Latest Twitter Threads by @althecat on Thread Reader App

Sep 20 • 6 tweets • 2 min read

Interesting clear eyed commentary as always from Mearshiemer.

Following the Israeli’s latest escalation the Israelis are now in a stalemate situation.

Prof. John Mearsheimer : Is Israel on the Brink? via @YouTubeyoutube.com/live/juNa3vgXI… I.E. they have now run out of options. And Netanyahu is now in a bind.

If Netanyahu / Israel has more tricks up its sleeve to address this remains to be seen.

But the overall construction here following Nasrallah’s remarks is pretty clear and it looks like Israel is not in a position to invade Lebanon. If they were they would have done so yesterday or the day before.

Sep 19 • 6 tweets • 1 min read

So Iran now says there will be a joint response to the Lebanon situation from the « Axis of Resistance »

It sounds however like this will not be overly escalatory in order to avoid an all out war.

🔴 Al Jazeera English | Live via @YouTubeyoutube.com/live/gCNeDWCI0… So perhaps we will see something more demonstrative. Firing missiles into the sea or the desert would be unfortunate for the fishes and camels. But it may allow the Axis to make their point without leading to a regional war that could so easily spiral completely out of control. /2

Sep 17 • 6 tweets • 4 min read

The 538 poll of polls is a complete disaster for the GOP at this point.

Biden’s desire for U.S. Supreme Court reform under Kamala is now a theoretical possibility. Previously it was a pipe dream.

https://twitter.com/althecat/status/1836085735801200748

1/2

National Harris vs Trump Polls (reverse chronological order)

note: He’s only ahead in one poll since September 11th (so FOX’s desperate flag hugging effort had zero impact) and in that one poll only by 2 points whereas Harris has several 4-5 point margins.

Sep 11 • 6 tweets • 2 min read

Went looking at @FoxNews to see how they were coping with the shocking fail by Trump last night.

The show today has the vibes of a flag hugging wake.

This is far from surprising as the 9/11 commemorations are the backdrop of the day. But what’s surprising is how little Fox has.

But if @JDVance thinks dissing @taylorswift13 is going to help the GOP he’s being a bit daft.

I look forward to this becoming a meme given that « childless cat ladies » is probably what he is best known for. npr.org/2024/07/29/nx-…

Aug 25 • 4 tweets • 3 min read

🔴 Al Jazeera English | Live via @YouTube

Frankly the only way I can think of to interpret this is that Israel is seeking to draw the U.S. Armada which is currently approaching Israel to establish a defensive shield over Israel into a wider war.

Yesterday was the Jewish Shabbat. Today is the Christian Sabbath. This is Netanyahu’s last stand, yet another attempt to start a regional war with the objective of dragging the U.S. into the war with Iran that he has been trying to engineer for the last few months.

He knows that a Kamala Harris Presidency will possibly be less cautious. He is concerned that a progressive administration in the White House will not tolerate his approach to Israeli security, the war he is currently waging and the long-term extremist right wing objective of driving all Palestinians out of Israel.

But to secure the space for this outcome he Israel needs a regional war with U.S. involvement to degrade Hezbollah and Iranian military capacity.

In the short term here and now he needs to blow up the talks in Cairo which are now on the threshold it seems of delivering a ceasefire agreement.

All parties to this conflict and the international community more broadly need to continue to calibrate their responses to not give him what he wants.

This morning’s events should be allowed to die down, and absent a major escalation by Hezbollah and Iran they should do so readily.

The world know knows who is responsible for continuing this horror show. The U.S. and Israel.

This morning when the U.S. wakes up it should be helped to see once again the stark reality here. That Israel under Netanyahu has become a rogue state, threatening the peace of the entire Middle East, and threatening to drag U.S. airmen and soldiers into a war that no-one sane in either the U.S., Europe, or indeed anyone on the planet wants.

Maintaining self control at this moment is therefore vital. And Netanyahu will then lose. He will not get his regional war and Israel will have to agree to a ceasefire.youtube.com/live/gCNeDWCI0… Meanwhile…

/2 Israeli bombardments in Gaza kill several as polio vaccination continues... … via @YouTube

Aug 11 • 4 tweets • 3 min read

https://twitter.com/althecat/status/1822634029906014306

Jul 21 • 16 tweets • 7 min read

THREAD: Some thoughts on October 7th and the importance of their being global transparency over what we know about what really happened on that terrible day.

1/ This (see screenshots in the first few posts in this thread) is one of the most important pieces of conflict related journalism published in recent years.

It relates to the orders given to soldiers on October 7th to fire on any vehicle seeking to return to the Gaza Strip to prevent the taking of hostages and was published on July 7th, 10 months later in Haaretz.

2/ As @IsraeliPM Benjamin Netanyahu prepares to address congress it is vital that the public in the US, Israel and globally is fully aware of what exactly happened on October 7th in Gaza.

Jul 8 • 4 tweets • 2 min read

OK so clearly #HurricaneBeryl is not the same as #HurricaneHarvey. But there are some striking similarities in terms of what has made it so much more persistent than either forecast or as modeled.

This thread is going to look at this issue a bit more deeply.
- The overall cloud mass of the #HurricaneBeryl thunderstorm complex proved much more resilient than expected once it came over land. Why?
- Also Like #Harvey Beryl did slow down after making landfall and continued to spin over land. Why?
- I think the answer to both questions relates to the very warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Like Harvey back in 2017, Beryl has been fueled by a constant stream of warm wet atmospheric flows of energy off of the Gulf of Mexico.
- This is obvious in part simply from observing the astonishing expansion of the cloud field after #Beryl made landfall early this morning.

A clue to understanding this can be found in looking at the the astonishing growth progression of #HurricaneBeryl's cloud field over landafter Beryl strengthened and formed itself into a Hurricane in the period after making landfall south of Houston.

Over the course of the rest of the morning you can see in these images how much the wind field expanded.

Like Harvey #Beryl also grew and strengthened itself by feeding off of the gulf of mexico, specifically the area between the Texas coastline and what looks like the outer boundary of the convection field which expanded extremely strongly to the north.

The only source for all this additional atmospheric moisture can be the oceanic convection which took place in what is a fairly clearly bounded 136,000 km2 area of ocean which as you can see in this animation is very closely bound to the rest of the circulation.

This is a much much larger area than the area of active rainfall which settled over the city and metropolis of Houston for the morning and which is finally starting to move off to the north now.

Jul 8 • 6 tweets • 3 min read

#HurricaneBerylis not expected to give up lightly as it moves onshore and turns north eastward over Texas and then heads north east across the great planes towards the great lakes.

Typically we expect hurricanes to weaken rapidly over land - especially wind wise. But #Berylis not forecast to behave as normal - probably because like Harvey, its tail over the Gulf is keeping it fueled. - the currently forecast pattern from Fox News's exclusive model shown in these images was present in some of the simulations of Beryl after it crossed the Yucutan a couple of days ago.

To my mind questions ought to be asked about the accuracy of the forecasting for this storm, as - like the last super destructive Texas Hurricane, Harvey in 2017 [] Beryl is proving to be a LOT more destructive in its impacts than initially forecast.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane…

The final image in this sequence of screenshots of Fox Weather Graphics is worth drawing attention to as it shows how much broader the impacts of this hurricane are expected to be as it moves across the great planes roughly speaking heading up the Mississippi river, and continuing to dump potential flooding rain as it goes.

Jul 8 • 5 tweets • 2 min read

ALERT: High Target News Environment in play - numerous consequential news events with global implications.

1. British elections - (Thursday July 4th-Friday July 5th): Delivering an unprecedented landslide win to the left's @UKLabour Party + strong showings for the Liberals and Greens . The UK Chancellor @RachelReevesMP will shortly set out her economic policy in a speech.

2. French elections (Sunday July 7th) deliver a remarkable 2nd big win for the left in politics in France - dashing the hopes of Marine le Pen's hard right wing "Rassemblement National" of first parliamentary victory

3. Overnight (7th-8th July): an unprecedented huge Hurricane , #Hurricane Beryl - makes landfall in Houston as a Category 1 Hurricane, its main threat to the epicenter of the global fossil fuel industry will be flooding. It is still night in Houston at present. You can watch the new UK Chancellor's speech live here now >> youtube.com/live/oJUvTVdTM…

Jul 1 • 10 tweets • 4 min read

Hmmmmmm…. Why is the audio of the @youtube version of the UNSG office daily briefing for 1st July missing sound from 5:24 to 6:07?

Afghanistan, Lebanon, Myanmar & other topics - Daily Press Briefing (1 J... via @YouTube

The content of this portion is available as it is simply a quote from written remarks of UNSG @antonioguterres made to a meeting in Austria. But the missing YouTube audio is unprecedented in my experience and hard to explain.

Jun 23 • 7 tweets • 2 min read

Another day. Another Israeli
war crime.

Intense bombing by Israeli forces on Gaza continues and kills at least 3... via @YouTube This report also addresses the widening rift between Israeli PM Netanyahu and the U.S. Government. True to form Netanyahu is showing no sign of backing down. But this tweet showing former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant leaving on a U.S. flight for the U.S. speaks volumes in this very intense moment.

Amidst continued bombing of Rafah, Israeli forces are resuming strikes i... via @YouTube

Jun 7 • 19 tweets • 6 min read

A « Defund Gaza Genocide : Kick Big Polluters out » protest has just begun outside the #SB60 Mid- COP meeting of @UNFCCC COP Negotiators here in Bonn Germany.

The first speaker at this Gaza Solidarity action is from Gaza himself. Mohammed.

Jun 5 • 9 tweets • 4 min read

The fatal flooding event yesterday in Southern Germany (5 confirmed dead so far) is a big wake up call to Europe, with echoes of the Ahr Valley flooding disaster of 2021. That incident coincided with the announcement of the EU Green New Deal in Brussels and this event is coinciding with the UNFCCC #SB60 mid-COP28 negotiations meeting in Bonn.

Picture: The Rhein River today in Bonn is running very high displacing the Geese mothers and their children.

Thread follows with news links.

1/ bbc.com/news/articles/…

May 10 • 15 tweets • 5 min read

The story of what happened to Twitter/X according to @jack & including Nostr. & @nos.social which has journalism accelerator program and which is a collaboration with @Rabble who was there with @jack at the beginning,

I will post some screenshots. The account of what happened is astonishing. Shedding interesting new light on #TwitterFiles among many important issues related to Social Media censorship.

piratewires.com/p/interview-wi… 1/many THREAD

Twitter files related, @jack says the issue of censorship takedown was way broader than we knew and fully global.

May 4 • 5 tweets • 3 min read

The news that the TPLF are back in Alamata is chilling I hope the competing reports that the Govt FDRE has told them to withdraw are correct. According to what I have heard it is getting messy.

I posted 3 stories on Alamata and this one brings them together a bit. With rumours and disputed claims about a return of TPLF to Wolkait flying around the fear of more war coming is rising in the North of Ethiopia.

Private sources tell me that TPLF is overreaching, stirring up trouble again, and the absence of a clear public statement from the Govt clarifying precisely what is agreed or not at all helpful.

Worthy and unworthy Ethiopians via @abrennowabren.org/worthy-and-unw… 2/ this is the main story I wrote on Alamata back in 2022 after visiting immediately after the COHA Cessation of Hostilities Agreement was concluded in Pretoria.

It’s primarily a report about a huge mass grave on the right hand side on the Road heading north out of the city.

The story tells you what happened and what the locals in the town told me, and about the evidence they provided me of this as I left I did a more extensive interview with them into the broader story of what had happened in the city over the long periods of TPLF occupation. And leading up to the war breaking out in 2020

The idea that TPLF are back there again gives me chills. The mass grave which you can see in the story linked below is only a fraction of what the Alamata citizens have been through.

m.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2211…

Mar 29 • 5 tweets • 2 min read

This is an interesting line of questioning here from Journalist @samhusseini which perhaps points to the substantive legal sophistry underlying the U.S. position on Gaza, in particular wrt the legality of wholesale slaughter y Israel of Gaza’s civilian population with U.S. supplied weapons .

@samhusseini tries to get answer from @StateDept’s Matthew Miller
(again) , he has been seeking an unambiguous answer repeatedly on this question as to « whether the U.S. govt accepts that the 4th Geneva Convention rules apply in the Gaza Conflict. Meanwhile the rule of international law seems to be catching up on the Israeli-US « axis of sophistry » as we can see here in an new additional ICJ ruling on the Gaza Genocide complaint which coincides with the passage of a binding UNSC Resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire in the conflict.

Feb 22 • 6 tweets • 3 min read

An interesting report on Egypt 🇪🇬 ‘s response/practice when it comes to the shifting sands in international financial trading as a result of BRICS and the rise in the importance of the Yuan in particular for settling trade transactions.

At a practical level nations anticipating a loss in US dollar liquidity are increasingly hedging their bets on trade financing and broadening the quantity of trade in currencies other than the USD.

At a macro global level there is a high level of risk associated with these changes, principally because of the astronomical amount of US debt and deposits denominated in the USD.

The report shows that Egypt 🇪🇬 - a close U.S. ally is simultaneously seeking to be pragmatic about the threat this poses to its own economy by this expanding phenomena.

I have long considered that this « great unwinding » of the USD is the greatest threat to international economic conditions of my lifetime. I expect central bankers are having conniptions all over the planet at the moment.

Made in Egypt, sold in dollars goo.gl Here is the original report I am referring to here. (See Quoted tweet).

What is happening now in global finance dwarfs the GFC of 2008 and its predecessor crises, the Asian Flue in the late 29th Century and the Dot Com Crash of the early 2000s.

The US Federal Reserve played a critical role in righting the great ship of global finance in those cases by providing liquidity. It is unclear whether they will be either willing or able to do so in the coming crises. Europe and China together need to consider how they can cooperate to address this coming crisis.

Critically the causes of this crisis are different and the War in Gaza is extremely important in relation to concerns about the Dollar and is driving the hoarding of USD liquidity by the super rich which is most probably one of the drivers of what is happening here.

Jan 8 • 5 tweets • 3 min read

Lots of People have been raving to me about this amazing piece from @JohnJCampbell in the early summer. Just read it and OMG! Is it good or what.

NZ’s politics as we begin 2024 are febrile in a manner significantly beyond anything I have ever seen thanks to the bonkers agenda set out by the coalition govt that should not have been allowed to happen.

If you haven’t read this yet do so.1news.co.nz/2023/12/30/joh… Justifiably the bit in the piece on former pm, Labour Leader @chrishipkins is excoriating, albeit in the relatively understated personal rhetorical tone in which @JohnJCampbell has achieved mastery.

“Labour’s vote almost halved in three years and their leader is talking about “vibe”.
“People don’t vote on a left-right continuum. They vote on the vibe of the campaign”, Chris Hipkins declared.
I’m not suggesting a hair shirt – Labour should be taking stock not doing penance. But some acknowledgement that they arrived at an election campaign without an actual campaign, might be useful.
If you’re having a sausage sizzle and you don’t have any sausages, that’s not a vibe issue. It’s that the central ingredient isn’t there.
Audrey Young asked Chris Hipkins what sort of Leader of the Opposition he wants to be. He talked about “highlighting how we would do things differently, and charting a different course”, which echoes David Lange’s belief that if you want to be elected you have to look like a government in waiting.
But then Chris Hipkins said, “you won’t see much of that in the first few months, because we need to take stock and we need to the opportunity to reflect and refresh.”
Good God. The first few months? (Is Labour on sabbatical?) By that stage the Government will be insisting that everyone called Wiremu change their name to William.”

Dec 31, 2023 • 7 tweets • 3 min read