The truth about love Aeon
At the dawn of life, did metabolism come first? Knowable Magazine
Would you take the jet suit for a ride? pic.twitter.com/IwBGnMZFXp
— White Ghost (@White_Ghost187) April 22, 2025
COVID-19/Pandemics
Why heart attacks are striking young people – and surprising connection to a pandemic drug rule Daily Mail
RFK Jr. declares autism in America as an ‘epidemic’ that ‘dwarfs’ deadly COVID-19 outbreak NY Post
Countries finalize historic pandemic agreement United Nations
Office Sales Trends Break After Two Decades as Pandemic and Monetary Policy Drive New Dynamics Globest.com
Climate/Environment
Science, compassion and Catholicism: How Pope Francis helped inspire global climate action Euro News
Canada’s top candidates talk up fossil fuels as climate slips down agenda BBC
I’ve Fought for the Climate Since the ’80s. All I’ve Worked for Is Being Undone The Hollywood Reporter
China?
Huawei to roll out AI chips in second half as potential alternative to Nvidia H20: report SCMP
Beijing threatens countermeasures against countries that ‘appease’ Washington in trade war The Guardian
China Responds as Territorial Dispute With US Ally Goes Public Newsweek
🌉Another marvel rises! #CCCC’s Ma'anshan Yangtze River Bridge in #Anhui sets 2 world records with its double 1000m spans & longest steel truss. With expressways & railways stacked, it powers #YangtzeRiverDelta transport. A milestone in #bridge innovation! 😍 pic.twitter.com/1ane9HjPtE
— China Communications Construction (@CCCCLTDofficial) April 22, 2025
South of the Border
Mexico’s president wants to ban U.S. ads warning against migration Los Angeles Times
Migrants traversing Darien Gap plummet 40% as Panama cracks down on major route NY Post
Pope Francis was a source of controversy and spiritual guidance in his Argentine homeland AP
European Disunion
It’s time for more majority decision-making in EU foreign policy Politico
EU opinion divided over bid to seize frozen Russian assets Parliament Magazine
FM: Hungarians are the only ones able to stop Ukraine’s EU accession The Budapest Times
Old Blighty
April will be cruel to UK households, but the economy’s problems are much longer term Business Daily Media
Israel v. The Resistance
Trump speaks to Netanyahu on Gaza hostage deal and Iran Axios
For 50 days, Israel has not allowed a single bite of food or a drop of water into Gaza.
Famine is imminent. pic.twitter.com/mK4UcGW878— Ramy Abdu| رامي عبده (@RamAbdu) April 20, 2025
Israeli siege ‘slowly killing’ over 2M Palestinians in Gaza, authorities warn Andolu Agency
Charities in Gaza are running out of food as Israel blocks all aid supplies Al Jazeera
US airstrikes killed 12 people in Yemen’s capital, the Houthi rebels say AP
New Not-So-Cold War
Ukraine ready to negotiate with Russia — if it agrees to ceasefire first Politico
Is a deal really emerging on Russia-Ukraine? Brookings
Ukraine’s robot army is a glimpse of future warfare The Telegraph
Tonight, #Odesa in Ukraine was attacked by new #Russian kamikaze drones “Geranium-3” with a jet engine.
source: https://t.co/a0PXNZ8DKW#UkraineRussiaWar #Ukraine pic.twitter.com/4ZnZVg84TO— John Miller (@Donni08916968) April 22, 2025
EUand UK preparing naval blockade of Russia Putin aide Big News Network
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Bankrupt 23andMe faces growing questions over data privacy CFO Dive
7 simple things I always do on Android to protect my privacy – and why you should too ZD Net
Shopify to Face Data Privacy Class Action After Court Ruling PYMNTS
Imperial Collapse Watch
California mayor wants to give homeless people ‘all the fentanyl they want’ NY Post
San Jose Approves Plan to Remove Homeless Encampment at Columbus Park The Epoch Times
Why most Americans may never reach their savings goals Macon County Times
Trump 2.0
Rubio unveils first stage of major State Department overhaul CNN
Jerome Powell’s Fed won’t rescue Trump from his tariff mess The Hill
Harvard University sues Trump administration to stop funding freeze BBC
Over 150 US university presidents sign letter decrying Trump administration The Guardian
DOGE
Tesla profits plunge as Musk promises he’s ready to step away from role at DOGE CNN
DOGE gains access to sensitive immigration data from Justice Department: Report Andolu Agency
The ACLU Is Suing the Government to Get Access to DOGE Records Wired
Downward DOGE: Elon Musk keeps revising cost-trimming goals in a familiar pattern The Register
Democrat Death Watch
Dem Jeffries brushes aside DNC big David Hogg’s primary plan, vows to stand by incumbents NY Post
James Carville takes aim at DNC vice chair as civil war escalates: ‘Insane’ Fox News
Immigration
Noem, DHS outline next step to speed up deportation process Fox News
Leavenworth, Kansas, could become a hub for immigration detention. Opposition is mounting KCUR
Farmers, seasonal businesses worry as immigration crackdown ramps up Portland Press Herald
The horse-racing industry needs workers on visas. Employers hope to still get them. NPR
Our No Longer Free Press
Is the Press Next? The American Prospect
Always ‘the enemy’ – Trump steps up media assault in first 100 days
Mr. Market Is Moody
Trump vs Powell: how the clash is impacting financial markets IG International
Madison Didn’t Predict the Market as the Last Check on Power The Daily Economy
As the dollar falters, the world’s central banks tread a tightrope — devalue their currency or not CNBC
Gold hits $3,500 for first time as US dollar sinks to three-year low The Guardian
AI
Academy confirms AI films eligible for top Oscar awards Andolu Agency
Exclusive: Anthropic warns fully AI employees are a year away Axios
An AI tool grounded in evidence-based medicine outperforms other AI tools—and most doctors—on USMLE exams Medical Xpress
When AI writes the laws: UAE’s bold move forces a rethink on compliance and human touch CIO
The Bezzle
Telehealth Fraud & Compliance: Preventing ‘Pill Mills’ While Ensuring Access to Care Med City News
SuperCard X Enables Contactless ATM Fraud in Real-Time Infosecurity Magazine
UN says Asian scam call center epidemic expanding globally amid political heat The Register
Guillotine Watch
The 5 most expensive basketball shoes in the world
📹top5expensive
— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) March 23, 2025
Antidote du jour (via)
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here
Donald
(melody borrowed from Donna written and performed by Ritchie Valens in 1958)
Ohh, Donald, Ohh, Donald,
Ohh, Donald, Ohh, Donald,
Heard of this guy? Tariffs are his game
Lays them deftly in a confidence game
On the whole damn world
Donald’s too stupid to see
His insanity
He blathers on from dementia zone
Cognitive health is all honeycombed
As the whole damn world
Ignores your tariff decrees
Even Bibi!
He’s snarlin’ about big black swans
While we lose revenue
Endless lies are all this guy can do
What in the world? Is this guy insane?
Why can’t he see there’s no penguins in this game?
And this whole damn world
Donald, they want you to leave
Why can’t you leave?
Ohh, Donald, Ohh, Donald,
Ohh, Donald, Ohh, Donald,
Ohh . . .
From Novara Media [UK], an interesting interview:
Harvard Economist: China Is Winning Trump’s Trade War | Keyu Jin
“Academy confirms AI films eligible for top Oscar awards”
I wonder if that will apply to script writing as well. If an AI comes up with the bulk majority of a script for a film, who gets the Oscar nomination then? Considering the low state of present script writing that may be a plus or a minus to be honest. By rights they should put some kind of mark on films that have been generated by an AI to a substantial degree but I doubt that they will do it. Thus it will be up to audiences to pick out what has been AI generated.
Rev, my reading of the article said generative AI was in, that the various branches- which includes screenwriers- will identify the proportonate use of AI in an aspect of each film. and will weight human efforts more heavily.
I wondered about that though at the end of the day this would be Hollywood self-regulating which I would see as problematic. It’s bad enough to come across short stories where the author gleefully says that it was mostly AI that wrote it. But would Hollywood fess up at all? Or would they see this as a great way to cut the costs of using screenwriters and let an AI do the bulk of the work.
“Or would they see this as a great way to cut the costs of using screenwriters and let an AI do the bulk of the work.”
You answered your own question. Remember those strikes by screenwriters a couple of years ago?
If one looks at the 2024 box office toppers, the first movie that is not a sequel or remake but an original idea is number 16, a Chinese movie.
First “Hollywood” movie not based on previous movie or characters is number 20 – an adaptation of a novel. I doubt if Hollywood is actually using real screenwriters anymore, or if the audience really cares…
Good question.
if an AI comes up with the bulk of a script for a film, who puts their name to it ? because it is just a tool that someone has used to make the script? it still has to be turned into a good film. they still have to use their judgement on the script itself.
does it matter if an AI has created some/all of it if it invokes a response and is deemed artworthy?
software is used to create good action sequences. why not good dialog sequences? or emotion ? etc. just another set of tools that ultimately get judged based on audience response to the film itself
“San Jose Approves Plan to Remove Homeless Encampment at Columbus Park”
I see they want to spend $20 million on the new park. Let me do some math…
Average rent a month in San Jose: $3000/month + $150 in Utilities = $3150/month * 12 = $37,800
$20,000,000 / $37,800 = 529
So they could provide apartments, plus utilities, for 529 people for a year, but they think a park is a better use of these funds? Lets divide that by 5 years…105…I am sure there are less than 105 people living in that encampment. So they could give 105 people housing for 5 years and that alone would clean up the park.
The stupidity of people who run our governments I can understand, but the greed and selfishness I will never.
I wonder if greed and selfishness are major contributors to stupidity. Consider Trump!
I am a community garden member across the street from this encampment. It’s been hell. The people that want help get it, the rest prefer to live by their rules.
I have no doubt that the politicians and the NGOs have most likely wasted money, but at the root of this is greed. To do tax cuts, the government officials have slashed services and institutions. In our local area Agnews State hospital was closed down in 1972 following Regan signing off on the deinstutionalizing bill. Mentally ill people were suppose to have care at halfway housing and access to medicine, but enough money to make this happen never occurred. Add to this the withdrawal of government making building houses affordable and the subsequent financialization of real estate, the drug crises, inflation, outsourcing of jobs that provided enough to live on…well you get it. This is why we have billionaires in power and everyone else scrapping along on the bottom.
The park revitalization is paid mostly by Measure P, a $228 million bond passed by city voters in 2020. The bond funded nearly 90 city projects—including renovation of parks and their restrooms, community centers and sports filed. Last two sentences are verbatim in San Jose Spotlight, April 15, 2025.
So, the funds are approved for this by voters, not political whim.
The park revitalization is paid mostly by Measure P, a $228 million bond passed by city voters in 2020. The bond funded nearly 90 city projects—including renovation of parks and their restrooms, community centers and sports fields. The above sentences two were written in San Jose Spotlight, April 15, 2025.
So, the funds are approved for this by voters, not political whim.
Sticking it to the poor and homeless is expensive, and always has been.
To give another example, it’s common for the cost of fraud prevention efforts in social and welfare programs to run to many times the actual losses due to fraud. Frequently these come with onerous compliance requirements and no presumption of innocence.
Thank you, Conor, for the links, especially with regard to horse racing.
It’s similar in the UK. An increasing number of stable lads and lasses are from overseas. With regard to the lads, it’s mainly India (often by way of Dubai), but there are some from Africa. With regard to the lasses, there are some from eastern Europe.
Few Britons want to be stable staff. As the pay is better in Ireland and France, where the industry is much better run, few Irish and French staff come over.
The presence of staff from outside the EU can cause problems. France won’t allow them without a visa, which can’t always be arranged quickly in racing terms. The African lad who looked after last year’s Arc winner, Blue Stocking, could not travel with the filly, so missed out on what would probably the greatest day of his career.
Please let me give a shout out to this community’s racing fans and send “season’s greetings” to, Montana Maven, Ambrit and Wukchumni. May your season be enjoyable and prosperous, especially with the Kentucky Derby on Saturday week. The Guineas at Newmarket are on the same week-end.
Thanks for the shout out, Colonel.
Its almost all Mexicans in the backstretches of the few remaining racetracks, horses are very much in their culture still, as opposed to here where you can’t even find a mechanical horse to ride for a Dime in front of supermarkets anymore.
I’m guilty of rarely going to the ‘oval office’ much these days, and the last time I went was down to Del Mar near San Diego, and this was at the height of anti-animal cruelty protests, with horses dropping dead or having to be put down on a somewhat regular basis, and there were the gringo protesters as you walked to the turnstiles to get in, countered by Mexican stable workers protesting that they needed their jobs.
The goods were odd, but the odds were good you could find your position represented that day.
Thank you, Wukchumni.
With your Czech background, have you ever been to the Velka Pardubicka?
Some Czech trainers and jockeys are competing in France. None here.
No, Colonel…
Never made it to that racetrack, but it wasn’t from a lack of trying, I must have been to close to 100 racetracks once upon a time, a good many of the smaller ones in the USA long since closed down.
Thank you.
I’m always sad to hear of tracks closing. Singapore closed last year.
Ah, the Majic Week approaches for American Punters. Thanks for the good wishes. I’ll not be plunging, but the occasional flutter can be expected.
To compliment your observations concerning UK and “other European” horse racing, I shall mention Phyllis’ now deceased Aunt Rose and her husband and father of some of Phyl’s nieces and nephews, Chico. An Indio Mexican, he was a jockey at American tracks back in the 1940s and 1950s. Phyl remembers Rose and Chico and family spending the “off season” once or twice in their Spartan trailer parked behind the old farmhouse off of Jeferson Highway west of New Orleans proper. They would live in the trailer at race parks during the season as he followed the horses he rode. He was a prime example of a Foreign National working in the American horse racing system. Phyl remembers him as being a small statured man with a “wicked sense of humour.”
The best of good luck at the track! Belated happy Easter.
Thank you, Ambrit.
I rarely invest.
The first Derby trial is on Friday at Sandown.
re: Germany
BSW files election objection today.
BERLINER ZEITUNG:
“The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) submitted its objection to the results of the federal election to the Bundestag’s Electoral Scrutiny Committee on Wednesday. Co-party leader Amira Mohamed Ali submitted the relevant documents at 1 p.m. Wednesday is the last day to file objections to the February 23 election.
The BSW narrowly missed entering parliament, receiving 4.981 percent of the vote—about 9,500 short of the five percent threshold. The party is therefore demanding a recount. Mohamed Ali clarified that the BSW does not believe there was any deliberate manipulation. “We believe that mistakes were made.””
We were hoping they would do this! Merz and Melnyk are making BSW look better every day.
Does this count as “rumble in the garden”?
more a flowerpot falling over
I doubt it will do anything.
Just consider the consequences.
But of course BSW has to stay visible.
They promised to keep fighting.
Also thinking about a new name…
we´ll see.
I don´t know what of the alleged internal conflicts is real and what is staged and manipulation by the system. BSW had 15+% just a year ago. And mainstream was panicking.
I just wanted to make a Muhammad-Ali-The-Rumble-in-the-Jungle joke. :) I have no doubt in Germany staying on the course with unwavering determination.
re: Israel / Gaza
(not a new scandal but hardly reported)
Where’s the outrage over ‘systematic’ sexual violence against Palestinians?
Despite mounting evidence of the army’s gender-based crimes, Israeli women’s groups have largely ignored or denied the UN’s damning new report.
by Samah Salaime
April 17, 2025
https://www.972mag.com/systematic-sexual-violence-against-palestinians/
Gender-based seems a stretch and irrelevant. Perhaps women are more likely to be raped by humans and men by trained dogs?
They appear to hate and mistreat Palestinians based on being Palestinian, not on gender.
Re: Ukraine
Betteridge’s law of headlines strikes again.
Based on Dima’s Military Summary channel, whatever “deal” was being discussed appears to have collapsed.
Per Dima, Zelensky sabotaged it, or perhaps he was just an actor playing a role. First, Rubio canceled his trip, now Kellogg isn’t going and the whole thing is off.
It reminds me of the Istanbul agreement attempt back in 2022 that BoJo sabotaged. Seems to me that the Brits could be behind this latest sinking of a prospective truce, although that is pure speculation on my part.
Now we wait and see whether Trump walks away from Project Ukraine. May 1 would be a nice day to announce a cut off of all further military aid. Not that there is likely much left under whatever sofa cushions Biden left.
MoA has a write-up and better sources:
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2025/04/setback-for-us-ceasefire-deal-in-ukraine.html
Thanks for that link ChrisFromGA and it explains why Trump is insistent on recognizing Crimea as Russia-
‘The U.S. acceptance of Crimea as Russian territory is an interesting point but likely based on an ulterior motive. It would lift sanctions on Crimea and allow U.S. companies to take part in the exploitation of natural gas fields around it.’
It always sounded weird as the Russian would not care if the US recognized Crimea or not. Crimea was Russian before there was even a United States and it would be like Russia agreeing on recognizing Alaska as American. Like with a possible revived NS2 pipeline under American control, American control over gas pipelines going through the Ukraine to the EU, and gas here that might go to the EU it is all about DC having control of the energy going into the EU so that they can always throttle it at will.
That sounds like classic “negotiating against yourself.”
We’re back to Yves observation that Ukraine still has agency. To really force them to bargain, the US will need to cut off money and ISR. And perhaps directly sabotage the UK’s efforts, engage the CIA to put some C4 in British weapon shipments and make them go boom in Poland.
I kind of doubt Trump has the courage for that, though he might just let the money expire, which it will any day now.
With Trump you just never know. I have tried to see what strategic thoughts he has in wrecking the US, its allies and all those relationships but at times I wonder if what we are seeing is just the result of Trump having Covid brain. He caught Covid back in October of 2020 when he was President so who knows how many times he has had it in the past five years.
Shrill, baby shrill!
The only sense I can make of it is that he is trying to burn down the power bases of the opposition and urinate on the ashes. See, for instance, higher ed which is almost exclusively in the Democrrat’s orbit. Extend this to foreign policy, and he is both punishing allies for critquing him as well as burning down relations to the point where even if the Dems come back into power, they won’t be able to repair the damage. Another way to look at it, is that he is making sure the status quo ante cannot be reassembled.
The problem with this view, is that Trump’s mercurial nature seems to be all over the place to the point where I don’t think he has an opposition because whoever he is opposed to changes from day to day if not hour to hour. Nor have I heard Trump articulate what his end state is other than platitudes (i.e. “make America great again’). I find it hard to understand why you would want to make a return to the status quo ante impossible unless you really want to commit to an envisioned end state and prevent those who take power in the future from rolling back your work. Maybe he just wants to burn it all down out of revenge. I can speculate, but I just don’t know.
Thanks for the link. And is this simply another of the Trump admin daily reversals? Perhaps it’s time for Trump defenders including Walter Kirn and Fox newsers like Turley and even yours truly (sometimes) to admit that Trump doesn’t have the slightest clue what he’s doing–even as he insists on doing it and on playing his TV show role of the big know it all boss. Can’t he just go play golf?
Ron Unz is a somewhat controversial figure but he suggests that Trump may never have read a book from cover to cover including the many that he supposedly wrote. By contrast we once had presidents who read three newspapers per day or at least thought it important to claim to do so. Our other two branches of government are going to have to stop this runaway train and more power to them. It used to be said that the public preferred having the two parties divide control of Congress and the presidency so they could keep each other in check. If the Dems can’t even do that then they’ve lost the last lingering excuse for their existence.
John Helmer has some interesting points of view which seem to be in fact what might be happening, irrespective of what Trump actually wants from one day to another…
https://johnhelmer.net/the-real-trump-default-is-european-war-with-russia-so-the-us-can-escalate-war-with-china-the-case-of-the-arms-supply-line-from-rzeszow-to-kiev/
Brian Berletic at The New Atlas has been arguing recently that what we are seeing is not just Trump wondering around but rather Trump following the 2025 handbook. He’s basically saying that Trump is more or less a puppet in his following his script has been worked out years before.
At first I thought this was a really weird idea but then Brian pointed to some very specific policy steps that Trump has taken and related it back to specific chapters in the 2025 book. Brian hasn’t convinced me completely but I’m willing to give it some credence as long as we add in the fact that Trump is pretty much a loose gun so what looks like clean policy ideas in the 2025 book may be being implemented a little more erratically than the authors of the book had planned.
Someone has pointed out that project 2025 is just the old Gingrich drown govt in a bathtub playbook that gets trotted out with every Republican administration and is more aspirational than a plan.
And if it is a plan why does it, in Trump’s hands, keep changing from day to day? When asked about it during the campaign Trump said he hadn’t read it and this we can believe. He’s running the govt by the seat of his wide guy pants.
Of course Gingrichism was always crazy–he wanted to sell all the national lands and even the lakes–and did more to help the dubious Clinton who triangulated and adopted some of the Republican wishbook deregulation.
So we have both parties to deal with on this. Trump though doesn’t seem to care what anybody thinks. It’s almost a kind of political harakiri.
Michael Tracy called Project 2025 Reagan’s Project 1981.
Don’t forget to throw an electric toaster in there, too, just for good measure!
Shock! And “Awwwww…..”
Does it have to be US made toaster?
As in MIC Brand home appliances?
Since Challenger tank comes with complementary kettle, Abrams could come with General Dynamics toaster.
Hopefully those Challenger tank kettles don’t lead to a tank brew-up
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catastrophic_kill
Anything can happen if you try to cook meth instead of Earl Grey.
I’m sorry that I have the sense of humour of an 8 year old but stuff under sofa cushions w.r.t. a pres/VP will always make me laugh.
Any day I can make someone laugh is a good day.
My suspicion is the White House is negotiating from the position that Ukraine has been winning.
A European deployment force. The 4 oblasts status. These are non starters. If they were palatable, Moscow wouldn’t have launched the SMO.
Despite the claims to peace, my guess is Trump thinks like the tariffs that he is acting from a position of strength.
Swap out a few place names with tariff verbiage, and it sounds like the article b had about the perception of Trump’s tariff negotiations. They barely know how they work and have no concept of what they want.
Yep. This is what truly puzzles me: how can such obviously mentally subnormal people rise to the top?
I think of it as the “sewage treatment plant” model of politics*. The big lumps float to the top.
*Can also be applied to organisational management.
Otherwise known as scum and turds are to be found at the top.
Way back in the 70’s, vacationing in Soviet Union me and my dad once sat on a bank of a small river. Out of nowhere a turd flowed by, and after some silence my dad quipped with a grin: “no matter the system, shit always surfaces.”
Well, as they say, the election was the Democrat’s to lose, and boy did they. I think the quality of their role as the opposition party says it all — opposition is entirely absent.
So in other words, how can such mentally subnormal people rise to the top? The reason is because the only alternative is even worse.
“Gold climbs above $3,500 for first time as Wall Street rallies after slide”
It is probably too early to fully understand what is going on, but last week I went to see what the latest forecast was for the economy by the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow. Well, if you haven’t seen it recently you should go check it out.
As of now they are posting 2 forecasts as they are sunsetting the current model on April 30th. The forecast difference is around 2% points of GDP. The current model is forecasting -2.2% while the new, to be implemented, model is only forecasting -0.1% GDP for Q1.
No here’s the crazy part… the only difference is that they are removing net imports/exports of Gold!
FRED data on nonmonetary gold imports for Q4-2024 (most recent data) does show a significant spike and gold exports looks pretty normal which means net imports above exports of gold was about $10B. Given the GDPNow model divergences one would suspect that the Q4 spike has continued and possibly gotten much bigger.
There was a massive spike in imports in Q2-2020 during the pandemic, but that would seem explainable by panicked gold bugs. Is the same thing going on now or is it something else?
Looking at how all the great powers are stockpiling gold it seems to be something else.
I would have thought for sure that Central Banks would be stockpiling Bitcoin, its what money plants crave.
Meanwhile, behind the scenes, what few are piecing together or talking about….
Catherine Austin Fitts at Solari Report:
Trump Administration: Digital Control Grid Coming Together at High Speed
https://solarireport.substack.com/p/trump-administration-digital-control
Bad Cattitude (Brown University alum) has some thoughts about America’s elite universities.
elite universities are over
they just don’t know it yet
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/elite-universities-are-over
The second commentator’s comment about the current state of Harvard med school where his wife taught is not encouraging.
That might explain the sort of student docs that IM Doc has been seeing. And a coupla weeks ago it was mentioned here how top corporations are no longer hiring the kids coming out of those unis as they are lazy and stupid and are looking for kids coming out of State colleges instead. The most depressing part of that article, however, is how the best and the brightest are now being sucked up by Palantir who will turn them into monsters.
In the article, I sense that the author believes that markets, vouchers, competition, Palantir, and the like will work wonders to shake the calcified structures of higher education and release all the pent-up energies from those students eager to learn, thus leading to a rejuvenated meritocracy.
While the university system in the USA (and elsewhere, e.g. UK) is indeed deliquescent and the criticism against its ideological blinders, its top-heavy organization, the shameless exploitation of teaching staff, the insane tuitions sending students into debt bondage, the incomprehensible focus on sports and sport infrastructure, the ever-decreasing intellectual requirements, and the dependency on State funds while sitting on multibillion-sized endowments engaged in PE and real-estate speculation, one of his final comments reveals the flaw in the criticism:
“the intersection of interests between the best and brightest and those places most needful of putting them to good use and fullest potential has no place for the “elite” university as currently instantiated”
So the mission of a university is to act a high-grade training centre for the private sector. What he really wants is a Fachhochschule (as in German-speaking countries), not a university, but I do not know how this fits within the education system of the USA, and what kind of reforms would be necessary.
I took a sabatical once to Berlin where I taught nursing students one semester at a Fachhochschule. I was supposed to teach them philosophy of science but when I got there and looked at their curriculum to structure my lessons, I found that they were functioning at the master’s level already. So I had to up my game and dig into some high level stuff. They loved it.
Unfortunately, they told me that doctors never respected them. One told me that a physician told her, “You do not think. You are my hands, you just do.”
During that time, at a fancy dinner for the opening of a new hospital, I sat next to two physicians. My colleague introduced me with my Ph.D. title and said that in North America nurses were educated at universities. One of the physicians said, “Do all of your universities do this….this….thing?” I said “Most of them,” but I should have said, “Only the best ones.” They did not speak to me for the rest of the dinner.
Thanks for that comment. You expressed my reaction much more cogently than I could.
As someone who went to a state college (University of Texas at Austin), I say good. I’ll put the education I got there up against Harvard any day, and I only had to pay $800/semester back in the early 1990s.
“it’s as false and performative as it is grotesque and soviet.”
LOL! While I am not sure I can disagree directionally with the article, I believe the description is very much on tract with any good Marxian analysis of the described collapse. It was just expected, ignorant, status quo reporting that labeled it “grotesque and soviet”.
I grew up about 30 minutes from the Ivy Leage school of Cornell and it was at least locally known as the “easiest Ivy to get into, but the hardest one to get out of”. I’ve spent countless hours on the campus as a 20-something and know and am related to several of its alumni.
The interesting thing is that about 1/3 of the colleges at Cornell are actually state schools. You can graduate from Ivy League Cornell University and pay just the state school education. Given I lived about 30 minutes from Cornell I know many people who took advantage of this… WHAT is the real-world difference btwn a degree of Applied Economics and Management from the state college of Agriculture and the same degree from the private Johnson College of Business or a plain Economics degree from Cornell’s private college of Arts & Sciences?
To insinuate that any decay in the status of Ivy League education is “grotesque and soviet” is just denying Marxism altogether.
It has nothing to do with what is being taught at so called Ivy schools that is an issue, the problem is that the available pool of future elite slots, post graduate openings has shrunk. The capitalist model can not infinitely supply ECONOMIC RENTS to its elite and supply ever growing slots to its “captains” for their children; that curve must plateau or dip (or crash) – or choose a different model, but that is not on the table.
My final thought is to specially agree with Christopher Smith. Pay for an education and not a piece of paper. If you can in the short term go to an Ivy for free by all means go as it will for some time retain its value, but as I learned growing up, get your Ivy on the cheap if you can.
– ‘I’ve Fought for the Climate Since the ’80s. All I’ve Worked for Is Being Undone’ – The Hollywood Reporter
When I saw the title of this piece in which “I” appears twice – and saw that it was from The Hollywood Reporter – I thought “uh oh.” Sure enough.
Of course I do not want to ridicule someone’s sincere concern for the environment and the current attack on climate science (or perhaps all science). I share those concerns. But I’m sure most NC readers already recognize the problems illustrated in this article. Privileged liberals – *Hollywood* liberals no less! – have a tremendous capacity to make themselves targets for the “anti-elite” propaganda of psuedo-populists on the right. This is an excellent example. And personally, a cute story about the mutual admiration between the likes of Chevy Chase and Madeline Albright is almost enough to make *me* question the environmental movement (not really, but c’mon).
Yes, a Case Study in lack of self-awareness and self-parody, with that nasty Albright aftertaste at the end.
“EU opinion divided over bid to seize frozen Russian assets”
In a way, this is a pretty funny story when you read through to the end. For years now the EU has been tying itself in knots trying to find a legal way to steal Russia’s $300 billion only there isn’t. Then there is the realization that if they did, that there would be giant sucking sound to be heard which would be investors all around the world pulling their money out of the EU before the EU stole it as well. But then the legal smarties found a way to steal part of Russia’s money by swiping the interest off those Russia’s funds even though that would be illegal as well. Then the financial smarties got involved and came up with the idea of using that stolen interest as collateral on loans worth tens of billions of dollar’s worth for the Ukraine. And I believe that this has been done a coupla times. And Belgium swipes money too by collecting taxes on that revenue. So it’s 2008 all over again and the EU has built themselves a Jenga tower of financial debt, just so that they can give it to Zelensky of all people. Now come the kicker in that article. ‘EU sanctions on Russia are set to expire in July 2025, and all 27 EU member states must agree on whether to extend them.’ So if Hungary or Slovakia vote no, then Russia’s money has to be returned to them. But wait, there’s more. All those loans that they made using the interest as collateral? They are now all on the hook to pay those loans back but without those Russian funds to pay for them and there is no way to wiggle out of them. Zelensky may say that he is good for the money but it is only a matter of time until the Ukraine reneges on all those debts. In short, they’re boned.
It’s like nobody in the EU halls of power at any point asked “what if Russia actually won this war?” Maybe EU is led by a mastermind like Vizzini from the Princess Bride: “inconceivable!”
Also the EU might find that John McCain’s “gas station with nukes” is now much less willing to give the EU a good price on energy shipped to the EU.
Russia will want to exchange their energy for portable assets such as German machine tools and gold, but not financial assets that can be confiscated like the 300 billion.
Maybe Russia will also trade energy for EU factories that relocate to Russia?
The EU may find that Russia is unwilling to “let bygones be bygones” as the EU’s former friendly local gas station will not extend credit.
But only up to the point when some “well-dressed men in business suits” pop around to Hungary and Slovakia and quietly point out, “Nice little country you’ve got here. Be a shame if something happened to it.”
Might be hard to pull this off if even bigger men in business suits are behind them, breathing down their necks…
If the sanctions expire and/or when Russia wins a total victory regardless of any dimwitted intervention by the UK, France and any other country or countries foolish enough to join the party, the EU will either have all the assets and interest on hand and return it meekly to Russia or, if not, it becomes a casus belli. Either way, it will be an existential issue for the EU which will implode and Europe will revert to the longtime hobby of Europeans since time immemorial and take to waging war against each other in the hope that the losers will become responsible for the debt.
re: US Navy vs. China
Full Committee Hearing: U.S. Military Posture and National Security Challenges in the Indo-Pacific Region
Wednesday, April 9, 2025
Witnesses:
John Noh
Performing the Duties of the Assistant Secretary of Defense For Indo-Pacific Security Affairs
Department of Defense
Admiral Samuel Paparo, USN
Commander
U.S. Indo-Pacific Command
General Xavier T. Brunson, USA
Commander
United Nations Command / Combined Forces Command / U.S. Forces Korea
Written testimonies are downloadable
complete hearing, 3 hours
https://armedservices.house.gov/calendar/eventsingle.aspx?EventID=5033
Comment via X by Tom Shugart
(Defense analyst, former submariner, bugsmasher pilot/flight instructor. Founder, Archer Strategic Consulting. @cnasdc Adjunct Senior Fellow)
Apr 18
A few interesting tidbits from INDOPACOM Commander Admiral Paparo’s recent testimony.
https://nitter.poast.org/tshugart3/status/1913206746417447349#m
Papago continues the “One China” term “Taiwan” while Taipei calls itself “Republic of China” since Chiang..
The German word for “parrot” is “Papagei”..-
DOGE
Tesla profits plunge as Musk promises he’s ready to step away from role at DOGE CNN
And DOGE hasn’t even yet transformed the United States Federal Government onto a profit operating basis? What a shame a truly missed opportunity.
The horse-racing industry needs workers on visas. Employers hope to still get them. NPR
How about visas for challengers to incumbent Congressman and Senators to give them a taste of what the pleasantry experiences?
Jerome Powell in the news attracted some attention by James O’Keefe, the guy who tapes people to get candid comments. Here is O’Keefe’s lead-in.
How do people not recognize him and avoid embarrassing revelations? Do they all want their moment of fame?
Here is his video.
‘White Ghost
@White_Ghost187
Would you take the jet suit for a ride?’
I’m calling the whole thing staged. That airliner is flying at a low speed so that guy can keep up and you can see the flaps down on that airliner’s wings to slow it down. In addition that jet guy would only have a limited amount of fuel so him flying there would be timed for that narrow window of time that he has to fly at speed. I’d say that that wing itself was the fuel tank. And you can be sure that there was eyes on this guy from the airliner in case he got too close.
Of course it’s staged. That jet-pack-wing was made for stunts in the first place. He jumped out of a plane that is filming it, and will land with a parchute (after he runs out of juice in a couple of minutes). It’s not like he is using it as a method of transportation in a daily commute, and ran into some friends.
To be honest, I immediately thought that the large airplane would cause so much turbulence, making it impossible for the diminutive jetman to fly that close to it. Ergo AI-generated video. But what do I know.
That’s why it’s flying to the side, slightly back. Three of them are in a natural formation that regular birds would use too.
“kamikaze drones”
I guess that makes for
kamikaze bullets
kamikaze bombs
kamikaze sticks and carrots
kamikaze negotiations
kamikaze pills………
got to love the little catch terms sprinkled in news casts and politics to sieze, capture, shock and awe people into a narrative….. always got to drive, nail and bring home the narrative.
Sort of like when a kid covers their eyes and thinks ‘If I can’t see you, you can’t see me’
I guess that is why the News media and politicians keep misdirecting or pointing anywhere except toward themselves……. Just the continuation of some basic cowardly behaviour and inbility to take responsibility for ones action- to always need the crutch of ‘it’s his or hers or this or that groups fault, enemy or actions’
Trump just plays it out like, for example ‘it’s the fed chairs fault, it’s the mexicans etc.
One thing for sure, Trump is brave in his willingness to exhibit cowardice….or is that stupid willing,…..
I have never seen the point of instilling mass distrust into a population or person (except when it is used to manipulate and contrive some delusion, giving power to the one pushing distrust) – it really never ends in peace or equity. Maybe the deployment of strategic trust
Sorry – just having dificulty finishing thoughts.
Regular drones are not kamikaze, and are meant to come back (much like Japanese aircraft back in the day).
Kamikaze President and Administration? Lots of trading to be done during that final glide path!
As others have said, calling them kamikaze or suicide drones is helpful, and not merely psychic spam. Some drones surveil, some drop munitions, some shoot guns, and some blow themselves up.
re: Golden Dome
sounds like the most expensive Clownworld of this century:
Musk’s SpaceX is frontrunner to build Trump’s Golden Dome missile shield
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/musks-spacex-is-frontrunner-build-trumps-golden-dome-missile-shield-2025-04-17/
Is this why he appeared to tear up at the idea that severely autistic people will never pay taxes? How productive are toddlers supposed to be? WTF is talking about. Is it possible for this man to make any kind of sense at all?
Is preparing to launch a narrative that autism, like some mental problems, appears in the late teens and early 20s?
I know of 4 autistic male teenagers/adults in varying degrees on the spectrum that will never leave home, one of them-a 17 year old, doesn’t know how to tie his shoelaces-despite feverish attempts by mom & dad to teach him.
An empty nest is but a whet dream~
I think that suggests perhaps too many different “neurodivergent” types are being clumped under the “spectrum” label, from those who are almost completely non-functioning in society to the high-functioning ones that Microsoft wants to hire for half their jobs. It makes me wonder whether this is another case of western medicine treating a bunch of different pathologies as a single illness, because it simplifies the treatment regimen. Which, in some of those cases, is aimed purely at symptoms, since the underlying biological processes are not understood.
Agreed, and I’d observe that for every one low-functioning autistic person meeting the description offered by JFK Jr, there are probably ten who get along more or less OK in society with a few minor accommodations.
It can be interesting to read books and articles by autistic people writing about autism and what they think about the definition and DSM-4 criteria. Bianca Toeps is one example. She debunks the myth about autism being more common among males (in brief, girls showed the same kind of symptoms with the same frequency as boys, but because the role of girls and women was much more circumscribed at that time, it wasn’t considered an abnormality for girls in the way it was for boys). She also has some theories of her own about what it is that aren’t supported much (or even investigated) by the science but align more with her experience.
Anybody who has some familiarity with autism could probably list off around 10 to 15 ‘symptoms’ that are commonly associated with it. ‘Autistic’ people may have a large number of these symptoms, or just one. They may experience them differently from one another. Some things they may be unusually good at rather than bad at (that’s an autism thing too). Any description of ‘autistic’ behavior is always hedged around with caveats and exceptions and a warning never to generalize (which JFK would have done well to heed). To me that’s a sign that the science is not settled yet. I suspect that 50 years from now, if we haven’t destroyed one another or reverted to barbarism, we’ll probably have a much more nuanced model to describe it.
Sorry, RFK Jr not JFK. Not sure why my brain was doing that (I knew it was one of the FKs).
What Bianca Toeps says is more evidence to me that many (but not all) of the people with diagnoses like ASD, depression, ADHD, and anxiety disorders (maybe even a few schizophrenics) would have been considered as normal-functioning in pre-modern or early modern societies, because the diagnoses are talking as much about social adjustment as psychological well-being more generally. And our society has developed into such a complex, fragile system that being adjusted to it is getting harder and harder (and maybe not even healthy all the time). So more personality types and behaviors are being pathologized that would have merited little comment before. But, however well-intentioned, psychology and psychiatry are band-aiding the situation. Or cashing in on it.
It’s a great way to hide long COVID-19 symptoms…
In the Rights of Nature department:
New Bill to Recognize Legal Rights of All Water Bodies in New York State
https://celdf.substack.com/p/new-bill-to-recognize-legal-rights
Whenever I see ‘MS 13’ in the news my mind wanders over to days of yore when the condition of a given coin was of paramount importance, and the grading scale went from Mint State 1 to Mint State 70, with an MS 13 grade being ‘Fine’, which was a bit of a misnomer as the coin was well worn.
Value differences could be vast in the MS 60 to MS 70 range, which meant the coin was brand new, with varying amounts of bagmarks and other detracting marks.
Similar to the Sport of Kings, the Hobby of Kings is on a downward slope, no young coin collectors and older collectors are all net sellers these days.
The price of old yeller has contributed to the downfall, i’ll give you an example…
Around the turn of the century, a $20 gold Saint Gaudens designed coin dated from 1907 to 1933 was worth around $3,000 in a PCGS (Professional Coin Grading Service) MS 65 sealed holder. It contained just under a troy ounce of pure gold in content, with the spot price around $300.
Now with the spot price around $3500, the very same coin in the same grade retails for $3850 presently.
You should really sit down one day and write all that you remember of coin hunting, how it was done, what were the grades, how they were selected, where you flew too to find good coins, etc. Then when you have finished, lodge that manuscript with some institution like a university. As this business seems to be fading into history, at least that knowledge would not be totally lost to history.
The world was a giant unconnected orb when I was pushing old metal around, and you had to be there-couldn’t do it from a laptop.
Some day i’ll write it all down, it was a perfect business for me in that I never knew really what would happen on a day to day basis, and no day was similar to any other.
Every country had somebody else’s coins, in my early trips to Aussie in the 1980’s, i’d come away with around a roll of 50x 1911-S Lincoln Cents in decent condition, and these were worth around $15 to $20 per, and why did this coin turn up all the time?
A enterprising gent in Sydney had imported nickelodeon machines from the states and they required American coins in order to operate them, so he must have imported bags of Cents along with the machines from the USA, back in the day.
1916 Buffalo Mickels were also surprisingly common in both NZ & Australia, and my guess was ANZAC soldiers must have picked them up when going through the Panama Canal to the war in Europe, as American coinage was used in the canal zone.
These were always in extremely fine condition, and really no big deal in the scheme of things, worth around $20, unless there was a rare doubled date 1916 Buffalo Nickel, worth around $20,000 these days. I bought 5 or 6 of these in my travels.
https://www.pcgs.com/coinfacts/coin/1916-5c-doubled-die-obverse/3931
p.s.
The one industry in dire straits is the jewelry biz, a man’s 14k gold wedding band probably has around $500 in content, and jewelry stores do what is called a ”keystone’ markup, meaning double their cost.
$1000 wedding band, wow!
They seem to push diamonds a lot these days, and seeing as near perfect diamonds can be man-made now, a dubious undertaking.
Re: DNC VC David Hogg and his plan to primary ineffective Dems.
Last night on The Humanist Report, Mike Figuredo pointed out that the Dems Hogg thinks are effective are people like Nancy Pelosi and her side kick Van Hollen, Hakeem Jeffries and various other institutional road blocks to change within the Democratic party.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XTBjK16gyE
It is difficult to see this as anything other than a psyop. The DNC runs a pretty tight ship, Gabbard had to retire from the DNC just to support Sanders in ’16, so it is hard to believe that this is anything more than a cynical ploy along the lines of the present AOC / Sanders Oligarchy tour to gather the sheep back in for their mid-term fleecing.
The measurement of effectiveness of the DNC is fundraising and stepping out of the way as the country moves right ward. And now Nate Silver is talking about AOC being a presidential candidate.. yikes. What a way to lose the presidency again.
I hear that their tour has raised about nine million dollars so far, so Silver is prolly right about that. They are going to need a token lefty to freeze out for the ’28 presidential election, and Baby Bear will likely do as well as anyone.
Yeah I can see Pete and Gavin working against her at every turn, and making a Pres/VP combo that Bill Clinton would be proud of.
File under the “spaghetti sticks to the wall” category, this article: Why heart attacks are striking young people……………..
They tried linking weed to accelerating heart problems in young people, and now this. Any article that uses the term “conspiracy theory” displays its inability to propose a convincing argument. There are countless studies showing that the recent (new, improved) Rna vax is a fundamental cause.
A couple: https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/hard-evidence-in-new-study-brain-heart-damage-caused-by-mrna-vaccine_5074383.html
https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/what-funeral-directors-know-that
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_app/fda-quietly-changes-end-date-for-study-of-heart-inflammation-after-pfizer-covid-vaccination_5013087.html
https://dailysceptic.org/2023/01/18/unequivocal-safety-signals-for-heart-blood-and-reproduction-found-in-yellow-card-vaccine-data-says-top-scientist-withdraw-them-immediately/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/13/bbc-cardiologist-aseem-malhotra-links-covid-jabs-to-heart-disease-deaths
I could go on and on and on………
I’m not sure how to differentiate the effects of having the mRNA vaccine versus actually having Covid. Are there studies taking people who have had the vaccines but not Covid and comparing them to people who had Covid but no mRNA vaccine? If they’ve had both, I don’t know how you could tell which one was the culprit.
Of course, when a young and fit person drops dead of a heart attack within a week or two of getting an mRNA jab, I view anyone denying a connection as being a bullsht artist.
Another culling of workers incoming at Intel, looking like another chop of 20% : Intel to lay off more than 20% of workforce, Bloomberg News reports
New CEO Lip-Bu Tan getting into a choppy mood right off the bat. Earnings call is Thursday so I suppose we will learn more then.
“Ukraine ready to negotiate with Russia — if it agrees to ceasefire first”
At this stage of the game listening to Zelensky is as worthwhile as listening to an Israeli spokesman. It is just lies and bs as far as the eye can see. Here Big Z is saying that let’s sign a ceasefire and we will negotiate the terms later. That’s like a union signing a contract with management and agreeing to negotiate the terms of the contract later. How well will that work out? It’s a good thing that Zelensky is a billionaire now as he will need big money to pay for guards and protection for the rest of his miserable life. If the west does not nail him to shut him up about all that he knows, then it is likely the ultra-nationalists that will hang him up like Mussolini.
file under What Could Go Wrong: from Reclaim The Net.
WHO Pushes for Permanent Tech Alliance to Institutionalize Digital Health Messaging and Behavior Control
WHO, Meta, and Silicon Valley plan long-term digital health alliance focused on narrative control and behavior change.
https://reclaimthenet.org/who-silicon-valley-digital-health-alliance-post-pandemic
Meta? Zuck’s FB empire? Behavior control? I remember that emotional contagion experiment FB ran in conjuction with a US three-letter agency. / ;)
Meta specializes in messing up people’s minds so that they get hooked into social media to an obsessive level so of course WHO wants to team up with them to deal with behavioural control.
Yep. Of course. Scapegoating has never been my thing. I leave it to you to understand this comment. And I know you will understand this comment. / cheers
OK, too F’ing weird that my follow on click goes to something totally irrelevant, imo. Say what!? I guess NC is on someone’s or something’s radar.
OK, too F’ing weird that my follow on click goes to something totally irrelevant, imo. Say what!? I guess NC is on someones’ or something’s radar. I mean, what does a French site with an apparent warmongering thing have to do with my comments here? Too funny. Guess NC is on someone’s radar. / ;)
Re: AI performance on US medical licensure exam
Teaching to the test would certainly be a strength for AI. “What are they getting at?” metacognition interference occurs when actual intelligence confronts standardized testing. When patients fail to match up with texts the AI will still rattle off ‘evidence-based’ algorithms that fail to account for subtle differences in presentations. But on the bright side, your insurance company will save money!
Migrants traversing Darien Gap plummet 40% as Panama cracks down on major route – NY Post
“But despite the significant drop in crossings, Mulino stressed that the numbers could creep up again without ongoing US support.”
But, in time, if the global south, BRICS etc. is rising and the USA is in decline, would those numbers creep up?
And doesn’t this kind of policy leave the USA exposed to a migrant hustle? Whenever sone govt wants money, they gather up some people to send across a border?
I’ve been thinking about the effects Trump’s shitcoins will have, they are a means of disintermediating bribery.
With a “Unitary Executive” or Tyrant you have one stop shopping for the powerful, Lobbyists and Congressional staffers become redundant to a large degree.
Congressional Staffers will be paying for their own hookers and blow, there will be fewer gifts of tickets to “Hamilton” to important staffers, property values on “K” St will plummet…an important part of the Beltway’s economy will wither away.
Think of the poor political consultants!
Once the donors realize that Congress doesn’t have anything left to sell “Campaign Contributions” will all but disappear and a whole industry will have gone the way of the horseshoe.
These high speed wobbles on Wall*Street are quite something, its as if lower Manhattan was a Vincent Black Shadow.
Some musical accompaniment, with re-imagined lyrics, credit to Mick, Keef, and the boys:
Melody
One two!
I was born in op crossfire hurricane
And you’ll howl from my max economic pain
But it’s alright, now, at least there’s cheap gas!
But it’s alright, der Trumpen Dow crash, it’s a Wall Street smash!
I was raised by a teetotallin’ bearded hag
I was schooled with Smoot-Hawley right across my back
But it’s alright, now, at least there’s cheap gas!
But it’s alright, now, der Trumpen Dow crash, it’s a dash for cash!
I was drowned, I was washed up and left for dead
Markets fell down, to their feet and I saw they bled
People frowned at crap coming outta my head
Yeah yeah yeah I was crowned by Elon as the clown-world King
My, my, yeah
But it’s alright, now, at least there’s cheap gas!
But it’s alright, der Trumpen Dow crash, it’s a dash for cash!
Trumpen Dow crash, now he’s outta gas!
Trumpen Dow crash, now he’s outta gas!
Trumpen Dow crash, now he’s outta gas!
So this is mind bending. The NY Times admits that SARS2 is airborne. I suppose this must be okay in this context, because this story is attacking Trump and tariffs.
Tariffs on China Aren’t Likely to Rescue Battered U.S. P.P.E. Industry
(bold mine)
And then Biden and the Democrats left these manufacturers to go die themselves, because hospital GPOs prefer cheat stuff from China, and Biden refused to stock the strategic supply with domestic PPE.
But this story is naturally about Trump’s tariffs hosing these domestic PPE suppliers, a coup de grace, not Biden knifing them.
Meanwhile, SARS2 continues to disable and kill without remorse. But getting infected repeatedly is totally okay.
Biden also slow walked approvals for domestic manufacturers getting the approvals they needed to be certified PPE, as I firmly recall.
And masks were demonized by none other than the CDC director herself, Walensky! I mean, talk about no agency for anything that happened under Biden.
Just finished a pathogens training. Apparently airborne pathogens require N95s and negative airflow hospital rooms. I guess that rush on toilet paper really spooked the CDC.
If only we had known that in 2020….
Jet Suit:
One wrong move and you get sucked into that engine. That wouldn’t be good.
What about a jet suit for dolphins? They could finally leave the ocean, at least for short periods.
Science and technology in China has made a big break thru:
Henry Tillman: China’s Thorium Revolution – 60.000 Years of Cheap Energy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN7TV4qpimA
Some of the American efforts mentioned in this:
Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-Salt_Reactor_Experiment
Molten-salt reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-salt_reactor
I’ll comment more on China’s efforts as I find information, but the gist of it is the Chinese government went for it, and succeeded.
Things not looking too good on the India/Pakistan front at the moment either. Mutual returning of diplomatic staff, cancelled water treaties, mass cancellation of visas. Some indications the skies are clearing. Whenever this solving problems through force thing starts it tends to run away for a while.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-04-23/state-bar-of-california-used-ai-for-exam-questions/
“It’s a staggering admission,” agreed Katie Moran, an associate professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law who specializes in bar exam preparation.
“The State Bar has admitted they employed a company to have a non-lawyer use AI to draft questions that were given on the actual bar exam,” she said. “They then paid that same company to assess and ultimately approve of the questions on the exam, including the questions the company authored.”
—–
“There were multiple problems with the State Bar’s rollout of the new exams. Some test takers reported they were kicked off the online testing platforms or experienced screens that lagged and displayed error messages. Others complained the multiple-choice test questions had typos, consisted of nonsense questions and left out important facts.
I remember reading about that exam several weeks a go and how the whole thing was screwed up. But this admission is so messed up because it was the State bar that did this by hiring that dodgy AI-using company. Sounds like they never even bothered reviewing the questions that those candidates would be answering either after that same company assured them that all was AOK. But will anybody in the State bar be penalized for this mess?
Does one dare suggest the whole entire purpose of AI is to replace the expert , professionally trained in their professional competencies middle classes with unpaid, online AI “expertise”?
A lot of “professional” work is routine, relying on using correct form and filling them out following correct rules, etc–for example, much of work done by attorneys, accountants, and such. In faxt, there’s quite a bit of serious to semi serious work in legal research that suggest that, given the requirements of corporate law, corporations can be set up and maintained entirely by AI and most corporate lawyers may soon become unnecessary.
On the one hand, I know for fact that a lot of lawyers and paralegals hate just doing paperwork like these. But, at the same time, I don’t think there’s enough “interesting” work out there to justify all the people in the legal industry. I would imagine at least a majority of lawyers and accountants would become unnecessary if AI becomes the thing in these fields.
A key problem of course is that in most professions, doing repetitive ‘grunt’ work – research, producing basic surveys and drawings, bag carrying for senior professionals, is exactly how you learn your trade, whether you are a lawyer, doctor, engineer or architect. So the result of removing the grind of basic paperwork could ultimately de-skill the entire profession – I know plenty of engineers and architects who insist that digitizing much draughting work has impacted on the basic skill levels of the profession – whether this is true, or just old guys saying it was better in their days, I’m not really sure.
I actually suspect that lawyers will be least impacted of the professions, as judges can protect their colleagues by insisting that a legal document is not acceptable if its produced by AI (this has already happened I believe in some countries).
But it will certainly have an impact, but I suspect its long term effects will be quite unpredictable.
Amazon is now offering online tele-health medicine. I got an email touting the same. What could go wrong? / ;)
With regards to the story posted last week about the potential collapse of trucking out of west coast ports due to the new tariffs, I came across the Port of Los Angeles’s Cargo Operations Dashboard which contains statistics on both shipping and trucking coming in and out of the port.
From the Port of Los Angeles Daily Gate Appointment Report, it looks like only one truck terminal was operating at capacity yesterday while the remainder were operating between 38% and 54% capacity.
Thank you for this link to actual data! Through the Dashboard, under Cargo Tracking, there under Signal, I found these statistics for weekly import volumes:
Week of Apr 20 – Apr 26
(wk 17) 120,589 TEU :: Scheduled Vessels: 22
Change from previous week: (plus) 6.12%
Change from previous year: (plus) 57.07%
Week of Apr 27 – May 03
(wk 18) 86,190 TEU :: Scheduled Vessels: 17
Change from previous week: (minus) 28.53%
Change from previous year: (minus) 9.79%
Week of May 04 – May 10
(wk 19) 72,941 TEU :: Scheduled Vessels: 16
Change from previous week: (minus) 15.37%
Change from previous year: (minus) 34.54%
De nada!
The Blank Sailings (cancellation of scheduled ships) chart is also pretty wild:
April 2025: 6 cancellations (59,500 TEUs capacity loss)
May 2025: 20 cancellations (253,500 TEUs capacity loss)
June 2025: 8 cancellations (95,500 TEUs capacity loss)
TEU = Twenty-foot equivalent unit
The Port of Long Beach also has Blank Sailing projections:
April 2025: 4 cancellations (40,000 TEUs capacity loss)
May 2025: 14 cancellations (161,000 TEUs capacity loss)
June 2025: 16 cancellations (167,500 TEUs capacity loss)
I’m betting that April’s numbers are for the remainder of the month and are not the total for the entire month.
Going further down the Blank Sailing rabbit hole, I found this:
Blank Sailing Spike After Tariffs: What It Means for Your Supply Chain
I don’t know what to make of it, but ocean and air transport prices were already falling in March (see: https://www.freightos.com/march-11-2025-update/#-ocean-rates—freightos-balti ) March 11 update:
Ocean rates – Freightos Baltic Index:
Asia-US West Coast prices (FBX01 Weekly) fell 25% to $2,659/FEU.
Asia-US East Coast prices (FBX03 Weekly) fell 16% to $3,754/FEU.
Asia-N. Europe prices (FBX11 Weekly) increased 3% to $3,064/FEU.
Asia-Mediterranean prices (FBX13 Weekly) stayed level at $4,159/FEU.
Air rates – Freightos Air index:
China – N. America weekly prices fell 7% to $4.61/kg.
China – N. Europe weekly prices decreased 7% to $3.02/kg.
N. Europe – N. America weekly prices stayed level at $2.37/kg.
I wonder what Yves thinks about the decline in volumes. The numbers do seem pretty staggering to me, and as you note, could suggest empty shelves at Back to School time. Again, thanks for some great data.
Thank you, johnnyme. This is a great resource. Watching events unfold before they happen.
Prof. Richard Wolff is prolific in YT shorts taking the Ideological administration fronted by Trump to task. Pointing out that a first year econ student with three weeks would know the fallacy of composition he is deploying wrt Tariffs – name given to taxes – of which at the end of the day American consumers pay for …
Also noting that business schools were ground zero for the share holder profits before anything else trope and self inflicted.
Its almost like burning down the house to destroy all the evidence of anti social maleficence, decades in the making from neoliberalism and its founders/funders.
A few posts ago someone commented that referrences to a scent of fascism in the air were alarmist and based on Trump doing nothing more/worse than prior DemParty Administrations had done. I can’t remember who or when.
Here is an interesting post that Kennedy’s announcement of creating a “registry of Americans with autism” was inspired to offer. Fascism in the air? Mere alarmism? Here is the link.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MurderedByWords/comments/1k65731/this_doesnt_match_what_he_said_a_few_days_ago/
Could have very well been me.
I was trying, and not only once, articulate that we need space for escalatory levels in the discourse.
If everything Trump has been doing now is suddenly fascism – while what we had just 6 months earlier, or 6 years, or 16 years was no fascism, and with that everything that the ultimate bearer of fascism has been committing – Nazi Germany – is fascism too?
How do we differentiate the systems of power, if Trump 2.0 is fascism, if the USA now is Chile under Pinochet, is Guatemala under Rios Montt, is Germany under Hitler?
How do we address and discuss the things that are happening and that are not happening. And how do we distinguish between spoken and written words and deeds?
For instance those establishment forces in Europe who would immediately sign on the notion it´s fascism now, would probably say Germany would fall under the spell of fascism too with an AfD government. Yet they would never admit that then the EU is a fascist regime as much.
EU has been paying billions to North African dictatorships and authoritarian governments to take in immigrants who have been pushed back or held back putting them into concentration camp like areas or essentially killing them by driving them into the desert to die there of thirst and hunger.
They built up a military high-tech force called Frontex to drive people back into the open sea causing thousands of dead (2014-2023 20k / 2000-2017 34k). The EU uses Hungarian, Greek or Italian state force to achieve all this. In order to keep their own hands clean. Countries they openly despise and sanction or call undemocratic.
The fact that the EU – as Conor described in his Italy piece yesterday – plans to additionally install such extra-legal bases on European soil in Albania is no change to the essential lawlessness we have witnessed for decades.
The US has killed at least 6mn people since 2001 in one war of aggression after another (with Hitler doing the same, which since then has been defined as the biggest war crime of all by international law with Nuremberg and the UN thereof).
With that, yes I would still suggest that part and parcel of fascism is widespread use of brutal force to intimidate, terrorize, torture and kill the people. Without the ultimate use of material force there is no fascism.
The pundits´ easy use of the word as of late I find in part intellectual laziness or misled activism. I very well understand the points. But language has to be treated carefully as much as “the rabble”, i.e. the electorate, has to be treated in an adult and transparent manner.
What happened to the term authoritarian? I hate the idiotic “illiberal democracy” but nobody uses it except on Hungary and Russia. A propos Russians – if I hear Chris Hedges – who I have the highest respect for – describes Russia as a fascist system – then the entire “narrative” spin unravels.
Without question RFK has no competence in the area he has been entrusted with and could do much more harm than he – possibly? – is actually aware of. (Or he is, I have not followed the man´s actions. We have enough insane with executive power walking around in Berlin.)
However keep in mind what the Nazis did to those disabled kids: They used them as guinea pigs and then killed them. Is RFK now Mengele?
Talk about Nazis, fascism and fog horns – is this really necessary or helpful for the cause?
p.s. The Swedes were no role model on eugenics btw since WWII. But nobody would call them fascist today.
A great loss for the painterly artists and musical Midwest. Me thinks the 1900’s Midwestern artists, the regionalists like Grant Wood and Thomas Hart Benton and Charles Marion Russel and same would be much disheartened to hear this news.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCI1JbHT8vc
From an earlier time not that long ago, from 8 years ago, before the whatever happened.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JG-iWz-2vs
A great loss for the artistic and musical composers in the Midwest. Me thinks the 1900’s Midwestern artists and composers, the regionalists like Grant Wood and Thomas Hart Benton and Charles Marion Russel and same would be much disheartened to hear this news.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCI1JbHT8vc
From an earlier time not that long ago, from 8 years ago, before the whatever happened.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JG-iWz-2vs
Thank you for this story Flora. Beautiful pictures of the prairie in there. We are talking about leaving Florida and removing to the Kansas City area. This somewhat eases my concern.
I feel uneasy about living next to the ‘Great American Desert’ in a time of climactic upheaval and even more about living in or near a big metropolis with the epidemic potential. I enjoy the clean air from the gulf and would probably miss it greatly, but life here, even in a smaller town, is just as dependent on the infrastructure to support it as that found in any big city.
Let me add a name to your list of regional artists: John Steuart Curry, born in Kansas. Curry’s sister’s husband was Stan Fike, Stu Symington’s AA and a man whose integrity and concern for the public good is very scarce in D.C. these days.
2 x JACOBIN
How Mayor Fiorello La Guardia Transformed New York City
by Joshua B. Freeman
Zohran Mamdani’s unexpectedly popular campaign is raising the question of what a socialist might accomplish as mayor of NYC. To answer it, it’s worth looking back on the successful mayoralty of ambitious New Dealer Fiorello La Guardia.
https://jacobin.com/2025/04/fiorello-la-guardia-nyc-mayor
How the UFC Went MAGA
by Jacob Debets
MMA used to be home to oddballs unified by a love of beating each other up inside cages. But since Donald Trump’s first presidency, the UFC has rebranded the sport as a refuge for the “anti-woke sports fan,” while breaking unions and censoring the media.
https://jacobin.com/2025/04/ufc-maga-free-speech-censorship
A medical expert named Tony Attwood has been talking about gender-specific hurdles to recognizing autism in girls, for 6 or 7 years now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfOHnt4PMFo
https://www.attwoodandgarnettevents.com/blogs/news/how-to-recognise-autism-in-girls