These birds carry a toxin deadlier than cyanide National Geographic
Climate/Environment
US oil firms pumping secret chemicals into ground and not fully reporting it The Guardian
The Critical Minerals Fueling Green Tech Are Also Fueling Conflict World Politics Review
***
Tornado outbreak likely costliest US severe weather event of 2025 Reinsurance News
‘It’s a gamble’: Homeowners, experts testify on soaring property insurance InsuranceNewsNet
Signs of human error grow in failure to evacuate Altadena during fire. But who is to blame? Los Angeles Times
Pandemics
Fevers in city hospitals, previously caused mainly by influenza A and B, are now increasingly linked to Covid-19. As a result, surgeons have canceled critical procedures such as transplants, bypass surgeries, and heart valve replacements, doctors said. #news pic.twitter.com/EA5FhinFsB
— Chennai Live Digital 104.8 (@chennailive1048) May 20, 2025
XEC variant of Covid-19 ‘spreading 7 times faster than the flu’ Bangkok Post
Health experts warn of increase in flu deaths among New York’s children Spectrum News 1
China?
United States Appears Set to Skip World Health Assembly while China Sends Over 180 Delegates to Geneva Health Policy Watch
China to donate $500 million to WHO, stepping into gap left by U.S. WaPo
***
Exclusive: Tech race with China is top intel priority, deputy CIA director says Axios
“Just Count the Server Racks”… ChinaTalk
Nvidia says U.S. export controls on AI chips to China were ‘a failure’ Reuters
China Threatens Enforcers of US’s Huawei Curbs With Legal Action Bloomberg
BYD is outselling Ford in Mexico in the first four months of 2025. https://t.co/9771d4aQP1
— Nat Bullard (@NatBullard) May 20, 2025
Old Blighty
The troubling case of Lucy Connolly Wrong Side of History
Third man charged over fires at homes linked to PM BBC. Another Ukrainian.
European Disunion
Ukrainian lawyer Andrii Portnov shot dead outside American School in Madrid El Pais. Former adviser to ex-president Viktor Yanukovych rumored to possess sensitive information on Zelensky.
EU countries greenlight €150 billion loan plan for joint defence procurement Euractiv
Europe’s Eclipse of Intelligence – Intro Finn Andreen’s Substack
Syraqistan
Netanyahu sets displacement of Palestinians from Gaza as ‘condition’ to end genocide The Cradle
It’s Hard to Raise Good Children in a Country That Normalizes Killing Children Haaretz
***
Israel Fires “Warning Shots” at EU Diplomats — Day After UK Suspends Trade Talks Truthout
British media are pivoting HARD against Israel. She’s talking to this Israeli like he’s a Russian. https://t.co/CwJsbi6Mz2
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) May 21, 2025
David Lammy has explicitly ruled out stopping the UK export of F-35 parts to Israel, knowing these warplanes are being used in Gaza.#DCUKparliament pic.twitter.com/glpqT1Uczj
— Declassified UK (@declassifiedUK) May 21, 2025
All the genociders must go Anti-Empire Project. “By presenting fake divisions inside of this elite, they give the people false hopes that the genocide can be stopped while they remain in charge, if they could be asked in just the right way.”
***
2 Israeli Embassy staff members killed outside Jewish museum in Washington, DC CNN
The Israel Embassy Shooter Manifesto Ken Klippenstein
***
Rubio warns Syria could be weeks away from ‘full-scale civil war’ BBC
Iranian diplomats suspect Trump using talks as instrument of sabotage The Grayzone
New Not-So-Cold War
Russia Has Started Losing the War in Ukraine Foreign Policy. Michael Kimmage, director of the Kennan Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington, not giving up.
SITREP 5/21/25: Trump ‘Distances’ US from Ukraine as Russia Smashes AFU’s Defenses on Donetsk Front Simplicius
Dozens Killed in Iskander Missile Strike on Ukrainian Training Camp: New Tactics Increase Lethality Military Watch
Trump Tells European Leaders in Private That Putin Isn’t Ready to End War WSJ
Europe considers the perils of flying fighters in Ukraine’s airspace Al Jazeera
Time for Europe to Take the Lead on Sanctioning Russiahttps://t.co/47bQUID9eh
— Michael McFaul (@McFaul) May 21, 2025
L’affaire Epstein
Jeffrey Epstein’s Dark Legacy Still Clouds the Virgin Islands Lee Fang
Spook Country
Phone companies failed to warn senators about surveillance, Wyden says Politico
“Golden Dome”
SpaceX Poised to Profit From Trump’s Golden Dome Fantasy Gizmodo
Unusually strong words by China about Trump’s “Golden Dome” which they say they’re “gravely concerned” by.
As they explain Trump “intends to create an unconstrained, global, multi-layer and multi-domain missile defense system”, with “plans to expand the US arsenal of means for… https://t.co/W3544O0xdR
— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) May 21, 2025
“Liberation Day”
The high tariffs are up blowing up supply contactors. Here’s how to protect your company. Inside China / Business
China-US Trade Soars as Exporters Race to Hit Trade Truce Window Bloomberg
Tariffs, inflation and leery customers are hitting retailers in different ways AP
This Woolworths budget friendly meal consists of frozen vegetables, half price noodles, and a discounted can of spam.
This is so fucking depressing. pic.twitter.com/6lfEi6tKnu
— Damien🐰🐱 (@RabidLagomorph) May 20, 2025
Trump 2.0
Pentagon officially accepts Qatari jet for Trump’s use The Hill
Notes on the Trump-Ramaphosa White Riot Rootless Cosmopolitan
***
House GOP releases changes to megabill Politico
CBO Report Shows Trump-GOP Bill Would Spur Unparalleled Wealth Transfer From Poor to Rich Common Dreams
GOP bill raises fears of major reduction in home care for seniors, disabled The Hill
The GOP plan to cut the EITC via administrative burdens Can We Still Govern?. EITC=Earned Income Tax Credit
GOP Funhouse
Nancy Mace shows nude photo of herself in House hearing as she says she was recorded without consent The Independent
Democrats en déshabillé
Democrats Throw Money at a Problem: Countering G.O.P. Clout Online New York Times
Justice Dept. investigating former New York Gov. Cuomo over pandemic testimony, AP source says AP
A huge Democratic victory in Omaha offers a lesson for the party The Guardian
Boeing
Boeing Increases 737 Production Pace as Quality, Safety Culture Improves Reuters
FAA Plans 787 Inspections For Non-Compliant Titanium Aviation Week
Imperial Collapse Watch
The Era Of The Business Idiot Where’s Your Ed At?
FAA implements ground delay at Austin airport due to staffing issues at control tower CBS Austin
Groves of Academe
California school enrollment continues to drop as poor and homeless student numbers rise Los Angeles Times
AI
When AI runs a company, who is the beneficial owner? Tax Justice Network
Provision in Spending Bill Could Protect Health Insurers From AI-Accountability HEALTH CARE un-covered
Google I/O Day Don’t Worry About the Vase
Maybe my best example of the speciousness of Google’s proposed remedies for its lawbreaking…
Google just posted that requiring it allow publishers to selectively opt their content out of Google’s AI models has no bearing on its search monopoly (and abuses). Seriously. pic.twitter.com/sJEe9mTxNw— Jason Kint (@jason_kint) May 22, 2025
Mr. Market
New GOP bill, projected to balloon the deficit, spooks the bond market Marketplace
Bitcoin price hit a new all-time high and data shows BTC bulls aren’t done yet Coin Telegraph
Healthcare?
Revealed: UnitedHealth secretly paid nursing homes to reduce hospital transfers The Guardian
And the Guardian tracked him down for an investigation of Medicare Advantage greed driven nursing home de facto death panels. Most of its revelations were referenced in Maxwell Ollivant’s 2020 whistleblower complaint, but the story paints a richer picture https://t.co/Nk4O3Yr5YQ
— moe tkacik (@moetkacik) May 21, 2025
Antitrust
Conservative Antitrust is Soulless Law and Power
Tech
THE PARENT TEST Protean Magazine
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
In The Dictator Club
(melody borrowed from A Teenager In Love, written by Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, as performed by Dion & The Belmonts in 1959)
I’ve claimed a lot of laurels—way more than Bonaparte!
I’ve ruined global trade with my new tariff chart!
I’m still the fist in Israel’s glove!
Why can’t I be in the Dictator Club?
I may be old and flabby, but Putin drives me mad
He still says I’m a fake, still on the launching pad
He won’t give me a ceasefire and stuff
Why can’t I be in the Dictator Club?
I’m struggling here with judicial review
My orders get undone by the SCOTUS, too
What must I do to satisfy? What more do I have to do?
Send a detailed reply—list someone I haven’t screwed
Don’t leave me out here nursing a grudge
Why can’t I be in the Dictator Club?
Putin my dear, that shirtless thing you do
Your muscles in the sun make me hullabaloo
Well, why can’t I be sanctified, join the Dictator crew?
Gimme all the reasons why, you’re the man I look up to
This whole world thinks I’m running amuck
Why can’t I be in the Dictator Club?
Why can’t I be in the Dictator Club? (in love)
Why can’t I be in the Dictator Club? (in love)
Why can’t I be in the Dictator Club?
“Dozens Killed in Iskander Missile Strike on Ukrainian Training Camp: New Tactics Increase Lethality”
The title does not mention it though the body of the story does that this was a special forces training camp. So what about those 20 instructors that were killed? Considering the fact that they were training special forces soldiers, were these actually NATO officers that had been sheep-dipped? The following RT article has a video in colour showing what happened-
https://www.rt.com/news/617987-sumy-iskander-strike-ukraine/
So is this a case of NATO standing for Need Another Twenty Officers?
I find it more interesting that it says “training camp in the disputed Sumy region”. Either it’s too hard for the author/AI to rememeber/lookup the names of disputed regions, or they are predicting the future.
Another thing that caught my eye is “The coordinates of the target were transferred to the calculations of the Iskander missile defence system”. Some high quality journalism/AI there. Not only that Iskander is not missile defence system, but “calculations” is common machine mistranslation from Russian (though less obvious than reffering to assault infantryment as attack aircraft 🛩️).
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/расчёт7. (military) gun crew, gunners (group of soldiers operating an artillery piece, machine gun, etc.)
Maybe there’s more of this, but I couldn’t be bothered reading this shlock in its entirety.
Simplicius’ reports on the movements of an SAS Air Ambulance 737 shortly after the attack from Germany to Rzeszów to Paris and then Amsterdam.
there are plenty of retired US/non-US SpecOps (including Rangers) alumni; and they don’t posses mystical Jedi skills.
at >$20k / month one will find plenty of takers, especially if they have no/estranged families. no casualty laundering needed
Nobody knows where diplomacy has gone
But decency left the same time
Why was he holding peace negotiations
When he’s opening a crypto mine
It’s his party and I’ll cry if I want to
Cry if I want to, cry if I want to
You would cry too if it happened to you
Plays all his greatest hits, keep texting all night
But leave me alone for a while
The devil is messing with me
I’ve got no reason to smile
It’s his party and I’ll cry if I want to
Cry if I want to, cry if I want to
You would cry too if it happened to you
Mike Johnson just walked thru’ the door
Like a consort with his king
Oh, what a big beautiful bill surprise
It’s a far far right thing
It’s his party and I’ll cry if I want to
Cry if I want to, cry if I want to
You would cry too if it happened to you
It’s My Party, by Lesley Gore
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIsnIt1p978
Is this “big beautiful bill” Trump’s Liz Truss head of lettuce moment?
The 10-year treasury is threatening a run at 5%. Can the bond vigilantes please kill bill?
I feel positive that retail price increases on store shelves from coast to coast thanks to the tariffist attacks, will be in line with what 10-year treasuries are fetching…
Mentioned yesterday how my cabin insurance tripled from last year’s price, a tidy 305% increase, and yet all you ever get out of the dismal scientologists is their 3% inflation canard~
It needs googly eyes to beat the lettuce! Not beautiful til it gets those. PS Certain Brits really know how to annoy him…..Larry the Cat refused to come out from under his car on his first state visit and delayed him. Hahaha.
I always thought that Larry the Cat has pretty sound judgment.
Somebody has managed (even since Elon’s takeover) to run a parody Twitter account in his name. It’s actually very good and I’d encourage people to follow it. Whoever runs it simply points out hypocrisy by politicians and intersperses it with cat memes and funny commentary on life from the viewpoint of a cat.
It MIGHT be the guy who seems to be on hand virtually 24/7 to photograph Larry doing funny stuff in Downing Street but I tend to think not on balance since those are both full time jobs!
Starmer is Larry the Cat’s sixth Prime Minster that he has served with. Larry has taken the measure of the man and found him very much wanting.
“Russia has Started Losing the War in Ukraine” – Fgn Policy, Kimmage
Kimmage is the Director of the Kennan Institute, ironically – Kennan was utterly opposed to expanding NATO and he must be spinning in his grave at this war-mongering nonsense from Kimmage. Do these people have any grasp of reality, let alone shame for the blatant disinformation they spread?
I saw “Russia Has Started Losing the War in Ukraine” in an email yesterday and literally laughed out loud.
Hey now, don’t disparage Professor Kimmage. He’s yet another academic “expert” on contemporary Russian history. Also, according to his bio: “From 2014 to 2016, he served on the Secretary’s Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State, where he held the Russia/Ukraine portfolio.” Hmm, let’s see, what was happening in that part of the world from 2014 to 2016? Oh yeah.
The comparison between Kennan – certainly no naive peacenik himself – and this “director of the Kennan institute” and former Obama advisor is an excellent example of how “foreign policy” has completely devolved into public narrative manipulation today – i.e. propaganda. Naturally the Wilson Center has to go with those who have the most marketable skills.
‘Arnaud Bertrand
@RnaudBertrand
Unusually strong words by China about Trump’s “Golden Dome” which they say they’re “gravely concerned” by.
As they explain Trump “intends to create an unconstrained, global, multi-layer and multi-domain missile defense system”, with “plans to expand the US arsenal of means for combat operations in outer space, including R&D and deployment of orbital interception systems.”‘
Trump’s Golden Dome is just Israel’s Iron Dome writ large. There is only one problem. It doesn’t work. When it was tested during an Iranian attack, their better – not their best – missiles got through and slammed into their targets in Israel causing critics of the Iron Dome to call it an Iron Colander instead. So the problem here is that the US will go ahead and build this Golden Dome spending perhaps trillions in the end. And when it is done, the geniuses in DC will say to themselves in their hubris that now the US can do anything that they want to Russia and China and the Golden Dome will stop any counter-attacks, not realized that this is patently false. It will encourage DC to conduct more risky maneuvers overseas because they will think that they are now missiles proof.
They’re really going to do it, aren’t they?
— A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.
On the plus side, it will make some billionaires much billionairer.
At long last, each billionaire will have just enough to cover his, or her, fat, white derrière.
trump’s golden dome seems like the newest name for reagan’s missle defense system “star wars” Strategic defense initiative.
For forty years,
Add some technology that doesn’t really exist….
Pretend it does
Add billions and billions of tax dollars for the fat cats …
Pretty soon…. you have a career…… for a lifetime
This missile defense system will never be deployed. The whole point is to use fantasies of American tech superiority as a political stunt and then steal the money. That presents its own problems, but elite overconfidence in the fully built system is not a thing to worry about.
Absolutely agree, albrt. From the perspective of our ruling billionaires, just what is it on the continental USA that is so precious as to be worth such an expenditure? They’ve let the infrastructure crumble. They’ve destroyed some of the best farmland in the world with their Big Ag practices with the side “benefit” of poisoning our streams, rivers and oceans with their pesticides and overdoses of nitrogen and phosphate. They’ve let school districts in all but the wealthiest districts decline both physically and as a source of learning.
And they could care less about the welfare of the people.
I figure a lot of it will go to Elon’s Mars project. In a sense, go for it, Elon. Just take Gates, Andreeson, Thiel, Yarvik and the rest of the Life-hating ghouls go with him.
Enjoy those cosmic rays, fellas.
This is a case where I think he really is that dumb. The Golden Dome will.protect us from nuclear war and fallout anywhere in the world.
Or he thinks people dumb enough to to believe any of his actions could have consequences will stop worrying about their imaginary woke fears.
Trump’s Golden Dome is just a take-the-money-and-run endeavour. No one involved expect it to be completed, yet alone to work as intended, but they all expect a cut.
Reagan’s Star Wars 2.0
“This Woolworths budget friendly meal consists of frozen vegetables, half price noodles, and a discounted can of spam.
This is so fucking depressing.”
Poor little snowflake – I lived for months as a student on oatmeal, bananas, and peanut butter, with dinners of Rice and Dal with onions. Spam was a luxury!
Beans and rice Creole– tabasco sauce, beans and rice Cantonese– soy sauce, beans and rice Bolognese– tomato paste, etc.
Yeah. Before getting so tired with the covid I’d regularly cook stews (chicken/beef/pork/lamb) in bulk from scratch and freeze portions for just cooking brown rice or pasta for the carbs. Using LIDL or ALDI I reckon the cost per portion was under £1. (Though certainly not 30p for those who know the reference).
I knew exactly what had gone into it and it got crucial seal of approval from mum. However I do understand the increasing time/energy constraints on people so we eat probably too many ready meals these days ourselves due to such factors.
That tin of spam is 50% more expensive than the UK where it costs £3.50, and the UK is known for being very expensive!
My favourite student meal was rice and melted cheese mixed up with Branston pickle.
Looks like a disgusting slop, so people wouldn’t steal it from the fridge
Three pounds fifty is actually seven dollars thirty Australian, so the UK still has the more expensive spam.
During my entire time living in Sydney the AUD was incredibly strong and a £ typically only got you AUD1.5: this was a weird period and the rate now is much closer to the historical “norm” of AUD2 – 2.5.
We had great problems running some courses when I lived there because it was so much more expensive for UK colleagues to visit.
Good to know we still lead the world. I note Australia only retains The Ashes because it can only manage a draw against us
Did somebody say Spam?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycKNt0MhTkk (2:45 mins)
I knew what I would find if I clicked.
I was surprised last week, talking with a couple of 30-ish techies who didn’t know the origin of the usage of ‘spam’ to describe unsolicited messages. I shared the clip with them.
Well said, Madame Antoinette. What ever will the peasants want next? Shoes?
My senior year in college, I lived off-campus with my wife-to-be (50th coming up in June, a golden anniversary in a Golden Age), and Bisquick was usually on the menu. It may be even more versatile than shrimp.
I lived for months as a student…, many of us did, the idea being that there were greener pastures in our future. So I ask you, would you have changed your career/life trajectory if you were aware that the degree you were (hard) working towards was only going to earn you a discounted tin of spam to go with your Cup o’ Salt?
(not disputing OP’s point) SPAM is a perfectly acceptable gift in most of Asia—it isn’t embarassing to, say, give your kid’s teacher a boxed Spam gift set instead of a box of chocolates.
and Spam ain’t cheap per lbs. (might as well get the real thing)
One man’s banquet is another woman’s Spam, I guess
Oatmeal, bananas, and peanut butter? A luxury worth of a princess! I lived for years as a student on a diet of rocks and lichen, in a warzone.
Yorkshireman alert!
Bingo!
One of my favorite clips about being poor and eating ….. (30 seconds) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXiwnCNDxRw
We grew up less funded. We’d eat mustard sandwiches. I still love mustard to this day, for some gosh awful reason.
Tweet image about the budget friendly meal…must be overseas I suppose as I can’t fathom that a Woolworth location is even open in the US…Looks like the answer is none are open.
Golden Age….and all that nonsense notwithstanding. Whether it’s under Bush 43, Obama , Trump 46 or Wide Eyed Joey life in America can be horrid and cruel on the poors and downtrodden…
Woolworths is still a going thing in Australia, which gives you the idea that 40% of the population there can only scare up 400 bucks, if they’re running adverts such as that.
Here in Oz, our two big supermarket chains are Woolworths and Coles who together have a combined market share of over 80%. Aldi have been making inroads here and they are solid value to shop in and are cheaper than either Coles or Woolworths.
Many years ago somebody said that they were not sure what pensioners and students ate at night to keep themselves going but they were pretty sure that it ended in ‘roni.’
I remember the scandal that erupted shortly after self-service check-outs were rolled out by Woolworths across Australia (c2009 when I arrived) and reporters found out the rate of fraud by postcode (and were largely able to infer stores). Cremorne (lower north shore of Sydney – MY local Woolies) was the worst offender….and that postcode was the richest in Australia (though around then it lost the crown to somewhere in WA….probably wherever Gina Rinehart lived).
Turned out the rich gits where I lived quickly worked out how to weigh the cheapest fruit and get the label printed when they were in fact buying avocados or something much more expensive. Plus this was the era before bagging areas had much more sensitive scales and cameras.
This began a strong dislike on my part of the supposed well-heeled people of the lower north shore. They tried to with-hold my unit deposit when I left but I was wise to their tricks and threatened them with the NSW tribunal system and knowing the top academic marketer in the world. Money paid into bank account that very day.
Not surprised. In Sydney Cove there were a line of office buildings that were torn down which greatly improved the look of that area. But then they built a line of apartment buildings for very wealth people who wanted exclusive views. They call it Bennelong Apartments but people call it “the toaster” and you can see why in the Wikipedia entry-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bennelong_Apartments
Point is that you have to be very wealthy to live there. But a security guard there reported that at night, these very same people would come out of their apartments to make use of the electrical outlets meant for the night-time cleaners to charge up their mobile phones with.
Yeah I know it and it does NOT surprise me.
For self check out lines here in the Rancid Underbelly of the North American Deep South, I have it from impeccable sources, as in an actual store manager, that WalMart requires one “Store Associate” present to oversee for every four self check out units. However, the number of units per employee seems to be fluid depending on store location.
The practice is still in its development phase evidently.
See, (I know it’s the Sun, sorry): https://www.the-sun.com/money/14088636/walmart-fine-self-checkout-increases/
As for rental deposit troubles; we had exactly that problem years ago in Covington, Louisiana. A demonstrably false claim that we had trashed the rental unit “allowed” the landlord to try and keep our deposit. The next day, a Friday I believe, Phyllis and I went over to the landlord’s house, in the tony part of town, and sat on his front porch swing. A neighbour walked past with his dog and slowed down to stare at us. Phyl told him that we were waiting for our rental deposit from the owner.
The owner promptly comes out and threatens to call the police on us.
“Fine,” answers Phyl, “and you’ll get all the bad publicity you want.”
The owner re-enters the house and quickly reappears with a cheque.
“Now,” he growls, “get off of my porch and never come back.” He slams the door and we promptly went to the local bank and cashed the paper before it could be stopped.
That was some forty-five years ago. Today we would probably be charged with “Domestic Terrorism” and sent to a “holding facility” in some tropic clime.
Stay safe.
Every day when I get to Democrats en déshabillé, i have the same thought: “Oh yeah, I remember them. Ha, I’d forgotten their existence!”
Nothing in the section ever makes me think they’ll return to revelance.
Lessons learned from the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. Rule 1, if a Republican controlled NC legislature cuts funding over 10 to 20 years don’t be shocked at record landslides, historic damage with loss of life, and possibly inept or just simply unprepared emergency management. I don’t imagine, from my limited knowledge that too many of these mountain counties are populated with those willing to leave cause “so and so” on the TV said to leave.
Helene was (my two cents) a once in a thousand year occurrence, living here in the adjacent upstate region of South Carolina we were duly warned but the entirety of the climactic storm was overwhelming for many I think. It hit the hardest in the western NC regions per the article but let’s not kid ourselves, storm damage in SC still takes a long time to clean up. My fear is that portions of western NC will likely resemble what portions of eastern NC experienced after a period ( circa 1996 to 2004 ) of bad storms and years of multiple hurricanes. It is never the same again or rather it’s a slow gradual effort to rebuild no matter the money from either the state or FEMA.
Re; Healthcare?
On insurance, agents collect a commission when they sell a policy: when do agents stop collecting commissions on policies? Do the agents recieve a portion of the monthly-payments made be customer towards said policy?
If someone with a long-term care policy begins to draw-down benefits, say from in-home care, how does that affect renewal of the policy, monthly payments, and agent commissions?
I am totally ignorant on this subject, and would very much appreciate some enlightenment– thanks in advance.
Can agents themselves have incentive to see that policies they have written or sold remain unused?
[Sorry for follow-up, but I think that this is my bottom-line question]
Alberta, Alberta
Where you been so long?
Alberta, Alberta
Where you been so long?
Ain’t had no reason for a 51st star
Since you’ve been gone
Alberta, Alberta
How’d the Oilers do last night?
Alberta, Alberta
How’d the Oilers do last night?
Come home to Uncle Sam
Being provincial don’t fit you right
Alberta, Alberta
Upper Lone Star state, you’re on my mind
Alberta, Alberta
Upper Lone Star state, you’re on my mind
Ain’t had no Bob’s your Uncle Sam
Some say its about time
Alberta, Alberta
Where you been so long?
Alberta, Alberta
Where you been so long?
Ain’t had no reason for a 51st star
Since you’ve been gone
Alberta, performed by Eric Clapton
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mR86Ul_g3Y
The frackin’ frackers–
The article discusses the effects of a blowout at length, but does not talk much about the fact that the chemicals injected into the well come back up with water and additional salts as part of the normal practice. Just as oil wells in the Permian Basin produce salt water that must be disposed of, sometimes in wells drilled specifically for that purpose and sometimes in old, depleted wells, so fracked wells produce lots of water with plenty of yummy fracking chemicals as a bonus.
Now the “business idiots” in charge of these wells want to save on costs, so they convince local politicians to let them spray this delectable stew on public roads as a de-icer and dust suppresser. Win/win! Everybody saves money in the short term, and we’ll let the people who get cancer from the chemicals in their well water or whose kids get sick from playing in a creek.deal with it on their own.
And that’s before we get into earthquakes. You do not want to live anywhere near a shale deposit if you can avoid it. Here’s a map of the Marcellus Shale, the one that impinges on NE Ohio where I live.
All sounds evil, vicious and devious indeed….like the corporation playbook of DuPont or Dow Chemical (now combined as a mega company) for how to poison and sicken the local counties and communities of West Virginia or in more recent times a smaller city like Fayetteville NC.
It’s like the fictional tale from Michael Clayton brought to real life…over and over….
Why would senators be using personal devices to legislate?
Seems an odd thing to be concerned about. For anyone who takes security seriously.
Cheese and Crackers! I am a nobody with an unimportant job and my routine, regular security training about using work devices appears to be orders.of magnitude more complex and detailed than when anyone in the current administration or DOGE has ever had.
Love it …. “Cheese and Crackers!” My mom would say that one. She’d often follow it with “got all muddy”. Thanks for the smile :-)
“United States Appears Set to Skip World Health Assembly while China Sends Over 180 Delegates to Geneva”
The US is also not going to attend the G-20 meeting in November in South Africa because, don’tcha know, South Africa is a genocidal state. But Tel Aviv would be an acceptable substitute if it was in the G-20. I really do think that the Trump regime should remember that half the secret of success is just showing up. By shunning such meetings, they are letting other countries, particularly China, create the standards for the world. It’s bad enough that the US is one of the last few holdouts with not adopting the metric system but when you start talking about other fields such as medicine, computing, trading, etc. then that starts to make the US be a bit of a backwater. Trump is thinking in terms of Fortress America but the way that he is going about it, will in fact make the US a backwater in many fields.
In all fairness, we were supposed to be all metric by the Bicentennial, but it didn’t take.
Very glad to see Justin Podhur’s work (Anti-Empire Project) featured in Links. He has seemed like a good person to me and I have found his analysis of things to be excellent for as long as I’ve been following his work.
More about UnitedHealth from Jimmy Dore. (Because markets, go die.) utube, ~10 minutes+
Health Insurance Company Targeted By Luigi Being Investigated For Fraud!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUFAG4X2dvE
“Europe considers the perils of flying fighters in Ukraine’s airspace’
This is so stupid on so many levels but I will point out the most obvious one here – they are talking about setting up a No Fly Zone over the Ukraine like they were talking about a coupla years ago. As the article mentions, it is not really the job of fighters to be chasing drones and missiles. And considering that Europe keeps on saying that Russia is about to invade them, should they really be emptying their inventories of air-to-air missiles over the Ukraine? Is that wise? Of course Russia has repeatedly said that any foreign force in the Ukraine is fair game and that would include those foreign fighters. And 120 aircraft is a massive amount of resources that will require extensive support that will wear down NATO’s aerial fleet. But consider this. A French fighter is trying to protect Kiev when a Russian fighter gets missile lock on them and fires off a missile. Supposing that that French fighter gets hit but actually crashes in a NATO nation, does that count as an Article 5, especially if the pilot is killed. What if it is shot down over the Ukraine – will that require a NATO response? What if NATO tries to use those fighters to lob a few missiles on advancing Russian troops. What then. This could all go south and end up in a NATO-Russian shooting war which is exactly why the whole idea was thought up by a Ukrainian think tank.
Try our new No Fly Zone Lite! Now with even less flying!
If this does not fool the Rooskies, next cunning plan will be barrage balloons.
Business idiots–
A good, old-fashioned blogger’s rant that I’ll have to go back and finish to see where all that jumping around ends up.
It did seem to confirm a contention I heard yesterday from Vanessa Andreotti, author of Hospicing Modernity, on a Nate Hagens Youtube. Andreotti proposed that collapse will accelerate not so much among nations or even institutions but at the individual level when people are confronted with mounting problems just when their worldview is disintegrating under the weight of its own contradictions and failure to connect with reality any longer
One of the best of Nate’s Youtubes.
“A surgeon who treated victims of the Mayan genocide by the Guatemalan state recounts an instance in which he was operating on a patient who’d been critically injured during a massacre when, suddenly, armed gunmen entered the room and shot the patient to death on his operating table, laughing as they killed him. The physician said the worst part was seeing the killers, well known to him, openly swagger down local streets in the years after.”
The writing of the supposed embassy shooter. Its so well written, the man is certifiably sane. Or at least close to. Its scary to read. What are we supposed to do if we meet honest to god Israeli zeonists in the future. I’m sure long term many will flee to the United States. How do we treat these people in the coming years?
Nevermind the far right in America that cheered this on or that small but ever present group of liberals that censored protesters and handed billions to the genocidal regime.
Barring revolution, zionists will have a protected status.
It was well-written. The story about the man who tried to push McNamara off the ferry was interesting, too. He would have been better off as a substacker than a terrorist.
Niger supplied 25% of France’s uranium, and at ridiculously low prices, but that’s under threat.
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/frances-orano-explores-sale-niger-uranium-assets-ft-reports-2025-05-17/
It’s not just foreign military forces that are being thrown out of Africa, it’s also extractive corporations. The economic colonization of Africa is ending, yet another disaster for Europe. But a continent of opportunity for China, Russia, and others who can position themselves as defenders of sovereignty.
Re Nancy Mace–yet another SC politician testing the “too large for an insane asylum” remark.
(“South Carolina is too small for a republic, but too large for an insane asylum.” – James Louis Petigru of Charleston, South Carolina expressed this unpopular opinion as his native state made the radical decision to secede from the Union in December 1860.
https://www.nps.gov/people/james-l-petigru.htm)
We’re really pretty normal around here. Honest.
Of course there may be some truth to her accusations but her zealous defense of the ME entity gets her in the ballpark. It could be something in that downstate water whereas here in the piedmont we only have crack lawmakers like Trey Gowdy. Oh wait.
add an ethical dimension to their mineral acquisition policy. As part of Dodd Frank act, the U.S. legislated on the issue in 2010, requiring publicly listed U.S. companies to conduct due diligence in sourcing materials to avoid complicity in “funding conflict or human rights abuses.” In 2017, the EU introduced the Conflict Minerals Regulation, which “requires EU companies to ensure they import these minerals and metals from responsible sources only.”
I think – and it might sound crazy but, their ought to be legislation to put the (self promulgated) corporate drive for efficiency, resiliancy and sustainability in a sort of context that gives bite to their proclamations.
I think a great way to coserve resources is to eliminate the drive to obsolete devices using these resources at accelerating rates – the only gain is to the seller of these disposable goods and it is done by being the least efficient and least sustainable methods – Give me operating systems, apps and others necessities of using computers that are efficient of processing cycles, bits and bites not requiring the devouring of all available chip space in multiples of what is nessasary.
all comutational power is run through, what amounts to a recording…like a vinyl record or photocopy. we landed on the moon with far less capacity than in a flip phone of twenty years ago. I do not need gig speed, I do not need 5g…(5G is great for an integrated production facility with high variability in outputs and high level intercommunication among pods/units ) for me, a sensless waste of resources for a profit of a few companies but those resources being fought over come at an unmeasured cost (with research, I suspect a dollar value can be assertained with a curve shown that will obsolete human existence) that I rekon outdoes profit by a wide margin
So legislation that not only “import these minerals and metals from responsible sources only” but imports them to be used responsibly
I think a lot of consumer products, according to marketers, that “Obsolete” so quickly need to be made so well (we have the tech don’t we?) that they don’t obsolete so quickly and by the orders of magnitude that surley exist.
Just that profit thing being so precariously aligned and squeezed by the compounding debt burdens meticulously engineered by the financial geniouses to extract the most investor return for themselves…at the expense of everything else.
“Netanyahu sets displacement of Palestinians from Gaza as ‘condition’ to end genocide”
I think that I can guess Netanyahu’s play here. He will use the IDF to force the remaining Palestinians into the southern part of Gaza where he will continue to deny them food, water and medicines. He will then have them continuously bombed so as to force the world to take them in and will continue to kill them until they do. At this point, Idi Amin come across as an actual humanitarian-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_Asians_from_Uganda
And the Israelis will be fully behind Bibi doing this. Even the new age types are all in on this-
https://archive.vn/oourq
About the United Health Care nursing home shenanigans and the Medicare Advantage Plans……
Just FYI, every single one of these companies engage in this behavior. And much worse behavior. Indeed, this is one of the least egregious problems. And an additional FYI – United Healthcare is by far and away NOT the worst of the lot.
https://www.twz.com/air/russia-fielding-new-nuclear-armed-air-to-air-missiles-us-intel
Russia Fielding New Nuclear-Armed Air-To-Air Missiles: U.S. Intel
A nuclear-tipped air-to-air missile sounds like a Cold War relic, but the Pentagon assesses that Russia is introducing a new weapon of this type.