by Oui
Sat Sep 24th, 2022 at 01:57:15 PM EST
Just viewed another BBC interview from New York. An exponent of today's leadership reigning from Brussels with a mandate from present EU-27 heads of state. However did these people find such a jacka$$ ... unbelievable. 🥲
Witnessing the unraveling of Europe starting in Brussels at the NATO HQ, US Command and the political project of the EU. A deadly mix of mission and goals.
Anti-Americanism in Spain: The Weight of History | Nov. 7.- 2006 |
Dancing With the Dictator | Los Angeles Times - Jan. 4, 2004 |
A little more than 50 years ago, the United States signed a pact with Generalissimo Francisco Franco allowing U.S. military forces to use air and naval bases in Spain. The agreement was a momentous event for Spain, and its repercussions still matter. For Americans, however, the pact, though significant, was a minor moment in the Cold War. U.S. historians barely mention it. The 50th anniversary passed in September with hardly any notice in Washington.
Yet, the event should not be overlooked, especially at a time when the president proclaims his commitment to whip up democracy throughout the Middle East. The pact is a bald and astonishing example of how easily the United States can abandon a commitment to freedom -- even one for which almost 300,000 American soldiers died during World War II. What counted more in 1953 -- and probably still does -- was stability and the U.S. perception of what is best for the United States in the short term.
by gmoke
Sat Sep 24th, 2022 at 02:31:30 AM EST
CREW [Communities Responding to Extreme Weather]
Climate Preparedness Week
Throughout the week of September 24th-30th, CREW will be hosting (or co-hosting) a variety of events that will spotlight the invisible effects of climate change.
More information at https://www.climatecrew.org/climate_prep_week_2022
SATURDAY, SEP 24TH, 1-2:30 PM EST- INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PEACE
MONDAY, SEP 26TH, 5-6 PM- PREPARING COMMUNITIES TO RESPOND TO EXTREME HEAT
TUESDAY, SEP 27TH, 5-6 PM- RISING SEA LEVELS: PREPARING FOR BOSTON'S FUTURE
WEDNESDAY, SEP 28TH, 11 AM- 12 PM EST- SUSTAINABLE LIVING LIBRARY
WEDNESDAY, SEP. 28TH, 5:30-7:30 PM EST- GROUND TRUTH: SHAPING NARRATIVES OF ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
WEDNESDAY, SEP. 28TH, 6:30-8 PM EST- INTERSECTIONS OF CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS: HOW MASSACHUSETTS CAN STAND IN SOLIDARITY WITH CUBA
THURSDAY, SEP. 29TH, 4-5 PM EST: THE CHALLENGES OF COMMUNICATING CLIMATE RISK
FRIDAY, SEP 30TH, 5:30-6:45- MENTAL HEALTH IN A CHANGING CLIMATE
by Oui
Thu Sep 22nd, 2022 at 12:45:05 PM EST
By chance saw a documentary on National Geographic ... beyond the shadows of the Korean War and occupied Germany, the United States and Great Britain joined in the Fort Detrick program of medical experiments, torture and death of the Top Secret CIA MK ULTRA. Beyond human comprehension and none were held accountable.
I jotted down some names and events and quickly came to understand links to mind blowing propaganda of a new Cold War. Why does it remind me of today's global crisis of chaos and permanent war?
The Gerald Ford "apology" to Mrs. Olson in 1975 ... briefing the president with advice from counsel of the Justice department. The Rockefeller report and a letter written by Don Rumsfeld to Dick Cheney ...
The original documents located in Box 6, folder "Intelligence - Olson, Frank" of the Richard B. Cheney Files at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
by Oui
Tue Sep 20th, 2022 at 11:11:36 AM EST
Cabinet of Rutte IV collected 'unsuspected' tens of billions extra from tax revenues on elevenfold natural gas prices, coupled from higher elektriciteit revenues sourced from sustainable solar and wind energy ... above which VAT of 21% really did the trick, also tax collection for inflation and surge in cost of living. The Dutch energy SCAM. Very troublesome ... "Ukraine fighting Russia for our freedom requires our solidarity" ... major bull in a scammed war narrative of arms peddlers close to the Pentagon and NATO. Fossil fuel corporations are primary recipients of our loss of income. Trend in family cash balances, income, and expenditures
NOS Ipsos poll new crisis where the cabinet fails to solve existing crisis
by Cat
Mon Sep 19th, 2022 at 07:50:09 PM EST
Polico.eu.com | EU unveils supply chain emergency powers, 19 Sep
The European Commission set out a new emergency tool to protect supply chains in times of crisis that would give the EU executive new powers, including requiring the stockpiling of critical goods and telling companies to prioritize some orders [of "crisis-relevant goods"].
[...]
"This instrument is the opposite of a planned economy," Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton said, adding that its goal is not to constantly monitor economic players. This seems to address the fear voiced by some EU countries that the text goes too far in allowing the Commission to adopt emergency measures.
[...]
Next Steps
The proposals will now be discussed by the European Parliament and Council of the European Union. After adoption by the co-legislators, the Regulations will enter into force on the twentieth day following their publication in the Official Journal of the European Union....
The full text of the proposal is not yet published. The press release (linked below) is nearly as abstruse as the EU SARS-CoV-1 pandemic response, from repatriation of EU27 nationals and medical surveillance to vaccine inventory control and COVID-19-EU Solidarity Fund disbursement to "countries".
by gmoke
Mon Sep 19th, 2022 at 02:52:14 AM EST
Insulate Britain (https:/insulatebritain.com) is an offshoot of Extinction Rebellion which demanded that the British government fund insulation for all public housing by 2025, and, by the end of 2021, the government must create a plan to fund retrofitting of insulation of all homes in Britain by 2030. Someone estimated that it would cost £5 billion to insulate all public housing by 2025, which I'm sure was "too much" for conventional wisdom.
Insulate Britain demonstrated for these demands by blocking major highways around the UK, a dozen or more times, starting in September 2021 through February 2022 when the group announced "with a heavy heart" that the series of protests had failed in their aim to force the government into taking action. One poll from October 2021 showed that only 18% supported the protests while 72% of those surveyed opposed the protesters' actions, with 10% that "did not know."
Source: https:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulate_Britain_protests
Energy prices are soaring in the UK and, according to columnist Caitlin Moran, "the present UK Energy Rebate Scheme will cost £9.1 billion for just one year"
Source: https:www.thetimes.co.uk/article/caitlin-moran-insulate-britain-conservative-party-energy-g78nbfcx
m
https:twitter.com/CHeinemeyer/status/1569646532013465600
and the Guardian reports that
"UK must insulate homes or face a worse energy crisis in 2023, say experts
Cutting heat loss from houses will be more effective in the long term than subsidising bills, according to analysis"
https:/www.theguardian.com/money/2022/sep/11/britain-insulate-homes-energy-crisis-2023-heat-loss-ho
uses-subsidising-bills
Looks like Insulate Britain was offering a bargain.
by Oui
Sun Sep 18th, 2022 at 11:37:57 AM EST
The US as nuclear rogue state. Part I of II | By Sirocco on Aug 2nd, 2005 |
In brief, the NPT allows only five states to have nuclear weapons: the US, the UK, France, Russia, and China. These five - aka the permanent members of the UN Security Council - agree not to transfer nuclear weapons technology to others, who agree not to seek to develop nuclear weapons. But importantly, that is not all. In return for the vast majority of countries forever forswearing the right to have nuclear forces, the five also agreed agreed in Article VI of the NPT eventually to get rid of theirs.
While little known, especially in the US, this requirement is not in dispute. It was a central premise when on May 11 1995, the Cold War firmly behind them, 170 countries made the historic decision to extend the treaty indefinetely. And in 1996, the International Court of Justice unanimously held that Article VI obligates states to "bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects." Indeed, the five recognized nuclear weapon states recommitted themselves to this goal at the 30-year Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in New York, May 2000.
by Oui
Fri Sep 16th, 2022 at 06:45:00 AM EST
Japan marks a decade since Fukushima nuclear disaster | DW News - March 2021 |
Environmental groups have said the effort to decommission the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant is hopeless. Some local residents fear it's not safe to return to communities that were beneath the radioactive plume.
by IdiotSavant
Fri Sep 16th, 2022 at 03:52:18 AM EST
Since his election in 2010, Viktor Orbán has shifted Hungary sharply away from democracy and the rule of law, changing the constitution to stack the electoral system and the courts against his opponents, while dismantling the independent media. And now, the European Parliament has recognised the truth: that one of its members is no longer a democracy:
Hungary can no longer be considered a full democracy, the European parliament has said in a powerful symbolic vote against Viktor Orbán's government.
In a resolution backed by 81% of MEPs present to vote, the parliament stated that Hungary had become a "hybrid regime of electoral autocracy", citing a breakdown in democracy, fundamental rights and the rule of law.
While the vote has no practical effect, it heightens pressure on EU authorities in Brussels not to disburse billions in EU cash to Hungary that is being withheld over concerns about corruption.
Democracy is supposed to be a foundation of the EU, and its appalling that Hungary has been allowed to diverge this far from European principles before the Parliament has stepped in. And along with Poland, it shows that the EU needs effective mechanisms to sanction its own members to ensure their conformity with European law.
by Oui
Thu Sep 15th, 2022 at 11:31:40 AM EST
The Western nations propagate Russian president Putin isolated and confined to the Kremlin ...
by Oui
Thu Sep 15th, 2022 at 09:46:18 AM EST
Free Market mechanism of the Conservative Liberals VVD of Mark Rutte ...
No resilience build-in after years of austerity for the lower class and preference treatment of business, financials and mega corporations. Tax benefits and covert deals with Dutch tax authority.
As wealth grows in Dutch financial hub Amsterdam, Rotterdam port, Utrecht University city, and the high-tech areas of Delft-Eindhoven-Twente.
by IdiotSavant
Thu Sep 15th, 2022 at 12:59:25 AM EST
Swedes went to the polls over the weekend, and after a tight count, appear to have elected a Nazi-coalition government. The right-bloc has a three-seat majority, and the neo-Nazi Sweden Democrats are the largest party within that bloc. And to gain power of course the "moderate" centre-right parties are willing to snuggle up with them to form a government. Oh, they won't have them in Cabinet - that would be going too far (for the moment) - but they're willing to rely on their support, and pay whatever policy price is required to get it. Which means Sweden is going to become a lot more racist, to keep the rich rich.
Frontpaged - Bernard
by Oui
Wed Sep 14th, 2022 at 07:48:07 PM EST
FAKE NEWS
Chancellor Olaf Scholz also said on August 22 that he had assured Putin before the start of the war that Ukraine would not join NATO in the long term.
Ukrainian-born envoy, Dmitry Kozak, had told Putin that the agreement he had negotiated would make a large-scale occupation of Ukraine by Russia unnecessary.
Mykhailo Podoliak, an adviser to the Ukrainian president, said Russia used the negotiations as an excuse to prepare an invasion.
by Oui
Wed Sep 14th, 2022 at 09:58:40 AM EST
by Oui
Tue Sep 13th, 2022 at 10:43:10 AM EST
Who Is Baerbock, What Is Her Vision? Is plagiarism her being, lacking conviction and coloring into the environment where she operates. From the start I found it impossible to grasp her ideas and what her vision is on the world stage. Like so many in leadership roles in European politics, she has little humility, untimely arrogance and just blowing with the wind of militarization in NATO and on the European continent. I find Habeck as someone I do not agree with, but he does have conviction. He has character and personality. A sorry state of affairs in Germany. Chancellor Scholz is quite weak as a leader. Due to a dumb campaign by CDU/CSU and its leader Lanschet, the position of Chancellor was thrown into his lap. I'm all for change, always hoping new leadership will set a clear vision and policy. Citizens and small businesses are hurting and there is no solution ... a wrong turn of events in 2021-2022.
German politicians suffer higher degree of embarrassment from plagiarism than from sex scandals | The Guardian |
London School of Economics: Master's degree in Public International Law 2005
by Oui
Fri Sep 9th, 2022 at 11:53:08 AM EST
So the US has been in a hot hybrid war with Russia ... waiting for accidents to happen. In the sixties studying at a university in de States, I was taught the Cold War was actually an economic war between the West and the Soviet Bloc ... it still is today for supremacy of fossil fuels and hegemony to lay out a global "New World Order" with leadership by Washington DC. Exceptionalism. Empires often deteriorated from within ... most hopeful to create a more peaceful world where priority is not economic growth and stash of wealth, but care for people, nature and the habitat needed for human survival.
The United States will fail to censor the world community ... in the digital age the US has most levers and assets to exhibit a 1984 full control of thought. Yet the US is not that mighty as it might believe. Their world is not that of the Europeans, South America, Africa or Eurasia or the Far East.
I came across an article written by Alistair Crooke ...
America's Wars Take on a Divisive Edge
by gmoke
Mon Sep 5th, 2022 at 02:25:01 AM EST
IT has designed a program which maximizes the production of wind farms by operating the wind farm as a system, not individual wind turbines. Reducing downwind turbulence within the whole wind farm can increase energy production by 1.2% to 3%, a result validated by field trials in working wind farms.
Source: https:/news.mit.edu/2022/wind-farm-optimization-energy-flow-0811
https:/www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01085-8
When you think of these things as systems, there are previously hidden benefits that become apparent. When you don't, you have the present situation and BAU forever and ever amen.
Another example, from Edwin Black's book,
Internal Combustion: How Corporations and Governments Addicted the World to Oil and Derailed the Alternatives
(NY: St Martin's Press, 2006
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-35907-2), about the Milwaukee Road, an electric rail system and the advantages thereof:
"Sometimes electrified railways seemed to defy the laws of perpetual motion. For example, when the brakes were applied or the train traveled down a slope, the engine actually returned electricity to the grid. Regenerative braking and similar power returns helped the engines pay for themselves. In some mountain ranges, if timed correctly, a heavy downhill train could actually regenerate enough electricity to the grid to power another train passing it uphill. Thus both trains would travel in a minuet of seemingly energy-free motion. That might have seemed to violate the laws of physics, but not the rules of General Electric's wondrous workhorses, which were designed to observe this maxim: It is better to give than receive when it comes to electrical power. Those engines lasted not for years but for decades. Their endurance was measured in millions of miles. They were monumental vehicles that created economic prosperity and environmental balance everywhere they rolled."
Regenerative braking on electric trains is a technology that is over a century old and coming back to the fore, both on railways and with trucks.
http://solarray.blogspot.com/2022/07/playing-with-electric-trains-as-climate.html
Yet, thinking in systems is hard for most of us.
by Frank Schnittger
Fri Sep 2nd, 2022 at 01:07:55 PM EST
The Irish News (second letter down)
Brexit has killed the peace process
The DUP are boycotting Stormont because of their opposition to the Protocol which was actually agreed to by the UK government, parliament and people as part of Boris Johnson's fantastic oven-ready deal.
Only Westminster has the power to renegotiate the Protocol with the EU, so should the DUP not be boycotting Westminster instead? Why hold the people of Northern Ireland hostage over a Protocol to a treaty they had no hand, act or part in devising or agreeing?
The cynic might suggest the DUP's real motivation is trying to avoid having to serve with a Sinn Féin First Minister.
Their failure to do so also gives cover to the UK government's claim that their Northern Ireland Protocol Bill is necessary to protect the peace process, when in reality it is little more than a ransom payment to reward those who have kidnapped the peace process.
The truth is the hostage is now dead. Brexit has killed the peace process and loyalists are mobilising to protect the union with Britain against an emerging majority for re-unification, as shown in the recent LucidTalk poll.
The internal devolved solution to providing democratic legitimacy to Northern Ireland has failed and we are back to the bad old days of armed resistance.
Loyalist organisations have been associated with recent riots, bus burnings and a bomb threat against [Irish Foreign Minister] Simon Coveney. Recent Tory governments have a lot to answer for.
