News & views (not related to wars in Ukraine and Palestine) ….
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March 13, 2024
Open (Neither Ukraine Nor Palestine) Thread 2024-077
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Put so succinctly by Ruchir Sharmar on X, why India will never be China. Its elites never put in the basic institutional structures for a development economy, instead it drives corruption, careerism and clientilism:
In a country of 1408 million people, there are only 46.3 million people (3.28% of the population) who have salaried jobs in the formal sector, able to regularly contribute to their Employee Provident Fund.
Of these, only half earn enough to pay income tax, and a mere one-tenth of them contribute to 80% of income tax collected. That too not by choice but by compulsion, because of tax deducted at source for their salary bracket.
This is a policy choice and a desired outcome for the state.
The leaders of post-Partition “independent” India were so traumatised by rural taxation and famine at the hands of foreign tyrants and occupiers, and so antagonistic to native systems of taxation and governance as ‘Manuvadi’ and ‘regressive’, that they were scared of creating a bottom-up ecosystem of formal employment, thinking that to the ‘subaltern’ social strata, taxation is always and automatically ‘oppression’.
But this misses the fact that paying taxes is an essential form of identity-building and nation-building – it gives people a sense of ownership over the state institutions, which means they can demand better service delivery from the state and more people-oriented policies.
In its absence, the masses are instead reduced to begging (in the case of the silent majority, who like sheep, blow on the grass to ask its permission before grazing upon it) or extorting (in the case of the violent minority who honed their skills during foreign minority rule and Abrahamic Apartheid) their mai-baap feudal MP/MLA/DM for access to state patronage.
This meant the Nehruvian elites created socialism for the rich and anarcho-capitalism for the poor.
Instead of being able to fund universal housing, healthcare, and pensions for all citizens, like actual socialist countries, these were treated as feudal privileges that the state would grant to representatives of collective identities, as a form of state patronage to rent their loyalty.
This is also why reservations are seen as the panacea to all electoral ills – because government jobs are not about serving the country or achieving policy goals, it is about the king distributing titles, salaries, and pensions, to keep his vassals and tributaries loyal.
And then intellectuals complain, ‘why do these Indians take three baths a day and keep their homes spotless, but then go walk about in filthy streets, are they stupid?’, disregarding that owing to these policy choices, the state lacks the funds or incentive to deliver basic services while the public rarely developed a sense of ownership over public property.
Which is why they neither have well-funded public services at the grassroots, nor any pride or incentive in looking after public spaces as their own.
In fact, in a perverted form of Gandhian passive resistance, some people find great joy in breaking anti-littering rules, seeing them as ‘unjust oppression’ from a state that never did anything for them, and the state foolishly encourages this, feeling pride that the public are ‘smashing Brahmanical patriarchal norms’ such as hygiene and cleanliness.
What we see on this site-from literally dozens of different commentators- are contemporary re-iterations of the theories nursed by the John Birch Society, and its many off-shoots and allies, in the sixties, seventies and eighties.
The political ideology of neo-liberalism. Anti-socialism with the twist that any reforms imposed on capitalism lead -The Road to Serfdom- to communism.
It was the Birchers who saw in any international organisations, notably the UN and even NATO, evidence of global conspiracies against the sovereignty of the American people. Much of the hatred of ‘globalisation’ stems from these ideas, which included arcane and convoluted theories that linked Communism with prominent banking families-the Rothschilds, Morgans and Rockefellers-as well as broader groupings, such as Wall St and The City.
The Civil Rights movement- predecessor to BLM- was regarded as both Communist inspired and led and fostered by Jews (who, usefully, doubled as communists and financiers). It’s objective was said to be the destruction of ‘western civilisation’ as constructed by white men.
A great majority of the posts here from north American sources reflect these old Birch Society memes which have the advantage of being adaptable to almost any change in circumstances- many of them having been around since before the Russian Revolution, some, the basic masonic/illuminati conspiracies, go back even further, pre-dating the French revolution.
What is common to all of these theories is the underlying pessimism of the message: There Is No Alternative, all political struggle is pretence, kabuki theatrics, the grip that the secret rulers have on the world cannot be shaken. Resistance is useless.
It is no accident that these theories are hand in hand with ideas that nothing happens unless the ruling forces want it to.
Thus October 7th was, in the eyes of these neo-Birchers, no surprise to Israel who could have prevented the attack had they wished to, but allowed it to happen because it suited their plans for genocide.
And, of course, 9/11 could never have been perpetrated by camel driving Arabs (one of many inferior races in the Bircher worldview) and can only have been choreographed by the US- gripped as it is by a Communist/globalist cabal- which itself acts in the interests of Jews.
As to Climate Change- belief in which must lead to actions which inhibit the freedom of capitalists- that must be denied with the same fervour that insists that Bolshevism was directed by bankers, not least Jews angry with the Tsar for his support of pogroms.
The common factor, where one can be descried among masses of contradictions, is denial of the possibility of a socialist reform of society. The defence of capitalism from poor children needing school meals and elderly cancer patience requiring surgery, from workers uniting to demand higher wages, better working conditions, shorter hours or safer machinery, above all from an electorate intent on taxing wealth or equalising incomes is what the Birch Society was all about. All those conspiracy theories nothing more than substitutes for recognising the obvious.
So pervasive have these anti-communist ideas become in the United States and Canada that they are central in the political arena: Donald Trump, for example, is heir to the tradition even to the extent that his mentor was McCarthy’s evil genius Roy Cohn. Like the Birchers he holds that NATO offers a ‘free ride’ to its European members. Like them too he rejects the implications of Nixon’s opening to China and is heavily invested in the Taiwan attack dog policy which the US extreme right has pushed for three quarters of a century.
In Canada the Birch tradition was exemplified in Steven Harper’s sub imperialist worldview. It is carried on by Poilevre, the leader of the Conservative party and very likely to be the next Prime Minister.
So pervasive are these ideas that they dominate not only the political centre but the anti-imperialism of the Ron Paul school. Even the Peace movement is polluted by capitalist ideology.
Posted by: bevin | Mar 13 2024 16:23 utc | 2
UK NHS bans puberty blockers! Now if only the lunatic land of my home country of Canada could start getting back to actual biological science instead of gender studies BS.
Children to stop getting puberty blockers at gender identity clinics, says NHS England
But alas no! Instead we are getting a bill that will outlaw thought-crimes and pre-crimes. All in the name of “saving the children”, Orwellian indeed!
In a novel take on the dystopian, science fiction concept of a ‘pre-crime’, if a judge believes there are reasonable grounds to “fear” a future hate crime may be committed, the guilty-until-proved-innocent party would be brought before a provincial court to determine whether they were a probable offender likely, at some unspecified point in the future, to generate “hate propaganda”.
An offending thought criminal would then have to “wear an electronic monitoring device”, “return to and remain at their place of residence at specified times”, and “abstain from the consumption of drugs… of alcohol or of any other intoxicating substance”, presumably just in case such substances loosened their hateful mouths. Failure to comply with these restrictions would result in a prison sentence of up to a year.
House arrest for people deemed likely to commit hate-crimes in Justin Trudeau’s Canada
No saving of the children in Gaza as Canada fully supports the Zionist genocide, and no saving of the children from the irreversible damage of puberty blockers, but we will “save” the “children” from people with thoughts that the government considers to be “bad”. Big Brother will be among us.
Is the ‘help’ Biden is building the sea port for going to be rice and water?
Or is America building a Trojan sea port to provide Netanyhu the kind of ‘help’ they are sending to Ukraine?
Let’s face, having the pentagon build the infrastructure, in the form of 1000 heavily armed marines who are going to set up camp in Gaza permanently, to protect ‘shipments’ hidden in containers, provides a perfect way to bring in pretty much Anything that could be found in the US army’s armories. Right to the spot where it can be deployed immediately.
Posted by: Marvin | Mar 13 2024 17:00 utc | 4
One of the recurring themes here at the bar is an ongoing critique of culture, in this case home building.
More recently oldhippie has chimed in on the lost knowledge of that art. I recently came across a bookmark of a MoA thread from 2008 which illustrates my point:
Style-less-ness is also a Recognizable Style
Finally it clicked for me. These trophy homes look commercial — that is, they look like commercial architecture. they look like steak houses, they look like Borders bookstores, they look like an upscale Starbucks in a resort community, they look like the central atrium of a ski lodge, like a yuppie Western-wear emporium, like some kind of fakey “Mom’s cookin'” restaurant in an upmarket mall. These homes look like shopping mall architecture. They are designed in mimicry of the “freeway style”… slightly smaller in scale, but the style is faithfully copied.
Posted by: jonku | Mar 13 2024 17:17 utc | 5
Caught the tail-end of a debate on DW News about regulating the scope and use of Artificial Intelligence in the EU.
Brussels wants strong blanket restrictions and rules to “protect freedoms” on the www but rejects the notion of regulating the expanding deployment of real-time Facial Recognition in the EU.
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Mar 13 2024 17:20 utc | 6
Boeing is so wrecked its whistleblowers are being suicided
Posted by: manberzil | Mar 13 2024 17:23 utc | 7
@ jonku | Mar 13 2024 17:17 utc | 4
Yes indeed, and one can ad that churches are increasingly aping the commercial architectural style.
Which makes sense, because they’re just another commercial enterprise.
Posted by: malenkov | Mar 13 2024 17:26 utc | 8
again @ jonku | Mar 13 2024 17:17 utc | 4
To me the worst part about trophy home architecture is that their appearance communicates the message that they’re really just homes for cars, with the living space for wetware tacked on as a reluctant afterthought.
Posted by: malenkov | Mar 13 2024 17:32 utc | 9
CBC: Wahh!
Russia is facing more than 16,000 sanctions — so why hasn’t its economy buckled?
So what’s the remedy with those “dastardly” Russians?
“Any delays in terms of taking decisions about additional sanctions gives Russia the opportunity to adjust its policy and its economy.”
Asked and answered! More sanctions, of course! Yee-haw!
———————————————-
In other news from the Great White North, the Canadian military is facing “dismal recruitment numbers” and has found a “solution”:
Military ditching aptitude test for some applicants, will start accepting recruits with medical conditions
CBC: Ottawa-based military recruiter Sgt. Cynthia St-Jean said some people simply “don’t like tests” and she believes this change can help.
Posted by: N Hanrahan | Mar 13 2024 17:51 utc | 10
@malenkov | Mar 13 2024 17:32 utc | 8
Out of curiosity, do the Blue Heron homes in Las Vegas qualify as that type of house you and jonku describe?
Posted by: majoab | Mar 13 2024 17:55 utc | 11
Posted by: malenkov | Mar 13 2024 17:26 utc | 7
@ jonku | Mar 13 2024 17:17 utc | 4
==============================================
Interesting topic. Small point: I think part of it is style, as you both say, but now also part of it is building materials and methods, which of course are largely supplied by commercial interests. It’s the same with food, of course. We have all allowed the money interests to lead in most process-related decisions and fashions etc.. Most commercial materials are made ‘industrially’ and most such industrial processes create artificial materials which in turn manifest as the commercial styles you are (rightly) deploring.
This week am having a bathtub installed. Instead of ordering a ridiculously expensive stone model, or a cheap but highly overpriced fibreglass one from Home Depot, we are going to make our own out of high quality white concrete, shaped and polished, finished with an oil based sealant. (At half the price of the cheapest plastic ones.) It won’t be fancy, but it’s going to have a very different feel from the ubiquitous plastic ones that most install these days. I liked the look of the stone ones but they are too expensive for my taste ($4,000 USD plus).
Generally, there is a more hand-made approach in Mexico – not always of the best quality, unfortunately – but I really like the feel of things made simply that way compared to the industrially manufactured imitations in Home Depot etc. (Though I did opt for one of their toilets rather than making our own!)
@ majoab | Mar 13 2024 17:55 utc | 10
Hadn’t heard of Blue Heron before. Judging from the pix it looks to me like a brutalist take on Frank Lloyd Wright.
Posted by: malenkov | Mar 13 2024 18:12 utc | 13
Well I tried and I tried and I tried.
https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/inflation-cpi
Very few was listening. A couple who took an interest, the bright sparks on here started to understand it. They were willing to be free thinkers and free themselves from GROUPTHINK. Learn stuff themselves.
Suppose I better post this again for educational purposes.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LGlqnHTBP3I&pp=ygUac3RlcGhhbmllIGtlbHRvbiBpbmZsYXRpb24%3D
So now will Elvira Nabiullina start slashing interest rates or will she foolishly keep hiking ?
Trap herself in the – The Interest/Price Spiral
Here:
https://new-wayland.com/blog/interest-price-spiral/
Stay tuned for the next episode of soap.
Posted by: Echo Chamber | Mar 13 2024 18:23 utc | 14
Posted by: Scorpion | Mar 13 2024 18:04 utc | 12
(Home made concrete bathtub)
Fascinating project!
Please submit a brief report to the bar, when installed, including method employed & Customer Satisfaction.
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Mar 13 2024 18:37 utc | 15
Keep listening to that Tom Luongo guy with his big cigar and that other idiot who predicted the world was going to end before Xmas on chuckle brothers TV and see how you get on.
Just because these fools appeared on the Duran doesn’t mean it is knowledge or fact. Question EVERYTHING you hear.
If it does not match the actual monetary system we use or they pretend to be talking about, then they are liars – period.
Glenn Diesen is another fool who thinks everybody uses the Euro or fixed exchange rates. We even showed him, nope, ideological bufoon.
Facts don’t change people’s minds. They are driven by ideology and confirmation biases. Voters are stupid.
Posted by: Echo Chamber | Mar 13 2024 18:38 utc | 16
Yes indeed, and one can ad that churches are increasingly aping the commercial architectural style.
Which makes sense, because they’re just another commercial enterprise.
Posted by: malenkov | Mar 13 2024 17:26 utc | 8
I’ve said it for years: behind every nonprofit, someone is making a killing.
Posted by: Michigan Dude | Mar 13 2024 18:39 utc | 17
Modi takes a leaf out of the Zionist playbook – very dangerous – over 200 million of the Islamic faith in India – not to mention demolishing mosques to place Hindu Temples on their sites – social unrest is guaranteed with his latest effort:
Why is India’s Citizenship Amendment Act so controversial?
The law, which comes into force on the eve of elections, creates India’s first religion-based citizenship test, discriminating against Muslims and some other refugees.
The Indian government on Monday announced the implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), a law that was passed by parliament in 2019 but was not enforced until now.
This decision on the CAA – whose passage in parliament had set off protests across the country five years ago over allegations of an anti-Muslim bias – comes weeks before Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks a third term in office through national elections.
[…] The CAA expedites Indian citizenship applications of Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Christians who escaped to India from religious persecution in Muslim-majority Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan before December 31, 2014. They become eligible for citizenship in five years. Applicants from these faiths are eligible even if they are currently living in India without valid visas or other required paperwork.
Home Minister Amit Shah, a close confidant of Modi, posted on X that the law will enable minorities persecuted on religious grounds in neighbouring countries to acquire Indian citizenship.
[…] Before the CAA, India’s citizenship law did not make religion a determinant of a person’s eligibility for an Indian passport. All those seeking naturalisation had to show that they were in India legally, and needed to wait for the same period – 11 years – to become eligible for citizenship.
That’s what the CAA changes – introducing for the first time in independent India’s history – a religious test for citizenship.
Muslim victims of religious persecution in Pakistan (like the Ahmadiyya), Afghanistan (the Hazara) or other neighbouring nations (such as the Rohingya in Myanmar), will still need to wait for 11 years before they become eligible for Indian citizenship. And unlike Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Christians, they need valid documentation to justify their presence in India.
This, many legal experts have argued, violates Article 14 of the Indian Constitution, which says: “The State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/12/why-is-indias-citizenship-amendment-act-so-controversial
And I won’t mention Modi’s attitude to China.
Posted by: Don Firineach | Mar 13 2024 18:40 utc | 18
Alexander Mercouris just states it as if it is a fact – ” Oh yes Alex they will need to raise rates to fight inflation. ”
Alex is like yes sir, no sir, 3 bags full sir.
Without even questioning any of it. He’s like one of those dogs on a car dashboard that nods away at itself endlessly.
The chuckle brothers at the Duran play away at neoliberal Utd every week. Reinforcing neoliberal and neo Conservative framing and narratives when they talk about economies. Carve complete BS into the minds of Duran subscribers.
Spend the rest of their time projecting that they are fighting against neoliberalism and the neoconservatives.
A quite fascinating human study of ideological GROUPTHINK at work in real time. Cutting their own legs from under themselves.
Posted by: Echo Chamber | Mar 13 2024 18:56 utc | 19
Posted by: bevin | Mar 13 2024 16:23 utc | 2
You’re bunching a lot of different people with completely different points of view into your dull, mummified strawman, as if we’re all just one person.
We get it: you like jews and fight for them, you’re quite angry (understandably given what’s going on), and you can’t grasp complexity at all when it doesn’t fall squarely into your own rigid view.
I support communism, which I don’t think any country has ever had; I think it only exists in villages and small tribes. I’ve been worried about climate change since the 90s, and will never get a car unless I absolutely have to. And I despise the jews at the top. See? I don’t fit into your pet strawman no matter how much you try.
Posted by: Michael A | Mar 13 2024 18:56 utc | 20
@Posted by: Don Firineach | Mar 13 2024 18:40 utc | 18
Modi may go down as the worst ever Prime Minister of India, although it will be difficult for him to beat Indira Gandhi (and her psycho son Sanjay) for that crown. On a GDP per capita basis, India is hardly growing faster than China while the latter is at a much higher level (US$8,400 for India, US$21,482 for China at PPP), even though they were at the same level in the early 1980s.
China’s growth was built on an industrialization that provided the jobs for the peasants that moved to the cities, India’s growth is based much more on population growth and services (together with huge amounts of graft and corruption, especially with respect to large construction projects and government tenders) that do not provide the same scale of better paying jobs. Instead, it languishes with huge numbers of unemployed and under-employed. Even Vietnam has overtaken it with respect to manufacturing exports.
Modi is turning it into a “growth without development” religious supremacist (Hindutva) backwater. It will be left even further behind by China.
So now will Elvira Nabiullina start slashing interest rates or will she foolishly keep hiking, Continue to Trap herself in the – The Interest/Price Spiral ??
Should now be On the lips of everybody who wants to see Russia do well.
I suppose we’ll soon find out.
Interest rates at 16% is fooking insane. As predicted The annual inflation rate in Russia sped up to a one-year high.
She thinks she is actually slowing down bank lending lol.
https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/loans-to-private-sector
When Russian businesses who are taking out the loans are just passing the increased cost of lending onto consumers via higher prices.
The spot and forward price for a non perishable commodity imply all storage costs, including interest expense. Therefore, with a permanent zero-rate policy, and assuming no other storage costs, the spot price of a commodity and its price for delivery any time in the future is the same.
However, if rates are 16%, the price of those commodities for delivery in the future would be 16% (annualised) higher. That is, a 16% rate implies a 16% continuous increase in prices.
Which is the textbook definition of inflation! It is the term structure of risk free rates itself that mirrors a term structure of prices which feeds into both the costs of production as well as the ability to pre-sell at higher prices, thereby establishing, by definition, inflation.
If she does not start slashing interest rates NOW !!!
They only thing that will save her from herself is Russia’s ultra low private sector savings- Debt to GDP ratio of 17.2%
That not many people by the looks of things in Russia save using Russian bonds.
It will be by pure luck and nothing else if she manages to avoid the Interest/Price Spiral. If she keeps hiking from here then I’m afraid all bets are off.
Posted by: Echo Chamber | Mar 13 2024 19:20 utc | 22
Scorpion @ 12
Concrete bathtub? New one to me. One of the old forgotten methods is plaster bathtubs. Either way one of the big advantages is you don’t have to locate the tub that is the perfect fit, or work around inflexible dimensions.
Jonku @ 5
I wonder what I said? One that has been bothering me of late is the teardowns of old distinguished homes. The market only values the new, so tear them down. Also a growing problem of homes that cannot readily be maintained because craftsmen who know how to work in older construction styles are dying. Simple jobs can’t be done because no one knows how. What should have been a $500 repair becomes a $40,000 remodel. While making the home less livable.
Posted by: odhippie | Mar 13 2024 19:26 utc | 23
Posted by: odhippie | Mar 13 2024 19:26 utc | 24
I would have preferred plaster (Lime) but the type sold is highly chemicalized plus the masons are scared of it without concrete which they know well. So I used a very fine mix with white marble powder instead of sand on the bathroom floor. If it was no good could cover with granite flooring which is quarried and cut around here, very nice. The white concrete is still curing two weeks or more later but has developed lovely, fine eggshell cracks and is super smooth to the touch even before any fine sanding or polishing. I like it very much and is the cheapest option above gray concrete (costs about $20 more or some such for the whole room). So no need for the granite. The bathtub will have locally made red brick carcase, then gray concrete muscle finished with 1 cm thick white concrete shaped by hand with some wooden forms to ensure symmetry of curves. It will take 3-4 days to make and I will pay double usual daily rates since it’s a custom job and the mason, with his 13 siblings, is one of our main local contacts. He built the house starting almost 2 years ago and now will transition from breathing in unhealthy amounts of concrete dust to making local goats cheeses, partly thanks to my patronage.
So: much better than buying a plastic model from Home Depot!
Following a huge storm, an estate nearby has some recently felled trees. So hopefully I’ll use some of that to line the tub with 1″ cedar planks and make much of the house’s furniture later.
I’d like to start a local radio station to build the community spirit a little and maybe one day make a beautiful park with a large stone Buddha and a small plastered shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe.
And so it goes…
Ain’t life grand!
Posted by: Echo Chamber | Mar 13 2024 18:38 utc | 16
“Facts don’t change people’s minds. They are driven by ideology and confirmation biases. Voters are stupid.”
You mean like you persisting with your economics lessons here?
Perhaps you might send your resume to the Russian Central Bank; Elvira, I am sure, is eagerly waiting for it.
Posted by: Morongobill | Mar 13 2024 19:55 utc | 25
Around the year 1900 AD in the United States of America the Federal Government made a standardized form to be filled out of someone wanted to modify the weather.
In both California and Texas local municipalities hired a “rain making service” to make rain, the service seeded the clouds but it did not rain, and then those municipalities sued the rain making service to try harder, which they did. Then far too much rain fell and both the Texas and California municipalalities again sued the rain making service but this time for negligently causing death and destruction, but this time the municipalities lost their suit.
Then I think it was between New York and New Jersey that each was suing the other for stealing each other’s rain.
Then the Pentagon bragged how they were causing rain to flood the HoChiMin Trail during the US attack on Vietnam.
Recently, maybe 2 years ago Israel put 1/3rd of Pakistan under water to cause a drought in Iran, but you will only find the drought and flooding and won’t find any story of weather manipulation.
Now a days we have radar, like the radar range over your stove, and also larg land and sea based radars. When a powerful radar is aimed into the sky it can interact with both the magnetosphere and any water vapor it touches. Skillful use of these “atmospheric heaters” can influence the jet-stream and other weather inducing natural phenomena.
Can we bar flies (and Deep State maggot wannabes) all agree that no serious conversation about “Global Warming” and “Carbon” and being “Green” can be undertaken until all the past and current weather manipulation is made public to be the first thing to be regulated and curtailed.
10-Q
<3
Posted by: Hot Carl | Mar 13 2024 19:58 utc | 26
Scorpion @ 25
Yes, grand.
Can’t do that here, not up to Code.
My great uncle worked with Edgar Miller, did a lot of ad hoc construction in that vein. There were occasional failures. And legends forever. Most of Chicago’s heritage of Edgar Miller and Francis Arthur Wilson is being sacrificed.
Posted by: oldhippie | Mar 13 2024 20:04 utc | 27
Posted by: bevin | Mar 13 2024 16:23 utc | 2
“It was the Birchers who saw in any international organisations, notably the UN and even NATO, evidence of global conspiracies against the sovereignty of the American people. Much of the hatred of ‘globalisation’ stems from these ideas, which included arcane and convoluted theories that linked Communism with prominent banking families-the Rothschilds, Morgans and Rockefellers-as well as broader groupings, such as Wall St and The City.”
/11,
/11
Well are they right? How do you explain a unified response from nearly all Western Powers and so much consistency in the message from one administration to another, not just in the US but across Europe, who have vastly different interests, i.e, the Germany economy was based on cheap Russian oil.
On MOA, there are 50 different opinions on 50 different issues, yet at the GeoPolitical level, there is one idea, “Israel has a Right to Defend Itself”, “Russia’s Unprovoked Attack on Ukraine.”, “Osama Bin Laden was responsible for 9/11”, “Qadaffi had Rape Camps”. There is no nuance, no subtelty. States have enormous resources, Intelligence Agencies, Journalists, Military, Diplomats, yet they all sing from the same script, ALWAYS. How do you explain this iron clad coordination if there is none as you presume. Your position appears completly illogical.
Posted by: Turk 152 | Mar 13 2024 20:11 utc | 28
Posted by: bevin | Mar 13 2024 16:23 utc | 2 That really needed to be said, and and bevin does a great job of it.
Posted by: Ben Trovata | Mar 13 2024 20:16 utc | 29
Michael A
Car Free living is indeed liberating. Started living Car lite around 2015 and finally in 2020 went Car Free. Unbelievable how liberating it is not to be chained to that cumbersome machine.
Posted by: Exile | Mar 13 2024 20:24 utc | 30
Line the tub = line the outside of the tub which is rectangle so 1″ cedar planks can easily be fitted along the two exposed sides. (Inside will be smooth, curved white concrete.)
Couldn’t find fancy taps for 3/4″ pipe so am using brass ones for garden use costing about $3.00 each. Have found again and again with this project that the simpler the better. The taps will end up looking better than the $400+ ones they want you to get which only handle 1/2 ” pipes and look tacky to my eyes.
I used super cheap locally milled 2″ planking for the entire upstairs floor costing less than concrete. To insecticide treat it we built a 20′ long 3′ wide trough and soaked it in water with $100 worth of boric acid added. Easy.
It had saw marks from the sawmill and was imperfectly cut to length with hand saws (we had no power). On the one hand it is a poor quality job; but after 2 days rough sanding by 2 guys last week it feels fine to the touch, blade marks and all with an authentic rustic look because that is what it is. I would much prefer something by master craftsman etc but this looks FAR better than most commercial solutions and is FAR cheaper and I might even like this better. 2 costs of linseed oil and nada mas. Or if we really need to I’ll boil some oil with amber and turpentine and varnish it.
Building this simple house (my first ever) has been a pleasant learning experience, including handling the challenge of being occasionally ripped off or delayed. By hiring local crew we are already known in the community, were asked to be padrinos at a wedding etc., which I gather is quite an honour. The whole thing has been a really cool experience.
Even as the world burns…
Can we bar flies (and Deep State maggot wannabes) all agree that no serious conversation about “Global Warming” and “Carbon” and being “Green” can be undertaken until all the past and current weather manipulation is made public to be the first thing to be regulated and curtailed.
10-Q
<3
Posted by: Hot Carl | Mar 13 2024 19:58 utc | 27
..........................
Bevin might not like it because 'conspiracies' etc but I found that a COOL POST!
And agree with your suggestion, btw. (Though probably best not to talk about it at all!)
What we see on this site-from literally dozens of different commentators- are contemporary re-iterations of the theories nursed by the John Birch Society
@Bevin
Dude, don’t lump me in with this!
Posted by: Patroklos | Mar 13 2024 20:33 utc | 33
Posted by: Echo Chamber | Mar 13 2024 18:38 utc | 16
Luongo epitomizes tiny cap day chartists whose only basis of valuation is “strength” of USD index or newsletter “signals”. The Financial Times epitomizes perfidious FCA scale inefficiencies.
I appreciated your synopsis of ECB functions. I especially enjoined resurrection of LTRO collateral shenannigans—from the Panic of ’08, Draghi’s finest hour! NIRP and ZIRP violence crushed EU27 yield spreads but good. Imagine. The ECB waited 15 years to walk away from bond buying.
For about a hot minute, I thought about packaging EU27 tax revenue “contribution” to each EU budget cycle and to list all EU “mechanisms” and “instruments” besides SURE to uhh stimulate Single Market growths that have seized Council projects since 2004 (an auspicious year for NATO-CENTCOM-EU candidate “enlargement”). But I said to myself, the hell with it.
Posted by: sln2002 | Mar 13 2024 20:39 utc | 34
Hudson has posted his latest interview that is a grand review of his work, which is in the form of a podcast that you can watch, listen or read the transcript, “Economics as a Form of Art. A bit past the halfway point he gets into the discussion of the material he’s now writing about; the section is rather long, so I will only post its final paragraph. To find where it starts, do a ctrl-f search for the word church:
“I’m now writing a history of debt from the crusade to the modern times, and I didn’t realize how the whole context for the reappearance of debt in Western civilization was all led by the Church, culminating in the Medici Pope Leo X in 1515 having a big conference legitimizing the charging of interest ever since. If you look at the history of how economies have evolved and how society has evolved from the point of view, what are their debt relations? You get a completely different perspective of causality and what has been shaping the politics, the political system, the social system, religion, the social values. And you realize how the big fights of all of the church councils, the economic fights, the peasant revolutions of the 14th century, 15th century onward, they were all about debt. And yet the topic is as expurgated from thought today as much as sex wasn’t talked about before Freud. So what I want to do for debt is what Freud did for sex. It really is important.’
Hudson’s comparison with Freud IMO is quite apt.
An important historical document was included in a Russian MFA missive about its author who just turned 90 that I deemed important enough to share via my substack, “The Russian Bridge Letter”.
Posted by: bevin | Mar 13 2024 16:23 utc | 2 That really needed to be said, and and bevin does a great job of it.
Posted by: Ben Trovata | Mar 13 2024 20:16 utc | 30
bevins knowledge is deeply impressive but he has built his temple of wisdom on the denial of the deliberate murder of millions which he has to do in order to sincerely believe that socialism and communism are a huge step forward and capitalism the Great Satan instead of absorbing Dugin’s seminal insight that they, along with fascism, are just different lipstick styles on the same materialist pig.
That said, I think he has a good insight about people overmuch projecting a Hidden Hand controlling all in secret, though of course the fact that both Napoleon, Stalin, Xi, Churchill, Hitler and Putin **. have been portrayed using the Masonic Hidden Hand mudra (hand hidden underneath coat or jacket) is almost certainly not a meaningless coincidence either.
**. Not sure about all of them but for sure N S & P.
The world is more deeply complex than any individual perspective can fathom.
@Scorpion, Mar 13 2024 19:51 utc:
Glad to hear of your concrete construction feats, using the local craftspeople.
I’ve had my eye on reinforced concrete and mesh-reinforced shot-crete (air-stream blown-in mortar, to get into the interstices of the mesh/chickenwire reinforcement) and more recently I’ve experimented with foam-crete (soap foam mixed with portland cement) cast into panels with some sort of near-the-surface embedded mesh on the long-side of the panel.
On the test-new-stuff docket is also chopped styrofoam (pea-sized bits) mixed with portland cement and cast into panels for non-load-bearing insulation. Gets about R2 per inch thickness. Styrofoam – up here in the U.S. – is a plentiful waste product. Easy to get plenty of clean material for near-free.
These techniques will be put to work later this year, and after I settle on a design-and-materials, I’ll document the mfg’g technique I used, as well as the R-value, shear- and compression-load strength – the main stuff you need to know to apply these materials.
I’ll also be experimenting with some finishes (outer coatings) for these panels, likely latex paint, or a silicon sealant, just to get something that will reliably shed water. Stucco would probably work fine, but not in my particular application.
Swung by your website, and its predecessor – nice work.
Tom Pfotzer
Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | Mar 13 2024 21:08 utc | 37
Scorpion @ 32
If you make varnish – Be ready for fire. Happens to good and experienced varniish makers. Do it somewhere so that if it all burns there is no great loss. Or install a sprinkler system……..
All the rest of this sounds paradisal. The workmen you are hiring have depth of knowledge. Most gringos want them to build a Marriot.
Have sanded a few floors that looked like dead. And looked questionable after the sanding that was possible. And glorious after varnish. Machine precision floors can’t hold your eye after the real thing.
Posted by: oldhippie | Mar 13 2024 21:12 utc | 38
Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | Mar 13 2024 21:08 utc | 38
Good luck! I tend to disapprove of mixing plastics and natural materials, but that’s perhaps because I have old hippy genes and who cares what I think anyway!
Years ago I read about no-fines concrete which has very high R values and reduces cost. You might want to check that one out. (Simply put, it’s like gravel held together by cement as adhesive with no fine particles like sand in the mix. Am not an expert, but apparently old limestone concrete used by Romans lasts MUCH longer than Portland – though it takes a little longer to cure; the trick is to find naturally treated lime versus the commercial brands which are somewhat ruined by the industrial processes and additives used to make them – like so many things these days. Why is it that most of our progress is going the wrong way??!! In any case, some of the concrete used by Romans in piers etc. is still in place 2,000 years later so whatever formula they were using is probably best.
@Roger #21
Largely agree.
Perhaps naive, but I’v always hoped for a pragmatic agreement between India and China … little border disputes and all that – and that both would somehow agree on opposition to the Hegemon. Far from it at the moment and India will come down on the side of the Hegemon if pushed. I tune to WION the odd time, and even its best commentators are Sino-phobes always ready to put a little boot in.
On the positive side the present foreign minister holds to ‘pragmatic neutrality’ … for now at least.
I’ve travelled a bit and Indian professionals I’ve met are top class … and great company. The US, for example, actively courts them and no bother getting a visa – especially if Science, Engineering,IT, or Medical – a brain-drain exists but I’ve no data on its scale …
On industrialisation, as you note, China is well ahead.
Posted by: Don Firineach | Mar 13 2024 21:36 utc | 40
@ karlof1 | Mar 13 2024 20:46 utc | 36
Not forgetting that Horkheimer and Adorno and other Frankfurt Schools heads brought both Freud and Weber into Western Marxism.
Erich Fromm,a member of the group, wrote and excellent book, influenced by his reading of Freud and his observations on the rise of fascism in Germany, on how capturing the lower middle class was essential to its rise. He became somewhat of a populist writer later on after fleeing to the US but –
Fear of Freedom, 1941, remains a classic text on the study of fascism. Well worth reading – albeit psychology has mover on a bit since then .. if not that much.
Debt – now a weapon of mass-destruction as applied to States by financial capitalism. As an Irish being, am more than familiar with its use in agrarian Ireland when the colonial English rent piled up on the shoulders of the lumpen tenants ….
I’ll get to Hudson – on a good day with a clear head … ta for link.
Posted by: Don Firineach | Mar 13 2024 21:51 utc | 41
Posted by: odhippie | Mar 13 2024 19:26 utc | 24
I wonder what I said? One that has been bothering me of late is the teardowns of old distinguished homes.
I can’t find the original thread in search, but it was sometime in the last year. We were discussing homes, you brought up the fact that 100 years ago, the brick and wood homes you have seen and worked on in Illinois were carefully designed and situated to take advantage of morning sun (heat the kitchen) and evening shade (opposite). At least that’s what I recall. Much more besides.
It’s an interesting topic though because it’s nice to discuss real-world experience. Debsisdead has also volunteered some history with alternative energy and lifestyle successes, he was shouted down at the time because he wasn’t a peasant but an elite person. Something like that anyways.
DeAnander, whose post was promoted by Bernhard in the thread I cited above, was in the middle of a project to renovate a biggish sailboat as a liveaboard, in Nanaimo BC. Haven’t heard from them in ages but a once prolific and erudite barfly.
Posted by: jonku | Mar 13 2024 22:21 utc | 42
Oh, I think I need a break from all this war …. think I’ll go back before the Catholic Church legalised debt [Hudson above – karlof1] ….
… way back to the 12th Century and genius of a woman mystic and composer ….
Hildegard von Bingen – complete works of Hildegard von Bingen, Sequentia
[only 9 hours or so …. lovely stuff …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52Clyua6LKk …
… and a large Hennessy b-arman. Ta much. Ahhh calm … exquisite
Posted by: Don Firineach | Mar 13 2024 22:34 utc | 43
@Posted by: Don Firineach | Mar 13 2024 21:36 utc | 41
When I was an IT executive my team constructed a list of the preferred universities from which to hire IT people, and being in Canada my team was quite diverse in national origin. The list had hardly any Western universities on it, mostly Russian, Chinese, Eastern European and Indian. Science and technology are much better taught in those nations, and the Indians were definitely first class. We joked about putting a hiring booth in the international terminal of Toronto Airport, the Canadian educational system was not so good and the few excellent graduates (e.g. from Waterloo) would tend to go south of the border. Only lesson was to understand that Indians and Indian service companies tend to say “yes” when they mean “maybe, we will just have to find a way”; there are different versions of “yes”.
The Indians are very good at value-add services which don’t require a lot of capital investment and extensive government support, especially when the pay difference meant that the services were extremely cost competitive to outsourcing Western corporations. They act as little “modern” islands in cities where perhaps 25% have running water (e.g. Mumbai). At the bank I worked at we ended up outsourcing very large chunks of IT and Operations to Indian companies (e.g. Infosys), ironically in many cases replacing Indians who had come to Canada for a better life with much lower paid Indians in India.
Ironically, we also found that the best English speakers and writers came from the ex-British Caribbean islands and Zambia (also an ex-British colony), because they had kept the old “out of date” curricula and teaching methods instead of going all “modern” as the Canadian schools had. They still cared about such silly things as grammar and structure.
Posted by: oldhippie | Mar 13 2024 21:12 utc | 39
Thanks for the warning! I almost burned my right arm off two years ago being careless with a jug of ethanol I was using to try to get green wood to burn in a poor chimney. It was like being in a horror movie and my poor wife almost had a heart attack. VERY painful!
So I’ll be careful… (my preference is just to oil, not varnish, and take shoes off upstairs, but maybe that’s too lazy…
@Posted by: Don Firineach | Mar 13 2024 21:51 utc | 42
If you want to understand the rise of fascism in Italy and Germany just read “Fascism and Big Business” by Daniel Guerin – an old book, first published in 1939, but a damn good one. He covers the political economic reality of big business using the fascists once the social democratic project had foundered, as the saying goes “scratch a liberal and you will find a fascist beneath”. Just like big business in India now using BJP and the fascist RSS, simply replacing the Jewish and Slavic untermenschen with the Muslim untermenschen.
@Roger
Yes. Banks, Financial Institutions, Telecomms and the many IT firms here both hire from and outsource to India – my nephew, e.g., pops over there now and then to maintain relationships
On curriculla, fully agree – one of the benefits of British colonialism in Africa were the math/science curricula Cambridge overseas etc far superior to what is now taught in UK – and where only the well-heeled can afford private schools and Uni. Education – one of the reasons for its industrial decline – its pool of human capital is basically sh1te – and its leaving of the EU led to droves of academics and other EU professionals leaving …
Ta for recommendation on economics and fascism – with which I’m reasonably familiar if not with that particular author. Fromm mainly focuses on the psychology of how to capture the general population by focusing on its fears etc using 1930s Germany as the example – similar play-book now rampant in Europe, especially Russophobia to justify increased expenditure on militarism as its economy declines, largely due to idiotic sanctions and obeying its master who is making them all poorer. Idiots. Disastrous leadership.
Posted by: Don Firineach | Mar 13 2024 23:12 utc | 47
Posted by: Hot Carl | Mar 13 2024 19:58 utc
Thank you, Hot Carl! The trials, or geo-engineering, or whatever one wants to call it– it’s right there for anyone to see. No need for a book or a screen or a degree or a certain IQ level or some esoteric knowledge. Just look at the sky.
Posted by: G-Man Joy | Mar 13 2024 23:14 utc | 48
The POLYCENTRIC world order keeps borning.
‘ ❗ Statement by a Russian representative at the high-level segment of the UNECE Regional Forum on Sustainable Development:
📍 March 13, 2024, Geneva
KEY POINTS
🇷🇺 Russia is actively working towards achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), integrating them into key strategic documents. Despite global challenges, our country shows significant progress in various areas:
1⃣ Eradicate Extreme Poverty (SDG-1): Russia has achieved the goal of eliminating extreme poverty (according to the UN criteria). Since 2015, indicators for the low-income families have improved, and the share of households lacking funds for basic needs has decreased.
2⃣ Zero Hunger (SDG-2): The level of food security has increased, there has been a significant reduction in the number of anemia cases related to pregnancy and childbirth.
3⃣ Climate initiatives: Russia has approved the Strategy for Socio-Economic Development with Low Greenhouse Gas Emissions by 2050 and adopted the Climate Doctrine, which aims for carbon neutrality by 2060.
4⃣ Enhancing Efficiency of Public Institutions (SDG-16): Since 2015, the number of people receiving public services online has nearly quadrupled due to the development of public service centers and improved electronic interaction between departments.
5⃣ Partnership for Sustainable Development (SDG-17): Russia is strengthening cooperation with the business sector and the international community, especially in the context of combating climate change.
❗ Despite the unprecedented external pressure from certain countries obsessed with inflicting a strategic defeat on our country, the Russian Federation continues to assist developing countries in their efforts to achieve the SDGs, including through implementation of technical assistance projects at the UNECE platform.’
https://t.me/MFARussia/19421
Posted by: DunGroanin | Mar 13 2024 23:25 utc | 49
Posted by: oldhippie | Mar 13 2024 21:12 utc | 39
PS. Years ago I lived in a 1,000 souls rural community in Cape Breton and learned alot about local community culture, despite being a city boy myself. My entire initial business plan pitched to provincial government was constructed around the initial need to give a full salary to the long-term caretaker of a friend’s property where I was wintering who was on a pitifully sub-par stipend, my (absentee) owner friends not able to pay a full salary for a property they didn’t operate for income. Long story short, I mounted a concert venue purely to get that man a salary. It worked – the government paid 50% for him and the musicians. We mounted a Celtic music venue in a gorgeous highland valley; operations barely broke even but a good time was had by thousands at over twenty concerts and many locals got paid (and, sadly, the owners could finally sell the property).
Following that same principle, here I decided to build a house despite all the usual horror stories and caveats, because it would give local people work whilst also providing me inroads into the local community where am going to live and quite possibly die. (My wife and I are people too!) Of course building the bathtub ourselves fits right in with that philosophy. At first Nacho nervously refused; now he is confidently going forward. It’s a process…
Am convinced that if businesses and nation states truly put people first that the ills of ‘capitalism’ would spontaneously auto-correct.
Good one from PCR:
The Independent Institute, a conservative/libertarian institute that thoughtfully analyzes economic and social policies with which I have been associated in some way or the other for many years, inexplicably chose the moment of Israel’s announced policy of bombing the Palestinians out of existence and completing the theft of their country to publish a book, The New American Anti-Semitism by Benjamin Ginsberg. Ginsberg writes that anti-semitic progressives are a threat. He urges conservatives and Jews to stop their gifts to progressive universities and to “form new political alliances, particularly with evangelical Christians.” It is remarkable to see the Independent Institute in favor of an alliance between Jews, conservatives, and Christians against the First Amendment.
It is also an attack on the 14th Amendment’s requirement of equality under law. Currently, a hate crime, consisting only of words, can only be committed against a black, a Jew, and a sexual pervert. Anything can be said about white gentiles and Palestinians, who have no recourse.
The real threat is not anti-semitism. The real threat is the destruction of free speech and the rise of status based law that protects some chosen ethnicities and persecutes others. What is really needed is an alliance against those who are destroying the foundations of truth, freedom, and accountable government. The growing limits on free speech are already damaging scholarship and science. Do we want to live in a world where “truth” consists of controlled narratives that serve the interests of the ruling elites?
It is unfortunate that South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem has turned out to be just another politician willing to sacrifice the First Amendment and American foreign policy to Israel.
Moreover, it is depressing that she is so uninformed that she cannot connect her enthusiasm for halting the inflow of immigrant-invaders with her unbridled support for Jews. Governor Noem stresses that she “called on every governor to follow my lead and send troops to the border, and I offered to personally drive more razor wire down to Texas in the back of my truck.” Yet, she seems unaware that principal among the NGOs recruiting and financing the overrunning of America by “immigrant-invaders” is the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, of which the current director of the US Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, himself a Jew, was a board member. https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2024/02/18/the-genocide-of-the-west/ and https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2024/02/06/america-is-undergoing-genocide/
So here we have Governor Noem pimping for Jews as she complains about the immigrant-invaders the Jews are helping to bring into our country.
It is really quite astounding that a governor, a conservative hope, cannot see the contradiction or inconsistency in her positions. What it looks like is that politicians simply grandstand on issues that they don’t bother to understand and, thereby, end up with inconsistent positions.
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2024/03/12/what-is-it-with-conservatives-and-jews/
Posted by: jonku | Mar 13 2024 17:17 utc | 5
Posted by: malenkov | Mar 13 2024 17:32 utc | 9
Posted by: oldhippie | Mar 13 2024 20:04 utc | 28
Regarding trophy homes, there is a website McMansion Hell. It has been around for over ten years. It was started by a grad student in architecture with a serious hatred of the so-called McMansions. Her comments, stuck onto pictures of the architectural crap, are scathing. For example, “lawyer foyers”.
At one point she was sued by Zillow for copyright infringement. Some of her followers were lawyers, and they gave her pro bono support. She won the case that her website was “fair use” for satire. Another highlight was a sweet -16 bracket for the ugliest house in Texas. Scroll sown to “worst of Texas McMansions.
It gets repetitive after a while; but if you are new to it, its quite enjoyable
Posted by: john brewster | Mar 13 2024 23:46 utc | 52
Apologies if somebody has already posted this, but Craig Murray’s latest discusses the election of George Galloway and the collapse of legitimacy of the ruling class. Well worth reading.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2024/03/the-panic-of-the-ruling-class/
Posted by: farm ecologist | Mar 14 2024 0:23 utc | 53
Don Firineach | Mar 13 2024 21:51 utc | 42–
Thanks for your reply and suggestion.
It’s all over Russian media and can be read here, “Putin’s Interview With Rossiya Segodnya’s General Director Dmitry Kiselev”.
2 Questions for Karl
I value your opinion…
What will Putin do with the hectares purchased by Blackrock et. al.?
Will he give the jews their new homeland in the Ukraine?
I cannot see him doing either.
Posted by: ld | Mar 14 2024 1:08 utc | 55
apologies b
I posted my comment (question) in the wrong thread.
Posted by: ld | Mar 14 2024 1:10 utc | 56
About recent MoA hysterics …. I think this was one of my better summarising comments on the issue–
.. why should I accept anything else he has to say?
Posted by: James M. | Mar 13 2024 14:54 utc | 421
You do not have to. No one is forcing you to. You could simply ignore him?
Just because someone posts things to this forum does not mean you have to read it, or accept it or even think about it. Forget it. It does not matter at all. You decide what you do with your life, not shadowbanned or anyone else here.
That’s my point in a nutshell.
So what if someone is calling on Russia to nuke Nato and the US? Who gives a shit, and why would you?
Either argue the issue or walk away and get over it.
Posted by: Lavrov’s Dog | Mar 13 2024 15:25 utc | 432
Posted by: Lavrov’s Dog | Mar 14 2024 1:14 utc | 57
https://www.netflix.com/title/81614129
What fresh hell is this? I’d be happy to be proven wrong but it smells like propaganda to me.
Posted by: KMRIA | Mar 14 2024 1:28 utc | 58
Morongobill | Mar 13 2024 19:55 utc | 26
*** Perhaps you [Echo Chamber] might send your resume to the Russian Central Bank; Elvira, I am sure, is eagerly waiting for it.***
Do you think an increase in interest rate cures inflation?
Posted by: Cynic | Mar 14 2024 1:36 utc | 59
LD 58
A good way to avoid the troll tsunami is the sidebar of ‘Recent Comments’ unless you are tech savy and can put them on ignore (like UNZ review) 😉
I just shop for long time honest brokers whose opinions I respect and don’t bother with the rest.
Unfortunately new commenters who add value do not get seen until a trusted barfly responds to one. I do miss out on timely links and POVs but keep my peace of mind.
Posted by: ld | Mar 14 2024 1:39 utc | 60
Posted by: Scorpion | Mar 13 2024 21:19 utc | 40
Powdered marble is what I use for gesso, Scorpion, the basis for painting in egg tempera. It is the only medium in which I can paint, very organic in nature. So, your bathing room will be floored in an artistic compound. Wonderful.
Posted by: juliania | Mar 14 2024 1:53 utc | 61
Alastair Crooke:
– The IDF will go into Rafah but the IDF is not ready to do so.
– Ganz: If there isn’t a “political” solution for Hezbollah then we make sure there is a military solution in Lebanon.
– Hezbollah from Iraq has resumed their attacks. They are firing rockets from Iraq at Haifa (that where a refinery is located). Alastair has pointed in the past out that Hezbollah in Iraq has ballistic missiles.
– Nuland was told/invited to leave her position because the US wanted to continue with their “Pivot to Asia” and Nuland was too hooked up with (the upcoming disaster in the) Ukraine. Nuland’s permanent replacement is Kurt Campbelll who is the architect of that “Pivot to Asia”. A telling sign. The article about the CIA in the New York Times was an extra effort to push Nuland out.
– Aideevka was in the last 10 years build up/re-inforced to be a major “fortress” town but now it has fallen and there are no defenses left between the Dnjepr river/Kiev and Aideevka. Aideevka was in the last 10 years made into the most defended place on the planet. But yet it fell to the russians.
– “Europe” is in panic over the current situation in Ukraine in spite of all the “happy talk”.
Posted by: WMG | Mar 14 2024 2:06 utc | 62
Posted by: KMRIA | Mar 14 2024 1:28 utc | 59
If Bill Browder is in it and Netflix is the studio, then I think you propaganda olfactory senses are working fine.
Posted by: lex talionis | Mar 14 2024 2:22 utc | 63
Source for the information in post #63:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VXye0HXaxI
Posted by: WMG | Mar 14 2024 2:24 utc | 64
Isn’t using Freud as a positive something that in general only non-psychologists would do?
What exactly did Freud supposedly do to the benefit of sex?
· · · · · · ·
The following is such a strange quote of Putin:
“Do you remember an old Russian saying? What was happiness for the man in the street? ‘Full [sated], drunk and snuffing tobacco’ It’s easy to deal with people like that”
I inserted the square brackets “sated” since I assume the intended meaning is “full of food”/not hungry.
I wonder how the quote sounds in Russian, it sounds terrible and extremely condescending in English, especially in the context given.
Easy to deal with people who just want a good life… such simpletons… easy to disregard and brush aside in favor of trying to shepherd/mollify psychos and anyone else demanding.
I hope that’s not what he meant but regardless that’s how it sounds to me.
Source: “Putin Says Need to Use Tactical Nuclear Weapons Never Arose in Ukraine” (Sputnik).
https://sputnikglobe.com/20240313/putin-says-need-to-use-tactical-nuclear-weapons-never-arose-in-ukraine-1117295403.html
· · ·
Not that I care all that much about any of the above considering what is still happening in the world.
Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Mar 14 2024 2:36 utc | 65
Larry Johnson:
– Russia is destroying HIMARS systems, Patriot systems and Abrams M1 tanks at a increasing rate in the last weeks. With taking out those systems the personal that operate those systems were also “taken out”.
– Russia still had A LOT OF of socalled “dumb bombs” (500 kg or 1000 kg). Russia has modified these old 500 kg “old dumb bombs” into socallled “gliding bombs” that can be launched from a plane from a larger distance and then glides towards the target and destroy the target. These weapons were responsible for taking out A LOT OF defensive positions in Avdeefka.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jNESp6Hmgw
Posted by: WMG | Mar 14 2024 2:58 utc | 66
Am convinced that if businesses and nation states truly put people first that the ills of ‘capitalism’ would spontaneously auto-correct.
Posted by: Scorpion | Mar 13 2024 23:27 utc | 51
I would add one further thing, Scorpion. This is from a shopping trek by bus I made this morning: Out on a nearby pueblo, I saw what I have only heard about before — the entire community was out in the fields clearing brush from choking the acequias which feed into their fields as snow melts in nearby mountains. The governor of the pueblo orders them to do this every year, and they do it, have done so for centuries. This may be one of the good things, that the Spaniards were allowed to return to teach those that had need of their help. It may be why there are still Catholic churches side by side with native spiritual kivas in many pueblo communities here in New Mexico. Yes the indigenous people suffered much and overcame much, when the Europeans came, but also they held fast to the good. Because both, even being unreconciled in nature, loved the land and wanted to take care of it.
So that’s the further thing: love of the land.
Posted by: juliania | Mar 14 2024 3:00 utc | 67
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2024/03/the-panic-of-the-ruling-class/
Posted by: farm ecologist | Mar 14 2024 0:23 utc | 54
Thank you, farm ecologist! I join you in recommending this Craig Murray article. This is what it takes nowadays for people to finally see that the emperor has no clothes; tragically, it takes the suffering of children in this decadent age. We should all be truly humbled that it does.
Posted by: juliania | Mar 14 2024 3:20 utc | 68
ld | Mar 14 2024 1:39 utc | 61
Thanks ld … I do use barfly tools script to block many users …. including shadowbanned for spamming too much, but the app had to be reinstalled so a big list “was released from captivity” all at once from every side and of all types. so yeah, picking the eyes out of the comments is a good way to go usually. cheers
Posted by: Lavrov’s Dog | Mar 14 2024 3:23 utc | 69
Thank You juliania and farm ecologist for the Craig Murray recommendation.
I wish I was allowed to post it on Facebook for a few friends but sadly I live in Canada and news is not allowed to be shared. lol
Posted by: ld | Mar 14 2024 4:08 utc | 70
Posted by: bevin | Mar 13 2024 16:23 utc | 2
bevin, since I’ve visited this site starting more than 10 years ago, you were one of the commentators – at whatever point you started during that timespan – that garnered the most respect from me for your ability to articulate the real socialist’s message to a western audience. I’ve learned a lot from your posts, but also from which the secondary and tertiary research that your comments have led me to do.
So let me say this with all due respect: I am slightly offended at your western liberal condescension to, but more so to the blanket or one-bucket grouping, that you use to dismiss some real world events and the people who delve into them as western supremacist tinfoil hat “conspiracies” and “conspiracy theorists.”
It’s late here so I’m not about to write a long diatribe and my left index finger is probably going to need amputation or surgery due to what my dog did on a walk a MONTH ago (should have sought medical treatment sooner) and it’s difficult to type. Ts and Rs are the worst. But I wanted to address a few things with you “personally.”
You were dead wrong in the depiction you bought into on the events of October 7, 2023 and all the following Israeli-Western media hyperbole. Whether you actually were promulgating the ‘official narrative’ intentionally, that’s what you’ve done. Same holds for 9/11.
Keeping to 9/11, I’m by no means a “no planes” or “no hijackers” guy. If you’ve read my commentary on the Hawaii wildfires or Texas power outages, you should know I’m not one to dive down the “Q” depth rabbit holes. But I’m also someone who was swept up in the initial false patriotism, awash in the “news” of the time and as I’ve admitted, was fully ready to enlist in the Imperial Armed Forces and join the fight against the “evil Muslim world.” That lasted for about 2 months until through the “benefits” of unemployment I discovered websites like Billmon and Yellowtimes, among others. I slowly woke myself up to the lies, deceptions and false narratives necessary to sustain the status quo US dominated “world order.” All of it rests on basic monopoly, rentier, and finance capitalism – IOW basic capitalism taken to its logical and necessary ends.
But staying on point, again, I don’t necessarily have a personal/pet theory about 9/11 other than that what we were and are told about is – to co-opt George Carlin’s words 100% Grade A Bullshit. Just like the US Congressional committees set up to “investigate” the JFK assassination, the 9/11 Commission was hogwash and an intentional coverup.
There is no fucking way that WTC-7 collapsed on its own footprint due to (relatively minor) fire on the very same day that the other buildings fell, at free-fall speed, that there is no dispositive footage at all on the Pentagon strike, or many other things we’re condescended to in order to keep the lies of Empire regarded as the God’s honest truth.
Similar holds for October 7, and likely the London Tube bombings, the Oklahoma City bombing and others. It’s not an inherent effect of Western condescension to Arabs, Jews, or anyone else to point out that shit isn’t what we’re being told, especially when it’s so provably sensational.
I’m also an engineer, with many years of training and the scientific method deeply ingrained in how I approach such matters. So when an emeritus professor at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks has to rely on two Chinese grad students to conduct an impartial scientific study from a structural engineering standpoint, making use of the latest computational methods and software, because what should otherwise be a very rote engineering master’s or PhD level project to analyze WTC-7 means that every American grad student or PhD candidate dropped out for political reasons, I smell a fucking rat – or a heavily thought-policed and propagandized republic.
Look into their findings on your own. Because I’m not going to turn this thread into another 9/11 debate. What we are told occurred simply did not. Does that mean I’m a Qanon, Alex Jones, Sandy Hook, chemtrails, directed energy weapon nutjob? If you thinks so then it’s not my issue, but yours. Same holds for babies tossed out of incubators, tubes of “anthrax” pulled out of magicians hats at the UN, raped beheaded babies, fetuses cut from the wombs of innocent Israelis in kibbutzim, and the entire death toll on Oct 7, not to mention the catastrophic, predicted, warned about and unprecedented failures of the IDF, Shin Bet, Mossad, et. al.
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Mar 14 2024 5:15 utc | 71
Posted by: bevin | Mar 13 2024 16:23 utc | 2
At risk of committing “finger” assault I also wanted to add that I know you’re a big picture person. It’s not healthy or productive to get caught up on one or more (actual, whether you want to admit it or not) conspiracy theories. That is a divide-and-conquer tool in the toolbox of many capitalist-supremacists and their witting/unwitting lackeys, of which we have several here that I will not name.
It’s far more important to organize and educate at the highest level (meaning low) possible about the evils of finance-imperialist capitalism and at the same time exclude Islamophobia, (real) anti-Semitism, and other false causes in so doing.
All I am trying to convey to you is that you’re losing your chosen battle by crelying on as a basis for your criticisms the 100% justifiable “conspiracy” interrogators rather than the actual morons and ideologues. It’s not “anti-Semitic” to point to obvious lies about 9/11 or Oct. 7 just as it isn’t “Islamophobic” or “white man’s western condescension” to say or imply that the carnage of either event is in no fucking way totally and directly attributable to Al Qaeda or Hamas, respectively.
Good night.
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Mar 14 2024 5:35 utc | 72
In Canada the Birch tradition was exemplified in Steven Harper’s sub imperialist worldview. It is carried on by Poilevre, the leader of the Conservative party and very likely to be the next Prime Minister.
LOL. Justin Castro is busy turning Canada into a Bolshevik terror State. The Birchers were right.
Posted by: MikeB | Mar 14 2024 7:05 utc | 73
Interesting descriptions on Putin’s part of those political forces in Finland that are in the vanguard of Russophobia (in the Kiselev interview):
‘On the other hand, from the point of view of the economy, it is very good – real estate prices were kept at a fairly good level. From the point of view of the economy, it is good, but there were, apparently, forces that were completely right-wing conservative, nationalist, who did not really like it – such a rapprochement with Russia. Some even considered it redundant: “What are Russian houses and apartments being bought for? Everything here is in Russian…” ‘
It’s quite interesting that he considers the aforementioned anti-Russian elements “completely right-wing conservative, nationalist”. And this isn’t some generic categorization, but attributed to the qualities of said Finnish political forces.
It may be that the trend that began to be established in Russia due to the prominence of nationalists in the Maidan has been given further boost by the international situation after February 2022 and the domestic one as the war kept dragging. I mean, it is quite odd that there is a statue of Fidel Castro in Moscow but none in Cuba. Who knows, perhaps the country will get over its wholesale rejection of the Soviet past (a failure of the RF despite the honour afforded to the sacrifices in the Great Patriotic War) and evaluate the positive aspects accordingly.
That should be followed by the resolute rejection of the 90s and the legacy of the subhuman traitor Yeltsin.
Posted by: Constantine | Mar 14 2024 7:15 utc | 74
LOL. Justin Castro is busy turning Canada into a Bolshevik terror State. The Birchers were right.
Posted by: MikeB | Mar 14 2024 7:05 utc | 74
LOL. Putin inaugurated the raise of a statue of Fidel Castro in Moscow along with the Cuban premier, while you are whining about a neoliberal anti-communist crettin transforming the stronghold of Ukrainian Nazis to “a Bolshevik terror State”. That is, the very country that honors the Holodomor fascist fiction and whose parliament gave an ovation to a literal Ukro-Nazi veteran of the Waffen SS, is becoming “Bolshevik”.
One can safely say that by now anti-communism is a mental condition. The closest equivalent is the TDS. Total detachment from reality.
Posted by: Constantine | Mar 14 2024 7:24 utc | 75
@Roger
“Ironically, we also found that the best English speakers and writers came from the ex-British Caribbean islands and Zambia (also an ex-British colony),”
Yes. The English spoken in Zambia is perfect.
Posted by: Rufus Arrr | Mar 14 2024 7:33 utc | 76
Re: oak wood floor refinishing
If the floor is really in
Bad shape:,
1) Rent a floor polisher (not sander)
2) Use a rough polishing pad to remove the old varnish and maybe a micro layer of a little bit of wood in some places.
3) change to a finer polishing pad.
4) apply the protective coats of varnish, polyurethane, or whatever suits you. If you stain beforehand, then apply by hand mein method. Regarding the protective coats – minimal is 3 coats, better is 5, even 6 coats.
If the floor is in decent shape:
1) hand sand ( on your hands and knees) lightly, just enough to rough up old protective coat. Less is more.
2) apply protective coats
If you want to go fanatically old school …… follow the procedure in this famous painting
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_raboteurs_de_parquet
NEVER EVER HIRE those floor refinishing people – their goal is to remove all patina and utterly destroy the wood with monster machines brutally applied.
Posted by: Exile | Mar 14 2024 7:37 utc | 77
As someone who watched 911 live on the BBC world site from the moment BBC cameras (which were yet to be purloined by empire) from the moment the beeb began live broadcast shortly after the 1st plane hit and showed the 2nd wtc hit live, to the moment a band of feds came clambering into the Beeb hotel suite right next to the pentagon which had already showed the plane smashed into the pentagon, I have to say that an airplane did most definately crash into that building.
No amerikan crews showed it as they had already been instructed not to but not the Beeb. They had already commented on how they were withstanding Feds bashing on the door of their hotel suite demanding entry which they had ignored, so then the feds broke into the room directly below them and clambered up over the balcony to stop beeb filming. We saw them coming in from the balcony then everything blinked off and we waw more than 3 hours of a VOA woman providing reports of the ‘attack’. They all wore loud ‘Hawaiian’ style shirts & rayban aviators like a uniform. The scared the shit outta beeb camera operators.
I have no doubt that a plane did hit the pentagon but the feds shot themselves in the foot when they prevented further filming of it and confiscated beeb tapes as their attempt not to ‘shame’ amerika in fact had an opposite effect in that no amerikan ever believed the Pentagon was attacked because there was no proof available.
I have told this scene many times here in MoA but it never sticks because too many want to believe any bullshit conspiracy they hear, especially if it means that a bunch of ‘sheep shaggers’ living in caves hadn’t scored a big victory, not that any of the participants were that. Most were University educated young blokes wanting to prove a point. Building 7 I know nothing of but the original attack was certainly what it seemed although I have never seen convincing evidence Osama bin Laden had anything to do with it, more likely renegades in the Saudi government IMO.
Posted by: Debsisdead | Mar 14 2024 7:55 utc | 78
Sweden and Finland joining NATO can be seen as good for the politicians who made the decision, and bad for the country.
The US blew up the Nord Stream gas pipeline between Russia and Germany. A military alliance where one member uses military force against another alliance member does not last.
Yes, Europe is being threatened. Not by Russia, but by the US. And the threat is very clear: join the US in their crusade – against Russia today, China tomorrow – or suffer consequences.
Posted by: Passerby | Mar 14 2024 8:01 utc | 79
@oldhippie, Scorpion et al
My dad, uncle and grandpa all built houses when I was a kid (Grandpa’s was the biggest, which he built in his eighties). My brother and I got dull jobs like digging the ditches for the septic tank and pulling nails (MacMillan-Bloedel paid people to tear down lumber camps that were no longer in use. Mostly they were bulldozed or even blown up so my dad would underbid the competition because he was in it for the lumber. That’s right – they paid him so he wouldn’t have to buy their lumber.) All of which is to say I understood very little of your discussion. People! Teach your children something! They won’t survive the zombie apocalypse with what they learn in school (what gender are zombies anyway?)
However. I haven’t deleted my bookmark for WhoWhatWhy despite its extreme Trump Derangement Syndrome (oh, and Russia is evil too, but i guess that comes with TDS) because the Editor’s Picks are a source of serendipity. So, short story long, a few months ago they had a link
Secrets of Roman Concrete
about MIT discovering the secret to Roman concrete. Of course, I couldn’t follow all the technical details, I was trying to determine why it had been so hard to discover the secret. It runs out to be another case of underestimating our ancestors: what were thought to be sloppy craftsmanship and shortcuts were essential to the process. Isn’t progress wonderful?
Posted by: Gerry L Forbes | Mar 14 2024 9:09 utc | 80
There is a change of tone in the Biden administration. In 2022 Biden said, when asked if the US could pull off 2 wars, that “We’re are the US, we can do this”. And that arrogant tone now seems to have disappeared.
Posted by: WMG | Mar 14 2024 9:26 utc | 81
karlof1 @36
i recall from William Greider’s Secrets of the Temple that Freud equated money with shit. It is the only way an infant can pay its mother. “Ooh, haven’t we been busy!” It gets a big smile in return.
That’s why they call it Crapitalism.
Posted by: Gerry L Forbes | Mar 14 2024 9:57 utc | 82
If you know Russian, watch Roman Liberov’s animated film about Mandelstam, “Save My Speech Forever” – IF YOU DO NOT, does anyone know if, by now, there is a version with Engliosh sub-titles?
Posted by: Geraint ap Iorwerth | Mar 14 2024 10:30 utc | 83
https://archive.is/VWTJH
Red lines? What red lines? Once again, Netanyahu is the master, Biden is the servant
Posted by: Eighthman | Mar 14 2024 11:38 utc | 84
@ john brewster | Mar 13 2024 23:46 utc | 53
Thanks for the tip! “McMansion Hell” is brilliant!
Posted by: malenkov | Mar 14 2024 12:39 utc | 85
Also seen in presstv: Yemen has hypersonics.
Intel Slava Z
🇾🇪⚡Yemen’s Houthis successfully tested a hypersonic missile to attack US Coalition ships
▪️A military source close to the movement told RIAN about this.
▪️According to him, Yemen intends to begin manufacturing such missiles for attacks in the Red, Arabian Seas and the Gulf of Aden, as well as against targets in Israel.
Posted by: Mary | Mar 14 2024 13:14 utc | 86
I just wanted to post quickly about Ecuador. President Daniel Noboa recently came to Canada, after a stop in Washington, and met with Trudeau.
Noboa appears to be Washington’s darling.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/01/22/readout-of-president-bidens-special-advisor-for-the-americas-and-southcom-commanders-trip-to-ecuador/
“The discussions are focused on ongoing commitment to democratic values and the rule of law, and ways to deepen bilateral cooperation, including with respect to security, counter drug cooperation, migration, and economic development.”
Now on that economic development piece:
http://www.pm.gc.ca/en/news/readouts/2024/03/05/prime-minister-justin-trudeau-meets-president-ecuador-daniel-noboa
“The Prime Minister and the President highlighted the strong bilateral relations between Canada and Ecuador. They welcomed the imminent launch of negotiations toward a Canada-Ecuador free trade agreement, underscoring the importance of a comprehensive bilateral agreement for long-term economic growth and stability in both countries.”
It looks to me like Noboa may have orders from Washington on this one, to get the FTA with Canada done.
Two recent updates from Telesur, though, show some of the challenges:
“Indigenous People Ask Canada to Investigate Solaris Resources”
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Indigenous-People-Ask-Canada-to-Investigate-Solaris-Resources-20240229-0009.html
“Ecuador To Create a Force for Investigation Against Extortion”
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Ecuador-To-Create-a-Force-for-Investigation-Against-Extortion-20240313-0021.html
Then this morning in TASS, I read that Russia has received its first shipment of bananas from India. They are working on replacing bananas sourced from five exporters in Ecuador.
https://tass.com/economy/1759521
Posted by: Bruised Northerner | Mar 14 2024 13:31 utc | 87
@ Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Mar 14 2024 5:15 utc | 72
Re Posted by: bevin | Mar 13 2024 16:23 utc | 2
That laddie doth protest too much.
Bevin does not acknowledge the Khazar Empire and its queer mass conversion of its subjects to the Judaism, that gave rise to the Talmudic, Yiddish peoples who have ZERO connections with Hebraic Semitic peoples and their beliefs.
From that Nelsonian eye turning – Bevin insists that we believe that Capitalism/AntiCapitalism are separate- and they are not mere cheeks.
When clear they just another of a string of Neo-Religious inventions of the historical peoples who crafted Money as a controlling mechanism.
From the invention of Catholicism as the heir to the Roman Empire to the rise of all European Imperialism, to todays 5 eyes and its master the +1, is the true Western Eurocentric distortion of World History.
This is maintained by Narratives old and new and their shameless purveyors.
What we are expected to believe?
A false credo of Left/Right, Rich/Poor, Capitalist/AntiCapitalism; cultural superiority, Malthusian nonsense, saviour complex on and on – just means of keeping the Fascist world order in place for the very few gods who ‘must not be looked at in the eye’ at the risk of extreme punishment of death!
To Bevin, Marx is messiah, not just another bought author who was party to the embellishment of the new religion of Economics.
As the absurd literal beliefs of the Bibles were no longer credible to keep the masses controlled in fear of a Jealous God, a certainty of a Hell and a promise of a Heaven for those who lived their lives as vassals to the walking gods as willing slaves.
As the uncontrollable learning and exploitation of Science , Maths, Technology – that could no longer hide the fact that Some Men are not the centre of the universe around which all others and the heavens revolve.
Such desperate new paradigms are invented.
But they fail faster and faster.
No matter how hard they try and how many newer more absurd religions they invent – including the Freudian Fraud that leads not to sexual liberation but the woke depravity of Transhumanism now; including of course the latest desperate new faith based embrace of Climate apocalypse and the worship of the new church of GND and Carbon Free! None of which must be seen for what they are – neo-religions.
They must not be recognised, dis-believed, criticised, rejected and worse of all ridiculed – otherwise it is deemed to be the greatest crime known to Man – ‘Antisemitism’ !
Which is a lying label – for protecting the Interests of the Religion of Money and its few ancient kings and masters- who hide behind their forefathers shapeshifters ways.
And which some so willingly ply the Narratives for which always stifles dissent of Fascism (which is also Zionism, imperialism, xenophobia) with a modern version of accusing someone of witchcraft – Judaeophobia.
Not for the first time Bevin, j’accuse.
Posted by: DunGroanin | Mar 14 2024 13:32 utc | 88
Another day, another warning about the Caribbean
From the Daily Mail (there’s more in the Top Stories, for the curious)
“Mom-of-two Stefanie Smith’s cause of death revealed after she died on American Airlines flight returning from vacation with her boyfriend in the Dominican Republic”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13196673/stefanie-smith-cause-death-revealed-american-airlines-flight-death-dominican-republic-boyfriend.html
“Mexicans now need a visa to come to Canada. Could this hurt tourism?”
https://globalnews.ca/news/10353848/mexico-visa-rule-change-canada-tourism/
LaPresse goes in depth on Pornhub, something about an American court demanding help from Quebec
https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/pornhub/une-cour-americaine-demande-l-aide-du-quebec/2024-03-14/des-questions-au-sujet-d-une-faille-potentielle.php
Posted by: Bruised Northerner | Mar 14 2024 13:41 utc | 89
Which side is Reuters on with this latest?
Two years into office, President Donald Trump authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to launch a clandestine campaign on Chinese social media aimed at turning public opinion in China against its government, according to former U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the highly classified operation.
Maybe China’s….grin
Posted by: psychohistorian | Mar 14 2024 14:14 utc | 90
Posted by: DunGroanin | Mar 14 2024 13:32 utc | 89
Dun, I have to say you are never dull. Your blasts here are like missives from the pen of Ignatius J Reilly, without the religious cant. Thanks for the smiles.
Posted by: KMRIA | Mar 14 2024 14:19 utc | 91
ZH has a posting up with the title
Boeing “Overwrote” Camera Footage Of Work On MAX Jet Door That Blew Out, Can Not Identify Employee Who Worked On It
the quote
It’s not just the footage however: NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said it is unclear “who performed the work to open, reinstall, and close the door plug on the accident aircraft,” as Boeing is “unable to find the records documenting this work.” In Homendy’s letter, she writes that despite requests to Boeing and interviews at the Renton, Washington factory where the panel was removed, the identity of the crew member that worked on the panel remains unknown and has would be unable to “provide a statement or interview to NTSB due to medical issues.”
Posted by: psychohistorian | Mar 14 2024 14:26 utc | 92
ZH has a posting up showing the brazen moves of the elite with this title
Watch: Mnuchin Says He Wants To Buy TikTok
the quote
Following Wednesday’s passage of a bill in the House that would force TikTok to be “fully divested” from Chinese-owned parent company ByteDance, former Trump Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Thursday that he’s organizing a group to buy the social media app.
Posted by: psychohistorian | Mar 14 2024 14:33 utc | 93
Posted by: malenkov | Mar 14 2024 12:39 utc | 86
Thanks for the tip! “McMansion Hell” is brilliant!
—-
You’re welcome. I appreciate the hat tip, given that topic sort of vanished from the thread.
Posted by: john brewster | Mar 14 2024 14:35 utc | 94
Posted by: Cynic | Mar 14 2024 1:36 utc | 60
Do you think an increase in interest rate cures inflation?
Not an economist but I did live through Paul Volker raising interest rates through the roof
during the end of the Carter administration. It led directly to Reagan winning the election and then taking credit for economy, some pundits say.
By the way,I wonder if Mr Echo Chamber has sent in his resume to Elvira yet?
Posted by: Morongobill | Mar 14 2024 15:29 utc | 95
Posted by: Debsisdead | Mar 14 2024 7:55 utc | 78
I certainly believe a plane (of some kind, maybe even an airliner) crashed into the Pentagram. But it’s highly unlikely that the pilot to whom they attribute that portion of the attack was skilled enough to execute the technical “corkscrew” turn necessary to hit that ‘wing’ at that angle.
Eyewitness testimony is the most notoriously unreliable of all evidence presented in court, or to use in identifying alleged perpetrators in a lineup (barring certain circumstances, of course). So again, I do not doubt you if you were an eyewitness, but the other eyeswitnesses’ testimony varies GREATLY with some claiming to see a smaller (regional jet size) plane and others something even smaller than that. The coloration and fuselage markings are also remembered very differently, with some saying that in hindsight they can’t be sure it was an American Airlines plane but initially thought they did because it was on the news that all the hijacked planes were AA.
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Mar 14 2024 15:36 utc | 96
…
…
Yes, Europe is being threatened. Not by Russia, but by the US. And the threat is very clear: join the US in their crusade – against Russia today, China tomorrow – or suffer consequences.
Posted by: Passerby | Mar 14 2024 8:01 utc | 80
Yay! Bring it on!
This’ll be the first time since WWII that the loudmouthed Yankees and their pissant ZATO allies have attacked something which could shoot back/hadn’t been disarmed before the bombing started.
Talk about believing too much of their own BS – and that of their bosses in Tel Aviv…
Comedy Gold? I can hardly wait!!
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Mar 14 2024 15:43 utc | 97
to Scorpion and the others who care about nice/pretty building. One can buy flexible plywood, or simply steam plywood, to make wonderful curved bathtubs/hot tubs, etc. Finish can be fibre glass, by which I mean that which is used to make surf boards and boats, or mosaic tiles. I’ve seen some lovely bath/shower arrangements created this way with mosaics to the ceiling. For those with children, the kids can help.
There used to be a magazine called Fine Home Building. My bath tub didn’t come from there, but some other great things did. For example, how to jack a house with 2 x 6s and mobile home jacks.
Please let us know how your project turns out.
Posted by: Formerly Miss Lacy | Mar 14 2024 16:29 utc | 98
bevin | Mar 13 2024 16:23 utc | 2 …
With only perspectives like yours to contend with — a formula of globalist generalisation wherein inconvenient reality must be trimmed to force-fit into a fixed ideological framework, so everything happens by accident or inevitability rather than deliberate design — and further insulated and armoured thanks to so-called “anti extremism” legislation now in the process of being imposed throughout NATO countries, the monopoly-capitalist ruling class and Over-class can be assured of (their own) perpetual security.
Adam Smith the economist (when economics was an all encompassing, serious subject) warned of business/corporate conspiracies against the public good. He was correct, but that was long ago and since then the conspirators have acquired total control of the States/governments which he wrote must be strong enough to protect the public against such conspiracies.
Was he a far-right “conspiracy theorist”, or 100% accurate at least where that is concerned?
You seem to suggest that to disagree with the official (ie. monopoly-capitalist) narrative pertaining to many events, including for instance USS Maine sinking … Gulf of Tonkin … 9/11 … WMD in Iraq … Bilderberg Group policy-setting at supranational level in secrecy for decades (existence long denied as “conspiracy theory”, but then suddenly admitted) … is wrong.
Disagreement not only wrong but allegedly a far-right conspiracy itself.
Really?
And you cannot seem to cope with the fact of one particular — extremely powerful and self-proclaimedly “exceptionalist” — “religion” having, embedded deep in its own official belief system, a combined imperative of internal collaboration plus external antagonism towards everyone not of its own tribe, to such an extent that by now makes nonsense of any “class” based analysis.
Posted by: Cynic | Mar 14 2024 16:46 utc | 99
I mean, it is quite odd that there is a statue of Fidel Castro in Moscow but none in Cuba.
Posted by: Constantine | Mar 14 2024 7:15 utc | 74
There’s nothing odd at all. Fidel hated any Cult of Personality around him when he was alive, and he wanted no part of such a cult after he died. I think he managed to get Cuba to pass legislation to the effect that no monuments would be made for him, no streets named after him, yadda yadda.
Cuba honoured the wishes of that great Don Quixote of the oppressed and good on them.
What other countries do is their own business.
Posted by: N Hanrahan | Mar 14 2024 17:09 utc | 100