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Links 9/20/2025

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Here are the 2025 Ig Nobel Prize winners Improbable (Micael T)

Scientists Discover Why Alcohol Blocks Liver Regeneration, Even After You Quit SciTech Daily (Chuck L)

What to Know About Mirror Life Nautlius (Micael T)

#COVID-19/Pandemics

Climate/Environment

How Climate Change Is Increasing Landslide Risk Worldwide Scientific American

The island that banned hives: can honeybees actually harm nature? Guardian (Kevin W)

Forests Are Raining Plastic: New Study Reveals Shocking Pollution SciTech Daily (Chuck L)

Texas Oil Boom Spawns a Toxic Crisis of the Industry’s Own Making Bloomberg

China?

Chinese readout of Xi-Trump phone call on Friday Pekinology. Translation; English version not yet published. Chinese readouts are normally detailed. Seems thin for a 90 minute conversation.

While entertaining, this is just a wet noodle lashing. China has not restricted trade and buys weapons:

Poland’s Attempt To Blackmail China Will Hurt Itself Most Moon of Alabama (Kevin W)

Mass protest expected in Philippines capital amid public fury over alleged corruption in government projects Guardian

Indonesia’s ill-timed return to the financial brink. Bank Indonesia under pressure as Prabowo’s fast and loose spending stirs ghosts of 1997–98 meltdown Asia Times

Antipodes

NZ Government’s Economic Stewardship Challenged by Big GDP Slump Bloomberg

Africa

Children are bound to die’: Corruption, aid cuts and violence fuel a hunger crisis in South Sudan Independent

Tensions are escalating in eastern Congo as the M23 rebel group and government forces dig in along the frontlines — threatening fragile peace efforts AfricaNews

European Disunion

Professors of Propaganda: How the EU’s Jean Monnet Programme corrodes academia Thomas Fazi, MCC Brussels (Chuck L)

France’s big protest: Who’s on strike, why and what’s next? Aljazeera

‘Resilience factories’ German Foreign Policy. Micael T: “I read ‘startup and I think bezzle.”

If it’s a shame about royalty, we must abolish the monarchy immediately Aftonbladet via machine translation (Micael T)

Old Blighty

Public sector borrowing in August has jumped to its highest level in five years, raising fears of huge tax hikes in the autumn to balance the books City AM

The big story from Bank of England is an easing in tightening to avert massive losses Sky

UK food industry shows shocking lack of contingency plans for water shortages Food and Drink Technology

I have never seen quality as bad as this’: Scottish farmers fear ‘financial crisis’ as early harvest takes its toll Business Green

Israel v. the Resistance

The Israeli Threat to America John Mearsheimer

Israel “falsifying” Palestinian rapes to further Gaza genocide Asa Winstanley

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The high cost of the US supporting the Israel attack on Qatar. No doubt this deal was in the works for a while, but one has to think the strike overcame any remaining doubts or sticking points:

Shockwave as Houthi drone hits hotel; Qatar attack triggers new Mideast alliance Janta Ka Reporter, YouTube

Israel On Notice? Iran Launches ‘MYSTERIOUS’ Missiles After Saudi’s Atomic Bomb Surprise Times of India, YouTube

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Turkey warns Cyprus’ Israeli air defense system could ‘destabilise island’ TNA (Kevin W)

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Syraqistan

Syria risks rupturing as armed camps face off across the Euphrates Reuters (Robin K)

New Not-So-Cold War

SITREP 9/19/25: “Russian Incursion” Scare Heats Up as Enfeebled NATO Hobbles to Respond Simplicius

EU floats plan to use frozen Russian assets for Ukraine loan, bypassing a Hungary veto Reuters

Deep strike: Ukrainian drones hit major Russian oil plant 1,300 km from front lines TVP World

* * *

Ukraine’s Fight at Home: The Battle Against Corruption Is Essential to the War Against Russia
Foreign Affairs. Robin K: “‘Lately, Ukraine’s people have also had to pressure their government in matters of domestic politics.’ Damn, I’d really like to know how they did that so it could be tried in the US.”

EU to encourage Ukrainians to return home RT (Kevin W)

A New Soft Power Ploy By Putin Nomea (Micael T)

Poland border closure choking China-EU rail trade Asia Times (Kevin W)

Czech ammo lifeline for Ukraine comes under fire at home Politico (Kevin W)

Roundabouts or tree trunks: How the Baltic states should protect themselves from an invasion Overton via machine translation

Caucasus

Engineering Peace? Anatol Lieven and Artin DerSimonian, New Left Review (Robin K)

Big Brother is Watching You Watch

Samsung Announces Plans to Plaster Your Smart Fridge With Digital Advertisements Futurism (Kevin W). Shades of the fridge in Philip K. Dick’s Ubik asking to be paid in order to open the door. It has to spy on you or otherwise harvest your data to target ads effectively, so doubly offensive.

Imperial Collapse Watch

The UN at 80 Warwick Powell

Your First Call After You Shoot Someone New Yorker (Robin K)

Trump 2.0

USDA’s DEI Purge: How Trump and Rollins are reshaping American agriculture Investigate Midwest (Robin K)

Antifa hasn’t existed since 1933. That makes Trump’s attack on it even more menacing Globe and Mail (Dr. Kevin)

US looks to state-backed TSMC model for Intel turnaround Nikkei. Since the US leadership class and even more so the Trump team can’t manage its way out of a paper bag, I am not holding my breath.

Bureau of Labor Statistics postpones key data report Axios. Inflation.

Judge throws out Trump suit against New York Times The Hill

“Unacceptable”: Prominent U.S. Senators Demand FDA Provide Names of Troubled Foreign Drugmakers Skirting Import Bans ProPublica (Robin K)

Immigration

Trump Says the U.S. Will Institute $100,000 Fee for Skilled Worker Visas New York Times

From a comment by ChrisPacific (shortened) who notes the reporting on this change is generally lousy:

Linking to this (the original source) on the ongoing fee story about H-1Bs, since the reporting on it seems more than usually bad:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/restriction-on-entry-of-certain-nonimmigrant-workers/…..

So the key points are:
– It will now cost $100k to apply for an H-1B visa
– This rule is in force for 12 months and will cease to apply unless renewed (these two points are being incorrectly reported in some places as a $100k annual fee)
– If you are well connected, you can get the government to agree to an exemption on either an individual, company or industry basis.

Assuming this goes ahead, it’s going to kill the Infosys/Wipro model pretty much dead (not that anybody will shed tears for it). It would probably also harm the big US tech companies like Amazon and Microsoft, except that Trump claims they’re supportive, so if he’s not blowing smoke then that probably means they have their Section 2c exemptions lined up already.

As for smaller businesses (namely any without a hotline to the Secretary of Homeland Security) H-1B will be pretty much dead for them as well.

Charlie Kirk

Charlie Kirk Update and, As Predicted, Europe Snapbacks on Iran Larry Johnson

Our No Longer Free Press

Calls to Boycott Disney Explode After ABC Submits to FCC Threats by Ousting Jimmy Kimmel Common Dreams

Why Jimmy Kimmel’s First Amendment rights weren’t violated – but ABC’s would be protected if it stood up to the FCC and Trump The Conversation

Jon Stewart’s Post-Kimmel Primer on Free Speech in the Glorious Trump Era Daily Show, YouTube

Why Are Right-Wing Comedians ‘Deafeningly Silent’ on Jimmy Kimmel? Zeteo

Mr. Market is Moody

Foreign holdings of US Treasuries surge to all-time high in July, China’s sink Reuters

Margin Debt Has Soared. It’s the Skunk at Wall Street’s Garden Party Barrons

A Japanese debt crisis is closer than you think Asia Times

Monopoly

“Yikes”: Internal emails reveal Ticketmaster helped scalpers jack up prices, FTC says ars technica (Kevin W)

Class Warfare

Sports fans, this demonstrates that BlackRock’s vector of power is not via the companies BlackRock invests in nearly entirely via index funds where these funds are obligatory buyers, but governments:

The world is about to have trillionaires. Enough is enough Jacobin (Micael T)

Top 10% account for nearly half of all consumer spending News Nation Now

Migrant farmworkers sue seed-corn company over wages and housing Iowa Capital Dispatch (Robin K)

Antidote du jour (via):

And a bonus (Chuck L):

A second bonus (Chuck L):

And a third:

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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18 comments

  1. The Rev Kev

    ‘Raina MacIntyre
    @Globalbiosec
    Elimination of #measles in Australia achieved after 1997 measles control campaign by health minister Wooldridge: 2nd dose moved from 12 to 4 yrs. Removing 12 m dose will result in massive resurgence of measles, which can be predicted mathematically. 1/2’

    Meanwhile, in other news-

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-20/measles-outbreak-queensland-growing-middlemount-case/105798134

    https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/measles-alert-for-sydney-after-returned-traveller-from-indonesia-tests-positive/news-story/e41a38690a7f477d2249a21bc3731847

    https://thewest.com.au/news/public-health/measles-alert-fifo-workers-urged-to-check-vaccinations-as-new-wa-measles-cases-emerge-c-20059264

    News at 11.

    Reply ↓
  2. ChatET

    The company I used to work for used H1bs for a while then they decided to buy an office in India. No more H1bs anymore. Funny thing, the company has no business in India only USA, but they enjoy the special privileges of their business type classification all the while paying engineers in India a pittance compared to the USA. Quality shows after reporting of a 100% turnover rate in the India office and several failed projects. But they keep doing it.

    Reply ↓
  3. The Rev Kev

    “Charlie Kirk Update and, As Predicted, Europe Snapbacks on Iran”

    ‘This means that snapback has now been officially ACTIVATED, and that UN sanctions against Iran will take effect at 8pm EST on September 27th. However, China and Russia issued a joint statement following the vote and officially announced that they consider the snapback of UN sanctions against Iran to be illegal and invalid, and that they will not abide by them. In other words, they will continue to do business with Iran as usual, regardless of UN sanctions. I suspect the other BRICS nations will adopt the same position.’

    I find this a remarkable development. The European countries activated snapback sanctions without following the required legal steps first. So now Russia, China and other countries are just going to ignore those UN sanctions on the grounds of them being illegal and are not going to let Iran be isolated. I’m willing to bet that most countries know how it went down and so will privately at least take Iran’s side. In their hast to activate those UN sanctions, it is leading to a situation where they will no longer be so effective anymore.

    Reply ↓
  5. The Rev Kev

    “Chinese readout of Xi-Trump phone call on Friday”

    ‘To realize this vision, both sides must move toward each other and make efforts to achieve mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation’

    This sounds like Xi having a dig at how Trump works as all that listed is the opposite of how Trump works, especially the last bit. Trump only believes in deal where he comes out the winner and other countries lose i.e. zero-sum games. For Xi to come right out and talk about win-win scenarios sounds like XI saying that he is not going to play that game and that Trump will have to change accordingly.

    Reply ↓
  6. Wukchumni

    The world anxiously awaits the arrival of the first fourth comma Illionaire, how many gotten gains can one man accrue before taking a dirt nap?

    It’s tantamount to cheering on a glutton weighing in at 1,957 pounds, and only 43 more to a ton!

    Meanwhile, this was one of the article headers in the NYT today…

    Hamburger Helper Sales Rise as Americans Try to Stretch Their Food Dollars

    The price of beef and other grocery items is climbing, and consumers are turning to canned meats and a 1970s staple.

    Cousin Eddie and Hamburger Helper

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkExpbnjsX8

    Reply ↓
    1. The Rev Kev

      It’s so strange people striving to be the first trillionaire when it would make little difference in their lives if they could do it. We, except for an entry in the ‘Guinness Book of records” that is. Look at that 1985 film “Brewster’s Millions”-

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCoGAZJQGmU (1:22 mins)

      And imagine challenging any person to spend a billion dollars in the space of, say, a year with nothing to show for it. Could it be even done? For these hundreds of billionaires, it sounds like that old game of ‘the person that dies with the most toys, wins.’

      Reply ↓
      1. t

        The 85 film is a remake of a 45 movie that might be a remake of a forgotten silent film.

        It’s an odd story.

        I don’t know if Richard Pryor was just hired for the remake or had an interest in the story.

        Reply ↓
    2. ambrit

      I can yet again attest to rising grocery prices here in the North American Deep South.
      I did the weekly shopping yesterday. As usual I ‘visited’ seven emporia in my perambulations.
      Live produce has hit a new and higher plateau. Cauliflower are now three dollars a head. Grapes are $2.95 a pound. Squash are also creeping up on three dollars a pound. The ‘standard’ smallish Industrial Grade avocados are running $1.25 each. (Industrial Grade because they are hard enough to build walls with. Organic bricks.) The choice of vegetables available has also shrunk.
      Items on other aisles have risen in price lately as well. That old Poverty Row staple, Top Cheap Ramen has risen to $.75 a packet. Mac and Cheese is now $1.25 a box. Chips, (not a staple, but a standard “comfort food,”) is up to around three dollars a bag, for the off brands. Many of the name brands are pushing five dollars a bag. Carbonated drinks are fizzing up again. Coca Cola brand is now ranging around $5.49 a six pack of .5 litre bottles. Two litre bottles of the same are retailing for $2.59 each.
      I have had to re-learn Mom’s habit of checking the coupons weekly and now perusing the weekly online sales at the various chain grocers. I still refuse to use phone apps. It is bad enough that I use a “Frequent Shopper” plan, really, surveillance program, at a chain store. As an example, I buy catfish fillets, locally sourced no less, from a big chain. I wait until they put it on “Buy One Get One” sale. Thus, I end up buying a couple of pounds of the little fishies for $5.49 a pound instead of the “normal” $10.99 a pound. I freeze the bulk of them individually in sandwich bags bathed in some distilled water with a squeeze of lemon. That assumes continued electricity service. When the grid goes down, or gets switched to favouring Surveillance State Data Centres, I might have to re-learn the joys of kippered herrings. (Mom fixed those regularly when we were young.)
      Anyway, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
      Stay safe.

      Reply ↓
      1. Wukchumni

        Thanks for the Store Provides Quality Ramen report, plebs can’t be pleased by the stagflation, did you happen to see any venison flavored instant noodles?

        Reply ↓
  7. Mass Driver

    Here are the 2025 Ig Nobel Prize winners Improbable (Micael T)

    Trump’s press secretary stated that the President is very disappointed for not even getting one of these.

    Reply ↓
  8. TiPs

    Re, “A Japanese debt crisis is closer than you think”, is this a test for those of us who follow MMT? The article reminds me of the Monetarists who woke up after the Covid-induced inflation to claim, “see, we were right all along!”
    The BoJ has struggled to prevent deflation for decades, and now that they have allowed long term rates to “normalize” (the 10-year rate is almost 1.6%!), the author warns us to “beware of the bond vigilantes and a debt crisis!” Sure thing.

    Reply ↓
    1. jsn

      Thing is, in Japan some of the super wealthy actually like Japan, so those debts just keep rolling over and those elites just keep collecting yen and interest income.

      No such luck over here.

      Reply ↓
  9. Carolinian

    Interesting story about honeybees that suggests commercial bee colonies and the feral versions that result could be the kudzu of pollinators, overwhelming native solitary bees and thereby having a negative effect on native plants. Here in the South kudzu itself was of course an introduced Asian species and, despite gestures toward eradication, nothing seems to stop it. There is a local outfit that will provide you with goats (confined by temp electric fences) to eat it up.

    Meanwhile Big Ag seems dependent on the trucked in bees to service their megafarms–with honeybees themselves being threatened by disease and chemicals. Is the bee conflict yet another ecological threat in our ever more populated world?

    Reply ↓
  10. The Rev Kev

    “EU floats plan to use frozen Russian assets for Ukraine loan, bypassing a Hungary veto”

    This whole elaborate Jenga Tower of a scheme rests on a simple premise. That this money will be paid back when Russia pays war reparations meaning when they lose. The Ukraine will never pay that money – ever. As soon as that money arrives in that country it will be spent at a rapid clip until it is all gone – poof! – and at that point Zelensky will demand yet more money. The countries that sign up for this ludicrous scheme will be on the hook for all that money and perhaps countries like Hungary may miss the worse aftershocks though no doubt the EU will demand that they chip in a coupla billion for the cause. The best scenario for the EU would be for the Ukraine to quit the war before this scam can be implemented but so long as the money flows, the war will go on.

    Reply ↓
  11. Darthbobber

    Driving out to mother in law’s place in Cumberland county, pa recently, noticed that nobody in cumberland, Lancaster and adjoining counties seems to have planted soybeans this year.

    Perhaps they had anticipated the results of our clever Chinese trade war.

    Reply ↓
  12. The Rev Kev

    “Forests Are Raining Plastic: New Study Reveals Shocking Pollution”

    Microplastics are as insidious as radiation was through all those nuclear tests last century meaning that all of us are still irradiated as a result of them. Here they are talking about forests being infested with this stuff but so are we as scientists have found microplastics in blood, the brain, the placenta, breast milk, and human bone marrow. Don’t ask me how it gets into our marrow but it does. As I said, this stuff is as insidious as fallout radiation-

    https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/09/250918225014.htm

    Reply ↓

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