Man charged with stealing massive amounts of LEGOs from multiple Bay Area Targets KRON 4
Hello, Brave New World The Baffler
Climate/Environment
‘Literally Eat Sh*t’: Supreme Court Strikes Down EPA Clean Water Rule Common Dreams
Los Angeles County sues Southern California Edison over Eaton Fire KTLA
Pandemics
What Climate Change Means for Bird Flu—And the Soaring Price of Eggs The Energy Mix
Bird flu spread is ‘slowing down,’ California officials say Politico
Avian flu cases continue to rise across the San Joaquin Valley, and it’s not just among birds KVPR
Air, surface, and wastewater surveillance of SARS-CoV-2; a multimodal evaluation of COVID-19 detection in a built environment Nature. From the Abstract: “In this study we determined the applicability and limitations of wastewater, indoor high-touch surfaces, in-room air, and rooftop exhaust air sampling methods for detecting SARS-CoV-2 in a real world building occupied by residents recently diagnosed with COVID-19.” And: “Our research demonstrates that aerosol sampling can detect COVID-19 positive individuals in a real world lobby setting during very short occupancy periods. We demonstrate the effectiveness of rooftop exhaust aerosol, surface, and wastewater environmental surveillance in monitoring viral load in building occupants, both at the building scale and with ventilation zone-level resolution for aerosols. We provide actionable data for researchers, health officials and building managers who seek to determine which monitoring method is best for their building or study.”
The Koreas
Errant bombs fall on village, injure 7 during US-ROK drills against North Korea NK News
Japan
Japan brushes aside U.S. demand to boost defense budget to 3% of GDP Kyodo News
China?
China’s ‘Two Sessions’ places greater emphasis on Taiwan integration: Experts Focus Taiwan
Is Trump’s abrupt turn on Ukraine giving Taiwan jitters as China vows to seize the island? CBS News
China’s tech leapfrog: Time to lead? ThinkChina. Commentary:
The defense tech guys are way too eager to go to war with China pic.twitter.com/YRqoQbwgCV
— Jacob Silverman (@SilvermanJacob) March 4, 2025
China Is Secretly Worried Trump Will Win on Trade WSJ
What’s ‘involution’ and why is it worrying China’s policymakers? Channel News Asia
Old Blighty
India
Washington’s Damocles Sword Over Chabahar Port Brings Together Indian, Taliban Envoys In Tehran The Wire
US eyes zero tariff on cars in India trade deal as Tesla entry nears: Report Deccan Herald
A Network of Agents in India Is Driving Job Scams and Illegal Migration New Lines Magazine
The Foreign Hand In Dhaka Open the Magazine
Syraqistan
Exclusive: U.S. holding secret talks with Hamas Axios
Trump warns Gazans ‘you are dead’ if captives not freed The New Arab
Going back to prison – for the sixth time.
Half a year behind bars for refusing to take part in Israel’s crimes.No to genocide. No to oppression. No to occupation. No to apartheid.
We refuse to hold a weapon. Will you refuse to supply it? https://t.co/oBPhVjt6fC pic.twitter.com/9qBmdLUU9Y
— איתמר גרינברג Itamar Greenberg (@itamar_green) March 3, 2025
Africa
Ending Aid Dependency: The Tax Edition Grieve Chelwa, Africa Watch
New Not-So-Cold War
Top Trump allies hold secret talks with Zelenskyy’s Ukrainian opponents Politico
After days of coaching, Zelenskyy seeks a path to Trump’s good graces New York Times
US Cuts Intel and Aid to Ukraine: Beginning of the End, or Just More Flimflam? Simplicius
A different kind of security guarantee for Ukraine Responsible Statecraft
Brief Summary from the Front on March 5, 2025 Marat Khairullin Substack
European Disunion
Europe’s Face-Saving Theater on Ukraine Consortium News
‘Shadow fleets’ and subaquatic sabotage: are Europe’s undersea internet cables under attack? The Guardian
EU Commission delays announcing plan to phase out Russian energy imports Kathimerini
Germany considering how to disrupt restoration of Nord Stream 2 – Bild RBC-Ukraine
Macron proposes French nuclear extension, Ukraine troop deployment Le Monde
Europe must trim its welfare state to build a warfare state FT
German stocks, borrowing costs surge after historic budget announcement Euractiv
Merz Plots To Bypass German Parliament In 1 Trillion Rearmament Scheme European Conservative
The BSW should have the election reviewed Thomas Fazi
Trump 2.0
83,000 VA workers targeted for layoffs by August Stars and Stripes
Education Dept looks to reassign work to other agencies ahead of Trump EO ‘eliminating’ it Federal News Network
Critics Ask If Trump and Musk Are ‘Intentionally Crashing the Economy’ Common Dreams
Musk to House Republicans: DOGE ‘can’t bat a thousand all the time’ Politico
They’re going to steal as much as they possibly can from us until we stop them. https://t.co/vP7fzSwfEt
— Read Starting Somewhere (@JPHilllllll) March 5, 2025
***
Trump’s ‘little disturbance’ Michael Roberts’ blog
Michigan automakers get break on Trump tariffs — for now Bridge Michigan
***
Judge issues preliminary injunction blocking Trump cuts to NIH research overhead payments STAT
Supreme Court rejects Trump administration’s push to rebuke judge over foreign aid freeze AP
Judges face rise in threats as Elon Musk blasts them over rulings Reuters
Crises Of Democracy 3 Quarks Daily
Hamilton Cancels Planned Kennedy Center Run Due to Trump Takeover Playbill
GOP Funhouse
Senate Republicans Effectively Legalized Debanking Drop Site
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
DOJ to appeal court decision ruling broad cell phone tower searches are unconstitutional The Record
Crapification
Capitalism ALSO doesn’t want to make spaces TOO pleasant or friendly anymore to prevent loitering and to up their turnover time. They want things to be pleasant enough for you to come in and buy something, but unpleasant enough so you want to leave relatively quickly
— Chris Alvino (@ChrisAlvino) March 3, 2025
AI
AI Chatbots Can Cushion the High School Counselor Shortage — But Are They Bad for Students? The Markup
Maybe cancel that ChatGPT therapy session – doesn’t respond well to tales of trauma The Register
***
OpenAI reportedly plans to charge up to $20,000 a month for specialized AI ‘agents’ TechCrunch
New Palantir venture targets finance industry’s AI spending Semafor
Cellebrite Is Using AI to Summarize Chat Logs and Audio from Seized Mobile Phones 404 Media
World’s first “Synthetic Biological Intelligence” runs on living human cells New Atlas
Healthcare?
‘I just did surgery on myself.’ Michigan dentist shortage leaves some in lurch Bridge Michigan
Imperial Collapse Watch
Trump’s ‘Make Shipbuilding Great Again’ Order Calls for Wholesale Overhaul of U.S. Maritime Industry USNI News
U.S. Navy Rejects Lockheed Martin’s Sixth Generation Fighter Design: Which Firm Will Prevail? Military Watch
The Bezzle
Trump crypto reserve risks undermining Congress’ industry-friendly plans Semafor
SEC drops case against Coinbase — a win for crypto or payback for donations? Coin Telegraph
Buying a $250 Residency Card From a Tropical Island Let Me Bypass U.S. Crypto Laws 404 Media
Class Warfare
Why Class Matters ZZ’s Blog
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
137 comments
Comments are closed.
“US eyes zero tariff on cars in India trade deal as Tesla entry nears: Report”
I don’t see what the problem is. India is simply trying to Make India Great again. And how are they doing it with their car industry? Why with tariffs of course which is right out of the Trump playbook. This is being done to help out Musk introduce Teslas to India but will they be able to compete? Any Tesla made in the US would have to compete with Indian-manufactured cars which have cheaper labour costs. But there is a flip side. Trump believes in reciprocality with his tariffs regime, right? And the US is demanding that India brings down their tariffs down to zero or just above. But does that mean that India will be able to import their cheap cars into the US and pay no tariffs either? What if India says that if they have to do this for the US, they will do it for China as well so Musk’s cars will have to compete with Chinese EVs in India. Good luck with that one.
And where in all this subsidizing elite billionaires like Musk is MACA – Make Automobiles Cheap Again? Why do we have to suffer lower living standards so that Musk & Co can complete to become the first trillionarie? Noticeablely reducing vehicle prices would help a lot of working folks.
Maybe he’ll be distracted by the very fast increase in shipbuilding, which is maybe just self-driving nuclear subs?
Musk’s career is full of overpriced vaporware, of which the more viable stuff is only barely viable because of SV stupid money and massive government subsidies. I really wouldn’t count on him to deliver anything cheap or high quality. He says himself that he doesn’t bat a thousand.
Based on the re-dos, lies, and buster y misrepresentations, I would say Musk may actually bat 0
You want a vehicle from musk? Look at the cybertruck
“Overpriced vaporware” reminded me of early days of Bill Gates. In IT circles term vaporware was actually used to refer to “brand new revolutionary” Windows version which was “just about to be released” for years. It still turned out to be inferior to already existing OS/2, but it didn’t matter because it still made mucho dinero, all the dinero. Oracle (Larry Ellison) is also very overpriced, though not really vaporware. Those billionaire success stories seem way too similar.
Here’s one for the war on cash department – Monopoly is removing paper money from the game and will now rely on an app for banking.
I predict people will soon be buying up all the old games and hoarding Monopoly money as it’s face value becomes greater than its US$ equivalent. And that app will be hacked yesterday.
‘Hey, kids. The power has gone out but at least we can play some board games to pass the time. Oh, look – there is a Monopoly set. We can play that for hours. Wait – it’s the new version. And no power means no internet so that app won’t work. Battleship anyone?’
Notes make lousy board game components because they’re harder to handle than tokens or chits, but replacing them with an app is a stunningly bad idea – not least because of the likelihood that Hasbro decides to abandon the app at some point in the not too distant future, and then your game doesn’t have any way to track your money.
Well it’s not like Hasbro has a history of spying on kids. Oh, wait-
https://nypost.com/2016/09/13/toy-makers-have-been-spying-on-kids-across-the-country/
“the likelihood that Hasbro decides to abandon the app at some point in the not too distant future”
But meanwhile, look at the opportunity to require a subscription for the app to continue functioning… Buy the game, and then pay to be able to play it!
You gotta wonder who Hasbro will sell the “data” generated from this “app” to, and what conclusions about “human behavior” whoever buys it will swear to god it demonstrates.
I suppose the next Monopoly “innovation” will be that instead of giving each player $200 when they pass Go!, the app will “lend” the money to each player, with the Tophat paying 0% or negative interest and the Dog paying 28.9%, “compounded daily.”
Well, isn’t that the point of the game — to teach young players the workings of modern capitalism?
It’s worse than you know, not only has paper money been removed, but thanks to DOGE actions, only certain players get $200 credited to their account after passing GO, and the railroads have been merged with Amtrak.
Maybe the new Monopoly will include ways to hack your opponent’s digital currency and dissappear/take their digital cash, to teach the youngins about the world their growing up in. “Banks” replaced by crypto websites, gas stations by battery charging docks, low income property by toxic waste dumps and homeless encampments on public lands.
I played DC Monopoly one time, and only learned after the game was started that Senators and Congresspeople had bought up all the real estate with the exception of the railroads, which frankly nobody wanted and I can’t blame them. The highlight of playing was landing on Chance or Community Chest, or hopefully a jail stint, as you had no opportunity @ landing on a politician’s haunt full of hotels while in the pokey.
Ugh – very sloppy before I had my coffee. Misspelled possessive, and obviously its (not it’s) face value won’t increase. Meant to say that its value will become greater than the face value US$ equivalent.
FFS…not platforms mediating playtime as well.
I bought a deck a playing cards the other day. I hadn’t played a game of solitaire in a while. It was one of my winding down activities in the past. I refused to play on the computer.
Eh, play it the real way. My friends and I have played it with real money, but 10 cents on the dollar. Everyone in for $150, winner take all.
“Let’s make it interesting….”
We used to play monopoly for real money too — we thought that we invented it! To mostly eliminate luck, landing on a property didn’t entitle you to buy, it was auctioned. It is a great game — I’m going to see if I can get a game going again.
Also, three-handed bridge, for money of course — you bid for the blind hand, basing bids on what you hold and what is revealed by how the other two players bid, and the successful bidder shifts to the chair opposite the dummy hand. The unsuccessful bidders become ad hoc partners to defeat the bid. Everyone uses what bidding has revealed to play their hands. When bidding, you don’t know who’s bid will prevail, so you have to more or less bid so you will be able to defend with your “partner”. It is amazing how accurately good players can estimate what the hands, including the blind hand holds.
The actual rule:
“When you land on an unowned property in Monopoly, you have the option to buy it directly from the bank at its printed price; if you choose not to buy it, the property is then auctioned off to the highest bidder among the players. ” You can bid as well – try to pick it up for under the printed price.
Monopoly can get intense – the bulk of the game is the trading – alliances made and broken, etc. to try to form your own monopolies while blocking others from doing so. Lots of backstabbing.
I used to have roommates in a place I owned, and we’d play. One night one of my roomies came home and watched us for a minute then said, “Oh, I need to get you the rent – I’ll write a check now.” One of my roomie/players said, “Hey, Sardonia is kicking our ass at the REAL monopoly game! Screw him!” They ganged up on me. No monopolies for me and I was the first one out.
This a terrible decision on one level. The physical game needs a physical money in the sane way it needs a board and counters and houses….
However, I have been interested to find that Monopoly is actually an interesting game if you play it on a games console (e.g. the Switch). All of the tiresome bits are handled by an impartial servant! The banking, the rent collection, the gaol, the auctions (who bothers IRL but these are the best bit and completely change the game dynamic away from hoping to land on things into driving your opponents mad and broke with greed by bidding against them or denying them the option by buying it) and just generally enforcing the rules. It goes a lot faster and gets more vicious and rewards the gambler and the psychoanalyst more. It’s the best way to play.
But you would prize my other board games only out of my cold dead hands.
TLDR: Monopoly has always been a computer game in spirit, not a board game.
All board games can be played on a computer, and there is even a piece of software called Tabletop Simulator that enables that. Licencing rights are a problematic, but that doesn’t stop people from playing all kinds of board games over the Internet, and making Youtube videos about it.
“Security guarantee” for Kiev.
The town cannot even keep a name!
Give Kiev the same “security guarantees” US gave Belgrade in 1999!
The rump Kievan SSR is product of USSR!
The truth of the matter is that – realistically – there is only one country capable of giving the Ukraine a iron-clad security guarantee and that country is Russia.
There is no future in fighting Russians in Russia. Logistics decides everytime. The U.S. is a fraction its Vietnam adventure self.
That said Ukraine is no more a country than Yugoslavia.
Ukrainians would beg to differ.
In a video, there was these Ukrainian soldiers going through a school when they spotted a map of the Ukraine from about 1900 and were perplexed by what they saw asking ‘Where’s Ukraine?’ Most of what we consider the modern-day Ukraine was only bolted on in the decades after hence their bewilderment. And some countries such as Hungary, Romania and Poland want the parts of their countries that were carved off them and added to the Ukraine back again thank you very much.
You mean some Ukrainians would beg to differ. They would also beg for money, and praise Bandera too.
It cannot be said loud and often enough. Myself, I almost feel hoarse for repeating this, for me, self evident truth…
You mean the same “security guarantees” US gave Belgrade in 1944 as an ally.
1992 “NATO will not move one inch east” when USSR evacuate East Europe pull Red Army out of East German and disband occupation zones.
Balkanize Germany, France and UK. That would assure Kiev.
An extra antidote: A duck nested in an elementary school during a vacation period, what happened next will shock you (or at least make you go “awww, cute!”)
https://mastodon.social/@benroyce/114113913155903553
Make way!
Made my day.
thank you very much. -a.v.
Re: Do-it yourself dentistry
There will be a supply whenever there is demand, but perhaps at a service level you won’t like.
Watch private equity sink its fangs into dental practices, suck the blood out like a vampire, and disposes of the corpses.
Meanwhile, black-market “dentists” will spring up, unlicensed and maybe working out of the basement of their homes. This phenomenon is common in Latin America. I remember a Colombian friend in the 90s
who had a patient chair in his basement … I asked him “Why?” and he mumbled something about a shady past.
Does anyone watch the British show ‘Would I Lie To You?’ Bob Mortimer had a story about doing his own dentistry. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1JR-9Z5ORE
Bob Mortimer on WILTY is pure comic gold. A must watch.
When I saw that headline about do-it-yourself dentistry, I immediately thought of that do-it-yourself surgery scene from “Master and Commander”-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WN_0mGBf1E8 (3:38 mins)
I hope that Musk has not seen that film. Wouldn’t want him getting any policy ideas.
Great movie. My favorite scene is this one though:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7c0-r2gNDM
Empire of the Mind has an excellent analysis of the movie, worth watching/listenint to (guy has a nice voice):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMv_LOGMZN0
Will we need a Right-to-Repair law for self dentistry?
Only if our bodies become the legal property of big tech …
Stories like this always remind me of the extraordinary foresight of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil. Most films are about some communist dystopian world, but Brazil is decidedly about a *capitalist* world.
This is a chain of thoughts, but as a matter of fact, Brazil (the actual country) has excellent dentistry schools, and you can find well-qualified Brazilian dentists in other countries — such as Portugal, where the “Brazilian dentist” has long been a cliché, just like the “Polish plumber” in France.
Reminds me of this ‘Would I Lie To You’ segment. A hilarious take on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1JR-9Z5ORE
I did a root canal on myself the other day and saved $2,600!
I just invested in Dremel….
I prefer a telescoping lug wrench…
Slightly different situation, but I did some dentistry on myself when I was about 6 or 7 years old. My mother brought me in to get a tooth pulled, they gave me novocain, and then asked me to wait while the dentist checked on another patient. It took a while for him to come back and I got bored waiting, and since my mouth was numb, I yanked the tooth out myself and handed it to the dentist when he came back in.
Despite my assistance, my parents were still charged full price.
“Watch private equity sink its fangs into dental practices…”
https://adanews.ada.org/ada-news/2024/august/private-equity-affiliation-among-dentists-increases/
Private equity affiliation among dentists increases
Change especially affects dental specialists
Quite a list of headlines about DOGE, decline, and the panic at Euro Central.
In contemplating, from afar, from the Undisclosed Region, the current economic and social travails of the U S of A, which are leading to stagnation, I think of cookies.
It’s something like the moment of Proust’s madeleine, which led him to write a masterpiece. In the case of the U S of A, the cookies are dystopian.
In understanding the impetus behind Trump and Musk, and gang, and don’t rule out Nancy and Hillary and Bill, the trend is of long standing. What is going on in the U S of A is what happens when investment banks take over businesses and loot them. The company doesn’t have to have a groovy Tolkienesque name like Lady Galadriel Mystique of Plundering. The trend is more pervasive.
The symptom that hit me is going after (1) pensions and (2) basic services. These are “classic” symptoms. The beancounters come in and loot the pension plan (Social Security Administration). They then sell the factory in some fancy lease-back deal (post office, Amtrak, air-traffic control). Then comes economic misery for the many and glorious greed for the few.
Thinking back, as someone of Sicilian descent in the U S of A, I was brought up with Stella D’Oro cookies. Here’s info on the horrors the workers there had to undergo:
https://cuadernosfem.blogspot.com/2009/05/stella-doro-no-contract-no-cookies.html
Many, many untoward details about misbehavior by management. Stella D’Oro was an early symptom.
Wikipedia’s potted history is of some help, too:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stella_D%27oro
Note how only three years of looting were needed to turn the de-unionized, de-workplaced wreckage over to some snack conglomerate.
As a child of Chicago, I was also brought up on Salerno cookies. Again, the years and economy have not been kind to another family business:
https://vanishedchicagoland.blog/2019/06/15/salerno-cookies-the-ones-we-truly-remember-and-miss-so-much/
Instead of the panic I see on BookFace, it may be better to think cookies. I see very little evolution from the 1990s in Musk’s tactics or in the tactics of looter/enablers like Thiel and Andreessen. I’m sure that crude hacking of the accounting department and of internal systems went on at Stella D’Oro, too.
Yet I may have to submit this comment to Vicki Cookies for an Official Cookie Reaction, to see if this line of thought, metaphorical, economic, and political, can hold.
Please advise.
Thinking back, as someone of Sicilian descent in the U S of A, I was brought up with Stella D’Oro cookies
Although Calabrese, not too far from Sicily, we had Stella D’Oro cookies growing up in the U.S., at least until my dad switched to Milano cookies…now I think they are both made with palm oils and other nasty ingredients and would never purchase them…weird how cookies that are imported from Italy all seem to have Palm Oil.
Often a food company makes different foods for the American market and for the European market. Same brand, same label, it looks all the same, but the Americans get the food with all the ingredients that the EU has banned. It’s also why people’s health changes especially in weight, but not only, as they move to and from the United States and other countries especially Europe, even if they are supposed eating the same food.
Guardian article on Israel’s use of AI against Palestinians – highlighting AI’s active danger of becoming a real life Big Brother:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/06/israel-military-ai-surveillance
Which seems obvious in retrospect – that AI’s primary use will be as the Mass Brains behind Mass Surveillance – turning what was an unmanageable waterfall of information, which could only be partially processed by human effort and limited pattern recognition, into a manageable stream of near-fully-processable intelligence on everything/everyone.
The plot development here seems like we will eventually require embedding into AI some ethics routines such as “thou shalt not kill”.
As I recall, this was an instruction by some guy, I forget which, who on receiving it on divine authority, tried to embed it in an algorithmic program called Judaism 1.0, possibly Halakha. I know it was there because I admired the code snippet, not sure whatever happened to it, or if the program/application still exists.
“OpenAI reportedly plans to charge up to $20,000 a month for specialized AI ‘agents’”
DeepSeek: ‘Hey, we’ll do it for twenty bucks a month.’
It’s a race by Wall St. money-grubbers to push 1000 lbs of shit in a 500 lb sack out the door, before DeepSeek undercuts the market.
And just think…OpenAI most likely has some connections that are part of the looting crew in DC.
Govt contracts?
Remember, though, that Musk hates “Scam Altman.”
Would not be surprised to see an Executive Order banning OpenAI from any government contracts … xAI, for the win!
Me: (puts popcorn in microwave)
Musk’s only reason for hating “Scam Altman” would be that Musk fears Altman muscling in on Musk’s rackets or Musk’s dreams of future rackets. Of course Musk will state various other “reasons”.
Everyone who buys that gets exactly what they deserve when they use the results.
Mikel’s comment about government contracts seems all too likely.
>Hello, Brave New World The Baffler
Transhumanists see the body as an avatar, something to be customized freely with the laissez-faire of The Sims… AI-based protein design company Profluent released an open-source gene editor last year called OpenCRISPR-1, which allows a user to create synthetic molecules not existing in nature with the power to edit human DNA in specific ways.
If the technology of splitting the atom failed to harness resultant power for unlimited, clean energy, I doubt “the future of biohacking” will lead to a net benefit for humanity, though specific gains/goods from biotech are certainly possible…brave new world indeed.
>World’s first “Synthetic Biological Intelligence” runs on living human cells New Atlas
These two articles fit nicely together…ethics?, damn ethics full speed ahead Admiral Shiva.
The ethics of this technology has been front and center for Cortical – that breakthrough 2022 paper sparked plenty of debate around it, particularly in the area of human “consciousness” and “sentience…
SBI is inherently more natural than AI, as it utilizes the same biological material – neurons – that underpin intelligence in living organisms,” Cortical added. “By leveraging neurons as a computational substrate, SBI has the potential to create systems that exhibit more organic and natural forms of intelligence compared to traditional silicon-based AI”
Reading this, I could see a drunken, late-night bet leading to the Black Death being combined with the common cold just to see if it could be done. Hilarity ensues.
The Netflix series The Good Doctor has an episode where a dude wishing to have eternal live Crisperd himself and nearly dies because it has rather some unforeseen side-effects. His girlfriend gets sensible and pulls out of all of it.
>US Cuts Intel and Aid to Ukraine: Beginning of the End, or Just More Flimflam? Simplicius
…I believe it’s too early to celebrate. All the above conjecture depends entirely on what kind of ‘pause’ in aid this really is. Trump may just be bringing Zelensky into line, and intends to resume the aid shortly, even if partially. Of course, either way it does not bode particularly well for Ukraine—I am simply cautioning against celebrating an immediate collapse of the AFU.
Simplicius is more optimistic than Brian Berletic, the latter is of the opinion that U.S. policy will continue on in the approximate trajectory, with distractionary moves, as it was when Biden was in office. Next couple of weeks/months will tell who is right.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0Ot-_j4Bfo
U.S. policy have been on the same approximate trajectory since forever, with occasional distractionary moves. Why would it change now, or ever? Imperial ambitions never went away, quite the contrary.
There are now more than 230 tankers on the sanction list for carrying crude for Russians to the markets… double than in January…
I guess a “approximate trajectory” is a reverse Nixon. It’s not irony. At least that’s a damn plan. Another very different thing is that, journalism, as Galeano says, usually turns the trivial into important and the important into invisible.
“EU Commission delays announcing plan to phase out Russian energy imports”
Could it have something to do with the fact that recently the Baltic States freed themselves of the tyranny of Russian energy to much fanfare – only to see energy prices now doubling if not tripling in prices causing some businesses having to shut down operations? Maybe some economist grabbed a pencil and writing out some calculations on the back of an envelope, showed that without Russian energy, that this would happen for the entire EU. Trump criticizes the EU for still importing Russian energy but so does the US – which includes Russian uranium which is also a form of energy.
>Europe must trim its welfare state to build a warfare state FT
The reason Merkel wanted some welfare trimmings was to preserve Europe’s “way of life”. The mission now is to defend Europe’s lives. How, if not through a smaller welfare state, is a better-armed continent to be funded?….The purpose is survival. Europe must never again find itself in a position where the likes of US vice-president JD Vance have life-and-death power over it. All other priorities are secondary.
Great to see Double Bind being used so ineffectually in FT. Love seeing the use of logical fallacies in advocating their foreign policy position on Ukraine. This article gives 2 for the price of 1, reducing public social programs and ramping up war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_bind
I think the trend is well described in a comment by Matthew from yesterday’s “Might the US Be About to Fall Off an Economic Cliff?” The cost of empire has for most of us reached a point of diminishing returns.
“to build a warfare state.”
Ukraine: it’s still the money laundering capitol of the west. Ursula will find a way to launder that money into the bank accounts of her giant defense contractor friends. / ;)
“the purpose is survival”… of the EU elites gravy train and control.
Here’s a quote from the article about not batting a thousand every time.
How are these people not called out on such BS? Norman has been in office, he has a clue or two about programs and spending. Ran through his introduced and sponsored bills list – he focuses on spending and is absolutely performing here. Just continuing the right-wing hard press on the need for a DOGE audit to find waste, fraud, abuse, dead employees still getting paid, and staff using your tax money to eat dogs and cats on the job!
They are not eager for war, but for money. They need more money.
The comments regarding past events are quite stunning in the Responsible Statecraft article and make it very difficult to take the author seriously (do the authors think the readership of Responsible Statecraft is unaware of what happened at Maidan and up to Feb 2022?):
“This is especially so, given that the mere “assurances” of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum proved inadequate to the task of blunting Russian revanchism.”
“After more than a decade of war and three years of full-scale aggression, Kyiv understandably wants ironclad guarantees . . . ”
One thing you never hear about in any MSM article or article like this is “what do the people of the Donbass and Crimea want?” They are obviously invisible to the PMC or, more likely, guilty by association by speaking the same language as the person who stole the 2016 election from The Chosen One.
‘what do the people of the Donbass and Crimea want?’
On our TV news, they are only ever referred to as “Russian-occupied territory” and that is it. Case closed.
>Summary of Episode 3 – The Fed Independence Lie – John Titus
During the pandemic…Congress abandoned its constitutional duty and gave the Fed exactly what its “independence” campaign asked for–unfettered freedom to undertake “operational activities” and buy assets. Consequently, the Fed went on a $5 trillion asset purchasing spree that showed up directly in bank deposit accounts and caused the worst inflation since the 1970s.
Excellent series. I’m flabbergasted at the failure (rejection) of the Fed to disclose the details of their “asset purchases” …and why the hell is the Fed buying assets? As good and simplified as this series is, a lot of what and how the Fed operates is opaque to me.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-158476531?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
That’s just during the pandemic.
Some of that or variations of it also occurred during the GFC era.
I see now that the writers also gave a shout out to the GFC…
The Fed report holding every Thursday/Friday the graph on Friday
The view from 2008 is interesting.
M1 and M2 grew as well.
Reverse Repo reported 1:15 eastern time daily.
> and why the hell is the Fed buying assets
As I understand it, when the Fed considers it important to influence the bond yield curve at longer durations than “very short”, it will purchase longer-dated bonds (to drive that part of the yield curve down) or sell longer-dated bonds in its inventory (to drive that part of the yield curve up).
As far as I know, the Fed has not extended unconventional monetary policy to the point of purchases of equity assets, though I think that Ben Bernanke theorized that Central Bank operations of that kind might be appropriate in some circumstances (IIRC, this was in reflection on Bank of Japan operations in the face of the long Japanese deflation).
Avian flu detected in multiple cats in NJ. One was euthanized :-(.
https://www.nj.gov/health/news/2025/approved/20250228a.shtml
Elsewhere in NJ, the recreation area around the private Merrill Creek reservoir is still closed due to the virus found in dead birds in the area.
I’m so torn. We love our bird feeders (here in NJ) and seeing them come by every day. But I’m wondering if we should pause feeding while this outbreak is ongoing. Very few outside cats in our neighborhood though. Definitely less than what I remember in our neighborhood growing up.
Sadly, squirrels love bird feeders too.
Here in Hawaii the local Audubon Society recommended taking down feeders (and in a private email, baths) after bird flu was discovered for the first time in a couple of backyard flocks. The thinking is that the flu is from wild birds and might be spread at places birds gather. At least over here birds have some food year-round; tougher decision in places where they need help getting through the winter…
Reports here in California too, apparently linked to giving cats commercial raw food containing chicken.
Very interesting post from Judge Napolitano yesterday where he announced that he is on his way to Russia to interview Lavrov.
A couple things come to mind. Firstly, Russia apparently has zero interest in communicating via conventional US media. First it was Putin meeting with Tucker Carlson, and now this. CNN must be having a sad. And secondly, last week Napolitano had Jeffrey Sachs on and thanked him for speaking out for peace, and Napolitano also noted that Trump was listening to his show. So now perhaps Lavrov will speak to Trump’s people though Napolitano. Are we seeing a rerouting all those proverbial “back channels”, with the public being included ? Interesting times.
Would you waste your time by giving an interview to CNN?
Only if I was promoting a book.
I briefly imagined Dana Bash interviewing Lavrov. The comedy sketch writes itself. / ;)
Lavrov and Putin have past experience with interviews with Western media that tried to press the Western narrative on them. It was like watching small dogs nipping at their (Lavrov and Putin’s) ankles, and several times they went after their interviewers for bullstuff (As Joe Bob Briggs would say). All the examples I saw had Lavrov and Putin losing their patience with Western lies and eating their lunch/wiping the floor with their interviewers.
Maybe the non-conventional media can be the better way to share other viewpoints to the west.
(An aside. At a local Buddhist temple a few years ago I was talking with a retired US civil engineer who helped build military bases in South East Asia during the Vietnam war period. He mentioned it was a shame the US did not have a diplomat on the same level as Lavrov.)
Bird flu spread is ‘slowing down,’ California officials say Politico
Avian flu cases continue to rise across the San Joaquin Valley, and it’s not just among birds KVPR
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When I see Avian flu
What do I see
Poultry
Poultry in motion
Poultry in motion
Walkin’ by my side
Avian H5N1 locomotion
Keeps my eyes open wide
Poultry in motion
See the depopulation take sway
A wave out on the ocean
Could never move that way
I loathe every virus movement
And there’s nothing I could do to make it change
Standards need improvement
But there is much too much to rearrange
Poultry in motion
Way too close to me
A virus of commotion
Chickens dying not so gracefully
Whoa
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa
Whoa
Poultry in motion
See the depopulation take sway
A wave out on the ocean
Could never move that way
I loathe every virus movement
And there’s nothing I could do to make it change
Standards need improvement
But there is much too much to rearrange
Poultry in motion
All that I abhor
No chance of a solution
Could make up for
Whoa
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa
Poetry in Motion, by Johnny Tillotson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oy_ArpznZUs
When I saw the phrase “poultry in motion” my first thought was that you were doing a parody on “She blinded me with science” by Thomas Dolby. There is a line in that song about “poetry in motion, when she puts her eyes om me”
That 50’s song must have been the inspiration. The Thomas Dolby song is fair game, but it would have been a better candidate for your word-smithing during COVID when all the screamers were saying “follow the science!”
That Dolby tune is begging for a parody.
I dunno mrsyk. The music video is off the hook!
https://youtu.be/V83JR2IoI8k?si=4rnw2RT73iruXJQQ
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yr24saz7ZtQ/
Weird Al sings She Blinded Me With Science
Heh heh heh.
This is great.
Thanks.
Chicken Run (2000) – Official Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEOfT7hUcDs
RE: Man charged with stealing massive amounts of LEGOs from multiple Bay Area Targets
When owning a home becomes unaffordable for the majority of people, you need to get creative. Sounds like this guy might be starting a DIY movement. He should not do any jail time, but instead be feted as an “innovator”. That seems to work for the rest of the crooks who’ve been looting our society for years and have now gone into overdrive.
Lego house? Did somebody say Lego house?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzYWaQjBUB4 (2:08 mins)
“Germany considering how to disrupt restoration of Nord Stream 2 – Bild’
Reminds me of the story of the factory worker who accidentally fell into a huge whiskey vat in Scotland. They tried to save him but he fought them off bravely.
Poodles are suffering from hegemon whiplash as Trump threatens a 180 (or if you are Baerbock a 360) on Russia.
Of course when it’s Trump a 360 is always possible. Will he forgive stubble boy Zelenski?
Stubble boy’s on-screen time has runneth out. They are already casting a replacement for the next season.
Elon wears his political war chest like a crown
He calls his satellites Starlink
‘Cause he likes the name
And he sends them to the finest orbits above town
Elon, Elon likes his money
He makes a lot, they say
Spends his days counting
In a Tesla by the motorway
He was born in Pretoria came here via Canada, eh
When the New York Times said, ‘Elon is dead to us
And the war’s begun’
Oh, the old school media is a son of a gun today
And he shall be Elon
And he shall be a good man
And he shall be Elon
In tradition with the rocket plan
And he shall be Elon
And he shall be a good man
He shall be Elon
Elon sells Space-X in DC town
His family business thrives
They blow up occasionally
As he sits on the porch swing watching them fly
And Jesus H Christ on a cracker, he wants to go to Mars
Leave the Earth far behind
Take a rocket and go sailing
While Elon, Elon slowly dies
And he shall be Elon
And he shall be a good man
And he shall be Elon
In trajectory with the DOGE departure plan (whooo!)
And he shall be Elon
And he shall be a good man
He shall be Elon
And he shall be Elon
And he shall be a good man
And he shall be Elon
In trajectory with the DOGE departure plan (whooo!)
And he shall be Elon
And he shall be a good man
He shall be Elon
Levon, by Elton John
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEgEmTgAEUk
In another Trump era development Steak ‘n Shake returns to beef tallow french fries earning the endorsement of Elon the multi opinioned.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/steak-n-shake-goes-maha/
My brother, who mourns the original McD potato strings, will be pleased. RFK jr says they are healthier.
Had French fries cooked in horse fat in Belgium once, Wilbur!
Eat horse flesh!
Cancel that burger.
A horse is a horse of course of course
Unless its the main course, of course.
That is of course,
Unless the Bourse,
Is the famous Mister Fed!
About Mars……not sure even saltines and saviors are going to make that happen.
Los Angeles County sues Southern California Edison over Eaton Fire KTLA
~~~~~~~~~~
Can’t really sue the homeless for having cooking and warming fires that got out of control in crazy Santa Ana winds, well, I mean you could, but where’s the funds in that?
It was interesting to read comments from people blaming the homeless, who were supposedly doing it on purpose, for all the fires in LA instead of the high winds, lack of water, and undermanned fire departments. Really, anything but the whole system for the fires excepting the homeless, which are today’s convenient “evil.”
The homeless aren’t evil, just incredibly careless.
I know that, and you know that, but so many people seem to have it all but hardwired into their brains that homeless = bad and intrinsically so, which in this economy is just unreasonable, unjust, if not just nuts; people have to live somewhere and even Southern California can get awfully chilly at night, then there is the need to cook, and they do not provide brick-lined fireplaces and cook pits for the homeless.
Really, too many people just want the homeless to go away, lie down, and just die especially as the homeless reminds everyone of their own possible fate as the economy gets more oppressive.
Its all part of a vicious cycle we unleashed on ourselves-a tragedy of the commons in that people with nearly nothing took out those with nearly everything, because we allowed so many things to get ridiculously out of whack, combined with drugs and drink addling our untouchables to a good extent.
When you got nothing-you got nothing to lose, you’re invisible now.
Dehumanization is the essence of every supremacist ideology.
A couple of interesting Turleys out today.
This one says that the hold put on the firing of Special Counsel Dellinger may actually enhance rather than reduce Trump’s executive power if the resultant SC appeal eliminates a long standing carve out from the Constitution’s description of executive functions.
https://jonathanturley.org/2025/03/06/d-c-circuit-clears-the-way-for-trump-to-fire-special-counsel/
And here Hunter Biden is claiming poverty and desire for dismissal of lawsuits that he initiated. Those sued may say not so fast and demand their costs. Hunter’s rental home burned up in the LA fires.
https://jonathanturley.org/2025/03/06/a-significant-downturn-and-significant-debt-hunter-biden-claims-financial-distress-in-seeking-to-drop-lawsuit-against-ex-white-house-official/
I read somewhere that original Hunter Etch-a-Sketch art was tragically lost in his rental digs-the horror.
I heard that it was a map to the location where all the fabulous Democrat Party Dry Powder was buried. It seems said Powder has been moved since Gore Vidal’s day.
Was it moved as a part of some gunpowder plot?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ4fDcSo2NI/
Alex Krainer: Macron Warns Russia, Calls for Restraint, Prepares for War
Just the beginning 10 min or so. Krainer erases oligarchs’ responsibility for any of the shit show in the world. Exhibit A of blaming the problems created by oligarchy (as if those EU politicians weren’t servants to any) on “democracy”.
From Joe Lauria’s piece in Consortium News:
I think this is the correct perspective. As Lauria lays out, European leaders has known for years that the war is unwinnable for Ukraine. The US said to send arms and money, so they sent arms and money. Now that the US has changed direction they have to try and sell a losing position to the public, so they are doing the “hold me back, bro” stuff while waiting for the war to end. Then they can blame the result on Trump.
It becomes clearer by the hour this is a huge redistribution scam of European wealth into the lap of the elites.
Now that the Global South has armed itself they turn on their own devising this huge lie of RU being an enemy and so forth. It´s like the Spanish Inquisition (the version without John Cleese unfortunately) and fighting Arabs all over again.
Welcome back to the Middle Ages.
European leaders thought that Russian economy is in tatters, and are shocked by recent turn of events.
RE: ‘Literally Eat Sh*t’: Supreme Court Strikes Down EPA Clean Water Rule
That is an extremely bad development. Article ends with this –
“Campaign for New York Health executive director Melanie D’Arrigo said on social media, “The five Supreme Court justices who voted to weaken the Clean Water Act should be forced to drink a nice tall glass of raw sewage discharge.” ”
That’s how they “fight” these days – social media posts. Maybe wear pink and bring a small sign. Unfortuanetly for D’Arrigo, her remedy has already been tried after the water in Flint, MI was found to be polluted as [family blog], and Barry declared it all A-OK!
Try to tell the Trump-dearanged crowd though that the Donald didn’t cause all of our current problems and that he is merely continuing down a path that was years in the making by members of both parties, and they don’t want to hear it. You can lead a horse to water….
re: German post-elections BSW ballot-issue
report by Multipolar news blog
Voting corrections bring BSW closer to the five percent hurdle
According to the party, the number of incorrect allocations of BSW votes is already in the four-digit range / Member of Parliament: Several large federal states refuse to release polling station data / North Rhine-Westphalia orders a review of all constituencies
March 5, 2025
Berlin.
(multipolar)
In the aftermath of the federal election, there have been increasing indications of the incorrect allocation of BSW votes to the small right-wing conservative party “Alliance Germany” (BD). This was pointed out by BSW MEP Fabio De Masi in several posts on the short message service “X”. In the days following the election, people who had voted for the BSW became aware that their polling station nevertheless recorded zero votes for the Wagenknecht coalition. Instead, the “Alliance Germany” often received a disproportionate share of the vote in the polling stations affected. Those affected then informed the BSW, which is now investigating the cases.
In a recent statement , de Masi assumes that this phenomenon is in the “thousands” nationwide and accounts for at least a third of the 13,400 votes missing to enter the Bundestag . In addition, according to de Masi, some large federal states have so far refused to provide the data of their polling stations. This information is urgently needed for a timely check before the final election result is announced. The check must always be carried out at the local level. “In some cases, district election officials say that checking clear anomalies is too time-consuming or it is too late.” De Masi announced legal consequences for these cases.
The daily newspaper “Westfälischer Anzeiger” reported that on March 4, the North Rhine-Westphalia state election authority asked all constituencies in the state to check whether BSW votes had been counted incorrectly. According to media reports, other small parties such as the MLPD and the Humanist Party also received votes that had actually voted for BSW. In addition, according to De Masi, there is another “common source of error”: ballot papers that did not have a cross on the first vote but only a cross on the second vote were often wrongly declared invalid, he wrote. Since BSW had not put forward a direct candidate in many constituencies, many second votes for BSW were not counted.
BSW member of the Bundestag Andrej Hunko told Multipolar that the magnitude of the mix-up and the false declaration of invalidity was in the mid to upper four-digit range. The closer the final margin of votes for the BSW is to the five percent hurdle, the more “relevant to the mandate” the votes of Germans living abroad that were not cast because postal voting documents were sent out too late would be . In extreme cases, the Federal Constitutional Court could even order new elections, explained Hunko.
A data team from the Frankfurter Rundschau found that there were “anomalies to the detriment of the BSW” in some places and that at the same time the BD had received “surprisingly great support” there. The BD received 0.2 percent of the votes nationwide, but more than two percent in 43 municipalities. There are other municipalities in which the BD performed disproportionately better than in the overall result. In Brecht in Rhineland-Palatinate, the BD received 8.3 percent and the BSW zero percent. In a polling station in Aachen, the BD also received 7.2 percent and the BSW zero percent. Similar discrepancies were recorded in Delmenhorst, Heidelberg, Rostock and Berlin, according to the Frankfurter Rundschau.
The magazine “Der Spiegel” points out that similar mix-ups had already occurred in the 2024 European elections. In the Federal Returning Officer’s correction table for the European elections, it is striking that 1,205 votes were subsequently deducted from the BD and an additional 2,808 votes were added to the BSW. If the BSW votes missing in the preliminary result were counted together with the 1,600 votes that were possibly still incorrectly assigned to the BD in the final result, one would get up to 4,400 votes for the European elections that could have been missing in the preliminary BSW result. As a possible reason for the mix-up, Der Spiegel stated that election officials may have swapped the lines with the two parties when reporting the results from the polling stations.
As in the European elections, the two parties with similar names were placed directly below each other on the ballot paper in the federal election. When Multipolar asked why this known source of error had not been corrected, the press office of the Federal Election Commissioner replied that this was “legally impossible”. According to Section 30 Paragraph 3 of the Federal Election Act, the order of the state lists of parties is based on the number of second votes they received in the last federal election in the state. The other state lists are placed in alphabetical order of the party names.
Thanks for that AG. Perhaps someone should ring up Thierry Breton and see if he has any ideas on how this mix up might have happened.
BERLINER ZEITUNG yesterday with a tiny example:
Federal election: BSW lands ahead of the Left in Brandenburg and wants a new count
The BSW narrowly failed to clear the percentage hurdle and wants to contest the election. In Brandenburg, mistakes were found that resulted in more votes for the Sahra Wagenknecht alliance.
In Brandenburg, the result of the federal election has changed slightly. After minor errors in the counting, the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) moved just ahead of the Left in the final result. After corrections, the BSW received 176,405 second votes, 218 more votes than in the preliminary result, as announced by state election director Josef Nussbaum. The Left received 176,224 second votes, one vote more.
This means that the BSW’s share increases from 10.70 to 10.71 percent, while the Left remains at 10.7 percent. There are no other major changes in the percentage values. Overall, the AfD remains the strongest force, ahead of the SPD and CDU.
German
https://archive.is/3gus0
p.s. How is it possible that errors occure at all…
They had tools that they borrowed from Ursula.
In how far are you not being ironic here…
or I am simply naive???
Something that can be filed under “Zeitgeist Watch”: Cybertrucks were forced out of Monday’s Orpheus parade in New Orleans due to the fact that the crowd’s continual harassment of them became a safety issue.
Basically people were pelting the vehicles with beads and projectiles, booing them loudly, and going up to the vehicles and banging on them. One of the Cybertrucks had a broken window as a result. There were 3 or 4 of them spread throughout the parade and they all exited early.
Typically in a parade you will have parade marshals travel in a classic car, dealership car, jeep, or similar spread out throughout the parade. Parade goers generally ignore them and occasionally they’ll throw candy that kids try to catch. Orpheus made the brain dead decision this year to escort its marshals in Cybertrucks.
Also for context people typically don’t throw their unwanted beads back at floats or cars. There’s always an empty float at the end of the parade for that purpose. The beads collected from that are given to a local charity for sorting and reselling.
Gizmodo’s writeup is good with some more details and videos:
https://gizmodo.com/new-orleans-boos-a-cybertruck-off-a-mardi-gras-parade-breaks-one-of-its-windows-2000571377
Viewpoint from one of the Orpheus Marshals that was in a Cybertruck:
https://www.reddit.com/r/NewOrleans/comments/1j35mx8/a_peek_inside_the_cybertrucks/
Due Dissidence guys shred Dem response to T’s joint address to Congress.
First part of the show. Click out when the subject changes. utube.
Dems BOTCH Speech Response,
https://youtu.be/5p93cRdL-KI?t=668
Thanks … I realized today that the donkeys prefer performative theater over effective counter-measures, like filing a bill to ban funding to Israel and whipping their caucus to support it. I think Lambert coined the proper term: “McResistance.”
Trump, the great bluffer, backing away from DOGE?
https://www.ft.com/content/96783e46-7832-4330-b7b6-21808d0b22d3