Studies Reveal The Best Ways to Chemically Bond With Your Cat Science Alert
Magical systems thinking Works in Progress
The Lost Art Of Thinking Historically Noema
Pandemics
Judge tosses EEOC long COVID lawsuit, finding worker never made disability clear HR Dive
My workplace has random drug and alcohol tests. No tests for infectious diseases, which are considered a nothing burger.
I said I’d only do it outside, because I mask. They said the room is ‘sanitised’ (i.e. there’s hand sanitiser available).
Hilarious. It’ll be outside.
— Henry Madison (@RageSheen) September 16, 2025
Radio waves offer new hope for improving sense of smell News-Medical
Climate/Environment
When the World Stops Smelling Like Itself Atmos
Human-made global warming ‘caused two in three heat deaths in Europe this summer’ The Guardian
Injury to Buildings and Vegetables N+1
Mega-Dryness Spreads Throughout Northern Hemisphere Countercurrents
Water
Residents in working-class districts of Johannesburg protest after two-week loss of water supply WSWS
China’s Water Future RAND
China?
China bans tech firms from buying Nvidia chips: FT Capital Brief
U.S. Investors, Trump Close In on TikTok Deal With China WSJ. Andreessen Horowitz, Larry Ellison, others. Freedom from malign influence is so close. But…
Trump’s TikTok deal could face hitch over billionaires’ stakes in China parent ByteDance: sources New York Post
China snaps US ‘surveillance’ satellite in rare eye-for-eye move over space assets Interesting Engineering
India
India ‘crosses red line’ by joining Russia-Belarus war games The Times
Trump, Modi Talk in Bid to Calm Tariffs, Russian Oil Dispute Bloomberg
Old Blighty
Four arrested after images of Trump and Epstein projected on to Windsor Castle ahead of president’s visit The Guardian
US Tech Giants Race to Spend Billions in UK AI Push Wired
Palantir among arms giants snapping up ex-Tory defence ministers Democracy for Sale
O Canada
Freeland quits Carney’s Cabinet to become Ukraine envoy Politico
Syraqistan
Israel says ‘Gaza is burning’ as it launches ground assault Reuters
The ‘Gaza Riviera’ plan: Gentrifying Israel’s genocide The New Arab
Netanyahu says Trump to host him on Sept. 29, issues dire warning to Hamas over hostages Times of Israel
Netanyahu Made a Mockery of Trump in Qatar – and Paid No Price for It Haaretz
This is a threat https://t.co/VTLULL9WEY
— Anya Parampil (@anyaparampil) September 15, 2025
Israel as ‘Super-Sparta?’ Unpopular Front
Democratic PR Firm to Run Bot Army for Israel Sludge
The circus of the emergency summit of OIC and Arab League GeoPolitiQ
Despite Gaza Carnage, Gaggles of Literary Editors and Agents Visit Tel Aviv Haaretz
***
European Disunion
A Scandal in Romania: Defeated Presidential Candidate Prosecuted European Conservative
EU Commission greenlights German long-term budget despite new debt DPA
One year since the Draghi report, the only progress is on spending on weapons. “The boundary between economy and security is increasingly blurred” Il Fatto Quotidiano (Machine translation)
Between Washington and Beijing: How Europe fits into US-China strategic competition Brookings
EU plans more sanctions on China. Will that be enough for Trump? Politico
New Not-So-Cold War
US military observers attend Russia-Belarus war games exercise European Interest
Zapad-2025 Drills Included Maneuvers with Russian Oreshnik Missiles Telesur
Exclusive: Trump administration clears first Ukraine arms aid paid for by allies, sources say Reuters
Ukraine’s coming financial storm INtellinews
South of the Border
Trump Says US Forces Sank Third Suspected Drug Boat off Venezuela Miami Herald
Trump 2.0
Unprecedented personal corruption, secret police seizing people off the streets, a crumbling economy where 80% of people can’t keep pace with inflation, a bizarre trade policy that harms US businesses, a collapsing farm economy, a foreign policy of extrajudicial murder.
— Nikhil Pal Singh (@nikhil_palsingh) September 16, 2025
‘I’ve Never Seen Anything Like It’: Trump Policies Leave US Farmers in Dire Straits Common Dreams
Grocery prices spike to highest level in 3 years in major blow to Trump The Mirror (Resilc)
Travel under Trump 2.0? Don’t cross a U.S. border without a “perfect burner phone” (Advice from an ACLU expert) It Is Happening
“They started to scream when I got into a restaurant, something with Palestine. with that. I’ve asked Pam to look into that because they should be put in jail.” – Donald Trump
RIP free speech.
— Spencer Hakimian (@SpencerHakimian) September 15, 2025
DOJ Deletes Study Showing Domestic Terrorists Are Most Often Right Wing 404 Media (Resilc)
(Chuck L):
BREAKING: Trump has ordered the removal of information on slavery at multiple national parks in an effort to scrub them of “corrosive ideology.
This famous photo is one of them.
Please paste this image everywhere. Don’t let them erase history.
Information at the President’s… pic.twitter.com/7ksOCIeQdq
— Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) September 15, 2025
DeSoto County sheriff clears space at jail ahead of National Guard’s deployment to Memphis Memphis Commercial Appeal
Memphis asks Shelby County chancellor to invalidate all agreements with city unions USA Today
Weimar Republic
Suspect in Charlie Kirk’s killing confessed in a text exchange with his roommate, prosecutor says CBS News. We can’t even get time stamps to corroborate Robinson’s knowledge of arrests and release of other suspects? Lots of commentary on the “convenience” of the exchange. Here are a few:
*****. Convenient that in-lieu of making a simple phone call to his lover, he chose to leave a digital trail providing a confession, intent, means, motive, state-of-mind, and confirming the weapon as his and where he got it from. This whole story reeks to high-hell. *****
— ShibaInubis (@ShibaInubis) September 16, 2025
When Jim Angleton was forging portions of Lee Oswald’s Russia diary, you knew you had a graduate of Yale’s English department doing the work. A guy who had corresponded with Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, e e cummings.
This shit is Praeger U pig slop. How far we’ve fallen as a nation. https://t.co/lOXLZjItwX
— Angleton’s Orchids (@AngletonOrchids) September 16, 2025
There is also supposedly a note:
FBI Director Patel says they have a note as evidence confirming the shooter even though the note doesn’t exist. What? This just keeps getting weirder and worse.pic.twitter.com/XlcAM6Kd0G
— Owen Shroyer (@OwenShroyer1776) September 15, 2025
It gets weirder:
Utah man who falsely claimed to be Charlie Kirk shooter hit with child porn charge after arrest Fox News
Exclusive: Leaked Messages from Charlie Kirk Assassin Ken Klippenstein. Separate from alleged confession texts. Discord chats that provide some insight into Robinson’s background.
Debunking A False Claim About the Shot that Killed Charlie Kirk Larry Johnson
***
Trump Administration Rushes To Kill Free Speech In Response To Kirk Assassination Caitlin Johnstone
California Lawmakers Back Censorship Disguised as Antisemitism Prevention LA Progressive
Accelerationists
Peter Thiel’s Antichrist Lectures Met With Protestors Who Seem to Think He’s the Antichrist Gizmodo
AI
Writing by hand!?: Teachers are going old-school in the fight against AI Salon
Google unveils master plan for letting AI shop on your behalf The Register
Police State Watch
Criminals broke into the system Google uses to share info with cops The Register
Economy
US economy: stagflation now more than a whiff Michael Roberts
Imperial Collapse Watch
BRICS & The Failure to Save Gaza: A “New Multipolar World Order” Or Just More Bosses? Fiorella Isabel and Vanessa Beeley (Video with summary)
Sports Desk
The Official Charity Of The Savannah Bananas Has A Hard Time Explaining How Its Money Is Spent Defector
What the World Cup Explains About Our Price Dystopia Boondoggle. Another recent example:
Rich people have gotten so rich, any event with any level of exclusivity prices out 99% of people https://t.co/eqBQxmmN0J
— David 🏹 (@d_gilz) September 7, 2025
Groves of Academe
Kafka-land at UC Berkeley The Nation
Our Famously Free Press
House Arab Bidoun
Class Warfare
Affordable Housing Out of Reach for Half of All U.S. Workers Governing
When the desert floods: Keeping housing affordable after disaster Working Class Storytelling
R.I.P Robert Redford ~ Three Days Of The Condor (1975) pic.twitter.com/SaisxSA99a
— Samuel J. May (@sjmay92) September 16, 2025
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
“Studies Reveal The Best Ways to Chemically Bond With Your Cat”
My first thought in reading that headline was if that chemical was shampoo, then forget it.
One of the dumbest things I ever did during my youth: To try to solve my cat’s flea problem, I thought it would be a good idea to vacuum up some flea powder into the vacuum cleaner, and then vacuum the fleas and flea eggs off my cat so that they would end up in the vacuum bag with all the flea powder. The cat looked at me with suspicion as I held him close. Less than a second after I turned on the vaccum cleaner, I realized I had made a terrible mistake. I had a bite mark on my hand and scratches everywhere else. In hindsight, I can understand my cat’s perspective. But it seemed like a good idea at the time ….
‘But it seemed like a good idea at the time ….’
Words sketched on many a tombstone.
>>>Please paste this image everywhere. Don’t let them erase history.
Blowback stinks doesn’t it.
The Lost Art Of Thinking Historically Noema
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My occupation required lots of time travel, I might be in the Roman Empire in the morning and experiencing Napoleon’s ‘100 Days’ in the afternoon, all via metal talismans rarely larger than a couple inches in diameter.
No other relic is as common as coins, and it certainly shaped me, being exposed to the past all the time-the perfect adjunct to reading about such things, albeit with tangible evidence… how cool is that!
Coins that were worth the most were essentially virgins that never made it into circulation and thus were preserved perfectly.
The ones that were worth the least had heavy duty over many decades and were worn to the bone. They were more interesting to me from a historical standpoint, think of the circumstances of circulation over that span. The mind boggles.
I couldn’t help but lap up monetary history, and its interesting how empires and countries went, waxing and waning financially, and the record of what went down is right in front of your very eyes, a silent round sentinel of sorts.
The Guardian had an article about the US Open, critizing it as “less (a) sporting event than aspirational brand”, but at the same time declares this to be the irrevocable course of events:
“So is it bad? From one angle, yes: the commodification of everything, from caviar-flecked poultry to celebrity cameos, can be seen as crass or even obscene. But from another, it is simply the way we live now.”
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/sep/07/us-open-influencers-coachella-prices-money
‘Samuel J. May
@sjmay92
R.I.P Robert Redford ~ Three Days Of The Condor (1975)’
They cut off that clip way too early and took away the punch. Here is a different version-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5oHT6ojvIs (1:36 mins)
Another of Redford’s social commentary films was “The Candidate” and the speech he has the candidate makes is kinda jarring when you think that this was in 1972-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmltOTdkIxw (2:35 mins)
All Is Lost (2013)
Thanks for mentioning this remarkable movie.
In 1972, Tom Harkin made his first run for Congress. Harkin looks nothing like Robert Redford but Bill Scherle, Tom’s opponent, was a dead ringer for Redford’s opponent in the movie. It was Harkin’s first campaign. He beat Scherle in 1974. I’m pretty sure all the Watergate babies took notes while watching The Candidate because 1974 was a very good year for antiwar Democrats (who have not had a good year ever since).
Thanks to Rev Kev for supplying the most relevant and prescient line from Three Days of the Condor. It was a more accurate depiction of reality than that in Redford’s more famous movie just a year later: All The President’s Men. On that subject, Watergate was also very good for Democrats in 1974 – though the Myth serves to obscure a more complex history (that seems to be a theme in today’s commentary).
Curtain call for Woodward and Bernstein?
or
Discreet exit from public life after decades of dining out.
Watching it right now!
Wow what a great movie!!!!
Sydney Pollack with another great political thriller. Love Redfords Everyman CIA agent fighting against his corrupt bosses.
Between this and Rollerball, 1975 is a hellava year for movies!
Robert Redford & Faye Dunaway have great chemistry too.
I hate to bring up MCU as a matter of principle, but Alexander Pierce and Project Insight? Seems especially apt now since that is basically the reality.
They might have printed it then. Now neither interest or courage.
Re There is also supposedly a note. Patel boasts they found out what the note contained thanks to the “aggressive interview posture of the FBI”. Wow yet another euphemism for torture to go alongside the “Enhanced interrogation techniques” of the CIA.
Has Patel made any claims as to the media? Paper? Text? Macaroni glued on construction paper?
No clear narrative here but this age group doesn’t make a phone call unless a beloved elderly relative is involved. Or draconian parents or bosses.
Re: Magical SystemsThinking
This appears to be the author. Presumably ‘starting simple’ means “with mice”?
He lost me when he used Forrester’s model for The Club of Rome as an example of failure to forecast complex systems.
He seemed to have some interesting ideas, but this premise is so counterfactual I moved on to “Injury to Buildings and Vegetables”, which struck me as a re-framing of Ulrich Becks, “Risk Society”.
What the World Cup Explains About Our Price Dystopia Boondoggle.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We’re contemplating going to the Breeders’ Cup @ Del Mar around Halloween, and the ‘oval office’ is a different set up than the World Cup or US Open, in that I tend to walk all over the track in the course of a day at the races in order to get a particular kind of view of goings on, plus it’s a people watching paradise too, maybe I’ve bought a seat half a dozen times in say 400 days of being a racetrack degenerate.
So, it’s a Benjamin for general admission to what is horse racing’s Super Bowl of sorts, with 14 ‘games’ to watch over the 2 day spectacle, the cream de la cream of the crop.
Still plenty of general admission’s available, which gives you an idea of the popularity of horse racing versus human racing.
Could you imagine Super Bowl get in seats for $100 available right up until game time?
Too bad about those Alcaraz-Sinner ticketholders who paid $1000 to then miss the first set because Trump wanted to attend, creating a huge security delay.
I thought of going to see Yunchan Lim (genius pianist) at the NY Phil concert this week. Cheapest seat: $375 including an $80 “fee.”
OTOH, there is still a lot of free stuff here in the summer, often with first-rate talent.
You can see him in Rome for 23 Euro. Even with the flight, it may be cheaper….
My suspicion is that scalpers are able to target what they think are going to be popular events, buy up all the tickets, and then sell them on the secondary market. I still don’t know why it’s illegal to scalp a ticket on the sidewalk in front of a venue but A-OK to jack up the price and resell online, but that’s where we are.
I had a really odd experience several years ago now. There was a pretty obscure band called Sleep coming to my area. They play Black Sabbath-esque music so had a reputation as a “stoner” band. They hadn’t put out an album for about 20 years, and that was one 60 minute song. Not exactly a toe tapper. The show was April 20 – aka “420”, also a “stoner” number. When I went to buy tickets ahead of time, the show had sold out. The band added a 2nd night though so I got tickets to the April 21 show instead with no problem at all, and the venue was definitely not packed.
It made me wonder whether someone or somebot had picked up on a “stoner” band playing on a “stoner” date and snatched up all the tickets. Then maybe the band added the 2nd date to thwart whomever had purchased all the tickets for the show the day before to keep fans from being ripped off. None of the other shows on their tour that year sold out way ahead of time that I recall – they aren’t exactly Taylor Swift when it comes to demand for tickets.
“ I still don’t know why it’s illegal to scalp a ticket on the sidewalk in front of a venue but A-OK to jack up the price and resell online, but that’s where we are.”
Because on-line the biz business gets a taste. Person to person sales in the street, they don’t. Now don’t ask me why Live Nation is allowed to run a ticket scalping site.
(Also, very cool you were at that Sleep show. I wonder how well attended the other night was.)
My favorite scalper story ever…
Used to go to LA Kings games with friends, always on a last minute notice gig, a few hours before they dropped the puck. We’d converge on the then new Staples Center and tix had always been no issue in past forays on the ice, but this mid-week game had nothing but singles for $95 at the box office, ye gads did we pick a bad night or what.
I tell my 5 friends to fan out and look for somebody facing out, they’re probably trying to sell tickets, and time goes by and the puck dropped 5 minutes ago when I spy an awkward white guy who asks if I’m a cop when I inquire about tickets, a rank amateur…
He’s got 6 tix for a luxury box, but we can’t go there as its full of doctors, lawyers and Indian chiefs, so we’d be walking around, and he wants $300, so I remind him of precious play on the ice proceeding in the first period and grind him down to $200, done deal, i’m the hero for the day among my friends, and we stride towards the entrance and the ticket taker, says we got to use the VIP entrance instead, oooh la la and up the escalator we go.
It’s definitely cush-away from the hoi polloi eating slurpees made from the scrapings of a Zamboni machine (yes, that’s tiger’s blood syrup-not Dave Tiger Williams blood) but we’re stranded standing up, can’t get in the restaurant because its booked, its a great deal but we’re adrift, when my friend Lisa spies an empty luxury box that has 25 seats, and decides to go and try the door, and open sesame, in we go…
We lived in somewhat of a fear that JLS Rentals would show up, as that’s who owned said box, according to a metal plaque in the liquor cabinet full of bottles of everything that we helped ourselves to in conservative amounts, it was more the idea of drinking a luxury box’s liquor if you know what I mean and I think you do.
We went from despair of being shut out of the game in entirety, to living the life of Riley.
And this morning there is an equity market IPO offering by StubHub. “Ironic, don’t ya think…a little too ironic, yeah I really do think…”
Ever since LiveNation became an event hosting monster is it really a shock that pricing for live events reflects the active interest of a concert goer or attending say an NFL game. Anecdotally I’d be curious what golf fans will be paying to attend the Ryder Cup next week at Bethpage in New York. Yes I’m familiar with the apparent unpopular aspect or discussion golf and golf courses…
Obligatory knock on golf joke…
Knock knock
Who’s there?
Fore!
Fore! who?
Foreclosure, we’re turning this 18 hole course into condos.
Dynamic pricing sucks and I am so disappointed. My daughter and I are soccer fans. She graduates from high school next spring and so over a year ago, I created a plan to get tickets to a Round of 32 game, fully expecting they would cost some money, but being the Round of 32, I thought we could swing it. Take the train to Philly, see the match, maybe need a hotel, get home, maybe a grand or $1200 including travel, and inflated meals and accommodations for her and I to have a capital-E “Experience-of-a-Lifetime” before she leaves for college. That’s not playing around money to our family, but it was like the money we spent to see Hamilton as a family several years ago – a life long memory.
Thanks to dynamic pricing, the plan is dead. Two tickets in the nosebleeds for the July 2 game in Philly will run $3,400 and that is before the fees are tacked on at checkout. Forget travel and meals. My husband (who is a big WWE fan) and I were just talking about how increasingly, fans cannot go and see things they love any longer. He won’t get to go see a live WWE show in December he wanted to attend because of the same dynamic pricing. Now, tickets to many events are a status symbol, regardless of whether you enjoy the presentation or not.
That said, last night, my daughter got to see Hozier live in Bristow, VA, and he is one of her favorite music artists of all time. When the tickets for the lawn went on sale earlier this year for $40, I jumped to get her one, even though at the time we had no idea how she would get there or how she would deal with it on a school night (it all worked out beautifully). Yes, she was in the cheap seats in the rain, but exhausted and happy this morning before she left for school, she said she wouldn’t have traded the experience for the world.
Someone who celebrated the recent Southern Decadence festival in the French Quarter told me that they used dynamic pricing at one of the bars during peak hours.
😬
This is a terrible move and will kill local tourism more than it already is.
From the not-to-be-missed comments of the Onion-esque Gizmodo story on the lovable Peter Thiel: Periodical reminder that Peter Thiel is an anagram for The Reptile.
A strangely clueless stepchild of John Poindexter and Total Information Awareness, this The Reptile. Is the better explanation severe psychological aberration or in-the-know mockery? I would consult his version of Gospel, but it seems to have been checked out by Israel.
Hey! I have know some perfectly pleasant iguanas and turtles and lizards! Don’t insult them.
First rejoinder to the Gizmodo comment: That’s unfair. To lizards.
‘Spencer Hakimian
@SpencerHakimian
“They started to scream when I got into a restaurant, something with Palestine. with that. I’ve asked Pam to look into that because they should be put in jail.” – Donald Trump
RIP free speech.’
He is doing similar on the international stage. An Aussie reporter questioned him about his financial dealings since becoming President. Trump flipped out and said-
‘In my opinion, you are hurting Australia very much right now. And they want to get along with me. You know, your leader is coming over to see me very soon. I’m going to tell him about you. You set a very bad tone’
The implication is that if a foreign reporter asks him a “bad” question, then he might punish that reporter’s country and will demand that the leader of that country do something about that reporter-
https://theconversation.com/trump-accuses-abc-journalist-of-hurting-australia-and-says-hell-report-him-to-albanese-265378
Such a muppet.
He’s going to look into RICO prosecution for a leaderless non organization that is just a protest tactic (Black Bloc)
Trump DOJ should talk to the folks that tried to RICO George Christie, the former president of the Ventura Hells Angel’s ; long story short it’s extremely difficult and burdensome, and they weren’t at all successful.
Poor Donnie with his poor little ego, everyone’s always yelling at him ! Cry me a river bud.
It obviously bugs the crap out of him, so keep it up everyone!
Re: Palantir among arms giants snapping up ex-Tory defence ministers
Contains one of my favourite photos.
Trump tries to raise Thiel’s hand in salute. Thiel has a visceral reaction and his distaste/contempt for Trump is writ large on his face. There’s a lot to be understood from the image imo.
IIRC from a meeting Thiel brokered between Trump and the tech-lords early in Trump1.
I don’t think it is Trump-specific.
I think Peter Thiel does not like the meat puppets touching his carapace, in case it falls off and reveals The Reptile.
Regarding R.I.P. Robert Redford – Three Days of the Condor (1975)
The most immediately relevant part of the closing scene, Cliff Robertson’s Higgins character’s question, referring to the New York Times, “How do you know they’ll print it?” was not in the post. It can be seen here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZNnDiDSUiI
Even when the film was released that line was chilling. And as the years past and the press became more complicit it has gotten more prescient. Fifty years on and that “solution “ would not even have been a realistic consideration.
I do love that movie though.
Heh, the NY Times Iraq story cover-up was certainly evidence of this in this century, the story they held until after Bush won reelection I believe. Or was that one on warrantless wiretapping? I can’t keep all the scandals straight anymore.
It was one of a group of “Paranoid Thrillers”
of the time (ie Watergate and the Church Hearings) such as The Parallax View, The
Conversation, The China Syndrome, Executive Action…
My personal favorite among them is William Richert’s Winter Kills, with Jeff Bridges. Prescient and hilarious, it’s hard to imagine how it was ever made…
Winter Kills,
Mine too!
The Conversation and Blow Out make a great double feature
‘it’s hard to imagine how it was ever made…’
Well…..
‘Leonard Goldberg and Robert Sterling, drug dealers with little film experience, optioned the book…Sterling and Goldberg had previously worked on releasing the French softcore Emmanuelle films in the U.S…Many actors were never paid ….Goldberg was murdered just before the movie’s opening and Sterling was later sentenced to 40 years in prison for marijuana smuggling.’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_Kills_(film)
“Freeland quits Carney’s Cabinet to become Ukraine envoy”
With any luck she will stay there and join that lizard, David Frum, among Canada’s most noxious exports.
C’mon, eg. It’ll be great for her. She’ll be able to visit old family relatives and connect up with all those Nazi organizations direct instead of just the Canadian branches. Who knows? She might be able to get herself an Azov tattoo as a memorial of her stay in the Ukraine. Of course if Russia collapses the Ukraine, then her visit might get cut short. Maybe Victoria Nuland can help her find a place at Columbia Uni then.
O Canada!
Lorne Greene’s home and native land!
True expatriate love of Ben Cartwright all of us command
With glowing hearts we see thee rise
Of Neil Young, Joni Mitchell & Monty Hall
From far and wide
O Canada, we stand up for an ovation for thee
God keep our land glorious and free of Freeland!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee
Zelenskyy’s replacement?
Governor of the remnant Ukraine Protectorate? Perfect! She already has a condo in Kyiv, so, no problem!
ON reflection, I think you are on to something. Ukraine needs to hold elections – she is an ideal candidate – Ukrainian citizenship, speaks fluent Ukrainian, condo in Kyiv, very good connections (Mark Carney is her child’s godfather) and a somewhat untarnished reputation. I think that’s an operative plan.
Sparta was ultimately defeated by Macedonia, I tried to come up with an analogy but I was unsuccessful.
Thoughts?
Sparta was an ally of Israel, as they were both descendants of Abraham. I’m not sure what the analog of Macedonia is.
Sparta’s main opponent back then was Persia. They fought the “famous” Battle of Thermopylae against them. Exactly the same applies to the “modern” Sparta. Their main opponent is also Persia. Persia ended up burning Athens back then. Who is the ‘modern’ Sparta’s Athens now?
But during the Peloponnesian War between Sparta and Athens, Sparta eventually went to Persia for resources to finally win the war which they did. Not a popular move in Greece though. One should really see how the Spartans were judged in modern times-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparta#Laconophilia
I think that the Israelis see themselves as the new Spartans because of the Spartan treatment of the original inhabitants – the Helots – and the Rabbis speak approvingly of slavery.
My understanding is the Book of the Maccabees that I quoted was written after the downfall of Sparta, so that Judea was positioning itself as the successor to Sparta. Athens (under the 30 tyrants) presumably corresponds to the US (under Trump).
Thank you for the history lesson, that’s great !
Look up MalagaBay blogspot.
Some history has been made up.
– ‘The Lost Art Of Thinking Historically’ – Noema
Maybe it’s just me, but did anyone else notice the *deep* irony in this article? On the one hand, it argues for historical complexity and contingency, and against simplistic explanations of the past based on our own biases or narrow contemporary vision. I wholeheartedly agree with this stance. But then the opening (and closing) example which frames this entire piece is an excellent illustration of the latter.
As a central part of our postwar “history” (in both usages of this term: actual events and the academic study of these events), the Vietnam war is mentioned several times in this article. Toward the end we get this:
“Thinking historically begins by questioning vertical and horizontal time. The vertical axis asks: How did we get here? It is the rigorous construction of a chronology, not as a mere list of dates, but as a map of cause and effect… The horizontal axis asks: What else is happening? It recognizes that history is not a single storyline but a thick tapestry of interwoven threads. The decision to escalate the war in Vietnam, for example, cannot be fully understood without examining the parallel, and seemingly contradictory, efforts by the same administration to cooperate with the Soviet Union on nuclear nonproliferation…”
Interesting. What administration was that? I assume this was a reference to Kennedy, who famously initiated the nonproliferation path in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Did his administration decide to *escalate* the war in Vietnam? No. Quite the contrary, as our understanding of the messy “history” of that era has increasingly shown. One can make a very good argument today that Kennedy was preparing to get us out of Vietnam. The escalation started in the next administration – almost immediately after that day in November 1963.
So perhaps that day in history was not as insignificant in regards to Vietnam – and therefore subsequent US history – as is often asserted by our court historians. Perhaps we should examine the complex history in which that day was embedded – “vertically” and “horizontally.” But this is not what our “historians” have done. Rather, they have asserted – with extreme prejudice – two quite simplistic stories. First, the President was killed that day by a “lone nut” assassin, at any attempt to argue otherwise “reveals our deep-seated human desire to make sense of a complex universe through tidy, airtight explanations.” The author reinforces this view with his opening example. Instead of choosing any one of hundreds of known facts that challenge the official narrative, he purposely chooses one – the “Umbrella Man” – to illustrate how silly those who question this narrative must be. Some “tidy, airtight explanations” are better than others, I guess.
The other simplistic story provided by our court historians is that this “random, idiosyncratic, and meaningless” act didn’t matter much anyway, since the Johnson administration simply continued the policies of the Kennedy administration. So it really doesn’t matter that the administration doing the nonproliferation and the one doing the escalation isn’t identified. The problem is, the history of this period is indeed much more complex, because there is much evidence today that had Kennedy lived, the role of the US in Vietnam would have been much different. For someone questioning our tendency toward “simplistic” historical explanations, I would have hoped for a more sophisticated understanding.
Perhaps this has something to do with the author’s own academic history and the positions he had held:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_J._Gavin
Thanks for deep analysis, pjay.
I simply noticed the praise for Bernanke’s wonderful historical awareness in 2008 and backed off, nostrils twitching.
That’s where it lost me too. Did Bernanke’s historical awareness really save the day, or has the definitive history that we all agree upon just not been written yet?
If you’re part of the 1%, you might see Bernanke’s moves to preserve a corrupt system to protect your wealth as beneficial. For the rest of us though, preserving the status quo that shovels more and more wealth to those who don’t need it hasn’t worked out nearly as well.
Agreed, that the article was enjoyable enough until we got to the Bernanke example used as a ‘success’. He’s right that Bernanke was indeed a scholar of the Great Depression, but, did he learn the right lessons from that period? And, did he successfully apply those lessons?
What did that ‘success’ look like? Was there a sharp-eyed vision to anticipate events from Bernanke? Nope, he made statements like, “subprime is contained” well into the depths of the period. He wasn’t sweating consumer debt levels because he brushed it off with a (paraphrased) remark to the effect of, ‘debt isn’t super important because one party’s debts are another party’s assets and it all just nets out to zero.’
It was rather curious how the nuance and complexity of those events got lost on the guy who’s all about appreciating nuance and complexity. When you look at Bernanke’s policy’s, they’re mostly various forms of providing lots of money to banks. After all, that was the main crux of Bernanke’s scholarship. Save the banks and stop the depression. Bernanke’s view of ‘save the banks’ included their top management, shareholders, counterparties and very little in the way of accountability for the obvious recklessness of the players involved.
What’s really going on here is that, yes, we can agree that history is complex. But we should also be wary of scholars who’ve claim they’ve ‘learned’ from it, because those scholars are often ideologically inclined and have a warped and incomplete view of events and an agenda they’d like to push. Academic credentials can provide great cover for great corruption.
Connecting with another topic above, historical scholars of today look at ancient Sparta very differently than scholars from 100 years ago. Today’s scholars understand Athenian propaganda was a helluva drug. The Romans pushed the same story, hundreds of years later.
True that. See also, just about any think tank in Washington.
Johnson retained Kennedy’s Best and Brightest; there was no substantive pause in the inexorable escalation during Kennedy’s presidency. This contrasts with the realities of intervention in Laos and the sober assessment there was no feasible route for direct intervention. There was no practical access ro a landlocked country. The Best and Brightest warmongers didn’t miss a beat pressing their case. And going from 15,000 “advisors” to 550,000 took considerable time and planning. Kennedy had ample opportunity to hit the brakes (as Eisenhower did). He didn’t.
The warmongers were pushing Kennedy to send regular troops in from almost the beginning of his administration. Each time he resisted. The administration was debating withdrawal throughout 1963. There was indeed much resistance from the warmongers, but by November there were plans in place to begin withdrawing the “advisors.” This has always been asserted by the “liberals” in Kennedy’s administration, but they were always written off as Kennedy hagiographers. However, the central “best and brightest” warmonger – MacNamara – said the same thing. The dominant narrative was the opposite. But with the document declassifications of the 1990s, enough evidence had accumulated to provide a more accurate portrait of what was going on behind the scenes. Who knows what would have actually occurred had Kennedy lived. But he was definitely trying to find a way out of Vietnam, and there were definite plans in place to begin this process, which according to some of his confidants he had planned to complete after the 1964 election.
The best short introduction to the relevant argument is probably the well-known essay by James K. Galbraith:
https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/galbraith-exit-strategy-vietnam/
The most comprehensive documentation is probably in John Newman’s book, JFK and Vietnam (the second edition), but there is a decent body of literature on this now. Most mainstream historians still regurgitate the official “continuity” narrative, as they do with the Kennedy assassination. In my view this is a very significant distortion of history, for the reason I state above. Chomsky and Hersh are most responsible perpetuating this view on the “left” (that’s a whole thing in itself which I’ll avoid ranting about here). But for most “leftists” and liberals alike, by far the most influential source of this continuity argument is the best-selling book by David Halberstam which made your label famous: ‘The Best and the Brightest.’ You are right that most of these officials contributed to the steady escalation once Johnson was President. But your are wrong that there was no attempt to “hit the brakes” in the previous administration.
Kennedy created the Green Berets to kill Vietnamese people more efficiently, and authorized Operation Ranch Hand, to defoliate their country with Agent Orange.
How exactly does he differ from LBJ, or Nixon?
The Green Berets were created in the 1950s. It’s true Kennedy was a supporter of the Special Forces in Vietnam, but that was the type of war it was then, at least in terms of US involvement. I’m not sure they were more efficient in killing Vietnamese than was the bombing the s**t out of them method of Johnson and Nixon.
How did he differ from LBJ or Nixon? Not bombing the s**t out of Vietnamese for one thing, or sending half a million regular army troops to occupy or destroy much of the country even when his hawkish-to-superhawk military advisers were pushing for it. No one is arguing that Kennedy was some sort of saintly peacenik. He wasn’t. But he was a realist who understood the situation in Vietnam and was willing to buck the ideologues on the mess he had inherited from Eisenhower. Again, who knows what would have happened had he lived. But Kennedy had taken their heat to avoid war during both the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban missile crisis. He was certainly taking their heat with by pushing the Nuclear Test Ban treaty. There’s a strong argument that he would have been able to resist this pressure more successfully than his successor. Maybe not. But the Chomskyan argument that he was no different than the Presidents before or after is simply not true.
‘Disclose.tv
@disclosetv
NOW – Netanyahu addresses a Democrat and Republican U.S. Congressional delegation in Israel: “But do you have cell phones? You have cell phones here? You’re holding a piece of Israel right there. You know that?” ‘
I can see how that might play out one day-
‘Hey, Senator Filibuster. That’s a Huawei mobile I see that you have. That’s un American!’
‘Maybe. But I don’t have to worry about answering a call one day and having half my face blow off or maybe kiddie pron appearing on it.’
!???!?!!!
People used to make fun of the old Soviet Union when it pretended to have invented everything.
200 eyes for every eye
IDF let loose with big guns all over the cloistered hood, eh
(Gaza City, here we come)
You know it’s not innovative, it’s a Warsaw Ghetto like oldie but a goodie
(Gaza City, here we come)
Well, the residents really have nowhere to go
Everybody is waiting for Godot
And we’re goin’ to Gaza City, ’cause it’s 200 to one
You know we’re goin’ to Gaza City, gonna have to expunge
You know we’re goin’ to Gaza City, ’cause it’s 200 to one
You know we’re goin’ to Gaza City, gonna have to expunge, now
200 eyes for every eye
And if my Merkava breaks down on me somewhere on the invasion route
(Gaza City, here we come)
I’ll strap my Uzi to my back and hitch a ride in my Kevlar armored suit
(Gaza City, here we come)
And when I get to Gaza City I’ll be shootin’ everything but a squirrel
And checkin’ out the civilians for a dirt nap curl
And we’re goin’ to Gaza City, ’cause it’s 200 to one
You know we’re goin’ to Gaza City, gonna have to expunge
You know we’re goin’ to Gaza City, ’cause it’s 200 to one
You know we’re goin’ to Gaza City, gonna haave to expunge, now
200 eyes for every—200 eyes for every eye
They say we’ll roll the streets and get some settlements goin’
(Gaza City, here we come)
You know they’re out sufferin’ with indignation growin’
(Gaza City, here we come)
Yeah, and there’s two kinds of Semitic guise
And all you gotta do is use the kill—ratio, 200 eyes for an eye
And we’re goin’ to Gaza City, ’cause it’s 200 to one
You know we’re goin’ to Gaza City, gonna have to expunge
You know we’re goin’ to Gaza City, ’cause it’s 200 to one
You know we’re goin’ to Gaza City, gonna have to expunge, now
200 eyes for every lost Israeli eye
Surf City, by Jan & Dean
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERrwjR4ZlfI&list=RDERrwjR4ZlfI
I’ve asked Pam to look into that because they should be put in jail.” – Donald Trump
Dear libertarians who pretend Trump is the medicine America needs please read. It seems those liberty scolds on the right are coming from the same place as the moral scolds on the left–“its ok when we do it” (the thing we’ve been complaining about). One almost has to conclude that much of what goes on in our public life has little to do with ideas or principles at all but boils down to mere factionalism. The founders worried about this (and then proceeded to do it themselves).
Always been partial to the acronym IOKIYAx, where you substitute the relevant tribal affiliation for x.
Take IOKIYAR. It expands to “It’s okay if you’re a Republican.” The corollary: It’s not okay if you’re a Democrat, or anyone outside the group. It’s the same for IOKIYAD. Just flip the terms.
If I do it, it’s common sense, perfectly reasonable, and utterly benign; if you do it, it’s misguided at best, beyond the pale, and an imminent threat, and should be treated as such.
And now “do” also means “say.” But don’t worry. Traditions are sacred. The U.S.ians aren’t about to lose their Bill of Rights. It will simply be supplemented by a Bill of Wrongs.
This case demonstrates that the usual liberal (here I also include “conservatives,” as we have two liberal parties)/libertarian screeds against censorship are utopian fantasies.
Any regime that wants to rule a stable country to carry out the regime’s class project must institute censorship. For most of the 20th century, America was a heavily censored society, either directly via a pretext like moral panic (the see the “comics code”) or via economic means (“Go ahead and publish your crazy book; we will not distribute it, nor publicize it, and no one will read it”). The television I watched as a child was thoroughly censored–you could not even say certain words. The NYT articles my parents read were censored, though to such a subtle extent that they thought they were being informed rather than steered toward a particular opinion! Really, 20th century America was a censor’s masterpiece as the people believed they lived in a society of free debate when in fact debate was highly controlled.
A regime that does not stabilize society through censorship or lacks the means to impose censorship allows opportunists to scam and degrade the people (gambling ads on TV and Youtube absolutely should be verboten) or to seize the political initiative, build a following, destabilize the regime, and replace it with a new one. Of course, the new regime must, if it is to rule an orderly society, impose censorship or die trying.
The fact that the Biden regime failed in its attempt to implement a new censorship regime over social media demonstrates not that it was foolish but that it was weak. The Trump administration will of course attempt a second time to implement Biden’s censorship project (with a different “moral panic” pretext). Will it succeed? I doubt it. I don’t think the administration’s strong enough, which means America will be at the mercy of the opportunist influencers, who’ll continue to prey upon the people as ticks upon a dog’s ear.
“India ‘crosses red line’ by joining Russia-Belarus war games”
I don’t think that the Indians are in the mood to tolerate finger-wagging from various European officials anymore. No doubt they want to see how modern warfare is conducted and would note the presence of two American military observers at these games.
Nonsense as a headline.
I googled the guy whose quote is in said headline:
Ulrich Speck is a foreign policy analyst based in Heidelberg and Brussels. He is currently a Visiting Scholar at Carnegie Europe in Brussels and writes a foreign policy column for a Swiss newspaper, Neue Zürcher Zeitung. Speck worked for a number of German media outlets, was head of the newsroom at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Prague, and a DAAD fellow at the American-German Institute (AGI) in Washington, DC in 2006. His articles have been published by the New York Times, the Financial Times, CNN.com, RealClearWorld, Open Democracy, and leading German newspapers and journals. Speck has co-edited books on the Revolution of 1848, on American Empire, and on Modern Antisemitism.
Ah – thx! Not a useful source of information, then……a propagandist for empire.
So, just thinking out loud, if India ‘crossed a red line’ and Europe does nothing about it, how is it a “red line?”
Quoth Kurt Russell, in Tombstone. “You gonna do something, or just stand there and bleed?”
It’s Federal Reserve Decision Day. By this afternoon we’ll come to a point where inflation hawks or inflation doves win the contest to ease on the Reserve’s targeted interest rate. There are sufficient arguments in favor of an easing cycle ( slower job growth being tantamount ) but also there is a wide swathe of US consumers who may benefit if interest rates were trending down on their outstanding debt levels. Lots of hand wringing and rightly so, that the inflation genie won’t return to his bottle; but that just may be a built in feature go forward.
I can’t cut in with the South Park take on the decision making process but that is always a salient reminder….the headless chicken roulette scene….\Sarc
They are between bad job reports (if to be believed) and under measured inflation which will continue to go up. The market is close to all times highs, but that’s not a bubble… They will cut 25 bps according to most. They have cut twice before when markets are close to all time highs. Articles say the last times this happened the market went up for the next year and people made money. Giddy up!
The everything bubble will continue – until it doesn’t. I think this will be a sell the news event as the underlying data is not good. They don’t ring a bell at the top as the old saying goes. But I do. Ding, ding, ding. The gig is up.
Watch the GDP deflator for final real domestic purchases, it has been sneaked down slowly until it is now 1.8%. In the face of all the inventory turmoil this is what matters. While everyone is watching CPI and PCE they do their best work with the GDP deflators. BEA out on Friday.
Fed chose stagflation over meme’s stagnation.
Two more pumps this year.
Fed has slowed reducing the balance sheet, check Thursday H4.1.
Chase bogus jobs data how low?
Packing the Fed like a Clown Car
(Sung to the tune of, “Back in the U.S.S.R.” by the Beatles)
(with hat tip to Mick Jagger)
[Verse 1]
Flew in from Miami Beach for more QE
Didn’t get to bed last night
On they way the paper money was on my knee
Powell had a dreadful fright
Chorus:
I’m packing the Fed like a clown car
Don’t know how lucky you are, boys
Packing the Fed like a clown car!
Been away so long, I hardly knew the place
Gee, it’s good to be back home
Leave it to the legal sharks to plead my case
Honey, disconnect the phoney gold
I’m packing the Fed like a clown car
You don’t know how lucky you are, boys
Packing the Fed like,
Packing the Fed like,
Packing the Fed like a clown car!
[Bridge]
(Well) The Ukraine war really knocked me out (Ooh, ooh-ooh-ooh)
They’ll leave huge debts behind
And liar loans make me sing and shout (Ooh, ooh-ooh-ooh)
That ZIRP is always on my mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mind
(Go ahead, bite the big TACO – don’t mind the MAGATS!)
[Guitar Solo]
I’m packing the Fed like a clown car
Don’t know how lucky you are, boys
Packing the Fed like a clown car!
Bridge]
(Well) The Ukraine war really knocked me out (Ooh, ooh-ooh-ooh)
It’ll leave huge debts behind
And liar loans make me sing and shout (Ooh, ooh-ooh-ooh)
That ZIRP is always on my mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mind
[Verse 3]
Oh, show me ’round your crap McMansions way down South
Re-finance your daddy’s farm
Let me hear your cash-out mortgage ringing out
Come and keep Bernanke warm
I’m packing the Fed like a clown car
Don’t know how lucky you are, boys
Packing the Fed like a clown car!
Hey, ZIRP is back!
(Ooh, ooh-ooh-ooh)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS5_EQgbuLc&list=RDnS5_EQgbuLc
RE: Magical systems thinking
That article reminded my quite a bit of the Big Ball of Mud paper which theorizes how software systems go bad – http://www.laputan.org/mud/
If I’m remembering correctly, the basic theory is that someone creates a simple system that works very well for the task at hand. Then one of the users asks for a bell to improve things a little bit, another asks for a whistle, and things get more complex. At some point it becomes too complex for even the system creator to understand anymore, that person gets frustrated, quits, and nobody else knows how to really operate it anymore.
I think you could extrapolate these ideas to whole societies/civilizations/empires to describe how they rise and fall. As the society grows, it inevitably gets more complex so that nobody fully understands what’s going on, not even economists (!). A person with some inspiration can create something that works, and if it works, more people will want to use it, and as more people use it, even more people need to be trained in order to keep everything running smoothly. Some of those people are more skilled than others, and at some point you make do with what you have to keep the system running, and it may wind up being held together with gum, string and scotch tape. In short, it’s all about the maintenance.
We’re seeing the inability to maintain the complex societal systems everywhere now, and things fall apart.
And there are those of us that know how to rebuild societies.
It’s our time to shine 😃
#EconomicPopulism
#DebtJubilee
my eldest asked me, when he was like 14…and we were moving all my books into this here funky trailerhouse that serves as my Library…”why do you have so many books?”
i said, “this here is a back-up drive for civilisation, hon…”
Haha
Hell yeah bro
I used to think the same thing marveling at my grandparents home libraries filled with the knowledge of the languages of Western Civilization.
Then Katrina wacked them and they lost all of it.
That’s why I believe we need to be Proactive.
I wanted to like this article more. It was really good initially on describing the phenomenon of complex systems and their resistance / unpredictability to change.
However, a lot of the later examples of supposedly taking a simple working system and iterating on it to replace a complex system with a better one were nothing of the sort. Presidential waivers and short lines of communication etc. are just special cases of the existing system. They are literally created within it! They are new solutions to the competing demands of interest groups within the old system. And the resulting “Apollo projects” did not displace the Pentagon procurement system, which metastasised away in the background.
In fairness, though, I struggle to find good examples of one system replacing another. Perhaps the decline of circuit-switched networks and the rise of packet-switched ones is an example? Maybe the containerisation of shipping? SMS is a good one, maybe: originally an internal feature for network engineers, it was repurposed into a text communication tool and then into picture messaging and billing systems etc. I suppose Tesla is an example: an automotive company is a complex system and Tesla started with the simplest, single factory single model no dealers ecosystem and iterated from there.
It is notable that these are not government directed supplantings of one system by another but displacements of one ecosystem by another, even if many actors are common to both. But I think this goes back to my point that this kind of change, the abandonment of one system to another, has to come from without the first system. Top down reordering or special measures don’t count, that is still within the original complex system.
I posted above, maybe it’ll drift out of moderation, this article lost me when it used Forrester’s model, which was the basis of Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William W. Behrens III model for “The Limits to Growth”, as an example of a complex failure. It’s been more accurate over 50 years than any other projection I’m aware of.
The points he makes about simplicity and maintenance, which I agree and which I think are good, are at odds, however with western political economics, whew markets procreate all kinds of perverse incentives around technologies that exploit whatever particular point of complexity they touch. There’s more money to be made in the west right now in systems that break, whether it’s the Texas grid or the F35. The big discontinuities you are looking for I think can be found in the public sector (or it’s proxies: Bell Labs for instance) where an innovation like the transistor completely re-structured almost from the ground up the computer industry. The story at Construction Physics linked the other day about the Manhattan Project was full of transformational inventions that would reshape industries as the rolled out, China has a system for doing this in favored industries now.
Since the 80s, this sort of thing has become impossible in the Neoliberal west because rents and profits from maintaining, “updating”, fixing or otherwise extending the life of a product or service with license protection of some sort is more immediately profitable and less risky than actually innovating. The west has relied on the privatization of technology generated on the public dime into monopolies or oligopolies for what non financialized growth it has had in this period. In fact monetizing public good through the manipulation of complex infrastructural systems may be the sine qua non of Financial Capitalism.
Pretty much Joseph Tainter’s theory
“Collapse of Complex Civilizations”
Joseph Tainter, The Collapse of Complex Societies. Which I wish they’d get into electronic format…
Nice summary of his points.
Social groups get to the point where they can no longer afford maintenance. Things then fall apart.
See another example at “Roman Empire.” The “barbarians” moving into former Roman areas often needed less in the way of taxes or resources and were welcomed by the locals.
Time to disinter that Cafavy quote once again, with it’s repeated refrain, “Where are the barbarians?” And its ending:
Where are the barbarians?
Those people were some sort of a solution.
Have you tried Anna’s Archive?
https://annas-archive.org/search?q=tainter+collapse+complex
The collapse of complex societies / Joseph A. Tainter.
“A Scandal in Romania: Defeated Presidential Candidate Prosecuted’
And with that the EU has just announced that with elections, they are playing by Game of Thrones rules-
‘When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die’ – Cersei Lannister
“Google unveils master plan for letting AI shop on your behalf”
I can honestly say that anybody that signs up for this idea deserves everything that they get. Next Update – let your AI pick your financial investments for you. Just keep on giving it access to your bank accounts.
I have been hearing this juvenile, nonsensical, Instagram worthy quote by Charlie Kirk:
It was the fact that Kirk was talking that caused the violence which ended his life. One cannot argue that Tyler would have killed Kirk if he never heard him speak. We have been talking and talking and talking and all we have seen is each side thinking the other is more and more evil.
So no, sorry, the issue is not talking. KIrk went to college campuses because college kids are stupid. That is why they are in college, to learn. Most of these young people do not know the difference between winning a debate and finding the truth. Kirk was not about finding the truth. He was a slick debater who depended on the gotcha’s endemic to the internet culture. The was evident in a few of his last words. When the questioner asked how many mass shootings were by trans people, Kirk replied; “Too many”. That is not an answer. That is a glib gotcha that feeds the attention algorithm now programmed into these kids heads. If he said 5 or 6 or what ever the number was you would not have heard the applause (or “the likes”) afterward. I am very sad to see online behavior mimicked in real life. So, Tyler, feeling powerless in this world, he hacked the system, made his self a supermod, and had Kirk deleted from the forum.
I do not like either of their behaviors. Love does not kill, love does not alienate, love does not censor. We do not need talking or no talking. We need love. And love is not a noun, it is a verb.
As the great Jackie Moon said:
EVERYBODY LOVE EVERYBODY.
Indeed, Mr Moon.
Love thy Neighbor as thyself.
Blessed are the Meek.
Forgive us our Debts.
Best theory I’ve heard yet.
Tyler, being really out of touch with reality, did the most counter productive thing he could possibly come up with.
😂
Very good point.
Epstein and Genocide and Ukraine out of the headlines for a second…
Indeed. If we cannot even agree that premeditated murder is off the table, then one of us needs therapy – at a minimum.
The mossad shouldn’t have used AI to ghostwrite Tyler’s alleged text message. “…my love” and “a bit over a week, I believe” read like early 1940s film noir.
It was the fact that MLK was talking that caused the violence which ended his life. One cannot argue that James would have killed Kirk if he never heard him speak. And every reporter in Gaza who was murdered, and the couuntless thousands who were murdered for expressing their political opinions.
This is how you want politics to be done? It’s either speech or violence. You are not “loving”, you are speaking. If you meant what you wrote, you would not have written it. Your post is in the end nothing more than a defence of political violence. Fine, you morally support murder. Who do you think control the violence machinery of the corporate state and will win violent conflict? It seems like the Republicans do, and the right wing of the Democratic party coming in second.
So, Kobeissi in Links a day or two ago pronounces that rate cuts on top of a record high Dow will produce even more dizzying heights for the Dow 12 months later. Naked Cap thought enough of that viewpoint to provide a forum for it.
Makes sense as far as it goes, but it also fails to account for the depressive effect of stagflation, rising unemployment, a potential housing bubble, a potential commercial real estate bubble, a potential student loan bubble, and a potential AI bubble. Yves, your life has been watching this stuff. Am I right to think Kobeissi’s simplification of the market’s future flunks the smell test?
I had never seen this Twitter account before a few days ago when it appeared at the top of my feed.
Through the looking glass……
Queen of hearts’ Jabberwocy
Where do problems with the financial plumbing first become undeniable?
We aren’t hearing much about a Shutdown, and I’m skeptical Democrats even bother.
Johnson says Democrats will ‘lose that battle’ if shutdown hinges on ACA subsidies (CNBC)
subtext…
we have plenty of ciphers on that side of the aisle and those that aren’t will roll over for the price of a belly scratch
Sephora workers on the rise of chaotic child shoppers (Guardian)
Preteens are parroting influencer speak and demanding anti-ageing products as the pressure to fit in intensifies…
..The trend is driven by skincare content produced by beauty influencers – many of whom are tweens and teens themselves…
…Erica said baby-faced preteens sometimes approach her in store saying things like, “‘Do you think I have pores?’ They see everything with filters. They don’t really know what real skin looks like.”…
…KM has begun to notice an eerie Invasion of the Body Snatchers language among tiny customers who talk in influencer-ese: “I’m here for my back-to-school glow,” or “I’m here for my back-to-school lip balm,” they might say. Or they just “repeat the actual product name over and over again, like they saw someone promote it but they have no idea what it actually does”.
Owenz believes the inundation of paid influencers who “talk about ‘my skincare routine’ and ‘get ready with me,’” leads to children mimicking their behavior as a “developmentally appropriately … way to fit in”. Owenz added: “The problem is for girls is that they cannot possibly live up to what they see on social media financially, physically or otherwise.”
BP: I find this very disturbing. Instagram is s cancer. Half the people I see in my therapy work have very unhealthy relationships with it and they are adults.
God knows whats happening to the still-developing brains of these kids.
“Dr Meghan Owenz, a clinical associate professor at Florida International University and therapist specializing in parenting and anxiety, said that it is normal for preteen girls to start caring about personal hygiene at their age.”
“personal hygiene“?
I’m thinking that those with extremely particular concerns will all start to look like (or want to look like) interchangeable anime characters, with most distinctions achieved through hairstyle and clothing.
And then generative “A.I.” imagery enters the chat…
This situation is only going to get worse, I’m afraid.
From US economy: stagflation now more than a whiff
These data driven economic sites that then claim “post-Pandemic” are mind mending, truly:
(bold mine)
From wastewater to deaths to increasing workforce disability to concomitant increases in other infectious diseases, the Pandemic is clearly per the data not over.
Sigh. *bangs head on wall*
re: Switzerland, mines and commodities
by Public Eye
Sickeningly anti-Russian but keeping a good eye on the colonial projects involving Swiss investors and companies.
– includes an interactive world map where you can select based on multis (Glencore etc.) or the resource (gold, cobalt etc.) –
The world map of Swiss mines
Swiss raw materials companies currently own and operate almost 200 mines. They primarily mine coal, a climate killer, but also mine transition minerals such as copper and cobalt, which are sought after for the energy transition. Public Eye has mapped these mines for the first time in a comprehensive study. Ten cases illustrate: displacement, environmental destruction, and life-threatening working conditions are part of their business model.
use google for translation
https://www.publiceye.ch/de/die-weltkarte-der-schweizer-minen
There are apparently plenty of “liberals” on board with Trump’s muzzling of free speech. Much like the Ivy League’s caving in to pressure and firing university administrators (that was on Biden’s watch), Massachusetts public schools can’t stop themselves from dismissing teachers for saying the wrong thing about Charlie Kirk on social media posts.
What if someone called out the teachers and they all posted the “wrong” statement(s) about Kirk at the same time? Or better yet, what if every US citizen posted those statements between 6 and 7 Pm tonight? Would Trump fire the whole country? Since posting the statements isn’t illegal, how is firing someone for posting those statements legal?
Jerry of Ben & Jerry’s fame finally figures out that selling out to a corporate conglomerate based on their promises to do good was actually a bad idea –
https://www.boston.com/news/business/2025/09/17/ben-and-jerrys-greenfield-leaving-social-justice-unilever/
Re: Chrystia Freeland
“Freeland named among her informal advisers Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, Pulitzer-winning historian Anne Applebaum”
There’s the problem! Sikorski and Applebaum are married, and vociferous and radical anti-Russian, pro-war neocons. And Freeland was responsible for showcasing an actual WW2 Ukrainian Nazi in Canada’s parliament – “He fought the Russians” – well of course he did – and the Russians were on our side fighting Nazi Germany. Not surprising from Freeland – her Mom put up a memorial in Edmonton to the WW2 Galician Brigade – an SS Brigade, responsible for massacring Poles, Gypsies, Jews, Communists, Russians on behalf of Nazi Germany.
I guess exiling Freeland to Ukraine is a good idea.
She had a very spooked up rise to prominence, working with “freedom fighters in ukraine” distributing aid (which included computer systems , at a time when they weren’t at all common) [from Wikipedia] She used a diplomat at the Embassy of Canada in Moscow to send material abroad in a secret diplomatic pouch, worked with foreign journalists on stories about life in the Soviet Union, and organized marches and rallies to attract attention and support from Western countries. On her return from a trip to London in March 1989, Freeland was denied re-entry to the Soviet Union.[23] ….
After which she has a meteoric rise through the ranks of the western press, all the way up to being the deputy PM just in time for the war in her beloved ukraine…
Gee wonder what kind of activities she’ll be getting up to now. Worth noting her grandfather was the editor of a Nazi newspaper in Ukraine during WW2, and lived in a nice apartment the Nazis provided him, one they took from a Jewish family; who were killed.
Also worth noting without the massive diaspora of far right Canadians (and far right Canadian organizations), as well as the millions of dollars furnished them by the Canadian government it’s highly unlikely she would have amounted to much other than a minor player in the Alberta Peace Country.
Moss Robeson of the Bandera Lobby Blog has written a lot about the Banderites in Canada, including a bunch of stuff about western Canada, where they are strongest. Worth reading for further illumination.
re: RU Strategic Review 2024
Dunno how good these people really are in comparison to other RU personnel .
but fwiw:
downloadable pdf in RU/ENG
https://www.imemo.ru/en/publications/info/strategicheskiy-obzor-2024
content ENG:
185 Introduction
189 Ukrainian Crisis and Russia—
West Strategic Relations.
Alexei Arbatov, Konstantin
Bogdanov
215 Arms Race in Europe.
Andrey Zagorsky,
Sergey Oznobishchev
259 Iranian-Israeli and Palestinian-
Israeli Conflicts as Security
Threats in the Middle East.
Stanislav Ivanov
283 India-Southeast Asia Security
Cooperation. Petr Topychkanov
301 Proliferation of Missile
Technologies in Asia-Pacific
Region. Dmitry Stefanovich
321 Nuclear Technologies in Space.
Alexander Ermakov, Lyudmila
Pankova, Olga Gusarova
341 Conclusion
345 Authors
Authors:
Arbatov, Alexei — Doctor of Sciences
(History); Academician of the Russian
Academy of Sciences (RAS); Director
of the Center for International
Security, Primakov National Research
Institute of World Economy and
International Relations (IMEMO RAS).
Bogdanov, Konstantin — Candidate
of Sciences (Engineering); Head of
the Section for Strategic Analysis and
Forecasting, IMEMO RAS.
Gusarova, Olga — Director of the
Center for Scientific and Educational
Projects, IMEMO RAS; Researcher
at the Department for Military and
Economic Security Research, IMEMO
RAS.
Ermakov, Alexander — Junior
Researcher at the Section for
Strategic Analysis and Forecasting,
IMEMO RAS.
Zagorsky, Andrey — Candidate
of Sciences (History); Professor
at the Department of International
Relations and Foreign Policy
of Russia, MGIMO University; Head
of the Department for Disarmament
and Conflict Resolution Studies,
IMEMO RAS.
Ivanov, Stanislav — Candidate
of Sciences (History); Lead
Researcher at the Section for Non-
Proliferation and Arms Limitation
of the Department for Disarmament
and Conflict Resolution Studies,
IMEMO RAS.
Oznobishchev, Sergey — Candidate
of Sciences (History); Professor
at the Department of International
Journalism, MGIMO University; Head
of the Section for Military-Political
Analysis and Research Projects,
IMEMO RAS.
Pankova, Lyudmila — Doctor
of Sciences (Economics); Head
of the Department for Military
and Economic Security Research,
IMEMO RAS.
Stefanovich, Dmitry — Researcher
at the the Section for Military
Economy and Innovations of
the Department for Military
and Economic Security Research,
IMEMO RAS.
Topychkanov, Petr — Candidate
of Sciences (History); Head
of the Section for New Challenges
in South and Southeast Asia,
the Center of the Indo-Pacific Region,
IMEMO RAS.
The contrast between the welcome Trump received in Windsor and on the streets is a very fitting symbol for the chasm between people and elites.
re Israel as ‘Super-Sparta?’ Unpopular Front
Quote from the link:
Unsurprising that Netanyahu is now sounding like a Kahanist as his governing coalition is currently propped up by them. This was always going to be the outcome from 2022 when he pushed to have Jewish Power and Religious Zionism as coalition partners since he couldn’t retain power otherwise and the collapse of the Israeli center-left meant 5 elections in less than 3 years. I’ve started to see more pieces in Israeli media this past week about potential challengers to Netanyahu, though, so we may be approaching a state change.
Unfortunately I am too busy to weigh in on the other Israel-related pieces today
CHS
https://www.oftwominds.com/blogsept25/debt-moral-decay9-25.html
the post does conflate household debt and .gov debt but does serve some illustrative purposes.
The related thing that has been clanging around with those loose bolts in my head is didn’t the 38 trillion debt get paid into the economy in some way, likely mostly globally, but in the end doesn’t space x get a big chunk along with aws and obviously lockheed and boeing et al…such that it does take a lot of social borrowing/money creation, bananas, or what have you to create these kajillionaires.
includes this handy link.
https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
I started my busboy career in 1973 at 1.65/hour and this says 12.55/hr is todays equivalent and the federal min wage, which in my estimation determines what poverty is remains firmly and inexorably anchored at 7.25/hr. Locally higher min wages belie this fact but have no impact on the baseline fed min wage except to highlight its paucity.
On a good night, this hungry busboy got a free hamburger and maybe a share of the waiter’s meager tips. Good times, with nightly wages covering gas money, snacks and even an ice cream bar. ;p
IIRC around that time a new color TV cost $500 but you could rent a room for $10/week. I spent a few summers where my sole entertainment was a radio, some paperbacks, and (once) a pile of Hustler magazines left by the previous tenant. Still a better deal than a giant flat-screen in mom and dad’s basement.
Heh, and we can all thank Obama for Trump’s terms and Biden’s term.
After Kirk’s Killing, Obama Says the Nation Is in a ‘Political Crisis’ (NY Times via archive.ph)
We’ve had a political crisis for quite a while, and certainly it was a crisis for Main Street when Obama bailed out Wall Street and orchestrated HAMP, where too many lost their homes. That was a political crisis.
We can’t forget Biden’s public health censorship; How about RussiaGate?
Obama has no moral authority from which to speak, in any case.
Remember Obama’s coordinated multi-city paramilitary crackdown on Occupy?
Heh, as I recall Texas Democrats folded, and redistricting passed.
What’s sensible about CA’s one-party-rule Gerrymandering?
Wonder why this is standard journalistic practice.
Same in Germany.
Counterpoints to officially accepted narratives are not made (any more?).
So if a politician or someone regarded as an authority states certain things which are incorrect, and that is the case almost always in some form they are not criticized.
Reporters do not correct any more. Or even disapprove.
They do so only if the statements made are either not following the established opinion, i.e. accepted by government/authorities, or maybe if the person voicing is “just” a citizen.
Most obvious it has become in interviews where the interviewer does not contradict and does not pose questions which point out opposing facts. They just let the interview flow by. Smoothly.
Which means in daily routine “the past does not exist.”
Almost always only present events matter.
This must be a serious flaw already in the training of journalists.
As if people do not learn certain math skills and doing that part incorrect all the time.
Upsetting.
Because of course readers mostly do not know the bits left out.
As soon as it is printed in B&W in some fashion mimicking officialdom audiences swollow it.
Dangerous.
The most compromising example is reporters´ allegiance and trust towards secret intelligence services.
It´s completely insane how that is unraveling for a few years now.
And the most mysterious: How this attitude in fact established itself after a culture against the “security state” which was a genuine reaction to the 9/11 regime and wars.
BRICS & The Failure to Save Gaza: A “New Multipolar World Order” Or Just More Bosses? – Fiorella Isabel and Vanessa Beeley (Video with summary)
Pleased to see more people engaging with these questions.
just for yuks take a look at the biden drawdown
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=WCSSTUS1&f=W
looks from this he was jumping on a runaway train at the beginning of the ukraine thingy
https://www.macrotrends.net/2480/brent-crude-oil-prices-10-year-daily-chart
I looked because it seems like we’ve been stuck in a range but that appears to be a more recent thing
Will nobody think of
the childrenJoe Biden’s recent budget woes? How will he afford a new beach chair and sunscreen? Or even a lie-Barry! /sISTM that the raid on the Hyundai plant was about putting Korea in its place by publicly humiliating the workers there.
It is analogous to teenage burglars stealing everything they can sell easily and then taking a dump on the dining room table.
The most sensible response by Korea may be the equivalent of “Working to Rule”, all Yessir and smiles while critical parts are delivered just a little out of spec, key assembly lines are taken out of service for “Routine maintenance” and take forever to come back on line, key personnel decide to retire to pursue their passion for collecting classic beanie babies…never a “No”, never a confrontation, always Yes Sir!, three bags full Sir! and the bags are leaky.
You do not humiliate someone you want to continue doing business with, you always leave them a little dignity so that they can pretend they aren’t owned by an abusive master.
Wonder if the attack on Hyundai’s EV battery plant development might have had anything to do whatsoever with its status as one of the foremost US-based EV competitors to Tesla?
Re: Homelessness on the Rise in Miami-Dade Despite Statewide Sleeping Ban, North Miami-Dade Sees 74% Increase
I see many more Americans have decided to reap the benefits of living off grid. I expect to start seeing MSM articles touting this option as part of the ‘Abundance’ solution to our economic woes, and Blackstone to start buying up the prime “off grid” locations.
From Salon on the revival of Blue Books (which I remember very well):
It’s not coincidental that the biggest booster of LLMs as a blanket good is a man who, like many a Silicon Valley wunderkind who preceded him, dropped out of college, invented an app and hopped aboard the venture-capital train. As a leading booster of AI, Sam Altman has been particularly vocal in encouraging students to adopt AI tools and prioritize “the meta ability to learn” over sustained study of any one subject. If that sounds like a line of bull, that’s because it is. And it’s galling that the opinion of someone who dropped out of college — because why would you keep learning when there’s money to be made and businesses to found? — is constantly sought out for comment on what tools students should and shouldn’t be using. Altman has brushed off educators’ concerns about the drawbacks of AI use in academia and has even suggested that the definition of cheating needs to evolve.
AI/LLM in a nutshell. And fair warning, it is coming for your future physicians, although some of us are resisting. I am recommending we revive our oral exams…so far, no takers. Too much “work” or some such nonsense.
Yes, why does anybody listen to Sam Altman on this?
Meanwhile, oral exams will only go so far, and won’t do much to help students prepare for writing a M.A. thesis or PhD dissertation. Should we believe that graduate students will be more serious and won’t try to find short cuts to a degree via “A.I.” tools? I wouldn’t.
I recently spoke with an academic friend who teaches at a R1 university. He has been using blue books for years — i.e., long before the meteor of “A.I.” tools hit — so I asked him about his recent, post-meteor experience. He said he still does this but now worries more about cheating. He has completely given up on assigning research essays. Upshot: “higher education as we knew it in the US is over, at least in the US.”
My daughter and two other professionals are leasing a house @ 1/2 mile fro the apple campus in Santa Clara for $4K per Month.
It’s a 14oo Sq Ft 3 BR 2 Ba home with an attached one car garage on a small lot and it is in good shape.
Newer roof, double pane windows, high quality laminate flooring and so on.
A house across the street with an identical floorplan that has had no upgrades since it was built in the late 60’s closed in mid June for $2.3 MM and has since had a lot of work done, starting with a new roof.
it sold in 2 weeks.
Until the early Aughts a gross rental multiplier could be used to see if a property’s price was “In the ball park” and a home like these would be valued at 125 X Monthly rent when brought up to snuff.
It’s probably a better “Investment” than Coreweave stock…
Prices in the Bay Area are just nuts. Part of it is that we are a desirable place to live with no room to expand. We have the ocean on one side and the Bay or mountains on the other. It can cost $2M to tear down a house and rebuild from scratch. That may be cheaper than buying another house but at least you have a new home.
Lol, I am in a 300 sq ft first floor ex-local.authority two bedroom flat in London, SW1 and it costs $3k pcm.
That $4k rent doesn’t seem bad for peak Silicon Valley, salaries and sunshine….
yeah that seems cheap considering
I’ve given up on ever owning a home; I missed the sweet spots, when we’ve been in various economic calamities, for reasons obvious and not. Buying near or at ATH with mortgage rates this high seems like a dangerous proposition, heading into a possible economic slowdown or even recession. Out in western NC, anything that might look interesting is 400K+.
Oh, and then there’s property insurance that keeps going up and up. Hooray. The cost of repairs. Oh heavens.
The H-2A Visa Trap (ProPublica)
There used to the Bracero Program in the US.
Apparently the workers had too many labor rights under the law.
The US seems to be based on exploitable workers with no rights or representation. Slaves, coolies, immigrants.
Adolph Reed Jr to the white courtesy phone.
re: Scott Ritter on RU/UKR
Frankly confirms my own comment on this issue from a view days ago which also means the title of this episode deceives the actual point made by Ritter, who essentially says US doesn´t want war, EU cannot do war (and what it does claim is rhetorical only).
Scott Ritter: NATO Prepares for War with Russia
30 min.
https://glenndiesen.substack.com/p/scott-ritter-nato-prepares-for-war
“view days”??? what the heck was happening there…
sometimes I get funny feelings over my machine secretly autocorrecting me the odd way. “Ghost in the Machine”.
re: Ukraine
via German NACHDENKSEITEN by Hungarian journalist Gabor Stier
use google translate
Three scenarios for a Ukraine without a peace agreement
https://www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=139140
intro:
It is becoming increasingly obvious that the Ukrainian leadership and its European backers do not seek a compromise with Russia. Still hoping for some kind of victory, or at least a saleable outcome, they prefer to continue the war. This situation is acceptable for now, even for Russia, as it rightly feels it is in a better position and can hold out in this war longer. Therefore, the prospects for peace are not very good. But how long can Ukraine endure this? How might events unfold if no peace is made in the near future? What will become of Ukraine without a peace agreement? Several scenarios are foreseeable. An article by Gábor Stier , translated from Hungarian by Éva Péli .
My hunch is that Ukr/EU think that they can deny RU any outcome where RU does not win a complete victory, and there, they may be right: a complete victory is too costly for RU, not just the cost of winning it, but also the cost of managing the aftermath. It’s not surprising that Russia shpuld seek for the other side to cry uncle and compromise…except that’s the other guys’ choice.
I wonder if the analogue is a combination between the end in WW1 and WW2: in the forner, Germany saw the situation was hopeless, although its defeat was not obvious to everyone yet. They cried uncle, the Entente powers accepted peace, but the whole thing became messy: how do you impose peace of surrender on a power whose population did not know they were beaten? So in 1945, there was no alternative but unquestionable military victory..
as was also the case, I suppose, in 1815.
I think, unless the Western powers get sober leaders, the current war can only end only with T 90s rolling down the Champs Elysses.
We may very well see the end of the separation of Church and State, Joel Osteen as the first American Pope and the reader’s digest condensed Bible adopted as the sole official version of “The Good Book”.
It would be a very Trumpian thing to do.
America is going great!
3 Police Officers Are Killed in Shooting in Southern Pennsylvania (NY Times via archive.ph)
In the early 1980s the university I was at had music concerts and debates.
One debate that got my friends excited was Timothy Leary and G. Gordon Libby.
I thought both were fakes or trying to squeeze the remaining juice, and found that many of Liddy’s accounts in his autobiography echoed other people’s stories.
As far as the current excitement, why would I listen to someone inside the Western media bubble when commentators outside the Western media bubble are better able to describe what is happening? The outsiders do not have to follow the rules/restrictions of those inside the bubble.
I found this Jamarl Thomas interview with Dan Cohen interesting: Dan Cohen | The Dark Truth Behind Charlie Kirk’s Death and Scripted Civil Unrest
Cohen: So all of this is basically an invented reality in many ways and it’s very difficult. It’s like WWE or WWF where like you know it’s how do we know what’s fake and what’s real?
Like it’s scripted but there are things that are happening that are real but but we don’t know. And the overwhelming majority of social media users do not understand the level to which it is it is scripted. And these political actors and political of the single uni party that rules this country are these people are following scripts. The national security state is thinking generations ahead in its plans of what it wants to do. You and I are reacting to the news on a daily basis of what’s happening. We are not understanding there is a major long-term agenda, and you know the big question of course what what are those agendas? And that’s you know that’s that’s a huge question. But my point is social media is their terrain. It is their theater. It is their matrix. It is not ours and they it is not a public square that you know they just kind of bought and are making money off of. It is their form of controlling our minds.
Cue the Frank Zappa quote about the illusion of freedom.
(This doesn’t remind of the Gish Gallop Flat Earther I had to escape from a few months ago.)
re: Matt Taibbi on Kimmel firing
Any assessment of this re: free speech?
Taibbi hyperlinks to the 1934 Communications Act among other things.
Note on Jimmy Kimmel
That was fast.
https://www.racket.news/p/note-on-jimmy-kimmel
480 reader comments within 3 hours?
Now 583. Just gave a quick look at the top but does not look like the result of being swarmed by MAGA and having defenders push back.
On Kimmel: he was canned because of direct gov pressure OR he was canned because of the pressure from Sinclair Broadcast Group (conservative/Trumpy) and Nexstar Media?
And does it make a difference?
re: Trump Administration Rushes To Kill Free Speech In Response To Kirk Assassination – Caitlin Johnstone
“(…)
One of the many naive mistakes I made when I first started this commentary gig was taking Trump supporters at their word when they said they support things like free speech, ending wars, and dismantling the deep state. I thought they can’t be all bad, because they’re saying they’re on the same side as me with many important issues that I care about.
This wishful thinking quickly fell apart as I watched them defend every single one of Trump’s acts of warmongering and authoritarianism and advancements of longstanding deep state agendas throughout his first term. Even actions which should have gone against their own basic partisan ideological biases like imprisoning Julian Assange were excused, justified, or spun as some kind of 4-D chess maneuver to actually rescue Assange. I stayed in dialogue with them the entire time, and they stood by literally every last bit of Trump’s warmongering, authoritarianism, and assaults on free speech.
(…)
And they’ve been demonstrating this even more clearly during Trump’s second term. They’ve defended every single one of their president’s genocidal, warmongering, tyrannical abuses. They stood by him when he deliberately torched the ceasefire with Hamas and the truce with the Houthis and reignited the bloodshed in Gaza and Yemen. They stood by him as he worked to stomp out free speech in the United States with moves intended to silence criticism of Israel. They stood by him when he announced his ethnic cleansing plans for the Gaza Strip. They stood by him when he bombed Iran. They’re standing by him as he expands his warmongering to Venezuela. Whatever authoritarian measures Washington decides to surf on the tide of the Charlie Kirk assassination will surely be complied with too.
They’re a bunch of worthless, power-worshipping bootlickers who support everything they claim to oppose. They’re garden variety Republican empire simps posing as populist revolutionaries, just as devoted to the imperial murder machine as the Democrats they despise.
(…)”
Almost certainly applicable to Afd, Reform, RN, VOX … supporters.
Trump says he plans to designate antifa as ‘major terrorist organization (Guardian)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/17/trump-antifa-terrorist-organization
1. Antifa isn’t an organisation it’s a description. It is a designation that can be liberally applied by the regime to anybody to the left of Ghengis Khan. If Antifa isn’t a thing, then everyone can be Antifa.
2. When being anitifascist makes you a terrorist , you’re probably in a fascist (or proto-fascist) jurisdiction
Sounds a bit like Hamas, or drug cartels, so Trump will use similar methods.
prolly 500 dragonflies swarming over the big fire pit.
ducks below, agog…
snapping at air.
(i put this i yesterdays inks by accidet(glasses!))