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Links 7/12/2025

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Eight Adorable Minutes of Baby Animals in the Wild Laughing Squid (resilc)

Why monkeys—and humans—can’t look away from social conflict Science Daily

Why Science Hasn’t Solved Consciousness (Yet) Nomea (Anthony L)

‘An uphill battle’: why are midlife men struggling to make – and keep – friends? Guardian (Kevin W)

#COVID-19/Pandemics

COVID cases likely rising in half of states, CDC estimates CBS

Climate/Environment

Amplified warming accelerates deoxygenation in the Arctic Ocean Nature

‘I can’t drink the water’ – life next to a US data centre BBC

Western Europe keeps setting new heat records as fastest-warming continent Financial Times

Extreme weather could cause 5% drop in euro zone GDP, bank watchdogs find Reuters

London bracing for water restrictions as drought grips UK Independent

Accelerated glacial melt and monsoon rains trigger deadly floods in Pakistan Guardian

China?

Xi Jinping wages war on price wars Economist (Li)

China’s patience wears thin with EU over medical device row Asia Times (Kevin W)

Samsung’s New Phones Show How Far Ahead China Is on Innovation Wired (resilc)

Japan

India

Sanction first, ally later: India learns the cost of trusting the US RT

Engine fuel switches cut off before Air India crash that killed 260, preliminary report finds Guardian (Kevin W)

Pakistan army chief accuses India of pushing ‘nefarious agenda’ after border conflict TRT

Africa

War crimes are likely being committed in Darfur, ICC finds BBC

Nigeria says troops kill dozens of gunmen in northwest and northeast Aljazeera

European Disunion

France’s Parliament Calls Europe to Break with America and Partner with China Arnaud Bertrand (Chuck L)

NATO Complicates China-EU Summit Preparations Glenn Diesen

Kaja Kallas is the real threat to Europe UnHerd (Chuck L)

Old Blighty

UK economy shrinks for second month in a row after unexpected slump in May Independent

In some UK woodlands, every young tree has died. What’s going wrong? Guardian

Israel v. The Resistance

Israel’s latest “mass rape” report is a warrant for genocide Asa Winstanley

Israel Urges the US To Start Bombing Yemen Again Antiwar.com (Kevin W)

‘We live on bread and tea. I’ve wished for death’: Yemen’s forgotten refugees Guardian

Iran’s Mass Expulsion Of Afghans Poses A Dilemma For Many Of Its Supporters Andrew Korybko

New Not-So-Cold War

Rubio Claims Russia Suffered 100k KIA in Six Months, Ukrainian Casualties Remain ‘Vague’ Simplicius

The Europeans And The U.S. Against Russia – Who Is Really The Patsy? Moon of Alabama

‘Walking Away’ from Ukraine Will Be a Logistical Challenge American Conservative (resilc)

WHAT IS THE “NEW IDEA, NEW CONCEPT” RUBIO SAYS LAVROV HAS JUST GIVEN HIM? John Helmer

If the Russians are Killing Ukrainian Civilians, Where are the Bodies? Larry Johnson

The South Caucasus is slipping from Russia’s grasp Aljazeera

Russia deports head of Azerbaijani diaspora in Moscow Oblast OC Media

Big Brother is Watching You Watch

Exclusive: Evidence of cell phone surveillance detected at anti-ICE protest SAN

Imperial Collapse Watch

Pentagon to become rare-earth mining company’s largest stockholder DefenseOne (Kevin W). Communism watch! State ownership of productive assets.

US containerized missiles: steathy firepower, high strategic cost Asia Times (Kevin W)

Trump 2.0

The Christian Backlash Taking Hold New York Times (resilc)

The F.B.I. Is Using Polygraphs to Test Officials’ Loyalty New York Times (Kevin W)

Judge blocks Trump’s birthright citizenship order after Supreme Court ruling Reuters (Kevin W)

DOGE

This Is DOGE 2.0 Wired (resilc)

Tariffs

Someone Is Closely Front-Running Trump’s Trade Announcements Thomas Neuburger

Vietnam thought it had a deal on its US tariff rate. Then Trump stepped in. Politico (Kevin W)

US will impose 35% tariffs on Canadian imports, Trump says in letter Guardian

Immigration

US federal judge temporarily blocks alleged indiscriminate stops, arrests in LA Anadolu Agency

Democrat Death Wish

Democrats Should Prepare for the Return of Debt Politics Washington Monthly (resilc)

John Fetterman Throws His Family Under the Bus to Suck Up to Trump New Republic (resilc)

L’affaire Jeffrey Epstein

DOJ’s Epstein Memo Is Tearing the Trump Administration Apart Rolling Stone Rolling Stone (Chuck L)

Why MAGA is Right about Jeffrey Epstein Tina Brown

Our No Longer Free Press

BBC staff: we’re forced to do pro-Israel PR Owen Jones (resilc)

Australian envoy’s antisemitism plan criticised as ‘Trumpian’ over concerns changes could be used to silence dissent Guardian (Kevin W)

Mr. Market is Moody

The frightening world without the dollar Financial Times

Trump banking cop threatens global financial security, warns top US Democrat Politico

Central Banks Are Ducking the Chance to Tame Hedge Funds Bloomberg

The markets are picking a dangerous fight with Donald Trump Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Telegraph

Antitrust

The Water Cooler Giant Primo Brands: When Customer Service Signs Off as ‘Joseph Stalin’ Matt Stoller

AI

At last, a promising use for AI agents: crypto theft The Register (Chuck L)

The Bezzle

Prime Day is a scam Popular Information (resilc)

Class Warfare

Roaming Charges: Heckuva Job, Puppy Slayer! CounterPunch (resilc)

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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145 comments

  1. Steve H.

    Community Plumbing: How the hardware store orders things, neighborhoods, and material worlds. [Places Journal, 2018]

    A long evolution. Excerpts:

    > Two years before Congress passed the Mint Act, bartering was still a common practice. For certain goods Rex turned to local suppliers, purchasing tobacco products, earthenware, nails, hides, shoes, rakes, and barrels from the potters, smiths, tanners, cobblers, and coopers around town. Much of his business, however, involved regional trade.

    > Iron bars made by local smiths became currency when exchanged for merchandise at Rex’s store, and he made loans to the ironmasters and allowed them to use store credit to pay their employees.

    > The average customer has a very indefinite idea of the name or nature of the device he requires, and therefore depends largely upon the intelligence of the dealer to supply the necessary and proper article.

    > As tools became more user-friendly, retailers began to aim their sales pitches at amateur homeowners rather than professional craftspeople… To reinforce their customers’ new sense of self-sufficiency, they had more self-service displays.

    Reply ↓
    2. chris

      In a related vein, I have been researching smoke house design for a home project. Imagine my surprise to learn that in many European traditions, smoke houses, bread ovens, and other essential kitchen equipment, was communal.

      Can you imagine how much healthier people in the US would be if they we all had access to good communal kitchens for preparing stable food like bread and smoked meat? It’s really not so far fetched given the US government supported free designs and research into best smoke house practices until the 1970s.

      This story repeats with brewing, distilling, milling grain, etc. Growing, making, and eating food used to be much more communal. I can see where this would require much better relationships with your neighbors. Probably the same kind of people you’d loan your tools too with an expectation you’d have them returned. It seems oddly sad that basically over my lifetime we’ve turned what used to be poor people’s food and smoking meat and brewing into things only the wealthy can really participate in and enjoy. Our food deserts stretch across space and time :/

      Reply ↓
  3. Terry Flynn

    I won’t self promote and break rules but I have an inkling regarding middle aged men and friendships based on similar questions. Traditionally many men derived a lot more quality of life from their job compared to women (and any references I could supply are based on Anglo countries so I won’t generalise beyond these).

    Increasingly unstable work environments therefore cause problems. Meanwhile (in the case of Aussie from my research) many more women built and established social networks outside the workplace. Job hopping is less deleterious to them.

    Caveat: the research is now close to 15 years old but I believe it has become even more relevant.

    Reply ↓
    1. ChrisFromGA

      I’d love to see some research on how remote work affects men.

      I’ve been WFH since March of 2020. Fortunately, I have some friends (can count on one or two hands, but its better than none) and PT law school has been a blessing in terms of social connections (a group with a common purpose, being around younger adults.)

      I went in to a depression about 2 years after March 2020 and it took school to get me out of it.

      Reply ↓
      1. Terry Flynn

        Thanks for sharing. I’ve been open about mental health but it ain’t easy to write it there for “potentially finding at any time”.

        Yes, if I were still research active I’d definitely be looking at WFH and to what extent it provides mental boost (or not) to QoL in different people and, importantly, which elements of QoL were positively or negatively affected.

        My gut feeling is that whilst “things that make you feel valued” (usually capturing job stuff) were improved by flexibility and less commuting, “attachment” (all that camaderie etc) was eroded in many men. But ultimately I’m an ex-academic whose active projects stopped just before the pandemic!

        Reply ↓
    2. Jesper

      I’d second that the work environment now is not as good as it used to be to find friends.

      Previously when the job-market was better for employees then employees had colleagues who helped each other and worked together. Now when the job-market is bad for employees then employees have competitors who might stab colleagues/competitors in the back. So, need to be open and helpful (and vulnerable) to make friends but being open and helpful (and vulnerable) might lead to being the one made redundant due to not having unique skills and knowledge (which happened due to being helpful and sharing skills and knowledge).

      I like the bit in the article describing about how going somewhere where the purpose is making friends creates pressure which leads to less stress and stressed people are less open. Going somewhere to engage in some activity is less pressure and once there there is already a guarantee of a shared interest. The shared interest can be anything like golf, football, poker, swimming, chess etc etc. More relaxed environment, people are more open and the chance of making friends increases.

      A personal anecdote: I’ve moved countries four times in the past 15 years. The most difficult place to make friends for me was Sweden and that is despite the fact that I am Swedish. If I would have had the same difficulties in all countries then maybe the problem was likely to be me but Sweden stood out in a very marked way so it might indicate something about how Sweden is. I am not surprised to read about loneliness in Sweden nor am I surprised about falling birthrates in Sweden, people are so closed off, defensive and generally afraid of opening up to anyone about anything so creating connections between people is very difficult there.

      Reply ↓
      1. Terry Flynn

        Don’t get me started on Sweden. One of 3 countries I’ve lived in. A Swedish professor went out of her way to tell me “it’s not you, it’s us” regarding failure of my active attempts to immigrate/integrate fully. She said 30 years living in that city and despite being Swedish born and bred (but elsewhere in Sweden) she was still an outsider.

        Looking back, I think she started the warnings to “move away”.

        Reply ↓
        2. Jesper

          A French friend of mine returned to France after many years of living in Ireland. His experience in France was very similar to my experience in Sweden.
          His way of finding a place was that there was a religious community that he found was open and welcoming. He joined that and their choir to be part of a community. He was not religious while in Dublin and never sang but to avoid loneliness he changed.

          The loneliness epidemic is also interesting from the view about how to integrate refugees into the society of the country they came to. There is a belief from people like Macron and Reinfeldt that the countryside is the ideal place to place refugees to integrate, assimilate and then revitalise the countryside. Unsurprisingly the locals are about as welcoming and open to the refugees as they are to the lonely people who were already there in their midst.
          The result so far hasn’t surprised anyone who see people as human beings with agency instead of numbers – the depopulating countryside didn’t welcome them into their communities and the ones who could moved to the larger cities where they could find a welcoming community among other refugees.

          Reply ↓
        3. Terry Flynn

          PS my Swedish boss was best boss I ever had. He clearly wanted to change the academic system at that uni to one that promoted on merit, rather than the existing old “it’s my turn” model.

          Unfortunately one person rarely can change the system and so it proved. I have NO IDEA whether this is relevant but one bit of gossip about him I learnt within 24 hours was that pre-academia he was a Lutheran minister. I literally had no reaction to this and shrugged but some said it like it had significance. An r/woosh moment for me? (Reddit joke).

          Anyway I felt very sorry for him when I quit.

          Reply ↓
          1. ilpalazzo

            I sometimes listen to a Lutheran mass on sunday morning on the Public Radio and as a (lapsed) catholic I find their sermons far better so I would be intrigued.

            Reply ↓
            1. Terry Flynn

              I’m also heavily lapsed Catholic. I was intrigued “what’s the big deal about what this former Lutheran minister used to say in sermons?”

              Got no answer. Still curious…. But all I know is he was lovely to me.

              Reply ↓
    3. Neutrino

      Bowling alone.
      Working alone.
      Social mediaing alone.
      There is a trend.

      Once upon a time, in Dad’s generation, guys had more regular hours. They also had time for bowling night, lodge meetings of whatever nature, sports and that luxury of evenings and weekends for family and friends. The lodges could be Elks, Moose, Odd Fellows, or community organizations like Rotary, Kiwanis and more. How many readers know anyone who attends any of the above?

      In my generation, work devolved and scrutiny increased. The respite became a few close friends going to lunch to share stories, commiserate, laugh, talk of family and enjoy company of fellow survivors. A cautionary tale involved not being too obvious about not including the distaff side in those lunches, especially for higher-ups painfully aware of optics and potential claims of whatever nature.

      The pendulum toward atomization of societal bonds, a handy mixed metaphor in this confusing time, keeps swinging stochastically. Not everything has to be reduced to monetary considerations, and people do find ways to combat the encroachments and onslaughts on humanity.

      There is still volunteering, as demand always exceeds supply.

      Reply ↓
      1. ChrisFromGA

        Regular Hours:

        And let’s not forget that the Googles, Microsofts, and other tech companies now view 60-hour work weeks as the minimum. I know younger people working these crazy hours, plus they have young kids that need lots of attention. No idea how they’re going to have a social life like that.

        Reply ↓
        1. mrsyk

          Regular hours, a living wage, a pension, that sounds like a union job. Only communists like union jobs, lol.
          I’ll echo your “who’s got the time?”, and blame our ever more transactional reality, which neutrino touched on.

          Reply ↓
          1. The Rev Kev

            You should add in to how men are supposed to “suck it up’ and not complain too. I think that that is a factor that cannot be ignored.

            Reply ↓
            1. Terry Flynn

              And when you DO complain, like I did, it was subtly implied it was time to leave the country or go on welfare….. with no promises I’d ever get back into workforce. They never say that bit in UK C4 program “A place in the sun”.

              The UK is getting terrible. But I’m not blind to other countries’ ability to hurt you when you complain about someone who was very well connected. “Real men” can take it, as you say.

              Reply ↓
      2. Terry Flynn

        Indeed. I have a comment in mod about job change issues. But suffice to say you and Chris IMHO have in meantime identified key points.

        Men require attachment just as much as women. But modern jobs select for the opposite of this.

        Reply ↓
      3. wol

        My father served in the South Pacific in WWII. I wonder if the trust and camaraderie carried over into combatants’ post-war male relationships. He was on a company softball team, a bowling league, poker nights, Kiwanis, Elks, VFW, etc and coached pony league baseball. Sadly, most of these involved alcohol.

        Aside: one night a friend’s Italian immigrant father came home loaded from the Elks Club with a stainless steel urinal inscribed with his name and Most Piss-Poor Bowler. He was so proud.

        Reply ↓
        2. Terry Flynn

          Thanks. Though I’m sure most of us would not condone war as the solution (!) I totally get how it cements friendships and camaraderie (got the spelling right this time).

          One exception was my paternal grandfather who fought in the WW2 battle for Caen. Monty was “too slow” to take it so the RAF & USAAF just bombed it flat, killing loads of their own men. My granddad’s two best friends were horrifically killed in front of him. Thus he had no wartime friends and (in hindsight) we know his behaviour was all due to PTSD.

          Anecdotes aside, how do we help lonely men? I think more “old school technical schools” they can attend might be a PART of a solution…..? The jokes about British men in sheds come to mind.

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        3. wol

          None of the organizations and activities I listed above included women as participants. I and my friends spent much of our after school, evening and Saturday adolescences in an alcohol-free poolroom where women knew to keep out. Fighting would get you barred. It was a lumpenproletarian ‘third place’ if not safe space. I once read that women feel most like women and men feel most like men in the company of men.

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    4. Jason Boxman

      I haven’t had any friends in over a decade. You do a Pandemic with the friends you’ve got. Having none, that is none. Thankfully I’m pretty good at entertaining myself, and people can be annoying regardless. Getting older, having almost no one around for an emergency, well, that’s going to be problematic. I don’t look forward to that.

      I’ve never much cared for this world, it clearly isn’t for me; I would have created a different. But here we all are.

      Before the second world war, same-sex male friendships were a large part of public life, and women’s friendships were seen as frivolous and less important, Hall explains. But these roles have since reversed. Today, most heterosexual men feel they are marrying someone who becomes the default events planner, and their genuine close friendships fall away, Hall says. “They rely on their wives to develop the social calendar – they think: ‘She’ll do it and I don’t have to do it’,” he says. “There’s atrophy in their skillset.”

      I came across three examples in the less recent past where this seemed to be the case, but 3 of 3 men were resigned to it, like their social life was now up to their spouse. I found it kind of odd.

      Way, who receives emails from hundreds of men each year about her research, says more of them feel like it’s possible to secure closer friendships after the pandemic because the topic is receiving more attention.

      This is what I deal with. Every day.

      The Pandemic is not over.

      Kevin Cleaver, 40, who relocated from New York to Highland Park, Illinois, says he decided to focus on making connections after Covid-era isolation.

      Still not over.

      Reply ↓
      1. Terry Flynn

        Totally get this and I feel for you. Because of my career, my friends are at best the other side of the UK and at worst the other side of the world.

        Plus I’m gay and am utterly dispirited by even the “more interest and less bedtime stuff based” apps so I don’t use them. Dad’s no homophobe but won’t normally initiate conversations in this area. When he asked me “Terry is there a way you can find a partner?” I realised just how far the members of our family had sunk in terms of connections.

        Yeah I’m lonely. That’s life

        Reply ↓
      2. Revenant

        I wrote a long comment about this Guardian article and my mobile ran out of power and it wasn’t there on rebooting. :-(

        In short, though, I partnered up and then married late and so got to watch each of my male friendship group have their networks successively edited by their wives.

        In ascending order of importance, the factors were:

        – drink and drugs. This was not a cause of total cancellation. Reprobates are welcome at times. Only if the husband in question had issues / was the reprobate, then his partners in crime got cancelled. Sensible wives let their husbands off the leash now and then, boys’ weekend to Ibiza etc.

        – children / school gates network. Wives still bear the brunt of both school organising and of having to make a social life at primary school gates. They book the dinner parties, birthday parties etc into their husbands’ free time. Old friends get low priority for entirely practical reasons. Husbands meet on the touchlines of school and club sports practice and matches and continue the trend.

        – womanisers. Wives may indulge the good-time guys but not the womanisers who are unfaithful or worse suspected of being enablers and promoters of others’ unfaithfulness. These people do not get weeks in Ibiza….

        – #1 reason: they don’t like the other wife! Even saintly wives do this. Women are *really* judgemental. Men forgive their mates anything, including annoying spouses, just to see them. Women do not.

        This is partly because the friendship is man1 and man2; woman1 is friends with man2 and woman2 with man1 transitively but woman1 and woman2 owe each other *nothing*. But I wonder if cod anthropology would support that men look for potential transactional cooperation in other men (hunting) and women look for long-term competition in other women (will this person take my place in the tribe, ostracise or hurt my child etc). Who knows?!

        As for the Guardian article, I was reading it thinking it had a woman’s idea of male friendship. I was literally rehearsing the comment “we just want to get trashed” in my mind when I read that apparently no, Guardian man doesn’t want to get trashed. Lol! That’s bullshit!

        Men want to eat, do an activity (if it is just watch sport on screens), chat shit, get trashed and have a drunken man-hug. Bonus points for cooking a lazy fry-up together and eating it over the morning papers and doing the crossword through their hangovers.

        As for why men let women edit their friends, it is not laziness, it is astute domestic politics. Close male friendship is like a spider plant, pretty much indestructible and revives at the first watering. If you are married with children, you have work and family (yours and hers) and all the school stuff and you fit in friends around the edges. We’re just biding our time until retirement / established career positions give us back our time and grandchildren take up her time. :-) It’s already happening, that we’re seeing more of each other now we are past 50 and the kids are in secondary school.

        The other barrier is that within the modern view of marriage, single sex male spaces are now suspected of patriarchy, privilege and prejudice. Some of that is a deserved correction but the baby gets thrown out with the bathwater….

        Reply ↓
  5. Wukchumni

    The frightening world without the dollar Financial Times
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Maybe we are at the end of nationalistic currencies?

    Once upon a time money in each country was important, and if a kingdom, the emperor’s mug typically graced one side of a coin or banknote, leading to familiarization with the populace in a giant world rendered small by technology not yet getting us to the here and now.

    It also used to be a method to grade how a given country was doing, if German industry was prospering more than usual, the Mark went up in value against other currencies, that sort of thing.

    None of that really matters in a world where over 90% of transactions are done without tactile manna, and there’s really only a handful of currencies that matter-with the almighty buck being el supremo in that regard.

    Closest thing to a tactile worldwide currency was when the UK was at its zenith doing £sd.

    The problem of a 1 world currency (lets call it the ‘Wuk’) lies in the idea of a mutual hegemon or would that be hegemen?

    How would you get the world to not cheat on one another with such an arrangement?

    Reply ↓
    1. The Rev Kev

      I don’t think that you can. Certainly the US would never give up having the dollar be the ultimate currency in world trade as it’s use allows it to finance its empire. The same way that the Empire that Britain had allowed it to finance its massive Fleet. Without the use of the US dollar and if the US dollar came home, it would bring with it massive inflation for a start. Kinda makes the US dollar sound like some sort of Ponzi scheme. In the US itself, the dollar is only worth a tiny fraction of what it was worth a century ago and if it ceased to be the currency of choice then it would be game over, man, game over.

      Reply ↓
    2. Wukchumni

      p.s.

      In regards to cheating…

      A look back when we shared printing plates of the new and improved Allied Military Mark with the USSR, oh did the Russkies go to town post war on our Dime, cranking out vast oodles~

      In early 1944 the U.S. Treasury Department hired an American banknote printing company to create the engraved printing plates for AMM and had draft copies of the notes by February. The Americans, who were already planning to produce occupation currency in every theater of the war, took the lead and offered to print all the AMM that U.S., British, and Russian forces would need in occupied Germany. The British agreed, but the Soviets balked. Assistant Secretary Hilldring told the Senate committee that the Russians were worried that if the Americans printed all the Allied AMM, the Soviets might not have enough occupation money when they needed it. Hilldring paraphrased the Russian argument: “We agree to use your currency, but we cannot trust you to print it and to fly it halfway around the world to Moscow in time for us to get it to [Soviet general] Zhukov and his troops.” The Russians instead insisted on receiving copies of the printing plates; the Soviets would then print their own AMM. Assistant Secretary of War Howard Petersen testified to the same Senate committee that, in April 1944, the “Russian government sent a note to the United States stating that if the plates were not delivered to the Russians, the Soviet government would be compelled to prepare independently military marks for Germany” which would have their “own pattern.”

      FIFTEEN MONTHS LATER, in July 1945, American occupation forces entered Berlin. They found a devastated city, a shattered economy, a broken people—and a Soviet occupation force flush with cash. Many Soviet soldiers hadn’t been paid for months, even years. When the Soviet occupation forces settled into Berlin, the Red Army paid thousands of soldiers their back pay—but in AMM, not rubles. The Russians did not allow their servicemen to convert AMM back into rubles, so once the soldiers returned to Russia, their pay would be worthless.

      https://www.historynet.com/allied-printed-military-money-caused-a-black-market-frenzy-in-berlin/

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AM-Mark

      Reply ↓
      1. Neutrino

        In simpler times decades ago, travelers would know to spend their foreign currencies in-country. They experienced the practiced shrug of the cambio guy and the feigned empty drawer. He was encouraged, nay, required, to keep that currency circulating locally, not exported to the next stop.
        Thus, travelers came home with pockets of miscellaneous coins, aka, shrapnel. Drawers accumulated the odd pfennig, franc, lira, guilder and whatnot for the amusement of youngsters.

        Reply ↓
  6. The Rev Kev

    “Kaja Kallas is the real threat to Europe”

    ‘Kallas’s single-minded fixation on Russia has rendered her virtually silent on every other foreign policy issue. As former UK diplomat Ian Proud, who served at the British Embassy in Moscow from 2014 to 2019, observed, she comes across as a “single-issue High Representative” who is “intent only on sustaining the decade-long European policy on non-engagement with Russia, whatever the economic cost”.’

    I think that Ian Proud could have made the same observation on Keir Starmer. It’s the Ukraine 24-7 with him.

    Reply ↓
  7. Wukchumni

    That would so suck to get a $1500 ticket, caught by perhaps a target of the rockets red glare-the bombs bursting in air?

    Drones are freaking me out man, somebody help me climb down from this tree.

    Reply ↓
    1. anahuna

      This conjures up for me the image of early humans fleeing from giant predators. Except that now, we are potentially the prey of mechanical raptors, all of us exposed.
      .

      Reply ↓
      1. Wukchumni

        Fighting drones up in the sky
        Fearless because of AI
        Programmed to do just what you say
        The brave new world of the UAV array

        Detailed instructions within their chest
        These are high tech, America’s best
        One hundred men will test to be a pilot today
        But who needs them when you have a UAV array?

        Trained to pick off this or that man
        Trained in combat, air-to-land
        Drones don’t sleep-fight by night and day
        Courage is a given with a UAV array

        Detailed instructions within their chest
        These are high tech, America’s best
        One hundred men will test to be a pilot today
        But who needs them when you have a UAV array?

        Back at home, a young software engineer waits
        Another UAV has tempted fate
        Many have died and were oppressed
        Leaving no humans a last request

        Put silver propellers on a drone’s chest
        Make it one of America’s best
        It’ll be law enforcement they’ll use one day
        Have them part of the UAV police department array

        Ballad of the Green Berets, performed by Barry Sadler

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BugBwt2ESpo&list=RDBugBwt2ESpo

        Reply ↓
    2. scott s.

      They loudly proclaimed that HPD would be using drones this past 4th. Haven’t heard much results. They are supposed to keep the drones over the city streets to avoid illegal search.

      Reply ↓
  8. The Rev Kev

    Rubio Claims Russia Suffered 100k KIA in Six Months, Ukrainian Casualties Remain ‘Vague’

    ‘Marco Rubio has made the absurd claim—coordinated with MSM outlets—that the Russian Army has suffered a whopping 100,000 deaths just since January of this year alone; purely deaths, not even total casualties’

    So what if Trump is getting the same figures from his staff? I won’t say briefings as it seems that he attends very few of them but if people like Rubio and Lindsay Graham and the MSM are telling him these figures as gospel truth, then it may explain a few things. He may think that this gives him solid leverage over Putin which is why he goes on about all those deaths when he talks about the subject. That Putin cannot sustain the war with such shocking death figures so Trump has it all over him. It may be his own fault here as was show with Tulsi Gabbard, he has proven that he will only listen to loyalists and only wants to hear his narratives on the subject which of course his people will repeat back to him lest they be sidelined. So Trump may have no idea of the real situation here.

    Reply ↓
    1. Wukchumni

      Hey, hey hey,

      We’re talking about somebody who by sheer will of Sharpie caused a hurricane to change course, and i’ll submit that Moses has got nothing on the Donald when it comes to parting water.

      Reply ↓
    2. ChrisFromGA

      Trump’s always looking for who can grovel and boot-lick the best. He is sending Keith Kellogg to Kiev next week, and Dima (Military Summary Channel) joked that Kellogg is the new air defense system.

      That’s next-level boot-licking, signing up to be a human shield.

      Reply ↓
      1. Darthbobber

        All auditioning for the role of the Skeksies’ snivelling Chamberlain if there’s ever a remake of The
        Dark Crystal

        Reply ↓
    1. Neutrino

      Upon first impression, that German Wings suicide flight sprang to mind. First, malice, then confusion.

      How does cockpit design factor in incompetence or stress-induced oversight to minimize such catastrophic actions as unintentional fuel shut-off? Reaching for the wrong switch?

      Reply ↓
    2. Glen

      It was mentioned in this report that there is a possibility that the fuel control switches may not have been functioning properly so the switches might have been unintentionally bumped into the cutoff position as part of the normal takeoff procedure:

      Air India crash: Preliminary report focuses on cockpit fuel switch anomaly warned about in 2018
      https://aerospaceglobalnews.com/news/air-india-crash-2018-fuel-switch-warning/

      Air India Cites ‘Advisory, Not Mandatory’ Clause on Fuel Switch Inspections After Deadly Crash
      https://thestateindia.com/2025/07/12/air-india-cites-advisory-not-mandatory-clause-on-fuel-switch-inspections-after-deadly-crash/

      Reply ↓
    3. scott s.

      All that was said is that the switches “transitioned” and no direct quote of the pilots so it is premature to conclude that “one of the pilots turned off the engines”. Without a detailed circuit diagram it’s hard to list the failure modes, but it has been suggested that there are separate electrical circuits controlled by the each switch; one that controls a fuel valve position and a second that provides input to the engine “computer”. So the assumption is both of the circuits were commanded to cutoff for both engines within 2 seconds but 10 secs later were commanded to run. Certainly physically moving the switches by hand is one way this could have occurred. As has been pointed out there are design features to prevent unintended movement of the switches. Assuming the investigation has possession of the switches it should be possible to determine if these protective features were functional.

      Reply ↓
  10. mrsyk

    “Ishiba said on Thursday his country needed to wean itself from U.S. dependence in such key areas as security, food and energy”
    Another foreign policy triumph for Trump I guess. Isolationism Ho!

    Reply ↓
  11. The Rev Kev

    ‘unusual_whales
    @unusual_whales
    BREAKING: The footage from Jeffery Epstein’s cell that was released by the DOJ was edited with Adobe Premiere Pro, stitched from 2 clips, and was saved 4 times, per WIRED’

    Fortunately the missing clip has turned up elsewhere on the internet-

    https://www.bitchute.com/video/L6ZRMRCzaqly (21 secs)

    Reply ↓
    2. Revenant

      Rev, is there a YouTube etc. link to whatever it was?

      Bitchute says it has been discontinued in the UK….

      Reply ↓
  12. Bugs

    The headline “France’s Parliament Calls Europe to Break with America and Partner with China” is a bit misleading. The report is by a subcommittee led by Sophia Chikirou, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s mistress and reflects LFI’s views more than the National Assembly.

    Not that I disagree with much of the report’s substance but Arnaud Bertrand has a habit of self-promoting hyperbole and it’s unnecessary.

    Reply ↓
    1. Aurelien

      Yes, although it’s a report by the European Affairs Committee of the French Parliament, whose chair is Pieyre-Alexandre Anglade, one of Macron’s gang. Chikirou is the Rapporteur, and had an influence on the final text, but, as you can see from the publication itself, the Commission heard lots of witnesses and examined a lot of reports.

      https://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/dyn/17/rapports/due/l17b1588_rapport-information

      That said, of course, it will have little if any influence: Parliament is a distant third in foreign policy, behind the Presidency and the Government. But interesting as a straw in the wind.

      Reply ↓
      1. Bugs

        Indeed. My “complaint” is with Bertrand’s characterization. Not helpful. I’m old school and think that honesty is the best policy on this sort of thing. As you imply, at least someone is talking about the problem at the root of so many other problems.

        Reply ↓
        1. PlutoniumKun

          Bertrand is a useful counter indicator source for world affairs. Pretty much everything he writes can be considered the opposite of the reality.

          Reply ↓
              1. tera

                Well, it is kinda funny. The humor comes from the “attack” using the same weapon that the “victim” used on someone else first.

                Reply ↓
        2. AG

          Appreciate the remarks and info here.

          Indeed that headline in today´s world read more like a utopian essay. Alas as is, 5 or 10 years ago I would have taken the time to ponder it as potentially serious. But such faith in possible change is gone like autumn leaves. Sadly I have even lost interest in Mélenchon, perhaps unjustifiedly?

          re: “Bertrand is a useful counter indicator” – to let him post is a nice example for how the inclusive character of manufacturing consent still works. Nonetheless his interventions are very welcome. (e.g. like the one that pointed out I think how many Chinese spare parts are in US arms. But many more too.)

          Reply ↓
  13. AG

    re: Russian civilisation

    Geoffrey Roberts with a review of Paul Robinson´s:
    Russia’s World Order: How Civilizationism Explains the Conflict with the West
    Cornell University Press, 2025
    July 1st 2025
    https://geoffreyroberts.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Paul-Robinson-review.pdf

    What I still do not get: What are the differences between Western values and Russian?
    What is in this context liberal, as Paul Robinson would suggest in a positive sense?

    The USSR was – at least initially – early with minority rights. They were early with things like sex changes. They were early with abortions. They always tried to push for womens´ education. They tried to level wealth inequality.

    All of this has remained part and parcel of Russian legal structures and politics. And Russia unlike the USSR, Japan or the US has even abolished capital punishment.

    And what are the real differences between a German decent human being Catholic or Protestant and a decent Russian Orthodox? As a non-religious person I would guess not really much.

    Everybody knows – and one needs not to have studied Immanuel Kant for that – what decency means. Regardless what church I am a member of.

    Roberts actually addresses this lack of concrete “evidence” in the end of his review via quoting Ivan Timofeev, Director of the Russian International Affairs Council.

    I am not entirely sure what is Timofeev and what Roberts – but that is secondary for the argument:

    Here the last paragraphs:

    “(…)
    Do Putin and other state officials really believe their civilizational rhetoric? For Robinson, what matters is that civilizationism “is the ideological terrain on which they have chosen to plant their flag. Domestically civilizationism helps promote the idea of Russian distinctives and through that helps boost patriotism and support for the state. It also justifies Russia’s political battle against the West and on the international scene provides the Russian state with a powerful tool for persuading countries in the developing world not to join with the West against it.”

    Civilizationism has its critics within the Russian policy community. Ivan Timofeev, Director of the Russian International Affairs Council, has pointed out that 19th century Slavophiles were inspired by an actually existing system of traditional culture and values that embraced the vast majority of the population, most of whom were peasants. Since then, a century and a half of modernisation and political history have transformed Russian society. Present-day Russians are radically different from most of their ancestors. Civilizationists assert that Russia is special and unique but are vague when it comes to specifics.

    Civilizationists consider identities as natural and organic – that is the source of their distinctiveness and longevity – but, as Timofeev argues, civilizational distinctiveness is more often than not an artificial political construct.

    Moreover, while some Russian civilizationists may wish to distance and isolate Russia from the West, the same is not true of counterparts in other civilizations, many of whom want to incorporate elements of the West’s spiritual, political and material culture.

    Singled out by Timofeev is the quintessentially Western concept of Westphalian state sovereignty. Russia defines itself as a state-civilisation which combines sovereignty with distinct values. But not all states are civilizations and not all civilizations are states and it is difficult to envisage civilizational relations superseding sovereignty and nation-state as the basis of international relations.

    Russian civilizationism is a work in progress, concludes Timofeev, that will require a lot of conceptual and practical development before it can stand as a fully-fledged, alternative world-view of global politics and society.
    (…)”

    p.s.
    Roberts: “(…)
    Particularly interesting is his account of the continuing influence on Russian civilizationism of various Western thinkers – Johann Herder, Oswald Spengler, Arnold Toynbee – each of whom emphasised the importance of civilizational identities and challenged the kind of unilinear model that had led to Francis Fukuyama’s 1989 claim that liberal democracy’s triumph meant ‘the End of History’.
    (…)”

    I have difficulties with putting Johann Gottfried Herder and Oswald Spengler into the same basket:
    Herder died 1803 in Weimar, Spengler was born 1880. Spengler knew the USSR. Herder the French Revolution.

    * * *

    Corresponding with this is an interview with Marlene Laruelle by Glenn Diesen from May 19th 2025

    Ideology and Meaning-Making under Putin
    Professor Marlene Laruelle and Professor Glenn Diesen
    55 min.
    https://glenndiesen.substack.com/p/ideology-and-meaning-making-under

    I remember that I had some elementary contentions. I don´t know any more which ones exactly. I believe it was her known notions on fascism/nationalism vis a vis Russia. Some other thoughts made more sense.

    Sorry to be so vague but I lack the time to relisten to it.

    The issue here is often that scholars eventually sort out facts and evidence in a way affirming their thesis. Which however creates a mostly artificial bias which is not corresponding with reality. What would come out of a text about “national identity” as above on say Germany and France? In how far are “we” different to Russians?

    Sorry but I don´t buy any of that.

    Reply ↓
    1. NotThePilot

      I actually brought up the civilizationist view, which I am pretty supportive of, in Curro’s BRICS article yesterday. Curro brought up some similar points about who even decides what a civilization is, but I didn’t get around to replying. I think part of the issue is most articles, like the one you linked to, don’t go really deep into the details. While there is still some fuzz to the definition, there’s actually a pretty beefy conceptual framework, much of it tied to a more anthropological view, or social cycle theories like in the influences you mentioned.

      Civilization states won’t magically solve the world’s problems or preclude awful governments, but the concept does instantly open up politics in many ways. I still think a US political party that can sincerely say “our programme will transform America into a civilization state” instantly unlocks more fresh possibilities and a wider support base than any of the current parties could dream of. Another nice thing about civilizationism is that it’s inherently pluralist.

      Between civilization states, and even smaller states (as long as they’re deemed historical and not artificial), there’s a basic understanding to respect each other’s values, way of life, plus core interests and territory. Even at the level of individuals, if you truly believe identity and citizenship is something more extensive and holistic than a single factor (like in say racism, sectarianism, linguistic nationalism), tolerance of minorities is kind of implied. I don’t know if it’s 100% agreed, but there’s a thread at least in Spengler (who was ultimately riffing on Franz Boas) that largely deflates the “migration issue” into integration policy.

      Reply ↓
      1. AG

        Thanks for the interesting thoughts. I certainly didn´t do justice to the topic. But I do have strong feelings when these modern, superficially designed “identity” concepts come up as I consider myself an internationalist fwiw to still use that term in today´s world.

        (I have to look into Curro´s text again.)

        I am a great supporter of concepts of international law, which – as Francesca Albanese put it in her remarkable interview to Chris Hedges a few days ago – has gained traction and recognition among common populace.

        Starvation and Profiteering in Gaza (w/ Francesca Albanese) | The Chris Hedges Report
        Francesca Albanese joins Chris Hedges to break down the current starvation campaign in Gaza, and her upcoming report detailing the profiteering corporations capitalizing on the erasure of Palestinians
        Chris Hedges
        Jun 26, 2025
        40 min.
        https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/starvation-and-profiteering-in-gaza

        Of course that is not necessarily a concept running counter to “civilisation.” In fact I assume that Albanese regards them as parallel at least. No contest necessary.

        (obviously, what is “a civilisation”?)

        Roberts in the same review – which is honestly an average book review only – however makes this important statement too:

        “Unlike Samuel P. Huntington, Putin is a true believer in the comity of civilizations and sees the current clash between Russia and the West as a matter of politics and ideology, not civilizational differences.”

        Which I am thankful for as I think Huntington did much harm.

        Reply ↓
        1. Mikel

          Re: Hedge’s interview on Substack

          I remember watching an old documentary about World War 1 and it was mentioned that Jerusalem was among the first cities captured by the The Allies or the Entente of World War 1.
          It’s been a long, ugly project.

          Reply ↓
          1. AG

            It is unsettling that despite an entire century later, another WW since, Communist and Pan-Arab movements and uprisings, and intifadas and many more local wars in the essence that grip has not loosened.

            On the other hand how long did it take for India to break away? Compared to that geopolitical level of significance as the key region to an empire my verdict may not be fair – if oil is the 20th century cotton and the US (incl. Israel) is the British master empire.

            Reply ↓
        2. NotThePilot

          No worries, and to clarify, the civilizational model isn’t really a normative one; it comes more out of just trying to describe certain historical trends or political bodies that are larger & more diverse than mere nations. So you can have all sorts adopting it, including Huntington (whose version of it is very crude and conflict-oriented). The civilizational view is only inherently progressive to the extent it dumps a lot of the conceptual baggage that sustains things like racism or nationalism.

          I think it does lead most people that adopt it though, even people that are otherwise quite reactionary, in a more internationalist direction. Like I mentioned above, it sort of precludes at least the cruder forms of discrimination, but it also counters the implicit supremacism you get whenever a society presumes to represent universal values (like Western liberalism today).

          To the whole “what is a civilization” question, it’s obviously not set-in-stone, but there are some pretty common themes. Typically you’ll have a “cultural sphere” that’s wider than singular national territories, where the tribes / nations share a similar worldview and cultural motives. I think of it as one nation may respond “yes” to a question while another says “no”, but they still agree on the question. Between different cultural spheres, it’s more like “yes/no” vs. “What sort of weird question is that? The important thing is that this fish is purple”

          If you want a thought-experiment that gives a little taste, sort of like Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions, think about how most modern Western scientists write about ancient Greco-Roman science or technology. If you don’t believe we’re inherently smarter than they were, and if you don’t believe science is purely a mechanical accumulation of facts on top of previous facts, why did they go in such different directions and come to fundamentally different conclusions about reality?

          Anyways, a civilization is simply the collective body politic of that cultural sphere, especially once it’s been unified at least once in its history. And a civilization state is simply a state that reasonably claims and consciously behaves as if it represents the entire civilization. Obviously there’s a lot of cross-cultural influence and history that gives a civilization many layers, but I think as long as people don’t degrade into seeing it as a bucket with hard walls, the model can account for that.

          Reply ↓
  15. The Rev Kev

    “The DOJ’s Epstein Memo Is Tearing the Trump Administration Apart’

    So how long will not be before the US can expect a royal visit from Prince Andrew now that he has no fear of being arrested at the airport? Perhaps there is the idea that after a few weeks that people will forget all about the Epstein cover-up by Trump and his team and life will go on but I do not think so. He has just lost a big chunk of his support base. Even Alex Jones was in tears about this betrayal. Alex Jones! And I am losing track of the number of conservative people who use to support Trump but have now written him off altogether. And it’s only been six months!

    Reply ↓
    1. Screwball

      It’s been interesting to see how both sides are looking at this thing. Trumps base wants things released it looks like, and they are not happy with the snow job. The left, convinced there is incriminating stuff on Trump, are frothing at the mouth to get the dirt.

      But now, quite a few on both sides think there really is no list and this was all a bunch of conspiracy stuff for loons like Alex Jones, Rogan, Tucker etc. There is no there there. I suspect these are the types who still think the government would never lie to them and not withhold anything. I heard one compare it to the JFK assassination conspiracy nuts.

      It makes me think of the two volumes written by Whitney Webb in One Nation Under Blackmail. I brought this up to some of the skeptics and was told Webb is crazy and they would never read any of her books. OK, fine. But if half of what she wrote is true – there is plenty of there there.

      I thought they were pretty well done with plenty of citations. The Amazon reviews look good. I am curious if anyone here read them and what they thought? Maybe I’m too cynical and shouldn’t believe what I read.

      Reply ↓
      1. pjay

        I’ve read them. They are chock full of information, mostly well documented, that is very relevant to the obvious political absurdities that we witness daily today. In my opinion, if Webb is guilty of anything it is that she sometimes connects a few too many dots. But she gets most of the dots right. In addition to her written work, watch one of her interviews. She can talk nonstop for literally hours off the top of her head rattling off facts that are accurate in themselves. Then compare the amount of detailed information in her discussions to almost anyone else in the alt media (we won’t even bring up the mainstream media here). She knows her stuff. I’m not claiming she is right about everything. As I say, in my opinion she sometimes makes a few too many connections between the various evils she documents. But to compare her to the know-nothings labeling her as “crazy” so as to avoid any of her points is telling, and laughable.

        Reply ↓
        2. Screwball

          Thanks pjay.

          I think that is an accurate review pjay. Her facts and citations are almost exhausting. And yes, I have watched an interview or two and she is like a machine gun with information. I find her incredibly detailed and smart.

          Like you say, there is so much there, but how much can we believe. Like I said above, if half of it is true, there is plenty of there there.

          The books are probably for people not heavily invested in party as they will find the heroes they worship are guilty – and they don’t like that – which is why the attack the author. It’s much easier to read and watch partisan drivel that you like to hear instead of facts a truth.

          One guy asked me what the smoking gun was. I have no answer to that question since there are many smoking guns. Many don’t want to know the truth I suspect. What would they do if they were handed the smoking gun that proves their political god was a liar, thief, pervert and pedophile?

          Attack the author and continue worshiping the crook. We see it everyday.

          Reply ↓
    2. Lee

      Epstein schmepstein, “it’s the economy, stupid” that’s gonna tear MAGA apart. Or rather it’s the stupid economy. At one point in a 6 minute interview on PBS Newshour a toy manufacturer focuses on one of the glaringly obvious problems with Trump’s economic policy. If his estimate is even ballpark accurate we can’t get there from here any time soon. Alas, beneficent electoral options are unavailable.

      Well, the toy industry is looking to find ways to bring production back to the U.S.

      But I bet if you asked an A.I. chatbot, how many workers would it take to replace the amount of workers that are employed in the imports of products that we use here, it’s probably like 60 or 70 million people are involved in manufacturing [goods imported to the U.S.]. We have only got 13 million people today in the manufacturing of goods.

      How the toy industry is feeling the effects of Trump’s tariffs

      Reply ↓
      1. jsn

        It’s not one or the other, its both and then some.

        Over the next six months the wheels are going to come off a whole bunch of “narratives” in ways it’ll be increasingly difficult to spin: concrete real hits to the MAGA base with BS cover that’ll make Biden look trustworthy.

        Promises to be an interesting summer and fall.

        Reply ↓
      2. nyleta

        They need to get interest rates down as a matter of urgency, hence the increasing pressure on Powell. Single family housing inventory in the big states is really blowing out now and to make the Federal budget look remotely sustainable in the short term the median interest rate at the 5 year level needs to come down to below 3.25 %. It is currently about 4 %. Like most economies now the US runs on credit and new credit must be created.

        Of course if the tarrifs stick it is a whole new ball game.

        Reply ↓
    3. pjay

      This Rolling Stone article shows how the liberal mainstream media is framing it: as an internal MAGA spat between “right-wing conspiracy theorists” and a Trump administration that cannot provide evidence for the “conspiracies” it once promoted to its base. Of course they want to emphasize the “tearing the Trump administration apart” aspect. And note that this nicely compliments Trump’s own response: “they’re trying to tear us apart!” As usual, “both sides” in this charade hope to sweep all the messy stuff under the rug. And as usual, when I hear “conspiracy theory” (that term was repeated five or six times in a very brief NBC News segment I watched the other day) I assume we should start looking under rugs.

      Reply ↓
        1. Henry Moon Pie

          Quite an article. I was already wide-eyed at the new-to-me revelations when I ran into this and broke out laughing:

          Epstein was also obsessed with cryonics, the transhumanist philosophy whose followers believe that people can be replicated or brought back to life after they are frozen,” Brown writes. “Epstein apparently told some of the members of his scientific circle that he wanted to inseminate women with his sperm for them to give birth to his babies, and that he wanted his head and his penis frozen.

          Reply ↓
        2. AG

          Would the minutes on Trump participating in crimes à la Epstein change anything about “us” judging the prosecution of him during the Biden years?

          I am e.g. also referring to the various episodes on THE DURAN dedicated to the lawfare against Trump then. Which were informative no question. But generally speaking, in moral terms? (Since legally those apparently correct accusations as per Hedges were not the subject of the charges against Trump.)

          Or has it always been known and clear that DJT is truly no better than any of the other former POTUSES. Not just in theory but by committed crimes.

          (Does an Obama indeed not belong to this honorable circle?)

          excerpt from Hedges on Trump:

          “(…)
          As Brown writes, in 2016 an anonymous woman, using the pseudonym “Kate Johnson,” filed a civil complaint in a federal court in California alleging she was raped by Trump and Epstein when she was thirteen, over a four-month period, from June to September 1994.

          “I loudly pleaded with Trump to stop,” she said in the lawsuit about being raped. “Trump responded to my pleas by violently striking me in the face with his open hand and screaming that he could do whatever he wanted.”

          Brown continues:

          Johnson said that Epstein invited her to a series of ‘underage sex parties’ at his New York mansion where she met Trump. Enticed by promises of money and modeling opportunities, Johnson said she was forced to have sex with Trump several times, including once with another girl, twelve years old, whom she labeled ‘Marie Doe.’

          Trump demanded oral sex, the lawsuit said, and afterward he “pushed both minors away while angrily berating them for the ‘poor’ quality of the sexual performance,” according to the lawsuit, filed April 26 in U.S. District Court in Central California.

          Afterward, when Epstein learned that Trump had taken Johnson’s virginity, Epstein allegedly ‘attempted to strike her about the head with his closed fists,’ angry he had not been the one to take her virginity. Johnson claimed that both men threatened to harm her, and her family if she ever revealed what had happened.

          The lawsuit states that Trump did not take part in Epstein’s orgies but liked to watch, often while the thirteen-year-old “Kate Johnson” gave him a hand job.

          It appears Trump was able to quash the lawsuit by buying her silence. She has since disappeared.

          In 2008, Alex Acosta, who at the time was the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, negotiated a plea deal for Epstein. The deal granted immunity from all federal criminal charges to Epstein, four named co-conspirators and any unnamed “potential co-conspirators.” The agreement shut down the FBI probe into whether there were more victims and other powerful figures who took part in Epstein’s sex crimes. It halted the investigation and sealed the indictment. Trump, in what many consider an act of gratitude, appointed Acosta as Secretary of Labor in his first term.

          Trump contemplated pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell after she was arrested in July 2020, fearing she would reveal details of his decades-long friendship with Epstein, according to Trump biographer Michael Wolff. In July 2022, Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

          “Jeffrey Epstein’s closest relationship in life was with Donald Trump…these were two guys joined at the hip for a good 15 years. They did everything together,” Wolff told host Joanna Coles on The Daily Beast Podcast. “And this is from sharing, pursuing women, hunting women, sharing at least one girlfriend for at least a year in this kind of rich-guy relationship with each other’s planes, to Epstein advising Trump on how to cheat on his taxes.”
          (…)”

          Reply ↓
        3. AG

          This part of the Epstein story somewhat strikes me as an idiotic joke and bluster by Epstein taken a tad possibly too seriously?

          “(…)
          Brown writes. “Epstein apparently told some of the members of his scientific circle that he wanted to inseminate women with his sperm for them to give birth to his babies, and that he wanted his head and his penis frozen.”
          (…)”

          The linked VANITY FAIR piece doesn´t entirely convince me beyond the nature of sensationalism.
          Jeffrey Epstein Wanted to Have His Penis Frozen and “Brought Back to Life in the Future”
          By Bess Levin
          July 31, 2019
          https://archive.is/QQw5K

          But I assume that at some level of depravity (which means unlimited wealth) fantasy, joke, lack of sense of reality and serious intentions and conviction merge into one. And I might just be too sane. Otherwise this makes only very limited sense.

          Of course as an essayist one can suggest a relationship between science fiction literature and these men who might think they can skip centuries of technological trial and error and just state that what novelists see as fiction is only a question of quantity of resources to turn it into reality.

          A bit a far-fetched association perhaps, but I have to think of Alex Garland´s remarkable (albeit somewhat sterile) mini-series DEVS. It´s elaborating on other technical issues (and moral ones) but addresses similar modes of megalomania.

          Reply ↓
          1. The Rev Kev

            ‘and that he wanted his head and his penis frozen.’

            Did he say how he wanted them placed together by any chance?

            Reply ↓
  16. geode

    When the American empire finally collapses, historians won’t be stunned by the greed of the elite; they’ll be stunned by the loyalty of the poor. The working class didn’t just vote against their own interests. They worshipped the billionaires robbing them. They slashed their own…
    — Shawn Ryan (@ShawnRyan762) July 11, 2025

    The top reply to this is:

    Are you WANTING the “American Empire” to collapse, Shawn? What makes you think that what comes after will be any better?

    Tallking about the proof and the pudding…

    Reply ↓
    1. Mikel

      And Shawn seems to missing that “the Empire(s)” have exported that economic ideology all over the globe. People from all over the world head overseas, here or across the pond, to study it.

      “They slashed their own benefits, gutted their own healthcare, and cheered while the rich wrote off private jets as tax deductions.”

      Reply ↓
    2. Jeremy Grimm

      I had the impression the ‘people’ were unaware or could not believe that their benefits were slashed or that their representative and their allies have so outrageously helped gut the ‘people’s’ [including their sorry asses. “healthcare”. I am also not so sure they were aware the rich wrote off their private jets as tax deductions. Most of the ‘people’ I talk to are aware, if at all, that they work hard to barely make ends meet while some of the poor receive benefits without working. I seriously doubt they are aware of or give much thought to the benefits even the relatively wealthy have amassed. Private jets and helicopters are alien to their world, unthinkable, unimaginable, incomprehensible.

      The export of Neoliberal ideology all over the world has large consequences. I believe Neoliberal ideology constitutes the basis for much of the prevailing and heavily enforced world-wide philosophy and doctrine not greatly unlike the doctrines that grounded past societies. In consequence, I fear that the fall of the u.s. Empire could be a harbinger of the fall of world civilization as we know it. Past imperial collapse was much more localized than the coming Collapse.

      Reply ↓
  17. Carolinian

    Re Air India crash–another instance of pilot suicide via airplane? But the report says that after being cut off the switches were then turned back on so perhaps more mass casualties via poor co-pilot training.

    At any rate it sounds like Boeing is off the hook on this one.

    Reply ↓
    1. The Rev Kev

      I see three possibilities here. One – it could have been a simple accident. It does happen. Two – one of the pilots decided to end himself and take a passenger jet full of people with him as has happened before. Three – we have another 737 MAX situation on our hands and it was the plane itself which cut the fuel through some obscure software error. I guess we will have to wait until they have gone through the second black box to know more.

      Reply ↓
      1. Carolinian

        The story says the switches are designed so that they can’t be turned off by accident. They are for shutting off the engines when the flight is over. It says one of the pilots asks why they are off and then they are turned back on but only one engine restarts.

        Reply ↓
        1. The Rev Kev

          Which eliminates the first possibility. So maybe the second one which is a good candidate but with it being a Boeing airliner, you cannot yet eliminate the third possibility. Those 737 MAX crews had no idea what was happening either.

          Reply ↓
          1. Carolinian

            Oh I think you can. This explanation seems to fit the circumstances as reported. Why such a huge mistake would be made is a big question. Your second suggestion looms.

            The is a precedent or more than one for pilots deliberately crashing planes.

            Reply ↓
            1. Arthur Williams

              I’m not so sure that there isn’t something odd going on with the engines. The article says that once the switches were returned to the RUN position, the engine control software began the process of relighting the engines. The first engine was successfully relit and “core deceleration stopped, reversed and started to progress to recovery.”. Engine two seems to have encountered some obstacle, as the article states that its EGT was rising, seeming to indicate that fuel is actually burning in the engine. Yet the engine rpm continued to decrease and the engine management software “re-introduced fuel repeatedly to increase core speed acceleration”. The fact that it’s Flame On and yet not appearing to accomplish anything makes me wonder if something happened earlier that caused the computer to cut the fuel.
              Not being a jet engine engineer, I’m curious as to what the phrase “re-introduced fuel repeatedly” means. Did the computer think that the engine had actually flamed out and was attempting to restart it from the beginning, or was it simply pumping the throttle to try and hurry things along ?
              I’m also curious as to why the switches are there in the first place. In what scenario is it determined that there is a need to quickly cut the fuel to the engines while in flight ? The movie Flight implies that an actual fire is dealt with by pulling a separate toggle; a fuel cutoff switch doesn’t seem to be involved. Sitting on the ground, idling at the gate, I would think you have plenty of time to scroll through a couple of menus to click the Stop Engines button. Being able to do this at 1200 feet in a couple of seconds seems like a bad idea. I hope that they are able to piece together what actually happened.

              Reply ↓
              1. Carolinian

                Thanks. Admittedly my suggested explanation doesn’t seem very probable. The linked story said the pilot had high hours, the co-pilot not so much.

                Reply ↓
                1. rowlf

                  The signal signature for a compressor stall would be in the Flight Data Recorder memory. There would also be a warning, a fault message and an engine report transmitted by ACARS if a compressor stall occurred.

                  787s transmit a lot of system and engine data for monitoring by airline maintenance staff, Boeing and the engine manufacturer. A warning/fault message will be received and displayed on the monitoring program within minutes of being transmitted by the airplane.

                  Reply ↓
              3. NotThePilot

                I’m not experienced enough to claim any expertise or explanation. I’ll only point out that at least in civilian aircraft, the engine control software lives in a self-contained (and redundant) module called a FADEC.

                IIRC the FADEC also does not control the same fuel cutoffs that the pilot would see in the cockpit; those are upstream. Short of hooking in a maintenance terminal, the throttle is the only human input into the FADECs, which are designed to coordinate all other inputs and conditions transparently via engine sensors.

                As for the exhaust gas temps, there should be multiple redundancies in the sensors. I’m actually not clear what that report might mean by “reintroduced fuel repeatedly” though, mainly because it’s been a bit and I don’t remember if a “relight” necessarily means successful ignition or just an attempt (I think they usually take a few seconds each).

                As far as the engines go, one interesting question would be what mode (cold-start, hot-start, windmill, approach) they thought they were restarting in. The engine will try to satisfy the same throttle demand in very different ways depending what mode it’s in.

                Reply ↓
        2. ilsm

          From Juan Browne video above.

          It is a month since the mishap. A lot more investigation work will be done.

          Sounds as if a service bulletin is published to check the switch locking mechanism to prevent inadvertent move of the switch.

          There are two switches cutting both by accident, with both locks not working is low probability.

          Were it high probability the urgency of the service bulletin should be “apply before next mission”.

          Many “whys” remain to be answered.

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  18. The Rev Kev

    “Russia deports head of Azerbaijani diaspora in Moscow Oblast”

    The guys at the Duran put out a good video about the situation here which is worth watching. Seems that members of the Azerbaijani diaspora have been aiding the Ukrainians which has not gone unnoticed in Moscow. And though Azerbaijan wants to play hard ball with the Russians for whatever reason floated their boat, it turns out that Russia has ways to make miserable for Azerbaijan which they have been doing like hitting the refineries in the Ukraine which handle Azerbaijani oil-

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RHs4grKCfI (27:25 mins)

    Reply ↓
    1. Kontrary Kansan

      The South Caucasus is slipping from Russia’s grasp

      I did not read anything about US/Israeli influences in prompting/promoting Russia-Azerbijani tensions, nor the implications for undermining Russian ties with Iran. Opening another front for Russia in Azerbijan effect the latter as well as serve Israeli interests vis-a-vis Iran.

      Reply ↓
  19. Carolinian

    Re UK and “ash dieback”–in our neighboring Carolina they planted a grove of ash and then waited for years to see which individuals survived the ash borer so they could take seeds from that tree. Unfortunately this technique is cumbersome given the years that it takes for trees to grow. Genetic engineering? Or would that give us Frankentrees?

    Reply ↓
    1. JBird4049

      For the American chestnut, efforts started in the 1930s with multiple projects with one of them being hybridization with the Asian chestnut. The people who started the projects must have known that they would be dead before any major success or at least recovery. Four billion trees were killed. However, the tree is finally being replanted.

      Reply ↓
      1. Randall Flagg

        I remember a tree guy responding to the lament from most people, “so what if I plant a chestnut tree ( or Elm), it’s just going to die anyway.” , With, “yes, but someday, one is going to survive and the species will then be able to carry on.” just do it.

        Reply ↓
        1. The Rev Kev

          Napoleon once was with his generals and ordered that trees be planted along side the main roads so that his troops could eventually march along them in the shade and not be exhausted by the heat, something no doubt he remembered from his early days in Italy. One general protest that it would take twenty year for that to come into effect. Napoleon replied that they had better get started then.

          Honoured is the person that plants a tree that they will never see grow to maturity – but whose children and grandchildren will enjoy the shade of it.

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  20. Carolinian

    Re judge orders Feds to cease racially profiled immigrant arrests–ICE Barbie to throw a tantrum? Police stating is hard.

    Meanwhile that judge may have to be hauled off to new Florida camp.

    Reply ↓
      1. Old Jake

        Trump better consider carefully his rhetoric. Turnabout is not only fair play, it’s historically not unusual.

        Reply ↓
  21. The Rev Kev

    ‘Nature is Amazing ☘️
    @AMAZlNGNATURE
    Leopard standing on hind legs to get better view of Impala – Kruger National Park’

    Sure. When primitive men did that tens of thousands of years ago it was seen as a brave evolutionary leap on the part of our species but when a Leopard does it, it’s just meh.

    Reply ↓
    1. Henry Moon Pie

      Ohio made the list. In my estimation, if prior authorization had been in effect here two years ago, I’d be dead by now.

      Reply ↓
  23. Tom Stone

    One thing that has become clear since January 20 is that Donald Trump is not a rational actor.
    The implications of that are not comfortable.

    Reply ↓
    1. Jason Boxman

      I know, right? This year is so completely lit. Whatever one might say about the Biden regency, or Obama, or even Trump’s first term, there wasn’t such obvious chaos, seemingly borne of complete incompetence. Trump keeps smashing his toys together in petulant frustration. It’s embarrassing to watch, and incredibly destructive.

      Although Biden ignored a Pandemic and doubled childhood poverty, to say nothing of Ukraine, which bleeds over into Obama and Trump’s first term (And Clinton). The list of evils committed by each presidency and Congresses is legion. With Trump, it’s just so obviously clownish, I don’t think there’s any precedent to that. The wanton, careless destruction at home and abroad, though, is truly par for the course, and mostly pedestrian at this point. Although Biden gets special mention for supporting a full on systemic Genocide, but then Trump wants to build hotels.

      Contemplating “most evil” inflicted by US foreign policy is making my head hurt, I have to stop. We could surely go on all month and beyond on that.

      But yeah, Tump is really unhinged in an uncomfortably obvious and disconcerting way.

      Reply ↓
    2. Carolinian

      Well you could say the same thing about “I’m running the world” Biden which is why we are now stuck with Trump. It seems the only kind of manufacturing our elites still pursue would be manufacturing consent and that goes for both political parties. Clearly the problem centers on “the elites.”

      It’s not like Trump’s self important grandiosity is even very new. Queen Victoria went around talking about “my” people. Trump’s shtick does seem new for America however. Biden did his ranting in private.

      Reply ↓
  24. Jason Boxman

    So CBS just casually throws this in

    COVID-19’s rise comes as health officials have been probing reports of an unusual uptick in another respiratory virus called parvovirus B19. While many people develop no symptoms from parvovirus B19 infections, some people get sick with signs like fever and muscle pains, followed by a rash.

    The CDC warned late last month of a “sustained increase” in transmission of parvovirus B19, and suggested that pregnant women consider masking to curb the risk of severe complications. Some local health departments have also tracked a rise in emergency rooms treating cases of this virus.

    “Several of the most recent weeks saw the highest percentage of B19-associated ED visits compared to the same week in all years since 2015,” health officials in Chicago warned on Thursday.

    Never heard of it before?

    No, me either.

    It’s funny how all these things that we’ve never heard of are showing up all over the place.

    From what I was able to dig up, this has also been spiking as you’d expect: An Outbreak of Parvovirus B19 in Israel

    In particular, the chart labeled Parvovirus B19 cases and incidence rates per 10K days at risk, 2015–2023 shows a very marked increase in 2023. More than double the peak in 2019-2020.

    We don’t have any real data for the US, from CDC: Detection of Increased Activity of Human Parvovirus B19 Using Commercial Laboratory Testing of Clinical Samples and Source Plasma Donor Pools — United States, 2024

    Although no routine B19 surveillance exists in the United States, in 2024, a large U.S. commercial laboratory observed increases in percentages of positive B19 test results in clinical specimens and pooled donor source plasma compared with levels during 2018–2019.

    So, surprise, surprise, it’s been going up.

    And just so everyone is on the same page, as usual, guess what

    In most persons, human parvovirus B19 (B19) causes a mild respiratory illness, but infection can result in adverse health outcomes in persons who are pregnant, immunocompromised, or who have chronic hemolytic blood disorders.

    (bold mine)

    Really, why should I believe you?

    And it’s still circulating

    Patterns of transmission in 2024 were similar to those observed in prepandemic years. Peaks in the percentages of positive test results occurred in Q2 of the year, and the highest percentages of positive test results were among children aged 6–11 years. The percentage of IgM-positive B19 test results in most adult age groups in 2024 returned to prepandemic levels; however, compared with previous years, the percentage of positive B19 tests in adults aged 40–59 years was higher in 2024 than in previous years.

    Health care providers, public health authorities, and the public should be aware of the likely increased circulation of B19 in the United States. CDC continues to examine syndromic surveillance and electronic health care databases to assess increases in B19 complications or adverse outcomes among groups at higher risk.

    And this was talked about last year, but I missed it

    CDC warns of rising human parvovirus B19 cases, especially among children

    And this is interesting, is COVID immune damage making people more susceptible to reinfection?

    By age 20, about half of adults have detectable antibodies that are thought to protect against reinfection. People without this immunity who are pregnant, immunocompromised or have chronic hemolytic disorders can experience more serious health consequences, and pregnant people can transmit the infection to their fetus.

    Anyway, I could go on and on about this, but whatever. This timeline is lit.

    Reply ↓
    1. IM Doc

      Oh, I have heard of parvovirus B19. It brings back all kinds of memories from the years when AIDS ruled the hospital wards.

      Here is a key issue – just barely brought up in that article. That particular virus has a nasty habit in many patients of literally turning off the bone marrow. This is usually just for a few days, but in patients who are really ill, it can last much longer and I have even seen a few AIDS patients never recover from this.

      If you are a young healthy person, you can usually be fine if your bone marrow is underperforming for a few days. The same cannot be said for people with hemolytic problems where the bone marrow is turning over frantically even on the best of days, people on chemo where the bone marrow is stressed, and in our world today we have all kinds of immunomodulating meds that really affect bone marrow function.

      When the bone marrow does not recover quickly enough the patient can have an aplastic crisis – where the patient becomes severely and intractably anemic. Transfusions can help if it is just a few days – but if it is continuing on, even that will not be enough.

      For most people, parvo is just like a cold, but it is far more likely than others like the flu to really cause some serious issues. This is not a little thing.

      Reply ↓
  25. Henry Moon Pie

    Four years ago this month, Naked Capitalism published Tom Neuberger’s review of Andreas Malm’s How to Blow Up a Pipeline. Yves wrote a well-argued and quite prescient demurrer to Malm’s argument for violence against fossil fuel infrastructure, and the Commentariat added scores of comments from a variety of points of view.

    I’ll refrain from listing the many, many catastrophes and changes–for the worse–in climate models since then, just as I’ll not list the many ways that climate policies in the USA and other countries have changed in ways making the situation worse. This comment is not directed toward those who are still in denial about how dire our circumstances are. My aim is to encourage those who understand the necessity to stop making things worse now, but who are at a loss about what can be done, if anything.

    Malm has written a new book with co-author, Wim Carton, titled Overshoot: How the world surrendered to climate breakdown. KLG reviewed this book on NC a few months ago, and included this quote from the book summarizing its argument:

    A history of what we shall call the overshoot conjecture, or the period when officially declared limits to global warming are exceeded – or in the process of being so – and the dominant classes responsible for the excess throw up their hands in resignation and accept that intolerable heat is coming. This acceptance can be tacit or explicit…often couched in the idea of a promised return to safer levels: we can let warming pass 1.5°C or 2°C and then, at a later date, reverse it and turn the temperatures down to where they should be…Overshoot is here not a fate passively acquiesced to. It is an actively championed programme for how to deal with the rush into catastrophe: let it continue for the time being, and then we shall sort things out at the end of the century.

    Current estimates for what the effects will be of dropping the idea of mitigation, i.e. reducing carbon emissions to zero ASAP from their current record levels, have recently appeared in Links from the British Institute and Faculties of Actuaries and the European Central Bank. The University of Exeter study done for the actuaries estimates a hit to global GDP of 5% (scroll down to graph) by as soon as 2030 with a 50% hit by 2090. More pertinent to me are the projected deaths of 4 billion humans, including the little girls at Camp Mystic, by 2090.

    The argument of Malm and Carton that the elites, whether or not they admit to anthropogenic climate change, are leading us to a hellscape of mass death and poverty rather than ending fossil fuel use finds confirmation in the views of the billionaires who run our societies through their grip on politicians across the West. For some reason, these billionaires have gotten talkative, and in the midst of their mumblings and ramblings, it’s quite clear they have absolutely no regard for their fellow human beings, much less the rest of life on Earth. Their philosophy of long-termism sets the ridiculous goal of humans (or transhuimans) conquering galaxies and maximizing utility in a bizarre knock-off of The Matrix. The one sin in long-termism is to do anything, including protecting current human and other life on Earth, that would slow down their insane plans.

    These people and the infrastructure that supports them are quite obviously a realistic threat to all of us at an existential level. Their plan to blow past any and all planetary boundaries in their effort to dominate whole galaxies amounts to a death warrant for life on Earth. The hopes of dethroning them through electoral means are slim to none. Peaceful protest, even speech, is being criminalized as “terrorism.” Their control of media, both traditional and new, is nearly complete.

    With this context, here are two links to discussions of alternative tactics. The first is an interview of Malm. The second comes from filmmaker Charlie Kilman who makes climate-related videos. Both consider the pros and cons of adopting other tactics that might bring the billionaires’ drive to kill us to an end.

    Reply ↓
    1. Tom Stone

      I believe that the effect of Covid is underestimated by many.
      I learned about being immunocompromised while undergoing chemo, 4 days in ICU and a week on a ward was educational.
      At least 10% of American Children have long Covid, all of those 10% have compromised immune systems and so do a lot of people who do not have long Covid.
      It might be Bird Flu, it might be a new strain of Covid and it might be something else, however a mass mortality event is baked in the cake when this high a percentage of the populace has damaged immune systems.
      Like the next big quake the question is when and how bad, not if.

      Reply ↓
  26. XXYY

    Israel Urges the US To Start Bombing Yemen Again Antiwar.com

    This is great. Israel is now openly treating the US like a mercenary army. “Let’s you and him fight!”

    One thing everyone has learned to their cost is that bombing Yemen accomplishes nothing. Saudi Arabia did it for many years. So did the US Navy, which turned tail and ran after their last encounter with the houthis.

    I assume Israel doesn’t want to find itself on the receiving end of any more hypersonic missiles. They are about one or two missile barrages away from being a desert wasteland with no water, power, or logistics capability (or citizens!).

    Reply ↓
    1. The Rev Kev

      Israel has their own navy. If they want to bomb Yemen then they can send their own ships to try their luck. I’m sure that Yemen would be glad to have them there and would be sure to give them a warm welcome. Bunch of freeloaders.

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  27. Carolinian

    Re Stoller on bottled water–I’ve mentioned here before that years ago while hiking around a Nat. Forest lake I encountered a water tanker with a “spring fed” logo on the side pumping water out of the lake with a hose. Presumably they had permission and presumably a mountain spring or springs were somewhere upstream of that lake. But I doubt it’s what customers imagine they are buying.

    I rarely buy bottled water but when I do I always get “distilled” with the hope that it is. Some of us are so old we can even remember when water came from that thing over the sink. The US isn’t a water dubious third world country although some say we are getting there.

    Reply ↓
    1. The Rev Kev

      There have been cases of some of those water companies taking regular town water, putting it into plastic bottles, and then selling them as ‘spring water’. This whole thing with bottled water is just nuts and does not date back that long. All it means is outrageous profits for some corporations and the colossal pollution problem of empty plastic bottles which we never had before. Like AI, it is an artificial “demand.”

      Reply ↓
      1. vao

        For months now, a huge scandal has been unfolding in France because Nestlé, owner of the sources for various brands, was using forbidden filtering techniques (active coal, UV) to purify mineral water — among other practices such as mixing mineral water with the equivalent of tap water, or adding iron sulfate to it.

        Fun fact 1: According to European legislation, mineral water is naturally pure, and is not allowed to be processed or filtered in any way.

        Fun fact 2: Nestlé has been purifying its mineral waters because several sources are actually polluted and the water would not be sellable otherwise. Where the pollution comes from has not yet been ascertained.

        Fun fact 3: When officials from the French serious fraud office reported on those practices after a whistleblower alerted them, the government kept the information under wraps and authorized Nestlé to continue with its illicit ways — until Le Monde and a radio station published their own journalistic investigation on the matter.

        A vast number of well-known brands have been affected: Contrex, Cristalline, Hépar, Perrier, Saint-Yorre, Vichy, Vittel. According to Nestlé, the production of Perrier, Vittel, and Hépar conforms again to the regulations — but the firm will have to re-certify these sources as mineral water.

        Reply ↓
        1. vao

          By the way: the problem also affects Nestlé mineral waters in other countries. The firm has been condemned in Switzerland for resorting to the same illegal practices regarding the Henniez brand.

          And in an ominous development, the French headquarters of Nestlé France have just been searched by the French serious fraud office. It seems that Nestlé’s shenanigans with mineral waters had been going on since the 1990s…

          Reply ↓
    1. Henry Moon Pie

      Trump’s instinct to quit testing if you want fewer cases has been adopted across the board. Quit measuring atmospheric CO2. Pass laws aginst photographing or filming feed lots and factory chicken farms. Don’t test food for contamination.

      We’re going back to the 1890’s when men were men, and everybody else knew their place. Or maybe, it’s just back to 1984 where ignorance is strength.

      Whatever you do, don’t believe your lyin’ eyes. That’s not a mile-wide, EF5 tornado (or swirling flood water) I see out my window. Whatever you do, don’t look up. (Clip from recent documentary, Don’t Look Up)

      Reply ↓
      1. Jason Boxman

        I gotta be honest, I couldn’t watch that film. I gave up. Just like I gave up on that one about Afghanistan with Brad Pitt(?).

        It’s supposed to be funny, I guess, but it’s really just like reading Naked Capitalism every day. I didn’t find it funny at all, just annoying, because hello that’s actually what’s happening now!

        I don’t get horror films either; I just refresh NY Times. Fresh horror, hourly. Either disinformation and lies or truthful reporting of horrors like the recent flooding in Texas. Either way, I’m set. Film excursion not needed.

        Reply ↓
        1. Alice X

          It’s supposed to be funny, I guess,

          I haven’t been able to see the film, I would like to. Top line talent to portray a script, even if the script misses points.

          What was farce in relation to our known existential dilemmas?

          Reply ↓
  29. Jason Boxman

    Private antitrust enforcement:

    Plaintiffs allege that the combination of Schwab and TD Ameritrade Holding Corporation, in October 2020, violated Section 7 of the Clayton Act (15 U.S.C. § 18). Plaintiffs allege that the merger decreased competition among brokers, resulting in Plaintiffs making less money from their trading activity. The Court preliminarily approved the Settlement with Schwab on February 19, 2025. To resolve this lawsuit, Schwab agreed to implement an antitrust compliance program to address Plaintiffs’ claims.

    It took 5 years, though. I had no idea this was even going on.

    Reply ↓
  30. Alice X

    Sam Husseini:

    Hague Group: “Concrete Measures” or Sack of Cement? Will It Move to Sanctions, Peace Force and Ensuring Aid to Gaza?

    Will the meeting in Colombia be a coalescence of global opinion driving states to just action — or just more rhetoric from various officials that doesn’t result in needed action? Answers at bottom…

    Alice here, good information but not optimism at the bottom. Capitalism rules them all, in short.

    Husseini was the journo who, as he was being dragged off from the news conference, asked Blinken why he wasn’t at the Hague.

    Reply ↓
  31. Dean

    Simple solution to solving Amazon’s Prime Day pricing schemes: ban sites like camel camel camel from tracking price histories.

    Reply ↓
  32. Revenant

    On the innovation in screen technology by Chinese companies:

    https://www.wired.com/story/samsungs-new-phones-show-how-far-ahead-china-is-on-innovation/

    The background IP underpinning these foldable full colour screens is the work done in OLED, organic light emitting diodes, and the polymer sandwiches they are made from.

    Over ten years I spent some time on the board of a UK company set up to commercialise the research of a brilliant female Scottish chemist and arguing for my fund to support it further. At the time, we spent a lot of time discussing the Chinese manufacturers and how real an innovation opportunity they represented. I am pleased to report we placed a sizeable bet on BOE and its plans, and vice versa, which look like they are coming off….

    It is a long time between the lab and the market!

    Reply ↓

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