First cougar cubs verified in Michigan in more than a century Upper Michgan Source (RPW)
Decades after peregrines came back from the brink, a new threat emerges Guardian (Kevin W) :-(
Laurence des Cars, saving the Louvre whatever the cost Le Monde
COVID-19/Pandemics
Five Years of COVID-19: How the Pandemic Changed Our Lives Valdai Club (Micael T)
Measles Cases Reach 294 in Texas and New Mexico: Here’s What to Know MedPage
2 house cats caught bird flu in NYC, health officials say Gothamist. Indoor cats getting bird flu? Yikes.
China?
Taiwan calls China ‘foreign hostile force’ and vows tough measures BBC I don’t yet see anything on Global Times about the Taiwan remarks. Does the Chinese government see that as so predictable as to be beneath notice?
China lodges solemn representations with Canada; ‘suppressing China not a panacea for resolving G7’s internal disagreements’ Global Times. But this seemed noteworthy.
China unveils processor a million times faster than US rival – developers RT (Kevin W)
No chance Trump can catch China’s shipbuilding juggernaut Asia Times (Kevin W)
Russian goods seizures cause havoc on China-Europe rail link: ‘big impact’ South China Morning Post
The Antipodes
Australia moves to arm troops with anti-ship missiles as China threat looms Reuters
Australia on alert over Trump attacks on cheaper medicines The Age. Kevin W: “Trump wants Aussies to pay the same prices for medicines that Americans do.”
South of the Border
White House ‘drawing up plans’ for increasing troops in Panama amid Trump’s push to ‘reclaim’ canal: report Independent
Maldives to Declare Bankruptcy? Sri Lanka Guardian
European Disunion
Munich 2025: A Moment of Truth for Europe? Global Affairs. Micael T: “A moment of truth is possible only if you are capable to recognise a truth painted in purple, dancing naked on a harpsichord and singing ‘the moment of truth is here’.”
Cracks appear in European credit markets Global Capital
Trump hints at sending U.S. soldiers to take over Greenland: ‘I think it’ll happen’ Daily Mail
Finnish court hands Voislav Torden life sentence for war crimes yle. Micael T: “But Ukrainian neo-Nazis must receive weapons and money to steal at the expense of Finnish citizens? It almost seems as if there are good neo-Nazis and bad neo-Nazis.”
A bottle and a half of wine a week could cost you your driver’s license Aftonbladet via machine translation: Micael T: “a person’s consumption can be flagged to the Swedish Transport Agency by a doctor taking a regular blood test where the PEth value is measured. If it exceeds 0.3, it indicates overconsumption, then the doctor must send the test results to the Swedish Transport Agency, which can revoke the driver’s license.”
Old Blighty
Why has NHS England been abolished and what does it mean for patients? Guardian (Kevin W)
Economy finds reverse gear in January with surprise contraction Sky
"How dare you call my daughter a terrorist…"
The mother of Zoe Rogers, one of the Filton18 political prisoners from Palestine Action, delivers a powerful message to Prime Minister Keir Starmer. pic.twitter.com/CZAmMMnD2D
— MintPress News (@MintPressNews) March 11, 2025
UN judge convicted in slavery trial (VIDEO) RT (Micael T)
Israel v. The Resistance
Hamas says it will only free US-Israeli, 4 slain hostages if ceasefire implemented Times of Israel
Following Israel's decision to cut power to to the Strip's desalination plants, Gazans, who in any event have been suffering from a shortage of water, now find themselves – at the height of Ramadan – without almost no sources of drinking waterhttps://t.co/kDjVBdXKPz
— Haaretz.com (@haaretzcom) March 14, 2025
New bombshell UN report accuses Israel of sexual and gender-based violence against Palestinians Mondoweiss
History’s Most Evil People Turn Genocide Into Rape Orgy BettBeat
The rockets used in airstrikes on the eastern sector of south Lebanon specifically, used to keep the targeted site burning for hours, which was found to be due to the materials inside the rocket.
This is just a small peace burning, and it creates a mini airstrike scene pic.twitter.com/mYz5sbQ6p9— Pheebs (@galpalpheebs) March 13, 2025
New Not-So-Cold War
G7 warns Russia of expanded sanctions unless it backs ceasefire Financial Times
UK to host virtual meeting of ‘coalition of the willing’ on Ukraine Anadolu Agency. Do they also have the memory of goldfish in the UK? Do they not remember that the original coalition of the willing was in pursuit of a fabricated cause?
Russia, Ukraine launch heavy drone strikes as troops advance on Kursk Aljazeera
Echoes Of The May 2 2014 Odessa Massacre Moon of Alabama. This might be a portent of Banderite control of Ukraine starting to crack.
Winter 2025: Azov is Coming Moss Robeson, Bandera Lobby Blog (Micael T)
No Mercy for Mercs: What Legal Nightmare Awaits Them in Russia? Sputnik
Destruction of Ukraine dam caused ‘toxic timebomb’ of heavy metals, study finds Guardian (Kevin W)
Moscow Unfiltered (3) Tarik Cyril Amar. A detailed take on the 2 hour Lavrov interview with Larry Johnson, Judge Napolitano, and one other blogger.
Sheila Fitzpatrick · Not Corrupt Enough: Whose Cold War? London Review of Books (Anthony L)
Moscow-City 2025. Walking tour of the Business District 4K HDR YouTube. resilc: “Not AI fake. the view of the swirl building is from the same location we saw it in 2018. evnr more development. usa usa needs sanctions AGAINST us i guess for similar progress.
Syraqistan
Time is running out for Syria’s president. He must share power if he is to hold his country together Economist
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Everything You Say To Your Echo Will Be Sent To Amazon Starting On March 28 ars technica
Imperial Collapse Watch
Amb. Chas Freeman & Col. Larry Wilkerson: Where Does Trump Stand on Ukraine? Dialogue Works, YouTube. The talk goes well beyond Ukraine and towards the end, has some important observations about the Middle East
THE US HAS NO PERMANENT FRIENDS, ONLY PERMANENT INTERESTS Proletaren via machine translation. Micael T: “Finally they start to get it on the real left”.
Last week,thanks to @nukestrat,we revealed that the new #USTacticalNuclearWeapons B61-12 have been shipped to Europe,#Italy included. NO press coverage.Why?It would undermine the propaganda telling #Europe is defenceless and absolutely need #ReArmEuropehttps://t.co/6a65odAbMf
— Stefania Maurizi (@SMaurizi) March 13, 2025
Haig points out:
The B61-12 is just replacing the older B61s already in Europe (about 100 across six NATO bases). It has some accuracy tweaks, and age-susceptible parts have been replaced. The deliverability of aircraft-delivered nuclear gravity bombs in the context of robust Russian air defenses is questionable, but the presence of these bombs has been a symbolic security blanket for Europe.
NEWS | UN Expert on Human Rights in Haiti, William O’Neill, after his fourth visit since April 2023, urged neighboring countries, particularly the United States, to stop illegal arms trafficking into Haiti. “There isn’t a single gun or bullet manufactured in Haiti. If you halt… https://t.co/ykFK1DEf4U
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) March 13, 2025
Trump 2.0
How Trump’s trade war could quickly spiral out of control CNN
U.S. nurses oppose confirmation of Dr. Mehmet Oz to lead Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services National Nurses United
Producer Prices may show first inflationary effects of tariff wars Bondad Blog
The WASPs Are Gone Yascha Mounk
US expels South African ambassador after remarks on Trump Aljazeera. Not the actions of a confident power.
DOGE
Inside Elon Musk’s ‘Digital Coup’ Wired
You Might Not Make Enough Money To Get Musk’s Potential DOGE Dividend Check: Here’s the Salary Cutoff (Kevin W) GoBankingRates
Democrat Death Wish
‘Uniting anger’: Democrats fume over Schumer’s handling of funding fight Politico. I very much appreciate readers rallying and trying to stop a continuing resolution that contained heinous amendments that would gut efforts to oppose the Trump/DOGE wrecking ball plans. Apparently Democrats like Chuck Schumer think Americans will reward them in the midterms for helping the destruction along. As reader Richard Kline wrote in “Protest works. Just look at the proof”:
The nut of the matter is this: you lose, you lose, you lose, you lose, they give up. As someone who has protested, and studied the process, it’s plain that one spends most of one’s time begin defeated. That’s painful, humiliating, and intimidating. One can’t expect typically, as in a battle, to get a clean shot at a clear win. What you do with protest is just what Hari discusses, you change the context, and that change moves the goalposts on your opponent, grounds out the current in their machine. The nonviolent resistance in Hungary in the 1860s (yes, that’s in the 19th century) is an excellent example. Communist rule in Russia and its dependencies didn’t fail because protestors ‘won’ but because most simply withdrew their cooperation to the point it suffocated.
Some may point out, however, that this process takes time, and the viciousness of the Trump program will result in rapid and/or serious damage to the livelihoods of many. In other words, he is accelerating the neoliberal imperative “Go die!”.
GOP Clown Car
Rep. Mace sued by 1 of the men she accused of being a sexual predator South Carolina Daily Gazette
Immigration
Judge denies temporary relief in lawsuits challenging Guantánamo migrant detentions The Hill
Mr. Market Has a Sad
Wall Street Battered Again by Trump Chaos as New Winners Emerge Bloomberg
Consumers and Businesses Send Distress Signal as Economic Fear Sets In Wall Street Journal
AI
EXCLUSIVE: Banned Yale Scholar Speaks Out After AI-Generated Accusations of Terror Ties Drop Site
China Announces Generative AI Labeling To Cull Disinformation Bloomberg
Leaked Apple Meeting Shows How Dire the Siri Situation Really Is The Verge
About Sam Altman and “creative writing” Anindita Biswas, LinkedIn (Micael T)
— Paul Triolo (@pstAsiatech) March 14, 2025
The Bezzle
Music Exec Accidentally Explains How Useless Record Labels Are YouTube (Micael T)
Class Warfare
Gen Z Americans Don’t Have Enough Saved To Cover a Single Month of Spending Fortune
It’s Not Nature. It’s Not Nurture. It’s a Möbius Strip. New York Times. Anthony L: “Sociogenomics.”
Antidote du jour (via):
A bonus (guurst):
Чет не спится😉 pic.twitter.com/uSGP52tmBx
— Maksud (@MaksudPash15485) March 13, 2025
A second bonus (Chuck L):
16. Dog's unwell, and cat hasn't left his side since..pic.twitter.com/VlOod017ty
— Wolf of X (@tradingMaxiSL) March 12, 2025
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
218 comments
Comments are closed.
re: B61-12
yes it´s unsurprisingly dishonest
however – as I seem to not get tired of telling people in Germany (who won´t listen) – Europe is in theory defenseless. If it really wanted war these B61s had to be virtually carried into the theatre of operations by F-35. And it´s an open secret those are expected to be mostly shot down.
So what are those B-61s good for? Except cannon fodder.
The real work would be done by seaborne missiles, ICBMs and may be B-52s.
but to even talk about it is idiotic.
re: above image of the moustached dude fiddling with the bomb – why do these people still look like Goose from Top Gun
Looking at that photo, I could not help thinking of a guy maybe sneaking up behind him with a blown up paper bag…
Oooh, that definitely made me splatter some coffee on my screen. RK you are my kind of bad man….
The Baltic chihuahuas are clamoring for nukes:
Lithuania may need to amend constitution for nuclear weapon deployment – MoD LRT
Maybe we can send them some reconditioned Davey Crockett nuclear bazookas? The Baltics are complete whack jobs, looking for their Archduke Franz Ferdinand moment in history.
Forget Davey Crockett nuclear bazookas. That’s old school. Give them something that they would be really keen to use – like nuclear hand grenades.
That missile doesn’t appear to be all that much bigger than the Estes rockets I would terrorize my neighborhood with suburban launches, and fraught with after apogee location difficulties, in particular if the parachute went behind a fence.
It’s not a missle but more of a Not-So-Fat Man.
US Army has Typhon systems. Nuclear capable.
Plainly truck borne Ground Launched Cruise Missile that are deployable in C-17 or C-5.
Aegis ashore in Poland and Rumania have vertical launch systems identical to the ships these are cruise missiles carriers if so loaded.
Good thing US pulled out of INF Treaty.
Plainly truck borne Ground Launched Cruise Missile that are deployable in C-17 or C-5.
At one time, a test was conducted to determine if a C5 could be used as a launch vehicle for ICBMs.
It did not go well. After it was deployed from the aircraft, the rocket ignited prematurely and the missile nearly took the nose off the aircraft. As far as I know, this is the one and only time it was actually tried.
Yes, our airdrop capable cargo aircraft do duty as bombers when you have a special package that needs delivery.
What nuclear cruise missile is there for Typhon? Closest thing might be air-launched AGM-181 with W80-4 warhead.
Well, they should pull a Ukraine and claim that the nukes are theirs and that they’ll never give them up.
Working link for Judge denies temporary relief in lawsuits challenging Guantánamo migrant detentions” article at-
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5196083-judge-guantanamo-migrant-detentions/
Re ‘Dog’s unwell, and cat hasn’t left his side since..’
Damn, man. Where did those onion ninjas come from?
Thanks, fixing. Added more links rather than cleaning the ones I had up.
Srećko Horvat on Serbia protests: Students are showing Europe the path forward (DiEM25)
https://diem25.org/srecko-horvat-on-serbia-protests-students-are-showing-europe-the-path-forward/
Croats commenting on Serbia is like Ukrainians commenting on Russia.
Have you ever heard of a certain J.B.Tito, boychik?
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Gen Z Americans Don’t Have Enough Saved To Cover a Single Month of Spending Fortune
~~~~~~~~~~~
Took my Gen Z 20 year old nephew snowboarding last week, and previously he had gotten a $1700 ‘Soccer Is Life’ tattoo running from his upper ankle down to his foot, and since I saw him in January he added a $3100 map of California to the other ankle and foot to sort of even things out in ink distribution, along with a $300 manta ray on his inner lower arm.
Tats are tantamount to potato chips in that you can’t just have 1, and I expect him to be quite the illustrated man by the time he’s 25.
It strikes me that in a way, young adults such as him are showing off their visual net worth, in his case $5100.
I’ve noticed that too. With a spouse that works with people in housing difficulties and financial stress, it is amazing to see/guess how much money people in those situations have spent on tattoos, or have a pet, or smoking, etc. Though I suppose that it gives them a sense of having a regular life of some kind.
If what I’m trying to describe makes any sense.
Same for both our sons. I’m reserving judgement. I can’t imagine being a young person trying to forge his way in this stupid timeline.
I’m in the same boat, I just grin and bear it when the tyke sez ‘Uncle Wuk, would you buy me a snowboard and boots!?’ and I see 7 new snowboards and boots festooned on his skin.
Pets can provide significant health benefits, and are a very big help staving off depression. I cannot begin to say that about tattoos. I get why they might appear to be a bad use of funds, but imo lumping them in with tattoos and smoking is distinctly unfair.
I agree with your comment about pets and didn’t mean to lump them in together in a bad manner. Though at times costly, quite honestly, a pet is probably the only thing at that helps keep them somewhat sane and is one of the few, if not only thing, that will provide unconditional friendship and love with no judgment or insults.
Thanks for the reminder on that.
Pets can make the difference of surviving another day. After all you can’t eat a tattoo.
Tatoos = social capital (I’m too old to see it, but ok)
A pet = companionship
Smoking = a small regular pleasure (and hunger suppressant?)
Not making an argument for it, here can be non-economic logic to the illogic of the poor.
Yes, definitely a hunger suppressant. When I was homeless or just very poor, I would buy rolling papers and just raid public ashtrays or even pick up butts off the ground to re-roll the leftover tobacco. Sometimes I had enough money to buy a pack of (choke, gag) Gauloise, which were the cheapest at the time.
Definitely helped with hunger!
The utility of tats is pretty obvious for a Yakuza member or a Melanesian tribesman, but what’s the utility on an otherwise broke millennial or Gen-Zer?
My current best guess is that it demonstrate the tat owner’s ability to access sufficient funds to get the tats. So if everybody in your social group is flat broke, the one who got the most tats demonstrated the best ability to get money to get tats, thus greatest fitness and virility?
Remember when people just leased cars they couldn’t afford to peacock around their peer groups?
Or in a clothing vein, a cool high school kid of 1966 would have worn a Nehru jacket for a year or 2, and then never again
My mom related that in our keeping up with the Joneses neighborhood in LA in the 1960’s, somebody got a cage that went on one of the 2 spots in front of their garage, and had a few of these adorable monkeys, and before you knew it, 3 or 4 other neighbors followed suit in human see-human do, that is until the poo flinging revolt of ’66, and everything went away rather all of the sudden, the zooccoutrements .
.
As a “zillenial”, my perception is it’s more of a way to exert one’s identity rather than a show of wealth. We grew up in the transition of tattoos becoming less taboo and in the transition out of identity conformity. Owning a home is more of a wealth flex than tattoos, imo, considering how home affordability has affected us.
Stories like these run contrary to “it’s the top 1% driving inflation” or some such. As I’ve said many times before, Americans have a deep seated spending problem. From the article: “But they’re also more likely to shell out on discretionary categories like travel and entertainment. Spending in non-essentials among that cohort is up more than 25% from a year ago — substantially above the overall rate.“. “Drunken sailors” is a well earned moniker.
There is no way of knowing whether a USN sailor was drunk in 1944 when he got that anchor tattoo on his upper arm that when I saw it half a century later, looked like a smudge.
And that tattoo of a dainty butterfly that a young girl gets ends up years later looking like Mothra. To be fair, I worked with this guy from Cyprus who as a young man was in Egypt in ’45 training for the invasion of Japan. While there, he got a tattoo of a topless dancing girl on his upper arm and over forty years later, it was still clear and hardly faded.
I have friend who ran a tattoo shop. She told me alcohol causes the design to run and not be sharp. Customers were carefully screened and told to come back if they had been drinking.
I guess a plus for a tattoo showing of wealth is that it can not be stolen?
Not so fast. The Nazis in the concentration camp took care to take the skin off those that had good tattoos and had them on display though I am not sure if it was as lamp shades. And in the Sonchai Jitpleecheep series of crime novels is mainly set in Bangkok, in one novel it featured several men killed and skinned for their tattoos as there was a market for them.
I feel like there have already been multiple tattoo collecting serial killers on the loose and news about them have been completely suppresses by BigTattoo.
You Only Live Once mentality and approach? Not sure if that aptly describes a broad swath of the Gen Z cohort….or “YOLO” for the shorthand version. My reference could also and likely be dated…
Spending as opposed to saving for a down payment on the first home. Anecdotally my young niece and her husband are realistic about ever buying a home, that it would be unlikely in their near future and that was before mortgage rates were going up circa 2022. Neither of them is stupid, unreasonable about working or unmotivated, but the reality today for them is different from my time living a leaner existence in the late 1990s. Locally the residential real estate markets have been sizzling hot for the most part, broadly speaking about Greenville Spartanburg and nearby cities of South Carolina.
The Gen Z highest achievers in the classroom will turn out fine, which is nothing new.
Extra tattoos are not going to “drive inflation”.
More generally, middle income people spending to the limits of their pay is a sign of inadequate wage growth and/or rentierism, both or which make people at the top richer, allowing them to spend bigly.
Five grand in tattoos ain’t no down payment on a house. Or even a car lease.
But it’s a start on a do it yourself art gallery, now showing you.
I’m starting to think the joke is on savers this time. I’ve got a funny urge to convert my 401K to Barolos and camping gear.
Why not get an REI tramp stamp on the small of your back and a passel of Peak brand freeze-dried meals (beef stroganoff is so tasty) and call it good.
It could be if we were allowed to have Chinese EVs. 5 grand could still be enough for first and last month rent in an apartment lease, so they can stop living with roommates.
$6000 gets a month of CDL training. Tats or a CDL… which one has the bigger life long payback?
One of my boys tried college for part of a semester. Just didn’t take. He withdrew after a few weeks.
I said you like to drive, how about getting a CDL and driving for awhile. Doesn’t have to be forever.
So I paid for my son to get a CDL. Better than college. First job was 6 months of driving a triple axle Kenworth day cab with a 53′ trailer through down town Portland OR. Delivering organic produce. That led to 2 1/2 years of over the road delivery, driving for CRST, in the I-5 corridor. That time with CRST, his W-2 income was about $114k a year. He lived in the truck and saved everything he could. Paid his way through line man school. 10 weeks.
Now he’s working construction, building substations as an IBEW union member.
That 6k for the CDL was the best investment ever for him.
He has about 150k in savings right now. Between checking, his IRA/401K accounts, and his brokerage account.
His twin brother, if he makes it through college in a couple of years… will have no debt, no savings and a piece of paper.
I no longer recommend college for kids right out of high school. Learn a trade first and figure out how the world works. Then do the college route if you can make it without incurring debt.
46% of ALL working American’s have less than $1,000. laid up.
I was watching the Friday night PBS news blah blah, and was struck by the “out of touch pearl clutch”
about the ‘market’ dropping like a rock, and 401K’s going up in flames. Newshour and Washington Week, both)
How many folks have a 401K or equivalent retirement vehicle? ( I googled that- it says 54%)
Imagine when ‘they’ shift Social Security over to Wall Street and we see ‘markets’ correct.
All eggs(expensive ones at that- lookit the P/E of most equities…) in one basket. What could go right?
Cat food futures. Go Die! indeed….
Which brings me to tattoos, pets, cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, ski tickets, travel- you name it.
Waxing Nihilism in the times of increased intuitive awareness of the obvious inescapable conclusion of
the ‘end of our time’. (I O C O – intuitively obvious to the casual observer)
Your nephew is spending as much on tattoos as the median net worth of 20 year olds in the US. It is tempting to say his spending does not seem to be in line with the spending habits of a typical gen z’er. However, the average net worth of folks in their 20s is about 15x higher than the median (113,000 and 7600, respectively), so I don’t think it’s even possible to speculate as to what a typical gen z’r spending habits look like.
In short, the income disparity within gen x is so high that I would caution against using individual spending habits as an explanation for the financial woes in that generation.
(Source on net worth #’s: https://www.empower.com/the-currency/life/average-net-worth-by-age)
For much of my twenties, if I had enough money to pay rent on time at the end of the month I would celebrate by taking my friends out for a couple rounds of drinks and then not pay the rent on time. Most kids today seem more responsible than I was.
“No Mercy for Mercs: What Legal Nightmare Awaits Them in Russia?”
A very nuanced one?
“A very nuanced one?”
Hah! I saw what you did there, Rev..
Yes, and in relation to another story, likely getting a hole punched in that prison wallet.
Hmmm… “Get nuanced. I’m all right Yakov.”
ambrit, I just saw that y’all are having some really bad weather down there.. Hope everything is ok with you and your family and as you always say, Stay Safe.
Just saw this. Thanks. We have had several bad tornados within a thirty-mile radius of here, with several people killed. March has roared in like a lion this year.
Stay safe!
So far as I know none of the foreign fighters captured in Ukraine are mercenaries as defined under AP1 of the Geneva Conventions, and if they were they would still be entitled to decent and humane treatment. The concept of “unlawful combatants” (originated by the US of course) is not a legal category. The Russians are signatories to AP1, and the Geneva Conventions apply in an armed conflict whatever a nation’s domestic laws say. They are also signatories to the Convention Against Torture which applies under all circumstances everywhere.
I suspect this is essentially propaganda, intended to discourage foreigners or even foreign governments, from involving themselves further in Ukraine, and might be quite effective.
You should go there and try saying that to Russian soldiers while they are capturing you. Lots of space for nuanced discussion there.
Why not getting you there and xplaining Russian authorities the nuances of Geneva conventions? Unnecessary because they know better. Aurelien’s comment on the possible objectives of the propaganda is an island of objective analysis in the sea of disinformation.
I don’t know whether you read the linked article, but if you did you will remember that it wasn’t talking about that.
Serious question: has anyone seriously challenged US claim of “unlawful” combatant legally? That is, not opinions and/or even articles in legal journals, but a real legal challenge that went anywhere? If such challenges, if they were at all raised, were somehow brushed aside for one ostensibly legal reason or another, would “illegal combatants” be any less “legal” de facto, even if not de jure, than “responsibility to protect”?
MoA comment a few days ago, implied Russia civl prosecutions for “combat tourists” for bodily injury and property destruction crimes.
Nuanced determination of jurisdiction.
Massive protest underway in Serbia, supposed to culminate with a rally at 11am EST. Groups from different parts of the country are descending on Belgrade for the central protest rally. This is some of the footage from last night as student groups from southern Serbia marched in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qu9QiN_cRsY
Talking to some of the people involved, there is 50/50 chance of a government overthrow today and the government is not going to last more that a few weeks. Big blow to US and EU as president Vucic has been quite willing to sell out the country, including lithium mining in western Serbia and selling prime real estate to Jared Kushner for a pittance.
He was even on Don Jr. podcast a few days ago, crying about coloured revolutions. We’ll see how things go today, if anyone is interested this is the live feed from the main independent news channel in Serbia https://n1info.rs/n1-tv-live-stream/
I leave you with a traditional Serbian greeting, Pumpaj!!!
I thought N1 is CNN. There is even CNN logo in the bottom left. You can’t get more independent than that.
Yeah, I don’t quite understand the colour revolution angle here, as I always figured Vučić as something of a Western-aligned stooge already? Not Western aligned enough due to the Ukraine war? I don’t think any Serbian president would be able to ram through the kind of comprehensive sanctions that Western governments want from Serbia.
Vučić is Pashinyan-like. Colour revolution angle here is not to allow him to be replaced with someone Dodik-like, but Zelensky-like. Lithium must flow.
But why push to replace him at all? Lithium would have been flowing even with Vučić there, at least that is my understanding. If he is already trying to align Serbia more with the West, than I don’t get the reason for wanting to push him out.
In the EU and those trying to get in, it is not enough to follow most dictates coming from Brussels. You have to follow ALL of them and be in complete alignment. Vučić doing stuff like buying Chinese weaponry and his unwillingness to strip the Serbian military arsenals bare so that those weapons could be sent to the Ukraine was more than enough to make him a target.
But Vučić has been stripping the stores, selling artillery shells at least according to the FT: Serbia turns blind eye to its ammunition ending up in Ukraine
I don’t have access to the original FT article above but this is what the Ukrainian media has said, citing the FT: Serbia “quietly” supplies weapons to Ukraine’s allies, and Vucic is not concerned with what they do with them
He has bent their way quite far already, which is why I don’t get the reason for wanting to oust him. Vučić won’t slap massive sanctions on Russia (maybe some small ones for optics), but I don’t expect any Serbian president would either unless he or she was a complete Western quisling. Outside of the realm of the politically possible.
Yes, everyone has to behave like the Batics.
Don’t look at it as a push to replace him, but an attempt to hijack genuine protests. Color revolutions are about hijacking the cause (and scamming the people). Plebs want to stop the flow. Colour revolution angle is to make the new boss same as the old boss (or worse).
Best of luck. I’m all in favour of overthrowing puppet governments. Pumpaj back atcha!
“A New Scientific Field Is Recasting Who We Are and How We Got That Way”
I have been telling people for twenty odd years that it is not nature OR nurture, it is nature AND nurture. And to be healthy, your nurture has to be in line with your nature.
“You will not find a Elephant living in the Arctic.”
Technological advances in travel have enabled people to immediately move to places that are unfit for the genetics. Like an Inuit moving to Hawaii, a Peruvian Highlander moving to the the Australian Coast, or an Kenyan moving to Portland, Maine. They moved to places they were not genetically adapted to live and there will be some effects as a result.
But the proper term they should be using is Envirogenomics, not sociogenomics. Since society is only one of many factors that interact with our genome, and there are only so many ways we can change society to sustain or genetics.
On polygenics; let’s take high cholesterol. It is not really a polygenic disorder, but an Envirogenomic disorder.
I am glad to read this article but they were sloppy in their writing and the point could have been made in a more clear and direct way. I do no really think they know the subject they are writing about as much as they think they do.
My grandmother lived in a small foothill town in the Tatra mountains before immigrating to Canada around 1910, and my mom was born and raised near Crowsnest Pass in Alberta, so I think there was a homing beacon of sorts for yours truly so duly attracted, Slovakians being hillbillies.
My mother was born in Pincher Creek just down the road in 1920.
https://ontheworldmap.com/canada/province/alberta/large-detailed-map-of-alberta-with-cities-and-towns.jpg
I know you were using cholesterol to illustrate a point, but it’s not a very good example.
First, high cholesterol is not a disorder. People with low cholesterol have the highest all factor mortality rate: https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4266
Total cholesterol of over 200, which is considered high, is correlated with the lowest all factor mortality: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6367420/
Second, there are people who have genetic high cholesterol. They can have very high HDL. Their high total cholesterol is not the result of bad diet as with most.
Similarly:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17512433.2018.1519391?rfr_dat=cr_pub++0pubmed&url_ver=Z39.88-
Yves – your second link goes to an article in the Hill… would be great to see the right one. I have a friend battling with her doc about statins. She has very mildly elevated LDL-C, everything else blood pressure, tryglicerides, blood sugar, CRP are all normal-optimal and her doc still wants to start her on a statin, even her naturopath is on the statin bandwagon. It is like the whole medical system is brainwashed about this drug. And thanks, that last review is a keeper!
A cursory internet search yielded this: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6367420/
“TC levels associated with lowest mortality were 210–249 mg/dL, except for men aged 18–34 years (180–219 mg/dL) and women aged 18–34 years (160–199 mg/dL) and 35–44 years (180–219 mg/dL) “
Will correct but I do not know why people think they have to argue with a doctor that will not be persuaded. Either just say no and that the topic is closed, or don’t fill the Rx. I tell my doctors no to tests and treatments all the time, like useless flu shots, and once in a while ask for them, like my overdue tetanus booster.
Specifically, IMHO but confirmed by KLG’s many e-mails (the abuse of statins is a pet peeve of his) should absolutely not take statins. They are useful ONLY in the instance of actual heart disease. This article makes that case as do many studies : ‘Bad’ Cholesterol May Have a Bad Rap https://www.healthline.com/health-news/bad-cholesterol-may-have-bad-rap
Has he ordered a calcium score cardiac test? If not, or he says a test is not warranted, this is really silly. The calcium score test will determine if she has enough heart artery gunk to be a cause of concern (as in silent/early heart disease)
Belated thanks for this Yves. Very helpful!
I’ve had a steady high level of LDL-c cholesterol for over 20 years and the doctors always say the same thing – “maybe I’ll put you on statins if it goes up on the next test”. It never changes. And there’s not much statin use in France in any case. Hell if I’ll stop eating this good butter.
Your link for the correlation of total cholesterol over 200 with lowest all factor mortality doesn’t align with the topic. Perhaps this link will suffice: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6367420/
Sorry, I missed the post by Objective Ace
Interestingly, there is some evidence that suggests high cholesterol can be caused by psychological stress:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5419930/
Nature and nurture are an interdependent whole and the division is a false dichotomy. Dr Nessa Carey has some good explainer videos on epigenetics on the tube. Most common narratives regarding genetics are obsolete. The effects of genes change according to conditions. (First time posting. Yay)
“G7 warns Russia of expanded sanctions unless it backs ceasefire”
The collapse of the Kursk salient aka Russia’s Battle of the Bulge, seems to have really shocked a lot of western leaders as they have come to understand that the Ukraine is actually losing this war. Probably the Trump admin too as here Rubio was in lockstep with the rest of the G7 leaders threatening Russia if they do not immediately sign up for that 30-day ceasefire. But what may be really pushing their agenda is the Ukrainian troops cut off in Kursk of which there appear to be a few thousand. Trump is extremely concerned about those troops and said-
‘it is “unbelievable” how Russian forces managed to encircle so many Ukrainian troops despite the extensive financial and military support Washington has provided to Kiev over the years.’
Earlier in the day, Trump urged Putin to preserve the lives of the ‘thousands of Ukrainian troops’ who are ‘completely surrounded by the Russian military. This would be a horrible massacre, one not seen since World War II.’ he said in a post on Truth Social.
Putin came back and said ‘If they lay down their arms and surrender, [we] will guarantee them their lives and dignified treatment in accordance with international law and Russian legal norms.’
But here is the thing. Anybody here remember the Battle of Debaltseve back in 2015? The Donbass militias had gotten a Ukrainian invasion force into a fire sack and were pounding the crap out of them. There was panic in the west about this and Momma Merkel pleaded with Putin to get the Donbass militias to let them go in return for a peaceful settlement which was how we got Minsk 2. And since then western leaders admitted that the only purpose of that agreement was to free those troops and let the west buildup the Ukrainian military. This time Putin ain’t falling for it and will only accept those troops as either dead or as prisoners – their choice. And some of them have war crimes to answer for.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Debaltseve
The Debaltseve event and similar has gotten several mentions from various alternative media. While Putin’s recent offer is an improvement and not a copitulation, it might rather annoy those Russians collecting war crimes evidence in Kursk. Trump certainly represents Western Values as he claims concern for Ukraine lives as he and The West are silent and oblivious on say Russian or Palestinian lives. Dima at military summury I think did however mention the Americans did honor a Russian request to spare Russian lives in similar situation where the roles were reversed in this same conflict.
Trump may claim he has concerns for Ukrainian lives but just the other day he was boasting how he was the one to send Javelin missiles to the Ukraine which were used to kill Russian lives. I bet that the Russian picked up on that. Can you imagine Trump’s response if there was a repeat of the attack on Columbus, New Mexico and a major foreign nation asked that the lives of the attackers be spared and that they be allowed to go back into Mexico?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Columbus_(1916)
BS concern. Trump is asking for mercy to the wrong people. This suggests that what concerns him is the spectacle of mass surrenders in Kursk. The ball is in Ukrainian court as they do not allow for their soldiers to surrender.
The Ukrainians are even denying that their troops are trapped there.
They aren’t. Trump made that up, just like super-hypersonic weapons, and destroying BRICS, and Russians losing 60 million in WWII, etc (the list goes on and on, and I hope someone is making it for future generations). Improv is his thing, unlike Zelensky who is better when sticking to the script.
P.M. If Trump was posting here in the comment section, Yves would be so pissed by him “making shit up”. :)
‘It’s OK when the President does it.’ :)
“Treating them humanely” upon capture and their conditions in captivity in no way stops later war crime trials and appropriate punishments.
re: “G7 warns Russia of expanded sanctions unless it backs ceasefire”
The G7 as a military alliance? riiight…. / ;)
See Taibbi and Kirn’s latest ATW. no paywall. utube. The opening twtr-X clips are great.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZGNl2C8Yzs
Need to add Blackrock in there as well. Maybe time to jettison Italy.
Obedient vassals are just repeating what the DT has already threatened.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-threatens-devastate-russian-economy-204547729.html
Oooh … super triple duper extra sanctions… do they come with a pickle, sesame seed bun and a side of fries?
Bwahaha !! bet Pootin is skar3d!
Eh, Pew-tin, right? (The English seem to insist on that.) :P
I think the pronunciation in Russian is closer to “Poutine”. But yes, those tacky Brits.
They come with a side of french fries and cheese curds topped with a brown gravy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poutine
Thanks for that link. It’s a basic rendering of the story. However, in classic Wokepedia form, they use the term “Pro-Russian” which is true. Yet, they don’t use the term “Pro-NATO or Pro-Western”. The link however incites more research, thanks again.
Debaltsevo for Minsk 2, and Ilovaisk for Minsk 1.
Why go back so far in time? Remember Mariupol and the hundreds of Azovites that surendered and were then taken to Turkyie and pinky swear, cross my heart, they will not rejoin the war?
We all know how that ended…
The proposed or hypothetical DOGE dividend suggestion. I’m still moderately in favor of seeking out the low hanging fruit, so to speak on trimming obvious expenses like the under-utilized commercial real estate the US leases or rents for the federal workforce. I just never understood the dividend idea as talking points from the administration.
Cutting expenses to trim the large budget deficits means saving money…or does it not. Added on, whatever investing themes this investment manager, Mr. Fishback, pitches well I’d be selling it. One can be wealthy and rich but not terribly bright, as many know.
I’ll say the quiet part out loud. This “dividend” scheme is a smoke screen to hide the coming tax reductions for the already wealthy class.
The “True” Republican Party has always been about reducing government. The “best” way to do that is to starve it of funds. Then the mythical “Free Market” can step in and do the bidding of the Oligarchs even better than the Government does!
Taxes are a major tool of Social Engineering. Control the taxes and you indirectly control the society. Eliminate most taxes and you, arguably, remove any ‘control’ function from the society. This situation is properly called Savagery.
Stay safe.
As everyone cries about the possible coming of tax reductions for the rich (rightfully so I will add) where were the screams when the Dems were in control and could have rolled back Trumps earlier tax program that favored the rich? The Dems were crying about abortion or Trump bad Trump Nazi. The Repubs are blatant, the Dems are sly.
Trump kind of showed his hand in the first term, when Interior Director Zinke proposed raising fees in National Parks, for instance for every entry my buddy’s sightseeing tour vehicles make into Sequoia NP, he is charged $75 for commercial entry, and Zinke wanted to take it to $300.
This is what he proposed for public entry in 2017, and abandoned in 2018.
I’m so curious what happens during our summer of missed content, with the hour getting late as far as getting seasonals on board, and those NPS employees with Fed credit cards have had their limit taken down to one measly buck for 30 days, it’s a classic bust out operation, and not some sporting goods store in NJ-but the crown jewels in the forest for the trees and everywhere else socialism has held sway for far too long-the sheer nerve that all 300 odd million of us are part owners!
I’d suggest air travel ( for those able to do so on a budget, at any rate ) along with general tourism stands to bear the brunt when it comes to such future and projected challenges. Already among my hiking enthusiasts in the immediate family, we’ve had a verbal or email exchange , that future plans should be written in pencil and not ink. To add, flying coach on American or United out to Oregon and back to SC, spending a week possibly then just to find national parks’ hours are restricted is not high on a list of 2025 goals, at least not for myself.
Western NC is going to need tourism to return as well, so I’m partially convinced that a few Republicans might recognize a need for those seasonal NPS employees even at the 11th hour.
As a popular late 1990s song sorta went, I can chase all manner of waterfalls pretty darn close to where I’m at.
And it continued apace under Biden, of course: Why Is Booz Allen Renting Us Back Our Own National Parks?
“Five Years of COVID-19: How the Pandemic Changed Our Lives”
It takes someone from the WHO to write an article about the after effects of the Covid pandemic – and completely omit any mention of Long Covid. The guy says ‘Today, COVID-19 has become part of our daily lives, transitioning into the category of common infections, though people still die from the virus.’ If that were only true. But Covid is forever leaving an increasing number of people suffering Long Covid which will eventually put a spanner in the economy. The same one that governments prioritized over the health of workers, errrr, citizens. And he should not be so proud about the development of those vaccines. They came with their own problems and all those people that held those vaccines under suspicion were right to do so. This whole article sounds like an attempt to whitewash the WHO and to put the blame on governments and people but we know that the WHO was the one that failed and dramatically. But now they want even more power to decide how to respond to the next pandemic while they failed us – and still are – with this one.
Just having been through the Category 2/1 cyclone here in Brisbane and I found the official running of the response ominous. The curious insistence of calling nearly all flooding flash flooding ( this was true in both states and the BOM ), the inane insistence on trying to get some kids back to school one or two days early through streets strewn with trees and power lines so their parents jobs can ” get back to normal ” as early as possible. Again in both states with consistent messaging. Granddaughter still hasn’t got power 10 days later.
Apart from the obvious need for a real Australia wide Civil Defence structure going forward as the climate emergency gets more urgent, I thought we were being given a glimpse of how they intend to run any next pandemic. Looking at the possible death rates from H5N1 being bandied about we are screwed with these clowns in charge. I am upgrading my readiness accordingly.
Arun Shourie’s new book on Savarkar comes at a critical moment for India
>> But Savarkar, like the Muslim League, had his own “two-nation theory — a theory that was so convenient for the British”. “Savarkar began advancing this unbridgeable separateness [between Hindus and Muslims] much before Jinnah alighted on the same thesis.”
Re. Yasha Mount and the WASPs.
«(Was World War II won by the WASP elite or by Navajo code talkers and Jewish astrophysicists and most of all by courageous GI’s drawn from every ethnic and religious group?) »
Or was it a pyrrhic victory won by Russia with 25,000,000 casualiies?
I, as a WASP, am glad I can now blame the US’s problems and awful politics on some other group or groups and their various Lobbys. / ;)
The cost was incredibly high but it wasn’t Pyrrhic. The alternative to winning against the Nazis was annihilation of the Slavs and Communists. Winning was a far better outcome than losing.
The Zionist currently at the top of the heep seem headed for an inevitable fall in the next 5-10 years. I wonder who will replace them there?
Too short of a time frame. Myself, I am envisioning a zionist Israel completely and utterly hated and despised and avoided by its crimes, found guilty by ICJ of genocide. And a climate change making life really umbearable in the area, with little water left, with all the ofshore gas and oil used up, with an academia in shambles, with high levels of corruption, and with people trying to leave in droves and nobody wanting to receive them.
After all, they will be coming from a country guilty of genocide so governments will need little excuse to deny entry.
And the Israelis can enjoy their bload soaked shitty strip of semi-desert.
An aside:Thanks for mentioning the Navajo code talkers in the US military in WWII. Their genius was especially important in the South Pacific theater in WWII. The Imperial Japanese military, who might maybe have decoded the words (unlikely), would still never have understood the words’ meaning. The Navajo language and the Navajo code talking was never broken by the Imperial Japanese military forces.
adding: the Choctaw nation also provided the US military with important Choctaw code talkers in WW1, WW2, Korea, and Vietnam. Now a nearly forgotten history.
re: Dems.
This was written before the voting. The outcome was a forgone conclusion, as the article explains. Schumer’s ‘mistake’ was stringing everyone along thinking they could win when he knew they would not. (Sound’s like McNamera about Vietnam. Or like Z about Ukr,.) That stringing people along in the face of certain defeat was a mistake on his part, imo, and could fracture the party. (And to add insult to it, I kept getting money-beg emails from Dems during the, what I can only call kabuki floor show.)
From Punchbowl News:
Schumer folds on funding and Democrats are furious
https://punchbowl.news/article/senate/schumer-backs-funding-measure/
(And, ahem, it sounds like the last election where the Dems’ internal polling showed word-salad losing, but they kept telling everyone the Dems were in for the win. Is this the new Dem estab strategy for politics? / ;)
As Bill Clinton reportedly said after being warned of “alienating his base” by signing NAFTA, Crime Bill, Communications Act, CFMA/FSMA etc. – with a chuckle: “whadda they gonna do? Vote Republican?” ha ha ha
It’s all a big joke: no matter who “wins” contrived spectacle of so-called elections, the oligarchy always wins.
As my friends in Oakland say “they runnin game on us”.
I have to disagree with their conclusions. It was only a loser as long as the Republicans could get cloture. But that would have mean Democrats being serious enough to really shut down the government for the weekend. And perhaps even do their job and have a truly clean CR ready to go. They might not have gotten that through reconciliation, but it would have played better politically AND there is an outside chance some bits of the CR might have been changed for the better. As all of that was possible not really a loser.
A more accurate reading of this was that Chuck and some relatively safe* or retiring Dems were always set to allow the CR to get to a vote, and he misread the room on how much he and the others could pretend they were not just pretending to be opposition. It was the same bait and switch the Democrats always play. But this time the public wanted opposition AND they got the Senate procedural process the useless ten were using for cover. As in every Democrat that voted for cloture is now tarred with letting this happen even though they voted NO on the CR.
My only real enjoyment in this has been Trump kicking the useless Chuck when he was down by congratulating him on “doing the right thing”. Something that hit the news here in NYC on every major local newscast.
By relatively safe, in NY’s case neither of the two despicable Senators is facing reelection before Trump’s replacement is on the ballot. Chuck is up 2028, Gillibrand in 2030.
I agree with you. From the article I learned that Schumer in private was saying he would insure no govt shutdown would happen. That’s why the loss was a forgone conclusion. The current Dem leadership guaranteed the loss.
But I can’t take any of this seriously, it just seems like a cheap, tacky, staged drama for public consumption. They need better actors.
This is the same Chuck that happily let Trump get his judges in so they could all go home for the holidays during Trump 1.0 I believe.
It’s also hilarious that liberal Democrats in the House, under Pelosi, were happy to shutdown the government to oppose Wall funding under Trump 1.0, and then Biden subsequently put kids in cages anyway. And the shutdown lasted weeks! But today they can’t oppose Trump basically ursuriping Congress’ power of the purse!
And it was a big deal:
Thirty-five Days!
Like, I wonder if in the Federalist papers, Madison ever contemplated that one branch of government didn’t actually care to defend its primary prerogative. What then? What’s even the point? Like you’d think Democrats would shutdown the government forever if Congress can just hangup and go home for the rest of eternity. I mean, why bother?
This is like Loki in The Avengers, when he says that humans yearn to be ruled. That seems to be true of liberal Democrats. They’re authoritarian followers.
Look for the dry powder in Harry Reid’s tomb.
Schumer’s mistake is assuming that the nostalgia that protected Team Blue while Hillary was a going concern and then transferred to Obama’s white guy friend was anything more than nostalgia. The “OMG Russia” contingent is having a meltdown.
Schumer, Jeffries, Slotkin and the myriad of losers they tried to prop up in 2020 before having to back Biden aren’t going to be the “guy” that pulls in Team Blue hearts because they aren’t tied to the glorious past.
“But the Supreme Court” crowd had no clue Biden was the guy who “bungled” the Clarence Thomas hearings. He’s just a guy Obama when Obama was cool said was cool for a white guy.
“He’s just a guy Obama when Obama was cool said was cool for a white guy.”
And the flip side of that is Biden’s saying that Obama was “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”
Biden also noted that in former times, that Obama would be the one bringing people like him their coffees.
Lol. Thanks, Rev. I’d forgotten that. Biden probably was secretly seething because of the role reversal.
Biden was always good at holding grudges like he did with Putin. Can you imagine how he must have felt after his very long (corrupt) career being second-fiddle to Obama when it should have been him for those four years?
Techno-optimism truly is dead (or buried by partisan pettiness)….
SpaceX’s Dragon 10 launched yesterday in primetime from Cape Kennedy with a reuseable booster.
the commander is a woman, 50% of the crew of 4 are women….and not by DEI/affirmative action, by 100% merit….and have resumes equal to/better than the men on the mission!
What a national shame that this isn’t being celebrated.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that in a healthy, mature society that it does not matter the sex of a person doing a job but if they are the best qualified for it. In the old Soviet Russian system there was a lot of meritocracy going on with the result that the first Russian female cosmonaut – Valentina Tereshkova – went up into space back in 1963. It took the US another twenty years before they could find a female astronaut – Sally Ride – to send into space. That was just ridiculous. But I thank Star Trek showing me as a young kid that you could have a future where men and women could work alongside another without one being superior to the other. Modern films just shows the opposite now which does not do young people any favours.
But I thank Star Trek showing me as a young kid that you could have a future where men and women could walk alongside another without one being superior to the other as far as the electric eye that automatically opened doors to convenience stores at gas stations was concerned…
…but no ‘WWWWhoooooooshhhhh!’
Back when they were filming the very first Star Trek back in the 60s, you had a lot of people write in asking questions about their technology. One guy – a building superintendent – was asking about how those doors opened and closed so fast as he could not replicate the speed but was told that they used to prop men to open and close those doors for the actors. Another asked how they got that ‘WWWWhoooooooshhhhh!’ sound as he was trying to reproduce it with his own doors. He was told that it was a sound effect added in editing – but they did send the guy a tape reel with that sound effect on it for his own use. Want to know a funny thing. I used to go to MacDonalds from time to time and they use sound effects there. And I know damn well that one of them is one of those used in Start Trek. How about that.
There were more meaningful things to celebrate yesterday, namely Pi Day.
Some made-up-on-the-spot non-PC jokes, for the late Saturday night audience. (adult humor warning)
Joke 1
Is the spacecraft half empty or half full?
Joke 2
Q: What kind of people celebrate doing 50% of something?
A: Half-brained.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRs0OqV4uSc
Joke 3
Q: What kind of people celebrate doing 50% of something that was already done 100% in the previous century?
A: Mericans, f#$% yeah!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uPoDNEn3I0
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I’ll be here all week. Try the vegan veal, and don’t forget to tip your waitresses.
“Everything you say to your Echo will be sent to Amazon starting on March 28”
‘Amazon is killing a privacy feature to bolster Alexa+, the new subscription assistant.’
Amazon supported privacy features? Really? And they were actually real? Well I guess that if you can’t trust Jeff Bezos with your privacy, then who can you trust?
It continues to baffle me how people are enamoured with talking to their phones instead of using a simple, consistent UI, without realizing that being able to do so means they’re listening to everything you’re doing, all the time.
Not that the Apple / Google / FB care what you’re doing, other than to sell it on to others who do.
As a very small fish in the ad-tech space, I could never figure out where the money was coming from to pay for the whole industry, because the advertising didn’t work, outside of very special cases, and very very large advertisers. But there was another article posted a few days ago, with insider claims of how law enforcement / intel had consolidated access to all this data, and then the source of the money becomes obvious.
Very interesting piece on strong dollar policy and “taming financial markets” a phrase one doesn’t see very often.
Quote:
The campaign to elect Trump was backed by billionaires. That might explain why the cost-of-living crisis, the rising costs of food and energy, the lack of affordable, decent housing, health and education was not blamed on the financial system and global markets, but on the people of China, Mexico, immigrants, and on ‘culture wars’. (As I have tried to show in earlier posts, the rising costs of food, energy and housing can be blamed on global markets in commodities, property and money.)
https://open.substack.com/pub/annpettifor/p/will-donald-trump-tame-the-global?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=jz47a
I thought what Gillian Tett had to say in this podcast so interesting that I tolerated a little over an hour of Ezra Klein. She describes the “theory” under which Bessent is operating, and notes this “detox” talk comes from that quarter. She demurs as to whether this has any chance of working even as they intend, but said that even the famous “Trump Put” could no longer be counted as a certainty,
“First cougar cubs verified in Michigan in more than a century”
As a kid I always liked cougars & pumas – even though there were none in Oz – but never thought about what a cougar cub would look like. Do they all have that black lining around their muzzle when young?
I think the markings are similar as adults, but I have never seen a Puma cub up close (aka Cougar, Mountain Lion) but I did see a juvenile Puma running full-speed across our property a couple of months ago, around dusk. They usually are active at night. I live in a semi-rural area of the Mendocino coastal hills/mountains in N. Cal. We have black bears, and cougars etc. but attacks are extremely rare.
If you like pumas, I think this is the most famous Cougar worldwide, and of all places in RUSSIA. Whooda thunk? https://www.youtube.com/@Iampuma
– ‘New bombshell UN report accuses Israel of sexual and gender-based violence against Palestinians’ – Mondoweiss
This is an important report that should be spread far and wide. But I’m not sure the word “bombshell” is appropriate. On the contrary, such reports have become depressingly routine and expected by anyone paying attention. That is why there is such a ferocious effort by the Israel lobby and its lackeys in government and the media to repress such information. But thanks to Mondoweiss, Mahmoud Kahlil, and all of those who keep fighting.
True, reports like this are nothing new. Sadly, the Genocide of Palestine has dropped off the radar of the Anglo mass media. The US and vassals still support and fund the Genocide, nothing changes.
There’s something happening here
But what it is ain’t exactly clear
There’s a man from DOGE over there
Telling me I got to beware
I think it’s time we stop
Children, what’s that sound?
Everybody look, what’s going down?
There’s battle lines being drawn
Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much AIPAC resistance from behind
It’s time we stop
Hey, what’s that sound?
Everybody look, what’s going down?
What a field day for the protest meet (Ooh ooh ooh)
A hundred people in the street (Ooh ooh ooh)
Singing songs and they carrying signs (Ooh ooh ooh)
Mostly say, “Hooray for our side” (Ooh ooh ooh)
It’s time we stop
Hey, what’s that sound?
Everybody look, what’s going down?
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you’re always afraid
Step out of approved Zionist line, the men come and take you away
We better stop
Hey, what’s that sound?
Everybody look, what’s going down?
You better stop
Hey, what’s that sound?
Everybody look, what’s going down?
You better stop
Now, what’s that sound?
Everybody look, what’s going down?
You better stop
Children, what’s that sound?
Everybody look, what’s going down?
For What it’s Worth, by Buffalo Springfield
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVhn1edWaDA
Regarding the 2 housecats with h5n1, I have a concern as a bird and cat owner. My concern is that it is very easy to track bird droppings into the home after walking outside. We are a “leave the shoes are the door” kind of home, but just one mishap with fresh droppings could be enough to track virus around the home. Google AI states that cats can be infected by droppings. I am considering using hypochlorous acid spray to decontaminate shoes after walks as well. Looking forward to seeing what the investigation shows.
Measles: RFK Jr appears to a) be anti-vax, as opposed to what he claimed during confirmation hearings, and b) uninformed about measles in general and also the vaccine, spreading misinformation. https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/vaccines/114662
Well – for the counterpoint.
There are indeed every year since 2000, the furthest I went back, death reports from MMR in the CDC VAERS. You can go look for yourself, this is not the forum to show you how to do their 1990s style database. Just looking through the numbers, the maximum total death count would be between 500-600 since 2000. This is after putting the numbers through algorithms that we have been trained to use with these databases. I have just been looking through the first several, and these are clearly written out by health care providers, using medical appropriate language, so I do not believe these are fake reports. However, as we learned in COVID, there is not a lot of transparency in what if any investigation was done by CDC and FDA into these incidents. It is hard to know if any or some of them were actually caused by the vaccine. I will say that as a physician, some of them do seem to be fairly compelling. But again, because of our ridiculously non-transparent system, absolutely no indication is provided that any of these are causally linked.
As I have stated so many times, I look through the VAERS every year at the common vaccines that I give in the office. I want to make sure there has been no big mortality or morbidity spike in any of them – those will be avoided. It is a completely ridiculous system for the task at hand and non-transparency is the name of the game. If RFK could do one thing while in office, it would be to bring transparency back to these national databases.
As for Dr Offitt. I have a very difficult time countenancing anything he has to say at this point. At one time he was a hero of mine and so many other colleagues that I communicate with. Those days are over. I guess when you force a vaccine on everyone in the society, all the while you are privately saying that it should only be for the high risk ( all of which he has now freely admitted to) and then have the gall to laugh on national podcasts at people who were injured – and then downplay when FDA vaccine officials resign in protest – all the while cashing your 1.5 million a year from Big Pharma —– well, maybe we in medicine desperately need some genuine and sincere spokespeople, not those who are so corrupted and capable of very duplicitous things like he is. I now have medical students spontaneously bringing up how corrupted all these officials are – and how desperately we need a big sweep out in medicine. That is where we are today.
Thank you for your analysis. I accept your database findings. So, there were death reports “from MMR,” which I guess means associated with receiving the vaccine, within some time frame after that. But: “It is hard to know if any or some of them were actually caused by the vaccine,” and “…some of them do seem to be fairly compelling.” It sounds like the answer is unknown at this time. But RFK Jr says definitively that it causes deaths every year.
And watching part of the full Hannity interview, he mentions the death rate from measles itself as very low, between 1 in 1,200 and 1 in 10,000 (don’t get why such a wide spread but nevermind). To me it seems he’s balancing the probability of dying from measles if you don’t get the vaccine vs dying from the vaccine.
As our premier public health official is he giving appropriate advice in the context of the measles outbreak? I.e., you can die from either one so make your own choice. That could be one interpretation, but I’m sure there are others.
Well, I have developed a much more deferential attitude toward the vaccine injured. Having taken care of several from the COVID vaccines over the past few years and then intermittently over the years taken care of parents whose child did indeed die immediately after a childhood vaccine. There have been 3 over 35 years. One family is currently right now under my care. Until you have actually seen or dealt with these people, you cannot fathom the misery and immense issues this releases in a family. This current patient is a woman whose perfectly healthy daughter died of a cardiac arrest literally 2 hours after a childhood measles vaccine in the 1970s. She has lived in mental and spiritual torment since that time, and has often had so called doctors laugh in her face. So, I tend to not be dismissive of how these people feel. I certainly do not think they should be help up for derision or scorn as was done by my profession over the past 5 years.
To answer your other point – I feel qualified to do so. I have been giving thousands of vaccines and taking care of patients for decades. I have also been teaching medical students the ethical principles we should have with any medical decision, and I have watched as class after class has struggled mightily with these issues.
In the before times, when our society had some pretense of at least attempting to have some degree of moral standards, it was the liberal side of the bench – the Democrats – who really were the standard bearers of doing the best we could to keep the corporations like Big Pharma honest. I know that is hard to fathom for young people today – I do talk to them all the time – but it was true. And the absolute reversal of this stance over the past generation or so is why Democrats like me have been so bewildered.
At one time in my life, it was science fiction authors who had the gifts of asking deep questions about our own struggles here on Earth by placing these struggles in far off alien worlds. Accordingly, I have students every month read the following story –
https://shsdavisapes.pbworks.com/f/Omelas.pdf
Written by one of the premier science fiction authors of the 20th Century, it is the story of a blissful Utopia whose citizens are happily unaware that their lives are made possible by the extreme sacrifice of others. Over the years, during discussions of this story, I have seen students grapple with the very question you bring up – How many have to die from therapeutics in order for those same therapeutics to save everyone else? How many have to be tortured? Is it ethical for even 1 to be tortured and die to benefit everyone else? 20? 50? 100? 1000? The society in the story handled the fallout by glorifying the sufferer……Do we in our world today do the same? Or do we hide them, mock them, make them take their suffering all alone? We can apply these questions not only to things like vaccines but also research subjects…..How many is it OK to have die to protect everyone else? I guess I would say that more than any other discussion, I see light bulbs going off in student’s heads on this one. And trust me, all you have to do as a physician is to see one of these families struggling their entire lives with their loss to understand the scope of the problem.
Thank you.
I agree that we need to be compassionate to people who have lost family or friends to disease or vaccines, and appreciate what they’re going through. I am not dismissive of any of their suffering. My quite elderly mother died from covid as a contributing factor. She got it in the nursing home she was in, the testing regimen for employees and mask-wearing was inadequate.
I’m still wondering what an official in RFK Jr’s capacity should be saying in the context of the measles outbreak. Is he giving us the information we need to make an informed decision?
Thanks for the story, she was a great writer. I may’ve read it long ago, because I was really into sci fi, but anyway I’ll read it now.
Do. It is a keeper.
“I now have medical students spontaneously bringing up how corrupted all these officials are – and how desperately we need a big sweep out in medicine.” Doc, now that is GOOD NEWS! My hope is that after (if there ever is an after) so many of the government employees are gone, said unemployment leaves a vacuum and can be filled with younger people who are fighting through the spike protein bonanza and “know” that fundamentals must be changed. On va voir.
I am watching this weekend’s Bill Maher program. The discussion is with pundit Sam Stein and some other woman I have never heard of.
There sits Sam Stein, with the most smug and condescending tone possible, explaining that manufacturing in the USA is a “quaint old idea from the 1970s” and that AI is going to revolutionize the world.
This commentary is after a week in my professional life where dozens of patients cannot get medication. Not because it is expensive, but because it is just not available. Antidepressants, Adderall, multiple different antibiotics, inhalers, and most poignant of all one cancer patient had to have their entire treatment changed mid stream to a very inferior drug because the preferred one is just not available. These shortages continue to happen and are getting worse by the year because we do not manufacture these agents inside the United States. It long ago passed the dangerous level. I spend so much of my week dialing for drugs all over this part of the country that I am having trouble doing my real job.
I have neighbors who are now on their 4th month of a rental car because car parts are not available. We have half finished houses in our area because housing components are not available.
And there we have our DNC pundits spewing this stuff. And they wonder why no one is listening. Mr. Stein, when you and Mr Thomas Friedman can show me how AI is going to manufacture drugs, chemical molecules, and car parts – please let me know.
If the West does finally complete the mental breakdown and actually goes to war in the Ukraine – I cannot wait to watch AI manufacture planes and tanks. Does anyone with two firing neurons think that maybe, just maybe, China and India are not going to build our war materiel? I just do not understand the mass delusion/psychosis that has become of the Democratic Party and their pundits today. I find it so so depressing as a liberal – and my New Deal Dem elders must just be rolling in their graves. But, as Bill Maher so eloquently demonstrated at the end of the show, these same people gladly spend all kinds of media time to virtue signal things like sex workers, and then on the other side to glorify scum like Andrew Tate. All this media time being spent on virtue signaling and we brush off supply and manufacturing and critical infrastructure issues because “The AI revolution is coming.” I am old enough to remember all the “internet revolution” propaganda. When I look out and survey where we are now compared to then – well, I think we lost the bet. I guess this is what it is like living through a collapse.
Its all going to plan in Bizarro World collapse rules of the CCCP & USA, the barren ‘shelves’ you bear witness to now, bearing some resemblance to what was available back in the USSR.
I take no OTC prescription meds-a rarity in that regard, but most everybody else is reliant on them to some degree. Going cold turkey on Antidepressants and Adderall, yikes!
I was on low-dose Adderall for post-stroke cognitive issues, but quit when the supply became unreliable. Wasn’t that something to do with the DEA and the Sackler settlement? Deranged law enforcement as industrial policy seems like a very USA-ian take on the late CCCP scenario.
I’ve worked in automation of one type or another for over 40 years as an engineer. I just cannot help but think that the pundits are extremely out of touch with modern manufacturing, and like much of the Western high tech world, have latched onto AI as the thing that’s going to “save” Western manufacturing. So here’s something that happen all the way back in 2016 that was actually rather shocking to us automation types at the time. The big boy in robotics, KUKA (KUKA was based in Germany, the other large players are ABB out of Sweden, and FANUC out of Japan – the large American manufacturing robot companies are long gone) was sold to China:
It’s Happened: KUKA Is Now Chinese Owned https://www.engineering.com/its-happened-kuka-is-now-chinese-owned/
All of the American companies that were big players in large manufacturing automation such as CNC, robots, and controls are long gone except for Allen Bradley/Rockwell Automation.
As you know all scientific progress is advanced by building as we say “on the shoulders of giants”. Being able to design, build, and run highly automated factories is very similar. These things aren’t created by a bunch of talking heads on a TV show yakking and then poof, it appear out of thin air. Even if you look in a Tesla factory, what you almost immediately notice is that none of the major equipment (robots – Japan, China, gigapress, – Italy, battery technology- Japan) are American companies:
What Machines Will You Find in Elon Musk’s Tesla Factories Around the World? https://hub.exapro.com/tesla-factories-what-machinery
Over the course of my career it became more and more difficult to buy American, and I’ll admit, I was totally biased – I was going to buy local and buy American at every opportunity.
>>>Over the course of my career it became more and more difficult to buy American, and I’ll admit, I was totally biased – I was going to buy local and buy American at every opportunity
It is discouraging to realize that all the American brands that I use to buy are now made overseas especially hand tools, which are mostly of poor quality, overpriced, and made in China. I am seeing a similar pattern with European brands albeit not as far along.
Even though I am poor, I am willing to pay a premium for American made if it is of decent quality although I would not buy cars from the big three American automakers. Too much money for too much risk.
And Trump’s tarrifs aren’t going to help bring manufacturing back. He’s not grounded in reality, as Yves has pointed out. You’d need an industrial policy and then maybe in 10-20 years.
Heh. I posted a link to a NY Times piece yesterday that quotes a younger Democrat Congresswoman that said, in response to the lack of resistance by the elder class of Democrats, that they’re going to run the same program, but with more style. They’re tired of explaining how to use smartphones to the elder class.
Yeah, that’s gonna work.
The younger class of Democrats in power are morons, too.
That sentiment made it to one of the cable news channels today — the talking head was aghast that Chuck Schumer uses a flip phone and that it was a sign that he needed to go.
I’d love a flip phone. And a stick shift.
Mr. Stein is what we once called a ‘lotus eater’; he’s someone so absorbed in his musings and ethereal imaginings that he’s lost all contact with the actual real world. / ;)
adding: lotus eaters in the ivory tower are fine, even importantly useful in their areas of expertise, so long as they don’t confuse the ivory tower with the world. / ;)
Look at the bright side. Apple is spending $500 billion on US manufacturing in the next 4 years, https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/02/apple-will-spend-more-than-500-billion-usd-in-the-us-over-the-next-four-years/. The thing is, jobs will not be returning in masse because the factories of the future will employ industrial robots in a large scale.
Who knows, maybe drug manufacturing will return as well?
Manufacturing and the use of robotics in these newly built or better described, if they ever get built or past the design phase. I did see Commerce Secretary Lutnick interviewed on the subject, and specific to if or when the iPhone by example is to be manufactured in the US.
He called this approach as tradecraft, or in particular not necessarily needing a college degree but training programs and the like would train millions of young people for these jobs. I don’t trust this to become a 100%, full reality, but advertising these jobs as a professional trade is a reasonable start.
Added, I think some cities in central North Carolina are home to recent build drug manufacturing, cities in or around Raleigh or Durham.
Australia on alert over Trump attacks on cheaper medicines The Age. Kevin W: “Trump wants Aussies to pay the same prices for medicines that Americans do.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~
‘You are the luckiest country, some say the greatest lucky country, and luck has run out for the old ways, welcome to TrumpRx.’
In all fairness, those poverty-stricken Big Pharma corporations are desperately in need of those extra profits.
>Maldives to Declare Bankruptcy?
China did not put the Maldives in a “debt trap,” but the Maldivian government’s profligate spending created its dependence on foreign loans.
And imposing tariffs on Chinese imports is not only pointless for the Maldives, which has no industry to protect, but will only force Maldivians to pay more for Chinese goods.
Sheila Fitzpatrick · Not Corrupt Enough: Whose Cold War? London Review of Books (Anthony L)
This review was better than I thought it would be in depicting the Cold War up to 1991. Still, the author’s jump from Gorbachev and the collapse of the Soviet Union to the present, leaving out what comes between, allows her to land at the usual West-centric conclusion: it is Russia’s *feelings* – of inferiority, jealousy, “resentment at not being treated as equal”, its “implausible Soviet/Russian aspiration ‘to run the world’, for the world’s good, in tandem with the US” – that is behind its current “ravings” and our current Cold War 2.0. Though she, and the authors she reviews, appear to treat Cold War Soviet fears of the US/West as based on some degree of reality, there is no discussion of the post-1991 expansion of NATO, Western provocations, support for various color revolutions, steady Eastern advance of weapons, missiles, CIA bases, “lines of contact,” etc., etc. that might provide some real justification for Russian fears and actions today. To read this whole piece to the end, one would conclude that today’s problems stem mainly from Russia’s perpetual feelings of inferiority. It’s lashing out like an insecure bully who just can’t except that it is no longer a superpower.
For me, this makes it just more propaganda by an academic “expert.” More reasonable-sounding than, say, a Timothy Snyder or Anne Applebaum, perhaps. But the effect is basically the same. Maybe I’m just overly sensitive these days.
Yes…Journalists, academics and other “experts” Makes ya wonder eh
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/oct/10/the-science-of-spying-how-the-cia-secretly-recruits-academics
Silly me, I thought it was referring to the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. See Twenty Years of Officers in Residence: CIA in the Classroom, with specialities in International Relations and Economics.
And even boasting about it on their website
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP91G01170R003505680019-1.pdf
Another recent review from the Lerb: bio of a foreign but Trump-adjacent tech-bro, Korean-Japanese Masayoshi Son.
Snippet:
His self-aggrandising ‘mine is bigger than yours’ attitude impressed both Trump and Mohammed bin Salman. Barber recounts a meeting between Son and the soon-to-be US president at which Trump showed Son how to replicate his signature combover.
You are not. I’ve been reading her for years, and this is her worst piece. Previously she scorned “feelings” explanations for what they are. But the LRB increasingly ain’t what it used to be. It’s heading into Guardian territory these days.
So you would suggest they used to be different, or actually better?
The recent podcast with Neal Ascherson for me encapsulated their entire contradictory nature.
LRB is indeed schizophrenic on the “Axis of Evil”.
Which can also be observed on their early responses to Oct 7th and Palestine in general. Racism in disguise. There were exceptions. But I stopped reading LRB on that topic after a while.
Thanks for the video tour of Moscow–wild and futuristic. Navigating those swirling streets must be confusing.
I’ve made my own homebrew version of a Steadicam but not nearly this good. A motorized gimbal may have been used. The slight walking bounce of railings and other diagonals suggests a real Steadicam not the source.
Will a giant neon “Trump” soon be added to the signs on those buildings?
Watching that video tour of Moscow mad me sad seeing such powerful evidence of the poverty in Russia. The subway and streets were so clean. I did not see any potholes in the roads and where are the homeless? And we are so rich in these things in the u.s. — can’t the u.s. share some of its wealth to the poor Russians? We could send them trash, homeless and sick, share the wealth. I am not sure how to share our potholes but there must be some way.
Ukrainian drones will bring potholes to the Russians. What a kind man Zelensky is!
The various “walking tours” are all over the internet. Shanghai, Dallas, Paris, Firenze, Rio, etc. They are fun and one sees lots of interesting architecture, people lining up for chestnuts, various trinkets, children playin . Just fun to poke around. But of all the cities I mentioned above (and there are thousands more) guess which one proudly displays homeless people bent over on the side walk with all their belongings in a plastic bag.
I heard a rumor that Putin wants to have a Trump tower built in Moscow for definanced homeless sanctioned Russian oligarchs. / ;)
Walking/biking tour of Kensington Ave, Philadelphia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLWrmipVSoM
Our supermarket in the Big Smoke has an in store bakery and usually has 8 varieties of bagels, but not the other day as they had no everything types, perhaps thought of as too inclusive in these days of our Zionist leaning ways.
If you are into military Darwin Award humour and live outside of Sweden then this is a must-watch (it is in English so adopted for an international audience to enjoy). For Swedes this is a pure horror show. These Swedish NATOtards are seriously considering placing long-range weapon systems on the island of Gotland? What about Iskander, Kinzhal or Oreshnik don’t these idiots understand?
“The island is sometimes called the Baltic Sea’s unsinkable aircraft carrier”. May I also call it immovable? May I also add that it consists mainly of limestone and shale? The island is very much sinkable when you think about the combination of limestone, shale and oreshnik.
https://www.expressen.se/tv/nyheter/sverige/natos-plan-sa-ska-gotland-anvandas-mot-putin/
~requiem for a heavy wait~
Je m’endors, by Beausoleil
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IDQs-5oyh4
In this episode of last gasps of a dying empire:
U.S. Launches Broad Attack on Militant Sites in Yemen
To quote CANADIAN BACON really used to be a joke.
Not any more:
Inside the US War Plans to Invade Canada
A military blueprint to attack Canada has been on the books for almost a century now. Former Washington Post feature writer Peter Carlson recounts how he came across it 20 years ago.
by Peter Carlson
https://www.spytalk.co/p/inside-the-us-war-plans-to-invade?publication_id=81003&post_id=159088152&isFreemail=true&r=1i81oo&triedRedirect=true
These CIA folks are as stupid as they were pictured by John Landis and Co. The issue here not being the WAHSINGTON POST describing the plan then but SPYTALK now. Because spytalk are serious in their intention to just be playful.
In O’Henry’s The Ransom of Red Chief the kidnapper has to pay the little boy’s parents to take him back and Trump may find himself in a similar situation re the British Commonwealth. We are already having to deal with obvious Canadian mole loyalists like Shatner and Lorne Michaels and Ryan Gosling. We’ll let Joni Mitchell stick around.
And yes TPTB have always seen Canada as a ripe if frosty plum waiting to be plucked. During the Civil War Seward was hoping the Brits would side with the South so he could take Canada.
Of course it still may not happen but they better watch their step.
A general staff makes all kinds of war plans. The general staff of a major power will make plans to attack just about everybody. Of course the USA has plans to invade Canada. If they don’t, then they need to sack some generals.
Canada has also had plans to invade the USA. I’m not joking. Canada’s secret, “Defense Scheme No. 1,” during the 1920’s, included plans to pre-emptively attack transport hubs in the northern USA.
Planning all sorts of wars is the ordinary business of a general staff. That’s an important part of their job. War plans, in themselves, do not indicate an actual political intention to wage such wars.
Yes, may be. From the professional POV.
I still find their standing moronic however. What would happen were there no such US plans? Nothing. And from US POV an invasion by Canada doesn´t happen over night either. There are military plans that make sense others do not.
It´s also just the entire Spytalk setup that makes me mad, which after all the CIA is speaking.
Lets assume they were discussing a funny WaPo take on Germany´s plans invading France in 1940. The tone would be a different universe of mentality and language. Of course WaPo would never mock those plans in a playful way either ever.
More bullsh¡t jobs. The military provides (and has long provided) the Job Guarantee of ‘civilization’.
JACOBIN
How the Right Hijacked Antonio Gramsci
By George Hoare, Nathan Sperber
Inspired by a misreading of Antonio Gramsci, far-right activists have spent decades attempting to shape intellectual and cultural spaces. But their version of Gramsci’s ideas leaves out a crucial element: class struggle.
https://jacobin.com/2025/03/right-gramsci-de-benoist-trump
Too much paywalled content today, in terms of the articles that interest me.
You can get around much paywalled content by copying the title into your search bar.
Complete bullshit. I am SERIOUSLY offended.
All the links were accessible via archive.is. That took some effort by me.
I am not on board with you attacking the site because you were too lazy to try the links.
intern. manifesto against EU-militarization, of course originating in Italy
Against Militarization: Scientists Unite in Opposition to EU Rearmament
Scientists against rearmament – A manifesto
Carlo Rovelli & Flavio Del Santo
March 9th, 2025
https://www.iuscientists.org/against-militarization-scientists-unite-in-opposition-to-eu-rearmament/
It is not only U.S. arms and ammunition that are landing in Haiti. The assassination of Jovenel Moïse by a group of Colombian mercenaries hired by a Miami-based security company adds to the already Dantesque history of U.S. interventionism on the island. While the arrival of Kenyan troops is the best show they could add to this scatological festival. So, under the mantra of legal permissiveness there is only rubbish. What is the mercenaries’ case about, does anyone know?
I studied the Haiti situation 30 years ago. After that time and again when I peaked into news on Haiti it was like Groundhog Day+, worse every single time. The closer you are located to the US the more fucked you are.
typo: peek (when typo alters the meaning it´s a problem)
re: Ides of March – Ukraine
Highly recommended interview with Nicolai Petro on Neutrality Studies as Petro is a voice that comes from inside US establishment academia.
If limited time I suggest listening to part 2.
He speaks about how media amplify government views. Not news at NC but remarkable again considering that this is actually a renown professor at Rhode Island Univers. and member of various establishment bodies. In the last third it is about the real danger of a right-wing coup in Ukraine. Which is why I chose to label this “Ides of March”:
part 2
Ukraine Falling Apart: Military Could Side With Ultra-Right Wing | Prof. Nicolai Petro
36 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlIJaUrPMSE
part 1 on the nature of future negotiations
This Is What Moscow Really Thinks About The Trump Plan | Prof. Nicolai Petro
30 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhPuCYUXhIc
Just in case “nuance” was too subtle…
Everybody believes Ukraine won – Zelensky
France and the UK have also demanded that Russia agree to an unconditional temporary truce, which prompted a sharp rebuke from former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who said the UK can stick such ideas back where they came from.
https://www.rt.com/russia/614276-everybody-believe-ukraine-won-zelensky/
I would argue that the mainstream (Clintonian) Democrats of today are basically a sort of neo-WASP party. While they may be less uniformly caucasian and less uniformly Protestant, their ranks are overwhelmingly recruited from Ivy-league graduates coming from rich families and they court the sensibilities of the coastal elites with open contempt for the non-wealthy, rural-dwellers, or population that lives in the country’s interior.
The same mentality of an overly-zealous and power-hungry HR manager at a large company that characterized the smug elitism of the classic WASPs now prevails all across the Democratic Party leadership. The neoliberal ideologues within the Democrats are just their latest incarnation. The Democratic Party nomenklatura members have just as many yachts, wine caves, and luxury vacations as the WASPs of old did while they pay for little Lexus’ violin lessons as well as her private tutors.
The Democratic Party might be going the way of the Whigs, shortly, because of their narcissism and political incompetence, but they are perfectly happy to crash and burn from an electoral and policy standpoint as long as they can fundraise from the ashes.
(T)heir ranks are overwhelmingly recruited from Ivy-league graduates coming from rich families and they court the sensibilities of the coastal elites with open contempt for the non-wealthy, rural-dwellers, or population that lives in the country’s interior.
I can agree with this 100%– especially the contempt part– because at one time I was “married” into it and heard them express their opinions quite openly (I had knocked-up the youngest daughter of a prominent blueblood couple and was tolerated for a while in their world, although I’m pretty sure that her father hated me for contaminating the bloodline).
I need to add that they feel contempt for civil servants as well, and absolutely hate (and fear) military or former military people– unless you’re one of “their own.”
One can only wish — But the Democrat Party controls one of the two valuable ballot lines, without which, it isn’t generally possible to get elected in the United States. When the Trump depression hits in full force, should that actually happen, the portion of the population that votes Democrat will surely turn out, along with a handful of voters in swing states, to deliver Congress to the Democrat Party, where they can reapply their version of managed decline, rather than full on collapse. Trapped in a relationship with one abusive partner or another.
I do not see anything hopeful about the decline of the Democratic Party. Instead, what is most likely to happen is that the DNC keeps shrinking in both size and relevance while its leadership is perfectly content to line their pockets as it sheds the veneer of being anything more than a fundraising platform rather than a viable political party. After all, the Democrats as a real “party” died decades ago, and what we have now is a zombified institution that primarily serves as a means to pool donations from wealthy donors.
Anyway the US will eventually become a defacto one-party/uniparty state under Republican rule as it moves in to fill the gaps left behind by the receding Democratic Party, and the Republicans would certainly not allow any potential rival parties ballot access, either.
Maybe the Republicans will save the Democrats so that they won’t be accused of having a monopoly in the electoral system. The same way that Apple saved Microsoft back in the 90s so they wouldn’t face scrutiny as a monopoly in the market place. As to the question of whether they are worth saving, well, that is an question for another time.
Well worth a read as it casts some light on the messaging, strategies, and goals of Team Trump– watch for this when it is applied elsewhere:
The forever wars may be over, but Trump is no peacemaker
By Jonathan Cook
“Anyone trying to make sense of the Trump administration’s policy towards Gaza should have a thumping headache…”
“These mixed messages fit a pattern with the Trump administration. Its wider strategy is, as Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied territories, calls it: psychological overwhelming.”
“Hitting us every day with XXL [extra-extra large] doses of baffling rhetoric and erratic policies serves to ‘control the script’, distracting and disorienting us, normalising the absurd, all while disrupting global stability (and consolidating US control).”
https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/us-forever-wars-may-be-over-trump-no-peacemaker
That’s a good article but i question the assertion, by both pro and anti Trump commentators, that Trump has a plan at all. Perhaps he’s merely trying to navigate the path of least resistance in a horrible situation that was handed to him by his predecessor.
Machiavelli might not approve but according to this theory Trump wants to be loved, not feared, and his all caps threats on social media are not very convincing. Trump’s true aim would be maximum numbers of eyeballs and cameras pointed at one Donald Trump.
So that’s one explanation for what is going on. Like DJT if you don’t like we have others…..
New Patrick Lawrence on our current perplexity.
https://scheerpost.com/2025/03/15/patrick-lawrence-season-of-the-sophists/
And if not linked here Big Serge had a new post this week on the rise of the dreadnought.
https://bigserge.substack.com/p/the-rise-of-the-dreadnought
Ref: crapifcation of BSD stock valuations in the US thingy ….
So I got a new PC monitor at a great deal and vastly improved specs, 32″ QHD VA 165Hz (2,560 x 1,440). So I pinged the eldest son as he just did a new build for work and gaming and on the nose with his knowledge via mates et al. Discussed potential graphics card upgrades both to get the most out of the monitor and future proof it. See if the old [6 yr-ish] CPU/Mobo would be an issue in getting the most out of a new 16GB graphics card.
So at the end of it all he said …
“Everything is pretty much the opposite of how it used to be/Don’t buy nvidia or intel/Intels last 2 generations of cpus have the same or worse performance to amd and have crazy power requirements/Intel cpus need 200-300 watts to do what amd does with 80watts/Plus there’s a lot of intel cpus that fry themselves or cause fires.”
ltamitly
My mind automatically went to Boeing/Apple, once world leaders in Mfg ultimately devolving into equity/financial/hedge fund buffing for C-suite/BSD investors.
The MacCrazzy pants part of all this is how Trump/DOGE team ideologically think ripping the guts out of everything is a fix. Its just the opposite, regardless of good or bad spending, depending how you look at it, its flow of funds into the economy – pay checks. Made worse by the notion that ***The Market*** by itself will find the unicorn of equilibrium if left alone. Its just the opposite. You cant take away without giving something back to replace it or it like setting of a string of firecrackers which one might not take a finger off but the whole thing can ….
‘After Elon Musk Promised Cybertrucks Could Function as Boats, One Fell Into a Harbor for a Perfect Test’
https://www.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-promised-cybertrucks-could-134517997.html
At least it did not catch fire when they finally pulled it out. :)
Shot, chaser to the Nathan Tankus piece linked a couple of days ago.
DOGE decided this guy was dead and clawed back social security payments from his bank account. Nathan’s fears are already being realized. I always thought they would start to turn the screws Social Security by cutting off benefits for those born too late. Sounds like that wasn’t fast enough.
I’ve always thought Musk’s greatest talent was in, what can I call it, body language attention. Leaning it to the body language and words of the persons he’s trying to sell his product to. He’s great at that. Really. Great at picking up the body language and words of the people he’s trying to sell his products to. But… as far as deliveries… um… may not so much. / ;)
I think that what you are describing is a snake oil salesman. But then again, I have never been a fan of Musk much less a fanboi-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_oil
Elon and Trump think they are productive economic rationalists … everyone else should be like them or die as its the natural order …
Maybe DOGE is just trying to manifest. This guy was able to survive two months without SS. Some people won’t. Maybe some people already have died.
I do like Chris Riddell as an artist, but his subject matter in the Guardian of late has been insane.
Russia is in the position to negotiate because they’re winning. No idea what sort of damage is being alleged at the back of the bear. Ukraine needs to accept Russia’s position because it doesn’t have a choice. I do not understand why the English go stark raving looney when it comes to this topic.
Proves my point, artists today have zero understanding of certain areas but strong opinions on those.
Whilst I know only little of the Guardian´s artwork these caricatures appear to be extremely self-serving. Seems comparable to Germany. True high quality political caricatures have witty double meaning and are directed at the domestic institutions. Eventually it´s shocking to compare them to WWII. As nothing has changed in the messaging and flatness of repeating government ideology.
re: Chris Hedges / Gaza / genocide fascism as history
good text/speech by him (albeit not new in all points):
On the Precipice of Darkness
Normalizing genocide and the new world order
40 min.
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/chris-hedges-on-the-precipice-of
“This was a talk I gave at the Sanctuary for Independent Media. Thank you to them for hosting me, and allowing my team to upload this talk I gave to The Chris Hedges Report.”
p.s. for sake of completeness, of course Rabin was mad too. Hedges has been mentioning him since Oct. 2023 and in comparison to what has been going on Rabin of course appears like better times. But he was a supremacist as all Israeli leaders have been. Hedges knows this of course. But I feel the necessity of reminding of it.