Open Thread 2021-102
News & views ...
Posted by b on December 29, 2021 at 18:28 UTC | Permalink
next page »The Russian military is in Mali, at the invitation of the Malian government. Mali is supposed to be the "chasse gardee" of France.
Indian punchline reports and asks if Russia will coordinate with China in Africa to end Neo-colonialism:
https://www.indianpunchline.com/russias-shadows-in-sahel-region/
Posted by: Robert Macaire | Dec 29 2021 18:49 utc | 2
The truth is obvious, at least here in the U$A. This virus, and it's offspring, will be among us for quite a while. All because moron Americans can't bring themselves to accept common sense safety protocols adopted by other nations.
But then hey, we're too exceptional to do that. 800,000,000 deaths ARE exceptional.
Posted by: vetinLA | Dec 29 2021 18:55 utc | 3
Today's Howler: "Only winners can make demands, EU warns Russia". Seems Borrell and company really want Russia to prove it can destroy Europe. Does NATO have any hypersonic missiles? Then I'd say they are the losers. Does NATO have a 1st Guards Tank Army? No. Then they're certainly losers. S300, S400 & S500 air defense systems? And so forth.
Perhaps Russia ought to go about liberating Europe from its Neoliberal bondage then retreat to its own borders since collective Europe doesn't want to listen or open its eyes to reality.
After months of providing valuable Covid-19 information that runs counter to the official narrative, Twitter has finally banned Dr. Robert Malone, inventor of mRNA technology.
Only certain scientists have the right think
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/twitter-suspends-mrna-inventor-dr-robert-malone
Posted by: ld | Dec 29 2021 19:05 utc | 5
A new update on the Syria situation would be helpful, b. These new attacks by Israel on Syrian cities including on the port of Latakia near the Russia base, seem pretty damn provocative. Is Israel that sure that Russia will not respond? What IS Russia's response??
Posted by: Caliman | Dec 29 2021 19:17 utc | 6
Patrick Lawrence on Putin:
https://consortiumnews.com/2021/12/28/patrick-lawrence-putin-speaks/
It is becoming, thanks to bloggers like b and Gordon Doctorow, Patrick Armstrong and a growing number of others, easier and easier for ordinary citizens to understand that the media is entirely in the hands of the oligarchy, which owns it. When msm tongues are not voicing lies they are licking boots.
Posted by: bevin | Dec 29 2021 19:18 utc | 7
The surprising development from Dec 15 with the Russians coming up with the 2 proposals (which are clearly demands) is that they should be seen in the context of the total distrust there is by the Russians of the Americans as negotiators and certainly as parties to an agreement. After all, they coined the term 'nedogovorosposobni' - not agreement capable - to define the American powers.
Add to that the clear statement by Putin, repeated by Lavrov in various interviews, that the actions of Russia will not be influenced by the negotiations but by the security requirements of the Russian Federation.
These two facts provide a framework for the fact that the proposals for negotiation are not in se anything more than a way to get ahead of the public discussion, for once be the ones who accuse, and have the ability to initiate an elaborate but devastating air strike on all Ukraine military bases. After all, the Russians finally sound fully and completely near-aggressive as they state that they 'just will not allow NATO expansion to happen'. It appears to me that the only way to do so is to make sure that a country has zero to contribute to NATO and everything to lose. I believe Ukraine is going to become the example of what Russia will do if NATO continues with its expansion.
Judging from Putin's extreme commitment to achieve an absolute minimum of collateral damage (ie Crimea's bloodless reunification), I think the Russians will be surgical and precise.
The Russians will go to the negotiations, but are entirely expecting the Americans to refuse everything but the fringes. Already, the balloons going up on the West about linking this back to renewed arms negotiations have been shot down - the Russians say clearly that they are not there to talk about that - the Americans have already unilaterally withdrawn from all that. So the negotiations on Jan 10 or 12 will be a stage for the Russians to maintain this PR advantage, to expand the audience that actually is willing to listen to the Russians. We will likely not see war, but we will see a very clear military statement, made over Ukraine.
Posted by: Josh | Dec 29 2021 19:20 utc | 8
ahji
those were cia trolls spreading bs about china
shame
Posted by: ld | Dec 29 2021 19:39 utc | 10
Adam Tooze on the energy crisis.
https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-64-energy-crisis-2021-the
Lots of good data, though Tooze tells the story entirely in terms of rising demand in China. He completely avoids discussion of EU refusing NS2 and generally doing their best to sabotage their most cost-efficient energy supplier. Perhaps his audience is not ready for that.
Still, it's an important step that the severity of the situation is acknowledged -- when the dust settles from the current Covid/Omicron episode, the next thing on the horizon is an energy-inflationary economic crisis from fuel, fertilizer, food, and whatever other basic industries get their input costs multiplied by 3x or more. Since many industrial customers locked in their prices well ahead of time, that impact arrives with a delay.
The recent rerouting of some LNG tankers from Asian destinations to EU is the mechanism by which, finally, EU and East Asian LNG prices should now permanently converge -- until such a time as import capacity is maxed out, which may not actually happen. The charts also show what price levels to expect next year -- $25/MMBtu give or take, everywhere except North America (which is again effectively an isolated price zone due to the limited LNG export capacity being maxed out). Compare that $25/MMBtu price level to the $6-$9 level of EU import prices in the several years before Covid. That should be the big take-away.
Posted by: ptb | Dec 29 2021 19:41 utc | 11
Martin Armstrong argues that:
While everyone argues over vaccines and who created COVID, all of these debates and questions dominate 99% of the online agenda. There is something SERIOUSLY missing and that simply the end goal and what is the motive.
See: https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/politics/what-is-the-motive/
Posted by: Ed in Kanata | Dec 29 2021 20:05 utc | 12
>>>those were cia trolls spreading bs about china
shame
Do you have a link to that? Looked like a lot of trolls, but I've only seen the vid, I can't vouch for it.
Posted by: ahji | Dec 29 2021 20:09 utc | 13
paco and karlof1 left this on a previous thread... thanks guys....
music related.. famouse brazilian composer ( in portuguese ).. i got the cd when it came out, but never got to see a live performance of it, which is what this is.. - Moacir Santos - Ouro Negro (DVD Completo)
Posted by: james | Dec 29 2021 20:11 utc | 14
Posted by: ptb | Dec 29 2021 19:41 utc | 11
Adam Tooze does what you would expect from someone who writes for the Financial Times. 2 weeks ago he was forwarding an article about a supposedly missing Chinese business woman (who wasn't even missing at all) on Twitter, right at the same time that Peng Shuai non-story went viral.
Posted by: ahji | Dec 29 2021 19:21 utc | 9
Those weren't covid rule breakers but human traffickers
Posted by: vato | Dec 29 2021 20:25 utc | 15
Relaxed Rules..
In a turbulent period in which the protection of people’s lives is a priority for everyone, with so many administrative burdens on everyday life, it is fortunate that a country, always ahead of a medical decision, has finally decided to free up initiatives and lift the constraints on its young people.
The Israeli army relaxes its rules of fire against Palestinian civilians.
Soldiers will be able to open fire on stone throwers and Molotov cocktails, even after the fact. By allowing its soldiers to fire with live ammunition at stone throwers or Molotov cocktails, even if they no longer pose an immediate threat, the Israeli army has considerably relaxed its firing rules in the Palestinian territories of the West Bank. The news, which was revealed by the state-owned TV channel Kan on 19 December, was confirmed by several military spokespersons on the pretext of anonymity. In its public statements, the military maintains a kind of blur: “Operational procedures are regularly updated as necessary. Since they are classified as a security secret, they cannot be published. »Translated from
French Mainstream Newspapers
L’armée israélienne assouplit ses règles de tir contre les civils palestiniens
Les soldats pourront ouvrir le feu sur des lanceurs de pierres et de cocktails Molotov, même après les faits.
En autorisant ses soldats à tirer à balles réelles sur des lanceurs de pierres ou de cocktails Molotov, même s’ils ne constituent plus une menace immédiate, l’armée israélienne a considérablement assoupli ses règles de tir dans les territoires palestiniens de Cisjordanie. L’information, révélée par la chaîne de télévision publique Kan le 19 décembre, a été confirmée par plusieurs porte-paroles des forces militaires sous couvert d’anonymat. Dans ses déclarations publiques, l’armée maintient une forme de flou : « Les procédures opérationnelles sont régulièrement mises à jour si nécessaire. Etant classées secret-défense, elles ne peuvent pas être publiées. »
blockquote
https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2021/12/28/l-armee-israelienne-assouplit-ses-regles-de-tir-contre-les-civils-palestiniens_6107504_3210.html?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1640688738-1
Posted by: MineHop | Dec 29 2021 20:49 utc | 17
it's the environment, nature, that will determine the future.
not people. the steps needed to protect people from the coronavirus are but the 1st steps to the conscious overthrow of industrial capitalism, which is being effected by the natural environment with or without our participation.
as a sage once said, the ax is laid to the root of the tree. time to chop it down. there will be no "return to normal." the desire for such is sheer blindness. it's time to overthrow the capitalist state, not "return to normal".
Posted by: rjb1.5 | Dec 29 2021 20:50 utc | 18
I thought Bernhard b, ran the best blog. I had just bought a real Christmas Tree, and was feeling happy. I sent Bernhard 10 Euros, via Paypal, and if I go through the logs, I will be able to find the transaction, and his surname, now seemingly deleted from the internet...
But I am almost completely deleted from the internet. I don't blame anyone running their own blog, for deleting me. If I ran a blog, I would probably delete me too.
Even so I wish Bernhard a Happy New Year, and hope he is O.K. as a result of his Booster today. (My Ex isn't - last I heard in A&E on Christmas Eve, 3 days after her booster)
I think Bernhard is an honest man, and he is more or less everything he says.
But now, I get the distinct impression, that blogs such as MOA, The Saker, Dmitry Orlov, and even Craig Murray, have been "compromised", by Intelligence Agencies, including Off_Guardian. The people in Control, of Russia too.
I have no plans to send any of these people / blogs any more money.
I have no idea how to send money to Russia.
Riley Waggerman, recently featured on Off-Guardian, (he is an American living in Moscow), has got even better. So far as I know, he hasn't had a go at Bernhard of Moon of Alabama, yet, but probably will if b survives his booster shot today.
You have got to be really good to take on both The Saker, and Dmitry Orlov, more or less at the same time (I have been a big fan of both for over 10 years). I am somewhat older than all of these people. 5 years older than Craig Murray, and aout 5 Years Younger Than Bernhard Hofftsman.
But Riley Waggerman is the new kid on the block. He also makes me laugh, which is quite a talent in times like these.
https://www.sott.net/article/462514-Is-the-Saker-is-a-Covid-propagandist
Tony
Posted by: Tony_0pmoc | Dec 29 2021 20:53 utc | 19
we are probably all following this series of events pretty carefully. here is some additional details, none of which surprise me much
https://www.rt.com/russia/544585-moscow-nato-eastern-expansion/
Russia explains why it publicly revealed US/NATO proposals
Moscow thinks Western countries will refuse its proposal to end NATO expansion
"....Speaking to journalist Vladimir Solovyov, Sergey Lavrov revealed that Russia published proposals for security guarantees as a way to prevent Western nations from dismissing them, or leaking them selectively...."
......“We have serious doubts that the main thing in our proposals, namely the unconditional demand not to expand NATO to the east, will not be swept under the carpet....”
uh oh!!
Posted by: michaelj72 | Dec 29 2021 20:53 utc | 20
For those interested in what is happening in Mali and neighbouring countries, here is an (automatic) translation of an article by Bernard Lugan, a French historian who nobody listens to in his country because he is right-wing, which is being doubly white.
His excuse is that he has lived in Africa, knows it, is attached to it and has opinions that do not shock the Africans themselves.
In the Sahel, ten years after the triumphant welcome given to French forces, and after 52 of France's best children fell in defence of Malians who preferred to emigrate to France rather than fight for their country, anti-French demonstrations follow one another. Military convoys now travel under insults, spitting and stone-throwing. On the road from Côte d'Ivoire, the situation is becoming so difficult that the question of supplying Barkhane is beginning to arise. At the end of November 2021, in Niger, after the death of several demonstrators who had blocked a French military convoy, the Nigerien government accused Barkhane... The French strategy of redeploying forces previously stationed in Mali to Niger will therefore be a balancing act...The regional situation has deteriorated to such an extent that, for fear of demonstrations, President Macron has just decided not to go to Niger to meet regional leaders. Perhaps he will only go to a military base to celebrate Christmas with a French unit.
Why such a political disaster? After having driven ourselves out of the Central African Republic by the accumulation of our mistakes, are we going to experience a new and humiliating failure, but this time in the BSS [Sahel-Saharan Strip]?
As I have been saying and writing for years, and as I demonstrate in my book Les Guerres du Sahel des origines à nos jours [The Sahel Wars from their origins to the present day], French decision-makers have made a false analysis from the outset by seeing the regional conflict through the prism of Islamism. However, the reality is different, because Islamism is first and foremost the superinfection of age-old ethno-racial wounds that no military intervention is able to close.
In the North, it is the resurgence of a fracture that has existed since time immemorial, an ethno-historical-economic-political war waged by the Tuareg since 1963. Here, the solution to the problem is held by Iyad Ag Ghali, the historic leader of the previous Tuareg rebellions. Since 2012, I have constantly said that we should get along with this Ifora leader, with whom we have contacts and common interests, and whose fight is primarily about identity. However, through ideology, through a refusal to take into account the age-old ethnic constants, those who define French African policy have considered him to be the man to be killed... President Macron has even ordered Barkhane forces to eliminate him several times, until recently, when the authorities in Bamako were negotiating a regional peace directly with him... On 10 November 2020, Bag Ag Moussa, his lieutenant, had already been killed by an air strike.
The conflict in the south (Macina, Liptako, the so-called "three borders" region in the north and east of Burkina Faso) also has ethno-historical roots resulting from the age-old confrontation between Fulani and various sedentary populations. Unlike in the north, two very different wars are taking place there. One is the emanation of large Fulani fractions grouped under the flag of AQIM (Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb). The other is indeed primarily religious and is led by the Islamic State, the EIGS (Islamic State in the Greater Sahara). The EIGS aims to create a vast trans-ethnic caliphate throughout the BSS (Sahel-Saharan Strip), replacing and encompassing the current states. On the contrary, the regional leaders of AQIM, who are ethno-Islamists, have primarily local objectives and do not advocate the destruction of Sahelian states.
With a minimum of tactical intelligence, by playing on the regional and ethnic balance of power, the question of northern Mali could have been quickly settled, which would have allowed a rapid disengagement enabling us to concentrate our resources on the "three borders" region, and thus against the EIGS [1]. However, contrary to what the military leaders of Barkhane were advocating, Paris persisted in an "American-style" strategy, indiscriminately "hitting" the GATs (Armed Terrorist Groups) and refusing any "fine-tuned" approach... "à la Française"... as our elders had succeeded so well in Indochina and in Algeria. The root of the problem is that, for French leaders, the ethnic question is secondary or even artificial, when it is not, according to them, a matter of colonial romanticism...
The most recent and caricatural example of ideological blindness was the reaction of Paris to the coup d'état of Colonel Assimi Goïta in Mali in August 2020. In the name of democracy, good governance and the rule of law, notions that are in the realm of political surrealism, France cut ties with the former commander of the Malian Special Forces, whose seizure of power was nonetheless an opportunity for peace. This Minianka, a minority branch of the large Senufo group, had no historical or ethnic disputes with either the Tuareg or the Peul, the two peoples at the origin of Mali's two conflicts. He therefore opened negotiations with Iyad Ag Ghali, which upset the Parisian decision-makers. Mired in their ideological preconceptions, they did not take the measure of the change of context that had just taken place, and they continued to speak of refusing to "negotiate with terrorism". Using this coup as a pretext, Emmanuel Macron decided to withdraw Barkhane, which was understood as an abandonment. To top it all off, Bamako asked Russia for help, and France threatened, which was denounced as neo-colonialism....
Based on a stubborn refusal to take into account the realities on the ground, this accumulation of errors has thus led to a dead end. The question now is how to get out of it without endangering our forces. And without our departure opening the door to a genocide for which we would be blamed. For the record, in Rwanda, it was because the French army withdrew that the genocide took place, because if General Kagame's forces had not demanded their departure, the genocide would not have taken place.
Four major lessons must be drawn from this new and bitter African political failure:
1) The urgent priority is to know what we are doing in the BSS, so we must finally and very quickly define our current and long-term strategic interests in order to know whether or not we should disengage, and if so, at what level, and without losing face.
2) In the future, we should no longer intervene systematically and directly for the benefit of local armies that we have been training tirelessly and in vain since the 1960s and which, with the exception of the Senegalese army and the Chadian presidential guard, are incompetent. And if they are, it is for a simple reason, which is that the states are artificial and no real patriotic feeling exists.
3) Indirect interventions or rapid and punctual actions from ships should be favoured, which would eliminate the inconvenience of land-based holdings perceived locally as an intolerable neo-colonial presence. A redefinition and an increase in power of our projectable maritime means would then be necessary.
4) Finally and first, we will have to let the African natural order unfold. This implies that our intellectuals must finally understand that the former dominators will never accept that, through the game of electoral ethno-mathematics, and only because they outnumber them, their former subjects or tributaries are now their masters. This shocks the ethereal conceptions of Western political philosophy, but such is the African reality.
For more than half a century in Africa, the Western obsession with human rights has led to massacres, the democratic imperative has led to war and elections have led to chaos.
More than ever, it is therefore important to meditate on the profound reflection made by the Governor General of the French West Indies in 1953: 'Fewer elections and more ethnography, and everyone will find something to like'... In a word, a return to reality and the renunciation of clouds.
Posted by: Leuk | Dec 29 2021 20:54 utc | 21
Leuk #21
Thank you for an interesting report. A link would be appreciated.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Dec 29 2021 21:31 utc | 22
Uncle tungstene # 23
http://bernardlugan.blogspot.com/2021/12/les-causes-de-lechec-politique-de-la.html?m=1
Posted by: Leuk | Dec 29 2021 21:40 utc | 23
@Posted by: Leuk | Dec 29 2021 20:54 utc | 21
Thankyou for the Bernard Lugan translation, one of the most realistic and accurate assessments of the situation in West Africa, and Mali in particular, that I have seen from a Western commentator/intellectual. Exactly the kind of thoughtful individual that strives to understand the history and complexities of a region rather than see it through Eurocentric ideological and imperialistic eyes.
"we will have to let the African natural order unfold." That's all that Africa has been asking for since WW2, with the West colonialist powers working overtime to make sure that will only happen on Western terms - which is impossible so we end up with never ending wars, dictatorships, manipulations and coups.
I just finished "White Malice" by Susan Williams, which details how the US, UK, Belgium and France made sure to destroy popular rule in the Congo before it ever really got started (the undermining and assassination of Lumumba) and then took out the democracy of a Ghana that had led the drive for African decolonization and self-determination. An incredibly sad tale. I hope now with the emergence of China and the reemergence of Russia on the African scene, the African nations will have enough geopolitical space to be able to "let the natural order unfold".
The book "The Dying Sahara" by Jeremy Keenan details how the US has invented "Muslim terrorism" in the Sahara region to legitimize its imperial interventions. Again, an imperialist chimera that has no linkage with the real history and complexity of the region.
“ In late 1987, Robert Malone performed a landmark experiment. He mixed strands of messenger RNA with droplets of fat, to create a kind of molecular stew. Human cells bathed in this genetic gumbo absorbed the mRNA, and began producing proteins from it1.
Realizing that this discovery might have far-reaching potential in medicine, Malone, a graduate student at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, later jotted down some notes, which he signed and dated. If cells could create proteins from mRNA delivered into them, he wrote on 11 January 1988, it might be possible to “treat RNA as a drug”. Another member of the Salk lab signed the notes, too, for posterity. Later that year, Malone’s experiments showed that frog embryos absorbed such mRNA2. It was the first time anyone had used fatty droplets to ease mRNA’s passage into a living organism.
Those experiments were a stepping stone towards two of the most important and profitable vaccines in history: the mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines given to hundreds of millions of people around the world. Global sales of these are expected to top US$50 billion in 2021 alone.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02483-w
Today he was suspended on Twitter because the science …
Posted by: DG | Dec 29 2021 21:46 utc | 25
Posted by: karlof1 | Dec 29 2021 18:57 utc | 4
This euro-puppet forgot that Europe lost WW2, that's why there are american military forces in Europe and not european military bases in the USA.
But he is desperate to be seen as "winner" too. You do not become a winner by kissing arses, though. That's why he is not part of negotiations, even though he whined to his US master to be included.
Posted by: Passer by | Dec 29 2021 21:48 utc | 26
@ Posted by: ld | Dec 29 2021 19:05 utc | 5
Sorry, I didn’t notice that you have already touched the Malone Twitter ban
Posted by: DG | Dec 29 2021 21:53 utc | 27
The Empire's backyard is stirring:
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/544516-china-relations-cuba-us/
Sure is an interesting move on the part of China. That in tandem with Putin issuing ultimatum. Funny that I heard nothing yet coming out of Foggy Bottom nor the NSC on Penn Avenue on these matters that is of substance. Are there any adults in Empire's ruling class these days?
I believe the Empire can Xinjiang/Tibet/Taiwan/Ukraine all it wants, China and Russia are on course to establish the de facto multipolar world as they promised. The geopolitical theater has just encroached into the Caribbean, as it logically should be.
Posted by: Oriental Voice | Dec 29 2021 22:00 utc | 28
Leuk and Roger
Algeria is looking grim according to Bernard Lugan but then it has for some time. Bernard Lugan reveals that Bouteflika yet again runs for president.
The candidacy for a fifth term of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, mute and paralyzed undead who exists, strapped to a wheelchair, are pathetic, goes very badly in Algeria.The scale of the demonstrations of rejection of this candidacy and, with it, of all the profiteers of the regime, FLN in the lead, is such that unless there is a turnaround, the survival time of the Bouteflika clan seems to be running out. Especially since the security forces appear to be won over by doubt and the army is no longer a monolithic bloc.
Be that as it may, it is from a ruined and divided Algeria which will inherit those who will have the very heavy task of trying to avoid the sinking of a country fractured between Arabism and Berberism with, in the background, the Islamists in ambush. How will they be able to turn around a country struck at the heart by the exhaustion of its oil reserves when 60% of budget revenues and 95% of foreign exchange revenues depend on hydrocarbons? According to the National Statistics Office dated January 12, 2019, during the 3rd quarter of 2018, the hydrocarbons branch as a whole fell by 7.8%, the production of crude oil and natural gas declined by 3% and the refining of crude oil by 12%.
The fall in the production of hydrocarbons and the variations in prices mean that revenues fall and that the State must therefore draw on its foreign exchange reserves to finance its imports. As Algeria does not produce anything, or else in insufficient quantities, it must indeed buy everything on foreign markets, both to feed, to dress, to equip or to care for its population.
Algerian foreign exchange reserves, which were 170 billion euros in 2014, before the collapse in oil prices, are only 62 billion at the start of 2019 and, according to projections, they will reach 34 billion in 2021.
Methinks there is far more to it than this conservative writer reveals but it is good to be inspired to enquire further.
I did a search on lazyweb.ai using search term "algerian FLN leads in elections" and found a few enticing reads. Most results are english language but translate is simple enough.
This one shows the FLN having won the local and regional polls with phenomenal majority support. "ALGIERS- The National Liberation Front (FLN) came first in local elections with 5,978 seats in 124 APCs across 42 provinces and 471 seats in APWs across 25 provinces, president of the National Independent Authority for Elections(ANIE), Mohamed Charfi, announced on Tuesday at a press conference devoted to the presentation of the provisional results of the November 27 local elections."
It would be so good to see the end of the Bouteflika puppet genocidist.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Dec 29 2021 22:11 utc | 29
@15 vato
If you're expecting an uncompromising anti-imperialist, you'd of course be let down. However he is one of the more genuinely wide-ranging and sophisticated "historians of the present" who still falls within the mainstream. In particular I find Tooze brings a more nuanced view of some economic contradictions of our day, relative to the "elite consensus" and especially relative to many of the more dogmatic pundits coming out of academia and finance who are out there. The political angle, you can filter to your liking.
Posted by: ptb | Dec 29 2021 22:25 utc | 30
"In recent weeks, Arab countries, Iran and Turkey have all been working out how they can move forward and get along with each other, all due to “sleepy Joe” Biden being asleep at the wheel. Where’s all this heading?"
Martin Jay explores the impact of Biden being stupid and Blinken being ignorant whilst Harris is too busy failing asap.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Dec 29 2021 22:26 utc | 31
Good synopsis from a former US ambassador about Ukraine/NATO and "rights".
"When I hear comments now such as, “Russia has no right to claim a ‘sphere of influence,’” I am puzzled. It is not a question of legal “rights” but of probable consequences. ... No one is saying that Ukraine does not have a “right” to apply for NATO membership. Of course it does. The question is whether the members of the alliance would serve their own interest if they agreed. In fact they would assume a very dangerous liability.
I point this out as a veteran of the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. At that time I was assigned to the American embassy in Moscow and it fell to my lot to translate some of Khrushchev’s messages to President John Kennedy. Why is it relevant? Just this: in terms of international law, the Soviet Union had a “right” to place nuclear weapons on Cuba when the Cuban government requested them, the more so since the United States had deployed nuclear missiles of comparable range that could strike the USSR from Turkey. But it was an exceedingly dangerous move since the United States had total military dominance of the Caribbean and under no circumstances would tolerate the deployment of nuclear missiles in its backyard. Fortunately for both countries and the rest of the world, Kennedy and Khrushchev were able to defuse the situation. Only later did we learn how close we came to a nuclear exchange.
As for the future, the only thing that will convince Moscow to withdraw its military support from the separatist regimes in the Donbas will be Kyiv’s willingness to implement the Minsk agreement. As for the Crimea,
it is likely to be a de facto part of Russia for the foreseeable future, whether or not the West recognizes that as “legal.” For decades, the U.S. and most of its Western allies refused to recognize the incorporation of the three Baltic countries in the Soviet Union. This eventually was an important factor in their liberation. However, the Crimea is quite different in one key respect: most of its people, being Russian, prefer to be in Russia. In fact, one can argue that it is in the political interest of Ukrainian nationalists to have Crimea in Russia. Without the votes from Crimea, Viktor Yanukovich would never have been elected president.
One persistent U.S. demand is that Ukraine’s territorial integrity be restored. Indeed, the U.S. is party to the Budapest Memorandum in which Russia guaranteed Ukraine’s territorial integrity in return for Ukraine’s transfer of Soviet nuclear weapons to Russia for destruction in accord with U.S.-Soviet arms control agreements. What the U.S. demand ignores is that, under traditional international law, agreements remain valid rebus sic stantibus (things remaining the same).
When the Budapest memorandum was signed in 1994 there was no plan to expand NATO to the east and Gorbachev had been assured in 1990 that the alliance would not expand. When in fact it did expand right up to Russia’s borders, Russia was confronted with a radically different strategic situation than existed when the Budapest agreement was signed.
Furthermore, Russians would argue that the U.S. is interested in territorial integrity only when its interests are served. American governments have a record of ignoring it when convenient, as when it and its NATO allies violated Serbian territorial integrity by creating and then recognizing an independent Kosovo. Also, the United Sates violated the principle when it supported the separation of South Sudan from Sudan, Eritrea from Ethiopia, and East Timor from Indonesia.
To the charge that Russia is guilty of unprovoked aggression in Ukraine, Russia would point out that the U.S. invaded Panama to arrest Noriega, invaded Grenada to prevent American citizens from being taken hostage (even though they had not been taken hostage), invaded and occupied Iraq on spurious grounds, maintains military forces in Syria without the permission of the Syrian government, targets people in other countries with drones. In other words, for the U.S. government to preach about respect for sovereignty and preservation of territorial integrity to a Russian president can seem a claim to special rights not allowed others.
Ultimately, all these legal arguments and appeals to abstract concepts are beside the point. So far as Ukraine is concerned, it can never be a united, prosperous country unless it has reasonably close and civil relations with Russia. That means, inter alia, giving its Russian speaking citizens equal rights to their language and culture. That is a fact determined by geography and history. Ukraine’s friends in Europe and North America should help them understand that rather than pursuing what could easily turn out to be a suicidal course."
"Ukraine: Tragedy of a Nation Divided" December 14, 2021 by By Jack F. Matlock, Jr. former U.S. ambassador to Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union and a confidant of both Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev.
Posted by: daffyDuct | Dec 29 2021 22:29 utc | 32
@Posted by: Passer by | Dec 29 2021 21:48 utc | 26
The Russians could troll this so easily - newsreel of the Nazi flag being raised atop Paris and Warsaw, then the Soviet flag above Berlin - with the comment "seems we were the winners!". As Borell is Spanish-Argentine, perhaps also newsreel of the Argentinians surrendering in the Malvinas and the sinking of the Belgrano.
The text of the article I posted was because it's behind a paywall. If folks can get to it then OK.
Posted by: daffyDuct | Dec 29 2021 22:36 utc | 34
@32 - daffyDuct - It must have been pretty interesting working the US Embassy during the Cuban Missile Crisis! I am trying to learn Russian.
I found this Crimean timeline. It is interesting that in 1991 they held a referendum there regarding autonomy, and it was pretty popular. Crimea is a part of Russia once again, and I doubt anything will change that.
I look forward to reading the piece you refenced by Jack F. Matlock, Jr.
Спасибо!
Posted by: lex talionis | Dec 29 2021 22:41 utc | 35
Posted by: ahji | Dec 29 2021 19:21 utc | 9
Those weren't covid rule breakers but human traffickers
Posted by: vato | Dec 29 2021 20:25 utc | 15
---
In other words, the video shows "coyotes in a perp walk with Chinese characteristics". Why hazmat suits? The coyotes were caught transporting an illegal alien infected with Covid.
Watching video and view pics, the shaming does not seem to be working as the crowd is pretty thick and not practicing the required social distance.
Did a google search on "China covid shaming". Dang page after page of pretty much the same headline. Imagined that.
BTW. The America practice of perp walk has been affirmed by the US courts.
Posted by: Erelis | Dec 29 2021 22:52 utc | 37
@Posted by: daffyDuct | Dec 29 2021 22:29 utc | 32
People should be reminded that on the first day, the very first day,
that the US handpicked neo-Nazis took power in Kiev they voted to remove the rights of Russian speakers.
That was not just the first day but their very first act. Russian was a protected language in Ukraine,
it was in their Constitution and then further elaborated in a 2012 (?) law.
The neo-Nazis were so giddy after passing that law on their first day in power, they then bragged that
the next thing they would do was remove citizenship from ethnic Russians.
The Crimea had autonomy with their own parliament. Business and law was conducted in the Russian language.
After the neo-Nazis set fire to the parliament in Kiev, passed anti-Russian legislation and directed mobs
upon ethnic Russians it is no wonder that the Danbass and Crimea split.
Posted by: librul | Dec 29 2021 22:54 utc | 38
This charming caper in the UK reeks of an Integrity Initiative model spin off:
Leaked files obtained by The Grayzone indicate that the Royal Institution has enlisted the services of Valent Projects, a “social change” communications firm founded by a public relations operative previously involved in the UK Foreign Office’s campaign for violent regime change in Syria. Valent has also been sponsored by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), a US intelligence cut-out, for a project aimed at “investigating disinformation.”Valent’s central role in the operation highlights the trend of information warfare specialists bringing the techniques they honed against targets like the Syrian government back home to the West, where increasingly unpopular governments confront masses of citizens ever-bristling at coronavirus restrictions.
Mint Press News reports:
Its top patron is Charles, the Prince of Wales, next in line to the British throne, who recently hit out at supposed “conspiracy theories” surrounding COVID-19 vaccines. The organization received a substantial cash injection in 2020 from the UK government’s Culture Recovery Fund earmarked for video production.
Ah yes. That Prince Charles, once the good mate of child rapist Jimmy Saville.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Dec 29 2021 22:54 utc | 39
@Posted by: uncle tungsten | Dec 29 2021 22:11 utc | 29
That's from 2019, Buteflika is dead, he died in September of 2021 (see wiki link below). He was forced from office by the Hirak movement. Abdelmadjid Tebboune is the new President, he looks like a mild reformer and technocrat put forward to put the flame of the Hirak rebellion to sleep.
@Posted by: ptb | Dec 29 2021 22:25 utc | 30
A very good description of Tooze, an independent thinker that stays within the political lines required of any politically-related academic in the US who wants to keep getting published in, and invited to, the mainstream media and journals.
I found this today... and I liked IT - REALLY !!
And a comment from
-MM
(https://metallicman.com/why-is-space-x-trying-to-ram-the-chinese-space-station-why-didnt-the-us-space-military-command-approve-the-flight-trajectory/)
Blinken called US-CHINA relation a disaster.
That’s gigantic news !
The KFC-AZAEL (Kakistocratic Feudal Conglomerate of the Anglo-Zio-American EstabLishment) knows that their window of opportunity is narrowing or even closing. Now that their clumsy & laughable maneuvers to destroy the Sino-Russian Comprehensive Strategic Partnership of Coordination for a New Era obviously failed, they’ll have to do something big and probably utterly stupid. Two years ago, I still thought the window of opportunity for them is about a decade… Of course, I might have been brainwashed by the ravings of Stratfor (“Strategic forecast” & al) “predicting” or rather “predictively programming” people to believe that World War III will most probably happen in the 2030s…
But now, it’s not far-fetched to say it’s in the order of 2-3 years, 5 years max. After that, the process of Integration of the World Island will simply be too relentless to do anything humanly conceivable to stop it. Even now, I dare say it’s too late for the KFC-AZAEL. Xinjiang is perfectly under control, their little terrorists have been neutered.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization has a permanent RATS (Regional Anti-Terrorists Structure) Executive Committee based in Tashkent. The Air Base just north of Kabul abandoned by the US since August 15 this year.
Power of Siberia 2 going through Mongolia as the Chinese wanted to keep the Mongols interested by what the SCO can offer them, is there to stay. Russia & India will from now on settle their commerce in rubles and rupees. Russia & China in rubles and yuan (renminbi, RMB). The Russian SPFS (System for Transfert of Financial Messages) & the Chinese CIPS (Cross-Border Interbank Payment System) will replace the SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications) if needed. Under the aegis of President Hu Jintao & President Xi Jinping, the Chinese decapitated the CIA network in Mainland China between 2010 and 2015 essentially. Peace is restored in Hong-Kong since the Law on National Security (July 2020), the color Revolution (Yellow Umbrella) an utter failure.
THAT CHINA COULD ATTEMPT SOMETHING IN THE NEXT WEEKS/MONTHS IS NOT FAR-FETCHED GIVEN THE INTERNATIONAL LANDSCAPE AND BOTH THE RUSSIAN AND THE CHINESE LEADERSHIPS CONCLUDED THAT THEY CAN NO LONGER SEE THE PEOPLE IN D.C. AS HONORABLE RATIONAL AGENTS AND IT’S TIME TO ACT.
And I strongly suggest that this time, the Russian & Chinese moves are coordinated even if there are no glaring signs. Putin & Xi talked on December 15 as everyone in this group knows… They will talk again in person, face to face, in about 5 weeks and nothing prevents them to talk by phone meantime. I wish the KFC-AZAEL is mad enough to start a suicidal double move on Ukraine & Taiwan…It would be a dazzling “SUEZ MOMENT” for all to watch…
Ushakov & Ryabkov from the Russian MOFA (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) were quite assertive in their speeches to NATO on RUSSIAN RED LINES. They are fed up, they are autonomous for food, they have the Asian market for oil and gas, they have hypersonic weapons and the Chinese strong backing.
China, usually so “sotto voce” in the international landscape, declared firmly & clearly that Russia has her support for Ukraine & the gas imbroglio with the EU or as I call them with affection, the Euro-Noodles…
Yes, Blinken is right to say that the conflict with China is a disaster and the article elaborating on it is crystal clear with the facts it offered.
The US recent!y went back on the diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Beijing Olympic Winter Games and asked for 40 visas instead of 18 for US officials (diplomatic farce or plans of sabotage once China)
People having bullied without any consequences the weak, the poor and the downtrodden for centuries cannot TRULY IMAGINE they might lose this time. It’s not wired in their brains. PSYCHOPATHS HAVE DIFFERENTS BRAINS (ANATOMICALLY AT THE MICROSCOPIC LEVEL AND PHYSIOLOGICALLY) in term of emotivo-rational integration for decision-making and action compared to the normal people, so they’re much more prone to stay in their usual ruts than the average man and will NOT take note of the danger signals.
I imagine Putin & Xi scratching their heads and asking to themselves, what to do and with the least “collateral damages” possible on the global stage ?
Just read History, dying empires always fell into the trap of hubris & over-reach and the rest is HISTORY.
The easiest and most probable explanation for me can be given in one word : HUBRIS.
SOME PEOPLE ACTUALLY THINK ” THE UNIPOLAR MOMENT” IS STILL A REALITY.
And let’s not forget this lesson coming from the Ancient Greeks :
WHOM THE GODS WANT TO DESTROY, THEY FIRST MADE MAD…
The KFC-AZAEL wants a New World Order ? A Reset ? They will get one but maybe not the one they wished for…
But, as they say in French : l’homme propose & Dieu dispose…
Qui vivra verra…
Posted by: Max.D | Dec 29 2021 23:07 utc | 42
This is regarding the Chinese Walk of Shame. It was indeed illegal human traffickers bring punished in a small Chinese city.
Looks like the authorities there will end up being punished themselves.
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202112/1243776.shtml
Posted by: Surferket | Dec 29 2021 23:16 utc | 43
@36 "GhiZlane Maxwell found guilty"
No real surprise (apart from the Z). Still waiting for the dirt on Prince Andrew and some other high profile participants.
Posted by: dh | Dec 30 2021 0:19 utc | 44
Max.D | Dec 29 2021 23:07 utc | 42 says:
' Two years ago, I still thought the window of opportunity for them is about a decade… Of course, I might have been brainwashed by the ravings of Stratfor (“Strategic forecast” & al) “predicting” or rather “predictively programming” people to believe that World War III will most probably happen in the 2030s… But now, it’s not far-fetched to say it’s in the order of 2-3 years, 5 years max.'
I think that the time-line is much shorter than that. Six months perhaps. Why?
1. The Pandemic has failed to deliver 'The Great Reset'.
2. Economic collapse in the West is proceeding much more quickly than they (Anglo-Zio-American EstabLishment) imagined.
3. Russia/China's military/economic superiority will be impossible to overcome if they need to wait even a couple of years to try to take them down.
4. They will lose control of the U.S. in the upcoming (Nov. 2022) elections, and with it, the possibility of acting.
Ed in Kanata | Dec 29 2021 20:05 utc | 12 says:
'There is something SERIOUSLY missing and that simply the end goal and what is the motive.'
My take:
The end-goal was to provide the conditions for the 'Great-Reset' which would lead to the establishment of the 'Global Empire based on Global Institutions'.
The pandemic was intended to create a world-wide catastrophe that only the 'Globalist' rulers (Anglo-Zio-American EstabLishment) could solve with their vaccines. By controlling access to the vaccines they thought they could black-mail all countries to submit to their 'Global Empire'.
I think that they had originally planned to use this weapon as a last resort if they could not subdue the countries of the world through military, economic and propaganda warfare, for which they had an original time-line of a few decades. However, the rapid rise of Russia and China, combined with the rapid decline of economic conditions (and with it the rise of internal opposition) in the West (Europe, U.S.) dramatically shortened the time-line. Finally the prospect of another 4 years of Trump, if he won in 2020, forced them to act quickly, probably before they were ready.
The whole effort appears to have failed to achieve any of its goals, due to:
1. China's rapid reaction to this bio-weapon limited the effect on China.
2. They did not achieve a monopoly on vaccines.
3. Cheap anti-viral remedies, such as ivermectin, limited the effect of the pandemic to essentially those countries that refuse to allow such remedies to be used.
In fact the only countries that seem to have been significantly harmed by the pandemic are those that launched it in the first place (i.e. NATO/Anglo countries).
As I said above, after the failure of the pandemic to deliver the 'Great Reset', with the rise of Russia and China, and with the prospect of 'Anti-Globalists' about to retake control in the U.S. in a few months, the 'Globalists', who are about to lose everything, are desperate to 'over-throw the chess-board' by triggering a global military conflict between Russia/China and the U.S. Foolishly, they think that they will be around to pick up the pieces so they can 'Build Back Better'.
Posted by: dh-mtl | Dec 30 2021 0:26 utc | 45
Posted by: ADKC | Dec 29 2021 18:41 utc | 1
Because I didn't see it anywhere in the article at Brownstone, I wanted to ask you if you know whether the cases of myocarditis have been classified in terms of severity and longevity of symptoms. The Mayo Clinic lists the following:
* Chest pain
* Rapid or irregular heartbeat (arrhythmias)
* Shortness of breath, at rest or during activity
* Fluid buildup with swelling of the legs, ankles and feet
* Fatigue
Have either Brownstone or the authors of the paper they're attempting to get corrected documented how serious the myocarditis cases were, Vax vs. COVID or Vax vs. baseline (no myocarditis)?
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Dec 30 2021 0:28 utc | 46
Since we made the CDC-COVID19 Foul-Up Thread into an OpenMic Thread, I'm reposting here where this belongs:
Wild and Crazy Woked World - Critical Race Theatrics/Black Lives' Merry Crit-Race?
https://counter-currents.com/2021/12/the-worst-week-yet-62/
Black American Librarian/Teacher in WDC had her Students "Perform" Actual/Claimed Event Elements of the 'Holocaust', because 'Jews Ruined Christmas'...
Horrible; but I also ROTFLMFAO. Sorry; but this Teacher was so Horrible, Stupid, and the Directed Re-Enactments were something we would see in an 'Adams Family' Movie...
Poor Kids are going to need a Year of Therapy - especially the Jewish Kid who was told to 'Re-Enact' Hitler - including his 'Suicide'...
WTF happened to Quwanza(sp)? Did Tribals ruin that as well, is that a "White Man's Burden"
Posted by: IronForge | Dec 30 2021 0:43 utc | 47
Thanks for the link, Surferket. From that article, "the four suspects helped others illegally cross chinese borders", but were being shamed "for violating anti-epidemic rules". Seems there is a groundswell in China that this was rude and improper enforcement of the rules.
Posted by: ahji | Dec 30 2021 0:49 utc | 48
Posted by: ptb | Dec 29 2021 19:41 utc | 11
Re the equalization of LNG prices. While the US presently has a surplus of NG above its present capacity to ship as LNG, much of this NG surplus is a by product of unconventional resource plays notably shale oil extraction.
There is good reason to believe all the high quality sites have been drilled. It is known that shale plays show a very high decline rate, far higher than that associated with a conventional reservoir.
The other concern is that US shale plays have operated as a form of ponzi scheme, one highly dependent on inexpensive financing and a constant influx of capital.
The above implies the present US NG surplus may dissappear due to: 1) all existing shale plays have been subject to "high grading." The optimum sites have been exploited and there exists minimal opportunity for expansion; 2) the lifeblood of the industry has been inexpensive financing. If interest rates rise this will impair balance sheets, scare off investors and result in firms exiting the industry; 3) rates of decline of 20% or more imply the current "high quality" sites will exhibit production declines which render the operation uneconomic. These issues may be compensated for by a high market price for US domestic NG. High energy costs tend to throttle economies.
Over the medium term the consequences may be EU LNG prices even higher than present with associated economic stagnation. The proposed power of Siberia pipeline should result in China being insulated from these effects. China will then offer both lower labour costs and lower energy costs and gain increased competitive advantage over both the EU and US.
In short, the leaders in the Eurozone would have more positive effect on their populations if they got togther for a long afternoon of Russian roulette.
Posted by: Sushi | Dec 30 2021 0:51 utc | 49
@ Posted by: Max.D | Dec 29 2021 23:07 utc | 42
Yes Max,
IT IS ON.
b wrote about it weeks ago and put a date on it.
The Losers know they can’t stop it and are ‘burning Atlanta’ as they run.
The double Santa Claus rally is caused by the extra petrol being dumped on the share price dumper truck fire we live in.
I am going to cash by the end of Friday.
Posted by: D.G. | Dec 30 2021 1:01 utc | 50
@50 Unfortunately cash is losing it's purchasing power by the minute. That leaves gold, real estate and Bitcoin.
Posted by: dh | Dec 30 2021 1:12 utc | 51
Robert Macaire #2
Indian punchline reports and asks if Russia will coordinate with China in Africa to end Neo-colonialism:https://www.indianpunchline.com/russias-shadows-in-sahel-region/
Thank you for that link. It is good to see that the combined skill of China, Russia and Mali might give confidence to others to walk a better path than the western suicide track.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Dec 30 2021 1:16 utc | 52
Roger #40
Thank you, I stand corrected and very pleased to be told of that scumbags death. I missed the performance.... such is life in the forest.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Dec 30 2021 1:21 utc | 53
Putin and Russia are looking more like Germany post-Weimar Republic (Yeltsin era in Russia's case). Karlof1 is happy to relay threats of "destroy[ing]" Europe. It's a bad look.
Based on what principle do the Russians believe they have a right to dictate to neighboring countries with whom they can form alliances?
There are more reasons that simply corrupt governments why Eastern European countries want to join EU/NATO. Soviets had all these countries under boot and suppressed local populations. Yes, the West runs a protection racket too, but the West at least does it with subtlety. US has yet to roll in tanks to put down German demonstration like Russia did in Prague. You people (are you paid to do this?) talk as if Russia is some innocent angel. Russia has been for centuries an expansionist country that keeps grabbing territory. If you want to champion an anti-Empire country, I guess Iran and China have relatively clean hands.
And in any event, what's the problem for Russia exactly? They have the very best weapons and leadership. It's not Russia is worried about being invaded. Rather Russian leadership post-Gorbachev cum Yeltsin is feeling like Herr Hitler and friends post Versailles. They don't like the terms that the previous leadership agreed to. And they are rattling sabres.
These are the rather facts of this situation.
Posted by: circles | Dec 30 2021 1:32 utc | 54
IMHO the pace is quickening and the troublesome signs are multiplying for something in between Russia and US/NATO in the next few weeks...
RT has an interesting article about the "deployment" of the S-550, of which no confirmation in TASS for example. Martyanov mentions the report on his blog, so presumably will let us know whether the report is true or not.
The Drive poo-poos the suggestion, probably heavily subscribed to by car fans like me as well as MIL rank and file, ex-MIL and retirees, along with the usual armchair field marshalls for their Aviation-Week lite weapons porn articles (as in very, very lite), certainly CANNOT go against the narrative, talk about demoralizing the troops.
My own 2cents take on this is that the report is worrysome. When gangs pass each other in cars they flash their pieces, UZIs, Mac-80, etc to let each other know they are not to be messed with. That this report shows up now, and is denied, to me speaks that it is likely already out, but perhaps only in a few locations, but the Russians want the Anglo-Zionists to sweat a bit as a real S-550 changes the dynamics substantially.
In my view, Putin can guarantee peace by visibly shooting down an Israeli F35 over Lebanese airspace with an S-300,400 or whatever. THAT will really deflate the US/NATO war fever in the Ukraine, in Taiwan and calm things down over Syria, and in Iran, all in one fell swoop. I saw an interesting article today but can't remember where about Russian fighters "escorting" and F35 somewhere over the Baltic I think. If so, that begs the question of how they knew it was there?
Posted by: Simplicius | Dec 30 2021 1:40 utc | 55
"Just read History, dying empires always fell into the trap of hubris & over-reach and the rest is HISTORY".
@Posted by: Max.D | Dec 29 2021 23:07 utc |
And also, like the dying Roman Empire they, in a stage of empoverishing and lack of countries which to plunder and populations which to enslave abroad, decide to self-digest itself by first erradicating the commercial and industrial class, which is who leads progress and creativeness in the capitalist system, through the lockdowns, arriving that way to the stage of requisitioning own patricios´riches, some of whom will suicide themselves while they lose everything, as happened in the provinces of the Roman Empire, so that there is only left a depauperated homogeneous class of dependant serfs, no more citizens, not even slaves, who at least had something to do, that is, a job...
The erradicating of money will follow, then propietry, thne we are already in the darknes of the Middle Ages, misery, illneses, illiteracy....
He says a historian I have just heard in a lecture that Carlemagne was illiterate...It was slaves at that time who made for the majority of requiered jobs, inlcuding accounting....
We are currently being governend by de facto illiterates in the whole Europe, people whose merit is absent, except to seel their own people.
Education, gradually degraded, is deprived of any value, except brainwashing needed to produce serfs...
Even in the most darkest times of the medioevo, there was a bunch of human beings who resisted and refused to be turned into serfs and along with a bunch of soldiers who refused to be the praetorians of a dying empire, migrated through the borders of Europe starting an interchange which, with time, would bring progress again to a continent who started with commerce of human beings and it seems will end the same way...
Posted by: Black bread | Dec 30 2021 1:44 utc | 56
@Posted by: dh-mtl | Dec 30 2021 0:26 utc |
Just heard a lecture by an historian who states that absent the middle class, as it is being erased through the pandemic/reset in the whole West, democracy is no more possible, this is why we walk to the clerical military sublime system, a tyranny similar to that of Esparta, when no more that war is left to do so that to counter the prosperity of the commercial powers, as a last resort to try to plunder them and enslave their peoples...
Posted by: Black bread | Dec 30 2021 1:56 utc | 57
If the jackboot of Medical Tyranny on the throats of you and your children is not enough to wake your from your geopolitical musings then declare surrender now and speak of western liberal democracy in the past tense.
Posted by: Jezabeel | Dec 30 2021 2:13 utc | 58
Max.D #42
Thank you for your post I liked that. Your link to MM was a good one. He writes fresh prose and sharp analysis.
The analysis of China going dark was interesting. I suspect China could just embrace Taiwan into its totality with relative ease in a 24hr swoop as it holds a treaty with the USA recognising China's sovereignty as of the end days of WWII. They could declare business as usual and change very little (apart from the capacity of certain strategic companies to flee offshore). I wont be surprised if that maneuver is completed within a week or two.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Dec 30 2021 2:29 utc | 59
When spying, trickery, blackmail, dirty deeds, murder, theft, deception, zionism and dual loyalty run in the family.
Meet Ghislaine: Daddy’s Girl
By Whitney Webb:
"Absent from mainstream discourse on Ghislaine Maxwell’s ongoing trial is any mention of the ties, not only of herself, but her family, to Israeli intelligence. Those ties, forged by Ghislaine’s father Robert Maxwell, are critical to understanding Ghislaine’s history and her role in Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual blackmail and trafficking network."
"Pergamon’s access to prominent academics, scientists, and government not only led to Maxwell acquiring great wealth but also attracted the interest of various intelligence agencies— British, Russian, and Israeli among them—all of which attempted to recruit Maxwell as an asset or as a spy. When MI6 attempted to recruit Maxwell for the service, it concluded, after conducting an extensive background check, that Maxwell was a “Zionist—loyal only to Israel.”
https://unlimitedhangout.com/2021/12/investigative-reports/meet-ghislaine-daddys-girl/
Posted by: Paul | Dec 30 2021 2:45 utc | 60
@Posted by: D.G. | Dec 30 2021 1:01 utc | 50
"I am going to cash by the end of Friday."
You and a whole lot of other people. Maybe Thursday would
be better, to beat the crowd.
However, Goldman Sachs says January is going to be terrific.
Just another scam for public consumption while the insiders get
out early leaving the suckers holding the bag? Who trusts Goldman Sachs?
I know whichever way I play it I will play it wrong. Can feel it.
Maybe I'll go half cash on Thursday...
Posted by: librul | Dec 30 2021 3:01 utc | 61
@49 Sushi
For sure US shale is a story full of false hopes and big talk the whole way. But much of the financial failure was because it managed to glut the North American market. So there are some out there who take the bankruptcies as a sign that it is running out - that doesn't add up for me. Furthermore, the technology is getting applied thoughout the world now. It's environmentally awful, and a short term game, but there is a lot of places in the world where you can run the same trick. Especially if you believe that there are only another 40 years of demand left.
Two points of interest, apologies for repeating this, but I think it's super important.
(1) "Dry gas" vs "Associated gas". For all intents and purposes, dry gas in North America is the Marcellus shale. Already it is plentiful (limited by take-away and demand) at North American prices, even more so if global prices were applied. Sure the wells spit out everything they have super fast, but they just drill more of them. In contrast, associated gas is basically a waste product of wells designed to produce oil, and the decision of how many of those to drill is 95% based on the oil price and their productivity in barrels of liquids. The story here is that the productivity of the liquids has been disappointing, which means they had to actually drill more of them. Which means more associated gas. Now they don't necessarily bother with the pipe to take it away, because often it hasn't been worth enough to bother. But there is a lot of it. This is a factor keeping the continental price low, and I think it will stay unless they should build an enormous amount of new LNG capacity -- which would be a very brave move, considering there are even cheaper producers out there in the world, and there is a high likelyhood of global natural gas prices collapsing as soon as the global industry manages to overcompensate increasing production like they have done every single time before in the past.
(2) Oil - this is where there is some real disappointment for producers in the US. But compare it to the situation circa 2008! It puts a cap on the oil price. Maybe that cap rises from $70 to $80 or whatever. That isn't the stuff of crisis, IMO.
Posted by: ptb | Dec 30 2021 3:03 utc | 62
Posted by: DG | Dec 29 2021 21:46 utc | 25 Re Dr. Robert Malone
First, read the rest of the Nature paper and you'll see no one thinks anyone deserves full credit for mRNA.
Second:
How Dr Robert Malone invented Antivaxxery
Third:
False: Dr. Robert Malone invented mRNA vaccines.
Fifth:
Liam @liamkwtf
Replying to @EricTopol @kkariko and @WeissmanLab
Thank you! I’ve been saying this for a while. You can also see on the internet archive he never claimed to be the inventor on his Twitter, website or google scholar page before 2020/2021.
I see the morons still rule MoA, unfortunately, despite b's hard work removing the most egregious idiots.
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Dec 30 2021 3:31 utc | 63
A question for circles @ 54; The U$A has 800+ bases around the globe. How many do the Russians have?
After that question is answered, who's threatening who?
Posted by: vetinLA | Dec 30 2021 3:34 utc | 64
Simplicius, Russia/Putin won't shoot down an Israeli aircraft. They seem to be best of friends
Posted by: bolangi | Dec 30 2021 3:59 utc | 65
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Dec 30 2021 2:29 utc | 59:
I suspect China could just embrace Taiwan into its totality with relative ease in a 24hr swoop.....
Yeah 24 hours is plenty time to swoop and trash Taiwan's toy soldiers and hard wares. But that's not how China would militarily subdue Taiwan renegades. A dense round of salvos, rocket cannons, missiles, bomber sorties, precision targeted under Beidou conveyance at critical military targets, takes only a few minutes (5 to 10, maybe), then sit back and wait for Taiwan authority to cry uncle. Anyone coming to help Taiwan will be shooting targets, big noses or short mustache. A few weeks, or may be a month, the renegades will come to senses, or will at least be scared to shit their pants/panties as well as hungry. Won't be any PLA casualties. That's how it will come to pass.
China can take Taiwan any time they wanted since about 10 years ago. They have no appetite for it. The people there are nasty, stupid, and didn't want to be who they are, and China has no use for anything Taiwan has to offer since they can get those from elsewhere. So what's the point of barging in and kill a lot of people? So long as the big noses and short mustaches can't get a foothold on the Island, China would as soon just sit back and watch these people make fools of themselves.
Not that China was afraid of big noses and sort mustaches. Just that China don't want these bandits to place missiles and bombers so close to its territories. In history, Taiwan has always been Chinese, but for hundreds of years even before the Ching Dynasty, China had always left Taiwan people alone on their own, providing administration assistance and nominal governance protocols as seemed fit. That will likely be the same again even after re-union.
Posted by: Oriental Voice | Dec 30 2021 4:25 utc | 66
@63 Richard Steven Hack
I used to enjoy your comments here regarding the virus. But this comment and the other one you posted in a recent thread are both made of links to hit pieces that are toxic and wrong.
I never understood why you took yourself away from here - I only caught the tail end where you were in the act of leaving - but I speculate that your absence from the to-and-fro of discussion here has blunted your understanding of what this virus is all about.
In brief, you're way behind the curve of knowing what's the truth and what's propaganda.
~~
I always admired you for attempting to stake out a principled stand to make, even as the great wave of all this rudeness crashed over us in the last two years. And I always wished you well, and still do.
But it's 2 out of 2 so far of really bad compilations of slander and bad knowledge that you've served up here.
Bad enough that Malone gets banned from Twitter, of course there's now a concerted hit-job on Malone. He's a knowledgeable and kind voice of reason in this madness, one of the few doctors that I count among the brave heroes who have risked their careers and their entire life's accomplishments to stand up against the propaganda that you now seem to be aligning with.
The jackals are after Malone to take him down. It shows that he's right - we live in the USSR now, where the validity of a thing is supported by the establishment attack against it. But it's really sad that you're aligning with that.
~~
I've ignored and skipped over many, many comments in the last few threads concerning the virus. But I paused to offer these thoughts to you. A residual respect, and gratitude. For whatever reasons, I find myself taking the time to write these things.
I completely trust you to do with them as you will :)
Posted by: Grieved | Dec 30 2021 4:45 utc | 67
Circles says @ 54:
"... Yes, the West runs a protection racket too, but the West at least does it with subtlety. US has yet to roll in tanks to put down German demonstration like Russia did in Prague ..."
Here's a subtle protection racket run by the West using US tanks rolling around Latvia.
Over 100 US armored vehicles roll into Latvia, NATO flexes muscles in Europe (VIDEO) (9 March 2015)
Latvia: US tanks roll through Riga en route to Atlantic Resolve drills (26 June 2015)
UPDATED: US armor rolling towards Latvia (5 February 2017)
[US soldiers] move over 300 pieces of equipment through Latvian port (21 October 2019)
Circles must obviously approve of US tanks rolling around Latvia every couple of years or so.
Posted by: Jen | Dec 30 2021 4:45 utc | 68
Hawaiian people speak out for the protection of their land and waters. Yankee military go home.
"we are occupied in a sense"
Eleven minute utoob from Empire Files.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Dec 30 2021 5:04 utc | 69
Abby Martin speaks to Eugene Puryear to discuss the big picture of US imperialism in Africa. A peek into the criminal murderer USA empire and its gouging and disabling of African peoples. Stealing their freedom, resources and future, as usual.A 54 minute utoob from Empire Files.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Dec 30 2021 5:10 utc | 70
@66 Oriental Voice
I appreciate your view of this. I was always impressed with China's willingness to let 2-3 generations of somewhat estranged colonial legacy pass before expecting either Hong Kong or Taiwan people to "give up the ghost" of that imposed colonial culture and simply be mainlanders.
And it seemed to me that China only acted to take Hong Kong into firmer hands because the destruction and damage to innocent people from the external imperialist influence was a cruelty not imagined by China's own kindness in letting Hong Kong take its own course.
That too impressed me greatly.
~~
If your characterization of the Taiwan culture is correct, then it makes sense that greater China would prefer to wait a couple more generations for that culture to change - as all cultures do over 2-3 generations. And currently the Taiwan culture, as you describe it, cannot understand how the tension increased by the west is actually a headache in its mind that could simply disappear as it changes its own orientation, from west to east. Over time.
~~
I suspect that China would love to leave Taiwan alone, both from my own reasoning here about allowing generations to change the cultural mind, and from your description of how China has long regarded that region.
But China is heading somewhere, toward certain goals, among the most ambitious of any national culture today in the world. I would think that, as part of this, China would want to "give up the ghost" even of that old way of treating Taiwan, and actually embrace those people into the mainland nation over the course of time - create a new relationship, shedding both Taiwan's old aloofness and its own.
Posted by: Grieved | Dec 30 2021 5:16 utc | 71
I believe lots of people around the world have the false impression that China has an urge to re-unite with Taiwan. Fact is, China has this goal purely for the sake of territorial integrity. Other than that, China would prefer to wait until the day that it grew strong and prosperous enough for the people of Taiwan themselves to aspire to be part of the Chinese family. Prior to that time, China is complacent about the ideological and systemic split. It doesn't hurt anything, as long as the government on Taiwan retain the claim that they are part of China. It certainly beats having to fight and kill. Even as enemies, Chinese on the mainland still consider those living on Taiwan to be Chinese, regardless whether the Taiwan people themselves concur.
China could have taken over Taiwan as early as the 50's; the outcome of the Korean War proved that. But 70 years ago China would have to pay huge prices and devastating casualties just to take control over a sullen and hostile population and an island of about 13,000 sq. miles. It's not worth the price. Besides, the other side insist they are Chinese. Biding time was therefore the obvious choice. This price tag was valid even as late as the late 90's, when Clinton sent two carrier group to Taiwan area to boost Lee Tenhui's morale. But things started to change early in the 21st century when China developed on a pace that blew everybody's mind. By 2015 it was clear to sober thinkers that China could take Taiwan anytime. There will still be human price to pay but these will all be on Taiwan. It is China's reluctance to see people of Taiwan to pay such a stupid price that gave the Empire the Taiwan card to play with. All Empire has been doing is nickle-ing and dime-ing Taiwan, arm twisting out trade concessions, and lining their corrupt official's pockets with money for weaponries past their expiration dates. Not just the Empire, that empire wannabe Japan too. The Empire and Japan are lucky to have rotten politicians (and much of the population) in Taiwan who genuinely adores America and Japan. However, I see that all these are fast coming to a sad ending for Taiwan, Japan, and also the Empire
Posted by: Oriental Voice | Dec 30 2021 5:18 utc | 72
@72 Oriental Voice
Our letters passed each other in the mail ;)
Thanks for articulating all that - obviously that all makes sense to me, and I take your view as a very reliable one.
I encourage readers to take the view from comments #66 and #72 from Oriental Voice as definitive appraisals of the Taiwan situation.
Posted by: Grieved | Dec 30 2021 5:28 utc | 73
@Grieved, #73:
Thanks for your comments. Yes, I posted a comment, then used Word to compose another besides doing some other chores and didn't catch your post until now :-).
You've always had deep comprehensions of current affairs, east or west, and expressed wise observations to further discussion threads. I agree with you that China is heading to a goal that most of us have yet to fully appreciate. But it does fortunately appear that they seem to emphasize peace and fairness in their march towards their goal. I wish them success :-).
Posted by: Oriental Voice | Dec 30 2021 6:08 utc | 74
Oriental Voice #72
I believe lots of people around the world have the false impression that China has an urge to re-unite with Taiwan.
Thank you and Grieved for your discussion of this subject. IMO in a civil world China could maintain calm abiding with the Taiwan circumstance of somewhat separatism but united as Chinese. However, as experienced in Hong Kong and observed in the ex USSR states in Europe, the old time imperialist powers will simply not stand idly by.
The western imperial powers cannot resist poking the old wounds and using enclaves like Taiwan and Hong Kong as levers of destabilisation, places to insert terrorist division and undermining. There is no arresting the provocations and illegal sanctions and perpetual arrogance of the USA. Compliance with this nation's belligerence is read as consent and weakness and so intensifies their game.
As I see it China has total legitimacy to end this provocative charade sooner rather than later. Certainly it could be a better world if these circumstances were not forced on China or the Taiwan residents, but that is not the way of the USA.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Dec 30 2021 6:40 utc | 75
Yes, the West runs a protection racket too, but the West at least does it with subtlety. US has yet to roll in tanks to put down German demonstration like Russia did in Prague.
Posted by: circles | Dec 30 2021 1:32 utc | 54
Vewy vewy subtle protection racket. Subtlety no 1: dismembering of Serbia with copious application of bombardment of civilian targets, including Chinese Embassy (note for the future: territorial integrity in Europe is sacrosanct) Subtlety no 2: Iraq. Subtlety no 3: Dismembering of Libya. Subtlety no 4: theft of 30% of Syria (because the plan of gifting the entirety of the country to Al Qaeda and its offshoots did not succeed). The idea of applying copious amounts of bombs was retained, except that drones were introduced.
circles, continued: Based on what principle do the Russians believe they have a right to dictate to neighboring countries with whom they can form alliances?
The answer is very simple. In a society, the rules of the becoming conduct are copies from the powerful members. In the world, the rules are copied from the powerful countries. USA and NATO+ system of alliances are the most powerful, so Russia, naturally, copies "rules" from them. Actually, back during Yugoslav crisis, Putin clearly stated that if integrity of states can be violated by outsiders declaring that they follow the will of the population in parts of their territory, Russia may do it itself (his formulation was a tad different, the effect were the same).
What does USA do if a state within 2000 miles from its shore becomes unfriendly, a very mild form of joining the opposite alliance? Mind you, this form does not involve installation of foreign weapon systems. Plan A: organize mercenaries and criminals to overthrow the government, assist with Marines. If it does not work, plan B: ruin the country with sanctions and outright theft of its assets -- EU joins with joy, for the exhilarating feeling of being bloodhounds rather than poodles.
And we know what happened when a neighboring country entered alliance with USSR and allowed the installation of weapon systems. Utter conniptions.
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Dec 30 2021 6:52 utc | 76
Leurk @21
#4: this seems true of Ethiopia right now where the Tigrayans won't let the mere mathematics of electoral politics get in the way of their ancestral domination.
Bernard Lugan, that name rings a bell in my foggy memory. I haven't heard about him for more than 2 decades. Funny to find it at MoA. It was in the late 90ies. I was still in Paris. I heard Lugan talk at Radio Courtoisie (a quaint far-right radio station back then). I think I still remember it although I only listened to the program once or twice because it was quite shocking. He was talking about the womb of Hutu women being more fertile than the womb of their Tutsi counterparts. About the American Civil War, he said the South was the only chance of the US developing a culture worthy of the name and that chance was killed by the war. Definitely not a PC guy!
Posted by: Robert Macaire | Dec 30 2021 7:01 utc | 77
@MineHop | Dec 29 2021 20:49 utc | 17
I spotted that one too, it reaches peaks of grotesqueness.
There's probably in the French journalism schools a Newspeak major, they look so proud of their belle Novlangue.
Posted by: Francil | Dec 30 2021 9:05 utc | 78
@ Hack
Glad to see you!
@ Grieved
Well said.
…
To everyone: Happy holidays and happy new year!
Posted by: son of spam | Dec 30 2021 9:50 utc | 79
From Paris with Love...a Rule-Based Order
In Paris "Quartier Latin", once upon a time, music, danse and romance...
https://youtu.be/je6P_nt10fs
All those people, probably 3 times Pfizered, meet together every Sunday afternoon. "Sur les quais de Seine".
Now, it's Covid Regime. Time for Law & Order
Is this OUR FUTURE?
https://youtu.be/AR7h9aN6shE
A video shared on Twitter and Youtube shows a police officer using a Taser to disperse seemingly peaceful protesters dancing on the banks of the Seine in Paris on Sunday. According to the police, officers stopped an undeclared gathering of anti-health pass protesters.
Une vidéo diffusée sur Twitter et Youtube montre un policier ayant recours à un Taser pour disperser des manifestants qui paraissent pacifiques, dansant sur les quais de Seine, à Paris, dimanche. Selon la police, les agents ont mis fin à un rassemblement non déclaré de manifestants anti-pass sanitaire.
https://www.franceinter.fr/societe/une-video-montre-des-policiers-utilisant-un-taser-pour-disperser-un-regroupement-qui-parait-festif-a-paris
Do you remember?
First they came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me.
Do you remember?
"We The People"
"Wir sind das Volk"
"Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité"
Posted by: Bastille | Dec 30 2021 9:55 utc | 80
Below is an excellent long-form Joe Rogan interview i listened to this morning,where Rogan has a long talk with Dr. Peter McCullough, who is yet another highly respected, renowned researcher and practicing epidemiologist--he claims that he has had more papers published in the field than any other specialist ever.
Dr. McCullough lays bare the dire and already proven dangers that the vaccines pose ordinary, healthy folk who receive them, hammering home the fact that some 18,000 reported deaths (which translates to about 45,000 total, due to undereporting) have now been officially attributed to the vaccines by the CDC: these were people who were perfectly healthy, got the jab, and then died from it. Again: these are now officially endorsed facts from the CDC.
Equally concerning is his revelation that among healthy individuals who have been given the vaccine, some 13,000 patients have developed cases of myocarditis (massive swelling of the heart) certifiably attributable to the vaccine--with thousands of these cases occurring in young people and children. 86% (!) of the cases in children have required hospitalization and emergency measures--up to and including heart transplants, and fatalities. In fact, children who take the vaccine are hundreds of times more likely to contract myocarditis which results in life-threatening conditions and/or chronic, life-altering disabilities than they are to contract Covid-19--a disease all of us here know that almost no young people or children ever die from.
Dr. McCullough further explains that the long tail of myocarditis (again: created by a reaction to the vaccine) in men goes up to the age of 60.
However, the greatest part of the talk is Dr. McCullough railing about how the medical community has utterly failed in its duty to seek out early-stage outpatient treatments. He levels a devastating critique of the global medical community (but particularly those in the US and Europe), raging that it has never once even tried to work, support, and coordinate as it should have, as its ethics and responsibilities require. Not at any time during the SARS pandemic has there been any real effort to practice genuine medicine: doctors should have been investigating and discovering treatments for the early stages of the disease; the major research hospitals should have been convening seminars, symposia, and issuing reports and official statements of their findings; the CDC, NIH, and FDA should have been doing the same--as well as giving public guidance that explained their discoveries to the general public, and built their advice and management protocols around the new information and evidence as it was discovered.
None of that happened. Instead, we were all told that the disease was "untreatable," that the only hope of surviving it was to return home, wait until it had advanced to such a serious stage that the patient(s) could no longer breathe, and then get the patient to a hospital where s/he would be put on a ventilator--a treatment which doctors, media, and health agencies failed to explain would almost certainly result in death, and if not that then permanently debilitating injuries to the lungs and other internal organs.
Dr. McCullough calls attention to the voluminous published evidence and practical experiences (some of it from his own research, much of it from other researchers) that amount to undeniable proof that Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine are truly valuable in treating the early stages of the disease--the stage of the disease that was entirely neglected and ignored by the medical "authorities," hospitals, government agencies, and nearly all other doctors out there. We're talking global experiences from around the world, global evidence from countries across the planet--experiences and evidence that has been viciously suppressed here, at the cost of many hundreds of thousands of lives. Corporate media, FDA, NIH, WHO, and CDC have created an entirely false sense in the public that these medicines are laughably ineffective, and suitable only for mockery--while further pushing the idea that only a highly experimental vaccine that was rushed through clinical trials and which has now given clear, undeniable proof that it kills, maims with chronic illness, and otherwise permanently injures the healthy people it is supposed to protect.
Dr. McCullough has treated thousands of patients these last two years and published detailed analyses of his discoveries--and these discoveries have been verified by other research teams world wide. The conclusion Dr. McCullough comes to is that if the research hospitals and regulatory/oversight agencies had performed their duty to investigate possible early-stage outpatient treatments, deaths by Covid-19 could have been reduced by 85%--and we would have become aware of the health threat the vaccines pose healthy people--and more importantly young people and children--much, much earlier.
Dr. McCullough blames the same culprits we all rail against here, every day: corporate media, corrupt governments, corporate corruption, capitalist greed--in other words, regulatory capture, propaganda, corporate arrogance, crooked politicians, and crude greed. Moreover, he has gleaned ample evidence in support of these conclusions through his own personal experiences.
It's a very long interview (nearly 3 hours), but it is well worth a listen. This is a highly respected (invited to Harvard to deliver an endowed lecture a couple of years back, over 600 citations in research papers, over 1000 published papers, etc). He touches on the psychology of why doctors have shrugged off these duties, how his own experiences with Silicon Valley and corporate media have convinced him that there is a concerted effort behind the scenes--a conspiracy, if you will--to deny early-stage outpatient treatments, as well as other effective drugs like monoclonal antibodies, a treatment that is delivering amazing patient recoveries even in advanced stages of the disease.
I can't recommend the interview more highly.
Joe Rogan Interviews Dr. Peter McCullough
Dr. McCullough's official testimony to Congress (2020?)
Dr. McCullough's testimony to the Texas legislature
Respectfully -
Posted by: Pacifica Advocate | Dec 30 2021 10:14 utc | 81
The Chinese Foreign Ministry announced on Thursday that China would sanction five US individuals, including former US commerce minister Wilbur Ross, US-China Economic and Security Review Commission president Carolyn Bartholomew, and Jonathan Stivers, former Staff Director of Congressional-Executive Commission on China, in response to the recent wrong move by the US side to sanction five Chinese officials over Hong Kong affairs.In July, the US sanctioned seven Chinese officials including five deputy directors of the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in Hong Kong, when it issued a so-called advisory warning to American businesses, which fully exposed the US' ill-intentioned political attempt to contain China by playing the Hong Kong card, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said during a routine press conference on Thursday.
In response to the wrong acts of the US, China decided to take countermeasures in accordance with the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law to sanction the five US individuals by banning them from entering China and freezing their assets in China.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Dec 30 2021 10:50 utc | 82
China and Russia will sign a new space Cooperation Program for 2023-2027 next year, which will include a plan to create an open and inclusive International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) by 2035, Russia's national space agency Roscosmos told the Global Times in an exclusive interview.The new program will also include plans to support the development of the ground segment of the two countries' national satellite systems, Russia's GLONASS and China's BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) to be installed next year, as well as a slate of exciting projects Roscosmos and the China National Space Agency (CNSA) will work on in the coming decades as the two countries join forces to achieve new heights in the sphere of space exploration.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Dec 30 2021 10:53 utc | 83
Grieved @ 67
I always admired you [Richard Steven Hack] for attempting to stake out a principled stand to make, even as the great wave of all this rudeness crashed over us in the last two years. And I always wished you well, and still do
Yeah, dude, and maybe you should come down from cloud 9, or are you running for Jesus as well? RSH's 'principled stand' has always been based on hysteria, paranoia, and violence, on avoiding humanity in general, double masking, wiping down his doorknobs, and wiping out everyone who feels differently.
Sheesh!
Posted by: john | Dec 30 2021 11:14 utc | 84
@Richard Steven Hack | 63
That's some mighty cheap astroturf you've decided to lay out in front of your place. Perfect for a place that takes cheap putts with cheap (and oversized) clubs.
The three websites you link to have problems with basic grammar and syntax; don't count a single doctor among them; and are so clearly engaging in straw-man anti-logic that i'm shocked you'd resort to citing them.
It seems your rhetorical skills have deteriorated significantly in the last few years. I forget: are you one of those who got the vaccine?
Just FYI: the news about the health risks that accompany the jab--even in healthy people--are now endorsed by the CDC, which admits that some 18,000 otherwise healthy Americans (there's to telling how many, globally) have already died, from the vaccines, despite having no comorbidities and having gotten the jab in full-flushed health.
Dr. Malone is a doctor, and a fully-trained epidemiologists, while you just presented us with a bunch of Millenial and Gen-Z bloggers who play "Gotcha!" on the Internet for a living. Would you care to address Dr. Malone's evidence, logic, and actual worries, or do you want to associate yourself with a bunch of unruly children who wouldn't be able to think themselves out of an Intro to Logic course at a community college?
Posted by: Pacifica Advocate | Dec 30 2021 11:32 utc | 85
I think Russia has only one interest in the Sahel. By threatening French influence, Russia could induce France to stop scaling back Barkhane and send several brigades to the Sahel for a long time. France will no longer be a potential major threat in the Baltic states where France has ideas about deploying a large forward presence on Russia's border. It is also in Europe's interest to see France stay for a long time in the Sahel. Without a strong state in the middle of the action, the whole region could implode and drag down West Africa with it. There will surely be at least one million migrants to Europe from such an event and tens of thousands will drown in the Med.
Posted by: frenchinbss | Dec 30 2021 13:38 utc | 86
@Posted by: Pacifica Advocate | Dec 30 2021 10:14 utc | 81
Thanks PA, I have bookmarked your excellent post.
Surprised b has not deleted it (yet).
Posted by: librul | Dec 30 2021 14:15 utc | 87
As a jury finds Ghislaine Maxwell guilty in her part of procuring young girls for her boyfriend the suicided Jeffery Epstein, Epstein's friend Prince Andrew, his lawyers have called for the civil sexual assault case against him to be dropped.
Prince Andrew's lawyers angle is one of that plaintiff Virginia L. Giuffre no longer lives in Colorado, and that she now lives in Australia, and that she filed the complaint whilst living in Perth Australia.
Posted by: Republicofscotland | Dec 30 2021 14:43 utc | 88
Europe (.....) a continent who started with commerce of human beings and it seems will end the same way...
@Posted by: Black bread | Dec 30 2021 1:44 utc | 56
A commerce in which the Russian Empire always took part, an empire based on lords and serfs, hence the current monarchists are impossing the new slavery there too.
Even the systemic Patriarch had to speak against this unChristian outrage on getting rid of elder people through stravation by making for them impossible to access places where they need to go to get their basics...
Stalin and Lenin, whom these now at the helms despise and criticize so much would had never harmed elder people who fought the Great Patriotic War and rised the country through their whole life by their hard work.
This comes to confirm that all that theatrics about opposing nazism in the UN and the continuous theatrics about celebrating the victory over the nazi scourge is not but a performance.
It is heartbreaking watching the faces of all those adults in their fourties and fifties demonstrating, with their faces so somber...
To think that at first times of the introduction of "vaccines" I was thinking of migrating to Russia...
Time and people will sweep all tghese wanabe dictators from the fcae of Earth, such carnage, such indecency will not get without punishment...
Thanks to Tony Opmoc for the link to the SOTT aritcle on The Saker, with its links to written and graphic info on how the elders and veterans are being treated there. A shame, and a proof of the future that awaits us.....
Posted by: Black bread | Dec 30 2021 14:56 utc | 89
I see the morons still rule MoA, unfortunately, despite b's hard work removing the most egregious idiots.
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Dec 30 2021 3:31 utc | 63
Intelligent remarks like that are for me like rays of Sun on a rainy day, or a whiff of a fresh breeze after scorching heat. A balm for the soul.
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Dec 30 2021 15:45 utc | 90
... an Intro to Logic course at a community college?
Posted by: Pacifica Advocate | Dec 30 2021 11:32 utc | 85
Genuinely, I am surprised that there are Intro to Logic courses in community colleges. My impression was engineering students in an American four year program are quite innocent of logical concepts before taking Discrete Mathematics or an equivalent course. Philosophy majors have logic courses, who else?
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Dec 30 2021 16:06 utc | 91
With Ghislaine Maxwell's trial and conviction currently in the news this picture taken at English royal event, says it all really. Will Prince Andrew be joining the ones in prison?
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jeffrey-epstein-harvey-weinstein-pictured-21054662
Posted by: Republicofscotland | Dec 30 2021 16:07 utc | 92
Re my (92) comment, I should've added, now that Maxwell has been convicted, its more than likely that she too like Epstein will be suicided, for she surely knows, where all the bodies are buried so to speak.
Posted by: Republicofscotland | Dec 30 2021 16:12 utc | 93
Chile, Latin America
Uncle Tungsten posted a piece written by Salvador Allende's grandson in which he-- Doctor Sepúlveda Allende-- confronted Boric on his smears of Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua. The open letter is worth reading, re-reading and pondering as Allende lays out a key imperial weapon-- smearing an enemy-- and explains how it works. Barflies are very familiar with the tactic: Xinxiang, Hongkong, Taiwan, Syria and any Latin American nation including colonies where local thugs get too arrogant and reveal their butchery (Honduras, Haiti, Guatemala).
Here is the original link from Uncle Tungsten.
Waynorinorway followed that link with another one in Spanish that was equally profound and relevant, an older (2018) open letter to Boric by an old Chilean grandmother who dresses and smacks him down like only a grandmother can. Waynorinorway said he used a translator to read it so I'm guessing you can too.
https://elporteno.cl/margarita-labarca-responde-gabriel-boric-sobre-ddhh/#more-5216
The writer addresses him in the familiar ("tú") which sounds something like "sonny boy" in this case, and proceeds to cite her life experience as a refugee from Pinochet, living in Venezuela, Cuba and Mexico. Her two key points are as follows:
--you need to understand and respect the history of a people before you comment;
--young neolibs in Chile are currently posturing as "impartial" in front of right wingers in order to gain stature or appear "above the fray", leading to hollow criticisms of Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Hongkong, Xinxiang, Russia, Syria, and others. These criticisms are then used by imperial mouthpieces to bash resistance countries.
Chilean grandma cites specific accusations Boric launched against resistance countries, Cuba, for example. Boric's complaint that Cuba does not allow a free press brings a scathing rebuke from Grandma.
Her words are relevant given the current crisis with Russia. We have little to no understanding that the Soviet Union lost over 20 million in WWII. Ditto China. That's a big deal. Add the nightmare Russians endured in the 90's.
Bottom line, both links are powerful and point to a growing consensus within Latin America to get informed and to fight. Boric and other leaders will find less space to maneuver and double speak. Russia, China, Iran and a growing number of resistance countries are calling out the neolib appeasers. The tone is different now.
Posted by: migueljose | Dec 30 2021 16:41 utc | 94
A shame to destroy this (life in Ukraine):
https://youtu.be/zO8Ef2Bxuxc
Posted by: jared | Dec 30 2021 17:30 utc | 95
T-Cell Science update
Recent weeks have brought evidence that the new strain can erode vaccine protection, prompting governments to push for booster shots to raise the level of antibodies that can fight off the variant.But immune protection has several layers. While antibodies block infection, T cells kill infected cells, preventing the virus from spreading and causing worse disease, Wendy Burgens, one of the University of Cape Town study authors, wrote on her Twitter account Virus Monologues. “They can’t prevent you from getting infected, but they can minimize the damage that comes afterwards,” she said.
T cells are white blood cells that can remember past diseases, kill virus-infected cells and rouse antibodies to marshal defenses. People infected with another coronavirus that was responsible for the SARS outbreak in 2003, for example, were found to still have a T-cell response to the disease 17 years later.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-30/t-cells-come-to-the-rescue-as-studies-show-they-fight-omicron?srnd=premium&sref=i4qXzk6d
Posted by: librul | Dec 30 2021 17:33 utc | 96
After an interview complacent to Maxwell they claim they are now checking about who had left the back door open
https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-59828961
Posted by: Julie | Dec 30 2021 18:01 utc | 97
About Edward Bernays and influencing the public
Seems obvious now that we tend to do what we do in response to social pressure or expectation.
Posted by: jared | Dec 30 2021 18:02 utc | 98
They say pictures tell a thousand stories. Here are some that tell how and what China does these days on its own land:
http://en.people.cn/n3/2021/1230/c90000-9938976.html
The last pic, #13, shows the strip of desert, about 5,6 time the width of the roadway itself and straddling both sides of the roadway, being bounded and planted with some vegetation. I imagine in 5-10 years this strip will appear green, and look very happy :-). Just a guess.
Posted by: Oriental Voice | Dec 30 2021 18:06 utc | 99
OK, I apologize for this tack and spaming of the blog.
This is a lot of fun regarding the pandemic and the political aspects of
https://youtu.be/vpmSvlu4lDo
Posted by: jared | Dec 30 2021 18:12 utc | 100
The comments to this entry are closed.
Myocarditis Under Age 40: An Update
"1. It is now clear for men <40, dose two and dose three of Pfizer have more myocarditis than sars-cov-2 infection, and this is true for dose one and dose two of Moderna.
2. Pfizer boosters (Dose three) have more myocarditis for men <40 than infection.
3. Myocarditis post infection is more common as you get older, in contrast with myocarditis post vaccination, which is more common as you are younger (reverse gradients).
But the truth is STILL WORSE than these data.
1.If the authors fixed the denominator for viral infection (i.e. used sero-prevalance), it would look even worse.
2. If the authors separate men 16-24 from 12-15 and 25-40, it would likely look worst in 16-24 age group."
Posted by: ADKC | Dec 29 2021 18:41 utc | 1