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.
165 comments
Comments are closed.
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.
He also mentioned Ukraine did not disconnect from the USSR in the proper fashion and technically, according to Putin’s statements in Kursk, Ukraine is still part of Russia. “Putin’s advisor Anton Kobyakov stated that the USSR was never even legally dissolved to begin with, and thus the Ukraine-Russia conflict is an ‘internal process’”…
“I’ve [Simplicius] recounted before how Ukraine never legally seceded from the USSR because the August 1991 parliamentary ‘declaration’ was illegal due to the USSR constitution’s strict requirement that secession can only be recognized via popular referendum. A referendum was held in December 1991 to “affirm” the earlier parliamentary secession, but this can only be deemed legally invalid given that the August secession itself was already illegal as per the constitutional requirements.”
Quite a bombshell.
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
Rev the punch line is the Ukrainians are reporting 6 dead/9 wounded. It looks like that Iskander was a Thermobaric warhead, thermal imaging of the blast shows a rather effect large area, and that is just the area covered by heat signature.
Its sorta like the Pak/India thingy where all the gab is about losses – on the day – and not the huge issue of that day …. the source of the ***Kill Chain***. Hint … one nation is responsible for over a decade of training, supply, and everything else, vs. the ad hoc approach by the opposite number on the day.
Poor Bloke over at YT Millennium 7 * HistoryTech channel had to stop commenting on the day as comments by proponents of both Pak/India lost the plot, demanding he – set the record straight in their favor. This has caused huge dramas with his channel due to YT algorithms and how it can effect his income from it. Pinged him on the NC experience.
BTW wait for the response post the mass drone attack at Moscow – going to be an own goal for a one day MSM PR/Marketing parade. Big push from the shortest distance from the front on a salient to Moscow, shades of 2022. Yet this time with new improved equip and troops.
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.
Larry’s The Cat, the Prime Ministers served with Larry.
If it’s your normal cat the Prime Ministers served Larry. :D
I have to admit my web search fu has failed me in finding the Larry The Cat Twitter/X posts on how many unfortunates he has had to deal with during his career. Strays with problems while looking to find an appropriate home for them. Maybe candidates for Pink Floyd – The Fletcher Memorial Home
Larry The Cat also has a Linked In profile.
His past education: Henley Business School: MBA, Feline integration and cross cultural studies 2007 – 2008
“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.
Kennan to my eye was evil, he was fully onboard with the Dulles brothers new and improved (optically) Nazi foreign policy. He was, however, competent.
While the Nazi policy (Odessa, Donetsk, and Gaza) trundles on, the competence has died entirely.
‘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.
Including the most billionairest of them all.
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.
The tell is in the first attempt, done by Reagan, with Star Wars nonsense.
40 years later, the Americans should better revisit this clip with Bush II:
https://www.gettyimages.ca/detail/video/president-george-w-bush-delivers-his-famous-fool-me-once-news-footage/1271658781
Totally agree. This has the same smell as Musk’s ‘colonise Mars’ bs.
Just a cover for looting by billionaires of US and other taxpayers through “defence” contracts.
Meanwhile, the Russians have Oreshniks and the Chinese are working on colonising the moon …………………………………..
Or strapping off Tom Lehrer Folksong Army
The Russians are heading to Poland
While Ukrainians lose all their sons
Coz the weapons from NATO are old and substandard
But western PR is second to none
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
The problem is that Russia, China and, probably, Iran cannot take the chance that there is even some minuscule chance that the USA gets something that works.
I don’t know if you noticed but the SMO started almost immediately after Zelensky said he planned on getting nuclear weapons—I am not sure but I think it was some thing like a week or less. Putin, explained at a Woman’s Day luncheon a bit later why the SMO started. Due to Ukraine’s nuclear history in the USSR, that he could not discount the possibility that Ukraine might be able to build a bomb.
I think Zelensky’s statement was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
I am sure Putin did not expect Zelensky to conjure up an atomic bomb in a week but I got the opinion that he decided that there was no point in further negotiations or diplomacy.
There is no problem, at least not in the way you think. And this is not analogous to the Ukraine situation.
Russia and China just build more weapons. There is no chance it will work because it never works.
The problem is that this annoys China enough that they get more proactive.
The reason for start of SMO in the specific moment was impending Ukrainian offensive on Donbass, aka Storm 2.0. Putin initated legal part only after the artillery preparation for the offensive started, and the military one after it went on for a week or two without stopping (suggesting that they are not backing up).
To be honest, Russia, Iran, India and even Pakistan seem to have much better missile defense systems. And there are indications that Chinese missile technology is on the same level.
Even if none of them calls their system Dome This or Dome That, it is kinda embarrassing that US is perceived to be somewhat behind in this area. At least F-22 can shoot down weather balloons, so there’s that.
“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
“Only manage a draw”? No need to waste energy when the job is done.
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
What is good about Spam is it needs no refrigerator. Kind of like German Fleischkäse.
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.
I once took rhubarb sandwiches to school–very soggy.
Catsup soup* and a baloney handwich!
* made using packets taken from Micky D’s or the BK Lounge
Rocks and lichen in a warzone?
I DREAMED of eating rocks and lichen in a warzone! Such substance in a meal like that, and with greens too!
When I was a child, my family of 18 woke up each morning in a Superfund site next to a volcano. We would go to the lava flowing over a decades-old army weapons dumping ground and BLOW on the lava to COOL IT OFF so that we could have something to eat.
Those were the days! Ugh! Rocks and lichen. Nowadays, people have no gratitude…
You had lichen????
The nadir of impoverished student meal events in our house was soup fashioned from a can of creamed corn, milk and ketchup — I passed.
There is no limit to the “inventiveness” of students concerning food and drink. Well do I remember the dreaded Rotini and hash slumgullion one friend whipped up at his digs.
We also practiced such austerities as saving all the cigarette buts for the week and then shredding them and rolling our own from the “fragrant” results. Not far behind that was the one time we tried Cepacol “mouthwash” and Everclear cocktails.
When you are hungry, you become very inventive.
What a nasty comment.
Might be an idea to step back, if that triggers you.
It’s really rather mild compared to the stuff that could be said about Oz.
While I agree it’s not terribly nasty (IMHO), it’s more the overall sentiment.
The elites love it when the proles fight amongst themselves over table scraps. Comments like the one above are one of the reasons they are winning, and will most likely keep winning.
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.
As I understand it, a landlord cannot prove damage without a prior mutual inspection a la car rentals, documented and renter-signed. IMNAL, but small-claims courts mostly favor plaintiffs, and corporate defendants often don”t show: the damages aren’t worth the legal fees.
Also. most small claimants need to keep their day job just to survive, so, the requirement that one must show up in person on the day of the “trial” shuts out most non wealthy persons.
I won a denied unemployment claim once when no one for the employer who was challenging my claim bothered to show up for the arbitration session. The arbitrator, a retired State judge, had me sit and chat with her for almost an hour, to give the former employee “adequate time to respond.”
Finally, the judge said, “It’s all yours. This is standard for these cases. The employer never shows up, assuming that the worker doesn’t either, which is an automatic win for the employer. It’s a shame I cannot award damages on top of the past unemployment funds.”
Stay safe.
NSW in Australia has a very good system whereby if you know what to do when you start renting a property (as I did) then a real estate agent will have an uphill task in proving anything except exceptional damage.
I hate to sound critical of a country that did so much for me but when the FIRST taxi-ride I ever took from Sydney airport to my hotel had an anglo who ranted about the n word and other words to do with aborigines I got a shiver down my spine.
Living there (and bear in mind I have dual Aussie citizenship now because it was required for the sensitive work I did there so felt a stake in the country) I had to conclude “this country has some of the worst racists I’ve ever seen”…..and I’ve been to parts of the USA and my home country of UK where you kinda expect this stuff – BUT not so blatantly.
What made things so doubly awful was that certain anglo types looked at me and automatically assumed they could say awful things about Asians etc. Like in a hotel hot-tub. WTAF?! You know NOTHING about me except I’m obviously very anglo and you say you are not enjoying your trip to NSW because “there are too many Asians”. I got straight out and had to shower. At times like that I entertained rather unwelcome thoughts that “we shouldn’t have just shipped them off but hanged them”. It was horrid to feel that. (And it wouldn’t have worked……South Australia prides itself on being the state with no convicts…..result? Churches. EVERYWHERE.)
I saw quiet and not so quiet racism practically every day in Sydney. Yuk.
PS Also, some of the nicest empathetic people I’ve encountered online on here are from Oz. So I’m not arguing that the country should not have been founded or should not exist now.
I’m just angry that neoliberalism and nastiness have taken hold so readily in so many anglo(ish) countries. And as PK has reported (and has been stated too by my Dublin relatives) it’s going on in Eire too.
We are really in need of some sort of reset. Of so much.
Today, you likely be shot, either by the landlord or the cops.
Thankfully UK and Aus haven’t devolved that far…….but we’re watching Starmer and Albanese closely……
Earlier I had to to go out to buy stuff for mum. Saw someone being interviewed (proper TV camera) in centre of our suburb so probably a candidate for a party standing against Labour (didn’t look weirdo so probably not Reform, I’d say he’s Green Party). Was tempted to stick around but I had bus to catch. I’d actually engage with the Green Party round here – they do have LVT, MMT in their policies….but also a lot of other guff from focus groups that is nonsense so I get the feeling they are not serious about identifying key levers to pull to get power.
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.
I slept right through it. Then the next morning my neighborhood was full of fallen trees.
But nobody around here expects a direct hit from a hurricane. We also had our first downtown tornado a few years back–passed a block from my house. That also took down trees but a mere bagatelle compared to Hellene.
After half a year and a great deal of expenditure the town has largely recovered. Haven’t been to NC.
Fortunately, here in Hawaii, we have had democratic rule since statehood. So the Maui fires were no biggie. I guess about 15 or so houses have been rebuilt so far in Lahaina.
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]
Here in Hawaii, most health insurance is provided through employers. No idea how they negotiate rates. For Medicare Advantage you go online or call and buy into whatever plan you want/can afford. No “agent” that I can see involved. No experience with the traditional Medicare supplement policies.
Thank you for your response.
A couple of conversations that I had earlier this week, reading the article this morning, and some online research made me realize that I have documentation, evidence, of insurance fraud and quite possibly Medicare fraud in my hands and staring me in the face.
Talk about news you can use, right?
I feel like an idiot for not realizing it sooner. Now I am trying to figure out my next steps (I have an attorney, but…).
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….
Crichton. Sorry to be a bit of a pedant.
Michael Clayton actually, the film that features Clooney and the most excellent actor Tom Wilkinson. In that film there is the evil agricultural products company that is not just tainting the ground wells in drinking water but it is poisoned the local population and farmers. And Wilkinson plays the big swinging corporate lawyer who sees this at last.
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.
Weather balloons? They are near indestructible, aren’t they?
That is why they had to use an F-22 to take out that Chinese weather balloon. No idea of a Golden Dome will be able to stop them however.
@ The Rev Kev —
Feel better now after that little diatribe? I didn’t think so.
There’s no point in engaging on any level with nonsense like this since it’s so deeply stupid and removed from reality that it could only come from European pols*, a bunch of people (probably too polite a description) still so locked in default Unipolar moment-‘Western weapons are superior’ mindset that they haven’t worked out yet that the reason no one has set up a ‘no fly zone’ over Ukraine is because there already is a de facto one as missiles can take down any jet flying above the country.
Though I did glance through this and someone in the ‘coalition of the willing’ or whatever they’re calling it this week had enough sense to claim that these NATO aircraft will launch their interception of Russian missiles from just over the Polish border or some such location — much as Russian jets do with those retrofitted 500-pound guided bombs from over Russian teritory — and won’t actually be over Ukraine.
That said, I’ll not be the least surprised to again hear Starmer or Macron start performative yakking about a ‘no-fly zone’ in the weeks and months ahead as the Kiev regime starts to collapse.
*Well, unless it came from US and UK pols.
If I’m not completely mistaken, Mr. Rutte said already long ago that any NATO soldiers killed in Ukraine will not trigger Article 5 or 6.
There was recently (yesterday?) an analysis on ZDF (a public German TV channel) saying that in case of direct conflict between NATO and Russia, NATO would lose “tens of thousands of troops” in the first hours of the conflict. That is, the troops on Russian border would be wiped out, as would be most of the logistics centers and airbases.
Which, of course, does not mean seeking peace would be the smart move, but instead NATO should transform into a “forward posture”, so that it would not take weeks to replace the lost units. One could call this “a strategic meat attack”, I guess.
The rumor that Iran “painted” IDF F-35 is sustained by the fact IDF did not cross in to Iran that set of sorties and has not since.
In the case NATO does a near Kiev flight operation Russia could apply some lessons learned over Kashmir a couple of weeks ago.
Maybe PLAAF will lend some assets….
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.
These are not mutually exclusive scenarios; the decay of global capitalism goes hand in hand with the erosion of household capacities, which is exactly the process that we are living through right now.
I was intrigued by your warm recommendation, given the title of her book. Firstly, no self-respecting social scientist would make use of an inane metaphor (and a barbarism) like ‘hospicing modernity’… Secondly, references to ‘modernity’ usually reflect a postmodern viewpoint, where ‘modernity’ plays a major part as a source of much evil – which at a closer look should be blamed on the dynamics of capitalism, if genuine social analysis weren’t verboten to these people.
So I bravely clicked – and then suffered through the ensuing word salad and feel good platitudes. Andreotti has a bachelor in literature and a PhD in cultural studies, is the Dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of Victoria in BC, a former Canada Research Chair in Race, Inequalities and Global Change, and is, in my reading, a very typical woke globalist.
In the interview she advises that we should rather choose a non-antagonistic model to explain the current crisis (so that we could all sing kumbaya in beautiful harmony), and she proposes to view it as a disease, a model which doesn’t have any explanatory power whatsoever (which I guess is the point) and doesn’t empower anybody, except the cultural studies and critical theory shamans.
“references to ‘modernity’ usually reflect a postmodern viewpoint”
I didn’t realize Max Weber was a postmodernist.
*********
“no self-respecting social scientist would make use of an inane metaphor (and a barbarism) like ‘hospicing modernity’”
You’re so busy spitting venom here that it’s hard for me to discern your objection to a book title. Is it that you’re fond of modernity and would hate to see it go? I think it’s a brilliant metaphor, and your over-the-top condemnation confirms for me that it’s capable of stirring deep feelings, exactly what it was intended to do. I like to use the word “degrowth” to accomplish much the same. It’s shock treatment for those who have been swimming in the Taker worldview all their lives.
**********
” references to ‘modernity’ usually reflect a postmodern viewpoint, where ‘modernity’ plays a major part as a source of much evil – which at a closer look should be blamed on the dynamics of capitalism”
Stuck in the 19th century, are we? Our problems run much deeper than class. Human damage to the biosphere long predates the appearance of capitalism. Post-industrial revolution, the Soviet Union was no more concerned about the biosphere than the capitalist United States, its damage was just less because its GDP was lower. China is now the largest emitter of CO2.
***********
“a non-antagonistic model to explain the current crisis (so that we could all sing kumbaya in beautiful harmony”
I once had the privilege of hearing the late Staughton and Alice Lynd in the small setting of an IWW meeting. After we finished our meeting with its motions and points of order, Staughton explained why he had never become a Wob despite having been a keynote speaker at an IWW convention a few years before. He told a story about the Mississippi Freedom Summer when he was training young people at Oberlin College in Ohio to go down to Mississippi as organizers and teachers in 1964. One day, they learned that three of the young people they had sent were missing. (James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner) Staughton said that they didn’t convene a meeting, made no motions, took no votes. Those present gathered together in a circle and sang “Kumbaya.” After they finished singing and held hands in silence for a few moments, a consensus emerged as to whether they should continue to train and send students, Stokely Carmichael volunteered to take a group “through the backwoods” of Mississippi to see what they could learn about what happened to the three, Bob Moses began calling the parents of students who were already in Mississippi or about to go, and so on. Then Staughton, with tears in his eyes, said that every time he heard Tom Brokaw sneer about “singing kumbaya” he wanted to bust him (and Staughton was a Quaker).
If you’re lusting for a violent Marxist revolution to start on giant, people-filled factory floors that no longer exist, it’s going to be a long wait. And as we’ve seen in history, even if such a fantasy come true and a socialist State be established, the old boss won’t be any better than the new boss when it comes to dealing with the little problem of breaching 7 of 9 planetary boundaries.
Lying behind our polycrisis is a Metacrisis brought on by an ancient worldview given intellectual cover by the Enlightenment and enough technological power to do planet-wide damage by the Industrial Revolution. Marxism offers no solution. It doesn’t even address the problem except, perhaps, as an ancillary consideration. Andreotti and Hagens, among a growing number of people, recognize we’ll never be able to attain a harmonious relationship with Nature until we understand this problem and educate people so they have a greater awareness of the worldview in their head and are exposed to other, healthier ways of relating to the Earth and our fellow creatures. Despite your apparent contempt for educators, that’s exactly what Andreotti is striving to do.
“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.
What do you accomplish as a substaker, pray tell? Terrorists on the other hand…
– The 1905 or so bank robbery done by Stalin to fund the Bolsheviks…
– Zionist terrorists bombing King David Hotel
– Al Jolani and ISIS
Don’t forget the Boston Tea Party.
I’ll ask a question I’ve asked before. If us old folks, knowing what we know now, had a time machine, should we go back in time to join the Weather Underground or a more effective outfit if one existed?
Also mentioned in that manifesto was Aaron Bushnell, whose act, as much as he sacrificed, has indeed penetrated our attention and maybe deeper. I keep remembering those monks in Vietnam. As a kid, it seemed like they were the ones who drove us out.
I would do so, HMP, knowing what I know now. I was born about 3 months before the still “unsolved” removal from office of JFK by the Dulles crowd.
Been downhill ever since, IMO.
Should their state collapse or change its character significantly, some administration here may discuss their plight as Trump is doing with respect to white South Africans.
Regarding the shooter, I’d say his writing was coherent, but not very reasoned. Even in a paragraph purporting to offer a justification for his actions, he never really makes the argument for the justice of what he did. The people he killed weren’t anywhere near high policy, nor were they on the ground in Gaza. Were they culpable, to certain extent, for their actions in support of a criminal policy? Sure, but even Nazis at their level in the state hierarchy weren’t hung at Nuremburg. I’m reminded of Hanah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem, in which she marvels at how impersonal and mechanistic a bureaucracy can be, which she describes as “rule by nobody”. Countless individual actions comprise what we term the US/Israeli genocide of the Palestinians, from paper pushing and diplomatic dinners to media campaigns, and to the bombing sorties and massacres. We shouldn’t fall for any attempts to pin it all on Netanyahu, but neither should we expand the scope of who we think is irredeemable to the point that they ought to be executed, extrajudicially or otherwise. What he did was wrong, in itself, but also in that it provides rationale for repression. Shame on him.
re: Nazis
I would point out though that of course Nuremberg and the Nazi post-war history was result of a deal. Had geopolitical interests been different you might have seen many more hung. (I am strictly opposed to capital punishment in any form). But to make the political argument in contrast to the legal.
Besides the Americans knowing that they would now have to groom&protect their new allies had no interest in destroying the trust of an entire German population.
The Nazi system did work because people looked way and fulfilled their duty.
Arendt I believe did not know yet of the many fallacies of e.g. the military resistance most of whom knew of the genocides and had facilitated them or participated in various forms. They could have done something without getting themselves into serious trouble.
This is one of the very sore points of the Stauffenberg group in 1944 which abroad might not be that present in that plot. Almost all of them plotters had been in favour of the war until it turned into a catastrophe for the Wehrmacht.
There would have been various safe forms of sabotaging the system from within.
Much here was unearthed in the wake of the so-called “Wehrmacht” controversy of the mid 1990s when a major exhibition stated that Wehrmacht was involved in the genocides.
Eventually the exhibition was ended but it changed the public insight despite harsh criticism.
Which makes the present even worse…
Should have consulted the Miss Manners guide to assassination etiquette beforehand. How classless of him.
Sorry Vicky, but bureaucracy is never impersonal and anonymous. One can always tell, especially whe one works in said bureaucracy.
On my neck of the wood, there is a program that surveys public servants that exit the service, for whatever reason. And oh boy, they do tell…
I think that survey is the best guarded secret. I heard that the director responsible for it had to take leave of absence with PTSD just for reading the surveys…
Well said.
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.
And while indispensable for French wealth wasn’t Niger also among the lowest ranking African states in literacy rates, health care, per capita income and all the other needless stuff.
p.s. As the late Joe Wilson famously wrote “What I Didn’t Find in Africa” on yellowcake in Niger and Iraqi WMDs:
NYT
What I Didn’t Find in Africa
By Joseph C. Wilson 4th
July 6, 2003
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/opinion/what-i-didn-t-find-in-africa.html?ysclid=mb03vr6kw3748051418
22 fucking years ago.
I still can’t believe it. It’s like yesterday…
p.s. there was this short reader’s thread with links re: Niger after the coup at Craig Murray’s site:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/forums/topic/niger-after-the-coup-2023/
This for me is today’s antidote. Thanks a lot!
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.
You can’t make up satire on this one…must be a special case of random behavior…”here fellow Congress critters just check out my goods on display, shaded of course for your consideration…”
Goodness, I had thought MTG or, more likely Lauren Boebert had the crazy to themselves on the Right.
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.
Hello, Cigna!
How Cigna Saves Millions by Having Its Doctors Reject Claims Without Reading Them
Capitalism is going just great!
My doctor used to work for a physician owned practice, then that was bought out by a company called Polyclinic, and then that in turn was bought by Optum, a component of United Health Care. He is unhappy there. He tried to shift to the concierge model but didn’t like that, either, so came back to Optum. I like him so I went with him. So these days when I go to see him I drive up to Seattle and the offices there. Last couple of years I have noticed an interesting thing. You go into the offices and in the small waiting room you will find many brochures, all offering UHC products, Advantage Plans, you name it. One thing you will NOT find anywhere in that office are brochures or anything at all about Original Medicare, or Medigap or Supplement Plans. It used to be you would find a couple of things about Midigap and Original Medicare, but no more, not a word. So it is no wonder more and more people are switching to Medicare Advantage, simply because the available information about Original Medicare is harder and harder to find. This is an intentional choice, for sure. I would say we have barely scratched the surface as to the degree of deception and misuse of the Medicare system by these MA plans and conglomerates like UHC and Optum. Here we have a Trump and House bill reducing Medicaid by 500-800 billion, in the name of fraud and healthy people illegally collecting Medicaid, giving the picture of millions of able bodied men and women soaking taxpayers of dollars when they should be working. Last time I looked, to qualify for full Medicaid your monthly income had to be less than 1,000 a month. It isn’t as if these scofflaws, if they exist at all, are living high on the hog. The real theft happens in corporate boardrooms, with profits mainly dependent on denied claims. I have seen estimates that if we simply forced everyone to use Original Medicare , ie make MA plans illegal, we would save up to 100 billion for this measure alone. Simply allowing Medicare to negotiate for all drug costs and ramping up fraud investigations for false billing could save us 100 billion a year. So, eliminate MA plans and negotiate for drugs and chase billing fraud and you save 200 billion. A year. I think the general public knows this, perfectly. This is why Luigi became an icon.
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.
Nuclear armed air-to-air missiles make no sense when you can already hit the targets from 300 km away well enough for expanding rod or fragmentary warhead. One would think the trend would be to make the long-range missiles cheaper and easier to make rather than way, way more expensive to make and maintain.
Good God…where is disinfo police in these matters?
From the comments section of that insane TWZ text:
“(…)
Desperation. They know they can’t win numerically or technologically, so they must resort to nukes here, nukes there, nukes, nukes everywhere. And they will still always be the aggressor.
(…)
And fuck russia!
(…)
One-threat pony poo-tin
(…)
The tragedy is if he uses just one, it’s game over for Russia and Putin alike. The outcome becomes moot, but at least as far as they’re concerned, it’s suicide, and they don’t seem to care.
(…)”
Last year we had Russian nukes in space. This year they are on AA missiles. Next year, US Intelligence will report about those pesky Russians puttin’ nukes on Geran drones, and the one after that on optical wire guided kamikaze quadcopters.
How about nuclear hand-grenades? But you really want to throw them far away.
👍😂
Perhaps Lee Majors as “The Six Million Dollar Man” could have thrown that grenade far enough. Which would have made him more expensive than a single of those grenades. Interesting angle for MIC…pitch it to them. They’re gonna love it. NGLM* “nuclear grenade launching man*”
Or if anyone’s a fan of the Fallout games, a Fat Man launcher.
Kennedy and Trump to Reveal ‘Make America Healthy Again’ Report
Nothing about COVID, of course.
(Very) unnamed sources say that Kennedy has added a list of behavioral factors related to other maladies like insomnia. One item on that list cited a study that demonstrated conclusively that children aged 10-12 who put in 8 hours a day of good, hard labor slept like babies while no good, lazy kids who sat on their asses at school for 8 hours tossed and turned all night. Sec. Kennedy is recommending that the President issue an executive order that all 8-10 year-olds immediately seek full-time employment, preferably in the high-paying but short-handed (literally) oil drilling business. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! MAY THE STRONGEST SURVIVE! DRILL, BABY, DRILL! MARS HO!
I was among those at the time who saw how the Kennedy family jumped all over Bobby and thought it was for daring to challenge old Joe, but no, he’s nuts and dangerous.
China expresses “grave concerns” about the US’s proposed Golden Dome anti-missile defence system: “Oh no, not the briar patch! Anything but the briar patch!”
My thought was “Gold is just about the weakest most malleable metal. You must be a moron to suggest it as a dome.”
Oh.
Is there one single Israeli soldier with the humanity of German Wehrmacht private Karl-Heinz Rosch, who gave up his own life in order to save two Dutch children?
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/controversial-memorial-honor-wwii-german-soldier-karl-heinz-rosch.html
Well, Dutch were not considered the untermenschen by the Germans back then (nor now), so an example from Osteuropa would be more appropriate. Extermination of some other kids was a policy (akin to current Israeli one), while killing Dutch ones was just a “collateral damage”. That being said, there are always individuals that go against the madness of the collective. The proverbial swallows that do not make a summer. Speaklng about going against the grain, yesterday AG posted a link about two modern day Germans that are being targeted for doing that:
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/05/links-5-21-2025.html#comment-4218959
COVID, is that you?
Small Jet Crashes in San Diego, Killing Those Aboard, Officials Say
This keeps happening; Maybe it’s just a popular news topic to report on, these days. I dunno. But I don’t recall seeing this so often prior to about 2023 or 2024. And definitely not before 2020.
Also worth nothing, due to the toxic nature of the aftermath of a plane crashing and burning, the emergency responders are all wearing — wait for it — N95 respirators.
The horrors!
Looking like a bad respiratory disease season here in Australia. The Covid variant NB .I.8.1 is getting a run up from Hong Kong ( where waste water levels are still rising ) Apparently it once again has greater affinity for human ACE2 receptors, unlike other recent variants. The KP2 based vaccine is the one for grandma.
I don’t recall so many stories of planes clipping each other while taxiing either. It seems to be happening a lot.
Some of that may be due to easier access to passenger experience and videos, and some may be due to larger fleet sizes and frequency of flights.
Since pilots’ health is a large factor in their career, I’d bet the airlines have a lot of data on how many pilots medical’ed out and for what reasons. How many had problems after a certain date(s)? That would be a nice dataset for analysis. I’d bet due to legal reasons (over privacy reasons) the airlines will not share the information since many imposed employment mandates. However, the pilots unions may have a lot of data too.
Too early. Minimal data
It was landing around 3:30 am, super foggy, full instrument approach. Tower was closed at that hour if the info is correct and the automated weather data wasn’t working.
As to number of crashes.
You ‘ll need to go to the NTSB which will list them all by category. Commercial, airline, private, how when etc. also it’ll show how many flights/hours per year to get a comparison between years. Covid years had much fewer flights.
The simple data shows a very slight increase but again I didn’t dive down into the details which is critical for a solid comparison
In the past the NTSB data would omit ATC errors on their incident/accident dashboard. I haven’t compared the current data to airline data for accuracy for a long time.
re: Europe’s Eclipse of Intelligence
“Today, European politicians are dwarfed by the likes of Adenauer, de Gaulle, Thatcher, Kohl, Palme, and others.”
I grew old in an era when these people were a) not regarded as comparable at all (Palme and Thatcher/Kohl???)
b) regarded as nimwits in comparison to politicians of the even earlier generation –
Which on the other hand reminds me of Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris”. A bit mediocre but he does have a point when progressing the story idea ad absurdum that the past was always better, to eventually put a movie character into the 19th century, because from the 1920s POV the “older better times” would mean just that, the Belle Époque, and for the inhabitants of the Belle Époque, the French Revolution. And so on.
But seriously, journalists in Germany, many of them dead now were mocking Kohl for lacking stature and competence.
Adenauer did everything he could to sabotage a peaceful resolution with security interests of the USSR. In fact if we have one European leader who can be singled out bringing about the situation today, I dare say it’s Adenauer. Oh and yes, he liked his Nazis if they were useful for majorities or eavesdropping on SPD. What would Adenauer have been without US and Marshall?
Do I need to say anything about Mrs. TINA?
De Gaulle was behaving like a bull in a china shop building his reputation on the fiction of a meaningful French resistance against the Nazis.
There may be a reason why among all of these only Palme got assassinated. (I believe there is a biopic in the making or finished 🤔)
Olof Palme Was an Internationalist Hero
By Anton Ösgård, William Westgard-Cruice
From South Africa’s ANC to Chilean socialists, in the 1970s, liberation movements around the world had few greater allies than Swedish prime minister Olof Palme. He used high office to speak out for the oppressed abroad — and to build an internationalist movement in his homeland.
02.28.2020
https://jacobin.com/2020/02/olof-palme-sweden-prime-minister-chile-allende
Take the JACOBIN synopsis and replace Palme with Thatcher or de Gaulle….
“From South Africa’s ANC to Chilean socialists, in the 1960s, liberation movements around the world had few greater allies than French President Charles de Gaulle. He used high office to speak out for the oppressed abroad — and to build an internationalist movement in his homeland.” 😜
Confucius, Analects 13.3
Zilu asked, “If the Duke of Wei were to employ you to serve in the government of his state, what would be your first priority?”
The Master answered, “It would, of course, be the rectification of names.”
Zilu said, “Could you, Master, really be so far off the mark? Why worry about rectifying names?”
The Master replied, “How boorish you are, Zilu! When it comes to matters that he does not understand, the gentleman should remain silent.
“If names are not rectified, speech will not accord with reality; when speech does not accord with reality, things will not be successfully accomplished. When things are not successfully accomplished, ritual practice and music will fail to flourish; when ritual and music fail to flourish, punishments and penalties will miss the mark. And when punishments and penalties miss the mark, the common people will be at a loss as to what to do with themselves. This is why the gentleman only applies names that can be properly spoken and assures that what he says can be properly put into action. The gentleman simply guards against arbitrariness in his speech. That is all there is to it.”
““If names are not rectified, speech will not accord with reality”
That paragraph alone would demand an entire essay, or study actually.
“mocking Kohl for lacking stature and competence”
Die pfälzische Birne.
I am puzzled to see Kohl being put forth as an example instead of Brandt.
“De Gaulle was behaving like a bull in a china shop building his reputation on the fiction of a meaningful French resistance against the Nazis.”
The affair with the resistance is not even the worst aspect. He had quite a devious and ruthless, although publicly urbane, attitude towards former colonies; his rule saw fighting in Algeria and Cameroon that was as vicious as could be, as well as the setting up of Françafrique.
Thanks. I thought Françafrique had already been in place before him.
And yes my initial thought was Brandt instead of Kohl too. Made more sense from the article´s argumentative line.
Re: assassination.
There were several attempts on de Gaulle.
De Gaulle did a lot. During WWII he was able to play a strong diplomatic game with weak cards. Republic #5 has proven more stable than any of the nos. 1 – 4. De Gaulle scuttled French rule in Algeria, at great risk to his own life. He also kept France’s room to maneuver during the Cold War.
Today’s Europe could use a few more de Gaulles.
A question is of course why was #5 stable and the others were not and what would that really do (or not)?
I frankly don’t know how people’s lives were influenced by the issue of government stability.
It wouldn’t be fair to judge de Gaulle outside his time. But today’s technocratic menace of France I would argue was seriously prepared under him. This entire greatness nonsense. Of course he was couched in by the ancien elites and the young generation of superadministration.
Weren’t those assassination attempts mostly OAS?
Breaking News: Trump bans Harvard from accepting international students.
You really have to admire how Trump has more or less blasted out how low Barron’s SATs must have been.
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSimpsons/comments/b28aon/yale_could_use_an_international_airport/
Trump bans Harvard from accepting international students.
I thought you were joking. Another blow to US soft power diplomacy. Trump is really trying.
The daughters of General Secretary Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Brian Mulroney are both Harvard graduates. I wonder how many sons and daughters of senior politicians and various plutocrats from around the world are attending or were planning on attending Harvard?
Oh well, there is always Moscow State University or maybe Fudan University.
re: Gaza Microsoft
Microsoft Bans the Word “Palestine” in Internal Emails
After days of disruption by pro-Palestine activists at its Build developer conference, No Azure for Apartheid said, Microsoft made it impossible to send emails containing “Palestine” or “Gaza.”
https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/microsoft-word-palestine-banned-internal-email-gaza
Buckle up in banana republic land
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/05/22/us/trump-news-updates
This week’s Construction Physics moves from USA WW2 shipbuilding to a description of the postwar Japanese ship industry.
https://www.construction-physics.com/p/how-japan-invented-modern-shipbuilding
And if not already linked Big Serge had a post last week on how the Dreadnoughts were used by Germany and UK during WW1.
https://bigserge.substack.com/p/the-great-war-at-sea-blockade-and
thanks!
re: imperialism
The Conquest Never Ends: Horrors Inflicted for 500 Years
Then (the New World) and Now (Israel)
by Greg Grandin
May 22, 2025
https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2025/05/22/the-conquest-never-ends-horrors-inflicted-for-500-years/
What did you do during the genocide in Gaza? (Arwa Mahdawi in The Guardian)
Powerful piece from the Guardian’s consistently anti-genocide columnist.