The Weekly Watch
Endless Aggression?
The plan was revealed in 1992. Instead of promoting international cooperation and global peace like China's belt and road initiative, we want to be the bully of the world.
https://militarist-monitor.org/profile/1992_draft_defense_planning_guida...
The CIA, the mafia branch of US government is a driving much of the foreign aggression.
Oliver Stone does a great job explaining the rise of the CIA and it's operations. (28 min)
Do you remember how there was global outrage after the Panama Papers exposed a massive international tax evasion scheme involving many high-profile wealthy elites, leading to mass incarcerations and sweeping overhauls to the world’s taxation and legal systems?
No?
How about the huge scandal when it was revealed that the CIA unilaterally funds its own clandestine operations via secret drug trafficking programs to circumvent the oversight of elected bodies, leading to the dismantling and disbanding of the entire CIA? Or the time WikiLeaks exposed war crimes leading to tribunals at The Hague and a complete restructuring of the US military? Or all the criminal investigations and paradigm-shattering arrests after we learned that powerful intelligence agencies have been using child sex slaves to manipulate our society via blackmail?
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/04/30/what-if-the-big-reveal-already-h...
Jeremy Scahill has an excellent piece on Biden and his relationship to the CIA and the US war machine called empire politician. (10 min)
https://theintercept.com/empire-politician/
Amy interviewed him about his article this week. (video and text below)...
https://www.democracynow.org/2021/4/28/empire_politician_joe_biden_jerem...
https://www.democracynow.org/2021/4/28/jeremy_scahill_joe_biden_foreign_...
https://www.democracynow.org/2021/4/28/jeremy_scahill_biden_white_house
The near-universal failure of Biden’s diplomacy in his first months in office reflects how badly he and those who have his ear are failing to accurately read the limits of American power and predict the consequences of his unilateral decisions.
https://www.codepink.org/bidens_appeasement_of_hawks_and_neocons_is_crip...
Biden’s speech Wednesday night to a joint session of Congress provided a portrait of panic, crisis and desperation on the part of the American ruling class. And more significant than the various calls for reform measures, a far more important and sinister strategic perspective was elaborated throughout: to create the political framework for a confrontation with China to maintain, if necessary through war, the global hegemony of American imperialism.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/04/30/pers-a30.html
The Biden administration has finally admitted that the US is indeed providing offensive material support to Saudi Arabia’s genocidal assault on Yemen, directly contradicting Biden’s February claim that it would no longer be providing offensive support in that war. We are being lied to about yet another US war by yet another US president.
“The United States continues to provide maintenance support to Saudi Arabia’s Air Force given the critical role it plays in Saudi air defense and our longstanding security partnership,”
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/04/29/biden-lied-about-yemen/
Max and Stacy suggest the US petrodollar is going to be sacrificed in the great reset. Going green would require its death as world currency. I like their premise that maintaining the petrodollar requires war and aggression.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npAQdp2_pZA (25 min)
As they point out, the US has lost the trade war with China. How could that be? We only outsourced all our production there. What could go wrong? So do we learn and create an American belt and road project designed to share resources, skills, and labor in this hemisphere? Hell no we want WAR!
The global balance of trade shifts from the US (blue) to China (red) this century.
https://www.lowyinstitute.org/
How is war manufactured? Aaron, Jimmy, and Ron explain the Syria cover up.
Biggest Cover-Up Since Iraq Exposed By Journalist Aaron Maté (40 min)
Ending War????
As Vice-President, Joe Biden pledged that all US troops would be out of Afghanistan by 2014. Seven years later, is President Biden's new withdrawal pledge any different? Scott Horton, editorial director of Antiwar.com and author of "Enough Already", discusses how the US has previously extended the war in Afghanistan and how it might continue it in new forms.
Officials say that the Taliban have been sending letters to individual Afghan officials, past and president, including former President Hamid Karzai, inviting them to participate in direct talks on peace in Afghanistan.
https://news.antiwar.com/2021/04/28/taliban-invites-afghan-officials-to-...
Biden’s Banner Headlines on Afghanistan Obscure US Motives
https://consortiumnews.com/2021/04/19/patrick-lawrence-bidens-banner-hea...
The US Navy SEALs are undergoing a major overhaul. The special operations forces are following the rest of the US military and shifting focus away from counterterrorism in the Middle East to face China and Russia.
https://news.antiwar.com/2021/04/28/navy-seals-shifting-focus-away-from-...
Russia
On the same day that the claim of "Russian bounties" in Afghanistan collapsed, another US intelligence-sourced, evidence-free claim was treated as vindication for conspiracy theories about Trump-Russia collusion.
Glenn Greenwald and Aaron Maté discuss the predictable demise of the "Russian bounties"; the Biden administration's new evidence-free assertion that Paul Manafort associate Konstantin Kilimnik passed Trump campaign polling data to Russia; and why major US media outlets continue to parrot Russiagate disinformation no matter how many times the "bombshells" turn into duds.
Glenn Greenwald. Journalist whose latest book is "Securing Democracy: My Fight for Press Freedom and Justice in Bolsonaro’s Brazil." He writes at https://greenwald.substack.com/.
The Biden administration has been extremely hostile to Russia through sanctions, rhetoric, and support for Ukraine. On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said US-Russia relations are even worse now than during the Cold War.
https://news.antiwar.com/2021/04/28/russian-fm-us-russia-relations-worse...
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/04/29/rutr-a29.html
How to stir up a war? Incite a coup in a bordering nation?
Mimi featured this interesting conversation with a Texan fighting in the Donbas against the US supported fascists. (1.3 hours)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5O8h1dpP_k
As the anti-Russia hawks in the Joe Biden administration push for more aggressive policies in Ukraine, Moderate Rebels speak with Russell Bentley, an American from Texas who moved to the Donbas region to fight on behalf of the breakaway Donetsk People's Republic. Bentley discusses the ultra-nationalist fascists and neo-Nazis in the Ukrainian forces. He also explains the Christian Communist ideology that motivates him and his combat unit.
Amidst the ongoing military confrontation with Russia, reports have emerged proving that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is seeking to appoint the far-right Serhiy Sternenko as head of Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) in Odessa, in an attempt to further his alliance with neo-Nazi forces.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/05/01/ukr-m01.html
There have been outright Nazi parades in Kiev.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/04/german-ambassador-wants-more-nazis...
Matthew Rojansky is the head of the Kennan Institute, a notable think tank at the US government-funded Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. Despite his well-established expertise on Russia and lengthy record of leadership on the issue, he has been judged “too soft” to work in the Biden White House.
https://thegrayzone.com/2021/04/29/ukrainian-ultranationalist-lobby-bide...
Excellent summary of Ukraine's situation and how the US was outplayed yet again.
https://thesaker.is/what-just-happened-in-the-ukraine/
China
In his first address to Congress on Wednesday night, President Biden took the Cold War rhetoric against Beijing to a new level and declared that the US was in competition with China to “win the 21st century.”
https://news.antiwar.com/2021/04/28/biden-us-in-competition-with-china-t...
Surprise, surprise...
Bezos' Blog And NATO Lobby Continue To Stir Anti-Chinese Sentiment
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/05/bezos-blog-and-nato-lobby-stir-mor...
Satellite images showed a US warship shadowing a Chinese aircraft carrier and its strike group on Monday in the Philippine Sea.
https://news.antiwar.com/2021/04/28/us-warship-shadows-chinese-aircraft-...
Prime Minister Scott Morrison yesterday announced a revamped $747 million package to overhaul four strategic military facilities in the Northern Territory, clearly in preparation for a US-instigated war against China.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/04/29/usau-a29.html
The US is also trying to foment coups on China's border.
Western media coverage of Myanmar has relied heavily on organizations funded and developed by a notorious US intelligence cutout and UK Foreign Office partner. Can they be trusted?
...
the US government’s regime-change arm, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). The NED is notorious for sponsoring media and civil society organizations around the world to undermine governments the US seeks to topple. Its founders have even admitted the NED was created specifically to do overtly what the CIA used to do in secret.
...
similar US efforts in geopolitical flashpoints like Hong Kong have had a significantly destabilizing effect, and by design.
https://thegrayzone.com/2021/04/27/us-government-media-myanmar-propagand...
Domestic Aggression the empire comes home...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dg5YKSLHfZI 25 min
On the show this week, Chris Hedges discusses police abuse and torture with civil rights attorney Flint Taylor.
With his colleagues at the People's Law Office, Taylor has argued landmark civil rights cases exposing the corruption and cover-up within the Chicago Police Department and throughout the city's political machine from the alderman to the mayor's office. The book takes the reader from the 1969 murder of Black Panther Party chairman Fred Hampton and Panther Mark Clark - and the historic thirteen-year trial that followed - through the pursuit of chief detective Jon Burge, the leader of a torture ring within the Chicago Police Department that used barbaric methods, including electric shock and suffocation, to elicit false confessions from suspects - a violation of the UN Convention against Torture. Taylor and People's Law Office gathered evidence to bring suit against the Chicago Police Department, breaking the department's "code of silence" that had enabled decades of cover-ups. The legal precedent they set has since been adopted in human rights legislation around the world.
Sadly, the trend of fatal police shootings in the United States seems to only be increasing, with a total 213 civilians having been shot, 30 of whom were Black, in the first three months of 2021. In 2020, there were 1,021 fatal police shootings, and in 2019 there were 999 fatal shootings. Additionally, the rate of fatal police shootings among Black Americans was much higher than that for any other ethnicity, standing at 35 fatal shootings per million of the population as of March 2021.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-po...
Then there the assault on our health and environment...
Zach Bush, MD is triple board-certified physician specializing in internal medicine, endocrinology and hospice care. He is the founder of Seraphic Group, an organization devoted to developing root-cause solutions for human and ecological health in the sectors of big farming, big pharma, and Western Medicine at large. And he is also the founder of Farmers Footprint https://farmersfootprint.us/, a non-profit coalition of farmers, educators, doctors, scientists, and business leaders aiming to expose the deleterious human and environmental impacts of chemical farming and pesticide reliance -- while simultaneously offering a path forward through regenerative agricultural practices.
The radical increase in chronic disease is coincidental with not only roundup, but also the dietary guidelines requiring more carbs and less fat, a push for margarine and seed oil, and the development and use of GMO crops (needed for the broadcast use of glyphosate).
Then I've got some COVID News...
India is in an exponential growth phase. The good news is ivermectin just got approved, so we will see if they control the COVID explosion over the next few weeks. Appears to be effective in Mexico and other countries using ivermectin.
John Campbell talks with an Indian doctor about the situation in India. He asks in order...
How is the situation in India now, are you seeing a lot of cases?
How is the death rate, are there a lot of deaths, now and in the past weeks?
What is the causes of deaths in COVID patients, is it mostly respiratory failure?
Have you had difficulties with supplies of oxygen and drugs?
What are the local drivers of infection, are people flowing mask wearing and social distancing?
Are you able to test all of the patients you suspect have COVID?
How are you treating patients with mild and more severe disease?
What drugs do you use in addition to steroids?
Is ivermectin effective to treat COVID?
Do many patients develop secondary bacterial infection after COVID?
Do you think many people might develop long covid with longer term sequala?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQdKsLZjmaQ 18 min
The vaccines also appear to be effective in slowing the spread.
Well after all that US aggression how about a trip to the farm?
This week let's look at a 1.5 acre permaculture homestead in New Zealand... (25 min)
Syntropic farming is a new and ancient permaculture practice that can be implemented in any region, in any climate, in limitless ways – even in your own back yard. For over a decade the Lotz-Keegan family have been implementing permaculture practices to regenerate a degraded hillside into an abundant food forest of native and exotic trees that feed their family, their community, the wildlife, the soil, and their souls.
Combining the practices of syntropic agroforestry with the principles of permaculture and their own deeply thoughtful approach to land regeneration, food growing, and lifestyle, this family is partnering with nature to create a humming diversity on the land and a positive story about the role of humans in an eco-system.
Sometimes the reality of farming and homesteading is lost in these short clips. This family farm shows some of the issues. There is always something happening...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqZ4p8303I0 (13 min)
Look how our chickens feed the garden (by making free compost) and the garden feeds the chicken. ALSO in the vlog: Calling the Enquirer Mr. Brown found his shoes, chick death count, asparagus coming in, moving wood chips, making nachos,
In closing let me share my morning sounds. We are covered up with Wood Thrush this year and we awake to a chorus of these birds. It has been lovely. (1.5 min)
Learn how conservation heroes from North Carolina to Belize are working to help the climate-threatened Wood Thrush.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J4A25H4QIA (25 min)
https://nc.audubon.org/news/wood-thrush-connection-0
I like using nature stories to wrap up this column because we can still find peace in nature. Being aware of the endless US aggression and its desire for global dominance is important to stopping US wars and coups, but I have to continually come back to ground in the garden and woods in order to find my balance and see the beauty as well as the horror of the world. Here's hoping your world is filled with peace, love, and harmony despite the whirlwind of war and aggression around us. I look forward to your thoughts and ideas below.
Comments
It's "Metabolical"
Lustig's new book. He and Mercola discuss the ways we've been misled about food and diet.
3 min teaser
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhssaoSQvnU]
Full hour interview - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GZ49PvXgFM
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Good morning Lookout
We are the monster. The Bully of the universe. Our intent is to steal whatever anybody else has. At whatever cost to individuals or countries not named USA. Modern day Vikings--invade. occupy. destroy. enslave. We claim our "heroes" are our warriors, but warriors are tools, thus, victims as well.
The Winners are the wealthy class of the world and in their efforts to continue to rule, there are no rules. Small towns as well as every city in America get free, used military equipment. The citizenry is the enemy of the rulers.
Nothing new but alarming every time we force ourselves to see it.
The posting from 1992 gets it right. These days I content myself with the positive measures Joe Biden has taken domestically and have given up entirely on hoping for foreign policy improvements.
Bright spot is that I met my goal of being fully planted by May first. On chilly nights I lug my plants inside. Very good news is that the 3 large pots of sunflowers I planted have sprouted! Which indicates to me that more can flourish on my balcony than I had imagined. Not prematurely celebrating, however. Sprouts are one thing and flowering plants known to need more sun than my high floor balcony provides are another.
NYCVG
I do my babies that way
When they are little...in and out, in and out. I use the utility room with a south window and holds the hot water heater as my grow room.
Once they are big enough, I take them down to the garden in flats and let them acclimate, sometimes covering with row cover for cold spells. Then out into the beds when the weather is right.
Got tomatoes in the beds yesterday and peppers today. I plant in the evening. Just my routine, wouldn't work with your balcony scene. Although I've been thinking about a rolling grow shelf for all the in and out.
Your political insights are dead on from my perspective.
...is certainly a good analysis too.
Have a good one!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
our similarities
of interests and pov might seem less surprising if you know that the presently a City Woman commenting here, spent time on The Farm in Summertown TN, back in the early 70's.
NYCVG
I have several indirect connections...
with The Farm, but I've never even visited.
Happy gardening!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Thanks for the Weekly Watch
Lot for me to go back and delve into all the information you have put in this week’s OT. I am glad you always end with going back to nature and ideas for living in a better place. We had major rains for the past two days and I discovered I have three leaks in my roof running along one of the seams of the metal roof. This part of the roof is old and now more decisions on the house have to be made.
So, decided to take your advice and get back to nature, will take a walk along the river and check out the flow over the impoundment as I cross the bridge. This always works to restore my soul and then will have an hour long stretch and strengthen session via Zoom to make it easier to look at the day ahead. It is also bright and sunny outside at the moment and the weatherman says it is going to heat up this afternoon.
Have a good day to you and all!
Life is what you make it, so make it something worthwhile.
This ain't no dress rehearsal!
Sounds like a good plan...
a nice walk is always restorative.
I haven't done my usual loop, but I did go down and water this AM.
Been seeing deer and turkey most days and occasional coyotes.
Have a good one!
EDIT to add:
Could be the roof just needs new ridge cap. If so, that's a pretty easy fix. Hope it is anyway.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Jimmy nails it again...
It is clearly the US that is the rogue nation... (8 min)
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyaZ7zuEsdI]
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Good morning Lookout. Thanks for the WW.
Great and greatly appreciated video on syntropic farming. It is full of bits of information and inspiration that anybody can apply, on some scale, providing only that they have a bit of dirt whereon to apply it. I'm already thinking of a corner weed-bed that we can maybe help to evolve into something more productive ecologically and possibly for food too.
Loved your wood thrush soundscape. We don't get them here, just a migrant hermit thrush for a short while. Our dawn chorus is a bit harsher with jays, crows, nuthatches and brown towhees modulated by other birds, but always a bit more clangorous. The songbirds we do have bring in the raptors which then bring in the crows, so, at some time, there will be nearby mobbing.
be well and have a good one.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
In some seasons we get a cacophony too
depending on who is coming through. I like that too. Just enjoy sharing the world with other creatures.
Glad you found the NZ homestead worthwhile...I did too.
Have a great day!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
LO, I love your birds waking you up in the morning,
our birds here can compete with yours. Often I thought about distopian's knowledge and photos he posts on janis b Friday Evening photo essays and wondered if he would be able to identifz the birds by their chirps. Didn't have the nerves to record the chirps I hear in the morning and all day long, but seriously planned to do that.
Thank You for your Weekly Watch. Best healthy thought food for our weekends.
Be well and have a lovely Sunday. I worked so hard in our garden, I had to stop it to recover my bones and muscles.
Get some rest as well.
Cheers.
https://www.euronews.com/live
planting sessions...
can make me sore too, but it is better than going to a gym to me.
All I have is a land line, but smart phone or tablet users can download an app that identifies bird calls.
https://birdnet.cornell.edu/
I started learning back in the day of VCR tapes where they have video of the bird and their calls. Here's a good site for pictures and calls...
https://www.audubon.org/bird-guide
Have a lovely evening!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
thanks for the links, all are very educative :-) /nt
https://www.euronews.com/live
Hi Mimi
Hi Mimi,
All good birders bird by ear more than eye. You hear 10 birds for every one you see. Virtually all good bird guides know everything they hear. Any population survey work has to be done with audio. Lots of birders have a hard time with it, but there are lots of new books (even a Petersen field guide series guide to bird calls) and many new guides have digital versions with audio apps that can help.
I learned from infancy, it is a language to me, generally my recognition is the first syllable of the first word, and based on tonal quality above all else. Many say the same
words, but they all say them differently. Each has its own voice. There are contact calls, alarm calls, flight notes, 'he is putting more seed out' calls, and many others, before we even get to songs, of which many birds have A and B types. Generally all subspecies of a species each have a different dialect as well, which is why tonal quality works best over what words they say. There are some birds you HAVE TO HEAR to identify, or, it is the easiest way to ID them. For me it is as big as visual aspects. Too see some birds without hearing them is tragedy. Imagine not hearing a Kookabura or Lyrebird.
I still hear new calls that in 65 years of paying serious attention I have not heard. So you can't learn every sound all of them make. As one that has worked as a pro guide,
my audio skills are surely what blows the people away the most, all the time. But I can tell you there are guys better than me. And I know zip squat about Euro bird calls. I am working on a audio cd of bird sounds, is far I have gone down this rabbit hole.
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
I appreciate your skills
came late to birding by ear (my late 20's), but I recognize most calls in our woods. I admire those with your ability and knowledge and treasure those birding trips with your ilk.
Though I enjoy trips to Mexico and Central America for exotic birds, I'm quite happy with our locals and transients. Currently we have summer and scarlet tanagers nesting as well as a couple of pair of piliated woodpeckers. If I don't see them I hear them daily. We also have the usual suspects...lots of phoebes, cardinals, titmouse, nuthatch, and so on. Been seeing some rain crows (cuckoos) too. And of course the rarely seen but oft heard vireo..."here I am where are you?" Oh yeah and barred owls on the regular..."who cooks for you?"
Thanks for all your birding expertise around the site!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
cool stuff LO!
Your place sounds world-class awesome L.O. Scarlet Tanager are hard to beat! I have Summer nesting here, nice, but Scarlet is one the most stunningly beautiful birds in America. Great call that Pileated Woodpecker has, outstanding birds in a class by themselves. Rain-bird was a good name for Yellow-billed Cuckoo, they sure go off when it is about to rain, or gonna soon. You call description of the vireo is Red-eyed Vireo. An old name was Preacherbird, because they never stop all day. You should have White-eyed
and Yellow-thoated Vireo there too. We have all three here on the Edwards Plateau, but which is the western most extension of their breeding range in southerly latitudes. We also have Bell's, Hutton's, and Black-capped. I only have Chucks here, no Whips. Chucks seem way down so far this year. Bugpocalypse has been apparent a few years to me, and surely the insectivores will go first.
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
I need to learn the other two vireo calls
I never get to see them. They are buried in the green of the forest. Habitat is the trick to have good birds as you know. We have both deep woods and open fields, I think that is key to bird, animal, plant diversity. Additionally we had shale ridge, limestone valley, and sandstone mountain. If you're ever in the NE AL area, pm me and come by. Would love to go birding together.
I have a big bend area birding trip on my bucket list. Might could meet up there?
All the best!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
yeah man, habitat diversity is key
Habitat diversity is everything. The 'juniper breaks' are fairly low-diversity. Any mono-culture, even natural, has lower diversity, but of course often lots of specialized endemics.
For vireo songs... oOf course the Red-eyes are up high, and so are the Yellow-throated, but often coming down lower on biggest low branches. White-eyed is a bird of the thickets down low. You hear a dozen for every one you see. I hate having to find and show one to someone. LOL Yellow-throated song has been written varyingly as "three-eight" being a key phrase. It differs from all other vireos in being burry. The others are a much clearer clean whistled or musical notes. Yellow-throated has a vibrato of burriness that is distinct. YT is deep and slow delivery too. One phrase to me sounds like 'VIR-E-O' - three syllables
White-eyed is fast with a jumble between two sharp inflicted notes. One good birder said they say: "quick! lets see your (insert slang for female breasts)!" I use 'bricks' myself in mixed company.
Variety of habitat is key to diversity. The small meadow opening in a huge forest has more diversity than the forest. Just like the reef at edge of sea has more diversity than the big ol' ocean past it. The edge effect is everything. I am where the south Texas brush country (Tamaulipan thorn-scrub) meets the Edwards Plateau (much known as hill country). Mesquite, meet Juniper, plus live-oaks and Pecans.
When you go through the Edwards Plateau ya gotta look me up! You need to see Golden-cheeked Warbler.
I'm between Garner St. Pk. and Lost Maples S.N.A. near south edge of plateau, 20 miles N. of Hwy. 90. March to June is the best 3 months of birding here, and April to June really. Big Bend is out of this world awesome. I did the Colima Warbler Chisos Mtns. thing a long time ago. I would love to get back to traveling, but have not done any in a couple decades. Maybe it was that million miles I did the couple prior? I loved Alabama, and never got to spend proper time there, was always on the way somewhere, snagged a day here and day there sorta thing, and mostly in the south. Off the charts freshwater habitats diversity ya got there. Great dragonfly diversity!
Any of ya here that have natural history interest, if you get near my area, please feel free to PM me, I can be a barrel of fun for a short while, especially if it is light out and there is nature around.
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
Many thanks...
will holler if our paths can cross!
All the best!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Now I am speechless, awed and shocked
first time I really understand what a birder is. I envy your skills and it increases my intention to record our garden's bird chirps. Overcoming the language barriers of birds across the Atlantic would be a magnificent project to work on. I will get the CD guides and books. I can imagine myself just sitting in my little corner in the garden and doing nothing but listening to the birds. Wonderful.
Thanks for being here.
https://www.euronews.com/live
Hey Mimi
I would love to learn the Euro birds. Exposure is the key. Repetition. Keep listening, and watch to see what makes what sounds. Watch them sing and call to help burn it onto your hard-drive. It should be way easier there, than here. You have one wren, we have a dozen, you have one Jay, dozen here, you have one swallow, 10 here, and on and on. There are a few groups with lots of diversity there like the 'old-world warblers', the buntings and finches, the tits, for instance, but in any given area you probably have a couple or few dozen species to learn, more if a wild natural habitat of course. Every hawk, duck, shorebird, they all have unique voices. I have many birds on my yard list which I only heard at night as they migrated overhead. Many birders are into night recording and then ID'ing everything that went over from the 'tapes' the next day.
Most people can tell all their relatives apart simply by voice, without seeing them. You can learn that with birds, grasshoppers, crickets, and katydids, or amphibians. Interestingly other vocal animals are no different. The other birds in the forest no doubt learn the NINE different alarm calls Black-capped Chickadee gives for nine different
threats.
I once read of an indigenous person in the Amazon saying to a white visitor something to the effect of, 'how can you sleep at night not knowing what everything is?'. They know every bug, frog, bird, everything. I know some of my local insects, all my local frogs and toads, but if I moved would have to learn a new set. Which has been one of the great things about moving around the country a few times for me.
love listening to nature... food for the mind and soul
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
When I hear “conspiracy theory” I remember
that these are the words that Power uses to bury the truth, and I become curious to learn more.
Creating a term for outlandish or blatantly false ideation, and then associating an uncomfortable truth that threatens the interests of Power to that term, is meant to preempt further investigation.
Uncomfortable truths can be found under the banner of “Conspiracy Theory”, in among the outlandish and blatantly false exemplars. This is why I am attracted TO any news items waving that banner. It’s where the bodies of the murdered may be found.
(Reposted from Mimi’s earlier thread this morning)
“ …and when we destroy nature, we diminish our capacity to sense the divine,and understand who God is, and what our own potential is and duties are as human beings.- RFK jr. 8/26/2024
My thoughts on conspiracy theories...
I discussed in this piece...
https://caucus99percent.com/content/weekly-watch-80
https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/03/16/did-the-cia-invent-the-term-consp...
Hope all is well with you and yours!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
That's very interesting...
...is it normal for Snopes to have articles that don't declare ANY verdict?
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
Well they claim...
it is a CT that they created the term.
whatta rabbit hole.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Normally they show a Big Fat Colored Stamp of Judgment (BFCSJ)
Normally they make a terse, unambiguous, clearly-visible declaration of "Yes/No/Kinda".
I don't ANY such thing in that link.
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
An objection
"Power" is not "Satan" - except maybe in the LaVeyan sense.
I HAAAAATE this new Medieval-Catholicism-in-Postmodern-Clothing political religion that (in addition to countless other crimes) always talks about "power" like it's bad - and not even that, they conflate it almost exclusively with SOCIAL power, which ISN'T EVEN REAL! That kind of thinking is a TRAP - exactly the sort of thing Nietzsche so insightfully pegged as "slave morality". To paraphrase the NRA, if you hold that power corrupts, then only the corrupt will hold power.
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
on a global basis...
The sun has the power.
Well there's a bit of internal geothermal and nuclear energy too.
But the sun provides the most.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Your reply is interesting
and likely a worthy subject to discuss, but opening with HAAAAATE! hardly invites any discussion. Apparently “power” means something other than what I find in the dictionary. I feel like I inadvertently stepped on a land mine. Did it have something to do with the capital P? Inscrutable.
“ …and when we destroy nature, we diminish our capacity to sense the divine,and understand who God is, and what our own potential is and duties are as human beings.- RFK jr. 8/26/2024
Please don't take it personally
Ideas have always been more 'visible' to me than people, and hence are more likely to be the subjects of my reactions, whatever they may be.
But yes; making a proper noun of it was a bit...indicative.
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
Regarding the 1992 Memo in the Lead Segment of the Post
This story was told in a 2002 Harper's Magazine article called Dick Cheney's Song of America.
.
.
Without a doubt the biggest irony of this story that explains the last 20 yeears of American decline is that the ex-Director of the CIA and the guy who launched the First Gulf War, George Herbert Walker Bush, kyboshed this craziness. Slick, the feckless draft avoider, gave us his triangulated version of Bad Ass Policy which was demonstrated by the war against Serbia fought without US soldiers on the ground. Neither President in office immediately after the Cold War bought this concept of Full Spectrum Dominance.
No, Cheney had to make himself Vice President via the Supreme Court installing Shrub and him in power to live this demented dream -- shared by Alexander the Great and Adolf Hitler -- of ruling the world.
I submit that Cheney was the last politician in this country ever to wield any actual power as an individual, and it took September 11 for him to get his shot at living out his dream. His success put the final nail in the coffin of American Democracy and the rest is history.
Just like the United States of America is history, replaced by our rotting Empire of Futility, falling apart at the seems around us right now.
I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.
Let's hope we're too incompetent to launch WWIII
One of the five eyes seems willing to bail on a war with China...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtijFNITbmg 5 min
New Zealand has upset its partners in the Five Eyes global spy alliance by not joining recent pile-ons aimed at China. New Zealand says it's because spies shouldn't be talking about human rights, but it's probably more to do with the fact that Beijing represents 29% of its trade, and principles cost money.
The kiwis have some sense it appears. Handled the pandemic well too.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
"panic, crisis and desperation...
...on the part of the American ruling class."
My work here is
donejust beginning.We are officially in the "[t]hen they fight you" phase.
In other news, it really is high-time this site started supporting direct-video-links to sites other than WaitNoNotYouTube:
https://www.koreus.com/video/chumbawamba-tubthumping.html
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
I hope they are in panic...
but my sense is that it is arrogance and/or ignorance. You know the way the oligarchs are self absorbed.
Thanks for the clip, I'll do my best to avoid those situations.
Have a good one!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
I am all for diplomacy but I hope no meeting of Putin/Biden
If there is to be any diplomacy better just to let Lavrov and Blinken work things out. Or military to military contacts.
Any meeting between Putin and Biden will turn into a circus with Western and US media attempting to escalate attacks on Putin by Biden and his admin. Trump got majorly skewered by the press for just meeting with Putin in Finland and for not personally insulting Putin. The American media will go hysterical for a major confrontation. I wouldn't be surprised if new sanctions would be announced on Nord Stream 2.
The summit will end up making relationship even worse putting it on a near war footing.
My thought is that you can't trust the US
Consider Bushy Sr's promise not to expand NATO?
https://direct.mit.edu/isec/article/40/4/7/12126/Deal-or-No-Deal-The-End...
Or how about our commitment to the Paris Agreement....or the JCPOA with Iran...or every treaty we ever made with the First Nation's peoples?
My conclusion is we're lying assholes.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
There is a specific Russian word for this.
Reading some experts on Russia who said they began to use a specific Russian word toward America which means roughly "not agreement ready". Polite word meaning you cannot be trusted to keep an agreement. Can't find the Russian/Cyrillic for it.
I think it was...
you are right, but I think the translation I read was 'not agreement CAPABLE'. As in 'those ahos cannot keep their word for shat'!
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
I was unaware of this as I came across it when reading about....
the latest Chinese satellite launch.
China's ISS Competitor Begins Construction In Orbit
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06GUEkc4EEA]
This happened under Obama's administration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_exclusion_policy_of_NASA
Thanks...
I've been following that a bit. Are you aware of their moon landing on the dark side a couple of years ago?
https://www.history.com/news/china-plans-historic-landing-on-dark-side-o...
Wasn't well covered. Wonder why?
To be honest they don't hardly cover US space successes either.
https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-mars-ingenuity-helicopter-broke-rec...
Thanks for the clip.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
The Snopes site got bought by some of
Hillary Clinton cultist PAC owners years ago.
we need to fact check the fact checkers...
it is difficult to verify info. All we're left with is looking at the few outlets you can trust.
I don't doubt that snopes sold out.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
A good evening musical interlude...
from my favorite Sunday music posters...reina del cid (3 min)
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsd7kPAJ5zg]
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
great stuff LO!
Hi LO, and all,
Hat tip for the Wood Thrush! Lots of birders think it has the best song of any North American bird. Being amongst a bunch singing is heaven. Lucky you! All of our thrushes make up for somber looks fitting for denizens of the shady forest, with incredible vocalizations. The Swainson's and Hermit Thrush, and Veery all have amazingly beautiful songs. Ethereal voices of the angels. Bluebirds are thrushes and have those beautiful melodic sounds they make, though not as complex as the other thrushes. Solitaires are thrushes as well, and have great voices as well. Especially the Brown-backed Solitaire of Mexico.
Folks, you can go to www.xeno-canto.org and hear any bird you want. Type name in search bar hit go. Then I right click the numbers on right column to open individual songs in new tab and keep main species index page open. When the song opens, click the play button.
Enjoy yer thrushes!
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
It is a pleasure every morning
Missed them last year. Don't know if they were blown elsewhere but were not here. Making up for it this year. Quite the pleasure!
Funny about the whippoorwills however. Last year they rebounded after what I hypothesized was a coyote decimation of these ground nesters. This year rare again. An occasional chuck will widow but no whippoorwills. Curious the turnings. Canaries in the coal mine?
Thanks again.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Finally got our first hummingbirds
of the year yesterday. That makes them a week later than usual. The last of the permafrost outside our north-facing front door finally melted off last week, and even the aspen and our ginko have started to bud.
Which means that the time is now perfect for the Mother's Day snowstorm that strips all the weak branches from all the non-native plantings that bud too early. We never do any outdoor planting at all until after Mother's Day. Actually, that's not true- we never do any planting until we see the scrub oak starting to green up. That's the best metric for when nature thinks that it is okay, around these parts- even the aspen are, shall we say, a bit optimistic. The lady across the street has now replanted her front yard decorative annuals three times...
On edit: and it is now snowing. Well, there you go.
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
our saying is...
...don't like the weather? Wait 15 minutes.
We're now past mid-spring (May 1), so you should finally warm.
Happy birding!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”