When Love Fails, They Nap: What Male Koalas Teach Us About Rejection and Energy Efficiency Vocal
Curiosity Spots “Coral Reef” Rock On Mars. It’s A Sign Of Ancient Water IFL Science
Climate/Environment
Climate change drives sharpest Great Barrier Reef coral loss in nearly 40 years Down to Earth
France’s largest wildfire in decades brought under control France24
A wildfire is burning in California even larger than the mega fires that scorched LA in January The Journal
Following an astonishing 711 mm of rainfall over just three days, which triggered severe flooding in Huizhou, Guangdong, local military forces constructed emergency dams in an effort to contain the waters and prevent further devastation….pic.twitter.com/BOSMooDmXJ
— Volcaholic 🌋 (@volcaholic1) August 7, 2025
***
Flood Risk and Flood Insurance Liberty Street Economics
New study from NY Fed compares how lenders treat unmapped flood risk (due to FEMA’s outdated maps). Big banks are lending less and charging more in risky areas. Non-banks and local banks are still originating the loans but then securitizing or moving them off their balance sheet. pic.twitter.com/mxPqKJJXMT
— Lee Harris (@leee_harris) August 7, 2025
Risk Management Is a Burgeoning Billion-Dollar Business Opportunity Bloomberg
***
Energy chief suggests Trump administration is altering previously published climate reports CNN
U.S. Government makes old lies new again Open Mind
Pandemics
Air, wastewater may play roles in H5N1 transmission on dairy farms CIDRAP
White House Empties Office for U.S. Pandemic Policy: The Gaps Left Behind ThinkGlobalHealth
Japan
Japan says U.S. to correct tariff deal “mistake” Kyodo News
Sanseito leader meets in Tokyo with co-head of Germany’s AfD Asahi Shimbun
China?
84 American Ballistic Missile Launchers Ready to Hit Key Chinese Infrastructure Targets: ATACMS Arsenal Growing on Taiwan Military Watch
Panic and production cuts at Pentagon suppliers as China tightens exports Kevin Walmsley
China’s weapons exports shifting global balance of power Asia Times
PH can’t avoid Taiwan conflict – Marcos The Manila Times
India
Putin To Visit India This Year As Trump Targets Nations Over Russian Oil NDTV
Old Blighty
Force of Opposition New Left Review
Syraqistan
Palestinians will be forced into a concentration camp and those who refuse will be called “militants” to excuse their slaughter.
The “final operational plan” is a plan for ethnic cleansing. pic.twitter.com/jlbRvAFXwR
— Assal Rad (@AssalRad) August 8, 2025
Netanyahu just declared plans to fully occupy all of Gaza, 2 days after his Finance Minister quietly allocated 3 billion shekels for a Gaza “security box”
This is the final phase of the genocide!
Israel will move to annihilate the 3 remaining areas that haven’t been wiped out… pic.twitter.com/q12l76tXRZ— Muhammad Shehada (@muhammadshehad2) August 7, 2025
TEAM LEADER AT GAZA AID DISTRIBUTION SITES BELONGS TO ANTI-“JIHAD” MOTORCYCLE CLUB, HAS CRUSADER TATTOOS The Intercept
International aircrafts have just dropped rotten bread in Gaza! pic.twitter.com/dM7o6CCIr7
— Motasem A Dalloul (@AbujomaaGaza) August 7, 2025
An Unexpected Path to Hold War Criminals Accountable The Intercept
Ultra-Orthodox media declares ‘war’ in Israel over mandatory conscription of Haredim The Cradle
Genoa, containers with weapons destined for Israel returned to sender. Dockworkers: “Unthinkable victory.” Il Fatto Quotidiano (machine translation)
***
In rare move, Iranian security services publicly warn of new threat from Syria Amwaj
Is Iran running out of water? DW
Cheap Iranian drones, costly US defenses spur sanctions and technology push Stars and Stripes
US missile depletion from Houthi, Israel conflicts may shock you Responsible Statecraft
European Disunion
Rubio orders U.S. diplomats to launch lobbying blitz against Europe’s Digital Services Act Reuters
EU says $1.4 trillion spending pledge to US ‘in no way binding’ Euractiv
New Not-So-Cold War
Alastair Crooke: Did Trump Just Trigger NUCLEAR War? Putin is Preparing Danny Haiphong
Trump Is Not Serious About Peace in Ukraine Larry Johnson
“White House pushes back on Kremlin claims Trump and Putin agreed to meeting. An official said Putin must meet with Ukraine’s Zelenskyy for it to occur. The White House on Thursday pushed back on claims by the Kremlin that a meeting between President Donald Trump and Russia’s… pic.twitter.com/WAkh99Xzk0
— Ivan Katchanovski (@I_Katchanovski) August 7, 2025
Q: What about Zelenskyy? Will the meeting be with him?
Putin: I have already said many times that I have nothing against him[Zelenskyy]. It is possible, but certain conditions must be created for this. But unfortunately, such conditions have not yet been created.
— Tymofiy Mylovanov (@Mylovanov) August 7, 2025
White House now says Trump ‘open’ to meeting Putin without his meeting Zelenskyy ABC News
BREAKING: Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov tells reporters––
“There was an offer from the American side which the Russian side deems acceptable.” pic.twitter.com/wGwGY4K4ap
— Brian McDonald (@27khv) August 7, 2025
Trump: Putin may agree to stop war in exchange for territories – Bloomberg Ukrainska Pravda
Negotiations Fever Strikes Again as Trump’s “Deadline” Hits Midnight Simplicius
Post Putin-Witkoff Speculation Rife Karl Sanchez
The nighttime series of explosions in the Odessa region was not just another attack on Ukraine’s rear infrastructure. It was a clear message addressed to both Kyiv, Baku and Brussel. Russia struck a series of targets near the villages of Orlovka and Novoselskoye
🧵 pic.twitter.com/sWdI7dqd8g— Neznakomaya❤🇷🇺 (@TomatkaP) August 7, 2025
Caucasus
Reuters: Armenia to grant US exclusive rights to develop long-term transit corridor, officials say News.am
South of the Border
Trump doubles reward to $50 million for arrest of Venezuela’s president to face US drug charges AP
“Liberation Day”
US hits one-kilo gold bars with tariffs in blow to refining hub Switzerland FT
Einar Tangen: Economic Tsunami Is Now Unavoidable Glenn Diesen
Trump 2.0
Trump calls for Intel CEO’s head over alleged China links The Register
Trump Is Launching an AI Search Engine Powered by Perplexity 404 Media
US national parks staff in ‘survival mode’ to keep parks open amid Trump cuts The Guardian
MAHA
RFK Jr. Quietly Endorses Flu Vaccine for Kids and Adults MedPage Today
Weimar Republic
Cornyn says FBI will help locate absent Texas Democrats, but scope of feds’ role unclear Texas Tribune
Mysterious Crime Spree Targeted National Guard Equipment Stashes Wired
Democrats en déshabillé
An Abundance of Sleaze: How a Beltway Brain Trust Sells Oligarchy to Liberals Matt Stoller
On the same day that CAP announces it will no longer publish its list of corporate, foreign govt and oligarch donors, Bloody Blinken joins its board https://t.co/lp6bi2oTGm
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) August 8, 2025
Q&A: The former Mideast diplomat bringing Gulf cash to Silicon Valley San Francisco Standard
Police State Watch
U.S.-MEXICO BORDER MILITARIZATION FAILS TO STOP MODERN DRUG SMUGGLING INDUSTRY Texas Observer
Scandal-Plagued Prison Company Celebrates “Pivotal Opportunity” Under Trump Truthout
AI
GPT-5 hot take Gary Marcus
Who is Elara Voss? Read Max
Accelerationists
The Faux Intellectuals of Silicon Valley Notes from the Circus
Imperial Collapse Watch
How AI, Healthcare, and Labubu Became the American Economy Kyla Scanlon
China adds science funding for young global talents as Trump cuts U.S. research budget The East Is Read
Groves of Academe
From Project 2025 to the PayPal Presidency: School Choice Fin-Tech for a Blockchain Social Credit Economy Unlimited Hangout
I mean, shit, this is the one time academics could actually meaningfully change the world by pedagogy.
— David Austin Walsh (@DavidAstinWalsh) August 7, 2025
The Friendly Skies
How loyalty programmes are keeping America’s airlines aloft The Economist
Big Brother Is Watching You Watch
Only used my “Friend” for a couple hours, but a few observations:
– clearly *feels* different (especially from chatgpt voice) to talk to a thing you’re wearing and must touch to get a response from
– voice in / text out is interesting and makes sense, although I don’t love… pic.twitter.com/7h8tIHgCHS
— Jackson Dahl (@jacksondahl) August 4, 2025
He said, she said, it said: I used ChatGPT as a couple’s counselor. How did we fare? NPR
More than 130,000 Claude, Grok, ChatGPT, and Other LLM Chats Readable on Archive.org 404 Media
Healthcare?
Meet the States Fighting Private Equity’s Health Care Destruction Boondoggle
Class Warfare
Working People Condemn Union-Busting at Veterans Affairs AFl-CIO
The housing market is a rigged game Steve Keen
Harvard scientist warns interstellar object blasting toward Earth ‘may come to save – or destroy us’ The Independent
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
Edifice wrecks/CRE disaster update:
Finally, it’s happening.
https://archive.ph/7LXvm
Better to implode and rebuild these wrecks as housing. There are literally thousands of these older stock office complexes littered around metro Atlanta, many empty or with non-economic vacancy rates.
Do you think that they are being left there to rot so that they can be used as tax write-offs?
That’s one possibility. Another big one is “extend and pretend,” where the banks holding the note pretend that it’s 2016, Powell doesn’t still have 8 months in office, and the noteholders pretend to pay them.
Eventually, that strategy runs out of road when it becomes clear that no recovery to anything resembling mark-to-fantasy numbers is possible in the foreseeable future. That brings the capitulation phase, which we are now at.
Sell at land value minus demo cost, to a buyer willing to take on the risk. Banks get sheared. Or in this case, more likely Aunt Edna’s pension fund gets sheared.
With a little refurbishment these presently vacant buildings will make dandy FEMA Re-education Centres. For the Jackpot adjacent, we can put the motto from Mad Max Thunderdome above the entrance: “Two consumers enter, one consumer leaves.”
We might have our own little “Alligator Alley” here in Atlanta (copperhead creek?) but our governor, alas, is no Ron De Non Compos Mentis.
Ron d’Non. Sounds like the singer for a Punk band.
The phenomena of these “deplorables concentration camps” popping up so quickly speaks to planning of some sort. It sounds suspiciously like the ‘mysterious’ suddenness of the arrival of the Patriot Act after the 9/11 terror attacks. As in the case of the Patriot Act, these “camps” must have been planned out well before the “immigration crisis” trigger was pulled.
This may not rise to the definition of a conspiracy, but it most certainly fits the definition of malign machination.
Can we have Confinement Loaf served?
Asking for a friend.
They supply hair color to all incoming apartmentratchiks, so they too can be Victory Gingers.
Any relation to Bland in a Bottle?
That shade is reserved for apparatchicks.
Not that I’m aware of, but perhaps served by Blondi in a bottle.
Of course you can.
It goes well with soy latte.
Remember dishonoured guests, all days are Soylent Brown days in the isolation chambers.
Or maybe the new motto might be ‘You can enter whenever you want but you can never leave.’
I’m thinking of the line from the Doors song: “No one here gets out alive.”
Doors “Five to One”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOzpncIHCLs&ab_channel=TheDoors-Topic
Is it just me, or are the experiences and the memes from the sixties strongly gaining relevance today?
Or, for a 21st century update to that sentiment –
We got hella people, they got helicopters
They got the bombs and we got the, we got the –
We got the guillotine
We got the guillotine, you better run
Being left to rot doesn’t make them a tax write-off or not. The depreciation deduction for the investor that purchased the property exists whether they tear it down or not. In fact, there would be a whole new round of depreciation deductions for the spending on a new structure.
The real issue with real estate is that depreciation is so high, investors can have a tax profit even if they sell property at an economic loss because they got tax write-offs in prior years. Further, in many states the property tax valuation is set at purchase with increases capped so that current property tax valuation does not reflect actual value. I don’t know about Georgia, but this can result in a new purchaser having different economics from the prior owner.
Hence, the tax impacts of a change in ownership (both income tax and property tax) do create rigidity in the real estate market and can discourage redevelopment transactions.
Last September I stayed one night in John Portman’s Hyatt in downtown Atlanta and had a perfect view of into the office building across Peachtree Street. Several floors were completely empty. Absolutely nothing on the street to attract a pedestrian and the restaurant in the hotel was expensively mediocre. My children live in Atlanta and I have begun counting the empty office buildings as we drive around when visiting. The reckoning is coming and it will be ugly. Next thing you know there will be mass shootings in Buckhead. Oh, wait.
In the USSR there were stores full of nothing, but we do it differently in the USA-there are office buildings full of nothing.
In both cases, the supply of chains was strong and vibrant. Links on request.
Clever is on the same dictionary page as cleaver, and you cut to the quick.
This is a myth about the USSR. There were frequent shortages but there were no empty stores (except obviously in war time). But there was actually empty stores when Capitalism was introduced. Weird, huh?
” …. expensively mediocre.’
Love it! Sums up the increasing prices and the declining quality of food and well … just about everything.
‘Ivan Katchanovski
@I_Katchanovski
“White House pushes back on Kremlin claims Trump and Putin agreed to meeting. An official said Putin must meet with Ukraine’s Zelenskyy for it to occur. The White House on Thursday pushed back on claims by the Kremlin that a meeting between President Donald Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin had been agreed to with a location secured. A White House official told ABC News that no location has been set and that President Putin must meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for the meeting with Trump to occur — something the Kremlin has not been willing to commit to so far.”‘
I can believe that this happened. Trump tried to force the Russians to have Zelensky at the meeting with Trump and Putin. The Russians probably asked what was the point of having the monkey there when you already had the organ-grinder. Ex-UK defense secretary Ben Wallis was also demanding that the Europeans have a seat there so that they could wreck the whole thing but nobody takes them seriously anymore. Would you believe that Trump even suggested the White House to have that meeting?
Having the meeting in the US is a non-starter as long as the ICC charges against Putin are not dropped.
This all sounds like it’s headed to another nothing-burger. Too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the porridge, and the Euro-clowns are not going to make the already thin gruel taste like anything other than dog food.
Meanwhile, the Russian Army continues to grind its way to victory in the Ukraine.
Also, Russia has made a deal to position oreshnik missiles on the Byelorussian western border. That puts all of Europe within range. Add this to Russia exiting from the intermediate range missile treaty. Russia is preparing for the worst case scenario.
There is an article in Links today called “Trump: Putin may agree to stop war in exchange for territories – Bloomberg” but that is Trump being disingenuous as Russia is on the verge of taking all those territories in the next coupla weeks anyway. The guys at The Duran just put out a video talking about how the eastern front is all falling apart and suggest that this is why Trump demanded this meeting. So that he can negotiate something, anything to stop the Russians finally getting their victory-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScpUSAPQwNQ (17:42 mins)
So they are probably right for preparing for the worse because if the Ukraine implodes, the west – including the US – will go absolutely nutso.
Bloomberg has been a cesspool of disinformation. They leaked a story that there was going to be an “air truce” but no such thing has happened. Russia blew up some more stuff last night.
BTW, Dima from Military Summary Channel is back from his vacation with new content.
In his 8/7/25 commentary, Alexander Mercouris noted the “fast one” pulled by US in putting its interpretation of what was agreed out before the Kremlin statement (having asked the Kremlin to delay its statement until Witkoff reported to DJT). I got the impression from him that a significant part of the “point” of the Witkoff visit was to create conditions suitable for narrative management.
I wonder whether this was simply a maneuver to dominate the news cycle for a while. DJT proclaims great progress in diplomacy, garnering some press, and then when reality later intrudes, he can criticize VVP as a not-good-faith counterparty, then impose some sanctions. Peace through strength.
Perhaps it’s all simply posturing in the sight of the press.
“Trump doubles reward to $50 million for arrest of Venezuela’s president to face US drug charges”
Maybe Maduro can join Al Qaeda. That way the US would lift the reward off his head like they did with Syria’s Jolani. Maybe they might even end up giving him money. But this is all about drug charges? Seriously? Panama’s Noriega was also accused of drug crimes before the US invaded back in ’89. And even way back then accusing a South American President of drug crimes was considered boring and repetitive with no attempt at coming up with something new.
Is this just another regime change operation, as we’ve see there in Venezuela now for a while? Anyone here believe that Maduro is actually capitalizing on cocaine traffic? I mean they’ve got a lot of high quality oil, so why would he do that? I fell for Hugo Chavez when he followed W to a podium at the UN general assembly with the comment “I smell sulfur …”, or something to that effect.
They are not serious until they make one of those posters with image, dollar sum, and “wanted dead or alive”.
Based on the slop that various Trump agencies have been posting, I would not be a bit surprised.
Would be in the style of thr novelty wanted posters you can get at amusement parks, with a couple of amusing AI errors.
> Energy chief suggests Trump administration is altering previously published climate reports CNN
> We’re Losing The Internet. But It’s Not Too Late ¡Do Not Panic!
> Ike: I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.
When I was a lab manager, we were doing research used as evidence in an environmental lawsuit that resulted in a nine-figure settlement. I made sure everything was backed up off-site. I secured critical data logs. Those were extreme conditions at the time. But at this point, I hope anybody will assume their information is not secure, and will air-gap archive and backup in a way to survive platform failure.
I was surprised when I realized I was going to institute none of Nate Bear’s interventions. But I’ve worked hard to have nothing to say that is both important and confidential. This is the only site I value-add, and if legal constraints aren’t enough to cover confidential, I go in person.
Multi-dimensional urgencies become overwhelming. Janet and I are at the stage of going through stuff, and it’s no longer enough that an item or words produce an emotional response, or was important. As Siu wrote, So What? What’s the future good? To Whom?
The archives are for what we don’t know is important. Which could be anything. Sumerian accounting records. Diaries for understanding daily lives of far cultures. But if the AI’s and their surrogates (or vice versa) can go in and re-write the past, that collapses the future. You can’t tell if it’s Broken News without memory.
‘Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past’
Pretty sure George Orwell said that as a warning and not as an instruction guide.
After clicking the link I got:
I didn’t chase rejection — I conserved energy and took a nap instead, revealing a surprisingly wise evolutionary strategy for handling heartbreak.
The 3I/Atlas space object is just the third interstellar object to be confirmed so far. There is a move to try and get NASA to repurpose the Juno 3 Jupiter probe to visit the interstellar object for study. The Juno 3 was going to be crashed into Jupiter soon anyway. This would be a doable project with unknown but possibly important data recovered. So far, silence from the Mandarins at NASA. NASA is an educational exhibit of the institutional stupidity of bureaucracies.
See: https://lweb.cfa.harvard.edu/~loeb/Juno.pdf
Isn’t it obvious at this point that said interstellar object had heard about Bitcoin and wanted to get in on the ground floor here on this good orb?
Are we waiting for Gort now instead of Godot?
re: Germany AfD
Every week I have to concede that for many German leftists, whether they are for or against Russia, the demonization of AfD is of undeniable substance. If you argue SPD, Greens, CDU, FDP were the main perpetrators in the harm being done they will still argue “but the AfD is worse”. And then they try to prove their point with those parts of the party that they regard as “völkisch”.
Even if that is true – I have no contact to those kind of AfD voters – I still allow myself to argue from the distant observer´s POV which always has been a core tool of independent scholarship and am trying to stress that words are menaningless compared to deeds.
As Walter Kirn said early this year: Everybody talks about workers´ rights and to help and support this and that and those – but when it comes to voting, to acting, to actually doing something about that, they do either nothing or to the opposite.
And this contradiction and inherent hypocrisy is still not and will never be acknowledged by a certain influential intellectual culture that at the same time tends to oppose the system/state.
So expect protests against AfD to be repeated when it comes to elections.
What you will get of course is the worst of both worlds eventually. Far right eclipsing classic workers´ positions, and neoliberal order hollowing out society more and more. Be it because Russia is evil, or China is dangerous, or at some point India.
Leavitt to Believer
In this week’s episode Believer Cleavers push back against Karoline’s assertions, but to no avail-so they take what she claims at faith value-aided by a pleasing countenance and a swaying crucifix around her pretty little neck.
They are as ready as invasion of Kaliningrad. Jokes aside, there are few interesting tidbits.
They actually admit being intercepted at high rate, which means that it’s not very good of a missile (compared to those that Russia, Iran, Yemen use). Also it implies that doing “tens of millions of dollars in damage” requires firing tens of millions of dollars in missiles (knowing not-so-low price), which is anything but “highly cost effective”.
So the launchers are ready, missiles not so much. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
Yet another confession of what was denied.
But they are ready. :)
They are ready for more money to flow to the MIC.
1)Point the weapons at China
2)Point to China building up defenses in response
3)Get more money for MIC
These days, add to this a lot of “look at what China is doing with AI” because in the USA they have to keep that circle jerk of funding going.
The entire world is throwing huge money at surveillance tech and weapons.
And this opening line of the article:
“The United States is manufacturing the MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) for deployment of on the island of Taiwan”
They are trying to get a proxy ready.
But this boggles the mind. There’s the possibility of loading up Taiwan with systems that could become the property of China.
And, assuming the worst, who’s ready for all the ceasefire or peace mediation play acting by the USA with regards to Taiwan vs China conflict?
“Thank You For Your Attention To This Matter.”
Just had a heretical thought.
Since Trump is an artifact of American business culture, I can see his acolytes arguing that, sure, he loses all of his histrionic policy pronunciamentos, but he makes it up in volume.
I get the impression that Trump is a schoolyard bully turned up to eleven.
This is the lesser of the Two Evils we were presented with in the last Presidential election?
Heaven help us all.
Those of us who sometimes used to defend Trump have to admit that round two is much worse than we expected. After all their frantic lawfare and impeachments his opponents seem to have given up when oppostion is most needed. Perhaps their true objection to round one was that he wasn’t autocratic enough.
All things considered, it would have been better for everybody if Trump had had his second term back in 2020 when he was still partly hobbled. The worse excesses of is present second term would not have been possible back then but ‘the resistance’ ™ would not hear of it and maneuvered him out. Now we have a Trump that is not only determined to reshape America into how he thinks that it should be run but also the entire planet.
Benedict Donald is little Anthony Fremont, all grown up now-whisking people off into the scorned field.
“He said, she said, it said: I used ChatGPT as a couple’s counselor. How did we fare?”
After reading this article I used ChatPeople and they deduced that the author of this piece is very high maintenance to say the least.
A wildfire is burning in California even larger than the mega fires that scorched LA in January The Journal
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I jumped eagerly at the headline bait and the hook was inserted…
LA Infernos: 16,456 homes lost
Gifford Fire: 0 homes lost
Re Guardian on cuts to National Park staff–I’m certainly opposed to this although some of the arguments are a bit strained.
“This is not sustainable in the short term and certainly not in the long term as visitors start to notice the lack of maintenance and work on landscapes,” Garder said
Work on landscapes? Are they terraforming? The truth is that the NPS boosters are often the ones treating nature like theme parks whereas nature–absent people–is certainly capable of managing without us and has done so for billions of years. The primary goal of the national parks was always supposed to be preservation rather than tourism. You wonder what John Muir would think of his Yosemite paradise today with its packed in crowds of summer tourists. Plus many or most of the fires now plaguing the West were started by humans although the devasting and still ongoing Grand Canyon north rim fire was caused by lightning.
Meanwhile the person I know that works for the Forest Service is still hanging onto her job and hoping to make it to pension. It’s not as though our government bureaucracies are above criticism, but rather that the Trumpies merely want to divert the money to much worse or even crooked uses. If quality rather than quantity is needed then Trump should be the first government worker to go.
45% of permanent positions at Sequoia NP are unfilled, raptured initially by AirBnB making it so there are no long term rentals to be had here for prospective NPS hires, aided and abetted by DOGE’s actions.
re: nukes and INF
Dmitry Stefanovich´s latest newsletter:
STRATDELA Special #16
Intermediate-range missiles for everyone, and may no one be left behind.
STRATDELA Newsletter
Aug 08, 2025
https://1dkv.substack.com/p/stratdela-special-16
While he usually tries to be optimistic in some form that now seems to fade a bit.
His final verdict:
“To summarize, nothing particularly good can be expected from such a development. We are at the initial stage of a multilateral missile and missile defense arms race. International military-political relations are in deep crisis, and at this stage, for the vast majority of countries in the world, strengthening their own military potential is a major (or only) priority.”
re:Harvard scientist warns interstellar object blasting toward Earth ‘may come to save – or destroy us’ The Independent
o.m.g. It was predicted over a month ago that the next big govt psy-op would be this very sort of claim. “Big alien spaceship headed for earth.” And why? Either as a distraction or to justify even more funding the military’s new Space Force command.
Seeing this article made me laugh.
US hits one-kilo gold bars with tariffs in blow to refining hub Switzerland FT
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It’s kind of a big wahooza of sorts, as the refiners will have to make 1/2 kilo bars instead…
Until January 1st 1975 Americans couldn’t own old yeller in anything but jewelry in theory, but in practice you could own any coins dated before 1933, so there emerged a marketplace for pre ’33’s with some crafty ways of going about it.
My favorite was Turkey’s effort, coins were all dated 1923 and had numbers below that date that you added to 1923 to ascertain the actual year of issuance.
This one has ’49’ below 1923, so it was issued in 1972.
https://www.svcollector.com/en/sold/1923-49-500-kurus-turkey-gold.html
‘Genoa, containers with weapons destined for Israel returned to sender. Dockworkers: “Unthinkable victory.”
If I were in command of the “Cosco Shipping Pisces”, I would be giving the Red Sea a wide berth on the way back to Singapore. Having weapons for Israel aboard now confirmed has made them a priority target for Yemeni forces if they try going through the Red Sea.