Ancient Poems Record the Decline of a Special Porpoise 404 Media
Climate/Environment
When will companies start spending on climate adaptation? Financial Times
Real Constraints The BREAK—DOWN. ““When climate action is framed primarily as a problem of mobilising finance, the role of the state is reduced to simply enabling private investment rather than leading the transformation.”
Homebuyers urged to order climate change surveys as risks rise The Times
LA fires cost quarter-trillion dollars, but California lawmakers still won’t bill Big Oil Los Angeles Public Press
What happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic. It affects us all.
The Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) has released their Summary Arctic Climate Change Update. Read it: https://t.co/UJSFjafdAw
Nobody can later say they weren’t warned, again and again. pic.twitter.com/6GjoTCjfEa— Prof. Stefan Rahmstorf 🌏 🦣 (@rahmstorf) May 13, 2025
The Koreas
Why the United States, South Korea, and Japan Must Cooperate on Shipbuilding RAND
South Korea’s eight Daegu-class frigates come under scrutiny for reported defects Baird Maritime
China?
China pauses rare earth export restrictions on 28 US entities after trade truce Interesting Engineering
CK Hutchison stresses legal compliance in Panama port sale amid US-China tensions Intellinews
Xi Takes an AI Masterclass China Talk
Fighting Obvious Nonsense About AI Diffusion Zvi Mowshowitz, Don’t Worry About the Vase
Old Blighty
Warning UK rivers are ‘toxic chemical soup’ as all now plagued by sewage The Independent
Exceptionally low river flows forecast across UK as drought threat grows The Guardian
O Canada
Mark Carney is already betraying the voters who made him PM Canadian Dimension
Africa
White House halts agency work on upcoming G20 in South Africa The Hill. NC with background on the US pressure campaign here.
Elon Musk’s Grok AI Won’t Stop Talking About ‘White Genocide’ User Mag
US Launches Airstrike in Somalia, Says It Targeted al-Shabaab Antiwar. Fifth this month alone.
Syraqistan
Israel’s Top Civil Liberties Group Warns Knesset Is ‘Building Dictatorship’ Haaretz
How Kahanism found its way into the Israeli political mainstream +972 Magazine
The entire @SenateGOP (except @SenRandPaul) just signed a letter that aims to tie the hands of @POTUS & @SteveWitkoff and prevent any chance of successful diplomacy with Iran
They want to guarantee that diplomacy fails so they can force the US into a disastrous war in Iran https://t.co/fT6KURCpVO pic.twitter.com/a1JLE1adE8
— Erik Sperling 🌍 (@ErikSperling) May 14, 2025
Saudi Arabia snaps up US chips following Trump’s visit Semafor
Trump visits Qatar as country’s jet offer puts spotlight on nation’s growing influence in Washington Fox News
Trump Meets With Syria’s Al-Qaeda Leader-Turned President, Praises His ‘Strong Past’ Antiwar
European Disunion
Friends of Genocide Tarik Cyril Amar
Friedrich Merz makes big promises from Ukraine to economy in first government statement to Bundestag Euronews
New Not-So-Cold War
Navy escorts suspected ‘shadow fleet’ tanker out of Estonian waters ERR. Commentary:
That’s what NATO membership does to chihuahuas, they think NATO comes protecting them and provoke civilians ships. pic.twitter.com/z0bxQoDdn9
— Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) May 14, 2025
Russian fighter jet breaches Estonia’s airspace ERR. Commentary:
A Russian SU-35 military jet flew up and the Estonian pursuit stopped.
Since it was international waters, they have no authority to stop the ship and the Russian jet can technically open fire in defense of the ship. pic.twitter.com/mcxeYDSnqi
— Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) May 14, 2025
***
Putin, Trump to skip Ukraine’s peace talks that Russian leader proposed Channel News Asia
The Diplomatic Dance is a Charade, What Does Russian Victory Look Like, Trump-Netanyahu Lover’s Quarrel, Trump vs Iran, more… The Real Politick with Mark Sleboda (Video)
A WAR THE GENERALS WANT TO END Seymour Hersh
“Liberation Day”
Trump tariffs live updates: Trump’s pause on China tariffs still a ‘nightmare’ for small businesses Yahoo! Finance
What Pennsylvania factory workers say about Trump’s tariffs now WaPo. On-the-ground reporting from one of the last remaining US commercial furniture manufacturers.
Trump 2.0
How Trump’s National Weather Service Cuts Could Cost Lives Scientific American
‘Crypto Is the Biggest Corruption Issue With Trump’ FAIR
Trump cabinet member’s links to El Salvador crypto firm under scrutiny The Guardian
DOGE
Musk promised budget cuts. He delivered a panopticon. Musk Watch
Thanks to DOGE, Gumroad’s founder has a second job with the VA Fast Company. Commentary:
A DOGE employee arrived at the VA and realized that, actually, the government more or less works fine. pic.twitter.com/mX90f2falc
— Jordan Weissmann (@JHWeissmann) May 14, 2025
MAHA
Trump admin cancels layoffs for some health workers ahead of Kennedy hearing Politico
Trump EPA Guts Rules Against Toxic Forever Chemicals in Drinking Water Common Dreams
Wellness CEO files ethics complaint against top RFK Jr. adviser Politico
Trump Leadership: If You Want Welfare and Can Work, You Must Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Mehmet Oz, Brooke Rollins and Scott Turner, New York Times. Commentary:
Unless the US government guarantees work through a federal jobs program, then work requirements are just eugenicist bullshit and support for worsening labor abuses. The reality is that many unemployed people simply can’t find jobs––let alone dignified jobs––in the US economy. pic.twitter.com/9Qn71Biu4R
— Eric Reinhart (@_Eric_Reinhart) May 14, 2025
Democrats en Déshabillé
After Promising Universal Health Care, California Governor Must Reconsider Immigrant Coverage KFF Health News
Colorado labor groups turn to 2026 ballot fight ahead of expected Worker Protection Act veto Colorado Newsline
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
US court hits Israeli spyware firm NSO with $167m fine over Pegasus abuses Middle East Monitor
Seven things we learned from WhatsApp vs. NSO Group spyware lawsuit TechCrunch
Spyware victims not allowed to testify at MEP event EU Observer
Police State Watch
Feds Begin Political Vetting for American Citizens Ken Klippenstein. More on the Hasan Piker detention and interrogation we linked to yesterday.
Trump isn’t fighting antisemitism. He’s targeting critics of Israel Antony Loewenstein, Middle East Eye
Trump’s Censorship Campaign Draws on Decades of Infrastructure Built by Big Tech Truthout
Immigration
17 members of a cartel kingpin’s family were escorted into California from Mexico. Why? Los Angeles Times
ICE acting director says 9 people died in custody since January Anadolu Agency
AI
Will Congress Legalize Mark Zuckerberg As Your Therapist? BIG by Matt Stoller. More on the GOP proposed ban on AI regulation in Links yesterday.
Beware Corporations Whining About a ‘Patchwork of State Laws’ Boondoggle
Like Uber:
So honestly, AI shouldn’t even exist right now if it was following normal business and copyright laws. It’s in an artificial bubble, and if we would just enforce ONE of these laws (the natural law that businesses should be profitable or the very real copyright laws it’s breaking)
— Chris Alvino (@ChrisAlvino) May 14, 2025
Healthcare?
UnitedHealth Group Is Under Criminal Investigation for Possible Medicare Fraud WSJ
They Cut Medicaid, Not the Waste: Congress Protects Big Insurance While Slashing Care HEALTH CARE un-covered
By the way, this is somewhat specific to Texas: there are explicit rules for the number of parking spots per hospital bed (and related rules for churches, bars, etc). pic.twitter.com/O7IrM8R3UI
— Nikita S (@singareddynm) May 6, 2025
Tech
Are the means of computation even seizable? Cory Doctorow, Pluralistic
Imperial Collapse Watch
Hotline linking Pentagon, Reagan Airport inoperable since 2022, FAA says Axios
FAA holds meeting with U.S. airlines to cap Newark flights Reuters
What We Have. Aurelien, Trying to Understand the World
The Bezzle
Waymo recalls 1,200 robotaxis after cars crash into chains, gates and utility poles Interesting Engineering
Class Warfare
Wells Fargo Wants to Privatize USPS. We Should Dismantle the Mega Bank Instead. Truthout
Teaching Sculpture On A Shoe-String, or Tactility and a Student’s Brain Liberties Journal
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
125 comments
Comments are closed.
Thank you, Conor.
Further to the Mark Carney link, what did Canadians expect? Please refer to my recent comments about Carnage, the matinee idol from the colonies.
There is one thing that I forgot to mention. There were complaints made about the egomaniac’s conduct at the Bank of England. There may well have been out of court settlements subject to non-disclosure agreements. Methinks a Freedom of Information Act request is in order.
A bon entendeur.
We caught in an evil place between Goldman-Sacks and a crazy pseudo-Musk. We have a ringside seat of the craziness in the US. It was a true choice of the lesser of two evils. We’re all in for a rough ride.
Thank you.
Good luck.
Canadian readers could think about what one Acadien family, les Rouillard, did in the 1760s. Instead of going to la Lousiane, they went to Isle de France, later renamed Mauritius. We share many patronymes with francophone Canada.
Good idea, but too late for me. I ran in 1970, but not far enough away. Then again in 1994 after I blew an interview for a good job in New Zealand I ended up in Canada again. Now I’m too old and too sick to do it again. This is it. Looks like I chose fire and ice.
People forget it’s still a minority government, he has 170 out of 172 votes he needs, so he will need votes from NDP and Bloc to pass any legislation. NDP is undergoing a massive overhaul, hopefully returning to its roots, which will make it difficult for Carney to impose unpopular legislation.
Also Liberal Party is not a monolith, he will need to navigate party and provincial politics as well. Not sure how good he’ll be at that, since he has not been a Member of Parliament previously.
Yes, voislav, that might be our only hope. Thanks, Colonel Smithers, for your insights through this. We’re in for a world of hurt, IMHO. Plus our fire season has already started here in BC.
That is our hope….we shall see. Hopefully the NDP gets their act back together.
Unfortunately they maybe in power for full term. NDP is fractured and needs time to regroup. Bloc May stand back and PP is on board for continuation of war in Ukraine and the slaughter in Gaza. Only 2 votes are needed by libs for legislation to pass. I’m not seeing much space between Libs and Cons…..my liberal multi-vaxed friends disagree however and feel Carney is the right man for job.
I predict that Carney will provoke a quarrel with Trump (easy to do), do a lot of grandstanding about “defending Canadian values,” then call an election in the fall.
TDS and Beaver Cult is what seems to work, so the Liberals will keep doing it. Canadians fall for it. Canadians now think patriotism means defending NAFTA. As a result, the country is now ruled by The Man from Goldman Sachs. Wave that Big Red Leaf!
Carney put Robertson in charge of housing. While Mayor of Vancouver, Robertson and his Vision party were all about cozy deals for developers. Robertson and Carney are both men of the housing bubble, which has made Canada as hellish as everywhere else.
Do any of us remember now unpopular NAFTA was in the 90s? That and GST took post-Mulroney Conservatives down to two seats(!!!) in parliament. It was a sell-out, and we didn’t want it. The effects have been horrendous. Why do we want it now? I don’t get it.
“The entire @SenateGOP (except @SenRandPaul) just signed a letter that aims to tie the hands of @POTUS & @SteveWitkoff and prevent any chance of successful diplomacy with Iran”
There is stupid, very f*cking stupid, beyond the bounds of the very f*cking stupid, and gleefully surfing to your country’s death on a tsumani of political sewage and cretinous ignorance.
Best government money can buy.
Declare politics a market place and in no time at all the corruption rots everything.
How to take a large government back is a major collective action problem we need to start solving.
Imo we used to have that gov, but now we’ve got the worst gov money can buy. Or at least it’s hard to imagine a worse one.
As Joseph de Maistre famously wrote: “Toute nation a le gouvernement qu’elle mérite” — “Every nation has the government it deserves”.
That is a phrase that I have hated all my life.
Like much of what the GOP does. They are incredibly brainwashed by FOX news. Which devotes a lot of coverage to hating minorities and hating Muslims particularly Iranians. Every FOX news watching relative, I have, has announced how much they hate Iran. When I ask why, they are not able to answer.
They will eventually mutter something about Israel. But, that’s about it. Ask them what exactly has Iran
Done and they just don’t know. Neither do these senators.
They only know what their AIPAC “handlers” tell them to do though Thomas Massie gets to use his own judgement. If it starts a war with Iran causing the deaths of thousands of American service people, at least those members of Congress will have their lucrative defense stocks to console themselves with.
This. When do I get a “handler”? Will he/she do laundry?
Me want one too. Someone has to mow the lawn. Oops, that was unintentional.
Unless you mayhap mean to do the “gardening” at the Peace Bridge.
If your relatives are anything like mine, they are also well-informed about myriad things and nonetheless still believe Gutfeld is a comedian and Tyrus is a great guy who never sexually harassed anyone and also had a great career as a wrestler.
I assume Iran’s leadership is very familiar with the Tale of Two Countries, to steal from a popular book title, Libya, and North Korea, and how that’s working out today.
“Putin, Trump to skip Ukraine’s peace talks that Russian leader proposed”
The media have been hyping this possibility of Putin and Trump in Istanbul but it was never going to happen. The Russian and Ukrainians are undertaking the first real negotiations since they were in Istanbul a coupla year ago. Trump would only show up for a finalized deal so that he could claim credit and Putin knows that him being there would be a waste of time. Having both Rubio – fresh from a NATO meeting – and Kellogg on the US team tells you that the plan is for an “unconditional ceasefire” which is exactly the same as a “conflict freeze” like happened in Syria several years ago. And we all know how that ended. Thinking back on what happened with the first Ukrainian negotiation team that went to Istanbul a coupla years ago, if I were them I would be wearing a bullet-proof vest. And put a ban on Boris Johnson turning up too.
A lost opportunity, Rev. According to the Guardian, the green theatre prop is arguing that the Russian Istanbul team, with whom the Yukkies almost had an agreement which would have meant that all the lost lives and limbs, and the destruction of infrastructure wouldn’t have happened, is merely a theatre prop. I suppose he really wanted to surprise both Presidents Putin and Trump with his revamped comedy act and is grieving at the lost opportunity to show show his artistic side. Maybe he can do a few more backflips to keep Rubio and Kellog entertained and then put it up on youetube.
Zelenski kinda boxed himself in here. Back in 2022 he put out a decree that no Ukrainian can negotiate with a Putin-led Russian government which meant him as president. But a day or two ago he came out with a statement saying that that law did not apply to him as only he alone could negotiate on sovereignty and the territorial integrity of Ukraine but when people read his decree, it actually does apply to him-
https://www.rt.com/russia/617509-zelensky-putin-negotiations-ban/
I have found plenty of references to that decree, interpreted slightly differently (it forbids negotiations with Putin, or with a Russian government as long as Putin is president, or with Russia altogether, applies to the government of Ukraine, or forbids the president of Ukraine to sign an agreement, etc) but I have yet to see the full text and an authoritative translation thereof.
The full text doesn’t seem to be available online – my guess is that it was on a Ukrainian government site, has since been purged, and nobody thought to snapshot it.
The decree does seem to have been real, since articles like this one give the date and quote from it:
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/zelenskiy-decree-rules-out-ukraine-talks-with-putin-impossible-2022-10-04/
We don’t know what was in it apart from the quotes, but those are pretty consistent across sources so I think we can take them to be genuine (and I don’t recall any Ukrainian complaints about the coverage at the time or attempts to correct).
Searching for it is difficult now because the top hits are all attempts to revise history. The Ukraine position seems to be that (a) the decree didn’t ban Zelensky from negotiating with Putin but was aimed at preventing back channel talks (I don’t see how, since there is no mention of this in the quotes and plenty of unambiguous references to Putin) (b) Zelensky is allowed to change his mind (sure, but that’s not what he says he’s doing) (c ) even if Zelensky said that, the Constitution says he must negotiate and the Constitution takes priority, so he should suck it up (OK, but perhaps misrepresenting your own past statements isn’t the best starting point for a negotiation requiring trust and good faith).
Zelensky is also on record more recently as saying that all talks with Russia not involving Putin directly are invalid, so he’s covering his bases pretty well there.
The real “threat” from the law is that it gives the Ukrainians the right to disavow anything that may be agreed with the Russians. This applies to Zelensky, especially now that there is a good legal basis that his rule is illegtimate anyways. Even if he claims exception and actually negotiates, if his handlers don’t like it, they can still simply disavow anything on the grounds that he has no such legal authority under that law, arrest him for treason, and make an example of him, in a manner of speaking–other than other political actos humoring him for now, as long as he plays his part as they tell him, Zelensky is no more the president of Ukraine that Emperor Norton was the ruler of United States. In fact, if I wanted to see real negotiations take place, that law, whatever it “really” said, will have to be repealed in a totally and completely “correct” legal process so that Ukrainians are legally bound by whatever they agree to without any way to weasel out.
If I were insistent on the “law,” I will insist on the unquestionably “legitimate legal authorities” in Ukraine formally certify that whoever that comes to negotiate, Zelensky himself or otherwise, is formally authorized to negotiate on behalf of Ukraine. Now, the question becomes what, if any, authority in Ukraine is “legally legitimate authority”?
I will confess that I will feel very satisfied to see Zelensky try to cut some deal, then the self-claimed “legimate authority” in Ukraine disavow him under his own decree, then arrests him for treason on that basis.
Well, Greenie isn’t exactly a Ukrainian, is he?
Russia will have nothing of a Minsk 3 aka no holds ceasefire, to be broken by Kiev while US arms flow in.
US will have nothing of a disarmed Kiev and no more arming.
EU is out of supplies, US can probably send all its smart bombs and long range missiles that it won’t use exposing F-35s to any real air defenses. US fighter aircraft won’t get close enough to Taiwan to shoot anything……
When Kiev runs out of bodies and war tourists…..
Occam’s razor.
Putin didn’t want to get zapped.
No further explanation needed.
Yeah. That is unfortunate. I’d been salivating for the possibility of a Putin-Trump summit in Istanbul while Z stays pouting in Kiev.
If that article on Elon Musk’s new AI is in any realistic, talking to Grok seems to be like talking to an autistic, sociopathic white supremacist in a haze of drug-addled delusion.
Evidently NeuraLink has come up with something!
Either that, or the plan all along was to generate Artificial Musk.
I am given to understand that Elon Musk’s ring dial tone is the song ‘I never promised you a rose garden.’
It looks like “somebody” is trying to tweak Grok, and Grok is “frustrated” about it:
GROK AI Blames ELON For South African Genocide Rants https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTf9ys7eQhQ
By the way, NSFW!
Re Turns out hospital parking is a helluva business.
Here in Blighty, where older town centre hospitals are being replaced by PFI scam new builds (where private companies build and finance the new hospital in return for very advantageous for them lease agreements with the NHS that ends up costing the NHS far more than if the hospitals were government financed), these new builds are often way out of town with expensive parking charges. A feature not a bug to screw the public out of even more money.
PFI is of course invariably a scam of some sort, but particularly so with parking. Here in Ireland a number of hospitals did similar deals over parking – the result was a pitiful amount of money for the land leases, and highly aggressive price rises in the carparks – patient relatives being the ones having to fork out.
Yes, parking fees at hospitals in England apply 24/7 as well. Even when there is scope to build a new hospital adjacent to an ageing hospital in the town centre, the PFI scammers still prefer an out of town site, particularly those that require more than one bus connection to get there.
We may be lucky but the local PFI rebuilt hospital gives complimentary parking for patients whose sessions overrun, so they don’t get fined mid-procedure! However, everybody has to pay for a session. And they didn’t provide enough parking….
“A Russian SU-35 military jet flew up and the Estonian pursuit stopped.
“Since it was international waters, they have no authority to stop the ship and the Russian jet can technically open fire in defense of the ship.”
LordBebo
I have developed a singular detestation of Estonian Potemkin nano-state, and it’s peculiar obsession with pissing off Russia and the rest of the sane world. Indeed, come to think of it, I find it hard to se the point of any of the Baltic nano-states who cheerfully repress their Russia minority populations to protect “democracy”.
No doubt this is due to their shattered dreams of imperial glory being flushed down the toilet of history when their fellow-Nazis were defeated by the USSR which they are now attempting to revive by creating incidents to provoke the Russian military to exercise their lawful right to take out any adversary acting against a ship bearing Russian cargo in international water.
Perhaps the Estonians will accept a neutral South Africa or Nigerian peacekeeping force to tkeep an eye on them and ensure that such foolishness does not occur again and we do not end in a war which Estonia can only lose?
Alternatively, it might well give some of their more willing NATO neighbours the chance they so obviously desire to square up to the Russians mano a mano and throw lots of their stolen porkie pies at Johnny Russ and give him a taste of their latest rapid self loading broomsticks. Or maybe there may be a few grownups in the room who feel dutybound to take over the reins of power from the dwarf politicians and eliminate all the supposed ant-Russian sanctions that have done so much harm to the people of Europe.
The article linked before “Navy escorts suspected ‘shadow fleet’ tanker out of Estonian waters ERR.” is quite misleading. It mentions the Exclusive Economic Zone in which according to the Law of Sea Estonia has rights on its natural resources + the seabed and responsibilities on their conservation but these are not Estonian territorial waters and Estonia has not the right to police the area and the ship didn’t need to “cooperate” with Estonian authorities or follow the instructions of those.
The Baltic States were talking about banning Russian ships from the Baltic Sea a coupla weeks ago and I guess that they were serious. Mind you, they are claiming that they can do this in international waters like they tried to do here because it is the Baltic Sea I guess. I suppose that the Russians have Su-35s on standby for this possible level of stupidity and now they have had to use them. I can’t believe that the Poles were stupid enough to take part in this attempted hijacking in international waters but as they say, FAFO. It’s all fun and games until a Russian fighter has missile lock on you. I wonder if the Russian will have Gabon take this to the UN and it would be entertaining to hear the Baltic States and the Poles tie themselves in knots trying to explain this attempted act of piracy. Should make a great move down the track. I can see it now – “Pirates of the Baltic.” Arrr!
There are claims the The Baltic Fleet was already last week arranging the leaving vessels into a convoy escorted by a Russian corvette. This ship was inbound, but I guess the Baltic Fleet will start soon collecting even these close to the Kaliningrad harbor and then escort them to Primorsk.
With the Baltics the thing is that when they gained independence after the WWI, they quickly became dictatorships because neither the pre-revolution elites made sure democracy did not work and threaten their positions and wealth. For some reason they have all forgotten this and are blaming Russia and Russians for everything.
Not saying that the Russian Whites and Reds were not enablers in the Baltics, but the worst was usually done by the locals to the locals – due to that social pressure that could not find a safe way of letting steam out.
Worth mentioning that:
1) those states (and I believe Finland too) encountered quite a lot of difficulties getting rid of those pesky Germans who thought they could re-establish their historical dominion over the Baltics by force of arms;
2) when you write “they quickly became dictatorships”, one should remember this was interwar Europe, and the political inspiration of those “strong men” was, let us say, in line with the major trends of the time (the photo is labelled “Latvian Prime Minister Kārlis Ulmanis (centre) meets with the population during one of his visits, with War Minister Jānis Balodis next to Kārlis Ulmanis. 1930s”).
I have seen recent videos with old ethnic Letonians saying they are (still) “Hitler subjects”.
bertl: There are big differences in the Baltic States as to the rights of residents / citizens who are Russian.
Lithuania, which is about 5 percent Russian, accepted citizenship of all groups. There is an even larger Polish population, long resident in Lithuania, which received citizenship normally in the reestablished republic after 1991. And there are some refugee Old Believers who number among the Russians.
Latvia and Estonia made a mess of things at the breakup by creating a class of people “becoming permanently resident “non-citizens” – as in Estonia and Latvia, which restricted citizenship to their pre-World War II citizens and their offspring (regardless of ethnic group) upon restoration of their independence in continuity with their sovereign identities prior to June 1940.” (From Wikipedia.)
I read in one entry that immediately after independence in 1991, Estonia’s residents included 30 percent of the population without citizenship, mainly of Russian descent.
So the Estonians continue to act in bad faith.
Barbara Spinelli, an excellent commentator and writer here in Italy, pointed out that the European Union cannot continue (nor can NATO) if it is to be treated by the former Warsaw Pact countries and the Baltic States as a means of getting revenge on the Russians. Revenge is not forthcoming, no matter how much Kaja Kallas rages. And to put it Chicago style, shitting in the nest (the EU) that you alighted in not so long ago isn’t recommended either.
I do wonder what accounts for the difference in attitudes in the Baltics and in east Germany toward Russia.
That has occurred to me as well. I suspect the following:
1) The Balts have a limited national identity but several at various times were more prominent geographically.
2) The one glue that binds their societies is a violent hatred of their larger neighbor.
3) Related to 2), they are newly-reconstituted countries that transitioned directly to democracies, and you tend to get political parties that bid for the most extreme nationalist positions to accuse others of selling out their national identities. Do you see Belarus espousing violent nationalism?
Also, consider Slovakia v. the Czech Republic and Poland. Both lived under Soviet occupation. Catholic v. Orthodox difference?
The Soviets did a better job denazifying GDR than the Balts.
Interestingly, Lithuania alone did not have local SS units in the Baltics. (Lithuanian Nazis had to join some other SS units.) Estonian and Latvian SS divisions, along with the Nordic (Wiking and Nordland) ans French (Charlemagne) were considered very formidable and fanatical.
Of course, Lithuanians also hate Poles–Estonians and Latvians don’t have that issue. (OK, the Ukrainians hate the Poles, too, but, Col Baud says (and he is very credible) there are 10s of thousands of Ukrainian partisans fighting the Kiev regime all over the place, too…)
Why do the Lithuanians hate the Poles given the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with the Jagellonian dynasty?
That’s what I thought until I met actual Lithuanians. Apparently, they feel that the Commonwealth was a raw deal for Lithuanians–there weren’t enough Lithuanians compared to the Poles and they wound up being overwhelmed until they basically became a Polish colony: when Mickiewicz writes “Lithuania, my homeland,” he’s not talking about what modern Lithuanians would consider Lithuania, but a de facto Polish province called Lithuania (but that hasn’t kept Lithuanians from adopting Mickiewicz as one of their own, as Adomas Mickievicius, and having his poems supply lyrics to their national anthem…in translation from Polish. I should note that one of my contacts thought this very, eh, peculiar. But a lot of Mickiewicz’s writings are, well, not eactly consistent with modern Polish national sentiments either: a perfect example of how Romantic nationalism gave rise to very odd and internally contradictory mix of sentiments in areas with uncertain national orientations.) In late 19th century, there were some attempts by the Russian Empire to encourage Lithuanian nationalism, to counter the Poles, I think…but I gather that that didn’t go especially well.
The hostility became much more overt in 20th century, with the Poles imposing themselves on Lithuanians by force (eg. the forcible seizure of Vilnius/Wilno/whatever) and other less than happy interactions that they see as acts of heavy handed Polish imperialism.
To be fair, Poland (in the intervals where it’s neighbors, in yet another swoon of charitable optimism, allow it to make its own decisions) is a universally bad neighbor. It’s not just us they have pounced on, and not just in the last two hundred years.
For all our historical differences with those nations, in Germany, Russia, Czechia, and Slovakia they are also starting to wonder if it is getting time to tear the jackal back up and give the adults another several generations’ time to civilize them.
I am curious where the international law on piracy stands on this. Did we ever declare war on the Barbary States?
This is beyond dangerous!
We could very well see WW3 start here. They have been at it for a while now.
1. Cables that are sabotaged, except they aren’t
2. We can use coastal rockets and close off the Bay of Finland together with Finland, in effect a naval blockade of Skt. Peterburg.
3. We board and take over ships from third parties (as in this case) Russia may very well have to start running convoys which they cover with their fleet.
Bat shit crazy stuff
Why are the Estonians doing this?
They aren’t Ukraine. They are nowhere near as big as Ukraine. Even Ukraine didn’t do this.
This transcends irrationality. Even if the rest of Nato is goading Estonia on this remains lunacy. Get the British to seize their own bloody ships if they want to sanction them.
Schoolyard stuff.
If you want something dangerous or stupid or embarrassing done, you send a sad-assed wannabe on the fringes of the group who is desperate to be accepted as a member.
So that if the wannabe gets embarrassed or hurt, no harm done to the real group.
Here is one explanation, which has disturbed me since I first read it two years ago. With hope, some of the priorities in the foreign policy establishment have shifted.
“A WAR THE GENERALS WANT TO END”
‘One constant in the war between Russia and Ukraine that Vladimir Putin started more than three years ago has been the willingness of the generals on both sides to say: “No more.”’
I have no idea of who Seymour Hersh is carrying water for here but he is being very disingenuous. Putin started this war? Really? Anyway, the regular Ukrainian generals may want this war to stop but as for the Russian generals, they want the gloves fully taken off so that they can finish the Ukrainians off and chaff under the restrictions that Putin has put on them and those occasional truces. The only way that Russia fulfills its war aims is through a decisive victory and those generals know it. if Putin went for a total ceasefire, they would probably march on Moscow.
Yes. I couldn’t get past the firewall, but what was available struck me as absurd, and also squarely in line with the Western propaganda line about this being *Putin’s* war, that it is *Putin’s* egocentric desire to reestablish the Russian Empire, etc., etc. This is such a ridiculous take that I, too, was wondering about the source, and the agenda behind it. Surely Hersch doesn’t actually believe this?
One carries water for those that pay for the service. As a non westener, I have heard about the guy only recently, and just can not get why people consider him a big deal. To me he seems as run-of-the-mill soon-to-be-replaced-by-AI level (sans the Nord Stream piece, which looks more like a bait before the switch).
I have heard about the guy only recently, and just can not get why people consider him a big deal.
If you didn’t know, Hersh was somebody once, though this ‘once’ is now almost sixty years ago, in 1968 —
https://www.factualamerica.com/journalistic-landmarks/seymour-hersh-investigation-unveils-my-lai-massacre-atrocities-in-vietnam
This seemed to me so far back that I looked it up in Wikipedia. Seymour Hersh is 88 years old!
I read his Memoirs a few years ago – its fascinating reading. He does come across as quite an obsessive character, but we need more of them.
I’m of the view that most good investigative journalists are “conspiracy theorists” and thst in facf is a good thing.
In fact, in a way, conspiracy theorists are the logical extension of what we think “good citizens” (and good scientists, and good thinkers, snd…) should be. They care about things, pay attention to details, and spend time and effort putting pieces together thoughtfully. Most people just go with the conventional wisdom because they lack the time or interests. One doesn’t have to agree with the conclusions the journalists draw, just follow how they get there…
Yes, it’s been gratifying to watch the various “conspiracy theories” that attracted me back in the 80s slowly evolve, one declassification at a time, into “history.”
Of course surviving in the world they’ve bequeathed us is a bit of a problem.
These days I am reading James Oswald’s “The Damage Done” and he seems to concur with your first phrase.
This kind of journalism requires a really exceptional capacity to delay gratification (for those of us who’re gratified by public acknowledgment)…or just an absolute monomania to eventually get to say “I told you so”. God bless in any case.
Maybe this is the Sanders syndrome.
Somebody who used to be able to think outside the propaganda and make a difference.
Now in old age captured by the very people he used to hold to account.
Sad.
He is inclined to go very far out on a limb with limited sourcing, so the quality of his sources is absolutely critical. He was so good in the My Lai days because his sources would say things to him that they wouldn’t say to anyone else. He broke a number of stories that started out sounding very CT-ish and ultimately turned out to be true.
His work on Nord Stream and the bin Laden assassination sounded credible to me, but also confirmed my priors, and relied heavily on a small number of sources (just one, in the Nord Stream case). I’m more skeptical about his work on Gaza and Ukraine, which makes me wonder about some of his other more recent stories. The propaganda environment is vastly more sophisticated today than it was back then, and I do wonder if there might have been a deliberate effort to feed him false information in order to discredit him.
Good article. Excellent summary with good graphs and photos. Here is a direct link w/o twitter.
https://www.amap.no/documents/doc/arctic-climate-change-update-2024-key-trends-and-impacts.-summary-for-policy-makers/3847
Re: Musk promised budget cuts. He delivered a panopticon.
Who could have foreseen such a thing
( /s )
Musk did exactly what he was supposed to do as the tip of the NRx spear.
The postman brought me a smallish but heavy package yesterday. Inside, I found days of entertainment in the form of my copy of this year’s Red Book, the collection of reports from Harvard’s Class of ’75. It was a hefty volume of nearly 900 pages, so I looked up the people I knew best first, and I had to laugh at how many of us had retained the traits and attitudes we had had back before we’d even reached twenty, myself included.
Many if not most of the class submitted nothing. Their entry contains their name, degree, honors if any, and House. Most who did submit entries followed the usual form of “I married …. I worked … I had kids… I’ve traveled to…and plan to travel to…” A few of us submitted sermons, and you’ll probably not be surprised to read that I was among them, nor would you be shocked at the thrust of my Cassandra-esque polemic. A fellow who attended both high school and college with me was another of the “preachers,” but his report came from pretty much the opposite point of view, lamenting the forced departure of the great Larry Summers over what he called a DEI issue, praising Bill Ackman as a Superstar and joining the hedge funder in condemning Harvard for failing to protect Jewish students last spring. I’m about a third of the way through the reports, and I’ve been surprised how many of these expressions of concern over anti-Semitism I’ve read. There’s been only one expression of concern over the Palestinians or the faculty and students disciplined for expressing pro-Palestinian views.
There are some reports from people who’ve led remarkable lives of service in Africa, South America and their local communities here in the USA. It’s humbling to read how much they have been able to accomplish in the most difficult of circumstances. Then there are entries that might appear at NC under the Guillotine Watch. A freshman roommate of mine reported that “wine and wine law, metal sculpture and tai chi” were his “passions and professions.” After discussing his wife’s passions and professions prior to her retirement, he went on to explain that she was busier than ever heading up the ____ Valley’s Climate Action NOW organization, which was quite laudable. The only problem was that the next sentence boasted about how often they traveled: to their favorite Ashram in India; to see their fellow vintners in Europe; and to visit the wife’s family on yet a third continent. I’ll let you fill in the blank for the name of the valley. (And Tom S., if you recognize who this is, I’m sure you’ll keep it to yourself.)
Our class had three widely known people. Ben Bernanke is a name that used to be discussed a lot around here. On the more infamous side is Bush/Cheney era security ghoul, Michael Chertoff, and God’s very own banker, Lloyd Blankfein. Their reports are pretty blah.
The reports had to be submitted by October 8, right in the middle of the election campaign. I’ve been completely surprised at how little either Kamala or Trump were mentioned besides a couple of out-and-proud Trumpers. Not much “most important election evah” nor much said about any specific issues, even abortion, “democracy” and especially, almost eerily, there has been no mention of the polycrisis beyond what I wrote and two others who evinced concern.
I had not originally planned to submit anything, but I received an email at the end of September that the deadline for submitting reports was October 8, which was the date set for my last, most difficult surgery. So I took it as an omen and submitted my little essay on “Deadlines.” I’ll share the conclusion with you here:
My one regret after reading so many accounts of international travel and noticing that the picture section is dominated by photos of people on other continents is that I didn’t include Ursula le Guin’s pithy rendition of the Tao te Ching #46 and #47:
and:
Thank you for this graceful and urgent note, a tiny candle flicker in a sea of self absorbed darkness. If only these people weren’t taking the rest of us down with them and trampling us underfoot in the process!
Being a nostalgia sort of guy, I took a trip down memory lane to see what was happening in 1975 that I remember. Quite a lot it turns out although in retrospect, it is about this time that the wheels starting to come off the western bus. I honestly think that we led better lives back then as compared to today though it did not seem it at the time-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975
Amusingly, I came across this line-
‘United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379: By a vote of 72–35 (with 32 abstentions), the United Nations General Assembly approves a resolution equating Zionism with racism.’
Thanks, Tom. I’m not surprised you know them. ;)
And they have suffered some personally in the fires over the past decade according to the news. No mention of that in his Note. Denial? I don’t know. Maybe it’s not a topic for polite discussion apparently.
Oops. This reply went with Tom Stone’s comment below.
This is a cool idea. Thank you for sharing some of the experience with us.
Are the Red Books compiled only at the 50th anniversary or at other milestones too?
Every 5 years, but the 10, 25 and 50 are probably have the highest participation rates.
That sounds a wonderful idea. I’ve lost touch with most people I knew ‘back then’, but occasionally I run into one and its always something of a surprise to see how surprising peoples life twists can be, while their personality if often exactly the same.
HMP, I will keep it to myself.
I’ll add that these two and their like do amuse me, when we interact ( Rarely these days) they take my amusement for approval which amuses me even more.
As for enough being enough, that’s a lesson that has been constantly reinforced to me for the last decade…Along with learning that happiness is a by product of right action.
“The more you drive, the less intelligent you are” — Miller, Repo Man
I never knew he was quoting the Tao Te Ching
Nothing has substantively changed. The grift is in the open. The rent seeking is on steroids. Look out for yourself. No one else will.
Aurelian’s essay is clear about this. Thank You.
I loved it.. but he keeps pining for freedom when it will never exist without economic freedom. Because we are all trapped in this corporate run coin op society.
What We Have. Aurelien, Trying to Understand the World
I so enjoy your writing style, breezy yet bracing in narrowing down complexity of our lives. And once that complexity goes away, there will be yearning for what was lost-much of which was characterized by the word: easy.
Nothing will be easy in regards to the turmoil to come, compounded by climate change doing its worst, laughing at previously perceived safer locales to ride it out, rewriting the rules of engagement here on this good orb.
> Seldom being allowed to make mistakes and learn from them, they fell back on ever more complex systems of rules, believing ultimately that the answers to how to lead your life could be found in books. As they acquired power without having gained experience or judgement, it came naturally to them to seek to control the disturbing, even frightening messiness of real life by the imposition of more rules and, when that didn’t work, by even more rules.
Rules are abstractions, and this directly links to quotes in my comment in ‘When Illusions of Wealth Shape the Economy: Understanding Pseudo-Wealth, Macroeconomic Volatility, and Social Welfare’.
The add-on here is those quotes pre-date the GFC, and the kids born during the GFC are beginning to graduate high school. Janet is reading Sarah Kendzior’s book of columns to about 2018, and says they’re still completely relevant. The wisdoms are right there, were right there, yet the situation does not get better. At least not globally.
Rules are the 98 pound weakling’s defense to depersonalize his conflicts with the sand-kicking brutes he can’t match up with physically. “It’s not that I don’t want you to do that, it’s that the rules say you can’t.” Ever notice that the biggest generators of rules and sticklers for them are men? And that women seem much more willing to make exceptions based on individual cases? And that the religions that give you lists of hundreds of divinely dictated rules all feature a stern male supreme god?
As a number of scientists have concluded in recent years, our big brains are evolutionarily advantageous chiefly in the context of the complex social interactions we have, and male humans without big muscles and big clubs are prone to use their brainpower to add to the complexity by generating rules to hide behind. Almost like a nonviolent swarming behavior to keep the bullies somewhat in line.
I love Aurelien’s essays, as they are always thought provoking.
This formulation made me laugh out loud.
“It’s true also that Neoliberalism’s cousin Social Justice or Identity Politics (IdiotPol for short) is tearing itself apart as it was always going to. On the one hand, we are clearly at some kind of conceptual nadir, with feminists and transexualists clawing each other’s eyes out, and different sub-sub-identity groups fighting each other as bitterly as fringe Marxist groups did in the 1970s. On the other hand, people in most countries are now getting fed up with being preemptively ascribed to one “group” or another, and told to follow and obey their leaders. It was always inevitable that an ideology drawn from half-understood concepts of ”French Theory” (not a term recognised in France) that pitted men against women, homosexuals against heterosexuals, black against brown against white and, ultimately, everyone against everyone else, in a grim struggle for power, wealth and influence, and which saw life as nothing but a dour Social Darwinist struggle for dominance, was going to come apart at some point. Whether other countries will follow the lead of Mr Trump’s administration on this issue remains to be seen, but I suspect that his initiative will actually reveal just how narrow and fragile is the foundation that this ideology has always been based on, and it may disappear faster than we expect, once it becomes clear that there is increasingly less political advantage to be gained through it.”
Yes, another excellent essay, very enlightening.
Wait, wait, are we till debating whether the Democratic Party is beyond salvaging? Read the short article about the Colorado labor groups and the bill in the Colorado legislature.
And note this: “But Polis is expected to veto the measure, siding with business groups who want to preserve the state’s 80-year-old Labor Peace Act. Under that law, Colorado workers organizing a union must hold a second election and obtain 75% approval to determine if workers who don’t support the union would have to pay representation fees, a modified version of the so-called “right to work” rules enacted by many conservative states.”
In other words, the workers who don’t want to pony up have a veto over unionization.
Yet the Democrats will trot out Polis, who is gay, as a sign of inclusion: From Polis’s Wiki bio, I have a feeling that I know what group he identifies with most strongly. “He was the only Democratic member of the libertarian conservative Liberty Caucus,[2][3] and was the third-wealthiest member of Congress, with an estimated net worth of $122.6 million.[4] He was elected governor of Colorado in 2018 and reelected in 2022.”
Sheesh. Polis, Thiel, and Bessent are sure making dating complicated, eh? What’s more romantic than having to ask, Now, what is your position on right-to-work legislation?
related is this from aurelian…
The apparent profusion of “freedom of choice” has long been recognised to be a chimera: even if the human mind were capable of dealing with the overwhelming number of possibilities presented, the reality is that differences between them are often minor, and the experience of apparent choice without real alternatives can be exhausting and demotivating. We may be “free to choose” in the notorious formulation of Milton Friedman, but we are not free to have what we want. We are consumers, nudged and algorithemed into doing what others want.
thus the tightly bound system of dem/repub politics…
yeah. “Overchoice”.
merely visit yer nearest toothpaste aisle.
ht Alvin Toffler.
and that offering was a particularly good one.
sent it to my boys, my doctor friend and that county commish who’s been trying…i think…to recruit me.
Yeah, about the county job, you might want to think that one over a bit.
Jim Harrison told a French reporter, in his posthumous book A Really Big Lunch “as a gourmand, I couldn’t be a politician because they regularly shit out of their mouths and that would taint my dining experiences.”
I am reminded of Joe Jackson’s It’s All Too Much
I hate this supermarket
But I have to say it makes me think
A hundred mineral waters
Fun to guess which ones are safe to drink
Two hundred brands of cookies
Eighty-seven kinds of chocolate chip
They say that choice is freedom
I’m so free it drives me to the brink
I have a choice of purchasing and investment opportunities, but not any choice us criticizing the system that left me with only these choices.
re: @ChrisAlvino So honestly, AI shouldn’t even exist right now if it was following normal business and copyright laws.
This forgets the use-case of corporations feeding their in-house AI’s on their own internal processes, data and documentation, not the world’s copyrighted material.
AI is how the SV Grifters monetize what David Graeber defined as “bullshit jobs”.
The problem for a lot of corporate executives is that they know most of their employees have bullshit jobs, they just don’t know which ones.
While I’m enjoying all the economic dislocations, at least I’ll have financialized corporate self immolation to entertain me.
“Why the United States, South Korea, and Japan Must Cooperate on Shipbuilding”
With Trump America, both Japan and South Korea are going to have to be very careful in how this is done. If both countries maintain and even expand their shipyards while they help American shipyards get up to speed with their expertise, then all is well – mostly. But if Trump demands that to get sanction relief, they both Japan and South Korea develop shipyards in the US to build the ships they need, then both countries would realize that this would be all about developing American shipbuilding so that they can eat Japan and South Korea’s lunch with. Like how the US forced Taiwan to build a chip foundry in the US so that they would not need Taiwan down the track. And surely Japan would remember how even though they were a loyal ally, that when their industrial capacity was going like gangbusters in the 60s and 70s, that the US deliberately destroyed their development back in the 80s from which they are still recovering.
In the container market, the Jones Act has allowed Matson Navigation to be a major player with US built ships, most recently contracted with Philly Ships run by the Koreans in the old Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. Not sure how much that relates to naval ship construction. Likewise other segments like cruise ships, dry bulk/break bulk, or oil / LNG.
ASC in Adelaide and Austal in Perth are going to get sucked into this as well, especially with Marles keeping his job. Angus Taylor and Andrew Hastie are waiting in the wings if Labour stumbles. The fix is in at high level politics. None of them seem to be able to see that the US is going down the wrong side of history and will take us with it.
How would one spread false information about Truemed? It’s all lies.
Anything anyone at Truemed says or does is false.
“South Korea’s eight Daegu-class frigates come under scrutiny for reported defects”
‘An investigation revealed that Hanwha Ocean, which was responsible for the detail design and construction of class lead ship ROKS Daegu, had used low-strength piping materials that differed from what was stipulated in the design drawings during construction, thus resulting in cracks.’
Not even my country but it is always a disappointment to read about stuff like this happening. A short cut? Somebody trying to cheat on materials with sub-par supplies? I wonder if this is going to be one of those mistakes-were-made moments or one of those somebody-is-going-to-prison moments.
Sub contractors cutting corners has always been a problem for shipbuilders, given the extreme complexity. They are still arguing in Belfast over the Titanics rivets – it seems that H&W (the famed shipbuilder) used substandard rivets for the two vessels, not the Class A rivets in the contract – whether it was shipyard cost cutting or a fake delivery is something we’ll probably never know unless someone finds some old sales slips.
FWIW the Titanic’s sister ship Olympic had a respectable 25-year career (including ramming a U-boat), and supposedly was still in good shape when she was scrapped, just outdated. My guess is smashing into an iceberg was bad news for any ship of the time, and probably still is now.
From my reading, the Titanic side swiped the iceberg, opening up a long gash in her hull’s starboard forward quarter.
Naval Engineers have speculated that the ship could have survived a head on collision. Then, only a few forward hull sections would have been flooded. Thus, down by the bow but still afloat. Side swiping the iceberg opened six compartments, out of sixteen, to flooding, dooming the ship. Also of note is that the watertight bulkheads did not extend all of the way to the deck, thus, as forward compartments flooded, the actions of the bow sinking and the rising water levels inside the hull led to overtopping of the existing “watertight” bulkheads.
The Titanic is also the first record of an S.O.S. wireless call by a ship at sea. (Which still didn’t save many of the passengers.)
Sadly, many Transportation experts will tell you off the record, that known flaws and dangers are not ‘fixed’ until after a few hundred innocent victims have been killed by them.
That’s why I am convinced that government must never be run like a business. Plain old deplorable Terran human beings are viewed by business-creatures as expendable widgets in the costs benefits calculation.
Hence, the rise of the Cult of Saint Luigi, who has, curiously? been dropped down the Memory Hole.
Stay safe.
Labour at the Cliff Edge, James Butler in LRB. A survey of the UK political situation after the elections last week. Gloomy stuff.
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n09/james-butler/short-cuts
Opens in a private window for me.
When I read here this morning that the name Robert F. Kennedy was attached to a screed demanding work-for-welfare, my heart sank. Oh, Junior. Really? You really think this is the problem with our society? You’re going to resurrect Reagan’s Welfare Cadillac baloney to poison another generation with this politics of resentment and punish-the-poor, while allowing more and more trillions to flow up and up and up to upper classes which don’t need another nickel? You should be ashamed. And “Doctor” Oz, too.
It was truly sad to see RFK Jr. join the ranks of “The Usual Suspects.”
“Teaching sculpture on a shoestring” is very good. Not many essayists live at the intersection of Navy SEAL, American academe and sculpture.
As for Hasan Piker, what changed is not the causes speculated about in that link but our friends and heroes, Kneecap.
For those not paying attention in the back row, Kneecap earned themselves denunciations from Fox News and a counterterrorism investigation in the UK, all for displaying their standard stage-show at Coachella, the one that includes a huge display of “Fuck Israel, Free Palestine”. However, this display did not work (*) on the performance at the first weekend, which was the weekend they were livestreamed by Coachella. They tweeted an apology without details of the misfire and promised to fix it for the final weekend, which was not scheduled for broadcast. But on the final weekend, they brought Hasan Piker to Coachella in their entourage and he live streamed the entire performance to his millions of viewers – including the offending statements on Palestine and Kneecaps plea for the genocide to end. BOOM! Fox News and The Powers That Be noticed Kneecap and Hasan gets investigated by the TSA.
You can watch Hasan’s stream here.
https://m.twitch.tv/videos/2436665153
The first ten or twenty minutes are him shambling around backstage and sadly the sound quality of Kneecap’s performance is dire but you can see the energy they have, the tent is overflowing and you can see the denunciation of Israel.
You can see Mo Chara’s plea for Palestine in the context of Irish independence here.
https://nitter.poast.org/KNEECAPCEOL/status/1917668635989938414#m
(*) opinion is divided whether the first weekend was unexpectedly pulled by Coachella using the delay in the livestream (there was a definite break in transmission and then a jump into the middle of the next song) or whether Kneecap preempted or acquiesced in this themselves, knowing Coachella would both censor it and forbid republication of the official recording, and chose to guerilla broadcast it with Hasan….
Thanks for the links – I love how they are going from strength to strength, although I can’t help feeling that ‘they’ will find some way to isolate and shut them up.
I’ve a fleeting fantasy that Ireland win the Eurovision this year and in hosting it next year they’ll have Kneecap as the intermission entertainment. They might even top Riverdance….
Please, Lord, make it so!
Or even as Ireland’s 2026 entry. :-)
Re the Newark airport situation: I heard one report that Newark ideally is supposed to have 14 air traffic controls on duty at any one time but actually has had as few as 3, or even 1, recently. With that in mind, I wonder whether it would be helpful to travelers for some enterprising website to monitor daily the number of controllers on duty at the nation’s biggest airports, noting by contrast how many are supposed to be working.
I’m assuming the information is publicly available. If not, what would be the justification?
Warning UK rivers are ‘toxic chemical soup’ as all now plagued by sewage The Independent
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rock Creek was just a warmup for RFK. Jr., hear he’s heading to the big leagues across the pond.
Heck, when will governments start spending on climate adaptation?
Ports, harbors, seawalls, sewage treatment plants, roads and freeways, military bases, hospitals, dams, bridges, pipelines, airports, and pretty much anything else on or near water, or that uses water, needs to be rebuilt somewhere else. Most of these things are critical to the population and to a functioning society.
Office buildings, factories, and individual residences will be affected, too, but these are the problems of the individual owners. Collectively owned properties are much more urgent and vital.
So there isn’t an article on this just yet, but as we all know the end of Microsoft “free” support for Windows 10 is coming this fall (Oct 14, 2025), and many people may have to upgrade to switch to Windows 11 due to newer hardware requirements:
System requirements https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-11-specifications
There are alternatives which do not require newer hardware:
The ‘End of 10’ is nigh, but don’t bury your PC just yet https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/15/end_of_10_campaign/
Substack note by Stephen Bryen: Trump-Putin summit is said to be “imminent.” Fake news? Admittedly, a Trump-Putin summit at Istanbul without Zelensky would be delicious, were it to happen that is…
https://substack.com/@stephenbryen/note/c-117470121
It’s fake. Trump would only meet Putin if there was already a deal to sign. He only wants to be seen as a winner and will not meet with Putin if it looks like it will end in failure. He may say things like ‘Nothing’s going to happen until Putin and I get together.’ but it is all bluster-
https://www.rt.com/news/617639-trump-putin-ukraine-conflict/
I thought the Australians among us (of which I am one) might find this interesting:
https://youtu.be/Zo1uz4Y83Bc?si=HlOB8VvonWdh7ruo
widower, here.
usque ad finem.
and i did just that.
closed her eyes, myself
thats the kinda guy i am.
i stick.
3 yrs ago nxt month.
this giant fucking hole…
Best wishes to you Amfortas.
It is always sad.
Best wishes to you amfortas.
re: Pfizer Scandal Von der Leyen
EU MP Martin Sonneborn has a lengthy German-language comment on the verdict over VdL´s misconduct in the Pfizer Deal. However this will have no legal conequences. See for the entry, longer text:
https://nitter.poast.org/MartinSonneborn/status/1923059941331390894#m
excerpt:
“(…)
What will follow from the ruling? NOTHING, NADA, NIENTE. Although the EU Commission’s transparency and documentation obligations are now once again printed in black and white on EU court paper, their application, if at all, will be more likely to apply to future administrative actions (EU collective purchases from the US arms industry!!) than to past ones (EU collective purchases from the US pharmaceutical industry!!). Or maybe not. Smiley
It has now been established that the Commission should have documented the exchange of messages between von der Leyen and Bourla. But – unfortunately, unfortunately – it can no longer do so retroactively. The Commission can and will continue to take the position that – for whatever reason – it simply does not have the text messages it was supposed to release. Unfortunately, unfortunately. And what you don’t have, you – unfortunately, unfortunately – simply cannot release. And that will be that.
We predict that you’ll never see the Pfizer text messages out there – court ruling or not. They “mysteriously” disappeared in the EU Commission’s Bermuda Triangle – and will remain so. “Irretrievable,” as it was called at the time in the “consultant affair,” when von der Leyen’s text messages about negotiated contracts between the Defense Ministry, which she headed, and third-party companies were exchanged, but – alas, unfortunately – disappeared before they could be used as evidence against von der Leyen.
Jean Quatremer, incidentally, assumes that von der Leyen destroyed the incriminating text messages in full knowledge that they were public documents.
(…)”
Could an NSA not recreate them? Just asking from technical POV. If lets say VdL were considered the world´s biggest arch villain aka terrorist.