Still on the mend.

Enjoy this post.

First it was the mysterious deaths of the bankers, then the collapse of the bitcoin miners, and the cryptocurrency billionaires. Now, thanks to Elon Musk with the Twitter files, the entire “woke world” is a tumbling down.

Eh. So much for the American-led social new world order.

We have Americans running the show in Ukraine, and Russia aware of it. As is China.

Russia is getting the BIG GUNS out, and there’s mysterious goings-on in the ‘States. America is making the necessary and needed steps to chill out with China, but is still playing those irritating games with the Proxy nations of Japan and Australia causing some trouble.

Suggesting a plan “B”, “C” and “D” starting to formulate in the Pacific.

Personally, nothing is going to change unless the American leadership dies, and the American system of governance is crushed and torn up completely.

The USA is a “dead man walking”, but it’s walking down a long dimly-lit corridor to death row’ electric chair, and nothing is stopping it as there are no exits available anywhere.

Let’s continue…

Why Elon’s COVID Files could lead to Fauci prosecution

The entire purpose of genetically modifying the original strain of this coronavirus was precisely to make it more contagious and transmissible.

https://youtu.be/G4-0hvxj6CQ . . . .

Buttery Bread Machine Rolls

“These golden, fluffy, butterfy rolls are great hot from the oven. The dough is very easy to shape. This recipe is from a QUICK COOKING magazine”

Ingredients

Units: US

• 1 cup warm milk (70 to 80 degrees F.)
• ¹⁄₂ cup butter or 1/2 cup margarine, softened
• ¹⁄₄ cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 ¹⁄₂ teaspoons salt
• 4 cups bread flour
• 2 ¹⁄₄ teaspoons active dry yeast

Directions

• In bread machine pan, put all ingredients in order suggested by manufacturer.
• Select dough setting.
• When cycle is completed, turn dough onto a lightly floured surface.
• Divide dough into 24 portions.
• Shape dough into balls.
• Place in a greased 13 inch by 9 inch baking pan.
• Cover and let rise in a warm place for 30-45 minutes.
• Bake at 350 degrees for 13-16 minutes or until golden brown.

When False Claims Are News – Russia, India, Nukes

A few days ago a small news item about India and Russia was issued that made some anti-Russian/pro-Indian scribes very happy:

India’s Maddening Russia Policy Isn’t as Bad as Washington Thinks – Foreign Policy, Dec 9
India upholds the rules-based, Western-led international order—but in its own way.

Modi is also skipping an annual summit with Putin, reportedly over the latter’s threats to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

That claim sounded strange to me. The author of the FP piece  is Derek Grossman “a senior defense analyst at the Rand Corp., an adjunct professor at the University of Southern California, and a former daily intelligence briefer to the U.S. assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific security affairs.”

Hmm. The link he gives goes to a Bloomberg piece:

Modi to Skip Annual Putin Summit Over Ukraine Nuke Threats

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi won’t be holding an annual in-person summit with Vladimir Putin after the Russian president threatened to use nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The relationship between India and Russia remains strong but trumpeting the friendship at this point may not be beneficial for Modi, said a senior official with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue.

Putin had never threatened to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine or anywhere:

Note that Putin does not mention Russia's nuclear weapons. He instead empathizes that Russia has new 'different' weapons that are 'more modern' than those of the 'West'. He means hypersonic missiles which can avoid 'western' air defenses and hit decision centers in Brussels, London and Washington even without nuclear warheads.
...
All the war mongering talk and reports about Russia's alleged threat of nuclear weapon use in Ukraine is totally unfounded. That 'western' media suddenly engage in it shows that it is part of a well directed propaganda campaign.

It is an invention of U.S. propaganda. It is unlikely that the Indian government has fallen for it. So who then made Bloomberg replay that nonsense?

Note that while the Bloomberg report was written by its correspondent in India the nationality of its sources is not given. There are in fact two distinct sources: “people with knowledge of the matter” and “a senior official with knowledge of the matter”. The ‘nuclear’ issue seems to have come from the first ‘people’ source while the ‘official’ second source only gives a general picture of Modi’s potential motivation.

In an updated version of the piece, which kept the lede unchanged, Russian officials rejected the whole story:

“It won’t be this year,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said of prospects for a Putin-Modi summit, the state-run Tass news service reported later Friday.

India’s decision was clear at a regional summit held in September in Uzbekistan, when Modi urged Putin to seek peace in Ukraine, said a Russian official familiar with the preparations, who asked not to be identified to discuss matters that aren’t public.

There had already been an Indian Russian summit at the side of the Uzbekistan meeting and no further summit was necessary.

In a Reuters piece an Indian source also rejected the claim:

No Modi-Putin summit this year after they met in September- Indian govt source

The government source, who declined to be named citing the sensitivity of the matter, said the decision not to hold a summit was taken much earlier and that the nuclear angle was not a factor.

Modi and Putin met on the sidelines of a regional security bloc summit in Uzbekistan in September and have spoken on the phone a number of times this year, including on the subject of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The Indian Economic Times also debunked the Bloomberg claim:

India-Russia annual summit could not occur due to scheduling issues

The annual India Russia Summit could not happen this year due to scheduling issues, according to highly placed sources who dismissed reports of summit being postponed due to threat of nuclear war in Ukraine.

Sources dismissed Western media reports that Russian President's “nuclear threat” had any role to play in India-Russia Summit not happening in December.

The decision that the summit will not take place due to scheduling issues was taken months ago, sources said.

Relations between India and Russia are lively and excellent:

ET has learnt senior Russian functionaries could visit India in near future to discuss contours of the partnership. Last December the Russian President had travelled to India for the annual summit.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin had spoken several times over phone this year and the two met in Samarkand in September to give push to strategic partnership.

At the September meeting considerable time was devoted to Russian fertiliser exports to India to meet demands of local farmers.

Modi and Putin also discussed energy ties (oil & gas) besides coal, coking & other investments in each other’s country. The two leaders had also discussed predictability of supply of key commodities to India.

Later in November Foreign Minister S Jaishankar travelled to Moscow with a intra Ministerial delegation to push economic partnership. Earlier the NSA had travelled to Moscow with a intra Ministerial delegation to push economic partnership. Earlier the NSA had travelled to Moscow.

India had withstood Western huge to take sides in the Ukraine conflict and Russia is now India’s biggest oil supplier. Bilateral trade has jumped manifold this year.

The original Bloomberg claim is thereby completely debunked. But the piece is still up and without any correction. The “people with knowledge of the matter” it cited to inject the nuke stuff were likely either from the U.S. or Britain.

Neither the Indian nor the Russian side had planned for another summit this year. They have excellent relations and the nuke stuff was just outright nonsense.

That RAND experts, who write strategic plans for the Pentagon, fall for such obvious propaganda is dangerous.

Posted by b on December 13, 2022 at 16:44 UTC | Permalink

NASA can’t believe what China is planning for Space

• 10. Lunar Space Station.
• 9. Lunar Base.
• 8. Asteroid Mining.
• 7. Return Mars Samples.
• 6. Mars Base.
• 5. Jupiter and Uranus Mission.
• 4. Reusable Long March Rockets.
• 3. Asteroid Defense System.
• 2. Large Space Telescope.
• 1. Nuclear-powered Spacecraft.

I’m excited, too!

Few other projects not mentioned:

• 1. Long March 9 (Artemis rocket size) – Biggest rocket from China
• 2. Space Solar panel to beam down energy to earth – Testing phase started with the Space Station and possible completion by 2050.
• 3. Space Elevator – There is no timeline, but something they are working on or researching on. This is a game changer if successful.

7. True relationship comes when the silence between you two is comfortable.

8. Go where your energy is reciprocated, celebrated, and appreciated.

9. You still haven’t met all of the people who are going to love you.

10. If today is not your day, remember there’re 365 days a year.

Parker House Rolls

“These are rich and full of butter! I recently shaped these rolls in balls. When they were done, I brushed the tops with melted butter and then topped them (a row each) with toasted poppy seeds, toasted sesame seeds, a combo of equal parts dill weed/kosher salt/sugar, and Parmesan cheese. I loved how they turned out.”

Elon Musk Says PROSECUTE FAUCI!

Nice that we have maybe 3 or 4 new reporters in the country who are truth seekers and truth tellers.

World Hal Turner 14 December 2022

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VLADIMIR Putin has renewed his nuke threat against the West by appearing to ready a nuclear missile for launch.  The missile has been put in Kozelsk, Russia, very near western Europe.

Footage shows a huge Russian Yars rocket able to hit the UK and the US being loaded into a silo at a base near Moscow.

The intercontinental ballistic missile has a 7,500 mile range and when nuclear-armed is reportedly 12 times more destructive than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

It was seen on Russian TV being installed in a launch-pad using a special transport and loading unit – but there is no indication of any order for an imminent launch.

Missile force commander Colonel Alexei Sokolov made clear the latest move was aimed at sending a message to the West, with both the UK and US within range.

“The importance of this operation lies in the fact that the missile will be put on combat duty on schedule,” he said.

U.S. To Send More Wunderwaffen To Ukraine

A new round of Wunderwaffen deliveries to Ukraine is taking place. It is unlikely to change the strategic or even operational picture of the war.

The U.S. and its ‘allies’ are engaged in a boil-the-frog operation in which they steadily increase the lethality and complexity of arms and other support they deliver to Ukraine. At some point in time this process will cross Russian red lines. That’s when it will become really interesting …

The newest gimmick to be deployed is the Patriot air defense system likely soon to be followed by main battle tanks:

The U.S. is poised to approve sending a Patriot missile battery to Ukraine, finally agreeing to an urgent request from Ukrainian leaders desperate for more robust weapons to shoot down incoming Russian missiles, U.S. officials said Tuesday.The approval is likely to come later this week and could be announced as early as Thursday, said three officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the decision is not final and has not been made public. Two of the officials said the Patriot will come from Pentagon stocks and be moved from another country overseas.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pressed Western leaders as recently as Monday to provide more advanced weapons to help his country in its war with Russia. The Patriot would be the most advanced surface-to-air missile system the West has provided to Ukraine to help repel Russian aerial attacks.

During a video conference on Monday, Zelenskyy told host Germany and other leaders of the Group of Seven industrial powers that his country needed long-range missiles, modern tanks, artillery, missile batteries and other high-tech air defense systems to counter Russian attacks that have knocked out electricity and water supplies for millions of Ukrainians.

He acknowledged that, “Unfortunately, Russia still has an advantage in artillery and missiles.”

Well, yes, the artillery advantage the Russian army has in the current battle for Bakhmut is nine to one or even higher:

“For every artillery piece we have, they have nine,” said one soldier.

NATO no longer has the equipment and ammunition reserves to change that.

As for the Patriot, the “Phased Array Tracking Radar to Intercept on Target”: Training for them takes quite some time and unless Ukrainians have already been secretly trained on them for several months they will have to be deployed with NATO soldiers or ‘former’ soldiers to have any effect:

Asked about training, Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, said that in general the U.S. takes those needs into consideration when providing complicated weapons systems to Ukraine, such as the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, known as HIMARS. Currently U.S. forces are training Ukrainian troops on a number of systems, including the HIMARS, in other European countries, such as Germany.
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The entire system, which includes a phased array radar, a control station, computers and generators, typically requires about 90 soldiers to operate and maintain, however only three soldiers are needed to actually fire it, according to the Army.

The HIMARS missiles, the previous Wunderwaffen, are now routinely shot down by Russian missile and air defense systems:

The anti-aircraft defence forces shot down two drones in the areas of Zhytlovka and Kremennaya (Lugansk People’s Republic).In addition, two HIMARS MLRS rounds were intercepted near Perovomaysk (Lugansk People’s Republic) and a HARM rocket near Makarovka (Kherson region).

The Patriot battery to be deployed to Ukraine is likely one of those that the U.S. currently has in Poland. A German Patriot unit will be deployed to replace it.

The phased array radar that Patriot systems use are good but they are also a weakness. They are visible from satellites with Synthetic Aperture Radar. As researchers have found some years ago:

Amid a busy few weeks of nuclear-related news, an Israeli researcher made a very surprising OSINT discovery that flew somewhat under the radar. As explained in a Medium article, Israeli GIS analyst Harel Dan noticed that when he accidentally adjusted the noise levels of the imagery produced from the SENTINEL-1 satellite constellation, a bunch of colored Xs suddenly appeared all over the globe.

SENTINEL-1’s C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) operates at a centre frequency of 5.405 GHz, which conveniently sits within the range of the military frequency used for land, airborne, and naval radar systems (5.250-5.850 GHz)—including the AN/MPQ-53/65 phased array radars that form the backbone of a Patriot battery’s command and control system. Therefore, Harel correctly hypothesized that some of the Xs that appeared in the SENTINEL-1 images could be triggered by interference from Patriot radar systems.

Using this logic, he was able to use the Xs to pinpoint the locations of Patriot batteries in several Middle Eastern countries, including Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.

biggerWhile SENTINEL-1 images of Ukraine will now likely be censored there is no need for Russia to use those. It has its own SAR systems:

Kondor, GRAU index 14F133, is a series of Earth imaging or military reconnaissance satellites developed by NPO Mashinostroyeniya for the Russian Aerospace Defence Forces which in 2015 became the Russian Space Forces and export customers.
…
Kondor satellites are equipped to carry either synthetic aperture radar or electro-optical imaging payloads, with the first satellite, and are launched using the Strela carrier rocket, developed by NPO Mashinostroyeniya from retired UR-100 NUTTKh missiles.

Process the SAR data, look for ‘noise’ crosses, program the coordinates into a number of suicide drones of Iranian design and send them off. This should take no more than an hour. The Russian Reconnaissance Strike Complex is designed to do that:

The Reconnaissance Strike Complex (разведивательно-ударный комплех-RYK) was designed for the coordinated employment of high-precision, long- range weapons linked to real-time intelligence data and precise targeting provided to a fused intelligence and fire-direction center. The RYK functioned at operational depths using surface-to-surface missile systems and aircraft-delivered “smart” munitions. The Reconnaissance Fire Complex (разведивательно-огновой комплех ROK) was the tactical equivalent.
…
The Reconnaissance Fire System (ROS) is designed to detect, engage and destroy enemy targets in near-real time within the range of tactical units (maneuver battalion and brigade with supporting artillery). On occasion, an artillery brigade or helicopter gunship brigade (a tactical/operational formation) could conduct ROS missions. However, Army Corps and Army Group units normally conduct RYS missions-engaging, detecting and destroying operational targets in near-real time using longer-range reconnaissance and strike systems (especially SSM and aviation systems).

Will the Patriot radar move during the Russian reaction time interval between reconnaissance and strike? I have my doubts.

Wikipedia says that a Patriot battery costs about $1 billion. The radar is the thing that makes these so expensive. Each of its missile costs about $3 million. The suicide drones are maybe $10,000 each. Now do the math …

The most modern missiles Patriot system use have a maximum reach of some 60 kilometer (37 miles). One battery can thus cover a bubble with a 120 kilometer diameter. It may be good for Kiev or Odessa but is nothing that will solve the general military problem Ukraine has.

The Russian forces are superior in technology, personnel and fire power. There is no chance, and never has been, for Ukraine to win that match. No Wunderwaffen, British marines with sea drones or U.S. Patriot systems, will change those basic facts.

Posted by b on December 14, 2022 at 9:47 UTC | Permalink

When critics clutch at straws, China just can’t do anything right

Over the past week, China has begun to roll back its strictly enforced zero-covid policy. The shifts bring an end to nearly three years of tough lockdowns and comprehensive all-population testing regimes which left access to the country isolated from the outside world. It is of course, about time too. While China successfully kept the disease at bay for so long, the population grew weary of the restrictions as the world simply moved on, and as variants became more transmissible and less deadly, the costs of upkeeping the policy became cumbersome to everyone involved.

However, did those who bandwagoned on anti-covid protests in the bid to pushing an anti-government agenda to praise the change in policy? Was it a satisfactory victory for them, if one ought to call it that? Not in the slightest. Rather, as was predictable, Anti-China voices scrambled almost instantly in light of the policy change to find a new narrative and angle to attack the state leader.

As this new narrative takes shape, the decision to scale back zero-covid is not depicted as a pragmatic, common sense and much-needed move by the Chinese government, but rather as one sequential failure after another which will again lead to political catastrophe by the Communist Party and a risk to human life, and therefore is all Xi Jinping’s fault. Yes, the very same sources who decried China’s own lockdowns as a brutal form of oppression are now in fact telling us that the decision to move away from zero-covid is also effectively bad too in its outcomes. It is as if nothing China does can possibly be correct, or seen for that matter in a positive light.

This is of course not an ironic statement, but a matter of fact when it comes to the western mainstream media, who are not remotely interested in applying a balanced, objective, or positive angle pertaining to coverage of China. Every single line of commentary or report with respect to the country is in fact utilized towards pushing a highly ideological and geopolitical agenda against it, transforming every single development, where possible, into either a damning government failure or a conspiracy of sort either aimed at the Chinese people themselves, or against the rest of the world. There is no other side of the argument to be considered, and no praise to be had.

Never, over the past few years, has that been more blatantly obvious through how the mainstream media have treated China with respect to the covid-19 pandemic, from start to finish. While the media did not once praise Beijing’s covid policy, even when it saved scores of lives when the virus was more deadly and rampant throughout the west, it has nonetheless consistently and aptly attacked China throughout every single stage of the entire saga. At first, when covid-19 first broke out in Wuhan, the mainstream media sought to frame it as a political failure of the Chinese government that could not be repeated in the west. As the BBC described it at the time, the pandemic was an “epic political disaster” of “Xi Jinping’s top-down” approach to government.

Then, when covid struck the west, the media (at the instructions of the US) sought to frame a narrative of Chinese culpability against the entire world, weaponizing claims of a political coverup and “responsibility”. Once this wore off, it transitioned into the conspiracy theory of a “lab leak” which was despite having no credibility whatsoever, pushed aggressively by the mainstream media. This was then followed by baseless attacks on China’s vaccines, and then finally as the world moved on from the pandemic, growing criticisms and attacks of China’s zero-covid policy as brutal and inhumane as Beijing persisted with lockdowns. At every stage, there was a new series of attacks leveled, and every time, the conclusion was that it was always, no matter what: Xi Jinping’s fault.

Of course, covid is just one of many China-based topics where this manner of reporting is found, and there are too many to even list at this point. Yet, the intention is clear, the western media have no interest in reporting on China with any kind of good faith or impartiality, that is because there is a vested set of assumptions that when it comes to China, nothing must be portrayed positively or optimistically. Hence no matter what the occasion or the circumstances, China’s economy is always on the “brink” of decline or catastrophe, everything China says is either unreliable or untrustworthy, China’s efforts to defend itself from attacks are always “coercion” or “wolf warrior diplomacy” and so on. In the world of mainstream media coverage, China just can’t do anything right, which is why the narrative of attacking China’s lockdowns shifted almost overnight to now framing Beijing as being culpable or proceeding over a disaster, for actually getting rid of the policy they professed to hate so much.

But it never was really all about lockdowns, was it?

THE FRESHMAN (1990) – Andrew Bergman ~ Marlon Brando, Matthew Broderick.

This is my Christmas treat for you all!

This is the FULL MOVIE. Enjoy it, if you have the time.

https://youtu.be/6HWNAJxzXyA