Links 7/8/2025

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1. Antifa July 8, 2025 at 6:59 am

   Who Will Score?

   (melody borrowed from Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore written and performed by John Prine in 1970)

   (Colonel Douglas MacGregor often says that the average American has no interest in our foreign wars or in what makes our economy tick. Their attention is on a six pack and some TV football at the end of each day. Why follow topics you can’t do anything about? He suggests that only $10 per gallon for gas will wake them up.)

   Well, I swear that I’ve done my best   keepin’ track of the football score
   I love to rag on my quarterback   when I’m at the liquor store
   Then I booze it up eatin’ food that’s fried   yellin’ at the whole backfield
   As my big TV shows me every toss,   every play, and every steal

   And my low morale won’t let you   bring up topics I ignore
   My grasp of things is shrouded   by the six packs I live for
   I’m drinkin’ and I’m chillin’   while the wolf is at the door
   Can’t you be a pal? I’ll bet you   couple bucks on who will score!

   Well, I’d like to heed your warning   ’bout our bad economy
   ‘Bout buyin’ grub and my last pay stub   and the way things oughta be
   And I do admit that my life is shit   and Monday is the day I dread
   With a workin’ car and a good cigar   I’ll be workin’ till I fall down dead

   And my low morale won’t let you   bring up topics I ignore
   My grasp of things is shrouded   by the six packs I live for
   I’m drinkin’ and I’m chillin’   while the wolf is at the door
   Can’t you be a pal? I’ll bet you   couple bucks on who will score!

   Well, I’m never thrilled when a beer gets spilled   while I yell at my TV
   Don’t perturb—I mean don’t disturb—don’t you bother me
   Turnin’ up the sound for the second down   I couldn’t hear what you said
   I’m a hard workin’ man with a beat up van   just drinkin’ on my sofa bed

   And my low morale won’t let you   bring up topics I ignore
   My grasp of things is shrouded   by the six packs I live for
   I’m drinkin’ and I’m chillin’   while the wolf is at the door
   Can’t you be a pal? I’ll bet you   couple bucks on who will score!

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   1. Victor Sciamarelli July 8, 2025 at 8:04 am

      As much as I admire Colonel Douglas MacGregor, I have to disagree with his six pack and TV football line.
      I think a crucial fact is that Americans have never been bombed. Unlike the people of the industrial world, which know first hand what being bombed is really like even when they were on the winning side of the war, Americans have no idea about that experience and can’t imagine what it truly means.
      I know Americans like war movies, and the special effects are great, but I’ve never heard of anybody developing PTSD after watching a war movie.

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      1. GramSci July 8, 2025 at 9:14 am

         And then you have the EU: WWI, WWII, and lining up for more…

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      2. The Rev Kev July 8, 2025 at 9:36 am

         I think that Americans would not be able to handle a defeat very well going by past experience. Look at the former Confederates after the US Civil war that have never reconciled to being on the losing side and this has kept up for generation after generation. Had a mate once who was touring America and was in a bar in the south. When he and his mate started talking to each other they head this guy curse ‘Yankees!’ A group of them got up and headed over to him and when when he asked in his accent what they wanted they looked perplexed. The guy said ‘Where you’all from? When my mate said Australia, the guy chuckled and said ‘Awstraya? Why boy, we were about to kick your a**. How about a drink.’

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      3. Wukchumni July 8, 2025 at 9:43 am

         Hamburg was bombed into a hellscape, and Germans rebuilt it as there was no other option…

         Hamtramck was bombed into economic oblivion, and we never rebuilt the auto industry.

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      4. Antifa July 8, 2025 at 12:22 pm

         This song was based on real working guys, so I went and asked the roofers who are here today about us never being bombed as the chief reason they don’t give a f**k about politics, and especially about foreign wars. Seven American voters sitting in the shade for lunch.

         Nope. They just aren’t intellectual enough to know why or if any of it matters. They don’t know which state Peoria is in, nor how ES&S voting machines work, and damn sure don’t know where Azerbaijan is on a globe. They took a vote and decided it’s in Africa.

         But they know football, baseball, basketball all the way, in every way, all the players and coaches–and they put sweat money on what they know.

         Bombs? Bombs are something that happens to assholes who cross us.

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2. The Rev Kev July 8, 2025 at 7:15 am

   ‘乔华莘
   @qiaohuanxin
   Jul 7
   India shamelessly forged some 30 documents for the purchase of 120tons of rare earth and tried to re-sell to the western countries. It did not pass the screening of Chinese customs though and the Indian companies involved were revoked of the right to purchase Chinese rare earth again, for life. 江苏经济报，Jiangsu Economic Daily reports.’

   The trouble here is that those Indian companies have not only queered the pitch for every other company in India but probably for every country wanting to buy rare earths from China. Approval now will likely take much longer as the Chinese will take their sweet time investigating every single request. Of course you have to wonder if Modi and his government were behind these Indian companies in order to win favour with western nations.

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   1. Emma July 8, 2025 at 10:21 am

      When will we hear about US arms manufacturers cannibalizing old cars and washing machines for Chinese rare earth magnets?

      Reply ↓
3. Arby July 8, 2025 at 8:00 am

   Tipping point. Churchill flies to France to meet with his French allies at the moment of great crisis as the German Army breakthrough unhinges their joint defense strategy. Churchill turns to General Gamelin and asks: “Ou est la masse de manoeuvre” and Gamelan answers: “Aucune.” The desperate race for Dunkirk begins.

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   1. XXYY July 8, 2025 at 10:17 am

      “Where are your reserves?”

      “None.”

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      1. ambrit July 8, 2025 at 12:35 pm

         Which was not true. The French had some very good armoured units off to the East that could have been rushed to the point of contact, but weren’t. The French bungled the grand tactical aspect of the battle.
         One of the big what ifs in that debacle is what would have happened if Hitler had not stopped the German Army short of wiping out the British Expeditionary force. His front line generals wanted to drive the Brits into the sea immediately. That would have set the Allied recovery back by a year or more. All those trained troops either dead or captured would have severely hampered the recovery of the UK’s army.
         The lesson here is one that today’s generals should study closely. No plan survives contact with the enemy. And sometimes the enemies are in your capitol city.
         Stay safe.

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   2. Darthbobber July 8, 2025 at 12:31 pm

      I’m curious as to whether there are sources for that conversation other than Churchill himself. The “no significant reserves” thing was a recent and major change in Gamelin’s plans, after he had finished analyzing the reports from Poland.

      I find it difficult to believe that a change that big, and the redeployments that went with it, somehow escaped that attention of the British contingent, or for that matter that the French didn’t inform them.

      I do see why Churchill might have found in convenient to pretend that it came as a complete surprise.

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4. vao July 8, 2025 at 8:11 am

   A core argument of the article Australia’s Latest Temporary Military Deployment To Europe Is Connected To Containing China by Andrew Korybko is that there will be a quid pro quo between European NATO members and Australia:

   “by showing solidarity with NATO in its proxy war on Russia through Ukraine as explained above, Australia hopes that the bloc’s European members will repay the favor if it involves itself in a future AUKUS+ (AUKUS, Taiwan, Japan, and the Philippines) proxy war on China.”

   Now, let us see:

   1) Which European country has a presence in Oceania and in the Indian ocean that might possibly be of relevance when helping Australia against China?

   France: New Caledonia, Wallis & Futuna, French Polynesia (Tahiti), Mayotte, Réunion.

   2) Which European country did Australia royally screw just a few years ago when it came to renew Australia’s submarine fleet?

   France.

   French governments have shown a stupendous level of servility to the USA in the past couple of decades and especially now with Macron, but when it comes to the country down under, I suspect that reciprocity will not flourish without the Aussies offering something significantly more valuable than sending an airplane and a hundred men on a temporary assignment to Poland.

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   1. The Rev Kev July 8, 2025 at 8:26 am

      Say, all our rare earths? I have seen the way that government here in Oz go about such things. About twenty years ago before the Iraq invasion, a news announcer said on TV that Oz had agreed to take part in this illegal invasion. She then immediately followed this story with another saying that Oz was entering into free trade negotiations with the US. Several months later another announcer said that Oz had agreed to take part in the occupation of US and this news story was immediately followed by one saying that we had signed a free trade agreement with the US. It was that blatant.

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5. Hank Linderman July 8, 2025 at 8:12 am

   I have been enjoying Scaramucci’s videos lately, hope it’s appropriate to share here:

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a8Mu1Il5wI&ab_channel=AnthonyScaramucci

   Best…H

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6. hamstak July 8, 2025 at 8:15 am

   I might see a Bibi nod for the NPP as preventing Trump receiving that accolade, but in this world, who knows.

   And why Trump’s obsession with receiving the honor? Obama (unconscionably) received one, so he must as well? Do they cancel each other out? Does he see himself as some sort of anti-Obama? Or would this be the crowning con in the long-standing practical joke that is his post-business career?

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   1. JMH July 8, 2025 at 8:56 am

      Donny’s Nobel would be bigger and better than Obama’s. Why? Obama got the peace prize before making peace. Donny is running around ceasing fire here and there and everywhere.He has been undoing anything of Obama’s that he can lay hands on. Why? Remember Obama mocking him at that dinner in 2011? Donny does not forget . He does not forgive. He prefers immediate revenge but cold, even 15 years cold, will do. And I would not call it a Bibi nod but a world class suck up.

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      1. gk July 8, 2025 at 11:11 am

         A columnist at the SCMP proposes awarding it jointly to Trump and Khameini…..

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   2. JohnA July 8, 2025 at 11:30 am

      The Norwegian Nobel committee were so burned by the Obama award, chances of any other warmongering US presidents getting one are pretty much zero. The committee sheepishly admitted later that there was no mechanism to withdraw the award once it had been given.

      Reply ↓
7. DJG, Reality Czar July 8, 2025 at 8:16 am

   Bob Vylan! Spiked.

   Poor Fraser Myers, desperately and breathlessly trying to pin blame for antisemitism on Bob Vylan 1, whose real name is the wonderful Pascal Robinson-Foster.

   Myers, bloviating away in the first paragraph: “Bob Vylan launched into a chant of ‘Death, death to the IDF’ and an enraptured, ecstasy-pickled crowd joined in. Tragically, the justifiable public outrage at this sickening display of Jew hatred has now given way to unjustifiable calls for censorship and prosecutions.”

   Let me put out this little proposition: The purpose of an army is to deal out death.

   Now a counter-proposition: Many a civilian population has wished death on an army.

   Meaning: Wishing death on an army that is pillaging, raping, and destroying has nothing to do with antisemitism.

   See: Mother Courage, in which she, as a kind of camp follower and war profiteer and opportunist, contributes to the death of all three of her children.

   That’s the “mission statement” of armies.

   And I will go way out on a limb: As for me, I am glad that Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.

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   1. Colonel Smithers July 8, 2025 at 9:37 am

      Thank you, DJG.

      This nonsense is partisan.

      In the past month, Protestants dressed in Orange sashes in Northern Ireland, Scotland and even St James’, central London, have marched and shouted and sung death to Catholics and the Irish. One gave an interview and said the UK needed independence from Catholics and the French.

      Catholics have been attacked in Northern Ireland and Scotland. Places of worship have been vandalised in Northern Ireland and Scotland.

      Not a peep from the MSM and Westminster. Last year, the minister for Northern Ireland and son of Tony Benn went to a march in Irvinestown. The BBC has long promoted these marches as cultural events.

      Leading Orangeman Henry Dunbar is a Labour Party apparatchik.

      No one should be surprised by the Labour government’s tolerance of Orange Order thugs. During his Labour leadership campaign, Starmer got zionist goon and journalist Paul Mason to harass Catholic candidates Rebecca Long-Bailey and Richard Burgon, asking them if they would defer to the Vatican over social policy.

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      1. The Rev Kev July 8, 2025 at 10:12 am

         Thank you, Colonel. That surprises me to hear that Starmer has nailed the Orange standards to his mast and releases his dogs on Catholics. I do wonder if he also has a liking for Tommy Robinson and those British nationalists as they are all in on Israel and Zionism.

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         1. Colonel Smithers July 8, 2025 at 11:24 am

            Thank you, Rev.

            Starmer is married to a zionist and is raising his (legitimate) children in the wife’s faith. His wife’s mother was an English convert and despised and ostracised by her in laws. That appears to have made her stronger in her faith and zionism. Starmer observes and celebrates with his in laws.

            Starmer has that often discrete middle and upper class antipathy towards Catholicism and the Irish, often interchangeable.

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      2. Peerke July 8, 2025 at 11:31 am

         Mason of course having been educated at a Salesian college in Bolton so brought up a Catholic.

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   2. NN Cassandra July 8, 2025 at 10:46 am

      That’s the really clever part of this chant. Now all the Zionist have to argue it’s bad/antisemitic/whatever if you wish to kill the entity designed to kill, and which is supposed to be accustomed to the idea of others wanting to kill it. Of course if you think you are ubermensch, then it makes perfect sense to be morally outraged that some untermenschen don’t affirm you superiority and don’t want to go down without fight (although I’m not aware of Nazis throwing ridiculous tantrums about USSR propaganda slogans aimed at Wehrmacht).

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8. The Rev Kev July 8, 2025 at 8:17 am

   “Trump says US has ‘scheduled Iran talks’ ”

   Very magnanimous of him, even though he says he does not see a point in them as he has destroyed all of Iran’s nuclear program, or so he wants to believe. But these won’t be negotiations but will just be talks. The Iranians will be wary about anything that the US says as they will constantly be looking for another head fake leading to another Israeli attack or maybe an attempt to kill the Iranian negotiating team. I do wonder if Trump will start issuing demands as he sees himself as having “won’ the war through that one single airstrike. So will he demand that Iran stop buying Chinese weapons to defend their skies? That they curtail oil production or maybe sell it to the west on the cheap to bring down oil prices? That they let Grossi back into the country with his Mossad/CIA/MI6 “inspectors” and be given a free hand to inspect every corner of the country? That they pay him for the cost of dropping all that ordinance on Iran as a sort of ‘bullet fee’? With Trump you just never know.

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9. Michaelmas July 8, 2025 at 8:25 am

   Re: ‘The US and Russia: Space War? Julian Macfarlane’

   Note Chuck L did not find a link to the Rand report.

   Me: Not only no links on RAND — and I dug through various categories at RAND’s site for ASAT-related material, in case such a report was there under another name — but nothing anywhere on the internet under that title till July 7 at the Substack and Twitter sites of ‘Julian MacFarlane,’ after which a bunch other folks, including NC, obligingly amplified it across the internet.

   The kind of ASAT activity that the ‘Macfarlane-Forensic News’ hyperventilates about is definitely advancing in orbit. Here’s a sober account from late May, 2025, forex, with plenty of real-world specifics and actual reporting from people with technical knowledge —
   
   Russian and Chinese development of radiofrequency directed energy weapons (RF DEW) for counterspace
   https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4986/1

   As you see, there’s plenty going on. But the Macfarlane piece has none of it, just bogus hype that easily could have been hallucinated by a AI instructed to generate it. Furthermore, I glanced through the ‘Forensic News’ site for a minute and everything there is like that.

   Indeed, Simplicius looks like a model of sober, deeply conscientious reporting and analysis by comparison. I certainly can’t tell you and NC what to link to, but ‘Julian Macfarlane’ and ‘Forensic News’ looks like a completely worthless waste of time, as far as I can see.

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   1. The Rev Kev July 8, 2025 at 8:38 am

      Thanks for that deep dive. Maybe the whole thing arose out of an AI prompt. Julian Macfarlane should have know that in space nobody can hear you go pew-pew.

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   2. Mass Driver July 8, 2025 at 8:59 am

      The “RAND quoted text” looks like AI slop. The part about “hundred satellites to control attack drones without human intervention” is complete nonsense.

      “Russia is launching satellites connected to an autonomous combat control network. Orders come from space and drones aim, adapt and activate independently. Acceptance is impossible. Hacking is canceled. NATO is facing a threat, but a new system of war in which there is no place for us.“

      This looks like something that low-effort-Tom-Clancy-AI would churn out.

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      1. AG July 8, 2025 at 10:35 am

         Yeah, especially the attempt of humanisation gives it away potentially: “no place for us”.
         And RAND usually formulates in much more verbosely fashion.

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10. Carla July 8, 2025 at 8:29 am

    For others, who like me, may have wondered, “The Streisand effect is an unintended consequence of attempts to hide, remove, or censor information, where the effort instead increases public awareness of the information.” — Wikipedia

    The phrase was coined after Barbra Striesand tried to prevent a photo of her home being published, unintentionally drawing instant international attention to something that had been obscure.

    I learn new things on NC everyday! Since I avoid social media like the plague, the Streisand effect had completely passed me by.

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    1. JMH July 8, 2025 at 8:59 am

       Trendy version of methinks he doth protest too much.

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11. Wukchumni July 8, 2025 at 8:33 am

    Gooooooood Mooooooooorning Fiatnam!

    A war of words had broken out over who was most deserving of a Nobel peace prize medal, with all the nomenclature concerning one individual, it wasn’t as if there was anybody else jockeying for what some experts have called…

    ‘a major award’

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    1. JMH July 8, 2025 at 9:02 am

       And “a major award” ought be awarded to Heller’s Major Major Major Major.

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       1. Wukchumni July 8, 2025 at 10:23 am

          I was thinking of a different version…

          A Christmas Story It’s a Major Award HD Scenes from the 80s 1983

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OItP8-_mjXw

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       2. flora July 8, 2025 at 11:00 am

          As played by Bob Newhart. / ;) utube, short clip from Catch-22 the movie.

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh1pQIXHdj0

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    2. ilsm July 8, 2025 at 9:44 am

       In addition to Trump, Netanyahu etc I suggest post humous NPP’s to Bomber Harris and Curtis LeMay.

       “Peace through bombing” has a catchy sound.

       Look at all the casualties fire bombing and A bombs saved! \sarc

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    3. Young July 8, 2025 at 11:19 am

       Mark Rubio requested the Norwegian Nobel Committee members to make the RIGHT CHOICE if they want to avoid the sanctions that were reserved for Putin only.

       Trump said that, if he wins, he will share the prize with Putin if he agrees to “two weeks” ceasefire in Ukr.

       /sarc

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12. Henry Moon Pie July 8, 2025 at 8:46 am

    ECB’s climate warnings–

    Human overshoot, a product both of our numbers and the consumption levels of the richest 10%, impacts us in one of two ways. The ECG is worried about food inflation resulting from flooded, drought-ravaged and insect-devastated crops, impacts that afflict most everyone in the EU. The report commissioned by Britain’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and carried out by the University of Exeter showing a 10% hit to global GDP by 2040 is similar. These abstract numbers, spread over years and decades can be easy to shrug off. “They’re exaggerating to take away our freedoms.” “Somebody will figure it out.” “I’ll prep for it.”

    Then there are the very particularized impacts: western North Carolina; the hill country of Texas; the suburbs of LA; and countless places around the world enduring local droughts, fires, windstorms and floods. If you’re hit by one of of these, there is no shrugging it off. Your life is turned completely upside down. You may even have lost loved ones. But if your not in the destruction zone, you can still dismiss it as somebody else’s misfortune. Too bad for them, but your life continues to move along, maybe you even think it’s moving forward.

    Eventually, these broad and particular effects will worsen and spread until only those deepest in denial will be able to shrug off where we’re headed. What were critical political and economic concerns will be shoved aside as the continued existence of our complex civilization is doubted by more and more people. “Where can I find a safe and stable place for my family to live?,” will become the foremost concern of people from Houston to Islamabad. And there will be no good answers

    Dougald Hine of the Dark Mountain Projects has some specific recommendations, not for where you might escape, but instead how to productively use your time and skills as modernity bites the dust. He reminds us that the death of this world, with its shallow materialism and puffed up human hubris, is not the end of THE world, or even humanity, even its a remnant much reduced from its current 8 billion. He outlines his recommendations in this spot cut from a recent Unheard interview.

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13. Wukchumni July 8, 2025 at 8:48 am

    Viva Las Vegas? Tourists shun Sin City over ‘ridiculous prices’ The Times
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Pavlovegas reminds me of the lure of the big city before the internet, it was where you could go to museums, concert & sporting venues, cultural events and a much wider variety of things to see, do and buy.

    Vegas was similar to the movie biz, they had a stranglehold on gambling, but then it appeared everywhere as long as you had some Native American representation, and then as states saw income in online sports betting, it blew wide open.

    Why fly or drive to sin city to do something you can do from the privacy of your smartphone?

    I think the grandiose rise in prices of damn near everything in Vegas is a result of gambling income declining precipitously.

    Reply ↓
    1. ChrisFromGA July 8, 2025 at 9:03 am

       I’ve never set foot in Sin City, and now that prices have gone vertical, I likely never will. I don’t like to gamble (I hate losing $ more than I like winning it), and now that the $9.99 all-you-can-eat buffet and comped drinks have disappeared, it’s dead to me.

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       1. Wukchumni July 8, 2025 at 9:09 am

          Once upon a time my jalopy had casino cruise control where as I approached a house of chance’s parking lot, the car would take over and glide into an empty spot, pretty handy.

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          1. The Rev Kev July 8, 2025 at 10:02 am

             Hopefully your jalopy with the casino cruise control had enabled the function where it would only do so if you had a tank full of gas. That way if you lost your shirt, you would still be able to drive home.

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             1. Wukchumni July 8, 2025 at 10:15 am

                When I was a young adult, Vegas more or less ended at one point headed west and there was a gas station at the end of the line that had a sign offering free aspirin and sympathy…

                Nowadays you might get sued for either offer~

                All over Vegas are billboards by shylocks offering legal representation, i’ve never seen anything quite like it, you’d think the local economy runs on tort verdicts. Last year I spent a night at one of Dartful Codgers in Vegas, and watching TV, most all of the commercials are also for lawyers, yikes!

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       2. griffen July 8, 2025 at 11:21 am

          Went once on vacation back in summer of 2004, where the dry heat was still damned hot. The Strip was different then but quickly changing as more “posh” hotel digs were starting to open at the Venetian or the Wynn. I’d concur on the gambling approach…my trip then left me $100 or so down but that equaled my max allotted to lose.

          I did have a once former friend and in spring of 2009 he kindly suggested a low dollar commitment to pick the NO Saints to win a super bowl. Timing is everything….in such instances. Good to find some luck when one can, said by the weekend golfer as well!

          Super Bowl trivia. Was the house and Vegas odd makers upset when the Patriots were denied their football destiny of being the only team ever to complete a 19 – 0 season ? Coach Bill and Terrific Tom were upended by the ( sometimes true ) Electric Eli and the surging NY Giants.

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    2. CanCyn July 8, 2025 at 9:40 am

       In my younger days, Vegas was always seen as a cheap vacation destination from Canada. But I don’t gamble I’d say to people who wondered why I’d never been – but it isn’t just gambling they’d say – cheap food and booze, good weather, shows, side trips to the Grand Canyon or Hoover dam. I just never got over my distaste of the tacky-ness to want to go. I have a friend whose sister lives in Vegas. They rarely hit the strip and unless it is for a show, my friend rarely hits the strip when she visits. Hiking in Red Rocks park is much preferred.

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       1. Wukchumni July 8, 2025 at 9:51 am

          We have a favorite easy-peasy flatwater kayak trip we do where we put in about 1/2 a mile downstream from Hoover Dam, and the first 3 miles are full of thermal water, you get out out of your kayak and step into a 90 degree creek flowing down, and there’s about a dozen sandbagged hot springs up canyon, all about 30 miles from the Vegas strip as the crow flies…

          If it wasn’t for being over the glide path to the airport, you’d might think you were a few hundred miles away…

          My favorite of these is Boy Scout Canyon, which has a series of fixed ropes to get you to the action…

          https://stavislost.com/hikes/trail/boy-scout-canyon-hot-springs/

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       2. Wukchumni July 8, 2025 at 10:07 am

          p.s.

          Bought a big coin deal circa 1990 from an old school casino owner that had them in Reno, Vegas and Laughlin, you’d know the name of the casino if I told you~

          At dinner I was trying to make small talk and asked the then 80 year old which of his casinos he liked the most?

          Without batting an eyelash, he told me:

          ‘Oh, that’s easy… Laughlin, as there isn’t anything to do there and we get 50% of our employees wages back over the tables. It’s more like 10-15% back over the tables in Vegas and Reno.’

          I was kind of shocked how frank he was about something I wouldn’t have figured as being that important in the scheme of things.

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          1. CanCyn July 8, 2025 at 11:55 am

             Talk about selling your soul the company store!!

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       3. Jesper July 8, 2025 at 11:36 am

          A young former colleague went to Las Vegas for a long weekend hen-party. Alcohol was involved and there was an accident where she broke her arm. Rather than going to US healthcare providers and risk paying a fortune she toughened it out and only went to seek healthcare assistance once she was back in Ireland.
          Some years back I had private health insurance through my employer, the insurance provider made it very clear that I was covered everywhere except the US.
          The cost of healthcare is scaring some, maybe only a few, away from going to the US.

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          1. CanCyn July 8, 2025 at 12:05 pm

             I don’t know about other countries but I can buy relatively cheap travel insurance from the Canadian Automobile Club. I’m not sure that I’d trust it for a big problem but I treating a broken arm would be covered.
             My in-laws were snowbirds (retired Canadians who spend the winter in FLA) for a few years. They splurged on enough travel insurance to be airlifted home accompanied by a doctor. Few have those resources I know but I think it is kinda crazy to travel with nothing. I Have a friend who got food poisoning in Jamaica and fell and hurt her head in the bathroom. She was out of pocket on her credit card because the hospital didn’t deal with insurance companies of any kind. She was reimbursed in full but that hospital visit (rehydration and X-ray, overnight stay) for her and her son (also food poisoning no head injury) was almost $10K many years ago.

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14. Jesper July 8, 2025 at 8:54 am

    About “Across Europe, the financial sector has pushed up house prices. It’s a political timebomb”
    A couple of things, I agree with most with a few addendums/changes/quibbles:
    This bit:

    But not everyone is suffering. At the same time it is robbing normal people of a comfortable and dignified life, the housing crisis is lining the pockets of a small number of individuals and institutions.

    I’d say the the number of individuals lining their pockets isn’t small. The PMC (or rather upper middle classes possibly even many in the middle classes) have benefited by owning their homes and gotten some windfall profits (some unrealised but still). So the number benefiting isn’t small but that number has an outsized influence as they are in leadership and analytical positions that recommended and then decided policies and unsurprisingly they’ve implemented policies benefiting themselves.

    & then we have situations like this in Ireland:
    https://www.thejournal.ie/who-are-landlord-tds-politicians-in-ireland-dail-landlowners-6636105-Mar2025/

    A substantial number of members of the legislative body in Ireland are landlords. Might be a tinfoil-hat theory but is it really unexpected that the landlord-class in Ireland has benefited a lot from government policies in Ireland?

    Maybe isolated example in the UK?
    https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crkm15z1r82o

    Labour MP Jas Athwal has sacked the agency which manages his rental flats, after the BBC found black mould and ant infestations in the properties.

    Anyway, governments seem to have two options to deal with the housing crisis:
    1. Government builds and owns housing (the direct way)
    2. Government tries with various indirect ways. This has been tried for many decades but hasn’t worked yet.

    My guess is that as long as the upper middle classes can safely rule to the benefit of themselves they will continue with option 2. Not only does it not work (and that failure is to to their benefit) but it also provides opportunities for cronyism/skimming which they are in a position to take advantage of….

    Reply ↓
    1. tegnost July 8, 2025 at 11:31 am

       I think the housing market can be described in the phrase sometimes attributed to jp morgan that a bankster can pay one half of the country to kill the other half

       Reply ↓
15. The Rev Kev July 8, 2025 at 9:01 am

    ‘Djole 🇷🇸
    @onlydjole
    🇺🇦‼️Urgent relocation from Kiev: The government of Ukraine is looking for new accommodation in the west of the country‼️
    July 6, 2025
    The well-known war reporter Yuriy Podolyaka published information on his Telegram channel with the claim that the Ukrainian government is preparing to move its institutions to the western part of the country. 👇’

    You know what? I have just the place in mind for Zelenski and his cohort to go set up shop. It’s called Shehyni and it has one great feature too it which he will appreciate-

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shehyni_(border_checkpoint)

    Reply ↓
    1. XXYY July 8, 2025 at 10:26 am

       I was thinking Miami. Nice weather, plenty of golf, crossroads for cocaine smuggling, and out of the range of Russian missiles.

       Reply ↓
       1. The Rev Kev July 8, 2025 at 10:35 am

          Hey, he could buy a mansion next door to Juan Greedo as he is in Miami as well-

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Guaid%C3%B3#Exile

          Would be handy for Zelensky as he could go next door to borrow a cup of “sugar.”

          Reply ↓
          1. Wukchumni July 8, 2025 at 10:39 am

             I can see both of them starring in ‘Miami ICE’ where they bust illegal smuggling operations~

             …which one gets to be Sonny Crockett?

             Reply ↓
       2. tegnost July 8, 2025 at 11:32 am

          re out of range…
          until they place them in cuba

          Reply ↓
16. AG July 8, 2025 at 9:39 am

    re: space wars

    STRATDELA NEWSLETTER Special #15
    Some thoughts on private companies and space militarisation

    by Dmitry Stefanovich
    July 7th
    https://1dkv.substack.com/p/stratdela-special-15

    Reply ↓
17. Irritable July 8, 2025 at 9:42 am

    > College grad unemployment surges as employers replace new hires with AI

    Huge irony alert here…

    “What do you mean, no job for me because of AI? I got straight A’s in all four years of college, only using ChatGPT 99% of the time! Doesn’t doing 1% of ‘my work’ count for something???”

    Reply ↓
    1. John Wright July 8, 2025 at 11:56 am

       It will be interesting to see if AI ends up validating the late David Graeber’s position that 20 to 50% of jobs are “bullshit jobs”.

       Note that past interviewed workers do not see THEIR jobs as bullshit category, but AI might have a less self interested view.

       AI may have internalized that “Graeber is correct”

       Reply ↓
18. AG July 8, 2025 at 9:45 am

    re: nuclear war

    I was sifting through Pavel Podvig´s X not finding anything new on space wars – but found this interesting statement, considering that he is a UN guy after all:

    Why do all nuclear war scenarios start with someone firing missiles at the US and the US president having to make that decision in so many minutes? I think it’s totally unrealistic – the US will strike first if it ever comes to it.

    Reply ↓
    1. ilsm July 8, 2025 at 10:41 am

       A troubling reason for Satr Wars and now Golden Dome is: a decent defense encourages a first strike, the defenses defeating most of the hopefully few weapons left after the surprise.

       However, a sane world hope is not strategy!

       Would we have a sane world?

       Reply ↓
       1. AG July 8, 2025 at 11:22 am

          Frankly the best hope, I have, is some channels between RU and Pentagon making clear US vulnerability.
          These people obviously understand exclusively force. But if that RU force is understood to be supreme to their own, that means safety even though in the most insane way. However I prefer that to US´s nuclear primacy think of the Georgetown University kind.

          p.s. I can´t imagine anything worse than being at the mercy of folks who write things like NSC-68 and even after 75 years still consider that to be an adequate answer to anything.

          Reply ↓
19. AG July 8, 2025 at 9:49 am

    re: Israel and Nazism

    This “beauty” from antiwar – I wouldn´t find that on German sites for sure.
    So by now it´s not “concentration camp Erhard” but “concentration camp Smotrich”
    (“We do the concentrating and the Poles do the camping”)

    1:15 min. (Lubitsch 1942)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I58CAdlItho

    Israeli Defense Minister Orders Plan To Build Concentration Camp for Gaza’s Civilian Population
    Israel Katz says the so-called ‘humanitarian city’ will be built on the ruins of Rafah
    https://news.antiwar.com/2025/07/07/israeli-defense-minister-orders-plan-to-build-concentration-camp-for-gazas-civilian-population/

    Reply ↓
20. The Rev Kev July 8, 2025 at 9:49 am

    “NATO chief says China and Russia could launch simultaneous attacks in chilling warning over all-out war”

    Yeah, Rutte says a lot of crap and the guy is only a lightweight. Sooner or later he, as head of NATO, is going to have to sit down with the Russians and hash out some sort of working arrangement between the two when this war is over. And that would almost certainly mean Lavrov. So what did Rutte say about Lavrov a coupla days ago?

    ‘Lavrov is the Foreign Minister of Russia, I think, since the birth of Jesus Christ. And since then, nothing, anything useful came out of his mouth. So let’s not pay too much attention to Mr. Lavrov.’

    I note that when Rutte goes to countries outside of NATO, that they do not treat him like a rock star so perhaps he is a tad jealous here.

    Reply ↓
    1. Windall July 8, 2025 at 12:30 pm

       I don’t think anyone really takes Rutte seriously.

       He was kept in power because he kept the PMC happy, but I’ve never heard someone being enthusiastic about the VVD or Rutte because he was such a stellar human being.

       In short Rutte is pretty much a sock puppet.

       Reply ↓
21. t July 8, 2025 at 9:51 am

    ….experts who spoke to WIRED say the agency accurately predicted the state’s weekend flood risk

    That’s not the question, tho, so why is it the subhed? The issue appears to be that coordinated messaging did not happen. One of the quotes was about how hard it is to get public officials who don’t know meteorology to understand.

    The local officials who should have been passing it along were reach out to for comment.

    And if they predicted it could get as bad as X, and it didn’t get that bad, they would still have been doing their job.

    Seems like a combination of overworked NOAA staff, no one at NOAA with the specific job of yelling at city managers and emergency management, and perhaps general Republican distain for over-funded money-laundering egg-heads who promote the climate-change hoax.

    Leaving aside the weather manipulation and Jewish Space Lasers, of course.

    Reply ↓
    1. Yves Smith Post authorJuly 8, 2025 at 12:04 pm

       As I have said, this is false. There were warning of the danger the entire day before.

       https://www.npr.org/2025/07/05/nx-s1-5457759/texas-floods-timeline

       People in the area reported they got multiple high level flash flood warnings (as in from the Feds) BEFORE the alerts made by the counties. These urgent alerts by phone/text started after midnight. Kerr County did not put out an alert until 4 AM. The surge looks to have hit ~ 5 AM

       These alerts were likely ignored because middle of the night, not due to the failure to make them.

       Reply ↓
22. AG July 8, 2025 at 10:23 am

    re: UK vs. Palestine Action

    CRAIG MURRAY´s latest blog entry

    “We Accept Of Course That It Is Draconian: And Deliberately so”
    https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2025/07/we-accept-of-course-that-it-is-draconian-and-deliberately-so/

    “On Friday 4 July I headed back to the Royal Courts of Justice for the hearing brought by Huda Ammori, a co-founder of Palestine Action, on an application for relief from the proscription order against Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation.

    Huda had applied for judicial review of the legality of this order. There is to be a hearing on whether a judicial review will be granted in the week beginning 21 July. What Friday’s hearing was about, was whether the proscription should be suspended until that hearing on whether permission will be given for judicial review.

    This is called interim relief.

    The legal precedents on interim relief are that this question should depend on three points.”

    Reply ↓
23. AG July 8, 2025 at 10:30 am

    re: Gaza genocide

    Sorry if duplicate

    Francesca Albanese´s June 16th report about the economy of the genocide

    From economy of occupation to economy of genocide – Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 (Advance edited version)

    https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/country-reports/ahrc5923-economy-occupation-economy-genocide-report-special-rapporteur

    Reply ↓
24. Balan Aroxdale July 8, 2025 at 10:41 am

    Netanyahu the Cancer is in Washington Again. This time, Though, he’s Showing up Truly Empty-Handed Alon Mizrahi. Wellie, Mizrahi underestimated Netanyahu: Netanyahu surprises Trump with Nobel nomination, as president hails their great success together Times of Israel

    My guess is that Netenyahu is going to Washington to get “approval” for, or to order, an escalation against Iran, or more likely an Iranian proxy such as Yemen or Hezbollah in Lebanon. Netenyahu is now the war shark who must keep swimming or else he will die. The genocide in Gaza remains a given that needs to talks or meetings with the allied quislings.

    Reply ↓
    1. Wukchumni July 8, 2025 at 11:04 am

       It’s worse than you know…

       The quislings in Congress have set up ‘Inter-Netanyahu’ servers which deliver up daily devotions online, giving them no reason to follow anybody else.

       Reply ↓
       1. ambrit July 8, 2025 at 12:56 pm

          Wait, wait. this is perfect. Netanyahoo is The Golden Calf! We all remember what the Tetragrammaton God did in response to the first time the Pastoralist Ubermenschen worshipped that. Fire from on high does sound very concerning.

          Reply ↓
25. The Rev Kev July 8, 2025 at 10:52 am

    “The Force-Feeding of AI on an Unwilling Public”

    And here is the heart of this excellent post-

    ‘Before proceeding let me ask a simple question: Has there ever been a major innovation that helped society, but only 8% of the public would pay for it?
    That’s never happened before in human history. Everybody wanted electricity in their homes. Everybody wanted a radio. Everybody wanted a phone. Everybody wanted a refrigerator. Everybody wanted a TV set. Everybody wanted the Internet.
    They wanted it. They paid for it. They enjoyed it.
    AI isn’t like that. People distrust it or even hate it—and more so with each passing month. So the purveyors must bundle it into current offerings, and force usage that way.’

    Reply ↓
    1. Dr. John Carpenter July 8, 2025 at 12:13 pm

       “You’ll own nothing and you’ll like it” is being bundled with “you’ll use AI and you’ll like it.”

       Reply ↓
       1. ambrit July 8, 2025 at 1:00 pm

          “All of your thoughts belong to us.”

          Reply ↓
26. Jonathan Holland Becnel July 8, 2025 at 12:03 pm

    I remember watching a video years ago where someone, I think the chairman of the fed possibly another government official, was talking to, I think it was a group of congressman, in either the late 80s or early 90s where he says something to the effect of,

    “The precarity of the American worker is the driver of economic growth in the United States.”

    I distinctly remember watching this video years ago because I was shocked at the flagrant contempt the guy had for the average person. He was, I think, some freedman-esque jackass from the late 80s, so par for the course. I have been unable to locate the video online, possibly because I am misremembering details of the video or it was memory holed.

    Reply ↓
    1. Neutrino July 8, 2025 at 12:23 pm

       That was yet another gaffe that got ignored by the press. Sometimes the truth gets blurted out by a gov person, and sometimes by an investment banker. One example of the latter was that Goldman advice to the pharma people: paraphrasing – curing illnesses isn’t a sustainable business model.

       Others circulate briefly on Wall Street about United Health Care during earnings seasons, without notice of the utter reprehensibility for the inhumane treatment of patients, doctors, nurses and anyone else within their bomb radius. /:

       Reply ↓
27. mahna July 8, 2025 at 12:05 pm

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/07/07/russian-potato-shortage-shows-putins-economy-is-on-brink/
    The Russian potato shortage that shows Putin’s economy is on the brink

    Reply ↓
28. Jason Boxman July 8, 2025 at 12:23 pm

    Poisoned water and scarred hills: The price of the rare earth metals the world buys from China

    The NY Times had a similar story a few days ago; coordinated media to convince western audiences that it’s better to let China deal with this mess rather than do it here?

    Reply ↓
29. Jason Boxman July 8, 2025 at 12:29 pm

    The Democrat death wish

    How Insularity Defined the Last Stages of Biden’s Career

    The effort by Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s inner circle to limit access to him helps explain why it took him more than three weeks to drop his re-election bid after his disastrous debate performance.

    Are you kidding? He was clearly losing his mind years before that. The entire Democrat Establishment is complicit in this.

    Reply ↓
    1. Jason Boxman July 8, 2025 at 12:43 pm

       This is lit:

       My brief conversation with Mr. Biden prompted a cascade of concern among his top aides. One screamed at me for calling the former president directly. Others texted furiously, trying to figure out how I had obtained Mr. Biden’s phone number.

       Mr. Biden had seemed open to continuing the conversation, but my subsequent calls went straight to voice mail. His automated greeting simply said, “Joe.”

       Two days later, that greeting was replaced by a message from Verizon Wireless: “The number you dialed has been changed, disconnected or is no longer in service.”

       (bold mine)

       Imagine that, a former president that is completely beyond reach, with aides freaking out that he might somehow be accessible without a minder. These people are surely protecting themselves as much as Biden.

       They all ought to be in jail for coving up a presidency unfit to continue.

       Reply ↓
30. Mikel July 8, 2025 at 12:56 pm

    At the Rio Summit, signs of BRICS in retreat – just when we need serious anti-imperial muscle – CADTM

    A must read summary of the current situation in the world.
    Even if some view particular social and political situations discussed as negatives as positives and vice versa, it’s all laid out.

    Reply ↓
31. Ken Murphy July 8, 2025 at 1:06 pm

    With all of the talk about rare earth elements (REEs), I would just like to note that there are REEs on the Moon. If there’s any example of “concentration” of a resource on the Moon, the focus of the KREEP Terrane in Oceanus Procellarum could be cited. Also rich in Thorium, FWIW.
    Sourcing REEs from the Moon involves no polluted rivers, no poisoned soil, no displaced bunnies and squirrels. Delivery to Earth can be done via a variety of methods, from railguns to AlOX motors. Drop them in the middle of the desert for recovery.
    I know there are many here who are against making the effort to tap the Moon for energy and resources, condemning humanity to being trapped on this rock (lovely as it is) until we follow all the other creatures to have become extinct in Earth’s storybook. Is the Moon the “solution” to all of humanity’s ills? No. But it does have resources and it does have energy. And what we learn on the Moon will help us enormously as we work our way out into the rest of the Solar system.
    Energy and resources have always been the driver for humans to venture over the next hill, to peek beyond the horizon. Both exist in mind-boggling abundance right over our heads. We can continue to choose to forego our ability to tap them, but at our own peril.

    Reply ↓