Category: Uncategorized

Can’t Beat This for Hilarity

I’d love to do the remake. 

In a time-space free world, I’d cast John Cleese, Peter Sellers and Mike Meyers.

And EACH could play EACH PART.

Mix and match.

TWITTER: MORE INDIAN NEWS PROGRAMMING PLEASE!

Cold War II

From global supply chain magazine, Freight Waves.

And it SOUNDS RIGHT.

  • We are witnessing the remaking of the world order in front of our eyes.
  •  If the Russia-Ukraine conflict’s international ramifications keep spreading, we face a real possibility of a bifurcating global economy, in which geopolitical alliances, energy and food flows, currency systems, and trade lanes could split.
  • During the first Cold War, the world was anything but flat. There were two worlds – the East and the West. That world is being recreated as we speak, and with it, Western companies will start to shift sourcing away from the East and more toward Western and neutral states.
  • Entire supply chains will be rewritten, with new sources and partners – all in the interest of corporate and national security.
  • Supply chain analyst roles will become the hottest jobs of the next decade, prized by corporations, consulting and even Wall Street for the ability to interpret, analyze and predict disruptions and risks in a new world order.
  • New investments in supply chain technologies and automation will be accelerated, as will preference for near-shoring and domestic sourcing.
  • State actors like Russia and China are choosing regional hegemony over global integration – we will see this play out further in the Baltics and the South China Sea, not to mention the Middle East and the greater Pacific.

Forget Tom Friedman’s globalized Disney World.  At least for now.  And maybe that’s fine.  Because how well, in fact, did the US DO during the Cold War?   Not too badly.  So, maybe what we need is an ADVERSARY.  We’re competitors, right?  Not to mention CAPITALISTS.

AND WE HAVE NO USE FOR AUTOCRATS.

And, yes, in the 50’s and early 60’s, we were rolling in assets and confidence.  But there are ways to reestablish our advantage.  And what better way than to create a modern WESTERN HEMISPHERIC-BASED ECONOMY?

WHILE BRINGING LATIN AMERICA TO THE TABLE.

They have PLENTY to offer — plus untapped consumers — and would love to be players in a broader economy.

Besides, we’ve already tried INTEGRATING China and Russia — countries which have not only rejected ENLIGHTENMENT PRINCIPLES but also whom WE’VE NEVER DEFEATED — BUT IT HASN’T WORKED.  They want neither our system nor hegemony.  I GET IT.

SO, F *** ‘EM!

As for Europe, the Anglosphere and our various Asian allies, their interests are more aligned with ours than with the AUTOCRATS in the Kremlin and Beijing.  As long as they’re treated well, we should be able to rely on their continued support both geo-strategically and commercially.

Let’s address THAT PART OF THE FUTURE we at least have a shot at REALIZING.  We will never CONVERT either Russia or China.

They don’t WANT our input and, in time, won’t NEED us.

Corporations Cutting Ties with Russia

From Axios:

  • Boeing suspended major operations in Moscow, as well as maintenance and technical support for Russian airlines.
  • Airbus is halting supply of parts and services to Russian airlines.
  • Shell will sever ties with Russian gas giant Gazprom and end its roughly $1 billion financing of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.
  • BP is exiting its nearly 20% stake in Russian oil giant Rosneft, and faces a potential financial hit of as much as $25 billion.
  • Exxon Mobil says it will exit Russia oil and gas operations valued at more than $4 billion and cease new investment.
  • GM, which sells only about 3,000 cars a year in Russia, says it will suspend exporting vehicles.
  • Ford suspended operations.
  • BMW stopped shipments and will stop production in Russia.
  • Daimler Truck Holdings said it would no longer send supply components to its Russian joint-venture partner.
  • Volvo Cars, owned by Chinese conglomerate Zhejiang Geely, halted sales and shipments.
  • Renault ceased operations and production at two assembly plants because it can’t get parts.
  • VW paused delivery of Audis already in Russia so it can adjust car prices to reflect the decline in value of the ruble.
  • Harley-Davidson suspended shipments to Russia.
  • Adidas suspended its partnership with the Russian Football Union.
  • Nike ceased online sales because it can’t guarantee delivery.
  • FedEx and UPS suspended shipments.
  • Yoox Net-A-Porter Group and Farfetch, luxury e-commerce platforms, are suspending deliveries in Russia.
  • Apple has paused product sales and limited services (including Apple Pay), on top of ceasing exports to Russia and restricting features in Apple Maps in Ukraine to safeguard civilian safety.
  • Dell stopped selling products.
  • Ericsson is suspending deliveries to Russia.

The message?  Don’t screw with George H. W. Bush’s NEW WORLD ORDER.

Woke Environmentalism . . .

. . . and Ukraine

Do you know what ZEALOTS never RECKON ON?  UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES.  They only have EYES ON THE PRIZE.

But the prize is often a MINEFIELD.

So, who better to explain this than Michael Shellenberger.

The West’s Green Delusions Empowered Putin

A number of telling quotes:

  • The reason Europe didn’t have a muscular deterrent threat to prevent Russian aggression—and in fact prevented the U.S. from getting allies to do more—is that it needs Putin’s oil and gas. 
  • These countries are in the grips of a delusional ideology that makes them incapable of understanding the hard realities of energy production.
  • Green ideology insists we don’t need nuclear and that we don’t need fracking. It insists that it’s just a matter of will and money to switch to all-renewables—and fast. It insists that we need “degrowth” of the economy, and that we face looming human “extinction.” 
  • It was the West’s focus on healing the planet with “soft energy” renewables, and moving away from natural gas and nuclear, that allowed Putin to gain a stranglehold over Europe’s energy supply. 
  • While he expanded nuclear energy at home so Russia could export its precious oil and gas to Europe, Western governments spent their time and energy obsessing over “carbon footprints,” a term created by an advertising firm working for British Petroleum. They banned plastic straws because of a 9-year-old Canadian child’s science homework. They paid for hours of “climate anxiety” therapy. 
  • While Putin expanded Russia’s oil production, expanded natural gas production, and then doubled nuclear energy production to allow more exports of its precious gas, Europe, led by Germany, shut down its nuclear power plants, closed gas fields, and refused to develop more through advanced methods like fracking. 

If you want the light to go on when you flip the switch or your gasoline-powered car engine to turn over when you turn the key — THEN YOU DON’T WANT TO SHUT DOWN PREMATURELY OIL AND GAS production.  Nope.

And, if Russia starts withholding its own vast O&G resources so as to facilitate reintroducing AUTOCRATIC RULE and/or RECONSTITUTING a KLEPTOCRAT’S VERSION of the SOVIET UNION, then I’m ALL-IN FOR FRACKING to thwart that — something I’ve been opposed to for years.

While it’s clear there are no easy choices, there are always FIRST-ORDER PRIORITIES.  If you don’t fear society quickly collapsing, THEN RIDE THE GREEN TRAIN TO UTOPIA.  Just don’t get off in Ukraine.

Outside Christie’s

Joe spoke WOKE . . . and I went walking.

Though he did say some good things.

Still, does it matter?  Little or nothing will change.

It’s never too late to collate.  But one must never waste time.

Every hope is an Alamo hope.  Time runs out regardless.

On the Edge

A cold, dispiriting
Rain.
The Bear has invaded
Ukraine.
Now that the stitching
Has started to tear,
Will the garment unravel
From there?

Is Putin some Ivan
Or Peter the Next?
A commissar playing
At czar?
A rational actor
Controlling the board
Or a mobster
Committed to war?

Autocracy, grievance,
Resentment, revenge
Are loose on the
Nearest abroad,
Malevolence shading
Enlightenment's light,
Confirming our
Fiercest divide.

At what point is freedom
Worth dying to keep?
At what point, complacence
A noose?
When slaughter is ordered
And carnage unchecked,
What chance have the
Just to survive?

JAD, 2022

The future, armed and menacing, seems poised again to attack.

Thinned

Tepid, trim,
Third Avenue;
Pavements slick
With rain.
Warming trends
As winter ends,
As March gusts
Into view.

Have viral loads
Depleted streets,
Have two years
Come and gone?
Workers -- wary,
Unresolved --
Distrust their own
Return.

JAD, 2022
And So

The morning's broken
Promise masks
The mantra's metered beat,
The tune that won't stop
Haunting me
Above time's numbing hum.

Of what am I now
Most aware
When breath resists regret?
Can one be soothed and
Pacified
By dying winter's skies?

Are honing lines alone
At night
The surest exit left?
Is losing faith
Imploring hope
Or merely wising up?

JAD, 2022
The Wrinkle

Q. What makes a perfect face?
Certainly not pure symmetry.

A. Asymmetry
Perfectly placed?

JAD, 2022

Popes pontificate.  It’s what they’re supposed to do.

We're Unprepared

If Yeats were here,
He'd understand
As Auden would as well.
Despite our vaulting,
Vaunted pride,
The Horsemen ride again.

What cycle has
Restarted now,
What sequence of events?
Plague and war,
This corridor,
That leads to something worse?

We're unprepared and
Misinformed and
Lack the nerve to watch
As Russian and Ukrainian
Blood
Has muddied winter roads.

JAD, 2022

I’m locked in some room of the past.  All I recall is real there.

If the South’s right nut is NASCAR, its left is college football.

Anxiety is fear of fear.  It’s a shame we can’t treat fear.

Russia’s Central Bank Reserves

The breakout isn’t complicated . . .

. . . but here’s what’s notable about it:

  • ONE-THIRD is comprised of GOLD and CHINESE YUAN which, combined, represents the EURASIAN STAKE;
  • ONE-THIRD consists of EUROS, the currency of Russia’s heretofore MAIN TRADING PARTNER; and
  • ONE-THIRD is comprised of US DOLLARS, STERLING and OTHER, i.e. the ANGLOSPHERIC STAKE.

But for something strategic changing fast, THAT ALL NOW WILL CHANGE.