Links 8/19/2025

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1. The Rev Kev August 19, 2025 at 7:14 am

   ‘Truth_teller 🇷🇺
   @Truthtellerftm
   Still wondering where that missing $100 billion went?
   Zelensky now owns a bank in France and French President Macron used to work there.
   Macron worked at Milleis Banque from 2008 to 2012 and now Zelensky owns it!’

   Yeah, obviously Zelensky has read that 2005 book “The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One”. As Willie Sutton would say, that is where the money is.
2. Samuel Conner August 19, 2025 at 7:18 am

   > It’s outrageous how covid was normalised

   At a recent dental care visit (first in many years [not recommending such temporization unless you have a really good hygiene protocol; oral health has systemic implications due to the way bacteria can get in through inflamed or infected oral tissues]; an emergent issue required attention), the office was full, dentist in a “baggy blue” that was plainly gappy (evidently the concern is flying spittle, not floating pathogens), no masking among staff or patients, and me in the waiting area getting amused glances, I assume for my crisp new 3M Aura N95.

   I suppose it’s an illustration of the “social animal” character of homo sapiens. Perhaps there are conceivable societies in which the social pressure is toward public-spiritedness. Perhaps we’ll see a kind of sorting in future years and decades.
   1. Jason Boxman August 19, 2025 at 10:41 am

      Oddly I’m out here in western NC, and basically no one has ever given me any strange looks. That’s certainly fortunate for me, since by law in NC any random can ask me to remove my mask at any time now. (I have a P100.)
   2. Yves Smith Post authorAugust 19, 2025 at 10:53 am

      You need to cultivate your inner drill sergeant. I bring freshly bagged N95s and for anything where I have to take my mask off, make those attending me wear one. Otherwise, I walk out. One office is amused; the dentist initially grumbled but now makes a joke about it.
3. flora August 19, 2025 at 7:28 am

   re: Democrats support the new slavery.

   Pretty much my thought when reading Sunday’s Doonesbury cartoon.
   https://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/2025/08/17
   1. mrsyk August 19, 2025 at 9:33 am

      I wonder what’s going on?
      Sadly representative of many friends and colleagues.
   2. griffen August 19, 2025 at 10:04 am

      Morality grand standing and virtue signaling to their vast array of supporters and the elite donor class., How brave and noble, see how they stand against the evils of Trump and of DHS(!). ( sarc )

      I came across a sarcastic meme recently on the IG platform which put it succinctly thus; but who will pick the fields ? Indeed, who exactly has been doing it for such a length of time already.
   3. Kurtismayfield August 19, 2025 at 3:44 pm

      Yep, I have had the argument with liberal democrats that cheap lawn care is not ar rght. It always falls on deaf ears.
4. Wukchumni August 19, 2025 at 7:30 am

   NZ debt nears $1 trillion as growth moderates, savings fall NZ Herald
   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

   That’s impressive!

   it’s equivalent to $65 trillion in national debt on a per capita basis (population 5 million) compared to the USA…

   I was curious what the national debt was on my initial visit to the long white cloud in 1981 when it was the ultimate cradle to grave socialist country, and it was $4 billion. It was the first of about a dozen visits over many decades, so I’ve got a good baseline to have observed things.

   Auckland of the early 80’s was almost a curiosity shoppe with a good many of the retail buildings dating from the late 19th-early 20th century, and due to heavy import duties on cars, most everything on the road dated from the 50’s or 60’s. I’d guestimate that every tenth car one saw on the road was a circa 1958 Morris Minor. This all changed and everything is pretty updated now, with the majority of cars on the road now, 3 or 4 year old Japanese makes-ex their domestic market.

   The joke was back in the 80’s that when flying to NZ from another country, the pilot would announce:

   ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we are beginning our final approach to Auckland airport, please set your clocks back 20 years’

   Perhaps having the ultimate housing bubble in the English speaking world, was a big part?
   1. Neutrino August 19, 2025 at 8:17 am

      Crikey, those Kiwis will need to count on the fly-in billionaires to save them. That is, if they can beg for a few bales of cash each time one visits a bunker.
      What, you say that the bunker visits are entry only? In that case, the cash will burn to keep them warm.
      What, not needed for the nuclear winter? Now what?
      1. Wukchumni August 19, 2025 at 8:45 am

         In their defense, Kiwis are the ultimate overachiever-the All Blacks are perennially near the top or world champions against all comers in rugby, Rutherford showed the way forward to that nagging threat we’ve all lived with since Trinity, so it shouldn’t be surprising that their housing bubble was way over the top-its what they do.

         Thiel et al might not be hep to the idea that they are very tall poppies, Billionaires that plan to live forever in their decked out caves.

         Tall poppy syndrome is a term that originated in Australia and New Zealand in the 1980s that refers to people with notable public success or achievements that are ostracised by others as a form of egalitarianism. Intense scrutiny and criticism of such a person is termed as “cutting down the tall poppy”.
         1. Ben Panga August 19, 2025 at 4:40 pm

            I believe (but cannot currently provide a link) that Thiel soured on NZ after their COVID response seemed repressive to him. He’s spoken about it on podcasts.

            I remain convinced that his goal is now Greenland.
            1. Wukchumni August 19, 2025 at 7:25 pm

               …they aren’t making anymore permafrost
         2. ChrisPacific August 19, 2025 at 10:52 pm

            The housing bubble does not date back as far as the 80s (it actually wasn’t too bad back then). The changes you noted were largely a result of the neoliberal reforms by the Labour government in the mid-late 80s (‘Rogernomics’) which did bring New Zealand properly into the 20th century but also did a great deal of collateral damage that persists to this day.

            The closed economy did lead to some interesting anomalies, like the Trekka:

            Buyer demand for a more weather-proof top was answered by a white fibreglass canopy…

            The inability of the standard Škoda differential to cope with the frequently slippery conditions on farms and construction sites quickly became obvious…

            Australian buyers did not take to the Trekka…

            The Trekka was unattractive to black market thieves…

            We don’t see a lot of Thiel these days. His application to build a high end luxury tourist lodge (that was totally not a doomsday bunker even though it would have been mostly underground) was rejected by the Environment Court.

            Another billionaire, James Cameron, recently became a citizen the old-fashioned way (he has lived here for 13 years now). He does not seem to have any ambitions to transform society into a dystopian hellscape, instead running a rural lifestyle block in the Wairarapa, which is a time-honored Kiwi tradition (even if his is a bit larger than most) so I guess he can stay. Also he’s said he will make all his movies here from now on, and has actually been making good on that promise to date – he’s a somewhat atypical billionaire in that respect.
   2. Marking Time August 21, 2025 at 6:55 am

      Seems Wuki has been tricked by the NZ media.
      From the IMF figures provided here
      https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/GGXWDG_NGDP@WEO/OEMDC/ADVEC/WEOWORLD
      and analyzed here
      https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualized-government-debt-around-the-world

      The USA is 5th worst in the world for Government debt at 123% of GDP and New Zealand 93rd of 186 countries with 55% of GDP.
      The article by NZ Herald is combining public and private debt, has been determined by NZ Herald and I don’t know the final figure they came up with as I won’t pay to read NZ Herald. but it was supposedly “nearing” 1 trillion.
      It should also be noted that the per capita calculation is in NZ Dollars which equals 36.5 trillion US Dollars. I’d expect public plus private debt in the US is a long way past that.

      IMHO a capitalist society with a social conscience doesn’t equate to a “cradle to grave socialist” society, it’s just difficult for some countries to understand NZ humanity which is admired by lots of us here in Oz.
      Also here on the Gold Coast my own house has increased in the last 23 years more multiples than the Auckland median. Being from Sydney via long term London to the Gold Coast I don’t see the Auckland housing bubble as any different.
      Their sailors aren’t too shabby either.
      1. Yves Smith Post authorAugust 21, 2025 at 7:29 am

         Excessive private debt levels are what create financial crises, not excess public (as in national level) debt. You get financial repression with the latter.
5. The Rev Kev August 19, 2025 at 7:31 am

   “A Robotic Tattoo Machine – Core77”

   So maybe somebody was inspired from the film “Starship Troopers”?

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_cpvapfAtc (17 secs)

   Maybe they should also consider building another robotic machine that will scan a person’s tattoo and then start laser treatment to remove it. Get both ends of the market.
   1. lyman alpha blob August 19, 2025 at 9:11 am

      Or maybe Idiocracy was the inspiration.
6. LawnDart August 19, 2025 at 7:35 am

   An anti-anti-antidote: Russian humor

   Viral video of Russian vehicle waving US flag and attacking Ukraine sparks fury in Kyiv

   Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s most senior adviser condemned a viral video showing a Russian combat vehicle waving an American flag speeding through Ukraine’s front lines.

   The footage shows an M113 armored personnel carrier, manufactured by the U.S. and captured by the Russian military, flying both Russian and American flags as it speeds through a village in Zaporizhzhia in eastern Ukraine…

   The video, here.

   It would seem that the USA quietly resurrected Lend/Lease with Moscow, via Ukraine, and American equipment is once again being put to good use in fighting the Nazis… unfortunately, an entire brigade of Russian troops died because of this stunt… they died laughing.
   1. ChrisFromGA August 19, 2025 at 8:33 am

      Now fly a red “MAGA” flag on that sucker and we’re talking next-level trolling.
      1. hk August 19, 2025 at 10:37 am

         Add the Battle Hymn of the Republic over loudspeakers for good measure.
         1. rowlf August 19, 2025 at 1:04 pm

            I’d go with “Marching Through Georgia’.

            … the flag that makes you free!
   2. Wukchumni August 19, 2025 at 9:26 am

      Being a Slav to a fashion, Slavic humor tends to be on the dark side and a little tricky helps. Sergei Lavrov wearing that CCCP long sleeved shirt the other day being a perfect example.

      One can almost imagine the consternation it caused among Kleptocrats & Kremlinologists in Humordor?

      ‘See!, they want the old Soviet Union bloc party back, and aren’t going to stop in the Ukraine.’
      1. jrkrideau August 19, 2025 at 12:46 pm

         Putin seems to have a rather dry sense of humour.
         President Vladimir Putin has presented US President Donald Trump’s special envoy with an award to pass on to a senior CIA official whose son was killed fighting with Russia in Ukraine.
         
   3. Munchausen August 19, 2025 at 10:46 am

      Russians do stuff like this all the time. The real joke here is that it is reported in Politico, and that it pushed Yermak’s buttons. They fell for the obvious trolling, though not as hard as the send-the-sumbarines Donald.
7. Mikel August 19, 2025 at 7:59 am

   “NATO chief says 30 countries working on security guarantees for Ukraine” Anadolu Agency.

   Except it’s stll mostly about the USA providing security guarantees…that it really can not provide.
   However, it works as a game of strain the USA financially and break it.
   1. The Rev Kev August 19, 2025 at 8:05 am

      Since there are 32 countries in NATO, I would assume that it would be those countries, minus Fico’s Slovakia and Orban’s Hungary who want no part of this financial black hole.
      1. Mikel August 19, 2025 at 8:47 am

         “NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said Monday that 30 countries are working on a framework of security guarantees for Ukraine, stressing that the US is now prepared to join the initiative.”

         TBD?
      2. Mikel August 19, 2025 at 8:57 am

         And does any of this meet Russia’s stated goals of de-militarizing and de-nazifying Ukraine?

         There are already people in Russia who think of some EU/NATO officials as more Nazis.
         1. Munchausen August 19, 2025 at 10:54 am

            There are already people in Russia who think of some EU/NATO officials as more Nazis.

            Your “already” is a bit late. Quite a few decades late. :)

            https://propaganda.pictures/archives/9806
            How that turned out… (Soviet cartoon, 1958)
            Additional Information: Shows a captive Nazi officer gradually becoming a NATO officer.
            1. Late Introvert August 19, 2025 at 4:50 pm

               Thanks for the link, that’s a good resource.
   2. ChrisFromGA August 19, 2025 at 8:32 am

      I was going to say, who here thinks that there is any multiverse timeline with Trump sending US troops into Ukraine during the run-up to the 2026 midterms?

      Even Bizarro-world would puke that sucker up like a bad batch of sushi.

      Now, US pays France or England to send Frenchies or limeys to die … perhaps … Merz wisely ruled out Germany, saying they’re too stretched already just by sending a brigade to Lithuania.
      1. chris August 19, 2025 at 9:11 am

         But fellow Chris, there are few French or UK citizens willing to fight. That’s one of the motivations behind NATO supporting the Ukrainians as proxies against Russia. None of their citizens want to fight for their own country, let alone another. The polls on this have been crystal clear since 2014. And there is zero appetite for that kind of military action in the USA. Germany is reportedly having problems making even basic equipment for soldiers. This is all some fever dream that I wish people would wake from.
         1. Lefty Godot August 19, 2025 at 1:37 pm

            I would say that there are few EU citizens that want to fight against their own countries’ interests just because their leaders are having a hissy fit about a failed project to undermine the nation that was providing them all with cheap energy. I’m sure more would want to fight for their countries if those countries were actually threatened by an aggressor nation, but that’s not happening, except in the fever dreams of a ruling class that interprets not rolling over and playing dead on demand as terrorist aggression. For that matter, when was the last time since World War II ended that another country credibly crossed the oceans to the Americas and threatened to attack us? Like, maybe, never? I’ll give you the Soviet missiles in Cuba (1962) as a valid possible exception, but Al Qaeda was not a country and didn’t even get along all that well with the Taliban while they were in Afghanistan. So why would anyone join the US military now other than lack of other career choices? The biggest threats to the USA come from its own top 1%.
            1. chris August 19, 2025 at 4:23 pm

               Lefty, the polling in this has been clear. People in the West do not want to fight. Period. Consider that the comparison point in the article was just after Russia took over Crimea. And now, with Russia in Ukraine, it’s even lower.

               People in the West want someone else to do the dirty work. Regardless of whether its fighting or manufacturing.
               1. OnceWere August 20, 2025 at 2:29 am

                  “If there were a war that involved your country would you be willing to fight” seems to me to be a really poorly-designed survey question. Ask me that question and the only war that I can reasonably imagine being involved in, as all the wars post-WWII in which Australia has been involved, is a pointless overseas American war of choice. “I don’t know” or “no” is the only answer I could possibly give to the question posed in that way. Ask me if I’d fight against an actual foreign invasion and the answer would be different.
                  1. The Rev Kev August 20, 2025 at 3:13 am

                     And pre-WWII all the wars Oz were involved in were British Empire wars of choice.
                  2. chris August 20, 2025 at 1:33 pm

                     Sure. But sending troops to Ukraine isn’t a foreign invasion of your home either. Europe has neither the soldiers nor the materiel for soldiers. This is all a tragically stupid game. The Ukrainians were set up to be slaughtered. I think we’llstart to hear more about that when they decide to start working through these feelings via terrorism in the EU using all the weapons we’ve unleashed on the continent.
      2. Mikel August 19, 2025 at 9:12 am

         As much as Russia wants to say it’s not about gaining more territory, it’s all about territory without any deals that lead to faster de-miltarization and de-nazification (an ideology with variations that permeate throughout the West, including within Russia).

         By the end of this year, who knows where the front lines will be?
      3. ilsm August 19, 2025 at 9:16 am

         Which is more likely headlines: US security keepers for Stalin’s kluge or who is on Epstein’s numerous lists?

         I think DNC will shift on boots on ground to be opposed to Trump.

         Reality, boots on ground would be unacceptable to Russia.
         1. ChrisFromGA August 19, 2025 at 10:04 am

            I cannot think of a single Democrat who has come out and said “no ground troops, full stop.”

            Not AOC, not Bernie, not Marcy Kaptur, to my knowledge. In fact, Kaptur looks like she’s gone native:

            https://kaptur.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/kaptur-statement-negotiations-russias-illegal-war-ukraine

            Right now they’re being put to shame by M T-G.
            1. The Rev Kev August 19, 2025 at 10:15 am

               You do have to admit that it is kinda funny that right now that MTG is running to the left of people like AOC and Bernie. I, for one, never saw that coming.
               1. ChrisFromGA August 19, 2025 at 11:56 am

                  I don’t even think it’s a left/right thing.

                  It’s like there is one group of people that think it’s 1985, and Putin is some sort of combo of Stalin, Brezhnev, and Drago from Rocky IV.

                  It’s almost like a virus got into their brains and rotted them out.

                  And then, there is M T-G. She must have stayed away from the water supply in DC, or something.
                  1. XXYY August 19, 2025 at 7:00 pm

                     I don’t even think it’s a left/right thing.

                     I have been saying for some time that the traditional Left/Right terminology for political factions has become obsolete. Certainly in the US, where what I think of as the traditional left has pretty much fallen apart and disappeared in the last few decades, this is fair to say. (The rise and fall of two Bernie Sanders presidential campaigns was a notable exception here and one reason I found Sanders so exciting was that he seemed to bring with him old-school leftist ideology to a large extent, which included being viciously attacked from the left, always a feature of US left politics!)

                     BTW, letting go of left/right identification has made a big difference for me since I find I am evaluating people and organizations on their merits instead of their nominal or self-declared position on a one-dimensional spectrum. Less stressful, and also allows actual thinking and conversations to take place.

                     Solidarity, comrade.
                  2. Ben Panga August 20, 2025 at 3:51 am

                     MTG – even a nuts squirrel finds a few blinds
                     1. The Rev Kev August 20, 2025 at 4:00 am

                        My take is that she actually believes in America first. And doing stupid things like going into the Ukraine and supporting genocide in Gaza has got nothing to do with it. Her priorities remain with America so I give her credit for that.
      4. converger August 19, 2025 at 1:32 pm

         US pays? Oh no, my friend. EU and Ukraine buy expensive, overcomplicated, kill-switch enabled US weapons to keep the magic going.

         The US export economy is reducing to things that kill people, overpriced fracked LNG with a carbon footprint 30% higher than coal, and crypto scams. Woohoo!
   3. principle August 19, 2025 at 9:20 am

      Too many cooks spoil the borscht.
   4. Aurelien August 19, 2025 at 10:59 am

      A guarantee is a binding promise to do something under certain circumstances. If you guarantee my debts, then you promise to pay my debts if I can’t. A security guarantee to Ukraine means that if Ukraine cannot defend itself against a Russian attack, then other countries will spring to its defence. Since NATO as a whole could not defend Ukraine against a reasonably-skilled gang of football hooligans, there can be no security guarantee because nothing can be guaranteed.

      What this is, I expect, is be an attempt to create a kind of existential NATO membership for Ukraine by imitating the language of Art 5 of the Treaty: something like “the parties agree that they will each consider an attack on Ukraine to be an attack on themselves, and will take such action, individually and collectively, as they think appropriate.” The two obvious problems are (1) if Ukraine is included in a Treaty it will have to be ratified individually by parliaments and (2) if it’s not a binding Treaty it’s both dangerous and meaningless. It’s all, as Monty Python would say, very silly.
      1. The Rev Kev August 19, 2025 at 11:08 am

         I heard that it was Italy’s Meloni that came up with this Schrödinger’s Article 5. I sometimes wonder if she wants to eventually take Ursula’s job when it eventually come up so comes up with stuff like this to please the powers that be in the EU.
         1. converger August 19, 2025 at 1:39 pm

            “Schrödinger’s Article 5”.

            I spent a full minute explaining to friends why any US/NATO “security” guarantees are pure kabuki. RK encapsulated it in three words.
      2. Daniil Adamov August 19, 2025 at 11:30 am

         Dangerous and meaningless seems to be the name of the game here, as in many other current events…
      3. Mikel August 19, 2025 at 11:33 am

         “Since NATO as a whole could not defend Ukraine against a reasonably-skilled gang of football hooligans…”

         It keeps thinking the USA is going to be the magic ingredient, but every other day (since January) the Trump administration produces a social media post about sending USA military to all kinds of places …except Ukraine.
   5. eg August 19, 2025 at 11:13 pm

      Is there any concept more bogus than “security guarantee”? In this world there can be no such thing.

      The West negotiating with itself over a chimera — we live in the stupidest timeline … 😑
      1. Munchausen August 20, 2025 at 8:17 am

         Security guarantee is a pinky swear promise for adults.
8. Adam1 August 19, 2025 at 8:07 am

   “Tariffs wiping out American farmers on all sides, and farm equipment manufacturers are laying off”

   I’m baffled at how dumb the Republican establishment has become. For literally 4 decades they’ve preached tax cuts, so what did they expect when they implemented a $2T tax increase?!?!? Tariffs are one of the oldest forms of taxes. Duh!
   1. Wukchumni August 19, 2025 at 8:27 am

      On one hand you have Hunga Tonga combined with global warming messing up the ability to grow crops, and on the other hand you’ve got market forces in the way of low prices, dissuading farmers from even planting.

      It sounds similar to the Great Leap Forward, including the idea that much of what’s grown in these not so united states is destined for export

      The Great Chinese Famine was caused by a combination of radical agricultural policies, social pressure, economic mismanagement, and natural disasters such as droughts and floods in farming regions.

      It is widely regarded as the deadliest famine and one of the greatest man-made disasters in human history, with an estimated death toll due to starvation that ranges in the tens of millions (15 to 55 million)

      Yu Dehong, the secretary of a party official in Xinyang in 1959 and 1960, stated:

      I went to one village and saw 100 corpses, then another village and another 100 corpses. No one paid attention to them. People said that dogs were eating the bodies. Not true, I said. The dogs had long ago been eaten by the people.

      There are widespread oral reports, though little official documentation, of human cannibalism being practiced in various forms as a result of the famine. To survive, people had to resort to every possible means, from eating soil and poisons to stealing and killing and even to eating human flesh.Yang Jisheng, a retired Chinese reporter, said “Parents ate their own kids. Kids ate their own parents. And we couldn’t have imagined there was still grain in the warehouses. At the worst time, the government was still exporting grain.” Due to the scale of the famine, some have speculated that the resulting cannibalism could be described as “on a scale unprecedented in the history of the 20th century”.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine
      1. MicaT August 19, 2025 at 9:05 am

         That volcano cooled the southern hemisphere. See the report below.

         https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/hunga-volcano-eruption-cooled-southern-hemisphere
         1. ChrisFromGA August 19, 2025 at 9:31 am

            For max cooling effect, you want a volcano in the tropics to do the big blow.

            Has to do with the stratosphere being lower than in the mid-latitudes, I think. All those cooling aerosols and dust make it to the stratosphere, then they go hemispheric.

            The last major one I recall was Mt. Pinatubo, back when flannel and grunge were in style.

            The water vapor effect is interesting … I guess that could cause some warming,but it sounds like the “science” isn’t really there yet to say either way.
            1. Wukchumni August 19, 2025 at 9:41 am

               The Hunga Tonga volcano erupted Jan. 15, 2022, from a vent just 200 meters below the ocean’s surface, shooting an enormous amount of water vapor, along with a moderate amount of sulfur dioxide, into the stratosphere. The sulfur dioxide was quickly converted into tiny particles called sulfate aerosols that reflect sunlight back into space.

               There is no historic record of what a ‘Submarine Volcano’ can do, there being only over 100 of them ever known to occur, and nothing recently.

               It’s still unfolding what else is in store for us.
            2. The Rev Kev August 19, 2025 at 9:46 am

               Of course if a super volcano went off, then things could get really bad. If Yellowstone went off for example, you could write off a huge chunk of the United States just for a start and I don’t know how farming would be able to go on. Fun fact. There are about 20 super volcanoes on this planet and 6-10 of them are potentially active-

               https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/what-is-a-supervolcano.html
            3. mrsyk August 19, 2025 at 9:49 am

               Nuking a (somebody else’s) volcano is on my bingo card.
               0.1 degree Celsius, the reported amount of cooling, is not much, and only temporary.
               1. ChrisFromGA August 19, 2025 at 9:55 am

                  Why a volcano?

                  Do you remember how much ash the 9/11 attacks produced in downtown Manhattan? Now multiply that by, God knows what number, and inject it into the stratosphere.

                  Tropical mega cities:

                  Miami
                  Mexico City
                  Havana

                  You get the picture.
                  1. Wukchumni August 19, 2025 at 9:57 am

                     Permit me to lighten the mood…

                     Volcano, by Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band

                     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPC-xbMoRx8&list=RDgPC-xbMoRx8
                  2. mrsyk August 19, 2025 at 10:09 am

                     Why not? Again, “somebody else’s”, lol,
                     Your doorbell is fixed
                     Inspector Clouseau
   2. LawnDart August 19, 2025 at 11:34 am

      “Tariffs wiping out American farmers on all sides, and farm equipment manufacturers are laying off”

      We’re nowhere near peak-stupidity:

      Trump Administration Bans Solar on Farmland

      And that is effectively immediately.

      So check this out:

      Agrivoltaics explained: Maximizing Land Use and Sustainable Agriculture

      By installing solar panels above crops or alongside farming operations, this system allows for the dual use of land, enabling both food production and energy generation. A real game-changer for farmers, solar developers, and EPCs alike.

      With a growing global demand for renewable energy and the need for sustainable farming practices, agrivoltaics is emerging as a key solution to achieve both.

      So not only are tariffs hitting farmers in the pocketbook, many are going to get hit by reduced crop-yields and a blocked revenue-stream: Team Trump strikes a trifecta.

      Is it ignorance, or are they deliberately trying to bankrupt American farmers?
      1. LawnDart August 19, 2025 at 12:45 pm

         From AgWeb, another take:

         USDA Ends Programs for Solar, Wind Projects On Farms

         According to Team Trump, they’re doing this to protect the children:

         “Millions of acres of prime farmland is left unusable so Green New Deal subsidized solar panels can be built. This destruction of our farms and prime soil is taking away the futures of the next generation of farmers and the future of our country,”

         Of course, successful pols never let reality get in the way of a good story-line:

         About 424,000 acres (1,715 square kilometers) of rural land were affected by wind turbines and solar farms in 2020, less than 0.05% of the nearly 900 million acres used for farmland, according to a 2024 USDA study. Most of that land stayed in agricultural production after the development of the solar or wind projects, the study found.

         The administration of former President Joe Biden supported solar and wind projects in rural areas and on farms as part of its effort to cut climate-harming emissions and make clean energy more affordable.

         Children, come along and board the Team Trump transit van– help us look for our lost puppies! (We have free ice cream and candy too!) American consumers, we did not forget you either– just check your mailbox and squeel in delight!
         1. XXYY August 19, 2025 at 7:07 pm

            My recollection is that in Japan, where combining solar panels and farming is fairly well along, they have found that the farm yield actually goes up in many cases.

            Apparently intermittent shade is better for many species of plants than full sun, which makes sense to me since before monoculture, plants competed with each other for sunlight and having intermittent shade was the normal state of affairs.
            1. LawnDart August 19, 2025 at 8:24 pm

               Yes, that was one of the points cited in the study, that yields were increased by the addition and utilization of solar– on top of several other benefits.
               1. Wukchumni August 19, 2025 at 8:30 pm

                  Its almost all tree crops here in my neck of the Central Valley. Solar arrays among orchards wouldn’t be a good fit, would they?
                  1. witters August 20, 2025 at 3:32 am

                     The they’d fit with trees.
                     1. Wukchumni August 20, 2025 at 4:35 pm

                        I’ve never seen an orchard with solar panels interspersed, and I like to look.
      2. show_me August 19, 2025 at 1:45 pm

         Is it ignorance, or are they deliberately trying to bankrupt American farmers?

         The increasingly wealthy 1% can then buy it all up presumably. All part of the plan.
         1. LawnDart August 19, 2025 at 8:28 pm

            You forgot to shout “BINGO!!!”

            Now someone else will run with your point.
      3. lyman alpha blob August 19, 2025 at 1:50 pm

         They’ll only bankrupt the small ones, like my family. And in my opinion, it has been a deliberate program to get rid of small farmers and reward large agribusiness, backed by bipartisan Congressional policies over many decades.

         There was a small farmer near my family’s (former) farm who did put up solar on part of his farmland several years ago in an attempt to maker ends meet. It didn’t work. The solar is still there but now all the cows are gone and the buildings are in disrepair. Maybe he’ll get to keep his solar revenue since it technically isn’t sitting on farmland any more after the farm went belly up.
      4. Chris N August 19, 2025 at 2:57 pm

         They don’t care about farmers. As a previous Hudson article featured here mentioned, the three interests that Trump cares about are MIC/Tech, Extractive industries, and Finance Industries.

         MIC and Tech oligarchs like it. Andressen, Thiel/Musk, and Ellison haven’t been able to buy up all the large tracts of lands they want unlike Gates, Bezos, and the others on this list. They have a better chance of picking land up on the cheap from a foreclosure auction than from farmers doing well for themselves.

         The fracking industry, part of the greater umbrella of mining/refining extractive industries, also benefits. Part of the benefit of having solar and wind options earlier was that it forced natural gas frackers to pay higher rates to farmers for land leases/gas royalties if they wanted to get their equipment on the land instead of a farmer going with a slightly cheaper but much cleaner and less destructive option. Now gas industries can go back to naming their own price/pitting farmers against each other in situations where there’s more than one site that can tap into a field.

         Finally finance likes it, because at worst real-estate gets the some transactional money from all the land titles getting cleared and changing hands while the banks get their mortgages paid off from the foreclosure auction. However, even better if some of the tech oligarchs follow through on their plans for their freedom-cities, then finance gets to underwrite all the construction of their new compounds.
9. flora August 19, 2025 at 8:10 am

   Taibbi and Kirn, ATW, no paywall. utube.

   I start the link at the 1hr16min mark where they talk about MSNBC’s name change. Very funny.

   https://youtu.be/Gs6oIyt6-aQ?t=4577
10. .Tom August 19, 2025 at 8:12 am

    > China just published its annual Report on Human Rights Violations in the United States.

    Is that the outside auditor confirming progress according to plan?
11. The Rev Kev August 19, 2025 at 8:14 am

    ‘WikiLeaks
    @wikileaks
    100% of Thai women working in Israeli agriculture report being sexually assaulted in Israel — 654 of 654 surveyed.’

    I was going to look for it but one of the replies already showed a Haaretz article saying that in Israel, 61% of men don’t see forced sex with an acquaintance as rape. Guess that Israel then wins the title of “No Country for Young Woman”

    https://xcancel.com/Matador_X6/status/1957545322856738996#m

    I guess that those Thai women are seen as Amalek then. Going off on a tangent here, if the implication is that a very large proportion of Israeli girls and women have been raped, then could it be that they end up taking it out on men that they can do so with impunity – Palestinians?
12. Plutoniumkun August 19, 2025 at 8:26 am

    How Germany and Japan Tried to Derail China’s High-Speed Rail Rise Felix Abt

    This is a nothing story that’s been floating around rail engineering enthusiast circles for a couple of years – the writer clearly knows little about railway engineering (and even less about China). There is one source – a very dubious Chinese YT channel. Chinese companies actually own one of the main German producers of high speed rail bearings, but seem to have struggled to transfer the technology (there was a known issue of some Chinese trains suffering vibration issues over around 270kph). Building bearings like this is less a case of sophisticated high tech, but of building up manufacturing know-how over many years, so its difficult to transfer.

    The origin of the story appears to have been an attempt by one major Chinese rail manufacturer to buy a small number of specialist wheelsets so they could *ahem* study them, and the various suppliers being unwilling to do so knowing what would happen (a very common occurrence). So the story has been spun as one of plucky Chinese engineers outsmarting the dastardly West, rather than the duller one of companies not being willing to co-operate with mercantilist property theft.
    1. Revenant August 19, 2025 at 2:32 pm

       More to the point, bearings seize on Western trains regularly too and represent potential catastrophic failure risk (fire, derailment). I once looked at an investment in a vibration sensor for monitoring bearing condition and predicting failure / replacement. One of the big customers was a company of the Chinese railways.
13. ChrisFromGA August 19, 2025 at 8:28 am

    Zelensky also mentioned how he showed his US counterpart a map of Ukraine, stressing that Russia has managed to occupy less than 1% of the Ukrainian territory in the last 1,000 days

    Hmm, something tells me that the map he showed them doesn’t intersect with reality all that well. Maybe he showed them Deep State maps from February 2024?

    And no mention of Ye Olde Kurske Incursion, which wet Ye Olde Bed?
    1. hk August 19, 2025 at 11:17 pm

       Well, most of the territories that Russia has been capturing are in Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporozhiye, and Kherson, ie not Ukraine (and I don’t think Sumi, Kharkov, and Dnepropetrovsk aren’t Ukrsinian either, so the mystery solved and good to know Mr Zelensky is coming around.
    2. Munchausen August 20, 2025 at 8:23 am

       Maybe he was talking about the percentage of territory occupied by graveyards.
14. JohnA August 19, 2025 at 8:36 am

    Re ‘Zelensky also mentioned how he showed his US counterpart a map of Ukraine, stressing that Russia has managed to occupy less than 1% of the Ukrainian territory in the last 1,000 days.’”

    And no doubt added that Russia had lost over 1,000,000 men in so doing.
    1. The Rev Kev August 19, 2025 at 9:35 am

       It’s a variation of the old debate of men versus territory in the present war. The US had two major armies in Europe in WW2 – the US First Army under General Courtney Hodges and the US Third Army under General George Patton. The First argued that it was more successful in terms of territory taken and towns & cities liberated while the Third said they were more successful in terms of numbers of the Wehrmacht killed, wounded or taken prisoner. It seems that the Russians agree with Patton on the idea that if you destroy the forces of the enemy, then all those towns, cities and territory will naturally fall to you.
       1. ChrisFromGA August 19, 2025 at 9:42 am

          Russia isn’t only de-nazifying and wiping out Ukrainians. They’re offing Colombian mercenaries, dusting Turks, pokerizing Georgians, and wasting other assorted scum that would probably be committing murders in their home lands, if they hadn’t signed up for a one-way ticket to Hell.

          Russia is doing the dirty work for the entire world.

          (Pokerize – taken from a Stephen King short story I read as a kid. One of the characters was nick-named “Poke.” When asked why, he described how he liked to put bullet holes in his victims; he called that “pokerizing” them.)
          1. The Rev Kev August 19, 2025 at 9:49 am

             I heard a day or two ago that wiping out so many of them had an additional benefit. It vastly decreases the pool of men that after the war could make up sabotage and assassination teams.
             1. ChrisFromGA August 19, 2025 at 9:57 am

                I think it kind of ends up in a wash – a lot of violent, professional criminals taken out the gene pool. But the survivors (and there will be survivors) come back with a skill set that has no applicability in peacetime.

                Ergo, lots of new applicants for sabotage and assassination teams.
          2. hk August 19, 2025 at 11:35 pm

             Not to mention effectively destroying the French army. (I have a hunch thst the French suffered thousands of casualties in Ukraine, mostly falling on the “expeditious” part of their army. France being forced out of Sahel, I suspect, is because their army is basically mangled and is no longer capable of projecting force. Yhe French were the only European NATO army thst could autonomously project some force abroad, for ref.)
             1. Munchausen August 20, 2025 at 8:34 am

                Poles maybe had thousands of casualties. Westerners had much less troops deployed, and they are mostly away from the frontlines (not counting former Foreign Legion guys that originate from the region).
       2. scott s. August 19, 2025 at 3:38 pm

          This really gets me. The US had two major army groups in France in WWII. 12th Army Group under Bradley and 6th Army Group under Devers.
15. Cervantes August 19, 2025 at 8:45 am

    > The IRS has not won a large estate valuation case, which involves exactly the same issues, since 1991.

    While I completely agree with the thrust of these issues, the IRS has won a number of noncash charitable contribution cases in the last 10 years, particularly in the area of conservation easements. To be clear, the efforts the IRS had to make in that area show just the enormity of the task to try to value large amounts of assets regularly; it’s a nonstarter.
    1. Yves Smith Post authorAugust 19, 2025 at 9:01 am

       This is not on point. The issue is private companies.

       Vanishingly few really rich people are going to have a large proportion of their net worth in stuff.

       An expert confirmed:

       IRS hasn’t won on estate valuation of a whole business since ‘91. IRS has won a lot of conservation easement cases—some of which involve estates. That’s the charitable donation value of the overvalued strip of swampland beside every golf course (always built on swamps). It’s much harder to value a business.
       1. Tom Doak August 19, 2025 at 12:05 pm

          In my experience, many communities “ask” the developers of golf courses to “donate” some land around their proposed golf course as a conservation easement, in return for a conditional use permit to build the course. The local government then shows that to their constituents as a win. Occasionally, the land can be used for public recreation; other times, it’s just green space that has some benefit to the community, but would have existed regardless of who owns it.

          I’ve never wondered before whether this is a wink-wink bargain and both sides are getting what they want.

          PS. Also, golf courses are not always built on [or next to] swamps. But where there are swamps on a property, typically the golf course is built alongside them, because there would be setback rules for any houses.
    2. Revenant August 19, 2025 at 2:38 pm

       It is done regularly in the UK. There is a decadal assessment of total assets and liabilities of all discretionary trusts. Maximum levy is 6% every ten years. Intermediate additions and distributions between assessments are caught and taxed pro rata.

       Wealth taxes are perfectly implementable.

       One simple tweak would be to give the tax authority the option to acquire any asset at the price of its last assessment until a fresh assessment is rendered. That would concentrate the taxpayers’ minds….

       I would love to be a taxman!
16. DJG, Reality Czar August 19, 2025 at 8:46 am

    My Weekend (from Russia!). Pastimes of writers and artists.

    As a writer, I can assure you that being superstitious and dotty is just part of the territory. There are plenty of little odd habits to go around.

    Number 18.
    Gertrude Stein. With her poodle, Basket.

    Taken at Billignin, a village where she and Alice B. Toklas (of the brownies) spent WWII, supposedly unnoticed, even though both of them were Jewish. It has never been fully explained, to my knowledge. In some respects, it was true that Vichy France was more porous and corruptible, and the Département of Ain is out of the way.

    Yet Gertrude Stein was also a rightwing Republican who looked rather kindly on Marechal Petain. Something like, ohhh, Elise Stefanik or Hillary Clinton, but a better writer.

    And The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas is definitely worth your while.
17. lyman alpha blob August 19, 2025 at 8:46 am

    RE: Puppy fat jabs: are our pets next in line for weight-loss drugs?

    Why not? Family friend is already dosing her somewhat jumpy dog with CBD rather than letting it just do it’s dog thing. She and the rest of her human family are also regularly and highly medicated, although any positive results from these treatments are inconclusive. There’s a mother’s little helper for almost every ailment for any species these days. Kaching!
18. upstater August 19, 2025 at 8:48 am

    Re. GE ABANDONS China — $3 Billion Bombshell Partially Politics

    A misleading headline… It is a Chinese owned company apparently making investments in the US to avoid tariffs. From Wikipedia:

    GE Appliances is an American home appliance manufacturer based in Louisville, Kentucky. It operates as an independent subsidiary of Chinese Haier Smart Home Company, a publicly traded affiliate of Haier, after an acquisition from General Electric in 2016. Haier has the right to use the GE brand name until 2056.
    1. ChrisFromGA August 19, 2025 at 9:07 am

       Corporate shell games to avoid tariffs … kids, forget about “learn to code.” Go to law school, specialize in tax law and offshore tax avoidance.

       Sit back and enjoy the wealth. Getting through 1L is not a picnic, though.
19. The Rev Kev August 19, 2025 at 8:54 am

    ‘Jonathan Cook
    @Jonathan_K_Cook
    Can anyone help explain what was going on here.
    Is it now normal to be stopped in the UK simply because you’re driving more than 90 minutes from home?’

    I can explain what is going on here. Just take a look at his account-

    https://xcancel.com/Jonathan_K_Cook

    He does not follow the UK government’s “narratives” but calls a spade a spade. So obviously they are intimidating him and have him on a list. Read another account how a police officer would call to a protestor by her name and said that he did not know that she lived around here. British in the 70s/80s used to worry about the British army taking over the UK but it is now the police that have become the true threat. They are being used as a tool for suppression of dissent and this will not end well.
    1. JohnA August 19, 2025 at 10:16 am

       What was particularly amusing was Cook saying he was approaching a new multi set of mini roundabouts. As these are new and most people not familier with them would approach with caution and do something that an ever so vigilant police officer could find some minor fault with, Cook was stopped before then. To make the point that we are watching you.
       Cook used to live in Nazareth in north Israel and I think his wife is Palestinian. He moved back to England not too long ago and writes from a clear pro Palestine perspective. Clearly an undesirable according to the zionist occupied government in London.
20. lyman alpha blob August 19, 2025 at 9:03 am

    RE: Little joys of big people

    The article notes that Charles Darwin enjoyed eating animals not normally part of the human diet. He was not the only naturalist with that proclivity. John James Audubon is most famous for his paintings of birds, but he also took detailed notes on how they all tasted. Delicious indeed!
    1. Wukchumni August 19, 2025 at 9:11 am

       When we were staying at an eco lodge in the Peruvian jungle, I saw a Brown Agouti-which I later learned on this contraption was what Darwin considered the best tasting meat he’d ever eaten.

       https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_agouti
21. JMH August 19, 2025 at 9:03 am

    Who is that person in the video clip that begins with “There is no genocide in Gaza?”
    1. The Rev Kev August 19, 2025 at 9:11 am

       Not sure but I think that it might be Dorothy Shea, United States ambassador to the United Nations-

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

       I’m sure that her parents must be very proud of her.
22. Check Me August 19, 2025 at 9:11 am

    Zelensky did not purchase a French bank.

    https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.36ZZ4WL
23. Wukchumni August 19, 2025 at 9:22 am

    What do I know, but I don’t know anybody experiencing what could be considered Long Covid symptoms, and similar to yours truly, pretty much everybody has had a few bouts of getting infected.

    I’m going to do a little survey with friends and family, and ask if they are aware of anybody that has Long Covid?

    …how about the rest of you?
    1. Daniil Adamov August 19, 2025 at 9:57 am

       An online friend reports that their ability to think and communicate coherently has been lastingly impaired after a pretty bad brush with Covid. It didn’t seem that way to me unless I squinted hard, but I accept that it may just take them this much more effort to communicate as well as before (and of course, there is much one misses online). Though they seem to be doing better now.

       My cousin here also reported some less drastic long-term damage after what seemed like comparatively mild Covid. Again, it’s hard to gauge how bad it is from the outside, but I think he did become somewhat more listless and depressive (though he already trended that way; he has many good points, but being motivated to do things outside his hobbies or to make possibly necessary changes in his life is not one of them), which may have contributed to his inability to 1) retain his previous job and 2) find a new one since.

       Still, anecdotally, their cases make it easy to accept it as reality, though I can’t tell how bad or how common it is from just that.
    2. MaryLand August 19, 2025 at 10:06 am

       I know two people who have/had long covid. One got over it after a year. She is 76. The other one was recently diagnosed. She is 87. Both had Covid 3 times and both had extreme fatigue during Long Covid. The younger one is my sister and just emptying the dishes left her exhausted. She was previously active, working out at the gym regularly. She is getting IGG infusions once a month now and they seem to be helping with her energy. Her immune system was very compromised by the Covid.
    3. wol August 19, 2025 at 11:42 am

       A while ago a friend got long covid as her first infection. She went from technical writing to driving an ice cream truck. She said she was being seen to by the only Long Covid Clinic in the area. I haven’t kept up as she is a Russiagater and she grew annoyed with me.
    4. Michael Fiorillo August 19, 2025 at 11:55 am

       My girlfriend lost her sense of smell and taste – partially returned, sometimes – after the single bout of Covid she had.
    5. longhaul7 August 19, 2025 at 2:02 pm

       are you trolling ? I closed two small businesses that i owned and ran, unemploying 5 others. if you want to talk and get a sense of the difficulties we can do that. if you simply want to understand the impact on others you might do well to look at the (admittedly) vanilla websites that the NIH and CDC publish – and then realize that they’ve been asked to downplay the severity of COVID on the general population
       1. XXYY August 19, 2025 at 7:20 pm

          The numbers I have seen from the academic community are that 20% to 25% of covid infections end in some form of long covid.

          I have no idea whether long covid is randomly distributed, or if some people are prone to get it and others never do. However, as we move into a world where each member of the population has had covid a dozen or more times, implications of this are quite profound.
       2. Wukchumni August 19, 2025 at 7:38 pm

          Numbers are dandy, but I want to explore our knowledge base of what went down among us. Compared to other responses today, perhaps you’re an outlier similar to the only 3 that died from Covid-i’m aware of in my life, all Mexican-Americans from one clan in LA & Mexico City, that’s it.

          If you’re similar to me, you know a few hundred people in your life by name and face, and some are closer than others-and of course we’re talking about extensions via family and friends of that 200, which might bring it closer to 500.

          I’m going to pry into those 200 lives and see what my fishing expedition comes up with.
    6. kareninca August 20, 2025 at 12:12 am

       I know six people (actually more but six come to mind right away) who have developed dementia after catching covid. I don’t know if that counts as “long covid” but it is very bad in any case.

       Also, people are visibly aging a lot faster than they used to. Young people have under eye hollowing and facial fat loss; they didn’t so much in the past. Asian women (in America anyway) used to look young forever and now their skin is aging more like white women’s skin. The young black guy at the credit union today had hands that were aging in a way that black people’s skin doesn’t usually age.

       And, where I live there used to be loads and loads and loads of young people jogging, and the pipeline of people that age has not changed, but now there are almost young people jogging anymore.
       1. kareninca August 20, 2025 at 12:18 am

          that is, “almost no” young people jogging anymore

          and this is a very “sporty” area
24. lyman alpha blob August 19, 2025 at 9:37 am

    RE: The Lies Behind Trump’s D.C. Troop Surge

    The author tries to provide some context, noting that other presidents like Madison and Lincoln have deployed troops, but Trump was different since he was doing it for partisan political reasons.

    Oddly, or not, the article completely fails to mention a much more recent deployment of the National Guard in DC – https://www.fox5dc.com/news/when-was-last-time-national-guard-was-deployed-dc-look-back-recent-deployments One could make the argument that the months long deployment by Biden was also done for political purposes – namely to make a short lived riot look a lot more threatening than it really was in the hopes that it would damage Trump. How’s that work out?

    Also, oddly, or not, when I did a google search on “Biden deploys national guard in DC”, all of the top results were from the last few days and related to Trump. I wonder why google doesn’t want to make it easy to find bad news about Sleepy Joe?
    1. jrkrideau August 19, 2025 at 1:23 pm

       This may depend on your browser. Chrome gave basically nothing but Trump, Yandex about 50–50 while both Opera and Firefox provided mainly Biden links
       1. lyman alpha blob August 19, 2025 at 2:36 pm

          It was a google search on chrome, which probably accounts for the results I didn’t actually ask for. When I’m at home using my own machine, I never use google or chrome because I no longer trust them to give accurate results.
25. Acacia August 19, 2025 at 9:41 am

    Re: The Inverted Nibelungen Test: How Germany Pre-Edits Its Democracy

    The act in Ludwigshafen is a local episode, but it sketches a template that any democracy could adopt – a template in which the easiest way to win is to ensure the wrong players never take the field.

    The author doesn’t mention it, but the Democrat party comes to mind, as it is evidently SOP to make a public show of fair competition and inclusivity before quietly kneecapping any “wrong players” e.g., Sanders.

    BTW, Lang’s adaptation of Die Nibelungen was Hitler’s favorite film. It is indeed an astonishing and very powerful work, with a fantastic score by Gottfried Huppertz. Both Hitler and Goebbels wanted Lang to direct propaganda films, but the latter fled to the US. His partner, Thea von Harbou, who wrote the screenplay for Die Nibelungen as well as Metropolis, remained in Germany after their divorce and served the party working on propaganda films.
    1. ERmurse August 19, 2025 at 11:26 pm

       Thanks for that tidbit. I often find your comments interesting.
26. The Rev Kev August 19, 2025 at 10:04 am

    “Perfidious America”

    I read earlier about Peter Navarro railing against India as he helps burn down every bridge between India and the US that he can. I’ll make a bet here. I bet that the shooting ranges near the Pentagon are experiencing high usage. Think about it. For years now there have been plans to enlist India to face off against China and to keep them busy on their mutual border while the US can bring up more forces in the Pacific. In Modi, they had someone that could commit to this plan, even if it would have been disastrous to India itself. It was like the program for the Ukraine from twenty years ago. It was beautiful. But now, all those plans have been thrown into the trash bin as people like Trump and Navaro try to bully India and turn it into another failed vassal. All that work and planning gone down the tubes. So I bet that a lot of Pentagon planners are now letting off steam at the local shooting ranges.
27. lyman alpha blob August 19, 2025 at 10:16 am

    Dennis Kucinich on The Duran today – https://rumble.com/v6xsf4c-trump-diplomacy-with-russia-w-dennis-kucinich-live.html
28. Wukchumni August 19, 2025 at 10:25 am

    Pray for rain’: wildfires in Canada are now burning where they never used to Guardian
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    It’s an amazing statistic, but no home here in Tiny Town has ever been lost to a wildfire, is what i’ve told.

    A lot of what it has to do with is that we’re in a largely oak savanna, with little in the way of pine trees that are easy to catch fire-such as the case in Paradise.

    If I want to start a fire-pine needles are my go-to item, forget about oak leaves-all they do is smolder for the most part.

    Can’t hike due to my bum knee, so i’ve been doing a prune-up agreement of everything in approx a square hundred yards with the home being more or less in the middle, much of what i’d worked on previously-with new arrivals of dead limbs since the last time i’d bumped and grinded expired members off of said tree with a 12” sawblade, along with just being anal about removing everything dead within a 20 foot reach with a 14 foot long pole-saw. I’m proud of the work i’ve done so far and its still going on, getting ready for something wickedly hot this way comes.
29. moog August 19, 2025 at 10:29 am

    The hedgehog is a Russian agent. 🦔
30. The Rev Kev August 19, 2025 at 10:33 am

    ‘The Figen
    @TheFigen_
    Aug 14
    A hedgehog approached a passerby so that he could remove the tape from its paw.’

    I really don’t know how that works. To that hedgehog, a human would be a giant in size. It has forward facing predator eyes and even smells different. Would a human go looking for help from an animal as big as a small skyscraper? And yet, experiencing trouble, it came up to that human wanting help with the tape stuck to its foot. That sort of inter-species trust is remarkable when you think about it.
    1. XXYY August 19, 2025 at 7:31 pm

       I have seen a ton of video footage where an animal comes up to a human being for help in one way or another. Not just cats and dogs, mind you, but ducks, skunks, injured birds, rodents, dolphins and whales, you name it (and now hedgehogs). In many cases, the animal is a mother who is trying to get her offspring out of some kind of jam. I always wonder how wildlife regards human beings in view of this.

       My best thinking is that they regard humans with some kind of “in case of emergency, break glass” ideation. That is, if you are really up against it, it may be worth approaching a human to see if they can render you better off. You may get turned into a steak or something, but on the other hand they may actually help you!

       For some reason, this gives me hope for the future.
31. The Rev Kev August 19, 2025 at 10:43 am

    “Watch What Federal Agents Are Really Getting Up to Around D.C.”

    ‘Federal agents are accused of tearing down a protest sign and leaving a dildo in its place.’

    Soooo, could it be that those guys throwing dildos onto basketball courts where female teams are playing might in fact be off-duty federal agents? Just sayin’.
    1. Eclair August 19, 2025 at 11:46 am

       Ok, the woman basketball players will just have to start carrying small hatchets as part of their uniforms, and, as a dildo is tossed onto the court, pick it up and whack it into pieces.

       I realize this sounds misanthropic, but you gotta stand up to bullies. Am open to other methods of registering disdain and protest. That do not involve female on male acts of violence.
       1. wol August 19, 2025 at 1:08 pm

          The WNBA is largely mean girl on female acts of violence, re: Caitlin Clark and Sophie Cunningham. Plenty of highlights on YouTube.
       2. moog August 19, 2025 at 4:29 pm

          They could sign and auction those dildos, in protest.
       3. Wukchumni August 19, 2025 at 8:27 pm

          Oh no, now we’re a ‘Carrie Nation’, hatchets versus steely dans.
32. Jason Boxman August 19, 2025 at 10:49 am

    LOL, no, apparently not the COVID

    A Debilitating Virus Surges Globally as Mosquitoes Move With Warming Climate (NY Times via archive.ph)

    It’s strange how this one gets to be debilitating, but SARS-CoV-2 obviously cannot be. Wonders never cease. If we start to get Chikungunya in America, watch to see it become “mild” as well. It’s funny how a cross border jump is all a pathogen needs to become un-dangerous.
    1. Jason Boxman August 19, 2025 at 11:05 am

       Imagine, if you will, me sitting in my living room, giving live commentary as I read the morning news, in a voice of booming, righteous indignation. That’s me, every day. So imagine how I sound, as I read this section:

       People seem to become immune to chikungunya after an infection and so, if it sweeps through an area, it can be a couple of decades before there are enough immunologically vulnerable people to sustain another outbreak. But in places such as India and Brazil, populations are so large that the virus is circulating constantly.

       (bold mine)

       And what, ladies and gentlemen, has been ongoing for the past six years, and damages the immune system? COVID.

       And shades of the COVID shots in the global south

       There are two vaccines for chikungunya, but they are produced in limited quantities for use mainly by travelers from industrialized countries. The newest vaccine, made by Bavarian Nordic, sells for about $270 per shot in the United States, a price well beyond the reach of a country such as Paraguay, which has had huge chikungunya outbreaks and would ideally vaccinate much of the population. Brazil’s Butantan Institute is working on making a lower-cost version of another vaccine.

       But of course.

       Neither vaccine currently has the kind of W.H.O. recommendation that might lead to accelerated development of an affordable product.

       Kind of like better SARS-CoV-2 treatments and vaccines. Sigh.

       History

       No. Chikungunya was first identified in Tanzania in the 1950s, and caused sporadic outbreaks in Africa and Asia in the next decades.

       …
       By late 2013, the virus had made its way to the Caribbean and once again began to tear through a population that lacked immunity. There were 1.8 million reported infections in the region by the end of 2015. Chikungunya then made its way down through South America — and a new strain from Angola was introduced to Brazil at the same time — and the two have been circulating since then. Chikungunya cases in South America have risen steadily since 2023, alongside a surge in dengue cases.

       Risen steadily, you say? I can’t imagine why that might be? Immune damage, perhaps?
       1. raspberry jam August 19, 2025 at 1:45 pm

          I have had Chikungunya and the chronic sequelae were probably the worst health situation I’ve experienced (it’s crippling body pain that does not respond to any treatment). Weirdly I was ‘cured’ of the chronic sequelae after a decade of zero progress in treatment (there isn’t really much in the way of treatment or cures) by having the acute form reactivate following my first Covid infection and the subsequent over-response by my immune system appeared to fully clear the virus a decade after contracting it. Supposedly you have robust lifelong immunity if you survive it. Anyway, Chikungunya has already made it to the US periodically in the southern states. Given the impact Long Covid is having I expect it to become endemic and be just as if not a larger mass disabling event than Covid has been as the temperatures rise.
33. The Rev Kev August 19, 2025 at 10:58 am

    “Putin presents Alaskan resident with Ural motorcycle”

    There is no doubt that Putin has superb staff. They hear about this dude and with the nod from Putin, up and give this dude in Alaska a brand new replacement Russian motorcycle. Will it change many minds about Putin? No, but he did it anyway. Saw another example of this from Alaska. There is a cemetery in Alaska that has the graves of Soviet aircrew killed in WW2 so Putin went out of his way to not only visit that cemetery, but knelt at each grave, laid flowers and crossed himself. Every. Damn. Grave. After, he talks with a big wig from the local Orthodox church and then talked to the guy in charge of the cemetery to thank him personally for taking such good care of all those Soviet-era graves-

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3F054StZ0ak (55 secs)

    For the life of me, I cannot think of any other world leader that would do anything like this. The man has both class and decency.
    1. Judith August 19, 2025 at 1:16 pm

       A mensch.
    2. judy2shoes August 19, 2025 at 2:54 pm

       Thank you, Rev, for this link.

       “The man has both class and decency.” In spades.
    3. none August 19, 2025 at 4:26 pm

       Had no idea these motorcycles are being sold in the US. Article is interesting:

       https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMZ-Ural

       Motorcycles with sidecars even. They are still a thing. Makes me think of Sirius Black’s 1959 Triumph Bonneville from Harry Potter fanfic.
       1. Acacia August 19, 2025 at 9:57 pm

          Available in Japan too. I have seen them for sale.

          Not an expert on this but IMZ-Ural seems to have a design in which the outer wheel is also powered.
          1. ERmurse August 19, 2025 at 11:20 pm

             I was watching Isle of Man motorcycle racing and discovered they still race an event with sidecars. Crazy.
    4. principle August 19, 2025 at 4:37 pm

       Every. Damn. Grave. In the first row. :)
       1. Polar Socialist August 19, 2025 at 4:49 pm

          That is the “Soviet section” of the Fort Richardson National Cemetery. 13 graves all together.
34. Adam1 August 19, 2025 at 1:01 pm

    “Over decades, I worked with and was friends with many, many Republicans, including moderates, liberals, conservatives. Some very conservative. But all were institutionalists, believers in Constitution and law, fundamental decency, Not just that they are all gone.”

    My grandparents were Republicans, and they were raised by Republicans going back to at least Lincoln. If I had to describe them I would call them morally conservative/traditionalists (but not anti anything, especially if family were “afflicted”); economically conservative; and progressively minded about workers and workers’ rights (union participation was on both sides). They also held HIGH standards for elected official.

    My maternal grandparents were both deceased before 9/11, however my paternal grandparents made it clear they were (most likely) NOT going to vote for GWB in 2004 because they just could not accept the policies and actions of the GWB administration, particularly with Iraq and Middle East policies. I do not know whom they voted for in the end or if they chose to not vote at all as I knew my maternal grandmother had in 1972 when Nixon was up for re-election.

    With that picture in mind… while I would love to have more time to share and see my grandparents, I am ever so thankful that I do not have to try and explain what is politically going on in the USA or have to watch the light die/drain from their eyes. They would just have such a hard time comprehending how we got here.

    There is no way they would be Republican’s today. They would be like SO MANY American’s… non voters, and/or registered Independents.
    1. IM Doc August 19, 2025 at 5:41 pm

       I would add that I can absolutely say the same about my elders……working class FDR Dems. There are enough of them alive that I do not have to wonder. I can talk to them directly. They feel absolutely betrayed by the Democratic Party and are just humiliated by the identity politics and the sucking up to the billionaires, corporate types, and neocons.

       They will never vote for the Dems again. Not to say that they will go GOP although many have.

       If someone could ever tap into the 80% or so in the middle and ditch the loons on both extremes, they would win in a landslide.
       1. hk August 20, 2025 at 12:11 am

          The thing about the Dems/Reps (and the continued misuse of Left/Right typology) is that they represent the residual infrastructure of past politics, institutional, matetial, and psycho-“spiritual” even. They persist because “politics,” on the whole, is too big. We have ideas about different issues, but the actually machinery of organizing to “do” (and think about) politics is such that abandoning what has been in place for a couple of centuries is too daunting for almost anyone–even if they had such expansive credibility spanning many things. So the old politics still sells–even if you are rebelling against it, it’s easier to stage a rebellion from within and try to capture the existing machinery rather than start from scratch, or so people think–thus we have, among others, Sanders and Trump.

          I think we mostly agree, having seen what we’ve seen, that this is a losibg game–rather than the rebels taking over, the old political machinery assimiliates them, one way or another. The old world has to die, pretty much, but that hardly assures that a new one will be born (or we’ll like it any better than the old). So the old world maintains its hold…
35. Joan August 19, 2025 at 1:35 pm

    Electricity prices climbing…

    In California, prices are set by the California Public Utilities Commission, 100% appointed by Gavin Newsom whose main donor is Pacific Gas and Electric.

    His main job seems to be to protect their stock valuation, their two nuclear power plants sitting atop the Garlock and intersecting earthquake faults at Diablo Canyon and to please Patricia Poppe their CEO who was paid $52,000,000 in compensation in 2023.

    Between his advocacy for AI and its power consumption, plus water usage by his favored immgrants, eventually California which lost over 450 corporations to Texas alone in the last few years, eventually this state will be desert again.

    https://www.abc10.com/article/news/politics/california-politicians-campaigns-2-million-pge/103-4161feb9-1591-4ffc-9fda-d9c49d7173b8
    1. none August 19, 2025 at 4:34 pm

       He’s also flipped on oil drilling.

       https://calmatters.org/politics/2025/08/oil-compromise-california-legislature/
    2. Tom Stone August 19, 2025 at 6:02 pm

       PG&E and Comcast have been big supporters of mrs Newsome’s charity.
       I understand that she has reduced her salary there to a mere $50K (Barely enough to pay for childcare and tuition) per year since she spends most of her time being California’s first lady.
36. Mass Driver August 19, 2025 at 1:51 pm

    How the talks between Trump, Zelensky and EU leaders ended. Main points Kommersant via machine translation (Micael T). Zelensky has retreated on “ceasefire first”.

    Did he fire anyone, or is that left for the next episode of the show?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHzdxly0Y9Q
37. lyman alpha blob August 19, 2025 at 2:40 pm

    Elise Stefanik roundly jeered at a public event – https://xcancel.com/atrupar/status/1957573828269294065

    More of this please. Fangurls of the Zionist entity should not be welcomed anywhere.
38. lyman alpha blob August 19, 2025 at 2:53 pm

    Arthur T needs some help at the Market Basket grocery chain – https://www.boston.com/news/business/2025/08/18/market-basket-board-member-demoulas-ally-ousted/ He was suspended as CEO and now they’ve ousted his ally on the board of directors. Two other execs allied with Arthur T have been canned and banned from the stores – https://www.businessinsider.com/market-basket-new-england-grocery-chain-restraining-order-executives-2025-8

    Arthur T Demoulas won out over his other family members a decade ago when they tried to oust him the first time. Arthur T thought it would be a great idea to actually pay his employees well and give them decent benefits while giving customers decent prices, and that’s practically communism, thus the infighting. I haven’t been following this most recent story all that closely, but the first time around it was pretty big news here in New England – employees and regular customers rallied for Arthur T and the dispute was very public. This time around I’m not seeing that same dynamic. Here’s a little more info from a couple months ago with a some background – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ll9mVFw2h7E
39. none August 19, 2025 at 4:22 pm

    Will America abandon Israel? Unherd

    This article was pretty terrible, conservative wishful thinking. No idea about America abandoning Israel but come on, what a fatuous rant:

    And [Trump] has paid a lot of attention to Jews. This makes electoral sense. As long as the Democratic Party was built “intersectionally” out of an ever-growing list of underprivileged beneficiaries of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Jews — for all their historic attachment to the party — have been a poor fit within it. That is because they are a rich and successful group, and the main diagnostic tool of civil-rights law is essentially a race-based conspiracy theory: if Group X has more wealth, income or academic honours than Group Y, some hidden plot, somewhere, must be to blame.
    1. eg August 19, 2025 at 11:36 pm

       If you think that the article was bad, avoid the comments at all costs.
40. mrsyk August 19, 2025 at 4:38 pm

    Hurricane Erin is huge. From NPR earlier this afternoon, Hurricane Erin update: Forecast sees huge storm moving closer to U.S.

    The latest forecasts have nudged Erin’s predicted track more toward the west, increasing the chance for impacts on land. And while the system’s intensity has fallen since its winds zoomed up to nearly 160 mph over the weekend, the hurricane center says the storm’s massive size, rather than its windspeeds, is what makes it a threat.

    more

    Because of the storm’s unusual size, the Hurricane Center cautions that even its own advisories likely underestimate the risk of tropical-storm-force winds being felt onshore this week, from North Carolina to southern New England. The reason, the center says, is that Erin’s massive wind field “is considerably larger than average compared to the wind field” that its predictions are based upon.

    Stay safe east coast dwellers.
41. TomW August 19, 2025 at 5:29 pm

    Moon of Alabama is getting closer.

    “The Austrian State Treaty, signed on May 15, 1955, re-established Austria as a sovereign, independent, and democratic state. It restored Austria’s pre-1938 borders, prohibited a union with Germany, and mandated a neutral status, marking the first time the Soviet Union relinquished control over a nation under its influence during the Cold War. The treaty also addressed economic provisions, including compensation to the Soviet Union, and the nature of Austrian neutrality”

    Russia will be fine with a neutral Ukraine, and unhappy with anything less.

    Russia wants US guarantees that Ukraine will not re-militarize. Which the US could provide with a conditional security guarantee. Give Ukraine the option of permanently surrendering. Or work with Europe to re-militarize.

    Could Trump sell it? He doesn’t need to..Putin is doing all the heavy thinking.

    US public shift? I haven’t heard anyone arguing that the war is the ‘best possible defense investment we could make’ in at least a month. Lindsey Graham was a big fan of that argument.

    Can the US move on? There is always another war to promote. The US never wanted to go back into Vietnam, Iraq. etc. The US never wanted to bother recruiting Austria into NATO either.
42. Ben Panga August 19, 2025 at 5:46 pm

    Re: Is climate change turning India’s Himalayas into a disaster zone?

    I will be staying in that area for a few months very soon and the videos of the landslides has mildly terrified me. I will report back on this if I learn anything interesting.

    From the article:

    According to a Yale survey released on Thursday, a majority of Indians (53 per cent) now say they know at least something about global warming – the first time such an acknowledgement has been made.

    After being given a short definition of global warming and its effects on weather, 96 per cent of people said they believe it is happening, according to the survey.

    I think this is pretty widespread, no? We are seeing it happen. Here in Vietnam local people are very ready to give me long expositions on the changing weather (more extreme & unpredictable monsoon). Unlike the atomised consumerist West, most of the world is still intimately connected with nature and weather. Also unlike the West, we already have fairly wild weather and so the changes are causing more extreme effects.
43. Julien August 19, 2025 at 6:32 pm

    What is “resilc?”
    1. Revenant August 19, 2025 at 9:22 pm

       A fellow commenter! And respectfully referred to with re in his referent which makes him really readable. :-)
    2. eg August 19, 2025 at 11:38 pm

       I infer it is the name of a contributor of links to NC.
    3. moog August 20, 2025 at 8:44 am

       Everyone asks “Who is resilc?”, and no one “How is resilc?” 🙂
44. Tom Stone August 19, 2025 at 6:33 pm

    Something about Federal agents routinely carrying dildos….prolly gives them something to play with when they are riding around in the back of Penske’s trucks.
    If they are government issue I guess it’s OK, especially if it is a public private partnership with the porn industry.
    1. Acacia August 19, 2025 at 9:48 pm

       Or perhaps the govt. issue “toys” are for threatening the unfortunately people they grab?

       Abu Ghraib techniques returning to the imperial metropole?
45. The Rev Kev August 19, 2025 at 8:39 pm

    “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Anthony Albanese ‘betrayed’ Israel”

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-19/netanyahu-says-anthony-albanese-has-betrayed-israel/105673924

    Obviously PM Albanese doesn’t know that he is supposed to be loyal to Israel. And just because we would not allow an Israeli politician who is a genocide denier into the country. **** them if they can’t take a joke.
46. Jonathan Holland Becnel August 19, 2025 at 10:55 pm

    This is pretty great work by the ACP media comrades:

    https://x.com/ACPMain/status/1957864651045102068

    Would love to do something like this for someone in all 50 states!
47. Wukchumni August 19, 2025 at 10:59 pm

    UFC 86

    Artificial Intelligence vs Genuine Stupidity

    2 concepts go into the octagon, it isn’t improbable the match is declared a draw~

    $39.95 PPV
    $49.95 PPV (HD)
48. Ben Panga August 20, 2025 at 5:27 am

    ‘I Want to Try and Get to Heaven’: Trump Gets Reflective on ‘Fox & Friends’ (NYT via archive.ph)

    “I want to try and get to heaven, if possible,” he explained. “I’m hearing I’m not doing well. I am really at the bottom of the totem pole. But if I can get to heaven, this will be one of the reasons.”

    If Trump gets God, we really are in for a ride.
49. Mateus Paour August 20, 2025 at 6:42 am

    That Truth teller tweet seems to be based on absolutely nothing. Is there any evidence for the claims being made?

Comments are closed.