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.
>>>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)
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).
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.
Re: Magical SystemsThinking
This appears to be the author. Presumably ‘starting simple’ means “with mice”?
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.
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.
‘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.
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.
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
“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
Sparta was ultimately defeated by Macedonia, I tried to come up with an analogy but I was unsuccessful.
Thoughts?
– ‘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