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Links 8/19/2025

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Little joys of big people My Weekend via machine translation (Micael T). Trust me, this is delicious. Also makes me feel deficient by not possessing mildly eccentric amusements.

Puppy fat jabs: are our pets next in line for weight-loss drugs? Guardian. resilc: “Are you kidding? $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ to be made.”

Countrywide natural experiment links built environment to physical activity Nature (Chuck L)

#COVID-19/Pandemics

Covid and Our Arteries Eric Topol (Robin K)

Climate/Environment

Is climate change turning India’s Himalayas into a disaster zone? South China Morning Post

Invasive species thrive as Mediterranean Sea temperature hits record high France24

Türkiye’s reservoirs drop to 42% as major cities face critical water shortages Türkiye Today

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

China?

China’s Cement Slump Signals End of 21st-Century Building Boom Financial Post

Hong Kong property sector clouded by rising debt repayment risks Reuters

A quiet path to peace in the South China Sea Asia Times

How Germany and Japan Tried to Derail China’s High-Speed Rail Rise Felix Abt (Micael T)

India

Perfidious America Daniel Larison

Antipodes

As the economy slows and productivity flatlines, is Australia having another banana republic moment? Guardian

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

European Disunion

Weak production data pours cold water on eurozone’s hope for industrial recovery Think.ing

The Inverted Nibelungen Test: How Germany Pre-Edits Its Democracy Filip Gašpar. (Chuck L). Important.

Serbia ruling party offices set on fire in protests BBC

Old Blighty

Britain remains cursed by bipolar diplomacy Ian Proud

Protester arrested over ‘Plasticine Action’ T-shirt: ‘How ridiculous is this?’ Guardian (Kevin W)

‘It is apocalyptic’: Scotland’s entire care service faces collapse Herald Scotland

Israel v. The Resistance

Hamas agrees to new Gaza ceasefire proposal: Hamas source Arab News

Amid Protests and Talk of Invading Gaza, Netanyahu Flip-flops Over Partial Cease-fire Deal Haaretz

* * *

Will America abandon Israel? Unherd

Far-right Israeli politician barred from Australia ahead of speaking tour Guardian (Dave in Sydney)

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* * *

Iranians Blame Secret Cryptocurrency Farms for Power Outages Iran Focus

New Not-So-Cold War

Zelensky leaves White House unscathed as he buys more time BBC. Kevin W: “Key sentence ‘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.'”

Moscow REFUSES to commit to Putin-Zelensky peace talks, saying 40-minute call with Trump was only ‘fairly constructive’ – as Finland’s PM questions if ‘untrustworthy’ Kremlin despot has ‘courage’ needed to act following US-led bid to end Ukraine war Daily Mail (Micael T)

Putin’s psych after Trump’s message: “Let’s see if he dares” Aftonbladet via machine translation. Soi disant world leaders acting as if channelling high school mean girls is a winner.

NATO chief says 30 countries working on security guarantees for Ukraine Anadolu Agency. A new gambit for putting carts before horses.

Europe Demands ‘Security Guarantees’ For Ukraine … Russia Can Give Those Moon of Alabama (Kevin W)

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

Is Trump Making a Bad Bet by Counting on Europe to Keep Ukraine Afloat? Larry Johnson

* * *

EU state hints at cutting off power supply to Ukraine RT (Kevin W)

Europe Reveals Itself as Ridiculous in Ukraine Antiwar.com. (resilc). This is not news…

Steppe sicarios, 9/11 now Events in Ukraine. If true and indicative, this shift greatly increases the prospects of Russia being able to manage a post-war Ukraine, assuming it still wind up having to take a lot more terrain:

As someone subscribed to a great deal of Kyivan hipster nationalists, let me tell you – ever since about 2023, the chief enemy of their hateful Instagram stories has transformed away from the degenerate Russian and into the lazy, pacifist westerner.

Putin presents Alaskan resident with Ural motorcycle Artsakh (Anthony L). Putin loves being a pothole president.

Brief Update Re Azerbaijan Mark Wauck

Imperial Collapse Watch

Empire Can No Longer Dictate Terms indi.ca (resilc)

Trump 2.0

New data shows No Kings was One of the largest Days of Protest in US history Juan Cole (resilc). Good to know but wrong model. Only a general strike might move this needle.

The Lies Behind Trump’s D.C. Troop Surge Washington Monthly

Watch What Federal Agents Are Really Getting Up to Around D.C. New Republic (resilc)

Trump’s Municipal Takeover? Huey Long Did It First  Washington Monthly (resilc)

Trump Rolls Back Rules Protecting Mental Health Coverage ProPublica (Robin K)

Tariffs

Tariffs wiping out American farmers on all sides, and farm equipment manufacturers are laying off From last week, still germane.

Farmers in US midwest squeezed by Trump tariffs and climate crisis Guardian

GE ABANDONS China — $3 Billion Bombshell Partially Politics

Immigration

Democrats Support the New Slavery American Conservative. Berries are a staple for health fetishists A right-wing friend is willing to pay $10 a pint for raspberries to have them picked by US workers, but when she raises that issue with her (at least as affluent) liberal friends, they recoil.

The 18-Year-Old Vigilante ICE Agent Is Coming The Bulwark (resilc)

Democrats en déshabillé

Texas Democrats return to Austin, ending redistricting standoff The Hill

Our No Longer Free Press

Judge issues injunction preventing Trump’s FTC from investigating watchdog Media Matters Associated Press

Economy

Global Economy Took Tariff Hike in Its Stride, But Stronger Headwinds Are Ahead Wall Street Journal

Electricity prices are climbing more than twice as fast as inflation NPR (resilc). So if AI makes electricity costly, will EVs be still be cheaper than ICE to operate?

AI

AI Is Power-Hungry Paul Krugman (resilc)

A new worst coder has entered the chat: vibe coding without code knowledge StackOverflow (Acacia)

A Robotic Tattoo Machine Core77. Resilc: “More “high skilled” jobzzz gone?”

Class Warfare

Anti-Establishment Sentiment Prevails In Jurors. What Does That Mean For Corporate Defendants? Law.com (Democrita). Underlying study here.

How Spain put up wealth taxes – without chasing away the billionaires Guardian (Paul R). I suspect this is not generalizable to either the US or UK, whose top wealthy are properly seen as international elite. It will also absolutely not work in the US additionally due to the difficulty of valuing private assets. The IRS has not won a large estate valuation case, which involves exactly the same issues, since 1991.

Outside our normal programming, but I concur with resilc on this being Links-worthy:

Death rate for US children surges 25 percent in 10 years WSWS (Alan S)

Antidote du jour (via):

A bonus (Chuck L):

A second bonus (Chuck L):

And a third (Chuck L):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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38 comments

  1. The Rev Kev

    ‘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.

    Reply ↓
  2. Samuel Conner

    > 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.

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  4. Wukchumni

    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?

    Reply ↓
    1. Neutrino

      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?

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      1. Wukchumni

        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”.

        Reply ↓
  5. The Rev Kev

    “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.

    Reply ↓
  6. LawnDart

    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.

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  7. Mikel

    “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.

    Reply ↓
    1. The Rev Kev

      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.

      Reply ↓
      1. Mikel

        “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?

        Reply ↓
      2. Mikel

        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.

        Reply ↓
    2. ChrisFromGA

      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.

      Reply ↓
      1. chris

        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.

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      2. Mikel

        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?

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      3. ilsm

        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.

        Reply ↓
  8. Adam1

    “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!

    Reply ↓
    1. Wukchumni

      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

      Reply ↓
  10. .Tom

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

    Is that the outside auditor confirming progress according to plan?

    Reply ↓
  11. The Rev Kev

    ‘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?

    Reply ↓
  12. Plutoniumkun

    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.

    Reply ↓
  13. ChrisFromGA

    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?

    Reply ↓
  14. JohnA

    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.

    Reply ↓
  15. Cervantes

    > 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.

    Reply ↓
    1. Yves Smith Post author

      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.

      Reply ↓
  16. DJG, Reality Czar

    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.

    Reply ↓
  17. lyman alpha blob

    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!

    Reply ↓
  18. upstater

    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.

    Reply ↓
    1. ChrisFromGA

      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.

      Reply ↓
  19. The Rev Kev

    ‘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.

    Reply ↓
  20. lyman alpha blob

    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!

    Reply ↓

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