Where Boeing Went Wrong

  This is a short but accurate article on how Boeing went wrong. 

  A long litany of mistakes over 40 years culminating in the recent Woke policies. 

  The company is probably beyond repair as you cannot undo the damage and recreate the engineering culture over a few months. These things take years to build in a positive environment. (which is not exactly where we are now!)

  The worst part of it is that many other corporations in the US are on the same trajectory. The end result will of course be similar.

  The last, elusive?, hope for the US is that Elon Musk would feel like building planes...

There's No Conspiracy--The Truth Is Sadder Than That

Fischer King elaborates a bit in a X post:

I can explain Boeing quickly. It attained a market dominant position in the USA following the merger with McDonnell Douglas. This made it lazy. It then got new management, which emphasized financial chicanery over top flight engineering, symbolized in its move of its corporate HQ from Seattle to Chicago. The financial geniuses then worked to break the union, shift production away from its trained Seattle work force to places like South Carolina, and outsource production of most plane components abroad - the American work force was left to assemble all these disparate parts rather than produce them here. Software was also outsourced. The end result was lower quality of aircraft, delays in development and production, and even fatalities from crashes. But rest assured the management in Chicago did very well.

Meanwhile, by focusing on MBAs and JDs rather than engineers, top management fell victim to all the pathologies coming out of top schools. This is where the DEI nonsense comes from, which would have been much harder to impose if management were more focused on building good planes than stock buybacks. So the outsourcing, cost cutting, diminishing the original work force - all this is now working in tandem with the sort of diversity/DEI dysfunction visible all over corporate America. It’s a feedback loop that could be fatal to Boeing, and has already been fatal to someone airline passengers.

This is basically it. It’s not an elaborate conspiracy. It’s a tale of greed and dysfunction that you can see all over America.

Trust in the MSM is crashing!

  If you read this blog, it is probably because your trust in the Mainstream Medias is at an all time low and like many people you are looking for independent information. You are not alone. In fact you are now part of the majority. Welcome to the club.

 

 

Western troops in Ukraine: How a big lie could lead to the biggest war

  We are quickly approaching a crossroad with the war in Ukraine. The problem is that the West has put all its eggs in the broken Ukraine basket but as Macron recently explained, calling it quit now would deal a fatal blow to Europe's credibility. 

  So what will it be: Credibility of WW3?

Via RT

The current situation in the conflict between Ukraine – serving (while being demolished) as a proxy for the West – and Russia, can be sketched in three broad strokes.

First, Russia now clearly has the upper hand on the battlefield and could potentially accelerate its recent advances to achieve an overall military victory soon. The West is being compelled to recognize this fact: as Foreign Affairs put it, in an article titled “Time is Running Out in Ukraine,” Kiev and its Western supporters “are at a critical decision point and face a fundamental question: How can further Russian advances… be stopped, and then reversed?” Just disregard the bit of wishful thinking thrown in at the end to sweeten the bitter pill of reality. The key point is the acknowledgment that it is crunch time for the West and Ukraine – in a bad way.

Second, notwithstanding the above, Ukraine is not yet ready to ask for negotiations to end the war on terms acceptable to Russia, which would be less than easy for Kiev. (Russian President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, reiterated in an important recent interview that Moscow remains principally open to talks, not on the basis of “wishful thinking” but, instead, proceeding from the realities “on the ground.”)

The Kiev regime’s inflexibility is little wonder. Since he jettisoned a virtually complete – and favorable – peace deal in the spring of 2022, President Vladimir Zelensky has gambled everything on an always improbable victory. For him personally, as well as his core team (at least), there is no way to survive – politically or physically – the catastrophic defeat they have brought on their country by leasing it out as a pawn to the Washington neocon strategy.

The Pope, despite the phony brouhaha he triggered in Kiev and the West, was right: a responsible Ukrainian leadership ought to negotiate. But that’s not the leadership Ukraine has. Not yet at least.

Third, the West’s strategy is getting harder to decipher because, in essence, the West cannot figure out how to adjust to the failure of its initial plans for this war. Russia has not been isolated; its military has become stronger, not weaker – and the same is true of its economy, including its arms industry.

And last but not least, the Russian political system’s popular legitimacy and effective control has neither collapsed nor even frayed. As, again, even Foreign Affairs admits, “Putin would likely win a fair election in 2024.” That’s more than could be said for, say, Joe Biden, Rishi Sunak, Olaf Scholz, or Emmanuel Macron (as for Zelensky, he has simply canceled the election).

In other words, the West is facing not only Ukraine’s probable defeat, but also its own strategic failure. The situation, while not a direct military rout (as in Afghanistan in 2021) amounts to a severe political setback.

In fact, this looming Western failure is a historic debacle in the making. Unlike with Afghanistan, the West will not be able to simply walk away from the mess it has made in Ukraine. This time, the geopolitical blowback will be fierce and the costs very high. Instead of isolating Russia, the West has isolated itself, and by losing, it will show itself weakened.

It is one thing to have to finally, belatedly accepted that the deceptive “unipolar” moment of the 1990s has been over for a long time. It is much worse to gratuitously enter the new multipolar order with a stunning, avoidable self-demotion. Yet that is what the EU/NATO-West has managed to fabricate from its needless over-extension in Ukraine. Hubris there has been galore, the fall now is only a matter of time – and not much time at that.

Regarding EU-Europe in particular, on one thing French President Emmanuel Macron is half right. Russia’s victory “would reduce Europe’s credibility to zero.” Except, of course, a mind of greater Cartesian precision would have detected that Moscow’s victory will merely be the last stage in a longer process.

The deeper causes of EU/NATO-Europe’s loss of global standing are threefold. First, its own wanton decision to seek confrontation instead of a clearly feasible compromise and cooperation with Russia (why exactly is a neutral Ukraine impossible to live with again?) Second, the American strategy of systematically diminishing EU/NATO-Europe with a short-sighted policy of late-imperial client cannibalization which takes the shape of aggressive deindustrialization and a “Europeanization” of the war in Ukraine. And third, the European clients’ grotesque acquiescence to the above.

That is the background to a recent wave of mystifying signals coming out of Western, especially EU/NATO elites: First, we have had a wave of scare propaganda to accompany the biggest NATO maneuvers since the end of the Cold War. Next Macron publicly declared and has kept reiterating that the open – not in covert-but-obvious mode, as now – deployment of Western ground troops in Ukraine is an option. He added a cheap demagogic note by calling on Europeans not to be “cowards,” by which he means that they should be ready to follow, in effect, his orders and fight Russia, clearly including inside and on behalf of Ukraine. Never mind that the latter is a not an official member of either NATO or the EU as well as a highly corrupt and anything but democratic state.

In response, a divergence has surfaced inside EU/NATO Europe: The German government has been most outspoken in contradicting Macron. Not only Chancellor Scholz rushed to distance himself. A clearly outraged Boris Pistorius – Berlin’s hapless minister of defense, recently tripped up by his own generals’ stupendously careless indiscretion over the Taurus missiles – has grumbled that there is no need for “talk about boots on the ground or having more courage or less courage.” Perhaps more surprisingly, Poland, the Czech Republic as well as NATO figurehead Jens Stoltenberg (i.e., the US) have been quick to state that they are, in effect, not ready to support Macron’s initiative. The French public, by the way, is not showing any enthusiasm for a Napoleonic escalation either. A Le Figaro poll shows 68 percent against openly sending ground troops to Ukraine.

On the other side, Macron has found some support. He is not entirely isolated, which helps explain why he has dug in his heels: Zelensky does not count in this respect. His bias is obvious, and his usual delusions notwithstanding he is not calling the shots on the matter. The Baltic states, however, while military micro-dwarfs, are, unfortunately, in a position to exert some influence inside the EU and NATO. And true to form, they have sided with the French president, with Estonia and Lithuania taking the lead.

It remains impossible to be certain what we are looking at. To get the most far-fetched hypothesis out of the way first: is this a coordinated bluff with a twist? A complicated Western attempt at playing good-cop bad-cop against Russia, with Macron launching the threats and others signaling that Moscow could find them less extreme, at a diplomatic price, of course? Hardly. For one thing, that scheme would be so hare-brained, even the current West is unlikely to try. No, the crack opening up in Western unity is real.

Regarding Macron himself, too-clever-by-half, counter-productive cunning is his style. We cannot know what exactly he is trying to do; and he may not know himself. In essence, there are two possibilities. Either the French president now is a hard-core escalationist determined to widen the war into an open clash between Russia and NATO, or he is a high-risk gambler who is engaged in a bluff to achieve three purposes. Frighten Moscow into abstaining from pushing its military advantage in Ukraine (a hopeless idea); score nationalist “grandeur” points domestically in France (which is failing already); and increase his weight inside EU/NATO-Europe by “merely” posturing as, once again, a new “Churchill” – whom Macron himself has made sure to allude to, in all his modesty. (And some of his fans, including Zelensky, a grizzled veteran of Churchill live action role play, have already made that de rigueur if stale comparison.)

While we cannot entirely unriddle the moody sphinx of the Elysée or, for that matter, the murky dealings of EU/NATO-European elites, we can say two things. First, whatever Macron thinks he is doing, it is extremely dangerous. Russia would treat EU/NATO-state troops in Ukraine as targets – and it won’t matter one wit if they turn up labeled “NATO” or under national flags “only.” Russia has also reiterated that it considers its vital interests affected in Ukraine and that if its leadership perceives a vital threat to Russia, nuclear weapons are an option. The warning could not be clearer.

Second, here is the core Western problem that is now – due to Russia undeniably winning the war – becoming acute: Western elites are split between “pragmatists” and “extremists.” The pragmatists are as Russophobic and strategically misguided as the extremists, but they do shy away from World War Three. Yet these pragmatists, who seek to resist hard-core escalationists and reign it at least high-risk gamblers, are brought up short against a crippling contradiction in their own position and messaging: As of now, they still share the same delusional narrative with the extremists. Both groupings keep reiterating that Russia plans to attack all of EU/NATO-Europe once it defeats Ukraine and that, therefore, stopping Russia in Ukraine is, literally, vital (or in Macron’s somewhat Sartrean terms “existential”) to the West.

That narrative is absurd. Reality works exactly the other way around: The most certain way to get into a war with Russia is to send troops to Ukraine openly. And what is existential for EU/NATO-Europe is to finally liberate itself from American “leadership.” During the Cold War, a case could be made that (then Western) Europe needed the US. After the Cold War, though, that was no longer the case. In response, Washington has implemented a consistent, multi-administration, bipartisan, if often crude, strategy of avoiding what should have been inevitable: the emancipation of Europe from American dominance.

Both the eastward expansion of NATO, programmed – and predicted – to cause a massive conflict with Russia and the current proxy war in Ukraine, obstinately provoked by Washington over decades, are part of that strategy to – to paraphrase a famous saying about NATO – “keep Europe down.” And the European elites have played along as if there’s no tomorrow, which, for them, there really may not be.

We are at a potential breaking-point, a crisis of that long-term trajectory. If the pragmatists in EU/NATO-Europe really want to contain the extremists, who play with triggering an open war between Russia and NATO that would devastate at least Europe, then they must now come clean and, finally, abandon the common, ideological, and entirely unrealistic narrative about an existential threat from Moscow.

As long as the pragmatists dare not challenge the escalationists on how to principally understand the causes of the current catastrophe, the extremists will always have the advantage of consistency: Their policies are foolish, wastefully unnecessary, and extremely risky. And yet, they follow from what the West has made itself believe. It is high time to break that spell of self-hypnosis, and face facts.

Zionists Have a, “Major, Major, Major,” TikTok Problem

  TikTok, China? Think again. A very, very, very interesting angle of the TikTok saga!

  Just follow the link below to X / Twitter.

Zionists Have a, “Major, Major, Major,” TikTok Problem

 

The War Between Knowledge And Stupidity

   Just looking at what's going on in the news, we sometimes forget about the bigger picture. It is especially easy when history is accelerating as it is now with the risk of not understanding the direction we're heading to. The difference between good and bad, right and wrong can be confusing when we are talking about the future as a consequence of decisions being taken now. Then, what about the distinction between knowledge and stupidity? Inseparable twins? Fine. Then how do we tilt the scale in the right direction?

Authored by Bert Olivier via The Brownstone Institute,

Bernard Stiegler was, until his premature death, probably the most important philosopher of technology of the present. His work on technology has shown us that, far from being exclusively a danger to human existence, it is a pharmakon – a poison as well as a cure – and that, as long as we approach technology as a means to ‘critical intensification,’ it could assist us in promoting the causes of enlightenment and freedom.

It is no exaggeration to say that making believable information and credible analysis available to citizens at present is probably indispensable for resisting the behemoth of lies and betrayal confronting us. This has never been more necessary than it is today, given that we face what is probably the greatest crisis in the history of humanity, with nothing less than our freedom, let alone our lives, at stake. 

To be able to secure this freedom against the inhuman forces threatening to shackle it today, one could do no better than to take heed of what Stiegler argues in States of Shock: Stupidity and Knowledge in the 21st Century (2015). Considering what he writes here it is hard to believe that it was not written today (p. 15): 

The impression that humanity has fallen under the domination of unreason or madness [déraison] overwhelms our spirit, confronted as we are with systemic collapses, major technological accidents, medical or pharmaceutical scandals, shocking revelations, the unleashing of the drives, and acts of madness of every kind and in every social milieu – not to mention the extreme misery and poverty that now afflict citizens and neighbours both near and far.

While these words are certainly as applicable to our current situation as it was almost 10 years ago, Stiegler was in fact engaged in an interpretive analysis of the role of banks and other institutions – aided and abetted by certain academics – in the establishment of what he terms a ‘literally suicidal financial system’ (p. 1). (Anyone who doubts this can merely view the award-winning documentary film of 2010, Inside Job, by Charles Ferguson, which Stiegler also mentions on p.1.) He explains further as follows (p. 2): 

Western universities are in the grip of a deep malaise, and a number of them have found themselves, through some of their faculty, giving consent to – and sometimes considerably compromised by – the implementation of a financial system that, with the establishment of hyper-consumerist, drive-based and ‘addictogenic’ society, leads to economic and political ruin on a global scale. If this has occurred, it is because their goals, their organizations and their means have been put entirely at the service of the destruction of sovereignty. That is, they have been placed in the service of the destruction of sovereignty as conceived by the philosophers of what we call the Enlightenment…

In short, Stiegler was writing about the way in which the world was being prepared, across the board – including the highest levels of education – for what has become far more conspicuous since the advent of the so-called ‘pandemic’ in 2020, namely an all-out attempt to cause the collapse of civilisation as we knew it, at all levels, with the thinly disguised goal in mind of installing a neo-fascist, technocratic, global regime which would exercise power through AI-controlled regimes of obedience. The latter would centre on ubiquitous facial recognition technology, digital identification, and CBDCs (which would replace money in the usual sense). 

Given the fact that all of this is happening around us, albeit in a disguised fashion, it is astonishing that relatively few people are conscious of the unfolding catastrophe, let alone being critically engaged in disclosing it to others who still inhabit the land where ignorance is bliss. Not that this is easy. Some of my relatives are still resistant to the idea that the ‘democratic carpet’ is about to be pulled from under their feet. Is this merely a matter of ‘stupidity?’ Stiegler writes about stupidity (p.33):

…knowledge cannot be separated from stupidity. But in my view: (1) this is a pharmacological situation; (2) stupidity is the law of the pharmakon; and (3) the pharmakon is the law of knowledge, and hence a pharmacology for our age must think the pharmakon that I am also calling, today, the shadow. 

In my previous post I wrote about the media as pharmaka (plural of pharmakon), showing how, on the one hand, there are (mainstream) media which function as ‘poison,’ while on the other there are (alternative) media that play the role of ‘cure.’ Here, by linking the pharmakon with stupidity, Stiegler alerts one to the (metaphorically speaking) ‘pharmacological’ situation, that knowledge is inseparable from stupidity: where there is knowledge, the possibility of stupidity always asserts itself, and vice versa. Or in terms of what he calls ‘the shadow,’ knowledge always casts a shadow, that of stupidity. 

Anyone who doubts this may only cast their glance at those ‘stupid’ people who still believe that the Covid ‘vaccines’ are ‘safe and effective,’ or that wearing a mask would protect them against infection by ‘the virus.’ Or, more currently, think of those – the vast majority in America – who routinely fall for the Biden administration’s (lack of an) explanation of its reasons for allowing thousands of people to cross the southern – and more recently also the northern – border. Several alternative sources of news and analysis have lifted the veil on this, revealing that the influx is not only a way of destabilising the fabric of society, but possibly a preparation for civil war in the United States. 

There is a different way of explaining this widespread ‘stupidity,’ of course – one that I have used before to explain why most philosophers have failed humanity miserably, by failing to notice the unfolding attempt at a global coup d’etat, or at least, assuming that they did notice it, to speak up against it. These ‘philosophers’ include all the other members of the philosophy department where I work, with the honourable exception of the departmental assistant, who is, to her credit, wide awake to what has been occurring in the world. They also include someone who used to be among my philosophical heroes, to wit, Slavoj Žižek, who fell for the hoax hook, line, and sinker.

In brief, this explanation of philosophers’ stupidity – and by extension that of other people – is twofold. First there is ‘repression’ in the psychoanalytic sense of the term (explained at length in both the papers linked in the previous paragraph), and secondly there is something I did not elaborate on in those papers, namely what is known as ‘cognitive dissonance.’ The latter phenomenon manifests itself in the unease that people exhibit when they are confronted by information and arguments that are not commensurate, or conflict, with what they believe, or which explicitly challenge those beliefs. The usual response is to find standard, or mainstream-approved responses to this disruptive information, brush it under the carpet, and life goes on as usual.

‘Cognitive dissonance’ is actually related to something more fundamental, which is not mentioned in the usual psychological accounts of this unsettling experience. Not many psychologists deign to adduce repression in their explanation of disruptive psychological conditions or problems encountered by their clients these days, and yet it is as relevant as when Freud first employed the concept to account for phenomena such as hysteria or neurosis, recognising, however, that it plays a role in normal psychology too. What is repression? 

In The Language of Psychoanalysis (p. 390), Jean Laplanche and Jean-Bertrand Pontalis describe ‘repression’ as follows: 

Strictly speaking, an operation whereby the subject attempts to repel, or to confine to the unconscious, representations (thoughts, images, memories) which are bound to an instinct. Repression occurs when to satisfy an instinct – though likely to be pleasurable in itself – would incur the risk of provoking unpleasure because of other requirements. 

 …It may be looked upon as a universal mental process to so far as it lies at the root of the constitution of the unconscious as a domain separate from the rest of the psyche. 

In the case of the majority of philosophers, referred to earlier, who have studiously avoided engaging critically with others on the subject of the (non-)‘pandemic’ and related matters, it is more than likely that repression occurred to satisfy the instinct of self-preservation, regarded by Freud as being equally fundamental as the sexual instinct. Here, the representations (linked to self-preservation) that are confined to the unconscious through repression are those of death and suffering associated with the coronavirus that supposedly causes Covid-19, which are repressed because of being intolerable. The repression of (the satisfaction of) an instinct, mentioned in the second sentence of the first quoted paragraph, above, obviously applies to the sexual instinct, which is subject to certain societal prohibitions. Cognitive dissonance is therefore symptomatic of repression, which is primary. 

Returning to Stiegler’s thesis concerning stupidity, it is noteworthy that the manifestations of such inanity are not merely noticeable among the upper echelons of society; worse – there seems to be, by and large, a correlation between those in the upper classes, with college degrees, and stupidity.

In other words, it is not related to intelligence per se. This is apparent, not only in light of the initially surprising phenomenon pertaining to philosophers’ failure to speak up in the face of the evidence, that humanity is under attack, discussed above in terms of repression. 

Dr Reiner Fuellmich, one of the first individuals to realise that this was the case, and subsequently brought together a large group of international lawyers and scientists to testify in the ‘court of public opinion’ (see 29 min. 30 sec. into the video) on various aspects of the currently perpetrated ‘crime against humanity,’ has drawn attention to the difference between the taxi drivers he talks to about the globalists’ brazen attempt to enslave humanity, and his learned legal colleagues as far as awareness of this ongoing attempt is concerned. In contrast with the former, who are wide awake in this respect, the latter – ostensibly more intellectually qualified and ‘informed’ – individuals are blissfully unaware that their freedom is slipping away by the day, probably because of cognitive dissonance, and behind that, repression of this scarcely digestible truth.

This is stupidity, or the ‘shadow’ of knowledge, which is recognisable in the sustained effort by those afflicted with it, when confronted with the shocking truth of what is occurring worldwide, to ‘rationalise’ their denial by repeating spurious assurances issued by agencies such as the CDC, that the Covid ‘vaccines’ are ‘safe and effective,’ and that this is backed up by ‘the science.’ 

Here a lesson from discourse theory is called for. Whether one refers to natural science or to social science in the context of some particular scientific claim – for example, Einstein’s familiar theory of special relativity (e=mc2) under the umbrella of the former, or David Riesman’s sociological theory of ‘inner-’ as opposed to ‘other-directedness’ in social science – one never talks about ‘the science,’ and for good reason. Science is science. The moment one appeals to ‘the science,’ a discourse theorist would smell the proverbial rat.

Why? Because the definite article, ‘the,’ singles out a specific, probably dubious, version of science compared to science as such, which does not need being elevated to special status. In fact, when this is done through the use of ‘the,’ you can bet your bottom dollar it is no longer science in the humble, hard-working, ‘belonging-to-every-person’ sense. If one’s sceptical antennae do not immediately start buzzing when one of the commissars of the CDC starts pontificating about ‘the science,’ one is probably similarly smitten by the stupidity that’s in the air. 

Earlier I mentioned the sociologist David Riesman and his distinction between ‘inner-directed’ and ‘other-directed’ people. It takes no genius to realise that, to navigate one’s course through life relatively unscathed by peddlers of corruption, it is preferable to take one’s bearings from ‘inner direction’ by a set of values which promotes honesty and eschews mendacity, than from the ‘direction by others.’ Under present circumstances such other-directedness applies to the maze of lies and misinformation emanating from various government agencies as well as from certain peer groups, which today mostly comprise the vociferously self-righteous purveyors of the mainstream version of events. Inner-directness in the above sense, when constantly renewed, could be an effective guardian against stupidity. 

Recall that Stiegler warned against the ‘deep malaise’ at contemporary universities in the context of what he called an ‘addictogenic’ society – that is, a society that engenders addictions of various kinds. Judging by the popularity of the video platform TikTok at schools and colleges, its use had already reached addiction levels by 2019, which raises the question, whether it should be appropriated by teachers as a ‘teaching tool,’ or whether it should, as some people think, be outlawed completely in the classroom.

Recall that, as an instance of video technology, TikTok is an exemplary embodiment of the pharmakon, and that, as Stiegler has emphasised, stupidity is the law of the pharmakon, which is, in turn, the law of knowledge. This is a somewhat confusing way of saying that knowledge and stupidity cannot be separated; where knowledge is encountered, its other, stupidity, lurks in the shadows. 

Reflecting on the last sentence, above, it is not difficult to realise that, parallel to Freud’s insight concerning Eros and Thanatos, it is humanly impossible for knowledge to overcome stupidity once and for all. At certain times the one will appear to be dominant, while on different occasions the reverse will apply. Judging by the fight between knowledge and stupidity today, the latter ostensibly still has the upper hand, but as more people are awakening to the titanic struggle between the two, knowledge is in the ascendant. It is up to us to tip the scales in its favour – as long as we realise that it is a never-ending battle.

This Terrifying Alex Jones Prediction Has Just Come True (Russell Brand - 26mn)

  The US is slowly heading towards martial law, there can be little doubts about this. Europe will follow suit. Democracy was a luxury that Western countries just cannot afford anymore. In any case, a majority of people do not value it much and almost none will fight to defend it. 

  Who in any case could argue that it wasn't necessary to curtail democracy and freedom to fight against: terrorism, virus, domestic extremists... and eventually just implement a permanent martial law to make sure we are all safe in our golden prison? Just don't call it for what it is and we are all fine. If we just pretend we are free, cheers at positive economic news and elect once in a while politicians who have been selected for us by the oligarchs who pay them more and more directly, then all will be fine an this Brave New World. 

 Sure Alex Jones was right, but more ominously so was Aldous Huxley long before!

 

Dangers of the Electronic Car

  One more reason NOT to go electric. One reason you want to be in charge of the car is to be able to do "something" when things go wrong. Being stuck in the car with no control whatsoever? Is there a worse way to die?

Guest Post by Eric Peters

You may have heard about the death of the woman who was killed by her Tesla when she inadvertently backed it into a pond and then discovered – as it slowly sank into the pond – that she could not open the door to get out.

She eventually drowned.

The woman – who happened to be the billionaire sister-in-law of Mitch “dirty turtle” McConnell, the glitching front-man for the other half of the Uniparty in the Senate – made the mistake of buying an electronically controlled car. Her Tesla did not have mechanical door pulls; instead, the doors are opened and closed by push-button electric actuators and computers that require electricity to operate. Computer-controlled electronics don’t work very well when immersed; try it with your smartphone and see.

So, when Agenla Chao – the now-dead woman – backed up her car into the pond, the water shorted out the door controls and they could not be unlocked or opened. This resulted in her slow death-by drowning, as it took a while for the Tesla to go totally under. In the meanwhile, she reportedly had time to call/text for help – which came in plenty of time – to watch her drown. Had she backed up into that pond with just about any other car, the people who came to her aid would have had plenty of time to get a door open – and get her out.

But they weren’t able to, because it was a Tesla.

These electronically controlled devices also don’t work very well when dry.

Apparently, the accident itself occurred as a result of Chao’s inadvertently tapping Reverse when she wanted Drive. Italicized to draw attention to the fact that – in Chao’s Tesla – there is no gear selector in the usual/physical sense of a lever that moves back-and-forth from Park through Reverse, then Neutral and Drive, etc. Instead, there is an icon on the touchscreen that the user – to call this person a driver is as silly as calling the person who rides an amusement park carousel horse an equestrian – taps to select forward and backward and so on.

It’s easy to make a mistake because there is no feel – other than the sensation of tapping the screen. It is not like pulling a lever backward – and past Reverse to Drive, which has a definite feel to it – though less so in most modern cars because the selector is now also an electronic  control. Still, there’s a higher degree of physicality. Much more so than the tapping of what amount to apps. When you are tapping your smartphone’s screen, how often do you make a mistake?

Chao’s was fatal.

Boeing Whistleblower: "If Anything Happens to Me, It's Not Suicide"

  "Who are you going to believe: Me or your own eyes?"

  Usually, I try to stay clear of such news, but this is an exception. 

  The guy told us explicitly that he was NOT going to commit suicide. And here we are. How criminal can the system be?

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Modernity.news,

The Boeing whistleblower who supposedly killed himself reportedly told a close family friend not to believe it if it was announced he had committed suicide.

62-year-old John Barnett died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the Charleston County coroner’s office in South Carolina said earlier this week.

Barnett had previously raised concerns about the company’s production issues having worked for the company for 32 years before leaving in 2017.

According to his attorneys, Barnett had “exposed very serious safety problems with the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and was retaliated against and subjected to a hostile work environment” and was in the middle of a legal deposition against Boeing.

“He was in very good spirits and really looking forward to putting this phase of his life behind him and moving on. We didn’t see any indication he would take his own life. No one can believe it,” said the attorneys.

It now turns out Barnett was telling close friends not to believe it if he supposedly committed suicide.

After family friend Jennifer asked Barnett if he was concerned for his safety, the former quality manager was emphatic.

“Aren’t you scared?” asked Jennifer. “And he said, ‘No, I ain’t scared, but if anything happens to me, it’s not suicide.'”

“I know that he did not commit suicide. There’s no way. He loved life too much. He loved his family too much. He loved his brothers too much to put them through what they’re going through right now,” she added.

According to the family friend, somebody, presumably representing Boeing, “didn’t like what he had to say” and wanted to “shut him up” without it coming back to anyone.

“That’s why they made it look like a suicide,” Jennifer said, who last saw the whistleblower in late February.

Barnett’s attorneys said they’re still prepared to go forward with the case in June.

59% of Investors Concerned About Greenwashing In Financial Industry

  What happens when people stop believing? Every single religion has to face this daunting risk. "Green" is no different. 

  Ecology is about respecting the world around you and understanding that we are part of it. Nature doesn't need to be saved, just not to be systematically destroyed for a quick profit. 

 Unfortunately "quick profit" is very much what our modern civilization is all about. So that part cannot change. What can change is green washing our activities and that is very much what "green" is all about. 

  You create fanciful enemies, CO2 for example, against which "war" is completely meaningless since carbon is THE essential element for life and on you go. Producing "less" carbon, even though the new processes usually consist in exporting carbon production to China (or other countries) and creating new cycles with elements which are far more polluting: Lithium, rare earths and a litany of metallic compounds all worse than what they replace. 

  What we need is a paradigm shift but the definition is not compatible with changing nothing which is more or less how people understand "green". What about product cycle instead of production and consumption? We're not there yet to put it mildly.      

Via City A.M.,

• Most investors with supposedly sustainable ISAs unknowingly support banks funding fossil fuels.

• Many believe sustainable funds cannot include fossil fuel companies, highlighting a lack of understanding.

• Young investors are more skeptical of greenwashing practices by financial institutions.

A majority of investors that picked their ISA based on sustainability credentials actually have their cash in providers classified as ‘worst’ for their environmental impact, new research has revealed.

Analysis from Triodos Bank UK found that investors were failing to understand the sustainability implications of where they put their money.

The research found that a majority of people (55 percent) who have a stocks and shares ISA with a provider classified as the worst on sustainability, according to Ethical Consumer rankings, actually think that their money is in a ‘green‘ ISA.

Investors are also not fully informed about the extent of what labels can be applied to ISAs, especially if they seem counter-intuitive.

For example, half of consumers don’t believe a fund or savings account can be classed as ‘sustainable’ if it includes fossil fuel companies – even those that also invest in renewable energy.

However, a sustainable label can still be slapped on a fund that invests in fossil fuels, especially if the fund claims it is working on engaging with the polluter to pressure it to cut its emissions.

Meanwhile, 55 percent of investors said they didn’t even know if their ISA was using their money in an environmentally friendly way.

Investors are clearly pushing for more sustainable investment, as 47 percent of people said that banks should not be investing in fossil fuel expansion, rising to 57 percent of 18–34 year olds.

Young investors are also more sceptical of the claims made by financial institutions, with 36 percent thinking their ISA providers are likely to be engaging in greenwashing, compared to just 10 percent of over 55s.

Roger Hattam, director of retail banking at Triodos Bank UK, said that the findings demonstrated “the worrying truth about how well-intentioned consumers are being misled about how their money is being invested”.

The Financial Conduct Authority is set to bring in new anti-greenwashing rules later this year, but the research found only 10 percent of investors were aware of the new rules.

However, Hattam described the new rules as “desperately needed”, and more than half (59 percent) of investors said they were concerned about greenwashing in the financial services industry,

“There are millions of consumers wanting their money to align with their values, but this is not yet matched with real industry commitment to clearly signpost what causes their money is actually supporting,” added Hattam.

“As well as actively screening out negatives – such as never investing in fossil fuel companies – to truly invest in people and the planet, banks need to actively fund areas that are changing the world for the better.”

Amateurs Talk Strategy, Professionals Talk Logistics

 

  Haven't seen articles from Michael Every at Rabobank for quite some time.

  Here's one below. Plenty to worry about. (And that's from an investment banker, not from a nuts survivalist going off rails!) 

By Michael Every of Rabobank

I start today with a reference to yesterday's Seinfeld focused Global Daily: a reader reminded me of the most appropriate George Costanza quote for our present times, which I had missed: "It's not a lie if you believe it." There is a lot of that about.

Of course, shills aside, a strategist should try not to lie to themself about what's going on in order to best predict what may happen. And how does one best look at what's going on? As I stress, start with precepts (how does the world work?), then look at logistics (how is the world working?). After all, as a US general once said, "amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics." What's true in war is true in peace, and more so as we dive deeper into an undeclared and, for markets, unrecognised economic war.

So let's look at some of the logistical dots that have just been plotted for us. (There a lot, so don't stop after just a few, or risk missing some of the best at the end!).

In the Middle East, the Red Sea crisis is getting worse: even if few are paying attention. Try to juice demand with large rate cuts into a supply squeeze and see what happens. The maritime aid flow from Cyprus to Gaza is now starting, but won't resolve distributional issues on the ground, and experts remain sceptical about the naval pier the United States has promised. President Biden just confirmed a $10bn sanctions waiver for Iran, who is backing the Houthis, weeks after making token military strikes on its regional forces (supposedly still ongoing) as payback for killing three US soldiers. In short, peace seems a long way off.

Russia reiterated it will use a nuclear weapon if threatened, even as Ukrainian drones destroy more Russian military factories deep into the latter's territory. Ukraine is also taking out Russian oil refineries: how many more of those before markets react? Yet the larger question is "where is Russia?" given various maps of it going round.

In Europe, the ECB launched an operational review which Bas van Geffen covers in detail here. There are lots of wonkish tweaks: one is the ECB will retain a strategic bond portfolio that includes SSA bonds issued by the European Investment Bank (EIB). At the same time, the EIB will soon consider investing in the EU defense sector.

As our SSA expert Matt Cairns notes, this comes post-Ukraine, pre-Trump, and mid German rejections of joint Eurobonds to fund arms spending. The use of the EIB may prove a path of ‘less resistance' given it already lends for dual use equipment like drones or helicopters. Agreement is likely to take time, and funding will only be raised gradually at first, but the EIB’s funding target is €60bn for 2024, with authorization of up to €65bn, allowing for upside flexibility. Going even higher would be a technical formality, although Matt considers this to be some way off politically. Yet the geopolitical backdrop is as urgent as Covid, which triggered past rapid action, given the long lag times to get defence goods flowing.

What one can also say is that such a development potentially looks like part of the radical European 'strategic autonomy' policy-shift framework we proposed back in December.

In the US, the BTFP bank support scheme has ended: and nothing bad has happened (yet). At the same time, the Fed overnight reverse repo balance has risen from $445bn back up to $522bn in two days. Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Yellen stated she does not expect US rates to decline back to their pre-COVID lows. Indeed, as Bloomberg puts it: “The three-month rate, for example, will average 5.1% this year, up from the 3.8% projected last March, White House officials said. The 10-year yield projection rose to 4.4% from 3.6%. The latter projection might have been even higher but for the intervention of Lael Brainard, director of the National Economic Council, according to people familiar with the matter prior to the release.”

If so, how are real term cuts in Pentagon spending going to be reversed ahead? Where or what is the US version of the EIB? Or are others globally going to have to do far more to stay safe in a world in which the US deliberately does far less, as it looks more to itself first?

That’s as the TikTok divestment bill passed the US House of Representatives with a huge bipartisan majority and has key backing in the Senate from some quarters, even if the body as a whole is more conservative (read: has different lobbyists) than the House; and if it passes there, President Biden has said he will sign it.

So, China is livid. So are those who worry what happens next to social media. This all seemingly swelled up 'from nothing', but didn't, and where this impetus might be directed next introduces further uncertainty into some markets.

In which, Trump is reported as floating various hedge fund billionaires as potential future Treasury Secretary should he win in 2024; but also former USTR Lighthizer, who is now an avowed Hamiltonian mercantilist. Ever heard of bait and switch? Or Hamilton? Or mercantilism?

There is more than enough acronymic-financial logistics action here than I can cover in detail today. But the underlying direction of travel seems to be fairly clear, unless you are an amateur, have something to sell, or are George Costanza.