Happy Sunday and I'm sure this next week will be as crazy as last week with Amerika putting on it's crazy pants.

Thanks b

Posted by: jo6pac | Apr 18 2021 12:52 utc | 1

Regarding the three articles on covid in India.

Regardless of maximum sales pitch for fear, India still has 93% fewer deaths per million than US.

The current outbreak is centered in Maharashtra/Mumbai. Fear porn in three articles laments shortages of Remdesivir and Tocilizumab. Which do absolutely nothing. Even in NIH guidelines that recommend these drugs it is freely admitted there is no evidence they do one thing. The wildly indoctrinated in Mumbai will have Western medicine or nothing. Balance of country uses Ivermectin and has no problem.

This is a mental health problem. Mumbai needs to mentally decolonize.

Posted by: oldhippie | Apr 18 2021 12:57 utc | 2

A funny agenda for the next week....
"Hoist with his own petard"

USA and UK are self intoxicated at their own source. Hollywood and John Le Carré.

MI6 think it is writing "The Spy Who Came In from the Cold" but are just scribbling a screenplay for Johnny English Re-Reborn
American politicians dream of being President Thomas J. Whitmore and wake up as Major T. J. "King" Kong
I hope not to hear
"Mein Führer, I can walk !"

Posted by: Bernard F. | Apr 18 2021 13:07 utc | 3

I ignore Covid news. All it does is create fights and divisions.

Regarding Bhadrakumar's article, Russia obviously gains nothing by waiting. Ukranazistan - contrary to the constant predictions of such luminaries as the Faker (Andrei Raevsky of the Junkyard of the Faker) - isn't going to collapse of its own weight. Anyone imagining it will obligingly selfBalkanise its deluded. It will instead grow steadily stronger - it is already much stronger than it was in 2014 - and the war that Russia should have fought in 2014, and could have won with extreme ease, will be bloodier and costlier (both in economic terms and military effort) with every month that passes at this point. What did Russia gain from the Putinist regime's "rrstraint" in 2014? Exactly nothing; it got the same sanctions it would have got if it had invaded to destroy the Nazi cancer, and gained immensely in 1. Eliminating said Nazi threat and 2. Deterring NATO and sending an unmistakable message to fence sitters like the gibbering globetrotting genocidal gangster Gujarati government of Narendrabhai Damodardasbhai Modi in India. Waffling now is simply not an option. It is almost too late.

Posted by: Biswapriya Purkayast | Apr 18 2021 13:39 utc | 4

Re covid in India. 2.
The situation is getting out of hand in almost all populous states. Lot of deaths and cases are being under reported in BJP states. Re remdesivir all the private hospitals and govt is pushing the drug to make money even though it is not effective.
The really scary part is now covid cases are coming up from people who have taken one or two jabs( it is too far fetched to call them vaccines).

Posted by: R M Rao | Apr 18 2021 13:48 utc | 5

How is Ukraine stronger?

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Apr 18 2021 13:52 utc | 6

Houou, fait moi peur !

France president (sic) try to deter Russia

French President Emmanuel Macron says international community must draw "clear red lines" with Russia

https://youtu.be/DtcUh9H3nR8

Wood à trade embarguo sur the Camembert Président une goude idée ?

Posted by: Bernard F. | Apr 18 2021 13:53 utc | 7

For PR, the Russians should take the real Boshyrov and Petrov and make them celebrities. Put them in a spy comedy where there go around the world playing a Forrest Gump-like role in various events, like helping Saddam hide his WMDs, putting novichock everywhere, and even traveling back in time to burn down the Reichstag.

Posted by: Carl | Apr 18 2021 14:04 utc | 8

Russian Navy to accompany Iranian ships

Posted by: donten | Apr 18 2021 14:24 utc | 9

"FREE ASSANGE !"

An open letter is published in France by "Le Monde" [our own Grey Lady].

"Publiés en partenariat avec le Guardian, le New York Times et le Spiegel, les documents afghans [de Wikileaks] avaient été suivis, en octobre 2010, de la publication de plusieurs centaines de milliers de rapports de l’armée américaine en Irak, en partenariat avec ces médias et d’autres, dont Le Monde."
[Published in partnership with the Guardian, the New York Times and Spiegel, the Afghan documents [of Wikileaks] were followed in October 2010 by the publication of several hundred thousand reports from the US army in Iraq, in partnership with these media and others, including Le Monde.]

More as 75 opinion leaders and celebrity in support of an emprisonned man

As has been reported worldwide, his health is deteriorating and he is in a critical state and requires urgent medical attention. [...] exhibiting symptoms of a severe neurological disorder—constant back pain and the loss of sensation in his legs and hands

"FREE ASSANGE !" ???

No. Assange can wait.
"Le Monde" distanced itself from him. All is now about Russia, Russia, Russia. And Navalny.

Here is the englisch version published by "The Economist"
https://www.economist.com/letters/2021/04/16/on-alexei-navalnys-detention

Posted by: Bernard F. | Apr 18 2021 14:53 utc | 10

Britain catching up fast with the Middle East in regards to corruption? More like catching up with the United States. UK and most of Europe is a US territory anyway, like Micronesia. I’m surprised it took so long to start mimicking their overlord.

Posted by: Jose Garcia | Apr 18 2021 14:56 utc | 11

"I doubt the above. It is not sustainable without the regular military also being there." Insofar as "it" means private contractors, aka mercenaries, remaining in Afghanistan and fighting, I agree. I suspect the administration, like most believers in capitalism, has strange ideas about how efficient private business is, unlike the always inefficient government. I think the reality has always been that privatization is generally an inferior way of getting things done, concessions to the power of the wealthy, who will ruin everything if they don't get the lion's share. The magic of the market in mercenaries I think is going to work no better in Afghanistan than anywhere else. The mercenaries may take taxpayer money but like the privatized water system or garbage collection in your town, the results will *not* be what's promised. Actually earning their money by doing the heavy fighting is not the mercenary way. I think the private armies will soon fail, if they are so foolish as to even try without real soldiers at their back. To put it another way, does anyone truly think Erik Prince is the genius Elon Musk imagines himself to be? I think the dude's is likely not much smarter than his sister.

But after 9/11, the US successfully invaded Afghanistan in the sense that it brushed aside the national government, the Taliban, by the simple expedient of buying the northern warlords the Taliban had ostensibly defeated. US dollars bought a temporary unity, and the Taliban were suddenly hiding in caves. The US still has dollars and the northern warlords, rooted in backwards ethnic politics and corruption (especially drugs,) are still for sale. Additionally, the drones can still fly. I believe they will.

If the retort is that the non-Pashtun warlords and the Hazaras and the urban masses can't conquer the Taliban in the countryside, that the drones have failed, failed, failed to conquer, the rebuttal is simple enough: So what? The primary goals of US policy are to destroy, not to rule. Ruling implies living there, or at least building up infrastructure. The US ruling class is not anxious to build infrastructure in the US, much less Afghanistan. Instabiliy and chaos and human suffering will serve to keep opium flowing, to threaten all BRI projects requiring stability in Afghanistan and to keep all governments wary of offending the US or evenbuying US arms andgetting US training and spare parts, i.e., allying.

Nonetheless, the withdrawal of regular forces is still an advance for the people of Afghanistan, and for that matter for the US soldiers who would otherwise be abused by deployment in Afghanistan. My opinion, of course.

Biswapriya Purkayast@4 I think is absolutely correct that Ukraine is not going to collapse. I don't see the point to abusing Putin. Putin is Yeltsin's heir, he is an enemy of socialism/communism, and as such he is *not* antifascist.

Posted by: steven t johnson | Apr 18 2021 15:09 utc | 12

Greensill ponzi scheme explained:

Financial fictions: the old ones

The Greensill part starts in the paragraph that begins with "Then there is Greensill."

--//--

On the Tooze article. This part is didactic:

In the 1990s the lines were clearly drawn. The Democrats were a party of fiscal rectitude and trade globalisation. They had the weight of academic economic opinion behind them. Krugman was one of the cheerleaders and enforcers of that dispensation: the job of brilliant economists with a quick pen was to guard the true knowledge against deviations to the left and the right. It isn’t by accident that Jed Bartlet – the fictional president in The West Wing, the TV fantasy that sustained liberal America during the dark Bush years – was a genial economics professor and Nobel laureate. It was a fantasy. The synthesis of brains, wisdom and power embodied in Bartlet didn’t stand up to 21st-century realities. Today, Krugman tells us, ‘everything is political.’ He has come to accept that ‘the technocratic dream – the idea of being a politically neutral analyst helping policymakers govern more effectively – is, for now at least, dead.’

The problem isn't that the technocratic can't find a worthy correspondent in the political arena. The problem - and this is the problem with Krugman - is that the entire field of Economics (vulgar economy or bourgeois economy) is not a real science; it's pseudo-science.

Even if a series of POTUSes followed Krugman's and his colleagues' theory for decades and decades, the USA would still have found itself in the situation it is right now.

The problem isn't with the experiment: it's with the theory (and the scientists behind the theory).

P.S.: Tooze also explains in his article why modern Americans separate Economics from Politics (or the experts from the politicians). This separation, of course, is purely ideological, as economics is always politics.

--//--

China grows 18%+ in Q1 2021:

China’s Q1 GDP grows 18.3% y-o-y, the fastest in three decades

V-shaped recovery well in sight, but the Chinese need to pay attention to the capitalist military build up in the East (Japan + Australia).

--//--

The Economist's desperate plea to the masses: "please, save capitalism"

The United Kingdom's survival matters. It is on the side of democracy, human rights and transparency. If it were broken up, its constituent parts would have less influence on the world stage

--//--

Taiwan, such nationalists...

Japan’s Taiwan representative office raises national flag in firm display of support

The Taiwanese are as nationalists as Wrangel, or Denikin, or the Left SRs, or the Mensheviks.

Like I used to say: every liberal is a nationalist - until capitalism is at risk, then they instantly become rabid internationalists.

--//--

A quick outlook on the prospects of world economy:

The roaring twenties repeated?

Posted by: vk | Apr 18 2021 15:11 utc | 13

What does the demise of Nalvany mean to the current equation of war and peace? Obviously the urgency in which the entire anti-Russia project has escalated is troublesome and shows the dire straits Empire finds itself in this stage of its fall. At the same time this is merely the continuation of the Obama hostilities full of sound and fury signifying desperation to slow the imperial slide to perdition.

So - what does Nalvany's possibly imminent death do to the geo-political situation as regards the current USA/NATO war against Russia?

Posted by: gottlieb | Apr 18 2021 15:28 utc | 14

April 14 - RIP Anna Missed
Related:
Check how the color of the hand changes when looked at from different angles. How did he do this?

I haven't found the color change effect you're referring to but my guess is prismatic effect. In the 1950's there were pictures with a stripey clear plastic over-lay. They were everywhere. Typically, there'd be a cartoon pic of a little figure - with a sad face when tilted right, and a smiley face when tilted left.
Each image was complete i.e. didn't appear to be composed of stripes, although it looked a bit fuzzy during transition. They're still around. A piece of junk mail in my letter box recently was a 2 in 1 business card with contact details on up-tilt and a product pic on down-tilt - each image clear and unbroken.

If Anna Missed's pic is using the glass beads you referred to in your RIP post to create an optical illusion then I imagine that the beads would have to be placed with great, and coordinated, precision to produce the desired effect. Hence only a small area of the pic embellished with this novel feature...
If you get ultra-curious you could buy a vial of artistes solvent/thinners appropriate to the medium (Oil or Polymer) and remove a couple of beads. But...

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Apr 18 2021 15:38 utc | 15

The farce of an investigation into the shooting down of MH 17 continues:

The Dutch Government’s trial of the Russian Government for shooting down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 reached new lows on Thursday when it was revealed in court that the US Government continues to conceal the satellite evidence alleged to show a BUK missile firing at the aircraft; that the release on Dutch television of thousands of telephone taps of one of the Russian soldiers accused of the shoot-down was the work of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) and by a source among the Dutch police and prosecutors; and, finally, that an investigating judge has decided in secret to prevent any cross-examination of the Dutch government experts responsible for reports allegedly proving the prosecution’s case.

That investigating judge was acknowledged in court yesterday to be playing a more decisive role than the president of the trial, District Court judge Henrik Steenhuis. Her name is being kept a state secret.

DUTCH STATE LEAKS EXPOSE MH17 TRIAL OUTLAWS, STARTING WITH THE INVESTIGATING JUDGE IN HIDING

Posted by: Down South | Apr 18 2021 15:44 utc | 16

British warships will sail for the Black Sea in May LOL. The rat threats the bear!

Posted by: Nick | Apr 18 2021 16:02 utc | 17

It is not sustainable without the regular military also being there.

And what about NATO b? Is the US presence just being internationalized like in Iraq? (NATO's presence was mentioned in the moa thread.)

In addition, the narrative of a mentally-challenged Biden allows for an easily overturned 'pull-out' if the Taliban do not remain docile or al Queda reminds the world of the 20th anniversary of the 9-11 with another spectacular attack.

!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Apr 18 2021 16:05 utc | 18

Posted by: Bernard F. | Apr 18 2021 14:53 utc | 11

That's the core listing with characters like Applebaum and Rushdie, but the order was given to all vassals so as to collect signatures among celebrities and caviar people, "El Pais" published the same letter with the local celebs that now adays pose as "intelectuals" when they are simple grateful stomachs. What is obvious is how well coordinated all this actions for "human rights" are. There was a clip of Navalny freely strolling in his site of detention after claiming he does not feel his legs, just like Rambo...

Assange? too dangerous, Assange is the mirror on which those "intelectuals" see their own corrupted being, so they turn their heads aside and pretend a true hero does not exist.

Posted by: Paco | Apr 18 2021 16:08 utc | 19

A couple of days ago I posted the following comment:

'Biden is an empty suit, and in this situation the different power centers are each running their own agendas.
1. The State Department is full of russophobes. They can't wait to 'take care of Russia' and are behind this escalation in the Ukraine.
2. The military are focused on China. They don't want to provoke Russia into a war that they know that they can't win, and are the ones who forced the U.S. to back off.
3. The 'Israeli Firsters' are focused on Iran. They are upset with the State-Department's push for the Iran nuclear deal.
4. The CIA is interested in protecting their drug business in Afghanistan. They are upset with the military trying to get out of the mess in Afghanistan.
So what we see is typical of a 'headless monster' - full blown anarchy.'

To the above list I need to add a 5th, the British Deep State who, in addition to having the same Russophobic agenda as the U.S. State Department, want to prove to the world that Britain can 'punch above its weight'.

What a clown show. It would be hilarious if it wasn't so dangerous.

Posted by: dh-mtl | Apr 18 2021 16:11 utc | 20

(link: “Biden isn’t ending the Afghanistan War, he’s privatizing it”)
@b "I doubt the above. It is not sustainable without the regular military also being there."
@ steven t johnson | Apr 18 2021 15:09 utc | 13 “US still has … warlords… drones [to] keep opium flowing, to threaten all BRI projects… to keep all governments wary of offending the US...”
@ Jackrabbit | Apr 18 2021 16:05 utc | 19 “Is the US presence just being internationalized like in Iraq?”

(1) STJ seems to contradict b’s notion that the US goals are “not sustainable without the regular military” because the goals are smuggling and destabilization, not nation-building, (2) the US training, spying, droning, and home invasion can simply move the same staff to private payrolls, and (3) the US can rebrand its own or NATO forces there.

Posted by: Sam F | Apr 18 2021 16:21 utc | 21

Thanks very much to b for posting the link to the joint US-China statement on the climate crisis. That is a carefully worded cooperative statement reaching forward to future conferences, much to be appreciated in these times of short term animosities. I herein post the link to the press conference of John Kerry in Seoul, which is lengthy and I haven't yet read to its entirety. Again, lots of careful wording with as far as I've seen no blame being attached to any single country but the emphasis on all needing to work hard on the problem, and I would say down to every single citizen as well, as everyone will be affected by the results.

Nice to see John Kerry doing other than make warlike pronouncements. I'm sure he's far happier promoting this cause. Back to where he started from.

https://www.state.gov/
special-presidential-envoy-for-climate-john-kerry-media-roundtable/

Posted by: juliania | Apr 18 2021 16:56 utc | 22

@Bernard F. 3
USA and UK are self intoxicated at their own source. Hollywood and John Le Carré.

MI6 think it is writing "The Spy Who Came In from the Cold" but are just scribbling a screenplay for Johnny English Re-Reborn

Le Carré’s novels are about the bleak and dark aspects of working as a spy and the spook agencies are not portrayed in a very good light, so I highly doubt MI6 and the CIA turn to his work for inspiration.

e.g. ‘The Spy Who Came In From The Cold’ ends with said spy getting shot and dying. Maybe it’s Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond you’re thinking of?

Posted by: Antibody | Apr 18 2021 17:05 utc | 23

@Biswapriya Purkayast | Apr 18 2021 13:39 utc | 4

I ignore Covid news. All it does is create fights and divisions.

A wise move, I try to do the same. I agree it creates divisions, and that is no coincidence.

Posted by: Norwegian | Apr 18 2021 17:34 utc | 24

I said in a previous comment, when considering the 'Globalists and their Deep-States', two rules apply.

1. They always lie.
2. They never stop.

True to form, they haven't forgotten about Belarus.

https://www.euronews.com/2021/04/18/belarus-lukashenko-claims-he-foiled-us-backed-coup-as-two-people-are-arrested-by-moscow

Posted by: dh-mtl | Apr 18 2021 17:47 utc | 25

Also thanks to b for linking to Michael Hudson's latest article, (which james, I think, had linked at the previous open thread) wherein he has slightly changed his nomenclature to reflect the financialization issue he had discussed previously. I was particularly interested in the paragraph in which he compared the hopes of the US financiers for similar results in China as had happened in Russia, the latter having had a more devastating experience. Here's my post:

juliania
April 15, 2021 at 4:22 pm

We were all being told that the problem for US industry was that it had to move to places where labor was less expensive to employ – had to, no alternative. Whereas it seems the policy was far more devious (or perhaps both were true.) This is a totally clarifying paragraph:

“The United States hoped that China might be as gullible as the Soviet Union and adopt neoliberal policy permitting its wealth to be privatized and turned into rent-extracting privileges, to be sold off to Americans. “What the free world expected when it welcomed China into the free trade body [the World Trade Organization] in 2001,” explained Clyde V. Prestowitz Jr, trade advisor in the Reagan administration, was that, “from the time of Deng Xiaoping’s adoption of some market methods in 1979 and especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992 … increased trade with and investment in China would inevitably lead to the marketization of its economy, the demise of its state-owned enterprises.”

Maybe the TPP’s hidden gotcha’s were a part of the same deviousity? (I just made that word up.)

As Prof Hudson continues, China did not follow Russia but rather kept control of banks and businesses, much to the chagrin of the US manipulators. I guess the Chinese had also read Machiavelli. (Well, no maybe about it.)

I will just add that today is the Sunday of Saint Mary of Egypt in the Orthodox Lenten series, last Sunday before Holy Week. The reading for her feast is an interesting one in the 'forgive us our debts' conversation - Luke 7:38-50. [My little chapel is named for Saint Mary of Egypt.]

Posted by: juliania | Apr 18 2021 17:55 utc | 26

thanks b.. i appreciate the additional links and insights of the commentariate here too..

the picture of biden in the indian punchline article is disturbing.. it clearly shows a man in the late stages of life - quite old and feeble looking... my guess is that his role is just as jackrabbit has often suggested - the leader as figurehead only, but in this case a bad one at that... how else to explain the countless contradictions? jake sullivan is only following an increasingly dysfunctional leadership emanating from washingston..

as for cameron and the uk financial games... they used to be able to keep it hidden and under wraps.. now it is just as that documentary
the spiders web articulates.... the shit is just coming out into the open more and more... the city of london does not take a back seat to wall st as i see it...

regarding the altered views of the colour in anna missed painting, i think it is a certain type of paint that causes that, but i am not a painter so can't say for sure... find someone into acrylics.. they probably know...

as for navalny dying, doesn't he need insulin shots or something like that?? of course the western msm will need to keep him on the front pages as if people aren't already tired of the bullshit on russia 24-7.... craig murray goes over the nonsense about skripal today in his article -
Pure: Ten Points I Just Can’t Believe About the Official Skripal Narrative

@ Biswapriya Purkayast | Apr 18 2021 13:39 utc | 4.. i don't share your viewpoint on russias response to ukraine.... and russia was able to put crimea back into russia too... i think ukraine ain't doing so well myself from what i understand... i think this approach of russia to freezing things is a good approach overall... the usa and west are getting weaker as i see it... so russia and usa are essentially going in 2 directions.. you could include china here too... one is going from weakness to strength and the other from the opposite.. that is how it looks to me..

@ 20 paco conclusion... that is what it looks like to me as well...

still reading? here is some music i am presently listening to -Wave Upon Wave · Jonathan Kreisberg

Posted by: james | Apr 18 2021 18:07 utc | 27

Blah blah blah. Our mega-money-power controllers are hiding behind their bought "career" politicians as usual. After manufacturing their ultra elite status the mega dons have handed their reigns to their undeserving and relatively unintelligent offspring. Too much power in dangerous hands. These mega fools are in desperate need of self-identity which is most easily imparted via the most effective technique of sycophantic manipulation.
Hence the most influential and thereby powerful individuals are the mogul emperors of the traditional (snake oil) baseline sales techniques with the usual and essential tentacles of subtle intimidation via whatever "horrendous" and "deviant" naughties that can be brought to relate.
Human nature at the highest levels has always been a thin veneer of sugar-coated fakeness around a cesspit of pure evil which is made to cascade down the hierarchical stairs of delusion.

Posted by: Carver | Apr 18 2021 18:11 utc | 28

@ juliania | Apr 18 2021 17:55 utc | 27... thanks juliania.. i enjoyed that michael hudson article and i like your focus on the theme of lent here.. i am curious how the orthodox christians have it later then the roman catholics and etc.. it is off a lunar calendar as i know easter... first sunday after the full moon when the sun has entered spring... how do they get the date for the orthodox easter?

about the literature... the brothers karamazov was a fantastic read... thank you! the master and margarita was a let down and i was stupid enough to read it to the very end too... i didn't dig the book.. maybe it got lost in translation... i am almost finished h.g. wells 'tono bungay'... wells is also a great writer.. this book is essentially about selling a type of snake oil.. it is fitting for the times! thanks again for your posts and insights! i wonder how our poster friend tuzelyurt or however you spell there name are making out with their parsley? lol!

Posted by: james | Apr 18 2021 18:13 utc | 29

In Contact--- Chris Hedges interviews Glen Greenwald on Brasil and the press--
Good interview IMO.

Securing Democracy with Glenn Greenwald

Posted by: arby | Apr 18 2021 18:41 utc | 30

In my opinion, the Maidan coup in 2014 was carried out in full expectation that it would result in a massive Russian military operation to restore the Yanukovych government. Images of Russian tanks in Kiev would have been all that was necessary to establish a new Cold War and completely isolate the Russia Federation from the West’s financial and geopolitical institutions. When the Russians did not bite, NATO carried on with its predetermined narratives but with a far less kinetic “Crimean annexation” complaint instead of Russian tanks in streets of Kiev. Events which have followed - Skripals, accusations of “election interference” and alleged hacking, etc - represent partially successful efforts to tar the Russians but which still do not amount to the full value that “tanks in Kiev” would have provided. This is also one reason why the argument that Russia was wrong to not respond more forcefully in 2014 does not hold up.

As per the Skripals, it also seems like some other event - still involving “chemical weapons” - was meant to take place but somehow didn’t, and the poisoning of the Skripals after they left the restaurant was an improvised response. The whole unfolding of the story had an improvised quality, resulting in the many absurdities in the official narrative.

Posted by: jayc | Apr 18 2021 18:45 utc | 31

Posted by: jayc | Apr 18 2021 18:45 utc | 32

In my opinion, the Maidan coup in 2014 was carried out in full expectation that it would result in a massive Russian military operation to restore the Yanukovych government. Images of Russian tanks in Kiev would have been all that was necessary to establish a new Cold War and completely isolate the Russia Federation from the West’s financial and geopolitical institutions.

This is exactly what I wrote in February 2014, before the Maidan coup.

On the situation in Ukraine (February 7, 2014)

Yanukovych can not order the police to use batons on the rioters because of fears of Western economic sanctions. Not only sanctions, but direct military aggression, using terrorist insurgents. In the current situation, even light bludgeoning and arrests are impossible. The fact is, the situation would require armored military forces brought to Euromaidan Square in 1989 Tienanmen style. This is impossible, as it would lead to direct military threats from the West .

Yanukovych will only act after he gets the necessary security guarantees from Russia. A guarantee that Russia will secure the Ukrainian economy in case of EU and U.S. economic sanctions, and assurance that the Russian armed forces will secure Ukrainian airspace against a Western "no fly zone". (In reality air war in support of the rebels rats.)

Putin can not provide the security guarantees before the end of the Sochi Olympics .

We should therefore expect accelerating provocation from the West as long as the Olympic Games continue. What happens after the Olympic is beyond predictable.

***

From the point of view of Western geopolitical strategy it would be very desirable to see Soviet tanks in the streets of Kiev. In the absence of Soviet tanks Russian tanks will do – if not in Kiev, then at the very least in the Crimea. Western strategy is the same as that in Afghanistan, get Russia tied up to its own Vietnam. Russia must be internationally condemned and isolated from the "international community."

Posted by: Petri Krohn | Apr 18 2021 19:03 utc | 32

@ Antibody | Apr 18 2021 17:05 utc | 24

I double down...

CIA is in no way inspire by JLC...

‘The Spy Who Came In From The Cold’ ends with said spy getting shot and dying.

Yes, but who care in MI6?
James Le Mesurier died in a fall from the balcony of an Istanbul building where he kept an apartment and an Office. At the End. Kleenex.
A double or undercover agent: profit and loss account. They just think of themselves as super-intelligent and manipulative people sitting in cosy harmchairs. And their services are still in crisis.

Posted by: Bernard F. | Apr 18 2021 19:07 utc | 33

@ jayc (32)

That is pretty much as I see it too.

Posted by: MarkU | Apr 18 2021 19:07 utc | 34

Posted by: juliania | Apr 18 2021 16:56 utc | 23

Nope, that's not where John Kerry started. He started as a Skull & Bones fellow.

(His Kerry Committee Report was just a cover-up btw)

Posted by: vato | Apr 18 2021 19:14 utc | 35

USA: Justice John Paul Stevens stated in a footnote: “If a State elects to impose imprisonment as a punishment for crime, I believe it has an obligation to provide the persons in its custody with a healthcare system which meets minimal standards of adequacy.
”

The letter to Russia ". As a Russian citizen, he has the lawful right to be examined and treated by a doctor of his choice. Having been denied this right, on March 30th, he began a hunger strike in protest." I was said that Navalny had access to prison doctors, had tests etc.

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Apr 18 2021 19:50 utc | 36

james @ 30, not to worry about your reaction to "Master and Margarita" - I was taken aback myself from a brief view of the video version, and I realized it was because I don't know the Russian language more than a few common sayings. I couldn't pick up on the humor as it was as deadpan as the novel in its stark presentation. So I can understand that the book fell flat for you as in English it would be hard to pick up on the difference between the pseudo-Gospel passages and the comedic interludes which are the main story. I praise you highly for going to the end of the novel even in such a disturbed state - I couldn't get beyond the first part of the first episode of the video.

The Pevear translation does a good job, and it helped me to realize that many of the passages Bulgakov himself knew by heart - he'd started the novel and reached far into it but himself gave up and actually burned the manuscript. One of his themes is that manuscripts cannot burn, as I remember. That was true because most of it he had memorized, and I suspect the language of the p-gospel segments is much more poetic than the rest. And what interested me there was the richness of the imagery and Pilate's reactions on being confronted by the Jesus figure. It all relates, even the differences from the actual evangelical accounts, to the distortions alluded to in the very first chapter, where even Jesus's existence is now, at the time of the novel, so disputed that in order to establish it, the devil himself is required to appear and to be, when in theological terms (as Dostoievski shows with Ivan) it is the devil's existence that is the problematic concept. Admittedly, not being Russian, I can't penetrate the novel as well as a Russian speaker might, but I do love Margarita's defense of the master at the satanic revels - she is needed there; she saves him, and that is totally in line with Orthodox insistence on the important role of Mary as Mother, birthgiver, of God.

That brings me to your question about Orthodox Easter. It is determined the same way as is the western Easter, except in that Passover has a role to play. I should say that my version of this may not be the official one, but for us Easter cannot occur before or during Passover, so when that happens in the lunar calendar iteration both west and east follow, Orthodox falls as far as a month away and always comes after Passover. There are times when both east and west fall on the same date but more often the eastern is later. Also there is a different way to count the 40 days of Lent, Sundays being always non-lenten for the Orthodox, and having a particular designation, as this Sunday does.

Also, (now that I've completely confused you) it doesn't matter for Orthodox whether they follow the old or new calendar. Easter is the same date for both, being the major feast of the year.

Posted by: juliania | Apr 18 2021 20:04 utc | 37

Break the News *

CNN/NYT /AP/BBC breaking news !

Despite Tensions, U.S. and China Agree to Work Together on Climate Change[...]

The announcement followed two days of talks between US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry and China Special Envoy for Climate Change Xie Zhenhua in Shanghai [...]

Mr Kerry's trip to China is the first high-level visit by a member of the Biden administration

China surrender to Green New Deal! Citizen K wins! We are the champions!

I will always be the one to break the news, if it's alright
I never wanna bring you down, no
I will always be the one to speak the truth, if it don't hurt
I never wanna see you frown, no
"The Who"

Unfortunately, the truth hurt

" It’s unclear how much Kerry’s China visit would promote U.S.-China cooperation on climate issues

*And for the pleasure of connoisseurs: "un peu de douceur dans un monde de brutes." [a little sweetness in a thug's world.]

Posted by: Bernard F. | Apr 18 2021 20:06 utc | 38

b, thanks for linking to the excellent SCF article, 'Mobilisation Politics in the Post-Persuasion era - what it means for Geopolitics' by Alistair Crooke.

Further to Crooke's article, Radio New Zealand has an excellent audio podcast revealing Cambridge Analytica's role in 2019:

https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/2018708110/david-carroll-cambridge-analytica-and-the-great-hack

No doubt these tricks have been refined and 'improved' since then by the likes of 77th Brigade, the Atlantic Council and Bellingcat. The real 'Russians.'

These days being banned by Fakebook and being disappeared by Google are a badge of honour.

This is still pertinent today

Posted by: Paul | Apr 18 2021 20:13 utc | 39

Sam F@22 may not want clarification? Forging ahead anyhow, 1)if our host thinks a US military presence is required for US goals of conquest, I do indeed contradict that. 2) I *don't* think training and home invasion can be offloaded to private payrolls, because I don't think the private contractors are worth the money they're paid, they're just another privatization scam by idiots who believe in capitalism/libertarianism/liberalism etc. Spying can be done by an embassy (the US or vassal,) and droning is done by remote control, which is after all the really attractive thing to the masters. And 3)if the US can bully NATO into staying, I suppose they will, that's part of continuing Trump's warmaking legacy after all. But strictly speaking they won't rebrand vassal troops as US, the whole point is cosmetic. Rebranding occupying forces as UN peacekeepers would suit them just fine, but nobody wants the UN to actually have forces that can win fights. (This point is cunningly neglected by diplomats pleading for a return to UN principles etc.)

A world where the US can trash Afghanistan and the UN can't do anything about it is a multipolar world by the way. The UN Security Council is supposed to act by consensus of the permanent members, and if they don't have a consensus, anything goes. If there's any sense to the Russian/Chinese begging for the UN, it comes from an implicit proposition that *all* military actions must be carried out under the aegis of the UN (meaning, again, only the consensus of the permanent members.) But contrary to illusion, that is *not* a founding principle of the UN. There is no UN equivalent of a Monroe doctrine for the world.

Posted by: steven t johnson | Apr 18 2021 20:29 utc | 40

Further on the subject of Chinas treatment of the Uyghers,
I found this post interesting. Including bonus link to interesting video.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/56494.htm

Caitlin is persuasive as ever in making point that US et al has no credibilty and motives other than humanitarian, but this would not preclude it (US) being correct. However, seems very little reason to believe the US and their claimed investigation seems shoddy. I was not impressed by the Grayzone article.

Posted by: jared | Apr 18 2021 20:40 utc | 41

@James

Nice music, reminds me of Metheny. Latest reads, some short stories in Spanish, helping a Russian friend that studies Spanish, but no major work like Karamazov, those are extreme heights. Master and Margarita is a different type of book, reflects the times, critical with the miseries that go with need and very critical with the new system, cost him dear.

Posted by: Paco | Apr 18 2021 21:07 utc | 42

Bernard F. #7

Many in the west share the embarrassment of having fool leaders: bojo, micron, van de Leyen, scomo, trudeau, biden... SAD. There was a time when Amin or Gaddafi seemed very strange but here we are and the western clowns PROVE they are ridiculous.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Apr 18 2021 21:33 utc | 43

@vk 14

You are completely right about Krugman. The separation of exchange (i.e., the economic spehere understood as the natural aspect of society) from the political (the political contestation of social relations) is the bourgeois ideological heart of the voodoo which is propagated under the sign 'Economics'. The fundamental article which demolishes this is by Ellen Meiksins-Wood. Also worth reading is Sam Chamber's new book There's No Such Thing as the Economy.

Posted by: Patroklos | Apr 18 2021 21:36 utc | 44

How Near-Saturation of CO2 Limits Future Global Warming

"The climate change narrative is based in part on the concept that adding more and more CO2 to the atmosphere will cause the planet to become unbearably hot. But recent research refutes this notion by concluding that extra CO2 quickly becomes less effective in raising global temperatures – a saturation effect, long disputed by believers in the narrative."

Posted by: ADKC | Apr 18 2021 22:50 utc | 45

Like a sneeze interupted.
The predator would like the prey to feel it was the superior.
At another time, the outcome may be different.

Posted by: jared | Apr 18 2021 23:34 utc | 46

However, seems very little reason to believe the US and their claimed investigation seems shoddy. I was not impressed by the Grayzone article.

Posted by: jared | Apr 18 2021 20:40 utc | 42

I am not impressed by criticism that does not raise a single concrete point. Grayzone article lacked zazz? Is it the point?

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Apr 18 2021 23:53 utc | 47

A bit of explanation from Urban Dictionary:

Zazz
A quantifiable amount of something special. The higher the amount the more likely it is to be successful and awesome.

Dethklok are the only ones who know how much Zazz is required.
Murderface: "I just think it could use more zazz... I'm just saying."

Nathan: "Yeh... More zazz."

Toki: "You needs to zazz's its ups a bits!"

Skwisgars: "STOPS SAYINGS ZAZZ!"

Pickles: "... zazz."

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Apr 18 2021 23:56 utc | 48

Why do I say that the Ukranazis are much stronger now than in 2014? Here is why.

In 2014 its military was disintegrating, that is why Russia did not find any resistance in liberating Crimea. The Ukrainian army basically ceased to exist. Many if not most of the troops defected to Russia in Crimea. Supporters of Yanukovych's Party of the Unions would have openly welcomed a Russian intervention against the Nazi coup regime. That is why the Ukranazi coup regime picked the Nazis of Azov, Svoboda and Pravii Sektor to attack the at that time almost defenceless Novorossiyan people (who remember had to loot weapons from museums, including still working WWII tanks). Even later by the end of the year the Ukrainian army had to rely on Nazi "cyborgs" to fight for it. A Russian intervention would still have been a cakewalk.

Even during the period 2015 to 2019 while Ukranazistan was falling apart socioeconomically, the military grew relatively cohesive, in the sense that it incorporated Azov (thus making itself the Ukranazi army) and was no longer self destructing, but it had still no modern anti tank weapons, no modern drones, and very importantly no NATOstani forces in the country arming and training it openly (in reality acting as human shields). Now none of those things are true. They have the Ottoman Bayraktars, the world's only combat proven drone, Javelin anti tank missiles,* open arming and training and most importantly open propaganda support from the NATOstanis to an extent not seen since 2014. It is obvious that Russia does not believe that the Donbass armies can possibly hold off the Ukranazis even long enough for Russia to transfer forces from further away in the Russian interior. And from this point on the Ukranazis can only get militarily more powerful. Even if we believed the oft repeated but as far as I can see unsupported assertion that 50% or more of their army is comprised of conscripts too demoralised to fight, the Ukranazis are now renting jihadi headchoppers from Sultan Erdoğan, not the cannon fodder in Azerbaijan, but Chechens, Daghestanis and Tatars who speak Russian, know the country, and are a bit tougher than the average child beheading al Qaeda junior partner from Idlibistan. And don't forget that they will have the full benefit of NATOstani satellite intelligence and propaganda and diplomatic support, apart from the NATOstani "trainers" and "advisors" who Putin will, if recent history is any guide, go to almost any length to avoid harming, even if they kill Russians.

There is absolutely no reason to believe that Russia would have had to take on the economic burden of Ukranazistan in 2014. All Russia would have to do is invade, crush the Ukranazi coup regime (more likely than not with the enthusiastic support of most of East Ukraine people), reinstate Yanukovych, and withdraw immediately with a statement that if there were any more Maidans Russia would be back and this time to stay. No occupation, no economic burden, just a souped up equivalent of the 2008 Georgia punitive expedition. Instead Putin's "restraint" meant:

1. Russia got none of the benefits it would have had by invading: crushing Ukranazism, massively deterring NATO, avoiding "friends" like India peeling away, the running expenses of having to maintain troops at the border, to say nothing of building the Kerch bridge and subsidising the Donbass.

2. It got all the negative effects of invading: sanctions (which turned out a blessing in disguise, yes, but which should not have been necessary to make Russia's economy self reliant anyway), massively increased enmity from its opponents.

3. It got all the negatives of doing nothing: NATOstani planes in Ukranazi airspace, NATO openly arming and training the Ukranazis, the Ukrainian population becoming more homogeneously anti Russian.

And now if Russia invades it will have to take over the ruins because there is simply nobody else. It's far too late to reinstate Yanukovych and leave.

That is why.

(*Russell Bonner Bentley in Donetsk, who is right on the frontline and does not have the luxury of pontificating from the other side of the planet like the know-it-alls on the Junkyard of the Faker, openly said that there is no need to be contemptuous of Bayraktars or Javelins. Or of the fighting abilities of Ukranazis.)

Posted by: Biswapriya Purkayast | Apr 19 2021 0:51 utc | 49

ADKC #46

Please take your climate-denial trash articles somewhere else, as for the underlying unpublished paper (i.e. not peer reviewed):

"The paper's claims largely have been known since the 1960s, said Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University who reviewed the research. He said the calculations appeared to be correct, but that they were presented in a misleading way. For example, some of the data that tracks the climate forcing potential of methane was presented in annual amounts, which appear small, but are quite significant if viewed through the century. Nothing in the paper, he said, disproves the conclusions of mainstream climate science, and he said it is a "bullshit statement" to claim that the paper's conclusions are just following facts and should lead to one policy outcome.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/11/unpublished-paper-former-white-house-climate-adviser-calls-methane-irrelevant-climate

Posted by: Roger | Apr 19 2021 1:13 utc | 50

ADKC @ 46 --

Each time you encounter climate change denial, I suggest you check out Skeptical Science to learn how its argument is refuted:

https://skepticalscience.com/saturated-co2-effect.htm

Posted by: norecovery | Apr 19 2021 1:31 utc | 51

on the issue of Ukraine, can anyone explain the recent rumor that the IMF rules were changed to allow credit to be extend to a defaulted state? If true, who engineered that change? What does more debt mean to Ukraine? There's a joke, if u give the Ukraine money, any money, you had better retract your hand fast, because it might disappear into the dark of the night with the money . .
Who would lend the Ukraine a dime? I think Ukraine survival depends on the ability of its army to maintain peace and order..and on its ability generate sufficient revenue to feed its flocks I think there are about 40 million there? .. Unless something not yet obvious appears, the major oligarchs .. are not likely to agree to federalizing any part of their individual estates (privately controlled profit making war lord controlled territories, and each is raising its own armies).. so what I see is bankrupt Ukraine being divided into war lord controlled territories and the territory being merged into the surrounding nation states. I see the current regime attempting to cut russian gas destined for the EU off before the end of Ukraine comes but I cannot see any rational civil capacity of Ukraine to feed its flocks. I understand Turkey is moving ISIS into Ukraine and things are going to get very tough going indeed for the average citizen. Hope I am wrong.

Posted by: snake | Apr 19 2021 1:50 utc | 52

So,
How are those 'big silly television smiles' working out, right about now?
Not so well?
Super fucking wierd, right?
Who would have guessed?

Posted by: Josh | Apr 19 2021 2:04 utc | 53

I have read that whatever medical system Ukraine has should collapse since salaries double or more beyond the borders.

Posted by: Eighthman | Apr 19 2021 2:10 utc | 54

@50

Thanks for the lengthy post but I am not with you this on point:". . .reinstate Yanukovych, and withdraw immediately with a statement that if there were any more Maidans Russia would be back and this time to stay. No occupation, . . ." I have the utmost faith that there would have been another Maiden for the express purpose of dragging Russia into occupying a widely divided country, and any occupation would not have been sustainable unless Russia just kept additional areas with large Russian speaking representation.

As for the sanctions, they could have and would have been far worse in your scenario, and as I have said on other posts, even the latest US round is pretty meaningless.

Posted by: schmoe | Apr 19 2021 2:37 utc | 55

Bolivia continues to rise as MAS consolidates power and public sector programs grow quickly. Here's Ollie Vargas's Kawsachun News website, small right now but good solid reporting and I look for them to grow. https://kawsachunnews.colchesterwebsiteservices.com/
Vargas tweets polling indicates left wing teacher and union leader Pedro Castillo is gaining more support and will win in the second round in Peru. Bolivia's MAS is paying attention to the Peru election coming up in early June. I think they are supporting and advising Castillo-- I hope they are!

Posted by: migueljose | Apr 19 2021 2:53 utc | 56

Here are the worlds premier human rights violators in action, courtesy of US taxpayers:

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/521305-israeli-settlers-palestinians-violence/

It doesn't get more blatant than this.

Posted by: Paul | Apr 19 2021 2:54 utc | 57

Biswapriya P @ 50:

The problem with your scenarios is that since 2014 - or even before 2014 - the West has carried out actions, including establishing a context in which certain actions by Ukrainians themselves could take place, in Ukraine with the specific aim of provoking Russian invasion into Ukraine so that further other actions could follow and result in Russia being trapped in fighting its version of a 20-year US war in Afghanistan.

Instead by not falling for the bait, the Russians have had the luxury of time and physical distance to build up forces and military resources. In the meantime the Ukrainian general public has had the time to make up its mind about whether continued rule from Kiev and waiting for the visa-free travel to Europe and EU membership that will never come are still worthwhile.

Sometimes the most obvious choice is the one most fraught with danger and unwanted consequences. Do you not think the US and NATO have not already gamed your scenarios in the past to get particular results?

Yanukovych's term as President of Ukraine was going to expire in 2015 anyway and he was leaning towards joining the EU. His sin was in thinking he could play the EU off against the Eurasian Customs Union and squeezing whatever he and Ukraine get out of one or the other. Would you suggest installing Moscow-oriented satrapies instead? It's up to Ukrainians instead to decide who they want to rule them.

Posted by: Jen | Apr 19 2021 3:31 utc | 58

Alexei Navalny -- Child of Satan

Sue me if you can prove me wrong, you evil demon.

Posted by: blues | Apr 19 2021 3:46 utc | 59

Reg. situation in India, there are only 2 vaccines available, and there is drastic shortage of these. Cases are rising daily, and there is suffering. Sputnik V was given the green signal last week, but no clues on when it will be available on the ground.. Waiting for Sputnik.. Hello James, thank you for your warm message on the other thread.. Greetings to all barflies..

Posted by: R | Apr 19 2021 3:55 utc | 60

@ 38 juliania... thanks juliania! it is still a bit confusing to me about how they fix easter sunday.. it sounds like you are saying they use the old orthodox calendar.. i think that is what you are saying... what i find weird about that is the event is based off the lunar calendar... so maybe it doesn't matter old calendar or new when working with a lunar calendar...

i have another bulgarov book here - heart of the dog, that my brother gave me.. i might have a go at it later, but the book @ paul recommended - the gun and the olive branch came in and i was going to try to plow thru the new forward on that with is a long forward at over 100 pages!

@ 43 paco... thanks.. yes kreisberg is a bit like metheny.. the younger players have all been influence by metheny.. jazz guitarists have to go thru him now... thanks for your take on the master and margarita... i didn't follow what doris lessing said on that which is or was, 'if i am not into the book 50 page is, i stop reading it!' she said that in a lecture once.. i have read a few of her books.. she is quite brilliant too in her own way..

@ 50 Biswapriya Purkayast .. thanks for your rebuttal of others rebuttal to your original post... i think the problem is assumptions interfere with our ability to know something with certainty.. i can see a few in your post for sure... this is the whole point of the usa-west agenda here - to try to corner russia into a lose-lose situation... they have a lot of means towards doing this, not to mention the western msm and financial system which give them home advantage.. however it seems to me russia leadership under putin and company have played their hand exceedingly well and have not got sucked into playing the game the way the west has wanted them to.. so i continue to agree with the others here and don't share your viewpoint... cheers..

@ 61 R - thanks and welcome back!

Posted by: james | Apr 19 2021 4:19 utc | 61

@52 norecovery
"Each time you encounter climate change denial, I suggest you check out Skeptical Science to learn how its argument is refuted"

No sane person is denying climate change, just the unfounded idea that it is caused by humans and that CO2 plays a big part in that. The only constant is climate change, it always has and it always will. In the past millennia there have been warm periods and colder periods. They falsified the data of historic temperature measurements and adjust current readings from for example satellite measurements. All totally overt by the way, they admit it, but claim it is to correct the measurements. Before they adjusted our historic measurements from 1901 til 1955 there were more heatwaves over the first part of the 20th century then there were from 1955 up to today. After they subtracted 1,7 degrees Celsius from the hottest days in the old measurements the second half and first part of the 21th century now appear to have been warmer. Also if you look at the data over a bigger time frame we see the temperature going up and down constantly, and there doesn't seem to be any relation to the CO2 levels. There have been times with many times more CO2 in the atmosphere, plants grow better with more CO2. I say the CO2 global warming threat is just a tool to make us less free and a distraction from the real environmental problems like pollution of all kinds. That doesn't mean we should keep using fossil fuels, they emit several pollutants when burned. So we need to get of that stuff ASAP. But not under false pretenses and imposing all kinds of CO2 taxes, we exhale CO2. Look into it yourself more. Listen to counter arguments. And those skeptical scientist just pose a skeptics, they are counter skeptical because they adhere to and defend the official version.

In the book "Report from Iron Mountain" from 1967, you can read about the plan to use an environmental threat as a tool for control being discussed during a conference for the power elite of that time. First they came with global cooling, then they shifted to warming, and now they go with climate change. If we can't survive a couple of degrees warming or cooling we have no future on this planet. It has happened many times over, sometimes more then a couple a degrees. Which has caused extinction level events. Last time was about 12000 years ago, temperatures came up many degrees Celsius, sea levels rose 120 meters over a period of about 1000 years due to the ice caps over North America, Europe and the rest of the planet melting. Several species of large animals died. And that was (as far as we know) caused by natural events. And they try to scare us with a couple of degrees warming, what a joke.

Posted by: GoverntheMente | Apr 19 2021 5:18 utc | 62

@ADKC | Apr 18 2021 22:50 utc | 46

"The climate change narrative is based in part on the concept that adding more and more CO2 to the atmosphere will cause the planet to become unbearably hot. But recent research refutes this notion by concluding that extra CO2 quickly becomes less effective in raising global temperatures – a saturation effect, long disputed by believers in the narrative."

Yes, this example of pathological science (i.e. politically motivated spin) has been refuted many times, the effect simply is not measurable if it exists at all. The absolute amount of CO2 in the Martian atmosphere is ~10 times higher than on Earth, but still the diurnal temperature variation is extreme, and higher than the seasonal variation. Comparing Venus, Earth and Mars, it is the surface pressure that mostly defines the surface temperature, the atmospheric composition is largely irrelevant. And... the CO2 variation in Earths atmosphere is natural anyway (outgassing from the oceans when temperature increases due to higher colar activity in the late 20th century).

This project fear has been pushed for political reasons the last 25-30 years. As was revealed by the CNN leaks by project Veritas, it was briefly replaced by another aspect of the same project fear - "covid" - another pathological science lie with the same characteristics and the same political goals. It is based on propagandized statistics that people locked up in their homes cannot easily refute since censorship is now widespread. Still, the fear effect is diminishing so CNN plans to return to climate based fear generation.

By coincidence, the rich are getting richer through these schemes.

Posted by: Norwegian | Apr 19 2021 5:34 utc | 63

@norecovery | Apr 19 2021 1:31 utc | 52
That is a well known climate alarmist site. it is not "skeptical" in any way.

Posted by: Norwegian | Apr 19 2021 5:37 utc | 64

Climate change is real and is driven by human activity, of that there is no doubt. The establishment oligarchs know this of course, and like any good disaster capitalists intend to profit from the ongoing climate disaster.

That in a nutshell is the problem. On one hand we have the fossil fuel corporations pouring billions of dollars into propaganda designed to fool the rubes with bad science...such as references to the atmosphere of Mars, which has a higher proportion of carbon dioxide....but it is 1/100th as thick as Earth's atmosphere, so in absolute terms there is but a fraction of the total greenhouse gasses in Mar's atmosphere as there is here.

On the flip-side, the non-fossil fuel related oligarchs don't want to fix climate change, but want to profit from it via carbon markets, which won't do much except transfer wealth.

In any event, climate change will collapse society, if nuclear war doesn't do it first. On the bright side Russia benefits greatly from the thawing in the north of their country.

Posted by: J-Dogg | Apr 19 2021 5:52 utc | 65

@GoverntheMente | Apr 19 2021 5:18 utc | 63

Thank you, your description of how old temperature measurements were falsified by "adjusting" them down to create an apparent increasing trend is exactly right. The whole "climate science" cabal, lead by the University of East Anglia in the UK and similar organisations in the US who publish statistics are utterly politicized and corrupted.

The only "climate deniers" are those who claim we do not have a climate, i.e. those who claim that it is supposed to be constant and not change. This type of rhetoric with a built in holocaust reference and projection is typical.

If we can't survive a couple of degrees warming or cooling we have no future on this planet. It has happened many times over, sometimes more then a couple a degrees. Which has caused extinction level events. Last time was about 12000 years ago, temperatures came up many degrees Celsius, sea levels rose 120 meters over a period of about 1000 years due to the ice caps over North America, Europe and the rest of the planet melting. Several species of large animals died. And that was (as far as we know) caused by natural events. And they try to scare us with a couple of degrees warming, what a joke.

The event 12000 - 13000 years ago was the Younger Dryas at the end of the Pleistocene, i.e. the end of the last ice age. The temperatures were coming up, but plunged ~15C overnight and did not recover until 1200 years later. There has been much debate about what really happened, but the picture is now getting much clearer in my opinion. A key to understanding is the study of the "Carolina bays" along the US east cost. See the explanations by Antonio Zamora Mechanism for the creation of the Carolina Bays.

In short, a comet or asteroid fragment hit the 3000m thick Laurentide Ice Sheet over North America (specifically over Saginaw Bay, Michigan) causing up to kilometer sized ice boulders to be ejected in all directions and all over present day US east of the Rocky Mountains. This killed the US megafauna, and secondary ice boulder impacts created the Carolina bays where the ground conditions were favorable. What remains today is true mathematical ellipse shapes with consistent eccentricities and consistent axis alignments, revealing the true origin of these formations.

Explaining how the worlds oceans could rise 120m almost overnight must include an energy source for the sudden melting of the ice. Only an extraterrestrial impact could achieve that, and there are lots of other geological signs in North America showing that it indeed happened.

So yes, it was a natural event many orders of magnitude more violent and extreme than what these fear mongers claim humans do. In fact, there are signs that this natural event crushed a fairly advanced human civilization that existed prior to the impact, as witnessed through the numerous megalithic structures around the world (Peru/Boliva, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, India, Laos, China, Indonesia and more).

Posted by: Norwegian | Apr 19 2021 6:17 utc | 66

@J-Dogg | Apr 19 2021 5:52 utc | 66

the atmosphere of Mars, which has a higher proportion of carbon dioxide....but it is 1/100th as thick as Earth's atmosphere, so in absolute terms there is but a fraction of the total greenhouse gasses in Mar's atmosphere as there is here.

The Martian atmosphere contains 98% CO2. The Earths atmosphere contains 400 parts per millon CO2. Accounting for the total volumes and pressures, the Martian atmosphere contains in absolute terms an order of magnitude more CO2 than Earths atmosphere.

Posted by: Norwegian | Apr 19 2021 6:23 utc | 67

Myanmar.
Then now Pakistan.

It seems the US is now just funneling civil war to destabilize BRI.

Posted by: Smith | Apr 19 2021 6:37 utc | 68

"Entre le Dire et le Faire" *

@ Biswapriya Purkayast | Apr 19 2021 0:51 utc | 50 and previously

It [Russia] got all the negatives of doing nothing

Dear Bill, I visited your Blog. Cheers!
I apologize and don't want to be arrogant nor pedantic, just to help everybody to keep calm and courage to hope. Why ? 
As James wrote you

@ james | Apr 19 2021 4:19 utc | 62
[...]
russia leadership under putin and company have played their hand exceedingly well and have not got sucked into playing the game the way the west has wanted them to[...]

So, he is right to write you (and other barflies)

your rebuttal of others rebuttal to your original post... i think the problem is assumptions interfere with our ability to know something with certainty

First of all, we must admit that we don't know with certainty. Particularly about warzones where propaganda meets Fog of War (Klausewicz).

Secondly, we must admit that our own brain is not as "rational and logical" as we might imagine, but rather provides “excuses” ("apologize") for our behavior, which is largely based on instincts, stimuli and previous experiences.
I have already advised everyone to watch a remarkable film "Mon oncle d'Amérique" d'Alain Resnais and this morning I found a link to the video with English subtitles.

https://fsharetv.co/movie/my-american-uncle-episode-1-tt0081176

It lasts 2 hours, with a complex cinematographic construction but "c'est magnifique"

§§§

About Russia / Putin "behaviour" or "restraint" or "doing nothing" , always remember #1 and #2.

Putin, as a leader of a country with 180 millions citizens and a huge history (and the wounds of USSR collapsus) must consider "Overton window". He done it very well.

As a "Commander in Chief", he must consider first, not to be defeated.

Sun Tzu said: The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy. #
To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.

So, please, have a look at some facts (not fake) news.
As b. focused, Russia weaponized...
Russian new weapons/military doctrine since 2010, even not Russian propaganda.

https://spacenews.com/new-reports-highlight-russian-chinese-advances-in-space-weapons/

https://news.usni.org/2021/04/08/russian-and-chinese-nuclear-threats-pose-problem-for-u-s-deterrence-experts-say

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2020/11/18/russian_strategic_and_hypersonic_naval_nuclear_weapons_650130.amp.html

§§§

I was born a Catholic. I have changed since then but I still remember my catechism years.

St. Francis of Assisi has been quoted as saying, “Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.”

It’s a roadmap to achieving amazing things but it begins in absolute simplicity.
I don't know much about St. Francis for the Orthodox.
The quote is probably also true.
And Universal Though.

§§§

* And for the pleasure of connoisseurs: "un peu de douceur dans un monde de brutes." [a little sweetness in a thug's world.]

Posted by: Bernard F. | Apr 19 2021 6:50 utc | 69

Nick #18

HMS Sheffield rerun perhaps?

This text from the grauniad but I wont trash b's place with a link.

"The catalogue of errors and failings that ended in the sinking of a Royal Navy destroyer during the Falklands war has been disclosed after being covered up for 35 years.

Twenty people died and 26 were injured when HMS Sheffield was hit by an Argentinian Exocet missile during the early days of the 1982 conflict. It was the first Royal Navy warship to have been lost in combat since the second world war.

The report of the board of inquiry into the loss of the Sheffield, which has finally been declassified, reveals the full reasons why the ship was completely unprepared for the attack.
Exocet missile: how the sinking of HMS Sheffield made it famous
Read more

The board found that two officers were guilty of negligence, but they escaped courts martial and did not face disciplinary action, apparently in order to avoid undermining the euphoria that gripped much of the UK at the end of the war.

You can bet the englanders will do it again as they have never learned, never repented, never paid one penny of reparations to their victim states. They just steal and kill. I suspect the Black Sea is a good name for their demise in May.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Apr 19 2021 7:02 utc | 70

@uncle tungsten
40 years ago! A good french anti- ship missile !

Portée : de 42 à 180 km suivant les versions
Vitesse : 315 m/s (Mach 0,9)
Charge utile : 165 kg

Only 300 lbs of "C4" to sink a 3,500 long tons (3,600 t) / £20millions warship

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exocet?wprov=sfla1

Posted by: Bernard F. | Apr 19 2021 7:27 utc | 71

J-Dogg @66, Norwegian @68

Speaking of the Martian atmosphere, the US is making a predictable fuss over its upcoming toy helicopter flight on Mars, hyping it as the first flight on another planet. As usual (Soviet) Russia got there first, as part of the Vega mission of 1985. As part of their trajectory to intercept Halley's Comet, the twin Vega spacecraft swung by Venus and released a lander and balloon-born aerobot that flew thousands of km through the Venusian atmosphere; gathering data on temperature, wind speed and cloud density. The mission was led by the Soviet Union but featured contributions from 8 European countries including both the GDR and the FRG.

Russia has another innovative Venus mission in the pipeline, Venera-D, that may include a 'Vetrolet' or 'Wind Flyer'; a high tech kite that will allow flight in the Venusian atmosphere almost indefinitely. For understandable reasons, Russia is prioritizing its military space programs like its 'Liana' constellation over its planetary probes (it is more important to be able to land a cruise missile on the USS Ronald Reagan than a scientific station on Venus in the current political climate) but it makes me wonder what would the Soviets could have achieved in Space if the Union had held together into the 21st Century.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vega_program

Posted by: S.P. Korolev | Apr 19 2021 7:32 utc | 72

On Czech/Russia conflict:
Just a coincidence?

"The diplomatic scandal rocked Czech-Russian relations on the eve of the czech's FM scheduled visit to Moscow, where the FM was to have discussed the possible purchase of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine."
https://www.rt.com/russia/521427-czech-diplomats-expelled-moscow/

Posted by: Zanon | Apr 19 2021 7:44 utc | 73

On Climate Change

Thanks to Norwegian
Even "talking about" is part of the "Cognitive Dissonance Project" . Full fake, even vocabulary

Wikipedia on climate change debate

This article is about the public debate over scientific conclusions on climate change. For scientific consensus, see Scientific consensus on climate change. For denial, dismissal or unwarranted doubt of the scientific consensus, see climate change denial

The last "well known and documented"
climate change "was about 12000 years ago, temperatures came up many degrees Celsius, sea levels rose 120 meters over a period of about 1000 years due to the ice caps over North America, Europe"

By the way, thanks to warming, "human life" is sustainable north of 47th parallel.
Good New for Norwegen.

Posted by: Bernard F. | Apr 19 2021 8:25 utc | 74

vk @14

Thanks for the link to Michael Robert blog. Bookmarked it.

Posted by: migueljose | Apr 19 2021 2:53 utc | 57

A article on the Ecuador election by Stephen Karganovic discussing the unlikely result.

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/04/18/when-facing-imminent-election-defeat-dominion-machines-will-always-do-trick/

Posted by: Tom | Apr 19 2021 8:25 utc | 75

Bernard F. #72

Exactly and it was a perfect French maneuver as they say. A French rocket under the management of an Argentine gentleman plonking a British aluminium can.

Better stuff awaits in the Black Sea.

I am sure they will get a similar warning as the Russians gave the USA navy. Will erDOGan grant them passage and will the two weeks advance notice apply? Will the Brits even bother to apply or will they cite NATO brothers in arms exceptions and so on.

Its a sh!tshow in a hat full of rsoles.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Apr 19 2021 9:43 utc | 76

I am saddened that my Czech comrades have been sucked into the psychotic stupidity of the 'hate russia' brigands.

SAD

Bernard F. I meant to add that I had a great chuckle at your enthusiasm regarding the utility of a french/b> missile. I am sure that many in you fair land remember that event with glee. I thought it struck the stern but that may have been wishful thinking ;))

There is something phallic about the damn thing.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Apr 19 2021 10:00 utc | 77

Navalny is feeling a bit peckish?

Navalny's state of health in prison is much better than that of Jeffrey Epstein - Kremlin

https://sputniknews.com/russia/202104191082668834-navalny-transferred-from-prison-to-hospital-for-inmates-russian-detention-authority-says/

Posted by: Tom | Apr 19 2021 10:02 utc | 78

Music as WoMD

France is flashmobing against "social distancing" and "Covid-19 related" dictatorship (no disrespect for b., not anymore health mesures)

Danser encore
With available english subtitles

Flash mob Gare du Nord
One from many similar event.
This behaviour (no mask, group of more than 6 Person 2 household, even SINGING IN A PUBLIC Place could be fine €145

Posted by: Bernard F. | Apr 19 2021 10:05 utc | 79

Slowly, slowly the lockdown scams are unravelling. Even the Toronto MSM is beginning to present the light

https://torontosun.com/news/local-news/levy-three-prominent-docs-call-lockdowns-a-waste-of-time

"Tenenbaum, a periodontist based at the University of Toronto with a PhD in cell biology, added early on in the pandemic, they knew that an antibiotic called doxycycline could be a “very effective agent” to inhibit enzymes and the hyper inflammation that destroys lung tissue after COVID gets a hold of a patient.

When he tried to present it to his university colleagues, he said he was met with “stone silence” and incredulity because no one believed an antibiotic could work.
...
Risch contended huge (pharmaceutical) companies have “controlled the narrative” — at universities and in medical journals — for their interests
He said hydroxychloroquine could and was being used as well but when former president Donald Trump started tweeting about it, many attacked the drug because they disliked the president.

Risch claimed that the pharmaceutical industry also revved up a campaign against the drug to “subvert the playing field” and leave the road open for “more expensive products, not just vaccines.”

Alexander said in North America and in Europe, there has been a huge failure to “properly protect” the elderly in nursing homes and long-term facilities–using a combination of antibiotics and other treatments, including Vitamin D and zinc.
...
He noted Americans have pushed back more about lockdowns but Canadians have greatly surprised him because they’ve just “acquiesced” and believe everything the government tells them."

Posted by: Bluedotterel | Apr 19 2021 10:07 utc | 80

Azerbaijan testing how far they can push Russia. Not my guess.

Azerbaijan fires info war salvo against Russia

After previously denying it, Azerbaijan now says that Armenia fired Russian-made rockets during last year’s war. And now they’re trying to make things difficult for Moscow.

https://eurasianet.org/azerbaijan-fires-info-war-salvo-against-russia

Posted by: Tom | Apr 19 2021 10:16 utc | 81

@ S.P. Korolev | Apr 19 2021 7:32 utc | 73

Great handle! Thanks for the reminder of the VeGA program and the upcoming Venera-D! I am still impressed by the surface images from Venus that the Soviet Union managed to return....

Posted by: Norwegian | Apr 19 2021 10:21 utc | 82

That should be "not far is my guess"' at 82

Posted by: Tom | Apr 19 2021 10:24 utc | 83

@Bernard F. | Apr 19 2021 8:25 utc | 75
Wikipedia is a cesspool in general, but wrt. climate issues it serves as an entry point to Hades.

Indeed, life is sustainable north of 47th parallel, the last remains of snow is melting at 60N now, just like it has in living memory. This year, February was particularly cold.

Posted by: Norwegian | Apr 19 2021 10:29 utc | 84

Re uncle tungsten | Apr 19 2021 7:02 utc | 71

Sorry comrade Tungsten, but I am more than happy to put a link to to even the Guardian slop bucket if it contains facts the Graun determined - such as
"The Guardian understands that at the time the board’s findings were suppressed, the British government was attempting to sell type 42 destroyers."

Natch "the Sheffield" was a type 42 destroyer.

Englander war errors (the number of which are uncountable) are only acknowledged when there is zero blow back to the types in charge eg Churchill copped it over Gallipoli allegedly cos he was first sea lord of the admiralty, even though any examination of the messes he made in both halves of the 'euro war' shows an idjit whose interference in issues he could not comprehend cost the lives of hundreds of thousands, yet despite his scapegoating in ww1 only cost him a few weeks of posing on 'the front lines' in France despite his stupidity costing hundreds of thousands Oz, Canadian, kiwi & even englander lives.

The important thing is he didn't cost the arseholes types in charge a single quid, dollar or razoo.

My old man born during ww1 had a fascination for the englander navy, so much so that when ww2 kicked off he dropped outta medical school to join the Fleet Air Arm which was the englander navy's weak arsed attempt to take a role in Air defense & offense. He had left a stack or 57, navy as heroes 'adventure' books behind at our house when I was a kid, which he had read as a kid. IOW he had lapped that garbage up.

I never understood this because anyone who spends more than about 5 minutes studying the battle of Jutland (ww1) or the englander navy's engagement with the Bismarck in WW2, rapidly comprehends that england (despite assertions to the contrary) lost the battle of Jutland, or later the Bismarck engagement for precisely the same reason. That is shithouse englander naval architects failed to secure a spark/flame proof supply line between the cordite store in the magazine and a ship's gun turrets.

I can understand that during the battle of Jutland where forensic studies revealed this to be the reason for england losing dreadnoughts, cruisers and destroyers the englander navy hushed up what a cock-up they had made of battleship design in the interests of citizen morale in wartime.
What I cannot understand is that knowing the failure to secure safe delineation between gun turrets and the magazine had caused englander ships to blow up amidships (where the magazine was located) the instant after a gun turret was hit in ww1, in their ww2 battleships in particular hms hood and hms prince of wales still suffered from the same design flaw, so that hundreds of ww2 naval ratings suffered exactly the same fate as their ww1 predecessors.

No one cared cos the greed heads who owned the corporations which built these boats still made a handsome profit, every boat that blows up thanks to shitty design resulted in a commission to build at least one replacement boat.
After all that is what it is really about innit?

Posted by: Debsisdead | Apr 19 2021 10:31 utc | 85

Posted by: S.P. Korolev | Apr 19 2021 7:32 utc | 73
Thanks for that.

Pictures side by side of Leonardo da vinci flying machine and the Mars helicopter. Possible copywrite infringement?

https://twitter.com/NorthmanTrader/status/1384033289296441348

Posted by: Tom | Apr 19 2021 10:31 utc | 86

@ uncle tungsten

The Entente Cordiale

it was a perfect French maneuver as they say.

I remember the 5 "Super Étendard" with Exocet were sold to Argentine in 1979, deliver in 1980/1981 and the pilots trained in France a few months before.
Britons were so confident for their carriers... They bought all Exocet still on the market since summer 1981.

Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and we were "socialistes" [not so much and only 2 years] since Spring 81 (I was welcome with open arms in Santiago de Cuba a few months lauter)

Posted by: Bernard F. | Apr 19 2021 10:32 utc | 87

@Bernard F. | Apr 19 2021 10:05 utc | 80

Flash mob Gare du Nord
One from many similar event.
This behaviour (no mask, group of more than 6 Person 2 household, even SINGING IN A PUBLIC Place could be fine €145

Excellent! Vive La France!

Posted by: Norwegian | Apr 19 2021 10:35 utc | 88

Norwegian Vive la iceberg

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Apr 19 2021 10:41 utc | 89

Well, lockdown(s) in France won't be a problem at all. Macron has announced he is offering to every "kid in distress" a free 10-sessions pass at the psy.
Sho said France has lost its sense of egality?
https://www.20minutes.fr/societe/3021247-20210414-coronavirus-emmanuel-macron-annonce-mise-place-forfait-psy-enfants-deprimes

Posted by: Mina | Apr 19 2021 10:50 utc | 90

@ Norwegian | Apr 19 2021 10:29 utc | 85

This year even April is very cold! Why are you (SoB wikings!) blowing so cold airstream to "le pays des droits de l'Homme"

It's not a fair way to fight the Global Climate Warming!

Perhaps VK can explain... More needs = more gas export

§§§

Yes, Wikipedia is a cesspool, but usefull when you know what you are looking for. Need use your own brain.
But very dangerous for kids.

Posted by: Bernard F. | Apr 19 2021 10:51 utc | 91

Debsisdead #86

Thank you for a fascinating post and I don't mind if you link the graun but I can't miss an opportunity to shaft them.

On the general subject of lying for war and the relentless promotion of ineptitude: I suspect the englander ruling class needs a big war right now given b's great links to corruption in the UK. Add to that the vaccine and maximum effort by police to enforce lockdowns and the extremely unfortunate videos of bojo's lovers, then war in Ukraine is inevitable even if the englanders are Zelensky's only supporters.

I guess if The Lobby can take down the UK Labor Party and erase Corbyn then install their very own poodle, they can leak a pile of corruption scenarios and push the clowns to war in defence of one of their own in Ukraine.

And voila they get their war with Russia and continue to build the 'hate russia' mantra regardless of outcome and on someone else's loss of blood.

We shall see when/if the englanders enter the Black Sea because my feeling is that if they do enter, then they will lose a ship or two.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Apr 19 2021 11:08 utc | 92

Bernard F. #92

April is so bloody cold because grand solar minimum! CO2 aint got nothin on the sun. Why if sol decides to slow down and change its spots there is nothing we can do about it except way until 2031 afaik.

Ventusky forecasts days of rain in the Donbass, snow and rain in Norway, fine in France - the sun king is smiling still ;)

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Apr 19 2021 11:18 utc | 93

Black Sea is beginning to look a little crowded according to spriters.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Apr 19 2021 11:37 utc | 94

@uncle tungsten | Apr 19 2021 11:18 utc | 94

April is so bloody cold because grand solar minimum!

Yes. Go to http://sidc.oma.be/silso/spotless and click on "Evolution of spotless days in SC24-25"

Counting days without sunspots is a tested way of measuring solar activity during a minimum and it also serves as a predictor of an upcoming solar cycle, the next one is #26. As the figure shows, the Sun is in fact a variable star, it tends to have several quasi static modes.

The red curve shows the typical number of spotless days during minima for cycles 16 to 23, i.e. roughly 1920 - 2008. That period was characterized by shorter minima and few spotless days. In other words relatively high solar activity. Hence the claim of "global warming" by the "scientists".

The blue curve show similar numbers for cycles 10 to 15 and 24. Cycles 10 to 15 was from 1855 - 1920. Cycle 24 has just ended. These cycles are characterized by longer and deeper minima with many more spotless days. In other words lower solar activity.

So we are already one 11 year cycle into lower solar activity, and cooler temperatures similar to 100+ years ago are to be expected because such cycles come in groups. It could also happen that we enter a really deep Grand Solar Minimum like the Maunder Minimum during the 1600's, when almost no sunspots were seen for almost 70 years (yes, there were good observers at that time). Maybe the Thames river in London will freeze over for months again like it did before?

Posted by: Norwegian | Apr 19 2021 11:55 utc | 95

Norwegian #96

Well on that basis driving a car will drive further energy generation AND reduce CO2 output.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Apr 19 2021 12:39 utc | 96

@uncle tungsten | Apr 19 2021 12:39 utc | 97

First, remove the "CO2 output" from the discussion, it should not be a goal since CO2 does not have the effect claimed. Second, the suggestion of roadside generators does not follow from my #96.

Basically, you have a hypothesis that roadside generators can produce more energy than they consume. If you can demonstrate that in real life I say go ahead. But until it is proven on a sufficiently large scale it is just a guess. In the meantime I remain skeptical that it would be worthwhile.

Posted by: Norwegian | Apr 19 2021 13:31 utc | 97

This Alistair Crooke article is very dangerous. While it get`s the basic facts right it deliberatley re-aranges the chronology of the events in order to present a distorted picture of what really happaned. He is either a liar or a dogmatic ideologue who tries to sqzeeze reality into his own comic-book like parody of reality whre Steve Bannon is some kind of evil master-mind.

I have restored the actual order of events (using quotes from the article):

1994 The Revolt of the Élites
2008 "Mobilisation Politics (...) Bannon never claimed this as a new insight (tagging its initial appearance to 2008 with the Democrats)"
2010 "Tea Party revolt in 2010 (...) had emerged in response to the 2008 Financial Crisis"
2016 "The process of slicing up the electorate into stratified niches, and using “covert psychological strategies” to manipulate the public’s behaviour was pioneered in large part by Cambridge Analytica." [This statement is abviously plain wrong since this process had been already pioneered by the Obama campagn as he explicitly states when writing about Bannon.]
2020 The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election

So you have at first the "The Revolt of the Élites" with the emergence of what would later be called the woke Left/faux Left. The woke Left pioneers "Mobilisation Politics" during the election campaign of 2008. In 2010 there is a genuine grass-roots revolt against globalisation from the Right (Tea Party). It is only in 2016 that the Right copy-pastes "Mobilisation Politics" (Steve Bannon).

Posted by: m | Apr 19 2021 14:16 utc | 98

It seems to me that there a number of problems with the dominant climate change narrative.

1) dishonesty : "Climate denial" is dishonest and should thereby raise suspicion concerning the ethics of those who use the phrase. I don't know of any climate change skeptic who doesn't believe that climate changes !

2) Not the greatest priority - climate change concerns CANNOT be the priority threat to civilization. That threat continues to be nuclear war, often forgotten. This threat is freely flirted with from day to day. Flooding Manhattan or Florida in ten or twenty years pales in comparison to ending the world in two hours. This again raises questions about ethics.

3) predictive values - scientists should refrain from becoming secular versions of evangelists predicting doom and gloom. Climate change science should not be a hobby like collecting Hummel figures. It should make hard predictions - that challenge the further employment of those making them. AFAIK, there are a few fufilled predictions and many bad ones. Further, climate scientists do not tend to be experts on human adaptability in response to climate changes. that's a different field.

Climate change is a legitimate concern. But it needs to stick to facts, not speculations and political narratives.

Posted by: Eighthman | Apr 19 2021 14:20 utc | 99

@Biswapriya Purkayast
In 2014 there had been polls stating that ca. 9 out of 10 Russians oppose a Russian-Ukrainian war. Did this number change significantly?

Posted by: m | Apr 19 2021 14:28 utc | 100