10 of the Tallest Trees in the World TreeHugger (resilc)
A Fascinating Map That Illustrates the Widely Diverse Kingdom of Fungi Laughing Squid
Exercise and Schizophrenia Cognition Limited Benefits Shown in Single-Bout Study Naveen Shankar
Childhood plastic exposure could be fueling obesity, infertility, and asthma ScienceDaily (Kevin W)
What Turns Some Scholars Into Frauds? Chronicle of Higher Education. Anthony L: “‘… many savoring the irony that experts on honesty had faked results about honesty'”
Climate/Enviroment
Billionaires aren’t going to save the planet: The Bezos Earth Fund, AI, and carbon offsets REDD-Monitor (Micael T)
Earth’s ‘atmospheric rivers’ have shifted towards the poles, causing big local weather changes Earth.com
The world’s longest flower meadow is finished LandetsFria via machine translation (Micael T)
Ocean Warming Threatens Microbe That Makes Nearly a Third of Earth’s Oxygen Science Alert (Chuck L)
China?
Strongest storm of the year roars towards Hong Kong and southern China BBC
China Rare Earths Issue Remains Unresolved, US Lawmaker Says Bloomberg
In Rare Visit to China, U.S. Lawmakers Push for More Military Dialogue Wall Street Journal
Bad consumer loans emerge as new headache for Chinese banks Nikkei
China Floods the World With Cheap Exports After Trump’s Tariffs Bloomberg. Yours truly has seen just about no inflation here in Southeast Asia, and deflation in ride share rates.
Koreas
Korea’s President Lee says U.S. investment demands would spark a financial crisis CNBC
India
Indian rupee slides to all-time low, US visa fee hike compounds pressure Reuters
Why the Pakistan-Saudi Arabia defence pact is unsettling India BBC
Bangladesh faces its worst financial crisis in decades Dharka Tribune
O Canada
On Gaza & Ukraine: Canadian PM Mark Carney is either a fool or a Deep State operative Lucy Komisar
Canada keeps bankrolling Ukraine’s war crimes Eva Karene Bartlett
Elizabeth slams $24B nuclear deal: “Do we just write cheques to Trump now?” YouTube (resilc)
South of the Border
US ready to support Argentina with ‘large and forceful’ action, Treasury chief says Reuters (Kevin W). Lordie.
European Disunion
Europe’s reckless warmongering Wolfgang Munchau, Unherd. A piece that positions itself as rational still exhibits Putin Derangement Syndrome.
Germany’s death wish – not fit for war, but addicted to war Nachdenkseiten via machine transalation
Denmark suffers ‘serious attack’ on infrastructure with drones closing airport Financial Times. That headline is STILL up. Contrast with Associated Press story: Danish police investigate after drones flew over Copenhagen Airport for hours
Israel v. the Resistance
GREAT NEWS
Egypt and Turkey have announced they will be holding joint Naval exercises in the Eastern Mediterranean at the same time as the SUMUD Humanitarian AID Flotilla will be there, on their way to Gaza
If the flotilla is threatened by Israel while in International Waters,… pic.twitter.com/dM3Asf4mIc— Uncle Klaus #ANTIZIONIST #ProPalestine #BDS (@KlausUncle) September 21, 2025
Israel warns the EU James Dorsey
World Leaders Recognize Palestinian State, in a Challenge to U.S. and Israel New York Times
French town halls fly Palestinian flag ahead of Macron’s UN recognition Le Monde (resilc)
Little Seed of Goodness; or Not. Olivier Boyd-Barrett. On Palestine recognition.
Alastair Crooke : Israel’s War of the Jungle Judge Napolitano, YouTube
‘We’ve given up on Israel’: Disillusioned with Netanyahu and the war in Gaza, Israelis are fleeing France24
Imagine if Americans put as much effort into saving Gaza as they did into saving Jimmy Kimmel Council Estate Media (resilc)
New Not-So-Cold War
Russia accuses EU of intentions to ‘occupy Moldova’ Anadolu Agency
Difficult decisions Events in Ukraine
Putin Proposes Extension of New Start Treaty for One Year Karl Sanchex
Imperial Collapse Watch
Proposed war authorization could allow Trump to target 60+ countries Responsible Statecraft (resilc)
THREAD: The Strategic Mutual Defense Pact (SMDP) signed between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan on September 17th signals a seismic shift in global power dynamics.
Between 2020 and 2024, more than 60 percent of China's arms exports went to nuclear-armed Pakistan.
China maintains… pic.twitter.com/qnJRjsZjxD
— Douglas Macgregor (@DougAMacgregor) September 23, 2025
Trump’s Bagram Folly Daniel Larison
Islamic Emirate to Trump: No Deal Over Bagram, Honor Doha Agreement TOLO
Trump 2.0
The New Detroit-Windsor Bridge Can’t Repair the Damage Trump Has Done New Republic (resilc)
Trump officially designates Antifa as ‘terrorist organization’ RT (Kevin W)
Trump Declares War on Left With “Domestic Terrorist” Designation Ken Klippenstein
Whither the Birthright Citizenship Cases? Steve Vladek
From Nazi Germany to Trump’s America: why strongmen rely on women at home Guardian (Kevin W)
Congress locked in game of shutdown chicken as funding deadline nears The Hill
Immigration
Trump’s $100,000 H-1B visa shock: Why US may lose more than India BBC
MAHA
Trump attacks Tylenol as officials unveil highly contentious conclusions on autism Guardian (Kevin W). I have repeatedly said that Tylenol should not be sold OTC due to liver toxicity risk, but is desperate. Oprah Winfrey lost a suit v. her for saying bad things about hamburger. Is there a defamation suit here?
Trump suggests changes to childhood vaccine schedule ‘based on what I feel’ The Hill
Why Swapping High Fructose Corn Syrup for Sugar Won’t Make You Healthier American Council on Science and Health (resilc). I had assumed so but good to have an expert confirmation.
Democrat Death Wish
Democrats Look for a New Villain: The Groups or the Billionaires New Republic (resilc)
Health Care
Patients Will Wait Longer:’ $100,000 Visa Fee Risks Worsening Doctor Shortage Bloomberg
Insurance Companies Send Chilling Letters Just Before Surgery. But Why? New York Times (resilc). I am hardly an expert on medical billing, but it is the hospital that is worried about getting paid and gets the prior authorization. The fact that the insurer is trying to intimidate patients is stunning, but the patient can reconfirm with the hospital (make it the surgeon’s problem, he has clout to penetrate the bureaucracy). The article essentially confirms that. I went through this with my hip replacement because I asked my surgeon to upgrade me very shortly before my procedure to a bilateral replacement and he agreed. My MD said even if he did not have the authorization in hand, he was damned sure he would get it, my hips were in the bottom 1%. The Communist State of New York has external appeal, so that may explain his confidence.
Psychiatric Hospitals Turn Away Patients Who Need Urgent Care. The Facilities Face Few Consequences. ProPublica
Charlie Kirk
Scenes From Charlie Kirk’s Spontaneous Memorial in Utah Wired. resilc: “USA USA is going down hard.”
Charlie Kirk memorial: Trump says he ‘hates’ his opponents at event attended by tens of thousands Guardian (resilc)
Who Killed Charlie Kirk? NATO Ramps Up for War with Russia Larry Johnson
Police State Watch
EU and German government sanction German journalist for critical tweets about Chancellor Merz Nachdenkseiten via machine translation (Micael T)
U.S. Attorney Refers Gavin Newsom To Secret Service For ‘Threat Assessment’ Over X Post Forbes (resilc)
Our No Longer Free Press
Sinclair preempts Jimmy Kimmel Live! after ABC’s decision to reinstate. Will Nexstar follow? Hindustan Times. Odd that this is the venue to focus on the key issue in its headline, as in what does Nestar do? The Financial Times, by contrast, completely omits it (as of this hour) in a comparatively long article. They have vastly more ABC affiliates than the conservative Sinclair. Recall also that Kimmel is wildly overpaid relative to his audience. Disney for the moment saves face but what happens if Nexstar folds, either out of audience pressure or fear of Trump?
A broadcaster on behalf of the people Multipolar via machine translation (Micael T)
Goebbels Ends Careers of Five ‘Aryan’ Actors Who Made Witticisms About the Nazi Regime New York Times (resilc)
Economy
Unemployment Barry Ritholtz
McCown: U.S. Container Imports Face Historic Decline as Tariff Effects Take Hold QCaptain
‘Underwater’ car trade-ins are at a 4-year high: What that means when buying a new vehicle CNBC
Demand for Data Centers, Energy Creates a Gold Rush for Infrastructure Investors Chief Investment Officer
Mr. Market is Moody
Longer-Term Treasury Yields & Mortgage Rates Jump after Rate Cut, Yield Curve Steepens, Bond Market Gets Edgy Wolf Richter
AI
Microsoft CEO fears artificial intelligence will destroy the company Telegrafi
The Bezzle
The $NVDA CoreWeave fraud just hit a new milestone.
On September 9, $CRWV signed a $6.3 billion deal with Nvidia. Per the deal terms, Nvidia is obligated to purchase any spare capacity that CW is unable to sell to end customers.
This seems to be a clever way to skirt… https://t.co/97p1ri19OM pic.twitter.com/LhXeNVdp1l
— Kashyap Sriram (@kashyap286) September 22, 2025
Guillotine Watch
Picasso or Bitcoin? How art’s status is changing among the super-rich The Art Newspaper (resilc)
Local decorators offer premium pumpkin decor for upwards of $1,000 ARL.com (resilc)
The Forever-35 Face New York Magazine
Class Warfare
Hamburger Helper Sales Rise as Americans Try to Stretch Their Food Dollars New York Times (resilc)
More Americans are living in RVs as housing costs rise NBC
I Took Bernie Into Deep Trump Country. Can He Win Them Over? YouTube (resilc)
The Social Security and Medicare Funding Problems Are Real Washington Monthly. resilc: “Dat’s da plan”.
Antidote du jour (via):
A bonus:
I just want everyone to look at this Capybara pic.twitter.com/5U4NgFVNq7
— Beauty Of Nature 🌳 (@ShouldHaveAnima) September 23, 2025
And a second bonus:
Little orange cat pic.twitter.com/iShXAHlaIu
— Beauty Of Nature 🌳 (@ShouldHaveAnima) September 23, 2025
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
Rogue (although welcome) capybara tweet in the ‘Israel v. the Resistance’ section. I see it is also the bonus antidote.
>Alastair Crooke : Israel’s War of the Jungle
I got up early to have more time to take in the day’s latest batch of fresh hell. This was first on deck from last night and Alastair did not disappoint.
Last night Greenwald was back to soft pedal the outrage over Tucker’s speech at the Charlie Who memorial. GG holds that he didn’t say what I heard him to say. The genie is out of the bottle.
Oh, Alice X, how times have changed. I remember back in the last century when I loved waking up on Wednesday mornings because that was the day that the NYT’s then food guy, “minimalist” Mark Bittman, printed (yes, PRINT) his easy, fast and delicious recipes.
Now it’s Monday, when I wake up, eager, as you say, to ‘take in the day’s latest batch of fresh hell,’ and put on my headphones to listen to Alastair Crooke as I scrub down the kitchen.
>Last night Greenwald was back to soft pedal the outrage over Tucker’s speech at the Charlie Who memorial. GG holds that he didn’t say what I heard him to say. The genie is out of the bottle.
This bit?
And it it actually reminds me of my favorite story ever. So, it’s about 2,000 years ago in Jerusalem and Jesus shows up and he starts talking about the people in power and he starts doing the worst thing that you can do, which is telling the truth about people and they hate it and they just go bonkers. They hate it and they become obsessed with making him stop. This guy’s got to stop talking. We’ve got to shut this guy up. And I can just sort of picture the scene in a lamp lit room with a bunch of guys sitting around eating hummus thinking about what do we do about this guy telling the truth about us? We must make him stop talking.
And there’s always one guy with the bright idea and I could just hear him say, “I’ve got an idea. Why don’t we just kill him? That’ll shut him up.
That’ll fix the problem.” It doesn’t work that way.
https://youtubetotranscript.com/transcript?v=yUwocghazRc
I was amazed he went there.
I am doubly amazed however that my Zionist friends in my friend feed are silent.
HTML on the Steve Vladek link is not quite right – for readers, the post is well worth pasting into your browser.
“Trump’s Bagram Folly”
I think that Wukchumni called it when he said that idiotic statements like Trump wanting Bagram is just a distraction from the fact that Trump still refuses to release the Epstein files. I don’t think that even his base believes him when he says that they don’t exist and are just a Democrat hoax.
DT Barnum is pretty predictable with verbal sleight of hand…
An oldie but a goodie from the 17th year of the war…
1, 2, 3, 4
Well the war was now seventeen
You know what I mean
And the way it looked
Was way beyond repair
So how could we depart & have conflict with another
Oh, when KBR had standing there
Well Halliburton looked at fees
And they, they could see
That before too long
They’d fall in love de rigueur
They wouldn’t dalliance with another
Oh, when they had standing there
Well war profits went boom
When we crossed into the ‘stan box room
And they held their hands out every time
Oh they danced through the night
And they held their money tight
And before too long
They fell in love with war
Now why be a sutler with another
Oh, when they had standing there
Well the war profits went boom
When we crossed that Rubicon into doom
And they held their hands out each time
Oh they danced through the night
And they held onto to manna tight
And before too long
They fell in love with war
Now why have a dalliance with another
Oh, when they have standing there
Oh, since they have standing there
Yeah, well as long as they have standing there
I Saw Her Standing There, by the Beatles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxwAB3SECtc
I think it’s a distraction for Trump to avoid seeing himself for what he really is.
10 of the Tallest Trees in the World TreeHugger (resilc)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My cabin is just 7/10’s of a mile from the first Giant Sequoias in the Atwell Grove, one of 76 different groves all on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada.
It’s a remarkable grove in that the highest altitude Sequoias grow there @ 9,000 feet, about 3,000 feet higher than usual, and it also sports around a dozen trees over 300 feet high, not to mention perhaps the oldest Sequoia of all-the Arm Tree, at least 3,000 years old.
https://sequoiaquest.com/atwell-mill-arm-tree-tour-6212019.html
There is one route in via the Paradise Trail, otherwise its all steep off-trail walking to get to the holy grail. In a dozen years of traipsing around in such a fashion with friends, we’ve never met another hiker en route off-trail, so it very much feels like your very own grove of Brobdingnagians, most of which in the higher climes are around 20 feet wide at eye level.
The western edge of the grove experienced effects of the KNP Fire in 2021, with the Diamond Tree (19th biggest and 12 feet higher than the Sherman Tree) bearing the brunt of the activity, as flames raced through it’s base and carved a conflagration tunnel about 2 feet wide for 150 feet straight up, with the break-out point where the aged marquise diamond shaped fire scar that gives it the name, is. A mere mortal tree would succumb, but Sequoias can take such a beating and keep on living.
Before: https://sequoiaquest.com/diamond.html
After: https://sequoiaquest.com/atwell-mill-may-2022.html
It’s difficult not to feel like a big nothing-a pipsqueak, in their presence.
Frankly I was seriously impressed with that Hyperion tree. It’s massive. However Wikipedia says-
‘The exact location of Hyperion is nominally secret but is available via internet search. However, in July 2022, the Redwood Park superintendent closed the entire area around the tree, citing “devastation of the habitat surrounding Hyperion” caused by visitors. Its base was trampled by the overuse and as a result ferns no longer grow around the tree.’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperion_(tree)
Coastal Sequoias are basketball players, and Sierra Sequoias are sumo wrestlers…
Trees on the coast are in a maze of rainforest, as coastal fog supplies the wherewithal, as opposed to Sierra groves, where in a group effort, they really don’t allow much to grow in their midst and are oh so approachable.
I felt as if I was killing something with every step when we were in Redwood NP.
When one is in Redwood National Park on California’s north coast, it can be sobering to remember that 95% of these trees were cut down.
Cities in the area have names tied to this history.
Mill Valley had saw mills and Corte Madera means “cut wood”.
From the perspective of the redwood forest, freedom from government regulation was hardly a positive.
The Kauri tree in NZ also suffered from being a great hardwood and relatively easy to get to, and 95% of what I’d term a shorter white-bark Sequoia were cut down.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agathis_australis
No offense but think I prefer basketball to sumo. But all trees are magnificent.
Redwoods do have more media presence–that atmospheric scene in Vertigo.
If you walk out your back door to the south fork entrance and take the trail to the top of Dennison Ridge you will find a nice little grove at very close to 9000 feet. Very remote and probably seldom visited, an extension of the Garfield grove.
Think I’ve been to the area you’re talking about and the Atwell Grove and Garfield Grove are kind of bookends of high altitude Giant Sequoias, one south facing and one north facing. I have only walked to Hockett Meadow once from the South Fork, as somebody has to pay the price for gaining 5,000 vertical feet.
My preferred way is to backpack from Mineral King to Hockett and then walk down the Garfield Grove, where experiencing it is more pleasurable as its literally all downhill. Camping spots are at a premium on the Garfield Trail, but we stumbled onto a beauty in the upper grove, a few hundred feet off-trail hidden away, with a large circle of around a dozen boulders of size and surrounded by 20 foot wide Sequoias, with a view across of Homers Nose.
It’s a dry camp, with water being about 400 feet up the trail at a creek-so mossies aren’t on ya as much.
I saw written on a topo map in the Hockett Meadow ranger’s station ‘Stonehenge’ for the name of the place, and fitting.
Here’s a trip report from the last time I saw the King Arthur Tree alive, a year before the Castle Fire burned it up real good. I might have been the last person to see it alive-the 9th largest living thing in the world was not an easy get.
https://sequoiaquest.com/garfield-grove-919-222019.html
https://sequoiaquest.com/king-arthur.html
https://www.ilovetrees.net/king-arthur-dead/
I go through Mineral King to go over the gap into national forest because I don’t have to register at the ranger station and it’s a great way to access the high country by starting at 8000 feet. A great way to get to the grove I am talking about is to head south out of Hockett on the main trail and cut west across summit meadow. Continue down the ridge crest until you reach the grove. There is no trail to speak of after leaving the main trail but there is a trail out of the grove down to the south fork ranger station.
Regarding the Chief Investment Officer article in AI-infrastructure investing. There is no way these numbers make any sense at all. And, if they try it will actually crowd out other investing. This is a really bad bet but all parties.
Also, it means massive electricity shortages and rising power prices. Just what we need to frustrate consumers and fuel inflation.
The shortest path to increasing power generation is combined cycle natural gas. If we are about to enter a period of massive construction of these plants, it seems to me we would be seeing it in the futures curve for natural gas, no?
That’s because there is a waiting list of years for gas turbines.
https://www.spglobal.com/commodity-insights/en/news-research/latest-news/electric-power/052025-us-gas-fired-turbine-wait-times-as-much-as-seven-years-costs-up-sharply
Why don’t they get in touch with Iran to acquire those gas turbines?
“The Forever-35 Face The face-lift is better than ever, and everybody wants one. Deep inside the uncanny world of the surgically ageless.”
In researching for a comment last night, I came across what may be an example of this Forever-35 face though she is only 32-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Loomer#/media/File:Laura_Loomer_by_Gage_Skidmore_(3x4_cropped).jpg
If it is, then the results are mixed.
The F-35 Face: sold for lift-off, designed to crash.
lol, don’t forget maintenance.
In all fairness, the F-35 can still get it up-as they cavort overhead in who knows what (I can definitely hear them-but seldom see them, they must be 10k or higher) the Sam Dickens is going on, mock dogfights set to a little Barry White on their headsets?
There was some talk of renaming Naval Air Station Lemoore-where the squadron is based, to NAS Lemon, you’d only need to change a few letters.
I had trouble reading that a few days ago; the graphic descriptions of how facial surgery is performed made shudder. What a horrific sounding procedure to go through.
America is such a hopelessly superficial society.
And perpetual facial youth is yours for $100-300K!
She’s 32???? I thought she was at least 50
The H1B is framed as indians stealing American jobs, but it could also be framed as India subsidizing the US education system. Though as far as I know, nobody is doing that.
Maybe our elites concluded that it’s no longer necessary for India to train American workers, as they believe that AI is going to take over all of the jobs.
Really a question of extent to which H1B workers supply missing skills (the subsidize education argument) or replace skilled workers with cheaper alternatives (the stealing jobs argument). My view is that it is mostly but not entirely the latter. The former tend to be highly compensated so at least conceptually a tariff makes some sense, as companies will accept the cost to get truly missing skills, while killing the labor arbitrage of the average worker.
The real ‘benefit’ of H1B’s and other guest worker visa’s isn’t necessarily that they are cheaper, but that it creates an indentured servant class that can be treated like garbage. Even in cases H1B’s cost more than an American worker, they might still be preferred by the business class because they get a workforce that’s more compliant and easier to simply discard. Ian Welsh makes that point in his latest piece on the subject: Why Trump’s 100K H-1B Visa Fee Won’t Work & How To Make It Work
Even if the response isn’t to simply offshore the desired talent, the problem remains that the desired (experienced) talent may not be available in USA. Look at the fighting over AI gurus.
Overlooked in all of this (I’ve yet to see a single media story mention it) is the fact that companies are still free to sponsor workers for employment-based green cards. The only drawbacks it has compared to H-1B is that it’s more expensive (not any more, with H-1Bs at $100k) and that once it’s approved, it gives the worker the same employment rights as a US citizen or resident.
So all the crocodile tears about not being able to get foreign workers are just that. They can still get foreign workers, just not indentured ones.
Here’s my anecdata for consideration:
At my last two firms (global financial institutions), H1B workers that had attended US institutions – lower or higher education — were few and far between, other than those working in front-office, technically sophisticated areas (e.g., quant trading). That group typically had doctorates in technical fields – physics, math, etc, from the top US institutions (or, rarely, France). Of the H1Bs holding only a foreign undergrad degree a very few were pursuing graduate degrees at local colleges (e.g., Columbia, NYU) while also working. Within my department of 32, of 7 H1B workers only 2 had undergrad degrees from a US college.
In 20+ years of hiring for junior staff in the finance world (in a complex but not in highly advanced area), I have generally found the H1B bachelors-holding applicants to be about equal in skills to US citizens with bachelors degrees. There’s a lot of variance in that lot, the brilliant and the morons being about equally distributed. The H1Bs are a bit less clued in to the larger American/Western culture, but I was hiring to get a finance job done, not to discuss the plot line of Emma Bovary.
I think there’s a strong argument to be made that the H1B should be restricted to only advanced degree holders, working directly in their degree field – physics PhDs should not be eligible for a visa to work on finance problems, no matter that trading activity could be modeled (and exploited) by applying physics properties.
It can be argued that the truly skilled quant personnel can enter under O visas like actors and musicians.
I would be happy to see H1-B visas (and really any other “work” visas beyond those needed for very high level collaboration work) to go away altogether. It’s a brain drain for the labor exporter country and drives down wages for US domestic work force.
And BBC literally admits that
If these are truly the best, elite people, how is they’re getting paid an average of $94K?
Like, for reals?
This doesn’t pass the smell test; never has.
‘It’s a brain drain for the labor exporter country and drives down wages for US domestic work force.’
I think that might have been the plan.
Much like China, it can be hard to step back and realize that it’s really the American capitalists and the Indian capitalists that are screwing their collective workers. On balance I think Indian workers probably come out a bit ahead, though.
Looking at the supposedly intent of H1B, though, it is telling that the overwhelming majority of H1B holders are from India, followed by China as a distant second; It cannot really be that the world’s best and brightest reside mostly in India in such an overwhelming proportion.
The program has been heartily abused as a wage suppression scheme for decades.
It’s not complicated. The difference between Indian and Chinese H1-B visa holders is the English language. Indians ALL speak excellent English … better than many native Americans. Slightly different accent so many Americans insist the Indians’ English proficiency is, well … not as good (much less superior) to their own.
And this simplification explains
Superior skills would generally imply, at least in capitalist America, superior pay.
It is not in evidence however.
And regardless of even that, there’s been plenty of excellent investigative reporting demonstrating quite clearly how body shops game the H1B system to import workers to replace Americans.
This is the overwhelming usage of the system today, as documented extensively.
Young Chinese all take 9+ years of English. Many of them speak excellent colloquial English and are even better on reading and writing.
I think the difference is that almost all Indian high achievers aspire to leave India for North America, Australia, or the UK. Chinese high achievers are increasingly choosing to stay in China for education and work.
Old 100 Grand Bar: Gooey caramel with crisped rice and covered in chocolate
New 100 Grand Bar: You’re gonna need a veritable shitlode of Rupees!
Gold is above $3,800/oz today. Maybe 100 grand in 2026?
From Links a little while ago, on the possible origins of H1B and other immigration policies as tools of wage suppression and labor control.
https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/how-why-government-universities-industry-create-domestic-labor-shortages-of-scientists-high-tech-workers
So yes, perhaps AI is now the new hammer with which to keep workers in line.
I see that those working in engineering and medicine have already been exempted from this fee. And in addition, the white houses verbiage contains this doozy of an arbitrary loophole for its friends:
“(c) The restriction imposed pursuant to subsections (a) and (b) of this section shall not apply to any individual alien, all aliens working for a company, or all aliens working in an industry, if the Secretary of Homeland Security determines, in the Secretary’s discretion, that the hiring of such aliens to be employed as H-1B specialty occupation workers is in the national interest and does not pose a threat to the security or welfare of the United States”
Accenture announced a new office in Andhra Pradesh that will employ 12,000 people:
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/accenture-proposes-new-campus-indias-andhra-pradesh-eyes-adding-12000-jobs-2025-09-23/
Visakhapatnam is a lovely city, the Ghats behind it keep the weather cool and the beach is clean (for India).
Those jobs are going home.
For the sophisticated and affluent. Escargot helper
Add a new wrinkle
To your periwinkle
I’m gonna call the Capybara video the genuine article-not AI
Saw around 40 of them on the banks of the Tambopata River in Peru, with half of them completely caked in dry mud-and after suffering through humidity surely from hell or approximating it, I thought not such a bad idea.
They lose a fair bit of cuteness, slathered in mud.
>They lose a fair bit of cuteness, slathered in mud
Relatedly – being close to many flamingos is sobering and uncute.
I’ve heard that in human-settled areas where there are also primates like monkeys or macaques, they can often be inveterate thieves and a horrible nuisance. Not cute at all.
(Of course, we humans being primates too, other species in nature might well see my remarks as the pot calling the kettle black.)
Never trust a primate. And never lend him your assault rifle either-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxYmm5yCJBg (42 secs)
Ha ah!
I’ve never heard such a menacing sound from a not very big animal…
Red howler monkey howling, Tambopata Reserve – Peru
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSm3cqxPaRM
Oh gawd, kill me now!
When in the Venezuelan floodplains between the Apure and Meta rivers, both Orinoco tributaries, i saw Capybaras (Chigüires, they are called in Venezuela) aplenty. Most frequently in the water and the mud than wandering the savanna. Slathered in the mud was the normal. We once hosted for a while a couple of cubs found lost which were quite friendly. I will never forget their cuiiii-cuiiii sound they made while running behind the feeding bottle. Extreme cub cuteness.
Union Pacific – Norfolk Southern merger
UP-NS merger ‘sounds good to me,’ Trump says Train magazine
STB Criteria is serve the Public interest and enhance competition, huh? Looks like a rubber stamp to me.
Trump met with UP Chief Executive Jim Vena last week in the Oval Office, when he first expressed support for the Omaha-based company’s acquisition of NS, headquartered in Atlanta. Trains
Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR) has been asset stripping for 15 years now. Employment down 33%, ripped up yards and trackage. Freight volumes have flat-lined since mid 2000s, while trucking is up 30%
Railroads have a 40% margin. Wall Street and executives compensated with stock are the ONLY beneficiaries of consolidation. Customers, the public and environment are the lovers.
The only positive is consolidation makes nationalization easier in the future. Railroads should be a public asset and not a plaything for billionaires.
Reading Eric Hobsbawm’s The Age of Revolution right now which is written from a Marxist viewpoint. Apparently the US was one if the very few Western countries whose railroads were not nationalized from the get-go.
The US was nationalized by the railroads
Childhood plastic exposure could be fueling obesity, infertility, and asthma
Maybe autism? Psychopathic behavior? How does one avoid receiving the plastic spoon brain implant?
Good times.
Why do liars always blame other people’s autism for their own incompetence at lying and the very public self-soothing of their own dopamine addictions?
Different link for “Microsoft CEO fears artificial intelligence will destroy the company” — after being unable to get Telegrafi (is that an Albanian language news site based in Kosovo?) to work:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/microsoft-ceo-concerned-ai-destroy-113044270.html
Strongest storm of the year roars towards Hong Kong and southern China BBC
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Super Typhoon Ragasa reminds me of Typhoon Ike 41 years earlier nearly to the day…
Being from Cali, I had no experience whatsoever with huge wind events, it was an unknown known. Was in Hong Kong for a coin show when Ike rolled into town, and what a performance.
I was on the 17th floor of the Holiday Inn in Kowloon, part of me wanted to watch the proceedings from a window, and another part of me wanted to lay in the bathtub sans water, and lock the bathroom door-just in case. The latter strategy won out.
It felt like a continual 4.1 earthquake for an hour, quite unsettling.
The next day, junks were 100 yards inland along with other boatalities scattered to and fro, bamboo which was used rather exclusively for scaffolding, was shredded similar to shredded wheat, and bamboo is no shrinking violet.
I’ll take earthquakes instead…
I guess that when you are used to earthquakes that only last a few seconds, that it would be extremely unnerving being in a swaying tower for over an hour. Reading up on Typhoon Ike, it was a monster-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon_Ike
Some earthquakes last over a minute, but what makes them so long is how time slooowws down the more you while in your chair dances around the floor. Those seconds feel like minutes and for those few quakes that do last minutes, I imagine that they do feel like they last hours.
Also, if you’re in a serious quake zone (e.g. Sumatra) the thought that gets me is “this is minor right now, but could get really destructive”. Never felt so small.
When I lived in Banda Aceh there are noticeable earthquakes every few days. After a while of this our brains kept “feeling” non-existent quakes. Ended up keeping a glass of water on the table so we could check for ripples.
No fan of wind, but would take it over quakes.
A glass of water on a table can give a warning about other things as well-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25udaa-Wn4E
When those little orange tiger cubs grow up will they always play nice with their human hosts and handlers? Hard to predict but signs point to…maybe not.
Caught this on the evening news last night….Tigers are gonna tiger. Sounds like a horrific way to die quite suddenly.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/oklahoma-animal-handler-attacked-killed-tiger-performance-sheriff/story?id=125792975
Even a domestic house cat can cause a lot of damage when annoyed.
While this is true of many domesticated pets, I suggest that a growing to full size adult tiger is big enough to do greater damage to say, your torso or the top,of your skull if tiger is so inclined.
“Who Killed Charlie Kirk? NATO Ramps Up for War with Russia”
‘…the NATO members genuinely believe that they enjoy military superiority over Russia and are proposing a range of crazed responses to alleged Russian provocations, such as shooting down Russian combat aircraft and closing the Baltic Sea to Russian maritime traffic.’
These are known as acts of war and I doubt even Trump will intervene if some of these eastern NATO members try a stunt like this. I keep on getting the impression that these countries are saying stupid stuff like this because they are absolutely convinced that Trump will ride to their rescue, even if it means triggering WW3. Since the Pentagon recently announced that they are pulling weaponry and resources out of the Baltic States, that is not a bet that I would take.
> Sinclair preempts Jimmy Kimmel Live! after ABC’s decision to reinstate. Will Nexstar follow? Hindustan
>> The Sinclair Broadcast Group operates 38 ABC affiliate stations in the U.S.
For reference:
> ABC has eight owned-and-operated and more than 230 affiliated television stations throughout the United States and its territories
That >15% of total ABC stations. Does that make them compliant, or non-compliant?
An ABC owned station will of course do what ABC says. Here’s an explanation of ownership rules.
https://www.tvrev.com/news/us-tv-station-ownership-rules-loopholes-explained
In another bit of TV history CBS and NBC used to dominate ABC because their early start in TV (they had radio networks) gave them the more desirable–for radio wave propagation reasons–lower positions on the clicker dial. This is why in my town it was always hard to get the Asheville ABC station. Once cable came in all were equal.
Wolfgang Munchau:
The war cheerleaders need to go back to the mindset I had in the 1980’s. War in central Europe was (and is) a tripwire for nuclear war! Recall of the horrors of WW II was gone in my view. Vietnam and the limits of US power were in play! Ground Launched Cruise Missiles and Pershings (nuclear tipped all) in Europe.
The war cheerleaders need to recognize the limits of US power to project against a first world power within its geography. They also need to recognize their own limits.
The fact that sanctions were wrong was obvious: long term trade benefits both sides. G7 is slowing in part because they shot themselves in the feet with sanctions. Anyone with eyes and Econ 101 would see!
They should all pull up Nena’s “99 Red Balloons”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fpu5a0Bl8eY&list=RDFpu5a0Bl8eY&start_radio=1
Those cheerleaders could also try a little harder to explain what victory in a NATO-Russia conflict looks like to them in both the nuclear and nonnuclear cases. Anyone using the word “Putin” in the answer should explain how Russian security interests change when he’s gone or else own up that they really want something like the prostrate Yeltsin client state selling everything they can for pennies on the dollar. Extreme economic and political instability in Russia is a desirable strategic goal?
You mentioned the sanctions. If the US top goal for Project Ukraine was to gather its European vassals back, domineer them, extract tribute, and sever their relations with the East then so far it looks like it has worked.
Breaking up Russia is unspoken U.S./UK/Berlin/Brussels goal.
Not explicitly written in print media – (because they all know to officially demand Russia´s break-up would be against international law which by design only Russians are capable of violating) – but tacitly understood by editors and readers and politicians alike. One of those lovely Bourdieu-esque cultural demoninators among elites.
It is contradictory that in this article, Munchau, while correctly identifying the warmongers still buys their propaganda and the “unacceptable aggresions” by Russia and tries “not to underpin the security threat posed by Vladimir Putin”. This security threat is, in it’s entirety, a creation of the CW and expanded even more by the European warmongers themselves. It is real because it exists in the minds of those who so rabidly want war with Russia but it would dissipate as soon as the sanctions-obsessed warmongers were substituted by more rational actors with a will to restore relationships instead. Does he try, with this contradiction, not to be sidelined completely by the very same propagandist warmongers he is criticising? If so I think it is illusory for Munchau to believe that he can stand in some kind of middle way. He must be either with them in every sense or totally against them because the warmongers themselves will demand it. I think this explains what he writes his last phrase: “They leave me in no doubt that there is substantial support for a glorious war, just as there was over 100 years ago” and omits the corollary “and this support might end with the same tragic consequences”. Munchau tries, somehow cowardly, not to compromise too much.
Regarding the Dr. Goebbels, article from 1938, (A nice example of cancel culture rom the past.) the kind doctor’s rhetoric sounds familiar.
brazen, impertinent, arrogant and tactless…
society rabble that followed them with thundering applause—parasitic scum, inhabiting our luxury streets, that seems to have only the task of proving with how little brains people can get along and even acquire money and prominence
As does this observation from the author,
What amused the public most, however, and presumably roiled the National Socialist authorities most—although Dr. Goebbels does not mention it—is that they deftly, but unmistakably, caricatured some gestures, poses and physical characteristics of National Socialist leaders—sometimes with bon mots that made the rounds of the country.
Terrorist bon mots!
“‘We’ve given up on Israel’: Disillusioned with Netanyahu and the war in Gaza, Israelis are fleeing”
Maybe this lot is smarter than I figured. That sooner or later Netanyahu would start attacking those on the left as outcasts in order to secure his own position. Just the other day in the US we saw the hard right declare a virtual war against leftists. So it may be only a matter of time til Netanyahu does the same in Israel.
> “‘We’ve given up on Israel’: Disillusioned with Netanyahu and the war in Gaza, Israelis are fleeing”
> Just the other day in the US we saw the hard right declare a virtual war against leftists.
Not just the hard right. The apex moral entrepreneur of the liberal establishment
> asked how many students, by show of hands, had accessed social media by the time they were in middle school. A decent number, but not a majority raised their hands. When he asked if this was for religious reasons, the crowd’s affirmation prompted him to observe wryly, “Okay, so there we see the beginning of wisdom.” He contrasted this with secular campuses — including his own NYU classroom — where the overwhelming majority would have raised their hands.
is throwing his home university under the bus. Last week he announced his shift from a secular/rational to a traditional moral framework when he
> answered a question about religious life and technology dependency by sharing that one of his “greatest regrets in life is not having honored Shabbat.”
Last year we had snipers on the roof here, pointed at protesters aligned with the new Exodus. Ordered by a D-1 R-1 University President. Those migrants had best not come here, there is no succor from our liberal establishment.
> resilc: “Dat’s da plan”.
re: Argentina
As a cynical American conditioned to listen for war drums, financial stabilization is not my first thought when I see a US official use that line in reference to international affairs. Are we sure this isn’t Act II of a flanking maneuver on the southern cone as the US war machine repositions for Monroe Doctrine 2.0? Argentina is probably too far to be of any assistance with the war on Venezuela but lots of water and minerals in Argentina.
I believe that many people are attending or watching memorials for Kirk with real feeling, but spontaneous and impromptu are not accurate.
The well-funded bots and monied efforts on all the socials (including YouTube) and throughout the internet, never mind FOX news and bots in place to create conflict, did so much to foment the mood, along with the White House. (Although I suspect Trump is pretty steamed about now with all the admiration for Kirk.)
It’s exhausting. For a while there the Kirk-bot posts outpaced “thank you, RFK, Jr!” Bots.
Re: Argentina
Where are the fiscal conservatives to denounce this? Rand Paul? Massie? M T-G?
America First? Hello, McFly?
Don’t cry for me Argentina, the truth is I always loaned you money that we’ll never get back, it takes two to tank oh!
Trump said Bagram base is American. It never was. The military base was installed by the Soviets in the 1950s.
Just another pile of BS, twenty years in Afghanistan wasn’t enough time for israel or whatever fat pockets were feeding off it. The Chinese thing is just another big lie.
Moving Moon of Alabama
“Typepad, the system and hosting service this blog is running on, will soon close down.
This week the Moon of Alabama blog will, hopefully, move onto a new blogging system and a new hosting service.
I have tried to prepare for the move to be as smooth as possible. However – experience says that any such move hardly ever happens without severe hick-ups.
This will take all the time I have and, until the move is done, there will be few if any new posts.
At some point I will close the comments on the old side and open them on the new one. I will then change the name-server entries to direct all requests for moonofalabama.org to the new physical server. This changeover will take some time to proliferate throughout the distributed global Domain Name Service (DNS).
If you are experiencing problems reaching Moon of Alabama just wait a while, maybe even a day, and try again.
Since Typepad announced its close down its service has deteriorated. Some blog functions have stopped working and the help desk has become unresponsive. It may therefore take some time to put the complete archives onto the new server. The last two or three weeks of posts and comments will, at first, likely be missing. I will try to correct that as soon as possible but will depend on Typepad to be able to do this.
I’ll see you at the new site …”
– ‘On Gaza & Ukraine: Canadian PM Mark Carney is either a fool or a Deep State operative’ – Lucy Komisar
This is a nice critique of the type of bulls**t rhetoric coming from Western leaders these days. But I’m not sure I’d call Carney either a fool or a Deep State operative. When your Prime Minister is the former Governor of both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, it tells me that elites don’t even have to pretend any more that you are a “democracy” of all the people. It’s as if billionaires in the US just started running for elective office directly rather than funding “regular” candidates secretly… oh wait.
Oligarchs don’t have to pretend we have a democracy anymore. Nor do they have to pretend that their words have any relation to facts. It’s all just for show these days. Trudeau gets replaced by this guy. Biden gets replaced by Trump. Nothing fundamentally changes.
On Gaza & Ukraine: Canadian PM Mark Carney is either a fool or a Deep State operative
They are not mutually exclusive, you know!
TV series pitch: Charlie’s Angels
In an updated version, 3 blondes not by birth seek out naysayers in order to take away their livelihoods, how dare you have an opinion on this matter of grave importance to some, citizen?
Premium Pumpkin Decor
McSweeny’s most read article of all time:
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/its-decorative-gourd-season
(mfers)
Link as posted didn’t work for me, but if you add a vulgarity to the end, you’ll get to it directly. (or main page has a link in the ‘trending’ column).
Thank you!
Those pumpkins are a great vegetable. Terrible waste of good food.
I had to address the corn syrup vs sugar story. I quit drinking all sodas over 10 years ago due to corn syrup. I realize sugar isn’t good either, but in general avoid all products containing corn syrup. I do not eat anything with corn syrup in the product, I found it in campbells tomato soup and Italian sausage. I found it in all sorts of products and just classify it as processed food. I have found many alternatives and try to eat as organic as possible. If I do choose a soft drink, I try to stick to diet but wonder if sugar might still be a better choice than whatever chemical compound the diet soda might have in it. So all the hysteria relative to corn syrup was just nonsense? Really?
Yes.
With sodas, the colorings are at least as bad as the sugars. Aspartame has more complaints than any other food additive approved by the FDA by a huge margin, yet oddly RFK, Jr. is not interested in that.
Coincidence?
“Incidentally, the Dirty Money website shows that the company Fanjul runs with his brother Pepe, Florida Crystals, donated $1 million last year to the super-PAC known as Make America Great Again Inc. You can probably guess which grotesque presidential candidate it supported.” Florida Phoenix
Many of the artificial sweeteners have been found to be cancer-causing. We switched to flavored carbonated water and like it pretty well.
“I Took Bernie Into Deep Trump Country. Can He Win Them Over?”
Bernie won nearly every county in Upstate NY that went for Trump.
The reason why in retrospect at latest Bernie gotta seriously ask himself why he did not risk a rift in the DNC back in 2016 and 2020. I am not pink-glassed re: Bernie (in Germany he would have been a Merkel-man). But by comparison…
Because he needed ballot access. The rules in many states for new parties are insanely restrictive.
I understand the reason why he did not run third party, as the chances of a third-party candidate ever being successful are impossible the way that the ballot laws are intentionally-written.
However, a lot of people are very bitter (Myself included) over the fact that he did not take Biden to task as he and the rest of the Democratic Party so richly deserved and instead groveled before the very establishment that was blatantly trying to cheat him and as a result, we got stuck with his “friend” Joe Biden.
At the very least, he could openly point out how dishonest the leadership of the DNC is and how they are just as much of an obstacle to taking on the plutocratic oligarchy as the Republicans are. I understand that he was afraid of a Trump victory at the time, so he tried to foster “party unity” among the Democratic Party. He still got a proverbial kick in the teeth from them after doing so.
The problem is that Sanders does not seem to realize that the Democratic Party as a whole, particularly the Clintonite wing is never going to forgive him no matter what he does for daring to challenge Hillary’s claim to the throne in 2016, so there is no point in trying to appease members of the Democratic nomenklatura who are going to hate him no matter what he does. He should have given them no quarter, because they certainly did not give him any. Only after you are victorious should you consider extending the proverbial olive branch.
Indeed. I give him a pass for 2016 – he did make a pledge ahead of time to support the eventual nominee, and he kept it even after he got screwed. That shows integrity. But given that, when they stuck the knife in again in 2020, he should have gone scorched earth.
Yeah. The part that got me was barely acknowledging the multiple efforts made to successfully sabotage both his campaigns.
I get ‘16 for the same. He made a pledge, kept his word.
Elon Musk’s Father Accused of Child Sexual Abuse (NY Times via archive.ph)
Shutdown theater continues: Trump says no meeting with top Democrats on shutdown ‘could possibly be productive’
This year is pretty lit.
Meanwhile on Priced out of traditional housing, more Americans are living in RVs
Out here, we have a ton of RVs, but these seem to be much more affluent or at least reasonably well off RV owners. They’re here for half the year, the other half elsewhere, many it appears in Florida. These aren’t the newly poor(er).
PE buying up RV parks has been a big these these past 10 or 15 years. This is definitely a growth area for exploitation.
I can’t get WSJ, but this is similar
U.S. lawmakers push for military dialogue in a rare China visit (NPR)
I pretty much take it as a given that a parked 5th wheel trailer in a driveway is never going on vacay again, thanks to somebody living full time in it.
Theater, indeed … of the Japanese “Kabuki” variety.
Only the lonely Thomas Massie had the integrity to point out that a CR simply restores the funding to USAID and other agencies that Musk allegedly “wood chippered” back to Biden-era levels. So, should a CR pass, expect a massive hiring spree at NGO’s and NGO adjacents, such as Business Insider, Forbes, and Politico (beneficiaries of USAID largesse.)
Gotta crank out those Goebbels-style propaganda pieces … they won’t write themselves! Ukraine is winning, Gaza isn’t genocide, etc.
Or maybe they will write themselves, thanks to AI.
Only a fool would ever think that the GOP is in favor of spending cuts. The end result will be a few days of shutdown theater, followed by a CR and more spending than last year, as always.
I assume this is all about dollar shorts and gold / silver puts.
Is everything broken?
1) I ordered two identical ceiling fans from an online website. They shipped in two different packages. The first one arrived. The second one didn’t. I checked the tracking website and saw that the second package was stuck in a distribution center in Texas. I called the shipping company and they tried to trace the package. A couple of days later I received an email that the package was lost and I needed to contact the vendor. The vendor said they would ship a replacement. I specifically told the vendor that I had ordered two, received one, and it was just the one that was missing. I got an email from the vendor that the replacement was ordered, but I noticed that the vendor ordered two fans. I called the vendor and explained that I had already received one. I was told they would try to stop one from shipping, but it was probably too late. They verified that, yes, I had informed them that I only needed one replacement. I ended up getting two replacement fans from the vendor. Then a couple of days later, the shipper evidently found the “lost” package and sent it. So, I ended up with four ceiling fans. I called the vendor and they said I could ship them back if I wanted to and they would email prepaid shipping label. I never received the shipping label. I guess I will donate them to Habitat for Humanity.
2) I ordered two different “Wicked” t shirts for a family member who is a “Wicked” fan. They were sent in two different packages. The first one was what i ordered, the second one was a Harry Potter t shirt with no tags — it looked like it had been a return. I called the vendor and I was told a replacement would be sent. I specifically told them which one I had received and which one needed to be replaced. I got the shipment and ended up receiving the t shirt I already had.
3) I ordered a pair of jeans from an online retailer. The manufacturer had two labels with a smaller size than what I ordered. However, the retailer puts its own sticker on the item that indicated a different (right) size. So I ended up with the smaller (wrong) size.
I give up,.
Yes
Amazon?
No.
If you itemize your deductions, be sure to also take the deduction for your fan donation :-)
Are stolen items deductible?
I believe he said they never sent the return UPS stickers so they are abandon items which he happens to possess. I would expect these to be deductible as he becomes the default owner. He did his diligence in trying to return them.
Yup. everything is broken.
Similar thing happened with a buddy, but with a large flatscreen TV. First shipment was delayed and they eventually wound up with two and the company they bought it from didn’t want the 2nd one back. This indicates to me that these companies must be operating with some substantial margins if they can be so cavalier about losing product.
“This indicates to me that these companies must be operating with some substantial margins if they can be so cavalier about losing product.”
I was thinking the same thing. The fan vendor told me I could just keep the two extra fans. Since I had no need for two more fans and didn’t want the hassle of selling them, I thought I would just try to return them. The two extra fans were over $300 (total, not apiece).
I think some of these companies run a business with low cost of goods and higher costs for people and shipping and storage. Somehow it’s cheaper for them to abandon physical goods than to bring them back, clean them up and repackage them. We’ve had a few experiences like this where when we received lightly damaged goods (dented metal) they just sent us a new one without asking for a return of the damaged one.
Quality control on soda has gone down; I’ve had more damaged or even leaking cans than I’ve ever had before, although the number I can count on a single hand. Nonetheless, I’d never seen this before in decades of addiction until post 2020. Rice cakes as well, they’re more likely to be not entirely formed. Quaker Oats never seemed to have this issue prior to 2020. They were mostly always perfectly formed.
Secret Service dismantles telecom threat around UN capable of crippling cell service in NYC | CNBC
About a decade ago I was doing a lot of regular business travel to NYC and noticed an immediate degradion in my cell service especially with images. It was so bad I had a recurring joke with my friends that NYPD had a geofence around Manhattan to slurp up racy pictures and texts and that was why my messages would take multiple retries to send. Wonder how long this install has been in place?
So nation state actors, but they aren’t blaming Russia?!!!?? Hmmm, what other nation state has shown a proclivity for using telecom devices for nefarious purposes? I wonder why authorities aren’t offering any suggestions here, normally they are very quick to assign blame whether the facts are there or not.
This reminds of that story about the mysterious drones over NJ that we never got an answer to – we probably won’t here either.
Hmmm, what other nation state has shown a proclivity for using telecom devices for nefarious purposes?
Lol yeah also my first thought. So when they got to the part about cartels it sounded very unlikely. But I like another commenter’s suggestion down thread that it could have been used for comment swarming/consent manufacturing
“China Rare Earths Issue Remains Unresolved, US Lawmaker Says”
Bit unsporting of the Chinese to refuse to sell refined earths to ultimately the Pentagon so that they can be used to build weaponry to be eventually used against China. The whole thing is ironic as there is an outbreak of peace in the Pacific right now simply because at the moment the US does not have the wherewithal to militarily confront China.
China would be wise to keep this as a trump card (no pun intended.) For example:
“Oh, so you say you want us to stop buying Russian oil … too bad about those rare earths, Donald.”
“Oh, so you say you will slap tariffs on us if we don’t buy Boeing … too bad about those rare earths, Donald.”
Perhaps Bessent and Lutnick could something something blockchain the rare earths? StableGallium?
re: Germany’s death wish – not fit for war, but addicted to war
I am known to be part of that faction that doubts any of the war threats by EU are serious.
Hadn´t RU attacked no PR office in Berlin and Brussels could have come up with a more brilliant strategy to rule and extort. For them this was gold. Again: Why put all this to danger after it was given to them on a silver plate?
Allegedly so far numbers of those joining Bundeswehr have risen by 15%. After 4 years of this? That´s not much. Especially if you consider how little that is in absolute seize. Also keep in mind that Germany already had a huge standing army. So nothing of this is new.
Even, to my knowledge, the planned Tomahawks 2026 are not new and thus not faster than what we had here before (the system is 40 years old). What is faster is the Russian response and in case those Dark Eagles do fly one day which they do not on a reliable scale yet.
I am not trying to downplay. But I firmly believe that crunching serious economic and military numbers and challenge the war parties that would open up a revealing debate in the sense of:
“Mr. Merz, do you really want war with RU? If so, then you have to do this and this and this and turn Germany into the Fourth Reich. Do what the Nazis did. And then you loose either the planet (because nobody will survive WWIII) or you loose the country´s wealth for building a useless military.”
And quickly the emperor would loose his clothes.
But the peace movement for lack of competence shies away. And thus unwillingly protects the status quo and its parties.
It’s just the Krauts being Krauts again. Liberal democracy was the Nixon mask they hid their sneaky Nazi streak behind and it’s now been discarded as they reach the starting post for third time unlucky. As one of the many Brits who lost kin in the last century, the right side is the one Krautenburg isn’t on. I think that this is one of the most important stories posted above: EU and German government sanction German journalist for critical tweets about Chancellor Merz. It gives us the real taste of the Fourth Reich.
Being generous, you are painting with quite the broad brush here.
>It’s just the Krauts being Krauts again. Liberal democracy was the Nixon mask they hid their sneaky Nazi streak behind
This doesn’t fit with my experience living in Germany and knowing many Germans. It anything, they are much more aware of the dangers of fascism.
> As one of the many Brits who lost kin in the last century, the right side is the one Krautenburg isn’t on.
As a Brit, I am consistently ashamed at the magnitude of British war crimes and colonial and post-colonial evil. I am ashamed of what we have done in recent years to Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya etc etc.
We Brits have much blood on our hands, and IMO are in no position to lecture the Germans.
Not to mention Mr Starmer’s continuing drift into authoritarianism.
The Krauts may be aware of fascism because liberal democracy has failed and the country is getting bsck to normal, the sheep meekly following German “leaders” authoritarian Nazi flecked anti-slav leaders in Berlin and Brussels with Eastern ambitions. Now they want to stretch the Fourth Reich to Russia to steal its resources. Just business as usual.
Fortunately, for the rest of us, they lack the strategic genius which gave Hitler his initial victories in Western Europe and Poland, but they’ve inherited his dumbest decision by taking on Russia at a game the Russians now plays better than any other country.
As a Brit, I’m fully aware that the Brits are prepared to do a lot of dirty jobs and we did get a lot of blood on our hands defending British interests. Unfortunately, we now have leaders who seem to prefer folliowing the Krautberg agenda in the Ukraine and Israel but, hopefully, things might improve when the Labour party dumps the bootlicking Der Starmer and then proceeds to rip itself apart giving Reform and Your Party a chance to replace deadbeat Labour and the clapped out Tories and seize the opportunities offered by sterling and concentrate on developing trade relations with Russia and the other BRICS countries.
Oooh my better half is a huge Sauerkraut fan.
Better I keep this post secret ;-)
OT p.s. on 1940 – Currently am reading military history “Blitzkrieg-Legende, Der Westfeldzug 1940” by Karl-Heinz Frieser.
I recommend it. Although Frieser claims – in a real side show in this case – that Halder did an excellent job in portraying the Wehrmacht (however the Western campaign) as head of the Operational History German Section, which is however known to have manipulated history re: USSR.
But Frieser does give interesting and detailed insight into how Manstein and that Sichelschnitt attack plan came together against Halder, later due to Halder, and it was risky, i.e. it could have failed.
As to “genius” the jury is still out to whether or not the French on a longterm planning level did sabotage their own capabilities in the sense that most parties of the formative French elites undermined the 3rd Republic and yearned for a subordination under German-ruled EU.
The fact that French air forces, army and even tanks were larger in numbers at least than German, the fact that at least in PR terms France was intended to keep peace in Europe with the largest European Armed Forces still I cannot entirely discount as pure fantasy.
How can you have de Gaulle suggesting tank tactics and yet have a French subterranean HQ but no phone (Gamelin instead driving to other generals by car wasting 2 hours, sometimes 2 days.)
Long story short, Blitzkrieg was as much “Blitz” as the enemy let it to be.
Also – this is from US scholarship – French secret intelligence knew darn well what the Germans were up to in terms of going to war. It´s absurd to assume that they were surprised.
So by a rough look none of this collapse adds together…
I was thinking of the strategic value of Pervitin use by German forces invading Poland in 1939 and, in particular, by Panzer crews during the invasion of France and the Low Countries in 1940, as recounted in Ohler’s ‘Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich’. The trouble is that Pervitin use made sense when speed and alertness were key factors by seeming to effectively amplify forces in a short campaign but much less so in a drawn out slogging match with the USSR when issuing winter uniforms would have been of greater benefit.
Why revert to the bigotry of former times? “Krauts” ? What disparaging racial epithet applies to you? To me? Are those epithets what we really are?
Is that what you think is using your head? Maybe bertl is in need of a Jeeves…
My British and Italian ancestors fought against the Germans in both world wars (the “Wop” slain at Ortona, the “Mick” made deaf in a training accident on Salisbury Plain, the “Limey” shell-shocked at Third Ypres.)
They thought they were fighting for a world in which people might not be judged for what they were born as. But I suppose you’d have to be some sort of stupid Canuck to believe that, eh?
Really, though, it’s not an illusion. We’re all just people: the Hun, us, everybody. So let’s cut out the crap.
It’s less a disparaging racial epiphet and more a disparaging linguistic epiphet about a people drawn together by a common language.
I can’t even begin to tell you what I think of the English, but we Scots are intelligent, witty, charming, great at doing our English overlord’s military dirty work, and handsome and virile and we grow great beards as well.
‘Douglas Macgregor
@DougAMacgregor
THREAD: The Strategic Mutual Defense Pact (SMDP) signed between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan on September 17th signals a seismic shift in global power dynamics.
Between 2020 and 2024, more than 60 percent of China’s arms exports went to nuclear-armed Pakistan.
China maintains tacit support for this alliance through its deep partnership with Pakistan while simultaneously arming Iran with critical military components.’
Looks like China is really inserting itself in the Middle east and the US/NATO cannot stop them. I think the thing that is really going to push this into overdrive is how the US not only let Israel attack Qatar but shut down their air defenses to enable it. And we will see a lot more Chinese weaponry in this region too like is happening in Iran. For the countries in the Middle east, there is a new sheriff in town.
Indian rupee slides to all-time low, US visa fee hike compounds pressure Reuters
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I’ve never seen an entire country so overrun with #79bugs, and old yeller going up as the Rupee is sliding, is very much a double win for those in the middle of BRICS.
From Priced out of traditional housing, more Americans are living in RVs
Gotta love NBC, though, in the end, RV living is just happy and working out after all
In America, even tragedy is positive!
And they didn’t even get into the fact that none of these people likely can get affordable healthcare.
re: Putin New Start
via Dimtry Stefanovich´s TWITTER
Kremlin´s statement
http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/78051
“@KomissarWhipla and I wrote in @POLITICOMag before the Alaska Summit on exactly this issue. We feel that there are five additional steps that can be taken by our two countries, but for now, this key statement – which President Trump will reciprocate – will give both sides a stronger strategic floor to consider anything else.”
https://nitter.poast.org/SahilV_Shah/status/1970097462669975880#m
POLITICO, Aug. 14th
Here’s the Big Deal Trump and Putin Could Actually Reach in Alaska
A Ukraine peace deal seems out of reach, but a nuclear arms deal is not.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/08/14/heres-the-big-deal-trump-and-putin-could-actually-reach-in-alaska-00508946
p.s. I am probably misreading but the focus on NATO/Baltics in EU MSM right now almost appears as a clumsy attempt to divert from the sane argument by Putin on NEW START. Because how do you manage to devalue that. Except of course “Trump is a Putin stooge” etc. But in general nukes are simply nukes. No discussing that away. And you really have to stretch to make less nukes look bad.
From the “Israel warns the EU” post:
Seriously? The “peace process” meme is still floating around out there?
How is the peace process doing these days, anyway? Seems a bit down at the heels! Will the media still be asking about it when every Palestinian has been murdered and every Israeli has fled to the Ukraine or some other new homeland?
I suppose there are different varieties of peace.
“where they make a desert, they call it peace”
Good news, department:
The rapture is scheduled for today/tomorrow:
https://www.statesman.com/news/article/rapture-bible-why-christians-23-tomorrow-pastor-21060773.php
So, we can expect to see some Charlie Kirk supporters disappearing? Or will they be “left behind?”
In their hope of hopes, evangs expect to be whisked away with the only evidence a clump of clothing and a pair of shoes strewn on the floor-post rapture, which means they are gonna be nekkid as jaybirds when they meet the Big Cheese upstairs, oh how awkward.
I always liked the Church of the SubGenius take on the rapture, a.k.a. “X-Day” (nominally July 5th), when the Men from Planet X arrive on Earth:
…which kinda cuts to the chase of the deep ressentiment behind longing for the rapture.
RE: Trump Declares War on Left With “Domestic Terrorist” Designation
Once again, the backlash to this nonsense is eminently predictable. Won’t be long before Oath Keepers and similar conservative groups get tagged as “terrorist” organizations once President Schiff is installed.
Meanwhile, I welcome Trump’s war on domestic policing because antifa are cops.
That will NEVER happen.
The Dems are collaborators not opposition.
The Dems have already been trying to tag conservatives as regime changers. See 1/6.
The Trump admin is often the funhouse mirror reflection of that other funhouse mirror. The lawfare crowd were warned about blowback. Perhaps they didn’t care because now they can say told you so.
Make it stop–both.
Breaking News
President Trump designates the Boy Scouts of America as a domestic terrorist organization.
re: Taibbi ICE protest uncensored
Activism, Uncensored: Blocking ICE
Confrontations escalate outside a facility in suburban Chicago
Ford Fischer
Sep 23, 2025
13 min.
https://www.racket.news/p/activism-uncensored-blocking-ice
I am not sure how this relates to the “Weimar” perspective, or to “Chile ´73” comparison.
Police violence of this sort has been around in G7and G8 countries for decades.
German police in the 1980s in fact had to change their tactics (to later ramp up their violence) because camera showed too much blood during public protests and that hurt government policies. This was all happening around anti-NPP protests.
With protesters fighting cops. Being attacked from helicopters. Climbing fences. And getting beaten up. Remember the summer of Paris 1967? Or Berlin 1968? Or the death of Carlo Giuliani during the Genoa protest in the summer of 2001?
I did some little reporting about Arab students in Germany in the wake of the post 9/11 Patriot Act frenzy in 2002/03. Those students lost their visa, lost their university spots, lost their jobs. They were subject to police surveillance, and general racist hysteria. I am not sure today´s left sincerely remembers the atmosphere of those years towards Muslims in general. It was ghastly. A public hysteria palpable when you walked the cities.
I am having issues if Chris Hedges makes his drastic comparisons while he talks about his accompanying KLA forces.
Or comparing Ukraine War with Iraq War before the fact, or talking about his dreadful experience in Latin America while making assumptions about today´s sit.
I am not sure on the other hand. Indeed I am not an activist. And obviously the state lashes out against those who do push the limits. After all why fear those who do not question authority? So what is above video and what are above images about others doing videos proof of? I don´t know. But as long this “exchange” and its documentation is media reality I will keep reminding that by March 1933 – 2 months after Hitler was appointed Chancellor and at the same time the rigged 1933 elections took place – which btw still did not give NSDAP a two-third majority – NSDAP 44% vs. opposition of SPD/KPD/Zentrum 44+% – 100k people were in concentration camps subject to torture and killing, worse than Guantanamo.
All this just 6 months after major newspapers in Germany had been rejoicing about the end of the NSDAP which had lost many votes in the 1932 elections and was bankrupt.
p.s. when did either Taibbi, Hedges or any other knowing commentator in the US – or anyone I take seriously enough to ponder over what they are writing – last mention the problem of fascism in conjunction with Ukraine???
So we look at the “authoritarian turn” at home – which is all fine and dandy – but what about e.g. this quip from last year´s NYT, Nov. 21st?
“(…)Several officials even suggested that Mr. Biden could return nuclear weapons to Ukraine that were taken from it after the fall of the Soviet Union. That would be an instant and enormous deterrent. But such a step would be complicated and have serious implications.(…)”
https://archive.is/4G56L
Azov dangling nukes before our cameras? Coooool.
I can literally see how Kirn, here out of his depths in contrast to his excellent insight on cultural phenomena and entertainment life, would mutter some “why not?” argument just because it fancies “something daunting.”
(This is provocative of course, since I am aware Kirn is bitterly opposed to WWIII provocation. But to point out the momentary contradictions inherent in ideology posing as “opinioned society”.)
Why is this kind of reasoning so rare? The acetaminophen – autism link certainly doesn’t seem strong but that doesn’t mean it’s not a dangerous drug and shouldn’t be controlled more carefully.
The binary approach to just about everything in our human culture is depressing.
As to the Tylenol-autism link see: Tylenol and Autism from Science Based Medicine. Spoiler alert, current scientific consensus is that there is none.
Science Based Medicine also has an article regarding the efficacy of prenatal vitamins in reducing the risk of autism, as well as other aspects of the condition: Autism and Prenatal Vitamins. This is but one of many SBM articles on the topic.
I do take acetaminophen sparingly, for the reasons cited by Yves, because I cannot tolerate aspirin and other anti-inflammatories. My last purchase of Tylenol consisted of bright red, very sweet tablets which seem perfectly designed for children to accidentally poison themselves.
From this morning, Cache of Devices Capable of Crashing Cell Network Is Found Near U.N., NYT, archived. The lede,
The Secret Service discovered more than 100,000 SIM cards and 300 servers, which could disable cellular towers or be used to conduct surveillance.
The tech gear is above my pay grade, but might this be a narrative construction center with a hundred thousand voices?
Initial analysis of the data on some of the SIM cards has identified ties to at least one foreign nation, as well as links to criminals already known to U.S. law enforcement officials, including cartel members, Secret Service officials told reporters on Monday
Curious. I don’t know what to make of this story.
What if it turns out to be an off-the-books operation by the NSA or some other domestic spook operation?
> NSA or some other domestic spook operation
It smells more like manufacturing consent for action against a nation with ‘cartels’.
If domestic, why announce it? Unless it’s an intra-spookdom fight.
Can’t be Israel, as zero chance the SS exposes Bibi machinations.
Whichever, it feels like another shoe needs to drop before it makes sense.
In the past, a plucky little country in the Middle East embedded themselves in US telecom for some reason.
I’m always amazed by the important links that no one seems to be interested in talking about here in the current commentariat…
As to the upcoming decline in imports due to tariffs, this is how bad they’re expecting it to get:
Of course a shortages create their own inflation, so I think there’s going to be a very bleak Christmas this year. At least on the West Coast, my understanding is that it takes a couple more months for this situation to be reflected on the East Coast. As Yves alluded to, I’m hoping to see price drops locally. But given that we have a 22% import tax, that’s going to effect our government coffers as well.
Just speaking for myself, I have become numbed by all the flip-flopping, TACO Tuesdays, and general can-kicking by the administration. How many of these tariffs are real, and how many “carve-outs” are there? I know that some of them are real, as the revenue coming in cannot be faked (well, let’s hope not.)
I thought we’d be seeing riots at the local Home Depot over the last battery-powered leaf blower by Bastille Day.
data center power usage
I am more confused. All the media keeps saying data centers are driving up electrical prices.
All the data I can find says about 25 gw of actual new electrical data center usage. And up to 80 gw by 2030 that appears to be the most commonly agreed on going forward.
The US actual capacity is 1250 GW, means 2% is driving all this? Of which most is concentrated in just a few small areas?
I think it’s all sloppy reporting, and the reality is that raw energy prices are going up, inflation, and tariffs for everything else.
I have no love of DC or AI, but it’s not ringing true they are the reason for the large increases across the country.
Gail Tverberg takes the perspective that upfront costs and amortization conflict with low demand, and income inequality is a major driver of the disparity. See the comment on turbines by windall above. It could be pricing in the future costs. Or grifting…
She and Tainter are scheduled to do keynote speeches at a conference Oct 25. They both share the perspective of decreasing returns on complexity in regressing systems. Fun stuff.
A follow-up:
John Robb: U.S. AI data center demand is forecast to reach 123GW by 2035 (vs. just 4GW in 2024).
links to:
> OpenAI and NVIDIA Announce Strategic Partnership to Deploy 10 Gigawatts of NVIDIA Systems
{note the phrase ‘gold-rush’ in the url}
Even 123GW could be a real problem in the material world. Simple copper shortages are one node of the hydrakrisis. But with Intel.gov * Nvidia stake in Intel * Nvidia is the fulcrum of the inverted pyramid supporting the stock market, it sure looks like a national security socialization program. Where does grift end and borgenstat begin?
I’ll look to what Stoller has to say on this. Busting trust, indeed.
Adam Tooze, from Wednesday’s Links:
> In practical terms the most important tension may be over electric power. Trump’s pivot against renewables makes no sense from a business or tech point of view. But rather than fundamentally obstructing the AI push its most likely impact is to raise costs at the margin. Don’t bet on the hyperscalers allowing the lack of windmills to get in their way.
Picasso or Bitcoin? How art’s status is changing among the super-rich The Art Newspaper
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The name-brand art bubble has been something to behold and by far the best performing of all markets bubbly.
To pick an example, Paul Cézanne’s ‘Portrait of Madame Cézanne’ fetched $34,500 in 1946, and last sold for $7.4 million this year.
Nexstar says it will pre-empt Kimmel but maybe not forever. So this will black out the show for 1/4 of the country. Sinclair also says their block being negotiated.
https://deadline.com/2025/09/nexstar-jimmy-kimmel-preemption-1236553268/
https://archive.is/o8Rky#selection-447.0-447.74
Hamburger Helper nutritional values:
https://www.nutritionix.com/food/hamburger-helper
You don’t say?
Fed Chief Powell says stock prices appear ‘fairly highly valued’
Powell probably knows how history treated Irving Fisher after Fisher’s “stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau” quote in Oct 1929
https://www.nytimes.com/1929/10/16/archives/fisher-sees-stocks-permanently-high-yale-economist-tells-purchasing.html
Anathema – https://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/breaking-news/article/mlb-announces-automated-ball-strike-system-challenges-for-2026-season-180216779.html
I won’t get into all the reasons why this is just wrong, wrong, wrong (check the definition of the strike zone in the MLB rule book for starters), but I did want to highlight this bit –
“Rejoice, MLB fans, robot umpires are almost here … well, kind of.”
The fact that this author thinks real fans should rejoice about robots taking over says a lot. Clearly a lot of people would rather live in the Matrix than actually deal with reality. And clearly a lot of people are really stupid if they believe a robot designed by humans is going to be infallible. But as we’ve seen with polls about “AI”, the less people know about how it works, the more they trust its results.
And I’m already fantasizing about MLB players going ‘office space’ on robot umpires.
From last night, heh heh, Moldova’s election faces AI-driven disinformation from Russia, AP.
That’s quite a headline. I’m beginning to understand why every oligarch needs a data center. Unsurprisingly, lots of “Russia, Russia, Russia!” with the usual “attributed” and “alleged”, Tidbits,
Moldovan authorities have long warned that Russia is conducting a hybrid war — meddling in elections, disinformation campaigns, illicitly funding pro-Russian parties — to try to derail the country’s path toward EU membership. Moscow has repeatedly denied meddling in Moldova.
Spoof websites impersonate legitimate Western media and pay “engagement farms” in Africa, while AI bots are deployed to flood comment sections deriding PAS and the EU.
The obligatory clampdown, Police on Monday arrested 74 people in 250 raids as part of an investigation into an alleged Russia-backed plan to incite mass riots and destabilize the country.
Anschluss in plain sight for Moldova. Brown shirt organisations springing up wherever you look. Just waiting for the uniformed groups marching around cities to intimidate everyone not sharing their views, although the marching seems to done on digital media nowadays.
You don’t have to be a historian to see what is coming, plan accordingly. Trade being 60% of world GDP nowadays the economic dislocations about to occur will be off the charts.
I take offense with the word Anschluss describing a potential reunification of R of Moldova with Romania. It would be the third one and hopefully luckyer.
There are twice the number of “Moldovans” (ethnic Romanians from the historical principality of Moldova that united with Wallachia to form the Kingdom of Romania) in Romania than in R of Moldova and they are truly indistinguishable.
We havwe the reality of divided Koreas due to the US and the reality of divided Romanians due to USSR/Russia.
Of course, Brussels hates nationalism with passion, so the idea of national reunification is not in item to discus.
I have been sucked into the YouTube rabbit hole in recent weeks. (I admit to avoiding politics and news as of late.) Among my suggested channels of interest are cruises, crochet and…wait for it…RV and stealth van living. I fully admit to finding the videos of how to live in one’s car, van, or modified box truck to be fascinating. And the levels at which it is being done are pretty wide ranging. Real RVs do appear to be the choice of the well off, with a few exceptions. Car living seems to be largely lower income or early in the career, with a few better off who just find it fascinating and do it part time for the challenge of both setting up a system especially for bad weather. The stealth step vans and box trucks appears to have the widest range of financial state. And those often have the most telling statements about the ability to do this. They are the ones who don’t want to or can’t afford to live in the increasingly private equity owned RV parks. And they point out that their options for being to park the vehicle are tightening and are much harder to find, both because there are so many people doing it and it freaks the businesses and people who live in the neighborhoods where they used to be able park out.
This isn’t to say that the WSJ is wrong or right. Just that this anecdotal evidence is indicating that there is an increase and a response so the noose is tightening and that this is yet another alternative housing option which the traditionally homeless may not have access to much longer.
I met an Ozzie years ago RVing across USA who hated it, and us. He said he couldn’t park for the night anywhere in America without someone rapping on his window, banging on the windshield, demanding to know what’s the big idea, parking here? Nothing remotely like it had ever happened in Oz. Are Americans psycho? Or are there just 20 times as many of us? I say both.
re: Taibbi on Kimmel/Berenson
As Jimmy Kimmel Becomes a Speech Icon, Alex Berenson Fights on Alone
An imperious talk show host won the love of Hollywood and the ACLU, but to stop government pressure on companies, speech defenders need to recognize Alex Berenson
https://www.racket.news/p/as-jimmy-kimmel-becomes-a-speech
“Not that it matters, but while Kimmel was threatened for inaccuracy, Berenson’s problems stemmed from being too accurate about the mRNA Covid vaccines, about everything from studies showing surprising inefficacy to potential links to myocarditis that even Biden’s CDC eventually acknowledged. Critics have gone after other Berenson statements, but the ones that got him in trouble were exactly what the Founders had in mind when they thought about speech: true statements made in opposition to an official propaganda campaign. The last straw was this accurate tweet from August 28, 2021:
It doesn’t stop infection. Or transmission. Don’t think of it as a vaccine. Think of it—at best—as a therapeutic with a limited window of efficacy and terrible side effect profile that must be dosed IN ADVANCE OF ILLNESS. And we want to mandate it? Insanity.
Berenson’s removal marked the end of a five-month campaign that involved current and former high-level officials from Pfizer and multiple government agencies. Onetime Biden official Andy Slavitt commemorated Berenson’s silencing by posting a screenshot of Berenson’s locked account. That tweet is still live:”
Does anybody know, or can explain what is meant by ” (resilc) ” used in these links?
I’ve never been able to figure it out
It’s a “hat tip” to the submitter of the links, giving credit.
It’s my impression that parentheticals following links are hat tips to contributors.
Trump really does own Ukraine
General Assembly Updates: After Meeting With Zelensky at U.N., Trump Shifts Stance on Russia
High as a kite man
Trump believes everything that Kellogg tells him – who gets all his information straight from Zelensky. So we are well past the point where it was Biden’s war and now it is Trump’s war. He now owns it lock, stock & barrel and if the Ukraine collapses, the Neocons and the main stream media will put the blame all on him.
Trump’s UN speech excerpts
1) I ended seven wars. And in all cases, they were raging with countless thousands of people being killed. This includes Cambodia and Thailand, Kosovo and Serbia, the Congo and Rwanda. A vicious violent war that was Pakistan and India, Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia and Armenia and Azerbaijan.
2) These are the two things I got from the United Nations. A bad escalator and a bad teleprompter.
Thank you very much. And by the way, it’s working now. Just went on. Thank you.
I think I should just do it the other way. It’s easier. Thank you very much.
I didn’t think of it [the teleprompter] at the time because I was too busy working to save millions of lives
3) Everyone says that I should get the Nobel Peace Prize for each one of these achievements.
4) What I care about is not winning prizes, it’s saving lives.
5) China and India are the primary funders of the ongoing war by continuing to purchase Russian oil.
6) But inexcusably, even NATO countries have not cut off much Russian energy and Russian energy products, which as you know, I found out about two weeks ago and I wasn’t happy. Think of it. They’re funding the war against themselves. I can tell you that they have to immediately cease all energy purchases from Russi
7) I’m announcing today that my administration will lead a international effort to enforce biological weapons convention which is going to be meeting with the top leaders of the world by pioneering an AI verification system that everyone can trust.
8) to 156) interminable ranting about green energy and immigration
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuwHEbB6uhA , https://youtubetotranscript.com/transcript?v=DuwHEbB6uhA
‘I can tell you that they have to immediately cease all energy purchases from Russia’
Does that include all the refined uranium that Trump is still buying from Russia? And the fertilizers? And the chemicals? Inquiring minds wish to now. These days I find it hard to listen to Trump talk as it is like listening to a man-child talk.
I cannot bear to listen to any politician or news show, hence the use of transcripts. Even Trump transcripts strain my tolerance for idiocy.
7) I’m announcing today that my administration will lead a international effort to enforce biological weapons convention which is going to be meeting with the top leaders of the world by pioneering an AI verification system that everyone can trust.
Had to re-read that a few times, my mind kept interpreting ‘AI verification system’ as ‘contracts on the blockchain’