The Evening Blues - 6-28-23
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features blues musician Ike Turner. Enjoy!
Ike Turner, Carlson Oliver & Little Ann - Box Top
"Totalitarianism is never content to rule by external means, namely, through the state and a machinery of violence; thanks to its peculiar ideology and the role assigned to it in this apparatus of coercion, totalitarianism has discovered a means of dominating and terrorizing human beings from within."
-- Hannah Arendt
News and Opinion
Liberals Are Tyrannical Imperialists: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
The powerful haven’t been promoting the idea that control of speech is needed because they want to stop viruses, protect marginalized groups, fight foreign influence and curb domestic extremism. They’ve been pushing for control of speech because they want to control speech.
It’s a well-established fact at this point that western government bodies have been doing everything they can to infiltrate and influence Silicon Valley platforms where people gather to share ideas and information, because they understand that narrative control is real power.
Speech hasn’t gotten any more dangerous lately, yet control of speech by government and government-adjacent bodies has gotten more and more normalized in recent years. Every excuse to expand this control has been seized upon by those in power, from Russian bots to January 6 to Covid. The window of what constitutes “shouting fire in a crowded theater” keeps getting deliberately broadened in mainstream liberal consciousness, which liberals accept because it’s framed by empire propagandists as a weapon that can be used against the political enemies of liberals.
Western liberals are in effect being offered a political bribe by the empire: support the restrictions on political speech we are constantly pushing for, and it will undermine the interests of your political rivals. This bribery has made “liberals” far more tyrannical. Liberals play along because they’ve been convinced at every opportunity that restricting speech is the best way to fight hate, right wing extremism, health misinformation and malign foreign influence, but in so doing they’re supporting the most tyrannical regime on earth.
So now we’re in this bizarre situation where being “liberal” effectively means supporting censorship to silence your political enemies for the benefit of the most murderous and tyrannical people on this planet.
Tucker, free Gonzalo. Kramatorsk tragedy, fog of war. NYT, Surovikin knew. Stealing from Lavra.
Fresh off The Guardian's propaganda catapult:
Belarusian leader confirms arrival of exiled Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin
The Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin flew into exile in Belarus on his private jet on Tuesday, as Moscow claimed the paramilitary force had agreed to hand over its weapons after the group’s failed insurrection. ...
Earlier on Tuesday, Russia’s FSB security service dropped charges against participants in the Wagner group’s failed insurrection as part of a deal negotiated by the Belarusian dictator and Vladimir Putin that involved the warlord moving to Belarus.
Speaking in front of the country’s officials, Lukashenko said that he had offered Wagner troops an “abandoned base” in Belarus. “Set up your tents … We can help in any way we can,” Lukashenko said, adding that Belarus should not be scared of Prigozhin’s soldiers, whom he described as “the most prepared unit in the Russian army” in an apparent dig at Moscow.
Lukashenko also gave his behind-the-scenes account of Saturday’s negotiation talks, claiming that he had talked Putin out of killing Prigozhin.
Lukashenko also told his defence minister that Wagner soldiers could provide the country “priceless” information about warfare. “If their commanders come to us and help us … They will tell us about weapons: which worked well, and which did not. And tactics … how to attack, how to defend … This is what we can get from Wagner,” the Belarusian dictator said.
Wagner Will Continue Mali, C.Africa Operations: Lavrov
The Wagner mercenary group will continue operations in Mali and the Central African Republic despite its leader’s aborted insurrection over the weekend, Russia’s foreign minister said on Monday.
Wagner members “are working there as instructors. This work, of course, will continue,” Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with the RT outlet.
Lavrov said Europe and France in particular had “abandoned” the two African countries, which had, in turn, asked Russia and Wagner to provide military instructors and “to ensure the security of their leaders.”
Woman Who Destroyed Ukraine Gets PROMOTED At State Department!
US Official Says Ukraine Has Lost 15% of Its Bradley Fighting Vehicles
Ukraine has lost over 15 percent of the Bradley fighting vehicles that the US has provided, a US military official told The New York Times in an article published on Monday.
The article detailed how Ukraine was struggling to make gains in its counteroffensive that was launched about three weeks ago due to heavy minefields laid by Russian forces and other stiff resistance.
The report reads: “The fierce resistance has taken a toll on Ukraine’s weaponry. The United States committed 113 Bradley fighting vehicles in March. At least 17 of them — more than 15 percent — have been damaged or destroyed in the fighting so far, the official said.”
Elections in Greece, left collapses. Elections in Germany, AfD surges.
French Police Shooting: Outrage after police fatally shoot 17-year-old in Paris Suburb
Tensions mount in Paris after boy, 17, fatally shot by police officer
A French police officer is being investigated for homicide over the fatal shooting a 17-year-old boy in the Paris suburb of Nanterre after he failed to comply with an order to stop his car, the local prosecutor’s office said.
The officer fired at the boy, who subsequently died from his wounds, the Nanterre prosecutor’s office said on Tuesday. A video shared on social media shows two police officers beside the car, a Mercedes AMG, one of whom shoots as the driver pulls away.
Sporadic clashes broke out between youths and police on Tuesday evening as anger over the death of the teenager grew in the local community. Some groups set alight barricades and garbage bins, smashed up a bus stop and threw firecrackers toward police, who responded with tear gas and dispersion grenades. Nine people were arrested.
After a record 13 deaths from police shootings in France during traffic stops last year, this was the second fatal incident in such circumstances in 2023.
Three people were killed by police gunfire after refusing to comply with a traffic stop in 2021 and two in 2020. A Reuters tally of fatal shootings in 2021 and 2022 shows the majority of victims were black or Arabic origin.
'Really Big': US Supreme Court Ruling Against Norfolk Southern Seen as Rebuke to Corporate Impunity
Opponents of unmitigated corporate power celebrated Tuesday when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Norfolk Southern's attempt to limit where companies can be sued.
In a 5-4 opinion written by Justice Neil Gorsuch and joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Sonja Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, the high court ruled that Pennsylvania's "consent-by-registration" law "requiring an out-of-state firm to answer in the commonwealth any suits against it in exchange for status as a registered foreign corporation and the benefits that entails" does not violate the due process clause of the 14th Amendment.
The decision vacates an earlier judgment by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and remands the case.
"This is really big," Slate's Mark Joseph Stern tweeted. Big business lawyers are "going to be furious with this decision."
"This is really big," Slate's Mark Joseph Stern tweeted. Big business lawyers are "going to be furious with this decision."
"This is big—and, in my view, good—because it allows states to exercise personal jurisdiction over corporations that do business within the state but are incorporated elsewhere, often in a jurisdiction that they deem more favorable to their interests," Stern continued.
"Pennsylvania requires out-of-state corporations to file paperwork consenting to appear in Pennsylvania courts as a condition of doing business within the state," Stern added. "Gorsuch says: Nothing about that scheme violates due process."
NYT Says More Worker Suffering Needed to Bring Inflation Down
Good news: Inflation is down! Way down, actually: It came in at 4% in May, after peaking at just over 9% last summer.
But don’t get too excited. The New York Times is here to tell you that inflation is still a problem, and more suffering for the working class is the solution.
In a recent episode of the Times’ flagship podcast the Daily (6/20/23), reporter Jeanna Smialek argued that the Fed may have more work cut out for itself. Discussing why inflation declined over the past year, she noted that it’s mostly the result of supply issues resolving. But inflation remains above the Fed’s 2% target:
The part of inflation we’re worried about now is the part that’s not going to come down just because of a return to normal or because of luck, but the part that is going to require Fed policy.
In other words, only the Fed can tame inflation.
In the standard account, this is a key lesson of the last major period of high inflation that the US faced. Referred to as the Great Inflation, this era lasted from 1965 through 1982, and was finally brought to an end by Fed chair Paul Volcker.
After assuming leadership of the Federal Reserve in 1979, Volcker announced, “The standard of living of the average American has to decline.” He then proceeded to curb inflation through a brutal campaign against the working class.
The Volcker approach was, of course, not the only available method for slowing price increases. As the progressive economist James Galbraith (Medium, 6/17/23) wrote recently, the US has dealt with inflation differently in the past. During World War II, for instance, the government established the Office of Price Administration, which kept inflation in check through price controls (Guardian, 12/29/21).
These were “abolished…in 1946, over popular protest,” and were later intellectually repudiated by economists and policymakers in favor of anti-government and pro-business ideology. As Galbraith puts it, “From this, the entire charade of dumping responsibility for ‘fighting inflation’ on the central bank emerges.”
This charade has continued for decades, and has taken on renewed force in the last couple of years in the face of high inflation, with little to no pushback from corporate media. As current Fed chair Jerome Powell prepared for a new war on inflation in the spring of 2022, for instance, the Times (3/14/22) ran the headline: “Powell Admires Paul Volcker. He May Have to Act Like Him.”
The piece, by Smialek, acknowledged that a Fed campaign against inflation comes with risks, but it gave Volcker the final word:
Maintaining confidence that a dollar will be able to buy tomorrow what it can today “is a fundamental responsibility of monetary policy,” Mr. Volcker wrote in his 2018 memoir. “Once lost, the consequences can be severe and stability hard to restore.”
Nowhere in the article was there any questioning of the idea that the Fed should be at the helm of inflation-fighting—that perhaps there’s an alternative, one less painful for the majority of the country. Instead, the unspoken assumption is that this is all the Fed’s responsibility. But that’s an assumption, a highly ideological one, not an unbending law of nature.
Now, more than a year into the Fed’s campaign of interest rate hikes, the Times is continuing with the reportorial line that the Fed must be the one to bring down inflation. According to this line of reasoning, inflation must be tamed at the cost of lower incomes. That is the main channel through which Fed policy (i.e., interest rate hikes) works.
Smialek knows this. She may choose to obscure the class dynamics of this approach by talking (6/20/23) about how rate hikes make people less “comfortable springing for that Jacuzzi bathtub and taking on the slightly higher rent that comes alongside it.” (You know, the classic dilemma faced by low-wage workers, who are disproportionately hit by rate hikes.) But, at the end of the day, she does recognize that raising rates is about reducing people’s incomes and thus their spending power. She just doesn’t seem to have an issue with that; it’s a necessary cost of the inflation-fighting business. [More at the link. -js]
"TIME BOMB" In SCOTUS 2024 Ruling?
US supreme court rules against fringe legal theory in key voting rights case
The US supreme court shot down a fringe legal theory that observers said posed a considerable threat to democracy, ruling that state courts have the authority to weigh in on disputes over federal election rules.
“When state legislatures prescribe the rules concerning federal elections, they remain subject to the ordinary exercise of state judicial review,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority. “Our precedents have long rejected the view that legislative action under the Elections Clause is purely federal in character, governed only by restraints found in the Federal Constitution.”
The decision was 6-3, with Roberts writing the majority opinion. Conservative justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett also joined the court’s three liberal justices, Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson in the ruling.
The ruling is a blow to North Carolina Republicans who had asked the court to embrace the so-called independent state legislature theory – the idea that the US constitution does not allow state courts to limit the power of state legislatures when it comes to federal elections. There was deep concern that embracing such an idea would upend US elections, essentially giving legislatures a blank check to write election laws without oversight from state courts. It would have been a massive win for Republicans, who control more state legislatures than Democrats do.
The court’s decision means that state courts can continue to weigh in on disputes over federal election rules. State courts have become increasingly popular forums for hearing those disputes, especially after the US supreme court said in 2019 that federal courts could not address partisan gerrymandering.
NYT CONFIRMS Hunter Biden Whistleblower Claim; DOJ Mishandled Probe
‘We could lose our status as a state’: what happens to a people when their land disappears
Small island nations would rather fight than flee, but rising sea levels have prompted apocalyptic legal discussions about whether a state is still a state if its land disappears below the waves. The Pacific Islands Forum, which represents many of the most vulnerable countries, has invited international legal experts to consider this question and begun a diplomatic campaign to ensure that political statehood continues even after a nation’s physical fabric is submerged.
At the heart of this discussion is the scientific certainty that oceans will continue to rise for at least another century and a sense of injustice that those worst affected are among the least responsible for the climate crisis. The Alliance of Small Island States represents more than a quarter of the world’s countries, but is responsible for less than 1% of global carbon emissions, most of which come from big industrialised countries in the global north.
This has locked in an expansion of the world’s oceans that is already under way and will accelerate in the second half of this century. Island maps are already being slowly redrawn and coastlines are increasingly threatened by storm surges. Within decades, archipelagos could lose outlying atolls that define national borders. A century from now – if not sooner – entire states could become uninhabitable, raising doubts about what will happen to their citizens, governments and resources.
The World Bank had said current regulations on these matters were drawn up in a period of climate stability and may need to be reassessed to account for an “unprecedented situation for international law”.
At a conference on this topic in Fiji this year, the prime minister of the Cook Islands, Mark Brown, framed this debate in a series of existential questions: “As our shorelines are eaten away by sea level rise, what will become of our sovereignty, of our lands, our titles, our homes? What will become of our fundamental rights and freedoms guaranteed by our constitutions and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? How can we realise our shared vision when our very status as ‘states’ is being questioned? How can we fulfil our responsibility to our peoples if their homes and livelihoods are taken away from them? These questions are difficult but real. They require solutions.”
Canada’s wildfire carbon emissions hit record high in first six months of 2023
Wildfires raging across Canada, made more intense by global warming, have released more planet-warming carbon dioxide in the first six months of 2023 than in any full year on record, according to the EU’s Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service.
This year’s wildfire season is the worst on record in Canada, with some 76,000sq km (29,000sq miles) burning across eastern and western Canada. That is already greater than the combined area burned in 2016, 2019, 2020 and 2022, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. Hundreds of forest fires since early May have generated nearly 600m tonnes of CO2, equivalent to 88% of the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions from all sources in 2021, the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) reported. More than half of that carbon pollution went up in smoke in June alone.
“The emissions from these wildfires are now the largest annual emissions for Canada in the 21 years of our dataset,” CAMS said in a statement. Canada’s wildfire season typically peaks in late July or August, with emissions continuing to climb throughout the summer. As of Tuesday, firefighters were battling 494 blazes throughout the country, more than half of them classified as out-of-control, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. ...
Forests act as a critical sink for planet-warming carbon. It is estimated that Canada’s northern boreal forest stores more than 200bn tonnes of carbon equivalent to several decades worth of global carbon emissions. But when forests burn, they release some of that carbon into the atmosphere. This speeds up global warming and creates a dangerous feedback loop by creating the conditions where forests are more likely to burn.
Canadian wildfire smoke to engulf New York skies again
As the wildfires in Canada continue to shroud much of the midwest in a thick haze of smoke, New Yorkers are preparing yet again for the smoke to make its way further east.
On Tuesday, the New York governor, Kathy Hochul, issued a warning on social media that the smoke from Canadian wildfires is forecast to enter New York airspace on Wednesday and Thursday.
“Air quality is expected to reach unhealthy levels in some areas,” she wrote, adding that the New York state department of environmental conservation (NYSDEC) is “issuing air quality health advisories for western and central New York, and eastern Lake Ontario”.
Per the NYSDEC, air quality levels will be “unhealthy” on Wednesday in the western New York region and “unhealthy for sensitive groups” on Wednesday in central New York and eastern Lake Ontario regions.
Those in New York City and on Long Island can expect “moderate” air quality on Wednesday.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
How To Plant Propaganda: "Putin has been weakened. Russia is crumbling."
New evidence from Nord Stream underwater expedition refutes official claims
Mexico’s AMLO Government Refuses to Bow to US Sanction Threats, Ups Ante in Fight Over GM Corn
IMF Confirms that Profits Are Driving Inflation
Biden’s efforts to clear wildfire fuel in US forests are falling short
Current heatwave across US south made five times more likely by climate crisis
Bangladesh Getting Drowned by Colonial History
Saved by seaweed: nuns and Native women heal polluted New York waters using kelp
Pompeii fresco find possibly depicts 2,000-year-old form of pizza
Drone Photo awards 2023: winning and commended images – in pictures
Hondurans Fight Private Cities Run by US Companies as Gov't Sued for Outlawing "Neocolonial Project"
Office Space APOCALYPSE Hits NYC
Biden On Putin, Ukraine: 'He's Clearly Losing The Iraq War'; SECOND Gaffe In A Week
A Little Night Music
Ike Turner & His Rhythm Kings - So Fine
Ike Turner and The Kings Of Rhythm - Heartbroken & Worried
Ike Turner & His Kings Of Rhythm - She Made My Blood Run Cold
Ike Turner & His Kings Of Rhythm - Matchbox
Ike Turner & The Kings of Rhythm - Nuttin' Up
Ike & Tina Turner – Please, Please, Please
Ike Turner & The Kings Of Rhythm - Thinking Black
Ike Turner & The Kings Of Rhythm - Baby's Got It
Comments
Imagine Vermont
That's about the size of the area where the war in Ukraine is taking place.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
evening pluto...
yep, that's true, but as recent events demonstrate, they have ambitions to make it spread out to include the entirety of russia.
But, the US has blown through it's budget
....and is now on the path to bankrupting itself (and its allies) by trying to equip a war no larger than the state of Vermont.
Yet it is true what you say. One can read all about the US imperative to capture and break apart the Russian landmass in the publications of many of the barking mad Neocon think tanks. The plan is to exterminate the Russian people and hand out pieces of resource-rich Russia to deserving countries of the West..
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
heh...
wouldn't it be funny if it turns out that the neocon free market mania was the thing that kneecapped u.s. efforts to support its war of choice - and the neocon idiocy that tried to limit russia's access to foreign markets was what allowed it to achieve self-sufficiency so quickly?
Yes.
and to replace the Russian workforce with slave labor. This has been the struggle for a century. Averill Harriman explained it clearly, that the Russian workforce had a nasty habit of wanting to be paid for their work.
This is what the Ukrainian oligarchs hate about the Russian language. It's not the sound of it, it's what people say in the Russian language that they can't stand.
Heh - not remotely helpful. How big is Vermont?
turns out it is about 9,600 square miles almost twice the size of death Valley. Still not too easy to visualize.
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 --
I super-imposed maps myself.
...to better understand the scale of the conflict. No one had asked the question yet. Not that I could find. So, I placed a map of Ukraine and its conflict zones on top of a proportionally similar map of the United States. The conflict area seemed to fit in Vermont fairly well.
Ukraine has a strange footprint, because it is put together from leftover scraps of the Soviet Union and unwanted parts of Poland and other country remnants. The yellow center core is the original Ukraine. This core is also where all Russians trace their origins; their ancestral lands. Kiev was the first capital of Russia. Russia later moved their capital further east, to Moscow, which felt safer. The Russians used their ancestral lands as a buffer zone between itself and Europe. They called it the "Borderlands," which is "Ukraine" in Russian. The Ukrainian language is a degraded form of Russian. It's not a language that is used for books or important documents and academic papers. It's a street language with a limited vocabulary as well as local slang. Perhaps that's why ethnic Russian speakers did not want to use it.
.
This borderland buffer zone became a country and held its first election in 1997. But its Democracy was overthrown before it reached its second decade. After several attempts to rewrite its democratic constitution, it was torn up by the coup government, which had already broken all of its rules.
.
To me, all maps of Ukraine have the shape of a running chicken.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Good morning Pluto. I like the historical accretion map of
Ukraine - it's worse than I thought, but I did know it was, in effect, created by the USSR.
I've, oddly enough, used the map matching/overlay technique myself, ages ago to try to explain the magnitude of western US travel plans to assorted Europeans and, ironically enough some US folks from midwest/east coast. Thing is, I have no base level feel for the northeast or even eastern seaboard so "same size as vermont" left me asea. Without ready ability to cut and match various map segments, I was left with a whole boatload of "how many square miles is" this, that, or the other geographic area in search of comparables. (Connecticut, FWIW, is very nearly the same size as Death Valley, or vice-versa)
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 --
'He is losing the Iraq war'
Ha, that's really funny mr. commander in chiefly costume.
You stupid f*cks already lost that one.
One war is like another in a demented mind.
Can somebody put something in his ice cream
to tone down his failing functions?
ah, I dither, could comment more but,
digging holes here
thanks for the news and blues joe
evening qms...
i guess after a while all of those criminal wars of choice all kind of run together.
Can kidney failure be cured?
just asking for a friend who is missing in my life.
Good NIght, I am off, wishing you all a good night from Germany.
evening mimi...
i suppose that it depends on what you mean by "cured." people can get dialysis to recreate the function of healthy kidneys in filtering the gack out of their blood and some people get kidney transplants which i suppose is a sort of "cure."
have a good evening!
Danke, I think I didn't know what I meant, forget about
my stupid question.
I'm in full sympathy with these thoughts
https://www.oftwominds.com/blog.html
Not China but Chicago for the past 3 days
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
One can hardly blame the Aliens
...for offering no assistance to the planet.
The fact that humans are so mentally weak that they can't figure out that almost all of the problems that plague the human race and threaten the Earth itself, are caused by a planet-killing overpopulation of about 4 billion people. Humans are unable to curb their animal need to breed. Again and again. Why should Aliens clean up the mess of a sentient species that is so defective — so selfish and deliberately ignorant that they would rather go extinct than face the obvious truth and control themselves?
Imagine a country that cannot properly nourish their children so that a large percentage of them are chronically hungry — like the United States, for example. What business do these people have producing more humans to neglect, and placing more stress and suffering on all other species? Over the past century, they have left the planet far, far worse than they found it.
Seems like a lot of Aliens are dropping by to sight-see and record the final chapters. Although I would think that a failed sentient species is quite common in this galaxy, let alone throughout the Universe.
YMMV
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
perhaps the aliens are smart enough
to recognize the difference between over-population
(the capacity of the planet to provide for the species)
and the electronic warring of the rulers that to nothing
to mitigate circumstances. Not seen as a good neighbor.
Even though it is right in front of their noses
.... people have not yet figured out (or may never figure out) that the miracle of China's rapid evolution into a stable, ecologically advanced civilization was all brought about by the One Child Policy. Although China is planting thick forests that will cover their entire nation, even the cities, I doubt that it will offer them much protection against the environmental disasters we all face. But, as they say, perseverance furthers.
Earth's perfect carrying capacity is the result of vast diversity and millions upon millions of years of evolution. Human intervention is not helpful. It was the natural responsibility of human's to adapt their growth to the planets natural capacity, while preserving its diversity. Doing so might have saved the species from extinction.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
We do not have access to abortion
like China. And I have read, maybe bad sources, that abortions were targeted for female fetuses.
I also learned on my visit to China that rural farmers who needed kids to help with the farms were exempted from that and allowed more child births. The One Child Policy was for cities. That was first person source, personal interactions with locals, not something I read on MSM.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
That's mostly right
Adjustments were necessary. For example, the millions of small farmers throughout China soon discovered that their small inefficient farms could not support their grown children.
This forced China to act fast, with the help of their peace-corp style military. They had to rapidly rebuild millions of farmhouses and connect them to water and electricity and equip them with modern appliances. Other teams had to define the fields, test and correct the soil, and bring automated irrigation services to every farm. The farms were equipped with computers and drones to replace such of the farm labor and the farm families were trained how to use them. They opened thousands of super-modern agricultural science centers, one in every farming community, and staffed them with scientists, testing equipment, and seed banks. Here farmers could get help and advice. They could develop specialty crops they wanted to grow, and they were taught how to grow while using as few pesticides as possible. The farmers could also learn how to publicize their boutique produce and how to use China's vast network of high speed trains to ship their fresh produce to big city customers in a matter of hours. In 2020, China pulled the last community of small farmers out of poverty and into prosperity.
The drones take care of inspecting the crops, spraying them when necessary, and monitoring the irrigation. Small farmers have much more leisure time, and their kids have moved home from city factory jobs to live and work on the farm. Some have become videographers producing shows about their farm's produce. (Hugly popular in China.) Some have opened businesses in the town centers that have popped into existence in the small farm communities. Farm tourism is a pastime that has swept the nation. Some families have opened B and B's or restaurants to accommodate the new visitors. With cheap high speed rail crisscrosssing the nation, many Chinese are now able to see China for the first time in their lives.
While boys were very desirable to poor Chinese peasants, there are no more peasants. And there was no culling of female fetuses. Certainly there may have been attempts, which would have been a very serious crime for any who were caught. Chinese communities are very tight. There are no secrets. Boys outnumber girls in all nations. China does not have a higher percentage than other nations. The West still cannot not get enough of these ugly rumors to spread about China. China's One Child Policy ended in completely in 2015, and China leapt out of poverty and into the future.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
I guess how you describe China
happened in the last 10 years since I was there.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
It happened very fast.
Like they say, "it happened very gradually, then all at once!"
The eradication of poverty seemed to happen all at once in 2020. It blew everyone's mind. But it took 30 years of constant work and reform to get there. The One Child Policy made it possible.
China expects its citizens to achieve moderate prosperity in the 2030s.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Lots of peasants, beggars, poor
people when I visited.
Let me emphasize, LOTS.
Mostly everyone I saw.
The China you describe a lot is a different country than what I was immersed in. Business, culture, social and so forth. It is like we are talking about two different countries.
The people I know who travel there for business describe it as I do, nothing like you do.
I do not want to be obtuse, but have you lived or worked or visited there? Have family there?
I do not want to offend you in any way. I am delighted with the way China has helped the world give options to our US hegemony. Xi is awesome in world diplomacy. MUCH respect.
But the last place on earth I would want to live is China.
I wouldn't last there 2 days before I was jailed.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
I visited a 2.5 million dollar
home in Beijing on my tour. It had no bathroom, no kitchen. THIS WAS TYPICAL.
The tour company showcased it to show China's financial progress. The tour guide then led us to the public toilets/showers place 3 blocks away.
It is good to be rich in a valuable home where you cannot legally take a shit?Or piss? Or cook a meal? Heaven help any old folks with bowel or kidney problems. But they were rich. It was to showcase how rich they were. Portfolios, doncha know.
Fuck that.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
selecting against females
Hey OtC, As I recall it was India that most heavily selected against female fetuses and targeted them for abortion. Because the family had to pay dowry to marry their daughter. They received one if a son married. So now there is a great imbalance of the sexes in certain segments of their society.
stay cool!
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
Women are useless
except to cook, sew, clean house, have a baby boy.
Religions, governments, I could go on. Google it.
Only Jews pass title to property to women/daughters upon death. You always know who gave birth, never know who provided the semen, although science helped a lot with the problem.
I am in the mood for classical music. Back later!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Or they might just
like the scent of Cesium-137, and are just patiently waiting for us to perfume the place for them as we leave...
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
Humanities failure started
long long ago with the rise of Christianity. how do you stop that doesn't have any idea as to how to coexist with the rest of humanity? aliens had to see some promise in us as they taught many
of the past indigenous cultures much knowledge. As for the population explosion it took China how
long to figure it out, India still hasn't, Gates/Schwab never will
The us of a has become a total abomination to the planet and humanity, not
much else could be said, factually.
I guess that those aliens want to make sure we won't get too far
in destroying the universe, hence they watch from the sidelines
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
evening ggersh...
i wonder if, post-intervention, humans could self-manage a better universal existence or if the presence of the aliens would need to be permanent.
I believe we'd have a good shot at it
if only we could get rid of those that are a
cancer to humanity, but who am I to decide who carries
that cancer, I can only make a semi educated guess
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
Wow, that haze makes me gasp for clean air. /nt
Shy-town looks like a dystopian nightmare
Sad to see a once bright city
melding into that degree of
neglect. Does local gvt get it?
Should make them think.
yep...
we had the canadian haze down south here in baltimore today, along with the attendant air quality warnings. i hear we will have the same tomorrow and perhaps by the weekend all of this stuff will blow out to sea.
Johnson seems to be OK but will eventually
get bought like all the politicians these days. Daley
Emanuel Lightfoot all sold the people out in the name of
neoliberalism.
These wildfires up in Canada aren't going away any time soon.
There is absolutely no coverage of it except to tell us how
bad the air quality is....like fucking duh
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
States have spent billions of dollars on the homeless problem
.
and every year it has gotten worse. Lots of people salve their consciences by saying that most of them are addicts and don’t want to live indoors. But increasing numbers of people are working and some more than 1 job, but because the banks are involved in our housing they are doing what they can to make the problem worse. Good essay on it.
Too bad that congress isn’t interested in lessening the poverty rate and instead are doing what they can to make it worse. Biden has either failed to do what he promised he would or has just kicked millions of people off Medicaid, food stamps and decreased the amount people get who are still lucky enough to still have coverage.
But instead of using $20 billion to get more people into homes he’s sending billions and billions to Ukraine to pay for Ukraine’s healthcare and 401k's and who knows what else?
From Hersh’s recent essay:
The Ukraine Refugee Question
Other countries are also seeing more people falling behind and being pushed into poverty and instead of helping people out they too are throwing billions into Ukraine’s refugees.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
evening snoopy...
yep, here in the u.s. in many cities like baltimore there is a surplus and they knock them down to constrict the market to keep housing prices up and then they complain about homeless people. move along johnny, move along.
so, for the most part, instead of giving people houses, the system likes to enrich rentiers and pay them to house the homeless - usually in substandard housing.
this was an interesting article:
Artificial Intelligence Is Making The Housing Crisis Worse
Maybe Brandon bought a mirror
.
Lukashenko was also out of patience for the lies being told about him.
Speaking of mirrors this takes some epic talent to draw this good while looking in one.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
heh...
lukaschenko did a really good job there, he's surprisingly articulate.
Might be that Bush bought a mirror too
Caitlin is getting quite a kick out of Biden’s gaffe. I wonder what Putin thought about it?
Anyone watch the video of the guy drawing on his head? The way he draws his eyes is just amazing. And I can’t even draw a house with step by step instructions! Poo.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
This is beyond sad
I would feel bad for him if I hadn’t watched a video of him from 20 years ago on him being an absolute arrogant asshole when he was speaking to congress about why the patriot act was so important. Looking back at his speeches he was always an arrogant asshole because he knew that what he was going to would screw we the people.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Hi bluesters
Hi all, Hey Joe!
Great Ike Turner selections! I love his old early stuff. He was a great guitar player... I meant to get by yesterday and mention it as some of that was this awesome early Ike... he could really play and was way ahead of the curve for the time. He was tearin' it up. Of course he was a great pianist, singer, songwriter, arranger, but so his guitar playing did not get the kudos it probably should have.
Thanks for the great sounds!
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
And Tina thought highly of him!
At least for a time.
Are you burning up like we are here?
Sincerely hope not, Dysto.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Hey OtC!
We are melting here otc. 100F daily temps, heat index often 110, some had 120. Del Rio about 75 miles west as the Raven flies was 108 today. We are running 5-10F over average, for the 10th summer in a row. But we need to study it. At least the foot of rain in spring has the river running with water so we can go swimming. Chill well, if at all possible.
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
We aren't quite as hot as you,
but I can't tell the difference between 102 and 110 deg, just walking from the office to the courthouse next block.
Take care, stay in cool places, my friend.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
evening dystopian...
yeah, ike may not have been the nicest guy, but he was a talented and influential musician. his early work with the kings of rhythm is great stuff and quite unique in its time.
sorry to hear that you guys are sweltering down there, i hope that the air conditioning is working and the electricity is working well. take care!