Putin and Russia for sure. Oil companies that don't export via the gulf. Weapons manufacturers. Government insiders who can make investment decisions on classified information. Financial firms that can leverage the new volatility. You can add to the list. You won't find "regular people" on there.
“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914.I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in.I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street.I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912.I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916.I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903.In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested.Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”
Smedley Darlington Butler (July 30, 1881 – June 21, 1940) was an American major general in the United States Marine Corps. During his 34-year military career, he fought in the Philippine–American War, the Boxer Rebellion, the Mexican Revolution, World War I, and the Banana Wars. At the time of his death, Butler was the most decorated Marine in U.S. military history. By the end of his career, Butler had received sixteen medals, including five for heroism; he was awarded the Marine Corps Brevet Medal as well as two Medals of Honor, all for separate actions.
"Today I looked at a handwritten account book from 1717. It listed a series of expenses paid by the city of Leiden (the Dutch city where I live) to various suppliers - of books, papers, pens. Being a medieval book historian, any source made after 1500 is alien. Because I am used to handling parchment books, it was odd to handle a book that was made out of paper - and a lot of it, for that matter. Also new to me was the fact that related materials were held together by needles and to see dozens of rare actual receipts, small slips that were crossed out when paid. The biggest surprise, however, was the material that came falling out of the account book: sand..."Some readers here will already know the explanation for the sand; others can find the answer at Erik Kwakkel.
"The war is not meant to be won. It is meant to be continuous. The essential act of modern warfare is the destruction of the produce of human labor... The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects, and its object is not victory over Eurasia or Eastasia, but to keep the very structure of society intact."From the dialogue of the movie 1984. Via for screencap photo.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. . . .
This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.The full text of the speech is at this link.
"The data utilized in this map is derived from the PRISM available at prism.oregonstate.edu. The PRISM model is known for providing high spatial resolution climate data. This map covers the period from 1991 to 2020 in a 4x4km resolution. To adapt this detailed data for our map, we have processed it to calculate the average annual precipitation across each county. This involves aggregating the high-resolution data from PRISM to obtain an county-wide average."
This could be a brick called a 'clinker'Clinkers are bricks that have different properties than normal bricks. They are used as decoration, paving and for water proofing buildings.In the old days they fired bricks in a big kiln. All stacked on top of each other. They found that the bricks at the bottom experienced higher temperatures for longer. Turning them into a denser brick, closer to ceramic, that had a metallic "clink" sound when tapped with a hammer or another brick.For a time these clinkers were not wanted because they have a high thermal conductivity, meaning they transport heat and cold into/out of your house better, that's bad. Then someone figured out they make great road pavers. Being harder than normal bricks they take longer to wear out.Some people used them as building decorations because they are usually a darker colour than normal bricks. And some people realised that they are waterproof and started using them as the outside layer in double brick buildings. With increased demand they started to purposefully make clinkers for decoration, waterproofing and road paving.
The bear on the coat of arms of canton Bern will continue to display its red penis, the cantonal government has ruled... The cantonal government was responding to a written question from Liberal Green parliamentarian Thomas Brönnimann, who wondered whether it would not be more appropriate to depict the bear without its masculine attributes, so that the population as a whole would feel better represented... The bear has a tradition that goes back at least 600 years and has been represented in this way since the 15th century...The bear has always been depicted on official documents with a red phallus. In view of this tradition, the cantonal government believed that it was reasonable to continue to depict the bear in this way. Nor did it wish to conduct an online survey on the bear’s future appearance. In its view, such a survey would not be representative and would have little informative value.
