Nelson Lowhim's Blog, page 72

I stand corrected

Greta does support the indigenous revolt in Canada.  Nevertheless, read the comments (and the top gilded ones) to see a misinformation campaign in full effect. First (and paid for, given that it's gilded) makes some non-sequitur about white college girls and this protest movement (which, if you're looking at the photos is anything but that). Then it's followed up with talk about how it's natural gas and thus better for the environment (also a lot of BS).





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Casino Royale

Watched Casino Royale for the first time in a long time and what was once a favorite of mine is no longer. Hell, I could almost sniff out the parts younger me liked, but couldn't really put up with it anymore. Interesting, right? And I don't mean the plot holes. I mean just the movie and the world it presents.
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The Democrats

In case  you haven't heard there's a primary going on. I have a couple friends who seem pretty iffy on Sanders winning. In that they think the old man socialist is going to lose the general and lose it big. Of course, I expect some on the right to just play troll, but this is coming from those not on the right, so it's worth looking into IMO.  Many people will look to Reagan and Nixon defeats of left types as indicative of what could happen, but the best one is Corbyn and his recent loss to conservatives. 

But it really is all up in the air. Will there be a recession (that might win it alone)? Will something else major happen? We don't know. 
Looking at head to heads and it seems that Bernie does well (so does Biden, though we saw how he collapsed). But then I wondered about Hillary.  As you can see, there's a point about a year before the election when people start to pay attention (or move to their tribes) and it would seem, for the most part, Hillary kept a 3-4% lead all the way through. There are some spikes here and there (GOP convention, but what else?) for Trump but in the end he won in the states that mattered despite the 3-4% popular vote loss.

And with Bernie you see the same thing: A point where people realize the election is close and so the race becomes closer (whatever's going through those people's mind, I would like to know, how does it spike from a 10point loss to 4?

What does this mean? I don't think we know. Ground game is important and so are other, out of our hands powers (major natural disasters, recessions, etc). We'll have to see what happens. Your thoughts?
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Climate Change and Our Reactions to it.

I was talking to a friend recently about Greta, that darling of the MSM, and how one can't help but feel suspicious that she's front and center when plenty of indigenous activists (women, especially), on the front lines of climate change get little airtime and are even murdered in broad day without a single front page showing for them. 

And Greta's twitter page doesn't seem to have anything on it, when it seems being this disruptive would make those Extinction rebellions and the School strikes actually worthwhile. 
Again, not to say she's some bad player, just to say that plenty of people are being murdered over this topic. So why is only one aspect being highlighted. I hope that the activists in Canada win out.
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The ME and the MSM

Well it's been about a month since the assassination of Qassam. And now, we're hearing that we were lied to (quite possibly and given the fake casus belli of the past I'd put the odds as better than 50%) about the reasons for that killing. 
But though that's not exactly new news (liars in the gov) I do want to go over a few things in terms of us interpreting the news. See a friend of mine and I were discussing this inability to really trust the MSM. And this latest Lucy takes the football away moment (for yet another war) seems to only reinforce that idea. But even on RT, ostensibly paid for by oligarchs who want our oligarchs to look bad, I saw that during the height of the crisis they too seemed to swallow the line that the Militias had indeed struck the US base when it now seems that that was not the case. Why is that? Why do so many seem to take official lines that easily? [1]
But whatever I might not like about RT (and in that episode you see them talking about Whatsapp and  not mention the revelations that they do have backdoors and could already be hacked) they seem to be telling a better story than most people in the MSM. What does that say about us? Any major issues you see with some of that information? My view? Like I said before, it's not a right or wrong or finding a prophet as a news channel but trying to make the best of what information we have.
Finally, why does it seem so easy to conduct foreign policy by emotion rather than thinking? Again everyone seems to think this is over, and yet it's not. What kind of alignment can we expect in the future? Your thoughts?
[1] the other questions are: did Qassam actually order those attacks? And were we just trying to stop him and KSA from reaching a peace deal? Does it have anything to do with Turkey and its latest illegal incursion?
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Idlib

If you've only been listening to the MSM (Times has nothing on its front page and only something on the bottom of its world page), you probably don't know about the problem in Idlib between Turkey and Syria. Syria is conducting an offensive siege against Idlib and the refugees currently number close to a million. So far so average for this long war of attrition (hell, and US troops were shot at recently). But, of course, Turkey is actually in Syria (illegally, if anyone cares about that) and so far have brushed off Russian attempts to mediate a ceasefire (and indeed, are now swinging to the US. Have to give it to them for playing both sides pretty well here). Now the US seems to agree that they'll help Turkey retaliate if this goes further.

Speaking of that assassination[1], it would seem even the most bellicose (check the link out, worth it. Of course read past some of the propaganda, but still worth it to see that this attack is not over yet) of Iranian allies are talking about a long term plan, but if one looks at the region over the years, Iran has been attacked by Israel and the US (to include killing nuke scientists) and has not really struck back, except for the proxies in Iraq (EFPs mainly) and just worked to gain a larger footing in the region. 
Part of me still think this will all come to a head. Turkey, US, Iran, KSA, nevermind what Israel is looking to accomplish as well. We'll see, of course. Part of me wonders what China is thinking right now (perhaps they are too concerned with the coronavirus) as what they do and what Russia does matters. Let's see.

[1] Also the reason behind it, that the PMUs (Iranian proxies) had killed a US contractor is not so clear. Might have been Sunnis. Who knows. As always the casus beli is murky AF. Hell, now we know that quite a few US soldiers had some brain damage from the bombs (concussions), but I'll give Trump credit there to pulling back.
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Friends like These

So you might have heard that Antarctica broke a heat record.  And this article isn't some climate denialist crap, nor is it even climate minimization, but fuck me if it isn't just worthless as a piece of news. Okay one hot day. Ice melting. Then it decides to use some pyramid units (why, of fucking why?) with no context nothing. How many such days would melt the glaciers? How much of the glaciers have been melted? What rise would that cause? Etc etc.

As ice sloughs off into the sea, it’ll raise sea levels around the globe. The ice sheets on Antarctica are currently losing 127 gigatonnes of mass every year, according to NASA. Imagine dropping 20,000 Great Pyramids of Giza into the oceans — that’s about how much ice is falling off the continent annually. Scientists recently recorded temperatures 2 degrees Celsius above freezing in the water at the base of one of the fastest-melting glaciers on the continent.

Do you see what I mean? I mean news is all (even the left) just entertainment and this is no different. Note that the climate models are showing 5C increase on current trends. That's hell on earth and yet instead of real science we get pyramid units. Like some fucking MFA for non-fiction dystopia is on us. 

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Thai News and other things

Sad to hear about a Thai soldier going berserk.  That, though, could be tied into inequality and how enlisted are essentially treated as slaves. So not exactly a shooting that's random or like other ones. But speaks to the austerity being forced on the vast majority of the world (by different mechanisms). Again, I point to Eastern Europe where austerity brought those regimes to an end. But also the main Empire's (USSR) unwillingness to back them with force. What about now? I don't think there's that unwillingness to back things with force, and, worse for us, many in power know to pay one half of the working class to fight the other half.

any how, I was thinking about a question asked of me last night: What book would you recommend that you've read recently? Well a Brief History of 7 Killings makes that list easily. Yet, for many people, I don't think they can handle it. Is that unfair of me to assume this? What else would I add to that list? James Baldwin, of course.... but if we're talking simply today's lit, I can't come up with much else that I would fully endorse... You?
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What do you think?

 Is the democratic Iowa caucus a mess or highway robbery? Your thoughts? Here's something from RT trying to connect the dots. Does that matter? Are these connections just the result of our inept elites who are a tight circle that feeds off nepotism (a problem, but not the same)? I don't know. Would like to here your thoughts.

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New Best Global Novels (redux)

Wrote this article about the best global novels of the 21st century. It was some time ago, so looking at it again, I'm wary of it and wouldn't agree with it. 
Cloud Atlas? Yeah that doesn't make it. Same with Dream of a Celt,  and 2666. And my hero, Vonnegut, well his Mother Night didn't survive the filter of time (not as an international novel at least). 
White Teeth, though, yeah, that one stays on top.
But what other books should I add?
A Brief History of 7 Killings easily makes this list now. What else? Crap, I'm going to have to think about this. This is it for now.
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