Links 6/5/2026

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1. Ben Panga June 5, 2026 at 7:07 am

   Unpredictable and extreme’: Asia braces for El Niño (Guardian)

   El Niño looms over Vietnam with drought, heat and salinity risks (Channel News Asia)

   From shrinking water supplies to mounting pressure on agriculture and energy, a possible super El Niño is raising fresh concerns across Vietnam.

   —-

   It’s been pushing 40 C a lot of days in Da Nang recently. Happily a brief shower last night and it’s cooled a little. Still brutal leaving the Aircon during the day though.

   Expecting a lot of days around 40 or higher between now and the end of the hot season.

   Reading the second article, I again saw how much pressure agriculture will be under. A combo of fertilizer shortages and effed-up heat and drought = bad outcomes.

   And this makes in comparison to what’s happening in India.

   We are the slowly boiling frogs. And maybe not that slowly.

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   1. Rui June 5, 2026 at 7:38 am

      Poor people around the world will struggle to survive the incoming rise in food staples.

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2. The Rev Kev June 5, 2026 at 7:35 am

   “North Korea unveils nuclear fuel plant as Kim vows ‘exponential’ boost to deterrent”

   North Korea is really coming in out of the cold now. Their nuke capabilities are now at the stage that the US cannot touch them and in fact is not bothering them or even threatening them. Their economy is being opened up, the starvation blockade of their country is broken, they have a military relationship with Russia which is helping the upgrade their forces and now it has been announced that China’s President Xi will come visit North Korea next week-

   https://www.rt.com/news/641027-china-xi-north-korea-visit/

   A US official referred to South Korea as a “dagger” in Asia but it looks like North Korea will be the shield.

   Reply ↓
   1. dougie June 5, 2026 at 9:16 am

      Captain Obvious observes that having nukes keeps N. Korea from being attacked. A different situation entirely, but I can’t help but think that Iran having one might give rational actors some pause.The big question is are there any rational actors in this scenario?

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3. Juice June 5, 2026 at 7:42 am

   RE: tweet, AI bailout.

   AI is now a convergent point of fascism.

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4. DJG, Reality Czar June 5, 2026 at 8:16 am

   Is the First-Person Narrator a Uniquely Usonian Idea?

   Sheesh. [Sometimes, I think that Conor Gallagher adds certain links just to provoke me. Uh, oh, I’m getting all first-person-y.}

   I have great respect for a number of the writers mentioned: Hemingway (yes, The Sun Also Rises). Whitman. Ralph Ellison. Chandler.

   But there’s this, too, as if to rub in how deeply shallow Simon’s essay is: “What all of these authors share, from Twain to Plath, Bellow to Morrison, whether they speak ironically or angrily, hopefully or assertively, is that sense of cool which is so inexplicably American.”

   I recommend seeking out Cool Rules by Dick Pountain and David Robins. They consider “cool” to be psychological damage and make a good case. After all, the coolest of the cool was William Burroughs, typewriter heir, eccentric, and attempted murderer of his wife. Inexplicable how Burroughs managed to get off the hook for that.

   I also find it curious the Simon doesn’t mention Emily Dickinson. If one wants to understand the modern U.S. personality, one has to start with Dickinson and Whitman (as I advise my Italians, who are also fond of the wonderful Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters, now thoroughly neglected in the U S of A).

   Countermeasures. Well, heeeeere’s Dante (in Allen Mandelbaum’s excellent translation):

   When I had journeyed half of our life’s way,
   I found myself within a shadowed forest,
   for I had lost the path that does not stray.
   Ah, it is hard to speak of what it was,
   that savage forest, dense and difficult,
   which even in recall renews my fear:
   so bitter-death is hardly more severe!
   But to retell the good discovered there,
   I’ll also tell the other things I saw.

   And that’s, what, 700 years ago? And there is an argument that the “first person” point of view goes all the way back to the Odyssey. (I won’t touch the current controversy over oh-so-cool and woke casting.)

   In Italy, there are some first-person narrations that are the equal to Bellow (who is kind of snoozy and self-pitying and adulteryish). Zeno, in La Coscienza di Zeno by Italo Svevo. Silvestro, in Conversazione in Sicilia by Elio Vittorini. Both of these books are available in English, although the translations are likely to be creaky.

   And the oracular, miraculous, and mad (very mad), Alda Merini.

   And I won’t even mention the highly amusing Lucius in The Golden Ass, now two thousand years old. He’s like someone out of Mark Twain.

   Poor Simon. What I am noting a great deal of these days is how U.S. culture simply goes along with colonialism and imperialism, in particular in trying to export the absurdity of U.S. racial categories. No, punkinhead, Cleopatra wasn’t “really” “black.”

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   1. The Rev Kev June 5, 2026 at 8:30 am

      Nor was Helen of Troy. People are tired of race-swapping and saying that it is in a good cause no longer flies. Even Christopher Nolan cannot make it work and the Greeks are letting him know.

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      1. DJG, Reality Czar June 5, 2026 at 8:51 am

         Rev Kev: Now you’re gonna make me comment.

         I like this video by Angelina. Casting only Greeks.

         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjYajhPajwY

         The contrast between Zendaya and Athina Maximou for the role of Athena makes me laugh, because Maximou *is* Athena.

         But then I live in the Mediterranean Basin, where these stories and characters still live. We’re the People of the Olive Tree as my wonderful friend F.C. calls us.

         Meanwhile, in the U S of A: Are the Greeks beige? The Iranians, taupe or off-white? Italians, pinky olive or olivey pinko?

         Also, too, on Cleopatra, I recommend looking at images of the Fayum Mummy Portraits to see how Cleopatra might have looked, being part of that Greco-Egyptian Alexandrian world.

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         1. The Rev Kev June 5, 2026 at 9:13 am

            Remember the Harry Potter films? J.K. Rowling made sure that the films were done in England where her stories were set to keep the flavour and not relocated to the US. Then in the “Goblet of Fire” film of the series, she insisted on a French actress playing the part of the Fleur Delacour while she got a Bulgarian actor to play the part of Victor Krum. Never hurt film sales as far as I can recall

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            1. TimH June 5, 2026 at 10:00 am

               Better than the horror of the Wizard of Earthsea film. LeGuin was pissed.

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               1. The Rev Kev June 5, 2026 at 10:10 am

                  It could have been worse for the Harry Potter films. It was originally offered to Stephen Spielberg who wanted to make a quick buck with this film. It would have been an animated cartoon film and the voice of Harry Potter would have been done by the I-see-dead-people kid. A cheap production as in a once and done to top up his bank account. But J. K Rowling put her foot down and the rest is history.

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         2. vao June 5, 2026 at 9:17 am

            “Meanwhile, in the U S of A: Are the Greeks beige? The Iranians, taupe or off-white? Italians, pinky olive or olivey pinko?”

            Do you mean “swarthy”? In the past (and perhaps still nowadays) this was the term used in police files / passports of a variety of countries to describe the personal characteristics of an individual (or “moreno / morena” in Spanish, “basané” in French).

            As to the “First-Person Narrator” issue: I counter with Arthur Schnitzler — famous for his “stream of consciousness” novellas and short stories.

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         3. Retired Carpenter June 5, 2026 at 10:18 am

            “We’re the People of the Olive Tree as my wonderful friend F.C. calls us.”

            Very nice description of the Peoples of the Middle Sea. And, yet, someone transplanted there a tribe that glories in uprooting and burning olive trees.
            Sorry for the OT, but I feel sad when I hear those reports. Olive trees are beautiful.

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      2. MH June 6, 2026 at 3:16 am

         I’m utterly confused. Just a few years ago Denzel Washington played the historically real Scottish king MacBeth in a film adaptation of Shakespeare’s play, even got a best actor Oscar nom. Yet there wasn’t a peep about that “race swapping”. Why is it OK for a black man to play the lead and title role of an historically real Scottish king but not OK for a black woman to play the minor role of a mythological Greek queen?

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         1. Robert Gray June 6, 2026 at 4:46 am

            Suspension of disbelief, MH, suspension of disbelief. Actually, you’re getting into can-of-worms territory. When was the last time a white actor was allowed to play Othello in a major production? Opera fans have already got well used to this swapping. One of the top baritones in the world nowadays is a Mongolian named Amartuvshin Enkhbat, who does a knock-out Rigoletto (among other classic Italian roles). There have also been a number of adequate (but not necessarily world-class) Korean tenors singing Rodolfo, Alfredo, Edgardo, et al.

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            1. MH June 6, 2026 at 6:32 am

               1997 Patrick Stewart played Othello in a race reverse production, Hopkins was the last white actor to do it in “traditional” blackface in 1981 says the internets. I figure if Nolan was just looking to check a box he would’ve cast a black actress as Calypso, it’s a much bigger role. Him casting Lupita as Helen makes me think he did for a filmmaking reason and his body of work earns him the benefit of the doubt in my book.

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      3. Rui June 6, 2026 at 7:01 am

         Is race swapping any different from height swapping or nose swapping or language swapping or historically inaccurate body armour? Can we be precious only about skin color?

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         1. The Rev Kev June 6, 2026 at 7:47 am

            Oh don’t you worry. I have quite a few words to say about that historically inaccurate body armour that Nolan went with. And don’t get me started on that 2023 film “Napoleon” too with its dodgy attention to detail. :)

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   2. Recovering Idiot June 5, 2026 at 9:42 am

      On Burroughs and the so-called “Beats” :

      As a young person, my mind was poisoned into thinking degenerates like Burroughs and to a lesser extent Kerouac, were cool. Kerouac, at least, had some talent (which he ended up destroying with speed and booze) and had enough character to distance himself from the mindlessness of boomer counter-culture. Ginsberg was one of those instances in which physiognomy turns out to be nature’s way of saying Danger!

      If Burroughs had actually possessed a single redeeming quality, he would never have been heard of. But he was a drug addict, pedophile, and all-around crank, and so was turned into a literary celebrity and used as a battering ram to destroy anything like actual culture.

      The antidote for me was finding out that Burroughs had himself been sexually abused as a child, and then reading Baby Driver and Cursed From Birth, the memoirs of Jan Kerouac and Billy Burroughs.

      I am willing to cut truly great artists some slack when it comes to basic human decency, but other than On The Road and Dharma Bums, the entire output of Beat Generation isn’t worth one of Mark Twain’s fingernails.

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      1. wol June 5, 2026 at 10:33 am

         Dharma Bums!

         A movie that offends me is Copying Beethoven (Wiki): ‘The working manuscript of the score of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is attributed to two copyists,[3] both of whom were male, not a single female as depicted in the film. The character of Anna Holtz is likely based at least partially on Karl Holtz, a young violinist and copyist who befriended Beethoven during the final few years of the composer’s life and is said to have influenced decisions on pieces such as the Große Fuge.’

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      2. ChatET June 5, 2026 at 11:07 am

         Wow, have to disagree entirely with your statement about Burroughs. I don’t look at the creator’s repertoire to judge their works. It is an elitist stance. It wasn’t to long ago that society would shun someone’s creativity just because they were gay. Every idea has an equal standing separate from its creator.
         “Hey honey, its time for the William Tell trick.”
         If you don’t understand what he means, you don’t understand what writers do, at least the good ones.

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      3. anahuna June 5, 2026 at 6:47 pm

         Say what you will — so slightingly — about Ginsberg, my memory of him dates from some 20 years ago. He was presiding over an evening program at PEN in Manhattan. The featured writer was a poet, a young woman from China. After her reading, the floor was opened for questions. At first her answers were guarded, strictly politically correct, according to the official Chinese line at the time. Then Ginsberg began to question her, so quietly, so unobtrusively. Little by little, her stance softened. At one point, an outburst: she hated Christianity, she said. Her grandparents had been Christians, and during the humiliations of Cultural Revolution she had prayed to God to spare them, but they were exposed to public shaming like the rest. There in front of us, by that point, was a real human being, speaking of her sadness.

         It was Ginsberg’s humility and simple human kindness (augmented by his knowledge of Buddhism and Taoism) that worked that transformation. That’s all I need to know.

         Well, not quite all. After all, there’s that wonderful line: “America, I’m putting my queer shoulder to the wheel!”

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   3. Harold June 5, 2026 at 10:50 am

      “I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, though not of that country, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull. He got a good estate by merchandise, and leaving off his trade, lived afterwards at York, from whence he had married my mother, whose relations were named Robinson, a very good family in that country, and from whom I was called Robinson Kreutznaer; but, by the usual corruption of words in England, we are now called—nay, we call ourselves and write our name—Crusoe; and so my companions always called me.” — opening of Robinson Crusoe (1719)

      “My life has for several years been a theatre of calamity. I have been a mark for the vigilance of tyranny, and I could not escape. My fairest prospects have been blasted. My enemy has shown himself inaccessible to entreaties, and untired in persecution. My fame, as well as my happiness, has become his victim. Every one, as far as my story has been known, has refused to assist me in my distress, and has execrated my name. I have not deserved this treatment.” Opening of Caleb Williams (1794) by William Godwin

      “There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. . . .I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons . . .” — Opening of Jane Eyre (1847)

      “CHAPTER 1. I AM BORN
      Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o’clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.” — Opening of David Cooperfield (1849-50)

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   4. Lefty Godot June 5, 2026 at 12:34 pm

      Polish author’s Jan Potocki’s Manuscript Found in Saragossa (from 1813) has a first person narrator, although he is there in part to have nested stories told to him (so he’s the “frame narrative” for these). It hardly seems like a uniquely American phenomenon. In the present day, American authors do seem to favor first person and experimenting with other tricks to show how cool they are (present tense, second person, no quotation marks, etc.). But nobody reads American authors anyway, unless they’re writing romance. ;-)

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   5. Kontrary Kansan June 5, 2026 at 1:33 pm

      Surely NC has not joined the pack hunting new, if obscure, expressions of American exceptionalism. Please, say it isn’t so!

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   6. Cat Burglar June 5, 2026 at 3:02 pm

      An unpuritan-haunted American boy, speaking the dialect of the oppressed, who sprang fully formed from the soil of the Mississippi! With a funny name, Finn — where did that come from, that quaint name? What an American genius Twain had, just to imagine that name and boy, out of nothing.

      An dtuigeann tú?

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   7. Alphonse June 5, 2026 at 4:49 pm

      I recommend seeking out Cool Rules by Dick Pountain and David Robins. They consider “cool” to be psychological damage and make a good case.

      You piqued my curiosity so I dipped into Cool Rules. It claims that cool is a know-it-when-you-see it thing. I don’t know that I do. But it gives an excellent description:

      we see Cool as a permanent state of private rebellion. Permanent because Cool is not just some ‘phase that you go through’, something that you ‘grow out of’, but rather something that if once attained remains for life; private because Cool is not a collective political response but a stance of individual defiance, which does not announce itself in strident slogans but conceals its rebellion behind a mask of ironic impassivity. This attitude is in the process of becoming the dominant type of relation between people in Western societies, a new secular virtue. No-one wants to be good anymore, they want to be Cool

      The individual mask of ironic impassivity is a pose:

      Kids want simultaneously to be acceptable to their peers and scandalous to their parents.

      Many modern egos are held together by the powerful spiritual adhesive that is Cool. A carefully cultivated Cool pose can keep the lid on the most intense feelings and violent emotions.

      I see insecurity, especially in Whitman (mentioned in the article):

      What all of these authors share . . . whether they speak ironically or angrily, hopefully or assertively, is that sense of cool which is so inexplicably American.

      A lot of talk about the “I”, about identity, is an effort get others to tell you who you are because you don’t know yourself. Spiritual adhesive is right: a technical solution to a spiritual problem. A problem that technique cannot solve. And it isolates the individual. Tao:

      Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know.

      Though the book, published in 2000, might be too early to see this, there’s a direct line to identity politics and coloured hair:

      older hipsters are discovering that the behaviour they employed as
      provocation in the ’60s is now accepted as everyday routine: exuberant youth for whom wearing hair long or sporting a nose ring is considered quite a mild
      social statement

      If it’s really true that every generation of children rebel against their parents (I’m not sure that it is). When the old (and even their institutions) insist that they are still the hip rebels of their youth it leaves little space for the young. Two obvious responses: raise the stakes, and earnestness.

      The woke do both. They don’t hide their vulnerability behind an ironic mask, they celebrate and perform it. The youth of the new right have no fear of appearing square. They embrace it. Both groups are grappling with the spiritual problem that modern culture makes it hard to know who you are.

      I have seen it suggested that eyeglasses with thick black frames are attention seeking. Maybe so. What I see is a repressed rejection of the 1960s and a desire to return to the imagined stability of the 1950s. My impression is that this desire may be even stronger among progressives than on the right. Millennials were once called the Echo Generation. They obeyed the ideals their parents instilled in them only to become confused and resentful with the chaos that resulted. (Consciousness of rapacious finance was closed off, transmuted to identity, e.g. with Hillary Clinton’s declaration that breaking up the banks wouldn’t eliminate racism.) I wonder if Mad Men was pivotal. It seems to represent not only a story of female emancipation but also the stability that many crave. Behind the coloured hair and tattoos I have long felt that there is a desire for an inclusive version of the 1950s.

      Not a desire that I share, by the way (the 50s part I mean). And I have no special insight. This is just my gut instinct.

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   8. bertl June 5, 2026 at 6:15 pm

      What about Laurence Sterne and John Cleland?

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      1. Harold June 5, 2026 at 7:59 pm

         “I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me….” Opening of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy (Published in eight volumes from 1757-67)

         “Madam,
         I sit down to give you an undeniable proof of my considering your desires as indispensable orders. Ungracious then as the task may be, I shall recall to view those scandalous stages of my life, out of which I emerged, at length, to the enjoyment of every blessing in the power of love, health and fortune to bestow; whilst yet in the flower of youth, and not too late to employ the leisure afforded me by great ease and affluence …” — Opening of Fanny Hill, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, an epistolary novel by John Cleland (1749).

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5. DJG, Reality Czar June 5, 2026 at 8:38 am

   Graham Platner. Okay, I’ll comment.

   I have always been slightly suspicious of Platner, because of all of those tours of duty in the Middle East.

   In light of my comment above, about the psychological problems of cool, this quote out of a New Republic profile is why I have some suspicions of Platner:

   He protested the Iraq War before he enlisted in it. When I ask about the apparent contradiction, he shrugs: “I thought I could do some good. And I wanted to play soldier. I might have read too much Hemingway.”

   Oh. That’s cool. And impulse control sure seems to be an issue. (And anyone who has read Hemingway seriously knows of Hemingway’s opposition to war.)

   Having written that, my advice to those in Maine would still be to vote for him. And then to hope that he isn’t the new John Fetterman.

   One reason for ignoring the latest round of rehashed rendezvous is something that I have mentioned before. Usonians have devolved into thinking that politics and political change can center on charges of sexual misconduct, especially / almost exclusively against men.

   And the newest New York Times article is feeding into another problem: We’ve gone from “believe all victims” to kiss ‘n’ tell during a political campaign or high-stakes hearing for the Supreme Court. These tactics always backfire. The Brett Kavanaugh hearings devolved into a circus. The Clarence Thomas hearings, where sexual harassment truly was about to be proven, ended up avoiding the issue of sexual misconduct and Thomas’s “unique” views of constitutional law — but Joe Biden had another hour or two in the limelight even as gentleman Joe tossed aside Anita Hill and her testimony.

   And the biggest sexual scandals get swept away: See the Epstein Files. And who knows what’s in the 30 000 still-missing e-mail messages from Hillary Clinton — she maintains that so many were about planning Chelsea’s wedding, and do recall who was at the wedding.

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   1. t June 5, 2026 at 10:15 am

      And anyone who has read Hemingway seriously knows of Hemingway’s opposition to war.

      I’ve read Hemingway and 100% read him as pro war and pro masculine violence and basically being at war with everyone, all the time. Even when angrily being angry about war he doesn’t like and was confused by.

      Makes sense to me that reading an articulate dumb guy, such as Hemingway, would be part of a dumb guy, a dumb guy less thuggish than Hemingway, enlisting.

      Or it could be Platner just pulled that out of his hat for no reason. Or he was aping what some other dumb guy told him.

      The View went to the trouble of running an anti-Platner segment while Debbie WS is going ham in Florida.

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   2. Bill B June 5, 2026 at 11:07 am

      Speaking of Kavanaugh, Lindsey Fifield, principle Platner accuser, was a founder of Ladies for Kavanaugh: https://x.com/ryangrim/status/2062731911617810532

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   3. Christian B June 5, 2026 at 11:29 am

      I think Platner was referring to Hemingway’s adventurism more than anything else. The lust for life, etc.

      I can forgive 18 year old Platner as I can forgive my 18 year old self for voting for Ronald Regan’s 1st term. Men at 18 know very little. For what it is worth I became a Libertarian Socialist later in college and never looked back.

      I have a serious mental illness, so a little bit of stress really messes with my psychology, so I can also forgive Platner, after serving and going through what I can only assume was unbelievable stress, to have some issues both during and after his service. When I see Platner speak, I see someone not only angry with the Epstein Class, but also someone angry at his younger self.

      My family never thought I could change, that I could manage my mental illness and become healthier. They disowned me, for a clearly genetic disease. They still will not accept me. So knowing how I changed, and how people can change, this is why I always forgive everyone and have hope not only for Platner, but have hope that even the neoliberals in the Epstein Class will one day wake up as well.

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   4. bertl June 5, 2026 at 6:45 pm

      Sounds like Platner grew up having pretty normal male experiences, I think the trowelling on of normalcy is a helluva cunning way for the Dems to pull in the women’s vote for Platner, and it’s not going to do him any harm with the men.

      Must be weird to voters having to choose between a Democrat without a hint of a record of sexual perversity and personal wealth, who works for a living doing a real job, and a Republican who has been in politics for the entirety of her working life.

      But what do I know? I’m just a Brit and the Labour party under Starmer has become even creepier than the Dems.

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6. ChrisFromGA June 5, 2026 at 8:41 am

   It’s Jobs Friday! And a blistering uppercut was delivered by the BLS to the jaw of the “rate cut” mongers:

   https://seekingalpha.com/news/4601032-nonfarm-payrolls-soars-past-consensus-in-may-unemployment-rate-holds-at-43#source=source%3Abreaking_news_header

   May U.S. nonfarm payrolls: +172K vs. +85K consensus and +179K prior (revised from +115K), according to data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday.

   No rate cuts for you! And the 30-year US Treasury note rips back over 5%. No spring housing market for sellers either.

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   1. ChrisFromGA June 5, 2026 at 9:43 am

      Digging into the numbers a bit, looks to me like the big contributors to the “beat” were:

      1. Local government jobs – up 55k
      2. Leisure and hospitality – up 70k
      3. Health care – up 47k

      Meanwhile, information lost another 2k jobs. So much for “learn to code.” I guess the AI layoffs are hitting that sector, but there is scant evidence that “AI gonna take muh jobz” is getting traction anywhere else.

      Professional and Business Services added a paltry 6k jobs. I am getting a vibe that there is a white-collar recession unless you are in health care or maybe the legal fields, where credentials and licensing will hopefully keep the AI psychopaths away.

      https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t17.htm

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      1. The Rev Kev June 5, 2026 at 9:51 am

         You’ll love this story. A software company told its 5,000 staff that there will be no raises this year as all that money will be going to AI instead so that they can ‘win in the market with AI’–

         https://www.independent.co.uk/us/money/software-company-artificial-intelligence-cancel-raises-b2989726.html

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7. Tom Stone June 5, 2026 at 8:53 am

   It strikes me that “both” parties would benefit from a squirrel sighting right about now “LOOK!, a Squirrel”…
   Getting someone like Fetterman to introduce a bill making Trump’s Birthday a National Holiday would work…
   The Aghastitude, the bloviating, the excuse to avoid doing anything substantive, what’s not to like?

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   1. The Rev Kev June 5, 2026 at 9:17 am

      Guess we will have to settle for watching the Cage Match being set up on the White House grounds for his birthday. No, I am not making this up. It will have 5,000 seats so would be interesting to know who gets in.

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      1. t June 5, 2026 at 10:17 am

         And who leaves early, or at least is visibly bored.

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8. ChrisFromGA June 5, 2026 at 9:15 am

   Fed in a Box

   
   Ya, ya, ya, yah, yah, yah, yah, yah, yah

   I’m the Fed in the box, buried in dot plots
   Won’t you come and save me, save me?
   Feed me lies, from the Don’s fat gut
   Bring me Jerome Powell, deny the rate cuts

   Ya, ya, ya, yah, yah, yah, yah, yah, yah

   He who tries, PhD wasted
   Feed me lies, now your rates aren’t cut

   I’m the Warsh who gets beat, Don shoves my nose in sheet
   Won’t you come and save me, save me?

   Feed me lies, from the Don’s fat gut
   Bring me Jerome Powell, deny the rate cuts
   He who tries, PhD wasted
   Feed me lies, now your rates aren’t cut

   Feed me lies, from the Don’s fat gut
   Bring me Jerome Powell, deny the rate cuts
   He who tries, PhD wasted
   Feed me lies, now your rates aren’t cut

   “Man in the Box” by Alice in Chains

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAqZb52sgpU&list=RDTAqZb52sgpU

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9. flora June 5, 2026 at 9:39 am

   re: Pro-Israel voices win moneys win out, kill bill to stop US-Israel military integration Responsible Statecraft

   (fixed it. / ;)

   From Jimmy Dore.

   Now THREATENING Every U.S. Politician With Jewish Money!

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy84t4SEmXA

   They aren’t trying to hide it anymore

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   1. flora June 5, 2026 at 11:09 am

      And from Useful Idiots.

      The Most Anti Event of the Year? Watch the American Jewish Committee’s Global Forum With Us!

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCYAEEyf-SI

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      1. flora June 5, 2026 at 1:26 pm

         adding on a personal note: very glad due dissidence guys and useful idiots duo and Glenn Greenwald and other are speaking out. They are doing to more to protect all the people in this country than the so-called zio-protectors-of-the-people, imo. I say this because I know many Jews who despise zio and call it fashionism, a fashionist political ideology. / my 2 cents

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10. Laughingsong June 5, 2026 at 10:50 am

    Boy, what a very depressing set of links today. The entire list could easily have the title of “Why I Drink”. 🥺

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    1. The Joker June 5, 2026 at 12:39 pm

       The news about the S&P not changing their rules for SpaceX is good, I suppose (I sent that one…)

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       1. John k June 5, 2026 at 1:27 pm

          Waiting for a reversal…

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    2. Oregon Lawhobbit June 5, 2026 at 1:03 pm

       The Samurai City one was decently teetotalitarian…

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       1. Laughingsong June 5, 2026 at 2:14 pm

          Funny, that’s the one I read first. I was a little bit familiar with the Tokugawa, first through Clavell’s “Shogun” (where the name is changed to Toranaga), and through what seems to have been Clavell’s inspiration for that novel, the story of a historical character called “Samurai William”.

          Of course those books discussed the lead up to the Tokugawa period. But the fact that foreign traders were limited to Nagasaki, and (in the novel) the first steps towards the “panopticon” version of Edo were mentioned (the novel has the requirement for daimyos to leave families under watch, although there it started in Osaka Castle under Toranaga’s rival Ishido; and the first dedicated section of the city was for the brothels, the “Willow World” and geisha).

          I’m still drinking though. Sure, also meditation, exercise, walks in nature, but drinking too. They’re all so temporary.

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    3. Henry Moon Pie June 5, 2026 at 1:32 pm

       I had a similar reaction. Our elites are intent on walking us deeper and deeper into WWIII. And the AI insanity. When I was a kid, the elites were monsters like now, but the center of gravity among the elites then was not located on the left-field warning track, and headed into the visiting bullpen. Johnson and Nixon were butchering the Vietnamese, later the Laotians and Cambodians, and they conducted a covert and murderous war against the Left in the USA, but I don’t think they were just as completely out of touch with reality as the Europeans and Americans are today. And I’d have to say that they were not as contemptuous of their people’s views as 2020s elites. That Ukraine vote is yet more confirmation. Johnson and Nixon at least felt compelled to cover up their plans and screw-ups for fear of public reaction, but today’s politicians don’t even bother.

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11. Yushan June 5, 2026 at 11:39 am

    “Experts Debunk The Iranian Nuclear Weapon Story By Larry C. Johnson”

    I didn’t buy that story either for exactly the reasons mentioned: Pakistan, China and Russia definitely don’t want a nuclear Iran, and Iran is perfectly capable of creating a nuke by themselves at quite short notice if they want one.

    But besides that, the recent history has proven that Iran doesn’t really need nukes. They have plenty of leverage already with Hormuz and their conventional missiles. Many countries sympathise with them now, but that would definitely change if Iran goes nuclear.

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    1. Christian B June 5, 2026 at 12:11 pm

       I am fading on Larry Johnson in general. Many of his predictions of “the war is restarting again based on sources” have repeatedly not come true. I do not know if it is him or he is getting bad intelligence, but I do not really listen to videos he is featured in anymore.

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       1. hk June 7, 2026 at 5:18 am

          In many ways, it’s most of the alternative media environment: it has become rather too much like the mainstream in two senses: first, that everyone is expected to show their “true allegiance” first (but, after all the sorting, it’s probably not necessary any more); second, everyone is looking to sell something “sensational.” If you are already onboard the ship that says, “the empire is evil, the empire is evil,” what’s the only sensational thing you can say? “The empire is going to treacherously attack, and attack soon!” So everyone is predictable: they have their shtick and they’ll repeat that when push comes to shove. I don’t doubt they really believe what they say, but that’s the really dangerous thing.

          The only truth that I can see (and that’s true for all major conflicts now, including Iran and Ukraine, but also Gaza and Lebanon) is that everyone is eager to quit but without losing face as the fight in earnest has gotten too expensive. Ironically, this made jackals of everyone, where, instead of fighting with everyone in the open, they are all looking to sneak in a sucker punch or, at least, cheat the ither side, or, at least their audiences in such way that somehow will “win” them the fight cheaply, without trying. Different actors have different abilities to sucker punches and whom they don’t want to lose face to, of course, so this gives rise to increasingly zany plots.

          Perhaps this is not all that new either: in 1939, only months after making commitment to defend Poland, Britain and France dithered making serious war. Rather than plan how to attack Germany directly with the goal of actually winning, they came up with schemes to violate Norwegian and Swedish neutrality or to attack Soviet Union, among other things, which were somehow deemed to be less problematic than directly attacking the Siegfried Line, which, in 1939-40 was still more theoretical than real. Yet, I suppose one can’t really fault them: they were caught up in a war they neither wanted nor plan for for a cause they didn’t really like, with genuine prospects for catastrophic losses if they tried something “big” (although it is telling that they thought attacking Soviet oilfields was not “big.”) yet facing total loss in credibility after making so much noise. May 10, in a crazy way, was a godsend for them–at least the British, anyways. They no longer had to “decide” anything–they just had to defend themselves. So we see, I suppose, why Euros are eager to see Russia attack “Europe.” I don’t think Russia will fall for it, though: they are not in short time constraint like Germany was in 1940.

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12. AG June 5, 2026 at 11:42 am

    re: Marshall Plan

    Interesting wording: the Eastern Bloc is characterized as allegedly less successful but they don´t give any evidence for this claim. What is different was the source of support used to rebuild Eastern Europe, simply Soviet, not US-means. But that is no evidence for a lack in quality:

    via European Network Remembrance and Solidarity:

    On the 5 June 1947 the Marshall Plan, officially known as the European Recovery Program, was drafted. The American initiative aimed to provide aid to Western European countries devasted by WWII to recover and reconstruct economical.

    The primary goal of the Marshall Plan was threefold: promote economic stability, prevent the spread of communism, and foster a sense of European unity. Financial assistance was extended to these countries, empowering them rebuild industries, infrastructure, and their overall economies.
    🔹 But the impact of the Marshall Plan wasn’t limited to economic aid alone. It also sought to cultivate economic cooperation and integration among European nations, creating conditions for the formation of what ultimately would become the European Union.
    🔹 While the Marshall Plan was a significant success for the recovery of Western European economies, that post-war recovery was very different for East Europe. The Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc nations were initially considered for participation. However, Soviet concerns about potential U.S. economic domination as a way of buying a pro-U.S. alignment with Europe ultimately led to the exclusion of the Soviet Union.
    🔹Instead, these Eastern Bloc countries embraced a centrally planned economic system, emphasizing industrialization and collectivization of agriculture under Soviet control. Their economic model heavily relied on heavy industry and state intervention.

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    1. ddt June 5, 2026 at 12:20 pm

       I live in Greece, a country that received its healthy dose of Marshall plan $$ and the only country in Europe to fight a civil war right after WW2. The commies were swatted down and Greece stayed with the west. That money helped. It helped create the crony capitalism we still endure today, while the capital, Athens is architecturally and functionally a basket case. The capital cities I’ve visited in countries that were behind the wall are much more beautiful, functioning and these countries’ economies are in a much better state in just 3 generations. Ah but we have sunshine, good food and beaches. We shouldn’t complain. Or so our atlanticist PM tells us.

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       1. AG June 5, 2026 at 7:10 pm

          Former GDR politicians often made a similiar argument after German unification. Reminding that GDR standard of living and supply of luxury/consumer goods was always compared to the FRG, never to Italy, Spain or England.

          Is the sea there still as blue as it was said to be in the 70s through the 90s? (The heyday of German Greece-tourism.)

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13. AG June 5, 2026 at 12:00 pm

    re: Oreshnik

    reader´s comment on MoA. I am trying to find the original source for this Putin statement:

    1/3 Putin about Oreshnik:

    Oreshnik was not tested on ground & this did not constitute a combat use. Across the territory of Ukraine, there has essentially been no full combat use of the Oreshnik, and as for the latest instance, I will share a major state military secret with you:

    2/3 we simply struck locations where it was possible to observe the results. This applies to Belaya Tserkov and even more so to the DPR area within the main fortified zone. Afterwards, our drones flew into the structure/area we hit, and we meticulously observed

    3/3 how the separating warheads were dispersed, calculating everything to the millimetre. This is crucial for us to make future decisions on the full-scale employment of the Oreshnik against designated targets, including urban areas.

    https://x.com/UniqueMongolia/status/2062767948045971852

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    1. AG June 5, 2026 at 12:19 pm

       re: Putin on Oreshnik

       Found it (thanks to Pavel Podvig´s X):

       Putin´s comment on the Oreshnik strike of May 24th is buried in the long press Q&A on June 4th:
       http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/79953

       Kondrashov: Did you get all your questions answered, James Jordan? You can ask more if we have time, but for now, Vladimir Vladimirovich, allow me to ask you a question.

       The retaliatory strikes we’re launching today in response to Ukraine’s unbridled terrorist attacks on infrastructure used by the Ukrainian Armed Forces and military-industrial complex facilities are becoming systemic before our eyes. However, one of our most recent retaliatory attacks isn’t entirely clear: was the Oreshnik missile used? And what does the use of this type of weapon actually mean for us?

       Putin: As for our new systems, they are emerging, including the Oreshnik system. But this is somewhat different from what we were doing back in the day, before the conflict in Ukraine.

       What do I mean? We’ve tested similar systems at test ranges, but we haven’t tested the Oreshnik, and that’s not a combat deployment. We’ve practically never had a single combat use of the Oreshnik in the true sense of the word on Ukrainian territory, and the last one is just… To be honest, I’ll reveal a major military secret: they simply struck where it was convenient to observe the results. This applies to Bila Tserkva, and even more so to the DPR area within the main fortified area. Our drones then flew in there, into the barn they hit, and simply observed how the deployable pods were positioned, measuring everything down to the millimeter. This is important for us in order to make future decisions about the full-scale use of the Oreshnik against designated targets, including in urban areas.

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14. AG June 5, 2026 at 12:04 pm

    re: Russia weak?

    From German Moscow correspondent Ulrich Heyden (who too has been kicked out by his own German bank)

    use google-trsl

    Russia’s actions in Ukraine – a sign of weakness?

    The situation in Ukraine is critical. Russian politicians are speaking publicly about the conditions under which Russia will use nuclear weapons. The Russian Foreign Ministry announced that Kyiv is now being bombed “systematically.” Following two heavy Russian missile attacks on Kyiv on May 24 and June 2—which Vladimir Putin called “punishment” for the Ukrainian drone attack on a student dormitory—NATO chief Mark Rutte arrived in Kyiv on June 3.
    https://www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=151681

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15. AG June 5, 2026 at 12:39 pm

    re: Putin´s press Q&A on June 4th

    It´s long but seems very interesting.
    http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/79953

    e.g. his exchange about the alleged sabotage by Russia on EU-territory:

    D. Jordan (as translated) : Thank you, Mr. President.
    Another question concerns Russia’s relations with its European neighbors. The Associated Press reported that hundreds of cases of illegal activity have been observed in Europe since 2022. And these actions are linked to Russia.

    V. Putin: Russia’s actions on the territory of European countries?

    D. Jordan: Yes, that’s right. The actions of Russia and its associated countries. Actions such as sabotage, assassination attempts, cyberattacks, and influence operations. Western politicians say this is just the tip of the iceberg, and that’s only what has been proven or uncovered.
    Does this mean that Russia is already waging a war against the West or is there a risk of escalation?

    V. Putin: This means nothing but one thing. It simply means an attempt by certain Western European politicians to carry out their aggressive plans against the Russian Federation.
    You mentioned some attempted cyberattacks, some other attempts, and so on, and you pointed out that, as you said, we’re only talking about proven, identified facts. So what? Name at least one proven fact. What did one of the prime ministers say? She said, “Highly likely.”

    A. Kondrashov: Highly likely.

    V. Putin: Highly likely. Everything you said is highly likely. Where’s even a single fact? No, not a single one. This means there’s no desire to simply talk to Russia as an equal partner. But it will have to be done; we’re in no hurry. Even if you gather nine pregnant women together, as we know, the baby still won’t be born in a month. The situation needs to mature. I think that’s exactly where things are headed. It seems to me that it’s gradually maturing.
    We, I repeat, are ready. We must stop this mutual recrimination. And if the Europeans want to work with us, then let them abandon their colonial approach and talk to Russia as an equal partner, and work with us to find solutions. Even on very complex issues, we are ready to resolve them in the interests of both Russia and our European partners.

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    1. AG June 5, 2026 at 1:11 pm

       D. Jordan is a transcription error. That´s James Jordan from AP.

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16. antidlc June 5, 2026 at 2:11 pm

    https://prescancerpanel.cancer.gov/reports-meetings/prevention-opportunities/modifiable-risk-factors
    Modifiable Risk Factors for Cancer: Opportunities for Prevention

    Join the President’s Cancer Panel on June 8–9, 2026, for a 2-day public meeting to explore lifestyle and environmental risk factors for cancers, including early-onset cancers, and identify potential approaches to reduce cancer risk.

    A substantial percentage of cancers diagnosed in the United States have been attributed to lifestyle factors—such as tobacco use, excess body weight, diet, heavy alcohol consumption, physical inactivity, and carcinogenic infections—in addition to environmental exposures. Leveraging what we know to prevent cancer presents a significant opportunity for the National Cancer Program. Rising diagnoses of a number of cancer types, including colorectal, breast, uterine, and kidney cancers, among people younger than 50 have created additional urgency to identify and address modifiable cancer risk factors to reduce the national cancer burden.

    Click on the agenda:

    https://prescancerpanel.cancer.gov/reports-meetings/prevention-opportunities/modifiable-risk-factors#agenda

    8:45–9:15 a.m. Opening Remarks & Introductions
    Cancer Trends in Ontario, Canada – Impact of COVID
    Dr. Christine Brezden-Masley

    the only mention of COVID in the agenda

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    1. flora June 5, 2026 at 2:42 pm

       Lifestyle factors like….um….drinking tainted water? (shhh. can’t upset big ag.) From More Perfect Union. (Nitrates in surface and groundwater is something I know something about. I think the reporter is correct. Lots and lots of studies backup what she says.)

       Art Cullen is featured. His reporting about the problem for his very small, northwest Iowa local newspaper won a Pulitzer Prize.

       Iowa’s Cancer Rate Is Skyrocketing. Our Tests Prove Why.

       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmiwQoxFNJw

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    2. mrsyk June 5, 2026 at 6:38 pm

       It might be the only mention of Covid, but it is well placed. Seems like somebody is taking it seriously.

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17. Booger T Washington June 5, 2026 at 2:44 pm

    Drummer for 25+ years; sorry, I keep better time than that stupid sea lion

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18. none June 5, 2026 at 2:57 pm

    Pro-Israel voices win out, kill bill to stop US-Israel military integration

    Wait wouldn’t they have WANTED that bill?

    I had been wanting to look into what the integration meant anyway. I didn’t expect it to really let Trump send IDF troops to Venezuela (though the idea popped up immediately). It was more like technological cooperation, which I expect happens already with lots of other countries, especially within NATO, until maybe recently.

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    1. flora June 5, 2026 at 3:21 pm

       No. The bill in question would have removed the section in the new Defense bill that allows a miltary merger with the IDF.

       The bill in question was an edit to the Defense bill. That edit bill failing was exactly what AIPAC wanted. The Defence bill retains the military merger section.

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    2. samm June 5, 2026 at 7:58 pm

       From what I understand the part of the NDAA the bill was targeting, Section 224, is intended to obscure US funding for Israel’s war against everything. It’s also to integrate the US military with the IDF (like flora said), which complicates things like logistics and IT systems to such a degree it would be hard to undo.

       If that’s not bad enough, Bibi Nuttyahoo seems to claim credit for it:

       https://x.com/anewpolicyorg/status/2062191725678862737/photo/1

       (Nuttyahoo’s statement: “I am heartened by your enthusiastic support for our plan to develop a new Memorandum of Understanding with the United States government that will draw down U.S. financial military assistance over the next decade and replace it with what you refer to as a ‘new framework of joint defense cooperation, codevelopment, coproduction and mutual investment in areas including advanced missile defense, artificial intelligence unmanned systems, cybersecurity and next generation military platforms.'”)

       The whole thing got my hackles up enough for me to write my Representative, Dimocrat Adam Smith, to complain, but apparently he co-sponsored it to give it the stamp of “bipartisanship:”

       https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/5/30/us-congress-advances-american-israeli-military-integration-plan

       So I don’t think I’ll hear back.

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19. Tom Stone June 5, 2026 at 4:05 pm

    Anecdata from Sonoma County, I drove by the Century 21 office i used to work out of this morning and the weeds in front of the entrance are more than 3 feet high.
    This was the biggest or central office for Sonoma County with @ 40 agents and Broker associates along with a first rate support staff.
    Pat Provost was the managing Broker and one of the best managers I have ever worked with.

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20. flora June 5, 2026 at 6:23 pm

    File under Big Brother and AI. From Jimmy Dore.

    Arrested For PLANNING A Protest Against Data Centers!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnFBP0PLB-I

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    1. flora June 5, 2026 at 6:35 pm

       File under AI and data centers. From More Perfect Union.

       I Worked At A Google Data Center: What I Saw Will Shock You.

       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLX_w0TtBpY

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21. AG June 5, 2026 at 7:57 pm

    re: Israel genocide

    HAARETZ podcast

    ‘Nations Committing Genocide Don’t Recognize It in Real Time’: Yuli Novak on Israel’s Moral Crisis

    40 min.
    https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/podcasts/2026-06-05/ty-article-podcast/nations-committing-genocide-dont-recognize-it-in-real-time/0000019e-925b-db6c-adff-baffc20c0000

    2 comments so far:

    1) “We can keep telling ourselves that we’re a democracy, but if Israel, holding almost half of its population under its control without the right to go and vote for the system that governs them, it’s not a democracy.”

    Yes. And : this has been going on for 58 years. FIFTY. EIGHT. YEARS.

    Can we please, please, dispense with the “if”, conditional or future tense and finally accept that Israel has stopped being a democracy for longer than my whole life and I have adult children ? And that Palestinians have the legal and moral right to fight the occupation including violently ? they don’t have the moral or legal right to attack civilians, but soldiers are absolutely fair games and settlers’ statute as civilians is actually debatable.

    Now don’t get me wrong : I don’t want to live in a situation where the occupation ends up in a bilateral bloodbath. But Israelis apparently do, because this is the only reasonable outcome to expect from the situation they created and support.

    2) It seems almost as if Israel, born from the horrors of Holocaust, is now switching roles. The Israelis are the Germans and the Palestinians are the Jews. And as far as the settler thugs who assault, pogromize and sometimes murder unarmed Palestinian olive farmers and shepherds, all that is missing are the brown shirts.
    

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22. AG June 5, 2026 at 8:11 pm

    re: Blackadder

    I often found it less funny than it pretended to be. Or at least as the public thought it is. Not improbable that the actors and creators themselves knew it was way more serious.

    By that measure Monty Python was funny. They transcended the subject and affirmed no particular part of the material system of power. They mocked the whole idea of representation as such. They questioned the form itself not just the content.

    Which shows you how small the difference would be between mediocre/possibly even good and Classic. (Sorry to those who like Blackadder.)

    The scene with the “hitting” of the servant:

    2:38 min.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clM1i88s-7Q

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23. skippy June 7, 2026 at 3:30 am

    Black Adder Goes Forth was a gem, major darling, speckled Jim, would you like some cream in your coffee[blows nose], the list goes on and on.

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