Steve Bull's Blog, page 127
February 14, 2023
Pentagon Wants To Return Special Ops Propagandists To Ukraine
Listen to a reading of this article:
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An article by The Washington Post titled “Pentagon looks to restart top-secret programs in Ukraine” contains some interesting information about what US special ops forces were doing in Ukraine in the lead-up to the Russian invasion last year, and what they are slated to be doing there in the future.
“The Pentagon is urging Congress to resume funding a pair of top-secret programs in Ukraine suspended ahead of Russia’s invasion last year, according to current and former U.S. officials,” writes the Post’s Wesley Morgan. “If approved, the move would allow American Special Operations troops to employ Ukrainian operatives to observe Russian military movements and counter disinformation.”
Much further down in the article we learn the specifics of what those two top-secret programs were. One of them entailed US commandos sending Ukrainian operatives “on surreptitious reconnaissance missions in Ukraine’s east” to collect intelligence on Russia. The other entailed secretly administering online propaganda, though of course The Washington Post does not describe it as such.
“We had people taking apart Russian propaganda and telling the true story on blogs,” WaPo was told by a source described as “a person in the Special Operations community.”
US special ops forces “employing Ukrainian operatives” to “take apart Russian propaganda” and “tell the true story on blogs” is just US special ops forces administering US propaganda online. Whether or not they actually see themselves as “telling the true story” or “taking apart Russian propaganda” does not change the fact that they are administering US government propaganda. A government circulating media which advances its information interests is precisely the thing that state propaganda is.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
Don’t Let Balloons Distract You from the Global Economic Collapse
We’re only two months into 2023, and so much water has already passed under the bridge. All I can say is, what a year this is shaping up to be. Is it just me, or does anyone else feels the same?
To anyone still involved with the Chinese balloon drama, let me remind you that the U.S. (and the entire world, in fact) was invaded by China long ago. Products and dopamine-inducing apps, farmland acquisition, shady investments, and government collusion in some places and continents, and so on are all evidence of this.
And that’s only what we know of.
What about the unknown unknowns? I don’t think anyone would be surprised to finds out that there’s more, much more, would they? I wouldn’t, just like I wouldn’t be if it was revealed that more of these sneaky airships have been flying in the stratosphere everywhere since God-knows-when. Very likely.
The episode may generate consequences, if only because it’s a powder keg out there. How much should we be concerned? The government and the Chinese can say anything they want, and it won’t impact anyone’s life unless it crashes over their house.
A diversion?
It’s crazy how a device, at the same time old-fashioned and modern, innocent and threatening, can stir up people’s imagination in the era of 5th-generation fighter jets, landing rockets, A.I., and autonomous vehicles. But whatever, it’s already been shot down, so everyone can move to the “next thing.”
If you want to stay ahead of the curve, there are other events taking place around the globe that deserve more attention. Not only might these have short and mid-term implications, including in our daily routines, but also because they encapsulate important lessons that might help us directly.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
The Crisis Report — 13
Russia, Ukraine, China, Taiwan, the US , and the Fossil Fuel Elites — Understanding the Global War that’s happening right now and what it means for the Anthroposphere.
Imagine this is the world.This image is a metaphor for our world. In this image the “ocean” around the island is the Earth’s Oceans. The world’s temperature is set by this ocean. If it cools, the world cools. If it warms, the world warms.
This is a reasonable way to understand the real Earth’s Climate System.
80% of the solar energy the earth captures happens along the equator.
90% of that energy goes into the world’s oceans.
Global Warming is Ocean Warming .
The ocean in the image encircles the island and touches every part of it.
The middle ring is the “biosphere”.Every part of the island’s middle ring is touched by, and influenced by, the encircling ocean. Every part is affected if the ocean cools or warms.
Every part of the Biosphere is affected by changes in the Earth’s Temperature. EVERY PART. EVERYWHERE.
The Arctic has warmed over 4C. In 2021 NO PLACE on Earth was cooler than it had been between 1950–1980.The list of things “going wrong” in the biosphere is endless. Because the Biosphere we live in, is completely connected to the “Climate” we have caused to rapidly get hotter.
Our Anthroposphere is in CRISIS.
The castle in the middle represents the “Anthroposphere”. The constructed world we have built over the last 10,000 years.EVERYTHING happening in the WORLD, in the Anthroposphere, is connected to GLOBAL WARMING and the CLIMATE CHANGE it brings.
WE ARE IN CRISIS AND IT’S ABOUT TO GET A LOT HOTTER.
The green circle is where we are right now February 2023, the blue circles represent various forecasts of how warm the rest of this year is likely to be. The “zero line” in this chart is the 1981–2010 average of global temperatures.…click on the above link to read the rest…
Is The Aristocracy’s Next Psyop … Alien Invasion?
These guys are just crazy enough to try it
In a January 12 post titled What Will The Aristocracy Try Next? I listed some manufactured crises that might further enrich the 1% at the expense of the rest of us. But our elites are a crafty bunch, and instead of a food shortage or cyber-attack, they’re apparently trying something more exotic: alien invasion.
Real or fake? If it’s real, and we’re in a shooting war with hyper-advanced visitors from a distant star, then there’s a decent chance that we’re done as a species (which we deserve if we’re really this stupid).
But regular people can’t do much about interstellar war, so let’s move that scenario to the back burner and focus on the much higher probability that the global deep state needs an excuse to cut interest rates back to zero and introduce central bank digital currencies, and thinks hostile aliens might be useful for quelling the unrest that spiking inflation would otherwise cause.
This is a scenario we can work with because it’s pretty much the question we were already trying to answer, i.e., how to protect our money and freedoms from a rapacious billionaire/political/corporate/military class that wants to take everything.
So … accelerate the prepping. Increase stacks of cash, gold, and silver, pay off more debt, expand the garden, and fill in the gaps in your arsenal (I’m shopping for a concealed carry pistol as this is written). An article about bug-out strategies is in the works here for next week.
As for stock market timing, one would think that the government saying “yep, we’re shooting extraterrestrials on sight” would ignite a tsunami of selling…
…click on the above link to read the rest…
French Historian: World War III Has Already Begun
“We are now in an endless war.”
JOEL SAGET via Getty Images
A French historian who accurately predicted the fall of the Soviet Union over a decade in advance says that World War III has already begun as a result of the conflict in Ukraine.
The comments were made by Emmanuel Todd, one of France’s leading intellectuals, during an interview with the Le Figaro newspaper.
“It is evident that the conflict, initially a limited territorial war, has evolved into a global economic confrontation between the whole West on one side, and Russia, backed by China, on the other. It has become a world war,” Todd said.
Todd added that “the resistance of the Russian economy is pushing the U.S. imperial system toward the abyss” and that Biden must “hurry” to rescue a “fragile” America.
According to the historian, U.S. control of the world financial system is at risk because the Russian economy’s resistance to sanctions is pushing “the American imperial system” toward the precipice,” with Russia still able to rely on China for monetary backing.
Todd says America “cannot withdraw from the conflict, they cannot let go,” because it has no exit strategy and the stakes are too high.
“This is why we are now in an endless war, in a confrontation whose outcome must be the collapse of one or the other,” said the intellectual.
Todd is a widely respected figure, having accurately predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union 14 years before it happened.
As we highlighted last month, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church cautioned that any attempt to “destroy Russia” by “madmen” trying to impose their values will lead to “the end of the world.”
…click on the above link to read the rest…
“Get The Hell Out Of There” – Ohio’s Apocalyptic Chemical Disaster Rages On
Update (1300ET): During a press conference, the NTSB referenced a video from Salem, Ohio, about 20 miles from East Palestine which shows sparks and flames emitting from beneath the train. The apparent structural issue with the train was captured on a security camera when it was travelling through Salem. According to Michael Graham, board member on the NTSB, two videos they had obtained were indicative of mechanical issues attributed to the rail car axles which likely led to the derailment.
The second video obtained from when the train was passing through Salem was recorded by a processing plant nearby a hotbox detector which scans the temperature of the axles as trains pass by. According to Graham, the wayside defect detector reading resulted in an alarm alerting the crew of a mechanical issue shortly before the derailment in East Palestine. Consequently, that alert forced the train to execute an emergency brake application which may have been the cause of the derailment. Presently, the NTSB is reviewing the trains data and audio recordings in order to examine the cause of the derailment and which hotbox detector indicated a mechanical error preceding the accident. The NTSB is expected to issue a preliminary report on its findings within 30 days.
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Submitted by ‘BlueApples’,
While the US government is dispensing millions of dollars in resources to treat balloons as an existential crisis, a small town in Ohio finds itself engulfed in what actually looks like the apocalypse. Perhaps by design, all of the drama surrounding violations of US airspace by Chinese spy initiatives has done well to keep what is becoming one of the worst environmental disasters in recent memory from getting any headlines.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
Japan Tried to Build a Hydrogen Society. It Backfired Spectacularly.
Seemed like a good idea at the time.
Andriy Onufriyenko//Getty Images
Japan has long been a leader in hydrogen energy and fuel cell technology.Companies like Toyota plan to build entire cities entirely powered by hydrogen.A new report from an environmental think-tank argues that Japan is investing in the wrong applications for hydrogen technology and the determine of its decarbonization efforts.In the past couple decades, scientists and engineers have come up with lots of ways to rapidly decarbonize the planet—but some ideas are better than others.
Take, for instance, hydrogen. Thanks to the discovery of electrolysis, hydrogen’s been a known source of energy for centuries, but Japan became a frontrunner in that energy source in recent years because of its status as a resource-poor country. A steady supply of renewable energy isn’t just an important climate initiative, it’s a matter of national security.
However, Japan may have taken things a bit too far.
In 2017, the country became the first in the world to adopt a national hydrogen plan, and companies like Toyota have committed to constructing futuristic cities powered by the technology. In 2021 alone, Japan spent around $800 million on investments into hydrogen power and fuel cells.
But according to the Renewable Energy Institute (REI), a Japanese environmental think tank, this push to use hydrogen in every conceivable energy sector is actually doing more harm than good.
From the report:
“The 2017 Basic Hydrogen Strategy is misguided, both in terms of what hydrogen is used for and how it is produced. Moreover, it promotes the use of gray hydrogen, which does not contribute to emission reductions.”
Gray hydrogen is the most common form of hydrogen production, which uses the greenhouse gas methane.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
Global Debt & Death Spiral – John Rubino
Analyst and financial writer John Rubino says we’re are in a “debt and death spiral” that will force dramatic changes on the world. Rubino explains, “The debt spiral part of this means things from here continue to get worse and worse for the big currencies of the world until they die. In other words, until people lose faith in them, refuse to use them and hold them anymore until their value falls to their intrinsic value, which is zero. That manifests to hyperinflation. The value of the currency falls as opposed to the things you buy with it. . . . Things feel basically okay for a long time as long as governments could force interest rates down to really low levels. The side effects of that are massive money creation and, eventually, inflation. That’s what we are dealing with now. So, here we go. Welcome to the end game for the world’s big currencies.”
Rubino contends things have gotten so out of control that there is no stopping what is coming. Rubino says, “We are in the part of the cycle now where things just get worse, and there is nothing we can do about it. You are going to see companies that have borrowed huge amounts of money to buy back their stock, and now they see their interest costs explode. Governments around the world have the same problem, and there is nothing central banks can do about this. The next stage of this is when everybody realizes that there is no fix. Daddy is not going to come home and take care of all of this, and there is no adult supervision. The financial markets are basically on their own with so much debt that there is nothing left to do…
…click on the above link to read the rest…
February 13, 2023
“These Are The Manipulations That Will Be Common Now That The World Is Transitioning To Squeezing Scarce Resources Out Of A Globalized Economy”
Kishida’s cabinet formally adopted a policy to extend the life of its nuclear plants beyond the self-imposed sixty-year limit. Japan’s engineers had originally put a cap in place for all sorts of safety-related reasons. But times change, risks change, societies too.
With the Ukraine war reshaping the global energy map, Japanese memories of energy shortages in the run up to WWII apparently outweigh more recent scars from Fukushima.
And besides, when you count sixty years in the life of a nuclear power plant, you probably shouldn’t count the time it was turned off for maintenance. Right? It’s odd that the engineers who counted sixty in the first place overlooked that. But whatever. If you strip out the years these nuclear reactors were on vacation, you can extend their sixty-year life to seventy. Presto. New capacity.
Japan also announced $152bln in green transformation bonds to build new nukes, renewables, etc. Kishida’s government announced that $1.14trln in public/private investment will be needed over the coming decade.
But Japan was not alone, of course. Macron is trying to extend the life of France’s work force past the age of sixty-two. Apparently, when the policy was first implemented, French engineers failed to take into consideration maintenance and vacation time. Were you to add this downtime back in, the productive life of a French worker would extend to something north of a century.
But unlike Japan’s nuclear reactors, French workers can strike and vote, so Macron sought only an extra two years. Hundreds of thousands are now striking, which if properly counted would push out the work life of a French worker another ten years.
And these are the sorts of manipulations that will be more common now that the world is transitioning from decades of financial over-engineering to a world of squeezing scarce resources out of a globalized economy that was over-optimized for peak profitability.
Escobar: The War Of Terror Of A Rogue Superpower – Cui Bono?
Everyone with a brain already knew the Empire did it. Now Seymour Hersh’s bombshell report not only details how Nord Stream 1 and 2 were attacked, but also names names: from the toxic Straussian neoliberal-con trio Sullivan, Blinken and Nuland all the way to the Teleprompter Reader-in-Chief.
Arguably the most incandescent nugget in Hersh’s narrative is to point ultimate responsibility directly at the White House. The CIA, for its part, gets away with it. The whole report may be read as the framing of a scapegoat. A very fragile, shoddy scapegoat – what with those classified documents in the garage, the endless stares into the void, the cornucopia of incomprehensible mumbling, and of course the whole, ghastly, years-long family corruption carousel in and around Ukraine, still to be completely unveiled.
Hersh’s report happened to pop up immediately after the deadly earthquakes in Turkey/Syria. This is an investigative journalism earthquake in itself, straddling over fault lines and revealing countless open air fissures, nuggets of truth gasping for air amidst the rubble.
But is that all there is?
Does the narrative hold from start to finish? Yes and no.
First of all, why now?
This is a leak – essentially from one Deep State insider, Hersh’s key source. This 21st century “Deep Throat” remix may be appalled at the toxicity of the system, but at the same time he knows that whatever he says, there will be no consequences.
Cowardly Berlin – ignoring the nuts and bolts of the scheme all along – will not even squeak. After all the Green gang has been ecstatic, because the terror attack has thoroughly advanced their medieval de-industrialization agenda. In parallel, as an extra bonus, all the other European vassals receive further confirmation this is the fate that awaits them if they don’t follow His Master’s Voice.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
