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Links 8/12/2025

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Jellyfish force French reactor shutdowns, strain grid Euractiv

So bad they’re good – why do we love terrible films? BBC (Robin K)

Learning Greek – A Practical Guide Spengler (Micael T)

#COVID-19/Pandemics

Measles Cases by State in 2025 Visual Capitalist

Climate/Environment

No hope for Pyrenean glaciers Annals of Glaciology (guurst)

Satellites watch France’s largest wildfire in 75 years burn an area larger than Paris Space

Cyprus on the brink as government to pay for water tankers in race for drinking water In-Cyprus

Iraq Grapples with Severe Drought, Urges Turkey to Restore Water Share Kurdistan24

Iran Battles Wave of Forest and Grassland Fires Across 11 Provinces Amid Heatwave and Drought Iran News Update

Japan’s Rice Crop at Risk as Farms Face Record-Breaking Heat Bloomberg

Biochar From Human Waste Could Solve Global Fertilizer Shortages, Study Finds Guardian

Seeing the Forest for the Trees James Hansen:

Climate sensitivity is substantially higher than IPCC’s best estimate (3°C for doubled CO2), a conclusion we reach with greater than 99 percent confidence.

Capitalocene and biotariate: new eco-social class struggle vientoSur via machine translation (Micael T)

China?

U.S. Government to Take Cut of Nvidia and AMD A.I. Chip Sales to China New York Times (resilc). Conor had a preliminary report from Reuters yesterday.

Trump Extorts Companies To Pay Taxes On Exports Moon of Alabama

China urges local firms not to use Nvidia’s H20 chips, Bloomberg News reports Reuters. BWAHAHA

China’s push to promote its currency accelerates with landmark Fortescue loan South China Morning Post

China’s unemployed young adults who are pretending to have jobs BBC

India

Modi’s American embrace backfires badly on India Asia Times (Kevin W). Very good on the military/arms part but gets the tariffs wrong. Nearly all of India’s exports were exempted from the surcharge ex diamonds and other gemstones.

Africa

Nigeria: Military says dozens of gang members killed DW

Rwanda-backed rebels have killed at least 80 civilians in recent weeks, Congolese authorities say Associated Press

South of the Border

The unprecedented feud between the US and Brazil Financial Times

Mexico’s $4 billion gamble: The Interoceanic Corridor reshaping global trade Interesting Engineering (Robin K)

Blackwater founder Erik Prince pitches deployment of US mercenaries to South America WSWS (Micael T)

European Disunion

Europe builds for war as arms factories expand at triple speed Financial Times. Lead story.

EU staff revolt over Gaza stance Politico

Old Blighty

Is the Royal Navy at breaking point or a turning point? Navy Lookout (Colonel Smithers)

Jeremy Clarkson warns of ‘catastrophic’ UK harvest as farmers battle extreme weather and rising costs Business Matters

Israel v. the Resistance

Israel Announces “Final Plan” to Occupy Gaza Simplicius. Also mentions Lebanese government plan to disarm Hezbolllah. Alastair Crooke says that will produce civil war, an outcome Israel would likely see as an acceptable fallback.

Israel killing all the journalists is just like the mafia killing all the eye witnesses Council Estate (resilc)

Gaza: 49% of Palestinians would leave the Strip to return to live il Fatto Quotidiano via machine translation. DLG:

Aya Ashour is a young woman from the north of Gaza who has written for Fatto Quotidiano since the start of the Israeli invasion and genocide in October 2023. Her large family has been displaced several times and is now in the south. The editors at Fatto Quotidiano, and particularly the essayist / journalist Tommaso Montanari, who is the rector of the University for Foreigners at Perugia, extracted her from Gaza about four months ago. She is now a visiting researcher there.

Aya Ashour has been very effective in getting information out about life on the ground in Gaza.

Britain moves to hide its Gaza spy flights Asa Winstanley

The Brainrot of a Nazified Society BettBeat

Israel Is Not an Ally—It’s a Liability American Conservative (resilc)

Caucasus

Zangezur or bust: A US corridor scheme meets an Iranian red line The Cradle

New Not-So-Cold War

Europe and Ukraine leaders seek talks with Trump to defend their interests ahead of US-Russia summit Associated Press (Kevin W)

I Guess They Get The Message … Andrei Martyanov. On another summit fantasy, of a big Arctic energy deal. That does not mean that Russia might not throw a bone to the US so as to give Trump something to spin.

Expectations Soaring for Friday’s Putin / Trump Summit Larry Johnson

Lt Col Daniel Davis: Putin in ‘NO LOSE’ and Trump in ‘NO WIN’ Situation Ahead of Alaska Summit Rachel Blevins, YouTube

Half-baked Alaska Julian Macfarlane

Moscow hopes Putin-Trump meeting will give impetus to bilateral relations – Russian Deputy FM Ryabkov Interfax

The Yermak enigma I Events in Ukraine

Imperial Collapse Watch

The New Global Trade Disorder The Economist Gadfly via machine translation (Micael T)

Do The Same Sorts Of People Lead All Societies? Ian Welsh (Micael T)

Trump 2.0

Trump Rages at Nobel-Winning ‘Deranged Bum’ in Late-Night Meltdown Daily Beast. Trump really is losing his mind. Punching down is both a bad look and an admission of weakness. First Medvedev, now Krugman.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth promotes repealing women’s right to vote Popular Information (Dr. Kevin)

Trump to seize control of DC police department, activate National Guard The Hill

Trump Sends National Guard to D.C., Threatens Chicago With the Same Michael Shedlock. Why aren’t more libertarians outraged?

Leaked DC Troop Deployment Order Ken Klippenstein

“Federalizing” D.C. Steve Vladek

Tariffs

Trump announces another 90-day pause on China tariffs Guardian (Kevin W)

Trump Says Gold Imports Won’t Be Tariffed in Reprieve for Market Bloomberg. I suspect that someone on Team Trump pushed the tariffs on the gold bars to help Comex, as some experts argued, but when the noise from goldbugs started, Trump TACOed again.

High costs after tariffs pose threat to Trump and GOP The Hill. Gee, ya think?

Democrat Death Wish

When Did Republican Women Get to Be So Vile as These Four? New Republic. Misogyny is never a good look for soi-disant liberals. resilc: “I could name several DNCerzzzzzzz starting with her majesty Hilliary. Moi: Add Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Neera Tanden.

Newsom leans into AI as ‘the future’ in new policy announcement SFGate (Paul R)

Economy

How AI, Healthcare, and Labubu Became the American Economy Kyla Scanlon (resilc). Important.

Restaurants are under threat as costs skyrocket and consumers cut back CNN (resilc)

Las Vegas servers see their tips drop 50% amid high prices and tourism decline Fox News. resilc: “But now tax free. No tax on nothing = nothing.”

Mr. Market Is Moody

Why world must heed boy crying wolf over risk of financial crisis South China Morning Post

TIPS investors face a ‘sky is falling’ moment TIPS Watch (resilc)

AI

LLMs’ ‘Simulated Reasoning’ Abilities Are a ‘Brittle Mirage,’ Researchers Find ars technica. Underlying paper here

AI Is A Money Trap Ed Zitron (Bugs). From last week, still germane.

The dead need right to delete their data so they can’t be AI-ified, lawyer says The Register

The Bezzle

These Cars Will BANKRUPT You — Consumer Reports Reveals the WORST Vehicles of 2025! YouTube. Important as an indicator of auto industry predation. resilc: “Good 20 year old trucks are being sucked up and redone. USA USA=Cuba now.”

How big trucks and SUVs gobbled up the entire auto industry The Verge (Micael T)

Out of nowhere, Teslas are suddenly clogging a Calif. neighborhood, locals say SFGate. Paul R:

This is in LA. Dozens (at least) of Teslas with temporary license plates have shown up in neighborhood parking spaces, being moved around every few days to avoid being ticketed. The implication is that these are unsold inventory from Tesla or a big local dealer, but the reporter was unable to confirm this so she doesn’t come out and say so directly. Another Elon shell game I guess.

The Air Force is buying Cybertrucks — to blow them up Boing Boing (resilc)

GM Plans Renewed Push On Driverless Cars After Cruise Debacle Seeking Alpha

OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman says in 10 years’ time college graduates will be working ‘some completely new, exciting, super well-paid’ job in space Fortune (Kevin W). Even if this were to work (not), it’s another “die faster”. Being in space for meaningful amounts of time exacts a huge health cost, such as loss of bone density and muscle mass and exposure to radiation.

Guillotine Watch

San Francisco estate auction offers peek into Dianne Feinstein’s private world SFGate (Paul R)

Class Warfare

The return of the American Left Unherd

Goodbye, $165,000 Tech Jobs. Student Coders Seek Work at Chipotle. New York Times.

Antidote du jour (via):

And a bonus:

A second bonus:

And a third:

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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181 comments

  1. Colonel Smithers

    Thank you, Yves.

    Further to the Politico article about unrest at EU HQ over the EU’s stance on Palestine, the discontent is also about the presence of an Israeli diplomatic mission, including a military attaché, at the Berlaymont, EU HQ. Yes. That’s right. Israel has an office in the EU HQ. The Zionist owned Politico failed to mention that.

    Season’s greetings. The grouse shooting season starts today.

    1. The Rev Kev

      Thank you, Colonel. Maybe Israel wants to get into NATO and having a military attaché there is their foot in the door. That way if the Palestinians attack them, they can call an Article 5 and have all those NATO troops fighting for them. :)

    3. JohnA

      Happy Glorious 12th Colonel, I don’t personnally go shooting but I do like eating game. I guess it is too hot at the moment to spend the day outside in thick tweeds?

      2. Colonel Smithers

        Thank you, John.

        I’m in Deauville for a week from next Friday and look forward to seeing the Ukrainians and even Spurs supporters.

        1. JohnA

          Hi Colonel, I imagine you will be visiting Hippodrome Deauville-La Touques. But what is the Spurs connection? As for Ukrainians, they will be the ones in the flashiest cars.

  2. The Rev Kev

    ‘New York Post
    @nypost
    Aug 8
    A foreign investor has quietly spent $65M for Malibu real estate charred by January’s wildfires trib.al/DB7UTHh’

    (hat tip Alex Christoforou) ‘Ehh, Podaliak, I buy myself many beautiful blocks in Malibu. When I move there, I build magnificent mansion.’

    ‘Yes, Mr. President.’

    ‘Better start packing money bags now. Is only right to bring that money back to America.’

    1. griffen

      I like to think of such internal dialogue amongst a highly suspicious crew of individuals in government in a known hotbed of corruption and white collar thievery…I will quantify that I do not mean DC (!). Okay, not in this instance.

      Leave it to the Babylon Bee with this classic zinger from late 2024. ( sarc ). I think towns and families continue to struggle in western NC some 11 ish months after the catastrophic hurricane.

      https://babylonbee.com/news/north-carolina-asks-zelensky-for-100-billion-in-us-funding

    2. raspberry jam

      My first thought was actually Shohei Ohtani. Supposedly he bought up a lot of Maui after the Lahaina fires.

      2. Mildred Montana

        Shhh…MLB doesn’t like any mentions of Ohtani after his (his assistant’s?) wagering scandal. They quickly buried that one, didn’t they?

        Say, we never heard, did that “assistant” ever go to jail for allegedly wagering with Ohtani’s money. Just askin’.

      3. scott s.

        First I’ve heard of him involved in Maui. We just had the two-year anniversary and I’m sure if he had some sort of “bought up a lot of Maui” thing going on “Maui Strong” would be all over it.

        He did agree to buy a new home on Hawaii Island at Mauna Kea, and a story broke today that he is being sued by some of the developers (apparently part of the deal was to use his name in marketing).

  3. OIFVet

    File under European Disunion: Germans’ assessment of Merz’s first 100 days is exceedingly damning. 59% disapprove and only 30% approve of Merz, in part due to him being seen as a ‘foreign affairs chancellor’ and unfocused/ineffective on addressing the deepening economic and social problems. “Foreign affairs” being polite euphemism for Merz’s preoccupation with Ukraine.

    1. The Rev Kev

      Sooo, what you are saying is that Germany’s Merz and the UK’s Starmer are brothers from different mothers? Both are totally obsessed with the Ukraine and they don’t really care what is happening in their own countries. Luckily for Trump he doesn’t have that problem. Not since he put Lindsay Graham in charge of America’s foreign affairs.

    1. Wukchumni

      It’s a world of slaughter
      A world of tears
      It’s a world of dashed hopes
      And a world of fears
      There’s so much that we’d rather not share
      That it’s time we’re aware
      It’s a small country after all

      It’s a small country after all
      It’s a small country after all
      It’s a small country after all
      It’s a small, small country

      There is just one chosen people who loom
      They need more living room
      And a bulldozer means
      Foreclosure to everyone
      Through the Zionist divide
      And to think we could live by the tide
      Instead of side by side
      It’s a small country after all

      It’s a small country after all
      It’s a small country after all
      It’s a small country after all
      It’s a small, small country

    2. The Rev Kev

      My understanding is that when the Israelis push the Palestinians into that new zone, that they stand ready to provide clean showers to them for free.

  6. The Rev Kev

    “Trump Rages at Nobel-Winning ‘Deranged Bum’ in Late-Night Meltdown”

    Trump seems to have really thin skin and pays far too much attention to what different people say about him. Frankly, it’s not “Presidential” behaviour and only serves to make him look bad. But here is the thing. Trump is going off on these people because they criticism his policy ideas and he don’t like that. But if we stop to think about it, a year ago Biden and his team were saying how the American economy was going great when any American going into a supermarket could see the lie there and many people here on NC were noting the same. So what happens when the wheels fall off the Trump economy because of all the things that he is doing such as all these tariffs. No doubt the government departments will get in line to agree with Trump that the economy is booming but when the discontent gets really loud because of worsening conditions, how will he react to all that? I’m not sure that he will be able to handle it. Will it make him try to crack down on free speech to stop the criticism for example?

    1. JohnA

      The Norwegian Nobel Committee was so burned by awarding the prize to Obama, I very much doubt they would dare to give it to Donald. But who knows, the Swedes gave the literature prize to Dylan.

      1. Erstwhile

        Maybe maxwell, after she gets her pardon from the trumpenfuhrer, will honor him by gifting him a years supply of adult baby diapers, and so craftily help trump put his past behind him. It’s not the nobel, but maxwell knows her men, and the most direct way to their tiny, black hearts.

    2. Mildred Montana

      Here’s my amateur psycho-analysis of Trump. I’ve read a couple of books about him so I’m not just spitballing here. His fatal character flaw is impulsiveness, a cardinal sign of sociopathy. Whatever he decides upon, he wants it done and he wants it done now. For instance, as a real estate developer he would start a project and then lose interest, leaving everything to his flunkies. As an entrepreneur (see: Trump University), same thing. As a President, all one needs to do is look at his much ballyhooed immigration “Wall”, of which, last I checked, is about 10% built.

      As a sociopath, he obviously has many character flaws. But to get to the nut of his case (and the point of the link), he is an example of arrested development and how it can warp a person. He never grew up. He’s still three-years-old, having tantrums. He was given hundreds of millions of dollars by his father to become a “self-made” man in real-estate. He has never known financial struggle or deprivation. He thinks that everything comes easy and then when it doesn’t he blows his top in capital letters on Truth Social.

      Can’t stand the man, couldn’t stand him fifteen or twenty years ago when he appeared on “60 Minutes”, wagging his finger at the interviewer and pretending to have all the answers. He is worse than a bad man, he is a menace to American democracy and world peace.

      2. Torrente

        I beg to disagree with the last part. He is a perfect fit for a thing called American democracy. As far as world peace goes, all US presidents in my not-so-short liftetime were a menace to it. It’s in the job description, and no ammount of Nobel prizes can fix that.

      1. chuck roast

        OK, have Ford dust off the plans for a ’65 Mustang and I’ll immediately get the cash up. Cheap to produce, easy to fix and durable. Improve the floor so it doesn’t rust out, and I’ll drive it till I die.

        1. The Rev Kev

          But remember how the Mustang ended up. Ford kept on adding more and more stuff to it so that it blew up in size & weight like a pregnant elephant causing Mustang drivers to protest. If I recall right, Ford then came out with a version more akin to the original one but then same process took over again. Ford could redo the original ’65 Mustang but how long would it be before those MBAs decided to add “value” with more bells and whistles – requiring a larger size with more weight – until the final result would look more like an SUV? Modern managers can’t leave well enough alone as they only see profits in adding more ‘features.’

    2. earthlin

      I was getting excited til I saw the word “Bezos-backed”. That’s a hard no for me, dawg.

  8. AG

    re: Ukraine Civil War

    NEUTRALITY STUDIES YT CHANNEL

    I found this very good.

    Conversation with former OSCE observer Benoît Paré who was there 2015-2022.
    He has a lot to tell…

    78 min.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCG8Xpm3APw

    Paré has a book on his experience where all this is written down in detail.
    It sounds as if it should be mandatory reading

    “What I Saw in Ukraine: 2015-2022 – Diary of an International Observer”
    https://www.amazon.com/what-saw-ukraine-2015-2022-international/dp/295986011x

    He is writing another one among other things on Bucha.
    I would love to see all this explode into media´s face.

  9. DJG, Reality Czar

    Larry Johnson, Expectations for 15 August Summit.

    Important observation: “Putin has the advantage in this meeting. The Russian military’s offensive against Ukraine is accelerating and Ukraine is unable to slow it down; Russia’s economy is under control, with inflation projected to fall to 12% by years end; … and Putin continues to enjoy enormous public support in Russia.”

    First, let’s not personalize this. The Russians control the battlefield. The Russians have annexed four oblasts and Crimea, which are not going back to the tender mercies of the beyond-corrupt Ukraine central government. Funny how people don’t trust a government that was letting rightwing militias run torture chambers… Meanwhile, in the US of A, the feds are endearing themselves to the populace with ICE and DOGE.

    So this isn’t about whether Trump and Putin raid the minibars at the resort, engage in “bromance” (we should be so lucky), and shake hands often. Armies, geographies, and spacetime are in play here.

    Meanwhile, the EU has no standing. Protests about territorial integrity don’t go far — and the EU bears some guilt in the breakup of Yugoslavia, the breakup of Libya, tacit support for illegal settlements in the West Bank, and the continuing mess that is Syria. Starmer, Macron, and Merz are the Three Stooges, but without the many redeeming qualities of the originals. Ahh, Larry Fine… now there was a diplomat.

    According, supposedly, to the disastrous English politician Winston Church, jaw jaw is better than war war.

    I am eagerly awaiting all of the comments from liberals in a lather: But, but, Give War a Chance.

    Topped off by some late-stage Demo Party buncombe from former President Obama and Future President Pete Buttigieg.

    Pass the vitello tonnato.

    PS: Italians keep noting that the Alaska Tryst falls on the major double holiday of summer here — Ferragosto and the Assumption of Mary Mother of God. Hmm. Prophecy? Probably not. Christo-fanato-zionists don’t care much for Mother of God talk, let alone Saint Joseph, Father of God, talk. Which is pretty much what Italian religion is based on.

    1. ilsm

      Trump feared to give away land inside of Stalin’s administrative borders now held sacred by the US and associated warring factions.

      Reuters headline: Kiev “should be free to take back the land….”

      Kiev’s freedom is nothing, has been nothing, without all the weapons gifted by the US and associate war mongers.

      Trump needs to be free of Kiev to go out and separate Taiwan from China…….

      1. mrsyk

        …..or maybe separate Mexico from its natural resources.
        Great rant DJG. I often use the phrase “give war a chance” when engaging with the true believers.

      2. The Rev Kev

        Zelensky has stated that he is ready to give up claims on territory that the Russians occupy – in exchange for weapons deliveries from the West and a clear path to NATO membership. Needless to say ‘The report also claims that the EU had decided to support Ukraine’s vision for peace in an effort to boost its diplomatic position in dealing with both Trump and Russia.’

        https://www.rt.com/russia/622783-zelensky-softens-stance-land-concessions/

        And of course this will guarantee that the war will start up again in two or three years time but that is kinda the point.

        1. ilsm

          That would be Minsk III.

          Russia is to the point of diminishing returns in destroying expensive US/EU systems.

          May as well take a few year break and have them come at them with a fresh supply of cannon fodder.

          In the meantime US LNG profits soar!

      3. Lee

        “Trump needs to be free of Kiev to go out and separate Taiwan from China…….”

        FWIW, Matt Stoller has a quite different take that seems very much at odds with the “pivot to Asia” doctrine.

        In retrospect, this era will be understood as the period when Trump explicitly embraced American decline in favor of Chinese leadership. My guess is that in a few years Trump forces a treaty on Taiwan making them part of China.

        https://x.com/matthewstoller/status/1950204797140816172

        1. Darthbobber

          Stoller has always been alarmist and hawkish when it comes to China. And knowledge of THOSE issues has never been his focus of study.

          1. Yves Smith Post author

            Not exactly true. His wife is from a very politically connected Taiwanese family. So he has knowledge but from sources with a strong point of view.

    2. Ben Panga

      My guess for the Alaska mystery box: an attempted quid pro quo involving Charlie Browning the Banderites [what’s “you shoulda known better” in Kurdish?] and throwing Ukraine to Russia in exchange for a free run at Greenland and an understanding in the Arctic.

      I’m convinced the Hobbit-botherers want Greenland.

  10. Polar Socialist

    Russian Kommersant newspaper says the the new Syrian regime has asked Russians to take over patrolling the southern parts of Syria, currently occupied by Israel. Russian have already resumed patrolling in areas of Kurdistan. So basically areas that are not under control of the jihadists new democracy.

    The speculation is that this is attempt to use Russians to convince IDF to withdraw from recently occupied areas. Israel did vouch for Russian military bases to remain in Syria as a counter force to Turkey, and as they need the troops for the ongoing genocide, it’s possible they’ll come an agreement with the Russians.

    In principle, already during Assad’s regime, the Russian patrols along the Lebanese border were supposed to stop the supplies to Hezbollah from Iran, but as Russians said already then that it’s really hard to tell the pro-Iranian smugglers from regular ones (so the patrols achieved very little in this regard).

    1. hk

      But what’s in it for the Russians? Maybe US military-technological-other secrets Israelis are stealing every day? (Just sputballing, but Israelis did sell US military secrets to Russia and China in the past, iirc–why so many people were furioys at the Pollard affair.)

  11. Adam1

    – Biochar from human waste

    Now this is something we should be investing in. The world is running out of mineable phosphorus and you can’t farm anything without phosphorus as all living life needs it. The use of human and animal excrement as fertilizer has been around for millennia, however modern human waste is often not much more than a hazardous waste pile because of all the stuff that goes along with it including forever chemicals. If turning it into biochar also reduces its hazardous waste load then it might be an important solution for multiple problems.

    1. Charger01

      The concentration of unpleasant chemicals, micro plastics and heavy metals will likely scotch any beneficial reuse of biochar from human waste. Only increased costs for municipal waste water plants as they find landfill or incinerator as the only option for the final end use. Biochar from wood waste is much more viable, syngas or steam as a primary electrical generation source would likely be an optimal use.

      1. amfortas

        cousin has buddies who are in the human waste bidness(MUD’s around Houston…lucrative privatisation that began decades ago)…and they use a great big digester to cook the effluent, then sell it to cities and golf courses for non-food plants(like the flowers in the median of the boulevard) he has spoken about quality control….but idk if they even look for the heavy metals, pharmaceutical traces, etc. i dont think microplastics are even on their radar.

        we talk about such poop related things a lot,lol…because of my composting toilets vs his buddy’s subdivision sized plants…
        mine all go to the pastures…and, now that i dont have a chemo patient contributing, to places where i hope to expand the gardens in a few years time.
        when i was searching for an alternative to an ordinary septic system(not enough room on my side of place=$8k for variances and extra system)…i toyed with a methane digester, but didnt trust my gashandling skillset…also toyed with a charcoal retort, similar to what these folks are talking about…but the barrel based dry composting system ended up being the simplest…as well as cheapest(county rules didnt contemplate it, so it went to state rules, which i am in compliance with-no permit required). the retort i ended up building is for all the brush and woody weeds i generate every year=> charcoal/tierra prieta for the beds, to mitigate the persistent herbicides)

        1. Ann

          The Humanure Handbook:

          https://humanurehandbook.com/

          I did this for years, using compost worms in 3 foot by 4 foot cylinders of hardware cloth (rabbit wire) and it works like magic. Unfortunately I am now too old and feeble to do the shovelling required after the process has taken two years in the bin.

          I still compost the kitchen scraps by simply digging a hole in the garden and dumping it in and covering up the hole. My large population of compost worms eats the compost over the course of a month and turns it into black fluffy dirt.

          In the winter, a few larger holes covered with garbage can lids hold all the kitchen waste until spring thaw, when the worms come up from below and eat it. I think I make more soil than I take out in produce each year. At least I see the garden rising and I attribute it to this process.

    2. Plutoniumkun

      The article (and the linked paper) are very vague about what they are proposing – it seems all theoretical (in other words, the authors aren’t really sure if it can be done economically).

      Biochar is basically charcoal, but to produce it from anything other than wood you need to use pyrolysis, which is basically burning it under pressure in the absence of oxygen. This usually produces a dry charcoal like byproduct (or sometimes a black goo) as well as methane, which can be used as a fuel. The quality of the outputs depends on many variables, and so far as I’m aware, most of the products on the market have struggled to produce good quality biochar from mixed inputs (i.e. something more than clean wood).

      Theoretically, the heat and pressure from pyrolysis could break down and destroy many of the microcontaminants that plague the use of human and animal sewage as fertiliser – the problem may be that it produces other problematic by-products. Whether this matters or not depends on other factors, such as how its introduced to soil (just randomly ploughed in? used to create a subsoil level?) and the biochemical properties of the soil itself. In other words, its complicated.

      It is the sort of medium tech solution we desperately need, and we need fast. Unfortunately, as there isn’t a lot of profit potentially in it, and for whatever reason its largely been overlooked by government funding agencies, it will take a lot of research to know if it is practical without causing some form of unexpected problem.

      1. Steve H.

        They are shifting the meaning of ‘biochar’ as well. Top quality biochar is lignin dependent, with vast surface area at the micro level. It also has less water than poo, and water is about the hardest thing in the universe to boil off.

        1. JP

          So I was thinking of a regenerative system using the methane for the heat but maybe too much water vapor in the gas.

          1. Steve H.

            Pyrolizing wood works well. I have yet to have personal contact with a methane system that did not leak, from the individual to the city-level. Highly aversive.

      2. amfortas

        yep…regrding government and industry ignoring this:
        11 years ago, when i was building the house, and researching all of this, i looked around to find a smaller digester…and all that were available in the us were million dollar big ones like for dairy farms.
        china produced lots of small household and village size types, and for cheap…but usa forbid their import. I spoke to one of the 2 guys in the EPA who dealt with methane digesters, and he was the most depressed gov employee i’d ever encountered.
        a georgia company(the state) imported the chinese little ones, and re-exported them to villages in africa.
        dude said Big Gas was the primary driver of these policies, as they didnt want competition.

        and i agree, this is exactly the sort of low to medium tech we need.
        my systems…the toilets and the retort…are really, really low tech…and represent an almost closed nutrient cycle on my side of the place….as well as an unknown amount of carbon sequestration,lol.(havent even tried to figure that math out)

        1. vao

          Have you ever considered putting descriptions / schemata / plans of the low-tech systems you use, with accompanying tips-and-tricks / experience reports on-line, perhaps on your own website (if you have one)?

          2. amfortas

            for the toilets, essentially the same ones used by arizona parks and wildlife for their back country potties, designed and given to them for free by an old man. Cant remember where i found it…
            super basic: a barrel, with a funnel and hose, positioned just right, to divert pee to a built wetland(cattails)a shroud to keep critters out(i use old shade cloth and an old ratchet strap and rubber bungie)…and dry leaves or shavings.
            and thats it. never smells unless it gets wet.

            for the retort, the blacksmithing diy site i snagged it from is defunct.
            basically 2 oil drums on their sides welded to a stand, with heavy pipe coming from the top and looping underneath, where the pipes have holse in them.
            laod it with woody weeds and etc, cut up as small as poss…seal the barrels…light lil fire underneath…when the volitiles start to cook off, they come out the pipe holes into that initial fire and ignite…roars like a jet engine.
            come back next day, and you have charcoal.

            1. Revenant

              You have Facebook? I don’t belong but I would be tempted for you! Is it against the rules for you to post the URL…?

                1. Revenant

                  I only see the intro page of your family but it’s a fine family! And you are pretty much as I imagined from your comments. Just a touch less wired and grizzled than your writing! :-)

  12. The Rev Kev

    “Is the Royal Navy at breaking point or a turning point?”

    Definitely a breaking point as the same incompetents are still running things. So if the Royal Navy ever came knocking on my door for an idea, I have one – cancel the nuclear Trident program. Give it the axe. That program costs tens of billions of pounds and only serves to make the UK a nuclear target. So you chop that program and use the money to raise wages to keep sailors in the Navy while you build the ships vitally needed so that once more you have more combat ships than admirals, unlike the present situation. There is only one problem with that idea. If it ever happened, Starmer would immediately grab all that money saved so that he could send it to the Ukraine.

    1. ilsm

      Could the same be said for the US Navy now without a useable shipyard structure.

      The demise of naval design is the US Navy’s fault, their “for profit not for sailing” strategy.

      I am not aware that the US has evolved to meet any new “threats”…. to its “defense in depth” 6000 miles from its littorals.

      A lot of money to be made, not much in results.

      1. AG

        >”Could the same be said for the US Navy now without a useable shipyard structure.”
        Is it really that bad?

        1. Adam1

          Sadly yes. Google new US Coast Guard icebreaker ship construction. It’s the naval version of the F-35 disaster. It’s only success is in wasting money. The boats will be built in the US, but no US shipbuilder has any competence in building icebreakers – just look at the $125M boat the coast guard bought recently (the Aiviq) that isn’t even designed to operate well in artic waters!?!?!

        2. scott s.

          There’s really two things going on: nuclear and non-nuclear.

          Nuclear shipbuilding has been pretty much steady for 40+ years. We have two commercial yards for subs (Newport News and Electric Boat) and one of those (Newport News) also builds the CVNs. Contract management (Supervisor of Shipbuilding) I think hasn’t changed all that much for these yards. So I don’t think it is a structural issue here. Adding increased production to build the Columbia class which is essentially over-and-above the Virginia class capacity is the issue.

          Non-nuclear is much more an issue. Again for 40+ years two yards (Ingalls and Bath Iron Works) have built our combatant types (destroyer, frigate, cruiser). The real capacity problem has been with the rest of the fleet. As part of Rumsfeld’s “transformation” two new yards were brought in (Marinette Marine and Austal) to build the LCS classes. I’m not sure how capable those yards are. Marinette got the contract to build the lead Constellation Class frigates and I have my doubts as to how that is going to go. Currently much of the issue is centered on design. USN I guess licensed a design, but to “Americanize” it you have to bring in other designers to first understand the existing design and then figure out what needs to change, and then how to get the result to the yard in the formats they need.

          The remaining fleet (amphibs, service force) is where crunch comes in. There used to be yards in Seattle (Lockheed) and Avondale but those fell on hard times. I guess Avondale got fired for crappy workmanship. The Koreans have taken over the old Philly Navy Yard for commercial shipbuilding. Maybe that will help the logistics fleet.

          This doesn’t include supply chain issues. We used to have a reserve unit at Philly Naval Shipyard that issued a quarterly survey of lead times for various items deemed “key”. Not sure if they exist any more.

          Keep in mind a lot of what goes into a warship is “government furnished material” (GFM). The programs which design and procure the GFM have to integrate with the building yard (and the shipbuilding program office “customer”).

          The “detail design” work (creates bill of material that the yard’s buyers need, and fabrication drawings the crafts need) is another aspect that tends to be ignored when we discuss capacity. This is an area where maybe AI could provide some advantage.

          I have some personal experience when CAD was first brought into the yards. Prior naval archs and engineers would lay transparent drawings of various piping and electrical systems on a “light table” and find (and fix) conflicts in layout. The nature of this was smaller pipe and cable runs couldn’t be deconflicted this way; the craft was expected to figure out on the job the best way to run them.

          When CAD came in, it all had to be done in the CAD. That meant the yard had to hire all these CAD draftsmen to do what the crafts had done. The design tolerance in the CAD was 1/8th of an inch. I guess the idea was that you could get a welder lying on her back in 90 degree heat in Mississippi to weld a standoff (to hold a cable) on a bulkhead to within 1/8th inch of the drawing. But we paid someone to do that drawing in CAD.

          1. Revenant

            I went to see the Titanic Museum and Belfast and the construction process was fascinating.

            There was a great loft at the top of the building where the ship’s plans were, for the final stage, chalked onto the floor 1:1 for cross sections and 5:1 for longitudinal sections, to do exactly this deconfliction and design detail.

            None of the important steel ribs etc was machined and moulded to a carve, they were made by hammering live white hot beams into a curve using a floor with a grid of holes and special U-shaled Lin’s to hold the metal into a curve, and it unbends after curving so the hammerers did it tighter than needed and let it relax. They just *knew*….

            It also talked about the five man rivettung team. The heater boy, the catcher, the holder and the two men on the other side (one left and one right handed) who hammered in counterpoint on the rivet. And they would do that in kneel spaces between double skins….

    2. Adam1

      I was gob smacked when I read this article. Didn’t the UK just nationalize its last virgin steel mill for national strategic concerns while also having concerns about having enough demand to keep it open and operating?!?!

      It’s amazing how little governing skill exists in the west anymore! You need naval ships; naval ships need lots of steel; you own a steel mill that has a need for a buyer of its steel. Putting that steel mill to use and putting shipyards back into service would likely be self funding or at least sufficiently self funding to cover interest on the government debt incurred to build those naval ships. And as icing on the cake, improve ones chances of getting re-elected.

      It should be a no-brainer, but I suspect like the rest of the west… no one with a brain is employed at the highest levels of government anymore.

  13. Wukchumni

    Driving that interest rate train high on debt pain
    Jay you better watch your speed
    Trouble ahead, trouble behind
    And you know that notion just crossed my mind

    This old hegemony is marking time
    Leaves of grass notwithstanding
    The march of Dimes
    Hits inflation and mortgages too
    At the supermarkets when
    You know it’s goin’ up again

    Driving that interest rate train high on debt pain
    Jay you better watch your speed
    Trouble ahead, trouble behind
    And you know that notion just crossed my mind

    Trouble ahead; a country $37 trillion in red
    Take my advice, you’d be better writing off the debt
    Switchman sleeping
    SWIFT train is on the wrong track
    And hubris is headed for you

    Driving that interest rate train high on debt pain
    Jay you better watch your speed
    Trouble ahead, trouble behind
    And you know that notion just crossed my mind

    Trouble with you is the trouble with me
    Got two good eyes but we still don’t see
    Come round the bend, you know it’s our hegemony end
    The proletariat screams, and the edifice just gleams

    Driving that interest rate train high on debt pain
    Jay you better watch your speed
    Trouble ahead, trouble behind
    And you know that notion just crossed my mind

    Casey Jones, by the Grateful Dead

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x2m6i4KFqg&list=RD_x2m6i4KFqg

  14. Jason Boxman

    The tariffs have landed

    CPI report reveals inflation held steady in July as tariffs threatened wider impact

    Inflation held steady in July as President Donald Trump’s sweeping import tariffs took a widening toll on U.S. consumer prices.

    An underlying inflation measure accelerated more than expected.

    Prices overall increased 2.7% from a year earlier, similar to June, according to the Labor Department’s consumer price index, a measure of average changes in goods and services costs.

    On a monthly basis, costs increased 0.2% after rising 0.3% the previous month.

    …

    By year’s end, Barclays expects overall inflation to reach 3.4% while the core reading hits 3.7%.

    It was always gonna take time for this to seep into prices, and we don’t seem to be entirely there yet. But eventually producers are going to run out of stockpile and runway to avoid price increases, and then we’re off to the races.

    The Market is happy, though, futures are ripping higher pre-market.

    1. griffen

      I’m still and likewise expecting a sustained level of inflation no matter the tariff delays but also those tariffs going into goods and services during these summer months. I’m still awaiting this unicorn level of prices on an average gallon of simple 87 octane, by example. Locally I see the range staying about $2.75 to $2.99 with some occasional pricing below $2.75.

      Dear Leader has already taken to the megaphone this morning , to advertise once again that Chair Powell is “too late baby it’s too late”…\sarc…The Federal Reserve does not have as part of it’s dual mandate to obsess on the government interest expenses of carrying this level of the US deficits. Seems like people in Congress own some responsibility for that, and instead they broadly project a sheer inability to do math.

    1. Wukchumni

      John Sutter bought Fort Ross from the Russians in 1841 and then apparently stiffed the proto-commies on the payment, possibilities loom…

      The Russian-American Company consequently offered the settlement to various potential purchasers, and in 1841 it was sold to John Sutter, a Mexican citizen of Swiss origin, soon to be renowned for the discovery of gold at his lumber mill in the Sacramento valley. Although the settlement was sold for $30,000 to Sutter, some Russian historians assert the sum was never paid; therefore legal title of the settlement was never transferred to Sutter and the area still belongs to the Russian people.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Ross,_California

    2. The Rev Kev

      He might have thought about asking Russia if they would like to sell him the Kamchatka Peninsula. But after those earthquakes and volcano going off there, thought better of it and dropped the whole idea.

  16. Carolinian

    Re BBC on “bad is good” movies. I’ll pass. Some of us would argue that Wes Anderson has made an entire career out of the smarty pants version of this (latest The Phoenician Scheme). The arch gets old.

    However here’s arguing that almost any Nicholas Cage movie–and he’s made so very many–would be worth a look. Talent transcends all.

    1. Lee

      It is not unusual these days to find good actors trapped in a bad script, such as in the recently released film, The Thicket, featuring Juliet Lewis and Peter Dinklage. Lewis’s performance in particular is something to see.

      1. Carolinian

        Right. Back in the Hollywod “Golden Age” the stories were designed to sell the movie stars and now the, perhaps, more skilled actors are used to sell the subpar stories. The great story telling tradition of a more literate era seems to have declined.

        But then movies are about actors IMO in both eras. To me the most memorable visual in any movie is likely to be a human face.

      1. Mildred Montana

        Might be me, but I absolutely loved “Leaving Las Vegas”. Best movie about a hopeless drunk ever!* I know Cage has his detractors, but in that movie he (and Elizabeth Shue) were great.

        Other than that, I can’t stand (1) old movies, (2) bad movies, or (3) very new movies:

        (1) Yuck. Bad lighting, bad camera work, wooden acting. Why all the praise for Bogart movies such as “Casablanca”? I don’t get it.

        (2) Why would I want to laugh at a bad movie? Wouldn’t a good comedy film be more satisfying?

        (3) Franchises, sequels, special effects and CGI, volume up to 11, no dialogue except for one-sentence wise-cracks. I’ll leave ’em to the youngsters.

        *I think this factoid is not well known. John O’Brien, the author of the book “Leaving Las Vegas”, sold the rights to it and then, two weeks later at the age of 33 blew his brains out. He was, of course, an alcoholic, which is why the movie rings so true.

        1. JBird4049

          I would say that what I like about older movies such as Casablanca the actors act unlike too many newer movies where it’s all screaming like spoiled children and then add CGI. So, I might not like the plots of the older movies at least I can enjoy the acting.

    3. Keith Newman

      @Carolinian at 9:26 am
      OMIGOD! Wes Anderson. What a bunch of pretentious garbage. Saw Budapest Hotel when it came out and streamed Asteroid City (with Scarlett J) a few months ago: boring, scattered and moronic.
      I need a strong drink to melt away my recollection of these turkeys.

      1. Socal Rhino

        I appreciate a wide range of movies including highly stylized ones, but Anderson just never appealed to me. Except the animated one about the fox, I liked that one.

  17. The Rev Kev

    “So bad they’re good – why do we love terrible films?”

    I heard a bit about that new film “War of the Worlds”‘ mentioned but had not gotten into checking it out. Jee-zuz. Here is a review by YouTube video critic Dav Cullen and he rips them a new one-

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZ4Xk64r-Bk (8:08 mins)

    Yeah, we all like to laugh at films that are so bad that in some sort of way, they actually become good. This film is not one of them.

    2. griffen

      My brother has a best friend who to this very day will talk at length as to how dreadul, and horrible it was to watch the very hyped film “AI” in a theater. Part of it directed by Kubrick at the time of his death and afterwards it was completed by Spielberg.

      On occasion over the weekend several US mainstay cable network channels will feature a run of films many will know. The Lethal Weapon movies, or maybe the Die Hard movies, both we can thankfully say stopped and weren’t just constantly rehashed. Over and over, rinse repeat then rinse repeat yet again, like what Disney has done with the Marvel universe since like 2010. To wit I recently finished watching the Guardians of the Galaxy 3 movie. Just enough already and end the film.

      1. Late Introvert

        “afterwards it was completed by Spielberg” says all you need to know, but I guess they were friends.

      2. GF

        Yesterday the channel had a Clark Gable day. We have Lone Star up next having watched the Misfits last evening. I saw Misfits way back in the 60’s and didn’t really comprehend it. I must say, Marilyn Monroe’s character was amazingly played by her.

        I haven’t seen too many of her 29 movies, but I think Misfits is her best.

    3. Ben Panga

      I have watched that New War of The Worlds and it is truly terrible. I didn’t hate it, which is rare for me with any movie. Admittedly, I was doing admin tasks while watching.

      Tangent: Good sci-fi is hard to find, sigh.

  18. Wukchumni

    Gooooooooood Moooooorning Fiatnam!

    Everybody in the platoon was on pins and needles in anticipation of patrolling a metropolis near you…

    Many had anticipated what we dealt to other countries coming back to haunt us, and it was go time.

  19. griffen

    Article above on the scarcity of employment roles for new and recent computer science, programming and data science undergrads. Those heady headlines from 10 to 15 years ago have all changed, I believe in the past 4 to 6 years. And to me it also seems like the good economic days of 2019 into early 2020 are a very distant memory. Low unemployment combined with fairly tame rates of inflation on most goods and services.

    Back to the “youts” for a second. It’s 30 years hence from May of 1995 I graduated with a basic undergrad in computer science, primarily that was in mainframe languages which by then the transition to client server was firmly underway. I didn’t cut it as a programmer and instead pivoted to finance and investment finance, which aligned better to my skills and my accounting minor. My humble opinion you need a plan B at some point in life. Added, I could’ve somehow used my mediocre Cobol coding skills again but that was far much later in life.

    Technology and IT have always been a fast moving industry. These CEO clowns and presidential candidates should never have promised a bottomless bucket of pay and stock options but instead point out rightly this country needs more STEM college grads. Which might also mean spending a few initial years filing dull TPS reports but that may fly in the face of what you’ve been told. Best of luck on searching to this younger generation.

  20. Mikel

    “I did the research: there are very few examples – if any – in Europe’s millennia-old history of a military defeat against an external power where it wasn’t even at the table to negotiate the conditions for its future.

    You’d probably need to go all the way back to the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to find Europeans having zero say in their own fate…”@Arnaud Bertrand

    Sorry, but that is all on the Europe.
    Since it would probably have to be an EU thing, Russia and EU can have agreements together.
    Pick up the phone today and negotiate your future…
    And make it an EU thing because this is where Brexit works as a huge favor.
    UK maybe will need to soul search and work out their objections.

    I’m 100% that Europe could secure its future – right now – no matter what the USA does. It’s just may cost more financially to do it.

    1. Mikel

      To continue (had to switch devices):
      If it’s not going to happen, it’s for the same reason it’s always so difficult to end wars, proxy conflicts, etc: people not wanting to give up making some money from the mess and a good deal of other grifting. Add to this: political reasons such as using conflict to consolidate power.

      1. The Rev Kev

        ‘people not wanting to give up making some money from the mess’

        I think that you might be right. Somebody here quoted a conversation between LBJ and one of his aides and the aide wanted to end the war in Vietnam. LBJ replied back if I can remember the words ‘I can’t, John. My friends are making too much money.’

        58,000 Americans later.

        1. judy2shoes

          “58,000 Americans later.”

          Not to mention the hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians. Estimates vary widely, it seems

        2. Mikel

          And Europeans sat there with investments in those same companies or friends…as well as their own.
          The French did Indochina/Vietnam invasions just before the USA.

  21. Carolinian

    Re The Brainrot of a Nazified Society–this article is laying it on the line and its hard to argue with its contention that Nazi attitudes are still around and perhaps part of all of us in the right circumstances. Therefore the essential premise of colonialism–that one group or race of people is superior and needed to civilize other groups of people–is scientifically bogus if philosophically useful. Recall that even those big thinkers back in ancient Greece thought of foreigners as “barbarians.” Nothing new under the sun.

    Perhaps our choice then, during this shaky time, is whether we are going to be smart or tribal. For the Israelis and the Trumpies who share their brainrot it’s tribal all the way. Just don’t pretend it’s smart or “most moral.” The excuses merely insult those who choose differently.

  22. The Rev Kev

    “Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth promotes repealing women’s right to vote”

    ‘Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who oversees about 3 million military service members and civilian employees, reposted a video last week advocating repealing the 19th Amendment, which guarantees women the right to vote.’

    Boy, Trump can sure pick them. Thinking of an article in yesterday’s Link, Hegseth is the sort of guy who would throw a dildo on a basketball court with women players. Well if women can’t be entrusted with the ballot, then for sure they cannot be trusted in the military either. Let’s look at some numbers-

    ‘In 2021, women made up 17.3% of the active-duty force, totaling 231,741 members; and 21.4% of the National Guard and reserves at 171,000 members.’

    Anybody think that Hegseth can find about 230,000 men to replace all those women without resorting to the draft? Where does Trump find all these clowns for his appointees. Oh, that’s right. Fox News-

    https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3246268/department-of-defense-releases-annual-demographics-report-upward-trend-in-numbe/

    1. moog

      Hegseth is the sort of guy who wouldn’t touch a dildo, out of fear that it would make him gay.

    2. Geo

      “Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth promotes repealing women’s right to vote”

      They should lead with their values and deter all MAGA women from voting.

    3. scott s.

      From the link, I guess the issue is Hegseth posted a video from some “Christian Nationalist” (I use quotes as I’m not sure what that really means, or for US to be a “Christian Nation”) church pastor. Apparently this guy promotes the idea of a family where each spouse has certain roles to play. It sounded to me more like he tossed out the idea of one vote per household. But any rate it wasn’t really focused on voting rights so I call this a mischaracterization. I note also the link mentioned Hesgeth not wanting women in the military, but all the references I can find are to women in combat or “combat roles” and women being drafted, not the military overall.

    1. Ben Panga

      Where are the damn policies? Why would anyway choose the Democrats?

      Increasingly, the words “The Democrats” are morphing into the old comedian’s joke “The Aristocrats” in my mind:

      The joke itself is very simple. In its most-basic form, a family goes to see a talent agent, performs their act—which is comprised of disgusting depravity—and once they finish, they ask the agent what he thought. The agent is shocked and asks what they call themselves. The answer from the proud family: The Aristocrats!

    2. Mildred Montana

      >”Still, there were pockets of opportunity.”

      Yup, there are “pockets of opportunity”, says the NYT of its favorite (and only) party as it applies lipstick to the Democratic donkey. This is worth examining, so let’s see where those so-called “pockets” might lie for “opportunistic” Dems.

      Could it be in those who still believe Obama’s lies? Check. Could it be in those who still believe in ObamaCare? Check. In those who still believe “Russia-gate”? Check. In those who dismiss the duplicities of Genocide Joe, his retainers, and black/South Asian/whatever Kamala? Check.

      So the pockets of opportunity lie in the above constituency. And guess what? They all depend on the same old Dem playbook: Gulling the gullible, mis-informing the ignorant, deceiving the wise. Therein, says the NYT, lies opportunity for the Dems. No surprise . SOP. For both.

  24. flora

    Here’s a blast from the past, via NBC news:

    Controversial fencing around Capitol goes back up as part of State of the Union security

    Precautions are in place to prepare for protests and trucker envoys.

    https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/controversial-fencing-capitol-back-part-sotu-security/story?id=83159970

    (And Brandon still owes me $600. Until Dems give me a reason to vote for them, – besides the Orange Man Bad shtick – well then they can continue to wonder why their approval rating is the lowest it has ever been. / ;)

    1. Jason Boxman

      LOL, I did finally forget about that $600. I must have forgotten sometime this year. Trump has the wrecking ball on overdrive, and I ran out of mental space for all the pending devastation. Meanwhile The Market is ripping into new all time highs. It’s all mind bending.

    2. Carolinian

      But now the orange man really is bad. As citizens our best protection may be to keep the oligarchs fighting among themselves.

      I intend to start voting again. And Trump’s national approval is poor–hence the gerrymandering push.

  25. Steve H.

    > How AI, Healthcare, and Labubu Became the American Economy Kyla Scanlon (resilc). Important.

    Much good information here. What caught me is something I’ll disagree with:

    >> Something that troubles me is the idea that maybe everything is becoming financialized because financial markets are the last remaining system capable of aggregating distributed information and enabling coordination at scale.

    From yesterday:

    > But with electronic mediation, the dating pool may be regional, the best friends may be on the other side of the planet. That vast increase in the size of the group requires an institutional framework, which an app provides.

    You can’t locally aggregate distributed information, which is non-local. Likewise, ‘coordination at scale’ goes to large numbers, requiring a system / institution / platform. When he says ‘last remaining system’, what are the lost ones? I get media, education, social media, for starters.

    If they are lost, it’s algorithmic rather than technical. Facebook was a causal factor of the Arab Spring, but could that happen now? There is an invisible fundamental at work, that all that aggregating still leads to an exclusion function, whether for mates, hobbies, politics, stock picks… What you call positive assortment, I call confirmation bias. Versilos, the Versailles hall of mirrors meets the Big Sort silos (Bluesky = MSNBC, Twix turning into FoxNews…). So that ‘last remaining system’ may be the view from inside the financial silo, with the enabled ‘coordination at scale’ being the horrific inverted pyramid balanced on Nvidia chips.

    They’ve got you looking left and right so you don’t look up.

    1. tegnost

      all that aggregating still leads to an exclusion function,

      Thanks, that is a clarifying statement for me, distills a cloud of thoughts in a few words

    2. skippy

      Truth is deeper than mathematics

      Reality is not a number

      “Mathematics is a powerful tool. But increasingly, maths is being mistaken for reality. From fitness trackers to large language models, we’re increasingly ruled by systems that quantify without understanding. In this incisive and darkly comic article, novelist and essayist Joanna Kavenna explores the rise of cyber-Pythagoreanism—the belief that reality can be captured through numbers—and argues that when we mistake data for truth, we risk replacing the real world with algorithmic fiction.”

      https://iai.tv/articles/truth-is-deeper-than-mathematics-auid-3278

      Frank, Gleiser & Thompson have written a philosophy book about this called The Blind Spot which is excellent. It tries to bring the philosophy of human experience back into our epistemology.
      Mathematics is a symbol. Symbols are representations of reality, not reality itself.
      Reality can be directly experienced – but as soon as we represent it with semantics or mathematics you’re talking about the symbol not the thing in itself.

      Then if one factors in Path Dependency via social networks/income expectations …. wellie … see Trumpo clown car, tech bros, and my personal fav … econometrics …

      Anywho … public holiday here in Qld, Ekka, and I will be going to work on the Queenslander for a nice retired couple. BTW he is a retired Philosophy of Science PhD sort, writing a book right now, worked and collaborated with some notable Universities in the U.S. and then I showed up to paint …. lmmao.

        1. skippy

          Ta mate and yes I have been aware of NKS/Wolfram for a long time now. In fact my last two comp builds were centered on such, albeit more so too pull apart [deconstruct] neoclassical/neo-new&now paleo Keynesian economic models aka DSGE et al.

          Put it this way, when people see my PC they exclaim its the biggest they have ever seen. On that note – I sometimes ponder had I used that power to mine bitcoin back in the early days lmmao. Yet I have no remorse from an ethical stand point, it would be hard to criticize it and at the same time benefit personally from it.

          I have no dramas with such explorations facilitated by computational devices, including AI, as long as its thoroughly examined for rigor with human oversight.

          What I disagree, abhor, is, using such methodology on humans aka atomistic individualism, especially when the Symbols[tm] are ex ante/synthetic a priori via some deductive process. Worse when its framed only in a Market[tm] place model (reality). Yet the entire Orthodox Economic tertiary system has been geared to indoctrinate so many generations now, filters down through society via framing by MSM and social media, per se econometrics, etc.

          See Trumpo calling a tax on consumers a tariff on foreign nations – gaslighting of epic proportions.

          At least Russia/China are providing a real time counter weight to this mythology, hence the inverted totalitarianism unfolding in the collective West. Multipolarity will unfold slowly and be very bumpy for those not in the upper wealth bracket. Its just mad mad mad to think how far the West has become anti family formation, cornerstone to civilization, largely due to orthodox economics, elite tenancies, only to back fill with excessive immigration, national identity/cohesion go right out the window – I digress lmmao~~~~~ phew …

  26. The Rev Kev

    ‘China’s unemployed young adults who are pretending to have jobs’

    Actually I find this to be a good idea. Those guys are socializing instead of being isolated, they are certainly picking up hints and tips from their fellow ‘workers, they have time to do proper resumes and can get good feedback on the spot, are making friends that may last after they get back into the workforce, are in a safe comfortable environment and have a chance to re-orientate their lives. What’s not to like?

    Kudos too for that video clip of that young German Shepherd making friends with that white Labrador on the other side of the fence. They should have a play date.

    1. vao

      Wasn’t there something like that in Japan, I believe in the aftermath of the big Japanese real-estate implosion some 35 years ago?

    2. skippy

      “What’s not to like?”

      Productive employment … it should be noted that in the U.S. and even across the pond that the longer a person is without any employment – regardless of previous circumstances and knowledge/experience there are diminishing returns the longer one is unemployed. Sux but, it is reality and more important it messes with family formation. Even in tribal social settings on needs to contribute to the whole as an individual and group dynamic. Western history is full of stories of this diaspora, yes elites create the dynamic but, for now one has to contend with it.

      “Kudos too for that video clip of that young German Shepherd making friends with that white Labrador on the other side of the fence. They should have a play date.”

      Unless its my 50 kg all black long coat German Shepherd and not only other dogs but, heaps of people jerk when they first see him – bloke walking a wolf/bear is often heard. Then some dogs just freak out, people walking their dogs freak out, all when he is the biggest nice guy and affectionate. Yet when Vets and staff see him they are like OMG Mister Canine hello beautiful gentile lad …

  27. Mildred Montana

    Trump Sends National Guard to D.C., Threatens Chicago With the Same

    “In the Office of the President the deed is done the troops are sent
    There’s really not much choice you see it looks to us like anarchy
    And then the tanks go rolling in patch things up as best they can
    There is no time to hesitate the speech is made the dues can wait”

    Gordon Lightfoot, Black Day in July

    Trump the Terrible has crossed the Rubicon. Charon the ferryman has loaded American democracy and is making good progress across the river Styx.

    1. scott s.

      Crossing the Rubicon? From the founding until 1876 the military was often involved in what could be called “policing”.

  28. Bill B

    “The United States helped beat back malaria in Guinea. Now, the disease is set to soar” Malaria control funded by the dreaded USAID. “… (according to a Lancet estimate) if PMI had continued as usual, it would have prevented 13.6 million malaria cases and 104,000 deaths across sub-Saharan Africa this year, including 250,000 cases and 450 deaths in Guinea.” And, ‘…a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of State said it is “committed to ensuring a smooth integration of designated life-saving global health programs from USAID to the Department and this transition is well underway.”’ Color me skeptical.

  29. Zephyrum

    Regarding Las Vegas tipping–I’ve been going to that city since I turned 21, though rarely in recent years. Trade shows were always the impetus for these visits. They have killed the magic of the place for reasons of investor economics.

    The magic was this: it was about the least expensive place to visit in the country, but something fancier was always available at a higher price level. That’s why the conventions went there; it was cheap. But if you wanted to take a client out for a nicer meal, that was available. In the previous century there was a very smooth ramp from the $9 buffet meal to the $90 fancy steakhouse to the $900 private dining room. Options available at every level. And this was true for lodging, meals, and entertainment.

    The organizations at the low end made a decent living, and the ones at the higher end made bundles. The Bellagio raised the bar by showing that substantial investor funds could lead to even larger profits. The race was on to invest a lot and get even better returns. Only one problem: all this investment crowded out the low end. The buffet meals disappeared, as did the low-cost lodging. Entertainment moved up-market with bigger shows and higher ticket prices.

    Today there is no ramp, and the entry points are expensive. Why go hang out in a hot dusty desert for big bucks when you can go somewhere nicer for less?

    Here’s the secret: people did not go to Las Vegas for the glitz. They went there because it was cheap and they could splurge on a little glitz as they felt like it. Since the attraction is no longer there, people have no reason to go.

    It will correct itself, in time. The weaker hands, so to speak, will capitulate and lower prices. Some might even go back to offering bargains. And people will visit for those bargains, and buy a little glitz too while they are there stuck in the oasis. Until then it’s going to be bleak.

    1. Zephyrum

      I’ll add a nod to the elephant in the room, gambling. A frequent Monday-morning brag in the last century was, “I went to Vegas last weekend and paid for my trip at the blackjack tables.” That was part of the offer–it was cheap to go there and if you knew what you were doing, even cheaper. And if you did really, really well the casino would take care of you as the newly minted high-roller. Affordable, believable dreams are magic.

    2. Wukchumni

      Methinks the downfall of Las Vegas is merely part of the gambling bubble bulkheads giving way, combined with rapacious greed in Sin(k) City.

      When states come to their senses and outlaw online sports betting is right after a major scandal involving name brand pro athletes ala the 1919 Chicago Black Sox, combined with a major crisis of despondent younger men ruined by gambling.

      We’ve essentially legalized bookies, a crime you would have gone to jail for before the turn of the century.

    3. Carolinian

      Interesting. Re the gambling aspect, perhaps casinos now all over the country have thinned out the low end customers.

      We even have them here in the Southeast where there used to be blue laws.

      While I do travel a bit in the West I prefer seeing Vegas from a speeding car.

    4. scott s.

      Well, there’s still the Strip vs Downtown vs outlying areas but at least for the Strip I think you are right that they’ve kind of priced themselves out. Even on the gambling; try to find a $5 craps table on the Strip.

      I guess though for August you might not get hit with resort/parking fees in some properties.

      Have family there and actually prefer to grab a bike and head out to Red Rock Canyon, or if you need a Casino, Summerlin

      1. Wukchumni

        Boulder City is an odd duck in that its the only town in the state that doesn’t allow gambling-a relief.

        There are a few casinos on the outskirts if you really gotta, low key affairs, one of them the Hoover Dam Lodge, has no humans dealing cards or dice, completely computerized.

        Hemenway Park in Boulder City is where a herd of around 35 Desert Bighorn Sheep hang out munching on grass and power lounging. They’re pretty docile. I’ve been 10 feet away from half a dozen rams many times.

        I’d opt for a flat water kayak on the not so mighty part of the Colorado River, where the put-in point is about 1/2 a mile below Hoover Dam and the put-out point is @ Willow Beach in Arizona 11 miles downstream.

        Along the way are a dozen hot springs and gamboling along slots canyons above you might see some Desert Bighorn Sheep.

        No real kayaking experience needed, easy-peasy

  30. AG

    re: 25 years Kursk disaster

    Any decent assessment of the sinking of the Kursk 25 years ago?

    In Western press it´s now being abused to smear Russian authorities (it used to be to belittle them). So I can´t expect an adult analysis. And back when it happened I didn´t look that thoroughly.

    There is a decent movie about it by Danish director Thomas Vinterberg adopting a script by Robert Rodat (“Saving Private Ryan” and… “The Catcher Was a Spy”) adapting the investigative book by Robert Moore.

    via Wiki footnote THE GUARDIAN in 2002 with 2 book reviews on the topic

    Fire down below
    Peter Truscott and Robert Moore give very different accounts of the sinking of the Kursk – but both agree that the submarine tragedy reveals the problems that beset Russian military culture

    24 August 2002

    Kursk: Russia’s Lost Pride
    by Peter Truscott

    A Time to Die: The Kursk Disaster
    by Robert Moore

    https://web.archive.org/web/20160314190740/http://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/aug/24/highereducation.kursk

    1. scott s.

      I found a great yt on the salvage ops Kursk Salvops

      Have some interest in that in one of my jobs I was the backup for the Fleet Salvage Officer so if he wasn’t available I would be called on to coordinate. I think the USN has turned much of our salvage and submarine rescue over to civilian contracted firms; though if you watch the video you see some is so complex there isn’t much capability anywhere in the world.

      In my day we had a collection of ATS and ASR ships for rescue/salvage, including support for saturation diving. I guess they rely on ROV devices now.

      It may end up like the Scorpion loss and be something repeatedly argued over. IIRC Scorpion resulted in US Navy procedural changes with SUBMISS and SUBSUNK reports for over due subs.

  32. Mildred Montana

    When Did Republican Women Get to Be So Vile as These Four?

    Not just Republican women, what about some Democratic women? And also the spouses of male politicians such as Melania Trump, Jill Biden, Michelle Obama, Laura Bush, Hillary Clinton, etc.?

    It’s a question I’ve often pondered. Why are there so few (if any) high-profile divorces in Washington? Why instead do the wives seem to tolerate the bad behavior of their husbands: womanizing Bill, stupid George, lying Barack, corporate Joe, crazy Donald. And yet they do.

    The only answer seems to be that they condone it. And that makes them as vile as the four aforementioned Republican women.

    1. DJG, Reality Czar

      Wowsers. Virginia Heffernan is really, really upset and thinks that she is a stylist with invective. Yes, Noem, McMahon, and Bondi are bottom feeders.

      But note how Heffernan just can’t give up on Russia Russia Russia: “Gabbard, the newly minted gun fetishist who now speaks in Q drops, is concocting sham treason charges against Obama. This is probably to get back into the boss’s good graces after she crossed him on the Iran bombing—and to help Bondi and Trump distract from Trump-Epstein.”

      Well, no, Heffernan, who should know better but is blinkered. When we are talking about misuse of FISA courts, planting false reports and evidence, and suborning the (willing) “intelligence community,” that’s a problem with diddling with the U.S. Constitution that will affect even Virginia Heffernan and N.W. D.C. It’s journalists like Heffernan and “historians” like Heather Cox Richardson who thought that the Democrats had an air-tight case against Trump for impeachment and removal based on intelligence-community creation Vindman and former Biden aide and baby éminence grise Eric Ciaramella (who was never supposed to be named).

      I will assume from Heffernan’s text that she opposes the bombing of Iran. How refreshing in a woman of her social class — the top-lady 4 percent.

      Therefore, some of these problems stem from the culture that is upper-middle-class women — that top 4 percent. The rest of women, well, they’re deplorables and fifth columnists and supporters of Russian agents like Jill Stein, according to Hillary.

      But why didn’t Hillary ever dump alleged serial alleged rapist Bill? Because his political base and network of contacts are bigger than hers. She firmly mired herself in the 4 percent, and there she is, going on The View and occasionally slipping to talk about “my husband’s” achievements. It’s a kind of identity hell. No divorce in the cards.

      In the case of Melania Trump — she’s set for life. She puts up with The Donald. Does she ever even visit the White House? Is she in New York bonking her “tennis instructor” Chad? Think pre-nup = $$$

      Michelle Obama was the moneymaker as Barack was working his way up. Now they have four houses, in a remarkable display of vulgarity. Do they live in the same house? Do you care?

      We are a long way from Eleanor Roosevelt. We are a long way from Dolley Madison, who supervised the evacuation of the White House when the British turned up. It makes me yearn for “Moody” Mary Todd Lincoln.

      1. Carolinian

        Thanks. I just checked out an e-book on Eleanor. Do we mind/care if she was really a lesbian? She did have a lot more children than Hillary.

        Truth to tell our White House occupants have always been a very mixed lot but lately things seem to be going downhill–big time.

    2. Ben Panga

      > Why are there so few (if any) high-profile divorces in Washington?

      Spitballing:

      Because they marry for strategic reasons – it’s not for love, it’s about finding a partner to climb the ready pole with. Infidelity doesn’t matter, all that matters is upwards progress and self-enrichment?

      Because the norms of human relationships do not apply to these vacuous psychopaths?

  33. Lefty Godot

    “Israel Is Not an Ally—It’s a Liability” Yes, it’s hard to think of anything positive that Israel has done for us. Bribing and blackmailing our Congress members to keep giving them more money, training our police how to treat citizens as terrorist enemies, infiltrating our government with advocates of foreign wars just to allow them to expand their territory—really, you could say that for the American people, Israel is not just a liability: it’s an enemy.

    1. John Wright

      Saying that a foreign country significantly influences US elections and then stating, “It isn’t Russia, it’s Israel” does not go over well in my experience.

      The death of tens of thousands of Gazans through bombing, snipers and starvation under the guise of defending Israel, may damage support for Israel in the USA.

      But Israel support will continue through inertia, just as “Russia evil” continues as inculcated during the cold war.

    2. scott s.

      Too many conservatives think that without Israel, we would have Arabs or Persians swarming the country, Koran in hand (“Israel is killing them so we don’t have to.” As Hannity never gets tired of repeating “Iran is the world’s number one state sponsor of terror and wants “death to America””).

  34. AG

    re: Russia 1970s

    German altern. news blog NACHDENKSEITEN with an interview with biology professor Andreas Elepfandt. From 1975 to 1976 he spent 14 months at the Sechenov Institute in Leningrad.

    German Moscow-based correspondent Ulrich Heyden spoke with him about past and present state of affairs:

    Insights into the unknown Russia
    https://archive.is/RwIY5

    2. Daniil Adamov

      Thanks for this, it’s always interesting to get an outside perspective. His recollections of Leningrad and Soviet citizens certainly match up with the impression I get from older generations and from books. Big cities have since been prettied up and materially improved too (Moscow even more so than St. Petersburg), while the knowledge of where to get most goods is no longer quite so precious. But Moscow remains far away – certainly that’s the case in the Urals.

      Immaterial to the point, but Scarlet Sails/Alye Parusa was written in 1923: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarlet_Sails_(novel) Alexander Grin, the author, was an interesting man, a former SR agitator who spent some time living on the run and started his literary career at around the same time. He eventually retired from politics, deciding that he gave enough of his life to it and perhaps disillusioned by some of his comrades’ less savoury tendencies, but retained an idiosyncratic humanist romantic sensibility.

      2. AG

        …any chance the character name Longren was made up from Lohengrin? (I doubt it of course)
        Martyanov was talking a lot about the Scarlet Sails in St. Petersburg recently…

        p.s. Italian director Marcello Pietro adapted Grin´s story 2 years ago btw, haven´t seen it yet:

        Scarlet / L’Envol (2023) – Trailer (English Subs)
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOSEffYJXNc

    3. AG

      maybe as minor add-on:

      From altern. blog Overton this short text about Maimak, the birthplace of Tschingis Aitmatov
      Written by a German lady who “graduated from Donetsk State University in 1980, majoring in Economic Cybernetics.”

      See and understand Maimak
      https://archive.is/KDzqN

  35. AG

    re: foreign policy advisor of Chancellor Merz

    BERLINER ZEITUNG with a quick look at the government´s foreign policy advisor Günter Sautter.

    The incompetence and uselessness of the article itself is striking.

    (This could have been the occasion to really write something interesting and shed light onto these circles which are so immensly influential, destructive and dumb. Think Björn Seibert the man behind VdL. Instead what it does is allude to that embarrassing view, widely shared among German media who consider themselves above the line, that Sautter is actually not up to the task since he is not harsh enough on Russia. i.e. too old-fashioned.
    😂🤣😅😂 OMG)

    From Baerbock to Merz: Who is the Chancellor’s chief foreign policy advisor?
    Günter Sautter has been a foreign policy advisor in the Chancellery for a few months now. Who is the man who previously worked for Annalena Baerbock and Frank-Walter Steinmeier?
    https://archive.is/INppT

    1. Ben Panga

      It’s interesting that as in the UK, the ‘sensible’ German press and establishment are so all-in on the Russia thing. I first noticed the German slide through Bild’s Julian Roepcke’s Twitter rabidity on Syria, Putin etc 8 or 9 years ago. It seems they have all bought in now.

      How does this happen? How can they be so off the mark?

      I remember having lunch in 2016 with a family friend who had been a spin doctor in the UK gov and him spouting endlessly about intelligence briefings and how “you don’t know how nefarious and dangerous Putin is” and thinking he’d been brainwashed. Has this happened to the lot of them? Are they being led around by a small group of hawkish NATOish spooks?

  36. Tom Stone

    Is the Department of Homeland Security a terrorist organization…
    It routinely defies the orders of the courts, including the Supreme Court.
    Its head ordered her goons to physically assault a sitting US Senator for asking a question, which they did without consequences.
    Its agents routinely violate the rights of American Citizens and legal resident aliens who have not been accused of committing crimes.
    its policies explicitly state that their purpose is to use fear to achieve political aims, which it does with no regard to the law.
    If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck it probably isn’t a zebra.

  37. IM Doc

    About – “Learning Greek – A Beginner’s Guide”

    I am someone who has been doing Greek all of my life. I read Aesop’s Fables in the original Greek as a kid and have been working my way up.

    It is an immense privilege to have the ability to read the actual words and sentiments of the ancients in their original prose or poetry, or at least as close as possible. I can do the same in Latin. I owe my teachers debts of a lifetime for this gift. And I am currently doing all I can to pay it forward with my own kids and the kids in school I teach every day. It is the part of the day I look forward to most.

    I reacted with great appreciation to this link above. I must admit I have not looked over all of the writer’s other entries in Substack so it is very possible he discussed this at length elsewhere. With regard to ancient Greek – you must be aware that there are three very different languages. Koine Greek, the most modern, was the lingua franca of the Roman World. It is the Greek of the Bible and all of the later Greek writing in the Roman world. Attic Greek, the topic of the article, was from hundreds of years before – Plato, Socrates, all of the plays, etc. And many centuries before there is Homeric Greek. All 3 of these are very different things to master. It truly is like English – Modern English, King James/Shakespeare English, Middle English, Old English. They are all entirely different but share enough that you can muddle your way through at times.

    If you are truly interested, I would encourage any new Greek learner to learn Koine first, then Attic, then Homeric. It is a much easier path. And to all the theology students out there doing Biblical Greek – there is no way to truly master this without knowing the vocabulary, cultural history, and syntax of the other older types. This “quik-trip” approach of just learning Koine has caused enormous mistranslations of Biblical texts over which heads have rolled and wars fought.

    I could not agree more strongly with the links in the article about sources to learn from with regard to Attic Greek. Again, though, I would urge beginners to start with the Koine. I am going to be really looking through that substack to see if he has done a similar dive on Koine learning.

    1. Henry Moon Pie

      And IMDOC, I’d recommend the BAGD (Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich & Danker) lexicon for that Koine. All four of those fellows graduated from my seminary alma mater, Concordia, St. Louis, and three of them went on to the U. of Chicago Div School for their Ph.D. Danker ended up leaving the Missouri Synod for the ELCA back in the days of Seminex in the early 70s..

      Back in the day, Missouri Synod boys prepared for a career in the ministry in one of a half dozen preparatory schools where they learned classical Greek, Latin and German (the only proper language for discussing theology according to the LCMS in those days) before getting their Hebrew in the Senior College at Ft. Wayne. That way, they were fully prepared for seminary where they would study the Hebrew and Greek bibles along with the Lutheran confessional documents in their original languages. And they could read the Vulgate on the side. The denomination’s stubborn clinging to “inerrancy” cost them some fine scholars like Danker and Martin Marty along with some they were probably better off without like Richard John Neuhaus, founder of the reactionary First Things.

  38. XXYY

    From a tweet posted above:

    Zionism is a dark, hateful, unrelenting force of death & ethnic annihilation.

    Good bumper sticker! :-)

  39. mrsyk

    Climate/Environment

    Juneau city officials ask some residents to leave area as glacial flooding nears, Alaska Beacon, yesterday, Water in a lake within the Mendenhall Glacier began overtopping an ice dam on Sunday, meaning a glacial outburst flood is days away

    Wildfires rage across southern Europe as temperatures top 40C, BBC, today, A scorching heatwave is fuelling dozens of wildfires across parts of southern Europe, forcing thousands of people from their homes and pushing temperatures above 40C (104F).

    Antarctic glacier melt reveals remains of Briton who died in 1959 accident, Guardian, today, Dennis ‘Tink’ Bell fell into a crevasse at the age of 25 while working for the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey Interesting photos on this one including sled dogs.

  41. Gulag

    The Ken Klippenstein article on DC troop deployment makes the point that:

    “…Guardsmen I spoke to regard the deployment as pointless political theater.”

    An alternative, but also still speculative, interpretation of the DC troop deployment comes from Jeff Childress of “Coffee and Covid,” this morning. He stated:

    “What if the administration is securing DC before it makes a really controversial move? Like arresting someone near the top of the political food chain. Suppose you were planning something like that and you wanted to preclude the otherwise inevitable violent protests in the national capital. What better way to prepare in advance by loading up DC with military, national guard, FBI, and tons of other resources under direct federal control, that might otherwise seem like overkill to handle a few mobs of unruly teenage gangsters?

    So it sure looks like they are getting ready for something.”

    1. Ben Panga

      Or it’s a dry run. Testing what they can do logistically, and legalistically. They’ve been probing for weakness all over the institutional architecture like some fascist kudzu.

      A good chess player gets all their pieces in place before they really attack. They won’t arrest any Big Dogs quite yet.

    2. nyleta

      Counting the votes for the midterm elections. They need to be in a position to take over the final infrastructure or at least influence it. At least be able to delay a proclamation of results.

  42. XXYY

    One thing that seems right to me in Kyla Scanlon’s post:

    [Y]oung people are extremely unhappy in the Western world because society broke its promise of a home them – there is no faith in the future of the system, so people turn to ripping each other apart.

    This has been pretty obvious, to me at least, since the Clinton administration if not before. It’s hard to overstate how dangerous it is when you have a society filled with people who have no stake in the society. They would be very happy to just kick over the table and start from scratch, which is not a population that’s going to create a successful collective effort going forward. I think the success of Trump has been the result of exactly this factor, people think that the more stuff Trump tears down the greater the chances that something better will rise in its place. It’s hard to argue with these people and say they are wrong; the custodians of the existing society have done absolutely nothing to convince the population to stay the course with them. The managers of our current society should be extremely worried by this.

    Scanlon is of course silly to treat the current AI effort as some kind of serious undertaking rather than a panicked scam by Silicon Valley and other stock-market-invested leaders to pump the current market up. Every author who treats AI in this fashion is just postponing the day of reckoning, just as the people who wrote in this fashion about self-driving cars, web 3.0, NFTs, blockchain, and the various other recent scams made the impact that much worse when it finally arrived.

    One worthwhile takeaway from the AI bubble is how quickly and massively US society can deploy resources when it wants to. Clearly, the money and effort spent on AI in the last 10 years could have solved one or two major problems in the country: hunger, healthcare, homelessness, public transportation, conversion to renewable power, or other urgent things. We can all make our own list. Such things are always described as unrealistic and too expensive to solve by the people who deploy the country’s resources, but it’s easy to see now that these excuses are nothing but excuses. Western capitalist societies seem to be doomed since their incentives do not line up with the interests of the society itself.

  45. none

    These Cars Will BANKRUPT You — Consumer Reports Reveals the WORST Vehicles of 2025! YouTube. Important as an indicator of auto industry predation. resilc: “Good 20 year old trucks are being sucked up and redone. USA USA=Cuba now.”

    I c/p’d the transcript and it says it identifies the 20 worst vehicles but there are only 10 mentioned:

    1) Ford Explorer with Ecoboost engine (fuel injection system causing many ultra expensive repairs)

    2,3) Jeep Wrangler and Gladiator – front end wobble

    4) Tesla model Y, enough said

    5) Mercedes EQE

    6) Audi Ron GT

    7) Honda Odyssey frequent failures of N-speed transmission

    8) Toyota Sienna Hybrid – battery cooling probs

    9,10) Kia Telluride and Hyundai Palisade (same car) catastrophic engine issues

    I have to say the youtube automatic transcription is getting pretty good. Still have to manually split it into sections.

      1. Carolinian

        Why not just go to the source.

        https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-reliability-owner-satisfaction/10-least-reliable-cars-a2967595976/

        I have a 2017 Hyundai with the notorious TikTok car theft hack but think it is a great car with a reliable engine. Hyundai offered a firmware update to stop the thefts but I carry a steering lock anyway for dicey locations.

        The Kia/Hyundai large SUV fire problem mentioned above apparently has to do with shorts in the trailer hitch which were causing fires.

        And I already knew that CR was down on Volkwagen and Jeep. A lady I know always buys Ford products because her father worked there and she has had trouble with every car she bought.

  46. Darthbobber

    So today F-book decides to feed me the English language output of the Office of the President of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, the Kyiv Post and a couple of others of like ilk. On the plus side, at least it displaces the constant promos of the WNBA.

    Apparently some really blatant foreign influence operations are just fine? But I guess we already knew that.

    1. The Rev Kev

      We shouldn’t be surprised. Big Zuck has gone all in with Israel and what it is doing in Gaza. Now that the wheels are coming off Project Ukraine, he was probably told to shore up support for them as well.

  47. ThirtyOne

    Oh, when the drones beat down
    And burns the spotters up on the roof
    And your job gets so hot
    You wish your expired ass was fireproof
    Under the Trump bus
    North to Alaska, yeah
    On a sofa with his Putin
    Is where he’ll be

    (Under the Trump bus) Out of the game
    (Under the Trump bus) Donald havin’ no shame
    (Under the Trump bus) missiles deafening peal
    (Under the Trump bus) They’ll be making a deal
    Under the Trump bus, Trump bus

    From the EU you hear
    The angry noise of a crime cartel
    Mmm, you can almost taste
    The Abrams and Leopards they sell
    Under the Trump bus
    North to Alaska, yeah
    On a sofa with his Putin
    Is where he’ll be

    [Chorus]
    (Under the Trump bus) I am in for some pain
    (Under the Trump bus) It’s the end of Ukraine
    (Under the Trump bus) Shoved the EU aside
    (Under the Trump bus) There’ll be no Alaska ride
    Under the Trump bus, Trump bus

    [Refrain]
    Oh, under the Trump bus
    North to Alaska, yeah
    On a sofa with his Putin
    Is where he’ll be

    [Chorus]
    (Under the Trump bus) I’m outta here
    (Under the Trump bus) I’ll be havin’ a beer
    (Under the Trump bus) I hear that Miami’s nice
    (Under the Trump bus) if you don’t meet the ICE
    Under the Trump bus, Trump bus

    Under the Boardwalk
    The Drifters

  49. Wukchumni

    Come on Ghislane
    Come on Ghislane

    Poor old Donnie Boy
    Sounded sad upon Trump Social
    But he’ll move the homeless outta DC
    His detractors cried
    Sang along
    Who’d blame them?

    You’ve grown (you’re grown up)
    So grown (so grown up).
    Now I must say more than ever

    Come on Ghislane

    Too-ra-loo-ra, too-ra-loo-rye, aye
    And you can sing

    Come on Ghislane
    Oh, I swear (what he means)
    At this moment you mean everything
    You in that minimum security cell
    My thoughts I confess are a hard sell
    Verge on dirty deeds done dirt cheap
    Oh, come on Ghislane

    Come on Ghislane

    Say, come on Ghislane
    These things they are real
    And I know how you feel
    Now I must say more than ever
    Things ’round here have changed

    Come on Ghislane

    Come on Eileen, by Dexy’s Midnight Runners

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9_Jli5pv20&list=RDj9_Jli5pv20

    1. Wukchumni

      Oh sorry Ghislaine, I butchered your name.

      Should have known better, the both of us going to different high schools together.

  50. David in Sydney

    Regarding Prime Minister of Australia the Hon. Anthony Albanese. Of the Labor Party.

    I am reminded of what some commentators like Caitlin Johnson have stated. The abrupt change in stance regarding genocide, by many politicians, is simply them smelling the direction the wind is moving and (after 20-odd months) struggling to quickly be seen to be on the right side of history.

    The important thing however regarding Albanese. He was very quick to publically declare support for the US when it bombed Iran recently.
    He did this the day after the Party in opposition to his had already declared its support for the US bombing.

    Al-Jazeera published this news. It stated that Ukraine had also declared its support for the US bombing.
    It noted, UK, France and Canada had not indicated their support for the bombing

    This is a portrait of the man Anthony Albanese

  51. Glen

    What’s wrong with American manufacturing? I wish I could say for sure.

    Here’s an example where it sure looks like GM didn’t get the crankshaft bearings machined right on a V8 – something GM’s been mass producing since 1954. (Although GM was doing some tricky stuff with the recommended oil weight for this engine in order to get better CAFE compliance.) So hopefully if you own one of these engines, you know about this recall since it’s been going on since this spring. This is estimated to be at least a billion dollar recall:

    Massive Recall Announced for GM 6.2L L87 V8 Engines in 2021–2024 Trucks and SUVs Due to Risk of Engine Failure
    https://www.gm-trucks.com/gm-l87-62l-engine-recall-2021-2024-silverado-sierra-escalade-tahoe-suburban/

    Safety Recall
    N252494002 L87 Engine Loss of Propulsion
    https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2025/RCRIT-25V274-5347.pdf

    And here’s one of these engines being torn down:

    RECALLED GM L87 6.2L ENGINE with MASSIVE FAILURE! Teardown Shows Problems Throughout! YIKES.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohGx0xIanNY

    The main and rod bearings are cooked. I have heard of some of these engines failing with very low mileage. (A long video, I think these engine tear downs are a bit of an acquired taste, but if you want to see how modern engines are put together, seeing how these come apart explains a lot.)

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