Sorry to start this post with a COVID comment, but i have just been looking at Australian statistics and they are very revealing.

For those of you not aware, Australia kept very tight borders until late 2021 and we had very few deaths. Almost 2/3 of all deaths have been in the last 6 months. OK we are killing off our elderly and infirm- good for the aged care bottom line- less pressure on pensions etc. Clearly the vaccinations are not working as expected- or not for the elderly anyway. (I am not anti vax so do not get me started, but i can read data).

However what is for me much mor puzzling and possibly disturbing is the place of birth of the victims. OK there are socio-economic factors that makes those with less education and or resources living in crowded conditions much more susceptible. Age-standardised death rate for almost all diseases will be higher for most migrant groups except those that come from privileged Northern Europe.

However I am trying to understand why the Age-standardised death rate from COVID should be 6 times higher for those from the middle east (45.9), far higher than the Age-standardised death rate than for those born in Australia (7.6) and even for those from South Asia (10.7) where the socioeconomic profiles might have been similar. that is one heck of a difference and I am struggling to find a benign explanation.

Posted by: watcher | Aug 14 2022 13:06 utc | 1

Having looked at Jimmy Carter on Rushdie I felt moved to comment. As one who has actually read the book - reacting to the 1989 outbreak of lunacy on Satanic Verses - I was truly disappointed. It was more Anti-British than Anti-Muslim.

Rent-a-Mob in Bradford took to the streets because they were in mosques funded by Saudi Arabian Wahhabis.

Douglas Hurd, Thatcher's Home Secretary had updated the 1936 Public Order act in 1986 and FAILED to use it to stop the violent protests. Keith Vaz, later a prominent Labour Nabob led a group of protesters in Leicester calling for Rushdie's head.......yet he had a long and corrupt career in Parliament in London.

As for US protecting Freedoms - that may have been true with Solzhenitsyn but not since. Rushdie was not protected. He was safer in UK.

Assange is not safe.

Snowden is not safe.

You are only safe in US if THE SYSTEM has use for you.

As for the lunatic who stabbed him - I bet FBI triggered him as part of the "Israel hates Iran" routine and "US wants to fight Israel's foes".

US needs to have 360 degree warfare - China + Russia + Europe + Iran + Domestic US population

Posted by: Paul Greenwood | Aug 14 2022 13:06 utc | 2

"As for US protecting Freedoms - that may have been true with Solzhenitsyn but not since." PG@2

What a peculiar thing to say? You have much more sense than to believe that American indifference to tyranny began in recent decades. You must have hear of Jim Crow and the indigenous nations.
As for Solzhenitsyn, we understand that he was a creative writer and that his work needs to be interpreted as all art must be.
The truth is, and the CIA produced a report that confirmed it, that the prison system in the USSR was no larger and no more brutal than that in the USA.
Did you notice the death last week, I think it was, of one of the Angola Three, who were in solitary confinement for more than 40 years? There are US Solzhenitsyns too but eiother they do not write as well or, for some curious reason, they are not taken up and massively promoted by the NATO freedom lovers in the way that every Soviet critic who could put pen to paper was whisked over to Norway to pick up the Nobel Prize. Christ, it happened again this year with a newspaper editor who loved freedom so much that he reprints CIA critiques of Putin.

Posted by: bevin | Aug 14 2022 13:54 utc | 3

As for the lunatic who stabbed him - I bet FBI triggered him as part of the "Israel hates Iran" routine and "US wants to fight Israel's foes".
@ Paul Greenwood | Aug 14 2022 13:06 utc | 2

I had the exact same thought, fwiw. Meshing perfectly with the concocted plot against John Bolton "revealed" a few days ago. Anything -- even the loss of a great writer -- to gin up eternal warfare against whomever: Russia, China, Iran... turns out that is what "triangulation" means.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Aug 14 2022 14:07 utc | 4

US delegation led by senator Ed Markey arrived today in Taiwan to discuss "security issues"

Posted by: rk | Aug 14 2022 14:14 utc | 5

New York's polio outbreak looks likely to envelope the country -- what's to stop it?

Vaccinations at this point are after the fact of this venerable virus metastastasizing across USA's uniquely vulnerable population, like wildfire. Polio is very difficult to eradicate, because the vast majority of carriers are asymptomatic. Back in the day when international cooperation in some realms was still feasible, the global polio eradication effort came this close to a triumph for humanity...

Then came Operation Geronimo, in which USA opted to impersonate vaccination workers, killing two birds with one stone: Osama bin Laden and any hope for wrapping up global polio eradication. Crippled children pay the price for Barack Obama's unfathomable depravity.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Aug 14 2022 14:25 utc | 6

What a peculiar thing to say? You have much more sense than to believe that American indifference to tyranny began in recent decades. You must have hear of Jim Crow and the indigenous nations.

Oh, I know so much US political history and from the inside.........but whenever I see the name "Bevin" I think of Ernest, founder of the T&GWU Union in England and Foreign Secretary 1945-51 and instigator of NATO..........a more ardent Anti-Communist you could not conceive........so whenever I see you post, I think of Ernest Bevin

Posted by: Paul Greenwood | Aug 14 2022 14:28 utc | 7

watcher | Aug 14 2022 13:06 utc | 1

"that is one heck of a difference and I am struggling to find a benign explanation".

Stop struggling, I doubt the real explanation is benign.
Think of the difficulty Iran had to curtail deaths.

Posted by: Stonebird | Aug 14 2022 14:52 utc | 8

The NYT article regarding the FBI's raid that throws the coming election is indeed correct.

But without even reading it, I am wondering if they can follow the train of logic to the possible implications here: there is a Nationalist-contingent in this Federal entity that will torpedo itself willingly, knowing that the Federal Gov't has long been infiltrated by globalists, to aid the Patriot movement.

Iow, Trump and the Nationalists in our Federal Gov't are indeed working together.

It's easy to ensnare the establishment because they are so dumb. You simply drum-up some stupid allegations of nuclear secrets, seek an estab-captured judge to issue a warrant, and badda-bing, badda-boom, you have a recipe for ratcheting up the pressure on the estab by exposing its politicization.

Is this part of the coup that is likely coming our way? It could be.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Aug 14 2022 15:01 utc | 9

Posted by: Paul Greenwood | Aug 14 2022 14:28 utc | 7

I, however, think of a primary school teacher of mine, Mr. Bevin, who turned out to have seved in my father's regiment in North Africa during WW2, for which reason at first I was singled out favorably, but alas later on conscience prevailed and I was perhaps treated more severely than others in the class (at least, that was my perception). However, he was a dear man who told us of the eagerness of Italian soldiers to be captured and saved from a war they did not want to be in.

Posted by: juliania | Aug 14 2022 15:22 utc | 10

Sorry, 'served' in my father's regiment.

Posted by: juliania | Aug 14 2022 15:24 utc | 11

Posted by: watcher | Aug 14 2022 13:06 utc | 1

Your comment is gold.

Posted by: Jonathan W | Aug 14 2022 15:39 utc | 12

I think the theories that claim Trump is in cahoots with globalists are another Q hoax launched by those (like the globalists) who want to undermine Trump's credibility. Was Q one of those hoaxes? Indeed it was. If it wasn't, why is the FBI not interested in arresting Q or even finding out who he was? Instead, this is what happened: when Trump told the J6 crowd to protest "peacefully and patriotically" the FBI and the rest of the lot contend he was speaking in code to the Q crowd, telling them to riot.

This "reasoning" is equally applicable to Alex Jones. We have seen theories that he is one of "them" and he has millions of dollars pouring into his bank accounts. This is the theory that is pushed by the Soros crowd to skewer him financially.

Posted by: Jonathan W | Aug 14 2022 15:52 utc | 13

Posted by: watcher | Aug 14 2022 13:06 utc | 1

Nothing sinister on the face of it.

Middle -Eastern groups are vastly much more reluctant to deny vaccination than Southern Asian groups ,whether Indian or SE Asian. Although from similar type poverty ,the Indians and SEAsians respect learning and education ie secular institutions.

The Middle Easterners in Australia do not, are mainly anti vaxxers and conservative Muslims. They die from covid accordingly and their religion is fatalistic anyway. Kismet after all is an Islamic notion. “What happens, happens, Grandma died…let’s move on .”

That Byzantine Emperor , writing an unfavourable letter on Islam to the Pope of Rome , knew what he was talking about.

Posted by: Brother Ma | Aug 14 2022 16:23 utc | 14

Thanks very much for the Covert Action Magazine piece, b - very well organized essay that begins with Abraham Lincoln's famous line in his correct phraseology:

You can fool part of the people some of the time, you can fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.

I'm sure I've been guilty of mangling that in the past; it's best as he said it.

There's also a beautiful captioned illustration I won't spoil by quoting - it has to be seen to be enjoyed. The point about Absolute Truth is very well done.

Thank you, b, for allowing as much leeway here as you do allow. I did try to follow the first covid article. I apologize for not grasping even the first groupings as described, and getting lost in the graphs and statistics, then giving up. Probably that was intentional - either that or I'm just plain dumb, the latter being an Absolute Truth with which I am very familiar.

Some day there will be explanations of the categories of people who face such virus attacks on the order of the Lincoln quotation, which fools like me can hopefully understand.

Posted by: juliania | Aug 14 2022 16:33 utc | 15

I'm obviously in the first of Lincoln's categories (at least I hope not the second) so my apologies that my words remained blockquoted above at 15. I did Preview but missed that.

Thank you, b. A very informative weekly review.

Posted by: juliania | Aug 14 2022 16:38 utc | 16

The recommended "The Beginning of History - Surviving the Era of Catastrophic Risk" in Foreign Affairs bears all the marks of articles which have been approved, despite their potentially subversive content, in that it has occasional hints that the author is on the 'right' side.
The example that struck me was that, in examining the dangers of biological warfare, he begins by alleging that Russia is practising it. He omits to say anything of the dozens, perhaps hundreds of bioweapon facilities in the empire, not to mention the US use of them in the Korean (among other) War and the adoption and protection of the war criminals in Japan's Unit 731 (I believe it was called).
Such obfuscation and kowtowing to power ought to to leave the author's scholarship with little credibility.

Paul Greenwood | Aug 14 2022 14:28 utc | 7, are you now supposing that I am unaware of Bevin's unsavory reputation? Or are you suggesting that I am an anti-communist docker desperately trying to earn the respect of the aristocracy.
According to Dalton, George VI, fearing Attlee's 'radicalism' suggested that perhaps the more reliable Bevin should be called upon to be Prime Minister.
He was, as I can confirm from reliable private sources, extremely popular with the most doctrinaire Tories in the Foreign Office but his 'anti-communism' differed significantly from that of the true believers, Mayhew, Healey et al, and the State Department in that he believed that British propaganda should not only be aimed at the masses of workers and peasants but should celebrate a social-democratic 'Third Course.'
As to why I choose the name of this illegitimate son of a poor Bristol teenager, who was brought up in rural Devon by a pair of kindly old women, suffice it to say that it wasn't because he joined up with the anti-communists on the right of the Labour Party.
So far as the name Greenwood is concerned you will be aware that Arthur of that name and Bevin were the two leading voices from the Labour Party against acceptance of German peace proposals in 1940.
Apologies to all for wasting space.

Posted by: bevin | Aug 14 2022 16:49 utc | 17

The recommended "The Beginning of History - Surviving the Era of Catastrophic Risk" in Foreign Affairs bears all the marks of articles which have been approved, despite their potentially subversive content, in that it has occasional hints that the author is on the 'right' side.
[...snip...]
Such obfuscation and kowtowing to power ought to to leave the author's scholarship with little credibility.

Posted by: bevin | Aug 14 2022 16:49 utc | 17

I'd tend to assign little credibility to anything published in Foreign Affairs, being that it's the organ of the Council on Foreign Relations, which from its inception has been an instrument of the new world order.

Posted by: David Levin | Aug 14 2022 17:02 utc | 18

And now for something truly off-topic...

I was much amused by the following recent off-topic discussion at the website Bridge Winners dot com.

Person A (quoting from the article): "'Amherst College is a small liberal arts school with a student population of less than 2000, so everybody knows each other.'

"When I was at university, my college had about 200 undergraduates; I didn't know even all the 60 odd in my year."

Person B: "Oxbridge collegial is a very different world to American College life.

"I went to one; have kids in the other."

Person A: "I'm sure that you're right. I just find it hard to believe that 'everybody knows each other' in an institution with a population approaching 2,000.

"But maybe I'm just anti-social."

Person C: "Nobody, not even a school teacher, is ever going to 'know' 2000 people. But I don't know whether you know what 'know' means."

Person A: "I'm not sure that I know what know means."

Person C: "I know that I sometimes know what know means, for example Genesis 4:1: 'Now Adam knew Eve his wife, ...'"

Person A: "A 400 year old translation of the Greek version of a book written in Hebrew and itself compiled from various sources. Who knows what any of it means?"

Person C: "Genesis 4:1 doesn't leave much room for doubt - but what do I know. In those days divine intervention appears to have been more frequent and more effective: 'And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.'"

Person D: "I have read that the King James Version is the last really good thing produced by a committee."

Person E: "Who knows what any of it means?

"Those of us who read it in the original Hebrew?"

Person F: "Is something lost in translation?"

Person G: "I think you have hijacked this thread quite enough."

Posted by: David Levin | Aug 14 2022 17:07 utc | 19

b, many thanks for the especially dense (and salubrious) Week in Review. I was reminded of that song Circles, which Sheryl Crow just released her version of a couple weeks ago.

https://youtu.be/MPaPEEoKYwk

(I was going to comment interspersed with song lyrics but I think that might - justifiably - test the patience of the bar.)

- Appreciate the report on that militant vegan minority settled in the Isle of Wight.

- My preferred quotation from the Express’ “Global world order is changing” :

“Last month, the head of the FBI Christopher Wray and head of the Security Services Ken McCallum stood on the podium at Thames House and delivered an unprecedented warning that China is the largest threat to western security.

Mr Wray said: “We consistently see that it’s the Chinese government that poses the biggest long-term threat to our economic and national security, and by "our", I mean both of our nations, along with our allies in Europe and elsewhere.””

- Here’s an interesting exercise that I stumbled on while trying to get around a paywall: Google search “Britain is broken”

MK Bhadrakumar posted a must-read tweet linking to an article on Dominic Raab sunbathing while the Taliban seized power in Kabul. Thought it might be a nice addition to the list you compiled:
https://twitter.com/BhadraPunchline/status/1558802822527066112

Posted by: Bruised Northerner | Aug 14 2022 17:08 utc | 20

The Foreign Affairs quote is extremely telling for its use of ‘we’ many times, as in “ To tackle the task before us, we must reflect on where we stand in humanity’s full lineage.”
We? Which We? The whole human race? The majority? Or some minority? Owned by a fraction of a percent of the whole of humanity?

It just reminds me of one these jokes I learnt at school with my fellow budding comedians. The Lone Ranger and Tonto arrive at Little Big Horn just as the Seventh Cavalry is about to get mullered. The ever more Loner Ranger turns to his trusty burden and suggests that ‘we are in trouble’ to which the punchline response by the trusty sidekick is ‘what do you mean ‘WE’, white man’.

I thank you, I’m at the end of the pier all week 😎

PS re Bevin above , re Bevin the Labour minister - his grave should be attached to the National Grid, he gave us the NHS, that his Party has dismantled in all but name since Blair invaded No10. There may be hope - Mick Lynch and a few others who have arrived as Corbyns young guns from the grassroots, if they survive the rabid attack of the Starmerite face of slave masters for slave owners. Though I am still hoping for a Revolution.

Posted by: DunGroanin | Aug 14 2022 17:27 utc | 21

Below are some quotes from ZH articles about Taiwan

You can't make this shit up...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's son is the second largest investor in a Chinese tech company whose senior executive was arrested in a fraud investigation, according to DailyMail.com, raising questions about his secretive visit to Taiwan with his mother.

53-year-old Paul Pelosi Jr did not publicly disclose his stake before accompanying his mother on the taxpayer-funded trip to Taiwan.

Pelosi is not only a major investor in Borqs, a player in the Chinese internet-of-things and 5G sector, but has also worked as a consultant for the firm, rewarded for his services with 700,000 shares in the firm, at which time his holdings were exceeded only by CEO Pat Sek Yuen Chan.

Upon learning that Pelosi Jr. had tagged along with his mother’s delegation, several Taiwanese politicians, including the former chair of the island’s financial supervisory commission, Tseng Ming-chung, have demanded to know whether the island’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party had a financial relationship with the Pelosi family and whether the congresswoman’s visit involved business interests.

The younger Pelosi was not listed as a member of the delegation and had no government post or other stated mission to carry out.

It is unclear what Pelosi Jr.'s role at the company was.

Additionally, Pelosi Jr. was appointed to the boards of two lithium mining companies in 2020 and 2021. His appointments have drawn new scrutiny following his visit to Taiwan, a lithium mining capital.

His role involves "making explicit introductions between Altair and potential strategic partners in the various industries of interest for expansion," according to a press release at the time.

As a reminder, Pelosi and her husband have been accused of insider trading regarding Paul Pelosi Sr.’s trades on tech giants Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet last month, which netted the family millions in profits.

While the House speaker makes $223,500 annually in her government role, her net worth is estimated as high as $252 million, according to her own financial disclosures.

One could be forgiven for seeing a pattern here among the highest ranking Democratic party officials whose offspring appear gifted at discovering lucrative positions in foreign companies while their parents 'run' the largest economy in the world.

end one ZH article and start of quotes from another

A mere 12 days after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's Taiwan trip enraged China and triggered a week of threatening military drills, a new delegation of American lawmakers has touched down on the self-ruled island.

"The five-member delegation, led by Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, will meet senior leaders to discuss U.S.-Taiwan relations, regional security, trade, investment and other issues, the American Institute in Taiwan said," The Associated Press reports.

........

Adding to current tensions, starting last Tuesday Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl confirmed that the US Navy will soon conduct another "freedom of navigation exercise" through the contested Taiwan Strait, despite an ongoing heavy Chinese military presence.

Kahl said the sail-through is slated for "the coming days," describing that "We will continue to do Taiwan Strait transits, as we have in the past, in the coming weeks… We will continue to do freedom of navigation operations elsewhere in the region." The US Navy has continued to have the USS Ronald Reagan carrier strike group in regional waters near China, after the White House extended its deployment to the are in the wake of the Pelosi trip.

Are we returning to normal now....grin

Posted by: psychohistorian | Aug 14 2022 17:46 utc | 22

thanks b and to all the entertaining posters today even if you aren't trying to be funny, lol..

@ David Levin | Aug 14 2022 17:07 utc | 19

thanks.. i wonder which church adam and eve went to so that she could be his ''wife''?? i personally don't know much...

Posted by: james | Aug 14 2022 17:49 utc | 23

-The German Greens and Unprincipled Lust for Power - Gilbert Doctorow
-Germany’s foreign minister bangs the drum for war in New York speech - WSWS

Thanks for the links, recommended reading for those residing in Germany and EU.

The galactically stupid Baerbock's speech in NYC, where not start... she sounds like someone willing to turn their country into the next Ukraine, promoting a 'partnership' with the USA, which we all know means the USA using your country to poke Russia and China and will inevitably bring war and misery right at your doorstep. There are no equals, just vassals in NATO, wake up lady!

As if the current example of Ukraine wasn't already a flashing red light to warn Germany not to get involved in military partnerships with the USA, let me see, who was eagerly funding Germany in the 1930's and supporting their militarisation if not the good ol' USA... turned out just great for Germans and Europeans didn't it?

What an utter disgrace these Greens have shown themselves to be, particularly for someone like me who always voted Green back in Australia, back when they were led by Bob Brown, a staunch pacifist, and whom whatever one's views, could objectively be regarded as a responsible and decent politician, particularly by modern Western standards

Posted by: Et Tu | Aug 14 2022 17:55 utc | 24

Regarding poster #1 on Covid. Vitamin D levels are very important for the immune defense and several dataset shows lower vitamin D levels among those with Covid. Datasets for this includes a large Israeli study where the impact of clothing among secular Jews, orthodox Jews and Arab women was clearly discernable - the stricter the dress code the lower vitamin D levels the worse Covid outcome. Similar patterns can be seen in more northern countries with recent African or Middle East immigrants where their lower vitamin D levels also work to their disadvantage.
Humans can only survive at high latitudes when being dark skinned if they eat food naturally rich in vitamin D, such as arctic fish or marine mammals, ie the inuits.

Posted by: FkDahl | Aug 14 2022 18:11 utc | 25

"ukie hasbara wearing thin": that headline would have been just as apt in march but once again "the dumb f_cks are fooling the dumb f_cks!" was never something to worry about.

rushdie: those links are more or less my thinking since i read it 20+ years ago. it helped that i was reading dave sim's essays on islam at the same time. not a great book to begin with and i feel like until now all the fatwa did was increase its sales.

covid: seeing as i'm at the ass end of BA.5 right now i can say even with the vaccine it's a giant, monotonous pain in the ass. oddly, my SO and i have different symptoms considering we both got it due to a dumb bitch at their work place. whereas my pre-infection view of covidiots was a bit aggressive now it's leaning more toward "put them in a camp and let me man the ovens". while we're at it throw in chefs whining like little bitches about vegans. mmmm...finely seared gordon ramsay with a zyklon b glaze. (here i thought i was on MoA but it seems more like JRE. good luck to anyone who thinks eating meat is an "identity".)

the report on post-9/11 warmongering = "breaking news: birds go 'tweet'." i'd say the period between 1917 and 1945 was a contender and you could probably extend that to 1953.

Posted by: the pair | Aug 14 2022 18:56 utc | 26

Fkdahl #25

I do like chomping on mammals but might pass on the Inuits ;)

Yes vitamin D is mighty significant factor to covid outcomes afaik.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Aug 14 2022 18:58 utc | 27

"... the coalition of democracies has two legally and morally valid justifications for intervention in a foreign country. The first is when there is a dire security threat that emerges within its sphere of influence. The second is because liberal democracies have an unprecedented understanding of the world population’s aspirations for human rights-based rule of law and innovation-based prosperity for middle-income countries."
No surprise to trace this drivel back to a Montreal anglo (Julian Spencer Churchill!!) who seems proud of literary connections with the Pentagon- if there is room in 'the pair's camp', here's another Churchill to take care of.

As to the UK.
Its decline has been predictable and predicted: decades of sacrificing sovereignty to the US NATO the EU and anyone else interested (the WTO?) and a forelock tugging bourgeoisie, the last people on earth to believe that (neo)liberalism will work this time- after two centuries being schooled in the reality that it won't- will guarantee any society's descent into corruption and misery.
But there was and is an alternative, in the form of the ideas that Corbyn represented and which are espoused by the millions who rallied to his support against all authorised opinion. The Corbyn project never had a chance in the short run, the Parliamentary Party, the Labour establishment, the media and beyond them (waiting if needed) the Secret Security and military plus the CIA would have made certain of that. And Corbyn himself, I am convinced, came very close to being assassinated (a car accident?)
But the movement he revived-the old Bevanite, Bennite anti-NATO pro peace, anti-imperialist alliance- with its deep roots in the working class and its long history, remains a sleeping giant ready to be revived and to take power whenever the people choose.
And that is true of every European country- there is no need to submit as the agents of imperialism, and the enemies of populaces everywhere, drag the remnants of Charlemagne's empire into the train of Uncle Samuel staggering hubris-drunk into the Juggernaut from the orient.
Raise the red flag and kick out the imperialists, starting with their military, and a new era will begin and hope revive.

Posted by: bevin | Aug 14 2022 19:21 utc | 28

Posted by: watcher | Aug 14 2022 13:06 utc | 1

However I am trying to understand why the Age-standardised death rate from COVID should be 6 times higher for those from the middle east (45.9), far higher than the Age-standardised death rate than for those born in Australia (7.6) and even for those from South Asia (10.7) where the socioeconomic profiles might have been similar. that is one heck of a difference and I am struggling to find a benign explanation.

This explanation has been offered before: lack of vitamin D because of darker skin color, avoidance of direct sunlight, and clothing impermeable to light. If this is the reason, the death rate should be especially high for Muslim women.

Posted by: Petri Krohn | Aug 14 2022 19:22 utc | 29

DunGroanin | Aug 14 2022 17:27 utc | 21

It was Aneurin BevAn not Ernest Bevin who was responsible for the NHS, though Bevin was a strong supporter of it.

Posted by: bevin | Aug 14 2022 19:25 utc | 30

David Levin@18
I'm inclined to agree. I very rarely read anything in FA or discover that it has a paywall. It was struck in this case by the way on which the editors-for I'm sure that they were responsible- were ready to sacrifice the credibility of a pretty good and not very controversial article by a respected academic, by inserting silly russophobic memes.
I can't believe that the author was so dense as not to understand that America and Germ warfare are like peaches and cream, and instinctively used Russia, which I believe has actually dismantled all its old biological warfare labs, as an example of the dangers humanity faces.
Maybe he was really short of cash though and earned a special bonus for dragging it in .

Posted by: bevin | Aug 14 2022 20:12 utc | 31

@2
"US needs to have 360 degree warfare - China + Russia + Europe + Iran + Domestic US population."

I see someone's found the US Classified Playbook that's actually available everywhere one looks.

Thrown away the TV in 2003,still I clearly feel this plan is the one.

Conquest of the moon for peaceful purposes is the cherry on this cake. We are more than No. 1, we are Devo.

Posted by: Elmagnostic | Aug 14 2022 20:15 utc | 32

@Brother Ma #14
How fascinating that you excerpt from standard American Military stereotypes about Muslims.

Posted by: c1ue | Aug 14 2022 20:30 utc | 33

From Taibbi:

The Espionage Act Gets An Instant Makeover

The most mind-blowing of these tweets is by Reich, who should know better. If I were Trump, I absolutely would fundraise off being investigated under the Espionage Act. By pursuing him under this provision, the Justice Department just did Trump the mother of all favors, adding his name to a list of some of the most famous political martyrs in our history.

“Ellsberg, Hale, Winner, Snowden, Assange, and now Trump,” Gabriel Shipton, brother of Julian Assange said this morning. “Incredible.”

Reich has never been the least bit credible to me - an unquestionably biased individual, but this is particularly LOL.

Posted by: c1ue | Aug 14 2022 20:32 utc | 34

The Mar a Lago FBI raid starts to look a little bit like the tail wagging the dog.

What timing. https://consortiumnews.com/2022/08/13/john-kiriakou-j-edgar-hoovers-evil-brainchild/

Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL) on May 4 sponsored the legislation that would do some exciting things. The COINTELPRO Full Disclosure Act would require the U.S. federal government to publicly disclose, within six months of being signed into law, all records related to the F.B.I.’s illegal COINTELPRO operation “that would not cause harm” to the national security.

With the FBI now under figurative and literal siege from the right, having over the past 6 years had its mission increasingly turned on Trump and the far right which is away from its intended targets on the left, the D.C. liberal class must do anything necessary to protect its reputation. Including revelations of compromising and even agency-endangering details of the Hoover era COINTEL program. Now is not the time, friends, to join with the right and Trump's cult against the FBI. No, now is the time to protect this suddenly venerable institution from these terrible forces and from damaging its reputation from within!

Another poster has provided a link to Matt Taibbi's substack above. The same can be said of The Espionage Act as of the fundamental existence and life-mission of the FBI. When the always left-facing FBI and Espionage Act were suddenly turned inward against the right [beginning with Russiagate], they were quickly embraced by the faux-left Democrats and D.C. liberals as they are - for the first time in history - derided by the likes of Trump and his RW minions. The FBI and Espionage Act are seeing their reputations burnished at the same time. All despite that both of them were designed from the ground up to persecute the left [and they largely succeeded in their mission as evidenced by the state of the American left in 2022].

Posted by: IranSoFarAway | Aug 14 2022 20:44 utc | 35

This explanation has been offered before: lack of vitamin D because of darker skin color, avoidance of direct sunlight, and clothing impermeable to light. If this is the reason, the death rate should be especially high for Muslim women.


Posted by: Petri Krohn | Aug 14 2022 19:22 utc | 29

Sorry Petri, not enough reasoning here.
Muslim women do indeed get sun exposure. What you see is what they ware, be it veil, burka, or chador in public places. It is completely different in friendly confines, (oh, not Wriglyville) homestead, that is. At home, walled spaces, they are free to do whatever they want, and — here is a generalization, but — most Muslims do live in warmer climes, so more available sun. Better pick another group.

Posted by: Sakineh Bagoom | Aug 14 2022 20:44 utc | 36

Watcher @ 1:

In Sydney anyway - I don't know about the other state capital cities like Brisbane and Melbourne - most people with Middle East backgrounds live in underprivileged areas in the southwest parts (Fairfield, Liverpool local govt areas) where access to good medical and hospital facilities may be poor. Middle Eastern people may be living in more crowded housing (housing is expensive and rents are going up as well) with three generations living in dwellings built for small two-generation families. Refugees make up a high proportion of ME communities and may be reluctant to visit doctors or hospitals because of past traumas in their home countries associated with doctors and hospitals (eg torture). Also access to information about COVID-19 in Arabic, Somali and Dinka may be an issue especially in areas dominated by gangs.

ME people often work in essential services (supermarkets, cleaning services for example) and logistics (transport, warehousing services) which put them in contact with other people for most of their working day and at risk for disease transmission.

I have read some online sites where the high rates of COVID-19 among Somalis and other ME groups in Stockholm in Sweden were correlated with overcrowding in areas designated by police as no-go zones because of gang violence. This made access to govt social services and health education difficult for people in those areas. Also people living in those suburbs were often working in nursing homes, working several shifts a day in different places (the pay in Swedish nursing homes being so low that only desperate people apply for such work), and so those workers were spreading COVID-19 to their communities and to other nursing homes. I don't know if a similar situation exists in Australia.

Posted by: Jen | Aug 14 2022 20:45 utc | 37

i can't think of a safer place for all the nation's nukular secrets than in Mar A Lago. unless you think they were safe in the hands of Black Reagan Super Jesus who threatened to nuke Iran every day for 8 straight years.

we have no idea if any of this is true. but people agree that the main goal of US strategy is to create chaos AND will also claim that the US is magically in control of everything, down to which Muslims get covid. meanwhile, a guy who makes Alex Jones look like the great tactician Odysseus waltzes out of the WH w/the crown jewels of national security? to do what precisely, put them up on ebay for the roooskies to bid on b/c we know Trump and Putin are secret lovers?

since we don't know whether the USG is omni-competent as it (and every gov't) claims or omni-incompetent as it appears to anyone not with a hand out for a Pentagon contract, i'll suggest this story is bullshit and it's part of the Dem strategy to prop up Trumpsters, incl the man himself, in order to try to terrify the populace into reelecting a mummy.

is this because the USG is omni-competent or omni-incompetent? or a little of both, a little bit country and a little bit rock and roll?

in order to spice this Disney space farce up a bit, let's bring back Emperor Palpatine one more time! Palpie for POTUS!

True and honest lesser evilism that you can believe in!

Posted by: rjb1.5 | Aug 14 2022 21:14 utc | 38

rjb1.5 | Aug 14 2022 21:14 utc | 38
if only the galactic emperor weren't british...dammit. foiled again.

Posted by: rjb1.5 | Aug 14 2022 21:17 utc | 39

Yes, the FBI (and CIA, of course) always "faced left", but consider the possibility that the FBI has not changed its orientation at all. Consider that there has almost been an inversion of left and right in the United States. I'm not trying to assert that Trump is a socialist (he's an oligarch, so how could he be?), but rather that the Establishment organs that we tend to think of as traditionally being leftish (Democrats) have leapfrogged across the spectrum to the right, taking the label "left" with them. All that remains of this "left" is the empty political "tone" of compassion for the unfortunate. Everything of substance has been bled out of this "left" and all that remains is a condescending look of pity on its kabuki mask.

This rightward shift-with-flip of the entire public face of the Establishment has, paradoxically, caused the most threatening thing to the left of the Establishment to become a playboy oligarch!

So the FBI is still aiming left. It is just that this "left" is relative to the Establishment and is no longer left of center. In fact, the center has gone so far right that what used to be considered left now supports literal Nazis. We thus find ourselves in the weird situation where individuals who are satisfied with voting for the lesser evil and want the more leftward one have only Trump as their candidate!

Now if that ain't a fine sign the Empire is phuqued I don't know what is.

Posted by: William Gruff | Aug 14 2022 21:18 utc | 40

Professor Wen Tiejun’s foreword to "The Destiny of Civilization: Finance Capitalism, Industrial Capitalism or Socialism." by Michael Hudson

Humanity Shares a Common Prospect: Barbarism or Ecological Civilisation
"The most important factor affecting the global economy is the increasing strain caused by U.S. hegemony. Its diplomacy has shaped the economic and trading rules enforced by the IMF, World Bank and other international institutions in America’s favor after World War II. U.S. leadership reached its peak with its Cold War victory over the Soviet Union in 1991, consolidated by increasingly aggressive military diplomacy over the next twenty years. But since 2008 this U.S. diplomacy has become so aggressive that it is now self-destructive, driving other nations out of the U.S. orbit, leading America’s international influence to fall increasingly short of its ambition to siphon off the world’s income and wealth for itself despite its own weakening economic power.

"The principal conflict in today’s world is between the United States and China. This book by Professor Hudson explains this conflict as a process of international transformation, above all in the sphere of economic systems and policy. He explains why the U.S.-China conflict cannot simply be regarded as market competition between two industrial rivals. It is a broader conflict between different political-economic systems – not only between capitalism and socialism as such, but between the logic of an industrial economy and that of a financialized rentiereconomy increasingly dependent on foreign subsidy and exploitation as its own domestic economy shrivels.

"Professor Hudson endeavours to revive classical political economy in order to reverse the neoclassical counter-revolution. The essence of 19th-century political economy was its conceptual framework of value, price and rent theory.

http://steelcityscribblings.uk/wp/2022/08/13/why-read-michael-hudson-part-1/

Posted by: bevin | Aug 14 2022 21:37 utc | 41

Aleph Null @ 6

Current polio is vaccine-derived. The inactivated or "dead" virus rewrites itself. Polio was eradicated. It came back because enough pieces of the code existed in the vaccine and there was a niche to fill.

Best way to defeat polio is to catch it before age of one. Most likely outcome is no symptoms are noticed by anyone and then a lifetime of immunity. This would require that kids play in the dirt and especially that kids play with lots of kids. Before advent of modern plumbing polio was entirely restricted to royalty and the very wealthy. The number of victims who ever suffered polio is much smaller than most imagine. US outbreak of 1952 took 3000 dead, 21,000 injured and that was worst outbreak ever.

Yes, it is bad for those who catch it. Worst strategy is to shelter the little ones. Fear kills.

Posted by: oldhippie | Aug 14 2022 21:47 utc | 42

Juliana at #15

"You can fool part of the people some of the time, you can fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time."

What needs to be appended to this is "However it is possible to fool enough of the people for long enough to get yourself elected or all manner of scams to be legislated."

Antoinetta III

Posted by: Antoinetta III | Aug 14 2022 21:47 utc | 43

Posted by: watcher | Aug 14 2022 13:06 utc | 1

Also, there are greatly different methods and practices of determining death from COVID. In the US until recently at least anyone with a positive PCR test who died was a COVID death, over 90% of which are death 'with' covid vs death 'from' covid. I imagine different countries have different ways of putting these figures together.

Which is why I regard most comparison studies like this as essentially meaningless.

Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 14 2022 21:50 utc | 44

An excellent article. Once I digest this I am going to look over the original 3 part series in the Defender. I know people on the left who swear by this stuff and are totally in the war party and do no realize what they have become.
Establishment smear merchants The Daily Beast, Rolling Stone and their perceptible intelligence ties

I remember those early days of the internet and how hopeful we all were.

Posted by: circumspect | Aug 14 2022 21:50 utc | 45

Now if that ain't a fine sign the Empire is phuqued I don't know what is.

Posted by: William Gruff | Aug 14 2022 21:18 utc | 40

The whole left-right vocabulary is no longer meaningful. Especially in the post-constitutional space most democracies function in. We are run by venal, criminal banking cartels and their affiliates, like the Godfather times a thousand.

They are not 'left' or 'right' or anything else. They use populations as their source of wealth and power. Everything in the political realm is exploitative subterfuge, camouflage and deceit. Talking about them in traditional political system language just furthers the con.

Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 14 2022 21:55 utc | 46

A rediscovery, as of yesterday: the soundtrack for the 1977 cartoon "The Hobbit". poor Peter Jackson. all that effort only to ruin a simple classic. Smaug snoring in this cartoon is more exciting than anything in those movies.

in the US, we've had to go up to reach the level of sanitation and personal hygiene found in Goblintown, cuz it's more like Gobblin' town in this trash-filled hellhole. how come the hobbits in the park outside don't know they need clean hobbit holes??

here's a version of Bilbo riddling with Smaug that you won't toss in the trash immediately after the nausea passes from having watched the pyrite of the movie version. one of the lessons he learns here, to correct his newfound discovery of his own cleverness and worth? we reveal our weaknesses by how we brag and boast about things. and it almost gets him killed. but it's Smaug's weakness, too.

as is gold. how disappointing to find out that the purpose of the adventure was to fight over gold, all along. now with more bitcoin! anyway, from one of the inferior later cartoons, RotK I believe, where there's a whip, there's a way. does Mordor take a break when there's polio in the wastewater? this song should be the US national anthem, except it admits that not even the orcs want to fight, at least not all the damn time. (I should post this song on my "christian mingles" dating profile, see who shows. scary thought.)

Posted by: rjb1.5 | Aug 14 2022 22:00 utc | 47

"The principal conflict in today’s world is between ... the logic of an industrial economy and that of a financialized rentier economy."

Posted by: bevin | Aug 14 2022 21:37 utc | 41

Say rather 'criminal bankster cartels.' Why use such bland, generalizing, respectable-sounding language? It weakens his excellent points.

Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 14 2022 22:01 utc | 48

@Posted by: bevin | Aug 14 2022 19:25 utc | 30

Heavens (Beavans) above I am flummoxed that I made that error - am going to blame it on being in the sweltering blinding heat wave and a touch of sunstroke as I navigated my phone.

The spinning still stands.

I also came across what happened to that old pensioner who gave the great knight dope, Keith, a lashing in scouseland the other week - she was a few days later officially ejected from the Party after having been warned since Feb. They had just ‘forgotten’ to send her the dismissal later all these months.

It turns out she is famous!

“Audrey White led a long campaign against sexual harassment to change employment law after she was sacked in the 1980s for complaining about the harassment of women at the Lord John clothes shop in Liverpool, where she was a manager.
A film, Business as Usual, was released in 1988, where White was played by Oscar-winner Glenda Jackson, who was a Labour MP for 23 years.”
https://labourheartlands.com/a-party-rotten-to-the-core-labour-expel-liverpool-pensioner-audrey-white/

I wonder how Glenda has taken that. Given she was originally from Birkenhead herself.
Though given Dan Hodges is her son , a Mail and Torygraph journo that I don’t know much about except as some kind of prick on twatter and she was a Blair babe of sorts - I don’t know anymore and it was very sunstrokey today so will let that hang there for now.

But as I said my hope lays in Revolution and the city of Manchester celebrated Peterloo in style today as reported hardly anywhere except some Twitter feeds I saw., very large turnout. For these who might want to find out about that moment in history of the poor rising, here is a link from a few days ago
https://labourheartlands.com/peterloo-massacre/

Posted by: DunGroanin | Aug 14 2022 22:08 utc | 49

Posted by: psychohistorian | Aug 14 2022 17:46 utc | 22

Re Taiwan and Paul Pelosi

Just a few search clicks revealed that the "Chinese" tech firm Borqs, that Pelosi invested in is funded by major US investors and is partnered with Google no less. . They aren't even trying to hide it.

Posted by: K | Aug 14 2022 22:27 utc | 50

William Gruff makes a fair point of clarification to my comment. I agree that it can be seen as such. To wit, while the FBI [and CIA and before both, the prison/police state and Espionage Act] have historically been aimed at the Left - and have, together, largely succeeded in eliminating any effective true-left threat of resistance to the primacy of capital/capitalists over the working class AND control of the federal government [of the people, by the people? nay - of the rich, by the corporations, banks and MIC/surveillance state], now that no such threat exists, these laws, systems and organs are free to turn toward perceived threats to the "establishment."

Kinda like NATO which was, nominally anyway, a defensive alliance for which there was no longer any need after the fall of the USSR. But in a capitalist system which rewards capture of such bodies, who can let go of power and opportunities for enrichment when the foundation has been poured and the structure has already been erected and reinforced over 60 years? Instead it grows and its mission creeps and its aims become offensive. The FBI, CIA and more recently the NSA are now strictly the tools of the entrenched capitalist establishment to be used against any threats, emanating from anywhere outside of the agreed upon framework.

I agree with WG's assessment of Donald Trump as an oligarch and a perceived threat to the acting power establishment. I would also assume WG would agree with my assessment that Trump is in no way a right-facing threat to the primacy of capital or a force capable or willing to re-establish the rights of workers in the face of oligarchy; his recycled Reagan era #MAGA messaging notwithstanding.

Posted by: IranSoFarAway | Aug 14 2022 22:28 utc | 51

I rarely use the term "left" in daily communications or in describing anything other than Starbucks or Amazon workers unionizing. That is what is meant by "left" in my old school education. As an old school leftist, I don't consider many of the issues under constant culture war debate today within my wheel house, even while I do share some beliefs about the lasting effects in the USA and Latin America of slavery, colonialism, racism and American policies stemming from such.

But I see the "right" use the term "left" daily as an epithet against anything they don't like. [misunderstood] CRT, gay/trans/etc. issues, environmental causes, anti-Zionist/Israel, anti-war [though less frequently as war has become unpalatable even to many members of the right]* etc. The term "right" is also - as pointed to by Scorpion - like "left" largely meaningless now in the USA of capital primacy and the security/surveillance/prison state. But there remains a growing militant right-nationalist movement with specific goals and tactics that are shared by multiple 'groups' which comprise it.

*Not incredibly important or worth a long discussion, but scratch the surface of a Trump supporter who was once a Reagan or Bush [I and II] voter [if they will admit it] and you find an odd about-face from their attitudes about war in the 80s, 90s and early 2000s. This is the "right" to which I generally refer, and I understand that many Trump loyalists were not born or old enough to participate in the politics or culture wars of that bygone era so their anti-war beliefs are as genuine as my own.

Posted by: IranSoFarAway | Aug 14 2022 22:43 utc | 52

William Gruff@40
Very interesting. The real problem is that people tend to forget what the political struggle is really about, which is, of course, class and control of the economy.

From the first the FBI and later the CIA were concerned about socialism as a threat to property. Any differences that they had with the 'right', from Nazis to racists at home and abroad were purely tactical. When they, finally, turned against the Jim Crow segregationists it was because they were an embarrassment in the war being waged against communism. An embarrassment both internationally and internally. It took all of the United States' highly developed hypocrisy to combine daily news from the South with lectures to the world about Freedom and Equality. Even the British were embarrassed. The fact that the Nation's capital was segregated might have alerted people earlier but it didn't.

The problem with socialism as the raison d'etre for the CIA was that it was by far the most influential set of sets of ideas around the world: in intellectual terms and in terms of mass popularity it dominated every continent, its writ ran to every village in every jungle on earth .
(As an aside: does it ever occur to baseball fans, for example, how many Stalins (Starlings!) and Vladimir Ilyichs etc emerge from the Latin countries?)
For the CIA defeating socialism was job 1 and through to job 99. It cared nothing about Nazis, unless they were looking for work. It recognised in colonialists, soulmates. It understood where the challenge came from. And then, as now, it wasn't from obsessives banging on about banks, Jews or lizards, Bill Gates or the more secretive versions of the Masonic cults.

It knew that the enemy was looking into the worrying possibilities of putting the economy under public control- which is to say taking the wealth and the power of the powerful and wealthy from them- and introducing the possibility of human equality with the concomitant global explosion of creative intellectual activity. The potential extent of which had become evident wherever education was opened up to the generality. And is evidenced dramatically in the current situation in China.

The CIA could see how attractive that idea was and so they set out to destroy it. It was this which involved-such is our human weakness- the systematic corruption of generations of intellectuals. One after another, from Robert Conquest and James Burnham to Irving Kristol, Jay Lovestone and Stephen Spender (George Orwell anyone?) random Trotskyists and Communists, socialists, anarchists and 'social' liberals were put on the payroll, praised as demi-gods and set to work writing stupid things about 'minority rights' and 'freedom.'
They are, through their descendants, still at it. And after seventy years of corrupting they have become worse than those they once opposed, They began questioning the sincerity-as democrats- of those calling, in the wake of war, for Peace. Now they are the most persistent promoters of war that the world has ever seen. And the war that they salivate after is a war which can only end in the eradication of species, including in all probability their own. (For there is justice in the world.)

The CIA has had two faces. One that subverts human intelligence by twisting intellectual activity into the service of cannibalism. And the other which, very quietly and methodically pursues a genocide of socialists and potential socialists and non-conformists which ticks away, like a taxi meter, campaign by campaign, at the average rate of about a million corpses a year.
So it turns left in two ways, firstly to recruit, corrupt and employ and, secondly, to eradicate the simpletons who feel that to aspire, as men everywhere have for tens of thousands of years, to a life of dignity and brotherhood, is an innocent activity.

Posted by: bevin | Aug 14 2022 22:44 utc | 53

DunGroanin@49
Thanks for the links.
I heard it was warm there- it reminds me of the Nissan huts by the port in Aden full of National Servicemen with the temperature beating down on the tin roofs in the high 40s. I bet Kipling could have told a tale or two too.
I see Giyane has joined us here now, and very welcome he is.

Posted by: bevin | Aug 14 2022 22:55 utc | 54

@ bevin | Aug 14 2022 22:44 utc | 53 with another good rant

I may be a simpleton but I am not the only one......may the meek inherit the earth

Posted by: psychohistorian | Aug 14 2022 22:59 utc | 55

Gotta second bevin's commentary. Yes, It's all about Plunder, but that Age is now ending.

Posted by: karlof1 | Aug 14 2022 23:21 utc | 56

Whoa baby! Gotta read Alastair Crooke's al-Mayadeen column, "China: Will it now Toss Caution to the Wind?". Within it he links to a Matthew Ehret Cradle article that's been "sleeping" for two weeks, "Russia in Africa: Connecting continents with soft power". First read Crooke, then read Ehret. Then pour yourself a beverage and muse.

Posted by: karlof1 | Aug 14 2022 23:37 utc | 57

I do not think Trumps threat is perceived by the Establishment. It is real but vastly overstated. It is more about which wing gets the vast amount of appointments to drive the bureaucracy into its globalist agendas. The nationalist urges of Trump are a direct threat to those agendas hence all the agencies and bureaucracies undercut him at every level. The new/alt right is a threat to those agendas hence they are the new terrorists.

The overstated fear of Trump making nice with Putin helped drive this fear. The idea of beating and controlling Russia is about the marketing of resources under their control. The idea of Trump making nice with Kim Jong Un was a shock to all and in a sane world peace and reunification should have been the hoped for outcome.

There an obvious a religious angle to this as well interacting with the forces at work. Some of it is a most misunderstood occult form which lays the foundations of many of these small and large groups like Skull and Bones which places it membership at the pinnacles of power in various locations. There are many such groups at work across the world with an occult foundation. The hoped for outcome is a new world order which will be extremely authoritarian managing all levels of technology, money, corporatism, religion, health, government into one single entity with one small collective body that directs. Fascism in its complete pure form.

I postulate that Trump gets arrested directly after the midterms, runs for president, and fights in court all the way to the Supreme Court just before the election of 2024. Win or lose will be up in the air. If he loses all the resources expended will be lost and a constitutional crisis ensues. If he wins then he gets the JFK treatment.

As an outlier I predict that he picks Tulsi for VP. It is the only way he could unify things and throw the other side into disarray. Probably will not happen but it would be a most aggressive move against the MIC and the media.

Posted by: circumspect | Aug 15 2022 0:12 utc | 58

@40 gruff

I disagree.

In America, academia and the proletariat have never and likely will never see eye-to-eye on anything. So your idea of the "left," I would say, is archaic as to it being appropriate terminology in our current framework.

That's why I throw the "old leftist" tag around here so much. There are many here who fit that description and I am afraid are lost in our current reality. In the age of globalism, the remnant "old left" are tending a dying fire. And when it goes, not even a specter will remain.

I see evidence of the "old left" everywhere here: you see them angry with Catholicism for educating the natives a hundred years ago post hoc, after the natives had been thoroughly conquered and desperate for a working understanding of the western world that now ruled them. And then, on the other hand, you see them quiet on the issue of Tibet, where the loving Han has done the exact same thing, then, and now with the Uighurs.

I saw a few conspicuously silent on this topic because maybe they had made that connection and thought it best to not pipe-up.

But suffice to say, China had the might and right to do what to the Tibetans that the west did to the Native Americans. Take that to the bank and cash it.

Another issue is one I have pointed out numerous times: the issue of leveraging force of Russian gas and climate change.

It takes an old leftist here with ample cognitive dissonance to cheer Russia on for tackling the western globalists, it being the supplier of LNG par excellence to Europe, and then, shortly after, bemoan the effects of Anthropological Climate Change. Hypocrites!

Finally, we have the deafening muteness of "old leftists" who will not even put forth any encouragement for the U.S. to stop buying Chinese products. Keep in mind that the intention with this idea is not to destroy China or even to inflict harm. The idea is to lift up the American economy which has been gutted by the phenomenon of globalism.

My brother is in the armed forces. He seems to think they are indeed preparing reservists for not only quick deployment, but actual war with China. We discussed it over dinner the other night and I left feeling rather dismayed.

I don't blame China. China does what it can for its people. It suffered decades under imperialism and then in the great leap forward and then again working in terrible conditions when the U.S., under Nixon, opened them up. They deserve to feel proud for what they have accomplished and improving the lot of their people.

But they made a deal with the devil, that is for sure. The fact that Russia and China will not bend the knee to the global elites means we will go to war. The existence of the elites in the west currently are predicated on and are solely due to the favorable working relationship with China. It was inevitable that when China got bigger, they would want to renegotiate. Well, here we are.

But the above is just a digression from the fact that patriot isolationism is the only way to avoid the coming global conflagration. Conservative Patriots in America, seem to me, under Trump, the only hope to push back domestically against these elites who, not getting their way abroad, will look inward and realize that they can not control the domestic front either.

But where are the leftists, gruff?

I see academia all-in for the estab and on the anti-Trump train. I see the banking and corporate sector on it too.

But where are the leftists?

Scattered, my friend. Nothing remains of it. Only some old leftists tending a dying fire, poking it and sighing. I wave at them in the bar, our fate tragically bound together.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Aug 15 2022 0:24 utc | 59

UK?
https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/c/an-excoriating-account-of-the-corbyn-years-that-merits-critical-engagement

Posted by: bevin | Aug 15 2022 0:35 utc | 60

Posted by: bevin | Aug 14 2022 13:54 utc | 3

my thoughts turn to Shukri Baker and the Holy Land Foundation.

Posted by: Ross Campbell | Aug 15 2022 0:41 utc | 61

Johnathan W, you used the words “Trump’s credibility”.
Are you fucking drunk.
Trump has no credibility.
Never has.
If trump is your guy, you are a fucking idiot.
That idea is universal, not just applicable to Mr. W.

Posted by: $outhpaw | Aug 15 2022 0:47 utc | 62

Tibet and China is a horrible analogy for USA and native Americans. For one thing Tibet was first incorporated into China under the Yuan Dynasty, like 500 years before the United States was a glimmer in anyone's eye. The PRC didn't attempt to wipe them out and the Dalai Lama have been on CIA payroll for decades.

As far as the *actual* modern "left" in the USA and EU, as was mentioned, the FBI, CIA and big business did a pretty good job of crushing, fracturing and redirecting it as far back as company towns and finishing the job in the wake of the Vietnam war (Ehrlichman's now infamous quote about the drug war) accomplishing what was picked up during the first & second red scares, J Edgar Hoover, McCarthy, etc.

For a better example of a functioning left, look to Vietnam, China and Latin America, where the globalists are still trying every trick they have up their sleeve to crush it.

Posted by: IranSoFarAway | Aug 15 2022 1:17 utc | 63

US settler-colonial-exploitative-apartheid activities best compare to Israel / Palestine [and of course South Africa], IMHO. We can see a modern version of what happened here playing out every day when the Western corporate MSM bothers to cover it [not often or not often honestly].

Posted by: IranSoFarAway | Aug 15 2022 1:21 utc | 64

Posted by: watcher | Aug 14 2022 13:06 utc | 1

Does make one wonder. Is it larger, more multi-generational households, is it prayer gatherings and close-knit communities, a virus that people of ME background are more susceptible to, or is it race/cultural xenophobia in the Australian healthcare system?

It is a big concern looking at the figures you quoted.

Posted by: Jon_in_AU | Aug 15 2022 1:43 utc | 65

@64 iransofaraway

Agree that America is devoid of a leftist movement and you are better off finding it in the developing world.

However, I will stick to my guns regarding conquering the Native Americans.

Soil appropriated is soil appropriated. You can split hairs all day long, but the fact remains that the land was ripe for the taking, for better or worse.

Didn't a Siberian people come across the land bridge from Asia into the Americas? Was that land theirs to begin with? Did they conquer a native people that were already existing in America?

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Aug 15 2022 1:52 utc | 66

@ karlof1 | Aug 14 2022 23:37 utc | 57 with the links...quite the reads...thanks

Social planning at all levels in the West is done behind closed doors and what these articles show are nations doing national and regional planning at strategic levels without, or with minimum, influence by the financialized meme of the God of Mammon West.
The second article at The Cradle provides extensive detail on potential development in regions of the world that have had their development suppressed by the God of Mammon folk. It will be interesting to see if the momentum described continues to grow or is severely impacted by our current civilization war outcomes.....lots of potential for more "leveling" of our species support across the globe.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Aug 15 2022 1:52 utc | 67

@ karlof1 | Aug 14 2022 23:37 utc | 57 with the links...quite the reads...thanks

Social planning at all levels in the West is done behind closed doors and what these articles show are nations doing national and regional planning at strategic levels without, or with minimum, influence by the financialized meme of the God of Mammon West.
The second article at The Cradle provides extensive detail on potential development in regions of the world that have had their development suppressed by the God of Mammon folk. It will be interesting to see if the momentum described continues to grow or is severely impacted by our current civilization war outcomes.....lots of potential for more "leveling" of our species support across the globe.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Aug 15 2022 1:52 utc | 68

"..Soil appropriated is soil appropriated. You can split hairs all day long, but the fact remains that the land was ripe for the taking, for better or worse..."
If you are arguing that might makes right that is one thing: there is another point of view.
But if you are arguing that the land taken from the 'Indians' was not productively used until the Europeans arrived, this is factually incorrect. Much of the land was much more productive underr 'Indian' horticulture than it has ever since been under European farming.

"Didn't a Siberian people come across the land bridge from Asia into the Americas? Was that land theirs to begin with? Did they conquer a native people that were already existing in America?"

That seems unlikely- you are perhaps projecting? It is very probable that the migration across the Behring Straits lasted for centuries, perhaps millenia and that the newcomers were welcome-as labour always is in a primitive society- and quickly integrated into the extant population.
The notion that it is necessary to wipe out the inhabitants of lands being settled is peculiar, even in European culture.
The pre-conceptions of fascists are not to be mistaken for the pre-history of peoples.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Aug 15 2022 1:52 utc | 66

Posted by: bevin | Aug 15 2022 2:13 utc | 69

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Aug 15 2022 0:24 utc | 59

"But they made a deal with the devil, that is for sure. The fact that Russia and China will not bend the knee to the global elites means we will go to war. The existence of the elites in the west currently are predicated on and are solely due to the favorable working relationship with China. It was inevitable that when China got bigger, they would want to renegotiate. Well, here we are.

But the above is just a digression from the fact that patriot isolationism is the only way to avoid the coming global conflagration. Conservative Patriots in America, seem to me, under Trump, the only hope to push back domestically against these elites who, not getting their way abroad, will look inward and realize that they can not control the domestic front either."

Great post. I was thinking reading through the various viewpoints about the left and CIA and FBI and such that it's like talking about a reality that no longer exists. I'm actually not sure if it ever existed but at least most believed it did.

I was also thinking that one of the things Russia has going for it is a strong sense of 'we,' and therefore also 'we the people.' I don't think any country can be successful without that but of course 'nationalism' is a dirty word since the 1940's which is very convenient because it helps prevent any sense of nationalism from developing.

And beyond that there has to be something spiritual binding a people together otherwise everything is so materialistic and low level, statements like the purpose of politics is to ensure healthy economies or to provide good checks and balances. True, but both boring and mid-level, including fixation on 'the class struggle' and such like.

Maybe it's because I was reading an unusual article in Russian Insider at https://russia-insider.com/en/why-martyred-tsar-nicholas-ii-one-most-important-figures-ever/ri27474?utm_campaign=related-articles&utm_source=/en/why-martyred-tsar-nicholas-ii-one-most-important-figures-ever/ri27474

Towards the end he writes: "The modern secular ideal of government is based on “Enlightenment” ideology and its subsequent evolution into the revolutionary mindset. The Granddad of modern revolutions, the French Revolution, made no attempt to hide the fact that it desired the complete overthrow of “throne and altar.” The brutal history of bloody secular revolutions has always set as primary targets royalty and clergy (and anyone who would support them).

A very enticing motto was created – rule for the people and by the people. The essential problem here is an inversion of authority. In the Christian ideal authority to rule (as Tsar or President) comes ultimately from God. In modern democracies the authority to rule is said to reside in, that is, takes its source from, the people. The people may choose who and what they want to rule over them (while at times, in some instances, giving lip service to God). This is pure humanism. The people are deluded into thinking that they are the source of authority for those who rule over them; thus ascribing to themselves, as if possible, an authority that belongs to God alone. Meanwhile, the rulers are “freed” from the notion that they will answer to a Higher Authority, and thus they now may do whatever is “right in their own eyes.”

In such an inversion, rather than the government assisting to prepare people for ultimate eternal existence, it becomes totally consumed with the base tendencies of humanity and the enshrining of these tendencies in civil law. Subjective and nebulous ideas such as “human rights” and “equality” replace the objective realities of Christian charity and love. The tyranny of fallen human perversions and passions become the dictators of human existence; any attempt to inhibit them is called a restriction of freedom, an infringement on “human rights,” and hateful. Fallen human degeneracy becomes a "right" which must be protected and even promoted under civil law. The "people" and their governments begin to believe that they have the authority, power, and right to rewrite the definitions of human morality and existence. This is the situation in the democracies of the West at present."

I'm not saying that having a Tsar and being Orthodox is the only way, but the split between religion and state seems to have encouraged generally lower level cultures in that they are incapable of promoting higher culture. Higher culture is even despised by many 'leftists' as being capitalist or imperialist or whatever.

Anyway, am rambling. Thanks for your post.

Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 15 2022 2:16 utc | 70

Saudi Arabia to invest in 3 Russian oil companies.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/saudi-arabias-kingdom-holding-invests-russian-energy-companies-2022-08-14/

Posted by: Paul | Aug 15 2022 2:28 utc | 71

Why Did the DOJ and FBI Execute the Raid on Trump – The Story Behind the Documents

The following are excerpts from Part 2 and Part 4 of the 4 part series linked below
that purports to explain the genesis of the effort to destroy Trump politically: his suit against Clinton et al would reveal the coup by the intelligence agencies that captured the executive branch of the US gov:

Knowing that Perkins Coie and the FBI were working together on this targeting operation, makes everything else make sense.

However, the involvement of official government agencies like NSA Admiral Mike Rogers, creates a paper trail. Search query logs, notifications to Mike Rogers, notifications to the FISA Court, notifications to FBI officials of the suspension of contractor access, and subsequent FISA court opinions like the 99-pages from Rosemary Collyer, all of it creates an internal trail of government documents that tell the story.

It’s those documents that become a risk to the people who operate within the system. In this example of government documents, the trail outlines the targeting of Donald Trump and that was what he continued to ask the ODNI, DOJ and FBI to release.

Frustrated by the lack of action, in March 2022 Donald Trump filed a massive civil lawsuit against the Clinton campaign and everyone involved in this targeting operation. [SEE LAWSUIT HERE] “Acting in concert, the Defendants maliciously conspired to weave a false narrative that their Republican opponent, Donald J. Trump, was colluding with a hostile foreign sovereignty,” the president states.

“Under the guise of ‘opposition research,’ ‘data analytics,’ and other political stratagems, the Defendants nefariously sought to sway the public’s trust. They worked together with a single, self-serving purpose: to vilify Donald J. Trump,” says one segment of the lawsuit.

All of the claims within the filing are substantiated by documents outlining the history of the events. I’m not sure any defendant is going to be successful getting themselves out of the target zone on the lawsuit. The suit alleges “racketeering” and a “conspiracy to commit injurious falsehood,” among other claims.

. . .

In short, President Trump declassified documents that show how the institutions within the U.S. government targeted him. However, the institutions that illegally targeted President Trump are the same institutions who control the specific evidence of their unlawful targeting.

These examples of evidence held by President Donald Trump reveals the background of how the DC surveillance state exists. THAT was/is the national security threat behind the DOJ-NSD search warrant and affidavit.

The risk to the fabric of the U.S. government is why we see lawyers and pundits so confused as they try to figure out the disproportionate response from the DOJ and FBI, toward “simple records”, held by President Trump in Mar-a-Lago. Very few people can comprehend what has been done since January 2009, and the current state of corruption as it now exists amid all of the agencies and institutions of government.

Barack Obama spent 8 years building out and refining the political surveillance state. The operators of the institutions have spent the last six years hiding the construct.

President Donald Trump declassified the material then took evidence to Mar-a-Lago. The people currently in charge of managing the corrupt system, like Merrick Garland, Lisa Monaco, Chris Wray and the Senate allies, are going bananas. From their DC perspective, Donald Trump is an existential threat.

Part 1, Why Did the DOJ and FBI Execute the Raid on Trump – The Story Behind the Documents

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/08/11/part-1-why-did-the-doj-and-fbi-execute-the-raid-on-trump-the-story-behind-the-documents/

Washington DC created the modern national security apparatus immediately and hurriedly after 9/11/01. The Department of Homeland Security came along in 2002, and within the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) was formed.

When President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder arrived a few years later, those newly formed institutions were viewed as opportunities to create a very specific national security apparatus that would focus almost exclusively against their political opposition.

The preexisting Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Dept of Justice (DOJ) were then repurposed to become two of the four pillars of the domestic national security apparatus: a domestic surveillance state. However, this new construct would have a targeting mechanism based on political ideology.

The DHS, ODNI, DOJ and FBI became the four pillars of this new institution. Atop these pillars is where you will find the Fourth Branch of Government.

Part 2 – Why Did the DOJ and FBI Execute the Raid on Trump – The Evidence Within the Documents

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/08/11/part-2-why-did-the-doj-and-fbi-execute-the-raid-on-trump-the-evidence-within-the-documents/

Part 3, Why Did the DOJ and FBI Execute the Raid on Trump – A Culmination of Four Years of Threats and Betrayals

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/08/11/part-3-why-did-the-doj-and-fbi-execute-the-raid-on-trump-a-culmination-of-four-years-of-threats-and-betrayals/

Part 4, What Was in The Trump Documents Creating Such Fear in DOJ and FBI

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/08/11/part-4-what-was-in-the-trump-documents-creating-such-fear-in-doj-and-fbi/

Posted by: pogohere | Aug 15 2022 2:31 utc | 72

In this ugly brutal warring world.
We all need a hug.
And it’s Sunday.
[ps. Caution: May induce feelings]
https://twitter.com/Gabriele_Corno/status/1558735555617345536

Posted by: Melaleuca | Aug 15 2022 2:42 utc | 73

thanks for the many sensible comments on my post re covid.

i think viamin d, clothing, crowding, medical services and vaccination status are each potential reasons and worth examining more closely. if it is the first two then there should be a male female difference. this data should be available already.

one problem i have with the two socioeconomic explanations is that the same applies to many of the migrants from Afghanistan and Pakistan so their figures (included in south Asia not middle east)should be much closer. i do agree that the Indian population may be more educated and compliant.

Australian data will be very useful because almost all the death is post vaccination and omicron variant. also we have a very well coordinated health data system so data will not be muddled much. indeed they specifically separate deaths from covid compared with deaths with covid.

Posted by: watcher | Aug 15 2022 2:42 utc | 74

@69 bevin

Super rosy and monolithic view of natives.

Mayans?

Aztecs?

Aggressive? Sure they were..

As I have said before, the conquering of native americans was more due to metallurgy than superiority of culture, though westerners I admit associate advancement of technology with value of civilization.

A bad measuring stick to be sure.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Aug 15 2022 2:51 utc | 75

@69 bevin

Super rosy and monolithic view of natives.

Mayans?

Aztecs?

Aggressive? Sure they were..

As I have said before, the conquering of native americans was more due to metallurgy than superiority of culture, though westerners I admit associate advancement of technology with value of civilization.

A bad measuring stick to be sure.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Aug 15 2022 2:51 utc | 76

"@69 bevin

Super rosy and monolithic view of natives. Mayans? Aztecs?
Aggressive? Sure they were..

As I have said before, the conquering of native americans was more due to metallurgy than superiority of culture, though westerners I admit associate advancement of technology with value of civilization.

A bad measuring stick to be sure."

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Aug 15 2022 2:51 utc | 75

++++++++++++++++

Something not mentioned yet in this sidebar was the mind-blowing apocalyptic level of rampant disease that came in with the Westerners. Some more recent estimates of North American population top 100 million yet when I was growing up I was told only 2-4 million or some such. And yes, their care of the land was extraordinary. Looks like the Amazon fed millions using biochar techniques and all the huge extensive forests in North America, especially on the East Coast were managed to ensure fruits and livestock - which roamed wild - year round. In the Amazon, something like 80% of the trees and plants are edible or medicinal, something which is believed by some to have been the result of human skill not random genesis.

I read an account by one of the Fathers on the boats with Cortez or some such going down the Amazon for the very first time. He marveled at so many towns larger than all but the greatest cities in Europe every few miles, but also that high percentages of the people were dead in them by the time they got there because the disease they had brought was travelling slightly faster than they were. Similar things happened to various tribes further North in what became the USA.

I have always imagined that to those enduring such ghastly attrition that they must have attributed this to the will of the gods. What other interpretation can there be? And perhaps they were and are right.

History has a cyclical wave-like nature. Civilizations rise and then fall often in mysterious or violently devastating ways similar to how a plague can run through and decimate a population or scythes slicing through the high grasses at harvest time. We come up with all sorts of explanations and judgments but there is something inexorably inevitable about it which defies such conceptualizations. Yes, you can talk about 'fascism' and 'imperialism' and 'colonialism' and 'karma ripening' judging all who ended up on top as essentially evil and thus deserving of the fall which will one day come their way, and maybe this is even essentially accurate.

But that won't stop it from happening again. We live in a realm between heaven and hell, birth and death, good and evil. There seems to be no neutral resting place or permanent utopia. Things arise, dwell, climax and cease. As the Buddha is reported to have said just before dying: 'everything which comes together falls apart.'

It looks like the US's time to fall apart and Eurasia's time to rise.

Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 15 2022 3:17 utc | 77

"liberal democracies have an unprecedented understanding of the world population’s aspirations for human rights-based rule of law and innovation-based prosperity for middle-income countries."

Breath-taking arrogance and mendacious lying bullshit in one sentence. Liberal democracy is a criminal scam and must end.

Posted by: Patroklos | Aug 15 2022 3:27 utc | 78

@70 Scorpion

Great addition and comment. Rambling is A-OK for o/t. Thanks!

Yes, humanism is just watered-down Christianity.

Your post reminds me of a telecast I viewed recently from Bishop Fulton Sheen. Well worth the 25 min runtime. Amazing how great TV was in its golden age!

It also reminds me of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn coming to Harvard to give the commencement speech (???). It was quite shocking because many believed he would just lambast the Soviet Union for its repression of religion and regale the audience with more stories of the horrors of the early Stalinist gulags. He did that, but he also addressed the Americans and their culture by saying it wasn't much better!!! And he was most certainly right!

As Heidegger stated about the United States to the west of Europe and Russia to the east: they were twin-pillars of global technicity. Metaphysically seen, they were the same.

Now I am rambling. Good post from you. I will read it again.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Aug 15 2022 3:28 utc | 79

pogohere | Aug 15 2022 2:31 utc | 72
"...the genesis of the effort to destroy Trump politically: his suit against Clinton et al would reveal the coup by the intelligence agencies that captured the executive branch of the US gov..."

as opposed to the open coup whereby the US electoral college handed him the election against the popular vote. there's no lack of material to "destroy Trump politically," so what super state op is needed? the irs investigating billionaires for once in their existence? the media reporting honestly for once on how the billionaire class becomes the billionaire class?

yeah, you've got the secret in the secret sauce, sunshine.

and the secret is that the quotidian corruption of society is boring. needs more "3 days of the condor egg-eating contest".

Posted by: rjb1.5 | Aug 15 2022 3:48 utc | 80

Yesterday Pakistan celebrated her Independence from the British Empire, and India today. But sadly no plan in sight for Britain herself to gain her Independence from her foaming right wing , Empire 2 , monster Capitalist , Blue, Yellow , Red and Green Tory Parties. Why?

Britain has only the past glory of its own navel to gaze upon. It clings on to its criminal, colonial past with colonial style clothes and colonial style architecture, terrified to let go of the Gollum ring of its evil , colonial history.

Posted by: Giyane | Aug 15 2022 3:59 utc | 81

"As ever you come of women, come in quickly to Sir John. Ah, poor heart, he is so shaked of a burning quotidian tertian that it is most lamentable to behold." (death of Falstaff) syphilis had become so common that its "tertian" symptoms were "quotidian", which happens when everyone is infected.

so it is with corruption in the West. it's so ubiquitous that we are conditioned to seek more mysterious explanations than TARP bailouts and QE2 and privatizing health care and the F35. sharks devouring another corpse is not news anymore. we need sharks w/frickin' laser beams.

Posted by: rjb1.5 | Aug 15 2022 4:06 utc | 82

@ 40 william gruff and @ 53 bevin conversation.. thanks guys.. i enjoyed both those posts for the insights..

Posted by: james | Aug 15 2022 4:15 utc | 83

Posted by: bevin | Aug 14 2022 19:21 utc | 28

When I read "Don’t Rule Out Intervention in the Solomon Islands", for few minutes I thought that this is satire, the type I like to indulge in now and then. "Thin satire" drops hints that it cannot be serious, and that was my interpretation of this:

"... liberal democracies have an unprecedented understanding of the world population’s aspirations for human rights-based rule of law and innovation-based prosperity for middle-income countries..." which is a "justifications for intervention in a foreign country." Never mind if this is a LOWER INCOME country like Solomon Islands, where the imperfectly washed masses may wobble in sharing the aspirations for "innovation-based prosperity" for OTHER COUNTRIES (to wit, middle-income or even higher-income). With nearly as many languages as it has villages, under Western tutelage Solomon Islands could host thriving IT industry developing machine translation software for every pair of local languages, or some other form of "innovation-based prosperity", which in turn would support a gazillion of apps that could allow any villager to mail-order from any other village regardless of language difference etc.

Perhaps I am reading too much hilarity in this formulation, but then I read this:

[Sogaware is the head of the "hostile government"] Sogavare’s antipathy to Australia is not grounded in any ideology, but rather in his reaction to its interference with his political activities, which include alleged corruption. Sogavare is an experienced legislator, and his occasional tenure over the last twenty years has been legal by the chaotic standards of his political adversaries. However, his appointment and decisions have been accompanied by popular riots, primarily from the Taiwanese and U.S. financially supported autonomy-seeking Malaitan minority. Sogavare’s reliance on China for domestic law and order is therefore individually rational, even if it is diplomatically provocative. He clearly (??!!) demonstrated his Western antipathy by his absence from the August 2022 Second World War Memorial.

Hostility of a "the Taiwanese and U.S. financially supported autonomy-seeking Malaitan minority" already pointed to the bad nature of Sogaware (US and democracy loving Taiwanese would not support secessionist minority just to meddle, would they?), but taking steps to prevent the secession by getting alternative financial support should be a straw breaking camel's back, the camel being Australian patience with Solomonian contumely. Or would it be a straw breaking kangaroo's back? My conviction that this is satire was increasing.

"The hosting of Chinese land-based missiles, aircraft, or ships by the Solomon Islands is therefore gravely dangerous." Preceding paragraph recapitulate WWII events of titanic battles for the control of straights between these islands that are of STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE as hard to circumnavigate en route to Polynesia, perhaps the most vital market for Australian products and the source of raw materials. I venture to guess that this constitutes more than 0.01% of Australian trade (especially if we add Melanesia to the pot). Polynesia is also vital in itself, as it is in the middle of nowhere and on the road to nowhere. To arms, Australians, to arms! Down with Westfalian restraint!

Frankly, it is hard to prove that this is not satire.

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Aug 15 2022 4:22 utc | 84

@ David Levin | Aug 14 2022 17:07 utc | 19 - off-topic
Very enjoyable, thank you for that, a microcosm of MoA comments in one post

General thank you to b and all the usual suspects for the contributions these days, level of discussion reaching even higher if that’s possible, all across the board from computer to nuclear and history, learning a lot. Could increased trolling contribute and motivate to surpass and sublime? ;)

Re Taiwan: from D. Goldman at AsiaTimes, the idea that the military drills are in fact the de facto and effective beginning of the military operation aimed at reunification through on and off blockades - no need to do anything more/else: https://asiatimes.com/2022/08/taiwans-reunification-countdown-has-begun/

In the same direction, also
https://asiatimes.com/2022/08/chinas-taiwan-strait-drills-the-new-normal/

Posted by: htyul | Aug 15 2022 4:42 utc | 85

@ htyul | Aug 15 2022 4:42 utc | 85 with the links about China/Taiwan...thanks

I just read a Xinhuanet posting with the following title

China, Thailand kick off joint air force training exercise

Another Xinhuanet posting title

Xinhua Commentary: Historic goal of reuniting motherland must be realized

It is not if, but when and I expect that efforts to realize that goal to be initiated soon enough which will include the new Reserve Currency financial neutron bomb component.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Aug 15 2022 5:12 utc | 86

Great post. I was thinking reading through the various viewpoints about the left and CIA and FBI and such that it's like talking about a reality that no longer exists. I'm actually not sure if it ever existed but at least most believed it did.

Is this person joking? What didn't exist? What did people believe existed? Would the people who believed it include the CIA and FBI which surely did believe the commie socialist black person loving war hating left existed? This person who starts to raise alarm bells of being a mole or plant raises far more questions than answers there. Did the fascist ultracapitalist far-right ever exist? Does it still?

The part about the church bringing enlightenment and humanistic practices is pure armchair or coffee table religious fascism. Only degenerates want rights, and the only degenerates practice customs different than my own.

The tyranny of fallen human perversions and passions become the dictators of human existence; any attempt to inhibit them is called a restriction of freedom, an infringement on “human rights,” and hateful. Fallen human degeneracy becomes a "right" which must be protected and even promoted under civil law.

Oooooh, please define your terms. What *should* be classified as "degeneracy"? and what *should* be the punishment or disincentivization that proper society imposes for each crime in the list? Do name all of them. A three column table would be great.

Higher culture is even despised by many 'leftists' as being capitalist or imperialist or whatever.

No. Not "whatever" - Define the exact "higher culture", "leftists" and examples of "despise" in the terms of "capitalist" or "imperialist" or "whatever" in precise terms or admit you're a CIA or Koch/CIA troll.

Posted by: Crimea River | Aug 15 2022 6:02 utc | 87

Wait a sec. I thought Scorpion didn't believe left and right were real distinctions now.

So how is it that he thinks only "leftists" aren't capable of appreciating "higher culture" and WRONGLY(?) calling it "capitalist or imperialist or whatever"?

No issues with the right then? Or is "the right" the only side we can't classify or quantify?

Posted by: Crimea River | Aug 15 2022 6:21 utc | 88

Are examples of "higher culture" the statues of Civil War "patriots" and slaveowners positioned above heavily trafficked intersections and state parks in the south?

What's "higher culture" LMAO???

Posted by: Crimea River | Aug 15 2022 6:23 utc | 89

@NemesisCalling | Aug 15 2022 1:52 utc | 66

Didn't a Siberian people come across the land bridge from Asia into the Americas? Was that land theirs to begin with? Did they conquer a native people that were already existing in America?

Posted by: Norwegian | Aug 15 2022 6:23 utc | 90

Norweigan, please back that up with a link to a scholarly article peer reviewed if possible or a legitimate source if not. The people who came via Alaska are now postulated to have killed all the megafauna when the western settlers barely managed to kill the regular fauna (buffalo)?

Show me who thinks this.

Posted by: Crimea River | Aug 15 2022 6:26 utc | 91

Crimea River | Aug 15 2022 6:26 utc | 91

1491: The Americas before Columbus Paperback – by Charles C. Mann

Axis of the World: The Search for the Oldest American Civilization by Igor Witkowski

Posted by: pogohere | Aug 15 2022 6:53 utc | 92

Aye, matey, we're runnin' skinny on ellipses, Jonesy be starvin' fer 'em
Call the canook, 'es name es james, he's a rum's dealer's worth, can share

Posted by: TorqueSteer | Aug 15 2022 6:59 utc | 93

@ htyul | Aug 15 2022 4:42 utc | 85

asiatimes website is written so that everyone finds something they want to believe in, to attract page views and money. It's pure trash.

August 8, 2022 - "Taiwan’s reunification countdown has begun"
August 9, 2022 - "to find a way (...) US visits to Taiwan become more acceptable to China"
August 10, 2022 - "annexation of Taiwan has thus far been an unmitigated failure"

Posted by: rk | Aug 15 2022 7:01 utc | 94

Watcher @ 74:

"... i think viamin d, clothing, crowding, medical services and vaccination status are each potential reasons and worth examining more closely. if it is the first two then there should be a male female difference. this data should be available already ..."

Another possibility to consider (and I alluded to this @ 37) is that much of the work ME-born Australians or their children and grandchildren do may be essential work that compels them to come in frequent contact with people who may be infected with COVID-19 or to handle items already handled by infected people. Such work may be casual, temporary and/or low-paying which means people might have to work at several similar jobs, and this puts them even more at risk of infection from other people or from handling objects touched by infected people. Then they carry the infection to other people in their work environment or bring it home to their families.

The harshest COVID-19 lockdowns in New South Wales in 2021 (when the Delta version hit) covered parts of western Sydney, the inner southwest (Canterbury-Bankstown LGA) and the outer southwest (Fairfield and Liverpool LGAs) and these are areas where many ME-born Australians live. They are also mainly areas (though not the only ones) where working-class Sydneysiders live and the work they do is work that cannot be done at home, either completely or in hybrid work-from-home / work-in-office style.

"... one problem i have with the two socioeconomic explanations is that the same applies to many of the migrants from Afghanistan and Pakistan so their figures (included in south Asia not middle east)should be much closer. i do agree that the Indian population may be more educated and compliant ..."

There is a demographic difference as well: ME-born people started arriving in Australia during the 1970s, starting with the wave of refugees coming after civil war began in Lebanon in the mid-1970s. A considerable number of ME-born Australians then are at high risk for getting COVID-19 because of their age. Communities from Afghanistan, Pakistan and other parts of the Indian subcontinent are a bit younger.

I do not think access to Vitamin D or the issue of clothing for women in ME communities in Australia (because of supposed Islamic tradition) is that important as the religious mix among ME-born Australians can be different from what is currently found in a lot of ME nations, depending on which city (Sydney, Melbourne in the main) is surveyed and even which local government area where ME communities live is surveyed. Minority religions or religious denominations may be more heavily represented among ME communities in Australia than in their countries of origin. To take one example, according to the 2016 Census, most Egyptians in Australia are Christian (Coptic Orthodox or Catholic).

Posted by: Jen | Aug 15 2022 7:16 utc | 95

@Crimea River | Aug 15 2022 6:26 utc | 91

I am saying it is popular mythology (it is being repeated here) and call it nonsense, then you ask me to prove it.

Here is a sample of the mythology

While the exact date is still under discussion, it is most likely that humans first arrived in North America no later than about 15,000 years ago, and perhaps as long ago as 20,000 years ago, at the end of the last glacial maximum, when entrance into the Americas from Beringia became feasible. The North and South American continents were rapidly colonized, with populations settled in Chile by 14,500, surely within a few hundred years of the first entry into the Americas.

North America lost about 35 genera of mostly large animals during the Late Pleistocene, accounting for perhaps 50% of all mammal species larger than 70 lbs (32 kg), and all species larger than 2,200 lbs (1,000 kg). The ground sloth, American lion, dire wolf, and short-faced bear, wooly mammoth, mastodon and Glyptotherium (a large bodied armadillo) all disappeared. At the same time, 19 genera of birds disappeared; and some animals and birds made radical changes in their habitats, permanently changing their migration patterns. Based on pollen studies, plant distributions also saw a radical change primarily between 13,000 to 10,000 calendar years ago (cal BP).

See how mythology is established? I don't think there is any evidence at all for this scenario, which is completely implausible and nonsensical. There is actual evidence for human civilization in America long before this time period, even though it is ascribed to short lived Inca period (South America). Ref. Tiwanaku/Puma Punku Bolivia, Ollantaytambo Peru etc.

There is also real evidence to support for a different scenario on how the megafauna got extinct overnight.

Posted by: Norwegian | Aug 15 2022 7:45 utc | 96

August 1, 2022
How Chinese money is buying Solomon Islands | Four Corners

Posted by: Antonym | Aug 15 2022 7:48 utc | 97

Turkish UAV Firm Opens Office in TAIWAN
With the signatures signed between Fly BVLOS Technology, Gebze Technical University, and Taiwan's National Formosa University, Fly BVLOS Technology became a partner of UAV Technology Center in Taiwan.
Fly BVLOS Technology will soon open an R&D office at the International UAV Technology Center. R&D activities will be carried out especially for products such as motors, chips and batteries.
In addition, all stakeholders will share their expertise and experience in the field of UAV technologies.
Gebze Technical University (GTU), which hosts Dronepark in its campus, and Fly BVLOS Technology, a subsidiary of Coşkunöz Holding, are opening up to Taiwan.
Gebze Technical University and Fly BVLOS Technology, which participated in the Taiwan-Turkiye UAV Technology Forum held in Chiayi, Taiwan, signed an agreement with Taiwan Formosa University to "encourage and strengthen academic and technical exchange and cooperation in the field of UAV technology".
The signing ceremony was attended by the founder of Fly BVLOS, Kamil Demirkapu, Gebze Technical University rector Dr. Hacı Ali Mantar and former rector Dr. Muhammed Hasan Aslan, and Taiwan's National Formosa University rector Dr. Shinn-Liang Chang.
While GTU and Fly BVLOS transfer their experience in UAV production to Taiwan, they will also benefit from the work of Taiwan Formosa University and its partner UAV Technology Center.

https://turdef.com/Article/coskunoz-holding-s-subsidiary-fly-bvlos-technology-opens-an-office-in-taiwan/1948
https://defensehere.com/tr/turkiye-ile-tayvan-arasinda-iha-teknolojisi-alaninda-onemli-is-birligi

Posted by: Melaleuca | Aug 15 2022 7:58 utc | 98

Posted by: Jen | Aug 15 2022 7:16 utc | 95

Very good point about age Jen. Yes that may well be the explanation. It probably is for the relatively high death rate amongst south eastern Europeans - Greeks mainly and we know about the Greek nursing home.

Not quite so convinced about the roles in face to face service roles etc because this would apply even more to those from countries in South Asia and even to many from South East Asia.

Posted by: watcher | Aug 15 2022 9:24 utc | 99

Posted by: Jen | Aug 15 2022 7:16 utc | 95

Just one thing Jen about age, the ABS data referred to age adjusted death rate - no idea how the adjustment works (will try to study it) but it seems probable that the age of the migrant groups affected may already have been taken into account.

Posted by: watcher | Aug 15 2022 9:32 utc | 100