'Off the record, New York banking sources admit the US dollar would be “wiped out, since it is a valueless fiat currency, should Sergey Glazyev link the new currency to gold. The reason is that the Bretton Woods system no longer has a gold base and has no intrinsic value, like the FTX crypto currency. Sergey’s plan also linking the currency to oil and natural gas seems to be a winner.'
[…]
'Since as we have just said Russia, Iran, and Venezuela account for about 40 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves, and each of them are currently selling oil to China for renminbi at a steep discount, we find BASF’s decision to permanently downsize its operations at its main plant in Ludwigshafen and instead shift its chemical operations to China was motivated by the fact that China is securing energy at discounts, not markups like Europe.'
[…]
'One key takeaway is that energy-intensive major industries are going to be moving to China. Beijing has become a big exporter of Russian liquified natural gas (LNG) to Europe, while India has become a big exporter of Russian oil and refined products such as diesel – also to Europe. Both China and India – BRICS members – buy below market price from fellow BRICS member Russia and resell to Europe with a hefty profit. Sanctions? What sanctions?'

When mental people design the World, the World becomes mental.

The average ancient Greek city state had a population of around 1,000.

'So these were intimate, independent places'.

Yeah, conveyor belt films.

matigo.ca.

Action films are so boring. Couldn’t watch much of the latest one before ditching it.

Firefox has built-in P.D.F. editing now but it didn't work for me. Couldn't type anything. Nice try.

Winter can be eerie.

jussipekonen.10centuries.org.

Yeah, I’ve had that happen a few times with a MacBook and an iPad. It’s worse when a machine has been mothballed for a long time.

jextxadore.10centuries.org.

Zero notice? I’m not sure that’s even legal over here. Must be a bit scary…

//

matigo.ca.

I've just noticed that the swastika looks like it's on an Austrian flag. So it was probably an Austrian nazi group who teamed up with their Ukrainian brethren before the Russians destroyed them in Mariupol.

I've been followed on Mastodon by about half a dozen Ukrainian nationalist/Nazi accounts. Each of these accounts seems to be following the same bunch of ex-app dot net people. They are following someone who doesn't really use Mastodon (me). They have made no posts. At first, I thought these were classic signs of sleeping, propaganda bots, like the vast oceans of Twitter fakery that Musk came clean about. But then I realised, if you are creating a propaganda bot army you are going to try and be at least a bit subtle and not use a swastika. So I don't know what they are. One of the accounts has a profile picture of a N.A.T.O. flag and swastika flanking an Azov Battalion flag. Well, at least they are being honest about what's really going on, unlike the Davos progeny who rule us into trying to plunder Russia. Blocked 'em.

f6f2af45-ac0e-20e7-8c54-77fb686a1dd6