Open Thread 29 June 2019

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Comments

[ex-PFC Chuck]

An important piece was published yesterday at The American Conservative: "America’s Monopoly Crisis Hits the Military," by Matt Stoller and Lucas Kunce. What I take away from this is that the USA's most damaging adversary over the past generation is not Russia or China. It is our own financial sector.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/americas-monopoly-crisis-hits-the-military/

[blue peacock]

Has Trump caved on China and Huawei?

[Eugene Owens]

What is the next step for MbS and Trump after the latest drone attack on Saudi pipelines? It appears that the latest attack last night originated from the north, and NOT from the Houthis in Yemen as first reported. Iraqi PM says "he has no evidence that drone attack on Saudi pipelines originated from Iraq".

[Barbara Ann]

"..the American Bar Association should signal that anyone who defends the border patrol’s mistreatment of children will not be considered a member in good standing of the legal profession." - NYT op ed today.

The author is director of a Human Rights MA Program and of course nothing says human rights like suspension of the right to a defense counsel. These people are deranged, if I was on this program I'd demand my money back.

[CK]

The negotiations continue. The US elected a negotiator, not a warmonger nor a fool.

[Flavius]

King Lear: with the times so out of joint, a valuable re-read for old men. I would recommend the Ignatius Critical Edition edited by Joseph Pearce for the essays following the play.
Also, I believe the NYT took the election interference banter between Putin and the Donald as an affront directed at the newspaper. Front page above the fold and another grievance to be relished with the canapes and cocktails out at the Hamptons.
They just cannot get over it.

[Robert Waddell]

Hi all SST'ers and fellow space cadets..

The US Navy has been assigned a patent on aerospace technology to effect a craft similar to what appeared in released cockpit videos and descriptions of UFOs by Navy pilots.

A technology patented by an aerospace engineer working at the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD) describes a 'hybrid' craft that is capable of flying at breakneck speeds in the air, water, and even space using an unprecedented electromagnetic propulsion system.

As reported by The Drive, when looking over a patent on the technology, an examiner for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office responded with skepticism that such a craft exists only to receive a personal letter from the Chief Technology Officer of the U.S. Navy, who explained that Chinese researchers are 'investing significantly' in the craft. According to The Drive, letters from the Navy to the U.S. Patent Office seem to suggest that tests of technology have already been conducted by NAWCAD inventor Salvatore Cezar Pais, who holds other mind-bending patents like a 'force-field' to fend off an incoming asteroid.

The patent is only theoretical, a concept that although 'legal' is interesting in itself.

I'm sure many SST readers could invent a theoretical device of some type (smiley face).

Rob Waddell

https://patents.google.com/patent/US10135366B2/en?inventor=Salvatore+Pais&oq=inventor:(Salvatore+Pais)

[Ian]

I'll believe it when I see it (i.e. working prototype). Grainy black and white video isn't enough.

[Jim Ticehurst]

Robert...
Thanks for this story,,,of DEEP Interest to Me..for good reason..Why is the Government finally going Public..? Why show the Videos...Why suddenly Brief Congress on this..??Whats Next..? Show and Tell..??
Well,,,Because there are Unconventional Flying Craft...Out There..as Admiral Byrd said during His Large Expidition to the Artic in 1948....Projjet Blue Book...MUFON etc As I said here in a Previous Post..I am interested in Technology..Things Hypersonic..Robotics..and AI..Both Alien and Artifical..AND UnConvention Things that really do "HUM'" whe3n they fly over..AND The Craft that Flew over Both of Us late at Night and Tree Top High..in a Remote Wilderness.. Made a HUMMING Sound like the Turbine Generator in a Dam..The Ground has a slight Vibration ..and ...It flew extremely slow..But at a Steady Pace..It came from our Back..Obviously from the West,,over the Pacific Oceon..Over a Large Mountain Range..Seemed to be Stealth..and I wondered that any Craft could fly tree top high like That...It was Headed toward a NEW Strategic Material Base that has Just Began Storing Nuclear Weapons..Its Path was over largly Uninhabited Areas..It also seem to affect Our sense of Time..and We felt really vunerable for a long time After..I don't scare easy..I DID File a Report with MUFON..

[Philippe Truze]

INSTEX is born. France, UK and Germany announced the birth of INSTEX, an instrument allowing the trade between european companies and Iran, as a way to by-pass the US sanctions against anyone trading with Iran in certain sectors.

Instex is acting as a "compensation chamber", i.e avoiding financial flux between EU companies and ran : an european company A, exporting goods ti Iran, will be paid by the european company B, importing goods from Iran. Its quite similar to the good old "troc" (barter).

The most ironic part is that instrument, which could historically become the first step towards the end of the USD as a global reserve currency, has not been set up by US adversaries or ennemies, but by its closest allies.

[opit]

" The US elected a negotiator, not a warmonger nor a fool."
That is not always evident from outside the sandbox. Quora had several interesting discussion threads starting with the Huawei CFO's arrest in Canada. You will appreciate fraud is one thing, 'sanctions' over a matter in dispute with the EU quite another outside the US. Some relevant posts are noted at oldephartte/livejournal.com

[semiconscious]

this's one of those rare, extraordinary articles that clarifies & explains an whole lot of deeply disturbing stuff. a must, must read...

[PRC90]

If the insanity curve gradient v. time, ie., months to the 2020 election, takes the same exponential shape as it did in 2016, then you've seen nothing yet if this event is an early start point.
I doubt that the 'liberal' cabal has learned one single thing in the last four years.

[CK]

There are many interesting discussions all over the internet. The kibitzers kibitz. And as it always has been, much is extrapolated of what is said and not so much is calculated of what is done.

[Fred]

That was announced 6 months ago. It doesn't seem to have made much headway.
https://eeas.europa.eu/headquarters/headquarters-homepage/57475/statement-high-representativevice-president-federica-mogherini-creation-instex-instrument_en

[Ken Roberts]

Putin's interview with Financial Times has received some attention, mostly re his discussion of problems of neo-liberalism. B - Moon on Alabama, gave a link to the full text, but that is now behind an FT paywall. Helmer - Dances with Bears, gives a link to an official transcript. Worth reading. As commented by others, there is perspective to be obtained by reading the full discussion transcript. Link below...

http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/60836

[Elsi]

Ehud Barak returns...

https://www.voltairenet.org/article206863.html

A real opposition in the making?

[JerseyJeffersonian]

Barbara Ann,
And gee, after doing everything possible to encourage the stampede that overwhelms the BP's ability to respond, they fault the failure. Quelle surprise...

[johnT]

This is not news to workers who depended on heavy industry for employment.

I've worked in these factories since my discharge from the USN in '72. I've witnessed plant closings as owners first moved to the right to work south, Mexico, Asia, and what next Africa?, what I call the last bastion of exploitable labor. By that time AI and robotics will eliminate most factory workers I'm afraid.

I'm still hanging on (yes I must work), to that last work that robots likely will never replace. Repairing automated electro-mechanical systems.

We are indeed in decline.

[Seamus Padraig]

I'd like to see the Europeans actually use INSTEX instead of just talk about it constantly.

[Mark Logan]

Currently, Bob Lazar decided to start talking again, this time granting an interview to Joe Rogan:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEWz4SXfyCQ

In this interview he again describes his brief experience as a reverse-engineer of alien craft near "Area 51" in which he describes technology which is pretty much what the Navy filed a patent for.

Seems an odd coinky-dink.

[Tidewater]

What has just been announced by American investigators of the May 14 attacks, purportedly, in at least one account, by as many as SEVEN Houthi drones on the Petroline at Dawadmi and Afif, is that the attacks, they now think, did not come up from Yemen. Rather, the drones were launched from southern Iraq. This is fascinating. The ranges from either north or south turn out to be more or less the same. Something over five hundred miles, under six hundred. It is eerie to me that the drones must have come in over the An Nafud, a strange and terrible desert of dangerous winds and large reddish sand dunes that lies in central Saudi Arabia between Riyadh and the coast. I confess I have just discovered the prophetic 'Dune' and watch it in bits and pieces in primitive awe, from time to time. If the drones came in low, was there anyone even there, some crouched hooded figure, to notice them? There doesn't seem to be any radar out there. The drones came in completely unseen.

I've also been looking at the ranges of some Iranian missiles, and what they could do to critical Arabic infrastructure on or near the Persian Gulf littoral in a new war. And now it turns out we've entered a new age. Drones look like the coming thing. Five hundred miles plus? And making precise hits at places a hundred miles apart with a nine millimeter message --No Exit for oil if there is war. I think it's absolutely incredible!

Last March the IRGC ran a massive exercise involving at least fifty drones and other pilotless planes, most of them described as domestic RQ-170's, which were launched from different bases a thousand kilometers, or about 620 miles, away. These drones flew south to Farur Island, a small uninhabited island off of Qeshm island, which is also, it seems, a commando base with gunnery ranges. Targets were attacked. The exercise was deemed a success. I see it, again, as being eerie; as eerie as the attack of a swarm of manta rays. I once rowed my Alden ocean shell out into the Rappahannock off of Mosquito Point (which is across from Stingray Point), saw some motion in a nearby 'fish trap', an elaborate labyrinth of long fixed poles, and rope and wire mesh, which lures fish in, where they can be held for days. I rowed closer and took a look. The fish trap was full of stingrays; it seemed like more than a dozen of them, feasting. They seemed to know the way in and the way out, too. Edgar Allen Poe missed that one as a possible story, though he had a few about boats.

Moving right along... but still about troubling things. The surprises in store. The Petroline runs across Saudi Arabia from the Damman area on the Gulf to Yanbu, on the Red Sea. A very important point on it is Abqaiq. Abqaig is about thirty miles slightly southwest of Dharan. It is the largest plant of its type in the world. It removes hydrogen sulfide from oil. This makes it possible to ship crude oil in a tanker. If Abqaig was knocked out, Saudi oil production would drop from roughly six million plus barrels a day to about a million. It would be a real hit on the world economy. It would finish off MBS, who looks like he is on his way down, anyway.

With both drones and missiles, Iran has got the range.

[Barbara Ann]

Tucker in the DMZ and Bolton banished to Outer Mongolia, very interesting. Might Fox have vacancy soon?

[Fred]

Tidewater,

What is the actual evidence that any of these drones flew 500+ miles?

[Fred]

Barbara Ann,

Next up, your local police department. See Portland aiding policing Antifa and their assault on independent journalist Andy Ngo, who is obviosly not with the correct NGO or the Washington Post. The reason for masks and gloves is to prevent identification when conducting a pre-meditated attack. The Portland police recieved the NYT message loud and clear some time ago. And here I thought only the Sheriff and deputy in Broward County were cowards.