[John Day]

I spent sooo long editing these first 2 economics essays for clarity (surgically extracting most of the Marxism for palatability). Picture of gardener making lasagne. https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/thoughts-about-money-and-food?s=w

Pause For Thought: Money Without Value in a Rapidly Disintegrating World
(Edited for clarity. Marxist, Ignores production-costs of fuels & ores, which inhibit real economic growth and suppress wages. Thanks Mr. House)
The acceleration of the “emergency paradigm” since 2020 has a simple yet widely disavowed purpose: to conceal socioeconomic collapse. In today’s metaverse, things are the opposite of what they seem. Inaugurating Davos 2022, IMF director Kristalina Georgieva blamed the pandemic and Putin for the “confluence of calamities” that the world economy is now facing. ..
..The Davos crowd are now hiding behind lies like a bunch of nervous children. While they continue to tell us that the coming slump is the effect of global adversities that took the world by surprise (from Covid-19 to Putin-22), the opposite is true: the tanking economy is the cause of these “misfortunes”… Thus, the enemy is no longer constructed to legitimise the expansion of Empire. Instead, it serves to conceal the bankruptcy of our debt-soaked economy…
..The elementary reason for this course of events is that the closer the system gets to collapse, the more it requires exogenous crises to distract and manipulate populations, while deferring its downfall and laying the ground for its authoritarian changeover.
History tells us that when empires are about to fold, they ossify into oppressive regimes of crisis management. It is no coincidence that our age of serial emergencies began with the bursting of the “dot-com bubble” – the first global market crash. By the end of 2001 most tech-heavy companies had gone bust, and by October 2002 the Nasdaq index had fallen by 77%, exposing the structural frailty of a “new economy” powered by debt, creative finance, and the bleeding of the real economy. Since then, the simulation of growth via financial asset inflation has been shielded by the manufacturing of global threats, duly packaged and sold by corporate media. In truth, the rise of the “new economy” in the late 1990s was less about the internet than the creation of an immense apparatus for the simulation of prosperity, which was supposed to function without the mediation of mass labour. As such, it cleared the way for the neoliberal ideology of “jobless growth”– the illusion, enthusiastically embraced by the left, that a financial-bubble economy could ignite a new capitalist Eldorado. While this illusion has now blown up in our faces, nobody seems to have any desire to acknowledge it.
In fact, since Virus stepped in to raise the emergency bar even higher (before being paused and possibly recharged for future re-deployment) we are back to the same old financial shenanigans. While the West’s brand-new infection is called Russia – not least because of its proven historical record (USSR) – it is crucial to appreciate that the haste of enemy-making and fear-mongering is now desperate, based as it is on the aggressive denial of structural failure…
..The current grotesque overvaluation of all risk assets (stocks, bonds and property) suggests that the elites will continue to use their political playbook to buy more time and postpone the bursting of a debt bubble they began to inflate years before Covid and Putin became favourite scapegoats…
..The technocrats at the helm of the Titanic have more than a hunch that the vessel is accelerating towards the iceberg. Having run out of policy bullets (as in the recent “austerity vs stimulus” debate), they have opted to promote a continuous programme of fear and propaganda in a bid to manage the unmanageable. Crucially, they know what to most of us appears counterintuitive: that the breakdown of our obsolete mode of production can only be delayed through 1) A steady stream of global emergencies, 2) The controlled inflationary demolition of the increasingly unproductive real economy, and 3) The authoritarian makeover of liberal democracy.
..Crucially, they also recognise that the breakdown must happen as the planned demolition of the current model, which would allow them to retain and even strengthen their position of power within the impending neo-feudal capitalist normal. Food and energy rationing, mass immiseration, social credit, and monetary control via digital currency, have long been baked into the capitalist pie of the future. Arguably, this scenario is already part of our collective imagination…
.. We have a free-falling economy whose predicament is barely concealed by its debt addiction and astronomical “everything bubbles”. And there is the voyeuristic spectacle of daily massacres, intentionally deprived of any meaningful sociohistorical context and fuelled by one-sided propaganda. Joining the dots means understanding that the purpose of the Ukrainian emergency is to keep the money printer switched on while blaming Putin for worldwide economic downturn. The war serves the opposite aim of what we are told: not to defend Ukraine but to prolong the conflict and nourish inflation in a bid to defuse cataclysmic risk in the debt market, which would spread like wildfire across the whole financial sector…
..The sad truth is that “Putin’s war” (like the “war on Covid”) delays the popping of the “everything bubble”, which is why Ukraine is sacrificed to the altar of a protracted massacre for freedom & democracy. The real aim is not to help Ukrainians (nor, for that matter, to destroy Russia) but to exorcise the recurring nightmare of the “Lehman shock”, which today would plunge us into chaos, wiping out the thin veneer of monetary affluence that prevents us from staring into the abyss…
..The bottom line is that if Central Bank monetary injections were to end, a rapid increase in key interest rates would threaten a market crash, with defaults across the globe. So, either everyone plays according to the script, or the whole show is cancelled, and the system with it…
..The inflation genie that escaped the Covid bottle is now blamed on Putin, including its “apocalyptic” effect on the poor. However, it originates in the creation of immense amounts of “money without value” (i.e., money that is not “covered” by real accumulation) which by flowing into the real economy inevitably devalues the money medium itself…
..It is common for empires to suffer a slow and painful death, as they deny the cause of their implosion. The fall of the US-led capitalist world started over half a century ago, and has been delayed only by waves of fake prosperity fuelled by money (debt) creation, which have benefitted a small elite while burdening the masses with colossal debts and immiseration. Over the last 50 years, US Federal debt has experienced a 75-fold increase (from $400 billion to $30 trillion), while total US debt (private and public) has now passed the $90 trillion mark (53-fold increase). As most currencies have been linked to the dollar since WWII, their devaluation is also inevitable. For over half a century the US has been gradually destroying its hegemonic dollar and related currencies while initiating unprovoked “military operations” abroad. Any temporary illusion of prosperity was bought with war, debt, and printing fake money…
..Capital’s global crisis now appears in the form of a new bout of stagflation (stagnant economy with rising inflation), which evokes memories of the 1970s. Current supply bottlenecks and price explosion of raw materials and energy is reminiscent of the oil price shock of 1973, when OPEC cut down on its output in response to the Yom Kippur War…
..Since the 1980s, global debt has been rising much faster than world economic output. Global debt needs to be contextualised: it feeds the fundamental delusion that financial speculation anticipates future capital valorisation, which however must be moved further and further into the future as it is not matched by corresponding valorisation in the real economy. Today’s financial capitalism is the ultimate self-fulfilling prophecy, a mechanism based on the creation of ever-increasing amounts of insubstantial money to compensate for rapidly vanishing surplus-value…
..It is no surprise that the 1990s ended with the formation of the aforementioned first global bubble (the dot.com or Internet bubble). This was followed by the financial crash of 2008, the answer to which was the implementation of QE programmes, i.e. more of the same: monetary expansion through Central Bank buying up securities and other assets. Then, the capitalist contradiction reappeared in the form of the European sovereign debt crisis (2009-12) and as a potentially devastating liquidity trap in the Autumn of 2019 (US repo market crisis), which officially inaugurated the era of “emergency capitalism”. The pandemic was used as a global shield for money printing and borrowing at unprecedented levels: under Covid, the Fed printed more fiat money in one year than in all combined QE programmes since 2008…
.. Over the past 40 years, after each turbulence interest rates were lowered further to allow fresh liquidity to flood financial markets. However, since 2008 even zero interest rates were no longer sufficient, which is why Central Banks have pulled Quantitative Easing out of their magician’s hat, literally turning into waste dumps for the financial markets… The downhill slide of the devaluation avalanche that began in autumn 2008 in now unstoppable. Somehow, the world still believes that Central Banks will solve a debt crisis by printing more money…
..Central Banks continue to drink-drive towards the precipice. Whichever move they make, they lose. If they hike rates significantly and manage to reduce their balance sheet (Quantitative Tightening), the debt bubble will pop, with catastrophic consequences – a possibility anticipated by the rising Credit Default Swaps (CDS) index, i.e., insurance contracts against debt default. If, however, they turn to Quantitative Easing again, inflation will soar at an even faster pace. The choice is between a deflationary debt crisis and stagflation. Both are worse. Stabilising this scenario is virtually impossible…
..The grand finale – a biblical crash beyond our wildest imagination, ignited by the explosion of the debt market hyper-bubble – is currently being postponed through the inflationary thumping of the real economy. This means that the “misery index” (combination of inflation and unemployment rate) will grow even further. Central Banks can tame inflation only in words: they know that any tightening of monetary policy is hostage to the opposite necessity to continue to monetise public and private debt, which means creating money out of nowhere.

Pause for Thought: Money without Value in a Rapidly Disintegrating World

[John Day]

Reductio-ad-absurdum:
BBC Changed Victim’s Statement So As Not To ‘Misgender’ Her Trans Rapist; Report
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/bbc-changed-victims-statement-so-not-misgender-her-trans-rapist-report

[John Day]

New Michael Hudson interview is up on The Saker:

Michael Hudson: Interview with the newly founded German magazine “ViER”

[John Day]

Regarding Queen Elizabeth’s 70 years as Queen of the Realm, and Prince Chuck’s seeming lack of suitability 9in the eyes of many).
A hope remains, though unspoken-of: Simon Dorante-Day, Chuck and Camilla’s teenage love-child
https://7news.com.au/lifestyle/prince-charles-camillas-aussie-son-shares-new-photo-proof-and-it-goes-viral-c-2657079
and his lovely wife:
Dr Elvianna Dorante-Day (PhD Public Health) is of both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent. She is married to Simon Charles Dorante-Day who has long claimed to be the son of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles.

Meet the Indigenous woman who married into the Royal family

[John Day]

@Ilargi: About that disability graph. It was another form of stimulus.
It started in 2020. ALL of the applications for SSDI started getting processed and APPROVED.
I never saw anything like it.
It had to be completely intentional.
I do not know whose decision it was or how many desired or undesired effects it may be having.

[John Day]

@Boscohorowitz: “Christmas comes early.”

@Teri, regarding this:
Biden hints at benefits from EU’s Russian oil embargo
Discounted Russian crude could be bought by the US to mitigate the gas price hike
Naah, Nobody’s THAT Stupid.

@Chooh: Sound like Russians are getting war-fever, at least from that link.
First We Take Manhattan (then we take Berlin)

@D. Benton Smith: i sure feel it, and when I mention it to people, they are often eager to tell me their feelings and observations. (Plus, I’m up over 750 subscribers to my blog now.)

[John Day]

@Mr.House: Thanks for this.

Pause for Thought: Money without Value in a Rapidly Disintegrating World

It opens thusly: “The acceleration of the “emergency paradigm” since 2020 has a simple yet widely disavowed purpose: to conceal socioeconomic collapse.”

@All-Y’all: I trained that dog! (Sorry, confabulating again…)

@Oroboros, who said: “The Ukronazis are selling Javelins on the dark web for 30k a pop. Sweet.”
NEVAH PAY RETAIL!

@Ilargi and “Science Girl”: I got paid to be a genetic donor in Med School.
“Aigs”, as we call them here, flooded my swimmers with their best chemoattractants.
I was told with a wink that I was considered to be “a proven donor”.
Jenny and I got married right after I finished my third year of med school. she supported me for my last year. She made me give up that part-time job…
Later, we did ok on our own. (Holly, Steve, Jim and Amber)

[John Day]

@VP Gary: I’m glad you liked the angel-on-shoulder analogy, Brother. Sign of a “healthy ego”.

Dr. D said (amongst other things): “Armenio: Since God and I are one, ultimately one consciousness, obviously then my will and God’s will are one. Therefore I would not have free will. But since God and I are one, I have the same free will God has, as a part and subset of him, and therefore have total free will. What you’re suffering from is an illusion of separation, that you’re not part of the universe, not made up of the one Consciousness that all reality is made of. This causes endless myriad problems and contradictions.”
Well, I’m not beating-a-dead-horse to point out that if we are something like characters in a dream in the mind of God, and even if everything within a dream is a manifestation of the consciousness of the dreamer, we can still deny that and be oblivious to it. We have that much “free will”.

@Dr.D & Kassandra: When I was a third year medical student, at the end of my Obstetrics/GYN rotation, we all gave presentations. Mine was on Natural Childbirth, almost fringe and edgy, but I got my rotation in Austin, and the Department head, Dr. Weinberg was really hip and cool, and I knew I could do it. I was graded well.
Paul Weinberg was wonderful, board certified in Psych and OB/GYN and could take out GYN cancers covered in a pool of blood, as if he could see clearly.
I digress.
It was hard for me to recall what I gave my talk on just now, but I suspect everybody STILL remembers (from 1985) that a male and female class member (cis-gendered, as far as I know) performed this duet.
There was not a dry eye in the room, including Dr. Weinberg!

[John Day]

@Willem: “Confabulation” as I used it in “confabulation function” of our brains, is when somebody automatically makes up an explanation for something, which has no relation to facts. i think our brains paint our actions as rational in retrospect, though we are capable of rational decision-making also.
That’s what I meant about understanding this function of brain if one seeks truth.

@Boscohorowitz: Ernest P. Worrell was looking at a can of Jello and a can of Mountain Dew on some website with a picture of that guy from “It’s A Wonderful Life” dressed in a WW-2 uniform and holding some kind of hand-puppet. False-dichotomy though, sure enough. The blogger is named “Robin Morrison”; seems sort of free-associating…

@Armenio Pereira: Sociopaths might be a different kind of animal in that they do not have compassion. It is hard to know exactly what compassion might be in another person, but they don’t have it.
In myself compassion feels like an engagement with the other living being, where I share their feelings somewhat telepathically. Freud would disagree, but Jung wouldn’t.
Does this mean that a sociopath is incapable of accepting divine guidance?
Are there aspects of free will outside of the important decision to follow Divine guidance or fear/desire?

You said: “You don’t use a nail clipper to cut down a tree; God wants to apply a major overhaul on the planet: other than a meteorite, humans seem like a rather adequate tool for the purpose.”
God would perceive space-time as a broad expanse, not a moving process as we time constrained beings do, unless god were practicing empathy and experiencing through us.
At any rate, humans can readily make changes on the planet while having free will. In the movie “The Magic Christian” Peter Sellers’ character threw money around, bills, wads of cash, in public places, to observe what people would do.
I have wondered if one of the functions of our species, in service of planetary life, is to bring fossil water and fossil carbon to the surface, where they can be incorporated by life-forms. It’s a thought.
It could happen easily with free will, as we see the last 300 years seems to simulate to perfection, if it is not actually the case.

@VP Gary: A healthy Ego will accept divine guidance because it’s like an angel on your shoulder feeding you the answers to the test.

@Red: Sorry; I didn’t watch the Davos-crowd-crowing video.

@TAE Summary: I always read your stuff and I’m still glad you are back. You said: “There may or may not be free will but there is pain and there is moral responsibility. If you injure another person “But I have no free will” is not a defense. Guilt and consequences can be corrective, free will or not.”
I have to wonder in the context of sociopathy, the lack of empathetic-functioning, how this plays out. Sociopaths are often very good at reading people and understanding their emotions. they lie without internal conflict, so may be natural and convincing. They are bound by laws of society and rules-of-the-house, but I’m trying to understand what “morality” would be for them. It would need to be a cognitive model.

@My Parents Said “NO”: Sorry, low hanging fruit… (chagrined)

@Chooch: The reports I saw portrayed it the other way, that Russia had strictly forbidden cellphones, because of targeting, and had targeted that big concentration of foreign mercs. in western ukraine early on that way, using a hypersonic missile to great effect. Last I saw the Russians completely disputed the loss of that many general officers. I think it was 2-3 and similar # of colonels, but this is a few weeks ago.

D Benton Smith said: “without the “adult supervision” and true value judgement provided and imposed upon it by a spiritual (non-material) awareness . . . and because it is so exquisitely designed to run on autopilot, that critter will lie, cheat, steal, kill, eat and fuck itself into oblivion faster than a politician will pick your pocket”
We are extremely socially-malleable critters. Nobody pops into a 16 year old body without training, but it probably would be like that. It’s somewhat that way, anyway… Or, it was somewhat like that for me for awhile.

[John Day]

@Willem: The severing of the corpus callosum removes most communication between left brain and right brain. People “explain” actions from one side of the brain, which are initiated by the other side of the brain.
This confabulation-function of our frontal lobes is important for us to understand if we seek the truth.
People are much more often using their gray matter to explain the rationality of what they did, than they are to “act rationally”.
It is food for thought, a layer of the onion to consider, but not actually “the answer”.

Again, it seems to me, though it could be a point-of-view, that the existence of the uncertainty principle excludes absolute determinism in the world.

[John Day]

@D Benton Smith: Can a human “be in love” with a non living machine, or merely “be smitten”?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_2000

[John Day]

@Armenio Perira: I accept. It’s a choice. There is effort inherent in it. There are beguiling options
“Faith without works is dead” Why, if choice and action are illusory.
What did Jesus teach through his actions and words?
Does God watch the same movie, knowing every detail and the ending?
Not all questions can be answered with certainty, but there must be moral choice, not merely illusion of choice.
(It seems that the uncertainty principle defeats absolute determinism.)

[John Day]

@Phoenixvoice: Swamp-coolers are good in Phoenix, which has some of the nicest summer weather you will find anywhere on the planet … in January.

On gender-fluidity: It seems to me that the “boomer” zeitgeist was SEXUAL REPRODUCTION in times of plenty. It seems to me that non-reproductive sexual options are in ascendance as we enter this long period of want and uncertainty. Weimar Germany and Sodom & Gomorrah might have been the same way, “decadent” as the economy became uncertain for raising children.
I speculate.

[John Day]

@Noirette: “What is a woman?”

Might as well ask Picasso, huh?

🙁

[John Day]

Armenio Pereira said: “Why am I doing the things I do? Because God wants me to. Why are you?
Protons & Electrons, Good & Evil, Acceptance & Denial: there isn’t One without The Other. You didn’t create them, it’s not up to you to chose: God makes the choice for you; freedom is an illusion – God made that one too.”

“I” disagree. Freedom of volition is essential. We do not perceptually ride on a preordained roller coaster, believing that we make decisions and take actions. We do make moral choices, difficult decisions. God wishes us to accept Divine Guidance, and I seek it continuously, but I must always choose it. There are always other choices; other actions to take.
I took more of the other choices when I was younger and experienced the results. Now I choose to seek guidance as a rule.

[John Day]

D Benton Smith posted this excellent quote:
“Choose your enemies wisely, for you shall become them.”

[John Day]

@kultsommer: Buda is a town in Texas. https://ci.buda.tx.us/
Yep, there’s a lot of overlap, for several reasons.
No offense intended.

[John Day]

Oil, economy, injustice and politics… “Joe Biden” is going to Saudi Arabia, where he is somewhat despised, to ask some favors, but not this one.
The House of Saud tortured a “confession” out of a 14 year old scapegoat who could not have done the crime, and sentenced him to death at 17.
​ ​”From the moment police raided the Howaiti family home and dragged out 14-year-old Abdullah, the Saudi justice system has been on autopilot, punishing him for a crime he cannot have committed,” said Jeed Basyouni, who leads Reprieve’s work on the death penalty across the Middle East and North Africa.
​ ​”Every court knew how young he was,” she continued. “Every court heard he had an alibi. Every court was told he was tortured. But they sent him to death row and kept him in a cell, when he should have been playing football with his friends.”
​ ​”Abdullah will never get back the teenage years he spent fearing for his life, but it’s not too late for the Saudi courts to do the right thing,” Basyouni added. “The world is watching.”
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/05/30/biden-mulls-trip-saudi-arabia-rights-group-spotlights-death-sentence-child-defendant

​Meryl Nass MD, ​CDC and NY Times stopped revealing the vaxxed vs. unvaxxed case and death comparisons 6 and 8 weeks ago, when the graphs began to show no benefit from vaccination​ (well, ​embarrassing ​”negative efficacy​”​ had been ​statistically ​apparent since last summer)
https://merylnass.substack.com/p/cdc-and-ny-times-stopped-revealing?s=r

​Robert Malone MD has monkeypox-fearporn update
​ ​I almost cannot believe that I am writing this, but since my original substack article on this topic, we had the reveal of an Event 201-style wargame exercise modeled around a bioterror-related release of an engineered Monkeypox virus “caused by a terrorist attack using a pathogen engineered in a laboratory with inadequate biosafety and biosecurity provisions and weak oversight.” With amazing (coincidental?) prescience, the “table top exercise” of March 2021 (one year and three months into the Covidcrisis) models a Monkeypox bioterror attack initiated on May 15, 2022. Note the date of the CNN/Jake Tapper fearporn piece – May 20, 2022. The modeling deployed in the scenario upon which the “exercise” was based predicts 3.2 billion cases and 271 million deaths by December 01, 2023.
https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/monkey-pox-update?s=r

“Gaslighting Me With Psy-ops”​ (Like Thomas Dolby WOULD do it today)

[John Day]

Globalists Are Taking Over the Food System — It’s Part of Their Plan to Control You​ (if you get to live)
​ ​The globalist takeover is coming at us from every possible angle. Whether we’re talking about biosecurity, finance, housing, healthcare, energy, transportation or food, all the changes we’re now seeing have one goal, and that is to force compliance with the globalists’ agenda.
​ ​T​​he global food system, and protein sources, in particular, are currently under coordinated and intentional attacks to manufacture food shortages and famine.
​ ​The globalist elite intend to eliminate traditional farming and livestock and replace it with indoor-grown produce and lab-created protein alternatives that they own and control.
​ ​While the presence of hundreds of food brands gives the appearance of market competition, the reality is that the food industry is monopolized by fewer than a dozen companies, and all of them, in turn, are largely owned by BlackRock and Vanguard.
​ ​Eventually, your ability to buy food will be tied to your digital identity and social credit score.
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/globalists-takeover-food-system-control-cola/?

Congress Passes Anti-Russia Bill Reinforcing Neo-colonialism in Africa
A United States Congressional bill has already been approved by a wide margin that would target and punish African states that maintain political and economic relations with the Russian Federation…
..Labeled as the “Countering Malign Russian Activities in Africa Act” (H.R. 7311) was passed on April 27 by the House of Representatives in a bipartisan 419-9 majority and will probably be approved by the Senate which is evenly split between the Democrats and the Republicans. This legislative measure is broadly worded enabling the State Department to monitor the foreign policy of the Russian Federation in Africa including military affairs and any effort which Washington deems as “malign influence.”​ …
​..Russia, even under monarchial rule prior to 1917, never participated in the Atlantic Slave Trade, colonization on the continent or the Western Hemisphere where hundreds of millions of Africans remain up until this day. Contrary to the posture of the U.S. and its NATO allies, the former Soviet Union as well as China and other socialist states supported the anti-colonial, national liberation and civil rights struggles waged by the African people from the period after World I up until the 21st century.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/congress-passes-anti-russia-bill-reinforcing-neo-colonialism-africa/5782045

​ One of the factors in the coup against Ukrainian president Victor Yanukovich in 2014 was that he was going to forego and EU/Monsanto deal for a Russian/organic deal. Sale of farmland in Ukraine, a national treasure, had been illegal since 2001, but in 2020, as part of an IMF loan deal, Ukraine was widely opened up for sale of private and public lands to Monsanto and friends​, against massive public sentiment. This is a long and detailed article about what I have long followed, the war against life by massive corporations. Henry Kissinger’s initiation of the American foreign policy of weaponized food is well explained. This is a current battlefield. (Not mentioned is the question of complying with IMF loan terms if “Ukraine” ceases to exist, and the loans are declared “odious debt” after restructuring.)
War Within the War: The Fight Over Land and Genetically Engineered Agriculture
https://www.globalresearch.ca/war-within-war-fight-over-land-genetically-engineered-agriculture/5782051

​ The monetary-price-inflation now is different from that in the 1970s and 1980s. There was a healthy industrial economy and unionized workers could demand wage increases to meet or exceed inflation. There was room to massively increase interest rates to choke-down the real economy, and to support demand for the dollar internationally, until inflation stopped, without actually starving workers to death and causing a revolution.
There was slack to do that, but industry has largely left the building, and people are barely surviving at service jobs. Inflation is not caused by expectations of inflation as much as by real stuff getting more expensive despite low wages for workers, and a lot of conjured dollars since 2008.
Choking the economy now will cause working people to be unable to eat, drive, pay rent and pay utilities.​ Nothing will be solved. Structural overhaul is necessary.
No Guarantee Slowing Economy Will Slow Inflation
https://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2022/05/no-guarantee-slowing-economy-will-slow.html

[John Day]

​Regarding the necessity of Russian high-grade oil with massive piped deliveries to major refineries, which can only be substituted at great cost in time, money, and loss of consistency and reliability (Europe’s economy)…Europe now cheats or suffers (I suggest that changing-sides is a third option)

Europe now cheats or suffers

A whole new system. What will be thrown out? Can it work? Where will the universal-faith come from?
Mastercard CEO: SWIFT Payment System May Be Replaced By CBDCs In Five Years
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/mastercard-ceo-swift-payment-system-may-be-replaced-cbdcs-five-years

​Kunstler practices “political satire” as a cover.​
​ ​The World Economic Forum (WEF), a.k.a. the Davos Gang, held its 2022 schmoozefest in that tidy Swiss alpine village last week, after a nearly three-year hiatus on account of the coronavirus pandemic they generously arranged for the rest of us. These are the self-defined leaders of the Great Re-set — Klaus Schwab, Bill Gates, and Klaus’s scaly majordomo, Dr. Yuval Noah Harari, the inverse reincarnation of Adolf Eichmann, famous for declaring that “humans are hackable animals.” …
​..​As first hallucinated in Herr Doktor Schwab’s pulsating brain, apparently many years ago, the Great Re-set was initially scheduled for 2050, a sort of leisurely stroll-in-the-park to the shimmering gates of transhumanism. Then the gang got nervous and pushed it up to 2030 (climate change, and all). When that retrograde monster of US politics, Donald Trump, came on the scene, they panicked and re-set their Re-set for 2023. Now, despite the surface decorum of this year’s Davos meet-up, it looks like they are — as we say here in the old New World — losing their shit.
How come? Well, for one thing, we appear to be in a close race between Klaus’s controlled demolition of the global economy and the US midterm elections this November, and perhaps the gang perceives that won’t go so well for them. Their key project in the 2022 offensive, the War in Ukraine, isn’t working out, either. The idea, it seems, was to bog down and humiliate the Russians so as to bring on the defenestration of Mr. Putin, who, believe it or not and despite the tsunamis of aspersion loosed on him by WEF-funded propagandists, is strangely and actually a defender of Western Civ…
..And yet, that demolition of the global economy proceeds a’pace as, with all demolitions, once things start crashing, nothing will stop it. Supply chains for everything are breaking, with sneaky ramifications. For instance, the ammonia-based chemical additive for diesel fuel used to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions from trucks is getting scarce. New EPA rules require computerized sensors in truck engines that register nitrogen oxide levels. If they are too high, the sensors automatically cut the engine. Result: trucks stop running. Further result: nothing gets delivered. Furthest result: you starve.
The WEF worked on its starvation program from other angles, too. The Ukraine-Russian war was engineered to reduce the global wheat supply by a hefty cut, say around 30 percent, as well as to curtail fertilizer exports from the world’s main producers of them: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus…
Meanwhile, recall the parting admonition of the late eminent virologist Luc Montagnier, discoverer of HIV, the virus behind AIDS, who just prior to his death predicted that 100-percent of the people injected with mRNA Covid “vaccines” would be dead in two years. (Note: Validity not yet established.)​

Careening Towards Grace

“The Deep State is in a ‘do or die’ moment right now…”
​ ​”They, the elites or predator class, recognize that they are now locked into this. If they try to retreat, there is no retreat. People are waking up at such a rapid rate that they are in a moment where they are going to have to go for broke and try to impose the whole agenda and damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead or they are going to be in big trouble. They are going to be prosecuted. Right this moment, there are conversations in state attorney generals’ offices all across the country, and this is a problem. People are demanding prosecution..
​ ​Right now, the elites, or predator class, realize if they don’t move forward very quickly, they are going to lose everything. They could possibly end up facing true accountability. I think we are in a very dangerous situation now.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/deep-state-do-or-die-moment-alex-newman-warns-globalists-need-terrify-everyone

[John Day]

An action-photo of kitchen cabinet progress… “For All The Marbles” https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/for-all-the-marbles?s=w

This excellent analysis of Kissinger’s analysis of the fracture in global economy and alliances leads to a historical prediction which seems like a misread of the trends. Perhaps it is intended diplomatically
It seems that the West, without Russian energy and resources, especially Europe, must diminish as an economic center. TROTW (the rest of the world) also needs Russian resources. Russia is capable of militarily defending those resources, and is strengthening that position now.
China is both economically powerful and internally very fragile as a society, and lacks essential energy and resources without imports. China needs Russian resources for the same reasons that Europe needs them
My conclusion is that Europe will need to take Russia’s side over the Atlanticists (UK, US, Australia, Canada, NZ). Indeed, the Atlanticists, without global reserve currency status and incomes, and with massive $US debt defaults from TROTW, will ultimately need to join the new, egalitarian global trade order.

​ ​Timofei Bordachev: Henry Kissinger is trying to warn Westerners that they are running out of time in the fight for Russia
​ ​If the acute phase of the conflict in Ukraine turns out to be lengthy, which now seems likely, then basic survival will force Russia to cut ties with Western-aligned Europe
​..​In his speech to the participants of the Davos forum, Henry Kissinger, the grand patriarch of international politics, pointed to just such a prospect ​(adversarial Russian separation from Europe) ​as the least desirable from his point of view, since Russia then “could alienate itself completely from Europe and seek a permanent alliance elsewhere,” which would lead to the emergence of diplomatic divides on the scale of the Cold War.​
​In his opinion, peace talks between the parties [Moscow and Kiev] would be the most expedient way to prevent this; these would result in Russian interests being taken into account. For Kissinger, this means that in some respect, Russia’s participation in the European “concert” is an unconditional value, and the loss of this must be prevented as long as some chance remains.
However, with all due respect to the merits and wisdom of this statesman and scholar, the impeccable logic of Kissinger faces only one obstacle – it works when the balance of power is has been determined and relations between states have already passed the stage of military conflict.
In this sense, he certainly follows in the footsteps of his great predecessors – Chancellor of the Austrian Empire Klemens von Metternich and British Foreign Secretary Viscount Castlereagh, whose diplomatic achievements were the subject of Kissinger’s own doctoral dissertation in 1956. Both of them went down in history as the creators of a new European order, established after the end of the Napoleonic era in France and which persisted, with minor adjustments, for almost a century in international politics.
Like those illustrious figures, Kissinger appears on the world stage in an era when the balance of power between the most important players is already being determined by “iron and blood.” The time of his greatest achievement was the first half of the 1970s – a period of relative stability…
..Thus, at the present time, it would be difficult to expect diplomacy to be able to take first place in world affairs at the initial stage of the process, which promises to be very long and, most likely, quite bloody.​..
​..Now we can assume that the emancipation of mankind from Western control is of central importance, and the most important factor in this process is the growth of China’s economic and political power. If China itself, as well as India and other major states outside the West, cope with the task entrusted to them by history, in the coming decades the international system will acquire features that were completely uncharacteristic before.​..
..The determination Russia has shown in recent years, and especially months, is also associated with global changes. The fact that Moscow so purposefully stood up to protect its interests and values was due not only to domestic Russian reasons, although they are of great importance. Nor were they predicated upon expectations of direct material assistance from China, which could compensate for the losses during the acute phase of the conflict with the West.
The main external source of Russian self-confidence has been an objective assessment of the state of the international political and economic environment, in which even a complete break with the West would not be mortally dangerous for Russia from the point of view of pursuing its main development goals. Moreover, it is precisely the need for a more active rapprochement with other partners, which Russia has not experienced until recently, that may turn out to be a much more reliable way to survive in a changing environment.
This is what is understood in the US and Europe with the greatest concern. In the event that Russia, during the years of the emerging disengagement from the rest of Europe, creates a comparable system of trade, economic, political, cultural and human ties in the South and East, the return of this country to the Western realm will become technically difficult, if perhaps not even possible…
​..​Amid the struggle now gaining momentum, Russia, like the rest of Europe, is, despite its military capabilities, a participant inferior in strength to the main warring parties – China and the United States. Therefore, there is a struggle for Russia, and there is a dwindling opportunity for the West to win, and this is what Henry Kissinger is trying to articulate.
https://www.rt.com/news/556371-europe-demarcation-growing-conflict/

​Scott Ritter looks into Russian completion of “Phase 2” of the special military operation, the liberation of Donetsk and Lugansk, now essentially completed. Ukraine is not de-Nazified, and is only partly demilitarized, and is not neutral.​ What will Phase 3 entail? What will be the justification? How will resources be obtained and managed to carry it out?

SCOTT RITTER: Phase Three in Ukraine

​Moon of Alabama investigates:​
​ Ukrainian casualty rates in the Donbas are reported by president Zelensky as 100 killed and 500 wounded per day, but he has several qualifiers, like that region and “army”, so this is not total Ukrainian casualties. Those are more likely 200 dead and 800 wounded per day.
These are now concentrated in the ranks of regional-defense volunteers, who were supposed to just protect their towns, but are now cannon-fodder in trenches.​
This is horrific. Dying in a trench from artillery is horrific, as is being trapped there for months and seeing comrades die.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/06/ukraine-bits-casualty-numbers-kampfgruppen-territorial-defense-forces.html#more

[John Day]

@V.Arnold: I can take the battery out of my flip-phone.

[John Day]

Chooch said: “How do you get to be that guy in trench? The ones firing upon him? The guy holding the camera? Could I have found myself in such a situation had I made different choices in my youth? Will I find myself in such a situation in the future?”

I have always sought to NOT be the guy in the trench or firing the artillery. I grew up in a USMC family during Vietnam. I have given it a lot of thought, and sought to teach my children the signs of history developing to that point, how to spot it early, when there is still time to move into another path.
We went to the Anne Frank House, Dachau and Tuol Sleng (Cambodia) prison museum.

One has to watch the flow of history like a hawk, and see when a group is de-humanized as the time to get out, before that leads to atrocities. For me, I stood with the “unvaccinated” as soon as the class was singled-out, and I got fired, but I know my action was right, and I think the principled actions of many of us have blocked that particular dehumanization from progressing, at least where I live.
I’m unemployed, but free to do the best that I can to prepare and to communicate.

[John Day]

Today’s Saker “Operation Z” update is different, thoughtful factual, but not technical.

Sitrep Operation Z: Not your normal sitrep

[John Day]

VP Gary and Jesus said: “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s”.
I completely agree, but rendering unto God that which is God’s is in a whole different reality… 🙂

@MPSK: Don’t get the electronic Mephistopheles !

[John Day]

I also enjoyed the Justo Gallego Martinez story.
Don Quixote reincarnated!

[John Day]

The owners can only visualize a world where they remain “the owners”.
They have to remain upon our backs as we sink and try to swim.
That position is bad for us.
We can visualize many other alternatives, and take baby-steps ourselves.
We will meet others taking baby-steps, and cooperate, and solve-problems in cooperative working groups,
our forte’.
What will “the owners” do if they can’t stay on our backs?

[John Day]

“Gaslighted Me With Psy-Ops”

[John Day]

@Chooch: Russia is de-Nazifying and de-militarizing Ukraine as long as the Nazis and military keep presenting themselves to Russian artillery. It’s a sad form of cooperation, with many middle-aged conscripts sitting in trenches in the meat-grinder.

[John Day]

Naomi Wolf realizes that some of us have never been speaking figuratively about mass human culling, as Pfizer-FDA communications keep revealing that the knew all along that these products were killing and sterilizing women and children and causing abortions, as well as killing and impairing all of those other people.
Dear Friends, Sorry to Announce a Genocide
It’s Really True: They Know they are Killing the Babies
The truth is: I’ve been rendered almost speechless — or the literary equivalent of that — because recently I’ve had the unenviable task of trying to announce to the world that indeed, a genocide — or what I’ve called, clumsily but urgently, a “baby die-off” — is underway…
..And now, the babies are dying. Now scale the data from Canada, Scotland and Israel to all the vaccinated nations in the world.
What do we do with all of this?
Knowing as I now do, that Pfizer and the FDA knew that babies were dying and mothers’ milk discoloring by just looking at their own internal records; knowing as I do that they did not alert anyone let alone stop what they were doing, and that to this day Pfizer, the FDA and other demonic “public health” entities are pushing to MRNA-vaccinate more and more pregnant women; now that they are about to force this on women in Africa and other lower income nations who are not seeking the MRNA vaccines, per Pfizer CEO Bourla this past week at the WEF, and knowing that Pfizer is pushing and may even receive a US EUA for babies to five year olds — I must conclude that we are looking into an abyss of evil not seen since 1945.
So I don’t know about you, but I must switch gears with this kind of unspeakable knowledge to another kind of discourse.
https://naomiwolf.substack.com/p/dear-friends-sorry-to-announce-a?s=r

Worse Than the Disease? Reviewing Some Possible Unintended Consequences of the mRNA Vaccines Against COVID-19
https://dpbh.nv.gov/uploadedFiles/dpbhnvgov/content/Boards/BOH/Meetings/2021/SENEFF~1.PDF

Determinants of COVID-19 Vaccine-Induced Myocarditis Requiring Hospitalization
Conclusions: Among those with COVID-19 vaccine-induced myocarditis, the majority were hospitalized, and the independent predictors of hospitalization were age, male gender, positive troponin, and ST-segment elevation on the ECG. Temporal proximity of reporting to injection date and significantly higher reporting rates of cardiac troponin, electrocardiogram ST segment elevation and abnormal C-reactive proteins in young individuals (12-18) in the context of myocarditis requiring hospitalization indicate that these particular pathognomonic markers may be linked to incipient heart failure whereby the injury due to the injection is the reason for the hospitalization, and should always be measured and used as diagnostic markers for COVID-19 vaccine-induced myocarditis.
https://zenodo.org/record/6564414#.YpOuqMPMLtR

Kevin Barrett and Helen Buyniski, with transcript…
So many terrorist-response and pandemic drills have “gone live”.
Monkeypox Biowar Smoking Guns?
An incendiary conversation with HelenOfDestroy
https://kevinbarrett.substack.com/p/monkeypox-biowar-smoking-guns?s=r

[John Day]

Russia has complex and ongoing frenemy relationships with Israel and Turkey. Right now, Syria is getting clobbered as these countries see how far they can push the bear and gain advantage while Russia is occupied in Europe.

Israel is not the only foreign power escalating against Syria. Turkey is also attempting to take advantage of the Ukrainian conflict, which is keeping Russia busy and the US in need of all of its NATO allies.
On May 23, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Ankara will launch a new military operation in Syria against Kurdish forces, mainly the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), in an effort to link up two areas already under Turkish control in the northern and northeastern regions of the country.
Erdogan said the operation would aim to resume Turkish efforts to create a 30 kilometers “safe zone” along its border with Syria.
SDF-held Minaq will likely be one of the main targets of any upcoming operation against the SDF, along with the towns of Tell Rifaat and Manbij in the northern Aleppo countryside and the town of Kobane in the governorate’s northeastern countryside. Several units of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and the Russian Military Police are present near all of these towns.
On May 25, the Turkish military deployed massive reinforcements in the areas held by its proxies.
On the same day, a series of Turkish artillery strikes targeted towns and villages held by the SDF in the northern Aleppo countryside, the northern Raqqa countryside and the northern countryside of al-Hasakah.
A new operation against the SDF in Syria could boost the chances of Erdogan and his party, the Justice and Development party, in the upcoming Turkish elections in 2023.
Overall, it appears that Syria will experience a new phase of violence this summer as regional powers are attempting to secure points in the war-torn country before the conflict in Ukraine reaches its end. https://southfront.org/israel-and-turkey-escalate-against-syria/

“Freeing the slaves”? Russia supports African peoples in their demand for complete decolonization — Lavrov
Russia played a leading role in the decolonization of Africa and it supports the Africans in their demand for the full liberation of the continent from colonialism, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a reception on the occasion of Africa Day for the ambassadors of African countries accredited in Russia in Moscow on Wednesday. https://tass.com/politics/1455785?utm

In a rare show of African power and solidarity, several African member states objected to proposed International Health Regulations amendments, discussed at the World Health Assembly 75 this week – a move many believe might shake up the World Health Organization’s dominance.
A well placed source shared: “The resolution on IHR amendments was not passed at the WHA, as African countries were concerned that there was inadequate consultation amongst member states, and the process was being rushed. Botswana read the statement on behalf of the 47 AFRO members and I was personally present.”
Africa objects to US proposal on controversial IHR (WHO) amendments

[John Day]

Russian nationalist, Vladimir Putin has a wholehearted economic ally in Iran, which has been crippled by 40 years of western economic sanctions. (He still needs the Russian oligarchs, and he needs Chinese banks and businesses, not just Xi’s speeches. Turkey is also ready to do business, but Erdogan is fickle and scheming.)
The Sanctioned Ones: How Iran-Russia are setting new rules , Pepe Escobar
..The EAEU, inaugurated in 2015 with five full members – Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus and Armenia – represents a market of 184 million people and a collective GDP of over $5 trillion. The next step with Iran will be to implement a full free trade agreement, possibly before the end of the year, according to Iranian deputy trade minister Alireza Peymanpak. Egypt, Indonesia and the UAE are also candidates to strike deals with the EAEU…
..Slowly but surely, the new RIC (Russia-Iran-China) – as opposed to the old RIC in BRICS (Russia-India-China) – is attempting to integrate their financial systems. Iran is a matter of national security strategy for China, as an energy provider and essential partner of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in West Asia.
Russia-China, though, is a much more complex matter. Extremely fearful of provoking US sanctions, Chinese banks are refraining – at least for the moment – to increase their deals with Russian banks…
..The Bank of China and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) have restricted financing for Russian commodities. Even the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), absolutely essential for sustainable development projects, linked or not with BRI, decided to freeze all lending to Russia and Belarus in early March to “safeguard” its “financial integrity.”… As it stands, the Mir card is still not accepted in Iran, but that’s about to change – just as in Turkey, which this summer will start accepting Mir card payments from legions of Russian tourists. What this means in practice is that Russia and Iran will be connecting their banks to the System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS), the Russian equivalent to SWIFT. The Chinese will obviously be examining how seamlessly the transition works. Now compare all of the above with the prospect that soon there won’t be any SWIFT at all, as Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach let slip in Davos… The Russia-Iran front has been fast evolving since January this year, when Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, on a visit to Moscow, handed a draft agreement to Putin on strategic cooperation for the next 20 years, building on “the very good experience of cooperation between Iran and Russia in Syria in combating terrorism,” and expanding to “economy, politics, culture, science, technology, defense, and military spheres, as well as security and space issues.” …

..The bottom line is that on the JCPOA, Tehran and Moscow are in sync: “We are what they call on edge, and it could happen very quickly if the political decision is made.” (by the US) https://thesaker.is/the-sanctioned-ones-how-iran-russia-are-setting-new-rules/

Russian oil exports to India jump 25x

India has come under fire from the West for its continued purchases of Russian oil. However, New Delhi has rebuffed the criticism, saying those imports make up a fraction of the country’s overall needs. Authorities also said India will keep buying “cheap” Russian oil as a sudden stop could drive up costs for its consumers. Previous media reports have indicated that the world’s third-biggest oil importer was seeking Russian crude at less than $70 a barrel to compensate for additional hurdles caused by sanctions.

https://www.rt.com/business/556345-russian-oil-exports-jump-india/

Here is a headline, which is no surprise, but also an important point about making military deals with the US. (The whole world needs Taiwanese chip factories to stay in production.)

Washington ‘Taking Lessons’ From Ukraine to Turn Taiwan Into Anti-China ‘Porcupine’: Report
At the same time as Washington has encouraged Taipei to increase purchases of American-made military equipment, billions of dollars’ worth of weapons already bought and paid for remain undelivered. Last month, Defense News calculated that the US had shipped just 16 percent of the weapons Taiwan ordered in 2019, with COVID blamed for the $14.2 billion backlog, which includes F-16 fighters, replacement parts for Patriot missile systems, and other equipment. Earlier this month, Taipei announced that the US howitzers it had ordered had been “crowded out” by Ukraine. https://sputniknews.com/20220525/washington-taking-lessons-from-ukraine-to-turn-taiwan-into-anti-china-porcupine-report-1095774805.html

[John Day]

I finally got a picture out of the kitchen cabinetry I’m completely reinforcing and installing. Y’all have seen a lot of these stories, and the forest, not just the trees. Practical Matters
https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/practical-matters?s=w

A lot more than $1 trillion would be needed. The problem is that Europe is barely squeezing by on plentiful , high-grade Russian fuel from pipelines, and borrowing money. There is no direct replacement for Russian oil, and there will not be. Gas might be piped from Iran and Qatar some day, but the empire is blocking that by destroying Syria until it can control such a pipeline. German industry will close down. Will it take 10 years to realize this? Maybe people already know…
The EU Needs More Than $1 Trillion For Plan To Ditch Russian Oil And Gas
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-EU-Needs-More-Than-1-Trillion-For-Plan-To-Ditch-Russian-Oil-And-Gas.html

Viktor Orban in Hungary knows, and says so. Other EU members may be breathing a sigh of partial relief now.
EU To Block Seaborne Russian Oil Deliveries, Not Pipeline, To Satisfy Hungary
https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/eu-block-seaborne-russian-oil-deliveries-not-pipeline-satisfy-hungary

Professor Ugo Bardi: The Age of Exterminations VIII — How to Destroy Western Europe
(The very short summary is that there will be mass deindustrialization, freezing and starvation in Europe without Russian oil and gas. All of the population increases afforded by coal, oil and fertilizers will revert to the pre-industrial status-quo.)
https://thesenecaeffect.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-age-of-extermination-viii-how-to.html

[John Day]

@Phoenixvoice: You have good pipes and good vocal chords, especially when they loosened up a bit. Loud and Clear, sister! i have been appreciating your thoughtful analysis. I’m sure I never spent an hour accidentally wiping any device. My defense mechanism is to always know that everything I say on any electronic format is monitored by NSA AI. (I always felt in my heart that my every thought and scheme was perceived by God, so this is actually a much lower bar.)

@Susmarie108: I was never speaking figuratively of the owners culling the herd. This is the beginning of the cull we are seeing. Owners culling herds is “history”. They have some new instruments now. Naomi Wolf groks it. I’m glad she does.

@Dr.D: Good recall. My recognition is so much better than my recall. You have a mind like a steel trap. Sorry, Bro…

@Oxymoron: I’m glad you have your libido (life force) back.

@D Benton Smith: I’ll be watching. Make sure you don’t stumble out of newspeak!

[John Day]

This looks like a completely planned and orchestrated political assassination of this popular Christian Al Jazeera journalist and US citizen Shireen Abu Akleh.
Israeli Forces Murdered Star Al Jazeera Journalist: CNN
​..​In an anonymous interview with CNN, a senior Israeli security official denied that Abu Akleh was deliberately killed: “In no way would the IDF ever target a civilian, especially a member of the press.”
​ ​While CNN didn’t note it, according to Reporters Without Borders, Israel has killed at least 30 journalists since 2000, including two Palestinians shot by IDF snipers while reporting on protests near the Gaza-Israel border in 2018.​..
..CNN geolocated the images in the tweeted video to a spot 300 meters from Abu Akleh, and, based on various factors, firmly concluded “the shooting in the videos couldn’t be the same volley of gunfire that hit Abu Akleh and her producer.”
​ ​Indeed, CNN concluded “there was no active combat, nor any Palestinian militants, near Abu Akleh in the moments leading up to her death.”
​ ​Weapons expert and British Army veteran Chris Cobb-Smith studied images of bullet impacts on the tree where Abu Akleh stood before she was killed. They form a relatively tight shot group.
​ ​”The number of strike marks on the tree where Shireen was standing proves this wasn’t a random shot, she was targeted,” Cobb told CNN.
​ ​CNN’s study of acoustic evidence is even more damning:
​ ​According to the Israeli army’s initial inquiry, at the time of Abu Akleh’s death, an Israeli sniper was 200 meters away from her. CNN asked Robert Maher, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Montana State University, who specializes in forensic audio analysis, to assess the footage of Abu Akleh’s shooting and estimate the distance between the gunman and the cameraman, taking into account the rifle being used by the Israeli forces.
​ ​The video that Maher analyzed captures two volleys of gunfire; eyewitnesses say Abu Akleh was hit in the second barrage, a series of seven sharp “cracks.” The first “crack” sound, the ballistic shockwave of the bullet, is followed approximately 309 milliseconds later by the relatively quiet “bang” of the muzzle blast, according to Maher. “That would correspond to a distance of something between 177 and 197 meters,” or 580 and 646 feet, he said in an email to CNN, which corresponds almost exactly with the Israeli sniper’s position.
​ ​Video shows a relaxed scene moments before gunfire erupted. Jenin residents smile, make small talk and smoke cigarettes as they watch the al Jazeera crew led by Abu Akleh.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/israeli-forces-murdered-star-al-jazeera-journalist-cnn

​A season of frayed nerves?​ One woman kept her wits. (I’ve seen what a righteous woman with a handgun can do to some bad guys, one night in an ER.)
​ ​Instead of waiting for the police to arrive, a woman with a concealed carry license in West Virginia acted fast to stop a crazed man with an AR-15-style rifle who was about to kill dozens of people at a graduation party.
​ ​”Instead of running from the threat, she engaged with the threat and saved several lives last night,” Charleston Police Department Chief of Detectives Tony Hazelett told local news WCHSTV.
​ ​The incident occurred Wednesday when Dennis Butler,37, was angered by a group of people hosting a graduation party who told him to slow down through an apartment complex in Charleston. He returned 30 minutes later, parked his vehicle, jumped in the backseat, and discharged his weapon toward the group of 30-40 people.
​ ​Unbeknownst to the shooter, a law-abiding citizen with a CCW was within the group and quickly drew her weapon and engaged Bu​tl ​er with direct fire, fatally wounding him.​
​https://www.zerohedge.com/political/law-abiding-west-virginia-woman-concealed-firearm-stops-mass-shooting

​Will this affect manufacturing?
Summer Heat Could Wreak Havoc on Texas Electrical Grid
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Summer-Heat-Could-Wreak-Havoc-On-Texas-Grid.html

​ ​Texas has been the top exporting state in the U.S. for an incredible 20 years in a row.
​ ​Last year, Texas exported $375 billion worth of goods, which is more than California ($175 billion), New York ($85 billion), and Louisiana ($77 billion) combined. The state’s largest manufacturing export category is petroleum and coal products, but it’s also important to mention that Texas led the nation in tech exports for the ninth straight year.
​ ​California was the second highest exporter of goods in 2021 with a total value of $175 billion​.
​https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/made-america-goods-exports-state

[John Day]

​ I have been wondering about Sri Lanka. There is an obvious opportunity for a new economic order to act in goodwill towards these people in crisis.​
Bankrupt Sri Lanka Takes Russian Crude As Fuel Crisis Depletes Stocks, Mulls Loan From China
​ ​Ceylon Petroleum Corp., the country’s only refinery, is set to take shipment of Russian grade Siberian Light on May 28. It will be the first time the refinery has processed crude to produce high-value products such as gasoline and diesel in two months.
​ ​Fuel supplies on the island nation are so low that the government has told citizens to stop waiting in long lines at filling stations. The government has run out of foreign reserves to pay for essential imports.
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/bankrupt-sri-lanka-takes-russian-crude-fuel-crisis-depletes-stocks

​ ​No Progress In Turkey’s Talks With Sweden, Finland On NATO As Delegations Return Home
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/no-progress-turkeys-talks-sweden-finland-nato-delegations-return-home

​What are my national-security choices again?
Russia Conducts Hypersonic Missile Test Near Finland & Sweden
​ ​On Saturday Russia announced it conducted another successful test of the Zircon hypersonic missile, which reportedly flew over a distance of 1,000km (or 621 miles) after it was launched at a target in the White Sea.
​ ​The missile was fired from the Russian navy’s Admiral Grigorovich-class frigate the waters of the Barents Sea. The identified area for the test, given the hypersonic was launched from the Barents, is very close to waters off Finland and Sweden.
https://www.zerohedge.com/military/russia-conducts-hypersonic-missile-test-near-finland-sweden

​”international Rules Based Order”, Attn: “Exceptional Nation”​ (I don’t think “piracy” or even “privateering” is the correct term. It’s “war”.)
US Seizes Tanker Full of Iranian Oil Near Greece
Oil will be sent to the US, Iran faults ‘clear example of piracy’

US Seizes Tanker Full of Iranian Oil Near Greece

[John Day]

Moon of Alabama (German) ​ [I think “Biden” maybe taken to mean whoever is making decisions on US foreign policy these days. Rockefeller interests?]
..The U.S. did not know of a ‘Russian invasion’. What it knew was that Zelensky, pushed by the U.S., would make another attempt to invade the Donbas republics with overwhelming force and that Russia’s leadership would have to react to such an assault on its compatriots.
The Ukrainian assault began on February 16 when over several days Ukrainian artillery increased its bombardment of Donbas by a factor of 40. Russia reacted to that and on February 24 preempted the planned ground assault.
The above part of Biden’s plan to provoke Russia into a war as a means to strengthen the U.S. position in Europe has worked well.
But how long will the coalition of the ‘west’ hold when inflation, energy scarcity and hunger set in? European unity is already falling apart with each country scrambling to fulfill its own energy needs.
Everyone can now see that the Ukraine, and with it the U.S., is losing the war. Meanwhile Russia is doing much better than anyone had expected.
What is Biden’s plan now as things fall apart? Escalating towards a wider war is an option but the risk of it is much higher than potential gains.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/05/as-things-fall-apart-biden-may-want-to-escalate.html#more

​ ​Russia Pays Eurobond Coupons In FX As US Dashes To Close Loophole​ (​I​t’s illegal to fail to pay, and​ it’s​ illegal to pay.)
​ ​As Russia’s sovereign debt default showdown with the West continues to ratchet as Washington has been seeking to push Moscow into an involuntary bankruptcy by closing all loopholes for debt payments, all eyes were on a Friday deadline for Moscow to settle on two Eurobond coupons. Late in the day, Russia’s National Settlement Depository (NSD) announced it has successfully paid these coupons in dollar-denominated bond and euro-denominated notes, although it remains to be seen if correspondent banks will accept them and if the US won’t just claim the payments were illegal.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/russia-successfully-pays-eurobond-coupons-fx-us-dashes-close-loophole

​ Pepe Escobar looks at the Eurasian Economic Union ​meeting last week in Kyrgyzstan (not controlled by Rockefeller interests.)
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov keeps stressing that, “the West has declared total war against us, against the entire Russian world. Nobody even hides this now.” …
​..​The EAEU comprises five full members – Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus and Armenia – yet 14 nations sent delegations to the forum, including China, Vietnam and Latin American nations.​..
​..The crucial point is that by 2025 they have to harmonize their legislation concerning financial markets. And that’s directly connected to what the executive body of the EAEU, led by Sergey Glazyev, is working on, extensively: designing the lineaments of an alternative financial/economic system to what the West would rather coin as Bretton Woods 3.​..
..​President Putin’s speech to the plenary session was quite revealing. To really appreciate the scope of what’s implied, it’s important to remember that the Greater Eurasian Partnership concept was presented by Putin in 2016 at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, focused on a “more extensive Eurasian partnership involving the Eurasian Economic Union” and including China, Pakistan, Iran and India.
​ ​Putin stressed how the drive for developing ties “within the framework of the Greater Eurasian Partnership” (…) “was not the political situation but global economic trends, because the centre of economic development is gradually – we are aware of this, and our businesspeople are aware of this – is gradually moving, continues to move into the Asia-Pacific Region.”
​ ​He added, “in the current international conditions when, unfortunately, traditional trade and economic links and supply chains are being disrupted”, the Greater Eurasian Partnership “is gaining a special meaning.”
​ ​Putin established a direct connection not only between the Greater Eurasian Partnership and EAEU members but also “BRICS members such as China and India”, “the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, ASEAN and other organizations.”​ …
​..​Lavrov this week said that Argentina and Saudi Arabia want to join BRICS, whose next summer in China is being meticulously prepared. Not only that: Lavrov mentioned how quite a few Arab nations want to join the SCO. He was careful to describe this process of converging alliances as “not antagonistic”.
​ ​Putin for his part was careful to define the Greater Eurasian Partnership as “a big civilizational project. The main idea is to create a common space for equitable cooperation for regional organizations”, changing “the political and economic architecture on the entire continent.”​ …
​..The Eurasian Economic Forum has shown once again that this high-speed – economic integration – train has already left the station. It’s quite enlightening to notice the sharp contrast with the endless doom and gloom afflicting a collective West prone to inflation, energy shortages, food shortages, fictional “narratives” and the defense of neo-Nazis under the banner of liberal “democracy”.​ (It’s ​Globo-Cap what’s making “the west​”​ so deathly ​ill​, sez I.)

The Eurasian Economic Union Steps Up

[John Day]

​Ukraine War update explains that ancient Russian T-62 tanks are now in Ukraine, not as main battle tanks, but at mobile bunkers to man roadblocks, fire with cannon and heavy machine-guns if necessary (against commando raids) and to give Russian troops a secure place to avoid Ukrainian commando attacks, especially at night. Russian forces now have a work-week pattern, with big, rapid territorial advances every Monday, followed by securing the area for the week, and preparing for next Monday… https://thesaker.is/sitrep-operation-z-were-going-down/

​ ​The process of ‘disowning’ the Ukraine has started.
​ ​Gen. Milley notes that the US has reopened military-to-military level talks with the Russians. His call to his Russian counterpart last week was “important” and it was “purposeful”
​ ​Of course, the talk of another peace plan is not born of care for people or human rights or democracy or deep held care for the Ukrainian people. It is driven by desperation and is a desperate grasp at avoiding a psychological defeat bigger than Afghanistan.
​ ​TASS/ Russia’s State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin took to his Telegram channel to highlight that the US and its partners do not plan to provide real assistance to Ukraine.
​ ​Ukraine will only get 15% of the $40 billion promised by the US, he said.
​ ​“Washington and Brussels do not really intend to help Ukraine, or solve its economic and social issues. They only need Ukraine to fight Russia till the last Ukrainian,” Volodin said.
​ ​According to the recent aid to Ukraine legislation signed by President Joe Biden, 35% of the $40 billion is going to finance the US Armed Forces, he explained. Meanwhile, 45.2% of that amount is set to be spent on other countries, not Ukraine, while another 4.8% will be earmarked to support refugees, and restore the US diplomatic mission in Ukraine. “Ukraine will only receive 15% of the allotted sum,” the speaker revealed.
​ ​But Ukrainians will have to pay off the whole sum, he said. The US is aware that Kiev will not be able to service the debt in the future. “That is why they are seizing Ukraine’s last reserves, including grain, which is what we are seeing right now”.
​ ​A list of those that want a piece of the pie is shaping up. Of course, Poland is not suddenly in love with the Ukraine without a reason. They want their piece of the land pie.​ ​https://thesaker.is/sitrep-operation-z-consequences-petty-tabaquis-howling/

​”Russia is stealing Ukraine’s Grain”​ (but only if you count Crimea as “Ukraine”, not if Crimea is part of Russia. Donetsk and Luhansk are no longer “Ukraine”, either.)
“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will cause global starvation” … As Reuters reported this week, Ukraine still managed to export crops: “The ministry data showed that Ukraine has exported 46.51 mmt so far in the 2021/22 July-June season, versus 40.85 mmt a season earlier.” (Reuters 19 May 2022)
Frankly speaking, 22 mmt of grain will make little difference to the global shortage as it stands. Paradoxically Ukraine is paying for weapons provided by the West through grain exports.” Is it any surprise that Ukraine wants to use Odessa to ship its 70% expected export of grain crops and other products, as to be able to continue to pay for weapon deliveries? Ukrainian exports have largely transferred to Romanian, judging by the ship congestion seen on AIS.
​ ​Importantly, none of the Western experts or corporate MSM outlets have been able to mention the fact that Russia is the world’s largest exporter of grain, about 4 times the amount of wheat that Ukraine does, about 18% of global exports and this year is expected record crops harvest.​..
Sea mines
​ ​This narrative has been crafted for several months now, it first started by denying that Ukraine has laid sea mines to stop potential Russian amphibious assault on its shore, principally in the Odessa region. Practically all the Western media and experts rehashed the Ukrainian position that there were Russian sea mines. As stated in Russian MoD and maritime press releases, Ukrainian mines have drifted all over the Black Sea.
​ ​An estimated 200 – 400 anchor mines were laid around Odessa and the northwest Black Sea. Back in February some of them have parted from their chains in storms and subsequently drifted with the current southwards. A couple of mines had temporarily closed the Bosphorous to shipping transit several times,
​ ​One that was neutralised by the Romanian Navy just happened to be an old sea mine that have distinct Ukrainian markings​…
​ Now we have the grain crop blockade by the Russian Navy narrative, tied in with the alarms of a global famine, opportunely provoked by Russia, (as previously outlined above in Part 1). There are calls to have NATO ships to escort the bulkers in the Black Sea. Slight snag with that is who gets to demine the Ukrainian ports? Ukraine or NATO?​ …
​ ​(UK Minister of Defense) Liz Truss stated that “the UK would want British naval ships to join the escort if the practicalities could be sorted, including demining the harbour and providing Ukraine with longer-range weapons to defend the harbour from Russian attack.” See how a “humanitarian mission” is tightly dovetailed into a case for “sending more weapons”.​..
..Not a single Western MSM outlet has bothered to mention what the Russian MoD and Navy are doing with regards to the blocked shipping. As with the now famous land corridors, Russia has implemented a maritime version for civilian shipping. This hardly a blockade. This humanitarian corridor is part of the IMO’s “establishment and support the implementation of a blue safe maritime corridor in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov”.

Grains of deceit (updated with visual of maritime corridor set up by the Russian Navy)

​ ​After being accused of using the food supply as blackmail and a bargaining chip, Russia said Wednesday its military will open up protected sea corridors for international shipping to pass through from seven Ukrainian ports that have thus far been blockaded.
​ ​According to a defense ministry statement reported by Bloomberg late in the day, “Humanitarian maritime corridors from ports on the Black Sea and Azov Sea, including Odesa, will operate from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily.”…Russia has stressed that its military is engaged in extensive and complex demining operations due thousands of mines dotting Ukraine’s coast placed by Ukrainian forces, making international shipping dangerous and impossible. As reported in the independent Moscow Times:
​ ​The port of Mariupol has resumed normal operations, Russia’s Defense Ministry announced Wednesday.
​ ​The Defense Ministry said Black Sea Fleet specialists cleared more than 12,000 mines from the seaport and its surrounding areas. https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/russia-open-sea-corridors-ukraine-ports-amid-wheat-crisis-warns-ukrainian-mines

[John Day]

The Russian ministry of Defense has a lot to say about US bioweapons programs/labs in Ukraine, and the complete falsification of reporting documents every year, even changing reports from year to year; sloppiness. I’m picking out this bit about Smallpox, related to “monkeypox”, as you will recall…​​

​ ​As part of the special military operation, materials of US instructors training Ukrainian specialists in emergency response to smallpox outbreaks were discovered in biolaboratories in Ukraine.

​ ​The Pentagon’s interest in this infection is far from accidental: the return of the smallpox pathogen would be a global catastrophe for all mankind.
​ ​Thus, compared to COVID-19, this pathogen is just as contagious (infectious), but its lethality is 10 times higher.
​ ​As early as 2003, the US Department of Defense established the Smallpox Vaccination Programme, which requires all US military personnel to be vaccinated. Vaccination in the United States is compulsory for diplomatic and medical personnel. This demonstrates that the US considers smallpox as a priority pathogenic biological agent for combat use, and that vaccine prophylaxis activities are aimed at protecting its own military contingents.
​ ​Lack of proper controls and biosecurity breaches in the US could lead to the use of this pathogen for terrorist purposes. Between 2014 and 2021, unaccounted-for vials of the virus were repeatedly found in laboratories at the Federal Drug Administration and the US Army Infectious Disease Research Institute (Maryland) and the Vaccine Research Centre (Pennsylvania).
​ ​Work at these organisations was in violation of World Health Assembly Resolution 49.10 of 1996, which stipulated that only one US laboratory, the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, could store smallpox pathogen.​ https://thesaker.is/russian-mod-briefing-on-the-results-of-the-analysis-of-documents-related-to-the-military-biological-activities-of-the-united-states-on-the-territory-of-ukraine/

Meryl Nass MD: Here’s what you should know about the latest Money Pox … The smallpox vaccine causes a huge number of myocarditis cases and other known cardiac problems, making it almost certainly more dangerous than the risk of getting monkeypox. One in 220 recipients developed an obvious case of myocarditis in a US military study published in 2015, and one in 30 got a subclinical case.

Why would ANYONE take such a high risk of cardiac damage to avoid a miniscule risk of money pox? Only because they were misinformed. https://merylnass.substack.com/p/heres-what-you-should-know-about?s=r

[John Day]

​Your cellphone data can measure your carbon footprint based on travels you make and purchases you make, tax you accordingly, or exclude you from economic activity and travel if you don’t do your fair share… It’s a “green” business model.
​ ​It is important to remember the ultimate goal of the ‘climate change’ promot​e​rs (World Economic Forum) is not an energy system that changes the global climate. The goal of the ‘climate change’ group is to create a carbon trading system; a new financial mechanism (a global tax program) to control human activity on a world-wide basis. This system also needs a digital identity in order to work.
​ ​You cannot tax or trade things you cannot track. As a result, there was always going to be a need for an individual tracking and monitoring system that would connect to the global digital identity and determine the carbon footprint.
​https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/05/24/canadian-multinational-executive-outlines-tech-initiative-to-create-consumer-carbon-footprint-tracker/

UN Warns of “Total Societal Collapse” Due to Breaching of Planetary Boundaries, Nafeez Ahmed
(OK, I’ll get an iPhone and you can carbon-tax me to save us.) Thanks Again, Red.
When the United Nations published its 2022 ‘Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction’ (GAR2022) in May, the world’s attention was on its grim verdict that the world was experiencing an accelerating trend of natural disasters and economic crises. But not a single media outlet picked up the biggest issue: the increasing probability of civilisational collapse.
Buried in the report, which was endorsed by UN Secretary-General António Guterres, is the finding that escalating synergies between disasters, economic vulnerabilities and ecosystem failures are escalating the risk of a “global collapse” scenario…
​ ​The planetary boundaries framework was developed by the Stockholm Resilience Centre in 2009 to provide what it calls a “science-based analysis of the risk that human perturbations will destabilise the Earth system at the planetary scale”. This framework identifies a range of nine key ecosystems which, if pushed passed a certain threshold, will dramatically reduce the “safe operating space” for human habitation.
​ ​The report notes that at least four of the nine planetary boundaries now seem to be operating outside the safe operating space.​..
..​biochemical flows and ‘novel entities’ (“new engineered chemicals, materials or organisms and natural elements mobilised by human activity such as heavy metals”) have “far exceeded” that space.​.. according to Professor Will Steffen of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, two more planetary boundaries – ocean acidification and freshwater use – would probably by then also be “transgressed”, meaning that we are breaching six out of nine planetary boundaries.​.. “From the scenario analysis… it is evident that in the absence of ambitious policy and near global adoption and successful implementation, the world continually tends towards the global collapse scenario,” it says.​..
​ Global Catastrophic Risk (GCR) events are defined as those leading to more than 10 million fatalities or greater than $10 trillion in damages.
The paper’s worst-case global collapse scenario is described as the result of multiple planetary boundaries being breached, increasing the likelihood of GCR events that set in motion a sequence of economic and political breakdowns, which further drive ecological collapse processes.
​In this scenario, “total societal collapse is a possibility”, the paper warns.​
[And when your only tool is a hierarchical global bureaucracy…]
​ ​Although “reactive” policies are necessary to mitigate existing risks, the paper calls for a focus on “preventive” policies to build greater system resilience and to avoid further crossing planetary boundaries.
​ ​In particular, it calls for “the creation of a planetary boundaries goal” in the next version of the SDGs adopted after 2030, along with “the incorporation of GCR into the targets”.​..
​..​A senior advisor to the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction and contributor to the Global Assessment Report who spoke to Byline Times on condition of anonymity, claims that the GAR2022 was watered-down before public release.
​ ​The source said that the world had “passed a point of no return” and “I don’t feel that this is being properly represented in UN or media as of now”.
​ ​“The GAR2022 is an eviscerated skeleton of what was included in earlier drafts,” they claimed.​ ​ [I’m homesteading. Best I can​ do…]​ https://bylinetimes.com/2022/05/26/un-warns-of-total-societal-collapse-due-to-breaching-of-planetary-boundaries/

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