Nihilism on the part of Alphabet’s CEO explains Google’s willingness to risk its search business and the open web itself to chase OpenAI.
Recent Items
Monday, June 23, 2025
Coffee Break: Nihilists at Google Wrecking Existing Business to Chase AI Growth
Topics: Coffee Break, Guest Post, Ridiculously obvious scams, Surveillance state, Technology and innovation
Posted by Nat Wilson Turner at 2:00 pm | No Comments »
Trump Backfire: How the 2018/19 US Tariffs Against China Boosted Exports and Employment in Mexico
How a Trump 1.0 tarrifs backfire illustrates fundamental flaw in how Trump goes about doing things.
Topics: Economic fundamentals, Globalization, Guest Post, Income disparity, Politics, Social policy, Taxes, The destruction of the middle class
Posted by Yves Smith at 9:55 am | 1 Comment »
Links 6/23/2025
Topics: Links
Posted by Conor Gallagher at 6:55 am | 61 Comments »
Breaking: Fordow Attacked Again; Trump Talks Up Regime Change, Brays About Iran Nuclear Site Success as Israel Taking Increasing Toll from Attacks, Iran Puts Pieces in Place for Strait of Hormuz Closure; UPDATE: Iran Media Claims Attack on US Base in Syria
Iran updates, with the big underlying pressure being Israel’s decay path and US failure so far to arrest that.
Topics: Doomsday scenarios, Energy markets, Media watch, Middle East, Politics, Surveillance state, Technology and innovation
Posted by Yves Smith at 6:45 am | 86 Comments »
Proxy Fighters in the Fog of War
Examining the potential role of Turkey, Azerbaijan and nonstate actors bordering Iran in the destabilization campaign.
Topics: Doomsday scenarios, Energy markets, Europe, Guest Post, Middle East, Turkey
Posted by Conor Gallagher at 6:00 am | 11 Comments »
At Antarctica’s Midwinter, a Look Back at the Frozen Continent’s Long History of Dark Behavior
Sunlight is beginning to return to Antarctica, but are there warnings for us from the “Madhouse at the End of the Earth”?
Topics: Curiousities, Doomsday scenarios, Environment
Posted by Conor Gallagher at 4:00 am | 6 Comments »
Links 6/22/2025
Topics: Guest Post, Links
Posted by Haig Hovaness at 6:55 am | 130 Comments »
The Sunday Morning Movie Presents: In The Soup (1992) Run Time: 1H 33M
In The Soup is a funny movie about a starving artist and a happy-go-lucky mobster who want to make a film together.
Topics: Guest Post, Sunday morning Antidote movie
Posted by semper loquitur at 6:30 am | 12 Comments »
The Senate GOP’s Great Western Land Heist
A buried budget clause could force the largest public land sell-off in modern history, without a vote, a hearing, or a warning.
Topics: Environment, Privatization, Real estate, Ridiculously obvious scams, Social policy, Social values, Technology and innovation
Posted by Conor Gallagher at 5:00 am | 16 Comments »
US Attacks Iran: Start of a Long War? Update: Iran Parliament Votes to Close Strait of Hormuz
And so the US war against Iran begins, with showy strikes against empty nuclear facilities. What next?
Topics: Doomsday scenarios, Media watch, Middle East, Politics
Posted by Yves Smith at 1:43 am | 330 Comments »
Links 6/21/2025
Topics: Links
Posted by Yves Smith at 6:55 am | 269 Comments »
Michael Hudson: Why America Is at War with Iran
The neocon logic for needing to defeat Iran and break it into ethnic parts
Topics: Doomsday scenarios, Energy markets, Globalization, Guest Post, Middle East, Politics
Posted by Yves Smith at 6:50 am | 51 Comments »
NATO’s Procurement Corruption Scandal Might Delay Its Rapid Militarization Plans
Yves here. Yet another example of European values in action! A corruption scandal in Aisle 5! While this procurement abuse is not all that big an impediment to European NATO members bulking up their armed forces, say compared to voters not being on board with baked-in social spending cuts, the lack of an industrial base, […]
Topics: Doomsday scenarios, Europe, Guest Post, Politics, Ridiculously obvious scams
Posted by Yves Smith at 1:05 am | 10 Comments »
Coffee Break: Healthcare and the State of Science, Plus Baseball and Abundance
Part the First. How Did the United States Get This Healthcare System? I distinctly remember the first time this question occurred to me, because as the child of a union household a visit to the doctor or the Emergency Room (trees were made to fall out of) was never a problem. I was twenty years […]
Topics: Coffee Break, Economic fundamentals, Garrulous insolence, Health care, Ridiculously obvious scams, Science and the scientific method, The dismal science
Posted by KLG at 2:00 pm | 15 Comments »
ICE’s Rap Sheet Grows With Continuing Defiance of Congressional Oversight at Facilities, Attempt to Write Its Own Rules
ICE is becoming even more high-handed in its defiance of legally mandated Congressional oversight rights.
Topics: Globalization, Guest Post, Legal, Politics, Social policy, Social values
Posted by Yves Smith at 9:55 am | 20 Comments »