The Evening Blues - 5-3-23
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features classic Stax soul singers Sam & Dave. Enjoy!
Sam & Dave - Soul Man
"The U.S. victory in Gulf War was a stirring victory for the forces of aggression."
-- Dan Quayle
News and Opinion
Using Poison in Ukraine’s Depleted Hope of Victory
Depleted uranium shells have been sent to Ukraine, as confirmed by U.K. Armed Forces Minister James Heappey last week. Britain announced last month that it would send the munitions for use with Challenger 2 tanks, a move that immediately escalated nuclear tensions with Russia, with President Vladimir Putin threatening to place tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus just days later. The U.K. move comes amid indications that Kiev is increasingly desperate, to the point of being willing to risk scorching the earth it is fighting for. ...
It is an example of Ukraine’s willingness to target the ethnic Russian population in eastern Ukraine and poison the land it is attempting to retain. Depleted uranium will have effects not only on Russian fighters but also on the civilian population for years to come. ...
Former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter commented on the news of depleted uranium rounds being sent to Ukraine by citing increases in leukemia where it had previously been used in Kosovo as well as increases in birth defects and cancer in Iraq following the wars there. He argues that the U.S. suppresses the health effects of depleted uranium “because we don’t want to take ownership for what we have done.” ...
When Ukraine is already set to lose, if slowly, on the battlefield, what is to be gained by taking out a few more Russian tanks if it permanently renders the land a danger to its inhabitants, permeated with toxic dust particles of radioactive heavy metal? How can this decision be viewed as anything but a spiteful admission that that land is being lost, and that “salting” it is a final act of malice against ethnic Russians in Donbass?
The use of depleted uranium munitions in Ukraine amounts to a last-gasp of desperation and an attempt to contaminate territory Kiev knows it will not regain, for such weapons would not be supplied by Britain and used by Ukraine on land they were confident they would recapture.
Russia Says UKRAINE Behind Drone Assassination Attempt On Putin
Drones hit Kremlin, targeting Putin. Russia warns retaliation. Elensky hiding out in Helsinki.
Ukraine forms eight new ‘storm’ brigades for counterattack
Eight new Ukrainian brigades of soldiers have been formed to take part in a future counteroffensive amid growing speculation about its timing and whether it can succeed in inflicting a serious defeat on the Russian invaders.
The Ukrainian interior ministry said on Tuesday it had “fully formed” the initial “storm” brigades, comprising up to 40,000 troops, but added they would need further training before being ready to take part in fighting.
Ihor Klymenko, the interior minister, said in an interview the troops would be re-equipped and the instruction process would take another two to three weeks before they could be tasked with “appropriate offensive assault operations” alongside the Ukrainian army.
Questions had been raised about how successful the recruitment process had been for the storm force, amid concern that the pool of Ukrainians willing to fight was diminishing as the war reaches the 15-month mark.
Both sides remain engaged in attritional fighting across the eastern front, particularly around Bakhmut, where Ukraine retains a foothold, despite nearly a year of Russian attacks in and around the small industrial city.
“Peace Is A Trap!” Says U.S. Secretary Of State
US hosts Armenia-Azerbaijan peace talks
The United States hosted negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan on Monday, seeking to quell recent tension over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.
The two sides have gone to war twice, in 1990 and 2020, leaving tens of thousands dead, and clashes regularly erupt over the territory, an Armenian-majority region inside Azerbaijan.
Tensions have spiked again this week after Azerbaijan announced it had set up a checkpoint on the Lachin Corridor, the only land link between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, sparking an angry response from Yerevan.
Armenia views the move as a violation of the cease-fire negotiated between the two sides.
Macron's troubles continue. France rating downgrade
Arab Ministers Call for Syria to Regain Control of Its Territory
The foreign ministers of Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Egypt met in Amman on Monday to discuss a solution to the crisis in Syria in the latest step towards Damascus fully normalizing with regional countries.
The ministers released a joint statement expressing support for Syria to regain control of all of its territory, which includes the area of eastern Syria occupied by US forces.
According to the statement, the ministers agreed to work to “support Syria and its institutions in any legitimate efforts to extend its control over its lands and impose the rule of law, and end the presence of armed and terrorist groups on Syrian lands, and stop foreign interference in Syrian internal affairs.”
‘Godfather of AI’ Geoffrey Hinton quits Google and warns over dangers of misinformation
The man often touted as the godfather of AI has quit Google, citing concerns over the flood of misinformation, the possibility for AI to upend the job market, and the “existential risk” posed by the creation of a true digital intelligence. Dr Geoffrey Hinton, who with two of his students at the University of Toronto built a neural net in 2012, quit Google this week, as first reported by the New York Times.
Hinton, 75, said he quit to speak freely about the dangers of AI, and in part regrets his contribution to the field. He was brought on by Google a decade ago to help develop the company’s AI technology, and the approach he pioneered led the way for current systems such as ChatGPT. He told the New York Times that until last year he believed Google had been a “proper steward” of the technology, but that changed once Microsoft started incorporating a chatbot into its Bing search engine, and the company began becoming concerned about the risk to its search business.
Some of the dangers of AI chatbots were “quite scary”, he told the BBC, warning they could become more intelligent than humans and could be exploited by “bad actors”. “It’s able to produce lots of text automatically so you can get lots of very effective spambots. It will allow authoritarian leaders to manipulate their electorates, things like that.” But, he added, he was also concerned about the “existential risk of what happens when these things get more intelligent than us.
“I’ve come to the conclusion that the kind of intelligence we’re developing is very different from the intelligence we have,” he said. “So it’s as if you had 10,000 people and whenever one person learned something, everybody automatically knew it. And that’s how these chatbots can know so much more than any one person.”
He is not alone in the upper echelons of AI research in fearing that the technology could pose serious harm to humanity. Last month, Elon Musk said he had fallen out with the Google co-founder Larry Page because Page was “not taking AI safety seriously enough”. Musk told Fox News that Page wanted “digital superintelligence, basically a digital god, if you will, as soon as possible”.
Debt Ceiling: Economist James K. Galbraith Warns GOP Proposal Would Gut Social Safety Net
New Documents Undermine Supreme Court Student Debt Case
Newly unearthed documents show a major student loan servicer is projecting revenue increases even under President Joe Biden’s debt cancellation plan — directly undermining the argument Republican officials are making in their lawsuit to block the measure. But conservative justices on the Supreme Court appear prepared to strike down the debt relief program anyways, disregarding the evidence and their own legal theories to fulfill the wishes of the dark money network that helped build their Supreme Court supermajority.
At issue is the concept of “standing” — a legal term for who is allowed to bring a case to the judiciary. For years, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has consistently shut down cases they don’t like by insisting that plaintiffs are unharmed and therefore do not have standing to be in court. However, in Republicans’ current case attempting to block student debt relief, the same conservative justices are ignoring financial records refuting any claims of harm from the proposal.
Internal records from the Missouri student loan servicer that Republican states are arguing would be harmed by Biden’s plan show the entity has actually seen a massive revenue increase in recent years that is projected to continue even if debt relief goes into effect.
“There has been no fact-finding, no discovery, [and] the case was rushed forward using a rare procedure,” said Astra Taylor, a co-founder of the Debt Collective, a debtors’ union which unearthed the new documents. “We are a very small group, we are half volunteers, and we are doing the court’s homework, we are doing the government’s work in finding these facts. And they are not ambiguous.”
A key legacy of Chief Justice John Roberts’ tenure on the court has been limiting access to the court through a narrow definition of standing.
AOC says Feinstein’s refusal to retire is ‘causing great harm’ to US courts
The New York progressive congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said on Monday that the California Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein should retire, amid a long absence from Congress due to ill health which has affected their party’s efforts to stock federal courts with liberal judges.
Feinstein, 89, “should retire”, Ocasio-Cortez – 33 and commonly known as AOC – wrote on the social media platform Bluesky.
She added: “I think criticisms of that stance as ‘anti-feminist’ are a farce.”
Prominent Democrats including the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi and the New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand have labeled calls for Feinstein to quit sexist, because men in similar positions would not face such pressure.
Others have pushed back.
Ex-officer Preston Hemphill won’t be charged in Tyre Nichols killing
The former Memphis police officer Preston Hemphill will not be charged over the killing of Tyre Nichols, who was beaten to death by five officers in January.
In a statement on Tuesday, a spokesperson for the Shelby county district attorney, Steve Mulroy, said Hemphill “did not pursue Tyre Nichols and never left the initial scene” of the traffic stop which preceded the beating, but “was not present for the later beating incident”.
In February, Memphis police fired Hemphill, making him the sixth officer terminated over Nichols’s death.
The district attorney’s office added Hemphill, who is white, to a so-called “Giglio list”, compiled by prosecutors and police departments to contain “the names and details of law enforcement officers who have had sustained incidents of untruthfulness, criminal convictions, and other issues – placing their credibility into question”.
Five officers, all Black, have been charged with second-degree murder in connection to Nichols’s death. More than a dozen police and fire personnel have also been charged.
Gordon Lightfoot, Canadian singer-songwriter, dies aged 84
The Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot, best known for folk-pop hits such as If You Could Read My Mind and The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, has died at the age of 84, his family has announced.
His longtime publicist Victoria Lord said Lightfoot died at a Toronto hospital on Monday evening.
Once called a “rare talent” by Bob Dylan, dozens of artists have covered Lightfoot’s work, including Elvis Presley, Barbra Streisand, Harry Belafonte, Johnny Cash, Anne Murray, Jane’s Addiction and Sarah McLachlan.
Prosecutors NEAR Decision On Hunter Biden Charges; Will Child Support Case REOPEN A 'Pandora's Box'?
Green investment funds pushing money into fossil fuel firms, research finds
Investment funds branded as green or socially responsible are being used by some of the world’s largest asset managers to invest hundreds of millions of pounds in fossil fuel companies, according to a report.
The research by the Common Wealth thinktank showed that the US fund managers BlackRock and State Street and the UK-based Legal & General were among asset managers to use funds with an “environment, social and governance” (ESG) label to invest in fossil fuel firms.
The leftwing thinktank said that despite claims that ESG funds offer a green and socially responsible option for investors, “the research shows these funds are significantly exposed to fossil fuel companies”.
Between February and April this year, BlackRock, State Street and Legal & General alone were found to hold $1bn (£800m) in bonds issued by fossil fuel companies in their ESG funds.
Research by Sophie Flinders, a data analyst, found that more broadly ESG funds had invested more than $1.5bn in the bonds of top coal, oil and gas companies – raising questions about sustainability claims made by asset managers.
Many Europeans want climate action – but less so if it changes their lifestyle, shows poll
Many Europeans are alarmed by the climate crisis and would willingly take personal steps and back government policies to help combat it, a survey suggests – but the more a measure would change their lifestyle, the less they support it. The seven-country YouGov survey tested backing for state-level climate action, such as banning single-use plastics and scrapping fossil-fuel cars, and individual initiatives including buying only secondhand clothes and giving up meat and dairy products.
The responses, from the UK, France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Spain and Italy, suggested many people were happy with measures that would not greatly affect the way they lead their lives, but bigger steps that may be necessary were unpopular. Large majorities in all the countries surveyed – ranging from 60% in Sweden, 63% in Germany and 65% in the UK to 77% in Spain, 79% in France and 81% in Italy – said they were very or fairly worried about climate change and its effects. ...
Measures entailing no great lifestyle sacrifice were popular, with between 45% (Germany) and 72% (Spain) backing government tree-planting programmes and 60% (Spain) and 77% (UK) saying they would grow more plants themselves or were doing so already. Between 40% (Denmark) and 56% (UK, Spain and Italy) of respondents would happily never buy products made of single-use plastic again, while between 63% (Sweden) and 75% (Spain) would support a government ban on them. ...
Even more radical proposals, such as voluntarily eating no more meat and dairy and having fewer children than you would like, were supported by between barely 10% (Germany) and 19% (Italy), and 9% (Germany) and 17% (Italy) respectively. Changes in car use, a major contributor to carbon emissions and an area in which many European governments are already legislating, also drew responses that showed a close correlation to the impact they might have on people’s lives.
Asked whether they would be willing to switch to an electric car, an average of just under a third of respondents across the seven countries surveyed – ranging from 19% in Germany through 32% in Denmark to 40% in Italy – answered positively.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
Ukraine SitRep: Offensive In Doubt - No Talks - Social Breakdown
Ukrainian banker offers cash for drone terror in Russia
It’s Good When Idols Get Knocked Off Pedestals: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
Amnesty International criticised for using AI-generated images
‘Not just a problem of science’: how the environmental crisis is also cultural
FBI & Ukraine Work Together To Censor Americans’ Social Media
A Little Night Music
Sam & Dave - I Thank You
Sam & Dave - Soothe Me
Sam & Dave - Wrap It Up
Sam & Dave - Sweet Pains
Sam & Dave - You Don't Know Like I Know
Sam & Dave - Said I Wasn't Gonna Tell Nobody
Sam & Dave - May I Baby
Sam & Dave - Rich Kind Of Poverty
Sam & Dave - Hold On! I'm a Comin'
Sam & Dave - Gimme Some Lovin'
Comments
Consequences of drone attack on Moscow.
https://ua.usembassy.gov/security-alert-heightened-threat-of-missile-att...
Unconfirmed reports.
evening humphrey...
heh, if i were elensky, i would be looking for a hidey hole and/or asylum in the west. i can't imagine that this will go without an answer and the answer is unlikely to be pleasant.
Paging Janet Yellen!
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/yellen-downplays-banking-woes-says-world-eco...
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/pacwest-is-weighing-strategic-options-includ...
heh...
yellen and all of the other banksters will continue to pretend that everything is fine until the whole thing crashes and her bankster buddies get to cash in again, just like in 2008.
So exlensky is skulking around undercover while UKIE burns
and bore us Yellen says everything is cool with the economy
If you could read my mind ..
go lightly mr. gordon
sundown is another great one
question everything
evening qms...
thanks for the tune! lightfoot is a fond memory from the folk boom era.
have a great evening!
Can someone dumb this down for me?
.
I don’t understand why the government doesn’t just take over the banks that fail instead of helping bigger banks take them over. Remember that we were told during the last economic crisis that banks were too big to fail so why are they making them even bigger?
Would this have been avoided if the fed was still throwing billions into the banks like they have since 9/2019 if not since the last time the economy collapsed? Did the fed just buy some time before this happened and so lots of rich people could get richer? I’ve followed the links and I’m still lost.
Shoutout to gjohnsit…hope you are doing well and will be back soon to explain this exciting time.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
Well it sure looks like it is!
I’ve read that just before every economic crisis the fed was fiddling with interest rates and then BOOM. Lots of pain and misery for everyone who didn’t see it coming. And then those rich bastards got even richer because they could buy everything at low prices. So yes I certainly do find the manipulation guilty.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
They don't
care. They already got theirs- that was baked into the contract when they became the rulers of the world.
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
evening snoopy...
think of it as wealth concentration gone wild. the fed has decided that the little people are too damned demanding and the fed is going to kick them in the shorts until the little people become docile or the fed managers legs get too tired to kick anymore.
meanwhile, the owners have decided that they want moar. they are going to take it at all opportunities. they are going to raise rents (rents used as an economic term for the grift that rentiers take in) until a bit past the point where it is no longer profitable to, but to the point that they get no additional pleasure from watching the pain they are causing.
banks will crash and the owners will cash in, the government will give them truckloads of money to stabilize a declining pool of people's assets and they will build more space ships.
A few reasons --
The two most important are the need to continue operations ASAP and minimize the loss. The FDIC doesn't have the manpower nor the cash to step in and run the bank. They do have teams that can within a few days do a preliminary audit of the loan portfolio and an estimate of the loss to the FDIC if operations continue as normal. IOW continue the deposits, withdrawals, and loan collection services. A few large banks have demonstrated their ability to seamlessly add what are essentially additional branch offices virtually overnight.
The FSLIC learned the hard way the high cost of simply shutting a bank, paying off the depositors, and collecting on the loans. It required an act of Congress (very slow) to authorize funding. Since it was a temporary job, they had to pay a premium for those hired and the applicants were from the mediocre banking talent pool. A high percentage of the loan assets were junk.
From a psychological/sociological perspective -- what's the first response from depositors when they hear their bank is in trouble? Bank run. Makes a bad situation much worse. It's why the FDIC must act quickly to prevent it and not inconvenience depositors for more than a few days. On the other side of the balance sheet are the borrowers. Their first response is not to make their loan payments and hope the FDIC will forgive the principal as happened in S&L meltdown with funds from the Federal Treasury. No such notion takes hold when the bank continues operating under a new ownership.
The FDIC retains the rights of the collapsed bank under its D&O liability and Bankers Blanket Bond coverages. It takes some time to assess D&O failures and embezzlement losses.
Yes, the FDIC SOP for bank failures does increase the banking industry oligopoly, but the FDIC didn't create that condition. It was the Clinton administration, banksters, and mostly Republicans that "modernized" banking in the 1990s. That destroyed the banking regulatory system that had worked well for sixty years.
Thank you
I did know that we can thank Clinton for what has been happening since 200u and that congress had the chance to reinstall laws to keep the economic crisises from happening again with Dodd-Frank which might have helped if they hadn’t watered it down again first chance they got.
One question unanswered is whether the fed had continued with the repo loans would today be happening? And how much did Trump add to this when he got the fed to lower interest rates? Isn’t that a big part of the problem with the fed now raising it so high? The banks can’t cover higher interest rates?
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
Fed Repo Loans are
outside my working knowledge and would take me some time to research. So, I can't answer your question.
The Federal Reserve Board of Governors does not answer to the POTUS. So, regardless of what's in his pea-brain, Trump did not get the Fed to lower interest rates. That doesn't mean that the Fed, and particularly the Chair, are apolitical. What I know is that there has been one excellent Chair - Marriner Eccles 1934-1948 and at least two bad ones Volcker and Greenspan. Of those two Greenspan was the worst. In part because his tenure was twice as long and in part because he was in the seat when he could weaponize the repeal of Glass-Steagall. The 2008 banking crisis was apparent to observers in 2006 when Greenspan left office.
Hola y'all. It's the third of May.
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 --
evening el...
heh, perhaps a good day for the french to reflect on the high cost and tremendous obnoxiousness of french dictators.
Indeed. As I recall, the Spaniards aren't all that happy
With the current sanctions + Ukie war situation. Just a coincidence, but the whole EU thing is starting to look a little bit rocky of late.
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 --
Bagdad Bob would be proud of her.
I can't imagine that anybody in that room or anywhere else
expected any other type of response.
be ell 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 --
heh...
makes you want to throw a shoe.
China has a new feature in China Daily News
China is making the case to the world that the United States is functionally insane.
https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/62a0597aa310fd2b29e61770
Clinically speaking, this has been true of the deep state warriors for years and years, in dozens of different ways. In its madness, the US roams the World, inflicting tragedy and death upon civilians in nations that resist US rulership — but the American people, who are kept largely in the dark, have never raised the alarm about this. Perhaps the people's 'consent' to these atrocities have held the world back from treating this global threat for what it is. There is nothing remotely normal or sane about US behavior in the world. If the US reaction to the so-called "Spy Balloon" didn't send a thrill of fear down your spine, then you may be suffering the effects of abused-citizen syndrome. I'm pretty sure the US has a massive case of Suicide-by-Cop.
The US appears to be willing (and likely ready) to take down the whole planet, if it can't be the nuclear-armed Dictator of the World. US leaders project tremendous evil upon their rivals, and have frightened themselves nearly to death with their own narratives. But to me, these rivals look a lot like UN Peacekeepers. In fact, for decades that's been a full-time job for China's military. And Russia has saved many lives and averted catastrophe by running interference against the US. Like that time that the US 'Red Line was crossed' by their own false-flag chemical weapon attacks in Syria. More than once Russia has taken the heat to protect lives in the Middle East, where they are not at war with anyone. For all those reasons, I fear that there is no one out there prepared to confront the towering madness of the White-House Neocons, who are weaponizing Mutually Assured Destruction to get their way.
evening pluto...
i've been saying for years that our ruling class is a death cult. these people have no use for a world that they cannot have full spectrum dominance in and will indeed blow it up if they can rather than allow a more distributed form of governance.
the other problem they have is knowing when they've won. they are playing a game to hog all of the things on the planet that can be hoarded including the things that others need to survive and they have to figure out what winning means in practical terms.
Another example of insanity
The US Air Force has retreated from Taiwan without a shot fired
American squadrons are pulling out of the Western Pacific. This is a grave error
David Axe 5.3
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the-us-air-force-has-retreated-from...
This is the biggest pile of bs. Who believes this kind of crap? First of all, trillions have been wasted on unnecessary elective wars against third rate powers for decades. There is an opportunity cost for waging war when you don't have to. What does that mean? You'll never recover those resources or the putative benefits the dishonest advocates of war contended, forever. I'm sure that a finite number of special interests with infinite appetites made plenty of money having the national treasury send trillions their way, but was it in the interest of the nation's future? No, not at all. In fact, some people had to know this at the policy level, but ignored it in the interest of the fast buck. It harmed our national security. Not only did our leaders destroy other countries on pretexts, they ruined our own society. The system simultaneously weakened our ability to defend ourselves while alienating the rest of the world.
Why are US weapons programs always overly complex, incompletely conceived, infinitely complicated? For much the same reason - the fast buck for the too big to fail weapons systems manufacturers and the bankers that invest in them. More bells, more whistles, more super wazoo tech innovations that will "give us full spectrum dominance in the battlespace." Wow, what a super commercial for your brand. What do you get? The F-35 and the littoral combat ship. Both massive failures in terms of cost effectiveness, reliability, and readiness. The opportunity cost of the F-35 was enormous? Who's fault was that? China's? Russia? This is absurd.
Trying to provoke or scare up even more military threats is the proposed course to justify bleeding the nation (and our "allies") white for the military industrial congressional complex and their servant institutions and agencies. They can't change course because it's a system of graft and patronage on autopilot. The nation began rotting from the inside out decades ago. After Vietnam, some made an effort to get the so called national security sector under control, but their purpose which had merit, was labeled "Vietnam war hangover," something that needed to be overcome. The PTB kept dreaming up reasons of why they needed more wars even after the old Russian led Warsaw Pact collapsed. The "war on terror." They rode that horse for all it was worth to make themselves as wealthy as the gods, but now the old nag is ready for pasture, and can't carry another rider. Too bad, so sad.
So what's their solution? More money, more war talk, more sensible, reliable, cheaper weapons. We'll do it better next time. Guess what? There is no next time. Defense economics 101.The constant war policy and procurement corruption has strategically weakened the country. Yet the country's political institutions are incapable of change because they are on the take. The corruption is institutionalized. It look's irrational, and insane to outsiders, because it is. Chinese aggression? LOL. The US is a danger to itself and others.
語必忠信 行必正直
That's a good example, Soryang
....and, really, the only possible explanation:
"Defense economics" has been referenced lately in a number essays and reports in my reading. It's a concept I haven't given much thought to, but of course it's key to a comprehensive security effort. After reading criticisms about the perils of badly managed defense economics, some pretty obvious disconnects have suddenly popped into focus for me. We grew up with the US being the biggest "this" and having the largest "that" — and being exceptional and the "best" and having the "most" of anything you can think of. Except in one area:
Why wasn't I more alarmed that the US was spending 10 or 20 times more on defense that other large nations? This is a profoundly disturbing distortion that has money laundering written all over it! Year after year. And why is the Pentagon and military completely incapable of bookkeeping and comprehensive accounting? Why is it impossible for them to audit their spending and cash flow? How can they possibly misplace $11 trillion dollars? This should have stopped the nation in its tracks and set off every alarm! And why has the US lost every war it participated in since World War !!? How is it even statistically possible to lose 100 percent of the time? Who, besides the American People, have been picking up the entire tab for all US defense spending? Who, besides the Peoples' children and their descendants, is personally obligated to pay the debts created by the Pentagon? The corruption that created the Congressional millionaires and billionaires is among the dirtiest wealth in the world.
Why is it that the American People legally entitled to fewer than one-third of the 30 Human Rights unanimously declared at the United Nations in 1948, and subsequently ratified by all Member Nations?
Who knows if the American People even know or care about these betrayals and the harm done to the most vulnerable in their society? The People have been in a political coma since the Civil War. They will not fight for their rights, or yours, or even the rights of their children. Their life expectancy has turned a corner and will slowly slide lower from human rights denied, from protections revoked through environmental deregulation and financial deregulation, from the horrors of justice denied, and from religious dogma and superstitious prejudice that is codified into the rule of law. Their indecipherable, 18th-century Constitution will not rescue them and their faux democracy ignores the will of the People and offers no direct mechanism for political change.
The only way to win is not to waste precious time playing the game. Whatever that may entail.
Hi bluesters
Hi all, Hey Joe! Hope it's all swell out there!
Man Sam and Dave were great, eh? What a bunch of absolutely outstanding songs. The level of covering of them by other great artists says it all. That Ed Sullivan show footage is great, those horn guys! That was a pretty good band they had behind them on those Stax records, they coulda been something.
I think Blinken has reached peak war monger level 10 when you excitedly exclaim whilst freaking out, that the peace is a trap!
My guess is much of the green investment will turn out to be greenwashing at the level of carbon capture, carbon credits, clean coal, recycling, and so on.
One does not poison land with radioactivity if one plans on returning to and using it. I would have thought Blackrock, ConAgri, and or whoever bought all that Ukie ag land would have nixed the idea. Perhaps maps have been provided to direct where not to poison. Good first act King Charles. He is going to be the green king, doncha know? Do they mean like a radioactive glow maybe?
The people here in America would do anything to save the environment, as long as they did not have to change anything. Especially buying gas guzzling oversized trucks for oversized prices, to hang their truck nuts on. Did ya hear since those trucks were not born with those, they are trans-trucks? I will get someone else go tell that big dude with the tats and guns that...
Thanks for the awesome soundscape Joe! And the Be Bop Deluxe on Saturday!
Have a good one!
Have good ones all!
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
evening dystopian...
yep, sam and dave had some great songwriters, too. classics!
heh, you practically expect blinkiman to rhetorically ask, "where is the profit in peace?" as if it means something. which of course is somewhat the same problem with green solutions, if they can't save the habitat and make a bunch of oligarchs even richer, then why do them?
have a great evening!
Sam and Dave
were not only some of my favorites, but also favorites my parents, one born in 1920, the other in 1921. They always evolved.
Can't count how many times the family broke out dancing in the living room.
Thanks for all that you do, joe. You are just all that, my friend!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
This could be an interesting video. Looking forward to it.
FWIW Not confirmed!