Record temperatures, record migration, record emissions, record displacement, record PFAS……start building an ark.
Last Week in Collapse: May 12-18, 2024
This is Last Week in Collapse, a weekly newsletter compiling some of the most important, timely, useful, soul-crushing, ironic, stunning, exhausting, or otherwise must-see/can’t-look-away moments in Collapse.
This is the 125th newsletter! You can find the May 5-11 edition here if you missed it last week. You can also receive these posts (with images) every Sunday in your email inbox with Substack.
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Flash flooding in northern Afghanistan killed 300+ people and destroyed 1,000+ homes. Hundreds of thousands of others have been affected. Last month, similar floods in the region killed 70+. Four died in Texas storms last week as well.
Venezuela is suffering from record wildfires, which so far this year have burned about 5M acres—almost the size of Sardinia. Some experts think indigenous people started the blaze as an attempt at forest clearance, which quickly got out of hand. “Institutional failures” compounded the disaster when the ailing government responded with an inadequate number of poorly equipped firefighters. Another study from last week examined the impact of wildfires on soil health.
Flooding and “cold lava” killed 50+ in Indonesia, injuring dozens and displacing several thousand. Cold lava is a mixture of water and rocks tumbling down the side of a volcano. Meanwhile, an actual volcano erupted in Indonesia, sending smoke & ash 5000m high; further eruptions are possible soon.
The Swiss Re Institute published a 37-page report last week about natural disasters in 2023—and how much damage, in USD, they caused. The largest catastrophe was the February 7.8 earthquake in Türkiye & Syria, which killed 59,000+ people and caused $163B+ in damage. The report is full of interesting graphics & data about natural disasters.

“Last year, economic losses from natural catastrophes reached USD 280 billion, meaning that 62% of the global losses were uninsured….the insured losses surpassed USD 100 billion for the fourth consecutive year….annual insured losses will grow by 5–7% over the long term…today’s insured losses could double in 10 years….There were 142 insured-loss inducing catastrophes in 2023, a new record. Most were of medium severity, which we define as events resulting in losses of USD 1–5 billion….Over the last 30 years, we estimate that natural catastrophe insured losses have grown by 3 percentage points more annually than the global economy (in inflation adjusted terms)...”

Flooding and heat waves are impacting Brazil’s oranges, responsible for about 70% of the world’s supply. One food analysts declared that the “era of cheap food is over”—in the UK, at least. That may be one reason why UK residents took record food bank packages last year. Madagascar is struggling to adapt to a future with far less rainfall.
France is growing more concerned about a dam on Lake Geneva, controlled exclusively by Switzerland. The Rhône River, which begins in Switzerland and flows south through France, is shrinking in summers as climate change melts Switzerland’s remaining glaciers.
The Tonlé San River has been dammed in Vietnam, lowering the level in Cambodia and sometimes drying the river downstream entirely. Meanwhile, China’s lychee harvest is getting blasted by rain, impacting the world’s largest source of lychee. And, once again, Saudi Arabia is suffering flooding in its inland regions. 7 dead in historic flooding in Iran.
The eminent climate scientist James Hansen posted that, since “human-made aerosols and their cooling effect are in decline,” the cooling effect of La Niña will be counterbalanced by these rising temperatures. He also identifies a “large anomaly of increased absorbed solar radiation at midlatitudes in the Northern Hemisphere” responsible for rising temperatures there. CO2 levels are rising faster today than they have at any point in the previous 50,000 years…and a study of millennia-old trees determined last summer was the hottest worldwide in 2,000+ years…
Record nighttime May temperatures were tied in the Philippines and Vietnam. A couple Indonesian cities broke records for May temperatures. And a number of southern African states saw more records drop. And Toronto saw a record tied for the number of days reaching 14 °C (57 °F). A heat wave has returned to Bangladesh. Flooding in Cali (pop: 2.9M), Colombia.
The University of Washington was ordered to stop a geoengineering project that scientists sere conducting from the deck of a decommissioned aircraft carrier. The experiment ejected aerosolized saltwater in an attempt to reflect solar radiation. A comparative study in Nature Communications of a number of carbon pricing found that, yes, carbon pricing does work to reduce the total CO2 emitted.
It’s that time of the year again. Wildfires in Canada grow, some of which are moving towards the tar sands—forcing thousands to evacuate. 39 of the total nation’s blazes are “out of control,” resulting in air quality alerts in the United States. Meanwhile, across the Caribbean, water shortages have become the new normal, and residents (and tourists) are finding their old consumption habits hard to change. St. Lucia has declared a water emergency. In Myanmar, water shortages worsen, particularly as related to the spiraling conflict.
At least ⅛ of Europeans live in a place at risk of extreme flooding—so says a 175-page report from the European Environment Agency posted on Wednesday. The number of people living in flood-risk coastal areas in the EU & UK is expected to jump 24% by 2050. The graphics-packed report also considers how flooding will impact healthcare facilities, mental health, wastewater treatment plants, the spread of disease, cyanobacteria, permafrost thaw, and much else.

“Europe has seen devastating floods following record rainfall, droughts of magnitudes not experienced in hundreds of years, continuing sea level rise, and increasing lake and sea temperatures….permanent water stress already affects 30% of people in southern Europe….since 2018, more than half of Europe has been impacted by extreme drought conditions….Climate change is expected to increase mercury bioaccumulation in the marine food chain due to rising ocean temperatures, ocean acidification and permafrost thawing….Depression, anxiety and PTSD may persist for years after a flooding event….Under the changing climate, northern Europe is becoming wetter in general, but drier in summer. Southern Europe is becoming drier, especially in winter. For central-eastern and western Europe, the trend is less clear…” -selections from the report

Milan suffered flooding last week, the worst May flooding in 170 years. Early spring in the UK has disrupted migratory bird species and their usual patterns.
A 74-page working paper which is not yet peer-reviewed claims that earlier estimates for how much GDP would be impacted by another 1 °C temperature rise is way less than it would be in actuality. The paper claims the real cost (in USD) is about 6x greater. They claim “global temperature has much more pronounced impacts on economic activity than local temperature” and that extreme weather is mostly behind the projected decline in productivity.
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Epidemiologists are worried about how climate change in Africa may extend the life of disease-bearers like ticks and mosquitoes. Other epidemiologists are worried about how cattle may become a permanent reservoir for H5N1. Growing traced of bird flu have been found in wastewater testing in the U.S., but investigators think it may be runoff from infected dairy farms.
Obesity, high blood sugar, and high blood pressure rates today globally are 50% higher than in 2000—though researchers claim that air pollution still poses a larger threat. Of a study participants in Hawai’i, 75% had respiratory issues, probably from the Maui wildfires last year.
The 2024 World Migration Report is out, and its 384 pages are not as apocalyptic as one might think. However, internally displaced people are at their all-time highest. India, Mexico, Russia, China, and Syria lead the world in emigrants; another document contains the definitions for who exactly constitutes a migrant. Unfortunately much of the data relied upon ends in 2022. Data from this year, not included in the above report, indicates a 40% jump in traffic through the Darien Gap compared to the same time period in 2023.

“The last two years saw major migration and displacement events that have caused great hardship and trauma, as well as loss of life….There have also been large-scale displacements triggered by climate- and weather-related disasters in many parts of the world in 2022 and 2023, including in Pakistan, the Philippines, China, India, Bangladesh, Brazil and Colombia….disinformation tactics are increasingly being used by nefarious actors with negative impacts on public, political and social media discourse on migration….Forced displacement is the highest on record in the modern era…overconsumption and overproduction linked to unsustainable economic growth, resource depletion and biodiversity collapse, as well as ongoing climate change (including global heating) are continuing to grip the world….the risk of further conflict has not been higher in decades, as military spending reached a new record high of USD 2,240 billion in 2022…” -excerpts from the introduction

Another report, focusing on internal displacement, came out last week; its 69 pages show a cross-section of about 47M people displaced by natural disasters (56%) or armed conflict (44%). Most of the disasters were storms & flooding, and most of the conflicts were civil wars of some form. This report also provides detailed region-by-region analyses—with sub-Saharan Africa accounting for 46% of global IDPs.

“Conflict and violence triggered 13.5 million movements, the highest figure for the past 15 years….Disasters and conflict are presented as different triggers, but their impacts can overlap, often leading to repeated and/ or protracted displacement….Drought triggered 331,000 displacements in Somalia….Floods triggered 550,000 displacements in Ethiopia….Conflict and violence triggered 3.8 million displacements in DRC in 2023, a slight fall from the record four million in 2022, but still the second-highest figure globally after Sudan….nearly two-thirds of the internal displacements recorded in 2023 originated from Khartoum state. More than 39 per cent of the state's inhabitants were forced to flee, leaving entire neighbourhoods empty….Criminal and communal violence triggered nearly three-quarters of Nigeria's 291,000 conflict displacements….” -selections from the spotlight on sub-Saharan Africa

Experts are concerned about the mental health impacts that climate change has on our minds. Hotter temperatures reportedly increase depression & aggression. Wildfires and storms can cause PTSD. Workers feel stress and desperation as their usual industries are impacted. And air pollution influences ordinary brain processes in many ways.
Some analysts believe “Peak China” may be over, signaling a period of economic tapering-off, as well as a growing militancy. Increasing U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods are continuing to separate the two economies. The Netherlands finally formed a provisional government, though its proposed immigration & farming policies have set it at odds with the EU.
The Federal Reserve, the U.S. central bank, released a 46-page report on potential climate risks to the banking system’s resilience. As far as I understood, most of the risk lies in extreme weather events and the risk to insurance agencies.
Part of southeast England experienced an outbreak of Cryptosporidium, a diarrhea & vomiting illness, highly contagious, which can last weeks. At least 22 cases have been reported. Meanwhile, the CDC is issuing warnings about the more dangerous strain of monkeypox circulating in the DRC, although cases are currently limited to Africa.
North Carolina’s Senate voted to ban mask-wearing last week, under the reasoning that it would make police identification of protestors difficult. An fMRI study found lasting neurological changes in COVID survivors; they “had significantly higher cognitive complaints of mental fatigue and cognitive failure….even two years after recovering.” Experts say a summer rise in COVID cases is coming to the United States.
A study on The Canadian/American Great Lakes found that PFAS levels are increasing in the 3 largest lakes (Superior, Huron, and Michigan), while decreasing in the other two (Erie, Ontario). The study also found that precipitation is the primary means by which the Lakes are accumulating PFAS, since the chemicals are small & stable enough to move through the water cycle. Meanwhile, in England’s Lake District, a telecom failure resulted in raw sewage being pumped into England’s largest and most famous lake, Windermere, on-and-off for 10 hours; and a major British water CEO took a $4M USD pay package last year. And a look into the Chicago River’s health found that microplastics & trash are endangering health & biodiversity.
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An assassination attempt by a lone wolf on Slovakia’s PM left him in critical condition, but likely to survive. 11 civilians were slain by cartel fighters in a few battles in Mexico. Violence continues to spiral out of control in Goma, DRC.
In Haiti, everything worsens indefinitely. Guns have reportedly entered from Florida, a phenomenon which officials call an “iron river.” Police have been put on the defensive against the growing might of the gang warlords.
A brawl broke out in Taiwan’s parliament. An Iranian plot was allegedly foiled to smuggle weapons into Jordan to destabilize the pro-U.S. regime.
Dozens more died in Sudan from escalating violence around Darfur. People are warning about “a disaster on top of a disaster” and the possibility of Sudan splitting apart. Others have called it “hell on earth” as 1,000+ refugees cross the Chad border every day. Disease and malnutrition are growing, while famine encroaches upon 9M helpless victims of the conflict—but the world’s attention is elsewhere.
The U.S. Army Engineers completed constructing the pier in Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid. Some 600,000 Gazans have been displaced from Rafah already, and fighting has escalated against Hamas militants in northern Gaza.
Taliban forces skirmished with Pakistani soldiers for about 90 minutes last week. Taliban attacks in Pakistan, and counterattacks have resulted in a kind of ambient disruption for the rocky border zone.
Violent protests—and counteroperations—are continuing in New Caledonia (pop: 270,000), a Pacific island part of overseas France. The riots, which have killed 6 people so far, began after metropolitan France proposed a plan to expand voting rights beyond indigenous residents. A state of emergency has been declared amid worries about a spiral of violence taking hold.
As the Sahel dries out, experts are concerned about the links to rising terrorism in the region. The Sahel accounts for over 40% of global terrorism deaths—according to the analysts’ understanding of “terrorism.” Mali in particular has reportedly become home to 41 new, different non-state armed groups (NSAGs) since 2007. A contested election in Chad resulted in the consolidation of the interim leader’s power.

“If governments are continually unable to solve regional issues, the people will be at the whim of any terror group that has a basic organization. It serves these groups’ interests to promote insecurity where they can and create security where they want. A “hearts and minds” campaign in the Sahel could lead to long-term and locally supported insurgencies in a land that is currently rife with civil strife.” -from the article

Some wargamers concluded that a Trump victory in 2020 would spell the end of NATO, or at least the end of its utility. Vladimir Putin replaced his minister of defense with a top economic advisor, just before going to Beijing to reaffirm their friendship with “no limits.” Some say Putin is planning on a forever war. Some say NATO is gearing up for one, too.
Russia made several gains in the suburbs of Kharkiv, seizing several settlements which some analysts doubt they will hold. Putin claims they aren’t really trying to take Kharkiv anyway… Russia also made small progress in the Donbas—although they suffered their largest one-day casualties since the start of the war. The U.S. allocated another $2B to hasten the delivery of weapons to the front lines. The next weeks will be crucial on the front. Switzerland has invited 160+ nations to send delegates to a peace summit intended to design a path to making peace in this War.
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Select comments/threads from the subreddit last week suggest:
-Brazil’s flooding was really, really bad, judging from this post and its accompanying images. Across just one of Brazil’s 26 states, 600,000+ people have been made homeless, 100+ have died, and the storm season isn’t over yet. Some of the flooding isn’t expected to subside for another month.
-How specifically might climate change make humanity extinct? This thread crowdsources a number of plausible ways, from ordinary famines to nuclear war and even a massive deoxygenation process. I tend to think it will be a consequence of an eventual nuclear exchange, followed by extended famine and disease.
Got any feedback, questions, comments, complaints, upvotes, doom prophets to follow, hugelkultur guides, directions to off-grid bunkers, ark schematics, etc.? Check out the Last Week in Collapse SubStack if you don’t want to check collapse every Sunday, you can receive this newsletter sent to your (or someone else’s) email inbox every weekend. What did I forget this week?

cPanel is like the Swiss Army knife of web hosting management, trusted by business owners far and wide. But let's be real, those costs can stack up faster than a game of Jenga, making it crucial to hunt down affordable options without skimping on quality.
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Time stamp and photos https://imgur.com/a/bgT9IYz
Videos Benchmades and JWK https://imgur.com/a/T1pFhMz
Other videos are under the knife listings. Imgur is being weird thank you for your patience.
Most prices are OBRO
Payment via PayPal F&F Venmo or cash app you know the drill, NO NOTES.
Chat over PM
Everything ships next business day via Pirate Ship
If you call yolo please reach out within 30 minutes to discuss payment or to pay.
[WTS] SV 500 Small Sebenza 31 with Elforyn inlays and MagnaCut blade. There's one snail trail on the clip, it's been carried and cut with, disassembled. withdrawn
[WTS] SV 210 well loved big bro Jack in nebula includes tube and pog, but no box(I have a jack Wolf box, but I think it's for Benny's clip if you want the box let me know) Scuffs abound this thing has been used there is evidence of it in the pictures.
[WTS] SV 210 traditional pocket knives exclusive Tactile Bexar second owner, minimal carry and cutting as far as I know it's never been disassembled.
[WTS] SV 44 baby banter in the air Jordans color way, never carried includes taco. second owner SOLD
[WTS] SV 65 West Marine locking Swiss Army knife got a full-size all and a locking serrated blade. Second owner I don't think it's really been used but
[WTS] SV 170 Mini Osborne 945 has a rhino glow tritium thumb stud. Original not included. Includes box and sick ass lanyard 😅. This one's been carried quite a bit cut mostly cardboard and Amazon packages I'm not sharpened it. First owner
[WTS] SV 135 Orange mini bugout with a stud swap. original orange thumb stud not included. It's never been used but has been in my wallet since I bought it so the pocket clip is a little scratched. Includes box. First owner
[WTS] SV 260 Kershaw Livewire carbon fiber 9000CF https://imgur.com/a/aPG13Mr LNIB opened and closed and the returned to the box. Never carried. First owner this one ships via UPS
[WTS] 3 x 269 each Offensive Industries 3" Vargr All are in nitro V steel. first owner of all three https://imgur.com/a/QYWbcgb

1. Moose antler handle, brown raptor ambidextrous sheath never cut ir carried 2. Teal ray skin under ito cord wrap, white multicam ambidextrous sheath. Carried and cut with. 3. Dymux handle w/ field tan tiger stripe ambidextrous sheath. Cut a box and then put in the drawer. 

[WTS] SV 35 Elvia red micarta scales installed and carried then taken off second owner. Small mark on the show side.
[WTS] SV 75 Hobo Tactical and necromaker green hobo sack this has sat in my safe with a hand full of quarters in it.
[WTS] SV This is a custom piece Sage Grouse leather made me. as a natural born native Florida Man™️ I couldn't resist the opportunity when he said that he had some crocodile/alligator hide available. But I don't have a desk job and it has just been really lonely. I paid 220 for it I would like to get close 120 if possible. SOLD
[WTS] SV 45 sage leather American flag leather slip used for a few weeks for the big bro jack wolf knife SOLD

I posted about this before but didn't get much help so let me try with slightly different information. I added a Swiss Army Knife Ultra (UK Ultra) to my network as an outdoor AP. It seems to work fine with my other devices (Apple devices) but I have one raspberry pi based device I want to run outside that can't get an IP from just this AP. The route to this AP is UDMP SE -> TP link switch -> Trendnet switch -> UK Ultra. I don't understand why this one device has an issue. It’s on the latest firmware.
EDIT: Additional info, I’ve discovered this only happens with my IoT network. The AP broadcasts my default WiFi (2.4ghz/5ghz) and my IoT WiFi (2.4ghz). The IoT network refuses to assign an IP but the default network will.

Purpose: Mostly going to be used for whittling on sticks or small camping tasks. Size: Unsure Price Range: Up to $150 if it is a life-long tool type of quality. Blade Type: Fixed blade Blade Steel (optional): No idea
​
Hello, looking for a knife for a 13 year old. She already has a Swiss Army knife and has shown interest in a fixed blade knife with a leather sheath. Looking for a classic design, something with great quality that looks great as well.
I've read several similar threads and found two designs that I think she would like, but they are on opposite ends of the spectrum and hoping to get some opinions or a recommendation of a similar style that would be a better fit.
Mora Scout
https://morakniv.se/en/product/scout-39-s/?attribute_pa_color=blueberry-en
Pros:

1. Knife and sheath design are appealing
2. I think this is good for camping/whittling
3. Quality brand

Cons

1. I think 13 is too old for this, looks like it is for littler kids. Is there a bigger version of this?

​
Buck Vanguard 192
https://www.buckknives.com/product/192-vanguard-knife/
Pros:

1. Looks amazing
2. Appears to be a quality knife to last a lifetime

Cons:

1. This is listed as a hunting knife and we wouldn't use it this way, can this be used for basic camping/whittling?
2. Is this too much knife for a 13 yo?

​
​

Bought some stuff, time to sell some stuff.

Same old song and dance. Yolo is king, no trades, shipped Monday only to where USPS can reach. PP F&F only, no notes please and thank you.
I've got 2 munchkins keeping me busy, will try to respond promptly, but give me some grace if I fail, pretty please lol
I've done my best to describe condition of both, please let me know if you'd like more photos or videos. Hit me up with questions, and have a great day!

Timestamp/Album

First up

#Spyderco Shaman 15v Modded (SV 275) SPF

• At least 3rd owner, 1st did the nub delete and choil, second, the great u/Larger-Than-Knife did a crowned spine on it. There are small scratches here and there, presumably from the nub delete and some cardboard testing (see pics/videos). I put a new lynch fade deep carry on it, never made it into my pocket. It looks to have been carried, but definitely not abused. Leans a little clip side, action is a bit stiff, thinking it needs a little more breaking in honestly. Obviously disassembled for mods, edge has a couple rough spots in it (see pics) but looks to be factory. No box with this guy, believe it started life as a second.

Next up

-Ask Jefferson (SV 150)

• Bought 2 of these on sale, kept this one in the box and never carried because the tools are marked made in USA and a flag on the other. Not sure why, but the one I carry doesn't have that, I was planning on collecting it, but I'm guessing its either a later or earlier iteration. S45vn blade and tools, marketed as a US made modular army knife to fight the swiss monopoly. I love my other so much I honestly wanna pass this on for someone else to try. NIB only taken out for pictures. Centering slightly off, no rub anywhere, and just like my other there are small tooling marks in the mirror polish.

Hello, I am a swiss army sergeant. Got alot of time and not much to do other than hanging around and beeing bored. So theres the man in Uniform with some accent....
I am 6"2, got blue, yellowish eyes, dark brown hair and a beard.
As a creative kind of person, i do alot of writing, reading and painting. I also do sports like boxing and climbing and i love to cook. Text me to cure your boredom, lonliness or the need for a vent! Looking for deep concersations, casual chat and lets see if we click
Down for a chat?

Hello, I am a swiss army sergeant. Got alot of time and not much to do other than hanging around and beeing bored. So theres the man in Uniform with some accent....
I am 6"2, got blue, yellowish eyes, dark brown hair and a beard.
As a creative kind of person, i do alot of writing, reading and painting. I also do sports like boxing and climbing and i love to cook. Text me to cure your boredom, lonliness or the need for a vent! Looking for deep concersations, casual chat and lets see if we click
Down for a chat?

I don't remember much about the plot beyond that. I must have seen it sometime around the mid to late 2000s, the animation looked very similar to disney movies from that time. The movie was set in the US in the 40s or 50s. The uniforms looked like american WW2 uniforms. The conscription scene showed the protagonists big brother or father being picked up by an army truck. He throws a duffle bag on it and takes a seat in the back of the truck with other conscripted men. I think he told the protagonist that he'll understand why he has to leave when he's older or something along those lines before he gets on the truck.

Share how you used your Victorinox Swiss Army Knife this week!

https://xenagoguevicene.wordpress.com/2024/05/18/old-genocide-joe-has-got-to-go-by-philip-giraldi-17-may-2024/
Embracing Netanyahu does not constitute a foreign policy
It is extremely difficult to discern what might be the thinking behind the clueless President Joe Biden and his Blinken-Austin-Mayorkas foreign-policy-plus national security team. Or rather, the problem is that there does not appear to be any thinking about it at all if one measures it by what benefits it brings to the American people. It all actually seems to derive from a desire to construct a narrative that will win the presidential election coming up in November, which will fortunately be run against a deeply flawed GOP candidate named Donald J. Trump. But look at what is on the Biden record: the country’s southern border with Mexico is a porous as a Swiss cheese, allowing literally millions of illegal immigrants into the USA since Biden took office; Washington is both de facto and de jure simultaneously fighting and losing two unnecessary wars involving nuclear powers which has cost a nearly bankrupt Treasury well into the hundreds of billions of dollars; and the White House is needlessly sanctioning non-hostile competitors like China while also making illegal popular social media sites like TikTok which have committed the sin of reporting and disseminating accurate narratives about good old “best friend and closest ally” Israel. Predictably, neither of the assertions about the value of the Jewish state is true, nor is it a democracy, but who cares when you’re having fun shooting people and spending someone else’s money?
Oh, and just try to exercise your first amendment free speech rights by demonstrating against Israel’s slaughter of upwards of 40,000 Palestinian civilians using US provided weapons and you will be hit on the head by a cop, possibly arrested, and even expelled from college! If you want to see where this is all going, check out reports of the recent FBI detention and interrogation of distinguished Israeli historian Ilan Pappe seeking to enter the US through the Detroit International Airport. Pappe is a critic of the Netanyahu government and of US policy so he was held, questioned in detailed about his contacts, and had his phone copied before being allowed to proceed. Meanwhile, a group of top federal judges have signed a letter stating that they will strike back against the demonstrating students by refusing to hire any graduates of Columbia University Law School as law clerks. And there even is a bill currently before Congress that would empower the government to label the foreign protesters “antisemites and terrorism supporters” and deport them, with some going to Gaza with the expectation that they would be killed, possibly by the mighty Israel Defense Forces (IDF)! It would be a startling new development to punish those whose crime consists mostly of trespass even given the rather loose ethical boundaries established by the war on terror and the Antisemitism Awareness Act! Or indeed one might follow the Senatorial route led by a chirping Lindsey Graham who recommends dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza to kill everyone who has survived the Israeli onslaught. The area then might be developed after the radiation dies down for those splendid seaside villas for Jews only suggested by the esteemed Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner.
To be sure, Joe sometimes mumbles something that might just be viewed positively, like his recent blocking on humanitarian grounds of a consignment of bunker buster bombs on their way to Israel due to Benjamin Netanyahu’s insistence that, no matter what, he would invade Rafah to completely destroy Hamas and whoever else might happen to get in his way. Joe predictably reversed that decision last Tuesday, approving a $1 billion supply of munitions after he came under pressure from the Israelis and their many friends in the US, to include a host of Israel-loving GOP congressmen who have carried their fight on behalf of the Jewish state to The Hague, where the International Criminal Court (ICC) is being directly threatened with American wrath lest it try to punish Israeli leaders for their genocide in Gaza. As Bill Astore put it “Last week, President Biden appeared to have strapped on a temporary spine in delaying shipments of ‘offensive’ weaponry to Israel for its murderous invasion of Rafah in Gaza. That spine had a short duration as Biden announced [Tuesday] renewed shipments of tank and mortar rounds to Israel.” Congress has also gotten into the game with the GOP controlled House of Representatives having passed a bill that would compel the White House to continue all arms shipments to Israel. Joe might also be thinking of political contributions, as American Jews donate the majority of Democratic Party funding, as well guaranteeing a friendly media in his campaign as they dominate both the news and the entertainment industries. See, Joe can figure some things out all by himself every once in a while!
Here’s the problem with Joe, apart from the roughly $12 million in gift-donations from Jewish/Israeli sources that he has obtained in his political career. His tactical thinking does not extend beyond his personal interests, to include his corrupt children, a trait very much like that which is possessed by his good buddy Netanyahu who is facing corruption charges of his own in Israel. Joe believes he is much cleverer than he actually is and thinks that an occasional mild verbal criticism of the Israeli behavior will convince his target audience of voters that he really is concerned about the continuing death toll in Gaza, where the Israelis have already been taking initial steps in their attack on Rafah by using their tanks to penetrate into the targeted zone to destroy and kill.
And as for the reported completion and initial functioning of the floating pier connected to Gaza constructed by US military engineers, it will not dramatically change reality on the ground even though Biden is claiming that it will enable the entry of much needed food and medical aid. Israel will still “security” control what is allowed to enter into Gaza proper while Netanyahu is seeing the pier as a bridge to nowhere, usable primarily to export excess Palestinians to foreign lands that are either willing or unwilling to accept them. And its existence creates some interesting possibilities. As it presumably will be logistically supported on the pier itself by US-based personnel, Netanyahu might well be tempted to stage a false flag attack blamed on Hamas to kill a few Americans and lock Biden into Israel’s right-wing Gaza policies from now on. Bear in mind that, in reality, Biden could care less if all the Palestinians might be “disappeared” just as he would like to see any and all critics of Israel be subjected to the harshest punishments, including prison and denial of basic rights as well as being stripped of government benefits. He has called the protesters “lawbreakers” and spreaders of “chaos” and congress is currently investigating the alleged “subversive organizers” of the “anti-Israel terrorists.”
Biden and company, as well as Trump, who is advising the Israeli government to “finish the job” with the Palestinians, clearly have no actual red lines that must not be crossed when it comes to Israel. The war of extermination of the Gazans has been accompanied by a more hidden war being conducted by the Jewish settlers on the West Bank, which has been largely under Israeli occupation since 1967. The frequently armed settlers have been attacking unarmed Palestinians, destroying their homes and businesses, ruining their crops and vineyards, and even killing them on occasion. Israeli police and army standing by do nothing to stop the fun and even frequently participate themselves by arresting and beating Palestinians who are guilty only of being Palestinian. Hundreds of Palestinians have been arrested without charges apart from “preventive detention” since the troubles began in October and the jails are overflowing. The clear intention, verbalized without any shame by senior Israeli government officials like Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, is to produce a Greater Israel cleansed of Arabs. And Biden, who pretends to favor a two-state solution to the unrest, helps the process along by vetoing UN resolutions that would help create separate sovereignty for Palestine.
Some of the most outrageous recent developments have been the settlers’ interfering with shipments of food and medicines entering into Gaza, a point that a faux-sympathetic Biden stresses repeatedly when pontificating regarding bringing aid to the starving people who are trapped with nowhere to go inside the enclave. The Israel clampdown even includes the Mediterranean Sea being blocked off by the Israeli navy which shoots any desperate Gazans who try to go close to the water so they can fish for food. In the most recent incidents, observed by the standing-by but inert Israeli army and police, truckloads of food were blocked, the drivers and aid workers removed and beaten, and the food was destroyed and burned before the trucks were treated likewise. In another incident settlers dumped huge boulders on one of the access roads to a checkpoint leading into Gaza, rendering it impassible and blocking any aid. Journalists and aid workers are meanwhile being killed by the army to prevent any reporting of what is going on while the US State Department refuses to condemn the activity. Biden called the interference with assistance convoys “outrageous” but has done nothing whatsoever about it, nor has he followed up on pledges to sanction Israelis who attack Palestinians or their property on the West Bank.
The whole problem is that Israel is a monster, an apartheid state that somehow feels it is empowered by God and the United States to kill all its neighbors and rob the American taxpayer to pay for and equip the slaughter. Israel is backed by an all-powerful US domestic lobby that includes unlimited Jewish money and activist Zionist groups like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) led by the hideous Jonathan Greenblatt and the venerable American Israel Political Affairs Committee (AIPAC), both of which are now busy raising money to defeat all congress critters who have ever criticized the Jewish state. ADL and AIPAC are also linked to “that old time religion” knucklehead Christian Zionists concentrated in the Republican Party who have their Scofield Bibles firmly embedded between their ears where their brains are supposed be. A partial solution would be to make the Jewish-Zionist groups register as foreign government agents directed by Israel under the the terms of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which is exactly what they are, but that will never happen. President John F. Kennedy tried to register the predecessor group to AIPAC and many believe he paid the ultimate price for that affront as well as for his bid to stop Israel’s nuclear weapons program.
So, my fellow Americans, what should we do? Well, we should do whatever we can, which includes speaking out about how we have been sold out by our leaders and opinion makers, and we should continue to do that even knowing that they will try to silence us by destroying free speech in this country. It is all we have left and we should continue to oppose what is happening. The first step however, is to get rid of politicians like Joe and Donald, who have been completely corrupted by more than fifty years in the “system” and are totally sold out and irresponsible in their behavior. There are honest politicians and journalists out there and we just have to find them, support them and get them elected and in positions where they will be able to bring about change in how things are done in Washington! One might call it the New American Revolution to restore our rights and free us from foreign oppression!

https://xenagoguevicene.wordpress.com/2024/05/18/old-genocide-joe-has-got-to-go-by-philip-giraldi-17-may-2024/
Embracing Netanyahu does not constitute a foreign policy
It is extremely difficult to discern what might be the thinking behind the clueless President Joe Biden and his Blinken-Austin-Mayorkas foreign-policy-plus national security team. Or rather, the problem is that there does not appear to be any thinking about it at all if one measures it by what benefits it brings to the American people. It all actually seems to derive from a desire to construct a narrative that will win the presidential election coming up in November, which will fortunately be run against a deeply flawed GOP candidate named Donald J. Trump. But look at what is on the Biden record: the country’s southern border with Mexico is a porous as a Swiss cheese, allowing literally millions of illegal immigrants into the USA since Biden took office; Washington is both de facto and de jure simultaneously fighting and losing two unnecessary wars involving nuclear powers which has cost a nearly bankrupt Treasury well into the hundreds of billions of dollars; and the White House is needlessly sanctioning non-hostile competitors like China while also making illegal popular social media sites like TikTok which have committed the sin of reporting and disseminating accurate narratives about good old “best friend and closest ally” Israel. Predictably, neither of the assertions about the value of the Jewish state is true, nor is it a democracy, but who cares when you’re having fun shooting people and spending someone else’s money?
Oh, and just try to exercise your first amendment free speech rights by demonstrating against Israel’s slaughter of upwards of 40,000 Palestinian civilians using US provided weapons and you will be hit on the head by a cop, possibly arrested, and even expelled from college! If you want to see where this is all going, check out reports of the recent FBI detention and interrogation of distinguished Israeli historian Ilan Pappe seeking to enter the US through the Detroit International Airport. Pappe is a critic of the Netanyahu government and of US policy so he was held, questioned in detailed about his contacts, and had his phone copied before being allowed to proceed. Meanwhile, a group of top federal judges have signed a letter stating that they will strike back against the demonstrating students by refusing to hire any graduates of Columbia University Law School as law clerks. And there even is a bill currently before Congress that would empower the government to label the foreign protesters “antisemites and terrorism supporters” and deport them, with some going to Gaza with the expectation that they would be killed, possibly by the mighty Israel Defense Forces (IDF)! It would be a startling new development to punish those whose crime consists mostly of trespass even given the rather loose ethical boundaries established by the war on terror and the Antisemitism Awareness Act! Or indeed one might follow the Senatorial route led by a chirping Lindsey Graham who recommends dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza to kill everyone who has survived the Israeli onslaught. The area then might be developed after the radiation dies down for those splendid seaside villas for Jews only suggested by the esteemed Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner.
To be sure, Joe sometimes mumbles something that might just be viewed positively, like his recent blocking on humanitarian grounds of a consignment of bunker buster bombs on their way to Israel due to Benjamin Netanyahu’s insistence that, no matter what, he would invade Rafah to completely destroy Hamas and whoever else might happen to get in his way. Joe predictably reversed that decision last Tuesday, approving a $1 billion supply of munitions after he came under pressure from the Israelis and their many friends in the US, to include a host of Israel-loving GOP congressmen who have carried their fight on behalf of the Jewish state to The Hague, where the International Criminal Court (ICC) is being directly threatened with American wrath lest it try to punish Israeli leaders for their genocide in Gaza. As Bill Astore put it “Last week, President Biden appeared to have strapped on a temporary spine in delaying shipments of ‘offensive’ weaponry to Israel for its murderous invasion of Rafah in Gaza. That spine had a short duration as Biden announced [Tuesday] renewed shipments of tank and mortar rounds to Israel.” Congress has also gotten into the game with the GOP controlled House of Representatives having passed a bill that would compel the White House to continue all arms shipments to Israel. Joe might also be thinking of political contributions, as American Jews donate the majority of Democratic Party funding, as well guaranteeing a friendly media in his campaign as they dominate both the news and the entertainment industries. See, Joe can figure some things out all by himself every once in a while!
Here’s the problem with Joe, apart from the roughly $12 million in gift-donations from Jewish/Israeli sources that he has obtained in his political career. His tactical thinking does not extend beyond his personal interests, to include his corrupt children, a trait very much like that which is possessed by his good buddy Netanyahu who is facing corruption charges of his own in Israel. Joe believes he is much cleverer than he actually is and thinks that an occasional mild verbal criticism of the Israeli behavior will convince his target audience of voters that he really is concerned about the continuing death toll in Gaza, where the Israelis have already been taking initial steps in their attack on Rafah by using their tanks to penetrate into the targeted zone to destroy and kill.
And as for the reported completion and initial functioning of the floating pier connected to Gaza constructed by US military engineers, it will not dramatically change reality on the ground even though Biden is claiming that it will enable the entry of much needed food and medical aid. Israel will still “security” control what is allowed to enter into Gaza proper while Netanyahu is seeing the pier as a bridge to nowhere, usable primarily to export excess Palestinians to foreign lands that are either willing or unwilling to accept them. And its existence creates some interesting possibilities. As it presumably will be logistically supported on the pier itself by US-based personnel, Netanyahu might well be tempted to stage a false flag attack blamed on Hamas to kill a few Americans and lock Biden into Israel’s right-wing Gaza policies from now on. Bear in mind that, in reality, Biden could care less if all the Palestinians might be “disappeared” just as he would like to see any and all critics of Israel be subjected to the harshest punishments, including prison and denial of basic rights as well as being stripped of government benefits. He has called the protesters “lawbreakers” and spreaders of “chaos” and congress is currently investigating the alleged “subversive organizers” of the “anti-Israel terrorists.”
Biden and company, as well as Trump, who is advising the Israeli government to “finish the job” with the Palestinians, clearly have no actual red lines that must not be crossed when it comes to Israel. The war of extermination of the Gazans has been accompanied by a more hidden war being conducted by the Jewish settlers on the West Bank, which has been largely under Israeli occupation since 1967. The frequently armed settlers have been attacking unarmed Palestinians, destroying their homes and businesses, ruining their crops and vineyards, and even killing them on occasion. Israeli police and army standing by do nothing to stop the fun and even frequently participate themselves by arresting and beating Palestinians who are guilty only of being Palestinian. Hundreds of Palestinians have been arrested without charges apart from “preventive detention” since the troubles began in October and the jails are overflowing. The clear intention, verbalized without any shame by senior Israeli government officials like Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, is to produce a Greater Israel cleansed of Arabs. And Biden, who pretends to favor a two-state solution to the unrest, helps the process along by vetoing UN resolutions that would help create separate sovereignty for Palestine.
Some of the most outrageous recent developments have been the settlers’ interfering with shipments of food and medicines entering into Gaza, a point that a faux-sympathetic Biden stresses repeatedly when pontificating regarding bringing aid to the starving people who are trapped with nowhere to go inside the enclave. The Israel clampdown even includes the Mediterranean Sea being blocked off by the Israeli navy which shoots any desperate Gazans who try to go close to the water so they can fish for food. In the most recent incidents, observed by the standing-by but inert Israeli army and police, truckloads of food were blocked, the drivers and aid workers removed and beaten, and the food was destroyed and burned before the trucks were treated likewise. In another incident settlers dumped huge boulders on one of the access roads to a checkpoint leading into Gaza, rendering it impassible and blocking any aid. Journalists and aid workers are meanwhile being killed by the army to prevent any reporting of what is going on while the US State Department refuses to condemn the activity. Biden called the interference with assistance convoys “outrageous” but has done nothing whatsoever about it, nor has he followed up on pledges to sanction Israelis who attack Palestinians or their property on the West Bank.
The whole problem is that Israel is a monster, an apartheid state that somehow feels it is empowered by God and the United States to kill all its neighbors and rob the American taxpayer to pay for and equip the slaughter. Israel is backed by an all-powerful US domestic lobby that includes unlimited Jewish money and activist Zionist groups like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) led by the hideous Jonathan Greenblatt and the venerable American Israel Political Affairs Committee (AIPAC), both of which are now busy raising money to defeat all congress critters who have ever criticized the Jewish state. ADL and AIPAC are also linked to “that old time religion” knucklehead Christian Zionists concentrated in the Republican Party who have their Scofield Bibles firmly embedded between their ears where their brains are supposed be. A partial solution would be to make the Jewish-Zionist groups register as foreign government agents directed by Israel under the the terms of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which is exactly what they are, but that will never happen. President John F. Kennedy tried to register the predecessor group to AIPAC and many believe he paid the ultimate price for that affront as well as for his bid to stop Israel’s nuclear weapons program.
So, my fellow Americans, what should we do? Well, we should do whatever we can, which includes speaking out about how we have been sold out by our leaders and opinion makers, and we should continue to do that even knowing that they will try to silence us by destroying free speech in this country. It is all we have left and we should continue to oppose what is happening. The first step however, is to get rid of politicians like Joe and Donald, who have been completely corrupted by more than fifty years in the “system” and are totally sold out and irresponsible in their behavior. There are honest politicians and journalists out there and we just have to find them, support them and get them elected and in positions where they will be able to bring about change in how things are done in Washington! One might call it the New American Revolution to restore our rights and free us from foreign oppression!

Article from the UK for your reading pleasure...
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/all-boys-should-own-a-swiss-army-knife/