Groundbreaking Study Reveals Tortoises Have Feelings, Similar to Ours SciTech Daily (Chuck L)
The Frailties of Reason Commonweal (Anthony L)
Climate/Environment
After Devastating Winter Losses, Another Threat Looms for U.S. Beekeepers New York Times
Study Reconstructs 540 Million Years of Sea Level Change in Unprecedented Detail SciTech Daily (Chuck L)
EXTRAORDINARY HEAT IN RUSSIA
Up to 43C in the Rostov Region
Some all time records (there are hundreds)
41.7 Kamensk
41.3 Kostantinovsk
41.2 Bokovskaja
41.0 Prohladnaya
40.8 Kazanskaja
40.4 Tihoreck
40.2 Millerovo
HIGH TMINS:
23.4 Borisoglebsk
22.8 Micurinsk
21.6 Cerepovec pic.twitter.com/2EC6cDLnVw— Extreme Temperatures Around The World (@extremetemps) July 13, 2025
DEADLY HEAT IN EAST ASIA
Today crazy MINIMUMS 28C at 1300m in MONGOLIA
Tropical nights at 2500mCHINA July records: 41.9C Xingping, 41.0C Zhouzhi
JAPAN Records:36.4 Hirosaki,35.7 Ogata,36.7 GojomeNext days THOUSANDS of records:
Worst heat wave in history with THIs >50/55C https://t.co/IHxhvdufn1— Extreme Temperatures Around The World (@extremetemps) July 14, 2025
Flash flooding hits NYC and New Jersey declares state of emergency as storms soak Northeast Independent
Gujarat is reeling under an unprecedented monsoon onslaught, with June rainfall figures shattering a 44-year record and triggering widespread flooding across the state Free Press Journal
China?
China’s economy beats expectations in face of Trump’s trade war Guardian (Kevin W). Not dispositive yet. A lot of stockpiling and channel stuffing in Southeast Asia
US-China spy wars intensify under Trump 2.0 as tech competition heats up South China Morning Post
A Microsoft project could expose the Pentagon to Chinese hackers Asia Times (Kevin W)
Taiwan’s military takes preparation for Chinese invasion to civilians’ doorsteps Financial Times
India-Pakistan
China’s insertion into India-Pakistan waters dispute adds a further ripple in South Asia The Conversation
Africa
Ethiopian militias raid Sudan border villages: farmers, activists Agence France-Presse
Sudanese paramilitary RSF accused of killing almost 300 people in village raids Guardian
European Disunion
French PM suggests slashing two public holidays as part of budget cuts Le Monde
French PM proposes scrapping national holidays and freezing spending to cut deficit Guardian (Kevin W)
Poland is facing a financial crisis Warsaw Business Journal
“AIR FRYER RETAILER”: TWO NANTES RESIDENTS SENTENCED FOR POSTING A PLACARD HOSTILE TO THE MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR DURING A STAGE OF THE TOUR DE FRANCE BMFTV via machine translation (Micael T)
DEBATE: Six out of ten do not want to defend Sweden Expressen via machine translation (Micael T)
Old Blighty
To hoard or not to hoard? UK consumers on the pros and cons of cash Guardian (Kevin W)
How much trouble is Starmer in? Sam Freedman
Reeves pledges to extend purge of City red tape to rest of UK economy Financial Times (Kevin W). Neoliberal hopium
UK a ‘powder keg’ of social tensions a year on from summer riots, report warns Guardian
Left without care: Many Long COVID clinics are closing down in the U.K. Sick Times
Israel v. The Resistance
Key ultra-Orthodox Factions Announce They Will Leave Netanyahu’s Coalition Over Draft Bill Haaretz (resilc)
The tweet is blocked from embedding but you can click through to see the video:
Lawyer of Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya, currently imprisoned by Israel, wrote:
Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya is not okay.
My last visit to him was on July 9, 2025.
He has lost over 40 kilograms — more than one-third of his body weight.
At the time of his arrest, he weighed 100 kg — today, he… pic.twitter.com/UElaH9ANi6— Ramy Abdu| رامي عبده (@RamAbdu) July 14, 2025
The suffocation of Sinjil +972 (guurst)
Israeli Minister: ‘Gaza must be in Ruins for Decades,’ as Airstrike Kills Children seeking Water Juan Cole (resilc)
Jordan targeting Gaza solidarity in largest arrest campaign in decades Middle East Eye (resilc)
* * * Israeli air strikes kill 12 in eastern Lebanon despite ceasefire Aljazeera
* * * Iran faces stiff sanctions if no deal by end of August, U.S. and allies agree Axios. Since the US has form, expect a new attack before the deadline.
Beyond the ceasefire, the Iran-Israel cyber war still rages on Al Majalla (Chuck L)
The Delusions and Lies of Regime Changers Daniel Larison
Syraqistan
Israel bombs Syrian forces entering Druze city after sectarian clashes BBC
New Not-So-Cold War
Trump asked Zelenskiy if Ukraine could hit Moscow, FT reports Straits Times (resilc)
Trump Delivers Next Nothingburger To Ukraine Moon of Alabama (Kevin W)
Markets call Trump’s bluff on Russian oil sanctions in increasingly risky game Reuters
The Redheaded Stepsister Goes to the Ball William Schryver (Chuck L). Ukraine and the US (or the UK) are still scheming over the Kerch Bridge????
Russia Goes on the Offensive Against US Investors in an Odessa Port Larry Johnson
Moldova denies claims its soldiers were killed in Ukraine conflict RT (Kevin W)
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Cybersecurity failures leave US Social Security data at risk Biometric Update
Imperial Collapse Watch
RECONFIGURING HEGEMONY New Left Review (Alan S)
Why new CENTCOM chief Brad Cooper is as wrong as the old one Responsible Statecraft (resilc)
The Pentagon wants to build drones without Chinese parts. It’s off to a bad start. Kevin Walmsley
The US Has More Copper Than China But No Way to Refine All of It Bloomberg
The Yellow BRICS Road American Conservative (resilc)
Trump 2.0
Dimon Defends Fed Independence After Trump Attacks Wall Street Journal
It’s Not Just Epstein. MAGA Is Angry About a Lot of Things Wired. resilc: “You been played bubba”
DOGE
The White House Has a Plan for All That Foreign Food Aid That DOGE Cut: Burn It Gizmodo (Dr. Kevin)
When Expert Advisors Are Sent Packing, Who Picks Up the Slack? SciLight (Dr. Kevin)
Tariffs
Another casualty of the trade wars: now we don’t have transformers Kevin Walmsley
Another Casualty in the Tariff Wars: The Always-in-Season Tomato New York Times. resilc: “Gee, won’t we miss the taste of pinkish drywall.”
Immigration
The IRS Is Building a Vast System to Share Millions of Taxpayers’ Data With ICE ProPublica (Randy K, Robin K). The good news is that will be likely that it will be very hard to make good matches across the different databases. The bad new is that ICE does not give a rat’s ass about integrity and so will run with bogus connections.
ICE Age No Mercy / No Malice (resilc)
What Were Federal Agents Doing at a Puerto Rican Museum in Chicago? Hypoallergic. resilc: “Itza USA USA possession you morons.”
Illegal border crossings hit decades low under Trump crackdown Axios
Democrat Death Wish
Mamdani Nets Record Fundraising Haul While Adams and Cuomo Strike Out on Matching Funds THE CITY.
BWAHAHA!
Police State Watch
The U.S. Military’s Robot Coyotes Core77 (resilc)
Is Trump’s ‘personal Gestapo’ turning America into a police state? US president’s heavily armed shock troops behind raids on illegal migrants will soon outnumber the FBI Daily Mail (resilc). When you’ve lost the Daily Mail….
Mr. Market is Moody
Bond Traders Boost Bearish Bets as US 30-Year Yields Eclipse 5%. Bloomberg
Health Care
Even Grave Errors at Rehab Hospitals Go Unpenalized and Undisclosed New York Times (resilc)
AI
AI Creeps Into the Risk Register For America’s Biggest Firms The Register
Class Warfare
The Ambition That Kills: A Call for Ethical Leadership Sonar 21 (Mark G)
Antidote du jour (via):
A bonus:
The reaction of a dog when it see a new friend.😄😄 pic.twitter.com/APY8IoWyWg
— Nina Deer (@longdepzai_n) July 14, 2025
A second bonus:
It's tough being a mom. pic.twitter.com/aHqPNbQzyv
— Staff Sergeant Johnson (@Colonel_Myway) July 16, 2025
And a third:
When a bear family wants to cool down in your pool, you let them!😅🐻🥰 pic.twitter.com/buiAIzibl2
— James Pleickhardt (@JamesPleickhar2) July 15, 2025
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
203 comments
Comments are closed.
Caitlin
The New York Times Finally Stops Avoiding The G-Word
Caitlin Johnstone
The linked piece in archive
https://archive.is/o4L3z
At the NYT (It’s not on the online subscription page, and didn’t show even in a search there)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/15/opinion/israel-gaza-holocaust-genocide-palestinians.html
Maybe the New York Times realized that it is better to pee downwind into the winds of change rather than upwind like they have been doing.
thanks!
It´s a guest piece by Omer Bartov, oddly titled (whose idea was this???)
“Never Again – I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It.”
Only thing missing is an inappropriate “duck” quote about lies in media….
I first saw it yesterday, and it was on the online edition homepage then.
Thank you, I just checked my stored copy from 07/15 – 09:33 EDT and yes it was there (but I missed it), I didn’t see it 12 hours later, even when I searched for all or parts of the title, so I don’t know. I try to be careful but I make mistakes. Still, it is something because they have long specifically blacked out the term.
I was shocked to see it, but didn’t post the link yesterday; Didn’t feel like reading it all and didn’t want to post it without having read it first in case it was some kind of NY Times subterfuge.
A second cousin of mine wrote the book on genocide. Last year, some NY relatives were asking me what is my relationship to the author. `I immediately realised that New Yorkers were reading his book, no matter what the NYT said.
Not in the know: Could you provide the title of the book?
“The Redheaded Stepsister Goes to the Ball”
They are still obsessed with the Kerch Bridge? A civilian bridge I should note and it has to be also noted that in the two western-enabled attacks on that bridge, that it was only innocent civilians that died. But there could be a danger here. The neocons got Trump all wound up about Iran’s nuclear sites until he launched an attack on them. Didn’t matter that the refined uranium was long gone as it was an attack by the mighty US military that was seen as a solution. So could it happen that people like Lindsay Graham will be whispering into Trump’s ear that only a US attack on that bridge to destroy it will bring Putin to the table and will give Trump the sorely needed leverage that he needs over him? Yeah, absolutely reckless but so was his enabling the attack on Russia’s nuclear triad.
My guess is that a major attack on the Kerch will bring an ‘Oreshnik moment’ somewhere in Europe. It seems that Putin is pretty much fed up with the West.
My guess is that a major attack on the Kerch Brige will not make Russia strike NATO territory, because that is exactly what Zelensky et al. want. As much as Putin is fed up with the West, he does not want an unpredictable escalation at this point. The losing side is desperate for some reshuffling of the cards, and those winning want to stay on the current track. That’s why Putin’s reactions look mild, when compared to recommendations of gung-ho know-it-all Western armchair generals on the Internets that never experienced war in their own backyard.
Do you get the feeling that Club Pachyderm is pleased with its gotten gains but wants to kick Benedict Donald to the curb now?
Speaker Johnson had been in complete goose step with everything the Donald did, until yesterday when Clark Kent (do you have any idea how difficult it is to change into character now that there aren’t any phone booths and most public rest room doors are locked?) said ‘oh yeah, Epstein’s files ought to be released-yeah that’s the ticket.’
Speaker Johnson said that? Seriously? That really surprises me. Looks like in a twist to the Streisand Effect, that the Epstein files will be the gift that keeps on giving and won’t go away.
I might have Cajun bubba-sized his comments to that effect, but yes he does also resemble Brutus a bit especially in side profile, hmmmm.
Speaker Johnson as un Accadian? Mas non, mes ami. Johnson was born and raised in Shreveport, Louisiana. That makes him a Texigator. It is best to imagine him in Poor Kicker boots, Jackboot cut jeans, and wearing a Rollflex hat. (Working cowboys wear Rollflex. Dudes and pimps wear Stetson.)
As for that gratuitous Brutus quip; Olive Oyl as an Israeli Honey Trap????
I understand that Popeye called Olive Oyl his “treasure” – as she had a sunken chest.
I thought it was just flat?
I know LA but not La. if you can see it in your blessed little heart to overlook my assumptions regarding the 2nd in line for all the marbles.
que les bons moments rulent
True enough. We have our own La. La. Land over here on the balmy shores of the Gulf.
New Orleans had, at one time, the largest ski club in America. We used to quip that we had the northernmost Banana Republic in the Americas. Now that title belongs, rightfully so, to the District of Colombia.
Man, I try and avoid that area where the Columbian Cartels hang out, once I got hit by a lie ricochet on the Capitol steps, but luckily I was used to the occurrence and it just bounced off.
The Epstein files (even just the rumors) are a gold mine for the conspiracy inclined.
The claim is that Jeffrey was the shooter up in that book depository in Dallas, despite him being only 10 years old at the time.
There was the one story how Bill Clinton would ditch his Secret Service detail mean to protect him – so he could duck out to the airport and be picked up by the Lolita Express. And I am inclined to believe that story.
You are right about that! It’s what you get when literally nothing about the man stands up to even the barest scrutiny. Dude who never graduated college gets hired at a prestigious private school to teach math? Hired by no less than Donald Barr, William Barr’s father and former (???) OSS operative.
Les Wexner just out of the blue gives him an expensive NYC apartment? Makes Epstein (a nobody) his personal money manager?
Names his plane the ‘Lolita Express’, flies around with America’s uber rich and powerful?
‘Commits suicide’ after getting thrown in jail? Video released about the whole jail thing is just amateurish tampering?
The people who rode to election victory partly on taking on this whole mess and giving the public transparency all suddenly do a 180?
Yeah.
“Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?”
Must reading for L’Affaire Joffrey Epstein, FROM “SPOOK AIR” TO THE “LOLITA EXPRESS”: THE GENESIS AND EVOLUTION OF THE JEFFREY EPSTEIN-BILL CLINTON RELATIONSHIP, mint press news, August 23, 2019. A very deep dive.
Here is Epstein’s black book, also from back in the day.
Until Benedict Donald shows up at a presser wearing a red ‘Make Jeffrey Go Away’ hat, I won’t really believe it has affected him.
From the category of why people like to watch a train wreck:
Hair Furor (h/t Wuk) attacks his supporters on TruthSocial
NYT
Trump attacks supporters outraged over the Justice Dept.’s handling of the Epstein case.
That the press is going on and on about this causes me to wonder exactly how prevalent is this outrage amongst his maga base. I imagine many, if not a majority of voters don’t know who Epstein is/was.
I dunno, time will tell (maybe).
I should add, Trump, Vance and others ramped this up in the campaign.
To which I would say, watch out for what you ask for…
The MAGA folks may have taken it to heart.
A good point.
I wonder what it will look like if Trump reaches a premature pull date. Will it be game of thrones level drama? How about if he begins to show visible dementia? Seems like a possibility.
Say hello to President Vance (property of Thiel, P.)
Thank you for the links at the start of this sub-thread.
I spent a bit of time chiding the “Epstein friendly conservatives” on instapundit last night.
Seems anyone wanting to get the truth about Epstein is a DNC stooge or commie.
MAGA, who know all 4 stanzas of the star spangled banner, are also not into Netanyahu and Zelenski defined US empire.
Luckily everybody on the internet is truthful and forthcoming, which is reassuring in a world such as ours~
And you can take that to the bank. If you’ll send me your chequeing account number and bank routing number I’ll do it for you! Thanks for your cooperation. Mossad App LLC.
There are rumors about President Trump’s health floating around, so Johnson could ve getting ahead of what everyone knows. President Trump is old and not healthy.
President Trump is old and not healthy, but unluckily for us he took the extended lifetime warranty on his vocal cords when he knew he wanted to be a demagogue whilst in embryonic form as WW2 was winding down.
Or in other words, we’re shit out of luck.
Mikey’s superpower is being nondescript … good luck catching him when you cannot pick him out of a police lineup.
(Meant as a reply to Wukchumni.)
Transformers.
I’ve been following this for years. The people in power are beyond idiots, they just have no idea nor seemingly do any of their advisers about the physical world of manufacturing and supply chains.
Buy American, ok but if we can’t by American, then what? Guess just go without.
He gets it slightly wrong about needing millions of big transformers, but still yes they don’t exist. This lack of supply is effecting renewable energy projects, gas turbine projects ( of which the wait time is up to 7 yrs for the turbines) as well as all the small ones needed for the everyday world.
The lack of transformers was hurting the hookup of solar projects and having a major slow down during the Biden administration of one of his so called signature initiatives. Curious or not that a simple presidential order would have allowed the bypass of the by American requirement to greatly speed things up by allowing imports.
I can see which way that this will be going. It will be all those AI data centers that will be snapping up the majority of new transformers using their vast wealth. And don’t expect the State or Federal governments to try to stop them as AI is the future, don’tcha know. Those AI data centers just have to have most of those new transformers in order to build a prosperous economy. /sarc
Not exactly. Big/giant transformers that would be needed for a data center are quite unique. Not that many are made, and they require very special equipment for testing.
But large transformers such as those are also used in power stations providing power to the people not just data centers. So if the power plants can’t get the transformers then neither can the data centers.
Smaller ones are simpler to make and test but you still need the parts and raw materials which we don’t make enough of here.
Thanks for that clarification. It must be hard for a corporation that makes these things. You would think that there would be guaranteed profits as far as the eye can see in setting up the facilities to build them with maybe a little government help. It would at first appearance be a no brainer. But then you would have to stop and think about the possibility that in the next year or three, that Trump might make some sort of grand bargain with China leading to an influx of Chinese transformers and killing your investments and any hope of ongoing profits. Turns out that in business investments, instability is not your friend.
It’s even more complicated than that. Hitachi Energy is one of the main suppliers of transformers in the world, and US behavior is causing Japan to re-think it’s relationship with the US. Does not bode well.
https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/hitachi-energy-ceo-warns-of-transformer-supply-shortage/
I’m surprised that Trump has not demanded that Hitachi Energy relocate their factories to the US in order for Japan to have tariff relief. That seems to be his idea over the past few months. That in order for America to re-industrialize, that all those other countries – including allies – must de-industrialize and send their infrastructure to the US and then those countries would have to deal with a lower GDP and mass unemployment on their own. On the bright side, they would “only” have to pay 10% tariffs for the privilege with trading with him so could you count that as a win?
I’m surprised that Trump has not demanded that Japan relocate. ;-)
Ha …
I worked on the transformers built for the Sydney Olympics due to terrorist fears – of the day – requiring spares. Good luck on getting all the skilled labour, Mfg site, supply/nesting of materials needed all from within the U.S. Very high spec’s required on all levels of Mfg.
It was a multi international Corp affair before multipolarity and China’s assent.
Small world!
“French PM suggests slashing two public holidays as part of budget cuts”
‘Prime Minister François Bayrou suggested making people work on Easter Monday and on May 8, as he presented measures to bring the public deficit down from 5.8% last year to below 4.6% next year.’
I got an idea and it is the same one I had for the financial problems that the UK has. If France has all these problems, then they should also stop sending billions to the black financial hole known as the Ukraine. And stop trying to build a military to go fight the Russian bear with. How much money has France sent there in the past three and a half years? No idea but I found this recent article
“France will provide some 2 billion euros ($2.15 billion) of extra military aid to Ukraine”
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/france-provide-2-bln-euros-extra-military-aid-ukraine-macron-says-2025-03-26/
That’s 2 billion euros ($2.15 billion) of extra money on top of what has been sent. Stop all that and then the French could keep their holidays.
If you are going to be Scrooge about public holidays, maybe the Christmas holidays should be the days to be sacrificed.
Here is what the French OFCE (i.e. “Observatoire Français des Conjonctures Économiques” concludes in its analysis of the financial situation of the French state, as reported by newspaper Le Monde:
The degradation of the French public finances “is not attributable to a marked increase of public outlays (…), but rather to a significant reduction of government revenue.”
That is the result of decade after decade of tax rebates granted to the well-to-do, for-profit corporations, and financial operators.
While the government is trying to figure out how to save €40bn in its next budget, both the OFCE and the French “Cour des Comptes” (the constitutionally independent organ in charge of auditing the accounts of the state and its subdivisions) have determined that €105bn are needed to put France’s deficit back to the 3% maximum authorized by the EU “stability and growth” rules. The government proposal thus falls well short of what is needed — but raising taxes on those who can pay is naturally out of question…
Listening to the village idiot announce his budget proposal on FranceInfo yesterday while I was tooling around looking for this and that was hilarious. He is the greatest illustration of the Peter Principle that le beau pays has ever known. From one incompetent performance to next, he’s never done anything of note, except perhaps as failson “centrist” (meaning nothing) mayor of a rather lovely second city that managed to prosper despite his ministrations, to him losing basic locution and aging rather poorly with the swollen visage and a misshapen silhouette of the longsuffering victim of lunchtime-induced dropsy. A consolation is that he’s constitutionally incapable of using vacation season as the usual vehicle to spring horrors upon us when no one is paying attention. All is well in France, for now.
re: Germany accepts drone war
TELEPOLIS blog
machine-translation
Karlsruhe legitimizes US drone war over German soil
https://archive.is/4uzYr
“(…)
A court has authorized US drone operations over Ramstein. Two Yemenis whose relatives were killed filed a lawsuit. The reasoning is likely to spark debate.
The Federal Constitutional Court has ruled that Germany has not violated its duty to protect Yemeni nationals whose relatives were killed in US drone strikes in Yemen. According to the court, there is no evidence of a systematic violation of international law by the US to justify such a duty to protect.
(…)
The plaintiffs had claimed that the Federal Republic of Germany had violated a duty of protection based on the fundamental right to life by failing to prevent the use of Ramstein Air Base for US drone operations in Yemen. During one of these operations in August 2012, close relatives of the complainants were killed.
(…)
The Senate stated that “the Federal Republic of Germany has a general mandate to protect fundamental human rights and the core norms of international humanitarian law, even in cases involving foreign countries.
Under certain conditions, this mandate to protect can condense into a concrete duty to protect under fundamental rights. However, two conditions must be met for such a duty to protect to arise:
What is required is, firstly, a sufficient connection to the state authority of the Federal Republic of Germany, which establishes the necessary connection of responsibility, and secondly, the existence of a serious risk of systematic violation of applicable international law.”
The Senate left open whether the necessary connection of responsibility to establish a duty of protection existed in the specific case. “Whether, within the framework of the required overall assessment, a fundamental rights-based responsibility of the Federal Republic of Germany arises with regard to the drone operations of the United States of America in Yemen at issue here could remain open,” the court stated.
In any case, there was a lack of substantial evidence of a serious risk of systematic violations of international law by the United States. According to the court, “the US legal interpretation underlying the use of armed drones in Yemen is not, in itself, sufficient to establish substantial evidence of a serious risk of systematic violations of international humanitarian law.”
(…)”
comment by the antiwar site IMI in Tübingen and its director Jürgen Wagner:
“(…)
A dark day for international law:
On July 15, 2025, the Federal Constitutional Court (BVerfG) rejected the complaint of two people from Yemen whose relatives were killed in a US drone strike. Because such drone operations – as the BVerfG confirmed – are made possible via the US Ramstein Air Base in Germany, the victims’ relatives had filed a lawsuit against the German government.
The reasoning behind the decision is particularly dramatic: there is no “serious danger” that the US would “systematically violate rules of international humanitarian law and/or international human rights law that serve to protect life.” Furthermore, the “legal opinion of the German state bodies responsible for foreign and security policy issues must be decisively taken into account.” Specifically, the ruling refers, among other things, to the German government’s argument that “the US… as a constitutional state, has a broadly institutionally anchored tradition of respecting international humanitarian law and enforcing its observance.”
Thomas Wiegold documents a joint statement by the Federal Foreign Office and the Federal Ministry of Defense (augengeradeaus.net) (otherwise untraceable) that is almost jubilant:
“With their decision, the judges confirm that the Federal Government is granted broad discretion when assessing the conformity of third-party actions with international law. The Federal Government welcomes this decision, which sends an important signal for our foreign and security policy.”
The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) comments in a press release:
“At a time when the binding nature of state action under international law is increasingly being questioned, the court has failed to send a strong signal.”
That’s a very diplomatic way of putting it.
(…)”
So the Federal Republic of Germany has no state authority over Ramstein?
Good thing that’s been cleared up.
yep
About the NYtimes article regarding sudden bee collapse. I am a bee keeper myself in Germany (more than strictly hobby but not commercial size) and this article unvoluntarily shows the madness of modern agriculture and the decline of journalism. The madness is believing you can somehow keep 18 000 bee hives together, move them across the continent in completely unnatural conditions and escape disease.
The decline of journalism is evident in how the article deals with the threat posed by the varroa mite. Differently to what the author states the western bee will not die out in the US. There have been experiments all over the world where they just let survive honey bees in the wild and look how they cope with the Varroa mite. Invariably 9 out of 10 hives died at first but the survivors multiplied again. The bees that survived were exhibiting a certain grooming behaviour. They opened the cells with puppets and killed the mites. In fact in Europe some bee breeders have started to breed this behavior into bees. The problem though is that such bees are not as “productive”. But if you consider that honey bees nowadays are expected to produce two to three times more honey than a 100 years ago the question arises whether such kind of productivity is sustainable at all. In reality not the bees are in danger but the way agriculture is conducted in general. What is true for bees is true for chicken and pig farming, wheat and corn farming. There has to be and there will be a return to smaller scale farming and more natural practises. Tertium non datur.
For the NYT it seems that bees are a lot more important than Gazans, yes?
There are bee keepers and there are Bee Keepers.
The latter include the Jason Statham movie character. Way off the books, blacker than black budget, well beyond Non-Official Cover as Ghosts. How many buzz around DC and anywhere needing a sting? 🐝
There’s more almond trees in the Central Valley than there are American citizens, and every last one of them needs roadie-bees to get it on with, and good news!
The 2025 crop is the 2nd largest ever, coming as the wholesale price of almonds has tumbled and Chinese ‘retailatory’ tariffs hit Ag hard.
They grow a shit-ton of food in the Central Valley, but you’ll never see anything but monocrops and most of it here on the western flanks of the Sierra Nevada are tree crops, a lot of it for export.
You’ll never see a 2,000 acre mega-orchard with plums over here, almonds over there, and citrus next to the pistachios.
But back to the bees, just another human get rich deal gone awry.
You can imagine the consternation among growers when they wanted to expand (there was essentially no almond trees 50 years ago, now there’s 350 million) but everything was dependent on out of town bees picking up the slack, go apiary!
Tom67,
Thank you. Good, solid, fact-based information. Nature is amazing!
re: “The bees that survived were exhibiting a certain grooming behaviour. They opened the cells with puppets and killed the mites.”
Seems like bees are more intelligent than humans: they learn and then deal w/ parasites.
Very interesting Tom67, thank you. Might it be possible that breeding for 2-3x honey yield has bred-out the varroa hygiene behaviours and caused them to be susceptible to the mites? IANABK
But Mo Chara from Kneecap, lowlife scum Republican Hood rapper, is a bee-keeper!
Strange but true.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sAK-H6-0ZTw&t=1395s&pp=2AHzCpACAQ%3D%3D
Michael Bush in Nebraska keeps bees in a way that mimics natural hives:
https://bushfarms.com/bees.htm
He has written books about his method, I have three of them and they are very thorough. He has captured wild hives in Nebraska that have become resistant to varroa because they have been left alone by humans. One of the secrets is that the wild hives make their hexagonal honey and brood cells smaller than those in the commercially available plastic starter frames. This means that the bees that are raised in smaller cells hatch quickly, thus depriving the mites from having the time to hatch on the growing young.
He also has a youtube channel and does speaking engagements for those interested beekeeping groups.
Thanks. Never heard of that. Very interesting!
I am not a specialist and don´t know for sure. The varroa mite was only introduced from Southeast Asia about 40 years ago but bee breeding for productivity started earlier. Still I wouldn´t rule out that this played a role in the catastrophy the mite has caused. What is certain though is that there are completely natural ways of battling the varroa mite. You can mimick nature for instance and induce an artificial swarm. That is what the bees do if the infection becomes to great. No need for any chemicals. The down side is off course reduced productivity and you sure can´t do it with 18 000 hives at once. There are ways though that are less labor intensive and are used by organic bee keepers that still allow some economy of scale. But of course not the mad way bee keeping is organised in industrial agriculture. It simply has no future and the earlier the powers that be recognize that the better.
Re the Sam Freedman piece, in 1998 a younger Starmer wrote a piece with Conor Foley in Social Policy & Administration (Vol. 32, No. 5, December 1998) called ‘Foreign Policy, Human Rights and the United Kingdom’
“Now, for the first time in the UK’s history, an international human rights instrument will be given domestic legal force…. Fifty years ago the world said never again to the horrors of war crimes and genocide. It declared that all human beings wherever they live and whoever they are, have rights that must be respected in all circumstances. Never again would governments be able to claim that the way in which they treated their citizens was solely a prerogative of national sovereignty.”
Does anyone know where that Starmer went?
The one before the one we got who says the ‘genocide is just Israel defending itself’?
He used fake accusations of anti-semitism against Jeremy Corbin in order to take his job as labour leader. Starmer is without principle, a liar and a servant of foreign powers. Such is the state of the UK political class today. Traitorous scum.
From DDGeopolitics:
It looks like Erdogan is learning the hard way that when you arm a mob, that isn’t going to cut it as far as governing a country. Without air defense, you’re nothing more than a bunch of LARP-ers.
Gee, a few of those S-400’s that Assad had would have come in handy … too bad you let Russia take them all back.
US has to keep Erdogan happy.
NATO/US has a fair number of large air bases in east Turkiye, and large supply dumps.
Just in case “Uncle Sam gets in a jam down in Iran….”
I feel as if i’m doing mouth aerobics just reading the names of those Russian cities that are oh so hot…
Been a pleasant summer so far here above the steppes of the Central Valley, with the 10 day forecast showing nothing but temps in the 90’s, which is a piece of cake. With the exception of the 1 big conflagration-Madre Fire, the fuego season has been on the down low in Cali.
Lobachevsky, by Tom Lehrer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQHaGhC7C2E&list=RDUQHaGhC7C2E
Yves, I wonder if you would consider changing the orange color of links to one with more contrast to the white background. Unfortunately my older eyes have trouble making out the orange type. I realize the orange is part of your brand, so I understand if you don’t want to make a change. My eyes have been checked and are ok, but the contrast is a bit low for me.
For example the bright blue you see on Twitter/X is easy to read as would be a bright purple. A Kelly green is easy to read also.
If it works for you, you could change the colour displays on your web browser or computer itself to show different colours. My brother-in-law has eyesight problems and has changes his computer to show different colours and larger font sizes. Maybe this article might be of help-
https://au.pcmag.com/migrated-15175-windows-10/93297/how-to-make-windows-easier-on-your-eyes
That works only on Windows, I typically use an iPad or iPhone and there’s no knob to turn for that function. My laptop is Linux, same story afaik. So I just avoid the tiny iPhone mini display – which was my intention in selecting that model, if you can’t see the display you can’t walk around with your nose glued to it. Which I then defeated by purchasing an iPad. Oops.
On my legacy iPad and Mac mini running on a legacy OS I can invert my screen colors which makes NC pages black with white type and blue links. Newer OSes can do a ‘smart’ option that inverts all the colors except those in photos and videos.
Not a Display option, this is switched on in an Accessibility control panel on my mini, may be done differently on newer operating systems.
I do like Optima (?) but the older I get, the harder it is to read. Most devices will let you ‘smooth’ text, increase contrast, etc. which helps and if you’re looking at a bigger screen you should be able to set up multiple screen configurations. I have one of my settings finetuned just for reading.
Quick update: Almost all my computer problems were fixed by asking DeepSeek how to hack my Mac and in that regard the Chinese were remarkably helpful. Apple abandons legacy systems but seems to leave ALL the data collection channels on but I do not know if that was the actual issue or if my legacy system was being attacked via an ethernet vulnerability that I shut down by using yet another DeepSeek hack : ) #FightThePower
On a mobile, “Dark Mode” does something similar. All da kidz use it. Ironically taking them back to how computers were in the beginning!
You should be able to correct for this using a browser add-on that changes to the colors you prefer by using CSS.
Ok, thanks, Rev and Acacia!
If you use Firefox, a simpler option is to just click on the ‘Reader view’ button at the right side of the address bar. Or in the menus View/Enter Reader View
What cfraenkel says, and also using reader view will work on anything you can install Firefox on, including iOS and Linux.
Reader view will also get you past a lot of paywalls.
Reader view is also available on chrome, but not by default. I use a chrome browser called vivaldi and although reader view works with the main page it fails to show comments
Reader View in Firefox usually requires a “reload” of the page to include full text of article.
In any case, most modern web browsers allow maniputation of the web page.
Thanks very much!
The reader view for me doesn’t include comments sections of most websites including NC.
Re Long COVID service in UK. I’m under one. Mixed bag. Good on peer support, exchange of information about individual experiences, separating the main sequelae into different online sessions.
Got a very on the ball senior nurse leading it locally who intervened when a load of other stuff kicked off which I can’t talk about here.
The service is, however, slow in recognising the newest developments (which I generally hear about here on NC long before the official service!) I can confirm GPs don’t even know if the service is running or still running….. senior partner at my General Practice had done referral admitting she didn’t know if she was referring me to anything!
Doom Scroll. That is what I call my morning stroll through Links and a collection of websites that have attracted and held my interest, many for years. It has long been a sardonic and cynical label that did not deter extensive reading. I have an abiding interest in the affairs of the world. But, of late, the rising intensity of the drumbeat of inhumanity and stupidity has been such that headline after headline brings nothing but more of the same. I get it. Israel wants to remove all the Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank. It wants a chunk of Lebanon and of Syria. It wants Iran emasculated. It wants perfect and eternal security. The US is right there aiding and abetting, defending and supplying, cheer leading and violating the rights of Americans to further genocide, ethnic cleansing, and aggression all in the name of self-defense. Explain to me how it is self-defense to listen to the cries of people trapped under rubble and do nothing. The cries have stopped. How is it self defense to bomb Lebanon at will or is it on a whim and during a cease fire. Or is it a ceasefire for them but not for me? How is it that American congress critters and senators of both parties vote in all but lock step to support what I can only call atrocities? Have they not eyes to see or ears to hear? How can some, Senator Graham comes to. mind, urge continued material support to continue a war in Ukraine that is slaughtering the soldiers on the front lines and leading to the dismantling of the very material structure of Ukraine. Must it go on to the last Ukrainian? Is the “strategic defeat” of Russia so important to The United States that another nation must be destroyed to accomplish it? Never mind that this ‘policy’ was based on false premises and mistaken assumptions. Never mind that this has been obvious to anyone with eyes to see since the beginning. “Neck deep in the Big Muddy” and the fools said press on. And on and on and on. The republic is gone and the empire is going, but, of course, there is still money to be made and reputations to be preserved. Reality be damned.
I hear and feel you JMH. Thank you for painting it so eloquently, as depressing at it is.
Bears making themselves at home. Just don’t feed the bears or generally the wildlife, as I will often see on the Instagram postings from varied national parks. Quite often on the local news from Asheville or western NC there are anecdotes about a friendly bear visiting a porch or backyard.
Hey hey Boo Boo, is that a swimming pool or a very nice cement pond ?
I wonder if those folks have ever watched Herzog’s Grizzly Man? While the bears shown in the video are black bears, which as a rule are much less inclined to attack humans than grizzlies, it is not unheard of, particularly when they’re hungry or to defend their cubs. Habituating even friendly bears to humans often ends badly. A case of when cuteness kills. A good book on the topic is Stephen Herrero’s Bear Attacks: Their Causes and Avoidance.
Bear wandered across my porch a month ago in western NC. They come out this time of year looking for trash cans to toss. A few years ago, one crawled up into mine for awhile. Finally decided I’d just drive my trash to the collection site weekly, less drama.
This hefty Black Bear that weighs in at around 400 pounds and has been named Bernie, is the scourge of lower Mineral King road, about 18 miles from my cabin.
Bernie takes full locked metal trash can bins and tosses them like 5-10 feet, and there is this one spot where trash is always strewn about as a testament to his dexterity in getting into the goods~
Allowing bears to habituate to humans, tolerating destructive behavior such as garbage picking, creates Problem Bears. Only one solution to a problem bear – they make very good sausage. And the pelt is lovely. Around my camp, the bears eat tons of berries (salmonberries, thimbleberries, blackberries, raspberries) and native plums, and leave massive scats. However, they are quite respectful, as (I suspect) they know the penalty for bad behavior. Still I keep a 12 gauge loaded with slugs just in case.
You might try non-lethal shot. Park rangers and some ranchers I know of make this their first choice for problem bears that are not aggressive toward humans. Best used if you’re in a position to have some backup means of thwarting a charging bear. Good luck out there.
Thanks! The one bear I was worried about was trashing my neighbor’s garden and now he’s sausage. He made a mess of many of my native plums – climbing, claw marks, broken branches – but the latest bear is bigger and doesn’t climb!
Many of the habitual bear break ins here are at AirBnB’s, and it wasn’t as if Bob & Betty Bitchin’ and their kids Trevor & Truly from Burbank signed up online when making the STR reservation, to also take the bear trash safety course.
re: RU nuclear doctrine
Below linked is part 1 of a 2-part text which is an abridged version of an essay by Dmitry Trenin, Sergei Avakyants, Sergei Karaganov.
I don´t regard Karaganov as a serious voice beyond his personal agenda. Then it is rather odd that it is exclusively a Trenin who is being quoted in Germany on these matters. As far as I remember there are better informed people.
So that leaves us with the Admiral Avakyants who I do not know.
I wasn´t able to archive the google-translation – so those of you who wanna read translate it – it’s not paywalled.
Part 2 will probably follow soon:
Strategic Change: Why Russia is rethinking its military doctrine – and what that means
July 16, 2025
by Dmitry Trenin, Sergei Avakyants, Sergei Karaganov
https://www.telepolis.de/features/Strategischer-Wandel-Warum-Russland-seine-Militaerdoktrin-ueberdenkt-und-was-das-bedeutet-10488688.html
Russia is fundamentally reviewing its military strategy. The Ukraine conflict has revealed weaknesses. What is the Kremlin planning? (Part 1)
This document, of which Telepolis is publishing significant portions in German translation for the first time in cooperation with the Potsdam-based Welttrends publishing house, offers in-depth insight into current Russian nuclear doctrine and its security policy implications. The paper highlights the radicalization of Russia’s stance and the growing dangers of a nuclear exchange. This exclusive work, based on a broad Russian expert analysis, is intended to raise awareness among politicians, scientists, and the public and contribute to the disarmament debate. The full version is available from our cooperation partner, Welttrends publishing house .
The authors:
Dmitry Vitalyevich Trenin is Scientific Director of the Institute for Global Military Economics and Strategy, Research Professor at the Faculty of World Economy and World Politics, National Research University Higher School of Economics, and Member of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy. Lead author of the report.
Sergei Iosifovich Avakyants – Admiral, Director of the Institute of Global Military Economics and Strategy, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Member of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy.
Sergei Alexandrovich Karaganov – Honored Professor, Academic Director of the Faculty of World Economy and World Politics, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Honorary Chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy. Head of the author team and co-editor-in-chief of the report.
Trump asked Zelenskiy if Ukraine could hit Moscow, FT reports – Straits Times
What ever happened to armies fighting armies?
Trump thinks Hitler’s V-1 and V-2 were strategic successes.
Can’t resist a rocket limerick here:
“There once was a thing called a V-2
To pilot which you did not need to.
You just pushed a button, and it would leave nothin’
But stiffs and big holes and debris too.”
Pynchon “Gravity’s Rainbow”
There once was a V-2 not aimed at Nantucket
Instead it landed in a umbrella bucket
The last words he spoke as it took out a bloke
‘Looks like a heavy rain’
👍
My favourite thread today
Der Führer thought Vergeltungswaffen
Would conquer him those Inselaffen
But Werner von Braun
Let the German Reich down
And went off to join NASA’s staffin’!
“Can’t resist a rocket limerick here:”
😂
Tx
It’s all fun and games ‘til someone gets JASSM in the mouth.
Not only him…
Bond market saying quiet part out loud…either we in the US continue apace to grow via annualized GDP of roughly 2.25 to 3.0 %…which carries with it ongoing but now kinda tapered inflation pressures. Just my view and I can always be wrong . Or if “we” / this administration somehow manages to crash this MAGA train off a cliff then deficit spending will grow worse as revenues from the corporate sector shrivel in a contraction, even if that avoids any recession.
Of all people I got to hand it to mouth of the South, Jimmy Carville. Being reincarnated as the bond market is a highly memorable quote we’re gonna be using still in the next quarter century, absent the imperial decline or any one of several doom loop scenarios.
US needs a measure of “core” GDP. One that does not count the growth of US government purchases on no payback “services, equipment and expendables” to shore up the empire’s vassals.
Here is a starter kit on understanding the various* machinations involved on quarterly GDP results. My own searching results included a variety of points worth passing along but maybe I’ll circle back to that. I’m here to help but there are limits!
* reports can be like seeing the economic sausage being made, so to speak. The odd news cycle around the tariffs has been the reporting or realization, that American manufacturing had been awhile back, shifted out of town / state to ultimately out of the country, whether in full or in part. Hey we see you now Jack Welch and Chainsaw Al.
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp-growth
Yesterday’s workplace earnings figures show that the workweek on the floor is steadily shrinking again after the COVID distortions. The slope of the fall is similar to the 2001 – 2003 time period. Not putting them off yet and wages are not falling,also the supervisor hours are steady but hours of work available are disappearing slowly.
Anecdotally, I’m doing more work. We could double our staff. Ain’ gonna happen. Raises 2-3%. Rent 10% per year
Nat Wilson Turner mentioned this the other day, and I immediately thought of championship flood teams…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I had to share Gov. Abbott’s full “football” speech about the floods but didn’t have room in the main post:
Let me explain one thing about Texas and that is Texas.
Every square inch of our state cares about football.
You could be in Hunt, Texas. Huntsville, Texas.
Houston, Texas. Any size community.
They care about football. High school.
Friday night lights. College football or pro and know this.
Every football team makes mistakes.
The losing teams are the ones that try to point out who’s to blame.
The championship teams are the ones that say,
don’t worry about it, man, we got this.
We’re going to make sure that we go score again and we’re going to win this game.
The way winners talk is not to point fingers.
They talk about solutions. What Texas is all about is solutions.
It should be noted that Abbott was repeatedly pointing his finger while giving us mopes this pep talk.
2, 4, 6, 8
There’s a disaster here
Must equivocate
Go team!
The stars at night
Are big and bright
Deep in the heart of Texas
The prairie sky
Is wide and high
Deep in the heart of Texas
The coyotes wail
No business along the trail
Deep in the heart of Texas
The rabid right beat
Around the bush
Deep in the heart of Texas
The chickenhawks
Are full of squawks
Deep in the heart of Texas
The oil wells
Are owned by swells
Deep in the heart of Texas
The chemical plants
Are tough on plants
Deep in the heart of Texas
That’s why perhaps
They all wish they could wear masks
Deep in the heart of Texas
The Cowboys cry
“Ka-yippie aye, yi, yi!” (Woo-hoo!)
In regards to Dak taking many a sack
Deep in the heart of Texas
The Big Hairs bawl
And say “you all”
Deep in the heart of Texas
Well the state does have some very serious citizens when it comes to their football. Just look at the iconic coach Bud Kilmer, gonna lead the Coyotes to another district title in 2025! \sarc
“I don’t want your life.” Quoting the lead protagonist here, and it maybe not quite in the rarefied air for movie quotes but Varsity Blues was a funny, entertaining look at overly serious parents highly engaged in the local team sport. Oh and the high school kids trying for one last season of highlights and fun.
To extend the metaphor, the “winners don’t point fingers” quality in football does not extend to fans, for whom armchair quarterbacking and calls for this or that player to be benched, coach to be fired etc. is a regular activity.
Also, just because a coach may be solution focused during a game doesn’t mean that their ‘solution’ to an underperforming player might not be to park their ass on the bench for the rest of the season, or release them. Or that said coach won’t receive their marching papers if the underperformance becomes general and sustained.
College and pro football in the US is as ruthless and results-driven as any high level sports industry, nowhere more so than Texas. I don’t see football fans buying this analogy.
Actually, during the recent floods, Texas was “in solution.”
I would caption the gorilla mom saying: “Oy gevalt.”
“Russia Goes on the Offensive Against US Investors in an Odessa Port”
This could be a new tactic on the part of the Russians. Attack any western investments in the Ukraine to hit them where it hurts – in the hip pocket nerve. Those investors might run back to Trump and VdL to complain about their investment being turned to ash but hey, who makes investments in a war zone and not expect something to happen to them. Come to think of it, quite a few US politicians were investing in the Ukraine before the war like Pelosi’s son. I wonder if they still have investments there or whether they got their money out. BlackRock is pulling out of the Ukraine and when you have lost BlackRock…
From an American’s individual standpoint, will losing the war in the Ukraine mean a hill of beans?
The one visual reminder here in Tiny Town is a local who is on Ukraine flag #3 now, keeps it pointed sideways and its about 20 feet from the road on his property, can’t miss it. Cheap Chinese made flags don’t last long, the fade is set in again on the latest version, and you get the idea he’s just waiting out the end of the war, no new flag for you!
So yeah, from a Joe Sixpack or Jane Chardonnay standpoint, not only do they not care, but about 99% couldn’t place Ukraine on a map of the world, if it only had delineated borders and no names.
Well, aside from the huge amounts of money wasted that could have been spent at home.
The Crypto Man
The Crypto man, hey Crypto man
Hey kids, gather round! The crypto man is here. What kind of scam do you want?
Memecoins? Stablecoins? Target Date 2030 retirement funds stuffed with Bitcoin like a Thanksgiving day turkey?
Well, gather round everyone, you’ve come to the right man, ’cause I’m the Crypto man!
Who can take a bezzle? (Who can take a bezzle?)
Sprinkle it with fraud? (Sprinkle it with fraud)
Cover it with a prospectus full of legal crud
The crypto man (the crypto man)
Oh, the crypto man can! (the crypto man can)
The crypto man can, cause he mixes it with greed and makes the world taste good
(makes the world taste good)
Who can take pure vapor (who can take pure vapor)
Wrap it in a lie? (wrap it in a lie)
Soak it in some blockchain, make a groovy bird-shit pie
The crypto man (the crypto man)
The crypto man can! (The crypto man can)
The crypto man can, cause he mixes it with greed and makes the world taste good
(makes the world taste good)
The crypto man fakes everything he bakes
Felonious and delicious
Now you talk about your get-rich wishes
Bet your net worth is fictitious!
Oh, who can take tomorrow (who can take tomorrow?)
Sell it on a whim (sell it on a whim)
End a tale in sorrow and collect up all the skim
The crypto man, (the crypto man), the crypto man can
The crypto man can, cause he mixes it with greed and makes the poop taste good
(makes the poop taste good)
The crypto man fakes everything he bakes
Felonious and delicious
Now you talk about your get-rich wishes
Bet your net worth is fictitious! (and … it’s gone!)
Oh, who can take tomorrow (who can take tomorrow?)
Sell it for a whim (sell it for a whim)
End a tale in sorrow and collect up all the skim
The crypto man, (the crypto man), the crypto man can
(The crypto man can)
The crypto man can, cause he mixes it with greed and makes the lie taste good
(makes the lie taste good)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIPGyKGuWeA&list=RDA4zBSnMhvI0&index=2
Well done!
Any of those cryptos contain high fuctose con surreptitious?
It’s as clear as day that the plan is to distribute the bird poop as widely and thinly as possible, with a little bit here, a little bit in your grandma’s pension fund, so that when the walls come tumbling down, it’s a giant poop sandwich and we all get to take a bite.
Until Trump version 2.0, it was all young male adults who were walking the primrose path to pyrite prowess, but now it seems as if the Feds want in too~
Its all fun and games until an economy gets hurt…
This is one of the worst poop sandwiches I’ve ever had
Feel free to assign this quote..,
“What Were Federal Agents Doing at a Puerto Rican Museum in Chicago?”
Rumour has it that in a sign of mutual support, that the next time the Feds try something like that a nearby Mexican cultural center will send in help in the form of a Mariachi band who will follow the Feds around that Museum while showing off their musical talent.
I’m lucky to have with me in the flesh… Politenessman, and good manners are a must!
He inquiries whether it was all just a mistake and the Federal Agents were there in the windy city to take in Puerto Rican culture, and everybody knows Lake Michigan is a rich door to such things, just imagine the Ricky Martin wing?
He would yet wield the steel hankie, but the train don’t stop at the iron works anymore.
“The Pentagon wants to build drones without Chinese parts. It’s off to a bad start.”
One suspects that there were plenty of experts who could have explained how this will not be possible for years – at least – but none of them wanted to have a Gabbard done on them. We have had three and a half years of war in the Ukraine to demonstrate how it is all about industrial production and yet like with the production of these drones, nothing has been learned at all. That it does not matter how much money you throw at the problem, that if it can’t be done then it can’t be done.
A popular far-right political party in Japan has been accused of receiving funding from Russia. This allegation surfaced just before the elections for the House of Councillors.
https://www.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/1m0k214/candidates_from_the_sanseito_party_appear_in/
Sanseito is campaigning on anti-immigrant xenophobia. They say eating wheat and melonpan will kill you. They think all women should stay home, have three children, and only then should women be allowed to enter the workforce with a high school diploma. They sell a variety of “goods” like a multi level marketing scheme.
And they have become one of the top parties.
We have a Confidence Man running our government now. They’re just playing catch up. Not to mention Labour, or Tory Lite, over in the UK.
Indeed. Tachibana even refers to himself as “Japanese Trump”. It’s all pretty cringe.
It’s Not Just Epstein. MAGA Is Angry About a Lot of Things – Wired
This Epstein episode has also brought back memories of another scandal.
I’ve never believed that all of those young boys in the institutions around Sandusky over a period of decades were only for “use’ by Sandusky.
Psyop by Blinken or Iran’s ineptitude.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quFxXmoRUBo
Blinken’s explosive Iran revelation raises questions on Trump-Netanyahu relation | Janta Ka Reporter
Thanks! I like Janta Ka and he has fast turnaround on a lot of fresh developments.
Blinky is sore that Little Marco got his job and he can’t go jam with Ukronazis any more?
Blinky played guitar
Jamming good with Klaus and Adolf
And the Azov all-stars
While we bitched about his sins
and must we kiss his sweet rings
When Mossad killed the man,
I had to reboot the plan!
OOOOOOOOH!
Blinky strayed, too far.
Heh, Epstein shows up even here.
The theory Janta Ka relates is that Trump is being blackmailed by the Israelis over Epstein.
Thanks. I did watch most of the video, but stopped before that part.
It seems that Trump has met his Waterloo with the Epstein files. There is one thing that folks can’t stand, and that’s betrayal. This is going to hound him for the rest of his mis-administration.
I have my own theory. Bibi dug up pictures of little Donnie being a party favor at one of Roy Cohn’s shin-digs. “Nice presidency you have here, pity if something should happen to it . . .”
That would explain the relentless need to prove himself in business and the infantile name-calling of others.
Displaced rage.
I think your theory has legs.
Or something like that.
Some of the dog-video encounters were really cute, but I had to stop watching:
1) Why on earth do people support the breeding, buying, and selling of dogs by getting purebreds? Pet shelters are overflowing. There are plenty of foster-based programs so that you can get a pet to match your desires and needs!
2) Can’t believe people put their smaller, younger dogs in such unsafe situations. There’s way too big a size difference in some of those videos, and some of those little dogs are clearly not safe.
That’s my 2 cents’ worth. Please pet your pet and consider adopting another!
re: NATO expansion history
From PASCAL LOTTAZ
Yes, ‘Not an Inch to the East’ Was Binding Under International Law
Not only is the historical record on Western promises to the USSR regarding NATO expansion crystal clear, there is also an ICJ ruling confirming that verbal commitments are legally binding.
Pascal Lottaz
Jul 11, 2025
https://pascallottaz.substack.com/p/yes-not-an-inch-to-the-east-was-binding
And this item from 3 years ago:
Interview with French SoS Roland Dumas which I watched then sensing it is important. Dumas died last year.
He confirms as witness – if I recall correctly – that it was regarded as binding by all parties as that was the way it had been always done. Regardless of in speech only or on paper too.
In this interview on http://www.les-crises.fr, Roland Dumas, French Foreign Minister during the crucial period from 1989 to 1991, explains the negotiations with the USSR and confirms the verbal promise he and other leading politicians made at the time not to expand NATO eastwards in the future.
27 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=onuDtr2Kgb4
It seems to me that ICE has created a business opportunity for the cartels.
All they need is one “ICE” raid jacket, one unmarked van and 4-5 masked men in camo to kidnap wealthy people off the street.
Witness it and it’s just another Government kidnap squad preserving our rights, call 911 and they will say “No worries, it’s just ICE”.
Sooner or later one of these ICE snatch squads is going to go after some random Hispanic-looking guy walking down the street because he might possibly, maybe, could be an illegal – only to find out too late that that guy is actually an off-duty Navy seal or Delta force commando. Much hilarity will ensue.
“Another casualty of trade wars- we can’t get transformers”
In three full years, none of our business ‘leaders’, ‘innovators’ or titans have taken any significant action to invest, train, or recruit to address this need? What– too busy with stock buybacks and jockeying for position at the inauguration and/or Bezos wedding?
Hey! Fundamental infrastructure that will last 10, 25 years or longer will cost serious money. They’ve got it. Sitting on their hands for years waiting for projected costs to magically decline is unacceptable– but they’ve done so for decades. No real surprise, though the linked article seems to want to pick the story up from May ’22.
Is fabricating power transformers somehow really tough to do? On paper at least, it’s century-old technology and everything involved must be well understood.
Seems like everything is in place for a stable and long-running business model: guaranteed demand at a known product volume in perpetuity.
Yes transformers are easy to make, not complicated machines.
But the US market didn’t grow very much for 20 years +/-, so why invest in more capacity.
Testing big transformers takes expensive gear.
Given all the money from the IRA, the lack of smart targeted manufacturing investment was epic.
The amount to double or triple production was just less than a billion dollars.
Not to mention the lack of investment in new technology conductors and switch gear etc.
Or buy from China, which is where a lot of the raw materials and refined materials come from.
Was on the 10 freeway just past the 405 headed west an hour after the 1994 earthquake and an hour before sunrise, when a transformer blew up hundreds of feet from the freeway. It was tantamount to a fireworks show, but instead of slowly shooting off things, it all went at once, oh the colors!
Making the quantity needed to serve the many transformers owned by the public is a challenge, as well as changing standards for transformers. NREL did a pretty thorough study of the problem. Here’s their summary. We’re also developing new ways to make them to extend useful life and performance. Those new methods aren’t trivial to implement.
We’d be up against this problem even if we hadn’t ignored support of these critical components. But we didn’t invest in the supply needed to manufacture transformers, so here we are.
Making artillery shells is even less complicated than transformers, and still the whole Western World is uncapable of matching the output of North Korea. Why? Because the profit margin is just not big enough. Missiles that cost millions a pop are what capital likes.
@ Munchausen
I am given to understand that modern artillery uses a lot of cotton in the production of its propellant. And a lot of this cotton was sourced from Xinjiang in China – until the US put a ban on cotton from that region for political reasons. This then put a crimp on artillery production so the US and the EU then did the only thing that they could – blame China for restricting the export of that cotton.
It’s not that modern artillery uses a lot of propellant, but that lots of shells use lots of everything. You need supply lines for large ammounts of steel, brass, explosive, and propellant. Also, you need factories to process those in high volumes. I guess steel and brass are easlly available because they are used for other stuff. Gun cotton and explosives are niche stuff that you can’t just get from your local farmers market. :)
They are also limited by shell casting ability, and probably even by explosive availability. Forging shells is simple, but not making a factory that would do it in large numbers. It’s hard, and not very profitable.
P.S. Speaking of cotton and guns, someone should do world a favor and fire Tom Cotton out of a cannon.
435 thread count?
Good piece by Radley Balko:
https://radleybalko.substack.com/p/the-police-militarization-debate
RE: UK Dairy farmers are facing a crisis
The article notes that farmers are feeding their herds grain because pastures have dried up. Meanwhile, on this side of the pond, my relatives, who already sold their herd a couple years ago, have been selling hay to others with no cows of their own to feed. This year they are having a very difficult time cutting any hay because it won’t stop raining and it’s too wet. Meanwhile wars to control fossil fuels rage on.
Jesus wept. But apparently not on any UK pastures.
>This year they are having a very difficult time cutting any hay because it won’t stop raining and it’s too wet. Meanwhile wars to control fossil fuels rage on
Amen to that, it’s been tough to get three days of great weather in Northern Vermont to make decent hay.
If it keeps up hay will certainly be a valuable commodity this winter.
What are the economics of life in Gaza?
Frances Coppola is a UK economist, in this Novara Live interview she offers some answers. Self admittedly she had (and IMO still has) catching up to do on the Palestine history. She is joined at ca 33:40:
https://novaramedia.com/2025/07/16/emergency-conference-in-response-to-israels-war-crimes/
This is after her piece in the Mint Magazine:
Bread line not the cashline
Gazans (without International aid) have a cash economy of (cut off with the 2023 blockade) physical Israeli shekels.
Some information I did not have.
As Iran Deports a Million Afghans, ‘Where Do We Even Go?’ (NY Times)
You gotta so love the NY Times.
– The United States occupied and decimated Afghanistan for 20 years
– The United States has engaged in economic warfare with Iran for decades and decades
So yes, Afghanis are in fact suffering a plight.
And the United States has been a serious contributor to this tragedy. But here, the goal is simply to point out how terrible these Iranians are, lol.
If there was ever a newspaper that relished asking if you still beat your wife, it is the NY Times.
And who’s to blame?
Those dastardly Iranians!
Lots of Afghanis and Haitians moved into EC San Diego over the last several years. Maybe Trump will take ‘em, er
What, or where, is “EC San Diego?”
We have plenty of grass in Devon. My guess is the grass that has failed is “improved” grassland and regularly seeded herbal leys, which is the sort of nonsense farmers have got trapped into doing on the “better” agricultural land in Wiltshire etc.
Whereas my “unimproved” low input rough permanent pasture looks like shit in a wet winter or summer but grows robust grass with a rich species-mix of plentiful herbage in it, come rain or shine. Our grazier says his cows prefer the hay off our fields to off his own.
I would post a picture from the weekend, of the hay cut in a rushy field and the vigorous bright green regrowth, if I could.
That said, in the last week, the fields in Devon started to yellow more. But wetter weather is on the way….
The housing bubble is crapping out for entirely different reasons than the imbrogliou situation of 2007-08.
I think one of the main factors is simply cost.
When I became an adult, a 3/2 SFH built in 1971 in LA was worth around $100k in 1980, now the very same tired 54 year old home is worth a million bucks~
You’d be looking at $100k a year in mortgage payments for 30 years doing time in the big house.
The other biggie is AirBnB. These homes were bought with the express thought that the idea was to make money on the rentier economy, but as the value of their garage mahals falls, a bunch of would-be Hiltons are gonna want to jump ship, and be careful-that isn’t water below, it’s vintage concrete.
Daydreaming: Seems like the best alternate future would be if Russia announced that it was going to eliminate some appropriate US bases in 3 days and that the sites should be evacuated before that time.
It doesn’t seem like *this* would drive the US to a nuclear escalation, but it would directly reduce the US ability to warmonger. It also seems like a good strategy for dealing with a bully.
Other countries could follow in a trend, all witnessed on social media..Come to think of it, a trend that will be seen to have started in Africa.
Africa is also the place where anti-imperialism is the strongest. The Alliance of Sahel States is an underappreciated threat to Empire.
So many thoughts rolling around in my head today!
saludos
It’s beginning to look like ICE is going to deport all them Puerto Ricans, send them back where they came from, by god!
I hear a wind
Whistling air
Whispering
In my ear
Boy Mercury shooting through every degree
Oh interest rates dancing down those dirty and dusty trails
Take it hip to hip, kicked out into the wilderness
Around the world the trip begins with a diss
Jerome if you want to
Roam around the world
Jerome if you want to
Without morass, without your grasp
Roam if you want to
Roam around the world
Jerome if you want to
Without anything but the loathe we feel
Skip the airstrip to the sunset, yeah
Ride the arrow to the target interest rate, one
Take it hip to hip, kicked out into the wilderness
Around the world the trip begins with a diss
Jerome if you want to
Roam around the world
Jerome if you want to
Without morass, without your grasp
Roam if you want to
Roam around the world
Jerome if you want to
Without anything but the loathe we feel
Fly the great big sky
See the great big sea
Kick through continents
Busting boundaries
Take it hip to hip, kicked out into the wilderness
Around the world the trip begins with a diss
Not saying that Bessent is heaven sent as next Fed chief, but it rhymes.
Roam, by the B-52’s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuJDNYT3n0w&list=RDFuJDNYT3n0w
I thought this topic might be of interest to the NC community as it deals with a combination of popular issues. Income inequality, classism, climate change, children, families, increasing costs, and nostalgia for better times. I’m talking about summer camp of course.
For us, post pandemic shutdowns, our youngest has been sent to a camp in New England that I could never have imagined sending kids to when we had several youngins at home. The cost is about $1000 per week. Not including the costs to travel to and from the camp. Far in excess of what they discuss in that Guardian article.
For comparison, my middle child has been a camp counselor at a different camp for the past several years. It’s a paid position for him, with part of the pay coming in the form of room and board. They make out OK over the summer in terms of salary and have a fantastic time, but the cost of attending the allegedly free camp includes tolls each weekend when they have to return home, gas, time, food support during the week, clothes, etc. We figure it comes to about $150 a week. The benefits of sending them to these camps include getting them work experience, making connections with friends, letters of recommendation for college, and of course, a kid free house. And the camps are located in places where flooding and heat extremes are not threats. All for the reasonable price of $6000 a summer. And I know we’re not at the high end of things. Which of course makes me wonder how far up the scale things go.
Regardless, the people sending their kids to these places don’t see the effects of climate change, loss of opportunity, or face hardships from inflation. Their kids won’t either.
I have over the many years the great rise of sending middle and upper middle class kids to camp, as well as the pressure for those seeking to go to “better” colleges to do something impressive-seeming over their summers. I’ll keep an eye out for more material.
It’s like watching a school to country club pipeline in action?
The kids who have attended as campers often earn the ability to be CITs (counselors in training) and then paid counselors. During that time they accumulate the experience necessary to demonstrate they understand how to party at a lake, be in a boat, participate in social settings, share experiences from their camp years, etc.
Paid camp counselors, based on experiences of my kids, earn a salary of roughly 3k$ per summer (typically 8-10 weeks total) before tips. Tips for the cabin supervisors run about $100 – $200 (cash), per kid in the cabin. Most cabins have 10ish kids. For favorite counselors or coaches, more is given. Parents of the kids shake hands with the counselors and promise them internships once they’re in college, etc. Not a bad deal for a 17 year old kid! And these kinds of camps have kids attending from all over the world, which gives other advantages to the campers.
Throw this on the same pile of regularly skiing with your family when growing up. There is a set of experiences which distinguishes kids by class and then results in employment opportunities later. This is not teachable and can’t really be faked. Our next Epstein’s and Nuland’s and Kagan’s and Kershner’s and Thiel’s are meeting in this environment and learning what they need to know to be Masters of the Universe when they’ve shed their juvenile chrysalis.
I forgot what was the name given here for Trump’s distraction-of-the-day, but here’s one hot out of the oven:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/food/2025/07/16/coca-cola-cane-sugar-trump/85249239007/
President Donald Trump announced Wednesday afternoon, July 16 that Coca-Cola has agreed to use real cane sugar for its soda beverages sold in the U.S.
…but isn’t teetotalitarian leader strictly a Diet Coke drinker?
Or go to any Mexican-themed grocery store and buy all the sugar Coke you want. People have done that since the days of New Coke.
That will be the second part of the TACO routine. :)
President Donald Trump announced Thursday afternoon, July 17 that you can go to any Mexican-themed grocery store and buy all the sugar Coke you want in the U.S.
7-16-2025 ups chick
I havent seen her in more than a month…and save for the flood event….have been out in the road on weekdays between 11:30 and 12:30.
only ups truck ive seen…3 weeks ago…had a surly lookin dude driving.
And the 1 out of 5 ups trucks ive seen in town where I was able to get a look at the driver, it was a dude.
So I just dont know.
As I wouldnt,lol…because its pathetic!
She’s been smiling and waving at me for 7 months, and stopped to talk to me twice.
Cassie is her name…and she knows mine.
The next step for me was to offer her lunch on the go…killer pasta salad w a buncha peppers and onions and herbs and cukes from the garden.
With wrapped to-go cutlery, to boot!
Or, variously…grapes, figs…soon nectarines…then pears and tomatoes….
anything to further communication and appeal.
Maybe ten minutes of speech between us over those two stops…but I felt a connection,lol.
She’s the one who stopped, after all…i didnt flag her down or be a roadblock.
I just tipped my hat, like always.
As is my wont, I have even dreamed of her…and not in any kind of lurid manner…but of her at the bar, eating dinner.
It’s a testament to just how desperate I am for female companionship…i am terrible at meeting people…especially women.
Because i’m strange and heterodox in almost every aspect.
I met people at school, and at work.
And I have neither, these days.
And as ive said, I havent the $ to hang around the bars…or go eat alone with a book at one of the cafe’s.
And I am depressed, all the time.
Because I am alone, all the time.
So I drink too much.
I am poor enough to consider myself among the People of the Abyss(jack london)…but I am quite rich in many non-monetary ways.
Working farm, and all.
me being a retired Chef…as well as a frelling genius… plus lots of farm produce, means I eat better than many of the rich folks I know(i mean, “tater tot casserole”? Really?)
regardless….it’s weird that I miss someone i’ve only spoken to for maybe ten or fifteen minutes.
And whom I know next to nothing about…except what I can glean from her speech, and what she chose to talk about…both times…that she’s white trash…likely with redneck tendencies(a ++)and is interested in gardening.
And is apparently interested in lil ol me,lol.
Which is a giant ++++.
she IS cute!…even up close.
And fit, with a tight bod and a giant braid down her back…meaning that her hair, unbound, would be very long.
Likely down to her ass.
Driving for ups, means she’s bonded….which at least implies trustworthiness, to at least some degree.
Out here, ups has long had a policy of keeping drivers to longstanding routes…i knew her predecessor, Janet, for might near 25 years, ere she retired.
But I have no idea what their current policies are.
“avoid dirt roads that have been washed out”…?
(my road is more or less passable, by now)
did she quit? Get reassigned?
I have no clue.
But, hell…she knows where I live!
She prolly lives in brownwood(where ups hub is) or early, or somewhere up there.
That’s an hour from me.
Hour drive aint a big deal for city dwellers…but it’s a big deal out here.
I get it.
But she doesnt yet know that I am a widower, and therefore open for a relationship.
I have no idea of her status.
Might be a muff diving right wing nutjob with a jesus fetish for all I know.(all of which I can cure, with patience and enough time,lol)
the Point in all of this…is that she is currently my only real prospect for obtaining a female human companion…even just once in a while,lol…and that, my friends, is pathetic, indeed.
If you curated all your comments here over the years and put the best of them in an ebook, you’d have more “interesting” visitors than the Village Idiot in the Monty Python skit.
Be Well Friend!
welly.
i have no idea how to do that, specifically,lol
Yves, et alia keep me around for my on the ground human content.
and they have shown great tolerance for my excesses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCrbTwYhWdw
Any chance that one of your future daughters-in-law have older single women in their circles?
I remember you were talking about starting a video blog a while back. Have you recently thought about giving that a go? It’s one way to put yourself out there and build a following without having to leave your place.
Weren’t you being recruited to run for a county office? Go for it — you’ll meet a lot of people on the campaign trail.
amfortas
Be within
yourself
eat well
be well
It’s not pathetic, Amf! You miss her, with that quarter hour of interaction, and now you also miss your dreams of her in the rest of your hours. Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
HAD I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
W.B. Yeats (1865–1939)
And yet, you are doing much better than me.
“Jordan targeting Gaza solidarity in largest arrest campaign in decades”
I guess that the Jordanian king must be getting worried. After having his country fight alongside Israel and making huge profits getting aid to the Gazans, that he is worried that he may end up like Qaddafi with a bayonet up the Khyber.
Trump doubles down on Epstein bluster during an interview with Bannon’s network (via Guardian blog)
Asked by Solomon what he thought the FBI should investigate, Trump brought up Epstein, saying that the furor over the Epstein files, along with allegations that his 2016 campaign had benefited from Russian interference, and special counsel Jack Smith’s attempt to prosecute him for attempting to overturn his 2020 election loss, were “all the same scam”.
“They could look at this Jeffrey Epstein hoax also, because that’s the same stuff, that’s all put out by Democrats,” Trump said. “And you know some of the naive Republicans fall right into line.”
Trump went on to suggest that all of the files from the federal investigation into his late friend, the convicted sex offender Epstein, should not be released because they might include false information about him planted there by his Democratic rivals.
“All they have to do is put out anything credible,” Trump said, of the justice department’s decision not to release all of the Epstein files. “But, you know, that was run by the Biden administration for four years. I can imagine what they put into files,” Trump added.
He then suggested that files from the justice department’s investigation of the notorious sex trafficker and pedophile Epstein, who was arrested and died in jail in 2019 during Trump’s first term, were somehow as likely to be fake as allegations made against him in the Steele dossier.
Trump went on to suggest that the files on Epstein were of questionable veracity because they “were run by Chris Wray and they were run by Comey”, naming the two men who served as FBI director during his first term.
This will not go well for him I think. Rule 1 of being a gang boss: you can f with anybody except your own footsoldiers. Depicting Epstein truthers as “weaklings” will backfire. He looks very compromised.
The storm of words technique doesn’t work without the MAGA media complex spinning it.
He believes he can bully his base into line, but is mistaken.
“I never thought the leopards would eat MY face”, says man who spent last decade whipping-up leopards into a face-eating frenzy.
Read this earlier. This is unbelievable. He is actually dumping hard on his own base and calling them weaklings. Epstein is now the hill that he decided that he will die on. And saying that AG Bondi will release any Epstein files that she ‘thinks” is “credible” is just throwing more fuel to the fire. He now has divergent people like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Rep. Thomas Massie come together to force a vote on all the Epstein info being released. So who is going to vote against that happening? Names will be noted. How could be be so stupid?
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/07/16/politics/trump-epstein-weaklings-supporters
Mr. President, would you describe these people as ‘deplorables’?
Rev Kev: How could be be so stupid?
Truly amazing that a careless man with (to put it mildly) wandering hands would risk everything to keep what looks very like a high level sexual blackmail scheme run by one his associates away from scrutiny. Shocked, I am.
‘Truly amazing that a careless man with (to put it mildly) wandering hands’
That also describes Joe Biden to a tee and he did heaps of stuff that Trump would never do. Tara Reade would back me up here who had to flee to Russia for her own safety. As a minor example he used to swim nude in his swimming pool. Nothing wrong there except he got off on the fact that some of his Secret Service detail were women and liked to humiliate them.
It’s a bipartisan activity for sure – these Hasbaris are no ingenues. A pox on all their sordid houses.
I only started but Solomon posed the softest possible questions, basically repeating the Trump spin of “all these hoaxes perpetrated against you.”
America’s Protein Obsession Is Transforming the Dairy Industry (NY Times via archive.ph)
Interesting, but nothing about H5N1 or consolidation or monopoly power.
This is rich, lol.
Maybe Impeachment isn’t off the table.
Be careful what you Vance for.
Chris Hedges and Nick Bryant (a journalist who broke the Epstein story) on Epstein, Trump, and sexual blackmail:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GK114NGCM8
‘Who Killed Love?’ A Video Game Plays to Male Resentment in China.
Wowzers
There is an entire genre of this sort of video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ays0pYTsSCw
The local paper until recently had an agony aunt column. It was almost entirely about variants on the theme of farang men dating local women, getting drained, and being dumped.
Admittedly many expats here are sexpats, so they should be cognizant of the fact that the woman has to have a mercenary basis for “dating” a much older man (the age gap is typically quite large), even more so than is normally operative in male-female or male-male relations. That male perceptions of female economic exploitation seems to be happening at meaningful scale in China (which one assumes must be the case in China, or there are other reasons for misogyny, like women becoming super picky about who they date) to feed a game like this is striking.
I assume this is the result of the very skewed-in-favor-of-males birth ratio during the one child policy days, now coming home to roost in a shortage of adult women v. men. I have read about resentment in some Southeast Asian countries over the scale of Chinese men dating and marrying their women, thinning out the numbers available for local men.