Precious Metals
Post about Moscow setting up a PM exchange @ psychohistorian | 3:56 utc | 157 [A Multipolar Expo Shows Unipolar Wreckage]

It is necessary to create a new international standard of the precious metals market – Moscow World Standard (MWS), which will become an alternative to the standard of the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA), the Ministry of Finance of Russia said.
…independent international infrastructure” is needed to “normalize the functioning of the precious metals industry.”
……In the “fundament of the structure” it is proposed to “put a specialized international precious metal exchange headquartered in Moscow” using the “new international standard MWS”. It is also proposed to establish a Price Fixing Committee. Subject to the application of the MWS standard, it will include Central Banks and the largest banks of the EAEU countries represented in the precious metals market.

This^ post I found fascinating….
At the very start of the SMO the London Metal Exchange puked. Platinum went to $100k a tonne overnight and a guy with billions in shorts basically broke the market… LBMA shutdown for 10 days… and later a few whiting have been charged to show that something is being done and being seen to be done.
The corruption of the LME has been widely known for decades.
Also at the start of SMO LBMA said it would no longer certify Russian gold.
Gold bars and bullion must be certified as to purity. With no certification Russian gold can only be used in jewellery … not as a store of wealth. As in national holdings on gold.
So after reading psychohistorians comments earlier… I was intrigued to see this on twitter:
Wall Street Silver.
https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1559797173411352578?cxt=HHwWhMC8rfvQwaUrAAAA
The #gold and #silver plunge at Comex continues with 8-1/4 tonnes of gold our of the vault, bringing the 62 day cumulative decline to 225 tonnes.
Registered silver resumes its decline dropping by 230,000 oz to 55.0 million oz. The 97 day cumulative decline is 37.3 million oz.
> Pay attention to this:
The Comex is being drained of both Gold & Silver.
Big money is taking delivery of physical metal in record amounts right now. #gold #silver
https://twitter.com/mikesay98/status/1559635633886310400
#GOLD IS FLYING OFF THE COMEX LIKE NEVER BEFORE
The 50-day and 100-day average rates of gold withdrawal have NEVER been as high as they are now and they are continuing to accelerate.
>>>Well if you wanted to open an exchange in Moscow for the same commodities, then I guess you’d first have to drain the old exchanges which own the monopoly on those commodities
§§…”Russia proposes a new international standard for trading in precious metals: the Moscow World Standard which will become an alternative to the London Bullion Market Association which systematically manipulates precious metals markets to depress prices’
^ https://twitter.com/wmiddelkoop/status/1559594793931624448
> Actually they propose nothing, they’re just doing it. And let’s not forget it maybe not the biggest economy, however it is far out the biggest country.

Posted by: Melaleuca | Aug 17 2022 15:31 utc | 3

little bit of good news: corrupt psychopath daughter of infamous neocon war criminal and profiteer Dick Cheney lost the primaries. I’m guessing the swamp monsters have started eating each other.

Posted by: SumGuy | Aug 17 2022 15:51 utc | 5

From Reuters

Chinese troops will travel to Russia to take part in joint military exercises led by the host and including India, Belarus, Mongolia, Tajikistan and other countries, China’s defence ministry said on Wednesday.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Aug 17 2022 15:59 utc | 7

Stonebird | Aug 17 2022 16:26 utc | 8
Note that they are taking physical delivery.… this can point to a shortfall in actual gold.”.
Yes. Couldn’t copy/paste every tweet + reply… but yeah, some buzz from this that know… meanwhile bed-bath-beyond is the laser pointer teasing the kitten….

Posted by: Melaleuca | Aug 17 2022 16:32 utc | 9

I found a very good youtube channel “Tales of American Empire” that produces short history lessons of 10-15 minutes which delve into a more truthful version of history rather than the official version that the Western schools and media teach. Such as:
The 1954 CIA Coup in Guatemala
The CIA’s Cocaine Corridor
The 1964 CIA Coup in Brazil
The Dark Side of the 1991 Gulf War
Very useful for finding background information to current issues in an easy to digest way, and triggering deeper research.

Posted by: Roger | Aug 17 2022 16:39 utc | 11

W/r/t vaccines, while I doubt the vaccine was ever more likely to cause an adverse effect than actually getting SARS/covid, the sheer amount of hype that went into mRNA vaccines, hype which is now practically non-existent, is something I’ve found odd. Just a year ago, we were being told that mRNA vaccines were so revolutionary that deaths from just about any illness were going to be a thing of the past. Now, available mRNA vaccines are less efficacious in preventing serious illness from SARS infection than traditional vaccines, including Novavax and the Cuban series of vaccines.
Indeed if Cuban covid data is to be believed, then Cuba now has the most efficacious vaccine regime perhaps in the world, all without the magic of mRNA. With ~99% of the population vaccinated, covid cases have not been eliminated, but daily cases are only in the double digits, compared to quadruple digits in nearby US states like Louisiana, Mississippi, or Florida. Now of course, only barely a majority of the populations in those states are vaccinated against SARS at all, but my hunch is that breakthrough cases are occurring at higher rates in populations mainly vaccinated with mRNA vaccines.

Posted by: fnord | Aug 17 2022 16:55 utc | 13

https://off-guardian.org/2022/08/17/putin-sputnik-v-mass-vaccination/
:Putin<= ask ..for.. opinions on the possible timing of the development of a vaccine. It is important for us to know this now in order to reserve and prepare industrial capacities in advance in order to quickly launch the production of the vaccine in the required volumes. Nikolai Durmanov, Special Representative of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education for Biological Safety. Our experience with Ebola and with swine flu showed us that we can make a very good vaccine that works well on 90 percent of the population, but it will kill 10 percent of the population (in this case mice, thank God) by stimulating this cytokine storm of which we hear so much about. “We will just make fools of ourselves with this early vaccine, which can bring us a lot of trouble,” Chuchalin warned a month after participating in the April 20 videoconference with Putin. At the same time, Putin has raised questions about the safety of foreign-made vaccines. Putin noted that the level of patient protection when vaccinated with AstraZeneca is 63%, while the Sputnik V vaccine shows an efficiency level of 91.6%. The President also mentioned several deaths after the use of the Pfizer vaccine. “Thank God, we don’t have a single case of severe side effects, 10% may have a fever on the second day, but the level of protection and safety is high,” he added. Posted by: fnord | Aug 17 2022 16:55 utc | 13 if Cuban covid data is to be believed, then Cuba now has the most efficacious vaccine regime perhaps in the world, all without the magic of mRNA. what vaccine did Cuba use?

Posted by: snake | Aug 17 2022 17:44 utc | 15

Tis oft said, In geopolitics, that the US is playing checkers while Putin (Russia) is playing chess. And Erdogan? Why. He’s playing Turkish draughts…. And seeing this, that explains everything.
https://twitter.com/TheFigen/status/1559537070196006912
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_draughts
Posted by: Melaleuca | Aug 17 2022 15:23 utc | 1

Checkers has in my opinion gotten an undeservedly bad rap, probably it involves only two types of unit (and the second doesn’t come about for some time). In my experience, that makes checkers by far the harder game than chess, because the tactics in checkers are wide open. In contrast, the pawns in chess severely limit the possible tactics, at least in the early stages of a game. This often permits an accurate assessment without requiring a ton of calculation.
Maybe a better metaphor would be that the US is playing Candy Land.

Posted by: David Levin | Aug 17 2022 17:55 utc | 17

Posted by: Roger | Aug 17 2022 16:39 utc | 11
Magnificent – thanks. When people ask if there is a great conspiracy or if the leadership class are just dumb, my theory of the case is that BOTH are true: the concerted effort we see unravelling before our eyes is an attempt to cover the tracks of crimes that have been continuing for decades. Rather than information technology being a friend of the elite (to control us), it is its worst enemy: information technology can be used to uncover their crimes which they thought would be forgotten – until the internet came and now we can in principle uncover anything. The “big brother” routine currently underway is more of a defensive and reactionary posture than a progressive one.

Posted by: Jonathan W | Aug 17 2022 18:00 utc | 19

One bit of recent good news is that Colombia has elected a progressive president (at least compared to the last few) and is in the process of normalizing relations with neighboring Venezuela.
https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/latin-america/venezuela-and-colombia-name-ambassadors-in-step-toward-normalisation.phtml

Posted by: farm ecologist | Aug 17 2022 18:10 utc | 21

reminds me of William Jenning’s Bryan’s memorable “Cross of Gold” speech during the gold-silver disputes back in the day. of course Silver is the same. i guess the value of metals is they cant come in and turn them to sawdust the way they can just “disappear” digital dollars, but money is based on social agreement about its value, once you get past barter of salt for wheat or whatever.

Posted by: pretzelattack | Aug 17 2022 19:00 utc | 23

@22 c1ue
Hard times are endemic under a sound-money economy. But they are relatively manageable. Human ingenuity becomes an asset as a people weather a situation and emerge stronger.
Weaponized-fiat of empire creates two eras in its teleology: the cheap-debt times of its apex and the horrific bloodletting catastrophe of its end game during currency collapse.
I would still choose sound-money any day of the week and twice on Sunday.
It is not perfect by any means but society can never be perfect.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Aug 17 2022 19:03 utc | 25

@pretzelattack #23
William Jennings Bryan was the Presidential candidate for the Populist party. The Cross of Gold speech was specifically to “fiat” increase the money supply by making gold, money.
As I have pointed out many times before: the Wizard of Oz is a movie version of a book specifically based on the Cross of Gold idea; Dorothy’s slippers were originally silver…

Posted by: c1ue | Aug 17 2022 19:32 utc | 27

@NemesisCalling #25
I disagree vehemently.
Hard money enshrines the financial power of those who hold the gold. Hard money would have prevented China’s lifting of billions of out poverty just as it would have prevented many of the New Deal’s actions (FDR confiscated gold and revalued it precisely because of this).
Those who push for hard money are either stupid or believe they have enough of it that they will benefit; in almost all cases, the latter are wrong.

Posted by: c1ue | Aug 17 2022 19:34 utc | 29

yes i know he was the candidate. he wanted bimetallism. that was the point of the speech. he wanted to increase the money supply by making silver legal tender. gold was already money. Bryan lost, and the gold standard was adopted.

Posted by: pretzelattack | Aug 17 2022 19:36 utc | 31

Why all this BS about gold when both Russia and China have made it clear that the new money with intrinsic value will have precious metals, commodities, raw materials, energy and participating nations currencies as part of a breadbasket of things that are harder to manipulate than just gold or silver or oil.
I am looking forward to the final mix of stuff in and how they intend on managing the breadbasket….we can be sure that it will try to be gamed by those who think there is merit in fleecing others.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Aug 17 2022 19:51 utc | 33

William Jennings Bryan was the Presidential candidate for the Populist party. c1ue @27
Bryan- ‘Prairie Avenger, Mountain Lion’ in Vachel Lindsay’s poem- was the candidate of the Democratic Party in both 1896 and 1900. The People’s Party subsequently nominated him but ran Thomas Watson of Georgia as V-P.
The main plank in Bryan’s platform was to coin silver as currency at the (historic) ratio of 16:1 to gold. I believe that it was also part of FDR’s platform in 1932 as were sub-treasuries and other reforms aimed at restoring the purchasing power of farmers.
China was the big loser from the demonetisation of silver which it had always valued more highly than London where 15.5:1 was the ratio. Contemporary commentators talked of the threat of “The Yellow Man with the white metal” to “The White Man with the yellow metal.”
Currently silver is valued in the region of 100:1. It might be reasonable to bet on an adjustment.

Posted by: bevin | Aug 17 2022 19:52 utc | 35

@29 c1ue
You are looking at historical instances without context. Not only that, but you focusing on a paradigm where TPTB were busily trying to conceal and repress the price of gold after the birth of the Federal Reserve.
This makes sense when you look at the unveiled attempt to confiscate precious metals in the 30s in the States because TPTB could not get their system up off the ground. They needed a war…and they got one. And we have been in a war ever since.
China was struggling to launch itself after decades of imperialism. Now what are they doing after they have used Uncle Sambo and the west, having given the empire its material goods it needed for the empire to gut its own manufacturing base (read: sovereign and functioning economy), simultaneously building up the capability of China? The Chinese are buying gold and cashing in their U.S. treasuries to buy more gold/assets.
Just because I happen to have traded the value of paper for a miniscule amount of pm to safeguard my family’s wealth, does not mean I hope to get rich off a collapse. No, like any good Christian I am waiting for hard times to be able to welcome more Christians home and to be ready with stored wealth for the big feast of the prodigal son.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Aug 17 2022 19:57 utc | 37

Wow!
The big news on Al Jazeera today is the bombshell dropped by Mahmoud Abbas in Germany today. Abbas accused “Israel’s” (((Holocaust Survivors))) of perpetrating 50 Holocausts in Occupied Palestine since 1947.
Surprisingly, or not, Germany’s political bigwigs accused him of Holocaust Denial, cut his speech short, and had a verbal brawl about whether he should have been asked to leave the conference or bashed senseless and tossed into the carpark.
They also cast doubt on the future of Germany’s 1 $Billion per annum Palestine aid program – apparently the largest of any country’s Pal Aid program.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Aug 17 2022 20:03 utc | 39

Posted by: Bemildred | Aug 17 2022 20:08 utc | 40
lightning chess is the best chess imo. yeah, tournament chess, and especially top tier tournament chess, is heavily dependent on memorizing computer lines. and they have these endgame tablebases that have solved a lot of endings. too much memorizing in my view, takes all the fun out of the game.

Posted by: pretzelattack | Aug 17 2022 20:12 utc | 41

@ psychohistorian & Melaleuca
Gentlemen (I assume), thanks for the gold info! I have nothing to do with gold myself, but it fills me with joy that Russia will do gold certification and trading in the future. Actually, might not the storing of gold for foreign central banks also be a welcome option? Thinking of the brazen robbery they performed on Venezuela.
—
SumGuy | Aug 17 2022 15:51 utc | 5
“little bit of good news: corrupt psychopath daughter of infamous neocon war criminal and profiteer Dick Cheney lost the primaries. I’m guessing the swamp monsters have started eating each other.”
Ah, the glee! Did you see the Twitter picture with Cheney as Miss Piggy?

Posted by: Scotch Bingeington | Aug 17 2022 20:38 utc | 43

Re: Farsi / Dari languages (etc) translator
I’d like to learn to speak a few Farsi and Dari words, for the people I meet in my Neighbourhood.
Google translate usually does OK. but this time only gave me the Arabic written squiggles, which I can’t make heads or tails of. No Persian, Farsi, Iranian, no phonetics nor Audio 🙁
DeepL wasn’t any better for Iranian languages. They probably don’t have Pashtun either.
Does anybody have a decent app/whatever for Farsi/Dari, SPOKEN, not in Arabic written squiggles (no offense).
Thank you ;1

Posted by: Featherless | Aug 17 2022 21:35 utc | 45

Checkers and Chess
Checkers might have been solved as early as 2001, but the first peer reviewed paper(that I know of) confirming this was published in 2007.
Chess is quite a ways from being solved, although computer analysis has played a big role in training for a couple decades.
As far as memorization goes, unless one is playing at master level, too much focus on memorization will hurt one’s game. I play at the expert level (1900ELO) and memorize very little.
Computers have ruined correspondence chess, to some degree, as there are a lot of cheaters out there using computers.
Even when computers do solve chess, I don’t think it will affect the game much. It is impossible for the human mind to memorize all the variations.
The rapid chess variations are a lot of fun. They are also good training tools as one will see unorthodox positions arise that can have useful application in standard games.

Posted by: Haassaan | Aug 17 2022 21:50 utc | 47

Pepe:
The financial lineaments of the post-SWIFT world will have to come out of a SCO-EAEU association, in connection with BRICS+.

Posted by: financial matters | Aug 17 2022 22:12 utc | 49

@NemesisCalling #37
It is quite clear that your understanding of what a collapse entails, is not well thought through at all.
A small amount of gold isn’t going to do squat except delay starvation. Nor is a small amount of gold going to protect against the looters and bandits.
If you’re not part of a moderately large, well supplied, band of people – it is a waste of time.
The apocryphal stories of 2 gold coins buying a square block of Berlin are what fuel a lot of gold doomers’ fantasies, but that was a very unique situation – one which the US does not face.
The issue now is more about pricing power: are you of the labor type that can push through wage increases to keep up with inflation? Are you of the business type that can sustain significantly long periods of stagflation because you are selling things people can’t do without? Or are selling the things which the few rich, want?
None of this has anything to do with gold, nor is any “collapse” going to be Zimbabwe.
A reprise of the Great Depression would be plenty bad enough…

Posted by: c1ue | Aug 17 2022 22:35 utc | 51

Posted by: Melaleuca | Aug 17 2022 15:24 utc | 2
“…51 years ago today, on 08/15/1971, Nixon suspended the convertibility of the US dollar into gold.
This was the beginning of the largest Ponzi scheme ever seen.
____________________________________________________________
That sounds about right. However, the gold standard was the biggest Ponzi scheme ever seen before that.
Personally I think when tulips were the standard by which value was judged it was the epitome of sensible economics in the Western world.
In the East rice was the standard for value for a long time. That was when the vast majority of people produced rice.

Posted by: jinn | Aug 17 2022 23:13 utc | 53

jinn @53–
I recall when salt was used as currency. I also admire the Melanesians who used yams as currency. I did as much study of their political-economy as I could given the sparse resources. They were 100% collectivist societies living as one within their surround. Many were successful at defeating the British and Dutch attempts to colonize them by refusing to adopt a cash economy. Fascinating study that pushed me to think of how a cashless society might be configured.

Posted by: karlof1 | Aug 17 2022 23:37 utc | 55

Posted by: Haassaan | Aug 17 2022 21:50 utc | 47
i quit when i reached NM, the only way to progress further would be lots of memorization. unless you enjoy that, it’s a total waste of time, all in order to gain some rating points that you can’t even buy a cup of coffee with. all i play these days is 1 minute, the reason i started playing in the first place was to have fun, tournaments and slow time controls are just too much of a grind. it’s not like chess has any practical relevance, look what a tool Kasparov is in his “second career”.

Posted by: pretzelattack | Aug 18 2022 0:07 utc | 57

Posted by: c1ue | Aug 17 2022 22:30 utc | 50
yeah but the wizard won, and the munchkins, and the good witches, and at least he admitted he was a charlatan, unlike Anthony Watts, or the rest of the army of shills.
your interpretation of this as a political fable is also questionable
Numerous political references to the “Wizard” appeared early in the 20th century. Henry Littlefield, an upstate New York high school history teacher, wrote a scholarly article in 1964, the first full-fledged interpretation of the novel as an extended metaphor of the politics and characters of the 1890s.[51] He paid special attention to the Populist metaphors and debates over silver and gold.[52] Baum was a Republican and avid supporter of women’s suffrage, and it is thought[by whom?] that he did not support the political ideals of either the Populist movement of 1890–1892 or the Bryanite silver crusade of 1896–1900. He published a poem in support of William McKinley.[53]
Since 1964, many scholars, economists, and historians have expanded on Littlefield’s interpretation, pointing to multiple similarities between the characters (especially as depicted in Denslow’s illustrations) and stock figures from editorial cartoons of the period. Littlefield wrote to The New York Times letters to the editor section spelling out that his theory had no basis in fact, but that his original point was “not to label Baum, or to lessen any of his magic, but rather, as a history teacher at Mount Vernon High School, to invest turn-of-the-century America with the imagery and wonder I have always found in his stories.”[54]
Baum’s newspaper had addressed politics in the 1890s, and Denslow was an editorial cartoonist as well as an illustrator of children’s books. A series of political references is included in the 1902 stage version, such as references to the President, to a powerful senator, and to John D. Rockefeller for providing the oil needed by the Tin Woodman. Scholars have found few political references in Baum’s Oz books after 1902. Baum was asked whether his stories had hidden meanings, but he always replied that they were written to “please children”.[55]

Posted by: pretzelattack | Aug 18 2022 0:16 utc | 59

Canada Files, which goes from strength to strength, publishes a story on the relationship between one of the country’s top reporters and his patrons at CSIS.
https://www.thecanadafiles.com/articles/top-canadian-reporter-volunteered-to-promote-domestic-intelligence-campaign-documents-reveal
Some may be interested in this: “The Canada Files is pleased to confirm that we can offer financial compensation for two kinds of articles: news analyses and investigations…”

Posted by: bevin | Aug 18 2022 0:41 utc | 61

Liz Cheney doomed any anti-Trump efforts within the GOP:
*Extreme election defeat
*Sent a letter asking Democrats to vote for her
*Talks only about neocon policy, not Wyoming
*Dad’s ridiculous video saying Trump is “the biggest threat to our republic” in U.S. history
*Forgot the election and only focused on some other future career with leftist media help
She has completely shamed the GOP’s anti-Trump side, who now look like greedy Democrat agents.

Posted by: Tenet | Aug 18 2022 1:06 utc | 63

Hmm, Richard Haass of the Council of Foreign Relations says, regarding pro-Trump Hageman victory:
“This is as dangerous a moment for this country as we’ve seen since the run-up to the Civil War.”
Checking Haass’ race in Wikipedia. Yep.
During the Civil War this guy’s ancestors were selling liquor to alcoholic Russian peasants despite the men’s wives begging the sellers to stop taking the money they needed for their children.

Posted by: Tenet | Aug 18 2022 1:37 utc | 65

Posted by: Haassaan | Aug 18 2022 1:33 utc | 64

To discern whether my comment that started the “chess v. checkers” subthread might have been unduly influenced by the disparity between my study of chess and of checkers (which isn’t much above nil), I decided to try to learn more about checkers strategy, if I could find a useful resource freely online.
The best source I’ve found thus far (and a fine one at that) is Move Over by Derek Oldbury. Having read about 15 pages, I believe that my earlier comment might have somewhat overemphasized the role that tactics plays in checkers. But I’m still not sure that mastering checkers isn’t at least as challenging as mastering chess.

Posted by: David Levin | Aug 18 2022 2:32 utc | 67

“This is as dangerous a moment for this country as we’ve seen since the run-up to the Civil War.”
Posted by: Tenet | Aug 18 2022 1:37 utc | 65
Agreed – though not for the same reasons as Haass.

Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 18 2022 3:00 utc | 69

Tenet @ 65
“This is as dangerous a moment for this country as we’ve seen since the run-up to the Civil War.”
So the alt right with Trump at the front defeated Clinton Bush Cheney. Somehow I feel a bit safer. I wonder why?

Posted by: circumspect | Aug 18 2022 3:17 utc | 71

I’d like to learn to speak a few Farsi and Dari words, for the people I meet in my Neighbourhood.
Posted by: Featherless | Aug 17 2022 21:35 utc | 45
Severe undertaking, no audio; I read and write Farsi, so farsidic.com works for me. Here is poke at it, to just get you started, but goes a long way since etiquette is paramount in the culture.
Salam (sa as in sag, la as in lawn) —> hello
Haletoon (ha as in haha) chetoreh (formal) — how are you?
Halet (ha as in haha) chetoreh (familiar) — how are you?
Esmeh man Featherless hast. —> my name is Featherless
Esmeh shoma chieh? —> what is your name?
Merci or Mamnoon or Motoshakker —> thank you.
Baleh (ba as in back) — > yes.
Nah (na as in nap) or Nahkheir —> no.
Sorry this is all the time I have now for this post. I will try to make a better effort later, time allowing.

Posted by: Sakineh Bagoom | Aug 18 2022 3:39 utc | 73

Robert Macaire | Aug 18 2022 3:31 utc | 72–
Your comment illustrates the very unusual dance ongoing between Russia, China and Outlaw US Empire. China and the Empire are locked in a geoeconomic co-dependency waltz that would deepen if Biden removed Trump’s Tariffs, while the Empire is very dependent on many products supplied by Russia, Europe’s desperation proves the deep nature of its dependency on Russia, while Russia has weaned itself from any dependency on the West. The old man’s comment accurately reflects China’s pickle–China remains too dependent on trade with the Empire; Trump’s Trade War was actually beneficial to China as it forced China to become less dependent. This short column by Crooke makes some important points.

Posted by: karlof1 | Aug 18 2022 3:52 utc | 75

ZH has a posting up with the title
Russia, China And India To Hold Massive “Vostok” War Games In Two Weeks
The take away quote

Chinese troops will travel to Russia to take part in war games along with India, Belarus, Mongolia, Tajikistan and other largely anti-Western countries, China’s defense ministry said on Wednesday, adding redundantly that China’s participation in the joint exercises was “unrelated to the current international and regional situation.” (Narrator: it is related.)
Last month, Moscow announced plans to hold “Vostok” (East) exercises from Aug. 30 to Sept. 5, even as it wages war in Ukraine. It said at the time that some foreign forces would participate, without naming them. It turns out that the “foreign forces” account for just under half of the world’s population.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Aug 18 2022 4:37 utc | 77

Posted by: Robert Macaire | Aug 18 2022 3:31 utc | 72
Great Youtube channel. Thanks.
Boy, she speaks excellent Chinese!

Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 18 2022 5:08 utc | 79

The recent revelations of the extraordinary secret attempt by the then Prime Minister of Australia to aggregate to himself the ministerial powers of at least five ministries (Health, Finance, Treasury, Science & Resources and Home Affairs).
I say “at least five” because the tally has gone from two to three to five in short succession – he has claimed that he completely “forgot” that he made himself Treasurer; it is possible that he has “forgotten” others.
It is the secrecy which is most troubling about this; his excuse now is that he was protecting the nation from being without responsible ministers in the case of COVID-19 cutting a swathe through the Cabinet, but that really doesn’t wash. He was setting himself up to be able to be a one-man government. Whether he recognised it or not, it was attempted dictatorship. Legal advice needed as to whether this subversion is a crime.
Secondly, he did this “legally” by using the Governor-General’s constitutional powers – that the Governor-General went along with this (in secret) has totally damaged the reputation of that office. The Governor-General should be sacked, now. Further, the whole constitution plainly needs an overhaul.

Posted by: Hope | Aug 18 2022 5:35 utc | 81

“Pelosi is an old China hand with contacts in both Taiwan and PRC”
you mean In US backed companies operating in China?
Big difference.

Posted by: K | Aug 18 2022 6:20 utc | 83

Hope | Aug 18 2022 5:35 utc | 82
Australian Governor General
[latest]…
“……has totally damaged the reputation of that office. “
Nope. No one who knows has had any respect…. nothing but contempt…. for the “office” of GG since the 1975 Whitlam Dismissal.
“……The Governor-General should be sacked, now.
Abolished.
“… the whole constitution plainly needs an overhaul.
You can thank Malcolm Turdball for sabotaging a reasonably solid previous attempt.

Posted by: Melaleuca | Aug 18 2022 6:31 utc | 85

Attention Canadians
There is material to be digested at ZeroAnthropology.
https://zeroanthropology.net/
😉

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Aug 18 2022 7:28 utc | 87

Re: Lying asshole ex Oz PM, Scum Mo.
A few years ago ABC.net.au’s then Chief Political Correspondent, Annabel Crabbe hosted a show along the lines of Let’s Do Lunch. Annabel would prepare a dessert and take it to the/a home of a hi-profile politician, who would personally prepare the rest of the meal which would be consumed during an informal filmed interview.
Each show begins with Annabel preparing dessert in her kitchen, during which she tells us who today’s lunch host will be and which direction her curiosity might take her/us.
Anyhow, she described Scum Mo as a Christian Zionist. And he makes no secret of the fact that he’s a member of Hillsong, an Evangelican Christian outfit. So lots of room for loony ideas in that combo – not to mention the God-bothering potential….

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Aug 18 2022 7:32 utc | 89

Posted by: Melaleuca | Aug 17 2022 16:33 utc | 10
Dr Malhotra has a valuable contribution to the debate about refined added sugar being a major cause of obesity and diabetes. Some however think that his approach, which advocates stopping statins and cutting out sugar from diet is the answer and is a member of the so called ‘statin deniers’, is problematic and can be dangerous as it stops vulnerable people from taking statins. What has to be considered is that given the large number of people who are obese and the other connected lifestyle features, that at present there is no quick answer and statins have been shown by extensive trials to be safe and to reduce the risk of heart disease and strokes. So he is partially correct, but we are where we are and maybe the new generation will not need statins if they reduce their sugar intake.
But Dr. Malhotra’s contribution to Vaccine skepticism is only because he quite rightly feels that major risk factors (but not the only risk factors) of dying from Covid are obesity and diabetes and therefore the answer is a change of diet, is exaggeratedly simplistic and typical of the sort of scientific tunnel vision of some dedicated doctors and researchers and this can do more harm than good.
There is no evidence nor a consensus in the scientific community that covid vaccines are more dangerous than covid infections. This is utter nonsense.

Posted by: Orage | Aug 18 2022 8:41 utc | 91

Melaleuca #10
Re pfizzer see my link to zeroanthropology.net
https://zeroanthropology.net/
Public tribunals have commenced.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Aug 18 2022 9:10 utc | 93

Apologies if already posted:
Lijian Zhao 赵立坚
China government official
Spokesman & DDG, Information Department, Foreign Ministry, China.
“Everyone needs a clear understanding of himself.
So does a nation. (America)”
https://mobile.twitter.com/zlj517/status/1559530185686675457

Posted by: anon2020 | Aug 18 2022 9:51 utc | 95

Orage | Aug 18 2022 8:41 utc | 92

There is no evidence nor a consensus in the scientific community that covid vaccines are more dangerous than covid infections.
And yet. What Dr Aseem Malhotra is stating in the twit I linked, is that the *raw trial data* from both Pfizer and Moderna evidence exactly that.
>This is utter nonsense.

Is it?
Then it would seem your quarrel is with Pfizer and Moderna, not me.

Posted by: Melaleuca | Aug 18 2022 10:00 utc | 97

I realise Olaf Scholz is qualified only to be a supermarket department manager and Habeck well-suited to the role of Substitute Teacher, but what was the point of imposing a Surcharge (“Umlage”) on Gas Consumers to fund the State rescue of Uniper – whose contracts to buy Russian gas had been up-ended by Habeck in Berlin – leaving them with a €12,000,000,000 loss for the year……………..
When to mollify anger over this Surcharge to pay for Habeck’s ideological rigidity on Nordstream 2 and on fossil fuels – they decide to cut VAT on gas from 19% to 7% for the period the Surcharge is being levied ??????
They lose more money by reducing VAT than they were going to raise with the Surcharge itself !!!!!!!!
These people are dedicated to FUBAR and Clusterfuck………….how did such people ever find each other to create such a policy of National Suicide and Insolvency ?

Posted by: Paul Greenwood | Aug 18 2022 11:32 utc | 99