Links 8/7/2025

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1. The Rev Kev August 7, 2025 at 7:24 am

   “Trump’s ‘secondary tariffs’ aimed at Russia would hurt America’s own economy”

   Trump was asked at a press conference by an Indian reporter how he can sanction Indian purchases of Russian oil when the US imports Russian uranium, chemicals and fertilizers. He disingenuously answered that he had not heard about that, would check up on it and would get back to her. Come to think of it, he gave the same answer to reports of the Ukrainians press-ganging 60 years-olds off the streets, shoving them into vans and sending them off to the front. None of his normal ‘I don’t like that’ but just I have not heard that.
   1. GM August 7, 2025 at 7:51 am

      The bigger scandal here is that Russia is still selling uranium and fertilizers to the US, and many other things to Europe.

      At least in 1941 the last train with supplies went to Germany on the evening of June 21st, and no other trains were sent after that.

      Today Russia keeps supplying the West with critical materials, without which it would be on its knees very quickly, this while the West is bombing Russia 24/7.

      If Russia was a properly run country Putin and everyone else currently in the Kremlin would have been long ago put on trial and publicly shot for grand treason.
      1. Trees&Trunks August 7, 2025 at 1:00 pm

         Oligarchs gotta oligarch. It‘s nit the Russian state selling but the oligarchs. Then again in a sound society there would be no oligarchs. They would be called Strange Fruit https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Web007rzSOI&pp=ygUcc3RyYW5nZSBmcnVpdCBiaWxsaWUgaG9saWRheQ%3D%3D

         Is there any amount of Lenin in the Russian sales to the West, like selling them the rope to hang them with?
   2. hk August 7, 2025 at 8:36 am

      Graham and his copperhead friends never forgot about 1865, did they? (NB: “copperheads” was what Northern Confederate sympathizers were called during the American Civil War.)
2. hidflect August 7, 2025 at 7:27 am

   “JD Vance’s team had water level of Ohio river raised for family’s boating trip”

   A rising tide lifts all boats, as they say…
3. Vicky Cookies August 7, 2025 at 7:38 am

   “Automating the mass shooting victim”

   Occasionally, for fun, I write satire. The point is to lampoon by caricature cultural and political foibles and flaws, blowing up their subtleties and exposing their essence by means of hyperbole. What do you do when there are no subtleties? The late, great Tom Leher was probably right when he said that satire’s been dead ever since Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. It’s rough out here.
   1. ex-PFC Chuck August 7, 2025 at 1:35 pm

      And Obama’s NPP just frosted the cake.
      1. Young August 7, 2025 at 4:18 pm

         And Bessent donated $10M to the PM of Cambodia’s preferred overseas bank account for the services rendered. /s
4. The Rev Kev August 7, 2025 at 7:54 am

   “Millionaire American trophy hunter killed by Cape buffalo during South African safari”

   Can we all take a moment’s silence and pray that that Cape buffalo escaped afterwards? Zero sympathy for people that kill animals for s*** and giggles. He should have remembered his Tennyson-

   ‘Nature, red in tooth and claw’
   1. ciroc August 7, 2025 at 8:12 am

      Two can play that game.
   2. Jackiebass63 August 7, 2025 at 8:21 am

      These people aren’t real hunters. They depend on guides to do the actual hunting.
   3. Mass Driver August 7, 2025 at 8:33 am

      A trophy hunter who once boasted of killing thousands of doves in just three days

      I wonder if he was using flak or punt gun for that avian massacre.
      1. ambrit August 7, 2025 at 11:44 am

         I wonder if he or she was shooting over a baited field? We had something like that years ago involving a major local Louisiana politico, Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee. It happened in South Mississippi no less. Corruption and graft are cottage industries here in the North American Deep South.
         An old friend who was a bow hunter used to wear a tee shirt that had a silhouette of a bear holding a rifle. The caption was: “I support the right to arm bears.”
         Simpler, kinder days?
         Stay safe.
         1. doug August 7, 2025 at 3:59 pm

            Drones are allowing the good guys to easily check for baited fields and ponds and the spot folks shooting around them, and where they are parked. Very efficient and video evidence quickly obtained.
   4. KLG August 7, 2025 at 9:06 am

      One of our best restaurants in a revived downtown has the mounted head of a greater kudu behind the bar in the main dining room. Striking, yes, because the kudu is a magnificent animal. But all the same, more than a bit disconcerting, an antelope killed for “sport” and nothing else. I do not understand the motivation…well, yes I do, but the description of a certain anatomical attribute of this kind of “hunter” is inappropriate. He also drives a pristine monster pickup truck (hypertrophied station wagon) that has never carried any cargo other than a golf bag for the same reason. And he lies about his golf scores.
      1. ambrit August 7, 2025 at 11:48 am

         He probably lies about his “scores” in general.
         As the saying about golf scores versus male primary reproductive characteristics goes; “It’s called Fore! shortening.”
      2. Jonathan Hollowed Becnel August 8, 2025 at 1:36 am

         Winter Rules for all my Caddyshack fans.
   5. Kurtismayfield August 7, 2025 at 10:56 am

      I am.just wondering how the Buffalo is getting off so easily. Where is the Luigi treatment?
   6. Zephyrum August 7, 2025 at 11:29 am

      I keep expecting Lambert to step in and say, “That’s a damn shame.”
5. DJG, Reality Czar August 7, 2025 at 7:57 am

   Middle East Eye: UK “still” sharing intelligence with Israel.

   “Still”? Che sorpresa. The panto show goes on.

   From the article: “There is significant secrecy surrounding much of what the RAF Akrotiri airbase in Cyprus is used for.” [DJG adds a note on reality: Come on. Let’s stop being coy.]

   “Earlier this year, MEE reported that the UK government blocked Labour MP Kim Johnson from asking about Israeli bombers using the Cyprus airbase.” [Indeed. And then the intrepid MPs succumbed to the reality of their government’s war crimes, natch.]

   “The source noted that the UK, a partner in the Five Eyes intelligence alliance that also includes the US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, is the “number one gatherer of intelligence” in the Middle East.” ” [DJG adds note on reality: When a country has no economy, it must find a way to make itself useful besides exporting Cadbury Creme Eggs.]

   Dhekelia and Akrotiri must be destroyed.

   It is more than obvious why Cyprus can’t be reunified. Time to stop blaming Erdogan.
   1. Aurelien August 7, 2025 at 8:41 am

      Well, the MP, and for that matter the journalist, could have taken the trouble to look at the official site of British Forces Cyprus which would have answered many of their questions. But why allow research to undermine a good mystery? Cyprus is a very small island (have you been there?) and thousands of locals live and work in and around the Sovereign Base Areas. Any Israeli aircraft arriving would be spotted at once, not to mention the fact that supporting them would require massive airlifts of personnel, weapons and equipment, since the RAF doesn’t use the same equipment. Nothing like that has been reported.
      The use of Cyprus as an intelligence-gathering base for the Middle East has been publicly admitted since the 1980s, when there was a high-profile Official Secrets Act trial about it. As regards the anonymous allegations of “cooperation” with Israel, it’s hard to see what the point would be. I wouldn’t exclude it in principle, but Israel is a lot closer to Gaza than Cyprus is, the Israelis have many more assets and Arabic speakers, and are much better placed technically. It’s hard to see what the point of any such cooperation would be.

      Oh, and Cyprus was unified until the Turks invaded in 1974.
      1. Carolinian August 7, 2025 at 9:48 am

         Heard about this one?

         https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14834377/Man-arrested-spying-British-RAF-base-Cyprus-tension-mounts-Israel-Iran-war.html

         There were allegations during the 12 day that the Israelis flew their planes off to Cyprus to keep them from being destroyed and open reports that planes flying war supplies were coming in from that British base in Cyprus.

         Surely British foreign policy is the very illustration of the axiom “believe nothing until it has been officially denied.”
      2. The Rev Kev August 7, 2025 at 9:52 am

         ‘Any Israeli aircraft arriving would be spotted at once’

         What if they were landing and taking off at night time?
      3. DJG, Reality Czar August 7, 2025 at 10:22 am

         Aurelien:

         Some locals beg to differ.

         https://cyprus-mail.com/2024/11/15/uk-spy-plane-spotted-departing-akrotiri-base

         Dimitri Lascaris from Montreal and Kalamata, Greece:
         https://cyprus-mail.com/2024/11/15/uk-spy-plane-spotted-departing-akrotiri-base

         Akrotiri and Dhekelia are relics of empire, not just places for flamingo fanciers. Time for them to be returned to the Cypriots, who then, natch, will be in a better position to deal with the government in Ankara.
         1. ambrit August 7, 2025 at 11:52 am

            “… will be in a better position to deal with the government in Ankara.” And the government in Athens?
         2. Aurelien August 7, 2025 at 12:56 pm

            Oh, it’s obvious that the UK is carrying out recce flights over Gaza because it wants to know what the Israelis are up to and won’t tell them. This is elementary. The aircraft referred to is a Beechcraft with no obvious fit for reconnaissance work.
      4. Bugs August 7, 2025 at 1:46 pm

         I’ve been there. The average Cypriot can get nowhere near that base and spotting aircraft at night (likely with insignia faked) would be pretty hard unless you were there for exactly that reason. And you’d likely get caught. And Cyprus is a nest of spies, always has been.

         Why exactly did Turkish soldiers show up in Cyprus back in the 70s? Unprovoked, obviously.
         1. Darthbobber August 7, 2025 at 2:26 pm

            Yes. Delaware is about. 2/3 the size of “tiny” Cyprus, and civilians don’t get a particularly good view of what’s up at Dover AFB.

            In Puerto Rico the ability of civilians to observe our numerous military activities is highly limited to put it mildly. And if you seem excessively interested “folks” will want to have a chat with you.
         2. Young August 7, 2025 at 4:34 pm

            “Why exactly did Turkish soldiers show up in Cyprus back in the 70s? Unprovoked, obviously.”

            The Turkish side of the story was to prevent the rehearsal run of Gazafication of the Northern Cyprus by US-backed junta in Athens.
      5. Darthbobber August 7, 2025 at 2:12 pm

         Of course, given the takedown notice, nothing would have been reported in British media regardless.
   2. Vandemonian August 7, 2025 at 10:13 am

      [DJG adds note on reality: When a country has no economy, it must find a way to make itself useful besides exporting Cadbury Creme Eggs.]

      Don’t you mean “exporting the company that manufactures Cadbury Creme Eggs”?
      1. .human August 7, 2025 at 10:49 am

         You beat me to it. Profits (obviously) go to Cadbury,’s parent company, the yuuuge Indian multi-national food comglomerate Mondelez.
   3. Michaelmas August 7, 2025 at 1:29 pm

      DJG Reaity Czar: DJG adds note on reality: When a country has no economy, it must find a way to make itself useful besides exporting Cadbury Creme Eggs

      Oh Reality Czar, it’s a funny old world. Here’s the interesting reality (I was surprised, too) as opposed to your perception —

      https://worldostats.com/country-stats/exports-by-country/
      China: $3.51 trillion
      United States: $3.05 trillion
      Germany: $2.10 trillion
      United Kingdom: $1.07 trillion
      France: $1.05 trillion
      Netherlands: $949 billion
      Japan: $920 billion
      Italy: $793 billion
      Singapore: $778 billion
      India: $773 billion

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_exports
      Exports of goods and services (US$ million) by country
      Country Exports -Year Top goods export (2024)[2]
      [1] China – 3,792,950 -2024 Broadcasting equipment
      [2] United States -3,232,524 -2024[3] Petroleum
      [3] Germany 1,949,101 -2024 Cars
      [4] United Kingdom -1,116,624 -2024 Gold
      [5] France -1,071,123 -2024 Package

      It’s with exports of services included, of course. To some extent, that would include ‘gatherer of intelligence’, but hard to say how much. On the one hand, a lot of that would be off the books and, on the other, the distinction between government and privatized intelligence organizations is at least as muddy in London as it is DC. As for UK goods exports, yes, there the UK is only somewhere between 12th and 14th globally.
6. The Rev Kev August 7, 2025 at 8:12 am

   ‘Nury Vittachi
   @NuryVittachi
   The embarrassed US is gradually discovering that it has outsourced key elements of the coming war against China … to China. Key elements of warfare, from fighter-bombers, Hellfire missiles, nightvision goggles, etc, are being made by the very citizens set to be attacked. 1/15’

   I heard today that the Trump regime was genuinely shocked that the Chinese weaponized rare earths. That they never expected this to happen. And now they realize that the Chinese have them in a barrel and the US cannot do anything about it. Probably explains why in meetings with the Chinese, Trump negotiators were demanding the full resumption of the export of rare earths in unlimited quantities and are probably incredulous that the Chinese are refusing their demands. I guess the Chinese delegation was reading up on the Chinese translation of “The Art of the Deal.”
   1. hk August 7, 2025 at 8:40 am

      The educated Chinese don’t need translation–there are orobably more and better English speakers in China than US now.
      1. Michaelmas August 7, 2025 at 1:30 pm

         True that.
      2. juno mas August 7, 2025 at 10:30 pm

         Yes, I recently had an online (email) business discussion with a Chinese seller and his English communication was stellar. I imagine a verbal conversation would have an inflection nuance, but we would understand each other fully.
7. DJG, Reality Czar August 7, 2025 at 8:35 am

   Middle East Eye: Israel pulls embassy staff from Athens.

   Okay, I’m going out on a limb here, but as an Italian, I think of Greeks as The Cousins. (The French are the Depressed Cousins.)

   What the heck are the Greeks up to? Throwing ravani at tourists? No Greek would throw ravani, because then yiayia would yell at them.

   So, from the article: “Katz accused the mayor of failing to adequately safeguard the city from what have been widely reported as peaceful demonstrators, referring to them as “organised minorities”. He also claimed that Mayor Doukas had made Israeli tourists feel unsafe in the city.”

   Organized minorities with spanakotiropita, I’d say. This gambit strikes me as the usual attempt to control the situation by meme and assertions of “hatred.” It is one more faked crisis.

   Here in Italy, we have just had an “unsafe tourist” incident. A Jewish family from France was driving from Milano homeward. They stopped at an autogrill, probably for their last chance at excellent Italian coffee. The father went in with his son and then posted video claiming that he had been attacked for wearing a kippa.

   Well, it turns out otherwise: I am reading reports that the father went in and insulted an Italian/Palestinian family. A couple of the sons popped him in the face.

   Quindi: The Frenchman has now been charged with inciting racial hatred, whereas three of the Italians are charged basically with popping him in the face.

   As with Zelensky, live by the meme, die by the meme.

   Some Italian coverage of how we treat tourists:

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaHvDx3FIis&t=30s

   Meanwhile, I know that there are some members of the commentertakia who know Greece better than I do. Please advise.
   1. The Rev Kev August 7, 2025 at 8:46 am

      ‘The Frenchman has now been charged with inciting racial hatred’

      What else can you say? He effed around and found out. Did he think that those sons would just sit there and take it like they would have to in Israel? Is this how that guy behaves at home or did he think that what happens in Italy, stays in Italy. He’s got some ‘splainin’ to do.
   2. OIFVet August 7, 2025 at 8:53 am

      No real Greek (or Bulgarian) would waste spanakopita in such manner, we are not savages. Most likely, Jewish tourists in Greece feel threatened by observing Greeks consume vast quantities of delicious un-Kosher seafood, pork souvlaki and loukaniko.

      Normali I would treat them to portokalopita, but I feel singularly uncharitable towards histrionic genociders these days.
      1. DJG, Reality Czar August 7, 2025 at 10:28 am

         OIFVet:

         Portokalopita! Now we’re talking serious terrorism.

         Ahhh, thinking of that meal of octopus and stewed chickpeas in Athens…
         1. OIFVet August 7, 2025 at 10:44 am

            Going to Greece at the beginning of September and grilled octopi are definitely on my to-eat list 😁 The guy where I stay takes me out fishing for octopus and calmari the night before I go back and sends me home with the frozen catch. Singularly inhospitable compared to Israelis and Northern Euros…
      2. amfortas August 7, 2025 at 6:01 pm

         spanakopita is one of those greek things made with Philo dough, no?
         i’d be aghast if folks were throwing that at zionists…Philo is a superbyatch to work with…especially with arthritic fingers.
         i avoid it, even though i love the stuff, for the same reasons i dont make my own croissants.
         surely theres some rotten garbage laying around somewhere, perhaps pork fat-based, for to deter the newnazis….
   3. Pearl Rangefinder August 7, 2025 at 9:19 am

      Charge everything that moves with “antisemitism” seems to be the plan at any hint of critisicm of God’s Chosen State and their ongoing massacres, and our Western Quislings are implementing that with more or less vigour depending on the country seemingly. America, of course, being the most enthusiastic, case in point Eden Deckerhoff in Florida:

      At about 7 p.m. Wednesday, the 23-year-old suspect was seen approaching the student, who court papers say was sitting down in the recreational center and on his cell phone. Deckerhoff was then seen having a conversation with the student and appearing to “become upset,” per the documents.

      Moments later, Deckerhoff was seen moving into his personal space and touching his shoulder “in a shoving motion while trying to attempt to reach for his beverage,” the documents wrote.

      Shortly after, the student was observed “leaning back in a reactionary and defensive manner while lifting his left arm up to protect himself,” per court papers. Moments later, Deckerhoff was observed walking off just before flipping the student off.
      ….
      The student told police that the day the confrontation happened, he was wearing an IDF shirt, “which signifies the national military of Israel,” court records wrote, and that Deckerhoff made contact with him as he was sitting down in the center because of it.

      Was it Max Blumenthal who calls them ‘Crybullies’? Very apt moniker. Moving into the genocider’s personal space? “Touching his shoulder”? Such mighty weasel words, I almost feel bad for the cops having to waste their time with this. I’m sure he was shaking in his boots at the mean 23 year old woman. It’s laughable, but you can bet that every law enforcement resource possible will be spent on this ‘case’, if one could call it that, and that people like Deckerhoff will be made examples of. Western “freedom” meets the ultimate protected class.
      1. Mikel August 7, 2025 at 11:53 am

         “Moving into the genocider’s personal space?”

         When the various “genociders” think that space is the entire universe, it becomes a bigger problem than can be imagined.
      2. Carolinian August 7, 2025 at 12:02 pm

         Mel Brooks defintion of comedy: when you fall down an open manhole in the street–hilarious. When I get a paper cut on my little finger–a tragedy!

         To be clear he was talking about comedy and being satirical. But sometimes life imitates art.
   4. Carolinian August 7, 2025 at 9:59 am

      Terrible that Israelis in Greece (or Columbia University) are feeling unsafe over mere genocide. Hasn’t anyone heard of Hitler?

      Plus those Gazans are practically Nazis anyway since the WW2 era Mufti of Jerusalem was once pals with Adolf.
      1. ambrit August 7, 2025 at 11:59 am

         Just wait until this Zionist terror campaign in the Gaza starts to generate real anti-semitism around the world. Maybe the Zionists are hoping for that. By contaminating the reputations of all Jews around the world, they gain a large body of “fellow sufferers” in which to hide when the day of judgement finally comes. Essentially, a giant “human shield” strategy.
         This will not end well.
         1. Carolinian August 7, 2025 at 12:27 pm

            That was the fear of many Jews who opposed Zionism including Albert Einstein, an early advocate who changed his mind. Now these dissenters–like the Jewish Columbia protestors–are treated as though they too are “terrorists” or Nazis.

            Ultimately though perhaps the UK should get the blame for trying to create yet another “colony.” Churchill was all for it.
   5. dday August 7, 2025 at 4:24 pm

      And here in the states, Alan Dershowitz continues to plead that a Martha Vineyard’s food vendor sell him a pierogi.

      On his return visit, apparently Dershowitz was yelled at by others around the vendor stall.

      https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/alan-dershowitz-gets-yelled-out-of-farmer-s-market-my-grandparents-died-in-the-holocaust-don-t-you-call-me-an-anti-semite/ar-AA1K3y5x?ocid=BingNewsSerp
   6. gk August 8, 2025 at 4:29 am

      A good example is the elections in Florence. They were won by a Jew, so of course the Times of Israel covers it. The article quickly turns to antisemitism (mostly the good sort, opposition to the policies of Israel) and says

      But she also has not placed Judaism or Israel at the center of her career, instead trying to respond to hate against her with a poker face and framing her public persona around her family’s deep roots in the Tuscan city.

      This sounds like her defending herself from antisemitism, but the last line reads like a dig at her opponent, who was German (and got, as a consolation price, to lead the Capodimonte museum in Naples). She also says

      Florence has always been a city of peace and dialogue

      which would be news for the Senesi.
8. Neutrino August 7, 2025 at 8:39 am

   BLS, another sad institution corrupted and due for a name change. With any luck, that will include a revision, hah, to the methodology and controls.
   Blockchain Legitimate System?
   Other contenders?

   There are more than a few issues. Quality of data, communication path, absence of political manipulation.

   When all sorted, will there be screen shots of old PCs running off large floppy disks? Printouts on green and white bar paper? Will there be redundant PhDs learning to code, perhaps brushing up on AI? Or pensioned of at some high GS or even SES levels?
   1. Acacia August 7, 2025 at 8:46 am

      The Bureau of Labor Statistics ?

      It’ll be a miracle if they don’t get kneecapped by DOGEbags in the next year or two, probably soon after they publish some unflattering numbers.
      1. curlydan August 7, 2025 at 12:19 pm

         The BLS axing was a great example of Trump’s misdirected and illogical anger. He’s angry at a bad jobs report but simultaneously angry at Powell not lowering interest rates. One great way to get lower interest rates are crappy jobs reports!
   2. Socal Rhino August 7, 2025 at 4:22 pm

      People throwing shade at BLS over collection and reporting of economic stats should have a talk with one of the major banks that was forced to implement SOX compliance, to get some sense of the significant challenges gathering consolidated data within one single institution, with unified management, under regulatory scrutiny. Or look at the work involved in sorting out SWIFT messaging when a manager engages a new custodian. Now imagine data across an economy the size of the US.

      The simple solution to revised numbers would be not to report the initial estimates. But you would still have issues with stats that are imputed when the data isn’t available. And financial markets would not be happy waiting.
9. Acacia August 7, 2025 at 8:43 am

   Re: A New List Reveals Top Websites Meta Is Scraping of Copyrighted Content to Train Its AI

   Spoiler: Meta scraped revenge porn websites for this.

   Because of course they did.

   Meanwhile, any photos Facebook users upload will be automatically fed into Meta AI.

   “Oh, but you can opt-out.” Sure. Until the next “update”, when all your settings get quietly re-jiggered.

   It’s sort of mind-boggling that anybody would continue sharing personal data or photos with Meta, given that they will all get fed into some kind of AI slop blender, together with revenge porn.
   1. Craig H. August 7, 2025 at 10:46 am

      The article itself looks to me like it is AI output. There are three names of humans in the byline.

      The person who was in charge of getting people to spend as much time on facebook as possible for the whole time people were complaining about how much facebook sucks was hired earlier this year to supervise user engagement at OpenAI.
10. Balan Aroxdale August 7, 2025 at 8:49 am

    Israel pulls embassy staff from Greece amid Gaza protests New Arab

    The Western Spring?
    1. The Rev Kev August 7, 2025 at 8:59 am

       You’d think that the Russians would have more valid reasons to pull their Embassy staff from Israel. You just had Israeli settlers attack a Russian diplomatic vehicle while the nearby IDF examined the sky or the tips of their boots. And the Greek government should remind the Israelis of that fact when Netanyahu starts to sling off against the Greeks because Israelis feel ‘unsafe’ in Greece.
       1. wetware_antenna August 7, 2025 at 3:38 pm

          The Greek government considers Bibi their friend and Israel a strategic ally in the region. Heck, even after the cruise ship demonstrations in Syros and Crete, they declared that the demonstrations were inciting “racial hatred” against the Israelis.
          So, nope, our government will always be on the “right” side of history.
11. Mass Driver August 7, 2025 at 8:54 am

    President Trump’s decision to go after countries that prop up Putin’s war machine by buying cheap Russian oil is a gamechanger. These countries are about to pay a long overdue and heavy price.
    To my European friends who have been helping Ukraine, it is much appreciated.…
    — Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) August 6, 2025

    Here’s an accompanying video of Lindsey rubbing hands. :)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMMvSiVkjfg&t=100s
    1. The Rev Kev August 7, 2025 at 9:03 am

       I remember when that video came out. Those aren’t just Ukrainian troops that Graham and McCain are addressing but Azov troops. And they knew it. Mind you, those two look just like villains from central casting.
    2. Acacia August 7, 2025 at 9:20 am

       Isn’t that Petro Poroshenko, along with the two ghouls?
       1. Mass Driver August 7, 2025 at 9:25 am

          It’s the Chocolate King in all his glory. This long-running bloody soap opera has a recurring set of characters (not counting the extras in the video, that are mosty long gone by now).
12. The Rev Kev August 7, 2025 at 9:34 am

    “It Gets Worse.”

    ‘Now all we need is a western political class capable of doing that. Any idea where we can get one from?’

    Craigs List? It’s not only the political class but our leaders as well. The majority of the present crop can at best be described as non-entities and would not survive five minutes in the political climate on the eighties for example. One minor quibble that I would make is over this section-

    ‘For more than twenty years now, NATO has been working on missile defence projects, with mixed results. The original idea was primarily to defend against possible attacks from Iran or similar potential enemies.’

    That was never the original idea and it was always aimed at Russia. When they first talked about setting up this missile defence project they immediately opted to deploy it in eastern Europe to be used against ‘Iranian missiles.’ When the Russians protested that it was aimed at them, they were told ‘Trust us, bro. These will totally not be used against you.’ When the Russians offered to help set it up in and around the Black Sea as it would be more logical to place them there to intercept Iranian missiles, they were told it was not possible because of reasons. Of course once it was set up they admitted that yeah, it was to be totally used against Russia with no guarantees that those missile launchers might not have nuclear-tipped missiles slipped into them. They were probably patting themselves on the back afterwards for being so cunning.
    1. Aurelien August 7, 2025 at 1:13 pm

       I can only assume that you and I were at different meetings in NATO when these issues were discussed. When were you there?
       I ask people who make this kind of argument if they realise how many thousands of politicians, planners, diplomats, military officers, engineers, industrialists etc. must have been deliberately misled over the decades, with all the pretend documents, the false meetings, the fake Ministerial Councils, the tens of thousands of hours wasted in misleading briefings of parliaments and the media, all to conceal how the secret Masters of the Universe were trying to build an anti-Russian missile defence capability that even the Secretary General of NATO didn’t know about, and which for technical reasons would have been useless against Russian ICBMs. (Indeed, there was actually discussion between NATO and Russia about cooperation on BMD about fifteen years ago.)

       The Russians, who certainly have copies of the same internal documents that I saw, surely knew what NATO was doing, but as well as traditional paranoia and the desire to make trouble, it was generally thought that they were worried that the same technology might eventually be deployed on a large scale to protect US cities, as the Russian A235 system protects Moscow.
       1. Darthbobber August 7, 2025 at 2:52 pm

          Their “traditional paranoia” has the same source as ours. Defence establishments generally feel obligated to assume worst case scenarios whether those are the most likely or not. Because of the perceived consequences of failing to do so.

          And the claim that the need for a defensive missile umbrella over Europe was wholly in response to an Iranian threat was laughable on so many levels that the Russians would never buy it as the real reason, even if it were the case.

          Given that such a system. If effective, WOULD defend against Russian missiles (to the extent that such a defense ultimately matters in a nuclear environment,) the Russian MOD would obviously see at as a way to defend against a second strike, thereby enabling a first strike.

          In environment where all sides are bristling with offensive weaponry, there are no weapons that will be seen as purely defensive.
       2. Santiago Bernal August 7, 2025 at 6:00 pm

          which for technical reasons would have been useless against Russian ICBMs

          But isn’t that the point RevKev was making? They were always going to end up “repurposed” to offensive capabilities.

          https://stevenmcollins.com/russia-angry-as-nato-moves-troops-and-missiles-to-east-europe/

          The rationale for the NATO missile base in Romania is that it will be able to shoot down any missiles coming from the Mideast (i.e. Iran). That is a valid enough reason to build such a base, but it is also true that once a missile base is fully operational, it would only take hours or a few days for NATO to swiftly deploy offensive missiles to the NATO base in Romania and aim them at Russia. That is, I believe, Russia’s real fear.

          In any case, as has been stated and implied, the Russians aren’t dumb. They know that the “defensive” missiles couldn’t protect against ICBMs or hypersonics (which Iran now has, altho they didn’t back then). Iran had no intention of striking Europe, and the Russians saw through the ploy even if many western generals and politicians didn’t.
       3. The Rev Kev August 7, 2025 at 6:58 pm

          NATO officials may lie to each other about what they are talking about and why they are doing it but the map does not lie. Check one out. NATO officials like Rutte may go around saying how NATO has to fight the Russian bear in two year time and pensions & infrastructure must be cut to pay for weapons but there was none of this talk all those years ago when they were talking about missile defenses. Back then they were still tap dancing around the whole subject. This war gave them the chance to finally raise the Jolly Rodger and show their true colours.
    2. ChrisFromGA August 7, 2025 at 1:19 pm

       As far as getting a new political class, remember the saying: science advances one funeral at a time.

       Glitch Mitch leaves the Senate in December (presuming that he doesn’t shuffle off this mortal coil before Christmas), and Lindsay Graham can’t be healthy with all that negative karma. Nancy Pelosi has been awfully quiet lately.

       Too bad that RFK Jr cancelled the next round of mRNA stroke-pokes. They could have done wonders.
       1. juno mas August 7, 2025 at 10:56 pm

          My guess is Pelosi will continue to silently mope about the House until her last breath. Drawing her salary and preserving the income of her staff. Following in the footsteps of Feinstein.
13. Judith August 7, 2025 at 9:37 am

    Conor, thanks for all your hard work. I am amazed at all the information you and Yves provide every day, especially lately with all the horrors in the world.

    Does your choice of the antidote today suggest you may be a bit tired? :-)
    1. Conor Gallagher Post authorAugust 7, 2025 at 10:16 am

       Thanks Judith. More a complement to the first link, but perhaps the bear is exhausted by us humans.
       Hopefully the links aren’t to exhausting. Keep meaning to include some more uplifting ones but that effort is often quickly buried by the daily avalanche of madness.
       1. Judith August 7, 2025 at 12:04 pm

          “This much madness is too much sorrow,” -Neil Young
       2. ambrit August 7, 2025 at 12:04 pm

          In essence, due to the temper of the times, NC is becoming a little bit of a Survivalist Blog.
          Ah tempura, ah smores!
          1. Bugs August 7, 2025 at 1:59 pm

             The barbecue of the vanities.
14. The Rev Kev August 7, 2025 at 9:44 am

    “PM Netanyahu meets with Republican Congressional delegation”

    That Republican Congressional delegation were disappointed to learn that they would not be receiving silver-plated pages from Netanyahu as something to remember their trip to Israel by as others had. But they were pleased to receive commemorative silver-plated children’s skulls to use back home as novelty drinking vessels.
    1. Bugs August 7, 2025 at 2:02 pm

       I’m sure they’ll all get a complimentary copy of the video of their honeypot experience. It’s like the photos at the end of a waterpark ride. Ya just gotta have it.
15. Jason Boxman August 7, 2025 at 9:49 am

    From Why So Many Key Institutions Have Folded Rather Than Challenge Trump

    LOL. Or we can summarize as simply, wealthy people at the top of institutions want to continue being wealthy and going to cocktail parties. The end. I mean, literally, that’s all there is to this. To assume principles beyond “I got mine” is a mistake, particularly in America’s elite today.

    First and most obviously, the institutions have whimpered because Trump and his team are stronger and more determined than before. Once it became clear that the administration, unlike in Trump’s first term, was willing to pull federal funding from any entity that didn’t comply with his edicts, some capitulation was inevitable. Universities, even prestigious ones with large endowments, are very dependent on federal dollars. Many law firms are reliant on both government business and security clearances.

    Oh wows, Twitter as an “institution” to resist Trump, are you serious? Twitter is a business entity, with a goal to maximize income for its executives at the expensive of all else.

    But I don’t think institutions are just accommodating Trump at gunpoint. A second explanation for why many key institutions have become more pro-Trump is that those institutions themselves have radically changed over the last eight years. The most obvious example of an institution moving in a pro-Trump direction is Twitter, which is now called X and is intentionally trying to uplift conservative voices and suppress liberal ones, after once being a haven for progressive causes such as Black Lives Matter.

    LOL, no, there was no “left” in this.

    But there is a third explanation at the heart of many of the institutional accommodations with Trump, and this is the one that doesn’t get discussed as much: The institutions agree with him more than before. Trump’s early years as president resulted in a reenergized American left.

    What passes as the left, the Woke left, has been entirely useless on matters relevant to the broader working class, and been entirely ineffective besides. And under Biden opted to leave “vulnerable” people to die during an ongoing Pandemic rather than engage in social solidarity.

    That left. Oh heavens.
    1. eg August 7, 2025 at 11:08 am

       Yeah, I read this and thought to myself, “really? You’re expecting corporate interests to speak up against corporatism?”

       Well, duh …
    2. Darthbobber August 7, 2025 at 2:58 pm

       A large part of Upton Sinclair’s “The Goose-step”, on the state of American higher education in the late 20s, early 30s, dealt with the positive eagerness of elite schools to throw anything resembling academic freedom under the bus if their donors so demanded. Columbia and Harvard each had a chapter dedicated to them.
16. Socal Rhino August 7, 2025 at 9:57 am

    This is one of those times when I wonder how much of the commentary on blogs, youtube channels, etc. is the product of intelligence agencies. Remind myself to approach everything with a critical eye, question why am I am reading this now, etc. and try to be alert to opinion shaping.
    1. Jeremy Grimm August 7, 2025 at 10:20 am

       Combine that thought with the increasing proliferation of AI generated/created ‘news’, ‘information’, and ‘opinion’ both with and without nefarious intent and arrive at most unhappy place.
       1. Mikel August 7, 2025 at 11:19 am

          Nothing more creepy than AI generated news on video. The audio especially creeps me out because the rhythm of the voices (when included) is disturbing. It’s like with music, a “wrong” note (that can be subjective to what comes before and after) that flies by is less disturbing than music that is off beat or monotonous. Speaking voices aren’t quantized on some grid.
17. The Rev Kev August 7, 2025 at 10:03 am

    “India PM Modi to visit China on Aug 31 for SCO summit, Indian TV channels report”

    1971 – ‘Only a Nixon Could Go to China.’

    2025 – ‘Only a Trump could make India go to China to kiss and make up.’
18. Anon August 7, 2025 at 10:19 am

    “The grand contradiction of America is that they need us to keep consuming but they also do not want to pay us.”

    According to Marx, one of the central contradictions of capitalism: since the rate of profit tends to fall over time, the owners of capital try to maintain profits by automating production, cutting wages, etc., but then they run into the problem that the workers can no longer afford to buy the very products they’re producing. Not sure how I’d apply that to the gambling industry however–one would need a lot of disposable income to justify wasting it away on slot machines.
    1. Cas August 7, 2025 at 10:50 am

       Capitalists found a solution: sell to the government, they print money! The ongoing privatizing of the commons is driven largely by this search for paying customers. Provide “goods and services” to the government and it’s a two-fer: you get paid inflated prices for crap and you get rid of regulations since you say they interfere with your ability to produce said goods and services. Politicians are just there to facilitate the transfers.
    2. Bazarov August 7, 2025 at 3:59 pm

       Automating production is in fact a cause of the tendency for the rate of profit to fall. Automation reduces socially necessary labor time to produce a commodity, which–since labor is the source of all value in Marxist economic theory–means that there’s less surplus value (profit) to reap when the profit is realized with the money commodity.

       Then why do capitalists invest in automation, you may be asking? The coercive laws of competition! When automation is first deployed, the early-adopting capitalists get an edge in the market because their commodities are cheaper. However, this edge only lasts until competitors catch up and automate using the same methods, resulting in a general fall in prices over time and a corresponding fall in the rate of profit.

       This consequence of the coercive laws of competition itself gives rise to a further consequence: the desire to mitigate competition via monopoly. You can raise prices quite high when you’re the only seller and need not worry about competitors undercutting you, thus maintaining a healthy increase in the rate of profit. Monopoly capitalism vitiates the “virtuous” features inherent in an earlier capitalistic phase. There is, however, no going back because those very “virtues” are themselves seeds that naturally ripen and moulder in capital’s final decadent form: monopoly imperialism.

       But is this just another seed germinating as we speak? Capital’s increasing concentration and centralization globally through imperialism ultimately sets the stage for socialism and the end of commodity production altogether in communism.
19. t August 7, 2025 at 10:26 am

    Some of those photos from Epstein house don’t include him and seem to have been taken somewhere he never was.

    Had to wonder if those were his fan boy pictures. (Could solve this mystery checking to see if any of them ever went to dinners or parties and maybe I will.)

    Anyway, if I was in one of those pictures, I never met the guy and don’t know how he got my picture.
20. Mikel August 7, 2025 at 10:34 am

    Putin proposed summit with Trump: White House – Axios.

    Me: Eyes rolling…

    Big Picture: No matter what happens with talks between the USA and Russia, it doesn’t address the root causes. The USA can’t negotiate away the centuries of animosity between Russia and the Brits and other parts of Europe. At some point, they are going to have to get their panties out of a bunch and talk to each other – without the USA being involved. Pretend its 1648 with Russia included or something…
    1. Polar Socialist August 7, 2025 at 12:20 pm

       But…but…if this war is between Russia and Ukraine, why the need to talk with US, UK or EU? One wonders why no media representative ever asks this question.
       1. Mikel August 7, 2025 at 1:53 pm

          Within my statement, I consider Ukraine “other parts of Europe”…as things stand now.
          1. Wukchumni August 7, 2025 at 2:22 pm

             Anti-Semanticstist!
       2. Mikel August 7, 2025 at 2:20 pm

          Apparently, Russia is going to keep whipping Ukraine (with a lot of help from Ukraine itself) until the USA admits defeat.
          Meanwhile, the USA officials stare at them blankly and go about the world with their assisted genocides.
          This game can stay irrational longer than everyone can keep their sanity.
       3. bertl August 7, 2025 at 6:53 pm

          It is a war between Russia and the Collective Worst being fought on the land formerly called The Ukraine employing the poor sods living there to help Russia’s armies advance their land war and armaments development and production skills, and demonstrate that Russian arms and soldiers are more than capable of de-militarising the West and, therefore, the Western taxpayer must contribute ever more shekels to the MIC and to provide bankers with solid bonuses for trading in Euro and national government bonds to help us achieve our next valiantly inglorious defeat.
21. pjay August 7, 2025 at 10:39 am

    – ‘The real reason the West is warmongering against China’ – Al Jazeera

    This is a useful article as far as it goes. The authors basically explain our warmongering against China as a reaction to the perceived threat of Chinese economic and technological development. But I would emphasize one aspect of this front in our Cold War 2.0 more than the authors do here.

    In Ukraine, among our goals was the establishment of a crucial forward NATO base on Russia’s border, the crippling of the Russian economy, and through border pressures and economic destabilization, “regime change” in Russia itself. None of these goals has been met, as critics often point out. But what is often neglected is that the *first* goal in the US/NATO project in Ukraine was to *sever the growing economic ties between Russia and Europe.* In this the Ukraine war has proven very successful, at least so far. In Cold War 2.0 “containment” is not political or ideological, but economic. As Conor pointed out in his essay yesterday, while conquest and capitulation is always desired, we will settle for conflict and chaos where this is not possible, the goal being to keep our perceived enemies unstable and unable to fully develop.

    This is the first priority in our China policy as well – containment. We cannot defeat China militarily any more than we can defeat Russia. But we will utilize the many soft- and hard-power weapons at our disposal to keep various fires burning all around it to try and sever its growing economic ties with the rest of the world. China has proven more resistant to penetration and absorption than Russia was in the 1990s. So we are at the fire-lighting stage right now. Unfortunately, as in Ukraine, these pressures could get out of hand and “accidentally” trigger a cataclysm. This is always possible when spoiled children play with fire.
    1. bertl August 7, 2025 at 7:01 pm

       I think that by “containment” we now mean establishing difficult to provision sitting ducks within a convenient distance of the self-provisioning and logistically self sufficient countries being contained in a time of war. A brilliant strategy, Carruthers! We need more ideas like that!
22. Mikel August 7, 2025 at 10:41 am

    What We Lost When We Lost the Greatest Generation – Doomsday Scenario

    “We are losing, too, the memory and experience of what it means to fight fascism and authoritarianism.”

    The overarching problem is that it turns out that the fight was against fascists they couldn’t control…not fascism.
    1. Wukchumni August 7, 2025 at 12:51 pm

       Big fan of the fourth turning and 80 year gaps produce interesting results…

       1781: Yorktown
       1861: Fort Sumpter
       1941: Pearl Harbor
       2022: Ukraine

       1865: Appomattox
       1945: VE & VJ days
       2025?: Ukraine

       War of 1812-Panic of 1893
       Panic of 1837-US enters WW1 1917
       Gold Rush in 1849-Great Depression in 1929
       Panic of 1893-US goes off Au standard in 1971
       Panic of 1907-Wall*Street crashes in 1987
       Great Depression in 1929-GFC 2008

       The most worrisome of all:

       Hiroshima & Nagasaki in 1945-what when and where in 2025?
       1. ChrisFromGA August 7, 2025 at 2:13 pm

          Remember that 2025 is the year a mysterious German think-tank named Deagal prophesized that the US population would fall to 180M or something like that. Along with some other places I can’t recall … there were some “winners” too.

          So far 2025 hasn’t met expectations for a 2020 style mass murder, unless you happen to be unfortunate enough to live in Ukraine or Gaza.
    2. Darthbobber August 7, 2025 at 3:06 pm

       The “Greatest” generation was of an age to work in the factories and provide the soldiers and seamen. The LEADERS of the effort were from the previous generation, and in some cases the one before that.

       Sadly, one of the big lessons the “greatest” generation took from this was the need for discipline and a bias in favor of conformity to authority. A lesson somewhat over learned and much abused by decades of subsequent leadership.
23. The Rev Kev August 7, 2025 at 10:44 am

    “Trump says likely to meet Putin ‘very soon'”

    I can just read Trump’s mind now. He probably thinks that with these secondary sanctions, that he has Putin over a barrel and has all the leverage. And that if he met him face to face, that he could threaten Russia with even more sanctions causing Putin to fold and to agree to the Kellogg plan which would amount to a Ukrainian victory. Trump probably reckons that he now has all the cards that he needs to impose a peace and maybe pick himself up a Nobel peace prize for his efforts. He could be finally recognized as an international statesman and go down as the greatest President in American history – not like those losers Washington, Lincoln and Roosevelt.

    And I can also read Putin’s mind right now. He is thinking ‘Oh god, do I really have to meet this idiot face to face again? What part of ‘nyet’ does he not understand?’
    1. XXYY August 7, 2025 at 2:41 pm

       A couple of thoughts came to mind as I read about this proposed summit.

       First, that Russia really does have Trump over a barrel right now since Trump badly needs a big, high profile win that will go into the history books, much like Nixon “opening up” China or something. Trump will probably do almost anything to get a few weeks worth of headlines and change the substance of US/Russian relations so that his business base can realize greater profits than they have been. There’s no way Trump is going to walk away from anything that smells like this.

       Second, European leaders must be reading about this and correctly feel they’ve been sold down the river by Trump and other US leaders, who worked hard to create an anti-russia zeitgeist in Europe, but who are now apparently seeking a rapprochement that will badly sideline European economies.

       Interesting to see what will happen.
24. Lieaibolmmai August 7, 2025 at 10:48 am

    RE: Apple set to dodge bulk of India tariffs Yahoo

    I wonder if it has anything to do the with the 24K gold bar Time Cook gave Trump yesterday….?

    https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/etimes/trending/viral-apple-ceo-tim-cook-gifts-a-24k-gold-and-glass-statue-to-donald-trump-netizens-react/articleshow/123168731.cms
25. Lazar August 7, 2025 at 11:07 am

    If anyone is interested in the British officers capture saga (discussed earlier), here is a named source saying that it’s not true (he’s a retired sniper that has been fighting from 2014). It’s around 10 minute mark, but that won’t matter much for most here, because it’s not in English and there’s no automatic translation.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRFZAwPaLgA
    He says that he read about it on multiple portals, that it’s disinformation, and that he does not know where it originated from. He adds that there wasn’t even an attempt of capture, and that the common practise is to destoy locations where the foreigners are.
    1. Martin Oline August 7, 2025 at 11:24 am

       Well, I’m glad that’s settled. Meanwhile, look, a flying squirrel!
       1. Lazar August 7, 2025 at 11:33 am

          Well, it’s not settled, because he could be wrong, but I do find him more reliable than all those AI-augmented copy-pasting anonymous Internet sources.

          A flying squirrel distraction does not work against me, because of this-video-is-not-available reasons. :)
          1. amfortas August 7, 2025 at 6:34 pm

             and flying squirrels are super cool, too!
             when i was a kid in east texas, my dad would take us out on the back deck with a QBeam…complete with a car battery and a red lens…and shine it up.
             and there they were!
             little bitty guys, soaring around amongst the pine canopy in the dark.
             without that red light…which i have always supposed, they couldnt see…one would have never have known that they were there.
       2. Martin Oline August 7, 2025 at 6:23 pm

          I was wondering about the authenticity of the flying squirrel video. Not because it is possible AI, but why does Rocket J. Squirrel, a flying rodent, need to board an airplane to travel? Why are two Russians manning airport security? Why is that moose funnier than me? Perhaps the link is considered subversive where you live.
    2. lyman alpha blob August 7, 2025 at 2:14 pm

       Judge Napolitano mentioned a couple days ago that The Grauniad had reported on the capture of these British officers, which makes me even more sure that these claims are false.

       I did try a search for the article but couldn’t find anything. Can’t remember who Nap’s guest was, but they said they weren’t familiar with the story at all.
       1. Wukchumni August 7, 2025 at 2:18 pm

          One of them wasn’t Major William Martin perchance?
26. Wukchumni August 7, 2025 at 11:18 am

    Gooooooooood Mooooooooorning Fiatnam!

    Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, uttered members of the National Guard more accustomed to growing sorghum than war games in Armenia.
27. Jason Boxman August 7, 2025 at 11:26 am

    Peak AI

    The 20-Somethings Are Swarming San Francisco’s A.I. Boom (NY Times via archive.ph)

    Brendan Foody had just finished his sophomore year at Georgetown University in 2023 when he dropped out to jump into the artificial intelligence fray in San Francisco.

    Karun Kaushik dropped out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that year to move to California after constructing an A.I. tool in his dorm room. And Jaspar Carmichael-Jack, who was traveling the world after high school, had the same idea in 2022.

    Now Mr. Foody, 22, Mr. Kaushik, 21, and Mr. Carmichael-Jack, 23, are each running A.I. start-ups within a 30-minute walk of one another in San Francisco. They have raised millions of dollars for their businesses and are supervising dozens of employees. They all have a dream that their companies will make it big.

    “When ChatGPT came out, it was so clear to me that this is obviously going to be a paradigm shift,” said Mr. Carmichael-Jack, the chief executive of Artisan, which makes an A.I. sales assistant and has raised more than $35 million in funding. “I knew I wanted to be involved in that.”

    They’re just handing out cash to companies that have no moat whatsoever. And they’re all reliant on the whims of OpenAI. Anthropic increasing its prices recent nerfed some coding agent startups. Oops.

    Mr. Foody runs Mercor, which provides automatic screening of résumés and A.I. job interviews. He established the company with two high school friends from San Jose, Calif., Surya Midha and Adarsh Hiremath. Mr. Midha, 22, is Mercor’s chief operating officer and Mr. Hiremath, 22, the chief technology officer.

    Yes, the AI interviews, from what I’ve read, are simply a dystopian nightmare from hell. Good luck with that.

    What a society of grifters the valley is.

    In February, they raised $100 million, bringing Mercor’s total funding to more than $132 million and valuing the start-up at $2 billion. Investors include the venture capital firms General Catalyst and Benchmark.

    But replacing employees with AI “agents” might be big big money. It isn’t like real people conducting interviews could have any value at all.
    1. lyman alpha blob August 7, 2025 at 3:15 pm

       What I want to know is how do these 20-somethings pack up and go to Silicon Valley and just find themselves showered with hundreds of millions based on some inchoate idea for a company?!!?? I understand that there is a lot of stupid money sloshing around, but I’m also pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to bring my idea for a company out there and find people all around me making it rain. These youngsters must have some connections, no?

       These articles are always very vague about how this all works, making it seem like these brash neophytes just pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and wowed the crowds on their way to riches, perpetuating the capitalist mythos. My guess is they know some well heeled people ahead of time who they can pitch these ideas to. The mantra I learned was “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know” and I don’t think that has changed. And it would go a long way to explaining why some of these ideas are so abjectly stupid and are so often a solution in search of a problem, which is a great description for AI.
       1. raspberry jam August 7, 2025 at 4:29 pm

          You are correct:

          – Jaspar Carmicheal-Jack: didn’t go to uni but went to Y Combinator
          – Karun Kaushik: Graduated from MIT’s AI program and also went to Y Combinator
          – Brendan Foody: Uni dropout and Thiel Fellow

          What is Y Combinator?
          What is Thiel Fellowship?

          Basically that article is a big advert for the tech incubator scene that was decimated in the pandemic and 2022 tech purges.

          PS be sure to read the first link for some real LOLs
       2. amfortas August 7, 2025 at 6:50 pm

          aye. lead singer in my first band was a rich male airhead…but who got all the girls. his dad was the local real estate mogul…and when he dropped out of UT Austin, he immediately got a cush job with daddy.
          its how it works.
          let someone competent come darkening the door, but without such wealth behind them…and its “should i call the cops before i ask him to leave?”(seen it in their eyes,lol)

          it has ALWAYS been Who one Knows.

          on a somewhat related note:
          the faceborg page my sons and future daughterinlaws set up for marketing the Veg on Side of Road thing…well! its turned into frelling Tinder!
          chicks talking to me in the DM thing…but they wont ever call the land line,lol…
          bc they’re really a dude in an internet cafe in Lagos…
          so i sit out here thankin…hiow the hell am i gonna even meet womyn, in order to maybe locate one who might be innerested in lil ol weird me?
          i cant afford to hang out in the local bars…nor alone at a table with a book of Italian Poetry at any of the various and sundry eateries we have now….and i am, again, too honest for church.
          what to do?
          welp…my back and hip woke me at 2am with remembering that we have a library in the one town.
          i had abandoned it when a new woman got put in charge…and hated my erudition, for some reason.
          all four of us had our cards recalled after youngest owed literally 5 cents(a frelling nickle!) for more than two weeks in a late fee.
          this is maybe 16 years ago.
          i havent set foot in there, since.
          might hafta do some snooping and find out who runs it, now….and whether i can get a library card for $(and how much?)…or if i can get away with bringing fruit…or a gourmet lunch….
    2. Ben Panga August 7, 2025 at 5:39 pm

       Stories like these remind me of the late 90s and following the dot-com madness on f***edcompany.com. Same hype, same stupid ideas getting funded, same mismatch between people’s understanding and the actual profit potential.

       Simpler days though…
    3. Acacia August 7, 2025 at 6:56 pm

       That’s “Artisan” of “Stop Hiring Humans” fame:

       https://gizmodo.com/ai-firms-stop-hiring-humans-billboard-campaign-sparks-outrage-2000536368

       There was a better image recently linked here at NC, replete with homeless person sitting on the street with a café latte.
28. Mikel August 7, 2025 at 11:33 am

    ‘Strategy of surrender’: Hezbollah condemns Lebanese cabinet decision on disarmament – The Cradle

    The elephant in the room:

    https://lb.usembassy.gov/beirut-new-embassy-campus-project-summary/

    https://metro.co.uk/2025/01/20/inside-new-1000000000-mega-fortress-us-embassy-10-times-bigger-than-londons-22394348/
29. ciroc August 7, 2025 at 11:58 am

    >Why Was The Dalai Lama At Jeffrey Epstein’s House?

    I wonder if he was invited because he’s either a CIA agent or a pedophile.
    1. vao August 7, 2025 at 12:41 pm

       The religious buddhist communities ultimately headed by the Dalai Lama have had their share of sexual predators. There is even an entire documentary about it (in French; also here). Remarkably, the Dalai Lama refused to investigate and sanction the priests found to have committed serious sexual improprieties.
       1. Trees&Trunks August 7, 2025 at 1:20 pm

          Oh so Buddhitst are really Catholics? Amazing how religions are simliar in many cases especially in the intersection of the spirit and the body.

          https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pope-francis-death-church-sexual-abuse-survivors-snap-reaction/
          1. hk August 7, 2025 at 3:39 pm

             I think sexual abuse by Buddhist clergy predates Catholics’ (Buddhism is older than Christianity.)
       2. Daniil Adamov August 7, 2025 at 3:32 pm

          I wonder if dob-dobs were involved. The difference from Catholics is that this was much more openly accepted back in the day, at least according to Tashi Tsering.
30. lyman alpha blob August 7, 2025 at 12:05 pm

    The Great Dershowitz Pierogi Foofaraw continues.

    A few days ago, the genocide apologist Dershowitz was denied a pierogi by a farmer’s market vendor on Martha’s Vineyard, apparently due to his politcal views. The horror, the horror…. But the intrepid Dersh refused to take no for an answer, and when the farmer’s market opened again, he went back for another try, only to be denied the succulent, steaming pocket of Polish deliciousness yet again. Dershowitz had previously called the vendor a bigot and anti-semite, but now the vendor has fired back. Turns out the vendor is Jewish, making it a lot harder for those “anti-semitic” accusations to stick. And the vendor is also a “they” and has accused Dershowitz of misgendering them! Hard to tell if this is trolling on the vendor’s part or not, but whatever the case, I approve of Deshowitz being hoisted on his own identity politics petard.

    Video of the latest dustup here. The dumpling loving crowd, made to wait during Dershowitz’ harangue, turns on him and vigorously applauds when he finally leaves, his love for pierogis still unrequited.
    1. Carolinian August 7, 2025 at 1:36 pm

       Thanks for uplifting anecdote. Conor’s desire for more fun in the page is met.

       Apparently Dersh is or was a committed nudist–presumably only at the beach. At least he didn’t pull out his weapon.

       Dershowitz is even a character in a movie about how he got Claus Von Bulow off.

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

       No nude scenes.
       1. hk August 7, 2025 at 3:47 pm

          I thought Dershowitz wrote the original book and was heavily involved in the production, whoch, knowing what we know now, must have been pretty dodgy and cringy…
          1. Carolinian August 7, 2025 at 4:40 pm

             Yes he wrote the book and then modestly helped make a movie about him. He’s a real shrinking violet.
    2. Neutrino August 7, 2025 at 2:49 pm

       All that power wielded in the classroom could go to a prof’s head! The rest of the world typically doesn’t acknowledge those hallowed unspoken rules and might even go so far as to reply with a razzberry.
31. Wukchumni August 7, 2025 at 12:09 pm

    California almond growers are facing an unprecedented challenge this season as a severe roof rat infestation sweeps through orchards across the Southern and Western San Joaquin Valley. An early survey indicates the outbreak has impacted well over 100,000 acres, a number that has likely grown, causing widespread damage and significant economic losses.

    Almond growers across Merced, Fresno, Kings, and Kern counties have reported an alarming spike in rodent populations. Over the last several months, ABC has participated in tours and meetings about the severity of this rat infestation, and field observations indicate that these rodents are using irrigation canals and other waterways as corridors, enabling them to rapidly spread between orchards and diverse agricultural fields. This mobility is exacerbating the extent of damage and complicating containment efforts.

    Roof rats are arboreal, meaning they spend a considerable amount of their life above ground, often building nests in trees. However, for several years, researchers have noted that in almonds and other tree nuts, they use burrows extensively. Although it’s undetermined as to why, some believe it’s the lack of cover in the winter months that drives this behavior.

    According to preliminary findings from a CDFA-led survey conducted in the fall of 2024, monitoring efforts revealed particularly high densities of rats in the reported areas, with up to 32 rats captured per night at some locations. Direct damage to the trees occurs through consumption of nuts, girdling of small and large limbs, and burrowing in the root zone. Additionally, damage to irrigation systems, equipment and other infrastructure within orchards is often greater than direct crop loss.

    https://www.almonds.com/almond-industry/industry-news/confronting-rodent-crisis-challenges-and-interventions-almond-growers
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    The almond biz was already cratering, and then Ben & friends show up en masse~

    Everybody in Tiny Town agrees that it has been a banner year for gophers and voles, I have so many gopher holes that parts of the all cats and no cattle ranch more closely resemble no-mans land after constant shelling for 4 years.
    1. vao August 7, 2025 at 1:01 pm

       I read the article you reference, but I could find no information at all about the reason of this sudden rat infestation — what conditions are conducive to it? Why now? A consequence of the climate chaos and the fire / downpours of the past year?
       1. Wukchumni August 7, 2025 at 1:08 pm

          My take is that the winter of record for the past 125 years in the southern Sierra in 2023 was Mother Nature’s way of nurturing a bubble economy on her terms, and everything got the signal to GO GO GO, so they did.

          There’s oodles more of everything, all of the sudden along Mineral King Road are tons of Elderberry bush/trees (it can’t decide what it wants to be) that are 6 to 8 feet tall.
          1. Wukchumni August 7, 2025 at 1:25 pm

             p.s.

             Einstein (brains of the outfit) who sleeps next to my head in bed has always been a mass murderer-not like I didn’t know it, but the body parts (largely intestines) are piling up deep on the back patio-and he looks askance at my meek offerings of canned Fancy Feast… as opportunities have been ripe.
             1. Wukchumni August 7, 2025 at 8:08 pm

                p.p.s.

                We keep track of such things in Tiny Town and here’s the skinny on a quite active bear season, much more activity than usual-going with the Mother Nature bubble gig.

                Short term rentals are the culprit in terms of bear problems regarding trash bins-just another downside to the concept.

                As of today, 193 confirmed sightings and incidents have been reported in 2025. Almost all of them occurred after the bears emerged in May. As many as 17 bears, including 7 cubs, have been sighted in Three Rivers. Two of this year’s cubs are believed to be dead, and we have confirmed two injured adult bears.The incident reports include 128 reports of garbage access, 20 reports of attempted access with adverse impact, 2 reports of attempted house entry, 2 reports of property damage, and 2 reports of general nuisance (toppling of grills, outdoor furniture, & etc.). Plastic recycling carts are targeted as often as plastic garbage carts. 64% of the garbage-related reports involve metal curbside bins, and at least 82% involve short term rentals. At least 62% of the trash-related incidents involved code violations, including plastic trash carts left out every day or metal bins illegally located where bears topple them onto public roads, which has led to road blockages and at least one traffic accident this year.

                NOTE: These reports represent only a fraction of the total number of incidents.
          2. Bugs August 7, 2025 at 2:18 pm

             Jeez, we’ve also got a bunch of these vagrant elderberries coming up in weird places in Normandy. How strange. The gardeners just want to cut them down but I’m willing to allow them to grow so long as they’re not crowding out the usual flora. Or my roses.
             1. Neutrino August 7, 2025 at 2:46 pm

                Before long, people will begin smelling of elderberries and emulating small rodents. The wild kingdom continues to taunt humanity. /s
    2. amfortas August 7, 2025 at 7:05 pm

       where are the venture capitalists in this problem?
       roof rats and voles have been considered delicacies by many cultures…including ones that “we” purport to derive from(rome).
       a simple bounty might mitigate the problem a bit…and i’ll get right to work on recipes…both for the rats and voles, as well as for the owners of those plantations.
       1. Wukchumni August 7, 2025 at 8:10 pm

          Voles are closely related to Lemmings, do we really want to go there?
          1. Wukchumni August 7, 2025 at 8:29 pm

             p.s.

             Looking through the internets, found this:

             The vole clock is a method of dating archaeological strata using vole teeth. Investigations at sites across Europe have allowed construction of a detailed framework of how different vole species evolved over the last million years, and where and when specific taxa became extinct

             For many sites it is considered the most accurate method of dating, and also provides information on the climate and local environment e.g. in the Pleistocene. Dr. Francis Wenban-Smith of Southampton University, a Stone Age specialist on assignment for Oxford Archaeology, described the vole clock as “one of the wonders of modern science”.

             https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vole_clock
             1. amfortas August 7, 2025 at 9:26 pm

                while that is certainly fascinating(really!), i was substituing voles an such for the Dormice that the Romans had a taste for.
                meat is meat, after all./
                i ate a lot of strange things…anbd helped cook them!…during my time in the Atchafalaya Basin( i can never spell that,lol), with the Swamp People.
                i draw the line, as i did then at Skunk.
32. Wukchumni August 7, 2025 at 12:26 pm

    Trump is taunting India but is an emperor without clothes Indian Punchline
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~
    The more remote a hot springs is, tends to correlate well with the number of naked soakers therein, and it’d be something to glimpse Benedict Donald in his birthday suit, with no place to put an old glory lapel pin other than via skin piercing.
33. GramSci August 7, 2025 at 12:35 pm

    Re: Hauntologies on Assad, etc (op cit)

    I read this hoping to learn some backstory on the fall of the House of Assad, but it didn’t mention what seems the main story: Russia had long felt sympathy for Israel and the Jews, given their joint losses at the hands of the Nazis. So Assad (and Iran) had to play nice with Israel. But with Zelensky, and Israel going full Notsy, things changed.
34. Kontrary Kansan August 7, 2025 at 12:46 pm

    Ghislaine Maxwell barred from service dog training at cushy prison camp

    At my first reading of this headline, I thought . . .! Surely not! That would be a shagging dog story!
35. pjay August 7, 2025 at 12:49 pm

    – ‘Notes on Assadism, Zionism, Fascism and Hope’ – Hauntologies by Elia Ayoub

    The title gives Ayoub’s position away; “Assadism” is equated with “Zionism” and “Fascism.” Readers of the New Yorker and the Atlantic can rest easy that they were right about Assad after all – and those evil Russians who supported him! Too bad about what happened to Syria, but…

    This is yet another of those distortions of history that pretends to be a more objective corrective for naive leftists but actually serves as an apologetic for Empire by helpfully demonizing our enemies. To be sure, Ayoub’s view reflects the “liberal” side of the Establishment narrative; as a former Lebanese Palestinian he supports the Palestinian cause and condemns Israel. I’m sure this stance is sincere. But like so many others in this vein, his history is extremely selective and biased in ways that actually legitimate the larger Project for a New Middle East. Ayoub condemns what he sees as a simplistic belief by us naive leftists that the Evil Assads must have been Good Guys because they told a story about supporting the Palestinian cause against Israel. But he actually represents one of the most effective propaganda tools by our own Establishment: a Westernized “native” whose worldview and interpretation of history has itself been skewed (in the right direction) by his own constructed family and ethnic story. As usual, it is not that the facts in his story are completely incorrect, but they are so selective that they present a distorted perspective on regional history – especially the recent history of Syria.

    Ayoub has appeared in the Links before. If you do a search and check out some of his other writing, you will see how congruent his worldview is with that of the (liberal) Establishment. Who are his Bad Guys? Russia and Putin. China and Xi. Iran and the Ayatollahs (and the allies among the Resistance). Etc.
    1. anahuna August 7, 2025 at 3:08 pm

       Thanks for that, pjay.

       I felt uneasy about the Ayoub article but lacked sufficient background to articulate the reasons behind my queasiness.
    2. amfortas August 7, 2025 at 7:16 pm

       aye, PJ…thats what i derive from his various offerings, as well.
       i mean, the latest Assad was an ophthalmologist or something and was thrust, reluctantly, into power, after all…and stood the hell up and did his best in an impossible situation.
       i maybe give more credence to eyelanguage than i should(being a hermit, and all)…but that dude never struck me as a willing and enthusiastic tyrant.
       and in my perennial practice, i put myself in his shoes…what would i have done, given the realities in that cobbled together by foreign imperialists kinda country?

       Churchill Throws Darts at Maps.
       then connects them with a crayon.
       and calls them Nations.

       (another Western Haiku, perhaps?)
       1. amfortas August 7, 2025 at 7:23 pm

          and another:
          i feed my kittens grasshoppers,
          that i have pinched the heads off,
          for to raise them right.
36. Wukchumni August 7, 2025 at 12:57 pm

    Charges against ex-NBA player dropped after Las Vegas casino debt paid

    According to court records, former NBA player Marcus Morris owed $265,000 in markers to two Las Vegas Strip casinos. (LV Review Journal)
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    With online sports betting being so prevalent, we’re headed for a crisis-as it isn’t as if the pro athletes aren’t just as sucked into gambling as their peers in their 20’s & 30’s.
    1. Neutrino August 7, 2025 at 2:44 pm

       Some betting athletes might even take a mid-career breather in a different sport. ;)
37. Wukchumni August 7, 2025 at 1:03 pm

    Hot Hot Hot-Not Not Not

    We’re looking to finally have a bit of the old triple digits coming our way the next few days, but up until now we’ve had exactly 2 days with temps 100 or more-which is so unlike the convection oven of a place that I call home in the summer.

    It’s the same for much of Cali, glad to play atmospheric anomaly.
    1. amfortas August 7, 2025 at 7:32 pm

       aye to anomalous weather.
       here in the NW texas hill country, in august, no less…when it should be 105 and 12% humidity…its instead, 95 and 60%.
       feels hotter than it would with 105 and 12%.
       siestatime in AC has, therefore, expanded from noon til 3 to 11 til 5.
38. Tom Stone August 7, 2025 at 1:05 pm

    I have been thinking about the power blocs that Trump has alienated or ignored.
    1) The Military.
    2) Churches, the Mormon church and a number of evangelical churches have been very successfully recruiting in Latin America.
    3) Elevating ICE above the other Federal Law Enforcement agencies is going to encourage internecine warfare with potentially interesting results.
39. Alice X August 7, 2025 at 1:44 pm

    Electronic Intifada live 8/7, Genocide day 671 here.
    1. Alice X August 7, 2025 at 5:51 pm

       Matt Kennard on UK surveillance flights, Jon Elmer with maps of the IOF control of 80% of Gaza.
40. Michaelmas August 7, 2025 at 1:50 pm

    I didn’t see an NC Old Blighty Department today, but here’s a link to file under that.

    Department of The Scum Also Rises would work, too. It’s Starmer’s Labour —

    UK homelessness minister faces calls to resign over tenant eviction claims: Rushanara Ali accused of hypocrisy after claims she evicted tenants from east London property before putting up rent by almost £700 a month
    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/aug/07/uk-homelessness-minister-rushanara-ali-faces-calls-to-resign-over-tenant-eviction-claims

    ‘The UK homelessness minister, Rushanara Ali, is facing calls to resign after claims she evicted tenants from her east London property before increasing the rent by almost £700 a month. Four tenants who rented a four-bedroom house owned by Ali were given four months’ notice in an email last November and told their lease would not be renewed because the property was due to be sold, according to the i Paper. After the tenants left the property, which they had rented for £3,300, they said it was seen relisted at nearly £4,000 a month, the paper said. It reported that the property was relisted for rent after no buyer was found.

    ‘The renters’ rights bill, which is due to come into force next year, will ban landlords who have ended a tenancy in order to sell a property from relisting it for a higher rent. Ali has … spoken out against private renters being exploited and said the Labour government would “empower people to challenge unreasonable rent increases”….’

    Housing minister faces calls to resign over rent hike ‘hypocrisy’
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czerl5dy0kgo
    ‘….Chancellor Rachel Reeves said she “didn’t understand” why the Conservatives were calling for Ms Ali to resign, saying: “I don’t know the details but Rushanara Ali seems to have done everything in accordance with the law….”
    1. Ben Panga August 7, 2025 at 5:45 pm

       I came here to post that same Guardian article Michaelmas. It’s a very Tory story for a nominally Labour government.
41. XXYY August 7, 2025 at 2:18 pm

    Japan marks 80th A-bomb anniversary amid protests over military buildup Xinhua

    By coincidence, I just finished reading a book called the making of the atomic bomb, by a dude named Richard Rhodes. This massive tome mainly reviews the history of the 50 or so people that were deeply involved in quantum physics from the late 1800s through the actual dropping of the bomb on Nagasaki in 1945.

    It’s quite impressive as a work of writing, and seems to amalgamate pretty much everything known about these people during the targeted time. I don’t know if I would go so far as to recommend it to everyone but I did learn a lot. A couple of major things for me were:

    (o) The US was conducting truly massive conventional bombing campaigns both in Europe and in Japan prior to the use of any atomic weapons. I knew about this of course but did not realize the scale and scope. Many cities in Japan and Germany were wiped out by combination of HE and incendiary bombs, and after reading this it’s not obvious to me that atomic weapons were any huge increment in death toll from bombing. Of course, only one bomb was needed for a sortie instead of tens of thousands.

    (o) The nuclear bombing of Japan did in fact bring about a rapid surrender by the Japanese. In particular, the Japanese emperor was shocked and overwhelmed by it and overruled his own military in order to accept peace proposals issued previously by the allied powers. This happened within two days of the second bombing. I know this was one of the hoped for rationales of dropping atomic weapons on civilian cities, but I didn’t realize it actually worked pretty well.

    I’m not a huge history buff and it’s not my purpose to start a big discussion or debate on any of this. But if you’re looking for a long, yet pretty readable work, this is a book you might think about.
    1. Wukchumni August 7, 2025 at 2:40 pm

       Thank God for the Atom Bomb by Paul Fussell, might be right up your alley, or anybody else’s alley for that matter.
    2. Maxwell Johnston August 7, 2025 at 4:17 pm

       Thanks for the book recommendation.

       Whether it was the twin atomic bombings or the Soviet ground invasion into Manchuria that pushed the Japanese to surrender remains a matter of lively debate among historians. The jury is still out.
    3. Acacia August 7, 2025 at 9:12 pm

       Indeed, many people in the West have no idea of the level of destruction brought about by the USian campaign of firebombing Japanese cities. The 60+ largest cities in Japan were completely destroyed. If you want to get a sense of what this would be like in the US, there is a chilling montage sequence in Errol Morris’ The Fog of War (2003).

       In just one of these incendiary attacks during March of 1945, in a single night, 100,000 people were killed in the “Operation Meetinghouse” attack on Tokyo — more than the death toll of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. There are still some survivors, as documented in a recent film Paper City (2021).

       As for this point:

       The nuclear bombing of Japan did in fact bring about a rapid surrender by the Japanese.

       Were any Japanese historians cited to support this claim? There is rather a lot of evidence to suggest otherwise.

       E.g., both General George C. Marshall and Truman himself are on record saying that the Japanese would capitulate if the Soviets entered the conflict — which they did on August 9, 1945, six days before the emperor agreed to the Potsdam declaration.

       In the immediate postwar, three of the four chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of the Staff said they felt the atomic bombs were unnecessary, including Admiral Ernest King who took the position that a naval blockade would have compelled Japan to surrender without further bombing let alone a ground invasion. McNamara, too, asks why the atomic attacks were necessary after LeMay’s ruthless firebombing campaign.

       It is not accidental that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were spared the incendiary attacks — it was so they could be studied as “test” targets of the new weapon.

       My sense now is that USians need to tell themselves that the atomic attacks were necessary, because otherwise they would have to admit that the US was responsible for atrocities at a mass scale. Or, as McNamara put it w.r.t. LeMay: “I would say he, and I, were behaving like war criminals.”
       1. jm August 8, 2025 at 3:39 am

          Having read both the English- and Japanese-language historical records extensively over the last 30 years, I must advise you that you’re seriously misinformed.

          On August 8, having received his scientists’ report that the Hiroshima bomb was indeed atomic, Hirohito told Foreign Minister Togo that the atomic bomb made it essential to end the war with no more angling for softer terms.

          Post-war, Kido Koichi, Hirohito’s chief political advisor, stated very clearly that the atomic bomb enabled him and Hirohito to end the war by allowing the military to save face by claiming they’d been beaten by American science, not defeated in combat. While he credited the Soviet entry as an additional factor, he said the atomic bomb alone would have sufficed.

          Premier Suzuki related that until the atomic bombings the leadership had thought the U.S. would not believe it could defeat Japan by bombing alone, but afterwards they concluded that with such a weapon the U.S. would not feel it necessary to invade, so that surrendered. (Their plan had been to inflict such enormous losses on the invasion forces that the U.S. would decide the game was not worth the candle, and negotiate peace on soft terms.)

          Regarding your belief that Marshall thought Soviet entry would bring prompt surrender, I suggest you get a JSTOR membership (there’s a free tier) and read the article at
          https://www.jstor.org/stable/2539092, beginning at journal page 216.
          1. Acacia August 8, 2025 at 4:06 am

             Thanks for the citation. Do you disagree with McNamara‘s assessment that the bombing of civilians in Japan was an immoral act, i.e., killing 100,000 people in one night?
             1. jm August 9, 2025 at 1:29 am

                Significant elements in Japan’s power elite were quite prepared to continue the war in a manner that would doom millions of non-combatants, solely to preserve the existing political system.

                I wonder whether you understand the nature of the “National Polity” they were attempting to preserve? And if so, whether you think we should have allowed them to preserve it? Contemplate the evils born from it. Are you aware that about 80,000 Asian duped/forced laborers died in the building of the railway of The Bridge Over the River Kwai? Or that several hundred thousand died in Indonesia? Do you know the history of the battle for Okinawa, which was just a smaller version of what Japan’s high command was planning for Kyushu?

                Even _after_ the two atomic bombings _and_ the Soviet entry, the die-hards in the military were still insisting on demanding four conditions for peace:
                – no change to the political powers of the Emperor,
                – Japanese forces to be demobilized by Japan itself,
                – no occupation, or at most only a token occupation, not to include Tokyo,
                – no war criminals trials except by Japan itself.
                Accepting those conditions would have left intact the existing hyper-militarist Hegelian theocracy. They were preparing to for a finish-fight that would have cost more than a million civilian lives. Do you think that without the atomic bombings they’d not have demanded even more?

                Unless you think the U.S. should have accepted those conditions — and perhaps more — there was no less tragic way to end the war.
                1. Acacia August 9, 2025 at 4:57 am

                   So, are you are going to deflect my question? Disappointing.

                   Yes, I am quite familiar with the kokutai, the tennōsei, the Shōwa ishin, the brutality of the Empire, theories of Japanese fascism, analyses such as “Chō-kokkashugi no ronri to shinri,” the issue of higaisha ishiki, and yes I know about the forced labor system under the Japanese Empire, the Burma railway (actually, the famous bridge still exists and I’ve taken the train from Kanchanaburi to Tham Krasae, etc.), and yes regarding the battle of Okinawa (visited the islands several times, read the historical accounts, seen numerous films, etc.).

                   You must admit that I never proposed accepting the Japanese conditions (unless you wish to straw man my earlier post). Rather, I drew attention to arguments made both in the final year of the conflict as well as in the postwar that the nuclear bombs were unnecessary. Given the devastating effects of the firebombing on the Japanese metropole, I am not persuaded that a ground invasion would have been necessary. The hypothetical “million civilian lives” lost in a final conflict is speculation. It may be claimed that this was informed speculation based on military recon, but having studied this you must be aware that similarly the estimates of the number of lives lost in the Hiroshima attack have varied greatly, with the higher numbers remaining classified until quite recently. It’s hard not to see a logic of political expediency at play.

                   On the subject of the emperor, I find it curious that despite everything said, the Americans (MacArthur) decided after the war that the emperor should remain the figurehead of the nation and was even exempt from all responsibility for the war (as you know, he didn’t stand trial in the IMTFE). The historical record shows pretty clearly how this opened the way for a continuation of fascistic prewar elements in Japanese society, e.g., everything from Yasukuni, to the rehabilitation of Class A war criminals (e.g., Kishi), to the assassination of Asanuma Inejirō, Mishima’s failed coup d’état, etc. I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to see this in the current resurgence of the political right with their calls to rewrite the Constitution (e.g., ch. 1 of Sanseito’s “new” constitution is Tennō, ch. 2 is Kokka, etc.).

                   If the US were really so determined to defeat Japanese fascism in 1945, it is odd that so much has been done since to enable its afterlife.
                   1. jm August 10, 2025 at 11:52 am

                      Will reply tomorrow.
                   2. jm August 13, 2025 at 2:11 am

                      Taking up the question of morality, I don’t think bombing civilians is any more immoral than starving them to death, or killing them in the course of ground combat (as in Okinawa). Fundamentally, the possibility that there was any path to an end of the war that would not have resulted in more civilian deaths and other human suffering is remote, unless you wish to argue that we should have accepted peace on terms that would have left Japan’s racist and hyper-militarist Hegelian theocracy intact. Japan’s military leaders were quite prepared to resist any landing of U.S. forces with modes of combat that would have resulted in far more civilian deaths.

                      Although I agree that it is quite probable that Japan would eventually have surrendered without the atomic bombings, even without a U.S. landing on the homeland, that would have come only as a result of an enormous number of starvation deaths and perhaps civil war. Per p182 of Ienaga Saburo’s “The Pacific war”, “A senior officer in Osaka in June 1945 reflected the typical hawk’s disdain for human life when he said, ‘Due to the nationwide shortage of food, it willl be necessary to kill all the infirm old people, the very young, and the sick. We cannot allow Japan to perish because of them.'”

                      Note that in WWI Britain’s close blockade of the continent is estimated to have caused 400k to 700k German deaths by starvation, and was considered by some to be a war crime.

                      Also consider also the last paragraph of Father Siemes narrative of his experience of the Hiroshima bombing:
                      “We have discussed among ourselves the ethics of the use of the bomb. Some consider it in the same category as poison gas and were against its use on a civil population. Others were of the view that in total war, as carried on in Japan, there was no difference between civilians and soldiers, and that the bomb itself was an effective force tending to end the bloodshed, warning Japan to surrender and thus to avoid total destruction. It seems logical to me that he who supports total war in principle cannot complain of war against civilians. The crux of the matter is whether total war in its present form is justifiable, even when it serves a just purpose. Does it not have material and spiritual evil as its consequences which far exceed whatever good that might result? When will our moralists give us a clear answer to this question?”

                      I agree with you to some extent on the issues regarding the non-prosecution of Hirohito and the failure to more thoroughly purge the fascist elements in Japan, but lacking the commitment in Article 12 of the Potsdam Declaration that the ultimate form of the government would be decided by the Japanese people after the occupation’s political reforms (which the Foreign Ministry opined would allow an emperor), and other hints to that effect, it might not have been possible to bring the military and the ultranationalists to heel.

                      Regarding your closing “If the US were really so determined to defeat Japanese fascism …,” the U.S. was fighting the war to defeat aggressive militarism, not fascism. Had we not defeated Germany and Japan, one fairly likely ultimate outcome would have been a nuclear war between them for world domination.

                      And Japanese fascism post-war has really been quite feeble compared to pre- and inter-war. All is a matter of degree, and in matters of degree, degree matters.
       2. AG August 8, 2025 at 7:52 pm

          Thank you for calling attention to PAPER CITY which makes a good impression at least via the trailer (which are often awful). I kinda had forgotten about looking that one up…
          Trailer
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6-WkTKjT6E
42. Wukchumni August 7, 2025 at 2:35 pm

    Yo, Kristi let’s kick it
    ICE, ICE Barbie
    ICE, ICE Barbie

    All right stop, collaborate and listen
    ICE is back with the brand-new makeup intention
    Something, grabs a hold of eye shadow tightly
    Flows like Earl Scheib daily and nightly
    Will it ever stop? Yo, I don’t know
    Turn off the lights and they’ll still glow
    To the extreme they walk the border like a supermodel
    Light up a stage and wax eyebrows on the video
    Dance go rush to the immigrants, some from Montevideo

    They’re killing Emma Lazarus’s hopes like a poisonous mushroom
    Deadly when they go on a 1-way wetback melody
    Anything less than getting the best is a felony
    Love it or leave it you better gang way
    You better hit bull’s eye the undocumented can’t play
    And if there was a problem, yo, they’ll solve it
    Check out them losing face while their blush resolves it

    ICE, ICE Barbie
    Vanilla ICE, ICE Barbie
    Vanilla ICE, ICE Barbie
    Vanilla ICE, ICE Barbie

    Now that the Republican party is jumping
    When January 20th kicked in and Barbie is primping
    Quick to the point to the point of yucko!
    She’s applying concealer like a pound of stucco
    Making her look like Tammie Faye if you ain’t quick and nimble
    I go crazy when I hear looking good is a status symbol
    And foundation with a souped up-tempo
    I’m on a roll and it’s obvious saving face is her temple

    Yo, man let’s get out of here
    Word to your mother
    ICE, ICE Barbie too bold
    ICE, ICE Barbie too bold, too bold
    ICE, ICE Barbie too bold, too bold
    ICE, ICE Barbie too bold, too bold

    Ice Ice Baby, by Vanilla Ice

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOQtzxPnoY0
43. hoki_haya August 7, 2025 at 3:11 pm

    no, just no. “…the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity…” he’s for certain all gung-ho on this. and Azerbaijan laughs. after the removal of artsakh’s indigenous population two years ago, i expected it would be two-to-five years before Armenia lost its southern regions. game over – it’s now a matter of two-to-five years before Azerbaijan claims Yerevan and all of Armenia, with the recognition and approval of its western ‘partners’.

    https://www.reuters.com/world/us-secures-strategic-transit-corridor-armenia-azerbaijan-peace-deal-2025-08-07/

    spoke with Sanders’ office. not much can be done at this point – they’re going to have their big photo-op, Trump will feel like a hero, and then everyone has to dig into the details of implementation. a shame.
44. Jonathan Holland Becnel August 7, 2025 at 3:53 pm

    Well, NC, I have been officially removed from Class Unity and basically de facto banned from r/Stupidpol.

    All for trying to promote class economics to real life workers.

    😔
    1. Pearl Rangefinder August 7, 2025 at 4:45 pm

       Reddit is probably half glowies/hasbara at this point unfortunately. So don’t feel too bad about it, being banned is a badge of honor for making too much sense :)

       I’m only half joking btw, eg: this is from a few years ago, but Tinfoil hat recommended: (Daily Mail) Did Ghislaine Maxwell secretly run one of most powerful Reddit accounts in history? Conspiracy theory suggests Epstein’s ‘pimp’ posted about everything from Israel to legalization of child porn for 14 years until thread fell silent on her arrest
45. Maxwell Johnston August 7, 2025 at 4:02 pm

    Great links today, Conor. Especially the one about the buffalo taking down the safari hunter (it seems the buffalo survived intact). Karma.

    ‘Nagorno Karabakh Observer’ needs to up its game: the map displayed does not show Nagorno-Karabakh in its proper dimensions. N-K is an enclave well inside Azerbaijan, totally separated from Armenia, hence the reason for the conflict.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagorno-Karabakh

    ‘Eagle Partner’ — I sometimes wonder who inside the Pentagon dreams up these martial names.
    1. Alice X August 7, 2025 at 4:55 pm

       Yeah, Water Buffalo 1, rabid human 0. One might read the original piece where the rabid human is made out the good guy.
       1. ChrisFromGA August 7, 2025 at 10:45 pm

          Law of scorecards says Buffalo wins.

          Perhaps a good omen for the Bills?
46. Mikel August 7, 2025 at 4:10 pm

    https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2025-08-07/trump-says-intel-ceo-is-highly-conflicted-calls-for-resignation/
    Trump says Intel CEO is ‘highly conflicted,’ calls for his resignation

    “The CEO of INTEL is highly CONFLICTED and must resign, immediately. There is no other solution to this problem. Thank you for your attention to this problem!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.”

    Jeez…give that line a break!
    1. Pearl Rangefinder August 7, 2025 at 4:55 pm

       It’s wild. Also being reported on Reuters: Trump demands ‘highly conflicted’ Intel CEO resign over China ties

       Aug 7 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday demanded the immediate resignation of new Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, calling him “highly conflicted” due to his ties to Chinese firms and raising doubts about plans to turn around the struggling American chip icon.

       Reuters reported exclusively in April that Tan invested at least $200 million in hundreds of Chinese advanced manufacturing and chip firms, some of which were linked to the Chinese military.

       Trump’s comments came a day after Reuters was first to report that Republican Senator Tom Cotton had sent a letter to Intel’s board chair with questions about Tan’s ties to Chinese firms and a recent criminal case involving his former firm Cadence Design.

       CHYNA!!!!

       Just wait until Trump finds out about who runs Nvidia and AMD. lmao.
       1. ChrisFromGA August 7, 2025 at 9:49 pm

          Dallas Cowboys fans can only dream that Trump would demand Jerry Jones’ resignation.
47. Peter D Luria August 7, 2025 at 4:55 pm

    Re: What We Lost When We Lost the Greatest Generation
    “…when Fascism Roared over Europe the United States stepped in and saved the world.” Hmm…wonder what the surviving handful of Soviet Red Army men (and women) who fought in The Great Patriotic War would have to say about that…?
    1. juno mas August 7, 2025 at 11:38 pm

       Yes, while the US was conveniently shielded by two large oceans, the population (military & civilian) of Russia lost ~30M compared to the US ~400K. There was a US victory at sea in the Pacific. Culminating in what is now the 80th anniversary.
48. Ben Panga August 7, 2025 at 6:04 pm

    A Guardian columnist tries their hand at the hot new Ghislaine was a victim trend. In this version I think it’s patriarchy that is the real culprit?

    Whole article paints her as a misguided soppy girl.

    “Why did Ghislaine Maxwell facilitate Epstein’s horrors? (Moira Donegan)

    ….Feminists, too, often depict women’s outsized desire for men as a form of gendered victimization. Generally, it is not seen as serious – women’s limerence, romantic obsession, and striving for men’s attention is broadly relegated to the realm of the adolescent and the vulgar, the embarrassing and the silly. But Maxwell’s case suggests such desire can breed not just frustrated vanity but also a kind of monstrousness. Untempered by principle or self-respect, it can contain in it the seed of the grotesque. In her efforts to please Epstein, and to make herself useful to him, Maxwell became something hideous and unforgivable.”
49. AG August 7, 2025 at 7:29 pm

    re: Germany
    Supermarket, shopping, I see cocoa powder standard size (250gr) now: 4.70 Euros.
    Last time I checked was 3.60.
    And that stuff is literally trash.
    Before SMO started it was around 1 Euro.
    1. ChrisFromGA August 7, 2025 at 9:47 pm

       I have a friend in the EU and a jar of Trader Joe’s peanut butter that is $3.99 here, is $8 euros there.
       1. juno mas August 7, 2025 at 11:42 pm

          Shipping. PB is heavy.
       2. AG August 8, 2025 at 7:46 pm

          Which is why I buy the Dutch stuff, Pindakaas for 4.30/lb, which arguably is the best one (I don´t intend to challenge you on your Trader´s Joe though, which I don´t know.)
50. Gulag August 7, 2025 at 7:57 pm

    At the end of his article “Why was the Dali Lama at Jeffrey Epstein’s House,” Silverman asked:

    “It is not clear why Epstein, who as far as I know never mentioned Buddhism or had any association with Tibet culture or causes made a $50,000 donation to a Buddhist organization at MIT.”

    A recent essay by Naomi Wolff on her Substack entitled “The Network” in the Worlds of the Elites,”
    offers a possible answer. She argues that major intellectuals, especially in the fields of computation, genetics, evolutionary biology, and consciousness were being herded by gatekeepers into proximity to Epstein who had been planted physically into their midst (given a desk in the Harvard Math Department).

    Naomi Wolff believes that part of Epstein’s role may have been to steer science itself in a particular direction (see her article for details).

    She suggests that scientists, like those at the MIT media lab, may have been targeted because they dealt with such topics as management of awareness and the differences between the brain and consciousness.

    Maybe Epstein has also had a key role in creating a non-random cultural evolution in key scientific fields.
51. Jason Boxman August 7, 2025 at 10:01 pm

    COVID is that you?

    Brandon Blackstock, Kelly Clarkson’s Ex-Husband, Dies at 48 (NY Times via archive.ph)

    Brandon Blackstock, a talent manager and the ex-husband of the Grammy Award-winning singer and Daytime Emmy-winning talk show host Kelly Clarkson, has died. He was 48.

    His death was announced on Thursday in a social media post by Starstruck Entertainment, a Nashville-based talent-management company owned by Mr. Blackstock’s father, Narvel Blackstock, at which Mr. Blackstock was an executive.

    The cause was cancer, according to the statement.

    (bold mine)

    Without a doubt, happened in the Before Times, but nonetheless, this does seem to be happening a lot lately.
    1. ChrisFromGA August 7, 2025 at 10:40 pm

       I was having a debate about this with my mom (not the specific case, but the general question of why we cannot have studies on effect of the shots in causing long term harms vs. the effect of the virus itself.)

       I pointed out that after operation Warp Speed made it to the phase III trials and they got their efficacy data (but not any data to show sterilizing immunity) they promptly nuked “the science” from low earth orbit and gave everyone in the control group the shots.

       Mom tried an ethical argument, but I was having none of that, pointing out that true science only concerns itself from finding out the truth. They could have asked for volunteers in the control group to not get the stroke poke, or they could have paid them a million dollars not to.

       That they did not speaks volumes. And to my knowledge, no attempt to do a study of the long term effects of the mRNA vaccines has been attempted ever since. I may be wrong about that, though. Someone like IMDoc or House would need to chime in.
       1. Jason Boxman August 8, 2025 at 12:44 am

          The damage the virus causes was clear long before the modified RNA shots hit the scene. And the particulars of the virus, the lipid envelope, the ACE2 affinity, there’s simply no debate on this to be had.

          It bites FDA and Pfizer played games with the trial. People will forever pretend we’re not all damned. It’s a debate the virus doesn’t care about.
          1. ChrisFromGA August 8, 2025 at 2:40 am

             Since it’s the tail end of the thread I will share a personal anecdote. Disclaimer – I am fully aware that none of this means anything scientifically.

             I got the J&J one-and-done in September of 2021. My reasoning was that I did not want to take the mRNA ones, and I hate shots so there was that appeal. For about 2 months afterwards I felt like crap. One day I worked in the yard, pretty tiring stuff, like trying to saw tree limbs down with a 20 ft pole saw extension. I thought at first I had just burned myself out, but it lingered into Thanksgiving.

             I was finally feeling like myself in December and had a good stretch for about a month, then caught Omicron. It hit me like a flu but was pretty much over in a week. I guess you could say that I was a text book case – the shot did not stop me from getting COVID, but I did not end up on a vent or anything like that, either. IIRC, omicron was not nearly as deadly as the first variants.

             I had some strange lingering symptoms like dry mouth and a pretty bad mental health episode in 2022. My platelet count also crashed around the time right after the shot, and then rebounded. No way to attribute any of that to the shot, COVID, etc. As you say the virus doesn’t care that nobody is looking for answers with a disciplined, scientific approach.
             1. Jason Boxman August 8, 2025 at 11:23 am

                I think there are many anecdotes, and as I recall Yves Smith had a very poor reaction to the J&J and I believe IM Doc did as well; For myself, I had 2x Pfizer and also had curious early heartbeats happening almost continually non-stop a month later for a week before going to the ER.

                The rage in regards to the vaccine mandates and the suspicions around them I think are well founded, and did in what was left of Public Health and vaccine trust. This is a debacle that needs to be tackled directly, but public health lacks any moral standing to do so and a complete inability to recover lost trust, which would necessarily start with admissions that mandating these shots was morally wrong, with true heartfelt apologies.

                Good luck with that, sadly.
    2. Pat August 8, 2025 at 3:13 am

       I normally lean to “probably accelerated by Covid” but from something I read he died from advanced skin cancer and apparently had a long history of melanomas. This is one time I am going with one of the disadvantages of growing up in the Southwest before Covid. He is old enough to have been on the cusp of “use sunscreen especially for children to avoid skin cancer” revolution and probably spent his entire childhood sun burnt and tanned.
52. Glen August 7, 2025 at 11:34 pm

    Is http://www.weather.gov down? I cannot get to it or NOAA, but all the up/down reports have it as up.

    Just wondering…

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