Domino effect YouTube
Brutality-Desensitization Process Nearly Complete The Onion (HT Michael T)
Health
Western diets and chronic diseases Nature Medicine
Does intermittent fasting work? Economist
Pandemics
What to know about the new disease outbreaks in central Africa AP
The US may start vaccinating chickens and cows against bird flu New Scientist
How COVID Pushed a Generation of Young People to the Right The Atlantic
Climate
Robotics
Robot Kung Fu:
Kung Fu BOT GAME😘
720° Spin Kick – Hear the Impact! Kung Fu BOT Gameplay RAW. (No Speed-Up)
(Do not imitate, please keep a safe distance from the machine)#Unitree #Kungfu #EmbodiedAI #SpringFestivalGalaRobot #AI #Humanoid #Bipedal #WorldModel #Robot pic.twitter.com/0CCAyvKdKV— Unitree (@UnitreeRobotics) March 4, 2025
China?
Chinese navy ships round out Australian circuit South China Morning Post
This is actually a very important point in the long run.
You can compare it to astronomy: smaller bodies need a stable bigger body to gravitate around if they want to avoid being set on a potentially catastrophic collusion course.
What China is trying to do with the concept of… https://t.co/azgx8GojXo
— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) March 8, 2025
Koreas
South Korea’s gender chasm Nikkei Asia
South Korea’s impeached President Yoon freed from detention but faces ongoing trials CNN
Japan
Japan voices “full” trust in U.S. after Trump questions security pact Kyodo News
Japan’s new 3,000-ton submarine with Harpoon missiles poses threat to China Interesting Engineering
India
Modi and Trump have agreed to advance trade talks The Times of India
Israel v. The Resistance
‘We have nothing left to lose’: Gazans respond to Trump’s warnings Al Jazeera
Gaza ceasefire hits the brick wall of Netanyahu’s agenda Responsible Statecraft
Trump strikes dark tone as he seeks to restart nuclear talks with Iran Politico
Syraqistan
Clashes in Syria between government forces and Assad loyalists AP
New Not-So-Cold War
Ukrainian forces fighting inside Russia are almost surrounded Reuters
🇷🇺🇺🇦 Kiev regime forces surrendering in the Kursk region. pic.twitter.com/ebrtisHVnY
— DD Geopolitics (@DD_Geopolitics) March 9, 2025
European Disunion
Total flop: Scrapping premium at 99.3% unused Klimatgranskaren via machine translation. Micael T: “These EU-misleaders can’t do anything properly.”
Old Blighty
Man holding Palestinian flag scales London’s Big Ben CNN
Shock for UK as Bank of England halves its economic growth prediction Euro News
Africa
Trump’s open door to white South Africans Axios
A tinderbox conflict in Congo is ready to explode Reuters
Just Five Countries Make Up Half of Africa’s GDP Visual Capitalist
US-China engagement in Africa Brookings
South of the Border
The real reason behind Trump’s tariffs on Mexico and military buildup Al Jazeera
US poised to order more companies to cease operations in Venezuela Business Standard
Clashes erupt in Argentina during pensioners’ protest Euro News (video)
Imperial Collapse Watch
Key Trends in Poverty in the United States Peterson Foundation
Military Continues to Struggle with F-35 Readiness NGAUS
Who else is being silent about this? President Trump.
He’s not even pretending to care.
He’s bombing Somalia, Yemen, and even places in Syria, just not the head-chopping terrorists and NATO advisers the US itself deliberately installed into power in Damascus.
Trump’s…
— Brian Berletic (@BrianJBerletic) March 7, 2025
Washington/Trump/DOGE
Satan growing concerned he overpaid for JD Vance’s soul Duffelblog (Micael T)
Trump administration releases list of hundreds of federal buildings targeted for potential sale Spectrum News
Trump says he will ‘probably’ extend TikTok ban deadline The Hill
DOGE staffers bring U.S. marshals to small federal agency WaPo
GOP funding patch boosts defense and deportations, cuts other programs Politico
Trump’s Threat to Take Over Canada Is a Scandal Rolling Stone
Immigration
Federal judge won’t order immigration officials to change school arrests policy AP
Trump’s immigration policy: ‘Give me your oligarchs’ The Hill
Immigrant labor fuels US economy but Trump’s crackdown mostly ignores it AP
Economy
US economic worries mount as Trump implements tariffs, cuts workforce and freezes spending AP
US economy facing potential slowdown The Guardian
US credit card defaults soar Fox News
Consumer confidence registers biggest monthly decline since August 2021 CNN
AI
AI Tries To Cheat At Chess When It’s Losing Slashdot
AI competition is eating the world Politico
Media
Top 35 Social Media Platforms Exploding Topics
Reddit and Digg Cofounders Plan Relaunch of ‘Human-Centered’ Digg With AI Innovations CNBC
The Bezzle
‘You get sucked in’: crypto scam victims on how they lost up to £162,000 The Guardian
From Revolution to Corruption: The Cryptocurrency Scam and the Future of Inflationary Bailouts Neofeudal Review (Micael T)
Class Warfare
America Is Locked in a New Class War Foreign Policy
Antidote du Jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
“Brutality-Desensitization Process Nearly Complete”
‘I’m doing my part!’ – Quentin Tarantino
And a big NC welcome to Haig Hovaness.
Welcome Haig!
Yes welcome Haig! I hope you will take this as constructive criticism, as I was really disappointed to see so many links from the untrusted mainstream media today. The economist, the AP, the atlantic, ABC News, CNN, BBC, Reuters, politico, axios, brookings, the Peterson foundation, the rolling stone, slate, foreign policy, the guardian, the hill, CNBC: I think Many of these are on my suspect list. For instance politico was the one that was found to be largely funded by USAID right?
Sometimes I may want to go and see what they are saying, but I don’t want a page of links that’s full of approved narrative. I know mainstream sites sometimes break from approved narrative, but if I’m trying to get informed about some new issue that I know little about, I don’t want my first exposure to be from a site that produces approved narratives.
I welcome other commenters to consider and to weigh in.
I wish I could see more of the western diet and disease article (oh for the days I had university institutional access) but it looks like a summary of various points made by this site (or links to interesting articles) over the past 10 years: the halving of the number of gut bacteria suspected among the last 3 generations of westerners who increasingly rely on highly processed foods etc.
It does sound intriguing that article but when you look at the average western diet, you can guess at the conclusions. But finding an actual diet is so contentious. We can’t even get the food pyramid right. The BMI Index seems to be a rule of thumb exercise. And some food recommendations appear to have their origin in certain food industries rather than actual science which is why sugar seems to get a big pass. I can never forget the advice of Jamie Oliver about shopping here. He said you read the ingredients and if it sounds like what would be in your grandmother’s pantry, put it into your shopping trolley. If the ingredients sound like something from a chemical lab, put it back on the shelf. That sounds like good advice that.
Dean of my faculty when in Sydney had massive heart attack which he thankfully recovered fully from. Docs immediately told him “sugar is your enemy, not fat”.
Hardly new news but twas an eye opener for me at the time.
The food pyramid is better used when upside down. It needs a redo to eliminate the harmful chemicals present in so many of the entries. The glyphosates and artificial this and that lead to inflammation, weight gain and worse outcomes.
European brands would fare better than American ones such as the Italian pasta that doesn’t induce gluten problems.
Grandmother would’ve balked at the additives on US labels now, tsk tsk.
I have a comment in moderation that makes this point…..Australia had in recent decades allowed all sorts of “US style” additives that the precautionary principle in Europe caused them to be banned till shown to be OK.
(I’m half Australian BTW)
“…read the ingredients and if it sounds like what would be in your grandmother’s pantry, put it into your shopping trolley. If the ingredients sound like something from a chemical lab, put it back on the shelf.” – the very advice given to my daughter and one that i’ve followed for over 50 years – highly recommended!
My grandmother’s pantry was entirely from a chemical lab. Wonder bread. Velveeta. Cool Whip. Miracle Whip. Mashed potatoes from a box. Pringles. Coffeemate. Margarine. Processed foods go back well more than a half century.
a simple hypothesis that never gets tested (cuz there is no $$$$$ in prevention)….
pick a random town: assign 100 peeps a pre-1990 Japanese diet (or Hong Kong or Korea or Shanghaiese), a 2nd group a pre-1990 Spanish diet, 3rd is a control, 4th is the AHA/AMA/USDA advocated diet
the interesting outlier is Australia…..long life expectancy w/a western lifestyle. (my limited interaction with Aussies is that they don’t eat much shelf-stable food)….and Oz doesn’t have the same chronic poverty as parts of Europe or USA
’til then….eat mostly plants, not too much, guilty pleasures are ok now and then
It helps that Aussies do not have the sweet tooth that Americans have. Years ago Campbells Soup purchased Arnotts, a local famous biscuit maker. This caused a lot of controversy at the time as people were worried that Campbells would Americanize our biscuits i.e. ramp up the amount of sugar in them to bring them in line with American cookies. Nobody here wanted that-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnott%27s_Group
Oz is indeed an outlier (I’m half Aussie and lived there for 6 years). There are LOADS of additives and preservatives that are banned in the EU and UK. IIRC TimTams can only be sold in those “boutique Australiana shops” in Europe but not in any mainstream shop due to this.
Your core proposal brought a smile to my face……a cluster RCT. Design and analysis of cluster randomised trials was my PhD many moons ago. Just as you say, it didn’t really go anywhere because $$$ is lacking for the interventions where a cluster RCT is warranted.
the list of banned additives/substances in Euro-zone is long and so many are allowed here in the USA – an example is flavor additives, such as menthol, that are banned in tobacco – a close friend that enjoyed smoking a particularly popular menthol cigarettes died quickly once diagnosed with laryngeal cancer – a wake-up to others of our neighborhood group that smoked any cigarettes to stop – tobacco is an insidiously difficult habit to break – next time you buy any bottle of soda take a look at the ingredients and take RK advice about what would be in grandma’s pantry –
just an aside on this thread on what we eat, is what we feed our pets – my daughter began preparing her own food for her pooch rather than from the 20lb bags usually bought – it was definitely beneficial and her pooch’s skin allergy disappeared – she says it costs about the same as the bags and takes an effort to prepare a 4 day supply for her beast but she insists even his behavior is better –
I get most of my calories from antibiotics.
Lol, “Froot-flavored”? I have recently begun eating junky, prepared food, something I’ve mostly avoided til now. This is not a wholesale dive in, just a guilty pleasure here and there. I figure our stupid timeline negates the obvious negative longer term effects.
Do you sometimes think about surviving the stupid timeline to reach the post-stupid future?
Re intermittent fasting. I kinda concluded what the article did. In moderation it’s helpful but beware going the whole hog (so to speak).
I seem to have a couple of days a week where I don’t exactly fast but I certainly have a calorie deficit. I’ll snack on stuff like carrot batons and yoghurt and wouldn’t say I feel hungry or go to bed hungry. I’ll eat more normally the other 5 days. I’ve lost excess weight but being the wrong side of 50 I’m aware I’m losing muscle mass too and use food supplements, especially because of long covid. So I try to keep an eye on all these things.
>> A study in mice published in Nature in October 2024 found that severe fasting (where calories were cut by 40%) had downsides, including muscle mass loss and, possibly, weakened immune systems.
There is a difference between fasting and ‘calorie restriction’. Fasting kicks in processes that protect muscle mass. For me, there’s a 400 calorie limit that I can track with blood glucose, another benefit that doesn’t get mentioned. Cutting 40% of calories will just dial down your metabolism and make you feel like crap. A one-day fast makes zero difference to this as your body is burning through glycogen stores in the liver.
I’m not aware that altering fat metabolism was a claim before this recent paper. What is the case is that, in the absence of food influx, the body turns to metabolizing its own fats, and doing so very efficiently. There are different autophagies, and by the third day the body is chewing through its junk pile of malformed proteins and the like. (A small amount of food protein interrupts this process.)
I have seen zero information that the immune system is weakened beyond the fasting, which could be inferred from the article. It down-regulates during fasting, which is why I told my godson to not fast when recovering from having a tooth pulled.
Dr. Jason Fung’s work is excellent. Start there if you care.
I spent about a year on the 5-2 diet. Twice a week I fasted for 36 hours – immediately after lunch to the following day dinner for 3 meals giving a total of 6 meals a week. We also attempted to eat breakfast a little later in the day to make meal times cover a shorter period of the day.
I also had to make changes to how I ate. In particular had to stop snacking. Also I noticed that what I ate changed to accommodate fasting. High protein in the meals before fasting helped a lot while carbs made the fast much harder. This was made easier by my wife being diagnosed as pre-diabetic and some other diet changes to accommodate her. The combination worked and I lost about 15 lbs over a year. Things fell apart after the US/Russia war started because of the stress I felt.
I did not like fasting, but I am in the process of returning. I noticed that I am more irritable when fasting. I do not feel that the 5-2 diet I followed was extreme. My body felt noticeably better after loosing 15 lbs. Probably I needed to lose closer to 40 lbs.
I did not need to do portion control. Calorie counting was required indirectly in that eating out is a very high calorie activity and had to be limited.
We used “The Obesity Code” and “The Diabetes Code” from Dr Fung. It is worth noting that while my wife was talking with a nutritionist the name of Dr. Fung got us a disproving silence. On the other hand the changes my wife was making to her diet were approved of.
I had great success with a modest program of intermittent fasting a few years ago. I found it rather painless, and I lost weight, reduced blood sugar, also seemed to reduce general symptoms of inflammation. Dentist remarked how great my gums looked. It also made flying easier because I can just tell myself I’m fasting and then keep my mask on and not eat without feeling too deprived.
Unfortunately, like most dietary programs, some of the positive effects seemed to diminish over time. The pounds don’t just melt off like they did at first. I’ve maintained a stable weight below what it was before, but not quite at my goal weight. I haven’t tried to escalate into multi-day fasts or anything like that.
I have been on a restricted calorie diet since before I was 20. The NIH should be paying me.
Yep. If only the NIH paid people for the info they give out for free to the tech giants …. info that is then used to screw us.
Intermittent fasting, especially the 36 hrs+ plans, do work wonders for the body. I took the opportunity that the initial stay-at-home covid restrictions in 2020 provided in implementing an exercise and fasting regimen that saw me lose 48 lbs in four months (236->188). I was never as healthy in my entire 45 years than in 2020-21. I could run, bike and cross-country ski for far longer than I have ever done. Jason Fung’s discussions on this were a major help in figuring out what would work for me.
The issue with any fat reduction scheme is that you are not only mentally fighting your own bad habits but also those that the society enforces on you. My job has gone back to being stressful travel every 2-3 weeks and it is just too hard to maintain the discipline that is needed. Fast unhealthy food is just too available and often the only option, and after a grueling day of work and worry there is no energy left to maintain a good fasting habit.
However, whatever discipline I picked up in 2020-21 has let me manage to retain 20lbs of the drop in these subsequent years.
Try what might be called fasting-lite.
Limit eating to a shorter window, say 9:00 to 5:00, then layer in smaller meals. That has helped many.
I kinda do that on my “normal” days and I certainly endorse it.
Rubes Have Been Duped
The rubes were not willing to chance a second Democrat term with constant threats of using nukes like the Biden team did – while claiming that it was Russia. I think that you have to go all the way back to the Reagan admin for similar mutterings about using nukes (e.g. ‘The world could survive a limited nuclear war.’).
But the economy and immigration were why they voted for Trump. I haven’t seen much (or anything) in polling that points to your conclusion. I haven’t done a deep dive into the subject, but here’s one article claiming that only 4% of the rubes voted for Trump because of foreign policy. I’d add that those 4% may not have been particularly concerned about nuclear war.
https://abcnews.go.com/538/voters-chose-trump/story?id=115827243
The two party system effectively keeping elite capitalism in charge.
Good to read you again Antifa.
RK your comment “(e.g. ‘The world could survive a limited nuclear war.’)” jarred my memory – in the book “The Rockefellers” there was a footnote about Kissinger and his involvement in the Kennedy-Johnson administration and a subcommittee on international security known as the Special Studies Project, Panel II as it was called, of which Kissinger was the director – the footnote reads:
“Like Nelson himself, Kissinger was just then at a critical juncture in his career. Two years earlier, as an ambitious young instructor in government at Harvard, he had looked beyond the academic world for the experience and exposure that would allow him to return to Cambridge as a tenured faculty member. Early in 1955, he had been considered for the vacant managing editorship of Foreign Affairs…….Harvard Dean McGeorge Bundy had recommended him as rapporteur for a Council on Foreign Relations study group on nuclear weapons…….Kissinger had used the group’s deliberations in his book Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, which argued the feasibility of “limited nuclear war…….” – the footnote goes on to describe how enamored Nelson was with Kissinger – point being the context of considering a limited nuclear war goes back to before Reagan, and Kissinger carried the torch for such nonsense through many administrations – there is quite a bit about this in chapter 19 of the book –
Good to hear from you, Antifa. I like your latest parody a lot.
I think the rubes don’t know that they’ve been duped. Perhaps stagflation and the precious “muckets” collapsing will change their attitude, though.
This is link-whoring, a violation of our site Policies. You have agreed to them as a condition of commenting here. Others who have Substacks and are active in comments respect our house rules. We don’t play favorites so need to observe them as well.
How is the use of “rubes” in this parody different than Hillary Clinton’s use of deplorables? What purpose does a parody like this, clever though it may be, serve other than to signal superiority of some kind? Even if the writer of these lyrics believes the disparagement is deserved, do they really think the implicit criticism will be constructive in any way? (As someone who has lived in rural locations my entire adult life, I got news for you.)
If you’re not punching up you’re wasting oxygen.
The headline is misleading… states are competing with one another to have data centers sited. Corporate welfare for big tech and utilities. This is bipartisan, too.
States use incentives and loosen laws to attract power plants as they face competition from Big Tech | AP News
We gotta win the race! Corporations show up with NASCARs and consumers show up with track shoes. Meanwhile many states are forcing conversion to heat pumps and EVs. One can only imagine what this will do to rates. We can only hope DeepSeek creates stranded investments sooner rather than later.
Does the flow of electricity respect state lines? I can see many of these power projects sending the juice to neighboring states, thereby defeating the purpose of creating “muh AI jobz!” in the home state.
Disconnecting from the grid – is it really even an option for most states?
PJM is the independent system operator for the area from PA/NJ/MD (legacy PJM) and VA west to Illinois. NYISO, NEISO are others. East of the Rockies, excluding TX is a single synchronous grid. Electricity flows freely throughout. A state cannot practically “disconnect”. The ISOs have planning authority for transmission lines and plants in their footprint. What states do is approve rates and building permits. Wannabe 2028 President Shapiro wants his own ISO. Let it suffice to say the laws of physics hold more sway than a politician. Ontario premier Doug Ford is another gridiot that thinks he can disconnect.
A key point to remember is that ISOs are an artificial construct imposed of utilities to facilitate trading of electricity and transmission rights by the likes of Enron and financial firms. This was a Clinton thing. Previously utilities were vertically integrated and all rates were regulated. Now states only set delivery rates and the supply and transmission are set by the invisible hand (that’s in your pocket!)
Yes. Move here to Hawaii and enjoy the benefits of the PUC controlling all areas of electric utility and also the highest rates.
Gave me a good laugh with “corporations show up with NASCARs”, remembering NASCAR’s unofficial motto “if ya ain’t cheatin’ ya ain’t trying” ;)
Came across this Ed Zitron piece Power Cut about Microsoft data centers. Maybe the politicians are racing with very sick horses?
Apologize if previously posted.
About Satan and the vice president, his chosen abbreviated moniker doesn’t sit right with me. I call him Jimmy Vance. That sounds fitting for him.
Lambert is good with appellations and I adopted DOGEbags (soft G) but, for when you prefer the hard G, I offer DOGE stylists.
Yesterday was a new low for the MSM reporting on Syria:
1) The NYT had an article that referred “dictator Bashar Assad” but didn’t mention the current “leader” has no interest in elections, did not mention, referred to HTS affiliates as “security forces”, and unlike October 7 was very judicious that claims of large numbers of killings “could not be verified”, and no mention of alleged purported beheadings or other slaughters on X.
– I largely subscribe to the NYT to hear what the PMC is being fed and recently subscribed to the LA Times to see if they were any better. Interestingly their coverage yesterday one or two paragraphs that were quite specific and almost graphic on the atrocities.
2) While HTS was slaughtering Alawaites (who appear to be most similar to Shia but have elements of Orthodox beliefs such as celebrating Christmas), Fox, per above, had wall-to-wall coverage about Iran’s links to terrorism.
3) The EU had a comment on X condemning Assad Loyalists for the massacres. The Comments section below the tweet begged to differ.
The problem is that our western political culture is incapable of nuance, and requires everything to be black or white, good or bad, for or against. The idea that different things can be true simultaneously, for example that Assad was a bloody dictator but that HTS, like all Islamist groups, regards elections as illegitimate, is too much for our political class and its media parasites, and would make their heads explode. Every political or militant movement has to be reductively labelled as “pro” “anti” “aligned” “supported” or whatever, rather than actually considered as an independent actor. You or I can understand that certain armed groups in Syria might have been happy to see Assad go, but not want him to be replaced by jihadists. But that’s too subtle for the MSM to get its brain around.
But they’re our terrorists! Note the US Humvee, delivered via Turkey or Raqqa in this Reuters photo. Sure ISIS grabbed some in Iraq, but it strains credulity that the US and Israel didn’t materially support the HTS headchoppers with plenty of kit. No nuance here.
Wars and disorder in the Muslim world has been F-UK-US policy for over a hundred years.
Whether they can’t or won’t handle nuance…sometimes it’s indistinguishable. That presents problems.
Saw a report somewhere that hundreds of women and children killed, likely because of a few firefights with Damascus forces. Who invaded the area.
Compare to Oct 7…..
‘COMBATE |🇵🇷
@upholdreality
🇨🇳 China Foreign Minister: “President Xi Jinping has proposed building a community with a shared future for mankind… History will prove that the real winner is the one that keeps in mind the interests of all” ‘
If that is not a direct challenge to the concept and practice of Trump’s MAGA, then I don’t know what is.
– ‘Clashes in Syria between government forces and Assad loyalists’ – AP
Opening paragraph:
“Fighters siding with Syria’s new government stormed several villages near the country’s coast, killing dozens of men in response to recent attacks on government security forces by loyalists of ousted President Bashar Assad, a war monitor said.”
Glad to see the Western media is still doing its job in Syria. I sure wish those Assad loyalists would quit forcing the new government to “respond” as they are currently. After all, Al-Shara just wants peace, he says.
I’m sure there will be a harrowing article on the current massacres appearing in the New Yorker any day now.
Western media seems to be leaving out the bit where hundreds of women and children are also being butchered by the mild head-choppers and there are at least a thousand dead – mostly Alawites and Christians. Will Trump threaten to bomb them if they don’t stop? Will EU countries suspend all trade and aid unless they quit? Will Erdogan yank their leash and tell them to stop making him look so bad? Of course not. Letting the Jihadist have free reign was the plan all along. The only one looking halfway good are the Russians who are trying to protect as many people as they can at their air base. But then again, they don’t follow traditional western values, do they?
Israel is giving Syria the Libya treatment. Israel believes that spreading anarchy and chaos in adjacent countries is going to improve its security. The situation will develop not necessarily to Israel’s advantage.
Condiments and the further links about “nobody wants your familyblogging home-made ketchup”
I started to make our own ketchup at home when we got kids and began eating burgers, hot dogs, fries and other ketchup-carrying food. I do like Heinz ketchup too but working on the harm-reduction thesis (less sugar in food) I do make a ketchup that is tasty and similar enough to Heinz enough. The kids love it because they started their life with it. Now after a few years with this I find Heinz too sweet.
Only a couple of times have I recieved compliments from outsiders in the form of eating it all. Nobody has not liked it though.
If you want to try for yourself:
1 dose Mutti polpa or other finely chopped tomato.
2-3 generous tablespoons tomatoe paste
2-3 tablespoons red vinegar
1-3 teaspoons cinnamon
1-2 bay leaves
3-4 cloves
A few generous pinches of brown sugar
Boil slowly until the right consistency (Heinz-like).
After I started to make mayonnaise at home I can’t eat the industry version. The home-made version is so easy to make and so much tastier. Also, you know what is in it: egg yolk, mustard, vinegar, lemon juice, oil, salt and pepper. The colour is also more beautiful.
I haven’t calculated the costs vs bought versions because we don’t eat lot of it so it is not a cost that is make it or break it in our budget if you think about it from a class perspective.
I used to think Heinz’s secret ingredient was tarragon. Now I can no longer detect it, though, perhaps because of COVID.
Could you taste tarrgon in Heinz Baked Beans too?
I tried this recipe and it came very close
https://www.recipetineats.com/homemade-baked-beans-recipe-heinz/
There are economies of scale reasons to suspect that the baked beans also would have the tarragon taste.
I will try with tarragon next time.
Wow the Onion article was published in 1999!
I assumed that was the point!
What was weirder is that the “Bank of England cuts growth forecast” article is from the beginning of February. It might have been news then but it is not now and the trends behind this have been discussed a lot here.
Those trends are not looking any better but we have a shiny new toy of a European Arms Race so everybody’s talking guns and nobody’s missing the butter this month….
“Trump’s immigration policy: ‘Give me your oligarchs, your rich…’ ”
Not even a new impulse this. About ten or twenty years ago the Pentagon did a study of how to deal with a world that experiences major climate collapse. Their main conclusion was for America to pull up the drawbridges – their words, not mine – and for the country to hunker down behind Fortress America. But while this was happening, they would ensure that all the oligarchs, errr, billionaires, in places like Europe would be able to flee to America with their money first. Of course in that era, the thought that climate change would severely hit America too was not really considered.
Doesn’t Australia ask what you are bringing to the table before granting citizenship to foreigners? And Canada? A friend of my brother’s once wanted to move to Canada and the requirements were not encouraging.
FYI – Canada has a menu of ‘points’ for stuff like age, education, skills, language proficiency etc etc for immigration. (ie permanent residency)
https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/express-entry/check-score/crs-criteria.html
Once you’re in, citizenship is pretty much automatic. (you need to know the words to O Canada. : )
Unfortunately nationalism is inseparable from its nasty twin, xenophobia. As long as politicians use hatred as the easiest path to power, we will be hearing chants of USA, USA, USA or any other nation uber alles. It takes a lot of prosperity to suppress tribal hatred. The Chinese are trying to build a prosperous world. The U.S. just wants to maintain its dominance and projects the same motive on its “adversaries.”
Undertaking world war in the nuclear era is stunningly stupid, but stupidity among world leaders was abundant in 1914 and 1939, and it has characterized U.S. foreign policy since 1945. Perhaps Trump, the Great Orange Satan, is not stupid in this way.
It takes a lot of prosperity or a lot of propaganda. I’ve taken to blaming Charles Darwin, not just everybody’s favorite columnist for The Economist, Herbert Spencer.
Darwin didn’t have to subtitle his book, “or, the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life”, but he had a sure instinct for what would sell.
Aren’t the Chinese and Russian leaders also nationalists? It may depend more on the circumstances of the individual country whether “patriotism is the last refuge of the soundrel.”
Here in America we are protected by two oceans and nuclear weapons and a far away world full of countries more interested in fighting each other than the US. Our no doubt temporary success breeds arrogance and “end of history” fantasies.
” Trump strikes dark tone as he seeks to restart nuclear talks with Iran”
Dealing with Trump is like when Putin has to deal with Erdogan – its exhausting. The broken promises, the randomness of his policies, the self-serving attitudes. Most of all when he does stuff because he thinks its a bright idea when it causes chaos for Turkiye. Trump is a lot like that. He says that he wants a deal with Iran but he was the one that reneged on the nuke deal the first time he was in office. They are not going to reduce their nuclear stockpiles to near zero in return for sanctions relief when they can be revoked in minutes. Does Trump know that Iran is not going for nukes and that if he went to war with Iran, that it would take about a decade for it to play out to an uncertain end? Goodbye domestic program. I think that what Trump really wants is for Iran to reduce the number of missiles that they have and to vastly scale back their missile program. As that is just an open invitation for the US and Israel to attack Iran, not gunna happen. Like with North Korea, he is going to have to learn to settle for the situation, much of it his own making.
I don’t agree that the situation is of his making but do agree that that his motives are suspect and his methods are haphazard. Still, maybe we will get some peace out of it in the end.
Trumps appeal team are trying to move “hush money” conviction to federal court..
No doubt in my mind that if moved to federal court, Trump will want to try the self-pardon thing to further cement his feeling that If the president does it it aint a crime or a misdemenor committed by a person in high office.
– farce argument –
I suppose both dems and repubs will be all ‘secretly’ behind this so they can excuse themselves for all the misdemenors and high crimes committed on a daily basis.
Lots of reporting and interantional action is based on assumed intent, speculative motivations, secretely desirous outcomes and pretended fears.
“It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.” -James Madison
I suppose our parties pretend that ‘it’ could never establish a roost in the USA – ‘it’ defined by adding to the above quote – and at home –
“Ukrainian forces fighting inside Russia are almost surrounded, open source maps show”
There goes Zelensky’s last card.
The Duran, utube, ~1hr+
The US Push for Peace & Europe Panics – John Mearsheimer, Alexander Mercouris
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rh9CtLw_poA
Interesting Links today. Thank you.
The CNN story says that protestors also vandalized a Trump golf course in Scotland and painted “Gaza is not for sale” on the grass. Since the Trump/Kushner real estate empire makes a fat overstuffed target will the Riviera hungry Jared be next? Slaughtering thousands may be bad resort PR.
I hope my fellow Brits continue to do their best to sabotage Trump presidency.
(Wording this carefully so as not to break laws).
Videos I’ve been suggested on YT talk about alternative suppliers for the UK…..interesting……
Another data point for Canadian resistance: brewery introduces “Presidential Pack” with enough cans to get you through to 2029.
And another.
Rage against the machine:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/03/08/elon-musk-tesla-protest-violence-vandalism/
An anecdote about improving Government efficiency:
I had coffee with my daughter and her long time partner yesterday, He’s someone who decided he was going to work at NASA when he was 5 years old.
Top of his class at a good HS with multiple awards including two for citizenship, full ride scholarship to Cal Poly in Aerospace Engineering, then the same for his Master’s, he won his first Scientific award before his Master’s was complete and his second during his probationary first Year at NASA.
He was fired with no notice the Thursday before President’s day and unfired the following Tuesday.
He has been unable to find out whether he is again a probationary employee or how being fired and unfired has affected his benefits, no one at NASA HR knows.
He HAS been told that he will be riffed sometime this year because that is being done solely on the basis of seniority.
This is someone who turned down an offer from Lockheed Martin that would have paid 25% more than NASA offered.
Since he does not want to work on weapons systems he is planning to get certified as a welder…
I think there are some things that need to be said about Gene Hackman and his wife.
I must admit that hantavirus was not really on the list of diagnoses in my brain when I first heard the story. There are about 10-15 deaths on average in the USA from this virus every year. Mostly right there in New Mexico, Colorado, and Arizona. It is from a virus that is inhaled from mouse droppings. It is fatal about a third to a half the time – the older and more unwell you are, the more likely you are to die. There is nothing to be done, the patient must be supported and/or ventilated in the hospital setting until they resolve.
The more instructive part of the tragedy, however, is what happened to Gene Hackman. Apparently, the wife died of hantavirus, and then about a week later, he passed – probably from exposure, dehydration and starving. From what I have been able to tell, he had a diagnosis of dementia. He was really too old for this to be Alzheimer’s, but there are plenty of other types of all-encompassing dementia that can happen to 90 year olds. Pretty much all of these can only be diagnosed officially on an autopsy. We have developed a habit in this country to refer to all of these dementia types as “Alzheimer’s” but this is not really the case. She was his only caregiver and apparently died first. They were living the very isolated life so common in the Mountain West and no one checked on them or had a clue there was a problem. Based on his pacemaker telemetry, a good estimate was that he lived about a week after she passed.
This is a commentary of our entire society and culture. Yes, people want to be left alone. We have elderly neighbors within walking distance where we live…….and they very much want to be alone and they are for the most part. However, my sons and other kids in the area keep an eagle eye on them all the time. They both have what I would call multi-infarct dementia – the husband worse than the wife. This is the most common dementia in the 80 and up crowd. It is not all-encompassing, they are often hilarious in their loss of filter, they still have emotions, and they can tell the best stories ever. My kids love to sit on the bench outside their house and just listen. However, these people cannot be left alone. We and the other families around bring them eggs, vegetables, meat, and fresh bread all the time. Except for the 15 minutes or so of interaction with the neighbors, they are totally alone. We all help them with their yard, and their other housekeeping duties.
I get the idea from my own grandparents that this is the way our society was when they were kids. It is certainly the way things are where I live.
However, this neighborhood interaction is certainly not common at all if even present in the big city where we used to live. These types of people were institutionalized in a heart beat. The pace of life was so fast in the city, that no one could spare one moment, often not even their own children.
I am very thankful we have those elderly neighbors. We spend some time of our own lives taking care of them and their property, etc – however, the reward for my own kids has been without parallel. I don’t know. I really do at times think we need to rethink our entire way of life. As I have said so many times, the vast majority of my patients and their medical problems and their psychiatric issues are literally CAUSED by the modern American way of life. We are literally allergic to how we have chosen to live as a society. Our health care system does nothing to address these issues – indeed, in almost every respect, pill pushing just makes things worse. As I get older, I despair that this may not be fixable.
Thank you. And the way this went down seems horrible but perhaps they enjoyed their isolation. Reports say they had been involved in the community during previous years. Certainly we can assume that as a movie star Hackman and wife were well off enough to afford other options. His last film was in the early noughts.
Bruce Willis has now quit his latter day B movie career due to Alzheimer’s and Jack Nicholson is said to be in the same condition.
Now that the AFU forces in the Kursk salient are surrounded (one commentator suggested that the AFU had allowed itself to be encircled more than any army in memory), “the North Koreans” have made their reappearance on the battlefield in the MSM right on cue.