Links 9/3/2025

The real-life town behind The Truman Show now has an AI “concierge” – and it wants to come to your city too Popverse

Climate/Environment

The merchants of doubt are back The Climate Brink

The World Wanted a Plastics Pollution Treaty, but the U.S. Had Other Plans Foreign Policy

THE SURPRISING CLIMATE EFFECT OF LEGALIZING COCAINE Atmos

Climate triples heat deaths in Europe The Ecologist

Pandemics

Azelastine Nasal Spray for Prevention of SARS-CoV-2 Infections: A Phase 2 Randomized Clinical Trial JAMA

Outbreaks of rabies seem to be rising across the U.S., CDC surveillance shows NBC News. “A 2023 study published in the journal Vaccine found in a nationally representative sample of Americans that nearly 40% believed canine vaccines were unsafe and 37% believed that vaccines could lead their dogs to develop cognitive issues, such as autism.”

Japan

The Myth of Japan’s Missing Millionaires? Part 1 Japan Economy Watch

Ishiba’s China policy increasingly contested after electoral setback Shin Kawashima

China?

Putin, Kim accompany Xi to Tiananmen Gate for Victory Day military parade South China Morning Post

What new weapons on show at huge parade say about China’s military strength BBC

Brazil will remain China’s preferred soybean supplier, not the US Asia Times

In Protest, He Turned the Camera on China’s Surveillance State New York Times

India

Cheaper Russian oil, more S-400 for India likely amid Trump tariffs: Report Hindustan Times

Syraqistan

Israel Massacres Gaza Children Fetching Water, Starves 13 More Palestinians to Death Common Dreams

Gaza’s Last Functioning Children’s Hospital Drop Site

Trump sides with the far-right in Netanyahu’s cabinet Alastair Crooke (Video)

Israel calls up 60,000 reservists for Gaza City occupation Anadolu Agency

Top IDF Commander Opted Not to Boost Security After Visiting Nova One Hour Before October 7 Hamas Massacre Haaretz

Pro-Palestine Political Prisoners on Hunger Strike Are Dying Counterpunch

***

IAEA discovers traces of depleted uranium at Syrian sites bombed by Israel The Cradle

Old Blighty

Five members of group supporting Palestine Action ‘arrested in police raids’ The Independent

DWP quietly replacing new-style ESA with “Unemployment Insurance” The Canary

Disabled families use foil blankets to keep warm as energy bills keep surging: ‘We have to keep going’ Big Issue

Why We Need a National Network of British Stolovayas Class Consciousness Project

Food is power Food & Environment Reporting Network

Frostbyte10 bugs put thousands of refrigerators at major grocery chains at risk The Register

Africa

Report of Sole Survivor After Hundreds Killed in Sudan Landslide allAfrica

European Disunion

SAP to invest over 20 billion euros in ‘sovereign cloud’ in boost to Europe’s AI ambitions CNBC

Six AfD candidates have died ahead of municipal elections in Nordrhein-Westfalen. They are very unlikely to have been the victims of a covert assassination campaign. Eugyppsius

New Not-So-Cold War

Russia says China has agreed vast new Siberia gas pipeline FT

Did you notice the EU just lost its gas lifeline? Here’s what you should know RT

A gas breakthrough, if it’s not all hot air Meduza

Russia’s Oil Cargoes Flood to China as Tariffs Crimp India Flows Bloomberg

China’s SCO Summit Highlights West’s Growing Ideological Isolation, + Zelensky’s Desperate Gambit Simplicius

Europe to US: Coalition of the willing is ‘ready’ on security guarantees for Ukraine Euronews

Von der Leyen Is Lying About Russian GPS Interference Moon of Alabama

WWII Redux

80 Years Later, The War Against Exceptionalist Extremism Continues Karl Sanchez

Xi and Putin Weaponize WWII’s Legacy Joseph Torigian, ChinaTalk. Torigian is a fellow at Stanford’s Hoover History Lab and Professor at American University.

Nazification of the Memory War Azov Lobby Blog

SCO vs NATO? Julian MacFarlane

Amb. Jack Matlock: Western Leaders Became Ideological “War Criminals” Glenn Diesen (Video)

War In Our Time? Aurelien

L’affaire Epstein

Many of the Epstein case files that were just released by a House committee were already public PBS

South of the Border

US military ‘conducted a lethal strike’ on alleged ‘drug vessel’ in southern Caribbean, Rubio says CNN

Venezuela’s Defense Minister Denies Attack on Guyana Orinoco Tribune

Is a new war on terror kicking off in the Caribbean? Responsible Statecraft

The Great Hoax Against Venezuela: Oil Geopolitics Disguised as ‘War on Drugs’ Venezuelanalysis

Trump 2.0

Los Angeles Troop Deployment Was Illegal, Judge Says Ken Klippenstein

Trump says federal troops are headed to Chicago. ‘We’re going in.’ USA Today

JOHN KIRIAKOU: Former Prisoner is New BOP #2 Consortium News

Trump family’s wealth grows by $5 billion after crypto launch Semafor

Police State Watch

BIG TERROR E1: Patriot Act or Die Bleeding Edge

Why Trump is using national security to crush public unions UnHerd

Exclusive: ICE reactivated its $2 million contract with Israeli spyware firm Paragon, following its acquisition by U.S. capital All-Source Intelligence.

Make America Israel Again? Mother Jones

Groves of Academe

Mamdani

Can Zohran Make NYC a Union Town Again? Labor Politics

Immigration

Pentagon authorizes up to 600 military lawyers to serve as temporary immigration judges AP

Trump Admin to Financially Reward Police Agencies For Working with ICE Truthout

Sports Desk

$2.4 million for a rental: Rich tourists are already booking mega-mansions for the Olympics Los Angeles Times

AI

Meet the Guys Betting Big on AI Gambling Agents Wired

Hackers Threaten to Submit Artists’ Data to AI Models If Art Site Doesn’t Pay Up 404 Media

The Bezzle

Anthropic is now valued at $183 billion The Verge

Lawbreaking as a Method of Competition American University Law Review

Antitrust

DOJ & States Must Appeal Judge Mehta’s Act of Judicial Cowardice, Letting Google Keep Its Monopoly Power American Economic Liberties Project

A Judge Lets Google Get Away with Monopoly BIG by Matt Stoller

Chrome increases its overwhelming market share, now over 70% Neowin

Class Warfare

Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds WSJ. Seems like this would be news if it was 30 years ago.

Told to Leave, No Place to Go Working Class Storytelling

Greyhound Orion Magazine

Antidote du jour (via):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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111 comments

  1. The Rev Kev

    “Six AfD candidates have died ahead of municipal elections in Nordrhein-Westfalen. They are very unlikely to have been the victims of a covert assassination campaign.”

    Sounds convincing but what would have happened if it was a different headline instead over the same time span of a fortnight?

    “Six CDU candidates have died ahead of municipal elections in Nordrhein-Westfalen.”

    “Six SPD candidates have died ahead of municipal elections in Nordrhein-Westfalen.”

    I know, I know – it would have been Russiadidit!

    Reply
    1. vidimi

      What raised my eyebrow was that one died by suicide. Oh, nothing to see here then. Like Jeffrey Epstein and that bloke who tied his wrists behind his back and zipped himself up in a suitcase.

      Reply
    2. moog

      This does not look like the Night of the Long Knives redux at all. It lasts longer, and long knives are made illegal. Some time ago, I saw a video of German police confiscating a Swiss army knife from a grandma (not a joke),

      Reply
    1. Mel

      With all those people locked outside the box with a mess of nuclear weapons, the cat has to check occasionally. Are they still there?

      Reply
  2. Earl

    Regarding Law Breaking as a Method of Competition I suggest the hiring of illegal migrants and child laborers as examples. My impression is that although there are renewed efforts to target illegal migrants, there is very little interest to enforcing the laws against hiring them. There is a high community cost to cheap labor.

    Reply
    1. GC54

      Today 4 guys trenched Google Fiber from street thru yard to house in 15 mins. Preoccupied foreman spoke a little “American” as he plugged in the junction box. I had to direct the rest past various floral obstructions in Spanish.

      Reply
      1. ДжММ

        Really, the language of “America” is Spanish. Only three mainland-american countries don’t have it as their main language, and even in those three, it is widely used and understood.

        Reply
        1. Jonathan Holland Becnel

          Latinos building Metairie and the suburbs around New Orleans especially after Katrina.

          It’s their home too now as far as I’m concerned.

          Latinos are the freaking best too and they fit right in. After all it’s a bunch of baby boomer immigrants from the former Axis Powers that live around here!

          Reply
  3. The Rev Kev

    “Frostbyte10 bugs put thousands of refrigerators at major grocery chains at risk”

    So maybe, just maybe, they should go back to manual controls. They can still be digital but without any internet capacity whatsoever. With refrigerators at grocery stores, don’t they ideally set it for the best temperature and just walk away?

    Reply
    1. XXYY

      Hooking any piece of equipment to the internet is extremely dangerous. It’s like hooking a sewer line to an intravenous feed in your arm.

      Most manufacturers seem like they will do it at the drop of a hat, for little or no reason. It’s also possible, of course, to have air gapped networks via which things can talk to each other locally but not to the wider world. This is an easy solution and a good middle ground. SCIFs used to contain classified material use this approach, but anyone can do it, including grocery stores full of equipment that is mission critical for the community.

      I like to think we will start getting wiser about security, but so far my hopes are not being fed.

      Reply
      1. lyman alpha blob

        If 70% of people are using chrome when it’s now well known how untrustworthy google is and you can download any number of other browsers in about a minute and a half, then we are definitely not getting wiser.

        Reply
          1. Grateful Dude

            I still see glamorous folks in high-end flics smoking tobacco. It grosses me out. I’m old enough to remember everybody smoking in college. Foul kisses. Big Tobacco must be paying someone to do this. I lost four of my best friends to lung cancer in the 80s and 90s. The whole thing is murder inc.

            Reply
  4. AG

    re: 2x Venice film festival with Putin and with Gaza

    1) Putin movie
    German-language review of Assayas´s Putin movie in Venice

    My 2 cents:
    In Western funded movie industry I assume – without having seen the film itself yet – not much more is possible on such a topic today than Assayas probably has been able to do. So in case it ends up in the offering streamed or in cinemas next year you might wanna give it a chance. (I wouldn´t be surprised over a partial boycott too). Even though the clips available so far make me cringe. But fwiw Assayas did an excellent job on portraying Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, “Carlos”.

    Assayas so far at least deserves respect as a director who tries to move in well-funded spaces as an auteur of the 2000s.
    In case check auf his former girlfriend´s movies too, Mia Hansen-Løve. Excellent stuff if you have a little patience.

    Use google translate
    Putin’s system works – “The Wizard of the Kremlin” proves it
    https://www.telepolis.de/features/Putins-System-funktioniert-The-Wizard-of-the-Kremlin-beweist-es-10628495.html

    2) Gaza feature in Venice

    Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix Join Gaza Drama ‘The Voice of Hind Rajab’ as Executive Producers Ahead of Venice Film Festival Premiere
    https://variety.com/2025/film/news/brad-pitt-joaquin-phoenix-voice-of-hind-rajab-gaza-venice-film-festival-1236499340/

    “(…)
    Brad Pitt and Joaquin Phoenix are among the Hollywood stars who have boarded Kaouther Ben Hania’s Gaza-set drama “The Voice of Hind Rajab” as executive producers ahead of the movie’s Venice Film Festival premiere.

    Also joining the film are “Roma” filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron, Rooney Mara, “The Zone of Interest” director Jonathan Glazer and Pitt’s Plan B producing partners Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner. Their support will help to boost the profile of “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” which will host its premiere on the Lido on Sept. 3 before making its North American debut at Toronto Film Festival.

    Written and directed by Ben Hania, “The Voice of Hind Rajab” tells the story of a 6-year-old girl named Hind Rajab who was left stranded in a car that had been attacked by Israeli forces in Gaza and was later found dead. The film uses voice recordings between Hind Rajab and the Red Crescent volunteers who got the emergency call and try to keep her on the line to get an ambulance to her.
    (…)”.

    Reply
    1. Acacia

      Thanks for the heads up on this, AG.

      Agree that there could be something interesting in Assayas’s The Wizard of the Kremlin. I found Irma Vep, Demonlover, and Personal Shopper all to be quite worth watching, and Assayas penned Une adolescence dans l’après-Mai: Lettre à Alice Debord (2005), that is, he sees himself as a person who grew up in the shadow of May ’68.

      If I am reading the synopsis correctly, the character of Vadim Baranov (Paul Dano) in The Wizard of the Kremlin appears to be a “political technologist” — a polittekhnolog, политтехнолог (if(?) I’ve found the correct term). I find it both amusing and somewhat dismaying that people see this as some specifically sinister Russian phenom, as if such people and practices don’t exist in the West as well (“they influence and manipulate elections, we don’t”).

      Reply
      1. Daniil Adamov

        Yeah, that’s the term. It grew out of the 90s. Russian-language Wikipedia asserts that the direct English-language equivalent is a “political strategist” as a subtype of “political consultant”, but the link to the English language version from that article goes to “campaign manager”; either way, seems there are plenty of those people over there too.

        (Have those people you mention never watched The Thick of It…?)

        Haven’t seen this film and am not likely to, but reviewers here seem sure that the character is based on Vladislav Surkov.

        Reply
      2. AG

        ‘Thanks for reminding of the “August” movie, I have to finally see that one 🙃
        Maybe check out Assayas´s mini-series inspired by his 90s Irma Vep.
        In Germany it was only available on WOW.
        https://www.imdb.com/de/title/tt13649314/?ref_=nm_flmg_job_1_cdt_t_3
        ARTE recently showed “L’heure d’été” (2008) which I believe was the first time it had been made available on German territory since its cinema release. I enjoyed it back then. An interesting take on the French bourgeois left class (of course) when it comes to inheriting your mom´s house and you are not alone in that decision of keeping…or selling.
        The stories on heritage fraud in ‘Germany among known, wealthy families, yet only reported in private are pretty insane…

        p.s. It was interesting to hear Andrei Martyanov a couple of days ago that apparently in “his” Russia at least many own their flats. In Germany rent as I said last year is one of the major impediments to a more just distribution of wealth (50+% of your income). Yet the ideology behind the current system – the faith in “the market” etc. – is so strong among many middle aged (the ones who now make up the main body of policy-making class) that any change here is very unlikely.

        Reply
  5. Wukchumni

    Goooooood Moooooooooorning Fiatnam!

    Tariffist attacks were expected on our position, so the platoon deployed set & forget paymore bonds around the perimeter in an effort to keep up with inflationary measures when things blew up real good on the home front back in the world.

    Reply
  6. Mark Gisleson

    Alphabet continues its ruthless monopolistic games as Silicon Valley keeps forcing browser and OS upgrades on computer users. According to Apple, no Macintosh computer made before 2012 is now fit to explore the internet. They have bricked support yet every snooping tool I use shows me Apple routinely harvesting data from my computer (which they refuse to issue ‘fixes’ for). Luckily I discovered that DeepSeek has a wealth of information on how to ‘hack’ your Mac to keep it running but no hack can stop a Mac from sharing data IF it is connected to the internet.

    Throughout all my browser issues with Firefox, Chrome could ALWAYS open the troublesome web pages. Almost as if Chrome (also not updated on my Mac) gets to play by different rules.

    By refusing to update my computer (which according to Apple can NEVER be updated) I see how Silicon Valley plays the monopoly game. Over the years each time they try to brick my set up, months later those impediments seem to go away, almost as advertisers complained about the lack of eyeballs.

    I do this by choice, but how many people cannot afford to upgrade their computers? How many voices are not being heard? Older equipment works just fine. All the refinements are aimed at: 1) better data collection, 2) theoretically better quality “television.”

    Silicon Valley does not play by the same rules as the rest of us. My new rules are that I disconnect from the internet when not actively using it.

    Reply
    1. JCC

      I have 2 fully functional, fast, MacPro laptops, both 2012/2011 models. Both are very secure.

      They both run Fedora OS. (my choice, there are multiple distros available that run well on Apple hardware).

      In fairness, I have what some may consider a complicated setup. I also run a front-end linux server as a gateway and firewall as well as a pihole RaspberryPi dns server that blocks about 20% of all dns requests for uneanted cookies and trackers.

      My internal wireless system (access point) hangs off the gateway server; it is not attached directly to the internet modem.

      Minimal maintenance required once setup, very secure and very fast.

      I like Apple hardware, it is rock solid. I just don’t buy into their eco-system.

      Reply
    2. Acacia

      Apple is doing the same with iOS, and it’s much more of a closed box, not as straight-forward to patch as macOS. I have a 2016 vintage iPhone SE that works fine but is being progressive frozen out of Apple’s ecosystem. They claim the hardware won’t run the newer versions of iOS and many app updates require the newer OS. In this way, Apple can act like they are not the party forcing my hand to buy some new shiny.

      And similar B.S. with Microsoft forcing a Win 11 “upgrade” on Win 10 users. How many millions of perfectly serviceable PCs will be “obsolesced” by this and find their way into landfill?

      Reply
  7. pjay

    – ‘Xi and Putin Weaponize WWII’s Legacy’ – Joseph Torigian, ChinaTalk.

    I’m just so thankful that we in the US and the West would never “weaponize WWII’s legacy” for our own ideological purposes!

    As I read through all the examples given by this author that illustrate the Putin/Xi xenophobia and paranoia, such as:

    “Xi and Putin believe that “hegemonic forces” still want to impose a foreign model upon them and block their rightful place in the world.”

    “Both Xi and Putin believe that their rise to power stopped centrifugal forces, supported by the West, that threatened to tear their nations apart before they came to power.”

    … I kept asking myself: “so where’s the lie?”. So I guess I should also be thankful for institutions like Stanford’s “Hoover History Lab” for setting me straight.

    Reply
      1. pjay

        Good point. After all, another “WWII legacy” was the UN, with its ideals of national sovereignty and multilateral diplomacy. Though these ideals never quite reflected its reality, they are still invoked by both Russia and China against the US and its hegemonic “rules based” internationalism. “Nationalism” equals “fascism” in a lot of Western discourse now. Perhaps the precise equation for this formulation was worked out in the Hoover History “Lab.”

        Reply
        1. hk

          Also, the proposition that genocide is wrong–which, I guess, is another obsolete legacy Western elite want to see discarded.

          Reply
    1. Louis Fyne

      Cracks me up that we have an academic establishment that strokes itself everytime it memorializes the historical grievances of cohorts….

      unless that cohort are the Chinese and poor English, poor Scots, poor Americans—-you folks aren’t allowed to have grievances!

      Reply
  8. The Rev Kev

    “Brazil will remain China’s preferred soybean supplier, not the US”

    I don’t think that those soybean contracts for China will ever come back to the US. For a country like China, they would value dependability even if they had to pay a bit more for it. They would want to know that food shipments would come in like clockwork. But you now have a situation where you have a US government be more than willing to screw around with trade to China for political gain. It is little wonder that they are signing contracts with Brazil who are also experiencing punishing tariffs with no rhyme or reason. But it is going to be those American farmers that will suffer from all this. I’m sure that Trump would tell them just to grow something else but I do not thinks that it works like that.

    Reply
    1. The Rev Kev

      As a fellow history nerd, I find it absolutely bizarre that Russia and China’s part in WW2 are being edited out of the narrative for those events by the west, even though those two countries suffered the bulk of the deaths arising from WW2. And as an example of how this plays out, at the commemoration of Auschwitz camp, Germany – who ran that camp – was invited to attend while Russia – whose troops liberated that camp – were not. Even this year’s commemoration of the D-Day landings had part of the ceremonies turned into a Russia bashing exercise. It must have been a bit confusing for those elderly D-day survivors in that audience see their ceremony being hijacked that way.

      Reply
      1. scott s.

        A significant part of that, never discussed here in the US, is that Stalin accepted Roosevelt’s request to attack Japanese forces in Manchukuo. Stalin met the agreed date and deployed army groups across the trans-Siberian logistics line. The Russian multi-axis attack through difficult terrain might give pause to those who think Patton was the only one to exploit armored warfare.

        Often suggested that by 1945 the Japanese Kwantung Army was just a shell, but I think that over-plays the reality. Certainly Japanese forces in Manchukuo were preparing for a defense of the home islands scenario, but they weren’t out of action.

        Reply
        1. hk

          The 1945 campaign was the repetition, on large scale, of the 1939 campaign (Nomonhan campaign) when the Kwantung Army was not a shell. The 23rd division was not very good, but it was led by commanders who supposedly understood the Russia best in the entire Imperial Army, and it was reinforced by much better regiments “borrowed” from putatively “first rate” divisions, and most of the tanks and modern artillery available to the Kwantung Army…and they were creamed. Japanese marveled at the Russian logistics most (and this was when Russians depended entirely on domestic trucks). Japanese had trouble bringing up supplies just a few hundred miles (was it km?) away, from the nearest railhead at Hailar. Nearest Russian railhead was at Chita, a thousand miles (km?) away, yet, Russian armor and artillery, several times the size of their Japanese counterpart, could shoot away at 10 times the Japanese rate.

          Reply
    2. JBird4049

      I have a lot of criticism for for the Chinese empire, but the Century of Humiliation was a terrible time for the Chinese, the government has history backing up some of their history, which some people refuse to acknowledge or even see. It is the same with Russia, bad actions backed by horrible history.

      Reply
      1. Louis Fyne

        historically, various Chinese dynasties were no worse than their pre-1500 European counterparts. (and the Mongols are not Chinese, see Yuan dynasty)

        If anyone suffered from Chinese bloodlust, it’s China itself….lots of bouts of very bloody warlordism as various dynasties fell apart.

        Makes the War of the Roses look like a Boy Scout Jamboree

        Reply
        1. Sibiriak

          I was shocked reading about the “Taiping Rebellion” for the first time in Eric Hobsbawm’s book, The Age of Capital,1848–1875. (Wiki: “Estimates of the conflict’s death toll range between 20 million and 30 million people.”)

          Reply
          1. lyman alpha blob

            I recently started his slightly earlier book, The Age of Revolution. I’d never heard of Hobsbawm before but he was recommended by a friend – I now feel like I’d been missing out on some very important knowledge for years! In this series at least, he assumes you already have a decent knowledge of the history of the period and I feel like I just barely have enough. Definitely worth it to dig in to Hobsbawm – I’ve learned a ton about the French Revolution and why it was arguably much more important in world history than the US revolution was. I’ll definitely be picking up the 2nd volume in the series now.

            Reply
            1. Alan Sutton

              Hobsbawm was one of the greatest public intellectuals of the 20th C in Britain. That’s if you accept that “British public intellectual” is not an oxymoron.

              He is alone, at least I cannot remember another so prominent example, in not surrendering his CP membership card and publicly recanting his political sins, even after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

              His later explanations and defence of this are, to me, moving and impressive.

              He originally joined the German CP in Berlin in the early 30s which took a certain amount of courage then (to say the least!). He was an eye witness to the rise of Hitler until his family left to settle in England in about 1935 I think. Maybe earlier.

              He wrote many superb books including “The Jazz Scene” which is the most interesting book I have read about Jazz. He was Jazz Critic of the New Statesman, I think, for many years. That book contains a brilliant chapter on the economic basis of Jazz as is suitable for a Marxist.

              He deserves to still be widely read.

              Reply
          2. hk

            Yes. I was going to add a comment that the aftermath of the Qing recapture of Nanking makes the Rape of Nanking look like a picnic. Western observers, like George Gordon, who saw it firsthand were utterly appalled. Incidentally, it wasn’t the “Manchus and Mongols” massacring the Han either. Qing imperial army had already fallen apart and the state depended on only quasi-official forces (precursors to future warlord armies) raised by various local officials and civilians with money, equipped with independently purchased foreign arms and trained and often led by foreign “mercenaries” like Gordon. Most of the troops who took Nanjing (going back to the “proper” pinyin) were from nearby regions.

            Reply
        2. hk

          Curiously, prior to the Ming, the ethnicity of the rulers and officials didn’t bother the Chinese much–as long as they acted sufficiently Chinese. The founders of the Tang Dynasty had a lot of Turkic and other Central Asian ancestry, as did many of their top officials (surnames like Huyan and Yuwen, common among top Tang and Sung era officials, are Central Asian in origin, for example). They came from waves of non-Han peoples of Inner Asia who warred in China and in turn were integrated into China. Overt Han ethnocentrism became a thing only with the Ming, mostly out of opposition to the Yuan, whose rulers, in turn, wanted to keep their governance of China as “non-Chinese” as practical (abolition and, later, severe truncation of the examination system and large scale importation of Middle Eastern and Central Asian administrative talent, for example. The Mongols do win the prize of being the only conquerer of China who remain standing as a separate nation.)

          Reply
  9. hunkerdown

    “I will never accept a former inmate supervising me. I know a Marine who did a tour in Iraq who got fired for pissing marijuana. Why should he (Smith) be making six figures?”

    Can we just normalize beating the sht out of prissy little cnts with this attitude until they submit or don’t? If we bully people like this to take their own lives, then we don’t have to worry about them reproducing their crybaby drama addictions anymore.

    Just a modest proposal…

    Reply
    1. chris

      Not so modest. But I think a proposal that many would enact if able.

      The things that really does shock you, is when you see people of that class, you are amazed by their overwhelming mediocrity. They’re not attractive. They’re not smart. They’re not interesting. They’re not inventive. They have no concept of how to be around other people. I think one of the reasons this group chases false gods like “The Secret” or genAI is because they are desperate for some evidence that their current position is not due to pure luck.

      Reply
  10. .Tom

    > Von der Leyen Is Lying About Russian GPS Interference Moon of Alabama

    Yes of course she is. MoA suggests that the reason for it is “to denounce Russia.” Yes. Like all that novichok, it helps fuel outage. But it’s also about UvdL and focusing lots of media attention on her.

    Reply
    1. Ignacio

      So! Let us send peacemakers to confront the predator! – The narrative sounds very much like this. Trying hard to find motives to do the stupidest of things like sending “peacemakers” to Ukraine. Aurelien wrote in his essay that this would be mainly symbolic (in both it’s intention and the outcome i guess). I feel that if the Europeans try this the Afd will win a solid majority in next general elections in Germany, the UK will enjoy an overdose of Reform, and France’s RN will have a wild run. It won’t be pretty.

      Reply
        1. Retired Carpenter

          Ah, I well remember the M1873 Colt Single Action Army, AKA, “the Peacemaker”. It does keep the peace when predators are around.

          Reply
        1. hk

          In the movies, the predators acted with a certain code if honor, while the aliens had….a lot of teeth and looked yucky.

          Reply
    2. LawnDart

      Von der Leyen is soooo embarassing, and this episode must be one of the worst– even her most breathless mups must give pause before repeating this shtick. Here she even outdoes the Hillary Clinton “sniper-fire” melodramatics.

      What is wrong with these people? What is wrong with us for tolerating this crap? Is there not a clean white rubber-room available in which to protect her (and us) from her throws of delusional insanity?

      This would seem to tie in well with a link Yves posted earlier: When the Narcissist Fails. This whack-a-dos world of lies is crumbling, and it would seem that she’s going to pieces along with it.

      Reply
  11. The Rev Kev

    “In Protest, He Turned the Camera on China’s Surveillance State”

    So Qi Hong fled to Britain after setting this all up. Did he have help from MI6? Well I for one look forward to his next set of videos showing up Britain’s Surveillance State. I’m sure that Starmer would have no problem with this.

    Reply
  12. Alice X

    Middle East Eye

    The lies and culture that made Israeli society support genocide | Orly Noy (B’Tselem) | UNAPOLOGETIC

    Orly Noy is the chairperson of B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights organisation that has been documenting Israel’s atrocities against Palestinians since 1989.

    In this episode, we discuss B’Tselem’s new report, titled ‘Our Genocide’. Through rigorous research, the report makes the case that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

    We also discuss the sociological culture in Israel that has led to a society that largely supports the Israeli state’s annihilation of Gaza and its people, and the lies and myths that have produced a global narrative where power brokers enable or are complicit in the genocide.

    Chilling

    Reply
    1. flora

      This quote from G.K.Chesterson about arguing with a madman seems apt :

      If you argue with a madman, it is extremely probable that you will get the worst of it; for in many ways his mind moves all the quicker for not being delayed by things that go with good judgment. He is not hampered by a sense of humour or by clarity, or by the dumb certainties of experience. He is the more logical for losing certain sane affections. Indeed, the common phrase for insanity is in this respect a misleading one. The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.

      —-
      me now:
      In some sense then A.I. ‘intelligence’ the output of a madman.

      Reply
    2. flora

      This quote from G.K.Chesterton about arguing with a madman seems apt :

      If you argue with a madman, it is extremely probable that you will get the worst of it; for in many ways his mind moves all the quicker for not being delayed by things that go with good judgment. He is not hampered by a sense of humour or by clarity, or by the dumb certainties of experience. He is the more logical for losing certain sane affections. Indeed, the common phrase for insanity is in this respect a misleading one. The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.

      —-
      me now:
      In some sense then A.I. ‘intelligence’ the output of a madman.

      Reply
  13. The Rev Kev

    “War In Our Time?”

    Maybe the problem is that In Europe not that many people are left that experienced the war in Europe in WW2. You had that 1977 film “A Bridge Too Far” and at the start it showed bombs dropping over Europe which freezes and a female voice said that it is hard to remember that this was Europe in 1944. Well that was only 33 years after the war but what about the present Europeans that are over 80 years removed from the experience of war. What does it mean to them? Do they know what real war means? In the 70s a lot of people mocked the old boys that ran the Soviet Union because of their old age. It was only long after that I recognized that those old boys went through the worse of WW2 when young so learned what war was all about and so in later life were not keen on pulling any nuclear triggers.

    Reply
    1. flora

      Or maybe the problem is too many EU countries are led by Davosians more aligned with Brussels than with their own country’s well being. Just a thought. / ;)

      Reply
      1. Mikel

        Do they have a better idea or alternative? Then suck it up… (snark off. you’ll know what I mean)

        (note: there are alternatives)

        Reply
        1. Wukchumni

          I propose the War Olympics…

          Every 4 years, nationalities go at it for a fortnight in a no holds barred bacchanalia of battles, in order to see who garners the gold~

          Reply
    2. bertl

      Or give every 16 year old in the Collective West a gap year at public expense living unarmed with a family in trapped in an active war zone. And we might make this a rite of passage for everyone who runs for public office.

      Reply
  14. flora

    This quote from G.K.Chesterton about arguing with a madman seems apt :

    If you argue with a madman, it is extremely probable that you will get the worst of it; for in many ways his mind moves all the quicker for not being delayed by things that go with good judgment. He is not hampered by a sense of humour or by clarity, or by the dumb certainties of experience. He is the more logical for losing certain sane affections. Indeed, the common phrase for insanity is in this respect a misleading one. The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.

    In some sense A.I. ‘intelligence’ is the output of a ‘madman’, imo. / ;)

    Reply
  15. rowlf

    Concerning the recent Von der Leyen / Russian GPS Interference news coverage. If reporters cannot get the facts straight about a basic aviation story (Did anyone ask an anorak? /s) which has a lot of basic systems and practices details available for reference, how high is the quality on reporting on other subjects?

    An older Moon of Alabama entry that pantses the media: Death And Resurrection In North Korea (May 2013)

    MoA also had a field day with the “The Last Hospital In Aleppo”, which turns out must have be a Syrian hospital chain.

    Reply
    1. hk

      It smacks of how Russians allegedly “hacked” 2016 elections. Some of the liars who repeated the nonsense are (allegedly) political reporters. They (should have) know(n) that that’s not how elections work. But the lies kept coming. I have a notion that the nonsense today is at least told by people who don’t know how aviation works.

      Reply
  16. rowlf

    From 2021: Pfizer exec calls Israel ‘a sort of laboratory’ for COVID vaccines

    A top Pfizer executive has called Israel a “sort of laboratory” for the COVID vaccine in comments that were seized on by local anti-vaxxers, rejected by Israeli health officials, and later clarified by the pharmaceutical company.

    space

    “Early in the pandemic we established a relationship with the Israeli Ministry of Health where they used exclusively the Pfizer vaccine and then monitored it very closely,” Dormitzer told the gathering, “so we had a sort of laboratory where we could see the effect.”

    There is probably a lot of performance data available.

    Reply
    1. IM Doc

      There is. It was the very first signal that there was significantly less efficacy than promised and it was also the first signal that there was a myocarditis signal in young men.

      As for Pfizer, nothing says transparency and accountability like NO DATA FOR 75 YEARS.

      There was actually a time in the research apparatus of this country that this would never have been allowed. I know. I was there.

      As I have said from the very beginning – transparency transparency transparency. Weak attempts to release curated data which they are doing now is just not going to be enough. The skepticism toward Pharma and public health are just too much out here where real patients interact with docs all day. Every scrap of every data set from every source. Right now. If not – well they can just keep running their mouths – no one will be listening.

      Reply
      1. rowlf

        Thank you for the reply. During the declared pandemic I liked to follow the Israeli press as they had frequent reports of Covid cures (Some with Vitamin I! and other off label medications) and also Covid vaccination protection declines requiring several booster vaccinations afterwards.

        Israeli news is fascinating to follow in both languages and compare to official Western news, as the Israeli media say/state things other news organizations don’t/can’t say.

        I still think US companies that required Covid vaccination for continued employment have a lot of performance data too, particularly airlines that have to monitor pilot/flight crew/employee health.

        Reply
  17. Jason Boxman

    Wow….

    Florida Says It Plans to End All Vaccine Mandates

    The state would be the first to scrap requirements that children be vaccinated to attend school, among other rules.

    Biden, Walensky, Cohen, take a bow, please. Your efforts to destroy public health entirely have been wildly successful.

    We really are returning to the 19th century. Collapse is really coming on hard are fast this decade.

    Reply
  18. Jason Boxman

    Trump just keeps winning

    Job opening data falls to levels rarely seen since pandemic (CNBC)

    The Job Openings and Labor Turnover report showed around 7.18 million listings in July.
    That’s a reading rarely seen since the pandemic took hold of the U.S. economy.

    and

    It also came in below expectations for 7.4 million openings from economists polled by Dow Jones.

    That underscored rising concerns of weakening in the labor market, a trend that has shown up in anecdotal evidence for several months.

    “This is a turning point for the labor market,” said Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union. “It’s yet another crack.”

    “This is yet another data point underscoring how this job market is frozen and it’s difficult for anyone to get a job right now,” Long added.

    Weekly jobless claims data due on Thursday will offer the next round of insight into the health of the job market. Then, attention turns to the closely followed jobs report on Friday morning.

    Reply
  19. Carolinian

    Aurelian

    So it’s not surprising that towards the fringes of commentary on Ukraine, we find the British blamed for everything, including working secretly in the background for decades or generations to bring down Russia and safeguard its Empire, or something. (Stalin suffered from a particularly virulent form of this paranoia, which made him underestimate the Nazi threat.)

    Just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.

    https://www.historyhit.com/british-intervention-in-the-russian-civil-war/

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_intervention_in_the_Russian_Civil_War

    (Many more such links available via search.)

    So just to be clear: the 19th c British paranoia about Russia and India was a myth?..Boris Johnson didn’t torpedo the peace deal between Russia and Ukraine?…the British are not covertly involved in sabotage attacks in that war?

    Many of us get our ideas about British hostility toward Russia from the BBC, not sites about “zionazis.” And when it comes to American attitudes toward Britain you should sample our PBS which practically dotes on the place.

    As it should perhaps. We know where we came from. But then one doesn’t always approve of one’s parents.

    Reply
    1. bertl

      Yes. It’s hard to imagine the extent of British ambitions to minimise Russia’s diplomatic, economic and military influence throughout Asia during the post Napoleonic period in anticipation of the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, and it continues, fruitlessly, to the present day. In the meantime, post-Sykes-Picot, we’ve initiated or actively assisted in the destruction of every single state established following the Great War bar Saudi-Arabia, and we are still active in the Anglo-American-Jewish-colonial-settler genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza by wilfully starving, shooting, bombing and burning them to death. The latter, of course, makes those deaths a genuine Holocaust – burnt offerings by the unhinged, landgrabbing worshippers of a seemingly unappeasable Realtor God.

      Reply
    2. Alan Sutton

      Yes, Aurelian constantly downplays the role of empire it what happens in the world now.

      Why is discussion of the role of MI6 or the City of London dismissed as being “on the fringes” in a world where NATO are actively and publicly supporting Ukraine?

      His answer seems to be that things are too complicated to explain that easily. Which may be true and perhaps these people do have less power than some of us imagine.

      But, that does not mean they are not trying. They have to be doing something while they are at the office.

      Reply
    3. Daniil Adamov

      There was and probably is plenty of paranoia on both sides, quite out of proportion of what either was actually capable of doing to the other. That intervention accomplished nothing, you may recall, even if we assume the goal was to weaken Russia (and frankly, I don’t buy that – if only because Russia had already collapsed beforehand, but also, I have read British government sources from that time and they reveal no particular malice towards us – though of course they did try to protect their own interests in a chaotic and confusing situation, as we would surely have done if the same thing happened to them).

      On the other hand, I am not sure that Stalin underestimated Hitler’s danger for that or any other reason. It seems to me he simply thought that Hitler wouldn’t be crazy enough to attack so late in summer. Whether he had any extraordinary paranoia towards the British, which would be news to me, is a separate issue.

      Reply
      1. Donaldo

        UK and USA only have madmen as their archenemies. Everyone they don’t like is a paranoid butcher eating babies and killing his own people. Al-Julani, Netanyahu, Banderites, and the likes, are 100% sane. Slava Britannia!

        Reply
    4. moog

      It’s all paranoia. We should trust the words of The Brits, and not their actions. The Great Game was all in our heads. Not to mention current Hollywood remake of Crimean War, and the neverending terrorism campaign that The Brits are preparing their Ukriaininan brethern for. /s

      Reply
    1. Mikel

      Listening to his assessment of the overall situation in the Mid-East, I’m thinking that the approach and timeline for the next round of hostilities with Iran depends on how the situation in Lebanon develops.

      Reply
  20. Carolinian

    re Stoller–if Google is a monopoly for search and browsers then how is it that I don’t use it? Ever since the long ago MS/Netscape case browser users have been able to choose their search engine and operating system users have been able to choose their browser.

    Surely the case against Google and Amazon revolves around “barriers to entry” and these services being more public utilities than competitors.

    I make no pretense to expertise on any of this except perhaps when it comes to language. Doesn’t monopoly mean “only one”?

    Reply
    1. Jason Boxman

      I recall your dissent on this case years ago; today, all I can suggest is you review the trial transcripts yourself and find your answers there. But you seem disposed to disagree with the trial judge’s finding that Google has a monopoly, and I doubt anyone here will convince you otherwise on that point.

      Reply
      1. Carolinian

        Stoller seems to suggest that the judge disagreed with it himself since he didn’t force divestment. Wouldn’t selling Chrome to some other party merely give them that overwhelming market share?

        Reply
  21. Jason Boxman

    Hegseth Says Boat Strike Is Start of Campaign Against Venezuelan Cartels (NY Times via archive.ph)

    Someone read Clear & Present Danger and really took it to heart, I guess, as a how-to manual.

    Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned in an appearance on “Fox & Friends” on Wednesday that a deadly U.S. military strike on a boat officials said was carrying drugs in the Caribbean was the start of a campaign against Venezuelan cartels that President Trump has blamed for bringing fentanyl into the United States.

    I guess we can look forward to an attempted assassination

    The administration has also labeled Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, a terrorist cartel leader. Mr. Maduro, Mr. Hegseth said, “is running effectively as a kingpin of a drug narco state.”

    Reply
    1. Alice X

      The boat strike was simply an act of extrajudicial murder. No matter what the facts might have been regarding drugs, it was illegal.

      Reply
  22. Jason Boxman

    Congress faces potential government shutdown Oct. 1 without compromise

    Congress faces the prospect of a partial government shutdown Oct. 1 unless lawmakers can overcome partisan differences that sparked nationwide protests before the fast-approaching deadline.

    The debate comes after a federal appeals court overturned President Donald Trump’s tariffs, which could blow a $4 trillion hole in his budget over the next decade.

    And Trump has antagonized some fellow Republicans in the narrowly divided Congress by refusing to spend billions of dollars that lawmakers have already approved.

    This ought to be lit. The only certainty in this is that Democrats will not use this as an opportunity to wrest any concessions from Republicans. I’d bet money on it.

    Reply
  23. Acacia

    Re: The Myth of Japan’s Missing Millionaires?

    The author, Richard Katz, is apparently talking his book. Over a decade back, he emerged as a critic of Abe Shinzo’s “Voodoo Abenomics” (the title of Katz’s 2014 publication on the topic), but his Rx has consistently been moar neoliberalism. Katz supported the TPP and thinks Japanese labor law needs to be reformed so that it’s easier to sack workers. In the years since, he’s been an advocate for relaxing laws in order to encourage more entrepreneurs.

    So, Katz shows that Japan has more millionaires than expected — this is not really a surprise if you live in Tokyo and pay attention to the number of very high-end luxury cars cruising the streets — and this is evidently good if you see things from his perspective.

    Katz:

    If you want a higher living standard for the average person, it is necessary to give talented people the opportunity to become billionaires by, for example, creating companies that enrich the entire economy.

    But also:

    While having enough millionaires and billionaires can spur growth in per capita GDP, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the majority of the population will benefit. In neither Japan nor the US have they done so in recent decades, as noted in the real wage figures cited above.

    So, which one is it? Perhaps I’m missing something, but by tracking the wealthiest 3% of Japanese households against those in “typical” rich countries, it rather sounds like Katz is arguing that Japan isn’t neoliberal enough, that Japan should aspire to a Gini coefficient closer to that of the U.S., or perhaps ideally those of Brazil and South Africa, or that Japan isn’t following the other Western countries down the drain fast enough.

    Is this “Goldilocks was right” argument for moar millionaires something other than trickle-down economics “with Japanese characteristics”?

    Concerning the value of work, there is a specific attitude and mode of virtue signaling in Japan that is very powerful. People have to make a show of working hard. Leisure, such as it exists, is hidden. If Saito-san takes a vacation, s/he feels obligated to bring an omiyage back to coworkers who were slaving away in the office whilst Saito-san was enjoying a cool refreshing drink in Bali. It’s a way to atone for not working.

    I submit this also accounts for the recent surge of right-wing discourse about putative gaijin welfare queens appearing in Japanese social media, i.e., outrage about foreigners coming to Japan and supposedly basking in undeserved “free” services such as national health care — never mind that everybody has to pay fairly stiff premiums to get national health care. It’s the usual unhinged right-wing discourse now fueled by some understandable anger about over-tourism, though apparently rooted in the deeper belief that “I worked hard to build my small business while THOSE people are just lazy.” Interestingly, Japan has something like the Protestant work ethic on steroids, but it comes from dotoku, not Christianity.

    Upshot: it’s pretty difficult to imagine that trickle-down economics would work in Japan, and not only because it hasn’t worked anywhere else thus far.

    Katz rightly points out that “no agreement with Trump can be trusted; he keeps on adding more demands ad infinitum” though this was expressed more forcefully earlier this year by opposition lawmaker Oguma Shinji (Rikken-minshutō), who noted that making concessions to Trump is akin to making concessions with the yakuza.

    Reply
  24. Ben Panga

    This Is the Moment We Find Out if Trump Is for Real (NYT opinion – an American Compass Economist)

    It’s the next stage, however, that will define Mr. Trump’s legacy: Can he and his administration move past the demolition, clear the debris and, well, build back better? The pain imposed thus far has been intentional, is proving tolerable and will be well worth the cost if it helps to move the economy and various national institutions onto a stronger long-term trajectory. But without follow-through the nation will see the pain without much gain. Does he have the will to pursue his promise of a new golden age for American workers and their families?

    I found this worth reading. A view of where Trump is and needs to go to MAGA for workers (softened a bit for the nyt audience?)

    I don’t think it’s logically sound, but I’m interested to read how they view Trump2.

    Reply
  25. David in Friday Harbor

    The Haaretz report that IDF Col. Haim Cohen drove 2 hours from Tiberias at 3:30am to view the Super Nova festival site an hour before the October 7 incursion, after approving placement of the rave in Re’im, is chilling.

    Col. Cohen was responsible for festival security yet did not brief his troops after seeing that there were minimal police at the festival site. Col. Cohen did nothing, failing to inform his division about the 4000 festival attendees even after the incursion was well underway. Why?

    Perhaps because October 7 was a Likud/Shin Bet set-up designed to sacrifice hundreds of secular Jews and Arab-loving Labor Zionists in a “mass Hannibal” in order to justify the liquidation of Gaza. The evidence being uncovered by the progressive Israeli press — even under censorship — suggests that the Jabotinskyite Revisionist Zionists are the real terrorists and Jew-murderers of October 7. They are evil personified.

    Reply
    1. thrombus

      Col. Haim Cohen drove 2 hours though, initially, he planned on flying in on a powered paraglider, but could not get one a short notice. :-\

      Reply

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