Just Some Randomer
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Wishing you a Merry Christmas, Raúl, and heartfelt thanks for all you do here every day without fail.
@Oroboros – I’m seeing a striking resemblance to Jar-Jar Binks – the not remotely irritating CGI character so beloved of Star Wars fandom.
@ Dr D.
““The war is over and it is safe for Syrian refugees to return home.”
Huh? Sure, now that it’s HEADED BY ISIS.”I know – if it wasn’t so tragic it’d be hilarious. First we are told that we have to accept a wave of refugees from Afghanistan and other places where ISIS and their friends have taken over because to do otherwise would be to leave those poor people in the hands of inhumanly cruel Islamist head-choppers.
These days we are told that it’s essential we send the Syrians home because now that their country has been overrun by ISIS and their fellow Islamist head-choppers everything is just hunky-dory now and it’s perfectly safe there.
The hypocrisy is making my head hurt.
After Syria fell, why would anyone listen to Moscow?
Oh I don’t know. The US Military got its ass run out of Afghanistan in the most humiliating way imaginable only a few years ago, but apparently we’re still expected to listen to them for some reason.
“I don’t know if that last sentence is necessarily true…”
Well unless the Pentagon is hiding some top-secret Oreshnik type weaponry that actually works (a possibility, I suppose) then I can’t conceive of how, and with what weapons, the West could conduct an effective pre-emptive attack on Russia that doesn’t involve mushroom clouds.
Any attempt to marshal a large invasion force of infantry, tanks and what have you in Europe would (literally) be visible from space months in advance and thus could not be pre-emptive. Russia would probably just sink all of the handful of troop transports the US is capable of deploying as they cross the Atlantic.
Hiring Tom Cruise to fly some super-stealthy mission in his F18 to drop conventional bombs on Moscow is hardly likely to do more than bring down a few buildings and thus would not be effective at achieving anything strategically significant.
Maybe they could drop some Tomahawks on a Nuclear plant somewhere in Russia – that would be effective, but mostly in the sense of provoking a hypersonic nuclear response.
Seems to me there’s a huge gap in the escalation ladder between the highest rung of what the West can do with our outdated, and hardly plentiful, conventional forces and the very top (nuclear) rung. We’ve tried everything and have now reached the point where there’s literally only that one rung left. It’s a big jump to reach it, but it looks like we have just the kind of lunatics in charge that are prepared to give it a try. A number of them have said so, publicly, on TV in the past week.
Remember the point JFK made in his speech on June 10th 1963 at American University about the absolute necessity of never putting a nuclear capable power in a position where it has to choose between a humiliating defeat and nuclear war? Well guess what? We’ve done exactly that – to ourselves.
@ Dr D: Pretty sure Russia would have pointed out Stormshadow (what a preposterously pretentious name) vs ATACMS. Their S400 radar would be able to identify which it was based on the very different flight profiles.
Notwithstanding the incomprehensibly aggressive attitude of the chihuahua UK, I don’t think we can let Blinken and Sullivan off the hook for giving the OK for US involvement. Not sure how they got around the Pentagon this time though. Maybe they found and exploited the traitors within the Military.
So I see Ukraine is claiming that Russia has hit Dnipro with an RS-26 ICBM. Both Wagner-affiliated telegram channels and US Officials are denying.
What a time to be alive.
“Tell you what: if it’s good for Europe then fair’s fair. We put a 100% Tariff on EUROPEAN cars, and also match tariffs on whatever China has, probably 100% tariff on us as well. We lower when they lower. Goose. Gander. Show me.”
No need. There’s a reason Ford has manufacturing plants in Europe and conversely BMW and Mercedes make cars for the US market in, er, the US. Businesses aren’t stupid, they’ll work around the tariffs in the most efficient manner. Net net, Europe gains some jobs making cars for US corporations and the US gains some jobs making cars for European manufacturers.
“Stavridis, a retired admiral who often appears on TV to share his insight on international affairs, told CNN’s Michael Smerconish on Saturday that Ukraine might also join the EU. “Putin will hate that part of it…”
I very much doubt Putin will hate that part of it – EU membership was offered to Zelensky as part the Istanbul agreement – which he rejected. NATO membership is what’s of concern to Russia, they don’t give a damn about Ukraine joining the failed, powerless and collapsing EU. Why would they? Membership would pretty much oblige the EU to foot the bill for keeping Ukraine limping along.
Pogrom against poor innocent Israeli football fans in Amsterdam? Not quite.
“Israeli football hooligans tore down Palestine flags as they marched through Amsterdam in a Wednesday night of chaos ahead of Maccabi Tel Aviv’s visit to Ajax.
Videos show dozens of hooded figures dressed fully in black cheering and chanting ‘f*** you Palestine’ and ‘ole’ as one climbed halfway up the front of a building and removed a flag on the Rokin, a major street.
Footage also shows one thug thumping a taxi with crowbar before the driver takes off, while there have been reported clashes between the visiting hooligans and cabbies.
Meanwhile, clips shared by a prominent pro-hooligan page depict bust-ups purported to be between Maccabi fans and a group of Moroccan Ajax supporters.”I see the ‘Woman hating misogynist’ Trump has appointed the first female Whitehouse head of staff in history. Clearly, he’s toying with us – messing with our minds…..
“The investigation of election fraud, in and of itself, is *not* dangerous, as long as it is rooted in *truth* “
I can certainly see how some people might consider it extremely dangerous indeed – due to their being the parties perpetrating the aforementioned fraud….
Truth is the mortal enemy of ‘The Narrative’.
@Dr D: “Point: If Britain of all people can function with nearly no bureaucracy, get all that done up to 1901, then maybe we can do with 90% less and STILL have 4 Times the bureaucracy they did in their heyday?”
Quite so. At the height of Empire, the jewel in the crown (India, with its population in the hundreds of millions) was run by a Civil Service staff of no more than 1,200 mostly British administrators. I’ve worked for companies that had more people than that in their HR department.
“One unnamed “long-term Trump adviser” told the Financial Times on Monday that the Republican candidate could resolve the conflict with “a reimagining of the failed Minsk agreements of 2014 and 2015,” under which Kiev agreed to grant some autonomy to the majority Russian-speaking regions of Donetsk and Lugansk. This time around, the adviser said, the deal would be enforced by EU peacekeepers.”
Someone needs to tell this bozo that Donetsk and Lugansk are Russia now. Kiev will not be ‘Granting’ them anything, and Trump has precisely zero leverage over what the final settlement in Ukraine will be (hint: Moscow will dictate terms of surrender). I do not believe that Russia will ever again fall for the Western ‘Let’s all sign a treaty that we will break the moment it suits us’ gambit.
I appreciate Trump’s position on ending the conflict in Ukraine, but really, all he can do is stop sending weapons and money. Everything thereafter is out of his hands.
@DBS: “The correct strategy is to wear them down to nothing (literally!) by manipulating them into CONTINUING to waste their resources in a fruitless effort to maintain their hegemonic thirst for empire.”
Quite so. You might recall that this is exactly the strategy adopted by Osama Bin Laden.
In his media appearances and addresses throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, Bin Laden carefully laid out the strategy by which he would antagonise and provoke the West, through the use of escalating terrorist attacks, into “bleeding wars.” It was by these wars that Bin Laden stated that he would exhaust and bankrupt the United States and its Western allies.
And of course we fell for it because the prospect of a forever war to feed the MIC was too tempting to pass up.
I certainly don’t expect the election to be fair, scrupulously or even approximately. I would further add that while I have zero expectation of it being legal in every case, we must also consider that some parts of the country have been specifically legislating to permit blatantly irregular activities – making them ‘Legal’ but not fair.
I am genuinely of the opinion that no matter what the announced results of the voting or, more precisely, of the vote counting are, a very large part of the population will not accept them. There’s a lot of hyperbole out there on the interwebs about the possibility of civil war/conflict/whatever post election, and it’s not easy to dismiss the thought of a ‘Fiery but definitely not mostly peaceful’ scenario out of hand.
@ Dr. Day Kyle Young, Waging “Weather Warfare” and “Plunder Capitalism” on the good folk of the US
As I understand it, the current mass media position on this is that people who believe that the government can control the weather are nut-job conspiraholics, whereas people who believe that the government can control the climate are totally correct and just following ‘The Science’.
Further to the psychopathic ravings of Matthew Brodsky yesterday, it appears that the IDF have decided to follow his advice and open fire on UN Peacekeepers in Lebanon. It would appear that Netanyahoo has resolved to double-down on his mission to make Israel even more of a global pariah state than it already is. When peacekeepers from Ireland etc. start coming home in bodybags things might get a little ugly.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/10/10/israel-iran-war-hezbollah-lebanon-latest-news1/
Two United Nations peacekeepers were wounded on Thursday morning when an Israeli tank fired toward an observation tower at their headquarters in Naqoura, reports Ben Farmer from Beirut.
“The injuries are fortunately, this time, not serious, but they remain in hospital,” a source told the Telegraph.
The attack has caused diplomatic consternation, with Italy, which leads the UN mission, summoning the Israeli ambassador on Thursday afternoon while Ireland has called the incident ‘intolerable.’
Israeli soldiers also fired on a UN position in Ras Naqoura, the source said, “hitting the entrance to the bunker where peacekeepers were sheltering, and damaging vehicles and a communications system”.
The source said the headquarters of the peacekeeping mission, called UNIFIL, and nearby positions have been “repeatedly hit”.
In a later statement, the UN accused Israel of deliberately firing at security cameras on the perimeter of one of its positions.
The United Nations has around 10,000 troops in the country from 50 nations, including several hundred soldiers from Ireland, as they monitor the ‘Blue Line’ between Lebanon and Israel.
@Dr D. “Looks like yet another reason why Americans are so retarded, the effect of lead on the brains of children is well known. Lead with your American beer, yikes.”
And Fluoride of course. Lead, Fluoride and Beer – the drink of champions. Explains a lot when you think about it.
“How Russian Buying Could Help Drive Silver to $50 and Beyond”
Hmm. Have the Russian Central Bank staff been taking Metals trading lessons from Gordon Brown and announcing their intentions to the world so we can all front-run them?
@RIM ‘Easy. Step 1: you step down.’
He can’t though, can he – no longer having an official position from which to step down?
@WES – I’d wager that the main reason 50%+ of the populations of the towns and cities Russia has been taking control of recently haven’t departed is simply that they would prefer to live in the part of former Ukraine that will be run by Russia from now on. These are, after all the Russian speaking and historically Russian Oblasts.
Even if we leave aside cultural and historical affiliations, from a purely pragmatic perspective, whatever is left of rump Ukraine west of the Dnieper after the dust settles, will be an immiserated wreck governed by whichever corrupt gang-boss happens to be top dog on any particular day. Not many people would be making a beeline towards that given the alternative of simply staying put. Similarly, the EU countries had best be making plans for the permanent settlement of the millions of Ukrainians that they are currently hosting, as I doubt there will be anything at all that would convince those people to return to their former homeland and a life of poverty.
“The Subsidy Effect: If you “give” some people $25,000 to buy a house, the cost of all houses will immediately rise $25,000.”
Which is exactly what happened in the UK when the government introduced the ‘Help to Buy’ scheme under which the Government would lend first time buyers up to 40% of the value of a property (interest free over 5 years) for use as a deposit on purchase. Naturally, since this did nothing to increase the supply of properties in high demand areas, prices were driven even higher as the property developers cashed in. They’ve closed this economically illiterate scheme down now, as I understand it.
‘Anyway, that’s the state of your reporters: nobody could have shot Trump because that is against the law. Nobody in USSS could have arranged it, because that would be against MORE laws.’
Reminds me of this:
Regarding ‘Joe Biden’ and his supposed Freudian slips, I well remember him ‘Accidentally’ commenting in an interview before the 2020 election that ‘We have put together I think the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics.‘
And so he did.
Of course, according to the ‘Fact Checkers’ he never said that, and even if he did he meant the exact opposite.
“God I hope capitalism and the Nikkei finally bring the whole system down”
Same here, but October is the traditional month for financial system implosions, so we may have a bit to wait yet. Unless, of course, things in the middle east go kinetic before then.
A combo of unwinding Yen carry trade, US recession, elections, plus a regional war in the ME with consequent soaring oil prices at one and the same time might just be enough to finally tip the cart over in a big way.
“Gen. Mark Milley: Robots to Imminently Replace Humans Soldiers in U.S. Military”
That’s all well and good, but will they be appropriately diverse robots with the correct allocation of genders across their number?
Has anyone else noticed that Ukraine is, apparently, carpeted from top to bottom with ‘Children’s Hospitals?’ Seems like one can barely launch a potato in the country, never mind a missile, without hitting a ‘Children’s Hospital’.
Particularly if the aforementioned potato happens to be sent on it’s airborne way a couple of days before an important decision about funding/arming Ukraine is to be taken.
I’m recalling various incidents like the ‘Maternity Hospital’ strike that was widely reported early last year following which one of the Nurses featuring in the widely distributed video of the event spoke to the media complaining that Ukrainian forces had taken over the hospital and basically kicked the women out several days previously to use the building as a base.
Seems like, once again, a ‘Russian strike on civilians’ was in fact the inevitable outcome of firing lots of air defence missiles into the sky from the middle of cities, most of them hitting nothing and falling back to where they came from, warhead intact.
“It might clear things up for them if they realized that “woke” is simply a disingenuous way of saying insane.”
In exactly the same way that ‘I identify as…‘ really means ‘I pretend to be…‘
“Biden is not quitting. He will do another debate in Sept.”
Biden better be careful or he might find himself catching a bad case of death.
@ Celticbiker – they may not need to do anything more to Assange. Would be interesting to know if he was compelled to take the notavax while in Belmarsh. Another friend (30 years old) of my wife’s was told today that she has terminal cancer. Was perfectly fine six months ago.
@Oriboros – strangely, the US is the only country (of many) I’ve ever been to where # is referred to as ‘Pound’. Everywhere else it’s just ‘Hash’.
@DBS – Holy Moly – your point about the utter silence around the Saudi/Petrodollar situation is spot on. I read a ton of material every day on matters political and economic from sources right across the spectrum from MSM to alternative media. Not a whisper about it anywhere until it was mentioned in passing during an interview with Douglas McGregor on Judge Napolitano’s channel posted just now.
I simply cannot believe that nobody’s picked up on the significance of this anywhere. It seems like the biggest news item for a years but…..crickets. WTF is going on?
“Not too shmart”
Cunning but not smart. What kind of ‘Smart’ gets booted out of country after country over a millenium but never figures out why?
It’s over already?
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 13, 2024
This is why the Gold slam yesterday. Knock it down in advance of events that will spike it up. Exactly the same thing happened hours before Bernanke announced QE1.
Is the US now facing its end-of-empire ‘Suez Crisis’ moment? ‘Allies’ in the region closing ranks against them and closing airspace? Could very well be. It’ll be interesting to see what’s happening at Incirlik air base.
@ Dr D “Mass feeling is Carbs and seed oils but who knows if that’s right. Probably not literally, they are cutting out large, cloudy wings of whatever “it” is, when some still gets through.”
My observation is that much of what passes for ‘Food’ in the US contains numerous substances that are outright banned and illegal to use in most of world. Examples include High Fructose Corn Syrup (there’s the cause of your diabetes epidemic right there), Genetically Modified corn, soy and so on, and any number of colourings/flavourings/preservatives.
I am not saying that no other country has serious issues with the quality of, and nutrition provided by, the food consumed by the general population, but it seems that US food manufacturers have gone out of their way to include some really nasty and dangerous things in their products.
Even a comparison of the US and European versions of a McDonalds meal containing what are ostensibly the same items reveals how much more polluted the US version is. The humble french fry, for example, lists 14 ingredients in the US version whereas in Europe they contain potatoes, oil, dextrose and salt.
If I were looking to understand why so many people are overweight and unhealthy I think I’d start with the regulatory frameworks that allow all of this.
@Dr D. “……If so, my guess is he’s the equivalent to our UniParty RINOs, and he gets by on people over 60 and divides the others. Let me know, but I bet the first. Nobody likes him now AND nobody EVER liked him AND your voting system hasn’t worked in 20 years.”
Macron got into power purely and solely because all the other parties agreed on an ‘Anyone but (that dangerous fascist!) Le Pen’ policy and coordinated during the second round of voting to ensure it was implemented. Luckily for Rothschild-backed Macron he was the anointed spoiler candidate and so it came to pass that the lions lay down with the lambs across virtually the whole political spectrum (other than Le Pen’s team) and all supported his run.
“So what you’re saying is, if I leave the country, destroy my passport (that’s physically impossible)…”
Damn right. You can even blow them up with a jetliner full of kerosene and they’ll still flutter to the ground unscathed. Damn tough stuff those passports are made from. You’ll probably have to fling it into Mount Doom to unmake it.
