an Israeli event because its host is an indigenous Palestinian woman married to an Israeli man. The ministry said: “A woman who represents mixed marriage cannot represent Jewish culture.”

    And,

      “Israel is intentionally killing the captives in Gaza As Israeli airstrikes kill more and more captives, top experts say Israel has implemented the Hannibal Directive on the whole of the Gaza Strip.”

    I for far too long apparently and mistakenly misunderstood (double negative is almost Bateson’s double bind) the Hannibal Directive was the Israeli 10th Man parlay. However, I blame Bradd Pitt and the movie World War Z for conveying this misimpression.

    #150617
    zerosum
    Participant

    Did you know?
    In my 20, I asked My grandfather, in his 80, what were conditions like in your youth.

    I remember … wood stoves, no electricity, horse power, outdoor toilet or barn stall, (off gride)

    Longjohns were washed in the spring with bedding.

    Baths in a copper tub.

    #150618
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    To all my freshly minted “Independent” brother & sisters, who in “good conscience” can *no longer* stomach and/or support the Progressive Liberal DnC:

    We’ve been telling y’all for decades to turn away from The Deep Swamp (remember Ross Perot?), do you “get it” know?

    Do you still think Orange Man Bad! + Russia! Russia! Russia! & *that* the UniParty GlobalCap Empire is your friend, ally, comrade?!?

    Please sort *out* your biases, addictions, proclivities, tribalism & hubris, et al., so perhaps, just perhaps you can comprehend what being “Independent” actually means in real reality

    Your carte blanche support of the Progressive Liberal DnC has resulted in the pattern-or-practice of evoking mentally/emotionally unfit “leadership” into positions of power & authority (psychopaths), whose primary purpose is to bugger the system corrupt (i.e. make terminally ill), so they can reap revenge upon those they’re hysterically obsessed with blaming for “generational” done onto harm them, mostly imagined & fantastically fabricated in their warped, self-obsessed imaginations.

    Don’t forget Progressive Liberal DnC “people”, you were the ones that voted to create The War on Class, Race, CULTure & Sanity Itself ~ Happy Now?

    Q.E.D.

    #150619
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    Anyone with a pulse who can order a cheeseburger without help will be a serious option for millions, once voters disappear into booths in November.

    The problem is getting names on ballots.

    No Matty, not even close.

    The problem(s) will be:

    1> An accurate count (see #3).

    2> Anyone rising above the (d)&(r) whores in The Sheeple’s consciousness.

    3> Last but *not* least…You and your “professional” journalist brethren/sistas *FAILED* completely to report that the 2020 “elections” were a complete, in-your-face fraud, *stolen* event, that in truth it was a watershed event, coup d’état that overthrew We The People you moron! 🙄

    There is no way to Find Our Way Home, there is only The Collapse

    Pray the 4th Turning won’t be an existential crisis for humanity at large, that the next generation learns a thing or two from letting not taking the trash out aka letting Inmates Run The Asylum.

    BOHICA.

    #150620
    jb-hb
    Participant

    YouTube Accused Of Throttling CPU Performance For Users With AdBlock Installed
    https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/youtube-accused-throttling-cpu-performance-users-adblock-installed

    What they are doing is worse. They are giving your CPU extra work.

    People with less expensive computers will have heat problems. Heat damages your CPU. Heat damage is PERMANENT.

    Poor people buy cheaper, lower performance computers.

    Google/Election-Fortifier hates poor people.

    They think it is a fine idea to damage the computers of poor people least likely to buy the products or services in their advertising as punishment for not watching said advertising.

    #150621
    WES
    Participant

    jb-hb:

    When it comes to water, air, or the ground you are standing on, the government owns it!

    As Red said, if you try to do anything in the way of generating power, you need the government permission first! If you try to do anything, the government will be down your throat and up your ass before you know what hit you! And not in a nice way.

    When it comes to water, big brother beat you to it centuries ago!

    I have a cottage on the St. Lawrence River. It is considered crown/US/international waters. If you want to install a floating dock, the only kind you are allowed, you first must get permission from your 2 adjacent neighbors, before you can apply for a dock permit! I believe the Canadian coast guard (representing US coast guard) needs to approve of it, in addition to the relevent Environment Canadian federal government.

    For a while, no new docks were allowed until some bright blub in Environment Canada noticed that whenever you put out a floating dock, in the spring you get a bass guarding it’s newborn offspring underneath the dock! We have some fishermen who’s whole bass fishing stragedy is to fish from one dock to the next!

    At home in Toronto, in the early 2000s, I at one time wanted to install solar panels on the roof and passive solar heating panels.on the sunny side of my house’s walls. Caledon was choosen as the greenest city in Canada that year.

    So I phoned the city’s building permit office. They told me yeah, sure, as long as none your neighbors don’t object (everybody who could potentially see our house, like 10 to 20!) and then we will increase the tax ascessment of your house’s property taxes by at least $400 minimum (10%-20%)! Plus the passive solar heaters more of the same!

    Well so much for my city being green! All show to make politicians look green!

    To this day there are no solar panels anywhere in the town! Only a few solar panels in the country. No wind turbines either!

    As far as water turbines generating electrical power, nobody has yet succeeded commercially! Not even in the Bay of Fundy with it’s daily 33 feet high tides! All need taxpayer’s money!

    The very best example of stored water generating hydro power, that I know of, is in Kitimat, BC. My brother worked one co-op work term there, while taking mechanical engineering. There they have a dammed lake many thousands of feet up in the mountains directly above.. The water pressure is so great that only about a 1 or 2 inch diameter water nozzle is sprayed against each of the power turbine’s blades. The perfect water storage project!

    I only know of 2 sites, both in Europe, where water is pumped uphill at night when power is cheap, and then flows downhill during the day during peak power usage. They both take advantage of the price difference at night and during peak demand to economically survive this rather inefficient water pumping process.

    #150622
    WES
    Participant

    Pumping Water:

    A big factor in pumping water is that water pumps are less than 50% efficient! That is a mighty big hurtle to overcome, if one is considering pumping water uphill to a storage site.

    So basically you need more than 2 units of power “now” to generate future power of less than one unit of power “later” .

    As far as I know, hydro dams are still the best “energy storage devices” we have! We rely on Mother Nature to do the heavy lifting.

    I guess you could say, with hydro, we are socializing the work and privatizing the profits!

    #150623
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Take That!

    Hahahahahahahahaha!

    .

    .

    #150624
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Sen Biden FLASHBACK: “can’t go to a 7-11 or Dunkin Donuts unless you have a slight India accent….

    Smooth….

    #150625
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Simulation Metaphor of Collective West’s Project Ukronaziland running into Russian Army

    Eurotardistan Tour Bus

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