Lucci 101
“their antibiotic resistant property make them much more complex bacteria that their growth and multiplication are hampered in comparison to normal bacteria and as a result would be almost always outcompeted by normal bacteria in the environment.”
Normal bacteria are part of the natural diversity which is scoured by poison regimes, leaving favorable terrain for every kind of pathogen and vermin. That’s why the chosen species of industrial agriculture, besides the destructive-invasive crops themselves, include insecticide-resistant insect pests, herbicide-resistant weeds and pathogenic bacteria such as salmonella and botulins, especially in antibiotic-resistant forms.
That’s part of the goal of poisonism, to override and destroy all evolutionary diversity, processes and safeguards, precisely in order that pathogens will have an open road with no competition. The system’s deliberate persistence with actions which always bring that result proves it’s part of their intent.
https://attempter.wordpress.com/2018/01/17/the-dicamba-crisis-part-four-the-strict-intent-of-the-destructive-system/

Posted by: Russ | Sep 7 2020 13:05 utc | 104

Ah yes, child exploitation in war, THE noblest action that defines true heroes of our times.

Posted by: J W | Sep 7 2020 13:23 utc | 106

James, Gruff, etc.
I watched the documentary last night, the soundtrack is atrocious. It is not about population control, it is about what a scam the green energy and recycling programs are.
They literally spent less than 2 minutes talking about over population, and even then it was three different individuals who were speaking about some local environmental issues who said something close to, “Face it, there are too many people on the planet.”
gruff “It is not really honest for the movie to spend an hour and a half arguing that there are too many people and then pretending that they have no solution. The solution is implied, even if the nasty parts that it would require are not discussed.”
That is not a fair assessment of the documentary. And who says that a “culling” is the only way to control the population. Could we not, through birth control, keep the population from continuing to expand?
Over consumption is the problem. If we were to get our consumption under control, then the number of people here would be less of a problem.

Posted by: visak | Sep 7 2020 13:44 utc | 108

ASML, Huawei and Qualcomm may be caught in the crossfire as SMIC runs risk of US blacklist in escalating tech war
In 60s and 70s, China was not that far behind US in semiconductor research and initial manufacturing. Thanks to Deng and his followers’ believing of “buying-is-cheaper-than-making” , China opened its market and the Taiwanese, American and late Korean chip makers flushed the Chinese manufacturers out of business by lowing price with their economy of scale. Once having consolidated their monopoly position in China, these same Taiwanese/ American/Korean companies start to double/triple their prices in China than in other markets.
This money-making strategy functions till now: whenever local Chinese chip makers are able to manufacture the same chips, these Taiwanese/ American/Korean companies would immediately drop down their orbitant prices.
The restriction/forbidden imposed by FUKUS on sale of ASML machinery is another reason that Chinese semiconductor manufacturers are not able to manufacture the latest 7nm chip. Just recently, ASML has to stop the shipment of a production line (not the latest 7nm technology) due to US pressure.
So much for “free market competition”!

Posted by: lulu | Sep 7 2020 14:27 utc | 110

Posted by: Bemildred | Sep 7 2020 13:41 utc | 107
Russian hospitals “can’t detect traces of poison in Navalny’s blood or urine” because they are equipped with the latest Kuwaiti baby incubators.

Posted by: J W | Sep 7 2020 14:35 utc | 112

This is the Royal Navy in 1939: https://i.imgur.com/4HnenAJ.jpg
and this is the US airforce in 2020:
https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/images/6013682-1578425776.jpg

Posted by: passerby | Sep 7 2020 14:51 utc | 114

fyi Excellent deconstruction of Navalny nonsense by John Helmer
Brain Poisoning By Russian Nerve Agent – Alexei Navalny Infects German Chancellery
http://johnhelmer.net/brain-poisoning-by-russian-nerve-agent-alexei-navalny-infects-german-chancellery/

Posted by: John Gilberts | Sep 7 2020 14:55 utc | 116

@karlof1 | 65
Read that article last week and was surprised by it.
The links he makes between Navalny and NS II are tentative at best and he seems to be accommodating a ‘headline’ rather than proving a relationship between the two. Also, his article seemed very similar to that in the Atlantic which came out a couple of days before, if I remember rightly.
Here is a very different take:
https://www.pipeline-journal.net/news/nord-stream-2-dispute-becoming-ever-shriller
“Despite ever more American sanctions levied against Nord Stream 2 the construction of the subsea gas pipeline from Vyborg to Greifswald continues clandestinely with approximately 160-km left to build”
Is Merkel ‘managing’ the Novalny story to buy time, and make sure it does not get out of control?

Posted by: AtaBrit | Sep 7 2020 15:29 utc | 118

This is very interesting:
Cut Chinese firms in eye of the storm a break: Global Times editorial

The US is hinting that investigations will be carried out over whether to place SMIC on the entity list. This is the latest threat from the US against Chinese companies. SMIC was founded in 2000 with a complicated background of its shareholders, some of whom are from foreign countries. US government is obviously going out of their way to find fault by questioning the company’s ties with the Chinese military. So far, the US has placed over 300 Chinese entities on its blacklist, and it evidently intends to use the list more widely to crack down on Chinese high-tech firms. It is thus not surprising that the US would pick on SMIC as a new target.

We’ve been talking about Huawei, TikTok and now SMIC. But we’re forgetting something very important: where are the SOEs in this story? After all, the SOEs are the backbone of the CCP and modern China: they are part of the government by definition. Sure, they may already be in the 300-list (probably, the first to be added, maybe even before Trump), but there’s no outcry about them. The only reason I can think of is the SOEs, of course, don’t depend on the USA to operate and prosper, but this is just the reverse of the coin.
SMIC is a private company. As the bold part of the aforementioned quote indicates, there are even foreign stockholders in its foundation. This is very relevant information, because it hints about the USA’s strategy against China in the Trumpian era.
My guess is Trump is specifically targeting private Chinese companies because it has a multi-pronged benefit for the USA:
1) they represent potential loot for the American companies (see TikTok);
2) they are evidently more susceptible to crumble to American pressure (as they are profit motivated, and the USA is by far the largest consumer market in the world); and
3) most important of them all: it kinda forces the Chinese capitalist class to “choose” between the two worlds – the liberal (capitalist, USA-oriented) and the socialist (China).
Point 3 is the most relevant from a Trumpian point of view because it is a revival (or continuation/expansion) of the old tried and successful strategy the USA has been using since the Monroe Doctrine, which is to co-opt the local (non-American) elites to their financial-legal architecture in order to make them structurally dependent on the USA to exist as a class. To put it in simpler terms: Trump is seeking to convert the Chinese capitalist class into a comprador elite, so they can sell off their productive assets to American capitalists and adopt a more vampiric stance in China (“re-Thirdworldization” of China; the conversion of China into a second India or a giant Bangladesh).
If correct, then the Trumpian (American) objective here is to make private capital in China non-viable, forcing the CCP to go full-USSR, thus isolating it economically and politically, thus leading it to collapse from within.

Posted by: vk | Sep 7 2020 15:31 utc | 120

lulu @110
“In 60s and 70s, China was not that far behind US in semiconductor research and initial manufacturing. Thanks to Deng and his followers’ believing of “buying-is-cheaper-than-making” , China opened its market and the Taiwanese, American and late Korean chip makers flushed the Chinese manufacturers out of business by lowing price with their economy of scale. Once having consolidated their monopoly position in China, these same Taiwanese/ American/Korean companies start to double/triple their prices in China than in other markets.
This money-making strategy functions till now: whenever local Chinese chip makers are able to manufacture the same chips, these Taiwanese/ American/Korean companies would immediately drop down their orbitant prices.”
Thanks for the response. I was not aware of the predatory pricing practices of foreign entities, but regardless, shame on CCP for leaving China at the mercy of foreign entities for the basic building block of all technological endeavors.

Posted by: Schmoe | Sep 7 2020 15:48 utc | 122

@ Posted by: donkeytale | Sep 7 2020 16:06 utc | 125
It’s been a while since I read so many 180° level lies in such a short space. Like, the lies you spit out are not even debatable: they are 100% wrong and I’m not rounding up.
Go search for “Market Socialism with Chinese Characteristics”, then we can talk.

Posted by: vk | Sep 7 2020 16:11 utc | 124

Thank you, Grieved @ 66. You touch on everything that I wanted to express,having only just seen your response to the excerpt I posted. And the ‘eastern’ in eastern christianity is an important description because in acknowledging the ultimate unknowability and vastness of universe existence, one cannot ever say that we understand what went into its beginnings, its ongoing, and its final resolution or turning when life itself is such a tiny component of the whole. (Infinitely tiny; infinitely essential!) I wrote in response to it myself at the blog that the essay of which this was the first part reminded me of the Old Testament Genesis story, “In the beginning…” and is with the help of science what we moderns would make of the story. Always, as science reveals, subject to change. Because it isn’t science; it is the story. The same story, only told a different way, ever subject to a new telling of it. About who we are, where we have been, where we are going. And like Saint-Exupery, we each ourselves answer the ultimate question of whether the sheep has eaten the rose or not, and how we answer that is the non-scientific heart of the matter.
Buddhism is very close; my children, some of them, have that religion. And yes, the dear man I quoted wouldn’t mind at all being in the category of ‘the lost’. We all have our stories, and they are more complex than the general considerations would assess them to be. That was all I meant to convey, that if we find such elements of our nature unessential or beneath contempt we do the work of the minders, the power lords, the greedy, because we diminish ourselves beyond being lost. We simply disappear. We don’t count. Lost we may feel,in the vastness of the universe, but science deals with the infinitesmal as well as the enormous, and so must we. Man does not live by bread alone, but bread also is the stuff of life.

Posted by: juliania | Sep 7 2020 16:30 utc | 126

Virgile, 42, Tom Luongo piece about the elections is good…
A False Flag Is Biden’s Only Chance to Win
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/09/04/a-false-flag-is-bidens-only-chance-to-win/
It might even happen – the False Flag, I mean, not the Biden win which is another matter.
The US Political System is crumbling or collapsing or morphing or whatever. The Duopoly and the ersatz ‘Democracy’ manipulators are finding that holding up a credible public face is by now extremely difficult .. e.g. Dems ally with anti-Trump Repubs.. – oh! all right-thinking folks, cool! ..
In a large part due to Trump, not him as a person, but because an outsider saw an oppo to get elected, took it without hesitation, and succeeded.
DT ran as a Republican as Killary was a sure-to-lose candidate. A pol. newbie, he quashed the other Repub. candidates in their internal org. (none were up to much..) and *imposed himself* and looked a sure bet to defeat Killary. She, the posturing, nasty, sneering, entitled, wife of an ex-President, disliked overall, and nominated to a post by O-droner to keep the old guard on board, the DNC ppl sort of ‘in line’, couldn’t compete.
Thereby, DT exposed the terminal weakness of both the Rs and the Ds, one of the reasons he was elected. The D candidates (Sanders couldn’t qualify as too ‘left’ for rapacious donors, aka playing his sheep-dog role..) were all basically nobodies. Warren, a ‘fake’ Pocahontas, a house flipper no less (while hypocritically ‘defending’ the middle class), Buttigig, Wang with his UBI, etc. Just for show.. but the show is fiction and doesn’t work out in real life.
Follows, now, bi-partisan efforts to get rid of DT. Yet, the PTB – deep state – Corporations – aren’t presenting, offering, any alternative. Everyone is waiting to see where the chips will fall.

Posted by: Noirette | Sep 7 2020 17:15 utc | 128

Noirette #131
Everyone waiting to see where the chips will fall – or the switch will come into play.
Farce and lost opportunity once again in the USA.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Sep 7 2020 17:38 utc | 130

@Arch Bungle 130
Too much of the Chinese economy depends on private capital for China to ever embrace a USSR-like decoupling from the global economy, in fact
Firstly, regarding decoupling, it would not be China’s choice. For the time being, US can force this outcome, although even now the cost of stopping Chinese imports would be devastating to the US but survivable to China, so they have to limit the targets they pick carefully. The costs of “decoupling” would be even worse for third countries who are more cost sensitive for imports than China.
Secondly, regarding private capital, big difference here between US/Euro capital and Chinese capital. The value on US/EU investment to China is decreasing fast, as more and more capital goods are now more cost effective to source domestically anyway, and raw materials are abundant from Belt-Road nations (and Australia is pretty much a hostage in that market, they’ll do whatever US wants, except stop the mines). What EU/US origin investment still does, besides high end tools from Japan and Germany, and chips from Taiwan and Korea, is it de facto provides market access to the investing countries. But it seems the path we are of is to a state of affairs where nationalistic concerns overcome that. China wil be fine. EU wil be fine. US will be fine, except will lose ground vs EU because severe export imbalance. Third countries will have to get creative to avoid picking sides, other than maybe JP/Korea who might actually profit from this scenario. (maybe ASEAN too if they get organized).

Posted by: ptb | Sep 7 2020 17:52 utc | 132

@135 just some musings to add to your post
The EU, as I see it, has been a supranational agency to regulate, or curtail, nationalism in the form of protectionist policies that protect the European country’s own nationals.
This is why as the EU wanes in popularity, you will see far less trade with China as these nationalist tendencies are reinvorgated. Europeans are snobs and generally hate the crap-fluff products that Americans have swallowed up from China in the last 40 years. But it remains to be seen as to how the influx of developing world “refugees” to Europe will impact the speed of this nationalism as the poor generally tend to want cheap shit and have no dog in the fight as to if a product says “Made in China” or “Made in Italy.”
And, of course, the horrific birthrates of Northern Europeans in the last fifty years will not help this reinvorgation, but we shall see.
One can extrapolate from this, too, why the Catholic is soooooo important, being such prolific breeders, as to shaping their political worldviews to a more globalist-friendly approach and how Pope Francis garners as much suspicion as he does from “traditionalist” Catholics. It is they who notice the erosion in the church away from its great fathers, such as St. Thomas Acquinas, who warned of a nation’s guests overstaying their welcome and how giving them the boot doesn’t have to conflict with Catholic teachings.
IMO, China will hurt far more than what many here think will be the case. This is why China is also making serious inroads into the Taiwan and Hong Kong situation as to get their ducks in a row before the coming years of great anemic economic growth. They want assets fully under their control to weather this generational sea change.
In a sense, China will be severely hampered by forced isolation, but not nearly as bad their NoKo neighbors, traditionally.
I believe that China will be able to weather this storm and develop internally the means to prosper in spite of this fall from their exceptional-mercantilist perch.
However, this change to a more self-sufficient economy would mean that the natural religions of China would reemerge as potent political forces in its country and would severely weaken the hold of the CCP.
Would they allow this to happen, the CCP? Or will the scare of relinquishing power drive them to war before such a vacating of this power-position?

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Sep 7 2020 18:31 utc | 134

@ 138 vasco… thanks for your comments! i like the idea of a part 2 movie to follow this up.. i think it could offer some hope too, but as you and william gruff note – capitalism as it presently stands continues to get in the way… i thought the movie was fairly articulate on this point too using the koch brothers, bloomberg and etc as example of billionaires who continue to practice keeping up appearances while offering very little of substance as i see it..
this pumped storage i had never heard of before! that sounds like a good idea and hopefully it is adopted on a larger scale if it is as good as it sounds..
i continue to believe we have to find a way to consume less… over population of the planet makes this more challenging.. i don’t know that there are any easy answers and i do tend to view it like @ tom 47 – mother nature is going to fix or deal with what we are unwilling, or unable to work out… i like your sense of optimism vasco! people are certainly imaginative and creative.. one would hope we can resolve the outstanding issues facing our planet with human ingenuity as well… thanks for saying all that! if they did a version 2, i think they could make it shorter and more positive… i don’t believe it is all doom and gloom.. i did watch 15 minutes or so of the video ‘planet of the humans debunked’…. while it made some relevant criticisms of the movie, it still didn’t to my mind in what i saw of it, dismiss the importance of our looking more closely at what is being passed off as environmentally friendly – biomass = burning logs, tearing down forests and etc -as being one of the big ones for me… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomass

Posted by: james | Sep 7 2020 19:44 utc | 136

james | Sep 7 2020 19:44 utc | 139
“the importance of our looking more closely at what is being passed off as environmentally friendly – biomass = burning logs, tearing down forests and etc -as being one of the big ones for me…”
From the below:
Some call it a loophole. If so it’s a loophole wide enough to push a dead planet through. But it’s really no accident.
There’s a clear and simple fact. Real conservation, especially in the face of the climate crisis, means ceasing from destroying natural forests, leaving them alone, and letting them resume their ranges. Anything other than this is a fraud, and especially a climate fraud. The “biomass” industry is an atrocity. The economic civilization destroys forests in order to burn wood pellets for industrial electricity and heat. This is enshrined within all existing international climate agreements. The climate industry accelerates deforestation and greenhouse emissions under the rubric of “the climate”. The flag of the Earth flies from the tree-burning factory. Arbeit Macht Frei.
https://attempter.wordpress.com/2019/02/09/the-purpose-of-paris/
https://attempter.wordpress.com/2019/10/01/the-tree-human-carbon-war/

Posted by: Russ | Sep 7 2020 20:30 utc | 138

@ Posted by: NemesisCalling | Sep 7 2020 18:31 utc | 137
Thay may happen someday, but, so far, the numbers all point to a continued and sustained Western decline (including here Japan and SK) and a continued and sustained Chinese expansion.

Posted by: vk | Sep 7 2020 21:06 utc | 140

In the ongoing anti-Netanyahu protest which are taking place in Israel for 6 months already,of which we have not has any news in the media, it seems that the ultra-orthodox, who have lost their peaceful stance, have joined the protesters, and the police is even being kicked off…
https://twitter.com/veselchak555/status/1302346162901483525

Posted by: H.Schmatz | Sep 7 2020 21:32 utc | 142

Vk theorises that the divide et impera strategy precludes revolution in Brazil and India.
VK’s theorising is big picture with broad brush strokes for the details. How does revolutionary theory explain the existence and popularity of the Communist Party of India, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Communist Party of India (Marxist Leninist) and the Communist Party of India (Maoist)? Admittedly, only the CPI(Maoist) is engaged in a sporadic, long term insurgency (the Naxalites). The other CPIs are an established part of Indian polity. There is no problem with hammer and sickle emblazoned red flags and posters of Marx and Lenin and Stalin all over the place at election time. Mind you- the preference is for the Russian version.
My own home away from home is the southern Indian state of Kerala, which had it’s first Communist state government in 1965 and has one again today-the CPI(Marxist). Keralans (the Malayali- from the local language Malayalam) are articulate, multi lingual, exhibit refreshing common sense, are good conversationalists. The birthrate is European standard low, and the school curriculum is rigorously “classical”. Little kids are serious students. The material comforts of the family that myself and my husband have known for just over 20 years (poor and Muslim) have improved considerably. They now have a new, subsidised 1 bedroom third floor apartment with laundry, washing machine, bright kitchen with large fridge and overhead fan. It suffices nicely for 4 people. Keralans are wise and lucky Indians to recognise the long term benefits of a Communist state government.
And Communist Kerala is known as “God’s Own Country” because there are so many religions represented there. CPI governance does not provoke “communalism”, which is the scourge of India.

Posted by: Australian lady | Sep 8 2020 1:59 utc | 144

@ 146 richard steven hack… thanks for the ongoing conversation and i would like to thank you for not posting as much as you did a month back! i enjoy the conversations and appreciate your trying to engage me…. i am happy to answer! as i said, i don’t really have an answer other then to point to what @47 tom said – mother nature is going to deal with it if we don’t.. that is really how i see it… i am not fully up on the star trek lingo.. my take remains the same – i do not believe that irrationality can be gotten rid of.. in fact in some regards i view it as a type of creative fountain for a lot of cutting edge ideas – like sci fi, or what star trek might have been at the time… as irrational as this might sound to you – i believe their is a lot of inherent value in irrationality! i don’t put it in the same category as stupidity fwiw…

Posted by: james | Sep 8 2020 3:35 utc | 146

mask-wearing is declining, the university’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation said

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.

Posted by: Norwegian | Sep 8 2020 4:38 utc | 148

Yes, few lies/delusions have been so decisively debunked and routed than the idiocy of trying to control pests through sterilization methods. It’s like a cosmic joke on me – here I’ve spent over ten years writing and taking action against poison-based agriculture and in favor of agroecology with its emphasis on pest control thru biodiversity balance, and here we are afflicted with the same stupidity in an even more extreme form, trying to control a virus long since at loose in the environment with the most rigid, violent, forcible segregation and sterilization methods. Hand sterilizers, which we’ve long known help drive antibiotic resistance, weaken our immune systems and render us MORE vulnerable to every kind of pathogen – what a microcosm of the whole wingnut derangement.

Throughout the city, people say it isn’t pretty,
Everyone agrees, and everyone feels glad;
Doctored brains celebrate and everyone waves their chains…
It’s a pity they’re all mad.
The Institute of Mental Health
Spontaneously killed itself.
Ashes to ashes
And dust to dust:
My chains began to rust
As the Institute was burning, burning, burning.
The Institute Of Mental Health, Burning

Posted by: Norwegian | Sep 8 2020 5:31 utc | 150

Will Japan’s era of revolving-door leadership return? Some in the U.S. are worried
Sub-headline:

Abe’s longevity enabled him to pursue consistent foreign policies even at the risk of eliciting a strong public backlash, according to observers.

Ooh, now longevity of a head of state is good!
Lukashenko! Xi! Putin! Did you hear that?
P.S.: why the US’s opinion is relevant here? Didn’t know Japan was still occupied…

Posted by: vk | Sep 8 2020 11:33 utc | 152

@Posted by: vk | Sep 8 2020 11:33 utc | 152
The US, and for that matter the rest of Europe, did not have any problem either with the longevity of Franco´s regime, moreover, they, the US, came to prop it up by impossing the Borbon king and with him they came US military bases to Spain…
Human rights and “democracy” were not a worry neither in the Us nor in Europe eith respect Spain during 40 years….

Posted by: H.Schmatz | Sep 8 2020 12:25 utc | 154

@Posted by: Mark2 | Sep 8 2020 12:30 utc | 155
No need to try to find three feet to the cat, this explains it all…
https://twitter.com/AceofSp63736304/status/1303163354299555840

Posted by: H.Schmatz | Sep 8 2020 12:37 utc | 156

It has been pretty silent regarding Palestinian and Israeli issue so it’s pretty clear whose agenda Erdogan aligned himself into. That said we haven’t able to hear opposition within Turkey that were aligned with neoliberal EU nor there seem clear destabilization within Turkey as of late so i can understand where his confidence come from. Coupled with how the US basically gives ways for him to deal with the Kurds i don’t see how he shouldn’t push through for more.

Posted by: Lucci | Sep 8 2020 12:49 utc | 158

@Arch Bungle 149
Thanks, interesting.
A quick google search shows there are several Chinese FPGA companies, and they’ve been at it since at least the mid 2010’s – the Gowin company from the video you linked, which might not even be the most advanced one among them, released its first products in 2015 (?).
The FPGA’s these guys are making seem to not be at the top end of the market, but are the natural strategy for quickly fielding a replacement for the huge variety specialized products that fall in the mid range of performance, which may be the most economically significant in terms of sales of the products that rely on them, if not in terms of sales of the chips themselves.

Posted by: ptb | Sep 8 2020 13:29 utc | 160

James@125
I wasn’t suggesting a solution, I was merely pointing out that there are alternatives to population control other than mass slaughter of portions of the population.
I find it annoying when the subject of population control arises, people automatically presume that one is advocating the deaths of large amounts of people other than oneself, and often say something to the effect of “kill yourself first”.
We are too greedy and short sighted as a species to solve these complicated problems.
I agree with the poster who said nature will take care of it, as we are too stupid to take care of it ourselves.

Posted by: visak | Sep 8 2020 15:11 utc | 162

9 Drug Companies Issue a Joint Pledge to Thoroughly Vet Vaccines
Ladies and gentlemen, this is what high stage capitalism has come to: a pledge so they can deliver a functioning product at a doable price.
–//–
“Deutsche” is trending on USA Twitter right now. The thing is Trump apparently loaned half-billion dollars to pay for his 2016 campaign or something like that. Many are calling the “I knew it!” game and calling Deutsche a mafia (which it is, but that’s beside the point).
Those liberals should stop shooting themselves on the foot. Don’t they know all the money and pension funds of the vaunted German working class (and its vaunted unions) are in the Deutsche? That, if the Deutsche falls, so does the iconic German working class?
If Germany falls, which fake utopia will the British and American center-left use?

Posted by: vk | Sep 8 2020 16:59 utc | 164

I agree with the poster who said nature will take care of it, as we are too stupid to take care of it ourselves.
Posted by: visak | Sep 8 2020 15:11 utc | 162
Montbiot’s “yeast-in-a-barrel” analogy is an apt one. Wines tend to top out at 13-15% alcohol because the yeast make their environment unlivable.

Posted by: farm ecologist | Sep 8 2020 18:33 utc | 166

Farm e ologist @ 165
I like modern dentistry too. And I might have died a couple years back from typhoid (still around) if the antibiotic had not worked. The lions share of life expectancy gains still goes to clean water. From the examples you choose deaths in childbirth go way the heck down merely from having clean water available. Of course death by typhoid goes way way down when the water is dependably clean. The typhoid only spreads these days because the caterer hires fourth world help.
Clean water is under threat from privatization everywhere. We take it for granted that our water supply is good and will find out what is important when it is gone.

Posted by: oldhippie | Sep 8 2020 20:28 utc | 168

2020 Bulgarian protests (Wikipedia).

Posted by: S | Sep 8 2020 21:35 utc | 170

There goes the Oxford vaccine:
Oxford coronavirus vaccine trial on hold over ‘potentially unexplained illness’, AstraZeneca says
Translation: a lot of subjects (“volunteers”) died and/or almost died. And/or got crippled for life.
And this wasn’t even one of the mRNA (the new, yet to be viable vaccine technology, which at least two American pharmas are investing on) ones, but a common, adenovirus vaccine (the same tech used by Gamaleya and the Chinese lab).

Posted by: vk | Sep 9 2020 0:16 utc | 172

ADKC @Sep9 0:13 #171
I haven’t look at your link yet but I’ve been saying that the numerous mistakes and half-hearted indicate a deliberate effort to spread the virus (and kill people).
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Sep 9 2020 2:26 utc | 174

@Posted by: ADKC | Sep 9 2020 0:13 utc | 171
Thanks for the video.
In spite that it is not true that some health services did not find themselves overwhelmed during the pandemic, that happened mainly because of previous harsh cuts in ICU beds, as happened in Spain, and previous savage privatization as happened in Madrid autonomous community.
It is true that, as I pointed out at the first months of the pandemic, there have been a dejation in care of the elders, and also it is true that it is a tendence in helping die whoever would have a simple stroke who gets with half the body paralized and thus unable to feed and drink by itself, but who for the rest is a healthy person, as I witnessed in my own family. Thus yes, euthanasia, with or without Coronavirus is at play here.
I pointed out at the first months of the pandemic that this was, casually, a vehicle to get rid of a lot of pensioners in a scenario where the governments have passed the last decade non stop warning that pensions will not be possible to be payed, yet the pension funds was used to rescue the big banks in 2008, a amoney that these banks, even when delivering dividends amongst the direction board through the last decade to the very first months of the pandemic, have not ever returned to the public treasury.
You know, as I witness how the harmless and effective Russian vaccine is ignored and demoniced by the press, and we are directed to take the AstraZeneca which, as some are reporting here, is causing terrible secondary damage and ev en crippling for life. One is to guess that what is intended with the vaccine is not to protect us from the Coronavirus but get rid of many of us, otherwise they would choose the most effective and harmless ( and possibly also the cheapest…)which is for now the Russian vaccine.
Around 2030, a huge number of people children of the so called baby boom are to retire.
In some European countries, as the retirement age for health workers is as long as it can be, a decade longer ( and increasing…) even than for bank workers, forming one of the most aged working collectives, being as it is this one of the most stressful and hardest jobs in the world, add to this the extra stress during the pandemic.
Notice that who are to be vaccinated first are, elders, patients with pre-conditons, and health workers, and you can see easily that, as they are willing ot vaccinate us with the worst of the vaccines available, the intention can not be that all these people makes it better, quite the contrary….

Posted by: H.Schmatz | Sep 9 2020 11:10 utc | 176

@Triden | 177
Yes. Precisely that.
And maybe EU countries could offer to back Trump’s Nobel Peace Prize nomination to get him to back off. ))))

Posted by: AtaBrit | Sep 9 2020 12:52 utc | 178

Posted by: H.Schmatz | Sep 9 2020 11:10 utc | 176
Yes, soon we will have regularly scheduled pandemics with pre-positioned free vaccines to cull the elderly herd whenever the pension funds get low.

Posted by: Bemildred | Sep 9 2020 14:29 utc | 180

Some peacocks are gonna get plucked.

Posted by: William Gruff | Sep 9 2020 14:57 utc | 182

Posted by: H.Schmatz | Sep 8 2020 12:25 utc | 154
Nor were human rights or democracy or anything of the sort a concern to Europe or the USA (or the UK), in post-WW2 Greece or Salazar’s Portugal. Come to that I do not remember much fuss about such things, in King Farouk’s Egypt, King Idris’s Libya, Chiang Kai-shek’s China, Syngman Rhee’s Korea, Verwoert’s South Africa, Bao Dai’s South Vietnam, Peron’s Argentina, Marcos’s Philipines, the Shah’s Iran or a dozen other nasty regimes. The really concerning rights, were the rights of multi-national corporations and the USG.

Posted by: foolisholdman | Sep 9 2020 18:43 utc | 184

On the off topic of who is the deep state
“Posted by: foolisholdman | Sep 9 2020 18:43 utc | 184”
“Nor were human rights or democracy or anything of the sort a concern to Europe or the USA (or the UK), in post-WW2 Greece or Salazar’s Portugal. Come to that I do not remember much fuss about such things, in King Farouk’s Egypt, King Idris’s Libya, Chiang Kai-shek’s China, Syngman Rhee’s Korea, Verwoert’s South Africa, Bao Dai’s South Vietnam, Peron’s Argentina, Marcos’s Philipines, the Shah’s Iran or a dozen other nasty regimes. The really concerning rights, were the rights of multi-national corporations and the USG.”
I think that that may be the heads of the deep state.
Seems to me that many of these Kings/Queens, Czars, etc. are related.
Everyone, everyone underneath these people know that their main job is to maintain the royal’s position.
Just a thought.

Posted by: arby | Sep 9 2020 23:36 utc | 186

It’s getting ridiculous.News media in Europe,especially France and Germany are treating the american presedentials as if it were our own,and we should vote Biden.The Woodward remarks about Trump dwarfing Corona after having made a statement about its mortality ,is the first thing you hear on the news flashes.
Russiagate,Ukrainegate,the death of McCain,russian bounties,iranian bounties to kill americans in Afghanistan,BLM protests,Rittenhouse,Kenosha candidate visits,etc;it all follow exactly the same pattern:NYTimes and Washintong Post set the tune AFP,AP,Reuters ,der Spiegel,leMonde le Figaro,le Guardian all follow suit immediately with more often than not the exact same wording.Let’s go out and hang all those criminal journalists.They are guilty of war crimes within the concept of the Nurnberg Trials.

Posted by: willie | Sep 10 2020 10:43 utc | 188

Germany hands over Navalny’s lab test results… to the OPCW!
Germany hands over Navalny’s test results to OPCW
The customary reader of this blog knows the true nature of the OPCW, so I won’t waste your time with further explanations.

Posted by: vk | Sep 10 2020 11:54 utc | 190

@ Posted by: oldhippie | Sep 10 2020 12:11 utc | 191
I don’t doubt vitamin D deficiency makes one more vulnerable to COVID-19.
The thing is it makes the human body vulnerable to everything, not just COVID-19. If vitamin D deficiency was a problem in temperate countries, we would be observing much graver health problems in those countries than COVID-19. But that’s not the case: rich northern countries have better life quality, longer life expectancy than the poor equatorial countries. Vitamin D deficiency is not a societal problem in the First World.

Posted by: vk | Sep 10 2020 12:25 utc | 192

Bemildred
“In the end, bullshit cannot compete.”
I agree and also sanctions, threats, and embargoes are not able competition in the end.
Too many negatives do not make anything that can be positive.
This is why I think the US buck is finished.

Posted by: arby | Sep 10 2020 15:20 utc | 194

Posted by: vk | Sep 10 2020 12:25 utc | 192: “Vitamin D deficiency is not a societal problem in the First World.”
I may be falsely assuming you are identifying the USA as “First World” as Thia shows little understanding of living conditions for many USA residents in lower-income brackets. Indeed lack of vitamin d is a major problem here just as it is worldwide. Do the research. Inexpensive preventive medicine like cheap vit d is not to big pharma or insurance extractors’ liking. This may be very 1st world in certain political economies but certainly does not mean residents benefit or are not harmed. How hard would it be to have public education campaign on how to maintain healthy immune system? Very hard when media is advertisement driven by corporate monopolies.
The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2005 to 2006 data were analyzed for vitamin D levels in adult participants (N = 4495). Vitamin D deficiency was defined as a serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentrations ≤20 ng/mL (50 nmol/L). The overall prevalence rate of vitamin D deficiency was 41.6%, with the highest rate seen in blacks (82.1%), followed by Hispanics (69.2%). Vitamin D deficiency was significantly more common among those who had no college education, were obese, with a poor health status, hypertension, low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol level, or not consuming milk daily (all P < .001).
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21310306/

Posted by: suzan | Sep 10 2020 18:20 utc | 196

There is an analysis at http://syriapropagandamedia.org/the-novichoks-story-chemical-weapons-programme-or-canary-trap#chemical-and-toxicological-properties-of-a-234-and-other-a-series-compounds which is very much worth a read. It revives the possibility that novichok has actually been used, is a chemical which is pretty stable, is expected to take hours or longer before the effects are felt, and is not a useful battlefield weapon.
The Americans and British synthesized it in the nineties.
Because it is stable old stock could still be usable which widens the possible groups in possession of it(so the russian mafia could be using it too, as Gareth Porter has posited earlier).

Posted by: tuyzentfloot | Sep 17 2020 19:29 utc | 198