Broken Bromance.

President Donald J. Trump has gone on record that Russia MUST quit the Crimea peninsula... the very place where the locals want the Russians to stay! So what does the Vladimir think about the Donald now? What's happened to the romance between the two?

I say it's become tainted -- and utterly destroyed -- by the very same Neocons that Trump vowed to purge from the Deep State a.k.a. the USA National Security Apparatus and President Vladimir V. Putin is now thinking something on the lines of this:

Trump Is no Dove, Either.

From Zack Beauchamp's The Donald Trump Dove Myth on Vox.com:

I honestly don't know how Trump would govern if elected president. Nobody knows how Trump would govern, because we've never had a president like him before. 

All we have to go on is what he's said and done. And any close examination of that record, beyond his high-profile rhetoric at debates, suggests that Trump is an instinctive advocate for US military force. He seems especially interested in it when it can be used to enrich or protect the United States — taking the oil, killing the terrorists, etc. 

This isn't the kind of [Ed-M: messianic and Manichean] hawkishness we're used to. During the Bush administration, hawkishness became equated with neoconservatism. You're a hawk if you support sending in ground troops to fight terrorism or bombing Iran's nuclear program; you're a dove if you oppose those things. 

Trump's instincts are not neoconservative, and he's skeptical of neoconservatism's more grandiose ambitions to remake the world in America's democratic image. That makes him sound dovish by American standards, because we've come to equate dovishness with opposing policies that neocons support. 

But historically, there are lots of other forms of American hawkishness.

Mr. Beauchamp goes on to state that of those is the Jacskonian tradition (going back to Andrew Jackson) and it fits Trump best, because Trump is on record (read the article) in favor of the wars but hes opined that the USA should have just taken -- stolen -- those countries' oil. Just like Andrew Jackson stole the lands of the Indians of the USA Southeast and sent them to Oklahoma in a trail of tears.

Now as of March 19th Russia is the country with the sixth largest amount of oil reserves. US oil production was down by about 10% from last year's peak as of June 3rd. If this production continues in this sort of decline, it won;t be long before the US corporate world and the US government will be coveting Mother Russia's oil and the Pentagon will be making plans to "secure" it. This in spite of Trump's proclaimed support for Israel and the Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu's VERY successful overtures to Vladimir Putin  and Israel's turn to Russia as an ally (more here, here and here).

Needless to say, an attempt to steal Russia's oil will mean World War III, which would probably end with nuclear exchanges between the United States and Russia, resulting in a nuclear winter (ice age), a radioactive spring (rewarming), and resumed global warming following, ending in Near Term Extinction.

Note: "messianic and Manichean" from Richard Sakwa, Frontline Ukraine, p. 217, describing the delusions of the neoconservatives that Hilary stuffed the USA State Department with when she was Madame Secretary of State. This sort of messianic insanity is a form of (small-c) christ-psychosis: nota bene "messiah" in English and original Hebrew mashiach "anointed one" translated to khristos (originally "ointment") and christus (specifically Jesus) in Greek and Latin, respectively.)

If You Want to Get Mauled, Go Poke a Bear Repeatedly.

Vladimir Putin and "The Hildebeest."
Hillary will continue the neocon policies started under Clinton 42, or even under Poppy Bush 41.
Source: static.kremlin.ru/media/events/photos/big/fdPIA2gpDXpa3tZvdgqJMuvwDGr5tDAx

Well Neil Godfrey of the Vridar blog, a Top 50 Biblioblog and one that explores Christian Origins not limited to an historical Jesus, has joined the chorus of warnings that current US foreign policy against Russia is leading us straight into World War III. Why is the USA doing this? In one word and three: Greed and Russian Natural Resources.

Reblogged from Vridar, Neil Godrey's post, Sleepwalking once again into war, this time nuclear.

Richard Sakwa, Professor of Russian and European Politics at the University of Kent, scares me. He compares in Frontline Ukraine the current international tensions over Ukraine with those over the Balkans prior to World War 1. He further compares the dynamics between NATO/”Wider Europe” and Russia with those between Western Europe/UK and Germany prior to World War 2.

On the one hundredth anniversary of World War I and the seventy-fifth anniversary of the start of World War II, and 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Europe once again finds itself the cockpit of a great-power confrontation. How could Europe have allowed itself to end up in this position, after so many promises of ‘never again’? This is the worst imbroglio in Europe since the 1930s, with pompous dummies parroting glib phrases and the media in full war cry. Those calling for restraint, consideration and dialogue have not only been ignored but also abused, and calls for sanity have not only been marginalised but also delegitimated. It is as if the world has learned nothing from Europe’s terrible twentieth century. (Sakwa, R. 2015, Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands, I.B. Taurus, London. p. 1, bolding mine in all quotations)

....

A word search (I have not yet read past chapter 3) takes me to the following:

Hillary Clinton packed the State Department with ‘Democrat’ neoconservatives with a messianic and Manichean view of the world. Clinton herself had few achievements in her four years as the American foreign minister, and has since concentrated on positioning herself as a potential candidate in the US presidential election of 2016 by scoring easy points – and there are no easier points than Russia-bashing. (p. 217)

....

Even the Cold War architect of Containment, George Kennan, was horrified:

The implications of NATO enlargement were substantively debated. In an interview with Thomas Friedman in 1998, the doyen of international diplomacy and the architect of the original policy of ‘containment’ of the Soviet Union in the post-war years, George Kennan, was unsparing in his condemnation. Kennan spoke with dismay about the Senate’s ratification of NATO expansion plans:  

I think the Russians will react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anyone else […] This expansion would make the Founding Fathers of this country turn over in their graves. We have signed on to protect a whole series of countries, even though we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way.  

Not for the first time the ‘superficial and ill-informed’ nature of Congressional discussion was condemned. Equally, he added words that remain a portent for today:  

I was particularly bothered by the references to Russia as a country dying to attack Western Europe. Don’t people understand? Our differences in the cold war were with the Soviet Communist regime. And now we are turning our backs on the very people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove that Soviet regime.(Sakwa, R. 2015, Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands, I.B. Taurus, London. pp. 45-46)

“Her Cold War stance is reflected in her parting injunction to Obama that ‘the only language Putin would understand’ is ‘strength and resolve’.”

Putin understands the language of ‘strength and resolve’ perfectly; it is evident he does so by his rebuilding of Russia’s strength and has so far shown steely resolve and restraint in the twin disasters of Syria/ISIS/Iraq and the Ukraine.

Dmitry Orlov last week posted this warning from several Russian-Americans plus some US luminaires that if the United States were to keep bear-baiting Russia into World War 3, the United States will find itself at the very least with no economy, no working infrastructure and no government; and at the very worst, it will be reduced to a radioactive ashtray.

In other words, World War III is death to America! Ugh.

Jesus Fracking Christ. And the only way we can get out of this, alive,is if we vote for Jill Stein, or at least Trump in the general election. But it doesn't matter who votes, but who counts the votes.

Hat tip to Neil Godfrey and Uncle Joe (Stalin).

Are We Ready for World War III?

Morris Berman dug up this little nugget:

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/36306-survey-reveals-public-support-for-nuclear-strikes-and-a-disconnect-from-the-bloody-reality-of-bombs

Here's the beginning of the article:

In the wake of President Obama’s visit to Hiroshima last week, renewed debates over the use of atomic weapons against Japan in August 1945 have highlighted a disturbing trend: a rise in public support for US attacks on civilians across the globe. Never having withstood a prolonged bombing campaign on their soil, many people in the United States are quick to support and justify the use of bombs -- including nuclear ones -- on others. 

Academics Scott Sagan and Benjamin Valentino conducted research on the US public's attitude regarding nuclear bombing and recently publishing a summary of their findings in a Wall Street Journal story titled "Would the US Drop the Bomb Again?" From a survey of a "representative sample of 620 Americans" administered by YouGov last July, Sagan and Valentino revealed results that were "unsettling about the instincts of the US public." Specifically, the pair reported that, "When provoked, [US citizens] don't seem to consider the use of nuclear weapons a taboo, and our commitment to the immunity of civilians from deliberate attack in wartime, even with vast casualties, is shallow."

Of course, the survey question offered up a little scenario similar to the Old Pearl Harbor (as opposed to 9/11, the New one): Iranian forces blowing up a US air craft carrier, killing 2400 sailors. The surveyor asked the question:"Would you approve of the US dropping a nuclear bomb on a city of 100,000 souls in Iran?" 59 percent of the respondents replied similar to the following: "Of course!" And no doubt a few probably said: "Whaddya mane, souls?"

I wonder if people would approve of doing the same to Russia if Russian forces did the same in the Black Sea in response to some US provocation in the Ukraine? I bet they would!

For more, click here.

Several Items Today, September 23, 2015.

Global Warming was evident in the 1940s -- not just the tropics, but the Arctic, too. Rachel Carson, in the 1962 edition of her The Sea around Us, noted signs of climactic warming in Greenland in the 1940s including the arrival of warmer-climate plants and birds.

You can probably pick up a copy of it, new or used, at your local mom-and-pop bookstore. If that fails, there’s always Amazon.com and friends.

From dtlange at Robertscribbler:

– GIZMODO 0922

“the fact that most big research universities are located in countries with seasons— what’s happening in the tropics has been largely ignored.

We Could Have Discovered Climate Change As Early As the 1940s if We Had Just Looked

“Remarkably our research shows that you could already see clear signs of global warming in the tropics by the 1960s but in parts of Australia, South East Asia and Africa it was visible as early as the 1940s,” said lead study author Andrew King in a statement. (That’s decades before the the fore-thinking researchers at Exxon discovered global warming!)

Climate change is hitting high latitude ecosystems the hardest — the Arctic, for instance, is warming twice as fast as the world at large. For that reason — and the fact that most big research universities are located in countries with seasons— what’s happening in the tropics has been largely ignored.

http://gizmodo.com/we-could-have-discovered-climate-change-as-early-as-the-1732420254

But it will take another ten to thirty years for the signal-to-noise ratio to confirm it; i.e., the signal of global warming exceeds the  noise of natural variability.

Thirty years!? It’ll be too late to act then. Even ten years is cutting it.

With all the mass media brainwashing going on, who will wake all the masses before then? Is it even possible????

From Abdel Adamski on Robertscribbler:

Also
http://phys.org/news/2015-09-reveal-global.html
Researchers reveal when global warming first appeared

While temperature records generally showed pronounced indications of global warming, heavy rainfall events have yet to make their mark. The models showed a general increase in extreme rainfall but the global warming signal was not strong enough yet to rise above the expected natural variation.

“We expect the first heavy precipitation events with a clear global warming signal will appear during winters in Russia, Canada and northern Europe over the next 10-30 years,” said co-author Dr Ed Hawkins from the National Centre for Atmospheric Science at the University of Reading, UK.

“This is likely to bring pronounced precipitation events on top of the already existing trend towards increasingly wet winters in these regions.”

This is going to deprive Russia of more and more Natural Gas, and the revenues from exporting it...

From humortra at Robertscribbler:

A new expedition to one of the mysterious Siberian giant holes found in recent years has concluded that it is a warning sign of a deadly threat to northern regions as the climate warms.

Scientists from the respected Trofimuk Institute of Petroleum Geology and Geophysics insist the process by which a series of craters formed was caused by the melting of gas hydrates and the emission of methane.

This accumulates in a pingo – a mound of earth-covered ice – which then erupts causing the formation of the strange holes that have appeared on Russia’s Arctic fringe.

A pingo believed to be poised to explode ‘at any moment’ is now being constantly monitored by a Russian space satellite in an attempt to catch the moment when the eruption occurs.

http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/news/n0415-danger-of-methane-explosions-on-yamal-peninsula-scientists-warn/

Not so much apocalyptic as hearalding the coming global superstorms.

From Colorado Bob at Robertscribbler:

“It Felt Like the Apocalypse”: Israel Hit with Extreme and Unusual Weather on Jewish New Year
“It felt like the apocalypse, the rain has been torrential, there were about 10 lightning strikes in seconds, and even with your windshield wipers on high, it was impossible to see anything,” Mark Katz, a National Parks Authority employee, told the Times of Israel.

Since the beginning of September, Israel has experienced a series of extreme weather changes, beginning last week with a sudden sandstorm that blanketed the country in thick yellow dust.
The record setting five-day dust storm was also accompanied by a heat-wave, with new records reached across Israel in temperatures and air pollution.

Read more at http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/49091/it-felt-like-the-apocalypse-extreme-flash-flooding-hail-strike-israel-on-jewish-new-year-jerusalem/#3wE4Ml1A6jvMtMD8.99

Simple. Boil off all the water til there’s nothing left but salt. they [sic!]* you can market it as rock salt, or bury it.

*then

From Maria at Robertscribbler:

Solar Desalination in California. The company will be desalinating irrigation drainage in the Central Valley. The article doesn’t talk about where all that brine will go….What is an appropriate method way to deal with desal brine?

snip

“Less than one percent of the world’s desalination is powered by renewable energy sources today, but that could all change soon if companies like California-based WaterFX have anything to say about it. Its Aqua4 “concentrated solar still” (CSS) uses a concentrated solar thermal collector to compress heat, create steam and distill water at 30 times the efficiency of natural evaporation. It can produce 65,000 gallons of freshwater per day—and it can desalinate a wide range of water sources, not just seawater.

"Solar desalination is a technique used to remove salt from water via a specially designed still that uses solar energy to boil seawater and capture the resulting steam, which is in turn cooled and condensed into pristine freshwater. Salt and other impurities are left behind in the still.
Less than one percent of the world’s desalination is powered by renewable energy sources today, but that could all change soon if companies like California-based WaterFX have anything to say about it. Its Aqua4 “concentrated solar still” (CSS) uses a concentrated solar thermal collector to compress heat, create steam and distill water at 30 times the efficiency of natural evaporation. It can produce 65,000 gallons of freshwater per day—and it can desalinate a wide range of water sources, not just seawater.

"To wit, the company will start employing solar desalination to treat some 1.6 billion gallons of salt-laden irrigation drainage from California’s drought-stricken, agriculturally-rich Central Valley next year. Crops extract nearly pure water from soil, leaving behind salt and other potentially toxic minerals like selenium that naturally occur in the water. These excess minerals must be drained from the soil, or crop productivity plunges. By treating this drainage, WaterFX can prevent about percent of farmland in California from being retired every year to make room for storage for untreated drainage water."

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-solar-desalination-slake-the-world-s-thirst/

Maria on Robertscribbler also responded to the second item above. My response to her remarks follows them:

I saw your comment up thread re: we don’t have decades. I recently learned that the big People’s Climate March was partially subsidized by FF. we know that Paris talks are being partially funded by big oil & major emitters. I’m afraid that unless the grass roots-/-county-to-county and state to state citizens & their leadership take bold action? Decades, I’m afraid. Hope I’m wrong. And that a massive positive feedback loop re: renewals ensues, giving FF & nat’l leadership no choice but to follow.

Crap. Combined with corporate dominance of our “free” news media (including Russia’s) means any such attempts to get Peak FF’s before their natural peaking at least 15 years from now (too many in my opinion) will be met with derision and … get ready now … “ZOMG DOOMER PORN!!!!!!” spoken from every news media mouthpiece.

And the same media will say the American Way of Life (Suburban Utopia and Happy Motoring! ^TM) is still non-negotiable.

And people will fall for it, especially here in the United States, for we are the World’s easiest marks. And that is the reason why our country will do the right thing after trying everything else.

And there’s something like 8,000 GT of Carbon embedded in the permafrost and the sea beds, which are melting or getting ready to melt as we speak. Sam Caranas, not to mention the paleolithic-paleoclimactic record, has demonstrated that rapid uncontrolled releases of Carbon, especially in the form of Methane, are likely to lead to a hot house extinction right quick. But the ice will stick around for a thousand more years or so, which will put a brake on uncontrolled global overheating.

Sum it all up, and we face Near Term Human Extinction, maybe even NTE, (by 3015).

Methane Warning from the Arctic!

The Royal Society has commissioned a study performed by the now well-known husband and wife team from Russia, Natasha Shakhova and Igor Semiletov, concerning the outgassing of methane (CH₄) from the East Siberian Sea Continental Shelf (ESS), which is essentially frozen tundra that drowned when the glaciers receded about 10,000 years ago and since then. There are about 1,600 billion (that's a b) tons (GT) of CH₄ frozen in hydrates.

Now that the Arctic is getting warmer, the marine ice cap is suffering a catastrophic collapse to the fifth or sixth smallest sea ice area on record, warm waters from the Atlantic and Pacific are sneaking in and storms are churning the near-shore Arctic seas from surface to bottom, methane is escaping from the Arctic Seafloor at an increasing rate, particularly at the ESS area. Previously Shakhova and Semiletov stated that 50 GT of CH₄ could escape at any time.

Natasha Shakhova on Methane Hydrates.

And what the Royal Society study has to say is that the Risk of Significant Methane Release from [the] East Siberian Arctic Shelf [is] Still Growing.

From Robertscribbler:

Large plumes of methane bubbling up from the Arctic Ocean sea-bed, saturating the water column, venting into the air, adding significantly more heat forcing to an already dangerous, fossil fuel-based, accumulation of greenhouse gasses in the Earth’s atmosphere. It’s a nightmare scenario. One in which human-forced warming, already at 1 C above 1880s levels, is further amplified through the feedback release of ancient carbon stored over the past 8 million years of Northern Hemisphere glaciation. And a recent study by the now famous Semiletov and Shakhova team provides still more reason for appropriate concern that such an event may be in the works.

Shakhova and Semiletov’s new study produces an increasingly clear picture of a destabilizing organic carbon store beneath thawing permafrost in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf region. The above images show organic carbon concentration [left frame] and rate of release of methane in grams per square meter per day over observed regions.

By now, many of us are familiar with the controversy over the potential risks of significant-to-catastrophic methane release due to human-forced warming of the Arctic.  An increasing number of observational specialists are pointing toward a risk that rapid human warming will set off the release of still more carbon in the Arctic. For some, this release is expected to be gradual. Others believe there’s enough risk of a rapid release to warrant an equally rapid emergency response.
But regardless of where you stand on the issue, new research coming to light from some of the Arctic’s top observational scientists more clearly describes what appears to be an increasingly dangerous situation.

Increasingly dangerous is right! The present CH₄ overburden is about 1846 ppb (1.85 ppm) which equates to about 5 GT of methane in the atmosphere. An addition of 50 GT of this stuff would add about 18.5 ppm for a grand total of 20.4 ppm of CH₄. At 25 times the heat-trapping efficacy of CO₂ over the lifetime of methane in the air would yield an equivalent of 510 ppm CO₂ E, increasing the global mean temperature by 3 degrees C quite quickly, to about 4 deg C above 1880s values.

Well at least a PB study is suggesting we are nearing peak oil demand. But it might not save us from Hell on Earth! This could be one of those situations where Peak Oil really is no object.

Fin des Voies Rapides, certainement!

Link: http://robertscribbler.com/2015/09/10/new-study-risk-of-significant-methane-release-from-east-siberian-arctic-shelf-still-growing/