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Cassiopaea

Best of the Web: Unprecedented South Pacific auroras confirm recent geomagnetic storm as 'Great Storm', in same class as 1859 Carrington Event


Comment: Oh yeah folks, we're in the middle of it now!


On the south Pacific island of New Caledonia, no one expects to see auroras. Ever. Situated about halfway between Tonga and Australia, the cigar-shaped island is too close to the equator for Northern or Southern Lights. Yet on May 10, 2024, this happened:
aurora new caledonia
© Frédéric DesmoulinsThe auroras australis have been observed as far away as New Caledonia (Boulouparis). Photo taken on the evening of May 11, 2024 at 8:00 p.m. Nikon D500, 16-80 f/2.8-4.0, ISO 5000, 20s f/3.2. Historic first for New Caledonia.
"I have rarely been so happy when taking a photo!" says Frédéric Desmoulins, who photographed the display from Boulouparis in the island's south province. "I could see the red color of the auroras with my naked eye. According to the New Caledonian Astronomy Society, these photos are the first for this territory."

"The auroral visibility from New Caledonia is really unique and extremely valuable," says Hisashi Hayakawa, a space weather researcher at Japan's Nagoya University. "The last time sky watchers saw auroras in the area may have been during the Carrington Event of Sept. 1859, when auroras were sighted from a ship in the Coral Sea."

Comment: Now get this: in December 1859 the Atlantic magazine published a detailed report about the 1859 Carrington Event, and noted, among many other things in its superb report (oh for the days when The Atlantic published good research), that:
The aurora borealis of August 28th was surpassingly brilliant not only in the northern portion of this continent, but also as far south as the equator, — as well as in Cuba, Jamaica, California, and the greater portion of Europe. [...]

In Jamaica the aurora borealis was witnessed for the first time, perhaps, since the discovery of this island by Columbus. So rare is the phenomenon in those latitudes, that it was taken for the glare of a fire, and was associated with the recent riots.
Guess what erupted in New Caledonia three days after auroras were sighted there... serious rioting akin to a 'civil war':

France deploys military to quell independence protests and serious rioting in Pacific territory of New Caledonia

Spaceweather.com also reports that another massive 'Carrington-class' sunspot is poised to hurl a geomagnetic storm Mars' way...
MONSTER SUNSPOT TARGETS MARS: First Earth, now Mars. Carrington-class sunspot AR3664 is now directly facing the Red Planet. NASA's Mars rover Perseverance saw it yesterday through the dusty air of Jezero Crater:

mars sunspot rover AR3664
© NASA's Mars rover Perseverance
On May 14th, AR3664 produced an X8.6-class solar flare, the strongest flare of the solar cycle, and hurled a corresponding CME directly toward Mars. NASA models suggest it should hit Mars on May 17th, potentially sparking global auroras.

"We're bracing for impact!" says says Nick Schneider of the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP). Schneider works with an ultraviolet camera on NASA's MAVEN spacecraft, which may be able to observe the display. Stay tuned!



Cult

Best of the Web: UCLA attackers exposed: meet the violent Zionist agitators LA police haven't arrested

ucla pro anti zionist riots
Pro-zionist protestors instigate violence at UCLA demonstration, May 1, 2024
The Grayzone has obtained a dossier detailing the identities of the Zionist hooligans who assaulted UCLA anti-genocide student protesters. It was sent to LA police, but no arrests have been made. And the cops still can't explain why they disappeared for hours during the mob attack.

On April 30, thirty people were injured when a mob of Zionist hooligans savagely assaulted the pro-Palestine UCLA encampment shortly before midnight. For over three hours, local and campus police stood down as the masked thugs assaulted students, journalists, and even officers of the law with fireworks volleys, pepper spray, and metal pipes. Though multiple attackers have been identified by community members on social media, to date there have been no arrests of pro-Israel goons.

Yellow Vest

Best of the Web: France deploys military to quell independence protests and serious rioting in Pacific territory of New Caledonia

New Caledonia miltary france
France imposed an emergency Wednesday in the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia for at least 12 days, boosting security forces' powers to quell deadly unrest in the archipelago where indigenous people have long sought independence.

Armed clashes and other violence that erupted Monday following protests over voting reforms have left four people dead, including a gendarme, and injured more than 300, French authorities said.

French military forces were being deployed to protect ports and airports, to free up police and security forces battling looting, arson and other violence, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal announced as the emergency measures kicked in at 8 p.m. Paris time, which was 5 a.m. Thursday in New Caledonia.

Comment: The West has made it quite clear that the Pacific region is integral to its China provocations and containment policy, and France, having recently lost its stranglehold over regions in Africa, is likely reluctant to lose its 'dependencies' elsewhere: US House passes $95 billion 'aid' package for Ukraine, Israel, Indo-pacific, wars after months-long delay


Bad Guys

Best of the Web: Slovakia's PM Robert Fico in 'life-threatening condition' after assassination attempt

fico
Slovakia prime minister taken to hospital as President Zuzana Caputova condemns 'brutal and ruthless' attack.
Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico is in a life-threatening condition after being wounded in a shooting, according to his official Facebook page.

"He was shot multiple times and is currently in a life-threatening condition," read a message posted on Wednesday on Fico's social media account.

"At this moment, he is being transported by helicopter to Banska Bystrica, because it would take too long to get to Bratislava due to the necessity of an acute intervention. The next few hours will decide," it added.

Earlier, reports on local media said that Fico was hit four times in the stomach outside the House of Culture in the town of Handlova in the afternoon. Police sealed off the scene and a suspect has been detained, according to the Dennik N news outlet and TA3, a Slovakian TV station.

Comment: The Washington-EU establishment has loathed Fico since he was elected. The following reports are from just the past 6 months: A statement following the shooting:


Notable comments from Fico regarding the contrived coronavirus crisis and vaccinations:


Analysis of the assassination attempt:




Broom

Best of the Web: De-dollarization bombshell: The coming of BRICS+ decentralized monetary ecosystem

Burning dollar
Get ready for what may well be the geoeconomic bombshell of 2024: the coming of a decentralized monetary ecosystem.

Welcome to The Unit - a concept that has already been discussed by the financial services and investments working group set up by the BRICS+ Business Council and has a serious shot at becoming official BRICS+ policy as early as in 2025.

According to Alexey Subbotin, founder of Arkhangelsk Capital Management and one of the Unit's conceptualizers, this is a new problem-solving system that addresses the key geoeconomic issue of these troubled times: a global crisis of trust.

Propaganda

Best of the Web: FBI file on Jeff Bezos' grandfather, a DARPA co-founder, has been destroyed

Jeff Bezos
What's not widely known is that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' grandfather, Lawrence Preston Gise, helped form the Pentagon's supersecret Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA — renamed DARPA) in 1958. Years later, DARPA developed the internet and spurred breakthroughs in high-speed networking, voice recognition, and internet search.

ARPA Deputy
One year before Gise died in 1995, Bezos founded Amazon in the garage of his Bellevue, Washington home.

news clipping
Or so we're told...

Comment: And from another angle see Tucker discuss Amazon's manipulative and monopolistic business practices:




Stormtrooper

Best of the Web: AP reports, then retracts, statement by US general about British commandos operating in Ukraine

FILE PHOTO: A British sniper who joined Ukraine's special forces.
© LightRocket via Getty ImagesFILE PHOTO: A British sniper who joined Ukraine's special forces.
AP removed the US Special Operations chief's mention of London's clandestine activity from the original article

A senior US military official has apparently inadvertently acknowledged to the media that British commandos are secretly operating in Ukraine. The comment was later removed from the original article.

Gen. Bryan Fenton, commander of US Special Operations Command, was interviewed by the Associated Press about the lessons that his force is learning from the conflict.

The original version of the story published on Sunday said the Americans get those lessons "mostly through the eyes of our UK special operations partners," who have been testing new approaches there. As an example, he said British special operations forces were drawing on the experience of RAF pilots for advice using drones and "the way a ship in the Black Sea navigates."

The text has since been redacted to remove any mention of the British military's role in the Ukraine conflict.

Comment: The presence of NATO soldiers in Ukraine is like an alien disclosure project. The western audience is being drip-fed to accept what the elite wants to happen.

Austrian Colonel claims NATO soldiers are fighting in Ukraine as mercenaries
Kremlin: NATO has secret agenda for troops in Ukraine
The Terror's Instigators: How NATO Generals Ignite Conflict
Western troops in Ukraine 'an open secret' - Poland
Canada is losing its war against Russia so it has threatened senior army officers with court martial for "Disloyalty"

Previously posted in a comment to Macron 'hopes' France won't go to war with Russia, there was a comment from British MP, Andrew Bridgen, about the relation between the UK and Russia, that the UK is basically at war with Russia.

For context, here is what the Wiki says about him:
Andrew James Bridgen[2] (born 28 October 1964) is a British politician and businessman who has served as Member of Parliament (MP) for North West Leicestershire since 2010. He was a member of the Conservative Party until his expulsion in April 2023, having had the whip suspended in January after criticising the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines and claiming that an Israeli cardiologist told him it constitutes "the biggest crime against humanity since the Holocaust".[3]
Given this background, Bridgen probably knows even more than what he is saying in the interview, as if that was not quite sufficient, and given the leak from the US general, his back is covered in case of official backlash or public disbelief.


Extinguisher

Best of the Web: Ex-UK govt advisor Dominic Cummings: "The corrupt Ukrainian mafia state has conned us all and we're going to get f**ked"

Former Brexit campaign chief says the West is 'getting f**ked' by supporting Ukraine.
dominic cummings
"It's all gone wrong!"
Boris Johnson's former top adviser Dominic Cummings launched a sweary attack on Western support for Ukraine Thursday.

In an interview with the i newspaper, Cummings — who led Britain's Vote Leave Brexit campaign and spectacularly fell out with Johnson in 2020 — declared that the West "should have never got into the whole stupid situation" and claimed sanctions against Russia have had a greater impact on European politics than in Moscow.

The former adviser was scathing of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and comparisons with World War II.

Comment: A rare moment of insight in the otherwise brain-dead corridors of Western power.


Colosseum

Best of the Web: Medicine shortages in England 'beyond critical', patients at immediate risk of harm and even death, pharmacists warn

medicine shortage canada
© THE CANADIAN PRESS/Joe O'ConnalFILE: Empty shelves of children's pain relief medicine are seen at a Toronto pharmacy, Wednesday, August 17, 2022.
Drug shortages in England are now at such critical levels that patients are at risk of immediate harm and even death, pharmacists have warned.

The situation is so serious that pharmacists increasingly have to issue "owings" to patients - telling someone that only part of their prescription can be dispensed and asking them to come back for the rest of it later, once the pharmacist has sourced the remainder.

Hundreds of different drugs have become hard or impossible to obtain, according to Community Pharmacy England (CPE), which published the report. Widespread and often long-lasting shortages posed "immediate risks to patient health and wellbeing" and caused distress, it said.

Comment: It seems that the lockdowns exacerbated what was clearly a burgeoning issue, and, since then, the shortages have mostly worsened, and will continue to do so because little is being done to remedy it.

It's probably no coincidence that many of the same countries suffering these shortages are also seeing a surge in crime and rapidly crumbling economies - that hasn't, however, stopped them mobilising their governments and their raiding the taxpayer to give tens of billions of euros and dollars to Ukraine and Israel for warmongering and genocide.

It's rather telling that these same organisations were eager and able to mobilise their forces to roll out an experimental covid injection, but they're apparently unable to do the same for proven medications that people need to live. And this at a time when the health of a significant proportion of the population is compromised, and there are threats of food shortages:


Bullseye

Best of the Web: Geopolitical paradigm shifts and coping with psychopaths: An Interview with Professor Sergei A. Karaganov

karaganov
Tariq Marzbaan and Nora Hoppe interview Professor Karaganov from Russia's leading public foreign policy organisation, conversing with him on an array of issues, including Western escalation against Russia, the war in Ukraine, colonialism, and the genocide in Gaza.
It is clear that the Anglo-Saxon industrial-military-media complex, with the help of its vassals, intends to preserve its global hegemony and its colonialist conquests at all costs. The Hegemon cannot accept the paradigm shift of an emerging Multipolar World. Any discussion of peace, diplomacy, or negotiations regarding the wars it has started is out of the question. Western populations, whose minds are contaminated with neoliberalism and Russophobia, are currently terrified of an "imminent Russian invasion"... Mass delirium is preventing REASON from returning to the West. How can the rest of the world cope with this madness? And what can the rest of the world hope for?

We turn to Professor Sergei A. Karaganov* - Honorary Chairman of the Council for Foreign and Defence Policy (Russia's leading public foreign policy organisation) and academic supervisor of the Faculty of World Economics and World Politics of the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow - as he has long been offering insightful views on such topics as the use of nuclear deterrence as a wake-up call to the West to restore common sense and Russia's needed pivot away from the West and to the East.

* * *

Comment: For original insight into political ponerology, see: And check out SOTT radio's:

There are some rare voices of sanity in the political class: