Children collect flour from the ground in Gaza

https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2024/2/20/children-collect-spilled-flour-from-the-ground-after-gaza-aid-chaos

Scott Ritter discusses Novalny in this episode

An interview about Leo Szilard

Fatal mistakes says Alastair Crooke

see also https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/02/19/resistance-has-plan-for-israel-but-on-other-side-fantastical-us-stratagems-ensure-cascading-failure/

Douglas Macgregor discusses Putin-Carlson interview

From Namit Arora, India through the eyes of visitors Alberuni (11th century) and Marco Polo

Seems similar to the current India

Two articles from Big Serge and John Helmer

https://bigserge.substack.com/p/the-age-of-zugzwang and https://johnhelmer.net/the-history-of-russian-sex/#more-89366

A wide ranging interview with Scott Ritter by Danny Haiphong

Mostly about Ukraine, Putin, Carlson interview. About 25 minutes about Gaza.

Recent episode from ‘Ask the Inspector’ series

Election politics from The Duran

Scott Ritter at JudgingFreedom

ends with a note of desperation about Palestinians.

Tucker Carlson first discussion after the Putin interview

More about Gaza from Ray McGovern

Latest from Alastair Crooke

Still a lot about Putin-Carlson interview from Scott Ritter Extra, Episode 134

Tucker Carlson gets another lesson

this time from Colonel Douglas Macgregor confirming some of the things that Putin said; first fifty minutes.

A discussion of the Putin-Carlson interview from The Duran

Slightly more negative discussions from Yves Smith nd Gilbert Doctorow https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/02/tucker-carlson-interview-of-vladimir-putin.html and https://gilbertdoctorow.com

Tucker Carlson interview of Putin

https://tuckercarlson.com/the-vladimir-putin-interview/

Jeffrey Sachs on US foreign policy

More about starving Palestians from Aaron Mate

Phil Giraldi on starving Palestians

‘Swarming of Biden’ by Alastair Crooke

https://www.unz.com/article/the-three-strands-to-the-swarming-of-biden/

Latest from Larry Johnson

Latest from Alastair Crooke

First uses of accordion in Indian film songs

https://amvaishnav.wordpress.com/2024/01/31/the-sculptors-of-film-songs-11-goody-seervai/

More talk of peace in Mideast

"It’s difficult not to be somewhat impressed by these developments. For all the corruption and evil of the US regime, we can almost give them credit for coming to reason—under great duress and social pressure, of course—and for once doing the just and honorable thing. What it further means is that the US realizes it has no choice remaining but to hardball an ‘end game’ against Israel, otherwise US risks being dragged into an Empire-ending war with Iran." From https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sitrep-2224-biden-launches-attacks

Update on US response to Jordan attack, suggests routine response

Scott Ritter with Garland Nixon discusses both Mideast and Ukraine

ICJ Rules Against Ukraine on Terrorism, MH17

https://consortiumnews.com/2024/02/01/icj-rules-against-ukraine-v-russia-on-terrorism-mh17/

Phil Giraldi at Judging Freedom

John Helmer on the progress of the Russian offensive

https://johnhelmer.net/breakthrough-on-all-fronts-ahead-of-schedule/#more-89289

Douglas Macgregor on the developments in Israel

Scott Ritter’s travels in Russia and some war regions in Ukraine(after 50 minutes)

The Duran on possibilities of war with Iran

Latest from Alastair Crooke

see also https://thealtworld.com/alastair_crooke/the-tragic-self-destruction-of-an-enraged-israel

An update from Simplicius the thinker

on Middle East and Ukraine https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sitrep-12824-us-troops-suffer-fatalities

Namit Arora videos on Indians, part 4

Russia Iran deal

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/01/russia-and-iran-finalize-20-year-deal-that-will-change-the-middle-east-forever.html

Simplicius the thinker on the American border problems

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/border-crisis-heats-up-as-biden-admin

Democracy Now on ICJ interim ruling

ICJ speaks on South African complaint against Israel

Review of two books on free will

https://inquisitivebiologist.com/2024/01/23/book-review-free-agents-how-evolution-gave-us-free-will/ A discussion by the authors

Gilbert Doctorow on Putin’s decency

https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2024/01/24/is-putins-decency-inviting-a-world-war-comments-on-a-new-article-by-paul-craig-roberts/ "Is Putin’s decency inviting a world war? Comments on a new article by Paul Craig Roberts" see also https://original.antiwar.com/gilbert_doctorow/2019/02/01/vladimir-putin-to-the-west-we-will-bury-you/ https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2024/01/22/will-war-result-from-the-ever-hesitant-putin/

Two classical songs from Hindi films

Without comment

https://www.oneindia.com/entertainment/revathis-heartfelt-letter-on-ram-mandir-goes-viral-3734001.html

Hard wired for corruption

Ravisastri writings

https://lookaside.fbsbx.com/file/రావి_శాస్త్రి_రచనా_సాగరం.pdf?token=AWzY7LeIL3RYbQFZNxJK2OALMHVliGjylGb4l4OOwXbK_EZOr5Oxz8rHZeotzK877nS5UMZzlvZz7LbM-YLWK37ixV_XCwnUlh2zu9AYMupJTOjpncsALYZtzjhF2SOeN_AfySKrLJWuQ27nWu3j0vh1tc8eZCsh8HCgJzQe3iz0jmTHGlEZJIVTdesGN-j_n_BSzBA8ULTdUklvZE6PXHs4dseMlGNrhxJpRvjZ11Clxs7b0GLuHi3mq7BDq4xROaRRYA4ADB_wCj7XdF6K10eUJCU0Ls7lWTfUsYXsiAzrKLvDf5UCoo9jjPnRo8cNkWqaZjxGndBeG46sydpDUbQjZDNBsPQqCLzGD5uVqpV5CC1LU8Tvgtt56F6z1YibvULTu_4GdHcEjhgVTTS4lIBZ95lZkDq_i2nIEVNZHmESEyVrD5wrdnQPG4WGFcSDYrzv9JmsIzpy89EbdIlGf_1_Xx4f6l1KfiObJ3rcXdYGjg

Scott Ritter pins hopes on China

Michael Hudson interview with Danny Haiphong

"...—and America is willing to fight to the last Israeli, just as it’s willing—it’s trying to fight to the last Ukrainian in order to make this final grab of the Near East in fighting Iran." https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/01/michael-hudson-on-russia-iran-and-the-red-sea-natos-war-economy-collapses.html

An update from Simplicious

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sitrep-12024-russian-gains-resume

New Rules podcast of Alastair crooke

https://rumble.com/v47q2wr-live-new-rules-podcast-w-alastair-crooke.html

Erdogan’s double game?

https://new.thecradle.co/articles/erdogans-double-game-praising-palestine-aiding-israel

Pepe Escobar reviews Emmanuel Todd’s new book

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240118/how-the-west-was-defeated-1116245840.html

Meta Joota hai Japan I, Lata version

Lakshmi vadina

Lakshmi ( I do not the full name, wife of cousin Mammaneni Ramamohanarao Rao ) passed away a few days ago at the age of 90. I think that she has ph.d in economics but I am not sure. She taught in an institute in Delhi and had three daughters all ph.d I think. I interacted with her in Delhi during the 1980s and met her several times later and talked to her on the phone too. She was a treasure of stories about Andhra villages and farming families from around 1940s. Many of us wanted to record her stories but never did. Her brother in law K.L.Krishna is an economist and worked in Delhi School of Economics for a long time. Like Krishna she was a gentle and kind person. But I always felt that like many women of her generation, she did not realise her intellectual potential but enlightened many people during her life. One of Lakskmi's stories: This is about a Brahmin lady in her village in Krishna district. As a child she is used to hear her father recite vedas and remember them. later on she was considered an expert on Hinduism and the villagers to go to her for interpretation of Hinduism. This became useful to another poor brahmin girl in the village. The girl came from large family and was married off to an old brahmin in a nearby village. The old man was already living with a Dommara woman and the girl was abused and made to serve both of them. The girl could not take it and after a while came back home and said that she would commit suicide if she was sent back. The parents let her stay and the girl who was musically talented started teaching music. one of her students was a landowner with a sick wife and three dughters. Soon after she shifted to nearby town Masulipatam where it was more lucrative to teach music. The landowner too often visited Masulipatam to continue the lessons. A liason developed between the two and continued for years. one day, the girl now a woman heard that her lover was seriously sick. She came to the village, walked through the main street and went to his house. There was an uproar in the village and the landowners wanted to kill her. Lakshmi's father protested saying that it was the fault of both and if she is killed, he should be killed too. The matters stood there when the villagers went to the old brahmin lady for her opinion. There was also simultaneous talk of banishing her family from the village. The old lady came up with a compromise formula, which was that nobody would be killed or banished but from then on the young lady should be barred from visiting her parents. This formula was finally adopted and the young lady was allowed to live in her lover's house looking after his sick wife and daughters.They more or less lived happily afterwards but problems developed during the marriages of the daughters. Prospective groom's parents did not want to have such a lady in the marriage arrangements. it seems that one of the girls refused to have such martiages if her new mother was not accepted as part of the family. There were other problems too when the lady wanted to visit her sick mother. Lakshmi who was a young girl at that time used to open their door open so that the lady could enter their house and could go through the backdoor to visit her mother. That is what Invaguely remember of one of her stories, probably very distorted since I listened to her about thirty years ago.

Slicing and Dicing videos, below both have David Thunder.

Bhadrakumar on the end of the siege of Leningrad

https://www.indianpunchline.com/an-anniversary-west-would-rather-forget/

Douglas Macgregor at Judging Freedom on regional war in the Mideast

Alastair Crooke on the ICJ presentations

Simplicius on Yemen

Simplicius in his latest substack post says”Russia launched over 7500 missiles at Ukraine—a country that has most of its infrastructure out ‘in the open’, and many people regard Ukraine as hardly having been industrially attrited after 2 years of such continued bombardment. Now imagine what a measly pittance of 70-100 aging Tomahawk missiles is going to do to a country with highly decentralized military structures spread across the deserts. In short: nothing.” https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/us-launches-strikes-on-yemen-and

Pope on gluttony

https://www.usccb.org/news/2024/gluttony-turns-people-mere-consumers-exploiters-planet-pope-says#:~:text=%22We%20are%20realizing%20that%20this,not%20take%20over%20our%20lives.%22 From a "social point of view," he said, "gluttony is perhaps the most dangerous vice, which is killing the planet."

‘Something Lost, Never to be Found Again’ by Alastair Crooke

https://thealtworld.com/alastair_crooke/something-lost-never-to-be-found-again https://darkfutura.substack.com/p/bones-of-tomorrow?

Megh Santoor

https://beastoftraal.com/2023/10/13/what-does-taj-mahal-teas-megh-santoor-billboard-really-sound-like/

Judging Freedom with Matt Hoh

Larry Johnson seems to agree with Alastair Crooke

From Plato to NATO

Bismarck’s influence on Stalin and Putin

The Duran discussion with historian Geoffrey Roberts.

Cole’s Express becomes Reddy Express

The name ‘Reddy’ brings back some interesting memories. Around 1974 we had visitor from Andhra with his daughter in law and two month old grandchild. He wanted to send them to her husband in West Indies. After few days in Bombay, the trip was arranged and she got in to the flight. I panicked since she did not know any English and the flight had a long stop over in London. During my stay in Liverpool, I knew there were a number of Telugu doctors in the infirmary there and I decided there must be also a Reddy among them. So I phoned in the Infirmary asking for Dr.Reddy. There was one and he was very helpful. Ha said that he could not go to London but will arrange with friends in London to meet her and facilitate the travel. After a few weeks I heard from one of her relatives that she reached West Indies safely. That is Reddy for you. Today I saw this on what used to be Coles Express. Apparently, they wanted to change it to Ready Express but found that the name is already taken. So this is the result.

Ohm Kalthoum

Seems to be from 1935, the tune that inspired 'Awara Hoon'. a similar tune appears around 1:25 in the movie Wedad Her biography https://www.encyclopedia.com/international/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/umm-kulthum-c-1904-1975

Alistair crooke: US drawn onto Israel path

https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/us-drawn-onto-israeli-path----one-difficult-to-exit-without

Some old news about wheat blast

Ghost riders in the sky

SPB explains a film song

Brian Berletic on Gaza war

The account is less optimistic for Hamas than the accounts by Scott Ritter and others.

Suppressing information

Alaistair Crooke on sunken cost fallacy

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