"A Chinese engineer friend told me that, in a shooting war, China’s first salvo will be at least 30,000 missiles–enough to cripple every US base east of Guam–and more than America’s entire missile inventory." -Godfree Roberts
When I was in high school, there was a radio station that I, and all my friends used to listen to. This was WYDD. This was a very leading-edge “alternative Rock” radio station long before “alternative rock” came into being.
One of my favorite DJ’s was “Laid Back Larry Allen”.
They mostly played the more obscure rock music of the time, long before the mainstream radio stations would play the songs. They introduced us, their audience, to such wonders as YES!, Gentle Giant, Jefro Tull, Moody Blues, Traffic, and Spooky Tooth.
Today, these musicians are known as “classic rock”, but back in those days, it was rarely heard music. The AM system ruled the airwaves, and it was just starting to go corporate. WYDD was FM, and was a niche market.
Anyways, there was a corporate buy out. This was big in the late 1970’s. A group of wealthy investors would buy up all sorts of radio stations and then bombard the targeted audience with a bland rotation of “cookie cutter songs”. Such as “Maggie May”, etc.
Oh, it was awful. And during their last night of programming, the entire staff walked out. There were downtown protests, and near riots in all the communities as us youth wouldn’t have any of it.
…
I went to college, four years passed, and returned home.
The mood was different.
Most of my friends installed cassette players in their cars, and the station of preference was WDVE. Which now claimed to “always” have been the station of the youth.
Ha! Talk about rewriting history!
They played pure ROCK.
This trend, or the wealthy changing the demographics of American society didn’t end there. It just got crazier and crazier… up until now you have these wealthy billionaires paying off entire school boards at the tune of $50,000 a person to implement LGBQ+ polices, and the like.
Indeed, the USA is a complete cesspool today.
And it all started in the 1970’s.
…
The 1960-era Peace-Love crowd became greedy, egotistic, narcissistic psychopaths, and they…
…they changed generations of Americans.
And exported it to Europe and Australia.
…
One can only wonder what the WOKE, and MTOW movement will result in … twenty years from today.
It’s gonna be … feudal.
…
…
As an aside… from my point above…
The old WYDD Station DJ’s and team got together and set up a web page where you can listen to their rantings and music!
Freeform Rock Radio DJ WZUM 1973, WYDD 2 1/2 years 1975-1977 "Laidback Larry Allen" Former YDD DJ's Larry & Jim DeCesare host this site with our friends. We are now on Face Book at "WYDD Pittsburgh Freeform" The only page on FB dedicated to the Freeform Rock Radio Years in Pittsburgh, Pa.
Check it out HERE. And listen to what it was like in 1977.
Hours and hours of a time machine.
You will NEVER hear this mix of pre-alternative rock from the mid-1970’s anywhere. Songs and music that you might have forgotten, heard once or twice… Well worth the listen to.
Today…
A used gun
If a lighter were dropped off in a random place, say 1,000 years around the time fire was discovered, how would it change the timeline?
Most likely scenario:
Ogg the caveman is out foraging for his evening meal and comes across a lighter that has been dropped by a careless time-traveler.
Naturally attracted by shiny things, he picks it up and through a stroke of incredible luck manages not only to open it but to get the thing to light. Excited by his discovery, he rushes back to the cave to show it to his fellow tribesmen.
Gesturing to the strange object in his hand, Ogg very eloquently grunts “Acckk! Ogg greck narf spurgle blorg!” (Roughly translated, “Dudes! Look at the cool thing Ogg found!”) He deftly opens the lighter, flips the wheel, and a bright flame springs forth.
And at this point, Ogg is immediately stoned to death by his fellows for messing around with wizardry and risking the wrath of the gods. The lighter is hurled into a nearby tar pit in the hope of preventing that same wrath from coming down upon them all. Unfortunately, since no one else in the tribe had ever seen a lighter or figured out how it works, they didn’t close it first and the still-lit flame ignited the gases rising from the pit. The ensuing conflagration wipes out the entire tribe, leaving only a blackened scar on the landscape which would be known for decades after as “the place where those idiots pissed off the gods.”
Thus endeth the lesson.
Totally and absolutely COOL
Facts about the great Humphrey Bogart :
1. While he was married to fiery actress Mayo Methot he discovered that she suspected him of cheating on her – he wasn’t – and had hired a private detective to follow him. Bogart found out the name of the agency the PI worked for, and called them up. When he reached the man’s boss he said, “You got a man on my tail. Would you check with him and find out where I am?”.
2. Named his daughter, Leslie Bogart, to show his gratitude to Leslie Howard, who got him his big break in The Petrified Forest (1936).
3. Lauren Bacall once recalled that while John Wayne and Fred Astaire hardly knew her husband Humphrey Bogart at all, they were the first to send flowers and good wishes after Bogart was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in January 1956.
4. Though a poor student, he was a lifelong reader, and could quote Plato, Pope, Ralph Waldo Emerson and over a thousand lines of Shakespeare. He admired writers, and some of his best friends were screenwriters, including Richard Brooks, who directed him in ‘Deadline – USA’.
5. His coffin contains a small, gold whistle, put there by his wife Lauren Bacall.
No grand strategy
As a psychologist, who is the most disturbing individual you have ever met?
The most disturbing individual I ever met was another psychologist, and he inspired me to research a paper into the motivation behind persons with PD’s becoming Psychologists (which is more common than most people appreciate).
I knew of this individual from school but had no idea he had studied Psychology.
He was the most vicious bully the school had ever seen.
Three of the people he bullied went on to commit suicide.
There was an accusation of rape levelled against him but, as it was the eighties, the girl withdrew the accusation when the police informed her there was no evidence and it was her word against his.
There was an episode where he discovered a smaller boy was claustrophobic. He locked the boy in a cupboard for over half an hour. By the time we rescued this boy he was non responsive and non verbal. This boy subsequently committed suicide.
He showed no remorse and no empathy when I met up with him years later at a seminar.
He questioned my recollection of the events at school, trying to convince me (a clinical Psychologist) that memories weren’t reliable and he had no recollection of any of “those events”.
Most disturbing was that this person was working with vulnerable youth.
I took this up with one of his Professors and demanded to know why he hadn’t spotted what, in my opinion, was an individual with a very obvious PD studying in his classes.
He replied that perhaps this individual was the perfect fit for vulnerable youth as he understood the victim/perpetrator dynamic.
I was horrified.
I replied that that was like stating it would be advantageous to train rapists as rape counsellers for they would have the same perspective.
I still can’t work out whom was the more disturbing character. The student or the teacher.
The top three
Why Are So Many of Our Elite Sexually Depraved?
There have long been conspiracy theories that the world is ruled by a group of elite pedophiles or at least ephobophiles—those who are attracted to sexually mature but very young girls. Just such a vast, elite pedophile ring — centred around Hilary Clinton — was a key strand in QAnon thinking [QAnon conspiracists believe in a vast pedophile ring. The truth is sadder, By Moira Donegan, Guardian, September 20, 2020]. In the UK, “Operation Yew Tree,” set up after the death of popular entertainer Sir Jimmy Savile and revelations about his raping numerous under-aged girls, unmasked a number of high-profile celebrities with similar proclivities, such as the entertainer Rolf Harris [Rolf Harris, Savile and Clifford all pulled the wool over my eyes, By Simon Hattenstone, Guardian, July 3, 2014].
With the publication of court documents relating to Virginia Roberts suing the now jailed Ghislaine Maxwell, a growing list of A-List celebrities have been revealed to have spent time on the private island of wealthy convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, where Maxwell procured young girls for him. These A-Listers include Prince Andrew, who denies having had sex with Virginia Roberts (then a minor), Stephen Hawking and Bill Clinton. According to sworn testimony by one of these girls, Epstein told her that the former president “likes them young” [Epstein told victim that Bill Clinton ‘likes them young’, new court filings reveal, By Rachel Young, Independent, January 7, 2024]. People may be shocked at evidence that so many highly elite people may be interested in having sex with very young girls. As someone who researchers evolutionary psychology I don’t find it shocking at all. It makes complete theoretical sense.
What is it that predicts being extremely eminent, ascending to the heights of the elite, being, in some way, a genius? As I have explored in my book Sent Before Their Time: Genius, Charisma and Being Born Prematurely, it is very high intelligence combined with psychopathic traits. If you are low in empathy and altruism, you won’t care that your radical new idea, for example, offends vested interests; in fact you might enjoy upsetting people. You will even have aspects of Narcissism, such a strong sense of entitlement; making you impervious to setbacks, possessed of a Machiavellian streak, and, so, more likely to succeed. If you are low in impulse control then you won’t be able to force yourself to think like everybody else; you will “think outside the box” and generate original ideas. And if you are high in negative feelings, in Neuroticism, you will be constantly ruminating and so generating new insights. In essence, genius is very high intelligence combined with sub-clinical psychopathology.
German-British psychiatrist Felix Post (1913–2001) conducted a character-trait analysis of 291 world famous men which I drew upon in Sent Before Their Time. He found that 16% of the male population might be sub-clinically psychopathic. This compared to 52% of politicians, 50% of artists and 70% of writers. Post estimated that 1% of males suffer from Narcissistic Personality Disorder, but this was 27% of artists, 28% of politicians and 40% of writers. It should be added that while 1% of the male population are “severely psychopathic,” Post found it was 17.4% of politicians, 37.5% of artists, 26% of thinkers, and 46% of writers. He estimated that 33% of his sample of world famous scientists had suffered from depression or anxiety, as had 41% of his politicians, 34% of his composers, 36% of his thinkers, 41% of his artists and 72% of his writers. Approximately 20% of people in Western countries experience a bout of depression at some point in their lifetimes [Creativity and psychopathology: A Study of 291 World Famous Men, By Felix Post, British Journal of Psychiatry, 1994].
With these numbers in mind, we must ask what are the correlates of pedophilia? The first key trait is psychopathology; it robustly crosses over with being a pedophile. This is presumably because in order to abuse and take advantage of somebody, especially a minor, you have to be lacking in altruism and empathy and also have a strong sense of entitlement, that you can do whatever you like [Psychopathy in the pedophile, By D. Dorr, In . Millon, E. Simonsen, M. Birket-Smith & R. D. Davis (Eds.), Psychopathy: Antisocial, criminal, and violent behaviour, 1998]. Unsurprisingly, one study also found that, “Pedophiles possess many core personality features associated with Narcissistic Personality Disorders” [A Rorschach investigation of defensiveness, self-perception, interpersonal relations, and affective states in incarcerated pedophiles, By M.R. Bridges et al., Journal of Personality Assessment, 1998]. In other words, some men may be attracted to under-age girls but you require psychopathic and Narcissistic traits in order to act on this.
Both of these traits are part of a “fast life history strategy,” a concept I’ve looked at before. Fast life history strategists are evolved to an easy yet unpredictable ecology where you must live fast and die young. It is, therefore, pointless bonding with people, who could be wiped out at any moment, so you are aggressive and psychopathic. You must pass on your genes as quickly as possible, so you should be attracted to very young women, as they are highly fertile. If you are a slow life history strategist then you are in a predictable, harsh and competitive environment. You must ensure, for example, that your offspring are adapted to the local diseases and are well-nurtured, so you might value genetic similarity to your partner and a kind personality above youth. Our super-elite are highly intelligent fast life history strategists so we would expect to have an extreme penchant for youth.
Anxiety is associated with paraphilia, with a developing a sexual fetish. An extreme penchant for youth might be regarded as close to fetish, in that teenage girls are not yet at the peak of their fertility. It has been suggested that anxiety can potentiate sexual arousal in men, which can lead to an association between sexual arousal and atypical objects [The Relation Between the Paraphilias and Anxiety in Men: A Case—Control Study, By M. Fox et al., Archives of Sexual Behavior, 2022]. Alternatively, it may be that anxiety involves experiencing intense feelings more strongly, making the normal desire for youth more extreme, as autism, which involves low empathy and extreme sensations, is associated with paraphilia and anxiety [Psychological and Developmental Correlates of Paraphilic and Normophilic Sexual Interests, By A. Brown et al., Sexual Abuse, 2022]. Certainly, childhood anxiety is associated with later becoming a pedophile [Social anxiety and sexual offending against children: A cumulative meta-analysis, By K. Nunes et al., Sexual Aggression, 2012].
So, put simply, we shouldn’t be surprised at evidence of highly elite males having sex with underage girls. The same traits that predict being highly elite would appear to predict just such a penchant. The “conspiracy theory” makes theoretical sense.
Good summary
Tips for Making Perfect Buffalo Wings
The following was originally posted by G. Schaeffer.
The key to good Buffalo Wings is how you prepare them as well as the ingredients and the handling of the wings. The most successful wings served up here in Buffalo are what they call “Grade A Grinders.” Fresh wings that are very large and meaty. Usually, you cannot get them in a frozen package, but can get them from a poultry dealer. Once you find them make sure they are absolutely fresh.
Wash them in cold water, split them at the joint and remove the tips. Place them on a rack on a pan and refrigerate overnight to let the blood and water drain out of the wings. THIS IS A REAL KEY. Drying the wings under refrigeration will help to make them a much crispier product, once deep fried.
Next, use a deep fryer or a very heavy deep pot with a thermometer and add the oil. Peanut oil is very good, or a commercial product such as can be found at a restaurant cash and carry called Mel Fry.
Heat the oil up SLOWLY, to 365 degrees F, and depending on the size of the fryer, deep fry the dry wings 6 to 8 minutes in small batches, until thoroughly done and golden brown. Hold the cooked wings in a warm oven if necessary.
A combination of melted butter and hot sauce in the ratio of 1 part butter to 3 parts hot sauce will add the right zing. The key here is to add just enough sauce to coat the wings – the more sauce you add, the hotter they will be.
For the very brave, 1 part butter to 3 parts hot sauce and 1 part Tabasco is referred to as “Suicidal Wings” by the late and dear Don Bellissimo, who owned the Anchor Bar.
Working quickly, place the deep fried wings in a large bowl and add the sauce mixture, shaking to coat them. There are many good hot sauces to use; the one they use is either Durkee Franks Red Hot Sauce or Wingers Original, again found in a restaurant cash and carry.
Celery sticks and chunky blue cheese dressing (Ken’s Buffalo Style Blue Cheese is a popular one) and plenty of napkins.
The view on America after living abroad (UK)
What is the biggest waste of electricity you’ve seen in a home you visited, were a guest in, or even in your own home?
Beijing and Canberra are sister cities. In the noughties there were exchanges of government employees between the cities. They were billeted with local families.
A lovely Chinese woman came to stay in my house after she found her first host untenable. I was the desperation destination.
She was the most incredible cook and delighted in preparing delicious meals for us. She was intelligent, interesting, diligently tidy and lovely to have around.
I entrusted the house to her and took the chance to take my boys camping at the beach. After a long day in the surf then dinner on the beach I came back to my car to find fourteen missed calls from Ai Le.
Now apparently in Beijing the heating is turned on or off at the discretion of the authorities. Heating is therefore seen as not only free but the height of indulgence.
The voice messages went from Ai Le’s desperate and lonely voice with the fire alarm blaring then rising in volume until the final crescendo when it sounded like every Chinese person in the southern hemisphere was gathered in my house, all competing to be heard above the still blaring alarm.
Ai Le, bless her, had turned the heating to tropical+ the moment we left. Eventually the fire alarm activated and she had no idea how to turn it off.
The power bill was monstrous and Ai Le embarrassed but we found the humour and all was well.
And no diplomacy was harmed in the making of this story.
Israel and America Are at War with Iran, Russia and China
Is it possible for the US or other nations to prevent a potential invasion of Taiwan by China?
Absolutely, and positively No. ZERO. No way. Never gonna happen.
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Taiwan is a province of China, and it is so close to the mainland that the PLA can swim to it.
China has already shown that it can isolate, blockade and totally rubbish the island and there isn’t a God-damn thing that anyone can do about it.
Sanctions?
Ha ha ha ha ha
Tell me about it. Ain’t no one gonna follow sanctions on China except the most butt-hole sucking LGBQ+ moronic clown-show transvestites.
Threat of war?
Ha ha ha ha ha.
Have you forgotten what getting a good butt-reaming was like? Hey! Wanna have some fun. Go watch the interview of American veterans of the “Korean War” and what THEY have to say. Instead of listening to John Bolton and Mike Pompeo.
Trade embargo?
Oh my goodness, this is a belly laugh for certain. Ha ha ha ha
When Namibia, Africa is running 7G and 8G, the USA will be struggling with land-lines and cell-phone towers that struggle with obsolete 3G networks on dying batteries.
…
To take on China is to place a loaded .45 ACP to your temple and pull the trigger. It’s “death by cop”, and you know what, if you are so God-damn stupid to pull that one, you will deserve the nuclear radiation that comes with it.
Idiots. Suckers.
…
Update
I’m sorry. I must apologize. I sometimes really minimize really serious issues and distill it into something more palatable to the average person. Like this post. The reality is that it is gonna be much, much, MUCH worse.
The fact is, that any war between China and the “rules based insanity” that is the West today is gonna be a God-Damn cluster Fuck. That is a truth, and you all had best get your arms around this truth.
Trump can be President. Oprah Winfrey could be president. Joe Biden could be President. It won’t make any difference. The USA is run by the ignorant, and they are on a death-march to the meat-grinder, and you are duck taped to them.
Enjoy the ride.
Until it is over.
The One Question Women Are Not Ready To Answer
What is the worst bullying you have ever seen personally?
The worst recorded case of bullying that I know of is the case of Liu JinFeng.
The one being executed in the photo is not her abuser but her.
Liu was raised through only primary school education, abused by her father since childhood. After her mum passed away, her stepfather and other relatives drove her out of the family. I surmise that she already had no one who cared about her by then.
A homeless and good looking woman in her teenage years is a total target for sexual abuse. Indeed, she was soon taken in by males, only to be raped and then discarded every time. Apparently, she was forced to undergo abortion as well.
Eventually, prostitution got the better of her and she got arrested during a prostitution crackdown. After one year in jail, the police sent her back to her stepfather, only to be sold to another family for 1000 RMB.
After the sex ride by the new abuser, she was sold again to another man by the surname Hu. Hu was an alcoholic and the worst of all the abusers Liu had to put up with. Liu made several escape attempts that Hu decided to chain her up with a 3 pound metal chain. She was still able to make it a few miles away with all that weight. This prompted Hu to break one of her legs to hinder her from further tries.
The climax took place when Hu left town for months, leaving her to the watch of his cousins. His cousins raped her, leading to the eventual birth of her son. This time around, Hu became maddened, whipped her naked and sliced her vagina while she was hanging upside down.
She survived the struggle, she awoke. Only to realize, her son has already been strangled to death by the devious Hu. She finally lost it.
She hacked Hu to death while he was sleeping in bed before setting the house on fire. This eventually led to her facing the death penalty for murder. Her execution took place in 1995 in the city of Xianyang, when she was just twenty years old. She died not even from defending her own honor, but her son’s.
The miscarriage of her justice circulated around the internet about a decade later when internet started getting usage in China. Today, you can still find photos of her headless body left in the snow post execution.
There are two issues reflected in her case which I find common in all cases of bullying.
Firstly, bully victims generally do not retaliate, or are simply unable to retaliate, until it is too late. Most victims of prolonged bullying, including me, report fear of further punishment from the abuser as the main reason for not voicing out.
Secondly, ironically as well, is that most bully victims meet their demise not because of lack of intervention from the law, but because of the law. The law is run by hard statements, it punishes anyone who breaks penal codes, blind to the form the breach took place. In the Western world, the law is somewhat more flexible, but not immune to this trend either. In the case of Liu, I would consider the law morally wrong.
As a victim of bullying for five years, there is little anyone can do to heal my wounds which have withered into scars by now. Sometimes, I just remind myself what Liu JinFeng went through was much worse.
Source:
10 Beautiful Chinese Women Executed Over the Past 30 Years – chinaSMACK
Scott Ritter warns: Russia FAB-3000 power redefines modern warfare
The African Sahel is revolting against western neocolonialism – ejecting foreign troops and bases, devising alternative currencies, and challenging the old multinationals. Multipolarity, after all, cannot flower without resistance paving its path.
By Pepe Escobar
APR 1, 2024
The emergence of Axes of Resistance
in various geographies is an inextricable byproduct of the long and winding process leading us toward a multipolar world. These two things – resistance to the Hegemon and the emergence of multipolarity – are absolutely complementary.
The Axis of Resistance in West Asia – across Arab and Muslim states – now finds as its soul sister the Axis of Resistance spanning the Sahel in Africa, west to east, from Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger to Chad, Sudan, and Eritrea.
Unlike Niger, where the change in power against neocolonialism was associated with a military coup, in Senegal, the power change comes straight from the polls.
Senegal plunged itself into a new era with the landslide victory of Bassirou Diomaye Faye, 44, in nationwide elections on 24 March. A former tax inspector who had just spent a fortnight stint in jail, Faye emerged with the profile of an underdog pan-African leader to turn the ‘most stable democracy in Africa,’ under French puppet incumbent Macky Sall, upside down.
The incoming Senegalese president now joins Ibrahim Traore, 36, in Burkina Faso, Aby Ahmed, 46, in Ethiopia, Andry Rajoelina, 48, in Madagascar, as well as future superstar Julius Malema, 44, in South Africa as part of the new, young pan-African generation focused on sovereignty. In his election manifesto, Faye pledged to reclaim Senegal’s sovereignty no less than eighteen times.
Geoeconomics is key to these shifts. As Senegal becomes a substantial oil and gas producer, Faye will aim to renegotiate mining and energy contracts, including the largest ones with British Petroleum (BP) and UK gold mine operator, Endeavor Mining.
Crucially, he plans to ditch the exploitative CFA franc – the French-controlled currency system used in 14 African states – even setting up a new currency as part of reshaping relations with neocolonial power France, Senegal’s top trading partner. Faye, echoing Comrade Xi Jinping, wants a “win-win” partnership.
Enter the Alliance of the Sahel States
Faye has not yet been clear on whether he intends to kick the French military out of Senegal. Were that to happen, the blow to Paris would be unprecedented, as embattled Petit Roi Emmanuel Macron and the French establishment consider Senegal the key player when it comes to blockading landlocked Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso, which have already left Paris in the (Sahel) dust.
The three latter states, which have just formed an Alliance of the Sahel States (Alliance des Etats du Sahel, AES, in the original French), are not only a major Paris nightmare after serial humiliations but also a big American headache – epitomized in the spectacular breakdown of military cooperation between Washington and Nigerien capital Niamey.
The culprit, according to the US Deep State, is, of course, Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Obviously, no one in the US Beltway has been paying due attention to the Russia–Africa diplomatic flurry since last year, involving all key players from the Sahel to the new African BRICS members Egypt and Ethiopia.
In sharp contrast to its prior regard of Niger as a staunch ally in the Sahel, Washington is now forced to present a calendar date to get its troops out of Niger – after a military cooperation deal was annulled. The Pentagon cannot be involved in military training in Nigerien territory anymore.
There are two key bases – in Agadez and Niamey – which the Pentagon spent over $150 million to build. Niamey was finished only in 2019 and is managed by the US military’s African Command, AFRICOM.
Operational objectives are, predictably, shrouded in mystery. The Niamey base is essentially an intel center, processing data collected by MQ-9 Reaper drones. The US Air Force also uses the Dirkou Aerodrome as a base for operations in the Sahel.
Now things get really exciting, because the presence of a de facto CIA drone base in Dirkou, manned by a handful of operatives, is not even acknowledged. This dark base allows intel collection everywhere in Central Africa, from west to north. Call it another classic example of former CIA director Mike Pompeo’s “We Lie, We Cheat, We Steal.”
There are roughly 1,000 US troops in Niger who may soon face ejection. The Americans are trying everything to stem the bleeding. Only this month, US Undersecretary of State for Africa Molly Phee visited Niger twice. Losing bases in Niger will translate into Washington following Paris in losing control of the Sahel – as Niger gets closer to Russia and Iran.
These bases are not essential to exercise surveillance over the Bab al-Mandeb; it’s all about the Sahel, with drones operating on their limit and violating every sovereign air space in sight.
Incidentally, a hefty delegation from Niamey visited Moscow in January. Then, last week, Putin discussed security cooperation in phone calls with Mali’s interim President, Assimi Goita, and Niger’s military junta President Abdourahmane Tchiani before talking to the Republic of Congo’s President Denis Nguesso.
Ivory Coast: The Empire turn-around
Pro-west puppet regimes are dwindling fast all across the African continent. The Alliance of the Sahel States – Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger – may be the vanguard of an African Axis of Resistance, but there’s more, in the form of South Africa, Ethiopia, and Egypt as full BRICS members – not to mention serious candidates for the next wave of BRICS+, such as Algeria and Nigeria.
Russia, diplomatically, and China, commercially, plus the full weight of the Russia–China strategic partnership, are clearly focused on the long game – counting on Africa as a whole as a key multipolar player. Additional evidence was provided once again during the multipolar conference last month in Moscow, where charismatic pan-African leader Kemi Seba from Benin was one of the superstars.
Pan-Eurasian diplomatic circles even allow themselves to joke about the recent hissy fits by Le Petit Roi in Paris. The utter humiliation of France in the Sahel is likely one of the drivers of Macron’s chest-thumping threats to send French troops to Ukraine – who would be turned into steak tartare by the Russians in record time – and his eagerness to support Armenia’s current Russophobic stunts.
Historically, the fact remains, that Africans considered the former USSR much more pliable and even supportive when it came to siphoning natural resources; that goodwill has now also been transferred to China.
As a regional integration platform, the Alliance of the Sahel States has everything it takes to become a game-changer. Senegal under Faye may eventually join, but Guinea already offers the geographical capacity to provide the alliance with credible maritime access. That will lead to the progressive extinction of the western-controlled, Nigeria-based ECOWAS.
Yet, never dismiss the Hegemon’s mighty tentacles. The Pentagon master plan does not entail abandoning Africa to a multipolar Russia–China–Iran sphere of influence. Yet no one across the Sahel’s Axis of Resistance buys the US ‘terror threat’ card anymore. There was virtually zero terror in Africa until 2011, when NATO turned Libya into a wasteland, then put boots on the ground and erected military bases across the continent.
So far, the Alliance of the Sahel States is winning the sovereignty-first information war, hands-down. But there’s no question the Empire will strike back. After all, the whole game is tied to the Beltway’s supreme paranoia of Russia taking over the Sahel and Central Africa.
Enter the Ivory Coast, now that Senegal may be about to start flirting with the Alliance of the Sahel States.
Ivory Coast is more strategic to Washington than, for instance, Chad because Ivorian territory is very close to the Sahel alliance. Still, Chad has already recalibrated its foreign policy, which is no longer Western-controlled and comes with a new emphasis on getting closer to Moscow.
What lies ahead for Empire? Perhaps US ‘anti-terror’ drones shared with Paris at the French base in the Ivory Coast to keep the Sahel alliance in check. Call it the humiliated Gallic rooster embracing the Hegemon in West Africa without receiving even the crumbs of a stale croissant.
Passport Bros TRIGGERING The Young Turks As Men REJECT Leftist Utopias For Traditional Life Abroad
Something’s Up: Another City Declares “Emergency” over April 8 Solar Eclipse
There’s something creepy going on in connection with the coming solar eclipse on April 8 and it warrants our attention: Numerous cities have declared states of emergency . . . for an eclipse???? No, there’s more to this than we’re being told . . .
This weekend, Niagara Falls Canada declared a state of emergency for the coming solar eclipse on April 8, as 1 million people are expected to flood the area.
The Ontario side of the falls has started to prepare for the expected influx in visitors coming to see the total social eclipse in early April.
The famous falls have been listed by National Geographic as one of the best places to see the eclipse – a phenomena not seen in the area since 1979. The city is within the path where the moon will entirely block the sun for a few minutes.
Mayor Jim Diodati estimated the city would see the most visitors in a single day on April 8 with an estimated 1 million expected. On average, the city see 14 million visit per year.
The state of emergency, which was announced Thursday, will allow the city to execute additional planning to help prepare for traffic jams, cell phone network overloads, and a higher need for emergency services, and more.
BELL COUNTY, TX – Way back on February 22, Bell County Texas issued a local state of emergency, anticipating a significant surge in visitors and strained resources.
The county expects its population of 400,000 to double in the days leading up to and after the eclipse, “due to our location in the Path of Totality,” when the moon completely covers the sun.
The county expects traffic congestion, fuel shortages and strains on first responders, hospitals, and food. The declaration will help the county coordinate with the state Department of Emergency Management if state assistance is needed.
The declaration also requires property owners to register with the county if they are hosting events like watch parties or camping for more than 50 people, as well as provide “adequate” bathroom and waste disposal facilities.
Bell County says registration information will help public safety officials and first responders during a period when roads and highways may be stressed, and responders may be impeded by population conditions.
TRAVIS COUNTY, TX — On March 10, Travis County said it would take emergency measures ahead of the total solar eclipse set to take place in exactly one month.
Kaufman County, TX — On March 27 Officials in Kaufman County issued a disaster declaration ahead of the April 8 total solar eclipse, saying they expect the county’s population to double and for traffic to be a major issue.
“Our current population is somewhere around 200,000. We’re expecting another 200,000,” Steve Howie said. Howie is the Kaufman County Emergency Management Coordinator. “We can’t handle 400,000 vehicles and people in this county in one quick spurt like that. So, it’s a huge concern.”
The declaration was in anticipation of large crowds, increased traffic and strains on first responders, hospitals and roads related to the eclipse. Travis County Judge Andy Brown issued the declaration.
ELSEWHERE IN TEXAS –
More communities across the Lone Star have issued disaster declarations due to the threat their populations might triple as spectators around the U.S. grapple with what locale will have the best view of the Great North American Eclipse.
Officials in Kerr, Bell and Travis counties have stated that disaster declarations or state of emergencies will go into effect before a rush of visitors swarm the Central Texas communities on April 8.
In Pittsburg, with a population of about 4,500, city leaders are expecting double or triple that number of people to be around town for the days leading up to the eclipse and on April 8, Mayor David Abernathy said.
First responders are anticipating more need for their services because of the high number of people in the area. Yet those calls might not go through if cell phone and internet networks are overloaded with people, Abernathy said. That’s the “worst-case scenario,” he said.
“Everybody’s going to be streaming video,” Abernathy said. “They’re going to be talking to their friends. They’re going to be in the downtime … downloading movies. And so, just that onslaught of people is just going to overload the system that’s designed for certain population.
“When you start losing communications, like cell phones, which almost everybody relies on now for emergency messages for contacting relatives or calling their employees back to work … then you’re just back in the 1800s, basically.”
If cellular networks go down, people might not be able to get calls through to 911 in the event of an emergency. However, if calls won’t go through because cellular networks are overloaded, people might be able to text 911.
In the event of a cellular network collapse, local radio stations will provide needed information, Abernathy said. City officials will post information around town listing the stations that people should tune into for emergency information.
If internet networks slow down or collapse because of high use, credit card machines might not work. The City of Mount Pleasant advises people to bring cash with them to make purchases.
Grocery stores could run out of food because of the higher-than-normal number of people in a given community, Abernathy said. And with the higher influx of vehicles, gas stations are likely to run out of fuel as travelers enter and exit the region.
The City of Mount Pleasant advises people to make backup communication plans with others to prepare for a potential loss of cellular networks.
INDIANA — On March 27, Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb signed a disaster order letting Indiana call on a nationwide aid compact should the upcoming eclipse stress the state’s emergency response systems.
Indiana expects hundreds of thousands of visitors for the April 8 event, plus plenty of in-state travel.
NEW YORK STATE — Two weeks ahead of the April 8 eclipse, Governor Kathy Hochul updated New Yorkers on the state’s preparations to ensure everyone can have a safe and memorable viewing experience. In October 2022, Governor Hochul convened an Interagency Task Force comprised of nearly two dozen state agencies and authorities. The Task Force has been collaborating for the past 17 months on plans to ensure everyone can safely enjoy the eclipse.
New York State is expecting hundreds of thousands of visitors, and Governor Hochul is reminding travelers of several tips to ensure the smoothest possible experience for everyone. Governor Hochul is advising travelers to get to their destination early and plan on staying late to avoid the most traffic, allow for extra travel time, and travel prepared with water and snacks. Additionally, drivers should never pull over on the side of the road to ensure first responders can get by in an emergency.
“The April 8 eclipse is a once in a generation experience, and there’s no better place to view it than in our beautiful state,” Governor Hochul said. “New York is ready to welcome millions of visitors, and my administration has been working hard to ensure everyone in the path of the eclipse can safely enjoy this rare event. I encourage anyone traveling for this experience to plan on arriving early to their destination and staying late to enjoy all of what our state has to offer.”
HAL TURNER COMMENTARY
The states, cities, counties, and towns mentioned above are just a small sampling of what has been going on to “prepare” for this eclipse. Sorry, but none of this seems normal to me — at all.
Cellular network collapse? Internet collapse? Grocery stores running out of food? Disaster Declarations? Gas stations running out of fuel? No, none of this seems normal to me at all.
It’s starting to look to me as if something ELSE is going on. But . . . . what?
During an eclipse, with the sun blocked, people may be able to see things up in the sky that they otherwise wouldn’t be able to see because the sunlight is so strong and blocks the view of things in space.
Could it be that something ELSE is going on . . . maybe something that people will suddenly be able to SEE once the sun is blocked for a few minutes?
Might people PANIC over what they see?
What if . . . .
What if something __is__ coming at us? It’s not like we can avoid it. There’s no Bruce Willis as “Harry Stamper” from the movie “Armageddon” to drill holes in an asteroid to drop nukes, blow it up, and save the planet.
Is it possible that governments have known about something for months, and have concealed it?
When I read that New York State has had a TASK FORCE working for the past 17 MONTHS, that kind of sealed the deal over my suspicions. It seems to me that absolutely NOBODY does something like that over an eclipse.
I’m getting a little creeped-out by all these disaster declarations. All this for just a solar eclipse? Sorry, I won’t buy it.
I’ll tell you what I __will__ do: Top-off my emergency food, water, medicine, communications gear (CB and HAM Radio) and stay close to home. In fact, my wife and I agreed over the weekend that we will be at our bugout location in Pennsylvania for this . . . . eclipse.
No, not to see it . . . but to be away from the New York metropolitan area for whatever might __actually__ be the situation.
Apricot-Onion Wings
Yield: 20 to 25 servings
Ingredients
- 1 (5 pound) bag frozen chicken wings
- 1 (10 ounce) jar apricot preserves
- 1 (1 ounce) packet dry onion soup mix
- 1 (16 ounce) bottle Catalina-style salad dressing
Instructions
- Heat oven to 400 degrees F.
- Cut the chicken wings into individual pieces and place on two lightly greased cookie sheets.
- Spread apricot preserves over wings.
- Sprinkle dry onion soup mix over wings, then pour Catalina dressing all over.
- Bake for 1 hour.
Gerry Anderson’s Ride of Fame: Top 5 Iconic Vehicles Unveiled
Why are products made in China have different qualities by country?
Not only by country. In fact not even by companies or brands.
Being a sourcer of exported manufactured products in China for the past 10 years, I can tell you one simple truth, it’s all about cost.
Lower manufacturer’s cost equals lower quality. Higher manufacturer’s cost equals higher quality. It’s as simple as that.
Note : I said manufacturer’s cost, it’s not retail selling price.
To attract price sensitive consumers, most businesses compete by offering lower selling price. It’s undeniably the most direct way to get people interested.
But, there is always a difference. Let’s look at some examples.
Compare the 2 products below.
They look identical, but the price difference is about 4x. So what’s the difference?
I choose clothing because they are the easiest to see a difference of quality. I ordered a piece of this seemingly same item, from both factories, telling them it’s a sample for my client.
To show the difference in quality for the reader benefit, I did a simple light test. I hold up both pants to the same bright light source and took a photo. These are the results.
This one cost RMB 15
This cost RMB 59.96
From the photo, you can see that there are some light going through the fabric for the cheaper item.
Firstly, you can see the difference in thread density in the material used. The RMB 15 piece is obviously alot thinner and feels cheap. The RMB 59.96 piece is a lot heavier and material is soft and smooth. Color wise, the RMB 59.96 piece is a lot darker and the cheap one while also being black, don’t look that dark. So the fabric dye used is also obviously different. The workmanship is also different, the cheaper one uses traditional machine sewing while the expensive one uses what we call 四针六线 or 4 needles 6 stitches machine sewing giving the joining parts more flexibility and strength. Even the drawstrings at the waist are different, one is obvioisly thicker than the other. Waist rubber bands are also thicker for the more expensive one.
It is obvious that alot of additional cost goes into the more expensive one in terms of material usage and manufacturing process. This difference in manufacturer cost gives you a better quality product for the exact same thing you see in the photo.
This difference is not limited to countries, it’s the same everywhere, but it is still true that the Chinese industrial strength gives you more bang for your buck than other countries.
———————————
Some people might say that if we stick to a certain brand, quality can be assured. But what I’m going to tell you might change your views.
A different product from the same brand might have difference in quality due to different market needs.
For example, Midea, a chinese household electronics brand have different factories producing their product. Some models are only available as online sales models, meaning not available via traditional retail. Why is this so? It’s because the online retail sector is very price sensitive, to capture the e-commerce market, Midea needs to come up with competitively priced products to get their market share online, and that means a reduction in quality (based on the earlier example). But to do that would bring down their entire price range which would affect their branding, so they decided to come up with only some models which are only available online, and these models are obviously not as good as the other models that are only available in retail stores where they sell at a higher price.
At first, many consumers don’t see the difference, but after a couple of years, the Chinese consumers started to see that there is indeed a difference between these models in terms of performance and durability….and price. For some weird reason, most Chinese I know seem to understand the term 一分钱一分货,very well. It means you pay for what you get. It’s a simple term, but some people can take years and many lessons in life to realise how true it is.
I have seen factories being able to produce the rusty screw driver to an equipvalent of a Hastens bed, it all depends on how much it costs to make them and how much the buyers are willing to pay for them.
So regardless of countries, factories or brands, the fundamental reason for the difference in quality is manufacturer’s cost.
Scott Ritter: Ukraine will be DESTROYED as Putin Exposes NATO’s Fragility
What is the reason for China’s smaller Navy compared to the US? How would China’s Navy perform in a conflict with the US?
Not true. China has the largest navy in the world. especially considering that there is no way that 100% of the United States Navy would sail to the South China Sea to do battle on Chinese territory.
How would it preform?
Both sides would experience massive causalities.
One thing is certain, after the dust settles there will not be any aircraft carriers, VTOL carriers left. The USN will be a launching SLBM’s and China will go duke-nukem. Guam would be gone, as would be Hawaii and San Diego. We can also expect Newport Beach and San Francisco to be erased.
You weren’t expecting this answer, eh?
Well it is REALITY. Deal with it.
…
Taking it further…
The conflict might start out conventionally, but the moment that one carrier group is in Davy Jone’s locker, it’s gonna be nuke-em city. The DF-41’s and the Russian Satan missiles are gonna be flyin’. And they won’t be stoppin’ for shit.
Five minutes from launch to nuclear scrubbing.
Quick. Clean. Sterile.
There is NO WAY…
Absolutely NO WAY that the USN will survive a conflict with China. You can add vessels via the QUAD, ARKUS and various other proxies, but honestly, it won’t make any difference.
…
WHY?
Once nuclear deterrence fails…
…and a war with China proves that it HAS failed…
…All that is left is to use the most lethal strategic nuclear weapons in the arsenal. And use them on ALL and EVERY threat.
…
Given the gung-ho nature of the war-mongering neocon Congress, if you are in the USN, I would get out now!
The MAGNIFICENT RISE of Passport Bros in Modern Dating
Imagine living in a dystopian western society just to work all day, pay taxes, and get nothing in return . That is America.
Xi Jinping walks with U.S. top brass – Talks are ‘open and frank’
After weeks and months of closely following the mounting conflicts between China’s coast guards and their Philippine counterparts in the disputes over the Ren’ai Reef, or the Second Thomas Shoal, it is pleasing to read the latest news that President Xi Jinping is now walking – with a top U.S. banker and a great variety of other top U.S. leaders from all fields in Beijing – and talking with them amicably about doing business, building ties and trusts – and toasting the success of bilateral relations since his meeting with President Joe Biden in San Francisco last November.
It’s Ching Ming in China.
With it comes the gentle breeze of warm Spring air, the blossoming of flowers, and dreaming of a beautiful world – fostered by thriving bankers, businesspersons, top scientists and leading scholars, envisioning a dream of mountains and rivers, and birds chipping in the air.
“What a wonderful world!” Sings Bing Crosby, the great musician.
With Xi, the Chinese leader walking with American http://V.I.Ps
in unisons in Beijing and talking amicably about how to cooperatively bring business success and economic development, I see a rainbow coming after a storm.
Xi Jinping has called for closer trade tides with the U.S. during a meeting with top American business leaders in Beijing that comes amid a steady improvement in relations.
Xi emphasized yesterday (Wednesday, March 27) the mutually beneficial economic ties between the world’s two largest economies, despite heavy U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports and Washington’s accusations of undue Communist Party influence, unfair trade barriers and theft of intellectual property.
China’s economy has struggled to recover from severe self-imposed restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic that it lifted only at the end of 2022, but Xi said China was again contributing to world economic growth in the double digits percentagewise.
“Sino-U.S. relations are one of the most important bilateral relations in the world. Whether China and the United States cooperate or confront each other has a bearing on the well-being of the two peoples and the future and destiny of mankind,” Xi was cited as saying by China’s official Xinhua News Agency.
Participants at the meeting included Stephen A. Schwarzman, the billionaire head of the investment firm Blackstone.
Trade and tariffs have increasingly drawn attention in the runup to the U.S. presidential election, and the Biden administration has shown little sign of moderating punitive measures against Chinese imports imposed by his predecessor and assumed rival in the November polls, Donald Trump.
U.S. officials have renewed concerns over Chinese industrial policy practices and overcapacity, and the resulting impact on U.S. workers and companies that they blame in part on China’s massive trade surplus that amounted to more than $279 billion last year, its lowest level in about a decade.
China’s formerly highly abrasive tone toward the U.S. has significantly softened in recent months, particularly since Xi and Biden met in San Francisco in November last year. Officials such as Antony Blinken have visited, and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is reportedly due to travel to Beijing again to meet top leaders next month.
However, Xi’s administration has maintained a hard line on issues it considered its “core interests.” An ardent nationalist and son of one of the founders of the People’s Republic, Xi appears determined to maintain strict party discipline while drawing in foreign investment to shore up the economy.
“The respective successes of China and the United States create opportunities for each other,” Xi was cited as saying, by Xinhua, “As long as both sides regard the other as partners, respect each other, peacefully coexist and join together for win-win results, China-U.S. relations will improve.” (Source: The Standard/AP)
In the last century, Mao Zedong and Zhou Enli, the leading founders of the People’s Republic of China forged a relationship with Nixon’s America, which fought an Independence War against the British Imperialists in centuries past.
In this century, Xi Jinping, a socialist and nationalist walking, befriending American capitalists, and talking and toasting each other’s successes in economic terms. Deng Xiaoping, Xi’s predecessor, couldn’t be happier that his initiation of “opening-up” to America and the West is now on a new page of great success.
Who says ideological differences cannot be profitably blended into a refreshing glass of cocktail, be it Singapore Sling, or Bloody Mary!
In history, the British Imperialists were able to blend with the U.S. Capitalists into a wonderful concoction. And now, centuries later, the Chinese Socialists are seeking to repeat history, and improvising it by forging a stable friendship with the American Capitalists.
Why not?
That the seeds of Marxism were sown in rural China have now grown into trees of Socialism, turning a poor country into a world factory, and now and in the future making it an industrial powerhouse.
This, too, is an experiment.
Had Chiang Kai Shak won the Chinese Civil War, China would have become a Capitalist society with cut-throat capitalism as its guiding principle.
That Lenin’s Russian revolution ended in the Cold War – and its eventual collapse is an abortion of birth, a bloody historical tragedy.
But China’s revolution is guided all along by the nation’s pluralistic culture and ancient civilization, meandering into now a river – that eventually becomes one with the sea, the South China Sea.
All these was done under the glaring eyes of and yet with the blessings of some of the superb American presidents, notably among them Presidents Richard M. Nixon, and Jimmy Carter and many other doting American leaders in the great U.S. society.
Or else, China’s current grand achievement would not have been humanly possible. Not to mention miraculously lifting 800 million people out of abject poverty.
Right before our eyes, the Chinese socialists and the American capitalists are repeating history, improvising it, turning it into yet another play book of great success. Made possible by the spirit of understanding and cooperation.
The secret of their success?
These leaders walk the talk.
Men need a plan
Why is China trying to fake their economy and their military capability?
Do you know the Trade Surplus of China is $ 843 Billion a year
This means over the past 15 years, Chinas cumulative trade surplus is a whopping $ 8.28 Trillion
Yet their Foreign Reserves are around $ 3.32 Trillion
So where is the rest of the $ 5 Trillion
Let’s take away $ 2.10 Trillion to pay off Chinas External Debts
That’s still $ 3 Trillion of money that China has stashed away somewhere in some corner of the globe
It simply took this money into a CHINESE WALL so that tomorrow if it’s official reserves are frozen, it still has nearly $ 3 Trillion worth reserves left
So now with such a trade imbalance between the Yuan and the Dollar
Why is the Yuan only at 7.07 to 1 USD?
That’s because the Yuan is kept deliberately weak by China so that it’s exports remain competitive
The real value of the Yuan is closer to 4.74 to 1 USD
By this number , the Nominal GDP of China rises to = 127.2 Trillion Yuan / 4.74 = $ 26.83 Trillion
So realistically the GDP of China in USD Terms must be $ 26.83 Trillion and should have already beaten the United States
So why doesn’t China play this card and freely allow it’s currency to peg at 4.74 to a Dollar?
Simple
That would make their exports expensive and suddenly the Export demand will be affected and China will begin to Stagnate and within five to seven years China may stop their GDP at $ 33–34 Trillion and stop there.
Instead if China keeps the Yuan weak, China can keep their exports high, manage to handle their huge production volumes and keep growing until maybe 2032–2033 and THEN RELEASE THE YUAN FOR A FREE CONVERTIBILITY
Maybe grow to $ 21 Trillion or so and then hit the peg at 5 to 1 USD and reach a Nominal GDP of $ 41 Trillion by 2050 which is the goal
So I strongly believe
- Chinas Economy has a nominal GDP closer to $ 25 Trillion than $ 18.50 Trillion
- Chinas Actual Net Reserves as closer to $ 4 Trillion than $ 1 Trillion
Why?
Simple
Sun Tzu:
The Measure of your true strength should be a surprise even to you let alone your enemy. Always imagine the Enemy to be ten times more powerful than he is presumed to be and then plan on how to survive and subdue such an enemy
What is the upcoming war between China and the US?
The strategic interest of the US dictates avoiding confrontation with another nuclear power to prevent mutually assured destruction (MAD), which would destroy the American Empire including the homeland. This also explains why the US refrained from deploying troops to Ukraine and limited its support to material and strategic assistance.
Throughout the first Cold War, spanning from the 1950s to the 1990s, direct warfare between the US and Russia did not occur. Likewise, in the current second Cold War since 2012 between China and the US, is unlikely to happen.
Fomenting discord among other vassals, such as Japan and the Philippines, to confront China, or instigating internal strife among Chinese factions across the Taiwan Strait, not only serves America’s interests but also rallies public support for US military endeavors. This rationale also underpins the US’s decision not to renew the mutual defense treaty with Taiwan after terminating it in the 1980s. Furthermore, should the Strawberry Army in Taiwan falter in defending the island, the US can easily shift blame onto Taiwanese forces, particularly if they fail to resist the Chinese unification process to the last man standing like what is happening in Ukraine.
Some Pictures
Ukraine – When Opining War Experts Can’t Read Maps
No one expects that western officials are knowledgeable – especially not with regards to facts. But some exceed even the lowest expectations one might have – and no, not to the upside.
Consider this op-ed by Evelyn N. Farkas, published two days ago:
Ukraine is not losing; US assistance must continue – The Hill, Mar 31 2024
The congressional faction that opposes Ukraine assistance shares a common talking point with the Kremlin — that Ukraine is losing the war with Russia anyway. Having just returned from Ukraine, where I met with top Ukrainian officials and participated in a security conference, I have found substantial evidence to the contrary.
All Farkas did was to talk with some Ukraine boosters in Kiev. She has penned down whatever they claimed and now tries to sell that as the real. She thinks she is qualified to do so because she once held a high position in U.S. Defense Department:
Evelyn N. Farkas, Ph.D., is executive director of the McCain Institute and former deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, Eurasia.
This however proves that she is extremely miss-informed and totally unqualified to make any judgment:
While the Ukrainians hardly welcome a new Russian offensive in the spring or summer, they believe it is likely. The officials we met with explained that Putin needs to show progress, some kind of victory to justify renewed mobilization and, emboldened now by his fake elections, he is likely to move on the ground and may try once again to open a land corridor to Crimea. But such decisions may plant the seeds of military overreach.
The land corridor between Crimea and the rest of the Russian Federation was established in early March 2022, less than two weeks after the current phase of the war had started.
At that time even the maps by the neo-conned Institute for the Study of War said so:
biggerThe maps by the French Ministry of Defense confirmed the connection:
bigger
biggerThe Ukrainian military does not like that and will attempt to destroy the new line (edited machine translation):
Ukraine also promises to strike at the railway, which the Russian Federation has been building for more than a year along the Sea of Azov in the occupied territory of Ukraine. It can be a serious problem, says Kirill Budanov, chief of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.”The construction process is almost complete, and this may pose a serious problem for us,” Budanov said, making it clear that the Ukrainian military is already preparing to launch strikes on the railway. “We have experience in this, and it is much easier than the issue of the Crimean Bridge,” Budanov said.
Budanov’s latest operation, last month’s incursion into Russia towards Belgograd, was a serious failure. The troops involved had extremely high losses.
The Russian military will expect saboteurs at the new rail line and will know how to handle those. It also has its own railway troops which can repair damages to train lines in a shorter time than it takes to sabotage those.
As for Farkas – one really wonders how such a blunder could pass by her intern who wrote that piece, her own eyes, as well as those of the editors of The Hill who supposedly read through it before it was published.
This says something about the quality of analysis coming out of Washington DC – and no, not to the upside.
h/t Lee Slusher
Posted by b on April 2, 2024 at 9:22 UTC | Permalink
What is life like for someone with a net worth between $10–20 million?
I’m in my mid-50s and my current net worth is in the middle of this range, or about $15 million.
As others have noted, I’ve taken care of most of my family’s financial needs. We have quite a bit of money saved for retirement, and my children’s college education needs are taken care of through heavily funded 529 accounts.
We live in a nice house (about 4,000 square feet) in a nice neighborhood, in a nice suburb near a major U.S. city. We’ve lived in this house for about 19 years and moved in when my net worth was maybe $1–2 million, so we haven’t upgraded as we’ve become richer.
We did buy a vacation house eight years ago in the mountains, and typically enjoy it during the winter months for skiing. We have nice cars, but tend to hold onto them for awhile — I got a new BMW last year after 8 years with my prior car only because I had new drivers in the household and we needed another vehicle.
And five years ago, I finally joined a country club after being an avid golfer for 40 years.
Other than the cars, you wouldn’t know we were anything other than middle class — no family member wears bling or otherwise shows anything that screams wealth. I wear an Apple Watch unless I’m at a formal function (my “dress” watch is a Tag Heuer — a nice watch but certainly not showy).
I still work full-time, in a job I enjoy that typically pays me $600k – $700k per year. And all of my kids work, including the two in high school (they work part-time after school three days a week). All of my children attended public schools through high school.
However, the biggest factor influencing our lifestyle is my wife’s disability. She is totally disabled, is wheelchair-bound when we go out (she uses a walker in the house), and hasn’t been able to drive in over a decade. She has help during the day four days a week, but looking after her is a large burden for us as a family.
So — we go to concerts a few times a year and out to dinner about once a month, but major travel is a lot of work. For our last flying vacation two summers ago, I needed to carry her on and off the plane to her seat. And we need disabled accommodations wherever we go, as bathrooms in particular can be very hazardous for her.
And despite assumptions people might make given our high net worth, I do the dishes in the kitchen after dinner, cook during weekends, do weekend laundry and shopping, and most of the other household chores. With my wife’s limitations, it’s a necessity.
In summary, no one should feel sorry for us, as we have the financial means to deal with our situation. But I’d trade almost all of my wealth to restore my wife’s health if it were possible.
Chili Flavored Chicken Wings
Ingredients
- 1 packet chili spice mix
- 1/4 cup cornmeal
- 2 tablespoons parsley flakes
- 4 pounds chicken wings
- 1/2 stick butter
Instructions
- Combine chili spice packet, cornmeal and parsley flakes in a zip-top bag.
- Add chicken wings a few at a time until coated.
- Remove wings and place on a buttered cookie sheet.
- Repeat this process until all wings are coated with chili flavored mix and placed on buttered cookie sheet.
- Bake at 350 degrees F for 25 minutes, then turn and bake for an additional 10 minutes.
The Transformation of Prof. Jeffrey Sachs
America’s Most Consequential Ideological Regime Defector
Ron Unz • April 1, 2024 • 6,800 Words • 156 Comments
Two weeks ago I published an article on Prof. Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University, prompted by some of his recent public remarks.
During one of his regular weekly interviews on Andrew Napolitano’s podcast, he had briefly stated that the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy had been the result of a conspiracy involving elements of the CIA. He went on to suggest that the killing might have been “the most decisive event in modern American history” and wondered whether any of our subsequent presidents had been anything more than mere “factotums of the system,” completely subject to the powerful hidden groups that actually control our society.
Such sentiments would hardly be uncommon within fringe, conspiratorial circles, but in sixty years I do not think they have ever been publicly expressed by an individual of Prof. Sachs’ elite establishment stature, and others shared my opinion.
A dozen years ago I had discovered that since the early 1990s a prominent progressive academic I know had been absolutely convinced that the JFK assassination had indeed been engineered by those sinister forces, but he had always carefully kept those views to himself. He now told me he was shocked by Sachs’ public courage on the matter, although even a year before he had already been tremendously impressed by Sachs’ remarkable candor: “no question he’s the most important public intellectual we have.”
That previous endorsement had been prompted by some of Sachs’ earlier statements on other matters. As chairman of the Covid Commission, Sachs had declared that the virus responsible for killing more than a million Americans and perhaps another twenty million worldwide had almost certainly been produced in a biolab, while he denounced the U.S. government for desperately working to conceal those facts. After the 2022 outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war, Sachs had explained that the underlying cause had been the 2014 American overthrow of the democratically-elected Ukrainian government and the years of NATO provocations against Russia that followed, with all of these dangerous policies being a result of the unbroken stranglehold that the Neocons had enjoyed over our country’s foreign policy for more than thirty years. And on Bloomberg TV, he stated that America had obviously destroyed the Nord Stream pipelines, Europe’s most important civilian energy infrastructure, thereby committing the greatest act of industrial terrorism in world history.
In late 2022 these developments had led me to publish an article on the remarkably outspoken Columbia University scholar, and since that time all his activities have further strengthened my verdict. All of us can say whatever we like on a corner of the Internet, but I emphasized that when a figure of very high international standing takes that same position, the impact is considerably different:
Until just a few months ago, I doubt there were many American academics more solidly situated in the topmost ranks of our elite mainstream establishment than Prof. Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University.
In 1983 he gained Harvard University tenure at the remarkably young age of 28, then spent the next 19 years as a professor at that august academic institution; by the early 1990s the New York Times was already hailing him as the world’s most important figure in his field. Lured to Columbia University in 2002, he has spent the last couple of decades teaching there and also directing a couple of its research organizations, most recently the Center for Sustainable Development. TIME Magazine has twice ranked him among the world’s 100 most influential individuals, and for nearly twenty years he served as Special Advisor to several Secretary-Generals of the United Nations, while publishing many hundreds of articles and op-eds on a wide variety of subjects in our most influential media outlets.
It would be difficult to construct a more illustrious and establishmentarian curriculum vitae for an international academic figure…
Although he has retained the subdued manner and careful phraseology of a mild academic, in recent months the incendiary content of his published articles and his public statements have exploded across the global landscape, reaching many millions who might otherwise never have questioned what they were so uniformly being told by all our mainstream media organs. His critics defending that orthodoxy must surely believe that he has gone dangerously rogue, and given the enormous weight of his past credibility, I suspect that the phrase “rogue elephant” has sometimes entered their thoughts.
- Jeffrey Sachs as Righteous Rogue Elephant
Ron Unz • The Unz Review • October 10, 2022 • 3,500 Words
Last month, Napolitano took a short break from his show to speak at a Vatican conference on the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas, and after his return he thanked Sachs for having arranged that invitation. Sachs himself had also attended as a speaker, and Napolitano expressed his amazement that the American economist had been greeted with such admiring recognition by the Roman Catholic cardinals who attended, almost suggesting that they had treated him as a conquering hero.
Sachs’ influence is hardly confined to those Princes of the Church. A central element of the West’s power is its overwhelming control over the global media infrastructure, whose continual stream of propaganda shapes the ideas and beliefs of most of the world’s population, even including political leaders, multi-billionaires, and influential celebrities. A handful of publications sit at the apex of that media hierarchy, with the Economist certainly being one of these, and given the dramatic recent decline in quality of the New York Times, that former publication might now possibly even rank as first among equals. Since 2015, the top Economist editor has been Zanny Minton Beddoes, whose first job out of college was working as a young assistant to Sachs during his highly successful early 1990s restructuring of Poland’s post-Communist economy. Although I know nothing of their relationship, I assume she spent most of the last three decades filled with admiration for her early former mentor, and if so, she must surely take his highly controversial remarks of the last couple of years quite seriously, even if she understands that they cannot possibly be mentioned in print.
Sachs’ personal background includes some memorable events. In a couple of his discussions on the roots of the Ukraine conflict, he recalled that in 1991 he was seated in a room discussing economic policy with Russia’s top leadership when all of them were suddenly informed that the Soviet Union had officially been dissolved, allowing him to experience a historical moment shared by few if any other Americans.
Over the last few months, he has been extremely outspoken in his denunciation of Israel’s ongoing slaughter of tens of thousands of helpless civilians in Gaza, even declaring that Israel was controlled by “a criminal government,” and he had regularly emphasized the need for international organizations to take public action on the matter. Soon afterward, South Africa successfully charged Israel with genocide before the International Court of Justice, whose distinguished jurists affirmed those accusations in a series of near-unanimous rulings. Although I have no evidence, I suspected at the time that Sachs may have used his extensive network of influential global connections to help set that legal project into motion.
I’ve also noticed that despite Sachs’ extremely outspoken public statements, none of those groups and organizations that so fiercely monitor political speech in America have dared to publicly attack him. I think they realize that his international stature is simply too great and any such failed attacks would merely make them look weak and ineffective.
- Prof. Jeffrey Sachs and the JFK Assassination
Ron Unz • The Unz Review • March 18, 2024 • 6,200 Words
After publishing that recent article, I assumed that many months would pass before I would directly focus again on Sachs and his work, but I was quickly proven wrong.
No sooner had my piece appeared than I discovered that Sachs had been interviewed by Piers Morgan, a British former cable TV host of decidedly mainstream sentiments, with such an appearance representing a significant media breakthrough. In their exchange, Morgan demonstrated that he had been living entirely within the cocoon of our official narrative regarding Russia, Ukraine, and Gaza, and was deeply ignorant of the important facts that Sachs brought to his attention. But much more importantly, those facts were also probably surprising to many of the half-million viewers who watched that discussion on Youtube, thereby perhaps helping to shift some of them in a different direction.
Two weeks earlier, Morgan had similarly interviewed Prof. John Mearsheimer, an eminent political scientist and close Sachs ally on those same issues, with similar results. Indeed, an overwhelming majority of the Youtube comments were critical of Morgan’s strictly establishmentarian position.
But even more importantly, I discovered that Sachs had also just published a new article surely as controversial as anything he had previously written.
In that piece, he outlined the overwhelming accumulated evidence that the Covid virus had been the product of American bioengineering technology and was developed by American government funding. Although he certainly recognized that China’s Wuhan lab might have been the immediate source, he emphasized that several American biolabs had also been undertaking very similar viral research at that time, and argued that a full investigation of all those possible sources of the virus was warranted. His provocative title—“What Might the US Owe the World for Covid-19?”—summarized his controversial conclusion that America would probably need to compensate the rest of the world for having unleashed such a devastating global plague that killed tens of millions and disrupted the lives of many billions more.
Considering both his international stature and the very broad range of his courageous public positions, Prof. Jeffrey Sachs may easily rank as the most consequential American ideological defector of the last one hundred years, with no comparable name coming to my mind.
I suspect that a sociological factor may have contributed to Sachs’ easy willingness to violate so many powerful ideological taboos. Most Americans, even including most American academics and intellectuals, exist in a world completely dominated by our own mainstream media, knowing that much of their social circle and peer-group would be horrified or outraged at any sentiments too far outside those acceptable boundaries. If most of your friends and associates are “normies,” you may be very reluctant to take positions that would alienate them.
Sachs, however, has been an influential academic on the world stage for more than three decades, and he seems to spend much of his time traveling to international conferences at which he is often a prominent speaker. So unlike so many of his American colleagues, he is a global figure and his peer group and social circle is an international one, with many of their views likely shaped by entirely different media environments.
Even the early votes in the UN General Assembly on the Israel-Gaza conflict found America and Israel standing almost alone, with more than 150 countries ranged on the other side, including many of our strongest allies. The U.S. has regularly cast the sole dissenting vote in the 15-member UN Security Council and Sachs has often mentioned that many of his top-ranking international friends have expressed their horror at our government’s current policies. So while his controversial views might be very disconcerting to some of the assistant professors and office interns at Columbia University, they are probably much more in line with those of the senior world figures whom he has known and considered his friends for the last twenty or thirty years, a situation that surely fortifies his personal confidence in taking those positions.
Over the last decade or two, I’ve noticed the increasing signs that our own country seems to be following the unfortunate trajectory of the late and unlamented USSR, its longtime Cold War rival, and perhaps may similarly be heading towards the dustbin of history. President Joseph Biden certainly recalls memories of decrepit figurehead leaders such as Leonid Brezhnev or Konstantin Chernenko, while Sachs may represent our own Andrei Sakharov, a figure at the very top of the Soviet academic hierarchy who publicly broke with the corrupt, despotic, and decaying regime that had once so greatly honored him.
The Soviet leadership eventually exiled that dissenting physicist to the city of Gorky, and over the last couple of years Sachs has been similarly exiled and blacklisted from the mainstream media, which in past generations might have ensured his complete disappearance. But just as the samizdat literature of the 1970s and 1980s successfully circumvented official Soviet censorship, the Internet today plays much the same role for Sachs and our other intellectual dissenters.
- American Pravda: The Rise of the BRICS and the Fall of the USSA?
Ron Unz • The Unz Review • September 4, 2023 • 3,300 Words
I have never met Sachs and nearly everything I know about him comes from his writings and his numerous interviews. As discussed in my recent article, my impression is that until quite recently he had never considered the possibility that the official story of the JFK assassination or any other major historical event might be false. But once he encountered direct evidence of massive deception with regard to the origins of Covid, the roots of the Ukraine war, and the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines, he naturally began to realize that those particular cases might not be so unusual.
In one of his interviews a year or two ago, he had emphasized the deep sense of betrayal he had felt when the trusted media outlets that had faithfully informed him for decades had recently become so dishonest and deceptive. But now that he has discovered that those same outlets had spent six decades concealing the truth of the JFK assassination from all their readers, he must surely recognize that they may always have been deceitful on many important matters but prior to the growth of the Internet, neither he nor most other Americans could have ever recognized that reality.
If my reconstruction is correct, Sachs may now be experiencing a considerable upheaval in his long-assumed framework of reality, the disorientation and vertigo that occurs after one has “taken the red pill” in that powerful metaphor drawn from the Matrix films. And if so, I can certainly empathize with his situation since I had undergone a very similar process myself over the last dozen years.
My American Pravda series now includes some ninety-odd articles totaling almost 700,000 words and may represent the largest such compendium of alternative historical analysis—so-called “conspiracy theories”—found anywhere on the Internet, or at least I’m not aware of anything comparable. But as I’ve sometimes explained, I lived most of my entire life paying absolutely no attention to those sorts of controversial ideas.
Throughout all of those decades, I’d never had any regard for a conspiratorial view of historical events, dismissing such speculative theories as nonsense, just as all of my trusted media outlets had always assured me. If I occasionally happened to see a few of those notions discussed somewhere, they usually seemed a mixture of possible sense and obvious nonsense, with the latter severely discrediting the former. It was only many years later that I began to wonder whether that very damaging juxtaposition may have been intentional, a deliberate attempt to “poison the well.”
My first turning point came with the growth of the Internet and the very widespread reports of Saddam’s non-existent WMDs used to justify our disastrous 2003 Iraq War. The former unavoidably brought to my attention a vast profusion of controversial ideas I’d never previously considered while the latter severely damaged the credibility of the mainstream media and its leading outlets, upon which I’d always relied. The almost uniform support our terribly wrong-headed Iraq policy received from the Economist, the New York Times, the New Republic, and almost every other outlet I read struck me as an almost personal betrayal, made much worse because I was also aware that highly-regarded figures who held contrary positions were being denied any public platform to present their views.
A prime example was my old friend Bill Odom, the three-star general who had run the NSA for President Ronald Reagan. Although he was widely regarded as one of the leading national security experts in DC, his sharply discordant views on the Iraq War were entirely unwelcome in any of the major publications that normally sought his opinion and he was reduced to publishing his dissenting columns on a small website.
His passing in 2008 led me to write an article on the media blackout he had suffered and my broader conclusions on the reliability of our mainstream sources. I eventually regarded that tribute as my first American Pravda piece, though I did not formally launch my series for almost another decade.
- The Life and Legacy of Lt. Gen. William Odom
Ron Unz • The American Conservative • September 8, 2008 • 2,500 Words
An even greater watershed came later that same year when I discovered the astonishing Vietnam War revelations of Sydney Schanberg, a Pulitzer Prize winner who had been one of America’s most celebrated journalists of that conflict and a former top-ranking editor at the New York Times.
Schanberg had produced a massively documented expose of a huge Vietnam War scandal involving Sen. John McCain. But although McCain was then running for the presidency on the strength of his heroic and unblemished war record, no mainstream media outlet was willing to publish Schanberg’s revelations, and when the article finally appeared on a small website, none of our media took any notice of it. If so explosive a story by such an esteemed journalist could be completely ignored by our entire media, my faith in its reliability totally collapsed.
At that time I was publisher of The American Conservative, so I eventually contacted Schanberg, satisfied myself about his material, and then published a cover-symposium on his findings, including my own short introduction and had the author provide an account of his years of fruitless effort. A number of prominent journalists privately expressed shock and astonishment at Schanberg’s material, but none of them dared to report it in their own outlets. I later regarded my introductory column as the second item in my American Pravda series.
- American Pravda: Was Rambo Right?
Ron Unz • The American Conservative • May 25, 2010 • 1,300 Words - Silent Treatment
My Four-Decade Fight to Report the Truth
Sydney Schanberg • The American Conservative • May 25, 2010 • 1,300 Words
Many of my other articles sharply challenged prevailing media narratives, including a widely-discussed 2012 article descriptively entitled “China’s Rise, America’s Fall.” But although I’d already served as publisher of The American Conservative for a number of years, only in 2013 did I finally publish my first piece squarely within the conspiratorial camp. That article proved extremely popular and also received very favorable attention from a number of prestigous mainstream media outlets and columnists. However, the controversial issues it raised were considered quite touchy in certain other quarters and I was soon purged from TAC as a consequence.
Yet even at that relatively late date, I’d still never read a single book on the JFK assassination, about which I’d only gradually begun to become a little suspicious, while my doubts about the official 9/11 story were almost as vague and fragmentary.
A couple of years later, I published my own sequel to Schanberg’s important work on McCain, focusing on what it suggested about the American media, and this piece also attracted a considerable amount of favorable attention:
- John McCain: When “Tokyo Rose” Ran for President
Ron Unz • The Unz Review • March 9, 2015 • 4,200 Words
The following year, Schanberg’s passing led me to reflect on the implications of his groundbreaking work, and this prompted me to finally launch my American Pravda series.
- American Pravda: The Legacy of Sydney Schanberg
Ron Unz • The Unz Review • July 13, 2016 • 3,500 Words
Thus, in my own case more than a dozen years elapsed between my early suspicions that major elements of our official narrative were false and the beginning of my series documenting many of those discrepancies. I had required well over a decade to fully digest and absorb the shocking conclusion that so much of what I’d always accepted as real was actually contrived. My original 2013 American Pravda article included a passage that I’ve frequently quoted over the years:
The realization that the world is often quite different from what is presented in our leading newspapers and magazines is not an easy conclusion for most educated Americans to accept, or at least that was true in my own case. For decades, I have closely read the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and one or two other major newspapers every morning, supplemented by a wide variety of weekly or monthly opinion magazines. Their biases in certain areas had always been apparent to me. But I felt confident that by comparing and contrasting the claims of these different publications and applying some common sense, I could obtain a reasonably accurate version of reality. I was mistaken.
Aside from the evidence of our own senses, almost everything we know about the past or the news of today comes from bits of ink on paper or colored pixels on a screen, and fortunately over the last decade or two the growth of the Internet has vastly widened the range of information available to us in that latter category. Even if the overwhelming majority of the unorthodox claims provided by such non-traditional web-based sources is incorrect, at least there now exists the possibility of extracting vital nuggets of truth from vast mountains of falsehood. Certainly the events of the past dozen years have forced me to completely recalibrate my own reality-detection apparatus.
- Our American Pravda
Ron Unz • The American Conservative • April 29, 2013 • 4,500 Words
Although I had closely followed Sachs’ important 1990s work in restructuring international economies, by the end of that decade and certainly after his relocation to Columbia University I’d seen much less mention of him. This was especially true because his new area of concentration—sustainability and global poverty—was rather far removed from my own foreign policy focus on the many years of Middle East wars set in motion by the 9/11 Attacks. I might occasionally see one of his op-ed pieces but that was about the limit of his visibility. Therefore his sudden 2022 appearance as a leading public dissenter from the official Covid narrative came as a major surprise to me.
I doubt that he had ever expected that his personal involvement in that global public health crisis would eventually transform him into one of the West’s most important ideological defectors, and although I had discussed that story nearly two years ago, I think elements of it are worth recapitulating.
The global Covid outbreak beginning in early 2020 quickly infected many millions and greatly disrupted most of the world’s economies, thereby threatening to throw hundreds of millions more into terrible poverty. The Lancet, a leading medical journal, soon established a Covid Commission to investigate all aspects of the deadly worldwide pandemic, and given Prof. Sachs’ international standing and his long association with the United Nations, he was a natural choice to serve as its chairman.
As he has explained in his interviews, at first he fully accepted the supposed scientific consensus that the virus was entirely natural, just as a large group of leading virologists had declared in a top scientific journal. But as time went by, he became increasingly suspicious that the true origins of the disease were being concealed, even discovering that some of the scientists he had selected for his commission were attempting to hide those facts and deceive him.
As I explained in a late 2022 article:
From the earliest days of the Covid epidemic, an official narrative was promoted that the virus was natural and editors of the leading scientific journals closed their pages to any submissions that suggested otherwise. With no reputable academic papers challenging their perspective, the natural origins advocates were able to cite this silence as proof that their position represented the overwhelming scientific consensus, thereby intimidating most mainstream journalists into toeing that same line. A massive propaganda-bubble had been inflated and maintained by such administrative means.
However, as a member of the National Academy of Sciences, Prof. Sachs had publication privileges in the prestigious PNAS journal, so in May he and a co-author published an important article documenting the highly suspicious characteristics of the Covid virus and calling for further investigation. This constituted a breakthrough, becoming the first and only paper published in a major journal that presented the very strong evidence of Covid bioengineering.
Given his role as chairman of the Covid Commission, Sachs’ paper should have been treated as a bombshell, reaching the headlines of all our leading newspapers. But instead, it was almost totally ignored, as was the author’s public statements on the subject.
Recognizing that his vital information was being blocked and boycotted by all the mainstream media outlets upon which he normally relied, he did a lengthy interview with a small progressive webzine, explaining that the U.S. government was preventing any real investigation into the Covid pandemic. When I brought his remarks to the attention of an eminent academic scholar with whom I’d been friendly for many years, he was stunned:
An amazing article.
Sachs is not only remarkably candid; he’s also remarkably knowledgeable about the issue.
Another prominent academic had a similar reaction:
That’s one hell of an interview, no doubt about it.
Soon afterward, Sachs spent an hour discussing the topic on Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s popular podcast, explaining the enormous dishonesty he had encountered in his role as chairman and that he had eventually concluded that the true nature of the virus and its origins were the subject of a massive cover-up. Everyone who listened to that interview was very impressed, certainly including a leading science journalist heavily involved in the Covid origins debate:
This is an amazingly good interview on Sachs’s part – clear, forceful, humorous and all the more compelling because he started off on the other side of the issue. Interesting what a deep perspective he has now developed, tracing the train of events back to Fauci’s acquisition of the biodefense portfolio.
Perhaps some of Sachs’ academic peers and close colleagues had similar reactions, strengthening his determination to get his views into wider circulation.
A few months earlier, the Russia-Ukraine war had broken out, soon dominating the world’s headlines. Sachs had spent much of the previous three decades as a top-level economic advisor to both those countries, so surely there would have been few individuals with better personal insights into the conflict, but once again he soon discovered that the mainstream media was closed to his views. Therefore, during July and August he published a couple of opinion columns in alternative outlets condemning our reckless policies towards Russia and China, with the former having already provoked a bloody and dangerous war in Ukraine and the latter periodically threatening to do the same over Taiwan.
- Ukraine Is the Latest Neocon Disaster
Jeffrey Sachs • Consortium News • July 1, 2022 • 1,300 Words - The West’s Dangerously Simple-Minded Narrative About Russia and China
Jeffrey Sachs • Common Dreams • August 23, 2022 • 1,000 Words
Then in late September, a series of massive underwater explosions severely damaged the $30 billion Russian-German Nord Stream pipelines. This constituted the greatest act of industrial terrorism in the history of the world, with potentially crippling long-term impact upon the energy supplies of Germany and other European countries. Although there was enormous circumstantial evidence implicating America in those attacks, and renowned investigative journalist Seymour Hersh later revealed the exact details of the sabotage operation, the entire Western media and political establishment stubbornly pretended to see nothing, instead absurdly accusing Russia of having destroyed its own energy pipelines.
Sachs refused to support that cover-up and instead he soon played a crucial role in breaking the media blockade:
Then a few days later, Bloomberg TV invited Sachs to share his concerns over the Ukraine war. His hosts were flabbergasted when he flatly declared that America had probably destroyed the Russian pipelines, even mentioning that top journalists had privately told him the same thing, although none of those vital facts could ever appear in their own newspapers.
As a consequence of Sachs’ candor, the interview was cut short—with Sachs “yanked off air” in the words of the hostile New York Post—but the entire segment was watched at least a couple of hundred thousand times on Youtube and the short clip of Sachs’ Nord Stream remarks soon went super-viral on Twitter, viewed more than 4 million times in one Tweet and another million times across a couple of others.
Given such candid statements, the mainstream electronic media was now obviously closed to him, but as I discussed at the time, The Grayzone, a prominent alternative media outlet soon arranged to interview Sachs:
On Sunday morning, the media outlet released two outstanding segments with the Columbia professor, separately focused on the Ukraine war and the Covid origins controversy, and these have already accumulated more than 100,000 views after less than a day. The Grayzone possesses a great deal of influence and credibility in alternative media circles, and I would hope that these interviews lead to an avalanche of additional coverage for Sachs in other outlets, many of which seem to have previously shied away from the explosive charges he had been making.
The first Grayzone segment was descriptively entitled “End Ukraine Proxy War or Face Armageddon,” and some of Sachs’ crucial points may have surprised his listeners. As he emphasized, America is actually already at war with nuclear-armed Russia in Ukraine, given that we are providing all the funding, military equipment, and command and control facilities for the forces fighting and killing Russian troops on Russia’s own border, as well as supplying unknown numbers of direct combat participants. This is an extraordinarily dangerous situation that would have been considered almost unimaginable during the days of our original Cold War, and our recent destruction of Russia’s Nord Stream pipelines was merely the latest manifestation of this undeclared but very real conflict.
Although American leaders may seek to hide their responsibility behind the supposedly independent decisions of the Ukrainian government, this is a transparent fig-leaf. Ukraine’s political leadership is merely our puppet regime, totally financed and controlled by our own government, and pretending otherwise is simply a propaganda-ruse aimed at deceiving our gullible public.
The second, slightly shorter Grayzone segment focused on the Covid origins issue, and provided Sachs the best opportunity he has yet had to present the important facts he uncovered while running the Covid commission. Just a couple of days earlier, he had also been interviewed on physicist Steve Hsu’s podcast discussing the same subject. I would highly recommend both these interviews to anyone interested in understanding the true origins of the viral epidemic that killed more than a million Americans and disrupted the lives of many billions around the world during the last couple of years.
Sachs’ interviews became the most popular ever broadcast on those two channels, and I think the hosts were deeply impressed that a mainstream academic of such high establishment rank was so extremely candid and forthright in his public statements. Numerous other alternative channels and podcasters soon began inviting the Columbia University professor to share his views, allowing him to reach many, many millions since that time, eventually becoming a regular weekly guest on Napolitano’s popular channel.
The gradual end of the Covid pandemic combined with the deadly conflicts taking place in Ukraine and Gaza have led Sachs to focus nearly all his attention on those latter events during most of the last two years. But a couple of weeks ago he published a new article that deserves widespread attention for the important points that he summarized:
- What Might the US Owe the World for Covid-19?
Jeffrey Sachs • Common Dreams • March 16, 2024 • 1,400 Words
As he explains, continuing investigation by diligent researchers have revealed a long series of important new clues regarding the origin of the virus.
For example, we now know that the primary source of American government funding for Covid-related research came from the biowarfare/biodefense projects of our Defense Department, which also supported the simultaneous development of vaccines meant to provide projection against those same potentially offensive bioweapons.
A portion of that Defense funding was directed to the EcoHealth Alliance (EHA), an NIH-backed research group that passed along some of that in the form of small grants to China’s Wuhan lab and many other biological facilities around the world. But according to former EHA officers, those grant-making activities mainly served as intelligence-gathering operations, intended to gain access to those biolabs in other countries and then monitor the development work taking place.
As I’ve emphasized, following the 2011 “Pivot to Asia” of the Obama Administration, our Defense Department began focusing on China as our most formidable long-term potential adversary and by 2015 most officials in DC had begun to assume that a future war with that country was quite likely. In such a conflict, one of our most important military advantages would be our great superiority in biowarfare technology.
Under that strategic framework does it really seem likely that in 2017 our Defense Department would have begun funding and encouraging Chinese efforts to adopt our own cutting-edge biotechnology, allowing them to develop powerful bioweapons of their own? Or does it seem more plausible that the small FHA grants provided to the Wuhan lab were instead elements of the intelligence-gathering operation that former FHA employees have claimed?
For the last several years, large portions of both the alternative and mainstream media have regularly claimed that the Covid virus was probably developed at the Wuhan lab and then accidentally leaked out, starting the worldwide pandemic. But since 2020 I’ve repeatedly argued in a long series of articles that there is absolutely no evidence that any such lab-leak had occurred in Wuhan and a great deal of evidence to the contrary.
- American Pravda: Our Coronavirus Catastrophe as Biowarfare Blowback?
Ron Unz • The Unz Review • April 21, 2020 • 7,400 Words - American Pravda: Covid Epidemic as Lab-Leak or Biowarfare?
Ron Unz • The Unz Review • July 12, 2021 • 13,100 Words - American Pravda: Confronting Covid Crimestop
Ron Unz • The Unz Review • December 13, 2021 • 6,400 Words - American Pravda: The JFK Assassination and the Covid Cover-Up
Ron Unz • The Unz Review • December 19, 2022 • 6,900 Words - The Alt-Covid Community Begins Unraveling the Origins of Covid
Ron Unz • The Unz Review • January 16, 2023 • 4,500 Words
Some of the other crucial clues regarding the deadly Covid epidemic have been almost entirely ignored by both the mainstream and alternative media but can be easily summarized in just a few paragraphs, as I have done on a number of occasions since April 2020:
For example, in 2017 Trump brought in Robert Kadlec, who since the 1990s had been one of America’s leading biowarfare advocates. The following year in 2018 a mysterious viral epidemic hit China’s poultry industry and in 2019, another mysterious viral epidemic devastated China’s pork industry…
From the earliest days of the administration, leading Trump officials had regarded China as America’s most formidable geopolitical adversary, and orchestrated a policy of confrontation. Then from January to August 2019, Kadlec’s department ran the “Crimson Contagion” simulation exercise, involving the hypothetical outbreak of a dangerous respiratory viral disease in China, which eventually spreads into the United States, with the participants focusing on the necessary measures to control it in this country. As one of America’s foremost biowarfare experts, Kadlec had emphasized the unique effectiveness of bioweapons as far back as the late 1990s and we must commend him for his considerable prescience in having organized a major viral epidemic exercise in 2019 that was so remarkably similar to what actually began in the real world just a few months later.
With leading Trump officials greatly enamored of biowarfare, fiercely hostile to China, and running large-scale 2019 simulations on the consequences of a mysterious viral outbreak in that country, it seems entirely unreasonable to completely disregard the possibility that such extremely reckless plans may have been privately discussed and eventually implemented, though probably without presidential authorization.
But with the horrific consequences of our own later governmental inaction being obvious, elements within our intelligence agencies have sought to demonstrate that they were not the ones asleep at the switch. Earlier this month, an ABC News story cited four separate government sources to reveal that as far back as late November, a special medical intelligence unit within our Defense Intelligence Agency had produced a report warning that an out-of-control disease epidemic was occurring in the Wuhan area of China, and widely distributed that document throughout the top ranks of our government, warning that steps should be taken to protect US forces based in Asia. After the story aired, a Pentagon spokesman officially denied the existence of that November report, while various other top level government and intelligence officials refused to comment. But a few days later, Israeli television mentioned that in November American intelligence had indeed shared such a report on the Wuhan disease outbreak with its NATO and Israeli allies, thus seeming to independently confirm the complete accuracy of the original ABC News story and its several government sources.
It therefore appears that elements of the Defense Intelligence Agency were aware of the deadly viral outbreak in Wuhan more than a month before any officials in the Chinese government itself. Unless our intelligence agencies have pioneered the technology of precognition, I think this may have happened for the same reason that arsonists have the earliest knowledge of future fires.
According to these multiply-sourced mainstream media accounts, by “the second week of November” our Defense Intelligence Agency was already preparing a secret report warning of a “cataclysmic” disease outbreak taking place in Wuhan. Yet at that point, probably no more than a couple of dozen individuals had been infected in that city of 11 million, with few of those yet having any serious symptoms. The implications are rather obvious. Furthermore:
As the coronavirus gradually began to spread beyond China’s own borders, another development occurred that greatly multiplied my suspicions. Most of these early cases had occurred exactly where one might expect, among the East Asian countries bordering China. But by late February Iran had become the second epicenter of the global outbreak. Even more surprisingly, its political elites had been especially hard-hit, with a full 10% of the entire Iranian parliament soon infected and at least a dozen of its officials and politicians dying of the disease, including some who were quite senior. Indeed, Neocon activists on Twitter began gleefully noting that their hated Iranian enemies were now dropping like flies.
Let us consider the implications of these facts. Across the entire world the only political elites that have yet suffered any significant human losses have been those of Iran, and they died at a very early stage, before significant outbreaks had even occurred almost anywhere else in the world outside China. Thus, we have America assassinating Iran’s top military commander on Jan. 2nd and then just a few weeks later large portions of the Iranian ruling elites became infected by a mysterious and deadly new virus, with many of them soon dying as a consequence. Could any rational individual possibly regard this as a mere coincidence?
The Iranians themselves were well aware of these facts, and their top political and military leaders publicly accused America of an illegal biowarfare attack against their own country and China, with their former president even filing an official protest with the United Nations. But although these explosive charges were widely reported in the Iranian press, they were completely ignored by the American media so that almost no Americans ever became aware of them.
- Covid/Biowarfare Series
Ron Unz • The Unz Review • April 2020-December 2021 • 60,000 Words
Much of this same information is also effectively presented in several of my podcast interviews from a couple of years ago, originally on Rumble but now available on Youtube as well.
Kevin Barrett, FFWN • February 16, 2022 • 15m • on Rumble
Geopolitics & Empire • February 1, 2022 • 75m • on Rumble
Red Ice TV • February 3, 2022 • 130m • on Rumble
Related Reading:
- Jeffrey Sachs as Righteous Rogue Elephant
- Prof. Jeffrey Sachs and the JFK Assassination
- Our American Pravda
- American Pravda: Covid Epidemic as Lab-Leak or Biowarfare?
- American Pravda: Confronting Covid Crimestop
- The Alt-Covid Community Begins Unraveling the Origins of Covid
Removing accountability from us means OTHER PEOPLE PAY for our mistakes.
What was the best relationship advice you ever got?
My father told me this when he walked up on me hiding behind his house while I was bawling over my fiancée, who I just found out was cheating on me.
“I know right now you’re feeling desperate, angry, hurt and alone. And the first thing you want to do is get revenge, sleep with other people and hurt someone too. That’s normal. But you shouldn’t do that. Don’t be like her. Don’t go down that path. You should always fall back on your best character. Be the bigger person now, and you’ve already won. Feel the pain for now. In a month you’ll see what I mean. And so will she. So take your time. Be a good man. You’ll find someone who actually cares about you. Maybe you’ll be alone, and that’s okay too. But you still have your life and your character and you can’t throw that away because of someone else who doesn’t have any.”
I’ve thought about that every single day for a year now, and it has propelled me to such strength, confidence, love and happiness.
EDIT: Wow, I figured this would just be another unnoticed answer swept into the pile, I did not expect such a positive reaction. My father is truly a thoughtful and wise man, like his father before him, he has guided me through a lot of tough life situations, and I’m glad his words resonate with so many people. Thank you for all your kind thoughts, and good luck to everyone.
Amazing
Is China ultimately a bigger pariah state than either Russia and North Korea? It’s like the world hates China far more than it hates Russia or North Korea.
It is the UNITED STATES that the whole world hates
Including Europe, UK and even Japan
There is a Visceral loathing of Americans that is deep seated and deeply buried in most people who HATE the Americans
The British hate the Americans for being utterly dependent on them
The Japanese hate the Americans for being so helpless that they are slaves and lackeys of the Americans
The Middle East hate the Americans for their interference in all matters
Everyone hates the AMERICANS for their bullying and sanctions and in general for forcing people to their way of life
One Day the Lion will become too weak and lie flat
That will be the end of it all
Everyone will rip the nation to pieces including the Japanese
You think a Nation of ancient Zen would forget 1945??? Not a chance.
What are some examples of Lee Kuan Yew standing up to bigger powers like the United States or China?
I got a good one.
In 1960, a CIA officer was caught trying to buy information from a Singaporean intelligence officer.
Then the CIA made things worse by trying to bribe Lee with 3.3 million dollars to sweep the whole thing under the carpet. Remember, this was in 1960. That was a lot of money back then.
Lee refused and instead asked for 33.3 million dollars of official economic aid to Singapore. This was when the total official American economic aid to Malaysia (which Singapore was a part of at that time) was merely 1.5 million. And Lee also got a letter of apology from US Secretary of State, Dean Rusk.
So, in 1965, Lee revealed this episode in an interview with foreign media, which prompted denial from the US government. This angered Lee so much that he invited foreign correspondents to a meeting where he showed the apology letter from Rusk. The US government had to retract their denial.
In that meeting with foreign correspondents Lee also threatened to further disclose details of the case, “which may sound like James Bond and Goldfinger, only not as good but putrid and grotesque enough”.
Furthermore, Lee also made the following statement:
“The Americans should know the character of the men they are dealing with in Singapore and not get themselves further dragged into calumny…..They are not dealing with Ngo Dinh Diem or Syngman Rhee. You do not buy and sell this Government.”
“Countdown To Looking Glass” (1984) Cold-War USSR Nuclear Attack Film
Forty years later and we are in the same looped nightmare.
This movie could be taken RIGHT NOW. It is frightening.