The Weekly Watch
So Much Happening, does anyone know
What's Goin' On?
This week let's look at the world news. There's so much going on it is easy to lose track. The Russia narrative continues in the MSM...aggressive Russia amasses troops on Ukraine's border...never mentioning they are in Russia. The US responds by sending more troops to the Russian border. The US drones more Syrians, and sends more weapons to the UAE to commit war crimes on Yemen. Israel continues to destroy Palestinian homes to promote Jewish settlements, as they forge more ties with Saudi Arabia and Oman. Plus lots more below the fold...
I think the lyrics, like so many songs of the sixties, still holds up...
We live in a world filled with conflict driven largely by greed and the need for power and control. At the same time, it is a planet of beauty, and hope, and good will, as well. Finding the balance between awareness of atrocities and acts of kindness is quite the task. Spending time in nature helps, so let's start today with a quick look at some of the beauty around us before we delve into how we abuse it. Beautiful photography in this 8 min film trailer...
https://www.theweedygarden.com/
So now that we're peaceful and grounded let's look at what is happening around the world...
And let's start with Ukraine...
Oddly enough my favorite view comes from capitalist Gerald Celente. He may have some things wrong but he nails the US Ukraine debacle and current situation. (10 min or so)
The first part is about the Freedom Convoy, but I've cued it to the Ukraine conversation.
Meanwhile back at the ranch...lies, lies, and blatant lies...from Jen Psakipath (h/t SD) talking back in Obummer's regime about Nuland's selection of Ukraines leadership.
Senior US State Department official Victoria Nuland has allegedly been caught giving a harsh message to the EU while discussing Ukrainian opposition leaders' roles in the country's future government. The phone call was taped and posted on YouTube (http://youtu.be/MSxaa-67yGM). US officials refused to confirm or deny the tape's authenticity, but State Department spokesperson Jan Psaki said that she "didn't say it was inauthentic." While being grilled about this and other tape-related statements, Psaki hinted that the tape could have been leaked by Moscow.
What happened to reporters questioning like that? Wait, some still ask for evidence...
Journalist Hammers State Department Spokesman Over Russian Lies
(17 min)
The US is about War not Peace. Just look at our actions
In response to Russia's demand for security guarantees, especially to its request to remove foreign NATO forces from the territory of East European countries, the U.S. and Britain are moving more forces to the east:
President Joe Biden has formally approved additional US military deployments to Eastern Europe, the Pentagon announced Wednesday, with US troops deploying soon to Poland, Germany and Romania.
...
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said the deployments include roughly 2,000 troops from the United States to Poland and Germany in the coming days. In addition, approximately 1,000 troops currently based in Germany are being deployed to Romania.
...
Kirby said that the troops being deployed are separate and in addition to the 8,500 US troops that were placed on heightened alert last week that could be moved to Europe to support NATO's response force if it's activated.The troops will operate on a bilateral basis with their host countries, since NATO has not yet activated a multinational response force.
This is a rather token amount of forces in the wrong places and with little combat value but it is serious in its symbolic character.
...
the White House's acknowledgment of its strategic failure.Kevin Liptak @Kevinliptakcnn - 17:55 UTC · Feb 2, 2022
The White House says it's no longer using the word "imminent" to describe the potential for a Russian invasion of Ukraine. It was sending an unintended message, Jen Psaki says.
'Unintended imminence'? These people are clowns and bad at it.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/02/how-misguided-grant-strategy-led-t...
worth a full read.
Russia is a step ahead at every turn...
Putin: USA Is Using Ukraine As ‘Tool’ To Contain Russia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZen2NEYSfE (8 min)
Like Gerald I remember as a child being told the Russians were our enemy, and being taught to hide under my desk at school in case they bomb us. The youth of today have had the Russiagate lie thrust upon them to promote the hatred of Russia. As an adult, I broke through that McCarthy propaganda to understand Russia's vast diversity and beauty of landscapes and peoples. Here's a nice introduction and a beautiful humanizing look at the country. (43 min)
I think if we humanize those the MSM/MIC/CIA/etc. vilify, we better express our own humanity and compassion.
As a consequence of US mistaken policy they have driven Russia and China into each others arms....to more than just allies.
While the fireworks of the Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony light up the sky over Beijing another firework comes in the form of a
Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on the International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development
by President Vladimir Putin of Russia and the President of the People's Republic of China Xi Jinping.
...
The U.S. will say that the above is just some grand declaration with no meaning. But it is much more. It is a political program that China and Russia as well as their allies will be working on for the next decades.
Asian as well as European countries should consider if they want to support or oppose it. They should recognize that siding with the U.S. against China and Russia guarantees that they will find themselves on the losing side.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/02/the-great-russian-chinese-firework...
All the warmongering against Russia has obscured several other US actions...
While Eyes Were Watching Ukraine… Africa Was Ablaze - Danny Sjursen
Distraction is an effective strategy.
United States Special Forces carried out a major raid in northwest Syria in the early hours of Thursday morning, reportedly killing more than a dozen people—including six children and four women...
"the killing of 13 civilians in a supposedly counter-terror operation—including six children and four women—is somehow a 'success' flies in the face of the Biden administration's recent claim that it is making protection of civilians a new high priority in its military strategy."
The US claims...
'The Mission Was Successful.'
The following statement is attributable to Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby:
“U.S. Special Operations forces under the control of U.S. Central Command conducted a counterterrorism mission this evening in northwest Syria. The mission was successful. There were no U.S. casualties. More information will be provided as it becomes available.”Successful!
- The years long arming and nurturing of radical Islamist by the CIA was 'successful'.
- The creation of an al-Qaeda infested area in north-west Syria was 'successful'.
- To arrange protection of that area from Syrian and Russian forces by NATO member Turkey was 'successful'.
- Providing housing for the first ISIS leader in Barisha, 5 km form the Turkish border, was 'successful'.
- Providing housing for the second ISIS leader in Atmeh, 2 km form the Turkish border, was 'successful'.
- The two and a half hour long firefight during yesterday's raid in Atmeh was 'successful'.
- The killing of six children, four women and at least three men during the raid was 'successful'.
- The mechanical damage (friendly fire?) on one U.S. helicopter was 'successful'.
- The complete destruction of said helicopter by bombing it was 'successful'.
- The killing of one ISIS honcho Mohamad Saeed Abdul Rahman aka Abdalla Kardas aka Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Quraishi was 'successful'.
- The ongoing creation of more ISIS honchos at the U.S. base at the al-Tanf border crossing between Syria and Iraq will be 'successful'.
So much success.
The leaders of Russia and China must shiver with fear when they recognized that their opponent is so very 'successful'.
The meddling in the region doesn't end with the US...
Israel approves 400 settlement units north of Bethlehem in the West Bank...
Earlier in January, Israel approved the building of 3,700 settlements between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, part of which are to be located above and across the Green Line, Israel’s 1948 boundaries, effectively erasing them.
https://english.alaraby.co.uk/news/israel-approves-400-settlement-units-...
At least there is some push back.
https://imemc.org/article/wafa-palestine-welcomes-report-by-amnesty-inte...
https://www.democracynow.org/2022/2/3/amnesty_international_israel_pales...
Amnesty International has become the third major human rights organization to accuse Israel of committing the crime of apartheid against Palestinians in a new report released on Tuesday. Amnesty finds Israel’s system of apartheid dates back to the country’s founding in 1948 and has materialized in abuses including massive seizures of Palestinian land and property, unlawful killings, forcible transfer, drastic movement restrictions, and the denial of nationality and citizenship to Palestinians — all of which constitute apartheid under international law. Amnesty International USA’s executive director Paul O’Brien calls on the United States to “put pressure on the Israeli government to dismantle this system of apartheid,” despite both the Biden administration and the Israeli government rejecting the report’s findings.
So much for global aggression, what's going on at home? Well shut my mouth...it's more censorship.
First in the sights is Joe Rogan...
The CEO of Spotify has spoken about the company’s decision to retain the Joe Rogan Experience on their platform despite the calls to “cancel” Joe Rogan over the unpopular or forbidden ideas of some of his guests. Jimmy Dore explains...
Then censorship advocate Whoopi gets suspended for the suggestion Jews are not a race.
From wiki...
A race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. The term was first used to refer to speakers of a common language and then to denote national affiliations. By the 17th century, the term began to refer to physical (phenotypical) traits. Modern science regards race as a social construct, an identity which is assigned based on rules made by society. While partially based on physical similarities within groups, race does not have an inherent physical or biological meaning.
I'm no Whoopi fan, but I think this suspension was a knee jerk reaction, but she broke the rule!
Krystal and Saagar offer their perspective on the comments made by The View's Whoopi Goldberg about the holocaust and how the show has responded. Oddly enough I don't disagree with Whoopi's claim. Now I don't watch the View and only caught the bit covered by Krystal and Saagar, but to me the Human Races are Black, White, Brown, Yellow, and Red. Being Jewish is a religion and can be considered ethnic group, IMO. There are Black Jews from Africa (who are typically shunned). My high school had lots of Jewish folks, and they were pretty diverse. There was no way to distinguish students who were Jewish from those who weren't. Let me know if I've got this wrong, and why.
I'm only going to mention the silencing of people through social media. Canceling YouTubers, Facebag pages, Twatter accounts, and even GoFundMe contributions. This is corporations versus the people.
So there we have it. Two of the big sticks used to keep the people subservient... distraction and censorship, and sadly there's plenty of both. What's on your mind today?
Comments
Don't forget the carrots
Good morning. This idea resonates ..
Have seen many beautiful vids of China, Iran and Russia. Their landscapes, people, art and cultures.
Unfortunately, most Americans are not aware there are good people everywhere.
Thanks for the Marvin!
Good morning...
Been wondering how you did with the winter storms. Hope all is well.
Yes, there are good people everywhere, in fact I think most people are in that category. And as you say, it is a beautiful world (except where it isn't because of something people have done).
Hope your day goes well. We're headed to a sunny 50 degrees today!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
My thoughts exactly in this troubling times
@QMS I've been immersing myself in lots of history reading recently, trying to become better aware of the big picture, whatever it is, and its striking how the progress of history has been one of human families, all striving for their dreams. And often making huge contributions to the growth of culture and prosperity of the world. Our good people everywhere are our strength.
>Yes, there are good people everywhere, in fact I think most people are in that category. And as you >say, it is a beautiful world (except where it isn't because of something people have done).
Well put!
>Have seen many beautiful vids of China, Iran and Russia. Their landscapes, people, art and cultures. Unfortunately, most Americans are not aware there are good people everywhere.
We should be since faith in the ultimate wisdom of our people is one of our core values.
Somebody is also trying to divide and conquer us. By attacking all of our strengths. Our people.
Thank you for bringing that up, this sunny Sunday morning @Lookout & @QMS !
in fact I think most people are in that category
With this I would agree. Replacing the image of what good there exists in this world instead of the projected negative propaganda could help an awareness grow. We are all bound to share in the fate of our collective actions and responses to the challenges of making this a better world.
Thanks for posting.
Q
MSMmedia is just obsessed with creating conflict when there was
none originally. Its really striking and horrible. At the same time, US media denies the US people access to the real facts in situations and instead tries to pre-brainwash our people into accepting bullshit "alternative facts" that fit an already pre-seeded bullshit "narrative".
If you, like me have been deliberately avoiding that bullshit narrative and dont know what it is, none of this makes any sense to me except in a bad way. I see through it, often. But its still confusing.
@QMS
Did anybody else come out of the initial Covid crisis in Wuhan with a heightened feeling for the love within and compassion for Chinese families and especially doctors and nurses. I found myself really getting deeply involved in their struggle to get their plight out there through their various writings and online postings.
If players here in the US were trying to blame it on them, they did a very great disservice to them. They were doing the best they could. It was the governments fault that they hid the emerging epidemic, not theirs. But lets face it, wouldn't the same thing happen here, except worse? In fact it has.
I learned from the Chinese
way back in March of 2020 that no one who received high dose IV Vitamin C died of the virus.
TPTB have managed this to instill fear in order to control us refusing to recognize effective treatments, but to continue that line of thought should happen over at the Dose.
Thanks for using the reply button zed, and nice to "see" you this morning.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Vitamin C is too cheap to work
It costs almost nothing. IV is a bit more but still too inexpensive to be profitable.
Russia is too big to exist outside the US orbit. Look at all those natural resources just sitting there, going to waste looking pretty.
Can you see how it makes the oligarchs go nuts seeing that?
Yes to that IV treatment question
and its effectiveness, although in Adelle Davis's lifetime it was relatively rarely used. Someone mentioned her ideas at a NYC office where I worked in the 1970s, so I read her two final books and still consult them (most still readiy availsble). See more info about her here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adelle_Davis
From the text cited: "She worked as a consulting nutritionist in Oakland and then in Los Angeles with physicians at the Alameda County Health Clinic and the William E. Branch Clinic in Hollywood."
She saw a wide range of people of all ages with good results. Her food amd supplement information, with rare descriptions of their complex interelationships and support of actual bodily needs, are still largely helpful. Among them even then she reported the effectiveness of nonstandard IV treatments by doctors.
Beijing student awakening, May-June 1989
QMS, although I lived here in the US, I did my best to stay up to date in real time on the amazing student protests in Beijing in he spring and summer of 1989. I did this partly through shortwave radio. Because of my shortwave listening hobby it appears that I got a very early warning that they were sending tanks (up back alleys, making a tremendous noise) On June 3, 1989, which was a Saturday morning in San Francisco I heard a BBC WOrldservice reporter describing the tanks creeping via back alleys to surround the city center. I realized that the long feared crackdown had finally arrived. So I did what any democrat should have done. I collected all the sign making materials hat I could called a friend and together we took the #22 Fillmore bus to the corner of Fillmore and Geary, which was at the edge of JapanTown, around three blocks from the PRC Cunsulate at Geary and Buchanan or Laguna. It turns out thet we were the first people who arrived there intending to demonstrate the ongoing events of that day. It was a quiet Saturday morning and the crackdown in Beijing had not even begun yet. But shortly after we got there a young Chinese lady with a portable fax machine and a huge Ziplock bag full of quarters and another of batteries arrived (on foot) and parked herself inside of the phone booth in front of the PRC Consulate (It is no longer there but you can still see the square in the concrete where it stood for many years)
She proceeded to hook up her fax machine to some kind of fax network and shortly thereafter her portable fax started spitting out news from the square in Beijing. And it was just horrible news. I have copies of some of these faxes.. they were horrifying. At that point We were still the only people there, my friend Helmut and I.
except for an elderly Taiwanese man, who was there almost every day, and who was not related to the Beijing protests. There is a similar person who pickets almost on a daily basis outside th PRCs NY City embassy.
However a few minutes later a large group of Chinese students from UC Berkeley arrived in an old beaten up (tailgate party type van - (The kind with a ladder on one side) van. (its roof had been crushed down by people standing on top of it) They immediately set up their van as a people platform, climbed on its top wrapped bandannas with slogans on them around their heads, and all started shouting in unison at the closed counsulate building, in the East Asian style, shaking their fists as one! Totally unlike our US demonstrations. They were very loud and very effective. This was what I remember the most vividly. They were led by a young, small Chinese woman who I remember for the strength of her voice. At the same time, Americans were beginning to trickle in. Lots of us, as the crackdown hit the news. It was a rapidly expanding very diverse crowd of all the kinds of people that populate the Bay Area. Literally everybody. Standing in solidearity with the Chinese people. Who were very well organized. That is the coalition that we should have speaking up for democracy here. The Washington demonstrators on January 6 reminded me of the anti single payer demonstrators paid by PR firms to demonstrate against public healthcare in the 90s. A big PR firm that worked I think for the tobacco industry in the past was I think behind them.
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smokers_Rights_Groups Sourcewatch has stuff on them. I would look for connections between these fake groups and January 6+ trump fake "rebellion" They wore similar outfits. I bet there is a connection. They have been around for a long time, making pests of themselves.
I trust real people. Not the Old Warriors. and their astroturf groups.
Its time for the aging oligarchs to step down.
California NixonCare 2022
Reruns! It seems that's all there is here now. Boringly endless death spirals. I prefer fractals. shrug What can I say about California driving the nation in to more ditches? sry Don't blame me, I quit voting Duopoly two elections ago. fuck those guys
California’s no-bid contract with Kaiser triggers concerns
---
Birth of The HMO
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qpLVTbVHnU width:500]
--
Peace and Love
the finest
We were just talking this morning...
about the uselessness of voting. Like the honest ads say, we got the shit party and the shit lite party.
The truckers are leading the way.
Hope you're doing well, and all is good on the left coast.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Kaiserpapers is now at the Internet Archive Find out how bad
Find out how they work their bullshit business model.
Here is the link to them.
run by the great Brendan Kehoe, formerly of Thinking Machines Corp.
Don't know about the proposed contract in question,
but Kaiser, afaik, has never made any bones about their strategy of keeping total care down by indulging heavily in preventative care which they allege keeps things like hospitalizations per capita, duration of average hospital stay, and other such costs below industry average. Their theory is that the industry only treats the sick and injured and doesn't try to produce wellness, which, on average, costs more in terms of medical care expenditures than their model.
Another possibly relevant piece of info is that there are swaths of the state where they have no presence. They provide care through their doctors at their facilities, so they can't provide care where those facilities don't exist. The central coast, for example, is such an area. Long time Kaiser patients who relocated there have had to either switch to traditional insurance or to travel outside of the area for care.
Don't know the extent to which that is at all relevant.
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 --
Of course they want to dump the high need patients on others
Thats how it works in America. This is the US and the US system is 100% based on profit.
Face it, 10% of the population is uninsurable under 1998 rules which are locked in. That means a third of US families are excluded. Otherwise the medical risks eat up their profits, the reason they are in business.
They wont provide the service if they cant make those profits, they say so. The politicians need them, otherwise they have a huge moral hazard. Its really impossible tofix this without a public single payer system which they took off the table, you know.
So now we're stuck. Don't say that I didnt warn you!
I sleep well at night. There is no blood on my hands. But this is a road that they know leads someplace very bad, truly unspeakably horrible, and its toitally avoidable. Why are they hiding what they have done? What are they trying to do with all this?
Morning, Lookout
Cold and SUNNY out. Yay for sunny. It's been many days since NYC has seen the sun.
What's on my mind mirrors many of your concerns. As what may have been obvious, I am paying close attention to the Truck Convoy. In my optimistic moments I can see this outpouring of dismay and horror over authoritarianism and resulting bold action as the harbinger of better times to come.
What I am not reporting on is the ghastly doings in NYC as New Mayor with the strings pulled by Bloomberg proceeds to wreck my City and blameshift to the former Mayor de Blasio. This morning hit a screeching high note as Shootings and Police Shootings crescendoed. Adams ran on law and order and reinstating Stop and Frisk and tough unfair policing. The criminal class is showing the new Mayor what they think of his racially tinged Tough Guy Swagger. There is now a police officer getting shot every day or so.
Particulary telling is that a NYC Housing authority building that lost heat in the past month has the tenants complaining and a photo of Mayor de Blasio appearing next to the story in the NY Daily News. A heating problem Now is his fault?
de Blasio blamed Michael Bloomberg for much that was amiss when he took office and then corrected Bloomberg's mistakes.
One big example is that Labor Unions that had worked without a contract or raises for as many as 7 years, had new signed contracts with retroactive pay and great benefits before the first 6 months of de Blasio's term.
NYCVG
Heard Joementia was in NYC this week...
talking about crime.
https://nypost.com/2022/02/03/bidens-empty-message-that-promises-nothing...
Enjoy your sunny day! It is nice here too.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Biden was here
I ignored the entire thing.
NYCVG
He could toss the GPA in the garbage and use government
spending to create jobs in cities for the unemployed and eat the sanctions for violating the GPA deal.
I dont know, I'm not a lawyer. Back in the day they had schemes that trained the unemployed to do things that they could do and get jobs in. But now all those schemes are covered by procurement procedures that make them an international competition.. So no more green jobs for smart poor US young people.
Sorry. I did try to tell people about this, but you didnt listen. My emails went nowhere. Somebody was likely deleting them. Some poluticians "friends with benefits" perhaps?
See this article: sorry, no green jobs for you!
Africa is Being Stolen in a Huge Land Grab and Resource Grab
@Lookout re:Africa article.. "While Eyes Were Watching Ukraine… Africa Was Ablaze" For the last five or ten years the eyes of the corporate world have been focused on Africa.
Africa's cheap labor has the corporations salivating. You know how they go nuts over the cheapest wages. Well how about 60 cents a day. Is that cheap enough for you? Get ready its coming. Also Africa is fintech utopia with all sorts of buzzword compliant usurious fintech schemes that return huge dividends to lenders. Individual Africans are being buried in huge unpayable debts, just like Americans. This is a Paradise to the financial industry, a model of how they want the future to be. .
We wont have any choice Africa is the new America, the new India, as far as investment for multinationals. It has the lowest wages in the world and also unlike the US, Africans are having lots of babies. The Demographics look great for Africa.
Just finished a fascinating novel
It is a near-future science / social fiction named NOOR, set in Western Africa - Nigeria.
It dealt a lot with the disappearing nomadic ways of the herding tribes caused by big
corporations in land grabs, tech takeover and other nefarious schemes.
Written by Nnedi Okorafor in 2021. Highly recommended!
It looks interesting
, thanks for the Noor recommendation. I bet your soup was souperb...it had to be good with beans, bacon, and beepers. Hope your ice has diminished and you can get into your car (although sitting by the wood stove sounds like the much more pleasant activity). Stay warm up there in the North Woods!
Thanks, I'll put it on my reading list!
I'm reading a real lot these days.
It is resources as well...
as cheap labor. For centuries the West has seen Africa as theirs to plunder. Now China is coming in and helping African countries develop and the US hates it.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Good Morning
The Joe Rogan story is really something. It's just blatant in-your-face censorship. Now, the
blanca-house-crew is getting in on the act. Rogan strikes me as being a fairly level-headed guy who has a fairly level-headed talk show. Freedom of speech and all that...the American ideal...no?
So now we have the party and all of their loyal supporters, that were all up in arms about the previous administration to the point of being practically rabid, embracing the same anti-democratic type of policies that they were virulently against just a short couple of years ago. What a charade. It's a joke, it's beyond absurd. Can people have such little self awareness that they don't see they've become the very thing they railed against with such venom? I may be guilty of 'othering' but it looks to me as if the so-called-left has gone stark-raving mad. As I watch this whole enterprise go down the drain, the very ones who were supposed to help resist this demise, are actually accelerating the process and are incredibly cheered on by their supporters. Hm, who knew. That is the element that surprises me the most.
I do agree though with the general assessment above that positive aspects also have to be recognized, just (in my mind) not to the exclusion of the negative things going on. Gotta' keep our eyes open ya' know? Glad to know so many good people here and all about in the community and world. Those are among the best things we have.
Thanks Lookout for the WW, you help enormously to keep us all watching.
Why can't they fade away
Some of our old warriors are still devoting a lot of energy to trying to spin history their way.
They go to great lengths to turn the net into a fact-less echo chamber for their spin doctors.
Edit: made spelling changes and reduced emotion expressed
Fade quickly
, would be the best thing these people could do. We are all running out of time. Could they just hurry up?
Edited to add; I don't mind people spinning history stories, just that everyone should have the same opportunity to spin their story and the critiques on all stories should not be silenced.
Glenn Greenwald
has a good piece on censorship. I don't know how to embed his video but it is on rumble.
Jen Psaki basically is seen demanding that Spotify do more to stop Joe Rogan.
https://rumble.com/vtyr34-democrats-are-pressuring-companies-to-censor-f...
This comment meant to reply to zed (I hit the wrong button).
The trick on Rumble and Odysee....
is the lower right hand corner. On Rumble it is labeled embed. On Odysee it is the "share" icon. Copy the gobbly goop script and paste it in your comment or essay, and voila...
Glenn has been on target with his anti-censorship message. Thanks for the recommendation.
Also I forgot to mention another big censorship story. Germany has banned RT in their country.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/2/germany-bans-german-language-rus...
Yeah, I wonder why? Cause it presents a different POV?
Always a pleasure to "see" you. Hope you've got nice weather and avoided the worse of the ice and snow!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Thanks
, for the tutorial, much appreciated. I'll give it a try next time. Sorry to hear that about RT in Deutschland. There goes another one of my (baseless) beliefs that European governments were more astute than u.s. Oh well, so it goes.
Our short ice episode is melting and this coming week looks as if it will be quite nice weatherwise. Hope the same is true on your homestead as well. Have a good one Lookout.
Germany has been a disappointment
I have long admired their inclusion of workers on boards and strength of their unions, but they have been draconian in their COVID response...not as bad as Austria, but still bad. Lots of protests there this weekend. Interesting how those never make the US news.
Yes after some cold weather we are looking at a nice week ahead. Spring comes soon!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
So much pearl clutching
, on the part of those news talker men. What is it all about. Most people don't even stop to question why sports figures move from one team to another. The answer is almost always a given.... better compensation or a better deal in some way. Simple. Why these guys are all aflutter, I don't know. It is funny though.
oops, misplaced comment, sorry, this was in response to ggersh
And yes lookout since I'm here. Pretty much all of Europe is a disappointment. I thought they might be the bulwark against breakdown. Nah
some more info here
same bullshit as always,
I think.
I dont think anymore.
https://www.euronews.com/live
And now the right has joined in cancellation/censorship
in case anyone is asking amerikkka has definitely jumped the shark
https://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=33695805
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjeiQ4ZcY8Y]
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
I don't blame her one bit...
There's good and bad in every country, but China's actions seem more peaceful that the US war machine.
I wonder if they did take away her US passport/citizenship as the ghoul on Tuckers show suggests.
Thanks for the news!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
To continue the bullshit metaphor -
If your family provides you a nice, warm, comfortable home and life by robbing and murdering people, then you have an ethical and moral obligation to turn your back on them and their way of life, you owe them nothing.
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 --
Oh jeez
, I don't think I can watch that. It's an onslaught from all sides. Maybe after I have some breakfast I'll take a peek. It calls for fortification.
I hope it worked out well for ya
I was ROFLMAO
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
I stuck a reply
, above (in the wrong place, sorry) but I'm fine, thanks. Didn't even loose my breakfast.
Eileen Gu is a millenial, so MONEY doesnt come easy to people
"wholook like her"
Generally people of her generation in America are struggling. This is the
companycountry of corporations, after all, isnt it?, What could be more American than her skiing for money? Thats the American ideal, after all. Making lots of Money so that later in life she doesn't have to become a skiing teacher in Aspen living out of her car in a parking lot, like other good skiiers of her generation..I think you're right
. She probably took a look at which country could provide the biggest payoff post olympic career. Maybe she took a look at who can handle a pandemic better. Hands down, it looks to be China. If I were a millennial, I'd be looking at what country is willing to throw me into the garbage heap vs. what country will help me prosper.
Yes, yes, yes
what has america done for her, jack shit like it does
for all other americans except for the chosen ones
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
Yup, those two talking heads
, are spewing nonsense. Who cares what team anyone plays on....nobody. But listen to what they say at the end. It's kind of interesting. They say (I'm paraphrasing) that she is a symbol like the traitorous corporations that pulled up stakes here and went overseas. Hm interesting that, are they anti-capitalists? That's what capitalists do....profits over everything. Isn't that how we had American corporations operating in, and for, Germany during WWII. I wonder what they're getting at.
Anyway, I would expect millennials to get out as fast as they can. Things aren't looking so good around here.
well one could ask, but be wrong in asking
why isn't she a grateful slave, but never the less
they asked it didn't they.....usa, usa, usa......sigh
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
@randtntx Those neocon people are
Those neocon people are doing their best to destroy the Democratic brand while squatting on it in order to prevent democracy.
They are intentionally being A-**les.
>As a consequence of US
>As a consequence of US mistaken policy they have driven Russia and China into each others arms....to more than just allies.
@Lookout. What could justify more US military spending (exempted from trade deal mandated subcontracting) so only national security spending means jobs for those holding security clearances that pay well. (No other jobs are as likely to go to our own nationals. or Firms with high profit margins making wars the most profitable kind of business for corporations and their insider investors. They may in many cases have traded the other jobs tax money goes to away.).
We're seeing this "march" in Canada and many of us are realizing that the situation in Canada in many ways resembles that in the US. Like us Canada is a former British colony, but they never revolted from Britain. As such they offer a glimpse into the former British Empire. Which has a lot of dark secrets that its hiding. Do we here in the US who were mistreated by them in the past (but mildly compared to what came later) really want to be associated closely with them? Considering all the baggage they carry? Such as their Gulag and huge atrocities in Kenya in the 1950s.
It appears they tortured Obama's grandfather and he narrowly escaped castration. See the end of the linked document.
Costly reparations are in order and coming due from the UK. Are you willing to assume this debt? The ruling class sure hopes you do, that you fall for it. Thats what all this is about, in no small part. They have been planning it since 1886 or earlier. (punte del este, uruguay, 15-20 sept 1986)
Webs of Power
The Gereld Celente vid at 5m11s, in between Freedom Convoy and Ukraine talk:
?! ouchy down the memory hole that went. whoosh. I have a book about it on my shelf signed by the author, imbued in good magic. There's a link to a PDF there but I didn't try it:
https://starhawk.org/webs-of-power/
And there is a documentary called "This Is What Democracy Looks Like Seattle 1999 WTO", but I can't find a link online now. Search fu exhausted.
Who remembers chant "WE ARE UNSTOPPABLE! ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE!" Nobody?
Peace and Love
oh well
I remember that WTO protest...
TPTB made good use of agent provocateurs.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPiGQcwwh6o]
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
THere is a WTO Minesterial every two years
They have them so that every two years more services can be irreversibly privatized and more concessions could be made as we move towards their goal of total liberalization. Its true, they are privatizing and globalizing everything. Countries like the US agreeddecades to do so, now all that remains is facilitating the transactions which must occur. Cutting red tape, in particular. Domestic regulations like wage laws, actually all numerical quotas that set minimum or maximum amounts of transactions, and environmental and ethical standards of all kinds are bottlenecks that stand in the way of trade and must be eliminated!
Social Security is a nonconforming measure so its in the list of things that must be privatized at the next opportunity. As its too good of a deal. You can bet that's on the agenda of the WTO at one of their upcoming minesterial conferences
Don't worry, our government has already agreed that nonconforming measures must be eliminated.
I bet Medicare is on the block before SS
but no doubt TPTB want to dismantle both and have ever since they were created.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Its hard to say. Its likely seen as non-conforming now
But then gain I dont know.. Read the first paragraph of the Annex on Financial Services. What do you think. Your answer is probably there, at the bottom.
Its quite complicated and confusing.
I think the late Mr. Skala's paper in the International Journal of Health Services is the best overall treatment of healthcare this exceedingly convoluted global issue as it regards the United States of America. I was surprised to read in there that even Obamacare was likely to have been a violation of WTO law for a number of reasons related to impeding the profitability of financial services and risk management.
Its really a shame that Nick's life was cut off so abruptly at the young age of 27.
Generally, services that were existing on the date the Understanding was signed in 1998 likely can continue as long as they remain totally unchanged, also it would be wise for them to be totally noncommercial.
The scope of GATS is limited to services that are undertaken on a commercial basis somewhere in a country. If they are not commercial, they must also have no competitors (not one or more competitors) Some countries avoid many problems by having free healthcare. Healthcare is a human right and totally free.
Canada makes the service free for everybody. But there are many potential pitfalls for Canada lying in wait if they don't inform their people the full nature of the battle that is going on. The UK too.
As long as it exists in a service sector thats completely noncommercial (i.e. healthcare is 100% free in a country and of course healthcare in Canada predated the creation of the WTO in 1995 free) it can exist and be public.
Unfortunately in contrast, the UK sells commercial health insurance making the NHS GATS illegal in its current form. (removing any ambiguity) This is because the NHS competes with commercial insurance like Kaiser. you must see. So it's quite possible according to the WTO Secretariat in their Note in document S/C/W/50 (pages 10-11) published 18 September 1998 that it cant exist as a subsidized service under WTO Rules. What is your interpretation of the following using plain language? (I'm not a lawyer and have no legal training or similar at all. NONE)
__cut here_____quoted from WTO Secretariat Note at S/C/W/50______
"Disciplines related to the organization of the health sector
The institutional arrangements governing the provision of health, medical and social services may vary widely, from complete government ownership and control to full market orientation. On the one hand, there is the possibility of services being provided "in the exercise of governmental authority", meaning, according to Article I:3.c of the GATS, that they are supplied neither on a commercial basis nor in competition. A case in point of such activities - not covered by the GATS - is the provision of medical and hospital treatment directly through the government, free of charge. In contrast, other systems may allow for full private participation without access controls, apart from quality- and qualification-related regulation, at freely negotiated prices. (Price negotiations may involve the sector in general, with representatives of the medical professions and hospital owners/operators confronting the health insurers.)
Such prototypical arrangements are likely to be the exception rather than the rule. For example, although a country may guarantee free treatment in government-owned hospitals, there may nevertheless be scope for private activities unless these are prohibited per se. In particular, private hospitals may offer non-conventional alternatives to "traditional" treatment, capitalize on bottlenecks in the public system, or provide special services for a wealthy clientele. The co-existence of private and public hospitals may raise questions, however, concerning their competitive relationship and the applicability of the GATS: in particular, can public hospitals nevertheless be deemed to fall under Article I:3? Those holding this view may argue that public hospitals (and their services) constitute a sector distinct from, and not in competition with, private hospitals (and their services). Given the perceived advantages of private over public hospitals - the absence of waiting periods, use of modern equipment, etc. - the two groups might not be considered to provide "like" services.
The hospital sector in many countries, however, is made up of government- and privately- owned entities which both operate on a commercial basis, charging the patient or his insurance for the treatment provided. Supplementary subsidies may be granted for social, regional and similar policy purposes. It seems unrealistic in such cases to argue for continued application of Article 1:3 (meaning cant be free in the way NHS is) and/or maintain that no competitive relationship exists between the two groups of suppliers or services. In scheduled sectors, this suggests that subsidies and any similar economic benefits conferred on one group would be subject to the national treatment obligation under Article XVII.
In addition, there may be various types of direct private/public-sector cooperation, for example with private companies operating public health facilities. Under so-called Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) arrangements, governments may invite private investors to build hospitals through offering them certain exclusivity rights on a temporary basis. The legal status of such arrangements under the GATS may vary, depending on the rights and obligations conferred in individual cases. BOT arrangements, for example, may be viewed as some form of government-regulated commercial activity or as government procurement of the services involved. In the former case, for example, the authorities would be required to extend MFN treatment under Article II and – in scheduled sectors – to ensure that the relevant access criteria are "objective and transparent" (Article VI:4). In the latter case, Article XIII of the GATS would provide legal cover against infringements of MFN, Market Access and National Treatment obligations.
The situation may be somewhat different for the 25 Member economies currently covered by the Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA). Actual application of the relevant rules, committing signatories to non-discrimination among each other if a purchase exceeds certain threshold values, is closely circumscribed. Covered are only those procuring entities and categories of goods and services that are included in Member-specific Annexes to the GPA. BOT-type arrangements may involve a variety of different services, possibly including architectural, construction and real estate services. Health and medical services as such have been included by only one Member, the United States, in the relevant Annex. "
___end of quote from the WTO Secretariat intended to define what can be public services and what cant be. _____
The outcome of this battle is not likely to be good for NHS. If I was British I would start putting aside a sizeable portion of my earnings for health insurance copays and deductibles. Britons are enthusiastic about "free trade" but they seem to have been misled during the recent referendum activities and failed to do their homework, similat to the American public sector healthcare advocates. - and are clearly not realistic bout these costs, a gap is shown by a series of videos where Britons are asked some questions about common health insurance costs in America. They tended to underestimate the costs by a factor of 5 or more, usually more. These videos can be found in the Youtube videos of several UK NGOs.
In short its best to be rich and pay cash out of pocket when you need healthcare if you dont want to have to deal with all this. Its seems more likely than not to me, given the huge amounts of money involved that politicians are getting kickbacks to vote one war or the other.
US healthcare is segregated and starting to look like segregated facilities in the apartheid South in the last century. Facilities often sport dual waiting rooms to keep the two classes of customers apart. Now the color line has been replaced by the line between self pays and self insured, (wealthy) and those who receive attenuated HMO-insured healthcare or some call it mangled care of often debatable quality. Kaiser Permanente is an example of a mangled care organization.
The uninsured often arent seen at all. Would globalization help them afford healthcare by letting them purchase healthcare from anywher in the world? Yes, if they have money it would. A procedure that costs $100,000 in the US might cost a tenth as much - $10,000 in India. Health insurers are excited about the outsourcing and offshoring of all kinds of medical services and jobs on a global scale. Enabling a huge boost in global competition.
I strongly suggest downloading the S/C/W/50 document and reading the entir thing including the portion I didnt paste in. There you can get a better idea of why they do some of what they do. For examople it seems they may see requirements that those practicing medicine in some settings have fairly high level credentials to be a trade barrier to more affordable medical services for the poor. In India it seems more than 8 out of 10 people practicing as doctors are not doctors. This gives us an idea of how care might be delivered to the poor affordably under an "ideal free trade" situation. similarly water might be graded as to its purity rather than increasing environmental regulation to require water delived by a utility be safe. Similarly in India you can buy health insurance via a "cafeteria style" or a-la-carte plan where you select the diseases you want coverage for and pay for them individually. You may want coronavirus insurance but want to leave out other illnesses you think you dont care about.
Since capitalism is getting a lot of criticism these days as being incapable of solving the problems inherent to health care delivery you can see how these solutions that continue the current system as being pushed.
Its complicated. For example, there is a lot of pressure toi lower the bar for service providers to providing services internationally. (Sarcasm) "Would allowing "witch doctors" to practice medicine really be that bad, as they are the only doctors the poor in Africa can afford without higher pay?" (/Sarcasm -I dont mean this, its humor. They actually do have real doctors in Africa many of whom are very capable and provide world class services, in particualrly in services in certain areas, for example, for HIV patients. and others. )
At the end of the day, you can lead a horse to water but you cant make him drink. By subsuming the voter and voting system using global governance organizations like the WTO at a higher level, the neoliberals have won this round of the game by making local governments and their domestic regulation irrelevant. People should be aware of this and conserve their countries resources and energies to act where they could actually do good, (Geneva)
Good morning Lookout. Thanks for the WW.
Sadly, the news and propaganda stream is non unlike somebody threw a huge pile of garbage into a cross between a whirlpool and a macerating pump; an endless stream of a great variety of randomized bits and pieces of garbage. That may possibly be intentional, designed to create apathy , or that may be an unintended effect. And, who knows, that could even be a good thing if those in control don't exploit it. Heh.
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 --
That reminds me of John Prine's line...
"throw my brain in a hurricane"
from his song "Please don't bury me (in that cold, cold ground)".
Hope you're having a good day and pleasant weather.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
It is now 60, but wa 34 when I got up this am and for quite
a while thereafter.
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 --
Once again Ben & Jerrys gets it right. A stooge responds.
What a load...
...of CIA BS. Accusing Ben and Jerry of having blood on their hands because they are advocating for peace. Certainly most people can see it, but IDK?
Thanks for the tweets!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Afghanistan cost
A million dollars per year per troop.
If war is privatized, thats a real lot of profits.
I'm not sure at all how this is going to end
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/russia-might-invade-ukraine-soon-...
If I remember correctly the Georgia conflict started during the Socchi Olympics
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
be scared...very scared
We're talkin' Russkies here. You know they're gonna get you.
Plus the Crimea annex happened right after those Olympic if memory serves...
https://outride.rs/en/how-did-the-russians-take-over-crimea-a-report-aft...
Perhaps it was during the games?
wiki
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Yes
My daughter was going to college living on Capital hill with an energetic little old Rastafarian lady in her 70s who rented rooms to young people in one of those big old mansions. She worked evenings as a waitress about 4 blocks from home. She got off work and was walking home at about 10 when 2 cars of cops pulled up pulled guns on her, banged her up a bit and took her to jail. When I was called to drive 3 hours to get her out I was livid. She had been missing for nearly 2 days because they would not let her call anyone. They had also questioned her repeatedly about her activities with WTO which were none. She was still wearing her uniform complete with name tag. She had a black eye. They had cracked a couple of her ribs. They were still claiming she was a terrorist. Long story short A law suit was filed and she finished college on the City of Seattles dime. Though she still waited tables at the restaurant and lived in the same place.
That's a hell of a story...
Hope life turned out well for her despite the experience. A (painful) learning experience for all involved also. Thanks for sharing the story!
Hope all is well on the homestead.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Did they ever tell her WHY they were questioning her?
Sounds like they were the terrorizers in that situation.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14522540/
No
they police were pretty crazy during that WTO meeting that was less than stellar. My guess was her age and the curfew. The curfew started at 10 with exemptions for going to and from work. They never asked her why she was there. Just shoved her down and handcuffed her. I think just the mood and the scope of the protests were more than they bargained for or thought they could handle.
Medea has a good perspective...
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rpo-g3Mlc2M]
I hadn't even heard a peep about these antiwar rallies yesterday, but there are other upcoming rallies at the link.
https://www.codepink.org/02052022
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Very well done web site,radio fun, cheap thin client servers
Not many people realize that it costs almost nothing to build and serve a web site, if you are creative. The CodePink site doesnt use any super fancy or expensive tech, but it makes very effective use of the tools.
Speaking about cheap, good tech. Two ways to serve a decent web site for almost nothing are thin clients and Raspberry Pis.
I was a webmaster for many years - including in the very early days of the Web when powerful servers were hard to find and expensive. The tech organization I was with had an educational goal which we met very well and to do this we were very flexible and inventive We used Unix machines of every kind imaginable as web servers, and I was surprised how much performance we could get out of fairly modestly powered computers. Even the smallest machines of today are far beyond them and can serve a fairly large web site without missing a beat. Back then 512 MB was a lot of memory. A few weeks ago I bought a little tiny HP thin client. Its the second of these kinds of machines that I have. I run different versions and flavors of Linux or one of the BSDs on them. They work really well. If you want a small, power-efficient i386 or amd64 compatible machine you can find these thin clients on ebay for very very little. They run on just a few watts. Most can run on 12 volts. But this one that I got recently is fairly powerful, its clear. And it was sooo cheap. They are practically giving them away, its cheaper than a Raspberry Pi and because it runs standard amd64 software its basically capable of doing most things you would do with a standard desktop. They can even run a desktop flavor of Linux or even Windows.. (gag) You can buy them for $20-$30 or even less, if you look.
I am partial to AMD so I got one with a CPU similar to the Steamroller family of 64 bit AMD CPUs of several years ago. It has a AMD 64 bit dual core CPU with built in Radeon 3D graphics. So when running as a desktop it even has accelerated 3D. It can play Youtube videos without glitching. One could make a tiny, utterly silent, fanless HTPC. Or turn any monitor into a "smart TV" fairly easily using a HTPC distro and an ATSC dongle. You could play whatever off the network or external disk.
They make good firewall boxes or VOIP boxes.
Also, old wireless routers can run Linux under Open WRT which isnt just for router boxes. They can be used as small servers or application specific computers that stay on all the time and use practically no power. For example, they make good head end boxes for video cameras for security. Raspberry Pis Zeros have Wifi and use almost no power and just run forever.. have USB and a camera connector and the camera for them is often available for $5 online. With a program like Motion thyey make good security cameras. Have Motion boot up to a partition that they mount over the network and save the clips they capture to that. I had a home security setup before using a commercial PVR that had basically been maxed out its capabilities, but I needed two more cameras. (one is to monitor my power usage - for which I simply am using a video camera. I am using a raspberry pi that cost me $7 and a tiny camera that cost around $5, its an older camera model.. 1.3 Still quite decent picture. Would also make a good microscope cam for microscopy or parts inspection. The thin clients woud aloso make a great "CarPuter" Add a GPS and an SDR dongle (actually you can use an SDR dongle to receive GPS if its stable enough. if you add a LNA. You can also do Radio Astronomy. Yes, with an LNA you can make a radio Telecope, a real radio telescope. If you are willing to make a horn antenna yourself or repurpose a satellite dish. If you are a science teacher, these things are like gold. Kids eyes light up when they see what they can do. They want to learn how to do these things. Its really fun.
Okay, even just using a $35 raspberry pi, you can build practically any kind of tool you need or electronic device, if you can describe it you can build it. Its the ultimate swiss army knife of all time.
Say just digital photography on command, or video stuff, machine vision?
You can solve roblems in ways you never woud have been able to before, answeing all kinds of questions. using the Pi camera, I can get very high res images. Also its possible to, (although maybe not with a Raspberry Pi) after the camera captures an image - using various fairly esy to use machine vision tools, its possible to even (using ImageNet) describe them texttually,
This might involve a workflow that you might find yourself using for lots and lots of things.
You might, for example, Point the camera at the scene on the street in front of you a street that had a fair amount of traffic. and even ran alongside train tracks.. (lets say its in Palo Alto, CA.)
Left on, what might it see and recognize, and save to a file?.
Draw boxes around all the objects it recognizes and classify them.
The descriptions vary, the first time I did this several years ago frankly it was horrible, now its improved and become very good, quite usable. For example if trained on theiir images, it might tell you the names of people and cars it knows that it sees. "Bob" "carol" "Ted" "alice" "Alice's Corolla" "Bob's Prius" "CalTrain" (record when a train goes by) "the garbage truck" "man with leaf blower" "dog defecating"
identify all the faces in the picture, Name them if it recognizes them.
draw boxes around each of them, and assign each one a separate filename
save them each to an individual file,
then estimate the sex of each face's owner, and their approximate age
and some similar software attempts to ascertain "emotional states" (!),
and could probably trigger alarms if anybody looked particularly angry or happy.. perhaps query a database to see if there is any more info on them if some conditions were met..
do an estimation of the pose they are in, the way their body is posed.
Estimate their weight within a few pounds.
Sense any Bluetooth or other device mac address associated with their presence
The Pi camera does surprisingly well. It cost me a fraction of what it would have cost to build with commercial IP cameras, and its got more resolution and features than any of them.
Video cameras are extremely useful to do all sorts of things when paired with a library called Open CV. For example, you can turn a webcam image of an electric or gas meter into the data - visually reading the meter just like you do with your eyes, by training it how to read the meter. That way you can get the data out that went into the meter. Also most electric meters have some way of getting the data out electronically. One simple method which I have not tried yet, is sensing a blink of IR LED on the meter. Thats it, it blinks giving you the data of how much electricity has been used. Many electric meters are read by radio signals. The signals they emit can be received with an SDR dongle. (USB TV receivers that use the RTL2832 chip are wideband software defined receivers that can receive radio from 24 to over 1700 Mhz, basically replacing an entire rack of radio equipment. Many people have devices like weather stations that communicate via radio protocols. One of these $15 USB dongles can receive tons and tons of stuff including lots of machine to machine communication (no they cannot receive cell phones or DECT cordless phones) They can identify and decode around 100 different kinds of sensors and display or pipe to a file the data they are sending. They can receive fax-like APT images from 137 MHz weather satellite passes (with the right kind of antenna which you can build yourself..right handed circular polarization is required)
Using even a cheap dongle SDR people have been able to receive the ISS, and other spacecraft including telemetry data from orbiting satellites and other space vehicles of all kinds. Some easy, some quite difficult. One guy in Portugal was able to extract the signal of the Chinese Yutu lunar rover on the surface of the moon from his backyard setup. Which looked like a pile of junk. to my wife. Another guy was able to revive the transponder and hardware of a long dead satellite when after going far far away swang around the Earth on its return trip. He and his friends managed to convince NASA to let them set up in the long abandoned Mc Donalds at the NASA Ames Research Center (Moffet Field, CA) miraculously they were able to revive and interact with it. They used gnuradio to emulate the ancient equipment in software. By doing this they created a valuable model for collaboration between civilians with high radio literacy and NASA which let them extract useful data from a good example of an EOL satellite that had traveled millions of miles around the solar system, and still had data stored in it - a second harvest so to speak, an additional unexpected return on the initial investment. when it returned to near Earth orbit. Still, after all these years and miles, it was still Faithfully listening for its masters voice. Leave it to radio geeks to figure out a way to perform this kind of extraction in the future using super flexible software radio, without spending even a penny of taxpayers money,
Paying a contractor to do it would spend lots of money and offer no guarantee of success.. Also its a project that gets both school kids and "adult kids", excited about technology, that they can involve themselves in. paying a contractor likely would not give anybody this great opportunity to participate at all. Most would think they would only be in the way.
SO...SDR and Unix are both fun as well as super educational means to team up people and do lots of useful stuff.
What I was a kid, this is the kind of stuff my dreams were made out of. Start small, learn how to extract simple Manchester encoded weather data from cheap neighborhood weather sensors.
And then weather satellites when they fly over us several times a day. Extract pretty false color pictures..
Weather satellites, and lots of other satellites, space stations of various countries..are sending signals people can receive. The cheap SDR dongles replace what would have required lots of expensive equipment One can now, for almost nothing, receive hundreds of different kinds of signals, even shortwave if you get something called an up-converter. The up converter typically costs around $45. It may be a vehicle enabling access to endless HF (shortwave) content from all around the world. Including digital modes like telefax of various kinds.. Stuff intended for people on ships, in the middle of nowhere, where there is no Internet. Yes, it still is there. You can also listen to sailors and fishermen having conversations over single sideband, on boats as they sail around the seven seas. You can also listen to regular AM and FM. The FM can sometimes be very good. The audio quality is really quite good better than most peoples FM hardware. If you live on any kind of hill or have any kind of view, you might luck out and receive a spectacular variety of signals. I have a friend who lives high in the Berkeley hills near Grizzly Peak and thats what he has at home. He can receive tons and tons and tons of radio signals of all kinds.
Its important to realize that a software defined radio is something most people have never seen before. First thing to understand is that the dongle "receiver" just has a very simple function. Turning the radio signals into a stream of numbers going into your computer via the USB. Then to "listen" to the radio you use a piece of software that implements a software radio (or TV or whatever) Sounds very complicated but its actually easy and tons of fun. If you are traveling, for example, you can find out whats going on around you, which is useful.
They make a very visual shortwave or FM receiver, As each kind of signal has a characteristic appearance. The vertical axis is time and the horizontal axis is frequency so FM Am and single sideband each have very characteristic appearances. Each kind of digital signal looks different. The shortwave bands are incredibly busy with all kinds of signals from all around the world. (received using a piece of wire) I have a very nice old school stereo known for the quality of its FM tuner. (its an NAD receiver) and in comparison with my SDR dongle the two are roughly equivalent here in the NYC area. And the SDR really pulls in signals very well. There is also a program called gnuradio for radio experimenters and especially engineers. Which allows you to in a modular fashion, build your own kind of receivers, to receive anything you can describe by means of a pictorial flowchart. Yes, invent your own radio receivers to demodulate almost anything you can draw. If you are studying communications engineering this is like the biggest and best possible thing for learning. You can even turn Google Earth running on your computer into a 3D display of the aircraft flying within a ball of airspace around 100 miles of you, in 3D space. A digital 3D display of ADSB flight radar data like they have on FlightAware.com. You can also display AIS data, useful for boaters. Lots of college level engineering courses are based around these cheap dongles and smart faculty in colleges all around the world are taking advantage of this unanticipated use for an off the shelf consumer device that suddenly thre open the gates to radio, by accident!
If I was a college engineering prof, I would be jumping on things like this to teaching courses on digital signal processing and communications that leverage these $15 dongles and a $35 raspberry pi to teach the fundamentals of wireless radio communications.
You might consider writing us a tutorial series
You know flesh out one topic at a time. My computer skills are minimal.
Do you know any thing about mining bitcoin? That's one avenue which interests me. I have cheap TVA nuke power.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
GPU computing
You probably know more than I how the financials wok out vs. power used. Winter is the ideal time because the heat also warms you up.
Actually thinking about it, maybe not, it stresses my old hardware out too much. Its really laboring when I do anything of substance with my GPUs. It would likely burn out the setup I have now, which I cant afford to replace so I think I'll pass.
I love sharing my projects, when they are finished
Home projects, DIY, etc. My wife is into them too.
My kids
Turned out better than I dared to hope. I put great effort into making sure they had the soft skills for life that I thought would be important. They are both very resilient and maybe slightly to fearless. She spent her 48 hours conversing with others in lock up with her. It was a bit crowded as she wasn’t the only one they picked up. Some were actual participants in the protests. She even made a friend she has until this day. I spent the ride back to the Oly Pen hearing what she had learned about WTO. These days she is a regional manager for Starbucks. I have a son-in-law and a 4 year old grandson.
Someday, even if she wasnt actually protesting the WTO she'll
probably appreciate having learned very early that it was scary and bad and not at all what they pretend it is.
I have Michael Moore's insipid and stupid book "World Without Walls" right here. Its available for almost nothing, it must have been remaindered, and its worth reading, but not without some wisdom on the aims of the WTO which are literally the theft of the world and its future to stifle democracy which they see as a threat to the global corporate plunder they feel is their entitlement. Read if to gain some insight into what ideological gyrations it must have taken for a former self-described Labor party member in New Zealand to become the Director General of this.. ugly thing..
The implications of some of the things he says is kind of scary. Ive explained it here before. It reminds me of doomsday cults that convince themselves that they are helping others by destroying the world they live in to create a new one that fits their agenda. He uses scary language evocative of "purification" by fire..
He illustrates the book with snapshots of the demonstrators (glaring at him) that he shot in Seattle.
Some would be funny I suppose if you saw things his way, but I don't.
the setting made it quite unfunny. This is the real world we live in, its not all a joke..
So glad to hear of young folks success
Congrats to you, your daughter, SiL, and grandchild.
Take care out on the left coast. We're still huddling in the holler.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Hey LO!
I did a brief check on Big Bend birding opportunities. Spring is best, Aug.-early Sept. is second best.
One of the remaining places in Texas I have never seen is Big Bend. The reason is it will take me 2 days driving, or airport to airport then rental all day. [Um, Texas is enormous.]
Just to be aware, when driving, keep your fuel tank full. Refill at every opportunity. I have heard many horror stories of people being stranded when they ran out of gas.
I have done some research, had sort of planned a trip in my head.
Will you be staying in motels or glamping or camping?
I have many friends who said it was a very cool adventure.
I hope war will not, just this once, be the solution. The Final Solutions is a crappy outcome.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
My plan...
is to fly into El Paso and start at Carlsbad Caverns and the Guadalupe NP. Then go to a couple of your state parks, https://tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/balmorhea and https://tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/indian-lodge which is near the https://mcdonaldobservatory.org/visitors.
Then head down to Big Bend NP as well as https://tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/big-bend-ranch
A two-three week trip with a focus on birding and experiencing a very different ecosystem.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Thanks for the lookout
on weekly coming and goings.
I’m glad that here we don’t casually expel or suspend people, and that JtC doesn’t liberally ban people.
Your question about whoopi’s statement makes me wonder where you went to high school. Even if you weren’t able to identify the jewish students because of their diversity, I wonder whether others could. My educational experience was limited to the NE where the convergence of diversified cultures also met, and possibly more clearly identified?
hey, janis b!
I am Texan, land of Southern Baptists, had exactly one Jew in my community in my life, up until a handful moved into town a couple of decades ago.
In University, I was taught Jews were a tribal religious group, or anyone practicing Judaism. No regard to race at all. Jews as a race was news to me when I was maybe in my 50s. All the Jews I had ever met up to that point were non-practicing, or Christians who had converted. My best friend for a decade, until she died, called herself a non-practicing Jew. I always thought of it as a religious practice, not race.
If Whoopi, not a person I particularly admire, made a mistake, I would have made the same mistake myself.
I would never intentionally offend a Jew, but just might due to misunderstanding.
I try to avoid the mention, even now, with one of my best pals being a Christian, but born to Jewish parents.
I liken it to the time I thought "tranny" was a positive, only to find out it was a slur. I do not live in the realm of transgenders, do not know what words and phrases to use. Same way with Jews.
To each his own, and everyone should go their own way.
Hope NZ is and will always be the most gorgeous country on earth.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Thank you OtC, for your personal reflections
I appreciate and grow in understanding from yours and others experiences and stories.
From my own limited experience, I feel that ones identification as Jewish is primarily a cultural identification, while religion and race is a secondary one.
I have met people here who were born in Europe to Jewish parents shortly before the war, and as children and young adults were afforded safe passage out, but still who are not comfortable identifying as jews. Why they continue to distance themselves from their origins in a country that offered them security and safety is still a mystery to me.
I doubt we will ever feel confident in what we identify with as long as society demands taking sides.
I couldn't think of the term cultural...
all I could come up with was ethnic. My Birmingham HS was in a Jewish community and all three branches reform, orthodox, and conservative were represented. None the less we had very little education about any religion. I remember a tattooed holocaust survivor came and spoke with our history class.
I'm not a religious person, spiritual perhaps, but not religious. However I am tolerant and accepting of any and all belief sets with which people identify (as long as they don't impose on others).
My Whoopi remarks came about because it was such an big story in the states. When I learned the rationale for her suspension I was shocked. I thought she had denied the Holocaust or something.
Hope all is well in NZ and your entry into fall is lovely!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”