Welcome to Saturday's Potluck - Feb 3, 2024
“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”
Pablo Picasso
Let's start with some local news. (I lived in Portland for a few years, have multiple relatives in the area and consider it part of my local area)
Editorial: Portland should put punitive tree permit requirement on ice The Oregonian Jan 28, 2024
For Portland homeowners unlucky enough to be dealing with a fallen tree, add in a dose of bureaucratic frustration, courtesy of Portland city government.
The city’s Urban Forestry division is requiring homeowners to get retroactive removal permits for trees that have fallen on their property due to the winter storm. The permits, which cost $100 for up to three trees, also require homeowners to plant a replacement.
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For the city to demand that they secure a permit and pay a $100 fee seems needlessly aggressive and serves no clear purpose. It should, however, be noted that the city isn’t completely heartless. It has temporarily extended the time in which a property owner can apply for a retroactive removal permit from the usual seven days until Feb. 23. Hooray for small victories.
China News
The US creates crises around the world, then wants China to solve them Russia Times Jan 28, 2024
Of course, the US has been completely unreasonable in its unconditional backing of Israel’s military campaign, and rather than confronting the problem directly, it has proposed another idea – to outsource both blame and resolution to China and ask Beijing to help end the conflict. This is not a new tactic by Washington, as it has done the same thing with the Russia-Ukraine war, crafting a narrative that it is China’s “responsibility” to end it, of course, conveniently on terms that are favorable to America.
In reality, the US has absolutely no chance of getting China to end these respective conflicts, primarily because it is in China’s best interests not to secure outcomes that amount to geopolitical gains for America. However, that is the point in itself, as the US wants to intentionally frame Beijing as “the bad guy” and therefore push the perception that Beijing is a challenge to the international order and a threat to peace. The US is effectively trying to gaslight China by making it look morally bad for conflict Washington itself creates and not agreeing to the outcomes Washington wants. It is a blame game.
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Now, the US is articulating a strategy whereby when conflict occurs, it tries to outsource responsibility by blaming the lack of peace on China. As the narrative generally goes, “If only China would act and stop this, then there would be peace,” whether it be in Gaza, Yemen, Ukraine, or wherever. Of course, that peace is strictly conditional on terms the US has set and not terms that China itself might want to set. If Beijing does press for peace but on alternative terms to what America wants, such as attempting to mediate in Ukraine rather than pushing for the collapse of Russia, those peace terms are quickly rejected and condemned by the mainstream media.
Exclusive: China tells Ukraine to remove its firms from 'sponsors of war' list Reuters February 1, 2024
China demanded on Thursday that Ukraine immediately remove more than a dozen Chinese companies from a list of firms designated as "international sponsors of war", saying it wanted Kyiv to "eliminate negative impacts".
The remarks came after Reuters reported that China's ambassador in Kyiv had told senior Ukrainian government officials last month that the inclusion of the companies on the list could hurt bilateral ties.
...
The source added that China had not set any conditions for Ukraine, but simply expressed its view about the list.The second source suggested Beijing could link the matter to Chinese purchases of Ukrainian grain.
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China was the main destination for Ukrainian food exports shipped under a UN-brokered grain corridor established after Russia's invasion but now defunct. It accounted for around 7.9 million metric tons of the total 30 million tons transported via that route.Under Kyiv's new Black Sea shipping corridor established last August, government data shows, some 30% of Ukraine's maritime exports, including food, metals and ore, were shipped to China.
Pepe Escobar's article this week.
Will the Hegemon Ever Accept a New Westphalian World Order? Strategic Culture Foundation January 31, 2024
A new book by scholar Glenn Diesen, The Ukraine War & The Eurasian World Order, out in mid-February, asks the make-or-break question of the young 21st century: will the Hegemon accept a new geopolitical reality, or will it go Captain Ahab on Moby Dick and drag us all to the depths of a – nuclear – abyss?
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Diesen dug up an extraordinary passage in the Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, proving how the Little Helmsman in 1990 was a visionary prefiguring multipolar China:“In the future when the world becomes three-polar, four-polar or five-polar, the Soviet Union, no matter how weakened it may be and even if some of its republics withdraw from it, will still be one pole. In the so-called multipolar world, China too will be a pole (…) Our foreign policies remain the same: first, opposing hegemonism and power politics and safeguarding world peace; and second, working to establish a new international political order and a new international economic order.”
Diesen breaks it down, noting how China has to a certain extent “replicated the three-pillared American System of the early 19th century, in which the U.S. developed a manufacturing base, physical transportation infrastructure, and a national bank to counter British economic hegemony.”
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Diesen is one of the very few Western analysts who actually understands the drive to multipolarity: “BRICS+ is anti-hegemony and not anti-Western, as the objective is to create a multipolar system and not assert collective dominance over the West.”
M. K. Bhadrakumar had several good articles the past couple of weeks.
Geopolitics is moving North Korea’s way India Punchline Jan 23, 2024
What distinguishes great powers like Russia is the sheer profundity of their historical consciousness to co-relate time past with time present and to comprehend that the germane seeds of time future are largely to be found embedded in time past. After all, time cannot be treated in abstraction but as the vital ground of human reality. That must be one reason why there is such agonising speculation in the US today regarding the recent surge in Russia-DPRK ties.
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A de facto trilateral ‘bloc’ with Russia and China in opposition to the US–South Korea–Japan trilateral alliance is in the making. DPRK’s support for Russia in Ukraine would serve China’s interests by containing US power. And North Korea gains immeasurably in strategic depth, thanks to the support by two veto-holding UN Security Council members.
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Andrey Sushentsov, a prominent Russian pundit, wrote recently, “Our confrontation with the Americans will last for a long time, although we will see certain pauses… Russia’s task will be to create a network of relationships with like-minded states, which may even eventually include some from the West. The US strategy is to forcibly extinguish points of strategic autonomy, which Washington succeeded in doing in Western Europe in the first phase of the Ukraine crisis, but that move was one of the last successes in this regard.
China ignores US entreaties of mediation India Punchline Jan 29, 2024 More details about US request to apply pressure on Iran.
This article was prior to the bombs beginning to fly to show the toughness of US political leaders.
'Swarming' the US in West Asia, until it folds The Cradle Jan 29, 2024
The Turkish daily Hurriyet wrote on Friday that while Ankara is taking a cautious approach to media reports, it does see “a general striving” by Washington to exit not only Syria but the entire region of West Asia, as it senses that it has been dragged into a quagmire by Israel and Iran from the Red Sea to Pakistan.
Russia’s special presidential representative for the Syrian settlement, Alexander Lavrentiev, also told Tass on Friday that much depends on any “threat of physical impact” on American forces present in Syria. The swift US military exit from Afghanistan took place with virtually no advance notice, in coordination with the Taliban. “In all likelihood, the same may happen in Iraq and Syria,” Lavrentiev said.
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Iran’s patience has run out over the US military presence in Syria and Iraq following the revival of ISIS with American support. Interestingly, Israel no longer abides by its “de-confliction” mechanism with Russia in Syria. Clearly, there is close US-Israeli cooperation in Syria and Iraq at the intelligence and operational level, which goes against Russian and Iranian interests. Needless to say, the backdrop of the imminent upgrade of the Russia-Iran strategic partnership also needs to be factored in here.These developments are a vintage illustration of defensive deterrence.
New efforts dividing US into tribes. Past opportunists are showing up in news sites I regularly monitor.
Scott Rasmussen and Newt Gingrich working on defining elite 1% vs voters.
The Elite 1 Percent Behind The Cultural Civil War ZeroHedge Jan 31, 2024
Scott Rasmussen has done America an enormous service. He and his team have identified the driving forces behind the destructive radicalism which is pushing us into a cultural civil war.
While doing their two weekly national surveys, Rasmussen and his team noticed an anomaly. Out of every 1,000 or so respondents, there would always be three or four who were far more radical than everyone else. After several months of finding these unusual responses, Rasmussen realized they all shared three characteristics.
The radical responses came from people who had graduate degrees (not just graduate studies), family incomes above $150,000 a year, and lived in large cities (more than 10,000 people per zip code).
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The elite 1 percent are surprisingly young. Sixty-seven percent are between 35 and 54 years old. They are 86 percent white. Almost half of them (47 percent) favor “Sanders-like policies.” They are overwhelmingly Democrats (73 percent).
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According to Rasmussen, the most radical of the elite 1 percent were educated at what he calls the “dirty dozen:” Harvard, Yale, University of Pennsylvania, Northwestern, John’s Hopkins, Columbia, Stanford, Berkeley, Princeton, Cornell, MIT, and the University of Chicago.The elite 1 percent who graduated from these schools deeply believe in government. Fifty-five percent believe there is too much individual freedom in America and that Americans should obey government and follow government leadership.
29 page PDF for the Webinar The Elite 1% and the Battle for America's Soul. (great example how to spin facts and survey information to shape optinions.)
New face this week.
Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier: Does US Have a Fighting Force? (31:15 min)
About the middle of the program when asked how US citizens benefit from the US Space Force he mentions it provides the GPS coordinates on the cell (smart) phones we carry around with us.
Lt Col Matthew Lohmeier, USAF fighter pilot and a former space-based missile warning squadron commander with the US Space Force, is a public speaker, consultant and author of the bestselling book “Irresistible Revolution: Marxism’s Goal of Conquest & the Unmaking of the American Military”.
The livestream videos this week by Judge Napolitano channel ongoing discussions regarding current events in Israel/Hamas/Gaza, expanded Middle East Conflict Zone, Ukraine/Russia conflict and International Court of Justice. The interviews are generally posted on Monday through Friday if would like to view them in a more timely manner.
What is on your mind today?
Comments
Good morning...
Bizarre charging people for a permit on fallen trees. What are the city leaders smoking?
Lovely weather here...almost 70F yesterday and high 60's today. Rain tomorrow, but we need one.
BRICS+ meeting this week. Pepe suggests big news in the next months on the future economic cooperation...he said Michael Hudson is helping with the design.
As they build we destroy...bomb, bomb, bomb Iran... it will come back to haunt us IMO.
Well, take care and thanks for the OT!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Heh I’d
drop what’s left of it in
the middle of the road
and walk away
act of god
fuckers
Ya got to be a Spirit, cain't be no Ghost. . .
Explain Bldg #7. . . still waiting. . .
If you’ve ever wondered whether you would have complied in 1930’s Germany,
Now you know. . .
sign at protest march
We can thank Clinton for this
.
Remember Mike Wallace exposing the risks of the swine flu vaccine? Did you know why that was the last time we would see the media questioning anything about big pharma?
After Clinton allowed big pharma to advertise on the Telly they then flooded big media with advertising dollars and there was no way that the media would bite the hand that fed them. America is one of only 2 countries that allows this. New Zealand is the other one.
My opinion is that Clinton did more damage to the country than any republican president did.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
The permits regarding fallen trees are completely
nuts! You pay to remove the tree that crushed your home? Otherwise, you cannot repair it? Are you required to plant a tree in the same place so another tree can fall on your home in the future?
I am pretty sensitive about permits.
A client can't be permitted to build 4 studio apartments on his 120 acre horse ranch. The permitting authority that consists of 1 person, declared they would create a slum. He could tell by looking at the floor plan that they would suck and be an eyesore in the community. (He doesn't live in this county, and never has.)
I want to enlarge a building on my property, add a bathroom, and that requires: $1,000 permit; design for the aerobics system be submitted from an approved sewer service company; (I would guess someone in the permit office has an ownership in approved companies, but that is just a guess.)You cannot use the system until it has been inspected. There are additional costs per bathroom, per washer, and per person inhabiting the building. How the hell do you know an individual or couple or family will rent it in the future?
AND THE PERMIT OFFICE DOES NOT HAVE AN INSPECTOR.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
around here, people just do little 'improvements'
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to their property without all of the permit rigamarole
we don't even have a 'building inspector' anymore
if a contractor comes in, expect to see permits, as
their insurance requires it.
Add ons to existing buildings
that have water, electricity, and sewage systems, do not have to jump through hoops. It is when you convert a barn or shed to a living quarters that you run up against the Permit Masters.
A permit would be required to build any new structure, whether a barn, shed, greenhouse, or garage. A car port that has no sides, only poles propping up a roof, are exempt.
I understand cities would have concerns, but large acreage outside any city limit is very obtrusive to your property rights.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
I’d love to get other’s thoughts on this
.
https://www.encouragingangels.org/new-blog/2024/2/2/what-do-undocumented...
Biden is funding NGOs that are helping migrants get to America as well as Obama, Bush and Clinton. Border states are sending them to inward states who are saying that they are costing so much money that they will have to cut budgets meant to help Americans. Except for when they end up in places like Martha’s Vineyard where the parasites reject them.
But he’s also talking about commercial real estate losing value which means that banks are losing lots of money and they oversee people’s pensions, ect.
This sure seems like a deliberate attack on we the people. Sure we should give Abbot kudos for what he’s doing, but then again he waited 3 years to do anything and after how many millions have come in? Call me paranoid if you want, but just don’t call me Shirley.
The amount of immigrants and where they are coming from has nothing to do with our foreign policy of wrecking their countries.
Anyhoo..thoughts on this?
Oh yeah and the parasites are selling tons of their stocks. Bezos is going to sell $100 million. Are they seeing it’s time for the market to crash bankrupting all us little people…again? The stock market is so out of whack in relation to how the economy is working for us…and how much of it is being driven by companies buying back their own stock?
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
the stock exchange has very little to do with the
-
health of the economy for the rest of us
It is just a tool for the Fed and Wall Street
to manipulate values in their favor
nothing to do with Main Street economy
Yep
Any thoughts on the article?
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
I read articles similar to this one
and most tie in immigration to low cost labor force. Also, like this article, many advise that securities are going to be swept up to bail out the banks.
I have a small IRA, will dump it into my savings account when I am given notice of the annual renewal.
I have no idea what took Abbott so damn long to challenge the open border. He might have been waiting to see if Desantis was going to be able to challenge Trump.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
About theat great horde of immigrant invaders….
Bret Weinstein goes to Panama and brings back a detailed and disturbing account of what he has observed, and some of the “unfriendly” implications and disturbing surmises about the forces behind the ongoing invasion on our southern border. Tucker Carlson hosts an hour plus interview that is informative and thought provoking in the extreme.
“What the herd hates most is the one who thinks differently; it is not so much the opinion itself, but the audacity of wanting to think for themselves, something that they do not know how to do.”
-Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)
Not far from the truth.
thinking the overall trend is to weaken the economies
@snoopydawg
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as part of the globalists plan to push financial catastrophe
on all individual western nation states
soften us up for the new world order?
Recent events made me think of this song.
Good morning soe, thanks for the news and potluck.
Somebody needs to demand that Portland show its statutory authority to demand such a permit and both state and federal constitutional authority for any such statute as it is being interpreted. IANAL, but a law applied unconstitutionally is de facto unconstitutional regardless of the details of its provisions, and, as applied, it is a simple taking, pure and simple, because the victims have no agency with respect to the act that triggers the demand for a permit.
be well an 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 --
Agreed with your interpretation of 'laws'
but, dont'cha know we are all on the hook for the cost of natural
destruction now. Just axe insurance, the supremes or big petrol.
The only liability is for the surfs. Big guys screw it up, we pay for it.
Welcome back!
Thanx n/t
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 --
Violent people beating up cops
.
Got no bail and they were released. In what world is that sane? People here get attacked and arrested by cops if they look at them.
Then there is this happy news.
https://nypost.com/2024/02/02/metro/nyc-to-hand-out-prepaid-credit-cards...
NYC handing out $53 million to immigrants which adds to the number of states that are supporting them over their own citizens. NYC and California are letting them get Medicaid while many poor Americans can’t qualify because they make a few bucks over the extremely low limit. In Utah it’s $1,300 per month. You go over the amount by a dollar and you are on the hook for paying back anything Medicaid paid that month. Meanwhile we have homeless vets and an ever increasing number of people who become homeless daily here in this shithole banana Republic called America. But by gawd the fcking government can find hundreds of billions to send to Ukraine and Israel.
Meanwhile again while farmers in Europe are protesting austerity measures, Ursula said that it was a good day there because they found $53 billion to send to Ukraine…which has increased to $80 billion.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
Germany has been a staunch supporter of Israel’s genocide
.
but now they are pulling their support for Israel going into Rafah to root out Hamas. There are 1 million people there and mostly women and children.
And if Israel does it anyway? Will they stop supplying weapons to Israel?
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
per nutty yahoo
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"no worries, we got this genocide thing down pat"
bomb, starve and kill. piece of cake
as long as uncle sam pays for it
How Israel sets our foreign policy.
.
If you need something to read during a rainy afternoon…
THE ISRAEL LOBBY AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY
A shorter read from the sailors who survived the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty.
USS Liberty Memorial
I have never heard of an explanation for why Johnson covered up the attack. Has anyone?
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
Ahh Twas just a mistake
and anyone who disagrees is a neo Nazi and anti Semitic.
Since the attack in 1967 American governments have been fully in support of anything Israel does including attacking its own troops. AIPAC has clamped down the balls of everyone in government at all levels. In fact people can’t even run for office unless they get its approval and if anyone runs anyway then it funds their opponents which we saw when Nina Turner was running.
I haven’t seen anyone who was aghast that Russia Russia Russia helped Trump beat the Hellabitch being upset that just about everyone in congress goes to Israel to swear fealty to them, but they are still bitching about the 8 republicans who went to Russia once.
Hey remember when Israel was caught spying on the Trump administration and nothing happened?
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
auction meddling only applies to the CH and RU blocs
ISR has bought a free lifetime pass
as our demented leader stated -
hey man, I'm a Zionist, OK!
Yeah because they are the new axis of evil
Sorry I had forgotten about that.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
Well color me surprised
The government has the responsibility to investigate crimes against humanity on any country that commits them, but it has exempted itself from invegate anything Israel does. It’s high time for Americans to tell the government that this is unacceptable. Not that it will listen, but more noise should be made.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
Well, if there was a mirror big enough
-
perhaps the great american experiment
could maybe investigate its own actions
IRT crimes against humanity?
I can’t get over this
https://jamesperloff.net/remember-the-liberty/
How many attacks that were blamed on Arabs or Muslims were actually done by Israel. Reading more of the article it talks about 9/11 and the 5 dancing Israelis who were detained, but then let go. Bibi detested Saddam and wanted him removed by one way or another and gee we sure did that didn’t we?
3 lifeboats full of wounded soldiers were destroyed by Israeli jets which of course were war crimes. Ships in the area tried to come to their rescue, but were ordered back by Johnson who said that he didn’t want to embarrass our ally. Some fcking ally!
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
I have read that
Israeli agents were connected to JFK's assassination, that Johnson either was aware, or later made aware. That would explain his refusal to get cross-ways with Israel.
There is no way to know if these allegations are true until the investigation of his death is released by the government, as it should have been years ago.
So, for now, consider it just throwing spitballs on the ceiling, see which ones stick.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Ahh…
Yes that makes sense if Johnson knew that Israel was involved in the Kennedy assassination. I’ve read about that too, but wasn’t sure what to believe. I think it may have had something to do with Israel getting nukes and Kennedy was against it. And if there is evidence of that in the report then it’s no wonder that the intelligence agencies don’t want it released. We can’t embarrass our good friends after all now can we? Well maybe the news that Israel has shot itself in the foot and might not be long for this world is true and I for one will not cry over it.
Lol..just saw that we are the only 2 online.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
You will find this interesting
https://secularheretic.substack.com/p/what-we-are-not-being-told-about?u...
It’s about Texas and it’s WEF governor as well as others.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
I have watched lots of similar videos from
news groups in Texas who filmed themselves going through the jungle in Panama with migrants, catching everything they can on video. We watch a couple of video news shows from the Austin area.
I know Abbott would be trying to make some o & g deals in Davos, but insofar as going all the way in, like Trudeau, I am not completely convinced.
He is very rwnj, caters (craters?) to corporations, so he just might give up Texas for the right price.
Interesting video!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
colonization is not yet complete
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US and UK bomb 36 targets in Yemen
are bombs the only answer US/UK have to settling differences?
https://www.rt.com/news/591799-yemen-us-uk-strikes/
Oh, and cookies Nuland is spreading more joy.
This war pig is getting fat.
https://www.rt.com/russia/591792-kremlin-nuland-kiev-visit/
How many civilians died in the attacks?
Oh yeah I forgot…they are collateral damage or as Kos calls them…bug splat. If Biden is bombing the Middle East in retaliation then the people who live in Iraq, Libya and Syria have every right to retaliate against America for its attacks on their countries going back 33 years. But that’s just counting this century because we all know what America unleashed on Iran in 1953. And many other countries since our creation.
Violence begets violence begets violence begets violence…. And when does it stop?
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
I just read that 40 people died
including civilians. Russia has called a security meeting at the UN…which won’t accomplish a fcking thing.
Wars are a great way to reduce the civilian population and many people said that the parasites would launch one…or two or three.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
It doesn't take pork
to get fat, apparently. Very apparently.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Biden recently said he’s sending long range bombs to Ukraine
.
But that usually means that they are already there.
Simplicious said that one reason why Russia didn’t end the war quickly was because then Ukraine would become terroristic and now that it’s known they can’t beat Russia that’s what they are now doing. This is yet again another red line that America has crossed. How many more will it cross before Russia says enough? Others say that one reason lines are crossed is because Russia doesn’t do anything when they are.
Ahh well look for another massive bomb attack somewhere in Ukraine…but why are so many bombing equipment being allowed so close to the front?
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
Hi soe
I was very interested to read about the workings of councils and their requirements from your Portland example. It lacks consideration of the vulnerability of most homeowners dealing with acts of nature. It’s no different here. I don’t know if you have the equivalent of NZ's EQC (Earthquake Commission) in your state. It is a governmental insurance department here that deals with damage to land, through landslips, earthquakes (acts of nature), which every homeowner pays into through their private home insurance. But, when it is needed the funds are not there. What good is insurance if there’s really no real assurance?
There is something similar in CA, but it is not
mandatory. It first came out when private earthquake insurance largely disappeared from the market and what existed was exhorbitant. People can buy in, and presumably can get some recompense for small damage from small quakes. Payouts after a major quake are limited by the fund's balance and will probably be minimal even after a Loma Prieta sized quake. We decided not to buy in and self insure.
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 --