52. How Old is Nasruddin’s Wife?
One evening Nasruddin turned to his wife and asked, “How old are you?”
“I don’t know,” she replied.
“What do you mean you don’t know? You keep track of everything!” Nasruddin exclaimed. “You know how many knives and forks we have, and how many pots and pans. You could probably tell me how many grains of rice there are in the pantry. How can you not know how old you are?”
“I keep household accounts so that I’ll know if someone steals something,” she replied. “But nobody is going to steal my age, so what’s the point in keeping track?”
This Tale is from “Tiny Tales of Nasruddin” by Laura Gibbs. The book is licensed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. © 2019-2022 Laura Gibbs.
And finally, when we talk about public debt or sovereign debt, we have to talk about the IMF and the World Bank, the bailiffs of Western financial capital. When they shed crocodile tears about the welfare losses caused by debt repayment, which divert money away from health care or education or clean water in the developing world, they do that on the one hand. And on the other hand, they impose the most draconian repayment terms, ensuring massive reverse capital flows, that is to say, capital flowing not from rich country to poor countries, as it’s supposed to do in economics textbooks, but on the contrary, from poor countries to rich countries.
At the same time, they demonstrate the tenderest of mercies for the debt of friendly countries like Ukraine. It is no wonder that there is another campaign marking the 80th anniversary of these two vampire institutions calling for their abolition. The only good news is that they are becoming less and less effective and less and less important, chiefly because of the rise of China as a major creditor. — Quality Of Debt Counts by Michael Hudson
Thirty years ago, ecstasy and torment took hold of John Rivers, shocking him out of “half-baked imbecility into something more nearly resembling the human form.” He had an affair with the wife of his mentor, Henry Maartens—a pathbreaking physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize, and a figure of blinding
There is an attempt to substitute concepts. Because we are not talking about allowing or prohibiting the Kiev regime to strike at Russian territory. It is already striking with the help of unmanned aerial vehicles and other means. But when it comes to using high–precision long-range Western-made weapons, it’s a completely different story. The fact is that, as I have already said, and any experts will confirm this (both here and in the West), the Ukrainian army is not able to strike with modern high-precision long-range systems of Western production. It can’t do that. This is possible only with the use of satellite data, which Ukraine does not have — this is data only from satellites of either the European Union or the United States, in general, from NATO satellites. This is the first one.
The second, and very important, perhaps key, is that flight missions to these missile systems can, in fact, only be carried out by military personnel of NATO countries. Ukrainian servicemen cannot do this. And therefore, it is not a question of allowing the Ukrainian regime to strike Russia with these weapons or not to allow it. It’s about deciding whether NATO countries are directly involved in a military conflict or not. If this decision is made, it will mean nothing more than the direct participation of NATO countries, the United States, and European countries in the war in Ukraine. This is their direct involvement.
And this, of course, significantly changes the very essence, the very nature of the conflict. This will mean that NATO countries, the United States, and European countries are at war with Russia. And if this is the case, then, bearing in mind the change in the very essence of this conflict, we will make appropriate decisions based on the threats that will be created to us. — Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation
There Will Be War, perhaps just in time for martial law to be declared by President Kamala Harris that will prevent an election on 5 November 2024. We do live in interesting times.