Links 4/28/2025

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1. The Rev Kev April 28, 2025 at 7:15 am

   “Scoop: Trump admin game-planning for potential North Korea talks”

   With all that Trump has got on his plate, why would he decided to expand to North Korea now? Isn’t the China trade war, the Ukraine, DOGE and Gaza enough? Does he want a deal where he will swap lifting some sanctions – maybe – in exchange for North Korea not supplying military material to Russia? Maybe he wants an easy win with North Korea like he got the first time he was President so that he can finally get a win on the board. If he is going to pick so many fights, he should sequence them instead of all at once. in any case, are the North Koreans even interested?

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2. ChrisFromGA April 28, 2025 at 7:21 am

   Re: Trump wants Ukraine-Russia peace deal in ‘2 weeks or less’

   And in other news, I want a rainbow-colored pony.

   When the pony fairy is a no-show, what will he do about it? Call up Mike “Swamp Stooge” Johnson and get the band back together for one more aid package? Close the US Embassy in Kiev? Call up Starmer and tell him to stop undermining peace or else “big tariffs on Britain?”

   Take a good, deep whiff, Donald … that’s the smell of manure, and there isn’t a pony nearby.

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   1. The Rev Kev April 28, 2025 at 7:58 am

      You notice that Trump has changed his tune. He said a few weeks ago that the war will be solved by the end of the month or the US walks. Now he is waffling and saying a coupla weeks more – for now. The US will never leave the Ukraine and after all the weapons and money that Biden allocated to the Ukraine before going out the door have run out, Trump will have to go to Congress and ask for tens of billions of dollars more for the Ukraine. This is something that he will not be able to do by Executive Order and his MAGA base is going to be seriously unhappy.

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      1. Michael Fiorillo April 28, 2025 at 12:38 pm

         And so what if they’re unhappy? Most of them at any given moment are eager to deflect away from Trump and punch down; it’s what they’ve been conditioned to do, just as D’s hyperventilate at the thought of Putin/Russia. While that may not be the case for those who voted for him more casually and put him over the top, it’s definitely so with his hard-core base.

         Passively waiting for MAGA to repudiate Trump for his inevitable contradictions/lies/screwing his base is a losing game. They’ll hate you more for pointing out Trump’s lies than they will hate him for f#*^ing them over.

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         1. ChrisFromGA April 28, 2025 at 3:49 pm

            I have to agree – if Trump rolls out the ninety-ninth Ukraine aid package, spare change in the glove compartment edition, the MAGA world will shut up and salute.

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   2. ilsm April 28, 2025 at 8:33 am

      Trump wants a Minsk 3 where he, and his EU sycophants, will send arms, trainers and neo nazi war tourists while claiming he wants peace! Just as from 2014…… to now.

      Another operation in the “seize the heartland” Mackinderism of the Atkanticists.

      Lavrov did good on CBS!

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      1. NotTimothyGeithner April 28, 2025 at 9:06 am

         Trump wants a “win” where Russia plays like it surrendered. The GOP looks at the conflict through the lens of “liberals are French.”

         Minsk 3 won’t constitute a win in Trump’s mind. Euros ate hyperventilating about the Crimea proposal. The question isn’t about Crimea but what will be left of Ukraine. Trump’s promises were made with the cable news and meme assessment of the conflict.

         Trump has moved onto the “Putin is a meanie” phase of the conflict in a bid for sympathy. The only step left for this White House is to appoint Kamala Vance the Ukraine Czar.

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         1. urdsama April 28, 2025 at 9:25 am

            Crimea isn’t the real issue. Zelenskyy is. No way, no how does he go along with what Russia wants. He’ll alternate between sneering and groveling at Trump, because he fears death more than Trump.

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            1. The Rev Kev April 28, 2025 at 9:48 am

               Zelensky will never keep his end of a deal. Putin has declared a three day truce for Victory day but you just know that Zelenski will use it to hit civilian targets. Trump goes on about Putin hitting civilian targets but always forgets when the Ukraine does it-

               https://www.rt.com/russia/616431-putin-victory-day-ceasefire/

               In response, the Ukraine demanded a 30 day ceasefire-

               https://www.rt.com/russia/616440-ukraine-ceasefire-response/

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               1. Polar Socialist April 28, 2025 at 11:07 am

                  But what world sees is Russia declaring truces one after the another while Ukraine is demanding Crimea back. And more money. And more weapons.

                  The interesting part is that all over Europe people are celebrating, or at least commemorating, the Victory in Europe Day, so it will be really, really difficult for Zelensky not to respect the truce, for that would be significant propaganda victory for Russia, already insisting on his regime being “ethno-nationalist”.

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      2. marku52 April 28, 2025 at 3:09 pm

         I watched about half of that. Lavrov is one very patient man, tho you can see he almost loses it a couple of times. “Cant’ you recognize I am not going to give you internal details of secret negotiations? You moron?”

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   3. Glen April 28, 2025 at 10:31 am

      All crazy wants aside, I really regret how all Presidents get pillared by the American MSM for finally withdrawing from losing wars. Biden took a huge hit for finally getting out of Afghanistan when in reality it was long overdue. Plus it would be nice if the MSM could just for once even hint that the Ukraine war was obviously provoked over a long period of time. Do those corporate types realize how successful a real functional MSM that kept Americans better informed would be?

      But alas, these will remain my wants…

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      1. Procopius April 29, 2025 at 9:28 am

         95% of the MSM are owned by six corporations. The people who run such corporations are not interested in what we would consider “success.”

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3. Michaelmas April 28, 2025 at 7:38 am

   Let me recommend the Nefarious Russians piece, ‘Too Hot To Work’ to NC readers who think they mightn’t be particularly interested in such matters.

   The author starts thoughtfully with the fact that she’s seeing among younger American the repetition of a social phenomenon she first observed among Russian women in the Yeltsin years, then widens the lens on the corollaries from there. And she’s quite correct.

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   1. DJG, Reality Czar April 28, 2025 at 8:27 am

      Michaelmas: I agree. Evgenia’s essay at Nefarious Russians is worth a read.

      There is a certain twist to it, and it is interesting to follow Evgenia’s logic — and most of the essay is tightly argued, which is her style. The vogue for Too Hot to Work and tradwives is something that she saw in Russia as it was being looted by predatory capitalists, including peeps from the U S of A.

      This summation gives one pause: “I think Russia having lived through societal collapse and going full barbarism and cannibalism in the aftermath of this collapse, is a good example of where this THTW sentiment logically leads you.”

      This observation is important: “I feel like I have to state the obvious — the majority of women throughout history have always worked.” In particular, U.S. bourgeois feminists don’t understand women who worked in arts, crafts, agriculture, in workshops, as weavers, as lacemakers, as potters as being women who worked. The U.S. definition of work is very limited — only the marketing department does work, eh. So she isn’t stating the obvious — at least not to Americans.

      A few years ago, I read Anu Partanen’s book / essay, The Nordic Theory of Everything. Partanen made many observations much like the closing paragraphs of Evgenia’s essay: Only a socialist society can free men and women from the misery of capitalist amoralism, greed, and pointlessness — from the idiocy of daily life in late capitalism.

      https://www.anupartanen.com/the-nordic-theory-of-everything/

      Unfortunately, Partanen, likely under the influence of HarperCollins and it marketing department, seems to spend much time denying that Finland (her home country) is socialist. Yet her description in her book of U.S. women and their anxieties about marriage (he’s got to make a lot of money) and childbirth (who can afford to have a kid?) fits in very well with Evgenia’s statement that only socialism can correct the relationships between people.

      PS: I’m not sure that I understand Evgenia’s obsession with incels. These seem to me to be semi-mythical creatures like Gollum. Surely incels are not determining U.S. culture and economic policy.

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      1. Polar Socialist April 28, 2025 at 9:12 am

         Partanen is about as MSM as journalists come, so I wouldn’t be surprised she feels she has to prove, especially to US audience, that a society designed to support it’s members is not socialist, but individualist (maybe even a bit libertarian, if you please).

         That said, Finland with it’s current right-wing government is on a fast lane to a semi-dystopian “nanny-state” where social security is scarce and comes with humiliating treatment and strings attached.

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         1. Kouros April 28, 2025 at 4:17 pm

            David Graeber and David Wentworth describe in their : The Dawn of Everything book certain aspects of social organization in many indigenous tribes in North America, with the focus on how that organization allowed the florishing of individuals, kind of a libertarian/socialist type…

            As for poor Finland:
            https://www.tradingview.com/news/invezz:d11abf34c094b:0-the-untold-story-of-how-broken-finland-s-economy-is/

            “Global geopolitical conflicts and supply chain disruptions have taken a toll on the country’s main revenue sources.” This is the closest one gets to the actual truth, that Finnish governments have decided to slit their throats and forswear any normal relation with Russia

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      2. t April 28, 2025 at 9:56 am

         Incels aren’t really about sex or lack of, it’s a contemporary brand of “libertarian” thought with the added contradiction that women, and girls as young as 13, are one of the things that should magically be available to the right kind of man – like wealth and respect for his intellect.

         Sad for otherwise normal guys who get hung up in why they are not having all the sex until they turn themselves into miserable monsters that no woman wants.

         On another side of it, a lot of the 20s kids I know don’t have much sex but they do have a lot of friends of every flavor. If they are having sex, it’s in a stable relationship with someone they met in high school or shortly after. Anecdotally very different than me and my friends at that age.

         Someone is using the apps though.

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   2. The Rev Kev April 28, 2025 at 9:07 am

      She certainly has a bee in her bonnet about tradwives but there is another category that I call tradewives that should be mentioned. When I go to Bunnings – a local hardware chain – I see them sometimes. They are there buying building materials for their partners and sometimes they have young kids in tow. They appear to be competent and know what they are looking for. You can have wives in partnership with their partners and not just stay at home mums. You sometimes see this sort of relationship on some of those home renovation programs. And more that a few times I have come across historical references where the guy would be running a business while the wife would be doing the books and even the negotiating. There are other possibilities.

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      1. Michaelmas April 28, 2025 at 9:13 am

         There’s a spectrum of possibilities, yes.

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      2. Michaelmas April 28, 2025 at 9:23 am

         Rev Kev: You can have wives in partnership with their partners

         There’s a spectrum of possibilities, yes.

         But regarding the general theme, I just read an LRB piece whose concluding words are to the point:-

         ‘Today’s builders of Babel tell us that there is no room for losers, and that those who fall along the way are losers,’ Francis wrote in his last meditations on Good Friday. ‘Theirs is the construction site of Hell.’

         https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n08/james-butler/on-pope-francis

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      3. Vandemonian April 28, 2025 at 2:35 pm

         “… buying building materials for their partners…”

         Are you sure about that, Rev? Often when I see these no-nonsense ladies in Bunnings I get the sense that the sisters are doing it for themselves.

         I’ve been doing a bit of outside painting lately (ours is a 50s house in constant need of TLC). I was chatting to a neighbor in the street about how the work was progressing. He told me that painting is his least favourite job. His wife does all of that. Scraping back, filling, sanding, primer, undercoat, topcoat. She loves it, and he just leaves her to it.

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      4. Kouros April 28, 2025 at 4:27 pm

         Kind of like my wify, who’s stay at home and likes it. But as an extremely crafty person, that can easily fix a computer or figure out software problems, bake the turkey, or paint the house from top to bottom, or deal with a rebellious teenager daughter, or many other things related with arts and crafts, she is quite the philosopher working at home queen…

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   3. Eclair April 28, 2025 at 12:00 pm

      Definitely an interesting piece, and spot on with her deprecation of the US’s inability (unwillingness?) to provide low cost/free at point of service, child care, child and maternal heath care, mandated months of maternity leave (for both parents),etc. Even the Nordic states and France have done a better job. (Well, they haven’t had to pay for their ‘defense’ but that’s gonna change!)

      I think she is incorrect in stating that women could not have bank accounts until the 1970’s. I opened a bank account in the 1940’s, under a program with the school and the local bank. I also opened my own checking account in the early 1960’s. She may be confusing a bank account with a mortgage: before 1974, women could not hold a mortgage in their own name.

      And the federally funded child care programs were, I believe, associated with defense factories or in cities that had a lot of defense work (like New London, Connecticut.) I spent the first four years of my life mainly with my maternal grandparents, while my mother worked as a nurse and my father worked in the municipal utility company.

      And, as soon as the ‘boys’ (as well as some ‘girls:’ my aunt was a WAVE,), it was back to the kitchen for most women (except for the really poor ones who had to work) and to the joys of vacuuming in high heels and pearls! And, persuading masses of women to drop their ambitions for a career, leaves those spots open for all those unemployed, or underemployed, men out there. Maybe.

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      1. Yves Smith April 28, 2025 at 2:42 pm

         That is not correct.

         I personally know a woman who got a mortgage in Connecticut in 1971. The bank told her they didn’t want to give it to her but could see no reason not to (it was for investment; she had inherited $ independent of her husband). She did small commercial developments and renos.

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         1. Eclair April 29, 2025 at 7:43 am

            Another example of incorrect information on the internet! My searches stated 1974 for mortgages for women … before that they would have to have their husband as co-signer, or at least give ‘permission.’ And, I do remember hearing about this date for years; I tried to get a mortgage in the late ’70’s and was denied. But, in 1985, I had no problems.

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4. The Rev Kev April 28, 2025 at 7:51 am

   “US treasury secretary says ‘there is a path’ with China over tariff negotiations”

   ‘The Chinese will see this high tariff level is unsustainable for their business,’ says Scott Bessent’

   The only path that Bessent will accept is for the Chinese to buckle and accept his demands. Not sure but I think that Bessent was one of the rocket scientists behind the tariffs scheme. Of course over time the shelves at places like Walmart and target will get empty which will be hard for the admin to explain away. After a meeting with Trump, the CEOs begged the Chinese to keep on shipping goods as they realize that this will happen and make Trump look bad. I don’t think that Bessent has worked out yet that the US economy needs China more than China need the US so probably the Chinese will bite the bullet and wait the Trump admin out – as supplies run down and then run out.

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   1. griffen April 28, 2025 at 9:10 am

      He was featured over the weekend and appeared again today in the 8am hour on CNBC. The administration seems to fervently believe the US has still the upper hand, as the bounty of goods that China exports to here is so dramatically greater than the amount the US exports to there.

      Hey they’re just all playing checkers and the US is playing dimensional chess. Remit the tributes required and find agreement so that the spice will flow! Not sarcasm, unfortunately. It’s late April, I wonder what the big shopping events of the second half in 2025 will bring?

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   2. Michaelmas April 28, 2025 at 9:39 am

      Not sure but I think that Bessent was one of the rocket scientists behind the tariffs scheme.

      Bessent and Miran. If you haven’t, you should read the latter’s little manifesto ‘Rebooting the Global Economy.’

      The Chinese, in any case, have every incentive not to drop their tariffs and sanctions once the US comes bleating and threatening and pleading, on the basis that the US began the aggression in the first place and now they, the Chinese, will finish it. Boeing can survive for only months without Chinese parts and materials, and then COMAC will have the global aerospace market with Airbus.

      And so it will go in other industries and realms. US hegemony is done, kaput, finished. Maybe even the country itself, too.

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   3. Unironic Pangloss April 28, 2025 at 9:52 am

      Bessent really comes across as smarmy, smug, and intractable on sunday TV…..

      congrats my brothers, you did it…, a gay man (didn’t ask, don’t care, but it got shoved in my face by the media regardless) can be as asinine as any cis-white male!

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5. timbers April 28, 2025 at 8:32 am

   Russia wants guarantees that a ceasefire will not be used again to strengthen the Ukrainian Armed Forces and that arms supplies must stop.

   I hope Lavrov Putin and Russians have observed as I have, that Trump has exerted zero pressure on Europe and only pretend pressure on Ukraine to fall in line with US Imperial policy being formulated by the WH regarding its fake peace plan. That’s a big tell. Because when the Europeans rebelled against the start of project Ukraine (which was clearly against their own interests) around the time Obama imposed sanctions on Russia, Saint Obama and his angels gave the Euros a talking to and they folded into line but quick. So presumably Trump could do this too, but has not. So Russia I hope understands these peace fantasies are just that – fantasies. Because Trump has not lifted a figure to get the Euro puppets in line. I don’t even think he is very much aware his puppets are in rebellion. And if the Russians know this, they must also never agree to fake pretend Western peace offers and Trumps actions are misdirection and nothing more.

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   1. The Rev Kev April 28, 2025 at 8:44 am

      I saw that line too about guarantees too. But that Trump peace plan allows the Ukrainians to build up their army again and have the west supply them with everything that they can. I don’t think that the Russians will go for that. And like you say, Trump hasn’t lifted a finger to bring the EU into line. When he tried to put together a Black Sea grain deal 2.0 together, the EU straight away said that they would never honour it and Trump folded like a cheap, lawn-deck chair.

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   2. ilsm April 28, 2025 at 8:54 am

      Trump needs to worry about NK, with its nukes, becoming a Pacific Rim version of Kiev.

      Russia could do for NK what Obama, Trump, Biden and Trump 2.0 are doing against it, with no restraint since the CIA/Nuland/ISW Kiev coup.

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   3. urdsama April 28, 2025 at 9:39 am

      I see nothing from Lavrov or Putin that is different from before. They know that the US is agreement incapable, and the Ukraine even less so.

      They also know that there are multiple red lines that look perfectly acceptable based on the Ukraine’s losing position, but will be completely unacceptable to Zelenskyy and most likely Trump as well.

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   4. Aurelien April 28, 2025 at 10:30 am

      As a European, I have to say I don’t remember any of that. The main impulse has always come from European leaders, who were frightened, after 2008 and especially after 2014, of a revanchist Russia expanding westwards when their own defence capabilities were rapidly disappearing. It was an article of faith in western governments (and still is) that Putin was seeking to re-establish Greater Russia, if not the old Soviet Union. (All this is public knowledge by the way and extensively documented.)

      From the mid-2000s as I recall, Ukraine was seen as the main obstacle to potential Russian expansion, and it was a major foreign policy priority for the EU and European nations. The Europeans got a bad fright in 2014 with the fighting in the Donbas, when they concluded that the UA was too weak to hold off Russia, and that quite quickly the Russian Army could be on the borders of Poland. Thus Minsk, which was designed to stop a war that they thought Ukraine was losing, and buy time for a strengthening of its defences against the expected next Russian attack, which duly came in 2022. The aim was never a war with Russia, which could have unforeseeable and potentially disastrous consequences, but to make Ukraine an impregnable forward defence line for Europe. Getting Ukraine into NATO was seen as a way of manipulating the United States, as Europeans have done for generations now, into providing a strategic counterweight, since a Russian attack on Ukraine could not then be ignored by Washington. Again, this was all said at length by western leaders, at the time and afterwards.

      Thus, European leaders are now frightened stiff. The defensive barrier is coming apart, they will soon be faced with an angry, resentful and much more powerful Russia without the means to counter it, and the United States looks as though it will do the bilateral deal with Russia that has terrified Europe since the 1940s. European leaders do not believe the Russians can be trusted to observe any treaty, which is why they were desperately hoping for an unambiguous military defeat.

      Now, you can argue that these assessments were wrong in the first place (I would) and you can also argue that the whole situation since 2014 has been handles disastrously by the Europeans and West in general, and I would agree. But we are where we are, and this is what Europeans think and thought, and somehow we Europeans have to find a way out of this shambles.

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      1. The Rev Kev April 28, 2025 at 10:53 am

         To be honest I do not think that the present crop of European leaders is up to the job or ever will be. Compared to previous leaders, they are not even the B team and seem incapable of changing their minds. Can you imagine what it would be like if the EU had their very own Lavrov in their ranks negotiating with Russia? Instead that have Kaya Kallas who is so hopeless that the EU is keeping her away from any negotiations to do with Russia as she cannot be trusted to stuff things up. Regretfully Europe is going to have to go through a lot more before you finally get some pragmatic leadership in place. Maybe that is why the Russians have said that they are wiping Europe for the next thirty years.

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      2. JohnA April 28, 2025 at 11:29 am

         Putin has repeatedly stated Russia is the largest country in the world, why would it want to become even bigger? Plus, he suggested early in his presidency that maybe Russia could join Nato, but obviously Nato needs a defined enemy to justify its existence so the answer was no. All through the Cold War years, the west played up the so called communist threat against western Europe, that was overdriven.
         Any rational analysis would suggest the west was far bigger a threat to the east than vice versa. Even to the point of gladio type terrorism in Italy and Greece to subdue potential communists coming to power. The hysteria in Sweden about Soviet, and later Russian, submarines in the Stockholm archipelago was shown to be nato inspired and there were far more naval and air encroachments in the then neutral Swedish space by Nato vessels. But all this is ignored be western mainstream media that are happy to propagandise on behalf of their political masters.

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      3. vao April 28, 2025 at 11:57 am

         This is a compelling argument — if limited to the context of EU-Ukraine-Russia.

         However, simultaneously to all those moves and counter-moves around Ukraine, the EU has also, for as long a time, been playing (not too coherent) games in Georgia and Armenia — which are not at all in the correct geographic path leading to the conquest of Europe by Russia.

         Therefore, beyond fearing an expansionary Russia that would encroach their realm, Europe seems to have been playing deliberately offensive, not defensive, games in Russia’s near-abroad — in regions that neither belong to Europe, nor to the formal zone of NATO interest. And I strongly suspect this was also the case in Ukraine.

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      4. pjay April 28, 2025 at 12:11 pm

         – “The main impulse has always come from European leaders, who were frightened, after 2008 and especially after 2014, of a revanchist Russia expanding westwards when their own defence capabilities were rapidly disappearing…”

         – “… Getting Ukraine into NATO was seen as a way of manipulating the United States, as Europeans have done for generations now, into providing a strategic counterweight, since a Russian attack on Ukraine could not then be ignored by Washington. Again, this was all said at length by western leaders, at the time and afterwards…”

         You have expressed this view many times. At one level it is certainly true. Today’s European “leaders” certainly seem hysterically fearful of Russian expansion and also of the reduction of the US commitment to the Atlantic alliance. But going back a bit further, I recall European leaders – in Western Europe, if not in the East — who were much less fearful of Russia and much more willing to bring the Russians into the Western orbit, especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Some of them joined with knowledgeable US officials in urging caution with regard to NATO expansion in the 1990s. Such leadership in the “West” has now certainly disappeared. But I have a hard time believing that anti-Russian hysteria among West European political leaders has always been the main impulse behind NATO expansion.

         But my main problem with your perspective is your suggestion, stated here and in other comments, that the US has always been a reluctant participant in the Atlantic Alliance that has had to be tricked or “manipulated” into its dominant role. I won’t speak to the diverse motives of European nations and their leadership in this history. But I am certain of the *central* role of the US, or more accurately of factions of the US military and foreign policy elite, along with like-minded European officials, in pushing NATO expansion, along with a variety of overt and covert destabilizing actions, from the moment of Soviet collapse. And this is especially true for the history of the Ukrainian conflict which is now used as a self-fulfilling prophecy by those Putin-degranged European leaders. This US role is also a matter of public knowledge and quite extensively documented. I’m sure my view is one-sided as well. But rather than see the current morass as mainly the result of a paranoid European leadership, I see this paranoia as mainly an ideological tool for a long-term US/NATO project aimed at Russian containment or balkanization. I’m not saying these fears did not exist, but I do not see them as the primary cause, at all, of the present European conflict.

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         1. Aurelien April 28, 2025 at 12:58 pm

            I don’t disagree at all that the western attitude to Russia has gone through various stages, and historians will argue about this for decades. At the end of the Cold War the general feeling was of total shock, disbelief and disorientation. As you quite rightly say, there was little thought of NATO expansion at the time, and many voices arguing against it. For much of the nineties, NATO and the West in general were obsessed with other things, notably the Balkans, Iraq, WMD proliferation, endless NATO restructuring and reform, and indeed finding a rationale for NATO’s future at all. To the extent that Russia figured in the calculations, it was as a weak, divided country which was nonetheless moving in a western direction, and was only dangerous insofar as it might break up completely.

            NATO enlargement was not a planned process, indeed I always tell people not to use “plan” and “NATO” in the same sentence. Anyone with personal involvement with the organisation would chuckle at the idea that NATO is capable of harbouring anything long-term. International organisations don’t work like that, in my experience. It was a complex process which served a whole host of agendas at the same time, even if those agendas were sometimes conflicting. And it wasn’t one decision, but a series of ad hoc fixes, where nobody really knew whether this or that country would be the last to join. As well as the security interest of the countries concerned, both vis-a-vis their large neighbour and each other, there was the very survival of an organisation that most nations thought was useful, the US desire to have a continued voice in European security issues, the European desire to keep the US engaged and many other things. The result was a process which had very little internal logic: was it reasonable that Poland had a security guarantee against Ukraine, for example? What did that even mean? Where would you stop? After all, as a Foreign Office colleague remarked, taken to its logical conclusion this would give NATO a border with China. But to those of us who expressed such doubts, the answers were firstly, that any such crisis was a long way away, and secondly if the Russians didn’t like it, there wasn’t much they could do.

            It’s useful to distinguish between a common plan and a common purpose. There were factions in many NATO countries from the beginning that were violently hostile to Russia, and wanted to see the country destroyed. There were others who were suspicious but were prepared to give coexistence a chance. I don’t doubt that there were some, between 2014 and 2022 who at least in theory would have welcomed some type of confrontation, and indeed many who must have rubbed their hands three years ago, thinking that the fall of Putin was imminent. But in practice the West was genuinely taken by surprise and caught completely unprepared for an actual conflict, because the actual policy adopted had been one of suspicion and hostility and, let’s be clear, fear less of Russian power as such than western weakness. The Europeans in particular had elected to give up their massive military machine of the Cold War and focus tiny armed forces on out-of-area operations. To the extent that Russia had even been thought of, it was not a significant factor, and thus the shock was even greater. Whether you or I find the fears and hostility of European leaders a decade or more ago justified or reasonable isn’t really the point: absent a time machine, we have to live with their consequences.

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            1. upstater April 28, 2025 at 2:08 pm

               Glenn Diesen’s interview yesterday “Col. Lawrence Wilkerson: Washington’s Rivalries, Coups, Wars & Cover-Ups” on YouTube somewhat contradicts your recollections.

               Wilkerson, of course, had a seat at the table in the 90s and was Powell’s chief of staff. He retains contemporary contacts. His contention is NATO expansion was a neocon strategic priority from the collapse of the USSR culminating in the 2008 commitments to Ukraine and Georgia and the current war. And don’t forget Nuland’s bragging about spending $5B helping Ukraine transition into a vassal. That was n a long running program with very deep roots.

               The YouTube is worth a listen. I learned many new things.

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               1. Polar Socialist April 28, 2025 at 4:34 pm

                  Already in 1990-92 USA was really scared that Europeans would come up with a new security arrangement that did not include USA. There’s a plethora of documents, interviews and articles showing that already Bush administration was working hard to keep NATO – and USA – relevant in Europe. And that NATO should expand, at some point (when Yeltsin was drunk enough to not notice or protest).

                  Many expected after the Cold War that multipolar world would replace the post-WW2 bipolar world, but USA wanted a monopolar world and NATO was the tool of choice.

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            2. Kouros April 28, 2025 at 4:43 pm

               An interesting interview with Col. Jacques Baud in which I found a bit of interesting and new information (for me) about why Russia, in its twodocuments sent to US and NATO in Dec 2021 refer to the withdrawal to 1997 of NATO installations. It was not on a whim…

               https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ak5V5D7oWJw

               From the good colonel, who also was a bit in the thick of it, the situation looks a bit different.

               Reply ↓
      5. OIFVet April 28, 2025 at 3:36 pm

         I don’t believe that the current EU establishment can find its way out of a perfectly straight highway tunnel even with a flashlight, compass and turn-by-turn GPS navigation.

         Reply ↓
   5. Kouros April 28, 2025 at 4:32 pm

      Trump has done the same with Israel to have ceasfire for his coronation. For that then the Israelis got a blank check on conducting their little genocide/ethnic cleansing campaign…

      Reply ↓
6. Patrick Donnelly April 28, 2025 at 8:42 am

   Citizens and workers are assets.
   So why are they being degraded in the UK and USA?

   Reply ↓
   1. Terry Flynn April 28, 2025 at 10:18 am

      Speaking personally here in ultra-marginal part of UK, people like Starmer don’t like us to understand the most important issues like class. They’d rather put up a gay candidate (who I see straight through being gay myself) and carry on “Third Way” policies that would make even Adam Smith furious, him being anti-rentier.

      Had to go out (fully masked) to get urgent stuff for mum earlier and despite feeling awful. People at bus stop have NO time for Starmer (“liar”) or Reform (“bigoted racist” alleged from the black woman I spoke to) or Tories (“never touch them again”) or Lib Dems (“hypocrites in favour of land owners” who lose their deposit round here because we remember). Greens have sympathy but their muddled manifesto won’t get them far.

      I told the very angry people at bus stop not to stay home but go spoil their ballot like I will. Wish we had compulsory voting like in Australia.

      Reply ↓
   2. jsn April 28, 2025 at 3:02 pm

      NeoLiberalism, with Lamberts two rules (1. because markets, 2. go die) is what happened when Liberalism found itself without a counter model with the collapse of Soviet Communism.

      Prior to that, 15-40 years before the collapse, Liberals watched the USSR sustain startling growth and educational / scientific achievement. This disciplining effect forced Liberals, against their better instincts, to view workers as assets, and popular living standards as a legitimizing achievement to waive against left political criticisms.

      The disintegration of the Soviet Union coincided with the ascent of the post war generations in the US who had no recollection of our vast debt to the Soviets in WW2 and had bought into the Powell Memo / Reagan Thatcher project to re-brand greed as the only Public Good, legitimizing the privatization of all other erstwhile public goods. The spreadsheet, because it represented money, the only suitably infinite measure of infinite greed, became the reality the system pursued and Citizens, reduced to consumers, became a feedstock for the spreadsheets, and from there, once maximum profit has been extracted, reduced again to “useless eaters”. The nihilism manifest by those accusing those who resist them of nihilism may be the final irony. So, here we are.

      Reply ↓
      1. Terry Flynn April 28, 2025 at 3:27 pm

         I have a LOT of sympathy with your view. Yet may I recount an anecdote from around 1987 during last days of Yugoslavia when I visited what is now Croatia as part of school trip?

         We found graffiti. We knew enough to know this was someone trying to work out a chemistry homework problem on a disused door. Of course it had rude pics too. But we went “wow these guys know at least as much as us”. We were humbled. And truly sad when Dubrovnik got shelled a few years later.

         Several of us began to question whether you could have money or credit income as part of semi socialised system. Interestingly we were all star trek fans. Draw what conclusions you want.

         Reply ↓
         1. jsn April 28, 2025 at 4:12 pm

            In my experience, the Eastern Block maintained it’s educational quality right to the end.

            Ironically I know a dozen or so Eastern Block scientist between 45 & 60 now who work at Renaissance Technologies, theoretical mathematicians, a couple of physicists, behavioral and biological scientists, most had taught at the Ivys here from which Jim Simons recruited them. Spreadsheet nihilism is difficult to resist in the West on an academic salary!

            If my comment implied educational standards fell with the Eastern Block, I don’t know if they have since the collapse, but in my experience they certainly hadn’t before.

            Reply ↓
            1. Munchausen April 29, 2025 at 6:40 am

               Educational standards were holding well enough that “Bologna” had to be forced in order to put them down.
               https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bologna_Process

               On a related news,
               Russia pushes ahead with switch away from Bologna system
               https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20230518145828664

               Reply ↓
      2. Kouros April 28, 2025 at 4:46 pm

         Just in time for the competition with China, eh?!

         Reply ↓
         1. jsn April 28, 2025 at 6:04 pm

            Yeah, and the moron, sociopath winners of Neoliberalism are running the show!

            Their life experience is all the proof they need that reality can be forced to conform to their spreadsheets. That this has worked till now has taught them that is how things are, oblivious that their “success” has been the looting, dismembering, or export of all the real capacities they believe they can now conjure through excel.

            Yes, China now offers a counter example, but the leadership the Market State has purchased is incapable of perceiving it through the dense wall of its own cupidity and racism.

            Reply ↓
7. Patrick Donnelly April 28, 2025 at 8:44 am

   To catch up with China …. yes, catch up, what does the West need to do?
   Cull parasites and their corporate weapons?

   Reply ↓
8. VTDigger April 28, 2025 at 8:44 am

   whoa: https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/04/28/spain-portugal-and-parts-of-france-hit-by-massive-power-outage

   Iberia, meet Cuba?

   Reply ↓
   1. DJG, Reality Czar April 28, 2025 at 9:58 am

      VTDigger: We will have to await a report from Ignacio.

      Meanwhile, thinking of Barcelona, and its endless problems with AirBnB, I pick up this line from Fatto Quotidiano’s article: “Difficoltà, invece, si registrano anche per i pagamenti contactless per quasi tutti circuiti bancari e per le centinaia di migliaia di turisti ospiti di bed&breakfast con i cancelli automatizzati.”

      No payments. Lots of peeps locked in or out of their short-term rentals.

      I suppose this means that Glovo is out of action for the day. That’s a darn shame, too.

      Reply ↓
   2. Kouros April 28, 2025 at 4:49 pm

      Nope, it is the climate change…

      NC posted this last Saturday, just in time to explain the blackout…

      https://phys.org/news/2025-04-hot-cold-sudden-flips-temperature.html

      Reply ↓
9. Henry Moon Pie April 28, 2025 at 8:50 am

   National Forest equines–

   After trying corporate law as a summer clerk in a large law firm back in my K. C. point of origin and being thoroughly disillusioned during another summer clerkship for a union general counsel in D. C., I headed for the hills, rather the Sangre de Cristos of northern New Mexico. After passing the bar, I put up my abogado shingle and took whatever walked in the door. Before long, in walked two young fellows needing representation; they had been charged in state court with burro rustling from the National Forest.

   Now these burros were wild, not like the pack and riding animals of the story in Links, and the feds didn’t really give damn, but the local DA was convinced that this family, which had four grown brothers living at home in the family compound, was responsible for a large portion of the crime in that part of the county, so when Benji and Alfred were caught with these burros, the DA was ready to use this as a way to get Benji back in prison. We had a preliminary hearing, my first, in the little courthouse in Mora. The judge was a local guy who had graduated from Georgetown Law School, and he was very sympathetic to my clients. Despite my inexperience, he found a way to dismiss the charges–pretty bizarre for a prelim–and the brothers went on their way.

   I ended up defending another brother in my first jury trial about a year later. He was charged in what was something of a local sport: driving around in a pickup firing shots at oncoming vehicles. And the targets were Tejanos with places at the local ski resort owned by Clinton pal and coke importer extraordinaire, Dan Lasater. Adding to the excitement of my first jury trial was the threat I received from the oldest brother, one of the burro rustlers, that I had better get his brother off or else. Thankfully, a highway patrol cop, who was the prosecution’s main witness, lied on the stand, and once I exposed him on cross, there was going to be no conviction. The jury hung 10-2 in favor of acquittal with two gringo ladies holding out. The case was eventually dsmissed.

   The older brother, Benji, came to a bad end. He had a sweet girlfriend, who was like a little mouse whenever I was around her. One night, after Benji came home drunk and passed out on the bed, she took the revolver he kept on the bed stand and shot him in the head. The burros of the Carson National Forest were safe once again.

   Reply ↓
   1. mrsyk April 28, 2025 at 11:46 am

      That tale is like listening to Townes Van Zandt or reading Cormac McCarthy. I’m left to wonder if the older brother had it coming. Was justice served? At what point in Benji’s life did his final act become unavoidable?
      Thanks H for the telling. Something to chew on while I’m cutting up the winter blowdowns in the back forty.

      Reply ↓
      1. Henry Moon Pie April 28, 2025 at 12:53 pm

         Benji had been in the state pen during a horrible prison riot. He was a pretty hard case. The brothers, not so much.

         Another case I had during that period involved a neighbor in his late seventies who had married a young woman in her twenties with the idea that she would cook and clean for him. Her idea was to inherit Manuel’s little house and 20 irrigated acres. When she found out that Manuel had already deeded the property to his nephews, she began to abuse the old fellow. One day, he showed up at our neighbor’s, and the neighbor brought him to me. After a big battle over a B&W, 13-inch TV, we finally got Nora out of Manuel’s house with the help of that same judge in the burro rustling case.

         Now all this time, Nora had a boyfriend. After she moved back in with him, things went south in that relationship too. Nora decided she was going to rid herself of the boyfriend, and she laid in wait in the attic of their small adobe with her child and a pistol. The adobes in Mora are not like the ones in Santa Fe. They’re simple structures with pine poles called vigas supporting a ceiling of rough cut 1X6s with mud layered on top for insulation. On top of that, a roof is laid consisting of more rough-cut 1X6s and corrugated tin. Somewhere in the house, there will be an opening used for access to the attic in combination with a ladder. Nora waited, looking down through that attic opening, pistol in hand.

         But she missed. The boyfriend got his rifle and proceeded to shoot up through the ceiling until he killed Nora. The child was miraculously unharmed.

         It’s an interesting area that Frank Waters wrote about in The People of the Valley. Set in the 1930s, the heroine is a bruja whose husband dies when he is honored by his Penitente by serving as the Cristo on Good Friday and things get a little carried away.

         Reply ↓
   2. cousinAdam April 28, 2025 at 1:00 pm

      Thanks, HMP! A fine antidote du jur for a funky Monday. The BEST Commentariat!

      Reply ↓
   3. Leftist Mole April 28, 2025 at 2:25 pm

      I applaud your story telling abilities!

      Reply ↓
10. timo maas April 28, 2025 at 9:22 am

    #IndianNavy Ships undertook successful multiple anti-ship firings to revalidate and demonstrate readiness of platforms, systems and crew for long range precision offensive strike.#IndianNavy stands #CombatReady #Credible and #FutureReady in safeguarding the nation’s maritime…
    — SpokespersonNavy (@indiannavy) April 27, 2025

    That’s BrahMos, hence the recognizable Oniks-like launch.

    Reply ↓
11. The Rev Kev April 28, 2025 at 9:26 am

    “Webb Telescope Reveals What Happens When a Planet Spirals Into Its Star’

    Hopefully there was nobody on that planet, especially with a sentient species. Worse yet if they did it themselves-

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUFtgep9sj4 (2:51 Mins)

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

    Reply ↓
12. Munchausen April 28, 2025 at 9:33 am

    Tanks rolling into Brussels’ downtown park on a sunny Sunday, right by the European Commission. What’s this military exhibition really about? Are we prepping for war or just showing off? Who’s the enemy—Russia, China, or some vague “threat”?
    — Eldar Mamedov (@EldarMamedov4) April 27, 2025

    Those are not tanks, but lightly armored wheeled vehicles. Useful against insurgents and civilians, not so much in case Russia/China visits with real tanks. That should answer the “Who’s the enemy?” question.

    Reply ↓
13. flora April 28, 2025 at 10:18 am

    from the WSJ:

    When the Wind Didn’t Blow in Germany
    A years-long renewables push leaves the economy hostage to the weather.

    https://www.wsj.com/opinion/germany-energy-renewables-wind-solar-friedrich-merz-264091b7

    Reply ↓
    1. flora April 28, 2025 at 11:44 am

       Even better, the UK put million$ into solar farms. Now the UK want to dim the sun, with sulfur dioxide, the acid rain producing chemical in the atmosphere.

       These people are not serious about climate change except as a way for them to make money, imo. (How rich is Al Gore now? / ;)

       Dismantle reliable energy production plants, create solar farms on some of the best crop farmland, dim the sun, create acid rain. It’s not stupidity that does this, it’s too consistent for stupidity or utopian visions to be the driving force at this point. Course corrections have not been made. / my 2 cents

       Reply ↓
       1. Henry Moon Pie April 28, 2025 at 1:12 pm

          The problem is very real, but the solutions are not. The denialists cite paid liars like the Heartland Institute while the libs sell a fantasy where life goes on just as it has but with PVs and wind generators instead of coal- or gas-fired power plants.

          No politician is courageous enough to tell the truth: the era of cheap energy is over and along with it, a lot of the consumption habits of the middle class and above in the rich countries. They all remember the response to Carter’s misnamed “malaise” address. They all know how American voters respond to increases in gas prices.

          The push for geoengineering comes from the recognition that we’re entering new and dangerous territory as tipping points loom and the threat of wet bulb 35 killing large numbers of people in India, etc. gets more real. The billionaires are more ready to try risky Hail Marys than give up on the growth that makes them richer and richer.

          Reply ↓
          1. marku52 April 28, 2025 at 3:38 pm

             Neal Stephenson was only a little ahead of the time….He predicted one nation or another entering the dimming race, but he predicted it would be India

             Reply ↓
14. The Rev Kev April 28, 2025 at 10:22 am

    “MyPillow CEO Torched for Hilariously Bad AI-Generated Legal Filing”

    How could he be so stupid? There have been several cases where lawyers got themselves into hot water with a judge because they got lazy or cheap and used an AI to write their legal cases. And here is this CEO doing it again. You know, they could have grabbed some random person off the streets and paid them fifty bucks to confirm those legal citations existed by simply looking them up. Looks like they could not be even bothered spending fifty bucks.

    Reply ↓
    1. ChrisFromGA April 28, 2025 at 10:48 am

       The Court can apply Rule 11(b) sanctions to his lawyers and their firm:

       https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_11

       Let’s hope the Judge makes an example out of them, not just for the sake of punishment, but to deter more AI slop-fests in the courts. The worst example was some guy tried to pull a fast one and had an “AI avatar” argue his case on Zoom. The judge wasn’t having any of it.

       State courts could start barring AI from any role inside the courtroom. Make it punishable by jail time. Federal courts could too, but why do I suspect Sam Altman and Bezos would buy off Congress to kill any such effort?

       Reply ↓
15. Carolinian April 28, 2025 at 10:44 am

    Thanks for the Leeham on Boeing and China (and thanks Lambert!). Now do the US agricultural sector which is being cut off from their China markets. Trump says he will get the taxpayer to rescue the farms with still more subsidies. Wouldn’t it be easier and cheaper to just get rid of Trump?

    Unfortunately the Dems shot their wad with the previous fake impeachments and thereby lost control of Congress so they can’t start a new one or be taken seriously with other forms of opposition. Trump is both lucky and unlucky in his opponents–unlucky in that he now has the space to try out all his Rube Goldberg ideas. Those cartoons used to be jokes. Now Wile E. Coyote is running the whole show.

    Still it may be dawning on the oligarchs what a turkey they now have leading the pack. Even Musk called Bessent’s trade war “moronic.” You can fool some of the people all of the time, not all of the people.

    Reply ↓
    1. Glen April 28, 2025 at 11:07 am

       Boeing has a large delivery center in China. I wonder what’s going to happen to that?

       Boeing (Zhoushan) Completion Center Limited Company http://www.boeingzhoushan.com/en/aboutUs/

       Note: That link is not secured!

       Plus, not talked about much, Boeing had a large Moscow Design Center that got shut down at the start of the Ukraine war:

       Boeing suspends Moscow engineering center and halts support to Russian airlines https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boeing-suspends-moscow-engineering-center-and-halts-support-to-russian-airlines/

       Reply ↓
16. Neutrino April 28, 2025 at 10:53 am

    Conor, Yves et al,
    Autism has been an intermittent topic so here is an article by Cremieux about some current stats, diagnoses and observations.

    Reply ↓
    1. Terry Flynn April 28, 2025 at 11:51 am

       I’m sorry I’m not well enough to find the NC article but an intriguing hypothesis has been discussed here before. The number of gut bacteria seems to have halved in each subsequent generation in places like the USA and UK. Correlation does NOT equal causation but the link between brain stuff and the gut was established as early as the discovery of the first MAOI antidepressant in the 1960s.

       It’s been hypothesised that something (maybe increasingly processed foods) have reduced gut bacteria which have also led to mental health issues like autism. Whilst we certainly haven’t proven this, there’s lots of circumstantial evidence (some of which is well established like use of amphetamine derivatives that really mess with the gut – against all intuition – work for ADHD) etc.

       It’d be deeply ironic if RFK was right but for entirely the wrong reason…..look at food and guts. Quit with vaccine nonsense.

       Reply ↓
       1. marku52 April 28, 2025 at 3:41 pm

          Actually, the aluminum adjuvent in vaccines does cross the blood brain barrier, and is a plausible cause of brain inflammation

          Reply ↓
          1. Terry Flynn April 28, 2025 at 3:57 pm

             I’m not engaging with you.

             Let KLG and others do so. All I know is what I learnt from one of the top centres of medicine in the world who have accumulated access to (now probably) billions of vaccine data using MODERN adjuvanants….. they say whatever your theoretical statement might be….. in practice you’re scare mongering.

             Care to give your real name and contact details? Because since round 1 of NC when I contributed I HAVE.

             Reply ↓
          2. cfraenkel April 28, 2025 at 4:32 pm

             In what way is this a response to Terry Flynn’s parent comment?!?

             His whole comment was regarding possible links with gut health and microfauna.

             So you had to interject some irrelevant factoid about vaccines?

             Personally, if I were to have a vote, I’d focus on the difference between micrograms of adjuvant and 100’s of Kilograms of sugar, corn syrup, food colorants, preservatives and other manufactured food-like substances our culture insists on stuffing the population with.

             Reply ↓
             1. JBird4049 April 28, 2025 at 5:58 pm

                Yes, I am becoming slightly vaccine hesitant, aside from the mRNA vaccines, which I am against, but the increasing enshittification of American foods into food-like substances is just evil; the problem connects corporate profits, governmental corruption, the corporatization of science, healthcare, and the general collapse of society, which news-wise is somehow is less sexy than vaccines.

                Reply ↓
                1. Terry Flynn April 29, 2025 at 9:16 am

                   Thanks. Didn’t know if my outburst would get me in trouble but cfraenkel backed me in my point. I am generally totally pro-vaccine. The ONLY reason I worried about the mRNA ones was that they got fast tracked and didn’t have to jump through the hoops that traditional vaccines have to.

                   I start seeing Long COVID service in person mid May. During my 1.5 hour telephone diagnosis with the service that got me accepted I spotted the warning signs. When you’re asked about adverse events you only got to the mRNA boosters but didn’t get to the old school A-Z vaccines at the start you don’t need PhD in med stats to join the dots as to what they’ve been seeing.

                   Now I’m going back to bed. Going out yesterday wasn’t such a good idea, despite FFP2 mask….. but I’m officially immunocompromised. Thankfully the family cat senses stuff and is here on the bed :)

                   Reply ↓
17. mrsyk April 28, 2025 at 10:57 am

    Noticeable short numbers of insects on the cat ranch northeast so far this spring. Our plum trees opened yesterday and they should be hopping like the mall on a Friday afternoon. Instead, things are uncomfortably quiet.

    Reply ↓
18. Terry Flynn April 28, 2025 at 11:13 am

    Re Elon watch. Has anybody else noticed a step change when viewing “this is suggested for you?” On Twitter? This definitely isn’t an anti-NC-rule regarding “make work”. Just asking if you’d noticed it because I’m curious because someone like me REALLY notices it and you don’t need to work to see it.

    It’s as if Elon is conducting a three pronged attack: 50% of ads appear to be to boost his stocks (despite fact I’ve blocked the guy long ago) but he has army of crypto bots. The rest is pron or cat videos. Now I’m no prude….once or twice when bored and in a hurry I used the site for pron but its content is crap and not even directed properly to gay guy like me. Yet the pushed content is very very obviously based on what I looked for (and got puzzled by). The funny cat stuff must be driven by link throughs from other sites. This is frankly weird.

    Twitter appears to have made a MAJOR change in its algorithm in last few days. The irony is this “oh feck the Don doesn’t like me anymore” strategy will tank the site even more quickly (since Temu ads to USians are virtually gone and proper advertisers were told very publicly where to go by Elon himself). I just find it amusing……it’s like car-crash TV.

    Reply ↓
    1. Jason Boxman April 28, 2025 at 1:08 pm

       I dunno, I always scroll past his posts. I should probably block, but not sure if there’s a consequence for blocking Musk on his own service.

       I generally ignore the ads, but keep seeing one suggesting I become a pilot. I guess with COVID brain damage there’s a shortage. The other ads look like 5th rate spam/garbage/scams.

       What a dumpster fire Twitter is.

       Reply ↓
       1. amfortas the hippie April 28, 2025 at 1:35 pm

          i guess i have so inured myself over time that i havent ever even noticed ads on there,lol.
          and yeah, i scroll right past musk’s bs…but its getting old anyway. his same post will show up again and again.
          i rarely comment on anything(a few yeoman farmer guys), so i guess the algo’s havent figgered me out yet.
          but in my notifications, theres all these hot chicks following me…zero posts, but something about pushing this or that crypto scam on me.

          working up an after action report on my visit to the county commish court this morning.

          Reply ↓
          1. Terry Flynn April 28, 2025 at 1:56 pm

             The thing is these aren’t from him (or the dummy accounts we know of that are really him) since I’ve blocked/muted him.

             In every 5 suggested tweets, three are crypto scams that tried it on with the BBC on a live show in last 24 hours and were cut off pronto (rumoured to be following intervention from BoE governor); one is a cat video (which I never used to get but suspect cookies have despite my best attempts been harvested from site visits to sites like this one where I’ll watch the antidotes and watch via the app) and the 5th is bewbs……which may as well be paint drying as far as I’m concerned.

             Up until 48 hours ago my “suggested videos” bore some relationship to my “followed account ones”. Now the correlation is -1. I spent 25 years on survey design and this fails the smell test. I sense Elon is flailing.

             Reply ↓
19. JustTheMusks April 28, 2025 at 11:14 am

    https://ottawacitizen.com/public-service/defence-watch/dnd-geese-carling-campus
    DND warns of spring geese takeover of Carling Campus
    The Canadian military has issued a warning to staff about geese at its Carling Avenue headquarters, advising those who encounter the sometimes aggressive birds to remain calm and don’t panic.

    Reply ↓
20. timbers April 28, 2025 at 11:21 am

    “Liberation Day” comes to red Tennessee

    COLUMBIA, Tenn. (WSMV) – Over 400 workers will be losing their jobs after an automotive seating manufacturer announced the permanent closure of two facilities in Tennessee.

    Reply ↓
    1. Terry Flynn April 28, 2025 at 2:10 pm

       Rumour is

       Has J Deere already decided to exit USA completely

       I feel for workers but sorry, you had 40 bloody years to see what this was doing to the UK and you ignored it? WTAF? We’re breaking out the popcorn (partly cause that’s all we can afford)

       Reply ↓
       1. Norton April 28, 2025 at 3:19 pm

          Nothing Runs Away like a Deere? /s

          Reply ↓
21. Mikel April 28, 2025 at 11:22 am

    The enshittification of tech jobs – Cory Doctorow, Pluralistic

    There will be blood – The Next Recession

    Munchausen:
    Tanks rolling into Brussels’ downtown park on a sunny Sunday, right by the European Commission. What’s this military exhibition really about? Are we prepping for war or just showing off? Who’s the enemy—Russia, China, or some vague “threat”?
    — Eldar Mamedov (@EldarMamedov4) April 27, 2025

    Those are not tanks, but lightly armored wheeled vehicles. Useful against insurgents and civilians, not so much in case Russia/China visits with real tanks. That should answer the “Who’s the enemy?” question.
    ——–

    Read in that order. I get the sense that, despite all the hair on fire about “new paradigms” and “changes in the global order”, it’s business as usual. Power down the economies (set the stage for the squeeze), get those wages, benefits and protections down, then power up the economies with some injections of liquidity for the favored players.

    The wars dangling over people’s heads are just an added (and old as well) twist.

    Reply ↓
22. tegnost April 28, 2025 at 11:38 am

    The construction physics suits my priors…

    This is an instance of what’s known as Moravec’s Paradox: the idea that tasks that seem to require a lot of intelligence are often relatively easy to get a machine to do, while tasks that are simple for humans are often incredibly difficult to automate. It’s trivial to get a computer to do calculus, but building a robot that can unwrap a bandaid and put it on — something a two-year-old can do — is massively more difficult.

    Self licking ice cream cone…

    Reply ↓
23. flora April 28, 2025 at 12:03 pm

    Jimmy Dore and Neil Oliver, utube, ~15+ minutes.

    “Don’t Believe A Word These Hypocrites Say On Climate Change!” – Neil Oliver

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs6jswuE7Wk

    Reply ↓
24. Lefty Godot April 28, 2025 at 12:31 pm

    If Iran was like Israel, the “crown prince” calling for a mass uprising would’ve long ago had a bomb dropped on his head, without concern for any unrelated persons who happened to be nearby or what country he resided in.

    Reply ↓
25. Tom Stone April 28, 2025 at 12:36 pm

    It is not surprising that the Supreme Court has allowed the Trump Administration to defy its orders without consequences.
    The “Justices” are compromised, a benefit of Total Information Awareness.
    The attacks on the legal profession ( Perkins Coie Et Al) and the Judiciary ( Judge Dugan) and this defiance of what was the Supreme Court are no surprise, they are a necessary part of establishing a tyranny.
    Academia has been cowed, the Scientific establishment destroyed and now a direct attack on the Rule of law, which is succeeding.
    Next will be letting the mere Billionaires know who is boss.
    Sam Altman looks like a good choice to be the Chicken used to scare the Monkeys, Open AI is a scam and Elon doesn’t like him.
    Were I a mere Billionaire I’d be moving substantial portions of my wealth to a country that respects property rights, perhaps the Duchy of Grand Fenwick.

    Reply ↓
26. Terry Flynn April 28, 2025 at 1:22 pm

    Wonder why/how Iberia has been brought to its knees

    I doubt it was a UK case of an ad break in a Portuguese telenovella (sorry that was a bit in bad taste)

    It’s probably just another symptom of our vulnerable supply chains for everything

    Reply ↓
    1. nyleta April 28, 2025 at 6:49 pm

       In Australia storage costs $ 500 million/GWh and construction is seriously behind network realities. Then there are all the synchronous condensers needed to maintain some inertia in a high renewables system, about $ 150 million a pop and hundreds will be needed eventually.

       These systems while needed so that humans don’t become extinct , need to be planned from the top down instead of being left for the market to bring about. Once a Commonwealth Board would have been legislated to oversee the energy transition but there aren’t enough opportunities for personal enrichment that way so we make it up as we go. Plan for more power interruptions going forward on a personal basis. Note the problem with mobile phone towers not having back-up power, this was shown up badly during recent bad weather in Australia.

       Reply ↓
       1. converger April 29, 2025 at 1:31 am

          $500 million/GWh? China is manufacturing high quality battery storage for $50 million/GWh, and falling.

          In Australia, like the US, the problem isn’t the cost of making the stuff. It’s ridiculous profit margins and public policies designed to protect utility and fossil fuel corporate shareholders from the future.

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          1. nyleta April 29, 2025 at 6:05 am

             That is for a 2GWh pumped hydro in a fairly remote area, closer to Brisbane there is a 2GWh pumped hydro at $383 million/GWh. A large 320GWh ( Snowy Hydro 2.0 ) is looking at $40 million/GWh, economies of scale but Australia is very poorly off for pumped hydro so it has to go where it is possible, whatever the cost.

             For these all the cost nearly is front loaded since you don’t have to renew the batteries every so often, or try to find somewhere to get rid of the failed batteries over the decades.

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27. steppenwolf fetchit April 28, 2025 at 2:02 pm

    Is China killing Boeing? Or is China just seeking to fill a powerful vacuum created over time by “McConnell-Douglas New Boeing” carefully and systematically and maliciously killing ” Old Seattle Boeing” over the last quite a few years?

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    1. Terry Flynn April 28, 2025 at 2:43 pm

       I believe it was Plutoniumkun who pointed out that COMAC is finding it difficult to copy or reverse engineer planes from the two big western manufacturers with low enough failure rates.

       If true, what’s their game? PK would be best placed to speculate….. I’m wondering if they seek to get fuselage right and negotiate with RR for engines to make em not crash on that score. I sense the UK will soon re-orientate towards China…… just a suspicion.

       Irony alert….. would serve us right for the stupid opium wars…..

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       1. micaT April 28, 2025 at 5:31 pm

          I wouldn’t bet against china that they will make better planes that airbus or boeing

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          1. Polar Socialist April 28, 2025 at 7:59 pm

             One of the best incentives is to stop using cheap foreign alternatives – it’ll focus the industry to work harder.

             Nevertheless, it’ll take time to build a indigenous airliner from scratch even if you know what you’re doing, since every piece has to be designed, engineered, tested and certified before it can be produced in needed quantities.

             And not just the pieces themselves, but their manufacturing processes, their storing processes, the maintenance schedules… Everything has to be documented and approved.

             It’s even harder when you don’t “own” the government agency responsible for watching over you.

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          2. rowlf April 28, 2025 at 11:29 pm

             I wouldn’t bet against china that they will make better planes that airbus or boeing

             Japan, Great Britain and Canada tried that bet. It is hard to make a flexible and efficient airliner to compete against Boeing and Airbus products. Extra difficult is to make reliable turbine engines. Even P&W, GE, CFM and RR struggle.

             Boeing tried to partner with Bombardier and Embraer and backed out both times.

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28. Clwydshire April 28, 2025 at 3:51 pm

    About the ouroboros of leveraged debt that is planned for ” a world where there are no savings-funded investments; rather, savers purchase insurance products like annuities…” Hopworth’s article is interesting because it describes some things that are a continuation of current developments, like venture capital firms holding on to companies for longer, and other things in process. Nevertheless, when I finished the article, what struck me is that this envisions a financial world in which ALL of the risk posed by inflation has been pushed onto the smallest, weakest parties, especially consumers.

    Is this part of some Heritage Foundation Project 2025 “smash America” like plan: Crash the stock market and this is what we get?

    When the author writes (last paragraph) “While not inherently calamitous, this transformation carries risks for economic vitality. By favoring debt, collateral-based lending, and guaranteed returns, the system may direct less capital to productive equity investments,” I think: Wrong, this IS inherently calamitous, and can only be a gateway to vast fraud and collapse. Or maybe, inflation will fire up so fast now that the transition he describes won’t be able to take place.

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    1. amfortas the hippie April 28, 2025 at 5:45 pm

       wow.
       2008GFC(2.0) here we come.
       now i have a headache.

       at least these exotic casino games werent named Chewbacca, etc.

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    2. Mikel April 28, 2025 at 8:30 pm

       From Investment to Savings: When Finance Feeds on Itself – American Affairs Journal

       Lots of intricate financial products. While they make it sound so new, I recalled a post from Vao in comments on April 17th. The subject was a financier in 18th Century France named Necker.

       It began:
       “Necker and the role he played in financing of the French monarchy is actually quite edifying. As a minister of finance, Necker introduced a systematic reliance on lifetime annuities…”

       Then it went off into directions you’ll have to read for yourself. I’m not a financier, banker, lender, or anything of that nature. Not saying this is the same thing, but it certainly rang that bell…

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29. antidlc April 28, 2025 at 4:02 pm

    https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/28/politics/us-navy-jet-overboard/index.html
    US Navy loses $60 million jet at sea after it fell overboard from aircraft carrier

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    1. The Rev Kev April 28, 2025 at 7:21 pm

       Since ‘the Truman made a hard turn to evade Houthi fire’ and caused that F-18 to go into the drink, could you technically claim that as a Yemeni kill?

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30. Kouros April 28, 2025 at 5:01 pm

    Adam Tooze’s article on Canada is really very shoddy, one would expect more from him.

    One shouldn’t look at population density map on its own, but in conjunction maybe with a climatic/vegetation map, like this one: https://www.cec.org/north-american-environmental-atlas/climate-zones-of-north-america/ which explains much better the population density of Canada.

    Now look at a population density map of Australia:

    https://brilliantmaps.com/australia-remoteness-map/

    and of climate of Australia:

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

    Any noticeable similarities? Within and between countries?

    As such, all this discussion about population distribution/density is spurious, because the answer is simple: geography/climate/water/vegetation

    A more pertinent discussion would have been on how different the political framework in Canada is compared to the US.

    Also, kudos for linking with Dougal Lamont’s article. The guy is pretty good, former Liberal MLA from Manitoba, kind of knows his stuff. Albeit he has his biases (Putin, Russia, etc.) that he is ill prepared to argue…

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31. flora April 28, 2025 at 10:14 pm

    Tiabbi and Kirn, Racket News, no paywall, America This Week. utube. ~2hrs+

    America This Week Live on Monday Night

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

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