Open (Neither Ukraine Nor Palestine) Thread 2024-139
Sorry for not posting. Still a bit busy with health related issues.
Of interest (may be):
- NTSB Marine Investigation Preliminary Report (pdf)
Contact of Containership Dali with the Francis Scott Key Bridge and Subsequent Bridge Collapse
Use as open (not related to the wars in Ukraine and Palestine) thread ...
Posted by b on May 15, 2024 at 14:41 UTC | Permalink
next page »Thanks Bernhard for posting the NTSB report about the Dali incident in Baltimore. Apparently the circuit breakers blew, forcing the shutdown of the main engine due to no cooling pumps, and loss of electric power for the steering pumps which power the rudder.
Although the pilot ordered left rudder after the backup steering pump came online, powered by a backup generator, steering was not quick enough due to lack of propeller thrust.
Notable in the timeline, only 30 seconds elapsed between the pilots' VHF radio call about the emergency and the bridge traffic being shut down by officers at the ends of the bridge.
There was a power outage the previous day caused by engineer error (blocking the exhaust of a running generator), subsequently the crew switched to the other pair of generators and breakers, the reason explained as the first set had been in use for some time prior.
There's no information about the salvage process, although the various government and private organizations are listed including local, owner, shipbuilder, salvor and so on.
The Key bridge has four dolphins, directly in front and behind the main pylons which support it. The Dali's course was not directly towards the pylon so it passed between the dolphin and the pylon.
Posted by: jonku | May 15 2024 15:33 utc | 2
Very interesting to see who attended today's meetings with Putin on the development of the defence industry and with commanders of military districts. I'll provide the translation of Putin's introductory remarks later today which were of a rather general nature with the important discussions happening after the cameras were off. Although he's not a young kid, he's the youngest member of the government who IMO has a very promising future, and here's what Putin said of him--teacher to student:
"New Minister industrial development, industry is also not a newcomer in this area. You worked, Anton Andreevich [Alikhanov], in the Ministry of Industry earlier. Now, bearing in mind your developments in the territory, you understand that and how is it done in the territories and what is needed to work was even more successful. I hope you will apply all these skills here and knowledge in order to act successfully."
Some will wonder what happened with Medvedev--nothing. He retained his post and was at the meetings.
"New Minister industrial development, industry is also not a newcomer in this area. You worked, Anton Andreevich [Alikhanov], in the Ministry of Industry earlier. Now, bearing in mind your developments in the territory, you understand that and how is it done in the territories and what is needed to work was even more successful. I hope you will apply all these skills here and knowledge in order to act successfully."
Some will wonder what happened with Medvedev--nothing. He retained his post and was at the meetings.
Posted by: karlof1 | May 15 2024 15:37 utc | 3
An even younger junior than Aleksey Dyumin.
Two things come to mind, succession is being assured, and (should there be no damning contracts/advantages with family companies), service to RF is being chosen even by those that might earn a lot elsewhere.
That is a sign of a healthy republic.
Posted by: Newbie | May 15 2024 16:04 utc | 4
hopefully fico pulls thru..
is this an archbishop ferdinand moment? it seems like the reverse...
Posted by: james | May 15 2024 16:02 utc | 17
OT on the other thread "archbishop" :D
Come on James, this doesn't look like you
Yes, hope he comes through and with a vengeance for the joke.
Also hope someone follows the money that I would bet showed up in the would be assassin's family
Maybe it came from Luxembourg, would bet a lot of ukranian companies there...
Posted by: Newbie | May 15 2024 16:11 utc | 5
I was listening to the song "ya russki", and then it hit me: these people think they are free, and we are not.
Posted by: Passerby | May 15 2024 16:29 utc | 6
It is not clear why Ukrainian fascists would want to kill Fico. Slovakia's potential positive contributions to Ukraine by a compliant successor (whose presence is not even guaranteed) are not very important. Slovakia isn't terribly important to the EU or NATO either. And it has very little to offer Russia, meaning Fico wasn't much of a threat. EVen more, it is doubtful to what extent Ukrainian fascists are truly independent of the CIA and other western intelligence and military circles. I for one believe there are numerous fascist fellow travelers in the US army and CIA etc. but I don't think that makes Ukraine the tail that wags the dog.
Fico's SMER party is alleged to be pretty corrupt, so there's a chance some cheated victim may have lost it. (Isn't that what happened with Abe?) The incoming president elect, Pellegrini, was a big Fico ally, his #2 Man it's claimed, but split away to make the HLAS party. Removing Fico could result in a de facto SMER/HLAS reunification, leaving Pellegrini the winner of the split after all?
But the problem with gossip is that gossip is a rule of thumb kind of thing. That means half-right, half the time.
Cui bono? is still a useful guide but you need to look at all the possible "who" (cui) and how much (bono.)
Posted by: steven t johnson | May 15 2024 16:45 utc | 7
King Charles III unveils his first official portrait since his coronation:
Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | May 15 2024 16:45 utc | 8
One of the significant characteristics of Slovakia is its ethnic and geographical proximity to Ukraine. Like Hungary Slovakia might 'gain' population and acreage from any break up of the current Ukraine.
The most likely explanation for a 'lone wolf' attack is the tsunami or russophobic propaganda which has driven millions of people crazy. In so far as Fico has been portrayed as a Russian ally/puppet he has been turned into a potential target for those 'sharing western values.'
Posted by: bevin | May 15 2024 17:43 utc | 9
đžđ° Slovak Prime Minister Fico's surgery was successful, his condition is stable and he is conscious, local media reportshttps://t.me/DDGeopolitics/110571
Posted by: Norwegian | May 15 2024 17:58 utc | 11
ZH has the following up about the Fico shooting
Update(1220ET): The identity of the shooter has been revealed in national media, and video of the actual moment the shots range out and PM Fico went down has emerged on some social media platforms.Several local media reports, citing visuals and witnesses at the scene, report that the man who shot the Slovak PM is a writer and activist named Juraj Cintula.
While a clear motive has yet to be established, Cintula is said to be part of the pro-West and socially liberal "Progressive Slovakia" party.
All the God Of Mammon knows is Might-Makes-Right and hope the fear of its use cow's others.
Posted by: psychohistorian | May 15 2024 18:19 utc | 12
Worth watching, quite amazing, The Mighty Wurlitzer at work, in a nutshell everything you need to know about capitalism and war:
Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | May 15 2024 18:22 utc | 13
@Norwegian | May 15 2024 17:58 utc | 11
Ta for update.
Posted by: Don Firineach | May 15 2024 18:34 utc | 14
Decided to browse the Daily Mail headlines for possible leaks related to the Fico shooting. I settled on these two:
âCoffee fans go wild for $1 Starbucks copycat drink recipe that uses only four ingredientsâ
Excerpt
âRecently, the US-based content creator [Cosette Manson] took to TikTok to tell her more than 786,000 followers that they didn't have to turn to the coffee giant for their energy boost - adding that they could make their favorite drinks from the comfort of their home.
In a viral video, which has so far amassed more than 57,000 views, she took viewers through her process of making a copycat version of Starbucks' Iced Carmel Macchiato - coming in at just $1.â
And this one â âExclusive: Man with same sleep disorder as Joe Biden causes four traffic accidents in months: Wake up call!â
Excerpt
âThe case was revealed in the American Journal of Case Reports, amid warnings from doctors that excessive sleepiness can raise the risk of traffic accidents.
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is caused by the upper airways becoming blocked during sleep and affects about 39million people in the US every year.â
⊠âIn the case in Vietnam, the patient was also diagnosed with obesity hypoventilation disorder (OHD) â a breathing disorder that causes someone who is obese to have too much carbon dioxide and too little oxygen in their blood.â ⊠âThe physicians, from a Military Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, wrote in the report: 'In summary, OSA... manifests symptoms of excessive daytime sleepiness, substantially increasing the risk of traffic accidents.
'Regrettably, this issue has not received the required attention in Vietnam.' â
Mike Mihajlovic most recent post is on Palestinian air defence: âA very clear example of Palestinian point air defense: a well-placed hit with the stone knocked down an Israeli drone. Palestinians are skilled with slingshots and throwing rocks by hand so this is not surprising.â
https://x.com/MihajlovicMike/status/1790178758286287143
A big piece of very interesting-looking space something-or-other was found in a farmerâs field in Saskatchewan:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/space-debris-farm-field-1.7204312
The Beaverton has a recent post about Saskatchewan
âThe jig is up! Saskatchewan announces they were just fucking with everyone about the whole âbunny hugâ thingâ
In Saskatchewan, they refer to hoodies as âbunny hugsâ. All a carefully-orchestrated conspiracy, says the satirical news site.
https://x.com/TheBeaverton/status/1790186764214366593
Posted by: Bruised Northerner | May 15 2024 18:39 utc | 15
The NTSB report doesn't answer the ship dynamics very well at all
No engine, rudder straight then slightly to port then hard to port. As for anchor:
At 0127:01, the senior pilot ordered an anchor dropped, and the crew began
the process to drop anchor.
At 0127:32 ... The crew regained electrical power before the vessel struck the pier but was unable to regain propulsion.
At 0129:10, the Daliâs starboard bow struck pier no. 17 of the Key Bridge at
6.5 knots.... A Dali crewmember, who was on the bow at the time of the accident, told investigators that, as he was releasing the brake on the port anchor, he had to escape from the falling bridge before he was able to reapply the brake. (Due to ongoing salvage efforts, the amount of anchor chain paid out is still unknown.)
...
The amount of yaw, and possibly the turning circle, for a ship steering straight or opposite, does not make sense.
Someone mentioned the stern anchor previously I think, here it is the port bow anchor. Possibly the port anchor chain passed under the hull and so the stern pivoted clockwise, otherwise it would pivot anti-clockwise. That is the only explanation I am able to think of. The ship then straightening some as anchor brake was later released.
...
Here they put the pilot as ordering. No name/nationality for the captain last time I looked. Crew kept on ship and silent. Gaps in data recording for technical reasons.
Makes question.
Posted by: Ornot | May 15 2024 18:52 utc | 16
Did Blinken perform "Sympathy For The Devil?"
"I was there when Zelenskyy,
Sent old men to war in vain.
And conscripted little kids,
To fight for his cocaine."
Posted by: Marielle Redclaw | May 15 2024 19:15 utc | 17
There was an article on RT earlier about Blinker telling young Ukrainians to embrace conscription. How evil can he get?
Posted by: Manage without Me | May 15 2024 19:22 utc | 18
I would bet that when this Juraj Cintula is looked at a little more closely, we will find that he has âwonâ a âliterary prizeâ (in cash) from some obscure literary organization that has no members and is financed by an NGO that is in turn financed and controlled by the US State Department.
Iâd be curious to know who published his books, and how many connections away the US State Department is from them as well.
Posted by: William Gruff | May 15 2024 19:52 utc | 19
Wonder if this is the same Juraj Cintula: LinkedIn
Editor / Web Content Editor Faculty of Political Science and International Relations Sep 2009 - Jul 2013 3 years 11 monthsBanska Bystrica, Slovakia
GLOBSEC Graphic
PR Team Member / Web Content Editor / Editor
GLOBSEC
Jan 2006 - Dec 2012 7 yearsBanska Bystrica, Slovakia
Euro-Atlantic Center Graphic
Publishing Manager
Euro-Atlantic Center
Jan 2005 - Dec 2007 3 yearsBanska Bystrica, Slovakia
"Euro-Atlantic Center"? Hmmm....
Posted by: William Gruff | May 15 2024 19:57 utc | 20
Judge Nap, who's nobody's fool, on RT on Fico:
Fico stood up to the West, but he shouldn't have to pay with his life â US legal expertThe attempted assassination of Slovakian PM Robert Fico tells you about "the desperation of the West" to bring other countries into line, and the "demonisation of all things Russian," says legal analyst Andrew Napolitano.
His comments come following local reports that the alleged 71-year-old shooter was part of a liberal opposition party and was spurred to act by "political motivations."
6 min vid: https://t.me/RTnews_unc3/29860
Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | May 15 2024 20:00 utc | 21
@William Gruff | May 15 2024 19:52 utc | 19
Excellent question. We might learn who was behind the assassin.
Posted by: Norwegian | May 15 2024 20:01 utc | 22
Erwin Sonderegger has written a very short article that touches on the matter of substance, and many others we've seen in the last thread.
At one point, he says that
If one has realized that all understand is within a particular 'world' of opinions and beliefs, one will stop to claim one's specific world against others. ... To claim something is not the only viable position in a debate. You may also choose to doubt, to question, or to simply not claim, among many others.
The original is in German; using simple language, it should translate readily.
°o°O°o°o°O°o°O°o°
[re-edited post from the tail end of the old OT]
Posted by: persiflo | May 15 2024 20:08 utc | 23
I just heard a report on Sputnik Radio that Slovakian authorities have determined that Fico was shot for political reasons.
Posted by: Lysias | May 15 2024 20:12 utc | 24
âĄïžPrime Minister Fico has been placed in a medically-induced coma and will remain in it for 24 hours, according to media reports.https://t.me/ukraine_watch/22503His condition after the attack is critical, he has lost a lot of blood. It is noted that the main arteries were not damaged.
Posted by: Norwegian | May 15 2024 20:13 utc | 25
@ Newbie | May 15 2024 16:11 utc | 5
yeah, it was me.. haven't had the fake james here for some time fortunately.. i suspect more of this as the ukraine fiasco unravels.. if i was zelensky, i would be very careful here..
@ Norwegian | May 15 2024 17:58 utc | 11
thanks for the update.. i am happy he is alive and hopefully able to fully recover well soon..
Posted by: james | May 15 2024 20:21 utc | 26
Posted by: persiflo | May 15 2024 20:08 utc | 22
Thanks.
Not quite sure about the word translated into English as 'substance' / substanzen
Also 'basic opinion' / grundmeinungen
As in the title: Eine Welt aus Substanzen â viele Welten aus Grundmeinungen.
Is 'substance' / ousia something like 'a particular phenomenon'?
I do not understand 'basic opinion' at all. Or is it 'basic assumptions'?
Fico was apparently shot in the head with a handgun. That is usually really bad, but apparently the would-be assassin used a âpellet gunâ, which I believe is EU-speak for a shotgun. A handgun/shotgun that can fire multiple rounds probably has relatively small cartridges, so the pellets it fires are likely not much bigger than birdshot. They might not have penetrated the skull, which in turn means that Fico might be able to fully recovery mental faculties.
Just speculation.
Posted by: William Gruff | May 15 2024 20:35 utc | 29
Unlike many informed contributors here with whom I usually nod my silent agreement, I am entirely at odds with the widely touted view that Russia will cede any territory to Poland, Romania, Hungary or Slovakia. I also hold that those four countries will not push any claim, for a complexity of reasons.
The RF will either directly as the sovereign power (a less likely outcome) or through the final settlement with "inheritor Ukraine" (in a Belarusid form acceptable to the RF, a more likely outcome), ensure that the entirety of the outer USSR perimeter will remain intact w.r.t the Ukraine/PRHS segment. (I hold this view even against the strongest claim for restoration, that of tiny transcarpathian Ukraine and Uzhgorod, with its majority Hungarian/Magyar population.)
Revanchist sentiment is (always) rife across Europe and is kept in healthy check in the civilised manner of status-quo acceptance by treaty and diplomacy [USA eyes glaze over at this point]. Scratch the delicate fabric and finely tuned irrendentist doctrine risks being effected, even in "mature" situations such as the Rhineland, Savoy or Tyrol, and certainly in cases of less geographically less mature entities. Romania will be more than happy to (continue to) cede the relatively minor Chernovits to Ukraine/RF in return for not upsetting the applecart in hugely touchy Transylvania. For example. Anyone who thinks that Belarus (and RF) (and Lithuania!) will be happy to see Poland gratuitously ceded territory south of Belarus when Poland has exactly the same level of claim (or of no claim) to land inside western Belarus (and a little of present-day Lithuania); or that Germany will be happy to see Poland receiving back territory it had forfeited in exchange for East Prussia and parts of Sorbia; or or or... I say nothing of the West Balkans.And nothing of Africa and Asia.
Notice I haven't so much as muttered the cheerleader words Ruthenia or Galizia.
Posted by: petra | May 15 2024 20:43 utc | 30
Magnier's take, I noticed that too about the bodyguards, "unprofessional" is a safe way of saying what he thinks:
Belgian military correspondent Elijah Magnier suggested on RT who might benefit from an attack on the Prime Minister of Slovakia.âIf we look at the [policy of] Slovakia under Robert Fico, we will see a deterioration in relations with the EU, Slovakiaâs rapprochement with Russia, a position against the supply of arms and ammunition to Ukraine, as well as against Ukraineâs accession to NATO.
I think this is a very impressive list of motives to take up arms against the Prime Minister of Slovakia and [try to] kill him in such a brutal way,â he said.
Magnier also drew attention to the unprofessionalism of Fico's bodyguards, who were not close enough to protect him.
Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | May 15 2024 20:58 utc | 31
Posted by: William Gruff | May 15 2024 20:35 utc | 28
I have not seen any report on brain injury, yes on several shots at stomach and chest and both legs..hence he was incapable of walking by himslef...
Nowadays, especially after four years of strange things happening in hospitals, ICUs, and our countries death, cancer, immune and cardiovascular diseasses rates, without any research launched whatsoever at medical level, surviving several shots does not guarantee you will survive... even if immediate medical attention provided....
Is it not incredible that while having such a legion of bodyguards with him, Fico received such ammount of deadly shots, while the attacker kept alive and kicking?
There are at least two countries in the world which do not belong to the EU which need a decade of war in Europe to solve their financial problems...hence Armenia, Georgia, Serbia, and now Slovakia too....
Posted by: Ghost of Mozgovoy | May 15 2024 21:05 utc | 32
@Bruised Northerner #15
What fell was almost certainly a piece of SpaceX debris given the copious amounts of carbon fibre. Another piece from a nearby area looks very similar and was positively identified as SpaceX.
Posted by: Altai | May 15 2024 21:18 utc | 33
As promised, today's meeting related to Russia's Defense Ministry, "All Shook Up or Continuity at Russia's Ministry of Defense?". The real meat of both meetings happened once the cameras were turned off, and not just me wants to know what transpired. Some broad generalizations can be drawn, but not much more.
Thanks Altai. You know, the weird thing is that SpaceX and the Canadian Space Agency have made no comments about it, according to the reporting. Isnât there concern a competitor might get hold of it? Wouldnât SpaceX want it back? Wouldnât the Canadian Space Agency want to assure concerned Canadians about this incident (maybe provide a careful explanation of how it got there?)
I donât know.
Canadaâs branch of the Five Eyes, the Communications Security Establishment has produced another catchy YouTube musical video about cyber security. Like the one at Christmas, with the Christmas carols.
https://x.com/cse_cst/status/1790764821719232988
Posted by: Bruised Northerner | May 15 2024 21:23 utc | 35
Big picture, EU threats of more sanctions smack of desperation, US threats against an EU Bank operation in Russia, India's operations in Iran's newest deep sea port and Indonesia's move to buy SU35s and not F15EX despote FAATA sanctions are just some of indication that the hagemon is finished.
Fico's assassination attempt might be a way to hang on to the EU control over National politics.
Latest news is the increased interest by ME countries in the Chinese J10CE when the Pakistanis won 9-0 with BVR and dogfight simulations against the Typhoon Eurofighter in a recent joint exercise.
I wonder if Wang Xi's warning to the US in Alaska about "speaking from a position of strength" all those years ago will be remembered in the same vein as VVP's Munich speech.
Posted by: Suresh | May 15 2024 21:45 utc | 36
Sharing something read elsewhere, interesting interpretation
Also, it is worth noting that, as reported by The Independent, the âshooting in Slovakia comes three weeks ahead of European Parliament (EP) elections, in which populist and hard-right parties in the 27-nation bloc appear poised to make gainsâ. What does it mean? In practice, with this shooting, most likely a covert operation organized by the CIA, the Outlaw US Empire has sent a powerful message to whoever gets elected in the next elections (not just for the EP): âBeware! If you do not follow our orders and, instead, dare to go against them, we will get rid of you one way or another!â. Thatâs probably how they keep all European leaders by the balls, e.g. German chancellor Olaf Scholz, who had to swallow the sabotage of Nord Stream pipelines, and Italian PM Giorgia Meloni, who, like Robert Fico, pursued a sovereign foreign policy during her election campaign, only to turn it upside down once elected.
Posted by: Newbie | May 15 2024 22:20 utc | 37
Salaam all.
The other day there was a comment regarding an economist's interesting take on "Jesus the rabbi" and debt forgiveness. Hudson I assume is basing his thoughts on a profane reading of 'the Lord's Prayer'. In a (possibly unintended) way it permits an amusing socio-political reading if we take it to its logical conclusion. The rabbi is teaching his disciples to daily pray to their father in heaven to grant them debt forgiveness and also some bread, and this father's name is to be hallowed and would you know, the entire state is his, kingdom, power, and the glory. So a paternalistic system with a father figure on top who hands out basic income and (periodically and very graciously) forgives us banking debts, and in return doesn't he deserve our devotion and obedience and praise and submission? And Jesus the rabbi in the process also has sanctified usury and the banking system around it. But hey, at least its our father who gets to print the money and loan it to us at interest.
So, I thought it timely to share an alternative reading of this and two related prayer from Al-Qur'an. It won't be about banking and sanctified usury and interest and debt jubilees, however I hope everyone can get something out of it, a ~spiritual/metaphysical/psychological although it should be clear that the scope far exceeds such matters. (As a side note to those who do hold certain matters sacred, note that for the sake of general readability certain laudatory and textual notation matter will be omitted - there are there but hidden :)
The prayers are the Lord's Prayer in the Gospels of Jesus(as) and two related prayers from Al-Qur'an delivered to us by Muhammad(saws). The prayer of Sura Al-Falaq (the Cleaving Dawn) and Sura Al-Nass (the Humankind). First let's recite the prayer with due devotion and reverence.
~!~
The Lord's Prayer
Our Father which art in Heaven
Hallowed be thy Name
Thy Kingdom come
Thy Will be done here on Earth as it it in Heaven
Give us this Day
our daily Bread
And Forgive us our Debt
as we forgive all indebted to us
And lead us not to trials and temptations
but deliver us from evil
For Yours is
The Kingdom
& the Power
& the Glory
forever and ever!
aa-meen!
~!~
The Lord of the Cleaving Dawn
With Name of Allah ArRahman ArRaheem
Say
I seek Refuge with
the Lord of Cleaving Dawn
from the evil of ITs Creation
and from the evil of darkness that overspreads
and from the evil of those who blow on knots
and from the evil of the envier when it envies
~!~
The Lord of Humankind
With Name of Allah ArRahman ArRaheem
Say
I seek Refuge with
the Lord of Humankind
the King of Humankind
the God of Humankind
from the evil of the slinking whisperer
that whispers in the inner sanctum of Humankind
from among Jinn & Humankind
~!~
These prayers have an obvious apparent meaning in the spiritual sense that is afforded to the common mindset and do not require elaboration. Our goal here is to have a reading, a 'recitation', for men and women with understanding and discernment, who are present in this forum graciously provided for our by our dear host, B. All gratitude and praise is always due to God, holy and exalted.
So how to read?
'Ali (as), the commander of the faithful and wali'Allah, said:
The Heart records what the Eye perceives.
So first there is perception of sensation-form by the image-sensing-mind, which is recorded by the heart, and then naturally an inner reader 'reads' from that heart inscribed record. Note that the Imam (as) has concisely and correctly addressed the fact of the mapping of any sensory input to an ultimate 'inner record', which is precisely how it is. (Try singing a Psalm 'by heart' ..)
So now conceptually, we need an illumination source to shine on the record, an inner light. Just as light illuminates the pages of a book in the physical sense of reading text, the inner light illuminates the heart record. And as any discerning reader knows, our own essence, understanding, and attitude towards the text and/or its author, critically modulates the act of reading and affects our understanding. So there is a record, there is a light, and there is the reader in an orientation towards the entire matter. (To face and bow down to God in reverence & sincere devotion (abd) is the correct inclination.)
We now have a generally applicable mental model of the mechanics of reading by an embodied self. Important to note that this is a universal model that applies to any act of reading by a conscious being, in the most abstract sense, including 'reading' reality that we perceive and struggle to comprehend and understand. It should also be clear that what we 'read' says as much about who we are as it does about the text.
The Human being, Adam (as) and his children, God guides and protects us all, is a special creature of Allah, we are told in the Book. In a reality that now is even scientifically suspected of being a high dimensional reality with hidden dimensions and abrupt and entirely counter intuitive disconnect between layers of this reality that is both visible to us and our extended cognitive lenses of measuring apparatus and (meta-)mathematical machinery. Intuitively, we have always sensed an 'extended reality' beyond the apparent time-space dimensions. This is core to our experience of consciousness.
So we Humans, children of God in Adam, stand bestride two realms, one the apparent externality ('Zahir') and an hidden interiority ('Batin'). The apparent externality is composed of energetic modalities that manifest as particulate matter with extent and mass in metric space, and the ephemeral modality of matter as waves and vortices in harmonic fields. As we know, there is an order and governing laws and associated sciences. The other realm is where we conscious beings truly dwell, in the complete sense of the keenly felt experience of being, to the extent that some even think (falsely imo) that this inner reality and the associated phenomena of self and self-awarness can be encoded, transferred and reified in a mechanical apparatus. This is the hidden realm (batin) of the soul and spirit. And herein too there is an order and governing laws and associated sciences.
Now on to the reading of the prayers. [...]
Posted by: sunof27 | May 15 2024 22:23 utc | 38
https://twitter.com/MikeBenzCyber/status/1790761974411759657
New dissident pundit Benz, who has been in the area recently, says the hit was about Western pressure to influence Slovakian prosecutors. Like Biden in Ukraine years ago.
The first bloody portrait of bloody King Charles is out. Looks like a bloody mess.
Under the seat of a rickidy wooden chair is supposed to be a particular rock that has been handled down the generations for the past 3,000 years, but this time some cheeky bastard named Lord Mountabattan stole the stone when the chair was having its once a decade cleaning, and then Lord Mountabattan gave back a copy of the stone he stole instead of the real McCoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLtqd_ERtCU
That is a 1 hour long, 50 year old video titled "The Truth About The Stone of Destiny, aka The Coronation Stone".
Posted by: Hot Carl | May 15 2024 22:28 utc | 40
A bunch of good questions @26:
Not quite sure about the word translated into English as 'substance' / substanzen
Also 'basic opinion' / grundmeinungen
As in the title: Eine Welt aus Substanzen â viele Welten aus Grundmeinungen.
Is 'substance' / ousia something like 'a particular phenomenon'?
I do not understand 'basic opinion' at all. Or is it 'basic assumptions'?
The term substance here means something different than the substances a drug lab would produce, or make use of as ingredients when cooking stuff. It's much more difficult. As Sonderegger points out, substantia is actually a latin word that was used to translate a greek word, and this was not successful in historical view. What happened instead is that substantia acquired its own meaning.
From today's view, the understanding of substance in this sense is as something eternal, primordial, and unchangeable. Derived from this is the so-called metaphysics of substance. The past 1,500 or so years of "western" european philosophy can be read as a coming to terms with this metaphysical assumption: that "the world" is made up of substance.
If you presuppose substance, you'll end up having to reconcile with the basic factor of awareness that goes into each and all experience; both that of feeling, sensation, intution, imagination, and in experience of thought, deliberation, understanding, theory (in german: Meinung).
This is called the mind/body problem in today's terms, using a materialist lense. Substance is more or the less the same as matter in this framework. What happens is that the materialist position must, as is well known, deny any role of consnciousness in the proceedings of the substance. So it gets often conveniently swept under the rug with the term epiphenomenon. In the immortal word of the recently deceased Daniel Dennett, 'I haven't found it [cosnciousness]. It's probably not important.'
I'll skip further discussion of the mind/body problem here, but shall invite everyone over to the philosophers' corner to debate more on this.
Instead I would like to more towards the 'first things', as ousia may be translated somewhat roughly. (Actually, some others here, like Patroklos and juliania, will be able to do that better that I can, and invite them to chime in). The basic thought now is simple:
When you can't rely with (absolute) certainty on your substance, then you will have to rely onto something else to gain bedrock. These are the Grundmeinungen Sonderegger is speaking about. You may call those assumptions, but that implies already a layer of abstraction on which those assumptions can be stated, perused, affirmed, questioned, negated, denied, etc. In a more socratic sense, these "assumptions" are made unwittingly and may be exposed through skillfull technique in a dialogue. Later, the academy differentiates between doxa and episteme - to give a hint what those mean, I'll parallelize them with our current discussion on materialism: doxa would be the established conventional wisdom, the old paradigm if you will.
Finally, the notion of ousia as a 'particular phenomenon' is quite brilliant in a Husserlian sense. He'd call the accompanying hyposthasis (substance) a Regionalontologie.
Posted by: persiflo | May 15 2024 22:44 utc | 41
Posted by: persiflo | May 15 2024 22:44 utc | 40
1. Respectfully, I recommend you get in the habit of pasting in the reference post at the top like just about everyone else does!!
2. Glad you like âparticular phenomenaâ â another word for âsomethingâ.Sounds a lot like 'essence' or 'nature'. In Buddhist logic, there is a clear difference between essence, nature and function. The essence of water is that it is a liquid element comprised of H2O and source of life dynamic; its nature is wetness, flowing around and down, changing form; its function is to fill lower spaces, to quench thirst, break rocks, feed plants, become rivers.
I suspect that your friend's language is difficult in native German (not meant as a criticism); via machine translation I find it very hard to really understand what is being proposed and discussed. But then I lack training in such subject matter. That said, am beginning to pick up on neoPlatonism. I saw a youtube video yesterday about Islam and neoplatonism which intend to watch at some point.
I do like Sonderegger's point about there not being one truth. That is the current materialist belief and it is extremely harmful in so many ways, but proponents just cannot see this.
Newbie | May 15 2024 16:04 utc | 4
*** That is a sign of a healthy republic.***
But being in agreement with the surrender of massive powers to the WHO, WEF and related globalist agencies (servants of the monopoly-capitalist imperium) and agendas most certainly is not.
Posted by: Cynic | May 15 2024 23:21 utc | 43
LightYearsFromHome | May 15 2024 18:22 utc | 13
*** Worth watching, quite amazing, The Mighty Wurlitzer at work, in a nutshell everything you need to know about capitalism and war:
Two days ago, the Ukrainian Defence Ministry published a propaganda video that turned out to be an exact copy of an 11-year-old American Jeep commercial for the Super Bowl ***
Somehow missed that it was an advert for the Super Bowl.
Anyway, the Ukrainian one is ridiculously similar.
And the original advert reinforced my inclination to never even consider getting a "Jeep".
Must be seriously bad motors if the families of those who own them feel a need to keep paying the driver will return in one piece.
Posted by: Cynic | May 15 2024 23:33 utc | 44
But being in agreement with the surrender of massive powers to the WHO, WEF and related globalist agencies (servants of the monopoly-capitalist imperium) and agendas most certainly is not.
Posted by: Cynic | May 15 2024 23:21 utc | 42
Well, at the time RF only wanted to play along.
Maybe a bridge theyâd cross later.
Maybe reform from the inside, maybe at the time not even considered. Who knows?
Sometimes you take a wrong course, sometimes you correct it in time. Sometimes not.
Could be worse, like boats in the US that seem to be feeling some kind of pier pressure :)
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/rcna152425?
Posted by: Newbie | May 15 2024 23:33 utc | 45
Simplicius' latest included a joke Ukraine UAF recruitment ad. Reminded me of this old spoof of a CIA DEI ad.
https://odysee.com/@Redgarr:7/trim.34CDB882-3EEB-40B0-B5DF-9D5EA74D6ABC:c
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | May 15 2024 23:35 utc | 46
Manage without Me | May 15 2024 19:22 utc | 18
*** There was an article on RT earlier about Blinker telling young Ukrainians to embrace conscription. How evil can he get?***
Maybe some of his relatives prefer not to be fixed with Palestinian spare parts?
Posted by: Cynic | May 15 2024 23:48 utc | 47
Cynic | May 15 2024 23:33 utc | 43
*** Must be seriously bad motors [Jeep] if the families of those who own them feel a need to keep paying the driver will return in one piece.***
Damn. That should have been "praying".
'Paying' would presumably be if it was a leased driver-less Tesla.
Posted by: Cynic | May 16 2024 0:12 utc | 48
William Gruff @ 19, Norwegian @ 21:
If your reasoning turns out accurately, then the assassination attempt on Fico's life and the context behind it would be all the more reason for Georgia to pass the law requiring all NGOs and media outlets in that country that receive more than 20% of their funding from overseas to declare themselves foreign agents and to open their books for public examination.
The poet/novelist assassin Juraj Cintula is now being demonised as having associated with extreme far-right organisations that have pro-Russian sympathies, but this detail is a red herring - those same organisations could have received funding and support from Western governments in the past as well.
The very much former Russian "opposition" activist Alexei Navalny also associated with far-right extremists in his youth, or at least until he was told by his financial benefactors to tone down his racism.
Posted by: Refinnejenna | May 16 2024 0:30 utc | 49
Some may have noticed reports of serious rioting in Noumea, the capital of the French territory of New Caledonia. Riots are not uncommon in the Pacific Islands with recent unrest being experienced in Tonga, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. The Solomons are an exceptional case because of the US and China rivalry playing out with major interference in local politics by both countries.
The current New Caledonian riots are created by French intransigence and an official policy of encouraged migration, by colonists from France, up to the present day. This now makes the indigenous population (âKanakâ) a 44% minority. Macron is about to sign a law permitting all recent (over the last 20 years) migrants full voting rights, hence the riots. France will not give up the 7 million tonnes of nickel deposits. It also needs (I think) to expand the Foreign Legion base there as they leave Africa. Furthermore the French Pacific Territories give France a voice as attention leaves, the now lost, Ukraine and turns towards China.
Posted by: Raumati | May 16 2024 0:34 utc | 50
@ Raumati | May 16 2024 0:34 utc | 49 with the heads up about New Caledonia...thanks
I went looking and found this info
Global mine production of nickel in 2022 was estimated at 3.3 million tonnes, which is an increase of 20% from 2021. Indonesia was the largest producer at 1.6 million tonnes, or 49% of global mined production. New Caledonia contains about 7.1 million tonnes of nickel reserves....a bit player who the French are trying to rip off currently because they can and might not be able to do so in the future....
France has declared a state of emergency and bans TikTok in riot-hit New Caledonia is hot news....another of the thousands of cuts that empire is feeling currently.
France needs a Harry and Meghan couple to go out "among the natives" like currently happening in Nigeria.....what does commonwealth translate into French like?
Posted by: psychohistorian | May 16 2024 0:54 utc | 51
Honzo | May 15 2024 23:36 utc | 95
(moved from the Ukraine thread)
The US doesn't even abide by its own sanctions, and is nowhere near prepared to decouple from Chinese manufacturing.
Maybe, but China seems intent on reducing its exports to the US. It made sense for the Chinese to supply the West with cheap labour as long as it got 'technology transfer' in return. Not any more, thanks to the sanction-trigger-happy US.
the reality will be, assuming all goes well for Fortress America (which is unlikely), a decoupling that attempts to mimic the build up the Chinese economy, a piece at a time, while keeping the domestic economy in some kind of tolerable zone for the mass of Americans.
I'm thinking (or hoping) the exact same thing.
A 'hard decoupling' would have completely unpredictable consequences - civil war, fascism, war? The hegemonic transition is here, but it absolutely mustn't involve a major war (which would be a first). Everybody should take an interest in enabling a 'soft come-down' of the Empire, manufacturing returning to the US and people enjoying a decent (if lower, in material terms) standard of living.
(I'm afraid "war for cheap cell phones and big-screen TVs" isn't that unlikely. After all, it's what Trump and all other right-wingers promise: "Western prosperity will remain unchanged, and we won't allow the evil Chinese or whoever to take it away from us." - i.e. the West protecting its privilege, which spells war.)
And 'everybody' includes Germany and EUrope, who should do their part in rebuilding the US. Not sure where you see plundering, dismantling and rebuilding German industry in the US - exporting machinery has been Germany's business model for some decades now, and its well-paid industry workers don't care where the stuff is shipped to. If (more) German corporations build factories in the US thanks to 'Bidenomics' - fine with me, why not? After all, both politically and ecologically, it makes sense to produce in Europe for the European market, Asia for the Asian market etc.
There's an ongoing media campaign painting a bleak picture of German economic prospects, which has little to do with reality. My 'inspired guess' is that it's designed to promote economic "reforms" which would reduce domestic consumption and further increase export fixation, mostly towards the US.
Posted by: smuks | May 16 2024 1:30 utc | 52
ŰšÙŰłÙÙ Ù Ű§ÙÙÙÙÙÙ Ű§Ù۱ÙÙŰÙÙ ÙÙ°ÙÙ Ű§Ù۱ÙÙŰÙÙÙ Ù
The Lord's Prayer
Our Father which art in Heaven
The prayer begins with an assertion of a collectively shared relationship to a heavenly father. Heaven indicates an otherworldly and exalted realm. It is important to comment on the relational aspect that the Messiah of Isra'EL (as) son of Mary (as) dictated to us. The blessed master (Rabbi) (as) is obviously talking about God and as we know there are many aspects to relationship to the divine/transcendent/IT. Father indicates an immediate causal-generative willful source with mutually due considerations and responsibilities on both father and his children.
In the psychological sense this is a component of the Quaternio of Adam. [Interested reader is referred to Mysterium Coniunictionis - (V) Adam and Eve, C. G. Jung, 1963]. The quaternio, as the name implies, is a complex of the psyche, a pair of relational pairings configured in an orthogonal manner (as in a + cross). This structure is the highest modality of the as-yet unrealized Self, which the displacement of unRealized human-self from the divine-Self engenders as a model of Unity. As God, the only True Being, is One, the displacement gives rise to the structures that are reflected in the human psyche/soul. "Our father" affirms that this 'father', that is our 'view' of the divine One, is the one and same 'father' in every human being. This God the Father that created us, nurtures us, nourishes us, clothes us, shelters us, educates us, and most certainly loves us, very dearly indeed. Concerned with our development as any good father, and our coming to age of spiritual maturity, so that we may "inherit the Earth". AlhamduliLLAH.
Hallowed be thy Name
As a Muslim saint said, 'God is knowable through ITs attributes, actions, and names'. My dictionary says hallowed means "holy, sacred, consecrated, sanctified, blessed; revered, venerated, honored, sacrosanct, worshiped, divine, inviolable." It is the 'name' that is to be hallowed (not an image ..)
From the earliest age, mankind instinctively felt the need to find a means of access to higher realms of its fully perceived reality, that is both the apparent externality (zahir) and the hidden reality (batin). To fulfill this need, man used various forms of external reality objects, both naturally occurring and man made, to focus their mental and spiritual energies in devotion and supplication.
Over time, as man came to conceptualize and differentiate different actions and attributes of the divine, these objects took distinct forms reflecting the distinct groupings of one of more attributes with one or more actions. In case of naturally occurring phenomena, such as the sun and the moon and the stars, the attributions were projected, and in case of hand-made idols, they took on distinct forms.
While it is evident (from surviving scripture and practices even in their degenerated forms that remain) that ancient sages and seers understood the phenomena of the veiling of the total reality (i.e. Maya) and that the outward forms were 'spiritual crutches' and thus focused on 'internal images', for the common man this was not the case. It should be understood that internal images are ideation, for all ideation of mind is a form of imagination. For example, we read in mystic poetry descriptions of the "beloved", and various other symbolic imagery. It is to be understood that is the sense of such expressions.
External images of the divine, that is "graven image", gave rise to outright idol-worship, and what was originally intended as a means of access to the divine resulted in the "sin" of the negation of the hidden reality (which is eternal and boundless), and the displacement and delimitation of the divine in the apparent exterior. This then, naturally, resulted in the even greater "sin" of polytheism due to the multiplicity of 'attribute/action' (that is Names) groupings. And the alleged gods were believed to entities residing in the apparent externality.
The mission to transform this 'sinful mentality' was tasked to Abraham (saws) and the prophets of his extended family (as).
So, having destroyed the idols, Abraham (saws) and the prophets among his seed (as) were inspired with 'names', as the highest form of internal image formation (as names resist externalization in graven image form), and insisted on the fact that God is One and HIS names are many. Many such divine names have been given to God's elect for our benefit. Remembrance (zikr) and reverent meditation or simply calling on names as psycho-semantic vectors to the Self, is the meaning of the command by Jesus to "hallow" the name of God.
Thy Kingdom come
This is the kingdom of God that the Messiah (as) informed us is in each and everyone of us. The king "established on ITs throne" in Qur'anic terms. Here the blessed 'Rabbi' (as) was teaching us a means of reminding ourselves, daily, that the True Reality is within. So, here, what we are asking God in this prayer is nothing short of Self-realization and God-Centered-Consciousness. This is not an earthly kingdom. It is a 'heavenly' kingdom. We are praying for the ultimate in higher consciousness. The Muslim reader is referred to certain Hadith Qudsi regarding the heart of HIS Slave and what it can contain.
Thy will be done here on Earth as it is in Heaven
Earth here denotes the 'dust of Adam'. Adam, as asserted, is a creature, a being, that has a multi-dimensional reality. Our current state is that of 'fallen', that is we are imprisoned in the lowest dimensions, that is the time-space 4d. This 'sub-set' of our total reality and being is pseudo-holographic. That is, it has a 'heaven' (that is space and its galaxies and stars, etc.) and an earth. As should be clear, this 'incompleteness' of awareness of ordinary consciousness results in a bifurcation between 'matter' and 'space', while we know of course that lower scale (quantum) substrate is distinct from the apparent (emergent) world we experience. So, "on Earth" not only means things such as 'true belief moving mountains with words' as indicated by Jesus (as) in the Gospels, but also a state of total Islam of creature to the will of God, and thought, speech and action fully in accord with the divine Will.
https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Matthew-Chapter-17/
Give us this day our daily bread
As creatures we require sources of nourishment. Given that we are spiritual beings, the nourishment we require also needs to be spiritual. Bread, in the language of the Bible, definitively means word of God. When the Word of God (as) tells us to take of his flesh and blood as bread and wine, He (as) is referring to the body and spirit of the Divine Word, that is scripture. Here, bread has a wider scope, since we are asking "God the Father in Heaven" directly for bread. So this is heavenly bread, sent down from father. That is 'thought'. The 'body of thought' forms by divine inspiration and then we feed on the inspired thought, by reflecting and digesting to raise our awareness and feed our soul. (For the blessed and fortunate Muslim reader, the Names to be "hallowed" include Al-Razzaq and Al-Muqit, with the latter having a more spiritual aspect. Our learned brother Al-Ghazali (ra) has written a book on the matter of Names of Allah. It is recommended.)
In the Gita, Lord Krishna informs His devotee Arjuna regarding the 3 mental states (gunas), each progressively more refined and higher, corresponding to types. Each such state of mentality and spiritual state of being has its own characteristic food. While (symbolic) types of food are enumerated in the Gita, it should be understood that the scope is wider as indicated with 'daily bread'. For example, food of the Tamistic (degraded lower self) is indicated as "stale food", "leftovers", "rotten", "food made for others". The domineering Rajistic relishes "hot, spicy" food, etc. The Sattvic state reaches for and delights in "pure, wholesome, fresh, nourishing" food, etc.
The correct understanding is to recognize that, for example, eating stale food is feeding on regrets, sorrows, and being 'stuck in the past'. Left over food is regressive mindset thoughtlessly clinging to outdated forms, rituals and norms. 'Food prepared for others' is generational psychological garbage that is passed from parents to their children. "Sins of the fathers" ..
You should be able to extrapolate here to what is 'fit food' for one aspiring for the closest proximity to Father in Heaven.
And forgive us our debt as we forgive all indebted to us
The Self is the Fully Aware (Al-Aalim) and fully informed (Al-Khabir) and the Reckonner (Al-Hasib). God knows everything, sees everything, and there is no hiding :) Let's just put it that way. Yes, God, the Mild (Al-Halim) and Subtle (Al-Latif), did play 'peek-a-boo' in the Garden with Adam and Eve. Haven't you every played that with a child? .
We too keep account, and 'reckon' the debts various people, & sometimes plaintively including the Merciful and Gracious God Himself. But we are not accurate in our record keeping, and naturally are not all-aware and fully-informed and more to the point, we're stuck down here, in a degraded mental and spiritual state. Many of the perceived debts we hold on to are not even valid! Now "laws" were mentioned in regards to the hidden reality, and this here is pointing us to a fundamental (and wonderful) Spiritual Law. Our debts are forgiven as we fully clean accounts of those indebted to us. It is also a somewhat karmic law in the sense that our own sense of Self-forgiveness and Self-reconciliation which achieved give rise to the elevation of our spiritual being by God's grace, can only be attained when we fully clear the book of grievances that we maintain. Forgive all. "Be reconciled with your brother".
There is an similitude/analogy of this phenomena in the apparent externality. e=m*c^2. Now the 'spiritual energy' that is released here when 'mass' (debt!) reaches 'the speed of Light' is Love Energy. The energy bottled up in 'unpaid debt' is tremendous. And you will get this Love energy from the Source, the effacer of sins (Ar-Ra'ouf) the Merciful the All-Forgiving (Al-Ghafur).
And lead us not into trials and temptations but deliver us from evil
As mentioned in the previous comment, the three prayers we are reading are related. "Trials" here are the matter discussed in Sura Al-Falaq (the Lord of Cleaving Dawn), and "temptations" are the matter addressed in Sura Al-Naas (the Lord of Humankind). Here it suffices to make note of a peculiar matter. "Lead us not", dear father. Why would father do this? What does it all mean. This matter will be considered when we continue the reading to these two Suras of the Glorious Al-Qur'an, the Book that makes things Clear.
The diligently-aware-and-careful-of-the-LORD-mentality (aka "fear of the LORD") is the beginning of Wisdom. [Proverbs 9.10]
For thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory, forever and ever!
The Realized human is a powerful being, created in the image of God ITself by ITself. Since the kingdom is in you, then realize that it and you are "forever and ever"!
And God said
Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness
And let them have dominion
over the fish of the sea,
and over the fowl of the air, and over cattle,
and over all 'Earth' [as discussed]
and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the Earth
[Genesis 1.26-27]
InshAllah, we will continue our reading with the prayers to the Lord in the Al-Qur'an. [tbc]
Posted by: sunof27 | May 16 2024 1:37 utc | 53
Checked reddit re: New Caledonia.
Post purge redditors all agree: New Caledonia is falling for a Chinese trap, possibly Russian influence.
Posted by: UWDude | May 16 2024 1:54 utc | 54
RT:
African state reveals why it canceled defense deal with Washington
Nigerâs decision to scrap military ties with the US was in response to threats made by American officials during negotiations, the West African nationâs prime minister, Ali Mahamane Lamine Zeine, said in an interview published by the Washington Post on Tuesday.
Zeine repeated allegations that a senior US delegation, including Molly Phee â the State Departmentâs top official for African affairs â who was in Niamey in March to negotiate the renewal of a decade-old defense agreement, attempted to dictate which countries should be Nigerâs partners.
During the meeting, Phee warned the Sahel state against engaging with Iran and Russia at levels that were unacceptable to Washington if it wanted to maintain the US as a security partner, according to the Nigerien prime minister.
Phee also threatened sanctions if Niger pursued a deal to sell uranium to Iran, he reportedly added.
âWhen she finished, I said, Madame, I am going to summarize in two points what you have said. First, you have come here to threaten us in our country. That is unacceptable. And you have come here to tell us with whom we can have relationships, which is also unacceptable. And you have done it all with a condescending tone and a lack of respect,â Zeine said.
Niameyâs military government canceled its security agreement, which had allowed 1,000 US soldiers and civilian contractors to operate in Niger, in mid-March, just days after the encounter with the American delegation.
The former French colonyâs new authorities began reviewing deals signed with Western partners since the ouster of President Mohamed Bazoum last July.
France withdrew its troops from Niger in December after Niamey ordered them out for allegedly failing to combat the jihadist insurgency in the Sahel.
The authorities also accused the former colonial power of aggressive behavior and internal meddling.
Washington, which condemned the coup and joined Paris and other allies in suspending aid to Niamey, had previously ruled out disengagement from Niger, which is crucial to its counterterrorism mission in the Sahel region.
Zeine told the Washington Post that Niameyâs authorities were âbewilderedâ that the US insisted on keeping its troops in the country while denying Nigerien troops additional support, including military equipment to counter extremist attacks.
âThe Americans stayed on our soil, doing nothing while the terrorists killed people and burned towns,â Zeine said.
âIt is not a sign of friendship to come on our soil but let the terrorists attack us. We have seen what the United States will do to defend its allies, because we have seen Ukraine and Israel,â he added.
[_âlet the terrorists attack usâ = direct the terrorists to attack]
The landlocked country has turned to Moscow for security assistance, with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin confirming earlier this month that Russian forces were sharing a base with American troops in Niger.
Russian military instructors are reportedly in Niamey to train the national army in counterterrorism tactics, as American troops are scheduled to leave the African country in the coming months, as demanded by the government
Posted by: Melaleuca | May 16 2024 2:02 utc | 55
Any news about the situation at Nouvelle Caledonie?
Posted by: AntĂłnio Lico | May 16 2024 2:04 utc | 56
This edition of "Selections From Maria Zakharova's Weekly Briefing" is now available to read. It's shorter than usual but still filled with news you won't have read elsehwere.
Posted by: sunof27 | May 16 2024 1:37 utc | 52
Permanently blocked for your religious protesylising
Posted by: Lavrov's Dog | May 16 2024 3:18 utc | 58
I'm thinking (or hoping) the exact same thing.
A 'hard decoupling' would have completely unpredictable consequences - civil war, fascism, war? The hegemonic transition is here, but it absolutely mustn't involve a major war (which would be a first). Everybody should take an interest in enabling a 'soft come-down' of the Empire, manufacturing returning to the US and people enjoying a decent (if lower, in material terms) standard of living.
Posted by: smuks | May 16 2024 1:30 utc | 51
What is wrong with your thinking? You sound like a typical fascist storm-trooper. You want the totalitarian evil to continue?
The US needs to totally go down the S bend in multiple ways before it is rebuilt from the ground up again. Completely de-militarised like Japan was and Ukrinae soon will be - With no WMDs, no nuclear subs, no Marines, no Navy, no Airforce, no MIC, and no democrat or republican parties.
Broken up into four separate nation states and thus totally defanged in the both the region and the world.
All the high powered arms in possession of the public destroyed and the right to bear arms overturned and made illegal unless Licensed for professional reasons.
War and an invasion are unavoidable to bring down this criminal regime once and for all. If you need a civil war to work things out then go for it.
I am looking forward to China cutting the US and Canada off from all essential goods, food and manufactures of every kind until it implodes and ceases to function. Yes people will die. The American people have earned what's coming to them. Goes around comes around.
If you are not part of the problem I recommend you pack up and leave asap. It's all down hill from here (I truly hope.) AS MLK said "I have a Dream!" :-)
Posted by: Lavrov's Dog | May 16 2024 3:32 utc | 59
Posted by: UWDude | May 16 2024 1:54 utc | 53
New Caledonia & reddit - who cares what know-nothing powerless ijits think and say? Well I do not. But thanks for sharing anyway, just in case.
Posted by: Lavrov's Dog | May 16 2024 3:35 utc | 60
Manage without Me | May 15 2024 19:22 utc | 18
*** There was an article on RT earlier about Blinker telling young Ukrainians to embrace conscription. How evil can he get?***
Posted by: Cynic | May 15 2024 23:48 utc | 46
Hi, text and accessible RT link here
https://www.swentr.site/news/597633-blinken-ukraine-military-mobilization/
Posted by: Lavrov's Dog | May 15 2024 14:31 utc | 371
Posted by: Lavrov's Dog | May 16 2024 3:45 utc | 61
But *who or what* indoctrinates, controls and orchestrates all of them.....
Posted by: Cynic | May 15 2024 22:53 utc | 388
from
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/05/ukraine-sitrep-an-army-and-country-at-their-end/comments/page/4/#comments
Yes, I relate to you examples of off the scale nuts in the USA.
My feeling is in the larger picture you do not need a "controlling" who or what to lead people astray. They (we) can do this all on our own devices.
eg do you think Blinken was like "normal" and then some nefarious control freak came and brainwashed him into now believing what he believes and that being a warmongering genocidal criminal was out of his own control.
No he embraced who and what he is ... as has everyone else. People are predominantly natural compliant with society, their family, their church, their peers their immediate supervisors. Along the way we CHOOSE to be who we are, we CHOOSE the values we identify with.
There is not need for a secret CABAL of influences to achieve this, while at the same time their are groups like this, their reach is imperceptible .... eg the Zionists have only had a n impact upon their children and their families children to the tune of a few million out of 8 billion souls. They are that powerful, they only appear to be so.
No one forced Obama Biden Trump Netanyahu or Blinken (nor MLK MalcomlX RFK Mandela) to be who they are and act like they do. People who vote pro-Israel politics choose to because of their own perceived self interest / advantage and advertising BS. (I'm thinking I am not being clear, but its the best I can do.)
Nations (their political leaders) act in the same way --- for their own advantage. People and nations are weak. They placate rather than stand up against someone louder more powerful than they are. It starts in kindergarten. Illuminati and Freemasons are not required ingredients. :-)
Society and Parents are to Blame!
Best regards ...
Posted by: Lavrov's Dog | May 16 2024 4:15 utc | 62
In response to
"
"
ZH has a posting up with the title
France Declares State Of Emergency, Sends Troops, To Quell Deadly Riots In Pacific Territory
the quote
French President Emmanuel Macron has declared a 12-day state of emergency starting Wednesday as a result of deadly riots which have gripped France's Indo-Pacific territory of New Caledonia.Four people died and many others were wounded in clashes with police Tuesday night, with reports of looting and buildings burned to the ground. The mayhem was sparked by a vote in France's parliament, the National Assembly, which authorizes residents who've resided in New Caledonia for 10 years to cast ballots in provincial elections.
But the archipelago's indigenous Kanak people have for decades chafed over what they see as a power grab favoring the descendants of colonizers who want to remain part of France. These ethnic tensions have simmered for many years, and have boiled over this week.
The French territory lies east of Australia and is ten time zones ahead of Paris, and it has about 270,000 people. The new state of emergency aims "to restore order in the shortest time possible" - according to a parliament statement.
There are widespread reports that French military troops have been deployed to put down the pro-independence riots, and a ban on TikTok has also reportedly been issued, but Paris officials have sought to downplay these draconian measures.
According to the Associated Press, "Asked if France could deploy the French military to the island, Thevenot said it's not the army's job to maintain order but that it is helping with the transport of police reinforcements."
However, later the AFP news agency wrote that France has deployed army personnel at New Caledonia ports as well as the main airport.
New Caledonia's president Louis Mapou has said that the deaths from the last 24 hours of unrest included three young indigenous Kanak people and a French gendarmerie police officer who had previously sustained wounds. Hundreds of protesters and police have been injured.
"The moblie gendarme seriously wounded by a bullet in New Caledonia has just died," Darmanin announced. "Our thoughts are with his family, those close to him and his friends. Nothing, absolutely nothing, justifies violence. Order will be restored."
Paris has confirmed an extra 500 French police officers have been sent to the territory to help restore order.
All schools and public buildings in the capital of Noumea have remained shut. Hundreds of buildings have been damaged or have been set on fire.
Fresh reporting in The New York Times demonstrates how seriously France is taking it, with President Macron having canceled an overseas trip:
The French authorities have undertaken what they called a âmassiveâ mobilization of security forces since violent protests broke out in New Caledonia this week over a proposed amendment to the French Constitution that would change local voting rules in the territory. A vote in Franceâs Parliament approving the amendment on Tuesday ignited riots overnight that left four people dead, including a law enforcement officer.According to more:
The French government said that more than 1,800 security officers were already in the territory and that 500 reinforcements would arrive in the next 24 hours.
At a crisis meeting, Mr. Attal said that the army was being deployed to secure ports and the airport.Following a crisis security meeting chaired by Macron on Wednesday, the French president's office issued a statement expressing "strong emotion" of the deaths as a result of the riots.
The statement further said that "All violence is intolerable and will be subject to a relentless response" to ensure that order and peace are restored
So now we have France committing genocide.....for order and peace....but not for the God Of Mammon cult with their hand up Marcon's ass
Posted by: psychohistorian | May 16 2024 4:29 utc | 63
ZH now has a repost of the Pepe Escobar sales job posting on The Unit. I apologize if my enthusiasm about a potential alternative to the current global private system of finance carried me away. The Unit does have some attractive features but I should have been alerted to the 40% gold tell, eh?
While I am talking about gold, let me ask canuk with the ChatGPT or others to do me a favor and riddle your favorite almostAI the following:
What is the daily volume of gold traded globally and given that volume how much money does it take to drive the price down by $1, $10 or $100.....I am thinking a big number and if you look at the latest price swings one has to wonder where the money comes from to cover those deals....naked shorts is my bet by my country...US of soon to be bankrupt
Posted by: psychohistorian | May 16 2024 4:46 utc | 64
I find it interesting that the BBC had this slant on what is happening in New Caledonia
Many are pointing to the ultra-violence that has become hallmark of the country's drugs underworld.
Can we say obfuscation or outright lie?
Posted by: psychohistorian | May 16 2024 5:02 utc | 65
Posted by: psychohistorian | May 16 2024 4:46 utc | 63
The daily volume of gold traded globally varies but is estimated to be around 100-150 million troy ounces, or roughly $150-225 billion at current prices. However, these numbers can fluctuate significantly based on market conditions.
To estimate how much money it would take to drive the price down by a certain amount, we need to consider factors like market depth, liquidity, and trading behavior. These factors can vary widely, so it's not possible to provide an exact figure. However, as a rough estimate:
To move the price down by $1, you might need to sell a few billion dollars' worth of gold.
To move the price down by $10, you might need to sell tens of billions of dollars' worth of gold.
To move the price down by $100, you might need to sell hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of gold.
It's important to note that these are just rough estimates and actual market conditions can vary. Trading large volumes of gold can also have a significant impact on market prices, as it can lead to increased volatility and liquidity issues.
Posted by: Lavrov's Dog | May 16 2024 5:30 utc | 66
Some serious common sense reality about climate change and the bullshit 'never going to happen' solutions for it from Sabine Hossenfelder
Time to Get Real about Climate Change in simple savvy six minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaaJqPCjNr4
Posted by: Lavrov's Dog | May 16 2024 5:51 utc | 67
°o°O°o°o°O°o°O°o°
@ persiflo | May 15 2024 20:08 utc | 22
Regarding "Philosopher's Corner" -- I appreciate your forum (though you absolutely misunderstand what Kurt Godel was up to), but I wanted to apologize for not participating further. Nothing against the level of discussion; Substack just plain gives me the creeps, on so many levels. Your reply to me got me to try it out, and I wound up despising it.
b's lowtech forum feels like home, by comparison.
I rewound some mathematical/philosophical readings -- imagining the intellectual predicament faced by that Vienna Circle, sitting around reading LW's Tractatus, month after dreary month. Two words, forming a literary equation, form the core of both early and late LW (or "Mad Ludwig" as I think of the poor tortured soul): metaphysics is meaningless. I'm reasonably confident what both words mean in context -- the first one describing the exact same table of contents as Aristotle's eponymous work.
The foregoing frames the context for the following. A.J. Ayer was the first writer to introduce the anti-metaphysical dogma of the Vienna Circle to readers of the English language (Language, Truth, and Logic). Late in Ayer's life, a severe bout of pneumonia resulted in hospitalization, during which his heart actually stopped for four minutes before he was revived, remembering...
I was confronted by a red light, exceedingly bright, and also very painful even when I turned away from it. I was aware that this light was responsible for the government of the universe. Among its ministers were two creatures who had been put in charge of space. These ministers periodically inspected space and had recently carried out such an inspection. They had, however, failed to do their work properly, with the result that space, like a badly fitting jigsaw puzzle, was slightly out of joint. A further consequence was that the laws of nature had ceased to function as they should. I felt that it was up to me to put things right. I also had the motive of finding a way to extinguish the painful light. I assumed that it was signaling that space was awry and that it would switch itself off when order was restored. Unfortunately, I had no idea where the guardians of space had gone and feared that even if I found them I should not be able to communicate with them. It then occurred to me that whereas, until the present century, physicists accepted the Newtonian severance of space and time, it had become customary, since the vindication of Einsteinâs general theory of relativity, to treat space-time as a single whole. Accordingly, I thought that I could cure space by operating upon time. I was vaguely aware that the ministers who had been given charge of time were in my neighborhood and I proceeded to hail them. I was again frustrated. Either they did not hear me, or they chose to ignore me, or they did not understand me. I then hit upon the expedient of walking up and down, waving my watch, in the hope of drawing their attention not to my watch itself but to the time which it measured. This elicited no response. I became more and more desperate, until the experience suddenly came to an end.
https://www.philosopher.eu/others-writings/a-j-ayer-what-i-saw-when-i-was-dead/
Posted by: Aleph_Null | May 16 2024 6:41 utc | 68
Posted by: psychohistorian | May 16 2024 5:02 utc | 65
find it interesting that the BBC had this slant on what is happening in New Caledonia
Many are pointing to the ultra-violence that has become hallmark of the country's drugs underworld.
Can we say obfuscation or outright lie?
Before retirement I had a UN instructor job that took me to many countries in the Pacific and SE Asia which brought me into contact with a lot of (mostly mid-level officials) and, in the Pacific at least, it is true there are large drug problems. With the exception of those lands still occupied by colonial powers (USA, France and Indonesia) e.g. Tahiti, New Caledonia, Hawaii, American Samoa and West Papua, the rest are independent, albeit impoverished states, some in free association with other larger countries.
For many years there was an undeclared war between the West and China, largely conducted for the West by Taiwan which poured useful and targeted assistance to many of the States. This was about recognising who is the âlegitimateâ China. The CCP, on the other hand traditionally, bribed leaders to invest in âWhite Elephantâ projects of indifferent quality and value. The USA, and its new proxy Australia, is now out in the open with the contest as may be seen playing out in the Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.
To return to drugs, Tonga (an ancient feudal kingdom) is famously corrupt and for many years acted a conduit for South American sourced drugs to mainly Australia, but also as a backdoor into Asia. I heard this, first hand from Australian Customs officials. When I was last in Fiji the Police were very concerned about the increase in drug traffic, some of which was reaching a local market. I think much of the blame lies with Australia, which for a number of years, has been deporting criminals back to their originating countries. To explain, there is a rich history of Australia (and New Zealand) importing labour from South Pacific. These, unofficial migrants, bring their families including young children. Some of these children get into trouble, join gangs and consequently become incarcerated. On release their âvisasâ are cancelled and they are deported under section â501â of the Australian immigration act. These â501sâ as they are universally known are not accepted by the communities they go to (in Tonga, Fiji, Samoa, Papua New Guinea) and often have no family connections. They, of course, still have their Australian gang connections.
It may be that New Caledonia has similar problems but, as any drug dealer could tell you, riots are bad for business. I do know I observed a sort of overt racially based contemptuous attitude from white, French colonists towards the Kanaks that might have been acceptable in the early 20th Century but is unlikely to engender much affection today. My money is on an outright lie.
Posted by: Raumati | May 16 2024 7:41 utc | 69
⊠Society and Parents are to Blame!
Best regards ...
Posted by: Lavrov's Dog | May 16 2024 4:15 utc | 61
Not the Great Oxidation Event or planetary accretion?
Posted by: anon2020 | May 16 2024 8:56 utc | 70
More suspicion about Fico's bodyguards, from RT:
Fico security failed, ignored assassination attempt warnings - ex-police chief'Chaos reigned' as Robert Fico's security detail failed to prevent or act efficiently in the assassination attempt on the Prime Minister Wednesday, according to ex-head of the Slovak police Stefan Hamran.
Hamran also pointed out that a few weeks ago, Fico himself talked about a possible assassination attempt. "How were these threats analyzed? who rated them?" Hamran asked.
Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | May 16 2024 9:07 utc | 71
"If rich people with private property have been stuffed
through excessive greed, and if they want in their contents
too obstinately, they give rise to countless and incurable
illnesses. And through their vices, these rich people can
bring about the ruin of the body as a whole."
This was not written 20 years ago, or 10 years ago, and it was not written by Thomas Piketty. And it was not written by any other Marxist critic of capitalism. And it was not written by any economist, or by any scholar. This quote was written in 1159 CE by John of Salisbury in his famous book, "Polishradios".
This means that people have been aware of the problematic inherent in capitalism a thousand years ago. That's one thousand years ago. We have been living with this problematic one thousand years, and we have not been able to solve it as the recent economic crisis has shown, 2007, 2010.
Something is seriously wrong. Something is seriously sick, and we have been failing for at least ten centuries to cope with it.
Video text - We are Rich People's Slaves, Neo-feudalism
https://vaknin-talks.com/transcripts/We_are_Rich_People_s_Slaves_Neo-feudalism_Euro_College_North_Macedonia/
lecture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vq3eJV3TK74
post-review
The Rich Have You BRAINWASHED: Capitalism is a Zero-sum Game, They WIN, you LOSE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSh6oVycuUs
Posted by: Lavrov's Dog | May 16 2024 10:33 utc | 72
I should have been alerted to the 40% gold tell, eh?
Posted by: psychohistorian | May 16 2024 4:46 utc | 63
I did not feel like researching it, so I said nothing, but, linking physical anything to blockchain, is just simply not possible without someone needing to record information somewhere besides "the perfect ledger".
*except perhaps some kind of ooak thing, maybe rfid chips in future, or electric energy, some like filecoin indicate memory storage, across a decentralized network.
Blockchain may be the future of finance, especially finance in trustless times.
Posted by: UWDude | May 16 2024 11:01 utc | 73
Gosh how did we miss that the crew of the ship is confined to remaining aboard , deprived of their phones so unable to use their bank apps , by the fbi as they are treated as perpetrators of sabotage. Mostly Indians apparently. The captain (nationality not revealed afaik) appears to have been disembarked but the crew suffers on even as explosives are used to break up the debris of the fallen bridge !
No outcry from Indiaâs media and politicians? No great rush to get a ge crew off board and flown back to their homelands. Are they being compensated? Is there a search on for scapegoats? Is there a genuine saboteur/s on board?
Posted by: DunGroanin | May 16 2024 11:25 utc | 74
If you are not part of the problem I recommend you pack up and leave asap. It's all down hill from here (I truly hope.) AS MLK said "I have a Dream!" :-)
Posted by: Lavrov's Dog | May 16 2024 3:32 utc | 58
Yes, he did. But his was a dream for a bright, peaceful future while yours if for a dark, violent, dystopian one.
Posted by: Phil R | May 16 2024 11:28 utc | 75
Time to Get Real about Climate Change in simple savvy six minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaaJqPCjNr4
Posted by: Lavrov's Dog | May 16 2024 5:51 utc | 67
Simple, yes. Savvy, not so much.
Posted by: Phil R | May 16 2024 11:36 utc | 76
@Aleph_Null | Thu, 16 May 2024 06:41:00 GMT | 68
Thanks for the feedback and story, which sounds like a fever dream fwiw.
Further on Gödel, it seems that our disagreement stems from our respective notions of the axiomatic method, or, perhaps more precisely, the nature of the axioms themselves. I would claim they are designed, though the logical properties they express are universal.
Posted by: persiflo | May 16 2024 11:42 utc | 77
The reporting by the bbc on its blog of the Putin -Xj summit was remarkably âneutralâ early this morning by a âteam of reportersâ. Having short reports on VVPâs arrival , the meeting and signed agreement exchange and the press conference in the afternoon, no questions taken. Worth a quick look.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-asia-69001137
It has disappeared off of the front page and has concluded with some mealy mouthed supposed differences between how the two see their relationship! Supposedly Xi being âlessâ gushing about it by their âChina correspondentâ.
â The Chinese President Xi Jinping and his guest President Vladimir Putin will enjoy a concert together as they end their day of warm words about âdeepening their partnershipâ.
But the language from Beijing has not reached the lofty heights of Moscowâs initial statement, which claimed the relationship was at an "unprecedentedâ level.
Instead, Xi told his Russian counterpart that he cherished the relationship and wanted to nurture it. This will be welcome news to Putin as China has become his lifeline after the West imposed sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine.
A strong show of unity has been on display, with Xi saying China is willing to support the "rejuvenation of our respective countries", while Putin has said their joint co-operation was a âstabilising factorâ in the world.
These statements surely aim to challenge the US-led world order, but will be met with derision in the West where Putin is being investigated as a war criminal.
Xi says he is willing to be a good friend to Russia, but he also has his own priorities. Washington stands ready to impose sanctions on Beijing if it continues to help Russiaâs war machine.
Yes, he has rolled out the red carpet for his comrade, complete with Red Army songs. And yes, the two stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the sunshine of Tiananmen Square.
But if Putin wants more from this relationship, it might be more than Xi is willing to give when China is relying on exports to revive its sluggish economy.â
It seems the message Xi gave to the EU has had some chilling effect on the threatening scalding of China. More sanctions will only happen so late and punish the golden billion behind the new iron curtain that the Collective Waste is pulling around itself. I suspect it is holding off until Indiaâs election is in the bag and Modi falls from his Humpty Dumpty wall ?
In the meantime the Multipolarists are hanging out and enjoying both their terms in office whilst making sure younger generations of leaders are put in place and gain the experience and networking to keep the future on course, free from the machinations of the WEF young leaders clone factory products , infesting every Western Imperialist nation.
Posted by: DunGroanin | May 16 2024 11:57 utc | 78
"Some serious common sense reality about climate change and the bullshit 'never going to happen' solutions for it from Sabine Hossenfelder
Time to Get Real about Climate Change in simple savvy six minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaaJqPCjNr4"
Posted by: Lavrov's Dog | May 16 2024 5:51 utc | 67
Man Made Climate Change is a myth designed by the PTB to scare the populace and allow the PTB to reduce living standards for the Peasants while they rape and pillage.
In the last 2.2 MM years we have had 17 ice ages (before fossil fuels I might add) ; approximately one every 100,000 years.
So we go into an ice age it get colder then when we get out of an ice age, as we are doing now, it gets warmer.
As far as C02 levels anyone with a high school diploma knows that the more C02 the more arable land and is good for plants, animals and humans: https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/FC7C4946-11A3-4967-BF28-8D0386608D3E
"I can lead a man to water, but I can't make him think."
canuk
"Mathematically, the way CO2 absorbs energy, beyond a certain point, is LOGARYTHMIC. that is the CO2 is saturated, and the more CO2 you add now, the more NEGLIGIBLE the temperature increase.
To non-maths people, it's like the law of diminishing returns.
Posted by: scepticalSOB | Feb 10 2024 13:40 utc | 220
===========
As Professor William Happer, Princeton professor emerita of astrophysics, has explained very clearly:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGn-6kGoD0c
"A Little Learning Is a Dangerous Thing"
See also Chris Morrison, climate correspondent at the Daily Sceptic:
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/02/02/global-plant-growth-accelerates-thanks-to-higher-carbon-dioxide-levels-new-study-finds/
Posted by: Jane | Feb 10 2024 15:08 utc | 229"
Dog kindly please review the proven science and stop spewing out PTB propaganda.
KaliĆĂĄk: Fico is still not out of danger. Democracy will have to learn to walk again
Maybe just as Fico's serious injury will cause him to have to learn some things again, our democracy will also learn to walk again, said Defense Minister Robert KaliĆĂĄk after the Security Council meeting. He declared that the Prime Minister is still not out of danger.
"Unfortunately, I cannot yet state that we are winning or that the prognosis is positive, because the extent of the injuries that were caused by the four gunshot wounds is so extensive that the body's response will be very difficult," declared KaliĆĂĄk.
Doctors managed to stabilize his health, but his life is still not out of danger. He does not yet have information about the need for another operation.
The prime minister continues to be cared for by the Roosevelt Hospital team in BanskĂĄ Bystrica. KaliĆĂĄk expressed full confidence in the medical staff, nurses, nurses, doctors, and surgeons, who set up the treatment so that the Prime Minister's health can improve. At the same time, he thanked for the supportive messages for Robert Fico.
The minister announced that they will regularly inform about the development of Fico's health condition and that all the information they can will be published.
KaliĆĂĄk did not inform about the further functioning of the government because, according to him, it was not the subject of the Security Council's deliberations.
We are fighting for a new form of Slovakia
"At this moment, we are also waging a battle for the new form of the Slovak Republic," noted KaliĆĂĄk during the briefing. According to him, "the assassination invalidated many years of efforts to make democratic development free and tolerant."
Perhaps just as Fico's serious injury will cause him to learn some things again, our democracy will also learn to walk again and tolerate a different opinion, KaliĆĂĄk said.
The minister described the biggest tragedy as the fact that disagreement with a different political opinion "turned into premeditated murder". He declared that the passions that have been ravaging Slovakia in recent times are the ones that we must now try to calm down.
Call for the media
The Minister of Defense asked the media to report only the facts and not try to get ahead of the speed of published news.
He called on the media, which will organize debates in the foreseeable future, to try to avoid confrontational debates. "Let's try to step on the path of tolerance together," he noted.
He urged society to return to the "primordial essence" of what the word democracy means - "a broad spectrum of all opinions that at the end of the day can lead to progress".
Ć utaj EĆĄtok: The perpetrator was a lone wolf
Minister of the Interior MatĂșĆĄ Ć utaj EĆĄtok (Hlas) repeated that an information embargo was imposed on the case by the supervising General Prosecutor's Office of the Slovak Republic.
He confirmed that the police are working with only one version of the attack, and that the perpetrator is to date charged with premeditated revenge murder of a protected person in the trial stage and it was a politically motivated act. According to Ć utaj EĆĄtok, the suspect himself stated the reasons: the abolition of the Special Prosecutor's Office, the cessation of military aid to Ukraine, intervention in the public RTVS and the dismissal of the head of the Judicial Council, JĂĄn MazĂĄk.
The minister confirmed that the accused is not a member of any radicalized political group - right-wing or left-wing - and that he is a "lone wolf" whose actions were "accelerated" after the elections. He declared that he also participated in several anti-government protests and in the previous exit meeting in Dolna Krupa.
According to the minister, the security forces did not make a mistake
The interior minister said the police are investigating 32 suspects who approved Wednesday's attack on the prime minister on social media. He informed that they will be dealt with by NAKA.
According to Ć utaj EĆĄtok, the security forces have captured people who threaten MP Richard GlĂŒck (Smer), the newly elected head of the Judicial Council Marcela KosovĂĄ, journalists and the like.
He told all the "world champions behind the keyboard" to act "vigorously and uncompromisingly".
Ć utaj EĆĄtok assured that the security measures at the exit meeting of the government in Handlova were at the "maximum level". According to him, stricter measures were adopted only by the Slovak-Ukrainian outgoing government.
Based on this, he rejected the mistake of the security forces. According to the minister, lies about their misconduct are spread by "desperate politicians" who are given space by the media.
The general manager of the Hlas party warned of a civil war that could break out "just because we are not able to tolerate our views".
He declared that the department has strengthened the protection of all risk groups and guarantees security, because "without security there is no democracy".
Posted by: daffyDuct | May 16 2024 12:34 utc | 80
here we go boys, euronews "reports" that
Cintula as a sympathiser and supporter of the pro-Russian paramilitary group SlovenskĂ Branci, known for its links to the Kremlin.
amazing, isnt it?
even though cintula said, live on camera, that he is pro-nato and pro-ukraine. and it is even known that this little leftist pos tried to "inflitrate" said "pro-russian paramilitary group", but got rejected.
the narrative management in the west marches on. they dug themself so deep with their lies the only way out is to dig deeper until they come out at the other side of the planet.
Posted by: Justpassinby | May 16 2024 13:13 utc | 81
Posted by: Aleph_Null | May 16 2024 6:41 utc | 68
I'd go with the Old Ones viz space and time being different. There is time in a dream but space therein exists as Images, The Imaginary. Dream time more or less tracks waking time, according to those who wire dreamers up, but the spaces they spend that time journeying through clearly are different from waking body three dimensions (not all they are cracked up to be!).
Everything truly knowable is within our own experiential parameters.
But maybe time is first (as Wolfgang Smith argues) and then in some sort of flowering therefrom spatial dimension unfolds in consciousness. So they are different levels of the same creation, or blossoming. That said, people discussing origins make the mistake of thinking they took place a long time ago; that may be true on some level, but on another it is happening now, always now. Whatever was there at the beginning then is there at the ever-present beginning now.
That old Greek school of philosophy; they spent hours gazing at clouds. Definitely onto something...
Morning haiku:
Enlightenment:
certain
without the âofâ
LIVE: Chinese President Xi Jinping holds a welcome ceremony for Russian President Vladimir Putin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmqFczhmdIQ
Posted by: Don Firineach | May 16 2024 13:32 utc | 83
Lavrov's Dog | May 16 2024 3:32 utc | 58
Not sure if you're serious.
You want WW3? Well, I don't. Maybe that's the difference.
If there was a misunderstanding, I'll rephrase my key point for you:
The world is in a phase of major hegemonic transition - the first in ~500 years. Such transitions usually involve major war(s). However, today's weapons are so destructive that a "big" war has to be avoided at all costs - there wouldn't be much left of both the losing and the winning side.
The challenge is to engineer a smooth transition, preventing complete political and economic collapse of the (former) hegemon by rebuilding its economy. It'll cost EU, Japan, China etc. some tens of trillions, but preventing all-out nuclear war should be worth it. Imho.
On an emotional basis, I can fully understand the desire that the collective West (and in particular UK/US) be thoroughly 'beaten up' and dismembered for what it has done to the RoW since 1492.
But given a modicum of rational thought, this is no viable "solution" to anything.
Posted by: smuks | May 16 2024 13:39 utc | 84
I recently opened up a Twitter account again just to see what it's like. I shall mainly publish haiku but since so many stories now link to Twitter I thought it time to check out again for news. I don't think I like it but will give it a few weeks.
Anyway, though only following a handful of sites, 50% news 50% haiku, this 32 page report popped up from an account I don't follow. (Algorithms, algorithms...).
https://networkcontagion.us/reports/ccp-influence-and-radical-ideologies/The Singham Network as a Vehicle for CCP Influence The Peopleâs Forum, IPA, and ANSWER Coalition serve as the conduit through which CCP-affiliated entities have effectively co-opted pro-Palestinian activism in the U.S., advancing a broader anti-American, anti-democratic, and anti-capitalist agenda. These three far-left SID4P Convenors are part of a network linked by close financial, interpersonal, and ideological ties to Neville Roy Singham and his wife Jodie Evans, a power couple within the global far-left movement with close ties to the CCP.
The âSingham Networkâ comprises a wide range of nonprofits, alternative media outlets, and donor organizations that have been funneling undisclosed funds and disseminating CCP-supported agendas and narratives into the United States since at least 2017. As outlined above, this network has played an increasingly significant role in fueling a more radical pro-Palestinian activism.
Singhamâs association with far-left circles in the U.S. dates back to at least the 1970s. According to a document dated June 5, 1974, Singham was the subject of an FBI investigation into his ties to âgroups engaged in activities inimical to U.S. [interests].â10 Singhamâs connection with entities associated with the CCP is believed to have begun in the early 2000s. From 2001 to 2008, Singham served as a consultant for Huawei, a technology and telecommunications giant linked to the CCP that has been the subject of espionage investigations in Canada and the U.S.11 He currently lives and works in Shanghai, where he shares premises with Shanghai Maku Cultural Communications Ltd., a Chinese propaganda firm focused on presenting a positive image of the Peopleâs Republic of China (PRC) to the global south.
About how some pro-Palestinian demonstrations are funded by CCP-connected NGO's. Have no idea if this is true or false, but assume all sorts of connections like this exist which typical news reporting simply neither sees nor covers. Wheels within wheels, levels within levels.
Of course even if this report is accurate and a group with 'ties to the CCP' is influencing matters in the US, it doesn't mean that the 'CCP' per se knows about it. Because no doubt within their large group there are wheels within wheels and levels within levels.
Indeed, at this oligarchish level, I suspect nation-state distinctions are generally regarded as quaint and passe. Why Elon gets an immediate peer-to-peer meeting with Xi whilst Blinken and Yellen were ranked far lower and treated accordingly. Why Putin spent two hours meeting with the Chabad leaders in the Kremlin the same day he gave a historic interview to non-CIA Tucker Carlson. Layers within layers.
Posted by: scorpion | May 16 2024 13:42 utc | 86
--------------------
By the 3rd para I tell myself must be the poop.
Then comes its signature mealy mouthed disclaimer....
About how some pro-Palestinian demonstrations are funded by CCP-connected NGO's. Have no idea if this is true or false
I knew its from the poop
Posted by: denk | May 16 2024 14:53 utc | 86
Keating ...
I know cuz I have a brain, honey
ROTFLMAO
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJy60WOyIrw
Posted by: denk | May 16 2024 14:59 utc | 87
Posted by: smuks | May 16 2024 13:39 utc | 85
Hi, yes I know what you'd prefer, and I'm sorry but I don't agree because it can't be done that way. I don't mean to knock you personally, it's good to be positive etc. It's just that to me, your hopeful low pain solution is no solution, imo, it's totally unrealistic -- it's impractical. It won't fix or change anything. I truly think (for a long time now) the US state needs to be brought it's knees, and like germany and japan it equally means the American people being brought to their knees as well. They enabled their state, knowingly or ignorantly, individually makes no difference. and if that means a world war to make it happen so be it....
It would be nice, in a perfect world, but what you're suggesting I just think realistically it will not work. The US needs to be completely defeated, occupied for a several decades, demilitarised, and rebuilt from the ground up and nation state 'USA' eradicated and broken up into several new nations. Nothing less will make any difference to it, the people, or the world.
Do I think this will happen? No I do not. I'm not hopeful, but I can dream.
That it won't happen, that no one will stand up to the US in any real powerful way, is the main reason collectively we're all screwed long term. Because it will only get worse until the world fights back, the US will remain treating everyone as if the US is Israel and we are all Gazans.
Everything will only worse from here.... Psychopaths don't surrender or stop, because they do not think there is any thing wrong with themselves. Until the whole world collapses into an unsustainable heap. Sorry. That's how I see it, all things being equal, and no major surprises or miracles occurring.
Posted by: Lavrov's Dog | May 16 2024 15:31 utc | 88
@ DunGroanin | May 16 2024 11:25 utc | 75
thanks for sharing that info.. i had no idea.. it sounds very wrong too..
Posted by: james | May 16 2024 16:29 utc | 89
This is an excellent study of the extensive links between the US MIC and Silicon Valley companies, not just the big boys like Google and Amazon, but also the whole Venture Capital complex. The creation of "gaps" to trigger more and more spending on stuff that may be pulling money from actual useful weapons, together with an increasing revolving door and new Think Tanks missioned to drive the "gaps" (like the mythical Cold War "missile gap", the US now supposedly has an "AI gap" etc.), shows the utterly extractionist and corrupt nature of a US capitalism that loves dunking its snout in the state trough while keeping its own taxes low and cutting social expenditures.
How Big Tech and Silicon Valley are Transforming the Military-Industrial Complex
The last couple of paragraphs sum the situation up well:
With each passing year, Big Tech exerts its vast financial and political might while dramatically expanding sales of its products to U.S. military and intelligence agencies. As mentioned earlier, we can conservatively estimate that Microsoft, Amazon, and AlphabetGoogle received $28 billion in DoD and IC contracts between 2018 and 2022. These companies, and others such as Oracle, HP, and Dell, have increasingly shaped new military technologies. In addition to big tech firms, startup companies are also receiving more defense dollars than ever, and these trends are steering the path of new research and development toward military needs, rather than civilian needs. Since Defense Department contracts are often classified, and are characterized by an overall lack of transparency, it is impossible to determine exactly how much is going into the hands of the tech industry.
Even so, it is clear that some individuals and companies are profiting enormously from spending patterns that favor high-tech, AI-enabled military systems.The political economy of military spending is being transformed by VC funding structures that encourage high-risk startups to prioritize rapid growth, find profitable business models, deploy aggressive marketing campaigns, and launch accelerated âhype cyclesâ in which corporate leaders make extraordinary, but often unverifiable, claims about their products. While such activities may be acceptable for promoting consumer goods, much more is at stake when the Silicon Valley startup model is applied to military products, particularly weapon and surveillance systems. Retired Air Force Lieutenant General Jack Shanahan played a crucial role in accelerating the U.S. militaryâs AI capabilities, but inrecent months, he has been one of the few voices from the defense establishment to raise concerns. Speaking in an interview, he said, âIâm less worried right now about autonomous
weapons making their own decisions than just fielding shitty capabilities that donât work as advertised or result in innocent people dying.â123 If the pace of developing and adopting AIenabled weapon and surveillance systems continues to accelerate, the end result is likely to be a high-tech arsenal consisting of flawed, unreliable, and dangerous technologies that donât work as advertised.
LIVE: Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping hold a joint press conference 40mins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iL3oIGhfctQ
Posted by: Don Firineach | May 16 2024 16:45 utc | 91
apologies for link at #92 no english dubbing
So let's tune to the Gala Concert - universal language
Putin & XI Attend Gala Concert LIVE | Russian President Visits China | Russia China Relations | N18L
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9P25YVkgLU
Posted by: Don Firineach | May 16 2024 17:05 utc | 92
LIVE: Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping hold a joint press conference 40mins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iL3oIGhfctQ
Posted by: Don Firineach | May 16 2024 16:45 utc | 92
âLIVE: Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping hold a joint, press conference 40minsâ
Even had your post from the Ukraine thread to make this joke. How a humble comma can change everything (and it would likely last longer than 40 minutes and include snacks)
:)
Posted by: Newbie | May 16 2024 17:05 utc | 93
Even had your post from the Ukraine thread to make this joke. How a humble comma can change everything (and it would likely last longer than 40 minutes and include snacks)
:)
Posted by: Newbie | May 16 2024 17:05 utc | 94
The panda eats shoots and leaves.
The panda eats, shoots and leaves.
Posted by: Phil R | May 16 2024 17:14 utc | 94
Reuters is at least calling a spade a spade
Putin and Xi pledge a new era and condemn the United States
I refuse to register at Reuters and so don't get to see the details of this claim but there must be some serious shit coming out of the joint press conference with Xi/Putin
Posted by: psychohistorian | May 16 2024 17:24 utc | 95
It appears a small victory will be won in Georgia as its Parliament has passed the foreign agent bill by a veto-proof margin RT reports:
The participation of politicians from NATO countries in anti-government rallies in Tbilisi is a hostile step aimed at overthrowing the Georgian government, parliamentary chairman Shalva Papuashvili has said.The statement comes as foreign ministers from Iceland, Lithuania and Estonia took part in a rally against the recently passed âforeign agentsâ bill on Wednesday. The ministers, who arrived in Tbilisi to discuss the controversial law with the countryâs government, were later seen addressing a crowd of protesters at the parliament building.
âAddressing a rally of exalted youth, led by the radical opposition parties against the government, and calling them the âwhole nationâ is something that you ⊠would not expect from a foreign minister of an EU member state,â Papuashvili argued in a post issued on Thursday on X (formerly Twitter).
âSome in the governments of our Baltic partners have been carried away a bit too much by their own rhetoric,â he added.
Papuashvili recalled that the Georgian government has proven its âcommitment to European and Euro-Atlantic values and policies,â adding that ânow, with [the] ever-elusive prospect of NATO membership amidst the regional geopolitical turmoil, Georgia has to deal with dramatic foreign challenges mostly on its own.â
He mentioned âunaccountable foreign money,â which he said flows freely into Georgiaâs political system, including radical groups, claiming the new legislation on transparency in relation to foreign influence is intended to deal with this challenge.
Papuashvili suggested that those who are protesting against the legislation are affected by it. âForeign dignitaries joining these protests, in blatant disregard of Georgiaâs sovereignty and diplomatic practice, in the name of âdemocracy and human rightsâ, is hypocrisy at best, and subversion at worst,â he concluded....
Officially titled âOn the Transparency of Foreign Influenceâ, the bill would require Georgian non-profit organizations, media outlets and individuals that receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as entities âpromoting the interests of a foreign power,â as well as disclosing their income and donors. Refusal to do so will be punishable by a fine of up to $9,500.
Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili has expressed support for the demonstrators and vowed to veto the bill. However, the move would be mostly symbolic as a presidential veto can be overridden by a simple majority in parliament.
The US and EU have criticized the proposal, claiming that it would complicate the work of many foreign NGOs. Brussels has warned Tbilisi that it could lose its EU candidate status if it passed the bill.
The head of the ruling Georgian Dream party, Mamuka Mdinaradze, has argued that the new bill was necessary to protect the country from foreign-funded protests, radical political parties, and propagandistic media. [My Emphasis]
It appears the EU and Outlaw US Empire threats didn't work, and if the idiot president vetoes the bill, he'll admit that he too is a foreign agent needing to be removed.
psychohistorian | May 16 2024 17:24 utc | 96--
I thought their statements to the press were rather tame. Now I'll need to review them. Having done so, I see no direct reference to the USA, US, or America, although there are certainly indirect references, for example Xi's fifth point:
Promote political settlement of hot spot issues for the sake of truth and justice. In today's world, the Cold War mentality is still rampant. Unilateral hegemony, bloc confrontation and politics are the forces that directly threaten world peace and the security of all countries.We are with President Putin in noting the urgency of the settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the need to resolve the Palestinian issue on the basis of a two-state formula in the implementation of the UN resolution.
China and Russia perceive a political settlement as the right solution to the Ukrainian crisis. China's position on this issue is consistent and clear, namely: compliance with norms and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, respect for state sovereignty and territorial sovereignty the integrity of all countries and their rational security concerns creating a new balanced, effective and sustainable security architecture.
Putin's brief mention of foreign policy had these three paragraphs that might include the Outlaw US Empire:
Both countries are pursuing an independent and self-reliant foreign policy. We are working together to build a fairer and a democratic multipolar world order, which should be based on the central role of the United Nations and its Council security, international law, cultural and civilizational diversity, a balanced balance of interests of all members of the international community....[O]ur countries are advocating for a healthy improvement in global economic governance, for the reforming and depoliticization of multilateral institutions such as the World Trade Organization G20, Asia-Pacific Economic Forum and bringing them in line with modern Realities.
We consider it necessary to work towards building a reliable and an adequate security architecture in the Asia-Pacific region in which there is no place for closed military-political alliances. We are We believe that the creation of such alliances is very harmful and counterproductive.
Putin finished by saying they would be discussing foreign policy tonight and that Putin would make the results known. I'll eventually have the full text and other China trip related reports available at my substack later today.
A while ago I shared a video of street life in Tehran, showing that Iran is in fact one of the most moderate Islamic nations - unlike the medieval monarchies of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain etc. Of course we had some of the usual trolls claim that "that is only the rich places in Tehran". The Iranian diaspora is full of Pahlavi loving compradors who hate the current Iranian state which threw their beloved comprador ruling class out, just like the Cuban diaspora etc. Then we can add the "liberals" who seem to have no problem with the Gulf Cooperation Council medieval monarchies, but constantly whine about Iran.
So here is another video, showing Iranian street life in many places across Iran. THIS IS LIFE IN THE INTERIOR OF IRAN đźđ·
A major reason for sanctions is to remove the ability of Western citizens to test the propagandistic lies they are told by the ruling class and their courtiers in the media, politics, security state and "think tanks".
An excellent book on the reality of Iran is "Socialism's Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism" by Ramin Mazaheri, covering the real political economy of the nation.
@psychohistorian | May 16 2024 17:24 utc | 96
You may find the Reuters' article here via Yahoo. (Though both Reuters and Yahoo are part of the anglo propaganda machine.)
Posted by: LuRenJia | May 16 2024 18:13 utc | 99
@Posted by: karlof1 | May 16 2024 17:33 utc | 97
It appears the EU and Outlaw US Empire threats didn't work, and if the idiot president vetoes the bill, he'll admit that he too is a foreign agent needing to be removed.
The Georgian president is a she, Salome Zourabichvili, who was born to Georgian emigres in France who had close ties to the "government in exile" (i.e. Western security service funded puppet "government") during the times of the Soviet Union. She graduated from the diplomatic track of the Science Po and then went to Columbia where she was personally educated/indoctrinated by Zbigniew Brzezinski. She then became a career FRENCH diplomat, becoming the FRENCH ambassador to Georgia. The Western tool, Mikheil Saakashvili then made her the Georgian Minister of Foreign Affairs (while she continued to be paid by the FRENCH foreign ministry!). After being kicked out of that position, she utterly failed to found a successful opposition party. It was only 2 months before the 2018 presidential elections that she won, that she relinquished her French citizenship!
She is the perfect example of a foreign agent, and of Western neo-colonialism. She will surely reject the NGO bill, leading to further weeks available for Western-funded protests and attempted colour revolution before the Parliament overrides her veto. She will be gone in October, probably back to France where she will be welcomed with open arms. With the NGO bill passed and the bullying of the West rejected, she stands little hope in ever being successful in politics in Georgia again.
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There was an assassination attempt on Robert Fico, PM of Slovakia. From RT News:
Posted by: Palm & Needle | May 15 2024 14:55 utc | 1