The Evening Blues - 1-6-23
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features Chicago blues guitarist Magic Slim. Enjoy!
Magic Slim And The Tear Drops - I'm A Blues Man
“Passing from the tyranny of Charles I to the tyranny of Cromwell is like taking a turn in a revolving door; the exertion merely puts you back where you started. If every jobholder in Washington were driven into the Potomac tonight, their places would be taken tomorrow by others precisely like them."
-- Albert Jay Nock
News and Opinion
CNN Recruits Washington’s Worst Warmonger The Instant He Leaves Congress
CNN has shattered the speed of light in its haste to recruit former representative Adam Kinzinger to its punditry lineup the millisecond he left congress.
Kinzinger, who prior to being redistricted out of his House seat received handsome campaign contributions from arms manufacturers Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman, was arguably the most egregious warmonger on Capitol Hill.
Nobody in congress lobbied as aggressively to start World War Three as Kinzinger did last year; he tried to advance a bill authorizing hot war against Russia if Moscow crossed specified red lines in Ukraine but couldn’t get cosponsors because even his fellow congressional hawks thought it was too insane. He was the loudest voice in the US government publicly advocating a no-fly zone over Ukraine in the early weeks of the war, an idea that was slammed by the mass media as it would necessarily have entailed the US military shooting down Russian war planes and aggressively tempted nuclear war.
Kinzinger was such a demented omnicidal maniac in 2022 that while still in office he became an official member of the empire-backed online troll farm known as “NAFO”, which was founded by an actual neo-Nazi whom Kinzinger openly supported both before and after revelations emerged of the founder’s expressions of hatred for Jews and fondness for Hitler. While still a sitting congressman he was flagging trolls with hashtags inviting them to swarm the social media comments of critics of US foreign policy who opposed his psychopathic warmongering.
Before the war in Ukraine Kinzinger was calling for the re-invasion of Afghanistan immediately following the US troop withdrawal and raging about public opposition to “endless war.” Before that he was cheerleading Trump’s assassination of Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani, calling for US interventionism in Venezuela, defending the US-backed war on Yemen, calling for the invasion of Syria, and just generally pushing for more war and militarism at every opportunity. Before that, he was helping the empire kill Iraqis as a member of the US Air Force.
Kinzinger is such an obnoxious warmonger online that I myself have called him “the single worst Twitter account that has ever existed,” long before his CNN gig was a twinkle in his eye.
So it’s no wonder a warmongering propaganda network snapped him up the instant he became available, ensuring that his warmongering receives as large a platform as possible. As Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp quipped regarding CNN’s hire, “All those calls for WWIII must have landed him this gig.”
Shame on my audience for getting such an obvious and easy question wrong (though MSNBC was certainly a reasonable guess): https://t.co/MAQjJraBrd pic.twitter.com/xcETe1fRJg
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 5, 2023
Kinzinger’s assimilation into the war propaganda industry was so predictable that Glenn Greenwald included it in a Twitter poll this past October asking his audience where they expect his career will take him after he leaves congress, with CNN being one of the options. As one Twitter follower put it, the “congressman to media commentator to lobbyist revolving door spins so fast in Washington, it actually affects the earth’s rotation relative to the sun.”
War is the glue that holds the US empire together, and to serve that purpose it requires endless war propaganda. War propagandists are not any more separate from the endless mass military slaughter they facilitate than the people who actually pull the trigger, and we see this illustrated in the way Kinzinger has been able to slide seamlessly from dropping bombs to passing bomb-dropping legislation to manufacturing consent for the dropping of bombs.
We live under an empire that is fueled by lies and human blood, and driven by the ongoing efforts of murderous war sluts like Adam Kinzinger.
CNN will be perfect for him.
US Admits Russia Bakhmut Advance, Russia Claims Solidar Gains, US France To Provide Light Armour
Ukraine rejects Putin’s 36-hour ceasefire for Orthodox Christmas
Ukraine has rejected an announcement by Vladimir Putin of a 36-hour ceasefire to mark Orthodox Christmas, saying there will be no truce until Russia removes its invading forces from occupied land.
The Kremlin said Putin had ordered his defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, to introduce a temporary ceasefire along the entire line of contact in Ukraine for Orthodox Christmas from midday on Friday to midnight on Saturday. “Taking into account the appeal of his holiness Patriarch Kirill, I instruct the minister of defence of the Russian Federation to introduce a ceasefire regime along the entire line of contact of the parties in Ukraine from 12.00 on 6 January 2023 to 24.00 on 7 January 2023,” Putin’s order, addressed to Shoigu and published on the Kremlin’s website, stated.
“Based on the fact that a large number of citizens professing Orthodoxy live in the areas of hostilities, we call on the Ukrainian side to declare a ceasefire and allow them to attend services on Christmas Eve, as well as on Christmas Day,” Putin added.
Many Orthodox Christians, including those living in Russia and Ukraine, celebrate Christmas on 6-7 January. Since the war began, some Ukrainians are choosing to celebrate Christmas according to the Gregorian calendar, rather than the Julian calendar still used by the Russian Orthodox church.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy dismissed Russia’s ceasefire announcement, saying that Moscow had only made the announcement to halt Ukrainian advances in the eastern Donbas region and mobilise more men.
Putin Christmas truce. Latvia arrests Sputnik Editor-in-chief. Professor Hillary. CNN Kinzinger.
US and Germany agree to send infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine
Joe Biden and his German counterpart Olaf Scholz have agreed to send infantry fighting vehicles to help Ukraine fight Russia, a day after France said it would supply its own armoured vehicles to Kyiv in an attempt to create a breakthrough in the 10-month war. The joint announcement followed a phone call between Biden and Scholz and amounts to a step change in western military support for Ukraine, which has asked for up to 700 armoured vehicles to help force the Russians out.
“The United States intends to supply Ukraine with Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, and Germany intends to provide Ukraine with Marder infantry fighting vehicles,” the White House said in a statement on Thursday.
Ukraine has repeatedly said it needs 600 to 700 infantry fighting vehicles plus 300 tanks from from the west in order to give its military a chance of breaking through the increasingly fortified Russian positions along the frontline.
Until now, however, the US and Germany have been wary of supplying Ukraine with Nato-standard armour, because they feared it would be interpreted by Russia as escalatory. But the decision to supply western armoured vehicles is significant, even if both countries stopped short of sending tanks.
Germany will also supply Ukraine with a Patriot air defence system, in addition to one promised by the US last month, the White House added. Both countries will train the Ukrainian military on the Marders and Bradleys, although it it was not immediately clear how many of each would be supplied.
Putin Sends Hypersonic Missile Ship to Train in Atlantic, Indian Oceans
President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday presided over the launch of a warship armed with new hypersonic cruise missiles on a training mission to the Atlantic and Indian Oceans and the Mediterranean.
“I am sure that such powerful weapons will make it possible to reliably protect Russia from potential external threats and will help ensure the national interests of our country,” Putin was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying.
“We will continue to develop the fighting potential of our armed forces,” Putin said, adding that the Zircon missile system on the ship “has no equivalent.” ...
“In exercises, there will be training for the crew on deploying hypersonic weapons and long-range cruise missiles,” Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said.
Shoigu said the Zircon missiles were “able to overcome any modern or future air defence” and could deliver “pinpoint and powerful strikes against the enemy at sea and on land.”
Israel's new rulers have a final solution for the "Palestinian problem"
Israel: MP says time to 'subdue Palestinians once and for all' in the 'last war'
An Israeli MP in the governing coalition has called for a "final war" against the Palestinians to "subdue them once and for all", following international condemnation of security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir's incursion into Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem.
Hamas, the Palestinian group that controls Gaza, threatened retaliation on Tuesday after Ben-Gvir marched across Al-Aqsa in defiance of longstanding agreements preventing unsanctioned visits to the site by non-Muslims.
On Wednesday, Zvika Fogel - an MP with Ben-Gvir's ultra-nationalist Jewish Power party - hit out at Hamas, saying in an interview on Channel 12 that Israel's policy of going to war with Palestinians "every two or three years" was not enough and that it should " subdue them once and for all".
"It would be worth it because this will be the final war, and after that we can sit and raise doves and all the other beautiful birds that exist," he said, according to Haaretz.
Thousands of Palestinians have died as a result of Israeli assaults on Gaza since the strip was put under siege in 2007.
US Says It Opposes Countries Normalizing With Assad After Syria-Turkey Talks
The State Department on Tuesday said that the US opposes other countries normalizing with the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad following high-level talks between Syria and Turkey.
The defense ministers of Syria and Turkey met in Moscow at the end of December, marking the first time Ankara and Damascus held talks at that level since 2011. While sources told Middle East Eye no deals were made at the meeting, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said he expects to meet with his Syrian and Russian counterparts later this month.
The Turkish rapprochement with Syria represents a significant shift as Ankara severed relations with Damascus in 2012 and supported the failed regime change effort against Assad by backing anti-government fighters in Syria. Even though it’s clear Assad isn’t going anywhere, the US opposes Syria’s neighbors normalizing with his government.
3,000+ Yemenis Killed or Injured in 2022
Data released by the Yemen-based Eye for Humanity Centre for Rights and Development claims that at least 643 Yemeni civilians were killed in 2022, out of over 3,000 casualties recorded. This is despite last year seeing an unprecedented six-month-long ceasefire and a significant drop in fatalities. The war in Yemen will complete eight years in 2023.
The data shows that the total fatalities recorded last year included at least 102 children and 27 women. At least 353 children and 97 women were also injured in this period.
The Saudi Arabia-led international coalition also destroyed over 14,300 homes, 12 hospitals, 64 schools, and 22 power stations in Yemen last year, according to the organization, furthering the suffering of millions of Yemenis. ...
Bombings as well as the blockade imposed by the Saudi-led coalition have severely affected the situation of common Yemenis. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), more than 70 percent of Yemenis are now dependent on some kind of humanitarian aid, with the country’s health infrastructure working at half its capacity leaving millions of Yemenis vulnerable. ...
According to UNICEF, as a result of almost eight years of war, the child mortality rate in Yemen has become the highest in the Arab world with over 60 deaths per 1,000 births. UNICEF says the figure of newborn babies dying every day in Yemen is almost double what the government claims. UNICEF has reported that nearly 52,000 new born babies are dying each year in Yemen, an average of at least 142 per day.
Yoon says S. Korea should consider suspending 2018 tension reduction deal
President Yoon Suk-yeol ordered aides to consider suspending a 2018 inter-Korean military tension reduction agreement if North Korea violates the South's territory again, an official said Wednesday.
Yoon's remark came after five North Korean drones infiltrated South Korean airspace last week, raising serious questions about South Korea's readiness posture. ...
Yoon's instructions were a call for the South Korean armed forces to build an "overwhelming response capability that goes beyond a proportionate response to North Korea's provocations," senior presidential secretary for press affairs Kim Eun-hye explained. ...
The Sept. 19 agreement, which was signed after a 2018 summit between then President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, calls for halting all hostile military activity between the Koreas.
Uber drivers strike in New York after company blocks raises and fare hikes
At noon on Thursday, hundreds of Uber drivers gathered outside the company’s headquarters in downtown New York and chants echoed across the 9/11 Memorial Plaza: “Shame on Uber.” Uber drivers were engaging in a 24-hour strike that began first thing on Thursday in response to the ride sharing giant’s move to sue New York’s Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) for approving a raise and fare hike.
Uber’s opposition to the raise and fair hike for drivers comes as the impact of inflation has caused the cost of living to increase across the country. ... But Uber called TLC’s proposed hike “economically unjustifiable”.
The raise was expected to go into effect at the end of 2022, but Uber’s lawsuit has blocked it. On Friday, a hearing will be held to determine whether to keep or lift the order blocking the raise.
South Carolina supreme court rules six-week abortion ban unconstitutional
The South Carolina supreme court has ruled that the state’s six-week ban on abortion is unconstitutional, under the right to privacy.
The 3-2 decision will mean the state’s six-week abortion ban with exceptions for rape and incest will be immediately and permanently struck down. Abortion will remain legal in South Carolina up until 22 weeks of pregnancy.
“We hold that the decision to terminate a pregnancy rests upon the utmost personal and private considerations imaginable, and implicates a woman’s right to privacy,” Justice Kaye Hearn wrote in her decision.
“While this right is not absolute, and must be balanced against the state’s interest in protecting unborn life, this Act – which severely limits – and in many instances completely forecloses – abortion, is an unreasonable restriction on a woman’s right to privacy and is therefore unconstitutional,” the decision read.
Kevin McCarthy loses speakership bid on third day as votes tally climbs to 11
The 118th Congress made history again on Thursday, as House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy failed to win the speakership for the 11th time after eight hours of voting. The protracted stalemate marks the first time since 1859 that the House has required more than nine ballots to determine a new speaker.
McCarthy entered the third day of voting with fresh momentum for his candidacy, amid reports that he had made significant concessions to his roughly 20 detractors within the Republican conference.
But the ongoing negotiations did not sway McCarthy’s critics, who continued to oppose him across three votes on Thursday. McCarthy won 200 votes on the ninth ballot, leaving him 18 votes short of the 218 needed for a victory. ...
The Republican opposition to McCarthy has been notably stable, even after the detractors reportedly notched some important wins in their negotiations. According to CNN, McCarthy has agreed to a chamber rule change allowing just one House member to call for a vote to remove the sitting speaker. McCarthy has also reportedly agreed to allow additional members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus to serve on the influential rules committees, and he has promised votes on some of the detractors’ top legislative priorities.
In another major win for far-right House members, the McCarthy-aligned Pac Congressional Leadership Fund has reached an agreement with the organization Club for Growth to not invest in open-seat primaries in safe Republican districts. The two groups have previously clashed in primaries where the Club for Growth promoted candidates who were farther to the right than those endorsed by the CLF. The agreement could give hard-right candidates a better chance at a primary victory, clearing the way for them to join the House after winning relatively easy general elections.
Alarm as US states pass ‘very concerning’ anti-homeless laws
Numerous anti-homeless laws are being passed across the US as funding for social services is widely reduced, raising welfare concerns among advocates for the unhoused.
In Missouri, a new state law that took effect on 1 January makes it a crime for any person to sleep on state property. For unhoused people, sleeping in public parks or under city highways could mean up to $750 in fines or 15 days in prison for multiple offenses.
Homelessness advocates have decried the law, claiming that it unfairly targets Missouri’s homeless populations. The law was signed by Missouri’s governor, Mike Parson, last June. ...
Other cities and local municipalities in America have also passed measures targeting homeless individuals, through criminal consequences or forced hospitalization.
Cities across the country have seen a backlash to attempts by officials to remove homeless encampments or limit where unhoused people can camp.
PROOF Twitter Censored Anyone CIA & FBI Told Them To!
Why Americans can't debate politics anymore
Michigan Democrat Debbie Stabenow’s retirement sets up fierce 2024 Senate contest
Michigan senator Debbie Stabenow, a member of the Democratic leadership, announced on Thursday that she would not seek re-election in 2024, setting the stage for a fierce contest to claim an open seat in a critical midwestern battleground state.
Stabenow, 72, is the first Senate Democrat to announce her retirement ahead of 2024, when the party will try to defend its razor-thin majority by fending off challenges to incumbents in several states that former president Donald Trump won. ...
Stabenow’s decision not to seek a fifth term after serving two decades in the chamber immediately turned the race for Michigan’s open Senate seat into one of the most competitive in the nation. Republicans welcomed the development as a sign that Democrats’ hopes of maintaining their one-seat majority were already fading.
“We are going to aggressively target this seat in 2024,” said Mike Berg, communications director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the campaign arm of Senate Republicans. “This could be the first of many Senate Democrats who decide to retire rather than lose.”
Senate Democrats face a punishing electoral map next year. They are defending nearly a quarter of the seats in the Senate, many of them in competitive states as well as in red states like Ohio, Montana and West Virginia. By contrast, no Senate Republican faces re-election in a state Joe Biden won.
Religious Right MELTS DOWN Over Trump Abortion Blame
Half of glaciers will be gone by 2100 even under Paris 1.5C accord, study finds
Half the planet’s glaciers will have melted by 2100 even if humanity sticks to goals set out in the Paris climate agreement, according to research that finds the scale and impacts of glacial loss are greater than previously thought. At least half of that loss will happen in the next 30 years.
Researchers found 49% of glaciers would disappear under the most optimistic scenario of 1.5C of warming. However, if global heating continued under the current scenario of 2.7C of warming, losses would be more significant, with 68% of glaciers disappearing, according to the paper, published in Science. There would be almost no glaciers left in central Europe, western Canada and the US by the end of the next century if this happened.
This will significantly contribute to sea level rise, threaten the supply of water of up to 2 billion people, and increase the risk of natural hazards such as flooding. The study looked at all glacial land ice except for Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. If temperature increases are limited to 1.5C of warming, average sea levels would increase by 90mm (3.5in) from 2015 to 2100, but with 2.7C of warming, glacial melt would lead to around 115mm of sea level rise. These scenarios are up to 23% more than previous models had estimated.
Mountain glacier melt is believed to contribute to more than a third of sea level rise. A lot of this loss is unavoidable, but the magnitude of loss is directly related to temperature increases, so acting on the climate crisis is key. Researchers wrote in the paper: “The rapidly increasing glacier mass losses as global temperature increases beyond 1.5C stresses the urgency of establishing more ambitious climate pledges to preserve the glaciers in these mountainous regions.”
The team used two decades of satellite data to map the planet’s glaciers with greater precision than ever before. Previous models had relied on measurements of specific glaciers, and that information was then extrapolated, but now researchers could get data points on each of the planet’s 200,000 glaciers. For the first time, this gave them insight into how many would be lost under different climate change scenarios.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
Ukraine and Russia: Waiting for the Next Phase?
Peru roadblocks resume as president urges ‘peace, calm, unity’
After 16 Months, There Are Still No Arrests in the Fed’s Trading Scandal
‘It’s Not Either/Or’ — Population and Consumption in the Climate Solutions Debate
Amateur archaeologist uncovers ice age ‘writing’ system
JFK Docs: CIA CAUGHT Changing Oswald Story
Why Corporate Media HATES The “Twitter Files” w/ Matt Taibbi
Dems DEMANDED Twitter Find Phony Russiagate Evidence!
Juan Guaidó, another failed regime change reaches its conclusion
A Little Night Music
Magic Slim And The Tear Drops - Mind Your Own Business
Magic Slim - Crazy Woman
Magic Slim - Goin' To Mississippi
Magic Slim - Still a Fool
Magic Slim - Before You Accuse Me
Magic Slim & The Teardrops - Bad boy
Magic Slim & The Teardrops - I Need Lovin'
Magic Slim & James Cotton - Just To Be With You
Magic Slim & the Teardrops - Chicago 1976
Magic Slim and the Teardrops - Jazzfestival Bern 2001
Comments
just glad Rus offered a cease fire for their X-mas
sad Ukraine viewed badly on this reaction
make war - not religion nor peace
oh, and now we have Bolton running for POTU
with Mike Pompeo, Ron DeSantis, D. Trump and and a
thrilling list of cartoon characters!
thanks for the blues!
question everything
evening qms...
yep, elensky really demonstrated his comedy credentials in his reply to the offer of a ceasefire.
this could be a sad but interesting election cycle as the clown car fills up with only candidates that nobody in their right mind would vote for.
Thanks for the Eb's Joe!
well here at my local TV station that everyone has heard of,
WGN TV it looks as if they have an agenda.
Though it's from 6 months ago it's still relevant today.
Open the link to a must watch 1 minute video
https://www.reddit.com/r/WayOfTheBern/comments/104jjlt/wcgw_when_you_ask...
Stay safe everyone and have a great weekend
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...
wow, that gal really stuck it right back in their faces! a great job on her part, i hope that some people were educated by her.
thanks for the link, have a great weekend!
It's been suggested elsewhere the cease fire would take
effect at just that time the ground is expected to freeze up solid enough to hold Ukrainian armor for a winter offensive. Of course the war would end tomorrow if Russia simply went home. Christmas is over.
The Bradley is one of the weapons systems many people think would be easiest to deploy immediately. Safe against anything except a direct hit by a tank, highly maneuverable, not too complicated. After all the drone attacks of infrastructure and the artillery shelling of Kherson it's also thought that there's not much more Russia can do. It's obvious they won't use nukes, they're running out of most materials except human lives.
On other issues... Half a million homeless tonight, maybe more, temps expected in the teens here. Neither party is doing anything about it. I can certainly understand committing half to mental institutions, many have some pretty serious mental health issues. It was Reagan's emptying of state hospitals in the 80s that brought about the current situation. And then there are all the NGO workers whose very jobs depend on a large homeless population. I don't see what good arresting people will do. Our jails already serve to house many.
evening ban nock...
i don't follow the weather in ukraine, but it seems to me that if the ground is frozen, then not only will it support ukrainian armor, it will also support russian armor. all indications are that russia is quite capable at this point of mounting an offensive should they so desire. or, they could just sit tight and let the ukrainians impale themselves on russia's newly-fortified defensive lines.
russia is very apparently operating a war of attrition rather than a war to seize and hold all of the ground that they can. if the reports of the declining numbers of ukrainian troops are true, russia's strategy appears to be succeeding at this point.
i keep hearing that russia is running out of missiles, drones, etc., etc. - i see no evidence that that is happening. it seems to me that much (if not all) of these claims about russia running out of materiel are ukrainian propaganda.
the homeless problem in the u.s. has been going on for quite some time and only seems to get worse as time goes on. there has been and continues to be no political will to address the problem in a serious way since fixing it would be expensive and the only thing that there is political will to spend money on is the military.
Here is some evidence of Russia's equipment pulled out of his
butt by a Ukrainian official.
heh...
well, you have to give it to them, those ukro-nazis produce nice graphics.
@joe shikspack Joe one way to judge
Joe one way to judge the veracity of information is to see how it stacks up after the fact.
If a source makes claims of eminent victory, and then they withdraw, again, I'd take any info with a dose of salt.
Of course in a war both sides are putting out misinformation. Anyone is welcome to believe or repeat misinformation, but how it holds up to the test of time, is the only true measure.
The clown show choosing a speaker has passed its 13th
episode but it appears close to reaching a conclusion.
Soon the regular Circus (also called the House) will return to its duties of screwing the public.
evening humphrey...
heh, i suspect that soon we will look back on this period as the best time of this congress.
12.26 Seoul Drone Incursion from North Korea
(Source- 언론 알아야 바꾼다 youtube 1.5.23)
Downward arrow on left shows contended flight route of four drones crossing the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) from North Korea heading southwest over Gangwha Island, South Korea. Red line on right shows southeast heading of one other drone which also crossed the MDL, passed near Kimpo and following a course along the Han River, entering Seoul airspace, proceeding to Yongsan and skirting the P-73a shootdown prohibited airspace (red circle lower right) before returning toward NK on a reverse course.
At the outset of the presidential office move out of the Blue House, the Army Air Defense Command had objected to the movement of the P-73a prohibited zone to the south, recommended increasing its size from 3.7km radius to 5.7 km, and disputed contentions that new or different weapon systems could compensate for the gaps created over the critical national command center area by the move. While recent criticisms of the quality of North Korean reconnaissance had been made beforehand, particularly their photoreconnaissance, the flight path of the drone buzzing Seoul suggests the North Koreans anticipated exactly where the gaps would be.
So Yoon escalated by sending drones into North Korea in retaliation and told his generals not to be afraid of nuclear war. The US never really supported the military agreements made by South Korea with North Korea to defuse tensions along the DMZ, the best that could be said was that they acquiesced at the time, reluctantly.
It's also likely that some ROK/US military exercises, artillery firing near Paju, rocket-artillery firing in Cheoran County (both very near the DMZ), air force exercises in the West Sea, etc., had already violated the agreement, namely, in the buffer zones around the maritime Northern Limit Line and MDL restricting such military operations. Their joint use of artillery in Paju and rockets in Cheoran violated the spirit of the 2018 military agreement, if not the letter. It's clear that the North regarded ROK and US artillery firing, and artillery rocket activities so close to the DMZ as provocations. They responded with missile tests and artillery firings into the maritime buffer zones, and aircraft operations near the DMZ, all North Korean violations of the September 19, 2018, Comprehensive Military Agreement. There is also the issue of the Yoon administration allowing propaganda balloon flights over the DMZ to the North by defector groups illegal under the law passed by the Moon administration after the military agreement. We know at least two such events occurred in July and October 2022 along with the other provocations from the South. It's pretty obvious that the Yoon administration has desired to sabotage the 2018 military agreements negotiated by the prior democratic Moon administration, which his administration has characterized as communist supporters and worse.
The Military’s Response to North Korean Drones Was “Altogether Incompetent,”
By Park Eun-kyung, Kyunghyung Sinmun, 1.6.23;
http://english.khan.co.kr/khan_art_view.html?artid=202301061304427&code=...
S.Korea begins major Hoguk field training exercise amid N.Korea’s saber-rattling; Korea Herald, Oct. 17, 2022;
https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20221017000637
Explainer: What exactly is the inter-Korean military pact that might be suspended?
Hankyoreh, Jan.5,2023
https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_northkorea/1074576.html
Military Flight Restrictions Agreement Between Koreas Irks US, 10.13.18
https://civilizationdiscontents.blogspot.com/2018/10/military-flight-res...
"Screwing Up" the Tension in Korea, 12.28.22
https://civilizationdiscontents.blogspot.com/2022/12/screwing-up-tension...
Thanks Joe for addressing the September 2018 Comprehensive Military Agreement between North and South Korea, and its current unraveling. Enjoyed your news roundup as usual.
語必忠信 行必正直
evening soryang...
it certainly seems that things are moving in the wrong direction in the koreas and the u.s. appears to be in the role of an outside agitator encouraging the south to step ever closer to whatever lines exist to discourage war. i suppose when seattle or some other u.s. city lights up, we get to say, "i told you so." great.
Good evening Joe. Thanks for the evening blues.
I mostly just stopped by o wish you a wonderful weekend.
Just reviewing the news, tonight for example, given that they still haven't even started to warm up for the election, and the weather we've been having leaves me thinking that it isn't really premature to post this cheerful little ditty.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
evening el...
thanks for the tune, it gave me a good chuckle. it will probably be ringing in my head tomorrow.
i hope that the weather lets up on you guys soon. have a great weekend!
Hi bluesters
Hi all, Hey Joe! Hope all are well.
GREAT blues man! Magic Slim was awesome. I love the straight basic style, and dang he could be fast with those finger picks on thumb and first finger... a neat style that he was very good at.
So yeah we have some connectivity here, but still fragile and going off a lot, over two weeks we were mostly unconnected every day, some at night. But buried behind because of it. There are two fiber optic cables buried out in the dirt road out front, 160 feet away, like thousands of miles of rural roads... NOT CONNECTED to ANYTHING! Some have been in the ground ten years. In our case no doubt two different companies took federal dough to 'make fiber rural', and yeah it is there, for years, and no one is connected to it. F'rs been to the tax trough though.
Did I miss anything the Kardashians did? GREAT news that congress is crippled!
Hey on the last couple weekend album posts... Rock & Roll Music To The World was revered in L.A.! That there is holy music, even has a song on the album "Religion". Which has that awesome line I love, "I coulda had religion". That's like Keith singing 'Didn't wanna get me no traits'.
Two weeks ago you did some BeBop Deluxe. They were awesome really, musically at very highly skilled levels. If they just had not looked so dang preppie, they would have made it. They looked like a bunch of new hires from sales or accounting. Which was not a thing here in the late 70's really. I saw them live about 77 or 78, they were amazing. Have Live in the Air Age on vinyl here. Bill Nelson was a great guitar player.
Thanks for the great sounds!
be well all!
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
evening dystopian...
i really dug magic slim, he was one of my favorite chicago blues guys, especially when he had john primer with him.
sorry to hear about your connectivity problems. perhaps, since the fiber is there and unused for 10 years, you could get your locality to declare it abandoned and claim it through eminent domain to start your own non-profit local isp. other areas have created local isps and have seen economic benefits. just sayin'...
heh, i think that tya album was the last one i have that i hadn't uploaded, i'll keep digging in the basement, though, you never know what might pop up.
i always liked be bop deluxe and was sad that they never got much airplay. i have a bunch more of their albums to process and upload, including air age, so maybe soon there'll be some more saturday fun.
have a great weekend!
A prime example of Israel's new cabinet.
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2023/01/07/695860/Palestine-Israel-ministe...
Of course Blinken is working for a two state solution and will condemn these actions. HAH!
wow...
what a nice guy!
project much?
A senior aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Mykhailo Podolyak, cast the Russian Orthodox Church as a "war propagandist" that had incited the "mass murder" of Ukrainians and the militarisation of Russia.
and this is older news ..
TWITTER AND THE HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP STORY
Recounting the internal drama at Twitter surrounding the decision to block access to a New York Post exposé on Hunter Biden in October, 2020.
Key revelations: Twitter blocked the story on the basis of its “hacked materials” policy, but executives internally knew the decision was problematic. “Can we truthfully claim that this is part of the policy?” is how comms official Brandon Borrman put it. Also: when a Twitter contractor polls members of Congress about the decision, they hear Democratic members want more moderation, not less, and “the First Amendment isn’t absolute.”
We will later learn that it was the FBI, which had the Hunter Biden laptop material and knew it was real, which pushed Twitter to censor the story by claiming that it was 'Russian hacked' material.
PS - It's a full moon ya know
question everything
Re: Bakhmut
Here's a detailed (and graphic) look at the Russian tactics (and Ukrainian response) in the Bakhmut battle from a UK military-oriented site.
It seems that the bulk of the up-close and personal fighting on the Russian side is not being conducted by regular Russian military but by the Wagner Group using 'volunteers' from Russia's prison population.
These receive a few weeks training only and then are thrown into close-quarter combat. Attempted desertion or failure to advance are subject to summary execution. This leads to a very high casualty rate, but Russia gets to reduce its prisoner population and, according to the article, the command structure - taking into account the limitations of its soldiers in terms of training and experience, and willing to accept high casualties - has achieved some success with this approach.
Not fun.
Source: The Wavell Room
However, if (a big 'if') the 'volunteers' survive six months of this they are released back into society:
https://12ft.io/proxy?ref=&q=https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/1/5/rus...