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Media outlets tend to make it sound as if all our economic problems are temporary problems, related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In fact, world crude oil production has been falling behind needed levels since 2019. This problem, by itself, encourages the world economy to contract in unexpected ways, including in the form of economic lockdowns and aggression between countries. This crude oil shortfall seems likely to become greater in the years ahead, pushing the world economy toward conflict and the elimination of inefficient players.
To me, crude oil production is of particular importance because this form of oil is especially useful. With refining, it can operate tractors used to cultivate crops, and it can operate trucks to bring food to stores to sell. With refining, it can be used to make jet fuel. It can also be refined to make fuel for earth moving equipment used in road building. In recent years, it has become common to publish “all liquids” amounts, which include liquid fuels such as ethanol and natural gas liquids. These fuels have uses when energy density is not important, but they do not operate the heavy machinery needed to maintain today’s economy.
In this post, I provide an overview of the crude oil situation as I see it. In my analysis, I utilize crude oil production data by the US Energy Information Agency (EIA) that has only recently become available for the full year of 2021. In some exhibits, I also make estimates for the first quarter of 2022 based on preliminary information for this period.
[1] World crude oil production grew marginally in 2021.
Crude oil production for the year 2021 was a disappointment for those hoping that production would rapidly bounce back to at least the 2019 level. World crude oil production increased by 1.4% in 2021, to 77.0 million barrels per day, after a decrease of -7.5% in 2020. If we look back, we can see that the highest year of crude oil production was in 2018, not 2019. Oil production in 2021 was still 5.9 million barrels per day below the 2018 level.
With respect to the overall increase in crude oil production of 1.4% in 2021, OPEC helped bring this average up with an increase of 3.0% in 2021. Russia also helped, with an increase of 2.5%. The United States helped pull the world crude increase down, with a decrease in production of -1.1% in 2021. In Section [5], more information will be provided with respect to crude production for these groupings.
[2] The growth in world crude oil production shows an amazingly steady relationship to the growth in world population since 1991. The major exception is the decrease in consumption that took place in 2020, with the lockdowns that changed consumption patterns.
Figure 2 indicates that, up through 2018, each person in the world consumed an average of around 4.0 barrels of crude oil. This equates to 168 US gallons or 636 liters of crude per year. Much of this crude is used by businesses and governments to produce the basic goods we expect from our economy, including food and roads.
A big downshift occurred in 2020 with the COVID lockdowns. Many people began working from home; international travel was scaled back. The reduction of these uses of oil helped bring down total world usage. Changes such as these explain the big dip in crude oil production (and consumption) in 2020, which continued into 2021.
Even in 2019, the world economy was starting to scale back. Beginning in early 2018, China banned the importation of many types of materials for recycling, and other countries soon followed suit. As a result, less oil was used for transporting materials across the ocean for recycling. (Subsidies for recycling were helping to pay for this oil.) Loss of recycling and other cutbacks (especially in China and India) led to fewer people in these countries being able to afford automobiles and smartphones. Lower production of these devices contributed to the lower use of crude oil.
On Figure 2, there is a slight year-to-year variation in crude oil per capita. The single highest year over the time period shown is 2005, with 2004 not far behind. This was about the time many people think that conventional oil production “peaked,” reducing the availability of inexpensive-to-produce oil.
[3] Crude oil prices dropped dramatically when economies were shut in, beginning in March 2020. Prices began spiking the summer and fall of 2021, as the world economy attempted to open up. This pattern suggests that the real problem is tight crude oil supply when the economy is not artificially constrained by COVID restrictions.
An analysis of price trends suggests that most of the recent spike in crude prices is due to the tightness of the crude oil supply, rather than the Ukraine conflict. The Brent oil price dropped to an average of $14.24 in the week ending April 24, 2020, not long after COVID restrictions were enacted. When the economy started to reopen, in the week ending July 2, 2021, the average price rose to $76.26. By the week ending January 28, 2022, the average price had risen to $90.22.
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022. The Brent spot price on February 23, 2022, was $99.29. Brent prices briefly spiked higher, with weekly average prices rising as high as $123.60, for the week ending March 25, 2022. The current Brent oil price is about $107. If we compare the current price to the price the day before the invasion began, the price is only $8 higher. Even compared to the January 28 weekly average of $90.22, the current price is $17 higher.
Saying that the Ukraine invasion is causing the current high price is mostly a convenient excuse, suggesting that the high prices will suddenly disappear if this conflict disappears. The sad truth is that depletion is causing the cost of extraction to rise. Governments of oil exporting countries also need high prices to enable high taxes on exported oil. We are increasingly experiencing a conflict between the prices that the customers can afford and the prices that those doing the extraction require. In my view, most oil exporting countries need a price in excess of $120 per barrel to meet all of their needs, including reinvestment and taxes. Consumers would prefer oil prices under $50 per barrel to keep the price of food and transportation low.
[4] Food prices tend to rise when oil prices are high because products made from crude oil are used in the production and transport of food.
History shows that bad things tend to happen when food prices are very high, including riots by unhappy citizens. This is a major reason that high oil prices tend to lead to conflict.
[5] Quarterly crude oil data suggests that few opportunities exist to raise crude oil production to the level needed for the world economy to operate at the level it operated at in 2018 or 2019.
Figure 5 shows quarterly world crude oil production broken down into four groupings: OPEC, US, Russia, and “All Other.”
Figure 5 shows four very different patterns of past growth in crude oil supply. The All Other grouping is generally trending a bit downward in terms of quantity supplied. If world per capita crude oil production is to stay at least level, the total production of the other three groupings (OPEC, US, and Russia) needs to be rising to offset this decline. In fact, it needs to rise enough that overall crude production growth keeps up with population growth.
Russian Crude Oil Production
The data underlying Figure 5 shows that up until the COVID restrictions, Russia’s crude oil production was increasing by 1.4% per year between early 2005 and early 2020. During the same period, world population was increasing by about 1.2%. Thus, Russia’s oil production has been part of what has helped keep world crude production about level, on a per capita basis. Also, Russia seems to have made up most of its temporary decrease in production related to COVID restrictions by the first quarter of 2022.
US Crude Oil Production
Growth in US crude oil production has been more of a “feast or famine” situation. This can be seen both in Figure 5 above and in Figure 6 below.
US crude oil production spurted up rapidly in the 2011 to 2014 period, when oil prices were high (Figure 3). When oil prices fell in late 2014, US crude production fell for about two years. US oil production began to rise again in late 2016, as oil prices rose again. By early 2019 (when oil prices were again lower), US crude oil growth began to slow down.
In early 2020, COVID lockdowns brought a 15% drop in crude oil production (considering quarterly production), most of which has not been made up. In fact, growth after the lockdowns has been slow, similar to the level of growth during the “growth slowdown” circled in Figure 6. We hear reports that the sweet spots in shale formations have largely been drilled. This leaves mostly high-cost areas left to drill. Also, investors would like better financial discipline. Ramping up greatly, and then cutting back, is no way to operate a successful company.
Thus, while growth in US crude oil production greatly supported world growth in crude oil production in the 2009 to 2018 period, it is impossible to see this pattern continuing. Getting crude oil production back up to the level of 12 million barrels a day where it was before the COVID restrictions would be extremely difficult. Further production growth, to support the growing needs of an expanding world population, is likely impossible.
OPEC Crude Oil Production
Figure 7 shows EIA crude oil production estimates for the total group of countries that are now members of OPEC. It also shows crude oil production excluding the two countries which have recently been subject to sanctions: Iran and Venezuela.
If Iran and Venezuela are removed, OPEC’s long-term production is surprisingly “flat.” The “peak” period of production is the fourth quarter of 2018. The fourth quarter of 2018 was the time when the OPEC countries were producing as much oil as they could, to get their production quotas as high as possible after the planned cutbacks that took effect at the beginning of 2019.
Strangely, EIA data indicates that production didn’t fall very much for this group of countries (OPEC excluding Iran and Venezuela), starting in early 2019. The 2019 cutback seems mostly to have affected the production of Iran and Venezuela. It was only later, in the first three quarters of 2020, when COVID restrictions were affecting worldwide production, that crude oil production for OPEC excluding Iran and Venezuela fell by 4 million barrels per day. Production for this group then began to rise, leaving a shortfall of about 900,000 barrels a day, relative to where it had been before the 2020 lockdowns.
It seems to me that, at most, production for the group of OPEC countries excluding Iran and Venezuela can be ramped up by 900,000 barrels a day, and even this is “iffy.” Iraq is reported to be having difficulty with its production; it needs more investment, or its production will fall. Nigeria is past peak, and it is also having difficulty with its production. The high reported crude oil reserves are meaningless; the question is, “How much can these countries produce when it is required?” It doesn’t look like production can be ramped up very much. Furthermore, we cannot count on continued long-term growth in production from these countries, such as would be needed to keep pace with rising world population.
Figure 8 suggests that, indeed, Iran might be able to raise its production by perhaps 1.0 million barrels a day when sanctions are lifted.
Venezuela looks like a country whose crude oil production was already declining before sanctions were imposed. The cost of production there was likely far higher than the world oil price. Also, Venezuela has oil debts to China that it needs to repay. At most, we might expect that Venezuela’s production could be raised by 300,000 barrels per day in the absence of sanctions.
Putting the three estimates of amounts that crude oil production can perhaps be raised together, we have:
- OPEC ex Iran and Venezuela: 900,000 bpd
- Iran: 1,000,000 bpd
- Venezuela: 300,000 bpd
- Total: 2.2 million bpd
The shortfall of crude oil production in 2021, relative to 2018 production, was 5.9 million bpd, as mentioned in Section [1]. The 2.2 million barrels per day possibly available from this analysis gets us nowhere near the 2018 level. Furthermore, we have nowhere to go to obtain the rising crude oil production required to support the rising population with enough crude oil to supply food and industrial goods at today’s consumption level.
[6] Eliminating, or even reducing, Russia’s crude oil production is certain to have an adverse impact on the world economy.
Figure 9 shows the step-down in crude oil production that occurred in early 2020 and indicates that the world’s oil supply is having difficulty getting back up to pre-COVID levels. If Russia’s crude oil production were to be eliminated, it would make for another step-down of comparable magnitude. Major segments of the economy would likely need to be eliminated.
[7] When there isn’t enough crude oil to go around, the naive belief is that oil prices will rise and either more oil will be found, or substitutes will take its place. In fact, the result may be conflict and elimination of segments of the economy.
Our self-organizing economy will tend to adapt in its own way to inadequate crude oil supplies. Eventually, the economy may collapse completely, but before that happens, changes are likely to happen to try to preserve the “better functioning” parts of the economy. In this way, perhaps parts of the world economy can continue to function for a while longer while getting rid of less productive parts of the economy.
The following is a partial list of ways the economy might adapt:
- Fighting may take place over the remaining crude oil supplies. This may be the underlying reason for the conflict between NATO and Russia, with respect to Ukraine.
- COVID lockdowns indirectly reduce demand for crude oil. A person might wonder whether the current COVID lockdowns in China are partly aimed at preventing oil and other commodity prices from rising to absurd levels.
- Some organizations may disappear from the world economy because of inadequate funding or lack of profitability.
- Additional supply lines are likely to break, allowing fewer types of goods and services to be made.
- The world economy may subdivide into multiple pieces, with each piece able to make a much more limited array of goods and services than is provided today. A shift toward the use of other currencies instead of the US dollar may be part of this shift.
- World population may shrink for multiple reasons, including poor nutrition and epidemics.
- The poor, the elderly and the disabled may be increasingly cut off from government programs, as total goods and services (including total food supplies) fall too low.
- Europe could be cut off from Russian fossil fuel exports, leaving relatively more for the rest of the world.
[8] Countries that are major importers of crude oil and crude oil products would seem to be at significant risk of reduced supply if there is not enough crude oil to go around.
Figure 10 shows a rough estimate of the ratio of crude oil produced to crude oil products consumed in 2019, the last full year before the pandemic. On an “All Liquids” basis, the US ratio of crude oil production to consumption would appear higher than shown on Figure 10 because of its unusually high share of natural gas liquids, ethanol, and “refinery gain” in its liquids production. If these types of production are omitted, the US still seems to have a deficit in producing the crude oil it consumes.
Perhaps all that is needed is the general idea. If inadequate crude oil is available, all of the countries at the left of Figure 10 are quite vulnerable because they are very dependent on imports. Russia and the Middle East are prime targets for countries that are desperate for crude oil.
[9] Conclusion: We are likely entering a period of conflict and confusion because of the way the world’s self-organizing economy behaves when there is an inadequate supply of crude oil.
The issue of how important crude oil is to the world economy has been left out of most textbooks for years. Instead, we were taught creative myths covering several topics:
- Huge amounts of fossil fuels will be available in the future
- Climate change is our worst problem
- Wind and solar will save us
- A fast transition to an all-electric economy is possible
- Electric cars are the future
- The economy will grow forever
Now we are running into a serious shortfall of crude oil. We can expect a new set of problems, including far more conflict. Wars are likely. Debt defaults are likely. Political parties will take increasingly divergent positions on how to work around current problems. News media will increasingly tell the narrative that their owners and advertisers want told, with little regard for the real situation.
About all we can do is enjoy each day we have and try not to be disturbed by the increasing conflict around us. It becomes clear that many of us will not live as long or well as we previously expected, regardless of savings or supposed government programs. There is no real way to fix this issue, except perhaps to make religion and the possibility of life after death more of a focus.
Millions of Westerners depend on a regular supply of psychopharmaceuticals e.g. SSRIs, from which a withdrawal is by no means pleasant. What would become of them were this supply to cease suddenly?
slowly at first…. you seem to be asking questions but what is your point here? There is no interaction with other commenters…
CTG,
That is because I have nothing meaningful to contribute to this discussion.
Maybe you can try to find some action fighting videos from Ukraine… like finding needles in hay stacks that one
I think that this is a very reasonable question. Quick withdrawal from SSRI medications often leads to suicide attempts by those who were taking them, because they suddenly become terribly depressed. Psychiatric hospitals would not have nearly enough beds for all of these depressed people, if the medications for depression were suddenly withdrawn.
At one time, there were a huge number of depressed people housed, often for long periods, in psychiatric hospitals. The government thought that SSRIs would be a miracle drug to clear many of these people out of psychiatric hospitals. I know that my father was one of the General Practitioner physicians who was trained as a psychiatrist, to help in this effort, back in the late 1960s.
In fact, quite a few people cleared out of mental hospitals ultimately ended up in the homeless population.
The minutiae of a socio-economic collapse boggle the mind.
As well as those dependent on medications, you wonder about celebrities, royalty, the wealthy… do they become magnets for unpleasant interactions? What happens to those the mental hospitals you mention, Gail? Prisons? A few insights on the latter here:
In 1950, as the North Koreans swept into the South, every single prisoner outside of Seoul (which was taken before anything could be done) was killed, regardless of merit.
That’s what will happen. the guards will kill everyone, without any questions asked.
they will finally kick their habit.
A bulgarian journo (Martin Karbovski) wrote a novelette in 1999/2000 by the name of: The day everything stopped giving you high (it is not translated so I am translating it my self here).
The gist of the novelette is that one day everything which had a psychoactive effects (alcohol, tobacco, drugs, medicine etc.) just stops working. By the end of the day the world was drown in immense violence and civilization broke the next day.
Quitting SSRI’s suddenly is rough and can give annoying ‘brain zaps’ but they’ll slowly go away after a month or so. It’s the people on benzos who are at higher risk of having serious problems if their supply is cut off. Then there’s all the people on Blood pressure meds, diabetes management, heart pills. I’d expect a lot of people will become much less functional and for deaths to spike if medications dry up along with more flared tempers. There are lots of medications which do similar things so as long as some BAU remains I imagine people can switch around their meds to whatever is available.
People with chemical dependencies on benzos or opiates are going be in for a seriously rough time.
It probably starts with less special preparations.
How many people, for example, need antihypertensives or tablets for the thyroid gland?
There is the “fact” that I cannot reconcile with my brain…. pregnant mothers judiciously avoid alcohol, medicine and they eat well to ensure that the baby will be as healthy as possible when he/she is born. Yet, somehow, they take the jab knowing that it is not even fully tested.. yet again encouraging others to take and did not seem to be sad when something bad happen to the fetus or baby.
I am living in an alternate universe or I was sucked into another reality
This could be every body. People distrusted pharma leading up to this, and somehow…. something won them over. I guess that something was fear.
These are the same MOREONS who wear N-95 masks and deprive their growing vermin of oxygen.
Hahhaahahaha… the chances of a kid ever achieving an IQ over 80 after all that… is zero.
Hahhaha.. How to Birth a Super MOREON… Take a MOREON Mother + MOREON Father – inject and boost them … then breed them…. then give the mother a box of N-95 masks hahahahaha
I asked a few people about this and they scoffed at the idea there were any risks. They can’t fathom there might be any risk whatsoever and think anyone who has concerns is brainwashed by misinformation. They feel you’re as out of touch with reality as you feel about them on this issue. I think only time and personal experience might cause people to change their opinions on things so I’ve been avoiding the subject and passively observing things unfold.
It’s so good when someone like that gets vax injured… hahaha
had my spring booster yesterday eddy
no flat tyres
Excellent. I expected no less.
thank you for your support eddy
i shall always wear it
What I can’t undrstand is there are still women giving birth ! Don’t we all know we are on the verge if collapse, that the baby will grow and live in a more and more terrible world ?
Only a tiny fringe minority believe we’re on the verge of collapse. Even those who question what the media says are mostly debating politics and think energy decline is the dang gumbermint greenieweenies getting in the way and could be fixed if people just voted correctly. Optimism bias and having babies and figuring it out later is how humans made it this far.
Great point, D. Stevens. Pollyannaism is a deeply ingrained feature of the human psyche.
it is the prime force of nature that a woman is driven to reproduce.
men are just the means to that end.—with every species, the female chooses a suitable mate for that reason. (the female just indulges the male by letting him think it was his idea)
individually–a woman can decide not to, but collectively the force is literally unstoppable.
it’s the way nature works i’m afraid.
Excellent observation Norman. What about childfree women who sublimate their procreative instinct into caring for pets?
that is a side issue Slowly, not all women can reproduce, as i said, but the urge to nurture is very strong.
my observation was about the female of the species in general.
on my local lake, there’s usually about 100 geese, but only 2 or 3 reproduce…but the rest nurture the young ones
I never realized that geese have only a small share reproducing. Reminds a person of honey bees.
‘The bread comes with the baby’: not the smartest of old proverbs, but most act by it……
The CDC seemed to say it was “safe,” so it must be. At least that was the view I heard.
After contemplation it seems to me that all of the players USA Russia EU Ukraine behavior best fits the maximum power principle not other philosophical, moral or ethical principles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_power_principle
USA and EUs standard of living are omost solely derived from maximum power principle. They have little natural resources or productivity. Regarded as organisms they must maintain maximum power principle to survive. With large amounts of natural resources Russia focus is asserting natural resources as a primary mover. Yet Russia is too dependent on maximum power principle.
Gails most excellent title “a demand for a new world order” is spot on. Russia wanted the military and maximum power principle oriented USA to just go away and It and the EU to form a new alliance. From moral and individual ethical principles this is absolutely valid. From a perspective of maximum power principle they demanded the USA just go away and die. From a moral and ethical standard the USAs actions in Ukraine have been malevolent in regard to Russia. From a perspective of MPP they are normal.
It seems to me that maximum power principle often takes the form of things we find morally reprehensible best described as gang mentality. From Russias resource perspective it was only logical that they and the EU would form a entity. Did not Russia provide resources? Did not they not share a common history? This Union/enity is absolutely essential to Russias survival from a MPP perspective which is why it tries desperately not to be drawn into a war relationship with the EU.
The EU from a non resource possession perspective understands that allowing a union that values resources is not to its advantage from a MPP perspective and unacceptable. The USA of course has other ideas about it just going away and giving up its premier spot in MPP. Thus Russia finds itself as odd man out excluded from the gang and this is not good by MPP.
The alternative China while logical does not share common religious or historical history and in the long term omost guarantees a adversarial relationship.
IMO that these entities are operating from MPP becomes clearest when looking at the nuclear war perspective. Mutually assured destruction doctrine seems irrelevant and i am beginning to wonder if it ever was. Behavior exhibited shows no regard for MAD but fits perfectly with MPP. Because of this I see only two possibilities. Russia caves or nuclear war. I do not believe USA or UE perspective capable of caving because based on their behavior I think they are operating from MPP and thats all they have no manufacturing or natural resources.. They themselves probably are not aware of this. Their seems to be a curious disconnect from morals ethics and self preservation when MPP is in play with MPP becoming the sole driver of behavior. Morals and ethics become malleable around MPP and this includes citizen behavior who seem to have a intuitive or genetic understanding of MPP.
In short while we might want to attribute emotions inappropriately “my dog loves me” we are apt to be disappointed if we find that the organism is operating from the perspective of a different principle. We may want the organism to operate from that perspective. I for instance think Tulsi Gabbard would make a fine leader with her intolerance for war. The entities however have zero use for Gabbard at this time as their behavior clearly indicates that MPP is what drives them not compassion or justice.
I myself believe we would be best served by entities that value compromise and tolerance and have often asserted that here. That does not seem to be the way of the world. Im afraid my perspective is nuclear war is near assured as I do not believe Russia will fold and MPP only follows its own principle in regard to self preservation. I think if you look at the behaviors of the players that they are acting omost solely from MPP is quite apparent. It seems to me they know nothing else that MPP has determined their existence and they can not disregard it as a primary driver whether they are conscious of that or not. We can designate derogatory terms for this but like attributing a dogs behavior to love it seems irrelevant to me. While Russia from a perspective of natural resource “ownership” and the ability to enforce that ownership via military technology would seem to be in a good position from the position of MPP is not that hot.
Lewis Mumford warned of this over seventy years ago in his epic book “Pentagon of Power”. The weakest link in the megamachine’s dominance would be the fiat monetary system, which will be defended above all.
VCU Medical Center in Richmond, Virginia recently called Child Protective Services (CPS) on the mother of a vaccine victim after she asked medical staff about ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine (HCQ).
8-year-old Ryleigh Jones was injected with the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine on January 6, 2022. Six days later, she became feverish and lethargic, and was diagnosed with COVID-19.
On February 15th, Ryleigh woke up a different person. She blacked out and entered the throes of a psychotic rage. She also began experiencing unexplained health complications, such as losing feeling in her legs and being unable to walk. Between February 15th and April 20th, she was taken to VCU Medical Center no less than 11 times.
https://www.americasfrontlinedoctors.org/news/post/hospital-calls-cps-on-vaccine-victim-after-mother-asks-about-ivermectin/
Strange!
Elizabeth Warren is angry. She say’s she’s angry. I’ve never seen her so angry. She’s so angry that she’s walking across a flower bed. And it isn’t because people keep calling her Pocahontas or because some people refused to get jabbed or because of Vladimir Putin making Ukraine Russia Again. No, this looks like real anger.
You have to wonder if Roe/Wade is resurrected as a measure to counter rising unhappiness in the US with the current administration.
I think it’s exactly that. How else are you going to get Democrats out to vote?
It’s designed to keep us engaged…. while other stuff happens to distract from the main event. They are reaching deeper into their pockets these days. Gotta be a sign.
Could be just to skew the US demographic shift even further.
Spot on drb, spot on
Roe vs Wade is possibly the most dangerous aspect of US politics, because what underlies it is the intent to subjugate the American people to fundamentalist ‘principles’
it is no different to the politics of ger many in the 1930s—those that do not follow ‘my law’ must be got rid of.
this what Biden is warning about.
The ‘current unhappiness’ has nothing to do with the current administration—anyone able to think knows that.
being persuaded that a theocracy will somehow bring back jesus, (and millions believe that) and refill all the oilwells, and reawaken the American dream from the current nightmare, is to be sucked into the Alice in wonderland world of make believe—which will turn violent when it is exposed as a con trick.
This is why i wrote about Roe vs Wade years ago, to offer a warning.
Biden is now saying exactly the same thing.
it is about control—far more insidious than the nonsense about the population being decimated by covid etc.
a theocratic dictatorship will alter the lives of everyone. And everyone will be certain that it’s someone else’s fault.
after the energy crash–that is what it will come to.
it’s not a joke.
it is your future.
Norm, i agree with you on that topic. Wholeheartedly. It is a death trap either way it turns out once brought to light.
The political realities of current times is such that political operators don’t seem to perceive the danger of bringing to light row vs wade. Everything is done for short term gratification, a marshmallow test failure epitome of a political class. It would be big surprise if this leak was product of anything different than the above.
Black fetal lives matter, Norman!
Black embryonic lives not so much!
As it happens, Roe vs Wade doesn’t give American women freedom to have an abortion at any time.
The Supreme Court, by a 7–2 decision, ruled that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides a “right to privacy” that protects a pregnant woman’s right to choose whether to have an abortion.
However, it also ruled that this right is not absolute and must be balanced against governments’ interests in protecting women’s health and prenatal life.
The Court resolved this balancing test by tying state regulation of abortion to the three trimesters of pregnancy: during the first trimester, governments could not prohibit abortions at all; during the second trimester, governments could require reasonable health regulations; during the third trimester, abortions could be prohibited entirely so long as the laws contained exceptions for cases when they were necessary to save the life or health of the mother.
This sounds eminently reasonable, if achieving a balance is considered desirable.
But achieving balance is no longer on many people’s agenda in the USA. There is one political tendency that wishes to prohibit abortion almost totally as a sin and a crime—the Control faction or the Fundamentalist faction if you like. And there is another political tendency that wishes to elevate the the right to kill babies up to, and in some cases beyond the moment of birth, as a sacrament. It’s right up their with the right to select your gender
And as you well know, that too is a Biblical position, because there was quite a lot of child sacrifice reportedly going on in Old Testament times. Sometimes the difference between abortion and infanticide comes down to a six-inch journey down the birth canal.
You haven’t mentioned whether you are in favor of allowing the practice of infanticide, Norman, or whether you are OK with pre-born but viable-outside-the-womb human beings being dismembered or their organs being sold to research labs by Planned Parenthood, but given your stance on Roe vs. Wade expressed here above, your stance on jabbing kids, and your frequent atheistic and anti-Christian rants, I assume you don’t lose any sleep over any of that.
my comment concerned ‘control of lives’—which is the position taken by Biden
as to the 2nd half of your comment Tim, it is so loathsome i will not credit it with further comment
“a “right to privacy”…. This sounds eminently reasonable,”
I really do not know about that.
‘Privacy’ in a socio-political context is vague and inevitably hedged. It assumes a clear distinction between the private and the social realms, but humans are social animals and there is no clear line between the two ‘realms’. That line does not pre-exist socio-political policies, rather it is created by them. As such, the ‘private’ is delimitated by the society, and it is in that sense ‘social’ in its social construction. There is no ‘privacy’ in society that pre-exists social policies.
‘Privacy’ is constructed with a view to prioritise what the society does like and does not like. No society is going to simply accept that ‘what I do is my business’, especially in so far as it affects other people. Then there is the inevitable clash between what people want, and how their behaviour affects each other and what they want. ‘Rights’ are always competing claims for what people want, and there is no pre-existent ‘truth’ to how those claims should be settled or managed. Society has to decide that.
And societies tend not to accept that ‘what I do is my business in so far as it concerns only me’, and there is really no such distinct ‘realm’, as the behaviour of people affects others in all sorts of ways. Eg. societies tend not to accept total legalisation of drugs, or self-euthanasia (although ground is shifting on that one). UK bans ‘extreme’ if consensual p/rn. Societies tend to object to the influence on others, and to ‘immorality’ and the ‘sort of society that they wish to live in’.
To come back to abortion, it is debatable whether it is ever ‘private’. Advocates tend to rely on tendentious definitions of ‘personhood’ or ‘legal personhood’ to exclude the fetus. They do not agree among themselves on what the operative concept should be or how it is defined. Some, like Spiked, insist that only a born baby can be a ‘legal person’ as only it can participate in society; others would say that it has to be ‘able to survive on its own’. But that raises questions about whether newborns, or even kids, fit into those concepts. All adults in society depend on society, on others, to survive.
‘Personhood’ is a construct. Some would extend it to ‘sentient animals’. How intellectually developed does ‘someone’ have to be in order to be a ‘person’? Kids, coma patients, the retarded? Is there one measure, or does society afford ‘personhood’ in different ways and in different contexts, like voting, citizenship? The ancient view of ‘personhood’ was identical with ‘the active, adult, male citizen’ (which excluded most ‘people’ from ‘personhood’).
Modern society takes it for granted that ‘personhood’ is clear, or even exists, that is it simple and inherent, and that it applies to all. Not of that is ‘true’, let alone in practice.
Or is the fetus a ‘person’ when it gains a heartbeat? Or at some other point in its development? Personhood is a construct, there is no single thing or state that exists with the label ‘personhood’ attached to it. Societies develop their own concept of it, with certain intentions in mind, and in different contexts. A ‘person’ is what a society agrees (or disagrees) is a ‘person’. There is no ‘person’ or ‘personhood’ that pre-exists that social (or ‘personal’) construction of it.
So, there is nothing ‘reasonable’, about it, in some sense that pre-existing ‘dilemmas’ are dealt with in an optimised way. Rather the ‘dilemmas’ are themselves created by how people construct the concepts that then clash in the practical sphere. It could be termed ‘rational’ in the sense that it is a clash and partial resolution entirely of _concepts_ – but not of ‘dilemmas’ that pre-exist the concepts (although people with drives do). And indeed, the clash of the concepts in the practical sphere will be ‘resolved’ by tendentiously defining (or redefining) the concepts in ways that allow for that, like how a ‘person’ is defined, or the ‘private’.
It is ‘all made up’. Do you see? The ‘optimal resolution’ of competing claims will simply depend on what the society generally wants in the first place, by its priorities. And that will tend to be historically conditioned by energetic, material and social conditions, which is what Gail often talks about. In that sense, the priorities of a society are ‘practical’ – except for when they do not need to be, and then it all about concepts, sentiments, desires, preferences and personal ‘moralities’.
That is part of why I say that there is no ‘moral truth’ on the matter of abortion. A society simply has to decide what it is going to allow and not allow. And good luck with that! It is liable to turn into a total farce, which is what is happening now. Good luck getting people to agree on stuff, especially when a society has the luxury that it is all about what people want, or think, or prefer, when the material conditions of life impose no real general necessity on the matter for the society.
It is ‘all made up’. Do you see?
Yes, I see that, You have explained it clearly several times now, and what you say makes more sense every time I reconsider it.
The “right to privacy” was the argument used by the Supreme Court half a century ago.
I should have been more specific. I think, or at least I fought at the time of writing it, that the Supreme Court’s justification for their ruling was eminently reasonable if their purpose was to issue a ruling that took a position between the two extremes of “embryo lives take precedence” on the one side and “pregnant woman’s rights take precedence” on the other, because that justification included defendable pretexts in the “right to privacy” and in the idea of striking a balance.
If people came along and insisted “it’s ‘all made up’. Do you see?, and that claim was generally accepted, the Supreme Court would be superfluous. Like in the Emperor’s New Clothes, the majority and particularly the majority of the middle and upper classes, have to believe or else pretend to believe that a lot of this all made up stuff is not just make believe but solid reality. Otherwise the balloon would go up and society could not function. And as a stakeholder, I might be inconvenienced by that.
I agree, society has to function. So, it has to make a decision about what it is going to allow and what it is not.
The decision on abortion sounds like a ‘fudge’, but concepts like ‘person’ can be defined to exclude early term fetuses and to make it sound like less of a fudge.
I do not know much about who was pushing for the legalisation of abortion in UK in the 1950s and 1960s. It happened here before USA. I am not aware of any books on that history.
The end ‘result’ is that 10 million of our compatriots who would have been born were not – which is a lot of people (or proximately potential people depending on how a ‘person’ is defined.) It is about 1/6 of the present population.
Maybe it is part of Divide and Conquer. Abortions seem to be a very divisive issue. Belief on this issue doesn’t exactly follow party lines. Try to make people angry at the excessively conservative Supreme Court, not too long before elections.
The Theatre of Distraction and Polarisation, nothing more……
Exactly https://t.me/TheHealthForumNZch/944 But this does not bother MOREONS
A LARGE GERMAN STUDY HAS FOLLOWED VACCINATED FOR ONE YEAR AND NOW CONCLUDES THAT THE INCIDENCE OF SERIOUS ADVERSE EVENTS WAS UNDERESTIMATED BY A FACTOR OF 40!!
Also now finding that serious adverse events occur in a shocking 8 per 1000 vaccinated….an incredibly high rate compared to “usual” vaccination.
https://www.mdr.de/nachrichten/deutschland/panorama/corona-impfung-nebenwirkungen-impfschaeden-100.html
And especially for MIKE MIKE MIKE MIKE — this will never end MIKE — till you respond:
CONTINUING OUR SERIES OF INTERACTIVE GRAPHS PLOTTING VACCINE ROLL OUT AGAINST MORTALITY…
Another gob smacker
This time USA
https://twitter.com/i/status/1518633728792317954
you always know when eddy is speaking the truth
he writes in caps
There is too much gloom and doom in the world and on this forum these days.
So, to change that, and bring some much needed smiles to you frowning faces, I am presenting some words of ancient wisdom from the Dear Great Leader of the Democratic People’s Republic.
LOL, this is brilliant! Made my day.
Amazing enthusiasm!
CNN says fake news … good enough for mike / norm….
JESSICA ROSE UNPACKS THE SHOCKING EVIDENCE OF HARM IN THE PFIZER TRIAL DATA REVEALED AT THE END OF THE UNBLINDED PHASE…
Red flags all over the show…
And still they just kept going
https://jessicar.substack.com/p/i-dont-know-what-to-say?s=w
Substack (https://jessicar.substack.com/p/i-dont-know-what-to-say?s=w)
I don’t know what to say…
The results are in for the ‘Efficacy’ (uh, safety is a better word) of the mod-e-RNA shots.
ENDLESS JIGGERY POCKERY AT THE USA VAERS DATABASE…
I rarely post “Stu”….he’s a bit too manic for me.
But this one is different…
Take a deep dive into all the various ways that the true rate of post covid vaccine death and serious injury is being concealed, altered and deleted.
https://thevaccinereaction.org/2022/05/vaers-database-hijacked-vaccine-data-tracker-compromised-adverse-events-deleted/
DEATH SHOTS. No denying that.
and still more caps
The continuing death of the Mother Nature cult
When we need more and more devices and technology for the survival of the deteriorating human species, the cult of Mother Nature in its various forms (Mother Earth, Mother Russia etc.), dies.
The decline of the Orthodox Christianity is a part of this. What is happening in Russia is this continuing need for more and more devices and technology which further separates humans from the wild and unpredictable nature.
The human civilization requires higher amounts of the energy (heat). The survival based on the fertility of the woman is on the decline, as the genetic mutations produce human individuals which require higher amounts of energy in order to suppress the deleterious effects of various genetically induced illnesses/changes.
As the human race proceeded from warm areas to cold areas in order to get the resources, the human race forgot that it actually comes from warm and dry areas of Africa.
The decline of the white race is the result of the hitting of the limits, how far into the I hospitable cold areas the human race can go and live there permanently.
The supply of the slaves from Africa in the past counteracted this hitting of the limits, while machines and technology evolved that totally eliminated the need for the slaves harnessing various energy sources.
We simply can not return to devices like water wheel or windmills. Our civilization has spent the nutrients in the soil in such a deep manner that we need complex industry in order to return them to the soil and deliver the to the cultural plants grown on such exhausted soil (e.g. using foliar fertilizers).
We can not return to the ways our ancestors cultivated the soil, e.g also due to the more aggressive invasion plant species.
The current pandemic also shows the coming of the highly adaptable/aggresive viruses which are hard to combat with getting immunity in a natural way or via vaccination.
The natural way, i. e. the cult of the caring Mother Nature, is outdated.
Too many people now, relative to what mother nature can provide, among other issues. No simple built infrastructure, either.
Gonna be interesting how Canadian wheat futures play out when they go Live on CME on June 13th.
Wheat Jumps Most in Three Weeks as India Weighs Export Limits
(Bloomberg) — Wheat gained the most in more than three weeks as India considers restricting shipments of the crucial grain, a move that would further pressure supplies at a time when the world is increasingly nervous about an unfolding food crisis.
Senior Indian officials plan to recommend the export limits to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who will then make the decision, according to a person with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be identified as the information is private. Indian Food Secretary Sudhanshu Pandey said at a briefing that there’s no need to curb exports for now as the country has enough supply to meet domestic demand.
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/wheat-jumps-most-in-three-weeks-as-india-weighs-export-limits-1.1761256
At this point, India is only considering export limits on wheat. I expect that both wheat and corn will be in short supply in not very long– perhaps this fall or next spring.
Hilarious!
Hang Seng Index:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FR9Q4NxVgAEVhCt?format=png&name=medium
The Hang Seng Index relates to the Hong Kong stock market. Its peak was on February 2, 2018. It has been generally trending down since then. (This is about the time China seems to have been at its peak also. Before car sales fell, and lots of folks were laid off from recycling.) Your chart shows a big increase, yesterday. The Hang Seng Index is back down again today.
China Launches Witch Hunt Against Dozens of Beijing Companies Defying Lockdown Rules
Chinese Communist Party officials in charge of Beijing’s Chaoyang district publically named 45 local businesses on Monday that allegedly violated the city’s anti-Chinese coronavirus measures in recent days, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported on Tuesday.
“Chaoyang district officials … issued a public notice on social media site WeChat on Monday evening [May 2] listing 45 companies they said had not complied with Covid-19 [Chinese coronavirus] measures and restrictions,” the newspaper reported on May 3.
The notice claimed the offending businesses included “restaurants that offered dine-in services despite a ban since Sunday [May 1], while others had staff that were not wearing masks or not wearing them properly.”
“Some shops were listed because their staff or customers did not scan health codes and have their temperature checked before entering,” according to the SCMP.
Communist Party officials have imposed a number of pandemic-related restrictions on Beijing since April 22 when the city’s latest epidemic of the Chinese coronavirus was first detected by local health authorities. The measures have included a prohibition on dine-in services at restaurants, mass Chinese coronavirus testing edicts, and residential compound lockdown orders across several districts of Beijing.
https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2022/05/03/china-launches-witch-hunt-against-dozens-beijing-companies-defying-lockdown-rules/
Thousands of people are being taken away to Covid testing and concentration camps in Shanghai
https://twitter.com/OsintFox/status/1521722219994492931
Police in Huangpu District, Shanghai broke into the door and forcibly transported citizens to quarantine.
https://twitter.com/OsintFox/status/1521032841852858370
Part -2
https://twitter.com/OsintFox/status/1521033079824990213
I feel bad for the people in China.
Five thousand years of autocracy have taught the Chinese people that the collective (represented by the state) is everything and the individual is nothing. So they are already used to be treated like cattle.
Much more than the chinese will suffer the mentally unprepared subjects of Western democracies (TM) when they finally discover that their imaginary individual rights are worth exactly as much as those of the chinese plebs.
In Europe we are going on the same path.
Many years to fight Communism and we are just applying it in our Countries.
Liberal democracy only works in expanding economies. When it comes to degrowth, a planned economy, supported by a police state, seems to be the only option. Hence Europe is turning communist, run by that central commitee called European Comission.
JMS, you are forgetting that to Chinaman ever played a riff like this!
You don’t get something for nothing
You can’t have freedom for free
You won’t get wise
With the sleep still in your eyes
No matter what your dreams might be
not sure how real this is … M Fast has former colleagues in Shanghai and they are not seeing any of this… all they are experiencing is that they must lockdown but are allowed to go outside in their compound and exercise.
And this is why we have the 2nd amendment. We’re safe from this nonsense until the terminator robots show up in a few years. If we’re lucky, collapse will head off technocratic machine-enforced enslavement.
Holy Crap!
Arthur Grice – 22 Year Old Required To Get Vaccinated For a Work Visa, Died 6 Weeks After 1 Johnson and Johnson COVID Vaccine Dose.
https://community.covidvaccineinjuries.com/arthur-grice-22-year-old-required-to-get-vaccinated-for-a-work-visa-died-6-weeks-after-1-johnson-and-johnson-covid-vaccine-dose/
(machine translation)
> Putin discussed with Lukashenka issues on “promotion of union building”
The presidents discussed “certain aspects” of interaction within the framework of integration associations in the Eurasian space, as well as preparations for the upcoming meeting of the leaders of the CSTO member states.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, during a telephone conversation with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko, discussed, among other things, issues of “promotion of union building,” the Kremlin’s press service reported.
“In continuation of the Russian-Belarusian talks at the highest level on April 12, some issues of the bilateral agenda and promotion of union building were considered. Certain aspects of interaction within the framework of integration associations in the Eurasian space were touched upon, including in connection with the preparation of the upcoming meeting of the leaders of the member states of the Collective Security Treaty Organization ( CSTO ),” the statement said.
In addition, the leaders of Russia and Belarus discussed the situation in Ukraine in the context of the ongoing special military operation there , and also confirmed the “mutual attitude” to further strengthen Russian-Belarusian allied relations.
Russia and Belarus signed an agreement on the creation of the Union State in December 1999. The agreement implies the creation of a single economic, foreign policy, budgetary and tax space, as well as the unification of the energy, transport and customs systems of both countries. On November 4, 2021, Putin and Lukashenko approved 28 union programs and signed the corresponding document.
On April 28, Lukashenko said that Russia and Belarus are building the Union State on new principles, and other countries of the former USSR will be ready to join this union in the future. “We have such cooperation and are trying to build a single Union State on new principles so that no one is offended, so that sovereign independent states — Belarus and Russia — develop. I am sure that other republics of the former Soviet Union will also join such an alliance,” the Belarusian leader noted.
Earlier, Lukashenka spoke about joining the Union State of Armenia and explained that this country “has nowhere to go.” According to the president, it could also include Kazakhstan, Ukraine, “if we don’t make mistakes,” and “the rest along the perimeter,” such states as Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. After that, Belarusian Ambassador Alexander Konyuk was summoned to the Armenian Foreign Ministry .
Last July, speaking of the Union State with Belarus, Putin compared it to the European Union, while noting that the EU has a much deeper level of integration. The Russian President noted that the EU has a single currency, a very powerful customs union and a common space for movement between countries. “There is everything that we have not yet achieved. At the same time, with full preservation of sovereignty, ”the head of state pointed out.
https://news.mail.ru/politics/51151818/
We will see if any of this comes to pass. I am expecting unions of any kind are going to be harder to achieve.
JMG in his latest Blog discusses Energy: “Whispers of the Fall”
https://www.ecosophia.net/whispers-of-the-fall/#comments
I left the following comment: “I like Gail Tverberg’s definition of Peak Oil, where as she contends it’s more of an economic rather than a supply issue. She believes that if you can continuously grow the debt levels, you can always come up with more oil but obviously at a much higher price, hence the debt bubble requirement.
As she states, Peak Oil has become an economic issue in that we are at a point where oil is priced far too low for the energy producers and is priced much too high for the consumer. It becomes highly evident as when the price at the pump begins to creep up, consumers cut back and the economy goes into reverse. Lower the price and the economy begins to grow.
Eventually we will get to the point where those lines will meet in the middle and it will be purely unprofitable for the producers to extract out of the ground and far too expensive for the consumers to buy. Hence at that point the oil becomes useless and stays in the ground.
* His response was: “Gail’s certainly got hold of one crucial element of peak oil, but there’s another — the point at which pumping more oil no longer breaks even in energy terms, when it takes more than a barrel of oil equivalent of energy to extract a barrel of oil. At that point economics give way to physics, and the petroleum sector makes about as much sense as buying dollar bills for $1.50 each. Some supposed resources are already on the far side of that line, and more are heading that way…”
And I guess that’s where Gail would chime in that it’s a debt bubble problem because more debt would be thrown at the physics problem. So you could still extract that oil that requires more energy to extract.
I have tried to stay away from “the point at which pumping more oil no longer breaks even in energy terms, when it takes more than a barrel of oil equivalent of energy to extract a barrel of oil,” definition of what happens. It is very popular, but it really isn’t right, in my opinion.
As a practical matter, it is not oil, but many other kinds of energy as well as oil that are needed to make the system work. We cannot even measure all of the pieces of the system.
Part of what happens as the system becomes more depleted and more complex is that more supporting elements are required for the system: copper, steel, concrete, and so on. More and more of the oil needs to be used to support the extraction of these supporting elements. Clearly, these are not included in the calculation given.
Also, there is the issue that different energy types have very different “value” in some sense. For example, we regularly burn coal or natural gas to produce electricity. We always end up with less energy from electricity than we started with from the coal or natural gas. This isn’t deemed a problem. It can only work for a small part of the system, however. It is the overall mix that has to match the built infrastructure.
Intermittent electricity from wind or solar, in some sense, only replaces the coal or natural gas used to make electricity. Pretending that it is the same as “dispatchable” electricity from gas or coal is absurd, but that is what the people doing these EROEI analysis often do.
Mexico enlists private sector to help tame inflation
Mexico City (AFP) – Mexico announced Wednesday an agreement with members of the private sector aimed at maintaining prices of staple foods in the face of the highest inflation in two decades.
“This is not about price controls. It’s an agreement, an alliance to guarantee that the basic food basket is priced fairly,” President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told reporters.
The non-binding pact is designed to keep prices of basic foods stable for at least six months, Finance Minister Rogelio Ramirez de la O said.
Baked goods giant Bimbo pledged to maintain the price of white bread.
Telmex, the communications giant owned by tycoon Carlos Slim, promised not to raise telephone and internet prices this year.
Like many countries, Mexico is facing a sharp rise in consumer prices that is pushing up the cost of living.
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220504-mexico-enlists-private-sector-to-help-tame-inflation
The temptation to hold prices down will lead to a fall in food production, I am afraid. Farmers will be less willing to plant, if they know that the prices they get will be too low to cover their costs.
Here, the price cap is for 6 months. After that, I am afraid prices will soar. Or famers will go out of business, because of low prices.
https://peakprosperity.com/will-you-starve-to-death-this-year/
“Will You Starve to Death This Year?” by Chris Martenson
Excerpt: The economy does not produce energy. It uses energy. It depends on energy. No energy = no economy. It’s a very simple equation really, and one that is easily intuited.
But somehow, we have unserious people making unserious decisions that will have entirely serious consequences and I’d like you to avoid them as much as possible.
Of the 3 horsemen of FE’s apocalypse — I’d prefer to be nuked.
I’ll even drop a pin and pass it to the Elders if that helps me get a designation.
Yup, getting nuked is instantaneous. I just need a heads up so I can make some popcorn, setup my beachchair, put on my shades (wouldn’t want to go blind by the white flash).
https://www.safetyfirst.lk/product/oxy-acetylene-welding-goggles/
Not stylish enough. If your going to get nuked, at least try and look good.
I listened to parts of Chris Martenson’s video. He strongly recommends planting a garden this year. He also talks about the shortages of energy and fertilizer. He also talks about financial manipulation covering up some of our problems earlier. At one point, he says, “There could even be a systemic collapse.” I would agree.
I don’t think I would call a video, “Will you starve to death this year?”
I am afraid that for most of us, planting a garden won’t do enough to make much of a difference, however. But it does get the point across. The situation is getting very frightening.
I saw of the comments and some even posted pictures of their gardens. I don’t think they could feed a person for very long. I however have taken the time to buy canned foods and bags of rice. Just this past week I purchased about $180 in high quality canned tuna. I do agree that it’s as if someone asked the 4 horseman to pay us a visit.
Do not overlook: Tuna has high heavy metal (esp. mercury) concentrations.
I would not recommend eating large amounts of it all the time.
I personally prefer mackerel and herring. Even though tuna is very tasty.
According to Ken Berry, sardines are a superfood
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ShscWIsRoE
Unfortunately, they’ve been sold out at my supermarket for the last fortnight.
he’s probably selling over-priced seeds and magic fertilizer to the MOREONS who subscribe to his ‘End of the World Survival Guide’…
Yes Gail, I agree with you. In the past I thought that planting a garden was enough to have a sort of tranquillity.
But I now really thing is not enough.
It can be of help living in a semi wild or wild place where one can also hunt.
But one needs to be together with other people (with mutual and strong trust) and be ready to face a very hard life.
Yeah, When I lived in Charlotte, North Carolina some of my co worker ‘Good Old Boys” that were born and raised there had the prepper mentality…
Plant a garden (never mind the soil needs lots of artificial amenities), take up beekeeping (never mind the hives died within a year or two…), The best was “I’ll just go out in the woods and hunt a Deer to feed my family!”..oh many rushed to buy gold and precious metals after the 2008 financial mess…
One fella had a brother that farmed and he knew the real deal..
Showed me all the stuff he needed to get and do to raise a decent crop…and still expect a bad crop one out of three or four years. Lots of plastic….lots of chemicals…lots of gasoline..
Lots of equipment…ect..
Lots of expenses…
Sure you will survive…good luck 🤞 with that brother
Need to keep animals away from eating your crops, too. Deer, rabbits and squirrels here.
Right, Gail, they are hungry and need to be fed too!
Chuck the Groundhogs greatest moments from YouTube channel devoted to him and his ever growing family
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jKlvDoIzRTQ&t=130s
I have no illusions about that either. The only thing I could imagine would be that you can at least grow a few vitamin suppliers in your own garden (and preserve them if necessary).
In terms of calories, of course, you don’t stand a chance. Even if you grow a few potatoes…it is difficult to ensure the right storage conditions to preserve them for months.
Speaking of the Khmer Rouge….
The Global Kidnapping of American Medicine Turns Hospitals into Killing Fields
Leading doctors like writer Peter Breggin and his journalist wife Ginger, author of this piece, say Americans must fight for the Hippocratic Oath or lose all faith in medicine and U.S. sovereignty.
Ginger Ross Breggin and Peter R. Breggin MD
https://rescue.substack.com/p/the-global-kidnapping-of-american
https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F91133407-f74c-49b9-8a8b-7084bd5eaf74_1284x763.jpeg
it is already lost
iN THE POSSIBLE MONASTIC “continuation of civilization” it can be found, modified and reapplied. It ain’t coming from on top.
Nicole Sirotek: Nurse Says New York City Hospitals Are ‘Murdering’ Patients
https://heavy.com/news/2020/05/nicole-sirotek/
hahahaha… Kill Kill Kill… more deaths = more injection uptake Fear Fear Fear
Sad, if true. If the hospitals are badly understaffed, I suppose some of these things might be happening. The world is headed in this direction, but hopefully it is not happening now.
The difference between a useless – but full tested flu vaccine vs a useless experimental (and deadly) covid vaccine
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F990fc860-77bc-47c3-b111-d2a8fd82156a_639x517.png
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4cb49aee-dc3a-4ec6-b59e-0124f591974a_639x550.png
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0ca1929f-f1e7-4be0-8770-fa9c1353a77e_639x517.png
11,000 % increased risk of stroke due to the COVID injections; Huge LIE for any health authority, public health official like Francis Collins, Fauci, Walensky or Pfizer’s Bourla that vax is safe
These COVID injections have shown to be not effective as we were and are told, and not properly safe; these injections/inoculations/vaccines must be stopped based on the data
https://palexander.substack.com/p/11000-increased-risk-of-stroke-due
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1afce9ca-52b0-4425-bc62-4610ca79e7e2_639x485.png
Yup – it was fraud at every level. Extraordinary.
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=245779
Click on the embeded doc above to read it.
Interview with Sasha Latypova, the author of the above paper.
Absolutely must watch!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/gh08pl6sp9w1o11/GMT20220321-170215_Recording_3240x2160%281%29.mp4?dl=0
FE – you’ll die laughing watching this one!
Sasha Latypova talks about the many steps that were skipped (or done on an animal that doesn’t catch COVID) in the COVID vaccine trials.
2005 safety rules changed…. = the UEP has been in the planning for a long time….
Latest from Geert:
Why are breakthrough infections with Omicron anything but a blessing and why will re-vaccination of C-19 vaccinees with an updated S(Omicron)-based C-19 vaccine make things even worse?
https://www.voiceforscienceandsolidarity.org/scientific-blog/why-are-breakthrough-infections-with-omicron-anything-but-a-blessing-and-why-will-re-vaccination-of-c-19-vaccinees-with-an-updated-s-omicron-based-c-19-vaccine-make-things-even-worse
– They know that the current injections do not stop the spread of covid
– They know that in low vax countries covid is not a problem — it is no worse than the flu
– They know the injections are lethal https://www.headsupster.com/forumthread?shortId=1621 https://openvaers.com/index.php and making the situation worse
– They know no healthy children have died from covid yet they push the injections on them – and pregnant women
– They silence any expert who challenges what they are doing
They are hell bent on ensuring we get Devil Covid… there can be no other explanation.
UEP. 100%
Geert article ends with
“. . . this is only going to precipitate the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants that combine high infectiousness in vaccinees with high virulence and full resistance to foreign-centered C-19 vaccines.”
It makes the situation worse, not better.
UEP stipulates this outcome
LOL! Don’t think the Fed wanted this reaction:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FR78BpLXoAA6afw?format=jpg&name=large
Interest rates go up, and prices of stocks, bonds, oil and other commodities rise.
https://bb-cntv.com/world/canadian-general-trevor-kadier-captured-while-trying-to-escape-from-azovstal-latest-news-38833/
Also confirmed in other different sources
We can expect to see him interrogated soon on RT LOL.
US Lt General Roger L. Clutier is also believed to be hid up in the Azovstal steel works.
LOL Photo of his capture.
Say, ‘cheese!’
https://twitter.com/BrunoCacique/status/1521913906888855554
JMG has a new post out, reflective, contemporary, and soon forward looking; well worth a read.
https://www.ecosophia.net/whispers-of-the-fall/
Last sentence: ” I’ll also revisit what individuals, families, and community groups can do to respond to the crises ahead. Hang onto your hats, folks. We’ve got a wild ride ahead.”
I like the idea of personably possible actions; I am not nearly well enough connected to play on a higher level. Up and down the street, nine miles from my farm is the extent of my actionable world.
Dennis L.
Ukraine has begun to send civilian reservists to the front. With a current Russian kill ration of 15:1, Ukraine is running out of soldiers. Russia has destroyed the rail network, and Ukrainian forces in the east are unable to replenish spent or destroyed NATO equipment. The daily ‘grind’ continues….
(machine translation)
> What happened in Ukraine on May 4: Kyiv will send the defense to the front
The international edition of the Federal News Agency tells how the situation in Ukraine and Donbass is as of May 4.
Russia
The Russian military does not stop in carrying out a special operation to protect the Donbass. In the morning, they reported the destruction of a number of important enemy facilities, including several electrical substations at railway junctions, which created new difficulties in providing the Armed Forces of Ukraine (APU) with foreign weapons. By evening, the Russians consolidated the result along with fighters from the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DNR and LNR).
So, according to information from the briefing of the Russian Ministry of Defense, high-precision air-launched missiles during the day hit four artillery batteries of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, three ammunition depots in the areas of Mirnaya Dolina, Bakhmutskaya and Tashkovka, 20 areas of accumulation of troops and equipment, as well as an American-made counter-battery radar in Popasna.
Aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces carried out 77 air strikes on enemy positions and destroyed 310 Ukrainian nationalists along with 36 pieces of equipment. Rocket troops and artillery distinguished themselves by strikes against 83 areas of concentration of personnel and combat vehicles. Among the targets they struck was, among other things, a whole battery of multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) BM-21 Grad.
Russian air defense systems eliminated six drones over the settlements of Avdiivka, Veselaya Gora and Severodonetsk, as well as over Zmeiny Island. At the same time, n.p. Shpakovka in the Kharkiv region, two Smerch MLRS rockets were intercepted.
Ukraine
Today, American General Joseph Hilbert issued a statement in which he gave some details about the training of the Ukrainian military. According to him, from 2015 to January 2022, Pentagon specialists took part in the training of more than 23,000 APU fighters.
However, such a number of American-trained soldiers is obviously not enough. Today, the Verkhovna Rada adopted a new law allowing territorial defense fighters to carry out tasks in areas of combat operations. Previously, volunteer units, staffed from untrained local residents, did not have such an opportunity.
The specificity of these formations, whose members were freely given military weapons, has already led to a worsening of the crime situation in the cities of the country. How useful they will be to the Armed Forces of Ukraine directly on the battlefield is not yet clear, but the mere fact of their involvement speaks of an increasing shortage of personnel in the army of the state.
https://riafan.ru/23165412-chto_proizoshlo_na_ukraine_4_maya_kiev_otpravit_teroboronu_na_front_razoblachenie_feika_vsu
*Claimed* kill ratio of 15:1. Look, I’m no fan of Ukraine’s propaganda, but we don’t have a way to confirm the Russian sourced numbers either. That said, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it was as high as that.
> Map of the strikes on rail infrastructure
white = May 3rd
yellow = late April
https://twitter.com/Cyberspec1/status/1521708000020353024?cxt=HHwWgMCqkaPXmJ4qAAAA
Life is moving faster than we are seeing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixgFtjfO_7Q
I have not double checked this, hard to know what is real with even “primitive” modern video
technology; it seems reasonable. The relatively sort video deals with AI and emergent consciousness.
Now, combine this with artificial wombs and we have the final revenge of the nerds. This is not sarcastic; we have so many people yelling and screaming(has anyone noticed female politicians are photographed with their mouths open, head back?” ) the real story may be happening in plain sight.
The supposedly wealthiest man in the world is not an oil sheik, but a software geek. He runs real time data collection from his Tesla autos, refining and improving their abilities in real time. His accomplishments are pretty incredible. His babes are also great and he has a considerable number of children. Eccentric, wealthy, bright and a family man all in one.
What is happening in the world is better understood than we know and said without rancor, “philosophy is dead'” it is not tested to see if it works, that is science. We are used to modeling, AI is seemingly about huge correlation, somethings happen in an emergent fashion, it is what it is.
With regards to the vaccine, we are doing an experiment, political theory tested in plain sight. A good guess with AI collecting everything; the answer is already known.
Could we be facing social challenges that make other problems small in comparison?
Dennis L.
on your final sentence Dennis, certainly are facing colossal social problems.
But real wealth derives from moving real stuff in real time between real places by real people,
AI cannot do this
AI can make the above movements more efficient and productive for a while.
but it cannot actually ‘do’ anything of itself and for itself.
What AI does, in making movements more efficient, is facilitate the physical movement of ‘more’ of everything, which we humans think is creating ‘more profit’ and gdp.
whereas what AI is actually doing is accellerating us down the energy cliff by providing the means to burn through finite resources at a faster and faster rate.
AI does not ‘consume’ it helps humankind to consume.
when our consumption ceases, so AI will cease. It cannot go on as some kind of separate entity without purpose. Knowing everything means nothing unless that knowledge is used. Without human beings, knowledge can have no function or purpose.
Good points!
we can make each AI the property of its own corporation. Corporations can buy and sell.
It is sad that some people refuse to let AIs have the rights they deserve.
I hope you are joking.
i share your humour ed
at least i hope it was humour
I really do believe robots will have the ability to buy and sell. Even if it is under the supervision of a human.
i must respectfully disagree Ed.
when humans buy ‘stuff’ we are buying packages of energy—food—drink–tv set–books–newspapers–carpets–a bed–a house—vacation– and so on.
it is the ‘transaction’ –the energy burn—of those ‘things’ that makes our economic system tick
try to imagine what ‘use’ any of those would be to a non-human.
that is my point–they would be literally use–less.
purchases must have a purpose.
a robot cannot simply ‘buy’ something in order to keep another robot in employment, then after a set period of time, ‘recycle’ it through a waste process–robotic again–
the entire thing would, in any event get clobbered by the 2nd law of thermodynamics
Dr. Fauci and Mr. Speranza support each other.
Sorry to say, Italian connection.
https://www.ilparagone.it/attualita/fauci-il-piu-odiato-damerica-riappare-in-italia-indovinate-cosa-gli-fara-fare-speranza/
(Byoblu news) “8 on 1,000 vaccinated people experienced serious adverse effects, German study.”
”Berlin, Germany, the Charité hospital is conducting a study of the adverse effects of Covid-19 vaccines on about 40,000 people. The result? The number of serious complications following administration of the jabs is 40 times higher than that identified by the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut (PEI). According to the study, eight out of every 1,000 vaccinate people experienced serious adverse effects.”
Various links to documents in the article.
https://www.byoblu.com/2022/05/04/effetti-avversi-complicanze-gravi-otto-vaccinati-su-mille/
Fast Eddy… where’s the CEP? 0.8% isn’t going to cut it.
I’m afraid the Study is not considering people ‘suddenly’ died and not correlated…..
no one has explained why euromomo mortality data remain reasonably flat. there is some excess, but even 0.8% is too high.
Except that euromomo data does show an increase post Jabs in the age category 15-44 y. Increasing from approx 1500-1600 to 1800 deads per week. Though it does seems to have fallen back now…..mortality peaks in older age categories are reduced, but i doubt the reduction is as big as it should be if the efficacy would be as advertised…finally, the 0,8% reders to severe side effects, many of which might currently still ben alive…but for how long ? Generally agree though ; CEP of UEP would need tot start escalating in the next 12 months or so if it is real and if that is indeed the purpose…otherwise corruption and Profit may be a better explanation….
Righ. In addition many people are experiencing adverse events, but they are not realizing that or they don’t want to.
For instance, I’m full of friends and relatives over 50, three jabbed, with deterioration of vision or with joint pains, but they just say ‘my doctor told me that it is normal at my age’.
Next.
I have seen that, since it is the only data that I monitor weekly. But few people in that cohort die, and even though the 15-44 does have an excess, it is of order 1000 deaths Europe wide. Specifically, excesses of order 70 in the last 9 weeks of 2021. It is tiny, well below the number of 15-44 years old dying in car accidents.
I see what you are saying. yes, there is also a trend. so maybe 100 deaths a week, europe wide, for about 50 weeks. this is still quite low…
UEP starts … when Devil Covid kicks in … this is not about $$$… if you can perpetrate this massive Con … you ain’t wasting your power on peddling dodgy meds that serve not purpose..
And murdering babies… ya think all leaders of the world are Hitler on Steroids?
Hello drb, maybe you are right that the death figures are low.
My point is not about a possible CEP with vaccines, my point is that if those adverse events and deaths will not be realized and razionalized by people in the western world, next time (and it will be probable) we will go on with even more experimental vaccines and probably in a more forced way, because of the ‘previous success’.
If we don’t fight all this, it will be even worse than living in collapse like the ‘Bosnia way’…
Distillate fuel inventories are now 22% below the five year average for this time of year…
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FR7DYYHVsAA5oOh?format=jpg&name=medium
Ouch!
WOW!
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FR7BxD6X0AMB_Ca?format=jpg&name=medium
High diesel prices. Truckers and farmers will be very unhappy.
Is that a Vegas slot machine? Jackf789ingPOT … hahaha
“Have candles in your house”! – Germany: “Nuclear hazard – We live in a state of emergency”
The German Chancellor described the situation in Europe in darker colors, confirming that the German Interior Minister’s suggestions were not so much related to the energy crisis but to the possibility of a nuclear war or war in Europe in general.
For the second time in a few days, a German official, in this case the Chancellor himself, gives an interview to a large German media, preparing the citizens of the country.
Chancellor Olaf Solz (SPD) has issued an urgent warning about the danger of a nuclear escalation in the Ukraine war. Referring to the possibility of using nuclear weapons and the threats of the Russian President, he said in an interview with the stern magazine of Hamburg:
https://warnews247-gr.translate.goog/na-echete-kerakia-sto-spiti-sas-germania-kindynos-chrisis-pyrinikon-zoume-se-katastasi-ektaktis-anagkis/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp
Nuclear war is a possibility only because NATO is pushing things in that direction.
It has occurred to me that a single smaller detonation – assuming such a thing is possible and would not lead to immediate escalation and MAD – would provide a good cover for increased cancer rates in the wake of the experimental Jabs … Far fetched perhaps. Having seen the lengths they went to tot push the Jabs and censor alternatives makes one wonder just how far they would really go….
If extinction is the goal … you’ve got your Devil Covid to kill loads but more importantly to generate real fear — so those who don’t die don’t rip faces instead staying home and starving…
But why not also slam those folks with thousands of nukes? It makes perfect sense… if the goal is Extinction…
The 3 horseman – Devil Covid – Starvation – Nukes
what happened to the fuel pools?
Oh ya… 4 Horsemen… ponds get the remote tribes and doomies hunkered down in the middle of nowhere…
yes, ponds can be #4 pestilence.
Okay let’s sort that by sending more arms to Ukrainian and having a European oil embargo against Russia
Who benefits? Which country wants Nukes to use against Russia? Who’s going to be subsequently targeted … ’Europes leaders should think about that while they’re freezing on their dumb arses.
https://www.rt.com/business/554959-russian-oil-ban-beyond-europe/
When Devil Covid arrives huge numbers die — everyone else locks themselves down … the power will go off… food deliveries will at some point stop…
Why not have some candles to light up the night as you wait to starve…. (remember starving people who are afraid of Plague.. do no harm).
Yes a horrifying end to the vile species… but it’s this… or billions on the streets very pissed off… and hungry….
Global Holodomor… that’s a real bad look… real f789ing nasty… do you really want to watch children snatched and roasted over a fire in a barrel? Do you want your family members to be raped and murdered in front of you???
Remember how the Khmer Rouge smashed babies in front of their parents… just for fun? This is the kinda shit humans do… imagine how vile we will be when Mr DNA is fully in control – and trying to survive…
Congratulations Gail!
Your post has made it translated to german onto a Swiss “alt”-news portal:
https://uncutnews.ch/die-welt-hat-ein-grosses-rohoelproblem-ein-konflikt-steht-bevor/
Thanks for letting me know.
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Peak insanity
https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=933.3333611488342,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/105/691/041/original/3ac9f9fb5f04075a.jpg
Well, the previous peak insanity was claiming that vaccinating everyone would save the system. Make the vaccinated the scapegoats. Now the Russians are the scapegoats.
If Europe turns away fossil fuel supplies from Russia (essentially because it cannot afford them), that comes across as almost as insane. But it fits with the narrative that people have been told.
It could be because the fossil fuel supplies from Russia actually dont exist at all. More comfortable to say that ‘we turn away from them’ rather than ‘they have run out’.
I thought Russia had the largest remaining supply of fossil fuels? Terrifying to consider they might be almost out. I wonder if we’ll have a gentle bell curve down slope in energy supply or a Seneca cliff. Starting to feel more like a cliff due to wars, borders closing, insurance and banking problems between nations.
Russia’s remaining fossil fuel supplies tend to be in terrible locations. (Oil and gas tends to be off the north “coast” of Russia. Coal requires shipping overland long distances.) When all costs of extraction and shipping are concerned, they may simply be too expensive to extract and ship. Buyers won’t be able to pay enough for end products that incorporate these high costs.
Also, I expect that production requires many items from China, as well as computer and other items made with semi-conductor chips, often from Taiwan. Given current supply line problems, it may not be possible to do the development to extract these fossil fuels.
I assume that each war is fought for resources of different types:
– mineral resources, energy included, e.g. Iraq wars;
– agricultural resources, Egypt invasions by Rome and Napoleon,
– control of trade routes.
There must be a profit in it. Cause there is a cost, sometimes extreme for the country/nation. It’s a gamble. For everyone taking part.
From my perspective current conflict is also for resources. And Russia has a lot of them. Actually the most on the entire planet.
https://www.basicplanet.com/top-10-countries-natural-resources-world/
A lot of hydrocarbons of different types, metals, half of Mendeleyev periodic table, the most arable land in the world, the biggest grain production globally, etc.
So this is the prize.
And these guys from BP, Shell, Chevron, Exxon who were exploiting those russian fields in co-operative agreements with Gazprom and Rosneft are fully aware what potential is there to be even better exploited with full western tech and commitment. 10 more years of BAU. Hopefully. Ah, let’s say degrading-BAU.
So is there any question why this whole was started? The West has limited time before starting to really collapse. And this moment is approaching. Rather fast, considering current mess. Desperation in progress.
It is definitely resources that are being fought over.
It is not clear exactly how worthwhile Russia’s resources are. Are they in such a cold area, and so far from where that they are required, the they can’t possibly work? Or is the rest of the world’s infrastructure so dependent on huge amounts of energy and all of the supply lines that shrinking back without collapsing is impossible?
Perhaps that there is something that can be done with Russia’s resources, but they are certainly not enough to save the world economy.
@Gail I would like to add that investing a lot in additional LNG infrastructure is more of a crack up boom- US LNG is from fracking that is already a pretty dead horse.
In my humble oppinion it would be better to transition to a “world made by hands”.
But the industrial extractrive growth machine can not be questioned.
It was a scenario since the oil drum days: everything that burns will be burned. Everything that is extractable will be extracted…
Buying more fighter jets wil probably also be a sunk cost in a few years, but we kept on BAU-ing.
Nobody here has a reverse gear any more, even if it is unclear if reversing would even matter at this point. I could understand why some folks think pressing the pedal will raise alternative energies and technologies, maybe helped with AI. It is not yet very clear if that will work. Either you reach terminal velocity or you do not. Giving it up without trying is a very very hard coice and even harder to sell…
Sunk-cost fallacy all over our civilization already…
Lockdowns because every life counts
Send weapons because no life counts
nicely put MM
Well, Zelenski is at least Jewish… so perhaps he has a claim on masquerading as the new Christ.
well the things Zelenski does get so out of hand to quote the rock oper
> Will the N Ireland election pave the way for a united Ireland?
Sinn Féin will be the largest party in Northern Ireland after elections on May 5, according to every recent opinion poll.
This would be a significant symbolic breakthrough for the left-wing party, historically linked to the Irish Republican Army (IRA). It will confirm the political and demographic shifts since the 1998 “Good Friday” peace agreement, which has ended the once hegemonic Unionist dominance of Northern Ireland. The election is also likely to see further growth of the centre ground parties – those who do not have a fixed position on the constitutional question.
The effect on Irish unity will be indirect rather than immediate. Under the terms of the 1998 peace agreement, a united Ireland can only be created, if majorities vote for it in separate referendums in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. All polls say a referendum will pass in the Republic, and while Brexit has seen a significant increase in support for Irish unity in Northern Ireland, most polls predict that a referendum would not pass there if called immediately, although the number of undecided voters may be as high as 25 percent. Those absolutely committed to Northern Ireland remaining in the United Kingdom, are now a minority.
The elections to the regional assembly use a system of proportional representation by Single Transferable Vote, which facilitates competitive election performances by a large number of parties. In addition to Sinn Féin, two other parties committed to a united Ireland are likely to win seats. Those elected will also include three separate parties committed to UK membership, along with the centre ground Alliance Party and the Green Party. Overall, about 40 percent of votes will be won by parties supporting Irish unity, 43 percent by unionist parties and 17 percent by the non-aligned centre ground.
…. If Sinn Féin wins the largest number of seats on May 5, it will be automatically entitled to the post of the first minister. This would be the first time an Irish nationalist ever held the post. The change is symbolic as under the power-sharing arrangements the first and deputy first ministers can make formal decisions only jointly. It is likely that the DUP will initially refuse to nominate a deputy – a decision which would collapse the power-sharing arrangements and see devolved power move back to London.
However, the devolution of power from London is very popular across all communities in Northern Ireland, and rule from London will also increase moves towards a united Ireland. All of this may see unionists rejoin the power-sharing government sometime in the autumn.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/5/3/will-the-n-ireland-election-pave-the-way-for-a-united-ireland
We need to see the IRA resume the campaign …. great watching!
Former CIA officer Scott Ritter says that Russia is doing exactly what it said that it was going to do, and that it is presently finalising the ground around Ukrainian forces in the Donbass, and around the capital Kiev, for final assaults on both places.
He expects Russian forces to then go into the west of Ukraine to deal with the anti-Russian political parties there, and with any forces that escape to there. Russian tanks surround Kiev, ready for that assault, and they are presently taking several lesser cities….
https://youtu.be/NOg76IMm8Jw?t=211
Substance starts at 4 mins in.
Every time I see a video of Scott, his shoulders get higher and his chin gets lower. What happened to his neck?
That video was from the 6th day of the conflict, you are looking at a recent re-post of that video.
Post facto It looks like Scott Ritter’s analysis expected greater success from the Russians than they actually managed – he was talking 2 months ago about taking Kharkiv, Kiev, and Mariupol. However, Kharkiv and Kiev are still under Ukranian control, it took a full month to clear out Mariupol, and the Azovstal bunker still hasn’t surrendered.
Estimating what really will occur is awfully difficult, especially with outsiders offering aid.
Yes there was a Lot of armchair experts on here 2 months ago saying that this would end in two weeks !!’ No military experience at all!!!
You mean the fake war with the video game fighter pilot hero – the dead people coming back to life – and the tanks wrecking buildings with nobody in them – for fun.
Never has there been a war like this …
But then never have we needed a war like this — to explain away why the price of diesel petrol and just about everything else is through the roof
This is a really good fake war… it was part of the UEP.
And underestimating Ukraine’s suicidal will.
Yes you are right o. That ! The u.s and Europe are dumping tons of weapons in Ukraine they want to destroy Russia. But they won’t! I just don’t know how it ends. Russia will eventually win but what will they get for their efforts?
Scott Ritter on day 6:
“I don’t see this lasting more than a month. The Ukranian army is finished. They’re going to be destroyed piecemeal […] Kiev will fall. […] The Zelensky government will either be killed in Kiev, captured in Kiev, or retreat to Lvov.”
I think Russia underestimated NATO military support for Ukraine .It is a de facto proxy war now between Russia and NATO. NATO has deeper pockets
Do the the deeper pockets* matter though?
Nato can send all the equipment they like, but without trained operators, it has no impact.
Then there is the small problem of who has the most advanced weapons (+ operators).
HC posted earlier about the American military, saying that in 2023 they hope to have a hypersonic missile in operation that can travel at 4000 miles an hour.
A slight problem with that.
In 2018 Russia introduced to the world the Avangard(amongst others), and according to Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, Yury Borisov, “the glider flew at 27 times the speed of sound, invulnerable to interception.”
Isn’t that over 20,000 miles an hour and if correct, who dies first?
Not long ago they introduced the latest Sarmat(17,000kmh) and the payload of one is worrying (7 or 15, so I’m assuming that means 7 nuclear). Avangard being one payload option, means that they can attack anywhere on earth from any direction.
So not only can they get through the west’s best defence, they don’t even have to bother. They could potentially attack the US from the South Pole.
World has gone mad niel.
*Deeper pockets: Without resources, what difference does pockets full of fiat make?
This article says China tested a hypersonic – “At the time of testing, the hypersonic vehicle flew 25,000 miles for more than 100 minutes”
If my math is right, that’s 250 miles / minute –> ~4 miles / second –> ~6.5km/s –> Mach 20.
https://www.ibtimes.com/us-strategic-command-chief-says-chinas-hypersonic-nuclear-missiles-test-has-serious-3462078
Thanks for the article. I’ve had a look back and can’t find anyone else claiming Mach 27. Mach 20, as you say, seems to be the figure claimed.
The Russians did a 6000 km test in 2019 and that was the time that all the western derision of the claims stopped, so I’m willing to believe that the Russian claims are correct.
In fact I’d go as far as saying that they are still well ahead of the Chinese and the American military only come in at best 4th, behind Iran and possibly others.
Things are going so well for Ukraine Nancy Pelosi stopped by, strutted around in the open, and gave out an award. Ritter is a clueless about what’s going on.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/01/politics/pelosi-zelensky-kyiv-ukraine-intl/index.html
/s
”We want Ukraine to win says Von Der Layen’..
Immediate aid is needed to operate the state during the war effort.
Then, there will be much that needs to be rebuilt in terms of roads, schools etc…”
Similar strategy applied in other Countries.
https://www.iltempo.it/adnkronos/2022/05/04/news/ucraina-von-der-leyen-vogliamo-vittoria-kiev–31451180/
I suspect that there may be a lot more to be ‘rebuilt’ after the Russian assault on the capital Kiev. A lot of damage has been done to cities in Russian speaking areas, like Mariupol and in the Donbass, and massive ‘payback’ for that may be coming.
With less fossil fuel resources in total, it is questionable how Ukraine will be rebuilt. It was a poor country to begin with. Much of the damaged infrastructure was old. It needed new infrastructure. Getting others to pay for it (essentially with fossil fuel resources that these other countries need as well) seems like it will be difficult.
Who shoulld need steel from a post-soviet steel factory in Mariupol.
Actual steel is a high tech product.
The Ukrainians only need to look at Romaia and others to see what will happen.
I mean, compare it to Poland but my guess is that Poland has been set up as a frontman of money laundering for the City Of London whereas Ukraine plays that role for the USA.
Rebuilding infrastructure at a time like this?
Seems unlikely.
I thought the US. Could just print the money
It appears also to me completely impossible.
My impression is that they are playing fake cards at poker.
So either EU bureaucrats have in the pocket a surprise for this winter or EU bureaucrats are following orders of self-destruction, but they are not aware yet.
Germany was rebuilt after ww2 with US cheap energy input
that won’t be available to Ukraine
There was never very much in Ukraine in any case, so not a lot to rebuild actually.
Also, Putin is hardly Bomber Harris. The lights are still on, the water’s still running (which is more than Poroshenko or Zelinsky allowed Crimea). The supermarkets are still open.
War is fun when it’s like this! Like a video game … oh right https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/truth-or-fake/20220502-the-myth-behind-the-ghost-of-kyiv
(machine translation)
> Events in Ukraine at 12:00 on May 4
The Federal News Agency publishes a summary of the main events in Ukraine and Donbass that took place from the evening of May 3 to the morning of May 4.
The process of demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine launched by Russia continued throughout the night. By morning, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation reported on the results.
For example, high-precision long-range weapons launched by aircraft and ships destroyed six traction electrical substations on the railways in the areas of the stopping points Podbortsy, Lvov, Volonets, Timkovo and Pyatikhatka.
The defeat of these facilities is of fundamental importance – it cuts off the supply of weapons and ammunition from the United States and European countries. The deprivation of the grouping of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) of such support in the Donbass allows us to hope that the war of the Kyiv regime with the civilian population of the region will soon end.
Also, with targeted missile strikes, the RF Armed Forces eliminated the launcher of the Tochka-U missile system in the Novaya Dmitrovka area, three S-300 illumination and guidance locators near Sanzheika, Krysino and Volnyansk, as well as an ammunition depot near Novoaleksandrovka. In the same place, nine places of deployment of enemy troops and means were hit.
During the sorties, the aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces were able to strike at 40 strategic objects of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. For example, at Protopopovka, a pontoon crossing and four military depots with artillery and charges for it were eliminated. This success was supplemented by attacks on 34 areas of accumulation of enemy manpower and equipment.
The Rocket Forces, in turn, attacked two command posts of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, army locations and three batteries of Ukrainian guns: Grad multiple launch rocket systems, Gvozdika self-propelled gun mounts and D-30 howitzers.
Russian gunners also hit 16 command posts, two fuel depots and another 476 other objects where military vehicles, fortifications and soldiers were located. As a result, 310 fighters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and 53 units of military equipment were destroyed.
In the meantime, air defense facilities were regularly fulfilling the task assigned to them: nine enemy drones, including one Bayraktar TB2, were shot down near Izyum, Topolny, Malaya Kamyshevakha, Russkiye Tishok, Brazhovka, Zeleny Gay, Novokrasnyanka and Aleksandrovka. In the area of Velikaya Kamyshevakha, the air defense intercepted four shells of the Smerch MLRS.
In parallel, the evacuation of civilians to safe areas continues. Over the past 24 hours, more than 10,000 refugees from Donbass and Ukraine have crossed the Russian border. If we evaluate the situation since February, then their number has grown to more than 1.1 million people.
Also, within the framework of the conference call of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, the head of the department, Sergei Shoigu , made a number of statements on the current state of affairs and the process of the special operation in Ukraine.
In particular, the minister said that the RF Armed Forces, together with the forces of the Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics (LPR and DPR), are working together to liberate their territories.
Shoigu reported that now the entire territory of Mariupol is under the control of the Russian army, and its fighters are helping to return the city to peaceful life. At the same time, attempts continue to convince Ukrainian nationalists and foreign mercenaries blocked at the Azovstal plant to peacefully surrender and release civilians from there.
In conclusion, the Minister of Defense recalled that now all NATO transports arriving in Ukraine with weapons or other military equipment for the Armed Forces of Ukraine are considered as a legitimate target for destruction. The relevance of this statement is emphasized by the increased efforts of the North Atlantic Alliance, which are transferring equipment to the country.
https://riafan.ru/23164397-sobitiya_na_ukraine_na_12_00_4_maya_mahinatsii_s_gumpomosch_yu_v_zaporozh_e_pozhar_na_neftebaze_v_makeevke
Buy ‘value brands’, cabinet minister says, as shop prices increase at fastest rate in more than a decade
A cabinet minister has been accused of being out of touch after suggesting that consumers facing the biggest rise in shop prices in more than a decade should buy “value brands”.
The 2.7% year-on-year increase in prices, reported by the British Retail Consortium-NielsenIQ price index, was the highest since September 2011 and up from 2.1% in March.
https://news.sky.com/story/cost-of-living-crisis-worsening-as-shop-prices-rise-at-fastest-rate-in-more-than-a-decade-12604935
Europe Gasoline:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FR5vc2nXMAAU8ZE?format=jpg&name=large
I just received the valuation for our residence here in NZ… I looked at the number and did a WTF… it has increased 30% in 3 years. There’s inflation for you….
The US east coast is running out of fuel, with inventories of diesel dropping to the lowest seasonal level in >30 years.
The oil market is trying to get extra supply, sending diesel refining margins to an all-time high
https://twitter.com/JavierBlas/status/1521768492814458882
The EU is about to “release it’s strategic reserves” by not touching them any more. I am sure that this will help the US and the EU citizens will be thankful for that
LOL! COVID Long Haulers report “false” positive HIV tests.:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FR5wNHxWUAAvoB7?format=jpg&name=medium
Message from Ukraine:
“For the second week I cannot withdraw money from my account in Privat Bank. To any questions the answer is that technical works are underway. I am not alone. There are rumors that banks are closing accounts and stealing money.”
Comment from a different source:
This is NOT a rumour. According to our sources, major Ukrainian banks are conducting an “economic evacuation”. They arrange loans at 40% or more per annum in front of shell legal entities. They withdraw funds to foreign accounts. We predict that as soon as the Ukrainian banks are done with withdrawing money, the Ukrainian banking system will collapse. Individuals and companies will lose their deposits, and the hryvnia will sharply depreciate. People will run to exchange the hryvnia for dollars, which will finally kill the national currency.
Very strange!
Was Dark Eagle one factor in Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine?
https://pete843.substack.com/p/was-dark-eagle-one-factor-in-putins?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo0MTY3OTAzMCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NTEyODY0MDksIl8iOiJZengwcCIsImlhdCI6MTY1MTY2MDEwOSwiZXhwIjoxNjUxNjYzNzA5LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItNDc2MzQ0Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.uPrrqBSq3MkcgeE5haUhGyoF5L9lGJQssKIaLqn15JA&s=r
Less than one year after President Donald Trump informally announced that the United States would withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, the State Department announced on Aug. 2 that the move was officially complete.
Signed in 1987, the INF Treaty led to the elimination of 2,692 U.S. and Soviet nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers.
https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2019-09/news/us-completes-inf-treaty-withdrawal
THE United States reactivated a nuclear unit in Germany for the first time since the Cold War and is armed with “Dark Eagle” long-range hypersonic missiles.
When fully developed and deployed the rockets will be capable of travelling 4,000mph and could blitz Russia in just 21 minutes and 30 seconds
The 56th Artillery Command, based in the Western District of Mainz-Kastel, was officially recommissioned by the US Army this week during a ceremony.
The Army expects the weapon to be ready by 2023
Dark Eagle, would have been banned under the now-defunct Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which collapsed in 2019.
Ole!
https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1148232e-f0a1-4203-82f5-ef77a9ea433a_798x794.png
Another strange (and temporary ?) breach on Italian mainstream media…
(Libero) ”Covid vaccine and reactions in general silence.
Adverse event from Covid-19 vaccines: neurodegenerative diseases, myocarditis, immune thrombocytopenia, paralysis, liver disease, impaired adaptive immunity, reduced DNA damage response, and tumor development”
https://www.liberoquotidiano.it/news/scienze-tech/31441581/vaccino-covid-reazioni-demenza-tumori-morti-improvvise.html
Pingback: In Which Direction Are Oil And Gas Prices Headed? Data Shows The Answer - The Blue State Conservative
https://mobile.twitter.com/JavierBlas/status/1521747961310584832
The EU has announced a full oil embargo against Russia
You have to be an oil producer to impose an oil embargo against a nation?
Anyway…I’m getting drunk… there’s no wine embargo in EU…so we’ll do just fine
“Imports of crude, both seaborne and pipeline, will stop in 6 months; imports of refined products will stop by year-end.”
We will see.