Links 5/21/2025

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1. Antifa May 21, 2025 at 7:02 am

   Ye Olde Debt Ceiling
   (melody borrowed from That Same Old Feeling written by Tony Macaulay and John Andrew Macleod, as performed by the band Pickettywitch, in 1970.)

   (The GOP is attempting to increase our national debt limit by 4 or even 5 Trillion to afford giving a Trillion Dollar Tax Cut to the richest 0.01%. This is all printed money that we don’t actually have.)

   Let’s go raise Ye Olde Debt Ceiling
   Swearing that’s our new red line
   Our final budget paradigm
   When none of that is true
   We spend money we aren’t earning
   All our Congresscritters shout:
   ‘Now our Empire’s down and out!’
   ‘Who do we owe this to?’

   It’s all a silly parlor game
   Of raising eyebrows
   Nobody wants to take the blame
   For sacred milk cows
   This budget rodeo
   Is porcine pie farrago

   There’s been a lot of double dealing
   Profits made across the line
   Your net worth makes a rapid climb
   It’s all gross revenue
   Some of it is stomach churning
   We aren’t here to be Boy Scouts
   It’s a knock down and drag out
   Ya gotta follow through

   (musical interlude)

   We’re raising money every day
   Go get cash somehow
   Some of it you can salt away
   A thing we allow
   Your time is never free
   No one will judge or referee

   Let’s go raise Ye Olde Debt Ceiling
   Swearing that’s our new red line
   Our final budget paradigm
   When none of that is true
   We spend money we aren’t earning
   All our Congresscritters shout:
   ‘Now our Empire’s down and out!’
   ‘Who do we owe this to?’

   When we raise Ye Olde Debt Ceiling
   Swearing that’s our new red line

   Reply ↓
2. Colonel Smithers May 21, 2025 at 7:11 am

   Thank you, Yves.

   Can the older British members of the NC community please explain what the references to this being Starmer’s Jeremy Thorpe moment is about. I was small at the time and can only remember that the Liberals killed Rinka. :-)

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   1. Revenant May 21, 2025 at 8:22 am

      Where does it say that something is Starmer’s Jeremy Thorpe moment?!

      The mind boggles. He was a local boy made good-then-bad….

      Reply ↓
      1. Colonel Smithers May 21, 2025 at 9:02 am

         Thank you.

         It was not a propos of any links. I just wanted to make mischief when pausing from some dull drafting and quoted what Craig Murray and, over the week-end, another commentator said.

         Are you following the story? Bit odd, no? The alleged arsonists, who advertise themselves as models, don’t look like builders, as the BBC reports.

         I thought Starmer was like Johnson and Trump, but Trump has not sired children out of wedlock, afaik.

         A year or two ago, I chatted with a retired economist. He did some work for the Liberals one summer and spoke at their conference. He left soon after, saying how Thorpe was a wrong un.

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         1. JohnA May 21, 2025 at 10:17 am

            Thanks Colonel. The Thorpe affair a bit before my time in Blighty, too. What I find most odd about the current situation, where 3 young men from Ukraine have been charged with firebombing Starmer’s house(s) and former car, is that British mainstream media have published the bare minimum facts, seemingly with no attempt to dig deeper via proper investigative journalism. I expect the tame scandalmongering if it suits the Establishment rag Private Eye, will only report any further details if MI5 tells it to.

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            1. Colonel Smithers May 21, 2025 at 10:34 am

               Thank you, John.

               That’s a good point about the Eye. This is what happened to Thorpe, if Wikipedia is accurate.

               It’s only today that the “third man” has been described as Ukrainian.

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3. The Rev Kev May 21, 2025 at 7:30 am

   “It Ain’t Just Putin… Key Russians Singing from the Same Sheet of Music”

   It’s not just key Russians but goes all the way down to the troops. The New York Times interviewed 11 Russian soldiers the other day and found to their surprise that though they were tired of the war, they will not quit until they have finished the job. They want to fight the war until it is over and won’t settle for a false peace which will mean that down the track they will have to go back and continue fighting this war-

   https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/17/world/europe/russian-troops-peace-putin.html

   In typing this, I am reminded of the Union soldiers back in the US Civil War who went to lodge their vote during a Presidential election. They could have swung the election one way or the other and by voting Lincoln out, could have ended the war and saved many of their lives. Instead, they voted for Lincoln and to continue the war to the bitter end.

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4. ChrisFromGA May 21, 2025 at 7:52 am

   Bastille Day

   (Modified from Original lyrics by Neil Peart, music by Canadian band Rush.)

   Will there be bread riots in the good old USA by July 14? Where are the “90 trade deals in 90 days?”

   Ooh there’s no bread, let ’em eat tariffs
   Trump’s in town, he’s our new sheriff
   Flaunt the fruits of ignoble birth
   Wash the salt into the earth

   But they’re marching to Bastille Day
   The empty shelves reveal Trump’s trade deal lies!
   Free the masses of their bank accounts
   The king will kneel while Xi just winks his eye

   Ooh, bloodstained velvet, dirty lace
   Naked fear on every face
   See them bow their heads to die
   As we would bow when they rode by

   And we’re marching to Bastille Day
   The empty shelves reveal Trump’s trade deal lies
   Sing, oh choirs of CNBC cacophony
   The king has kneeled to let the prices rise

   Lessons taught but never learned
   All around us anger burns
   Guide the future by the past
   Long ago, the mould was cast

   For they marched up to Bastille Day
   The sticker shock reveals Trump’s trade deal lies
   Hear the echoes of the centuries
   Power tools aren’t all that money buys
   Oh!

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekoxIb85rww

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   1. Yeti May 21, 2025 at 12:22 pm

      That was opening song on their live album “All the World’s a Stage”, Massie Hall June ‘76. Like to think one of my whistles is on recording. Three night show still get goosebumps when hearing it.

      Reply ↓
5. vao May 21, 2025 at 7:58 am

   The first bonus and the third are identical.

   Reply ↓
   1. Yves Smith Post authorMay 21, 2025 at 8:12 am

      Fixed. This happens WAY too often with Twitter’s sucky embed process (which is also designed with unnecessary steps so as to increase the number of page views). The code copied step regularly does NOT displace the last clipboard item.

      Reply ↓
      1. CanCyn May 21, 2025 at 8:26 am

         Happens when trying to share or embed YouTube links too! Highly annoying!

         Reply ↓
      2. mrsyk May 21, 2025 at 10:03 am

         Thanks for the fix. The orange cat/white cat video is magic and one heck of an antidote.

         Reply ↓
6. The Rev Kev May 21, 2025 at 8:00 am

   “The Terrible Truth About Sherita, Brooklyn’s Beloved Billboard Dinosaur”

   This is pretty bad reading about this criminal family and what they were doing. Of course, you do have to wonder. Is this how the Trump family got their start in New York nearly a century ago? Not such a stretch as Trump’s grandfather got wealthy by providing a restaurant and brothel to miners in the Klondike Gold Rush o morals would not be an issue.

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7. rob May 21, 2025 at 8:08 am

   The article about going to church and people’s education levels in both the US and in Europe, leaves out what they were educated in. It is likely the people of europe are more familiar with the history of europe over the last 1500 years, and know there isn’t any case to be made for the reality of any of the religions peddled there.
   This article tries to conflate the fact that people are educated in “something”, would be a sign they know what they are talking about when it comes to their faith. But why? If they were history majors, maybe they would be aware of the actual history of the last 5 thousand years. Then maybe.
   I live in the southeastern US. There are we;; educated people, everywhere… trained in all sorts of things, But when it comes to history of the world…. most are lost. And what is worse, they are exposed to the propaganda/lies that these church preachers spew every week. It is indoctrination from the cradle to the grave. For many, their view of the world is one of the missionary. They think they are bestowed with “the truth”, and it is their job to go tell everyone else. This is all marketing. From the cradle to the grave. Then they work for the corporations who rule the world. Then they vote in the republicans and democrats who serve those who own the world. They forget the plight of the truly oppressed . what genocide?
   I would say the real aspect these graphs made was that the american people are largely out of touch with reality. And a persons belief in made up fairy tales/myths/superstitions… is as good of a sign a person isn’t really open to reality. Reality being that in the last 5000 years there has been no sign of any truth in the stories that people believe.
   We can understand people HAVE beliefs, without the need to actually BELIEVE that those stories are real. But we americans, are a dangerously delusional people.

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   1. Revenant May 21, 2025 at 8:29 am

      The article conflates church etc. attendance with religiosity. I suspect the high values of attendance for Spain etc. reflect cultural mores, not belief. And I suspect the increasing attendance in the highest educated in secular places like the UK reflects specific phenomena. In the UK, these could be
      – Establishment-signalling;
      – quaifying your children for church-sponsored schooling;
      – attending the Alpha course (evangelical cult for lonely Russell Group / Ivy League Type A personalities – my friend’s son has been sucked in during his A-levels by a girlfriend, hoping Uni escapades will break him free…)
      – high achievers are simply people who *do* stuff (free time, money, organised schedules) whereas everybody lower down has increasing headwinds to attending anything!

      I have been to church more in the last 18 months than in the rest of my life put together simply because son #2 is a chorister at a cathedral school and I go to watch him and collect him, not to commune….

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   2. Samuel Conner May 21, 2025 at 8:29 am

      > They think they are bestowed with “the truth”, and it is their job to go tell everyone else.

      At least for American evangelicals, there is also a strong motive of compassion, in that they firmly believe that people outside their faith community (broadly defined) face horrifying future post-mortem prospects.

      This (I can testify from having been on the “inside”) is a strong motive for investing time (or, at a minimum, money) in “propagating the faith.”

      I think that in the very long run (it’s a movement with deep historical roots and probably has a good bit of “shelf life” left in it), this movement will run its course and be replaced by something else, hopefully something better.

      People need community, and “church” is one of few remaining forms of community in America.

      Reply ↓
      1. GramSci May 21, 2025 at 12:08 pm

         … and the marketplace is one kind of “community”.

         In Judaeo-Christian history, priests and temples managed the marketplace. Current U.S. “temples” organize the sale of personal services like child care (private schools and good, ‘God-fearing’ babysitters), and big-ticket professional services (doctors, dentists, lawyers, and car dealers are usually prominent in temple advisory organizations like the Masons, the Knights of Columbus, and the Ku Klux Klan — a harsh note to strike, but consider that churches are among the last remaining and most racially segregated U.S. institutions). The priest and occasional priestess oversees and so indirectly ‘blesses’ such transactions, while continuing to ‘bless’ marriages that will keep the wealth inside the community.

         As Wuk notes below, any ‘belief’ will suffice, but Christianity is where most U.S. customers are found.

         Hence, USian’s deep devotion to the Prosperity Gospel.

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   3. Samuel Conner May 21, 2025 at 8:54 am

      > We can understand people HAVE beliefs, without the need to actually BELIEVE that those stories are real. But we americans, are a dangerously delusional people.

      It think it is not controversial that people’s behavior is rooted more in emotion than in rational reflection. Our rational faculty enables us to construct convincing self-justifications for what we want to do (those wants being rooted in other-than-rational considerations/desires/motives/fears). It seems likely to me that “what one believes about the world” might also be more strongly rooted in emotion than in evidence (or that the evidence that one finds convincing is shaped by deeper-than-rational considerations; we pick the evidence to suit what we want to believe about the world, in order to reinforce or justify how we want to live in the world).

      I don’t know what can be done about this. I came to self-skepticism about my own cognitive biases comparatively late in life. Perhaps this should be on the primary education curriculum — “how your brain fools you”.

      This might be important — we seem, as a species, to be unable to cooperate in our own survival on a planet that is endowed with only finite resources.

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   4. Wukchumni May 21, 2025 at 8:59 am

      We not only have blind faith in things dogma, but our entire economic system is essentially blind faith based.

      If both belief systems were to crash, we’d have to find imaginary replacements…

      Reply ↓
      1. mrsyk May 21, 2025 at 10:10 am

         Like an imaginary reading list I suppose. Looking forward to new works by Hemingway and McCarthy, lol.

         Reply ↓
   5. Henry Moon Pie May 21, 2025 at 10:31 am

      “And a persons belief in made up fairy tales/myths/superstitions… is as good of a sign a person isn’t really open to reality. Reality being that in the last 5000 years there has been no sign of any truth in the stories that people believe.”

      All human beings have a worldview. It’s the filtering and organizing mechanism for a reality that would overwhelm us without it. Part of what forms worldview is myth, partly because humans beings have a very imperfect and incomplete understanding of the cosmos, and partly because it seems to be in our nature to seek some kind of meaning in the universe and in our lives.

      In general, myths are not the result of some evil conspiracy to mislead, misinform or manipulate. They’re generally attempts to answer questions for which neither the history or science of the time can provide answers like, “How did all this stuff get here? How did I get here?” Every culture has some kind of Creation Myth even if that culture is not monotheistic.

      Other myths may provide an answer to the big questions while also teaching a lesson about humans’ place in the world. The Adam and Eve myth probably answered an important question which Ezra and his scribes had to answer as they were putting the Torah into roughly its current form. This group of returning exiles, with an assignment from the Persian emperor to restart the YHWH cult and rebuild the temple, found themselves in a ruined city in which the remnants of Judah had lost their cultural identity. They had to answer the question, “How did things get so screwed up if YHWH is a powerful god who cares about us?” Their answer was, “We screwed up,” some blame shifting that was necessary to the founding of Judaism

      But the Adam and Eve myth was so brilliantly conceived that it’s still used to answer the “How did things get so screwed up?” Within the past few years, Peggy Noonan wrote an op-ed using the Adam and Eve myth in which she identified the apple as AI. Many others have connected it with human hubris or technology in general. Now we can make all sorts of historical arguments about whether our apple eating moment was the adoption of agriculture, finance, the Enlightenment or the Industrial Revolution, but none of these would pack the power of an adapted Adam and Eve myth (you can leave YHWH out of it entirely), especially because of the power that stories have with us.

      The truth of myth does not lie in its historicity or scientific validity, but in its ability to pass down hard-won human wisdom from one generation to the next. In the case of Adam and Eve, the wisdom is that human beings get themselves in a lot of trouble when they get too big for their britches.

      I believe we have a new question to answer, one that all of the science, history and anthropology we’ve learned has failed to make much of a dent in for the majority of human beings. How did humans, two-legged animals not much different from our primate siblings and our mammal cousins, get so completely alienated from Nature? We can talk about Descartes “mechanization” of Nature or Bacon’s proposal to torture Nature to get her secrets, but we’re likely to end up with nothing more than schismogenesis and polarization. But use myth like Daniel Quinn did in Ishmael, especially after the two-party dialogue helps the reader uncover his own worldview the way a fish might finally discover she’s living in water, and people may actually experience a change in worldview. That’s essential if we’re ever going to get off the consumerist treadmill we’ve been trapped on for more than a century.

      It’s human hubris that leads us to think that we know it all now: how we got here; why we’re here; and, of course, why things are so screwed up. We think we’ve outgrown myth. But knowledge is not wisdom, and more and more people, academics and activists, are recognizing that behind our polycrisis lies a metacrisis marked by alienation from Nature and a loss of meaning. This dialogue between Dougald Hine and Nate Hagens is a good introduction to the topic. So is this one between John Vervaeke and Iain McGilchrist.

      While not a myth, the Tao te Ching opens with an important piece of wisdom:

      The way you can go
      isn’t the real way.
      The name you can say
      isn’t the real name.

      Lao-Tzu is talking about the Tao, the subject of the book that follows, a book full of metaphor and myth. His point is that the wondrous complexity of the cosmos and the force/power/intelligence that lies behind it are too much for a human to grasp in their fullness. The old Newtonian watch model coincided with our “common sense,” i.e. worldview, because our sensory perceptions operate at a scale where it usually seems like a billiard ball world. But with finer tools, we found that billiard balls can appear and disappear as if by magic, a very disconcerting challenge to common sense. And the cosmos is capable of confounding us ad infinitum. Myth and metaphor are the way we make this intelligible.

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      1. Wukchumni May 21, 2025 at 10:41 am

         How come we fervently believe in Santa Claus until we’re around 6 years old, but then know its bullshit, but if you act as if you believe, you get more stuff. By the time we’re teenagers its all a bit of an embarrassment that we were taken in…

         And then there’s that Jesus fellow who never gave us jack around his birthday, and yet people keep on believing in selected events of 2,000+ years ago as if it happened yesterday?

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         1. lyman alpha blob May 21, 2025 at 11:57 am

            Your first paragraph answers your question in the second.

            Reply ↓
8. Samuel Conner May 21, 2025 at 8:17 am

   NC regularly foresees things many months in advance of their notice in conventional media.

   IIRC, there was discussion of what was arguably “elder abuse” in connection with JRB from mid 2024, perhaps earlier.

   It does lead to conversational awkwardness in interaction with people whose views have not yet been marked to reality but, as the Good Book counsels, “if you get one thing, get understanding”.

   Thank you, Yves and company.

   Reply ↓
   1. Dr. John Carpender May 21, 2025 at 9:55 am

      I am sure I saw people here rumbling about “elder abuse” all the way back to the run up to 2020. Right now, it kind of feels like the “how could we have known?” contingency are trying to limit this to 2024 and the George Clooney fundraiser incident, but we knew the signs were there long before. I definitely remember Biden blurting out about having cancer before then, not to mention the cognitive decline was painfully obvious to anyone not drinking the Kool Ade.

      I’m sure this will reach a boiling point then a new distraction and nothing will fundamentally change. It would be nice if something did, but I guess I’ll just enjoy the circus until the next one comes to town.

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      1. The Rev Kev May 21, 2025 at 10:03 am

         At the beginning of his term as President, he promised to fight cancer a coupla times but eventually reneged on that promise. Bet that he’s sorry that he did that now. Karma is a *****. They may try to treat that cancer but as Caitlin Johnstone pointed out, cancer has a right to defend itself.

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         1. Henry Moon Pie May 21, 2025 at 10:51 am

            Careful what you wish for, Caitlyn.

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      2. Dr. John Carpenter May 21, 2025 at 10:10 am

         As a side note, it feels to me like at first they were trying to make Biden himself out to be the sole villain. Like he tricked everyone, he made all these poor decisions, he gave us Trump all by himself. But with this evidence coming out that Biden barely knew where he was most of the time, it looks like they’re switching to Dr. Jill being the villain. The Republicans seem to be going after her and it doesn’t seem like she has much love in the Democrat party. So, I could see the Democrats and their enablers offering her up as a sacrificial lamb if they think it would take the pressure off. Heck, make her the villain and they can even recast Biden as this tragic figure that many of their enablers are already trying to do.

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         1. mrsyk May 21, 2025 at 10:17 am

            Plausible. An alternative scenario might be that the Trump mafia is moving to further diminish what power and influence the Biden mafia has left.

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9. Wukchumni May 21, 2025 at 8:21 am

   You say you want a resolution
   Well, you know
   We all wanna change the world
   You tell me that it’s the Two-State Solution
   Well, you know
   We all wanna change the world

   But when you talk about Gaza destruction
   Don’t you know that you can count me out

   Don’t you know it’s gonna be alright
   Alright
   Alright

   You say you got a real solution
   Well, you know
   We’d all love to see the plan
   You ask me for a contribution
   Well, you know
   We are doing what we can

   But if you want money for people with minds that hate
   All I can tell you is brother, in line you’ll have to wait

   Don’t you know it’s gonna be alright
   Alright
   Alright

   You say you’ll ignore the constitution
   Well, you know
   We all want to change your head
   You tell me it’s the institution
   Well, you know
   You’d better free your mind instead

   But if you go carrying grudges with Netanyahu
   You ain’t going to make it with you know who

   Don’t you know it’s gonna be alright
   Alright
   Alright

   Alright, alright
   Alright, alright
   Alright, alright
   Alright, alright

   Revolution, by the Beatles

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MbqzDm1uCo

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10. The Rev Kev May 21, 2025 at 8:26 am

    “New intelligence suggests Israel is preparing possible strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, US officials say”

    If the Israelis tried to attack Iran, it would only be to try and wreck any agreement between the US and Iran itself. I actually wonder what an Israeli attack would look like without any US help at all as in zip. So no satellite intel, no re-fueling aircraft, no tapping into and command and control systems that the US has for this region, no search and rescue choppers on standby – nothing. Let the whole thing be an Israeli operation from start to finish. Can they mount more than a raid? What if, like India, they find that their opponents have extra long range air-to-air missiles. That would be a nasty surprise. And as this would be Israel attacking civilian infrastructure, it would allow Iran the license to return the compliment and attack Israeli civilian infrastructure. It’s a target-rich environment in Israel for the Iranians to choose from.

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    1. Vicky Cookies May 21, 2025 at 8:50 am

       Israel can do its own air refueling, because we gave them the aircraft to do so. I do not know if they can or would use their own satellite data, but if for whatever reason they were not able to do so or to attack via the skies at all, my guess is that we’d see the kind of terrorism we’ve already seen used against Iran https://apnews.com/article/iran-us-soleimani-explosion-kerman-2524cfed1d040370bf98000e2b53ad5a

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11. LawnDart May 21, 2025 at 8:35 am

    Re; Climate/Environment

    It’s Not Just Drought Meteorologists Are Concerned About This Summer, It’s Also Heat

    With the record heat across the Plains and South last week, a sudden burst of cold across the upper Midwest and the outbreak of tornadoes that tore across the country over the weekend, it’s been an active weather pattern so far this May. That trend is set to continue.

    https://www.agweb.com/news/crops/crop-production/its-not-just-drought-meteorologists-are-concerned-about-summer-its-als

    Locally, our gypsies have returned from winter in Texas but weekenders from surrounding states have yet to arrive due to persistant wind and “cold.” It was a dry winter and the lake is low. Clouds of dust rise from farms as the Spring planting-season is underway. Looking out towards the pines I cannot help but think, “all it would take is a spark…”

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    1. The Rev Kev May 21, 2025 at 8:47 am

       I’m sure that if some of the older gypsies were asked to look into their crystal balls to see what the future weather is going to be like in the US, that they would peer closely into those crystal balls, mutter a few incantations, and then pronounce their findings thus-

       ‘The future weather of the US will be – kinetic!’

       Who knew that climate change would not just restrict itself to third-world countries.

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       1. Wukchumni May 21, 2025 at 9:30 am

          My crystal ball was purchased at Wal*Mart, and oddly enough shows retail price increases on damn near everything, in somewhat of a terrestrial Kessler Effect.

          Hunga Tonga was 1 of only around 120 known ‘Submarine Volcanoes’ and has been responsible for our wacky weather, as all big volcanoes blowing up real good tend to do, but lookie here, we have a 2nd Submarine Volcano about to go, 300 miles west of the PNW~

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          1. The Rev Kev May 21, 2025 at 9:52 am

             You know, that term that you used – a ‘terrestrial Kessler Effect’ – is not a bad one. Not when you think of the knock-on effects of tariffs as they go ricocheting around the economy and setting off other damage which effects other sectors of the economy.

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          2. LawnDart May 21, 2025 at 10:21 am

             Last winter was brutal, persistant, actual cold up here, so back at the squat (in a very literal sense) I moved “my bedroom” to a small room once used as a home office in part of the finished basement of this house: just space enough for a bed, small desk, small dresser, and me and the small dog that I seem to have inherited. A small space-heater is all it takes to keep it warm and comfortable, and as the rest of the house is mostly unused, I just need to keep it warm enough to prevent the pipes from freezing.

             The oracles are warning of heatwaves, and I’ll trust them much more that my crystal-ball which, having failed, misled me more than once, gathers dust somewhere along the path of my travels, gathering dust: I shall remain mostly underground, like a mole, where it is cool and away from the heat that Summer (and undue attention) can bring.

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    2. Samuel Conner May 21, 2025 at 9:14 am

       A very minor accommodation, but perhaps useful at the margin: for gardening in hot sun, shade cloth is very helpful. I have been using this, with much success, for hardening off of indoor starts.

       It could also be used for established plants in soil. The cost per square foot of shaded soil is less than the value of the produce (vegetables; commodity grains, probably not) that is protected, and the cloth has a multi-year life span (mine is holding up reasonably well after nearly a decade of use).

       Unfortunately, most shade cloth products are made of synthetic polymers and will eventually break down into microplastic pollution.

       Perhaps there will be a market for durable products of this kind that are made from natural fibers.

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       1. The Rev Kev May 21, 2025 at 9:34 am

          I don’t suppose that hessian would be an acceptable substitute, would it? Something like this-

          https://gardensuperstore.com.au/hessian/

          Or maybe even repurposed hessian bags if you can find ’em.

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          1. mrsyk May 21, 2025 at 10:31 am

             I’m considering ostrich ferns. They grow to about six feet and are native to the Green Mountain State. The ones in the yard are already two or three feet tall. Strategic placement amongst the veggies might provide adequate sunlight filtration, maybe.

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             1. Samuel Conner May 21, 2025 at 10:50 am

                Thakk you! I will look into the idea of tall shady plants that could be grown in containers and moved about.

                (and pole beans, per Bsn below.)

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       2. Bsn May 21, 2025 at 10:15 am

          We’ve “grown” to using Fortex pole beans as a variation on shade. They can grow 8 – 10′ if supported and so we put a row of them between about every 3 rows of other veggies. The other veggies get direct Sun for 4-5 hours then are shaded by the beans as the Sun progresses across the sky. The beans themselves are tops (no string, 1′ long, prolific and tasty) and when it gets above the high 90s, their blossoms fall off – but they protect the other veggies from extreme heat. Fortex are the basis of French cut canned beans that you buy in the store. “Try it, you’ll like it”.

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12. Wukchumni May 21, 2025 at 8:43 am

    You know how all the insurance tv commercials are always joking, you’ve got Flo & friends, some guy named Mayhem, a professorial type, that idiot with the emu that wouldn’t know funny if it hit him in the head, a talking gecko with an English accent, and more…

    What if it was more in regards to your cabin insurance going from $1479 a year to $4500+, as per yours truly?

    Guess i’m happy they didn’t drop me, here’s what I was informed:

    ‘Dear Wuk:

    Thank you for your business and your loyalty. We have discontinued our Fire insurance product in the state of California. However we have good news! We are automatically converting your coverage to our new exciting XYZ plan!’

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    1. The Rev Kev May 21, 2025 at 8:59 am

       You’d think that if they were going to triple your insurance policy but remove the fire insurance part, that the very least that they could do would be to send you a complimentary asbestos blanket. Not a good feeling having to lose that fire insurance what with being in the middle of summer and all that dry fire loading material nearby that you have been talking about.

       Reply ↓
       1. Wukchumni May 21, 2025 at 9:07 am

          I’m covered in case of fire, but not if it is on account of a meteorite, among other disclaimers.

          Reply ↓
13. The Rev Kev May 21, 2025 at 8:49 am

    “CERN gears up to ship antimatter across Europe”

    A good idea this as after all, what could possibly go wrong. I can imagine the containment chief engineer talking to the driver now if things did start to go wrong-

    ‘I’m giving her all she’s got but the containment canna hold together much longer. She canna take any more, driver! She’s gonna blow!’

    Reply ↓
14. NotTimothyGeithner May 21, 2025 at 8:51 am

    It’s interesting, but memory is the poor in the US and the rich in Europe were more likely to attend around 20 years ago.

    One issue in the US is the decline of mainline protestant churches. I can see a process where if the wealthier patrons leave for a megachurch the services provided by the church breakdown.

    In Europe, I think there needs to be delineation between church and mosque attendance. Then the Episcopal church in the colonies was the closest the US had to the Imperial Religion of the empire at least on a large scale (no one cares about LDS outside of Salt Lake).

    I suspect the shift to selling indulgences (the prosperity gospel) without a stream of new church goers and structures dependent on personalities versus structures will collapse.

    With that in mind, I think it won’t be a wave but sporadic collapses coupled with limited new recruits. It’s why the megacurch donors have been running that he gets us routine. They know it’s not attractive to younger people, and the childless don’t have that drive to take kids to church.

    Reply ↓
    1. Unironic Pangloss May 21, 2025 at 11:04 am

       >>One issue in the US is the decline of mainline protestant churches

       Ironically now (2020s) mainline protestant churches are “outperforming” others (such as evangelicals)….but only because mainlines hit the floor decades ago and can’t go any lower; while the evangelicals took a big existential hit in the 2007-10 recession and slowing dying off since. —evangelicals also got a temporary boost when mainline churches pivoted to liberal culture-war stances.

       an implicit/explicit part of megachurch evangelicals was that “salvation of the elect”/God’s grace = you get a McMansion with a BMW in the garage.

       Reply ↓
       1. Wukchumni May 21, 2025 at 11:09 am

          Godzone, as you’ll note from the name, is mostly in regards to Big Dogma with a number of MegaMAGA evang churches on Caldwell Ave in Visalia-their happy hunting ground, and don’t think for a minute that good old time religion wasn’t feeling the pinch, so the Catholics built the largest parish church in the country in a city with a population of less than 150k!

          Reply ↓
15. Otto Reply May 21, 2025 at 9:19 am

    Thanks for the tipping article. Didn’t see TIPS defined: To Improve Personalized Service. Kinda hard to reckon the tip amount prior to receiving the service. I’m old school and expect my bill at the end of the meal at which time I assess the service and add a cash gratuity accordingly. But fast casual is the norm so the expectation is to tip for services not rendered when placing an order, fetch one’s meal when your name is called, grab your own water and setups, and bus your own table! What, exactly am I tipping for? As the article says, it’s to support business owners underpaying staff. The author’s recommendations are high minded with the exception of, leave a cash tip. Very practical material benefit.

    Reply ↓
    1. Lina May 21, 2025 at 11:09 am

       The tipping culture makes me so angry, I don’t bother getting food out anymore. The food at restaurants is not good anyway so no loss for me.

       The benefits? I spend no money on eating out so I use that money to buy very good, healthy foods at home. My skin looks great and I feel really good, no stomach aches from preservatives etc…

       Reply ↓
16. Colonel Smithers May 21, 2025 at 9:20 am

    Thank you, Yves.

    Further to the ongoing genocide, this community may be interested in this cracking defence: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/uk-israel-gaza-starmer-david-lammy-sanctions-trade-b2754928.html. I’m looking forward to that one being used at the Hague.

    Reply ↓
    1. .Tom May 21, 2025 at 10:49 am

       Labour’s crimes against Jews under Corbyn were so serious that Starmer needs to atone by supporting Israel’s extermination of Palestinians. Did I get that right?

       Reply ↓
17. timotheus May 21, 2025 at 9:20 am

    Tipping: I notice that bartenders are starting to turn away from cash offered, then go to the terminal to produce a bill (often electronic) designed to stimulate a card payment with the tip prompt. New Yorkers are used to the $1 per drink tip, but this maneuver is so manipulative that staff risk not getting one at all. Not to mention the places that refuse cash entirely to the same end–still illegal in NYS.

    Reply ↓
    1. chuck roast May 21, 2025 at 12:16 pm

       I tried a new coffee shop last week. The ‘barista’ took a ten-spot and gave me change and an empty cup. Whereupon I went to the the dispenser for coffee, ice and milk. If this is the future then the tipping thing will solve itself.

       Reply ↓
18. ChrisFromGA May 21, 2025 at 9:38 am

    Re: Google crapifying search with shoddy AI:

    Kill me now. I already have to do extra work to avoit those AI summaries, and now they want to impose chatbots? Which I already hate with the passion of a thousand burning suns?

    I feel you. I think it is Google’s way of making us pay for all the money they’ve thrown down the AI rat-hole. Data centers, research, etc. They’re going to force feed us this crap to try and get some ROI but I don’t think it will work.

    I don’t have the links handy but there are plain old search engines, I think one commenter posted about a paid service for like $10/month that avoids all the AI slop.

    (Hey, that’s the business model! Crapifying a perfectly good feature, then make your customers pay more to get it back. We already pay for search with ads.)

    Reply ↓
    1. earthling May 21, 2025 at 11:33 am

       Couple of alternatives: one just cleans up G*e, the other just doesn’t deliver garbage at the top.

       https://udm14.com/

       https://www.ecosia.org/

       Reply ↓
19. Wukchumni May 21, 2025 at 10:07 am

    Wildfires rage across US state of Arizona, with over 8,000 hectares burned Anadolu Agency
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Tomorrow is a red flag-no burn day in Tiny Town, strong winds combined with low humidity levels are a recipe for disaster, just add a spark.

    Apparently we have an arsonist on the loose here-there was a fire of some 20 acres that required air support along with ground support to quell, and just about every day for the past fortnight a spot fire or 2 has been extinguished before they got sizable, but tomorrow could be a different story.

    Reply ↓
    1. earthling May 21, 2025 at 11:38 am

       How scary to have that active threat lurking in the background.

       Good thing Orange Man has a solution: Centralize all federal firefighting! It’ll be so helpful to have a Department of Homeland Fire Complication to command all efforts from a snazzy building in DC!

       Reply ↓
20. The Rev Kev May 21, 2025 at 10:26 am

    “A Major Newspaper Publishes a Summer Reading List—but the Books Don’t Exist”

    Sight unseen I knew that it was an AI that did it. They could have thrown a janitor twenty bucks to check to those titles but obviously didn’t. And now that newspaper has suffered humiliating reputational damage and them blaming a black box is not going to do it. So what else will AI be used for with newspapers then. Weather predictions? Astrological predictions? Stock market tips? Book reviews? Oh, wait, they did that already. And now they are trying to cram AI into search websites, programs, mobile apps and any other place that they can jam it in. But having an AI on your computer would be like having a fish in it. By the third day you would want it out.

    Reply ↓
    1. Henry Moon Pie May 21, 2025 at 10:59 am

       I made this joke yesterday when this link appeared in comments, but I laughed so hard at my own joke that I’ll repeat it. We shouldn’t take these non-existent books as a failing on AI’s part but as a wonderful new invention.

       For that mellow summer vacay, a non-existent book is the perfect read:

       – the price is right;

       – it doesn’t take up precious room in that carry-on; and

       – best of all, you can brag to your friends about reading it, and they can never prove you a liar.

       Reply ↓
21. t May 21, 2025 at 10:38 am

    For those in the US who want Novavax, and want enough demand for Novavax in the US that it is available here, a tip lifted from the comments in the linked article. This T is not me! Just a solid citizen.

    T
    TA-RN
    13 hours ago
    Still possible to make a public comment:

    Step-By-Step Submission Instructions:

    Step 1. Go to https://www.regulations.gov/commenton/FDA-2025-N-1146-0001 to submit your comment.

    Step 2. Type your comment under the field, “Comment,” and under “What is your comment about?” select “Federal Government G0007.”

    Step 3 (optional). Submit a PDF or Word version of your comment under “Attach Files.”

    Step 4. Select either “Individual” or “Anonymous” depending on whether you want to share your personal information that will be publicly available on the Federal Register.

    Step 5. If select “Individual,” provide your first and last name at minimum. If select “Anonymous,” directly submit a comment without sharing your personal information.

    Final Step 6. Click “Submit Comment.”

    Reply ↓
22. ChrisFromGA May 21, 2025 at 10:44 am

    Did anyone catch “Action Barbie” Noem’s response when asked what Habeas Corpus was?

    The proper definition:

    Latin, meaning “you have the body.” A writ of habeas corpus generally is a judicial order forcing law enforcement authorities to produce a prisoner they are holding, and to justify the prisoner’s continued confinement. Found in Article 1, Section 9, Clause 2 of the Constitution. First enacted into statute in the first Judicary Act of 1789. The right was expanded to state prisoners following the the Civil War. Federal statutes ( 28 U.S.C. §§ 2241–2256 ) outline the procedural aspects of federal habeas proceedings.

    What it isn’t – whatever Noem said, something to the effect of the right of the President to deport whomever the hell he feels like with no hearing.

    Reply ↓
23. Revenant May 21, 2025 at 10:51 am

    Thank you, Colonel.

    There isn’t a single positive comment! Two worth lifting are:

    “NotaWinstonin1984
    2 hrs ago
    This article demonstrates why the working class hate Starmer and the entire right wing faction now in control of the Labour party. Shifting blame for the consequences of government policy onto others who are not in government is the behaviour of political cowards who not willing to take responsibility for their own policies.

    Next the Starmarites will blame Corbyn for the cuts to the winter fuel allowance and cuts to the welfare budget.

    How is Starmer and his faction still getting away blaming others for their actions and their policy decisions?

    The answer lies not in parliament but outside parliament, it lies squarely on the shoulders of the trade union leadership that insists on funnelling 77 million pounds to the neoliberal Labour party. Even when that neoliberal labour party leadership has supported genocide.

    While Starmer’s government has supported genocide what have the trade union leadership done, they have continued to funnel millions into the Labour party. The trade union leadership continues with the lie to working class voters that the Labour party is on the side of the working class .

    The working class now have no representation in parliament. Just as was the case before chartists and socialist first fought for universal suffrage in the 19th century. Now in working class representation in a pretense a sham to fool workers into believing Westminster offers the working class anything. And the trade union leadership helps the labour party leadership and it’s rich backers in the ruling class maintain this fiction. Maintenance of this fiction with the help of the trade union leadership is proof the trade union leadership are stooges if the capitalist ruling class just as the leadership of the Labour party are stooges of that same ruling class.”

    And

    “Northwing
    5 hrs ago
    Is this meant to be a work of fiction?

    “Antisemitic conspiracy theories suggesting Labour is being held back by Zionist interests can readily be found on social media, but none of this is true.”

    Really? It is a fact that Starmer concealed who bankrolled his leadership bid until the votes were counted. His most significant donor is Trevor Chinn, one of the UK’s most prominent pro-Israel lobbyists. He continues to fund the party and chosen senior MPs. The largest single donation to Labour under Starmer, and one that likely saved the party from bankruptcy, come from Gary Lubner, a South African multimillionaire and another major pro-Israel lobbyist. He is one of the two main figures who recently bought The Observer.

    From the Register of Interests, we can see that other prominent MPs are funded by Red Capital (an investment company that grew out of Lord Jon Mendelsohn’s gambling empire). Jon Mendelsohn is another Israel lobbyist and also a major backer of Progress- an organisation that trained Right Wing apparatchiks for public office. Progress has been superceded by Labour Together Ltd., a private limited company bankrolled by Trevor Chinn and a US-based hedge fund. Under Starmer, it has been empowered to effectively run the Party management. It also provides staff and funding for chosen MPs, and via Josh Simons and Luke Akehurst (the latter formerly chair of “We Believe in Israel”), imposed nearly two hundred hand-picked crony candidates on constuituencies the lenght and bredth of the country.

    LFI is another lobbying group that conceals its sources of funding. (https://www.declassifieduk.org/who-funds-labour-friends-of-israel-and-why-wont-it-say/). It donates to MPs directly. 25% of the PLP are in LFI, but 1/3 of the Cabinet are.

    I could go on, but there isn’t space.”

    Reply ↓
24. The Rev Kev May 21, 2025 at 10:52 am

    “A Devastating New Exposé of Johnson & Johnson Indicts an Entire System”

    This is a real evil history and qualifies Johnson & Johnson as a Nazi corporation because of it behaviour and the untold deaths credited to it. One name pops up often in connection with these stories and is Alex Gorsky and you would not know about it from his Wikipedia entry-

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

    Reply ↓
    1. PlutoniumKun May 21, 2025 at 11:41 am

       The article is staggering – I knew they were bad, but I didn’t realise J&J were quite that bad.

       Its interesting that they seem to have liked recruiting ex-military on the basis, it seems, that they are more likely to just follow orders.

       Reply ↓
25. Expat2uruguay May 21, 2025 at 11:02 am

    Is there any chance that Trump will be impeached? He is doing so badly with the economy and now foreign relations as well. Or is it more likely that he will “end”, one way or another, as Biden once said about the Nord stream pipeline?

    Reply ↓
26. karma fubar May 21, 2025 at 11:06 am

    I never would have thought that I could have become this jaded and cynical before the 2024 election cycle, but I am absolutely unwilling to believe in Biden’s cancer diagnosis as reported by his personal office. After the gaslighting, distortions and lies about the increasingly feeble-minded Biden, I am unwilling to take anything from Democratic leadership in general, and from the Biden administration specifically, at face value. Consider me a casualty in the complete loss of trust in the statements of the Democrats.

    Reply ↓
27. Chuck Teague May 21, 2025 at 11:36 am

    Is There a Least Bad Alcohol?

    Unfiltered ale; preferably home-brewed. Because, on top of being tasty and easy to consume, it is also (for the win)…nutritional. A valuable source of vitamin B complex and trace minerals.

    At least that’s what all my home brewing books say. Cheers.

    – CT

    Reply ↓
    1. PlutoniumKun May 21, 2025 at 11:50 am

       Naseem Nicholas Teleb has been banging the drum for some time that multiple studies on alcohol use dubious statistics – essentially identifying effects that aren’t there.

       Big population studies don’t really show that big an effect. If alcohol was so bad you’d expect to see some sort of differential impact on low to zero alcohol societies (i.e. muslim countries) against the wine and beer drinking nations. If anything, its the opposite (northern vs southern bank of the Mediterranean, for example).

       Alcohol isn’t good for you, but health is a big package thing – in the greater scheme of health bads and goods its well down the list after smoking, bad diets, exercise, etc., etc.

       Reply ↓
28. Lieaibolmmai May 21, 2025 at 11:40 am

    > Is There a Least Bad Alcohol?

    Alcohol is only a problem if you cannot metabolize it.

    Ethanol is first turned into an aldehyde by Alcohol dehydrogenase, which uses Zinc as a cofactor and NAD+ as a coenzyme. This is why alcohol use depletes zinc. And this is why you should take zinc or eat oysters if you drink. Not enough zinc and the liver then uses Catalase and CYP450 backup enzymes which is not ideal since we need those enzymes for antioxidation and detoxification.

    Next, the aldehyde (Acetaldehyde) is metabolized by ALDH2, an enzyme which needs NAD+ as a coenzyme and produces acetate, a ketone that can be used in the krebs cycle.

    So, what about NAD+? NAD+ is basically the vitamin niacin which we also aquire from food, but we also make NAD+ ourselves from tryptophan via the Kynurenine Pathway. That pathways enzymes depend on B6 and B2 to function well.

    So, you see, nutrition is the problem, not the alcohol. But you will note the Times article did not bring up nutrition once.

    Reply ↓
29. aj May 21, 2025 at 11:41 am

    No offense to the new person, but man I really miss Lambert. I used to read water cooler every day and now I just check the site a couple times a week and read an article or two. The ones I do read are well written and the Commentariate is as good as ever, but it’s just not the same. Dang I must be getting old.

    Reply ↓
    1. PlutoniumKun May 21, 2025 at 11:51 am

       He is badly missed – I do hope he’s enjoying his retirement.

       Reply ↓
       1. Samuel Conner May 21, 2025 at 12:26 pm

          I think he is writing; IIRC his announcement at “D-day – 2 months” mentioned writing projects that he wanted to do and that he considered that he ought to do. Maybe he has some book projects in mind.

          I hope that we (the wider world, as well as the NC community) will hear from him in due course.

          Reply ↓
30. none May 21, 2025 at 11:48 am

    This is pretty funny, 2 minute video. Beau Biden asks your help in saving his dad from elder abuse.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPxjQfV8X6o

    Reply ↓
31. LawnDart May 21, 2025 at 12:03 pm

    Re; China?

    From a corporate investor-relations post, but of interest as this is an effort that is piggy-backing off of China’s Belt-and-Road project. Basically, Chinese companies are seeking to assist in managing and regulating the “drone-zone,” the low-altitude airspace, above participating countries– with full-backing and support from Beijing, I should add:

    “Guided by the principles of standardized planning, scenario-driven operations, and modularized technology,’ we endeavor to co-create scalable, replicable demonstration zones for the low-altitude economy, “ said Mr. Wang, “Through this partnership, we will promote Chinese standards on the global stage, and extend the benefits of safe and intelligent air mobility to broader regions.”

    https://www.ehang.com/news/1229.html

    Reply ↓