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Links 9/10/2025

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Meet the NYC lute player serenading the Shakespeare in the Park line since 1976 Gothamist

Common Words That Are Pronounced Differently in Various Parts of the United States Laughing Squid (rwsilc)

The Pill That Women Are Taking for Everything From Speeches to First Dates Wall Street Journal (resilc)

#COVID-19/Pandemics

I have a sneaking suspicion that Novavax is a non-starter:

Climate/Environment

Climate change threatens major oxygen-producing bacteria Natural History Museum

Floods could hit England while country is still in drought, forecasters say Guardian

‘Intense’ monsoon rain, flooding continue to engulf Pakistan’s Punjab Aljazeers
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/9/8/intense-monsoon-rain-flooding-continue-to-engulf-pakistans-punjab

Gunsan’s 152.2 mm ‘waterfall rain’ breaks national record Chosun

Africa bears the heaviest burden of global wildfires Nation

As world gets hotter, Americans are turning to more sugar, study finds Independent

China?

US Tech Companies Enabled the Surveillance and Detention of Hundreds of Thousands in China Military.com

Approving China embassy would be unlawful, UK government told BBC

Koreas

What we learned about North Korea at the summit in Beijing The Conversation (Kevin W)

US Raid Disrupts Construction at Multiple Korean Battery Plants Bloomberg

India

Rupee faces tug-of-war at open as Trump mixes tariff threats with trade talks Reuters. See below on Trump trying to get EU to impose secondary sanctions on India.

Nepal

Nepal’s parliament set on fire after PM resigns over anti-corruption protests BBC

The US Might Try To Manipulate Nepal Into Weaponizing Its Revived Border Dispute With India Andrew Korybko

South of the Border

War With Venezuela? Ken Klippenstein

Colombia not to allow use of its territory for invasion of Venezuela: President Petro Anadolu Agency

European Disunion

Trump presses European Union to impose 100% tariffs on India and China to pressure Putin CNBC. The cost of being a vassal keeps rising…

Europe’s population crisis: see how your country compares – visualised Guardian. resilc: “2100? With climate change this is all wack.”

Macron appoints Sébastien Lecornu as France’s prime minister Le Monde

France faces ‘Block Everything’ shutdown as new PM Lecornu takes office France24

Which way forward for the working class after the fall of the French government? WSWS

Macron’s Grand Illusion American Conservative

7 million for empty rooms in private accommodation – at the same time Krokom backs down: “Feeling bad” Arbetet via machine translation (Micael T)

Old Blighty

Margaret Thatcher’s erotic power Unherd. Is this men who like being spanked?

Israel v. the Resistance

With Doha Strike, Israel Signals a Strategic Shift and an Indifference to Consequences Haaretz

Israel has literally blown up the Gaza ceasefire negotiations while opening another front in its war ABC Australia (Kevin W)

Israel’s attack on Qatar eviscerates promise of US security umbrella for Gulf Middle East Eye (Kevin W)

UN Security Council to discuss Israel’s strike on Qatar on September 10 TASS

Inside Israel’s Audacious Airstrike on Hamas Leaders in Qatar, a U.S. Ally Wall Street Journal. “Audacious”. Kill me now.

Ritter’s Rant 050: Perfidy Scott Ritter

After bombing, time to demystify the ‘Qatar lobby’ Responsible Statecraft

* * *

Anti-Islamic US biker gang members run security at deadly Gaza aid sites BBC

Huckabee: ‘The US has never asked Israel to not apply sovereignty’ to the West Bank Times of Israel (resilc)

Global Sumud Flotilla reports 2nd drone attack on vessel Anadolu Agency

Hasbara, the global Zionist machine to deny the Palestinian genocide Rebelion via machine translation

Israeli army refusers defy harsher backlash to protest genocide +972

New Not-So-Cold War

Poland shoots down Russian drones Financial Times. Lead story. Please see our post. It’s a bit more current on the news-y parts.

Zelensky demands punishment for Russia over drones over Poland Vyzglad via machine translation. Nothing from the Russian side as of when I grabbed this translation, meaning TASS, RT or Sputnik. Ditto on Twitter (tweets on this thin but did include some shots of the purported Russian drones).

Finally closer to launch time, some additional info:

* * *

White House Silence, Lawmakers’ Outcry as Russia Tests Poland’s Resolve Kyiv Post

The Slavyansk pincers Events in Ukraine

NYT Pushes Another Scare Report About Nuclear Sites In Ukraine Moon of Alabama (Kevin W)

Trump May Hold Talks With Putin This Week or Next Sputnik

Imperial Collapse Watch

Failing to Learn from Catastrophe Daniel Larison

The school shooting industry is worth billions — and it keeps growing NPR (resilc)

Trump 2.0

Fired CDC Director Susan Monarez to testify to Senate panel The Hill. Keeping pressure on RFK, Jr.

The Untold Saga of What Happened When DOGE Stormed Social Security ProPublica (Robin K)

Trump asks Supreme Court to let it cut billions in foreign aid Aljazeera (Kevin W)

Fed

Judge blocks Trump’s bid to fire Lisa Cook from Federal Reserve board Politico

Immigration

“Material Support” and an Ohio Chaplain: How 9/11-Era Terror Rules Could Empower Trump’s Immigration Crackdown ProPublica

These Immigrants Became Immigration Court Judges. Trump Just Laid Them Off THE CITY

ICE raid in Rochester stymied as 2 workers evade arrest, 200 residents protest Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

L’affaire Epstein

What we know about Trump’s relationship with Epstein Axios

Democrats en deshabille

‘A full-on base revolt’: Why this shutdown threat is different Washington Post

Supremes

Supreme Court’s scant explanations in Trump emergency cases draw friction The Hill

Economy

Job growth revised down by 911,000 through March, signaling economy on shakier footing than realized CNBC

Stories of Homeowners Hit by Fallout from the Housing Bubble & 3% Mortgages Replace Breathless Media Hype of Bidding Wars Wolf Richter

AI

Dr Bob decodes DS Julian Macfarlane

The women in love with AI companions: ‘I vowed to my chatbot that I wouldn’t leave him’ Guardian. Paul R: “Even scarier than the Snapewives if that means anything to you.”

Judge skewers $1.5B Anthropic settlement with authors in pirated books case over AI training Associated Press (Kevin W)

The Fever Dream of Imminent Superintelligence Is Finally Breaking New York Times (resilc)

Guillotine Watch

America’s most luxurious grocery store to open in New York City… with five-figure entry fee Daily Mail (resilc)

Class Warfare

Socialism or Barbarism: Building a Program for Mass Reeducation in the United States William Murphy

Report shows top 400 richest Americans now taxed less than general population PhysOrg (Dr. Kevin)

Antidote du jour (via):

And a bonus (Chuck L):

A second bonus:

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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36 comments

  1. Timmy

    I’m searching for Novovax in the Northeast, no luck so far. Both Walgreens and CVS say they have it on their landing pages for appointment scheduling but the individual stores available don’t list it within the search range. I have not yet called individual stores but that is my next step. The “vaccine finder” search page on the Novovax corporate site was no longer available two days ago.

    Reply ↓
    1. t

      Keep calling. I don’t think it can hurt to show the demand.

      Had a similar experience with what’s left of Walgreens.

      Don’t need it yet but I’m bugging my doc, local pharmacies (including grocery stores). Answers are no or we can order. We shall see.

      Reply ↓
  2. Mikerw0

    I am taking bets on how long before Trump blames Biden for the BLS employment revisions as it was a plot to cook the books as part of the conspiracy to prevent him winning the election. And, he is referring it to the DoJ for criminal election interference.

    Reply ↓
    1. griffen

      Actual evidence of election interference would be a high bar, one would hope. However I would go so far to suggest that Trump, or any now sitting President, would be looking at these hindsight revisions, in aggregate from 2023 to 2025 downward revisions were especially important, and not be asking the serious question…like WTF? The economy was humming it seemed at the January 2025 hand off, as it turned out this looks less solid but an economy still seemingly or broadly okay.

      BLS needing a rethink on how to generate these monthly payroll numbers. I heard one investor or market maven call the department “sclerotic” and the approach needs an overhaul. And CNBC hasn’t exactly been a dedicated bearer of only the best and all is good angles in the second Trump administration. Numbers that equal complete BS ought to be questioned.

      Reply ↓
      1. Socal Rhino

        The issue, as I understand it, is that market participants want data to act on before clean data is available. To accommodate that, employer surveys and estimation techniques are used, and solid data is produced on a lag.

        Reply ↓
  3. The Rev Kev

    “Trump presses European Union to impose 100% tariffs on India and China to pressure Putin”

    The hazards of being a vassal. The economy of the EU is crumbling and whole sections are being de-industrialized. So of course they would seek trade deals with countries with large economies like India and China to throw them a life line. But here is Trump demanding that they cut any potential life-lines and is instead throwing them an anvil. it seems that he wants to turn the EU into like Russia was like in the 1990s.

    Reply ↓
  4. Wukchumni

    The Pill That Women Are Taking for Everything From Speeches to First Dates Wall Street Journal
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    How did I go through 3 score and 3 years without ever hearing of Propranolol, LOL!

    I know of nobody in my life that’s doing Adderall or Propranolol, am I merely an outlier in game of life?

    The article was clearly aimed at young adult women, and since a Kardashian is taking Propranolol. that makes everything ok.

    Reply ↓
  5. Trees&Trunks

    The Chinese Embassy case is Yes, Mr. Prime Minister/Monty Python stuff.

    1) first UK sell off this property to foreign owners. In this case the Chinese government.
    2) then they complain about the owners wanting to get rid of some tenants. This type of eviction is daily stuff elsewhere but nobody complains.
    3) why would China like to build a mega-Embassy in the moribound UK? Do they believe that all evil against China comes out of the UK or will the UK economy recover?

    Reply ↓
  7. The Rev Kev

    “Margaret Thatcher’s erotic power”

    ‘Margaret Thatcher is considered one of the most erotic personalities of the millennium, a British magazine says.’

    Are they serious? Frankly she was one to give a bloke a solid case of brewer’s droop. The British knew what she was all about which is why they sang ‘Ding! Dong! The witch is dead’ as her casket was driven by at her funeral.

    Reply ↓
  8. Ben Panga

    The Gaza family torn apart by IDF snipers from Chicago and Munich (Guardian)

    Excerpts:

    Raab, a former varsity basketball player from a Chicago suburb who became an Israeli sniper, concedes he knew that. He says he shot Salem simply because he tried to retrieve the body of his beloved older brother Mohammed.

    “It’s hard for me to understand why he [did that] and it also doesn’t really interest me,” Raab says in a video interview posted on X. “I mean, what was so important about that corpse?”

    “They’re thinking: ‘Oh I don’t think [I’ll get shot] because I’m wearing civilian clothes and I am not carrying a weapon and all that, but they were wrong,” said Raab, who majored in biology at the University of Illinois before joining the Israel Defense Forces. “That’s what you have snipers for.”

    In November 2023 Israeli forces operating in the area decided that section of Moneer al-Rayyes Street was off-limits to civilians, without notifying Palestinians. Raab described it as a “combat zone” where any man of military age was “marked for death”.

    Establishing an invisible “security perimeter” then shooting civilians who cross it has become common practice in Gaza, Israeli soldiers have testified.

    When asked how his squad decided whether to shoot unarmed Palestinians, Raab said: “Its a question of distance. There is a line that we define. They don’t know where this line is, but we do.”

    In total, Raab says his “team” had killed 105 people by the time his deployment in Gaza ended. “That’s really impressive,” he said of the toll.

    I have run out of words to describe this.

    Reply ↓
    1. The Rev Kev

      If Raab returns to the US, his neighbours had better hope that he does not snap one day and decides that every person on his street is a Palestinian civilian. It could happen. But the guy is scum and a moral vacuum.

      Reply ↓
      1. Anon reg

        I’m actually (not by design) staying somewhere with 99% Israeli tourists right now. Mostly young enough to have been called up. Spoken to a few of the liberal/pacifist type and they are deeply broken. Planning to leave Israel and talking about it’s descent into hate, madness and religious extremism.

        Even they refused to see what is being done in Gaza and talk in generalities and euphimisms. They know but they don’t admit it and it’s ripping them apart.

        The aggressive type don’t come here. Just lost kids acting normal then drifting away into trauma fogs.

        It is very hard to see these people eating and laughing, while the genocide continues.

        Reply ↓
      2. ambrit

        The man will be lucky if he returns to Chicago and is not shot himself by a distant ‘cousin’ of one of the Palestinians he shot.
        Of course, he could join Homeland Security and do the same job he performed in Gaza, but in Chicago. It’ll get to that sooner or later.

        Reply ↓
  9. Mikel

    Saeed
    @Haman_Ten
    ·
    21h
    “UK fuel tanker took off from Qatar, refueled Israeli fighter jets that were attacking Qatar then landed in Qatar.”

    I saw that Qatar suspended their role as mediator. However, before I hit the sack last night, not everyone was convinced Qatar didn’t know what was about to happen.

    Reply ↓
  10. RGR

    I called several pharmacies in Durham / Raleigh area but Novovax is not available. I figured being in the Research Triangle area chances were favorable I’d find it but no such luck. One pharmacy informed me they were not sure when they would be getting Covid vaccine. The Novovax finder on their website was not working two weeks ago when I checked. I guess this is another iteration of Rule #2.

    Reply ↓
  11. Mikel

    “Socialism or Barbarism: Building a Program for Mass Reeducation in the United States”

    “2. Public Service Year (PSY)
    A paid, voluntary service program for young people, immigrants, and returning citizens. Participants would work in climate resilience, eldercare, education support, housing retrofits, and disaster relief—while receiving 10 hours a week of critical civic education. Stipend: $28–36,000, with healthcare, housing credits, and union membership. Scale: 1–2 million participants annually.”

    And why can’t an over 35 American citizen get a chance for union membership and housing/health credits? Plenty would need the benefits and want to help.

    Reply ↓
  12. Ignacio

    The Fever Dream of Imminent Superintelligence Is Finally Breaking New York Times (resilc)

    The more training the lower competitiveness (here “competitiveness” as defined for labour productivity. You obtain marginally better quality for 100 more times spent on training).

    Reply ↓
  13. MicaT

    For Israel to hit Qatar
    If they flew over Iraq, and launched missiles from there, it’s about 500 miles over the water to Qatar. Then literally right next to the largest US military base which is guarded by lots of anti missile batteries.
    If that’s true, the missiles were on radar the whole time which took a while.
    The US bases in the gulf didn’t do anything.
    Or the Israel jets flew down the gulf a ways launched and refueled.

    Either way, this whole thing was 100% coordinated with the US as they had to shut down the air defenses from every us military base in the gulf.

    I wonder when someone will provide the radar tracking info about the planes and missiles.

    Who trusts the US after this?

    Reply ↓
  14. The Rev Kev

    “Macron appoints Sébastien Lecornu as France’s prime minister”

    I understand that before Lecornu arrived in the French Parliament, that they shouted out ‘Next!’ :) He’s Macron’s fifth Prime Minister now and I don’t expect this guy to last long either. But one thing is sure. Macron will not step down as President and will stay to the bitter end, no matter how much he causes France to suffer. if he goes down in flames, then he will take France with him.

    Reply ↓
  15. leaf

    The entire affair with the Korean workers at the Georgia plant shows that perhaps the Wang Yi theory is still correct:
    “No matter how blonde you dye your hair, how sharp you shape your nose, you can never become a European or American, you can never become a Westerner. We must know where our roots lie.”

    Reply ↓
    1. leaf

      Woops, forgot the first part, here’s the full quote
      “Americans take all visitors from China, South Korea and Japan as Asians. They cannot tell the differences and it’s the same in Europe. No matter how yellow you dye your hair, or how sharp you make your nose, you’ll never turn into a European or American, you’ll never turn into a Westerner.”

      Reply ↓
      2. The Rev Kev

        Some Americans ask why they speak English in the UK and not a European language. Yes, this is true. American education at it’s finest.

        Reply ↓
  16. The Rev Kev

    ‘Ryan Grim
    @ryangrim
    Here’s what just happened: Trump sent a peace deal to Hamas, Hamas met to discuss it in Doha, where the U.S. is mediating talks and has a base,and Israel bombed them, presumably with US support.’

    This whole attack was from the lower levels of the Stupidity mine so I do not know were to begin. So to win an unimportant tactical win, they let themselves suffer a strategic loss. They failed in their objective to kill the main negotiating team and now every country in the region is regarding them as the crazy lunatic with a gun. But the Israeli ambassador to the US said that they will get him “next time”. It is, I think, certain that Trump set this attack up with the Israelis and was celebrating until he pulled his head in. He is saying that he will not allow Israel to attack Qatar again but how are they to believe him? His word is trash in this region. And the Qatari lost killed and wounded from their security team in this attack. US radars would have seen those Israeli aircraft the moment that their tires cleared the runway but said nothing to the Qatari. The Qataris say that they only told them off the attack ten minutes after the bombs had fallen as if to mock them.

    Now for the larger picture. US security guarantees to the Gulf countries are now effectively dead. They died in that attack and they will have zero trust in the US to protect them as their guarantees mean nothing. Trump has showed that he will help Israel attack any one of them not matter how minor the reason. The Abraham Accord are also dead as I think most countries will realize that even if they sign up for them that it will not prevent Israel attacking them. The Chinese will not be able to believe their luck and I am sure that they will make inroads to this region in the coming years. But Trump has a history of doing this again and again. Back when Trump had General Soleimani murdered in 2020, Soleimani was acting as a diplomatic envoy carrying messages between Iran and Saudi Arabia via Iraq. And he did the same in Iran because, you know, he is so smart. Trump does not realize it yet but he has caused the US to suffer a strategic defeat.

    Reply ↓
    1. Mikel

      “You teach people how to treat you.”

      Why should Qatar be surprised? They were chosen as the site to receive a negotiated strike from Iran back in June.

      And now a completely off subject rant: the “internets” search and AI is attributing that quote to Dr. Phil and Oprah.
      The real deal: They cribbed the saying from Maya Angelou.

      Reply ↓
    2. Dalepues

      Why would representatives from Hamas believe they were safe in Qatar?
      Especially after the Solemani assassination and the attacks on Iran. No one
      is safe anymore in the Middle East. No one.

      Reply ↓
      1. The Rev Kev

        I’m trying to think of a single thing that the US got out of this attack but cannot think of anything at all. It is losses straight across the board.

        Reply ↓
    3. Mikel

      “The Chinese will not be able to believe their luck and I am sure that they will make inroads to this region in the coming years.”

      Just spitballin’…but they have maintained their economic and other relations with Israel. “luck”
      It’s a chessboard where all kinds of unknowns have to be considered.

      Reply ↓
    4. Adam1

      There are even more dangerous knock on effects too. Israel is assumed to be a nuclear weapons power. Those security guarantees were also to discourage Israel’s enemies from developing their own weapons. In the short run Russia and China now have the ability to extend their own security arrangements, but in the longer and medium term I suspect we’ll start seeing more nuclear power plants hitting the drawing boards very soon and more enrichment like plans similar to Iran.

      Reply ↓
  17. OIFVet

    Ursula bin Lyin’ gave her State of the Euro Union speech today, looking like a female Zelensky in her olive drab outfit, no doubt carefully picked by a team of PR consultants to underscore the message that the EU must prepare for war under generalissima bin Lyin’s capable misleadership.

    Nevertheless, her own political survival is at stake so she tried to throw crumbs to everybody, predictably enraging everyone and will face another no-confidence vote.

    Here’s Politico’s take on key moments of her speech: https://archive.ph/siuY7

    Reply ↓

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