Natural gas prices in Europe exploded last week after reports of too low inventory of natural gas for the upcoming winter. Claims were made that Russia had caused the price increase. But even the BBC finds that this is not…
Author: MoonOfAlabama.org
This site's purpose is to discuss politics, economics, philosophy and blogger Billmon's Whiskey Bar writings.
Some time ago, the commenting at Billmon's Whiskey Bar became a bit excessive. Billmon therefore closed the comments at his place on June 29, 2004. The community of commentators was left behind to search for a new place.
Moon Of Alabama was opened as an independent, open forum for members of the Whiskey Bar community.
Bernhard started and still runs the site. Once a while you will also find posts and art from regular commentators.
The name of the original Whiskey Bar was taken from Bertolt Brecht's Alabama Song where the first line goes:
"Show me the way to the next whiskey bar".
The name Moon of Alabama was taken from the first line of the chorus of that song:
"Oh, moon of Alabama ...".
The design of this site has been directly stolen or re-engineered from the Whiskey Bar site.
Open Thread 2021-79
News & views …
Why Do Editors Seek ‘Dark Sides’ Of China?
There seems to be an inflationary fascination with supposedly ‘dark sides’ of China: Is there a dark side to China’s high-speed rail network? SCMP, Oct 10, 2021 Toxic ‘996’ work culture, China’s dark side of labour exploitation Sify, Oct 8…
Why Do Editors Seek ‘Dark Sides’ Of China?
There seems to be an inflationary fascination with supposedly ‘dark sides’ of China: Is there a dark side to China’s high-speed rail network? SCMP, Oct 10, 2021 Toxic ‘996’ work culture, China’s dark side of labour exploitation Sify, Oct 8…
The MoA Week In Review – OT 2021-078
Last week’s posts at Moon of Alabama: Oct 4 – U.S. Government Provides Another Trove Of Offshore Papers Of People It Dislikes Related: – Pandora Papers: Every US state-funded exposé on the lavish lives of elites is about Russia &…
The MoA Week In Review – OT 2021-078
Last week’s posts at Moon of Alabama: Oct 4 – U.S. Government Provides Another Trove Of Offshore Papers Of People It Dislikes Related: – Pandora Papers: Every US state-funded exposé on the lavish lives of elites is about Russia &…
The U.S. Wants Back Into Afghanistan
Just six weeks after leaving Afghanistan the U.S. wants to get back in: A U.S. delegation will meet with senior Taliban representatives in Doha on Saturday and Sunday in their first face-to-face meeting at a senior level since Washington pulled…
The U.S. Wants Back Into Afghanistan
Just six weeks after leaving Afghanistan the U.S. wants to get back in: A U.S. delegation will meet with senior Taliban representatives in Doha on Saturday and Sunday in their first face-to-face meeting at a senior level since Washington pulled…
How The ‘China is a Threat’ Fake News Cycle Works
Here is a nice example how the U.S. keeps certain issues in the news and thereby propagandizes its people against its perceived enemies. On Friday several news agencies and outlets falsely claimed that Chinese airplanes had ‘intruded Taiwan’s airspace’. In…
Open Thread 2021-77
News & views …
CIA Laments About Loss Of Spies In Russia And Elsewhere
The CIA’s counterintelligence unit was recently sufficiently shocked to send a ‘hair on fire’ letter to its case officers all over the world. The New York Times reports today (emphasis added): Captured, Killed or Compromised: C.I.A. Admits to Losing Dozens…
U.S. Government Provides Another Trove Of Offshore Papers Of People It Dislikes
So there is another ‘leak’ of papers about tax saving offshore investments by people the U.S. doesn’t like: The secret deals and hidden assets of some of the world’s richest and most powerful people have been revealed in the biggest…
The MoA Week In Review – OT 2021-076
Last week’s posts at Moon of Alabama: Sep 27 – How Centuries Old Local Differences Still Influence German Politics Related: – How Do Russians View Democracy in Russia? – Greanvillepost – “Inside every —— there is an American trying to…
How AP, Reuters And SCMP Propagandize Their Readers Against China
A typical ‘western’ anti-China propaganda claim is that China is using its military aggressively. ‘Western’ news agencies do this on a regular base when they report of Chinese air maneuvers around Taiwan. This report by the South China Morning Post,…
Iran Sanctions – How To Say F… Y.. In Diplomatese
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian’s Regular Press Conference on September 24, 2021 Hubei Media Group: According to reports, on September 21, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in his statement at the general debate of the UN General Assembly denounced US willful…
60 Hours After Publishing A Fake News Report On Afghanistan The New York Times Still Spreads The Story
On Tuesday I provided that the New York Times and CNN were spreading fake news about Taliban policy in Afghanistan by quoting a hoax tweet from an imposter’s Twitter account. Forty-eight hours later both stories are still uncorrected despite the…
Open Thread 2021-75
News & views …
To Disparage Taliban NYT, CNN Quote Hoax Twitter Account, Create Fake Story
Gareth Porter has described how Corporate media stirred global terror hysteria to push postwar hostility toward new Afghan govt: Following the Taliban’s victory over the U.S. military, U.S. corporate media has churned out a new narrative about the imminent threat…
How Centuries Old Local Differences Still Influence German Politics
The German federal election results did not surprise much. What they do show though are the long term effects of geographic-demographic-political idiosyncrasies. Here are the general election results for each party and the potential coalitions they could form in parliament…
The MoA Week In Review – OT 2021-074
Last week’s posts at Moon of Alabama: Sep 20 – The Fallout From The AUKUS Deal Related: – No Wonder the French Are Angry – New York Times – How France was blindsided by the Australia-US sub deal – France24…
The Release Of Meng Wanzhou’s Is A Small But Decisive Victory For China
The U.S. has given in to the Chinese demand to end its hostage holding of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou: A plane believed to be carrying Chinese tech executive Meng Wanzhou took off from the Vancouver airport on Friday, marking a…
NY Times Acknowledges U.S. Failure In Russia – Adds More To What Caused It
The U.S. finally acknowledges the utter defeat of its major manipulation strategy in Russia. The news comes in form of a New York Times analysis of Russia’s recent Duma election. The core sentence: Dismal results for the opposition in an…
Heads Roll As Biden Policies Move To The Right
The Washington Post has a piece on the current deportation of Haitian migrants from the U.S. and how it is charged with racism. Charges of racism swirl as Haitian Americans, allies unite to protest Biden’s border crisis One sentence in…
Open Thread 2021-73
News & views …
“What Happens When China Becomes Number One?”
Kishore Mahbubani is an experienced Singaporean civil servant. He later became Dean and Professor in the Practice of Public Policy at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. In 2015 he gave a…
The Fallout From The AUKUS Deal
The AUKUS deal allowed Australia to cancel an order for diesel driven submarines from France by taking up a U.S. and British offer to eventually acquire nuclear driven submarines. It is not clear at all that Australia will find the…
The MoA Week In Review – OT 2021-072
Last week’s posts at Moon of Alabama: Sep 14 – What Was Biden’s Diktat The Saudis Are So Furious About? Related: – Has Biden Now Lost Saudi Arabia? – F. William Engdahl / Journal-Neo – Biden Doctrine appears in the…
How Jack Sullivan Screwed Up The U.S. Relations With France
After reporters in a news room have written up a story it goes to editors who check it, provide a headline and often also rewrite the opening paragraph(s). The piece then gets published. That process at times leads to headlines…
To Protect Itself From U.S. Hostility Australia Decides To Buy U.S. Submarines
Yesterday the U.S., the UK and Australia announced that the later one will buy nuclear powered submarines to do the U.S.’ bidding against China: Australia’s next submarine fleet will be nuclear-powered under an audacious plan that will see a controversial…
Open Thread 2021-71
News & views …
What Was Biden’s Diktat The Saudis Are So Furious About?
Two seasoned commentators, Abdel Bari Atwan and M.K. Bhadrakumar, note the recent snag in U.S. – Saudi relations. Writes Atwan: The past two weeks have seen an unprecedented rise in tensions between the two sides, which could lead to political…
The MoA Week In Review – OT 2021-070
Last week’s posts at Moon of Alabama: Sep 6 – Why You Should Get Vaccinated But Don’t Need A Third Shot Related: – The debate over Covid-19 vaccine boosters, what to call them, and whether they’re needed – STATnews -…
Some Thoughts On 9/11
Twenty years ago I was chief technology officer for a major news website. It was after lunch and I was testing new productivity tools for the news room. Someone came into my office and said that a plane had hit…
Meta – This Blog(ger) Needed A New Laptop
Just spent the last two days on buying and configuring a new laptop. I have used the now ‘old’ one daily for four years and it started to have display problems. Since a month ago the lower part of the…
Open Thread 2021-69
News & views …
Afghanistan – State Department Sanctimoniously Laments About ‘Lack Of Female Leaders’
The Hill is channeling State Department ‘concerns’: State Department voices concerns over all-male Taliban government The State Department on Tuesday expressed concerns over the makeup of the new interim Afghan government announced by the Taliban, including the lack of female…
CNN ‘Exclusive’ Repeats MoA‘s Year Old Reporting – Ukraine/CIA Tried To Snatch Russian Veterans
Trust in U.S. media is at a record low: The United States ranks last in media trust — at 29% — among 92,000 news consumers surveyed in 46 countries, a report released Wednesday found. That’s worse than Poland, worse than…
How U.S. Levant Policies Defeated Themselves
The hostility of the U.S. against the resistance axis in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon has led to conflicting aims. While the U.S. wants to isolate the ‘resistance’ it also wants to keep its own dominating role in Lebanon. Those…
Why You Should Get Vaccinated But Don’t Need A Third Shot
There were again a number of misleading comments about Covid-19 in yesterday’s open thread. I have deleted a dozen or so of those. It doesn’t help that the media are currently back at bad reporting about the various vaccine issues….
The MoA Week In Review – OT 2021-068
Last week’s posts at Moon of Alabama: Aug 30 – Ukraine Shuts Down Opposition Media – U.S. Ambassador Applauds ‘Daring Act’, Calls For Support Related: – Out of Afghan frying pan & into Ukrainian fire? America’s empire builders have another…
Why U.S. Plans For Revenge In Afghanistan May Not Succeed
The U.S. does not want piece in Afghanistan. There are two reasons for that. The first is vengefulness. That an alleged superpower gets kicked out of a country by some local guerilla is too hard to accept. That the rush…
The U.S. Foreign Policy ‘Establishment’ Is Incredibly Dumb
The U.S. foreign policy ‘establishment’ is incredibly dumb: With Afghan Retreat, Biden Bucks Foreign Policy Elite, New York Times, Sep. 1 2021 “The foreign policy establishment did get it wrong in Iraq, where the U.S. overreached,” said Richard N. Haass,…
On The Breeding Of Money – by Gordog
bý Gordog Some continue to delude themselves about the so-called US economy, which is nothing but a house of cards—and this meaningless, completely fabricated ‘metric’ of GDP. In real terms, China’s economy is already bigger by half then the US….
Open Thread 2021-67
News & views …
To Counter U.S. Hostility China Moves Towards People Centered Policies
In December 2001 China became a member of the World Trade Organization. That opened new markets for China’s industry and attracted a lot of foreign investment. The growth in GDP that China has achieved since is breathtaking. bigger This development…
The U.S. Has A Plan For What’s Next in Afghanistan – It Does Not Include Peace
Secretary Antony Blinken @SecBlinken – 1:34 UTC · Aug 31, 2021 I want to drive home today that America’s work in Afghanistan continues. We have a plan for what’s next, and we’re putting it into action. The codename for the…
Ukraine Shuts Down Opposition Media – U.S. Ambassador Applauds ‘Daring Act’, Calls For Support
On Wednesday the comedian and president of the Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky will meet with U.S. President Joe Biden in the White House. The invitation to Zelensky was a booby prize handed out after Biden announced that he would not act…
The MoA Week In Review – OT 2021-066
Last week’s posts at Moon of Alabama: August 23 – To Instigate Against Taliban CNN Claims Contradiction Where None Is Evident August 24 – The Foreign Policy Borg And The Retreat From Afghanistan – by Michael Brenner August 26 -…
How The CIA Used ISIS-K To Stay In Its Afghanistan Business
There is a larger story behind the recent terror events in Afghanistan. Here is an attempt to track it down. Over the years several reports by the Afghan Analyst Network (AAN) about the Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP or…
The Never Ending Lies About The War On Afghanistan
The U.S. military has lied for 20 years about the war in Afghanistan. Do not expect it to suddenly tell the truth. Thursday’s suicide bombing in Kabul and the following panic killed more than 150 civilians (some 30 of whom…