Here is a headline from a couple of days ago:
FAA could clear Boeing 737 MAX to fly again within weeks
Yes, the very last country to pull the 737-MAX out of use is going to be the first to put it back. There is some serious money being lost by Boeing and the Airlines, and they want to put a stop to it. This is all about millions and millions of Benjamins, for “they” are taking a shortct to save even more money.
A draft report by an FAA-appointed board of pilots, engineers and other experts concluded that pilots only need additional computer-based training to understand MCAS, rather than simulator time.
Simulators are EXPENSIVE, so the plan is to give the pilots a joystick and a computer, and maybe throw in some lectures and videos of other pilots using a real flight simulator. Are you ready to rush to reserve a flight?
This isn’t a bad deal just for the flight crews and passengers, but the pure stench of it is contaminating other arenas. A Denier site I’m not going to link has managed to leverage the lack of regulator oversight by the FAA to lots of other places.

Planes, Automobiles, Bicycles, Homes, Hospitals, Schools, and Sidewalks Can All Be Made Unsafe by Mad Science, Rush to Market, and Corrupt Regulators

They don’t include “vaccines” in that list because their readers understand perfectly well that if the FAA is a crap agency, why not the FDA as well? Much as I hate to admit it, the Deniers didn’t have to break a sweat to score these perfectly valid points.
Does anyone imagine Volkswagen could have gotten away with all those years of cheating on their emissions if the regulators had been doing their jobs?
How did China get away with shipping that cancer-causing blood pressure medicine to the US for so many years? It’s safe to assume some bored “regulator” was just waving the stuff on past without doing a single test.
This is going to cost us. I’m out of links, but here is a headline to consider.
Russia’s Irkut aircraft manufacturer has posted the first video of a direct flight by its MS-21-300 airliner from Irkutsk to Ulyanovsk-Vostochny Airfield.
The brand-new Russian passenger craft is designed to transport up to 211 people over a distance of 6,400 kilometres.
There are competitors out there, and they can’t be fended off by “sanctions” forever. Allowing unwatched & unregulated companies to run amok is going to hurt us all in the long term.

Posted by: Zachary Smith | Apr 28 2019 19:58 utc | 4

Sanders takes on Fox — and emerges triumphant
The key word in that link is “Fox”. Sanders wasn’t at some leftie flower-sniffing place, but went right into the lion’s den. And the the other thing is that Trump was watching. (Fox!) Reports are that he was just a little bit impressed. It was like somebody had thrown a small thimble full of cool water at him. The man truly does believe he is some kind of superhero and doesn’t have a clue Hillary was probably the only person on the planet he could have defeated in 2016.
That Trump’s only chance in 2020 is if the Democratic candidate is Hillary (again) – or possibly Biden – has made me wonder about all the bafflegab of him working to get a huge war chest for his 2020 campaign. A link I saw today gives me a clue as to what may be happening.
How California’s faltering high-speed rail project was ‘captured’ by costly consultants
The bolded part is what needs the attention. What if the upcoming campaign goes for broke by spending money as if it were Monopoly Money. What if all the important events are at Trump-owned or Trump controlled properties. What if the “costly consultants” are Jared and Ivanka and a host of other tightly controlled family members or employees. They’d charge approximately 5 times the going rate in rents, and about the same for their contracted services. Trump is about me/me/me, but he is also VERY big on the money issue.
Tinfoil hat aside: we’ve been speculating about Trump’s motives for folding over on every single issue important to the pissant apartheid state. My own speculations have included pictures of Trump with an underaged farm animal, or him with a very young kid on that billionaire’s Pervert Plane. Others have preferred the idea he is a secret zionist.
What If Trump was given something like $100,000,000 for presenting the Golan to Holy Israel? Or $5,000,000/month for as long as End-Times Rapture guy Pompeo is Secretary of State?
Given the nature of our Orange POTUS, this would explain a lot of things.

Posted by: Zachary Smith | Apr 28 2019 21:08 utc | 6

Boeing Didn’t Tell Southwest Or FAA That It Had Disabled Critical Safety Alerts On 737 MAX
The article also discusses how some frontline FAA safety inspectors wanted to ground the MAXes until the “AoA Disagree” indicators were re-enabled, but were overridden by higher-ups who insisted that it was not a primary safety feature.

Posted by: S | Apr 28 2019 21:21 utc | 8

“A six part investigation of Greta Thunberg and the powers behind her climate campaign”
Wathever power is behind Thunberg – the movement she (or whomeever) intitated is very necessary and has an important role in agenda setting. The refugee subject has been pushed back for now. This harms right-wing forces. And that’s a good thing.

Posted by: Pnyx | Apr 28 2019 21:24 utc | 10

Indonesia has been systematically repressing the indigenous inhabitants of West Papua since it was annexed after being handed to Indonesia by the Dutch. A UN vote for decolonisation and free association was seriously flawed. Human rights abuses are rampant. the Locals armed with bows and arrows wage a low level war against the Australian trained Indonesian military armed with US attack helicopters. Protests are brutally repressed, the press is forbidden. Deaths of locals protesting the environmental destruction at the US owned Grasberg Freeport mine were not investigated.
There is a petition in advance of the May Australian federal election

Posted by: Dadda | Apr 28 2019 22:16 utc | 12

Mediastan: A Wikileaks Road Movie | Full Documentary

Mediastan: A Wikileaks Road Movie: Due to the extraordinary circumstances surrounding the arrests of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning, Sixteen Films and Journeyman Pictures are providing a time-limited free access to the Wikileaks road movie Mediastan. Mediastan is a documentary film directed by Johannes Wahlström and co-produced by Julian Assange, detailing the publication of the very documents for which both Assange and Manning have been incarcerated.

Posted by: S | Apr 28 2019 22:30 utc | 14

***Cory Morningstar***
I made a determined search to learn more about this person, and had extremely limited success. She seems to be a middle-aged woman living in Canada who has proved to her satisfaction that all the “Green” organizations are fronts for Big Everything. For all I know she may be right. But then I’d ask, “So What”?

***Similar powers are behind the New Green Deal (explained here…***

Over and over a woman in a video told me that a new congressional committee was being organized, and that I would have no input into its organization or actions. “So What?” Neither of my two Indiana Senators do more than have a young intern pretend to pay attention to me when I call. Ditto for the House guy. If anybody can explain to me what this woman was yammering about, I’d welcome an explanation.

***Jacob Levich (aka @cordeliers) – Bill Gates and the Myth of Overpopulation***

Mr. Levich seems to be an internet administration person at a New York University. He believes Bill Gates is purely evil. Again, for all I know he’s right, but what has that got to do with the price of beans?
We have a problem with Climate Change. It is going to destroy civilization as we know it if it isn’t halted, and soon. And that might be the optimistic way of looking at it. Effective things are going to happen, or they are not.
I cannot say I learned a thing from the Morningstar woman, the youtube lady, or Mr. Levich, and can’t see how any of them are helping to halt the use of fossil fuels.

Posted by: Zachary Smith | Apr 28 2019 23:08 utc | 16

Apologies.
Starts at 55.23

Posted by: Jimmy | Apr 28 2019 23:46 utc | 18

@ Jimmy #19
Thanks for the link and the time stamp. I was able to hang in there until the 27 minute mark when the woman got into a rant about destruction of the Military Industrial Complex as being the key to saving the world from climate change. At that point I had all I could take. There were many dreadful wars before the first piece of coal was dug out of the ground, and there is nothing I know of to prevent future ones even if the world came to be powered by 100% Green Energy.
While listening to her incoherent rambling there was plenty of time to use another open window to google the subjects which came up. Yes, the Greta Thunberg kid is a front for some slick organizations. But so what? At least a message is getting on the airwaves that there is something to worry about. Quite unlike the last 25 years of endless Exxon and Koch Brothers propaganda to the contrary.
Possibly twenty seven minutes wasn’t enough, but I was becoming convinced neither “Cory” nor her interviewer knew **** from Shinola.

Posted by: Zachary Smith | Apr 29 2019 0:52 utc | 20

“I was able to hang in there until the 27 minute mark when the woman got into a rant about destruction of the Military Industrial Complex as being the key to saving the world from climate change. At that point I had all I could take.”
I think she meant the NGO Industrial Complex. They undermine non-corporate environmental activism.
“Yes, the Greta Thunberg kid is a front for some slick organizations. But so what?”
The project is not to save the planet but rather to find new sources of income for corporates.
You can read her work here:
https://bit.ly/2TZyUKd

Posted by: Jimmy | Apr 29 2019 2:04 utc | 22

“Myth of overpopulation? Myth? Really?”
You describe increases in population.
Not overpopulation.
We live in a world of fake scarcity. That fake scarcity is necessary to ensure elite differentials are maintained.
Radical reduction in population is simply a means of further protecting elite differentials, and very little to do with overpopulation.

Posted by: Jimmy | Apr 29 2019 2:16 utc | 24

Open Thread
Joe Biden Is a Disaster Waiting to Happen
Maybe someday one of these authors will find something (truthfully) nice to say about the man. I’m not holding my breath on that one.

Posted by: Zachary Smith | Apr 29 2019 2:44 utc | 26

@b
I am continually amazed at your reading list. Thanks for the Morningstar and Gates links. I’m very glad to see this subject on the table here.
Many thanks.

Posted by: Grieved | Apr 29 2019 3:35 utc | 28

@ blues #28

As far as the “global warming” goes, I think it is far too late to save the earth from a martian perma-desert future by just “limiting fossil fuels”.

So do I. When I read the wiki of that Swedish kid and saw a demand for “Paris Agreement” I realized the claims about her being a puppet were true. “Limiting” won’t work, for not only do we have to go cold-turkey with the fossil fuels, but in my opinion we’ve got to start pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere and putting it away as solid carbon. Say, in the deepest ocean trenches. And I fear we’ll have to do something like you speak of – what they call geo-engineering. The problem is that is we’ll be like kids playing with matches. I’d suppose some big mirrors could go into space. Another possibility: build a fleet of hydrogen-fueled airplanes and make (and keep making) high-altitude contrails. Extremely expensive, but almost instantly these could be “turned off”.
It’s a bad situation.

Posted by: Zachary Smith | Apr 29 2019 3:54 utc | 30

@ Grieved and Zachary Smith
I appreciate your positive sentiments about our future and I agree with them.
China and Russia show a more positive face of our species than the bully West that can’t seem to evolve beyond the Might-Makes-Right mentality along with dominant patriarchy and mythical monotheistic religions that make them believe themselves better than nonbelievers.
I write this in response to the alien airships comment of Mr. Smith with which I partly agree. I have been a sci-fi fan all my life and have read enough of these sightings to believe they are real. So assume they are real aliens for a moment and think about what they might be about.
1. There is something on/in our planet that the aliens want for whatever reason and they are here to take it but have chosen not to contact us in the process.
2. The aliens have been watching us and are attempting some social engineering by directly or indirectly getting advanced technology to China/Russia
3. The aliens are watching us and will step in with social engineering if we try to nuke the neighborhood and neuter all the weapons.
4. The West or China/Russia have developed this technology that defies current laws of physics and they are waiting for the right time to use it.
5. None of the above and we go extinct because the aliens did not find us salvageable.
I just hope one of those scenarios happens in what is left of my lifetime because I want to know how we turn out…..grin

Posted by: psychohistorian | Apr 29 2019 4:41 utc | 32

If the Putin forehead is an actual image, then it’s marvelous one.

Posted by: Full Spectrum Domino | Apr 29 2019 5:58 utc | 34

psychohistorian says:
I just hope one of those scenarios happens in what is left of my lifetime because I want to know how we turn out…..grin
well, psychohistorian, the physics signature left on the ground in lower Manhattan on 911 absolutely negates the possibility of any known kind of demolition.
so, your 4th scenario has been confirmed.
as to how we turn out?
the universe will provide.

Posted by: john | Apr 29 2019 10:06 utc | 36

Saudis citizens seem to be free to commit crimes within the United States:
Pro Publica – Saudi Fugitives Accused of Serious Crimes Get Help to Flee While U.S. Officials Look the Other Way
The linked article is worth reading. I do not believe it is credible that US officials “failed to notice the pattern” of Saudi students absconding from justice, or that the “priority” of fugitives facing justice for serious crimes was too low compared to terrorism. Note that the former US Ambassador quoted as saying that he would never have hesitated to raise the matter with the Crown prince but that the matter was never “on his desk” did NOT say he had never heard of the issue – he had obviously given a specific instruction to keep the issue away from his desk.
There are two issues most probably directly involved:
1) US officials and police officers must have received substantial bribes as a matter of course to turn a blind eye and not follow up on issues.
2) The direct and active involvement of the US government in promoting and protecting terrorism and false flag events substantially changes the fundamental context with respect to absconding of Saudi fugitives. Rather than a relationship between two parties, at least one of which operates on the basis of conformity with the rule of law, we are dealing with two parties, both of whom deliberately and as a matter of course connive to subvert the rule of law in the quest for criminal interests. Thus the issue of the Saudi fugitives conflicts not with a “higher counterterrorist priority” but with the personal criminal interests of US officials and US diplomats.

Posted by: BM | Apr 29 2019 13:11 utc | 38

Oops! Hadn’t noticed the word “today” – so evidently it is indeed later

Posted by: BM | Apr 29 2019 13:15 utc | 40

Has Assange been visited by reporters? Is he allowed such visits? Why not? Wouldn’t it be smart for him to hold a news conference?

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Apr 29 2019 15:13 utc | 42

@ Zachary Smith | Apr 28, 2019 10:13:07 PM | 24
In the mid-fifties (I’m REALLY old) I was an air traffic controller at a USAF base in Japan. One day something flashed across our radar screen at what seemed to be an impossible velocity. We called the control center, where there were screens with much larger radii. They told us that they had seen it as well, and that they estimated its velocity at around 1500 mph. That is much, much too slow for a meteor, and much, much faster than any existing (that we knew of) terrestrial vehicle.
And that’s all I know about that . . .

Posted by: AntiSpin | Apr 29 2019 15:39 utc | 44

Posted by: psychohistorian | Apr 29, 2019 12:41:28 AM | 33 on belief in aliens
Well well well, Psychohistorian, I thought you were opposed to faith-based religions, but here you are promoting a faith-based religion based on faith in aliens!!!
Conscious living beings (not just humans) prefer to be able to control their environment, and especially to be able to prevent undesired and unpredictable dangers. Not having control over dangers (such as thunder and lightning, drought, floods, pestilence, wildfires, sickness, death) is intrinsically aversive. Having control over them, or appearing to have some control over them (even if that appearance is completely false) is far more preferable and induces more peace of mind. For human beings, believing that these unpredictable events are controlled by a god or gods allows us to believe we can exert some control over these events, and gives us thereby valuable peace of mind. We think by praying to a god, pleasing him, flattering him, making offerings to him and otherwise bribing him, he will protect us from these dangers. This is why all civilisations and ethnic groups have always had religious beliefs since the beginnings of human society. When despite our best efforts to please our god an adverse event takes place, we can always think of an imperfection in our performance that we can put the blame on for displeasing our god – humans are always imperfect.
Traditional religions (but NOT ad hoc and egocentric religions such as faith in aliens, that have not developed in society over hundreds of years) invariably have a side-effect of critical importance to the stability and safety of human society – the society-centric development of ethics and moral values, that help us find our way more safely through life within society, and give us a independent compass to help us decide what is right and what is wrong.
Ad hoc and egocentric religious beliefs cannot substitute for traditional religions in providing this moral compass, because human being by nature tend to pick and choose what we believe, based on our personal motivations – and those personal motivations are driven by our egocentric imperfections especially greed, envy, hatred and ignorance, not on rational understanding of what is best for society. In an egocentric religion, we pick out those facets of religious faith and action which we feel “suit us”, and reject those to which we are aversive – and in doing so we nullify the critical role of religion as a moral compass (if you do a search, you might find a recent post I made on MoA discussing in more detail the critical importance of traditional religion for moral values). As a result we end up with a lot of superstitious beliefs about what causes all the things we cannot rationally understand, without the real benefits of something that can give us worthwhile help and guidance in our lives.
An aside: if a traditional religion is adapted or subverted based on personal motivations – the perfect example is the Christian Zionism of idiots like Pompeo, Pence, Bush etc – the moral compass intrinsic to that traditional religion is subverted and recentred on the ego driving those personal motivations. The same principle applies to some extent if we decide, for example, we want to follow some Eastern religion, but insist on picking and choosing what aspects we follow and what aspects we reject, based on a subjective notion that it has to be “adapted to be more suitable and relevant to modern Western lifestyles”.
Going back to Psychohistorian’s beliefs in aliens, why should we believe in aliens? Firstly, it is a natural tendency human beings have to fixate on some self-sustaining superstitious belief to explain any phenomena we cannot understand. Secondly, there is good reason to believe that the US military and CIA (and British) have for decades had a covert policy of promoting superstitious beliefs in aliens and UFO’s. This serves a multitude of purposes: as a cover for certain top secret military projects; as a cover for illegal activities; as a means of undermining rational abilities of analysis and discrimination in society (to protect the military and CIA when they are misusing their power and funding for personal advantage); as a means of sowing disinformation and confusion with respect to false flags and criminal activities; as a means of discrediting rational critics (for example, rational 9/11 sceptics by lumping them with irrational conspiracy theories); as a means of diverting attention; and so on.
——
Posted by: Grieved | Apr 29, 2019 12:06:30 AM | 32
What reason is there to doubt the theory that hydrocarbons are derived from biological material? Are you not just indulging in wishful thinking, and making excuses for your desired dependence on fossil fuels? Even if your unusual assertions were true, it could not in any way reduce the impact on climate change of burning “fossil” fuels – whether such energy sources are limited or porportedly limitless is entirely irrelevant to the impact on climate change (nevertheless being limitless would be a serious contradiction of physical laws). What evidence is there for your assertion that the Russians believe in an inert genesis of oil and natural gas?
I almost always value your contributions, Grieved, but you need to be taken to task on this post!

Posted by: BM | Apr 29 2019 15:58 utc | 46

Yeah, abiotic oil is a crock, unfortunately (geopolitics would be a lot simpler if it wasn’t, although other problems perhaps even more intractable).

Posted by: Ash | Apr 29 2019 16:19 utc | 48

@ BM who accuses me of having faith in aliens….LOL
I can only smile with the knowledge that I am really challenging the monotheistic faith breathers who visit MoA.
Let me leave you with this. I bet all the money I don’t have that there will be proof of “alien” lifeforms long before the proof of a monotheistic deity.
Do you not understand how puerile it is for our species, who know a tiny bit about what we think is 4% of the Cosmos we live in, to come up with and push monotheistic religions with a God who is man like? How self-centered can one get?
As I have written before here, religions have played an important role in the evolution of humanity. That said, they are myth, and as myth only provide suggestions of time bound moral values. We should extract the morals from religions that have stood the test of time, discard the delusional parts and hopefully proceed with merging those morals with proper awe of our tiny place in the universe

Posted by: psychohistorian | Apr 29 2019 16:40 utc | 50

“hold a press conference in prison”
I’m not sure what makes me think that holding press conferences is off limits to somebody like Assange in prison for talking, but I get it.

Posted by: arby | Apr 29 2019 17:08 utc | 52

Life has been discovered on Mars. Surely you’ve seen the rodent (Fauna) and the planks of wood (flora) photographed by the Mars Rover.
I’m kidding. It is apparent that those photos were taken on a remote arctic island. But they have been presented to us as official NASA Mars photos taken by the rover (which has a camera lens which never gets damaged or dirty in the horrific Mars dust storms.)
On another NASA topic, isn’t it interesting that a rocket with no fins can fall gracefully without tumbling, right itself and land by limiting it’s thrust and make a pinpoint accurate landing? Does that not defy natural laws of physics and aerodynamics?
Note that the waffle iron grids are described by NASA as being useful only at the highest altitudes. These are not for steering during landings.

Posted by: fastfreddy | Apr 29 2019 17:25 utc | 54

Posted by: BM | Apr 29, 2019 11:58:30 AM | 47
(Abiotic oil = wishful thinking)
I’m quite fond of the abiotic theory too, especially if one considers hydrocarbons as fuel. According to Google the chemical formula for Methane is the same as for Natural Gas = CH4. And we know that Methane is ubiquitous in the outer solar system.
Also according to Google there’s no prescribed formula for Crude Oil but…
“Crude oil is a mixture of hydrocarbons, carbon and hydrogen chains, either alkanes or alkenes which have the chemical formulae of CnH2n+2 and CnH2n respectively.
Alkanes are saturated, meaning that they don’t contain a double bond, unlike alkenes which do.” (whatever that means in relation to pressure-cooking oil from simpler ingredients)
I must have read the same Russia-related source as Grieved because what made Russia’s abiotic theory embraceable to me was that the Ruskies theory enabled them to predict the (deep) geo structures most likely to contain oil, and they reinvented drilling to enable them to drill VERY DEEP wells. Imo, the jury is still out on abiotic oil and I’m unaware of the specific biological traces found in crude oil. I am however aware of and have seen fern-tree remnants in black and brown coal.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Apr 29 2019 17:35 utc | 56

> Imo, the jury is still out on abiotic oil and I’m unaware of the specific biological traces found in crude oil.
The traces are the resistant skeletons of steroids, hopanes, porphyrins etc. Large molecules, e.g.
https://image.slidesharecdn.com/250pm-chem-materials-vladislav-lobodin-150630082810-lva1-app6892/95/apci-and-appi-gcmsms-for-characterization-of-the-macondo-wellhead-crude-oil-and-the-oil-spill-21-638.jpg
The problem with the deep abiotic theory is that if you go too deep, it’s simply too hot for oil to exist. Ask any hand that has worked in the field — at a certain depth all you find is gas, and deeper than that, nothing but dry holes.

Posted by: Ash | Apr 29 2019 18:01 utc | 58

Posted by: Ash | Apr 29, 2019 2:01:42 PM | 59
(Abiotic oil – Hw unaware of biological traces)
Thanks for the quick response. I realised as I was typing that confession that a bit of homework might be worthwhile…
Wiki has an entry on the subject and I’ve skimmed a few of the pro and con arguments and evidence for each and, as you assert, there are ‘typical’ bio traces in crude oil – but SOME evidence, here and there for abiotic origins. It’s a big article and I’ll read some more to find out what else I’m unaware of…

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Apr 29 2019 18:32 utc | 60

You found me out, I used to post regularly on The Oil Drum 🙂 Seems like another life ago though.

Posted by: Ash | Apr 29 2019 18:44 utc | 62

@ Posted by: fastfreddy | Apr 29, 2019 2:29:55 PM | 60
That pretty much depends whether there is existing pipeline infrastructure at the site of ‘production’. KSA for instance wastes an incredible amount of gas because they never much bothered with it, whereas other places are pretty good about using what’s there, making routine use of gas/oil separation plants that allow them to take both resources together. And of course plenty of companies only drill for gas, or gas and its condensates.

Posted by: Ash | Apr 29 2019 18:52 utc | 64

Second Part of Sharmine Narwani Salon Interview is now available. She points-out the Color Revolution Mantra we’ve seen employed globally:
“The four narratives that were utilized in undermining the Syrian state’s legitimacy and setting the stage for regime-change were: 1) The dictator is killing his own people, 2) the protesters are peaceful, 3) the opposition is unarmed, and 4) this is a popular revolution.”
And that’s just the beginning. Too much to cite!

Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 29 2019 20:52 utc | 66

BM @ 40 – 42:
Orthodox Christian churches including the Russian Orthodox Church still use the old Julian calendar which was given up in most of Europe by the late 1500s but lasted much later in Orthodox Christian Europe, Russia most famously giving it up on 14 February 1918. The Julian calendar is usually a couple weeks behind the Gregorian calendar.
This explains why the Bolshevik takeover of the Russian government in early November 1917 is known as the October Revolution – because the country was still using the Julian calendar at the time and according to the calendar the month was still October.
———————-
I should say the exploitation of a 14-year-old girl with autism by supposed climate change activists to capture and herd people into following an agenda – an agenda that is less about preventing, combating or mitigating the effects of climate change and more about capitalising and profiting from supposed commercial “opportunities” arising from climate change (such as the carbon credits market) prevention – has much in common with the White Helmets’ exploitation of small children like Omar Daqneesh to help corral people into supporting regime change efforts.
Not surprisingly, just as those of us who call out the White Helmets for the propaganda front that they are get called sympathisers with repression and dictatorship, so those of us who question Thunberg’s links to Avaaz and Purpose (who have advocated for a no-fly zone over Syria in the past) end up being labelled climate change denialists. Not only that but real climate change denialists latch onto the sceptics and claim them for their own. So Thunberg ends up being a tool of divide-and-rule strategy to deliberately confuse people.
And if young teenagers and their teachers can be seduced so quickly and easily by Thunberg’s message, what else can get them out into the streets? Any time The Powers That (Should Not) Be want support for a no-fly-zone-over-Iran or Venezuela effort, they now know who to target. Their PR people are probably already working on campaigns promoting the Iranian or Venezuelan Banana al Abed mascot.

Posted by: Jen | Apr 29 2019 22:24 utc | 68

Australia has its own 60 Minutes news program and it ran its interview with John Shipton, Julian Assange’s father, and had a poll asking:
“Julian Assange’s father is urging Australian authorities to step in and stop Assange’s extradition to the US, and ultimately, finally bring him home. But does he deserve our support?”
85% Yes
15% No
11,539 votes
One tweet on the thread cited 91% Yes, so don’t know which is the more accurate.
Related is Tulsi Gabbard’s 2020 run. In this long 6 1/2 min vid, an emotional Afghan/American asks Tulsi:
“How are you going to fight your own party–our own Democrats–to bring forth Change?”
Whether staged or not, the moment’s very powerful and reminds me of Code Pink’s early days. Tulsi readily admits that we need to fight against those within the Democrat Party having a vested interest in No Change, amongst others. Take the 6+ minutes to watch; it’s even subtitled so you don’t need to listen, just read. I’m proud we have a Tulsi Gabbard who knows who and where her enemies are located and who knows what the stakes are.

Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 29 2019 22:56 utc | 70

Putin held a press conference after the BRI Forum where he addressed numerous issues beyond BRI. But it is the first question and its answer I found illuminating:
“The Belt and Road is a very ambitious project – to the extent that it raises concerns in some. China is not a country that makes plans only for years ahead – it makes plans for decades proceeding not from billions but from trillions of dollars. This leads to the question, is this China’s project or is it beneficial for other participants? Is it beneficial for Russia?”
Putin’s answer is long and reveals a few points usually omitted from reports on BRI and the EAEU Project. One of these is within this paragraph:
“China implements this in a civilised and delicate way, making sure proposals for common development meet the interests of the vast majority of international participants, if not all. Generally speaking, China has offered nothing new; what it is doing is actually making attempts to reaffirm the principles set out by the World Trade Organisation and the International Monetary Fund, and many of our colleagues are mentioning this backstage like they did at the last meeting. What is China’s goal? Stability.” [My Emphasis]
The Outlaw US Empire promotes chaos while Russia, China, and “the vast majority of international participants” seek “Stability”! Now wouldn’t that make quite The Headline!? No wonder Pompeo continues his attempt to keep the Russiagate narrative alive–In doing so, he allies himself with the D Party!
And of course, Pepe Escobar reports on the BRI Forum, where as usual it’s easier for people to read his report than for me to try and decide what I should excerpt.

Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 30 2019 0:29 utc | 72

And if you haven’t you must read this thread where Aaron Mate destroys Rachael Maddow’s ongoing Russiagate contentions. She gets paid $7Million/yr to spread her bullshit!

Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 30 2019 1:07 utc | 74

Thanks, b, for extending the Easter greetings, and to Jen @ 69 for her explanation of calendar issues. I will simply add that many Orthodox churches today did switch in the main to the Gregorian calendar for feasts that are fixed on the calendar, such as Christmas. Only a few have stayed on the Old Calendar. Easter is different as it is determined by the lunar months from Hebraic reckoning, both in the East and in the West. So, all Orthodox celebrate Easter at the same time, whether observing Old or New calendar. And the Western and Eastern observances of Easter usually diverge, but occasionally do not.
But that is probably more than most here need to know – sorry!
Indeed He is Risen!

Posted by: juliania | Apr 30 2019 2:26 utc | 76

@47 & 57 – BM & Hoarsewhisperer
As soon as I hit “Post” I knew the system wouldn’t take the Engdahl link. So my long response regarding the oil thing is trapped in moderation. If it appears, it will appear at about this point in the thread, so one would have to scroll back to here, after b is awake and may have had a chance to clear moderated comments – but even then it may be gone forever.
William Engdahl has a piece called “Confessions of an “ex” Peak Oil Believer” and I’m sure you can search for it – yes, Yandex has a page full of links.
I have to go, sorry. Everything I’d like to say, may yet appear.

Posted by: Grieved | Apr 30 2019 3:12 utc | 78

Unfortunately, third link doesn’t open directly on the page but give you option to choose the article.

Posted by: Circe | Apr 30 2019 5:53 utc | 80

Newsflash! Keep up that Trump support. Your upper-middle class bias is showing.
And no, this anti-worker bill did not result from the duopoly. Using “reconciliation”, the bill passed with a bare majourity in the GOP Senate, the GOP House and was signed into law by a GOP President.

The bulk of the $150bn the tax cut put into the hands of corporations in 2018 went into shareholder dividends and stock buy-backs, both of which line the pockets of the 10% of Americans who own 84% of the stocks.
Just 6% of the tax savings was spent on workers, according to Just Capital, a not-for-profit that tracks the Russell 1000 index.
In the first three months after the bill passed, the average weekly paycheck rose by $6.21. That would be $233 a year.

Posted by: donkeytale | Apr 30 2019 12:30 utc | 82

I had been going to comment on your earlier post, Grieved, to the effect that I too take hope from both Russia and China in the grey landscape of current affairs, and I didn’t feel the origin of oil was a huge matter for discussion – it might or it might not be organic, time and science can settle that. I have wrestled with the conflict between our wish for a healthy planet and the ongoing oil operations that have been the focus for so long both in those regions and further south – it must be said that oil was organic during the whaling years, so your point isn’t wholly to be pooh-pooed, but I won’t pursue that. Sometimes folk use argument as a distraction.
Thanks for the posts – I see your earlier one has surfaced.

Posted by: juliania | Apr 30 2019 15:20 utc | 84

Thanks, Grieved, for your link @ 78. Whatever the origins of oil, that article is extremely interesting and worth reading as an explanation of the different aspects of the pursuit of oil that have given Russia the ability to become again a world power. If it were not for our dread of the consequences of polluting the atmosphere and the oceans, the deep drilling the article describes would seem to be ( I was going to say ‘on the surface’ but I won’t) less biologically offensive than other methods if they can be pursued sustainably.
I do believe we don’t really know what climate change will bring. There are knowns that can be fed into computers, assuredly; there are also unknowns, and we do get adjustments to what is predicted on a constant basis. I am hoping we don’t know as much as we think we know, since that is usually the case. Climate change is upon us, assuredly; and it is affected by the consumption of the ‘fossil fuels’. That is assured also. What, eventually, is going to happen? All I know is that I don’t know.

Posted by: juliania | Apr 30 2019 15:42 utc | 86

@ Posted by: Grieved | Apr 29, 2019 11:04:06 PM | 78
I liked the position that the field geologists on the The Oil Drum took on abiotic oil: it exists? Great! Where is it? If the theory can produce viable predictions of new places to drill that are not sensible places to look for ‘classical’ fields but that can nevertheless yield oil, has this ever been successfully demonstrated? (It’s not like nobody’s ever looked–by now there’s a pretty significant pile of negative data points.) If not, the question of origin is academic, and sedimentary anticlines of a certain age will remain the best targets regardless of where the oil ultimately came from.

Posted by: Ash | Apr 30 2019 20:07 utc | 88

The Saudis offered Abbas 10 billion dollars to accept the deal that Trump/Kushner will propose and so betray Palestinians.
Saudis offered Abbas 10 billion
Maybe someone should offer them same to give up throne.
Trump is thinking of designating Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization.
Trump to designate Muslim Brotherhood terrorists
Meanwhile Sissi locks up political rivals for life and Saudis just beheaded 37 of them.

Posted by: Circe | May 1 2019 12:30 utc | 90

– Erdogan seems to be getting deper and deeper introuble.
““Revenge of the Kurds”: Erdogan’s Missteps Are Piling Up
After 18 years of unchallenged power, the Turkish president finds himself in the middle of several domestic and foreign crises of his own making.”
https://fpif.org/revenge-of-the-kurds-erdogans-missteps-are-piling-up/

Posted by: Willy2 | May 2 2019 6:00 utc | 92

The farce is complete (see below).
The Russians forced us to investigate ourselves.
Diabolical!!! LMFAO.
Barr says DOJ investigating whether Steele dossier was part of Russian disinformation campaign:

Cornyn asked Barr point blank: “How do we know that the Steele dossier is not itself evidence of Russian disinformation campaign knowing what we know now that basically the allegations made were second hand, hearsay, or unverified? Can we state with confidence the Steele dossier was not part of the Russian disinformation campaign?”
Barr said he couldn’t rule out the possibility. “I can’t state that with confidence and it’s one of the areas that I’m reviewing. I’m concerned about it and I don’t think it’s entirely speculative,” he said.
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s report already confirmed that the Internet Research Agency, a Russian troll farm, carried out disinformation activities on social media meant to interfere with the 2016 election. Mueller further stated that GRU, Russia’s military intelligence, carried out cyberattacks against the Clinton campaign and the DNC and provided the hacked emails to WikiLeaks for distribution.
“I called what bullshit the dossier was a year and a half ago … It’s likely FSB [the successor agency to the KGB] disinformation,” former CIA Moscow station chief Daniel Hoffman recently told the Washington Examiner.
By January 2017, some FBI agents trying to verify the dossier’s allegations had reportedly concluded that some of the dossier’s contents may have been based upon “rumors and hearsay” which were “passed from source to source,” perhaps even originating as “Russian disinformation.”
Watergate journalist Bob Woodward has been calling Steele’s dossier “garbage” for more than two years. And Michael Isikoff, the chief investigative correspondent for Yahoo News whose September 2016 news article based on the dossier was used in FISA applications, recently said the media should have shown “more skepticism” over Steele’s dossier, which he described as “thirdhand stuff.”

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Russiagate is all about the new McCarthyism. And the 2016 Presidential election was the means to initiate the plan, elect a nationalist President (to best counter the challenge from Russia and China), and discredit Wikileaks (by linking them to Russian meddling).
Did Brennan give the order (aka “Red Scare”/”Code Red”)? Maybe at some point in the future we will learn the truth. Can we handle it?
Welcome to the rabbithole.

Posted by: Jackrabbit | May 2 2019 13:27 utc | 94