World’s oldest llama enjoys comforting children who are chronically ill AP
Climate/Environment
City fires are likely to increase with climate change, modeling study warns Phys.org
New York: A very large and fast moving fire has broken out on Long Island in the Hamptons. A huge response is underway. There are reports of a mile long front as it pushes across the landscape.
Winds are reported at 35MPH and relative humidities in the low 20th percentile.… pic.twitter.com/TvA5klJFzP
— The Hotshot Wake Up (@HotshotWake) March 8, 2025
The Alps are burning… in winter! 🔥😱
Current drought, high temp = several fires since 5th march
-Roya Valley, 300ha (Alpes Mar, FR) (https://t.co/nhw67F0nzo)
-Vinschgau, 100ha (Südtirol, IT) (https://t.co/ZQYlEToSNu)
-SW of Wendelstein (Bayern, GER) (https://t.co/sYd5PZwefI) pic.twitter.com/058LHfLebw— Melaine Le Roy (@subfossilguy) March 8, 2025
Power for data centers could come at ‘staggering’ cost to consumers Floodlight
Pandemics
Kids keep getting sicker as evidence for COVID immune damage builds The Gauntlet
***
Parents unsure about bird flu University of Michigan Health
After 20 U.P. dairy workers got sick, state criticized for slow response Michigan Live
The world should prepare now for a potential H5N1 flu pandemic, experts warn CEPI
The Koreas
North Korea releases first photos of new nuclear-powered missile submarine NK News
South Korean police brace for Yoon impeachment ruling Al Mayadeen
China?
‘Two sessions’ China Michael Roberts’ blog
China is trying to reshape global supply chains High Capacity
China-US trade war heats up as Beijing’s tariffs take effect The Business Times
O Canada
Ex-central Banker Mark Carney To Become Canada’s Next Prime Minister Huff Post. Commentary:
Mark carney pushing “big change” for a strong economy.
He means more privatization, deregulation, social service cuts, corporate handouts, more for cops, border security military.
Which is all any of them have on offer.
— Critical Criminology (@critcrim) March 9, 2025
Remember, Trump is only the excuse. All the horrible, repressive stuff that Canadian politicians are going to introduce is stuff they have wanted all along. Trump has only given them perfect cover.
— Critical Criminology (@critcrim) March 9, 2025
China to impose retaliatory tariffs on certain Canadian imports as trade war intensifies Euronews
Old Blighty
£6bn of catastrophic DWP cuts and Labour LEAKS the story to ITV News? Kendall clearly hates disabled people. The Canary. Commentary:
Leftists ignoring the pandemic for so long has left them with zero context to interpret the material realities facing us now. Disability numbers & long term sickness numbers have been rising & govts are reacting. Meanwhile there is no opposition, no one has a clue what’s going on https://t.co/oYAAyZtyYi
— Julia Marie (@julia_doubleday) March 8, 2025
Syraqistan
Syria: De Facto Government Forces Commit Massacres and Field Executions in Coastal Region Orinoco Tribune. Commentary:
🇸🇾 Syria will be Balkanised with American and Russian oversight. Reuters reported on Feb 28 that Israel lobbied the US to keep Syria weak and decentralised, including by letting Russia keep its military bases there to counter Turkey’s growing influence.
The massacre of Alawites… pic.twitter.com/zy1WJSVXVb
— Paul Antonopoulos 🇬🇷🇨🇾 (@oulosP) March 9, 2025
Thousands of Syrian Alawites cross into Lebanon to flee violence The New Arab
EU condemns attacks by remnants of Assad regime on Syrian government forces Anadolu Agency
Seyed Mohammad Marandi: Civilians Massacred in Syria & the EU Blames the Victims Glenn Diesen (Video)
***
Iran says will not be ‘bullied’ into nuclear talks with US, has not received letter from Trump France24
US terminates Iraq’s waiver for buying electricity from Iran Daily Sabah
***
Trump envoy defends his direct talks with Hamas, says US ‘not an agent of Israel’ Times of Israel
Israel to establish ‘migration administration’ to facilitate ethnic cleansing of Gaza The Cradle
All Roads Lead to Doha and Bypass Netanyahu: Qatar’s Brilliant Move on Hostage Talks Haaretz
Qatar Calls for Israel Nuclear Facilities To Be Brought Under IAEA Supervision Antiwar
New Not-So-Cold War
Kursk Collapse Accelerates as Daring Pipeline Raid Shocks AFU Simplicius
Can Zelensky negotiate peace and stay in power? The Times
Trump wants to see more than just a minerals deal to restart aid and intel to Ukraine NBC News
Supporters of Ukraine have unfurled the world’s largest 🇺🇦 flag on the White House ellipse, pushing for the U.S. to continue its aid against the Russian invasion: “Do not abandon Ukraine!” pic.twitter.com/tbiA5Pa5Ig
— Alejandro Alvarez (@aletweetsnews) March 8, 2025
***
The World Order’s Restructuring Intensifies as the Ukrainian War Implodes the West and Kiev Gordon Hahn, Russian & Eurasian Politics
A new American empire: Trump, Russia, and the end of globalism Vasily Kashin, Director of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics, RT
Russia’s Geoeconomic Shift from Greater Europe to Greater Eurasia Glenn Diesen
European Disunion
Matrix of Failure The New Paradigm. “Germany is a country misaligned with its time and place.”
Chartbook 358 Debt brake dilemmas for progressive economic policy in Germany Adam Tooze, Chartbook
Merz plan to sell Germany. Financialization of German economy The Duran (Video)
***
Meet the defense giants that will rearm Europe as the EU eyes a massive military buildup Fortune
Poland Moves Ahead with $6.2 Billion Purchase of 180 South Korean K2 Tanks Military Watch
European arms imports surge, US expands lead as top global weapons exporter France24
EU sees no reason to ‘de-risk’ relations with US: European Commission chief Anadolu Agency
***
Mass protests against PM Fico’s pro-Russian turn continue across Slovakia Bne Intellinews
Romanian electoral bureau invalidates Călin Georgescu’s presidential candidacy Romania Insider
Biden Post Mortem
Trump 2.0
Behind the chaos, Trump prepares to take on China Red Flag
Trump’s Cultural Revolution News Forensics
Air Force intercepts 2 aircraft in restricted airspace near Mar-A-Lago Axios
DOGE
Why the “DOGE dividend” polls well — and why it shouldn’t Polygraph
The Week In Musk: A wall of errors Musk Watch
Democrats en déshabillé
Democrats are reeling. Is Stephen A Smith the way back to the White House? The Guardian. Commentary:
Stephen A. Smith just tore the Democrats apart: “I think the fact that I am a candidate for the presidency, according to polling for the Democratic Party, is the most clear-cut evidence of how pathetic of a state of affairs that exists within the Democratic Party today.
“I have… pic.twitter.com/SfGj9hA9Fh
— George (@BehizyTweets) March 1, 2025
Police State Watch
DHS has begun performing polygraph tests on employees to find leakers NBC News
Columbia Bent Over Backward to Appease Right-Wing, Pro-Israel Attacks — And Trump Still Cut Federal Funding The Intercept
The Trump administration position is clear: The First Amendment does not apply to criticizing Israel or opposing Israel’s policies. The administration is starting to carry out a policy of criminalizing this speech.
— jeremy scahill (@jeremyscahill) March 9, 2025
‘Project Esther’: The Right-Wing Group Behind Project 2025 Has a Plan to Crack Down on America’s Pro-Palestine Movement Zeteo. From October, still germane.
Challenging ‘antisemitism’ Pearls and Irritations
Antitrust
Monopoly Round-Up: The Mar-a-Lago Accord, and Trump Seeks a Google Break-Up BIG by Matt Stoller
The Friendly Skies
Air India flight forced to return to US over clogged toilets in 10-hour debacle: reports New York Post
AI
It mostly works Internal Exile
So the LA Times replaced me with an AI that defends the KKK Blood in the Machine
The A.I. backlash backlash Read Max
Imperial Collapse Watch
US hopes robo-ships can outwit China’s superior naval numbers Asia Times
What happens if the robot army is defeated? Responsible Statecraft
Class Warfare
Hatching a Conspiracy: A BIG Investigation into Egg Prices BIG by Matt Stoller
The German Peasants’ War: 500 years later Red Pepper
Au Revoir, Noble Bulweriers! The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
‘Peter Stefanovic
@PeterStefanovi2
This is shocking. @itvnews
reporting that even those with extreme disabilities in the unfit to work category are likely to lose money under new government plans. Charities have branded the move catastrophic’
Well Starmer has promised the Ukraine three billion pounds a year for the next 100 years so that money has to come from somewhere. The best part? By keeping this war needlessly going, the Ukraine will have far more people that are disabled so they will need the money more.
And Stefanovic has been a loud voice on X denouncing Russia and demanding more support for Ukraine. Trades Unions in Britain seem totally oblivious to the burning alive of trades unionists by torching the building they took refuge in, in Odessa shortly after the Maiden coup d’etat.
Thank you, both.
Firstly, with regard to Ukrainian refugees, readers may be interested in my home county: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cew5r4k7ed1o.
@ John A: When walking in the country yesterday morning, I was passed by a Ukrainian registered Range Rover.
Peter Stefanovic knew what he was signing up for when undermining of Corbyn and support for Starmer. He made his bed.
I suspect that Stefanovic knows little about Ukraine.
“Kids keep getting sicker as evidence for COVID immune damage builds”…not just kids, everyone. I have had a long history of weird blood tests, so my doc finally started getting serious for some reason after 20 years. Ordered a blood smear and some wonky stuff came up, so she ordered a blood cancer test (MPN Hotspot Panel) and gave me a referral to hematology and for a sleep study. When I called, both offices told me the soonest they could get me in was five month from now. I asked them both if this was new, and they said; “Yes, ever since COVID. very long wait times.”
Plus, my friend came into town with a deep gross cough he said he had fro weeks. I said “Dude, go to a Doctor.” Turns out both he, and his mother, had walking pneumonia.
Oddly enough, I have never felt better in my life. Just staying as healthy as I can so I can deal with Bird Flu…
>Merz plan to sell Germany. Financialization of German economy The Duran (Video)
Well Merz is a former Blackrock executive after all…
https://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/2025022447/a-former-blackrock-exec-is-set-to-lead-germany-what-analysts-expect-now
What will be their next Wirecard?
And Canada’s next Prime Minister is a former Goldman Sachs executive.
This is the world America made.
Is it? Or is America part of the world that Goldman Sachs made?
I think GS is US made.
How is GS going with China?
“North Korea releases first photos of new nuclear-powered missile submarine | NK News”
Of course the implication is that North Korea does not need to develop nukes with super-duper long ranges anymore but just pack a few medium-range ones into one of those boats and then have that sub pop up to the surface near Subic bay or Diego Garcia to rattle Washington’s cage.
What’s hilarious about this is that thanks to crypto garbage, NK has been able to pilfer all kinds of BTC and convert it to cash, which they can then use for military investment purposes.
So much for the sanctions!
And despite the market draw down again today, BTC is actually down much off its highs. It’s behavior similar to triple leveraged S&P. It’s almost like BTC is not uncorrelated with stocks, and is very much not digital gold. Gold, in fact, is doing far far better.
Rwev Kev: …the implication is that North Korea does not need to develop nukes with super-duper long ranges anymore but just pack a few medium-range ones into one of those boats and then have that sub pop up to the surface near Subic bay or Diego Garcia ….
Absolutely correct. One wonders if Canada has secretly fast-tracked an enrichment program, for that matter.
US threat-based aggression against other states has long assumed a position of impunity and US strength that here in the 21st century the US has only retained in its elites’ rather stupid brains.
> Democrats are reeling. Is Stephen A Smith the way back to the White House?
He could be their best candidate. He’s been angling into politics for awhile, he wrangled a hundred-million dollar contract while ESPN has been firing its critical thinkers, and he just picked a fight with LeBron about *the biggest name in sports* son and exposed his abandonment of his own children. (and he believes everyone should know he likes women with big butts.) He’s played the race card so often I doubt he could pull more black votes than Kamela, and he’s apologized for suggesting women provoke their own beatings.
In other words, a hypocritical philandering neocon. He’s perfect.
Dems have more problems than Smith and their bench. There have been recent articles raising questions about the propriety of the fund raising through ActBlue, another spigot of mother’s milk* in American politics.
*Money is the mother’s milk of American politics, attributed to the late California pol Jesse Unruh.
Unruh had a way with words. But one of his aphorisms is charmingly quaint. Speaking with regard to the California legislature: “If you can’t drink their booze, eat their food, sc**w their women, and still vote against them, you don’t belong here.”
Looking at that graphic behind him… AOC way behind at 3% but Fox is obsessed with her. Asked my Fox-watching Trumpist relatives what chance she has and they usually respond “she’s stupid but she’ll be president someday”. Odd how it all works.
Whitetop the Llama is absolutely adorable in his photo with the 2 kids. You can see he loves to get his picture taken. Recommend clicking that one <3
I never thought I would remark on Smith’s rationality (all things are relative), but I appreciate him saying he is unqualified to be president. If only Reagan had done likewise.
Roberts is quite a bit more sanguine on China than others. I find it hard to parse through and understand what actually is going on with that economy, given that it seems that every analyst has a different and somehow incompatible position with each other. I wonder how much we can trust the data? (An honest question is how much we can trust the data in the US as well, given that GDP growth seems not to capture what seems to be a catastrophic economic situation unfolding.) It is curious that Roberts trusts the figures, given he is a Marxist and the figures, insofar as I understand, are based on a neoclassical framework, but then again maybe we just have to work with what we have, trustworthy or not.
I think he captures the crux of the issue quite well at the end:
Will it work? I suppose it remains to be seen.
I recently got back from China. I’m just a every other year type of tourist, but I do see patterns. The biggest cities seem fairly healthy economy wise. Very few to no empty buildings and bustling streets. Once you get to the mid-level cities (e.g. 5M and under), things seem worse with many empty buildings and grumblings from cab/DiDi drivers about corruption in politics and poor job prospects. So my impression is that all is not well in China.
One thing that is real and significant is the purchasing power parity (PPP) shows stark differences between nations. I was used to taking cabs for 27 yuan in China that would take us across a big city. When I got back to LA waiting for my next flight, I tried to take an Uber to a local burrito place just a few miles away. The fee was $27… no burrito for me! Food, taxi rides, and non-Western goods are extremely cheap in China. Nikes, adidas, and other top brands have no price differences though between countries.
has anyone else noticed the lack of comments from CA who usually responds to all things having to do with China?
Picking up on a comment left in yesterday’s links, something from Charles Hugh Smith:
The Stoicism of the Caregiver
https://www.oftwominds.com/blogmar25/caregiving3-25.html
I’ve been finding CHS’ pieces very good. He seems to be a latter day Illichian (in the sense of Ivan Illich, of course), with a sharp critique of modern institutions. Caregiving is a generalized and painful reality nowadays; the only solution, in my view, would be having socialized care in some form, but this is not likely to happen, to say the least.
seconded…that CHS is pretty good, pretty consistently.
and this one hit home for me…coming up on 3rd anniversary of when i brought Tam home for hospice.
wherein i didnt sleep for 6 weeks.
its a 24/7 “job”.
physically, psychologically and emotionally exhausting.
only “pay” i got was her gratitude…and the opportunity to pay her back for what she gave to me, over 26 years.
mom, on the other hand,lol…if i had the wherewithal, i’d send her to a home for the maliciously old and crazy in a derned heartbeat.
texas makes this almost impossible.
That was an excellent link. Thank you. Yes – I do not think people even begin to realize the brick wall of Boomers needing total care headed our way. There is absolutely no way we have enough employees to cover them all in institutions; we are not even coming close to getting by right now. This is all going to fall on the families. I see quite a bit of denial about this out there. What I was saying yesterday was in no way meant to denigrate family members. It was meant to denigrate how we have chosen to live. We are mobile, and we work ourselves to death and there is simply no time for our elders. Not sure what is the future.
>Hatching a Conspiracy: A BIG Investigation into Egg Prices BIG by Matt Stoller
When an industry starts profiting more from *not* producing than from producing, it’s a sign that something isn’t right. It could be an innocent bottleneck. But when it lasts for three years on end with no relief in sight, it’s usually a sign of something else that’s pervasive in America — monopolization.
…the abundance of small producers with excess capacity, [contributed to] a significant surplus of eggs in the country.
Higher prices routinely led farmers to get into the egg business to make money, and that in turn regularly reset the market with more supply. Price spikes were short-lived. Shortages were unheard of. America was a land of egg plenty.
Then, everything changed.
Stores in Central PA are now better stocked and prices are falling, somewhat. I bought a container of 18 “cage-free” brown eggs for ~$10.00 this pat weekend. When I retire I hope to get a chicken coup and control my own so supply…at least that’s my fantasy.
Forget it. Those very same egg corporations will goose all the local Counties to ban people owning chickens at home on the grounds that it will spread bird flu or they wouldn’t be hygienic or some such. I read years ago how these very same egg corporations would bring back to their plants any unsold eggs and mix them into cartons of fresh eggs. An egg might take two or more such trips until some unlucky consumer cracked one to find that it was off.
an egg right out of the chicken, if handled properly at the get-go, will still be “fresh” and safe for at least 9 months.
egg producers, small to large, routinely keep a surplus so as to cover the moults….times of year when chickens just stop laying.
Big Egg uses fine sand blowers to clean them…i use cold water and a special bleach…both removes the naturally occurring patina..and so they must be refrigerated.
if you collect them several times a day(which is what i try to do), they’ll be crap free,lol…so one doesnt hafta clean them…and they will keep at room temp for weeks.
i generally collect for a few days and wash the whole lot at once.
my grandmothers spoke of dipping them in glycerin in the days before refrigeration.
I haven’t heard of people using glycerin but dipping eggs in a solution of isinglass (fish swimbladder derived gelatine-equivalent) was historically used to preserve eggs, by blocking the micropores in the shell and preventing microorganism entry and water loss.
In the UK (possible all of EU), the washing of eggs is banned because of the risk of spreading disease (making a solution of salmonella that then contaminates all the other eggs in the batch or going through the continuous wash line). So UK eggs keep at room temperature for months. But weird people do not understand this and still refrigerate them, which dries them out, incapacitates the potent lysozymes in the egg white and is generally worse for their keeping properties!
We have our hen’s eggs on the counter right now. This year’s moult was pretty short and they were laying eggs when it was below zero a couples weeks ago.
We were taught that washing with warm water was important otherwise the egg will contract and draw the dirt inwards.
https://www.cfsph.iastate.edu/Assets/tipsheet-cd-eggs.pdf
It must have been a dark and stormy night when the Indomitable Rice relinquished the will to carry on the proud tradition of four decades of bad fictional exordia.
What, gentle readers will be next? The banishment of the Stella Shouting Contest, the quintessence of Tennessee Williams French Quarter Culture, to the Internet? The seriously senseless siloing of the Faulkner Prolixity Project to the august pages of the Times Literary Supplement?
It is a sad day indeed to realize that the race to come has gone.
We’ll always have the mustache of understanding, Thomas Friedman, to mangle metaphors and wrestle wild wisdom from the world’s taxidrivers…
“So the LA Times replaced me with an AI that defends the KKK’
Can’t wait until the LA Times AI states that the holocaust was all about the Nazis trying to defend themselves.
As they were, mostly against the Commies.
I was thinking more along the lines of present-day Israel committing a genocide while saying that they are only defending themselves.
Nazis thought of it first.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleiwitz_incident
And when the OSS annexed the Gehlen Organization, it was added to the “Introduction” section of the incipient CIA handbook.
It is no joke.
Right from the 1920s, Hitler had been clamouring that Germany was under a devious attack by the Jews hell-bent on destroying Aryan civilization, and that counter-measures were urgently required; it was an existential matter.
For the national-socialists in the 1940s, the “final solution” was thus viewed as a way to defeat the poisonous, deadly influence of the international Jewry that was bound to rot the bodies (through degenerative miscegenation) and souls (through corrupting judeo-bolshevik ideology) of the Aryan people.
On Larry Johnson’s blog there used to be a Nazi-apologist commenter (more than one to be exact, coming from “unz” site for some reason) claiming that Stalin was preparing invasion on Germany, and that Hitler had to attack to prevent it (just like Putin did in Ukraine). It is no joke, comments are still there.
Slovakia, riots against Fico pro Russian…… I thought USAID was shut down.
Rumania?
We have it on “good” sources that the USAID has become the EUAID. As the kids say today, EU be EU.
I read a few weeks ago how at least Germany and France already had their own “aid” organizations doing the same sort of stuff for years now but I forget their names. These would be the same ones supplying and paying all those protestors in places like Georgia and handing out signs and EU flags.
The details are easy enough to find on line and I covered this issue in last week’s Substack Essay. The French Agence française du développement has its origins in the 1960s. In Germany the Development Ministry is involved in more classic aid work, but they also make use of the Stiftung, the political party foundations, and have done for decades. Aid is a major political priority for a number of western nations–Sweden, Switzerland, Canada etc–as well as for Japan. The US is only one of many players.
Thanks for those details. I wonder to what extent they were coordinating with each other so as to not get in each other’s way. There must be some sort of mechanism in place to do so like an obscure committee or something.
Rivalries and jealousies between development agencies are proverbial. It’s not uncommon to find the same popular idea, like civil society engagement with policing oversight groups, funded competitively by several different countries.
LOL, left-right. They forgot to add “extreme”, and some more coloring. They should have written extreme left-right wing populist super-bad bullet-dodger giga-Slav Prime Minister Robert Fico, God bless him.
Bring back Tiso?
USAID is just one head of the Hydra. Others are unfazed, and two more will grow instead of the severed one.
>Biden autopen signature appears on almost every document he signed, bombshell report finds amid demands for full inquiry into who was running the country-daily Mail
Judge Napolitano is in Russia and will be in a meeting attended by Lavrov today. Last week in his show, he asked one of his regular guest (Mearsheimer?) what he though Lavrov would ask him, if given the opportunity. The answer provided, was that Lavrov would ask “who is in control.” Basically, the same one many here are asking, viz Daily Mail article title.
The more corrupt a society becomes the more people try to hide just who is in control.
I just remembered that Adolf Hitler was in charge he not only had his underlings fight for access to him and compete for authority over as much as possible with opaque, ill defined limits, he often was deliberately obscure or opaque in his direct orders as well. This is an explanation for why the holocaust deniers are able to claim that Hitler was not responsible for or at least never gave a direct order for the Final Solution.
Funny how the leadership of both the Biden and Trump Administrations are similar to Hitler’s. Divide and rule, hide and steal.
> Au Revoir, Noble Bulweriers! The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest
The winners should be adapted as a series of anthology audiobooks. They’d be short but could be so good with the right actors doing the voice.
Actually, a series of well made video productions could be really something. Imagine Helen Mirren doing them, in a Jackanory-style set. Or Hugh Bonneville.
I can’t do it. I tried to read a few of them to the household and couldn’t get to the end of any of them without giggling.
Re: The Peasants’ War
A peasant revolt against the clergy, the PMC of its day.
Re: The world should prepare now for H5N1
I know I should be worried, but when I drilled down to find out who CEPI was, all I found was Bill and Melinda Gates and the WEF.
The AI Kool-Aid
Sung to the tune of, “The Harlem Shuffle”, written by Bob & Earl. As performed by the Rolling Stones
Melody
Whoo!
You move somebody’s cheese, yeah and you go for the sleaze
You move it to the right, yeah if profits take all night
Now take it kinda slow with a whole lotta plot holes
Don’t replace ’em too fast – just make it last
You scratch-off all the code monkeys, yeah ya do it real cool
You slide the HR bimbo, whoa, how low can headcount go?
Now come on, baby, don’t want no thinking skills now
Just line up right here, drink the AI Kool-Aid
Yeah, yeah, yeah, drink the AI Kool-Aid!
Yeah, yeah, yeah, drink the AI Kool-Aid!
Whoa-wow … Wow!
[key change]
Hitch-hike, hitch your fortune to Wall Street whores
Whoa, whoa, whoa, I can’t stand it no more
Now come on, baby, now get into your slide
And just ride, ride, ride with Scam’s cronies, ride, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, drink the AI Kool-aid!
Yeah, yeah, yeah, drink the AI Kool-Aid! (Jim Jones flavor, child!)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, shake yer Dow Jonestown, baby!
Yeah, yeah, yeah, shake yer Dow Jonestown, baby!
C’mon now!
Yeah, yeah, yeah, drink the AI Kool-Aid!
Yeah, yeah, yeah, drink the AI Kool-Aid! (Jim Jones flavor, child!)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, drink the AI Kool-Aid!
Yeah, yeah, yeah, drink the AI Kool-Aid!
“Iran says will not be ‘bullied’ into nuclear talks with US, has not received letter from Trump”
So that last bit raises a few questions. Did Trump actually write and send a letter? If he did, was it intercepted by someone who did not like it? Or was this Trump once again shooting his mouth off and this thing about sending a letter is like somebody saying that ‘The check is in the mail.’ With Trump you never know.
Trump poked them on Facebook, but they have switched to VK.
Trump has so profound an aversion to the truth, such that: even when he is saying the truth, he is lying.
COVID brain fog again?
https://x.com/Archer83Able/status/1899089499268727297
Why the “DOGE dividend” polls well — and why it shouldn’t – Polygraph
“Here’s how Musk described the so-called “DOGE dividend” at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC):
“It’s money that’s taken away from, from things that are destructive to the country…and from organizations that hate you, to you. That’s awesome. I mean that’s like, glorious. The spoils of battle, you know?”
Monopolies? Organizations the put harmful chemicals on food? Financial scammers?
And the cult of the entrepreneur is going to have to see the difference in outcome between monopolies/cartels and all the other businesses.
A difference that will grow more and more detrimental.
Mark Carney? Really? What are you doing Canada?
The banksters win again?
Thank you and well said.
I could not believe it when I switched on the news at 5 am today.
Good luck, Canada. You will need it.
Perhaps, the Canadians of Mauritian origin and Canadians with Arcadian relatives who went to Isle de France / Mauritius instead of Louisiana will come home. Yes. They exist. Francophone Canadians may be pleasantly surprised how many surnames we have in common.
I remember a sibling suffering from TDS who lives in Vancouver, BC sending me a clip of Jon Stewart interviewing Carney a couple of weeks ago. I knew then that the “establishment” was maneuvering to get Carney in control of the Trudeau’s party.
Macron, Sunak, Merz, Draghi, and now Carney.
More and more nakedly, our finance overlords are installing their own as heads of state in the West.
Am I the only one who replaced words in the Critical Crimonology tweet?
Canada has so much to look forward to.
My sincere apologies to Canada, and numerous other countries. That just makes me realize my country has been a deep source of contagion for decades. Bad ideas might be the only thing we actively try to export anymore. All because we the people didn’t treat neoliberalism and neoconservatism as the cancers they were and continue to be.
Never let a good crisis go to waste.
What happens if the robot army is defeated? – Responsible Statecraft
I read this and the scene from the horror film “When A Stranger Calls” popped into my mind.
“The call is coming from inside the house.”
Just spitballin’…but if I wanted to take down the biggest military in the world, what better way than to make it almost as easy as turning off a switch or cutting a wire?
What happens if they are hacked and switch sides? It’s not like they swear an oath or anything.
Does it have to be hacking?
The hard cold reality on the ground:
All software is hosted on hardware located in a place – hardware that has to be maintained.
But it’s most likely that something isn’t going to work on the battlefield because someone neglected to pay for an upgrade or missed installing some BS update.
It may not even be hacking. The German magazine ‘Bild’ came out with a story saying that the F-35s that the German Luftwaffe has purchased probably have an in-built ‘kill switch’. So the thought is that somebody like Trump could have all Germany’s F-35s shut down or threaten to shut them down if he wants. All I can say is that it is a good thing that the Russians or the Chinese will never locate that kill-switch as they don’t know anything about computers-
https://www.rt.com/news/613935-f35-germany-jets-kill-switch-trump/
There were news a while ago about F-35s “calling home”. The real shocking thing would be F-35s not having an in-built-kill-switch and who-knows-what-else (Israeli ones excluded, of course).
Re. the Responsible Statecraft piece, it’s not that bad an article. It’s not that great, either, since it omits to mention the most fundamentally alarming flaw about the majority of weapon systems that current Silicon Valley Tech Bros are pushing.
At least, publicly pushing. Because the flaw is this: the majority of those systems are network-based and assume network-cooperation. And that’s a ridiculous assumption merely on the basis of the battlespace state of the art of EW today, given what the Russians can already do in 2025 in terms of radio jamming and subversion of an enemy’s network.
So the reality is, these network-based weapons systems are a proposition that makes the dumbness of the Littoral Combat Ship boondoggle look intellectually brilliant by comparison.
But that in turn means the reality will be that when these drone swarms, whether aerial or ground-based, arrive, they’ll have to be run by autonomous AI at least some of the time.
Stuart Russell — who with Peter Norvig, co-wrote what was the primary textbook on AI for a couple of decades — warned where this was going back in 2017. If you haven’t seen this 7 minute video, Slaughterbots —
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-2tpwW0kmU
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterbots
— you need to.
Reliability from requirement thru to manufacture quality has been a problem for the profit first US MIC.
That and the risk of your IC having been hacked in manufacture.
F-35 hs a 40 odd % mission capable rate which means at any given time walk up to an F-35 and 100% chance it can’t do one or more mission. It can fly but so can a Cessna.
Net centric only pays if you can switch paths….. and get results, that is inherent redundancy.
In chaos of war….
Tech bros will attach optical fiber to every drone and weave a physical net. :)
“US hopes robo-ships can outwit China’s superior naval numbers”
What if the Chinese build their own roboships and deploy them as well. And with their industrial capability, they would be able to commission far more of them too. So the Chinese turn that into a numbers game as well and also win that way.
I read recently that the deployment of something like 51% of all new robots worldwide actually takes place in China. And apparently, China is leading in AI if we are to judge by the OpenAI/Deepseek competition.
Trying to outcompete China in autonomous armed robots appears to me as ridiculous as trying to outcompete China in old-fashioned human infantry battalions.
Trying to outcompete China in autonomous armed robots appears to me as ridiculous as trying to outcompete China in old-fashioned human infantry battalions.
That too, probably.
Trying to out-Sun-Tzu China.
The A.I. backlash backlash – Read Max
Especially interesting are the ones partaking in “backlash backlash” who try to make the discussion all about political affiliations. The bezzle meets the cult.
“OpenAI, Google, and XAI all now have products that create authoritative “reports” based on internet searches, and whose process can be made legible to the user as a step-by-step “chain of thought.”
This used to be called “displaying a source citation”. Or what the AI folks would think of as “opening a can of worms” for their biz model.
Plagiarism and copyright theft as a business model.
Suits our tech lords so well …
Which leads to a thought … what if academics started pulling all their new research off the web? Or put it behind paywalls?
AI would choke like a dog on an 4″ diameter bone.
I believe that websites will progressively protect themselves with a variety of AI-foiling captchas, or will make their content only available as PDF (formatted as bitmaps, so that files can be processed only after undergoing OCR), or go back to the old-fashioned mailing lists with personal registration requirement.
It will be more or less the death of the linked information, but that is the consequence of that newfangled AI; do AI tools return URLs in their output anyway?
Wouldn’t it be crazy if AI killed the Internet?
The original vision of the founders of the Web (Tim Berners-Lee, others) was for document sharing and collaboration among scientists. It got progressively poisoned by commercialism, with AI now appearing to be the last straw that breaks the camels back.
Tim Morgan is suggesting that the logic of contraction will cause both a monetary and technological failure. Releasing AI in its present form into the wild will certainly help with the technological side of things. The monetary side can be safely left to our pollies and their central bank enablers.
Just thinking aloud, it might be possible to create “AI traps” – fake websites with intentionally misleading information, to deceive the scrape-bots.
“Ketchup is a vegetable!”
“Ukraine is winning!”
(On second thought, we may already have these – Forbes, MSNBC, Business Insider …)
In the legal arena one could create a whole boatload of fake sites with fake case citations, to screw over any “legal tech” startups.
If you can think about it, then somebody has already thought about it:
AI haters build tarpits to trap and trick AI scrapers that ignore robots.txt
Fantastic!
“Kursk Collapse Accelerates as Daring Pipeline Raid Shocks AFU”
That was a gutsy moves on the part of the Russians. A 12-kilometer walk in a metal tube and not knowing what was at the end? If the Ukrainians had twigged to what was happening, they could have set up some machine guns at the end and it would have been a massacre in that pipeline. Now that Kursk is collapsing, the writing is on the wall and not just for the Ukrainians but for their backers in DC as well. Senator Lindsey Graham is demanding ceasefire negotiations to stop the Russians winning saying ‘If they don’t engage in ceasefire and peace talks with the administration, we should sanction the hell out of them, and I’ll have legislation to do that next week.’
https://www.rt.com/russia/613983-us-lindsey-graham-russia-sanctions/
Sanctions is the only tool they know how to write, no matter how useless it is, can implement fast and so they do abusive use of it. It is telling to see that sanctions, sanctions, sanctions! is the automatic response.
What’s stranger, though, is that this isn’t the first time. The Russians used the same tactic in Avdiivka.
I’d have thought that the AFU would at least have given SOME thought to defending the pipes – by stealing tactics from the way that the South Koreans have North Korean DMZ tunnels blocked, if nothing else.
https://xcancel.com/Blackrussiantv/status/1899227039829246227
https://x.com/Blackrussiantv/status/1899227039829246227
Footage report of the incredible breakthrough by Russian forces into Sudzha via the gas pipeline in the Kursk region.
Re Project Esther
Plaudits to Howley but that “willingness” may have more to do with the anti Constitutional assault than the Christian Zionists.
And on the Christian side the MIC may have a lot more to do with Esther than churches. James Carafano who heads Project Esther is ex military as was Pompeo, another big rapture ready promoter of ME conflict. Trump has apparently traded the latter for the former who has been an advisor to his transition.
Which is to say for the hammer called the weapons industry Zionism could be just the nail they are looking for. Whether our Constitutional rights become collateral damage is up to us. But here’s suggesting it’s that Jewish establishment which could do the most to save our rights and Israel from itself. As they are always saying silence gave us the Holocaust. So there is no excuse for staying silent about what is being done to Gaza.
“Plaudits to Howley but that “willingness” may have more to do with the anti Constitutional assault than the Christian Zionists.”
Which means exactly what in this context.
(this is probably just a non-native speaker´s problem to understand) 🤔
From It mostly works
So this basically describes our elite in a nutshell, and perhaps explains the excitement over “AI”. Careless self gratification is a guiding principle for our elite.
>Syria – George Galloway
Just saw a Twitter/X video by George Galloway, who I follow, of a Syrian “jihadist” crucifying and then killing a Christian all while being filmed. This one of the most disturbing images I’ve seen. The outcry like that of Israelis starving people in Gaza is pathetically, immorally muted. I have lost all respect for religious and political leaders who look the other way or distract/misdirect the public from this 21’st century barbarity.
If it’s the video I’m thinking of, it’s from 2017 and makes the “outrage” rounds on Twitter periodically.
The person being crucified is, apparently, a muslim and a member of some jihadi group fighting in Syria at that time.
Here’s the source: http://mhmmedbmansour.blogspot.com/2017/07/blog-post_90.html?m=1
Stalled Audits and a Skeleton Staff: Inside Trump’s War on the I.R.S.
America is not a serious country.
re: Trump envoy defends his direct talks with Hamas, says US ‘not an agent of Israel’ Times of Israel
If I’m reading this correctly, according to this American envoy all Palestinians via Hamas suddenly want to give up their right to practice politics, what defines the structure and shape of society, to give up the ability to determine their own fate, or even have a society, or any free agency at all.
I think this envoy (and this Times of Israel piece) cannot be trusted to speak for Palestinians.
This also seems like Israel claiming “we have freedoms and rights but this group have opted of their own free will not to have the same”, shirking responsibility for depriving a people of their self-determination, for enslavement. Memories of white South Africa and the US plantation south – “the slaves don’t want freedom, don’t know what to do with it, prefer slavery”.
Funny you should say that. Some time ago I linked to a video of two well-know rabbis visiting one of their schools and they were all agreeing that Arabs wanted to be slaves to the Israelis and once they were, they would be quite then and settle down. Whether Palestinians or not, it looks like that for the ultra-Orthodox they see slavery built into their dream society. It’s just a matter of who are going to be their slave, massah.
Meet the defense giants that will rearm Europe as the EU eyes a massive military buildup Fortune
The article might be directed for those with savings to find “opportunities”. One can also see that all these giants are increasing pressure, err… lobbying according to law… in Brussels. One can also gather where the big investments will be flowing and why French, German, Swedish and Italian governments might be pressing this on the rest of EU members. But, but, come on, invest on defence! We will not count it among your spending limits! The 23 other states won’t see much of a benefit from the spending spree and probably very little , if anything, about real improvements of their military capabilities. Less so if this is intended for “joint purchases” to be delivered to Ukraine. I really hope Ukraine does not last too long.
Meet the defense giants that will rearm Europe as the EU eyes a massive military buildup
As always, Orwell was to the point.
‘War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.’
‘Every war, when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.’
‘All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.’
‘War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent.’
‘The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous.’
Fun times, Google is raising the price of Workspace by ~ 20%, for those using Google for email hosting. Pricing power. If you absolutely need your mail delivered, you don’t have too many other options. No one can seriously block Google’s servers, so you don’t have to worry about misconfigurations and such breaking mail delivery on the receiving end, or DNS blacklists or whatever.
And they’re doing this to force the AI garbage on you
Except this stuff is garbage. No one asks for this. No one wants it. You can’t opt-in. It is just dumped on everyone. It might be possible to opt-out, not sure if this decreases the bill back to where it was: Cancel Gemini for Google Workspace
Looks like my reseller doesn’t offer a way to get rid of this; ugh.
Taibbi and Kirn. Tonight’s ATW, no paywall.
ATW Livestream Tonight at 8 PM ET/7 PM CT
Last week, Matt and Walter discussed the unique brand of zealotry that animates elected officials in Germany. Tonight, they’ll take a look at the Romanian Central Electoral Bureau’s decision to bar Călin Georgescu from the second round of the Eastern European country’s presidential election. Georgescu, a NATO skeptic who opposes further military aid to Ukraine, won the first round of the vote back in November, but the following month, the Constitutional Court annulled the results of that election.
https://www.racket.news/p/atw-livestream-tonight-at-8-pm-et7-aab
Asking on the assumption that you are listening to ATW more regularly – do you have the impression that they are taking on Trump´s attack on First Amendment or not? And if not is it because they believe that legacy media do it enough and they still scrutinize rather those. Or they neglect it due to lack of critical understanding. Or due to genuine legitimacy (which I however doubt just looking at Gaza protesters and fines on DEI or defunding if trans-issues are somehow part of a syllabus?)
Asking from 8000 miles away and possibly not 100% accurately informed.
Of course there is a show like “Useful Idiots” which already does all that.
>Utah to Become First State to Ban Fluoride in Public Water – WSJ
If they pass anti-geoengineering legislation like TN, I might just have to move there.
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/utah-fluoride-public-water-ban-346da342#:~:text=The%20Utah%20law%20is%20set,cavities%20and%20boost%20oral%20health.
Reading Naked Capitalism is like getting the news 5 years early:
A Clearer Picture of Covid’s Lasting Effects on the Body
There are zero. I repeat. Zero mentions of how to maybe avoid contracting a disease that does all the terrible things enumerated in this NY Times story. Because, why inform?
And a stupidity double header, from an OpEd today
Gounder is a moron, too. We haven’t defeated anything. SARS2 continues to disable and kill today.
re: “NC is like getting the news 5 years early.”
Yep. It’s my Distant Early Warning system, my DEW line, as it were. / ;)
Critical Criminology
@critcrim
Remember, Trump is only the excuse. All the horrible, repressive stuff that Canadian politicians are going to introduce is stuff they have wanted all along. Trump has only given them perfect cover.
Indeed. The part is coming where Canadians realize their establishment’s criticism of Trump/DOGE policies only goes so far. Like the EU.
Lost in all the other news, Swamp Stooge Mike Johnson is bringing a 99-page “CR” up for a vote tomorrow, no doubt cooked up in a stogey-filled room, to fund the government through the rest of FY 2025. It apparently includes an extra boost in funding for defense, deportations, and veterans health care, with a corresponding amount cut from the rest of the agencies (?)
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/03/10/congress/johnson-shutdown-schumer-congress-00220158
Now, don’t forget that the Swamp Stooge promised to publish any bill for 72 hours before a vote. I haven’t been able to find a copy of the bill, though I haven’t tried too hard.
Johnson needs all GOP reps save one, to pass this thing that nobody read, and jam the Senate. Chuck Schumer is probably not amused.
(Quick search – zero mentions of USAID … hmmm)
Now do George W Bush
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/10/world/asia/icc-philippines-rodrigo-duterte.html
re: MSNBC crisis
This is interesting:
FAIR has a rather emphatic piece on how MSNBC fires its most “progressive” anchors. Reader comments tend to pretty much disagree:
MSNBC Sidelines Its Most Progressive Anchors
Luca GoldMansour
https://fair.org/home/msnbc-sidelines-its-most-progressive-anchors/
6 comments so far.
e.g.:
“The hypocrite Maddow, returns to a once-a-week schedule in April, making $25 million a year. I call it crocodile tears when she scolded her employer over the news that MSNBC staffers would be victims of a company-wide headcount reduction. Here is a novel idea – lets have Maddow take a small pay cut to save a few jobs. Don’t hold your breath.”
(Kirn said the same thing on ATW)
or:
“FAIR itself could use a shake-up in the direction opposite to MSNBC — i.e., toward *less* deference to the Democratic Party (“currently America’s sole opposition party in Congress” — by default!) & eliminating offhand propaganda like “President Biden’s paradigm-shifting economic stimulus” (wow! impressive!).”
It is interesting how FAIR lost its bearings over the decades. I read them back when they were a printed flyer still.
Ah different … AGE!