Links 9/29/2025

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1. The Rev Kev September 29, 2025 at 7:13 am

   ‘Samantha Smith
   @SamanthaTaghoy
   No wonder Tony Blair wants Digital IDs… when his son is the owner of the company that’ll be paid £100 billion to develop and monitor them.
   And ol’ Tony has £375 million worth of shares in the company, too.’

   This all reminds me of an old English saying though I cannot remember all of it. It was something, something far from the tree.

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   1. griffen September 29, 2025 at 7:45 am

      First glance , the picture of Tony reminded me of a character from the LOTR film trilogy. I’m undecided but it’s either a “Grima Wormtongue” visage or that of Lord Denithor, steward of Gondor…

      “Rule of your digital identity is Mine!…” \ sarc

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2. Ben Panga September 29, 2025 at 7:32 am

   Stephen Miller takes leading role in strikes on alleged Venezuelan drug boats (Guardian)

   Busy man, Miller.

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   1. Wukchumni September 29, 2025 at 7:54 am

      When its time to relax morals, one fear stands clear, fear after fear, if you got the time-we’ve got the fear–Miller Fear

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      1. mrsyk September 29, 2025 at 9:19 am

         Same great laying to waste
         Less drilling

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   2. dingusansich September 29, 2025 at 8:43 am

      Trump’s auto-thumb, according to John Helmer, but perhaps not the one and only. The “paper tiger” tweet sounds like a swamp-fever raving from Sebastian Gorka.

      Speaking of signatures, ever notice that Trump’s resembles the teeth of a whipsaw? Purely coincidental.

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3. Wukchumni September 29, 2025 at 7:36 am

   Gooooooooood Mooooooooorning Fiatnam!

   Château J’If had banned both smooth and crunchy spreads from the island unto itself, explaining that they were very knowledgeable when it came to starving out people that had the nerve to live on a future Club Med-like resort, and prolonging their agony turned stomachs.

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4. Adam1 September 29, 2025 at 7:51 am

   “How Humanity Saved the Ginkgo”

   LOL! The article in barely a passing fashion almost neglects one interesting fact about the Ginko… nearly every tree you see is a male tree.

   “Ginkgophytes survived multiple mass extinction events and outlived their original seed dispersers, which might have been carrion-eating animals attracted by the sweet-rotten smell of the fleshy seedcoats.”

   There is a female Ginko on the campus of Syracuse University. I would not use the word ‘sweet’ to describe its fruit – rotten is even being kind. The stench of it’s fruit is almost vomit worthy!

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5. The Rev Kev September 29, 2025 at 7:55 am

   “Datacenter fire takes 647 South Korean government services offline”

   Apparently the South Korean government is not familiar with the concept of a backup set of servers but preferred to have all their eggs in one technological basket. I mean, look at all the money they save by doing it this way.

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   1. Louis Fyne September 29, 2025 at 8:38 am

      like most disasters, you have more than one point of failure/chances to avoid boom:

      appropriate data mirroring + those batteries should have been outside

      exploding lithium-ion batteries are old hat now.

      Whether it’s Korea or the USA or EU, peeps reinvent the wheel only when they get kicked in the rear

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      1. Plutoniumkun September 29, 2025 at 9:31 am

         The fire seems to have been in UPS (uninterruptable power supply) batteries, which are usually built into data centres (and other key power infrastructure) to ‘clean up’ the power input, as well as to provide bridging power for a few minutes in the event of an external disruption. They work a little like the battery in your laptop when you are plugged in. By their nature, they are usually integrated into the overall hardware.

         But increasingly, these are being replaced by co-locating BESS (Battery Electric Storage Systems) co-located with data centres but with sufficient separation for safety. But from my understanding of the current technology, there will always be a technical need for some battery storage to be built into the data centre.

         Ironically, Korean media reports that the fire took place when the batteries were being moved following a safety survey. Its possible someone simply dropped one, setting off a fire. While its been reported that they are lithium ion batteries, it seems more likely to me considering the age and nature of the facility that they were ni-cad.

         While its reported as being a ‘data centre’, from what I can see the building was more of an old style internal server farm designed to isolate government data from commercial data centre usage. These are being built all over the world rapidly as governments have realised that its impossible to protect data if they are dependent on cloud storage.

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   2. mrsyk September 29, 2025 at 8:53 am

      Exposes a glaring vulnerability with data centers, easy to burn, and this in the middle of a heated competition between oligarchs to construct them. Will they require individual “iron domes” to protect them from malcontents and rivals?

      As is often the case with battery fires, firefighters struggled to control the blaze, which reached 234 batteries.

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6. mrsyk September 29, 2025 at 7:56 am

   From the Drop Site piece on Epstein,

   Messages spanning from 2013 to 2016 show intimate, oftentimes daily correspondence between Barak and Epstein. Their conversations address political and business strategy as Epstein coordinated meetings for Barak with other members of his elite circles.

   Just in case anyone is forgetting where Epstein’s loyalties were located.

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7. Adam1 September 29, 2025 at 8:17 am

   “Datacenter fire takes 647 South Korean government services offline”

   One more example of how the global elite are so not worthy of their power. They want the world to rush to a digital life and yet they are grossly incapable of understanding the needs of disaster recovery and hardened infrastructure.

   I find it amazing how many data intensive companies have actual disaster recovery infrastructure or even realistic action plans. I work for a good sized, but small financial institution (abt $10B in assets). We have an amazing disaster recovery facility 20 miles from our HQs. We can be cut over and fully operational in 20 minutes if need be and have space for physical staff for roles that need to be onsite (i.e. our call center staff).

   There is no reason for a nation as wealthy and technically capable as SK for not having a better data disaster plan in place.

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8. The Rev Kev September 29, 2025 at 8:23 am

   “Charlie Kirk Murder Mysteries Multiply”

   ‘Yet, in a medically unprecedented “miracle”, Kirk’s “body stopped it”. Kolvet claimed his “bone was [sic] so healthy and the density was so so impressive that he’s like the man of steel.” More unbelievably still, a coroner conveniently found the bullet that claimed Kirk’s life lodged “just beneath [his] skin”. This bullet has not to date been presented publicly.’

   In a little know fact, Charlie Kirk’s real father was “Wolverine” and thus inherited his father’s Adamantium skeleton structure and not even that .30-06 caliber could make a dent in his bones-

   https://www.marvel.com/articles/comics/wolverine-adamantium-skeleton-history-explained

   And if you believe that, then you are ready to believe all the stories that the Feds are coming out with.

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   1. MT_Wild September 29, 2025 at 9:36 am

      Bullets do weird things Rev.

      I have a relevant personal anecdote on this from a job where I was culling wild pigs. Out of about 400 animals on this project, I had one where I misjudged the range and hit it dead on in the spine behind the shoulders. Obviously killed the pig near instantly, but also the bullet did not penetrate out the back but instead just left a softball size crater on the entrance side. This was a .300 win mag at roughly 200 yards on about a 200 pound pig. Assume about 20% more kinetic energy than the 30-06 used in the Kirk murder.

      I remember it so clearly because it was such a strange wound. That same combination of bullet and caliber would normally pass through two pigs of that size on a standard heart and lung shot. No idea of why, but assume the density of the vertebrae and the rest of the spine acting as a shock absorber just produces some weird results.

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   2. pjay September 29, 2025 at 9:38 am

      Still waiting for that autopsy report. More importantly, the persons involved in that autopsy and the precise conditions under which it was performed damn well better be revealed as well. Perhaps the “magic bullet” will become part of a religious shrine – after ballistics links it to Tyler Robinson’s rifle, of course.

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9. Adam1 September 29, 2025 at 8:26 am

   “Xi to ask Trump to oppose Taiwan independence in return for trade deal”

   In many ways this would seem to be a logical/wise trade deal. There already are policies in place to encourage the transfer of chip technology from TSMC to the US. This could be accelerated. However, I suspect that US elites want China to invade to as to ensure that during the invasion all vital TSMC and other players facilities are destroyed by the invasion or by US friendly fire and special ops (oops).

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   1. The Rev Kev September 29, 2025 at 8:30 am

      US official have already said that in case of an invasion, that they intend to destroy TSCM and all other facilities so that the Chinese don’t get it. With friends like those…

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10. The Rev Kev September 29, 2025 at 8:58 am

    “Trump wants India to pick a side, either be a client state or face the bitter wrath of a fading hegemon”

    It’s not just Trump. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was saying the other day-

    ‘We have a bunch of countries to fix, like Switzerland, Brazil, India – these are countries that need to really react correctly to America,” Lutnick said in an interview with NewsNation. “Open their markets, stop taking actions that harm America, and that’s why we’re off sides with them.

    Earlier this month, Lutnick said the US will “sort out” a trade deal with India after the South Asian nation stops buying Russian oil and opens up its market.’

    So if India crashes their economy and let the US to pillage the Indians, then the US will do a trade deal. But by that point the US would have already gotten most of what they want. And India? Maybe an insurrection, maybe a civil war. Who knows, but it won’t be good.

    https://www.rt.com/india/625555-us-needs-to-fix-india/

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    1. Adam1 September 29, 2025 at 9:14 am

       Yeah, I would suspect the last thing the Indian’s want is a repeat of their time living under British Colonial rule, but only with a different English speaking ruler.

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11. amfortas September 29, 2025 at 8:59 am

    my back woke me up at 2:30, and i ended up with coffee and a splif out here by 3:3, and set to roamin.
    normally i am far from interested in anything that contains the word “masculinity” in the title,lol…since my last grandad’s passing, when i was 18, there’s been very little “manhood” examples in my life.
    but this i went ahead and read, because the writer is someone who’s work i have enjoyed before.
    worth a look, to fill in the whole picture of our systemic decline:
    https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2025/08/masculinity-at-the-end-of-history/

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12. divadab September 29, 2025 at 9:00 am

    Re: “MAHA making agriculture harder for all”

    Of course it is a very expensive project to rid agriculture of toxic chemicals. It’s expensive to change any harmful system. Converting US agriculture to organic* methods is a massive project. A massive and necessary project. This article advocates for a do-nothing approach – I really wonder who the author’s sponsors are.

    *”Organic” is problematic for different reasons – it means no use of potash-based fertilizers, for example, which is IMHO not sensible. I prefer “no spray” i.e. no chemical pest control (which is the root of the problem). It is not harmful to anyone to use “chemical” fertilizers as part of healthy soil management practices. Of course, this includes maintaining soil health with organic material and healthy soil biotas, which are wiped out by pesticides, but not by proper use of fertilizers.

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    1. Yves Smith September 29, 2025 at 9:09 am

       Oh, I see. You’d rather see even more hunger in America. These purist ideas all sound great until you see who bears the cost.

       The main beneficiaries are actually farmworkers, via lower exposure to actually or potentially toxic chemicals.

       There is no evidence that organic food is more nutritious, despite years of studies trying to prove that. The potential health benefit is avoidance of said chemicals.

       And those benefits are more pronounced when go higher up the food chain.

       It is convenient that the Trump Administration is eliminating reporting on food insecurity.

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13. Adam1 September 29, 2025 at 9:06 am

    “MAHA: Make Agriculture Harder for All”

    While I don’t have any faith in MAHA actually fixing agriculture and the American food supply, I also find this article deeply flawed. Its basic argument is that if we go fully organic then other bad things will happen that will out way any benefits of having gone organic.

    At the 10,000 foot level that is basically true; continuing to farm as we do now but only organically is not really going to fix our unhealthy food supply either. For at least the past 150 years we’ve been encouraging farmers to increasingly use unsustainable farming practices and encouraged them to keep getting bigger or get out of farming.

    Yes, the price of food likely needs to go up. And yes, we definitely need many more smaller farms. In today’s world we grow thousands of acres of corn and soybean which we then ship 100’s or 1,000’s of miles to another farm where 1,000 to 10,000 animals live in confined spaces eat that food. Those animals create a mountain’s worth of manure every day that has to be put somewhere. It’s almost certainly more nutrients than the local soils and fields can use while at the same time, because there is no return of the nutrients to the corn and soybean fields where the animals feed came from those fields NEED fertilizer.

    And going to a vegan diet doesn’t fix the nutrient issue either as most human solid waste streams are actually quite hazardous as they are mixed with household chemical and industrial waste streams and are increasingly loaded with PFSAs.

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14. Ghost in the Machine September 29, 2025 at 9:13 am

    So are the kiddos going to realize what happened to TikTok? Or are they just going to eat up whatever it serves? Hopefully the enlightenment of the young is real.

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15. The Rev Kev September 29, 2025 at 9:23 am

    “🎓 Northwestern University Blocks 300 Students From Class Who Refuse to Take Outrageous Zionist Training”

    So what happens if what is happening with Northwestern University is just a trial balloon. And that a Trump regime would mandate this video being shown in every university in the country. Do they even realize that such efforts only encourage resentment of Israel if not Jewish people themselves? What’s the next step. Every student having to answer the question before commencing studies-

    ‘Are you now or have you ever been a critic of Israel?’

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16. baguette September 29, 2025 at 9:25 am

    War propaganda and militarism on children’s TV in Germany WSWS

    Does this count as “history repeating itself as farce”. I can’t wait to see ganz neue Merzjugend marching, in all their diverse arian glory.

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17. Cervantes September 29, 2025 at 9:33 am

    Sperm-racing investors blow $10 million on ‘seed round’ for sports venture San Francisco Standard

    Wankers.

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