Saudi Arabia faces economic strain as Yemen war escalates

The Riyadh attacks and the fragility of regional security: Implications for global politics, oil markets and the world economy

The recent attacks on Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital, particularly the strikes against King Khalid International Airport, represent a significant escalation in the security crisis affecting the Middle East. Beyond the immediate loss of life and disruption to civilian aviation, these incidents raise fundamental questions about regional deterrence, the internationalisation of the Yemen conflict, the security of global energy supplies and the resilience of the international political and economic order.

According to reporting by Reuters and Al Jazeera on 12 October, 2026, a strike on Saturday killed 12 people and injured more than 300, while a subsequent attack on Sunday killed one person and injured 11. Saudi authorities and regional governments have attributed the attacks to Yemen’s Houthi movement, which is aligned with Iran. The attacks have also prompted renewed diplomatic and security cooperation among Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkiye and Egypt.

The significance of these developments lies not only in the immediate damage but also in their potential to connect several existing conflicts: the war in Yemen, the confrontation involving Iran and the United States, insecurity around the Red Sea and the vulnerability of Gulf energy infrastructure.

Three security implications deserve particular attention.

• First, the vulnerability of strategic infrastructure. Airports, oil facilities, ports and logistics centres are essential to Saudi Arabia’s security and economic development. Attacks against such facilities can disrupt transportation and commerce even when the attackers do not achieve their wider military objectives.

• Second, the danger of reciprocal escalation. Saudi Arabia faces pressure to demonstrate that it can protect its territory and population. However, extensive retaliatory operations could provoke further Houthi attacks, expand the geographical scope of the conflict and increase civilian suffering in Yemen.

• Third, the regionalisation of collective defence. On 12 October, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkiye and Egypt jointly condemned the attacks. Their declaration signalled diplomatic solidarity and support for Saudi Arabia’s legitimate defensive measures. Reuters also reported that Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkiye had agreed to implement collective-defence commitments under their defence arrangement.

Read entirely at link

Houthi missile attack targets Saudi capital Riyadh for third day in a row

Saudi Arabia says it intercepted a ballistic missile fired towards Riyadh, as Houthis say they targeted the King Khalid airport.

Saudi-led coalition orders evacuation of oil facility in Houthi-held Sanaa ahead of military operation

The Saudi-led coalition supporting Yemen’s internationally recognized government on Tuesday called on civilians to evacuate an oil facility in the Houthi-controlled capital, Sanaa, ahead of a planned military operation.

Trump criticizes Yemen’s Houthis while offering no specific response

US President Donald Trump criticized Yemen’s Houthi group Monday but did not outline any specific measures that his administration might take in response to its actions.

Speaking to reporters as he departed the White House for Ohio, Trump was asked what he planned to do about the Houthis.

“Well, the Houthis are misbehaving very badly. No good,” he replied.

MbS is more at risk internally than from AnsarAllah attacks

Bankers used to say that countries, unlike companies, can’t go bust. They repeated that comforting slogan until a wave of Latin American countries defaulted in the 1980s. Might a similar shock soon puncture the rich world’s hubris?

Five years ago borrowing costs were so low that public debt looked almost costless. Today, with investors dumping their bonds, many big rich-world governments pay more to borrow than at any time since the 1990s or 2000s. Because the public debts of big advanced economies are about double, relative to GDP, what they were at the turn of the century, the result is immense pressure on budgets.

Turbulent bond markets threaten some countries more than others

Even before the latest bond sell-off, their governments were forecast to spend 8% of tax revenues on net debt interest this year, as ageing populations and the threat of war are creating pressure to raise spending. Now they must pay still more to refinance their past debts, while many continue to borrow with little restraint. At some point investors will revolt.

Ironically, some of this year’s bond-market sell-off is good news, as we report. America’s economy is booming. Jobless claims are low; economic growth may be running at an annual rate greater than 3%; and productivity growth appears strong. This is encouraging investment. As artificial-intelligence firms clamour to build data centres, they compete with governments for capital in global markets. Higher interest rates are the result. (Much to be concerned about regarding the AI data bubble, never mind the data centre issue)

That has intensified less welcome upward forces on bond yields. The energy shock from the war in Iran has raised inflation, and there are creeping doubts about the credibility of economic institutions in the age of populism. President Donald Trump has recently mused that inflation can reduce debts “very rapidly” and renewed his attacks on the Federal Reserve for failing to cut interest rates. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a populist-left candidate for the French presidency, has accused the governor of the Bank of France, absurdly, of treason. Bond investors, gazing far into the future, perceive the growing danger that governments will use inflation to pick their pockets.

Your pocket and mine- Inflation is a hidden tax

Inflation acts as a "hidden tax" because it erodes purchasing power and transfers wealth from citizens to the state without requiring explicit legislative approval or a formal public vote

The immediate impact of the bond-market sell-off varies greatly across countries. America is learning that its AI-fuelled expansion will not much help it cope with its debts, because interest costs rise in tandem with growth. The federal government’s annual budget deficit of about 6% of GDP is unsustainable. Fortunately, Uncle Sam still has the immense advantage of issuing the world’s reserve currency. As bond yields have risen in recent weeks the dollar has soared in value. A fiscal reckoning must eventually come—but not yet.

Japan, another perennial source of worry, is so far coping, too. Its ten-year bond yield has breached 3% for the first time since 1996 and it is planning an ill-advised spending spree. But inflation has risen alongside interest rates. With inflation-adjusted rates still low, and the government’s deficit small, debts are shrinking as a share of the economy. That may change. And if the Japanese begin to sell their enormous stock of overseas assets, financial tremors will rattle the rest of the world. But the Japanese government does not yet face the prospect of a run on its bonds.

Europe is where the danger of a debt crisis looms largest. The AI boom is raising its cost of capital but, in contrast with America, it is enjoying far less of a boost to economic growth. Its energy-importing economy is suffering from high fuel prices, and will suffer more if the winter is cold, owing to a probable global shortage of liquefied natural gas. Though some prudent governments—including those in Germany, Scandinavia and Switzerland—have their budgets in order, Britain, France and Italy are wobbling.

Britain already suffered a bond-market revolt in 2022. Chastened, it corrected course, but its debt-to-GDP ratio is still rising and its politicians specialise in postponing spending cuts, as with a recently promised pension reform. Italy’s net debts are fairly stable, but, at 129% of GDP, too high. It is fragile and could break in a panic.

France is under the greatest pressure. Its budget deficit is forecast to be 5.4% of GDP this year. Given today’s economic growth, The Economist calculates, were France to refinance all its borrowing at current yields on five-year bonds, stabilising its debts would require a belt-tightening of more than 4% of GDP. Yet it is gripped by student protests and its parliament is struggling to pass a budget with cuts worth just a tenth of that.

Investors recently forced France to pay 1.5 points more than Germany to borrow for a decade—the highest spread since the euro-zone debt crisis. Ahead of a presidential election in 2027, Marine Le Pen of the populist-right National Rally party is leading the polls. On October 6th she pledged to trim budgets by 3% of GDP by 2032 and to cut debt to gdp in half. Bond yields fell slightly, but Ms Le Pen lacks credibility. She still vows to lower the retirement age even as lifespans lengthen, thus failing to confront the biggest single item in France’s public spending.

A run on French bonds could happen. If it does, the government might respond not with belt-tightening, but by demanding a bail-out from the European Central Bank (ECB). Countries are supposed to get their budgets in order before the ECB buys their debt, but in practice the guardrail against bail-outs is weaker than a decade ago. In a game of chicken with the ecb, a populist president would probably win; for without France, the European Union could not survive.

Overheating

It would be a mistake for central banks to bail out governments which refuse point-blank to balance the books. Their job is to unblock financial plumbing, not to underwrite decades of reckless borrowing. If central banks become cash machines for finance ministries, not guarantors of stable prices, long-term bonds will sell off even more. Voters will exact revenge. The best path forward in France and elsewhere is for politicians to explain to their electorates that public debt must be under control, and that together they must do whatever it takes.

On the Russia-US diesel arrangement This arrangement (or “deal”) could be read as a narrow transaction within an escalatory relationship: the US obtains a marginal supply buffer, maybe a slight political reprieve; while Russia obtains revenue, tactical relief, and temporary market access. Nonetheless, this episode also illustrates the still transactional and incomplete character of consolidation of states resisting US pressure. On the other side, it shows how the US-led core can use selective access, waivers and market management alongside military escalation. A form of armed trade, a characteristic of capitalism as is.

Now, I am not implying either that anti-hegemonic resistance has failed, and, neither implying that this is an inflection point for multipoarity.

Almost every country on earth still is part of this multilayered cage, they face US (and transatlantic) pressure. At the same time they are embedded in a field of domestic (differing) interests and (global) infrastructural dependencies. This, coupled with the incomplete formation of a counterforce, leads to tactical bargains.

Now, the United States may manage an energy problem in a very narrow and short-term manner; Russia may gain some room for manuevre, and Iran may face a temporary strategic disadvantage. The very divergence of these consequences shows us that a shared adversary does not yet amount to a shared horizon or project.

Multipolarity (and hence, the development of autonomous capcacities by different countries) is becoming more visible in the distribution of bargaining power. But a counter-hegemonic order would require something more: institutions capable of converting separate national survival strategies into durable mutual commitments, common capacities and a positive project for the international order.

Until then, selective deals may increase national autonomy while weakening collective solidarity. (After all, there are optics to these bargains. The US power elites knows this and uses this feature.)

The same principle holds domestically: shared hardship must be politically organized, there must be shared solidarity.— Nel B. (@noirnen) October 10, 2026

I’ll share a few of the recent news articles

• Trucking Industry Hit by String of Bankruptcy filings due to surging diesel fuel costs

• PEI Fire Departments face tough choices amid skyrocketing diesel costs and tariffs

• ENERGY SNAPSHOT: Inside the Global Squeeze on Diesel

Trump’s deal with Russia- millions of tonnes of diesel to US and Global markets after successful talks with Putin

Moscow to “immediately release” 300,00 tonnes of diesel into the global market, followed by 500,000 tonnes in November and another million afterwards.

Trump is claiming he’s allowing this, actually, he’s desperate for this.

Meanwhile…

Putin says Russian diesel supplies to US, global markets will benefit world economy

That’s true.

Russian president reaffirms Moscow’s readiness to supply oil and petroleum products following phone call with Trump

“In discussing the state of the global energy sector, the Russian side reaffirmed its readiness to supply oil and petroleum products to the US and global markets. I am confident that this will have a positive impact on the global economy as a whole,” Putin said.

Hopefully he’s correct? If Russia can provide enough fuel to to make an impact

Washington grants temporary sanctions relief for Russian diesel

The US Treasury Department on Friday authorized Russian diesel exports to global markets under a temporary sanctions exemption, following a telephone conversation between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on measures to ease energy prices.

At Trump’s direction, the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued a temporary general license allowing Russian diesel to enter international markets immediately.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy criticized the sanctions relief, warning that easing pressure on Moscow without commitments to reduce hostilities would strengthen its ability to continue the war against Ukraine.

“Allowing Russia to sell petroleum products is an investment in a war that must be ended, not prolonged,” Zelenskyy argued, urging Washington to make the exemption conditional on reciprocal measures to halt attacks on energy infrastructure.

This deal with Russia comes after a G-7 emergency diesel reserves release

The G7 Is Releasing Emergency Fuel Reserves. How Much Will It Help Americans?

Trump dug a big, big hole for himself and his nation.. And the rest of us. He looks the fool for all of this. A dangerous fool.

Read on my friends, read on.

Plague in the USA

Plague cases still occur in the US, here’s where

However, Arizona reported a pneumonic plague-related death last year, and a New Mexico woman died from plague this year.

Between 2000 and 2023, between zero and 17 cases of human plague were reported in the U.S. each year, according to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Adding up to a total of 122 cases between 2000-2023. That’s more than 5 cases a year on average!!!

Fifteen of the 122 cases confirmed during that time period were fatal, the data shows.

When cases do occur in the U.S., they’re primarily in the West, with most reported in New Mexico and Arizona. Cases have also appeared near southern Oregon, far western Nevada, and California.

Plague never went away- Cases are reported yearly in the US and Africa

There are an average of about seven human cases per year in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, mostly in rural areas of the American West.

Wow!

Lastly, the CDC

Trump putting America first, always, is of course going to have a call with President Putin to discuss a possible plague case in Russia…

President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he has a call scheduled with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss a possible case of plague at a Siberian research institute.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said he would be talking with Putin about the case “very soon.” Health authorities are investigating after the death of an employee at an anti-plague institute, which authorities attributed to pneumonia with an unknown cause.

Asked what the U.S. intelligence community was saying about the case, Trump said the U.S. is in “very deep discussions” on the topic. “We’ll be able to report about it, probably tomorrow,” Trump said.

On Monday, Trump said the U.S. would be willing to help Russia with the situation. “It’s a rough disease. You know, that’s a disease we used to be able to control, but somehow those microbes have gotten stronger and smarter. They’re like an army,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

Perhaps Trump should address the many cases of plague in the US? Every year. Perhaps he should help Americans with this “rough disease”

Last observation- Strange how it is we hear and read nothing about all these American cases..Why is that? Does America sweep it’s plague cases under the rug?

I will include some highlights from the piece directly below MY relinked post on this subject

Foreign interference has already been acknowledged- Dutch you tube video creators promoting separation. Lots of disinfo accounts on social media. Endless demonization.

Trump being one of the worse promoters of all sorts of disinfo- which you would have seen and heard many, many times over many destabilization actions. Targeting any number of nations.

Globe and Mail

Alberta separatists have gone to D.C. offering fresh water and oil in exchange for American support – and Republican operatives have provided tactical assistance inside the province. Behind the cross-border effort to sway Alberta’s secession vote

The Alberta Prosperity Project chose the location to accommodate its guests, Republican political strategists from Michigan who helped Donald Trump win the state in the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

The American delegation travelled to Calgary to sell them on software developed for Republicans to get out the vote – and how it could be used to wrench Alberta from Confederation.

“They were young Christians. Capable, intelligent people,” Mr. Sylvestre said. “We prayed before we started the meeting.”

David Parker, an organizer for Alberta separation, brokered the meeting and championed the software. Known as 10X Votes, it mines voter lists to identify communities of like-minded people that could be mobilized to potentially swing elections.

“I was blown away by what this can do,” Mr. Parker told a separatist meeting in Edmonton in April, according to video footage of the presentation, where he demonstrated a version adapted for use in Alberta.

He called it “the most effective way I have ever come across to win a campaign.”

The Christian angle is disturbing to me- these are mostly the zealous Christian zionist types–I’m not big on theocracy– Oddly I find the US and Israel to be theocracies masquerading as democracies.

Doug Wilson, an influential Christian nationalist pastor who has been invited to the Pentagon by Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, said earlier this year that Alberta independence would be “wonderful.” Mr. Wilson leads a conservative Reformed Christian denomination that has several churches in Alberta – in Coaldale, Cochrane and Grande Prairie – some of them led by pastors who have expressed support for secession.

The software in question?

The Centurion controversy

A few weeks after the meeting with the Americans, Mr. Parker launched the Centurion Project, a new political organization that used the 10X Votes technology, adjusted for Alberta.

“The Centurion Project is going to be a force to be reckoned with in the coming months. We have the backing, we have the momentum, and now we have the tool,” he wrote on social media in April.

“Using this tool is going to transform how politics is done, I think, in the Western world,” he said in a podcast.

“But for now, Alberta.”

The tool was a scaled-down version of what 10X created in Michigan. It was intuitive, and once approved, users could search for Albertans using partial names or fragments of addresses. Queries that did not yield precise matches would instead show the first 50 possible results. Included were legal first and last names, addresses, electoral divisions and polling subdivisions. A search of a partial address would reveal the names of all eligible voters living at that residence.

During online demonstrations of the new Alberta tool, the Centurion Project representatives claimed the data was publicly available, no different than information contained in the phone book. They also insisted the data was secure.

It was not.

The Globe and Mail, which registered for the Centurion Project using a company e-mail address, discovered a security vulnerability that gave users access to the main directory that the whole system was based on.

It was, according to The Globe’s analysis, the master list of eligible voters for the province – or very close to one.

As The Globe first reported in April, the Centurion Project’s database contained names and addresses for 2,957,857 Albertans, once apparent duplicate entries were removed.

By way of comparison, Elections Alberta’s list of electors tallied 2,966,192 eligible voters across the province in May, 2025, when the head count was last updated.

Further, The Globe found the Centurion Project’s underlying database contained a trove of highly sensitive personal information beyond what casual users could easily access, including middle names, unique electoral identification numbers and 2,083,175 phone numbers.

It was a massive privacy breach – one of the largest that the province had ever seen.

Malicious actors could use the tool, and the data contained in it, to find sensitive personal details for private citizens, police officers, judges, politicians and public figures.

The data breach had real-world consequences. Edmonton city councillor Aaron Paquette said his phone rang with calls from constituents scared for their safety, including a woman who feared her violent ex would learn where she was now living.

Canada’s security agencies were also concerned, according to an intelligence brief on May 21 from the federal Integrated Threat Assessment Centre, a specialized unit that works with CSIS to assess national security threats.

The document, obtained by The Globe through access to information and marked “Secret / Canadian Eyes Only,” is heavily redacted but indicates alarm at the situation.

“There remains a period of heightened sensitivity and awareness as public officials, law enforcement and other stakeholders work to understand the full extent of the incident and its potential consequences,” the brief said.

You get the idea? Read the rest at the link provided.

French Bond Crisis

French 10-year yield hits highest since 2002, nearing 5%; French-German spread heads for biggest weekly jump since 2007; ECB not expected to step in for France, though analysts say heavy selling raises pressure

As the premium investors demand to hold French 10-year bonds over safer Germany shot above 150 basis points on Friday, talk began to grow about how severe the selloff could become and whether neighboring countries can be shielded with the help of the European Central Bank (ECB).

France’s 10-year bond yield rose to near the 5% mark, hitting its highest since 2002. The premium investors demand to lend to France, rather than Germany, was set for its biggest weekly jump since at least 2007, with a rise of at least 40 basis points, according to LSEG data .

“The speed at which the spread has got here is what is concerning,” said Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management.

While some investors hope the ECB will intervene, the central bank is “caught between a rock and a hard place” as it would have to consider buying bonds while tightening monetary policy, she said.

The ECB’s Transmission Protection Instrument allows it to buy an unlimited number of bonds from any euro zone country experiencing an “unwarranted, disorderly” tightening of its financing conditions.

US Debt Now larger than China, Japan, UK and France Combined

U.S. Debt Is Now Larger Than China, Japan, UK and France Combined

U.S. national debt has climbed above $40T, exceeding the combined government debt of China, Japan, the UK and France as global debt hits a record $365.5T.

Europe’s Diesel Woes Just Got Even Worse

Europe’s diesel supply crunch is worsening, with imports hitting a record September low as China suspends fuel exports and Russian supplies remain constrained. Europe is heavily dependent on imported diesel, after decades of diesel-focused demand and the closure of roughly 30% of EU refineries since 2009. – Strategic stock releases may become unavoidable, particularly if the U.S. restricts diesel exports before Persian Gulf fuel flows recover.

China this week announced it will suspend all fuel exports this month to keep its domestic market supplied. Also this week, President Donald Trump demanded that Germany and France release 120 million barrels of diesel from their storage or get hit with a U.S. diesel export ban. Europe is running out of options to stay well supplied with a critical fuel.

Diesel is the fuel, on which any economy runs. While it may feature less commonly in passenger cars these days, diesel is the default fuel for heavy machinery, agriculture, and freight transport. This makes import-dependent nations especially vulnerable to the kind of shock that the world is experiencing right now, and Europe is full of import-dependent nations.

According to Euronews, gasoline prices in the European Union have added some 29% since the start of the year, while diesel fuel prices have swelled by 40%. ECB officials expected diesel margins to peak this month, citing peak gasoline margins in August, after which they declined, but it does not seem like their prediction will come true as China just imposed a fuel export ban on its refiners. Chinese refiners are canceling gasoline and jet fuel shipments as well.

Tanker Explosions Of Yemen’s Coast

A tanker reported multiple explosions near the vessel off Yemen’s coast on Sunday, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO).

In a warning, UKMTO said the incident occurred 60 nautical miles south of the port city of Mokha.

The tanker’s company security officer reported seeing multiple explosions in close proximity to the vessel, the agency said.

One of the men involved in the diesel fuel theft reported the incident to the police, prior to party goer report

One of the men involved in the suspected plot on a Royal Air Force base reported the incident to police himself, it has emerged…

Officials previously said they had received a call relating to three “suspicious vehicles which appeared to be travelling towards the air base” at 12.45am on Sunday.

So was the party goer story created, to present a specific narrative and to cover up the fact that one of the diesel thieves already reported the theft?

Possible Plague death in Russia scrutinized by the US

I see tons of headlines this morning

A State Department spokesperson told CNN on Sunday that the US is working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the matter.

“We are monitoring the situation closely with the CDC and our other interagency partners,” the spokesperson said. “We encourage Russian authorities to share accurate information quickly and openly”, he added.

The White House is also aware of the case and weighing its options, Axios reported, citing a Trump administration official.

Daria Shipilova, 28, worked at a research institute in Russia’s Irkutsk region that deals with plague. Local media, cited by Axios, reported that she broke a test tube containing the pneumonic plague pathogen on 25 September.

She was hospitalised four days later with severe pneumonia and died overnight on 1-2 October.

Read on..Yahoo.news

In 1960, Science, one of the world’s leading science journals, published an article with an unambiguous title: Doomsday: Friday, 13 November, A.D. 2026. It predicted that on this future date – just over a month from today – the human population would approach infinity and effectively annihilate itself.

The outlandishness of the claim landed the article widespread public attention. More surprisingly — because its underlying research and math seemed sound — it also received careful and sustained scientific attention.

Covid and Anthropogenic global warming (AGW) , “the long-term rise in Earth’s average surface temperature caused directly by human activities rather than natural climate cycle“, jump right out at me! But, I digress.

The authors — Heinz von Foerster, an Austrian-American professor and cybernetics expert and two of his students, Patricia M. Mora and Lawrence W. Amiot — argued that human populations are exceptional and might grow beyond an exponential rate, at an ever-increasing one.

“Our great-great-grandchildren will not starve,” they argued. “They will be squeezed to death.”

The article was regularly cited, and its predictions appeared remarkably accurate — until around 1993, halfway to the predicted “Doomsday,” when the global population began falling behind its forecasts.

Today, the global birth rate is slightly less than half what it was in 1960. Hopefully, we will all wake up on 13 November to an ordinary day. Nonetheless, this article remains exemplary, for blending rigorous science with the art of stagecraft to staggering effect.
Unique human capacities

The mid-20th century saw increasing societal concern about global population growth and its potential to lead to resource scarcity and geopolitical conflict. Underlying much of this concern was implicit or explicit acceptance of the Malthusian idea that whereas population has the potential to grow exponentially, it is kept constantly under check by its capacity to feed itself.

In their article, however, von Foerster and his co-authors argued that as far as populations go, humans may be exceptional.

Given our capacity to communicate and form “coalitions” that help us resolve problems, rising population density might simply mean more opportunities for collaboration, so that our numbers might grow not only beyond an exponential rate but at an ever-increasing one.

They then used 24 estimates of the world population stretching across the past 2,000 years to show that human numbers have in fact continually outpaced expectations. All this was presented in calm, scientific prose and aided by dense mathematical equations.

‘Squeezed to death’

Von Foerster and his co-authors then projected these historical figures into the future, calculating that thanks to ever-increasing growth, in the year 2026 our numbers would near infinity.

Thankfully, the same capacity for collaboration that assisted our species’ development throughout history could now avert this catastrophe. Since we are unlikely to want to reduce our life spans, they concluded, we should work together to reduce the global birth rate by half.

This publication caused an immediate stir. There were stories in Time and The New York Times. It became the subject of a series of Pogo comic strips and many commentators took the article as strictly a tongue-in-cheek comment on population fears.
A population explosion

Rather than the story dying out, a funny thing happened. When Science published letters to the editor from mathematicians and demographers attacking von Foerster and his colleagues’ work — calling it “ridiculous” and “manifestly absurd” — the authors responded with spirited defences that doubled down on the underlying math and its conclusions.

Throughout the 1960s through to the 1980s, the “Doomsday” equation became regularly cited — usually at face value — in textbooks on genetics, ecology and demography.

It appeared in stranger places, too. In a 1963 Canadian Parliamentary committee, for example, a witness from the chemical industry prominently cited it as reason chemical pesticides were required: to feed the approaching population explosion.

In a 1971 U.S. Supreme Court abortion case leading up to Roe v. Wade, it was cited as why there was no compelling reason for the government to favour increased population.

Science and stagecraft

We will probably not all wake up on Friday, November 13 “squeezed to death.” But before simply moving on — prepping for the next doomsday scenario — it is worth asking what we can learn from this one.

For me, the lesson is in how we present our beliefs to the world. Heinz von Foerster was, at one point in his life, a stage magician. Borrowing the classic language of stagecraft, an effective illusion relies on three parts: the setup, the extraordinary turn and the final reveal that returns the situation to normal.

Von Foerster and his co-authors’ article gained attention because it was an ordinary scientific article wrapped in an extraordinary title and conclusion. It retained significance because it was firmly grounded in research and argument.

So, thoughts? Because certainly extraordinary predictions have been made around AGW… None of which have panned out.

Here’s how I’m interpreting the spin around the Fairford 5 diesel theft, along side some other vague arrest and the “Flydubai” incident, which included some random plumber being able to bring the plane back from it’s nose dive. A narrative which reminds one quite a bit about the 9/11 plane, Flight 93 and the actions of “heroic passengers” (read that presented narrative for yourself at the link)

Except flight 93 did NOT drop as precipitously as the Flydubai plane. From the linked Reuters article "sent the jet plunging ​nearly 14,000 feet in less than 30 seconds." But still passengers managed to save the day.

Clearly, I have many doubts

Not sure if anyone has been following this flight of fantasy.. It’s such an open ended narrative it can be tweaked down the road to point the finger as needed. It might be this or it could be that? It could be Iran. It could be Russia. Or it could be some Islamic fundamentalist group?

It surely looks like the narrative is being tightened up to blame Iran. In all probability to justify another attack, already in the works. As mentioned yesterday.

Headlines from today pointing to Iran- based on nothing. No evidence. Nothing. Just spin and rhetoric.

• Trump says Iran will be hit ‘very hard’ if it is behind copilot who tried to crash flight to Israel

• Trump suggests FlyDubai co-pilot is linked to Iran, “based on what I’m hearing”

Britain is pushing hard on the Iranian connection to the “Fairford” terror attack, really diesel theft..

British-Iranian man arrested over the RAF Fairford incident

And Bibi is being a bit more cautious, but, is still spinning Islamic radicalization, based on nothing. Bibi is luckily able to use this latest event to deflect from the fact he knew October 07, was going to happen. And he did nothing.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was reportedly warned by both the United Arab Emirates and Egypt before Hamas’s large-scale terrorist attack on Oct. 7, 2023. But he did not act on the warnings, according to media reports.

Netanyahu did not brief the country’s security officials after the call from United Arab Emirates President Mohammed bin Zayed on September 23, 2023, writes the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

And this weekend, the Israeli leader made a secret trip to Abu Dhabi, where he held an hour-long meeting with bin Zayed, AP writes, citing sources and the television channel Keshet 12.

Multiple warnings

According to one of the sources, the conversation focused on the Haaretz publication: Netanyahu allegedly asked Mohammed bin Zayed to deny the information about the warning, something his own office also did, calling it “an absolute lie.”

In parallel, The Wall Street Journal publishes information that Egypt warned Israel three times in the fall of 2023 about an impending attack from Gaza.

At the last warning, intelligence chief Abbas Kamel is reported to have personally called Netanyahu.

You get the idea? Bibi would have no qualms participating in a false narrative. Ever. And yes, October 7 23 was a LIHOP. That was always my opinion and I’ve seen nothing to suggest otherwise. In fact the multiple warnings to Bibi strengthen the case.

To conclude- It looks to me as if the US, Britain and Israel are concocting a narrative to justify further attacks on Iran. Wars have to be sold to the masses in a way that makes the mass killing palatable or acceptable. Lies always serve that purpose

"In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies." - Winston Churchill

A group of ships en route to Middle East carry over 7,000 sailors and 2,000 Marines, bringing US naval presence to unusually high number of more than 20,000 sailors and Marines and hundreds of aircraft.

The US military is dispatching roughly 9,000 troops aboard a group of ships to the Middle East, a US official has said. The bolstering of the American military presence comes as President Donald Trump warned anew that new strikes against Iran could be on the horizon.

Trump also said on Thursday that early indications suggest that Iran is linked to the co-pilot who stabbed his captain and tried to crash an Israel-bound flight on Wednesday. (Bullshit)

The group of ships now en route to the Middle East together carry over 7,000 sailors and 2,000 Marines.

It includes the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group, which recently deployed with the cruiser USS Chosin, and the USS Makin Island amphibious readiness group, which includes the USS John P. Murtha and USS Anchorage amphibious landing ships.

It could mean that three carriers are in the region as early as the end of October, according to the US official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations.

Given the personnel already in place in the Middle East, the move would bring the US naval presence to an unusually high number of more than 20,000 sailors and Marines and hundreds of aircraft.

an unusually high number of more than 20,000 sailors and Marines and hundreds of aircraft.

Trump, in a Time magazine interview published on Thursday, also raised the prospects of new strikes, saying it is “possible” that he will ramp up attacking Iran after the November 3 elections in the United States.

When pressed, Trump said he could not go further in detailing his strategy.

“I can’t tell you that because look, you know, you’re asking, where are you going to bomb?” Trump said.

Asked if the increasingly unpopular war would threaten Republican Party chances in November, Trump at first responded, “It’s possible.” But then he added, “It should help, because Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.”

Iran didn’t have a nuclear weapon- which is why Usrael struck the nation…

From earlier-

Clearly the US is unprepared to relinquish their hegemony- Not willingly anyway- Dangerous times.