Simplicius on the developing art of warfare

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/end-of-2023-roundup-update-on-the

Politicians indifferent to people’s suffering

Max Bluementhal what Israel is doing in Gaza

About Peter Scott.

A revised version of what i wrote a few days before his passing away. Reminiscences of Peter Scott: We first interacted in Liverpool during 1968-69 where we discussed mostly Kirby-Siebenmann work. Later we seem to have independently turned to 3-manifolds and there was some correspondence in 1972 about Waldhausen’s work as well as ‘finitely generated implies finitely presented’ for 3-manifold groups. There is some discussion of this in a survey article by Dani Wise and probably the neatest proof comes from Thomas Delzant which I described in ‘Delzant’s variation on Scott Complexity’ written in Peter’s honour on his 60th birthday. He had the knack of proving simple results of great applicability as well as the power to prove difficult results like his work on Seifert fibre spaces. Our next interactions were sporadic for a while. I remember Peter advising me that it is difficult to understand Thurston and that I should discuss with others. He then invited me to conference in 1984 that he organised with D.B.A. Epstein in Warwick. By this time he was quite well known and seemed to be determined to make a better mathematician out of me. We next met in Norman, Oklahoma in 1986, and he suggested two problems which we did together. One of them proved that certain finitely generated subgroups of distorted Kleinian groups are geometrically finite. Since then topic has been pursued by a few others. After that we met in a few conferences where we discussed how many results in 3-manifold theory may have analogues in group theory with annulus theorem as a possible candidate. But serious work on this started in 1994 when Peter visited Melbourne. During this visit Peter showed me a paper of Tukia and said that it should lead to a proof of annulus theorem for hyperbolic groups and he also suggested that I needed to read only a few pages in Tukia’s paper. It was like a thesis advisor advising a student. This was the start of an intense collaboration with Peter since then. We probably wrote over six hundred pages of mathematics together in about ten papers. We made mistakes and probably took up a wrong program. But after a lot of hard work we did achieve what we wanted and for both us it seemed the hardest work we have done. We visited each other several times and it was not always clear how the ideas originated but they seemed joint. The program was the main aim, we did not care who did the actual work. Some papers were completely Peter’s and some more or less mine though they appeared as joint papers. Sometimes there were other collaborators. For both us it was very satisfactory work with the last paper just nearing completion. ‘Beating it in to shape’ as Peter used to say. In retrospect, it seems to me that we were barking up the wrong tree though Peter did not agree with me. But along the way we did some work on intersection numbers and regular neighbourhoods which seem to be useful in other contexts too. Peter remained active until he could work no more. This last paper was written mostly by him. During this March-June, he developed another approach to regular neighbourhoods which is quite interesting and non-trivial. P.S. One instance of joint work: Peter always thought JSJ decomposition was a sort of regular neighbourhood. We tried to extend the idea to groups over several visits. In one of those trips we worked for a whole month and Peter was about to leave the next day. We decided that if we did not do it this time, we would give up. Towards the evening, I said may be it is a pretree. Then Peter asked for the definition. When I wrote down the conditions, Peter said ‘That’s it’. This idea of regular neighbourhood in the standard group theory presentations by Sela and others received more traction in the work of Guirardel and Levitt. References: Section 4 in [1] Dani T. Wise: An invitation to coherent groups, in What’s Next?: The Mathematical Legacy of William Thurston (AMS-205) Edited by Dylan Thurston [2] Gadde A. Swarup: Delzant’s variation on Scott Complexity, arXiv:math/0401308 2004 [3] Pekka Tukia: Homeomorphic conjugates of Fuchsian groups, Journal für die reine und angewandte Mathematik (1988) Volume: 391, page 1-54 Section 6.4 in [4] Vincent Guirardel and Gilbert Levitt : JSJ Decompositions ofGroups. Asteriaque 395, 2017

Wars update with Garland Nixon and Scott Ritter

Money and power

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/12/book-review-sally-denton-and-roger-morris-the-money-and-the-power.html

Indian Punchline on Houthi resistance

https://www.indianpunchline.com/us-war-on-terror-against-houthis-is-smoke-and-mirrors/

Christmas in Bethelham 2023

https://apnews.com/article/bethlehem-christmas-israel-hamas-war-e408a3e48d18c69a7a0b018505cdc732

French leave Niger

From Douglas Macgregor

Latest from Alastair Crooke

Houthi game changer

From 1.19 onwards. https://www.youtube.com/live/V2cLO40FcrQ?si=06XfWWEVD7kLHosQ see also https://thealtworld.com/finian_cunningham/the-yemenis-know-the-u-s-is-bluffing-heres-why

Update from Simplicius

About Ukraine, Yemen and US presidential elctions https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sitrep-122023-putin-and-zelensky

A mathematics book with the late Peter Scott

freely downloadable(research monograph) https://amathr.org/books/books_reevesscottswarup/?fbclid=IwAR2C4WrHjrBUDrANsNMhTfHoYtMkjruvHEb8cLubH9qha2rqrzFtcVDOccw

Latest from Alastair Crooke

see also https://strategic-culture.su/news/2023/12/18/they-can-wait-at-leisure-whilst-netanyahu-labours-and-errs/

Ivan Illich

https://www.firstthings.com/article/2022/02/the-genius-of-ivan-illich

Scott Ritter wants American to reimagine Russia

Starts with Houthi escalationand starts dreaming https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mu30CjH31PY

Scott Ritter on military aspects of the war in Israel

The first half about Ukraine, Russia-China alliance and the build up in Pacific. He thinks Israel is loosing but many countries in the Middle East are not keen sbouta Palestine state.

Larry Johnson on Russian and Chines economies

About Russian and Chinese economies, partly inspired by John Helmer. Michael Hudson has also written about the Chinese economy more positively as well as Michael Pettis. Yves Smith has written about both. https://sonar21.com/dinner-with-the-oligarchs/

Simplicius covers several topics

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/subscriber-mailbag-answers-121023

Radha Rajagopal Sloss on Jiddu Krishnamurti

reads like a novel https://www.prem-rawat-bio.org/nrms/gurus/r_sloss.htm

Alastair Crooke visits Russia

https://thealtworld.com/alastair_crooke/strategic-reflections-from-moscow

Martin Gardner on Jiddu Krishnamurthy and David Bohm

Recently i browsed a couple of biographies of Krishnamurti by Mary Lutyens and Radha Rajagopal Sloss. https://cdn.centerforinquiry.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2000/07/22164851/p20.pdf interview with Radha Rajagopal Sloss https://tricycle.org/magazine/the-shadow-side-krishnamurti/

USA threatening war in Europe unless funds for Ukraine are released

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/establishment-alarmism-in-overdrive

China plans in Fujian province

Douglas Macgregor on Gaza

On my 50th wedding anniversary

Aruna Tella sends her best wishes on my 50th wedding anniversary. As some body said about Aruna, కుమార్ చెప్పినట్లు ‘కష్టజీవి కి కేరాఫ్ అడ్రస్ వంట పనివరలకు నీడనిచ్చిన చెట్టు హక్కుల ఉద్యమాలకు ఊపిరి స్త్రీ హక్కుల సారధి అభాగ్యులకు అమ్మ... మా అరుణక్క జన్మదిన శుభాకాంక్షలు.. కుమార్.’ మీలాంటి వారికి రాముడు వారికి ఉడతలాగా… I am glad that I and Jhansi have been able to be of some help to people like her and Rahul Banerjee. With our best regards to social activits like them.

And from Alastair Crooke

Scott Ritter with Dimitri Diliani, a Palestinian Christian from Jerusalem

Scott Ritter with Jackson Hinkle

Israeli Supreme Court rejects challenge to open-fire rules

https://apnews.com/article/da582f11ad4443ddbf44ea6f2fc72c3a "But in its unanimous ruling, the court sided with the Israeli military, which argued that the protests were taking place in the context of a long-running armed conflict with the Islamic militant group Hamas which rules Gaza and that weapons-use regulations are subject to the rules of armed conflict. Such rules provide greater leeway for the use of lethal force than those governing law enforcement practices."

From MoA

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/12/israel-plans-for-long-war-and-the-expulsion-of-people-from-gaza.html#more

One by Finian Cunningham

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2023/11/28/war-torn-yemen-shuts-red-sea-chokepoint-on-israel-and-shames-impotent-arab-muslim-leaders/

Good side of Henry Kissinger

https://consortiumnews.com/2023/12/01/scott-ritter-kissinger-war-criminal-who-saved-the-world/

US sending bunker busting bombs to Israel?

https://dailycaller.com/2023/12/01/biden-administration-bunker-buster-bombs-israel-gaza-report/

Putin’s conception of Russia

see also 'big serge' article on Putin's strategy in Ukraine. https://bigserge.substack.com/p/the-end-of-cabinet-war

Scott Ritter on Israel conflict

Rescue of miners in India

Another with Alastair Crooke

https://www.youtube.com/live/OsSh0TW3os0?si=4j0UEt_nS0N48Bbr the first hour of the interview is with him.

Scott Ritter’s perspective on Gaza conflictseems to have changed somewhat

Brian Berletic with Duran

Nicolas Petro on Ukraine war

Children in Gaza playing

https://x.com/fatimazsaid/status/1716201757447946389?s=20

What does Putin want?

Jeffrey Sachs with The Duran

Alaistair Crooke’s latest in Judging Freedom

Another

About inequality in india

from Gulzar Natarajan. https://gulzar05.blogspot.com/2023/11/weekend-reading-links_25.html Interesting facts about inequality in India The OECD made an assessment of the number of generations required to move from the bottom 10 per cent of the income distribution to the mean income level. This was done by examining the rate of change of income between father and son. According to this assessment, the transition time from the lowest to the mean level of income in India is seven generations, a level comparable to that in China and above that in Europe and the US... In India, according to the World Inequality database, this has widened sharply between 1990 and 2018, the latest year for which they present an estimate. Over this period, the share of the top 10 per cent in pre-tax income has gone up from 34.4 per cent to 57.1 per cent, while the share of the bottom 50 per cent has fallen from 20.3 per cent to 13.1 per cent. Note also that the top 1 per cent account for nearly half of the increase in the share of the top 10 per cent... A recent report from Azim Premji University... points out: “In 2004, over 80 per cent of the sons of casual wage workers were themselves in casual employment. This was the case for both SC/ST workers and other castes. For non-SC/ST castes, this fell from 83 per cent to 53 per cent by 2018, and the incidence of better quality work, such as regular salaried jobs, increased. It fell for SC/ST castes as well, but to a lesser extent (86 per cent to 76 per cent)”. From the Bihar caste survey The sub-caste wise data on poverty indicates that 42.93 per cent of the families belong to Scheduled Castes (SC), 42.7 per cent to Scheduled Tribes (ST), 33.58 per cent to extremely backward castes (EBC), 33.16 per cent to other backward classes (OBC), and 25.09 per cent to the general category (GC) of upper castes. When it comes to government jobs, the general category castes, such as Bhumihars, Brahmins, and Kayastha, had the highest share with 3.19 per cent of their population in government jobs. The corresponding figures for the EBC, SC and ST are 0.98 per cent, 1.13 per cent and 1.37 per cent, respectively. A measure of the differences in access to education is provided by the substantial difference in the percentage of people who are graduates in different caste groups — 14.54 per cent in the general category, 9.14 per cent in the OBC category, 4.44 per cent in the EBC category, 3.12 per cent amongst Scheduled Castes, and 3.53 per cent amongst Scheduled Tribes.

Alastair Crooke and from ‘The Duran’

https://thealtworld.com/alastair_crooke/few-options-in-wake-of-the-al-shifa-debacle-the-war-lengthens-and-widens

Simplicius on NATO plans for forever war

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sitrep-112523-major-avdeevka-breakthroughs

“Sometimes there is no way out” says Aurelien

https://aurelien2022.substack.com/p/no-way-out

Judging Freedom show with some theories about JFK’s assassination

From Moonof Alabama

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/11/there-are-certain-things-i-can-not-write-about.html

Two from Judging Freedom with John Meatsheimer and Douglas Macgregor

Jeffrey Sachs on Gaza

THE TUNNELS OF THE AL QASSAM BRIGADE

https://sonar21.com/the-tunnels-of-the-al-qassam-brigade/

Creative destruction in state formation

https://gulzar05.blogspot.com/2023/11/wars-and-state-competition-in-europe.html https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-entrepreneurial-state

Moon of Alabama update on Ukraine

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/11/a-look-at-others-notes-on-ukraine.html#more

Alastair Crooke : Evaluating Israel’s moral justifications

Michael Hudson with The Duran

Big Serge in Russo-Ukrainian war

https://bigserge.substack.com/p/russo-ukrainian-war-the-reckoning

Scott Ritter is angry

Moon ofAlabama on the Israeli conflict

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/11/one-religions-war-against-all-others.html

Interview with a Israeli communist

https://jacobin.com/2023/11/israeli-communist-party-eli-gozansky-war-hadash-netanyahu

Major drug fail in Alzheimers treatment

https://www.sciencealert.com/worlds-leading-theory-on-alzheimers-in-crisis-after-major-drug-trials-fail

Magical thinking about Russia’s defeat

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/it-s-time-to-end-magical-thinking-about-russia-s-defeat/ar-AA1k28ij

Emerging MSB

Choosing leaders in Ukraine

https://asiatimes.com/2023/11/why-is-the-west-moving-to-replace-zelensky/

Isaac Asimov on Israel

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/304343-i-am-frequently-asked-if-i-have-visited-israel-whereas “I am frequently asked if I have visited Israel, whereas yet, it is simply assumed that I have. Well, I don’t travel. I really don’t, and if I did, I probably wouldn’t visit Israel. I remember how it was in 1948 when Israel was being established and all my Jewish friends were ecstatic, I was not. I said: what are we doing? We are establishing ourselves in a ghetto, in a small corner of a vast Muslim sea. The Muslims will never forget nor forgive, and Israel, as long as it exists, will be embattled. I was laughed at, but I was right. I can’t help but feel that the Jews didn’t really have the right to appropriate a territory only because 2000 years ago, people they consider their ancestors, were living there. History moves on and you can’t really turn it back. (#92 ff.)”

Alastair Crooke update about Gaza

A Vinod (Eric Roberts) song

Goonz uthi shehnai song with English subtitles

Michael Hudson on Israel

A brief history of weaving in Gaza

Apparently the word guaze comes from Gaza. Here is a brief history of weaving in that area https://nolcollective.com/blogs/news/nol-weaving-threads-of-palestinian-history-1

The inevitability of corruption

http://glineq.blogspot.com/2023/10/there-is-no-exit-for-dictators.html And similar thoughts here https://gaddeswarup.blogspot.com/2019/03/ddksambi-and-benjamin-franklin.html

Simplicius the thinker on Israeli economy

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sitrep-111023-israeli-economy-buckles

Too much liquidity

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/11/could-it-be-the-feds-mega-qe-created-so-much-liquidity-that-tightening-doesnt-work-until-this-excess-gets-burned-up.html

The latest from Alastair Crooke

Judge Napoletana with Phil Giraldi

Another interview by Judge Napolitano

Electric war in ukraine

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/11/the-new-electric-war-campaign-how-the-russian-army-will-select-the-ukrainian-targets.html

Sean Caroll on Einstein’s powerful equation

Scott Ritter on Palestine and Hamas

Western Officials Increasingly Pushing "Peace Talks" + War Updates

says Simplicius the thinker about Ukraine https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/western-officials-increasingly-pushing

India’s first bird woman, Jamal Ara

https://www.mid-day.com/news/opinion/article/mystery-of-indias-first-birdwoman-23317170?fbclid=IwAR1SmERKlvDMsPguVxRJzBNPAUX3Ik2SwZ0mtIujuhP1UwuR5TbVxUvTgUY https://www.amazon.in/Women-Wild-Brilliant-Wildlife-Biologists-ebook/dp/B0CH12LWKG?fbclid=IwAR3m_1N4cTVu_ovjXMbAWgz4AcR3rsGKbijf1olbwTHcTAfRHnTDBpjdGuQ

Gaza updates from Alexander Mercouris and Scott Ritter

Some war profiteers

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/10/reports-expose-us-billionaires-and-corporate-profiteers-enabling-israels-war-on-gaza.html

Alastair Crooke again

Eschatological Frenzy

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/world-plummets-into-eschatological

Musk wants to provide Starlink support to Gaza aid groups

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/musk-says-starlink-provide-connectivity-gaza-through-aid-organizations-2023-10-28/?fbclid=IwAR3Qw_p8eEMHxLu3VxIOq0Ds77uqN-JRGxQMTY1CxKY7xnTqgwNwG7PeRUY

A rose for Gramsci

https://andymerrifield.org/2023/10/24/a-rose-for-gramsci/

Scott Ritter’s views i military aspects

At 18.55, there is some comment of Obama weighing in. There is this nnews report from The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/24/obama-israel-food-water-gaza?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other&mibextid=Zxz2cZ&fbclid=IwAR07SNegMVD3vbZyccXYpJo_CT2xHib8LGVPe82GhZ1w_NFcF_qUI3ZZgSA

And Jeffrey Sachs

https://www.youtube.com/live/Nx5Ps8-y6mY?si=tyh-h7XPJDocULKr

Alastair Crooke with Judge Napolitano

An update fromAlexander Mercouris on Israel and Ukraine

Simplicius on the Battle for Avdeevka

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/battle-for-avdeevka-close-study

Making Gaza uninhabitable

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/10/israel-intends-to-make-gaza-uninhabitable-by-cutting-power-permanently.html

Trouble brewing

https://johnhelmer.net/in-the-corridors-of-power-the-us-and-israel-are-daring-russia-china-and-the-world-to-go-to-war-to-save-arab-palestine/#more-88694

Garland Nixon with Scott Ritter

Douglas Macgregor on Gaza conflict

The Duran on the Israeli conflict

Alistair Crooke on Gaza

P.S. Today https://strategic-culture.su/news/2023/10/16/pulling-the-roof-down-on-todays-paradigm/

A game theoretic look at the Palestine conflict by ALEXIA TEFEL–ESCUDERO

Rober J. Aumann prize winner Conflicts and Cooperation: A Game Theory Analysis of the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict https://dadun.unav.edu/bitstream/10171/63057/1/rhereder%2C%2003.pdf

Different views on Hamas-Israeli conflict

Another account of Hamas-Israeli conflict from the point of view of some journalists

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/podcasts/media-confidential/63468/israel-hamas-and-media-in-a-time-of-war

New Rules with Alastair Crooke

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231012/israel-not-prepared-for-hezbollahs-second-front---alastair-crooke-1114141013.html https://rumble.com/v3oqlqp-israel-palestine-war-us-faces-catastrophe-in-middle-east.html

Scott Ritter and Andre Martyanov on Israel and Ukraine

Alastair Crooke in a discussion in ‘The Duran’

https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/al-aqsa-flood:-the-surprise-is-that-some-are-surprised

Old age blues

Last few weeks I have been thinking of accessibility of finitely presented groups proved by Martin Dunwoody in 1983. I thought about it around 1974 and had the right ideas. But at that time algebra was not really my area and I gave up on some good problems after getting the right ideas. I also thought that may be one can use minimal surfaces but knew very little of the area. I gave a talk in Stoney Brook around 1979-80about it and Gromov was in the audience. Then after coming to Melbourne, in random browsing of our departmental library, I saw a volume in honour of some mathematician, may be I.M. Gelfand, and there was a paper by Gromov proving accessibility using minimal surfaces in higher dimensions. I even remember he used dimensions bigger than 6. I have a visual memory of the book and the paper. Recently, I started thinking about it since Peter Scott with me and two others developed an analogue of minimal surfaces for groups. I tried to ask friends about it but nobody knows about Gromov’s proof. Meanwhile our departmental library closed and the books were sent other libraries in the University. I cannot find the book. I wonder what is happening. Did I imagine all this. My working on mathematics is very haphazard. I basically learnt by myself. It was more passion than ambition. So there are lot of gaps in my knowledge of the areas I work. I often follow the general outline and try to fill the gaps later. For example, I did not read some of Waldhausen’s papers in 1969 but found simple proofs around 2002. I do not know whether it is one of those things or whether I really imagined the whole thing. I wrote to Gromov yesterday and I do not know whether he will reply. It surprises me that i did and can do some mathematics. I have no confidence in my abilities or any ambition. But if some thing bugs me, I keep thinking about it sometimes for years. I have also been lucky with collaborators, that after the age of 45 or so. But I did a few interesting things before. Anyway, I am puzzled by how I have been able to do some mathematics and even made a living given that I come from a farming family.

Russia reorienting towards the Arabs says John Helmer

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/10/the-silence-of-the-bears-russia-is-reorienting-towards-the-arabs.html

Hellaro song with English subtitles

Langlands on Harish-Chandra

https://publications.ias.edu/sites/default/files/harish-chandra-biographical-memoirs-rpl_0.pdf?fbclid=IwAR27eTkSlZuyJcDCmgCsVcj2rKQ1UC2inFWRf47Coc_9SeBJ72JQfT0Nl7A

Brian Berletic on Hamas-Israeli cinflict

He also discusses the military resources and the geopolitical problems particularly with neighbours

Hamas used Huawei phones and tablets

Douglas Macgregor on the Hamas-Israel conflict

The Duran on Hamas-Israeli conflict

Claudia Goldin

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2023/10/claudia-goldin-wins-nobel.html

More guesses about the Hamas -Israel conflict

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/10/the-top-ten-takeaways-from-hamas-sneak-attack-on-israel.html some suggest that US has been looking for an exit from the Ukraine conflict and this lrovides with various further possibilities. But so many Israeli casualities do not suggest a deliberate neglect; though it is possibilities that it exceeded expectations.it may delat Saudi-Israeli rapproachmdnt which may point the finger at Iran. Again it may spoil the relations between Saudi Arabia and iran and provide a way to disrupt Brics. Nobody seems to know and all seem to agree that it is bad news which will lead to worse things to come.

Various theories of Hamas-Israel conflict, some more unbelievable than others

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/israel-flashpoint-localized-skirmish

Scott Ritter on Israeli intelligence failure

https://consortiumnews.com/2023/10/08/scott-ritter-israels-massive-intelligence-failure/?fbclid=IwAR3J3aTwrJNM_1vCEmN5zc1CUHrMFDmAFRjKB72gQojUFENh0TldLGa207w

Alex Christoforou describes the latest Putin speech

https://youtu.be/YX_s8NqvWEk?si=_5tMy7htNBjqsHf6 problems with posting links. It seems that these links have to be copied and then tried on the browser.

The beginning of the long fall for Ukraine

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sitrep-10423-the-beginning-of-a-long

Simplicius on Army War College report

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/army-war-college-report-predicts "But alas, ever the stoic practitioner of the ‘long game’, I doubt Putin will give them the uncharacteristic slipup they’re counting on to salvage their disastrous Ukrainian campaign. Painful as it might be for us to take some of the obviously deliberate provocations ‘on the cheek,’ good chance remains that sometime in the future, after Ukraine’s rapid disintegration and subsequent capitulation—perhaps even only a year or two from now—we may recognize, in hindsight, the wisdom of the strategy which staved off nuclear war by way of a methodical, unwavering, and strategically disciplined approach."

Two posts on Indo-US relations

https://www.indianpunchline.com/india-wont-be-bullied-in-multipolar-setting/ from Bhadrakumar, and https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/10/us-tries-to-play-hardball-with-india.html?fbclid=IwAR2bpI8Ii5x9GSpgSP5yzWtMFkcKxWvWb6oiEGbnYhHA12Bx_vkYCLMazqk from Conor Gallagher in Naked Capitalism

The ends of knowledge

https://aeon.co/essays/should-academic-disciplines-have-both-a-purpose-and-a-finish-date from Aeon.

My first trip to the west

From Facebook: Ramarao’s post below reminded me of my first trip abroad to England in 1968. My English was poor (then and now) even by Indian standards and the first problem was English. I grew up in villages, studied in Telugu medium. When I went to study in Madras, the college authorities appointed an English tutor to coach me. It did not have much effect I think. I had the naïveté and stubbornness of the farming community I came from and was not fazed by what others thought of me. The reason for going to England was mathematics. When I was in Madras, I came across a book called ‘Set Theory’ by Felix Hausdorff and Brouwer’s theorems fascinated me. And I decided to learn topology. When I Joined Tata Institute, MS Narasimhan took some interest in me perhaps because he too grew up in Andhra for a few years. After I showed some promise he decided that I should go abroad for further studies. When he asked me where I wanted to go, I said Liverpool because I already read several papers of C.T..C. Wall. Then I got a Nuffield Fellowship after a bit of coaching by him and landed in London. If language was problem, food was more difficult. Only thing I could eat was toast and butter and coffeee was undrinkable. It was cold; it was September I think, and Nuffield people gave me some money to buy warm clothes and sent me off to Liverpool. By that time there was no place in university hostels and Wall took me home. Though one read books and saw films about foreigners, I did not really know or was coached about everyday living. MSN greatly neglected this aspect. I did not really understand the sleeping arrangements. I just covered myself with the bed cover and it was still cold and kept the heater on through out the night. Instead of a shower, there was a bath which I did not know how to use. But the food was better than in the hotel. The family must have got tired of cleaning the bath tub and after a couple of weeks, they found me accomodation in a seminary, where there were plenty of rooms since theology was not too popular. Thus my sojourn abroad started. A bit more about my life in Liverpool. Life in the seminary was good. The students showed me how to get in to the bed and how to make the bed. The food was ok. Not all the students believed in god. They introduced me to Bob Dylan and the pub culture. Terry Wall ( coming from india it was difficult to call him by his first name which I generally avoided) told me what I did was enough for a ph.d. So I took it easy and read what I liked and made friends in the department. One of the things I read was Wall’s long paper which was coming out then called ‘Surgery on non simply connected manifolds’. I even gave a course on it in Yale. I do not know how much I understood. Kervaire who listened to a lecture by me later told Raghavan Narasimhan that I did not know what I was talking about. But the English do not tell you that you are a fool even if they think you are. So I got along splendidly. I started going out with students for dinners and with some staff for lunches. With students I often went to Indian restaurants where the food was not that good. I asked the staff why they were making such food which was not really Indian. They said that it was the way the English liked it but they made a separate curry for themselves called ‘staff curry’. From then on we started having staff curry and the food problem was partially solved. The food situation has improved considerably since then. Soon I met a girl and it seemed better to shift from the seminary and I shifted to a room near Sefton Park from Birkenhead. I thought I was too old to fall in love. My office was next to women’s toilet and soon I started recognising her presence by the way the taps turned in the toilet. By the time I realised that I was in love, it was too late and it was time to leave Liverpool for Yale in America. So the last few months in Liverpool were tough. Even though I was always a bit rebellious, it was only in Liverpool that I realised how Indian I was. The first few months were lonely. I always hated Indian classical music and dance for what I considered gymnastics. But Ravi Shankar came to Liverpool and I attended the concert with John, an American. He thought that it sounded like cows mewing but it was all very sweet and like homecoming to me. Also I met Jo Marks and Peter Scott there and the friendships endure to this day. But Jo refuses to tell me any thing about that girl.

Lorca’s influence on Leonard Cohen

https://www.leonardcohenforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=4010&fbclid=IwAR3VWN_yBeVAJyxghX89LyyJdAEy-c2MiXT4OzgfnXonoLnvG1hNNOQsR6M

Larry Johnson on Russia’s slow approach

https://sonar21.com/a-russia-question/

On Ukraine’s escalating Crimean campaign by asimplicius the thinker

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/analysis-of-ukraines-escalating-crimean

Larry Johnson on Canada’s Nazi celebrations

https://sonar21.com/canadas-nazi-celebration-goes-viral/

An atheist friend of Gandhi

https://www.academia.edu/905092/The_life_and_times_of_Gora?auto=download&email_work_card=download-paper&fbclid=IwAR3VEiQ0Xkg-NoCH34qWvDS_V9jFfvGa5j_nypumGq1xTGgb2x_qkiqRYac An jnterview in Telugu with his son Samaram

An old interview with M.S.Narasimhan

https://bhavana.org.in/ms-narasimhan/?fbclid=IwAR1u9ApNZRiPOlRXvwGzccmeOrHCX5fO3nQ8miaIznQqQA_IFSXLIZbzuhQ it containa bit about our common teacher M.S.Narasimhan. MSN was my ph.d advisor but i was already interested in topolgy and worked by myself. we used to have beer on Daturdays for a while. He was like an older brother to me and was responsible for my trip to Liverpool.

Revenge mathematics

Revenge mathematics. I think that it was 1977, I visited England for a conference. There are some memories, but I may be mixing up with another conference. May be it was the conference Serre lectured and lights went out but he went on with the lecture. I was going back to india but stopped to visit a friend Jo Marks in Southampton. On the way, I stopped in London to visit Dillon’s, a bookshop which had a reasonable collection of mathematics books. Just then a book on 3-manifolds came out and I bought. As I browsed the book, there were no references to me though there were references to others who did similar work. I was upset and angry. On the train to Southampton, I started looking at open problems in the book( I think that I ended up solving some of them) and one caught my attention. It was about finding criteria for a surface subgroup of a compact irreducible manifold to be peripheral. I found a cohomological criterion for sufficiency and by the time I landed in Southampton, I had a theorem ready. But it was too easy and I was not sure whether it was publishable. Somedays later I realised that it was an important special case of a theorem of Johannson and he actually ave me preprints in 1974 in Bielefeld. and I happily published a two page note. It brought some attention but I could not prove the full Johannson theorem. It seemed to need a relative version of what I did. Much later I started working with Peter Scott and had a joint paper with Peter which was mostly his. He asked me to prove the relative version and it came immediately. Instead of some coholomogy group being zero, it needed a map in some cohomological groups to be the zero map. Peter completed the proof of Johannson’s theorem using some easy three dimensional topology. This was around 2000. I thought that was the end of it. Meanwhile we studied this kind of decompositions of Poincare Duality pairs and around 2019, we started wondering whether an analogue of Johannsion’s theorem was true for them. And in a few days a proof popped up. And it also gave a simple algebraic proof for 3-manifolds. Meanwhile fashion shifted and nobody noticed it though for us it was a pleasing conclusion after nearly 42 years. But I think that I have seen micro bundles, block bundles and various such fashions come and go but JSJ stayed for fifty years. P.S. I tried a relative version of my argument for over twenty years but could not do it. Yet when Peter asked me do it, I did with in a day. May be there is some thing in collaboration that increases the intensity of the endeavour and makes two plus two bigger than four. ...... The link below is the third of the papers. The first two papers are the references 20 and 16 there. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.15684.pdf

Simplicius the thinker mail bag

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/subscriber-mailbag-answers-92223

Peter Scott passed away

in the early hours of September 19. it is a great personal loss for me. we collaborated for over thirt years and our interactions went beyond mathematics. The memories of him will stay with me for the rest of my life.

From Indian Punchline

https://www.indianpunchline.com/bidens-phase-of-ukraine-war-is-beginning/

Military Industrial Complex Unraveled & Exposed, May be

by Helen Glass https://www.lewrockwell.com/2023/09/no_author/military-industrial-complex-unraveled-exposed/ i checked some of the details from other sources like New York Times, Politico...

Latest from Dima of Military Summary

https://youtu.be/RmzBQIvLlqc?si=pzRk0XYXTsijUl3y some commentors in Moonof Alabama suggest Dima is erratic.

Reminiscences of Peter Scott

We first interacted in Liverpool during 1968-69 where we discussed mostly Kirby-Siebenman work. Later we seem to have independently turned to 3-manifolds and there was some correspondence in 1972 about Waldhausen’s work as well as ‘finitely generated implies finitely presented’ for 3-manifold groups. There is some discussion of this in a survey article by Danny Wise and probably the neatest proof comes from Thomas Delzant which I described ‘Delzant’s variation of Scott Complexity’ written in Peter’s honour on his 60th birthday. Our next interactions were sporadic for a while. I remember Peter advising me that it is difficult to understand Thurston and that I should discuss with others. He then invited me to conference in 1984 that he organised with D.B.A. Epstein in Warwick. By this time he was quite well known and seemed to be determined to make a better mathematician out of me. We next met in Norman, Oklahoma in 1986, and he suggested two problems which we did together. One of them proved that certain finitely generated subgroups of distorted Kleinian groups are geometrically finite. Since then topic has been pursued by a few others. After that we met in a few conferences where we discussed how many results in 3-manifold theory may have analogues in group theory with annulus theorem as a possible candidate. But serious work on this started in 1994 when Peter visited Melbourne. During this visit Peter showed me a paper of Tukia and said that it should lead to a proof of annulus theorem for hyperbolic groups and he also suggested that I needed to read only a few pages in Tukia’s paper. It was like a thesis advisor advising a student. This was the start of an intense collaboration with Peter since then. We probably wrote over six hundred pages of mathematics together in about ten papers. We made mistakes and probably took up a wrong program. But after a lot of hard work we did achieve what we wanted and for both us it seemed the hardest work we have done. We visited each other several times and it was not always clear how the ideas originated but they seemed joint. The program was the main aim, we did not care who did the actual work. Some papers were completely Peter’s and some more or less mine though they appeared as joint papers. Sometimes there were other collaborators. For both us it was very satisfactory work with the last paper just nearing completion. ‘Beating it in to shape’ as Peter used to say. In retrospect, it seems to me that we were barking up the wrong tree though Peter did not agree with me. But along the way we did some work on intersection numbers and regular neighbourhoods which seem to be useful in other contexts too. Peter remained active until he could work no more. This last paper was written mostly by him. During this March-June, he developed another approach to regular neighbourhoods which is quite interesting and non-trivial.

New depths in Europe

One arm dealer in Ukraine

https://archive.li/Pz1hR

Malaria vaccines

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/why-we-didnt-get-a-malaria-vaccine-sooner via Marginal Revolution. Though there is no mention of Ronald Ross, there is a link to his Nobel prize lecture. There are four Nobel prizes between 1902 and 2015 relate to alaria. One more Grassi probably shouldhave got it https://crai.ub.edu/en/node/14823?fbclid=IwAR0Rj3P3Tpeufk6pP8YuX9Xw5rkiYPuQ8h3EhQz9CK-FNz6bEHYZUHZoV38

A discussion of John Mearsheimer article ‘Bound to lose’

it does not seem to discuss 'follow the money' line of thought.

Jeffrey Sachs explains Ukraine crisis, ring side seat

John Helmer on Prigozhin demise

But there is a lot of the african operations of various countries. https://johnhelmer.net/prigozhins-three-strikes-khodorkovsky-business-berezovsky-politics-the-last-africa-trip/#more-88495

Latest from Douglas Macgregor

An overall evaluation of the counteroffensive by Ukraine

https://mearsheimer.substack.com/p/bound-to-lose?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2 by John. J. MearsheimerSomebody pointed out that the title of the above article may have origins in

Why Mathematical Proof Is a Social Compact

bu Andrew Granville https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-mathematical-proof-is-a-social-compact-20230831/?fbclid=IwAR0bmQCHduFIWPgS9mgjoZLI86i2PGED2GONlpHQyHbt3gR515M5Zr2eg3Q A more technical discussion https://mxphi.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Granville.pdf see also https://www.philocomp.net/computing/hilbert.htm?fbclid=IwAR3OUm3vd3m64X0VYat4whyNUJSGGqGg153n7iVm82GteVweV4PxaCPptEc_aem_AYk1OFQ3a54MAViUF6a0pIiv9zXIoGPspH-cnxWRxTpH12TSW8SdwJcQAyLCJPw7JQg

Rutherford’s favourite

Piotr Kapitza https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsbm.1985.0012 “…the transition of the Cavendish from the string and sealing wax tradition to the age of large machine physics”.

Long read from Big Serge

https://bigserge.substack.com/p/escaping-attrition-ukraine-rolls

Indus Blues, Pakistani music documentary

Sarees from water hyacinth

in other places https://youtu.be/g83Fu0R2GGM?si=oI_eRHSTCDzC_LzP

Chips and washing machines

First Ursula von der Leyen said that Russia was taking chips out of dishwashers and fridges to fix its military hardware. Now German FM Baerbock is saying the same thing about using chips from German washing machines for drones and missiles. https://twitter.com/mazzenilsson/status/1695478885196935255

Other theories on Prigozhin

Scott Ritter on Progozhin crash

The idea seems to be that Putin is probably not responsible as this happened during Brics summit. it is possible that somebody who wants to do a favour to Putin might have been responsible or more likely an accident.But this is at very initial stages of investigation.

Another discussion with Douglas Macgregor

C.R.Rao passed away on August 22

Tucker Carlson with Douglas Macgregor

Vijay Prashad on Niger coup

https://consortiumnews.com/2023/08/16/niger-is-far-from-a-typical-coup/

Russian motives in Africa similar to those of the west says Riley Waggaman

Hint: Prigozhin was at the conference. https://tntradiolive.podbean.com/e/riley-waggaman-on-perspective-with-jesse-zurawell-10-august-2023/ Another interview from March, 2022 https://catholicism.org/russian-myths-vs-russian-reality-with-edward-slavsquat.html

A different kind of interview with Riley Waggaman

Imran Khan saga

Simplicius the thinker explores Russia’s banking system

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/russias-cbdc-exploring-the-truth A febuttal bere https://edwardslavsquat.substack.com/p/elvira-nabiullina-is-the-kindest

About Gramsci

"Gramsci provides no easy answers for the current challenges that we face. Yet with concepts such as “hegemony” and “organic intellectuals,” the “war of position” and the “historic bloc,” “conjunctural analysis” and the battle for “common sense,” he provides social movements with an enriched strategic vocabulary. And with his insistence on rejecting determinism and engaging with society’s most deeply held beliefs, he offers an approach to radical politics that is dynamic enough to stay relevant through the crises—and transformations—yet to come." from https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/08/what-can-social-movements-learn-from-gramsci-in-todays-uncertain-times.html

Solow interview

https://conversableeconomist.com/2023/07/25/levitt-interviews-solow-on-life-events-and-economic-growth/

The coup in Niger

Latest from Simplicius

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sitrep-8123-the-hegemon-begins-to

New development

https://www.arabobserver.com/niger-suspends-export-of-uranium-and-gold-to-france/

Gonzalo Lira escape?

https://www.rt.com/news/580645-gonzalo-lira-ukraine-torture/

Scott Ritter on unravelling truth

Patrice Lumumba University

"The Patrice Lumumba Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (Russian: Российский университет дружбы народов имени Патриса Лумумбы), also known as RUDN University and until 1992 and after March 2023, as Patrice Lumumba University in honour of the Congolese politician Patrice Lumumba, is a public research university located in Moscow, Russia." from the Wikipedia.

Russia and Africa relations

 Russia treats Africans as equals, Patrice Lumumba’s son tells RT 

“Lumumba’s father, Patrice Lumumba, was the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo for a tumultuous three months in 1960. With the fledgling state threatened by Belgian-backed separatists, Lumumba appealed to the US and UN for aid, who turned down his request. The USSR, however, supplied his government with weapons and military advisers, and when Lumumba was ousted and arrested in a coup, the Soviets pushed the UN to secure his release.

Read more

 Russia to help Nigeria resuscitate steel sector – official

Patrice Lumumba was executed by Belgian-backed forces in 1961. He remains an icon of pan-Africanism and anti-colonialism, and his son believes that his outreach to the USSR forged a permanent link between Russia and the Congo that persists to this day, as it does in other African countries – like Mozambique and Angola –  that .the Soviet Union backed during the Cold War..”

But there are some differences between Russia and Soviet Union.

Simplicius the thinker answers some questions on the Ukraine war

Subscriber Mailbag Answers - 7/24/23 [Part 1] 

John Helmer interviews Colonel Jacques Baud

 Lot of promotion material. Interview starts after twenty minutes

Colonel Jacques Baud on War of the Worlds - 22 July 2023

Biden corruption?

 

Surprised that this kind of videos are public and there are no denials yet.

Related https://thegrayzone.com/2023/07/13/bidens-corruption-led-to-ukraines-destruction-fmr-kiev-diplomat/

Brain waves

 Brain Waves Synchronize when People Interact

Dan Little introduces Ludwik Fleck

Ludwik Fleck and "thought styles" in science It is based on Ludwik Fleck in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

The Duran on the grain deal

 

Simplicius the thinker on Crimean bridge attack, grain deal etc

 Kerch Bridge Déjà Vu - Breakdown

Putin and Prigozhin

 Putin, Prigozhin and the management principle: “work with the hand you are dealt” by Gilbert Doctorow

Latest attack on Crimean bridge

 

About social paradoxes

 The evolution of social paradoxes by David Pinsof

Manohari Singh

 The Sculptors of Film Songs (5): Manohari Singh has several popular Hindi film songs.

Dmitry Orlov ‘ The Incredible Shrinking NATO’

When M.K. Bhadrakumar Forgot A Small Detail. Dmitry Orlov on NATO.NATO is a captive buyers’ club for US-made weapons 

Dmitry Orlov’s post

‘The Duran’ on Vilnius NATO summit

 

A science documentary recommended by Ashutosh Jogalekar

 

John Hemer’s latest report

 THE NATO ULTIMATUM TO UKRAINE – INVITATION TO WIN BY WINTER ORDIE

Two posts on debt in NC

 Book Review: Richard Vague, “The Paradox of Debt”

Michael Hudson: Colonialism or Sovereignty? How the Global Financial System Traps Countries in Debt

Another update via Danny Haiphong

 

On the Vilnius summit meeting

From Moon of Alabama 

John Helmer on Putin meeting Prigozhin at the end of June

 Damage control

Repeat videos from YouTube

 This seems to have come about a month ago and appears again with a new date. The same sort of thing seems to be happening with other videos.

A new channel on Telugu film music

 

Ashutosh Jogalekar on John Wheeler and Oliver Sachs

 Who share their birthday with Ashutosh

The Wisdom Of John Wheeler And Oliver Sacks from about five years ago but did not age.

Scott Ritter about nuclear treaties

 From 19:35 onwards for about fifteen minutes 

Latest from Simplicius the thinker

 Azov Commanders Return, 6th Column Goes Crazy

“I had thought that the war could last for several years, but given the latest developments, the desperate signals from the West regarding their ammo supplies, etc., it appears to me increasingly possible that without a major black swan event that Ukraine craves so much (like initiating WW3), they could potentially face collapse as early as the end of this year, if not over the course of this coming winter.”

Latest from Jacques Baud on Ukraine

 Translation available but it is machine translation.

Bhadrakumar is not pleased with Indian attitude to SCO

 India’s discontent with the SCO

Update on cluster bombs etc from Scott Ritter

 

Russian communist response to Russian capitalism

 Via John Helmer

ing report from Simplicius the thinker

 SITREP 7/6/23: Zelensky Builds One Last Suicidal Thrust to Appease Masters

Ray McGovern on Prigozhin and French riots

 

Larry Johnson on the current global conflicts

 BACKGROUND PAPER: RUSSIA, UNITED STATES & UKRAINE

Alistair Crooke on Ukraine and Europe

 https://www.youtube.com/live/cEPaNl6nXZk?feature=share

Similar views from Larry Johnson https://www.youtube.com/live/L-vY3ANoutI?feature=share

Last battle of the American revolution

Was the last battle of the American Revolution fought in India? A growing number of historians think so 

The sort of Russian history that might have influenced Putin

From Gilbert Doctorow  Links to documentaries each over two hours long.

Scott Ritter internet Nazi elements in Ukraine

 Mostly in the first half 

A girl from Dagestan meets Puti in Kremlin

 https://www.bitchute.com/video/OROngqVRgC9O/ 

Once again, the background to Ukraine crisis

 

Brics vs G7

 

A puzzle which Mahalanobis and Ramanujan solved

 

A bit about the 14th century Indian mathematician Madhava

 

UK failed state?

 

Long discussion with Doug Macgregor from PBD

 Mostly about America, some about Putin’s Ukraine

John Helmer’s account of Prigozhin affair

 From John Helmer

For a semi-official Russian account of what happened in Rostov when Prigozhin was there last Saturday,  read this piece published yesterday in Vzglyad. This reports Shoigu’s presence in the city at the time; the advance knowledge at the General Staff of Prigozhin’s threats, intentions,  plans, and force capacities.  

The inventory of the initial official searches of Prigozhin’s St Petersburg offices and vehicles uncovered five kilogrammes of cocaine, about Rb4 billion in cash, gold bullion bars, barrels of US dollars, several false passports, pistols, and records of offshore transactions in the Central African Republic and elsewhere. Prigozhin, speaking before Putin made public his comment on stealing,  confirmed the cash and told Fontanka, a St. Petersburg publication, he saw “nothing terrible”

Doug Henwood on neoliberalism

 Neoliberalism right and left

Scott Ritter on Prigozhin and the future possibilities in Ukraine

 

Douglas Macgregor’s take is different.

John Goodenough RIP

 John Goodenough: Nobel-prize-winning battery pioneer dies aged 100

An interview with Carlo Ginzburg

 Carlo Ginzburg: ‘In history as in cinema, every close-up implies an off-screen scene’

VElcheru Narayana Rao used a similar approach.

Lads P. Syll on early Ricardo

 Straffa on Ricatdo’s ‘corn model’

Branco Milanovic on Chinese capitalism

 “…we can see the current Chinese state capitalism as a protracted NEP that began in 1978 and continues until today. But Lenin seems to overlook the possibility that with a very long NEP the economic and political power will gradually seep from under the Party and the very nature of the state would change. Those who have money will dictate things as in capitalist countries. The state may not be able to control them and the commanding heights of the economy may change ownership. This happened under Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao: the development of state capitalism under socialist conditions led to the increasing influence of rich people and capitalists, including their inclusion in most of the party organs, and through the idea of “The Three Represents”, it gave a pretense of ideological acceptability to such evolution. The change in the elite composition, evident in a study done by Li Yang, Filip Novokmet and myself, is another product of such policies. The social structure of the Chinese elite had enormously evolved between the late 1980s and 2013 (when our study ends). While the private sector was marginal among the elite (the top 5 percent) in 1988, twenty-five year later almost one-third of the people in the elite were private businessmen (owners of small enterprises and large scale capitalists). If one includes professionals who are employed in the private sector, a bit over one-half of the elite is private-sector dependent.

It is in this context that one can look at Xi Jinping’s policies: as an attempt at the reassertion of the power of the state vs. the capitalist sector and the rich. Or to use Lenin’s distinction between the two, as an attempt to move from state capitalism to state capitalism. It is an adjustment in the political power between the two sectors: the state, ruled by a bureaucratic stratum, and the rich. It represents the analog of the populist reaction in the Western democracies: the feeling that the business elite has become too powerful, has no discernible interest in the problems of ordinary people, and has to be reined in. We can thus see Xi Jinping as both a heir to Lenin’s New Economic Policy and in much more contemporary terms as a populist response to the excesses of the new rich. ”

From http://glineq.blogspot.com/2023/06/state-capitalism-one-hundred-years-ago.html

Douglas Macgregor perspective on Prigozhin

 

Repeated, only the first half needs watching.

Big Serge on Prigozhin fiasco

 TheWagner uprising seems very reasonable.

Douglas Macgregor on Prigozhin and nuclear threats

 

Possibilities of dirty bomb. Similar warnings from’the Duran’ and Simplicius the thinker

Bhadrakumar on Prigozhin

 The rise and fall of a Russian oligarch

Scientific branch creation

 A Report on Scientific Branch-Creation: How the Rockefeller Foundation helped bootstrap the field of molecular biology ERIC

Latest updates on the ground from Military Summary

 

Evolving techniques of modern warfare

 Excellent article as many of his are. According to Simplicius the thinker It is getting so technical that it is difficult to follow even the comments. One of the comments:

marcjf

17 hr ago

I read this article a few days ago (and might even have dropped a link here?) but hoped it would be covered - and it has been and very well - thanks!

Seems to me that the BTGs were an attempt to create all arms units at a very low level - maybe 4 manouvre companies backed by artillery, grad, recce and AD. These could and maybe still work well (but seems even company sized groupings are vulnerable) but obviously came unstuck in close terrain. Back in Feb 22 I recall confidently saying to a pal that I thought the Russians would not invade as the weather forecast was bad and the Raputitsa would soon arrive. This would create conditions where heavy Russian units would be road bound and hence vulnerable - and could be held up by relatively light forces in villages/woods etc. As proved to be the case. Any way - I was thus surprised the war began when it did and I could make a point that it was started when it was via UAF provacation and shelling for just this reason.

What has surprised me was the failure of Russia to apply its massive army to overwhelm the UAF. This article goes a long way to helping to understand the reason why. Put simply, the fighting has become atomised attrition. Killing enemy soldiers is important, but destruction of their firepower and communications much more so. Russian attacks on infrastructure were it seems to me intended to degrade AD capabilities mire than anything else so as to allow Russian air superiority to come into play more decisively.

In this war of material attrition it seems that large battles have been replaced by hundreds of [fire strikes] daily and the slow erosion of enemy long term capabilities. The UAF would have been overwhelmed last year if it were not for NATO arms. But now it seems NATO itself is becoming degraded as it ships its weapons stocks to the war and they become consumed. It is a moot point whether NATO can in the medium term replace these faster than it is spending them.

Battles like Bakhmut become explicable because only in close terrain can large scale units operate. And it thus becomes clearer that the UAF made a grave error trying to hold here as they traded lives for Russian shells. 

How does such a war end as it is hard to win a long war of attrition? The Twitter war may provide part of the answer. NATO has clearly dominated the English language and western European media spaces. This helps prime [voters] for the long haul, but is also intended to undermine Russian morale - maybe leading to collapse and regime change. Personally I think this is a fools hope, and there is a danger that one starts believing your own BS and propaganda - and I think that has occurred. But the corollary of this change the way wars are fought must lead to a change in the way they are won. If Russia is concentrating not on taking ground but attritting weapon systems, then at what point does Ukraine/NATO throw in the towel?

I suggest there must logically come a point where one side or the other cannot continue and it collpases, and then we will see lots of territory changing hands. It appears that many western analysts thought Russia was close to that point in early June and that one more attack would collapse Russian resistance. Not many who come here would have agreed. But is the UAF close to that point? That is the real question. And if not, what will bring it to that point?

From Bhavana on DONALD Knuth

 The Dawn of Rigour in the Art of Programming by Sudhir Rao

And one on R.C.Bose https://bhavana.org.in/raj-chandra-bose-universal-mathematician/

Bhadrakumar on Ukraine’s NATO accession

 Biden walks back on Ukraine’s Nato accession

An unfolding tragedy

 An Unfolding Tragedy: The Impossibility of Doing ‘Anything Other’ by Alastair Crooke

P.S.

I’ll Clinton on Putinin 2013

 

The Duran on divisions in the US establishment

 

Apparently Pentagon and its allies feel that Ukraine war is lost and want to build infra structure and the industrial strength of US to counter China. But the state department is dominated by Russia haters who feel that Pentagon will eventually have its way and want to escalate the efforts in Ukraine when they still have the chance and Biden’s support.

From Danny Haiphong and others

 

China WARNS US Stop 'Confrontation' or Risk Conflict w/ Garland Nixon and Carl Zha

19:59

24:57 / 25:00

Russia and China are WINNING and the Neocons Are Furious w/ Garland Nixon and Carl Zha