Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 18 2023 20:54 utc | 203
Thanks for that, Scorpion! It’s a rocky road, and we are going to have huge setbacks it seems to me, just as those two countries have had. After all, we humans are a cantankerous lot – button pushers and knee jerkers, small and large. The west is presently in the infancy-toddler stage older civilizations passed through way back when.
I’m sort of familiar with how Russia has ‘advanced’ – plenty of stops and starts in that; not so much familiar with China’s though I have part Chinese grandchildren and a son in law who is equal in affection to me as my own sons. So, both their accomplishments, Russia’s and China’s, are a warmth to me, not a threat, since they have become my family, whilst here I am in the west. Who coulda thunk?
We can learn from them as they learn from each other. And we are. We just need to keep our eye on doing the next good thing, even if that is only as simple as picking ourselves up after we’ve done a doozy of a tumble. That’s how infants learn to walk.
We are only human after all, but Hobbes has not had the last word, not by any stretch of the imagination. Hobbes is a pipsqueak. (Sorry, you’ll have to read him and make your own judgment; that’s mine.)

Posted by: juliania | Aug 18 2023 21:29 utc | 204

One of the features of neo-colonialism in Africa is the use of neo-liberal programmes to fuel corruption.
This article from the New Left Review is about Kenya but it helps put Niger and the ECOWAS countries into perspective. Africans live in poverty amidst enormous wealth funneled north (and west) by comprador elites which win elections and retain power by using violence which is underwritten by their sponsors, most of whom are in NATO.
Kenya has recently been in the news because it has offered the US 1000 (black) soldiers to help take over Haiti again, where there has not been an election for years and there hasn’t been a fair one since Aristide was kidnapped and a series of puppets installed- thanks to the US, its creatures and France which rerfused to countenance the Haitian suggestion that it return the billions extorted from Haiti, at gunpoint, for its revolution.
“…Debt-fuelled infrastructure binges are as old as the Kenyan state (the settler-colony was founded to pay the cost of the railway to Uganda). State contracts and tenders have long been dependable mechanisms for the privatization of public wealth. Recent instances have been more egregious, though, in part thanks to the proliferation of foreign financial sources. The latest scandals include dams financed by Italian money, railways by Chinese, and roads funded by the African Development Bank. Countless examples circulate through Kenya’s public sphere, known by shorthands – SGR, NYS, Afya House, Eurobond – each indicative of profligate spending and unaccountable elites.Another recent infrastructure project is the elevated expressway that now runs through Nairobi, dwarfing the parliament buildings and enveloping one of the city’s few public parks in exhaust fumes. When we drove along it in July, the monstrosity was largely empty because the toll price is out of reach for most.
“Much government spending over the past ten years has also disappeared amid a series of massive corruption scandals. Some of it simply cannot be accounted for. Kenyan analysts speak of ‘state capture’ to describe the thoroughgoing appropriation of public monies by self-interested officeholders. The former Auditor-General, Edward Ouko, claimed such appropriation is so commonplace that official budgets are prospectively inflated, with a shadow system of allocations directed not only to the corrupt and their clients but also to those who might try to bring them to account.
“Debt-fuelled infrastructure binges are as old as the Kenyan state (the settler-colony was founded to pay the cost of the railway to Uganda). State contracts and tenders have long been dependable mechanisms for the privatization of public wealth. Recent instances have been more egregious, though, in part thanks to the proliferation of foreign financial sources. The latest scandals include dams financed by Italian money, railways by Chinese, and roads funded by the African Development Bank. Countless examples circulate through Kenya’s public sphere, known by shorthands – SGR, NYS, Afya House, Eurobond – each indicative of profligate spending and unaccountable elites…”
https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/costly-propositions

Posted by: bevin | Aug 18 2023 21:35 utc | 206

https://halfreeman.wordpress.com/2023/08/08/the-best-laid-plans-of-mice-and-men-political-personal/
THE BEST LAID PLANS OF MICE AND MEN: POLITICAL & PERSONAL
In this blog entry I will continue to address issues that are related both to political events and the situation with my family. I admit to pandering to my readers. Not long ago a lady wrote me and said she didn’t care for the news about Ukraine and all that, but she loved reading about my family and our experiences in Russia. Almost the same day I got another response from a different lady who said, “Hal, keep on giving the updates on Ukraine! I don’t have time to search the alt news sites, and I don’t trust our main stream press.” So I’m trying to please all of the people some of the time.
I decided to follow the advice of some of my readers and take the kids on a trip down to Moscow to visit some American friends there and to let the kids enjoy the zoo, the aquarium and the park. Marina had told me that she really wanted to go back to Moscow. I contacted my friend Fr. Seraphim Bell down there, and he recommended a hotel near his place. Gabe got the reservations, but waited too late for ordering the express train tickets. So we had to delay a week. He got our hotel reservations changed and the train tickets ordered, so we got packed and ready. Then about 4:00 a.m. the morning we were to leave Marina Grace came rushing into my room. She had gotten sick and vomited on her bed and the floor. I calmed her down and waited till morning to clean up. As the morning wore on it was clear she was not able to travel. Unfortunately it was too late to get our money back when we cancelled our hotel reservations. Since we couldn’t get the money back for our train travel either, we lost a pretty good “chunk of change,” as we say…
Further readings follow the link !

Posted by: MD | Aug 18 2023 21:52 utc | 208

https://mailchi.mp/herecomeschina.com/defense-budget-jumps-16952116
GDP grew 6.3% in Q2
Pre-owned home prices fell 0.7%
WeChat Pay, Alipay take Visa, Discover, JCB
High Speed Rail gets 6.5% ROI
3 millionth 5G station installed
Huawei’s 120,000 patents earned $560 m
453 km/h train tests completed
Selfless rural doctors
Norwegians, not Chinese, abhor random inequality
Banks must extend RE loans for 12 months
Media slam ‘hot kids style’
Trump: “Taiwan is like two feet from China”
LONG READS:
SWP Berlin
Richard D. Wolff
For America to be displaced by an Asian people long despised and dismissed with contempt as decadent, feeble, corrupt and inept, is emotionally very difficult to accept. The sense of cultural supremacy of the Americans will make this adjustment most difficult. Lee Kwan Yew
https://astutenews.com/2023/08/no-longer-the-lone-superpower-coming-to-terms-with-china/
I recall forty years ago, when I was a new professor working in the field of Chinese and Japanese international relations, that Edwin O. Reischauer once commented, “The great payoff from our victory of 1945 was a permanently disarmed Japan.” Born in Japan and a Japanese historian at Harvard, Reischauer served as American ambassador to Tokyo in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Strange to say, since the end of the Cold War in 1991 and particularly under the administration of George W. Bush, the United States has been doing everything in its power to encourage and even accelerate Japanese rearmament.
Such a development promotes hostility between China and Japan, the two superpowers of East Asia, sabotages possible peaceful solutions in those two problem areas, Taiwan and North Korea, left over from the Chinese and Korean civil wars, and lays the foundation for a possible future Sino-American conflict that the United States would almost surely lose.
It is unclear whether the ideologues and war lovers of Washington understand what they are unleashing — a possible confrontation between the world’s fastest growing industrial economy, China, and the world’s second most productive, albeit declining, economy, Japan; a confrontation which the United States would have both caused and in which it might well be consumed…

Posted by: MD | Aug 18 2023 22:28 utc | 210

https://metallicman.com/
From an AMERICAN who actually lives in CHN !
https://metallicman.com/lost-in-space-earth/
Lost in space and lost on earth.
WTF?
One of the things that I miss about Massachusetts is that you were not permitted to pump your own gasoline. Initially, I thought it was crazy and stupid as I had grown accustomed to using the self-serve pumps to get gas. It was my little way of saving money.
But over time, I learned that the saving was not as big as I thought it was, and the convenience was just too wonderful.
Then when I moved to China, again… it is the LAW. You cannot pump your own gas. That is the job of the gas station attendants.
Most of America has become like Pavlov’s Dog. Americans have grown accustomed to wearing the chains and shackles that confine them. They are proud of their prison bars, and can’t even conceive of living without them.
Todays…
https://metallicman.com/late-stage-death/
The USA is terminal at Late Stage Death.
The United States is in absolute LATE STAGE collapse.
The society is destroyed, and there isn’t a middle class left. Businesses still operate and manage under the few pockets of commerce that still exist, however the labor force is unemployed, unskilled and have “checked out”. Nothing much remains outside of the enclaves.
The American “leadership” are fixated on war, and profits from that war. More war they demand, and now they want really BIG wars so that they can make really BIG profits.
They are absolute idiots.
China is aptly dancing around these Bozos, but how long can this charade keep up? No one knows, not indefinitely. There’s gonna have to be some bitch-slapping sooner or later. I’ll tell you what.
Enjoy these videos. Must watch all. As they describe the true measure of what we all can expect…
Allow me to say something crazy that you haven’t heard elsewhere.
While Putin may have foolishly believed in Minsk 2, and now Russia is in a shooting war with a neighbor and kin that it cannot afford to lose (and as a nuclear armed nation, will not lose). Strategically, it will be weakened whatever the outcome.
On the other hand, America has committed an even more grievous mistake.
It is the greatest blunder since the establishment of the empire. You can trust something like this will happen because the empire is now run by morons and imbeciles. America has made the Ukraine War an existential conflict for the empire.
It has now committed the entire empire and all its vassals in a total war against Russia. There are no negotiations, no cease fire, no peace, only unconditional surrender (the chance of Russia surrendering is zero).
The US could afford to lose to Vietnam and Afghanistan, but it cannot afford to lose this war to Russia.
When that happens, guess what the vassals will do. This is the last war of the empire, folks. Meanwhile, China and BRICS+ will continue to attack the USD, with or without India (I’m guessing the BRICS currency will be a trade instrument like the SDU rather than a sovereign currency like the EURO, it will be designed to compete against the USD in trade, particularly among BRICS+ nations, no one will be forced to use it, but one can circumvent the USD ecosystem with it). Let’s see how long the empire and its fake economy can hold out on this two-front war…
https://metallicman.com/august-sitrep-2023/
Biden and his economy
Forbes Media Chairman Steve Forbes said Friday he was “amazed” by the administration’s rhetoric on the economy.
“A year ago, Joe Biden was calling himself the deficit cutter, the deficit slasher. This year, two and a half times the deficit is what it was a year ago,” he told “America’s Newsroom.”
“He says he’s bringing down inflation, still twice what it was when he came into office and those prices are not coming down, just the rate of increase is coming down. People’s credit card debt, where is that? Record high. Business investment is not what it should be, headwinds overseas.”
“What kind of world does he think he’s living in?”
The president delivered a full-throated defense of Bidenomics , claiming credit for bringing down inflation, slashing the federal budget by $1.7 trillion and creating 13 million new jobs.
In June, Biden made the same claim about cutting the deficit by $1.7 trillion, which The Washington Post rated “highly misleading.”
Voters also have their doubts; Biden had a 60% disapproval rating on the economy in Fox News’ June poll, which was a 7% improvement from the prior year.
Forbes believes Biden will not be the Democratic nominee
in 2024 and argued his record on the economy is one of the main reasons.
“People feel the institution in this country [they] can’t trust anymore. And both sides, you see that feeling, which is why Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is getting real traction. Who would have thought of that a year ago?”
Former economic adviser to President Trump Steve Moore told “The Faulkner Focus” Friday that the Biden economy is not working for many Americans.
“The people that have really been the victims of the Biden policies have been middle-class Americans,” he explained.
“Inflation is coming down, no question about it. It was 9% this time last summer. It’s down to a little over 3% now, which is good news. But guess what? That huge inflation that we saw in the first two and a half years of Biden’s presidency is now baked in the cake. In other words, if you go to the grocery store, or you go to get your gas fill up, or you buy an airline ticket or buy meat, all of those things on average are up 15 and a half percent. And that’s going to continue as we continue to have this inflation.”
Moore continued, “wages over that same time period for middle-class families are up roughly 12%. So the math here isn’t difficult, a 15 and a half percent increase in inflation, a 12% increase in wages means people are falling behind, and they’re feeling it.”
The economist noted inflation is also affecting those near retirement age.
“Who do you think gets hurt the most by inflation? People who have spent their whole lifetime building up their savings. So we estimate, for example, that the average 401(k) plan has lost about 40 or $50,000 in its purchasing power because of the high inflation and the fact that the market had not done so well,” Moore said. “The stock market is doing better now, thank God. But it’s really difficult for people now to just retire on Social Security

Posted by: MD | Aug 18 2023 23:14 utc | 212

https://substack.com/@herecomeschina
Godfree Roberts
@HERECOMESCHINA
Author, “Why China Leads the World: Democracy at the bottom, data in the middle, talent at the top”. Weekly newsletter: “Here Comes China”. https://www.herecomeschina.com/order-page/
https://nitter.net/GodfreeTrh
https://nitter.net/RnaudBertrand
https://nitter.net/AndyBxxx
https://nitter.net/raghavan1314
https://nitter.net/BeehiveChina
https://nitter.net/Angelo4justice3
I arrived in China in 1995, I saw a whole nation working extremely hard, full of great aspirations for their country, for future generations.
Fully conscious of history and the fact that this was the time for China to end a century of humiliation.
It is so powerful when you have a nation where people love their country, their culture, history, traditions and are hard working.
The decadent & declining collective West is no match to this as in the West we are just dividing people over genders, sexuality, societal issues and other BS because Western elites need the masses, the 99% to be divided.
China on the contrary has uniting approach of common prosperity, promoting harmony, stability, social cohesion, work ethics and all with a touch of scientific approach…. this is absolutely unbeatable…
https://nitter.net/NiMingda_GG
David Fishman
https://nitter.net/pretentiouswhat
https://nitter.net/PandemicTruther
https://nitter.net/ChinaScience
https://nitter.net/CNSAWatcher
https://nitter.net/BenjaminNorton
https://nitter.net/ZeppLaRouche
https://www.quora.com/profile/Godfree-Roberts?share=1
http://sino-cinema.com/

Posted by: MD | Aug 19 2023 0:43 utc | 214

S.L. Kanthan
@Kanthan2030
7h
India’s youth unemployment rate has been over 30% for more than FIVE years!
It gets reported occasionally in Western media but in a clinical manner and quickly forgotten.
No Western media will dare to talk about “collapse of India”! 😀
Geopolitics and media coverage.
Youth unemployment in Sweden, Italy, Greece and Spain are all over 22% — worse than China!
And half of Americans age 18-34 are pessimistic about future.
But bad stats about West are ignored, while China’s problems become an obsession. 🤪
Mass psychosis in the USA

Posted by: MD | Aug 19 2023 1:45 utc | 216

https://nitter.net/NewsFromDonbass
Rossa PrimaVera
Rossa Primavera International News
@NewsFromDonbass
15h
Who will supply more? #UK 🇬🇧 and #USA 🇺🇸 compete on promises of military aid to #Ukraine 🇺🇦
t.me/rossaprimavera_int/5833
#ClassicalWar
Rossa Primavera International News
@NewsFromDonbass
15h
#NASA’s Deputy Associate Administrator for Technology, Policy and Strategy demands a radical revision of US space policy and refuse any cooperation with #Russia. The reason for this is that #TheWest is waging a “perpetual war” against Russia.
t.me/rossaprimavera_int/5832

Posted by: MD | Aug 19 2023 2:15 utc | 218

Models have come into increasing alignment that Hilary will make landfall between Los Angeles and a point south of Tijuana, Mexico, just south of the U.S.-Mexico border. If Hilary makes landfall in California while still classified as a tropical cyclone, it would be the first one to do so since 1939.

https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2023/08/californias-first-tropical-storm-watch-on-record-as-hurricane-hilary-heads-for-baja/
Thought so. I’ve been hereabouts since the fifties, and I sure don’t remember any hurricane ever hitting California, for goodness’ sake!

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Aug 19 2023 3:16 utc | 220

buT what about that 60000 marines embedded in Haiwaii, its the home base for PACOM
forchrissake !
Meanwhile, PACOM is busy running fonops in SCS.
Plus, you really gotta see that gigantic war game in Oz, Talisman sabre, where the ENA, er, G7, has been rehearsing a blockade of Malacca Straits.
What ?
They have all that time for war games but no time for disaster relieve at home ?
Give the man a break…

GOtta git them over there instead of fight them over here !
Malacca Straits is where we have the chicom by their balls

Posted by: denk | Aug 19 2023 4:06 utc | 222

Xinhuanet has a posting up reporting on a Friday phone conversation between French and China FMs and the quote below caught my eye

For her part, Colonna expressed sincere condolences on the recent floods in China. She stressed that France and Europe will adhere to strategic autonomy, oppose global fragmentation, do not accept decoupling and disruption of industrial and supply chains and hope to build a multipolar, balanced and peaceful world.

France is talking the multipolar talk but will they walk the talk?

Posted by: psychohistorian | Aug 19 2023 6:30 utc | 224

If I get it right, nobody on this blog is interested in the genocide in Armenia by Aserbaidschan. There is no info on Russia MoFA page, not even anglo-saxon disinformation, just some german(?) reports of starving people.
All I found, was this on the UNSC page. Russia and EU agree that the blockade has to be lifted immediately:
“However, the representative of the Russian Federation, while highlighting the key elements of the trilateral agreements — including the delimiting and demarcating the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, with Moscow’s assistance — stressed that Armenian-Azerbaijani reconciliation is unthinkable without reliable security guarantees and the observance of the rights of the inhabitants of Nagorno-Karabakh. He pointed to his Government’s compromise-based proposal to de-escalate tensions, entailing the parallel opening of corridors through Aghdam and Lachin.
Nevertheless, said Silvio Gonzato, Deputy Head of Delegation of the European Union, in its capacity as observer, Baku’s readiness to supply goods via the city of Aghdam should not be seen as an alternative to reopening the Corridor. Warning against politization of humanitarian access, he underscored that movement through the Lachin Corridor must be reopened immediately.”
What’s going on there?
https://press.un.org/en/2023/sc15384.doc.htm

Posted by: njet | Aug 19 2023 10:00 utc | 226

What’s going on there?
https://press.un.org/en/2023/sc15384.doc.htm
Posted by: njet | Aug 19 2023 10:00 utc | 227
I see occasional stories about that issue, but indeed nobody seems very interested, although I do get the idea both Iran & Russia are concerned about it. And I’m not sure why, unless it is that everybody is busy already, too many crises to pay attention to all of them.
Another mini-Ukraine in waiting by the look of it. Ugly historical hatreds and lots of duplicity.
It is an interesting point that various “enemies” of Uncle Sugar are getting a break right now, e.g. Venezuela, because Uncle Sugar is so busy.

Posted by: Bemildred | Aug 19 2023 10:33 utc | 228

@Norwegian | Aug 19 2023 8:38 utc | 226
Luna-25 has returned a new and much more detailed photo of the Zeeman crater on the far side of the Moon.

📸 These images capture the Zeeman crater . In the list of the twenty deepest craters of the southern hemisphere of the moon, he is in third place. It has an unusual size ratio: diameter is about 190 km, depth is about 8 km. Its formation is associated with a very strong impact, which is possible if the speed of the impactor is very high or its substance is very dense.
Detailed photographs show that the bottom of the crater is dotted with smaller ones. This happens if part of the substance ejected upon impact fell back and created numerous small “potholes”. Such formations are very interesting from the point of view of lunar geology.

https://t.me/roscosmos_gk/10533
I am hoping both the Russian (Luna 25) and the Indian (Chandrayaan-3) landers in the coming days are successful.

Posted by: Norwegian | Aug 19 2023 11:03 utc | 230

https://nitter.net/RnaudBertrand/status/1692076651063156831#m
ARNAUD BERTRAND
Aug 17
The most interesting part of our RV road trip in China this summer ⬇️ isn’t actually what we saw but what we DIDN’T see.
Here it is:
1) We didn’t see any trace of this mythical “social credit score” (which means I still haven’t seen any in 10+ years of traveling and living in China…).
2) We didn’t see any homelessness, nor did we see any extreme poverty, despite traveling in some of the less developed parts of rural China. We of course saw a lot of folks that were obviously not well off – China is still on average a poorer country than the West – but no-one living in slums or begging on the streets.
3) We didn’t see any violence, not even the slightest episode of road rage. That’s something that’s always impressed me: Chinese people are incredibly calm and chill, there’s a strong cultural aversion to violence and especially physical violence.
4) For all the talk of China as a “police state”, we didn’t get stopped by the police even once in 5,000 km and 32 days of driving. Our sole interaction with the authorities during our trip was when we approached the Mongolian border there was an army checkpoint where they were checking everyone’s ID. That’s it.
5) We didn’t see repression of minorities’ cultures, on the contrary. Whenever we went to an area with a large minority population – be it Mongolians, Koreans or Russians – their culture was celebrated. Street names were in their language, restaurants served their food, museums explained their history, cultural events and sites were about their culture, etc.
6) We didn’t experience racism or display of nationalism. Chinese people are very patriotic, sure, with many Chinese flags around and obvious pride in their country’s achievements but we’ve never had an experience where this translated into racism or nationalism. On the contrary wherever we went – and this has consistently been the case in all my travels in China – people were incredibly welcoming and curious about us. I cannot begin to count the amount of free stuff my daughters got offered by strangers during the trip!
7) Lastly, needless to say we didn’t witness any “human rights abuses” or stuff of that nature. People who don’t know the country don’t realize just how normal life actually is in China. It’s a whole lot of people doing normal stuff: working, eating out, shopping, driving, entertaining themselves, etc. Just normal human beings like you and me, with actually a lot of respect for each others. Sure China has a very different culture and values from the West: the extreme importance of family, of education, of hard work, a collectivist understanding of society as opposed to individualist, social harmony as a paramount value, etc. But that’s what makes the country interesting and beautiful, we should welcome differences and diversity in this world instead of fearing it.
Arnaud Bertrand
@RnaudBertrand
Aug 13
This is day 32 of our RV road trip in Northeast China and… it ends today 😭
So time to do a little retrospective. This is a 🧵 with the highlights of our trip.
As a reminder we’re a Sino-French family of 4 who rented a RV in Shenyang and proceeded to tour the 4 provinces of Northeast China, travelling approximately 5,000km.
Aug 17, 2023 · 7:31 AM UTC
Dave
@DaveBTD618
Aug 17
Replying to @RnaudBertrand
I asked around in SH and seems like the social credit score is real but no longer enforced. There’s also a sense of empathy/humility that was absent last time I visited 5 years ago. Imho the lockdowns made ppl realize they are in this together.
Arnaud Bertrand
@RnaudBertrand
Aug 17
It was never real, I’ve been traveling and living in China since 2007. Never saw any trace of it.
more replies
Rubi
@rubi_ruebz
Aug 17
Replying to @RnaudBertrand
The social credit score lol.. i go back and forth there for business. When i asked my Chinese colleagues, none of them know and funnily they got excited and asked me to explain what is that, which of course i can’t explain ‘what is that’. Maybe only Americans know what is that..
Arnaud Bertrand
@RnaudBertrand
Aug 17
Exactly, only foreigners have heard of it 😂
more replies
observer
@observer1us
Aug 17
Replying to @RnaudBertrand
Idk if it’s true but I heard it’s inconvenient for foreigners to book hotels in major cities because of regulations on hotel eligibility to host foreigners. Maybe a factor on some foreigner reluctance on visiting, on top of communication with friends and families because of GFW?
Arnaud Bertrand
@RnaudBertrand
Aug 18
It’s true that not all hotels have the license to host foreigners but actually not an issue in big cities where you’ll always be able to find some, more an issue in places with very few hotels!
Val Cosgrave
@NewsRuby
Aug 17
Replying to @RnaudBertrand
Thanks for so much this. IMHO your trips with their ‘human’ observations & commentary are in many ways perhaps far more powerful than the still important political observations & commentary. Marvellous also to see the easy trilingual capabilities!!
Arnaud Bertrand
@RnaudBertrand
Aug 17
Thanks ☺️
Steve Weaver 🇬🇧🇨🇳🏉
@SteveWeaverTEFL
Aug 17
Replying to @RnaudBertrand
Your post is heartening and a reminder of what I have seen in my much shorter time in China. Thank you so much @RnaudBertrand
Arnaud Bertrand
@RnaudBertrand
Aug 17
☺️
Load more

Posted by: MD | Aug 19 2023 12:33 utc | 232

@ MD | Aug 19 2023 12:33 utc | 233 and more
Before this thread fades away I’ll just say huge thanks for all you’ve put up here MD.

Posted by: waynorinorway | Aug 19 2023 15:22 utc | 234

Anyone know what’s going on with southfront? I’m going through withdrawals without my daily multi-doses of SF!

Posted by: nathan in WA US | Aug 19 2023 17:03 utc | 236

https://southfront.press Yeah!!!

Posted by: nathan in WA US | Aug 19 2023 17:15 utc | 238

A relatively short but clear exposition of several 2020 election process issues for any who are interested. In ZH.
Yes, it’s conclusion below comes down on one side, but the factual arguments presented in the article justify it.
https://tinyurl.com/26z7lfym

President Trump did not try to “subvert” the election, nor did he secretly know he lost. Any beyond-surface-level inspection of the 2020 election reveals its fraudulency. Trump was not only allowed to dispute an election he felt was fraudulent, but as president was constitutionally obligated to do so. That is the opposite of criminal. In fact, he is one of the only public officials willing to uphold the oath he swore. Trying to imprison him for this not only is a tall task, but also puts them at risk of allowing him to publicly prove that “The Big Lie” is the real “Big Lie.”
The evidence exists for Trump to finally prove that his over two-year-old claims are valid. All he must do now is present it.

=============================================
Posted by: MD | Aug 19 2023 12:33 utc | 233
Much appreciated input. I find absence of social credit a little surprising. I watched a Youtube a while back – which don’t do often about China – and it interviewed a man who said he had to travel 2nd class because of his social credit score. I wonder if they tried it briefly in only a few municipalities?
I have only been to China once, for about two months (near Yangshuo), and was struck by how people on the ground seem to run their own lives and towns. Indeed, I felt more sense of freedom in China than in any Western nation though wondered that was because of ignorance of what was going on locally or nationally meaning I lacked projections laced with memory which most Chinese residents would typically have. Even so: atmospheres are atmospheres, and that atmospheric experience of freedom was quite different from what I expected which was some sort of claustrophobic hive mind. No, it was the opposite. On the contrary, the West is drowning in Groupthink.
If it wasn’t for the inconvenience and expense of travelling I would love to spend a year or more there (also Japan and Korea) but this rolling stone now rarely gathers any more moss so…

Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 19 2023 17:34 utc | 240

Russia is in a better condition than in 90s because the oil prices skyrocketed at the time he became president and the whole world was progressing through technologies and IT. Putin did literally nothing for it to happen and never used it for anything but putting money in his bags and destroying competition. He didn’t want mafia to contest his authority? Well, every thief is in law now and has an official place with license to rob people. He was scared of army? Well, look at where this attitude got it.
Everything that has managed to flourish in Russia only flourised because the Putin’s gang didn’t pay attention to it. Yandex company is a wonderful example.

Posted by: Loyaluna | Aug 19 2023 23:28 utc | 242

L after L for Moscow.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/19/russia-reports-abnormal-situation-as-luna-25-tries-to-begin-moon-landing
https://www.rt.com/africa/581517-niger-wont-wagner-group

Posted by: Russia’s Defeat | Aug 20 2023 0:07 utc | 244

Nice short video by Clandestine reviewing the allegations on US biolabs that Russia has sent to the UN.
It’s clear why it took Russia to take on such a powerful structure.
https://twitter.com/WarClandestine/status/1692703494808146300/mediaViewer?currentTweet=1692703494808146300&currentTweetUser=WarClandestine

Posted by: financial matters | Aug 20 2023 1:59 utc | 246

Posted by: AG | Aug 20 2023 2:18 utc | 249
Not that I know of. He did post it on X.
The information is also on telegram channels but it was nicely presented in this 15 minute video. Similar information is here.
https://tass.com/politics/1423723/amp

Posted by: financial matters | Aug 20 2023 2:30 utc | 248

This isn’t completely true, and we had very cheap energy prices between 2014-17 far cheaper than now after Crimea. It isn’t true as Sanctions would have destroyed Russia between 2014-18 and further more right now, this article shows
“UK expected to be only major economy to shrink in 2023 – IMF”
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-64452995
This BBC articles shows that the Russian economy will grow this year nullifying last years small contraction + Next year will likely be Europes fastest growing Major economy.
On top of this, this article from Awaragroup focused a lot in the past on how Russia was working on diversifying the economy (You only have to look how much domestic agriculture has boomed in Russia the past decade to see that)
https://www.awaragroup.com/blog/russian-economy-2014-2016-the-years-of-sanctions-warfare/
“Time to bury the hydrocarbon dependency meme – Oil & Gas now make up less than 10% of Russia’s GDP
The really devastating news for “our Western partners” (as Putin likes to refer to them) must be – which we are the first to report – the extraordinary decrease in the share of oil & gas revenue in Russia’s GDP. Chart #3 shows that as of 2015 according to World Bank data the total natural resources rent (the national income derived from natural resources) was 10.3%. It should be noted that the figure includes also income from other natural resources than the energy sector”
“Oil & gas related revenue made up only 17% of the total consolidated budget revenue in 2016.
Contemplating these figures that disprove the claim of Russia’s supposed hydrocarbon dependency,”
“The charade that Russia has supposedly failed to modernize and diversify its economy has been concocted around three arguments: First, that oil & gas makes up a disproportionally big share of the GDP. Above we have punctured this absurd and obviously wrong pretense. Second, that oil & gas revenue accounts for half of the budget revenue. This claim we also proved baseless. Third, that Russia’s exports are overwhelmingly dominated by oil & gas. This is, however, true when taken merely at face value.
Yes, true at face value, but false in what comes to the conclusions. Surely people who pretend to be experts in economy, would have to dig deeper than the face value. The thing is that while it is true that Russia’s exports remain relatively undiversified, it is also true – as can be seen from above chart – that Russia’s import volumes are the lowest in the world in terms of their share of the GDP. The chart shows that Russia’s imports as a share of GDP was as low as 7.2%, while the corresponding level for Western European countries was between 30 to 40%. What this then means is that – as Russia imports so preciously little – it produces domestically most of what is consumed and invested in the country.”

Posted by: Czar Mikhail | Aug 20 2023 6:24 utc | 250

Unfortunately, Luna 25 failed disastrously

🔴 On August 19, in accordance with the flight program of the Luna-25 spacecraft, an impulse was provided for the formation of its pre-landing elliptical orbit.
At about 14:57 Moscow time, communication with the Luna-25 spacecraft was interrupted.
The measures taken on August 19 and 20 to search for the device and get into contact with it did not produce any results.
According to the results of a preliminary analysis, due to the deviation of the actual parameters of the impulse from the calculated ones, the device switched to an off-design orbit and ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the lunar surface.
A specially formed interdepartmental commission will deal with the issues of clarifying the reasons for the loss of the Moon.

https://t.me/roscosmos_gk/10540
Let us hope the Indian Chandrayaan-3 is more successful

Posted by: Norwegian | Aug 20 2023 9:35 utc | 252

re: Firefox & censorhip?
I am everything but tech-savvy – it appears that after the latest Firefox upate when I open one of the “bad” sites, like Scheer or antiwar (has not happened to MoA yet) sometimes the new tab fails to open and Firefox states “tab couldn´t open due to malfunction”. This is strange since it only happens with sites which I assume on some secret blacklist. And it never happened in recent months and years. So this must be a new “cool” feature.
Or am I crazy?

Posted by: AG | Aug 20 2023 12:41 utc | 254