Figmund Sreud
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Well, there’s many a strange impulse out on the plains of West Texas
There’s many a young boy who feels things he can’t comprehend
And a small town don’t like it when somebody falls between sexes
No, a small town don’t like it when a cowboy has feelings for men […]Who knew? I didn’t, … and I have been (mostly) a resident of Cowtown, Cal & Gary Town, Calgary, Alberta since, … oh, ~ 1978 AD.
Anyway, … official vid:
… fwiw,
F.S.
Paper based on Crooke’s speech that will be given in Moscow in couple of days:
Alastair Crooke from Russia ( … still in Russia on the speaker circuit)
Israeli Retaliatory Strike On Iran (Scott Ritter)
__________________________Pfft, … it was “a ‘de-escalatory strike’” – Yonatan Touva, a senior analyst at Mitvim, a think tank in Tel Aviv, explained on X of Israel’s attack, … and so, folks, move along, nothin’ to see here. All is super cool…
F.S.
NEO:
Netanyahu convened a meeting of his war cabinet on 14 April, a day after the Iranian attack, to formulate an effective strategy to respond to this attack. Benny Gantz, a member of the Israeli war cabinet, stated, after the end of the meeting, that Israel would “exact a price” for Iran’s attack at a time and in a war that suits it. Any escalation between Israel and Iran will have serious repercussions not just for the two countries but for the whole world. Israel’s attack on Iran could lead the world into a major war. A war between Iran, and Israel would result in the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. The world, especially Europe, will plunge into an energy crisis. The world will see a major spike in oil and gas prices. This war will also further widen the gulf in the Middle Eastern world. Moreover, the prospects of World War 3 will also increase. At this juncture, world leaders, especially the US, European Union, Russia, and China – should play an effective and prudent diplomatic role to de-escalate the situation, otherwise this game of brinkmanship could lead the world into major catastrophe.
Alastair CROOKE: A Sensibility to the Numinous
Is it possible for BRICS states to keep a foot in “a world, cut in two”? Likely not – at least until the U.S. and European Cultural War arrives, at least, to some partial outcome. Being a participant in the western financial system – alone – becomes highly problematic because of its social toxicity; but the insurmountable obstacle, plainly put, is that the main impetus to western mechanistic epistemology is derived from a teleological anti-morality.
Put starkly, the ‘new values’ we are seeing are intended to drive a stake through traditionalism. Where is the stake thrust? It strikes at what BRICS members have in common on the plane of moral issues, which might be called a sensibility to the numinous. Much of contemporary western thinking simply ignores the dimensions of our moral consciousness and dismisses it, as either confused, or irrelevant.
Is a peaceful accommodation between BRICS and the West possible?
Pepe ESCOBAR: Disappear or die
The key question remains: what will happen to Gaza and the Palestinians. Prof. Hudson’s judgement is ominously realistic: “As Alastair Crooke has explained, there now cannot be any two-state solution in Israel. It has to be either all Israeli or all Palestinian. And the way it looks now is all-Israeli – the dream from the outset in 1947 of a land without non-Jewish people.
Gaza will still be there geographically, along with its gas rights in the Mediterranean. But it will be emptied out, and occupied by the Israelis.”
On who would “help” to rebuild Gaza, there are a few solid takers already: “Turkish building companies, Saudi Arabia financing developments, UAE, American investors – maybe Blackstone. It will be foreign investment. If you look at the fact that the foreign investors of all these countries are looking for what they can get out of the genocide against Palestinians, you realize why there’s no opposition to the genocide.”
Prof. Hudson’s final verdict on “the great benefit to the U.S.” is that “no claims can be brought against the U.S. – and against any of the warfare and regime change that it is planning for Iran, China, Russia and for what has been done in Africa and Latin America.
Israel, Gaza and West Bank should be seen as an opening of the New Cold War. A plan for basically how to financialize genocide and destruction. Palestinians will either emigrate or be killed. That has been the announced policy for over a decade.”
The Gaza genocide as explicit policy: Michael Hudson names all names
Hundreds of Bodies Found in Mass Graves at Al-Shifa Hospital ‘Bulldozed by Israel and Buried Like Trash’ – Dr. Day
___________________” … when wilt Thou come forth from Thy hiding, and change tears to smiles, and groans to joys?” WHEN?
F.S., … not sure of a source of above line, … but I’m sure it is high time!
Nate Hagens unfortunately is still using the term “climate change” – Oroboros
—————————-Yes, … but I’m more fascinated by Michael Every‘s arguments. Nate’s? Not so much, …
Best,
F.S.
Interesting, wide ranging discussion! Long. A snip on just but one subject, GDP, ( … at about 22:23 mark.)
… GDP is the metric which means everything. There are many different ways you can slice and dice that. We’ve already mentioned Bhutan and gross domestic happiness and other measures. They’re a little bit abstract, but the more concrete way I like to look at it is what’s GDP for? Okay, let me pivot for a second to something that’s more of a thesis of mine, because I think that’s where we’re going to go in a moment. So if you’ve got two countries trading together using comparative advantage and free trade, which ticks every box in terms of the current framework, and you say, “Okay, my GDP is doing well, your GDP is doing well because of this, because of how we’re specializing and trading together.” That’s wonderful until you ask yourself what’s your neighbor doing with their GDP?
Now, are they building public housing and hospitals and schools and developing a thriving arts and culture scene and pushing the boundaries of literature, or are they creating technological wonders to share with the world, or are they building tanks and planes and aircraft carriers and guns and bombs and starting to put them near your border. I’m putting it in the most stark possible terms, but those are very much the terms that we’re starting to see around us today in different geographies. And what’s the point of GDP if that is what GDP is producing? And what’s the point of free trade if that’s what free trade is helping to generate through the eciencies?
… anyway, a link to a whole:
F.S.
Following vid reflects on the overextension and subsequent decline of the western civilization. On its linear way of planing things vis-a-vis a lateral. There is a substantial squawk in it that I, for one, differ, … er, disagree strongly. But that’s me, still, … I think it’s worthy of hearing it out. Here it goes:
… btw, here is link to the interviewee’s website:
https://www.davidmurrin.co.uk/… fwiw,
F.S.
Interesting, I have been looking at multiple waterways for ship movement and I see that tug service currently is not as prolific as I remember. Here is a typical (Hamburg, Germany) shipping channel and I see employment of tugs
very spotty. And so, Baltimore Harbour practices are not uniquely unsafe:F.S.
Kunstler made a good point about the FSK Bridge collapse fiasco that I had overlooked: INSURANCE. – D Benton Smith
————————————
I don’t think insurance/reinsurance is fretting much. On that Tuesday’s trading, reinsurers’ stock weren’t much affected. Arch Capital Group fell -0.4%, AXIS raised +0.1%, Everest Group fell -0.9%, RenaissanceRe raised +0.6%. Hannover Rueck raised +1.0%, and Swiss Re flat at 0%. Most losses should go to the International Group, … unless, of course “Joe Biden” group – as promised will pick up a tab!F.S.
… btw, prior to above, I also posted following comment on that same incident on Dr. Day’s tableau:
As I watched a replay on “Marine Traffic” of that ship departing the terminal, first thing that went through my head was, ‘What a phlunkin’ cowboys that captain/pilot duo must be?” Morons! Imagine, 180 deg. turn departure and almost immediately up to a speed of 8 knots within sight of a bridge ahead, … within confines of a harbour! Who in the name of ‘gawd’ does such manoeuvre with a 300 metre long and 50 metres wide container ship, … and fully loaded? And that’s precisely what these two captains did, … and than something really, really went wrong! Anyway, … considering the layout of that port – and the size of this ship, … I don’t think this ocean-going tub should have exceed 3 knots! At least not until clearing that phlunkin’ bridge! … but what do I know? I quit sailing my sailboat ~5 years ago when I left Vancouver Island for Calgary.
F.S.
On that now infamous and controversial bridge / ocean-frequent-crossing bath tub incident, … here is a preliminary report on released info from NTSB:
Note that at ~7:00 min. mark, information on Voyage Data Recorder indicates that this tub hit the bridge support at the speed of ~7 kN.
Anyway, … I have a strong opinion on this incident that I posted a day or so ago on Dr. Day’s substack that goes like this:
I doubt very much that there was anything intentional in this incident. Time is money in this business! Strict schedule. Berthing rights allotment – you miss it, too bad! Line up behind that last tub at anchorage! Next? When I sailed on my sailboat on Great Lakes, … most often we saw lakers racing each other to the locks. You get to the lock first, a loosing tub has to wait extra hours, … lost time! Anyway, … in this case, I believe, a habit was controlling both captains – you know, we do this every time ( … speeding out of the bay with impunity! ), and nothing ever goes wrong. Until it does! I suspect it was simply a catastrophic, unfortunate, equipment failure. If that boat was not going, say ~8 knots plus to start with, … but just 3, with lost engine power, it probably would have been just drifting within couple or three nautical miles at river’s current rate, and that probably would centre it between the bridge’s supports instead, … or just brush one! The night cam vid shows that there was virtually no wind – a very, very calm night. So virtually no wind effect on that tall containers-staked-up walls, … … fwiw
Now, some may believe that this incident was engineered by some nefarious organization. Sure! There are always ‘possibilities’ and there are always ‘probabilities’, … but there is also a very wide ocean between these two. So, go ahead, you assign a numbers to each, …
F.S.
Interesting foray into nuclear energy with some deep, deep rabbit holes:
US Scheme to Challenge Russian Dominance in Nuclear Energy Faces Major Obstacles – Including an Overreliance on Russia
… speaking of rabbit holes, I find following quite interesting, it’s a podcast and transcript:
Nuclear? Perhaps!
A conversation with Jigar Shah, head of DOE’s Loan Programs Office.Western media slowly admits that it gets it! Doomberg chimes in:
@ Dr. Day – It’s post peak oil “trauma”.
https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2024/03/22/273-systemic-jeopardy/
——————————-Thanks. Nice, … nice write up. Nicely put. I’m fully in agreement with a whole thesis! General trouble, however, with all that stuff is projection vis-a-vis one’s time factor. The author states, “Are we – to put it colloquially – heading into a re-run of the Wall Street crash and the ensuing Great Depression?
The answer is that we are.”
… in moi situation, it is when? Time is precious for me. I no longer have much time left, so I’m forced to play market presenting itself today, tight now, … plus three days or so of projection. An example:
https://realinvestmentadvice.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/image-55.png… as opposed to long term as depicted in following cartoon:
https://realinvestmentadvice.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Bull-Bear-Markets-2-052220.pngBest,
F.S.
P.S., … thanks for digging up Alex Kreiner essay, too. I have spent large parts of my existence on both sides he writes about as well, … and so I largely concur with his assessment.
The West’s Reckoning?
“Western leaders are experiencing two stunning events: defeat in Ukraine, and genocide in Palestine. The first is humiliating, the other shameful. Yet, they feel no humiliation or shame. Their actions show vividly that those sentiments are alien to them – unable to penetrate the entrenched barriers of dogma, arrogance, and deep-seated insecurities. The last are personal as well as political. Therein lies a puzzle. For, as a consequence, the West has set itself on a path of collective suicide. Moral suicide in Gaza; diplomatic suicide – the foundations laid in Europe, the Middle East, and across Eurasia; economic suicide – the dollar-based global financial system jeopardized, Europe deindustrializing. It is not a pretty picture. Astoundingly, this self-destruction is occurring in the absence of any major trauma – external or internal. Therein lies another, related puzzle. […]
Gorilla Radio
Ken Stone and fighting for peace in the Middle East from Canada. John Helmer and Europe’s mental quagmire in the second half.
https://gradio.substack.com/p/gorilla-radio-with-chris-cook-ken-cec
F.S.
Jeremy Grantham’s March 11 update. He points out that the current Shiller PE over 34 for the S&P 500 represents the most expensive 1% of all historical incidents. It has happened at a time when profit margins have also been at all-time highs and unemployment near all-time lows. What could possibly go wrong?
THE GREAT PARADOX OF THE U.S. MARKET!
https://www.gmo.com/americas/research-library/the-great-paradox-of-the-u.s.-market_viewpoints#Mirror, mirror on the wall, … The mirror never lies! The fate of nations is ultimately a tow to Aliaga*) in Turkey. Sad, …
The fastest ocean liner to cross the Atlantic faces eviction from a pier
https://www.npr.org/2024/03/11/1237529064/the-fastest-ocean-liner-to-cross-the-atlantic-faces-eviction-from-pier*) Aliaga, Turkey – https://i.insider.com/63cff0b3758d620019b66dd4?width=1300&format=jpeg&auto=webp
Alastair Crooke:
“[T]he White House is coming to terms with a new experience: The limitations to U.S. power and to automatic compliance by other states – even the closest of allies.
The U.S. can neither force its will on Israel, nor compel an ‘Arab Contact Group’ to come into being, nor compel a putative Arab Contact Group to support and fund Biden’s “fantastical” Gaza ‘solutions’. It is a salutary moment for U.S. power.
‘Out of Touch With Reality’ – White House Fails to Navigate the Israeli Re-calibration
“America is rising,” POTUS declared last night. “We have the best economy in the world.”
… have-a-lookie at following cartoon:
Anyway, … related: Douglas Macgregor chimes in:
F.S.
Who knew?
International Court Accuses 2 Russian Officers of War Crimes in Ukraine
The International Criminal Court on Tuesday issued arrest warrants for two top Russian military officers, accusing them of war crimes in Ukraine for targeting civilians and destroying crucial energy infrastructure.
The two officers — Lt. Gen. Sergei Ivanovich Kobylash and Adm. Viktor Nikolayevich Sokolov — are accused in a court statement of being personally responsible for numerous missile strikes by their forces on electrical power plants and substations in multiple locations between October 2022 and March 2023.
The wintertime strikes were defined as war crimes because they were largely directed against civilian targets, causing “excessive incidental harm to civilians or damage to civilian objects,” the court said.
… of course, Gaza, West Bank, Palestine? Crickets, … absolute silence; no communication.
And so it goes, …
Everything You Wanted to Know About Secret Biolabs in Ukraine, Now Revealed!
DOD Operation Warp Speed confirms – pathogens are made in the labs. It’s ok when WE do it! It’s to save grandma and for warfighter readiness…
From “Opinion[ated]” Times this a.m. ( … via my inBox), boldadded by moi
Nuclear War: The Rising Risk, and How We Stop It
Few nations on earth are unaffected. If the strike happens in a country like Ukraine, among the largest grain-exporting nations in the world, the impact spreads quickly. The attack prompts an agricultural embargo to contain potentially contaminated crops, creating a domino effect of food shortages that spread across the Middle East, South Asia, North Africa and West Africa.
Fear is as dangerous as contamination itself: Panic over radiation exposure and its long-term effects drives people from their homes, regardless of whether the threat in their community is real or not. Border crossings are quickly overrun.
Anxieties over a wider nuclear war immediately spike, causing the New York Stock Exchange to plunge. Lockdown orders trigger a rush on groceries, wiping markets’ shelves clean.
No one can say what would happen next. If it was Vladimir Putin who launched an attack on Ukraine, the U.S. has warned there would be “catastrophic consequences.” But the response might not be nuclear. It could be a devastating aerial bombardment aimed at Russia’s naval fleet, or Washington could decide to target a base in Belarus, where Russia has recently deployed nuclear weapons, avoiding a direct attack on Russian territory.
A tit-for-tat escalation, once touched off, is difficult to stop. If the end result was a thermonuclear exchange between nuclear powers, like the U.S. and Russia, the impact on humanity would be swift and long-lasting.
Even a limited nuclear war could be catastrophic. A 2022 scientific study found that if 100 Hiroshima-size bombs — less than 1 percent of the estimated global nuclear arsenal — were detonated in certain cities, they could generate more than five million tons of airborne soot, darkening the skies, lowering global temperatures and creating the largest worldwide famine in history.
An estimated 27 million people could immediately die, and as many as 255 million people may starve within two years.
the rapidly eroding Anglo-American empire will now be compelled to swallow the bitter pill of decisive strategic defeat on the same eastern European steppes where its predecessors were served their own banquet of consequences. – from https://imetatronink.substack.com/ [ … nice find, btw. Thanks.]
____________________________You wish, … you cannot underestimate very next actions of a cage animal! Precious little does the world know, caged animal will most often scrape the inner walls of its mind until it gets what it wants! Thucydides’ Trap, … I will stick to that term, …
F.S.
You need to look up The Moning Newsletter – The New York Times this a.m. It starts with:
Good morning. We’re covering the Republican fascination with Vladimir Putin — as well as the U.S.-Mexico border, Gaza and the subway.
… follows with a large, large pix of Putin, … than goes with this – I copy and paste since link function does not want to cooperate:
Enemy or ally?
Large parts of the Republican Party now treat Vladimir Putin as if he were an ideological ally. Putin, by contrast, continues to treat the U.S. as an enemy.This combination is clearly unusual and sometimes confusing. It does not appear to stem from any compromising information that Putin has about Donald Trump, despite years of such claims from Democrats. Instead, Trump and many other Republicans seem to feel ideological sympathies with Putin’s version of right-wing authoritarian nationalism. They see the world dividing between a liberal left and an illiberal right, with both themselves and Putin — along with Viktor Orban of Hungary and some other world leaders — in the second category.
Whatever the explanation, the situation threatens decades of bipartisan consensus about U.S. national security.
Already, House Republicans have blocked further aid to Ukraine — a democracy and U.S. ally that Putin invaded. Without the aid, military experts say Russia will probably be able to take over more of Ukraine than it now holds.
If Trump wins a second term, he may go further. He has suggested that he might abandon the U.S. commitment to NATO, an alliance that exists to contain Russia and that Putin loathes. He recently invited Russia to “to do whatever the hell they want” to NATO countries that don’t spend enough on their own defense. (Near the end of his first term, he tried to pull American troops out of Germany, but President Biden rescinded the decision.)
Trump has also avoided criticizing Putin for the mysterious death this month of his most prominent domestic critic, Aleksei Navalny, and has repeatedly praised Putin as a strong and smart leader. In a town hall last year, Trump refused to say whether he wanted Ukraine or Russia to win the war.
There are some caveats worth mentioning. Some skepticism about how much money the U.S. should send to Ukraine stems from practical questions about the war’s endgame. It’s also true that some prominent Republicans, especially in the Senate, are horrified by their party’s pro-Russian drift and are lobbying the House to pass Ukraine aid. “If your position is being cheered by Vladimir Putin, it’s time to reconsider your position,” Senator Mitt Romney of Utah said last month.
But the Republican fascination with Putin and Russia is real. The Putin-friendly faction of the party is ascendant, while some of his biggest critics, like Mitch McConnell, who announced this week that he would step down this year as the Republican Senate leader, will soon retire.
(We recommend this article — in which Carl Hulse, The Times’s chief Washington correspondent, explains that while McConnell sees the U.S. as the world’s essential force, a growing number of Republicans do not.)
In the rest of today’s newsletter, we’ll walk through the evidence of this shift.
Ukraine aid
The Senate has passed an additional $60 billion in aid to Ukraine, with both Republican and Democratic support. But the House, which Republicans control, has so far refused to pass that bill. House Speaker Mike Johnson, who is close to Trump, has not allowed a vote on the bill even though it would likely pass if he did.A few Republicans have gone so far as speak about Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, in ways that mimic Russian propaganda. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has accused Ukraine of having “a Nazi army,” echoing language Putin used to justify the invasion.
Military experts say that if Ukraine does not receive more U.S. aid, it could begin losing the war in the second half of this year. “Not since the first chaotic months of the invasion, when Russian troops poured across the borders from every direction and the country rose up en masse to resist, has Ukraine faced such a precarious moment,” wrote our colleagues Andrew Kramer and Marc Santora, who have been reporting from Ukraine.
(Related: Ukrainians who live to the west of the recently captured Avdiivka are poised to flee in the face of a Russian onslaught.)
Alexander Smirnov
House Republicans hoping to impeach President Biden have repeatedly promoted information that appears to have been based partly on Russian disinformation. One example: The Republicans cited an F.B.I. document in which an informant accused Biden and his son, Hunter, of taking $5 million bribes from the owner of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company.But federal prosecutors have now accused the informant, Alexander Smirnov, of fabricating the allegation to damage Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign. Smirnov has told the F.B.I. that people linked to Russian intelligence passed him information about Hunter Biden.
A federal judge has ordered Smirnov detained and called him a flight risk.
Tucker Carlson
Tucker Carlson is not a Republican Party official, but he is an influential Trump supporter, and Carlson has often echoed Russian propaganda. At least once, he went so far as to say he hoped Russia would win its war against Ukraine.Last month, Carlson aired a two-hour interview with Putin in which Putin made false claims about Ukraine, Zelensky and Western leaders with little pushback from Carlson. In a separate video recorded inside a Russian grocery store, Carlson suggested life in Russia was better than in the U.S. (Watch Jon Stewart debunk those claims here.)
Republican voters
The shift in elite Republican opinion toward Russia and away from Ukraine has influenced public opinion.Shortly after Russia invaded, about three-quarters of Republicans favored giving Ukraine military and economic aid, according to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Now, only about half do.
Republican voters are also less likely to hold favorable views of Zelensky. In one poll, most Trump-aligned Republicans even partly blamed him for the war. Republicans also support NATO at lower rates than Democrats and independents, a shift from the 1980s.
More on the war
“Donald Trump views himself as a Putinesque, dictatorial figure,” Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic House leader, has said. “We should believe him that he wants to go down this road.” Jeffries also told The Times how he hoped Ukraine aid could pass.
The Biden administration is considering giving Ukraine weapons from Pentagon stockpiles even though it lacks money to replace them, a short-term bid to aid Ukraine until Congress acts.
Putin warned that direct Western intervention in Ukraine would risk nuclear war, alluding in a speech to the French president’s recent comments about sending NATO troops there.
Trump plans to meet next week with Viktor Orban, Hungary’s right-wing prime minister.There is more in that Morning Newsletter, … you may want to search for it. Most of it is behind a paywall. But if you quickly punch an “easy reader” function, it generally captures it all.
… fwiw,
F.S.
Following is commentary of the future of electric vehicles
THE NORWEGIAN ILLUSION
Starting mid-point last decade, the investment community became convinced EV adoption would quickly surge. EV penetrations would become so great that global oil consumption would imminently peak, or so consensus opinion widely believed. 2019 was repeatedly referenced as the year that oil demand would peak and then decline. In retrospect, these concerns were misplaced. Despite the massive COVID-19 disruption, oil demand in 2024 should reach 103 m b/d – 2.3 m b/d greater than 2019. Undeterred by the surprising surge indemand, manyanalystsremainconvincedthat“peakoildemand”isstillimminent. The investment community’s belief that EVs will displace the internal combustion engine remains as strong as ever. We vigorously disagree.
In our last letter, we predicted that global energy demand would consistently exceed expec- tations for the next twenty years. Never before have so many people been simultaneously in their period of energy-intensive economic development. Our essay focused broadly on total energy demand and specifically avoided oil consumption. Our choice was deliberate: we wanted to highlight the critical drivers of total energy demand and avoid getting distracted by the debate on EV penetration. Today’s essay focuses on oil and explains why we believe demand will surprise to the upside for years to come.[…]… Never in history has a less efficient “prime mover” displaced a more efficient one. We believe this time will be no different.
… and a written word from Alastair Crooke:
