Links 8/13/2025

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1. The Rev Kev August 13, 2025 at 7:19 am

   “N. Korea holds firing drills ahead of planned S. Korea-U.S. joint military exercises”

   Yeah, entirely predictable this. Recently South Korea have been removing speakers from the contact line that play stuff like K-pop songs and news reports to ease off tensions between the two countries. Then in a reciprocal move, North Korea have removing their speakers that play weird noises and animals howling. Probably Washington did not like that so went ahead with military exercises so the North Koreans are doing the same. Left to their own devices, I bet both countries could work out an accommodation with each other-

   https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm2klzxldl6o
   1. JohnA August 13, 2025 at 7:45 am

      The US and South Korea always hold military exercises during sowing and harvest times to disrupt NK farmers who are then called into the defence forces in case the US and SK actually attempt to invade NK.
      Evil is as evil does.
2. ChrisFromGA August 13, 2025 at 7:23 am

   RE: antidote

   Is that a goose-steppin’ lizard? I guess he or she has been hanging around the EU.
   1. none August 14, 2025 at 6:25 pm

      Looks like a Dr. Seuss critter.
3. ChrisFromGA August 13, 2025 at 7:27 am

   This strikes me as important, though we need a better source than a random X channel:

   https://x.com/theinformation/status/1955426590818472334

   China’s move to suspend Nvidia chip orders marks an escalation in efforts to encourage domestic chip adoption. This follows previous reports of regulators urging companies to favor local alternatives like Huawei.
   1. Random August 13, 2025 at 9:59 am

      There’s a Reuters article but it’s not quite as dramatic.
      Reports that the Chinese government are asking the companies buying Nvidia over domestic alternatives for justification.
      1. ChrisFromGA August 13, 2025 at 10:34 am

         Yeah, sounds like its not a total embargo, just security-sensitive companies like Huawei, Ali Baba, etc.

         Still, the Chinese government doesn’t really ‘ask’ their business leaders to comply. Obedience is a given.
4. Wukchumni August 13, 2025 at 7:27 am

   The city streets are empty now
   (The lights don’t shine no more)
   And so the financials are way down low
   (Turning, turning, turning)
   A sound that flows into my mind
   (The echoes of the daylight)
   Of every loan that is alive
   (In my blue world)

   They turned to home, and now are gone
   They turned to home
   Returned to home, when you forfeiting loan?
   This can’t go on

   The dying loans of edifice wrecks
   (A fire that slowly fades till dawn)
   Still look down upon Wall*Street necks
   (Turning, turning, turning)
   The tired streets that hide away
   (From here to everywhere they go)
   Roll past my door into the day
   In my blue world

   They turned to home, and now are gone
   They turned to home
   Returned to home, when you forfeiting loan?
   This can’t go on
   Turned to home, after the pandemic was gone
   They turned to home

   Yes, I’m returning the loan ’cause you’re working at home
   Why ain’t you working in the office, so I’m returning the loan
   You’ve been gone for so long and I can’t carry on
   Yes, I’m returnin’, I’m returnin’, I’m returnin’ the loan

   Turn to Stone, by ELO

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDhJU_cNCZE
5. DJG, Reality Czar August 13, 2025 at 7:38 am

   US flew spy flights for UK // Declassified UK

   Salient paragraphs: “Declassified can now reveal that a spy plane owned by a US contractor to whom the RAF is outsourcing its spy flights circled over Nuseirat refugee camp the night before the bombing.

   “Publicly available flight-tracking data show that in the hours before the blast, and again afterwards, two surveillance aircraft operating from RAF Akrotiri, Britain’s military base on Cyprus, circled close to or over Gaza.”

   Che sorpresa! Akrotiri. Knock me over with a feather.

   Channeling Marcus Porcius Cato: Akrotiri and Dhekelia must be destroyed.
6. The Rev Kev August 13, 2025 at 7:45 am

   “Foreign Recruits Killed in Ukraine as Missile Hits Camp’s Mess Hall”

   ‘Three soldiers, including one who witnessed the strike, described a harrowing assault that hit fresh recruits from the United States, Colombia, Taiwan, Denmark and other places.’

   Columbia? So would they have been members of Cartel gangs that the Ukrainians have been recruiting to fight in their country? Maybe the Cartels in Mexico can make a deal with Trump. He doesn’t go after them in Mexico and in return they will send recruits to the Ukraine as fighters there. He might buy that.
7. Wukchumni August 13, 2025 at 7:51 am

   The flooding originates in Suicide Basin, a mountainous bowl above Juneau formed by a receding glacier. Water accumulates in the basin until an ice dam gives way, sending billions of gallons of water across the Mendenhall Glacier and through the Mendenhall Valley, where most Juneau residents live.

   On Tuesday, officials with the City and Borough of Juneau and Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska urged residents within a mapped inundation zone to evacuate — and for everyone to stay away from the increasingly dangerous river.
   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

   Juneau what i’d do?

   Get the hell outta dodge…

   Met a nice couple @ Saline hot springs from Willow Alaska, who’ve been there for over 25 years and they were relating that the state decided in 1976 to move the state capitol to Willow, but it didn’t take and nothing happened.

   Willow has almost the same population base as Tiny Town here, a couple thousand peeps
8. DJG, Reality Czar August 13, 2025 at 7:56 am

   We Don’t Have to Anthropomorphize Animals. Miriam Bahagijo.

   Yes. And if I may remind everyone of Yves Smith’s excellent recent essay on conscientiousness, I’d argue that another aspect of the decline of conscientiousness has been this inability to deal with animals as animals.

   I’m so old that I recall when dogs were dogs. Now I see dogs that are accessories, neuroses, medical cases bred into serious maladies (all of the pugs and other muzzle-less breeds), and not all that bright.

   It also gives me the creeps to see videos of “baby goats in sweaters” — more neuroses, but with yarn.

   For that matter, given the wonderful language and vocabulary about animals, I am taken back by the “baby” stuff. It’s a colt. It’s a heifer. It’s a chick. It’s a fox kit.

   Indeed, from the author Miriam Bahagijo: “Instead of anthropomorphizing, we should try to understand animals based on how they experience the world with their own senses.”

   Although for mere human beings, that would mean rethinking the whole world to take into serious consideration canines and their sense of smell and sense of hearing.
   1. Wukchumni August 13, 2025 at 8:04 am

      Ever think of it from a cat’s perspective?

      Your skyscraper servants loom 6x higher than the top of your head living in the land of the giants and they could squash you dead with a misstep, and you have to also act as if you hear them calling you by the name they bestowed, back in the day.
      1. Grateful Dude August 15, 2025 at 7:35 am

         ever see Fraggle Rock? The cat’s perspective reminds me of the Fraggles and the Gorgs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULosgwBQgFQ
   2. Henry Moon Pie August 13, 2025 at 8:46 am

      My concern is more about us denying that we too are animals evolved on this planet. Once upon a time, as they say, we were content to find our food and water every day on our beneficent Earth, have babies and contemplate the cosmos in our more abundant than now spare time. The whales and dolphins of the sea and the elephants and apes of the land, intelligent animals all, are still content to live that way, still happy in their ecological niche. They talk and sing and blow their horn as we do, but they don’t seem to have this compulsion to build skyscrapers, fusion bombs and data centers. We need to zoomorphize humans rather than anthropomorphize animals.
      1. mrsyk August 13, 2025 at 10:44 am

         This, thank you.

         Hubris Sapiens, self-alchemists, holier-than-mother nature (and thou as well), too clever for our own good.

         And here we are.
      2. Jeff V August 13, 2025 at 11:22 am

         Reminds me of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

         “For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.”
         1. Norton August 13, 2025 at 5:49 pm

            The interspecies situation is desperate.
         2. Henry Moon Pie August 14, 2025 at 1:00 am

            Great quote.
      3. vao August 13, 2025 at 1:30 pm

         An interesting (highly speculative) question is: at what point in their evolution did human beings sever the link with the animal world. I.e. when did we start considering ourselves different from animals, and possibly reciprocately when did animals start viewing human beings as some “alien” creatures? Homo sapiens? Homo habilis? Homo erectus?

         Does anybody know whether there have been serious (scientific / philosophical) attempts at answering this question?
         1. Alice X August 13, 2025 at 2:13 pm

            when did we start considering ourselves different from animals

            The rise of civilization?
            1. vao August 13, 2025 at 5:04 pm

               Even earlier, when we started etching and painting on cave walls?
               1. Alice X August 13, 2025 at 10:39 pm

                  We’d been hunting them for long before that, but given my limited understanding of Native American traditions, we praised the animals that gave to us.

                  Now we could forego their demise to provide our sustenance.
         2. Xihuitl August 13, 2025 at 4:22 pm

            The Enlightenment might have had something to do with it. Here’s an interesting essay from Counterpunch. Prior to this shift, animals and insects were even put on trial, held responsible for their alleged crimes, like munching on the timbers of a church. An excerpt:

            
            Let Us Now Praise Infamous Animals

            “So what happened? How did animals come to be viewed as mindless commodities? One explanation is that modernity rudely intruded in the rather frail form of Renè Descartes. The great Cartesian disconnect not only cleaved mind from body, but also severed humans from the natural world. Descartes postulated that animals were mere physical automatons. They were biological machines whose actions were driven solely by bio-physical instincts. Animals lacked the power of cognition, the ability to think and reason. They had a brain but no mind.”
            1. The Rev Kev August 13, 2025 at 7:05 pm

               Ayn Rand would have been proud at that line of thinking. It can be used to justify so much.
         3. Henry Moon Pie August 14, 2025 at 12:44 am

            “Does anybody know whether there have been serious (scientific / philosophical) attempts at answering this question?”

            That’s a question a lot of people are considering at the moment because it’s central to any hope of unraveling the Metacrisis in order to “land the plane” of the polycrisis. Nominees include: the acquisition of language; agriculture; settlements; the left brain becoming dominant over the right; and right up to the Enlightenment and Bacon pinning down Nature to torture Her. My nominee is when humans started looking for their gods in the sky, and in the case of monotheism, projecting “Him” there, instead of in the reality that surrounded them everyday.

            Daniel Quinn in Ishmael doesn’t attribute it so much to a particular technological or cultural development but to a division between two worldviews: Takers and Leavers.
            1. Grateful Dude August 15, 2025 at 7:48 am

               Tom Hartmann’s “The Last Days of Ancient Sunlight” breaks it down to the Conquistadors and Tribal peoples, where the Tribals have to conform and become the enemy after they are conquered.
      4. Alice X August 13, 2025 at 2:12 pm

         We Don’t Have to Anthropomorphize Animals to Care About Them

         I live near a river which Henry Ford dammed (ca 1924) to power a nearby plant of his, so it is called a lake. He also built an overlooking mansion for (it is said) his mistress. There are boats on the lake, many speed boats, I just think that the noise is highly detrimental to the fish. Even more detrimental is the PFAS (there’s a posted alert to not eat them, yet people keep fishing).

         I just picked up Mariah Blake’s They Poisoned the World: Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals. I look forward to being thoroughly distressed.
      5. The Heretic August 13, 2025 at 3:18 pm

         Adam and Eve both ate of the Forbidden Apple. There is no going back to the Garden.

         But more specifically (and less poetically)..
         We are actively self-aware and self contemplating, we have a powerful imagination that we apply to all aspects to our selves, including abstract reasoning and desires. We, unlike the animals, are the only creatures that are blessed/cursed to desire a meaning/teleology to our life and the world we live in, which a deep sense of community with others might only be partially satisfactory for some people.

         These human capacity is both blessing and curse. Hence we can solve many problems, develop new technology to shape our world, try to construct more kind societies; but also a source of restless striving, and a never ending source of cruelty and troubles.

         Hence, we lay waste to ‘Garden of this Earth’
         1. Henry Moon Pie August 14, 2025 at 12:59 am

            In the degradation of the great way
            some benevolence and righteousness.
            With the exaltation of learning and prudence
            comes immense hypocrisy.
            The disordered family
            is full of dutiful children and parents.
            The disordered society
            is full of loyal patriots.

            Tao te Ching #18 (Le Guin rendition)

            This suggests to me that this left-brained driven desire for meaning is a symptom of our loss of intuitive connection with the reality around us. This compulsive desire for “progress” and change may make humans “exceptional,” but it’s exceptionally maladjusted, not superior. What our civilization has done is attempt to exalt and pamper (some) humans at the expense of most humans and all of the rest of the Earth.
      6. Half empty August 14, 2025 at 4:19 am

         Henry Moon Pie at 8:46 am

         > Once upon a time, as they say, we were content to find our food and water every day
         > on our beneficent Earth, have babies and contemplate the cosmos in our
         > more abundant than now spare time.

         Maybe; that is one way of looking at it. On the other hand, depending on just when this Rousseauvian ‘once upon a time’ was, the finding of food and water may have been an all-consuming, burdensome, even perilous enterprise in a life that was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.
   3. ACPAL August 13, 2025 at 9:33 am

      “I’m so old that I recall when dogs were dogs.” Me too. When a dog or cat died (or ran away) there were plenty of strays to pick from. Only working dogs, like hunting dogs, were kept in kennels and protected. Few were allowed in the house. Some people bragged about how many cats their dogs killed. Neutering and spaying were almost unheard of. I must admit that I do invest more emotion into my pets as I get older and have fewer friends.

      Last year I took in a older homeless cat when it’s “giant” died. It was half blind (now totally) and had to have it’s teeth removed because of infection. I almost puked when they charged me $1,200 for that job. Vet prices are now almost what’s charged for humans, especially for blood tests, CT scans, and such.
      1. GF August 13, 2025 at 7:07 pm

         Yeah, high vet prices due to roll ups of independent vets. Maybe something should be done about it as roll ups are affecting every aspect of our lives now?
   4. t August 13, 2025 at 11:54 am

      Instead of anthropomorphizing, we should try to understand animals based on how they experience the world with their own senses.

      Absofrickinglutely.

      People think they are soulful or deep or spiritual and therefore better than the average bear for reducing creatures our own species. And they are often happy to go on and on about it…
      1. .Tom August 13, 2025 at 2:13 pm

         But it’s more interesting than that, isn’t it? How can we understand animals based on how they experience the world with their own senses? To me that seems not at all simple. We don’t know that experience and can’t measure it. So we have to have to use our imagination and theorize, two very human things. To be personally sensitive to the animal’s experience we need what in human psychology is called a theory of mind. Per Wikipedia: “A theory of mind includes the understanding that others’ beliefs, desires, intentions, emotions, and thoughts may be different from one’s own.” It seems to me that when we make an effort to empathize with animals, we will use this human faculty that is mostly adapted to relations with other humans. I’m not ready to sign on to prohibition of doing this on the grounds that dangerously anthropomorphic. To avoid such models we would need a completely new and objective language to work with, in other words an alien language.

         The arguments about admissibility of anthropomorphic models seem like a false dichotomy to me. Like nature/nurture arguments: it’s always both! Always. Has to be. To empathize and be sensitive we have to deploy our own subjectivity, among other things, including our scientist’s hesitance with hypotheses and especially to introspect about beliefs consider their plausibility and evidence.
   5. SD August 13, 2025 at 1:11 pm

      I just finished “Shaman,” a novel by Kim Stanley Robinson published in 2013. According to Robinson, it’s set in what is today southern France in the Pleistocene era. The protagonist is, among other things, a cave painter, and Robinson reportedly had the Chauvet Cave in mind when he wrote the book. It’s fiction, obviously, but the world Robinson describes is a plausible depiction–at least to this layperson–of how early humans may have conceptualized and lived with the animals they depended on for survival. It’s thought-provoking and beautifully written.
   6. .Tom August 13, 2025 at 1:23 pm

      That headline “We Don’t Have to Anthropomorphize Animals to Care About Them” made me angry. “We don’t have to fly on Persian rugs to care about them.” Ahh, good. Now I know.
   7. .Tom August 13, 2025 at 1:36 pm

      Evidence of the infant regression neurosis is widespread. A striking example is the childish humor used to sell financial services firms on TV. Insurance companies seem the most excessive. And given how much money these ads cost I assume they have done the research to verify they work. Each insurer have their insultingly puerile comic stylings. It’s a measure of where we must be as consumers.
   8. Bazarov August 13, 2025 at 1:43 pm

      I also remember when “dogs were dogs”–aka things, property. They were treated horribly, as were most farm animals (I grew up in farm country). Callousness and abuse are what I remember when “dogs were dogs.” Left out to freeze in the back yard, chained up all day, sores from matted hair, hunting dogs beaten for not having a soft enough mouth, you name it.

      Dogs are much closer to babies than they are to a shoe, and so I prefer that people think of them as their babies than think of them as their property.
      1. Henry Moon Pie August 14, 2025 at 1:11 am

         Daniel Schmachtenberger, contemplating the decline in animism, suggested that’s in hard to see the divine in your ox when you’re beating it all day.

         It’s not always that way, though. My grandparents had a little herd of Angus, and they did not treat them cruelly or indifferently. When a surprise snowstorm would hit, my grandfather would swap his pajamas for his overalls in the middle of the night and drive 10 miles over icy, hilly roads to bring the herd into the shed. He never had to round them up. They were always there in the lot waiting for him. The old cows who led the herd knew he was coming.
   9. Ann August 13, 2025 at 5:20 pm

      DJG, i think this started with ranchers breeding their cows, sheep and goats to have their young earlier and earlier in the year, as in FEBRUARY!, as in NOT SPRING, so that the young would be huge by autumn and bring better prices at sale. The ranchers across the road from me have cattle and the cows are bred to calve in late January or early February. In British Columbia this means the temperature could be -30 C. It’s a gamble because it could also be 10 C, as it was this year.

      When it’s that cold you can’t leave a wet newborn outside because they would freeze to death in ten minutes. So you have to stay up all night and drive around the pasture on a snowmobile looking for cows starting to calve. If a calf drops you have to grab it and take it inside a barn or shed and put clothes or blankets on it until it warms up. The cow will follow along behind and also go into the barn or shed. No one can afford to have a barn or shed big enough to hold all the pregnant cows and wait for them to calve, so you have to do it this way. We’re talking hundreds and hundreds of cows in these modern cow-calf operations.

      Some ranchers wives began sewing or knitting clothes that fit the newborn animals, otherwise the calf will get out from under a blanket and trample it into the manure. Another neighbor of mine down the road has sheep. She used to have her ewes lamb in February but got so tired of them freezing that she now has them lamb in May and doesn’t have to put clothes or blankets on them.

      Relatives and town people love to take pictures of newborn animals in clothes. So now they post them online and they go “viral”. A Chihuahua in the Yukon cannot go outside to pee when it’s -50C without a coat and boots or the dog will freeze to the packed snow or ice. Yes, people probably shouldn’t have Chihuahuas in the Yukon, but people are dumb. They also keep Malamutes in Mexico, so there are dumb people everywhere.
9. DJG, Reality Czar August 13, 2025 at 8:09 am

   I watched some excerpts from that famous interview of Pete Buttigieg from his man cave in Michigan. I got to see HasanAbi, Krystal Ball, Ryan Grim, and a couple of others as they alternated between eye rolls and head shaking.

   I am currently finishing up the definitive biography of Antonio Gramsci by Angelo D’Orsi, in which Pete’s father John, a great scholar of Gramsci, is mentioned by name (and affectionately) by D’Orsi. Now, I know that scholarship isn’t genetic, but one wonders if Pete ever bothered to read his father’s work.

   Young Pete is, errrrr, surprising flexible about genocide. And for someone who was in the military, he has no sense about what happens to weapons shipped to Israel, about which he has romantic rather than strategic ideas. In short, he’s no Gramsci.

   Instead, I realize that Young Pete is purely a media creation (going back to when Frank Bruni invented him), much like Hillary “Looking for Fifth Columnists” Clinton and Matteo “Disastrous Labor Laws” Renzi here in Italy.

   Nevertheless, if Pete Buttigieg is considered a serious politician and insightful analyst of the U.S. situation, then I am the god Jupiter. It’s a good thing that I am in the Undisclosed Region. But I am calibrating the voltages of some of the lightning bolts.
   1. Neutrino August 13, 2025 at 8:59 am

      Mayo Pete has no chance of becoming President. He polled at zero among blacks, a key constituency among Dems. He just didn’t move us, according to that Stephen A. Smith interview on Bill Maher’s show. Other voter groups may object to his weasely wording and failure to take definitive stands. Another phony pol relying on focus groups to guide his, uh, vision.

      He should go volunteer on a charging station construction crew to interact with people outside the Beltway and media studios.
   2. griffen August 13, 2025 at 9:26 am

      Please let him run, yes please run for the Democratic nomination during the next election cycle. The highest office in the land takes “practically anyone”, even someone whose last two years in office may have been more an Ambien induced napping on a couch than governing. Wait I suppose Jill was pulling some strings after all.

      *for the moment you still gotta be borned in America (!)
   3. Trees&Trunks August 13, 2025 at 9:33 am

      Jupiter is already taken – it is the woman(?)-slapped Macron.

      https://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-france-macron-20171003-story.html

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7gBS3JSfas

      https://www.google.com/search?q=macron+wife+slaps+him&rlz=1C1FKPE_deDE994DE994&oq=macron+wife+slaps+him&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCDQ3NTVqMGo0qAIAsAIB&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
   4. barncat August 13, 2025 at 10:02 am

      Notice how Buttigieg is copying Zelinsky’s “Green Goblin” look?
   5. .Tom August 13, 2025 at 1:24 pm

      Anyway, per your comment, you now have theme music: Gustav Holst Jupiter Bringer of Jollity will play in my head whenever I read your comments.
10. Darthbobber August 13, 2025 at 8:16 am

    I saw that NYT “Russian penetration” article. If I read that correctly the sources are anonymous “former federal law enforcement officials”, and what the actual evidence might be for Russian anything is never mentioned. Incident was apparently in 2021.
    1. Neutrino August 13, 2025 at 9:01 am

       Russkiegate, as the original one was so successful for the Times? If only they could work in quotes from Schiff and Hillary! /s
       1. JMH August 13, 2025 at 12:02 pm

          Why would those pestiferous Russkies be hacking a federal court data base? Why would anyone from here there or anywhere be hacking a federal court data base? Perhaps I show my ignorance of federal court data bases … which is complete … b ut the nearest parallel I can think of would be Vogon poetry.
          1. Bugs August 13, 2025 at 1:44 pm

             There are transcripts of depositions, grand jury reports, video, audio and photographic evidence, and various and sundry highly confidential files related to plea bargains that might be interesting to someone looking to publish them or otherwise use them as leverage.

             Sounds more like a Mossad op. Why would Russia even care at this point.
             1. mrsyk August 13, 2025 at 2:42 pm

                I’ve got a serious case of “boy who cried wolf” syndrome here. I hope to be forgiven for a coffee-snort reaction upon reading the headline.
11. The Rev Kev August 13, 2025 at 8:18 am

    ‘Heyman_101
    @SU_57R
    Aug 11
    🇷🇺🇺🇦 Russian Telegram channels are becoming increasingly more convinced that Ukraine may soon attempt an armoured incursion into the Russian Bryansk region, similar to what occurred in Kursk last year.’

    Obviously a hail Mary by Zelensky. The idea is that if the Ukraine can once again seize Russian territory, then they could trade it for a conflict freeze or maybe some parts of the Ukraine that the Russians have seized like part of Sumy region. I don’t think that it will happen though. The Russians kept Kursk open so that the Ukrainians could keep on sending their best troops in and then be destroyed piecemeal. The Ukrainians lost about 70,000 of their best troops there but I think that if the Ukrainians tried to invade Bryansk, that the Russians will just drop the hammer on them this time round. Destroying them means less troops to shore up the collapsing eastern front-line.
12. Henry Moon Pie August 13, 2025 at 8:33 am

    Lightning bolts would be a lot simpler than Bader Meinhof or the Weather Underground. So would a Gort more precisely directed at the source of the problem.
    1. Henry Moon Pie August 13, 2025 at 8:48 am

       Oops. Meant as a reply to this portion of DJG’s comment above:

       …then I am the god Jupiter. It’s a good thing that I am in the Undisclosed Region. But I am calibrating the voltages of some of the lightning bolts.
13. The Rev Kev August 13, 2025 at 8:57 am

    “Pentagon plan would create military ‘reaction force’ for civil unrest”

    You have to give it to the Washington Post here. They wrote this really long article about Trump wanting to set up a military force to act as, oh I don’t know, troubleshooters and not once in that article do they mention the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act which restricts the use of the military for law enforcement work. Now why would that be?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act

    If I was the Prez, I would set up a permanent military force OK. But one that would be dedicated to helping out in natural disasters as they have the trained people, the equipment and the resources to do some good and with climate change already knocking at our door, such a force could really come in handy.
    1. t August 13, 2025 at 12:02 pm

       one that would be dedicated to helping out in natural disasters as they have the trained people, the equipment and the resources to do some good and with climate change already knocking at our door

       This a key function of the national guard in several US states. Maybe all. They definitely are sent across state lines for fires and floods. They also did USAID type stuff – digging wells, building roads.
    2. Lefty Godot August 13, 2025 at 8:40 pm

       I could fix that headline for them:
       Pentagon plan would create military ‘reaction force’ for civil unrest caused by its military ‘reaction force’.
       Might as well be consistent with the Pentagon’s general mission to create threats it can then defend against.
       1. Ben Panga August 13, 2025 at 8:54 pm

          “It became necessary to build the town to destroy it”
14. The Rev Kev August 13, 2025 at 9:28 am

    ‘Media Matters
    @mmfa
    Benny Johnson on Washington, DC: Entire neighborhoods, probably, need to be emptied, need to be bulldozed’

    This guy sounds like a real jerk and a bit of research confirmed it. So here, does he mean that Trump will do an Obama and bulldoze a black neighbourhood so he can build his Presidential Library/MAGA Educational Center there? Or does Trump want to bulldoze entire black neighbourhoods so that he can build what he also envisions for Gaza – a place of luxurious hotels, casinos, conference centers, etc. for the elite? It would be so easy for him to claim eminent domain for the purpose of “urban renewal” and claiming that it would help people economically but would only benefit people like himself – real estate hustlers.
    1. Wukchumni August 13, 2025 at 9:53 am

       Its hard to imagine Humordor as a tourist attraction aside from censored museums and the like.

       No matter how hard you tried, can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
       1. The Rev Kev August 13, 2025 at 10:03 am

          What? No Las Vegas East?
          1. griffen August 13, 2025 at 12:59 pm

             There are quite a few “Vegas” type destinations here in the Southeast. I don’t make the rules but just passing on knowledge, mostly that comes from watching ESPN or the offspring of theirs, the SEC network…Like it became a trendy term to throw out to the masses watching SEC football. Nashville I can accept….some others I just don’t know.

             Starkville, Mississippi becomes “Stark Vegas”…
             Nashville, Tennessee becomes “Nash Vegas”…

             Back to topic, gentrification can solve a lot of these problems for the real estate astute investors or developers. But that process also shoves aside a few problems as well or just relocates those problems. Obviously the Trump Library might have to include some books, one day. It probably won’t include anything but the Best American Books Ever, starting with or including the previously hawked Trump Bible. I nearly threw up just writing that.
15. Jason Boxman August 13, 2025 at 9:32 am

    Truth

    Companies Are Pouring Billions Into A.I. It Has Yet to Pay Off. (NY Times via archive.ph)

    Corporate spending on artificial intelligence is surging as executives bank on major efficiency gains. So far, they report little effect to the bottom line.
    1. Jesper August 13, 2025 at 11:31 am

       A quote from the article is telling:

       Projects failed not only because of technical hurdles, but often because of “human factors” like employee and customer resistance or lack of skills, said Alexander Johnston, a senior analyst at S&P Global.

       Technology is a success except for the the failures that are all due to the unimportant people like employees and customers….

       I came across this about what is most overhyped technologies:
       https://www.cio.com/article/405106/the-6-most-overhyped-technologies-in-it.html

       I do believe IT has changed the nature of work a lot and that have been many changes recently but my belief is that it has more to do with automation finally working well. Most implementations that I have seen have been quite bad and done by people with little to no understanding of the processes the automation is intended to improve and/or speed up.

       Entry level ‘analytical’ jobs can be replaced by automation. I see no need for neural networks to try to improve on how things have been done for decades, those jobs are already so standardised that there is little need for further analysis done by neural networks.
       From what I can tell the one who will liable if ‘AI’ is making a mistake is the human who signed off that he/she verified the output from the ‘AI’. Early on then the human will have enough time to verify but then the tempo will be increased so the human will be faced with a choice: Blindly sign off on what ‘AI’ produced or be replaced by someone faster (who might be signing off blindly).
16. pjay August 13, 2025 at 9:41 am

    – ‘Recognizing a Palestinian State Is a Rebuke to Hamas’ – Antony Blinken, WSJ. “But France, Canada and the U.K. are doing it too hastily. The plan won’t work without conditions.”

    I assume one of those “conditions” would be relocating the remaining Palestinians to South Sudan? This might take a while, so we must not be too hasty!

    Words fail me in responding to this despicable piece of s**t (I refer to either the article or its author, take your pick. I hope this is not considered ad hominem. I could spend all day providing justifications for this comment.)
    1. tegnost August 13, 2025 at 10:29 am

       It’s notable that the arch enemies in the usian political class all have the same ideology…
17. Jason Boxman August 13, 2025 at 9:43 am

    Unlocked version

    The Rise of the US Military’s Clandestine Foreign War Apparatus (Wired via archive.ph)

    Seth Harp’s new book, The Fort Bragg Cartel, goes deep into the forming of the Joint Special Operations Command and its origins in the aftermath of 9/11.

    Be warned, it leads with a photo of ugh W. Bush.
    1. pjay August 13, 2025 at 11:09 am

       Despite the photo, I thought the article was informative. I plan on checking out the book on which it is based. But the article is misleading in one sense. It implies that the rise of JSOC’s dirty war tactics began in 2006 in response to the Sunni uprising against Shia enemies and “coalition” occupying forces. This lends itself to the “incompetence” narrative – i.e. that this uprising and civil war was an unforseen consequence of our “de-Ba’athification” policies and general naivete.

       In reality, the resulting chaos had long been predicted by our own experts. It was one of the reasons given by the GHW Bush administration for why they did not continue to Baghdad in 1991. Further, our dirty war tactics, including those directly evolved from Operation Phoenix and further refined in Latin America, were employed from the beginning. Our use of terror and torture tactics was made clear by 2004 with the Abu Graib revelations. We utilized sectarian divide-and-conquer tactics from the beginning as well.

       Here is a useful article from the Guardian (remember when they actually published articles like this?) on a key figure in the early dirty war tactics and buddy of Petraeus, Col. James Steele. Steele had honed his skills in Latin America, and indeed this application of clandestine deaths squads made up of cooperative locals, torture, and terror was referred to as the “Salvador Option.”

       https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/06/el-salvador-iraq-police-squads-washington

       Again, I think the article is informative and names several of the key players (McCrystal, McRaven, etc.). But the author is describing an aspect of our invasion that was there from the beginning; it was not just a reaction to the failure of our well-intentioned attempt to overthrow a brutal Hitlerian dictator and establish “democracy.”
    2. Michael August 13, 2025 at 11:15 am

       Podcast interview with Seth Harp about the book on Radio War Nerd (104 mins):

       Radio War Nerd EP 541 — American Death Squads, feat. Seth Harp
    3. AG August 14, 2025 at 7:59 am

       To all links, thanks!
18. The Rev Kev August 13, 2025 at 9:58 am

    “UK Asks People to Delete Emails In Order to Save Water During Drought”

    To save water for data centers it should be mentioned. If I lived in the UK I would be so concerned by this, I would send an email about it to everybody in my email address book quoting this article. And I would ask all of them to send it on to all their contacts so that people could swap hints on how to save water to hep out those data centers. But not to be done on Facebook or chat or any other social media but purely on email accounts. Let everybody now the seriousness of it all so that they can do their part.
    1. cfraenkel August 13, 2025 at 12:30 pm

       One has to wonder if the AI backers were careful enough to filter for zip bombs? Or riffing on another link from today, embedding hidden prompt injections to open a zip bomb? Could be fun.
19. Wukchumni August 13, 2025 at 10:01 am

    Well worth the 27 seconds of your time if you know what I mean and I think you do. Scroll down a bit for the video

    https://www.moviemaker.com/south-park-kristi-noem-pet-shop/

    She can’t seem to face up to the facts
    She’s tense and nervous and without killing something can’t relax
    She can’t sleep ’cause of all the ire
    The hazards of being a Tammy Faye hire

    Canine Killer
    Qu’est-ce que c’est?
    Fa-fa-fa-fa, fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa, better
    Run, run, run, run, run, run, run away, oh-oh-oh
    Canine Killer
    Qu’est-ce que c’est?
    Fa-fa-fa-fa, fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa, better
    Run, Fido run, run, run, run, run, run away, oh, oh, oh, oh
    Ay-ya-ya-ya-ya-ya, ooh

    You start a controversy, you can’t even finish it
    You’re talking a lot, but you’re not saying anything
    When you have nothing to say, your lips are sealed
    Kill something once, why kill it again?

    Canine Killer
    Qu’est-ce que c’est?
    Fa-fa-fa-fa, fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa, better
    Run, run, run, run, run, run, run away, oh-oh-oh
    Canine Killer
    Qu’est-ce que c’est?
    Fa-fa-fa-fa, fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa, better
    Run, Fido run, run, run, run, run, run away, oh, oh, oh, oh
    Ay-ya-ya-ya-ya-ya

    Ce que j’ai fait, ce soir-là
    Ce qu’elle a dit, ce soir-là
    Réalisant mon espoir
    Je me lance vers la gloire, okay
    Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
    We are vain and we are blind
    I hate people when they’re not polite to animals

    Canine Killer
    Qu’est-ce que c’est?
    Fa-fa-fa-fa, fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa, better
    Run, run, run, run, run, run, run away, oh-oh-oh
    Canine Killer
    Qu’est-ce que c’est?
    Fa-fa-fa-fa, fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa, better
    Run, Fido run, run, run, run, run, run away, oh, oh, oh, oh
    Ay-ya-ya-ya-ya-ya, ooh

    Psycho Killer, by the Talking Heads

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O52jAYa4Pm8
    1. The Rev Kev August 13, 2025 at 10:07 am

       Oooh, wicked. I love it-

       https://x.com/SouthPark/status/1955000014893355389
       1. gf August 13, 2025 at 2:41 pm

          Cartman for President 2028.
    2. griffen August 13, 2025 at 3:00 pm

       I doubt really anyone in this administration is truly aghast at the weekly episodes by South Park keeping focused on the targets of their satire. Which is of course a satirical show!

       Maybe Weird Al can do a mock up song, updating his take on Gump to instead feature Drumpf. “Drumpf sits alone in Central Park…
       The Art of my deals, set me apart…”
20. brian wilder August 13, 2025 at 10:03 am

    On X, Alec Karakatsanis is pretty quick to reproduce misleading crime statistics to claim:

    As with most media/politician talk about “crime,” it is completely divorced from reality. D.C. crime is at historic lows. What police call “violent crime” is down 26% since last year.

    “Down” by comparing full-year 2024 with ytd 2025.
    1. The Rev Kev August 13, 2025 at 10:36 am

       And if they really wanted to clean up all that criminal activity, Congress would be a good place to start. :)
    2. Darthbobber August 13, 2025 at 11:13 am

       You may be misreading. The most common table I see opens with a 2024 and a 2025 column, but in the verbiage below explicitly states that both columns are as of the same closing date. (So it is apples to apples, though you need to read a paragraph to be clear on that).

       That’s followed by another table giving full year data for 2024 and earlier years.

       An example of the difference. For homicides, table 1 shows 113 for 2024 and 100 thus far in 2025. But table 2, which gives the full year data for 2024, gives 187.
       1. Taner Edis August 13, 2025 at 2:46 pm

          Rule of thumb: a standard deviation is about √N, which is about 10-11 in this case. 100 is about a standard deviation off from 113. In other words what we have is quite likely a statistical fluctuation: there’s no basis for saying there’s any real decline in homicide at least, let alone for looking for any structural (such as causal) explanation for such a decline.
          1. Darthbobber August 13, 2025 at 5:17 pm

             But even less does it justify hyperventilating about a claimed massive increase. And my recollection from prob&stat is that slightly more than a full standard deviation greatly exceeds what would be expected from unnamed fluctuations (which in the absence of evidence to the contrary would not be assumed to all be moving in a single direction)
21. tegnost August 13, 2025 at 10:23 am

    Antidote…
    Trump when you put on the they live glasses…
    1. mrsyk August 13, 2025 at 10:55 am

       Trump selling flood zone insurance.
    2. griffen August 13, 2025 at 12:11 pm

       Hunter Biden ( with a Presidential pardon in his pocket ) strolling through Los Angeles like a boss, on his way to the next 3 hour podcast and finally able to say what he wanted to say…
22. Sean Gorman August 13, 2025 at 10:52 am

    Reply to tegnost :
    He doesn’t change at all?
23. The Rev Kev August 13, 2025 at 10:58 am

    “Israel is in talks to possibly resettle Palestinians from Gaza in South Sudan”

    Only Zionists think it a good idea to take starving people and put them in a place where people are starving to death already. Trump may promise to support them with aide but when the next President comes in, likely he will cancel it and say that it is not his problem.

    https://www.msn.com/en-xl/news/other/u-n-sounds-alarm-on-sudan-as-over-60-die-of-malnutrition-in-a-week-in-el-fasher/ar-AA1Kn3nm
    1. OIFVet August 13, 2025 at 12:17 pm

       Has a distinct “Jews to Madagascar” vibe to it.
24. tegnost August 13, 2025 at 11:04 am

    PSA…My laptop gets slow internet through my phone and so comment can be slow or seemingly no to load and it’s not uncommon that I’ll notice a misspelled word or poorly phrased line that I would correct in edit, but alas the edit window does not show up sometimes and I’ve always avoided refreshing because that would not give me the edit window either. Today I hit refresh and did not get the edit, so I replied to my reply (yes, I am a sinner in this sacrilegious practice) and got the edit window for both comments, at which time I delete the correcting reply and fix my mistakes in the retrieved edit window, I hope this helps one or more people…
25. antidlc August 13, 2025 at 11:13 am

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/upstate-state-senator-announces-alzheimer-180801559.html
    Upstate state senator announces Alzheimer’s diagnosis, resignation

    South Carolina State Senator Roger Nutt announced Monday that he has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and will step down in January.
    …
    In a letter, Nutt said that he was diagnosed with the disease after seeking medical care for what he believed were long-COVID symptoms.

    bold mine
    1. alrhundi August 13, 2025 at 12:54 pm

       Little bit of A, little bit of B? He’s only 59!
26. upstater August 13, 2025 at 11:23 am

    Can you imagine what this will do to residential and small commercial electricity rates?

    New Yorkers may pay billions to keep the state’s aging nuclear plants in business syracuse.com archive

    New York electricity customers could pay up to $33 billion over 20 years to keep four aging nuclear power plants operational in Oswego and Wayne counties, according to a plan under review by state regulators.
    The Public Service Commission is looking to persuade Constellation Energy Corp. to continue operating its four Upstate nuclear reactors for decades to come. Year after year, the plants reliably produce one-fifth of the state’s electricity without emitting greenhouse gases – a key consideration for state officials. [emphasis added]

    Two of the plants in Oswego are nearing 60 years old, two of the oldest in the world! Constellation already has been getting huge subsidies thanks to Cuomo. They need these rust buckets to supply Micron’s chip fabe.
    1. Mikel August 13, 2025 at 12:13 pm

       Infrastructure of various kinds has been built all over the world for ages. Building more is usually presented as the main problem.
       But the major problems (as much as people talk about rise and decline, which goes in cycles for many regions) have always been infrastructure maintenance – especially over long distances – and waste management.
27. griffen August 13, 2025 at 12:00 pm

    Breaking announcement…the rock band KISS will be included this year’s edition of the Kennedy Center honors, along with George Strait and several other performers and entertainers. Maybe the Foo Fighters will perform during the festivities?

    “and now to perform the iconic track, “Beth” by KISS…” \sarc. Putting both Paul and Gene into such an illustrious company of icons, now as both are a Center honoree seems, I dunno a bit odd. Maybe Ace shows up with axe in hand, and changed his mind on all the “forever” farewell touring.
28. Tom Stone August 13, 2025 at 12:03 pm

    Now that the Trump administration has decided to send “Kill Teams” after the world’s biggest drug kingpins the Sackler Family must be shaking in their boots…
    Oh, wait.
29. Jason Boxman August 13, 2025 at 2:17 pm

    Also, latest Surge on Ukraine just dropped

    Scraping the Barrel: Attrition and Cannibalization

    Note: This article will be relatively short compared to my standard offerings, but I wanted to get some thoughts on paper as the situation north of Pokrovsk develops. Ukraine is facing one of the worst operational crises of the war and the situation is liable to change rapidly. We clearly do not have a perfectly comprehensive picture of how the front is moving, but I think taking the pulse in real time is still valuable.
30. Wukchumni August 13, 2025 at 3:20 pm

    Quite loud F-35’s from Naval Air Station Lemoore going through their paces above me, so they can still get it up.
    1. Torrente August 14, 2025 at 7:44 am

       Any premature ejections?
       1. Wukchumni August 14, 2025 at 2:56 pm

          Not yet, they’re penetrating above me again as I type.
          1. Torrente August 14, 2025 at 4:02 pm

             Here’s one :)

             https://x.com/MyLordBebo/status/1956037884911185956
             🇺🇸 Ejected on the runway!
             A passenger believed to be conducting a familiarisation flight with the US Air National Guard accidentally ejected from a Boeing F-15D fighter jet while taxiing.
31. Terry Flynn August 13, 2025 at 5:10 pm

    Just an FYI. NC is launching its next fundraiser soon. I will be participating. Not least because I remember interacting with Yves 15+ years ago. She today emailed me with summary of key articles tailored to me regarding my Long COVID. NONE of my “friends” did that.

    I will be supporting the fundraiser in any way I can. My brain is fried with long COVID fog and when someone takes the time to find the key articles to help me, they’re automatically in my good books.

    I HATE being intellectually impaired and having a “crutch” like Yves made me cry. Yeah I cry. I want to write programs just like I used to. Now it’s a major mountain to climb. So NC will get some money and advertising. Big thanks to a variety of people including PK, Colonel, Rev Kev, Revenant, DJG, Jason Boxman and a bunch of others (sorry my search facilities are awful at this time of night). You know who you are.
32. ChrisPacific August 13, 2025 at 5:30 pm

    Re: New Zealand opposition co-leader ejected from parliament for seeking support for bill to sanction Israel

    Chloe Swarbrick was technically ejected for asking for cross-bench support from MPs ‘with a spine’ which the Speaker deemed unacceptable language. He has imposed a ban of a week, reduced to a day if she apologizes. She has refused to do that or accept the one week ban, showed up again yesterday, refused to apologize, and was thrown out once more. So she’s obviously decided making a bit of political theater out of it won’t do her or her party any harm.

    She has received some support, including from the leader of one of the coalition parties (Winston Peters) who has a history of intemperate language of his own, and has been thrown out several times himself and also got away with worse (as have numerous others). Swarbrick is a young woman in a parliament of mostly older men, so that may be playing a part, as might the topic (the article makes this all about Israel/Palestine, but it’s only one possible interpretation).

    In other New Zealand news, it’s come out that a New Zealand woman (Sarah Shaw) has been detained by ICE for close to 3 weeks, along with her 6 year old son, on re-entry to the US. She had a rather complex set of visa requirements which she thought were fully met, but were actually deficient on one point for a non-obvious reason (re-entry requirements for the US are complex, and it’s entirely possible to fail to meet them due to paperwork problems even if you’re legally allowed to reside there). Immigration had the option of humanitarian parole but chose not to use it, in keeping with the political climate. Her son is fully compliant with visa requirements and is being detained illegally. This one has been reported in local (Washington) media and in New Zealand, and is starting to get picked up internationally.

    This is doubtless just one among many ICE injustices, but is not playing well with New Zealanders considering travelling to the US for business or tourism.
33. AG August 13, 2025 at 5:37 pm

    from commentaries at Moon of Alabama

    “There is an upcoming parliamentary election in Norway in September. Glenn Diesen is a candidate for the new party Fred og Rettferdighet (Peace and Justice) and is thus savagely attacked in MSM. I will vote for him as there are no other alternatives.”
34. Terry Flynn August 13, 2025 at 6:16 pm

    Random comment re funding. Been chatting & intend to promote the site as far as my long covid addled brain will allow! Now more than ever we need NC.

    Please pay attention to next funding round.
    1. ChrisFromGA August 13, 2025 at 9:49 pm

       Amen to that. NC is an island of sanity in a world gone to shit. I’ll be poney-ing up to support the cause.
       1. Jonathan Holland Becnel August 14, 2025 at 2:11 am

          NC LEADS THE WAY*

          *not in fact the Rangers who claim this motto
          1. skippy August 14, 2025 at 2:20 am

             Hay mate …

             “During the attack on Omaha Beach in Normandy, General Norman Cota of the 29th Infantry Division unintentionally created the ranger motto. While asking Max Schnider, Lieutenant of the 5th Battalion of the 75th Infantry Ranger Regiment, what unit he was a part of, General Cota then stated, “Well godd*mmit, if you’re Rangers, lead the way!” Ever since then, the “Rangers lead the way” motto has remained true.”

             Not that we would walk across a street so some butter bar sniffing for a salute would be denied and bark lead the way to them ….

             Not that the Creed would fit the NC way …. lmmao
35. chuck roast August 13, 2025 at 6:34 pm

    Chinese navy blunder…
    I have witnessed up close and personal any number of instances of bad seamanship…because they were my own. But even The Great Helmsman himself would admit that I can now go to sleep without a trace of regret.
    1. scott s. August 13, 2025 at 9:23 pm

       To me it showed PLAN and Coast Guard don’t have operational doctrine for how to work together for something like this.
36. Alice X August 14, 2025 at 12:36 am

    Holocaust survivor Gabor Maté: Gaza genocide ‘the worst thing I’ve seen in my whole life.

    This from Gabor who always speaks with humanity in mind.

    From TRNN (the Real News Network) Marc Steiner, host, whose concept lags behind.

    The network lags behind. But Gabor is important.

Comments are closed.