Welcome to Saturday's Potluck - 3-19-2022

“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”
Pablo Picasso

I thought puffed rice only came in cereal boxes. Not from the top of the stove.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8iZWJ-1gEs]

________

Not comfortable with the subject, but is does need discussed the evidence keeps getting harder to dismiss as propaganda or overreactions.

Russia’s U.S. Biowarfare Claims in Ukraine Need Serious Answers Strategic Culture March 18, 2022

The United States and Russia continued this week with furious sparring over the issue of biological laboratories in Ukraine. The U.S. accuses Russia of “disinformation” about the labs, saying that they were standard sanitary facilities studying common diseases and epidemiology. For its part, Russia claims that the laboratories were conducting far more sinister and illicit research into developing biowarfare weapons.

Surely, the quickest way to discern the relative validity of concerns is the following basic fact. The research facilities numbering up to 30 locations in Kiev, Kharkov, Kherson, Lvov, Odessa and Poltava, among other cities, were being funded by the Pentagon to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. The figure is estimated at $200 million and, it seems, the research has been going on for several years up until recently. If the laboratories were involved in benign disease investigations then why was the Pentagon the sponsor and liaison organization? Why not the U.S. Department of Health, or Center for Disease Control, instead of the Department of Defense? And why were the laboratories ordered to destroy their samples when Russia launched its military intervention in Ukraine – an intervention that Moscow claims is justified on the grounds of self-defense?

This week the Russian Ministry of Defense named the Pentagon’s liaison officer formerly at the U.S. embassy in Kiev who was responsible for the laboratory programs as Joanna Wintrol. It was suggested that American lawmakers should ask this person to give testimony on the purpose of the facilities.
...
Many questions need answering seriously. It is contemptible to simply brush these questions aside as “Russian propaganda”. The U.S. has a long and vile history of using bioweapons dating back to killing native American populations with smallpox and later civilian populations in Central America and Cuba. Thus, the U.S. has forfeited any benefit of the doubt owing to its well-documented practices of bioterrorism; especially considering the conspicuous involvement of the Pentagon in Ukraine’s laboratories.
...
Russia has insisted on Ukraine and other former Soviet republics being excluded from the U.S.-led military bloc – for good reasons. The turning of Ukraine into a platform of hostility towards Russia since the CIA-backed coup in Kiev in 2014 is the essential background to why the current war has manifested in Ukraine. The apparent involvement of Pentagon biowarfare laboratories in Ukraine is one reason among several why Russia was compelled to take defensive action with its intervention in Ukraine.

If we are ever to restore peace, then we need to understand where the hostility comes from, how, and why.

________

China and Russia have a shared history of biological experiments done to their citizens and the disinterest of Western powers to prosecute those crimes. I do not expect either country to simply drop the subject of a series Bio Labs around the world.

The trial of Unit 731 The Japan Times June 5, 2001

Warning disturbing material in full article descriptions of biological, chemical and medical experiments.

The trial, rammed through Stalinist courts in five days, is the forgotten war-crimes prosecution of the 20th century. It followed the 10-month-long Nuremberg trials and the two-year-long Far Eastern War Crimes Tribunal in Tokyo. But the Khabarovsk trial casts light on a wound that still festers in Asian international relations. Anger at Japan runs deep in both Koreas, China, the Philippines and other nations occupied in World War II to whom Japan has never paid reparations or issued a satisfactory apology. And even as war-crimes victims and their descendants are suing the Japanese government for compensation, the nation’s Education Ministry approved a textbook this past April glossing over the Imperial Japanese Army’s wartime culpability.

“One can’t overestimate the importance of the Khabarovsk trial, since it was the third after Nuremberg and Tokyo, and it was dedicated to crimes against humanity,” said Vladislav Bogach, the director of Khabarovsk Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology and the author of a book about the trial, “Outlaw Weapon.” “Khabarovsk doctors proved that the secret units of the Japanese Army . . . prepared extremely dangerous weapons intended for the mass murder of people.”
...
The work of Unit 731, while heinous, was not irrational. The Imperial Japanese Army was attempting to produce biological weapons that could be transported by balloon to the United States. (The Khabarovsk trials also revealed plans to use germ warfare in Russia, but the Soviet Union did not join the Pacific War until after the atomic bomb was dropped in August 1945.) Japan succeeded in lofting hundreds of incendiary balloons, swept eastward by the jet stream to the U.S. West Coast. These killed seven people, ignited forest fires and crashed in Medford, Oregon, and Billings, Montana. But the logistics of sending infected rats or fleas across the Pacific apparently proved overwhelming. Late in the war, the Japanese devised Operation Cherry Blossoms at Night, a plan to send kamikaze pilots to bomb San Diego with plague-infected fleas. But with the U.S.’ atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the plan was never carried out.
...
When the war ended, the Soviet Army overran Manchuria and brought back 500,000 Japanese prisoners of war, including some who had worked at Unit 731. While Soviet officials deliberated on what to do with them, U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur secretly granted immunity to the physicians of Unit 731 in exchange for providing America with their research on biological weapons. Presented with evidence that downed U.S. airmen had been victims of grotesque experiments, MacArthur suppressed the information.

________

What is on your mind today? (Responses to Covid questions and dialog to be conducted at The Dose diary)

Share
up
10 users have voted.

Comments

Moin moin. Thanks soe, especially for the trigger warning, saving those parts for later.

I cracked up watching that puffed rice vid with the sound off. Now I am hungry, because of course. "ya gotta have crackle or the clock's not wound" LOL yeah, that's what I say every day. Have a good one.

snap crackle pop old rice krispies commercial
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6TIsxTdrCU width:500]

up
8 users have voted.
studentofearth's picture

@eyo thought it was a modern food. Available only on Saturday morning only. The rest of the week forced to eat homemade foods from basic ingredients in the pantry like pancakes, french toast, eggs, toast and hashbrowns.

Do not need to read the full article to understand Russia and China take bio weapons very seriously. Skip the adding the mental pictures to your memory. Simply enjoy the day presented before us today.

up
5 users have voted.

Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.

Lookout's picture

A nice morning at trade day. Visited with several old friends. I only bought a quart of oil to keep in my 30 YO Geo...$6, and he claimed that was a bargain. Inflation hits even trade day. At the grocery, inflation is really obvious. Makes you wonder how the fed puffs the money supply..on the stove top?

Had a productive, but wet week. Planted onions, broccoli, collards, brussels sprouts, cabbage, lettuce, carrots and kale. Still have over wintered red cabbage, chard, beets, we kinda keep radishes and parsley going all the time.

I guess I've been digitized...got my star drivers license in the mail this week. Also mailed in my taxes....most of which will probably fund Ukrainian Nazis. What a crazy world we're living in...
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsE1_EE0bw4]

Thanks for the OT. Hope all is well with you and yours and the homestead!

up
11 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

enhydra lutris's picture

@Lookout

all the time?

be well and have a good one

up
4 users have voted.

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 --

Lookout's picture

@enhydra lutris and I think is classified as a biennial. We have to cover it in winter.

Good luck with yours!

up
3 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

enhydra lutris's picture

@Lookout

so I have to replant - I was hoping for magic. Wink

be well and have a good one

up
2 users have voted.

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 --

janis b's picture

@enhydra lutris

I don’t think parsley follows the rules. It’s supposed to be a biennial rather than perennial. Even though we live in different climates we’ve both experienced it more as a perennial. I have had curly parsley reseeding itself in white limestone chip for at least 9 years. I’m not much of a fan culinarily-wise, but it keeps producing prolifically. I too expect that one day its long distance run will end.

up
1 user has voted.
enhydra lutris's picture

@janis b

My longest run of it reseeding itself was maybe 4 years and it also spread, almost invasive, and then, poof, nada. I now have a big one grown from purchased start, so I'll have to see how it goes.

be well and have a good one

up
2 users have voted.

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 --

Lookout's picture

@janis b

cut leaves off stems
to 2 cups parsley leaves add
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
diced garlic to taste (3 or so cloves)
3/4 cup EVOO
1/2 of a lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste.

Marinate over night in fridge.

We use it with eggs, added to soups, or just eaten as a side dish.

More Vitamin C in parsley than an orange.
https://www.virginialeenlaw.com/tips/what-vitamins-and-minerals-are-in-p...

Parsley provides a number of vital elements, including vitamins A, K, and C, among others. It also contains significant amounts of the minerals calcium, iron, magnesium, and potassium.

Fresh parsley contains a high concentration of Vitamin A and potassium. It has a considerable amount of Vitamin C, calcium, folate (folic acid), and phosphorus in its composition. When the weight to volume ratio is taken into consideration (1.23 g dietary fiber per 1/2 cup parsley), it is also a rich source of dietary fiber.

All the best!

up
1 user has voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

@Lookout I should have gotten an auto renewal, but mysteriously, I had to go in, eye test, get a new photo. The staff bragged that the yellow start was just like a passport. I asked them if they had ever traveled internationally. It is one thing to be ignorant, but to be proudly ignorant is another all together.
As for price increases, our gas has dropped about 10 cents. No worries, Oligarchs, food and toiletries, cleaning products, etc...are jumping up to nearly twice the costs from 3 months ago. My brother's electric bill has jumped the last few months. Mine has increased only slightly. I am curious to see my water bill.
Well, I am off to shop for flowers, and to buy food at this week's price in anticipation of facing next week's prices.
I will be paying in quite a bit on my quarterly tax bill in a few weeks. It will be of great benefit to the Ukraine.
Take care, LO, and also everyone here.

up
10 users have voted.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

studentofearth's picture

@Lookout did the biannual fill-up of the farm pick-up and bought the oil for the annual oil change just a few days before prices went crazy. Keeping my fingers crossed the Prius keeps running for a few years for the weekly town runs.

up
9 users have voted.

Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.

lotlizard's picture

@Lookout  
When was “Shot from guns” a positive marketing slogan?

https://invention.si.edu/alexander-anderson-and-cereal-shot-guns

Money printer go brrrrr kaboom

up
4 users have voted.

@Lookout we bought a big bottle of water for $1.05. Today, it was $1.26. Everything on the shelves is creeping up, and I try to buy today what I can avoid paying more for next week.
This has to be some sort of plan.

up
4 users have voted.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

enhydra lutris's picture

is the whole point of puffing rice?

Pro: https://www.24mantra.com/blogs/health-and-nutrition/7-health-benefits-of.... Sound good? -

Con: https://www.tarladalal.com/article-is-puffed-rice-healthy-378

It seems to be a very timely topic given the connection, no doubt inadvertent, to US breakfast cereals and treats (Rice Krispy bars) and a discussion of bioweapons, like, ya know, the US diet, HFCS based soda pop, and all that. HEH.

So, how did it go from being Indian street food to a US breakfast cereal, or vice-versa, or was it parallel evolution? Here it is just a substrate for eating milk and sugar, and buttered toast would work just as well with less hassle, I suspect.

Thanks for the diversion

be well and have a good one

up
7 users have voted.

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 --

studentofearth's picture

@enhydra lutris awful puffed rice cakes which showed up on grocery shelves in the 1980s.

On a side note of the healthful US fast food diet. The only person with a typical obese body seen in United States is the Russian protesting the closure of McDonalds due to sanctions. Maybe our health crisis related to obesity is primarily related to seed oils and GMO crops.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiqCIOrf2i0]

up
6 users have voted.

Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.

up
5 users have voted.
studentofearth's picture

@humphrey Ukraine was his special project while vice-president. He and those around him implementing policy are personally vested in keeping past activities secret. It increases the risk of a first strike bombing by the United States to destroy evidence of potential crimes being presented to the world.

up
8 users have voted.

Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.

actually happening. It is complicated by constant propaganda from both sides.

One thing that is certain is that the Russians used a hypersonic missile.

This from US funded mouthpiece VOA

https://www.voanews.com/a/russia-claims-hypersonic-missile-use-in-attack...

Frustrated Russian Forces Resort to More Shelling, New Generation Missiles

WARSAW, POLAND —
Russian military officials said Saturday that they fired hypersonic missiles for the first time in Ukraine to target what they said was an underground weapons storage site in the west of the country.

Kinzhal missiles travel so fast, at Mach 9, they are meant to be able to evade detection by defense systems, and when announcing the missiles’ development in 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putin described them as “invincible.”

“The Kinzhal aviation missile system with hypersonic aero-ballistic missiles destroyed a large underground warehouse containing missiles and aviation ammunition in the village of Deliatyn in the Ivano-Frankivsk region,” the Russian Defense Ministry said Saturday. The strike was on Friday, but the Russian claim has not been independently verified.

“Thanks to the courage and training of the Ukrainian armed forces, the occupying troops were stopped in almost all directions. Difficult battles in Kharkiv region — especially heavy battles near Izium,” Zelenskyy said in a video address Saturday. “Kyiv region, Sumy region, Chernihiv region, in the south of our state — the army stopped the invaders. The initial plan of the Russian military to seize our state failed. And it is felt that they do not know what can be done with us. It seems that their military commanders are not able to offer their political leadership anything but cruel and misguided tactics to deplete us, deplete Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said.

Institute of the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank monitoring the shifting battlefield, believes that aside from territorial gains around Mariupol, Russian forces have made no major ground gains and that the invading units are likely being engulfed by morale and supply problems.

ASB Military News
@ASBMilitary
3h
·

$400 million worth of Western supplied weaponry destroyed in a single russian strike on the military base near Lvov — radio intercepted comms suggest that 267 foreign mercenaries have been killed in the strike. 50 year old Peter from Austria who fought alongside the “international legion of Ukraine” said that 800 to 1000 foreign mercenaries were present during the strike. Around 400 mercenaries were evacuated to Poland, many of whom have suffered severe burns & torn limbs from the Kalibr strike. There’s a high number of missing individuals still under the rubble which includes a high number of Americans, Poles and Romanians. Former NATO officers are Amongst the dead.

I have no idea where the truth is but lets say that the brainwashing has been rampant.

up
5 users have voted.

@humphrey

we have plenty of fog here today.
The news spinners are going nuts trying to
obscure anything factual. It's gotta hurt the
US/NATO storyline when Ukraine smells as
bad as Biden's ass.

up
4 users have voted.

up
6 users have voted.

They must think that the Chinese can be duped like the American public.

up
5 users have voted.

edited to add:

It is getting similar to the this individual

up
3 users have voted.
TheOtherMaven's picture

and all the transphobes and TERFs came out of the woodwork. They screamed things like, "she blew past all previous women's records" (either totally untrue, or true for UPenn only), and "no real women have a chance against her" (flatly untrue, she only won now and then, and on one recent occasion was beaten by a social-only FTM (no testosterone) and four cis women).

Anyway, ESPN summarized the turbulence in the pool thusly: https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/33550045/lia-thomas-finis...

Hopefully that's that...until next time.

up
2 users have voted.

There is no justice. There can be no peace.

up
3 users have voted.

up
3 users have voted.
janis b's picture

I just read a piece in the London Review of Books entitled “Losing at the Starting Line”

It is an interesting observation on an aspect of Chinese contemporary culture.

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n22/wang-xiuying/losing-at-the-start...

up
2 users have voted.
janis b's picture

@janis b

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n22/wang-xiuying/losing-at-the-start...

up
2 users have voted.
studentofearth's picture

@janis b in the Chinese approach to educating their children for the future. Thanks for the link.

up
3 users have voted.

Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.