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Links 3/1/2025

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Neanderthal Extinction Linked to Genetic Crisis 100,000 Years Ago ScienceAlert (Chuck L)

How many languages can babies learn? Study shows how Ghanaian babies grow up speaking two to six languages PhysOrg (Chuck L)

Female physicians’ suicide risk is 53% higher than general population, analysis find MedicalXpress (Chuck L)

Breakthrough Blood Test Accurately Identifies ALS and Tracks Progression SciTech Daily (Chuck L)

Bacteria Causing Gum Disease May Also Cause Alzheimer’s, Israeli Research Shows Haaretz (Robin K)

Chocolate, Coffee, and Wine Could Slash Your Risk of Metabolic Syndrome SciTech Daily (Chuck L)

#COVID-19/Pandemics

Air-borne: a book about COVID Eric Topol (Robin K)

1 in 22 covid survivors develop ME/CFS Live Science (Paul R)

Formerly anti-vax parents on how they changed their minds: ‘I really made a mistake’ Guardian (Kevin W)

Climate/Environment

Apple Accused of Misleading Consumers With Apple Watch ‘Carbon Neutral’ Claims The Verge

China?

China’s thorium survey finds ‘endless energy source right under our feet’ South China Morning Post (Chuck L)

Chinese Scientists Developing Mars Drone That Can Roll and Fly Space

G20 finance chiefs fail to agree joint communique after trade and climate clashes Financial Times

Koreas

North Korea says it launched cruise missiles in message to ‘enemies’ Aljazeera

Myanmar

Myanmar: A Nation Drowning In Drugs Crisis Eurasia Review

Africa

Former African presidents demand action as debt crisis reaches historic levels BizCommunity

Explosions during a rally held by a rebel group in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo have killed at least 11 people and injured around 60 others BBC

European Disunion

ECB’s $1.9 trillion-a-day trade system suffers outage Reuters

The Militarization of German Politics Hintergrund via machine translation (Micael T)

Far-Right blocked from government in Austria despite winning election Telegraph

SWEDISH COMPANIES DISTRIBUTE 415 BILLION – EQUIVALENT TO A THIRD OF THE STATE BUDGET Proletaren via machine translation (Micael T)

Old Blighty

How the UK’s rollback of banking regulations could risk another financial crisis The Conversation

Almost half of England’s councils ‘could face bankruptcy over £4.6bn deficit’ Guardian

Israel v. The Resistance

Uncertainty looms as first phase of Gaza truce due to expire Agence France-Presse

Israel is stepping up its military aggression across the region. But is it out of strength, or weakness? Mondoweiss

Syria must put an end to Israel’s incursions – and fast Middle East Eye

Iran’s foreign ministry on Thursday slammed Israeli threats as “outrageous” after Israel’s foreign minister warned a “military option” might be needed to halt Iran’s nuclear capabilities AlArabyiya

New Not-So-Cold War. I have a post in the works on the epic Trump-Zelensky blowup, hence I am a bit underweight on links on it below so as to not neglect other news. I should have that piece up by 9:00 AM, so please do return!

BLOODBATH IN THE OVAL OFFICE Simplicius

Mr. Zelensky Comes to Washington: Transcript Matt Taibbi

Investors unnerved by heated Trump-Zelensky Oval Office showdown Reuters (Kevin W)

Zelensky, after White House fallout, says it’s ‘difficult’ for Ukraine to hold off Russia without US Le Monde. Lead story. Hopefully readers can provide other takes from the Continent in comments.

If you were paying attention, the news below is not a surprise. Rubio Says US Won’t Lift Russia Sanctions Before Ukraine Deal Bloomberg. February 18.

The Guessing Game Over Trump’s Real Aims In Ukraine Moon of Alabama (Kevin W). We get a shout out.

US ends key USAID initiative supporting Ukraine’s energy grid Anadolu Agency. En route before the big blowup.

The US is now the enemy of the west Financial Times. From a few days ago. The charts demonstrate that the claim that the US provided more support to Ukraine is false.

Washington has picked a surprisingly decent ambassador for Russia Vlyzgrad via machine translation (Micael T)

What Russia and the US agreed on in Istanbul. The main thing Kommerstant via machine translation. Micael T: “6.5 hours and this is what they agreed on. In this tempo It will be years before they get to peace in Ukraine and divide the territory between themselves. Maybe the Euro War Pigs should calm down a bit?”

Putin Extends Maternity Capital Program Until 2030 Vlyzgrad via machine translation. Micael T: “No wonder they hate Putin. Helping people? WTF?!?!”

Big Brother is Watching You Watch

Goodbye Surveillance Capitalism, Hello Surveillance Fascism Max Murphy (Paul R)

Imperial Collapse Watch

Trump 2.0

Trump tariffs could be bargaining chip or economic bomb Asia Times (Kevin W)

Trump’s threatened 25% tariffs on EU imports could trigger ‘economic turmoil’ Guardian

Trump cancels oil deal in major blow to Venezuela BBC

Trump eases rules on military raids and airstrikes, expanding range of who can be targeted CBS

Mass terminations have cut USDA ‘off at the knees,’ ex-employees say Investigate Midwest

Trump makes US copper mining a focus of his domestic minerals policy Associated Press (Kevin W)

DOGE

DOGE wants to lay off the ‘vast majority’ of CFPB workers, employees say The Verge (Kevin W)

Immigration

Bukele, un carcelero por sobrevivencia El Faro. Robin K: “Part of Trump’s deportation program: put deportees in Salvadoran jails.”

Police State Watch

How Cambridge Analytica Used Intimate Data to Exploit Gun Owners’ Private Lives ProPublica (Robin K)

Missouri GOP Seeks Control Over St. Louis Police Department ProPublica (Robin K)

Our No Longer Free Press

BBC AND GUARDIAN EDITORS HELD PRIVATE MEETINGS WITH ISRAELI GENERAL Declassified UK (guurst)

Mr. Market is Moody

Worries Mount That Trump Agenda Is Testing Economy’s Resilience Wall Street Journal

The Federal Reserve’s favorite recession indicator is flashing a danger sign again CNBC

The Bezzle

Bitcoin Down 25% From All-Time High as Crypto Rout Worsens Bloomberg

Pope Francis has created a Vatican task force to urge believers to give more money as the Catholic Church tackles a cashflow crisis The Times

Class Warfare

Google’s Sergey Brin Urges Workers To the Office at Least Every Weekday New York Times

Benioff Says Salesforce Won’t Hire Engineers This Year Due To AI SF Standard. So much for “Learn to code.”

Antidote du jour (via):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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204 comments

  1. The Rev Kev

    ‘Michael Tracey
    @mtracey
    Trump just extended Biden’s sanctions against Russia for another year’

    Entirely predictable this. It’s not like Trump has a lot of leverage over the Russians and by letting these sanctions lapse, it would have reduced what leverage he has even more. Something tells me that the US-Russia meeting in Turkiye did not go so well as the US was meeting stiff resistance for its demands so they just settled on measures to do with diplomacy as window dressing for what was achieved. Trump likes picking on smaller countries but with peer countries like China and Russia he does not seem to know what to do.

  2. JohnA

    Re SWEDISH COMPANIES DISTRIBUTE 415 BILLION – EQUIVALENT TO A THIRD OF THE STATE BUDGET

    Yesterday was the 39th anniversary of the assassination of Olof Palme. A crime never seriously investigated by the Swedish police (a bit like the Nordstream explosions!). And the start of the gradual slide from social democracy to ever increasing inequality, neoliberalism, and joining Nato. Sweden is a complete mess today, the media slavishly full of anti Putin/Russia propaganda and TDS. No end in sight as all parties are on the same page. Naturally the prime minister is invited by Starmer to London this weekend to join the cuddle puddle of European ‘leaders’ eager to console Zelensky after his disastrous performance in the White House.

    1. The Rev Kev

      Maybe Oz’s PM can go over too for a hug. He was on TV tonight after Zelensky’s blowup saying that Oz stands with the Ukraine ‘for as long as it takes’ and how we must fight ‘Because this is the struggle of a democratic nation versus an authoritarian regime led by Vladimir Putin who clearly has imperialistic designs not just on Ukraine but throughout that region.’ The guy can’t give it a rest.

      1. timbers

        “As Long As It Takes”. You know, that would a great name for an upscaled assisted living or nursing home catering to the Collective West leadership class.

  3. farmboy

    Rome has been sacked! I was in my local USDA service center yesterday, it was like a tomb. Less than half staffed. FSA and NRCS programs are detailed and complicated, Federal Crop Insurance is too. Draconian cuts to NWS and NOAA will have real, net negative effects. Rural America is going to suffer from it’s own stupidity.

    1. Wukchumni

      It kinda has the feel of the Great Leap Forward-the purging of intellectuals, the smelting of irony, economic mismanagement and eventually famine.

      2. ilpalazzo

        On the other hand, I was on a charity event (as a staff mostly) last night with lots of artist types, the class I used to spend lot of time among but got declassed back, and I almost had my teeth crack. I swear they have it coming.

        1. wol

          The class I belong to. I’ve lost 1/4″ off my teeth, grinding. I’ve lost the favor of my gallerist. Indeed they have it coming.

        2. Bsn

          Yes, being an artist myself, I have given up on a few venues due to their intransigence regarding Covid and wokeness (especially trans) issues. I’ve tried discussing, agreeing to disagree, etc. but no movement on their part. They always argue “it’s that man (well they actually say “they”) and they never argue the actions. Biden/Harris = good, Trump/Putin = bad. Dems = good, Repubs = bad. So simplistic. After a while, I won’t suffer fools.

      3. amfortas the hippie

        i just yesterday reviewed(via Wiki, but still) the history of China during those times.
        and yes…it does sorta rhyme.

        1. Emma

          Sheesh, can we all stop with the comparing every terrible thing American (Afrikaner-Canadian Nazi) capitalists do with stuff that Communists purportedly (according to Western capitalists) did over half a century ago? This isn’t aimed at you specifically but seriously…

          I’d say that the closer analogy is Milei and Argentina or Yeltsin’s Russia, but maybe I should shut my phone typing finger.

          1. Wukchumni

            Trump strikes me as more of a Bizarro World Gorbachev in that he wants openness but only for his and his ilks good.

            Errorstroika, as in the ends justify the means…

            He’s teetotally the opposite of Yeltsin~

          2. amfortas the hippie

            im much better with analogies in more ancient history…trump 1.o as emperor honorious, with various people standing in for his general, stilicho….etc.
            i read a frothing atlanticist thing the other day comparing trump/musk to mao…thought it was silly, but then realised that i know that i do not know, as it were…hence the wikiwander in between kicking my own ass cutting firewood, etc.
            history rhyming is a useful thing, i think…but yer right, it aint 1:1.
            as for the current iteration of chaos…i sometimes with i had a PMC blue check type besides my mom to observe after events like yesterday.

      1. Wukchumni

        I’m not all that surprised so many NPS employees took the offer, of all the Federal agencies, NPS ranks near the bottom in morale & more, while Congress takes away more funding every year as the numbers of visitors only grows like weeds, the equivalent of every citizen in the USA visited our National Parks last year, and yet we treat our crown jewels like tawdry costume jewelry, including the ones who generally get paid in sunrises, amazing vistas and sunsets. Nobody gets rich working for NPS.

        It isn’t uncommon for a permanent NPS employee to wear a few hats in your job description, my friend was the wildlife biologist @ Sequoia NP and her expertise is black bears*, but on account of her being able to speak Spanish, was utilized as family liaison when Hispanic visitors drowned in one of the 5 Kaweah rivers-the commonest way to die around these parts.

        Imagine that job description: Must be bilingual in Spanish & English, and have the ability to console people you’ve never met after just having lost a loved one in the river.

        *check out her book: Speaking of Bears: The Bear Crisis and a Tale of Rewilding from Yosemite, Sequoia, and Other National Parks

      2. The Rev Kev

        That article said the following-

        ‘Interior Secretary Doug Burgum says the Park Service will rehire thousands of workers—but only as temporary, seasonal positions.’

        Does this mean that they want to replace professionals with gig workers? Will they have to bring their own tent for ‘accommodation’? Will they have to complete an online course for their ‘training?’ I can see it now-

        When Interior Secretary Doug Burgum was asked about the firefighters for those parks, he replied ‘Let ’em burn! I read somewhere that it is all a part of the natural cycle – or something like that.’

        1. Carolinian

          That has long been the policy and was somewhat controversially applied during the huge Yellowstone fire in the 1990s. Some Western trees need fire in order to distribute their seeds and reproduce.

              1. ambrit

                Poor Dorothy! As if tornados, wicked witches, flying monkeys, wheelers, etc. etc. weren’t bad enough.
                I can hear it clearly in my inner ear:
                Davos Man: “I’ll get you my Orange Haired Satan, and your little DOGE too!”

        2. Steve H.

          Thank you, Doug. Love you, farmboy, you’re right about everything but that one sentence.

      4. steppenwolf fetchit

        It sounds like the “targeted-for-seasonal-gigification” workforce-to-be in the National Park future offers another pain-point for a movement to raise and donate money to key-sector ex-workers to stay off the job and keep staying off the job.

        Suppose the ” 27-a-Month Club” had several million members all donating $27 a month to spend on things like paying the layoffed park workers just as much as they would have gotten paid if they had gone back seasonally. Make the Parks insufferable and unvisitable. Crash Parks-dependent tourist revenue to zero. All nice and legal. And explain that ” this is your tourist economy on DOGE. You want your tourist economy back? Abolish DOGE and abolish and reverse the DOGE cuts.”

        Make the pain in Trump Country so utterly total and absolute that the people there would become ready to vote for a New Deal Party, if there was one. That would create a vacuum for creative political engineers to create a New Deal Party to fill that vacuum with.

      5. ambrit

        Rural America is already inured to suffering. What you may have mistaken for “Rural America” is properly the former Middle Class. True rustics cannot afford the fees associated with National anything, and, in general, never could.
        The glee and celebration you see might just be the more observant of the old “Rustics” reacting to the sight of their former “betters” suffering those things that said ‘Rustics’ have endured for decades. It may not be “civilized behaviour” but such schadenfreude is natural to the Terran human psyche.
        Be prepared, we are all going to be “deplorables” soon enough.

        1. Serfs Up

          A lot of farmers are libertarian minded when gov orgs expect them to treat labor with dignity, and all for big gubberment when the subsidies/grants are on the line. Obviously NWS + NOAA affect everyone, but when I see local (PMC approved #familysmallorganic) farms getting large grants for infrastructure from NRCS while stringing labor along with crumbs, and while the rest of their communities struggle, it’s hard for me to completely keep a leash on my petty satisfaction when the money dries up.

    3. chukjones

      I briefly worked for the IRS during tax filing season. Everyone got a paycheck from the USDA. I wonder if they are planning on hiring these workers this year and if not, will this delay income tax refunds? I haven’t found any corroborating info so far…

  4. KevinB

    Tracing the evolution of Nixon’s Madman Theory, from its intellectual roots in the work of Daniel Ellsberg and Thomas Schelling, inspired by Joseph Conrad, to its application in the quagmires of Korea, Vietnam, and now Ukraine. The latest iteration of semi-calculated chaos, dubbed Badman Theory, was performed with uncanny timing yesterday in the Oval Office by the Bad Orange Man himself:

    https://www.beyondwasteland.net/p/badman-theory

  5. Tom67

    You asked for European reaction for Selensky – Trump blowup. There is a blog devoted to the German army the Bundeswehr that is widely read among officers. It is called augengeradeaus.net. I look it up to read the comments which are mostly by acting officers. All blame on Trump; hysterical calls to arm Ukraine; anti-american bile. People who wonder whether it is a good idea to rupture relations with both US and Russia are shouted down. Not the least acknowledgement of facts on the ground.

    1. Louis Fyne

      Trump (unintentionally, not 4-D chess) gets to get rid of two birds with one tweaking Zelensky. Europe enthusiastically owns the Ukraine Project and Europe enters 4 years of domestic political turmoil as military spending crowds out social welfare.

      And the number of Americans who will care about anything between Ireland and the Ural Mountains? —– maybe the NYT readership + Washington Post readership out of 330 million.

    2. ZenBean

      blog devoted to the German army the Bundeswehr that is widely read among officers. It is called augengeradeaus.net

      Tbf, that blog has a very heavy liberal-internationalist slant and attracts a readership that shares this ideological outlook. I wouldn’t be particularly surprised, at all, if there are a lot of officers who view things differently although those are unlikely to be represented in the higher echelons where compliance with the current political thing is required. Remember that admiral they fired early into the war because he displayey a disturbing lack of faith into Slava Ukraini?

      In the end it doesn’t matter that much anyway, like in all Western states, the military is on a tight leash. Should there be a political realignment though, in idk a decade, then they wouldn’t have a problem promiting officers into leadership positions that are supportive of a new paradigm.

      1. AG

        The little I have read augengeradeaus (what a tellingly dumb name) betrayed their incompetence on hypersonics, missile defense and the state of NATO vs. RU. I might be wrong but that blog made the impression of c-suits running around creating hot air.

        > “I wouldn’t be particularly surprised, at all, if there are a lot of officers who view things differently although those are unlikely to be represented in the higher echelons where compliance with the current political thing is required.”

        Exactly. Actually one of my hopes that among files&ranks types there is enough realism. Since if WE on NC know the truth there are enough professionals who do too out there. After all it´s always the same three dozen of morons who are heard in the MSM. In a country with 80M whereof at least half of the electorate is not represented by government agenda at all.

    3. Zagonostra

      Really not much different than my Democrat family and friends here in the good ole U.S of A.

      TDS was never cured, nor antidote found.

    5. Anonymous 2

      Reaction in the UK appears largely sympathetic to Zelensky. Trump is not liked so this is unsurprising. Even Farage, who pretends to be close friends with Trump, seems to have tried to be neutral, saying the episode was ‘regrettable’ without apparently allocating blame. Otherwise Portillo, who is pretty right-wing, said words to the effect that Trump and Vance only seemed to like freedom of speech when they were speaking. Centrist and ‘left-wing’ publications look to be pretty uniformly backing Zelensky. Quite a few people saying it is time for Europe to recognise that they are no longer regarded as friends by the US government.

      1. Anonymous 2

        This is the most recommended comment on an FT article:

        ‘Do not consider it a humiliation of Zelenskyy. He left the white house with his head up, representing the dignity of his embattled people. If anyone was humiliated, it is the American people, who have elected this sad querulous old crook as their head of state. What a piteous state’

        1. mary jensen

          James Carville (yeah, I know) is on youtube referring to the sad querulous old crook as syphilitic and saying: “That boy’s not right”, something one says in the South.

  6. .Tom

    I’m guessing that presser was Zelensky’s show aimed at splitting Europe from USA and pushing Europe to join the fight. He knew Trump’s position and how Europols/media feel about that and about Trump (passionate fear and loathing). Is it working? BBC headline “Trump-Zelensky row signals looming crisis between Europe and US”. BBC also wrote that No10 said that after talking to Trump Starmer retained “unwavering support for Ukraine”.

  7. Wukchumni

    In the main room in the World Series Of Poker… er Peace that is, its pretty obvious that a prior bracelet winner was making his move by pushing all of his chips into the middle of the green felt layout, sensing his opponent’s hand consisted of 1 of a kind 7 times, Jack high.

    The idea that his hand was actually worse was never betrayed by his countenance~

    1. mrsyk

      I guess Z never heard of Kenny Rogers

      … “Son, I’ve made a life
      Out of readin’ people’s faces
      Knowin’ what the cards were
      By the way they held their eyes
      So if you don’t mind my sayin’
      I can see you’re out of aces
      For a taste of your whiskey
      I’ll give you some advice”

    2. Neutrino

      The fireplace was cold. That roaring blaze from the Biden transition and the subsequent dwindling at later events provide symbolism for interpretation. That could generate columns and even theses? /s

  8. The Rev Kev

    “G20 finance chiefs fail to agree joint communique after Cape Town talks”

    The G20 era looks like it is coming to an end. It has been happening for a long time as western countries have tried to seize the annual agendas to make it all about the Ukraine and Russia the past coupla years. This time with Trump in power, I think that he will try to wreck it. Rubio did not go as he reckoned they were all anti-American or something. I think what he meant was that they did not follow US dictates. Now the US and EU block has broken down into mutual hostility so not much can get done at a G20 anymore. It may be that BRICS would be a more congenial organization as you don’t have western countries in it trying to wreck it from inside. Of course those G20 member that are not part of BRICS could always ask to attend as observers, G20 countries like Mexico, Türkiye, the African Union, etc.

  9. Bugs

    Reaction in France to the Blowout in the Oval Office – Marine Le Pen says at Agriculture expo in Paris today that Trump and Vance’s reaction was “normal” and that peace must be achieved in Europe. Jean-Luc Mélenchon goes all in to support the Ukies. The rest of the political spectrum center right – center left, repeat the EU ♥ Ukraine because “democracy fighting evil Putin” full-scale unprovoked pablum. Even including Dominique de Villepin this time, who over the past few days has been floating his 2027 presidential aspirations. He needs to realign with the Blob consensus after getting bogged down in too much truth. I don’t want MLP to be the only one speaking sense but I have no choice.

    Le Figaro has an instant poll on its site asking if Big Z was right to blow off the rest of the meeting. As if he wasn’t asked to leave…

    1. AG

      >”Jean-Luc Mélenchon goes all in to support the Ukies.”
      Seriously? (No wonder we have no European left)

      1. The Rev Kev

        From what I have heard of the guy, I am not really surprised. Too much ego which makes him readily manipulated.

  10. FreeMarketApologist

    Re: “BLOODBATH IN THE OVAL OFFICE“:

    Good. Now do Netanyahu.

    Although it’s going to be unclear how such a chaotic administration extricates themselves from that particular quagmire.

      1. NosFurATwo

        Netanyahu ( Mileikowsky ) and Zelenskyy are both from the same geographic region and ancestral stock. One should not be surprised that they exhibit similar ideals and expectations; or employ similar methods and in pursuit of similar goals vis-a-vis their respective conflict zones.

  11. Huey

    Accidentally posted this initially under another comment.

    I’m still not convinced ME CFS/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia and Long Covid aren’t manifestations of a Functional Neurological Disorder. The persistent lack of diagnostic criteria for Long Covid doesn’t help, but as mentioned in today’s article those symptoms are really similar to CFS symptoms.

    I am interested in seeing more evidence of a neuro-inflammatory aetiology, especially because of the ongoing interest in neuroinflammation (whether from emotional stress, metabolic diseases, infections) as part of the aetiology for several psychiatric disorders including depression and PTSD; important missing links I believe can help understanding, treatment and prevention of these conditions.

    This is not to say that CFS, Fibromyalgia and Long Covid aren’t real. I just believe that, as with any manifestation of a Functional Neurlogical Disorder (eg. Seizures, blindness, paraplegia), treatment should be approached from a holistic/biopsychosocial point of view. Ergo, it should include at least a psychiatric/neuropsychoatric consultation and evaluation for the benefit of psychotherapy as part of a patient’s management.

    1. Martin Oline

      You made me look. It would make sense if that agreement had been signed. I thought, in how it was intended, it was something made for the visit and was posted before the Oval Office but it was posted after that. Say que? I think it doesn’t make a lot of sense in the current situation. Perhaps that’s all they had, the writers had all gone home, so the office lackeys posted it.

    2. shleep

      Unless that’s some clever AI, I never thought I’d see the legendary blue-feathered tree-dwelling lion.

  15. Steve H.

    > Bacteria Causing Gum Disease May Also Cause Alzheimer’s, Israeli Research Shows Haaretz (Robin K)

    The other day I suggested Dental Hygienist as the crown of working-class medical jobs.

    A friend working for the university is considering what a ‘better job’ means. His personality could work as a nurse, and we went through some options. Nurse-tech, a few weeks of training for 18 bucks an hour. LPN, one year for 23/hr. RN two years for 30, but getting priced out. Hygienist, two years for 40 and you wear PPE no problem.

    Plus, in our state Hygienists are a controlled resource, a capped number of graduates per year. And gum disease is right by the brain, encephalitis bad. And you have a skill that can be performed in a kitchen. In the last quarter-year, our periodontist died of a brain-thing, and our dentist had sudden open heart surgery. Both were gooder on airborne precautions, but not to the standard Janet and I work with. Now it’s an hour to the nearest periodontist, and dentist teeth-cleanings are scheduled nine months in advance. and that’s without Privatequitas bloodfunnelus moonscaping the health care system.

    Just sayin’.

        1. Steve H.

          Here’s something more productive than just a warning:

          LANAP

          Previous gum surgery was brutal at times. This laser procedure is a modern medical miracle. The people who can do this are helpers.

      2. Steve H.

        Bugs, I need to apologize to you. I wanted to use Zelensky’s words as a clever rhetorical ploy. But when I look at it, it lands harder than intended. The statement is too provocative to be taken lightly, and it took some reflection to understand that. I offer balm for wounds inflicted.

        1. Bugs

          No worries. We’re still resisting neoliberalism better than most. It’s only eaten halfway through.

    2. Emma

      I saw that and immediately thought that denial of toothpaste and chlorinated water is probably plan zxyk for killing Palestinians.

      Is RFKJr.’s quest to free us from chlorinated water a secret plan to build a permanently demented electorate.

  16. Lieaibolmmai

    “Neanderthal Extinction Linked to Genetic Crisis 100,000 Years Ago”

    Sorry, it was not a “genetic crisis”. Their genetics were fine, this lack of diversity is always observed in a species that is successful in its’ own niche. What this does reveal is there was probably an environment factor that they could not adapt to fast enough. Genetic diversity is only helpful when there is a rapid changing environment. If there is not then all you are doing in increasing the risk of not surviving in the environment you are adapted to,

    It is really weird they worded it that way. And this section makes no sense if you know anything about genetics:

    This study doesn’t examine any possible reasons for the drop in genetic diversity, but a number of factors have been suggested in the past – ranging from climate change to increased competition.

    See:

    https://bmcplantbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12870-020-02682-z

    In general, less genetic diversity exists in an endemic species that is not widely distributed compared with that found in a widespread species [49], usually because their population numbers are limited, and as they are isolated from other populations they adapt to their particular habitat [50].

    1. IM Doc

      That article reminded me of this novel from the 1990s – Darwin’s Radio by Greg Bear – which I just recently re-read.

      It is all about a genetic crisis in modern humans that the characters discover last occurred 10,000 or so years ago and caused the Neanderthal extinction. There are multiple very elegant discussions in the book about genetic issues and human genome.

      I would not call this a medical thriller – I would call it a public health thriller.

      The author obviously went out of his way on researching the modern responsibilities and ideal behavior of public health during a pandemic crisis. This was written in the late 1990s – and not much had changed in this area in the intervening 20 years. It was striking to me while reading the book how many things our public health officials just literally threw out the window. Literally decades of learned knowledge. It actually made me heart sick that this was just common knowledge in the 1990s – only to be turned into conspiracy theories 20 years later. We really screwed it up big time.

      1. Not Qualified to Comment

        It has been claimed the ‘Toba genetic bottleneck’ – the global climatic consequences of the Toba super-eruption 70,000 years ago or so – reduced the human population of the planet to a few thousands, and only because its wide geographical spread meant some were in locations that were spared the worse effects. Being more geographically limited Neandertals (had they still been around then) could well have been reduced to a mere handful, if even that, rendering the population unviable.

  17. ambrit

    Several responses to the Trump Zelensky “smackdown” from customers of the local ‘bigg boxx’ store last night were of the “finally someone in Washington is thinking straight” variety.
    One observation was that “Zelensky looks like a gangsta you wouldn’t want in your neighbourhood.”
    One cashier worried that the Deep State, the term she used, would drum up a false flag attack to force Trump’s hand.
    Time to ‘short’ Zelensky.

    1. Carolinian

      From the Simplicius up in Links.

      ————

      One of the highlights which may not have been captured in the video above included the following, where Zelensky again was treated like an abject interloper, a scrawny pipsqueak, and mocked for his irreverent dress:

      “Do you even own a suit?”

    2. Neutrino

      Ellsworth AFB in South Dakota had several of its B1-B aircraft in the air yesterday. That is part of the Global Strike Command. Could be routine, or showing the flag like the B-52 elephant walks or being cautious given the Zelensky visit.
      No word on whether big drones were airborne anywhere sniffing.

    1. Louis Fyne

      once out of the blue, i looked up an ex-med school girlfriend. she looked sad in her hospital “yearbook photo”.

      insert aphorism about dog finally catching the car,

      1. Wukchumni

        insert aphorism about dog finally catching the car,

        I let a dog catch my car in Alleghany, Ca. sometime before the turn of the century. I rolled down the window and looked back at the hapless pooch, and asked ‘ok, what now?’

        1. amfortas the hippie

          ive done that…to dogs that people apparently dont care much about, until one runs over them.
          but i stop and help turtles cross the road.
          (i ran over my dog, 26 years ago. it sticks with you)

          1. ambrit

            Good on you. I do the same on the roads I travel.
            Somehow I feel a strong empathy for the small and helpless creatures in nature. If I can help, I do: birdseed out in hanging baskets during winter, check the front lawn for little serpents before mowing, don’t cut limbs with squirrel nests until well after the young have left, etc. etc.
            Incidentally, I had a Border Collie that liked to chase cars. He caught two and died of old age.

  20. Es s Ce Tera

    re: Bacteria Causing Gum Disease May Also Cause Alzheimer’s, Israeli Research Shows Haaretz (Robin K)

    Is it ethical to use Israeli medical research? Doesn’t it give legitimacy to Zionism? And the occupation? The genocide and ethnic cleansing?

    1. Yves Smith Post author

      Get a grip.

      Did you miss that Haaretz is the opposition? That not everyone is Israel is a Zionist? That not everyone in Israel has a second passport and skills that make it easy for them to emigrate if they don’t like the apartheid policies?

      1. Es s Ce Tera

        I am aware, on all of these points.

        Were we living in late 1942 when the world knew about the holocaust and German atrocities, would the fact that there are Germans without second passports, or who disagreed with Nazism, mean we should celebrate medical breakthroughs wrapped in the German flag?

        I wouldn’t be surprised if over at Haaretz they struggle with the question, have internal debates over it. Would patriotically reporting on some medical or technological advance or other, slapping an Israeli flag on it, tend to lend credence and legitimacy to the Zionist…regime? But, actually, it’s not even a regime, the word implies a temporary arrangement and Zionism has been a permanent arrangement since the country’s birth in 1947.

        Now, if there was a two state solution and/or Palestinians had equal citizenship and rights, weren’t persecuted, or it wasn’t a strictly Jewish state, I might accept that Israel isn’t Zionist and medical breakthroughs are politically neutral, but this is not the actual situation, they can’t be politically neutral while ethnic cleansing and genocide is going on in the name of Israel, by and for Israel.

        1. Yves Smith Post author

          Yes. If the German regime had developed a cure for cancer, provided it was not developed by experiments on people in concentration camps, I don’t see the issue.

          The purported Israeli finding is not productized, FFS. There’s no profit opportunity. The mouth bacteria in question can likely be killed by comparatively cheap means, if nothing else, a 1% povidone iodine solution.

          The practical effect of this finding (which has not even been confirmed!) is that gum care is even more important than previously thought. So this could boost efforts to get more medical plans to include dental insurance, since it could reduce the high cost of Alzheimers care.

        2. cfraenkel

          Science / the real world doesn’t care much about politics. Things are, or they aren’t. Are you suggesting Neil Armstrong should have stayed on the ground because the Saturn V engines were engineered following Nazi-developed equations?

          That’s before tarring an entire population for the acts of their rulers – your hypothetical belongs more to 1918 Versailles than 1942, and look where that got us.

        3. thousand points of green

          I have read that “drip irrigation” was invented in Israel. If I ever get my gardening to a point where I need “drip irrigation”, I will go ahead and use it.

          If somebody invents a better “drip irrigation” somewhere else, and I need “drip irrigation” then I will go ahead and use that better “drip irrigation” invented somewhere else.

  21. The Rev Kev

    ‘John Ʌ Konrad V
    @johnkonrad
    Here are the top 10+ reasons why US Navy ships are covered in rust stains’

    I got an idea. The Pentagon could announce that using AI, they have developed a paint that renders a ship into a sort of ‘stealth’ mode to enemy ships. To the naked eye it looks like light and dark browns but to radar there is nothing to be seen on the screen. The Project that came up with this new idea could even be named Project Emperor’s Clothing as the idea was so regal. Sounds like a plan to me.

    2. Es s Ce Tera

      Could it be that constant underway deployment is the reason for all the rustiness? A ship at sea can’t paint itself. The solution is bring them all home, keep them in port. Elon, if you’re reading this…

      1. Emma

        Sorry, Elon already ordered GSA to sell the ports and there’s nowhere to return to. So I think we’re going to just have to sink them into the ocean.

        Also, Elon decreased the government credit card threshold to $1, so the crew won’t be able to travel home. So they better go down with the ship or cling to the nearest piece of floating debris and hope any passing by ships take IOUs or services in kind.

        1. steppenwolf fetchit

          If this is not satire and President Musk really ordered GSA to do that, and President Musk does enough of that sort of thing to the armed services, one wonders if/whether the current Armed Services leaderships may try quietly racing to remove the Musk Administration from power before the Musk Administration ( through its Hegseth) finished deleting the current Armed Services leaderships and replaces them all with White Power MAGAnazi loyalists.

            1. steppenwolf fetchit

              That was back in the day when there was no internet, no cable TV and only 3 channels to watch.

              So millions of people watched them.

              Nowadays there are so many public silos and so many medias to serve them all separately with their preferred separate realities.

              So its like the philosopher once asked: If an Army-McCarthy hearing falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?

        2. Emma

          Joking about the ports because I don’t think that’s in GSA’s portfolio, but they are terminating leases at fully occupied buildings and ordered to sell government buildings. The dropping credit card limit to $1 is real and this means federal employees can’t travel or buy supplies for their offices.

          Trump already fired top military leadership without much visible pushback. What’s more interesting to me is whether there will be pushback on the big sudden contract cancellations at the VA and GSA. Military contracts are the biggest part of the federal discretionary budget and any threats to that gravy train may be a bridge too far.

  22. user1234

    Trump eases rules on military raids and airstrikes, expanding range of who can be targeted CBS

    Are these the rules of the rule-based order that we hear about all the time?

  23. Zagonostra

    >Trump Zelensky blowout

    How much is theater, how much spontaneous? Brian Berletic thinks that what happened will not substantially change direction of suppling arms to Ukraine or posture vis-a-vis Russia, while on the Duran today Alexander Mercouris held a different opinion, thinking that the events were not scripted and the fallout will indeed impact flows of arms and relation with Russia…we shall see.

    One thing for certain, Trump was correct with his ending comment, it will/does make for good TV…but what is TV these days?

    1. Bsn

      And Trump was right about Ukraine wanting WW III to hide its corruption and maintain the money flow. Vance was correct in that Z used photo opps in Philly to promote Harris, a sure sources of income. What was Z correct about? Russia walking away from agreements? Au contraire mon frere. B. Johnson and Biden have been the ones to walk away, again in order to keep the money flow.
      As always, it’s not what people say, it’s what they do.
      Lastly IM Doc is spot on. I’ve dealt with addicts all my life and it doesn’t take a doctorate in medicine to see someone is “trippin”. Z was trippin!

    2. Yves Smith Post author

      I have a longer comment on the Zelensky post. This is not Berletic’s wheelhouse. I don’t see how anyone could think this was staged. This says he has a bias to think things are much more controlled than they are.

    3. amfortas the hippie

      i think th last 10+ minutes were a surprise to everybody…ie: not a scripted theater set.
      trump pounced on Z…was obviously shocked at his coked up attitude.
      after i do the sheeps here in a minute, i intend to watch the whole thing again.
      see what 24hours does…as well as a hogleg o’ homegrown before the event, this time.

      1. amfortas the hippie

        yeah.
        that wasnt scripted, at all.
        trump…or whatever counts for ‘handlers’ with that guy…likely regretted the whole mess, initially.
        now , theyll roll with it.
        oh, and Vance/2028, and all.
        lol.
        stupidest timeline.

        1. The Rev Kev

          They probably figure Vance for 2032 as well so you would have Trump-Vance-Vance which carries you through to 2036.

  24. Balan Aroxdale

    DOGE wants to lay off the ‘vast majority’ of CFPB workers, employees say The Verge (Kevin W)

    We are entering the “Shock Therapy” period of the American Empire’s collapse. The looting will soon begin.

    1. Emma

      There have already been multiple rounds of shock therapy and looting (under disguise of helping or “nothin we can do about it” or “nothin will change”).

      This is going to be more like burning down the house so they can go loot the copper wires afterwards.

      1. Wukchumni

        I personally can’t wait for the long range weather forecast to be as far away as my eyes can glimpse on the horizon, with Anthony Fremont all grown up now, calling the shots.

        ‘They’re all really bad men and women, whisk them into the scorned field!’

        1. Emma

          According to Project 2025, AccuWeather will be charging your eyes for the glimpses on the horizon. You better get a payment chip installed in your head now to avoid the extra processing fee.

        2. amfortas the hippie

          this is why i study meteorology, applied,lol.
          and site specific.
          combined with my skeletal barometer, im pretty good at weather forecasting for this locale.
          its been clear to me for 30 years that all the useful parts of empire would go away with the rest of it, when it falls…which was always just a matter of time and luck, anyways.

    2. Neutrino

      Looting has been underway for decades, effectively unaudited, and now entering a new phase.

      1. steppenwolf fetchit

        Its entered the burn-it-all-down for the insurance money phase.

        ” Kill them all and let God sort them out. But harvest the organs first and sell them.”

      2. griffen

        I’ll readily agree to the above, the looting and associated rot goes back much much further…at one point in 2024 I looked into the sort of funding and resources dedicated to Presidential Library or some comparable edifice tied to an 8 years of that administration…

        Bill Clinton
        George W Bush
        Barack Obama

        It’s an exclusive club and I ain’t in it. Call the funding amounts raised to plan and construct the aforementioned Library or Center, in honor for each of three former Presidents to be anywhere between $100 million to $300 million. Get the gold to make or break the rules!

    3. Randll Flagg

      I think the looting has already been going on for the last couple (if not more), decades in a place called the Pentagon. Other than amped up share prices in defense companies what have we really gotten for all the spending?
      And yea, when DOGEbags ( thanks Lambert), descend like locusts at the DoD then I’ll believe this cost cutting horse manure is for real. So far it’s been pocket change compared to what’s going on in the MIC.

  25. JohnnyGL

    “I have a post in the works on the epic Trump-Zelensky blowup, hence I am a bit underweight on links on it below so as to not neglect other news. I should have that piece up by 9:00 AM, so please do return!”

    -eagerly anticipating this post!

    I’m going to go out on a limb, here, and suggest that I think that the political landscape is changing rapidly in the US. Sleboda has suggested that Trump couldn’t afford, politically, to be seen to walk away from Ukraine. Now, I am starting to think supporting Ukraine has become untenable, not least because Zelensky is quickly making it so. Trump will read the room in this respect and will end up just walking away.

    For an indicator in this respect, Lindsey Graham has just criticized Zelensky. He’s been singing his praises for years.

    1. The Rev Kev

      I’m going to go out on a limb as say that the whole confrontation was staged. It was a set up right from the start. Trump had a go at him at the entrance to the White House about his clothing to put him off balance and it went downhill from there. Zelensky does not speak English very well so they used it against him and shut him down when he was trying to say something. Trump and Vance when on and on about Zelensky not showing respect, especially in the sacred Oval Office or words to that effect – stuff that Trump would never care about. And as I type this, I see that Scott Ritter has the same opinion as he wrote-

      ‘The White House meeting with Donald Trump was “a setup” to discredit and remove the Ukrainian leader, the former US Marine Corps intelligence officer has told RT’

      https://www.rt.com/news/613528-zelensky-presidency-over-scott-ritter/

      The only question is who Trump has in mind for a replacement for Zelensky. I’m sure that the EU countries will have their own thoughts/demands about this.

      1. ChrisFromGA

        That’s my conclusion as well. A WWE scripted event.

        Poor Zelensky, I actually feel sorry for him. I know he’s responsible for a lot of atrocities, though, including killing Gonzalo Lira. So, I don’t think my empathy will last very long.

        1. The Rev Kev

          ‘When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground.’ – Cersei Lannister

      2. Carolinian

        It was a fifty minute meeting with the agreement signing prepared. If it was all a setup then Zelensky must have been in on it by showing up in his costume-like outfit and then arguing with Vance and Trump on camera.

        1. flora

          I read somewhere (can’t find the link) that Z is a CIA asset who was handed off to France and Macron near the end of the B admin. Z wasn’t invited to the WH until Macron talked T into the meeting. Macron and Starmer both made subtle saber rattling noises in their photo op Q&A sessions with T. T subtly pushes back. It was all very civil and diplomatic in front of the cameras.

          Then came Z maybe thinking the way had been prepared for his demands. It did not go well.

          Now, the EU’s chief diplomat, Kaja Kallas from Estonia, is saying the US can no longer act as leader of the free world and the western democracies(tm). Is she referencing the EU as the free world, the EU that’s refusing to recognize election results they don’t like? See Romania and Austria. Alrighty then….. / ;)

      3. AG

        Of course it was staged but in a manner that it was visible for everyone. Z being an actor with RU training has enough experience with stage appearances. He had a choice. It was not a trap or anything.
        Z is either desperate or an idiot.

        p.s and as Graham is concerned – that turn would be enough to end his carrer. Graham beggars all description. If I were a voter in South Carolina I´d have some serious questions for that sick and dishonest clown.

      4. Kengferno

        Actually, zelensky speaks English nearly as well as a native English speaker. I sometimes work in tv journalism and a few years ago I was part of the Axios news team when Jonathan Swan interviewed Zelensky. I was able to hear the audio from the whole interview including the tour he gave Swan around the presidential building. Almost no accent. Understood everything everyone said. At ease with spoken humor and subtext, both hearing it and saying it. The crew was actually shocked that he wanted to do the interview in Ukrainian but he explained it was because he wanted absolutely no confusion in meaning, which we all found kind of odd considering what we’d been hearing for the previous 30 minutes. So when I hear his halting, broken, heavily accented English in all these interviews I’m just like, he’s an actor…playing a role.

        1. Emma

          Fascinating. I hope he makes it alive to Florida or Tel Aviv and then maybe we can hear the real Zelensky.

      5. Cas

        It was my impression as well that the attack was deliberate. I recall Trump talking (complaining?) about Zelensky’s high approval rating, how this two-bit comedian was being widely praised and admired. Since Trump wants to end the Ukraine conflict, it would be helpful if Americans (or at least his base) revile Zelensky and can be made to think leaving Ukraine is a win, not a retreat.
        I don’t know if Trump and Vance expected Zelensky to fight back; possibly the situation got out of control. I don’t know how much damage was done, how will Ukraine react. I don’t think they can walk away from USA support. Maybe the point, as Graham said, is that Ukraine needs to send a different negotiator.

      6. steppenwolf fetchit

        According to this theory, if Zelensky remains President of Ukraine after all this settles back down, that would mean that Zelensky WAS and IS the EU countries’s guy.

      7. ambrit

        “… replacement for Zelensky…”
        Just as in the final days of WW-2, the Russian Army will set the scene when it enters Kiev.

    2. Samuel Conner

      > Trump will read the room in this respect and will end up just walking away.

      It’s hard to know what DJT is planning — there seems to be an awful lot (to borrow a phrase Yves uses) of “noise in the signal” — but I suspect that the Z dressing down was intentional and planned, perhaps for the purpose of inducing Z to either resign or call elections, or both. On this interpretation, Friday’s diplomatic catastrophe was intended to remove a road-block to RF/UKR negotiations; Z being unwilling to negotiate and RF regarding him as not having constitutional authority to act on behalf of Ukraine.

      It might be one-dimensional chess — Z is a roadblock to a settlement; must be removed.

    3. ChrisFromGA

      Speculation: Graham’s surprisingly nonchalant reaction, or non-reaction, suggests that he may have had a preview of the script. The only exploding heads of note I observed: Liz Cheney and Karl Rove (along with the Democrats), none of whom have much influence or power. Even Glitch Mitch has been quiet … though that just might be a sign that he’s in a coma.

      1. steppenwolf fetchit

        I have read that Glitch Mitch has “begged for forgiveness” from the American people for having allowed Trump to survive his Second Impeachment trial.
        https://thenewsglobe.net/?p=8548

        If I weren’t such a nice ( and more importantly lazy) guy, I might write McConnell’s office a letter about why I can not ever forgive McConnell for unleashing Trump upon us for a return engagement.
        ” When the chips were down, you rescued Trump and then endorsed him. That can never be forgiven.”

        Maybe higher-energy people than me who are not so nice will go ahead and write thousands or hundreds of thousands of such letters to McConnell’s office.

        1. ambrit

          This game can go back for years.
          Something similar about the non-prosecution of the Bush people by Pelosi comes to mind.
          Or the fact that Ronald “Prince of Banal Evil” Reagan was allowed to die in peace after all of his extra-Constitutional and downright illegal actions while in office damaged American democracy.
          We are left to re-learn a perennial lesson in politics; “sternly worded letters” do no concrete benefit. Appeals to Saint Luigi “get it done.” (If the so called “Deep state” can advance their agendas through murder and intimidation, then why can’t the People? As above, so below.)

        2. Pat

          Sorry but if I am going to excoriate McConnell or any other of the Beltway power brokers of the last three decades regarding Trump it isn’t going to be about one of the joke impeachments. It will be about their help creating the conditions in this country that allowed him to win two Presidential elections. They may have no interest owning their disastrous governance, but I have no interest in letting them off the hook.

          Trump is awful, but he is late to the situation. A lot of people that don’t begin to invoke hysterically horrified reactions like he does have spent decades creating and enacting stupid and false scenarios that blow up and go wrong including Cuba…Vietnam…Chile….Iran…Iraq…Afghanistan…Iraq…Venezuela….Syria…Libya…. Ukraine. It was FUBaR before that meeting, even if Trump and Vance just added to the giant pile.

    4. nyleta

      The bull elephants are jostling for space. This is not two military empires clashing but a recasting of spheres of influence. After the fall of the USSR the US moved its sphere of influence in Europe further than it can project. The Russians after finding out that they are still sovereign found out that they needed parts of their old sphere of influence back, indeed they are insisting on it.

      Neither can put 20 million men in arms in the fields for five years anymore, the easy to get resources are not there anymore. Both realise that any clash between them will turn nuclear quickly and no-one wants that. US diplomacy is turning increasingly brutal as in the days of the Dulles brothers but is being run by opportunists not by people with long term interests. While the US still has enormous power it can’t project or sustain that projection in the manner it used to be able to.

      There will be military action but by proxy which limits the size of such action severely and the possibility is always there of a mistake that lights the fuse. Hopefully they settle on Cold War 2 or someone gets tired and cuts a new deal on spheres of influence.

  26. The Rev Kev

    “Far-Right blocked from government in Austria despite winning election”

    Not any real different to what they did in France, in Germany, in Romania, etc. The EU centralists will bend and break any law or rule so that they do not lose power or let the right take power in government. If thye have to cancel elections or arrest political candidates, then s be it.Having Orban in Hungary and Fico in Slovakia is bad enough but the thought of having a whole block of these countries in the EU giving push-back cannot be allowed. Turns out that all those European values that they keep on talking about are the same sort that Zelensky has and uses in the Ukraine.

    1. steppenwolf fetchit

      Isn’t that how Parliamentary Democracy is supposed to work? Don’t various factions conspire with eachother against some other faction or factions to monopolize the government for themselves and force other factions into Opposition?

      That’s just what Parliamentary Democracy smells like. Change my mind.

      1. ambrit

        What self respecting Parliamentary Democracy allows itself to be suborned by imperialist or globalist outside actors?
        National governments are supposed to promote the best interests of their constituent populations.
        Bring outside forces into the mix and you give up your sovereignty.
        My opinion, (and I have the other thing as well,) is that we are seeing a power struggle between the Pan Europe globalist clique and the old fashioned Nationalist power groups play out in Europe.

  28. Wukchumni

    Some people get a cheap laugh breaking up the peace in it
    Scaring the citizenry for a minute
    Crossing up progress deriving a hand’s grasp
    Leaving not enough room for civility to pass
    Golden Billion never took a test
    Oh yeah, once upon a time in the west

    Yes it’s no use saying that you don’t know nothing
    It’s still gonna get you if you don’t do something
    Sitting on a fence that’s a dangerous course
    Oh, you could even catch a bullet from the second amendment force
    Even the hero gets a bullet in the ear, not the chest
    Oh yeah, once upon a time in the west

    Mother Russia & Mother Ukraine your children are slaughtered
    Some of you ought to lock up your profits
    Who’s protecting our interests in Kiev?
    Heap big trouble in the land of plenty
    Tell me how we’re gonna do what’s best
    You guess once upon a time in the west

    Oh yeah, once upon a time in the west
    Oh yeah, once upon a time in the west
    Oh yeah, once upon a time in the west

    Once upon a time in the west
    Once upon a time in the west
    Once upon a time in the west
    Once upon a time in the west
    Once upon a time in the west
    Once upon a time in the west
    Once upon a time in the west
    Once upon a time in the west
    Once upon a time in the west

    Once Upon a Time in the West, by Dire Straits

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-FwgvMMtfs

  29. JohnnyGL

    I’ve been thinking there’s a serious comparison between the situation in Syria and the situation in Ukraine.

    Zelensky is rapidly heading down the same path as Assad. He’s completely implacable and is going to turn his country into a failed state.

    To paraphrase the Dune quote about the power to destroy a thing is the power to control it…

    In Syria, the Americans couldn’t get control of it, so they just destroyed it.

    In Ukraine, the Russians can’t get control back again, they can’t get their neighbors to reach an amicable compromise, so they may well end up choosing to destroy it, too.

  30. SittingStill

    Well I’ll be – target ag pests can develop resistance to intensively used methods to control them. Who could have possibly known this could happen???

    1. The Rev Kev

      There is a word that describes that but I just can’t think of it at the moment. Evo….evo….evosomething or other.

  31. divadab

    Re: “Extinction”

    Dinosaurs are not “extinct” – sure, the big ones are, but we are surrounded by dinosaurs every day (birds), they are in our food chain in massive number (chickens, turkeys) – any claim dinosaurs are extinct is a ridiculous falsehood. Similarly, the neanderthal variants of humanity are not “extinct” either – neanderthal genetics survive all over the planet in every non-african variant of humans. Neanderthals were not a separate species to “humans” for this reason – because they bred with other variants and produced fertile offspring. The amount of sloppy and false information floating around on this topic is infuriating.

    Neanderthals were human, not a separate species. (Just as africans, Chinese, and europeans are not separate species.) Their genetics survive to this day. How on God’s green earth can any sensible person claim they are extinct? Perhaps, in the very narrow sense that a local subspecies no longer exists as such. So what? Are humans extinct? Clearly not.

    2. B Flat

      Grok tells me neanderthal DNA has been found in a couple of African populations, probably bc of back migration. Interesting! Here’s Grok:

      Yes, Neanderthal DNA has been found in some African populations, though the story is a bit more nuanced than in non-African populations. For a long time, it was thought that Africans had little to no Neanderthal ancestry because the primary interbreeding events between Neanderthals and modern humans occurred after a group of humans left Africa around 60,000–80,000 years ago. Those humans who remained in Africa were assumed to have missed out on this mixture.
      However, more recent research has shown that traces of Neanderthal DNA are indeed present in some African populations, likely due to back-migration. This means that after the initial interbreeding happened outside of Africa (mostly in the Middle East or Europe), some of those mixed populations migrated back into Africa, bringing Neanderthal DNA with them. Studies, like one published in Nature in 2020 by Joshua Akey and colleagues, used computational methods to detect this signal. They found that African populations, such as the Yoruba and Luhya, carry about 0.3% Neanderthal ancestry on average—much less than the 1–2% typically seen in Europeans or Asians, but still detectable.
      The source of this DNA seems tied to ancient Eurasian groups returning to Africa, possibly tens of thousands of years ago. North African populations, in particular, show slightly higher levels due to their proximity and historical interactions with Eurasian groups. There’s also evidence from a 2017 study in Science that suggests even sub-Saharan African groups, like the Khoisan, might have picked up small amounts of archaic DNA, though distinguishing Neanderthal from other archaic hominins (like Denisovans or unknown African ones) gets tricky.
      So, yes, it’s there, but it’s a smaller signal, and it’s often overshadowed by the continent’s rich diversity of modern human and other archaic DNA. The picture keeps evolving as genetic techniques get sharper.

  33. The Rev Kev

    “Iran slams Israel threats as ‘outrageous’ after Israeli FM warns of ‘military option’ ”

    This is the thing that really riles Israel – the Iranians can shoot back. Where’s the fun in that? And what is the point about trying to take out their nuclear facilities – which are spread all over the country and many buried deep underground – when the Iranians can target any damn thing that they please in Israel and whose attacks cannot be stopped. What is Netanyahu going to do? Ask Trump to tell the Iranians to let Israel attack them without retaliating? After Trump put on maximum pressure on Iran, the Iranians have said that they won’t talk direct to the US. And Iran knows that China and Russia won’t let them swing in the wind. In any case I do not know why Israel would be talking about attacking nuclear facilities. Their normal modus operandi is just to attack civilian populations instead like city suburbs.

    1. mrsyk

      Hegseth’s tattoos come to mind here. Do they translate into policy? Israel would have us do their dirty work. How launching a new era of crusades is survivable by any country in the region is a mystery, but the US has a big beautiful ocean between us and them.

      1. Wukchumni

        Crusades IX…

        It’s been 750 years since Crusades VIII

        Let’s get ready to tumble!

        You kind of wish Hegseth had the usual tattoos, perhaps something written in Japanese that was lost in translation, or a fully delineated map of the USA including Alaska and Hawaii, or even a dragon running the length of his arm, instead of the totems.

        2. ChrisFromGA

          If you want to hangout (with Yahweh) you gotta take ’em out, Crusades
          If you want to get down, put ’em down on ground, Crusades

          She don’t lie, she don’t lie, she don’t lie, Crusades!

          If Allah won’t recuse, give ’em an offer they can’t refuse, Crusades!
          When your steed is done, and thee wanteth to ride on, Crusades!

          She don’t lie, she don’t lie, she don’t lie, Crusades!

          When your steed is gone, and you want to ride on, Crusades
          Don’t forget this fact, there may be blowback, Crusades!

  34. Neutrino

    Further to Murphy and surveillance is an article about a new feature in Apple phones. Will they be able to get users to buy the Mobile Stasi?
    Yet another argument for flip phones.

  35. Mikel

    Re: DOGE

    I was watching this video about the White House meet with Z. It also included questions about other things:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcNpAAhhG38/
    Treasury Secretary Bessent ‘Shocked’ at Trump, Zelenskiy Argument: Full Exclusive Interview

    Around 10:40 – “we’re going to re-privatize the economy”
    And how many years have folks been waiting for tax cuts for the rich to trickle down?

      1. Mikel

        Salesforce wants to sell more of their software. They want to tap more of other companies HR budgets by rebranding their software as “AI Agents”. More potential for sales, in their words, than being categorized by other companies as an IT spend.

        Just clarifying: The marketing tactic I’m talking about has to do with their sales strategy, not their own cost cutting.
        The link I posted is just additional Salesforce news that has implications for outside of Salesforce for workers.

      2. Mikel

        Basically, the other part of their strategy is getting other companies to gut their own staff.

        1. ChrisFromGA

          That’s where I was going; thanks.

          “Agentic AI” is just another horrible scam and racket from the tech bros. Replacing HR with AI won’t work, but that won’t stop some suckers for taking the bait.

          The job market is already a hellscape, with employers using AI to screen out applicants before any human ever reads their application. And on the other side, job seekers paying suspect “coaches” for bad advice, and companies that promise to robo-spray your AI-generated resume to 1000’s of firms.

          God help anyone looking for a job right now. I would say old fashioned networking along with applying in person is your only hope (show up at HQ with a briefcase and a printed resume, ask for an on the spot in person interview.)

    2. SocalJimObjects

      He said that he won’t be hiring engineers, he never said anything about not hiring Data Scientists, and just because the later group are not “engineers”, does not mean they don’t do any coding, in fact building models nowadays is mostly accomplished through using coding tools to sift through Big Data and writing Python programs. So fortunately/unfortunately, people who want a good paying job will still need to Learn to Code.

      “A Data Scientist is a proficient specialist who applies mathematical, problem-solving, and coding skills to manage big data, extracting valuable insights.”

      1. Mikel

        Above:
        “Just clarifying: The marketing tactic I’m talking about has to do with their sales strategy, not their own cost cutting.

        The link I posted is just additional Salesforce news that has implications for outside of Salesforce for workers.”

  37. antidlc

    https://archive.ph/ZglxL
    How Elon Musk Executed His Takeover of the Federal Bureaucracy

    They began their move on the digital service unit earlier than has previously been reported, The Times found, while President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was still in office — giving them the ability to operate on Mr. Trump’s first day.
    Around the time that Mr. Musk identified the office as a key part of his strategy late last year, the Trump transition team gained a key ally on the inside. A U.S.D.S. veteran named Amy Gleason rejoined its staff as a senior adviser at the end of the Biden administration, described to other employees as someone who would aid the Trump transition. Ms. Gleason, who would later be named the acting administrator of the Department of Government Efficiency, recommended that the unit bring aboard several young engineers who would later become part of Mr. Musk’s team.

    Scroll down to view the article. There is some blank space at the beginning.

  39. edgui

    ‘Narcos’ were expelled due to the risk that judges would release them –– La Jornada

    “[The general public prosecutor] said that not even hours passed between the time the request was received and the time a meeting of the national security cabinet was called. The analysis was carried out at that meeting, the legal bases were reviewed and the action was taken: it was an immediate matter”.

    What I see are 29 new testimonies that will swell the evidence against AMLO for his alleged links to drug trafficking. Sooner rather than later they will use it against him.

  40. Tom Stone

    Our Rulers continue to create their own reality, one that ignores Covid and Bird Flu’s effects and the effects of climate change.
    This will work until it doesn’t.

    They are taking into account the blowback from publicly “Stabbing Ukraine in the back” which will be an excuse for the “Domestic Terrorism Bill” that’s been waiting for the right moment to be enacted, and I would be surprised if it did not have an asset forfeiture provision.
    One that will, when the time comes, be used to keep the Oligarchs in line.

  41. Bsn

    Regarding the article : Female physicians’ suicide risk is 53% higher than general population, analysis finds …………..

    If I could channel Lambert ……… ‘Tis a mystery.

    The part I laughed about was this statement: “Many suicides could be prevented if we destigmatize mental health treatment and make it more accessible and feasible for physicians.” That stand alone statement seems reasonable, on its own. Perhaps more reasonable is that many nurses lost their jobs due to pressure from CDC, big pharma and others with their version of Lawfare against curious and questioning doctors and nurses. “You will not question, you will be injected – or be fired”.
    Being forced to not “help” those in need of help, especially after years of training and dreams of doing so ……….. that is a good set up for suicide.

  42. Safety First

    On the recent revision of Q1 GDP forecast to -1.5% (annualized) from 2.3% on Feb 19 by the Atlanta Fed, which I think was mentioned by…Lambert?..yesterday or the day before.

    I went to their site, to see how they justified this, and this is the verbatim text:

    After recent releases from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis and the US Census Bureau, the nowcast of the contribution of net exports to first-quarter real GDP growth fell from -0.41 percentage points to -3.70 percentage points while the nowcast of first-quarter real personal consumption expenditures growth fell from 2.3 percent to 1.3 percent.

    Now, I haven’t yet had the time to trawl through the BEA and Census Bureau releases, so I do not know if they are simply anticipating the “Trump tarriffs”, or if some effect of the “Trump tarriffs” has already started to – pre-emptively – take place. Either way, that’s going to be a fun ride, but it also seems to me that they are not incorporating any effects from the DOGE nonsense, i.e. people fired, contracts terminated, reduced efficiency of some agencies, and so on. Yes, they did revise their personal consumption expenditures growth, but in real, i.e. inflation-adjusted terms, so it seems that’s just inflation taking a bigger bite of people’s paychecks.

    I will be the first person to suggest that models of any kind, in any area of human activity, can go all wonky for all sorts of reasons. But if things are “already” turning negative, both in trade, and in personal consumption, and then we plan to pile on ill-concieved tarriffs (prompting reciprocal actions against our exporters) and fire a bunch of government workers and contractors on top…are any bookies making odds on an official recession by or before Q3? Asking for a friend.

    1. nyleta

      It is a due to a mixture of USAid payments ceasing and the huge trade deficit due to front running tarrifs, Net exports like. GDP is mostly real final sales to domestic purchasers with various goods and financial inventory changes over time.

      Mish reckons it should be about 1% without extraordinary items. The US economy is slowing but not that fast.

  43. johnnyme

    In the case of Jane Does 1-2 v. Office of Personnel Management (about storing private data sent to OPM via email on an unsecure server), having their requests for a temporary restraining order rejected twice, plaintiffs yesterday filed a motion for sanctions against OPM and its counsel which I believe was granted (the posted PDF is unsigned).

    In a bid to avoid a Temporary Restraining Order (“TRO”) for failing to conduct and publish a Privacy Impact Assessment (“PIA”) for the computer system which would later be referred to as the Government-Wide Email System (“GWES”), Defendant Office of Personnel Management (“OPM”) published a document at the last minute which, while purporting to be a PIA for that system, was both factually inaccurate and legally insufficient. OPM entitled this document Privacy Impact Assessment for Government-Wide Email System (GWES) (“GWES PIA”) and published it for pretextual reasons for the purpose of misleading this Court and arguing that its publication renders the case moot.

    Simply put, OPM and its counsel offered false evidence—in the form of an alleged PIA which made patently false statements about the GWES—and then proceeded to argue that this Court should deny Plaintiffs’ TRO motion based on the assertion that those false statements were true. Furthermore, OPM and its counsel heavily implied that the information about individuals who were not Executive Branch employees had been purged from the system when it was discovered, which also turns out to be patently false. Both of these actions demonstrate a clear lack of candor to the tribunal and OPM and its counsel should be sanctioned for unreasonably multiplying the proceedings and violating the integrity of the court’s process by entering statements into evidence which were known to be false and then citing them uncritically to the Court to convince the Court that OPM’s actions were legal and that Plaintiffs were not at risk of imminent harm.

  44. Mikel

    https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-02-28/utterly-botched-chaotic-roll-out-of-new-california-bar-exam
    ‘Utterly Botched’: Glitchy rollout of new California bar exam prompts lawsuit and calls for official review
    The State Bar of California sought to save money with a new bar exam that offered the choice of remote test taking.
    Test takers complained of glitches and chaos when taking the test.

    “Test takers seeking to practice law in California experienced chaos this week as the State Bar of California fumbled the rollout of its new attorney licensing test, leaving many unable to complete their bar exams and some filing a proposed federal class action lawsuit.

    The online testing platforms repeatedly crashed before some applicants even started. Others struggled to finish and save essays, experienced screen lags and error messages and could not copy and paste text from test questions into the exam’s response field — a function officials had stated would be possible.

    “It was quite a debacle,” David Drelinger, a 2023 graduate of Lincoln Law School in Sacramento, told The Times…”

  45. amfortas the hippie

    Oubliette.
    A very pretty one,
    where the sunsets last for 3 hours,
    and the low winter sun makes the part of mason mountain to my east
    glow orangy yellow..
    shadow of the western arm of that mountain
    slowly creeping upwards.
    Eating the orange light.
    And I sit by my fire
    looking at the orangy light in the Big Oak
    and all the other trees.
    My Birds are done, sheep are long done.
    No sound but for the distant highway,
    and the ringing in my ears.
    Planets come out first,
    well, and that big fat moon…
    gradually the brighter stars…but the light lingers long,
    out here.
    A very pretty oubliette.

    And I threw an old pallet onto my little fire
    and now its a hissing and popping hillbilly rage.
    And I think about how I totally misread the situation…
    and how I didnt know
    for all those months
    that you were trying to kill yourself
    by passing out below the high tide line
    and allowing yourself to be washed into the Gulf.

    And how could I know
    since you never spoke?
    But in four word crypticisms.
    An ink cloud.
    Four words to my fifty
    or five hundred.

    I offered a refuge…
    a Redoubt.
    Imladris in the Texas Hill Country.
    Dead end dirt road that nobody comes down, lest
    I hear them.
    And know them, or not.
    That could have been yours
    whenever you needed it.
    No strings,
    no questions.
    Welcome home.

    But that afternoon…all of us drunk…
    and you draping yourself upon me…
    touching me
    no woman has touched me in that way
    since Tam died.
    So what was I supposed to think..
    out here in this
    very pretty
    oubliette?

    I went with it
    of course.
    But always with you in the drivers seat.
    Married and all…
    and I couldnt be sure.
    What were your intentions?
    What was happening in your mind?

    So,
    now that its ended
    with denial that it ever even happened…
    what am I to do with my lonesome self?
    But continue to talk to you in my head?
    Just like I do with the little jelly jar of ashes I still have
    datenights with.
    I speak only with birds and frogs,
    a dog and myriad cats…
    and I speak to ghosts.

  46. TomW

    Follow the money:

    1. NYT…. https://archive.ph/jKHSQ
    2. Cut State Department funding to fix electrical grid

    Who wants to pay to keep fighting in Ukraine? Not Trump. Europe cant afford it. Ukraine’s economy has been wrecked.

    Putin wants the 20% of Ukraine he already occupies. Plus defensible borders (reasonably). Plus a winners bonus of something.

    Future fighting will be over scraps. Due to the US Infowar, Trump will brag he ‘saved’ 75% of Ukraine,whereas Russia would have taken 100% without the art of the deal.

    The rest is bloviation. Ukraine’s minerals are worth the same amount as Greenland’s. Nobody is lining up to invest in capital intensive, commodity ventures. The mineral deal was merely to signal that the US has enough confidence in Ukraine to bother stealing some of their wealth.

    There will be money in reversing the US/Russia hostility. People are already excited about new Northstream. There are still stranded US leased aircraft. I suppose you could just look at all the financial losses losses that were booked during maximum sanctions and calculate what might be reversible after a reset..

    The most important security guarantee is the lack of US interest in funding another Ukraine military. When they give up, they mostly move on to the next most important thing since Munich 1939. Europe too.

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