Recent Items

Links 9/30/2025

Posted on by

This is Naked Capitalism fundraising week. 424 donors have already invested in our efforts to combat corruption and predatory conduct, particularly in the financial realm. Please join us and participate via our donation page, which shows how to give via check, credit card, debit card, PayPal, Clover, or Wise. Read about why we’re doing this fundraiser, what we’ve accomplished in the last year, and our current goal, supporting our new Coffee Break/Sunday Movie features

The accidental discovery that forged the Iron Age ScienceDaily

Entering the Forcefield: How Language Shapes Reality Neoliberal Feudalism (Chuck L)

I took an introductory theoretical math course (I had considered math as a field of concentration). I actually did not badly, given the givens. But even at my just above baby level, I was aware of having to go into a different state of consciousness of to think through the proofs. I have had PhD mathematicians make similar observations.

#COVID-19/Pandemics

Climate/Environment

Biodiversity loss, extreme weather and water scarcity’ is Europe’s future, report warns EUObserver

The hell of high water. The UK’s east coast is one of the fastest eroding in Europe. As more storms approach, those losing everything to flooding feel abandoned Prospect Magazine

Istanbul faces water crisis as dam levels drop to critical 30% Daily Sabah

Namibia contains massive Etosha wildfire that devastated more than one-third of national park: Environment minister Anadolu Agency

Cracked apples and bland grapes: Climate change reshapes Korean farms and dinner tables Korea Times

China?

China and North Korea agree to resist ‘hegemony’, Foreign Ministry says Aljazeera

Will growing Philippines-Vietnam naval ties reshape South China Sea diplomacy? South China Morning Post

China’s factory activity likely slows again amid weak demand, trade tensions Reuters

The Belt and Road 2.0 Phenomenal World (guurst)

India

Deep roots of rage as India’s Ladakh seeks self-rule Japan Times

India needs a cultural revolution to get rid of the American Dream M K Bhadrakumar, Deccan Herald. From last week, still germane.

Africa

Madagascar protesters gather once more, days after unrest began LeMonde

Ethiopia claims its dam helped reduce Sudan’s floods as speculation it caused the deluge rises Washington Post

Exxon Wants Government Guarantees for Mozambique LNG Project OilPrice. resilc: “‘merikin troops soon….”

Young Moroccans clash with police while protesting stadium spending and health system decline Independent

South of the Border

Peso Crisis Drives Mortgage Rates to 15%, Upending Milei Agenda Bloomberg

Peru: Second weekend of mass protests and repression FreedomNews

Trump-appointed diplomat accused of shielding El Salvador’s president from law enforcement ProPublica

European Disunion

EU Fast-Tracks Transformation into Military Bloc Under Von Der Leyen’s Unaccountable Leadership Simplicius

Moldova’s Pro-EU Party Wins Vote Due To Manipulation And EU Interference Moon of Alabama. Important because if nothing else it shows desperation, shamelessness, and scapegoating.

Old Blighty

Recession fears grow as job ads slump and high street suffers Telegraph

Labour conference votes to recognise Gaza genocide, leaving Starmer looking like a fool Council Estate Media (resilc)

UK government will underwrite £1.5bn loan guarantee to Jaguar Land Rover after cyber-attack Guardian. I hope informed readers can opine. The global conventional car business is in dire straits. I have difficulty believing that the length of the shutdown was due to a cyber attack, as opposed to a lack of demand. Recall the UK made concessions to the US in its trade deal to get a ceiling for US purchases that was pretty much the same as the recent import level

Israel v. the Resistance

Americans’ Support for Israel Dramatically Declines, Times/Siena Poll Finds New York Times (resilc). We have been saying for years that Israel had a generational problem, that young Jews and young Americans were at best indifferent to Israel. That had been offset successfully for a while by stoking Zionism among Evangelicals. Too many photos of bony babies and news of Israel killing Christians looks finally to be turning that around.

‘Resounding diplomatic failure’: Smotrich breaks silence on Trump proposal Jerusalem Post

Donald Trump’s Proposed Peace Plan for Gaza is D.O.A. Larry Johnson. Contains a lengthy chart with main points. It can’t be said often enough that a two state solution will never never never happen. There are over 450,000 Israeli land-stealers, um settlers, in the West Bank and over 220,000 in East Jerusalem. Most if all are armed. They would have to be evicted by force.

A breakdown of Tony Blair’s bizarre proposal to run Gaza Middle East Eye (resilc)

Trump’s Gaza plan is a game of bluff poker James Dorsey

* * *

Where Mideast Envoy Pitched Peace, His Son Pitched Investors New York Times (Kevin W)

* * *

Mystery fleet of US Air Force tankers crossing Atlantic stirs echoes of Iran strike ahead of secret military meeting Daily Mail (resilc)

Iran threatens war with US if attacked by Israel again Iran International

New Not-So-Cold War

Ukraine’s capital Kyiv came under another massive drone and missile attack, with further damage wrought on infrastructure and residential areas Bloomberg

Ukraine Takes Out Key Russian Electronics Factory in Cruise Missile Strike Military Watch

Vance calls on Russia to ‘wake up’ and accept reality RT (Kevin W)

​Tomahawks for Kiev: A Dangerous Idea Stephen Bryen (guurst)

Moscow Warnings As US/NATO Discuss Tomahawks To Kiev, Firing Russian Aircraft; Russia West War Fear Alexander Mercouris, YouTube. Mercouris has a very informative discussion of Tomahawks at the top of his presentation.

Implementation of Trump’s plan for Gaza could affect Ukrainian conflict — envoy TASS. More wishful thinking.

Poland briefly closes airspace as NATO increases presence in the Baltic Sea Aljazeera

Swedish hawks want their own nuclear weapon The Times

Why the World Can’t Easily Wean Itself Off Russian Nuclear Fuel OilPrice

Syraqistan

Israeli strikes left Syria ‘stunned’ and makes normalization ‘difficult,’ Syrian foreign minister says CNN

The internet has been completely shut down in Afghanistan Vzgylad via machine translation. Micael T: “I‘m not sure I am against banning internet, but banning chess? What are they supposed to do with all the time on their hands not wasted on the internet?”

Trump 2.0

YouTube to pay $22 million to Trump to settle post-January 6 ban case Business Insider. YouTube has every right to suspend accounts. I imagine their agreement, which no one actually reads when signing, is extremely permissive. So they must have been concerned about embarrassments in discovery.

Immigration

US Firms To Consider Shifting Work To India As Trump Hikes H-1B Visa Fee NDTV

H-1B Visas Have Problems. Trump’s $100,000 Fee Won’t Fix Them. New York Times (resilc)

Tariffs

Thousands of workers in limbo as US-Africa trade deal set to expire BBC

Shutdown

What will happen if there’s a government shutdown at day’s end Associated Press

Here’s what is so different about the brewing government shutdown CNN

Charlie Kirk

Police State Watch

Wowsers. But then again, I recall that the Swedish Central Bank Nobel Branded Prize winner Amartya Sen was late to an INET conference in Cambridge (this would have been around 2013). He was over 80 then and looked like he might weigh as much as 100 lbs. He’d been detained and strip searched at Heathrow (I heard this directly from the head of INET who was also the organizer of the conference):

Haig had a “must read” link on this, but important not to miss:

Mr. Market is Moody

Echoes of 2007 grow louder as risky debt, buyouts raise concerns Business Standard

In fifty years as a City writer, I’ve never felt so worried a terrible financial crash is coming. The warning signs are EVERYWHERE Daily Mail

AI

The Case Against Generative AI Ed Zitron

Sam Altman and copyright, then and now: A Tolkiensesque journey Gary Marcus

Class Warfare

An Economy Not Built For The Young Seeking Alpha (resilc)

Antidote du jour (via):

A bonus:

A second bonus:

And a third:

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Subscribe to Post Comments
5 comments

    1. Lee

      Thanks for the link. A key point IMHO:

      One potential risk for the president is that a shutdown could create new disruption to an economy already challenged by his attempts to gut the independence of the Federal Reserve and by Trump’s price-raising tariff policies. For all the economy’s resilience, a long-term shutdown that hurts growth could further anger voters who thought Trump would make their lives less expensive and more secure.

      Assuming Trump fails to scapegoat the Dems for a shutdown, they might make electoral hay on this issue. Alas, all they seem to offer is a return to status quo ante, so maybe not.

      As to the upcoming elections, I recently purchased some local milkweed starters at a native plant nursery in Berkeley, and was advised to get them in the ground now and then trim them back in late November. The advice given by the nursery owner was, “I usually tell people to do it on election day”. I then asked her if I should trim them back if there is no election day. We shared a laugh.

      Reply ↓
  2. Steve H.

    Generals gathered in their masses

    Having a chit-chat about personal hygeine and signalling ethos is about fifth on my list of likely scenarios. Days where decades happen.

    Here’s the thing. Even If the stated reason is the reason, the contingency plans will be primed for operational. Has there ever been a bigger target than a megadose of general officers? Maybe the Manhattan Project, if all the brains were there at once. Stoo-pid doesn’t cover the concentration of resources in one spot. So if your job is to secure a military theater against immanent threat, and you are hauled around the planet to discuss your grooming, you have to assess the risks. And the biggest risk is the SecDef.

    That’s the best case scenario.

    Reply ↓
  3. LY

    I don’t see how the UK auto industry is viable. Brexit cut the industry off from its supply chain and from its largest market.

    Exporting a few cars to US and India can’t be enough. For the record, my Honda Civic hatchback is made in UK, the first model year Honda brought back the hatchback. Good car, but it’s now made in US.

    Reply ↓
  4. Louis Fyne

    >>>>Most people can learn basic math like arithmetic and some algebra – but beyond that, higher levels of math become increasingly abstract and technical,…

    Note: **much** beyond algebra. Anyone can learn 1st year calculus (with lots of work if their numeracy foundation is absent.)

    OP is talking about postdoc-level stuff that ia sometimes counter-intuitive like quantum physics.

    Reply ↓

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *