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Links 6/10/2025

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The Dogs of Chernobyl Are Experiencing Rapid Evolution, Study Suggests Popular Mechanics

The Rise and Fall of Sly Stone Ted Gioia

Who are you calling over-the-hill? The truth about cognitive peaks Financial Times. See? Reading and commenting at NC preserves and may even improve your cognitive capacity.

#COVID-19/Pandemics

Climate/Environment

Climate capitalism won’t save us The Ecologist

Trump’s second term is creating ‘a limbo moment’ for US battery recyclers Grist

China?

China says its exports to the US fell 35% in May, as trade talks are due to start in London Associated Press

U.S. and China to Meet in London at Precarious Moment in Trade War New York Times

* * *

China’s electric cars are becoming slicker and cheaper – but is there a deeper cost? BBC (Kevin W)

Donald Trump moves to block foreign drone makers from selling new models in US MSN

* * *

How Xi Jinping lost control – A timeline YouTube. I cannot verify but she does seem to have a lot of supporting evidence

India-Pakistan

UK and India discuss ‘counter-terrorism’ cooperation after Pakistan ceasefire Reuters

World Bank Data On India And Pakistan Shows Massive Contrast Over Poverty NDTV

Africa

Sahel: Russia Replaces Wagner in Mali Under Pressure from Algeria, Touaregs Brace North Africa

French advocacy group urges world powers to act on Sudan ‘catastrophe’ Sudan Times

O Canada

Military aids evacuations as Canada wildfires expand eastward PhysOrg

European Disunion

Trump tariffs could wipe out European steel sector, senior industry figure says Guardian (resilc)

Mass demonstration calls for Spain’s leader to resign over corruption Aljazeera

Old Blighty

Thousands join anti-austerity march in London to protest against Labour’s cuts Guardian

Britain’s energy bills problem – and why firms are paid huge sums to NOT provide power BBC (Kevin W)

Israel v. the Resistance

* * *

Leaked Data From Meta Reveal Israeli Companies Are Struggling To Find Customers DropSite

Israel has sold record amount of debt in US since war on Gaza erupted: Report Middle East Eye (Kevin W)

* * *

Israel did not arrest the crew of the Madleen, it kidnapped them Council Estate Media

Rogan’s Boomer Ramboism Can’t Compete with Greta’s Balls of Steel BettBeat

* * *

Why the BBC killed its Gaza documentary Asa Winstanley

* * *

Iran Ups Ante as Israel Chafes for Face-Saving Escalation Simplicius

Schumer’s Iran Position Is Stupid  Washington Monthly. resilc: “Senator from Jerusalem.”

New Not-So-Cold War

Russia Unleashes Massive Drone Attack on Kyiv and Odesa, Kills 1 Bloomberg. Above the fold. More detail: Kyiv Suffers Devastating Mass Attack💣 Moscow Multiplies Drone Production📈Military Summary 2025.06.10 Military Summary, YouTube

Mark Sleboda: Reason Moscow’s Dnepro Entry Spells Doom For Ukraine- Higher Loses, Russia New Regions Jamarl Thomas, YouTube

Russia Seeks ‘Asymmetrical’ Response For Strike On Its Nuclear Assets Moon of Alabama (Kevin W)

Russia says its moratorium on deployment of intermediate- and shorter-range missiles comes to end Anadolu Agency

Renault Considering Making Drones in Ukraine Moscow Times

* * *

Moscow claims Britain 100% involved in Ukraine’s ‘terrorist attacks’ against Russia Anadolu Agency

WAR AGAIN — PLAYING MOLOTOV TO THE TWO RIBBENTROPS WHO THINK PUTIN IS AS WEAK AS GENERAL MACARTHUR SAID OF STALIN IN 1952 John Helmer (AG)

Lavrov At the Future Forum 2050 Karl Sanchez

Full Event: Lavrov Brutally Takes Down UK, Rips NATO Over Ukraine, Then Drops Iran & China Shocker Hindustan Times

Big Brother is Watching You Watch

Imperial Collapse Watch

Millions of Eggs Recalled After Dozens Sickened With Salmonella Bloomberg

Trump 2.0

RFK Jr. removes all members of CDC panel advising U.S. on vaccines CNBC (Kevin W)

‘We Dissent’: NIH Workers Protest Trump Policies That ‘Harm the Health of Americans’ KFF Health News

Why Elon Musk’s luck ran out Unherd

Elon Musk body-checked Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent ‘like a rugby player’ during fiery clash at White House: report New York Post. From over the weekend, still germane

Trump promotes $1,000 ‘Trump Accounts’ for newborns at White House event CNN. Gee, I am old enough to remember when the idea that women were excoriated for supposedly having had babies to get government money. Remember “Aid for Families with Dependent Children”?

Muni bonds set for record sales on fears US Congress could scrap tax break Financial Times

Immigration

Trump Deploys Marines to a “Manufactured Crisis,” Defense Official Says Intercept

Donald Trump tests limits of presidential authority by sending troops into Los Angeles Financial Times

Powerful National Unions Break Against Trump’s Actions in Los Angeles Michael Shedlock

The Imperial Boomerang Lands in Los Angeles Zeteo

False Flags Ken Klippenstein

The Dangerous Truth About the ‘Nonlethal’ Weapons Used Against LA Protesters Wired (resilc)

US troops make first detentions in Trump border military zones Reuters

‘The US was our El Dorado’: Africans on Trump’s travel bans and taxes Guardian. resilc: “The loss of African hospital workers and caregivers here will be dramatic as this expands.”

Will 1,000,000 Deportations Be Enough? American Conservative (resilc)

AI

Getty Images and Stability AI face off in British copyright trial that will test AI industry Associated Press (Kevin W)

Lawyers could face ‘severe’ penalties for fake AI-generated citations, UK court warns TechCrunch

Guillotine Watch

Lawmakers Traded Stocks Heavily as Trump Rolled Out ‘Liberation Day’ Tariffs Wall Street Journal

Class Warfare

Wealth inequality’s deep roots in human prehistory Science Daily (Anthony L)

Millions of student-loan borrowers are getting a ‘financial scarlet letter’ that could risk their home purchases and job prospects, Elizabeth Warren says Business Insider

Antidote du jour (via):

And a bonus:

A second bonus:

And a third:

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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146 comments

  1. Antifa

    Senator Joni Hearse

    (The rumors and gossip are wrong. Senator Joni Ernst HAS NOT agreed to be euthanized when she turns 65 in 2035. No way. She hopes instead to stay in the Senate making money for decades after the age she wants the rest of us gone to our Maker. Now eat your cat food . . .)

    Here’s some Chapter n’ Verse on our Senator Hearse
    Whose vote is ‘We all gotta die’
    She delivered this curse, brazen, haughty, and terse
    And then she pointed up at the sky

    ‘Get your butt to to Saint Peter, the Golden Gate greeter’
    ‘The quicker you get there the better’
    ‘It’s all so much sweeter, convenient, and neater,
    Than being a medical debtor!’

    Hey, a doctor’s advice now and then would be nice
    To postpone our predestined death
    But that comes with a price, and— colder than ice—
    Joni gave us her best shibboleth:

    ‘Think of Jesus, then die! There’s no need to ask why
    Our government won’t pay your doctor’
    ‘There is pie in the sky, which you’ll get bye ‘n bye’
    Woof! We wonder why nobody socked her!

    Might be all Iowans oughta stick to our guns
    And recall this incredible witch
    Medicare For All!—Tell this gangster moll
    Her votes will leave us all in the ditch!

    Every modern state doesn’t hesitate
    To see all doctor bills promptly covered
    This is boilerplate—simple to create,
    And it costs a lot less they’ve discovered

    We all work to exist but are promptly dismissed
    When we’re worn out, or sick, or retire
    Then we’re on Joni’s list, and she raises her fist
    And shows her middle finger entire

    Well, screw you right back, you eugenicist quack!
    You’ve ignited a fire that will end you!
    You’re a Pay to Play hack sent to rob and ransack—
    We’re the wrong people to condescend to!

    A doctor, a nurse, dear Senator Hearse
    Should be seen twice a year, or more often
    And why should we disburse from our wallet or purse?
    Medicare For All—not your coffin!

    Reply ↓
    1. Henry Moon Pie

      Brilliant, antifa. I hope the name sticks. She deserves it.

      And I appreciated the allusion to the great Wob, Joe Hill, and his parody of the Salvation Army favorite, “In the Sweet Bye and Bye.” According to my memory from Zinn’s A People’s History, the Salvation Army band would show up at IWW rallies and try to drown out the Wob speakers by playing “In the Sweet Bye and Bye.” Joe Hill wrote a song parody that the Wobblies would sing along with the band. After that stinging satire, the Army would usually leave.

      Joe was killed by a Utah firing squad during the Red Scare of the 1920s. Joan Baez covered the 1936 song “I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill” at Woodstock.

      Reply ↓
      1. Chas

        At the great Bread and Roses Strike at Lawrence, Mass. in 1912 the Wobs taught English to the strikers, who were from many different nationalities, using Joe Hill’s songs. And IIRC Joe was at the strike himself to lead the singing on the picket lines.

        Reply ↓
      2. Retired Carpenter

        HMP,
        I highly recommend Paul Robeson’s version of the song “Joe Hill”. Here is a link to a live performance from 1956 (audio only).
        P.SL Lena, this one is for you…

        Reply ↓
        1. JohnA

          Thommy Berggren played Joe Hill in the Bo Widerberg film of that name. I think the Joan Baez song featured in the film. Sometime later I was in a lift in Stockholm and the door opened and Berggren stepped in, in a full length wolf fur coat. He was the absolute epitome of cool and I was too spellbound to speak to him. It did give me a short-term yearning for a wolf fur coat but then I left Sweden. Fur coats further south were not only unnecessary but also politically incorrect. Such a coat would have gone to waste in my wardrobe.

          Reply ↓
  2. Terry Flynn

    I used to peruse a reddit thread whose theme was that all orange cats shared a single brain cell. Great examples. Our first family cat was orange and white and totally bonkers.

    Reply ↓
    1. The Rev Kev

      I must politely disagree, Terry. Take a look at that video again. The way that that orange cat pretended to slip and hang on only to drop down with perfect timing to make her tumble out of that seat. A half a second either way and she would have been right but that orange cat hit that moving target perfectly.

      Reply ↓
      1. Terry Flynn

        Hehe fair enough….I see the intent was there but our cat used to manage such weird feats more by chance. Our black and tuxedo cats could pull off such stunts successfully quite regularly ;)

        Reply ↓
  3. The Rev Kev

    ‘The Vigilant Fox 🦊
    @VigilantFox
    New: Pavel Durov blows Tucker Carlson’s mind by exposing U.S. law that forces engineers to install back doors—and bans them from telling their own company’

    C’mon, man. Those companies all know. But the active rule here is don’t ask, don’t tell. It’s all nudge-nudge-wink-wink-knowwhatimean and no manager is going to risk their carer by trying to get what is actually national security info from their engineers. When the Snowden files came out, I dumped all US or US allied computer security and firewall programs because of the revelations that came out and replaced them. And how many years is it since the Snowden files first came out?

    Reply ↓
    1. gf

      We have known about this for a decade or more with “Geek Squad” i think.

      Tucker puts on a good act though.

      Reply ↓
  4. AG

    Did anyone watch ATW on Orwell lately?
    I was only able to peek in for half an hour yesterday and thought it was pretty good even though one actually knows all the points but it´s nice to see them reiterated now in the current situation updated.

    Did Walter mention that Goldstein´s book most likely is also nothing but a ruse, published by the Party to identify and catch disrupting individuals? At least that´s what I used to read into the book´s concept when I read it decadesa ago…

    Reply ↓
    1. flora

      Yes, I left a link to the utube below. No paywall. Walter also mentions Color Revolutions associationed with Norm Eisen. / ;)

      Reply ↓
  5. Mikerw0

    When I heard the news yesterday afternoon of Sly Stone passing I spent the rest of the day and evening listening to his music. Also, having recently watched the documentary “We Want the Funk”, which I highly recommend, it is very bittersweet. His performance at Woodstock was simply amazing. But in some ways even more important was the political context that this was all happening in — an important backdrop to the civil rights movement.

    And one great tidbit, which I have to confess I didn’t know, was that he had produced the original version of Want Someone to Love for Grace Slick’s band before the Airplane formed.

    What an amazing talent.

    Reply ↓
    2. Michaelmas

      I’m going to take this opportunity to indulge myself with a trip down Memory Lane. I met Sly once.

      I got taken to his house in Vallejo or Novato – can’t recall which – by a manager of this black vocal quartet who’d had a couple of local R&B hits in the NorCal area (including – heh – a cover of Elton John’s ‘Bennie and the Jets’) and who I was playing keys for. Sly was out of his minds on drugs, the R&B vocal group’s manager knew him because he’d been one of Sly’s ‘bodyguards’ (e.g. leg-breakers), more such people were around, and the house itself – though a big property on a hill – had exposed drywall and mess in places. I kept my mouth shut and tried to be invisible even when people, including Sly, addressed me. I was very young and – though from growing up in London, Jamaica, and the East Bay I was very used to situations where I was the only paleface in the room – the whole vibe around Sly and the place intimidated the cr*p out of me. I was glad to get out of there as soon as I could.

      I’m bringing this up because it’s a opportunity to pay respect to a scene and a sound whose innovations, while significant residues of it remain here and there today, never got fully noticed.

      Firstly: Sly & the Family Stone were enormously inventive and Sly himself was talented, but massive credit for that sound should also be given to Larry Graham, who revolutionized the electric bass with his thumb-slapping, string-pulling techniques. If you listen to the great Sly Stone funk records, the main thing that’s a genuinely new instrumental sound nobody had gotten before is Graham’s bass. Listen, forex, to the ‘Thank You for Letting Me Mice Elf Again’ link in the Ted Goia pice. (To qualify this, Sly himself then learned that style from Graham, so on the last two good Family Stone records it’s often Sly playing the bass, as well as all the other instruments.)

      Secondly: Graham’s own band after Sly, Graham Central Station, practiced in the same San Francisco rehearsal studios that a band I was in used. So I’m come out on breaks and listen to Graham’s band shaking the walls. It had a line-up based around Graham’s bass, and two keyboard players – a clavinet player and a Hammond player – and when they locked it was like the most immensely powerful locomotive playing a funk, rock, and church fusion I haven’t heard anyone do since. I did hear tapes of a David Bowie touring band around that time, where he’d put together East Coast sophisticated black funk players like Carlos Alomar with white heavy metal rock guys, which had a similar hard funk-rock thing going on. That never really got recorded, either, unfortunately

      Thirdly: in the Bay Area – the East Bay scene, especially – a lot of innovation was happening in those years, especially in the rhythm sections where young guys who were sophisticated jazz players mixed it up with funk and rock. But it only partly got recorded. So, yeah, every bass player in the world copied Larry Graham’s bass techniques. Yeah, Herbie Hancock picked up his bass player and drummer from the East Bay for his Headhunters band. Yeah, the musical director of Saturday Night Live for decades now has been Lenny Pickett, whom we all knew as the 19-year-old lead sax in Tower Of Power.

      Still, there was a whole lot that never got picked up by the labels, and never came to a fuller fruition. Like Sly himself, but he’d only himself to blame for that.

      And so on. Where are the snows of yesteryear?

      Reply ↓
      1. MichaelSD

        Wow! Thanks for the wayback machine highlights. I loved their sound and its influence.
        My ancient anecdote: I saw Tower of Power at the Burlingame Rec Center in 1971. Right before they exploded on the Bay Area scene. Early Bill Graham promotion. Still get the goose bumps!

        Reply ↓
      3. Bugs

        Thanks for this. Brush with greatness. So very sad that Sly could never get away from getting high and do music again. That band was both incredibly creative and very unique. The turn of the decade was propitious for groups with a fusion of funk, rock, soul and R&B sounds that has never really repeated – Rare Earth, BS&T, War…

        There’s a deluxe version War’s The World Is a Ghetto that I highly recommend listening to, just for the session recordings where you hear jams evolving into fully developed songs. I can imagine that’s how a lot of it came together, true group creations.

        Reply ↓
      5. Birch

        Thank you for the anecdotes Michaelmas. That was a hell of a scene, you’re lucky you got to witness it. I can’t imagine anything like it happening again, at least not in the ‘western’ world.

        One thing I noticed from the documentary was how many heavy hip hop samples came from the Family’s recordings – how much of hip hop samples a white drummer!?

        Reply ↓
      6. Ann

        Michaelmas, thank you so much for relating your experience, I loved reading this. The bass player for Quicksilver Messenger Service, David Freiberg, was my favorite.

        Reply ↓
    3. Mikel

      “Time is education
      Even when they tell you
      It’s sophistication…”

      One of the many turn of phrases from Sly that came suddenly to mind.

      A musicians’ musician as well. And the stories are legend (if well before my prime).

      RIP.

      Reply ↓
    4. Offtrail

      You don’t necessarily know how much an artist means to you until you hear of their passing. I would not have pegged Sly as someone whose death would hit me this hard, but it does.

      Reply ↓
  6. Henry Moon Pie

    Ancient inequalities–

    It seemed to me that the researchers were arguing against a straw man. The starting point for the development of inequalities was the generation of surpluses that came with the adoption of agriculture, well before the appearance of empires and writing. Heterodox economist, Lisa Krall, prof at SUNY Cortland, lays out the argument in full in this Nate Hagens Youtube.

    Reply ↓
    1. divadab

      Yup. And all the social organizations developed alongside the surplus, to manage it, to build identities permitted by freedom from agricultural/hunting work, laws and related mythologies, organized religions, castes, and so on – you name it, our societies were developed during the neolithic and magnified in the bronze age.

      Reply ↓
    2. Ann

      Henry and divadab:

      In the book by David Graeber and David Wengrow, “The Dawn of Everything” they argue against this thesis using multiple examples. They claim that this idea that agriculture was the beginning of inequality is a myth. Very compelling reading.

      Reply ↓
    3. Alice X

      Thank you. My pet theory is that the joining of the wheel with the axle ca 5,000 BCE (or less) led to the ability to carry off the surplus and thus a rise of inequality. I’m certain something happened thereabouts.

      Reply ↓
  7. Wukchumni

    Who are you calling over-the-hill? The truth about cognitive peaks Financial Times.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    My mom was a super ager and could remember events of long ago with crystal clear retention in her mid 90’s, and i’m well onto my way following in her footsteps as a wrote memorizer.

    Reply ↓
    1. LawnDart

      My grandfather didn’t retire-retire until his late 90s, when his vision began to fail. He was a chemist who specialized in agriculture and sugars– much use in animal feeds. His wife was right there with him as an organist who played in several churches. She was always a bit nuts, so it’s difficult to say if she suffered from any senility, but his mind was sharp to the very end.

      Reply ↓
    2. Unironic Pangloss

      my widowed-family friend/mechanic kept “going to the office” until he was 90.

      he wouldn’t do actually wrenching, more hold court and be the emeritus.

      purpose/bi-multi-directional social interaction is what folks need. he’s still chugging along, playing pickleball 4x/week

      super-ageing is part survivorship bias, part anyone can still get the low-hanging longevity boost of being away from a screen and constant media fear-mongering

      Reply ↓
  8. Colonel Smithers

    Thank you, Yves.

    Further to the link about Israeli debt issuance in the US, may I bring to the attention of readers, especially US taxpayers this: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/u-s-loan-guarantees-for-israel#:~:text=In%201992%2C%20Congress%20authorized%20the%20President%20to%20provide,annual%20increments%20of%20%242%20billion%20over%20five%20years..

    From 2006 – 2008, I worked for BNY Mellon (legacy Mellon for those from the great commonwealth) and, as BNY was agent etc. for the Israeli government, noted the US government guarantees and documents detailing the buy out of the debt by the US Treasury and conversion of the Israeli debt to US Treasuries. One wonders how much the long suffering US taxpayer is on the hook for, and if the US taxpayer is happy to be on the hook?

    Reply ↓
  9. Expat2uruguay

    Africa in focus – Burkina Faso: 1)
    a religious festival emphasizes peace & cohesion locally and 2) Captain Traoré claims in a speech that “the imperialists” seek partners in treachery among the AES.

    (Cameroon – quick side note: Loud but unverified rumors of the end of Paul Biya’s dictatorship) https://youtu.be/C6P5jj5u8Hw (8:12)

    1) Aïd El Kebir (Eid al-Adha), the Muslim holiday also known as the Feast of Sacrifice, celebrated in BF on June 6, 2025. Muslims worldwide commemorate the prophet Ibrahim’s (Abraham) willingness to sacrifice his son upon God’s command. The holiday spans four days, 6 June – 9 June (West Asia, Europe, North America) OR
    7 June – 10 June (North Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia).

    This video is coverage directly from the AES* TV station and as such is in French, but can be translated. It is a moving 3 minute video and @1:30 they say that the government and the Catholic Church also participated, which I thought was very interesting. (3:04)
    https://youtu.be/9gYRw1ouIOM
    WARNING: a sacrificial goat is shown at the end, but not the actual sacrifice.

    How to translate: In YouTube click on the settings icon in the upper right hand corner and select Captions. Check Auto Translate and select the language you want. It will automatically turn on closed captioning for the video, machine-translated.

    2) Traoré emphasizes unity and determination in this important speech wherein he reveals that imperialist powers are trying to recruit traitors among the AES Nations. (7:17) https://youtu.be/YRdZcmeiirY

    *AES – Alliance of Sahel States
    BF – Burkina Faso

    Reply ↓
    1. ex-PFC Chuck

      IIRC Traorè has survived 15 assassination attempt or plots that were discovered and squelched before they went active. Most recently one of his personal bodyguards revealed he had turned down a 5M Euro offer to assassinate him.

      Reply ↓
        1. Expat2uruguay

          And all of the assassin’s family members would have been hated… Captain Traoré is considered a national treasure, no strike that, an international treasure.
          I think that’s why these videos from Burkina Faso are so inspiring to me, they show people coming together, working together to the point of sacrificing themselves for the bigger project. A nation’s biggest asset is its people and if those people go together in the same direction with speed and spirit they can accomplish amazing things. Where else do we see this kind of spirit?

          Reply ↓
    2. Colonel Smithers

      Thank you.

      The elevation by Francis of Philippe Ouedraogo to cardinal raised the profile of the Catholic church in the Sahel, something recognised by Traore. The cardinal and Traore have worked well to promote unity and avoid western inspired division.

      It reminds me of Mauritius in the 1970s. The Catholic church, then led by the Franco-Mauritian Jean Margeot, later a cardinal, put its network of schools at the government’s disposal for an expansion of education and making education free of charge. The government was led by a Hindu.

      Reply ↓
  10. Alice X

    >Rogan’s Boomer Ramboism Can’t Compete with Greta’s Balls of Steel

    A well deserved take down.

    …This is why they mock her. Because in their hearts, these men recognize what true courage looks like, and they know they don’t possess it.…

    snip

    When the history of this genocide is written, it will record that while governments armed the killers and media personalities joked about the resisters, a 22-year-old woman and her comrades sailed directly into the heart of darkness, carrying food and medicine and hope. That is what courage looks like. That is what principles look like.

    Fie

    Reply ↓
    1. ChrisFromGA

      I’m thinking that if Greta hadn’t been on that boat, the IDF would have murdered everyone else on board.

      Only the fact that she’s a celebrity prevented that. She deserves big applause.

      Reply ↓
      1. Randall Flagg

        Agreed. There are some things you can’t begin to hide behind or dismiss with an “oops, sorry about that”.

        Reply ↓
            1. Alice X

              Per chance, earlier today a comrade sent me a 2018 Jeffrey St. Clair piece on the Liberty. The Zionists apologized for the, ahem, mistaken attack, but I’m hardly the first to suggest it was other than such.

              Reply ↓
            2. bertl

              Did LBJ ever apologise to the grieving families for not taking out Israel in response to this monstrous war crime?

              Reply ↓
          2. Robert Gray

            See the very beginning of the 2009 bio-documentary about Norman Finkelstein, American Radical, for a great joke, unfortunately a bit too long to type out here.

            Reply ↓
    2. JohnH

      That’s certainly the impression she intended to give, of courage. But having a video all ready to go in the totally foreseeable event of Israeli boarding and detention that says “hey guys, now pressure my government to get me outta here!” Is not exactly courageous.

      Aid? Nah. Pressure Israel to stop the crimes against humanity? Nah. Def use your time and effort to get me outta here!!!

      Reply ↓
      1. Alice X

        The entire point is to keep the focus on the fact that two million people are being starved. They are still being starved and people keep missing that point.

        That is the story.

        Fie

        Reply ↓
        1. Alice X

          The 12 were kidnapped on the open seas, spirited to the Zionist Entity and then asked to sign deportation papers. Eight refused. A better legal mind than mine will have to untangle the illegalities, but the larger point remains.

          There should be thousands of such boats headed to Gaza. There should be governments doing something.

          Reply ↓
          1. mrsyk

            There should be thousands of such boats headed to Gaza. Yup, thanks. Making this about Greta and not the ongoing cruelty and carnage would seem be “falling for it”.
            For what it’s worth, there were other celebrities on that boat too. Glad that they are not harmed (yet).

            Reply ↓
            2. Alice X

              Resist the self(ish self) when you join with others for a melding of sublime selflessness.

              Can’t do it? Don’t sail (on a sailboat) to Gaza with precious supplies (slight as it may be) for a people bereft of everything.

              Save air.

              No wonder so many in high places can’t do it.

              Reply ↓
        2. Bugs

          Rima Hassan, is an EMP from La France Insoumise, a qualified lawyer, and a Palestinian ethnic who emigrated to France from Syria. The French right and the French Jewish media hate her with a passion for speaking out against the oppression and now genocide. She is a brave and decent woman who deserves admiration.

          https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rima_Hassan

          Reply ↓
      4. BrianH

        Drawing attention to the genocide is exactly what they were intending. At the heart of nonviolent resistance is an appeal to the humanity of the oppressor. Draw attention to the victims of the genocide in an effort to force changes. It takes courage to stand up against the Israeli government, and you put your life at jeopardy when you do so. And of course, video is a key element. If no one sees it, it didn’t happen.

        Reply ↓
        1. Hepativore

          The problem is that there are limits as to what non-violent resistance can achieve. If you have an enemy that is intent on exterminating you rather than ruling over you like in the case of the Gaza genocide; you are basically lining up for your enemy to wipe you out.

          As courageous as Greta Thunberg is, the media will ignore it, Trump and our leadership will continue their bipartisan “Israel first!” policies, and the liberals/PMC/Dems are too busy drinking mimosas at brunch to care.

          Our elites don’t give a damn about what the populace wants no matter how many protests there are or how big because they control law enforcement and military forces with weapons that could easily make mincemeat out of any uprising.

          Reply ↓
          1. The Rev Kev

            A mass boycott of any Israeli products would put pressure on them. Western countries may be sending them weapons and ammo by the boatload to continue Israel’s genocide but what happens when people around the world refuse to buy anything that comes out of Israel? Make them a pariah nation like what happened with South Africa once. Boo their sports people, protest outside of Israeli exhibitions and cultural exchanges, mock them on social media, release video clips of their own films of what they are doing in Gaza.

            Reply ↓
            1. ex-PFC Chuck

              A while back I learned that items with bar codes beginning with 729, 841 and 871 are of Israeli origin.

              Reply ↓
          2. ChrisFromGA

            As was noted in this blog a few days ago, the mainstream media threw Greta under the bus as soon as she started questioning capitalism and its role in climate change. Then when she spoke up against Israel, she became an ‘unperson’ in their eyes.

            I watched a Skynews reporter spew “2 minutes of hate” towards poor Greta last night. You could almost see the venom dripping out of her fangs.

            The problem for the media is they can’t make their viewers forget about all the lionizing they did of her back before the IDF rolled into Gaza. It’s got a real “we’ve always been at war with Eastasia!” feel to it, sticking with the 1984 theme.

            Reply ↓
            1. Dr. John Carpenter

              Yep. I’ve been critical of Greta here before, but I respect this and I think it’s going to be hard to totally sweep under the rug.

              Reply ↓
              1. Jonathan Holland Becnel

                Me too.

                She’s still young, so it’s good to see her pushing forward in her political evolution.

                Reply ↓
            2. Alice X

              I don’t know what else was said by others, I said this on 6/8/25 links:

              https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/06/links-6-8-2025.html#comment-4226946

              I would say that Greta is as MLK, but I would qualify. The latter had to go after his turn against the Empire. The former may have to go during her turn against the Empire, alas, as she is much the younger, double alas. The Empire knows no bounds, except when confronted. What confrontation with a small boat approaching the coast of Palestine by the land’s usurpers holds in my bated breath. I fear for Greta and her compadres. That she is a sweet soul will have no bearing.

              That she is still a celebrity (in a deeper sense to many, myself included) whose martyrdom would be adverse to the Zionist Entity did have a play.

              The ZE does not want the world to know the catastrophic conditions in the concentration camp, now turned death camp, of Gaza. They have not allowed any foreign journalists in and they have assassinated every Gazan journalist they could.

              She and her comrades are safe for now, but the Gazans are still starving. Their time is running out. That is the story.

              What will be said when hundreds of thousands have perished from famine, and whatever children that remain are forever withered?

              Reply ↓
        2. Charger01

          Ole’ Greta has to stay in the spotlight. She needs to be careful, standing up for her convictions. I recall another young lady from Washington State that protested against the Israelis that lost her life for her nonviolent protest convictions. Her name was Rachel Corrie, if I remember correctly.

          Reply ↓
    3. PlutoniumKun

      I very much doubt the person who wrote that article has actually watched or listened to much Rogan. If you watch the original clip (after the jokes), they actually discuss her motivations quite fairly and one of the guests (I can’t remember his name) defends her later on.

      Far from it for me to defend him, but Rogan has consistently been against the genocide (one of the few major media personalities to call it what it is) and has had Abbie Martin on his show in the past discussing Gaza. His takedown of Douglas Murray was glorious.

      Reply ↓
      1. lyman alpha blob

        Thank you. I hadn’t listened to the episode referred to in the article, but I have listened to Rogan a fair amount over the years and find the caricatures of him by critics to ring hollow. They apparently form their critiques from out of context soundbites rather than by actually listening to what he has to say. There’s a reason his shows are three hours long.

        Reply ↓
        1. PlutoniumKun

          I don’t go to Rogan for my political views, but I find some of the conversations entertaining, and I like how he can get people to open up and say what they really feel – a very underestimated skill. He’s also unafraid to shut down any BS from an interviewee, as Murray found to his cost.

          I am suspicious of a certain type of liberal or lefty who wants to diss Rogan. He represents the views of a lot of regular non-ideological people and he has constantly shown he can be persuaded by good arguments. Dismissing him as part of the ‘manosphere’ or whatever seems to me to be more to do with trying to police discussion or enforce the duality of politics, rather than genuinely engaging with people who are not closed into ideological boxes.

          Reply ↓
          1. Jonathan Holland Becnel

            I wrote Rogan off until he had Bernie on and then endorsed Tulsi.

            He’s good for the unification of the Working Class.

            We need as many of those as we can.

            Reply ↓
      2. Henry Moon Pie

        Agreed, PK. I haven’t watched a lot of Rogan, but on my scroll there was a show Rogan did with social media critic Tristan Harris, who brought along Daniel Schmachtenberger for support. You could see that Schmachtenberger was blowing his mind, but Rogan just kept pedaling faster and did pretty well keeping up with a lot of terms and attitudes that may have been new to him. But then again, the guy did great interviews with Rupert and Terry.

        Reply ↓
  11. Unironic Pangloss

    >>>>Shocking stat of the day:

    52% of US consumers can….

    the bottom half of the country has been f……ed since 2008 and the Obama admin. rescue plan cut the ladder.

    It’s literally self-evident, res ipsa loquitor, that 2016 would not have won but for: 1. Obama nuking millions of households’ home equity (who were essentially facing a simple liquidity crisis); 2. DNC saying: yes America, we hate you…that’s why we are coronating HRC

    Reply ↓
    1. ChrisFromGA

      How did Obama nuke millions of American’s home equity? I recall that home prices circa 2007 had gotten ridiculous in part due to underwriting standards that were so lax an unemployed strawberry picker could get a $500k loan. Are you saying the solution was to just have the Fed bail out every single underwater mortgage?

      This blog covered the crisis in depth. I read it faithfully back in the day. I think blaming a single person or factor for the GFC is overly simplistic. We know that the banks were a big factor, along with AIG, Bear Sterns, Greenspan, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Bill Clinton (Glass-Steagall repealed under his watch) and other bad actors not named Barack Obama.

      Reply ↓
      1. herman_sampson

        And why would we need $2k immediately? For home repairs caused by climate change that insurance won’t cover? For car repairs when we have poor mass transit? For medical bills because we don’t have at least M4A? For bail when falsely arrested for exercising our rights? To pay for groceries when over charged for rent or house payment due to VC? To pay taxes to fund a $1T Offense Depatment budget?

        Reply ↓
      2. earthling

        The bailout could have passed through the homeowners, saving both them and the banks, and also keeping the construction industry afloat. Instead homeowners got foreclosed–they were given lengthy application processes which often failed, while the banks and incompetent ratings agencies got bailouts and no penalties.

        Reply ↓
        1. Glen

          To expand on that, it would have been good to turn houses back into homes which really means collapsing the value of houses.

          Instead Obama created a situation where houses are viewed as “investments”, are unaffordable to normal citizens, and now being bought by PE to jack up rents. So we literally have more empty houses than homeless people.

          Reply ↓
          1. Henry Moon Pie

            That is what is so BS about “abundance.” The last thing we need to do is pour a bunch of concrete, tear up a bunch of farmland and bulldoze some more trees. Allocate what we already have so everybody has what they need.

            Donella Meadows rule: Change the goal, change the system. So change the goal from profiting off of housing to getting everybody housed (and supply some help where needed). If a committee of twenty smart people sat down and devised a plan to shift the goal to housing everybody, we could do it without pouring a single cubic yard of concrete. The problem: the rich who profit off of housing, and the spoiled who have multiple houses wouldn’t be happy, and though they are small in number, they are huge in power.

            Reply ↓
            1. Mikel

              People would rather scheme of ways to keep the silly cycle going and deny it’s possible to train people to do things.

              Reply ↓
        3. Jacktish

          Thank you. I actually think the government should have had a hands-off policy, just allowing all the chips fall where they may. I can’t believe the outcome would be any worse than what happened. Plus, put all the finance crooks in jail like they did in the Savings & Loan crisis.

          Reply ↓
      3. Unironic Pangloss

        lower bracket tax cuts and multi-year foreclosure moratorium with ZIRP-era refinancing.

        relying on the Fed to use QE/ZIRP to prop the economy gave us Trump, and the rebirth of the GOP as MAGA when 2008 GOP was on its generational/Whig deathbed

        Reply ↓
  12. Wukchumni

    Goooooooood Moooooooorning Fiatnam!

    The platoon was deployed stateside in order to restore order, was the official skinny we were told, and it felt kind of weird being masked up-kinda like ‘Meskin wrestlers. Were we the good grapplers?

    One of our men, Pfc Fauntleroy had decided this was when he was going to break into Hollywood and start a career, so throwing caution to the wind, went sans mask with hopes that what was left of the entertainment industry in tinseltown would notice a fresh face.

    Reply ↓
  13. Expat2uruguay

    Regarding the first article listed under the Africa subtitle, Sahel: “Russia Replaces Wagner in Mali Under Pressure from Algeria, Touaregs Brace”, I’m not sure what is meant by ” under pressure from Algeria” and the article doesn’t give very much information at all. Is Wagner under pressure, or is Mali under pressure? Either way the pressure isn’t described or elaborated on. If you’re interested in more information than is given in the article I recommend you check out my comment on June 7 on the situation of Wagner group forces leaving Mali but being replaced by the Africa Court Russian forces here: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/06/links-6-7-2025.html#comment-4226398

    Reply ↓
    1. Aurelien

      I don’t have anything to add in this particular case, though there’s a short article on the ICG site which may help.
      https://www.crisisgroup.org/fr/node/26104

      The problem is likely to be money: the French, for obvious reasons, paid their own costs as well as some of the costs of the Malians they trained. Wagner are only there for the money. Moreover, they (and the Russians in general in fact) don’t speak the language, don’t know the region and seem, from reports in the local media, to be treating the problem a bit like Chechnya.

      Algerian involvement is highly probable. They keep a close eye on what happens to the South, and have managed to keep other actors, even the French, marginalised in the various political negotiations of recent years. They are just as likely to want the Russians out of the way, and have probably been putting pressure on Bamako to get rid of them.

      Reply ↓
  15. The Rev Kev

    “WAR AGAIN — PLAYING MOLOTOV TO THE TWO RIBBENTROPS WHO THINK PUTIN IS AS WEAK AS GENERAL MACARTHUR SAID OF STALIN IN 1952”

    Buried in this post is the following tidbit-

    ‘Trump was falsifying. The Indian attack on Pakistan’s air bases, its air defence batteries, and command-and-control also struck at the nuclear storage bunkers at the Mushaf airbase at Sargodha on May 10. At that point, following the operational intelligence of what was happening from Indian and US sources, it has been reported the US activated the “kill switch” to prevent the arming of the Pakistan Air Force F-16s with nuclear missiles. This has not been corroborated.’

    So if this is true, then Pakistan now knows that in another war between Pakistan and India that the US could tip the scales dramatically in India’s favour if they sided with them. OK, then. So what else can the US shut down on an F-16. The talk recently was a kill switch for the F-35 but it looks like it may be present on all US exported aircraft. And what other equipment? HIMARS? Missiles? Patriots? Tanks? Suddenly if you are the commander of a military that has imported a lot of modern US equipment, you would be looking at them differently now. What if you’re enemy was able to hack that kill switch?

    Reply ↓
    1. hk

      I read this and I wondered if this could possibly be true if only on technical bases. Pakistani F16s are old and US denied them upgrades for a long time due to their acquisition of nukes. They have no doubt been thoroughly modernized by now with local and Chinese tech, though–not unlike Iranian F14s. I doubt they couldchave been remotely shut down even circa 1990. I don’t think they can be shut down now…but these are only speculations on my part. Would someone who knows more about these plesse comment?

      Reply ↓
      1. PlutoniumKun

        The F-16’s appear to be still fully supported by the US. While there have been occasional boycotts, most recent support packages to the F-16 have been approved. The usual US response to Pakistan overstepping on nukes has been to cut off financial aid, not block weapons sales.

        I would be very doubtful about that story about the kill switch – there doesn’t seem to be much behind it apart from the usual rumour mongering by Indian sources. While it is possible that the F-16’s are used for potentially dropping nuke dumb bombs, the semi-domestic JC-15’s are a far more likely platform as the Pakistani’s were heavily involved in its design and construction.

        Reply ↓
        1. hk

          Interesting wrt the state of Pakistani F16s!

          The “kill switch” story sounded pretty implausible, at least on F16s. Good to know others share this reaction.

          Reply ↓
  16. micaT

    maybe what the X says about north volt is part of the truth, but what I read in many places was they were way over extended and tried to do way to much too fast, VC money.

    It would have been hard enough to compete with china’s battery companies even if they have just stayed with the orginal chemistry they designed the factories around.

    but they decided to change to sodium and going from one chemistry to another chemistry isn’t all that easy. Yes much of the equipment can be modified, but it takes a lot of time, money and expertise which they didn’t have.

    Basically too many VP’s and not enough engineers.

    Reply ↓
    1. The Rev Kev

      I did a major double-take when I read this part-

      ‘For example, after we welded their batteries, we conducted helium leak tests. This person repeatedly asked if we could use hydrogen instead—because it’s cheaper. They didn’t even realize that hydrogen is highly flammable. I wrote a detailed thousand-word explanation, outlining why hydrogen would be a disaster. Only then did they stop pestering us.’

      That guy should have shown them the video of the Hindenburg going down in flames and then point out that this is what happens when you use hydrogen instead of helium. God, why does it have to be even said?

      Reply ↓
    2. Revenant

      We had a couple of Norwegian portfolio companies.

      One was advised by a crazy-big-talking banker guy who was also very New Age psycho-analtyical and very physically imposing, and knew it. A real toxic cult leader mix. When he wasn’t getting a strong enough unreality vibe from the startup, he would re-hypnotise them by singing of the billions he was raising for Scandinavian battery companies….

      The other company was in the Arctic Circle and the talk of the region was the battery company locating a Gigafactory there (hydropower) and the high quality jobs. It has recently laid most of the staff off….

      The bars and hotels were humming when this was all buoyant but it was clearly a bubble (cash and logistical costs of business in the Arctic Circle are insane). The operational mismanagement is not a surprise because the whole concept was delusional.

      Reply ↓
  17. AG

    re: Germany rent

    German JUNGE WELT
    https://www.jungewelt.de/artikel/501596.keine-rendite-mit-der-miete-lohn-f%C3%BCr-miete.html

    “(…)
    wages for rent
    Rent control: Millions of households shell out half of their net income for housing costs. Left Party calls for price freeze. AfD engages in real estate lobbying.

    (…)
    Toiling, toiling, day in, day out – and at the start of the month, more than half of your net salary goes towards rent. This isn’t an isolated case, as this is the case for around 15 percent of the 21 million renter households in Germany. According to a representative survey conducted by the polling institute Yougov, dpa reported on Monday. Three percent of the 4,000 respondents spend 70 percent or more on their rent. And only eight percent spend less than 20 percent of their income on their apartment.
    (…)”

    Reply ↓
    1. Joe Renter

      In CA I am sure there are millions who pay half of their income for rent. A studio here (coastal central CA goes for 2k), a room in a house for 1k at least. Race to the bottom. Currently I am trying decide if I should do van life for a stretch. Not easy living these days. I take refuge in the non physical.

      Reply ↓
  18. Wukchumni

    UFC # 86

    Gavin (Pompadour & Circumstance) Newsom versus Donald (Teetotalitarian Leader) Trump, with the real likelihood that Musk taps in to take over for the hair apparent.

    2 insults go into the Octagon and literally dozens more fly online, its grade school flavor stuff, you’d half expect one of the word pugilists to type something to the effect of ‘I know you are, but what am I?’ as a likely retort.

    Reply ↓
  20. eg

    “The Imperial Boomerang Lands in Los Angeles”

    Classic “blowback” whereby the tools originally employed by the imperial centre against the peoples of its periphery are eventually (inevitably?) deployed against the citizens of the metropole … 🤨

    Reply ↓
    1. flora

      I dunno. T was prez in 2020 when the Floyd riots broke out and spread across the country leaving cities torched, stores looted, and people dead. He asked governors if they wanted him to send the Nat Guard to restore order, Answer was ‘no.’ Same thing, almost, with Jan 6 protests. Nat Guard on standby but city mayor and then House Leader Pelosi, in charge of Capitol defense efforts, refuse assistance.

      He’s not waiting for a rerun of either of those events this time, imo. The local news last night said LA organizers were promising protests in multiple cities across the US this summer. Promising more ‘mostly peaceful’ (ignore the arson and mayhem) protests. We’ll see. / ;)

      Reply ↓
      1. Carolinian

        But will you agree that ICE already militarized the situation with the masks and bulletproof vests not to mention Trump’s assertion that immigration is some kind of “act of war”?

        Here’s suggesting both parties are full of self dramatizers.

        Reply ↓
        1. flora

          1. ICE militarized the situation? no. Mex cartel members smuggling drugs, etc.

          2. both parties are full of self dramatizers.? yes

          Reply ↓
        2. JMH

          Is it really necessary to send in what to all appearances is an occupying army in the person of ICE to locate and detain those without papers? Are the “illegal Immigrants” heavily armed? Did not look so from the pictures I saw. Does anyone dispute that the appearance is meant to intimidate? Does anyone dispute that Tom Homan’s attitude is meant to show disdain for procedure? This is performative first and substantive secondarily. The old mantra, “waste, fraud, and abuse” applies here in that the display of force is a waste of resources, the avowed purpose is a fraud, while the abuse of the rights of the people is all too real. There really are better methods to do what the government says it wants to do. Does not look to me that that is what it is really up to.

          Reply ↓
        3. hk

          Feds have been needlessly militarizing a lot of situations via deploying far more force than they should and causing tragedies–I still remember with horror Clinton’s ATF going after the cultists with famblogging TANKs. Compared to that, ICE stuff is distasteful but not quite horrible.

          Reply ↓
      2. Neutrino

        Flag Day this Saturday will be an occasion for many to stay home due to the likely dangers of circulating in or near any metro areas.

        Reply ↓
      3. anahuna

        My son sent this to me. It was posted on Facebook by Peter Coyote. Very much worth considering, I believe.

        Zen priest, Peter Coyote, on protest: “I’m watching the Los Angeles reaction to ICE raids with trepidation and regret.

        Three years ago I taught a class at Harvard on the “theater of protest”— designed to help people understand why so many protests turn out to be Republican campaign videos working directly against the interests of the original protest.

        A protest is an invitation to a better world.

        It’s a ceremony.

        No one accepts a ceremonial invitation when they’re being screamed at.

        More important you have to know who the real audience of the protest is.

        The audience is NEVER the police, the politicians, the Board of
        supervisors, Congress,etc.

        The audience is always the American people, who are trying to decide who they can trust; who will not embarrass them.

        If you win them, you win power at the box office and power to make positive change.

        Everything else is a waste.

        There are a few ways to get there:

        1. Let women organize the event. They’re more collaborative. They’re more inclusive, and they don’t generally bring the undertones of violence men do.

        2 Appoint monitors, give them yellow, vests and whistles. At the first sign of violence, they blow the whistles and the real protester sit down.

        Let the police take out their aggression on the anarchists and the provocateurs trying to discredit the movement.

        3. Dress like you’re going to church. It’s hard to be painted as a hoodlum when you’re dressed in clean, presentable clothes.

        They don’t need to be fancy they just signal the respect for the occasion that you want to transmit to the audience.

        4. Make your protest silent. Demonstrate your discipline to the American people. Let signs do the talking.

        5. Go home at night. In the dark, you can’t tell the cops from the killers. Come back at dawn fresh and rested.

        I have great fear that Trump’s staging with the National Guard and maybe the Marines is designed to clash with anarchists who are playing into his hands and offering him the opportunity to declare an insurrection.

        It’s such a waste and it’s only because we haven’t thought things through strategically.

        Reply ↓
        1. AG

          Thanks.
          I would disagree with 1)
          The other suggestions are like Selma and since.
          I guess in our current Western situation they generally work.
          In Gaza they failed. There they were simply shot. But Gaza is of course not the US so far.
          So naturally it does also depend on the circumstances and the opponent.

          When I was at the fringes of protest and I spoke to black block members they argued – I found the concept a fascinating story – but it would completely contradict Coyote – In the 1980s German antiwar and anti NPP protest – allegedly (I never checked it against police records) – violent protest became so bloody that police retreated and gave protesters a victory.

          I am personally non usable for any violence. So it´s mere theory which I share.

          p.s. Coyote should add a 6) calling for unionizing.

          Reply ↓
        2. lyman alpha blob

          The “anarchists” and “antifascists” are cops, sometimes accompanied by useful idiots.

          Reply ↓
        3. anahuna

          Apologies. It seems this was posted, not by Coyote himself, but by woman whose name appears below. She adds:

          …Many Marines, National Guardsmen and vets are over on Threads and Substack expressing their disagreement over being used by this lawless administration.

          Peace, santi and shalom to all. ☮️

          — Leslie Flood Hershberger

          Reply ↓
        4. DJG, Reality Czar

          anahuna:

          I’ve seen this list all over FcBk, and I suppose that it comes from so many USonions never having bothered to go to a protest or march. It’s a bunch of tips for people who don’t truly believe that protests are effective — or that protests are something other people do.

          I agree with AG: Point 1 is absurd. It’s some essentializing about women and their natures — when the U S of A is now graced with some of the biggest lady warmongers around (Clinton, Nuland, Harris, Noem, and need I go on?). You choose leaders — and you must have leaders and spokespeople — by consensus. You weed out the overly ambitious or those with essentialist ideas.

          This is absurd, I’m afraid: “Let the police take out their aggression on the anarchists and the provocateurs trying to discredit the movement.”

          And how does one get the cops to beat up the narcs? And what’s wrong with anarchists? (Someone’s terminal bourgieness is showing.)

          Also: Point 4. Silent? Is he kidding? Do you truly think that some of the signs we see are anything but virtue signaling? Get out the tin pots and bang away. Get out the drums. Learn to sing “Bread and Roses.”

          And as AG writes: Unionize. And sing “Solidarity Forever.”

          Hollywood.

          Reply ↓
          1. anahuna

            I certainly feel a surge of nostalgia at the memory of “Bread and Roses,” or, for that matter, “There once was a Union Maid.” The central point, though, is in my mind, whether that nebulous concept, “the American people,” are still disposed to be impressed and moved by stirring music and the noise of beaten pans. Would that they were! But a public that has been able to largely ignore or shrug off genocide?

            I seem to recall lots of revulsion at the BLM protests, some or even most of it due to ways they were reported. I confess that I don’t understand the ways in which public opinion moves or what it is moved by, but I think it’s worth asking what effect different tactics or strategies will have. I have no answers. That doesn’t mean that I am not open to questions.

            Reply ↓
            1. anahuna

              And, with apologies to those who prefer to follow straight lines — a tangent that just occurred to me. From a long-ago reading of Bruno Bettelheim’s account of his time in a concentration camp: He advised that the way to deal with guards, or Nazis in general, was to refuse to react in predictable ways. Don’t do what they expect (expectation fueled by stereotypes), do something entirely different.

              An example, told me by my dear friend Karl of an incident when he was a youngster in Berlin before escaping (narrowly) to England. Along with other Jews, he was obliged to queue for one of the many nonsensical reasons. While waiting in line, an elderly man next to him slumped over. He’d had a heart attack.Karl imperiously summoned a guard: Bring him a chair! he ordered. Can’t you see this man is ill!

              And the chair was brought.

              Such moments of improvisatory grace, I fear, cannot be turned into theory.

              Reply ↓
  21. chukjones

    New: Pavel Durov blows Tucker Carlson’s mind by exposing U.S. law that forces engineers to install back doors—and bans them from telling their own company

    I did some lite research on this “law” and was unable to find anything specific. Many attempts to pass such a measure but no such bill has passed yet. Though I would not find it unlikely something has be implemented in the dark. If anyone has some specific info to confirm please share…

    Reply ↓
    1. hk

      A lot of “rules” are made by various agencies without direct legislative oversight and they persist unless explicitly overruled by Congress or courts, though. It’s not impossible that Durov is right.

      Reply ↓
  22. mrsyk

    “”World Bank Data On India And Pakistan Shows Massive Contrast Over Poverty”, NDTV.
    Summary is AI generated, newsroom reviewed.
    Here is the summary:

    India’s extreme poverty rate fell from 27.1% in 2012 to 5.3% in 2022, lifting 269 million out of poverty.

    In contrast, Pakistan’s extreme poverty rose from 4.9% in 2017 to 16.5% in 2021, with worsening conditions.

    India’s economy recently surpassed Japan, becoming the world’s fourth-largest, reflecting growth progress.”

    Sketchy numbers. This Oxfam article from 2023 supports my suspicions.

    Reply ↓
    1. tyaresun

      Therefore, this new poverty line of $3 a day reflecting extreme poverty is equivalent to only Rs 60 per day of consumption expenditure per person. On the basis of the higher IPL of $4.2 PPP (i.e. Rs 84) per day, 23.89% Indians are estimated to be poor. We don’t need to be experts to imagine what living on less than Rs 84 a day means (this is to account for all expenses of a person including rent, travel, food, education, health and other consumption).

      https://thewire.in/economy/why-india-needs-to-update-its-own-poverty-line

      Reply ↓
    2. PlutoniumKun

      NDTV is part owned by the Adani Group, which has links to the BJP. So not exactly a neutral source.

      It is probably true to say that India has been doing significantly better economically than Pakistan over the past decade or so – but not many countries have done as poorly as Pakistan. Pakistan still has a lower gini co-efficient than India, but I doubt available data is accurate enough for these figures to be meaningful.

      Reply ↓
  23. t

    Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Monday said he is “retiring” all 17 members of a crucial government panel of vaccine advisors.

    The announcement on the HHS page is amazing. (And in concert with various announcements from Children’s Health Defense.)

    “Conflicts of interest” say the Grifter. Every accusation from these ghouls is a confession.

    Reply ↓
    1. flora

      OK. Except there does seem to be a problem. From John Macgregor on twtr-X, long thread, beginning with:

      Good that the system is slowly being cleaned up. The vaccine development pipeline is corrupt from beginning to end – from lab to jab.

      The COVID shots were launched on us only after a long series of bribes to the relevant parties.

      https://x.com/JohnMMacgregor/status/1932421280395112605

      Worth a read, imo. NC has run articles about this kind of corruption affecting clinical trial designs and med journal editorial directions in the the past.

      I don’t know if the current crew are the one’s to clean it up, but it does need to be cleaned up, in my opinion.

      Reply ↓
  24. Carolinian

    Re the dogs of Chernobyl. Radiation induced monsters were a staple of 50s Sci Fi (Them!, Godzilla) so only natural the scientists from U of South Carolina would study any possibility of this in Ukraine. Here in my town we have the plants of Helene as a kind of Nile inundation took place in the wetlands near our drainage creek–producing some fifties style plant growth. Or maybe we Cold War babies are just paranoid about such things.

    Still when AGW itself produces a return to the Jurassic the scoffers will be sorry.

    Sounds like rivals from that other Carolina have debunked the Chernobyl story however, and say the dog changes are more likely from isolation and inbreeding.

    Reply ↓
    1. Yves Smith Post author

      Had you bothered reading the article, the “evolution” does not appear to be the result of radiation None of the usual sites on the DNA show it.

      Reply ↓
      1. Carolinian

        Not to be argumentative but I think my comment acknowledges the study by UNC and others that says this. As it happens I was already aware of the U of SC study and one of our local PBS personalities–now sadly gone–even did a show from Chernobyl.

        Reply ↓
    2. PlutoniumKun

      The inbreeding theory seems very unlikely to me – so far as I know, the exclusion area is not fully secured, and wolves and other canines have moved in. In my experience, dogs are very enthusiastic out-breeders, so it seems unlikely that they would be so isolated from farm dogs or strays in the vicinity.

      As it happens, I watched Godzilla Minus One over the weekend – highly recommended, much smarter than the usual radioactive monster on the loose movie. Plus, its recreation of late war Japanese aircraft and ships is good enough for even the most demanding military nerd.

      Reply ↓
      1. Birch

        The depictions of Tokyo right after the megadeath fire bombing, and the social arrangements that helped people survive afterward, are what stuck out for me.

        Minus One is a heavyweight family drama interspersed with occasional Oscar-nominated visual effect masterpieces. The main takeaway lesson is that military leaders should try to minimize casualties instead of throwing bodies to the glory of the cause; that they can enjoy better success on the battlefield as a result. Great movie.

        Reply ↓
      2. amfortas the hippie

        aye, regarding outbreeding among canines.
        of the 6 different coyote packs i listen to every morning, at any given time, one or more of them will have a dog participating in the chorus.
        (the dogs apparently cannot master the coyote vocal stylings, and sound just like dogs)
        since one never actually sees a coyote pack(lol), i do not know if this is a couple of dogs moving between packs, or multiple dogs over time, either joining up and moving on, or joining up and then being eaten.

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        1. Lee

          I once saw a well coordinated attack on a grizzly to drive it off a carcass by a group (pack?) of coyotes in Yellowstone. They couldn’t have physically overcome the bear but they were so annoying with their feints, nips, and yelps that the bear retreated from the field.

          Reply ↓
          1. amfortas the hippie

            never met a bear of any kind.
            but my understanding, otherwise, is that they are pretty solitary and therefore individualistic…whereas coyotes are pack people…and think in a whole different manner.
            prolly a Koan in there, somewheres…

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  26. Stephen V

    The Unherd piece on Mush is a sorry piece of journalism. instead of lame analogies to “russian roulette” why not mention the billions of government contracts which have created “his” wealth? Read WILL LOCKETT as a curative. Mush’s empire is highly leveraged on TSlA Stock — which is finally headed toward reality (as in worth less than nothing).
    https://www.planetearthandbeyond.co/

    Reply ↓
  27. PlutoniumKun

    How Xi Jinping lost control – A timeline YouTube. I cannot verify but she does seem to have a lot of supporting evidence

    I haven’t seen enough of her clips to know how reliable Lei is, but she is not one of the Epoch Times/neocon clique and seems to have a pretty good grasp of Chinese politics and as far as I can see is quite independent minded. It doesn’t of course mean she is right about Xi – the inner workings of the Party are as opaque as always, and intensive tea leaf watching is usually imo a waste of time.

    The one thing that is ‘known’, as much as anything can be, is that over the past 12-18 months there have been major purges of Xi loyalists, especially in and around the military. This is usually interpreted as Xi being determined to generate change, and being willing to churn through local leaders – even if they are his own appointees – until he gets to the bottom of whatever problem (usually corruption and inefficiency) he wants addressed. But it is also possible that it is as Lei says – a sign of his weakening power. It is certainly true that he is far less popular than in pre-covid times – Party insiders usually keep their thoughts to themselves, but Xi has certainly lost his sheen with the new upper middle classes, mostly because of the quick fire reversal over covid and economic weakness.

    Reply ↓
    1. Mikel

      Lately, my thoughts have drifted to late 2021 / early 2022, when there was a type of conventional wisdom that reports of Russian troop buildup for excursion into Ukraine was considered hype.

      So hearing this report…I’m going to try not to be too surprised about global events.

      Reply ↓
      1. PlutoniumKun

        The CCP prizes the perception of harmony and stability above all else. No matter how intense the internal conflicts are, outsiders will rarely get to see. A model would be Vietnam, which went through what amounted to a near internal civil war over the 2 years before Loung took over the presidency in 2024. Nobody apart from insiders really knew what was going on until the winning clique (specifically, the military) took over.

        Xi undoubtedly made many enemies on his way to the top. He upset a long held consensus on the need for the politburo to have a balanced slate of members, with no one individual having absolute control – they learned the lesson from the Mao years. Undoubtedly many of the older more conservative ideological elements were unhappy with this, not to mention the usual regional groupings. If there has been some sort of internal coup against him they will do their best to manage a public transition very slowly and carefully. Of course, the best laid plans can always go wrong. As you suggest, the only surprise in world events these days are if there are no surprises.

        Reply ↓
      2. nyleta

        China has its head down and is preparing for war. They have successfully let the air out of their real estate boom and directed credit to their military industrial complex. All of this is ahead of the west which is just starting down this road.

        If they can delay well enough and construct a regime that keeps so-called rare earth elements from being diverted from industrial customers to military purposes in the west then by 2030 they could have a 1,000 ship navy. Ships don’t move much faster than in the days of Mahan which means 600 combat ships can still control the world’s waterways.

        Their only real danger is a rush of blood to the head which tends to occur in younger people. Of course the ever present danger of another pandemic from our crowding out of nature is a greater risk to them than to most countries.

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  28. Tom Stone

    I never expected to see an American Administration out do the Clintons in either corruption or damage to the USA, the Trump Administration has blown past those records in its first 100 days with no signs of slowing down.
    It is an impressive achievement.

    Reply ↓
  29. Jason Boxman

    From Millions of student-loan borrowers are getting a ‘financial scarlet letter’ that could risk their home purchases and job prospects, Elizabeth Warren says

    “Borrowing money and failing to pay it back isn’t a victimless offense,” McMahon wrote in an opinion piece. “Debt doesn’t go away; it gets transferred to others.”

    That’s simply false. The Federal government doesn’t need student loan interest to fund anything. If forgiven, federally held student loan debt goes poof.

    When do we start going after university administrators blowing federal funds on sports arenas and luxury accommodations, for abusing adjunct professors?

    Reply ↓
  30. antidlc

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/why-are-so-many-children-getting-long-covid/ar-AA1Gq5vQ
    Why are so many children getting long COVID?

    A study by Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery (RECOVER) last year found that up to 5.8 million American children now have long COVID.

    The authors wrote that this means between 10 to 20 percent of children who tested positive with COVID-19 went on to develop the condition.

    Their findings suggest that long COVID may have surpassed asthma—which around 5 million youngsters have—as the most common chronic condition experienced by American children.

    Here’s a thought…
    Let’s prevent them from getting infected.

    What a stupid timeline.

    Reply ↓
    1. Samuel Conner

      It is deeply frustrating how little interest I find in the people around me in means of delaying (re-)infection. I don’t think I’m being a jerk about my offers of N95s and information.

      Normally, when one has a view that differs from literally everyone else in one’s social circle, the problem is not “everyone else.” But in this case, I think it is, and that is a frightening thought, in view of the possible consequences.

      Reply ↓

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