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

Still pretty busy on the farm. Winterizing the irrigation system is the big project of the moment it takes about a week and about half way completed. Possible snow in the forecast for mid-week so going to keep at the project through the weekend. It is a 16+ acre system with multiple sections of underground mainlines with connections for above ground aluminum pipes and plastic lines.

A small acreage has been one of my retirement option since teenage years. (yes, I am a long range planner) Noticed the challenges kept the mind and body active of the older generation. Plus it looked like they simply got to play outside all day every day. Financing the dream has been the biggest challenge. Learning the economic skills of running a business also helped with managing personal finance over the longterm.

Found My Dream Farm a 2010 British documentary series this week. It was surprisingly honest about some of the challenges and opportunities of small acreages.
"Determined to transform their lives, six families realize their dreams of returning to the land with help from gardening and farming guru Monty Don."

It has been 10 years since the launch of the Belt and Road initiative. Celebrations and plans for the future at this week's get together in Beijing.

Pepe Escobar: Russia, China Map Out New Economic Order in Beijing Sputnik Globe Oct 20, 2023

Let’s start with the future. The 3rd Belt and Road Forum in Beijing worked as a sort of road map for Eurasia economic/infrastructure integration. It was preceded by the State Council of the People’s Republic of China releasing on October 10 a quite detailed white paper on the New Silk Roads – or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the actual overarching foreign policy concept of China for the foreseeable future.
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The bulk of BRI projects concern extractive industries and transportation corridors. It’s not by accident that key extractive industries are concentrated in Russia and the Persian Gulf – and that is intimately linked to Beijing’s complex strategic drive to bypass Hegemon containment and instances of Hybrid War.
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President Xi announced that participants of the business summit at the Forum clinched new infrastructure deals worth a whopping $97.2 billion.
That’s the new paradigm. Compare it with the old Forever Wars paradigm: the White House working on a $100 billion package to fund the Ukraine-Israel wars.
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China-Russia signed the largest deal in their shared history for the supply of grain; 2.5 trillion rubles for 70 million tons of grain, leguminous and oilseed cargo delivered for 12 years.

That completely destroys serial US Think Tankland wet dream scenarios advocating a naval blockade as the key strategy for the containment of China, to starve it of food and raw materials.

On the energy front, Xi expected the extended Power of Siberia II, or Russia-Mongolia-China gas pipeline to make “substantial progress” as soon as possible.
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Putin’s characterization of the Northern Sea Route is particularly crucial:
“All these transportation corridors from north to south in the European part of Russia, in Siberia, and in the Far East open up the possibility of directly connecting and integrating the Northern Sea Route with major logistics hubs in the south of our continent, on the coast of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. As far as the Northern Sea Route is concerned, Russia is not just inviting its partners to actively use its transit potential. Let me say more: we invite interested states to participate directly in its development and are ready to provide reliable ice navigation, communication and supply. As early as next year, navigation for ice-class cargo ships along the entire length of the Northern Sea Route will become year-round. The creation of the above-mentioned international and regional logistics and trade routes objectively reflects the profound changes that are taking place in the global economy.”
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The Forum was a graphic illustration that BRI, an open platform – a concept unintelligible in the West - goes way beyond trade, infrastructure development and connectivity corridors. It is also about cross-cultural interaction and those notorious, Xi-defined “people-to-people exchanges”, setting an example when it comes to civilization coexistence.

a couple of additional article Pepe published this week.

Slouching Towards the Final SolutionThe Unz Review October 14, 2023

Russia’s neutrality ballet on Israel-Palestine The Cradle Oct 18, 2023

Scott had a number of interesting guests on the past few days so this week I am posting more of his videos that normal.

Understanding how others may look at events in the middle east.

Scott Ritter Show Ep. 49 (38:37 min starts at 23:03) Oct 18, 2023

First part discussion regarding Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran. Video is keyed to start with the discussion of Hamas, Israel and Palestine events.

On episode 49 of the show we are joined by Mohammad Marandi, an Iranian-American academic and political analyst. Marandi was the head of the North American Studies program at the University of Tehran and is currently a professor of English Literature and Orientalism at the university. Marandi has appeared as a political and social commentator on various international news networks such as PBS, ABC, CGTN, CNN, BBC, Al-Jazeera, and RT. He is also an adviser to the Iranian nuclear negotiations team in Vienna.

Scott Ritter Show E. 48 Oct 11, 2023

On episode 48 we are joined by Yakov Kedmi, an Israeli politician, diplomat, political scientist and writer. He is a former head of the “Nativ” liaison bureau. Kedmi had served in the Israel Defense Forces and is a veteran of the ‘Yom Kippur War’ (1973). After the war, he worked at Sohnut's office in Austria and held various positions within the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

It is not just Muslims being persecuted and drove from their homes in Israel.

‘The most successful land-grab strategy since 1967’ as settlers push Bedouins off West Bank territory The Guardian Oct 21, 2023

This week the Bedouin community packed up most of their belongings and drove all the women, children and elderly people from the West Bank ridge they had called home for nearly four decades, perched above a spring and beside an archaeological site.

“They didn’t leave us air to breathe,” said Zawahri, 52, describing a months-long campaign of violence and intimidation that intensified in the last two weeks. First villagers were barred from grazing lands, and the spring, then violence reached their homes.

“They came into the village and destroyed houses and sheep pens, beat an 85-year-old man, scared our children. Slowly our lives became unlivable.”

A few men are trying to stay on amid the shells of homes, empty animal pens, smashed solar panels and broken windows, staking a fragile claim to their own village.
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Over the last year alone, 110,000 dunams, or 110 sq km (42 sq miles), was effectively annexed by settlers on herding outposts, he said. All the built-up settlement areas constructed since 1967 cover only 80 sq km.

It was also the biggest displacement of Palestinian Bedouins since 1972, when at least 5,000 – and perhaps as many as 20,000 – people were moved from the northern Sinai to make way for settlements, Shaul added.

Settlers and their political allies have celebrated this relatively new approach.

“One action that we’ve expanded over the years is the shepherding farms,” Ze’ev “Zambish” Hever, the secretary general of the settler organisation Amana, told a 2021 conference.
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About 450,000 Israelis have settled in what is now Area C of the West Bank – the area under full Israeli military and political control – since the occupation of the Palestinian territories began in 1967, some motivated by religious or nationalist ic reasons, and others by the cheaper cost of living.
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The denial of grazing access adds economic warfare to physical violence. Cutting off land for grazing and growing fodder forces herders to sell off some animals, and with smaller flocks, they make less money and are more vulnerable to sickness, injury or other loss.

“Palestinian herders should be self-reliant based on their established livelihoods. Instead they need humanitarian assistance because of settler violence and the failure of Israeli authorities to hold perpetrators accountable,” the UN OCHA report said.

The impact was so serious, it may amount to a war crime, the statement added. Along with demolitions, evictions and restrictions on movement and construction, the attacks on herders created “a coercive environment that contributes to displacement that may amount to forcible transfer, a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva convention”.

Unusual opportunity to listen to a retired Russian Colonel and analyst regarding Russia's view point of the Special Military Operation.

Scott Ritter Extra Ep. 107: Ask the Inspector (1:20 min) Oct 17, 2023

The livestream videos this week by Judge Napolitano channel ongoing discussions regarding current events in Israel/Hamas/Gaza and secondary subject Ukraine/Russia conflict. The interviews are generally posted on Monday through Friday if would like to view them in a more timely manner. The link opens in the LIVE column, occasionally an interview only appears in VIDEOS section.

What is on your mind today?