Ohio police find raccoon holding meth pipe during traffic stop NBC (Micael T)
Lion fatally attacks owner in southern Iraq Rudaw. Micael T: “What is wrong with keeping pets that can’t kill you?”
Gene mutations help flowers mimic foul odor to attract carcass-loving pollinators PhysOrg
Demonology aeon
If Everyone Has Trauma, Everyone Has Trauma Freddie deBoeer. “this is less dismissive than it sounds.”
News you can use!
"By adding "udm=14" to your Google search URL, you can strip away all the AI summaries, knowledge panels, and ads that clutter the results. This doesn't improve the actual search results, but it provides a cleaner, distraction-free interface reminiscent of Google's early days."…
— Barry Ritholtz (@Ritholtz) May 11, 2025
Nitrous oxide abuse and associated neurological diseases PMC. (Robin K)
Kava smuggling to NT Indigenous communities spikes after import controls lifted, leaders say ABC Australia (Robin K)
#COVID-19
Singapore sees rise in COVID-19 cases as authorities say ‘periodic’ waves are expected Channel News Asia. Also cheery headline here: “Covid resurgence ‘no cause for alarm’”
The rapid spread of measles Reuters
Climate/Environment
The Greenhouse Gas CO₂ equivalent concentration is now about 573 ppm.
Which would take 206% of preindustrial CO₂!
That's a stronger GHG forcing change than occured between the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, when global sea levels were ~130 meters lower than today) and 1750! https://t.co/s76oyNLWaP pic.twitter.com/FHmKWenoYs
— Leon Simons (looking up) (@LeonSimons8) May 11, 2025
Beekeepers across the U.S. see unprecedented honeybee die-offs Spectrum Local News
Warmest decade on record leaves trail of misery across Africa Daily Maverick
Climate crisis threatens the banana, the world’s most popular fruit, research shows Guardian
Munich Re Profit Halves on €1.1 Billion Hit From LA Wildfires Bloomberg
China?
Under What Circumstances Might the US Dollar and the Yuan Both Crash? Michael Shedlock. A must read.
China Bolsters Export Controls on Critical Minerals OilPrice (Kevin W)
After the U.S. and China pause tariffs, rare mineral exports are now in the spotlight for future trade deals Fortune (Kevin W). So China still has leverage as talks are in play.
Chinese companies purge supply chain of foreign parts amid US trade war Financial Times
Trump and China call off the divorce Politico (Kevin W). Assumes against considerable evidence that agreements by Trump have any meaning.
US eases trade war, pursues ‘strategic decoupling’ from China Asia Times (Kevin W). Good luck with that.
🤡🌏 The Clown-World Tariff War
The US tariff war / trade embargo threat against China has turned into a humiliating clown-world debacle for Trump and his entourage of clueless macroeconomic imbeciles. pic.twitter.com/jeP7BFWbrp
— Will Schryver (@imetatronink) May 13, 2025
Escalation fears rise in Japan following Chinese moves near Senkakus Japan Times
2025 Philippine elections: Candidates, voting, results, winners Rappler
South of the Border
US coercive measures against Venezuela in violation of international law: “Makes the economy scream” Nachdenkseiten via machine translation (Micael T)
European Disunion
A Bad End Followed by a Worse Start Tarik Cyril Amar
EDITORIAL: Sweden’s new drones are already useless Expressen via machine translation. Micael T: “And these fools are lusting for a war with Russia. So it is not about killing Russia, it is about killing their own population.”
Old Blighty
UK jobs slowdown hits education and healthcare as spending cuts bite Financial Times
UK jobs market continues to weaken BBC
UK’s Starmer, under pressure from Farage, tightens migration rules Reuters
Pension funds ‘to unlock up to £50bn’ of investment, with half for UK firms Guardian (Kevin W)
Israel v. the Resistance
Pope Leo XIV Calls for Peace in Gaza, End to Israeli Blockade on Aid Antiwar.com (Kevin W)
US-Hamas talks show that peace is possible Aaron Mate
Gaza’s hospitals cannot provide food to recovering patients Aljazeera (resilc)
Ben Gvir says Israel must ‘stop procrastinating’ and ‘open gates of hell’ on Gaza Times of Israel
🚨🇺🇸🇮🇱 BREAKING: TRUMP will be SKIPPING ISRAEL VISIT on his first trip abroad as President. pic.twitter.com/mPbjb89gnJ
— Legitimate Targets (@LegitTargets) May 13, 2025
Yuval Raphael: Israel’s Eurovision entry says she has practised being booed BBC (resilc)
New Not-So-Cold War
How Russia views the new Germany under Merz Anti-Spiegel (Micael T)
Polish Army Receives New Batch of Enhanced American Abrams Tanks Military Watch
An Immediate Peace Is The Best One Ukraine Can Ever Get Moon of Alabama (Kevin W)
EU readies capital controls and tariffs to safeguard Russia sanctions Financial Times. Nothing like doubling down on failure.
Western Leaders Continue To Live In A Delusional LaLa Land With Respect To The Ukraine War Ian Welsh (Micael T)
Putin on Putin Julian Macfarlane
Imperial Collapse Watch
“I’m concerned about the whole airspace”: Transportation sec. says flight disruptions could spread Salon
Newark Airport Air Traffic Staffing Shortage Forces Delays New York Times. resilc: “USA USA is a no fly zone.”
The Suicide of American Empire CounterPunch (resilc)
Traffic Fatalities Are a Choice asterisk (Micael T). But gun deaths now higher, so what’s the bother?
The Illusion of American Generosity American Conservative
Trump 2.0
Trump’s White House has let scammers fleece regular people The Verge (resilc)
Qatari Royals Give Trump a Plane Talking Points Memo
Past presidents couldn’t keep gifts of lions or horses. How could Trump accept a jet from Qatar? CNN (Kevin W)
Trump’s Drug-Price Crackdown, Like His Trade War, Could Be More Bark Than Bite Wall Street Journal. As we said when announced…except the trade war is creating a lot of disruption. By contrast, drug prices are up, suggesting no one who counts is much worried. I hope to write on this.
From The Lever via e-mail:
Trump already disarmed the war on drug prices. This morning the president signed a new executive order instructing Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr. to use Medicare to buy drugs at the lowest world-market prices. Big Pharma and its investors seem unconcerned, likely because RFK Jr. has already flip-flopped and declared he won’t use a far more powerful price-reducing tool: a law that says regulators can “march in” and license lower-priced versions of government-developed medicines that Big Pharma does not make “available to the public on reasonable terms.” In his first term, Trump tried to permanently block the government from ever using that law.
Donald Trump leans left in bid to revive flagging poll numbers Financial Times. While the poors feel the impact of 30% tariffs on China….
Who benefits from tax legislation so far Axios
Trump again tries to defund NPR and PBS, sparking a new congressional battle Iowa Capital Dispatch (Robin K)
RFK Jr. Swims in D.C.’s Rock Creek, Which Flows With Sewage and Bacteria New York Times. resilc: “Can he take Trump swimming too?”
Tariffs
Russia seen as largest Bitcoin mining beneficiary if Trump’s tariffs hit in full, industry expert says The Block (resilc)(resilc)
How Tariffs Could Make Americans’ Hobbies More Expensive New York Times (resilc). From two weeks ago, still germane.
When an Arsonist Poses as a Firefighter Paul Krugman. resilc: “Ya can’t tell your tariffzzzzzzzzz w/o a flowchart these daze.”
Immigration
‘Gestapo Nation’ – Inside the ICE Arrest of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka Work-Bites
Trump administration welcomes 59 white South Africans as refugees to the US Aljazeera (resilc)
The Tyranny of Last Year’s Budget Arnold Kling (resilc)
Democrat Death Wish
House Democrat starts ‘abundance movement’-inspired caucus Politico
Police State Watch
Students Studying at Columbia Library Were Suspended for Protest They Took No Part In Intercept
Our No Longer Free Press
Multiple Western Press Outlets Have Suddenly Pivoted Hard Against Israel Caitlin Johnstone (Kevin W). About time.
Mr. Market Is Moody
Panic as US vacation rental boom collapses and owners rush to sell at steep discounts Daily Mail (Li)
How the Debt Ceiling Is Now Pouring Liquidity into Financial Markets, only to Suck it Back Out Very Fast Later this Year Wolf RichterExchange rate uncertainty, tariff hikes, and adjustment costs VoxEU
Nissan to cut 20,000 jobs globally, reports say Sky. The continued shrinkage of the conventional car biz.
Guillotine Watch
INVESTORS SAY UNITEDHEALTH’S GREED GOT ITS CEO MURDERED — AND COST THEM MILLIONS Futurism (Micael T)
Elon Musk’s Boring Company Is in Talks With Government Over Amtrak Project New York Times (resilc)
Antidote du jour (via):
And a bonus:
Look, what I can do..🐾😍 pic.twitter.com/7nO7CiRsxg
— 𝕐o̴g̴ (@Yoda4ever) May 12, 2025
A second bonus:
A sea lion appears at a hotel, goes for a quick swim, and then takes a lounge chair off a man
— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) May 12, 2025
And a third:
Caption this 😅 pic.twitter.com/RH44RqqZUJ
— why you should have an animal (@ShouldHaveAnima) May 13, 2025
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
fire hose of chaos, the collapse of ag in the US
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_jtHIezOqU
LOL, Zeihan. Is it for comedic effect, or did he manage to get something right for the first time? :)
Hoisted from Telegram:
When a timeline is that far out in the future, it is essentially science fiction. Too many possible intervening events could render the whole thing null and void.
I believe that in the entire Ukraine, that there is not a single facility capable of processing those rare earths. So either one has to be built from scratch, which will probably take a coupla years, or any rare earths will have to be shipped to a country that has that capability. Doesn’t really matter as it all depends on the three agreements that have been agreed to by the US and the Ukraine. And so far only one of them has been published so who knows what has actually been agreed. Trump had a chance to walk away from the Ukraine but instead jumped in with both feet and has already discovered that he is stuck in the Rasputitsa. His MAGA base is going to be furious in a few months when the last of the money that Joe Biden voted for the Ukraine is all spent and Trump has to go to Congress and ask for tens of billions of dollars more for the Ukraine. Marjorie Taylor Greene will flip out – and she won’t be alone.
Thanks for those thoughts. I am largely in agreement, although I will throw out an alternative possibility or two:
1. There are no “rare erfs” in Ukraine that are economically recoverable under any timeline. However, the “plan” could be to process “rare erfs” from other third-world countries that do have them in Ukraine. The resulting environmental damage and pollution would become part of the rump Ukraine’s debt payoff to the US. Essentially turn it into an open-air waste pit.
2. The money from Biden’s last tranche is already gone.
You may be right about turning the Ukraine into an open-air waste pit. A story emerged about a year or two ago about using sites in western Ukraine to store radioactive wastes. I bet that the EU was drooling at the thought of bribing the Ukraine to take all the toxic wastes coming out of the EU itself.
Knowing that the Italian mafia has already turned Southern Italy (and the surrounding waters) into a preferred spot for illegal dumping grounds, and that Ukraine is saturated with organized criminality, one can fairly well envision a future where avoiding produce originating from Ukraine will be a must to reduce the risk of gobbling food laced with dioxins and PFAS.
Ukraine has some of the richest agricultural soils on Earth: a big reason why the Russian and Soviet empires wanted it so badly. The prospect of Ukraine becoming a giant Superfund site is genuinely creepy.
David Hogg tried his hand at reforming the Democratic party as basically an insider right in the DNC. His fresh election victory didn’t help him at all. It only took a month and now the knives are out for him. Perhaps the Democratic party is acting more decisively than they did towards Bernie.
Despite elaborate policies and rules to promote gender equality within the party, somehow this wasn’t enough. Election loser and native American woman cried foul and the election is now void.
Don’t interrupt your enemy as they commit suicide. There will be no reform, no hope.
Gotta love it.
Will the Democrat Party go the way the the Federalists … melting like an ice cube on a hot stove … or the way of the Whigs … becoming irrelevant and assimilated into the Borg … wait! Mixed metaphor alert! Or even the Populists whose ideas were stolen, appropriated, and it gave up.
I am curious as to what the replacement will be called.
I’m voting that it should be the Guillotine Party.
I was browsing through Daily Kos yesterday and saw nothing but hatred and bile for Hogg. It is truly an awesome spectacle. Hogg tries to reform Democrat party, ruffles feathers, James Carville gets released from the goblin pit to attack Hogg, rank and file party loyalists fall in line despite past support and praise.
It was almost as funny as the time Cynthia Nixon primaried Andrew Cuomo for governor of New York. Everyone on Daily Kos who had been adamant that they would never vote for Cuomo in a primary were suddenly talking about how they had to vote Cuomo because he was more qualified through his experience while Nixon was an outsider.
Say what you will about Republicans, but Democrats are the biggest unquestionioning conformists in US politics.
Most of them I know would make a great press secretary. Team Blue can’t do anything wrong and they are as clean as fresh snow. On top of that they are the ONLY people who care about you.
Yea, pull the other one.
Why? Is there any difference?
I started following David Hogg on X a few months ago out of curiosity. The scary thing is that he’s not even a lefty–just a totally middle of the road type Democrat who wants younger politicians in the party. That’s about it.
I’m used to the Dems attacking the lefties, but as usual in an entrenched organization, Dems will attack anyone who challenges the upper-level power structure in any way.
“Ohio police find raccoon holding meth pipe during traffic stop”
At least the raccoons in the better end of town know how to snort a line of coke off the dashboard.
That is the most Ohio thing that has happened all week!
Fortunately, the racoon had his license and proof of insurance.
Although the report described him as “wide-eyed and fidgety”
Early birds, please refresh your browsers. I was behind schedule today and so just added some more links.
>>>>Panic as US vacation rental boom collapses and owners rush to sell at steep discounts
Also driven by AirBnB bubble. If you look at the history of famous hotels, many of them have gone through boom-bust cycles, frequently changing ownership. Being a hotelier ain’t easy! either (a) you need scale; and/or (b) you find a niche
You may be a model guest, literally treating a place better than your own home—-but not everyone is like that. Just look at the sty-scene that some first class (or coach) seats become after a flight, lol
Benefits: quieter and cleaner neighborhoods, more housing soon available. A win-win of sorts.
Will it improve the housing market? Or will the PE buzzards swoop in and take it all?
I looked on the MLS hoping to see some of the 350 AirBnB’s here up for sale, and maybe there’s a couple but no rush to the exits by the garage mahal types.
In the past, foreigners were their bread and butter-but that was before we made them unwelcome since January 20th…
Should it come to pass, it’ll be dead easy to list their pride and joy on the market in a jiffy as the homes are all pre-staged, and there are no pesky things such as moving and having to find a new school for the kids-because they’re aren’t any, and don’t worry about friendships with neighbors either, as the domicile next door is also probably a vacation rental.
It wasn’t uncommon for a yeah whatever 3/2 SFH to linger on the market for a long time before AirBnB came along, what happens when a hundred of them hit the listings, when about the only buyers for the past dozen years have been would-be Hilton types, who pushed the value of a $250k starter home to $460k all by their lonesome?
I’ll tell you what happens: yours truly will be waving goodbye to paying a landlord, and hello to paying a bank! I will relish undercutting the asking price by a solid 25% and waiting out the outrage.
On a less personal note, if there does come a housing glut with no buyers, this would be a place where state and municipal governments could step in, buy the properties for pennies, and house some of the people sleeping under bridges or in tents. I’ll be thinking of bottom-line-oriented arguments for this type of proposal to present to MBA types in government.
We are on the verge of outlawing homelessness here in Cali, so I wouldn’t count on Gavin et al to come through and buy up all the stucco orphans.
A good many of them have been rode hard and put away wet, the homes that is.
So the homeless will now move into the national forests? They will be surviving somewhere if kicked out of the cities.
The homeless are already IN the National Forests. I go camping a couple of times a year in North Georgia’s beautiful National Forests. It’s free to camp (in most places) and if you are deep in the mountains you see very few people.
Every time I go camping there, I pass families with kids clearly LIVING in the forest. I spoke with a local sheriff who was stopped by a camp site. He said the county has him check on the sites every week or two to make sure they have food and water. Otherwise, that’s it.
I’ve never seen a homeless person in Sequoia NP, its a tyranny of distance gig, plus $35 to get in.
You’d be ok camping a few miles in on a trail, but would get busted in a heartbeat sleeping in your vehicle.
I had to use “udm=140” to get Google to drop the AI summary and other nonsense.
(Using the LibreWolf browser — a fork of Firefox with additional privacy settings.)
There’s a little add-in available for Firefox which automatically adds the “UDM-14” that I’ve been using for quite a while. Highly recommended: It’s a vast improvement in the display, if not always the actual search results. For those who aren’t interested in Amazon’s shopping offerings, adding “-site:amazon.com” will exclude them as well (since I refuse to buy through Amazon).
Another approach is to bookmark this to use as your search screen: https://udm14.com/
Meanwhile, I seem to be getting as good or better results with Ecosia lately, not to plant trees but to stop giving Google clicks. https://www.ecosia.org/
Thanks. 99% of searches by me use duckduckgo but it doesn’t seem to have the same ability to do advanced search like google. Thus sometimes – like when I know something was said on this site and approximately when it was said – Google advanced search with specifying domain and time period was useful.
No more. It’s as if it has scrubbed huge amounts of older stuff from search results which is worrying. (NC’s own search is fine but the sheer number of hits can make it daunting to go looking for an exact post you remember!)
you should also try non-western sites: yandex (now “western”), naver, etc.
they aren’t necessarily good….but they do give you results/sites that you may never be aware of if solely using google,bing, etc
Thanks for the tip!
For someone like me with long covid brain fog I really can’t trust myself to find correct links etc, particularly as the afternoon progresses, so any site that performs like advanced search on google USED to do is welcome.
Why Trump Suddenly Declared Victory Over the Houthi Militia NYT archive
An unusually frank MSM discussion of another defeat, although that word doesn’t appear.
One can only imagine how things might go in the western Pacific. And we’re spending a trillion each year on this crap.
Defeat is not the right term to designate what the USA sustained in the Red Sea. There is another very appropriate:
fiasco: a complete failure, especially one that is humiliating or embarrassing.
The sheer military-technical (as Russians say) difficulties encountered when fighting Ansarallah, and the simple fact that Yemen could not be taken out from the Middle-Eastern strategic chessboard mean that the USA leading an attack against Iran is most probably out of question in the foreseeable future.
The technical military term F.U.B.A.R. comes to mind.
Using two and three million dollar missiles to shoot down forty thousand dollar drones was never going to be a good return on investment for the US Navy. Maybe for the missile manufacturers but not for the Navy itself. And it was only going to be a matter of time until one of those drones or missiles was going to get a hit on a Navy ship so it is just as well Trump pulled the plug on the whole thing. It was always about protecting shipping to Israel anyway and yet I have never heard of an Israeli missile corvette or missile boat going out there to protect their own shipping which is kinda odd-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_Navy#Current_fleet
Perhaps it’s important to spend the missile replenishment budget appropriation in order that it not be reduced in subsequent years.
Perhaps a blunt way of pressuring for ramp-up in that part of the defense industrial base.
Can I interest you in The Defence Reformation?
Authored by Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar, “The Defense Reformation” calls for an invigoration of competition into the Defense Department, and a broader resurrection of America’s Industrial base. Sankar also outlines what has led to the current reality in which American industries cannot produce a minimum line of ships, subs, munitions and aircraft as well as why the country does not currently have the capacity or capability to rapidly repair and regenerate weapon systems. He then details 18 theses that will lead to the resurrection of the American Industrial Base.
It’s pretty clear that US industrial policy hinges on the broken missile fallacy
There is a 12-18 month delay @ the ‘Estes Rocket Factory’ in Tucson to replenish stocks of million to mega million $ missiles, and if there wasn’t. they’d be feverishly making bank on replacements, but they aren’t so we declared victory, omission accomplished.
The super light weight paper tubes and balsa nose cones might bring the dream of an American hypersonic within reach!
Or go with the Big Bertha for max payload!
Was really surprised by the tone in that piece. Trump comes off as a leader who listens to the experts, gives them a timeline and then says “enough” when it’s not working – and compliments the adversary military on its bravery. His cabinet members also get shout outs and seem competent, even kind of badass. I’m obviously not endorsing the sickening attack on Yemen, just pointing out some odd reporting.
The Qatari gift plane would be no good anyway from what I understand. The two 747s that have AF1 designation when carrying the president have whole host of additional stuff to try to give the plane ability to stay flying for long periods (in flight refueling ability) and certain military grade countermeasures to reduce (but certainly can’t eliminate) chances of it being shot down etc.
There’s no way this plane passes muster with the security agencies….. which is why they might be absolutely fine with it /snark
IIRC, reading something years ago, when the US government gets a new plane it merely goes to Boeing and chooses an airplane that was already built for another client and awaiting delivery. The logic being to eliminate, as much as possible, the chance of sabotage or installing unauthorized electronic devices.
I’m sure the Qatari plane will get a good check but is this really a smart move by Trump? Would the US be happy accepting such an airplane from China?
It could also be the giant flying equivalent of those pagers surreptitiously altered by Israel.
!!! As they say around the cracker barrel, a hoot and a half.
Wow, the modern, electronic equivalent of The Trojan Horse!
“Open the gate – it’s a big wiener dog!” – Gary Larson
There’s no way this plane passes Constitutional Muster…….if it does then those security agencies will no longer be defending a democratic republic.
Guess that’s what happens when a question of – for or against massive human rights violations and genocide?. yes or no – can not be raised or answered without some verbal obfuscation or other BS
Guess that whats happens when common understanding should be used in interpreting the Constitution instead of ‘looking into or investigating’ the legality or illigality of this or that complexity when it just plain states it in the Constitution.
Both parties need stop this farce of ‘well we don’t know what can be done cause we don’t have the legal accumen needed for these things’ got to consult the experts ya know – wink wink nudge nudge.
“We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace–business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.
They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.” October 31, 1936)
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
“We, the People, are the rightful masters of both the Congress and the Courts. Not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who have perverted it.” – Abraham Lincoln
I was half wondering if the Qatari’s assumed Trump would turn it down for those reasons, and are now taken aback to find that their gesture has cost them a neat little sum, even by Qatari standards.
As you say, I find it impossible to believe that security would ever pass something like that – most likely the cost of completely stripping it down for security purposes, and they rebuilding according to the standards needed for Trump or any other high ranking officials would probably be greater than just building a new one in the first place.
Not sure I like that idea of stripping it down and rebuilding it. For that, you would have to have Boeing do that work but are they up to working on a plane that they have already discontinued? Even at the best of times Boeing has trouble building its planes and this would amount to a special project – for which they would charge for all it’s worth.
They’re already deep in the middle of modifying two new airframes, of course badly behind schedule and over budget. So we’re to believe that doing the same work on an additional airframe is going to be done sooner?!? This is Boeing we’re talking about.
This must be yet another case that’s all about Trump’s ego. I doubt he gives a ****** about security, refueling and being able to function as a command center – that’s all details for the little people to worry about. The only thing that matters is the gold leaf covered $5 moldings plastered on the walls.
You don’t have to go to Boeing to modify the aircraft. There are other companies.
Sierra Nevada Corp. Buys Five B-747-8s After Winning ‘Doomsday’ Plane Replacement Contract
The fourth Boeing 747-8i airliner arrived at Sierra Nevada Corporation’s (SNC) factory to be converted into the United States Air Force’s E-4C Doomsday system.
The $13-billion program will eventually replace the USAF’s existing E-4B Nightwatch, a militarized version of the Boeing 747-200, that has been employed for the same purpose since 1980.
You raise an interesting point. If this plane does pass muster……maybe the deep state gets its wish after all.
Yeah I didn’t like to say stuff explicitly……but a lot of the “blob” must be wargaming how to end this mess. Dodgy Boeing 747? Oh dear. Another unexplained take down of someone senior but this time there are PLENTY of reasons why Boeing could be labelled “the bad guy” rather than anyone in the blob.
Plane will be fine after they gold & glitter to the inside;-)
There’s a lot of consternation over the Trump administration accepting a 400 million dollar plane from Qatar.
Is the real issue not that Boeing is completely incapable of building these planes in the first place? Weren’t they supposed to have built it ten years ago?
What happens in three years time when he leaves the Presidency? Will he leave that Boeing 747 as part of the government fleet or will he try to take it with him on the grounds that it was a personal gift to him?
According to the NYT article, he will transfer it to his “foundation” after leaving office. I sort of love the whole norms trashing aspect of this one, along with the Sam Snead quote about taking the free putt. He’s the King of the Trolls.
pearls, clutched:
RIP emollients clause
Lol – emoluments but they’re a kind of emollient…
It’s an issue but it will be a stop in the bucket to what happens if Boeing and more companies like it become completely incompetent.
See also the case of the stranded astronauts. Musk had to rescue them.
What if it turns out to be a Trojan Horse, stuffed to the gills with condoms in all sizes?
Oh no! Not the return of the Lolita Express! (That one was offered to “Predatory Bill” Clinton once and he disdained it as “too permanent.”)
“I use ’em once and toss ’em. Next! Hiya darlin. Welcome to the White House in exile.”
Or maybe a chest of gold in the hold.&
“US-Hamas talks show that peace is possible”
Well, yeah. All you have to do is throw Israel out of the negotiations and bolt the door so that they can’t get back in. Trump may not be a quick study but perhaps he has finally noticed that when you remove the Israelis from the equation, that life for him gets much simpler and he can rack up a coupla wins. A deal with Yemen to stop attacking US ships? Done – and without involving Israel. A deal with Hamas to free that American-Israeli hostage? Done – with no Israeli involvement. He may realize by now that without Israeli involvement, that a deal can be made with Iran that would be lucrative for the US. In all three cases it is Israeli sabotage holding up any deals and it is not really about Israeli security but all about making sure that Netanyahu stays in power and out of prison.
My understanding was that the Cavendish banana was on borrowed time anyway due to no genetic diversity and the spread of the fungus killing it, just like its predecessor.
Australia is really careful about food like this getting in on flights because they’re desperate to keep their plantations safe. Sniffer dog IDed me once on a return to Sydney because it detected lingering smell of a banana I’d put in my bag but eaten before flying from Schipol. I had to unload everything to show no banana. But those dogs are well trained.
As an addendum/warning, my large amount of travel involving Australia taught me a lot about how some countries deal with the threat of bringing nasties into their country that could pose a threat to things like banana crops.
When you enter Australia you fill in a landing card (like lots of countries). When you’ve been through the often long queue to see the immigration officer they’ll write a single letter in top right of the card. I eventually sussed what this is: it’s an evaluation of what they perceive the risk of you having organic material (food) in your stuff. As I gradually moved from “foreigner who visits on business” to “resident on working visa” to “permanent resident” to “Citizen” I saw the letter change. In practice the implications come when you’ve collected your hold luggage from the carousel and then queue for the “organic material” scanner.
If they’re over-worked then if you have a “high enough” code (indicating low risk of breaking the rules) you don’t get scanned but get to bypass the queue and go straight through to arrivals hall. I got to that level and frequently avoided the scan: they just relied on the roving officer+dog who went around the baggage carousel to find anything suspicious. That’s how the banana incident happened. Plus a family friend who worked in UK immigration told me they identify people for questioning the moment you start walking along the skybridge from the plane because those adverts along the walls have officers behind them watching for people who are obviously mentally preparing themselves to “look casual” and use the “Green channel” when they shouldn’t be doing so! They really went to town on Brits in the early noughties at that time we had a two USD pound and people were shopping massively in NYC. Just some warnings about sticking to the rules.
interesting. ty for the anecdote.
Now I know; and knowing is half the battle!
An older friend related that the Gros Michel (Big Mike) banana the pre-dated the Cavendish, was a much superior banana to the Cavendish, in taste.
In my first forays of flying to NZ in the early 1980’s*, the joke was that the captain would announce that we would soon be landing in Auckland, please set your clocks back 20 years…
The other thing was, when you landed… a couple of fellows in official looking uniforms would come down the aisles with a spray can of who knows what in each outstretched arm with a steady finger on the nozzle. never letting up as they did their deed in saving Kiwiland from the agricultural evils that lurked on board.
* on account of heavy import duties, you rarely saw a new car, and in fact, Queen St in Auckland had the look of present day Cuba, with ’57 Chevys and the like, the difference being that it was a ’57 Morris Minor.
This all changed in the later 80’s, and damn near every imported car was a 3 to 4 year old domestic Japanese car, which was perfect because they also drive on the left hand side, although the radios were super janky on my rentals over the years.
One of my mum’s most common bugbears is “current bananas are tasteless compared to ones I had as a kid”. Well yeah, you had the Gros Michel and people have said that the Cavendish has always been a pretty poor (but best we could manage) imitation.
Scientists are struggling to create anything close to the Cavendish for when it inevitably succombs after some idiot brings the pathogen into Australia. That’ll make it game over.
I’ve always preferred ‘big mickey’ as a better translation of Gros Michel.
I highly recommend “How Russia Views the New Germany under Merz.” It starts with a long and informative introduction to a video commentary by a Russian at Vesti Nedeli (News of the Week — and the commentator is the highly placed journalist Dmitri Kiselyov). Both parts are translations, then, but they are easily readable.
This new piece of information is worth your while. According to Kiselyov, “In addition, for the first time since World War II, Germany is establishing permanent military bases abroad. A German tank brigade has been officially stationed in Lithuania near the Belarusian border. For what?”
Indeed.
Even if we admit that Kiselyov is a tad too cozy with the Russian Government, there is much to be considered. Including: Claims by Kiselyov that Thatcher and Mitterand opposed German reunification.
In short, both the writer for anti-Spiegel and Kiselyov find current German behavior and politics somewhat dire.
I recently read an interview with Donatella di Cesare, who is a Germanist, philosopher, scholar of Hannah Arendt, and high-profile in her opposition to the proxy wars in Ukraine and Palestine, which has caused her some grief, given that she is Jewish. (Some of that grief is from the loud-mouthed rightwing of the Italian Jewish community.) I didn’t link, because Fatto Quotidiano keeps its articles behind a paywall.
Yet di Cesare points out that because the German left has been wrecked, there is no counterweight to the rightward lurch of the Greens, Christian Democrats, and SPD.
Her summation was just as dire: Germany is on the road to ruin.
I doubt that Germany will have enough professional soldiers to fill up all these formations being sent all around the map. For that, they may consider bringing back conscription but that would be problematical as well as how many young Germans want to give up a few years of the best part of their lives for people like Merz? Worse case scenario, would they be fighting for Germany or would they be fighting for Blackrock?
Germany is the oldest society on earth, with a median age of 46.7, just after Japan (49.5) and Italy (48.1), and just before Spain (46.3).
Thus, even if they wanted to, politicians and general staff could probably not recruit enough soldiers among the German youth to fill the ranks according to their ambitious rearmament plans.
That’s what the Turkic Janissaries are all about.
The janissaries caused plenty of trouble; they had that bad habit of thinking they could determine whether a sultan was fit to rule or not — with lethal consequences…
There are always Hessians to be had, not that I think that would improve the chances of success for this fiasco.
They can skip straight to the Volkssturm phase, and save some time and lives.
Thanks. Imo, the right-left dichotomy isn’t a useful description anymore in Western politics. If the Greens, CDs and SPD are lurching rightward, why are they trying to crush AfD which they declare a far right party? Right-left is a useful 20th C political dichotomy but not now. Now, the elites in both the right and left agree to the point of being a uniparty in many countries. Now, the dichotomy is populist-elite. AfD, LePen’s party, T’s MAGA, Reform, etc./ my 2 cents
The term “extreme centre” has been suggested to identify the “uniparty”, or the conglomerate of right-leaning greens/conservatives/social-democrats — with “extreme” denoting the intolerance that those parties show towards any movement that puts in question their monopoly on political life.
If you wanted a simplistic term, ‘globalists’ would do as that would certainly describe people like Merz, Macron and Starmer. And frankly they do not care what laws they have to break and what norms they have to wreck just so that they can stay in power. Just as the Romanians.
using 1790s French Assembly seating chart is exceedingly dumb now more than ever.
the “spectrum” is more like a doughnut…”left v right” and “top/transnational v. down”.
and just like the doughnut, if two sides (“far left” and “far right”) walk long enough in the opposite direction, they meet
Funny how the rich poor axis remains unchanged after all these years…
The populist / anti-populist dichotomy does seem more relevant in the west. But the populist sphere is carefully shaped to strengthen more divisive populist policies and erase more universalist or redistributive policies. Thus AfD is the most popular party and BSW barely hits 5%.
Shaped by whom: the populist parties or by the elites’ claims about the populist parties or by the MSM’s selective attention process?
Selective attention video. (If you’ve already seen this don’t give away the ending.)
Youtube. Selective Attention Test.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo
I would say they were shaped by funding and narrative support from pro-corporate interests, and in the case of Germany, decades of influence by NGOs and ‘Stay Behind’ operations, among others.
This is an entirely funny Taibbi and Kirn episode about expected things in life. If Impressionists Were Dentists
Sorry if the clip is paywalled.
https://www.racket.news/p/if-impressionists-were-dentists
Abundance–
Between Trump’s Golden Age and Ezra’s “Abundance,” the future’s so bright…
If I were still hanging around, my sigline would be:
“Greasy Heart,” Grace Slick
The Suicide of American Empire – CounterPunch
“…The American empire has existed since July 4, 1776 when it was declared as colonial elites revolted against the British in a quest to expand their territory across the mainland of North America…”
Wouldn’t that be the start of the shaky Republic? And since most of these collapse of empire narratives seem to often evoke comparison to ancient Rome, it reminds me that some historians call the fall of the Roman Republic one thing and THEN came the emporers of the Empire with even more war.
Just something that has been nagging at me lately.
So many implosion as triumph narratives set off the contrarian in me.
IMO, that writer is being hyperbolic. real American (intercontinental) empire started between 1913 (income tax + Fed + popular sufferage of senators) and 1919 with the Spanish A mm erican War as the intoxicating amuse bouche.
ymmv Woodrow Wilson (and Edith) was one of the worst presidents ever with respect to US imperialism
I have seen arguments identifying the republic’s end with the replacement of the articles of confederation with the current constitution.
Everything is in place for the Bizarro World collapse of the USA along the lines of the collapse of the USSR, everything is the same but different…
Yeltsin was a raging alcoholic, Trump is a teetotaler
Both want to dismantle things, vis a vis profit by selling off the family jewels to favored associates.
Empty shelves because of domestic product scarcity, versus empty shelves on account of imported product scarcity.
!BIG! difference between 1793 America and 1916 (invasion of mexico for the Poncho Villa hunt by Wilson)
imo. pundits are too high on the America = “nothing but original sin” yhesis
No, that writer is not being the least hyperbolic in placing the start of American empire in 1776.
One of the primary drivers for the Independence movement by the American colonists — arguably, the primary one — was that the treaties the British government had made with the various Native Americans tribes substantially abrogated further colonial expansion westwards into those tribes’ territories.
Hence, in the War of 1812, when the British drove the US out of Canada, then entered Washington and burned down the White House, the Capitol building, and other major buildings there, the majority of the tribes were mostly allied with the British. Tecumseh and members his Shawnees and Native Indian confederacy fighting alongside General Brock’s redcoats during the Battle of Detroit and elsewhere is the most notable example —
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tecumseh#War_of_1812
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tecumseh#Brock_and_the_Siege_of_Detroit
— but the Indian resistance to the Americans was general. And that was because they’d been fighting a long war against American expansionary conquest already —
https://activehistory.ca/blog/2014/09/10/anishnaabeg-in-the-war-of-1812-more-than-tecumseh-and-his-indians/
And so in 1861, for instance, when the giant Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way mural was painted in the House of Representatives chamber of the US Capitol Building was painted by Emanuel Gottlieb, it was because empire was exactly what the US meant to extend across the American continent.
Good point. While there may have been no actual empire in 1776, the founders, Alexander Hamilton prominent among them, wrote the rules the way they did because they wanted to create one.
Too bad Aaron Burr didn’t duel with Hamilton a few years earlier.
Forget about Rome, or Great Britain for that matter; it is Spain. Nowadays, the USA correspond to the 18th century Spanish empire.
It’s a combination of events… post WW1 Germany, defeated on the battlefield-but untouched @ home…
Assignats of the French Revolution based on real estate values, corresponding to MBS values and monies loaned…
…and throw in a dash of really silly early 1700’s financial bubbles reincarnated digitally
@ Vao —
Yeah, you make a very persuasive case for the Spanish empire being the most relevant comparison. I just read it. All props!
Agreed. Thank you, vao. That is a thought-provoking comparison.
18th century Spain or late 18th century China.
Vao & Unironic
I’m bracing myself for the possibility that the USA hasn’t yet entered its king or emperor phase of bloodletting and looting.
And there is much correlation to Spain – more pronounced because of certain earlier conquests.
Yeah they say history doesn’t repeat but it does rhyme and that has been in my mind a lot lately.
Just as anecdote: there are older people on forums I frequent who remember and are still salty about things like how the UK was not given the same help under the Marshall Plan as others (at first anyway; people should know that we did get a lot of help at later date). Also the fact our early nuclear research was given to the USA who said “thank you” then shut us out of their research programme and we had to go it alone.
I fully understand that the British Empire needed a good lesson but the US, in ensuring the Empire was broken up ASAP after WW2 also made a lot of people a bit miffed. There’s schaudenfraude among some groups when looking at Trump’s America. I don’t for one minute think this is nice or helpful but it’s there. USA helped us as much as could be got past Congress via Lend-Lease etc so I’m the last to tar them all with same brush. But don’t be surprised if some semi-authoritarian following Starmer decides “OK, China and/or Russia”. Only the childless most rabid supporters of Reform are really chanting “USA USA”. This is a pity because as Yves pointed out on the post about Reform, there are a lot of common problems that it’d be better if we thought up solutions to together.
“Yeah they say history doesn’t repeat but it does rhyme and that has been in my mind a lot lately.”
In an universe, where everything is moving in cicles, save the seemingly short sighted straight movements, the current constellation parellels that of 1945:
“This week is rich in fates. It contains two conjunctions: Saturn/Neptune and Sun/ Uranus, and two squares: Pluto /Mercury and Mars/Mercury. So there are 7 deities intervening in the average events in the northern hemisphere of the Earth.
Let’s discuss them in turn:
Saturn/Neptune
the determinant /the dissolution
In conjunction, these two give the year 2025 from May to autumn and 2026 from January to April their historical character by the heavenly playbook
A review:
What culminated on May 9, 1945, accompanied the final battle of the Red Army against the Nazi Wehrmacht for months. The rapidly increasing square Saturn/Neptune accompanied the events since the beginning of December 1944.
31. 12. 1944: Saturn: 7.2°Cancer Square Neptune: 6.4° Libra.
Zhukov: “At the end of December, I had to fly to the headquarters again to discuss with the Supreme Commander a number of issues related to the final confirmation of the general plan for the final military operations.
The months of January to April 1945, under the narrowest square Saturn/Neptune include the Vistula/Oder operation, and in the south – the Western Carpathians operation. At the beginning of February, a controversy arose among leading military officers, concerning an immediate attack on Berlin or an operational pause, until supplies and reinforcements were secured. Zhukov: “In fact, as Chuikov writes, at that time the enemy had only limited forces on the outskirts of Berlin, and his defense was quite weak.” In view of this, Igor Konev represented Marshal and OB of the 1. The Ukrainian Front and General Chuikov considered that they should quickly move on to the Berlin operation. However, the condition of the Soviet troops after the Western-P0land operation was sometimes in urgent need of recovery and replenishment.
Zhukov against an immediate assault on Berlin: “But, as already mentioned, a serious danger was approaching in the first days of February: a counter-attack from East Prussia and Eastern Pomerania into the flank and rear of the main grouping of the front advancing to the Oder.”
Neptune’s dissolving effect (do nothing, wait) accompanied the operational pause in the Berlin direction, decided by the Soviet General Staff, which lasted until April 16 and was finally replaced by the Berlin Operation with the Battle for the Seelow Heights, with which the storm on Berlin began.
The Saturn / Neptune conjunction of this year 2025 accompanies the event until autumn, retreats slightly from September to December ,due to retrograde, and will be active again from January 2026 until the end of March in full sharpness. After that, the world will look different. ”
https://astromundanediary.blogspot.com/2025/05/a-type-like-traore.html
Working link for “Beekeepers … see unprecedented honeybee die-offs”:
https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/central-ny/news/2025/05/12/beekeepers-across-the-u-s–see-unprecedented-honeybee-die-offs–
Beware! Some software feature is substituting a dash for hyphen-hyphen. But the correct link contains consecutive paired hyphens in two different places.
Thanks — Fixed!!
I’ve been pondering this recently since reading Yves mention that hyperinflation (and a crash in the dollar) is a strong possibility of Trumps actions. The US and China have become so interlinked economically the idea that one can crash while the other sweeps up the benefits seems fanciful. A future where the underlying weaknesses in both countries end up reinforcing each other in a mutual spiral of some type seems an increasing possibility. As Shedlock notes, were this to happen, among other things it would mean an inevitable flight to the Euro (and presumably other ‘strongish’ currencies), with all sorts of mostly negative impacts for those countries. The results won’t be pretty.
I haven’t time to absorb it, but the linked arguments that China has far more dollar liabilities than many assume could be very important. We tend to focus too much on ‘debt’ without looking at the broader question of overall liabilities countries owe to each others.
Euro will fall apart before USD or CNY. imo, ymmv. but i am not a mish fan
I was persuaded long ago by Yves’s point that exiting the Euro is INCREDIBLY difficult. Software, expectations, liabilities etc all make it really an existential issue for a country.
Now I don’t think this means all the member countries will continue under its yoke. We’re in unchartered waters and I think introducing a “parallel currency” (the old national currency in disguise) might be used as a way to mitigate the damage people like Yves know can happen.
If I had to predict, I’d say that in 20 years a number of “non-core” countries will have peeled off and the Euro will still exist but only for a number of “EU powerhouse countries”. Those leaving will CERTAINLY (as Yves has said) find exit painful and risk profound societal upheaval. But I think they’re caught between a rock and a hard place. They’re in the Hotel California but some will risk leaving despite the upheaval.
Its highly unlikely any country will exit the Euro, either voluntarily or involuntarily, for all the reasons (and others), Yves has outlined. Most Europeans haven’t forgotten how crappy most European currencies were pre-Euro for different reasons. The Euro will only fall apart in the face of a very extreme crisis or a complete loss of faith in it, and we are some distance from either, yet.
There is a lot of re-plumbing going on in the background with the Euro – the fundamental weaknesses of its design are being increasingly recognised. Ironically, the Ukraine conflict seems to have persuaded many northern European countries of the need to exit the ordoliberal initial design – fears of a rapid rise in its value relative to the yuan and dollar will hasten this. Draghi seems to be doing a lot of work behind the scenes – his report does not discuss the Euro directly, but reading between the lines most of his recommendations – which are being treated very seriously – involve major changes.
Hungary still has their own currency (Forint.)
They’d be my number one candidate to bolt.
Well, they can’t bolt the eurozone if they are not in it. The Danes and Swedes and Poles stayed out too, but its not clear that they are all that much better off (except arguably the Poles, who have been doing very well in the past decade or so), as all have had problems with interest rates and keeping the currency stable. Minority currencies can be highly vulnerable to speculative swings.
Small nations have very limited options when it comes to maintaining independent currencies. Most are not really independent as usually they end up with one or more unofficial pegs, with all this implies for a loss of control over interest rates – this applies to all the none Eurozone EU members.
As does Czechia (aka the Czech Republic).
Thanks. I really hope you’re right.
The best way to leave the Euro is for another existing currency, if it will have you. The problem is leaving a single currency is a political, sovereigntist decision and so it is hard to imagine leaving the ECB to become a vassal of another currency zone.
For example, the best practical escape for Ireland from the Euro would be to join the sterling zone overnight but can you imagine the political realignment needed to make that look like an option!?
That is an option – of course, many countries already do this by ‘informally’ adopting the euro (Kosovo and Montenegro). A number of UK Overseens Territories have done the same, presumably for reasons of convenience (Akrotiri and Dhekelia).
Even in a complete collapse scenario, there is little possibility of Ireland taking on sterling again. It was pretty much universally accepted that one reason for the Republics very bad economic performance in the 20th Century was due to the various formal and informal links to Sterling which left it with what amounted to a very overvalued currency. Even at its poorest, Ireland never had the advantages of being ‘cheap’.
Although tbh, I’d bet on sterling falling apart before the euro.
I’d be in favour of a United Isles, with a new currency and confederal arrangements for both and a policy of armed neutrality. Atlantic Switzerland. We could serve the same purpose between the EU and US as Switzerland did between its neighbours. I think sterling will outlast the EU, even if the Euro endures for a hardcore….
Unfortunately, it requires too much trust from Ireland and too much retraining of its imperial instincts of Britain. It is a shame we have so much in common but remain so separate.
I think its more a case of restraining the imperial instincts of the City of London.
In idle moments, I’ve often wondered what a real, locally sensitive currency policy would look like for Europe. For small countries, maintaining a currency can be a huge burden as it seems that at a small scale, the ‘impossible trinity’ becomes magnified in its effects, not to mention friction costs for trade. But large national or transnational currencies inevitably create regional problems as there is no single valuation or interest rate policy that will suit diverse regions. Maybe a sort of Euro along with greater freedom for localised currencies (i.e. a hierarchy of currencies), although most experiments with these don’t seen to get very far.
This kind of natural selection in action is always beter than pets killing non-owners (when they never put the owner to sleep as punishment).
Such as dogs?
I’ve no idea how they determined that it was accidental.
I would put that in the “hoist by his own petard” category. It sounds like something out of a Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner cartoon.
When an Arsonist Poses as a Firefighter – Paul Krugman
And since this brought to mind the incidents of actual firefighters who were arsonists, I did a quick look for stats on the phenomenon, for a bit of fun, and saw this bit on Wiki:
“Firefighter-caused arsons are not tracked in the United States. The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) and the National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) report arson-related fires, however no specific system for documenting and tracking firefighter-caused arsons is in place. Without complete information on the statistics of firefighter-caused arsons, these arsons are perceived as isolated incidents. While some states may be able to produce information on the number of firefighter arson prosecutions, other fire agencies do not even acknowledge that the problem exists.[5]”
As an analogy to some current events, it’s too spooky.
John Orr is the poster child for an arsonist posing as an arson investigator…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Leonard_Orr
“EDITORIAL: Sweden’s new drones are already useless”
This editorial seems to assume that it is the Ukrainians that are building all these drones and it is the brilliance of Ukrainian engineering that makes it a world leader in drone building. Yeah, nah! For years now the Ukraine has been a testing bed for all sort of equipment so I would assume that many of those drones would be coming from the west as well as technical expertise.
And in passing I note that the ‘173rd Airborne builds its own FPV drone lab to get around procurement wait’-
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/173rd-airborne-fpv-drone-lab/
If I ran the circus, Yves caveat would be in every single US news article or opinion piece covering the current administration and every reference to the IRS or the FDA or our National Parks would be prefaced by “what’s left of” or “the ravaged husk of.”
I keep waiting for a reporter to yell “You lie!” at one of his pressers, but alas, courage appears to be lacking among our press corps.
On a related note, kudos to both Yves and the commentariat for largely steering clear of the farcical tariff agreement w/ China that gave markets the equivalent of enough fentanyl to kill a rhinoceros. Such obvious lies do not deserve our mental energy.
This reminded me of Fahrenheit 451.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451
… advances in technology resulted in nearly all buildings being made with fireproof materials, and firemen preventing fires were no longer necessary. The government then instead turned the firemen into officers of society’s peace of mind: instead of putting out fires, they were charged with starting them, specifically to burn books, …
Humbly report, surrealistic qualities are in massed quantity, a quandary quenched in questioning everything.
“‘I’ve practised being booed’, Israel’s Eurovision entry who survived Hamas attack tells BBC”
This is in fact true. I understand that in Israel that she went before a live audience and started making all sorts of statements-
‘We should end this war now.’ (boo! boo! boo!)
‘We must ensure the survival of those hostages’ (boo! boo! boo!)
We cannot starve women and children (boo! boo! boo!)
I believe that we should create a Palestinian State.’ (boo! boo! boo!)
With that last statement, police had to haul her off stage before she was lynched.
Personally I think the UK should quit the European Broadcast Union (which amongst other things funds Eurovision) ASAP.
Get us out of this political nightmare. Plus the competition is a bloody joke. Let the Germans and French fund it if they want. Our “previous longstanding” national commentator (Terry Wogan) said it’d become a travesty. He was right. Now it’s just politics/war done via stupid means.
re: Flight MH17 case
This is not a verdict yet. I wonder if Helmer will cover the event.
Unfortuantely I don´t believe a single word these people will say in case they present some evidence or arguments.
Montréal, 12 May 2025 – The Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) today voted that the Russian Federation failed to uphold its obligations under international air law in the 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17.
https://www.icao.int/Newsroom/Pages/Insert-Subject-Here.aspx
The US has satellite photos of where this launcher was located but for ‘mysterious’ reasons has never released them to my knowledge and it has been 11 years now. Odd that. The thing that I remember most was the Donbass militias collecting the dead bodies and putting them in refrigerated railway cars because it was summer and those bodies were starting to decompose. But then you had western nations screaming their outrage at this happening without explaining why it was better for those bodies to be left rotting in the sun and maybe being eaten by local wildlife.
Didn´t know about those photos
The US put up a satellite over the Ukraine about 2014 and it may have been this satellite that took an image of this area showing where that Buk system was located. And that would have show whether it was in Ukrainian-help territory or militia-held territory i.e. who actually fired that missile. During the so-called investigations they tried for a copy of that image but the US held onto it like it was the JFK files. If I recall correctly, eventually an investigator was allowed into a highly secured room with no mobile or recording gear to look at this fabled image – if it was the actual image.
No one can put up a satellite over the Ukraine, because physics. In order to cover an area properly, one needs a constellation, not a satellite. Also, in order to catch a mobile launcher in action one needs a drone flying around (as seen on many videos). The whole story has trouble passing the smell test, because it smells fishy.
Yeah I know that a ‘satellite over the Ukraine’ is inaccurate but it was much simpler to say it that way in this comment to note that the US was dedicating satellite coverage of this conflict way back in 2014-15. Considering the fact that the US spent at an absolute minimum of $5 billion to topple the Ukrainian government and have neoNazis put in charge to confront Russia with, why would putting up a dedicated satellite be such a surprise? But if you doubt that there was an image of this area taken showing where that Buk was, here is an article that talks about what was going on at the time-
https://original.antiwar.com/John_Helmer/2021/07/13/the-devil-in-the-mh17-details/
You can not dedicate LEO satellite towards an area, because physics. Of course they were filming whatever they could, but that’s a no brainer, and nothing special worth pointing out. They are not going to reconfigure their constellation in order to optimize flyover over Donbass (and I don’t even know to what extent is such a thing doable).
I am sure that there are some images of some Buks parked around some warzone (as that’s what Buks are made for). Until I see the money shot in question, it’s just a trust-me-bro story that is fishy at best. It reminds me of decades old anectode about US satellites being able to read license plates on cars. No one ever saw an image (because it was not possible), but the trust-me-bro story was retold ad nauseam.
So because physics, all those satellites are useless as you cannot use them to watch over a specified region? Am I reading this right? The US, according to the link I provided, saw that launch and could identify exactly where it was. So what is the bet that it was held in territory held by the Ukrainians? It it was in territory held by the Donbass militias, the US would have run off with that image to the UN in a gotcha moment.
No. Because physics, all those satellites are made to be useful for many regions. You can watch any of the areas that a satellite flies over, when it flies over (which is not often). Building those constellations is a serious endeavour and take years, and even decades. Science does not allow for artistic license ( like “The US put up a satellite over the Ukraine about 2014”), and that’s why I wrote the reply in the first place.
The US, according to my lifetime of experience, lies all the effing time. They have shown satellite images of 40 miles long Russian column north of Kieve in 2022. The column that never existed. I have no idea what exactly happened with that plane, but I am positive that whatever the US is sayin’, did not.
Yeah, the Ukraine was a member of the investigating committee. Just sad and pathetic, like anything to do with that country for the past 20 years.
Yeah, it´s absurd beyond anything. But then: Israel had a judge with the ICJ presiding over whether Israel was guilty of genocide…
On “If Everyone Has Trauma, Everyone Has Trauma”
Hurrah! I was diagnosed with Schizoaffective Disorder Bipolar Type when I was 20 and had to drop out of college because my paranoia and hallucinations were making me thing my body was somehow attached to the economics building and then I hid in my room for a week. I went on to attempt suicide twice and was in patient psych seven times, three of those involuntarily and have been on permanent disability for 23 years. I was also diagnosed with Asperger’s. My family left me to die and suffer because I reminded them too much of my Nephew who died by suicide at 14. Now, I am homeless.
In the last five or so years I have been confronted over and over by more people telling me they have Bipolar Disorder, Autism, or OCD. But these people have jobs, money, lovers family. To me, if you still have these things you are either very lucky, or you do not have a mental illness. These people will tell me that they are manic, which I know they are not, because when I am manic I have no idea I am manic. Other people have to tell me I am manic. Just three days ago I had to be talked into talking some medication by a friend because I did not realize that the high altitude I was camping in was triggering paranoid delusions.
I had the Asperger’s mostly beaten out of me when I was a kid (1977), not only by my brother’s and my father, but by my classmates. And today, watching the current season of Survivor, there is a young woman who says she has Autism yet seems to be living a very normal life. “I play on the hockey team, I am getting a PhD.”
Listen, you do not have a mental illness unless your behavior significantly disrupts your life. Period. Being sad is not depression. Being overly active is not mania. And being distracted in a distracting world is not ADHD.
And now that “everyone has trauma” I cannot get therapy or psych care because all these people are taking up the time of these practitioners. Who gets priority now? Not me. There is no triage. All this mentally ill cosplay is doing real harm to people. If they want to be as “special” as me I will gladly trade places with them. And I would also gladly trade places with any amputee or cancer patient.
If it were not for my intelligence I would already have been dead like my brother and my nephew. But I cannot say the same for my countless brothers and sisters I see on the street everyday I drive around this county. Everyone that is cosplaying mental illness is directly causing harm to these people who really need help.
I’m sorry to hear of your condition. I am hypomanic, Bipolar “Lite”, and while I certainly have not suffered as severely as you have it has made my life a roller-coaster to say the least. I’m medicated now and able to hold down a job but I still wrestle with deep depression. I have to talk myself through completing the simplest of tasks or otherwise I’ll just go lay down and take a nap instead of finishing them. This is a far cry from the days when I wouldn’t sleep for 48 hours or lay in bed smacking the side of my head because the voices wouldn’t stop, though.
There is definitely a trend of people claiming mental illness who have no such thing. I’ve heard comments like “Oh, everyone is bipolar these days.” or “I get depressed too.” after explaining that I have a certified mental illness. They have no idea. Depression? Talk to me when you are literally deciding if you should stop flossing halfway through because you just can’t stand the thought of continuing because it seems like the most onerous thing in the world.
The worst are the mental illness groupies. Some other bipolars and I used to get together for drinks (lots), coke (lots) and antics and when people would ask us what we were about we would tell them we were a bipolar Meetup. Some people were obviously attracted to this and would tell us about their depression or that they have rough days and then try to hang out with us. Not because they liked us or were honestly interested in our stories but because they wanted to be a part of our group. They would hype themselves, trying to sell us on the idea that they too were special because mental illness. It was a definite thing, there is a type of person who thinks it’s cool to be mentally ill. We would look at one another when we heard this then grill the person for anecdotes about how bad off they really were. Inevitably, it would come out that they were no such thing and we would send them away with gales of laughter. Afterwards, we would crash and be in a mental pit for a couple of days.
Thank you for your comment. You’re absolutely right about these cosplaying fake bipolar types, my shrink gets them referred to him regularly and his tactic is to tell them stories about truly mentally ill people and then ask them reflect on whether they want to make a new appointment. My cousin, same sex and age as me, had schizophrenia come on at around the same time in life as you. It was incredibly sad. He told me about the voices and how much he wanted to be “himself” again but that it was impossible. Total disability as well, his parents at first were in denial but luckily for him had a come to Jesus moment and started to do everything possible to help him live a decent life. Cycled through lots of doctors and treatments and his dad even became an advocate for people with schizophrenia. He’s still alive post 60yo and has a woman who lives with him and loves him, which is sort of amazing and gives me hope for a better world. I hope you are doing reasonably well and can get shelter and proper care soon.
Thanks to you and all in this thread. I had hypomania at one point but it was medication induced: pregabalin + an antidepressant. I “Yellow carded” it to UK authorities and thankfully it was at exactly the right time, when the authorities were realising that Pregabalin was the “Street drug of choice” in places like Nottingham (no doubt as part of a drug cocktail since BY ITSELF it isn’t necessarily a problem).
Pregablin then hit the BBC news and within a week was reclassified by the government to be same level as benzos. I still think it’s a valuable neuropathic pain drug…….but don’t use it for anxiety etc. There remains no wonder drug for anxiety.
My MAOI antidepressant does a lot of legwork, which is good. There remain areas where psychopharmacologists think it could be used more…..but it’s old and drug reps are glamourous and get attention of physicians *sigh*
I worry that some of the cosplaying going on is actually the parents of kids who get various special needs diagnoses. Maybe not common, but there is a certain status boost some members of the PMC get online from being able to brag on, or get sympathy for, their “special” offspring. So it’s really hard figuring out what’s going on when some of the diagnoses are very clearly warranted and others are more of a social (or social media) contagion.
A disastrous perspective.
Which makes me think: is this comparable to those parents insisting that their children are gender-dysphoric and require a special treatment for their condition?
That’s definitely one of the diagnoses that have become chic for certain PMC presences on social media. “Oh, look at my little boy with hair down his back and wearing a dress, so cute!” The degree of vicarious status seeking that goes on now dwarfs what we made fun of in 1950s small towns. If only Sinclair Lewis was still around to rewrite Babbitt for the internet age!
Yea. Those dressing up dogs seems more normal now.
“Munchausen (or Factitious Disorder) by Proxy” is exactly this and has been documented for a while (very likely in practice for much longer).
Ironically, this disorder can be a traumatic experience for the children especially when they’re old enough to understand all the repurcussions.
“Multiple Western Press Outlets Have Suddenly Pivoted Hard Against Israel”
It’s not hard to imagine a pivot taking place once the West determines that sufficient progress has been made in the slaughter and further emiseration of surviving Palestinians. Maybe we will start to see attempts to pin the genocide on Trump and Netanyahu, and the Israel-project will be whitewashed and free to continue as “Liberal Zionism”. Lots of opportunities for performative criticism without confronting the actual nature of Zionism or the ethno-state. Or the fact of U.S. sponsorship.
re: Hollywood vs. London
How London Became the New Hollywood
As L.A. sound stages sit empty, fat tax incentives and saner politics are turning Britain’s capital into a mecca for streamers, studios and stars. Will Trump’s tariffs halt the exodus?
May 8th
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/london-new-hollywood-1236208885/
This is true as far as it goes (and has increasingly been for some time, really).
Yet simultaneously the new technology and other trends pushing some Brits who’ve had decades-long careesr in the TV and film industries into jobs in the hospitality industry or stocking shop shelves. From 2024 —
https://bectu.org.uk/news/half-of-uk-screen-industry-workers-remain-out-of-work-bectu-research-finds
https://news.sky.com/story/no-pension-no-career-no-future-grim-reality-behind-the-scenes-of-british-tv-and-film-industry-13073162
Yep.
As I said weeks ago in Germany artists i.e. many entertainment people are among the poorest but that´s totally neglected since film folks don´t concur with the usual image of poverty. Only now sometimes it surfaces in the yellow press that some beloved actress of yesteryear now that she is retired complains that she has no pension to speak of. And the next gen. will be off much worse.
p.s. a tiny bit related:
The MAGA Plan to Weaken Boxing’s Labor Protections
By Jack Bedrosian
The Saudi-funded TKO Group, which also owns UFC and WWE, is starting its own boxing promotion. With the support of MAGA Republicans, it plans to upend the sport’s protections, scrap safeguards, and undermine regulatory institutions.
https://jacobin.com/2025/05/boxing-ali-act-tko-group
I’m in two minds about this. On the one hand there is a lot of “accumulated institutional expertise” in the North London studios that counts for a lot. On other hand, tariffs by USA could kill them.
Here’s one little anecdote I love. Look up Maurice Murphy. He was appointed principal Trumpet position in the LSO in 1977 and his first piece was the score for what was then simply called Star Wars. He played in that position for ALL SIX SW movies that were George Lucas properties, along with a few others who maintained “institutional memory” thus making the LSO the “go to” orchestra for many top Directors. Plus the LSO has a bunch of string players with expensive instruments and brass players who really know their stuff so you can usually spot when the LSO has done the score for a movie.
I noticed after watching Episode 7 of SW that a lot of people not musically trained like me noticed “something was off”. That’s because Disney hates unions and the LSO is the most unionised orchestra in the world. A “scratch” orchestra was put together in LA to score JJ Abrams take on SW and it shows.
Superhero nerds might have noticed this effect for Avengers Infinity War vs Avengers Endgame. Silvestri (who composed both) demanded that rather than the alternative (LPO or RPO I forget which) he used for Infinity War if he was gonna do the obvious box office smash to complete the Infinity Saga he wanted the LSO. Disney caved and he got them. You really can tell if you’re a muso nerd like me and even a lot of non musos noticed. Unions can really make a difference when they try.
I absolutely agree on the LSO´s special place re: SW.
I loath all other recordings.
I cannot say that much about the Disney-era. Those scores I have listened to but something about their entire stretch bothered me. Good in parts, odd as complete scores. But I would follow your verdict there. (Just think of the sound space of “Back to the Future” or “Predator” and compare it to “Allied” and then again, indeed, MCU)
Since you mention this fight over what orchestra – the audio commentary of the Bluray version of John Guillermin´s “Blue Max” speaks essentially about Jerry Goldsmith. Now it is argued that for reasons you mention they chose the Hollywood orchestra not the London which Goldsmith had originally wished for (I hope I am not mixing up movies here). One reason being that Goldsmith had not yet the star status of later years and that I think Newman as chief for orchestration with Fox was not around there to support Goldsmith.
I don’t know if it still goes on, but for years a lot of British TV productions were made in Hungary – even going back to the 1980’s. I think it was a mix of tax incentives, low cost extras, plus a high technical quality of the crews. As a kid I loved the show Robin of Sherwood, and I remember that some extras had quite distinct not-English accents (and definitely not a Nottingham accent…). So far as I can remember, it was mostly shot in Hungary.
I came across a podcast a while back where Rob Lowe was chatting with some other big name actors, and they casually started talking about all the time they spend working in Dublin. Turns out he does a gameshow on Fox and its cheaper for them to fly a studio audience in from the US to a studio south of Dublin (in the small town of Bray) than shoot in Hollywood. Its mostly due to tax incentives, but it seems that over the years the major studios build up sufficient technical expertise that they can compete with cheaper countries.
>”(and definitely not a Nottingham accent…)”
😂
p.s. With locations they still do this – and when they lack money it shows: They use cities which they believe nobody knows intimitaly enough like Budapest, Bucharest or Sofia to stand in for Moscow or Minsk or Kiev. Or they are lazy to switch location when the screenplay does and carry on shooting the same city as before just different angles and spots. But any serious prod. designer will probably roll his eyes the way it is being done today.
By no means would I oppose this practice. It´s film and fiction and in fact it should be regarded as the freedom of the arts. It can be used to beautiful effect. But it has to make sense.
One of the publicly better known examples was Spielberg´s (racist) “Munich” using Budapest for Paris.
The time when they shot in Hungary there were regular complaints by residents there because the morning before a shooting began suddenly their cars were missing. Hollywood had just towed them somewhere else without any warning…
I am Nottingham born and bred and even *I* can’t do the Nottingham accent. The irony is that my mother vowed that her kids would not sound Nottingham…..when in a case of supreme cognitive dissonance she recounted how the nuns in Dublin when teaching her would use the ruler on knuckles if they didn’t sound British enough. (This reinforces the joke that Dubliners are “West Brits”).
So the nuns were wrong to knock the Irish accent out of her but she insisted my sister and I never sounded Nottingham? Hmmm. Granted, the Nottingham accent would *probably* rank only slightly higher than the Brummie one (which infamously tends to come last in surveys of nice accents) but it means I lack the ability to engage with people should I actually get a new party off the ground round here.
Our previous Labour MP was an ex-headteacher (so no slouch) but was gifted in sounding local and concealing his intelligence. Unlike our current recently elected Labour MP who may as well be a citizen of Islington. And he wonders why people don’t like him?
In Bavaria they used to force kids to not speak their regional tongue.
This is past now. But it led to the surge of local dialect cultural mini-movements with the 1970s. As another aspect of the 1960s liberation movement. Which frankly I wasn´t sure what to think of. The argument of “traumatized” kids was not far away which makes me kinda sick (see lyman alpha blob´s comment at the bottom of thread).
My 2 cents: If you can´t do the accent don´t force it. People want to have someone who is honest not an actor. Sooner or later they would find out and eventually you are being judged by your deeds. Not your accent.
(In personal conversations you can of course point out that this is something that troubles you as weakness of yours..).
Thanks. Very good insights.
p.s. I believe over at Craig Murray´s blog there are a few commentators from UK who are involved in local activism/politics as well.
late wife and i shared a love of linguistic things…and when netflix suddenly had all manner of british tv shows, one thing we noticed was that some of them were apparently filmed in oddball parts of the UK…such that we had to put the subtitles on,lol.
here in the usa, such linguistic/dialect diversity seems to have been driven out of us…homogeneity just like having a micky d’s in every town.
i still retain my slow east texas drawl(hog is a seven syllable word)…but i seem to be an exception.
(and i grew up not really watching a lot of tv(and didnt have my own tv as an adult until i was 26))
This did strike me recently again when watching “Mission Impossible 2” in the original I believe for the first time…
The bad guys spoke regional (to my ear) accents.
That is Dougray Scott and Richard Roxburgh.
Certainly not the usual fare. Which I found remarkable and made it appear a bit oddball compared to today´s routine. This might have been very well intended by director John Woo who likes to set-off usual tonalities. Since he could as well have asked them to speak “properly”. But by using accent vs. standard you can distinguish villains from heroes…since a Tom Cruise can run really fast and some other decent things but he ain´t gonna deliver a Scotsman.
p.s. I was wondering what regional dialects are allowed in Hollywood as formats and brands and I got to think, whatever is figuring as bad boy L.A. lingo, then everything in NYC and Southern accent(s).
don´t know if you have run across a strange French comedy about language borders. It was among the most successful comedies in French history (not my cup of tea though)
“Welcome to the Sticks” (awful title translation)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welcome_to_the_Sticks
In the past, Helsinki and some other Finnish places were used quite a lot as stand ins for USSR cities and the Russian countryside.
I have also noticed that Portuguese locations have been used in some Brazilian movies to stand in for the 19th century/early 20th century Brazil.
Yeah, some scenes of the Reds were filmed under my home’s windows and “Gorky Park” is where me and my mates used to play ice hockey…
And Matera has been often used as Jerusalem. Pasolini started this, and the most recent example is that traitor Mel Gibson’s movie about Christ (he’s now in charge of bringing movie production back to the US….). Pasolini first looked for sites in Israel but decided they were all too modern.
A friend is a freelance location manager – he tells me there is huge pressure to find familiar locations within an easy drive of studios so some places get re-used constantly. There is a public square near where I live in Dublin next to the old Jameson distillery which, when it was much more derelict than now, stood in for many different European cities, including Checkpoint Charlie in the film version of The Spy who Came in from the Cold. There are two nearby locations – one an 18th century law school (Kings Inn) leading to an 18th century street, the other a fine Georgian Street (north Great Georges Street), which I’ve seen in many historic TV shows and films standing in for various British and European locations.
Near Ardmore Studios south of Dublin, there is an area of mixed woodland (Djouce Woodland) and a very picturesque waterfall (Powerscourt) which must have some sort of record for location shooting – various view points have stood in for Scandinavia, Germany, various tropics and even the American west coast (in Cocaine Bear!) in addition to various mythological forests – including in Game of Thrones.
CGI now means they can often shoot fast and cheap somewhere that is an approximation of what the director wants – they can animate the rest. In the appropriately named village of Hollywood there is a little valley used to film a battle scene in the ice and snow (they shot in the middle of summer) in the 2004 film King Arthur. Even locals often don’t recognise it in the film, they CGI’d nearly everything, making you wonder why they bothered with outdoor shooting.
Yeah, Hungary’s one place and large segments of DUNE 2 were done in Budapest. Italy is another, obviously, and for CONCLAVE they didn’t even have to build a replica of the Sistine Chapel since Cinecitta already had one, which is a hoot..
But there are some places you wouldn’t immediately think of, too, like Istanbul in Turkey.
Wasn’t Bruno Cremer’s Maigret filmed in Prague just after the iron curtain fell? Other than being incredibly cheap, it also proved to be an excellent fit–somehow managing to capture a dingy 1950s Paris perfectly.
De plane, de plane! dept:
My fellow traveler to Peru had a lithium battery pack for her phone in her stowed away luggage, and when we arrived in Lima, her name was called on the P/A several times, and she had to go to where the luggage was and find it so we could fly to Cusco, which was duly done and away we went.
Why was such an item a hazard in stowed away luggage, but ok to have in the cabin?
In simple terms, a lithium fire in a cabin is very bad news, but will be immediately apparent and the cabin crew will have the training and equipment to deal with it (assuming the battery is within the size limits). If a runaway battery fire starts in the hold, then good luck to you, you’ll need it.
Also, given the notorious habits of baggage handlers, the possibility of a battery getting damaged or compressed during its packing into the hold is not negligible. People tend to take more care of their carry-on allowance. And it can be inspected during the security check.
Yep. In the early days of lithium removable batteries for laptops I got caught out. I’d decided that for my flight from SYD back to UK I’d go via Frankfurt and connect to Birmingham (a lot closer to Nottingham).
Ironically it was only at B’ham (AFTER flying) that a tripwire was triggered. I had my laptop plus a spare battery in my hand luggage. I had to pull apart all my hand luggage for them to check it. I should have stuck to LHR.
I’m glad I don’t fly anymore. The hassle factor regarding batteries is just another thing to drive you to distraction. I get the arguments (which you explained nicely) but this is just another thing that made me glad to exit the field and (I hope) never have to fly again.
A fire in the cargo hold could result in lots of dead passengers and crew, whereas if the Li battery has a problem in the passenger cabin, flight crew can safely handle it (even if lots of scary smoke would be produced ;-) )
Greetings from Crazyland Europe! Enjoy your holiday!
I expect the reasoning to be something like, if it spontaneously combusts, it will be noticed immediately in the cabin. Under the floor, in the cargo hold, not so much.
Making a couple of mental shifts, sharing only because they might help someone else who struggles with obsessive news/internet consumption and ensuing effects on mental health.
1. I will no longer intentionally pay attention to the Dow Jones, Nasdaq, or any “Market” stuff. If I do happen to notice accidentally that markets are higher/lower, I will assume that what they’re measuring is a proxy for white collar crime.
As in, “The Dow Jones Crime Index hit a new high today, indicating that more of the economy is embezzlement, fraud, fake AI schemes, and criminal theft.”
2. I have given up all hope that anything will ever change in my lifetime. It’s sort of freeing.
“I will no longer intentionally pay attention to the Dow Jones, Nasdaq…”
Uh-oh. What did you do?
Don’t worry – I didn’t bet the farm on a market swan dive. Though the thought did occur to me.
Just noticing that it really started to affect my mental health. Watching it every day, waiting for the big crash.
The bezzle will continue until it doesn’t, and I have no control over that.
i keep an eye on the vix, and thats pretty much it, save for random bulk freight or whatever that comes across my screen.
J M Keynes said it best: “Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.”
I also consider the influence of automated trading algorithms. They have no mercy.
Me, I’m waiting for Lehman Moment 2.0.
“Chinese companies purge supply chain of foreign parts amid US trade war”
China knows that they are on the sanction/tariff escalator and that the past few weeks have been only round one. As the war in the Ukraine winds down, the US will turn their attention to China more and more. It would not matter if the US and China got an economic divorce as Washington cannot tolerate the thought of an ascendant China. Such an entity would constitute a road black on their plans for an American hegemony and Trump is going along with all this. His continued demands for Green and and panama merely shows how committed he is to this project.
Re: second homes. I live on Cape Cod and the second home market here is booming. Housing affordability is a big issue here.
>INVESTORS SAY UNITEDHEALTH’S GREED GOT ITS CEO MURDERED — AND COST THEM MILLIONS
Apparently, investors were unaware of UHC’s reputation until the CEO was killed.
As Mangione’s lawyers going to get any of these investors to testify on his behalf?
Thanks for the fairly comprehensive article on traffic safety. Some of the suggestions have shown up in my town with separated bike lanes and a few added roundabouts. The three lane alternating passing lane system is quite common out West but less so around here where the longstanding roads often barely have room for two lanes.
However one thing the article doesn’t talk about is the decrease in traffic enforcement which, as a long time driver, I find glaring. I have little doubt this fuels the now common practice of rolling through stop signs and the several accidents in my neighborhood that have resulted. In the past the Highway Patrol–celebrated or scoffed at in movies and TV–was the American answer to safety. Fancy “self regulating” roads sound good but the existing highways often lack maintenance, much less upgrades.
Yes, high traffic death rates are a choice, they are not inevitable. But design can only go so far without proper enforcement – the three lane system failed in my country because the police claimed that Irish drivers lacked the discipline to slow down when meeting the transition section. Far more likely that they just weren’t punished enough.
Another big issue with safe roads initiatives is that they often ‘work’ by driving pedestrians and cyclists off roads. An apparent drop in death rates is really just a reflection of a dramatic drop in non-drivers using roads, in particular in rural and urban fringe areas. This was particularly the case in the UK where decades of over-engineering rural roads led to much higher traffic speeds. And in suburban areas of course now nobody lets their kids out to play on the streets. Sometimes badly engineered roads – blind turns, potholes, poor markings, can actually work to control speed.
I’m a little hesitant regarding the badly engineered roads, although it probably does contribute to some degree of safety.
Where I am, so many people swing around blind corners, even coming on the wrong side of the road. Twice last week I had to hit the brakes to avoid a collision.
Worse, this wide swinging happens at regular intersections now. Perhaps people here aren’t being taught how to steer anymore?
In any case, there’s a famous blind corner in a fairly populated area here where there was a massive accident just last month.
There is a controversial theory, much loved by libertarians, that we have an inbuilt level of acceptable personal risk. Thereby, making things ‘safer’, by, say, making roads straighter, or making us wear seatbelts, just makes people drive faster and with less care. Its been somewhat tongue in cheek suggested that the best safety device in a car would be a 6 inch spike on the steering wheel pointed directly at the drivers chest. Everyone would drive slowly and carefully.
There is some evidence that seatbelt laws, for example, have, while undoubtedly reducing drivers deaths, has increased hazards for pedestrians and cyclists – the death figures being hidden by an overall reduction of pedestrians and cyclists on the roads. Studies I’ve read into this have been pretty inconclusive. But overall, its unquestionably true that many ‘safety’ improvements have unintended, often negative consequences.
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/unitedhealth-group-appoints-new-ceo-suspends-annual-forecast-rcna206445
“UnitedHealth CEO suddenly steps down for ‘personal reasons'”
UHC has already appointed another new CEO, who will be known only by the code name “Ocelot”, and who will manage the company from an undisclosed location.
If you are telling yourself that Donald Trump is erratic and that although his actions are frequently irrational He isn’t totally bonkers…watch the Trump/Gaza video.
He couldn’t see left field from where he is with a pair of 7X50 binoculars.
He is totally bonkers, a fruitcake with too many nuts.
What Trump/Gaza video? There is no such animal on this page that I was able to locate. If you think it’s notable enough to assign homework, it’d be polite to provide a link…
I don’t have a Gaza example to hand but there are PLENTY of vids on YT showing his FULL reaction that hasn’t been edited down by MSM like this.
I sat in on interviews with older people to help develop what is the foremost quality of life measure for older people in the world. This was over a 5-10 year period. I got to spot dementia. This guy has IMNSHO dementia. And has the nuclear codes. WTAF?
Whilst I am fully aware there is a “Democrat bubble” on YT, I don’t subscribe to the channels so as not to have YT “force me down a path”. I just check in with them on occasion and wowser.
RE: If Everyone Has Trauma, Everyone Has Trauma
Good take be de Boer. His exposition of real trauma vs. run of the mill unhappiness and suffering is the correct take in my opinion, and can be summed up with two words from the ancient Greeks (yes, I can’t seem to get off the classics kick lately) – πάθει μάθος. It was said about 2,500 years ago and simply means “learning through suffering”. It also has a nicer ring to it than the more modern “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”.
thats from Aeschylus, i dont remember which play, and is written very prominently on the bar fridge, in greek, so’s everyone asks what it is.
as with all greek, the translation has a lot of wiggle…my fave is “there is wisdom in suffering”.
this one phrase,out of all the others written on the bar…or the shop…or sticking out of the bushes along the path…has instigated the most discourse.
(well, except for the “clothing optional” signs at all the egress points,lol…everyone wants to know if thats to be taken seriously.)
Re: RFK Jr. Swims in D.C.’s Rock Creek, Which Flows With Sewage and Bacteria
I live a short walk from Rock Creek Park. After a hard rain that scenic creek becomes a roaring river with rapids. Fortunately that wasn’t the case at the time or locale of those photos, (though with current rains much of the creek is raging today). But beyond sewer over-flow that mixes excess rainfall with sewage, (which the city is working on along with curbing surface run-off), any upstream runoff includes lawn pesticides/herbicides/fertilizer, dog and deer excrement, etc… that washes into Rock Creek and its tributaries.
A park ranger with a pet wolf once told me he would never let his animal go near the water because the fecal count was usually more than enough to shut down a beach in New Jersey. Whenever I see someone throwing a stick for a dog to retrieve it from the water, I try to warn them off, generally ignored. Same when I see someone, usually migrants, wading in to try and net a meal.
Even though the Potomac into which Rock Creek flows has cleaned up a great deal, eating no more than three river fish servings a week is recommended, some fish like bass not at all. And no servings for pregnant women. Yet I see many people fishing the river regularly for their meals.
But I may be the pot calling the kettle black. When I first got to DC in 1979, on hot days I’d sometimes cool off swimming across the Potomac to Roosevelt Island and back. I also windsurfed in that area, (for which back then I got gamma globulin shots to protect against hepatitis). Then once I was up on the board after a big storm and I saw what was floating by all around me. That ended local bravado. Way downriver near the Chesapeake, sure, but not near the city.
Remarkably, RFK Jr. sometimes points to environment as a cause of disease. Anyone in his position ought to intuitively understand the disease risks those waters pose to children. This is not someone who should be in charge of our health. Or his.
re: US media
JACOBIN
We Need Democratic Media, Not Corporate or State Propaganda
By Meagan Day
Public broadcasting isn’t the enemy of free speech. Profit-driven media is. Trump’s attack on NPR and PBS distracts from the real path away from censorship and toward viewpoint diversity: a large, democratically controlled, publicly funded media ecosystem.
https://jacobin.com/2025/05/public-media-journalism-npr-pbs
The trouble with the CDC’s R-naught value for COVID, at least as illustrated in the Reuters story, is that it doesn’t account for over-dispersion. As we’ve learned, wow, 5 years ago, an individual infected with SARS2 might spread it to no one, a few people, or for reasons no one knows yet, many people. The so-called “super spreader” events. (For the record, I’ve always hated “super” prefixed to anything. It’s worse than “very”.)
re: France protest vs. billionaires
PRAVDA
‘Out of Breath,’ ‘Billionaires, the Country Doesn’t Belong to You’: French Public Servants Rise in Revolt
5/13/25
https://news-pravda.com/eu/2025/05/13/1324652.html
(This was in response PK’s comment on three lane roads but the browser focus shifted…).
Three lane roads are terrible. The occasional crawler lane up hills for slow traffic is OK but for a long time the A303 (main road from London to Penzance) was dominated by alternating three lane sections and it was a death trap, especially at night. It was a major tourism and logistics route so a lot of drivers unfamiliar with the road would not realise their two lane section had ended and would smash headfirst into somebody coming the other way.
My friend’s mother survived a collision with a lorry (lorry’s fault) only because she drove a Cold War Skoda made with an excess of steel.
I really admire the Northern Irish solution of single carriageway rural roads with really wide gravel verges: slow traffic, like tractors, can pull in but keep going slowly, half on the verge, and faster traffic can continue past on the carriageway.
yeah…this used to be farming country(peanuts) before the subsidy went away…so all the highways have very large shoulders.
i use them all the time, since i drive rather slowly,lol…and especially when im hauling sheeps or hay or manure or whatever.
to get to the dump, however, i take dirt roads(in case something falls out, i can just stop in the road and collect it…also less wind on the dirt roads)
and the main roads have passing lanes every so often…well marked and good signage…so no issues.
where you have the most accidents(single car rollovers are common out here at night) are the sharp turns…largely due to rocky terrain that would have been problematic when these highways were built.
deer in the roadway is by far the most common cause of wrecks, tho.
Yes – single lane roads with gravel verges do solve a lot of problems. Road engineers (especially in the anglosphere for some reason) have an unfortunate tendency to overthink and under think problems at the same time. A few years ago I was at a public meeting on some road proposals and being part of the general frustration at hearing some road engineers consistently put forward bizarre designs for cycle friendly roundabouts, seemingly entirely unaware that the Dutch have (largely) solved these problems decades ago. The solutions are often very simple (for example, the decision in Paris to simply allow bikes to cycle ‘counter’ the traffic on one way streets with some simple street markings was both very cheap, and a highly efficient means to solve a lot of problems). In the meanwhile, Dublin City Council have spent 5 decades wasting money on insanely badly designed bike lanes *rant*
Or you can just use DuckDuckGo.
Agreed, although you do have to tell them not to give AI answers now (once).
SearX and Startpage are decent too as alternatives.
I pay $10/mo for Kagi, for which they claim not to track you at all; uses a variety of search results feeds, but I think it’s majority Google results.
Re: demonology
When the final chapter on AI is written, if there’s anyone left to write it, it can be appended to the old annals of demonological lore, and will fit in seamlessly.
post card from the wilderness bar:
stayed up late, waiting for Youngest to get in from Lubbock.
so slept much later, which messes up my day,lol.
(the near-hangover didnt help, either)
but i still got a lot done.
new bar kitchen now has a working stove/oven.
ill attempt the plumbing manana.
most coolest thing today: around noon, i was walking shirtless down the dirt road, closing gates so’s i could let the sheeps out to the front pasture.
and along comes that cute UPS girl i’ve spoken about…
i tip my straw hat…and she actually stopped and jawed with me!
she started with “dont get too hot, today”
me:” well, ma’am, im purty fireproof…and i have a cowboy pool”
her:”whats a cowboy pool?”
me:” great big water trough, over at yonder bar”
her:” you have a bar out here?”
me:” of course…kitchen,too…you should come have lunch, sometime”
her:”i just might”
and then she was on her way.
honked and waved at me on the way out.
so i guess im making deer and mushroom pasties/handpies in the morning,lol.
the first part of the Tale of the UPS Chick(or, Amfortas Agonistes), from december:
Wherein amfortas stands in the road
…with lunch for the pretty and always smiling ups driver who rides down my dead end dirt road every other day.
Seen her prolly 30 times in the last 2 months…and I have always just happened to be crossing or walking across the road when she comes past(i swear this has been a total accident).
I tip my hat, she beams and waves.
So I said to myself, “self…we must make her lunch”.
I dont know how ups compares with, say, amazon for treatment of drivers…but I knew her predecessor for some 25 years, and know that they’re always on a dead run…but also have time to jaw in the yard.
So yesterday, I made venison sausage and mushroom pasties, with a cold water crust that has green onions, gorganzola, butter and gouda embedded in it…english street food…for those on the go.
Part of me feels this might be regarded as a somewhat creepy way to meet a woman,lol…and indeed, ive been lurking around the wilderness bar environs for hours…doing minor work on the bar extension, etc…
in my atrophied time-sense, I think that she’s usually coming down the road between 11am and 3pm….around noonish is when I cross the road to check for eggs.
But I cant run…or even walk fast(and the gray, cloudy and cool has my skeleton in a minor uproar anyways.
So i’ll continue to lurk…my neighbor at the end of the road expects a package sometime today(yes, my neighbor is in conspiracy with me on this)…pasties in the microwave, road only a few steps away, etc.
my Eldest son’s new girlfriend said that this was either the craziest or the most romantic idea she’s ever heard of…
so we’ll see how it goes.
She is petite, fit, and has a big braid down her back…and, like I said, seems to be always smiling.
Likely in her mid-30’s…but i’m pretty terrible at such assessments.
In explaining my motivations to my future daughter in law around this here fire the other night…i spoke of how I met Tam(nursing home, where she accidentally/on purpose fell into my lap), my ex wife(continually accosted by other couch dwellers in my front room at college, so moved into my room because I was honorable), and even my first girlfriend(tripped over a corner of my blue jean jacket and also fell into my lap, this time accidentally, and in the “get a spanking” position).
In reverse order, the resulting relationships lasted 9, 4 and 26 years.
Im keeping expectations in check…and will be on high alert for signs of alarm….but dammit…how else am I supposed to meet people…let alone women? I cant afford to hang around in the bars in town…am not an xtian, nor will I pretend to be…and aside from getting a regular job….somehow, in spite of my physical limitations…i can think of nothing.
So i’ll go with the thoroughly unorthodox, and right here in the wilderness.
And rely on the novelty…and the potentially “sweet” gesture…and my rustic anomalous charm.
I just hope she doesnt call the cops,lol.
—
i still have no idea if offering lunch in such a manner is a faux pas, or whatever,lol.
i am so thoroughly undomesticated/feral(in spite of Tam’s efforts over 28 years) that i just do not know…might be creepy…might be swoon inducing…
proof…as with most things…will be in the pudding.
re: targetting of German scholar Ulrike Guerot by German state
by Thomas Fazi
Enemy of the state: the political persecution of Ulrike Guérot
For years, Guérot was one of Germany’s most respected political scientists. But after she criticised the pandemic response and the proxy war in Ukraine, she found herself cast as a public enemy
https://www.thomasfazi.com/p/enemy-of-the-state-the-political
p.s. Fazi and Guerot are friends I believe. Of course I would prefer if this were written by someone who has zero affiliation. That´s how it was done in the past. But in times of state of emergency and quasi war societies fall back into clan-think of past centuries. If you want to survive you can´t escape it.