The MoA Week In Review - Open Thread 2020-07
Last week's posts at Moon of Alabama:
- January 20 - Iran Counters EU Threat Of Snapback Sanctions
Related:
Interview with Iran's Foreign Minister Javed Zarif:
"It’s a Disaster for Europe To Be So Subservient to the U.S" -Spiegel
- January 21 - UN Security Council Hears OPCW Inspector Testimony About The Manipulation Of 'Chemical Attack' Reports
Related:
The OPCW Scandal and the Silence Cartel (pdf) English translation by Michael Kobs of the German report below
Der OPCW-Skandal und das Scheigekartell - Multipolar Magazine
- January 22 - Can Boeing Survive Its MAX Problems?
- January 24 - New Boeing CEO Insists On Moving The Company Towards Irrelevance
- January 25 - The Coronavirus - No Need To Panic
Other issues:
Hong Kong:
"Protesters"? Or U.S. funded terrorist ...
Hong Kong protesters torch planned virus quarantine building - Reuters
>A group of protesters set alight the lobby of a newly built residential building in Hong Kong on Sunday that authorities planned to use as a quarantine facility for the coronavirus outbreak.A Reuters witness saw several masked protesters, clad in black, rush into the public housing block in the Fanling district near to the border with China, and set alight a Molotov cocktail before running out. Black smoke could be seen pouring out of the building to the sound of fire alarms. Windows were smashed.<
Palestine:
Only Zionists and Nazis believe that Jews are a race.
Israeli High Court Allows DNA Testing to Prove Judaism - Haaretz
>Petition filed by Avigdor Lieberman, Yisrael Beitenu and several individuals asking for the DNA testing to prove Judaism to be disallowed is struck down<
Law:
The U.S. no longer cares for international law. Others continue to do.
The US’s Inalienable Right to Violence - Fair
The Troubling Decline of International Law - Craig Murray
EU, China, 15 Others Form Alliance to Settle Trade Disputes - Bloomberg
Use as open thread ...
Posted by b on January 26, 2020 at 15:34 UTC | Permalink
next page »One thing for sure is it will only get stranger in Amerika this next week.
Posted by: jo6pac | Jan 26 2020 15:40 utc | 2
I am not really astute with finance but it occurs to be that the owners have done to US what they have previously done to it's people- induced US to max out its credit card. So now that that piggy bank is shattered, they need US to shake down its lesser partners. Wealthy live in fear of collapse of dollar and taking with it much of global economy. They cannot tolerate that there may be ways to escape from the trap.
I suppose is common theory that such was the reason for US entry into WW2.
Posted by: jared | Jan 26 2020 15:58 utc | 3
It seems to me that pols and media are disappointed that public is not gripped with fear over impeachment hearings. And now virus is stealing thunder.
Posted by: jared | Jan 26 2020 16:00 utc | 4
CNN no longer attempts to hide its efforts to sway the elections (while doubling down on the "Russian interference" psy-ops BS). Their latest move was to not allow Tulsi Gabbard to participate in CNN's "Town Halls" series from New Hampshire Feb. 5-6. Tulsi polls higher than three of the invitees. Deval Patrick(!!!) was invited of course.
Caitlin Johnstone was right in predicting months ago who the biggest force in election interference would be, just like in 2016: the corporate media.
Posted by: Kabobyak | Jan 26 2020 16:03 utc | 5
Death of the fake center. Revitalization of the real center (hint: nowhere near 'bipartisanship').
Posted by: paul | Jan 26 2020 16:06 utc | 6
Ride share environmental scam revealed.
I've written many times, in many places, how my own personal testing was showing that "no passenger" miles driven by ride share drivers was up to 50% of total miles driven, and that would make the supposed environmental benefits of ride sharing non-existent.
The California Air Resource Board (CARB), a hotbed of environmental policy, reports that 38.5% of the miles driven by the average ride share driver, systemwide in California, is without a passenger. And that even with "car pool" capability added to the Uber SUV/Uber Large categories (for multiple passengers), the actual average passengers per ride is 1.55 (excluding the driver). CARB report on ride sharing
It goes on to put the boot in harder:
1) The emissions from ride share transportation is 50% higher than the statewide average. This is despite an average higher fuel efficiency due to fewer SUVs and more efficient vehicles in the ride share fleet.
2) The ride share vehicles have 7% less occupancy than the statewide fleet.
3) The ride share fleet travels, on average, 10 miles per hour slower than the statewide fleet.
So ride share is slower, more polluting and carries less people than the statewide fleet.
Nice.
Posted by: c1ue | Jan 26 2020 16:21 utc | 7
In case you have missed this. Here is an excellent interview of Elijah Magnier on a broad range of issues related to Iran, Iraq and US policy. This link was previously posted by another commenter but I am reposting it because it is so informative. I apologize for not I remembering the name of the original poster was.
What the US attacks on Iran and military occupation of Iraq mean for the Axis of Resistance | Moderate Rebels
Posted by: Nathan Mulcahy | Jan 26 2020 16:26 utc | 8
Colombia Reports: Colombia’s President Ivan Duque is facing a tough year after political critics took control of the country’s largest cities and his support in Congress remains weak. The sudden shift in the balance of powers is the result of a devastating defeat of Duque’s far-right Democratic Center (CD) party in last year’s October elections.
Colombia Reports: Ahead of last week’s anti-government protests, Colombia’s police arrested six social leaders on terrorism support charges. Among the detainees is David Ravelo, the son of a human rights defender who spent seven years in prison after releasing evidence that former President Alvaro Uribe met with paramilitaries ahead of the 2002 elections.
El Salvador Perspectives: ...in every other sense, the hearing was historic. For the first time, a former general at high levels of the Salvadoran military was taking the stand in a Salvadoran court to tell what he knew about alleged war crimes.
MercoPress: Bolivia’s interim President Jeanine Anez said on Friday that she will be a candidate in upcoming elections that will serve as a re-run of October’s disputed vote...
MercoPress: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday congratulated Argentina’s President Alberto Fernandez for his “persistence” in investigating a 1994 bombing of a Jewish community in Buenos Aires.
***
Although not on Latin America, this is worth highlighting as a resource: Cyber-Terrorism: How the US and Israel Attacked Iran—and Failed.
Posted by: Maracatu | Jan 26 2020 16:28 utc | 9
This is a good paper which both talks about the social cost of carbon (SCC) under existing panicmonger rules (i.e. ECS of 3 degrees C or higher, no carbon fertilization, etc) vs. under different rules (empirical ECS measurements, actual crop yield improvements observed, etc).
Social Cost of Carbon study under different parameters
Among other interesting findings - the paper notes that there could be a negative SCC, or that emissions actually is a net benefit. That result is less likely and requires ECS and other estimates to be on the low end, but is closer to the "mean" than the climate model based outcomes. The mean outcomes based on empirical and historical ECS shows SCC to be in the single digit $ per metric ton of CO2 emissions - not a lot at all vs. the $20-$30+ SCC costs under the climate model assumptions.
The paper also specifically calls out ECS estimates
While some studies have considered ranges of ECS values, the IAM literature as a whole has been wedded to climate model-based distributions with modal values around 3 °C and thick upper tails extending above 6 °C. However, there is now a substantial climatological literature showing that distributions with modal values below 2 °C and small upper tails match historical (post-1850) data better. The debate over which distribution best describes the real climate system must ultimately be resolved within the climatology literature, but economists need to be aware that it exists and the outcome has significant ramifications for SCC estimates.
This is another example where "warm" climate models and extreme scenarios (i.e. RCP 8.5) are so useful to the panicmongers: they skew everything to be scary.
Posted by: c1ue | Jan 26 2020 16:34 utc | 10
90% of the people with wealth and education, work for the government, own the corporations or are themselves privateers meaning they are all part of the same intelligence agency coordinated nation state linked mob <= and no one in the mob wants war to stop war.
Humanity has sat on its ass for so long, its chair has rotted. The mob is in control and nothing is going to stop them, not you, not me, not no one, they have the weapons, the manpower, the spy generated intelligence, they can allow/deny your access to Internet and to just about everything else, they use applications for license or admission forms at hospitals to make their data bases perfect, they own the cops, they own the military, they own the law making machinery, they own and totally control the media, they own the power companies, the grid, the railroads, the jets, the very ground you walk on, and yet those who the are few never stand for elections, remain hidden in the deepest of closets and enjoy the protection of the puppet operated nation state. None of them are required to answer for their harms their privileges cause < why not?
In America, if you examine the constitution you will see even that <=is stacked against a just outcome there are so many holes <=it like nearly all corporate documents must be read carefully. Humanity has committed itself to slavery, because it has stuck its head in the sand, get used to it cause your chair is rotten having sat in it for so long, you soon will have no place to sit. Then what?
I don't believe much opportunity exist to to organize humanity sufficiently to stop the in-control groups (the Mobsters). Nothing seems able to stop them, the Mob has command and control authority over everything.. the mob can print, or order it printed, more money, hire and pay and bribe whomever they want, whenever they need, whatever they wan they get. The mob can force the up and down of anyone, of any nation, of every economy on every continent at will .. I say it again you are either a mobster with no care about law, morality or any other thing except your self or a your are a slave ignoring all until they come for you<== take your choice. (that is the message the leaders of the nations in the world have made so clear<=by their actions; the whole world is in the hands of mobsters, and there ain't nothing anyone can do about it, they can't even talk about it, since the mobsters have outlawed speech that might reveal the nation state game).
What is the problem how did humans allow themselves to get into this situation?
It is now obvious in each nation state there are two parties: the governed and the governors and the governed are further divided by as many binaries as the propaganda can impose: two party political systems, guns/no guns, welfare/no welfare; abortion/no abortion, hate people elsewhere/ but out hate at home, and on and on. The governed are massive in number but are kept in the dark because the governors operate the nation states behind closed doors and private parties cover their tracts with fake and false news. The governors are well informed, armed and dangerous, and the seem out to get humanity.
Interestingly enough humanity was, is, and will always be the first, only and complete undeniable global authority, nothing is more global than humanity, no power on earth is greater than human power that I know of. Without permission from humanity, no nation state can exist, no kingdom can exist, no religion can exist, nothing can happen unless humanity approves. No leader can lead, no group can take from the masses to build weapons and then turn those weapon on those who paid for the development of the weapons. . everything happens because humans allow it to be.
What's wrong us, to allow a system to control our every breath, to spy on our every living minute? How can the suffering such a system inflicts be remedied? Humanity has so much better things to do than to be forced to fight each other. We live but a few short years, and each of us should be able to benefit from the progress that those before us added to their world, so our modern world could be better? But the few have monopolised those benefits and used them through the power of the nation state system to make humanity servants to the whims of a few. Deplorables are not allowed.
We humans are the only global community in the world. There is no reason on earth the few greedy should be able to divide our 8 billion fellow humans into 206 nation states and use the power of local puppets to pit humans contained in one nation state and against the power of local puppets to pit humans contained in the other <= so a few can retain their wealth and power? The masses of humanity were not placed on this earth to serve the few. They were put here to work together to make earth a better home for humanity. Everyone deserves a fair chance at life, there is so much joy in being educated, because it allows one to see the world from many different perspectives, it enhances the benefit of experience and it opens opportunity to see how things work and to envision new horizons, yet so few are allowed to be educated. The masses should not suffer at the expense of the few. We are all in the same pot.
Together we stand, separately the leaders of nation states will be ordered to use the nation states to pick us off one by one. Excuse the rant.
Posted by: snake | Jan 26 2020 16:34 utc | 11
And yet more data hammering the panicmonger climate memes: 50 year historical hurricane data.
Summary: There is no pattern of increase - in frequency, strength, damage done, rainfall, whatever. Maue and Pielke 50 year Hurricane data
Summary highlights:
Here are some summary statistics on landfalling hurricanes from 1970 to 2019:All landfalls: 15 (median), 15.4 (average), 4.3 (sd)
Categories 1 & 2 at landfall: 10, 10.4, 3.7
Category 3+ at landfall: 5, 5.0, 2.6
Most total landfalls in one year: 30 (1971)
Fewest total landfalls in one year: 7 (1978)
Most Category 3+ landfalls in one year: 11, (2015)
Fewest Category 3+ landfalls in one year: 0 (1981)
Most total landfalls over a 10-year period: 177 (1988-1997)
Fewest total landfalls over a 10-year period: 120 (1975-1984)
Total landfalls 2010-2019: 148
Most Category 3+ landfalls over a 10-year period: 65 (1999-2008)
Fewest Category 3+ landfalls over a 10-year period: 33 (1972-1981 and 1978-1987)
Total Category 3+ landfalls 2010-2019: 60
Total landfalls 1970-2019: 772, (520 were Categories 1 & 2, 252 were Category 3+)
Note that the reason why we only have 50 years of data is because the satellite record is only 50 years old. Prior to that, nobody knows how many actual hurricanes there were due to no landfall, poor record keeping, etc.
Posted by: c1ue | Jan 26 2020 16:39 utc | 12
And last but not least: some data on how much defensive burning was being conducted in Australia, historically.
Summary: there very much was a marked decrease in the number of proactive burns. This certainly led to increased fuel loads, which in turn make any fires that actually occur, so much more dangerous.
Firefighter talks about Australian fire practices historically
In researching my bushfire book White Overall Days, I found that our local brigade averaged some 15 burnoffs per year in the decade of the 1970s; nine in the ’80s, a mere two or three in the ’90s and similar numbers ever since.The reason for this dramatic fall-off in burnoffs was the complex web of rules and procedures dumped on the local captains to comply with before they could do anything. They simply gave up. It was all too hard.
So while there aren't rules prohibiting proactive burns - the lawfare/bureaucratic crap layered on by successive green activism made the ability to stage a proactive burn so difficult that the actual number of burns dropped 80% or more from the 1970s to today.
Posted by: c1ue | Jan 26 2020 16:44 utc | 13
jared @ 4
Wealthy live in fear of collapse of dollar and taking with it much of global economy.
I think they fear deflation. The Fed has been pouring money into the banking houses, hedge funds, and other players to keep things inflated. Deflation of assets costs them money. The wealthy loose opportunity when their assets deflates as their assets have to reinflate again over time. During that time they loose bang for the buck.
It is also said they pump money into the system to keep interest rates down. High interest rates would sour the economy and they will and make the current crop of political leaders unacceptable. The wealthy also love low interest rates as they can borrow money cheaply and buy up sectors of the economy globally. The wealthy use the "carry trade" where they borrow money in the US and invest it in other places with higher interest rates earning a return.
On the other hand, deflation can help a worker who saves money and does not buy into the consumerists society. They can use the cash to buy an asset such as real property at a bargain. Such is the world we live in.
High or low interest rates, in my opinion, is a barometer of how the banking houses like the current government. The FED is a private company owned by the banking houses so if they are not happy with the outcomes of government they can collapse it or change its direction by raising rates and choking an economy driven by consumer debt.
Posted by: dltravers | Jan 26 2020 16:45 utc | 14
@snake #11
Uh, no.
Let's look at tech companies. For every owner, there are hundreds to thousands of employees. Nor do they work for the government or intel agencies.
What about universities? They don't work for the government; the professors aren't owners.
You're confusing the liberal leanings of the more educated with the oligarchs.
There was a pro-life march in San Francisco yesterday - it was quite an impressive turnout. At least 8 city blocks of Market were jammed with peaceful marchers that are pro-life: Link covering Pro-Life march in SF
While a large number of these were Hispanic, it wasn't 50%. And the turnout was larger than previous years due to Trump.
The succession of neoliberal governments, whether Republican or Democrat (Obama, Bush II, Clinton = 24 years), emboldened the liberati to an enormous extent.
Posted by: c1ue | Jan 26 2020 16:54 utc | 15
>by Francis Fukuyama
Not sure why anyone would waste their time reading the nitwit who proclaimed "The End of History" to loud applause from the establishment pseudo-intellectuals. About as useful as reading Thomas Friedman.
Posted by: Trailer Trash | Jan 26 2020 16:58 utc | 16
thanks b for all the work you put out!
regarding iran foreign minister zarifs comments, i liked this one - "The Europeans have no legitimate grounds for resorting to this mechanism. They can’t just refer something to the Security Council because they are Europeans and they have blue eyes. And it’s not only us who think this, but also the Russians and the Chinese. The Europeans will be up against a major battle."
any thoughts on glenn greenwalds present situation?? i liked this article by matt t from a few days ago.
Glenn Greenwald: ‘Does the Law in Brazil Even Matter Anymore?’
@9 maracutu.. thanks for those updates!
Posted by: james | Jan 26 2020 17:09 utc | 17
China and the US on trade Lowy Institute study summary
In 2018, trade accounted for 59% of global GDP, up nearly 1.5 times since 1980....
before 2000, the U.S. was at the helm of global trade, as over 80% of countries traded with the U.S. more than they did with China. By 2018, that number had dropped sharply to just 30%, as China swiftly took top position in 128 of 190 countries.
How much of that 50% increase in trade since 1980 is China?
According to the CSIS source
China is 13.45% of the entire world's exports in 2018 (12.4% of overall trade in 2018 vs. 3% in 1995), so up to 20% of the 50% is due to China (less because of substitution of Chinese trade for existing trade as opposed to new trade).
Posted by: c1ue | Jan 26 2020 17:15 utc | 18
that pdf on the opcw scandal and the silence cartel is quite good... quote at the bottom
"When truth is replaced by silence, then silence is a lie." Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Posted by: james | Jan 26 2020 17:41 utc | 19
@c1ue | Jan 26 2020 16:34 utc | 10
This is another example where "warm" climate models and extreme scenarios (i.e. RCP 8.5) are so useful to the panicmongers: they skew everything to be scary.
Indeed, such models (they are not reality) are based on incorrect science and motivated by politics. Below is a link to an interesting article by Claes Johnson.
The True Total Greenhouse Effect is +9 C, not +33 C
He asks the question:
What is the warming effect of the radiative action of the Earth atmosphere on the temperature of the surface of the Earth, the so-called greenhouse effect?What would thus the temperature be if the atmosphere was fully transparent without the so-called greenhouse gasses water vapour and CO2, thus without effects of (infrared) radiation? This would be like an Earth with no atmosphere.
And the other way around: What would the temperature be if the atmosphere was fully opaque?
He concludes (see article for why):
The total greenhouse effect is thus at most 9 C, instead of the 33 C as the corner stone of global warming alarmism.
Everything about climate alarmism is fake...
Posted by: Norwegian | Jan 26 2020 18:06 utc | 20
c1ue@13
Hahaha. You use Quadrant as a source of information!?
It is a right-wing, conservative, shit-talking wank-fest, beloved by the tight-sphinctered, religiously self-righteous, corn-flower blue tie-wearing scum of Australian society.
I would place it on the same level of credibility as a Donald Trump handshake.
Try again.
Posted by: Jon_in_AU | Jan 26 2020 18:26 utc | 21
Hausmeister and I discussed rule by fear, "deimocracy".
That was off topic, and belongs more properly here.
And to that discussion I wish to proffer an interesting related essay>
@ steelcityscribblings.(uk)"Talking WW3 Blues" "...For me the scariest thing is not that the world is ruled by gangsters – a criminal elite with the US ruling class its top mafia family. It is that this particular family, and the lesser criminals who ride its coat-tails, are justifiably worried...."
They too are ruled by fear. Not logos, not knowledge, fear, and panic.
What can go wrong with that?
They conjure up these, the lesser gods of the wars they've made since ...you name a date... And thus themselves are ruled, as they rule the people, by war and fear and panic.
Posted by: Walter | Jan 26 2020 18:35 utc | 22
The above is from Thierry Meyssan's most recent essay. In it, he examines what he considers a kind of unique "problem" for Iran; the lack of a constitutional separation of religious and state powers (the one thing the US Founding Aristocrats got right). Upon reading one might feel (as I did) a reflexive tendency toward defensive sympathy for Iran, especially in the face of constant threat from the US and the zionist entity in Palestine. But the admirable thing about Meyssan is that he is consistently an advocate for peace, fairness, and above all truth. Anyways, it's a great read; highly recommended.
Thanks for all you do for us, b; peace and Happy Lunar New Year, barflies.
Posted by: robjira | Jan 26 2020 18:42 utc | 23
Ps.
Quadrant is sponsored by the Australian Committee for Cultural Freedom (the Australian arm of the Congress for Cultural Freedom - a CIA-funded anti-communist group from Yankistan), who later changed their name to the Australian Association for Cultural Freedom.
Such an independent source of information, not.
They are basically a mouthpiece for the Trilateral Commission goons, and all of their apparatchiks, and are aligned with Murdoch stable neo-con/lib dogma.
Sorry, but I'd rather listen to people with experience, qualifications, or "skin in the game", than right-wing propaganda.
Posted by: Jon_in_AU | Jan 26 2020 18:50 utc | 24
ok ok ok
I’m in my 70’s, and have heretofore considered myself at least minimally a stoic. Time to reconsider.
I laughed, I cried, and I puked – simultaneously.
This fella, “Michael Doran, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former senior official (NSC Associate Director) in the Bush administration” is about the same age as I.
Michael’s perception of reality is so determinate that when confronted with facts he simply denies they are factual.
Aaron Maté does a masterful job of remaining civil and in control.
Debating Trump's 'maximum pressure' on Iran w/ Michael Doran
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_etyBcZqrDI
Posted by: Desolation Row | Jan 26 2020 19:07 utc | 25
Short Twitter vid of landscape surroundings of current Idlib battleground just East of the M-5 at Ma'arat al Nu'man, the second largest city in Idlib. The most recent situational map suggests SAA will surround the city leaving a small gap for the Outlaw US Empire's Terrorist Foreign Legion to retreat and avoid smashing the city. In two weeks, SAA ought to have total control over M-5. Need to gain total control over Turkish border in this region by Summer, then need to turn Eastward to push out all remaining NATO-affiliated forces. IMO, al-Tanf will be last.
Meanwhile in Iraq, Sadr has called for the protests aimed at evicting the Outlaw US Empire to continue and escalate, while several rockets again impacted the Green Zone.
Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 26 2020 19:37 utc | 26
Guaido meeting with Trudeau in Canuckistan next week.
Posted by: spudski | Jan 26 2020 19:40 utc | 27
Kevin Gosztola doing intel on DNC committee nominations:
"Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez issued a list of individuals he nominated for the 2020 Democratic National Convention committees.
"Let's examine some of the individuals. I'll initially focus on the nominees for the DNC Platform Committee.
"Thread."
Lots of excellent information gathered by Kevin. Near as I can tell, not one likely advocate for the platform Sanders is now outlining in his campaigning. IMO, the Fix is beginning.
Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 26 2020 19:48 utc | 28
Jon_in_AU #21
Nicely put. Qadrant is a worthless propagada rag. Loony right mouthpiece that hums in c1ue's ear.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jan 26 2020 20:03 utc | 29
Latest I have seen online on Julian Assange's incarceration at Belmarsh Prison is that he is no longer in solitary confinement (for most of the day, every day, anyway) and he is currently in a section of the prison with about 40 other inmates.
Significantly the pressure to get him out of solitary confinement came from other prisoners at Belmarsh. Note that Belmarsh Prison is a maximum security prison so those prisoners who petitioned on Assange's behalf included people who committed what we'd consider to be very serious crimes including violence, murder and terrorism.
We certainly do live in "interesting times" when criminals in prison have more compassion and higher ethics than the authorities who put them there.
I'm on a smartphone and haven't yet worked out how to link to the article referring to Assange's move so please try Googling Assange's name and "Belmarsh". Caitlin Johnstone was one source of the news.
Posted by: Jen | Jan 26 2020 20:03 utc | 30
Also while I'm on smartphone, I urge everyone to Google the name of one of the two passengers on UIA Flight PS752 who was not an Iranian or a diaspora Iranian with a North American or European passport. The name is "Olena Malakhova": look it up along with "Libya" and "SkyTransAvia".
The mind boggles at what this business entrepreneur was doing in Iran in the first place and what business was awaiting her in Kiev.
Posted by: Jen | Jan 26 2020 20:10 utc | 31
English language updates from China regarding nCoV epidemic
https://www.globaltimes.cn//content/1177737.shtml
Posted by: Wvw | Jan 26 2020 20:17 utc | 33
@Jon_in_AU #21 & #24
Perhaps you might inform what exactly is the CIA/Tri-Lateral view on global warming is - so that I can understand what they're fighting for and against.
Given that the Rockefellers and what not are heavily supportive of panicmongering global warming types...
Secondly, what I saw was data on historical annual proactive burns. I have yet to find any other data on this - so until I see something else, it is impossible to not treat it as actual data. The source does not automatically discredit the data unless you're more interested in political correctness than information.
That's why I read both right and left publications - they both provide information even if it is likely skewed by viewpoints.
Being an Australian, do you have personal understanding of proactive burns?
Posted by: c1ue | Jan 26 2020 20:19 utc | 34
Posted by b on January 26, 2020 at 15:34 UTC
Only Zionists and Nazis believe that Jews are a race.
I never believed in that. I only see humans. Human beings that struggle and enjoy life. The 'chosen one' aspect is not relevant anymore. It may have had some importance in ancient times where the Jewish people had more knowledge than other tribes and cultures. This may be very well true, and I understand why there still is that superior thinking and feeling in the Jewish tribe. But we can observe a similar thinking and feeling among many other tribes or cultures that have a long history and a lot of wisdom. The Jewish tribe is not the only one to have much knowledge. There were other tribes, mostly forgotten because of no historical overderlivery.
I see Zionism not as a bad expression. In fact Zion is only a way for pride and constitution for a people that has suffered a lot during two millennia. Zion and Zionism is, in my view, only a necessary expression of an oppressed people that had to have to find its own identity again. An identity which was lost in the diaspora.
Just imagine if your culture, your tribe, was abolished and persecuted for centuries, for two millennia. Everywhere. In Russia, in Europe, in the U.S. You would certainly develop some kind of resistance, some kind of awareness, and maybe some kind of retraction from other cultures you are not accepted and other places you are not welcome to live. This is, in my view, the foundation of Zionism. Like any other tribe, be it in the jungle of South America, or the Aborigines in Australia, or any other culture or tribe in the world, they all have the right for their existence and some portion of land.
That the state of Israel is oppressing other people today, and is secured by the 'empire' and the holocaust emblem, is certainly a sad period of history. It inverted the role play entirely, even perverted it. There is some hope in the citizens of Israel and the Jews that live abroad to find a way to end this insanity.
From my view, I wouldn't call the Jews a race, as b already said. I see the Jews as a tribe, a culture with a wealth of wisdom, a people that is suffering from finding a place to be, to find a home. Palestine is somehow their home, but it must be shared with the Arab people who also call Palestine their home.
Of course there is no simple solution to that question. Just a remainder that the Arab culture and the Jewish culture lived very well together for centuries. There were no problems, and not much difference when talking about culture. It was (is) the same culture, living peacefully together. Jewish mothers nurtured Arab children when the mother was away or dead. Arab mothers nurtured Jewish children when the mother was away or dead.
This division between cultures and tribes is rather new, and it seems rather artificial. Constructed. The 'divide and conquer' trick, which often works. It is so easy to divide. And so difficult to bring together.
We, as a global community, have to bring separated tribes together. We have no other choice. Else, there is war. Constant war. Which is of course the plan for a certain elevated upper realm that is playing the part of the bad guy. We can elevate that upper realm from playing the bad guy. It will be a fortune for all of us. The bad guys don't have to pretend and deceit anymore, the 99% can be assured that there is no threat anymore.
The last part is, of course, a future vision. It will come. A lot of struggles lie ahead.
Posted by: Phil | Jan 26 2020 20:22 utc | 35
I just love how one mention of climate change sends some folks into posting reams of deniable "evidence".
Anyone who denies human activity is adversely effecting this planet. seems a bit naive.
So, maybe we could refrain from saying "climate change", and just say human activity is "fucking up the planet."
With enough $ spread around, you can convince some folks water isn't wet...
Posted by: ben | Jan 26 2020 20:34 utc | 36
The fact that, before the Nazis, Germans played a major cultural role does not mitigate the evil of Nazism. Whatever good Jews in the past may have done does not mitigate the evil of Zionism.
Posted by: lysias | Jan 26 2020 20:53 utc | 37
Guaido is on a tour of sorts, seeking to energize the regime change international coalition (i.e. the "more than 50 countries" who support the presumed "interim" government) towards a resolute maximum pressure campaign. Since Canada has assumed leadership in the so-called Lima Group, and the former Canadian ambassador devised the legal argument to justify Guaido in the first place, Ottawa might be the select locale to announce a new scheme. Trudeau should be asked why it was determined a representative of Venezuela's unpopular far-right become the selected democracy poster-child, but he won't face that question.
Bloomberg op-ed a few days ago presumes the Venezuelan government is desperate to negotiate a schedule for new elections. It proposes, apparently without irony, the OAS should be in charge of the elections, and a humanitarian assistance program be set up by international groups based on the program in Haiti. Constant iteration that the current government is corrupt and illegitimate will later justify the banning of Chavistas from any new elections.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-01-24/venezuela-s-endgame-is-closer-than-maduro-thinks
Gauido was in Spain yesterday. Coverage by the corporate press shows that, in Spain, hundreds of people at a rally is understood as thousands (while conversely in Iraq hundreds of thousands at a rally is understood as thousands).
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-spain-guaido/thousands-support-venezuelas-guaido-at-madrid-rally-idUSKBN1ZO0S4
Posted by: jayc | Jan 26 2020 21:18 utc | 39
Posted by: Phil | Jan 26 2020 20:22 utc | 35
Jews are a separate identity as long as they wish to be separate and different from anyone else, which often appears to be the case, though not all. If they wish to remain a separate identity, then there are consequences.
Posted by: Laguerre | Jan 26 2020 21:18 utc | 40
People who don't see climate change already creating environmental problems WHEREVER THEY LIVE are batty and blind.
8 DAYS LEFT FOR SANDERS TO HOPEFULLY TAKE IOWA!
Show your support! Spread his message online, take action in whichever way you can, because if he doesn't make it in this election we will be at the mercy of lunatic Trump and Ziofascism will take hold for a GENERATION to come, and the oligarchy that rules Wasington are already causing irreversible damage on MULTIPLE LEVELS, especially to our freedom and power.
Michael Moore gave an excellent speech at Sanders rally last night, even better than AOC's. Basically he said this election is about FREEDOM and you can't be free if you don't have the power to make this world better for everyone!
We are losing all our power to the will of the billionaire/oligarch rulers who want to lord over the world at our expense. We are losing the fight to stop their military escalation; millions of people suffer daily because of U.S. policy and we can only witness with our hands tied! We are losing to climate change wreaking havoc in more places every year. We will ALL suffer if we don't stop all this soon.
Sanders is about restoring power to average people. Everyone who feels powerless, dragged towards escalating hostility with Iran, and suffering increasing hardship and so much uncertainty and anxiety in regards to the ever-advancing effects of global warming; everyone, stands to benefit in some way from a Sanders presidency. The world will breathe a collective sigh of relief when Bernie kicks Trump out of the White House! It has to happen! It must happen! Bernie has all the energy on his side and now has momentum that must continue. An opportunity like this to stop the madness may NEVER come again in our lifetime.
Please share Sanders' message wherever you can. He must win this election for all of us!
Posted by: Circe | Jan 26 2020 21:25 utc | 41
ben @36--
My Sunday newspaper republished this AP story reporting a study showing our Dungeness crabs are already suffering from ocean acidification, which was based on data collected in 2016. Many crabbers including myself will attest that the crab's carapaces are becoming increasingly thinner and the remainder of the exoskeleton softer. Also, bigger crab don't weigh as much as they did 10 years ago--those that ought to weigh 2 pounds are seldom that heavy anymore.
Also recently reported was a study that examined a massive--1 million+--die-off of common murres, the most ubiquitous seabird from San Francisco to the Aleutians. The cause attributed was starvation as their prey moved elsewhere or are no longer as plentiful as before. The big change in oceanic conditions attributed to the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge and associated elevation is sea water temperatures were termed the likely culprits which in turn are results of the Climate Crisis.
Evidence from the field is the hardest evidence to refute. I know you're not one, but at least one of our resident denialist trolls will take a crack at my commentary.
Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 26 2020 22:01 utc | 42
@ robjira | Jan 26 2020 18:42 utc | 23 ( Thierry Meyssan's most recent essay)
Yes, it is a good essay. However I think his understanding of International Law is only one of several, there are at least two views as to what is the basis of Law.
You'll have to look for it I'm afraid>
Title: ABOVE AND BEYOND INTERNATIONAL LAW:
GEORGE W. BUSH AS THE AUSTINIAN SOVEREIGN
Professor Ali Khan
Washburn University School of Law
JURIST
a fragment, you'll see that TM bases his idea on an altogether different foundation, I think.
"For centuries, international law has been anchored in the theory of contracts. Treaties are explicit contracts among states, but even customary international law, at least in its formative stages, is founded on consent and is derived from voluntary state practices.
All along, powerful nations have influenced international law. Yet in modern times no single state - no single sovereign - has claimed the authority to make laws for the rest of the world. International law has, since the Second World War, admittedly developed some coercive elements in its genetic structure, but it nonetheless remains, both in its essence and legitimacy, the law of partnership. This jurisprudence might change, however, if George Walker Bush is successful in crowning himself as the Austinian Sovereign. "
Posted by: Walter | Jan 26 2020 22:06 utc | 43
The U.S. now seems to be claiming the right to make laws for the whole world. So they seek to prosecute Australian citizen Assange for revelations of U.S. secrets committed in the UJK when that is not a violation of either Austraian or UK law. They get Canada to arrest a Chinese citizen for violating sanctions against Iran imposed only under U.S. law, when her real offense is that her company does not allow a backdoor for the NSA and is too effective a competitor against U.S. companies.
Posted by: lysias | Jan 26 2020 22:29 utc | 44
@ ben 36
So, maybe we could refrain from saying "climate change", and just say human activity is "fucking up the planet."
Sounds like Greta. Btw, did she power a bicycle to Davos?
the maligned deniers of "climate change" have very valid reasons. A new green tax for the coffers of Goldman Sachs.
Where did we read that dinosaurs had two diesel pickup trucks in every family? It's not only plastics and fossil fuels.
A study of the earth, hundreds of million years ago - Botany, geology geography - found:
USA's ancient hurricane belt and the US-Canada equator
https://phys.org/news/2012-11-usa-ancient-hurricane-belt-us-canada.html
"Human activity is fucking up the planet."
Wake me when we begin to address this environmental pollutant. LED lighting
Turn off these lights, that adversely impacts life.
We are lighting our way into darkness. Earth is losing its darkness and will become Mars. No aquatic life. No wildlife. No plants. No oxygen.
[.]
In the near term, it appears that artificial light emission into the environment will continue to increase, further eroding Earth’s remaining land area that experiences natural day-night light cycles. This is concerning, because artificial light is an environmental pollutant. In addition to threatening the 30% of vertebrates and more than 60% of invertebrates that are nocturnal (35), outdoor artificial light also affects plants and microorganisms (36, 37) and is increasingly suspected of affecting human health (8, 38).[.]
LINK
Posted by: Likklemore | Jan 26 2020 22:36 utc | 46
@vk #1
'Vital center'? Toxic centre. The hypostasis of the bourgeois myth of the separation of politics and economics.
Posted by: Patroklos | Jan 26 2020 22:38 utc | 47
A highlight from President Putin's recent trip to Palestine.
https://twitter.com/hamada_najar/status/1220682697548451846
Posted by: tucenz | Jan 26 2020 22:40 utc | 48
karlof1 @42--
That a global climate change event, including global warming, is currently happening is undeniable in my opinion. We are clearly seeing more chaotic weather events occurring, which is a good indication that the non-linear system that is the climate is undergoing a period of chaotic behavior. When the climate will one again settle around a more-or-less dynamic steady state is unknown, and perhaps unknowable.
That humans have been, and are continuing to, utterly destroying entire ecosystems with overuse and pollution is also undeniable in my opinion, and we humans should take steps to reduce both use and waste. This will likely require returning to a pre-industrial society.
However, what it is not clear is whether the current climate change event is largely due to human activity or due to one or more other non-human factors (e.g. solar output increase). Climate change events have occurred very commonly over the geological time scale without any help from us. The notion that a few percent increase in a rather weak greenhouse gas is causing climate change seems rather a stretch to me, especially when water is a much stronger greenhouse gas and the rather large fluctuations in global atmospheric water from year to year, every years over the last 10,000 years does not seem to have caused the global warming we are seeing now. I rather suspect that climate change is a multifarious phenomenon and pinning the blame on burning fossil fuels seems incorrect to me.
Posted by: JasonT | Jan 26 2020 22:55 utc | 49
lysias | Jan 26 2020 22:29 utc | 44
It does not "seem" - it does, and punishes those who do not come to heel.
And kills those it desires to kill.
It is highly metastatic and fragile and non-static. And every anode creates a cathode.
That implies that the present attempt to rule the globe is not liable to work. It's a matter of attempt to stop Time, and the futility of that. More MacBeth than Rome...
Such a pity too.
Posted by: Walter | Jan 26 2020 22:57 utc | 50
Here we go:
Three Rockets Strike US Embassy in Baghdad, One Hits Dining Facility
Sputniknews breaking headline updates that several reported injured. People are being evacuated.
Posted by: Likklemore | Jan 26 2020 23:08 utc | 51
Posted by: c1ue | Jan 26 2020 16:44 utc | 13
Green activism and bureaucracy is a crock alibi for Australia's inability to face up to 200 years of land mismanagement. To pin it all on fuel loads is intellectual cowardice. I've lived in the Australian bush all my life and I've never seen the bush this dry, or the heat so bad so early in the year. Hazard reduction burns would have done little to mitigate the scale of this. The best preparation was an irony effected by landowners with huge dozers clearing swathes of bush—a vicious circle practice which simply degrades the land's ability to recover yet further. These right wing canards are such a distraction. By 1900 sheep and stock-raising, land-clearing, mining, monoculture and the blinkered application of utterly unsuitable European agricultural practices had all but completely eroded the country's ability to recover from necessary fires (many native species of plant depend on fire to germinate, Banksias etc). It is an ignorant settler-colony's failure to shift its land management in sync with ecological rhythms when it had the chance. We still treat the land here in precisely the same way since 1788. All these vested interests which strip water from river systems and perpetrate ecological crimes in the name of growth co-opt the Murdoch press to spin the BS about Green activism being responsible. Anything to shift the attention and blame from their own corrosive practices. They have two political parties in complete control providing a deregulated environment—Green activism barely touches it and the bureaucracy favours propertied interests, mining and corporate agri-businesses like Cubby Station, which has sucked up the Murray-Darling river system for cotton—which leaves soil barren within 10 years. Frankly this kind of predictable scapegoating is not worthy of the high level of commentary normally found on this blog.
Posted by: Patroklos | Jan 26 2020 23:15 utc | 52
When the mass of ordinary fodder units finds out about the real thing there exists the definite possibility of mutinies. We had them in Vietnam, and the kiddies that form the "volunteer force" are essentially a poverty draft - trouble ahead, trouble behind.
Flypaper...
Posted by: Walter | Jan 26 2020 23:17 utc | 53
Some logic !
If the climate chainge deniers are wrong, but are beleaved, we lose our planet.
If the climate chainge actavists are wrong, we get to improve our environment/ planet !
You choose!
It’s not rocket science is it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUCD_24cygQ
Please don’t play Russian roulette with my planet
Posted by: Mark2 | Jan 26 2020 23:32 utc | 54
Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 26 2020 22:01 utc | 42
What do drainage from farming and industriell/city pollution making the ocean more acidic have with your so called "global warming, climate change"??? (whatever the chosen favorite buzzword from your gods is now)
Only idiots and stupid people deny that pollution is a problem, you "woke greta worshipers" only defense is "watch how many deniers will troll me, you are idiots, nazis" etc etc etc..
The open worship of the narrative, personal attacks and strawmen arguments actually says A WHOLE LOT.
Your links may be interesting and your comments to, BUT your defense of the occupying zionist entity in Palestine and your climate hysteria negates that more often then not...
Sorry if this is rude, i am sick of being told that the "science is settled" shut up criminal when the only arguments "you" have is personal slander and name calling.
Get out of your main stream narrative bubble and greet the sane world!! We will welcome you with open arms, i know off few vindictive "climate deniers" most free men rejoice when someone breaks their shackles and join the freemen ranks. Try to research non nato and independent science and read the leaks from your UN "scientists" so called research.
Per
Orthodox Christian
Norway
Posted by: Per/Norway | Jan 26 2020 23:34 utc | 55
Posted by: Likklemore | Jan 26 2020 22:36 utc | 46
Well said! 👍
tnnx for the link
Posted by: Per/Norway | Jan 26 2020 23:39 utc | 56
under the radar and distracted by the Impeachment Show in the Senate, in the House slated for Thursday:
Two Iran War Votes In House Will Seek To Halt Trump Preemptive Strikes
"House Democrats are planning two votes to challenge Trump’s war powers, State Department officials are set to hold a previously canceled top-secret brief for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Trump may unveil a Middle East peace plan ahead of a meeting Tuesday with Israeli leaders.The House plans to vote next Thursday on Rep. Barbara Lee’s standalone measure to repeal the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force, or AUMF, as well as Rep. Ro Khanna’s bill to prohibit funding for any military offensive against Iran without congressional approval. Both lawmakers are California Democrats." [.]
Will today's missile strike on the US Embassy in Baghdad scupper the vote?
Posted by: Likklemore | Jan 26 2020 23:40 utc | 57
Phil @35:
Wait and see? Hope for change?
Western Democracies have fallen to the secretive Zionist Death Cult.
We need Movement(s) to restore democracy.
"Democracy Works!" propagandists will tell you that you only need YOUR VOTE. That is false. They ask for unilateral disarmament. We will never restore democracy by voting in rigged elections.
Zionist Death Cult? is no exaggeration. IMO The Zionist Movement has been hijacked by those who see ANY opposition as an existential threat. Thus, they MUST smash countries in the Middle East, and they MUST rule the world, even if that means conflict with Russia and China.
<> <> <> <> <> <>
I see Zionism not as a bad expression.... Zion and Zionism is, in my view, only a necessary expression of an oppressed people ...
Massaging Zionist egos with happy talk is counter-productive. (Yeah, I know you qualify your happy talk later, but still ...) THEY DON'T CARE. They are only interested in POWER and keeping it.
Whatever it started out as, Zionism has morphed into a Movement that has brought misery to millions and threatens the extinction of humanity via WWIII. The Doomsday Clock is now 100 seconds to midnight.
Just imagine if your culture, your tribe, was abolished and persecuted for centuries ...
Whatever was learned from that persecution seems to have been co-opted by ruthless Zionists who don't just want a homeland but the defeat of everyone that might restrict or restain them in any way - thus, the alliance with USA Empire-builders that to rule the world (NWO).
Just imagine if ...: your country has been subverted by a secretive Movement that bypasses Democratic process and corrupts your leaders via money and relentless organizing - including illegal blackmail operations that subvert anyone that doesn't approve of their goals and means of achieving them. At some point, they get to a point where their undermining is essentially more than paid for by grants from the government that they now control.
=
That the state of Israel is oppressing other people today, and is secured by the 'empire' and the holocaust emblem, is certainly a sad period of history.
You're forgetting the Christian Zionists, MIC, and others that have a financial interest in continuing the farce.
USA and Western political elites are virtually ALL corrupted by Zionist influence.
=
It inverted the role play entirely, even perverted it. There is some hope in the citizens of Israel and the Jews that live abroad to find a way to end this insanity.
We should not rely upon that faint hope. The people in the West need to take back their democracies via MOVEMENTS.
They we might see a quick rush by Israel embrace those "simple solutions" that you talked about and to be less like the belligerent rogue State that they are today.
=
[Jews are] ... a people that is suffering from finding a place to be, to find a home. Palestine is somehow their home, but it must be shared with the Arab people who also call Palestine their home. Of course there is no simple solution to that question.
Well, the "simple solutions" that have been rejected by Zionist Death Cult.
The Zionist Death Cult decided that if they gain political control of USA, then they don't need to agree to "simple solutions". And "Zionist" Empire-builders in USA decided that they could use Israel to control the region and increase MIC profits. And the Zionist Death Cult mentality applies not just to Middle East but the World.
=
We, as a global community, have to bring separated tribes together. We have no other choice. Else, there is war. Constant war. Which is of course the plan for a certain elevated upper realm that is playing the part of the bad guy.
Yeah, well hoping for the best is not a plan.
<> <> <> <> <> <>
Laguerre @40:
[Phil @35] Jews are a separate identity ... If they wish to remain a separate identity, then there are consequences.
As I see it, the problem is not Jews but Zionists, neocons, and other warmongers.
Too often, criticism of Israel or Zionism is wrongly translated into criticism of Jews.
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jan 26 2020 23:40 utc | 58
@c1ue at 13
c1ue would appear to get his/her information on Australia's fire situation from trustworthy sources like Sky or Fox. At least he/she didn't repeat the 'it's the arsonists' meme.
As in any organisation in a changing environment, there are a few people who yearn for the 'good old days', and the author of the book cited is a good example. The reason that burning around Lemon Tree Passage has decreased is that in the last few decades, the area has turned from coastal scrub to semi-suburbia. Hazard reduction burning there thus presents a whole new set of considerations, but that isn't recognised.
Other commenters have shown that being published in Quadrant detracts rather than adds to the author's credibility. Those wanting fact-based coverage of the issues surrounding the fires in Australia should start with articles by Greg Mullins, retired state Rural Fire Service Commissioner, https://www.smh.com.au/national/this-is-not-normal-what-s-different-about-the-nsw-mega-fires-20191110-p5395e.html
Or try some of the articles at the Conversation, such as https://theconversation.com/some-say-weve-seen-bushfires-worse-than-this-before-but-theyre-ignoring-a-few-key-facts-129391
Posted by: Extra | Jan 26 2020 23:40 utc | 59
Below are combined comments I left on the Associated Press thread but it talks to what Likklemore | Jan 26 2020 23:08 utc | 51 wrote about/shared link to rocket attacks on Green Zone in Iraq
al Sadr has called for more protests in Iraq on Sunday but I am not seeing any reports yet.
And in the mean time Trump is getting together with Occupied Palestine to push their "peace plan" for the ME
I would not be surprised to read of an attempt on Trump's life while he is in Occupied Palestine given the money being offered to do so in the ME
Interesting times indeed........
"
Below is a quote from Reuters that shows obfuscation of the protests in Iraq
"
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi security forces fired teargas and live bullets in clashes on Sunday with protesters angered by high-level corruption who resisted with stones and petrol bombs, Reuters witnesses and security sources said.
"
Reuters goes on to write that the the protests over the murder of Soleimani are over and the folks that are out now are protesting the Iraq leadership like before the murder.
This is in spite of recent rockets into the Green zone which is not where the Iraq government resides......I guess more US soldiers need to get "headaches" to convince Reuters that Iraq protests are not the color revolution they continue to spin stories about.
"
I just checked and Reuters is still not reporting on the rocket attacks in Iraq......
Posted by: psychohistorian | Jan 27 2020 0:11 utc | 60
@31 jen.. here is a link to go with your comments - Ukrainian jet victim ran company suspected by UN of violating Libyan arms embargo
Nina Dos Santos-Profile-Image ....i wonder what oligarch she was working for??
regarding the world tour of juan guiado and coming to a fascist country near you... it seems the idea of the usa deciding who is going to run venezuala and getting all the poodles to agree to it, is the thing now.. they got him to davos and keep on trying to raise his profile, but it is a losing game as i see it... no matter how much lipstick the msm can put on this pig, it ain't going to fly... sorry pomparse, but you can fool some folks, but not all folks...
@ 59 psychohistorian.. they are just putting the finishing touches on the articles right now as we speak! it will be ''iran influenced'' forces bomb usa embassy in baghdad - or something to that effect.. give it a few minutes.. reuters and associated press staff are working on it as we speak, lol...
here is the rt version - 3 rockets ‘directly hit US embassy’ in Baghdad’s Green Zone (VIDEOS) ...
Posted by: james | Jan 27 2020 0:30 utc | 61
top link doesn't work.. here it is again.. direct...
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/24/europe/ukrainian-crash-victim-olena-malakhova-libya-iran-intl/
Posted by: james | Jan 27 2020 0:31 utc | 62
The neat thing with climate change is it provides the solution to earth's biggest problem...humans. Virus and bacteria love wetter, warmer climates. Combined with the stress put on humans by changing environments, weather related disasters, and forced migration due to sea-level change, pandemics will become more and more common. Throw in the over use of anti-biotics, and the human species is ripe for the picking!
As if earth has a sense of poetic justice, it will be the older generations, the ones who caused us to be where we are today that get hit the hardest. As far as I can see, the only solution to climate change is less humans. Earth will survive this, even if human civilization doesn't.
Even if climate change stresses human society enough to touch off full scale nuclear war, and the extinction of all large mammals, something will likely survive to start anew!
Posted by: OneofaFewJasons | Jan 27 2020 0:36 utc | 63
Jrabbit @ 57 said;
"As I see it, the problem is not Jews but Zionists, neocons, and other warmongers."
"Too often, criticism of Israel or Zionism is wrongly translated into criticism of Jews."
Absolutely!!
Posted by: ben | Jan 27 2020 0:38 utc | 64
Don't know who this Hugh Grant is, but he's right on this one:
‘Sod off to Canada’: Hugh Grant lambasted for saying Britain’s ‘FINISHED’ thanks to Brexit
We finally have one realist in the UK. Only took three and a half years.
--//--
The falsity of the Steele Dossier has finally reached the Mainstream Media. It's the Russian one, but still...
UK Espionage Historian Says Steele Dossier on Trump Was Highly Likely 'Fabricated' – Report
--//--
About the "Jews are not a race" thing: this is simply attesting the obvious truth. How many Jews today do you think are direct matrilineal descendents of the Chosen People who fled Egypt 5,000 thousand years ago? Probably - as in 99.999% of chance - none.
In fact, the flight from Egypt probably never happened. The few historians who (with a lot of good faith) still support the theory the event happened state that, if it really happened, it happened some 1,400 years after the Old Testament claims or some 1,000 years before. If the Jews weren't such a powerful minority in today's world, this "modern Jewish people" theory would've already be dead.
Most Jews alive today are descendents from the peoples who converted to Judaism sometime during the Middle Ages (e.g. the Askhenazi). There is no Jewish People in the same sense there is no Spanish people, or Portuguese people, or German people, or French people etc. etc. Those "people" theories are called ethnogenesis, and they are all completely arbitrary and, most importantly, pseudo-scientific.
There's only one species - the Homo Sapiens - which creates different cultures through geographical isolation and then sycretism. No matter how much different two specimens are from a fenotypical point of view: the difference in the genome is negligible.
@ Per/Norway 55
Thanks.
Unf**kingbelievable the hypocrisy on display at Davos. 117 billionaires, joined by 2,900 CEOs, political leaders, climate activists and SELF-important people attended a Weather conference: "309 private jets plus hundreds of commercial flights to Zurich and helios or car to Davos.
Major central banks must now adopt a green agenda. ECB chief Lagarde said Climate change action will be a "mission critical" priority. Now the same leaders in charge of a collapsing financial system is getting involved in controlling temperatures. !!!!.
...Setting aside the fact that Climate cycles are no longer valid. Why not? ... we have managed to cancel economic cycles, let's have a go at Climate temperatures.
We are doomed.
@ PH 59 drip, drip, drip, these strikes on the green zone. It's called Chinese water torture. Attacks will continue until Uncle Trumpy gets the message, "we said, you need to leave, evacuate your troops"
Update from Sputnik per Iraqi TV Several casualties
Five rockets landed in Baghdad's "green zone" earlier in the day, where the US Embassy and various Iraqi government buildings are located, Iraqi sources said.
Three rockets have struck the US embassy in Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, with one hitting its restaurant, Al Arabiya reported on Sunday citing AFP.Iraq's Al Sumaria TV reported, citing a security source, that there were several casualties resulting from the attack and that helicopters were working to evacuate those inside the embassy and on its territory.
US aircraft were spotted flying over the scene and then landing inside the embassy compound, the agency added.
Posted by: Likklemore | Jan 27 2020 1:03 utc | 66
Circe @ 41: Despite all the overblown rhetoric in past elections, your post is, I fear, a cogent, and apt description of what we're facing in 2020. But, no one ever went broke betting on the willful ignorance of the American public.
Old saying; " You get the kind of Gov. you deserve" And the U$A deserves every bit of DJT, and his merry band of grifters...
karlof1 @ 42; I've been fishing and hunting for 60 yrs, and the damage done to our wilderness areas, and our oceans is undeniable.
God will NOT save us..
Posted by: ben | Jan 27 2020 1:15 utc | 67
@12 c1ue
I work for NOAA and amongst my peers it is frustrating how incomplete scientific studies get used by both sides to support their view.
There hasn't been a scientific established correlation between warmer global temperatures and hurricanes in any given basin. That is because there are four big factors at play in hurricane genesis that have some tendencies to counteract each other.
1) Warmer ocean water does have a positive effect on cyclogenesis, and the oceans are warmer than they have been for at least 500 years...but...
2) Warmer global temperatures also mean more wind shear, which is the major preventative factor for cyclogenesis.
3) Hurricanes are a heat transfer mechanism, meaning they transfer heat from warmer areas to cooler areas. The steeper the temperature gradient, the likelier it is a hurricane forms. It does appear that global warming is flattening temperature gradients to some degree, but the research on this is in its nascent stages.
4) Hurricanes initial form from what we often refer to as invests...a disturbed weather pattern brought about by atmospheric instability. Data shows these invests are increasing, but once again the research is in its early stages.
I'd link an interesting study done in 2006 on the relationships I have described above, but I am afraid I will screw up the feed by doing it wrong.
Anybody who has studied atmospheric sciences knows the earth's climate has changed hundreds of times in the past billion year, no shit Sherlock. Climate changes science is simple physics, it was proven back in 1879, having to due with the Laws of Thermodynamics. There is no such thing as an independent climate scientist. Every single neysayer gets money from the fossil fuel lobby. Big oil hires the same lobbying firm as big tobacco did, and spin the same type of lies.
Posted by: ThisHereJason | Jan 27 2020 1:19 utc | 68
@ OneofaFewJasons | Jan 27 2020 0:36 utc | 62
The neat thing with climate change is it provides the solution to earth's biggest problem...humans. Virus and bacteria love wetter, warmer climates. Combined with the stress put on humans by changing environments, weather related disasters, and forced migration due to sea-level change, pandemics will become more and more common. Throw in the over use of anti-biotics, and the human species is ripe for the picking!
As far as I can see, the only solution to climate change is less humans. Earth will survive this, even if human civilization doesn't.
Question: less humans, who goes first.... the colour enhanced peoples or the colour deprived?
That is quite a mouthful and You are sporting us. "Virus and bacteria love wetter, warmer climates.[.] throw in over use of antibiotics and the human species is ripe for the picking."
During the little ice age and during the 5th Century there were pandemics affecting humans.
Viruses have ravaged the world before and the Black Death - killed millions people in the 14th century. Estimated 50% of Europe’s population perished and around 35% in the rest of the world.
Posted by: Likklemore | Jan 27 2020 1:53 utc | 69
Circe @ 41
I see no way Bernie is going to beat Trump nor is he going to break the back of the collective power centers arrayed against the average person trying to exist. Bernie talks a great game but like Trump he will not deliver other than maybe appointing some judges.
Warm planet good, cold planet bad. We have had four bitterly cold winters in a row and massive crop failures to boot. The sun drives the weather on the planet and CO2 is a minuscule percentage of the atmosphere. These climate change cycles are normal and be tracked thought history with warm periods being the height of progress and cold periods leading to the collapse of civilization.
They can be devastating if not recognized and prepared for in its outcome. Global food production suffers, crops cannot be planted in the same spots leading to decades of recovery. People starve, civilizations goes into a mad max type scenario as people hunger. It has happened numerous times.
The planet is cooling not warming in the northern latitudes. the crazy weather occurrences belies that change and as the Northern latitudes cool. Eventually things will stabilize into a 200 year cooler cycle. The power of the media pushing an agenda, the very thing everyone rails about constantly, has fooled you all.
Posted by: dltravers | Jan 27 2020 2:08 utc | 70
Drip, drip, drip
It is 2 hours since Reuters has put out the story in my comment above that says nothing about any rockets into the Green Zone today........yet, but 21 other stories.......Hmmmm
Wag the Dog is a movie where Deep State drags a creative Hollywood producer into an geo-political SNAFU and he creates a series of "narrative changing events" to play the situation along until it is off the geo-political view screen.
(apologies for the perhaps crude description of the movie)
I feel quite confident that there is similar, poorly intentioned, narrative management programs going on with some sort of Top Secret communication to players of the narrative....
The best government the social contract of global private finance centered can buy.
They need some time to get their stories straight from Hand, The Invisible mafia leadership
Posted by: psychohistorian | Jan 27 2020 2:10 utc | 71
Forgot the link...
Widespread Crop Failures Happening All Over America
Posted by: dltravers | Jan 27 2020 2:14 utc | 72
dltravers @69:
> I see no way Bernie is going to beat Trump nor is he going to break the back of the
> collective power centers arrayed against the average person trying to exist.
More to the point is whether Berine is even interested in doing so. His actual track record offers plenty of occasion to doubt.
Posted by: corvo | Jan 27 2020 2:16 utc | 73
@ dltravers | Jan 27 2020 2:08 utc | 69
”We have had four bitterly cold winters in a row and massive crop failures to boot.”
The crop failures were, and are caused by massively increased rainfall and resultant flooding, which in turn are caused by increased atmospheric temperature. Warmer air picks up more water vapor from the oceans, thus increasing rainfall and/or snowfall, which produce more, and longer, and greater floods.
Posted by: AntiSpin | Jan 27 2020 2:21 utc | 74
Re Climate Change, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEWoPzaDmOA I recommend it, for whatever that's worth.
The film linked to above has the title 'Climate Forcing: The Future is Cold'
The fake news industry complex - mass media and corrupt institutions and corrupt science and ordinary people who zealously promote their brainwashed perspectives - generate quite the prolific ongoing blizzard of ignorance and duplicity. Trying to dig our way out of it, at least enough to take a few breathes of fresh honest air, takes quite the effort. A friend of mine said to me, after having spent many years trying to figure out what has actually been going on, where the truth lies, who are the poisonous smiling 'snakes', who to trust, and so on, that the price he has paid is having to keep his mouth diplomatically shut in normal company. He does get to wear a very slight - micro expression - a very subtle and slightly mysterious expression of mirth can usually escape condemnation - consider the Mona Lisa.
Posted by: Robert Snefjella | Jan 27 2020 2:32 utc | 75
What does it say that BBC put up a rockets into Green Zone story 37 minutes ago....where is Reuters?
What a Soap Opera world...
Posted by: psychohistorian | Jan 27 2020 2:38 utc | 76
c1ue @ 15 I don't think your objection is really relevant to the general intention of my post, but I will try to address your objections as best I can but before I do, thanks for the effort; everyone's thoughts are essential to complete the narrative.. so here goes=> The universities live off the government =>student financing is government financing, => research financing is government making every university paycheck into a government subsidy, just like the renters in government subsidized privately owned housing projects. there is no difference if the government loans or government grants fund the (renters or students) is still government financing that funds the privately owned housing project or the privately owned not for profit, non governmental, university! The fact that the private contributions made to university foundations by grant, operation of will or whatever, supports the universities: such are government subsidies (donations are tax deductible), makes the entire university (same as if it were the government itself) and more or less puts the university into the same dependent position that a small nation finds itself in, its management totally puppetized to the larger nation because it is dependent on a larger nation for its survival<=Trump would sanction any nation dependent on federal money, if that nation refused his demands. A prime example of how dependent universities are government dependents BDS is that universities that allow those called its government financed paid employees, support BDS lose their government financing.
As to the tech corporations<= private I presume; you were thinking=> much of the technology is government research funded, and starts by privatizing the research of a Phd or a small group of PHDs, who just graduated from a government sponsored university conducted basic research program grant and don't forget most university programs exist to use public funds to train persons to be eligible for jobs in privately held corporations .. The program was government funded, university sponsored either because the military wanted the research, or because the research was too basic, too risky or too expensive for private industry to commit their precious investor funds to take on such research, (as with most of that grant funded research, because many of the programs fail to produce something economically viable, still the private employers get the government to pay those university instructors to train their students to do jobs at the private employer) .
In the few cases where the program grant and university instruction develops in house expertise in the form of a candidate slave, and the Phd does come up with sufficient evidence that the research is likely to have strong enough economic possibilities, to warrant private funding, the government steps in and grants to the University and the Private corporation picking up where the University left off, a public monopoly which monopoly denies all other private corporations from using that technology (that monopoly is called a patent). So government sponsors the too risky, too costly likely not to really be useful research programs, either inside of the private corporation on inside of a university directed research programs or even in special labs like Fermilab and Maglab, and so on.
Once again we are back to humanity. Here you will see the human mind is developed by public funds and private sponsored propaganda (maybe some where there is an exception) but our modern society cannot exist if the average person was not been taught to language and math skills (no one could sell books, cell phones, calculators, clocks or electronic gadgets). Would you deny that basic instruction (nearly always public funded) creates markets and transform humans into employable capital stock) is not public funded, teaching children to read is just a public funded as building a highway? you can take if from there..
Without public funded mass education there would be no market for computers, no need for the Internet, and few if any pilots, and fewer still passengers in need of going from the jungle markets in the City of London to the ruler of the world in NYC. So I argue the inventions of the human mind are not the governments to give away to their mob owned private corporations. How does government rob the public of inventions created by those public funds trained? Government does this robbery by rule of law ? It is monopoly law (patents, copyrights) that create from thin air private property rights in a public good (the invention which is an expression of the inventors publicly trained mind).
The reason even beyond profits the Mobsters use government to take from the public new developments of ideas (inventions), is because some inventions are disruptive to the long standing private corporations. The private corporations d/n want to be producing airplanes that cost billions to build, millions to fly, when some kid in his back yard invents a flying machine for a few hundred thousand dollars capable to operate for days at a time on $10 worth of gas, which carries a bigger payloads, at faster speeds, than the store bought Billion dollar albatrosses. <=That is why government makes grants of patents. Licensed monopolies (patents) and licensed content (art, books, and the like are (copyrights) are a large part of the mobster profit economy, but Patents and Copyrights are the essential need, lest some guy in the back year would put them out of business overnight.
Without public funded roads and airports ' Walmart and FedeX would be SOL. If one of the road or airport users were to discover while driving, or flying a new quicker way to load and unload cargo, the employer of that idea inventor would likely pay the poor sap $100 or and use the patent derived from that drivers idea and use it to make more profit and to eliminate more competition. Capitalism depends on open, unabated competition for its success.
Try to use that idea in your trucking company, because it will save your company lets say a $1 million a year, and every other trucking company quite substantial sums (generally world wide if everyone could use it, it would save humanity trillions a year, but because your publically trained employee could not help but think of it, as he or she needed what looks like a novel idea just to do his or her job. The company with the patent then sues every one that tries to uses that patented idea which denies the humanity of the world the benefit of training that driver who came up with it. <=that's theft in my mind, the government by its laws took the idea generated by a publically trained mind and transformed one of its expression (privatized it) into a private property asset and made the employer the owner with exclusive right to use the property, The company that just happened to hire a guy who would be doing the same thing for whom ever truck owner he was working for.
Take a private corporate factory, its a place were persons highly educated with public funds are selected after they wind the competitive challenge with other publicly trained candidates (that is they get hired). While at work, the employee arranges his work efficiently (its novel) so the government grants the employer a patent and by operation of the patent, the government privatizes the idea that came from a publically trained mind, and takes the expression of the idea from the actual inventor (the employee) and makes the patent a privately owned corporate asset (a product of a person's human mind becomes by grant of government law, private property, owned by a privately owned corporation. 95% of the patents I have seen over my years would have been invented by just about anyone who was in the job the inventor had at the time. Why, because it is the challenge of the job or the task to make more efficient or to solve a particular problem. <= like finding a vaccine for a new virus, in a privately owned government grant funded lab. The task itself forces the idea that leads to the invention in time the invention would come about as a matter of course because it is the job to solve the problem or because it helpful to make easier the task involved in the job.
Eureka, for making the task easier the employee gets a $100 award, the company makes more money because the task is simpler, and the company gains a competitive advantage that keeps prices high and kills off competing companies.
Posted by: snake | Jan 27 2020 2:43 utc | 77
I've maintained for some time now, the debate over climate change can go on forever, but, the fact that human activity is introducing pathogens into the environment, will destroy humanity before the climate does.
We'll all get to see, by and by..
Posted by: ben | Jan 27 2020 2:43 utc | 78
Re: Likklemore
Likklemore is right, drip drip drip, The Green Zone and embassy attacks have gone from a rare occurrence, to monthly, then weekly and now every other day and soon a daily occurrence. It also looks like several US soldiers were "killed" in the Iranian rocket attack and the US simply moved the soldiers out of Iraq to other countries to conceal the deaths. I imagine we'll hear about another tragic fatal accident or mysterious death in Germany, Kuwait or anyplace not named in Iraq in the next few days.
Posted by: Kadath | Jan 27 2020 2:56 utc | 79
It is well known from the geologic record that rising concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere lead to rising concentrations of carbonic acid in the oceans, & concomitant drop in pH.... ie: acidification.
The man who posted his experience with dungeness crab is observing this effect acting upon the crab he catches for a living.
However, as acidification progresses.... which it will... conditions will deteriorate for mollusks and corals to the point they no longer are able to make calcium carbonate shells, and will go extinct.
This happened during the permian extinction.
While the pending grand solar minimum will mitigate global temperature rise for the next 50 years or so.... continuing CO2 emissions will accelerate ocean acidification... and quicken the day pH drops to the point arthropods and mollusks can no longer make exoskeleton or shells.... thence going extinct....
Given they are the zoo plankton during their juvenile stage.... this will lead to dramatic drop in the zooplankton... followed by collapse of the oceanic food chain... all the way up to those at the top.... tunny, swordfish, sailfish, shark, whales, and birds.
INDY
Posted by: Dr. George W Oprisko | Jan 27 2020 3:13 utc | 80
Report: Bolton says Trump tied Ukraine funds to Biden probe
ZEKE MILLER and ERIC TUCKER
Associated PressJanuary 26, 2020, 4:42 PM PST
"WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump told his national security adviser he wanted to maintain a freeze on military assistance to Ukraine until it aided political investigations into his Democratic rivals, according to a report in The New York Times on Sunday."
"The newspaper said John Bolton's description of his exchange with Trump appears in drafts of his forthcoming book. The revelation challenges the defense offered up by Trump and his attorneys in his Senate impeachment trial and raises the stakes as the chamber decided this week whether to seek sworn testimony from Bolton and other witnesses."
https://www.yahoo.com/news/report-bolton-says-trump-tied-004225755.html
We'll see...
Posted by: ben | Jan 27 2020 3:32 utc | 81
Posted by: Dr. George W Oprisko | Jan 27 2020 3:13 utc | 79
Dana Durnford, Canadian sailor and diver, sailed for 15000 miles in 2015 along the West Coast of Canada, documenting including via underwater cameras the demise of a very large range of flora and fauna along the shores and in the tidal pools. He summarized his findings with the words "everything is missing". You can see his photos etc on The Nuclear Proctologist. He assumes that the massive radioactive discharges from the ongoing Fukushima nuclear catastrophe are a big part of the problem. Insects, fish, birds, mammals, kelp, mollusks, snails, etc etc: He found by far most were just missing, and what remained were mere remnant populations of what had been until recently an incredible fecundity of lifeforms: many thousands of species of life along and in the tidal pools of Western Canada.
There's a lot going on with our planet, including an apparent accelerating reduction of Earth's magnetic field/shield. And then there's our sun's cycles and surprises, and our galaxy....
Posted by: Robert Snefjella | Jan 27 2020 3:51 utc | 82
I will stop following Reuters handling of the Iraq Green Zone attack today after this comment.
12 minutes ago Reuters updated the story to still focus on the "internal strife" meme but towards the beginning of the longer article they inserted the following and then went back to the internal strife meme
"
Separately, at least one of five Katyusha rockets fired at Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone hit the U.S. embassy, wounding three people, in a rare direct targeting of the compound, security sources said. Reuters could not independently verify the rocket attacks.
"
And then after a page more of "Since Oct. 1 ...." blah blah they had a vague few paragraphs more about the 5 rockets story.
No link because I don't want to pollute your mind.
Posted by: psychohistorian | Jan 27 2020 3:55 utc | 83
snake #76
Thank you for the time to put that expose forward. Private theft of public intellectual effort is deplorable. At the very least all intellectual effort via university and public research labs should reside in the commons patent pool. Dividends can be determined on an equitable basis between the inventor and the state.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jan 27 2020 4:35 utc | 84
ben #80
Bolton says Trump tied Ukraine funds to Biden probe
Well well, Bolton rats on the Boss. Back in the old country that would have put him on the receiving end of the garrot, performed in front of the Boss. The loyalty of Bolton though is on par with the Venetian loyalty that prevailed in the 1500's.
How I hope he is richly rewarded with the age old remedy. I vote for Jose Bustani to deliver the 'treatment'.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jan 27 2020 4:49 utc | 85
@66 ben
You're right of course, the U.S. deserves Trump karma, but people everywhere who suffer U.S. policy deserve much better, and domestically those people who were held hostage by a choice between TWO EVILS in the previous election deserve better as well.
@69dltravers
I'm sorry but I strongly disagree. I believe Bernie has a chance to win, but it's all dependent on how much people are willing to fight for it, and beat off the Trump propaganda bullshet machine. It will require unprecedented turn out not only to vote for Bernie, but also to bring new blood into the Senate. Gotta get rid of Mitch Mconnell. That would be a dream come true!
Posted by: Circe | Jan 27 2020 4:49 utc | 86
boltons timing on the book is as good as guaido being a guest at davos... someone has figured out how to milk the pr...
Posted by: james | Jan 27 2020 5:05 utc | 87
james @86: Dolton is an amazing piece of work, DC seems to attract them (warning Breitbart):
CNN’s Stelter: John Bolton Book Goes on Pre-Order at Amazon after NYT Story
It will be entertaining watching Trump come unglued if they get Bolton up there on the stand lying about him.
Posted by: Bemildred | Jan 27 2020 5:44 utc | 88
We all know Jeffrey Epstein didn't kill himself. What I wonder about is who brought about the renewed interest in Jeffrey that led to his death. We all know that his original sentence on his pedophilic sex trafficking was incredibly lenient. Acosta said He’d cut the non-prosecution deal with one of Epstein’s attorneys because he had “been told” to back off, that Epstein was above his pay grade. “I was told Epstein ‘belonged to intelligence’ and to leave it alone,” Epstein was still hobnobbing with important people after his conviction and his short time of almost house arrest. I read Cindy McCain saying everybody knew but nobody would do anything. Then something changed. Epstein was arrested at the airport. People started talking. Ghislaine Murdock became missing in action. Epstein ended up being murdered in prison by nobody knows. Who got the Justice Department to issue the arrest warrant?
Posted by: gepay | Jan 27 2020 6:43 utc | 89
I did mean Ghislaine Maxwell. daughter of media mogul Robert Maxwell who was a denizen of the intelligence world
Posted by: gepay | Jan 27 2020 7:06 utc | 90
Surya Arab Army made good progress in recent days, has captured multiple towns in last two days, crossed M5 highway, circled Ma’arrat al-Nu’man and imposed blockade from north side.
Posted by: arata | Jan 27 2020 7:11 utc | 91
Bemildred | Jan 27 2020 5:44 utc | 87
Like many I'm in two minds about this impeachment nonsense. It feels a bit like the pommie Brexit thing. There is no doubt Trump is a despicable toerag but the people voted for a despicable toerag (forget the electoral college whines dems have profited from that arrangement in the past as well). Once it becomes acceptable to overturn and destroy the executive by the legislature, it is only a matter of time before any separation between the two is dissolved, and it will be the arseholes - y'know the greedies/deep state/ thieves of empire who control the interface.
As bad as the current configuration is, the one which comes next, which will have been driven by the greedies/deep state/ thieves of empire, will be a lot worse and even less vulnerable to citizen interruption.
I've given up caring about the unenviable fate of ordinary amerikan humans because only they can save themselves and thus far they are less interested in accepting, then confronting the fragility of their future than any of the other humans dotted about this rock desperate to live in a world where tomorrow will be better, not much, much worse, than today.
What is that old saying? You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink. The only gargle amerikans appear to favour is rooted in ugly ersatz nativism - ersatz because whatever homogeneous amerikan culture may once have existed is totally perverted now, relying on deceit, racism and greed driven bulldust to carry a particularly ugly message of faux unity.
The moment nukes were dreamed up any halfwit could see that once amerika had used them to kill what amerika had determined to be untermensch, that it is only gonna be a matter of time before the anti-human, corrupted by greed morons who control amerika, decide that everyone, everywhere else are also less than human, and amerika's ruling class elect to nuke all the rest of us as well. True a few in amerika may be discomfited by that, but we (everyone, everywhere else), understand how easily that amerika's ruling class can allay any concern with a coupla TV 'specials' and an NYT 'opinion'.
I could go on and detail how weird it is that the nations who suffered the most in the second half of the 20th century euro war turned out to be the most opposed to 'nuking' but why bother? Amerikans either know that because they looked beyond the specious tosh, or they don't because they don't wanna know - in which case they cannot be turned.
I cannot envisage a scenario where amerika's bosses don't nuke everyone, everywhere else rather than risk losing their carefully curated cheese stashes.
Posted by: A User | Jan 27 2020 7:54 utc | 92
ThisHereJason | Jan 27 2020 1:19 utc | 67:
...it is frustrating how incomplete scientific studies get used by both sides to support their view...There is no such thing as an independent climate scientist. Every single neysayer gets money from the fossil fuel lobby.
It's not just the naysayers but the activists as well. I vaguely remember a scandal where Saudi Arabia or the UAE was funding an environmental group to block new competitors (fracking???) from entering the market. This is why I don't side with anyone regarding this climate change debate. There's too many interest groups meddling where they should've been given the boot. When people like Lagarde (Likklemore@65) wade into the debate then you know a nefarious agenda is being pursued.
On the flip side, I acknowledge that human activity have an impact on the environment. Anecdotal evidence shouldn't be ignored but needs to be verified by an independent party.
Posted by: Ian2 | Jan 27 2020 8:35 utc | 93
Gepay @ 88:
My understanding is that the Miami Herald was instrumental in getting the case against Epstein reopened. The newspaper was investigating former US Labor Secretary Acosta's role in allowing Epstein to go free back in 2008. It filed a Federal court motion in New York to get access to sealed documents containing information from Virginia Giuffre, and that is what helped generate interest in the case.
Posted by: Jen | Jan 27 2020 9:45 utc | 94
Phil @ 35
I'm considering saving your hasbara propaganda as a teaching / learning example for others. The chosen people have been kicked out of more than 100 countries throughout history, and somehow this is nothing except persecution? Zionists don't want a homeland; they want the entire planet with everyone else subjugated. Have you even considered why the global community doesn't embrace being together with this separated tribe? Congratulations on trolling my response, you cast some fine bait. Jackrabbit @ 57 has given you a more courteous response than you deserve.
Posted by: psychedelicatessen | Jan 27 2020 10:13 utc | 95
gepay #88
I read Cindy McCain saying everybody knew but nobody would do anything. Then something changed. Epstein was arrested at the airport. People started talking. Ghislaine Murdock became missing in action. Epstein ended up being murdered in prison by nobody knows. Who got the Justice Department to issue the arrest warrant?
There was plenty happening and the victims were seriously closing in to get their justice in court following the disgraceful Acosta plea bargain.
Simultaneously there was NO investigation of Ghislaine Maxwell (not Murdoch) or Les Wexner who are the two directors of this operation. Epstein is the mere CEO for want of role comparison.
For more information Whitney Webb has published a substantial series at Mint Press News. There is also a right wing site - Amazing Polly- and she has assembled a series of expose of Ghislaines 'friends and associates', many in the media. Webb is more factual and detailed while Polly reveals why the media is silent and the New York set and its association with Epstein.
Right here at MoA are some great resources in b's posts and the trove of info in the commenters threads.
Ghislaine Maxwell and Les Wexner are still on the loose and everyone knows where to find them. I'd say the FBI is busy shouting drinks at the bar and talking shop to be bothered scraping these scum off the streets. The political class is busy impeaching and ignoring this embarrassment.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jan 27 2020 10:45 utc | 96
just saw this do not know anything except the article says another Boeing down, 83 passengers, according to>>
Posted by: snake | Jan 27 2020 11:07 utc | 97
gepay | Jan 27 2020 6:43 utc | 88 Killed himself? Where's the evidence?
They say the lady was in love with that good man Jeff...have we seen so much as sadness in the few appearances since the "death", poor fella, let alone the face of a widow or even a single tear? The mise-en-scène a la Epstein is flawed...there is no grief. You wanna chat with Jeff, go see the lady. Ask a bookie about it. The smart money is on a safehouse somewhere in zionestalandia. (not all bookies are ideologues, and most pawnshops will take a sucker bet, (business is business) (The latter quote "business" is, they say, from Moses...)
..............
Robert Snefjella | Jan 27 2020 3:51 utc | 81 Pacific die-off.
The unstated "plan" for Fukushima to to dump 99% into the sea, perhaps gradually...this is obvious from the circumstances overall, financial, criminal, practical, and so forth. This "plan" was built-in when the US built those plants (though the later-built were Japanese-US).
Those who recall the past, people of 70 or so, will recall the massive bug splat on their windshield and the insects on the screens in August summer night. This "plankton" is also almost gone...as in the sea.
see fairewinds [dot] org for additional. The other plan to to re-populate the radioactive-contaminated now-evacuated area, lie about the health results, and pretend it did not spew/is not spewing/...just imagine if you could see the coruscating hills, all sparkling and pretty, eh?
Posted by: Walter | Jan 27 2020 11:08 utc | 98
A couple of quick Boeing observations:
First, after just completing my first commercial airline flight since the Boeing scandal exploded, I had of course been very careful to book only flights which were not serviced by Boeing planes. Lo and behold, one leg found me being loaded onto a 777. Obviously I was not pleased, but not a lot I could do about it. However, it did make me surmise that A LOT of people are refusing to book flights with Boeing planes, so many that ticket agencies are having to rely upon their "we can swap your ride when required" fine print, and hide their use of Boeing planes, just to sell tickets. What's going to happen when that becomes very obvious and customers start to rebel?
Secondly, the final leg was on an Aeroflot Sukhoi Superjet, and after flying US and French carriers, the difference was night and day. Sparkling clean plane that just felt so much smoother and "tighter" than the other planes, and a crew that were fantastic in their professionalism, attentiveness, and general moral. Flying those back-to-back was eye opening.
Posted by: J Swift | Jan 27 2020 11:44 utc | 99
Did the US just concede defeat in China tech war?
Short answer: yes.
Long answer: yes, for sure.
--//--
Is it theoretically possible this coronavirus to drop China's GDP growth by 1%? Of course it is.
But even if that happens, that would be an extraordinary fall. China's economy would rebound and this GDP loss would be compensated for the 2021 figures. That is, unless this coronavirus reveals to be some kind of smallpox-like plague which can ravage 33%-50%+ the entire Chinese population - which doesn't seem to be the case (there are already cases of people healing after some weeks without any medicine).
The comments to this entry are closed.
The death of the "Vital Center", an epitaph:
Why red and blue America can’t hear each other anymore - by Francis Fukuyama
Posted by: vk | Jan 26 2020 15:39 utc | 1