Sunday, December 29, 2024

Our World Order

 ​Fellow Non Members,


  The City of London has commanded the western neoliberal financial order, but lost bets to destabilize and asset strip Russia, and now "holds" a lot of assets in parts of 
Ukraine which are occupied by Russia. Those are pretend-assets, aren't they? What is the leverage on them? "The west" is already in "an armed confrontation with Russia", no?
  "The World Is Becoming More Dangerous Than Ever": London Calls on the West to Mobilize for War with Russia
  The West should prepare for an armed confrontation with Russia. This was stated by former British Defense Secretary Tobias Martin Ellwood. According to him, the US and its allies should mobilize all forces, since it is impossible to win this confrontation by military operations alone...
..He adds that in the war of the future, which will likely be a possible confrontation between Russia and the West, it is unrealistic to count on success with only armed forces. The former head of the UK Ministry of Defense emphasized that he also means space and cyberspace​.
  Society must understand what to do to protect our country. And that mindset is not there yet. It will probably take a major event for the West to understand that we are so afraid to take risks with the problems that are coming our way that our world order is starting to crumble. – the former British Minister of Defense emphasized.
  This statement should not be underestimated, if only because it is written in purely British logic. And the retired military official's mention of a "serious event" that is about to take place can hardly be called an accident or a slip of the tongue.  Britain is a master at organizing various provocations.   
https://en.topcor.ru/55009-mir-stanovitsja-opasnee-chem-kogda-libo-v-londone-prizvali-zapad-mobilizovatsja-na-vojnu-s-rf.html

  I found this story first:  Did Israel explode a small nuclear bomb in Syria? Spike in radiation report says…
Reports have added that the European Union's Radioactive Environmental Monitoring found that the amount of radiation increased in Turkey and Cyprus hours after the intense blast, pointing towards a small nuclear attack.  https://www.india.com/news/did-israel-explode-a-small-nuclear-bomb-in-syria-spike-in-radiation-report-says-7490316/

  Then I found this version on the links at Naked Capitalism:  Nuclear attack in Tartus (Syria):
Radioactive fingerprint of nuke (Tartus) measured in Cyprus within ~16 hours after the attack. [Note that the dose rate peak cannot be ascribed to precipitation as higher precipitation occurred on Dec 5 with no discernible radiation increase]   
https://x.com/Ben68638515/status/1871046543958331531?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1871046543958331531%7Ctwgr%5E4e8dde317f9f86259724eca1073234f0f49e881f%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nakedcapitalism.com%2F2024%2F12%2Flinks-12-28-2024.html   


  US-assisted Israeli attack on Yemen hits Sanaa Airport during UN visit
  Sources told Al Mayadeen, that the Israeli aggression on Sanaa International Airport took place during the presence of two UN personnel in the airport: the WHO's Director and the UN's resident coordinator.
  Moreover, the sources reported that the UN airplane's co-captain had been injured and was transported to a hospital after the Israeli aggression on the airport, adding that two other airport employees were also killed as a result of the attack.   
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/us-assisted-israeli-attack-on-yemen-hits-un-officials--infra

  Israel is determined to "cut off the tentacle" of the Iranian "axis of evil" in Yemen and will continue "until it completes what it has started," the prime minister of the Jewish state, Benjamin Netanyahu, said immediately after Israeli strikes on the targets of the Houthis on the Yemeni territory.   https://tass.com/world/1893961

  Houthis Target Israel's Ben Gurion Airport In Overnight Ballistic Missile Attack
  Despite yesterday's wide-ranging Israel aerial assault on Yemen, the Houthis have hit back - showing they remain undeterred in their willingness to attack Israel - having launched an overnight ballistic missile on Tel Aviv.
  The missile was reportedly intercepted by air defenses before it entered Israeli airspace, but a Houthi spokesman claimed that Ben Gurion international airport was targeted in a significant escalation. The Houthis even claim it was hit.   
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/houthis-target-israels-ben-gurion-airport-overnight-ballistic-missile-attack

  Israeli troops burn north Gaza hospital after forcibly removing staff and patients
  Israeli troops stormed one of the last hospitals operating in the northernmost part of Gaza on Friday, forcing many of the staff and patients out of the facility, the territory’s health ministry said.
  The Kamal Adwan Hospital has been hit multiple times over the past three months by Israeli troops waging an offensive against Hamas fighters in surrounding neighborhoods, according to staff. The ministry said a strike on the hospital a day earlier killed five medical staff.
  Israel’s military said it was conducting operations against Hamas infrastructure and fighters in the area of the hospital, without providing details. It repeated claims that Hamas fighters were operating inside Kamal Adwan, though it provided no evidence.
  Hospital officials have denied the accusations.   
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2584403/middle-east

  December 26:  Israeli operations in Gaza kill nearly 40 people in past day — Health Ministry
According to the ministry, "the death toll has reached 45,399 since the start of Israel’s military operation, while 107,940 were injured"   https://tass.com/world/1893805

  December 27:  Nearly 40 people killed, 100 injured in Gaza in past day — health ministry
  "Over the past day 37 people became victims of the Israeli aggression, and 98 Palestinians were injured," the health ministry said, adding that the death toll from Israel’s strikes on the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the current escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in early October 2023 "has exceeded 45,436 with more than 108,038 people being injured."   https://tass.com/world/1894459

Four babies die from hypothermia in Gaza, as Israel's war pushes Palestinians into tent camps   https://www.9news.com.au/world/four-babies-die-from-hypothermia-in-gaza--israels-war-pushes-palestinians-into-tents/f9ec873b-5c85-4475-82af-61b5a38c976d

Biden administration to send $1.25 bln in military assistance to Kiev — AP   https://tass.com/world/1894587

  Russian Cargo Ship Which Sank in Mediterranean last Week "Attacked"
The Russian cargo ship Ursa Major sank in the Mediterranean Sea after three explosions on the starboard side in what is now clearly an attack, Oboronlogistika, a company that owns the ship, told media outlets.
  Details about the incident:
The ship sank 67 miles off the coast of Spain and 45 miles off the coast of Algeria. The ship left St. Petersburg for the port of Vladivostok 12 days ago.
  "During the emergency external inspection of the vessel, a hole of 50x50 cm (19.6 x 19.6 Inches) in diameter was discovered above the waterline. The edges of the hole were torn and turned inward. The deck of the ship was strewn with fragments."...
..It now appears that the vessel was intentionally attacked and deliberately sunk, perhaps by Ukraine, but more likely by another "state perpetrator."
  The fact that the hole in the side was "above the water line" indicates the explosion took place via an unmanned sea vessel (drone) which Ukraine has used very frequently in its conflict with Russia.   
https://halturnerradioshow.com/index.php/news-selections/world-news/russian-cargo-ship-which-sank-in-mediterranean-last-week-attacked

  Russian revenge?  Russian oil tanker boarded by Finland over ‘aggravated sabotage’    It comes after the breach of an undersea power cable linking Finland to Estonia on Christmas Day   https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/russian-oil-tanker-boarded-by-finland-over-aggravated-sabotage-hglst5535

  US could buy Nord Stream – Vucic

  The sabotaged Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline could become the property of a US investor in a year, and gas supplies from Russia to the EU could be resumed through the connector, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has suggested.
  Vucic shared his view about the future of the pipeline in an interview with the German news outlet Handelsblatt published on Friday.  “I dare to predict: In a year at the latest, Nord Stream will be owned by an American investor, and gas will flow from Russia to Europe through the pipeline,” the Serbian leader said. “Mark my words. One year until Nord Stream is up and running!”
  Last month, the Wall Street Journal reported that US financier and investor Stephen Lynch had asked permission from the US Treasury Department to buy the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, if it is put up for auction next year...
..While no one has claimed responsibility for the 2022 attack on the pipeline, Western media outlets have reported that a special operations team linked to Ukraine were behind
 the operation. US reporter Seymour Hersh has claimed that the US Navy set explosives on the pipeline during NATO exercises in the Baltic, and that the order to destroy the gas connectors was given by President Joe Biden. Most recently, a Danish harbor master has told the Politiken outlet that he had sailed out to the site of the blast and encountered US warships in the area of the explosion, but with their transponders switched off.   https://swentr.site/news/610077-vucic-nord-stream-prediction/

EU state threatens Ukraine with power cuts    Slovakia has promised to retaliate if Kiev stops transporting Russian gas   https://www.rt.com/news/610102-slovakia-threatens-ukraine-electricity/

There were Ukrainian attack drones in the area being targeted by antiaircraft missiles.  Azerbaijan Airlines Flight Reportedly Hit By Russian Missile On Christmas Day   https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/azerbaijan-airlines-flight-reportedly-hit-russian-missile-christmas-day#google_vignette

  His Gavel/Hammer brought down the dark forces of Martial Law:  Unlikely political ‘Thor’ emerges from South Korea’s martial law crisis
Assembly Speaker Woo Won-shik’s adherence to constitutional procedure was key in overturning the president’s martial law decree and making troops stand down.
  After President Yoon declared martial law on the night of December 3, the 67-year-old Woo scaled the National Assembly fence after police barricaded the entrance to try and prevent lawmakers from entering and holding a vote to overturn the president’s order.
  “I knew we had the constitutional authority to lift martial law,” Woo recalled later in a news conference. “I didn’t hesitate. I had to get inside the assembly, no matter what,” he said.   
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/12/27/unlikely-political-thor-emerges-from-south-koreas-martial-law-crisis

  These drone sightings are all over US military bases. What'cha think the military is training with drone swarms?  
Interactive map reveals disturbing pattern in drone sightings across the US  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-14210747/Interactive-map-reveals-drone-sightings-new-jersey-texas.html

Bad to Worse:  ObamaCare & The Hyper-Inflation Of Healthcare Costs  https://www.zerohedge.com/political/obamacare-hyper-inflation-healthcare-costs  


This will make it easy to fire a lot of people right away.  Trump To End 'Work From Home' For Federal Employees As Corporate America Takes Action   https://www.zerohedge.com/political/trump-end-work-home-federal-employees-big-tech-takes-action

  Return to meritocracy?  Trump DOJ Official Harmeet Dhillon Will Drop Hammer On Woke Corporations
  A combination of rising legal risks, the deflation of wokeness as a cultural force, and a change in leadership at the Department of Justice. Andreessen highlighted that with the appointment of Harmeet Dhillon to head the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, the federal government may soon begin to challenge and reverse many of the DEI-driven policies that have dominated corporations, universities, and other large institutions over the past decade.
  This shift, he argues, could trigger a major pullback in DEI initiatives across the private sector, as companies scramble to comply with the law and distance themselves from policies that may now be seen as legally and culturally untenable...
.."I think every major corporation in the country is just in flagrant violation of actual civil rights law. You cannot have these hard quotas and racially, ethnically, and religiously biased hiring practices. It’s flat-out illegal. These companies have gone so extreme on this that they’ve ended up in what I think is clearly mass illegality. So, as Dhillon steps into her job, she’s not going to lack for a shortage of targets. If you don’t want to be a target, it’s a great 'get out of jail free' card to just voluntarily shut all this stuff down."   https://www.zerohedge.com/political/marc-andreessen-every-signal-being-sent-trump-doj-official-harmeet-dhillon-will-drop

  India has a lot more people, and the smart ones want to do programming work in the US.  Vivek Ramaswamy Dragged After Wild Rant on How American Workers Suck  
  ”A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers. A culture that venerates Cory from ]Boy Meets World,’ or Zach & Slater over Screech in ‘Saved by the Bell,’ or ‘Stefan’ over Steve Urkel in ‘Family Matters,’ will not produce the best engineers,” Ramaswamy wrote in a lengthy post on X.   https://www.yahoo.com/news/vivek-ramaswamy-dragged-wild-rant-210515949.html

  Elon wants to bring in the best and brightest foreigners on visas, too. It's business.   Elon Musk Says Americans Are Too 'Retarded' for Tech Jobs, Censors Critics
  Elon Musk spent Christmas shilling for mass immigration from India, denigrating Americans as too "retarded" to work in tech, then crying and censoring people for pushing back against him. On Christmas day, Musk suggested America needs to "double" the number of "high-skilled" immigrants we bring in through H-1B visas.   https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=64787

  ​Musk pissed-off:  "The reason I’m in America along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is because of H1B.  Take a big step back and FUCK YOURSELF in the face. I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend."    https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1872860577057448306?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1872860577057448306%7Ctwgr%5Ecc0d47824f7cc855d28c5ac72c29503b748dc69b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nakedcapitalism.com%2F2024%2F12%2Flinks-12-29-2024.html

Meritocracy first, then immigration?  The Work Visa Debate: Not All Immigration Is Bad, But Focus On Americans First   https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/work-visa-debate-not-all-immigration-bad-focus-americans-first

  A state monopoly on violence/justice is more efficient, unless it doesn't work. The Game Theory of Giving Up Private Justice or Ending The State Monopoly On Violence
In the state of nature, if someone does you wrong, it’s up to you and your mates to deal with it. This often means violence.
  For most of English history there was no police force. Republican Rome had no police. There was law, but it was often privately enforced and often families and friends would take vengeance for wrongs. This led to rather a lot of violence and death, as well as feuds, where violence would continue long beyond the original offense.
  Private justice; private vengeance thus comes with huge downsides, so in many societies we give up our right to use violence to right wrongs. We give that right to government in some form, and we reap the benefits of safety and that, in principle, stronger groups can’t bully those who are too weak to obtain their own justice.
  The benefits are huge and everyone with sense recognizes that going back to private justice, to saying “they did me or mine wrong, I should beat or kill them” will mean a huge loss of public safety.
  But whenever there’s a situation where changing from the status quo entails a huge cost there will be those who say “in that margin, I can benefit. All I have to do is take just a little less than the cost of change.”
  How many people does private insurance and denials of care kill? It’s certainly, at least, in the tens of thousands.
  What happens is simple enough. Some people, rich and powerful, get the right to harm others for money: the government doesn’t go after them for killing or hurting people. This is true of private equity buying companies, larding them up with debt then running them into bankruptcy so that many of their employees wind up impoverishing and homeless, for example. It was true of bankers causing a financial crisis. It is true of pharma jacking up prices or bosses stealing employees wages and water companies in the UK dumping sewage into the river and giving the money intended to clean sewage to their executives and investors.
  None of this is punished by the law, yet people suffer.
  But the cost of going back to private justice is HIGH and the transition cost, where the police and courts will charge those who enforce private justice with crimeswhile not charging those who kill thousands with crimes, is awful.
  So the bet by those who commit what has come to be called “social murder” is that they can get away with it: the cost of private justice is too high.
  Still, there’s always the temptation to take a little more, then a little more and then a little more. To think, “well, I’m so rich I can have bodyguards and travel by helicopter and private jet and armored limo. The peons can’t get to me.” ...

..This isn’t, of course, an endorsement. It’s analysis. It’s in no one’s interest for the situation to become so awful that ending the state monopoly on violent justice makes cold hard rational sense for millions of people. But that appears to be where we’re heading, if we aren’t there already.   https://www.ianwelsh.net/the-game-theory-of-giving-up-private-justice-or-ending-the-state-monopoly-on-violence/

In 2024:  US homelessness up 18% as affordable housing remains out of reach for many people   https://apnews.com/article/homelessness-population-count-2024-hud-migrants-2e0e2b4503b754612a1d0b3b73abf75f

  Cooking Oils Used By Millions Linked To Cancer In Second Study In A Week
  In two groundbreaking studies released just days apart, researchers have spotlighted a concerning link between widely used cooking oils and cancer risks, specifically pointing to tumor growth in the colon and other organs. These studies raise critical questions about the health implications of seed oils, a staple in kitchens worldwide...
..Cooking oils, often seen as innocuous kitchen essentials, may harbor hidden dangers that extend far beyond their caloric content. The scientific findings point to a troubling connection between these oils and the development of carcinogens during their use. Specifically, when oils like sunflower or soybean are heated, they release harmful compounds that have been linked to tumor growth...
..Choose Safer Cooking Oils
  Replace seed oils like sunflower, soybean, and canola
 with alternatives that have higher heat stability and fewer harmful byproducts. Oils such as extra virgin olive oil, avocado oil, and coconut oil are better suited for cooking at higher temperatures and are less likely to produce toxic compounds. Additionally, cold-pressed oils are less processed, retaining more of their natural nutrients and antioxidants.   
https://themindunleashed.com/2024/12/cooking-oils-used-by-millions-linked-to-cancer-in-second-study-in-a-week.html

  Dream-bioweapons, from the team that brought you SARS CoV-2 and mRNA "vaccines": 'Targeting Russians But Safe for Americans': What Bioweapons is the Pentagon Developing?   https://sputnikglobe.com/20241227/targeting-russians-but-safe-for-americans-what-bioweapons-is-the-pentagon-developing-1121285823.html

It was easy...  US spies hid Covid-19 lab leak evidence from Biden – media   
Pentagon researchers reportedly uncovered the origin of the coronavirus, but the president was not briefed on their findings   https://swentr.site/news/610065-intelligence-covid-findings-biden/

  People who don't visit doctors tend to live longer, Part VIII:  Published Paper on Unvaccinated Health Outcomes vs. Vaxxed
  If you’re an American over the age of 18 who’s never been vaccinated (with anything, ever) your risk of even one chronic condition is less than 6%. If you’ve also avoided the “vitamin” K-shot injection (typically given at birth) AND your mother was not vaccinated during the pregnancy, your risk of one condition after the age of 18 drops down to 4.49%....No cancers, diabetes, arthritis, or heart disease were reported in the entirely unvaccinated adults. Based upon the random sample size, this means that the more serious conditions are below 0.09% in the entirely unvaccinated adult population.
  However, vaccine-exposed Americans over the age of 18 carry a 60% risk of at least one chronic condition, with a 48% risk of heart disease, over 10% risk of diabetes, 18% risk of arthritis, and myriad other life-shortening and/or debilitating diseases, including MANY brain and neurological disorders. 42% of vaccine-exposed American adults are suffering from more than 1 condition, i.e., multiple conditions. And 12% of American adults are suffering from 5 or more conditions.   
https://www.2ndsmartestguyintheworld.com/p/published-paper-on-unvaccinated-health

​  New Study Finds COVID-19 'Vaccination' Doubles Risk of Post-COVID Death​.  COVID-19 'Vaccines' = Life-Reducing Injections
Evaluation of post-COVID mortality risk in cases classified as severe acute respiratory syndrome in Brazil: a longitudinal study for medium and long term
​  Results: In the medium and long-term periods studied, 5,157 deaths were recorded out of 15,147 reported SARS/COVID-19 cases. Of these deaths, 91.5% (N = 4,720) occurred within the first year, while 8,5% (N = 437) after the first year. People without formal education, the older adult, had higher percentages of deaths in both periods. In the medium-term post-COVID period, the risk of death was reduced by 8% for those who had been vaccinated while in the long-term post-COVID period, the risk of death almost doubled for those who had been vaccinated. While in the medium term, there was a reduction in mortality risk for those who took two or three doses, in the long term the risk of death was greater for those who took one or two doses.
​  Conclusion: The protective effect of COVID-19 immunization was observed up to one year after the first symptoms. After one year, the effect was reversed, showing an increased risk of death for those vaccinated. These results highlight the need for further research to elucidate the factors that contribute to these findings.​   
https://petermcculloughmd.substack.com/p/breaking-new-study-finds-covid-19

​  Professor Anthony Hall,  The UN Invents Climate Change and COVID-19. What Now?  The gloves are off and the truth is out in the age-old battle for survival.
The incarceration of Reiner Fuellmich symbolizes the intensity of the effort to prevent the truth of the whole matter from coming out.
​  The necessary international investigation should start with much-needed probs into the WHO. This UN agency is dee
 the ply implicated in what Reiner Fuellmich, the now-jailed and tortured German jurist, clearly described even during the early phases of the COVID debacle, as an elaborate complex of Crimes Against Humanity.​   https://anthonyjhall.substack.com/p/the-un-invents-climate-change-and

​  Kyle Young, from August 20, 2022  Donald J. Trump - part 2 - The Forbidden Story,  A tale of two Trumps, Tesla, death rays and UFO’s
In his later years Nicolas Tesla was working on what some called a death beam. The FBI and others called it a death ray. Tesla called it Teleforce...
..Preside​nt Trumps uncle, Dr. John Trump (1907-1985) was a professor of engineering at the MIT School of Engineering​. Leading up to that, his primary teacher at MIT was Professor Robert Van D Graff (1902 -1967) who is known for 7 patented inventions having to do with ‘Van De Graff’ high voltage generators.....But John Trumps real mentor at MIT was Dr. Vannever Bush (1890 - 1974) the dean of The School of Engineering, the founder of Raytheon and science advisor to Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower.​.. 
​..Bush played a critical role in persuading the United States government to undertake a crash program to create an atomic bomb.[65] When the NDRC was formed, the Committee on Uranium was placed under it, reporting directly to Bush as the Uranium Committee.​..
..As Dean of the MIT School of Engineering, Bush, who was 17 years older than John Trump, took him under his wing and mentored him about his real passion, UFO’s. True to its form, Wikipedia says nothing about either Bush’s work, or Trump’s work with UFO’s...
​..When Nicolas Tesla (1856 to 1943) died, John Trump, who by then was Dr. John Trump and was a leading force at the MIT School of Engineering, was tapped by the FBI to review Tesla’s papers, right in Tesla’s apartment in NY, shortly after he died.
​  The FBI claimed that Tesla had invented a “death ray” that had the ability to take “flying objects down” (not destroy them) and they wanted to get their hands on any and all notes in Tesla’s possession, so they turned to Dr. John Trump, the leading authority on the topic.​..
​..Here we have proof that Dr. John Trump’s boss and mentor, Dr. Vannever Bush was not only involved, but likely in charge of the DoD secret program to develop technologies from crashed UFO’s.​..
..Nixon, for all of his faults, was intent on disclosing UFO files. He was also interested in Tesla’s work on free energy and was in the White House when UFO redevelopment technology was really taking off at Pine Gap. Nixon wanted to make some of the UFO information public. Then he was impeached...
​..Nixon created a time capsule that was to be opened in 2025. He gave the time capsule to Robert Merritt, told him what was in it, and told him to give it to Henry Kissinger. Many speculate the time capsule contains important information about UFO’s and an alien that has been in US custody for some time, an alien who has disclosed a lot of information. The story is little blurry, but apparently the time capsule is to be opened in 2025.
​  Through his wife Pat, who likely got the prediction from the occultist Jean Dixon (1904-1997, predicted JFK’s assassination, consulted with the Nixon’s 70 times while they were in the White House) Nixon tells Donald Trump in a 1987 letter, that he will become president. After his resignation,​ Ni
xon, the California guy, moves to NY. Trump and Nixon send a number of letters back and forth and Trump even flies Nixon around the country a few times. They become friends. Trump still speaks highly of Nixon to this day.
​..Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State under Nixon, shared Nixon’s desire to open UFO files - which may explain why Nixon wanted Merritt to give the time capsule to Kissinger​...
.​..Will Trump be in a position to open Nixon’s time capsule stashed somewhere in the White House by Kissinger, if he occupies the White House in 2025?​   https://secularheretic.substack.com/p/donald-j-trump-part-2-the-forbidden

 New World Insubordinate  (pictured with kohlrabi, German "turnip cabbage", and cherry tomatoes)   

Friday, December 27, 2024

Political Realignments

 Citizens,


  "Albrt" presents,  Twirling Toward Freedom,  Figuring out what it would look like if Trump were really trying for a long-term political realignment
  I said back in November there are reasons to believe that Trump might represent the end stage of a historic political realignment. That post did not attempt to define the nature or the likely course of the realignment, which leads to today’s hypothesis and counter-hypothesis: Trump and Vance could either consolidate power by improving the alignment of the Republican party with the working class, or they could further entrench the current model of a DC uniparty that works for the oligarchs, with two superficially warring factions carrying on a phony fight to the death over issues the oligarchs don’t care about...
..Since November, even the dumber organs of the mainstream media have recognized that the Republicans and the Democrats have started down the road of swapping core constituencies. The Democrats have more of the over-educated and the wealthy than they did 20 years ago, while the Republicans have more of the working class... 
..At least one persuasive commentator, Musa al-Gharbi attributes this to the takeover of the Democratic party by the professional managerial class (PMC), who (to oversimplify) are not actually very good at managing things in the real world because they prefer to deal with abstractionsAl-Gharbi refers to the PMC as “symbolic capitalists.” ...
..The first assumption this post makes is that a long-term realignment is in play. The second assumption is that the realignment has not yet been fully accomplished. The third assumption is that it should be possible for a non-expert (like me) to look at how the Trump-Vance administration implements its policies and tell whether they are serious about delivering concrete material benefits for working class citizens in order to consolidate the realignment. I’m going to try to identify some benchmarks in different policy areas that can be used to evaluate what happens over the next few years...
..So my test hypothesis is that Trump and Vance might make relatively rational decisions on a multi-year time frame with the goal of delivering real benefits to working people. The bar for achieving this is set very low...   I’m talking about material benefits such as higher wages, better housing, price stability, or health care (as distinguished from “access” to health care through a corrupt intermediary a.k.a. insurance company). For purposes of this post it is important to distinguish material benefits (which the oligarchs want working people to have very little of) from culture war conflict and entertaining stunts...
..Trump and Vance might be unusually motivated to create a scenario where Vance can win the 2028 election. Among other things, Trump probably does not want to retire with the threat of another round of prosecutions hanging over his head. I’m calling it the Trump-Vance administration because I think showcasing Vance will be an important goal... If that does not happen, it will be the first indication that my test hypothesis is false.
  The null hypothesis I’m testing against is that Trump and Vance will continue the legacy uniparty scam in which both factions have basically the same macro-policies cloaked in divisive culture-war language, psyops, and stunts. Trump is well-suited by personality and by experience for the stunt politics of the recent past so the sensible thing would be to expect more of the same...
..To hold the swingy members of the working class on the Republican side, Trump and Vance need to take actions that help the working class have a viable path to prosperity...
..This post only considers domestic policy benchmarks. U.S. foreign policy is insanely chaotic right now,... and will probably be hard to distinguish from the delusional, pro-genocide approach practiced by the Biden administration. A nuclear war could start at any time...
..Immigration was one of Trump’s biggest hot buttons on the campaign trail, and is also one of the areas where it will be easiest to tell if Trump and Vance are serious. I think the immigration issue works particularly well as a litmus test...
..The economists who claim that immigration helps to increase GDP are not necessarily wrong. The problem is that all the gains go to the oligarchs and the cadre of sub-oligarchs and PMC oligarch-servicers who benefit from cheap labor...
..The obvious way to reduce the number of undocumented non-citizens working in the U.S. is from the employer side, through administrative measures such as requiring employers to use E-Verify for real and cracking down on duplicate use of social security numbers. Trump actually did this for a little while late in his first term. If this type of enforcement is not expanded, then Trump is not serious about stopping employment of undocumented immigrants.
  Trump did not campaign much on administrative measures involving employers, and instead promised massive deportations. Forcibly deporting enough people to make a difference would be extremely difficult...
..Lately Trump has shifted from talking about deportations to talking about ending birthright citizenship. Ending birthright citizenship is a red herring at best...  Even if Trump were somehow successful in eliminating birthright citizenship, it would only apply to babies born after the change. Fussing about birthright citizenship is a stunt...
..Trump has dismayed some of his supporters by talking about expanding legal opportunities to work in the United States such as H-1B visas... H-1B visas are for “specialty workers” to fill jobs when employers claim there are shortages, so H-1B immigrants compete more with the PMC than with wage workers. Still, using H-1B workers to proletarianize the PMC does not help Trump-Vance earn the loyalty of the working class in the long run because it means that the children of the working class have less chance at upward mobility...
..Peter Turchin has said that in order to restore stability in the U.S, we need to “bring the relative wage up to the equilibrium level (thus shutting down elite overproduction) and keep it there.” End Times at 202. “Equilibrium level” means working class wages and conditions need to improve enough that a somewhat larger percentage of working class people decide it is OK to be working class, so they don’t need to go to college and try to become PMC. But some of the youngsters still want to move up. Importing a bunch of people to take existing PMC slots makes it much harder to achieve a stable equilibrium...
..In short, there are two tells with immigration. If Trump and Vance want to benefit citizen wage laborers, they need to require all employers to start using E-Verify or something similar, with real social security numbers. In order to benefit citizens who aspire to the next steps up the economic ladder, Trump and Vance need to reduce H-1B visas, not expand them. I don’t think either of these indicators can easily be fudged. If Trump and Vance limit immigrant work opportunities in this way, then I think the effects will be visible, and may even lead to significant inflation, particularly in food and construction...
..Tariffs and re-shoring manufacturing...
..A few weeks ago the big story was that Trump was going to restart American manufacturing by imposing massive tariffs. That story has now disappeared from the headlines in favor of immigration scare stories and whatever else Trump tweeted in the past 24 hours. Tariffs and industrial policy are difficult to do well. Imposing tariffs on goods that the United States has very little capacity to produce for itself will lead to short-term inflation and shortages followed by demand destruction rather than plentiful jobs.
  Success on this issue will be harder to judge than immigration, because it requires evaluating whether Trump is appointing serious people and whether the solutions they come up with are working... One thing to look for is whether Trump can stop picking fights over tough-guy sanctions and move toward tariffs or other measures that actually give a boost to viable American businesses...
..The other thing to look for is whether re-shored businesses (if any) actually start offering jobs Americans would take. It’s not just wages—we need to see more private sector working-class jobs that offer benefits, or else we need to see socialistic benefits to replace employment-based benefits. Either one would make working class life more acceptable to many people, helping to create Turchin’s equilibrium and consolidate the potential political realignment...
..Drill Baby Drill...
..Trump repeatedly said that one of his highest priorities would be a “drill baby drill” energy policy. On its face this does not make a great deal of sense, at least not as it relates to gas prices. “Drill baby drill” is an inherently boom-bust policy that would most likely lead to big swings in fuel prices...
..If Trump were serious about boosting the economy through domestic energy production, he would develop a long-term plan to stabilize American energy prices using shale production at a target price to help decouple the U.S. from the wild swings of the world oil market. If you want to encourage business confidence, you need to allow businesses to plan for longer term investment. This is especially true in capital intensive industrial sectors. Trump probably won’t be able to use Biden’s method of depleting the strategic oil reserve because Biden is leaving it pretty depleted...
..Like the tariff issue, this one is hard to judge because it requires Trump and Vance to do something difficult and complicated. Nevertheless, if they start to shift the energy rhetoric toward stability rather than driving prices down, that would be a sign they are serious...
..Firing federal workers
  Trump and his boy-wonder DOGE sidekicks Elon and Vivek have made a lot of idiotic statements about cutting the federal budget by firing huge numbers of people. My most constructive suggestion is to start with the National Endowment for Democracy. That’s the CIA sponsored organization that funds anti-democratic “color revolutions” in countries all over the world and was substantially responsible for starting the Ukraine war. If Trump and Vance actually succeeded in eliminating the National Endowment for Democracy, I would consider becoming a late-stage MAGA convert myself...
..Elon and Vivek can undoubtedly find a few offices full of DC wokesters to sacrifice, but that’s just another stunt. It won’t have a big impact on the budget, much less an impact on material conditions for the working class.
  Based on summary numbers at federalpay.org, most federal employees (around 3 million) are associated with the Department of Defense, which Trump fans are stereotypically supposed to support. The next two biggest departments are the departments of veterans’ affairs (over 400,000) and Homeland Security (over 200,000)...
..The Department of Education, a favorite target of Republicans even before Trump, only has a little over 4,000 employees. The department has a $45 billion budget, but most of that is pass-throughs to local schools to pay for things like special education...
..It may be theoretically possible to improve the economy by making the federal government more efficient, but it is fiendishly difficult to do in practice... Highly visible stunts with chainsaws are more consistent with the null hypothesis that Trump and Vance intend to continue the kayfabe of the existing uniparty scam...
..Legalizing marijuana
  This is an easy one. Trump toyed with this issue during the campaign, but did not commit. If Trump and Vance are really serious about doing something for the working class, they need to not only legalize marijuana at the federal level, they also need to erase past prosecutions and allow those convicted to rejoin polite society and qualify for decent jobs...
..Promoting alternatives to the college path...
..Telling young people that college is the only path to economic prosperity basically reinforces the power of the PMC, which is the real base of the Democratic party today and is Trump’s main enemy.
  Trump hasn’t made any promises about this and I don’t think anybody has any particularized expectations, so the field is wide open. Pushing trade schools (assuming you can find some that aren’t scams) would help, and would also help fill the open jobs if undocumented immigrants in the construction industry disappear from the labor market, or if re-shoring of industry starts to happen on any scale...
..If the Trump-Vance administration figures out a way to break the iron grip of college on our culture and our economy, then a substantially bigger realignment is possible.   https://albrtsblog.substack.com/p/twirling-toward-freedom

  Bureaucracy kills by creeping dysfunction:  Dan Davies, The Unaccountability Machine: Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions—and How the World Lost Its Mind – University of Chicago Press, 2024  How life and the economy became a black box—a collection of systems no one understands, producing outcomes no one likes.
  Passengers get bumped from flights. Phone menus disconnect. Automated financial trades produce market collapse. Of all the challenges in modern life, some of the most vexing come from our relationships with automation: a large system does us wrong, and there’s nothing we can do about it.
  The problem, economist Dan Davies shows, is accountability sinks: systems in which decisions are delegated to a complex rule book or set of standard procedures, making it impossible to identify the source of mistakes when they happen. In our increasingly unhuman world—lives dominated by algorithms, artificial intelligence, and large organizations—these accountability sinks produce more than just aggravation. They make life and economy unknowable—a black box for no reason.
  In The Unaccountability Machine, Davies lays bare how markets, institutions, and even governments systematically generate outcomes that no one—not even those involved in making them—seems to want. Since the earliest days of the computer age, theorists have foreseen the dangers of complex systems without personal accountability.  In response, British business scholar Stafford Beer developed an accountability-first approach to management called “cybernetics,” which might have taken off had his biggest client (the Chilean government) not fallen to a bloody coup in 1973.
   https://progressivegeographies.com/2024/12/26/dan-davies-the-unaccountability-machine-why-big-systems-make-terrible-decisions-and-how-the-world-lost-its-mind-university-of-chicago-press-2024/


  This looks predictable and observable, therefore intentional.                                             High Electricity Taxes Are Crippling European Industry
  European countries need to work out ways to lower taxes on electricity to revive the competitiveness of Europe’s energy-intensive industries, Leonhard Birnbaum, president of electricity lobby Eurelectric, told Reuters in an interview published on Monday.
  Power prices in the EU are up to three times higher than in the United States, for example, which further erodes the competitiveness of energy-intensive industries including aluminum, steel making, chemicals, and cement production.
  Europe is losing and will continue to lose competitiveness and jobs if it doesn’t tackle its high energy costs compared to other regions.   
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/High-Electricity-Taxes-Are-Crippling-European-Industry.html

  Sanctioned Russian LNG Shipment Travels Around World, Finds No Buyers 
  Bloomberg reports that an LNG carrier called "Pioneer," carrying a sanctioned shipment of Russian LNG, circumnavigated the world for four months, failing to find a buyer willing to breach US restrictions.  "This vessel (called Pioneer) was spotted on satellite images picking up the first shipment from the Arctic LNG 2 facility in early August — despite camouflaging the move with misleading location information — but then spent well over four months hunting for a customer."   https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/sanctioned-russian-lng-shipment-travels-around-world-finds-no-buyers

  Again, on Christmas Day; Shadow-war?  Finland-Estonia Undersea Power Cable Goes Dark As Russian Shadow Fleet Tanker Investigated
  Bloomberg reports that Finnish authorities boarded the crude oil tanker named Eagle S. after a 658-megawatt Estlink 2 power interconnector and several data cables were disrupted.
  The Estlink 2 electricity cable connecting Finland and Estonia was disrupted on Christmas Day, sparking concerns of another potential undersea cable sabotage incident in the Baltic region.
  The Financial Times reports that Finnish authorities are investigating a crude oil tanker named Eagle S. The tanker flies the Cook Islands flag and is reportedly part of Russia's so-called "dark fleet."
  Data from the ship-tracking website MarineTraffic shows the vessel slowed down at the time the 658 megawatt (MW) Estlink 2 power interconnector was disrupted. The tanker was transiting the Baltics on its way from St. Petersburg to Egypt.   
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/finland-estonia-undersea-power-cable-goes-dark-russian-shadow-fleet-tanker

  The Honest Sorcerer posits a world which escapes nuclear annihilation, which would destroy wealth, and kill some rich people. In this world, the rich have invested in good farmland, oil and gas wells, mines and factories as well as mortgages, so that they own all of the necessities of life after the financial crash, creating a neo-feudal economic system.  Position yourself out of debt, with your basic necessities and a vegetable garden.  Nuclear Neo-Feudalism   https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/nuclear-neo-feudalism

  Mark Zuckerberg Denies Hawaii 'Doomsday Bunker' Existence, Calls It A "Little Shelter
Bloomberg's Emily Chang asked Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in an exclusive interview at their estate in Lake Tahoe about a 4,500-square-foot underground structure - considered by some as a 'doomsday bunker' - at his 1,500-acre ranch in Kauai, Hawaii.
  Chang asked: "You do have a bunker there; is there something you know that we don't?"
Zuckerberg's response was priceless because he denied it was a doomsday bunker, calling it a "little shelter ... basement."   
https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/mark-zuckerberg-denies-doomsday-bunker-existence-calls-it-little-shelter

  Bond-investors vs. Citizens. Don't be the first country to declare bankruptcy.  France has a new government, again. Politics and crushing debt complicate next steps
France’s president and prime minister managed to form a new government just in time for the holidays. Now comes the hard part.
  Crushing debt, intensifying pressure from the nationalist far right, wars in Europe and the Mideast: Challenges abound for President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Francois Bayrou after an already tumultuous 2024.
  The most urgent order of business is passing a 2025 budget. Financial markets, ratings agencies and the European Commission are pushing France to bring down its deficit, to comply with EU rules limiting debt and keep France’s borrowing costs from spiraling. That would threaten the stability and prosperity of all countries that share the euro currency.
  France’s debt is currently estimated at a staggering 112% of gross domestic product. It grew further after the government gave aid payments to businesses and workers during COVID-19 lockdowns even as the pandemic depressed growth, and capped household energy prices after Russia invaded Ukraine. The bill is now coming due.   
https://apnews.com/article/france-macron-bayrou-government-budget-96bb8e0e1740bdaf49d98cece0fac28a

  Charles Hugh Smith,  What If Solutions That Worked in the Past No Longer Fix What's Broken?
You see the irony here: the more successful the old solutions were, the greater our compulsion to cling to them even as they fail.
  On the surface, the present looks like the recent past. Yes, technology changes, but this constant churn of new technology has long been part of the system.
Make America Great Again is an explicit call to return to the solutions that worked in the past, specifically The Reagan Revolution of the 1980s, which was characterized by these policies:
1. The federal government is the problem, not the solution. The solution is to reduce the influence and financial footprint of the federal government.
2. Deregulation of private industries, starting with finance. Loosen regulations to enable financial / market solutions, even if they're disruptive.
3. Focus on growth. Grow the economy by loosening up credit, drill baby drill, reducing regulatory burdens and taxes, etc.
4. Pursue a muscular global policy of America First. No more wishy-washy playing nice: choose sides, but choose carefully because there will be consequences.
5. It's morning in America. We can get back on track by unleashing America's native optimism and vigor.
  These solutions from the past are compelling because they delivered decades of growth. Of course reality is complicated, and it wasn't just these policies by themselves that spawned decades of expansion. Demographics, the "peace dividend" and many other factors helped.
  And there were spots of bother: deregulation enabled the Savings and Loan debacle in which a third of the nation's S&L associations closed as $180 billion went up in smoke, losses that cost taxpayers $132 billion in bailouts.
  Beneath the political rhetoric, these policies boil down to Keynesian stimulus which has been the de facto go-to policy "fix" for 60+ years: loosen credit, increase government borrowing and spending, encourage risk-taking and "animal spirits."   
https://charleshughsmith.substack.com/p/what-if-solutions-that-worked-in

  NEW: Photos of Hunter and Joe Biden Meeting With Chinese Officials Emerge, Massive Cover-Up Exposed
  The National Archives finally released long sought-after pictures of Joe and Hunter Biden meeting with Chinese officials. The president has long insisted he never facilitated nor had any involvement in his troubled son's business dealings. Yet, a series of photos taken during Joe Biden's time as vice president paint a very different story.   


  Putin Reveals Biden Offered To Postpone Ukraine's NATO Entry As Compromise 
  The comments came in the context of a question over Trump's reported peace plan and the idea of freezing the front lines. Putin described that such a plan is nothing new, and added the following per state media translation:  "I know that the current President Biden spoke about this, it’s no secret, back in 2021. He proposed exactly this to me – to delay Ukraine’s admission into NATO by 10-15 years, because [Kiev] is not ready yet," Putin said, referring to the midsummer meeting he had with the US leader in Switzerland.
  He stressed that no matter the timeline, Ukraine's admission into NATO would be unacceptable "whether it’s in one year or ten years."
"We, too, are striving to end the conflict," Putin added, but stressed that this should happen by achieving all of Moscow’s military and political objectives, according to RT.  Toward this end, Putin during the Q&A proposed Slovakia as a 'neutral' potential host country for future peace talks.   
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/putin-reveals-biden-offered-postpone-ukraines-nato-entry-compromise

Biden Pledges More Arms To Ukraine After Christmas Strikes   https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/biden-pledges-more-arms-ukraine-after-christmas-strikes

  Group publishes details about CIA mind control studiesHistoric memos about brainwashing “Russian agents” and drugging US inmates with LSD have been put online
  Starting in the early 1950s, the CIA secretly searched for ways to control human behavior with drugs, including the then novel hallucinogen LSD, hypnosis, and extreme maltreatment, such as sensory deprivation.
  The experiments, including those done on unwitting subjects, largely stemmed from interest in anti-war sentiments expressed by US troops who fought in the Korean War and went through captivity...
..CIA Director Richard Helms and MKULTRA chief Sidney Gottlieb destroyed most of the original records in 1973 in what the Archive called “perhaps the most infamous cover-up in the Agency’s history.” ...
..The Archive pointed the finger at pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly & Company as the supplier of “tonnage quantities” of LSD to the CIA.
  It is “a history marked by near-total impunity at the institutional and individual levels for countless abuses committed across decades,” the group said. Some of the research was akin to what was previously done by “the Nazi doctors who were tried at Nuremberg.”
..The December 1974 expose of MKULTRA in the Times was penned by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh. The veteran reporter has authored several explosive stories over the decades, most recently claiming that the US government blew up the Nord Stream pipelines connecting Russia and Germany in 2022.   https://www.rt.com/news/609860-cia-mind-control-records/

  Trump’s nominee for top defence post thinks Middle East is ‘relatively unimportant’
Elbridge Colby has said the US should stop focusing on the Middle East, and turn its military's attention to China
  US President-elect Donald Trump has announced that he will be nominating Elbridge Colby for the position of under secretary for defence policy, awarding the senior post to a former Trump official who has advocated for reducing American troops in the Middle East and against striking Iranian nuclear facilities...
..Colby, the grandson of former CIA director William Colby, served in the Pentagon during the previous Trump administration, where between 2017 and 2018 he was deputy assistant secretary for strategy and force development...
.."The United States must limit much more substantially its strategic engagement in the Middle East. This is both necessary and feasible," Colby said...                    .."As is evidenced by the experience of recent decades, large ground interventions do not help resolve this issue and almost certainly exacerbate the problem." Colby has been a public opponent of the US-led invasion of Iraq and said that he has opposed every US intervention abroad since then - including the increasing US military support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia's invasion.   https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/trumps-nominee-top-defence-post-thinks-middle-east-relatively-unimportant

Buy Greenland, make Canada the 51st State, dominate Arctic mineral resources, right?  Trump Wants to Buy Greenland—Described It as an ‘Absolute Necessity’   https://defconnews.com/2024/12/24/trump-wants-to-buy-greenland-described-it-as-an-absolute-necessity/

Get the jokes?  President-Elect Trump Posts Christmas Message To "Wonderful Soldiers of China", "Governor Trudeau", And Greenland   https://www.zerohedge.com/political/president-elect-trump-posts-christmas-message-wonderful-soldiers-china-governor-trudeau

  Israeli airstrike in Bekaa shakes ceasefire 29 days after it came into effect
For the first time since the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah came into effect on Nov. 27, Israel breached the agreement deep inside Lebanese territory.
In the early hours of Wednesday, an Israeli warplane struck the town of Taraya near Baalbek.   
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2584293/middle-east

  Israel kills five journalists in clearly marked press vehicle in Gaza
Al-Quds Today staff were targeted outside a hospital, as number of media workers killed by Israeli forces exceeds 200   
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-kills-five-journalists-press-vehicle-gaza

  Israel strikes Yemen’s Sanaa airport, Hodeidah power plant
Israeli military attacks several sites, including airport in Yemen’s capital as the WHO chief boards a flight.
  The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said he and his United Nations colleagues were preparing to board a plane at Sanaa airport when it came under Israeli bombardment.  “One of our plane’s crew members was injured. At least two people were reported killed at the airport. The air traffic control tower, the departure lounge – just a few meters from where we were – and the runway were damaged,” he said in a post on X, adding that they were all safe.
  Tedros said the UN and WHO teams were in the country “to negotiate the release of UN staff detainees and to assess the health and humanitarian situation in Yemen”.   
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/12/26/israel-strikes-yemens-sanaa-airport-other-key-sites-reports

  Syrian Christians Protest Presence Of Foreign Jihadists After Christmas Display Burned   
"We demand the rights of Christians," the protesters chanted, many carrying crosses. Other slogans demanded a future role in the country for all Syrians, and that churches and the religious freedom of everyone must be protected.
  A regional source has described the initial Christmas tree burning which outraged Syria's Christians as follows:
"Video footage that circulated on social media on 23 December showed a large Christmas tree burning in Hama’s Suqaylabiyah – a Christian neighborhood. The tree was set ablaze on Monday by foreign militants under HTS’s command. Some reports said the militants were from Chechnya, while others said they were Uzbeki fighters.
  HTS deployed a military official to the scene of the burning to condemn the incident and vow punishment for those responsible."   
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/syrian-christians-protest-presence-foreign-jihadists-after-christmas-display-burned

  Clashes erupt in western Syria after locals ambush HTS fighters
The ambush was reportedly carried out by former elements of the Syrian Arab Army, coming during an eruption of sectarian tensions across Syria   
https://thecradle.co/articles/clashes-erupt-in-western-syria-after-locals-ambush-hts-fighters

  Survivor of Azerbaijani Airlines plane crash claims there was explosion when plane tried to land in Chechnya
Subkhankul Rahimov claims pilots tried to land aircraft in Grozny, Chechnya 3 times in a row
  A survivor of Wednesday’s Azerbaijan Airlines crash said the plane’s pilots tried to land in Grozny, Chechnya three times, followed by an explosion outside the plane, according to an audio recording shared by Russian TV channel RT.
  Subkhankul Rahimov said that something exploded on the third landing attempt and that when he reached for his life jacket, he found a hole in it caused by shrapnel.  He also said that he was hit by shrapnel after the explosion.   
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/survivor-of-azerbaijani-airlines-plane-crash-claims-there-was-explosion-when-plane-tried-to-land-in-chechnya/3434670

  The photo shows the outside skin of the plane having lots of holes with edges that curl in, as if hit by shrapnel from outside.  
  We can’t be certain, but it’s likely that the Azerbaijan Airlines flight was hit by shrapnel from a air defence system as it was in the vicinity of Grozny. There might have been a drone attack in the area as well. Crew made heroic attempt to save situation before the crash.   https://x.com/carlbildt/status/1872028200727146925?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1872028200727146925%7Ctwgr%5E7ae8ab7f3338a826d67ffe2b0ebd7499f7eb23c2%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nakedcapitalism.com%2F2024%2F12%2Flinks-12-26-2024.html

It just happened based on business modeling. Nobody made any decisions...  McKinsey Agrees to Pay Another $650 Million to Avoid Trial Over U.S. Opioid Crisis   https://cocotteminute.substack.com/p/mckinsey-agrees-to-pay-another-650

  US ramping up biological warfare presence in Africa — Russia’s top brass
Major General Aleksey Rtishchev said that branches of the US National Naval Military Medical Center are stationed in Ghana and Djibouti where active work is carried out in natural disease foci, isolation and sequencing of pathogens.   
https://tass.com/defense/1892353

  Just how broadly does this actually apply?  Ashkenazi Jews descend from 350 people, study finds
‘Bottleneck’ dates back 600 to 800 years, genome analysis shows; researcher says among population ‘everyone is a 30th cousin’
  A new (9/10/2014) study concludes that all Ashkenazi Jews can trace their ancestry to a “bottleneck” of just 350 individuals, dating back to between 600 and 800 years ago.
  Researchers analyzed the genomes of 128 Ashkenazi Jews and compared them to those of non-Jewish Europeans in order to determine which genetic markers are unique to Ashkenazi Jews. They found that the Ashkenazi Jews’ genetic similarities were so acute that one of the study’s researchers, Columbia professor Itsik Pe’er, told the Live Science website that among Ashkenazi Jews, “everyone is a 30th cousin.” ...
..Ashkenazi Jews are known to have origins in the Levant, which Israel is smack dab in the middle of. But exactly who “European” Ashkenazi Jews are has long been debated. An analysis of the gene database shows that the original Ashkenazi Jews were about half European and half Middle Eastern. They lived in the medieval era, about 600 to 800 years ago, according to the analysis – and numbered just 350 or so people. “Our analysis shows that Ashkenazi Jewish medieval founders were ethnically admixed, with origins in Europe and in the Middle East, roughly in equal parts,” said Shai Carmi, a post-doctoral scientist.   https://www.timesofisrael.com/ashkenazi-jews-descend-from-350-people-study-finds/

  Meryl Nass MD,  UN General Assembly Adopts Controversial Cybercrime Treaty Amid Criticism Over Censorship and Surveillance Risks/ from Reclaim the Net
Another treaty from the UN system is adopted without a vote. More evidence that the US may want to exit this undemocratic system.   https://merylnass.substack.com/p/un-general-assembly-adopts-controversial

  Vaccine Injury Claims Spiked 27x After COVID-19 Injection Rollout
U.S. Government Accountability Office Report Exposes Critical Failures in the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program   
https://petermcculloughmd.substack.com/p/vaccine-injury-claims-spiked-27x

   Mexico is the ancestral home of corn and corn genetic diversity.  With Help From NAFTA 2.0, US Strikes Brutal Blow Against Mexican Food Sovereignty, Health and Global Biodiversityby Nick Corbishley
“Both the USMCA and this ruling issued by the trade dispute panel are designed primarily to protect the interests of transnational corporations.”
  It wasn’t even a close run thing: the panel’s three judges agreed with the US on all seven counts in the case. The panel has given Mexico 45 days to realign its policies with the ruling. Failure to do so could result in stiff penalties, including sanctions.
  As we’ve noted before, this case may be an important battle for Big Ag lobbies and biotech companies but it is an existential one for Mexico, for whom corn is the cornerstone not only of its cuisine and diet but also its culture.
  The dispute panel argues that Mexico’s provisions against GMO corn cannot be applied as they are not based on an adequate risk assessment, scientific evidence or relevant international standards. This is despite the mountains of evidence from peer-reviewed literature the Mexican government provided showing ample cause for concern about the risks of consuming GM corn and the residues of the herbicide glyphosate — most commonly known as Roundup — that often come with it.
  By contrast, as Timothy A Wise, author of Eating Tomorrow and senior adviser at the Institute of Agriculture and Trade Policy, documented in a recent piece for TruthDig, “when Mexico challenged the US to show that its GM corn is safe to eat in the far greater quantities and forms that Mexicans consume it, it received no response.   
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/12/with-help-of-usmca-biden-administration-strikes-decisive-blow-against-mexican-food-sovereignty-health-and-global-biodiversity.html

  Biotic-Pump Model co-originator, Physicist, Anastassia Makarieva,  Information processing by natural ecosystems. They have a built-in program of climate stabilization and run it super efficiently
The time is ripe to realize that Life also computes. Natural ecosystems out there in the sun perform calculations and process information. 
  How can we estimate and understand this computing power of Life? Energy from the Sun comes to Earth in the form of discrete particles called photons. The average energy of solar photons is proportional to the temperature of the Sun, which is about TS = 6,000 degrees Kelvin. The temperature of the Earth is about TE = 300 degrees Kelvin. This means that the thermal photons emitted by the Earth into space are 20 times less energetic than the incoming solar photons.
  Imagine that we have a switch that randomly toggles between two possible states: on and off. To keep it in one state, we need to apply more energy than the energy of its chaotic thermal motion, which on Earth is approximately kTE (where k is the Boltzmann constant). High-energy solar photons with energy kTS provide this extra energy, enabling biological and ecological computations. A single solar photon has enough energy to turn the switch on or off nineteen times.
  In other words, absorbing solar energy allows the molecular memory cells (the "switches") of Life to rise above the thermal chaos and perform computations...
..Assuming that every act of a molecular memory cell rising above the thermal chaos counts as one operation, we can estimate the rate of information processing by Life from the known rate of its consumption of solar energy. With the global mean efficiency of photosynthesis of about E ~ 0.5 % and the global mean flux of solar energy absorbed by the planetary surface of about F ~ 170 W/m2, we find that the flux of information processed by living cells is about (EF/kTE ) ~ 2 x 1020 operations per second per square meter.
  Compare this with a typical modern supercomputer, which consumes a hundred times more power per square meter but performs a billion times fewer operations per second...
..However, it is not only about computing power. The main question is WHAT is being computed? Why does Life need such enormous information processing power? What is written in these biological and ecological algorithms?
  In short, it is sustainability. Life computes how to persist over time, without running out of anything, without polluting anything, and maintaining favorable conditions for its own continuation... 
 Life is a distributed system of microscopic computers (living cells) that cover the entire Earth, assessing environmental conditions and reacting immediately if something goes wrong...
..There are two conclusions to be drawn from this exercise in assessing Life's information-processing capabilities. First, sustainability is a hugely complex task, requiring the processing of vast amounts of information. It is no surprise that our achievements in this area are zero. Second, there is no technical substitute for biotic regulation of the environment. If we disturb natural ecosystems beyond their self-repair point, we will not be able to stabilize the climate even if we stop all emissions.   https://bioticregulation.substack.com/p/information-processing-by-natural

​Gardening Biocomputer (pictured with broccoli)