Links 1/16/2025

How a major bank cheated its customers out of $2 billion, according to a new federal lawsuit Popular Information

Founder of muckraking financial information firm Hindenburg Research calls it quits AP

The Governments That Survived Inflation Foreign Affairs

The Bitter End Doomberg (PI).

Xiaohongshu (RedNote)

‘TikTok refugees’ unexpectedly turn to Chinese alternative as ban looms LA Times.

America’s youth longs for Chinese e-commerce Garbage Day. Worth a read on social media.

RedNote (1):

RedNote (2):

RedNote (3):

RedNote (4):

RedNote (5):

RedNote (6):

RedNote (7):

* * *

Trump is looking to save TikTok from potential ban, Waltz says Axios

Trump adviser says president-elect is exploring options to ‘preserve’ TikTok AP

‘It’s a personal choice’: China dodges RedNote censorship issue as US TikTokkers migrate South China Morning Post

California Burning

The story of how two Beverly Hills farmers privatized water in California Yasha Levine, weaponized immigrant

Anti-COVID groups distribute masks and air purifiers faster than LA government amidst fires The Gauntlet. Commentary:

California utility faces billions in claims for fire damage even if it did nothing wrong Reuters

Climate

Top financial watchdog warns climate change set to trigger market panics FT

First US congestion pricing scheme brings dramatic drop in NY traffic FT

Syndemics

FOLLOW-UP: “Covidians” & Cults Pandemic Accountability Index

China?

China retail giant bans staff from engaging in domestic violence, sparks privacy concerns South China Morning Post

The Pettis Paradigm and the Second China Shock Noah Smith, Noahopinion

Applicants wanted: China’s C919 to benefit as Beijing bankrolls ‘large aircraft’ research South China Morning Post

In South Asia, Power Shifts Usher in Diplomatic Surprises Foreign Policy

The Koreas

South Korean authorities take impeached President Yoon to detention center after questioning AP

Syraqistan

Live updates: Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement awaits final approval AP:

A “last minute crisis” with Hamas was holding up Israeli approval of a long-awaited agreement to pause the fighting in the Gaza Strip and release dozens of hostages, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday. Meanwhile, Israeli airstrikes killed dozens of people across the war-ravaged territory.

Netanyahu’s office said his Cabinet won’t meet to approve the agreement until Hamas backs down, accusing it of reneging on parts of the agreement in an attempt to gain further concessions.

Commentary:

Bowen: Long-overdue ceasefire may stop the killing but won’t end the conflict BBC

Israel Pulls Out of Gaza Strip as Barack Obama Assumes the Presidency PBS. January 19, 2009, still germane. But it rhymes?

* * *

One Question Looming Over Israel-Hamas Truce Deal—Why Now? Foreign Policy

IDF general credits Trump threat as ‘big change’ in securing cease-fire after Hamas rejected same deal in May FOX

A Year of Empty Threats and a “Smokescreen” Policy: How the State Department Let Israel Get Away With Horrors in Gaza ProPublica

* * *

US says it’s committed to preventing return of Hamas rule in Gaza following cease-fire deal Anadolu Agency

Netanyahu Just Agreed to a Hostage Deal With Hamas. But It’s Not the Deal He’s Selling His Supporters Haaretz

* * *

Outgoing CIA director says ‘no sign’ Iran developing nuclear weapons The Cradle

How US activists are infiltrating Israeli events selling Palestinian land Waging Nonviolence

The New Great Game

Opinion: ‘Armenia and US sign strategic partnership charter as legacy for Trump’ JAM News

European Disunion

German economy continued to shrink in 2024 Anadolu Agency

New Not-So-Cold War

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer arrives in Kyiv to sign ‘100-year yartnership’ treaty Euronews. “Partnership,” actually.

How are EU gas reserves holding up against the halt of Russian supplies? Euronews

Zelenskyy: Europe has no chance against Russia without Ukrainian military Ukrainska Pravda

Trump Transition

The Senate is considering the Laken Riley Act. Here’s what it would do LA Times. Commentary:

Trump promises an “External Revenue Service” to collect tariffs Axios

Saving the Government Money RAND

The Second Trump White House Could Drastically Reshape Infectious Disease Research. Here’s What’s at Stake. ProPublica

How Trump Got Away With It, According to Jack Smith Time

South of the Border

Depose Maduro Bret Stephens, NYT

Biden Administration

Biden warns in farewell address that an ‘oligarchy’ of ultrarich in US threatens future of democracy AP. Commentary:

Democrats en deshabillé

Kamala Harris Paid the Price for Not Breaking With Biden on Gaza, New Poll Shows Ryan Grim, Dropsite

Spook Country

The CIA’s Racak ‘Massacre’ Hoax Kit Klarenberg, Global Delinquents

The Bezzle

Pension funds dabble in crypto after massive bitcoin rally FT

The Final Frontier

SpaceX rocket launches private missions to Moon BBC

Healthcare

UnitedHealth, employer of slain exec Brian Thompson, found to have overcharged some cancer patients for drugs by over 1,000% Fortune

Zeitgeist Watch

I’m taking my health seriously this winter – here’s why we all should Independent

Kelly Stafford Admits She Felt ‘Guilt’ for Exposing Entire L.A. Rams Team to Sick Kids on Private Jet People

Speculation: Euthanasia Will Become Coercive Lyman Stone

The Co-Opted Chinese Word That Broke Risk Management Oxebridge

The Weight of a Stone American Scholar

Antidote du jour (Derek Keats):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

This entry was posted in Guest Post, Links on by .

About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered. To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.

210 comments

  1. AG

    re: “UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer arrives in Kyiv to sign ‘100-year partnership’ treaty
    Starmer plans to stay in office for a pretty long time apparently

            1. AG

              Endive in fact very much a working class “thing” in Western Germany. So that won’t do for Starmer – unless you’re telling me endive is Tory in GB.
              Or should I say food for the progressives? I don’t even know the proper words any more.

          1. albrt

            To the contrary, Starmer has top British scientists working to develop a hundred year lettuce. Just you wait.

      1. Ignacio

        I read fartnership. And Starmer politely asked Z to recruit, please, the 18 years old, because if not the partnership would last less that a wild strawberry.

    1. Glen

      Hm, I think uBlock is blocking the whole article from displaying on this browser so I went and read a couple other sites.

      I really have no words, good words for this so I’ll follow up with dumb questions.

      I almost routinely accuse American boomer politicians of “living in the 90’s” and pretending the unipolar empire still exists, but one has to reach back further to try and understand what the heck is happening in the UK. Starmer is clearly living in the 50’s, the 1850’s, and the Crimean War is still being fought in his head. Does Starmer realize that the Charge of the Light Brigade already happen and it was a blow out? Or does he find merit in pretending it’s going to ultimately work out just fine for Ukraine while his own country is sorta going down the drain in the present? TINA?

      One continues to wonder about the insanity of the EU (and non EU, but European) elites.

    2. bertl

      So the ridiculously unpopular Zionist genocidaire has signed an agreement with an unelected “president” committing the British taxpayer, the UK military and future UK governments to support whatever flavour of Fascism exists in the Ukraine at any point over the next 100 years. Obviously a man with his finger on the pulse of the wrong nation.

  2. The Rev Kev

    “IDF general credits Trump threat as ‘big change’ in securing cease-fire after Hamas rejected same deal in May”

    Yeah, nah! This general is lying but that is par for the course for every Israeli spokesman so nothing different. What happened is that Netanyahu has been throwing spanners into the works of any peace deal that came up and Biden never stopped him. But then a Trump envoy threw a spanner at Netanyahu’s head by saying that he would have a meeting with him. Netanyahu, who is not particularly religious, said not possible because that day was a Shabbat. Trump’s envoy said be there and just after that there was a deal. Netanyahu is not in Trump’s good books right now and will not be able to roll over him like he has been doing with Biden and Blinken. If this deal is wrecked by the Israelis once again then I predict consequences.

    1. ilsm

      Do you suspect Wilkoff said “no more bombs, guidance kits, first dibs at F-35/15/16 parts satellite feeds…..”?

      1. The Rev Kev

        I think that it is a case of Trump reminding Netanyahu that the US is the big dog and Israel the tail and not the other way around.

        1. Neutrino

          Netanyahu pulled out of a coordinated strike on Soleimani after he had agreed, and Trump would not soon forget that duplicity.

          1. The Rev Kev

            If I recall correctly, when Trump was near the end of his Presidency Netanyahu turned on him as he figured that Trump was finished and would never come back so no longer needed him. Trump will not have forgotten much less forgiven him for that betrayal. He has a very thin skin about such matters.

        1. The Rev Kev

          That’s “Little” Rubio saying that and I think that Trump will have him on a tight leash. Trump only values loyalty from his team and Rubio would be painfully aware of this.

    2. curlydan

      Unless the deal was to get a deal by inauguration for the PR effect (e.g. Reagan and the Iranian hostages), then let things drift apart as necessary. Reagan’s deal had the advantage that a hostage exchange is kind of hard to reverse whereas bombing always can have an “excuse”.

    3. Carolinian

      There’s another post today on this but worth noting that it has been Republican presidents in the past who have been willing to pull rank on the Israelis–Eisenhower during Suez, Reagan during the 80s Lebanon incursion, Bush senior in the early 90s. Meanwhile Democrats–Truman, LBJ, Clinton, Biden–have been the Israelis’ great enablers. The Democrats are far more dependent on Lobby money and money seems to be calling the shots. One could even speculate that Trump is sending a signal by making Musk his new BFF.

      Of course both parties in Congress still cower before AIPAC threats but the executive runs foreign policy. I say let’s wait and see what happens.

    4. Xquacy

      Sorry this is nonsense. It was obvious from the start US is not interested in peace. How did everyone suddenly forget presidents don’t matter. And even if they do matter, when exactly did Trump say anything about peace in Gaza? He is more of a hawk than Biden.

      All this charade is a typical American dance to convince the world America isn’t responsible for the crimes in Gaza. It’s either Hamas or Netanyahu. Poor America caught between two Goliaths. Thats another advantage of having a vassal. You can shove all responsibility of heinous crimes on them. Remember how Ukraine bombed Nord Stream using a boat? Yeah, thats the American way.

  3. Zagonostra

    >RedNote

    Glad to see coverage of this topic. I don’t use TikTok but my apolitical daughters certainly do. With the U.S. gov’t’s proposed ban soon approaching, they all of sudden are becoming aware of how politics directly affects them, hopefully this will expand interest to all those “indirect” and opaque ways it impacts them.

    I downloaded the RedNote app on my phone, not so much to get information or to be entertained, but to send a message to our unenlightened members of Congress that banning social media platforms, that some have argued is motivated by Israel lobby, does not sit well with me.

    1. curlydan

      And the cultural exchange includes some health care cost information as well. Anecdotally, my family was in China last month where my son got food poisoning or Norovirus 1.5 days after arrival. He was puking, had an upset stomach, and was very dehydrated, so off to the Chinese ER we went.

      Long story short, after 4-5 hours in a Chinese ER, we wound up with a bill of 350 Yuan–or about $50. Probably about 1/40th of the U.S. cost in an urgent care clinic.

      1. Wukchumni

        A couple years ago in Utah, I was really feeling out of sorts, out of breath at the top of a lift, sweating and not really enjoying life, so one of the Dartful Codgers suggested I take a day off la piste de la resistance and get myself checked out, and so I did.

        Went to the ER in Park City and they took X-rays and did vitals and all that, and could find nothing wrong with me, but said if I wanted to, the Hospital could run a blood test, which they did and again, couldn’t discern anything out of sorts.

        A few months later the bill arrives, and it’s around $4,500, and I think I paid $167 via insurance.

        What if all business ran like that, say a new Tacoma was $45,000 MSRP, but your cost is $1,670?

        1. cfraenkel

          But you’d also have been paying $20k per year for the privilege, and your Tacoma would arrive without passenger seats or A/C, since they’re deemed ‘non-essential’, and the tires came from the wrong manufacturer, so they’re on you.

      2. fjallstrom

        I saw a RedNote screenshot of a chinese user asking the US users if it is true that you have to pay for an ambulance in the US, or if that was just (Chinese) government propaganda.

        Enlightening for both sides, I am sure.

        1. Zelja

          Being someone from the eastern block, I must admit that it sounded unbeliveable the first time I heard about it, long time ago.

    2. Mikel

      Politics is still a small corner of social media.

      Marketing products is still its beating heart.
      The trick is letting the users think they are in control.

    3. The Rev Kev

      It will be interesting to see how big the uptake of Rednote is in the US. It might even go viral for all we know. In trying to ban Tik Tok because they did not control it and so could not censor it, they have instead unleashed a direct line between – mostly young – Americans and their favourite punching bag China. But I did not expect ordinary Americans to be swapping notes on what life is like in both countries and the cost of living and the like. Trump may bring back Tik Tok simply to get those people back again on it and to forget Rednote.

  4. Not Again

    Depose Maduro Bret Stephens, NYT

    So, the guy who denies there is a holocaust in Gaza, sees any criticism of Israel as antisemitic and swore there were innumerable rapes and massacred babies on October 7th has written another column.
    Why would anyone read it?

      1. fjallstrom

        I tried but didn’t get pass the patwall at first attempt, so I figured I could just imagine instead.

      1. Lefty Godot

        Doesn’t Luigi have a cousin who could deal with the NYSwines I mean Times? He must have cousins, right?

  5. Wukchumni

    Its a bit odd having the National Guard with guns at the ready, patrolling burnt out neighborhoods, is ash sifting all that lucrative?

    Nothing, save gold jewelry or perhaps a set of sterling silver flatware-is worth bupkis post fire, and most domiciles wouldn’t have anything in that realm, so which of the 12,000 homes in cinders would you go after if you were an ashen paleface bent on crime?

    1. The Rev Kev

      From what you say, people are going to be needing a soil sifter screen and a good shovel. It would be heart breaking to see your life reduced to ashes. But it is only a matter of time until bulldozers are sent into clean out that landscape.

      1. Wukchumni

        In some small measure, having your home reduced to a pile of ashes and cement that survived the maelstrom, has to be an easier ending that a home in WNC where the flood waters went up to the attic and then receded, leaving a standing building that needs to be torn down.

    2. heh

      Its a bit odd having the National Guard with guns at the ready, patrolling burnt out neighborhoods, is ash sifting all that lucrative?

      Aren’t they just finishing off the survivors?

    3. earthling

      I have to assume that road also leads to some untouched homes which have been evacuated and would be subject to thefts.

      1. flora

        Or, you know, subject possibly to arson. I’ve read that meth heads like fire. It’s apparently a thing.

      2. flora

        A couple of twtr reports. Maui experienced similar responses if I remember.

        30 armed homeowners in Altadena defy evacuation orders to protect their homes from looters and flare ups.

        https://x.com/TheKevinDalton/status/1879740650515779628

        and

        “Cars pull up, doors open, and groups of men running up our street going up to the doors of these houses.”

        “There were 100 people came up on scooters and were trying to get into any and all houses.”

        https://x.com/HustleBitch_/status/1877472966939701563

    4. Ignacio

      Yeah the question could also be framed as “this is what I pair my taxes for”? To have guns in the streets when needed? Only because someone thinks it could be needed? For a show of brute force when you couldn’t prevent it happening? These questions show lack of confidence on the part of authorities who collectively seem to think that the populace is there only to be controlled and tends to run wild in any occasion. Yet the image at the tweet shows quite a different thing. A much better one should I say. The authorities despise and underestimate the populace so it seems.

    5. JP

      Let’s see. It was a report from an organization, we know nothing about implying, a police state activity. If we take that as presented it pits the community against the police. Is that a fact.

      I see two armed personal and a line of vehicles including a front end loader. What is their purpose? Then I see some community activity and a prominent american flag. There is a sign on the fence but it is unreadable and the sidewalk is littered with I don’t know what.

      This is no more than an opinion piece from possibly an individual we know nothing about. Unless I see a lot of corroborating evidence from around town I going with just what I see not someone’s interpretation.

  6. Zagonostra

    >South Korean authorities take impeached President Yoon to detention center after questioning AP

    Yoon, the country’s first sitting president to be apprehended, now faces the prospect of a lengthy prison term over potential rebellion charges

    This country can’t even attempt to charge certain high-level gov’t officials when they are caught red handed getting kick backs and there exist incontrovertible evidence of malfeasance of all types, some “democracy.”

    1. The Rev Kev

      That guy deserves a good kicking. It came out the other day that the first time the police went to arrest him but those soldiers stopped them, he wanted those soldiers to open fire on those police.
      Doesn’t he realize that he could have just written himself out a pardon? /sarc

    2. ciroc

      In my opinion, an innocent national leader is an oxymoron, so I’m in favor of the Korean approach of imprisoning all presidents.

    3. scott s.

      So much like K-drama the script writes itself. (Though the dramas are often set in the past with the King and “Loyal Retainers”).

      Next we see the Pres pushed out of detention in a wheelchair due to “medical leave”. Then the prosecutor getting the apple box of “Saimdangs” in the trunk of his car.

  7. Zagonostra

    >Suchir Balaji

    Not a fan of Tucker Carlson but I’m glad he is bringing this topic to a wider audience. I think it’s important to keep an eye on what happens in this case, especially after two Boeing whistleblowers conveniently committed suicide just before they were to testify.

    The interview is worth listening to (in spite of TC) just to get a picture of how corrupt San Francesco and California politicians are. Rep. Khanna represents the district where the murder (no doubt about it) took place and he seems to be avoiding dealing with it. You get a sense, after listening to Suchir’s mom, of just how deep and wide that corruption is, staggering.

    https://youtu.be/Kev_-HyuI9Y?si=jMTcq23gp-M4jBiV

  8. The Rev Kev

    “How are EU gas reserves holding up against the halt of Russian supplies?”

    Maybe not so good as of the past day or two. In payback for the US/Ukraine trying to blow up Turkstream, the Russians have just blasted one of the largest natural gas storage sites in Ukraine’s Lviv region. Now I may be wrong here but I recall that the EU had the brilliant idea to store a lot of their gas in the Ukraine – which just happens to be a war zone. And as Lviv is near the Polish border, I am kinda betting that it was used to store gas for the EU. If so, the the EU just lost a huge chunk of their storage capacity. Of course nobody could have ever predicted this ever happening-

    https://www.rigzone.com/news/wire/russia_says_it_damaged_facilities_at_ukraine_gas_storage_site-16-jan-2025-179328-article/

    1. nbvillager

      What is needed is an interpretation of Russia “damaged ground infrastructure”. In my interpretation, Russia damaged the infrastructure that sits above ground while leaving the below ground storage tanks intact. Access to those storage tanks is lost “temporarily” as the above ground infrastructure can be replaced. Of course, Russia can (attempt to) make a deeper strike at another time. Russia is certainly signalling directly to the EU that it can retaliate to the EU (and Ukraine’s) aggressions.

      1. Skip Intro

        It may be better for Russia to just destroy the ground infrastructure every time it is rebuilt, or at least every time they want to add some excitement to the EU gas markets. Once it is destroyed alternatives will be found, as an ongoing failed promise, it is more damaging.

        1. Wukchumni

          Kiev closely resembled bombed out Berlin after the war, along with most all other Russian cities that needed rebuilding-which they had to do, unlike us who are cool with abandoning our bombed out economy.

          Once bitten-twice shy?

      2. Principe Fabrizio Salina

        There are no underground tanks. Natural gas is stored in depleted gas and oil fields, aquifers, caverns created by dissolving underground salt formations and pumping out brine. A storage facility becomes useless is a compressor station is destroyed. Replacing a compressor takes time – one cannot order a compressor on Amazon.

    2. Ignacio

      I believe the storage site in Lvov is possibly mostly to deal with the summer/winter mismatch within Ukraine. As I learnt from an article linked here Ukraine produces gas basically in Kharkov and Poltava oblasts mostly from one field (if or when Russia occupies it then…) which covers about most or all of Ukraine’s current demand which excludes some or most of power generation and is dedicated basically to heating. That is why Ukraine could close the pipeline that goes through Sudzha without hurting itself too much.

  9. JohnA

    UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer arrives in Kyiv to sign 100-year yartnership

    The Hundred Years’ War, fought between England and France in the Middle Ages springs to mind. England lost that in the end.
    Starmer has a mandate that expires no later than 2029. I wonder how such a long-term undertaking can be legally binding on his successor(s). Even earlier if Alexander Christoforou’s infamous Zelensky Curse, where politicians photographed with Zelensky and subsequently lose office, kicks in.
    Ever since the 2024 election, Starmer and finance minister Reeves, have cited a so-called £22 bn black hole as the need to cut winter energy support to pensioners plus other welfare benefits, and implement further austerity measures, yet to date some £12+ bn has been funneled to Ukraine (together with British passports for the Z family) since 2022, with more largesse to come via this 100 year scam. They really do think people are gullible to swallow that.

    1. The Rev Kev

      When this war is finally over it will be revealed that the most effective weapon in the Russian military was – the railway line from Poland to Kiev. No, seriously. Along that railway line has come a procession of western leaders who arrived and gave Zelensky a big hug thus dooming them with the Zelensky cursed that you mentioned. Biden’s fate was the most brutal here. And of course with those western leaders came tens of billions of dollars which drained the coffers of so many western countries such as the UK causing huge problems in their own countries. As well came huge deliveries of weapons and now NATO has been demilitarized. The Russians would have been happy with just the Ukraine getting demilitarized but hey, a win is a win. In fact, they should really nominate that railway line for a Nobel peace prize.

      1. Samuel Conner

        > which drained the coffers of so many western countries

        perhaps that was part of the point — create shortfalls in the budget through these ‘essential’ foreign policy expenditures, shortfalls that would then provide justification for domestic austerity.

        That seems to be how it works in US, which doesn’t even have an objectively real funding constraint. It must be even more effective in EU countries, which are funding-constrained since they don’t control the currency they use.

  10. ilsm

    RAND saving the government money!

    The tanker study is one area I am directly familiar. SAC days!

    No money saved!

    The answer to saving money in Air Mobility Command (they had to put if somewhere, they shuttered SAC) refueling enterprise is to keep the KC 135! Kill the KC 46 which has not met all its performance spec after years of compromise!

    The KC 135 was re-engined with with CFM 56 generation engines in the 1970’s and 80’s. Those engines pushed the fuel off load potential to about 200 thousand pounds. The KC 46 has same off load limit! The difference is the KC 46 is a hybrid cargo hauler. With 2 engines the mission reliability is less than the KC-135!

    As to age, the measures of aging total flight hours and total compression/decompression cycles the KC-135 had decades left, might spend a bit longer in 5 year cycle overhaul and require a bit of re-engineering to certify new material parts but has done the job since 1962.

    Rest of it was same could have had a bunch of grad students…..

    1. scott s.

      As a space-a pax KC-10 was a great ride, but they put it out to pasture. KC-135R with Pacer CRAG and the new engines is pretty nice.

  11. ChrisFromGA

    Big Tech Is Toxic

    Sung to the tune of “Toxic” by Britney Spears

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOZuxwVk7TU

    Baby, can’t you see I’m calling?
    A job like you should wear a warning
    It’s dangerous, I’m falling

    There’s no escape, I can’t wait
    I need a resume hit, baby, give me it
    You’re dangerous, I’m loving it

    Too high, can’t come down
    Losing my head, spinnin’ after layoff rounds
    Do you feel me now?

    With a taste of Big Tech, I’m on a ride
    You’re toxic, I’m slippin’ under
    With a taste of a poison paradise
    I’m addicted to you
    Don’t you know Zuck you’re toxic?
    And you stack rank me too,
    Don’t you know Jassy’s toxic?

    It’s getting late to give you up
    I took a sip from AI devil’s cup
    Slowly, it’s taking over me
    Too high, can’t come down
    It’s in the cloud and it’s bezzles all around
    Can you feel me now?

    With a taste of Big Tech, I’m on a ride
    You’re toxic, I’m slippin’ under
    With a taste of a poison paradise
    I’m addicted to you
    Don’t you know Zuck you’re toxic?
    And you censor me too,
    Don’t you know Zuck you’re toxic?

    Don’t ya know Big Tech’s toxic?

    With a taste of Big Tech, I’m on a ride
    You’re toxic, I’m slippin’ under
    With a taste of a poison paradise
    I’m addicted to you
    Don’t you know Zuck you’re toxic?
    And you stack rank me too,
    Don’t you know Jassy’s toxic?

  12. Zagonostra

    >SpaceX rocket launches private missions to Moon BBC

    Nasa is backing the endeavour, which, if successful, will be its biggest commercial delivery to the Moon so far.

    Interesting how NASA has ceded it’s historic role of moon missions to SpaceX. It will be Interesting as well to follow how private companies compete with China. The excitement of watching that first NASA Space Shuttle take off from Canaveral seems so distant in the past.

    China has a strategic plan to build a space economy and become the world leader in this field. It intends to explore and extract minerals from asteroids and bodies such as the Moon, and to use water ice and any other useful space resources available in our Solar System.

    https://theconversation.com/with-its-latest-moon-mission-success-chinas-space-programme-has-the-us-in-its-sights-233792

    1. DJG, Reality Czar

      Zaganostra: Thanks for bringing this up.

      What I don’t understand is how SpaceX has been allowed to push NASA aside with nary a peep from the Congress (oh, well, $$$) or the public. Among the public, NASA still is held in high regard, I assume. It is truly a storied effort by the U.S. government, like the Post Office (alas!), the Smithsonian Institution, the Library of Congress, and the WPA buildings and programs.

      (Here in the Chocolate City, one “American” thing that sticks out is NASA t-shirts and sweatshirts, which are more common that other U.S. swag, except for Chicago Bulls stuff, ironically.)

      I read today in Fatto Quotidiano the SpaceX did all U.S. launches last year. NASA seems to have done none of them.

      Something is seriously wrong here, and no one is acknowledging it. See also: Musk out of control elsewhere in the U.S. government.

      1. The Rev Kev

        I think that the reason why NASA was pushed aside and had to allow all those companies to look over all their data is that Congress wants space to be “corporatized” and just not done by a government organization. Well, except for the US Space Force that is. They want to give a few corporations the ability to “bottleneck” how the US and other countries get into space and let them charge accordingly. After all, all those space corporations should be good for a few donations after all and NASA isn’t famous for giving money to political campaigns.

      2. earthling

        The something which is seriously wrong is 98% of our elected officials have decided to prostitute themselves to greedy monied interests, even if it ruins our American society and lives. They can’t see beyond their own bank statements, nor care to.

          1. cfraenkel

            For all the shuttle fanboys in this thread, I had history with the shuttle at the pointy end in a previous lifetime. What ‘they’ neglected to tell you was that launching on the shuttle forced the *payload* to cost 3X, on top of the 5X *subsidized* launch costs. Our satellite cost $150M, and we got a ride on an Atlas for $80M. Our friends down the hall were forced to use the shuttle and their bird cost $500M, and their bill for the launch was another $500M (the actual costs were much higher…). For roughly the same mission.

      3. Matt L

        Mainly because NASA failed at their mission for the better part of 4 decades. Failed project after failed project added up to a black hole of budgetary hell.

        The Space Shuttle failed at being the quick turnaround reusable spacecraft that was envisioned. It’s replacement was massively over budget and behind schedule until the plug was finally pulled on it. The multi-billion dollar mars probe that crashed into the martian surface because of a simple math error. Etc etc etc …….

        Not to mention that it was an easy cut to make in balancing the budget from Democrats and Republicans alike.

        Instead private companies were able to deliver satellites faster and cheaper for telecommunication companies and defense needs and that leads us to where we are today.

        I’m no fan of SpaceX or Boeing or the other 2 or 3 private contractors but NASA failed at it’s mission and failed badly.

        1. Kouros

          The Mars probe crashing wasn’t math error, but intrinsic American Exceptionalism, going full blown with the imperial system rather than the international metric system.

      4. cfraenkel

        Not to give the MICC a pass on this one, but complaining about SpaceX pushing NASA aside is missing the point / buying into the rah rah propaganda from the 70’s used to justify the Shuttle boondoggle.

        You don’t see NASA building airliners, do you? (putting aside the Boeing fiasco, as that’s not relevant to this discussion). That second A in the name stands for airplanes, but they’re focused on the research side, as they should be.

        NASA has a pretty impressive track record in what should be their primary space mission: Viking, Hubble, Web, Chandra, Kepler, Juno …. The only big oops that come to mind were the Hubble mirror and the Mars Observer feet/meters mistake. Most of the space science community considers manned space as a collosal waste of funding, a grudgingly necessary PR effort at best.

      5. Michaelmas

        The Moon Makes the List of the World’s Most Endangered Cultural Heritage Sites in 2025

        https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-moon-makes-the-list-of-the-worlds-most-endangered-cultural-heritage-sites-in-2025-180985845/

        Every two years, the nonprofit World Monuments Fund releases a list of cultural heritage sites it deems most at risk of disappearing because of threats like war or climate change. The line-up of landmarks usually includes historic temples, cemeteries and neighborhoods. But this year, a surprising new locale made the list: the moon.

        … Advocates of protecting human heritage on the moon have raised concerns about vacationers in the future damaging lunar historic sites, or robotic spacecraft inadvertently destroying them when landing.

        More specifically, the World Monument Fund says such disturbances could threaten more than 90 sites on the moon’s surface that reflect some of humankind’s “most extraordinary feats of courage and ingenuity.”

        ~ ~ ~

        They’re a little premature, maybe. But give it 15-20 years and there’ll probably be rich sightseers trampling around the Apollo 11 landing site just like there are now at the top of Everest.

        You may say: you really think that the Jackpot isn’t going get everybody? But to paraphrase W. Gibson: The Jackpot is already here, it’s just unevenly distributed.

        So I suspect that’s how it’s going to be. There’ll be both: rich vacationers in space and Jackpot down in regions of Terra.

  13. Wukchumni

    The Governments That Survived Inflation Foreign Affairs
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Back when there was only physical banknotes, countries would go out of business all the time on account of heavy handed inflation, and despite Genocide Joe’s other awful proclivities, that’s the main thing that did him in, how could you not notice the prices of most everything you buy going up in price demonstrably during his tragic reign?

    Hyperinflation has traditionally needed a prop be it coins or paper money, but how do you get there in the digital age where it isn’t obvious?

      1. Wukchumni

        Oh, vast oodles of manna have been conjured up, but its all kind of hidden away. not apparent to the public that something is very wrong in the state of den mark to model.

        Imagine the effect a few trillion $ worth of banknotes circulating in the country would have, limited to $100 being the highest denomination, that’s around a veritable shitlode of Benjamins.

          1. Wukchumni

            Physical banknotes are but a blip in the scheme of things, what is it, around 4% of the economy revolves around rectangles consisting of 72% dead Presidents?

  14. DJG, Reality Czar

    The RedNote chain of info provided by Lambert Strether is valuable indeed, particularly the videos in 1, 2, and 6 by the young women. These three videos have much more information in them than the typical twiXt.

    The question is how much cultural reach any discontent on RedNote would have. Any at all? That’s a question for the commentariat, I s’pose.

    Side note: I happen to have a good deal of respect for Ryan Grim, who comes from a modest background and isn’t all that flashy. He’s an old-style journalist, minus the cigarette dangling off the lower lip. I enjoy his understated sense of humor.

    Context: I believe that it was the Rev Kev who introduced us in a comment to the genre of videos, “How I Figured Out That the US of A Fottuted Me.”

    Take a look at one — of many:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PU0iDAYHQek

    I am wondering if we may collectively be bumping up against a real demonstration of those aghastitudenous polling numbers in which we discover that 41 percent of those aged 18-36 have a good deal of sympathy for Saint Luigi the Avenger. When they are talking about not being able to afford an apartment, worrying about calling an ambulance, and being afraid of loud noises… when many of them came to political consciousness knowing only politicians of the caliber of Obama, H Clinton, Trump, and Biden, who would give the herpes virus a good name.

    1. hk

      Funny thing: the Chinese name for RedNote translates literally to Little Red Book. (Although this is not what the book of Mao’s quotations is known in Chinese, even informally, as fae as I know…)

      1. Zagonostra

        Reminds me of the following stanza from Bob Dylan’s “Buckets of Rain,” maybe Wukchumni will come up with an update.

        Little red wagon
        Little red bike
        I ain’t no monkey but I know what I like
        I like the way you love me strong and slow
        I’m takin’ you with me
        Honey baby, when I go

        1. Late Introvert

          That makes zero sense. Bob Dylan is a poser/imposter. Probably CIA if you scratch hard enough.

  15. Wukchumni

    ‘What’s not in your wallet?’

    How a major bank cheated its customers out of $2 billion, according to a new federal lawsuit Popular Information

  16. Dr. John Carpenter

    To Biden: my brother in Christ, is it already happening. We are already there. And you are partially to thank for it. Sigh.

      1. Dr. John Carpenter

        He wishes. But that’s exactly what it sounds like to me combined with a last minute play for relevancy and legacy building and a one finger salute to the people he feels let him down. All it is to me is proof he knew all along what the problems were and chose “nothing will fundamentally change” instead.

    1. Randall Flagg

      He’s probably also just realizing that fire is hot, water is wet, the sky is blue on a clear day. One of his aides probably snuck that one into his speech at the last minute and he was still not lucid enough to recognize it.
      Thank you President Biden for telling us what we already know. One
      Al least he is bringing this news to more people by mentioning it.

    2. Wukchumni

      I most worried about the Holygarchy calling the shots.

      End-time evangs aligned with end-time Zionists could well do a self fulfilling prophecy on us.

    3. ciroc

      I feel for him. America has the freedom to be president and the freedom to tell the truth, but the freedom to do both at the same time does not exist.

      1. Late Introvert

        Al Gore waited until he was out of office before playing the total hypocrite of global warming.

  17. Wukchumni

    The Weight of a Stone American Scholar
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    My dad loved Giant Sequoias, and Sequoia NP was kind of LA’s NP, while Yosemite NP seemed to be more the place for San Franciscans, tyranny of distance and all that.

    We would spend a week or more in the Giant Forest every summer in a housekeeping cabin-one of around 100 rental cabins nestled in and around the big fellas, and I have photos of yours truly clambering on all fours on fallen Brobdingnagians and huge boulders, the weight of a stone being enormous and how can I get on a giant hunk of granite the size of an SUV when i’m 6, very much set me up for a life of climb.

    The most interesting stones are granite boulders in the high country known as ‘erratics’ which were on top of glaciers when the ice age gave up the ghost, and can be anywhere now-seemingly no rhyme or reason to their placement. They can be enormous, say the size of a school bus.

    Mountains look impressive from a distance, but as you get close they’re all the same makeup, which involves a scree field below the summit as long as the steepness isn’t too much. Its kind of like walking through an M.C. Escher drawing-the crazy jumble of boulders of every size that flung off the top and ran out of gravity eventually-all at crazy angles.

    1. Lee

      To every natural form, rock, fruit or flower,
      Even the loose stones that cover the highway,
      I gave a moral life – I saw them feel,
      Or linked them to some feeling…

      Wordsworth, from The Prelude

    2. MaryLand

      Wuk, your wordsmithing has made my day with the Brobdingnagians reference. We appreciate your daily efforts to cheer us! If you wrote a book about your adventures I would buy it.

    3. JMH

      the crazy jumble of boulders of every size that flung off the top and ran out of gravity eventually-all at crazy angles. That is what descriptive language is all about

    4. JustAnotherVolunteer

      Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,
      Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
      Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
      More free from peril than the envious court?
      Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,
      The seasons’ difference, as the icy fang
      And churlish chiding of the winter’s wind,
      Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,
      Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say
      ‘This is no flattery: these are counsellors
      That feelingly persuade me what I am.’
      Sweet are the uses of adversity,
      Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
      Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
      And this our life exempt from public haunt
      Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
      Sermons in stones and good in every thing.
      I would not change it.

      Duke Orlando, act II, scene i, “As You Like It”

      1. Steve H.

        > and good in every thing.

        At the time, ‘good’ sounded a lot like ‘God’, a rung on the ladder of images up from ‘sermon’.

        Duke Orlando might just be the best.

  18. The Rev Kev

    ‘People’s City Council – Los Angeles
    @PplsCityCouncil
    This video is a perfect example of what’s happening in Altadena. National guard & cops with guns out on one side of street – while community organizes mutual aid & resources next to a burnt down house across the way
    The state isn’t doing anything here other than a show of force’

    One guy had the ultimate comment below and says it all-

    ‘VP 🇵🇸
    @VP1015
    Replying to @PplsCityCouncil
    All able men, none of them really helping.’

    1. Wukchumni

      And to think of all the assault rifles in those burnt out homes and for those with swimming pools, salvation could have possibly come by spending $899 instead on a gasoline powered water pump and hose setup, giving you about 2 1/2 hours of firefighting ability @ 200 gallons a minute coming out out the chamber, rat-a-tat-tat.

      1. The Rev Kev

        For the cost of an assault rifle, you could get all that as well as a good bug-out bag in case things went south. In passing, back in 2011 we had some really bad floods in this region. It taught me to scan every photo that I had and back it up to a portable drive so if there was ever a time we had to evacuate, by grabbing that drive I would have a copy of all our photos. The reason I mention this is that after every fire, flood, etc. you always see people at the wreckage of their homes and in tears as they realize that all their family photos were gone for good.

        1. earthling

          Make copies on thumb drives and give to relatives who live in other places. Because sometimes you’re not home in time to beat the tornado, flood, or fire.

      2. tegnost

        The lookout has (had?)* a new video comparing google earth views of initially burned houses that implies to me that chainsaws would have been more effective than swimming pools as the vegetation around the houses featured was thick and close. From that perspective I’d say no one was going to stop that conflagration, regardless of their political leanings or armchair firefighting. *The video doesn’t seem to be up now, maybe the audio problems got it pulled or maybe some other reason, hopefully it will show up again, but those interested can probably go to g.e. and wander around for themselves…

        1. Joe Renter

          With 100 mph winds and blowing embers, I am not sure if anything would have stopped the progress of the fires. However this is an armchair observation.

  19. ChrisFromGA

    The days of being masters of their own ledger domain may be coming to an end for the banks.

    From the local business rag:

    https://archive.ph/JuT8p

    Buckhead’s sprawling office campus Piedmont Center is facing foreclosure and a huge markdown in its value, potentially a sign of a much larger fire sale of aging properties across the city.

    When nobody wants to go into the office you can only “extend and pretend” for so long. Jingle mail is the final destination. Next up, mark it to “Crazy Eddie.”

    1. Wukchumni

      Honest price discovery @ 70% off of the last sale price not so long ago!

      ‘Wide Elephants’

      The phrase seeing the elephant is an Americanism which refers to gaining experience of the world at a significant cost. It was a popular expression of the mid to late 19th century throughout the United States in the Mexican–American War, the Texan Santa Fe Expedition, the American Civil War, the 1849 Gold Rush, and the Westward Expansion Trails (Oregon Trail, California Trail, Mormon Trail).

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_the_elephant

      1. ChrisFromGA

        Banks ending their ledgerdemain might have salutary effects. Imagine a group of investors pooling together $15M to buy up a zombie office complex. Heck, that’s a mere 15 McMansions around here.

        Put in some fresh carpet, a massage studio, and cut the rents. Now you’re undercutting the latest LEED-certified palace and that’s capitalism at work.

        Or just bulldoze and build affordable apartments.

        1. Wukchumni

          Aside from the obvious that the vast majority of us won’t forsake our homes in order to be at work all the time, how far do single family houses have to fall?

          If you were Big Insurance and saw what went down in LA it would only behoove you to get the hell out of dodge, and no insurance=no mortgage tickee.

          1. ChrisFromGA

            I feel for all those displaced by the fires, even those that can afford to rebuild damn the torpedoes of corrupt insurance companies.

            (As an aside, is there anything more deserving of our wrath than insurance companies?)

            Perhaps the worst of both worlds is the comeback of the “company town.” You live in an apartment right next door to the office. The boss man is your landlord.

            1. Wukchumni

              What’s really maddening about the cold-blooded insurance industry, is one of them uses a Gecko as their spokesperson, 4 legs good with an English accent no less.

              My buddy is driving down to LA with a whole bunch of clothes shoes and whatnot, and most of the places accepting donations only want new stuff now.

            2. mrsyk

              anything more deserving of our wrath, perhaps not, but there are many on equal footing, pick your poison. Climate change has certainly caused headwinds for the insurance industry. So the American dream is swirling the toilet as homeownership as a means to accumulate wealth over time is vanishing from the landscape. Leaves me wondering what comes next.

              1. Wukchumni

                My cheap made in China crystal ball I purchased @ Wal*Mart is only good for events a month out-6 weeks tops, and I can give you the all-clear until then.

              2. ChrisFromGA

                My best guess is in my last reply – company towns.

                Jassy, Zuck, and the Goog-sters buy up zombie office parks and turn them into slum-shacks for their tech workers. Now, you can WFH but don’t forget that the office is now your permanent home!

                And don’t get behind on the rent … or you’re fired!

    1. Zagonostra

      When will we see behind the scenes “suppressing of free speech” on Ytube? But not to worry, they are private corporations, it’s not like the gov’t is involved, oh wait, forget that last clause.

  20. t

    No way to know I suppose, but curious about the number of Chinese-American conversations on RedNote with the Chinese using the English they know, instead of apps, for chatting.

  21. Mikel

    “Xiaohongshu opened a window for Americans to learn more about China by directly interacting with Chinese people.”

    Not too mention that China has a lot of exports to sell.
    ………
    But note the American inspired marketing campaign.

    “Directly interacting” – look at that being redefined. Directly interacting was accepted as meaning in person and in the same space.

    Advertising and marketing campaigns for products being framed as “changing the world”…how quickly we forget.

    Just because it’s in a different language, doesn make it less a variation of campaigns like “Don’t be evil” and “the future won’t be like 1984”.

    All roads (and apparently Belts and Roads) leading to surveillance capitalism.
    ‐——-
    No, I don’t think there should be censorship of the apps.
    But for crying out loud, keep perspective about the apps.

    1. Stephanie

      Are you suggesting that the average Chinese people that Americans are interacting with may in fact be influencers?

      1. Mikel

        Do you think there aren’t any “influencers” among them?

        The overall presentation is so much of what has been seen before in more aspects than that. Marketing and sales tech. Marketing and sales is the A game.

        The spin trying to make everything that has been seen before get a makeover and sold as new and improved. So familiar.

        “Directly interacting” – on a mediated platform????

        1. Mikel

          “Directly interacting” – on a mediated platform…
          The same hype was used to promote the American platforms.

        2. Mikel

          Even in face to face encounters that may have a mediator (lawyer) …say a divorce proceeding…there is direct interaction still because you have ACTUAL direct interaction with the mediator.

          Anytime there is an unseen and distant middle man pulling the strings, there is more room for manipulation.

        3. Stephanie

          No, it seems logical that the platform would anticipate some migration with the elevated awareness of the TikTok ban and would crank up the content appealing to/selling to younger Americans. I was wondering if you thought it went beyond that to Chinese government propaganda (which is why we’re banning TikTok iirc).

          1. cfraenkel

            Ha! Some might say we’re banning Tik Tok due to a possibilty of not supporting American government propaganda.

          2. Mikel

            No. Sales and marketing is also corporate.
            Attributing it to an “alogorithm” assumes there is no marketing plan from humans.
            The algorithm isn’t “thinking”. I don’t buy that BS .

    2. Dessa

      Currently, it’s very difficult to buy anything on Xiaohongshu from the US, but Inhave to imagine the Rednote C-Suite is frantically working to get something going.

  22. flora

    File under LA wildfires.
    From the LATimes, no paywall.

    Signs of rent gouging rise across region in fires’ wake, bringing calls for enforcement

    https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-15/as-signs-of-rent-rouging-proliferate-amid-fires-a-call-for-enforcement

    and

    Why does Newsom look so, if not happy, maybe the word is giddy, for whatever reason. utube, ~18+ minutes. Body language analysis.

    Newsom Displays Body Language of DELIGHT Talking About a TRAGEDY!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FEgF4oS5Z0

    1. Mikel

      Indeed. My comment about the rents rising post yesterday: “They weren’t lying about the looters showing up.”

    2. BeliTsari

      Anybody else noticing, their Firefox anti-tracking/ malware add-ons, extensions going nuts, lately? Perhaps, I’m paranoid, but…

      1. Wukchumni

        I haven’t noticed any of that, but my minder in Big Eavesdrop, Utah is now hep to me being on skid row next week in the Beehive state/\

      2. ceco

        In what way? Any particular extensions? I haven’t noticed anything unusual but I might not be using the same ones as you.

      3. flora

        See if there are new Firefox updates for your system. Firefox started announcing in Nov, then Dec, then regularly this January that older FF versions might begin to act erratically after Jan15th because the digital authentication signature for some older FF versions would lapse and no longer work properly.

  23. AG

    4xLONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS

    on
    Reagan: His Life and Legend
    by Max Boot

    review by Jackson Lears
    https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n01/jackson-lears/honey-i-forgot-to-duck

    on
    More and More and More: An All-Consuming History of Energy
    by Jean-Baptiste Fressoz

    review by Adam Tooze
    https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n01/adam-tooze/trouble-transitioning

    on
    The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time
    by Karl Polanyi

    by Stefan Collini
    https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n01/stefan-collini/the-future-was-social

    L.A. on Fire
    by Colm Tóibín
    https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n01/colm-toibin/in-la

    1. JustTheFacts

      He’s talking as if the only way we can solve problems is within the current predatory capitalist system. Clearly that’s not the only option since China doesn’t do things this way, hence the cheaper medical prices there. His argument is that people must continue living and suffer so that there is a sufficient market to ensure there are specialists to treat people so that they suffer. Euthanasia is a matter of free will, and it is up to you, the doctor, to provide a better alternative, not up to the patient to suffer so that your employer can line its pockets. He’s also claiming that 40% of the increase of life expectancy is due to medicine which sounds like rubbish to me. My understanding the vast majority of it is due to better nutrition and hygiene.

      1. Mikel

        “My understanding the vast majority of it is due to better nutrition and hygiene.”

        Reminds me of the story of the doctor that went through drama to convince the medical establishment that washing their hands before attending patients could be a life saver.

  24. pjay

    Re: ‘The CIA’s Racak ‘Massacre’ Hoax’ – Kit Klarenberg, Global Delinquents

    I hope this article does not get lost in the shuffle today. Yugoslavia was the template and test run for the US/NATO post-Soviet offensive. Everyone should study it as a warning of things to come. As Klarenberg says,

    “… almost everything Western politicians, pundits and journalists said about the Racak “massacre” at the time was a brazen lie. Largely forgotten today, this episode remains hugely significant. It is a palpable, shocking example of how distorted, manipulated if not outright fabricated atrocity propaganda can be weaponised by imperial powers in service of war. Racak’s relevance to every NATO-instigated conflict past, present and likely future could neither be more obvious, nor urgent.”

    By the 1990s I was a lefty academic who was already quite critical of the Clinton administration. I also had no trust in the mainstream media, having observed their typical cover-ups of the many deprivations of the Reagan administration over and over throughout the 1980s. And yet I fell for their framing of the war in Yugoslavia almost completely at the time. It was a lesson for me, one of many I have continued to learn in the years since. Whenever you think you are being too cynical, that even the US war machine couldn’t be this blatantly ruthless or the media this complicit, then kick yourself and wake up.

    1. Aurelien

      I wasn’t going to comment on this article because it’s so full of errors that we’d be here all day. On the other hand I was there at the time, So:
      Well, the KLA had no connection with Al Qaida except, just perhaps, some Albanians fought in Bosnia in Afghanistan. But I’ve never heard that alleged. The KLA was originally born of radical Albanian student groups in Germany in the 1970s, with a vaguely Marxist-nationalist tinge. Far from being armed and trained by the West, western countries were worried about them because of their links to organised crime and the heroin trade. After the air campaign started there were almost certainly some contacts, but that was it. They were not interested in a Greater Albania (because the clans were different) but a Greater Kosovo, which they tried to extend to Serbia proper after the war. Belgrade did not withdraw its military forces from Kosovo after the entry of the KVM, that happened after the air campaign was over. The Defence Secretary was George Robertson not Geoffrey Robertson, who is a “human rights” lawyer, and who told the BBC during the crisis that Milosevic was obviously guilty and implied there was no need for an actual trial. He actually “prosecuted” Milosevic in a mock trial staged by the BBC.

      And so on. The reality was that Racak was a set-up job by the KLA, who were as ruthless and devious a bunch as you might ever hope not to meet. The CIA had nothing to do with it. This tactic was in pursuit of their policy (building on the success of the Muslims in Bosnia) of bringing NATO into the war against Serbia. Their success can be gauged from the fact that NATO became known quite quickly as “the KLA”s air force.” If you read the Finnish pathologists’ report, it’s an honest attempt to explain the complexities of a situation where there were very few “combatants” (ie regular forces in uniform) and the KLA used women and children to carry ammunition and stores, in the hope that some would be killed. It wasn’t possible to say where the victims were killed, or for the most part how. The general opinion at the time was that the bodies had been gathered together by the KLA from different episodes of violence, and some were probably KLA fighters, (who didn’t necessarily wear uniforms) others caught in the crossfire and others deliberately killed. But by then the evidence didn’t exist to be sure.

      NATO was taken in by all this because it wanted to be. Having decided that getting rid of Milosevic was the key to a political solution in the Balkans, it was searching desperately for a pretext to carry out an operation which would humiliate Serbia and thus lead to Milosevic being vanquished by a “pro-western” candidate in the 2000 elections. The original plan was to use the widespread displacement of populations caused by the fighting as a pretext for launching the air campaign, but that was averted by the formation and deployment of the KVM. Eventually, the campaign was launched in the Spring (the worst possible time given the climate) when NATO was being held up to ridicule for its repeated “final warnings” and its leaders decided to threaten to attack, sure that Milosevic would back down, hand over Kosovo and be driven from power. To their surprise and consternation, they found themselves engaged in a months-long bombing campaign that almost destroyed NATO as an organisation, and would have failed had the Russians not intervened. As the campaign continued, NATO became more desperate and its leaders parroted KLA propaganda–which was very well-organised–and the media obediently followed. As one BBC journalist admitted to me a few years later, it wasn’t the media’s finest hour.

      After the war, amid the chaos of “we told you so” from people who knew the region, it was an episode that nobody was proud of (it gave the Kosovar mafia control of much of European organised crime for one thing) and when the same people tried to repeat the same trick in Serbia itself and Macedonia in 2001, they were slapped down. The fact is that the KLA were more ruthless, cunning and devious that any NATO nation.

      1. pjay

        This is a long reply. I appreciate your specificity. I just saw it and I don’t have time to respond now; perhaps later. But you start by saying this: “Well, the KLA had no connection with Al Qaida except, just perhaps, some Albanians fought in Bosnia in Afghanistan. But I’ve never heard that alleged.” If I had time I could provide a long list of references documenting this relationship, including many from mainstream press accounts. We – meaning the US (and certainly the CIA), not only knew about such a relationship, we fostered it. Part of this was overlooking things like the illegal transfer of weapons. But there is also evidence that we facilitated it. And there was well-known and well-documented active recruitment of jihadis here in NY and elsewhere for action in Yugoslavia.

        Much of what you say here does not contradict Klarenberg’s general discussion, nor my own assertions about how it was fraudulently portrayed in the Western media at the time. But once again you are making the incompetence/ignorance defense, or a variation that “we saw what we wanted to see.” This is not false, but it is certainly a partial truth.

      2. Bugs

        But why, exactly, could the United States and its occupied vassal Germany not help the Yugoslav Federation after the fall of Tito and agree to backstop IMF loans during a period of hyperinflation? Why did Germany quickly recognize the independence of Croatia and Slovenia, knowing that it would mean the outbreak of war? I’d really like to know. Bombing Serbia was later but I think the reasoning was the same. Yugoslavia had to go. Who made that decision?

        1. Kong Hong

          Why? In order to divide and conquer. What else? It was so successful that it got a name, balkanization. Aurelien probably got a medal or two for achieving that, though not the big ones that Soros and Hilary get.

        2. AG

          1) One alleged explanation which I never checked myself, was Helmut Kohl’s and his people’s think that Yugoslavia was too big as one country. And if Germany was to control the East and overrun it economically any nation in that to be occupied territory that was too large had to be broken up. I don’t know if Mearsheimer would agree but I would draw the comparison to what he said in regards of RU and CHINA vs. the US: The US (before that GB) hate(d) RU for its size. Which would withstand dominance.

          2) Ideologically Yugoslavia was a bad example. It was in whatever way Communist and thus set a bad example (see Dean Acheson and the bad apple “Vietnam”). By showing that Yugoslavia coulnd’t hold together (the racist multiethnic state won’t work hypothesis) was a great bad example for the world to disprove the left ideals of yesteryear.

          3) The rise of German political clout via control of the particular countries. In Detail I cannot say how but there used to be a very viable cultural exchange between “them” and Germany. And usually that is the upside of what is happening politically in the shadows.

          4) As for KLA – US Camp Bondsteel was one result. Next to projecting power against RU (and destabilizing Brussels) additionally CIA and Co. were able to re-funnel heroin-trade route from Afghanistan away from Turkey to European-controlled routes. With that would – my assumption – come another incentive/argument for building up European law enforcement later directed against immigrants.

          5) Considering what Tariq Ali wrote about the 90s and how the break-up of Yugoslavia destroyed the British left I could think of a dozen players in Germany, in GB, in the US who had an interest in that. That sort of psy-ops would be right at MI5’s alley.

          1. Bugs

            Our Man in Priština’s leitmotiv is deeply regretting the incompetence of others and he puts many words on the page to remind us that once upon a time, the Free World was lucky enough to have thinking men doing things well. The problem is that what they did so well sowed chaos and obliterated hope. The blowback never ends.

      3. AG

        “it wasn’t the media’s finest hour.”
        To say the least.

        As far as I can remember France, it was the beginnig of the end there. In Germany it is today identified as the end of the old antiwar movement. Which I am not that sure of since between 9/11 following Kosovo and today there were still 20 years. But as far as the Greens and the SPD are concerned – that definitely is true.

        The GREENs used Kosovo very consciously to destroy the antiwar element within their own party. The lies of genocide (ethnic cleansing) etc., the beastly Serbian. And so on. Which forestalled what we have today about RUs.

        The breaking of the GREEN heart is a truism of political history today. NATO alignment of the German left began with 1999 for real after the 1998 election win which repeated the Britsh model of a few years before almost in identical manner. And would lead to 2008 and 2022.

        p.s. How would you judge Srebrenica?

        I was so far hesitant of asking the excellent Diana Johnstone on this by mail since she has a very peculiar view on the matter which would agree with Klarenberg, I assume.

        Of course with you pointing at errors in this Klarenberg text (I am not that familiar with KKs work in detail) that is a problem as research is concerned. Especially with such delicate cases as Srebrenica so fiercly fought over by Edward Herrmann and those few of his supporters. Against the rest of the entire world virtually.

        1. Zelja

          Fot those still in doubt, here are two simple rules:
          1. All CNN massacres are a set-up.
          2. If a specific CNN massacre does not look like a setup, check rule 1.

    2. Kouros

      Lavrov in an interview a couple of years ago (don’t have the link available) totally debunked that massacre as well. And now cannot stop himself of mentioning the Bucha massacre and throwing eggs on the face of western and UN diplomats…

  25. Maxwell Johnston

    The Pettis Paradigm and the Second China Shock —

    I’m no China expert so I’ll keep my comment short, but I read the entire article and was amazed that he never once mentioned Chinese engineering and technical excellence, let alone the vague possibility that China makes good products and sells them at a good price. It was all about Krugman, Pettis, Cowen, etc. All theory, no practice.

    And I loved this one: “Tyler Cowen…..suggested that China should focus on improving certain dysfunctional service sectors like health care…..” Last time I checked, Chinese life expectancy was rising while the USA’s was falling. Maybe I missed something.

        1. CA

          “Saying that China is better than the US…”

          Importantly noted, but as in the case of Ireland, which has grown in per capita income in a remarkably short time from among the lowest to almost the highest per capita income country in the EU, an important question is how this growth translates to well-being with regard say to the UK:

          https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1CVKt

          January 15, 2018

          Life Expectancy at Birth for United States, United Kingdom and Ireland, 2000-2022

          https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1pD5o

          January 30, 2018

          Infant Mortality Rate for United States, United Kingdom and Ireland, 2000-2022

    1. CA

      https://www.nature.com/nature-index/institution-outputs/generate/all/global/all

      The Nature Index

      1 October 2023 – 30 September 2024 *

      Rank Institution ( Count) ( Share)

      1 Chinese Academy of Sciences ( 8704) ( 2588)
      2 Harvard University ( 3787) ( 1140)
      3 University of Science and Technology of China ( 2471) ( 774)
      4 Peking University ( 2832) ( 748)
      5 Zhejiang University ( 1928) ( 747)

      6 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences ( 3642) ( 732)
      7 Max Planck Society ( 2727) ( 711)
      8 Nanjing University ( 1735) ( 698)
      9 Tsinghua University ( 2276) ( 683)
      10 Shanghai Jiao Tong University ( 1813) ( 654)

      11 French National Centre for Scientific Research ( 4499) ( 614)
      12 Sun Yat-sen University ( 1534) ( 614)
      13 Fudan University ( 1643) ( 601)
      14 Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres ( 2896) ( 565)
      15 Sichuan University ( 990) ( 497)

      * Tables highlight the most prolific institutions and countries in high-quality research publishing for the year

    2. CA

      Think what it means that the Nature.com Index of high-quality science research publishing for the latest 12 months shows 4 of the top 5 publishing institutions are Chinese, 8 of the top 10 institutions are Chinese, and 11 of the top 15.

      Harvard is at number 2;
      German institutions are at numbers 7 and 14;
      A French institution is number 11.

      https://www.nytimes.com/1982/04/18/books/the-china-the-west-knew-nothing-about.html

      April 18, 1982

      The China The West Knew Nothing About
      By Jonathan Spence

      SCIENCE IN TRADITIONAL CHINA: A Comparative Perspective.
      By Joseph Needham.

      JOSEPH NEEDHAM’S immense work, ”Science and Civilization in China,” which will probably total some 20 separate volumes when completed, * is the most ambitious undertaking in Chinese studies during this century. Ranging across the fields of chemistry and mathematics, navigation and medicine, botany and mechanics among many others, the work covers each scientific discipline from the earliest periods of Chinese history up until the middle of the 17th century, when China joined in the general dialogue of world science.

      So huge is the work, and so complex and varied the topics, that few except specialists can have read through all that has appeared to date….

      * Twenty-seven volumes (1954-2008)

      Jonathan Spence teaches modern Chinese history at Yale.

      1. JMH

        IIRC, Science and Civilization in China was projected by Needham as a three volume work. As noted, it grew and then grew some m ore. I have dipped a toe into it and hope to live long enough to immerse myself. Simon Winchester’s The Man Who Loved China is a good introduction to Needham.

    3. gk

      He’s talking about how to increase consumption. So “dysfunctional service sectors” may just mean “too cheap”.

      1. Emma

        Yes, I’m seeing Xitter threads on how Americans are finding out just how inexpensive even full price Chinese medical care is. With China’s expanding visa free travel regime, medical tourism could boom.

    4. NN Cassandra

      I especially found bizarre the suggestions that their factories didn’t increase productivity and their investment is misallocated. Yet they are now somehow able to crank EV’s for $10,000 and the only thing West can do is complain they are producing too much of them. I wonder how is that possible without proper investment and improved productivity.

    5. Emma

      Citation to those guys is kind of like having a Xitter profile with an Ukrainian, Israeli, or 3 star Syrian flag. At least you know exactly what you’ll be getting.

  26. Jason Boxman

    JUST IN: Lipid nanoparticles carrying SARS-CoV-2 spike mRNA, when injected intramuscularly, were found to migrate from the injection site to the heart tissue in mice.

    https://x.com/BRICSinfo/status/1879217866215682072

    Nature PDF

    Efcient and accurate nanocarrier development for targeted drug delivery
    is hindered by a lack of methods to analyze its cell-level biodistribution
    across whole organisms. Here we present Single Cell Precision Nanocarrier
    Identifcation (SCP-Nano), an integrated experimental and deep learning
    pipeline to comprehensively quantify the targeting of nanocarriers
    throughout the whole mouse body at single-cell resolution. SCP-Nano
    reveals the tissue distribution patterns of lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) after
    diferent injection routes at doses as low as 0.0005 mg kg−1—far below
    the detection limits of conventional whole body imaging techniques. We
    demonstrate that intramuscularly injected LNPs carrying SARS-CoV-2 spike
    mRNA reach heart tissue, leading to proteome changes, suggesting immune
    activation and blood vessel damage. SCP-Nano generalizes to various
    types of nanocarriers, including liposomes, polyplexes, DNA origami and
    adeno-associated viruses (AAVs), revealing that an AAV2 variant transduces
    adipocytes throughout the body. SCP-Nano enables comprehensive
    three-dimensional mapping of nanocarrier distribution throughout mouse
    bodies with high sensitivity and should accelerate the development of
    precise and safe nanocarrier-based therapeutics.

    I can’t evaluate this.

  27. Tom Stone

    I suspect that the effects of climate change (Helene and the LA fires are just the beginning) and pandemics ( Plural) are going to have a greater effect on public policy in the next few years than any of TPTB expect. Reality, like the Law, is for the little people.
    Until it isn’t.

  28. Mark Gisleson

    Been watching this morning’s confirmation hearings and it’s pretty obvious, at least so far, that Trump picked nominees who could stand up to Democratic Senators’ truly fierce wet noodle badinage.

  29. ambrit

    As someone mentioned yesterday, Xiaohongshu can also be read in Chinese as “Little Red Book.” Why not a compromise and call it “Little Red Blog?” (With apologies to the Catchup Advisory Board.)

  30. steppenwolf fetchit

    I clicked onto the young Chinese woman speaking about misuse and abuse of word/concept “refugee” by new American arrivals to “rednote”. She mentioned the causes of becoming refugee as including war, natural disaster, etc. She did not even mention the words ” US Imperialism”. The offerer of that little video . . . sofie at darlingube . . . added the phrase ” suffering due to US imperialism” all on her own. The young woman being videoed never said that. In other words, sofie at darlingube made that sh!t up.

    There are leftists who have a habit of wetting themselves in public this way. Some of them do it over and over again. And then The Left wonders why so few normal Americans join the Left. Its because normal Americans don’t like the smell.

    sofie at daringube didn’t have to “make sh!t up”. She could have chosen a different choice. But she chose to choose the choice she chose. Am I really the only single solitary person who notices things like that?

  31. amfortas the hippie

    the weight of a stone thing was wonderful.

    we have lots of rocks around here…from the granite batholith over yonder, extending who knows how far below the surface….to the little chunks and slivers and tads of limestone, granite, quartz and on and on.
    i put a tiny chunk of quartz on Tam’s engagement ring(ex-stray/wife having lost the diamind, somehow).
    the larger chunk of milk quartz it came from is still right where it was, buried like an iceberg, as i found it.
    (by the Milton(“non serviam”)/Melville(“thus do i give up the spear”)-Gate.)
    and if i have a pocket(as in, if im clothed), it usually has a rock in it…because i pick them up when i’m out doing my thing…especially the ones Tam would have liked(coin shaped little limestone disks were her favorite)…and i put them on her gravestone….which is, itself, a large, thick(2’x3’x6″) slab of gleaming white limestone i dug out of the side of the gully 25 years ago.
    she chose it as her grave rock…and i dutifully lugged the damned thing down there when the time came.
    its pretty well covered with numerous smaller stones, and sea shells.
    eventually, i’ll build her Nicho….for to put the Virgin de Guadeloupe in….and that, dear friends, will be built from the million empty catholic candles she lit every night until our second and last boy was 12.
    didnt feel right, to my non-xtian self, to throw them away,lol…so i stuck em in a box, and stuck the box in the shop.
    so the sunlight will come through those, masoned into the rockwork.
    …and all those little rocks will line the inside interstices.

    anyhoo…a nice bit of writing….so thanks.

    1. Randall Flagg

      His last words out the door should have been addressed to all his colleagues there to put them on the spot:
      ” No one else here has the balls to ask tough questions about this genocide?”

  32. Tom_Q_Collins

    Can’t believe there’s so little attention to the NYT op-ed where Brett Stephens is literally begging Trump to militarily invade Venezuela.

    The one posted in Links was paywalled. Here’s the archived version: https://archive.ph/dwhZm

    Some choice nuggets (excerpts):

    That means the only thing that will dislodge Maduro and his cronies is the combination of a powerful incentive and a credible threat.
    The incentive is an offer that he and his henchmen go into permanent exile, probably to Cuba or Russia, along with a guarantee of amnesty for all Venezuelan military and intelligence officials who stay behind and pledge loyalty to a government led by the legitimate president. The threat is U.S. military intervention of the sort that in 1990 swiftly ended the regime of the Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega. That could be followed by extradition and prosecution in U.S. courts: In Noriega’s case, it led to 27 years of imprisonment. American troops withdrew swiftly, and Panama has been a democracy ever since.

    If this sounds bellicose, it’s by design: Maduro and his cronies will relinquish power peacefully only if they are convinced the alternative is worse. The point of a powerful threat is that it reduces the chances of having to carry through with it.

    And if we must? Military intervention always entails risks, lost lives and unintended consequences, even against a weak military widely detested by its own people. It should be undertaken only if it is in an urgent and compelling national interest. Putting an end to a criminal regime that is a source of drugs, mass migration and Iranian influence in the Americas should not be a hard sell with the incoming administration.

    It shouldn’t be a hard sell for liberals, either. The moral basis for deposing Maduro is clear: He stole the election, terrorizes his opponents and brutalizes his people. He shows no sign of letting up, much less letting go. Every other option for political change has been attempted. How much more suffering are Venezuelans supposed to endure, and how much worse does this hemispheric crisis have to get, before the nightmare finally ends?

    Of course he leads off with the usual BS about the Edison Research poll, and ignores the other *actually* independent polls that back Maduro’s election victory.

  33. bayoustjohndavid

    The CFPB is investigating Capital One (top link). Do we think the CEO of Capital One will go on Joe Rogan and complain about how mean Elizabeth Warren is?

    1. Jason Boxman

      More likely than the CEO of Capital One goes to jail, as should happen in a society with a functional justice system and sense of fairness.

Comments are closed.