The Incredible Intelligence of Crows and Other Corvids Laughing Squid
Astronomers detect the brightest fast radio burst of all time MIT News
Private equity ate my cats’ lunch Common Weal
Eating the Engram Wild Information
Climate/Environment
Heatwave that fuelled deadly wildfires was Spain’s ‘most intense on record’ AFP
Wildfires in California and Oregon grow, prompting evacuations and warnings The Guardian
EXPERTS LINK MUMBAI’S FLOODING TO CLIMATE-DRIVEN CHANGES IN THE ARABIAN SEA Carbon Copy
Concrete boom outpaces flood mitigation efforts, say experts Times of India
Bound by disaster Down to Earth
Pandemics
Accelerated vascular ageing after COVID-19 infection: the CARTESIAN study European Heart Journal
The silent legacy of COVID-19: exploring genomic instability in long-term COVID-19 survivors BMC
Water
Sumer, which gave us ‘The Epic of Gilgamesh’, rose as a result of rivers, tides and sediments Down to Earth
Stanford Study Overturns Long-Held Belief About Plants and Rivers SciTech Daily
India
India plans mega dam in Arunachal Pradesh, with eye on China’s hydropower station in Tibet Straits Times
China?
Xie Feng Dangles Bigger U.S. Soybean Purchases – If Relations Improve The East is Read
Did Taiwan “Lose Trump?” The Scholar’s Stage
Is Xi Jinping Funny? Ramble
South of the Border
Trump, Venezuela and China’s Latin America advance Asia Times
President Maduro Hails Militia Enlistment Success as Venezuelans Join Massively Amid US Aggression Orinoco Tribune
BREAKING: Far-right 2019 Bolivia coup leaders Fernando Camacho, Jeanine Añez, and Marco Pumari will be released from prison pic.twitter.com/270B4TSsAu
— Camila (@camilapress) August 22, 2025
Africa
Is the Sudan war really ‘about nothing’? The Continent. A response to Anne Applebaum’s “The War About Nothing” in The Atlantic.
In Zambia, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Chinese Migrants Find Common Ground Sapiens
Syraqistan
Anyone in Gaza City who doesn’t evacuate ‘can die of hunger or surrender,’ Smotrich said to tell IDF chief The Times of Israel
Israeli attacks force 60 desalination plants to shut down in Gaza, as clean water becomes scarce New Arab
Airdropped Aid Is Crushing Starving People in Gaza The Intercept
Hundreds of thousands took part in huge rallies for Palestine in all Australian major cities today, the biggest in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. This one is Brisbane. https://t.co/SRljoIjr8S pic.twitter.com/rqdzRLxw7c
— tim anderson (@timand2037) August 24, 2025
***
Israel hits Yemen’s capital with wave of strikes, killing at least two New Arab
🇮🇷| Iranian Leader speech SUMMARIZED:
• Enemies shifted tactics: Since they failed to weaken Iran militarily, enemies now try to sow internal division.
• Despite political/social differences, the Iranian people remain united in defending the system and country. This unity is… https://t.co/epsANTDIRv pic.twitter.com/u3iZkhUKxL
— Arya – آریا (@AryJeay) August 24, 2025
***
Iraq: avoiding conflict amid regional upheaval International Institute for Strategic Studies. “Washington wants to take advantage of the changing political landscape. Sectarian and ethnic divisions are often exacerbated during electoral campaigns, and Iraq also tends to be vulnerable to foreign influence during the government-formation process…”
Iraqi Resistance warns against US intrusions, urges protection of PMF Al Mayadeen
Netanyahu’s endorsement of ‘Greater Israel’ vision ignites outrage in Iraq Amwaj
European Disunion
Mathew D. Rose: The EU – Fascism is coming home Brave New Europe
Stop attacking our energy security! This is not our war! https://t.co/Hag9soeiHu
— Péter Szijjártó (@FM_Szijjarto) August 24, 2025
New Not-So-Cold War
Russia’s Lavrov outlines terms for Ukraine peace: big power security guarantee and no NATO Reuters
Allegiance to Whom? And Lavrov Speaks . . . Larry Johnson
Russia recognized it cannot install ‘puppet regime’ in Kyiv: US vice president Anadolu Agency
Desperate Euro-Elites Suggest Boots-on-Ground Even “Before Ceasefire” Simplicius
Pentagon Has Quietly Blocked Ukraine’s Long-Range Missile Strikes on Russia WSJ. Yet approves sale of cruise missiles.
🇷🇺 A Ukrainian drone was shot down near the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant, according to plant officials.
The drone exploded on impact, damaging an auxiliary transformer. A fire broke out but was quickly extinguished.
⚠️ Reactor Unit No. 3 was reduced to 50% capacity. No casualties… pic.twitter.com/THnFszKraw
— DD Geopolitics (@DD_Geopolitics) August 24, 2025
If President Putin was as terrible as they say, Russia would have launched one of its largest strikes on Kiev while Ukrainians are out today celebrating “independence day”.
But he didn’t. Instead Ukraine has just launched British storm shadow missiles at the Donbass and Crimea. pic.twitter.com/U38reHsAY0
— Spetsnaℤ 007 🇷🇺 (@Alex_Oloyede2) August 24, 2025
Russian state TV, citing a Polish source, claimed Estonia is allegedly preparing a preemptive strike on Russia. Kremlin media are now promoting the idea that Tallinn has shifted to “active deterrence” and is ready to strike first if threatened by Moscow. Russian propaganda used… pic.twitter.com/CEZ3u5tecC
— WarTranslated (@wartranslated) August 23, 2025
The Caucasus
Armenians Demonstrate to Demand Moscow Close Russian Base at Gyumri, But Others Do So Because They Want It to Remain Window on Eurasia
L’affaire Epstein
“Liberation Day”
US companies are ‘staying put’ in China, none plan to move manufacturing to US Kevin Walmsley
Trump 2.0
TRUMP VS. POWELL: THE BIG TAKEAWAYS FROM TRUMP’S ASSAULT ON THE FEDERAL RESERVE Notes on the Crises
The Trump administration’s big Intel investment comes from already awarded grants TechCrunch
Sow The Wind, Reap the Whirlwind Racket News
Empire’s Stakes New Left Review
Healthcare?
Hospitals on the brink Searchlight New Mexico
Immigration
Detained migrant children forced to represent themselves in Tucson court Copper Courier
Amid deportation push, no Michigan businesses charged over hiring undocumented workers Detroit Free Press
Big Brother Is Watching You Watch
I gave the police access to my DNA—and maybe some of yours MIT Technology Review
AI
The reified mind Internal Exile
Police State Watch
US legislative committee says it’s investigating antisemitism in leading teacher union Times of Israel
Imperial Collapse Watch
Fiscal dominance and the unexpected rise of emerging markets FT. Commentary:
3/9
The fact that it isn’t suggests that international capital flows do not consist mainly of investment flowing from where it is less needed to where it is more needed, as the proponents of unfettered capital flows claim.— Michael Pettis (@michaelxpettis) August 24, 2025
And:
That pushes up the value of American assets, which in turn attracts foreign capital, financing the trade deficit and maintaining the value of the dollar.
These “global imbalances” are thus made in America, rather than in China. 3/4
— joseph francis (@joefrancis505) August 24, 2025
Accelerationists
Did crypto get unlikely help becoming a campaign kingmaker? Semafor. “Notable overlap with AIPAC.”
What’s Crypto Good For? Corruption, Exploitation, and Billions for Insiders Dollars & Sense
How AI and surveillance capitalism are undermining democracy Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Tech Elites Go FULL EUGEN*CS Breaking Points (Video)
These People Are Weird What We Lost
Supply Chain
Coast Guard Arrests Drunk Containership Captain Six Times Over Legal Limit in Seattle gCaptain
The Bezzle
In Rural Pennsylvania, a Free-Range Chicken Farm and Solar Project Is Not What It Seems Sentient
Zeitgeist Watch
‘Do not come’: 50 mph dust storm, high winds threaten Burning Man crowds SF Gate
Who killed Jean Pormanove? Read Max
Class Warfare
L.A. unions push for ‘New Deal’ ahead of 2028 Olympics Los Angeles Times
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
‘DD Geopolitics
@DD_Geopolitics
Aug 24
🇷🇺 A Ukrainian drone was shot down near the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant, according to plant officials.
The drone exploded on impact, damaging an auxiliary transformer. A fire broke out but was quickly extinguished. ⚠️ Reactor Unit No. 3 was reduced to 50% capacity. No casualties reported.’
And to no one’s surprise, the IAEA refused to say where the drone came from that attacked that nuclear power plant. But agency director-general Rafael Grossi stressed that “every nuclear facility must be protected at all times”. Well, unless they are in Iran that is. Grossi is a man of negotiable criticisms.
“Grossi is a man of negotiable criticisms.”
Very subtle dig. Frankly, Grossi appears to be a paid agent of the US and Israel. A real lowlife.
Have Russian security checked to see if Grossi’s locals have laser designators to “light up” the NPP?
‘Do not come’: 50 mph dust storm, high winds threaten Burning Man crowds SF Gate
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Methinks this might be the death knell for Burning Man or to quote the raven in the antidote-nevermore.
It was on shaky financial grounds heretofore, and another mudfest is upon us, albeit different in that the rain that came in 2023 was when everybody was already set up in camp and you could wait it out.
There was a punishing dust storm that ripped up everything the day before the gates opened, and then rain yesterday when everybody could enter. Supposedly a 10 hour wait to get in. I picked a good year to be on injured reserve lemme tellya.
More rain is forecast, and there is little chance of flooding, but it turns into a sticky mess where you descend 7 inches into the muck with every step.
In 2023 I was ensconced in a friend’s RV with a toilet in it, and we went nowhere, watching movies all day the day after the deluge. It dried out in a couple days, and we didn’t suffer much, but if you were in a tent and didn’t have a Luggable Loo to do your business, the port-a-potties were about 283 feet away, and might take you 20 minutes to walk there.
That said, i’m a little remiss from missing out on the fun, having been replaced on the roster by my friend’s 18 year old son.
I’ve been up in that alkaline desert sump. On business – why would anyone but a masochist camp out in that hellhole? I suppose all the caustic inhaled might clean out your lungs?
I was raised on copious amounts of 1960’s & 70’s LA smog so my lungs can take anything.
It’s a quite beautiful setting ringed by mountains 3,000 feet higher, and the Black Rock Desert was also the way some wayward 49’ers went to their dismay, but they didn’t have internal combustion engines, A/C and port-a-potties, advantage Burners.
My wife went once and says nice things about the art but my experience of the typical burner in the Bay Area in the late ’90s early ’00s was off putting. Oh, so you spend your time making flame throwing fighting robots?
But I have never like camping so there is that. I like being outdoors, the bathrooms not so much. And don’t get me started on the RV crowd! Clouds are coming out now, I have to go yell at them.
The big change from when I first went in 2003 was a goodly amount of Burners were in tents including yours truly.
One year I thought i’d get tricky and tried the Russian nesting doll approach with a tent in a tent in a tent, and it didn’t work, alkali dust respects nobody ensconced in fabric.
Looking at pictures online only makes me wish I was there, it isn’t merely the art, but the amazing vibe of 70,000 people where seldom is heard a discouraging word, all in a place where money wont buy you anything once you’re on the playa.
In Luna Leopold’s book, “A View of The River” (copyright 1994) he seems to be acknowledging what the Stanford study found when he wrote:
Not only is meandering the predominant pattern, it exhibits in its details the role that energy utilization and dissipation play in governing channel morphology. These aspects include:
1. The relation of meander wave length to channel width and its curvature
2. The relation of radius of curvature to energy loss by friction
3. The relation of the shape of the meander curve to the distribution of energy utilization
4. The relation of energy utilization to distance along the meandering channel.
> Stanford Study Overturns Long-Held Belief About Plants and Rivers SciTech Daily
>> If indeed carbon-loaded floodplains were laid down far more extensively over history, scientists may need to revise models of major natural climate swings over time, with implications for our understanding of ongoing climate change.
I’ve been sieving as part of my backyard alchemy. The silt layer is always black, as the degrading litter decreases in size much faster than the minerals. Silt is twixt sand (which carries water up by capillary action), and clay. Clay is where the Hjulström curve changes direction, as intermolecular forces overcome the gravity effects on particle size. So the plant material feeds the silts faster than geological processes.
Note that those carbon silts can fly away as methane and carbon dioxide, leaving no trace but the geomorphed terrain.
Weather forecast for Kamloops, British Columbia, issued by Environment Canada at 5:00am Monday August 25, 2025:
Today: Sunny, high 37C
Tuesday: Sunny, high 37C
Wednesday: Sunny, high 37C
Thursday: Sunny, high 37C
Friday: Sunny, high 37C
37C = 98F
Normal high for this day = 26C or 78F
Here in the desert southwest of Canada, 101 kilometres east of Lytton, the town that burned to the ground under the heat dome of 2021, after setting all time high temperatures for all of Canada three days in a row. It was 49.6C in Lytton and 46.9C here in Kamloops on those days.
We went by Lytton on the Rocky Mountaineer Train a few years back, I couldn’t believe it got over 120 degrees there, that’s something you’d see in Death Valley, not BC fer crissakes!
https://www.extremeweatherwatch.com/cities/kamloops/year-1998
Not unusually warm, in my opinion. 40 degrees Celsius July 27, 1998. I was there for a wedding. Too hot in the sun, okay in the shade, a dry less oppressive heat.
Having driven a bit in that part of the country, I can hardly imagine a creek in that part of Nevada cited in the article-even seasonal.
Paddling the fast water provides a visceral understanding of these concepts stated by Leopold.
A lot of western North Carolina rivers were scoured by Helene then ravaged by the US CoE as they dredged channels.
Many are studying on the future comeback.
Columbia River salmon used to run clear up into the upper reaches of the Snake River in Nevada. Not anymore since the dams……
I’d suggest a drive through the Humboldt Valley into its alkaline sink in February – the winter rains green the whole thing up magnificently.
The Snake River never goes into Nevada. I grew up in southern Idaho, driven the roads following that river, and still know the territory well. The origin of the Snake River is in Yellowstone National Park, in the mountains south of Yellowstone Lake. It traverses south through Grand Teton National Park, by Jackson Wyoming, then into southern Idaho, meandering west across southern Idaho, before turning north on the Idaho-Oregon border eventually merging with the Columbia River in eastern Washington.
This year’s Fraser River sockeye and pink runs are huge — biggest in decades; sockeye run alone currently estimated at 10 to 15 million fish — and for the first time since 1922, the lower-Fraser sockeye fishery has been opened to recreational fishers.
Don: The record sockeye and pink runs in the Fraser river have been attributed to the removal of fish farms off the coast and the restoration of the river after the Big Bar landslide in 2019.
‘Péter Szijjártó
@FM_Szijjarto
Stop attacking our energy security! This is not our war!
Andrii Sybiha 🇺🇦
@andrii_sybiha
I will reply in a Hungarian manner.
You don’t need to tell the Ukrainian President what to do or say, and when. He is the President of Ukraine, not Hungary.
Hungary’s energy security is in your own hands. Diversify and become independent from Russia, like the rest of Europe.
Turns out that Hungary’s energy security is not only in it’s own hands but so is the Ukraine. How so?
Hungary exported by far the most electricity, accounting for 39 per cent of the Ukrainian imports, followed by Slovakia with 23 per cent, Romania with 18 per cent, Poland with 14 per cent, and Moldova with 5 per cent.
https://ceenergynews.com/electricity/neighbour-export-electricity-ukraine24/
So the Ukraine is attacking the energy supply for Hungary & Slovakia when at the same time, those two countries supply over 60% of the Ukraine’s electricity needs. How long till Péter Szijjártó says ‘No electricity for you!’ The EU will bitch about it but I note that a non-U State is attacking the energy needs of 2 EU member States but has said zip about it whereas Trump has.
Well it appears that the US, in destroying the Nordstream pipeline, made an act of war against its second-largest NATO ally, Germany. Ally, Shmally! Ukraine is just attacking “bad” NATO allies like Hungary. NO doubt with Empress Ursula’s blessing.
> Eating the Engram Wild Information
>> Memories, Levin argues, aren’t about fidelity; they’re about salience.
I was speaking with G. Spencer-Brown about memory, he said “It’s in the Blood!”, and spoke of the immune system being memories, non-genetic, passed from mother to child in the womb.
Memristors have disappeared from, while his turn was most salient.
>> In Levin’s view, life’s most interesting trick isn’t memories themselves, … but the slug’s capacity to reinterpret them in a new context.
> salience(n.) 1814, “fact or quality of leaping;” 1841, “quality of standing out, state of projecting or being projected;” see salient (adj.) + -ence.
The previously linked Cialdini video resonates here, the pre-suasive cue setting the frame, into which the subsequent actions are influenced ‘on the fly.’ The principle scales.
“Allegiance to Whom? And Lavrov Speaks . . .’
‘US Army Sergeant Jonathan Estridge, a 20-year military veteran, says he is under investigation for sharing anti-Israel posts on social media. He says he was told he is being investigated as a “national security threat.” Sgt. Estridge is correct when he says he swore an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. There is nothing in the oath that US military personnel are required to swear an oath to protect Israel.’
Well a Trump spokesperson did say that America was the best country in the world – after Israel. One sided loyalty to Israel is now official government policy to the point that Israel’s interests are now placed ahead of American interests. I don’t think that that was what MAGA supporters voted for.
…who knew it stood for Make Amaleks Go Away
As Trump put it so nicely on CBS, “Well they did sign up for it actually, and this is what I campaigned on.”
Can’t wait for Trump to reclassify the files on the USS Liberty attack and say afterwards ‘What files?’
“Finish The Job”
D J T Sept/Oct 2024?
How many US soldiers in the US Army THAAD battery operating in IDF country are getting bronze stars for the 12 day war they helped “win”?
Medals you say? Did you hear what Hegseth said the other day?
‘Pete Hegseth
@PeteHegseth
Aug 22
Border medal, yes.
New medal, no.
We have proudly revived the 1918 “Mexican Border Service Medal” — same mold, same ribbon, same name, same service.
We look forward to pinning the award on brave border soldiers soon…’
https://xcancel.com/PeteHegseth/status/1958950756498722966
Everything old is new again. Good for any US soldier that might be sent into Mexico like they were a century ago.
War medals were one of the ‘smalls*’ I dealt in, and American war medals were about useless in terms of collector value as none of them were named, aside from Purple Hearts**, and every GI Joe got the same ones based on what theater they were in, and a standard group of medals a WW2 vet got were worth $10 retail altogether in the marketplace, ho hum.
The most valuable one-the Medal of Honor, couldn’t be sold in the USA, against the law.
Now British and Commonwealth war medals were a vastly different story, as it was a long tradition dating back from the Napoleonic War, and each medal was struck in silver (until WW2) with the name, rank, serial # and unit of the recipient, making it pretty easy in this day and age to see what they did in the war, and if it was extra gallant, why the medal is worth that much more in the marketplace.
Victoria Cross is the ultimate award medal, and if you got one @ Ypres it’s a yeah whatever event, whereas if you got one for leading the Dam Busters Raid, it might be worth 100x as much going under the auctioneer’s gavel
It seemed to me in the 1980’s when I was in merry olde quite a bit hunting down aged round metal discs, that there was more of a market for UK/Commonwealth war medals and more interest, than for UK coins among the populace.
* something of value you could hold in your hand
** thinking the invasion of Japan was gonna result in a shitlode of injuries, the government made millions of unnamed Purple Hearts that later made their way into the aftermarket, when I was a kid you could buy one for ten bucks-no injury needed
p.s.
Circa 1985 @ a coin show in Germany, I bought I think 3,000 of these medals in the paper envelope as issued-no ribbons, for I think at the time 5 DM a piece which was under $2 per.
They had been found somewhere in West Germany fairly recently.
Sold ’em pretty quickly for $3 a piece, if memory serves and it usually does.
They fetch $15-25 now
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Wall_Medal
American military of paramilitary may be headed back to Mexico again, this time for Cartels and drugs, will possibly morph to oil and nat gas.
Trump making Mexico pay for the cost of the invasion? I would not be surprised-
‘We’re keeping the oil. We have the oil. The oil is secure. We left troops behind only for the oil’
Bronze Star of David or inverted pentagram?
That needs a coffeve warning!
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys say government trying to coerce him to accept guilty plea or face deportation to Uganda ABC News
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Once in a blue moon i’ll field an incoming call trying to sell my wife something, and rather cheerfully i’ll explain how she was deported to North Korea, and even give them her phone number: PYG-3579 (to further the ruse that all they have is party lines there, aside from party lines ruling the place) so they can contact her, and yes, I think she might be interested in what your selling.
When I was on the verge of teenagerhood, Uganda stood for everything bad in the guise of 1 man: Idi Amin…
And now we’re deporting people there, thanks to everything bad in the guise of 1 man.
The cruelty embodied in deportation to Turd World Sh*&hole countries, with whom the deportee has NO affiliation, is stunning. Melanin is a bitch!
Is it an if and when that whitey gets rendered?
Rendition: looking a lot like Germanic precise industrial mechanized processing of people. Here and Israel.
Irony or paradox?
La Fontaine wrote fables about many animals. Here is a famous one about the interaction between a raven and a fox.
II.–THE RAVEN AND THE FOX.[2]
Perch’d on a lofty oak,
Sir Raven held a lunch of cheese;a
Sir Fox, who smelt it in the breeze,
Thus to the holder spoke:–
‘Ha! how do you do, Sir Raven?
Well, your coat, sir, is a brave one!
So black and glossy, on my word, sir,
With voice to match, you were a bird, sir,
Well fit to be the Phoenix of these days.’
Sir Raven, overset with praise,
Must show how musical his croak.
Down fell the luncheon from the oak;
Which snatching up, Sir Fox thus spoke:–
‘The flatterer, my good sir,
Aye liveth on his listener;
Which lesson, if you please,
Is doubtless worth the cheese.’
A bit too late, Sir Raven swore
The rogue should never cheat him more.
[2] Both Aesop and Phaedrus have a version of this fable.
There are many Haida stories about the trickster Raven. I like the Bill Reid version “The Raven Steals the Light” with his wonderful illustrations. (His sculpture “Raven and the First Men” at the UBC Museum of Anthropology is magnificent.)
Bill Reid and his successors are a treasured gift from the Pac NW to the world.
Shout-out, or howl, to coyote tales, too. PNW and beyond.
re: Philippines geopolitics
Wrangling oligarchs in Neocolonized Philippines and their Catastrophic Subservience to Washington
by E San Juan Jr
15/07/2025
https://countercurrents.org/2025/07/wrangling-oligarchs-in-neocolonized-philippines-and-their-catastrophic-subservience-to-washington/
Good on ya Aussies for all that boffo protesting the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and just think how things might’ve gone if the Kimberley Plan had been put in place?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimberley_Plan
If it had, then Aussies would have been the “Palestinians.”
Australia would become a Matryoshka doll of colonialism, ethnic cleansing and genocide
> Exclusive: Ghislaine Maxwell was honored at a prestigious Clinton event years after sexual misconduct allegations surfaced CNN
While the Clinton-Epstein-Maxwell fundamentals may be familiar this is worth a read in order to remind oneself how the USA has a class of wealthy untouchables. Look at them all hobnobbing, smiling and looking over their shoulders.
It reminds me of the abuse scandals in Hollywood and fashion. Everyone inside knows how it works and then finally a public scandal breaks out they contain it by sacrificing some individuals in a big public show and closing the holes.
I wasn’t able to read Whitney Webb’s One Nation Under Blackmail (too hard to follow, way worse than a Russian novel) but I’m sympathetic to the general idea.
I thought all Bill’s old girlfriends got invites…..
I’m reading it right now. All I can say is to quote George Carlin: “It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.”
I apologise for commenting on one of yesterdays links, but this morning I came across an article that could provide a healthy, if ugly, contrast. Yesterdays link:
Elon Musk Says Success Comes Down To ‘Simple Math.’ Putting In 100 Hours A Week Means You’ll Achieve Twice As Much As Those Working 50
A rebuttal:
The Selection Effect: Exporting Burnout as Best Practice
In tech, a small but vocal segment of leaders has built careers evangelizing extreme work philosophies. These are the conference speakers, book authors, and Twitter personalities who preach work-to-burnout, no work-life balance, and “always building.” Their message spreads through buzzy books, viral posts about fourth consecutive all-nighters, and companies announcing their adoption of these practices for algorithmic engagement and social proof.
The problem isn’t that these practices don’t exist…
Two powerful incentives drive this distortion. First, companies that do adopt extreme practices have strong reasons to overclaim their prevalence. If employees believe every other company operates the same way, they’re less likely to complain or leave. “Why would you quit? This is just how tech works.” It’s a classic anchoring strategy that makes unreasonable demands seem reasonable by comparison.
Second, founders and leaders gain significant personal benefit from burnishing their reputation as extreme operators. Achieving “terminal velocity clout” provides insurance against whatever happens to their current company. If enough people think you’re smart and important, you’ll land on your feet regardless of business outcomes.
Note also that in the US at least, salaried workers are only paid for 40 hours of work each week regardless of how many hours they actually work. So, every hour worked after 40 in a week is free to the employer. This creates a huge incentive to overschedule projects and glorify overtime work.
For some reason, this isn’t discussed much, but I’m thinking it’s a major factor. Salaried workers should not collaborate with or encourage this ridiculous practice.
Please don’t conflate salaried workers with hourly workers. CBC Radio had a discussion about this this morning. Salaried workers are usually very well compensated for their work and in return for this largesse they are sometimes expected to take on additional work. They signed on for it, so only the malcontents don’t accept it.
For those on salary who are really unhappy with their situation, I have a solution: The time-clock, which so many hourly employees are required to use, at the start of work, for coffee and lunch breaks, and at the end of the day.
Oops, say salaried employees. What about the times I drift in late in the morning? What about my unmonitored coffee breaks? What about my two-hour lunches? What about those days when I check out early, especially on a Friday?
Stop complaining. If you’re a salaried worker and you’re unhappy with your generous compensation, ask your employer to pay you by the hour and put you on the clock. Now will you be happy?
Sad, but very American, perspective.
In the civilized world, being on a salaried contract simply means you can organize your own time. For example, ‘be reachable between 9 and 3, balance out the month, and arrange as the job requires’. Nonetheless, excess work, or work at non-work times (sundays, holidays, middle of the night) is compensated additionally, at a proportional rate.
You must have been a slave driver in your previous life.
My experience working extreme hours was that I spent twice the time I spent working past eight hours, finding and fixing the errors I made in my code and logic during those extreme hours. I doubt my experience is an outlier to that of other analysts and programmers. However, as a contract engineer I was paid for my overtime hours. I believe that meant more money flowed into my pocket and into the pockets of the firm I worked for as well as to the government program executing work for DoD.
There is a certain ostensibly gung-ho type that likes to play the “I work harder than you do” game. In a law firm where I worked as a young associate, some partners would cruise in nine-ish and take 30 minutes in the break room to get their coffee, catch up on gossip, etc. They’d shuffle papers on their desk for a while, make a possibly business-related phone call or two, then it was time for a two-hour lunch. You might see them actually working by 3 PM, and their work day ended around 6 PM.
Meanwhile, I had arrived before 8:00, well before the phones began to ring. I’d be dictating pleadings and briefs by 8:30. In the absence of a lunch where the client was paying, I brought my lunch, which I ate while continuing to work. Although I probably billed more hours most days than these guys, I would get the stink eye for heading home at 5:15.
Note: this was not a Wall Street firm but one in laid back Santa Fe.
I remember reading a story about Edison who apparently boasted of all the time he spent in the lab. As some of his employees noted, he did seem to nap a lot in that lab.
Once you start reading a little of the literature on excessive hours of work and its attendant error rates and other problems, you suddenly a) start to appreciative that truck drivers and airline pilots have time limits on hours worked and b) suddenly start realizing that having that junior doctor or hospital resident who sees you in the emergency department be on duty for 100 out of 168 hours in a week may not be the best idea in the world.
There once was an undocumented man from Nantucket
Who had been there so long, where he thought he’d end up kicking the bucket
Masked ICE officers said with a grin
As they duly took him in
Now documented and in custody in the sin bin
“Private equity ate my cats’ lunch”
‘Private equity is a parasite on the already unwell body that is consumer capitalism.’
Almost there but not quite. A more accurate term for private equity would be ‘Chop Shop Capitalism’ because that describes what they really do. They take over a company, chop it and and sell off anything valuable and then get out of dodge leaving all the debts with former customers and employees. If they only did this to sick companies that would be one thing but they are targeting healthy companies as well.
Which is reminiscent of organ transplantation business. They can get much more value out of a healthy subject, than the one that’s sick.
How could one phrase a law banning PE & VC?
Better to go at the source of the problem, which is far too much money in the hands of way too few people. View aggregations of capital in private hands as tumors that must be neutralized.
If anyone thinks legislation or a better DOJ, FEC or FTC would help, remember how the Wagner Act, supposedly the empowering law for labor unions, has become a straight-jacket.
“View aggregations of capital in private hands as tumors that must be neutralized.”
Indeed.
The Ghislaine Maxwell saga. CNN, Honored at Clinton Global Initiative dinner… and much, much more.
It is worth your while slogging through this article for the gossip and the sheer number of details on the links between Maxwell, Epstein, and Bill & Hill. And Chelsea’s matrimonial merger!
Note: “Maxwell’s ties to the Clintons extended well beyond CGI events. As far back as 1993, photos show Epstein and Maxwell visiting then-President Clinton at the White House.”
No wonder there is the painting of Bill Clinton in the blue dress at Epstein’s cottage in Manhattan.
And BlueMaga thinks that Trump is going to have problems with all of the revelations…
I always thought it weird that you had the Pope personally bless Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell who had flown in on a private jet for the occasion-
https://www.instagram.com/p/CWkYi_sDloY/
The Rev Kev. Why I can be a mangiapreti.
Instant saint and drama queen JP II Wojtyla, who did permanent damage to the church in Latin American, particularly Brazil.
Photo with the two perps: Not unexpected. Given some of the rumors / partially proved assertions about a disappearance at the Vatican, they may have been there for other reasons than a simple blessing:
https://www.vanityfair.it/article/caso-orlandi-fratello-emanuela-vaticano
What’s one extra body in the Catacombs of the Vatican would be the general opinion?
Tangent: JD Vance killed the last Pope, right? (/s, I think)
It seemed so weird that Vance flew in for an unspecified conversation and the next news was “Pope ded”. I cannot make it make sense. What conversation or purpose could there be? The Pope was mid-dying, which is a strange time for an audience.
And was Vance travelling on Trump or Thiel business? (Thiel is an apocalyptic Catholic-adjacent antichrist obsessive. Vance and Thiel are co-investors in a Catholic prayer app, a kind of “Headspace for Catholicism”)
It seems not to have done Epstein much good, but perhaps that’s why Ghislaine was transferred to a minimum security prison.
As an aside, the ‘crowning’ of the Rev. Sun Yung Moon in the Everett Dirksen Building as the ‘King of Peace’ (since he was the reincarnated Christ who was only the ‘Prince of Peace’) by sitting Congresscritters somewhat stands out also. Video, by the way, is available on YouTube, if you want to gag.
Shades of the Priest Pedophile Scandal.
Very strange. I was under the impression both Epstein & Maxwell were Jewish.
Yes, it’s a good article. Wealthy untouchables united by blackmail.
Let’s suppose that the highly ambitious and successful are not allowed into the upper levels of the club unless there is suitable blackmail on file. So on this qualification there was no problem letting Trump in to the club and to become it’s titular leader. Why then did Trump promise to spill the Epstein beans in his 2020 campaign? My hypothesis for this head scratcher has two parts: 1) Trump is a vessel. He believes nothing, says what his fans like to hear, and experiments so the campaign platform emerges by trial and error. He discovered that his fans want justice for the Epstein-tainted. (So do I.) 2) He and his entourage were not able to think strategically and tie together all the pieces to predict that he had a problem. (His staff are sycophants who likely didn’t know what was on the record and Trump forgot.) The problem only became obvious to Trump when it came time to fulfill his campaign promise.
There is a unique opportunity to rid ourselves of child molesters disguised as politicians, treat them such as the leper colony in MLB, tainted by steroid use and will never make it into the Hall of Fame, disgraced.
FROM “SPOOK AIR” TO THE “LOLITA EXPRESS”: THE GENESIS AND EVOLUTION OF THE JEFFREY EPSTEIN-BILL CLINTON RELATIONSHIP
(Whitney Webb @ MintPress in 2019)
Chihuahua barks that someone reported about someone reporting chihuahua barking earlier.
As I saw it the X post was an attempt to demonstrate the likelihood of a supposed invasion of Estonia by the “scum” Russians (his words) and this seems to be one of the permanent themes by the Estonian author. Every chihuahua will be invaded by the orcs!
Things like this help to turn people as euroskeptics.
Nothing in links about this, but hilarious enough to make a comment on…
In TPTB efforts to derail Mamdani, the latest BREAKING NEWS to make him the WORSTEST EVER candidate for New York’s mayor is that he released a misleading exercise video.
‘tim anderson
@timand2037
Aug 24
Hundreds of thousands took part in huge rallies for Palestine in all Australian major cities today, the biggest in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. This one is Brisbane.’
The Hasbara is not working anymore. You can’t hand-wave starving children away and claim that it is pre-existing conditions. Everybody can see what they are doing.
Re: “Astronomers” and “FRB’s”.
The first FRB was discovered in 2007. I have always been of the firm belief that ‘Black Holes’ didn’t exist in the universe until the astro-physicists did the math that said they existed, and then they appeared to fulfill that prediction.
If I’m correct, they have job security. No telling what they will create next.
“Sumer, which gave us ‘The Epic of Gilgamesh’, rose as a result of rivers, tides and sediments”
‘But the Mesopotamian delta was anything but. Its restless, shifting land demanded ingenuity and cooperation, sparking some of history’s first intensive farming and pioneering bold social experiments.’
Maybe that is the key. If you just had fertile flatlands, then farming would have fallen into a regular rhythm with no need to make any changes in their agricultural practices with one year just like the last and just like the next. But having to learn to be adaptable with different people having to cooperate to feed all their people, that this laid the bedrock for this civilization as it bred a way about thinking about problems that their flatland cousins never had to experience except in times of drought.
Is Xi Jinping Funny? Ramble
~~~~~~~~~~~
I know funny, and those Xi Jinping jokes were lacking in mirth, plus i’ll never get that minute back.
Imagine someone translating your jokes to Chinese language.
American-Sino relations are already bad enough as it were…
re: Lavrov interview. Here’s the full Meet the Press interview for context.
utube, ~ 1hr.
Russia’s Lavrov says Putin wants peace even as strikes on Ukraine ramp up: Full interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPggR7sHsBo
Peacekeeper from several unaligned countries paid by EU and U.S. should monitor Kiev disarmament and keep the NPPs safe. Pakistan, Vietnam, DPRK come to mind.
Karl Sanchez just posted the Russian MFA Lavrov, NBC transcript.
A point to consider: Lavrov said the US-EU is proposing “divisible” security for Kiev while sharpening the dagger as in Minsk’s.
Russia insists on “indivisible” security for it and the rump Kiev can keep.
Reuters, NBC, better to read the whole thing.
Lavrov poise and patience is saint like.
EU is crackers thinking NATO forces would survive.
Iran probably has the second most experience in protecting peaceful nuclear programs from ethnonationalist strikes.
Now, the question is, why, in time of war, would anyone pay any attention to what any government official, from any country, at any time, says on any subject. In war, it’s all propaganda all the time.
The Real Reason Americans Worry About Trade (NY Times via archive.ph)
That liberal Democrats recently cut, doubling childhood poverty. Thanks Biden!
And this story nicely encapsulates the hell that is living in America;
– no universal healthcare
– garbage unemployment benefits
– high cost of university tuition
– high cost of insulin/drugs
– garbage high deductible junk insurance
– garbage co-pays
– too much income to quality for student aid or medicaid
Likely missed a few, all noted in passing, because everyone in America experiences these things in the working class.
(bold mine)
> Mathew D. Rose: The EU – Fascism is coming home Brave New Europe
It’s a good refutation and class-based repudiation of all the hogwash about Europe I was bathed daily in since the 80s. The great myths of liberal and cultured Europe all upturned. A couple of things to add.
The Cold War included a global propaganda campaign dimension that the Americans and Soviets both conducted. This included selling the notion that free markets and free people naturally go together to the rest of the world. One story I heard was that this actually drove the civil rights gains in the USA in that period. In other words, the West needed to walk the walk (to some extent) to not seem ridiculously hypocritical accusing the Reds of being less free. It didn’t just happen in America. Anyway I just thought it interesting to see that Cold War propaganda became to some extent a self-fulfilling prophesy. (Iiuc, this does not discount other motives and serious organized political work towards those outcomes; it’s more about how the ruling class may have had motive to allow certain things.) In the current era of Cold War triumphalism, no such motive to be free.
Towards the end Mathew Rose says “In the disorganised, delusional, and fragmented EU, which is rapidly losing its legitimacy, only violent repression can keep the population in check.” Isn’t that already gone? Starmer, Mertz, Meloni, Macron?!!
“In the disorganised, delusional, and fragmented EU, which is rapidly losing its legitimacy, only violent repression can keep the population in check.” Isn’t that already gone? Starmer, Mertz, Meloni, Macron?!!
The foretaste of what could (will) come was the “gilets jaunes” movement in France in 2018-2019. The police was ruthless, some 1700 demonstrators were wounded, almost a hundred were seriously wounded — losing an eye or a hand –, and a few were killed. Some 10000 people were detained and thousands of them indicted and judged (often in expedited proceedings); 390 ended in jail.
Class, the verboten concept. Notice how both the centrists and the far-right are both engaged in destroying whatever little authentic left remains in Europe. Meanwhile Bundesfuhrer Merz’s vision for Europe is “Welfare: Nein! Warfare – Ya!!!” I know you are German, but from my vantage point in the Balkans, Germany and Merz ought to be kept far away from any and all levers of power over the rest of Europe.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/25/world/europe/ukraine-military-war-pregnancy.html
https://archive.is/KgYrH#selection-527.3-527.62
Expecting on the Front Lines: Motherhood in Ukraine’s Military
RE: Stanford Study . . .
Land plants DO affect river geo-morphology. They are one of MANY components that influence river flow. For instance, tree cover in a river basin reduces runoff from hydrologic events (rainfall). This increases the time-of-concentration and reduces peak river flow. Reduce the flow and it reduces the erosion potential of the river and its capacity to move sediment downriver.
Other components impacting river forms (braided/sinuous) are geography, source rock (granite/sandstone), and climate. (Ah, yes! Changing climate is going to change rivers.)
A very good, readable technical book on rivers and streams is “A View of the River” by Luna Leopold. (Son of famous father Aldo Leopold.)
Armenia-Azerbaijan Peace Deal is Trojan Horse for Iran | Ehsan Safarnejad
Iranian analyst is very annoyed with Iranian leadership and its nativity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdDrFJxoaIo
The other day we had this:
https://www.politico.eu/article/viral-video-russia-vehicle-wave-us-flag-attack-ukraine-fury-kyiv/
Viral video of Russian vehicle waving US flag and attacking Ukraine sparks fury in Kyiv
Now we have the background story:
https://x.com/MyLordBebo/status/1959888256830517700
California Farms Feed America. They Can’t Do It Without Immigrants. (NY Times via archive.ph)
America is going great!
“This bounty [vegetables and nuts] all depends on a reliable, skilled and experienced labor force…”
Try replacing that with AI!
File under “Pass the Popcorn”.
New Jersey kingpin Chris Christie is back in the news. Trump warns ‘sloppy’ Chris Christie could be probed for Bridgegate scandal: ‘NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW!’, NY Post.
Interesting because the narrative pushed on us was that the “traffic study” was to punish the Mayor of Fort Lee for not endorsing Christie’s reelection bid. The alternate and seemingly obvious theory is that the lane closures were a show of muscle to the developers and financial interests of the soon to open The Modern, an enormous and corruption plagued development located in Fort Lee just south of the bridge. This of course to extract financial concessions/extract rents.
From the Post, still pushing the political revenge theory, However, two of his associates were convicted over a scheme to shut off access to the George Washington Bridge to punish Fort Lee’s Democratic mayor, who’d refused to back Christie’s reelection bid in 2013.
I wonder what Trump/the DOJ know? Perhaps we will get confirmation of the motive.
The anti-Trump lawfare project has firmly moved into the “reaping” phase. More popcorn will be needed I think.
Given how everyone in politics or public life seems to be dirty in some way, a determined, vindictive DOJ could go after a lot of people. Although obviously only those Donny is mad at.
The Mortgage Fraud Schiff and James are accused of is very common, declaring a second home to be your primary residence is usually treated with a wink and a nod by lenders.
I was working as a loan broker in 2006 and had a client who was buying a duplex and wanted to claim it as his principal residence although he lived in Kentfield and had done so for 2 decades.
Since I am allergic to committing felonies I declined and the next LO made the commission.
In talking to other people in the biz their consensus was that his kind of fraud happened all the time, nothing to see here, that’s just the biz.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia was arrested at his immigration checkin today. Apparently his lawyers expected this.
another postcard from the wilderness bar:
so theres apparently 2 guys named chase out here…and I thought I was talkin on faceborg to the one that runs an eatery…so as to access sysco or ben e kieth or whatever(bread bags)…but it turns out it was the other one.
And he came out to the wilderness bar last night, with beer,lol.
His sister was my favorite waitress when I had my cafe, 25 years ago….and he’s been a fan of mine for a long time.(!)
so I have a buddy, now,lol.
I’m hungover…out here til after midnight, when i’m usually asleep before the sun sets.
Kinda weird to be locally famous,lol…and to have a fan.
Lead THE WAY, Big Dawg!
re: management style in Germany under Nazis and after
This could also fit last week´s post on fascism and its origins.
It is a German review of a new book on Reinhard Höhn and his “Harzburger Model” of managing companies and organisations in general.
machine-translation
Leadership and Followership: Management in National Socialism and Democracy
https://archive.is/LM52r
Höhn is of heightened interest as he was in elevated position in the SD and a major Nazi legal scholar.
German version bio
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhard_H%C3%B6hn
Höhn´s continuous influence is interesting in as far as it illustrates how Nazi German and post-war organizational forms and practice in part rooted in the same ideas.
Noteworthy in this review is e.g. this observation:
“(…)
Nevertheless, Kühl admits in the following chapter that there were, of course, continuities in certain areas of Höhn’s leadership concepts. Thus, even in the post-war period, distancing himself from an authoritarian leadership approach remained important to him. This distinction has shaped modern management concepts since the beginning of the 20th century, and the National Socialists also distanced themselves from authoritarian leadership models. The counter-model of “leadership in the employee relationship” shaped both Höhn’s concepts of the Weimar and Nazi eras, as well as the “cooperative leadership” of the Harzburg model. Höhn’s success in the Federal Republic of Germany can be explained primarily by his desire to establish, in his words, a “partnership-based leadership style” (p. 98). As Kühl rightly explains, this was by no means about democratizing companies, but rather about pragmatically expanding the scope of employees without affecting the company hierarchy.
(…)”.
This of course goes completely counter to the false common wisdom of the dumb Führer-fixated top bottom dictatoral hierarchy under the Nazis. This is a major misunderstanding. And it would be time to remind the broad public of the true nature of control via management regardless of the particular political system under which it serves.
The reviewer also hints at a certain proximity between Höhn´s Harzburger Model and Peter Drucker’s well known management concept.
He eventually suggests
“Höhn is a “model case for such successful disciplining of National Socialist officials in the post-war period””
(odd machine-translation 🤔 but I have not much time to correct that)
In the end some good suggestions on what the author missed but could have looked into like ties between the 1920s and 1940s and the similarity of “Volksgemeinschaft” of the Nazi era and later on corporate identity and “Leistungsgemeinschaft” which has no established English translation (teamwork cohesion under pressure of competition.)
p.s. In an indirect way related to Richard Wolff´s most recent conversation with Glenn Diesen on the ongoing “success” of capitalism (in Wolff´s words defined by a structure where there are few powerful employers and many powerless employees.)
Richard Wolff: Western Capitalism is Killing Itself
58 min.
https://glenndiesen.substack.com/p/richard-wolff-western-capitalism
Taibbi and Kirn, ATW, no paywall.
America This Week Monday Live Show 8/25/25
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEcloLz3ICc
re: Ukraine future WWIII
pessism and realism by Mark Sleboda, 2 parts:
Catastrophe! Why Europe & US War Against Russia Is Near Inevitable
Part 1 of my latest discussion with Jamarl Thomas 25/08/25
31 min.
Oreshniks In Venezuela!?
Part 2 of my latest discussion with Jamarl Thomas 25/08/25
25 min.
https://marksleboda.substack.com/p/catastrophe-why-europe-and-us-war
I am not sure whether Sleboda does not – still – overestimate the Western military competence.
Obviously the Russians are preparing for ths scenario that he is outlining. The West in a sense is not. In statements maybe, but not in substance.
Of course – nukes are still nukes. Or how realistic is a RU SDI?
Testing the waters
Trump Administration Live Updates: President Says He Is Removing Lisa Cook From Federal Reserve Board
I shudder to think what the landscape is going to look like in 2026. I suppose I ought to just focus on getting through 2025.
Since it’s late, here’s my wild prediction on how this plays out:
September 2025: Powell caves, cuts short-term FFR by 25bps. Trump screams, “Not enough!” Ten-year US treasury goes wrong way, hits 4.5%
October 2025: (next Fed meeting) Powell rallies remaining honest Fed governors to stay on hold; Fed holds. Trump responds by finding another voting member to fire.
December 2025: Fed cuts another 25bps but dissenters raise the point that inflation is rising again, driven by tariffs and shortages. Ten-year US treasury hits 5.0%. Mortgage rates poke back over 7%.
May 2026: Powell retires, gets a gold watch, and a slice of cake. Trump gets his stooge installed as Fed chair; stooge immediately drops 100bps of emergency rate cuts. But it’s too late to save US spring home sales; TNX hits 5.5%; cries for yield curve control from Orangenfuhrer.
July 2026: Failed US bond auction. El Stooge-o restarts QE and yield curve control. TNX falls back to 4.5% but dollar crashes. Gold hits $4000/oz. ARMs and liar loans make a comeback.
And that’s as far as my crystal ball can see.