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Wednesday, April 6, 2022
New witness testimony about Mariupol maternity hospital ‘airstrike’ follows pattern of Ukrainian deceptions, media malpractice - The Grayzone
New witness testimony about Mariupol maternity hospital ‘airstrike’ follows pattern of Ukrainian deceptions, media malpractice - The Grayzone: A key witness to the widely publicized incident at the Mariupol maternity hospital has punctured the official narrative of a Russian airstrike on the facility, and raised serious questions about Western media ethics. Meanwhile, news of a massacre in the city of Bucha contains suspicious elements. On March 9th, shocking news of a deliberate Russian airstrike on a maternity hospital in Mariupol, eastern Ukraine, began spreading widely via social media and news outlets. Fiery condemnation from Western officials, pundits, and […]
Two years on, we can no longer accept so many children off school because of Covid - New Statesman
Two years on, we can no longer accept so many children off school because of Covid - New Statesman: The government talks about “learning to live with Covid” but it has not learned anything about transmission in schools.
Tuesday, April 5, 2022
Why Renewables Can’t Solve Europe's Energy Crisis | OilPrice.com
Why Renewables Can’t Solve Europe's Energy Crisis | OilPrice.com: While European countries are some of the most vocal proponents of clean energy sources, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has highlighted their reliance on fossil fuels
Germany Faces Steep Recession If Russian Oil and Gas Are Cut Off: Deutsche Bank CEO
Germany Faces Steep Recession If Russian Oil and Gas Are Cut Off: Deutsche Bank CEO: Due to the war in Ukraine, German banks are now expecting the country's GDP growth to slow to 2% in 2022, down from 2.7% in 2021.
Pundits Who Advocate Hot War With Russia Are Enemies Of Humanity – Caitlin Johnstone
Pundits Who Advocate Hot War With Russia Are Enemies Of Humanity – Caitlin Johnstone: Listen to a reading of this article: ❖ In an appearance on the MSNBC show Velshi, The Modern War Institute’s John Spencer explicitly advocated direct US military conflict with Russia due to a…
Opinion | California’s Drought Is Worse Than We Thought - The New York Times
Opinion | California’s Drought Is Worse Than We Thought - The New York Times: Our tools for managing water in the West are growing more inaccurate.
New study shows COVID-19 can cause brain inflammation and small bleeds
New study shows COVID-19 can cause brain inflammation and small bleeds: A new study published in Nature Communications has offered the most comprehensive investigation to date into the effects of COVID-19 on the brain using nonhuman primates. The study found SARS-CoV-2 infection, regardless of disease severity, can lead to neuroinflammation and small bleeds which may…
High rate of BA.1, BA.1.1 and BA.2 infection in triple vaccinated | medRxiv
High rate of BA.1, BA.1.1 and BA.2 infection in triple vaccinated | medRxiv: Background Booster vaccine doses offer protection against severe COVID-19 caused by omicron but are less effective against infection. Characteristics such as serological correlates of protection, viral abundance and clearance of omicron infections in triple vaccinated individuals are scarce.
Methods We conducted a 4-week twice-weekly SARS-CoV-2 qPCR screening shortly after an mRNA vaccine booster in 375 healthcare workers. Anti-Spike IgG levels and neutralization titers were determined at study start. qPCR-positive participants were sampled repeatedly for two weeks and monitored for symptoms.
Result In total 82 (cumulative incidence 22%) omicron infections were detected, divided between BA.1, BA.1.1 and BA.2. Only 10% of infected participants remained asymptomatic. Viral load peaked at day 3 and live virus could be detected for up to 9 days after first PCR-positive sample. Presence of symptoms correlated to elevated viral load (p<0.0001), but despite resolution of symptoms most participants showed Ct levels <30 at day 9. While post-booster antibody titers were similar in those with and without subsequent breakthrough infection (p>0.05), high antibody titers were linked to reduced
Viktor Orbán defeats pro-LGBT opponent in landslide election victory - LifeSite
Viktor Orbán defeats pro-LGBT opponent in landslide election victory - LifeSite: 'The entire world can see that our brand of Christian democratic, conservative, patriotic politics has won,' Orbán told cheering crowds.
QUITTIN' TIME
Friends & Colleagues
Attached is a compilation of commentaries written over the past few months. It includes all the Ukraine related pieces. There will be no more on the subject - nor on our relations with Russia, China, or the Solomon Islands.
There are a number of reasons for this abstention, First, I've said just about everything I have to say about the macro issues and I see no reason either for repetition or examining day-to-day events which others do extremely well. (Moon of Alabama https://www.moonofalabama.org; Alexander Mercouris at You Tube. Second, it is manifestly obvious that our society is not capable of conducting an honest, logical, reasonably informed discourse on matters of consequence. Instead, we experience fantasy, fabrication, fatuousness and fulmination. At a more personal level, this impression is reinforced by messages from persons whom I've known and respected telling me that I'm in the pay of Putin, 'mad,' 'too clever by half,' 'a Furtwaengler fan' (Netrebko=Furtwaengler=Hitler), a 'closet Bolshevik,' a conspiracy monger, 'never met a payroll" (? don't ask me), and/or 'crossed a line' - red, amber, green or any other damn color.
Third, it is self-evident that our national leaders, elected or appointed, are equally incapable of sober deliberation, of intellectual honesty (with themselves as well as us), of elementary logic, even of acknowledging factual realities. Consequently, the resulting behavior defies rational analysis. The capstone to this shambles came last week with Biden's off-the-wall speech on Warsaw and ensuing botched attempt at cleaning up the mess.
Frankly, a President of the United States has to be pretty dim to talk about eliminating the leader of a strong, willful enemy government. JFK went down that dark tunnel and paid with his life - and Castro didn't possess 3,800 nuclear warheads (he later had to borrow them from Khrushchev). Regime change in Moscow, of course, has been the administration's goal since Day 1 - the wet dream of juveniles visualizing cutting the Gordian knot with one magical stroke? But only a reckless and feckless leader broadcasts his intention while visiting his target's hostile neighbor. So, it was left to our NATO Ambassador, then Tony Blinken. then the State Department's public relations flack to "walk it back."
Habitual use of that moronic term itself is an indicator of our conceit and arrogance. It is not an apology, not admission of error. What it really means is: "Look. I slipped up in saying what I really think - maybe jetlag; but now this one is causing me heartburn. So, let's lighten up and just erase it from memory" Yet, you can't simply erase things like that. People beyond the cowed press corps have heard it - like the guy to whom you passed the black spot. To add to the insult, Biden the next day told us (and 'killer/war criminal' Putin) that he didn't really "walk' it back; rather it was a sort of 'stroll back." In the course of his stroll, he made a number of pit-stops to emit accusations that the Putin gang in Ukraine were the same Russians who suppressed the Hungarians in 1976, the Czechs in 1968, and the Afghans in the 1980s. It was in their DNA - thereby seconding James Clapper and Wendy Sherman, among others. Of course, if this impeccable logic were applied to us, he would have to link his government to the Americans who ethnically cleansed the 10 million indigenous peoples from its territory, conquered Mexico and stole half of its territory, caused the death of 400,00 Filipinos who rebelled against the Yankee imperial yoke, fire-bombed Hamburg/ Dresden/Tokyo, nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki, wreaked death and destruction in Vietnam, financed and supplied 'death quads' across Central America, illegally invaded Iraq with the heavy consequences we are still enduring, was an active accomplice in the mass killing of Houthis, committed atrocities at Abu Ghraib, Camp Bucca, Guantanamo and 'Black Sites.' And, just a few months ago, Biden personally stole outright $ 8 billion belonging to the starving Afghans whose country we occupied on the specious grounds that we were escorting them into the land of milk & honey.
This is a record that should counsel caution before throwing around demands for a war crimes trial. Then again, being anointed by Heaven as mankind's savior nation, you need not say 'sorry' - or even walk it back.
Anyway, back from his stroll Biden was asked whether he had found closure on the 'get rid of Putin' affair. What are you talking about? was his reply. There is nothing to stroll back or correct at any gait. I stand by what I said in Warsaw: "Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest !"
To depict accurately this kind of vaudeville, we have to revert to colloquial street vocabulary. To be frank, Biden simply was discovering his inner "jerk." That's a uniquely emotive term with unmatched connotations and imagery. Its synonyms are not 'stupid, ignoramus, dimwit, bumbler, fool, tone-deaf." You can be any or all of those things as well as a jerk - OR not necessarily be a jerk. Moreover, you can be intelligent, informed, well-spoken and either non-jerk or jerk. Examples: the ubiquitous Michael McFaul, Obama's man in Moscow, is quintessentially of the type - a model by which to measure all others. Ted Cruz, now auditioning for the position of America's court jester, is an alternative model for those who prefer to relish their jerks Harvard educated. By contrast, Victoria Nuland is a ruthless, mean-spirited, dogmatic, shamelessly impolite ideologue cum provocateur. But she is not a jerk. On the other hand, let's consider Tony Blinken. He has great potential and has taken remarkable strides in that direction in the past few months, but perhaps needs a bit more seasoning to establish fully his credentials. Or, make a selection from among the parade of luminaries, wannabes and used-to-be 'experts' - in particular, the military/Intelligence ones whose astonishing divorce from reality sheds light on our serial failures in the coercive use of force over the years - - who clutter the airways.
(The species jerk is not restricted to the U.S. The spreading of its congenial habitat abroad has seen prime specimens appearing in a number of locations: e.g., Boris Johnson along with his sidekicks Liz Truss and Ben Wallace).
Jerks tend to be erratic in behavior, disjointed in their thinking, highly tolerant of inconsistency, unable to sustain a project, and accident prone. They thrive in nihilistic & narcissistic societies like ours where embarrassment doesn't exist. The jerk has a natural preference for a fluid decision process and ambiguous policy. For that spares him the need to discipline his own thoughts, to systematically weigh choices, and to make commitments to pursue a definite line of action. Those circumstances, of course, also play to the advantage of those participants who know their mind, have a fixed objective, and are prepared to promote them outside formal deliberations. In a government where the two types predominate like Biden's, therefore, there is no internal pressure for an already weak president to get a grip and straighten things out.
Example: the day after Biden initiates a cordial telephone conversation with China's Xi where he expresses the desire to avoid serious conflict and reaffirms the U.S.' continued commitment to the principle of 'One China', State Department officials meet their Taiwanese counterparts in Vienna to work out new arms sales and the promotion of Taiwan's membership in specialized UN agencies. That dissipated whatever trust remained between Beijing and Washington. Yet, senior officials could not see the obvious. A few months later, Blinken and Nuland were asking Foreign Minister Wang Yi a) to cut back on imports of LNG so that more would be available for Germany which had just shut down NORDSTROM II, and b) join the sanctions campaign against its close ally and partner Russia because otherwise the U.S. would get angry. This after a year of denunciation, sanctions and threats - including moves encouraging Taiwan independence. Yi, predictably, didn't mince words in rejecting the American proposals out of hand and took the occasions to treat both to stern lectures about American misdeeds. The general point to make is that the template for defining a jerk includes a disregard for past events and the tenor of past relationships - (s)he experiences life as a series of discrete episodes unencumbered by 'history.'
This absurd behavior can be understood as a manifestation, at the highest level of American government, of the "I Need, I Want, the world is there to accommodate me" attitude that pervades our narcissistic culture. Immature, yet fertile in its production and encouragement of jerks.
The antics of jerks would be entertaining to observe, for those with a sardonic sense of humor anyway, were the circumstances not so perilous. So, trying to analyze the kaleidoscopic conditions they produce is deeply frustrating and dispiriting. I give up. That won't make any difference one way or the other. It would allow for a leisured visit to Montevideo to listen to Netrebko sing Un bel dì, vedremo
Finally, after distributing the above remarks, the question of continuing commentaries may well be moot as the audience melts away like factual reporting in the fevered editorial offices of CNN and The New York Times.
cheers
Michael Brenner
mbren@pitt.edu
Elon Musk buys $3 billion in Twitter stock. Should conservatives rejoice? - LifeSite
Elon Musk buys $3 billion in Twitter stock. Should conservatives rejoice? - LifeSite: Is Musk the Big Tech reformer? Honestly, he might be.
What Would It Take for Military Spending in America to Go Down? - TomDispatch.com
What Would It Take for Military Spending in America to Go Down? - TomDispatch.com: I have a question for you: What would it take in today’s world for America’s military spending to go down? Here’s one admittedly farfetched scenario: Vladimir Putin loses his grip on power and Russia retrenches
Dances With Bears » A NEW WORLD ORDER IS ALREADY HERE
Dances With Bears » A NEW WORLD ORDER IS ALREADY HERE: By R.K.Raghavan and Ajay Goyal, Mumbai* @bears_with
We now have a first-class international crisis on hand -- a man-made crisis of the kind tha
The End of the Middle East | Foreign Affairs
The End of the Middle East | Foreign Affairs: An old map distorts a new reality.
Monday, April 4, 2022
What countries have nuclear weapons, and where are they?
What countries have nuclear weapons, and where are they?: Both the Russian and US arsenals boast thousands of nuclear weapons, located in various places around their own countries and, for the US, in Europe as well.
Russia threatens to cut off European gas supply | News | DW | 01.04.2022
Russia threatens to cut off European gas supply | News | DW | 01.04.2022: Gas is still flowing to Europe despite a Friday deadline for gas payments to be made in rubles. Germany has called this "blackmail" and insists on paying in euros or dollars.
FDA Shuts Out Its Own Experts in Authorizing Another Vaccine Booster - WSJ
FDA Shuts Out Its Own Experts in Authorizing Another Vaccine Booster - WSJ: Decisions like this only reinforce the perception that Covid policy is driven by groupthink and politics.
Russia’s War with Ukraine: Five Reasons Why Many African Countries Choose to Be ‘Neutral’ | naked capitalism
Russia’s War with Ukraine: Five Reasons Why Many African Countries Choose to Be ‘Neutral’ | naked capitalism: Why African countries have chosen to be ‘neutral’ on the issue of Russia’s war with Ukraine.
The Case Against Closing Nuclear Power Plants | The Nation
The Case Against Closing Nuclear Power Plants | The Nation: Existing plants like Diablo Canyon obviate the need to draw on fossil fuel generators and should remain in service.
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