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Links 1/2/2025

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A butterfly collector in Africa with more than 4.2 million seeks to share them for the future Associated Press (Robin K)

The dill of a lifetime? In a nation that’s enduring its own sour patch, the pickle dominated 2024 Associated Press (Robin K)

Volcanic Activity Beneath Yellowstone’s Massive Caldera Could Be on The Move ScienceAlert (Chuck L)

Chemistry textbooks need rewriting after new Cardiff University discovery Nation Cymru (Robin K). From December, still germane

GPS Spoofing: New Electronic Threat in Civilian Airspace IEEE Spectrum (Chuck L)

The Hypothalamic Hotspot: Revealing the Brain’s Secret to Aging SciTech Daily (Chuck L)

This Rare Neurological Condition Can Cause an Addiction to Jokes ScienceAlert (Chuck L)

Molecular jackhammers’ ‘good vibrations’ eradicate cancer cells Rice News. From December, still germane

Exercise May Be the ‘Most Potent Medical Intervention Ever Known’ PBS

#COVID-19/Pandemics

After a long lull, Covid-19 levels are surging in the US CNN (Paul R)

FDA begins testing aged raw cow’s milk cheese samples nationwide for bird flu ABC. Hhhm. I looked into this some time ago. Aged cheese was considered safe. Is this just a war v. raw milk, or a real risk?

How Ebola Hijacks Human Skin for Its Silent Spread SciTech Daily (Chuck L)

Climate/Environment

Microplastics Found In Multiple Human Organ Tissues Correlated With Lesions PhysOrg

California Will Require Insurance Companies To Offer Coverage In Wildfire Zones Fast Company

Traffic lights will have a fourth color in 2025 — Here’s what it means EcoNews (Kevin W). Please tell me who is going to get states and municipalities to pay for this.

China?

Five things at the top of China’s agenda for 2025 The Conversation (Kevin W)

What to know about string of US hacks blamed on China BBC. Surprisingly even-handed headline.

China to Build Thorium Molten-Salt Reactor in 2025 IEEE Spectrum (Chuck L)

India

India Again Delays Rules To Break Payments Duopoly TechCrunch

Africa

African nation tells French troops to leave RT (Robin K)

Ivory Coast says French troops to leave country after decades Al Jazeera (Kevin W)

South of the Border

Mexico Faces 500 Million-Liter Tequila Crisis As Demand Slows, Tariff Threats Rise Bottle Raiders

O Canada

Majority of Justin Trudeau’s caucus calls on him to quit Politico

European Disunion

EU targeting of Orbán should worry other member states Thomas Fazi, Unherd

Sahra Wagenknecht, Condition of Germany, NLR 146, March–April 2024 New Left Review. Robin K:

I almost wept as I read this interview. Do we have political leaders in the US, among the states, who can speak with such clarity, based in such thoughtful analysis, and without resorting to sloganeering and pandering? Please, someone point them out.

Israel v. The Resistance

LIVE: New Year’s Day massacre: Israel kills dozens of Palestinians in Gaza Aljazeera (Robin K)

Even ‘Good Israelis’ Are Part of the Broad Circle of Tacit Consent to War Crimes Haaretz (Robin K)

EU Officials Will Claim Ignorance of Israel’s War Crimes. This Leaked Document Shows What They Knew. Intercept (Robin K)

US Has Given Israel $22 Billion in Military Aid Since October 2023 Antiwar.com (Kevin W)

Israeli protesters block main Tel Aviv highway over lack of hostage deal Anadolu Agency

Top 5 Domestically-Sourced Weapons Shaping Mideast Conflict Sputnik (Robin K)

New Not-So-Cold War

2025 – Ukraine On The Verge Of Defeat Moon of Alabama

Russian warship tracked for five days off UK coast BBC

National mourning after mass shooting in Montenegro BBC

Syraqistan

US sends largest convoy into Syria since fall of Assad – media RT (Robin K)

Imperial Collapse Watch

Poll: American institutions? 1 in 5 say ‘let them burn’ MPR News (Chuck L)

Big tech isn’t gonna solve our problems Responsible Statescraft (Kevin W)

Onward ho! End of year wrap-up and a look ahead to 2025 Simplicius (Kevin W)

A Tesla Cybertruck exploded outside Trump hotel in Las Vegas. Here’s what we know CNN

Las Vegas police looking for links between Cybertruck blast and New Orleans attack ABC

2025 Starts in the USA with Multiple Bad Bangs Larry Johnson

BREAKING: Mass shooting in Queens leaves at least 10 people injured AMNY. Apparently gang related, unlike events above

On ISIS & New Orleans Court Watch. Chuck L: “The reporter neglected to mention the ISIS supporters in the neocon think tanks.”

Trump 2.0

Donald Trump’s ‘Maganomics’ will damage growth, economists tell FT polls Financial Times

Jack Smith drops appeal of classified docs case against Trump’s co-defendants Just the News

Biden

White House Insists Jimmy Carter Is Still Sharp And Focused Behind Closed Doors Babylon Bee. Biden was the winner of Alex Christoforu’s 2024 Clown World of the Year Award.

SEC Writes Off $10 Billion in Fines It Can’t Collect Wall Street Journal

Our No Longer Free Press

A New Year’s Resolution: Let’s Get the United States Out of the Censorship Business Jonathan Turley

AI

AI Needs So Much Power, It’s Making Yours Worse Bloomberg

How AI is Unlocking Ancient Texts Nature

Class Warfare

What an Unregulated School Voucher Program Looks Like ProPublica (Robin K)

Brand prescription drugs to rise an average 4.5% in 2025 Seeking Alpha (Kevin W)

Why Breakfast Is Busting Your Food Budget Wall Street Journal. No increases like that here.

Antidote du jour (via):

And a bonus (Chuck L):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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140 comments

  1. The Rev Kev

    “White House Insists Jimmy Carter Is Still Sharp And Focused Behind Closed Doors”

    Main stream media like CNN and MSNBC confirm that ex-President Jimmy Carter is still at the top of his game and that there is nothing to see here so move along, move along.

    Reply ↓
      1. Christopher Smith

        That’s just gross. Between this and granting clemency to that crooked judge in Pennsylvania, I am done with the Democrats.

        Reply ↓
          2. Tom Stone

            What would the best day for Genocide Joe to resign in order to cause the maximum mischief?
            18 days to go…and one last chance for an FU to the people who disrespected the “New FDR”.

            Reply ↓
        2. The Rev Kev

          If old Joe had been around another four years, I would not be surprised if he ended up giving that Cash for Kids judge a Presidential Citizen’s medal for his services in combating crime among Pennsylvania’s youth.

          Reply ↓
    2. Glen

      And they’d like to keep him behind closed doors:

      Jimmy Carter: America Is Not A Democracy Anymore (AUDIO)
      https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/jimmy-carter-us-oligarchy-bribes

      Jimmy Carter says America is more an ‘oligarchy than a democracy,’ calls on Trump to ‘tell the truth’
      https://www.nydailynews.com/2017/09/13/jimmy-carter-says-america-is-more-an-oligarchy-than-a-democracy-calls-on-trump-to-tell-the-truth/

      I’m really not crazy about many of the things President Carter did. He was our first neoliberal President in many ways, but he was able to say what all of us can see and experience every day.

      Reply ↓
  2. Jason Boxman

    From AI Needs So Much Power, It’s Making Yours Worse

    Third world stuff:

    The problem is threatening billions in damage to home appliances and aging power equipment, especially in areas like Chicago and “data center alley” in Northern Virginia, where distorted power readings are above recommended levels

    I’m fortunate enough to have a UPS with AVR, so it should be able to normalize the incoming electrical power wave form somewhat. But only for my computer. Can’t do the same for any of the appliances and other power consumers, not affordably anyway.

    An exclusive Bloomberg analysis shows that more than three-quarters of highly-distorted power readings across the country are within 50 miles of significant data center activity. While many facilities are popping up near major US cities and adding stress to already fragile grids, this trend holds true in rural areas as well.

    So we’re literally going to destroy Americans’ everyday appliances over this garbage. Hooray!

    Reply ↓
    1. scott s.

      So your UPS may be injecting harmonic distortion back into the grid, causing problems for your neighbors. That’s why I am not a cheerleader for distributed generation via solar or other. So many power quality issues to deal with and the distributed generators have no responsibility to manage (and typically demand to be paid for their excess generation at the full retail rate).

      Reply ↓
  3. FreeMarketApologist

    Re: Traffic lights will have a fourth color in 2025.

    Sorry, I call BS on the idea that this is going to happen in 2025 (or even by 2030). No evidence provided that any entity with responsibility for traffic systems is considering revising traffic laws and licensing to permit it. No evidence provided of any AVs with bi-directional communication to signaling systems. No evidence provided of any signaling systems with anything greater than rudimentary abilities to self-adjust to varying local traffic conditions.

    The author’s bio appears to be an AI-generated concept of what a journalist is.

    Tech bro wet dream, not news.

    [NB: A very few traffic lights in NYC have an additional white bar light that gives advance signal for buses to cross an otherwise all-red intersection.]

    Reply ↓
    1. The Rev Kev

      The tech bros have lots of dreams and ideas like this. It’s just that they always want the gubmint to pay for it, even though they are also against government control.

      Reply ↓
    2. lyman alpha blob

      Indeed. These clowns can’t stop themselves from taking things that work perfectly fine* and larding them up with extra technology to the point they can’t function anymore. And then charging you top dollar for the crapification.

      * While traffic lights currently work OK currently, there have been studies that show removing traffic lights actually improves traffic flow – https://catalyst.independent.org/2024/05/15/are-traffic-signals-necessary/ This matches my personal experience when the traffic lights go out at a highly trafficked bridge in my neighborhood – everybody stops, makes eye contact with the other stopped cars, and goes on their way. It often takes less time to get through the intersection when you don’t have to wait for the light to change.

      Reply ↓
      1. Bsn

        You may not live in an area that has many cars with heavily tinted windows – black windows. Being a bike rider, it’s no longer an option to make eye contact with a driver. Myself, I prefer round-a-bouts. They are being installed in various places here in the southwest and they function quite well.

        Reply ↓
      2. urdsama

        Anecdote, not data. My experience when a stop light goes out is it usually takes at least twice as long to get through the light as at least 30% of drivers don’t know what to do or go through the light without stopping.

        Obviously, everyone will have a different experience, but I doubt removing stop lights is a useful solution.

        Reply ↓
        1. lyman alpha blob

          Your mileage may vary ;)

          I wouldn’t remove all lights, especially not at higher speed intersections. But besides my anecdote, there have been actual studies that showed a beneficial result. If I remember right, lights were removed in some middle sized European town, but I couldn’t find a link to the one I was thinking about since it’s been several years since I read about it.

          Reply ↓
    3. cfraenkel

      On top of the bio…. what language was that written in, because it wasn’t English? It reads like a bad translation of a translation from a third language original. This is what we can expect from AIs?

      Reply ↓
    4. Michigan Farmer

      This video, produced by the WSJ’s reporting team, is an excellent summary of their years-long investigation of Tesla cars and the fatal crashes they have caused. TL: DR; Tesla’s so-called ‘autopilot’ should be and will be removed in future car models. It has no future.
      Then, if the reader gets a chance, they can dig into some of the articles published on the WSJ website for details on the lies Musk tells about his supposed engineering skills or lack thereof.

      Reply ↓
        2. Paul Simmons

          Apparently, his lies have been more profitable than your lies. I get that. I lie like crazy, and am broke!

          Reply ↓
    5. Adam1

      Agreed. And it’s long been established that colorblind people already have issues with traffic lights. They primarily have to rely on the position of the signals being consistent. When I was a young kid a family friend who was colorblind told me how he was ticketed in DC for running a red light. At the time in the 1960’s the lights were green on top. All he could tell was that the bottom light was on which to him meant it was green. A large percentage of colorblind people already see the red and green ones as white lights. Throw in a 4th one and what are they supposed to do? Sure they eventually would learn, but in the mean time that’s a potential for a lot of traffic accidents.

      Reply ↓
      1. Duke of Prunes

        Had a color blind friend in college. Late night, some the city’s stop lights flashed red in one direction, yellow in the other. Driving home from the bars, he’d yell “what color” and the co-pilot had to answer so he’d know whether to stop or yield. Fun times.

        Reply ↓
    7. XXYY

      Edwin O.

      Edwin is a seasoned author specializing in mobility and energy topics. His writing style effectively informs readers accurately while keeping them engaged and captivated.

      I really like this bio. Now that it’s in print, it’s going to be used as training material for llvms around the world, which will add to the fun.

      Reply ↓
  4. Ben Panga

    Re: A New Year’s Resolution: Let’s Get the United States Out of the Censorship Business Jonathan Turley

    As I wrote in the book, we need to get the United States out of the censorship business by passing a law barring any federal funds for the use of censorship, including grants to academic and NGO groups.

    Rooting out this censorship system will require a comprehensive effort by the new Trump Administration. So here is a resolution that I hope many in the Trump Administration will share: let’s get the United States out of the censorship business in 2025.

    BP: The right’s current opposition to state censorship is one both tech lords and everyday Trump voters can agree on. What’s always left unsaid and unrealised is that censorship will continue and intensify, under the private guidance of those same tech lords (and their spook partners).

    I’m happy to see the back of Hamilton68 etc al. But it just seems like one part of the MIC usurping another.

    Reply ↓
  5. The Rev Kev

    “Chemistry textbooks need rewriting after new Cardiff University discovery”

    In it’s own way, this is quite a revealing paper. I like the way that the authors did not use meandering words to title their paper but simply said ‘Alkyl groups in organic molecules are NOT inductively electron-releasing’ (mic drop) but here is the thing. This mistake has been sitting on the books for nearly a century, even though other scientists suspected the same. So what does this say about the state of modern science where this bit of misinformation can be not only accepted but taught in higher education? It’s like that book mentioned in Links recently about being an Atlas of Population and which has been frequently referenced in science, even though that books authors said that they were doing a lot of guessing as the data was not there. Or more recently, how the understanding of aerosol spread in airborne viruses has been refuted by some decades old works by the droplet goons. All this shows that the state of modern science is not in a good state if stuff like this flies by unchallenged.

    Reply ↓
    1. voislav

      The reality is that science education and scientific research are two separate worlds. 25 years ago when taking 4h year Organic Chemistry the professor told us to forget what they taught us in the 2nd year course since it was to generalized to apply to real world situations. Same thing for grad school, most of the ‘rules’ are really guidelines that may or may not apply.

      The problem is that teaching science is hard and especially at lower levels it’s helpful to simplify things even if some of the detail is lost and some of it ends up being wrong. Honestly, when it comes to this specific issue, alkyl groups not being electron-releasing, it comes down to irrelevance. Molecular structures and charge distributions have been calculated exclusively using computational chemistry for the past 35 years or so, so nobody cared if some archaic rule said alkyl group was electron-releasing or withdrawing. Computational chemistry model calculates these from quantum chemistry equations and doesn’t care about these ‘rules’.

      Reply ↓
      1. KLG

        Sent the link to a retired chemist friend. His reply:

        Not sure I buy this. There are about 50,000 studies over the last century that rely on the the inductive effect being positive, and one guy’s computational paper in – checks notes, Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry, impact factor 2.9 – is supposed to change that history? Nice PR job by the guy I’ll say.

        I would add that the impact factor is irrelevant and a journal published by the Royal Society of Chemistry is good. But if this one computational paper could revolutionize organic chemistry and teaching of same, I would expect it to be published somewhere a bit more visible.

        Reply ↓
        1. Jokerstein

          My feelings entirely (BSc 1st Class Honours 1972, PhD 1986, both O Che, with PhD incuding some light computational; Bristol Uni (Russell Group)).

          If this is true, then it’s not quite Pons/Fleischman cold fusion level, but it’s YUGE.

          Also, this Cardiff-based being reported in a (presumably nationalist) Welsh newspaper is a little bit of a giveaway.

          Reply ↓
          1. Mark

            It was reported on the Cardiff University web pages, after being published in a peer-reviewed journal. The paper has been picked up by very reputable outlets, including Science and Chemical and Engineering News.

            It’s certainly not ‘Pons/Fleishmann level’ (read ‘Too Hot to Handle’!) and various people (including John Pople and Roald Hoffmann, whose names you will know) have challenged the direction of the alkyl group inductive effect.

            In effect, the purely inductive component of alkyl group electronic effects is negligible, but what there is is electron-withdrawing.

            Trust me, this paper is nowhere near as controversial as you think it is.

            Reply ↓
        2. Mark

          I would respectfully suggest doing a little digging. In fact there are absolutely NOT 50,000 studies that rely on the inductive effect being positive.

          There are MANY studies that show that alkyl groups can donate electrons, for example to stabilize a carbocation. The point of this study is HOW they do this. Most of us accept that this is by a hyperconjugation mechanism. This study does not change that. Some textbooks report that the inductive mechanism also plays a role. By having the inductive effect as electron-donating, it is possible to attribute it in this way. By revising the purely inductive component of the electronic effect, one can no-longer do this. One is then forced to use the (correct) hyperconjugation mechanism.

          As to the visibility of the article, well it seems to be getting quite a lot of attention. It could possibly have been published in a higher impact factor journal, but it was probably more important to get it out there, and somewhere that organic chemists would read.

          I’ll take the comment on ‘nice PR job’ as a compliment (I am ‘the guy’!). The paper IS a big deal, but of course if the overall electronic effects of alkyl groups were massively wrong, there’s no way it would have survived as long as it has. But it’s still very important to correctly partition the overall components of the electronic effect.

          Happy for your retired chemist friend to reach out to me. My email address is on the paper!

          Reply ↓
      2. Jokerstein

        I worked in compchem for two decades, and am staggeringly aware of the fact that the models are very, very unreliable. Not sure what the status is now, but when I was active in the field the “best” calculations gave differing results for the dipole moment (charge distribution) for carbon monoxide (C=O), a two-atom molecule. Some agreed with experiment some didn’t.

        Like Feynman said:

        It does not make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it does not make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is — if it disagrees with experiment, it is wrong.

        The electron-withdrawing nature of alkyl groups fits with experiment. Donating does not. I’d really ike to read this paper – if anyone can link to it, I’d be very grateful.

        Reply ↓
  6. voislav

    Cities already have a bunch of traffic control features. Even a mid-sized town I live in has cameras on traffic lights that detect vehicles, so that the intersection stays green for the main road unless there is a vehicle on the side road. Similar for the turn lanes, they only activate if there are more than 2 cars waiting. So it’s not like cities are not doing any traffic control and shaping already. Bigger cities have much more sophisticated systems especially for high-congestion areas.

    What’s always missing from these kind of articles is what are the actual benefits, beyond the nebulous ‘AI good’. If there was ever a proper study I suspect the benefits over the current system would be marginal and so not worth implementing.

    Reply ↓
    1. Screwball

      We have those too. I sat at a light for over 4 minutes the other day (I was timing it). Once it turned green, we had about a minute to get through. Not easy when there are 10 cars lined up waiting. Maybe ours don’t work like they should. That wouldn’t surprise me at all in this little town. Nothing works the way it should.

      Reply ↓
    2. upstater

      How about roundabouts? Precious few in the US because idiot drivers are scared of them. Or are they too complex for Waymo and Tesla? Most intersections here have green arrows which only prolong the agony of stoplights.

      Lights here also trip for cars making right-on-red-after-stop, so the major road comes to a halt for the empty side street’s now empty right turn lane.

      I-81 is to be torn down in the city of Syracuse and 50,000 vehicles per day will be dumped on to surface streets. The NYS DOT tells us “traffic calming” (ie, many more traffic lights) will smooth things out. Pity the commuters that will have that daily ordeal. Fun fact: I-690, the other interstate bisecting the city was built on the New York Central’s passenger line. 20 track tracks were ripped out and the art-deco passenger station sits next to the highway. Some progress!

      Reply ↓
      1. Screwball

        Not all roundabouts are the same. I’m in Ohio. We seem to love them. Some were put in good places where they do help traffic flow. Others, not so much. Some are out in the middle of nowhere on small side roads. Little traffic best I can tell. Is the cost of all this worth saving 4 stop signs (or two)? I have my doubts. Then, they go nuts with them. Somewhere north of Columbus there are 5 or 6 of them on the same road about a mile apart. We went though all of them and never saw another car. They are not close to neighborhoods or homes – just out in the country on a small road. I’m sure some contractor loved them.

        Reply ↓
        1. Dezert Dog, Rex

          I spent a month in Norway last year and went through hundreds of roundabouts but never did see even one Stop sign. plenty of Give Way signs that warned you to be careful crossing the road or turning on to it. it was easy driving and everyone seemed to be nice.

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      2. scott s.

        “Fun fact: I-690, the other interstate bisecting the city was built on the New York Central’s passenger line.”

        Sort of like Rochester, except there the Erie Canal defined the city, but as it grew the canal was re-routed to the south and the old canal became a subway/train route before being turned into freeway.

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    3. Kontrary Kansan

      Traffic lights will have a fourth color in 2025 — Here’s what it means

      Let me get this straight: AI’s “smart” enough to direct traffic, but not “smart” enough to use the three lights we have?
      This sounds suspiciously like marketeering. Who exactly would benefit from manufacture, deployment, and installation of these quad-lights?

      Reply ↓
    4. juno mas

      Yes. My city has all manner traffic-flow indicators to maintain main road progress. Unfortunately, pedestrian actuators upset the ‘apple cart’ more often than not. (So now we’re seeing more ’roundabouts’ and fewer signalized intersections.)

      Reply ↓
  7. Ben Panga

    Re: Big tech isn’t gonna solve our problems (Responsible Statescraft)

    The notion that AI-driven weapons will revolutionize warfare and put the country that masters them in the global driver’s seat is gospel among the new generation of techno-enthusiasts in the Pentagon and Silicon Valley….

    …But someone forgot to tell the new age militarists in Silicon Valley that. The most “visionary” leaders in the emerging tech crowd — people like Elon Musk (Space-X), Peter Thiel (Palantir), and Palmer Luckey (Anduril) — see themselves as technological saviors who know how to restore U.S. global dominance, beat China, and transform life as we know it, if only government would get out of the way and let them do the job. The new breed of Silicon Valley weapons makers doesn’t just want to make gadgets, they want to remake the world.

    BP: I agree on the use of AI, and the aims of the SV guys. The hi-tech bit is only part of the plan though

    What’s missing though is Anduril is offering a better (or at least different) way to do the old bits of weapons manufacturing. Instead of making fancy planes to order, they pay for their own R&D and then try to sell their products to the military. They produce missiles, drones, etc that are cheap, attritable, and easy to produce at scale. The parts are mostly commercial and the designs are modular and interchangeable.

    To my ignorant eye it looks a damn sight better than the procurement model that’s gotten the Empire to this point.

    They have plans (and the politicial power?) to do all this at huge scale. They plan a first mega-factory called Arsenal-1 (that I bet will be in Ohio). Others are hoped to follow in the US and allies.

    This is the fascinating bit to me: whether they can succeed in transforming military procurement (in US but then NATO) to a more mass-produced model.

    Reply ↓
    1. anahuna

      Our overlords may want to amend the instructions. Instead of ‘Go die!” they will ask us to Die quietly and without causing any trouble.

      Reply ↓
      1. pjay

        On the contrary. Dying loudly with an ISIS flag provides many propaganda benefits for our overlords and their protectors.

        Reply ↓
    2. Henry Moon Pie

      The NY Post’s idea of “squalid” indicates someone’s a bit sheltered. And having a milkable goat in the back yard is an ambition of mine.

      Reply ↓
      2. scott s.

        That’s what I was thinking. Decent kitchen, washer and dryer, not too squalid if you ask me. The Post had a picture of him in uniform wearing 25th Inf Div combat patch, so I assume he had deployed to Afghan with the 4th Airborne Bde from Ft Richardson.

        Reply ↓
    3. Mikel

      “The driver of the Cybertruck was killed.”

      Driver still needed. Why did the driver need to be in the Cybertruck all the way to the hotel?

      Reply ↓
    4. pjay

      Watching the network news last night I didn’t get the “death of despair” vibe by some desperate loser who wanted to take a bunch of people with him. I got “ISIS” – over and over again. Often the phrase “ISIS inspired” was used, as if there really was such a thing as “ISIS” as a globally integrated political organization with tendrils reaching everywhere – rather than just a word used by Western governments and their media lackeys to promote fear and ignorance. Among the latter are “intelligence” and “counter-terrorism” reporters like Seamus Hughes who will explain “ISIS support in America” to us trembling sheep from places with names like “the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center.”

      Reply ↓
  9. The Rev Kev

    “Opinion | Even ‘Good Israelis’ Are Part of the Broad Circle of Tacit Consent to War Crimes”

    The question is whether you can judge a whole nation as being guilty of war crimes and I think that the answer is yes, providing that a critical mass of the population of a country supports their government’s action. The easiest example is Germany back in WW2 where a critical mass of the population supported their government leading to that nation being guilty of it’s actions during the war. An example was made of that nation’s leaders at Nuremberg after the war but that nation suffered the stigma of being guilty along with it’s European allies. And right now I would judge that a critical mass of Israeli’s support their government’s genocidal actions meaning that Israel as a nation is also guilty of all those war crimes.

    Reply ↓
    1. mrsyk

      Are you confident that a critical mass of Israeli’s support their government’s genocidal actions ? I’d wager opposition from within the Israeli population is heavily censored and may put one at risk of life and liberty.
      As a USian I’m leery of sweeping conclusions based on a functioning democracy, hear me out, I note you didn’t say this part, but this is the “You cold have voted for someone different” argument, and is lane adjacent to your reasoning and conclusion.
      You could very well be right, but I’m hoping not. Peace.

      Reply ↓
      1. Yves Smith Post author

        Those who have visited Israel since 10/7 report top to bottom support for the genocide. The press is censored by the military to keep any bad battlefield news out. But there is no meaningful domestic opposition to things like Israelis spitting on Christians in Jerusalem or beating up on the Torah Judaism visitors. The big split in Israel has been over whether to make a deal with Hamas to get hostages back.

        For instance, from +972 in August: “And yet, polls show that Israelis still overwhelmingly support the war, albeit with caveats — and are even coming back around to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”

        And this from an interview with a top political consultant in the same article making sense of the trends:

        We’ve also seen the popularization among Israeli Jews of some very extreme positions regarding the war, including opposing humanitarian aid and complete justification of almost all military actions. Commonly held opinions also include the argument that Israel should strike Hezbollah and Lebanon hard, and that Israel should occupy Gaza and rebuild Jewish settlements there.

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        1. Bsn

          Very True. Even in my fairly big circle of friends and aquaintances, most all of the Jews I know (“some of my best friends are Jewish” :-). are hook line and sinker into support for Ukraine (they insist there are no Nazi there) and Israel’s extermination of Palestinians and goy. I’ve lost a few of them as friends as I don’t back down regarding those two subjects. I can be patient with many people and things, but not pure evil (considering that the facts are fairly clear).

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          2. Offtrail

            I know plenty of American buddhists who are Jews. Most of them do not support Israel’s actions since the Hamas attack.

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    2. JW

      By extension so is the government that supplied all the weapons and ‘cover’ for the genocide. and so will the new government if it continues with that policy. What does that say about the majority of the population of that country who voted for either of those governments when they were clear about their policy?

      Reply ↓
        1. Mikel

          And “special elections” all over the world…lots “voting harder” going around.
          But that’s not the whole problem. It always comes back to the choices presented in the first place and the entire process of that filtering.

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    3. cfraenkel

      A clarifying restatement of that question might be ‘Are all Americans guilty of the Dresden and Tokyo firebombings?’

      Reply ↓
        1. Giovanni Barca

          Born in 1970. Not guilty. Those were heinous atrocities. I have never supported a US War and never will unless the Canadian hordes come storming across the St Clair, St Mary’s and Detroit Rivers. Which is a risible thought. If MMT is correct, my tax dollars don’t even fund the Pentagon or CIA. And my vote counts for nothing. So I accept no collective guilt. Those who cheer it on may have loathly opinions but unless they have power or influence they’re not much more guilty collectively than I am.

          Reply ↓
          1. fact

            If you are part of the collective (and not working against it from inside) then you accept what the collective does. You can not be half pregnant.

            Reply ↓
      2. juno mas

        Well, if they’re no longer alive their creator will have answered that question. I wasn’t around for Dresden or Tokyo. But I was around for Korea (’54), Vietnam (’55-’75), Iraq (’03 >), Libya, Ukraine (by proxy), and numerous assassinations of political leaders. I do feel guilty about the millions of lives lost; I do not salute the flag.

        Reply ↓
  10. ChrisFromGA

    Mr. Market looks like he’s kicking off 2025 with the same “what, me worry?” attitude as 2024.

    Dow futures up, gold up, silver up, Mag seven up … bonds are the stinker in the joint, though, as they can’t catch a bid.

    Reply ↓
    1. griffen

      Noted market researcher Ed Yardeni was on CNBC this morning and his lead reasoning for a continued bullish S&P was, or rather still is productivity growth. I haven’t seen many others who come across as even more bullish than Mr. Yardeni, except for maybe strategist Tom Lee of Fundstrat.

      Blue skies and smooth sailing in 2025! It’s settled..absent another crashing set of banks like in early 2023, or a broader crash in perhaps Commercial RE and office buildings. Or a cryptocurrency unicorn going belly up ala Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX

      Reply ↓
  11. The Rev Kev

    ‘Square profile picture
    DW News
    @dwnews
    Tens of thousands of people gathered on Istanbul’s Galata Bridge on New Year’s Day to express solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.’

    This is not a serious protest this. If they were serious, they would be protesting at the pumping stations that sends oil onto Israel for their war machine. But I believe that Erdogan’s family gets kickbacks for delivering this oil so no protest there would ever be allowed by him.

    Reply ↓
    1. ChrisFromGA

      This certainly isn’t serious … and reminds me of how “progressives” in the Democratic party here in the US aren’t serious, either (notable exception for Rashida Tlaib.)

      The Hill has a story out on how progressives like AOC are facing an “existential crisis” and of course they blame the Orangemanbad.

      https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5055327-progressives-fear-trump-administration/

      This isn’t serious journalism. Where have AOC and Bernie been during the genocide sponsored by slow Joe? I must have missed the part where they did anything other than posture and pay lip service to the Palestinians. They’re too busy kissing Bibi and being assimilated into the war machine.

      Reply ↓
        1. ChrisFromGA

          Oh, on the kissing reference, I was being metaphorical. Bernie did boycott Bibi’s speech, so I guess I should give him more credit.

          For examples of how small caucuses can make a difference, look at the Freedom Caucus. They got a Speaker defenestrated (Kevin McCarththy) and Marjorie Taylor-Greene made Mike Johnson face a motion to vacate.

          Couldn’t Bernie, AOC, and a few others follow John Lewis’ example and make some “good trouble” for the cause of stopping genocide? How about refusing to vote for Jeffries as House Speaker? It would be symbolic, or course. Or refusing to caucus with the Dems until they do something about ending military aid to Israel. I get it that they’re in a minority, but they’re not powerless. And I’m not even getting into civil disobedience with real consequences like getting arrested.

          Reply ↓
          1. amfortas the hippie

            or attend such a speech by bibi and stand up and turn their backs…perhaps after disrobing.
            (long tradition, there)
            and while flipping 2 birds behind them(protected speech, along with disrobing, btw…dare sgt at arms and both parties’ “leaders” to do anything.
            channel guy debord and make a spectacle.
            chain yerself to the damned podium and shout curses in hebrew(or polish,lol) from the old testament about god chastising israel(also protected speech).
            theres a whole lot such people could do, if they didnt want to keep in the good graces of genocide supporters and other assorted demons.

            Reply ↓
  12. flora

    re: the current bird flu strain’s origin, from Poultry, Fisheries and Wildlife Journal, peer reviewed.

    Proximal Origin of Epidemic Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza H5N1 Clade 2.3.4.4b and Spread by Migratory Waterfowl

    https://www.longdom.org/open-access/proximal-origin-of-epidemic-highly-pathogenic-avian-influenza-h5n1-clade-2344b-and-spread-by-migratory-1099735.html

    From the abstract:
    The proximal origins may be the USDA Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory (SEPRL) in Athens, Georgia, and the Erasmus medical center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The first detection of HPAI H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b in the Netherlands in 2020 raises concerns about earlier gain-of-function research. Genetic analysis indicates genotype B3.13, emerging in 2024, and links to genotype B1.2, which originated in Georgia in January 2022 after the start of serial passage experiments with H5Nx clade 2.3.4.4 in mallard ducks at SEPRL in Athens, Georgia, in April 2021.

    Reply ↓
    1. mrsyk

      Hold up. In plain speak, bio lab engineering may be responsible for our avian flu problem? Quote from the abstract:
      Significant mutations found in recent human cases suggest possible links to serial passage experiments. However, causation has not been established, and further investigation is urgently needed to confirm these findings and to identify all H5N1 laboratory leaks that may have occurred with a focus on mallard ducks and other migratory waterfowl, which have the potential to infect a large number of poultry and livestock facilities around the world
      We seem to be intent on killing ourselves off.

      Reply ↓
      2. ambrit

        Who is this “we” you speak of Kemosabe? /s
        This story reminded me of the ending to Bergman’s 1977 film “The Serpent’s Egg.”

        Reply ↓
  13. Mikel

    AI Needs So Much Power, It’s Making Yours Worse – Bloomberg

    And always remember – also water.
    Death wish tech.

    Reply ↓
  14. TomDority

    Mexico Faces 500 Million-Liter Tequila Crisis As Demand Slows, Tariff Threats Rise –
    “The 4.2% decline was slim but noticeable, particularly for those who’d bet big on tequila’s success north of the border.”
    So, who did bet big on tequilla’s success??
    If it was speculators betting on the market – who really gives a rat’s arse. Just as long as they stay out of the actual producers way and don’t give the producers wallet aches.
    So it’s not a Tequila Crisis but, a just some bad bets among the crybaby crowd.

    Reply ↓
    3. Zagonostra

      I’m going to speculate it has to do with the expanding/easing of legal procurement for recreational cannabis.

      Reply ↓
      1. amfortas the hippie

        and in texas at least, the state lege made it easier to open and run a microdistillery…one opening up in my tiny, far off town.
        and just today, i saw a tequila delivery truck on the square.
        american sounding pseudospanish name painted on the side.

        Reply ↓
    1. mrsyk

      Which brings us to the question, does the desire to burn down American institutions correlate with sexual assault on campuses? That hay is cut and dry, just waiting for someone to make something of it, right or wrong.
      2025, ready or not, here I come.

      Reply ↓
      1. Mikel

        I remember a funny and lively thread (can’t remember exactly what site) about the 1 in 5 stat popping up so much – especially with regards to polling.
        It just brought back that memory.

        Reply ↓
        1. mrsyk

          I figured that was your point, I’ve heard that that’s where the noise line rests, so I did some research. Try a goog search for “The ubiquitous 1 in 5 stat” and see if you can resist a sardonic moment, lol.

          Reply ↓
    2. jefemt

      Isn’t one in five the reverse of Pareto’s Law? What my dad used to fondly call an oppo…
      a poop, turned inside-out.

      Reply ↓
  16. The Rev Kev

    “EU targeting of Orbán should worry other member states”

    ‘But as Brussels continues to tighten the screws on recalcitrant governments, leaders like Orbán may find themselves with no real option but to choose between national autonomy and EU membership.’

    I don’t think that it is so simple. In a way this is a form of Danegeld. This was money raised by the English to give to the Vikings so that they would not attack them. ie. a protection racket. But the English found that once you paid it, it never stopped.

    Same here with the EU. It does not matter what you agree to do for the EU, it is never, ever enough. There are always more demands made that have to be obeyed and in the end your nation has no sovereignty left – and then still more demands would be made. It never stops.

    Reply ↓
  18. Mikel

    Biden was the winner of Alex Christoforu’s 2024 Clown World of the Year Award.

    The Biden ADMINISTRATION should have always been emphasized when talking about the four year farce.

    Reply ↓
    1. Yves Smith Post author

      No, sorry, Clown World is a daily feature about individual gaffes. Christaforou alway has at least one every show. You don’t get to override an established format.

      Reply ↓
      1. Mikel

        I’m not just talking about Alex’s award when I think of the four year farce. It simply triggered my ire about the entire administration.

        Reply ↓
    2. ChrisFromGA

      Alex inspired my first parody of 2025:

      (Sung to the tune of, “Holly Jolly Christmas” by Burl Ives)

      Have a holly, jolly Clown World
      It’s the best time of the year
      I don’t know if we’ll miss Joe
      But have a cup of jeers

      Have a holly jolly Clown World!
      And when you walk down the street
      Say hello to clowns you know and new ones that you’ll meet

      Oh no, these clowns we know, should be hung where we can see
      Somebody starts it off, freedom isn’t free!

      Have a holly, jolly Clown World
      And in case you didn’t hear
      Oh by golly have a holly jolly Clown World this year!

      [Interlude]

      Have a holly jolly Clown World, it’s the best time of the year

      Have a holly jolly Clown World!
      And when Alex walks down the street
      Say hello to clowns you know and new ones that you’ll meet

      Oh no, these clowns we know, should be hung where we can see
      Somebody starts it off, freedom isn’t free!

      Have a holly, jolly Clown World
      And in case you didn’t hear
      Oh by golly have a holly jolly Clown World this year!

      Reply ↓
        1. ChrisFromGA

          Possible refrain, with PG lyrics:

          Ho ho, we’ll miss old Joe, strung out on TV
          Somebody wake him up, send him to Denny’s!

          Reply ↓
  19. lyman alpha blob

    RE: How AI is Unlocking Ancient Texts

    Once again, I think the term “AI” is being used disingenuously or carelessly here. What the article describes is powerful machines being used to show the text from heavily damaged papyri so that human beings can then read it. That is extremely impressive to be sure, but it has been going on for years now and it’s basically a glorified x-ray machine – the “AI” isn’t doing any deciphering here.

    The other use it’s being put to is filling in lacunae from ancient texts. From the article –

    “In tests, Ithaca restored artificially produced gaps in ancient texts with 62% accuracy, compared with 25% for human experts. But experts aided by Ithaca’s suggestions had the best results of all, filling gaps with an accuracy of 72%.”

    This sounds a lot like the pattern recognition used by the hallucinating AIs on the interwebs. No mention of what how large these gaps where and what’s being filled in, so I’d take those figures with a grain of salt. And this is for texts where the answer is already known – in texts with actual gaps, it’s just making an “educated” guess. It’s one thing to fill in a missing γάρ from a Homeric hymn to keep the meter straight, and a whole other kettle of fish to solve the riddle of the Sphinx (although we already know that one!).

    My smart-Alexandros self thought halfway through the articled “Let me know when it figures out Linear A and Etruscan” and after reading further, apparently that is one of the hopes. I’m skeptical that “AI” will be able to do so since it relies on pattern recognition and there isn’t all that much extant text to look at, and what has been discovered is likely just lists of who owned how many bushels of barley and flocks of sheep, judging by Linear B and cuneiform texts that have been deciphered. In other words, we only have a few words coming down to us from a rich human language. It would be similar to trying to reconstruct English from a heavily fragmented phone book.

    To this dilettante, the tech sounds like it could be very good at showing, but not so sharp in the telling.

    For those who value old fashioned human ingenuity, the story of how Linear B was deciphered by WW2 code breakers and determined to be an ancient form of Greek is pretty fascinating. Plenty of books about it, and the one by one of the original collaborators, John Chadwick, can be found here or at a used bookstore near you!

    Reply ↓
    1. Bugs

      Came down here to make a similar comment. I’ve got a sheaf of handwritten pages of diaries and recollections by my grandmother that I’ve been working on transcribing for a couple years now, to share with my family before we get too old to even remember her anymore. It’s stuff from the early 20th century and though in the vernacular of the time and language reflecting her background as a poor farm girl, it’s not that hard to figure out, it’s just very time consuming.

      So, I recently tried the various AI tools on it. One, I think it’s called Pen2text or something like that, was not bad but left holes in the transcriptions where it failed. That turned out to be the best. ClaudeAI was too slow and gave up quickly. It also made stuff up to fill in lacunae in the text. But what it made up was just odd, like something completely idiosyncratic from another story that it just pasted in. Chatgpt was fast and came up with complete transcriptions that appeared to make sense. However, when I did a deep read comparison, it had filled in the lacunae to construct an odd tale of perseverance with a different narrative. A coherent narrative but not the actual story told in the handwritten text. If you didn’t go back and compare it closely, and use your imagination and knowledge of the person writing, it would have seemed acceptable. It also gave me an analysis of the text at the end, which was not in my simple prompt of “transcribe this scan of handwritten text to ASCI text”. Sort of disturbing tbh.

      So there’s absolutely no way I trust these tools right now to do anything serious. But maybe with enough stuff shoveled into the LLM, it might get better. I hate this stuff but it seems to have potential.

      At least it inspired me to finish the transcription and make sure it was done in what I remember of her voice. Family thanked me but who knows if they’ll read it. People don’t read anymore.

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      1. ChrisFromGA

        Kalamity Harris explained AI the best:

        “AI is kind of a fancy thing, it’s two letters. It means Artificial Intelligence.”

        Reply ↓
      2. scott s.

        Sort of reminds me of a story, don’t think AI was involved, but a historian was trying to make sense out of an indecipherable US civil war era manuscript. Turns out it was written in a cursive style of Fraktur script that was used in parts of then pre-federated Germany at the time and brought to the US by an immigrant.

        Reply ↓
    2. Mo's Bike Shop

      just lists of who owned how many bushels of barley and flocks of sheep, judging by Linear B and cuneiform texts

      I too was bummed that we didn’t find an early tale of Bellerophon or some agitprop from Menelaus in Linear B, but the anthropologists really go to town on those inventories and phone books for getting an understanding of the physical cultures of Mycenaean Greece, etc. Better than any poem for those nerds.

      Reply ↓
    3. ChrisFromGA

      I am also detecting a sort of “AI eats world” mentality, where AI is being given credit for all sorts of things it shouldn’t. Kind of like the way Al Gore took credit for inventing the Internet.

      Not to mention businesses rebranding themselves as “AI companies.” Or as a programmer might use a regex: s/cloud/AI

      “Our cloud/AI platform”
      “Enterprise cloud/AI”

      (you get the picture.)

      Perhaps in the year 2125, our progeny will be taught that AI created the Internet. A

      Reply ↓
  20. Cat Burglar

    WSJ reporters must not eat cereal for breakfast. This week I saw an ultra-earthy crunchy box of cereal priced at $8.98. Most of the earthy-crunchy and “healthy” labels were asking about $7.50, though, judging from watching the shelves, most people are refusing to buy at that price and wait for markdowns. I have seen no evidence that breakfast cereal prices are responding to the reported lower prices for grain producers.

    Reply ↓
    1. Bugs

      Americans are getting gouged royally on breakfast cereals because the companies can get away with it. Here in France the demand is not really there for the stuff so a giant box of Kelloggs Corn Flakes is still around €3.50. The organic granola type things are about €4. People here still eat the traditional bread with butter and jam or a croissant.

      Reply ↓
      1. Norton

        Granola is easy to make with variations to suit tastes. We had jars of it back in the 1970s. With escalating store prices for prepackaged stuff there could be a retro trend for ingredient buying and kitchen fun.

        Reply ↓
  21. Carolinian

    Lotsa links today. Thanks.

    Re the GPS spoofing article, it should be pointed out that airliners have the old pre gps radio beacon system as backup and aren’t completely dependent on GPS for navigation. There’s also that legacy tech known as the compass. Also there are now competing sat nav systems from Russia and others although these too no doubt vulnerable to spoofing. For those interested in both how GPS and the spoofing work the article offers this informative link.

    https://spectrum.ieee.org/gps-spoofing

    Reply ↓
    1. rowlf

      GPS Spoofing: New Electronic Threat in Civilian Airspace IEEE Spectrum

      I’m guessing the author couldn’t make it as a sports writer? /s

      Modern airliners have inertial navigation systems (2 or 3 installed, INS or ADIRU) and GPS/VOR/Navigational Database are used to eliminate the internal error of the commercial units. (Commercial units have error to diminish their effectiveness as dual use technology, but GPS/VOR/Navigational Database corrects the error. VOR/Airports rarely move around.)

      Airlines operating in areas that have GPS spoofing have procedures to deal with the loss of GPS data. Maps of GPS spoofing areas are also available to airlines.

      Jeez O’Petes, if you can’t get a article about aviation correct when so many facts are easily available with a little research, how can the media report on less fact available news?

      (BTW, I like how AI aviation images always have errors. Stupid computers.)

      Reply ↓
    2. Duke of Prunes

      The c-130 transport has an overhead windows so it can be navigated by the stars. Not sure if they still teach that, but it’s there if necessary.

      Reply ↓
      1. rowlf

        Sextant use for airplanes was practiced in the past but as aircraft speeds increased it became challenging to get good data. In the early 1960s astronavigation computers were developed that took star shots to update internal Inertial Navigation Systems. These units could work in daytime and were installed on B-52s used with Hound Dog missiles and FB-111s. Other military aircraft used the systems too as military experience since WWII was not to rely on external radio navigation signals that could be spoofed. (An example being the Germans messing with the RAF and USAAF in the European Theatre of Operations.)

        (The North Vietnamese could have saved a lot of troops if they jammed the navigation signals used by the US during Operation Niagara.)

        The books “With the Possum and the Eagle: The Memoir of a Navigator’s War over Germany and Japan” [Ralph H. Nutter] and “Flying from the Black Hole: The B-52 Navigator-Bombardiers of Vietnam” [Harder, Robert O.] covers this topic well.

        Boeing 747-100/200 had a combination sextant port/smoke evacuation port in the top of the flight deck.

        Reply ↓
  22. Mark Gisleson

    MPR poll broke down disinterest in American institutions in numerous ways but the one pie chart they most certainly have and didn’t share is exactly what % of respondents were MPR listeners, and whether their responses varied from the overall results.

    Do MPR listeners believe in American institutions? And if not, why?

    Reply ↓
    1. Mark Gisleson

      Oops, substitute NPR for MPR as this was a national poll despite MPR sponsorship but I also wish to add that the results were gibberish.

      They used exactly the kind of question that you would never give a truthful answer to if in fact you wanted to “burn it all down.”

      Reply ↓
  23. Zagonstra

    >EU Officials Will Claim Ignorance of Israel’s War Crimes. This Leaked Document Shows What They Knew. Intercept (Robin K)

    The article title reminds me of the video clip of DNC participants going into conference covering their ears as they were accosted by pro-Palestinians anti-genocide citizen journalist. What’s there to “know?” Every thinking and moral person is familiar with “Israel’s War Crimes.” But it matters not, what the cryptocracy, oligarchs want is what EU officials, just as the U.S. Congress, react to and act on.

    Reply ↓
  24. ChrisFromGA

    Mystery solved … Nancy is going to make the schlep to DC to be on the House floor tomorrow, despite her ongoing recovery from hip replacement:

    https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5063600-democrats-vote-speaker-house/

    This means that Magic Mike cannot afford any more defections (Thomas Massie is already a refusenik to re-elect the worst GOP speaker since Dennis Hastert.)

    All eyes on Victoria Sparz, Chip Roy, and M T-G. This guy is toast, I think.

    Reply ↓
  25. AG

    re: Wagenknecht –

    some extraordinarily smart people in Germany – may be it was even German edition of JACOBIN – described her after this interview as delusional, authoritarian, destroyer of the left ideas and so on.

    The intellectual dissociation and social disolution of this country is unexpected. And I have accepted the sad reality that it will go on like this. In even more unsettling ways than what we might know from the US where many have always been confronted with Third World realities in their vicinity.

    Not Germany. Until now. So the confrontation with new conditions will have more severe repercussions.
    As I repeatedly have said. German bourgeoisie has no clue what will hit them. And no remedy.

    And I am not at all sure Wagenknecht either knows this in its ugliest essence or has a genuine solution.

    Because claiming that German technological superiority was responsible for the increase in wealth and economic power and less so the Euro and constraints on other nations, as BSW sometimes does claim these days too – can be a ruse for PR – but as well it could be a real misunderstanding.

    Keeping out migrants and pushing combustion engine won’t do the trick.
    Of course I can only assume there is much more in those planning documents and suggestions by the people who hopefully deliver some serious expertise…

    BSW with a max of 15% in Febr. does what exactly?

    Depending of how badly FDP will perform we will find ourselves with SPD/CDU/GREEN coalition.
    The only question would be if they reach the 2/3 majority threshold or not which is necessary for Constitutional changes. So I keep my fingers crossed that this won’t fall into their hands too.

    Lets hope I am wrong with my predictions.

    Reply ↓
    1. Screwball

      I don’t disagree, but it made me think…when was the last time we had a good one?

      They are like the rest of them – they all suck, some just suck more than others.

      Reply ↓
  27. Rick

    Re: Sahra Wagenknecht/political leaders. Although I don’t agree with some of his socially conservative views, I have been repeatedly impressed by Vladimir Putin’s ability to speak well. His long press conferences where he speaks extemporaneously without notes, much less teleprompters, is impressive. I’ve also noticed there are people in the audience protesting rather strenuously and he does respond to them. Of course, if I mention this to any of my liberal friends their heads explode.
    The Bertrand Russell quote about political parties is particularly apt now:

    One of the peculiarities of the English-speaking world is its immense interest and belief in political parties. A very large percentage of English-speaking people really believe that the ills from which they suffer would be cured if a certain political party were in power. That is a reason for the swing of the pendulum. A man votes for one party and remains miserable; he concludes that it was the other party that was to bring the millennium. By the time he is disenchanted with all parties, he is an old man on the verge of death; his sons retain the belief of his youth, and the see-saw goes on.

    Russell, 1923

    Reply ↓
  29. Alan Sutton

    “ I almost wept as I read this interview. Do we have political leaders in the US, among the states, who can speak with such clarity, based in such thoughtful analysis, and without resorting to sloganeering and pandering? Please, someone point them out.”

    It doesn’t seem so does it? I was impressed too by that interview.

    George Galloway does come to mind although, sadly, the electorate in Britain did not seem ready for his party in the recent election there. Another bad mistake by them.

    Reply ↓

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