Paul @188
They make some damn good trombones in Elkhart, Indiana!!!

Posted by: Objective Observer | May 14 2022 11:07 utc | 203

Unless it’s propaganda BS or military deception, no army would give such detailed information about future operations to a mere blogger, except perhaps the US Army fighting “brown people”.
Propaganda BS – announce an operation that you don’t intend to/can’t carry out so people continue to believe you’re winning.
Military deception – wouldn’t try that on with the Russian Army.
Talk of certain social media celebrities having contacts in FSB and Russian MoD is misguided. Like Hezbollah, subject of similar claims, FSB and Russian MoD do not talk except through official channels and even then they say virtually nothing.

Posted by: Ghost Ship | May 14 2022 11:23 utc | 205

So trying to prove he’s some kind of CIA plant is absurd.
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | May 14 2022 4:24 utc | 162
Not trying to prove. Just voicing opinion. CIA run Ukraine. He’s running around in there bad mouthing Nylands, Z, Western media etc. They brought him in and let him out. It’s all fishy.
When I smell rotten fish I think:
Spook!
And anyway, didn’t you get the memo?
We live in a post ‘proof’ world!

Posted by: Scorpion | May 14 2022 11:25 utc | 207

Paul @202
Well…low brass is good for funeral dirges, too.

Posted by: Objective Observer | May 14 2022 11:42 utc | 209

Posted by: Objective Observer | May 14 2022 11:07 utc | 197
As an afterthought. Studebaker manufactured TWO electric cars that now operate in the US senate 100 years later. How’a that for being ahead of the curve?

Posted by: Paul | May 14 2022 11:51 utc | 211

james | May 13 2022 22:39 utc | 88
I had watched most of that video. At one point he mentioned the pontoon trucks looked to be undamaged, but better quality pics I have seen showed the cabs to be badly damaged.
The Rybar analysis posted by RSH is very similar to my take on it.
I don’t know if it was a Russian planned or LPR planned operation but which ever, it was tried without sufficient assets to suppress Ukraine artillery and a lot of lives lost needlessly without achieving the goal.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | May 14 2022 11:58 utc | 213

@Norwegian 200
Not so long ago, April 25, in Europe, Lloyd Austin was talking about permanently weakening Russia: WAPO described this, wistfully, as a ‘sharpening of rhetoric’
This phone call may not be 180° turnaround, but it’s a major tack
There have been recent, May 11, calls for more realism in the NYT (Ukraine War’s Geographic Reality: Russia Has Seized Much of the East, America and Its Allies Want to Bleed Russia. They Really Shouldn’t.)
It appears that a certain faction of the US ruling class is edging way from the nonsense talk and dipping a toe into diplomacy – the fact that it’s the Secretary of Defense is significant, for the Pentagon retains some slight credibility when compared to all other talking heads, and one may guess that the Russians would not give the time of day to those

Posted by: Gerrard White | May 14 2022 12:37 utc | 215

In response to Richard Steven Hack@69,
who wrote,

We do not know what happened and you can not tell what happened from some busted vehicles other than that there was some artillery.

Even that is up for debate. Although I’m sure the general area has seen some artillery action throughout the campaign, the published images show undamaged or lightly damaged vehicles right next to burnt out husks and wrecks. If the wrecks look the way they do due to artillery strikes, it’s reasonable to assume that every vehicle within a certain radius of a strike should look more or less the same. I wouldn’t call it conclusive, but it certainly seems off.
Keep in mind that all sides involved make a priority out of collecting abandoned vehicles, even badly damaged ones, to use them for spare parts in field repairs. The various systems being used, even obsolete ones, have a high degree of interchangeability of parts. That’s what this reminds me of; aerial shots of a field repair station. Donor vehicles next to recipient vehicles, piles of vehicles that are to-be-determined, bunched up so close that they obviously didn’t drive there of their own strength but were off-loaded by a carrier.

Posted by: Skiffer | May 14 2022 12:51 utc | 217

Posted by: K | May 13 2022 23:05 utc | 98

You worship Gonzalo Lira a guy in Ukraine who says he got taken by the Nazis and survived without a scratch to continue doing the exact same thing that got him “arrested”
I call total bullshit on his whole story

In a video made prior to his SBU detention Lira reported having close contacts at the inner circle of the US Federal Reserve.
These contacts likely result from Lira’s Ivy League education which offers myriad benefits.
Given Z’s need for USD handouts I suspect a quick telephone call with respect to the slow walking of those funds would have caused Z to enure the SBU released Lira unharmed.

Posted by: Sushi | May 14 2022 13:02 utc | 219

If you find something you don’t like, don’t read it. Must suck reading something to the end (musta been inerestin) then finding out it’s your favorite arch verboligest…..lol. Scroll people, scroll.
RSH….love the work you do, it is work….cheers, from a former poster at the old Iraqwar site…twenty years…wow, that long ago…..
Cheers M

Posted by: sean the leprechaun | May 14 2022 13:13 utc | 221

Any author might be controlled opposition. What some here wish to call CIA. Martyanov could be. Bernhard could be. Many here continue to like Max Blumenthal who has markers all over him. RSH has markers all over him.
And so what? Readers who read like sponges will always be confused. Read critically. Always doubt every source. Whenever anyone here is critical of a source the main counter argument is “But I like him”. Which is meaningless.
The only more meaningless argument is “I suspect him”. Of course you do. Suspect everyone.
Gleaning information from untrustworthy sources is what a reader does. Being a fan is being stupid.

Posted by: oldhippie | May 14 2022 13:31 utc | 223

Re: Sweden and Finland
It appears Turkey isn’t on board with Finland and Sweden joining NATO – so the unanimity custom vs. the reality of NATO is going to be tested.
It turns out Sweden has had an embassy in Kurdistan in 2012 – a big no-no as Turkey sees it.
Wikipedia source

Posted by: c1ue | May 14 2022 13:42 utc | 225

A perfect storm is coming. The fighting in Ukraine might end up proving to be the least of it.
The combined effects of the US trade war against China, the ever growing lost of sanctions, the lingering supply chain problems exacerbated by the pandemic , and the rapid inflation of hydrocarbon prices have combined to make it very likely that 2023 will be remembered as a year of hunger for poor people-of whom there will be many more before this is over-everywhere.
In the middle east, where subsidised bread prices are as important as the prisons, police and the assassination of dissident voices in minimising ‘disorder’, there is a likelihood of widespread famine and, very likely, revolution of the sort that Gene Sharp and Victoria Nuland never dreamed of. The capitalist system is imploding.
” Between them, Ukraine and Russia produce about 15 per cent of the world’s wheat. The International Fund for Agricultural Development estimates that the area around the Black Sea is the source of 12 per cent of globally traded caloric intake. In addition, modern industrial farming is heavily reliant on hydrocarbons. As energy prices have risen so has the cost of fertiliser. The result has been a steep rise around the world in the price of all major staples except rice. Suddenly investment bank analysts are consulting soil fertility tables. Political commentators are paying attention to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s food price index. It has been climbing since the summer of 2020, but April saw the third major jump in succession….
“…Russia and Ukraine are home to the majority of the world’s highly productive humus-rich chernozem farmland. But the salient feature of Russian and Ukrainian agriculture isn’t productivity so much as the ratio of production to population. Ukraine produces a quarter as much wheat as India, but has three per cent of India’s population. The result is that Ukraine and Russia supply many of the world’s poorest countries with a large portion of their imported food….
The military operation in “… Ukraine took place at a time when global grain prices were already at extremely high levels. The FAO argues that the war didn’t cause the crisis so much as reveal ‘the fragility of the dominant global food system’. In February the World Food Programme warned of the dangers of ‘an unparalleled global hunger crisis’. The current cycle dates to the summer of 2020. A number of causes have been suggested, from volatile weather to changes of diet in China and India. A more significant factor is the lasting impact of the Covid pandemic on transnational shipping and production: there are currently five hundred ships circling outside the port of Shanghai. The disruption has led to all manner of shortages: there has been a 70 per cent drop, for example, in global inventories of aluminium, copper, nickel and zinc. But it is the critical commodities – hydrocarbons and grains – that have put the extent of the problem on display.
“Yet for all the damage the pandemic has done, it can’t fully explain the remarkable rise in food prices that predated the war in Ukraine. An important part of the story has to do with the movements of poorly regulated commodities markets, dominated as they are by a handful of financial institutions and corporations. Investor speculation helped drive the price of food out of the reach of much of the world’s poor during the economic crisis of 2008…”
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v44/n09/tom-stevenson/not-war-alone

Posted by: bevin | May 14 2022 13:59 utc | 227

@c1ue | May 14 2022 14:00 utc | 222

Note that I am not saying he is lying, but I am saying he is plagiarizing.

Please provide examples in support of this claim.

Posted by: Norwegian | May 14 2022 14:16 utc | 229

@Norwegian #223
A specific example is Lira talking about Russia’s strategy to use forces around Kiev and Kharkiv to decoy/fix Ukrainian forces in place while Donbas, Mariupol, Kherson etc were reduced.
Scott Ritter was the first to say this, very early on. Lira starting saying this a day or two later – but never once noted Scott Ritter was the source
Now it is possible that this former youth counselor came up with this independently on his own, but then again, I think not.
All I am saying is: the next time you listen to Lira – pay specific attention to how many times he says anything giving credit to someone else. That number is going to be low to zero…
After the 2nd or 3rd – 30 minute to 1 hour talk where he mentioned no one, it became glaringly obvious to me that he is plagiarizing. He is pulling info off Telegram and other sources just like many others but is making zero mention that this is NOT firsthand information or analysis.
This is a big no-no. Martyanov, Ritter, McGregor, b, Mercouris and other credible people are assiduous in noting what is personal experience and analysis vs. what are ideas from others.

Posted by: c1ue | May 14 2022 14:31 utc | 231

His ongoing failure to do this has made him nothing more than a wannabe influencer in my view. [about Lira]
Posted by: c1ue | May 14 2022 14:00 utc | 222
I stopped after first few broadcasts because something felt off – still does. Was listening to Durans regularly but now tapering off. They have no insight into what is driving Western elites though they do excellent job providing non MSM perspective and are decent folk. They regularly have Lira on. I did listen to the one with martyanov who did not agree with Lira on something (nbd).
In any case I greatly prefer text to video. I can understand Hudson on the page, for example, but mind wanders with video because have distracting habit of reading articles whilst listening hence absorb little of either!

Posted by: Scorpion | May 14 2022 14:40 utc | 233

“It is this enormous uncertainty which is as much a problem as anything else.”
Posted by: c1ue | May 14 2022 14:21 utc | 224
Perhaps from ignorance and/or laziness, I look for simple, direct explanations. Right now it Seems glaringly obvious to me that the Western elites are deliberately crashing their national economies and perhaps also constitutions. Reset anyone?
So what’s happening is sabotage. Media’s job is to sufficiently obfuscate captive populations so they don’t see their own leaders are causing what augur to be catastrophes by this time next year.

Posted by: Scorpion | May 14 2022 14:49 utc | 235

@c1ue | May 14 2022 14:31 utc | 225
Quite frankly I think this argument is nonsense. Arguments that everybody else is talking about the war in Ukraine from personal experience, except the one guy in Kharkov does not make a lot of sense. There is a huge amount of open discussion and of course everyone is influenced by others, and that is how it should be. The important thing is what is happening and what the analyses say. I will continue to Listen to Gonzalo Lira, evaluate what is said on its own basis, and ignore non-substantive arguments like this.

Posted by: Norwegian | May 14 2022 14:54 utc | 237

>>>>: c1ue | May 14 2022 13:42 utc | 219

Re: Sweden and Finland
It appears Turkey isn’t on board with Finland and Sweden joining NATO – so the unanimity custom vs. the reality of NATO is going to be tested.

Pretty obvious.
Turkey is a member of NATO but not the EU.
Sweden and Finland are members of the EU but not NATO.
The prize – Turkey joins the EU when Finland and Sweden join NATO.
When it comes to the paperwork, I’m guessing Finland signs on to NATO, Turkey signs on to EU and finally Sweden signs onto NATO. That is the “rules-based international order” for you.

Posted by: Ghost Ship | May 14 2022 15:07 utc | 239

@ Peter AU1 | May 14 2022 11:58 utc | 207
thanks peter… something happened, and it looks like russia lost some or a lot of men and equipment… however, petri left a link of another analysis of it that i thought was quite good… see my translation of the conclusion @ james | May 14 2022 0:57 utc | 133 – cheers…
@ Scorpion | May 14 2022 14:40 utc | 227
it seems we share a very similar viewpoint and are attracted to reading as opposed to viewing too…

Posted by: james | May 14 2022 15:11 utc | 241

Concerning taxi driver sources, I suppose some people think when someone says they “keep their ear to the ground” that they literally place their head in the dirt and listen for clues. To say “I heard it from a taxi driver” is just literary license to obscure a source (or multiple sources) while implying that the source might not be perfectly reliable. The author could have said he heard it from a hotel bellboy, or a newsstand proprietor, or a barber, but the taxi driver source is a better known trope that people should more readily recognize.
Personally, my secret sources tend to be classy escorts and trashy lounge lizards, but to each his own.

Posted by: William Gruff | May 14 2022 15:14 utc | 243

taxi drivers are no different then anyone else… they come in all varieties… as a musician, i drove taxi for a few years…. it is like asking a random person.. you might get an insight or you might not…. it is irrelevant whether they are a taxi driver or not… same deal with william gruffs response, lol…. i can’t believe how much ink was spilled on this!

Posted by: james | May 14 2022 15:17 utc | 245

Posted by: karlof1 | May 13 2022 21:30 utc | 61

Clearly, the Pope’s no longer Catholic; he’s now NATO and has proven to be what many feared when he was elevated: He’d become a mere pawn, which he now proves he has.

Sad state of affairs. I had thought the Pope might actually walk the talk… Wasn’t Hitler a Catholic?
Why does world history feel like a continuance of a family lineage perpetuated from an alcoholic father?

Posted by: Seer | May 14 2022 15:26 utc | 247

@Scorpion #229
I never ascribe to malice what is most often a result of incompetence and arrogance.
What I noted above is gleaned from a lot of directed research as well as talking to people in Nebraska and Iowa on my last trip. As I am not a farmer, I don’t pretend to understand in detail the vitally important minutiae of being successful in that business.
The research informed me of the general parameters, the in-person talks informed me of how these general parameters affect farmers – or at least the farmers I talked to in their own perceptions.
As I note above: we know in a general sense that fertilizers have gotten much more expensive. But we do not know how that actually affects a farmer.
A farmer could not use fertilizer. What is the actual impact of that?
A farmer could use less fertilizer. What is the actual impact of that?
A farmer could switch crops – for example, some people are saying soybean planting is up because soybeans need far far less fertilizer. What is the impact of that?
I can’t tell without asking people who actually are the ones making the decisions based on their experience.
As for “Western elites” and “deliberately crashing their economies” – I am not a fan of grand conspiracy theories.
I can tell you that the US/EU sanctions were very poorly thought out; there is plenty of evidence that almost nobody outside of a small circle of politicians actually thought them through. If Russia and Putin made severely wrong assumptions when starting the SMO, it is certainly true the same holds for Biden and the EU Council’s sanctions on Russia.
I can tell you that the authors of the original authors of W. Bush era economic sanctions on Iran: Condoleeza Rice and Stuart Levey – in their own words – note that sanctions on Iran took 9 years to have an effect (JCPOA), and there were a significant number of pushback questions in the Q & A. See the full video here: Russia and the Future of Sanctions – Hoover Institute
Hoover Institute is at the literal spear tip of neocon thought.
I can tell you that the ongoing daily new records in gasoline and diesel prices are visibly hurting the Democrat party and Biden – so much so that they are now talking about waging all out war on inflation, after literally 18 months of “no, there’s no inflation” and “inflation is only in a few areas” and “inflation is transitory”. A crashing market is the most reliable indicator of a political party change in the US – and the fact that Powell and the Fed, plus Biden et al are now starting to embrace this in an inflation year points to just how serious a problem inflation really is.
I can also tell you that there is no way in hell that pushing China, Russia, Iran and even possibly India together into a mutually friendly grouping can be construed as anything but an enormous strategic failure.
The NWO tunnel vision say this is because they want to destroy America in order to form the world government.
I think it is just arrogance and incompetence at work – and this type of thing happens everywhere.

Posted by: c1ue | May 14 2022 15:28 utc | 249

@circumspect #242
Have you actually read the NOPEC bill?
It is political grandstanding plus maybe laying the groundwork to sanction OPEC countries and steal their oligarchs’ stuff in the US.
In particular, the bill is saying that the US can ignore sovereign immunity, international law etc and prosecute any entity – including outside the US – for breaking the Sherman anti-trust law.
This is stupidity and arrogance of the highest order.
If it passes and is signed into law, it will literally be a boot-to-the-face reinforcement of the already surging de-dollarization rush.
Note this article Saudi Arabia threatens to sell $750B in US Treasuries if 9/11 bill passed – New York Times in 2016
The OPEC countries officially hold $280B in US Treasuries in the Central Banks, but the rich peeps in charge in those countries certainly hold more.
Do I need to say the petrodollar standard dies, too? That’s about 10% of the Eurodollar market.
We’re into the very late stages of a double-down strategy – the type that either leads to riches, or much more often into bankruptcy…

Posted by: c1ue | May 14 2022 15:49 utc | 251

in re: Lira’s Ivy League education which offers myriad benefits
bwahahahahahhahhahaah
IF he attended and actually graduated from an Ivy, he’d be an editor by now at NY Yella Cake or WaPoo, possibly RAND.

Posted by: sln2002 | May 14 2022 15:58 utc | 253

Even if NOpEC never becomes law, the effect of it being seriously discussed in Congress is enough to (quietly) accelerate De-Dollarization.
De-dollarization will be a steady slow process, hardly noticeable until near the end of reserve currency status. Figure 5-7 years

Posted by: Exile | May 14 2022 16:02 utc | 255

This is in response to Bevin @221, c1ue at 224 and Scorpion @229.
As a semi-retired organic farmer I’d like to weigh in to say I think the “perfect storm” soon to be raging over food production presents a great opportunity to transition to organic agriculture. Farming organically requires no herbicides, no pesticides, and no chemical fertilizers if done properly and patiently. Go ahead and start laughing and tell me how organic farming can never feed the world. Well, it did feed the world up until about 1950. And in Cuba today a whole country is practicing organic agriculture out of necessity under a brutal 60-year blockade. They aren’t supplying all their food needs, but about half of it and improving. If only Biden would pump those millions of dollars into organic agriculture we could make more real progress.
To get a better idea of what I’m talking about here’s a video of an interview with Wendell Berry and Wes Jackson at the Schumacher Center for New Economics in 2016. https://youtu.be/SxnEDVyCjyY

Posted by: Chas | May 14 2022 16:04 utc | 257

I heard some rumour about a Russian missile taking out a hotel in Odessa full of Nato volunteers and trainers?
Any info on this?

Posted by: Manage without me | May 14 2022 16:10 utc | 259

@Chas, @251
I read that the problems with food in Sri Lanka had to do with a massive move to organic farming which caused a food shortage. Is this true?

Posted by: Manage without me | May 14 2022 16:12 utc | 261

@c1ue | May 14 2022 15:08 utc | 234

I am pointing out that I consider Lira to be unreliable on anything he says because of this failure to give credit to sources.
I repeat: I have never said he is lying (I don’t know), but he is clearly plagiarizing.

In the category of unsubstantiated suspicions, I can contribute my own: To me it looks like a concerted attempt to discredit Gonzalo Lira, perhaps because some would like a different narrative that his or because of envy in his successful communication and analysis of the events in Ukraine and overall, for example 2022.05.01 James Vasquez Is A Liar and A Fake. I am saying this because it has been going on for some time in these threads and I find it not trustworthy since there are just loose, peripheral accusations that could be used against anyone.

Mercouris, for example, is explicit every single time he notes something from someone else. He always notes the source is Russian or Ukrainian, gives a personal opinion on it which he clearly identifies as such and will call out specific individuals like Dreizin whom he believes have demonstrated exceptional skill or analysis

I like Mercouris, I listen to him almost every day, not mainly because of his facts but because of his analyses. Obviously, he has zero personal experience from the war in Ukraine, he reports from his library in North London and relies 100% on external sources and adds his analysis in a fairly objective manner. It can be long winded, but all in all very informative. Lira comments on the events directly from Kharkov mixing personal experience with information available to us all, presenting his analyses in his own accessible and thought provoking style, also very informative and useful.

Ritter, for example, never says what his sources are either. But what he is doing is publishing his analysis based on what raw information from external sources – not passing the source info off as his own. It is common trained intel practice to never reference sources so as to not reveal means/methods.

So you are saying it is ok for Ritter to not reference any sources because of “intel practice”. Right. I sometimes listen to Ritter and find some of it useful, but to me he seems very US biased.

A person who does none of these things is unreliable precisely because you can’t even know if he is consistently plagiarizing from the same source, or if he starts making shit up.

I think the smearing of Lira is constructed from nothing.
Judgement should not be about a person, but his arguments. Most people are sometimes wrong, sometimes right.

Posted by: Norwegian | May 14 2022 16:14 utc | 263

Posted by: Sushi | May 14 2022 16:01 utc | 248
I appreciated your contributions re LNG.
I’d read that it takes at least around 13 hrs to unload ONE LNG tanker: 13 hrs is the low end. The amount of activity involved is almost at the level of launching a rocket into space! (lots of acclimation activities; ramping up and then ramping down etc.). I’m just not seeing how current demands could be met, let alone future demands (for our insane perpetual-growth-on-a-finite-planet meme).
A smack-down was always going to occur. HOW was the only question. It’s almost impossible to separate planning/intent with/from opportunism. Nationalities, ideologies, history, everything, don’t matter in that humans could never extract more from the earth than the earth has available. At what point do we face the reality that perpetual growth on a finite planet was a delusion we played on collective selves?

Posted by: Seer | May 14 2022 16:21 utc | 265

What was it the Chinese diplomat said, I think it was this, help us beat your friend (Russia) so that later we can beat you (China). When replying to Nato who asked China not give any help whatsoever to Russia.
“The G7 group of nations (the UK, Germany, Italy, Canada, the US, France and Japan) calls on China not to assist Russia and not to undermine sanctions against Moscow, according to G7 Foreign Ministers’ Communique passed on Saturday following a three-day meeting in the Wangels municipality in the north of Germany.
“We call on China not to assist Russia in its war of aggression against Ukraine, not to undermine sanctions imposed on Russia <…>, and to desist from engaging in information manipulation, disinformation and other means to legitimize Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine,””

Posted by: Republicofscotland | May 14 2022 16:27 utc | 267

@Chas #251
In my aforementioned trip through Nebraska and Iowa, I also asked farmers about organic farming.
Their response was: organic farming is like a kid hand raising a sheep for a 4F competition or a guy growing a beet to try and break a world’s record. You can certainly get great individual results, but you cannot replicate that on a farm scale.
But that’s their opinion.
This is a fantastic opportunity to walk the walk, as opposed to talk the talk.

Posted by: c1ue | May 14 2022 16:36 utc | 269

@Norwegian #257
I didn’t say it was ok for Ritter to pass off other’s information as his own – because he doesn’t. He never says anything specific which is from other sources – he uses those other sources to form his conclusions (which have been wrong at times, BTW).
Do you understand the difference between performing your own analysis on information as opposed to passing other people’s information/work as your own?

Posted by: c1ue | May 14 2022 16:40 utc | 271

@ c1ue 263… this is due the ”go big or go home” mantra… now we have corporations running the agriculture industry, as opposed to a number of small farms contributing to the food people get.. they are probably leveraged with the expensive technology and large land areas and working for the same corporations that are basically screwing them.. we’ve gone from a people who lived on the land and were all farmers of some sort or another, to a culture that moved into cities, dropped these ways of the past and are now happy to be screwed over by corporations… are those folks on farms in nebraska and iowa are on large tracks of land dependent on machinary, technology, large bank loans and etc. etc. ? i know i am generalizing here, but the idea of a mom and pop small farm has mostly gone the way of the dodo bird and it needs to come back as i see it.. i guess this is a conversation for an open thread.. i thank @ chas 251 for bringing it up.. an important conversation needs to be had..

Posted by: james | May 14 2022 16:43 utc | 273

Next problem that is of US making.
Cookie monster Nuland is now trying to annex North-East Syria via their proxies. (Kurds, SDF), There is Oil and Wheat there of course, so another steal is on the cards.
Can’t miss the profit line.
***
The Syrians claim they shot down 26 of the 32 missiles that were fired at them last time, so in spite of their losses (6, including child and a Pantsir which ran out of ammunition), they claim a success.
****
An article by Matthew Ehret. I can’t link to the original (in Russian and I think behind a paywall), so this is the nearest I can do,
All the major factors in a new Global paradigm.
I found the part on Biowarfare very interesting, which may tie up with the sending of poisoned false money to Donbass. (with free Tuberculosis for everyone?) Which may still be relevant in Avostal/MetaBio – Kolomoisky. Or even the recent massive “Covid” outbreak in North Korea. Pure speculation on my part, but it is evident that mass bioweapon attacks have been carried out in the past, and are still on the cards.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/race-break-russia-china-alliance-ukraine-asia-pacific
Another note is the attempt to encircle Russia by the North, which is another reason for Norway and Finland to become parts of the USNATO empire, with full rights to be occupied by US troops,.

Posted by: Stonebird | May 14 2022 16:46 utc | 275

turkey offers to help ukraine with evacuation of the azovstal steel plant.. no one but soldiers are left according to russia and ukraine…
what happened to the concept of surrender? is that not good enough for the azov battalion kids? i can’t see russia going along with this…

Posted by: james | May 14 2022 17:08 utc | 277

c1ue @ 245
Have you actually read the NOPEC bill?
NO
Sounds much worse than what I have read. I bet the boys now regret taking out Saddam. They could have left him in place to threaten the Saudis in the future. Now they have no one. The NECONS step in dog shit again.

Posted by: circumspect | May 14 2022 17:20 utc | 279

Posted by: Gerrard White | May 14 2022 16:41 utc | 266
RF may have incomplete information to identify eligible “allied” POWs by name; obversely, RF knows exactly which RF, DPR, LPR that UA detained, presumed living perhaps in Azovstal, perhaps renditioned. That puts the liars are in a bind. On the one hand, so the story goes, there are no high-value, GSEs in the dungeon; the exchange ratio publiclh purports to blindess and innocence. On the other, identification by name alone, in whole or inpart, memorializes “allied” value system (assets) and bares (confirms), RF construction of covert command ops and infrastructure — which they may well prefer not to barter. Equal consideration of value (legal term) does not hold; after all, neither UA nor allies publicly admit to POWs –excepting that strange boy lone-wolf lately detained on charges of murder/WAR CRIME and a couple “pro-Russian” pols hoisted by the SBU. Now, dragging vintage Russian spies from high-security prisons to the forefront of exchange could pose unseemly questions.
So. These two adversaries have quite a bit of work left to reconcile facts, not to mention proofs.
Just saying: If I were either general, I wouldn’t make a move until verifying proferred intel.

Posted by: sln2002 | May 14 2022 17:29 utc | 281

In the movie “The Hunger Games” from the Treaty of the Treason, it is stated that the games are designed as a “penance for the insurrection ” and as a way for the victors of the society to “ remember our past and to safeguard our future”. This sounds like the sneering “our democracy” quip constantly and deliberately emphasized by the members of the democrat party. This reset plan by Davos sounds like they have launched the first tranche in their own Hunger Games. The democrat party is insane and a threat to the nation.

Posted by: Obamavirus | May 14 2022 17:37 utc | 283

in re: Austin call
FWIW, I wouldn’t over-think this publicity. US, UK are incapable of long-view strategy. At the moment, the “allied” priority is RF permission –negotiators now including Int’l Red Cross FFS– to evacuate the mystery guests in Avostal’s dungeon. By POW swap. That’s the subject of the call.
Posted by: sln2002 | May 14 2022 15:50 utc | 246
Something’s going on and Azovstal is one plausible subject for this call but POW swap would have to be conducted on a like-for-like basis and there is simply no RF counterpart to the intriguing Azovstal cave-CHUDs that are the actual subject of everyone’s interest (I exclude the controversy-free UA marines).
Ukie spokespeople do mention some kind of swap now and again but, headless chickens, they’ve got nothing even remotely comparable.
NATO+, I suspect, has been escalating for a while now and, behind the scenes, threatening further escalation, with a give-us-our-people-or-else message.
1. Anything NATO+ threaten is almost certainly something that was already on their “long war” to-do list so it’s something they were going to do anyway (e.g. sink ships, hit targets in Russia, target high ranking officers, blame nazi actions on RF, false flag some other random atrocity porn, etc). If so, why give them anything when they’ll just do some other shit later anyway.
2. The way Russia is handling the bio lab info in the UN suggests that they have adopted a by-the-book strategy of evidence capture and disclosure. I strongly suspect that there is simply no deal to be had on Azovstal or any other evidence of what filthy NATO+ snuff-hustlers have been getting up to.
I think RF will simply capture or kill everyone left in Azovstal, the real wildcard is how far anyone else is prepared to go if it looks like the Azovites are finally cracking.

Posted by: anon2020 | May 14 2022 18:24 utc | 285

@sln202 281
Thanks for these explanations, which sound convincing enough – the stage of the war has been reached, with sufficient advantage to the Russians, that the US see benefit in negotiating, or to initiate an attempt to discuss/work out the conditions and terms under which it might be possible to negotiate, and this sooner rather than later
I’ve just noticed that b. has a post on this very subject, so doubtless there is a lot more to be said

Posted by: Gerrard White | May 14 2022 19:01 utc | 287

SEER 282
A certain country consumes 1.2 billion C Meters of Natural gas yearly. All of it imported as LNG.
It has one receiving gasifying terminal and the exterior dimensions of the receiving cryogenic tank are 90 meters diameter and 100 meters high.
From there, the liquid methane goes to the gasification plant that will convert it to gas to be piped to facilities that have established gas pipelines. meanwhile, liquid gas is pumped into cryogenic tanker trucks for distribution around the country,
from a capital outlay standpoint, the end user using liquid natural gas has to face steep expenses. if we are to compare a pipeline user to a LNG user, for the same amount of BTUs per year, say for a power plant of 1MW/hr capacity, the liquid gas user will have to invest about 200,000.00 USD to cover the cost of a cryogenic tank and a re-gasification unit.
Then piped natural gas is only 1/8 the cost of LNG.
Then comes a question of receiving capacity of the sea port coupled to tanker available tonnage. The end user has to make a contract whereas he will, rain or chine, use a specified amount per year, 6 months before the start date of deliveries. There is no flexibility in those contracts as whatever is not used will still have to be paid. LNG tankers do not abound and charters are very difficult and lengthy to set up.
A 215000 cu meters LNG tanker will cost upwards of 250,000,000.00USD. Will take at least two years to build and commission. When finished, itinerary will determine rotation intervals and considering distances and such a single vessel will hardly do two trips a month. Total carrying capacity per year will be 5 million cubic meters of liquid gas. Will make the conversion later to compressed pipeline gas.
We are talking about a lot of money to supply Germany alone with very costly LNG. Europe is committing suicide going LNG.
If I am not mistaken, the NS2 was built at a cost of 10 billion dollars. It requires practically no maintenance compared to a ship.

Posted by: CarlD | May 14 2022 19:32 utc | 289

@james #273
“go big or go home”: incorrect.
The issue is costs: of which infrastructure and labor are major contributors.
The prize beet grower or 4H sheep displayer doesn’t care about the enormous amount of human labor that goes into this effort, nor the production cost because they’re not selling these products in competition with bulk beet growers or sheep herders.
Equally, the cost equation for an artisanal organic produce farmer selling to high end restaurants in big cities is completely different than people growing corn for pigs or wheat for bread.
The average farm size in Iowa is 360 acres. That’s a little more than half a square mile.
If it is perfectly square, that is over 3700 feet per side. Or in other terms, that’s over 10 football fields in length on each side or over 270 football fields in area.
To me, that looks like an awful lot of walking even just recreationally, much less plowing/seeding/hoeing/fertilizing/watering/harvesting.
According to this: The US averages 0.05 workers per hectare
Converted vs. the 360 acres – that’s a little over 7 workers.
7 workers, 270+ football fields of area – I’m not seeing a whole lot of potential for tender loving care. And note farm workers are pretty damn low pay: average pay according to the BLS is $14.62 per hour – which is a bit over half of overall average hourly pay.
Now let’s look at some other numbers: average yield per acre for wheat in the US is 37 bushels. The price of a bushel of wheat in 2019 was $6. So a hypothetical 360 acre wheat farm in Iowa yields 37*6*360 per wheat crop = $80,000
7 farm workers earning $14.62/hr and working for say, 4 months costs $53K. If there is FICA, unemployment etc like normal jobs, the actual out of pocket for the employer is more like $63K. The remaining $17K pays for tractor depreciation and maintenance, land rent, diesel, fertilizer, pesticides etc etc.
I’m not seeing a whole lot of slack here – do you?
How many workers per hectare are needed for “organic” farming? If it is even slightly more than the 7 above needed for the 270+ football fields, seems like the cost of the product would have to jump considerably.
Anyway, this is just an economics based thought experiment. At this first pass, I simply don’t see how “organic” farming helps at all unless it dramatically reduces the labor needed for farming, as it seems labor is the biggest cost.
But again, doesn’t matter what I think. Proof is in the pudding – or bushels of wheat anyway.

Posted by: c1ue | May 14 2022 19:39 utc | 291

A follow on to CarlD | May 14 2022 19:32 utc | 289; Seer | May 14 2022 17:35 utc | 282; c1ue | May 14 2022 15:28 utc | 249
LNG tankers are generally built in one of three Korean yards. All three are operating at a loss due to significant increase in raw materials costs (steel up 63%). All three have full order books for the next 2.5 years and the build time for a v/l is two years. So even were a contract to be placed tomorrow delivery would not occur until October 2027. That would be for the first ship in the fleet. You will need the entire fleet to move the allocated LNG contracted under take or pay.
This timetable makes no allowance for ship and facility design, contract negotiations, confirming and contracting an available LNG supply, calculating the required fleet size to ensure annual delivery of the required amount of LNG, obtaining the necessary financing (need to have signed contracts or letters of intent in hand before this step). Add in another year for negotiations and legal / regulatory overhead. That brings us to October 2028 without any slippage or hiccups.
The German government seeks to go FF free by 2030. They are backed in this initiative by the EU. Look at the government’s total contempt for investors. A consortium of Eastern and Western companies invested over $10 billion to complete the construction of NS2 now complete and unused. Even were it pulled for scrap there is no way to recover the sunk costs.
Why this imbroglio? Conspiracy? Incompetence? No to either one. This circumstance comes about because the politicians in Germany and the EU are completely divorced from reality. They are flat out insane. And you propose to convince others to invest in this goat rope? Good luck with that.
You would have better luck arranging a popular revolt and overthrow of the government. A Gretta Thunberg for the cold and hungry masses will have to be found. She will cost much less than the sunk costs on a second NS2 fiasco.

Posted by: Sushi | May 14 2022 21:01 utc | 293

Very weird things happened to that post.
I was going to add that here organic farming of the land, intensive farming with much use of labour and no employment of either chemical fertilisers or herbicides is becoming widespread. Twenty years ago, in this area, only a few- often associated with a neo-fascist cult- practised organic agriculture, now it is trending towards dominance.

Posted by: bevin | May 14 2022 22:28 utc | 295

@ c1ue | May 14 2022 19:39 utc | 291
since i come from a similar understanding of agriculture based off wendall berrys writings, i too would encourage you to check out chas link @ 257…. i think it is a lot more nuanced and interesting then how you lay it out… let me simplify it in my own way…
1 choice
chemical fertilizers
1 or 2 crops only
heavy reliance on machinery
large farms
less employment
all the above supportive of the large agricultural corporations and those corporations supporting this approach…
a different choice
organic fertilizers off the animals
multi crops and also multiple livestock
less reliance on machinery
small farms
more employment
less at the mercy of big agra, and the corps connected to them, including especially the banks and their loans.
i personally think we need to embrace the later, not the former… but if people are not made aware of these choices, then it will be business as usual, and a continued degradation of the soil which is absolutely the most important ingredient in all of this… we are killing the ground with the first choice… we still have a chance to change.
multi crops

Posted by: james | May 14 2022 22:57 utc | 297

Posted by: Chas | May 14 2022 16:04 utc | 251
on switching to organics— totally agree with your points Chas. Thank you.
i’m a retired teacher but was turned on to food coops, organic gardening, etc, in the 70s and continue as I age out. My neighbor and good friend is a small scale farmer (co-owns 500 acres with the bank), has a cow-calf operation and hires out 200 acres to corn and beans. He and I talk about mob grazing his cows (grass fed)but he’s scared to switch so he’s stuck. Now he’s really worried because roundup is very high and anhydrous ammonia fertilizer is too. If the market price is high enough in October he might make money. If not, he’ll be underwater and will likely lose some of his mortgaged farmland.

Posted by: migueljose | May 14 2022 23:46 utc | 299