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Monday 17th of January 2022
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Parra, Soliloquio del individuo, translated by Ferlinghetti as Soliloquy of the Individual Misc. |
I'm the individual.
First I lived by a rock
(I scratched some figures on it)
Then I looked for some place more suitable.
I'm the individual.
First I had to get myself food,
Hunt for fish, birds, hunt up wood
(I'd take care of the rest later)
Make a fire,
Wood, wood, where could I find any wood,
Some wood to start a little fire,
I'm the individual.
At the time I was asking myself,
Went to a canyon filled with air;
A voice answered me back:
I'm the individual.
So then I started moving to another rock,
I also scratched figures there,
Scratched out a river, buffaloes,
Scratched a serpent
I'm the individual.
But I got bored with what I was doing,
Fire annoyed me,
I wanted to see more,
I'm the individual.
Went down to a valley watered by a river,
There I found what I was looking for,
A bunch of savages,
A tribe,
I'm the individual.
I saw they made certain things,
Scratching figures on the rocks,
Making fire, also making fire!
I'm the individual.
They asked me where I came from.
I answered yes, that I had no definite plans,
I answered no, that from here on out.
O.K.
I then took a stone I found in the river
And began working on it,
Polishing it up,
I made it a part of my life.
But it's a long story.
I chopped some trees to sail on
Looking for fish,
Looking for lots of things,
(I'm the individual.)
Till I began getting bored again.
Storms get boring,
Thunder, lightning,
I'm the individual.
O.K.
I began thinking a little bit,
Supid questions came into my head,
Doubletalk.
So then I began wandering through forests,
I came to a tree, then another tree,
I came to a spring,
A hole with a couple of rats in it;
So here I come, I said,
Anybody seen a tribe around here,
Savage people who make fire?
That's how I moved on westward,
Accompanied by others,
Or rather alone,
Believing is seeing, they told me,
I'm the individual.
Parra, Soliloquio del individuo, translated by Ferlinghetti as "Soliloquy of the Individual" [continued] https://j.mp/33yDiJP
I saw shapes in the darkness,
Clouds maybe,
Maybe I saw clouds, or sheet lightning,
Meanwhile several days had gone by,
I felt as if I were dying;
Invented some machines,
Constructed clocks,
Weapons, vehicles,
I'm the individual.
Hardly had time to bury my dead,
Hardly had time to sow,
I'm the individual.
Years later I conceived a few things,
A few forms,
Crossed frontiers,
And got stuck in a kind of niche,
In a bark that sailed forty days,
Forty nights,
I'm the individual.
Then came the droughts,
Then came the wars,
Colored guys entered the valley,
But I had to keep going,
Had to produce.
Produced science, immutable truths,
Produced Tanagras,
Hatched up thousand-page books.
My face got swollen,
Invented a phonograph,
The sewing machine,
The first automobiles began to appear,
I'm the individual.
Someone set up planets,
Trees got set up!
But I set up hardware,
Furniture, stationery,
I'm the individual.
Cities also got built,
Highways,
Religious institutions went out of fashion,
They looked for joy, they looked for happiness,
I'm the individual.
Afterward I devoted myself to travel,
Practicing, practicing languages
Languages,
I'm the individual.
I looked into a keyhole,
Sure, I looked, what am I saying, looked,
To get rid of all doubt looked,
Behind the curtains,
I'm the individual.
O.K.
Perhaps I better go back to that valley,
To that rock that was home,
And start scratching all over again,
Scratching out everything backward,
The world in reverse.
But life doesn't make sense.
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Putin calls America's bluff on Ukraine @TheWeek Law & Politics |
The answer is that we got here by bluffing — and the evident decision of Russian President Vladimir Putin to call our bluff.
One possible response to this unhappy situation is to continue bluffing in the hopes that Putin will eventually blink.
But our geopolitical rivals are no longer prepared to defer to us in all cases. Putin, for example, looks ready to test the proposition that Russia has far more at stake in its near abroad (in Ukraine as well as in Georgia and Belarus) than we do — and the outcome is quite likely to be decided in his favor.
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We exist in a Tripolar World [US China and Russia] with rapidly emerging Middle Powers. Law & Politics |
I am not discounting Fortress Europe but one senses the Fortress is keener on a more defensive posture unlike the US [notwithstanding its withdrawal from Afghanistan], China and Russia.
One common theme is a parabolic Putin rebound. At this moment, President Putin has Fortress Europe surrounded. The intellectual father of the new Zeitgeist that propelled Brexit, Le Pen, the Five Star movement in Italy, Gert Wilders in the Netherlands, is Vladimir Putin.
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Regime Change says @Dominic2306 Law & Politics |
'wait for SG' doesnt fly & lobby will scream 'WHITEWASH'! 0/10 all round, no10/70WH needs purge #RegimeChange @Dominic2306
V bad look for SG/SC for them to have briefed Shopping cart on where 'investigation' (*not* inquiry) is going then Shopping cart briefs it. And super dumb of Shopping cart spads to brief it, just means 'wait for SG' doesnt fly & lobby will scream 'WHITEWASH'! 0/10 all round, no10/70WH needs purge #RegimeChange
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You’re a mutant virus, I’m the immune system and it’s my job to expel you from the organism. OCTOBER 30, 2014 BY @Dominic2306 The Hollow Men II Misc. |
Complexity makes prediction hard. Our world is based on extremely complex, nonlinear, interdependent networks (physical, mental, social).
Properties emerge from feedback between vast numbers of interactions: for example, the war of ant colonies, the immune system’s defences, market prices, and abstract thoughts all emerge from the interaction of millions of individual agents.
Interdependence, feedback, and nonlinearity mean that systems are fragile and vulnerable to nonlinear shocks:
‘big things come from small beginnings’ and problems cascade, ‘they come not single spies / But in battalions’.
Prediction is extremely hard even for small timescales. Effective action and (even loose) control are very hard and most endeavours fail.
Blofeld: Kronsteen, you are sure this plan is foolproof?
Kronsteen: Yes it is, because I have anticipated every possible variation of counter-move.
Politics therefore suffers from a surfeit of narcissists.
The occupants of No10, like Tolstoy’s characters in War and Peace, are blown around by forces they do not comprehend as they gossip, intrigue, and babble to the media.
The MPs and spin doctors steer their priorities according to the rapidly shifting sands of the pundits who they are all spinning, while the pundits shift (to some extent unconsciously) according to the polls.
The outcome? Everybody rushes around in tailspins assembling circular firing squads while the real dynamics of opinion play out largely untouched by their conscious actions.
In terms of a method to ‘manage’ government, it is not far from tribal elders howling incantations around the camp fire after inspecting the entrails of slaughtered animals.
It makes no sense because it is not based on the real world. Because of this systemic dysfunction, the rest of us get repeatedly ‘Macked’.
T.S Eliot said in The Hollow Men http://bit.ly/2DbxreVBetween the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom.
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@BorisJohnson prepares mass clearout to save own skin @thesundaytimes Law & Politics |
Boris Johnson is planning a mass clearout of No 10 and a series of populist announcements to save his tottering premiership.
Despite issuing a humiliating apology to MPs over the Downing Street parties on Wednesday, the prime minister is refusing to take responsibility for the crisis and in meetings last week questioned why his team had not protected him.
He complained to aides: “How has all this been allowed to happen? How has it come to this? How haven’t you sorted this out?”
A senior government source said: “He made it clear he thought they had let him down. Boris’s view is that he is not to blame. That everyone else is to blame.”
Johnson’s view is supported by members of the cabinet. One blasted: “No 10 is a f***ing mess ... it’s a f***ing disgrace, heads have to roll.”
The effort to blame his staff has been named Operation Save Big Dog, while his plans to make policy announcements to woo disillusioned MPs and voters is being dubbed Operation Red Meat.
Under the proposals Johnson will:
•Announce a No 10 workplace “booze ban” in an effort to end the drinking culture in “Club Downing Street”.
•Freeze the BBC licence fee for two years to help the cost of living.
•Hand to the military control of the battle to stop illegal immigrants in the Channel.
•Unveil new plans to tackle the backlog of operations in the NHS.
•Unveil extra money for skills and job training for the 1.5 million people who are out of work and on universal credit.
•Lift the remaining coronavirus restrictions on January 26.
•Publish Michael Gove’s levelling-up white paper the following week. It aims to improve lives in neglected towns in the north.
Johnson is plotting his fightback as previously loyal donors turned on him and threatened to stop funding.
He is consulting his former aide Lord Udny-Lister about how to reshape his No 10 team.
Martin Reynolds, Johnson’s principal private secretary, who sent an email inviting staff to “bring your own booze” to a No 10 lockdown-busting party, is expected to leave, along with his deputy, Stuart Glassborow.
Dan Rosenfield — the chief of staff — and some members of the communications team are also living on borrowed time.
Rosenfield is accused of approving the claim that there were “no parties” in No 10.
“Boris is preparing to lay down the lives of his staff to save his own,” said one MP close to No 10. “It will be the Night of the Long Scapegoats.”
An official edict has been issued to loyal ministers and MPs have who have been urged to mount a tearoom charm offensive to stave off a vote of no confidence in the prime minister.
A senior Westminster figure has said the number of letters of no confidence submitted to the backbench 1922 Committee had risen to 35 — leaving the prime minister perilously close to the 54 required to trigger a vote.
At least seven of those submitted are understood to have come from Tory MPs in red wall seats.
It is understood that Gary Sambrook, the Birmingham Northfield MP and secretary of the 1922 Committee, is among them. He would not comment last night.
Last night, Lee Anderson, the Conservative MP for Ashfield, said he had not decided whether to submit a letter of no confidence in the prime minister.
Anderson, a former Labour councillor and miner, said he would instead await the outcome of Sue Gray’s inquiry into the Downing Street parties, but had contacted constituents to ask for their views.
The red wall MP, 55, said: “I await the findings of the inquiry. I think that’s a fair and reasonable thing to do. But in the meantime I have contacted . .. over 4,000 residents on my mailing list to ask their views and I have been in touch with my association chairman to gauge the views of the membership, to get their thoughts. I’m not just going to make a rash decision.
“I want to speak to as many people as I possibly can and then I’ll decide what my course of action is.”
Andrew Bridgen, the Conservative MP for North West Leicestershire who has sent in a letter, said he has received more than 1,000 emails in a day, 80 per cent of which were demanding the prime minister quit.
Peter Hargreaves, the billionaire who gave £1 million to the Tories for the 2019 general elections campaign, has said he is “very reluctant” to continue supporting the party financially.
The Brexit-backing co-founder of the investment platform Hargreaves Lansdown said of Johnson:
“The guy has no patriotism. He doesn’t want to do good; he just wants to be prime minister. That’s his only agenda. He changed from a remainer to Brexit specifically because it would give him a chance to be prime minister ... As the Conservatives look now, I would be very reluctant to support them financially.”
Michael Spencer, the Tory-supporting founder of the ICAP trading business, said: “I can’t see how Boris can last, I really can’t. He just hasn’t changed and he won’t change.”
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China Property Downturn: @topdowncharts RealEstate, Housing & Construction |
I always say in my many years of covering China macro, if I could only choose one indicator it would be property prices... and perhaps if I were to pick only one chart it might be the one below.
Conclusions
This downturn has in many respects been deliberate and by design & could be characterised as Xi JinPing's Mellon doctrine.
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Australia ties Southern Hemisphere’s all-time heat record of 123°F; epic heat cooks Argentina @Yale @YaleClimateComm Emerging Markets |
It’s the peak of summer in the Southern Hemisphere, and this week historic heat waves have hit both Australia and South America.
On Thursday, January 13, one of the most iconic world weather records was tied when a ferocious heat wave in Western Australia sent the mercury soaring to 50.7 degrees Celsius (123.3°F) in the coastal city of Onslow.
This tied the previous all-time heat record for hottest temperature for the entire Southern Hemisphere, set on January 2, 1960, at Oodnadatta Airport in South Australia.
The heatwave over Western Australia built over the week, aided by sea surface temperatures approximately 2 degrees Celsius (3.6°F) above average, offshore winds, and subsiding upper-level air created by the landfall of Tropical Cyclone Tiffany over north-central Australia.
Three stations in Western Australia exceeded the 50 degrees Celsius mark on January 13. Before this week, the entire nation of Australia had recorded only four instances of temperatures of 50 degrees Celsius (122°F) or more, in records going back to 1910.
The heat wave continued on Friday, January 14, but with slightly less-scorching temperatures. Onslow was again the hottest major airport, topping out with a high of 48 degrees Celsius (118°F). The heat wave is expected to diminish in intensity over the weekend.
The new record will undergo review by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) before it is certified as being official, perhaps a lengthy process.
In an interview with the Washington Post, Randy Cerveny, who leads the World Meteorological Organization’s weather and climate extremes team, said,
“Since the creation of the WMO World Archive of Weather and Climate Extremes in 2007, we have never had so many ongoing verification/evaluations as we currently do. We are seeing more frequent extremes in temperature. The climate that we have lived through over the past decades is changing and we must be aware of that — and realize those fundamental changes have consequences to our way of life.”
Extreme heat bakes Argentina’s critical grain-producing region
Extreme heat also cooked South America this week, with multiple stations in Argentina, Uruguay, and southwestern Brazil approaching or beating their all-time highs.
Most notably, Uruguay tied it’s all-time national heat record on Friday, January 14, when the mercury hit 44 degrees Celsius (111.2°F) in the town of Florida; Paysandú, Uruguay, also recorded 44 degrees Celsius on January 20, 1943.
Buenos Aires, Argentina, recorded its second-hottest day in history on Friday, January 14, with 41.5 degrees Celsius (106.7°F).
The temperature might have gone even higher, but for smoke from wildfires burning to the north that shrouded the region.
The city’s third-hottest day in history was three days earlier, with 41.1 degrees Celsius (106°F) on January 11; their all-time record remains 43.3 degrees Celsius (110°F) in 1957.
Numerous Argentinian stations broke their all-time hottest temperature on record on January 11, 13, and 14, 2022.
As of January 14, the hottest temperature in Argentina reported during this week’s heat wave by the Servicio Meteorológico Nacional was 45 degrees Celsius (113°F) at Rivadavia on January 12.
That reading is not far below the hottest reliably measured South American temperature of 47.3 degrees Celsius (117.1°F) at Campo Gallo, Argentina, on October 16, 1936.
This is the second historic heat wave to affect South America this year.
On January 1, Paraguay, which lies along Argentina’s northern border, broke its all-time heat record, with 45.6 degrees Celsius (114.1°F) at Sombrero Hovy.
Concerning extreme weather event for key global grain-producing region
With global food prices currently at a 46-year high, the heat wave and an associated drought in Argentina are cause for concern, as the nation is a key grain-producing breadbasket for the world.
Indeed, the greatest threat of climate change to civilization over the next 40 years may very well be climate change-amplified extreme droughts and/or floods hitting multiple major global grain-producing “breadbaskets” in the same year:
That situation could trigger significant food prices spikes that lead to mass starvation, war, and severe global economic recession.
I outlined such a scenario last year, which was published in The Hill.
The scenario is similar to one outlined by insurance giant Lloyds of London in a “Food System Shock” report issued in 2015. Argentina – the world’s largest exporter of soybeans, third-largest exporter of corn, and seventh-largest wheat exporter, according to the USDA – played an important role in both scenarios.
Top corn exporting nations
U.S. 31%
Brazil 21%
Argentina 19%
Ukraine 16%
E.U. 2%
Top soybean exporting nations
Argentina 41%
Brazil 24%
U.S. 18%
India 3%
Paraguay 3%
Top wheat exporting nations
E.U. 18%
Russia 18%
Australia 12%
Ukraine 12%
U.S. 11%
Canada 7%
Argentina 7%
Crops don’t like heat
Generally, crops have an optimal temperature for performance, and hotter temperatures result in a steep decline in yields.
For every degree Celsius increase in global mean temperature, yields are projected to decrease, on average, by about 7% for corn, 6% for wheat, 3% for rice, and 3% for soybeans.
These losses do not take into account additional losses from the drought conditions that typically accompany extreme heat.
However, the losses will be offset modestly by gains in plant growth as a result of increased carbon dioxide in the air that will stimulate plant growth (the CO2 fertilization effect).
A 2021 study led by Ariel Ortiz-Bobea, Anthropogenic climate change has slowed global agricultural productivity growth, found that the optimum global temperature for growing crops is quite cool, and occurred prior to 1961.
Since that year, global agricultural productivity has roughly doubled as a result of improvements in technology and practice, but climate change has cut into those benefits by around 21% – the equivalent of losing the past seven years of advances in agricultural technology (Figure 3).
The climate-change losses have been greatest across the tropics and the southern midlatitudes, including Argentina.
Drought interferes with shipping
Not only is the Argentina drought and heat wave hurting crops, it is also interfering with transportation of grain to foreign markets.
Argentina has experienced widespread drought, with rains 2-4 inches below average over the past two months, in the northeastern portion of the country where most of its crops are grown.
According to Reuters, drought conditions in January resulted in 30% less grain being loaded onto grain-carrying vessels because Argentina’s main grain-shipping superhighway, the Parana River, was near record-low levels.
There is little prospect for improved water levels in January, according to the Argentina National Water Institute.
How much might Argentina’s grain production suffer?
Drought is more likely in Argentina during La Niña conditions, as are currently present.
After a devastating La Niña-linked summer heat wave and drought hit the nation in late 2017 and early 2018, corn production in Argentina fell 22%, and soybean production fell 14% from the previous year’s harvest.
The drought cost $3.8 billion (2021 USD), making it Argentina’s most expensive weather-related disaster in history.
Corn prices in the U.S. rose 14% between December 2017 and February 2018, as U.S. exports covered the demand that Argentina could not satisfy; global food prices (as measured by the U.N.’s FAO Food Price Index) increased by 1.7% from January to February 2018.
Fortunately, international soybean prices did not increase significantly because of a large harvest in Brazil.
As in 2017-2018, the current heat wave and drought has the potential to cause significant crop losses, but with summer in the Southern Hemisphere only half complete, it is unclear how the rest of the growing season will play out.
Cooler temperatures and beneficial rains of 1-3 inches are predicted for much of the grain-producing area of Argentina during the week of January 16-22, as a strong cold front pushes northward.
And long-range model forecasts do not show unusual heat developing over Argentina during the latter part of January, giving hope that this year’s drought will be less severe than that in 2017-2018.
But with the ongoing pandemic likely to keep global food prices very high in 2022, the hit Argentina’s agriculture is taking from the current historic heat wave and drought is worrisome.
We’re going to need good harvests during the coming growing season in the Northern Hemisphere.
If the current drought in Argentina turns out to be as bad as the drought of 2017-2018, and two other major global breadbaskets are hit by exceptional 1-in-50-year droughts this summer, we could see dangerously high global food prices capable of causing a global emergency.
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In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state. Food, Climate & Agriculture |
Lorenz wrote:
"At one point I decided to repeat some of the computations in order to examine what was happening in greater detail. I stopped the computer, typed in a line of numbers that it had printed out a while earlier, and set it running again. I went down the hall for a cup of coffee and returned after about an hour, during which time the computer had simulated about two months of weather. The numbers being printed were nothing like the old ones. I immediately suspected a weak vacuum tube or some other computer trouble, which was not uncommon, but before calling for service I decided to see just where the mistake had occurred, knowing that this could speed up the servicing process. Instead of a sudden break, I found that the new values at first repeated the old ones, but soon afterward differed by one and then several units in the last decimal place, and then began to differ in the next to the last place and then in the place before that. In fact, the differences more or less steadily doubled in size every four days or so, until all resemblance with the original output disappeared somewhere in the second month. This was enough to tell me what had happened: the numbers that I had typed in were not the exact original numbers, but were the rounded-off values that had appeared in the original printout. The initial round-off errors were the culprits; they were steadily amplifying until they dominated the solution." (E. N. Lorenz, The Essence of Chaos, U. Washington Press, Seattle (1993), page 134)[7]
Elsewhere he stated:
One meteorologist remarked that if the theory were correct, one flap of a sea gull's wings would be enough to alter the course of the weather forever. The controversy has not yet been settled, but the most recent evidence seems to favor the sea gulls.
23-NOV 2015 I cannot help feeling we are like frogs in boiling water. We have created massive interference in the "cosmic tuning" phenomenon http://bit.ly/2Nuxi76
Bread, freedom and social justice were the three main goals of the 2011 uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak https://bit.ly/3zOMqWr
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Khartoum’s protesters will not yield. “We will continue to protest, even when they fire tear gas at us, even if they shoot us,” shouts Hind Abdelrahman @thecontinent_ Africa |
“And we will do it alone if no one wants to help us.”
Instead of losing steam, pro-democracy demonstrations are gathering pace. A protest on 25 November took place in 23 locations across the country. Synchronised protests on December 25 took place in 30 different locations, including former war zones.
“They are hoping for a war of attrition,” says Cameron Hudson, senior fellow at the think-tank the Atlantic Council.
“By killing one or two protesters, the military is sending a deadly message to try and wear the protest movement down – but not so many so as to avoid international condemnation.”
10 NOV 14 : We need to ask ourselves; how many people can incumbent shoot stone cold dead in such a situation – 100, 1,000, 10,000? http://bit.ly/2PoFJTD
We need to ask ourselves; how many people can incumbent shoot stone cold dead in such a situation – 100, 1,000, 10,000?
This is another point: there is a threshold beyond which the incumbent can’t go. Where that threshold lies will be discovered in the throes of the event.
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Goïta-led regime had proposed a timeline of as much as five years for elections originally scheduled for next month. Many democratically elected presidents in the region serve terms of just four years @thecontinent_ Africa |
But Ecowas’s turn as a staunch defender of democracy is perhaps a little surprising.
The region has seen a surge of democratic backsliding over the last few years.
Dodgy constitutional amendments have elongated tenures in Guinea (Alpha Condé has since been deposed by putschists) and Côte d’Ivoire (where Alassane Ouattara reneged on a promise to not run for a third term).
Quasi- and full-blown dictatorships abound. In Togo, Faure Gnassingbé has been in power since 2005; Ali Bongo became Gabon’s leader four years later. Both inherited their posts from their long-serving dictator fathers who expired in office.
Beyond mildly worded condemnations, nary a peep has been heard from Ecowas in any of these cases.
Consider Mali’s argument: that Ecowas is being used as a Trojan Horse for grievances held by powers outside the bloc.
This argument is made in the junta’s statement released Monday. Ecowas, Mali said, is being “exploited by extra-regional powers with ulterior motives”.
One does not need to read tea leaves to know this broadside is directed at a certain République that used to be the colonial master of eight of the bloc’s fifteen member states.
France has been vehemently opposed to Wagner’s presence in Mali. In December, it led 14 other Western nations to sharply criticize Russia and Mali.
The Malian junta repeatedly denied it had struck any deal with Wagner.
But pictures published on Monday by France24 (a broadcaster owned by the French state) showed that Wagner’s men are already present in Segou, a town in south-central Mali.
Russia is proving to be a new friend, a security partner in Mali’s time of need.
Alongside China, Russia blocked the UN Security Council from issuing a statement supporting the Ecowas sanctions. A day later, Mali, a country with exactly zero participants in next month’s Beijing Winter Olympics, issued a statement of support for the Games that has been diplomatically boycotted by the West. What is becoming increasingly clear is that Mali is at the centre of a dangerous geopolitical game.
Turning To Africa
Democracy has been shredded.
We are getting closer and closer to the Virilian Tipping Point
“The revolutionary contingent attains its ideal form not in the place of production, but in the street''
Political leadership in most cases completely gerontocratic will use violence to cling onto Power but any Early Warning System would be warning a Tsunami is coming
28 OCT 19 :: From Russia with Love
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