I think it’s time that barflies start working on getting inside the PTB’s OODA loop. Elon Musk is opening a color-revolution operation in Brazil as we speak, and I expect this to be just the first of many operations to exert tighter control over Latin America. The US is in a poor material position to take direct military action in the region, but the ability of Russia/China to project power there is even more limited, including ‘soft power.’ I have not done this, but I suspect that a resource analysis of south/central America will give a good picture of where the next wave of political/economic operations will take place.
I suspect that Musk is point man for a new narrative about Freedom and Democracy with American (bi-continental) Characteristics, and that we’ll see a wave of materially helpful actions coming out of the US to lower the anti-imperialist temperature regionally and make cooperation with the US more palatable. Of course, these will be more than offset by the regime-change operations and economic exploitation that follow.

Posted by: Honzo | Apr 10 2024 15:03 utc | 4

@ Peter AU1 | Apr 10 2024 14:50 utc | 2
my motto – ‘shit happens’, lol…
rt story today – Gender discontent is just a phase for most kids, a new study shows. Will transition pushers leave those kids alone?

Posted by: james | Apr 10 2024 15:08 utc | 6

regarding ‘terrorism’..
reading the april 8th usa state dept press briefing last night was enlightening… a journalist asked about israels bombing of the iranian consolate in damascus… matt millers response was basically – “So we recognize that Israel is the victim of terrorism, has been the victim of terrorism repeatedly that is sponsored by Iran.” – no mention of israels actions as a rogue nation using terrorism.. none whatsoever.. israels action is because they are a victim of terrorism on the part of iran… reading these usa state dept. press briefings is very educational and informative.. quotes are at the very bottom of the interview.. Department Press Briefing – April 8, 2024

Posted by: james | Apr 10 2024 15:16 utc | 8

“and that we’ll see a wave of materially helpful actions coming out of the US to lower the anti-imperialist temperature regionally”
You’ve got me interested now, Honzo. What could the US possibly do to increase its popularity in South America when flooding it with coups? If China and Russia let Brazil fall to that, it would be a sure sign of their apathy.

Posted by: They Call Me Mister | Apr 10 2024 15:17 utc | 10

Michael Roberts has an interesting piece on China’s economy today. The disfunctional nature of western capitalism- so celebrated by the Ideologist/Economists- as it disappears up into its own orifice has reached the stage at which it pleads for help from the competition. The truth about the ‘market model’ is that it only works when it has evolved into a series of mutually reinforcing monopolies controlling the state and, through it, society. That’s what the capitalists call ‘freedom’- one chance in a million of becoming a dictator.
“The recent nonsense issued by the US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on China’s ‘overcapacity’ and ‘unfair subsidies’ to its industries is particularly pathetic. As Renaud Bertrand put it: “the so-called threat of China’s industrial overcapacity” is a buzzword that actually means that China is simply too competitive, and by asking it to address this, what Yellen is truly asking of China is akin to a fellow sprinter asking Usain Bolt to run a less fast because he can’t keep up.”
“….(Renaud) Bertrand..: “despite the very low prices for its EVs or solar panels, Chinese companies involved still make a profit (industrial profits are rising at double digit growth), and they DO charge higher prices abroad than at home. The competitiveness of Chinese companies is overwhelming: today, in scores of industries – like solar or EVs – there is simply no way for American or European companies to compete with Chinese ones. This is the real issue: Yellen and Western leaders are afraid that if things keep going, China will simply eat everyone’s lunch.”
“China is the only country in the world that produces all categories of goods classified by the World Customs Organization (WCO). This gives it a key advantage when it comes to end prices: when you want to build something in China you can literally find the entire supply chain for it at home. Bertrand: “China has become an innovation powerhouse. In 2023 it filed roughly as many patents as the rest of the world combined and it’s now estimated to lead 37 out of the 44 critical technologies for the future. All this too has implications when it comes to the final prices of its products.”….
https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2024/04/10/chinas-unfair-overcapacity/

Posted by: bevin | Apr 10 2024 15:28 utc | 12

Honzo | Apr 10 2024 15:03 utc | 4
Musk is after the lithium for his batteries. Due to the Chinese getting ahead with EV cars, his Tesla needs a guaranteed supply from Brazil.

Posted by: Stonebird | Apr 10 2024 15:30 utc | 14

Many of you posters are doing a McCarthy like witch hunt (seeing everything as a WEFer) and by doing so are undermining your own hopes and beliefs.
Mr. Musk had his $56 billion bonus thrown out by the Delaware Supreme court even though it had Tesla shareholder’s approval years before.(1)
Anyone whom has done any US economic reading realizes that Delaware is the bastion of Empire building (home of the Duponts’ and Biden whom the Dupont’s control(2)) and to think posters believe Musk is working for the Empire are but paranoid fools.
“Warren’s letter refers to a Delaware Chancery court ruling in January this year in which the judge, Kathleen McCormick, found that Elon Musk controlled Tesla and its board had “breached their fiduciary duties when awarding Musk an ‘unfathomable’ equity compensation plan worth $55.8 billion.” (3)
Tesla’s share price has declined around 30% year to date, Warren noted.
“Mr. Musk’s recent public statements and actions have raised fresh concerns about conflicts of interest, the redirection of Tesla’s resources to Mr. Musk’s private companies,” she wrote, referring to Musk’s demand for 25% of voting power over Tesla, his wish to move Tesla’s incorporation site to Texas, and his threat to develop artificial intelligence products elsewhere if he doesn’t get that control, among other things.” (3)
1. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/21/sen-warren-presses-sec-again-to-investigate-tesla-and-elon-musk.html
2. “Joe Biden has spent over two decades playing golf at one of the country’s top private clubs – after being gifted entry by the controversial DuPont heiress who founded it. (4)
3. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/21/sen-warren-presses-sec-again-to-investigate-tesla-and-elon-musk.html
4.https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12735469/Bidens-beloved-golf-club-scandal-hit-heiress-secret-FBI-probe.html

Posted by: canuck | Apr 10 2024 15:39 utc | 16

A selection of reading material for those of you apes who like to read.
Are YOU unknowingly eating ‘forever chemicals’?
Sidenote: I have been eating a mostly Carnivore diet for 6 years. I might eat the odd french fry (Vive le France!) or dark chocolate bar, but my consumption is mostly unprocessed animal fat and protein.
NATO shows real signs of impending demise
The US Govt has created a hardware backdoor in the CPUs of Apple devices.

Posted by: LoveDonbass | Apr 10 2024 15:40 utc | 18

Re: de-dollarization
The Capital Markets are gradually reaching consensus that interest on Federal Debt will remain “higher for longer”. This has profound implications for the War Party to sell cheao low interest debt for funding war(s)

Posted by: Exile | Apr 10 2024 15:53 utc | 20

Posted by: Exile | Apr 10 2024 15:53 utc | 20
US 2 year yields are up 18 bps and 10 year yields 14 bps at this time on the back of the ‘slightly hotter’ consumer price index report. It’s not a given these are in anyway real numbers, as they might be making them up to whatever they want them to be.
We might see US going bankrupt by the end of the year unless the Fed cuts rates. This will have massive consequences for the entire global monetary system, as the stock market and corporate bond market is all based on US government interest rates and the way they handle financials.

Posted by: unimperator | Apr 10 2024 16:03 utc | 22

You’ve got me interested now, Honzo. What could the US possibly do to increase its popularity in South America when flooding it with coups? If China and Russia let Brazil fall to that, it would be a sure sign of their apathy.
Posted by: They Call Me Mister | Apr 10 2024 15:17 utc | 10
Steal a page out of China’s book- build some infrastructure projects, electrification, highways, etc without raping the local population. US used to do this in Africa. Of course, ultimately the aim is to facilitate exploitation, but there are actual benefits to the locals of having these things. In the pursuit of the concentration of capital, the core of the PTB that now survives began using these projects as direct profit-taking enterprises, and then pretty much got out of the business altogether in favor of financial instruments, so it’s not completely unheard of. The US has to invest heavily in it’s own infrastructure to on-shore industrial production, so it has to build up the capacity and efficiency of this kind of work. Since it’s now critical for the US to produce a skilled workforce again, and at the same time broaden domestic employment, a reasonable strategy is to, say, close the borders but offer to put a large number of ‘legal immigrants’ to work on American infrastructure, and fund some projects for certain Latin American countries to draw off the illegal migrants that can’t get into the US.
Color Revolutions will occur, of course, but they’re going to be rebranded, a la Musk.
The situation is that the western economy as a whole is now about as concentrated as whole as it can be without someone in the PTB becoming God Emperor. Thus the need for ‘fast nickel’ profit taking is greatly diminished, and Rogue Billionaires like Musk, Trump, and Ramaswamy can become ‘good oligarchs,’ displacing the ‘bad oligarchs’ like Gates and Zuck and Bezos.
Look at the big picture- Hollywood is being gutted, social media is ‘opening up’ (ha!), the tide is turning against globalism, DEI, and open border. The PTB is starting to invest some of its economic wealth and power in greater prosperity, better standards of living, and so on, domestically, because stability is a good long-term investment. They don’t have to compete anymore, they own everything, including, now, Europe.
We shouldn’t imagine that the people with their hands on the real levers of power have not read Marx, whom they understand better than most avowed Marxists do, or Sun Tzu, whom they understand much better than all the arm-chair generals of the west do, not to mention Machiavelli. What we have seen is not a lack of understanding (although this is rife among their operatives and minions), it is a fundamental difference of goals. However, there are, at various times, various areas of convergence between the interests of the greedy and self-serving, and of the larger society on which their wealth and power are based. We are entering a period in which this convergence, between the PTB and the needs of their base, is growing, after a long period in which they were antithetical.
This does not mean that the PTB are ‘good,’ it does not mean that they are our friends. It simply means that their interests are best served at the moment by dialing back the worst excesses and buying some goodwill.

Posted by: Honzo | Apr 10 2024 16:12 utc | 24

Thomson-Reuters published a weak backgrounder re: Ecuador’s violent incursion into the Mexican embassy, with frequent use of the descriptor “leftist”. Though Brazil-style lawfare had clearly been applied to members of the former Correa government, such context is missing from the report.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ecuador-mexico-embassy-raid-1.7166031
Elsewhere, the new Argentinian leader has signed basing agreements with the United States military for the southern most tip of the country. It is envisioned this arrangement will support sovereign claims to the Antarctic region, described as an expression of ‘common values”. Last week, Milei praised the 1976 military coup as a necessary intervention.

Posted by: jayc | Apr 10 2024 16:13 utc | 26

# 3 Sunny runny Burger
bremsstrahlung
Whole lot of uses in (not so) esoteric physics and p-chem esp. to buttress or expand theories.
Sky shine portion – is relevant not so much for nuclear strikes but would be important a la Chernobyl and Fukushima for nuclear reactors that lose their containment on top. Fuel pools also if they lost their water.
Boy, you sure know how to get a guy on a goose chase, I zipped through the last 200 plus posts prev. thread for the physics of nuclear weapons issues.

Posted by: paxmark1 | Apr 10 2024 16:20 utc | 28

Found the “full version” with a lot more lyrics and cleaner sound. For me this is the “real” version and the one I should have recommended to begin with.
The Sisters Of Mercy – Temple Of Love (Feat. Ofra Haza) (8 minutes).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMETa77dUrg
· · · · · · · · · · · ·
Paxmark1:
Sorry for any wild goose chase 🙂 The topic is also incredibly relevant for anything to do with manned (human) spaceflight since one can often be better off with less or no shielding against solar and cosmic radiation and just let it zip through. Unless one can add so much protection that even the bremsstrahlung is protected against (but that would be equivalent to very roughly 20 or 30 meters of rock…).

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Apr 10 2024 16:29 utc | 30

All empire has now are more lies about the reality we are living. The scenes from the movie Wag The Dog come to mind as we read about the latest distractive tidbit and empire reels from the thousands of cuts it is receiving around the world.
We are watching the cusp of a civilization war attempting to evolve beyond barbarism as the driving force of our form of social organization…..I hope humanity makes it.
Posted by: psychohistorian | Apr 10 2024 15:29 utc | 13
Fitch though lots of companies were OK pre the last crash.
They are about as credible as Snopes when it comes to the reality and facts.

Posted by: jpc | Apr 10 2024 16:33 utc | 32

Pretty long but pretty much the last word on the South China Sea issue. From CGTN a well researched, detailed, academic analysis of history and treaties by a western scholar, and yeh, it belongs to China:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzDRGWgEDwg

Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Apr 10 2024 17:06 utc | 34

@Johan Kaspar | Apr 10 2024 17:08 utc | 35,
Japan is a servant to amerikkka rather than a sovereign.

Posted by: LuRenJia | Apr 10 2024 17:17 utc | 36

This does not mean that the PTB are ‘good,’ it does not mean that they are our friends. It simply means that their interests are best served at the moment by dialing back the worst excesses and buying some goodwill.
Posted by: Honzo | Apr 10 2024 16:12 utc | 24
That sounds like a fine plan for embryonic oligarchs, but there are two problems:
1) Evil oligarchs like Soros aren’t even out of power yet, much less stopping their plans for Ukraine/ Taiwan, and
2) Even if they wanted to rein in the excesses of American greed, a $34 trillion debt gives them far less room to maneuver.
Revolutions are going to occur worldwide, and the more austerity is demanded in Europe to fight “ze Rooskies,” the more likely America is to lose clients and vassals. After watching neocons absolutely lose their minds over Tucker interviewing Putin/ Palestinians, there is a non-zero chance that the USA will undergo its own breakup by this time next year. It’s possible to actually onshore and produce consumer goods in the West, but the investment will be hugely expensive and all while competing against the “overcapacity” of China.
Canada is likely to have very hard times, but then it’s not actually a united country which anyone takes seriously.

Posted by: They Call Me Mister | Apr 10 2024 17:26 utc | 38

Posted by: Bemildred | Apr 10 2024 17:19 utc | 37
Woo hoo. Buckle up buttercups!
“Colonel Soheil Hassan is called ‘The Tiger’, and is one of the most-frightening men I have ever met.”
– Robert Fisk 2014
The Tiger

Posted by: waynorinorway | Apr 10 2024 17:42 utc | 40

“Canada is likely to have very hard times, but then it’s not actually a united country which anyone takes seriously.”
Posted by: They Call Me Mister | Apr 10 2024 17:26 utc | 38
As a Canadian I believe that’s a fair statement.

Posted by: canuck | Apr 10 2024 17:48 utc | 42

canuck | Apr 10 2024 17:48 utc | 42
You are trapped within your binary view of either left or right. It seems to be a feature of the western world and completely self destructive.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Apr 10 2024 17:55 utc | 44

@james, #25:

have we got onto the marxist angle here yet? lol… nows the time, as opposed to derailing some upcoming moa thread with this never ending conversation…

LOL! Yeah we sure have. See all these comments about Color Revolutions? Color Revolution is very Marxist, even though Marx himself never use the word “Color”.

Posted by: Oriental Voice | Apr 10 2024 18:05 utc | 46

Posted by: Honzo | Apr 10 2024 15:03 utc | 4
I think it’s time that barflies start working on getting inside the PTB’s OODA loop. Elon Musk is opening a color-revolution operation in Brazil as we speak, and I expect this to be just the first of many operations to exert tighter control over Latin America.

So you think the Judge arresting and jailing people without trial is a good guy and Lulu the real deal?

Posted by: scorpion | Apr 10 2024 18:07 utc | 48

Posted by: canuck | Apr 10 2024 15:39 utc | 16
Many of you posters are doing a McCarthy like witch hunt (seeing everything as a WEFer) and by doing so are undermining your own hopes and beliefs.

You may be right. But in casual moments I find myself imagining Musk as being positioned as the first World President, so he’s doing a Man of the People manifestation now. Remember his satellite-internet tech has been perhaps the single main factor allowing the Ukrainians to stymie the Russians for so long. All billionaires, especially the maha-billionaires like Musk are oligarchs embedded within an oligarchic system.
That said, he’s bright, he’s fun, incredictly sharp wit and the world should have more people like him not less.
And THAT said, I’ve had a bad feeling about that Brazilian election and especially that fascist Judge for a while now but really don’t know diddly squat about Brazilian politics so…

Posted by: scorpion | Apr 10 2024 18:16 utc | 50

@ Peter AU1 | Apr 10 2024 16:14 utc | 27
yeah peter.. i share much of your sentiment.. tom can talk about the origins of the term ‘woke’, but how it is being applied now by a segment of the population is disturbing.. i can give examples, but i won’t.. for lack of a better word, i use this word too for derogatory purposes…there is too much identity politics going on at present which serve as an ongoing distraction for much more important things.. and i believe it is more of the divide and conquer agenda to keep people off kilter…
@ Oriental Voice | Apr 10 2024 18:05 utc | 46
the day is still young here where i am, but yes! it has been talked to death hasn’t it? colour revolutions as marxist – maybe.. this is out of my realm and i really haven’t paid attention to these ongoing thread derailments over this topic.. i will say this.. the gap between those who have and those who haven’t, has gotten way worse in the country i live in here in canada… after going to france and coming back – i feel like i am living in a 3rd world country.. that is not to stigmitize 3rd world countries, it’s just that things have indeed changed economically from when i was a kid growing up in the 60’s…

Posted by: james | Apr 10 2024 18:23 utc | 52

Re: de-dollarization
unimperator – it’s unlikely that the Federal Gov’t will be “bankrupt’ by year end. I think that’s too soon; more like sometime in 2025 when lenders start demanding a significant risk premium for buying federal debt. That starts a downward spiral which leads to Federal Government “collapse” in maybe around 2027.
We agree on substance, I just think it’s going to take longer

Posted by: Exile | Apr 10 2024 18:25 utc | 54

Below is a Reuters posting title showing their propaganda chops
Gold slips from record levels after hot US inflation data
Where is the connection between the two?
If anything the opposite should be true because if your money is losing value you want to move it to something that is not and focusing on the spot price of gold in a period when the long term price is up is propaganda, pure and simple.
Look at the record
Gold Historical Performance
1 Hour +0.23%
24 Hours -0.43%
1 Week +1.87%
1 Month +7.28%
YTD +13.34%
1 Year +17.58%
3 Years +34.03%
10 Years +77.19%
Since 2000 +703.74%
I was talking with a friend recently about what 50+ years of fiat has done to price discovery and that is going to be one of the adjustments going into a value based monetary system…..what is real cost to market versus marketing set price? and what markets are more influenced by marketing/sales price fluctuations?

Posted by: psychohistorian | Apr 10 2024 18:32 utc | 56

An important essay “The poison of subjectivism” by C.S. Lewis, though slightly old fashioned ambles through the theme
===
And of course the argument I have later seen presented is that his views there were also subjective…even though he points out that the commonality of approach across societies is as close to empirical as likely to be found in social reality.
If I remember, he was apologist Christian – said only to explain that objectivity and religious values are not opposites.
Posted by: Ornot | Apr 10 2024 18:20 utc | 51
He was, but not a bad writer.
I like your analysis, regarding eternity and other infinities, and would add that there is nothing you can say about nothing too. I mean, where would you start? Nothing seems as omnipotential as everything, but you can’t reason from it either. Down at the bottom physical reality dissolves into quantum fuzz. I don’t like absolutes, down here in the middle, reality is ambiguous, things emerge, and emerge again. The world we live in is creative.

Posted by: Bemildred | Apr 10 2024 18:39 utc | 58

Are YOU unknowingly eating ‘forever chemicals’?
Sidenote: I have been eating a mostly Carnivore diet for 6 years. I might eat the odd french fry (Vive le France!) or dark chocolate bar, but my consumption is mostly unprocessed animal fat and protein.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Apr 10 2024 15:40 utc | 18
Great, another forever scam that of course means forever regulation and control, forever job security for the regulators and forever profits for corrupt lawyers.

Posted by: Phil R | Apr 10 2024 18:44 utc | 60

Posted by: psychohistorian | Apr 10 2024 18:32 utc | 56
Gold price seems to be holding up pretty well despite the carnage in bonds and stocks.
Smart financial analysts say every time ‘hot inflation data’ is released, the COMEX dumps a bunch of gold futures onto the market hoping to slam the gold price. Usually it doesn’t last very long.
Hence, gold recovers and the short losses only grow bigger. Gold can no longer be manipulated in the COMEX.

Posted by: unimperator | Apr 10 2024 18:57 utc | 62

Posted by: Honzo | Apr 10 2024 16:12 utc | 24
«Thus the need for ‘fast nickel’ profit taking is greatly diminished, and Rogue Billionaires like Musk, Trump, and Ramaswamy can become ‘good oligarchs,’ displacing the ‘bad oligarchs’ like Gates and Zuck and Bezos. […] We are entering a period in which this convergence, between the PTB and the needs of their base, is growing, after a long period in which they were antithetical.»
I think that looking at “the oligarchs”/”PTB” as a single faction that changes policies is quite simplistic: while all factions of the oligarchy are united in wanting to stay on top and the servant classes on bottom, they can have widely divergent interests, and there are different periods in which different factions of the oligarchy have most (but not exclusive) power, see “The Circulation of the elites” concept of Pareto.
In the USA there are nationalist oligarchs or globalist oligarchs, agricultural, industrial or financial oligarchs, east coast media oligarchs, texan oil oligarchs, midwest commodity oligarchs, western tech oligarchs, all fighting for power and money.
Some of those factions have interests and goals that are better for those of the servant classes, and some are rather worse. The servant classes used to have their own faction when the labor unions were strong and could purchase their own block of congresspeople, but for now they can just support one or the other oligarch factions.
Just regard the oligarchs as Dukes or Princes or Earls or Kings, like Duke Trump of Queens, Princess Zuckerberg of Meta, Grand Dukes Koch of the Prairies, King Cook of the Cellulars, King Dimon of NYC, etc.
Like in Europe in times past, the servant classes could decided to in the side of York or Lancaster, Hapsburg or Hohenzollern, Bourbon or Bonaparte.
This was well expressed in a discussion at Racket.news where the conclusion was “choose your billionaire”, because it is oligarchs that are the real actors of politics, and for members of the servant classes the only options are which oligarch faction to support.

Posted by: Blissex | Apr 10 2024 19:13 utc | 64

Hidden Behind Climate Policies, Data From Nonexistent Temperature Stations
Hundreds of ‘ghost’ climate stations are no longer operational; instead they are assigned temperatures from surrounding stations.
When recalling past temperatures to make comparisons to the present, and, more importantly, inform future climate policy, officials such as Mr. Guterres and President Biden rely in part on temperature readings from the United States Historical Climatology Network (USHCN).
The network was established to provide an “accurate, unbiased, up-to-date historical climate record for the United States,” NOAA states, and it has recorded more than 100 years of daily maximum and minimum temperatures from stations across the United States.
The problem, say experts, is that an increasing number of USHCN’s stations don’t exist anymore.
“They are physically gone—but still report data—like magic,” said Lt. Col. John Shewchuk, a certified consulting meteorologist.
“NOAA fabricates temperature data for more than 30 percent of the 1,218 USHCN reporting stations that no longer exist.”
He calls them “ghost” stations.
Mr. Shewchuck said USHCN stations reached a maximum of 1,218 stations in 1957, but after 1990 the number of active stations began declining due to aging equipment and personnel retirements.
NOAA still records data from these ghost stations by taking the temperature readings from surrounding stations, and recording their average for the ghost station, followed by an “E,” for estimate.
The addition of the ghost station data means NOAA’s “monthly and yearly reports are not representative of reality,” said Anthony Watts, a meteorologist and senior fellow for environment and climate at the Heartland Institute.
“If this kind of process were used in a court of law, then the evidence would be thrown out as being polluted.”
https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/hidden-behind-climate-policies-data-from-nonexistent-temperature-stations-5622782

Posted by: scorpion | Apr 10 2024 19:26 utc | 66

Posted by: Ornot | Apr 10 2024 18:20 utc | 51
Thank you. Am reading through slowly. Am not sure exactly what you mean by: The concept of eternity is beyond human contemplation, that we actually are and experience is unfathomable and so there are those that rebel at that glory, who wish to own or control it, and so also denying it.
But there are many traditions, mainly in Asia, that do indeed contemplate eternity, indeed are fundamentally based on doing so (like BuddhaDharma). Plus all traditions which believe in an eternal ‘God’ are doing so as well, presumably. True, such matters cannot be reduced to relative level logics and quantitative analysis etc., but absolutes can be contemplated albeit one cannot rely on conceptual thought to do so (unless, perhaps, when presented in the form of stories). That takes training, but again there are many traditions in human history that provide such. The Japanese for a while excelled in this, but they are of course by no means the only ones.
Anyway, thanks again for that link.

Posted by: scorpion | Apr 10 2024 19:36 utc | 68

my motto – ‘shit happens’, lol…
rt story today – Gender discontent is just a phase for most kids, a new study shows. Will transition pushers leave those kids alone?

Allow me to debunk this “article” :
Its title is already problematic :
Gender discontent is just a phase for most kids ? Yes, that’s why only an extreme minority of them are concerned by transidentity.
Will transition pushers leave those kids alone? There are no such things as “transition pushers” but in the mind of bigots who also believe in the American Dream.
I quote the RT article now :
Thousands of children will likely regret going under the knife to change their sex : unless being of age for you means still being a child, it’s false because one cannot proceed to gender-affirming surgery before the age of 18. Very rarely between 16 and 17 and only with the parents’ agreement and the doctor’s advice. Of course, anyone can disagree with that, but it’s better to do so with true information. Source
Search anywhere on social media these days and you’ll find endless chatter on the subject of young people ruminating over a sex change : I really doubt that the best place to look for reliable informations on this topic is social media. Unless you want your belief to be confirmed. Plus I guess the author who’s living in Russia means X (Twitter) which by being an open-mike place for right wingers and bigots constantly spreads transphobic and homophobic speeches, among other good things.
the number of children being referred for transitioning treatment in the United Kingdom : that’s not the exact words from the article in question that the author gives as the source. It talks about “children wanting to change sex”. Wanting to change sex doesn’t equal taking a transitioning treatment. Same as wanting to change car doesn’t equal actually buying a new car.
In the US, the number of young people identifying as transgender has almost doubled since 2017, according to a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report. This RT article was published in April 2024. This so-called “new CDC report” dates from 2022… That’s not fucking serious… There’s no doubt there was among youngsters a trend of claiming to be LGBTQ+, but as the article states later, it appeared to just be a phase for most of them. In this report from UCLA Williams Institute, it says that since 2017, “the percentage and number of adults who identify as transgender has remained steady over time”.
Will this revelation slow down the advent of sex-drenched lessons in ‘progressive’ Western classrooms? That’s really something a bigot would say. Though sex education remains the best way, and an emergency for small children who are more and more victims of sex abuse, to fight against paedophilia. Let me quote myself in a article I wrote about this topic :

Opponents of sex education for young children argue that sexuality doesn’t concern them at an early age: this is doubly false. Questions about sexuality begin very early in children’s lives. How many parents, for example, have to answer the questions they naturally ask about their conception or what differentiates them from the other sex? Above all, a sexually abused child is a child who is confronted with adult sexuality against his or her will.
The perpetrators of child abuse, almost always men, are in the vast majority of cases close to or known by the child and the family. Sexual abuse of minors begins with manipulation of the child and those around him or her. Lost and helpless, the child no longer perceives the boundary between right and wrong. These are often authority figures, respected or admired, establishing a de facto ascendancy that disarms the little victim all the more. A father, an uncle, a grandfather, a friend, a neighbor, a doctor, a sports coach, a teacher, a priest…
Speaking of which, here’s an unrivaled contradiction among indignant, puritanical conservatives: they’re quicker to make museums uninviting places for kids, ready to condemn any pictorial indecency, determined to the point of auto-da-fé, than to keep them away from places of Christian worship, which are indisputably the seat of the greatest number of sexual abuses of minors committed since the second half of the twentieth century. The Sauvé report estimates that between 215,000 and 330,000 children have been sexually abused by clerics within the French Catholic Church since the 1950s, speaking of a systemic phenomenon involving all levels of the Catholic hierarchy. And yet, for defenders of morality, the House of God remains a safer place for children than an art gallery.
An emblematic example in recent years: Joël Le Scouarnec. This septuagenarian surgeon was convicted in 2020 of raping minors. He is the subject of 184 complaints. The number of his potential victims is estimated at between 250 and 300, with his first abuses dating back to the 1980s. It was only in 2017 that he was reported. By a six-year-old girl.
How many children before her could have spoken out, put words to these acts instead of believing that the adult has all the rights because of his authority or his job? How many before this 6-year-old girl? How many buried their shame? How many will suffer for life?

Trans just became the pretext to promote the ban of sex education, which make people who advocate against it at the very least accomplices of theses crimes.
Then follows the usual rant about drag queens in libraries… Just spreading lies and unproved rumors… and ignoring that a DG and a trans are two very different persons. Rest assured that idiocy is equally distributed in the whole population : there is the same proportion of imbeciles among LGBTQ+ communities as there is in the straight part…

Posted by: xiao pignouf | Apr 10 2024 19:46 utc | 70

scorpion | Apr 10 2024 18:25 utc | 55
Cutting out citric acid from my diet has and a huge difference, yet no cure. …A lot of the physical discomfort has gone now, but all I can do is sit here.

Glad to hear it and best of luck. I don’t know if you have old wise herbalists in Australia but a really good one (rare) can get to the root of nearly any chronic problem.
Speaking of which, my wife took me to a little old lady’s house today to pick up two plants recommended by an Italian doctor to help with sleep. We will meet him later today. The lady also wanted us to have an ‘anti-cancer’ tree called ‘Red Dragon’ because she has too many plants now. She talks to all of them of course, which Plant People do since time immemorial – dream with them too. Anyway, now we have a purportedly powerful anti-cancer Red Dragon member of the family to be planted tomorrow in our almost ready property.
The first day I had the sleeping plants I slept like a baby for nine hours starting early – which hardly ever happens. But last night I hardly slept at all. (It’s a process!) Still, it’s rare that somebody gives you something that really works, so hopefully this Italian doctor will prove helpful. That said, the old lady came out of her house to see me and we liked each other. She doesn’t like people much, apparently, but we have a date to kick back and drink some cervezas together.
Alliances forming with Plant People!!!

Posted by: scorpion | Apr 10 2024 19:50 utc | 72

xiao pignouf | Apr 10 2024 19:46 utc | 70
One can only assume you are into child grooming and feel a bit threatened.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Apr 10 2024 20:00 utc | 74

Then follows the usual rant about drag queens in libraries… Just spreading lies and unproved rumors…
Posted by: xiao pignouf | Apr 10 2024 19:46 utc | 70
++++++++
LOL stfu you nonce
Sex Offender Busted as Drag Queen Who Read Books To Children in City Library

Posted by: SamHyde | Apr 10 2024 20:06 utc | 76

“…Clearly the man has no life outside of his online obsessions..”
SamHyde | Apr 10 2024 20:01 utc | 75
That doesn’t seem true to me, having read Tom Q’s comments for sevreral years. But supposing that it was true would it be anything close to being as bad as your coming here to display quite gratuitously your vicious nature?
These discussions are constantly marred by trolls whose sole purpose is to anger, offend and deter thoe inclined to sincere and rational discussions. And the sad thing about is is that most of you, like ‘canuck’ do so not because anyone is asking you or paying you to but because you enjoy it.
Though which you enjoy more, interrupting honest debates or displaying your evil excuses for personalities, is unclear.

Posted by: bevin | Apr 10 2024 20:12 utc | 78

all the “money”-printing, debt and leverage will dissolve because they will have no other choice but to dissolve.
Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Apr 10 2024 19:53 utc | 73
———-
There is definitely a lot of debt and leverage out there.
Probably the sooner we try to do a controlled collapse into a reality based economy the better. This has been an issue since 2008 and is only getting worse but it is starting to get unraveled for us by new global powers.
——————————
The predatory class has definitely taken their cut but how much of that money is real?
If we see a 75% drop in real estate, a 90% drop in the stock market and who knows how much money go up in smoke in the derivatives market.
Posted by: financial matters | Mar 17 2024 18:33 utc | 42

Posted by: financial matters | Apr 10 2024 20:14 utc | 80

sean the leprechaun | Apr 10 2024 20:13 utc | 79
Autoimmune stuff.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Apr 10 2024 20:18 utc | 82

Posted by: SamHyde | Apr 10 2024 20:14 utc | 81
lol
Since you obviously do fall into the categories of “challenged” and “lacking purpose” I’ll refrain from adding any further insult to what must be an already difficult life.
You’re still projecting what seems like an obsessive personality and sound way too mad, bro. Definitely limit the time you spend at 8chan or whatever it’s morphed into these days.
Tom

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Apr 10 2024 20:21 utc | 84

One of the most cringe things whities do is talk racism to black and hispanics they hardly know or just met.
Leftie whities say, “hello, you are black i noticed. Dont you just hate racist Trump?” (As this works well as an icebreaker at bookclubs, yoga, and herba mate tea shacks with other salt and pepper haired birkenstock wearing whities).
Rightie whities say “hello, you are black i noticed. I knew a black fella once, great worker, honest, never stole anything”.

Posted by: UWDude | Apr 10 2024 20:26 utc | 86

Posted by: UWDude | Apr 10 2024 20:26 utc | 86
Is this comment relevant to anything that anyone else in the thread has mentioned?

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Apr 10 2024 20:28 utc | 88

Posted by: Ornot | Apr 10 2024 18:20 utc | 51
Good essay. My understanding is that is beef is with ‘subjective values’ versus ‘objective values’ which latter exist primordially on the absolute level. They are not made up by ideologies or individuals (‘subjective’) but rather self-existing throughout all times and cultures.
But it might be permissible to lay down two negations: that God neither obeys nor creates the moral law. The good is uncreated; it never could have been otherwise; it has in it no shadow of contingency; it lies, as Plato said, on the other side of existence. It is the Rita of the Hindus by which the gods themselves are divine, the Tao of the Chinese from which all realities proceed…..God is not merely good, but goodness; goodness is not merely divine, but God.
This gets to what a Trinitarian God is about. It is similar to Buddhism’s Body, Speech and Mind , aka the ‘Three Bodies of the Buddha’ (Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya & Nirmanakaya), Daoism’s Heaven Earth and Man. What they are all getting at, along with God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is that we are of multiple layers or levels, as it were, including the infinite/eternal/absolute, the temporal/mortal/relative and the vivid display of experienced qualities (‘spirit’, ‘speech’) wherein both arise simultaneously. Relative existence in fleeting, ever-changing forms are like clouds forming and dissolving in the ever-present sky. Primordial Mind is unborn and eternal just as all relative experiences arise and then cease, are born and then die. Both ‘realities’ (‘bodies/kayas’) happen together in this our experiential continuum.
The faculty and presence of awareness (Buddha/nous) is unborn and omnipresent and not subject to individuated judgment or comprehension. At the same time, there are elements therein to do with what is good, true, upright, noble. Not being subjective, they are universal and eternal, thus ‘objective values’. (Not to be confused with materialism’s ‘objective reality’.)
Otherwise, values come and go like fashions pushed by ideologues-of-the-decade or tyrants. This is what the early communist revolutions experienced, shedding one set of ideology-based techniques and configurations after another until they realized they had to return to the bedrock non-ideological roots of the civilizational ethos grounded in absolute values, absolute truths, unchanging principles. Russia and China have made that transition, however imperfectly; the West has yet to begin.

Posted by: scorpion | Apr 10 2024 20:37 utc | 90

Tom_Q_Collins
The origins of the term and how it morphed is interesting. No other word though has been used to name or describe this ideology/religion.
Here in Australia, there is the law and order no aboriginals and on the other end of the spectrum is the ‘enlightened’.
In the territory young aboriginal kids were being arrested fine then jailed for not paying their fines due to offences against bureaucracy. Driving an unregistered car, driving without a licence ect.
At around that time, in the southwest, an aboriginal or part aboriginal man walked into my 86 year old fathers back yard, talked to him for a bit, knocked him down and began stamping on his heads. Put him in a coma for a week or two.
Only two hours before he had been released on bail. He had been arrested for Knocking on an elderly woman’s door and when she opened it, punched her in the face and broke her cheekbone.
He was 25 at the time. I looked up his record and hisw first violent attack was at the age eighteen where his victim, another aboriginal recieved machete wounds to the head. From age eighteen till then, he was always released on bail and soon as released attack another person, but the woke racist judge believed that jailing aboriginals was not good.They were all good people and could do no wrong.
He was a bad apple in any skin colour, a danger to everyone and should have been looked away for everyone safety, both black and white. After he put my father in a coma, he went before another judge and got four years. I had got onto a local MP who knew the clowns history well a told me about the court cases with gag orders ect. Its probably due to him this nutter went before a different judge.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Apr 10 2024 20:45 utc | 92

“So you think the Judge arresting and jailing people without trial is a good guy and Lulu the real deal?”
Posted by: scorpion | Apr 10 2024 18:07 utc | 48
thank you for the reality check.

Posted by: canuck | Apr 10 2024 20:50 utc | 94

I’m going to riff! Let’s see where it goes.
There is no future in individualism or going rogue. The ‘elect’ won’t let us. The self selected , lazy, vampires that always fed off the masses, never caring for any history oor future which does not fulfil their ‘top dog’ lives of piracy and slave owning. Demi gods.
Such of course has been the trajectory of the Western Euro Centric History – the fake ‘democracy’ which is actually self imposed chains that grants rights to Owners who have no need to be elected, not when you are born in power and can choose who should be ‘elected by hoi polloi’ that keeps them in the fantasy of being ‘in control of their own lives’ – knowing mostly it’s not true but happy to enjoy the soma of ersatz god like power.
Such also is what gave rise to the American Dream myth. The supposed Individualism – a mere cartoon version of ancient tales of Odysseus and Sinbad type. Man alone against the Gods were what that fairytale was built upon as a means of conquering the North American continent and take it from the natives – only to be hoovered up by the aristos through corporatism , monopolies, debts and wage slavery. Let a few have some success and millions more would destroy their whole lives attempting the same – a god damned lottery!
Now even offering a golden ticket to a $billion – and that American Day Dreamers will spend their hard earned and always remain poor – it wasn’t known as a Fools Tax for fun.
The wholly invented future new religions of control, the double speak inherent , the Brave New Orwellian World – if you follow ? Eric Blair was just transcribing and putting into modern tale what was already in place – a form of Pavlovian training, a conjures patter stage show mesmerism – after all hypnotism only works on these willing to be believe in it, does it not?
It was his job. He was selected to write it because he was a Natural . Another in a stream of such ‘organic intellectuals’ as Gramsci discerned through his sharpness of mind; he would have been one too, the Owners would have paid what ever he wanted, to work his magic keeping their status quo – but being born poor, a peasant, naturally a genius figured out their game and was politically effective , like a Gandhi and Mandela and Assange.
The fascists seeing that he would disrupt all their plans had him incarcerated – his Mighty Brain could not be able to relate to others..That it was about lifting the masses and not keeping them in their place. Fighting between themselves and How exactly to go about in a single lifetime! Orwell would have know of his thinking and used it for the Masters.
What Gramsci figured has been proved by Putin and Xi and the billions they are raising in the Global South.
That‘s the panic. That is the reason for ukrain and Gaza and what is being shit stirred in the vast Global South which is breaking the centuries long imperial chains so easily with a few shrugs.
Macarloon and Camerloon , Yellen and co shown to be demo-gods but of Lilliputian scale -running around in panic – that the Giant awakes. Demanding it lies still because it will destroy the whole of civilisation ! They beg that the whole world is threatened if it arises. A world made through centuries of propaganda and invention of pseudo religious myths that we live by and suck up as being ‘modern’ hence ‘reality’… using the greatest minds known (and bought).
Unfortunately the Red Army in WW2 was not able to eradicate the disease of Fascism which is at the heart of Western Anglo European Imperialism for centuries. It survived in the Old countries that were not occupied and cleansed – Spain. Italy, France , Britain and its mongrel new world master the North America’s – in fact it was retreated and protected and nurtured there and the corners of empire along with a lot of Nazis saved from their fate. The fascist Zionazis were immediately installed in the Levant and the 5 Eyes and satraps set-to, to try and spread the poison again. Under cover of the cobbled together new League of Nations based in that melting pot Nightmare Nation. Largely compromised and controlled through bribery , corruption and blackmail of its delegates.
Gramsci died a broken man, too early ,in prison , Europe and the Collective West deprived of his Great Mind – I’d like to see that alternative universe.
So here we are! Stumbling around dazed in the gloom, waking from some dream/nightmare of having been assaulted by evil succubi and incubi by ever more devilish new spells of dystopia. Financial lies and chains. Cataclysms of disease from nowhere, climate threat from nowhere …a plan of deliverance for such wolfs at our door and skys falling upon our heads – of Green Carbon Zero in a New world order Deal; hashed together with ineffective environmentalism used to contort children’s minds about collecting plastic to save the World when surely it should be the manufacturer of plastic and its use by the corporations that should do that? My god using the kids! Little elfin princess and babies who would choose to have ice cream all day long and the state would enable them as their personal choice, never mind thattheir parents should say NO! Wait until you are grown and cane do what you like.
The kids become adults and believe in such crass stupidity that every little thing matters as long as they feel it! Throw in the latest whiz , transhumanism … anything and everything, the kitchen sink, thrown at the fragile Collective Wasted Minds. Adults and kids alike. Raised on cartoon families for two generations now and the Waltons before then!
It is still Fascism however you want to dress up the stinky arse emperors in their finest cloth that can not the highest civilised people can appreciate , the golden billion.
If only Gramsci had lived free, the last hundred years would have been less bloody and we would have been reaching for the stars instead of wondering if we will get out of this decade alive!
That’ll do as I struggle to encapsulate my thoughts, What in a word, can describe it? The spell we are being cast under ?
Is it ?
Woke

Posted by: DunGroanin | Apr 10 2024 20:51 utc | 96

Probably the sooner we try to do a controlled collapse into a reality based economy the better. This has been an issue since 2008 and is only getting worse but it is starting to get unraveled for us by new global powers.

Posted by: financial matters | Apr 10 2024 20:14 utc | 80
Agree, except that I don’t think a collapse can be controlled. Using a building as a metaphor, a collapse is chaotic and unpredictable; a controlled demolition can be managed to a large extent (sometimes things do go wrong), so a building is taken down piece by piece in a safe and predictable manner.
Which got me thinking that the slow and steady approach of Russia with the SMO, China not dumping its US debt holdings in a precipitate manner, Iran taking a so far restrained response to Israeli outrages, the quiet accumulation of precious metals by many actors in the Global Majority is attempting a controlled demolition of the Hegemon, in order to try and avoid the possible consequences of an uncontrolled collapse.

Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Apr 10 2024 20:53 utc | 98

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Apr 10 2024 20:52 utc | 97
lol
you ain’t foolin no one Collins 😀

Posted by: SamHyde | Apr 10 2024 20:55 utc | 100